To Fall and Thus to Laugh

So I am back in California after winning the German Bowl Championship. (I must and will write on that but am kind of waiting for it to just come, i.e. Sing to me oh great Muse...)
The weather is great and I just went on a rollerblade down by the water. It was pretty fun, although my blades are not great and my knees might be worse. The scenery was beautiful and I think my 'blading' gave people something to smile about on their daily walks, runs, and bike rides. I was the only 'In-Liner'.
But as I used to be quite the skater, the ride lacked 'features'; you know stairs or mini jumps of the likes that liven up a ride. So when a little off road hill appeared, and my spirit ached for a change-up, I went for it. The drop in was exhilarating, but about ten feet into it I hit some soft dirt, dug in my front wheels, and flips over as if I was trying to stretch out for the pylon. However, I immediately began an uncontrolled, belly stirring laugh. It was super fun! I got to my feet, still laughing, and seconds later got leaning too far back, probably in some unconscious over-compensation and almost did a back flip into the dirt. This really got me going and I proceeded to sit down on a bench by the water and laugh at myself for a good couple of minutes.
My falls, failures by some measurements, were the most fun part of my blade. Even though I'm sure it didn't score me any 'cool' points with the attractive girl in black spandex that I had just passed, my day would not have been as good without my falls. Maybe there is some kind of lesson there.

Congratulations

I had my 26 birthday yesterday. Since the epic turning of 21 I have pretty much stopped getting excited for September 17th to come along. It seemed like another year just meant getting that much closer to 30.
And Time is, indeed, relentless.
Back home the traditional greeting on one's inception day is "Happy Birthday." On my first birthday in Germany I heard a lot of "Congratulations!" I do not know if it is a difference in culture or just a slight translation variance, but it got me to thinking...
The coming of another birthday is indeed an achievement deserving of a 'congrats.' We take it for granted in our First-World Supermarket, penicillin days of today, but Survival is the name of the game. Another year lived in the days of our early ancestors was gigantic. Huge fractions of our population at intervals through history have perished because of incurable plague -- plagues that did not discriminate from Peasant or Pericles. Wars have left entire generations 'Lost.'
Each year, indeed each sunrise, and each breath is an accomplishment. 'Young' is a state of mind. And because on the most basic level, your actual birth day is the starting point on a path to certain death, congratulate yourself each you extend the 'finish line.'

Misc.

I just won my first playoff game since high school. That was about almost eight years ago. While we won a conference championship in college, we were ineligable for post season action because we were in a five year probationary period for moving up form division II to IAA. (I never understood the punishment for moving up, but the NCAA has some issues.)
We beat the Weinheim Longhorns 30-13 in front of our home fans in Berlin. It felt good and this week we have a tough test with a good Marburg team.
I have been pretty invested in football and my creative outlet has been lots and lots of guitar. Thank you Marty Schwartz on youtube. I have not written much, and the vast majority of it has been devoted to writing letters back home to seemingly long-lost friends.
My mom sent me the first issue of Powder Magazine. I read all of the Shane McConkey tribute first. I knew of him, but never the entire story. So thanks Shane for your contributions to the sport and for the fat skies that will carry me this winter.
I will miss Berlin. It has been a fun and unique place with some cool people.
I hope to extend my football career again this Sunday.
Be Well, Jon

Update

I have not posted anything in a very long time. I have not even written anything in a very long time. I have played a lot of guitar lately and jotted in my journal a bit, but overall I have not felt much of a creative spark. Perhaps this is from focusing a lot of energy into our very successful football season. Perhaps it is due to applying for jobs and planning my next moves for when I return home. Perhaps it is from settling in to my life over here and becoming a little too comfortable. I do have the weekend off so hopefully the Muses will stop by for a bit.
And I am very much enjoying reading Zorba the Greek, and recommend it to all.

Fast Times at High Culture Europe

We left Berlin late on Friday. Tony had physio for his leg and much to my impatient chagrin had not packed his bag. We then had to drive across Berlin to pick up Pat and Dave and after circle back to our end of town to hit up with the autobahn. Berlin is not small; it took us a while.
The drive south through Dresden and into the Czech Republic was fun. It was nice to put some distance on the open road between us and Berlin. We got to Prague in about three and a half hours but then got seriously lost. We had ended up taking sort of a wrong turn and thus entered the city on the other side of town, opposite of the map I had drawn to our hostel. Living without a printer over here, I have drawn a lot of maps and written out a lot of mapquest rights and lefts.
Luckily for us we have a teammate who lives in Prague, happened to be in town to try out for the Czech national team, and was nice enough to swing by and lead us on the right path. His name is Latislav, but he goes by LJ, and he is a pretty cool dude who sometimes sports a bleached blonde Mohawk and goat-tee. Very Eastern Euro and I love it.
Prague was all that it is cracked up to be. It gives off a very medieval vibe, but with a lot of American accents. (It has gotten a name in the U.S. as a pretty cool spot and had the highest rate of Yankee tourists I had yet encountered anywhere in Europe. But that was also kind of nice too. We had a great morning and breakfast with two gals from Texas who shared our eight bed co-ed mixed dorm. They study in Innsbruck, Austria and we exchanged mutual invites to our foreign homes.)
We walked around the beautiful city and took in as many sites as we could. The city glowed at night, and it all felt kind of magical. After an absinthe bar and an impromptu visit to a quaint little strip bar (no entry fee thanks to some Tijuana-honed negotiating skills), and a trip to a very sweet dance club we called it a night and stooped back to the hostel to wake up the next morning and drive to Vienna, Austria. (Side note: Vienna is known as Wien in non English and it brings up a good moment to say that I believe countries and cities should be known only by the term in the indigenous language. Germany should remain Deutschland, Munich Munchen, Los Estados Unidos the United States, etc. Thanks)
The drive through Czech to the Austrian border was kept lively by seeing which road sign or town name was the craziest by English language standards. Words that started Jm, ending with zk, words with four consonants in a row, and words that perplexed the pronunciation programming of my Pacific Grove mind. So that was fun. And the Czech scenery and the hour of Austrian scenery were quite nice. I think we saw about ten castles; and we bought some big beers at a gas station for 12 Czech Crowns each, about $.35, so that was fun too.
We got to Vienna and followed signs to the Centrum. The city immediately impressed as we drove by palaces, churches, concert halls (this is the town of Mozart you know) and grand fountains. We parked on one of the side streets off the main drag and began to walk around taking photos and aimlessly trying to find reasonably priced lodging. As we were in the ‘Times Square’ part of town, we found none, and took a group vote deciding to just go strong tonight and crash in the car. It was actually an exciting moment of ‘road trip induced hysteria’.
We brought out the beers and some vodka we had in the car and sat on the steps of a palace and drank and talked for about two hours, watching local Austrians and tourists do the same on the park lawn in front of us. A bunch of people showed up and put a radio down and started Tango dancing to our immediate left which gave us some music to listen to and some upper thigh to look at.
After we were feeling a little bit jolly we continued to ramble around the city, take in the sights, and talk to passersby. Our big find was two Americans playing Cello and singing on the street. They were quite good, and we hung out with them after the police shut down their illegal performance. One had graduated from Yale with a music degree and somehow ended up in Austria and the other did not like the work she was doing on a certain cruise line, and so jumped ship and landed in Vienna. The night ended in the morning and we got a few hours sleep in the car before starting the day’s drive.
I had wanted to continue our excursion another night and stay up in the Alps or at least drive through the Alps and stay in Munich somewhere. (I really do love mountains.) However, I was outvoted by my tired and broke travel companions and we just drove a really long day home to Berlin. But the day was not lost: as Tony, Pat, and Dave slept like babies in the car I drove across pretty much the entire country of Austria and breathed in the beautiful countryside of rolling hills, fields, lakes and mountains. I saw a particularly beautiful mountain lake and village called Mondsee and pulled off the autobahn for a nice stop. It really was a beautiful setting of deep blue-green water against gray rock with clouds and boats and beautiful women. If I had to live on that lake the rest of my life, I think all would be ok in my book.
When we got back into flat Germany after coming in too far North to see the German Alps I got a little depressed and almost told Tony (who was driving at this point) to let me off in Munich and that I would catch a bus or train home on Monday evening. But I did not, and I am left with just the memories and the hope that after the season I will make it to the great mountains...
But, hot damn!, what a great two and a half day excursion-adventure. I give thanks to my travel buddies and all the cool people we met along the way. And to classic old cities and countries that never cease to amaze. JG out.

A Capulet and Montague World History

I borrowed a copy of Romeo and Juliet from a German friend over here and after the first few pages got to start feeling pretty down on the nature of Men. (Women, you are excluded from the following tirade.)
The first pages of the classic are spoken by a couple Capulet’s about the possibilities of fighting the Montague’s’ to the death and taking their women for sexual pleasure, no doubt meant as some toilet humor for the groundlings but also a real statement about our history: Pillage and Rape, brawn and the undoing of brassieres, conquest on the battle field and the bed. The true depth of the 'sophisticated' male mind.
Our synopses are instinctually programmed to fire easily in the directions of aggression and sexual satisfaction, (this rather blunt fact having engendered more than a few harsh words from the fairer sex when used as justification to some of my more base behavior); and the world today, shaped by millions of childish minds that favor conquest to mediation, who ban ideas, and bomb Parthenon’s, reflect that a certain type of man has been in charge.
Very rarely in any age do the men who have the charisma to take or be given leadership also possess the patience and humility necessary to admit wrong. The history of males in power is a pissing contest of who’s God is better, who can talk the loudest, and who can brandish the biggest army and the most deadly weapons. Even most of these ‘Leaders’ attempts at diplomacy come off as a verbal War of Words.
The fertile ability to reason is more often found in those men who do not possess the urge or even the ability to captivate an audience with fist shaking and seek power, because with their talent of perspective, they see the folly of a charging Viking clan intent on the plunder and rape of an otherwise innocent village because of shear proximity.
Perhaps these men, much more fit to lead a peaceful world, are just too feminine.
The most complex machinery on the planet, the human brain, possessesing the ability to reason and express versatile perspective has been shut out of Leadership in all but a small number of cultures in Its History. Other possible Fifth Century Athens’s of Earth have been stomped out by peoples and ‘leaders’ with banner of “Fight and Fuck, Fend off Foe’s and Fondle Fraus for Fun!” No more than a group of chimps raiding a neighboring clan and cannibalizing a victim, the thoughtless minds of our ‘Chieftains and Presidents and Priests’ have proved all too unable to swim against the instinctually violent current of our animal instincts, and throughout Time have merely repeated cycles of violence and mob mentality, executing and exterminating ‘radical’ individual thought at every chance.
And the Montague’s and Capulet’s provide a literary paradigm to this cycle as they perpetuate an ancient feud, of most-likely-forgotten-origin, with pre-programmed thoughts, words, and actions. Like a white race enslaving a darker one because of ‘facts’ both Biblical (cursed offspring of Ham) and viewable (Look at them eat that watermelon!) the fact of the other family’s evil is accepted and implemented without question. They wear symbols of House on their clothes not unlike a Nazi armband, they are quick to thoughtless action like a child who has dropped his ice cream cone, and never do they exhort their individual minds to action.
The Capulet’s and the Montague’s express all too well the fatuous nature of ‘Man’s Elite’, the ruling class of peoples and immature minds that mark our history with War and Rape, and brashness over subtlety in the endless game of ‘me greater than you’.

A Day to Remember

In the first half of yesterday's game in Braunschweig, it kind of all came together.
Like everything, a variety of factors played into the creation of the moment: a beautiful stadium, a perfect playing surface of manicured grass, a very worthy opponent, thousands of loud ass German fans rooting against us, teammates that came to play, and a gorgeous summer evening sky of pink and orange swirls that made the whole scene resemble Lando Calrisian's 'City in the Clouds', or the last scene in Gladiator when Maximus' friend buries his idols in the Coliseum dirt as the camera pans upward into the heavens.
Anyway, the stars were aligned and from the outset we moved the ball however we wanted. Guys that were supposed to block blocked, guys that were suppose to run routes to open spots and catch the ball did their job, and I was the lucky guy receiving shotgun snaps and getting to throw the ball. I had a good pregame talk with myself and arrived at a place of clear mind. Whenever I felt my mind stray to anything other than the immediate task at hand I would ask myself, “What time is it?” and reply, “Now!”
We scored four times in the first half and I threw two of the touchdowns and ran in another one. I smiled, laughed, high fived, hugged, and emitted thunderous yalps from some primitive place deep within. I was in the zone, and it felt good.
The second half’s enjoyment was derived more from the winding down of the clock and the knowledge that our lead was insurmountable because of said fairytale first half performance. After the game I really did not want to leave the field. I stood and watched players and coaches from each team conversing and after a while I sat down on a sideline bench. Some kids had come down to the field and were throwing the ball around and it reminded me of myself at my brother’s high school games and of the kids at Davis that would play on the field after the games.
I think I could have slept right there on the sideline in my uniform, but alas, I decided to take it in to the locker room to de-garb and shower up for the ride back. Before I departed the field I took one last mental picture to ensure that the place deep down where those primitive yalps originated earlier would remember this fine, fine day of American Football in Germany.

Summer Day

Today was a perfect 80 degree day in Berlin, rare for this rather dreary summer in northern Germany, and I did not get out and enjoy it. I slept too late and then had to move down the hall to another room because of renovation at the hotel. In fifteen minutes I must leave for our evening practice. I went to a nice lake yesterday, and enjoyed myself, but the weather was overcast. Rain, light rain, and thunderstorms are in the forecast for the next ten days. You never know when the next sunny day will spring forth from the morning dawn. When you are lucky enough to receive a warm summer day, remember how cold it is in January, slap on some spf and go outside.

"My Precious... or plain Sacrifice?"

I find myself frequently counting the money I have saved thus far in my time over here in Deutschland.
Yes, I do sometimes feel like Golem, or Bilbo, or even Frodo, peering upon ‘my precious’: counting the strange Euro Notes, the larger than reality, monopoly currency of The European Union.
I do not; indeed I hope not that I count it in some ‘Middle Earthen’ transparent manner of pure greed. Or comfort for that matter. No, I hope that my desire to count my ‘geld’ (German for money) is to gratify for my sacrifice of frugal living, and for enabling the possibility of ‘Possibility’ after the season has concluded.
I hail from California: beautiful yes, but a mere 22 hour excursion with driving time, flights, and lay-over’s to this wonderful Germany and the gateway known as Europe: thankfully and necessarily on the dime of the Berlin Adler.
My country, the U.S. of A. is vast; and while it contains different dialects and subtle cultural discrepancies, it is still ‘One Nation Under God, Indivisible…’
I have no 9-5, (many pluses and minuses) and would not necessarily have the means to experience the vast cultural wonder of Europe without a job playing football 20 hours a week over here. (Yes, three practices and a game. And the number quoted is a wee bit higher than necessary because I have always tried to be earliest to any athletic appointment. It takes me a while to attempt to enter ‘the Zone.’ For an explanation, ask ‘Coach Rob’ of my youth soccer team.)
And after I have earned my dues of the German Football League, and its surprisingly delightful difficulty level, I will take my lived hardship of no sit down dinners, walks instead of cabs, tap water rather than bottled, indeed the ‘cheap Rum over Bacardi’ lifestyle to the bank and have enough money to rough it for at least a month in Europe.
And while I love the cities of Europe with their ornate bridges, museums galore, and discotheques-a-plenty, I will veer towards the natural splendor and the quaint villages of the ‘Ancient Ruralville’, Europa.

I contemplated coming home with some money saved so I could live in comfort in my old bedroom for a couple weeks, but really, what is a couple weeks of comfort versus a lifetime of self discovery in a foreign land? (Thanks for the insight Mom.)
And comfort just makes you weak anyway. (By the way my TV, a fairly large Panasonic, serves as nothing more than a stand for a makeshift table that I made out of an unnecessary partition from our car. Fuck Modernity!)
So yes, while I do count my money probably too much for a guy who supposedly does not care about money, I believe I do it for the acknowledgement of sacrifices lived for a good reason. And while I live in an austere manner, I do still live in a hotel in Berlin and have two meals delivered to my room every day. My job, at its most basic, is to throw a football.
I can live without caviar and three-piece-suits.
Viva la revolucion, Jonathan Richard Grant!

Rippling Thoughts

Life is the uncountable billions of ripples of All playing off each other: the endless cause and effect of One.

I take a slug of wadka and chase it back with a sip of Becks. My eyes can’t take the reading anymore, so I have turned to the journal.
Birds chirp in some inane and archaic tongue, some wave-frequency my antennae can pick up but not decipher.
I feel Here, in the moment.
A family of ducks swims by; stupid ducks just swimming on autopilot, but is perfect autopilot that has allowed them Survival. And they make ripples in the water.
And I notice the whole pond ripples. And it has always rippled. From here and gone paddleboats, from a twig dropped from an overhanging willow, a landing bird, or a leaping fish. Perpetual ripples.
And it all makes sense, the timeline; the life timeline is all ripples - from Dawn to Now. Events, actions, creations, evolutions, thoughts.

Never isolated, but at once summation and expression of future summations, in the endless Circle.

I feel like throwing my old shoe, which sits beside my crossed legs and sock-clad feet, into the pond to make my own ripples; to make my own piece of Life Art to ‘effectively cause’ a bird to flap. And to cause the rower of the boat to turn his head toward the movement only to have his gaze snagged by the young family picnicking by the water’s edge, wherein his mind shifts to his own woman back home, his woman with whom he fought last night, indeed the reason for his excursion to ‘get away from it all at the park today’. And he will go home now, and with his look and his everything embrace he will apologize for his harsh words of yesterday. And they will go upstairs and make love, conceive their child, make a big make ripple…

(Alas, I did not throw my shoe, or incite any conception that I know of. But I really enjoyed my thoughtful moments on ripples.
About fifteen minutes after this journal entry I was beckoned by the rippling sounds of a large crowd gathering nearby, and I joined a significant German student protest of some sort. There were signs and backtalk to polizei, and then a big march through a major Strasse. I did not know the exact plight of the students, but I liked their ripples, so I decided to add my own.)

Get Lost

(This was written in early April, shortly after I arrived.)
After a pretty busy first few days, we got a couple days off and the ‘Three Americans’ went out in search of downtown Berlin, backpacks, street maps, and cameras in tow. Alexanderplatz was our end goal, a central market area within walking distance to the historic areas and museums, and it seemed an easy enough destination.
But, like a kid who gets the cool Christmas present and wants to play with it sans direction reading, we left our place of residence, Hotel Kolumbus without really doing any homework on the metro routes.
And, of course when we got to the bus station the lines, symbols, and words on the metro line map were like Hieroglyphs to us Yanks. We tried a couple different buses and zigzagged around our East Berlin berg for a while, but for fear of getting lost in the sprawling unknown, we admitted defeat and walked back to our hotel to watch YouTube clips.
The next day we set out with a different mindset. Pick a bus or tram, and ride it out. The previous day’s end goal had completely tunneled our vision; we need not get to Brandennberger Gate today; the whole city is just as new to us, if not more. So we hopped on the M-6 with eyes, ears, and mind open.
On the third stop we gave up our seats to a new mother and her stroller, and exchanged a few sentences, but mostly smiles and nods of appreciation. A fifty-something American woman heard our accents and introduced herself, telling us her story, the last seventeen years of which taking place in Berlin. And my favorite: three small schoolchildren who were riding public transportation home from their day. It turned out there English was about on par with my German; I am’s, you are’s, he is’, and a handful of adjectives and verbs. They corrected my pronunciations a bit, and then enacted a scene right out of Kindergarten Cop as the three boys accurately and jokingly described each other in anatomical terms. I looked around to see if anyone else was offended by the talk, but no one seemed to be paying attention, and we all laughed together in human.
After a meandering ride through different parts of town we even found ourselves at Alexanderplatz Station and got out to walk around and see some of the sites of Berlin, which are as good as advertised.
But while Brandennberger Gate was pretty cool, my favorite part of the day was the adventure of the unknown, of happening upon the treasures of this ancient city like archaeologists after wading our way through urban jungle maze. Sometimes not knowing where you’re going is just a little bit more fun.

Twenty Four Hours and Four Minutes

I left the hotel at 4:00 am Saturday morning and drove cross city to our practice facility to make the 4:45 meeting time for the 5 o'clock departure.
The bus was late, and a long sleeve t-shirt, shorts, and flip flops were not enough to drive away the surprising June morning cold.
The bus arrived at 5:15 and we embarked on an eight hour ride nearly the length of Germany down to Munich.
I had an empty seat beside until the bus began to move. Then a linemen penetrated my unconcious vibe of 'seat's taken' and plopped down next to me, effectively cutting my sleeping space by two-thirds.
It seemed like just when I had fallen asleep we stopped at a gas station and I was awakened.
For our pregame meal we dined at McDonalds.
The game was played in a constant rain on a sloppy field and it was a defensive oriented 16-7 slugfest.
In the fourth quarter, Tony, our running back, my roommate, and best mate over here got horse collared to the ground. By the ancient yelp that spewed from his insides, I knew it was serious.
After the game, the offense got chewed out a bit for lack of production.
The busride home was marked by soreness, cramp space, and naked drunk Adler rookies undertaking another segment of their year-long initiation.
When we arrived back at the practice facility in Berlin at 3:30 am, my coach told me that Tony had fractured his Tibia, the weight supporting bone in the lower leg and would miss the rest of the season.
I arrived back at my hotel at 4:04 on Sunday morning and went to sleep, exhausted.
Twenty four hours and four minutes does not come close to measuring the true length of my Saturday, June 6, 2009.
At least it was not 1944.

This Week in Spirituality

I keep reading over and over The Dhammapada. It is a collection of sayings from the Buddha recorded by his disciples during or shortly after his death, and is much more extensive, but akin to Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount in the effect that if all other teachings from these two men were lost we would still be able to follow their ways.
There is a great 100 page or so introduction by Eknath Easwaran that goes into the life of the Buddha and some basics of Buddhism. It gives powerful parallels to other Religions and Physics and other sciences. Einstein is quoted a lot.
And the sutras themselves follow in fifteen or so chapters with lines at the same time practical and provoking of the spirit-mind. I don’t believe I will ever attain Nirvana, or dissolve completely my earthly passions or selfish desires, but the words make sense to me, and of any established Way of Life (I hesitate to say religion) seem the best suited to me for this world; mainly because they are of this world: about life, change, and renewal.
The teachings of the Buddha do not separate man and gods and animals and plants and rocks and oceans but teach that all is one, connected by the endless cause and effect of life, every ripple of a thought or action in an sea acting upon the other billions of ripples, and I like that. There are no arbitrary rules or rituals to follow, only to live a balanced life seeking to train the mind and live in accordance with all Life. Our world is determined by us, by how our own minds perceive are surroundings.
Observations and universal laws of life and the natural world, not Gods who bring horrible plagues upon Egypt, are the guides. And that works for me.

On Bears, Chimps, and Haircuts

I just got a haircut. I felt like a girlfriend before she goes to one of those all Vietnamese nail salons in California; a language barrier as impenetrable as the Berlin Wall in the mid 70s awaited.
Before I went I contemplated going down to ask one of the front desk personnel if they could write in German on a paper for me: “it’s been a little over two months since my last haircut; cut the top to about three inches and then lightly fade down to the ears. Rounded in back. Don’t mess with the sideburns.”
But they seemed busy so I thought to look for a picture of a man’s haircut like they used to have in Supercuts when I was a kid.
I only had one magazine in my possession: a Men’s Journal I bought in SFO on the journey over here. The material was none to useful: an article on wispy blond-haired Greg Norman (who was in his usual brimmed hat in all but one photo; an article about some skiers traversing the Sawtooths all in beanies or helmets; photos about the Tijuana drug wars did not prove helpful, so I was stuck between some Polo Ralph Lauren ads and the cover of outdoor survival guide and all around awesome dude, Bear Grylls.
I kinda liked the flippy bed head of the underwear model, and Bear’s du was a little shorter than I was used to. But I made a man’s decision and tore off the cover of Bear looking like the ex-British special forces bad ass that he is and set out to ‘besser’ my looks.
I arrived in time for my 18:30 appointment. (I had walked in the salon on my way home from a beer run to the mall earlier and just finding a time to return in the busy salon was a chore in itself.) The cute, young-twenties stylist remembered me, took my jacket, and ushered me to the seat.
I took out the picture of Bear and made a gesture that I wanted my hair to look like his. She understood and put the pic on the dash between the mirror and myself.
The haircut was nothing less than everything.
I rarely get haircuts, and even cut my own hair for the better portion of high school and college, but every time I have someone else groom me I take on the persona of one of my primate cousins getting his pelt cleansed of ticks and dirt by one his kin. I become chimp, or at least Ace Ventura in the scene in the second one where he camouflages himself from the bad guys by partaking in the group chimpanzee grooming session, (right before the rhino scene I think.)
And I’m always sad when the grooming ends. For a good few minutes after the haircut, I retain a sort of euphoria in the bottom part of my head and neck; a relaxed, the-world-is-good feeling spreads over me. I really cannot explain it, but every time I get a haircut I am astonished at how good it makes me feel.
So, thanks to all the Bears and Chimps that got me here. Now I gotta go shave.

The Harz

So I went to the Harz Mountains in central Germany last weekend with great friend and travel partner, Kendra. Witches and gnomes were once rumored to inhabit the region and a lot of the classic German fairy tales have their origin in the mysterious Harz.
We stayed at a sweet hostel in Wernigerode. The innkeepers were Alex and six week-old Lishka, a rambunctious energy ball with those puppy eyes that just make every urine stain or bite on the leg harmless, excusable, and even appropriate and laughable. Let's just say she was cute.
I was the first person from California ever to stay at the hostel and proudly put my thumbtac on the southernmost tip of Monterey Bay. (I love being able to pinpoint precisely where I live on a map in two seconds.)
We summitted Mount Brochen on a nice four hour hike. We ate sandwhiches on the top and on the way down stopped near a stream in a little green canyon for a bier break. I love Berlin, but it cannot offer the untouched and unspoiled that I have grown up so close with on the Pacific, the Sierra Nevada, the lakes of New Hampshire, and in the rugged mountains of Idaho.
Thank you to the Harz for a great weekend of cobblestone streets, old-Europe architecture and restaurants, great bier, happy Germans, and most of all for allowing me to reconnect with the natural: interesting how I can feel home sitting by a mountain stream in Germany.

McEarth

I went to the gym today. It is a nice place: large, clean, smells like rubber. It is called McFit, and they are all over Berlin.
There is also a popular stationary store chain called McPaper.
I like the fact that I can get a hamburger and French fries around here, but do we really need to incorporate the ‘golden arches’ into society any more than necessary? Whatever happened to creativity and uniqueness? Indeed, it is a fast food, stamped, catalogued, and spit-out world.
But I do like The Dave Matthew’s Band, so maybe I am just hypocritical when it comes to cookie-cutter names.
Gotta go; I could use a little early-evening pep so I think I’ll head over to McKaffee.

Big Time?

Yesterday I felt a bit like Joe Montana. Ok, a tiny tiny bit.
I got to the practice facility and our offensive coordinator, Coach Lee Rowland from London, produced the latest issue of the weekly German American Football Magazine. On this week’s cover of Huddle, was yours truly dropping back to pass.
The publication is not Sports Illustrated. It is printed in black and white on coarse paper, but nonetheless I did feel honored if not slightly embarrassed, to grace its cover.
About twenty minutes later as I was watching film of this week’s opponent, Munich, our head coach presented me with a piece of mail. It was addressed in German, An Hemn (attention?) Jonathan Grant C/O AFC Berlin Adler. I was puzzled but curious.
I opened the envelope to discover a treasure. Inside was written a letter in elementary-English- as-a-second-language syntax asking if I would please sign an enclosed picture and return it to the address below. Furthermore, the young football fan welcomed me to Berlin, wished me luck, and thanked me for my time. A stamp was enclosed.
Wow, I remember writing to my favorite baseball and football players back in the day in exactly the same manner, and now a German Junga thought me worthy of this effort. I smiled, tried to gain some perspective, and for a few minutes did not think about Munich’s 3-4 blitzing scheme.

Initiation

After a slimmed down training camp, albeit still seven practices in four days, rookie initiation took center stage in a post WWII French Army base in West Berlin, now training complex for fifteen years to the Berlin Adler American Football Club of the German Football League.
The festivities consisted of nine completely naked football players ranging in size from a couple smallish defensive backs and a kicker to our coveted new 6’7” Czech right tackle; a beer drinking audience of team members, a few dozen male and female family and friends, and the occasional bike rider or jogger passing by on the nearby recreational trail.
As anticipation grew, Patrick, our linebacker from Georgia, and myself became quite wary of the situation and together stood an anxious watch for stealthy Germans looking for a Yankee catch; alas, for one reason or another we were off the menu and were enabled along with our American ex-NFL running back Tony, to happily watched the debauchery ensue.
Much to the surprise and delight of all in attendance, the nine victims ran out of our locker room in complete and utter nudity.
They had been instructed to do so of course by Eric, our veteran center and leader of this long awaited event.
He then led them to a table that held an array of plastic cups filled with different concoctions of the likes that hideous medieval witch from “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves” would be proud.
Prior to their entrance, my curiosity got the best of me and I smelled three of the cups: fish heads, iodine, and vomit I would say, and the vapors were enough to nearly summon my gag reflex. Completely non-alcoholic I was told, just flat out inhumane.
The ‘nude men walking’ nervously but proudly strolled to the table, some with a palm over private parts, others not so ashamed, and lined up for execution.
After the ‘vic’ successfully drank the pernicious potable of their choice they were to complete a pre-determined obstacle course in the grass behind the home end-zone.
Much as a team completing a stout regular season record in order to secure home field advantage for the playoffs, those who completed this course with the fastest times would have an easier go of it in later weekly events throughout the season.
And those with slow times were sent hoping for short bus rides home from away games.
So like the glorious competitors of an ancient Greek Olympiad, the athletes downed the greenish-brown libations and ran nude in 40 degree (Fahrenheit) evening air to a garbage can filled with even colder water in which they submerged their heads.
This step was performed to enable the ensuing flower projected at them to stick.
In white face they spun around the top end of a back hoe ten times and swiftly stumbled to a tarp covered in soapy water. There they proceeded to dive or slide across the make shift slip-and-slide, butt cracks and ball sacks a view.
After this act of absurdity they high-kneed through a rope ladder, only to roll a ‘World’s Strongest Man’ type three-foot diameter medicine ball thirty meters to the northeast pylon of the end zone. There they ditched the ball and galloped to the near goalpost where our herculean blocking sled wait.
Sans spikes, only the linemen-types could move it on their own. Most needed help from camera phone-toting teammates nearby.
And all bared their backsides to the hysteria-filled crowd sitting thirty meters behind the spectacle.
I myself have not possessed such a sustained, ab-working laugh in a very long, long time.
Once they pushed the sled past the twenty yard line, Eric stopped the clock and noted the times. Every single player performed their duties in good nature without a hint of protest. The teammates and audience laughed their back sides off and, even those who happened upon the irregular scene did so with modest alarm.
And honestly, this wonderful and positive event, filled with nudity and coercion, plainly could not have happened in our ‘Land of the Free.’
I told a teammate after the festivities that such a scene would just not fly in ‘The States.’ He looked at me inquisitively, thought for a second, and then not spitefully but proudly stated,
“Well then Jon, I’m glad I live in Germany!”
And I’m glad, if only for a while, that I get to experience this place they call Deutschland.