A Dream Of Germany And All Points Nostalgia. Ugh.

I had a dream the other night which, when I woke up, left me with that bittersweet feeling of joy and loss that only dreams can evoke. Not to sound gay or anything. But it was a pretty simple dream; I was in a hallway, and people started arriving. They were people I'd known from Germany. More and more showed up until we formed a very crowded circle in the hall there, and everybody was chattering away, laughing, telling old stories and old jokes from our time at Chiemsee. Nothing can be as nice and comforting as an old joke retold between friends you haven't seen in years. Like the time Bailey caused Deutsche Bahn to cancel the 11:10pm train route from Munich to Bernau because he got a bit too toasty and kicked out a train window, uh, accidentally. Disco night at the Windjammer.

Or when a rogue storm came up on the lake during a sailing class that Danielle and I were in together, capsizing our sailboat, losing my glasses to the bottom of the Chiemsee while trying to right it. Or Nimmer catching the train by his teeth as it was pulling out of the station during an unscheduled church points stop at 2am. Or Scott... well, he wouldn't want me to tell that story. But it's a funny story. Seth playing Frogger on the autobahn. Dirk tying a kite to his rear bumper, lighting it on fire and going for a ride on the hotel strasse, then waking up the next morning cuddled contentedly next to Josh in the Summerhaus kitchen. Dirk, Josh, Lauren, Dave & I seeing Foetus in Salzburg and getting locked out of the car, then driving up to Dirk's Dad's historical German hunting lodge for a weekend of too much rich food and cappuccinos, causing unspeakable trouble in my bowels. Dumpster diving. Charlie's. The Bernauer Stuben. Krampus fest. Al Harms! Bus Olympics. Absinthe parties after Absinthe runs to Czesky Krumlov. What was Matt's roomate's name who Scott made up all those stories about? Windjammer Halloween parties. "Stealing" the maypole from the Badehaus. Radlers on the German beach. That last summer on the dive shop dock. Volleyball Tuesday. Singing The Yellow Submarine in German. Rosenheim. Munich. The Bernau Bahnhof.

Anyway, I could go on and on, each one of those memories spawning a hundred more. Forgive me; wistfully reminiscing about Chiemsee is a pathological pastime for those of us who were there, annoying and boring on a regular basis our friends who were not. Suffice it to say it was a bittersweet dream, laughing with old friends whom I'll never see all together in one room again. I spent three years in Chiemsee, but I also spent three years in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, a ski town near the Austrian border in the Alps. Garmisch tends to take back seat in my memories of Germany, as it was so much longer ago and the dynamic at Chiemsee during the final year of its operation was rather show-stealing. But coinciding with my dream, a good friend of mine, Marc, from the Garmisch days recently got back from a vacation with his wife whom he'd met there to revisit our old stomping grounds. He posted some pictures on his Facebook page from the trip and I of course found myself looking through them with a renewed sense of old days gone. He has loads of great pictures of our favorite German food and beer. Nostalgia, that's the word. Yuck. I had had a really great time there as well, and I think that it is perhaps one of the most beautiful spots in the world.

Marc reminded me of a historic night on the town. On the week prior to the night in question, we had been at the Santa Fe, otherwise known as the local American Bar. When the Santa Fe closes, there's only one other bar that stays open later (Well, except for the Evergreen, but that's another story) named Peaches. It's a horrid place. Fruity girl drinks and obnoxious party beat music. But at 3am, all pretense of discernment tends to fade. So we walked over, and the doorman wouldn't let me in. It was rather unbelievable for a bar that catered to the 3am crowd. He said my pants were too baggy; he thought I looked like a snowboarder. And I was a snowboarder in fact, but so what? He said, in middling English, that they'd had trouble with my kind. "They, they come in here and cause trouble and drink too much and, and they snowboard," as though it were an unspeakable crime. Weird, right? So I glumly turned around and went home, while Marc & Lenny got inside. The next week, for whatever reason, they let me in. I was dressed the same, I had actually gone snowboarding that day. It was ironically funny, but I was bitter. Last week had been inglorious. I felt wronged. Marc was retelling the story to Lenny, Sabino, and Rio. They laughed, the flavor of wormwood remained with me. I had never caused trouble, I was not one of "those" snowboarders. I had never come to this bar and... snowboarded... I cheered up. I wasn't thinking clearly, but I was thinking.

If I'm going to be accused of sinning, I might as well sin, right? I happened to have my snowboard strapped to the roof of my car right outside, having in fact, as I said, gone snowboarding that day. I ran outside to my car. The same doorman who had not let me in previously, but had inconsistently decided that I was okay on this night was working. I told him I'd be right back. No problem. I grabbed my snowboard and ran in. He didn't try to stop me from bringing my snowboard in, I think he was too confused. Perhaps the hand of God restrained him. In the back of the bar where we were seated, we were on a raised platform table with two or three stairs leading down to the main floor. Here, Marc took a picture of the very spot on his recent trip:

I strapped on my snowboard, gave a drunken rebel yell, and snowboarded down the stairs. Now Mr. Bouncer, you won't be lying next time when you say that snowboarders; "They, they come in here and cause trouble and drink too much and, and they snowboard."

Of course, the joke was really on me because I scraped the crap out of my nice new snowboard on those granite stairs and I had to pay a sweet 50 Deutsche Marks to get it re-waxed. But you know, in the annals of Drunken revelry, score one for me and the snowboarders.

Comments

[Marc]

Marc here:
That story, and that night are constructed of awesomeness in its purest form.
Unlike Peaches

[messiestobjects]

I know, right?! Thanks for reminding me of it. Remember Oktoberfest and Zoe getting kicked out of the beer tent? Or that night we were at the Hofbrauhaus, drank like 8 maßes with that crazy mix of Garmischers and Chiemseers, then somehow made the 1&1/2 hour drive home? I think we told the polizei that we'd had A maß about an hour ago... which wasn't a lie exactly, but whew.

Never mind. I take that back. We did NOT drink and drive in the Fatherland.

[Michael Fir]

My name is Michael Fir, and you'll not forget my name again or I may violate you casually and repeatedly, like i violate Planck's constant, or those tawdry 'laws' of thermodynamics- two of which no longer apply to me. Just wait until i return from mining felt from the Ruwenzori mountains. Then you'll be sorry. Sorry like Matt was when I refused to take phone messages for him from Sabrina. or Jesse. or Magdalena... Miranda. I hate that guy.

Michael Fir takes messages for no man. Michael Fir serves only she who feeds on the blood of the innocent. And I love France.

I mine felt. I know most people dont, and some say you cant, but I am Michael Fir, and my ways are complex, strange and largely incompatible with western thought or philosophy- And they're collected here for the first time and available (Now!) in paperback for Christmas! If I choose to save Christmas again this year. So yeah, I mine felt and scale shit.

And I love France. Like no man should. That clear?

[Marc]

That was the starkbierfest!
I recall at one point you found me sleeping in a phonebooth. Upon waking up, I recall this being the discussion.

You: get up, it's time to go.
me: where's mike williams?
you: What?
me: I'm not leaving without mike williams
you: I'm mike williams
me: ok, let's go

I wasn't supposed to be blowing a lot of cash that night, but things didn't work out that way, as i recall.

When are you coming back to chicago?

[messiestobjects]

Jesus, Starkbierfest. The fest where they make the beer with twice the alcohol content of a normal German beer, (which, I may add, is already twice as strong as American so-called beer) and we drank eight of those suckers? No wonder you were mistaking me for, well, not someone else we were there with, apparently. Maybe you thought I was a talking phone booth.

"I wasn't supposed to be blowing a lot of cash that night, but things didn't work out that way, as i recall."

Things never worked out that way. I defy any man woman beast child or Swissman to save money within a hundred mile radius of the Hofbrauhaus.

"When are you coming back to chicago?"

Hard to say... depends on the job and all. Someday though, for sure; Chicago is a cool city.

[messiestobjects]

Michael Fir! Didn't he scale Mount Everest? And when he got to the top, he killed all of the Sherpas on his expedition, and he never said why, but then he donated blood to Tibet and became their interim Dalai Lama. I heard they don't even want the real one back now.

[Micheal Fir]

No. that's just part of the legend of Micheal Fir. I had to eat those sherpas before we ever left base camp.

[messiestobjects]

Oh, don't be modest. We all know that your plan all along has been to become Dalai Lama so that you can go to hell and kick Satan's ass.

[Miss Luongo]

What happens when one violates Planck's constant? What would happen if Michael Fir violated Planck's constant while holding Schrodinger's cat?

[messiestobjects]

Well, Planck's Constant is the size at which Quantum Physics takes over from Classical, Newtonian Physics. So violating Planck's Constant pretty much means using classical physics on the Quantum level. And since Schrodinger's Cat is a thought experiment used in the attempt to illuminate Quantum particle behavior, holding it in the Quantum realm using Newtonian physics would probably self negate itself.

So, pretty much nothing would happen. Or Everything. Whichever.