From “The Love Parade”

On the night train to Rome I meet an Italian woman with two young boys who use me as a target for their invisible bullets flying out of tiny plastic guns, a Belgian girl who keeps talking about her Italian boyfriend yet smiles and winks at me like I should take her right there in the packed hallway filled with various sad passengers sleeping on the floor in all sorts of positions, and finally a couple from Richmond, Virginia, who get me high in the dirty, cramped toilet.  I don’t sleep at all on the train, or the next night either, on the floor of the apartment of the pretty Polish girl I meet in a sculpture museum.  She’s studying art in Rome and what do you do, she asks me, and I tell her that I study girls who study art in Rome, which she doesn’t really appreciate, but still lets me stay with her.

I don’t remember much after that, just tiny moments that come to me occasionally, where every second is preserved, the huge gaps in-between sacrificed for the memory of the sweet epiphanies, seconds of time more precious than the months and years slopped together, the tedium of existence, the mundane cycle of life, the Wasteland.

I recall the train to Budapest, bribing border officials to let me pass through Slovakia and Croatia without the proper visas, finally arriving to witness the city’s beautiful hills, buildings and women, so made supposedly because of their genes, dominated time and again – by the Turks, the Huns, the Russians, the Tartars – everyone making contributions, leaving something behind to be discovered by the curious, the observant, the lustful; the city teeming with cavernous underground bars and artists, moody yet magical, myself in heavenly hands, being led through the dark maze by my own product of domination I meet at a fruit stand, her with perfect English and soaring intellect, trading stories about politics and techno music while drinking strange combination drinks like red wine and Coca-cola, finally getting plundered myself in a gorgeous dirt-cheap flat by the river, although the trains outside do little for a good night’s sleep…

I remember the Turkish baths where men in loin cloths – myself included – stare at one another with questionable expressions, sitting in fiery saunas and cooling off in mineral baths, then massages by large friendly eager Hungarians, soaped up bodies, rubbing and pulling and pinching, not exactly what I consider relaxing or therapeutic, but still marvelous for the visual of the art-deco bath and brief participation in an ancient bonding ritual.

The next day it’s off to Prague, sharing a compartment with a chatty girl in overalls from St. Louis and two drunk yet amiable Australians, finally reaching the gorgeous candlyand for American expats and tourists.  Poor, poor  Kafka, I think, as I wander through the crowded streets, the packed cafes, the exquisite castle, his castle, still ominous and grotesquely beautiful, though dotted with people and bright firefly-like pops of camera flashes, with children screaming, though out of pleasure and not fear, unfortunately.  At night and away from the center, however, the dimly-lit roads and alleyways can still lead one to madness, getting lost being much easier than finding one’s way, the cobblestone-laden, winding streets mimicking one another, the poor wanderer, hearing strange sounds from the shadows (police, cockroaches?).  Here Kafka, dear Kafka, you are alive and well.

Prague is home to steely-eyed, black-haired girls with red lips and pointy teeth, vampires, seductive, beautiful and strange, pouring you Czech red wine that tastes thick and heavy and smiling yet taunting you for being in their homeland, you who walk around on long American strides and babble about how beautiful the city is and how cheap everything is, and how easily you could live here.  To this last comment they smile again, bigger even, and pour you some more wine, wondering whether you will float or sink once they toss you off the Charles Bridge.

There was the night with the young Dutch philosophers, discussing art and music and love while drinking down twenty-five cent beers and the occasional shot of absinthe, not moving for the entire evening sans to piss or get another bottle, my involvement more as a voyeur, secretly drinking less, talking less, just observing the large articulate blonde boys weighing the fate of the universe against a pair of perfect breasts, these supplied earlier by Julie from Canada, six-feet of nature gal, big as an oak yet shapely, all of us (American, Canadian, Dutch, Swedish, Croatian, Czech) excitedly dancing to American top-40 in a dark crowded club, the night hot and perfect because we’re all drunk and in love, finally getting Julie into a corner, only to tell me she’s engaged.  “Does this mean you won’t sleep with me?”  I ask her.  Yes, apparently, although she’s into snogging and keeps repeating how exotic and dark and beautiful I am, and how she’d love to make love only she promised herself she wouldn’t, and besides, there’s her future husband, who looks just like me, she says, although he’s blonde and Canadian.  A disappointment, to be sure, but all good fuel for the Dutchmen, who turn it into a debate about morals and marriage and Canadians versus Americans and so on and so on, into the long hot night, until its morning and they’re serving us breakfast, we who incredibly have not run out of things to say and are still talking, although I can’t remember if any of it makes any sense…

And now I am on my way to Berlin, finally, city of cities, the most modern of them all, each day, week and year different in light of all the construction, the mood constantly changing, where Bowie and Iggy lived and worked side by side, where east and west still struggle, with memories of Hitler, genocide, communism and the wall, the glorious, ugly wall that still stretches through parts of the massive city, now the largest in Europe, the new capital of Germany, soon to be the center of Europe, if not the world.  It’s here where I’m to meet Sol, my lost half, who I have not thought about very much, although it seems that my inflated desires were merely attempts to fill what was left open by her absence.  It’s hard to say, and I don’t know what it will be like when we meet, although I am eager to see her.

When I reach my hotel in Kreuzberg there is a note for me from her.  We are to meet at Checkpoint Charlie in a few hours, giving me time to shower and shave, which is good, but unfortunately not enough time to wash my clothes, which, like myself, have developed a rather questionable smell.  I am eager to join the Love Parade as well, which is presently being held at the Tiergarten, a massive park in the center of Berlin.  Throughout the city, on the television behind the reception desk of the hotel, on the radio at the newsstand I visit after my shower, from the stereos of the cars that speed through the streets, are the sounds of techno, the sound of Berlin, the city awash in its immediate, aggressive beat and hard, heavy bass.  The air is charged with it.

I arrive at Checkpoint Charlie via the ultra-efficient U-Bahn, and find myself at the infamous crossing point while the wall was still up, which is now nothing but a skeletal gate, with a few pictures and signs left for commemoration.  Across the street is a café, and as I’m early I order a beer from the tall hostess and sit at a table outside.  At the next table are two middle-aged German women, with short dark hair and deep voices, who talk excitedly.  One keeps looking back at me and I smile at her.  She says something to me in German and I ask her if she speaks English, which apparently she doesn’t or doesn’t want to, as she turns back to her friend and continues talking.  The beer arrives and I drink it down, then another.  I haven’t eaten anything all day, and after the third am already drunk.  Sol is almost an hour late, and the German women are looking at me strangely, as if I am insane to sit here, alone, while nearby over a million young people are dancing and celebrating.

With each passing minute I want to see her more and more.  Everything about her that I’ve repressed for the past few weeks seems to rise up, all at once, and I suddenly miss her terribly.  I wasn’t sure what to think about our reunion, but now, in a vast new city, without the pleasures of Prague or the charms of Italy, with cranes and construction everywhere, the entire thing in transition, the brutal, gutteral sound of German filling my ears, I feel very much alone.  (Has it come down to this?  Me finally where I want to be, where I would have been previously if I hadn’t missed my train, then delayed longer still for a girl, a girl who eventually I wanted to get away from, and who now I apparently need desperately, as I am unable to enjoy myself without her.)

After a while, as darkness falls, with the German women having left and my hostess reading my lost expression, asking me sympathetically if I want another beer, I know Sol’s not coming.  Why not I cannot discern, although the thought that she has mixed feelings about seeing me begins to take shape.  A helicopter buzzes overhead, and sitting across from Checkpoint Charlie, the wall, the blood and agony it represented for so many, I suddenly feel that I am in the Berlin of years back, the one I have read and dreamt about, the one we bombed to the ground, me a Jew to boot.

There’s nothing left to do but walk to the Love Parade.  The Love Parade!  What a joke, expecting so many to come together out of love, when it’s merely for drugs and sex.  And techno music?  How obnoxious and overrated! (How quickly our attitudes change toward life when we realize we’re alone).

But what else to do?  I pay for the beer, check the location on the map and walk to the Tiergarten.  I can hear the music in the distance, even see some of the people over the horizon.  Will she be in there, somewhere, dancing, partying, loving?  Will the scores of others I’ve met on my travels be amidst the crowd, looking for me, waiting to pull me in with them, so we can all enjoy the parade?  I don’t know.  I only know that I am alone, in ominous, enigmatic Berlin, and that soon I’ll be surrounded by thousands upon thousands of drugged-out young people and ear-splitting techno.  My Swedish girl, my sun, lost to me.

Swine Flu and You: 10 Things You Need to Know

1.  The swine flu is crazy contagious, so if you have it, you need to stay indoors.  Better yet, you need to seal yourself up, “bubble boy style,” just to be safe.  If you don’t have a spare bubble lying around, use saran wrap.

2. The swine flu is like March, “In Like a Lion, Out Like a Lamb.”  At first, it’s going to totally suck for you.  All your hair will fall out, boils will appear all over your body, and you will lose all of your senses except for smell, which you will actually wish you no longer had, for the odor emanating from your body will be super foul, like northern New Jersey but worse.  Fortunately, this will only last for a few months, at which point you will miraculously feel no pain at all.

3. Unfortunately, the reason for this will be because you will be dead.

4. Yes, contracting the swine flu is fatal.  However, nobody lives forever, so don’t sweat it.  At least it’s a fairly interesting way to go.  Better than being hit by a bus, right?

5. Actually, it isn’t.  Future generations will not regard swine flu deaths as noble or admirable.  In fact, over time, the origins of the illness will grow foggy, and the only thing people will remember is the name.  They will thus assume you died from eating bad pork.  All in all, not really a “cool” way to go.

6. Fortunately, not everyone will think this.  Some people will have a different idea about what caused swine flu.

7. Unfortunately, that idea will be that you had sex with a pig, and contracted pig A.I.D.S. and died.

8. These people, from then on, will brand you a “pig fucker” (their words not mine), and, because “pig fuckers” have no place in normal cemeteries, your body will be dug up and removed.

9. By this time, there will be very little of the earth left that isn’t being used for something, so it will be difficult to find a place to put you.

10. Fortunately, wherever this place is, it will likely be where pigs are kept, thus completing the cycle, and keeping you in good company, pig fucker.

I was a Scientologist!

 

It seemed like a good idea at the time.  Launch my journalism career by going undercover as a Scientologist.

My first job after college was working for Coffee People, basically a smaller, less ubiquitous Starbucks, founded by a husband and wife hippie-team in the vein of Ben and Jerry’s.  I worked in the bakery, which meant I had to be there at 7am every day.  Because I was hardly a morning person, I would sleepwalk through most of my shift, and the other people working there nicknamed me “slowboat.”  These were three women, all of whom hated me with a passion I could not fathom.  Even though I was barely awake, I was always on time, and always worked hard.  The only reason, it seemed, that they disliked me so much was because I had a penis.  For what these girls did, aside from occasionally baking and kneading, was to talk about how much men sucked, how they were inferior to women, and how they should all die.

I started wearing a walkman to work, to block out their diatribes, but even so, the looks they would send me were withering. If the estrogen in that place could have somehow been converted into energy, we would be able to eliminate our dependency on foreign oil immediately.

One day, after a lengthy speech by the head baker, the queen bee, who announced that men had the intelligence of children at best, animals at worst, I realized that I had forgotten to set the timer for the cookies I had put in the oven, and they had burned to crisps; hours of work, gone.

Upon seeing my mistake, she merely pointed at me and said: “There you go girls. Proof positive of man’s utter stupidity. Can they do anything right?”

That was it.  I walked over to her, and before I knew what I was doing my hands found the bowl that was in front of her, half-filled with raw eggs.  As the other girls watched in horror, I picked it up and dumped it all over her.  Unfortunately, she jumped back just in time, and I only managed to get it on her apron and shoes.  Still, it was something.

She was totally unfazed, and simply stood there, smirking. “You are so fired,” she said, chortling. “Girls, we’re finally rid of this asshole.”

I was pretty sure that she was right, so I went into the manager’s office, told her exactly what had taken place, and asked for the money I’d earned that week.

What happened next came as a complete shock.  She said that the turnover rate in the bakery was incredibly high, and that I had lasted longer than most. She said that she admired my honesty, and that another Coffee People store needed a barista, and offered me the job.

I accepted straight away and thanked her profusely.  As I was leaving the office, my nemesis walked in.  She cackled as I passed her, convinced I had been let go. But I didn’t say anything. I just smiled. I knew that I had won.

Unfortunately, my new job didn’t last very long either.  It was located in a big shopping center that had just opened, and so the crowds were immense.  We were slammed day and night, and for my entire shift I’d be busy as hell, waiting on a long line of people, desperate for their caffeine fix. It made me almost miss the bakery.

After about a week, I was really starting to hate it, and it showed.  Never one for customer service, I was now outright rude, especially to those who proved to be demanding.  At the end of a long and busy day, a bear of a woman ordered a mocha with extra chocolate and extra whipped cream, and then complained because I hadn’t used skim milk.  I told her that there was hardly any difference between the skim milk and the one-percent I put in there, and added that if she was concerned about such things, she should maybe try drinking water, or, at the very least, regular coffee, and not mochas.

When she asked to speak to the manager, I told her that I was the manager.  When she asked to speak to whoever was above me, I told her that there wasn’t anyone, that the store was mine, and if she had a problem she could go fuck yourself.

After that she stormed off.  So did half the customers in the line.  When I turned around, I expected a standing ovation from the other employees.  “Way to go, Russ,” I thought they’d say.  “Way to show it those customers!”

Instead, they all looked at me like I was from another planet.  And so, before the real manager returned from lunch, I left him a note telling him that I quit.

I found another job a few days later.  A friend of mine, who worked for a local paper, got me hired as a film critic.  The pay sucked, but I got to see a crapload of films for free.  Soon, I was also writing music and book reviews.  And while this was all well and good, after a while, I grew bored.  I wanted to write actual stories, to try my hand at real reporting.

I asked Julie, the editor, if this would be okay, and she said fine, as long as she liked the idea. The next day I had it, she loved it, and I eagerly began preparing for my new undercover adventure. Following in the footsteps of Hollywood’s finest – John Travolta, Tom Cruise, Juliette Lewis – I was going to be a Scientologist.

I was equally fascinated and freaked-out by them, and always wondered what went on in their centers, a number of which dotted downtown Portland. So one afternoon I walked up to one, which had a large sign outside that read: “Free personality test. Inquire within,” and went inside. A man met me in the lobby, and I told him that I was interested in pursuing my spiritual development, and that his organization seemed like the right place to begin. He greeted me warmly, telling me that I was indeed correct, that he could help me, and led me to a room with a copy of the test. He offered me some coffee, which I politely refused, having watched too many documentaries on cults – the Moonies, the Branch Davidians – and was worried that it was laced.

The test was extremely long, filled with ridiculously general questions, many that seemed to overlap: “Have you ever felt depressed? Do you sometimes make remarks you later regret? Are you prejudiced against your own school or team?” Some were just plain stupid: “Does emotional music have an effect on you? Do you bite your fingernails?” The thing was obviously designed to play to one’s insecurities, to make the person taking it appear like they were beyond reproach, and how lucky they were to have taken it under the auspices of Scientology, where they could be saved! I answered the questions as truthfully as I could, and when I finished it I handed it to the man, who immediately processed it.

Upon viewing the results, I was planning to act suitably disaffected and in dire need of help so they would take me seriously, but I hardly needed to. What should have been a rising and falling graph depicting my emotional status, was instead a straight line that ran across the bottom of the page, underneath the mark that said: “Normal.” It made me out to be depressed, paranoid, anxious and suicidal. The guy watched as I looked at the results and then stared deep into my eyes. “It looks like you’ve come to the right place.”

He then introduced me to one of his associates, a very pleasant and upbeat woman who took me into another room, a copy of the results before her. She echoed the man’s sentiments, and said that I had chosen wisely to seek help from them, as it looked like I really needed it. I played right into this, and told her that since college I’d felt alienated and alone, was prone to mood swings, and was at a loss at to how to proceed. She said that scores of others before me had been helped, and all I had to do was to sign up for an introductory course, which started at seventy-five dollars.

“But you guys are a religion, right?” I said. “Like a church or something?”

“Yes, that’s correct.”

“Well, going to church doesn’t normally cost anything.”

“You still have to give to the collection plate.”

“True, but that’s like what? A dollar? I’m sorry, but I can’t afford the class.”

“But I really think you should take it,” she said, smiling and opening her eyes wide, wide, wide.

“Think about it this way: what’s money compared to spiritual happiness? A small investment now is nothing compared to the future riches you’ll acquire with greater self-esteem and strength.”

“But I don’t have the seventy-five dollars.”

“Couldn’t you save up if you wanted to?” she asked, her smile fading. “It’s really not that much when you think about it.”

“Isn’t there any other way? Could I work it off? Sweep the floors or something?”

“No, I’m afraid we don’t do that.”

This sucked. I needed more information to write the story, so I asked her if she wouldn’t mind telling me a little bit about the organization, what they were all about, what I’d learn if I did take the class. To this she gave me a vague explanation about how their founder L. Ron traveled extensively with his grandfather who was in the navy (do they allow small children on naval vessels?), and what he witnessed all over the world greatly disturbed him: everywhere, people were unhappy. Also, people were struggling to survive (he was fucking astute). He decided he wanted to find a way to make people’s lives better, and used his science fiction books to finance extensive psychological research (a small investment for future riches?). Thus, Dianetics, and eventually Scientology, was born.

She went on to describe the basic philosophy. According to Hubbard’s research, which was essentially a bastardized version of Freud, the brain was divided into two parts, the active mind (conscious) and the reactive mind (subconscious). The former housed all productivity, artistry and positive thought. Everything that held someone down, whether it be fear, insecurity or painful memories, was located in the latter. To bridge this gap, his program worked to completely eliminate the reactive mind. The successful candidate was then “clear,” and able to live a healthy, productive, unobstructed life. I didn’t really get this, and didn’t think it made much sense, let alone jived with my own personal philosophy. I was all about the subconscious.

“What about dreams?” I asked her. “They stem completely from the subconscious. Do you guys stop having them or something?”

“We don’t really deal with dreams,” she said, growing annoyed with my questions. She handed me a brochure of the various classes they offered, and told me again that I should really think about taking the introductory class. Then she stood up and said there was something else she needed to take care of, and led me to the exit.

I left extremely disappointed.  My Scientology career was over before it had begun. I practically had nothing to write about, so I resorted to an exaggerated, tongue-in-cheek rendition of my experience. I described how I was never left alone like in a real cult, how the people I met had twinkling, other-worldly eyes like Charles Manson, how I was expecting at any second to be kidnapped and brainwashed, where I would ultimately have to be rescued and deprogrammed, costing my parents a fortune in the process. I also included a copy of my personality test with the flatline at the bottom. Because I had heard horror stories about acts of retaliation from the group, I wrote the piece under the alias L. Russ Hubbel.

When the issue came out, nothing much happened.  There wasn’t much reaction, except for mild amusement, and I was sure that my fears had been unwarranted. Then, a few days later, we started getting reports from people that they couldn’t find the paper anywhere, that none of the stores or kiosks that usually carried it had any in stock. We always printed off more copies than were necessary, and this had never happened before, so my first thought was that the story was so good that people were nabbing them left and right. But the truth was that the Scientologists had gotten wind of it, and went about collecting every issue they could find.

Then we began receiving a series of threatening phone calls from them. At first, they simply declaimed the piece, forcefully requesting to speak to me, wanting to know my home number, my address. When they realized that this was not going to happen, they started calling back repeatedly, not even saying anything, just to tie up the phone lines. They did this for weeks, apparently having operatives working around the clock with nothing to do sans dial and re-dial our number.

Then it got worse. They began showing up at our office, several of them at a time, demanding to speak to me. What they wanted I had no idea, but they were so aggressive and ill-tempered I didn’t want to find out. Following Lisa’s advice, I stayed away from the place, and didn’t even leave my apartment, for fear I’d somehow be recognized and attacked, kidnapped, killed. I became a virtual hermit, only venturing outside to go the supermarket, and even then I’d wear a hat and sunglasses like a celebrity attempting to avoid the paparazzi. I was scared to death, although, truth be told, it was pretty exciting. My first real piece and people wanted to kill me.

Eventually, the Scientologists backed off, and I was able to return to my normal life.  However, after that, just to be on the safe side, I went back to the film reviews.

Published in We’ll Never Have Paris: Volume 2.

©2010 Russ Josephs