My Weak Weeks in Workers’ Paradises and Beyond

Well, it’s been quite some time since my last blog post, and I’ve done several things. In chronological order, I (1) started feeling sick, (2) went to Berlin, (3) saw Black Mountain and Dead Meadow in Leuven, (4) felt even sicker, (5) attended an anti-fascist protest in Leuven, (6) felt threatened by a fascist protest in Leuven, (7) missed the Decemberists in Brussels, (8) went to Prague, and (9) saw the Go! Team in Brussels.

The above photo is from the anti-fascist protest. Click into the beyond to read more highlights of the other numbered items:

That’s me in Berlin, where I went with my friend Sharon. It was an interesting experience. Sharon left a day earlier than I did, so I had a full Sunday to walk around the city alone. I walked from East Berlin, where we were staying, to West Berlin, covering almost the whole map. I wasn’t expecting it to be as hospitable a city as more Western cities like Brussels, Paris, or Amsterdam; but I was expecting the western part of the city to be nicer than the eastern part, and I was wrong about that. The East is where there are things to do; West Berlin almost seemed more run-down. Anyway, it was interesting to see a city like Berlin in the midst of finding itself, and you might be interested in some photos.

Back in Leuven (you know, at the bat cave), I saw Black Mountain and Dead Meadow. I had seen Black Mountain before, when they opened for the Album Leaf at a venue-botched show last Spring (read previous typings), so I knew they were good, and it turned out I was right. They were pretty good. Dead Meadow were also alright, but it was that kind of stoner garage music that I’m never 100% floored by. The frontman for Dead Meadow also had a strange habit of talking like some kind of cutesy rockstar about how great a time we were having, etc., etc., and that kind of killed my buzz. But then after DM’s set he started hitting on some girl in the crowd who had a boyfriend who still had braces, and I got to watch his hand as he debated – at length – about whether to let it drop low enough to touch the girl’s ass or whether to just keep it at top-of-the-hip level. It was hilarious.

Then I went to the anti-fascist protest in Leuven, which it turned out was a preemptive response to a huge pro-fascist (or, pro-Vlaams Blok) protest that was happening later that night. Huge vans full of riot police descended upon the city, as did two police helicopters and a ton of European-style redneck thugs. I have a friend who got his ass kicked outside his apartment by the fascists after their official protest ended when they just decided to fuck shit up around the city. Unfortunately, I don’t have any more photos; but you can Wikipedia the Vlaams Blok if you want to find more out about them or about the interesting world of Belgian politics. They’re an interesting bunch.

Then I went to Prague, which was a lot like Berlin in terms of its hospitable-ness, but it was worse. I’m really happy I went, but it wasn’t really “fun.” I took photos of the inexplicable Soviet architecture, but I also saw all kinds of explicable Soviet architecture that I didn’t photograph. The photo above is of me in front of what I described as “the biggest Soviet piece of shit ever.” What the photo doesn’t reveal (and what I didn’t realize until just after the photo was taken) was that I was standing in the most disgusting piece of dog shit ever. I think they let their dogs eat carcasses that have been soaked in gasoline or something.

But if they don’t, that’s too bad. The human food in Prague is hilariously bad, too. My friend Megan and I went to a Czech restaurant near our hotel the day we arrived and ordered two garlic soups and three entrees. The garlic soup (which is a traditional dish, just like the three entrees we ordered) consisted of chunks of potato swimming in this truly rancid watery broth flavored with lots and lots of canned garlic. And that was it. The entrees we ordered were the following: potato pancakes with gorgonzola cream sauce and crunchy vegetables, fried potatoes decorated with tomatoes and cream sauce, and crepe stuffed with sautéed vegetables with sauce. Those all sounded like reasonable vegetarian meals, until we got them and found out that they were all the same exact thing. That’s right: the Czech Republic only has three ingredients for food. As we were eating, I could imagine the Soviet families who could only ever eat those three or four ingredients (that is, creamy cheese sauce, cans of “mixed vegetables,” and potatoes – with a little canned garlic to mix things up). That explains why they’ve convinced themselves that the three dishes we got are actually different. “The People don’t want other food! The Workers earned this food!”

Generally, it became pretty hilarious for me to make comments that began with the phrase “The People don’t need …” or that ended with the phrase “… won’t make us productive workers.” I also spent a lot of time talking about how I wanted to find vintage Soviet jumpsuits, but I never really looked, and I certainly couldn’t find any. If you look at the photos, though, you’ll see I snapped two good jumpsuit photos.

More on the Go! Team and the rest in another post.