THE BLACK GOLD RUSH (and $300 for nothing)

I am just sitting in a plane that should bring me back from Calgary, Canada to Vienna, old Europe. I am sitting at the very rear of the plane; all the elder ladies being flight attendants of Air Canada have asked me if this seat was really assigned to me. Yes it was; not my fault! Sorry for my non-Canadian lack of patience but I have been put on hold just until 5 minutes before boarding started. Before I still wondered if I would go to Vienna via Frankfurt and will not be placed on the flight to London where there were more seats available as they said.

“You know, Air Canada always overbooks the flights by 10 percent” said the first human being that attended me on the Calgary airport. Finding one is not that easy, because here you are attended by machines. Borg? No, not that intelligent… You know, that automats that are placed at all the airports nowadays with all the confused passengers trying to get their f**** seats. Oh remember that good ol´times when we were handed out our boarding passes by nice young ladies who asked us such personal things like “window or aisle” and told us the time and gate number which they have circled with their pens, like we were completely dumb. They even wished us a good flight.

Actually, in Calgary they also have employees but their function is to keep you off the check in counters if you don’t have a serious problem (and not knowing how to use the automats does not count). Well mine did not want to recognize my passport (too big) nor my frequent flyer number (too little frequent?). Finally, after one of the “nice” ladies has typed in a number on my ticket I was unable to see without the use of a confocal microscope he (the non intelligent artificial) “told” me he could not assign me a seat let alone print a ticked but prompted I should proceed to the “problem check-in”….

There, finally a human being gave me tickets to Frankfurt with a yellow tape reading “at hold” and I was asked to carry my luggage (with the same yellow stickers) to the belt. Me myself? Yep. At least, when I asked if I had also to navigate the plane myself I was told there were still pilots with Air Canada.

Ok finally here I was in the seats normally reserved for the aircrew, right next to the wash rooms. Well not really right next to it, because much closer, too much, there was a Persian native German, overweight by at least 50 kilos. No no, I don’t have anything against fat, ahh sorry large sized individuals; as long as they don’t sit next to me in an aircraft on a 10 hours flight. He was not only overweight but also overtalkative. “You’re in the oil business?” –definitely that is the only reason why you should go to Calgary- “no I am in science”; Ahh, well I am working for Krupp” –steal production as we know here from the history lessons. “Krupp steel makes the devices to sieve the oil”..aha..

The oil, the reason for Calgary’s/Alberta’s wealth and recently exploding growth, is not just shooting out of the ground if you drill it (as I always imagined) but is mixed with sand. Hard to believe there was ever a beach or a dune in Calgary but that is what it is. So even the oily sand (or sandy oil) is reason enough to make Calgary the new capital of fine young capitalists (once we called them yuppies, but these did not drive in pick-up trucks). Astonishingly really everybody I knew or got to know there is buying a house in or around Calgary. By the way, if some guy from IKEA reads this, you should really get your Billies, Bobs and Svens there. So housing is becoming quite expensive at the moment in that city and because this will hold on forever people who have money (and if it is the bank’s money) is into real estate. And you know, the prairie is still big enough. The city itself builds highways that are still clogged and gives 300 dollars to everyone because they don’t know what else to do with it. Just like this; I am not kidding. Maybe they could invest it better into the homeless strolling around the city centre or into transportation but I guess the Alberta Con´s hold “public transport” for a communist thing. Well, there it actually functions like that.

The guy next to me kept me entertained so I know all the details about Krupp in Canada compared to Germany; actually he is into business and maybe I should inform some people I knew that he had a laugh saying that some time and the housing marked will crash just as it did in Germany, but then it is too late now anyways and why not let the guys from IKEA have some fun too. Of course I did not sleep on this trip (although it was quite “cosy”) but the Captain proudly informed us he had made up all the delay from Calgary and we will land soon in Frankfurt. His next message was slightly different “Here is you Captain again, I don’t know what the hell is going on down there in Frankfurt today but they put us on halt for 50 minutes and this is fifty not fifteen, a!”

Luckily the connecting plane to Vienna had the same problem so I finally got to the boarding in time. Breathless from running and concerned because I was not checked through in Calgary I busted “is this Vienna?” “Off course not” or “No this is Frankfurt” would have been a correct answer but a very cool ladie just typed into her computer saying calmly “Yes, just relax, I am trying to arrive myself at Vienna at the moment”. Interesting conversation I found. “So do I get my boarding card here?” “You don’t have any?” would I ask if I had one? “No I have not been checked through by Air Canada”. A funny look – “ts, ts, OK just wait a second, the really hot seats are out but here you go”. “I am happy enough not to be seated almost in the bathroom with a fat guy again” another amused look. “We’ll board in half an hour, you can have some newspapers meanwhile”. “Not the FAZ, thanks!” (I have had enough capitalists recently). “Considering your accent maybe the “Suddeutsche”? Wonderful, old Europe: talking to real people!

And wonderful: “Die Suddeutsche”. I always forget how good this newspaper is and why we have nothing comparable in Austria. I can go through 2 pages on a report about Neapel or genetically manipulated cotton in India without getting tired and this after being 10 hrs in the air. Interestingly I found an article on page 11 about Canada’s pull back from Kyoto. It was about the “law for clean air” that the neoconservative government has passed which is not in line with the climate control treaty Canada originally has signed and does not even mention the word Kyoto. Interestingly, the ice in the Canadian arctic is melting faster than anywhere else and Canada is the world third biggest air contaminator in terms of CO2 production per person having increased CO2 by 30% since 1990. And this is mainly due to....

...the production of oil in Alberta and Calgary! Extracting the oil from the sand produces three times more greenhouse gasses as does “conventional” oil production. Now guess where Canada’s new prime minister comes from? Bingo, Calgary, Alberta! Since producing oil in Alberta will triplicate CO2 production until 2012 (as calculated) Ben Harper, Krupp and co need new laws that declares CO2 as clean air to continue with real estate, highway construction and the 300 Canadian dollars gift to everybody without any reason.

FESTWOCHEN 2006 (Vienna International Theater Festival)

Der hässliche Deutsche

„The ugly german“ still exists. At least in theatre. He is farting, he is vomiting, he is brutal. He is pouring blood all over himself and over his enemies just that this time it is only theatre-blood that comes from big bottles the actors carry around. He is naked and disgusting, he is wearing female clothes wondering if to cover his not existing breasts (that, at least is the most funny part of it), he is shitting and smearing the (theatre-) excrements around his and his colleagues faces, he eats it. In between he recites Shakespeare, but without any intonation. He calls this Macbeth. He thinks that scandals is enough to call it theatre, to call it art. He thinks that one scene of acting (when the ghosts appear to Macbeth at the dinner) is sufficient. He thinks that we are shocked by the play he put to scene. But we are just bored!
P.S.: the newspapers had said half of the people would leave in the first 10 minutes of Jurgen Gosch´s Festwochen production of Macbeth. I watched carefully but in the first ten minutes not anybody left (and the theatre was sold out). But slowly but steadily people were dropping out over the next two hors (after two hours also the author of these lines left) – not because of scandal, but because they were bored.

The entertaining Brit

How refreshing in contrary is British theatre. Forced entertainment – the name of the group is the program! How I love them when they fuzz around, when they produce chaos, when they drill and hammer and disturb the acting colleagues, when they represent the Stone Age by attacking deer with a long stick on a TV screen, when they vacuum clean through the French revolution…

When the actor that somehow reminded me on Jamie Oliver, sorry for that, is left alone on stage with the stupid suggestions from his colleagues (You know, I don’t really want to be in your shoes, but well, if I were you, well I would be quite nervous…anyhow, I know you will make it and remember, whatever you do, just be yourself…); when this actor finally left all alone on stage tells you a quite long story about the thoughts you might have after jumping from a rooftop because you wanted to find out about the afterlife; because standing on that rooftop is a perfect opportunity and you do not like to be known for lost opportunities or for being afraid of trying; When the story comes to being just ten meters above the ground, the actor abruptly stops:…well, I think I just leave you there and you may think about is for a while….

Or at the very end of the show when the same guy asks you if you remember the faces you may have seen on the tramway when you came to the theatre or the colour of the car that stopped quite in front of you at the red light if you drove; and that in a year you will have forgotten all this and maybe also the show; and in 10 years time some of you might be dead, that’s possible; and in 50 years time maybe more and in 200 years time its quite safe to say…and in 200 years also all people who have known us and who could remember us have died. And in 1000 years probably this building will not be here anymore and in 1000 years this city may not be here anymore, maybe lots of water or maybe just- space. Pessimistic? “Well maybe to give a bit of a positive spin to that, for those who like, you make think if you are happy with what you are doing while you are still here…”.

Protinius vive – so if you ever have a chance to see this amazing group, do something useful with the time that you have left in this short life and go for it!