Vision Thing

I get it so often, and I got ‘nem ol’ Mitteilungszwang again Mama! Mitteilungszwang is German for “the need to tell something.” I seldom do anything about it. But tonight, white wine spritzer in hand, laundry in machine down in ‘nem basement, headphones on, a song is opening up a door into the explaining of the week that was and the persistence of memory.

It was the summer of 1991 in Freiburg-im-Breisgau, Germany. George H.W. Bush was the president of the United States. I had fallen in with a certain crowd of Americans, the bad-boy/girl clique of our study abroad contingent, who were mostly nice people from Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Michigan.

Not us, though, we went to shows by bands like Poison Idea, Big Chief, and the Sisters of Mercy, as they toured through Germany. I remember them all. I saw Poison Idea in Frankfurt, and they were three morbidly obese guys, so fat and worn out they gave the concert sitting right on the stage floor, positioned like panda bears. Meanwhile the audience did “Pogo tanzen” — slamdancing, but in Germany it wouldn’t be the same without lots of potential bodily harm, so the floor in the packed room was covered with empty bottles.

Like one of those big tents full of rubber balls that kids (used to?) play in at the amusement park, but glass bottles instead, in a room full of people in steel-toed boots. I was scared of dying, as I almost always was in Germany, so I just plastered my body against the wall and waited for it to be over.

Big Chief was a small show at some weird little art center in our l’il German university town. I remember talking to the lead singer, the guy with the long red hair and beard, for a while about how much I missed Michigan.

The Sisters of Mercy concert was in some big, brightly sunlit (hahahaha, for a goth/industrial band!) auditorium and it was hotter than a good… it was super hot in there, and every single concertgoer was decked out in black leather. So, the audience reeked of hot black leather. I asked my friend Linda, who had introduced me to all this music, what the deal was with the lead singer wearing sunglasses for the whole show. She said he always wore them. I found out later it was because he’s severely cross-eyed.

Which brings me to this week. Then as now, a Bush is in the White House for a while more. A recession is starting. I’m listening to the song “More” by the Sisters of Mercy and chuckling as I always have at the chorus: “And I need all the love I can get / And I need all the love that I can’t get too.” George H.W. famously said “I don’t do the ‘vision thing’” and Andrew Eldritch from the Sisters of Mercy made that the name of their last album.

Back then you had your Willie Horton, now you’ve got Rev. Wright. Seventeen years goes by so fast. As Bill Clinton said, regarding G.W. Bush, in 2000: “’’I ran a baseball team, my daddy was president.’ It’s all blur, blur, blur.”

I wasn’t sure what he meant by that then. Now I know.

Tags: Big Chief • Germany • Poison Idea • Scott Shrake • Sisters of Mercy