It’s been another busy worst-day, dear worst-reader. It started with early day chores having something to do with goodies for evening grub consumption. The joke is always on me, though. Reason? I’m the one that has to prepare the evening grub. And I’m no good at getting the grub. But at least I can cook it. Nonetheless. Let’s go there, shall we? The pic (above) with the noodles fails to contain the broth of my bi-montthly Japanese soup night. Nomatter. The other pic is of a Mini I checked out and test drove today. Although I’m no advocate for cars in this f’d-up world, I’m not anti-auto. They are quite useful. The thing is, I’ve been living with leased corpo cars for the better part of twenty years. You know what? Corpo cars suck. (But that’s a whole ‘nother post.) I haven’t owned a car since… way back when. But I have been driving lots. And not just driving. I’ve been driven on German f’n Autobahns. And you know what? German Autobahns… suck. You want to know why? They suck because, well, these f’n Germans just started building them. Seriously. They just started building them, like, yesterday. And you know what that means? It means traffic traffic traffic traffic traffic, etc. Of course, leasing corpo cars in Germania is an industry für sich. With that in mind, I’m tired of leasing these damn redundant things so I can get stuck in traffic. And so. Since we want to be able to travel around Europe on e-bike vacations and we’ve long since realised that we can’t do this with trains, we’ve decided to go the route of actually buying/owning an f’n car. Hence we had Japanese soup tonight and I test drove a 2017 Mini Clubman. The trick with this particular vehicle is that it has a AHK (Anhängerkupplung). You know, one of those tow-bars installed. That way we can take our f’n e-bikes with us when we buy one of them/those things that attach to the tow-bar and we can put the bikes on it. And before you consider barking at me (us) for traveling with e-bikes with a car, we would rather do it with the train but that just ain’t possible on account the f’n German trains are a bitch bitch bitch–and the f’n things never run on-time anymore anyway. But I digress.

Rant on.

-T

Good food, good conversation and worst-writer? Good idear or bad idear? I guess that’s what it’s all about in these worst-times, or, dear worst-reader? Indeed. Good food! Of course, we can’t let such an opportunity pass without a bit of ranting. Attendees of this Bruch: A Russian, a Serb, an American and a German. And now. Worst-words of the day while discussing the uselessness in this world of Germany and its politics after, of course, discussing the ramifications of whether or not it was/is a good idear for #eurowasteland to have pseudo trials run by so-called “neutral jurists” and thereby attempting, out of some form of abstract moral-code, in bringing war criminals to justice from the Yugoslav Wars?

“Dude, Germany is nothing more than a pseudo colony of the US but with a strange language. So it doesn’t matter what it wants. Nothing it does happens unless the fcuking CIA makes it happen. Except, maybe, redesigning a VW. Fcuk Germany.”

Rant on.

-T

“Growing up, I was surrounded by broken men ― men who came home from the war filled with shrapnel and guilt. Men who were misled into a losing ideology. …  And right now they’re resting in hell.” -Arnold Schwarzenegger

My grandfather was in the German Navy in WW2. I’ll never forget him telling me how much he hated Hitler. He also hated the Nazi flag. Once when on a ship crossing the baltic, he heard some of his comrades talking about Hitler. He said that they were making jokes about Hitler, laughing, etc. Two days later after reaching port, the men who were talking and laughing had disappeared. No one who served with them on that ship ever heard from them again. My grandfather never heard another sailor making those kinds of jokes again either.

My grandfather told me what it’s like to look up in the sky and watch American and British planes open their bomb-bay doors. The screeching sound of those bombs made you lose your orientation when trying to find cover, he said. What he meant to say was… you lose your mind. His English wasn’t perfect–but it was damn good. Luckily, he was outside of Bremen that day so he wasn’t in direct danger of getting hit. But he watched both the planes fly off beyond the horizon and the smoke and dust rise in the sky of Bremen.

My grandfather was captured by British soldiers as he was trying to defend his ship after the port where it was docked in Belgium was invaded in 1944. Two of his comrades were shot and died instantly, one fell into the water. As my grandfather reached for a concussion grenade, a British soldier pointed a gun at him and yelled… Don’t. My grandfather surrendered. He was taken to a prison camp in England where, because of his ability to speak English, was made a kind-of chief liaison officer.

My grandfather always expressed, with the deepest sincerity a defeated Prussian can, how grateful he was that the Americans not only freed him but also Germany from the horror of Hitler.

No hate. No Nazis.

Rant on.

-T

So. Like. I’m riding my bike around a god-knows-where northern Germania vacation village. On the one side of me I’ve got the Baltic Sea and Denmark and on the other side hellacious church bells ringing as though there’s no tomorrow. So I turn the corner and approach the bells that are thundering and the first thing I notice is the parking lot of the church. It is filled with Mercedes Benz after Mercedes Benz. Accordingly, a whole bunch of really old white people are getting out of those cars and trekking their way up the cobble stones. Within the entrance of the church I can see–and perhaps feel–its interior filled with the soothing light of candles, their God and the shade of someone recently passed. I proceed to take a few tourist picture of the old church–that is surrounded by graves–that was initially built in seventeen something or other (you know how it is with old $hit here in #eurowasteland) and then, before all the Mercedes are empty, I skedattle my way outta there. Here’s two pics of what the experience left behind.

Rant on.

About ten years ago I got a nasty tick bite between my big toe and my pointer toe on my left foot. I was doing some garden work visiting family in my beloved #americant and I wore sandals when I should have worn boots. Although I managed to get the tick off without much hassle, the swelling and puss coming out of the wound that was left behind became unbearable by the next morning. I jumped in my rental car and drove to a wal-mart-like clinic in town that my sister recommended. When asked by the receptionist if I had insurance I told her I did but that I lived in Germany. Looking at my insurance card she said, “Oh, I don’t even know where to begin with a language like that.” I then told her that depending on the cost, I’d rather pay directly. “Oh, ok then,” she said. “I need a credit card.” I gave her my German credit card and took my place among the many in the waiting room and filled out the patient questionnaire. Eventually a young Indian doctor helped me by opening the tick bite, cleaning it out and giving me some antibiotics. “Within a day or two you will be right as rain,” he said. Upon leaving the clinic, the receptionist charged my credit card eighty dollars.

I got hit in the knee by a van in the early afternoon last Thursday while riding my bike. The pain and swelling made me go to a nearby emergency room that same evening. Hoping only to get an x-ray to see if I had broken anything, I entered an ordeal that ended up consuming days, hours in waiting rooms and numerous doctors that confused me more than when confronted by Pam Anderson speaking Chinese. As of the worst-writing of this worst-post, I’ve had x-rays, CT scans and even my first MRI. I’ve been given crutches, a leg brace and even some sodium-something-or-other that I’m self injecting to prevent thrombosis because I’m not supposed to move my left leg.

As you may or may not know, dear worst-reader, Germany has a fairly decent national healthcare system. If you were to ask me if I utilise that system I would answer: fcuk no! Reason for the expletive is another post. Reason that I’ve always been a skeptic regarding national health insurance systems will be dealt with in the rest of this worst-post.

Indeed. After all the care I’ve been given regarding my knee in the past few days only two things stand out about the whole ordeal.

1. I will not see a doctor bill for all the care I’ve been receiving and I wish I could/would see it.
2. No one. And I mean no one in this (sarcasm on) amazing (sarcasm off) healthcare system has asked me once about how it came to be that I was hit by a van while riding my bike.

But before I get too deep into bitching & moaning about Germans and how the only thing they have to offer the world is über-priced luxury mass produced cars driven and designed by idiots, let me just say this: the German national healthcare system sucks! It sucks batballs. It blows horny goat-mules that have herpes on their penises. If German healthcare were a duck I’d shoot it with my twelve gauge and cook it up in a witches pot only to throw it away and bury it to prevent others from eating it. Then I’d gorge on self-pity-candy till I throw up unicorn puke. Oh. And I hate things.

Or maybe not.

I warned my better half after the initial emergency room visit after that fcuking van hit me that I would have to be careful regarding my care. “I’m not worried about the costs, honey, of course. But I am worried about what THEY could do to me,” I said. My better-half laughed and smirked as only a well-off German, spoiled by the spoils of The Marshall Plan, can. By the end of my initial emergency room endeavour things were clear: there was a limit to how much care I would get and, more importantly, on whose terms that care would take place. And so, they took some x-rays of my knee. From the x-rays they thought I had a tibial plateau fracture but said, because of lack of personnel, I would have to come back in the morning to get a CT scan, which would show more bone detail. I returned bright and shinny the next morning and, without much wait, got my CT scan. Conclusion? No fracture. Then the doctor in the hospital recommended a MRI scan to see if there was soft tissue damage. When the doctor tried to arrange the MRI she came back saying that I would first have to go to a regular doctor. Obviously the hospital had booked what it could off my insurance up to that point and obviously reached a limit. In order to get the further care–that they were recommending–I would have to go to another (different) doctor. Yeah, that makes sense. Or? They either work like a team or they work in collusion. I found a local orthopaedic doctor online. Let the circus begin!

The orthopaedic specialist, without even examining me, gave me a prescription for an MRI of my knee. Should I be thanking the heavens now, I thought. Because of demand, though, I would have to wait till June 20 to get the MRI done. Oh really! Luckily my neighbour was a radiologist and could squeeze me in at her hospital the next day. I only had to wait till Monday to return to the orthopaedic specialist with the new pictures. Bright and early on Monday I waited a full hour and a half in his waiting room. When I finally got to see the doctor–again without ever even touching my knee–he was reading from the MRI report–he never even looked at the pics–he recommended an operation to fix some minor cartilage damage.

Whaaaaaaaaa!

“But doctor, don’t you even want to look at my knee?”

He arrogantly pointed to the document from MRI doctor. At the same time he was massaging the back of his throat with the temple tips of his rimless glasses. He sat down in the exam room while I remained standing.

“But doctor, when I was younger I didn’t treat my knees well as I wasted a great deal of intellectual time playing highschool sports in suburban hell #americant and chasing girls. Till my mid-thirties I regularly jogged five to eight miles three or four times a week and also ran away from girls. I had to give up jogging because of a bone cyst that had developed on my left achilles which I got from an injury when I was young–running away from girls. By my early forties I had learned that my left leg was two centimetres shorter (or longer?) than my right leg–and this was caused by marriage and no longer running away from girls. Since my late forties I’ve been limping regularly, especially after heavy rains and three divorces…”

“Wait. Please, please,” the doctor said. “I would recommend two doctors for the operation on your knee. One of the doctors might be a problem to schedule because of your insurance. You don’t have good insurance. The other doctor will do it but it may take a year before he can.”

Whaaaaaaaa!

Let’s be clear here. I have the right as a blogger and useless eater to bitch & moan about everything. Yet why do I favour paying eighty dollars at a wal-mart-like clinic than having a system pay thousands upon thousands of Euros for care that ultimately has nothing to do with caring? Obviously it’s not right to compare a tick bite to a meniscus injury. So I guess what I’m really getting at is the fact that I have great health insurance yet when I consider what it is that doctors do with that insurance I get pissed off as though nothing is… right as rain.

Without even touching my knee or asking a question about how I felt or even how I got to his clinic that morning the only thing the doctor with the fancy Porsche could come up with was that I needed an operation.

Butchers. They are all fcuking butchers.

Would you believe that at his clinic there are no parking spaces for patients but he has a lone spot near the front entrance of his clinic. Now don’t get me wrong. I don’t care what kind of car a doctor can afford to pay interests rates on. I’m seriously not a class fighter here. I’m just pissed off at the fact that a national healthcare system is ultimately nothing but a conduit for money transference galore.

Oh. As far as my knee is concerned. I can walk but I’m not ready to run. I can pedal a bike no problemo. There is still some swelling so I hope I don’t have an issue with water-on-the-knee. There is no acute pain only some stiffness. I’m wearing one of those fancy (and expensive) compression bandage/stockings that really does the trick.

Stay healthy, baby.

Rant on.

-T

Links that may or may not coincide with the post:

• A healthcare system that can kill you | Alternet
• Compared to British healthcare? | BBC
• Healthcare in Germany | Wiki

Go ‘head, dear worst-reader. Ask me. Ask me if I care how many German cars are sold in my grand and beloved united mistakes. Indeed. I don’t care. All I know is this: I’ve been driving Audis (in Germany, on German Autobahns) for most of the time I’ve been an expat. FYI, I’ve also been driving these vehicles at speeds that would make most of my brethren rednecks back home cringe–especially those who are Nascar fans. Worswriter and a 140mph? No problem when the Autobahn 3 is open between Neuwied and Wiesbaden. I think I topped 150mph once when driving between Bremerhaven and Cuxhaven. Yeah, baby. That’s what company cars should be about. Unfortunately, it’s not.

In fact, because of the various benefits of a relative functioning corporate nation-state collective social market economy–yeah, that’s kinda what the Germans call it here–and because of Germany’s love of government subsidies–that literally keep the German car industry afloat–I get a new Audi every four years. Ask me, then, if I like the A5? Ask me if I liked the previous A4 All-Road? I did not like the A6 with Bose stereo we had ten years ago. Indeed. These cars that are part of the German functioning corporate collective economy blah blah blah are overpriced, over-engineered and over plastic pieces of mega-krapp–which I love-hate to drive. In fact, the whole government subsidised company car leasing bull$hit that goes on here, is really a fcukin joke. But hey! It works for the Germans, eh.

But get this. German car makers have so marginalised this car industry subsidy to their own benefit that even though a company car can feel fancy–because you can get a new one every four years–you can never get one “loaded” because, well, gee, the government doesn’t subsidise the coolness that buying/renting a car should be all about. Indeed. The government only wants to subsidise four wheels, the fuel and the hearts & minds of the aristocratic families that still own everything–and thereby allow the pions that work for them to have the feeling that they are actually achieving something in this life. But so is our modern world, eh worst-reader? First-world problems abound in Germania these days. Which means we must all, somehow, consume a car. Such privilege should leave the pions happy. Happy indeed. Otherwise an aristocrat might get itchy again (in history) and start jockeying numbers and banks and tax offices and right wing propagandists….

Here’s a little pseudo-review of how I’m starting to get wise and am moving away from rolling pieces of metal that guzzle too much stuff that causes too many wars and ain’t worth the effort anymore.

In short. I think all über-expensive cars that people waste so much of their money/lives on are stupid. It’s why most expensive things should no longer have a price tag on them. I mean, come on, we’re well into a time when ownership of stuff just ain’t gonna happen anymore anyway. So. Instead of price tags on krapp there should be stupid meters on all consumables. The stupid meter will tell consumers–based on information stolen from their Facebook profile–how stupid they are for adhereing to the mantra: consume-to-survive. Or maybe not.

Which brings me to this blog post.

The other day when dip$hit #Trump said that the Germans were bad, very bad, for selling so many über-priced cars in #americant, I laughed. I didn’t laugh at the amount of cars #americants buy but instead at how Germans, once they read the headlines and then start looking in their Dudens and/or German > English translation books, will all get the translation wrong. German news is publishing #Trump’s bad as the German’s Böse. Among the great German words that translate multiple ways into English, Böse is one of them. Reason? Böse means not only bad but also evil. Which one it means all depends on how it’s used–or how you want your girlfriend to dress after you watch German porn. You know, context is everything.

So. Did #Trump say Germany is evil or just bad? Gosh, since Trump likes to be peed on, I’m kinda hoping he said/meant both. And then he should finally try some German chicks after he’s done with #3 Malania. German chicks are a blast–and not because of their porn. But then again, they aren’t the happy-marrying type on account they don’t take much $hit from men. But if you need gaskets changed on your John Deere, or you need a place to park your car (see vid link above), or maybe you need a New York cheese cake to dine on before happy-time, they can almost do it all. But before I get too far off subject….

Rant on.

-t

Links that motivated this post:

• Trump diplomacy at its most refined | Vox
• Germans are bad, very bad | The Local.de

Update: holly-krapp-olly! I’ve since been informed that I seriously broke the law pissing on/near a German water plant the other day. If I would have been caught by a German policeman (instead of one of the policeman-in-a-policeman-in-a-policeman that make up Das Volk) I would be facing a heavy fine and possible jail time. Which means, I guess, an apology is warranted. So. Like. I’m sorry. And I won’t do it again. Otherwise, fuck you. You assholes should be paying me to live in this shithole that is a golden cage of a country. Alone the fact that I had a child here, which means I brought in some fresh blood to a place that is becoming more and more incestuous, and that I’m able to show you jerkwadds what humour is and now you make me feel bad because, at my age, it’s difficult holding my piss? Oh yeah, you’d rather see me piss my pants in public. You guys get a kick out of that shit. Oh fuck it. Fuck this place. Piss on all of you.

---

This is almost a book review I’ve been meaning to do for years. But it’s still not quite there. Instead, let us, together dear worst-reader, have yet another review of what it’s like to live among the seedy Germanians. (“Seedy” being a term used by Ben Franklin when arguing against making German the official language of the newly independent colonies back in seventeen hundred and… whatever.)

First. Remember at the beginning of the film Gladiator where the Romans are preparing for battle and waiting for the return of their carrier and all that shows up is a headless body on a horse? The scene cuts to a huge barbarian standing on a hill waving a man’s bodiless head. The barbarian throws the head to the ground where it bellows a hallow thump and then yells to his Roman counterparts:

“Ihr verfluchte Hunde!“

The barbarian is speaking a not-so distant form of German that basically translates thus:

• You fcuking dogs
• You dog fcuks
• Fcuk you dogs
• No thank you. We Germans are really not interested in being a slave colony of you stuck-up, half-African Romans who all think indigestion is a mating call that requires barfing before copulating. Have a nice day.

I’m not quite sure why but two things have stuck with me since becoming an unwitting expat and–aghast!–part of a collective:

1. Why couldn’t I have become an expat in California–which kinda makes sense because I’m from the mid-Atlantic coast of the US? No. Seriously. I’ve seen more of the US since moving to Europe/Germania in my mid-20s. During my travels I’ve concluded that there are more similarities between western Europe and the US east coast then there are similarities between the US east coast and the US west coast.
2. There is no scarier thing in the world than a nation-state of peoples that all think the same, act the same, eat the same, birth the same, fcuk the same, drive the same, walk the same, speak the same, the same, the same, the same… the collective.

No. Seriously. You wanna know the secret to success of the post WW2 Germans that Trump recently called “bad”? (Btw, I’ll avoid getting into the magic of debt cancellation that was the gist of the Marshall Plan.) It’s all about one thing and one thing only.

Everybody is the same.

It’s really that simple. There is no independent thought. There is no tolerance of others. There is no creativity. There is only the same, the same, the same. The thing that keeps the German from exploding is the simple fact that WW2 has pacified them to the point of no return. Also, add to that the shit-kids of Margot Honecker are now running the show. Thank you Angela Merkel. Anywho. That is why, as the rest of the world struggles with Trumpism, authoritarianism, austerity and keeping the rich richer, Germania, barbarians at heart, are still yelling at Roman overlords…

You fucking dogs… Now: how can I serve you more white asparagus with Italian twenty-four month cured ham with a wondrous glass of Graubegründer? Oh. And before we rudely forget. Would you like to fcuk Heidi Klum?

With that in mind, allow me, dear worst-reader, to cut to the chase. Obviously I’ll have to review the book “Getting Along With The Germans” another time. Till then, read it–if you can get it–and heed this pic:

There is indeed in EVERY German a fcuking policeman and within every German policeman is another German policeman waiting to German-come-out. And do you want to know how to get all those policeman out from deep within every German? Well, you can start by being a 54 year old man that has to pee a lot when going on long bike rides–and can’t find a place to do it.

Yesterday, while taking a bike tour with my better half (who loves the way I talk about her homeland and her Germans), I had to go #1. (For those not in the know, that’s peeing; ask an anglophobe what #2 is.) My better-half was perturbed and said:

We just got started. Why didn’t you go before we left?

She’s right. But. The obvious problem is: I forgot to go before we left. And. The thing is. At my age and my physical demeanour, when/if I gotta go, I gotta fcuking go!

Since I was familiar with the bike route we were on, I knew of a rather secluded corner where I could whip out the monster and help filter some man juice to the Rhine River. The problem though is that the day before was Ascension Day. Ascension Day is yet another mandated-by-law paid vacation day that always falls on a Thursday. That means that the day after (Ascension Day) is what’s known as a bridge-day. (It’s not known as Friday.) A bridge-day is a day that the collective usually takes a vacation day from the compulsion they call work or career. That means that there are double the amount of Germanians out enjoying–in this case–the great weather. It was indeed a rare beautiful day. There were a lot of fcuking Germans out and about. It was not a good time for me to screw up. But I had to go. I really had to go!

So I find a secluded corner and do my bidness. But before I can get the monster back in my pants, I hear a male voice from a short distance behind me. I can’t remember exactly what he said–yeah, I’m kinda deaf when I’m focused on zippers and flesh and really, really tight, padded bicycling undergarments. When I finally turned around (yes, with my monster tucked away and zipper up) a German (a little bit smaller than the one throwing bodiless heads) was standing there preaching about the vulgarity of what I had just done.

Ok. Now this isn’t the first time I’ve been confronted by the plain-clothes collective police. But this was the first time when the guy took his civil duties a bit too far. He started yelling and preaching and demanding and and and… The German language can sometimes be very scary! Without paying much attention to his words, I simply said:

“You want to lutsch my Schwanz, you vixxer! Mind your own fcuking business.”

He proceeded to explain to me that I was peeing on a fence that guarded the entrance to a part of a water plant… blah, blah, blah, achtung, dumbkopf, fahrvergnügen…

Stupefied, I looked around. He was right. But it was a secluded fence. It was off in a corner at the end of a driveway. The fence was totally corroded with algae and other growth as though it hadn’t been used in a long, long time. By standing in the corner, facing the entrance there was no way to see me unless you put some effort into it. Welcome to Germany!

I told him once again that he really should mind his own business but then I pulled back and realised that this type of confrontation can have no outcome. No. Wait. My better half told me that. Of course. And so. That is the main problem of a collective society where nothing gets done beyond the compulsion of what’s already been done and most individuals can’t find their way out of a collective wet paper bag–but at least they can afford to lease, on the taxpayer teat, lots of BMWs, Audis and Krautracers.

But before I get into too many details about what I think of The Collective, for it was quite a vulgar display on my part (thank you very much!), the German put away his collective policeman and we both went about enjoying the sunny day. With that in mind, dear worst-reader, don’t worry about me. I’m already planning in my head where I can find another more quite and secluded place to piss on the Germania water supply.

Rant on.

-t