Impressions of Munich

People from Munich take Michael Jackson very serious.  How seriously?

 

It doesn’t matter if they're in a hurry or out for a Sunday stroll; folks in Munich will not cross the road until the light indicates “walk.”  A person who is mugged across the street from a crowd of waiting pedestrians is out of luck. 

For those who find stairs difficult, escalators are available.  Working escalators, however, are optional. (I've been informed since I wrote this that they start when you approach them - a green energy thing.  How embarrassing!)

When in a crowded restaurant, the word for pretzel, breze, can be mistaken for espresso.  My first ever.  It helped to counterbalance the four beers I’d had by that point.

You think that just because you were born on God’s Green Earth that you deserve water with your meal?  For free?

Museums can actually be cheap and well-attended – even the obscure ones.  Most cost about $8 to $10.  Compare that with the Shedd Aquarium.

Bike helmets are for sissies.  So, apparently, is head trauma.

The love affair with 80s music isn’t limited to Michael Jackson.  It was pumped 24/7 in our hotel lobby, and I saw signs - real ones - for a Toto concert!  

Mass transit really CAN work well in a city.  Munich’s transportation system makes New York’s look like a Thomas the Tank Engine toy set.  One fee per day for any subway, train, tram or bus you want to take.  And no turnstiles!  You ride on the honor system.  Could this work in the United States?  Hell, no!

Germans are tall.

It was comforting to know that none of the people I saw had anything to do with World War II.  I’m not sure that I would have been able to travel in Germany twenty years ago.

In Munich, Whitesnake is the headliner to Journey's opener.

You really can ride your bike as a viable alternative to cars when 1) there are legitimate bike lanes near the sidewalk – not squeezed onto the road as an afterthought; and 2) bike racks are plentiful.  Where I live, they keep pushing for more bikes, but you can’t find a bike rack to save your life, and it doesn’t really matter, because you’ll likely die before you get there.

How the heck do they shovel the cobblestone when it snows?  How?

Trains are on time.  Always.

In the Jewish Museum of Munich, various ritual items are displayed as if they were excavated from a cave of an ancient people from thousands of years ago and not a vibrant religion of today.  How sad.

So many expensive stores packed on a weekday afternoon in April.  Where do all the people come from?  What do they do for a living?

Walking up the steps of St. Peter’s Church has physical ramifications that last for days.

Also in the Jewish Museum, a timeline of Jews in Munich is presented, showing key years in the 800 years Jews have lived there.  About every hundred years it reads something like, “expelled” or “denied occupations other than moneylending” or “pogrom” or “murdered.”  On and on until the mass murder of the 1940s.  And now a majority of Jews living in Munich come from eastern Europe and the old Soviet Union, and I think, “800 years of persecution wasn’t enough of a reason for you to consider living elsewhere?”

Beer with lunch isn't just accepted, it's encouraged.  Ah, now I get why displaced Jews came here. Mystery solved.

Therapy Session Leads to Short Story

The story behind my short story, “The Missing Ingredient," as told to Sucker Literary Magazine.  The latest issues is available in paperback and in digital form at Amazon.

A transcription of a conversation with my therapist, July 2012

Therapist: So in summary, what you seem to be saying is that you’re still holding onto the humiliation you felt as a teenager.

Me:  Well, duh. Isn’t everyone?

T:  No, not really.  Many people are able to, in time, embrace their childhoods.  You can get there too.

Me: No fricking way.  There is no way you’re going to tell me that I’ll be able to embrace the time I offered to carry Brittney Wright’s books, and she told me I was too scrawny.

T: You asked a girl to carry her books?  What decade were you living in?

Me: Um...well...

T: Cuz seriously, that sounds like something straight out of Leave it to Beaver.  You must have struck out a lot in high school, huh?

Me: Well, yeah.  In dating, and, um...baseball, too, I guess.  Other stuff.  Can we change topics?

T: You know, maybe you're right.  I’m not sure I can help you to embrace your childhood.  Unless...

Me: Unless what?  Doc, you gotta help me!  My face breaks out at the mention of tater tots.  I panic when I have to unhook a bra, even when no one’s wearing it!  For the love of all that’s holy, what should I do?

T: Write about it.

Me: Write about it!  That’s brilliant!  I’ll write a short story, get it published and parlay that into a novel, and it’ll beat out John Green for the “Awesome Kickass Young-Adult Novel of the Year” award.

T: Um...yeah, if that’s the extent of your vocabulary, you might want to...

Me: Too late, Mr. Therapist.  I’m ready.  I’m ready to reveal the suckiness of teenagedom in all its glory!

Roger Ebert

An eerie coincidence: two nights ago, I spent a half an hour watching an old Siskel and Ebert movie review at http://siskelandebert.org/ of one hell of a week for movie lovers.  During that week in 1982, they reviewed Tootsie, The Verdict and Sophie’s Choice.  Not too shabby. 

The next day I found out that Roger Ebert had died. 

This news jolted me, as I’d just been watching the forty year-old Ebert offer his witticisms the night prior, and though the news saddened me, I’d already felt the loss of no longer being able to watch new versions of the great show both he and Gene Siskel left behind.  Fortunately for us, two other film lovers have helped catalogue these old reviews at http://siskelandebert.org/ (though I notice the website was down earlier today.  We can only hope this was because of too many hits and not because the powers that be at Disney/ABC – the owners of all the “At the Movie” episodes from 1986 through 2010 - have thrown their weight around and filed a lawsuit.  For more on the stupidity of Disney/ABC, click on a blog of mine from a year ago).

Siskel and Ebert’s show was part of my life due to my mother’s influence, when in the 1970s we tuned into the show “Sneak Previews” on PBS.  We even watched for a while after Siskel and Ebert’s departure, but before long we turned back to the critics we’d grown to love at their new show, “At the Movies.”  Always interesting, sometimes enlightening, and almost always entertaining, the weekly show helped to solidify in me what was already becoming a fascination with the movies.

For any of you who missed how insightful and entertaining movie criticism can be, look no further than their 1990 discussion (at minute 14:40) of the anti-Semitism accusations people made of Spike Lee for his film, Mo’ Better Blues. As both a film lover and a Jewish man, Siskel handles the subject deftly, while Roger Ebert displays his innocence by admitting he didn’t even know the characters were supposed to be Jewish (I didn’t either back in 1990).  It was a grown-up discussion before the days of the Internet when name-calling and browbeating weren't the norm.

Both Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert will be missed, with or without a video record of their contributions to film criticism, but what’s mindboggling to me is how a similar show can’t succeed today.  Aren’t their two skillful writers out there who’ve got some personality and who can provide movie lovers with a show in the same vein as “At the Movies”?  Even an Internet-only broadcast would be acceptable to me.  If one exists that I'm simply not aware of, please leave a comment at the end of this blog.

An aside: I should also note that in 2011 I happened to be listening to an Amy Winehouse song at the same time I later found out she was dying, and now Roger dies hours after I watch a review of his.  For those of you whose blogs I read, watch out.

YA Short Story Published!

My short story, "The Missing Ingredient," is now available in digital and print form in the young-adult publication, Sucker Literary Magazine, volume 2.  

Alex is living the rock and roll dream, playing bass and singing for the power trio, Aunt Sally’s Nightmare.  But when his bandmates invite Maureen to sing lead, it soon becomes a battle for control.  Or could it be a battle for something else?

I was published in volume 1 last year and am again thrilled to contribute one of nine great stories featuring the most interesting people on the planet - teenagers.  Sucker is available in paperback for $9.99 and in Kindle form for $3.99.  Check it out.  If you have trouble finding it, give me a shout.

Making Music Matter - part two

The adage, “You Are What You Do,” can apply to your hobbies as well as your moral choices.  You say you like music?  You say music used to be an important component of your life before it gave way to reality TV, the NCAA tournament and your kids’ soccer games?  Well then, every once in a while, why not get together with some friends to discuss music? 

For the past two years I’ve been blessed to do exactly this with some fellow music geeks…er…music lovers…up in the Milwaukee area around four times a year.  Some variation of Kevin, Aaron, Scott, John, Pete and I congregate in Kevin’s “Wall of Sound” basement to play and discuss music, often bands I’ve never heard of before, or bands I’d forgotten about, or bands whose deep cuts I’d never explored.  The experience can be enlightening, infuriating, and life-affirming.  But it’s never boring. 

We often approach the night with a theme, which helps, because themes force us to go beyond the obvious.  Last month, our theme was “Songs under three minutes or over seven minutes.”  I went further and added my own personal rules: no songs from the 60s, no Yes, no Rush, no Genesis, no Zeppelin and no CDs – vinyl only.  What resulted was a fantastic mix of songs I’d never even listened to before, even those from my own collection.  Obscure tracks by Madness, Big Country, Fleetwood Mac, Robert Plant, Wheezer, Bowie, Wilco, Duran Duran, Tanita Tikarum, and much more, made our list that night.  I walked away with dozens of songs and bands to reexamine.

Of course, you don't have to see friends in person these days to discuss music.  I've got another set of buddies who share music and opinions back and forth each week via email.  Again, it's an experience that never fails to spark an interesting viewpoint, even when the music fails to grab your gut.

If you don’t have friends that you can truly discuss music with, you should probably find some new friends.  But here’s an alternative: listen to others discuss music.

Chicago is blessed to be the home of a terrific radio show about music, Sound Opinions, hosted by columnists Jim DeRogatis and Greg Kot, and NPR stations nationwide have picked up this syndicated show.  Sure, DeRogatis and Kot’s tastes may be wildly different from your own (they often talk about bands I have absolutely no interest in), but the hosts are so obviously in love with music that it’s hard not to respect them even when they make a recommendation that's out of left field.  Their show also subscribes to the occasional theme and regularly highlights new releases that you might not otherwise have exposure to. 

This week’s Sound Opinions show examines those bands that produced not one, not two, not three, but four knockout albums in succession, a rare feet they coin “Musical Grand Slams”  It’s fun topic that could stir debate among music lovers for weeks on end.  Before they started their list, the first artist that popped into my head was Stevie Wonder.   Bingo - the first artist featured on the radio program was Stevie Wonder.  A no-brainer.  Some of the other artists they mentioned made no sense to me.  Some I thought of would undoubtedly make no sense to them.

But that’s what makes it fun. 

Want to make music matter again?  Start talking about it.