dresden

it turns out krakow is seven hours away from berlin. this was news to me. i thought krakow was on berlin's suburban rail, somehow. susie and i were planning on taking a three-day trip to poland. then we discovered how long it takes to get there. basic geography, of course, suggests that this makes no sense, but my guess is that when dealing with countries of the former eastern bloc, we should throw out all assumptions predicated on sound infrastructure and ready ourselves, instead, to buy sturdy pack-goats at the border. i have reserved part of october to find out if this is true.

so instead we went to dresden for two days, then a nearby national park for the third, and now we're back. we have developed complementary daily routines: susie cooks dinner, and i work late and get home around midnight, at which point i make humorous observations about my day, shovel 2 or 3 bowls of pasta in my mouth, and then collapse on a bed or sofa, moaning loudly. susie regards me with unease. "i hope i never have a man," she pronounces.

in dresden we got to see angela merkel give a campaign speech in front of the cathedral. angela merkel is the chancellor candidate of the CDU, a party which is a bit more right-wing than the social democrats, who are currently in power. she's said she wants more friendly relations with the u.s., although i doubt this means german troops in iraq, which was the claim of a bunch of posters we saw. anyway, her party has the plurality in polls these days--about 42%--and it seems to be comfortingly middle-of-the-road. its politics are not insane. they have little to do with american neoconservatism.

nevertheless, it got WAY PROTESTED. about half of the audience was vocally anti-CDU, and there was whistling and booing the entire time. for about an hour. not once was there a point at which someone was not whistling or booing. and they were right up in her face. it was an interesting departure from american campaign rallies, to me. there is no way on earth the average american politician would give a 1-hour speech through what i got to see in dresden. but this seems to be normal in germany. no one seemed to think it was weird that angela merkel was being confronted by signs, bobbing above people's heads, screaming to the world that she was a liar and a hypocrite, or the occasional coordinated chant of "piss off" ("hau ab," which sounds particularly nasty and percussive--although to be fair, most german chants do, even those with themes like "peace is awesome" or "we are in favor of cute furry animals"). in america, that doesn't happen. right? that never happens, and maybe it should. no way does president bush handle a situation like that well. no way does ralph nader, for that matter.

the speech itself was boring, at least what i understood of it. it turns out angela merkel is in favor of democracy, as well as reducing unemployment. angela merkel also has many opinions regarding the economy. like: it should get stronger!!! angela merkel also has woman-jowls, and they are oddly becoming.

dresden has lots of attractive baroque buildings. the national park contained many trees. susie instructed me in the art of helping women to purchase shoes, and while i now feel qualified to do so, i devoutly hope the opportunity never arises.

my show is on friday, and i've been busy practicing and writing songs: recently i've been working on an awesome one called "british guy." the lyrics, they go a little something like this:

he shows up to class in those preppy clothes
and the girls all love his... ac-cent
well, i could talk stupid too--everybody knows
that he's just trying to be a little... diff-e-rent

please suppress the obvious comparisons to cole porter. unlike him, i will not be critically injured by falling off of a horse. why? because horses smell terrible.