Schadenfreude, German Speeding Ticket (1), Big Brother

I don’t watch much TV. But when I do watch it I do so in order to stay (somehow) in-touch. You know, in-touch with what’s happening inside contemporary western society’s third-grade brain. In the late nineties when the TV phenomenon “Big Brother” hit the airwaves a thought struck me immediately. Does anyone care to hear what my first thought was when this TV show started? No…?

(Here’s the advantage of having your own blog…)

I thought: Gee. Now a whole new generation of idiocrats will grow up ignorant to what the term “big brother” really is about. Potentially - and in the syndicated future (?) - millions of humans will associate these two important words with some dip-shit TV show instead of one of the most significant literary achievements of the 2oth century. I think that is very wrong. And I am most likely on a lost crusade bringing this to light. But then again, I experience joyous Schadenfreude knowing that so many fellow humans watch so much krapp. This personal swimming pool of luscious Schadenfreude isn’t the same as the Schadenfreude TV viewers experience - while watching so-called “reality” TV - which, naturally, I cannot stomach. My Schadenfreude is 180 degrees different. Seriously. To me Schadenfreude does one thing and one thing only: it enhances the intellectual eliteness upon which I walk and in no way provides any sort of entertainment. What a sad state of existence, you say!

Wow. Where’s Gerry Springer when you need him?

The past few months have been mentally and emotional very unstable for me. The reason is because I have the feeling that all my eliteness lust is finally catching up to me. Certainly that has something to do with divorce-time. Then there’s also the issue that, because of divorce, I have returned without traveling through time & space to the/a position where/when life was supposed to be about being poor and without means. And that is all due to the land that basically founded SCHADENFREUDE.

Speaking of… Schadenfreude?

If you ever want or have to live among the Germans, there are a few things you must comprehend. Comprehending these things in your own language is perfectly OK. The advantage of modern Germany is that you don’t have to speak German to understand what it is to be German. You just have to learn how to bark. Oh there was a day when the bark was a purr - but that is simply to long ago. Only if you want or need to eat and maybe have a roof over your head will eventually learning German be of any use. That is, if you actually take it upon yourself to live in such a forsaken country.

I will only address three of the many things that you need to understand in order to know everything about Germans. But, like TV, I don’t want to challenge anyone too much.

• Schadenfreude (damage, harm + joy)
  
• Neid (envy, grudge, jealousy)
• The position of speed traps

Sadly, one of the most significant things I’ve learned since moving to Germany is how collectively easy it is to take the high moral ground when it comes to right or wrong. An example of this is in my previous post, which you can read in full by clicking here. In that previous post, I was snitched on by some German who wanted to get something for nothing. The reality is, I don’t have a problem with trying to get something for nothing - as long as you do it to the corporate monsters. But when the masses start fucking each other up the ass…

Don’t worry. I’m not a communist. I just live in a pseudo-communist country. It is inevitable that some of the paint rubs off…

Schadenfreude and Neid are two things that easily lead to the peaks of German moral (high) ground(s). This ground is so high that I refuse to trek its walls. Therefore, I must remain unemployed and poor. You know, in the language of you corporates out there, I’m just way-out of the club. You see, if I decided to trek the walls of this high moral ground - or enter the/your club - then I would have to go on welfare and eventually some dip-shit work-release program. A sad state of opportunity, indeed, is this land.

And. Yes. I am stuck-up and refuse to work a McJob - which is all this country can offer. Seriously. If it wasn’t for the language and the Euro arrogance only comparable to France/Paris, this place, with its ompa swingers and pot-bellied-freedom… would be just like the United Mistakes of America - with a bit less posh…

Unfortunately, I am one of the many foreigners in this country that has been caught up in the lie that is German “social market economics”. The reality is: Germany is a subservient welfare state devoid of opportunity. All it has to offer is Schadenfreude and Neid. Which probably isn’t the worst stuff in life. I mean, come on. Wouldn’t you want to be around a bunch of people that inherit Porsche’s and get three weeks paid vacation a year? Or is it just me? No…? Retract…

One of the experiences I’ll never forget after moving “abroad”…

At one of my last “career” jobs I heard colleagues talking about me behind my back. (That’s right, someone snitched on them.) So I decided to deceive them ALL and listen to what they had to say. When it was my turn to leave the corporate meeting I slowly walked around a corner and hid. I left the door perfectly ajar. I heard them talk about how they didn’t understand why I was there taking their jobs away and - and don’t ask me how they got onto this - why z’ Americans still have their military stationed on German land.

Needless to say, I voluntarily left that company after about one year of employment. It was the sixth or seventh or eighth company I had worked for in over ten years. The downward spin of being competent and capable, efficient and entrepreneurial, the ambitious busy-body more than willing to “work”, had come to an end. I was unable to fit in to the compulsive monotony of corporate careerism. On top of that… I couldn’t take all the Neid and Schadenfreude anymore. Where corporate America is bad - corporate nation-state-hood is worse. The German bosses liked me because of my Americanisms and how I pushed projects through to fruition. But the so-called colleagues that surrounded me didn’t think the same way. Oh, how far away they all were/are from the “social” part of their nation-state-lie. There was no getting into this/that club, I tell you. (And so… (Worst)Writer was born.)

Of course my native country has Schadenfreude and Neid, as well. But the main difference is that the U.S. or those who live and work there, do not forfeit opportunity in the name of some whacked-out collective system hell-bent on doing nothing more than raising taxes, increasing bottle deposits in the name of the environment, and relegating education & work based on social status.

The years now pass me. So I wait. Endearingly. But I have stopped hiding around corners. Instead, I wait for the crumbs that have been distributed by the vast cloning fields of German Maria Antoinettes. There are moments where I will almost take anything. Except, still, a McJob. In the mean-time, I’ve convinced myself that there might be room in the world of book publishing for little ol’ me.

Maybe not.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying ALL Germans are fucking nasty, arrogant and emotional zombies. My girlfriend is very cool and if it wasn’t for all the lovin’ she gives me then maybe she could be a Saint just like Ratzinger eventually will be. (Or?) Then there’s our neighbor. She’s a really cool German. There’s also Mirko, a guy that tried to help me out - but now he’s too busy dealing with “social market economics” as well. I also really like Roger… Wait. Roger is actually Turkish. Anywho.

The thing is, as a foreigner who came to this country not to exploit it or take advantage of it, but to acquire a bit of experience and learning and get to know my roots, I’m sick & fucking tired of all the Sour-Puss faces that have turned modern Germany into a country of collective squabblers - just like my home country. I have bailed out of their system yet they still fuck with me. Where my native country is culturally and socially falling apart - since 9/11 and the whole debacle that is “the” war - you would think that a people like the Germans could somehow, with their abilities and efficiencies, make an example of how to… Gee. I don’t know… Somehow fight this lie that is globalization. But they do nothing more than follow THE(IR) leader - like a good little puppy should. Or is it lemming?

Ah. A moment to digress. A moment to collect myself and take it like a man…

Yes. The truth is, I do have to take it. Take it right up the proverbial bum. For the first time in many, many years… That is, the first time since leaving America where county and state cops try to be John Wayne while writing you up for some dip-shit traffic violation, I finally got my first German speeding tickets. That’s right. Plural. I got two speeding tickets in one year. Seriously. I haven’t received a speeding ticket since the early 1980’s. At the time I was doing 70mph in a 55 zone somewhere near my beloved Chesapeake Bay and the only reason I didn’t see the trooper and his fancy radar gun on the side of the road was because the girl’s head was moving up and down in my lap. You can see through 80’s hair enough so as not to run over small children or domesticated mutts. But big, fuzzy 80’s hair moving up and down in your lap is somehow distracting when it comes to identifying the details of tip-hungry troopers protecting the American highway - among other things.

In closing and for those interested, here’s what a German speeding ticket looks like. To all you Germans… who hate all the shit I write about you (which ultimately is in good spirit). You can rejoice in Schadenfreude! As far as your Neid is concerned: in the radar pic below I’m driving a very sexy and clean 1993 Alfa Spider 2.0. (In America we call it The Graduate.)

Rant on.

-tgs-