Here's the third installment of Interview 2009. Gypsy asked a question dear to my heart.
When I arrived in Munich for Oktoberfest, oh, 13 years ago, the train station (Hauptbahnhof) was pristine. When I left, three days later, there was vomit everywhere and drunken sailors pissing on the tracks. Does this happen every year, and who are the worst culprits of drunken idiocy? I blame the Italians. Alice? Alice? Who the fuck is Alice?
Ah, so you read my post, Octoverfest.
I have no idea who the fuck Alice is. Zurika once explained it to me, so I’ll throw her a lifeline on that one. Whenever an Oktoberfest band plays Living Next door to Alice (which, regrettably, they do), spak twats in the audience wait for the end of the title line to shout, in English, who the fuck is Alice? Drinking songs don’t have to make sense, but who-the-fuck-is-Alice reaches a new low in bone-headed quatsch. Short answer: Alice can fuck off.
The vomiting people probably aren’t sailors. And I don’t think they’re Italians, either. Nor Brits, who vomit their way across Europe every summer, as you know.
Drunks. Sometimes you have to remind them.
Look at it this way. You’re a young man. You live in Dullsdorf, in rural Bavaria. You work the family farm, or maybe assemble gearboxes at the local Bosch factory. Presto! The world’s biggest beer festival lands on your doorstep. Whatcha gonna do? Since you’re German, you can’t smile until the third drink. Hey hey hey. Pukestadt.
Bavaria is the Texas of Germany. A bit too big. A bit too loud. A bit too religious. A bit too rich, and much too vulgar. The Oktoberfest Ralphs are the local good ol' boys. Or to use Australian expressions, they're yobbos, boguns or larrikins.
(Australians have a gift for terms that describe drunken misbehaviour. Like Eskimos need 20 words for snow, Australians invent endless terms for vomit. Ralph, spit, yak, spew, maut, chunder, sick, barf, pavement pizza, liquid laugh, curbside quiche, and my favourite, technicolour yawn.)
So the Oktobarfesters are not Italians. They’re Erdingers, Rosenheimers, Kissingers, Feldmocheners, Laimers, Unterschließheimers, Friesingers, Füsseners, Augsburgers, Ulmers, or Bad Tölzers. Though inner-city Giesingers always win the blue-ribbon in puking events.
By
the way, I think it’s a stretch to call Munich Hauptbahnhof pristine,
even at the best of times. Among the first structures rebuilt after
the war were train stations, and many, like Munich’s, were done in
haste. The place seems to wear a coat of permanent shabbiness.
Nonetheless, it stays busy this time of year, with armies of
ski-bunnies on the way to catch some last-minute spring snow on the
Zugspitze.
Smoke-free. But alas, not puke-free.
