In Germany for Nexus Con, Part 2

Originally published December 14, 2001, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1465

The name of the restaurant in Berlin was, of all things, the American Western saloon. Never in a million years would have I gone anywhere near the place, even in America, but I had been doing my Q&A with the German audience at the Nexus Resurrection convention while my daughter Gwen had gone on ahead to get something to eat. This was the restaurant at the convention center. So that’s where they took her.

I walked in and was stunned.

The décor was beyond belief. The “saloon” was jam packed with all sorts of icons of the American west… such as the 1997 Queens phone book, or a statue of Abraham Lincoln. Clearly they’d simply decorated it with anything that vaguely smacked of America. What was even more bizarre, though, was the spectacle on the dance floor. Germans, about a dozen, clad in cowboy hats, boots, gaudy western shirts that looked like something you’d see on Grand Ole Opry, were out on the dance floor, and they were line dancing in perfect synchronization to “Achy Breaky Heart.”

I’m not a big fan of country western in general, and “Achy Breaky Heart” may in fact be one of the most annoying songs ever written. But there was so much entertainment value in watching these people so enamored of Americana that they were country line dancing that it provided serious giggle value.

The song ended. A new one started: “Islands in the Stream.”

To my horror, they started line dancing again.

To “Islands in the Stream.”

Now c’mon.

“Islands in the Stream,” you take your significant other and you slow dance. You don’t frickin’ line dance to “Islands in the Stream.” You don’t. It’s just wrong. But that’s precisely what they were doing. Watching people line-dancing to that number can’t help but put you in the mindframe of, “Well of course they’re dancing in unison to everything. They’re Germans. They can’t help it.” You don’t want to think that, but there it is right in front of you. Line dancing to “Islands in the Stream.”

Yeesh.

I know, I know, we have German restaurants in the states, and they might be just as laughable to a German citizen as an “American” restaurant is to us. But I submit that you’d have to look far and wide before you find a bunch of Americans going to the local German restaurant wearing Leiderhausen and doing the Duck Dance, even when it’s Oktoberfest.

I made my way past the eerily dancing Germans, joined Gwen at her table and had a hamburger. That turned out to be an unfortunate choice, for it remained a bosom friend in my stomach for much of the night, lying there like a rock. As I dealt with this apparently permanent addition to my digestive tract, not to mention some severe jetlag, I started flipping through German television at about 12:30 at night.

Whoa.

There were only three types of programming on that I could find: Sex. News channels. And dubbed versions of American sitcoms. So there I sat, with the remote, clicking rhythmically away. Sex. Sex. Sex. Larry King. Sex. Sex. Frasier. Sex.

Now it’s not as if I can’t stumble upon overheated passion if I’m channel surfing late night at home. But that’s a few channels out of, I dunno, seventy. This television had significantly fewer channels, but proportionately far more devoted to sex. Here was a woman having sex with a man. Here was a woman having sex with a woman. Here was a woman having sex with an electric guitar (seriously. I’m not making this up, right hand to God.)

I have no idea whether Germans are watching sex on TV to get them in the mood for the real thing, or whether the real thing is in short supply and TV is a substitute, or what. But I’m beginning to suspect that the reason the Berlin wall came down was because they were all looking for new people to have sex with. All the people in East Berlin saying, “What? There’s other people there we can sleep with? Great! Oh damn! There’s a wall in the way! Quick, knock it down!” Geez, I had no clue. I mean, you don’t generally associate Germans with hot bloodedness. Italians, French, okay, they have the rep for being sex obsessed, but Germans? Holy crow. But hey… it beats invading Poland, right?

The convention over the next two days was very interesting, as such things always are when one goes abroad. I was impressed by the number of people who bought my work in English, obviously feeling a tad superior to those who wait for the German-language editions.

I was tapped to be a judge for the masquerade. The weird highlight was a girl slathered in green make-up as an Orion dancing girl, doing a way-too-long gyration on stage. And, oh man, what is it with European women and underarm hair, will someone tell me? With the body make-up she was wearing, every time she raised her arms it was like she had seaweed billowing out of her armpits. I kept looking studiously at the scoring sheet. There were only eight contestants, so we wound up giving prizes to everyone so no one felt left out.

We also managed to get in some sightseeing. We went to the site of the Berlin wall, and Gwen stood on the small stone path in the street which is the only thing left of the former structure. She stood with one foot on either side, effectively straddling East and West Berlin. We swung by Checkpoint Charlie, once a forbidding place with guards and dogs. Now it’s a tourist attraction with mobs of schoolkids getting their photos taken and Checkpoint Charlie Souvenir shops.

We also took in the newly opened Jewish Museum. Because, you know, naturally, if you’re in Germany, you want to go to a Jewish Museum. I have to tell you, the Holocaust exhibit was tough to take. Rather manipulatively designed, the hallways were long and stark, and there were windows displays showing personal possessions of people who had died in the ovens or gas showers of the Concentration camps. Little things. Eyeglasses, or books, or children’s toys. Letters from two lovers writing to each other from separate camps, both doomed. I’ve never seen the word “murdered” used so many times in any museum piece as I did in the descriptions of the former owners which accompanied each display. At the end of one hallway, there was a large door and a guard, and he said, “Sorry, there’s people already in here, you have to wait.”

“What would I be waiting for?” I asked.

“It’s the Holocaust room,” he explained. “It simulates what it was like being put into the transports to the camp.”

I started to tremble. “I can’t deal with that,” I said simply, turned and walked away, seeking refuge in the upper floors of the museum which turned out to house fascinatingly detailed accounts of Jewish history in general.

One remains struck by a recurring theme throughout history: Blame the Jews. That’s why I get worried about the war in Afghanistan. I keep thinking that, sooner or later, Americans are going to turn around and say, “If it weren’t for Israel, we wouldn’t be in this situation, the World Trade Center would still be standing, and we wouldn’t be worrying about Anthrax. Damned Jews causing nothing but trouble.”

That evening we ate at an Argentine steak house. At one point the waiter brought me the entrée and, as he handed me the plate, said something in German. Turns out what he was saying was, “Be careful, sir, the plate is very hot.” I figured that out about two seconds after I dropped it with my hands sizzling. Actually, it was rather impressive. During the entirety of the convention, we wound up never eating in a restaurant that actually served German food.

All in all, it was a fairly positive experience. Still, as I stood on the corner of the street where my grandfather’s shoe store had once sat, I imagined I could hear glass shattering and the cries of “Juden!” filling the air. It seemed very real, and angered me. Modern Germans will say that they shouldn’t be held responsible or blamed for the sins of the fathers. There’s some truth in that, I suppose, but it gets very little sympathy from me. After all, it wasn’t until the late 20th Century that the Church got around to officially letting Jews off the hook for actions allegedly taken nearly two thousand years ago. When I was in Junior High, a kid I considered my best friend called me a Christ Killer and said he wished my parents had died in ovens. So apparently it’s human nature to hold a grudge.

Gotta try and do something about that.

(Peter David, writer of stuff, can be written to at Second Age, Inc., PO Box 239, Bayport, NY 11705.)