the final days of the invasion

The Pope's House. This is THAT balcony. I forgot it in yesterday's post, so here it is. Shhhh. If you're really quiet, you can almost hear the tiny little screams of young boys in the other rooms that are "praying" with local bishops.
VATICAN CITY, VATIAINTGOINGINME








Circus Maximus. This long patch of soil was where chariots would race. Today, anyone can walk on it. The kid I was with ran the length of it to prove a point. It winded him and he looked like a fool. Ah, youth. Pride before wisdom. It's a lovely area to visit, especially if you and your buddies want to get out the chariots and have a few races. This person in pink, I have no idea who that is.
ROME, ITALY




Florence from Piazza Micheangelo on my last day. My feet hurt so bad it was all I could do to ride a bus to each locale. I loved this spot. It was one of the few warm days, with sunshine and it felt good to watch the local kids get stoned and drink wine on the hill top.
FLORENCE, ITALY







Tuscany. It really doesn't get any better than this - Wine, Diane Lane, Art students that are easily seduced with cheap dialogue, and these endless vistas.
TUSCANY, ITALY









Shifting gears. This is the entrance into Dachau. The first concentration camp of the Third Reich. Originally a prison for criminals of the state, it opened it's doors to Jews, Gays, Gypsies, Serbs, and all other forms of non-Aryans. Dachau was the toughest of them all, It was the first to gas, experiment, torture, hang and "train" it's prisoners. This humble door must have looked like the gates to hell. Today, there is a housing complex twenty feet away from this building.
DACHAU, GERMANY



ARBEIT MACHT FREI. Work makes you free. The words on the gate of every concentration camp. There was no work to be done at Dachau, it was used as a political prison and a place to experiment, but people did survive their stay. Sadly, there are no German tourists here. Germans are not allowed to learn about this portion of their history and still feel guilt and shame about it. It's the worst crime of the Nazis. Not what they did to people in the 1930's and 40's, but what it did to a nation for centuries. I think that's why people can live next to this place and not care.
DACHAU, GERMANY

The Grounds. This is the place where 30,000 people stood for three hours every morning and night to be counted. Any deviation in the numbers and they stood longer. It was below freezing this day and I was wearing a hat, gloves, a wool coat, a fleece undergoat, a flannel shirt and a tee shirt and I was freezing. They wore a thin long sleeved shirt and a pair of pants with sandals. In the background, that's the fight between the football fans. That's right in front of the only remaining barracks.
DACHAU, GERMANY


First day. In this room, they actually showered. If you notice, each beam has a square on it. That square used to be a wooden beam where prisoners were hanged and beaten. The concept of "showers" was first thought of in this room.
DACHAU, GERMANY








I fancy myself a writer and this hit me hard. Inside the camp, no one was allowed to keep records of what happened. If you did and it was discovered, you were hung from a beam and beaten to death. The power of words, a lesson for us all. The Bunker is a smaller prison behind this building that was used for special prisoners that the SS wanted to talk to. In that bunker the cells were two feet by two feet. You could not sit down or turn around.
DACHAU, GERMANY



This gate is the last remaining original gate. If you look you can see the thin strip of grass next to the group of students. If you stepped on that grass, you were shot. If you wanted to make a run for it, you had to clear the water in the moat, then electrical wires, then an electric barbed wire fence, then a machine gun nest, then another moat, then Germany. This gate led to the first extermination compound of Nazi Germany.
DACHAU, GERMANY



These were the deluxe model ovens. Bodies were found in them when the camp was liberated. They could accomodate up to two bodies at a time. This was the second model used for this purpose. Dachau was where they perfected the oven system that other camps would use. Then Dachau quit gassing their prisoners. It was too expensive. They needed their prisoners to find out what happened to the body when you exposed it to freezing water for two weeks or what happens when you accidentally fall out of your airplane in space.
DACHAU, GERMANY


Shower room. The bad kind. The first one. The small window on the back wall is where the doctors watched to see the effects of the gas, to see if it was effective. This is the only part of the tour that the school kids thought was "cool."
Those black dots on the ceiling are where the gas came in the room. In the room before this, they took off their clothes and waited for their turn to go in. The room on the other side was where they were stacked until they could be burned. The waiting room actually had a bench for them to sit on before their shower.
DACHAU, GERMANY

The original ovens a few feet from the showers. This is where they worked on getting it right. Sadly, this oven took too long and could only burn one body at a time. These are old bread ovens.
DACHAU, GERMANY








Marienplatz in Munich. I loved Munich. It was a beautiful city. Even though it was surrounded by death. This building is the new city hall which was built before the old city hall. In that tower is a glockenspeil. Or, an elaborate coo coo clock. There is only one other one like it in the world and it's in Prague. It goes off at 11 AM and noon everyday. That statue in front of it is solid gold.
MUNICH, GERMANY





This is Tal 38. They sell furniture here. 80 years ago, it's where Hitler and some buddies came up with the idea of Nazis and a dream. German beer is strong and drunks can come up with some weird shit when their buzzed.
MUNICH, GERMANY










The glockenspeil. It's really very spooky. It's not attached to the clock so it's not automated, someone has to enter the tower and turn it on every day. Isn't that odd. The people spin around for five minutes, and there is a joust and everything. The bird on top does come out and make a strange noise at the end. Germans also like to watch porn where people pee and poo on each other. Just thought you should have some perspective on German culture.
MUNICH, GERMANY





The hall on top of Hofbrahaus where Hitler gave his first speech.... On that stage.... In this room.... It all started. That's right if Hitler had chickened out from stage fright, we wouldn't have Jettas or Passats today.
MUNICH, GERMANY










This spot used to have a huge monument that everyone had to salute as they passed. It marks the spot where Hitler and his "beer hall putsch" occured. Basically a small riot, some 15 nazis died, not Hitler, he ran away and stole the only ambulance in town. Also killed, four police officers and one waiter. Later it would be said that the waiter was a Nazi and he would be included in the memorial and enshrined with the other "heroes." The four police men would also be included and it was said they were killed trying to join the Nazi revolt. If you look closely at the wall, right in the upper middle, you will see a hint of a small black square. That is where the plaque bearing the names of the police officers once sat.
MUNICH, GERMANY

This is the balcony in the Olympic Village where that masked terrorist stood and was photographed during the hostage crisis. In my mind this building was larger and more remote. In reality, it was much smaller than the rest of the buildings in the area and the balcony was barely off the ground. Today, someone lives in the apartment where the kidnapping and murders took place. And - like so many other things about Germans - they don't want to remember it. A small plaque is all that is here to remind anyone that it happened. The rest of the area is mostly a slum.
MUNICH, GERMANY



The Olympic village. This railing is the old transit system that is no longer around. The buildings are run down and are used for low cost housing. Germany spent millions to prepare for this Olympics and it was it's "out" from the gloom of it's past. Then the hostage crisis and a difficult silver medal for the USA in basketball and everything went to shit. Today, all that glory is in ruins, much like the rest of Europe. A great idea ruined by violence and basketball.
MUNICH, GERMANY



This group of trees is growing out of the old Nazi pantheon where the bodies of the 16 heroes of the Beer Hall Putsch were buried and displayed. Today it is collecting trash from people driving by. In the backgound is the original SS headquarters. And yes, that is a smart car, they are everywhere in Europe.
MUNICH, GERMANY






Hitler's first headquarters after becoming "a contender, a somebody." Today, it's nothing. It's empty. If you look at the top of the building you can see three holes, that is where the swastika was placed on the building.
It bears noting that the power behind all this glory are the companies - Bayer, BMW and Porsche, who made out like bandits during the war. Bayer, the aspirin company, was responsible for the experiments at Dachau. All these companies had offices here. Today, only Bayer has offices nearby. BMW has offices out by the Olympic grounds.
MUNICH, GERMANY


This is the kingsplatz. The buildings are old offices of the Nazis and that temple is where the Hilter youth became officers or were sworn in. This is also the plaza where they first started burning books and where Nazi Day was first celebrated with a grand parade. Behind me is the Pantheon with the 16 heroes.
MUNICH, GERMANY






This is one of the few remaining Nazi eagles that didn't get torn down. The swastika was chiseled out, but the impact remains. This one is on the side of a school.
MUNICH, GERMANY









The desk where Goethe wrote Faust. Goethe was rich growing up and lived in a beautiful house in Frankfurt. He did most of his work in Frankfurt and then started traveling around a bit. But this is where he became famous. I have no desk, so tours of my house after I'm dead, will be of a red plaid couch where I wrote "Booger sculptures and other short stories" my immortal classic.
FRANKFURT, GERMANY





Germans love this kind of Bavarian look. It's so overdone. The positive side of Frankfurt, Hitler hated it and never, ever came here. Other Frankfurt facts. Only city not founded by the Romans. World Headquarters of the Euro. (which owns the French, Norweign, English, Spainish and Italian Stock exchange - yes, the Germans finally got it right. No need for armies, just use corporations and you can rule all of Europe) The "brats" in this area were the best. I could live in Germany just for their food.
FRANKFURT, GERMANY




The hostel next to the world of sex. Where all forms of sex were occuring night and day. It was fun to sit in front of the building and get looked at like a hustler. Pimpin' ain't easy! The world of sex contains videos of women that like to be pooed on. What strikes me about this particular fetish is that there are enough women out there that enjoy pee and poo that you could make so much "fresh faced" porn with it. Where are all these chicks? And why didn't any of them talk to me? I would have peed on a chick! Hey, you can't judge me! Am I not supposed to be subscribing to the mantra, "When in Rome." The hostel door is just behind the arrow on the blue sign. On the other side, gay world of sex. Did anyone know that middle eastern men could be gay? Anyone? Or is it just me. Anyway, it was weird to see men running back into an alley together.
FRANKFURT, GERMANY




Okay. That's it. I have some other photos, but I am not going to overwhelm you with them. It was a fun trip. I learned a great deal and came home smiling. Every trip abroad seems to teach me more about the human condition, each and every time I step foot in a duty free shop I take a little bit more home with me from my trip.

Europe is worth a month or two of your life. It will cost you a good chunk of change, but there is something to be seen there. It's filled with history's achievements and failures and, depending on which country you're in, you can visit them both and learn from what you see. I still think they just need one huge gallery in Europe and one huge cemetery. I know this sounds awful, but trust me when I say, that time is coming.

The Food
The People
The lessons to be learned.
That's what I enjoyed on my trip.
The most valuable lesson I learned on my trip - Trying to make something disappear and trying to forget about it, only makes something last longer in the minds of the world. If you want something to die off, you overkill it, you don't doll it out in small doses. You get sicker of pizza faster when you eat an entire one yourself than when you eat one piece at a time. You want to forget about the Nazis, the terrorists, the plague, the wars, or things that your country did in it's 2000 plus year history that was bad... Then give them the Vanilla Ice treatment. OVER expose those things you want to forget about, until everyone is sick of them, then they will fall from favor and we won't ever see them again until VH1 or the History channel brings them back to our attention. Avoiding something only gives it a longer shelf life. That is what I learned. There is too much shame, guilt and pain that people feel that isn't theirs to feel. I guess every country sees this. As an American, I know there was a time when I felt shame about things my country had done. But is that fair to me? No. Fuck Hitler, Fuck Il Duce and Fuck the Queen of England. I want a Gelatto, GUILT FREE!!!!!