Not Judging a Book by its Tattoos

It's amazing how much time I spend in bars, although I don't drink. Wow, it's weird to put that in print.

I don't drink.

Or, at least, I haven't done since late January of this year. Although I often question whether or not I was really as much of a hopeless alcoholic as I'd originally suspected (as I keep alcohol in my home--for cooking, mostly, and just cos you can't throw away Sierra Tequila, even if you never plan on drinking it--and as I hang around in bars with drunk people three or four nights out of seven), I rarely question my motives, and never look back.

Sobriety is a beautiful thing, but it can make hanging around with complete tools quite the chore.

We went last night to the lovely Fire Bar in Krausnickstraße, and although it's difficult to fuck up a night at one my favorite smoky dungeons, one Kiwi expat did his darndest.

You know how someone's banging on and on and you'd love nothing more than to zone out but you realize that if you fail to make eye contact and nod it will force that person to work even harder to re-gain your attention? Caught between a rock and a hard place. It's bad enough when the person's just boring, but worse when they believe they're experts on subject they have not the first clue about.

Among "Johnnie"'s topics of conversation monologue:

• Factory employees working the lines at such firms as Siemens, BMW and Volkswagen, though making upwards of €20 an hour, are working dead-end jobs and when they hit 35 will no longer be able to drag their decrepit carcasses into work. Nor do they possess the intelligence to pursue careers in administration or middle management, because everyone knows you have to be a fucking genius to be a middle-manager.
• Native Americans on reservations drive Porsches while the rest of us poor suckers throw our money down the drains of their fancy casinos. Their education systems are among some of the best in the world.
• Tattoo artists like himself make several hundred thousands of dollars per year. However, he did not know what it meant to be charged for the workspace in a tattoo parlour.
• The Hell's Angels of Germany do not stoop to such menial tasks as the distribution of illegal substances. Their minions on the bottom of the "pyramid" take care of that for them. (as a matter of fact drug-dealing is about the only activity German gangsters pursue with anything approaching diligence)
• Everyone ought to get fake tits, because there is no such thing as a tit too big (he obviously didn't get the irony in that one)

His accent was a weird mish-mash of Kiwi, American and Cockney. He bragged about doing "thousands of dollars of cocaine and speed--Christmas Lines, you know?" at a hotel party. I think he was invited by Pablo Escobar himself.

It's funny when you're sat across from a 33-year-old man who seems to have learned everything he knows about life from a Tarantino flick. I'll bet he's got posters of the Godfather up on his bedroom wall, right above his stash of Playboys and Tattooing Bi-Monthly.

Regarding the activity of German gangsters, I asked him how he had acquired his information. His response was to ask me how I could be so sure he didn't know what he was talking about. Ohhhhhkay.

Finally, a half-naked man covered in tattoos that appeared to recognize our hero came over and saved the night, distracting him long enough for us to abscond to the next bar. One mineral water and lemon later I was on my way home.

Thank god I made it home before daylight or I would have felt just as filthy as I would have, had I been drinking all night.