I have been attempting to transcend the iniquities and anodyne tyranny of 21st century capitalism by not permitting myself to cross the area formerly established by the Berlin wall. This is rendered somewhat difficult by the fact that the wall snaked through, rather than neatly declinated the east and west of the city.
I gingerly stall, for example, the area around Freiderichstrasse (the former U-Bahn stop on the border), knowing that one false step will take me into the bourgeois liberty and its accompanying tat of the west. I walk, not so much on eggshells, but on little pyschogeographic landmines and booby traps. The watchtowers may be down, the riles lowered and impotent, and only caution, a detailed map, and a careful reading of Marxism-Leninism will see me safe.
I gingerly stall, for example, the area around Freiderichstrasse (the former U-Bahn stop on the border), knowing that one false step will take me into the bourgeois liberty and its accompanying tat of the west. I walk, not so much on eggshells, but on little pyschogeographic landmines and booby traps. The watchtowers may be down, the riles lowered and impotent, and only caution, a detailed map, and a careful reading of Marxism-Leninism will see me safe.
Luckily for me, in the east, the beer is cheaper, the air is smokier, and the clubs (legendary techno temples Berghain and Tresor) are better. And, despite the absence of the wall, there are always indications that you are indeed in the east. If it's dirty, if rubble litters dead chocked lawns and rotted industry, you, mein freunde, are in ostberlin.
The reunification of Berlin has, rather paradoxically, rendered the whole of the city socialist, east and west, in a way that was not true at the time of division. Electorally, Berlin is the exclusive territory of the social-democratic SPD, the Greens, and Die Linke, a left-wing ragbag of ostdeutsche communists, socialist radicals, anarchists and other malcontents. The Christian Democrats bear out not the slightest contour in the local political topography. There is next to no chance of a right-wing suburbanite acceding to the mayoralship of the capital, unlike London, presided over by the sometimes amusing, but generally rather vexing semi-rule of Boris Johnson.
Despite the marginal hegemony of the SPD in Berlin, little of the regulatory nannying associated with New 'Labour' and the European centre-'left' prevails. Smoking is so prevelant that the city has been twinned with Ashtray, Marlboro Country. OK, Berlin maybe an ashtray of a city, but at least it's not so emasculated, that it drinks red bull for some pep, and would rather you went on the border to have a cigarette.
Berlin is not health-conscious, but instead realises that even 99.9% of people who don't smoke, don't drink, and do yoga and eat tofu to the point that their colon is sponsored by Linda McCartney, will in time die, a fate so depressing that the only effective recourse is to pour y'rself a beer, light up a fag and wait for this mortal coil to become unsprung, and hopefully have some belly laughs and occassional epiphanies along the way.
The result of all this fine living and disregard for health-related prissiness, is that Berlin sucks at sport. As at the time of writing, it's hopeless football team Hertha Berlin lingers in the second tier of the Bundesliga. The level of football in Berlin is approximate to that of Scottish football outside the confines of Celtic and Rangers. Hertha Berlin plays in the er, olympian munificence of the Olympiastadion, the equivalent of Leyton Orient being rehoused at the new Stratford Olympic stadium.
Still, anyway, there's not much time for sport in Berlin. In any case, is not exercise just that thing that uncultured people do in lieu of artistic creation, an asexual, hair-shirted sublimation of the overriding, ultimate drive to snag one's genitals on the orifice of another?
Instead, Berlin's sport is creation, including that of it's own environment. Having rubble and delapidation - you have to paint that shit well for it to look good, or get the contractors in. And Berliners have opted, being poor, for the first option, but how they put their back into it. Graffiti is done with brains, thought and passion, as well as with a spraycan, instead of a little piss-artist tagging every bus shelter, as is the case in London. The city is dotted with playgrounds for children, most of which would violate any number of health and safety regulations. A splinter and a skinned knee is nothing to be scared of. Berlin is a hard city, for hard men, spirited women and robust children.
Berlin is a city that has had enough of rules, its current intemperance possibly rooted in previous decades of war, and authoritarianism (for more on this spurious theory, scroll down and see my previous article on Berlin). It's made uo for having so little fun in previous decades, but probably outdoing any other European city in the safely unregulated exericse of hedonism and artistic creativity.
I'm a fair few beers in by now. I'm nearly the sole remaining customer in a bar at 2 am. Where's Edward Hopper when you need him, mixing paints and setting up an easel?
Instead, Berlin's sport is creation, including that of it's own environment. Having rubble and delapidation - you have to paint that shit well for it to look good, or get the contractors in. And Berliners have opted, being poor, for the first option, but how they put their back into it. Graffiti is done with brains, thought and passion, as well as with a spraycan, instead of a little piss-artist tagging every bus shelter, as is the case in London. The city is dotted with playgrounds for children, most of which would violate any number of health and safety regulations. A splinter and a skinned knee is nothing to be scared of. Berlin is a hard city, for hard men, spirited women and robust children.
Berlin is a city that has had enough of rules, its current intemperance possibly rooted in previous decades of war, and authoritarianism (for more on this spurious theory, scroll down and see my previous article on Berlin). It's made uo for having so little fun in previous decades, but probably outdoing any other European city in the safely unregulated exericse of hedonism and artistic creativity.
I'm a fair few beers in by now. I'm nearly the sole remaining customer in a bar at 2 am. Where's Edward Hopper when you need him, mixing paints and setting up an easel?
