Fear & Loathing In Germany: World Cup 2006 Part I
Fear & Loathing In Germany: World Cup 2006
PART I
by
Jim Marquez
June 6, Amsterdam:
Bruno the Bear is alive and well, according to the daily rags, and trampling the county side of Germany; he is the last of its kind because for some odd reason the Germans have not had a bear in their neck of the woods for hundreds of years. And, true to form, in order to keep order, a bounty has been set and hunters from all over the world are gathering, as well as us decrepit folks for the freak show they call WORLD CUP!
Name another event on this flaming bag of manure where a Jew, an Arab, a Mexican, a German, an American, an Italian, a Swede, a Costa Rican, a Korean, a Frenchman, an Englishman, and every other street freak in between can sit at a table over a pint and shoot the shit instead of each other. A genuine affection for not only the football but what is represents: humanity! A big, fat wet juicy screaming orgasm full of it. Fuck the Olympics. Fuck the Superbowl. 3 billion tuned into the last World Cup final. Case dismissed.
So, as I rinse my mouth of last night’s bitter remnants with the left over Johnny Walker because I couldn’t find any goddamn Jameson for cheap, I think, no, I feel, that I will be one of the lucky ones to actually see Bruno the Bear. Between the soul damning whorehouse visits, the street fights, the bars, the agonizing heart break of witnessing Team USA crash and burn in the tournament, I feel it is our destiny to meet, for we are one and the same, Bruno and I, the last of our kind: for I am a beast, the last of the great Brown Buffaloes, and Bruno is the last of the great brown bears. We will see…
June 7th-Amsterdam:
Fighting horrendous sleep deprivation I manage to put on a bad drunk, sloppily hit on every woman in the Flying Pig Hostel bar, and not care about any of it because I know I can get my fix fixed over in the red light district a five minute walk away and so therefore they can’t hold a fucking thing over my head and that feels so liberating, and I do so with a hot little Bulgarian number, 20 years old, then, manage to stagger home early, 4:30am, and wake up even earlier the next day with no side affects.
Amsterdam is great, my 5th run through, but let’s face it: this time around it’s serving as distraction before Deutschland. It’s like Vegas, really; 2-3 days and then you want to get the fuck out because you know yourself, and you damn well know you can easily die here from excess while going through thousands on booze and prostys.
June 8th, Amsterdam:
High on hashish. Though my demons are the booze and the dames I bounced through the cafes, got ripped, then had the temerity to hit the Van Gogh Museum and discovered myself crying at every piece of the man’s work. Blubbering I was. Absolutely lost….
Ex-girlfriend, as if on cue, like she did for Korea/Japan World Cup ’02, starts to email me, discovering, I guess, that she can only stomach communication with me when I’m out of the country rather than when in the next town over. Ok, cool by me. In & out of each other’s lives for 15 years now. Christ, that’s longer than most fuckin’ marriages.
5am stumble into Red Light. Italian. 22 years old. Rock hard and pumping but no end result. She’s sweet about it, says, “Next time get it out of the way before you party.” Yeah, honey, heard that one a few times before.
June 9th, Amsterdam:
Come to with a nasty-fuck-you-wish-you-were-beheaded-hangover. My body hits me with this type of unholy misery every so often as a reminder that I am not, despite my protests, a God, after all.
Tons of Americans pouring into town in Team USA jerseys. Spilling out of the Centraal Train Station in unison like our boys did 60 years ago as they came off those boats on the beaches of D-Day.
They’re smart. One day to get high, do the ol’ in-out, then, push on to Germany. That’s what I should’ve done. But I can’t quite do that. It’s the beast in me…
Talked to Joey via email. He’s still in Paris getting his shit together. We’ll meet in Cologne tomorrow afternoon. He said he has a bottle of Jameson ready for us to toast the upcoming madness.
Afternoon Red Light visit. Thai. 19 years old. Yes, I am a crude man!
Tonight must find public viewing area for the opening match: Germany v. Costa Rica. Or, a Dutch bar. Needless to say this city, nay, this entire fucking continent will be cheering on the Ticos. (The Germans came out swinging though, thanks to their manager Klinsman, and wipe the Ticos all over the pitch 4-2. Fuckin’ brutal!)
Still need to work on my new book. Tomorrow…
Witnessed first brawl. One man, late-40s, taking on 4 others in their early-20s in a public square called the Leidensplien. Tables turned over, beers shattering on the ground, confused & slurred voices; broad daylight. The old dude connected on every single kid. They couldn’t quite comprehend the blithering madness of a true drunk unleashed. The old guy’s friends had to drag the old guy off before he killed those boys.
Which reminded me of a scene from last night. Terribly twisted on overpriced whiskey and cheap drugs I’m bopping out of the men’s room in the upstairs of a very loud bar when a huge fuckin’ Dutchman comes up to me. Think he wants to fight. I’m game. My right hand resting on an empty WC attendant’s chair.
“Hey, American! Come here! I want to tell you something!”
Oh Christ, here we go…
I grip the back of the chair, ready to swing, I am not a gentleman; I do not fight fair. I scream and bite and kick and flail about like a pent up buffalo. It’s not pretty. I say, “What’s up, man?”
He sticks his hand out for a shake, says, “Thank you for making my family free: my grandparents, my parents. Without you, I would not be here. Thank you!” Then, he hugs me, he’s in tears. Drunk, yes, but he knew exactly what he was doing.
I heard a lot of that too in Korea at the last cup and it’s a touching, passionate thing to hear and sad at the same time because we used to be such a great nation, doing actual good, doing the right thing for the right reasons. And now, and now…
June 10, Amsterdam Centraal Train Station:
Morning Headline: Bruno in High Country Outside Munich.
Travel days are the worse. You sweat like an overheated buffalo, or bear, carrying all your shit on your back. No bellboys here. No 4-star service. It’s hotter than hell. You haven’t bothered to sleep for fear of oversleeping and missing the train.
Platform is crammed with football supporters in dreadfully loud boosters’ regalia, all headed to Germany on this stifling afternoon: Mexicans, Dutch, Irish, English, American, Brazilian. We wear our nation’s flags over our backs like Superman capes and have to jump tracks to the other side of the station when we’re told in typical clipped-European-fashion by a stray porter that our speed train to Cologne is leaving from an entirely different platform than the one clearly stated on the tote boards. And, it’s leaving in two minutes. With or without you. Is this dude high, or do we trust the Intel?
It takes a few seconds, then, thousands of voices cry out and we scamper off like drunks whose turn has come up to buy the next round, dragging roller luggage across shit-stained floors, crates of bottled beers, bags stuffed with cheesy souvenirs; sombreros and flags flap in the wind as we run and push each other out of the way through the tunnels, trampling the old and the weak and the very young. “Run you fuckin’ tourists! Run!” I can hear the porter laughing behind us, lighting up a spliff no doubt “Run!”
I throw first my large backpack, small daypack, Levi’s denim jacket, and cloth book bag into the wagon assigned for us second class folks and I follow suit just as the train jerks, then, lurches out of the station.
Bastards!
Cruising at 230 mph. happily find myself sitting with a cool German family back from holiday in New York. Mom, dad, & their hot, 25 year old daughter. We glance at each other coyly. I must engage.
Laughter. Teaching them words in English. They practicing the Spanish they picked up in the states. Then, more eye contact. She understands! Oh God I’m falling in love. What’s her name again? Katrina. I want to take her into the WC and make love on the sink.
Katrina!
by
Jim Marquez
June 6, Amsterdam:
Bruno the Bear is alive and well, according to the daily rags, and trampling the county side of Germany; he is the last of its kind because for some odd reason the Germans have not had a bear in their neck of the woods for hundreds of years. And, true to form, in order to keep order, a bounty has been set and hunters from all over the world are gathering, as well as us decrepit folks for the freak show they call WORLD CUP!
Name another event on this flaming bag of manure where a Jew, an Arab, a Mexican, a German, an American, an Italian, a Swede, a Costa Rican, a Korean, a Frenchman, an Englishman, and every other street freak in between can sit at a table over a pint and shoot the shit instead of each other. A genuine affection for not only the football but what is represents: humanity! A big, fat wet juicy screaming orgasm full of it. Fuck the Olympics. Fuck the Superbowl. 3 billion tuned into the last World Cup final. Case dismissed.
So, as I rinse my mouth of last night’s bitter remnants with the left over Johnny Walker because I couldn’t find any goddamn Jameson for cheap, I think, no, I feel, that I will be one of the lucky ones to actually see Bruno the Bear. Between the soul damning whorehouse visits, the street fights, the bars, the agonizing heart break of witnessing Team USA crash and burn in the tournament, I feel it is our destiny to meet, for we are one and the same, Bruno and I, the last of our kind: for I am a beast, the last of the great Brown Buffaloes, and Bruno is the last of the great brown bears. We will see…
June 7th-Amsterdam:
Fighting horrendous sleep deprivation I manage to put on a bad drunk, sloppily hit on every woman in the Flying Pig Hostel bar, and not care about any of it because I know I can get my fix fixed over in the red light district a five minute walk away and so therefore they can’t hold a fucking thing over my head and that feels so liberating, and I do so with a hot little Bulgarian number, 20 years old, then, manage to stagger home early, 4:30am, and wake up even earlier the next day with no side affects.
Amsterdam is great, my 5th run through, but let’s face it: this time around it’s serving as distraction before Deutschland. It’s like Vegas, really; 2-3 days and then you want to get the fuck out because you know yourself, and you damn well know you can easily die here from excess while going through thousands on booze and prostys.
June 8th, Amsterdam:
High on hashish. Though my demons are the booze and the dames I bounced through the cafes, got ripped, then had the temerity to hit the Van Gogh Museum and discovered myself crying at every piece of the man’s work. Blubbering I was. Absolutely lost….
Ex-girlfriend, as if on cue, like she did for Korea/Japan World Cup ’02, starts to email me, discovering, I guess, that she can only stomach communication with me when I’m out of the country rather than when in the next town over. Ok, cool by me. In & out of each other’s lives for 15 years now. Christ, that’s longer than most fuckin’ marriages.
5am stumble into Red Light. Italian. 22 years old. Rock hard and pumping but no end result. She’s sweet about it, says, “Next time get it out of the way before you party.” Yeah, honey, heard that one a few times before.
June 9th, Amsterdam:
Come to with a nasty-fuck-you-wish-you-were-beheaded-hangover. My body hits me with this type of unholy misery every so often as a reminder that I am not, despite my protests, a God, after all.
Tons of Americans pouring into town in Team USA jerseys. Spilling out of the Centraal Train Station in unison like our boys did 60 years ago as they came off those boats on the beaches of D-Day.
They’re smart. One day to get high, do the ol’ in-out, then, push on to Germany. That’s what I should’ve done. But I can’t quite do that. It’s the beast in me…
Talked to Joey via email. He’s still in Paris getting his shit together. We’ll meet in Cologne tomorrow afternoon. He said he has a bottle of Jameson ready for us to toast the upcoming madness.
Afternoon Red Light visit. Thai. 19 years old. Yes, I am a crude man!
Tonight must find public viewing area for the opening match: Germany v. Costa Rica. Or, a Dutch bar. Needless to say this city, nay, this entire fucking continent will be cheering on the Ticos. (The Germans came out swinging though, thanks to their manager Klinsman, and wipe the Ticos all over the pitch 4-2. Fuckin’ brutal!)
Still need to work on my new book. Tomorrow…
Witnessed first brawl. One man, late-40s, taking on 4 others in their early-20s in a public square called the Leidensplien. Tables turned over, beers shattering on the ground, confused & slurred voices; broad daylight. The old dude connected on every single kid. They couldn’t quite comprehend the blithering madness of a true drunk unleashed. The old guy’s friends had to drag the old guy off before he killed those boys.
Which reminded me of a scene from last night. Terribly twisted on overpriced whiskey and cheap drugs I’m bopping out of the men’s room in the upstairs of a very loud bar when a huge fuckin’ Dutchman comes up to me. Think he wants to fight. I’m game. My right hand resting on an empty WC attendant’s chair.
“Hey, American! Come here! I want to tell you something!”
Oh Christ, here we go…
I grip the back of the chair, ready to swing, I am not a gentleman; I do not fight fair. I scream and bite and kick and flail about like a pent up buffalo. It’s not pretty. I say, “What’s up, man?”
He sticks his hand out for a shake, says, “Thank you for making my family free: my grandparents, my parents. Without you, I would not be here. Thank you!” Then, he hugs me, he’s in tears. Drunk, yes, but he knew exactly what he was doing.
I heard a lot of that too in Korea at the last cup and it’s a touching, passionate thing to hear and sad at the same time because we used to be such a great nation, doing actual good, doing the right thing for the right reasons. And now, and now…
June 10, Amsterdam Centraal Train Station:
Morning Headline: Bruno in High Country Outside Munich.
Travel days are the worse. You sweat like an overheated buffalo, or bear, carrying all your shit on your back. No bellboys here. No 4-star service. It’s hotter than hell. You haven’t bothered to sleep for fear of oversleeping and missing the train.
Platform is crammed with football supporters in dreadfully loud boosters’ regalia, all headed to Germany on this stifling afternoon: Mexicans, Dutch, Irish, English, American, Brazilian. We wear our nation’s flags over our backs like Superman capes and have to jump tracks to the other side of the station when we’re told in typical clipped-European-fashion by a stray porter that our speed train to Cologne is leaving from an entirely different platform than the one clearly stated on the tote boards. And, it’s leaving in two minutes. With or without you. Is this dude high, or do we trust the Intel?
It takes a few seconds, then, thousands of voices cry out and we scamper off like drunks whose turn has come up to buy the next round, dragging roller luggage across shit-stained floors, crates of bottled beers, bags stuffed with cheesy souvenirs; sombreros and flags flap in the wind as we run and push each other out of the way through the tunnels, trampling the old and the weak and the very young. “Run you fuckin’ tourists! Run!” I can hear the porter laughing behind us, lighting up a spliff no doubt “Run!”
I throw first my large backpack, small daypack, Levi’s denim jacket, and cloth book bag into the wagon assigned for us second class folks and I follow suit just as the train jerks, then, lurches out of the station.
Bastards!
Cruising at 230 mph. happily find myself sitting with a cool German family back from holiday in New York. Mom, dad, & their hot, 25 year old daughter. We glance at each other coyly. I must engage.
Laughter. Teaching them words in English. They practicing the Spanish they picked up in the states. Then, more eye contact. She understands! Oh God I’m falling in love. What’s her name again? Katrina. I want to take her into the WC and make love on the sink.
Katrina!
I can picture us making babies. Getting married. A whole new invigorating life for me in Europe. Fuck L.A.! I’m sick of it all! Time to shed skin! I want her innocence. Her passion. I want her to want me! Be my wife! Jesus-fucking-Christ! She’s the one! She’s the one! Finally! Oh-Christ finally!
2.5 hours later: Cologne. She lives here. Wait for her to say goodbye to parents as they push forward to Frankfurt. I’ll be in town two weeks, I’ll get her cell, ask her to dinner like a gentleman. She happily obliges. Cool! Call in a couple days.
Finding the “Station Hostel” is a bitch. Crap joint, but for 24 euros a night fuck it. And, Joey, true to his word, the original beast himself, the man who I joyfully allowed to lead me off the path a lifetime ago, is waiting in the room with a sack full of weed, a bottle of Jameson Irish Whiskey, and a lascivious smile.
Is that sulfur I smell?
June 11: Cologne, Germany:
24 consecutive hours of abusive alcoholism, hashish, dancing the samba in the streets with thousands of Brazilians and Englishman ‘til dawn, partying by the water (Cologne sits along the Rhine River), getting picked up by every young German girl in sight (I know we’re still in high school, but I’ve never kissed a brown buffalo before. And neither have my friends. Oh really now?), running into the 1,000 year old cathedral that is the center of town to pray for our wilting souls, getting interviewed by the local press, battling 100 degree heat and humidity and no air conditioning while sharing a room with 4 others; transitory, people come and go throughout our stay, we being the only residents, and the train station around the corner.
5am-6am hear the lone, longing whistles popping off; can hear the echoes, the ghostly voice of a female conductor announcing the arrivals & departures and I wished every night I could be on one of those trains moving further and further away…
Tomorrow the first match.
June 12, Gelsenkirchen, Germany. USA v. Czech Republic: 1 hour train from Cologne.
A debacle on every level. Getting our asses kicked in front of the world 3-0 was the icing on the cake to an otherwise fucked afternoon. The city of Gelsenkirchen woke up one day, apparently, and realized they had to host a world cup match.
The street festival in front of the train station is hot, raucous, people drunk, happy as hell, anticipation of things to come. We went all the way to the semi-finals in Korea ‘02, we expected the same here.
Time to go after two hours of drinking. Below, metros with only two cars! Thousands descending into the tunnels, there are no signs, no guards, no directions. Instead of trains with 10-12 cars allowing hundreds to board for the stadium 15 miles away, at most 40 are getting on each time. Screams, pounding of walls, cursing, blistering heat, humidity, crying, children freaking, drunks hollering, chanting, growling, can’t breathe, elbows in throats, knees in crotches, pressing together, sandwiching, no air, no air, let’s go people, move it! The match is in two hours. Fuck this shit! Joey and I look at each other “THE BUSES!”
We bulldoze back up the stairs; kicking, shoving aside drunks coming down who haven’t seen how bad it is yet, then, gallop to the city buses across the street. Hundreds follow.
Fucking Germans!
There are no stadium shuttles; we have to cram into local city transport with Aunt Gertrude and other locals doing their daily routine, standing room only. Can’t breathe! Swimming in burning sweat. No AC. Windows bolted. Immediate traffic stadium bound. Burning up! Stop at every corner picking up passengers. Driver doesn’t give a fuck, being crushed to death. 35 minutes of this. Feeling weak, faint. Stadium miles away. Fans on foot moving faster outside along bus. No lane-specific route. Assholes! They’re supposed to be good at this shit! Who dropped the motherfuckin’ ball?
Joey & I look at each other: “FUCK THIS!”
At next stop all the Americans in the bus fall against the doors, a human battering ram, the driver starts screaming, we push harder, and literally fall out, me landing on the sidewalk, flopping onto my considerable beer belly. Joey picks up and starts running. Others follow. I saunter far behind. No strength left. Hobble through woods, across train trestles, over a river, grand boulevards. Not one single fucking official to guide us. Hundreds of Americans, scattered, rudderless, left to fend for themselves, the locals probably hoping we say “fuck it” and turn back, but, true to our stubborn nature, and the only aspect I am proud of that makes me an American, we push forward, don’t give up. No surrender! Hold the line, son! Hold the motherfuckin’ line.
We make the match by kick-off. By minute 5 we’re down 1-0. In football that’s bad. The U.S supporters are immediately deflated. By half time the lead has doubled. The Czechs are just too fucking big, strong, organized and scary. Damn.
To be continued…
2.5 hours later: Cologne. She lives here. Wait for her to say goodbye to parents as they push forward to Frankfurt. I’ll be in town two weeks, I’ll get her cell, ask her to dinner like a gentleman. She happily obliges. Cool! Call in a couple days.
Finding the “Station Hostel” is a bitch. Crap joint, but for 24 euros a night fuck it. And, Joey, true to his word, the original beast himself, the man who I joyfully allowed to lead me off the path a lifetime ago, is waiting in the room with a sack full of weed, a bottle of Jameson Irish Whiskey, and a lascivious smile.
Is that sulfur I smell?
June 11: Cologne, Germany:
24 consecutive hours of abusive alcoholism, hashish, dancing the samba in the streets with thousands of Brazilians and Englishman ‘til dawn, partying by the water (Cologne sits along the Rhine River), getting picked up by every young German girl in sight (I know we’re still in high school, but I’ve never kissed a brown buffalo before. And neither have my friends. Oh really now?), running into the 1,000 year old cathedral that is the center of town to pray for our wilting souls, getting interviewed by the local press, battling 100 degree heat and humidity and no air conditioning while sharing a room with 4 others; transitory, people come and go throughout our stay, we being the only residents, and the train station around the corner.
5am-6am hear the lone, longing whistles popping off; can hear the echoes, the ghostly voice of a female conductor announcing the arrivals & departures and I wished every night I could be on one of those trains moving further and further away…
Tomorrow the first match.
June 12, Gelsenkirchen, Germany. USA v. Czech Republic: 1 hour train from Cologne.
A debacle on every level. Getting our asses kicked in front of the world 3-0 was the icing on the cake to an otherwise fucked afternoon. The city of Gelsenkirchen woke up one day, apparently, and realized they had to host a world cup match.
The street festival in front of the train station is hot, raucous, people drunk, happy as hell, anticipation of things to come. We went all the way to the semi-finals in Korea ‘02, we expected the same here.
Time to go after two hours of drinking. Below, metros with only two cars! Thousands descending into the tunnels, there are no signs, no guards, no directions. Instead of trains with 10-12 cars allowing hundreds to board for the stadium 15 miles away, at most 40 are getting on each time. Screams, pounding of walls, cursing, blistering heat, humidity, crying, children freaking, drunks hollering, chanting, growling, can’t breathe, elbows in throats, knees in crotches, pressing together, sandwiching, no air, no air, let’s go people, move it! The match is in two hours. Fuck this shit! Joey and I look at each other “THE BUSES!”
We bulldoze back up the stairs; kicking, shoving aside drunks coming down who haven’t seen how bad it is yet, then, gallop to the city buses across the street. Hundreds follow.
Fucking Germans!
There are no stadium shuttles; we have to cram into local city transport with Aunt Gertrude and other locals doing their daily routine, standing room only. Can’t breathe! Swimming in burning sweat. No AC. Windows bolted. Immediate traffic stadium bound. Burning up! Stop at every corner picking up passengers. Driver doesn’t give a fuck, being crushed to death. 35 minutes of this. Feeling weak, faint. Stadium miles away. Fans on foot moving faster outside along bus. No lane-specific route. Assholes! They’re supposed to be good at this shit! Who dropped the motherfuckin’ ball?
Joey & I look at each other: “FUCK THIS!”
At next stop all the Americans in the bus fall against the doors, a human battering ram, the driver starts screaming, we push harder, and literally fall out, me landing on the sidewalk, flopping onto my considerable beer belly. Joey picks up and starts running. Others follow. I saunter far behind. No strength left. Hobble through woods, across train trestles, over a river, grand boulevards. Not one single fucking official to guide us. Hundreds of Americans, scattered, rudderless, left to fend for themselves, the locals probably hoping we say “fuck it” and turn back, but, true to our stubborn nature, and the only aspect I am proud of that makes me an American, we push forward, don’t give up. No surrender! Hold the line, son! Hold the motherfuckin’ line.
We make the match by kick-off. By minute 5 we’re down 1-0. In football that’s bad. The U.S supporters are immediately deflated. By half time the lead has doubled. The Czechs are just too fucking big, strong, organized and scary. Damn.
To be continued…
posted by JimMarquezTheWriter at
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