The Grumpy German: Traveling & lifting my own weight.

I am going on a vacation. The first thing that jumps you into the face butt-first is the newish travel regulation that you have to pay for every checked piece of luggage. WTF? When did that happen? So now we are trying to fit all our stuff into two carry-ons, which would probably work out if we wouldn’t need to pack some fancy stuff for a wedding we are invited to. Try cramming those dress shoes into that little thing and then we’ll talk again. Pfff…

Well, anyway, this also means finally new photos will be taken and some general adventures will happen that are worthwhile writing about (trust me, my day-to-day life right now is extremely uneventful…). After not being to the gym in ages I have started working out again and since I settled / decided on bodyweight training and can do away with the gym and gym fees and stalking to the gym in shitty weather. Yay for that. This is some great stuff and I’ve never seen a training program where one of the options is hitting a tire repeatedly with a sledgehammer. I get totally excited about the olde-timey feel all of this has, but don’t get me wrong, those exercises are brutal. There is a ton of information on the internet so a little searching around will get you a long way. Ross Enamait’s website is a great place to start, as is bodyweightculture.com.

Filed under: Grumpy German, Life , bodyweight training, exercise, fitness, luggage, Travel

Hangin’ at the Mall

Man, what a bummer. Looking for a job sucks and when it turns out that one job that you actually want doesn’t work out, well, that’s a pretty big bummer. So we decided to go to the mall yesterday to pick up some craftsy stuff and spend 1 1/2 hours in the bus to get there just to barely avoid getting run over by the CT drivers. In my opinion, the strip mall, and the 24-hour-news cycle, are among the worst things in the USA (there are a ton of other things, of course). The entire design of the mall with it’s lack of sidewalks, lack of crosswalks, is a sad sad excuse for a town center. Who thought this would be an awesome idea, again?

There is a ton of writing on malls, which is actually pretty interesting. The first time I read something about it was in Joan Didion’s We Tell Ourselves Stories In Order to Live, a collection of her non-fiction writing that I can highly recommend! The article is called “On the Mall” and was published in The White Album.  And I think The New Yorker carried at least one lengthy article on shopping malls in America.

So when we go the the mall it usually involves having a late lunch (because the bus ride essentially ate up lunch time) in the Food Court, which is apparently a well liked hang-out for every teenager who lives in a 25-mile-radius (this is America, after all). Isn’t that sad? I’m not sure whether the town or city center is something especially European, but come on, even if it was it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to have it here too, eh? Not everything the Olde Worlde invented is bad, right?

Filed under: Books, Grumpy German, History , article, Joan Didion, mall, non-fiction, writing

The internet is somewhat boring, if you think about it.

I’m relatively new to the internet and the first time I had broadband access in my own apartment was about 4 years ago. Before that? ISDN and before that – THE MIGHTY DIAL-UP MODEM! But seriously, the endless stream of ’stuff’ (because let’s not kid ourselves, that’s what it is) that comes down through the tube is, essentially, pretty much more of the same. Every day. So, little by little, the internet is losing its magic for me. Don’t get me wrong, I love surfing the net and it has changed the ways I access information – and find information – to such an extent that I can’t even imagine being without it! At the same time, though, I’m getting bored with it. Weird, eh?

The last few days were eventful in the sense that I got back in touch with a number of people that I haven’t seen or talked to in, like in one case, more than 10 years. That’s a looong fucking time! And it’s good, in a weird way, and getting into touch with someone like that is frightening, on one level. You have changed and the other person has changed, and will you still get along? Is there bad blood? Will you ‘click’ again? Plus: when these things start to happen you know that you’re definitely beyond the 30-year-threshold.

It’s getting warmer. This means:

• more opportunities to get mugged on the street
• all the crazy homeless people are out and about
• there will be more stories in this blog because of bullet points one and two
• I will generally be less grumpy because I’m not freezing 24/7 (and I mean 24/7 – I’m wearing a hat in bed)
• I will also be less grumpy because the sun will make my glands squirt endorphins into my system. Yay.

UPDATE: The Internet is awesome after all. After years of wondering who or what the “chicken man” in the Springsteen song “Atlantic City” is I have finally solved this mystery! The first lines of the song go like this:

Well, they blew up the chicken man in Philly last night
Now, they blew up his house, too
Down on the boardwalk they’re gettin ready for a fight
Gonna see what them racket boys can do

Ahem, I should also add that I’ve always thought that it said “piss house” not “his house” in the second line. Just saying.

Filed under: Grumpy German, Life , Atlantic City, bullet points, Chicken Man, internet, old friends, rant, Springsteen, sunshine, the internet is boring

It’s fucking 11ºF outside

And I have the sniffles again. And I’m sneezing all the time. I’m pretty pissed off by that, so…wanna fight?

Yeah, well, anyway, aside from the fucking weather the day went really well, I helped a stuck car getting out of it’s stuckiness and felt pretty good about that. Almost froze my hands of doing that, though. Now I’m home, sampling Dogfish Head’s 90min IPA and it’s blowing my head off.

Good night to you, too.

Filed under: Grumpy German , cold, sniffles, snow, this weather sucks

I’ve had it! I’m moving to the South.

Well, not really. But I’m extremely pissed off by the sub-zero temperatures. And yes, I mean sub-zero Celsius. So what is a freezing little grouch to do? Try to get a little cozy on the inside. And what’s better to make you feel nice and cozy without the help of booze? MUSIC! I’m not the ultimate fan of surf music, but it does the trick. For a heavier jolt of warm island feeling, the hand stops at Tiki Music, or exotica of any kind. One band that is on heavy rotation in my house right now is Don Tiki’s album Skinny Dipping with Don Tiki – not exactly authentic in terms of when it was made, but it hits the spot right on.

It also reminds me of a guy I once knew, who introduced me to surf bands like The Trashmen. As I said, I never got that much into it that I started collecting, but grabbed a cassette here, a CD there, just enough to fill a lazy summer Sunday afternoon. But seriously, I already know one thing that I will dearly miss in summer: sitting outside my favourite bar, which happens to be a Tiki/Rockabilly bar, in Berlin and drinking beer. Just hanging out. Yet, thanks to Connecticut’s stupid liqour laws that won’t happen too quickly again here, as far as I can tell. So yes, I’m a little bit homesick.

Anyway. So I had a some time to kill yesteday evening and finally got around to listen to Charlie Manson’s One Mind album, which he released for free a couple of months ago under a creative commons license. Well, actually, I didn’t really listen to it, because, frankly, it’s not that amazing. I did, however, snooped around on YouTube for some Manson-related stuff and the interviews over the years are worth a look. It seems like everybody at one point interviewed Manson – next on my list is the Charlie Rose Interview with Manson. However, I have to admit that I never really got behind the Manson craze / fascination, even though I’ve read Helter Skelter a couple of years ago. I think I also read Ed Sanders’ book on the Manson Family, but that was really a long time ago.

Man, I’m already writing on and off on the post for a week now, so I’ll just hit the ‘publish’ button be done with it.

Filed under: Books, Grumpy German, Life, music , Books, charles manson, exotica, music, surf