So... Where were we? Ah. Yes. The Hale.

I love and fear this area equally. I hate the way when people ask where I am living my reply generally elicits one of two responses:

1) Where?

2) What the fuck? That is the GHETTO!

Needless to say, I am fully aware of the ghetto status of the area in which I find my lovely abode. JFK told me only last week he is not allowed to ever return to the Hale due to a (if I remember correctly, which I may not) minor incident involving a crow bar. Colour me shocked. Last night, as I was getting ready for work, I heard the distinct rapid fire wall of sound that can only come from one of two things: multiple cars backfiring multiple times, or a small but very real shoot out. I chose to believe the former, but did not leave my house for an hour just to be safe, thus making me slightly late for work.
Having said that, the people I live with prove to be lovelier by the day, and my female housemate, S, is an incredible cook. I worship slash hate this. I am utterly perplexed by being the vastly inferior cook in my living area. (This obviously excludes the family I have lived with, as we all know that we, as a family, know how to use a pan/wok/grill/pizza oven/braising dish etc. No offense intended to absolutely anybody.) But trust me, when you wake up hungover at one in the afternoon, and your housemate is cooking something that smells AMAZING and then dishes you up a king sized portion of astoundingly delicious Japanese curry with sticky rice, you too will gloss over possible gunfire.

Anyway, I thought this juxtaposition of adoration/fear called for a little round of LOVE/HATE:

Things I love about London:

Love:
Saturday night dinners with friends I have not seen for far, far too long.
Included picturesque French brasserie in Chelsea, tiny tables in little nooks and crannys, windows that steamed up and glass that dripped with condensation as it poured with November rain outside. Champagne in unbearably elegant flutes, steak and burgers, red wine in glasses big as calabashes. Regaling hilarious stories from Berlin, hearing fantastic stories of her oh so famous employers, laughing till blue in the face about all the things that have happened since we last saw each other.

Afternoon shopping with my cousin
Trawling the shops with SS with the sole mission of finding her the perfect party dress for the damn near upon us end of year party season. Nipping into coffee shops that smell of cinnamon and spice and emerging onto the street with steaming vanilla lattes (hers) and soya milk hot chocolates (mine.) Finding the most perfect Ben De Lisi floor length number for her. Eating sushi on a park bench in Kensington, watching the flower sellers sell their pink hued cabbage roses.

Hate:
The suspect grease stains on the glass partitions on the tube and windows on the bus.
Note to EVERYONE who takes public transport. Please please please DO NOT put your filthy, grease covered, product slicked head on any glass surface. It’s revolting. I am getting a crick in the neck from trying to move my head as far as physically possible from the offending surface whilst remaining in my seat. (This is London. Bar a very old person or pregnant woman, you simply don’t give one of those bad boys up.)

Speeding Buses that hurtle around corners in the rain
Walking home this evening from my fantastic dinner, I berated myself for absentmindedly leaving my umbrella at home for the second day in a row. It was purely accidental both times. I changed bags and failed to see the little thing fall on the floor. Big Mistake. As I neared my street, the rain that was already in steady, constant pouring mode, gave way for the briefest of moments, as if taking a deep breath in, before gushing down in such force, with such ferocity, I was momentarily blinded. I quickened my step and was happy to feel, a mere few more moments later, than the rain had eased, and was back to its steady only halfway bad downpour. As I resumed a normal pace, an out of service bus came hurtling around the corner (the driver clearly a speed freak, both chemical and physical) at an alarming pace. As the aberrant bus passed me at his criminal speed, the rain that had collected in the road, found its way under the wheels, which in turn found its way, rather majestically, think – into a thick curtain, no, wall, of spray, that seemed to reach 10 ft high into the sky, linger for a beautiful moment, and then hit me, the full length of me, at a force so high it could have been measured on the Richter scale. Two thoughts sped through my mind. One was of the Guinness ads with the surfing and the horses that appear out of the waves. The other was, OH DEAR GOD. MY PUCCI SHOES!

Cold, soaked and as shallow as ever.

Disclaimer: This is a reenactment

MzTanya goes hobo outside the Gay Vampire Bar. Shockingly, this is not from Friday night. No, this was on the (comparitively) sober Saturday night, when we thought it would be a scream to capture what could have been/almost was. Taking this photo without the bar staff seeing us was challenging. I am behind the lens. Hiding behind a car.

Friday was a MESS.

It started innocently enough. Tanya and I got up earlyish and went Second Hand Store crazy. First, we went to the five story monster Humana near Frankfurter Tor (spiritual home of the brightly coloured 80s leather jacket) and then the smaller, somewhat cheaper and less hilarious store near Alexander Platz. After we tore through Humana at lightning speed (purchases: Tanya: amazing tiny, fitted denim jacket with stretch cuffs and a double zip, black scarf, rock rock forever t-shirt, child sized zebra costume for Halloween. Eloise: double strand of buttery cream coloured pearls, ornate jewelled clasp. ridiculously underpriced.) we needed to stop by the bank so that Tanya might exchange some cash. As we walked into the bank, we spied an odd sight. The front counter, which would usually serve as an information point, was decked out for a party. There were bowls of sweets, leaflets, goodie bags of some sort etc etc. I looked closer. There were glasses. There were ROWS AND ROWS OF GLASSES. THERE ARE BOTTLES. The smiling woman behind the counter was handing out red canvas bags with the bank’s name on them. As I took a bag, I studied the scene more closely and it dawned on me that we have stumbled into what I can only describe as the Holy Grail of the finance calendar: Free Champagne Day at the Bank. It is about 2pm. Between queuing up to exchange money (wechseln, bitte!), loitering a tiny bit and pocketing the leaflets, sweets and balloons that had yet to be blown up, we managed to polish off three glasses of champagne. Each. We were in there for 20 minutes at the most. The glasses were not tiny. We had not eaten. Do you see where I am going with this?

We proceed to The Ramones Museum in Mitte where we were due to meet Nat and Sarah. The museum has a cute little cafe at the front of it and since neither Tanya or I are desperate to see the actual inside of the museum we decide it best to continue what we started. We order Irish coffees (It was COLD out) and sit back and wait for the girls to arrive. We are starving. But the whiskey lashed coffee is hitting the spot. The girls are nowhere to be seen. An hour and a half passes before they arrive. By this point, Tanya and I have settled happily into our drinking boots and the warmth of the interior of the cafe coupled with the comfort of the couches has resulted in afternoon inebriation. Everything is hilarious. We are starving.

After Nat gets her Ramones fill (the only of the four of us with sufficient love and dedication to the iconic punk band to willingly part with her money to enter the little museum) we head home, stopping at a supermarket on the way home to pick up some bits and pieces for dinner and some wine. Becuase this is what we need. Wine. We hang out and talk shit and drink and finally get some food into ourselves. As the night draws on, Tanya, Sarah and I decide to go to a bar. Because that is what we need. To drink more. (Nat is a clever girl and stays home to have a little sleep. This was to be the beginning of a vicious 48hr bug that flattened her for two days, but more about that another time.) We go to Habarmeyer on Garntnerstrasse (home of the DJ BEAST who had been playing there the Friday before.) Alas. DJ Beast is not there and neither is the incredible selection of music he plays. Still, we stay. A less beastly DJ arrives and plays and the music is good and beer is cheap and the people are nice to look at and you can smoke inside, so we stay. We stay a while. Eventually Sarah, having just landed that morning, calls it a day and heads home to bed. Tanya and I do no such thing. We continue. We tell hilarious stories until we cry. We tell sad stories until we almost cry. We drink some more. We realise that I do a pitch perfect Bronx accent and I spend the rest of the evening talking as though as I care/know anything about the Yankees and live somewhere above East 132nd Street. Eventually, we leave. On the way home, we stop for drunken falafel. This naturally comes with a side order of beer. As we are finishing said falafel, Tanya says, “I could really do with a whiskey.”
When you are drunk and really don’t need anything more to drink, a night cap before going back to your apartment seems like the best idea on god's green earth. So we stumble up the road. We are plastered. We are doing that thing that girls do when they are hammered, holding hands and walking in something of a zigzag, all the way keeping our forward motion. Something is hilarious. I have no idea what. But something certainly is. I am still talking like I come from the Bronx. “I don’ wyatch it, but if yoo wanna wyatch the gyame, I’ll fuckeng wyatch it!” My stomach hurts from laughing.

There is a bar literally opposite my apartment block that I have been wondering about for a while. It looks like an unassuming old man’s pub and some boys I met from Sweden a few weeks ago told me that they had ended up in there almost every night before returning to where they were staying, a block away. It stays open until 5 or 6 or some ungodly hour and those boys were Mark Twain Cool, so I assumed it would be safe enough. It was quite easily decided that this bar would be the spot for our last drink of the evening.

We open the door. We walk in. Somewhere in the distance, a fruit machine plays a tinny tune. The air is musty, the faint smell of stale beer. A tumble weed blows past. We’ve opened the door. The bartender has seen us. There is no turning back. Our steps are impossibly loud on the floor. This is no cool after hours drinking dive. No. This is Not. Where. We. Are. Supposed. To. Be. There is no music. The room is tiny, a small wooden bar along the one side its main feature. Propping themselves up on the bar are an old homeless man with a plastic bag full of possibly shoplifted items he tries to sell us and the bartender at random intervals (contents include 54% Rum and a tray of Belgian chocolates) and on the other end of the bar is a very boring and simultaneously massively creepy looking 50ish man. The bartender looks at us with indignation. We should not be here. We know it. He knows it. We just don’t know how to leave without making the situation even worse. Let me state that I was at first convinced the bartender was a masculine woman. Tanya was convinced it was a feminine man. I eventually conceded that he was in fact male. He was rocking some fierce guyliner. Not drag queen make up, rather, getting up and fixing your face for the day makeup. You know, basic foundation, liquid eyeliner lids and a lick of mascara. His shirt was red satin with a black fringe, pearl snap buttons and patterned, silver collar tips. We were very possibly in the scariest gay bar in the world. The bartender was hating us. The other guy was hating us. We were by then hating ourselves. Only the homeless man found our presence entertaining and would every so often, point at us and say something in German and laugh hysterically. We were all thinking it. He was only one crazed enough to vocalise it. It was the single most awkward drink I’ve ever had in my life.

When we were done with our drinks we paid and walked as casually as possible toward the door. As soon as we were out of it, we sprinted across the street and into the safety of my apartment building. In hysterics, we climbed the stairs, trundled into the apartment and collapsed. As it stands, ‘Funfundreissig’ or ‘The Gay Vampire Bar’ (as it is now known) is not on my list of bars to frequent.

Needless to say, we slept in on Saturday.

Art Beast.... and miles to go before I sleep

On Thursday afternoon the girls and I were walking down MainzerStrasse on our way to an alcohol induced something or other. Passing by the Milkabilly Rock n Roll Milk/Soda/Waffle Bar and a tattoo parlour, we spy a small art gallery. Zozoville Gallery. A Mecca of galleries. No snotty assistants, no severe haircuts, no stark white walls, no abstract anything. Instead, it’s a small room that looks warm and inviting, a bench outside to cater to passing smokers in need of a sit down. The gallery appears to be run by/feature the work of two artists: Johan Potma and Mateo Dineen. We go and have a look around and we are all enthralled. The work is beautiful and a little comical and sometimes sad and whimsical and often, the tiniest bit heartbreaking. The girls love Johan Potma's stuff, who seems to specialise in fanciful furry creatures and somewhat endearing monsters while I fall utterly in love with Mateo’s work. It’s acrylic (I am almost certain, thought not enough of a connoisseur to be of a definite stand point) on various surfaces. Some are on standard canvases, but they also have paintings done on the back of geometry set tins (remember your first day of high school and your shiny new maths set?) the tops of old wooden chests, armoire doors and the rogue covers of DDR era fridges.
On the wall, on the back of a box top, is a small painting of a small man under a night sky in a forest, his chin in his hands, looking into a campfire and birds nesting in his white bear hunting style hat. (I pause to notice how I own a similar hat., sans birds.... sometimes....) I love the picture. I LOVE IT. and then, as I am swimming in its delight, I notice how at the bottom, a phrase is inscribed:
“...and miles to go before I sleep...”
This piece of work that I am so instantly and utterly drawn to is not only one of the most beautiful pieces of art I have seen, it is also INSPIRED BY A FUCKING FROST POEM?!I am undone.
I must have it.
I need it.
it makes me want to have a permanent address so that I might have somewhere to hang it. This Mateo, he of the beautiful beautiful art, knows Frost?
Tanya sees a piece that she loves and inquires of the price. It is 2500EUR. Holy God. That’s half a years rent in Berlin. I am afraid to even ask the price of my painting. I know I will not be able to afford it and I know that the disappointment of the concrete fact will crush me. So instead I go over the boxes of prints and sift carefully through. Woe is me, the print is not there. The girls find other prints they love and purchase them. They pay their money to a tall blond man who is, typically for the city, far too good looking for his own good.. Sullenly, art printless, I start to leave the shop and then ask, in a fit of optimism to the blond, “You don’t happen to have a print of the Frost painting some where?”
He says, “Actually, I made some of those today. I haven’t put them out yet. Do you want one?”
Firstly: Holy hell, YES.
Secondly: Is this hot blond Mateo? He of the penchant for whimsical heartbreak and Frost?
As he goes into the studio or back room or whatever magical Alladins cave it is that holds these treasures, I lean over the girls and whisper, “Art. Beast.”
He returns with my print. I attempt to pay him and find myself quite suddenly with too many thumbs and an alarming lack of dexterity. Put me in fumbling distance of a talented beast and chances are I will indeed fumble. I berate my hands. I momentarily loathe myself. As we leave, he says, “We are having a gallery party here on Saturday night. There will be music and food and a silent auction. You girls should come.” I make some noises that seem to be a garbled vocal agreement to the flippant invitation and stumble out into the freezing Berlin night, my Frost print close to my chest. Mateo, the boy genius with the love for frost is a 6ft tall Californian Art Beast? If I didn’t love Berlin before, I am pledging allegiance now.
Anyway, Saturday night rolls around and we head over the gallery to find it RAMMED. there was literally not even space to step inside. So Tanya, Sarah and I decide to go get a drink and a bite to eat and head back later and see if anything is still going on. I can’t even see my Frost Painting on the wall and I feel myself jonesing. I want to see it again. Just like the way Shell can’t go near the Tate Modern without spending some time with “her” Monet. We agree to return post sustenance. Dinner is fantastic and delicious and in a restaurant with a black and white checked floor so beautiful I want to press my face to it, but for the sake public decency, don’t. More about that another time. After we eat ourselves into an Italian coma, we trudge back up Mainzer Strasse (this time slightly heavier with wine and pasta) and find, joy of joys, the gallery still open and with somewhat more room to manoeuvre. We go in. The painting is there. I spend a ridiculous amount of time looking at it. A man who works there asks Tanya (who is armed with her camera) not to take close ups. I spy Art Beast. Inexplicably, I am smitten. Or, completely understandably. Depending on how you look at it. The Frost quote on the painting has been up on my (kill me now) book mood wall since I got here. I feel a cosmic alignment I want to hold onto with both hand followed swiftly by a brief wave of sobriety and I know that the cosmos has fuck all hand in this. Lots of people like Frost. Not as many as should, but a lot, none the less. He is wearing a polka dot shirt and being the artist of the hour. I want to go up to him and get aggressively in his face about the painting and ask if he has a Birches inspired painting in the works and if so, how much will it be, so I can start saving now. [side note: an old friend of mine from NYC, SS, is an INCREDIBLE artist. Unbelievable. I went through a good few months of being, quite plainly, obsessed with Birches and as a result of my obsession, she painted the most beautiful piece, over the prints of emails I had sent her quoting the poem. Even my typos were included. It was extraordinary. It’s been two years since I’ve spoken to SS (heartbreaking in itself, I am sure with good reason but sadly ones I know not of) and I cannot even hear Frost without thinking of her and what was to me, a simply awe inspiring work of hers. Anyway]
I don’t go up to Art beast. I salivate over the Frost Painting. I tentatively ask the dude who works there of the price. He tells me it is 2450EUR. FUCK ME. Worth every penny, I am certain, and if I had it, I would buy it. But I am dealing with discount supermarkets here. I really should not even be allowed in galleries at this point.

Tanya and I get a drink and check out more of the work and she buys a bunch more prints (from the other dude Johan Potma) and a t-shirt (been there, done that, yadda yadda) and we go and smoke a cigarette on the thoughtfully laid out afore mentioned benches. It takes us a good fifteen minutes to eventually drag our asses out of the vicinity of the gallery and head (the whole three and a half minutes) home. Every time we go to leave I need to see my painting (“my painting?!”) one more time. We look at the painting, we take six steps out the door, we turn, we look at the painting again, almost leave, go back to look at the painting, repeat ad nauseam.

We went home. Print safely in my possession. Art Beast and original art work still at large.

Things I LOVE/HATE about Berlin. Part 2

Things I Love
The Beasts of Berlin.
I know I have spoken of the aforementioned beasts previously, but since then I have had more time to further process and hone my, frankly bordering on vulgar, perversion. I have invented a new game whereby once a beast is spotted he is nicknamed and given a place in the pecking order, of most beastly to least beastly beasts seen that day. At the end of the day I award a small prize award to The Beast of The Day. The Beast of the Day award is for the large part a redundant exercise. There is no physical proof of it, no certificate. It proves absolutely no purpose except to entertain myself and whoever I am with.
Last Friday, for instance, Tamaryn and I partook in beast spotting all over this fine adoptive city of mine.

Potentials for Beast of the Day were:

Preemie Beast
Young enough to do without shaving. Not so young it was illegal.

Lord Beast
English Aristocratic god with Rod Stewart hair in navy McQueen coat who asked us for drinking establishment recommendations. Wore brogues.

Blond Beast
Possibly wearing foundation. Didn’t detract from his beastliness. That is saying something.

Waving Beast
Driving past us on Unter der Linden. Checking us out checking him out checking us out. He looked first. Awkward ‘deer in headlights’ moment as both parties realised we were busted mid scope. Beast smiled, waved. Charmed.

Beast on a bike
Possible cycle courier. possibly rocking a half shaved dread locked disaster on his head. Didn’t even care.

DJ Beast
Playing 60s Motown and swing beats in fantastic bar in Friedrichshain (aka my hood), black shirt buttoned all the way up, severe moustache. Most certainly in the Top Ten Most Beautiful People I Have Ever Seen In Real Life.

DJ BEAST WON! Hands down. It was not ever FAIR to the other beasts.

(side note. My dad reads this blog. Sorry dad. I swear I am also writing a book and being productive. Also, any distractions this city has made me succumb to I blame wholeheartedly on my genetic coding. I am a de Fine.)

Nat is here now and we spent the evening eating Thai food, walking around Friedrichshain, drinking rice beer (me) and lemon grass tea (her) and explaining the rules of Beast of the Day. She has proved to be an apt pupil. One day initiation done and dusted, tomorrow we hit Prenzlauerberg. Five bucks says she spots the winner. I am a wonderful teacher.

Things I Hate
The goddamn early flights that arrive in this city. This morning I went to the airport to pick up Nat. I only got three hours sleep before having to get up and go through to the flughafen. That’s right. That’s some elementary German right there. Now Nat is one of my best friends. We have been through some things together. More trips to New York than is healthy, delicious eggs, more hotel bars in more cities I can begin to count, road trips, whipsnade, bars, chemo (hers), shaving heads (hers again), recovery, bars, more bars, more treatments, less bars. She was the girl who helped me with my broken heart. I was the girl who made her wear skinny jeans. We are a team. And I am honestly so so happy to see her, but this morning, on the S-Bahn back from the airport all I could do was yawn and shiver and feel that awful prickly feeling I get when I am desperately in need of sleep. And for a few awful, awful hours, I was a terrible friend. I was not a hostess with the mostess. I could see Nat look at me in that way, arching her eyebrow as if to say, ‘Are you fucking kidding me? I come all the way to Berlin to see you and you can’t even get it together to PRETEND to be excited to see me?’ Shame washed over me. Hot prickling shame. Embarrassed and apologetic, I locked myself in my room for a one hour disco nap. When I awoke, it was as if it was a new day. I bounced out of bed, my hair awry, jumped on her bed, accidently sort of bit her arm in my excitement and hugged her. I am sometimes a bit shitty, but I make nice when I can. Needless to say, I’m ecstatic she’s here and cant wait for our friend Tanya to come and join us from NYC on Thursday. Bastard flies in at 7am and I have to go get her from the airport. Expect repeat scene. Balls.