Friday, July 18, 2008

It's Santogold's round


The Germans have a fine thing known as cheap alcohol and the city is awash with it. You can buy baby-sized bottles of Jagermeister between lollipops and Bounty bars at shop counters. It's so cheap it could be classed as a welfare perk. If you buy a case of beer and return the bottles, they compensate you with hard cash. If you're a productive drunk, you could spend your night filling your pockets, or your loved-one's handbag, with bottles, return them the next day, and then use the excuse that drinking is your employment. And the bars don't ever close, they just move across the street and take turns like a relay race. In Berlin, the tradition is to help your barman lock up then follow him to another bar on the next street. This refreshing cycle can go on for days, weeks even. Stories abound of youngsters coming to this fine town and spending years caught up in bar crawls until the €50 (it is that cheap) they had in their pocket runs dry. The alcohol may have meant my driving is suffering, but I think my photography is coming on really well. This is Santogold playing at Tape, or maybe it's that Roma kid who cleaned my windows for 10 cents.

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