A ride on the M85 from Hauptstrasse to the main station, August 16

2009

I

Main street

The current social conditions of an area can be clearly seen in its so-called “infrastructure”: the main street exists in a fragile balance of “good” stores (Commerz-/Berliner Bank, organic supermarket, good bakery, connection to Akazienstrasse …) and cheap stores (mattress shop/ gambling shops/ betting shops/ multi-shops/ kebab snack bars). A constellation that could tip over at any time: the Hertie department store closed two years ago, Reno shoes have moved in … Not a good sign. Students, Turks, well-off people in their mid-thirties to mid-fifties, middle-class pensioners and homeless people still mingle here.

II

Potsdamer Strasse

A group of tall, athletic Tommy Hilfiger college student replicas wait for the bus, tanned, short-haired in sunglasses, shorts, polo shirts and high-priced casual footwear (moccasins, leather sandals or high-end sneakers). Their loud, ridiculous poses are intended to express worldly nonchalance.

On the other side of the street, the opposite type is the same age: beefy, chubby, red-faced guys with sportsman’s haircuts (streaks, curled-up middle hair, heavily muscled) and a simultaneous build-up of fat in ordinary three-quarter pants, loudly printed T-shirts or open leisure shirts and flip-flops.

Both groups have one thing in common: the beer bottles held casually in their hands and poses that scream to high heaven, which they have copied from their respective leading media figures. The common denominator: figures like Pocher, Raab and Schweiger.

III

Potsdamer Platz

I mistakenly read Potsdamer Terror instead of Potsdamer Tor on a huge advertising poster covering a building site.

IV

Friedrich-Ebert-Strasse

A busty tourist beauty struts through the concrete stele course of the Holocaust memorial. The sex appeal she displays, wrapped up in historical emotion, is of movie quality. No RTL advertising or documentary service producer could wish for better material.

V

Government district

I turn into the street named after Konrad Adenauer with a certain patronizing disgust, remembering his sly cunning.

I cannot grasp the monumental wasteland of the government district. I am alienated by the almost reverent strolling of people along the wretchedly sterile concrete road along the banks of the Spree, which is nothing other than ordered post-modern stately architecture, but is sold to the astonished people in the media at an extremely high price as state of the artworld class(and had to be paid for by them).

A small, old boat from the GDR, sailing between the tourist steamers and Wannsee yachts, makes me feel better.

Young couples from the lower class elite take bulging “Dunkin Donats” or “Burger King” bags out of the trunks of their BMW 3 Series and Audi A4s for their promenade picnics. The so-called beach bars are packed.

VI

Federal press beach

Sound: loveless pseudo-“Cafe-del-Mar”-lounge-compilation-somehow, fountain splashing, bus engine noises, scraps of conversation, cell phone beeping, trains passing by (ICE-regional express-S-Bahn-regional express-S-Bahn-ICE-etc.), footsteps on wooden planks. Casual urban ballerina.

VII

Neue Schönhauser, Monsieur Vong

A black Touran SUV with a West German provincial license plate drives along the road at walking pace. In it are two affluent couples in their mid-thirties gawping. A feeling of hatred mixed with disgust rises in me. What I’m seeing right now seems to be a parable for everything I detest about my environment: ostentation, tastelessness, facelessness, obsession with money, status, success, sham sovereignty, complacency … people who feel and actually are like Til Schweiger … mediocre fuckwits in the fast lane to deflated satiety … Their arrogance is compulsively compensated stupidity.

The simultaneously dreamy and absolutely clear gaze of an angelic little child sitting two meters away from me makes me smile and forget the previous moment. Then I finally enjoy my wonderful meal.