hi dudes

http://www.shaankirpalani.com

IM JEALOUS OF JARED LETO-I KNOW THIS BECAUSE IM MAKING FUN OF HIM

Who needs the fame, the money, the girls when you can't even stage dive without breaking your nose. Correction: "His injuries were a result of the crowd rushing towards him in their excitement to be close to him."

GROW YOUR OWN MOTORCYCLE...

Watch this instructional video from the Triumph Motorcycle corp and learn how to"Add argument juice from women's brains to help the motorcycle change directions quickly" and how the company grows their engines from engine embryos"

DROP YOUR GLASSES, SHAKE YOUR ASSES

Boomin' Grannies from www.bittermelon.org

WHOPPER WITH.....WEED??

New Mexico, America–If you ever find yourself working at Burger King, and get busted for successfully poisoning two unsuspecting police officers with a near-lethal dose of marijuana (click here to see the a video-reenactment of one of the officer's harrowing 911-call–courtesy of CurrentTV)–do what these two New Mexican teenagers have done–pick the stoniest judge in New Mexico to proceed over your trial, and tell him you know about the Cocaine and the Dildo up in Minnesota, and if he doesn’t want anyone to know about the northern orgies, there had better not be any jail time.

YOU MAY CALL ME KTULU

Original Posting

looking for a good deal on car insurance… - 26 (mission district)
Reply to: pers-529965460@craigslist.org
Date: 2008-01-05, 11:10PM PST

I sort of like those new Oreo commercials in which two people compete to see who can lick the chocolate cookie outside clean of the cream filling inside, because it’s the person whom you don’t think is going to win who wins.

Yet I prefer the Examiner to the Onion. I’d rather stare at my own shoes then play Sudoku (sp?). If you take me to Vegas, I will in fact spend all of my own money and whatever of yours you foolishly give me. I love pizza. I drink wine by myself. I drink vodka with others. I think American Spirits are gross, but give me a marlboro red during any off-the-wagon falling! Basically, I’m bored because I’m boring. But I plan on masturbating later, after the pizza’s here.

Basically, I’m just a random and interesting girl looking for a random and interesting guy to talk to.

My Response

from Shaan Kirpalani
to pers-529965460@craigslist.org,
date Jan 7, 2008 5:53 PM
mailed-by gmail.com
subject: Unfortunately, a douche

Well…according to this survey, anyway:

http://men.style.com/details/polls/douchebag/douchebag

…a “Stone-Age” douche to be exact. My celebrity douchequal, according to survey: John Mayer. Who is, sadly, unlike me–a silky-voiced douche.

You see, we are both douches, but John gets to sleep with beautiful celebrities and do celebrity stuff carrying out his douchebaggery, whereas I procrastinate work, and in executing my douchebaggery, find myself cruising the craigslist personals to make some tough decisions, namely:

Choosing to respond to you or to pers-530642057 who writes:

l who lives by the stump of a birch tree seeks a lad who lives under a mushroom (or in a tree, or even a gingerbread house!). A right little mystical, forest-dweller sort. …also, sprites, fay, and elves are also very much welcome. No gnomes though - with all due respect, their beards are too big and bushy for me.

Please be intelligent and in reasonably good shape. I hope you have heard my call - I am waiting for you.

Tough call. Oh, and thanks for not being pers-5300911209 who writes:

I am a young professional and I am seeking the same. I would like to meet someone who can challenge me mentally and physically. You can challenge me mentally by giving me a book to read. We can dicuss the contents of that book later. You can challenge me physically by climbing the walls of Mission Cliffs. A date to me can mean anything. A date can mean going out to dinner and having a couple of drinks afterwards. A date can also mean staying in and watching a movie.

I am 30 years old, well traveled, and into sports. I have been to parts of Asia and Europe. I go to the gym at least 4 times a week. I enjoy volleyball, tennis, snow boarding, and soccer. I have brown hair and brown eyes. I am 5 feet 7 inches tall. In my spare time, I like hanging out with my friends, trying new restaurants, reading, and trying new things. If you’re interested…let me know.

“Trying new things…” gross

I’m here, pers-529965460, for one simple reason: Well, two, actually, the aforementioned procrastination of work, and to offer the promise of sex. Its true.

In exchange for the promise of my sex, you will offer banter, and open and enjoy the many links to stupid surveys found in e-magazines that I send you.

You may call me Ktulu.

That is all

WOMEN WILL LIKE MY WINTER POWER

from Eivan lew
to kirpalani1@gmail.com,
date Jan 10, 2008 3:12 PM
subject ribbinin
hide details 3:12 PM
Reply

compliments kirpalani1
Women will like your winter power. order that medicine now
http://patpongshopping.com
Eivan lew

from Shaan Kirpalani
to Eivan lew ,
date Jan 9, 2008 9:44 PM
subject Re: ribbinin
mailed-by gmail.com

Thankyou Eivan. What is winter power, exactly…Is this some kind of season in my pants?

DOUCHE?

Me: Stone-Age douche

THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE CHILLY

The Good, The Bad, and the Chilly

So there we were, me and the motorcycle, on the side of the road, a few kilometers south of the Grimsel Pass in the Swiss Alps at 2700 meters above sea level. It was almost June, and it was snowing. The motorcycle appeared to be ok, but I was a little uncomfortable there at the side of the road, shivering uncontrollably in my underwear as I tore through my backpack, putting on every article of clothing I had: four pairs of underwear, four t-shirts, and a pair of swim trunks. These articles all went on my person in record time. First, underneath my jeans which had icicles on them–thanks largely to the freezing rain I drove through 1000 feet in altitude earlier. Then, underneath my soaked leather jacket which had acquired a peculiar wet-dog-dead-cow odor. As I struggled to get my head back into my helmet, normally a pretty straightforward endeavor now made incredibly difficult by the fourth of my four t-shirts wrapped around my head, I thought to myself, “I’m on vacation.” As I lazily accelerated back onto the road, I then screamed “I’m on vacation!!” and would, for the next three hours, chant this along with a variety of other obscenities to keep my mind off the fact that I could no longer feel my feet.

I didn’t want to be there. I’m not brave. I felt ripped off, I wanted open road, alpine vistas, and bugs in my teeth. Instead I was drafted into my new post as an explorer into the frontier of “Gloomy Inescapability of Unnecessarily Prolonged Levels of Incredible Bodily Discomfort Land.” I wanted a good experience, and was getting a bad one. Instead of putting clothes on to stay warm, I wished I was taking them off. Rather than wrapping that damn t shirt around my head and having it keep falling into my face every five minutes for the next three hours, I wanted to be dunking my head into one of the many alpine lakes I passed because it was so hot outside. Rather than those alpine lakes being partially covered in ice, I wanted them to be teeming with 21 year old Swiss girls, who, like me, were so hot after being stuck on the bus on their way back from their swimsuit competition in Italy, they just had to stop and go for a swim*

*Being hot “like me,” not coming back from a swimsuit competition, “like me.”

Rather than stopping at every ski hut I came across up there in early summer and shivering my way into the restrooms to thaw out my purple, stiff hands under the hand dryers, I wanted to roll into those ski huts, dried out, red-necked, and thirsty. Rather than going to the cafeteria to drink yet another cup of coffee, and cursing, in my head, “I hate Switzerland, and Swiss people, and I hate how warm they are–their stoopid warm cars with their stoopid heaters, and their stoopid maps, which they can read better than me, and their stoopid weather forecasts, which they paid attention to before they drove up into the mountains and decided to take their stoopid Swiss cars instead of their stoopid Swiss motorcycles,” I wanted instead to be sipping on a cold beer and remarking with my new Swiss friends at just how wonderful life is and how lucky we were to be up here, shirtless on a sundeck at the top of the world, remarking, “Hey, I think I can see all the way to Italy from here!” and, “This round is on me guys. Nope, sorry, Helmut, I can’t stay and sing another song for your guys, gotta keep movin’!” Rather than putting on my wet gloves, and lazily accelerating back into the cold through first gear into second, I wanted to be putting on my sunglasses and slamming my bike into first gear, then leaning hard into a tight turn accelerating through second, back into the sun.

Then, the bad is over. And instead of wanting to be enjoying the moment, I am. The stormy alpine pass is behind me, the sun is again on my face, and my clothes again become dry with each kilometer of my late afternoon descent into the warm air of the Aare river valley-a vista so beautiful, so electrified by its contrast to my earlier ascent into the mountains, that as I sit shirtless in the sun, almost at the top of the world, on a little green hill off the motorway, sipping a beer, waiting for my socks to dry off, I smile, wishing I had someone to share it with, and learn, again, that the good and the bad will always have a mountain between them, and if you’re lucky, it’s a mountain in Switzerland.

APOLOGIES HOMIES

First of all homies, two huge apologies: a preemptive one for this email, its longish.
Secondly, for my radio silence. It has been quite
some time since my last mass e-communique, (late January, according to
my calculations). I’ve been slack on emails, returning phone
calls, and overall friendship. I’ve always sortof resented those
people–you know, the ones who only call you on their time, who don’t
return emails, who wait a month to reply to yours, etc. But, as I’ve
discovered, I am one of those people–”You are what you hate,” a maxim,
we all individually wish didn’t apply to us, but ultimately, i think we can just be shitty, as I
have. Or maybe I’m being too hard on myself. I have been,
“busy.”–whatever that means, aren’t we all “busy”, does that excuse
even work anymore? Its like being a fish and saying to another fish,
“sorry Flounder, can’t go breakdancing tonight, I’m too wet.” Know
what I mean?

Anyway, so after reading my last, “hey friends, here’s what I’ve been
up to” email, in January, I had just filmed an episode for Hello
Vienna, Hello Austria, an Austrian lifestyle TV show. They filled me
full of hope, promise, and positive praise and then after a few weeks
of unreturned phone calls, and cancelled appointments, nothing. Its
something I’m learning over here in Austria, being “new guy” sucks. Who am I kidding, “new
guy” gets shit on everywhere. Oh well, at least when I’m running short on
stories to tell future grandchildren I can say, “did grandpa ever tell you
about the time he was on Austrian TV?”
“Yes, grandpa.”
So yup, I was basically used for one episode, then something about not
having the right “work permit, can’t insure me on location, etc…”

Fine. Just don’t get my hopes up, you fuckers. Mostly, because I’m one
of those stupids who believes people, and sort of needs hope to get
by, and because I’m also one of those stupids who opens his big mouth
in excitement, to tell everyone about something cool thats happening
to me, before its a sure thing, then when it doesn’t work out, feeling
like a jackass, and wishing I hadn’t opened my big mouth.*

*If anyone knows how to cure this condition, other than the obvious,
“keep your mouth shut until things pan out, jackass.”–please pass it
on.

Maybe thats also why, I’m realizing now as I write this, I have waited
so long to write–things take a while to pan out, and not surprisingly, things have sortof panned out for me, in sortof wierd ways.

Not long after my TV career ended, I began bartending at a friend’s
pub (two drunk dudes I met at a kebab stand. Upon accepting the position, they remarked, “Actually, we haven’t quite finished bulding it yet, Shaan, so you can help us build you your job?.”
“Sure.”
So we did, and opened the pub. And that was fun. Then Clem and I kept coming up with ideas for the cellar downstairs. And the owners said, “those are all really good ideas guys, here’s a few thousand euro, have fun redesigning and redocorating our basement.”

And after working 28 out of 31 days, long days, in a basement, here’s what Clem
and I made, another of my accomplishments, too wierd to put on a
resume:

http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=5hfwaq5.5bmyztqx&x=0&y=-k7z4ii

Somewhere inbetween meeting these guys at a kebab stand, and helping
rebuild their basement. I managed to get an article published in a
fashion and art magazine here, in Vienna. I met the editor of the
magazine at a bar, and lied to him and told him I was a published
writer, he said “cool. send me your portfolio.” I woke up the next day,
realizing I had no portfolio, so decided to come clean, and wrote the
following to use as my writing sample, and sent it to them:

http://shaanspot.com/?p=23

upon reading it, they said, “we don’t appreciate beng lied to,
but your writing is good, we want you to write an article for us.” So I
did: this one, its about haircuts:

text only version:

http://shaanspot.com/?p=27

published version:

http://shaanspot.com/?page_id=53

The magazine is called “Vernis,” in English that means,”Varnish”. They’ve asked me to stick with them, and edit other English submissions to the magazine, and write articles for them. However, being that this is Austria, and that I’m a veteran at being, “new guy”, and they can try to blow smoke up my ass, but there is already so much smoke up there, they will get blasted with a musty, smoky-filled-butt backdraft, and start doubting themselves. Thusly, all I can say to that is, “we’ll see.” Will most likely go back to teaching English, and making up exciting occupations to tell girls I meet at bars, forever.

Oh yeah, if you haven’t figured it out yet, I sortof started a blog
somewhere back there. I don’t really know what it is yet, or know, really, very much about websites, and have alot more ideas for it, so expect more on that in the future.

http://www.shaanspot.com/

I was dilligently adding content to the website until, rebuilding this bar took over my
life, and then by a stroke of brilliant coincidence, luck, and
stellar, award-winning, friendship, my buddy Dharma, living in Nice,
in the South of France, calls me up and says, “Dude, I’m moving back
to San Francisco for the summer, want to babysit my motorcycle in
Vienna for a few months?” I said, “hell yes,”and flew to Nice the day
after we opened the bar and then took 11days to drive a 500cc, blue
suzuki from Nice to Rome, to see my cousin, then turned around and
drove up and over the Swiss alps, making my way back to Vienna.
here’s some pictures:

http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=5hfwaq5.9eretl8x&x=0&y=-pp4nsb

Oh yeah, I also met up with Dharma and my cousin in Nice for Carnival
(Mardi Gras), back in March, here’s some pictures of that:

http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=5hfwaq5.40×4ouv9&x=0&y=-i911f9

okokok, that’s it. For those of you who made it to the end of this email, congratulations: you have an attention span to be proud of. I would have stopped reading thirty minutes ago. Thanks again, to everyone who came to visit for my birthday, I’m 29 now, wierd.
Things are good in Austria. Ill be back in California at the end of September. Looking forward to the summer here in Vienna. Not sure what the future brings, at the moment, which is equally cool and teriffying, but I’m happy. Hope everyone else is well. Can’t wait to get back and see my friends and family. I miss you all. Lots of Love from Vienna.

der Shaan

EMAIL SENT TO EDITORS OF VICE MAGAZINE

Shaan Kirpalani
to jessep, amie, thomasm
Hide options Mar 27
From: Shaan Kirpalani Mailed-By: gmail.com
To: jessep@viceland.com, amie@viceland.com, thomasm@viceland.com
Date: Mar 27, 2007 12:00 PM
Subject: Submission
Reply | Reply to all | Forward | Print | Add sender to Contacts list | Delete this message | Report phishing | Show original | Message text garbled?
Hello. I’m Shaan. I’m from California, I live in Austria. I was drunk
at a bar and basically lied to an editor of a fashion magazine here
in Vienna, and told him that I had a few articles published in your
magazine. He said that was cool, and maybe I’d like to write for his
magazine. Waking up the next day I decided to come clean and tell him
the truth and wrote the attached piece and used it as my writing
sample. Well, they didn’t appreciate being lied to, but gave me the
job ’cause they liked my writing, apparently. Anyway, I thought you
guys would like the story, since it sort of has to do with you. And if
you really like it, you could even put it in your magazine. This way I
can go back to them and say, “see, I was published in VICE, and I lied
to you twice, suckers!”. Then they’ll think I’m crazy, and ask me to
never talk to them again. And that way I won’t have to write anymore
cause that shit is boring and I’d rather keep my day job teaching
English and bartending, which is way more interesting, I think.

Thanks
Shaan

der haircut slut

(published in Vernis magazine, May 2007)

Today, I’m in search of a haircut. I’m looking in a neighborhood, that according to a few Austrian friends of mine, I should never, ever go to for vegetables. “The Brunnenmarkt is filled with Turks and Yugos. The quality is shit,” they tell me. Maybe, but I’m American, we actually prefer shit-quality food, and I like the Brunnenmarkt. I like how dirty it is. Compared to the behind-glass, museum sheen of the Innere Stadt districts of Vienna, the Brunnenmarkt feels alive to me. Its dirty, with tacky pictures of Jesus and awful clothes for sale everywhere, but alive.

I went to the Brunnenmarkt looking for a haircut because my hair is getting too long, firstly, and I’m getting a bit bored with my regular haircut neighborhoods–the Neubau, the 6th, Spittelberg–all seem like haircut wastelands today. Its not that I don’t enjoy the haircut experience in these other neighborhoods–I’ve met many beautiful hairstylists in Vienna–svelte and perky breasted, great hair and great outfits. Their salons are all immaculate and modern. They play really hip electronic music and their hair products smell like heaven. We talk, about me mostly. I tell them funny stories, we laugh. They massage my scalp. Tell me, “you look hot,” that my “new cut brings out your cheekbones.” I pay them fifty euro or so after we finish and I feel hot, and cool, and hip, like them, for a day. Then after a month, I look for someone new. Maybe I’m afraid to commit, maybe I’m waiting for the right girl, I’m not sure of the reasons, but I leave these salons feeling empty. Looking good, but empty–like a haircut-slut. I suppose then, this is what I’m hoping to find in the Brunnenmarkt, something real; a haircut, with a soul.

Otto, owner of Frisor Ruya, right on Brunnengasse smiles a wide, toothy smile. A Pensionister, he works two days a week, Fridays and Saturdays. He tells me the 16th district used to be the real Vienna, a working-class neighborhood. I don’t ask where he’s from, but I’m guessing from the names on the postcards stuck to the mirrors behind him–Riga, Ukraine, St. Petersburg, the Black Sea, that he’s Russian, or from some ex-Russian satellite we’ve forgotten about. Otto’s 22 year-old daughter hides from my camera behind a huge hair dryer stuck to the wall–untouched since, I’m guessing, Otto opened his shop and installed them thirty years ago. She speaks bad German, no English, and is as shy as a six year old. Otto tells me the neighborhood has changed. That, “it used to be all Austrians, and the business used to be a lot better.” I ask him if he ever plays electronic music in his salon to get all the Austrians back, because apparently they seem to like it very much in the other districts. “Nein,” he answers. His customer is almost as old as him, and I get the impression Otto has been cutting his hair as long as the shop has been open. They crack an inside joke, probably about me, that I wish my German was good enough to understand, and chuckle about it like little kids.

I’m back on the Brunnenmarkt, making my way towards Friedengasse. I find myself in Frisor Laila. Maybe the stylists at Frisor Laila could give me a haircut with a soul, but I could give a shit, I just wanted to get out of there. Eight overweight men sit inside, frowning and smoking, all staring at me in silence. “Does anyone speak English?” I ask, regretting it immediately. Silence. “Spricht jemand Deutsch?” More silence. The Friseur, also a fat guy, is doing some kind of jumpy movement with an orange string to his customer’s face. He stops, looks at me and yells, “ALTCHIA!,” and says, frowning, “Deutsch,” points to the door in the back, and goes back to the string thing on the face of his customer, also a fat guy, also frowning at me in the mirror. A picture of Orlando Bloom from Pirates of the Caribbean hangs on the wall above them.

“ALTCHIA!,” a round, middle-aged, Turkish-looking woman with nice eyes comes from the back room. She tells me they’ve been open two years, and most of their clients are Turkish and Yugoslavian, and that the jumpy string thing is a procedure to remove hair from around men’s eyes. I reply, “That’s interesting,” and nervously say “thankyou” and “goodbye” and leave.

Friseurenboutique Karin on Gaullachergasse, is so old its cool. I think fashion people refer to this phenomenon as, “Retro.” Three old ladies sit, hair up in curlers under massive, full-headed, orange hair dryers. Hilda blowdrys her customer’s hair with a cigarette hanging from her lips. I take a business card from under a little tree with little easter eggs hanging off the branches, and ask if I might take some pictures because I think her salon is really nice. “Keine Werbematerial!” she shouts, looking at me in the mirror. I try to speak again. Hilda turns off her blowdryer, stomps out her cigarette and shoos me out onto the street, “Keine Werbematerial!,” she shouts again, and locks the door behind me.

This isn’t going so good. I came to the Brunnenmarkt to find something better, a haircut that meant something. All I’ve found is old men who laugh at me, frowns, and mean old ladies who lock their doors behind me. I develop a frown of my own, and bury my hands into my pockets as I walk through the rows of empty vendor stalls of Uppenplatz, an abandoned outdoor market at the end of the Brunnenmarkt. Its industrial and cold-covered in graffiti. I decide to get a kebab. Maybe this is how it ends for haircut-sluts–when the glamour fades, when the electronic music stops, you find yourself alone, rejected, and unhip, eating a kebab in a desolate platz in the middle of an immigrant neighborhood where the vendors can sell you fake Puma’s and a picture of Jesus for a “Gute Preis.”

At the end of Uppenplatz I find Aswal smoking a cigarette outside his salon, Frisor Kristal. He’s good-looking, wearing a striped shirt tucked into faded jeans and white Chuck Taylors. He’s had his shop for seven years. He tells me the neighborhood has changed a lot, and business isn’t as good as it used to be. The platz used to be a busy open-air market, but since the Billa, Hofer, Spar and Zeilpunkt supermarkets all opened up within two blocks of it, the food and vegetable vendors were put out of business. All that’s left are these guys selling clothes on Brunnenstrasse, he tells me. Still, the open-air cafes that line the north end of Uppenplatz are buzzing. “Yugoslavian, Turkish, Russian food,” he tells me, nodding with his pointy hair as he lights another cigarette.

He asks me if I want a haircut. I look over his shoulder into his shop. Young Turkish dudes sit around, all with the same spiky haircut, earrings, thin-immaculately manicured beards, some with the shaved eyebrow thing–all sort of looking identical. “No thanks,” I say, “I’m shaving my head.”

THE SWEATER, SHAAN

The sweater shaan

Life is a game, they say. And in the context of any game, its ok to make mistakes, because it’s a game after all, and at the end of a game you count your fake money, put away your little plastic pieces, fold up the board and go back to wishing you had something better to do on a Saturday night in your real life than play Monopoly with your parents. I think this is why they say it-to make you feel better about fucking up.

Perhaps they should change the metaphor. If you prescribe to this notion that life is a game, then who makes the rules..?..Parker Brothers..?..God..?..you..? Maybe it is a game, maybe not. I think life is about fashion, particularly winter fashion–sweaters. Life is a sweater, sort of like the Weezer song. Your mom crochets your first couple sweaters for you, fixes the holes and the frays to keep the whole thing from unraveling and to keep you from winding up weird and in a special needs school. Eventually you have to learn to make your own sweaters. There are different sweaters for different times. For example, I wore a green, corduroy sweater during my first two years of college that stank like bong-water. Some people’s sweaters look exactly the same as other people’s, some fit perfect, some are too big, some people never take off the sweater their parents made for them, some look totally zany, but that’s fashion, right?

My first sweater over here in Austria, didn’t fit. It was a turtleneck. But I figured it’s a cold place, people need turtlenecks to stay warm. You can try and look smooth and winning in a turtleneck, but you just wind up looking like a jerk in a turtleneck, and they’re hard to dance in. Lately, I’ve been wearing my new European sweater. Its form-fitting, black, with trendy little frays (deconstructed) is the term, I think. Its looks really used and cool, but really its only two months old. If I had to give it a brand it would be, “Egal” which over here in Austria means “Whatever, or “I don’t give a shit”. I crocheted this sweater because I discovered that I don’t really have to give a shit about much over here in Vienna, I mean, it isn’t real. Reality is back home, in San Francisco.

Things have been going great in my new sweater. I go out to clubs, tell girls I’m a motivational speaker, a professional surfer, a writer for VICE magazine, a professor, a producer for MTV, who cares. Its amazing how much of a blunt instrument the bullshit meter becomes when it has to translate, people actually trust you. Or maybe Austrians aren’t used to the opportunism that drives “scoring with chicks” in my memories of the American-single-guy ethos. Or who knows, maybe they want to believe they met me, Lance Strongbow, pro surfer, and that I was a great lay. Sometimes you get called on it, actually most times. Sometimes I tell the truth, but that’s no fun. And that’s what new sweater is all about, fun.

Anyway things had been going great in my new sweater until this morning where I found myself, out of my sweater, sitting at my computer in my underwear, unwashed, booze-stinky, fuzzy and fragile from the previous night writing an email to Lea:

“Dear Lea. How are you, I’m fine. So, I sort of have this enormous favor to ask you. At a bar last night I met the editor of an art and fashion magazine here in Vienna. He told me he’s looking for writers and wants me to send him my “portfolio.” He asked me this after I told him that I indeed have a “portfolio” (Lie #1), and that I had been recently published in VICE magazine (Lie #2). Ummmm, how do you do a portfolio, and what should I do about lying to him? I don’t think I should have, but I was wearing my new sweater last night, and got confused, (inside joke between me).We were both pretty drunk, maybe he forgot. Oh yeah, and could you send me that thing I helped you do for Lonely Planet, that’s something that should go in a portfolio, isn’t it?

Yours,
Shaan

I then spent the remainder of the day picking away at the trendy little frays of my new sweater and almost unraveling the whole thing. Maybe I could actually write something for VICE, have it published in the next 24 hours and have the whole thing ready to go by Friday morning. Maybe I could just write something and say it was published in VICE-VERSA magazine, “Oh, I’m sorry, did you think I said VICE? No, no, no VICE-VERSA, its an industry mag, small-circulation, probably not even published in Europe.” “It was published in NICE magazine, it’s a San Diego fashion-philosophy mag, mostly musings on sweaters. I wrote a quirky little editorial on Existentialism, men’s fashion, and lying.”

“What if I blew it, “ I thought, “why couldn’t I have just told the truth…stoopid sweater.” I mean, how much fun would that be, writing for a magazine, I probably could even stop lying to girls and get a nice tweed sweater. I kept unraveling until I suspected that I might be completely wrong about the whole sweater thing altogether. They told me it’s a game. Them might be right. Life is a game, in which we wear a sweater. Yes!, It isn’t just about fashion, or friggin’ sweaters. I decided to sew it back together. I didn’t come here to write for a fashion magazine, I came here to have fun–a working holiday. They’ll either give me the job or they won’t. They probably won’t even pay me, anyway. And besides, Lea says everyone lies to get a job in this business. Maybe they’ll have a good sense of humor about it, maybe they’ll think I’m a jerk. Life goes on. And before I know it I’m playing Monopoly back at my parent’s house on a Saturday night, drinking cocoa in a disgusting red and white holiday turtleneck that my grandma got me for Christmas.

SIX DEGREES OF GAROFALO

“Did you ever go to sleep with Bo Derek, and wake up next to Bo Diddley?” Yes, yes, we’ve all done it—eyes on the prize, your friends whispering subtly into your ear, “Shaan, she looks like she’s an extra in a hobbit movie, run!” Me–drunk-determined and rationalizing, “I need affection” “Man needs woman” “She has nice teeth” “Cash in your chips, dude, while you can still salvage a bumbling level of whit and charm”–back to your place to listen to some music, naked wrestling, sleep, wake up in the morning, errrrrrr, awkward.

Usually, on such a morning, you’re just left with a headache, a single earring and her gum left on your nightstand, a funny story, apologies to your friends for “pulling a runner” on them and disappearing with your new friend, an apology to your roommate for drinking his amaretto, (the only booze left in the house) and another glorious notch on the libido belt.

Yesterday morning, however, I woke up next to Janeanne Garofalo. Well, not exactly next to, more-like on top of–sort of digging into my hipbone. If only I had a camera to capture the look of utter confusion and bewilderment on my face as I palmed my discovery, a one-inch tall Janeanne Garofalo figurine.

The cunundrum is thus: I recently broke up with my girlfriend. After my initial week of tears and manhugs, I lept into a month-long rebound of emotionally-distractrive sexual catharsis, the week prior to the Garofalo discovery being the zenith of this rebound month. Not bragging, just providing background. The numbers for this week are somewhere between one and ten–with half points assigned for dance floor makeouts.

(Garafolo figurine in the foreground. Chapstick and Family of Warthogs Snowglobe, used for perspective)

Now, had I actually shared my bed with a woman the night prior to my discovery, the breadcrumbs of mystery wouldn’t be too hard to follow and would make my decision to call this girl afterwards a lot easier–definitely not. I’m into quirkiness, and little personality spikes, but a girl who leaves toys in your bed as a calling card, is not somebody I could really imagine a future with. And lets not forget the fact that it was a Janeanne Garofalo doll. Had it been a Barbara Bush doll, I would have thought, “finally, a girl with a sense of humor, who gives a shit what she looks like.”

So, the fact that multiple partners, stretched over a very hazy one-week period, with two nights prior being last bed visitor, the Garofalo mystery factor is so enormous that any string of logical ifs and whens disappears and all you’re left with is secretive character assessments.

Developing a strategy to solve this caper proved to be very difficult, on multiple levels. I suppose the easiest thing to do, would have been to call each of these girls and simply ask them if they did it or not, but, things of this nature don’t come very easy to me. Some of these bed visitors I’d like to see again, some not at all. What if one of the girls I want to see again is the Garafalodropper? Years later, after kids and shared bank accounts, I ask her, “hey, remember when we met at that club in Vienna, and came back to my place and drank all of Olaf’s amaretto, did you…..”– a “yes” response could be disastrous, both financially and emotionally, for me and Shaan Jr. What if one of the girls I want to see again, retorts to my interrogation, “No I didn’t leave it, what are you talking about? How many girls did you have in your bed this week?” I answer cleverly, “Between one and ten.” “Click.” What if one of the girls I want to see again stops returning my phone calls because I keep asking her thoughts on Reality Bites and The Truth About Cats and Dogs.

One alternative that came to mind would be to invite all of these girls individually to coffee or beer, show up a few minutes early and place the Garafolo figurine in plain sight, and wait and see what they say about it. “What is that?” “I don’t know.” I respond, with raised eyebrows, “Why don’t you tell me.” But then the whole thing stinks like a Seinfeld episode, and I feel weird about that.

The only possible solution was to end all relations with said suspects, and move on. Morally, I’m ok with this. Rebounds never last-long, and who really wants to say to your parents that you met so and so at an Austian disco. In the end, I laid little-Janenane and the whole debacle to rest on my shelf. A trophy of sorts, commemorating concentrated promiscuity, achieving personal goals, and not waking up to find gonorrhea in your bed.

WELCOME TO EUROPE!....SUCKER!!...MWAHAHAHA

Last summer, in Prague, my ex-girlfriend and I started this little inside joke. After walking around and looking at cathedrals and statues and palaces and stuff we began to notice a peculiar little trend. Most of these famous sites, if not all, were in one-way or another, undergoing some form of renovation or construction. Pretty annoying, but we sucked it up for the good of the common tourist, and accepted that these things had to be done. This would become our joke, that all of Europe, or at least the parts we saw together, would inevitably be under construction. A week or so into the trip, we went to Cesky Krumlov, a gorgeous town, three hours by train from Prague. The castle there–under construction. Then we went to Budapest. The bathhouses there–being renovated. Parliament there–closed for renovation. Then we went to Bucharest. Well, lets face it, if you’ve ever been to Bucharest, the whole city looks like a construction site, and could use a little renovation. Then Dubrovnik, in Croatia…ok Dubrovnik was the exception, absolutely beautiful and no renovation. Then Berlin–under construction for the last sixty years. Then, eight months later we were in Nice and Marseilles, in the South of France…both cities–under construction. New tram, apparently. Then this summer, I was in Sevilla, Spain, for two months–under construction, also a new tram.

In October, I moved here to Vienna. After a month of living at the clubhouse with my ex-girlfriend and her three, 20 year old, girl flat mates (shudder), I found a wonderful apartment in the 8th district. My room has two huge windows that offer me a breathtaking, unobstructed vista of the Old Lerchenfelder Church, directly across the street. “Ill take it.” I said to my soon-to-be flat mate, and moved in 10 days later.

The day I moved in to the new apartment became the punch line of our long-running joke, apparently. I arrived at 9am, began unpacking, and wondered what all that silly noise from across the street was. Oh, it’s the construction crew, putting up scaffolding on the church. So, for the last 110 days, this has been my breathtaking vista:

So, yes. Living here, directly acroos the street, under fucking construction.
Welcome to Europe, Shaan….sucker!…mwahahahaha!

DEAR SHOWER, I HATE YOU–A MEMO TO MY LEAST FAVORITE THING IN EUROPE

We have been living together for over one hundred days now, and I have to receive the slightest apology, mention of remorse, condolence, or behavioral adjustment from you regarding my previous complaints. I have restated them below to remind you:

10.10.06 .”FUCK.”
12.10.06. “ARRRRRRGGHH”
13.10.06. “NOOO. FUCK!”
14.10.06 “SHITFUCK.”

The list gets a bit redundant after this, but I can assure you, one, if not all of these slanders has been yelped in your confines everyday from October of 2006 to today, February 12th, 2007. Allow me to use this memo to remind you of your purpose. A shower is a precious thing, a wonder of our modern age. A shower is a place where a man prepares himself for his day. It is a man’s first exposure to the waking world from his slumbers. A shower is a place of peace. As such, I have prepared the following guide to help you achieve your purpose. A shower should include the following process:

1) Turn on water and wait-nipples hard, dashing tips of fingers into stream of water. Repeat three or four times until temperature is just right. 2) Step into stream of hot water. 3) Enjoy. 4) Shampoo hair. 5) Rinse. 6) Apply conditioner. 7) Brush teeth. 8. Soap body. 9) Wash face 10) Rinse conditioner out. 11) Enjoy stream of hot water some more. 12) Dry off body. 13) Step into your day invigorated, refreshed, and smelling amazing. A day filled with challenges you’re ready to take on because you’re invigorated and refreshed. A day filled with worthy adversaries, you have the confidence to best because you are smelling amazing.

Shower, let me remind you how you’ve made a mess of the aforementioned process.

Showering within your confines consists of the following process:

1)Turn on hot water–not too much, or the Snakeheadthing (SHT) will leap off its poorly designed Snakeheadhooks, and spray scalding water all over bathroom. If unable to control water pressure and lose control of SHT, divert scalding water stream away from eyes, turn off hot water, tend burns, repeat step. If first step is successful, step into tub. 2)Firmly grip SHT with left hand, diverting scalding water away from toes and adjust cold water pressure with right hand. When adequate temperature level is reached, prepare self for a cleaning module window of two minutes, before one must readjust coldwater pressure to preserve heat. 3) Place SHT in between legs, POINTING DOWN, pointing up results in glowing testes and possible infertility. 4) Wash hair briskly, remember its Austria and friggin’ cold in the morning. Don’t daydream and let SHT slip down to knee and start spraying water to the side, getting flat mate’s towel wet. Recover. 5)Center Self. Adjust temperature, with right hand. Rinse hair. Water too cold. Try again. Water too hot. FUCK. Open eyes to see valve, shampoo gets in eyes. FUCK. Rinse shampoo out. 6) Go for toothbrush, drop SHT again. Say, “Fuckit. Ill brush my teeth after the shower.” 7) Go for Conditioner. Apply, one-handed, because of fear to put SHT in between legs again. Readjust water temperature. Apply bodywash, drop SHT again when going to wash legs. 8. Step on SHT, grab facewash, squirt gob directly onto face. Scrub face with inside of arm. Rinse by placing face directly into stream of water that is shooting directly up from the floor of the tub and getting water on the ceiling and all over bathroom. 9) Turn off water. 10) Leap from tub. 12) Towel-Dry hair. 13) Notice you have left conditioner in hair. 14) Sprint, freezing, to room to dress self. 15) Apologize to flat mate, again, for getting his towel wet, and that he might want to wait a few hours to use his hairdryer because it’s a little wet too. 16) Step into day, cold, embarrassed, frustrated, angry, with sticky-unrinsed conditoner hair that makes you look like a jerk and smell like a girl, and bad breath because you forgot to brush your teeth. A day filled with challenges you hide from because you look like a jerk. A day filled worthy adversaries who beat you because you smell like a girl.

As you can see, Shower, there are some glaring inconsistencies between what you should be doing and what you are doing. If this behavior continues I’m going to be forced to turn the bathroom into a dog grooming parlor and fill your pipes with nappy, nappy dog hair.

Regards,

Shaan

WIENER WISDOM

Date: Jan 22, 2007 8:06 PM
Subject: Wiener Wisdom
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So there I was, listening to Bob,
and he’s telling me (thick Scottish accent) “always shag women,
Shaan.” No doi. Then he and the other bar owner, after formally
announcing my coolness and offering me a barman position at their bar
in Vienna, “The Lion Rampant”, suggested that I pick a fight with the
biggest guy in the bar, for yuks…theirs. No sooner do they say this
and the Croatian Professional Water Polo Team walk in the
bar…seriously….two of which were some of the biggest humans I’ve
ever seen…Bob’s eyes get huge, then some Dropkick Murphy’s comes
on the jukebox, and I know I’m totally fucked…”Duuuuu ettttt
Schuuuun” “Doont be unuthur pooof Yaink…” I acquiesce, thanks
largely to the night’s theme…”Lets See If the Poof Yank Can Drink
Scottish Whiskey With Scottish People, harharhar.” I approach the two
huge humans and say to their nipples, “Do you want to fight?” They
laugh. Apparently I wasn’t convincing, and then I find out they dont
speak English, so I try in German, “Ich mochte euch Faus…(now I
realize here that I dont know the word for “fight in German..its
“kampfen”, i learned later) so I say “Ich mochte euch
Faus…fitten….which sounds alot like Fausficken (fistfuck)…quick
recap–literally translated, I just said, in german, to the two large
Croatian humans, something that sounded like “I would like to fistfuck
you.” this apparently worked,…{sidenote..whiskey should
nevereverever be used as a social lubricant} then as they square up,
and one does speak English after all, and says, wide-eyed, “what you
say at us?”
And I say, “Do you want to fight?”….”because that stocky, balding,
redhead behind me wants to fight you.” They seemed confused,
naturally, and approach Bob…and, well, I don’t know what he said
to them, but I do remember that five minutes later the Croatians
bought all of us beer and we were all bouncing around to some awful
pop music.

I bring this up, largely because, well, its a funny story, firstly,
and secondfully, one of the greatest joys of traveling, and living
for that matter, is finding yourself in the middle of a situation such
as this and taking 10 seconds to step back, get into the third person,
and remark, to yourself, “you can’t make this shit up, there is no way
i would have ever thought I’d be here.”

Where is here? Vienna, Austria. For my American friends, Austria is a
small, mountainous country south of Germany, north of Italy, West of
Hungary and Slovakia, East of Switzerland*.

American Glossary

*These are all countries in Europe**.

**Europe is a continent approximately 6000 miles east of America
where they speak European.

I’ve been living in Austria for the last four months. I came here in
love, with a woman, and fell out of it faster than you can say, “Man
soellt nie fur eine Madchen nach ein anderren Land fliegen. Das ist
ganz Wurst.” (One should never go to another country for a girl. This
is totally sausage.)

Boohoo.

The problem with this sort of situation is that love, I’ve found, can
do some wonderful things for you, but for the inexperienced, it makes
you walk around in this rose-colored goo where you’re convinced you
can do impossible things. For example, endure a relationship with a
German.

Now, finding yourself alone, in Austria, when your sole purpose for
being in this place was to be next to her is quite a thing. It makes
you ask the question, “how is it I wound up in Austria, alone?” Ah,
yes, because my sole purpose for being here was for her.

I just figured, I’d teach English for six months or so and see what
comes up. Well, nothing was. Mixed in with my intensive German course
I was going 8am to 8pm everyday, had no time for myself, and had
hardly met anyone, and the few friends I did make, I never had time to
hang out with. Mix that with a young girl inexpereinced in
relationships, a cultural/language-barrier, too much drinking, and its
recipe for a dish that tastes like breakup.

I hit the ground running here, not knowing the language, no job, no
apartment, just a backpack and a girlfriend. After two months, I had
plenty of work, a visa, and a sweet apartment with a rockstar
darkhorse drumandbass dancer, Olaf, but very little “happy.” I
thought, well, I could go back home to get happy, or I could quit my
job, hit up mom and dad for some money, and actually enjoy this
experience, and sort of start from scratch.

Then something magical happened, instead of the rose-colored goo of
love, i was covered in a bright yellow goo*** and started to see
things different.

***There actually was no goo, but I’ve often associated the color
yellow with optimism, even though colloquially, yellow, is associated
with fear, but this is my friggin’ allegory.

And before I knew it I was thinking, this place is great, I live in
Vienna…I’m from Orange County, and here I am flirting with Austrian
chicks, in German, and doing well ;).

And then something really wierd happened, and this will be my last
anecdote, because I’m sure all of you are bored by now, and have jobs
to go back to and stuff.

I told one of my English students my troubles, and put in my two weeks
notice. I also, bought a video camera, for fun, and had mentioned this
to my student, and told him It would be neat to make a video blog of
this experience…he then called up his aunt, who runs a TV show
called “Hello Vienna, Hello Austria”. and basically got me an
on-the-spot audition for a gig as a “lifestyle reporter” reporting on
cultural stuff in Austria…for example, On Friday night, I found
myself on iceskates, for the first time in my life, awkardly “skating”
around the eislaufen (ice run) in the Rathaus Platz (Park in front of
cityhall) being follwed around by an Austrian guy with a camera, also
on ice skates giving me direction, in German, and the director
shouting over the rails, in English, “Shaan, stop saying “awesome” so
much. They don’t know what that means in Poland!”

So they’re going to edit it, and if my smile is bright, and the
sparkle in my eyes is sparkly enough, and they can cut enough of my,
“awesomes” out, I might be a full-time lifestyle reporter…even if I
don’t get the job, I think they’d be happy to have me kick around and
help and get tips on how to work my camcorder.

So there it is, Austria 2.0. Its been a while since I’ve cranked one
of these emails out, but its been a rough few months.

I hope everyone is doing well, and if I start getting famous and
stuff, I promise I wont forget you, although autographs will cost you
5 euro hahahahaha.

Check out some pics here, a special thanks to Lindsay and Simon, most
of these are their pics, I’m always too lazy to bring my camera out,
you dont need to sign in,click on the picture to see the slideshow…
and this one wont send an email to everyone in your address book:

http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=5hfwaq5.4tnzztv9&x=0&y=-cxvues

Oh yeah, here’s me at my 10 year high school reunion…a friend of
mine thought it would be a good idea to follow me and Lindsay around
with a camera and put it on TV, and it is, on Current TV, home to one
of the finest Producers I’ve ever met, well, she’s the only Producer
I’ve ever met, actually no, that’s not true, I did meet the Austrian
producer on Thursday, but she’s eighty, and chainsmokes..anyway,
Allison is fine…and made a hell of a four minute reunion video:

http://www.current.tv/pods/event/PD04902

Auf Wiedersehen

der Shaan

GREETINGS FROM SALZBURG

Date: Dec 30, 2006 7:30 PM
Subject: Greetings from Salzburg
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Hello everyone-

Firstly, for all of you affected by that annoying Ringo picture-sharing thing, a huge apology. Like you, a freind of mine asked me to sign up to see her pictures, and before I knew it an email had been sent, in German, to all of my contacts. I am boycotting the site, i hope you do the same.

2006, for me,has been one of incredible growth, accomplishment, change, and holy-shit-what the-hell-am-i-doingness. 2007, doesn’t look like its going to be any less weird. If I learned one thing this year, its that things change fast…love the one your with because they might not be around tomorrow…not that anyone is going to die or anything, but life can take you to some strange places-both on the map and in your head…and you can’t take everyone with you, although it would be nice, wouldn’t it? Maybe not in your head though, that would be messy.and would probably kill you..ok bad metaphor.

I think of the people In my life this year- the CELTA crew in Sevilla, hostel-homies from far-off places in far-off places, people I met from my past at my high-school reunion, new friends in Vienna, and the people who made my last six months in San Francisco so memorable, and of course the lifers, my family, and friends ive known long enough to consider family.

Not sure where I’m going with that, other than the fact that i miss you all.
Thanks for the laughs and the memories in 2006 guys, its been my best year. And thanks for the love from those of you who give it so generously. I’d be lost without you. I hope this email finds everyone well and excited about things to come in 2007.

Wishing you all a very happy,lucky,fun,free,amazing,excellent,radical,dudical, woohooy, new year in 2007.

ORANGE TINTED WIENER

Date: Nov 1, 2006 10:17 PM
Subject: Re: Orange Tinted Wiener
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Dear Nick,

Its 0 degrees here. Tanning, for me, only occurs in cramped sonnenstudios with other orange-tinted Wieners. *

*Cut this sentence out and paste it, by itself, into a word document, Then read it, it’s nice and creepy.

We call this out of context, a phenomenon that can, in large measure, sum up my and I guess your existence at the moment. Unfortunately, my metaphorical vehicle to deliver us through the following discourse on outsiderness and expatriata, is the Orange-Tinted Wiener…or Fortunately…I’ll let you decide.

Yes, Mr. Cooke. Out of context.

A phenomenon that happens cutely, as it did previously when I asked the old Wiener if he could watch me poop. Or not so cutely, like for example, when, I learned the hard way men pee sitting down in Austria when they live in all-girl’s apartment. “Surely you’re joking girls, ” I said. They respond, germanly, “no.” I conformed for a few weeks, until one dark afternoon, a bit drunk and hyper from the lingering bender I’d been on the night before, by peeing, standing up with the door open, pants at my ankles, singing the star-spangled banner at full volume…This was perceived as blatant disrespect, which it most certainly was, but in my defense, disrespect in the context of a childish behavior, which makes it more fun I think. This solitary act of rebellion launched one of Sonja’s roommates into a dissection of my character, “bad”, and within 24 hours i packed my things and moved to my new home, Wombat’s, the hostel, where I’m writing you this email.

This last month has been a stressful one. Finding work, an apartment, sorting out my Visa..experiences which are sucky in the English speaking world, but become extra sucky done in a foreign language. Expereinces we can hopefully get together someday and bitch about the way crusty old men complain about sucky things. In addition to the external suck, things in Sonja’s place had a bit of suck as well. She can’t afford much and agreed to live in the dining room of her friend’s apartment, stating that she’d build a wall…a verbal contract which, in small print read, “Shaan will build wall for me”. Well, we never did..and as such, I was basically living in the middle of an apartment filled with 21 year old german girls*
* Stay up late, never shut the light off, libertarian, beer drinking, having random boys over, loud talking girls.

As such, I haven’t had a good night’s sleep in a month, until I got here to my dorm bed in a hostel, which in contrast is much quieter, and a “dream” (chucklechucklechuckle) to sleep in.

Note: they’re playing 99 Luftballoons, in German, right now.

In addition, spatially, sex was impossible. Shower sex was going great until one of the Zee Germans, complained about that too. In addition, the shower goes cold after five minutes, which is ok when having sex, warm body theory, but when masturbating impossible to concentrate. Anyway, I haven’t had an orgasm in two weeks and was hitting on a trashcan yesterday.

This will all of course change on Wednesday when I move into my own apartment, with Rita and Olaf, yes, I live with a guy named Olaf, who is suprisingly cool (Boy Named Sue Theory, is my guess, or in Austria being named Olaf may not be that bad, not sure which).

Apparently, Sonja never asked if it was “OK” if I stay at her place, just assumed it would be, and after living there for a month, getting on my feet, etc… Tensions reached Cold War levels with her roomies, all done without my knowledge, until I got fed up with all of it and just left. Sonja and I will be ok, just need space. I’ve never lived with a girlfriend before, and never want to. I like having my manspace. That being said, I’ve learned some interesting things in the last month.

1) i haven’t had a good night’s sleep in a month, however, I am capable of some mind-numbingly productive things on four hours sleep..adrenaline dude, who knew?
2) i weigh about 165 pounds, largely because of the adrenaline, and the fact that I’m never hungry here, oh yeah and I smoke alot, thanks alot Spain. However, I have managed to develop a six pack, fuck exercise America: stress, german, beer, no sleep, ciggarettes, shower sex…these are the keys to a trim physique…not the most sustainable approach, I’ve probably neatly trimmed a month off of the end of my life, but in this pending apocolyptic/globally warmed world we’re soon to be living in, who gives a shit..we’re all going down. See, I’ve only been here a month and I’ve even managed to adopt German sensibility..Life is Scheisse: we die, thus: smoke, drink,its cold outside, self-destruct, but look good doing it.
3) English is a handy language to be a native speaker of. Its kindof like, but nowhere near as cool as being six foot seven, being black and having a killer jump shot…ie, skills you never really had to work too hard to cultivate, but you get paid quite well for these skills. I never had much of a jump shot, but I can sure talk alot. This, and my CELTA certificate, apparently, scored me a business english teaching job paying 35 euro an hour..not bad for this little ninja..I’m sort of on probation right now, but If I prove myslef I should get more than my one, two-hour, lesson a week, in a month or so and make really good money.
4) German is nowhere near as much fun to speak or to learn as Spanish, and speaking it actually makes you feel german: direkt, logical, unfunny..german…but, its sort of my new challenge, if I can mitigate the narrow, uncharted paths of german wit and wittiness, i can do anything…that being said, its a a bitch of a language to learn..I scored at an intermediate level in my language school entrance exam, a huge mistake…this is the section of the german teaching curriculum where you learn and apply what makes germans so german..the ins and outs of german grammar..did you know they have 24 words for the English word, “the”. This all of course depends on the sex of the word you are referring to, if its the direct, indirect object, or the subject, if the object is a pronoun in possession of the direkt objekt, etc.., etc…Yeah, its rough.
5) My German class is all the people who applied to the University of Vienna, but don’t speak good enough German to attend classes, thus we have one year to learn and apply academic german. My class consists of people from Chechnya, Bosnia, every North African country you never knew existed, Iran, Russia, every ex-Russian sattelite country you forgot about, and me, the only American to take this course, to quote Marta, my German teacher, in her twenty years of teaching it. Most Americans who elect to study at the university of Vienna don’t take the time to learn German they just take the classes taught in English..this either makes me very stupid, or very original…again, a fine line to walk…I’ve been in for a week, and already behind.
6) Moving to a far off country because of love sounds nice on paper, but is way harder and challenging than staying at home and meeting a nice girl from the suburbs.
In all, suprisingly happy here. Vienna is beautiful, cold, but jaw-droppingly beautiful at times. I’m making friends, and getting the language down. Things are good with the girl, a bumpy road at first, but we’ll be better for it. I miss Sevilla, more than you can imagine, and would love to get back there and kick it with ya’ll. What neighborhood is your place, hows the teaching going, hanging with any of the old schoolers?

Keep it real and shit

Shaan

Shaan Kirpalani is a freelance writer and has recently written a feature in CMYK magazine (coming soon!) He is a contributing editor for Thrillist.com, San Francisco, and was a frequent contributor to TODOMonthly in SF. He has also been published in the Viennese publication, Vernis, which surely you've never heard of, but Shaan can assure you its quite a big deal in Vienna, where he lived for a year in an attempt to figure out exactly what he was going to do with his recent Masters degree in Environmental Management that didn’t involve working with bureaucrats or helping corporations skirt environmental regulation. After earning a writer/editor’s wages for the last six months, Shaan is reconsidering getting on as a bureaucrat somewhere. Click here to see a complete list of his published work.
email him at kirpalani1(at)gmail.com

ICH BIN EIN WIENER

Date: Oct 1, 2006 1:32 PM
Subject: Ich bin ein Wiener*
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* Wien, german word for Vienna..a person from Wien, a Wiener….

this is great, because you see the word “Wiener” fifteen times a day
walking around Vienna…and if you, like me, enjoy giggling at
juvenile things, like Wiener, this makes for a rich and full life

also, “Gute Fahrt”, means “Have a good trip”, but in English it means
something much sillier…this expression isn’t as prominent in Vienna
as “Wiener”, but still scores high on the “stupid things I laugh at
living abroad” scale…

…on that note, yesterday, I was at a cafe, poaching some free
wireless internet. I had to go poo, but didn’t want to take all my
stuff with me so I asked an older man sitting next to me,

” Entschuldigung Sie, konnen sie meine Schiesse bitte uberwachen? Ich
muss toiletten gehen.”

What I thought I said,
” Excuse me sir, can you watch my shit please, I have to go the bathroom.

The man gave me a dirty look, and said “Ja.” I did my business, came
back, and made my way home not long after. Later that day, reflecting
upon the dirty look the man gave me, I wondered if “Scheisse”, “shit”
in English, isn’t used as liberally as it is in English, rather, and
in this case, unfortunately literal in German. So, I asked my german
speaking flatmates what I said..apparently it was this…

“Excuse me, can you come and watch me shit please? I have to go to the toilet.”

“Lost in translation” rears its ugly head, once again.

It was at this point that the germans unanimously decided there would
be nothing funnier than following me around the streets of Vienna
chuckling as I stagger through my busted german abilities, thinking
I’m asking for directions, when in fact I’m asking an older Austrian
woman if I can take her pants off…hasn’t happened yet, but wouldn’t
be surprised…

So, I’m here–Vienna. Home sweet home? Things are looking good here,
employment opportunites abound, my german is getting better, and feel
like I’m settling into Wienerdom nicely. It really is a beautiful
city, the food is good, the beer is very cheap, and very delicious,
and this, being my third visit to Vienna, feels somewhat homeish.
Sonja has braved the wilds of Ecuador and Colombia for the last two
months, and I’ve been fattened by tapas and cheap Spanish wine in
Spain. We’re both happy to be here, together, after almost two years
of international relations. Sonja has a huge flat and her roommates
are very cool, very fun, and thankfully, speak very good English.

Ill be here somewhat long term, at least another six months…I hope
everyone is well, and keep sending those emails. Also, download skype,
its free (www.skype.com) Sonja and I used this for the last year or
so, all you need is a microphone on your pc. Its a free online phone
service…Its a hell of alot cheaper than using calling cards or god
forbid, calling someone internationally on their cell phone $.35/per
minute…
you can search for me on skype by name or by user name, “prizzle2002″
or by email, prizzle2002@yahoo.com
Keep in touch everyone.

Check out the last of my Spain photos here:
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=5hfwaq5.974paiuh&x=1&y=-rjpb77

Odelay

Shaan

GREETINGS FROM SEVILLA

Date: Sep 3, 2006 10:54 PM
Subject: Greetings From Sevilla
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Hi guys-

This communique is coming direct from my apartment in Seville, my
roommate, Tristan, and I finally figured out how to get the internet
working. Tristan’s a Kiwi…can’t seem to stay away from those rugby
playing, marmite-eating, island people. Cool guy, doing the CELTA
(Cambridge English Language Teaching A…(forgot what the A stands
for) yup English Teaching School Thing…we’re doing it together,
and are enjoying our first Saturday after a demoralizing week of
teaching..eight hours of lecture each day + (Three, Hour-Long Lessons
where I actually teach students) full of assessment, positive and
critical feedback, lesson-planning, copy machine-using, appropriate
methodology researching, explaining to students why I, a native
English speaker, should know what a gerund is, but obviously
don’t…don’t worry, I figured it out, in front of class, “Eeesnt a
jairuund a burb dat ees acheteeng liike a nawn, Senor Shaan?”…”ahem.
Yes Antonio..that is absolutely correct..moving on.”

Really enjoying Seville. Its a proper city, but easy to forget you’re
in a city…the old town is beautiful, the architecture and city form
is heavily influenced by the Moors (Islamic civilization who was here
a long time ago, but built such beautiful mosques and cities, the
Church couldn’t destroy them, so they took the Islamic ‘Moons’ off the
top of the Mosques, put up some Crucafixes..and.presto
chango…Southern Spain!) Its gorgeous, here, really unique.

Just wanted to give a “I’m fine, and doing well, and settled (for the
next three weeks anyway) nicely here in Seville

I’ve added some more photos to my album…check them out here:

http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=5hfwaq5.974paiuh&x=0&y=lqpdf2

Odelay
Shaan

SPAIN: DE PUUTA MADRE

Date: Aug 20, 2006 12:53 PM
Subject: Greetings from Cordoba
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Espana: de Puta Madre

Totally.

“de Puta Madre,” if you´re into dirty Spanish idioms, is akin to “Bitchin´”…literally: the Motherbitch…I don´t make his stuff up, just try to blend in, and, if you want to get a laugh out of the locals, throw a few “de Puta Madres” out there, apparently there´s nothing funnier.

London: not so much de Puta Madre
Lovely town, but WAY too expensive to enjoy without cringing at how much everything was costing me. Still, had a great couch to sleep on, and some good laughs with a Kiwi friend of mine there.

Valencia, Espana: almost de Puta Madre
a great town to stroll around in and excellent for cursing and clenched-fist-raising at Spanish cab drivers who refuse to pick you up at seven in the morning after completing mile four of your five mile trek back to your hostel from the club on the beach you were dancing at all night. Still, a lovely town, great hostel…cool people…and the Paella scores a 9.5/10 on the de Puta Madre scale

Granada: de Puta Madre
Managed to get the miracle seat on the bus ride from Valencia next to a totally cool girl from Granada who speaks five words of English: Yes, No, Hello, Goodbye, and John Travolta….no kidding! (note: we would later name her scooter, “John Travolta”) so, i managed to strike up a friendship…in spanish…que loca! Speaking the native language (sortof..past tense in spanish never appealed to me…which makes me a capitavting person I think: everything, even things in the past, when i talk about them, are occuring in the present…live for the now, man.) anyway…Spanish skills afforded me the opportunity to get invited out with this lovely girl and some of her friends for Tapas, and some amazing freestyle flamenco…I get taken through Granada´s winding streets one night..into the basement of this alleyway tavern..where every night/morning around 2:00 locals get together and do improvised flamenco…a guy on guitar plays while a girl sings (freestyle) to his rhythm..then another guy gets up and sings back at her..if she likes what he´´s singing she gets up and dances, then another guy gets up and sings, she sings back..they pass the guitar…this goes on for three hours…with a crowd of friends clapping the whole time(flamenco style) to the rhythm…

Granada is a very special place..the Alhambra looms enormous over the town…the tapas are cheap and delicious…there are hills to hike around in just outside of town, and my neighborhood, Albaicin, the Jewish quarter, is gorgeous…Oh yes, Granada has hobbits…(see photos)…just outside of town is a neighborhood of caves…no kidding…people occupy these caves, paint them up, put in chimneys..install windows..and live out their gypsy lives there–smoking hash, speaking spanish, and giving a lazy middle finger to society…i hung with a south african guy in his cave for an hour…”how are things in San Francisco these days”, he asks me…

anyway…all is well…in Cordoba today, a beautiful town that is completely empty..Spaniards dont like the heat so they all take off to the beach in August…no worries…more town for me… tomorrow its Sevilla–my home for the next month. taking an english teaching course there…life is funny…spanish hobbits…the motherbitch..and i have to go all the way to spain to learn to teach english…

mira mis fotos aqui:

http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=5hfwaq5.974paiuh&x=0&y=lqpdf2

you dont need to sign in, just click onthe slide show icon
odelay
Shaan

MOSTLY INSIGNIFICANT BLOG AUTHOR IS BORN

Weeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!