Hair Guy Love Europe, Part 1
Hey guys, it’s Truman again. I just got my blog out of the impound yard – it looks like after Jack’s last update he ran it into a ditch someplace outside Spokane and just left it there when he realized he couldn’t get it out again. It’s going to take a while to get the old girl cleaned up and back in working order: The tape deck is full of CDs for bands I’ve never heard of and there’s a funky smelling stain in the shape of California on the back seat. What’s more, nobody’s made a solid Battlestar Galactica in-joke that 93% of the readers won’t understand for a full seven days, and we’re dangerously low on jokes that have been shamelessly ripped off from Conan ‘O Brien. So do please excuse the mess during the rest of the update as I try to fill those quotas again.
Also, while the police currently have no leads as to Jack’s whereabouts save for a trail of blood leading toward some outdoor music festival where people get their bone on in public and the headlining band is really popular in Greenland, let’s all remember him fondly as a man among men for taking up the reins of Hair Guy for a full update cycle – he truly is a Hair Guy, and I’m not just saying that because I’ve seen the drain in his shower. Jack’s updates not only taught us a lot about the world; they taught us a lot about ourselves. For example, I learned that despite what I may have said before, California is actually a pretty nice place.
Yep. Hair Guy will be back on track in no time. And without any further ado, please enjoy part one of a multi-part, daily series…
No, that’s not… Ah, fuck it.
Part 1: Dresden
A few weeks ago, I visited London’s Imperial War Museum, which is basically one giant monument to the fact that if you live in the world, England has tried to kill your ancestors (or maybe even you – holla back, Ireland!).
The Imperial War Museum wants to show you its guns. No, really.
In the basement of the museum was the Blitz exhibit, wherein groups of tourists were herded in small groups into a little faux World War II era bomb shelter which would vibrate slightly while recordings of explosions played, to simulate the experiences of Londoners taking shelter from Nazi bombs. Afterwards, a little door opened and we were ushered out into a replica of a bombed out London street, which would have been a very powerful moment had the whole thing not looked like it had been built out of cardboard boxes by someone who had never been to England.*
*So as rides go, I’d rate it below Disneyland’s Great Moments With Mr. Lincoln, but above everything at Great America.
What I found most interesting about the experience, though, was that a group of German tourists about my age were in the exhibit with us. As I watched them sitting in the fake shelter, listening to the fake bombs dropped by fake Germans, I thought, Yeah. How do you like them apples, bitches?
And when we stepped out onto the fake destroyed street, in spite of its crappiness I wanted to turn to the Germans and yell, “Look what you did! Look what you did! Go back to your weinerschnitzel and your disturbing pornography; your kind aren’t wanted here! I hope the in flight movie is Inglourious Basterds!” So even though the Blitz exhibit wasn’t great, it was sufficient to inspire me with blind, ignorant hatred of other nationalities, which is, I suppose, as good an English history lesson as you’re going to get.
This whole situation got turned on its head when I visited Dresden.
Dresden is a charming little city of about 500,000 along the Elbe in Germany, perhaps best known as the place that got the absolute shit bombed out of it by the Allies late in World War II. It was during this bombing that Kurt Vonnegut, at the time an American prisoner of war, took shelter in the basement of Slaughterhouse-Five, an event which inspired his book, Slaughterhouse-Five.*
*Or, as I like to call it, Not Cat’s Cradle.
Historians estimate that the bombing and resultant firestorm of Dresden, a cultural center that was of very little military significance, killed between 24,000 and 40,000 people, most of whom were civilians fleeing the war. To cap it all off, the railyards and factories on the outskirts of town, which were the only significant elements of the Nazi war machine in the area, weren’t targeted.
"There is nothing intelligent to say about a massacre." - Kurt Vonnegut
It was America’s first foray into wartime assholery; fruitful years in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq laid ahead.
While the basement of the Imperial War Museum is a record of the Blitz in London, virtually all of central Dresden is a living record of the city’s destruction at the hands of Americans. At the center of the city there’s a new cathedral that’s a replica of a cathedral destroyed in the war, partially constructed out of rubble of the first cathedral.
In a museum downtown there’s a lot of information to be had about just how many priceless works of art and architecture were lost in the bombing. On February 13th every year, the anniversary of the bombing, the people of the city come together to protest war.
Needless to say, Dresden was sort of an embarrassing place to visit as an American. Whenever I would sheepishly ask a waiter if he or she spoke English, I always thought I could catch a glimpse of a steely look in their eye that said, “Oh, well – an American, here to survey the damage. Bad news – if you drop incendiary bombs on your currywurst, we’re not bringing you another one.”
This could also just be my reaction to the German language. At one point during my stay, I tried to walk into a bar that was in the process of closing. The manager came around the bar and briskly explained to me, in German, that they were no longer open, which was a traumatic experience for me because no matter what you’re saying in German, it sounds like, “I WILL CRUSH YOU!”*
*He was no doubt thinking, “Man, this guy looks super shifty, just like Battlestar Galactica’s Gaius Baltar!”
Okay, see? It’s like I never left. See you here tomorrow – in case you forget, I mention it again in the stinger.
Truman Capps will be back tomorrow with another update that purposefully skirts any boring descriptions of any cultural or artistic stuff he did in Dresden.
Also, while the police currently have no leads as to Jack’s whereabouts save for a trail of blood leading toward some outdoor music festival where people get their bone on in public and the headlining band is really popular in Greenland, let’s all remember him fondly as a man among men for taking up the reins of Hair Guy for a full update cycle – he truly is a Hair Guy, and I’m not just saying that because I’ve seen the drain in his shower. Jack’s updates not only taught us a lot about the world; they taught us a lot about ourselves. For example, I learned that despite what I may have said before, California is actually a pretty nice place.
...for me to POOP ON!
Yep. Hair Guy will be back on track in no time. And without any further ado, please enjoy part one of a multi-part, daily series…
HAIR GUY LOVE EUROPE
No, that’s not… Ah, fuck it.
Part 1: Dresden
A few weeks ago, I visited London’s Imperial War Museum, which is basically one giant monument to the fact that if you live in the world, England has tried to kill your ancestors (or maybe even you – holla back, Ireland!).
The Imperial War Museum wants to show you its guns. No, really.
In the basement of the museum was the Blitz exhibit, wherein groups of tourists were herded in small groups into a little faux World War II era bomb shelter which would vibrate slightly while recordings of explosions played, to simulate the experiences of Londoners taking shelter from Nazi bombs. Afterwards, a little door opened and we were ushered out into a replica of a bombed out London street, which would have been a very powerful moment had the whole thing not looked like it had been built out of cardboard boxes by someone who had never been to England.*
*So as rides go, I’d rate it below Disneyland’s Great Moments With Mr. Lincoln, but above everything at Great America.
What I found most interesting about the experience, though, was that a group of German tourists about my age were in the exhibit with us. As I watched them sitting in the fake shelter, listening to the fake bombs dropped by fake Germans, I thought, Yeah. How do you like them apples, bitches?
And when we stepped out onto the fake destroyed street, in spite of its crappiness I wanted to turn to the Germans and yell, “Look what you did! Look what you did! Go back to your weinerschnitzel and your disturbing pornography; your kind aren’t wanted here! I hope the in flight movie is Inglourious Basterds!” So even though the Blitz exhibit wasn’t great, it was sufficient to inspire me with blind, ignorant hatred of other nationalities, which is, I suppose, as good an English history lesson as you’re going to get.
This whole situation got turned on its head when I visited Dresden.
Dresden is a charming little city of about 500,000 along the Elbe in Germany, perhaps best known as the place that got the absolute shit bombed out of it by the Allies late in World War II. It was during this bombing that Kurt Vonnegut, at the time an American prisoner of war, took shelter in the basement of Slaughterhouse-Five, an event which inspired his book, Slaughterhouse-Five.*
*Or, as I like to call it, Not Cat’s Cradle.
Historians estimate that the bombing and resultant firestorm of Dresden, a cultural center that was of very little military significance, killed between 24,000 and 40,000 people, most of whom were civilians fleeing the war. To cap it all off, the railyards and factories on the outskirts of town, which were the only significant elements of the Nazi war machine in the area, weren’t targeted.
It was America’s first foray into wartime assholery; fruitful years in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq laid ahead.
While the basement of the Imperial War Museum is a record of the Blitz in London, virtually all of central Dresden is a living record of the city’s destruction at the hands of Americans. At the center of the city there’s a new cathedral that’s a replica of a cathedral destroyed in the war, partially constructed out of rubble of the first cathedral.
In a museum downtown there’s a lot of information to be had about just how many priceless works of art and architecture were lost in the bombing. On February 13th every year, the anniversary of the bombing, the people of the city come together to protest war.
Needless to say, Dresden was sort of an embarrassing place to visit as an American. Whenever I would sheepishly ask a waiter if he or she spoke English, I always thought I could catch a glimpse of a steely look in their eye that said, “Oh, well – an American, here to survey the damage. Bad news – if you drop incendiary bombs on your currywurst, we’re not bringing you another one.”
This could also just be my reaction to the German language. At one point during my stay, I tried to walk into a bar that was in the process of closing. The manager came around the bar and briskly explained to me, in German, that they were no longer open, which was a traumatic experience for me because no matter what you’re saying in German, it sounds like, “I WILL CRUSH YOU!”*
*He was no doubt thinking, “Man, this guy looks super shifty, just like Battlestar Galactica’s Gaius Baltar!”
"My name is Gaius Baltar, and I spent basically the whole first season masturbating in space."
Okay, see? It’s like I never left. See you here tomorrow – in case you forget, I mention it again in the stinger.
Truman Capps will be back tomorrow with another update that purposefully skirts any boring descriptions of any cultural or artistic stuff he did in Dresden.