Ich bin ein Berliner

Berlin is up there on my list of favourite cities.

I first visited in 1986. The Wall was still up and the city was still divided. I got to make the crossing. It really was like jumping from one world to another. West Berlin, where I'd been staying for several days prior to having a look at the other side, glistened with neon signs. Its shops bulged with all the food and all the goods you might ever want. Big rock and pop acts from all over the world headed there to play in the Waldbühne, an open-air venue set among trees and apparently originally named after one of Hitler's buddies. The East was different - greyish, quieter and shockingly devoid of all the trappings of a market economy that a boy like me took for granted: no advertising anywhere, no sign of the consumer brands that were/are ubiquitous in the west. People were dressed differently. Many of them seemed to be in uniforms of one kind or another. Strange. I'm glad I got to peek behind the Iron Curtain while it was still hanging across Europe.

I was in Berlin with a schoolmate. His mother had run off with a German artist named Jochen, a native of the western half of the city. She had settled with said artist in his big apartment-cum-gallery. Jochen drove a battered orange Jeep. In this vehicle, we were ferried from the airport straight to the Waldbühne. It was a surprise: concert tickets to see two acts that my friend's mum believed we would enjoy. We were only told who the acts were when we were decanted from the Jeep and into the car park outside the venue: first Marillion and then the headline act, Queen. We didn't like either. My friend's mum had got his and his brother's tastes in music mixed up. My pal and I were into acts such as the Butthole Surfers, Big Black, Black Flag and the like. So it was weird watching a lot of Germans wave their cigarette lighters in the dark as Freddie Mercury strutted his stuff down on the stage below us.

The last time I visited Berlin, it had become the capital of the reunified Germany. I had a whale of a time among the costumed freaks at the Love Parade and in the dank dungeons of the legendary techno venue, the Tresor Club, which was at the time housed in the basement vaults of the former Wertheim department store.

Now I'm thinking of another trip, prompted to do so by the fact that an old friend has recently relocated there to get some writing done. This is M.P. Powers, the Chicago-born writer of some hard-bitten poesy and prose with whom it has been my pleasure to correspond for many years. I've also met Powers on a number of occasions. When I first found myself in Boynton Beach, Florida in 2003, I was astonished to discover that Powers was a resident of the very same town. I'd already known the man 'virtually' for around five years by then, knowing only that he was in the Sunshine State but having no idea of precisely where. I knew he'd been selling patio furniture, because I'd had cause to laugh my fucking head off at stories he told about that line of work. But that was it. So it was freaky, on heading to Boynton to meet my soon-to-be father-in-law for the first time, to realise that my man Powers was just up the road. Meeting in person for the first time was a blast - down at the Banana Boat Lounge & Restaurant.

Well, Powers is now at large in the German capital, looking to expand his oeuvre. He's had poetry put up all over the place on the web - a lot of the zines and journals linked to from this site have a bit of M.P. in them somewhere. He's also the co-author of the very good Enrique's Motor Lodge Room #22, having partnered up with the prolific Misti Rainwater-Lites. I'd definitely recommend buying that if you like your pomes and prose hard-bitten, dirty, magical and tough.

Anyway, having long been quiet on the blogging front, Powers is now visible again, having started to jot down his impressions of Berlin life on a new site. Apparently inspired by some odd experience of Misti's, Powers has been cruising the local Craigslist a bit, and has responded to a fellow writer's appeal for a little company - with, as they say, hilarious results.

Damn, I wanna see that creature M.P. in his new habitat. Berlin and Powers? Beautiful combination. Has to be worth the price of a hop over by Easyjet or German Wings...