rivercityvibe   “Puerile, smutty, schoolboy nonsense” – My Mom

Since he offed himself, Lady Gaga’s outfits have gone from the sublime to the ridick! Seriously, this is her at the airport. I was thinking “at least wearing next-to-nothing will speed her through security” then I noticed her stupid shoes. And. Her. Fucking. Handcuffs.

Can it be a coincidence that “Lady Gaga’s” real name is Stefani Germanotta. Which: a) is itself an obviously made up name; and b) has the word German in it (look carefully).

And we all know what we think of them.

After what they did…….

I went to Harpos for a liquid lunch. I was astonished to learn that my companions, Benny from ABBA and Dupree McPolish Layabout, were not familiar with the oeuvre of German synthpop trio Alphaville.

Unbelievable, I know.

For a minute, I thought I had dropped through one of those wormholes in the space/time continuum (always happening to me). When this occurs, I find things I take for granted no longer exist (on one memorable occasion, for example, ears vanished from my universe). In this case all was okay. I checked with our accomplished waitress who immediately reeled off a list of Alphaville’s most popular tracks, starting with Forever Young (yes, they wrote it)and finishing with Big in Japan.

It turns out my lunch companions are just crap lunch companions, when it comes to music.

Quite an 80s vibe.

I am not sure what freaks me out more, the Teutonic English (“..izzy ven you’re big in Japan….”) or the fact that the singer looks EXACTLY like philanderer and IVF fan, Jon Gosselin

Bedside List girls all, each has married in 2009 and it’s only the 3rd of March. My favorites are falling to the institution of marriage like a Hun counterattack before my great grandfather’s Lewis Gun.

Where will it end? Not Lohan? God NO!*

Let’s remember the good times:

Arrivederci, my angel

Selamat Jalan, my sweet

Auf Wiedersehn, my darling

[*an unlikely contingency, I’ll admit.]

The new Tarantino movie, Inglorious Basterds may be the best movie ever, going by the trailer. Sure it hasn’t got Sean Penn pretending to be disabled, it’s not about a dog who dies at the end, and it sure as shit has nothing to do with Indian kids winning game shows, but it  is a war film about killing bad guys, mainly Germans.*

*coincidence. Honestly.

Occasionally we get members of the faithful sending in links with simple messages that show they 100% ‘get’ rivercityvibe and all it stands for. One such reader, Elizabeth, did this today, sending me a link and following message:

“Great for rivercityvibe. Even got a German in it”

That was it, that was the whole message. And do you know, she is right! It is great for rivercityvibe.

The link is to our good friends at Gawker.com. They are running a video montage of weather man fuck-ups in honor of the fact that today (With BALTIC temperatures in North Florida) is National Weatherman Day.

Weathermen, I have written about before. Germans, I write about constantly. There are both here:

Priceless humor.

Now perhaps they can stop goofing around and do something about humidity levels in 32210 (23%, currently. Unhealthy).)

I often, when considering even the most mundane courses of action, apply the Principles of War, as espoused by that one guy, Carl Von Clausewitz (he’s a Prussian, which is a type of German).

Only this weekend, I used them to evaluate how robust my decision-making was in relation to the  effective routing of the bamboo pipes in my new Home Permaculture Project, which is designed to free me from bondage to the water barons at JEA.

One of these principles which often looms large in my mind, is the Maintenance of Morale. This might be my favorite. My friend, The Hog, prefers Economy of Effort, but I have to say, in all things, I consider the maintenance of morale probably the most important factor in any plan. That’s why my plans generally have a beer component.

Yet another long and obscure introduction to a clip, which, to my mind, illustrates the principle perfectly:

Watch it again and look at the guys’ faces. Very funny.

Almost exactly ten years ago I found myself atop a cargo of live poultry, on a gaudily painted boat chugging across the Andaman sea. My destination was Krabi, a laid-back beach resort in south west Thailand.  I needed a rest. (I had just been forced to flee the violence in East Timor.  Australian UN troops arrived in armed helicopters. That was my cue to leave…… I shit you not).

Anyway, I was beginning to relax, and was delighted to see another westerner on board. He was tall, athletic looking and, as it turned out, German. I tried to strike up a conversation (auf Deutsch, naturlich….) but he was not interested. He kept staring at the large limestone things, that are a feature of those parts. He looked weird. It was about at this point I noticed he had two backpacks……

Large limestone 'things'

One was the usual, the other seemed more sort of technical. I questioned him (much as my grandfather might have questioned his grandfather after the battle of El Alamein) and he told me it was “his parachute” and that he was Deutschland’s nummer zwei BASE jumper, ja? In town to jump off a few cliffs with his parachute on. Wikipedia describes BASE jumping as:

BASE jumping is an activity that employs a parachute or the sequenced use of a wingsuit and parachute to jump from fixed objects–with the parachute unopened at the jump.

It turns out he was on his way back from Vietnam, where a convention of German BASE jumpers had taken place. He arrived there as Number 4 German BASE jumper, but, you’ve guessed it, a process of attrition moved him up the ladder. Apparently the former number 3 was his brother…….

At this maudlin turn of events, I wished him luck and  went to sit in the bow of the boat where I consoled myself with a few swigs from my last bottle of Sang Thip (with added formaldehyde). I never saw him again, once we disembarked. I reckon he’s a gonner, though. He had that look about him.

Anyway, long way of introducing this rather special clip……

Only a idiot would try this at home.

I have had a number of emails from people claiming that I am a little bit hard on Germans. I am at a loss as to how you should think this – I do pretty much nothing apart from post pics of INSANELY hot women of German extraction. How can that be mean?

It may have been my references to Simon Weisenthal’s “outstanding projects”, mostly resident in South America, which upset most people. Anyway, I am going to make it up to mein Deutsch freunde, by speaking of Tom Cruise’s latest movie Valkyrie. I am going to see it tonight, parking-lot crime permitting, at AMC Orange Park

It tells the story of the plot by members of the German Army (Heer) to assassinate Hitler and bring to an end the Second World War. It should be feel-good for Germans – a WWII movie in which they are the good guys. Ironically, in this one, as history affirms, they lose anyway.  Here’s the trailer:

It looks awesome, but apparently had a less than stellar opening weekend. Some attribute this to the vicious background feud that has been going on between Tom Cruise and Sumner Redstone. You know how you never hear anything good about Tom Cruise these days? That’s Sumner Redstone’s fault. Even stand-out performances like Cruise’s part in Tropic Thunder barely got a positive mention in the press. That’s Sumner Redstone’s sophisticated communications machine manipulating public opinion to knock Cruise’s reputation. I have my own advanced theory on this, and am waiting for only another couple of pieces to fall into place before I reveal it to the world.

As always, y’all will be the first to know.

Tschuss!

Okay, this is the lovely Giselle Bundchen. Yes, that’s right, another boxhead. In future, I will make a point of mentioning a featured lovely’s nationality only in the unlikely event of them NOT being German or of German ancestry.

Nice.

(Before I get any dreary emails, I know she is Brazilian. That does not, however, mean she can’t be German too. A surprising number of “Brazilians” with blonde hair and martial bearing mysteriously materialized after WWII. Have you not read The Boys from Brazil?)

This is The Hills star Heidi Montag on ‘Honeymoon’ with some guy alleged to have married her this week. Check US Weekly if you’re interested in that kind of thing.

Thoughts on the national derivation of her last name?

That’s right. Another German. Montag means Monday, in their language.

I am going to have to impose a rivercityvibe ban on German last names. It’s out of control.