Happy Walpurgisnacht! While I don’t know where to plant my maypole, I do know that things will start to heat up. I don’t know what will happen, but even at this jaded stage of life I’m at, there remains a thrill in anticipation on what might happen.
One thing I do know is that my bank account will be deducted in the morning for my rent. See? Not everything will be a joy.
This is a little late since I was in Berlin for my birthday and whatever goulash of chemicals and electricity in my brain couldn’t bring me to write this. Let’s just say that I was in a whole lot of pain since my sciatica came back a week before I left. The pain then transferred to my right hip. All in all it made everything difficult: walking, sitting, lying down. There is not any moment where pain and discomfort didn’t affect me. Actually I’m still in pain, but it’s more of a dull sustained thing rather than anything sharp and debilitating.
So that’s to say that one of my regrets of going to Berlin was I was not able to be quite as ambulatory as I had wanted. I did manage to go out do some record shopping, go to the Philharmonic, go to a Michelin-starred restaurant and take some pictures, but I really wanted to do more. But, isn’t that the regret of most vacation-goers?
I do not regret the luxury I indulged in however. Because of my back pain, I decided to use my points to upgrade to business class for my flights on Air France. That was such a good decision with the lie-flat seats and wonderful menu. However, can someone explain to me why there are no non-stop flights from LA to Berlin? Connecting at Charles De Gaulle was a fucking pain and took forever to get between terminals.
I also stayed at the Ritz Carlton right in Potsdamer Platz. To tell you how nice it was, they gave me a birthday cake! Not pictured was my meal at Nobelhart and Schmutzig which was close by my hotel — a 10-course Michelin-starred meal that featured hyperlocal sourced ingredients because they forbid pictures being taken and urge people to savor the moment. Again, no regrets.
I realize as this thing called life goes on is that there’s a whole lot of bullshit that clouds our lives and makes it seem so much more complicated that it needs. Like all of these self-help bullshit artists and cloying folks who want people to like them who say that travel is deep and self-realizing is at its heart just bullshit and unnecessary. No, in all of my trips I have not gained any deeper insights into myself. No, I have not gained any deeper insight to the world as a whole. All I know is I just want to be happy, do what I want to do as long as I’m not causing harm to others and want as little misery as possible. It’s bad enough my body betrays me with pain, so I just refuse to deal with pain from others. And not everything needs to have a deeper significance, life doesn’t need to have meaning.
So this is 43. This is the reason I’ve started to get tattoos. This is the reason why last weekend I decided to get my first piercing: a septum ring that I had actually wanted for decades. I’m just here just trying to be happy. Thanks for the self-indulgence.
Anyhow here are some more photos from Berlin:
I’m currently reading/trudging/slogging through Michel Houellebecq’s 1998 novel The Elementary Particles. It’s not a particularly long book, but it is dense and a bit fucked up. Back in college a professor had joked that German philosophers were a bit maniacal while the French were depressing. This novel sort of backs this up.
But it is not without its moments. Here is a nice passage…
Between the ages of two and four, human children acquire a sense of self, which manifests itself in displays of megalomaniacal histrionics. Their aim in this is to control their social environment, making slaves of those around them (Specifically, their parents); slaves dedicated to satisfying their every whim. Their egotism knows no bounds — such is the nature of the individual.
p. 152, Vintage International Paperback
Seriously, fuck them. We know what they (well, Poo-tin really) are/is doing to Ukraine and their own people, and that is bad enough. But now there is a tangential effect on me which has ruffled all of the pettiness in me.
The other night I was admiring my new tattoo and really amazed that not a lot of blood and plasma has oozed out of it. Actually I’m still surprised because my other tattoo oozed like a motherfucker (but then again there was a lot more needle-on-skin surface area on that one compared to this.)
I don’t know where the thought came from, but all of the sudden it hit me. The goddamned Ruskis are putting “Z”s on all their vehicles as they are invading Ukraine, and here I have a fucking “Z” branded on my arm. GODMOTHERFUCKINGDAMMIT!!!!
This is a tattoo was meant to exhibit my love for Johnny the Homicidal Maniac and one of the running gags throughout the series meaning “Question Sleep.” There is no way I want anything to imply that I support Poo-tin’s invasion!
Seriously Russia. What the fuck is that even supposed to mean? You don’t even have a fucking “Z” in your alphabet!!! Why couldn’t you have just marked your vehicles with “3” which is how the sound /z/ is denoted in the Cyrillic script? So fucking annoying. It’s just like if my name was Brandon or Karen. Well, maybe not since one can change one’s name. Tattoos are permanent!
All kidding and trivialities aside, my heart breaks for the Ukrainians, the Russians who have been arrested for protesting this and all the neighboring countries who are trying to help the displaced women and children. So fuck them and Poo-tin for that. But also fuck them for this Z nonsense too.
My mom sent me a birthday card which was really nice of her. We talked a little, and she let me know she is going in for a colonoscopy the day after my birthday. Well, better than getting stuck in Peru as the world shutdown for Covid.
Lately I had been thinking about getting another tattoo or getting my first piercing. I was also thinking about getting it done in Berlin. For some reason I decided against this, so I made an appointment to get it done. There was some confusion with the appointment time and what not, so I finally got it today. Thanks to Rooster McCall at Suerte Tattoo for the ink and the design:
Yes, it’s the Leviathan cross. Or the Satanic cross. Or the black sulphur symbol. It means what you want it to mean. Occulty, alchemy-y or whatever.
I follow Bruce LaBruce on social media, and on most days he celebrates the birthdays of artists who should be celebrated. Today is David Cronenberg’s 79th birthday, and he posted this German Blu-Ray poster for his film Crash. You know, the good one not the shitty white guilt study that won an Oscar for best picture. I had never seen this poster, and I gasped. How fucking amazing.
Speaking of Germany, I’ll be there next week. Well, Berlin since most of Germany believe Berlin is another planet. Which, whatever. It is a great place, and it is out there.
I didn’t expect to get a state income tax refund, but a check did come by last night. It came for all of 1 DOLLAR!!!!! I’M RICH!!!!
I’m usually good at backing up my files, but I thought I had lost one of the favorite pictures of me. This was taken during my third stint at Hulu in 2012. Holy shit. 10 years ago. That just hit me.
I appreciate the concern from my reader. Well, readers.
In non-Ukrainian news, baseball is in another lockout. Didn’t they just have one a couple of years ago? And why can I not bring myself to care?
Granted it’s been eight years since LAist, but to go from watching sports everyday to lifting my head to care about it? I guess that’s the passion of youth?
It’s not like I haven’t had sex recently. I’ve had different types of cocks, fingers, hands, toys up my ass in the last 6 months. John didn’t have the biggest cock in the world, but fuck my ass is in pain today. I chalk it down to not enough lube and overeager pistoning. It’s amazing since I’ve come close to taking a fist (I know, almost only counts in horseshoes), so I didn’t think a half-hour’s worth of fucking would bring me pain each time I take a shit. Fortunately there is no blood or tearing, so I’m not worried. Just annoyed. What a fucking pain in the ass.
But it was nice to get my mind off of what is going on Ukraine.
It’s hard to take my attention off of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and it is amazing to see just how unified most of the world is against Poo-tin’s incursion. It’s also amazing to see Ukrainians fight their asses off to repel the invaders. But the thing I go back to is the US’s invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Like Russia, the US spoke a lot of lies and propaganda to justify their invasion. I guess what helped the US is no one liked Saddam Hussein, but I still remember being on the streets of Hollywood a month before the invasion protesting the inevitable along with what was reported to be 100,000 of my closest friends. This is why I still believe George W. Bush, Richard Cheney, Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld (Rest in Misery), Paul Wolfowitz and that whole party a bunch of war criminals who should be rotting in prison.
It amazed me how much the media tried to buy into the US’s lies in 2003 whereas now they are calling out the lies they are told from the Kremlin. I know the circumstances are different, but the contrast is quite stark.
On a completely different note, one of the last sports team I root for, Chelsea Football Club, is owned by Roman Abramovitch whose ties to Poo-tin is murky at best. Today he just handed control of Chelsea to the club’s charity trust meaning… ? His daughter denounced this invasion on Insta although she might be afraid of getting caught up in sanctions down the line. Him? Crickets. Even something that’s supposed to take our minds off the troubles of the world cannot escape this gravitational pull. So I guess I will now root for no one.
