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Band on the Run Berlin 2025/ “This Will Not End Well”
January 26
Flying over Reykjavik on the way back to the US, it's hard not to feel a buzz, thinking about the week before. Sure, some of it might have been the techno music blasting through us from a few hours prior at ://about blank, the club we left just a few hours before we left.
The shamanistic dancing, up with crescendos, beats rising, before the drop, down, back up, eyes closed, bodies vibrating, colors dancing in my head.
“Winter depression my ass! Attention, here it comes: BLANK WINTER HOLIDAYS!
We spent the night moving between the three dance floors and the bonfire outside.
Trying the reality that we were going back.
It's the feeling of the strange, the unknown thinking about the US and the world.
It's the feeling, walking through the snowy connection for a few minutes outside, on the way to the plane to New York, in Reykjavik.
I had it waking Saturday in Munich, thinking about Nina Shoenfeld’s installation on surveillance and activism, the image of the FBI raiding the offices of an immigrant rights lawyer, shock and awe, the new Palmer raids coming, detention for questioning, thought police and 1984, rounded up for organizing, for asking questions, for associating with the wrong people, the wrong ideas.
I thought about the way we live today, band on the run, from city to city, class to class, club to club, demo to demo, bookstore to park, conversation to conversation.
I thought about the voices of the soccer fans on the train from Munich to Berlin, loud screaming, laughing, giggling, drinking beer, drowning out discourse, like the louts in the bar fight in Inglorious Bastards, a war to fight, beer to drink, a match to watch.
I thought of the afternoon back in Berlin, Johanna picking me up at Reveller and Warshashastrasse, near the old Suicide Circus, and the other clubs on the water where we danced all week long, laughing and shaking, trains moving in the distance.
Driving to the sites of Kafka’s Berlin, outside of Praha for a moment, arriving at The Anhalter Bahnhof on December 3, 1910, as so many others had, Rosa and Carl during revolutionary times, taking notes in his journal: "Start with what is right rather than what is acceptable."
We used to eat at an old restaurant just behind there when we lived in Berlin two years ago.
That seems like a long time ago.
Down Unter den Linden, we see someone carrying a sign to an anti-fascist demo, another riding a bike with a sign, by Brandenburg Gate, the spirit of freedom still on everyone’s minds. Possibly, the peace that Willy Brandt committed himself to, might take shape there in the hopes for something different, not an Alternative for Deutschland, that the protesters condemned, comparing them to Nazis, but an alternative to the right, to fight the fascists. Perhaps it could be a way out of the labyrinth, where Kafka found himself in Praha. It gets its claws in you, he confessed. But we want to break out. Sometimes we can’t. With his Berlin trips, Kafka could, at least a little. Franz Kafka spent a brief time in Berlin from September 1923 to March 1924, escaping his family to focus on his writing.
But soon found his way back.
Standing at the demo at Brandenburg Gate, bodies extend into the distance, as far as I can see. Some into the Tiergarten where Rosa and Benjamin hung out, others down the street, women on bikes, elders, kids, rave music playing, sounds through time, bubbles in the air, speeches, words, sounds, sweet resistance to the right, from here to there, through history.
I think of the friends I’ve met here in the street, my friends back home, Ken and Alice and Jay.
Ever organizing, Alice in New York writes: “Trump has moved swiftly to enact his mass deportation plan and catapult us toward climate collapse. Nazi-saluting Elon and his other billionaire cronies will get even richer while millions suffer and lose their rights. The only way to protect all that we love is to fight back. Join a group that’s building power and taking direct action to stop Trump’s fascist agenda. POP is one such group, and we’d love to have you in our community….It can be scary right now to think about the future. Amid my own fears, I’ve been thinking about a wonderful quote by the historian and activist Mike Davis: “What keeps us going, ultimately, is our love for each other, and our refusal to bow our heads, to accept the verdict, however all-powerful it seems. It’s what ordinary people have to do. You have to love each other. You have to defend each other. You have to fight.” I'm excited to pluck up my courage, imagine a beautiful future, and get to work winning that world with you.”
Johanna and I stopped by a gallery showing her work, along the East Side Gallery, where the Wall stood for three decades. Says her profile, “Johanna Keimeyer is an experiential artist who creates immersive experiences using interdisciplinary forms.” Whimsical and fantastic, her work invites us into a conversation about bodies and heroes, Joan of Arc and Freddie, Elvis and Madonna, lives blurring, along with genders and selves. The metamorphoses are constant. Like the City, Johanna is open to ideas, new people, ready for new friends, to connect, talk about art, battle patriarchy, go swimming in the winter, or dance. Our newest Berlin buddy, we met her at the Tigerlillies show ten days prior, dancing late the next night at Sameheads. Dressed in her signature pink tights and green cashmere sweater, white hair and purple hair, she hung with us till three, gossiped, talked about going the spa, swimming all winter, making art, never quite leaving, staying in touch all week long, meeting us at the Kindyl, to see Ride or Die, dinner, taking us out to see her work on Sunday, meeting us Kotti Wednesday with the buddies, ever zipping about Berlin in her red mini. Friendship is a gift. Berlin is full of them.
After the demo, Falco met us at Carlotta Bar on Lenbachstraße 10, in Friedrichstein, just down the street from @blank, where we would spend the evening. Dashing as always, with his signature hat and ascot, a model, now a craftsman designing high end frames, he hugs me and asks about life. Over beer and cigs, we chat about his travels and work, family and the strange ways Germany has had to adapt through the years. After the war, deNazification was the order of the day. But the next conflict, the Cold War took precedence. It takes just a few drinks to get the old Nazi songs coming back, he tells me, referring to his trips to the East. Born in the German Democratic Republic, Berlin is home. But the East is part of him. He’s friends with Nina, appearing in her films, along with us.
Soon Federico, my Berlin ride or die, joins us. Those two know each other through work. Falco departs. Jarno texts he can’t make it. And Johanna drives us for a pizza before we go to ://about blank, down the street, for more dancing, taking in the trash can fires in the back, more and more people arriving, joining each other, dancing, nearer and nearer, further away, together, apart, ever aware, as reality blurs, people in wheelchairs, young women, elder hippies shaking, trasers flashing, splashing across my mind, red circle, blue, flashing, pulsing, flashing, open, closed, light, black, back and forth, here, there, here, green, blue. Emilio’s story about his bad trip at Berghain runs through my mind. His girlfriend went to the bathroom and took something. I don’t know what I took, she says, not quite able to speak. Emilio feels his legs, but can’t get up. His friend goes to the bartender; tells him what happened. He gives her a huge bottle of water. He drinks it. She sits with him. And after an hour, they both find their way to their feet, making their way to the dance floor, where they remain till 10 am the next day. Berlin is a place where people get lost in a daydream. Sometimes people don’t make it out. Still, we find something in the magic, the Phoenix in the ashes of this city, ever bombed and burned, divided and reunited, divided anew from its country.
Allessandra sends more and more pics from the demo.
Around midnight, Baby C joins us, dancing from floor to floor. No one wants to leave. Well, Baby C reminds us we should leave. We have a flight in a few hours. But the hypnotic tech is pulling at me. Flashbacks screaming through my mind, tracers, memories of the Stark Club from summer ‘86, Rock Lobster, dancing at Sisyphos, ://about blank, Journey after journey, we make our way forward.
The US has had scary leaders. “You had Nixon,” Emilio reminds us. The Berlinners still think of Kennedy speaking out for them. They remain curious. But today concerned, well, that's a euphemism. They are horrified by Trump and Musk Nazi saluting.
“There are so many signs one can make with their hands,” says Nikolas, our buddy from Georgie, making a heart love gesture, no need to emulate the National Socialist Heils.
It's gonna be a bumpy ride. It's been said before. We've been here before.
At the airport we read, “Today 100000 people demonstrated in Berlin against fascism” during the rally the night before.
In the bathroom, I take note of the vibrators for sale.
The reasons to love Berlin are many.
Thank you Berlin Buddies.
Goodbye Berlin. We’re miss you.
We really just arrived, a few notes between then and now.
A few impressions:
Jan 15th
The night before we left, I met ray and Damian at an art show at 86 Walker St at a gallery called The Hole. There are a lot of great artists there. Ray knew a few of the artists. People are still homesick for a lost city here, grasping for pieces... walking through the city... wondering about Monday, thinking about today.
Jan 17
Band on the Run, Berlin
We had one of those trips from NYC to Reykjavik, a quick layover sprint to the next plane, into Berlin, the trains, to the Warschauer straße s bahn, the voices of two Ukrainians, a group of Spanish kids, careening to Rachel's, grey winter skies, looking at the spree, a quick nap, trip out to see the Tigerlillies, singing about the tragedies of our time, war, lies, stupid people, the sounds of accordion, harmonium, cabaret, sad and absurd, sorrowful and bountiful, new friends and laughs, jet lag and arguments about theater and Nan Goldin, in our favourite city. Band on the run from the crazy USA.
Jan 18
Life in a day, I ran out to find Kai at Markthalle 9 for lunch... We talked about Vienna and grabbed the train to C/0. Taking in the Berlin in the 1990s show and then over to Charlottenburg where Ola Kohlenberg walked us through his work on the art of looking and seeing, a show in an immense townhouse, before Caroline ran us to after the butcher gallery and showroom for contemporary issues, stories from Audrey Lorde, Rosa Luxemburg, Anna Zett reading stories of fire burning down her childhood home, her struggle for connection and separation with her past. After her reading, we ate soup, watched Twin Peaks and left our stuff. And then to Sameheads to dance with Johanna and Fed till 5 am. On the train, ran into Luke who was talking to dodi in la, they were off to punk shows at SO36, and the stories went on and on. Next morning, I ran back to the gallery to find my bag, walking through the crisp winter, thinking about the city and the shows the night before, Dream On Berlin:
Jan 18th
Nina E. Schönefeld: Ride or Die Stills from– 16 Feb 2025 KINDL
Berlin, Germany...
Ride of Die... A film for our time... “We argued about the failure of democracy a lot... Populists offered simple solutions to complex problems…” said the narrator, the words chilling, the last day before the bad rerun... We ran around to kindl, out for a snack and walked across Berlin, from ://about blank, to Berghain, then Monster Ronsons laughing, out onto to the waterfront discos, as the morning began and we found one more nightclub, full of bikers along the Spree, i Weiße Hare, White Hare, giggling, dancing into the morning, watching the sun rise and stumbling in for more, greeting the blue Berlin skies. Thank you Berlin.good luck USA.
Jan 19
After getting home at nine am, walking dancing all night, woke at 1 pm and ran to Nate's history tour of Rosa Luxemburg Berlin. "We will be meeting at Mehringplatz in Kreuzberg, on the north side of the square at the exit of U6 Hallesches Tor, where the escalator goes up toward Friedrichstraße. We will meet at 14:00 and leave by 14:10...The tour will end roughly 2.5 hours later, after two trips on the U-Bahn, in Friedenau." Walking through the stations of her life, struggles to get a phd at the age of 26 to find an apartment on her own, between reform and revolution, to find freedom, no kids but a bunny and a cat named Mimi.
"Berlin has made the most unfavorable impression on me,” said Rosa, when she arrived, a year before Emma Goldman moved to New York, on the 14th of August 1889.
Nate set the context for the tour:
“It is 1898 and Rosa Luxemburg has just arrived in the capital of the German Empire.” A marriage of convenience made it possible for her to get out of Poland, enabling her German citizenship and engagement in advocacy for Social Democracy. She wanted to be at the center of the action. That was Berlin. Still she saw Berlin as, “cold, tasteless, massive — a real barracks; and the dear Prussians with their arrogance, as though every one of them had the stick up their ass with which they had once been beaten…”
“Fair to say it isn’t love at first sight,” says Nate. “but Luxemburg stays here until the bitter end. Berlin is her home for the next two decades.”
Towards the end, she prophetically observed,
"Order reigns in Berlin! You stupid henchmen! Your 'order' is built on sand".
Still, "Tomorrow the revolution will already 'raise itself with a rattle' and announce with fanfare, to your terror: I was, I am, I will be!".
Yet, we all have a choice to think, she said, "Freedom only for the supporters of the government, only for the members of a party – however numerous they may be – is no freedom at all. Freedom is always the freedom of the one who thinks differently".
Nate concludes: “On January 15, 1919, Rosa Luxemburg was murdered by proto-fascist paramilitaries under the orders of a social democratic government. 105 years after one of the most infamous political assassinations of the 20th century, walking us through Luxemburg’s Berlin: where she lived, where she spent long nights writing during the revolution of 1918, where she went into hiding as the counter-revolution closed in."
Nate, our enterprising and witty guide, walks us to multiple sites of her life, including one of the apartments where Rosa Luxemburg went into hiding before she was killed.
No one knows what is going to happen in Germany, France or the USA. The days of Angela and Barrack have long passed.
Claudia and Milivan had us for dinner later that dinner, a night of chatting with Rachel and Nina and Emilio into the night, with Berlin buddies old and new.
Jan 20
Band on the Run
Budapest
See blog tomorrow.
Berlin Jan 22
Back in Berlin, we walk past broken glass,
Signs of class war in the streets, if your town is flooding, the rich will get on their yachts, says one poster. On a trip to the Jewish Museum, "It is easy to recognize a concentration in me of all my forces on writing..." Kafka trying to make sense of it all.At Kotti, we chat about culture and work and cities changing, the world changing, tilting this way and that, friends joining us at cafe kotti, talking late into the night, Berlin buddies in an endless conversation.
Jan 23
We walked to the Neue Nationalgalerie.
Strange looking at the blurry photographs and stories from Nan Goldin's 'This will not end well,' her aptly titled retrospective here, tracing life stories of family trauma and loss, underground New York, drugs and addiction. It's strange hearing the voices of New York friends in the works. The story could be all of us, could be our days in Berlin, or Trump or our collective future. "The name is the best thing about it," said Stef who joined us. Finishing, we grab a crowded bus to the Berlinische Galerie for coffee and cake with Jana, exploring the permanent exhibition, works on Berlin streets, a divided, ever changing city. And then off to Babylon to say goodbye to David Lynch, taking in Blue Velvet one more time. Still disturbing to see Frank, to wonder about the ear in the ants in the ground. Been here a week. Feels like a year.
“Nan Goldin This Will Not End Well Neue Nationalgalerie Neue Nationalgalerie’s retrospective is the first exhibition in Germany to present a comprehensive overview of Goldin’s work. The exhibition is installed in six unique buildings designed by Hala Wardé, an architect who frequently works with Goldin. Each building is designed in response to the specific piece. Together they constitute a village. “I have always wanted to be a filmmaker. My slideshows are films made up of stills,” says Nan Goldin.”
Jan 24
Homage to a surrealist bouncing between Berlin and Los Angeles, DorothyFuzz now and forever.
Dorothy Fuzz at LUNA Luna.
Dorothy Fuzz talking with Dion about German and Italian boyfriends
Dorothy Fuzz in the desert
Dorothy Fuzz at the slabs making a movie
Dorothy Fuzz singing
Dorothy Fuzz dreaming about Japan, sleeping in LA
Dorothy Fuzz at Ornithology with Evelyn, before it was canceled,
Dorothy Fuzz at Loophole before it closed.
Dorothy Fuzz walking through Westwood, looking for sushi in Venice, wandering the abandoned carnival
Dorothy Fuzz inviting us to ask her a question about art.
Dorothy Fuzz admiring Duchamp in Philadelphia, telling me what she saw at the Hammer
Dorothy Fuzz dreaming about June in Shanghai.
Dorothy Fuzz channelling Baroness Von Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven, experiments in German avant-garde, a poet and artist like Dodi is
Dorothy Fuzz running on the beach
Dorothy Fuzz confessing she just couldn’t do it, couldn’t get on stage
Dorothy Fuzz drafting notes in a dream notebook, dreams about fish and friends.
Dorothy Fuzz in the cirkus
Dorothy Fuzz eating rice cakes
Dorothy Fuzz eating snacks
Dorothy Fuzz with Else, in Greenwich Village with Eve, up the street from Reggio, a Dada disaster on the horizon.
Dorothy Fuzz dancing with Helga and Anita in Los Angeles, looking for Berber’s grave in Berlin.
But Dad found it.
Dorothy Fuzz organizing the spectacular, chatting with a German film star.
Dorothy Fuzz hearing some voices with Craig, discharged, befriending Kelly…
Dorothy Fuzz performing.
Dorothy Fuzz on the move, through time.
Happy birthday gorgeous.
Dodi on the move.
January 24
Taking it on the road to Munich with Nina,Rachel,and Emilio. Early morning train ride, after dancing late at Raw Gelände... Catching lunch... Stopping at the
German Hunting and Fishing Museum.
And making our way to
LOTHRINGER13_HALLE , Lothringer Str. 13, 81667 Munich
Exhibitions / Institutions
No Future Hope – Nina E. Schönefeld
“The video installation revives a radical resistance as a response to the increasingly disillusioned times. Through a relevant imagery, the work focuses on a spirit of rebellion and a longing for change. In her works, the Berlin artist closely links future scenarios with current political, ecological and social issues; the exhibition presents three video works from 2020 to 2024.”
We talked about staying engaged and playful?
Stay clear, stay tuned, and stay sane.
Looking out for friends.
FBI raids on immigrant rights activists.
Don't seed power before it's taken away.
"Ride or die ?"
"Look away or stand up?" says Nina.
https://www.in-muenchen.de/.../no-future-hope-nina-e...
After the show, I take in a
Message from Charles King of Housing Works
“I sent the following letter to members of the Housing Works community in response to the early actions of President Trump:
Dear Housing Works Clients and Staff,
This last Monday, we celebrated the birthday of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who was born on January 15, 1929. Had King not been assassinated and, had he lived so long, he would have turned 96 this month. King was assassinated on April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tennessee, where he was marching for the rights of sanitation workers, not just for fair pay, but for dignity. Hence the memories seared in the minds of those old enough to be around then, of sanitation workers carrying the signs averring, “I AM A MAN”.
Coincidentally, this last Monday was also the day of the swearing in of Donald Trump, now serving a second term as our 47th president. Those of you who watched, saw Trump’s usual bombast, designed to offend much of the world and to make his agenda the center of our attention. What followed were some two dozen executive orders, many in contradiction to existing law and even the Constitution of the United States.
The various executive orders were designed to have a shock and awe effect, and they certainly lived up to their billing. One gave blanket pardons or commutations to people convicted for their actions in the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021. Several of the executive orders focused on reducing the rights of transgender and non-binary people. Others focused on the elimination of all diversity, equity and inclusion efforts within the federal government. Others suspended most immigration, including suspending all resettlement of refugees, and all but disallowing applications for asylum. Another executive order purported to eliminate birthright citizenship, though it is clearly enshrined in the 14th Amendment to our Constitution.
I expect that this is only the beginning of what we will see coming out of this administration, and much of it will be potentially harmful to our community. There are already proposals circulating to cut Social Security and Medicare. There are also proposals that would seriously gut Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act. We will also continue to see attention-seeking bombast. Likely, we will be better off emotionally if we focus on those proposals that can lead to real harm to our community, rather than rising to the bait on every outrageous utterance. Moreover, we will necessarily have to pick and choose our strategies as well as sharing responsibility with others to lead various aspects of this fight.
Some of the executive orders issued this week will be addressed through litigation. For example, a US federal judge has already blocked they executive order elimination birthright citizenship, calling it “blatantly unconstitutional”. We also expect litigation soon on a variety of issues impacting transgender people. Housing Works stands ready to support any litigation that defends people in our community. But other issues may well require Housing Works to take the lead.
One such executive order suspends and foreign aid until such time as agency heads determine that such aid is in alignment with US foreign policy. This includes the indefinite suspension of PEPFAR funding. PEPFAR, as you know, is our nation’s primary vehicle for the delivery of HIV prevention, treatment and services in low-income countries around the globe. This will hurt efforts to end the AIDS pandemic in places like Haiti, many nations in sub-Saharan Africa, the MENA Region, Latin America and Asia. And the effect will be immediate. So, we are planning a civil disobedience action in Washington, DC, the first week in February, to demand that Marco Rubio, our new Secretary of State, immediately certify that PEPFAR funding is in alignment with US international interests. (Look for the sign-up email!)
There will be plenty of opportunities for civil disobedience in response to this administration, but we will also have to engage in basic lobbying and advocacy. New York has six Republican members of Congress. It will be imperative for us to hold each one of them accountable to stand up for the basic entitlements on which our community relies for its survival. This will mean lobbying trips to Washington, DC as soon as the second week in February. (Again, look for the sign-up email!) We will also be doing zaps and perhaps visit offices in these Representatives’ home districts.
Over the course of this week, I have observed a lot of panic in response to Trump’s new agenda. But panic doesn’t change anything. Action does. As I wrote in my letter to you after the election last November, we can’t control that outcome and what follows from it. Be we can control our response. We can choose fear, which is paralyzing, or we can choose hope, which is empowering. Housing Works was founded on the idea of hope against all odds, and look at what we have accomplished so far. Our response to this Administration could not only stem the current tide of evil but could also be transformative. This is a moment of threat, but it is also a moment of opportunity.
Returning to where this letter started, Martin Luther King and others made the decision to invigorate the civil rights movement at a time when life was incredibly bleak for Black Americans and, indeed, for low-income Americans in general. Tens of thousands of Black Americans continued to work the fields in former plantations, trapped in bondage as sharecroppers. Black Americans could not vote in any of the states of the old Confederacy. Black soldiers returning from World War II and the Korean War were treated with racism they had not experienced in foreign lands. Notwithstanding Brown vs. The Board of Education, public schools remained highly segregated as did restaurants, buses, trains and many other forms of public accommodation. Poverty was pervasive. And those who engaged in protest, including young children and the elderly, were subject to fire hoses, dogs, and beatings.
Our current circumstance, however unfortunate, can hardly be described as the darkest days of our history, particularly considering what King and his fellow activists were facing. Yet, King had the courage in 1963, to articulate vision for a different kind of future, a future in which racism would no longer drive life in American and in which everyone would have a right to economic and social justice. King did not live to see his dream realized. And, while the civil rights movement brought many advances, we don’t have to look very far to see how racism still pervades our society, and social and economic justice is completely out of reach for many of the people we serve. Perhaps this new Trump administration will serve as a galvanizing force for those of us who truly seek justice, to collectively fight for it until we win.
I hope you will join me in choosing hope and in taking action to fight for a better future for our community.
Love,
Charles”
January 25
Morning train back to Berlin. Love a morning train. A little weary about the country we are returning to.
January 26th
We walk down Warschauer Straße, the major thoroughfare in the Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg district of central Berlin, where we’ve stayed for the last ten days, between Munich and Budapest sidesteps, past the donner place at Revaler strasse, the sounds of clubs still pumping, looking at the trains in the distance.
Hard to leave.
Jan 27th,
Back in Brooklyn, I looked at the calendar, recalling running into Baby C at a demo 25 years prior, running into each other the next few days, hanging outs turning into weeks, months, years, a quarter century later.
Meeting Nate for tour of Rosa Luxemburg's Berlin
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