Hoping for a Tail Wind

2022 (Den)marks the third time I’ve actually been to the Danish capitol of Copenhagen. The first time was for a couple days and nights on business for a concert and video shoot and the second was simply in transit to Malmo Sweden. With four days and three nights in this trip, I intended to make the rounds, renting a bike in the number on bicyclist city on this planet.

Watch closely and you might catch 2014 me cheers-ing with a bottle of red wine while directing a music video in the May Day/Worker’s Day/Labor Day Parade.

A nearly-month long, three years coming country hop jumps off (after a one night stopover in Amsterdam) here in this 10th century-established Viking fishing Village. Copenhagen. Shit even sounds cool. I’ve splurged on an apartment in Indre By — the “inner city”. My bike is a modest cruiser. The infrastructure is bonkers. 40% of residents utilize the bicycle to commute to and from work or school. Countless others use it for fun or exercise or off-work transit. Cyclists are everywhere. At every red light we all ignore each other, but we know we’re on the same team. We’re like a moving energy field between the vehicular and pedestrians traffics, both of which have measurable numbers. But like KRS-One, we’re still number one. Like Queen we’re the Champions. Bicyclists that is. In case somehow neither musical analogy landed. In case I’m not be clear.

It’s like riding kilometers and kilometers for days around a Dave Chappelle and Chris Rock joint-comedy show (plus Ali Wong and Donnell Rawlings) isn’t enough, because I am now — like right now, here in the happiest of spaces in a city that hates hipsters and yet likely created them — eyeballing this gorgeous Italian bartender slash DJ slash fetish model slash student slash slash or slaj or something. Let’s call this particularly muse Lucia. It’s down a flight of stairs. This cantina that is, not the PYT working here. Yeah, I’m pretty sure Lucia doesn’t identify as “it”. Anyhoo… I’m in the space between the space and it’s a space that’s happily spacey. For real. I got the smokiest mezcal on the menu. Soundtrack is enacted through an old turntable behind the bar and a crate of 12” vinyl records, curated by the aforementioned hostess with the mostest. She’s in her early twenties and is rocking Pink Floyd. The Police. Silk Sonic comes in out of the static filled needle noise – she flexing on knowing some good contemporary tunes as well. Then she puts on Thriller. The gawd dong girl is mine, Paul McCartney. This year Halloween fell a month early, like Oktoberfest. Or didn’t it? Copenhagen is the truth if one could afford it. I meet all sorts of folks who work here. From Italia. Turkey. Pakistan. And — as it’s given to me from the businesswoman sort of on holiday — “Korea, south”. I try my hardest not to LOL, but the truth is that the agave plus bicicleta concoction has me tuned the fuck in and turned the fuck up like MJ in those 80s contacts lenses breaking it the fuck down. Actual fact. To snack on and chew. I chat with Lucia about tips. Just the tips. Gratuity, ahem. She tells me she’d rather get a good salary rather than rely on tips. And she gets one here. I say “well, why not both!” And tip 20% — enormous in Europe, where a tip is usually 0%. Ultimately, I get my Pharcyde on and pass on by the 20 year old muse and the 30 something couple from Boston and cruise off into the night with my two wheel motion. Bikes and cacti bitch.

Istanbul. It is a bit of an X. An intersection. Absolutely variable. East meeting West, west meeting east; the middle of Eurasia so to speak. People meeting people. Cats meeting cats. Dogs meeting dogs. Everything in between. Out on the corners.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mnKNr2Tiq8&w=560&h=315]

The Last Poets have so eloquently posited:
“The corner was our magic, our music, our politics
Fires raised as tribal dances and war cries
Broke out on different corners”

I’m on the tail end of a pedestrian 15 mile day, so I’m moving quickly back to my hostel bed. Room. I copped the private room to allow for a snore and stank free experience. Still walking another one mile of those 15. I catch a strange interaction between what appears to be a club girl and a garbage picker. Or a hoe and a bottle deposit redeemer. Or a pro and a pro. Unintelligible yet unmistakable. They looked like cindi lauper and Oscar the grouch yet that could be all the food I just scarfed with Ahmet. Ahmed. Depends on whether we’re speaking Turkish or Arab. Yo no se, pero si se puede. Um… either way it was so loving. This interaction between two randoms on a late night street. It was so open and so real in the moment for them, and by extension for me. The Turkish calories are in an intoxicatingely wonderful feeling intersecting this moment. Perpendicularly in fact.

I am where Asia meets Europe. Or Europe meets Asia. Turkiye. I’m stuffed like a turkey in late November USA, all thanks to this food tour I just hooked up. Istanbul has a vibe. I’ve been all over Europe and all over Asia, and the food and the city and the people of FKA Constantinople FKA Byzantium got a bit of both at every turn. Gatekeeper status too, considering how large the Ottoman Empire was and how hardcore they went to break it up. Literal First World War. Everything reminds me a little of each. Architectures swap styles, block by block. The whole thing is a visionary experience. An experientially channeled incident. I cringe at incident… it sounds like work. Sirens don’t do that but words do. Call up Rufus and get me in a phone booth and back to this holiday I’m on right now, like two weeks deep right now, right now. I’ve got a sleep cycle. It has patterns. My eyes have ditched their baggage. I’m walking 7-15 miles a day. The food is local and fresh and delicious. Pretty much everything. Every other responsibility that I have in life should thank your goddamn lucky stars that I can’t firefight remotely.

Foreign travel manifests in the nuanced differences between country-nation-states. Your typical thoroughbred Jesus-loving kid from Iowa wants to hear that America is special because of our freedoms on his first trip outside of the colonial white world. The reality around the globe is much more rooted in a cultural component. Space starts it all off. Some days, Barcelona gives all the space one could want, whether walking, bicycling, or in a motor vehicle. Some days, Fez Medina has us cramped into the tightest of mazes in search of a leather tannery. Sometimes, space changes quickly – like how know one bumps into on the streets of Tokyo all day and then I step on the train at rush hour and end up crowd surfing in a subway for the next 12 minutes. Probably the easiest to comprehend and concrete example of this is: How pedestrian traffic is conducted; aka how to cross the street. Nuances in style. Nuances in sustenance. Nuances in sex.

Every musician or busker in Istanbul is punk rock as fuck. Fiddlers and bucket drummers collaborate on a tirade against what appears to be the most conservative of the Allah fearing vacationers. In my mind it’s probably the Saudi. But I don’t know shit really. These dudes are going hard in their face as they walk. It’s seems so obvious to me what’s going on simply by the two different fashion senses each side has. Costume department tells me the whole story on this one. These mother fuckers can jam. I love it. I’ve been told by my yacht experience host (a half Turk from Cleveland yo!) that Turkey is secular. Cmon tho. The goddamn crescent moon and star is on a red flag, it’s ok for them to be a Muslim nation. Yet still, I feel like the Europeans feel like they won wars to call this Europe. Or at least Eurasia. So a lotta shit made it here that contradicts the entire idea of theocratic government. Then again though, who’s won what war, this place ain’t called Constantinople is it?

I take a trip to the intersections of my own life. My mind and personalities and behaviors. Sitting alone quietly in a cocktail bar. In a city full of 10 cent bottles of water and $1 beer I find a $12 mezcal cocktail with hostel-made friend Chris. She’s a a tall gorgeous blond from Miami. And super cool as fuck, my kinda humor and attitude. 220 lira. The cocktail, not the blond. But it’s bomb. Not the bombero. Im two deep in, doing a left hand search of my soul. Thinking about the man that I am and the coming years ahead of me. More than half way to retirement. And more than halfway between 40 and 50. As an extroverted introvert, I’m happily not engaged in conversation. Quiet contemplation suits me. I’m getting thoughts down, channeling the experience. As an introverted extrovert, I’m dying to chat it up in fluent American English. Social revelry is a skill I have mastered. I could be making acquaintances, taking a cultural dip in the pool. Two competing continents of myself, warring it out. In the end, I feel as if a third party candidate known as a mild-longing-for-a-familiar-friend wins out. On the corners.

Istanbul is truly dope. Where my well tested sense of direction meets my insane love of getting lost. Probably already one of my fave cities in the world, and this is just a brief 4 day visit.

Ah yes, the old two for one deal. Who doesn’t love it? I’ve previously spent some time in the nation known as Deutschland, yet never in it’s first or third largest cities. In 2022, I made to both. First, in Berlin for three days and then in Munich for the first few days of Oktoberfest, which is in September. All of this is to say that this entire entry is in reverse chronology, sort of like the Pharcyde video for Drop. Shout out to Spike Jonez and RIP to J Dilla.

Bavaria-mania in full effect y’all. Munich is a whirlwind from jump. Even the goddamn Hapbaunhoff in München is jumping. I think that rhymes. I dial into the whole thing via the local U-Baum, the U2. The Straßen have names, and I’m pretty sure I’ve found what I’m looking for. 20 minutes later and I meet Mona, who has so graciously handed over her gorgeous apartment to me for a few days. Handed over for a modest sum of Deutschmarks, er Euro, er US Dollars. Does that even matter anymore? Maybe — and I hear the Yoo Ess Doll Hair is strong —strong like bull —but this apartment is not cheap. The Munich bike life game is still popping, although not anywhere near on the level of previous destinations on this nation-hopping quest. Those locales were indeed the ABC… Amsterdam, Berlin, Copenhagen… Air, Brakes, Chain… Nonetheless, Munich is into the BIER game though and my friend Kitty is joining me — currently en route from Erie PA — for the first three days of Oktoberfest, which only ends in October. It’s still September, so time travel to a time right now where I’m always learning until I’m dead. We learn a lot, especially on opening day. Without a reservation, we meander into the Augustiner tent and an utterly dizzying frenzy ensues. The crush of humanity is comparable only to a Tokyo Shibuya crossing in which every pedestrian is chewing on Mescaline. Aldous Huxley might dig the Japanese picture I’m painting; here in Bavaria we’re learning it all first hand. Some locals share two spaces on the end of the picnic table. It is rowdy AF. Men and women, young and old, standing in tables, singing songs, yelling Prost and clanking beers. And this beer comes in one liter mugs. I lift mine up with whole-hand-strength. It’s gotta weigh 7 or 8 pounds.

I’m drinking a 7 lb mug of the freshest best beer on Earth. Right now. Learning is taking place. Turns out each “tent” has its own thing or concept or vibe. This one in particular has their beer in wooden barrels and at 12.80€, it is the cheapest in Oktoberfest. We make German friends. We toss down lots of cash and toss back lots of beer. After more than a couple gallons of the most luxuriously smooth and delicious brew I’ve ever enjoyed, I’m on another astral plane. I’ve set a norm for new norming, or something. The bathroom has an entrance and an exit. It’s a long, long two-turn hallway of a stainless steel troughs on both sides, chocked full of lederhosen. Strange days. The plumbing involved is mind blowing. Especially once we time travel back to me using quotations around the word tent. There’s like 12 big tents. Another 10 small ones. Plus carnival rides and games and cafes and food stalls. These tents are wooden and metal massive structures. Heavy timber. Built. Bolted together. Covered. Decorated. Plumbed. Lit. And I mean lit lit. And also lit lit lit. It’s craziness for a few weeks, then the whole thing is disassembled and taken down. The entire Oktoberfest fairground aka Theriesenwiese is nothing but a massive concrete pad. They spend the entire year building and tearing down for just two weeks of the craziest party imaginable. I dig it. Today and the next day and the next day, it’s a marvelous experience eventually culminating in an amazing culinary experience: fish on a stick. The Fishhaus Tent provides me an entire fish seasoned and slow smoked on a wooden steak. A picture says a thousand words and so I’ll let the traditional mackerel speak.

Berlin! Made it here …finally. Before this, you occupied the same space in my heart that Mexico City previously held before I visited that national capital. I can dig me a big old cultural charged capital city. One that speaks to the entire nation in real and tangible ways too. A city that I always knew I’d love but consistently put off visiting for one reason or another. but alas, this space is open once more. I’m inside you Berlin, can you feel me? I buy a 24 hour train pass for like 8 euro. It’s a super deal because I use it three days. Thanks socialism, yay public transportation! I copped the private room at a sweet little hostel in East Berlin. Nice bed with a shared bathroom and all day free coffee. Danke. Berlin is a vibe for sure kids. I walk the streets. I take the train. Remants of the Berlin Wall. Brandenburg Gate. Checkpoint Charlie. I gotta do these things. Apparently I hate war but I love war history.

Berlin gives me the contemplative and relaxation based break I had been looking for. By day three I’m chilling for hours in the textile free spa. Yea this is a thing. It’s not a sexy thing. It’s a relaxation thing. And the various forms of hydro and heat and cool therapies are regarded by clothing. Plus we are all naked under our clothes. This place is massive. Theres a fucking map. For a spa. I enter and they give me a wristwatch style thing that opens my locker and pay for anything I have to pay for. I rent some towels and a robe and hit. Picture me here now on hour three. I’m now in my eighth sauna of the evening. Hot tub number 4. Steam room number 2. Now I’m in the cafe (where you have a wear a robe) having a beer. Back for a third steam room. This one is the best because the steam is so heavy that I can’t see two inches in front of me. Properly steamed, I hit the cold water “foot-pool”. Then it’s the fireside lounge. Real fireplace too. Damn. I am. Relaxed. It’s amazing. I feel like I’m getting younger by the moment. I pop my robe back on and grab another beer. I grab my copy of Door of Perception and take a deep, deep dive into some serious shit. I’m bedazzled with phrases like “the burning intensity of significance”– the highlight of it all might be a wormhole I find myself in dedicated to the idea of focus and avoiding distraction. My highly relaxed brain meanders about, grasping at Aldous Huxley’s mescaline infused concepts, primarily a focus to remain undistracted by: #1) Memory of past sins, #2) Imagined pleasure, #3) Bitter aftertaste of old humiliations and #4) Fears and hates and cravings that ordinarily eclipse the light. It’s deep but necessary shit. After a few sections, I take a break… back for more hot tub, more sauna, more steam room. Four or five hours later and it’s 10pm and so I check out of the spa. The entire damage is $40 and I feel more relaxed than ever in my life. Berlin has treated me quite well for a first time encounter, and I’m pretty sure that I’ll be back. Darling, danke schoen.