After I posted my last entry, I told Kasch that if there were any errors or anything I wrote that could be construed as offensive (this being another culture and all) that she should tell me. So she read it and she told me, that the locals at Gerbaty were “absolutely not drunk” because if they were, they would be “unable to walk.” I stand corrected! Also this means I was not drunk myself, whoo hoo! I love Berlin.

I did manage to make it until 2AM on Friday night despite my exhausted state. We went to this trendy Vietnamese place called Monsieur Vuongs because someone over on the chowhound.com message board had said this was not to be missed. It is a really cool place, packed and not so expensive and Monsieur Vuong himself seems to be in attendance, an older Vietnamese gentleman standing behind the bar smoking cigarettes. Kasch was not too happy to be in this place with all the trendy “Mitte people” and I cannot really blame her because hell if I would ever be dragged down to the Gaslamp district to eat. As if! Cafe Gerbaty is Kasch’s Vine, and Pankow is her Ocean Beach. I totally understand but on the other hand I was very happy that she humored me in my quest.

After that we went to meet the expat musician, David Pedroza, in a trendy, packed bar, but once again I love this about Berlin: even in the trendy packed bars beer and wine are still a commodity, and therefore reasonable. Still we did not stay long and I was on my way home, I mean ON MY WAY HOME when Tom and Kasch talked me into going to the freeking Cafe Gerbaty again. It’s very difficult since everything is just a subway stop away or two, to say No. Anyhow. It was a very mellow night compared to the previous one and even though I did not make it to bed until 2AM I was well rested and prepared for yesterday’s Let’s Discover More of Berlin with Tom.

First of all, it was sunny yesterday, all day, but windy. After a week of really cold weather and almost constant rain, it was pretty great to put on a lighter jacket for once. I am not going to get into the activities of the day, except to say that by way of the UBahn and SBahn Tom and I made a circle of the entire city, walked through the Tiergarten, and then along a mile-long remnant of the Berlin Wall, and then I made Tom come to a very packed area with me where this place called Tacheles is. It is an old squat that is now a cool and anarchist sort of place but I can imagine that it used to be cooler and more anarchist, right now it is sort of Tourist Anarchist if that makes any sense, which obviously makes no sense. Still, I was very impressed with the place.

Last night Kasch made us a dinner of chicken and potatoes baked in lemon and garlic and I actually made it to bed before midnight.

Today it was even warmer and it was a glorious day with all the Berliners out soaking up the sun. We went to the mother of all flea markets, a massive place with stalls heaving with junk and what I really wanted was a beer glass with Russian writing on it but instead left with a TShirt and a cool new purse. After that Tom and Kasch had to go home so I wandered around my neighborhood of Prenzlauer Berg. There are obscene quantities of coolness and hot looking urban people around here and also they are breeding heavily because every other one has a baby carriage. I sat for an hour or so at a sidewalk cafe on this very happening street, the Kastanienalle, and at one point I watched this dude who looked to be an aging punk rocker, wearing a knee length tweed jacket and a white scarf, walking down the street pushing a PINK baby carriage and also, smoking a cigarette. It’s pretty awesome here, let me tell you.

Anyhow. After some time I went back to my apartment and sat on my balcony with no shoes or socks, it is that warm here all of a sudden. And now I am starving so I have to go eat. The question: Sushi? Russian? Spanish? Doner Kebab? Hmmmm….

It is Friday afternoon and I have been here almost a week. Once again, it is raining outside, but it is not very cold, and the sun even managed to come out today for a few hours. Unfortunately I slept through most of that, due to an insane night last night. I remember when I was in Venice for a month back in 2000, and sometimes I would stay out all night and sleep all day. If I could do that in Venice, where there is not a hell of a lot going on at night, imagine the trouble I can get into in Berlin. I don´t think it is possible that there is any one thing you might want to do at any time of the day or night and not find a place to do it, here in Berlin.

Last night Kasch worked at the Cafe Gerbaty, the bar where she and Tom met last summer when the Mudsharks played there. So, after a day that included a solo trip to the Film Museum and then a killer pizza with Tom at a cavernous, chaotic restaurant called Il Due Forni, we got on the UBahn to Pankow and the bar. We got there at nine and it was already pretty crowded. First we were sitting at a little table in the back but I hated it so I was like, let´s go stand at the bar. We then proceeded to the bar where we hung out for hours and listened to music and watched Kasch bartend. Cafe Gerbaty is an interesting place – it reminds me of a blues club or cafe in North Beach in San Francisco. In fact if you picked the whole place up, complete with the clientele and dropped it on Grant and Green, it would fit right in, except for the German speaking, the cigarette smoke, and the cheap wine and beer. The place is full of aging hippies and other assorted characters and they are there to see the blues and to get totally hammered.

Kasch was working with one other girl, and I forget her name but Tom says everyone calls her “the machine.” Well, you´ve got to be a machine, the way the Berliners can drink. Mi dio, they are incredible. Both of the girls were running, one minute taking out four ginormous beers and always returning with a tray heaving with empty glasses. It was like The Vine on steroids. Actually it was like The Vine on a Friday afternoon in summer during happy hour, TIMES INFINITY. They must go through something like eight kegs and two cases of wine on a Thursday night, and there were only something like a hundred people there.

I was very impressed, as you can tell. I managed to do my best to keep up. When I saw all the wine I saw a reserve Jumilla and I was thinking how I would love to have some of that but it was not open, so I figured I´d just get a plain old Rioja. However when I asked for red wine Kasch immediately went for the Jumilla. I love Kasch! I did not even have to ask. I think I drank the whole bottle, maybe more. No, I think definitely more because we were there until 3 AM. I was pretty hammered by the end there, but so was everyone else. Hence, my exhaustion and the missing of the sun.

The band last night was some dude named Tom Blacksmith and then there was a jam after. During the Tom Blacksmith set a drummer my brother knows came in, a Dutch guy named Marcel van Cleef or somethingorother, who looks kind of like David Thewlis. He hung out with us which was good because my brother has a tendancy to wander off and at one point, this older dude who had been staring at me (at first I could not tell if it was me or someone else he was staring at, I think he was staring at everybody} came over and started talking to me, and I was unable to even tell him I wasn´t much of a German speaker. At which point Marcel told him I was American. The dude then got this sort of disgusted look on his face and said something about Bush, which Marcel translated as, “it is OK you are American, but he does not like Bush.” Well! How fucking original! I never heard that one before! I was sort of irritated to be honest but that could have been the wine talking. No one wants to be reminded of what an asshole their president is while in a room full of drunk East Germans. Anyhow. It goes on.

After Tom Blacksmith played there was a jam that anyone could get in on, and my brother sat in for a couple of songs which thrilled me to no end. Then Marcel sat in, and he really is an incredible drummer. That and the fact that he looks like David Thewlis was a bit of a double whammy there. Later I was talking to him and telling him what an awesome drummer he was and he said something like he would like to “see what life is on the other side.” As in, maybe do something besides being a drummer.

“Are you fucking crazy.” I said. It was a statement not a question. You should have seen this guys face when he played – it was lit up from joy. I was like, dude, you get to do what you want, something that makes you happy, do you know how lucky you are? But he went on about it for a bit, I think he was laughing at my vehemence.

It was quite a night and today I walked around recovering via some enchilada suizas and a glass of white Rioja. Tonight we are meeting a musician from Orange County, David Pedroza, that I found when I was googling my address to see what else is on Kopenhagener Strasse. One thing I have noticed is, despite exhaustion, I am always able to go the distance once again.

Whew. And it´s a Friday…

I am going to lose myself here, I know it. It is snowing outside, quarter-sized chunks of frozen water are coming down from the sky. Oddly, it did not rain today, though the sky threatened it constantly. Tom and I spent what seemed like a decade inside the German History Museum, and upon leaving there was a sort of “what” hanging over the evening, as in: that was fucking knarly, I am tired, you are tired, let´s just check in later.

It is a very odd sensation, having this discussion with your brother on the UBahn when in the forty years you have known him, you´ve never ridden on a subway with him before. Even odder when you get up at your stop and know exactly where to go and he has two more stops but he knows exactly where to go. Trippy.

So we took a night off from the cigarette and beer infused lateness, last night was the first night when I thought I would go insane from the smoke. We were in the “youth center” in Pankow, where Kasch’s brother Flo (short for Florian – note to Carrie, any future Essa baby should be named Florian, cause that is the Best Name Ever) is the manager/bartender. Essentially the youth center is a bar with a disco ball and a foosball table, and every single youth was smoking like a chimney. Also, beers were something like one Euro. The youth center is only open Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday, because it is subsidized by the government. As we walked in, Flo’s girlfriend offered me a Toffiefay candy, something I haven’t eaten since I was a teenager myself. Anyway.

Tonight, after a long day of walking in my neighborhood and then on down to Mitte where I met Tom for a Currywurst and museum visit, I headed back home. With no plans and no one to see I went into the little cafe on the corner, where I ordered something that looked to be chili con carne with a side salad. It was exactly that, only the chili was inside of a potato. Awesome! I sat there and read “Sound Bites” by Alex Kapranos from Franz Ferdinand and this little cafe is perfect, with lots of low murmurs and good cheap food and not an insane amount of smoke. I am sitting by the floor to ceiling glass door while the theme from Zorba the Greek is playing, and I look out and it is snowing! Snowing! My heart is suddenly overflowing with emotion for the third time today; the first was in the Kollwitzplatz, a sweet and leafy square that was today empty but for some singing birds; the second was in the World War II section of the German History museum, where the faces of normal people photographed in their incarcerated state and a plaster replication of a gas chamber pretty much slayed me. The third I am filled with love and longing and outside the window, even now, the snow comes down hard. But my apartment is just across the street, and I am going to climb into bed, look at the snow, drink wine, eat chocolate, and watch German MTV. All of you who know me know how happy I am.

I don’t even know how to start this entry. How do I start? I love my apartment. I love my street. I love my neighborhood. I love Berlin. I love the S Bahn and U Bahn. Uh….

Seriously. I love my little studio on Kopenhagener Strasse. From my window I look down at the street, and a little playground on the corner. Despite frigid temperatures, there are always kids playing there. My first day – the coldest, I think – I sat and watched as some young boys spread their arms and leaned into the freezing wind, like birds do.

There is a wine shop on my street, and an Italian cafe called Bar Centrale. There is a tapas place and also, this internet spot which costs a whopping one Euro per hour. I am less than one block from the Schonhauser Allee station, so I can take the S Bahn or U Bahn very easily from here. Kasch and Tom live just two stops away. I could not be happier with this location I am in.

So Sunday was pretty chill, since it was a) Sunday and b) rainy and c) we were recovering. Yesterday and today, Super Tourist Mode! Yesterday Tom and I headed out to be full on tourists, hitting up many of the typical Berlin sights such as the Brandenberg Gate and Potsdamer Platz. We even went to the famous Cafe Einstein for an overpriced club sandwich. Berlin is a great city just for walking around, even when it is hailing. Yes, it hailed on us, but I didn’t care! Then all of a sudden the sun was out and it was almost hot.

Last night: killer Chinese food and then a late night at the Cafe Gerbaty where Tom and Kasch first met. Everyone smokes like a chimney here but so far I have been able to handle it somewhat.

Today Kasch took me to the KaDeWe department store where on the sixth floor they have this incredible gourmet market. All kinds of spices, chocolate, foods from all over the world… KC Masterpiece BBQ sauce! For SEVEN EURO. There is a huge selection of wine and liquor from all over the world, a bakery, a seafood counter, a deli… and lots of places to sit down and eat something. They even had a Champagne bar and I was dying to go there but Kasch said it was stupid to spend ten euros on a glass of Champagne when outside, you can get a glass of Sekt (German sparkling wine) for only three euros or something. She is right, but I think I might just happen to find myself miraculously at the KaDeWe at some point and I might also have an unquenchable thirst.

Kasch did allow me to buy her a glass of Sekt at a famous cafe called Kranzler and then we went to the totally opposite side of the spectrum, the outdoor Turkish market in Kreuzberg that is held on Tuesday and Friday. Both sides of the street are lined with vendors of olives, arabic breads, fabrics, vegetables, assorted household junk, even a wine guy. From the Neiman Marcusesque vision of the KaDeWe to a Turkish bazaar. Wild. Have I said I love it here yet?

I have to go because I am late for dinner at Kasch and Tom’s, where we will graze on dolmas, tiny peppers stuffed with some kind of creamy stuff, arabic spreads and bread, and cheese that we bought at the Turkish market. Oh, and some Rioja I bought at my local wine shop. I have not had one moment here that I have not absolutely loved.

I am lucky to have such great guides though. Guides that know all the cool places.

Onward.

It is Sunday night here in Berlin and I am in a bizarre room with peach colored walls and a needlepoint of some flamingos drinking out of a stream in a frame that is situated just under the ceiling. The rest of the wall is bare except for bright peach and it stinks like stale cigarettes in here. But so what. I am in Berlin!

I got here last night and was picked up at the airport by Tom, Kasch, and Kasch’s dad, Wolfgang. We went to my apartment and dropped my stuff off and then immediately went to a dinner party in celebration of Kasch’s grandmother’s birthday. The restaurant, and the area where Wolfgang and Grandma live, is in an area of Berlin that is like a little village in a forest. We drove through the city and then down a dark forest road and an deer or something ran across it, and I was like where ARE we? In Berlin! Berlin has wooded areas with wild animals running across the road. Crazy.

Anyhow. We get to the restaurant and we are all in our own room – cousins, grandparents, aunts, uncles, children, and me and Tom. They had a buffet in the room with all kinds of cheese and cold meats, and goulash, and chafing dishes with roulades of beef and creamed chicken and potatoes. And this is the fantastic part – we were there for FIVE HOURS. I got up and ate stuff every hour or so, as did everyone there. Many, many, MANY beers, bottles of wine, and shots of some kind of herbal liqueur were consumed. These people are so cool, so friendly, and so accommodating… one of the cousins made a little speech about his grandma and said it in both German and English, just so Tom and I would understand.

I could have sat there all night, but then it was 1:30 AM and we were far away from the part of Berlin where we were sleeping, so we took the train back in. At one point we changed trains and the trains and the station were packed with people at 2:30 AM. The bars don’t close here until the last person has gone home.

I unpacked a little and finally crashed at four so I spent this morning sleeping. This afternoon we went and ate a schwarma and then Tom went to a rehearsal so Kasch and I sat in the window of a tapas bar in Pankow and had some wine, and later Antonia, Kasch’s daughter came and we ate a big plate of cold meats and olives and potato salad.

Last night, when Wolfgang ordered his first of about fifteen shots of some kind of herbal liqueur, I asked him “is that Underberg?” “Underberg is for CHILDREN” He yelled. Finally, I am home!

OK well the stench is sort of getting to me so I think I will mosey on back to Kasch’s. More later.

Is the blog dead? Not just my blog, but everyone’s blog? It’s not what it used to be, let’s face it.

If you have a blog, and you don’t write in it all the time, then it is not a blog. Right?

Tomorrow I head to Berlin, a city that I have wanted to experience forever. Another transatlantic flight, another valium, another night passed in that weird void that takes me from California to another planet. When I get there I will be with family. I have never been picked up at a European airport by family before. I can’t tell you what a bonus that is; it’s like flying first class or something.

In the end, I belong to big cities like Berlin. Amazing things will happen. More from the road.

Wilco will be streaming their new record, Sky Blue Sky, again tomorrow… head over to Wilcoworld and check it out. The hours are:

2 pm – 2 am GMT
10 am – 10 pm EASTERN
7 am – 7 pm PACIFIC

and 1 am – 1 pm AEDT – Monday
(Yo Lisa, check it out.)

I love that Wilco does this stuff. They are awesome.

I never wrote about February 9th’s Sparklehorse show at the Henry Fonda Theater in L.A. It was the last night of one straight month on the road, and when I got home, well, I didn’t really feel like writing about much of anything. If it had been some mind-blowing show a la Eels I might have been forced by experience to write about it, but it wasn’t. It was merely a good show, and especially good for people like me: the People Who Love Mark Linkous.

Mark Linkous IS Sparklehorse. He’s this sort of quiet, mellow, introverted, mysterious, enigmatic, tripped out genius. His records are, at the same time, scratchy and harsh and lush and gorgeous; his songs are discordant lullabies. He’s a studio guy, a loner, a dude who probably won’t be looking for a blow job after a show. (Not that I know of, but what do I know? Maybe he is totally looking for a blow job after the show.)

I saw Sparklehorse in Germany once, and it was a quiet and mellow show, so quiet and mellow that on the night of the L.A. show I almost wanted to drive straight home instead of stopping in L.A. But I couldn’t help myself, so stop I did.

The show was, well, like the one in Germany, with an adoring L.A. audience who all love Mark Linkous. It only lasted an hour, but there were moments of true beauty and I was very happy I went in the end.

The reason I bring this up after all this time is, Bradley has the Boston show up on his blog, and listening to all the songs again is bringing it all back. It is really great stuff – check it out.

Is it just me, or is this year flying by?

My brother Tom, who moved to Berlin last month, now has a myspace music page. I find this pretty humorous, as even though I am an internet junkie I would never have a myspace page. That’s what I have this website for, I guess. I can have a page AND control it. Plus, I can see all the sick and twisted things people search for in my site. And I never have to invite anyone to be my “friend.”

I guess if I were a musician I would have a myspace page and I encourage all you myspacers to head to Tom’s page and sign up to be his “friend.”

In other news, the new Arcade Fire record is out and it is dark and deep and crazy. Kind of sags in the middle a bit, but it’s pretty epic. I have also heard the new Wilco , and as you all know I am sort of a freak about Wilco, so of course these are Happy Times for me. What do I think? It doesn’t have the harsh creativity of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot or the orgasmic reverb of A Ghost is Born, so at first I was, well, unsure. It’s one of those records that grows on you, slowly, and I am starting to really love it. After a while you start thinking about how it will sound live.

So how will it sound live? AWESOME. It’s sounding more and more awesome even as we read.

This morning I got an email from the Lollapalooza people and they were selling tickets for sixty bucks for all three days; even though I can’t really afford it I tried to buy a ticket. So I got in the waiting cue and waited, and waited, and waited. After an hour I gave up. Oh well.

Myspace. Giggle. Tommy must have a lot of time on his hands.

Yesterday I got an early morning call that The Shins have a San Diego date, and that tickets were going on sale today.

It’s true, they are coming to San Diego, but for some reason this is all totally under the radar. I bought tickets on the Shins website YESTERDAY. Just like that, got tickets. No racing heart, no trying to put the stupid code into a box on Ticketmaster and failing to get it right three times as the clock ticks.

They are playing at the hated SOMA, but beggars can’t be choosers, right? Lucky San Francisco gets them for two nights at the Warfield. Tickets go on sale at Ticketmaster tomorrow but you can get them from the Shins website TODAY. Go! Go!

Mark is pretty bummed about the SOMA thing. We both HATE that venue. And they are playing a show in Berlin just a few days after I get home (causing me to go into fits.) Still, I am just happy that I got tickets, because I love, love, love this band.

Arcade Fire at the Greek in Berkeley also goes on sale tomorrow at 10:00. This year is looking pretty stellar so far, show wise. I’m kind of jealous of the Bay Area peeps at the moment, but having tickets to see Arcade Fire in Berlin doesn’t suck, does it?

This is totally cool. Someone morphed the fight scene from Rumble Fish and Arcade Fire’s Intervention. Motorcycle Boy!

Also, whatever happened to Vincent Spano?