Monday Kickstart: Das Beat

I took three and a half years of German classes in high school, but only because the teacher was so bad that the classes were easy A's. I didn't learn much German beyond "Danke schoen" in those three-plus years, and I probably really only learned that from Ferris Bueller. So I'm not going to pretend I have the foggiest idea what the gents in Rakede, a group from Germany, are saying below. But damn it if these guys can't throw down on a beat.



This week's inspiration is sex wrapped in sex, though she prefers to be called Ashley Heinrichs:

Let's go.

Like a Glove!

If there's anything more stereotypical than this German guy's haircut, someone please let me know.

It's the Weekend

Time to come together...

German Chocolate

Personally, I tear up a plate of beets every time I go to the Hofbrauhaus.

Key and Peele

Courting Trouble

Someone in Munich has way too much time on his or her hands.

From Ball Don't Lie:

A regulation-sized basketball court was erected on the grove-like forecourt of the school building of the occupational school. The court consists of a soft orange-red tartan covering and two normed baskets and seems to be forced over the grid of the lamps that have been set up. The playable court has been "morphed" as in a 3D program on a computer and looks like the grounds of a rollercoaster, with heights and depths and calm and dynamic zones. The resulting paradox, which moves between a normative set of rules and pleasurable, anarchic change, requires creative engagement for its use.

My first instinct when reading this was to crack a few jokes about how the Germans designed this court just to—ironically—even the playing field when Americans come around for a game of fünf-auf-fünf. Then I remembered this year's NBA Finals, so...nah.

This court is ridiculous, though. Why would you do something like this for a sport that requires you to bounce the ball off the ground? It would be much more sensible to try it with football (American), football (rest of the world), baseball, etc.

And, in my opinion, the positioning of a lamp at the top of one of the keys is almost worse than the undulating surface. It's like having an automatic pick set up on every offensive possession at that end.

Crazy-ass Germans. What's that Dirk? Nothin...

O' Tannen-bombed

Given the significance of trees during this time of year, this guy definitely wasn't the first to ever think of doing this. He may, however, be the first to get caught.

From The Huffington Post:

Perhaps they should call it a case of "Merry-Juana." A German man is now facing drug possession charges after local police discovered a six-foot-tall marijuana plant in his home that had been decorated with twinkling Christmas lights, the AFP is reporting.

"The marijuana plant had been put in a Christmas tree stand and decorated with a string of lights," officers said in a statement, according to the AFP. "When asked, the hashish fan told the perplexed officers that he had intended to add more decorations to the 'tree' and place the presents under it, according to tradition." Times Live reports that 150 grams of marijuana had been found in the man's home in Koblenz before the tree was discovered.

I wonder if he topped it with an angel, or a little figurine of Smokey sitting in Debo's pigeon coop?

That Old Lost Love Feeling

Stop me if you've heard this one before: A German Chancellor is preaching religious intolerance.

From Yahoo! News:

BERLIN (AFP) – Germany's attempt to create a multi-cultural society has failed completely, Chancellor Angela Merkel said at the weekend, calling on the country's immigrants to learn German and adopt Christian values.

Merkel weighed in for the first time in a blistering debate sparked by a central bank board member saying the country was being made "more stupid" by poorly educated and unproductive Muslim migrants.

In the U.S., Europe is often looked to as being a consistent employer of more progressive and modern political and sociological views. But Merkel's statements reveal an undercurrent of unenlightened, religiously-biased sentiment that America, though often guilty of (see "Ground Zero Mosque"), rarely sees exhibited by her distant relatives in Europe. It's often assumed that European civilization, having experienced the perils and pitfalls of various societal structures for roughly 1600 years longer than the U.S., has already learned from the mistakes and troubling biases that continue to trip up the American political system (see "Tea Party movement"). But it now appears that, at least in the case of Germany, that was only a false hope.