There is a horde of people all in the same place, all saying the same things, all wearing the same stuff, all eating equivalence, etc. Equivalence tastes good, btw. But there are also levels of good. More on that in a sec. For most this place of samethingeverything would be the ultimate collective paradise or perhaps utopia. For expats, like worst-moi, this is a German resort club. It is one of many resort clubs that fill the Fernweh need of Das Volk and also provide an adequate amount of entertainment that an otherwise diligent/assiduous/hardworking people could not get back home. This offering of relaxation-industry, btw, comes from the fact that Germans don’t really have a country where they can just kick back, pop open a can and head down to the local Disney World. No. Indeed. Germanin need to get out from underneath the machine of the country they have built. They need to expose their organs, a few times a year, to the other workings of this planet that isn’t about chemical factories, auto industry, Autobahn mismanagement, etc. And so. I feel obliged every so often to come to these artificial places that fulfill such a collective need so that I may sit in collective dinner halls, perhaps not unlike, as the Romans would have put it back in 67.5 B.C., with the teutonic barbarians of the past who did the same thing in their mead halls, and get me fill of–having gone native. Going native, btw, is a termed used by nationalists of whatever nation to describe expats who have turned, who have jumped ship, who have left the nest for another nest, etc. Going native is not as simple a concept as it once was, though. Back in the day, don’t you know, when Henry Miller did it, and before globalization turned the western world into a milling shop where most humans are scrap wood, going native meant just taking a wife from the country you went to. Ok. Maybe it also meant learning the language. But today, again, due to globalization, it can’t mean that anymore. For one thing, it can’t mean that because there are so many people that are forced to leave their countries because those countries have so perfectly commoditized opportunity. Yes. Good old-fashioned opportunity. What happened to it dear worst-reader? Did it leave me or did I leave it? Did it go to that great relaxation resort in the sky where “good” doesn’t have levels anymore? You know, where good is simply as good as it gets–because excellent just isn’t in the cards at this price category? Obviously I don’t know the answer to any of that. But I do know that good cooking at these Germanin resorts differs greatly and with this visit, in this little corner of a Spanish island, this level of good is hard to beat. I have completely fallen for the olives here. I can’t stop eating them. The oranges too. They’re both like fruits of the gods–compared to the stuff we can get back in Colonia. I mean, don’t get me wrong. I know where to get good stuff. It’s always a drive or three away but get I can. Yet when we come to a place like this and all I want to do is eat the olives and devour the oranges… Nomatter. I have gone native and that’s ok. There is no turning back for me after this past quarter of a century. I have learned to live with my decisions. But something always happens when I’m exposed to those natives in an intensive way. Something clicks in me and suddenly everything in the dinner hall starts to turn, romp and rumble.
Conversations in the Germanin mead hall on a Spanish island in the Mediterranean while taking a quick, extended weekend from industrialized hell that is the Colonia Bay.
Scene: Dinner (in the mead hall). Hundreds of real natives gather to fill their bellies with all-included chow and drink. There are no seat assignments so it’s come early, first serve. Who sits with you at these tables is left up to the Thor god or any other Germanic deity or the amount of seating made available. Two middle-aged women decide to join us after having broke the ice the day before at lunch in the same hall. One of the ladies brings a part of the newspaper she was reading before dinner. The article in the newspaper obviously caught her attention. Conversation ensues.
Germanin 1: I just finished this article.
Tommi: What’s it about.
Germanin 1: That guy who murdered a hundred people while he worked at a hospital.
Tommi: Oh yeah. I heard about that guy. Why would he do something like that?
Germanin 1: That’s the thing, isn’t it? Why would anyone do something like that? For the the heavens I do not know. But this reminds me of why people with any sort of power need to be checked.
Tommi: Power? He was a nurse. Didn’t he think he was putting people out of their misery?
Germanin 1: You see, that’s it. People believed that. But I just finished reading that this guy did it because he wanted the attention.
Tommi: The attention?
Germanin 2: Yeah. And there is a power a person like that has over a whole family.
Germanin 1: The people get sick and are made to think that the system will make them well, or at least make them healthy, and what happens? A nurse comes around who sees how these families react to the staff that work at these hospitals and thinks that he can do more than just help the sick.
Germanin 2: Can you believe that?
Tommi: He’s nutbag. We have them all over the place in the US. There was this guy called Doctor Death. Kevorkian was his name. He got his kicks helping people die.
Germanin 2: Yes. I heard of him. But he was assisting people that wanted to die.
Tommi: Oh yeah. I guess you’re right.
Germanin 1: There is a big difference, you know. This guy was about power, I tell you. He was after something else. Something else.
Tommi: What something else?
Germanin 1: It reminds of the power priests have. You know. The priest pedophiles. They have a power over the powerless, don’t they?
Germanin 2: And that’s where this guy was heading. He wanted to be powerful over others.
Tommi: Are you sure about that? Sounds like a just another nutbag to me. Remember those two guys in Germany a few years back when the one guy wanted to be eaten by the other? And it really happened?
Germanin 2: Yes. I remember that.
Tommi: I mean, that really happened. Nutbags, I tell you.
Full stop for now.
Long story short. Three other people got up and left us. We thought they were refilling their plates with food. But they never returned. I wonder why.
Good conversation.
Rant on. -Tommi
worstwriter 