Last night I walked from Alexanderplatz back home to Wrangelkiez. It’s true that the Janovitz centre at 4am on an Oster Sontag nacht might confirm the weary cliché that Berlin is an ugly city but at Heinrich Heinestr, at the beginning of Köpernickerstr, Melancolie II serves coffee and cigarettes to the tired and bier von fass to the lost.
Today, as the evening draws closer. I listen to a clip of Cat Power singing Wonderwall. The version I have is introduced by John Peel and that familiar voice brings a lump to the throat. We heard this song last night also at an empty place in the Kulturbrauerei. We walked from White Trash, were Tom recoiled from the ‘Christian’ music and Andreas played a mean pinball.
At Alte Kantine, the bar were I first met the cracked actress, an old man sat at the bar stroking his beard and nursing a beer. Tom and Petra and Andreas and I talked in endless circles about music and love and toasted the night with a row of flaming liquorice cocktails and some strong black coffee.
I try to remember the last time I tasted Sambucca but I can’t. It had to have been ten years ago, probably dancing in drag in a bar in London. Howling at the moon again.
Last night in White Trash we admired the jacket of a presumed dead biker who was born the year after me and died nineteen years ago. Ich bin eine alte man. Today I Google his name but can find no details, after a cursory search, which might justify the 1149,00e price tag.