Mustafa has a blue-eyed blond girlfriend, he tells me. But that’s OK.
Why is it OK?
“Because she respects my culture.”
How does she do that?
“The shower is always ready for me after we have sex.”
You take a shower after sex?
“Yes, sure.”
Sure?
“Yes.”
Why?
“It says in the Quran.”
Sure?
“Yes!”
You know where in the Quran?
“Yes.”
Sure?
“Yes!”
Where?
“In that sura, what’s the name of the sura—”
If I gave you the Quran you could show it to me?
“Yes.”
Do you have the Quran here?
“Yes.”
Can we take a look together?
“We can, yes, but not now. I am so tired today!”
Mustafa loves Marxloh. He and some friends opened a campaign called “Made in Marxloh.” They distribute postcards and stickers with this slogan.
What was made in Marxloh?
“It’s about having pride, it’s not about money. We are proud to come from here, from Marxloh.”
By the way, in case I didn’t know, Mustafa tells me:
“My girlfriend, she is partly Jewish.”
Really?
“She told me.”
Rabbi Helmut Schmidt, you have many children here!
And if you two have a child, will you take him to the mosque?
“Yes!”
And to the synagogue as well, since the mom is a Jew?
“If I go with him to the synagogue, that’s OK.”
Why should you go with him, you also want to be a Jew?
“No. I will go with him so that I can teach him what’s right and what’s not.”
Will be interesting to see if such a child will also take a shower after sex, when he’s old enough to understand.
Mustafa turns to his friend, sitting nearby, Halil. “Do you remember the women we saw, especially the one in hijab. Wasn’t she sexy? Very sexy, right?”
Wait. Women wearing hijab are sexy?
“Yes.”
Sexier than the ones without it?
“All depends on how you wear the hijab! Hijab can be very, very sexy! It’s like a jewel.”
Yes. This is Duisburg. Its images, its prejudices, its passions, its words of no meaning, and some of heavy meanings, a place where people have totally opposite ways of looking at the same thing. And one thing I know: I like this Mustafa. The man has a lot of life in him and much, much warmth.
Mustafa shares with me that he doesn’t view himself as Turkish. “Turkey is only about money. It’s not me. Neither is Germany. My identity is Marxloh. Duisburg.”
“Come again,” he says as I get ready to leave, “and I will show you real people.”
But reality will have to wait. Dortmund is calling.
•••
There’s a tattoo event in Dortmund, the Fifteenth International Tattoo and Piercing Convention. Who could pass on such an opportunity? Not me. Doesn’t take me long from the moment I find out about it till I find myself joining in.
The place is packed. Which is not big news by itself. Many events, I lately notice, are packed. Almost everywhere I go. Except for the synagogues.
So many pierced and tattooed people in one place is a strange sight to encounter. Each of them probably thinks he or she looks unique, but to an observer they are all part of the same Verein, the Nuts Verein.
Here’s Tim, tattooed over half his body , waiting for his turn to start tattooing his other half.
How much is this pleasure?
“Today I will spend two hundred euros on my left arm. This is first part of a tattoo work that will in the end will cost me fifteen hundred euros.”
Why are you doing this?
“I want to modify my body to make it conform to my personal taste and being.”
Can you explain to me what’s on your tattooed arm, the right one? I don’t really get it.
“Odin, God of Thunder, with two ravens, Huginn and Munin. Plus, a Viking funeral scene.”
Wow. This man is a walking encyclopedia. What do you do for a living?
“I am employed by a social-insurance company.”
Is your left arm ‘naked’? I mean, is that what you feel?
“No.”
Then what’s missing? Why don’t you leave your skin alone?
“It’s very boring to be un-tattooed.”
What’s boring about it? Aren’t you a handsome man? Is that what you think?
“Tattoos make it more—”
He is smiling, either to himself or to me. Let’s try to understand him.
Is it more sexy?
“Yes. The girls really like it. They like the bad-guy image.”
You know this for a fact?
“Yes.”
Your tattoos attract girls?
“Yes.”
Do you have a girlfriend at present?
“No.”
Maybe you need more tattoos, to attract the ladies. Is that it?
Tim nods.
What about the ladies, would you prefer your girlfriend, when you get one, to be tattooed as well?
“Yes.”
Let’s imagine it together: What tattoo would you like on a woman’s breasts?
“Some tribal stuff.”
What’s tribal?
“Black ornaments.”
What would you like on a girl’s ass?
“A little heart or a kiss. Big lips in a kiss.”
Very nice image. And what would you like on her private parts?
“Flowers with tribals.”
What do you have on your ass?
“Nothing.”
So your ass is not very sexy?
“No.”
What else can you tell me?
“I would like to have all my body tattooed.”
That’s your life’s mission?
“Yes.”
Tim is not alone in the world. Here’s Rolf, a man into piercing. Rolf has metal stuff all over his face. His upper lip is full of piercings, forming a metal moustache. But not only there. His lower lip is distorted from the constant weight on it. By a cautious estimate, he has fifty to sixty piercings on his face. Looking at him, if you dare, is a guarantee to have nightmares three nights in a row. At least. Who is he, a refugee from a mental institution? Let me see if this man can even use his mouth to speak.
What do you do for a living?
“Computers.”
Computer analyst?
“Yes.”
Why so many piercings?
“Tattoos are not enough, they don’t give you ‘feelings’ like piercings.”
You feel them all the time?
“Not all the time, but—”
You feel them now?
“I feel them now.”
The weight, the metal?
“I feel them.”
Why are you doing this?
“The girls like it.”
You sure?
“Yes, the girls like it!”
Do you have a girlfriend?
“Not yet.”
But you’re sure the girls like it?
“Yes.”
I stop a gorgeous girl passing not far from us. Could you come here a moment, please?
She does.
Do you think this is sexy?
“Yes.”
OK. Would you like to go out on a date with him?
“Yes.”
How about this evening? I can arrange it for you.
“Not this evening, but—”
Tomorrow at some point?
“No, no.”
Why not?
She takes me aside and begs me to stop.
But Rolf still has hopes. He and Tim.
And so do many other people in Dortmund. They have their hopes. Today it’s Germany versus Argentina. A group of fans walk the street outside singing “Argentina is homosexual.” I have no clue how and where they got this information. It would be nice if Tim and Rolf were gay; they would make an outstanding couple.
At half-time, Germany stands at 1–0 over Argentina. Then the rain pours down mercilessly on the fans at the Friedensplatz’s Public Viewing. You would think they would run for cover, but no. They get even more excited. They are charged. Flags up as high as can be, they scream-sing deutschland! Over and over. Their loyalty, so to speak, pays off. Germany wins 4–0. The crowd cheers when they see Chancellor Merkel on the screen and boo at the appearance of the Argentinean coach, Maradonna.
Play over, the fans pack the streets, their cars and the trains. In the train I’m on, a group of black-clad young men pick on a fellow passenger and are about to start a fight. I am not sure what this is about, but one side is neo-Nazi and the other is not. The black-clad recognize this guy from a demo in Bochum, where he was part of a counterdemo, and now they want to exact revenge. A woman jumps and stands between the warring sides, in the style of: Hit me before you hit my man. How did this Nazi thing come up again in my presence? Can’t we have a rest from this?
This is Germany.
The shouts and threats finally calm down when the train comes to a stop. Both sides get off. What follows, I don’t know. Don’t want to know.
Germany won the game, but the real fight looks to be still on.
•••
Off the train, I go to meet Rolf Dennemann, artistic director of Hanging Around, in a local café. I listen to him.
“I love the Ruhr area more than the rest of Germany,” he says. “The best. At the same time, I hate it, this is the worst place to live. I love the humor of the people here, but it’s very provincial. The projects I’m doing, I prefer them to be shabby and emotional, rather than clean and politically correct—and I can do this better in the Ruhr area than anywhere else in Germany. Here, the down-to-earth person is at home. This area was never a place for the bourgeois, where you pay three and a half euros just for coffee.”
I don’t know if you noticed, but this is what my small Coke costs, right here.
He looks at me.
What’s the amount of money you raise a year, lowest and highest?
“Sixty to a hundred eighty thousand euros.”
What are you trying to do with your work?
“That’s my life. I have to do this. It’s a silly answer, yes. I prefer to work in the open area, I want to breathe, not be in a black box.”
What do you really want to achieve? Just to breathe?
“I did a work in a cemetery. Theater and dance. People come to the cemetery, they have to walk between the graves, and in each place they meet different dancers, different theater pieces, two graves were talking to each other. This is very good. People who usually don’t go to theater do come to see this. And they never forget the experience.
“This possibility, to give people art and have them experience it, makes me feel good. The people who attend my productions are not your average theatergoers, the ones who come to the theater and then talk about the last time they saw the play and compare between what they saw in Paris and what they see now.”
Are you doing your work for yourself? Or for the people?
“I can’t do it without them, and they wouldn’t have it without me. I do it for both of us.”
How many people show up for your productions?
“For this festival we thought we would have five hundred people, but only twenty came.”
So, let me understand: You go to the mayor of Dortmund and say to him, Give me a hundred eighty thousand euros because I have a plan to put on a performance for twenty people. Is that it?
“There’s no law in Germany that specifies how many people are to attend. Money is awarded for creativity. That’s the history of this land.”
Isn’t this fucked up?
“No. I think it’s absolutely important. Thinking only of money, of commercialism, kills art. All over.”
What is important?
“I would like to sit and watch people eating, walking, drinking. And I need money for this.”
Charles Schumann: Meet your partner!
Let’s see if I got you: You want the city of Dortmund to pay you money so you can look at mouths and legs of people?
“Yes.”
Really?
“Yes, because this leads to some creative work.”
That’s Rolf. He understands zero in p.r. and can hardly handle an interview, but his ideas, I vouch to you, are always refreshing and brilliant. His country has still to discover him, and it’s sad that German critics haven’t found him yet, that they’ve been too lazy to come over and see this man’s work for three decades going. It’s their loss more than his.
Rolf’s Public Thinking is about to start. And these are the rules of this game: You come in and a young girl asks you what you want to think of and about. You can choose from ten topics, or make up one by yourself. Chairs are spread all over in front of a former factory, and you choose your chair and Think Publicly. Which means, in this case, when others like you also think about their choice topics. In other words, this is something like a Verein, a Verein of people who come to think next to each other. In Germany, if you didn’t know by now, we like to do things in groups.
Perfect. I participate and make up my own topic: soccer. This, of course, exempts me from thinking. I look at the sky and at the clouds moving slowly. (I learned this trick from Arab merchants in East Jerusalem. On tense days, when commerce is zero, they sit in front of stores, smoke their shishas, and watch the sun move. Try it. It’s nice!)
How many show up for this Public Thinking? It doesn’t really matter. I lie down, for about an hour, and think of “soccer.” I have the time of my life.
In front of me is an exhibition hall. Years ago the building used to be a factory, but now it’s used for art exhibitions. In New York, old factories are being converted to flats for the richest stratum of society. Here they turn into art centers. I like it.
The people of steel fathered stubborn children, no doubt, who demand their right to create. It’s nice. They should put a big German flag on top. This country deserves it.
At Dortmunder U, a museum and culture center, not many show up either. And this building costs millions. I go there after my Public Thinking.
Today’s exhibition is about political provocation. It’s called Agents Provocateurs. Here you can see all kinds of political demonstrations and actions through deed, word, or image. Pictures and videos are presented to demonstrate the issue at hand. To my right side is a film about three beautiful women. They are in a pool, camera capturing them in the water—which adds a beautiful layer to the images. They undress each other, slowly and sensually, and then dance-swim in the nude. It is an erotic film, and I think Holger Franke will love it. On the opposite wall is a video of a man walking with his clothes set on fire and a photo of Milica Tomić strung up on a lamp post, as a reference to Nazi troops hanging antifascists in Belgrade.
For the artists who have created the pieces in the exhibit, every one of them must be loaded with meaning: historical, political, cultural. What I see here is an exhibition on the theme of Sex and Death. Again.
•••
The Ruhr area has begotten quite a few interesting children. One of them is Helge Schneider, whom I go to visit in Mülheim. First thing the man says to me is:
“I wanted to come to New York but they have 110 volts, and my organ is for 220 . . .”
This man is a famous comedian, piano player, entertainer in this country, but I don’t know him. So I ask him: Who are you?
“I have lived here since I was born, fifty-five years ago. I never went away.”
But who are yo
u?
“I am a male citizen of the Ruhr area, and I want to remain a male citizen of the Ruhr.”
Why?
“My place of residence is now on the passport, and it’s too complicated to change it. But I’d like to see other cities, like New York.”
OK. Let’s try the question once more. Who are you?
“A male citizen. A piano player, naturally. What else could I be?”
More specific. Who are you?
“I am a piano player who is interested in people. And sometimes I try to make people laugh. Since I was a boy I’ve been working at it.”
How do you do that?
“It’s my special way of movement, perhaps my face.”
You have a funny face?
“No.”
Why are the people laughing?
“I don’t know.”
Were they laughing when you were a child?
“Yes. And when I come on stage, they laugh.”
Helge contemplates: “This is my last interview. Ever. No more talk shows. No more interviews. And perhaps I’ll change my name.”
Helge Tenenbom?
“Perhaps.”
Some say that Germans lack a sense of humor. What do you think?
“We live at a time when it’s fashionable for ladies not to smile; they think it will give them wrinkles. When people lead hard lives, they laugh more.”
Let’s try the question once more: Do Germans lack a sense of humor? Yes or no?
“I don’t think that Germans lack a sense of humor. When I go to Switzerland I think they’re not funny, but they think they are.”
The Swiss think they’re funny? Be serious!
“I can’t say anything more about the Swiss!”
What makes humor?
“Often humor comes from sadness. Like when somebody died. If you go to the funeral of an old person and somebody laughs, you’ll see that the others join.”
So, what is it that makes us laugh?
“I don’t think about these things. Humor is much more complicated than aggression. It’s a basic part of being human. For me life consists of three things: Birth, humor, death.”
Are you thankful to Germany for being so successful in it?
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