the world has turned and left me here

what's going on in the white man's mind

This is the face of what may be the ugliest cat in the world, and what is definitely the ugliest $1500 cat in the world, because Chester has a pedigree. He belongs to Normen's sister Sandra. (Sorry Sandra!)

Spent the last three days in Obersimten hanging out at Normen's house, a trip that had been in the works for a while now. Since his internship at Siemens ended, he's been working like a dog to remodel his parent's old house, and is almost finished with the upstairs level, which now becomes his apartment. It looks damn impressive I must say, more like it belongs in an upscale Manhattan highrise than in a small German village with a population of 646. It's decked out with a nice stereo system, futuristic yellow couch, flat screen TV with a DVD player, a wine bottle rack in the kitchen, huge executive's desk, and has Normen's own artwork on the walls. No comparison between it and Normen's closet-sized apartment in Munich can possibly be drawn. Hey but maybe you'll get to see it for yourself on MTV's Cribs once Normen hits it big. ;-)

So between working around his house and stuff we did some partying. On Friday night we hit the Spirit in nearby Pirmasens, a disco club which--get this--used to be a church. From the outside it still looks like one:

Pretty standard really. In fact you might not think anything was amiss except for the "Spirit" sign above the doorway, and the small one above that proclaiming "Karlsburg Ur-Pils," the dominant beer of the region. But inside certain differences become apparent:

It was definitely the most fun I've ever had in church (!).

Saturday night we went to a party in Kaiserslautern (yes, Martina and Normen live about an hour's drive away from each other). It was shaping up to be pretty lame. There was techno playing in the bomb-shelter-style basement, but nobody was dancing to it...if no one likes the music you might as well have none, so at least people can hold conversations...we were on the verge of leaving when the people started getting interesting.

There was a German guy who looked like Lenny Kravitz, who said in fluent ebonics which I think only I deciphered, "You gotta keep your eyes open man." His eyes widened in demonstration. "You never know what's going on in the white man's mind." Normen and I of course adopted this one. Another black guy had the affect of a comedian and was apparently pretty hilarious, though I could only understand bits of what he was saying. There was a little dude whose every move was a slithering rave move, whether he was dancing, walking, or just gesturing in conversation. But the funniest thing was this totally drunk 40-year-old guy who started dancing on top of a pool table.

There was a chant of "Take it off!" as he showed us seductive glimpses of a beer belly. We had turned away and were talking again when suddenly there was this huge thud and the sound of breaking bottles. After about half a minute the guy appeared again behind the pool table, picking himself off the floor in a suddenly serious mood, as if there was some semblance of decency to be maintained...which there wasn't, because his entire person--from his white t-shirt to his shining bald head--was now covered with smudges of black floor-grime.