My friend Andrea, her daughter and I were walking through the Volkspark ( the people’s park) near my flat here in Berlin. It was fairly standard weather for Berlin. 
As we were crossing the street, I noticed this HUGE hippie van parked next to the park
There was a lot of writing on it, some in English, so I decided to go knock. The man called out that I can come in. Up until this point, I thought every German named ‘Dieter’ looked like Dieter from Sprockets on Saturday Night Live. Well, this Dieter is as different from Mike Myers “Dieter” as you can get. This Dieter is a regular rollin’ stone, a REAL Nowhere Man ( please hum that tune from the Beatles when you read this blog). I went in alone and started chatting with Dieter and after about 15 minutes, I called to Andrea and Sarina who were at the near by play ground. Andrea said when I went in there, a few people were staring in amazement, as in, I must have a 
-lot of courage to enter –such a freaky van. Dieter said he has lived like this for the last 30 years. I didn’t have the balls to ask him how old he was, but he did say he has a 41 year old daughter. Dieter does mosaic tile designs to earn money. His bathroom in the van is so fucking cool, he laid each- 
-piece by hand.
The two dog dishes in the ‘heated floor bathroom’ belong to his only travel companion, Snoopy. That dog is super sweet and was letting himself in and out of the van the whole time. He gets spoiled and has a lot of toys on board which he kept exchanging. He would come in, grab the ox tail, go out, chew for 10 minutes, then come in, put the ox tail back(!), and grab the big bone and go out again.
Dieter keeps his “home on wheels” extremely tidy and organized. He has loads of plants and cool lights all over. He said it took him 7 
years to build it exactly how he wants it. He has an incredible stereo system in there and even in the bathroom it sounds like a concert. He played a ‘Melony’ cd. That was the first concert I ever saw, my folks brought me to see her and I think I was only 2 years old, don’t remember squat of course! I found Dieter to be so cool, I even came back later with Jasmine and we chatted with him for hours.
He said he was married at 20, had a kid and wife, and at 24 he wanted to move to Canada (he is a native Berliner) but his wife was like “oh, but here I have a great kitchen and school for our kid” she was clearly not flexible to move around, so Dieter had to leave her. He had paid her the mandatory HUGE amount of alimony and took off and never went back. Not sure if he sees his daughter or so.
Dieter lives on wheels; where ever he parks is where he lives that day. He reminds me of being on tour with the Grateful Dead, in fact I was surprised he had never seen them in concert. Dieter doesn’t smoke or drink any alcohol, ever. He is a vegan and never lets steel or silver touch his mouth, he only eats with the custom made wooden chop sticks he had made on one of his MANY trips to Nepal. He loves Katmandu and India too. Even though he is a tad old, he doesn’t have ONE grey hair on his head, which proves he is happy and stress free. He whipped out a photo of himself in his hey day and had long blonde hair, looked like a member of the Doobie Brothers.
The photo to the left is Andrea (standing) Sarina and some random brave German woman who also came aboard to look. There is Dieter in the drivers seat, playing us some music. He has many crystals and freaky lights, the kind that when you touch it, little lightning bolts come to your finger, you know, like at the science museum- that are sensitive to heat. Dieter is a classic nowhere man, he is happy and refuses to conform to society as we know it. He says he goes to Bielefeld (in West Germany) every once in a while to work (doing tiles). He earns money and takes off again. He says his boss loves his work so much that he can come and go as he pleases. He refuses to stay in one place and NEEDS to explore. The photos I made of his home do not do it justice, it is breath taking and has hand crafted wood from Nepal all over it inside. I brought him a few cds to enrich his collection, two Moody Blues cds and one of me doing Janis Joplin 🙂 Good luck Dietmar and keep on truckin’!
Movin’ right along. I went out tonight with Asita. She and I have been friends for about 8 years. Her dad is Iranian and her mom is German. Asista works for one of Germany’s biggest concert promoters and gets to meet a lot of Rock and Pop stars. She has a wicked sense of humor and we get along GREAT! Seeing her was exaclty what I needed as Berlin was really getting me down. Since I have been gone for about 2 years, (apart from me coming to visit Jasmine every third month) my friends have either moved or are so busy in their lives they have no time when I come so I am often alone. When Jasmine is home it is awesome, but she is a busy girl too and has a HUGE amount of friends and packed schedule, what with school, guitar and tons of gal pals (she broke up with Leon by the way). So if she comes home every day at 7 or 8pm, I am alone and missing NYC badly. I go shopping do the occasional massage and make- over, but still, I long to see friends. I am kind of on call all the time ,when Jasmine has free time, I must be free for her.
Anyhow, Asita and I went to the Irish Pub karaoke night. Fricky came too and did a Michael Jackson tune ( ‘man in the mirror’) and I did tina Turner’s “Simply the Best” .Notice we only did ONE song? The dj is a PRICK and insists on singing so much that no one gets to sing twice. Why do karaoke DJs insist on singing all night? Isn’t the point to let the people who come and spend loads on drinks and wait for hours to sing? I was there from 10pm to 1am and got one song, as did every one else. BUT the DJ, well, he sang 4 times. Hearing a German sing Frank Sinatra and Jerry Lee Lewis (with heavy accent) would piss you off too!
Not sure how long you have been reading this blog, but I wrote about this Dj waaay back, his girlfriend is always there and hates all females that come to sing, last time I went there to sing, he yelled at me the WHOLE time I sang that I wasn’t holding the mic correctly- both songs I sang had him screaming at me in the background- he is one angry KRAUT.
The two photos above: That is Asita sitting in the shoe shine chair. The Irish Pub is inside the Europa Center, Berlins answer to a mall (we have Wallmarts bigger than this “mall”) . Then that is Aista and I holding onto eachother in the pub, kind of holding on for dear life as so many creepy guys were trying to chat us up, I mean CREEPY.Even Fricky was afraid of the guys! It was so fun hangin’ with Asita again, if she dyed her hair platinum blonde, she would be a dead ringer for Mae West, I SWEAR. She is very sharp tounged like me and is a rock chick, which I love. I hope she comes to NYC to visit me, I will show her a good time.
Last but not least, I took this photo of Jasmine the other night 
and she HATES having her picture taken and didn’t care too much for my hat either. Jasmine looks just like her father, Benjamin. She has naturally curly hair but hates it. She would like it to be straight. I tell her many women PAY for spiral perms to have hair like hers, she isn’t interested in that. Ah, teenagers. I love her to death.
This blog took me 3 hours to do; the photos and writing etc. I am now back on my bad sleeping habit schedule. It is 7:30 AM so I have to get my ass into bed. Keep those “product ideas” coming, I am grateful 🙂
“Because the sky is blue, it makes me cry- love is all, love is you” Beatles
xx Dr. Dot