It's okay to be desperate and alone at the Café Lehmitz

It was the next-to-last night in Hamburg for at least a long while. I was being punctual for the love of God and just when I reached bingöl Döner Kebab Backshop, Sahar texts to say she needs 40 to 45 extra minutes. It was the place I had a muffin for dinner at on the first night I saw the red blue green yellow lights of the Reeperbahn. No good deed goes unpunished.

These days I am wise enough to know that I'd rather let myself be found at Café Lehmitz every single night than all Wednesdays at Thomas Read or anywhere else, but up to that particular day, I was way too afraid of all things that looked like I belonged to. The blues and the bass and the abyss had been luring me since that early March evening but, see: life is easier when you pretend you're into tekkno in Northern Germany 2016. That time around was different, though, because I had 40 to 45 extra minutes and this leaving-town-tomorrow sadness somewhere around the upper body that allows folks to finally be fucking free.

I am not racist, but I would have struggled to see the black gentleman playing guitar hadn't been for his star-spangled banner, boss of the Plains cowboy hat. He was rocking some red facial hair and Jimi Hendrix jacket as well, and flirted with the darkest, most under-aged ladies in the room. He goes by the name of Lord Bishop and leads a band called Lord Bishop Rocks and that's all I want to know for today. I sat right in front of him on the bar and he avoided my camera as much as he could. Guess the admiration is always stronger when never reciprocated.  

On the right side I had a shirtless hero playing air crucifixion and painting portraits of career-dead idols, oil on wood. He was truthful and savage and I was between his wide-open legs. I was grateful and he didn't seem to mind. I could have stayed down there forever but 40 to 45 extra minutes went by and Sahar is never unpunctual twice a day, so I left for the billiard at Silbersackstraße with her and her brother Nader. It's okay to be in love for a short while.

All pictures taken on 22nd July 2016 at Reeperbahn's Café Lehmitz, Hamburg, Germany.

Well I always play russian roulette in my head

"Yes'm," The Misfit said as if he agreed. "Jesus shown everything off balance. It was the same case with Him as with me except He hadn't committed any crime and they could prove I had committed one because they had the papers on me. Of course," he said, "they never shown me my papers. That's why I sign myself now. I said long ago, you get you a signature and sign everything you do and keep a copy of it. Then you'll know what you done and you can hold up the crime to the punishment and see do they match and in the end you'll have something to prove you ain't been treated right. I call myself The Misfit," he said, "because I can't make what all I done wrong fit what all I gone through in punishment." 

There was a piercing scream from the woods, followed closely by a pistol report. "Does it seem right to you, lady, that one is punished a heap and another ain’t punished at all?"  

"Jesus!" the old lady cried. "You've got good blood! I know you wouldn't shoot a lady! I know you come from nice people! Pray! Jesus, you ought not to shoot a lady. I'll give you all the money I've got!" 

"Lady," The Misfit said, looking beyond her far into the woods, "there never was a body that give the undertaker a tip." 

There were two more pistol reports and the grandmother raised her head like a parched old turkey hen crying for water and called, "Bailey Boy, Bailey Boy!" as if her heart would break. 

"Jesus was the only One that ever raised the dead," The Misfit continued, "and He shouldn't have done it. He shown everything off balance. If He did what He said, then it's nothing for you to do but throw away everything and follow Him, and if He didn't, then it's nothing for you to do but enjoy the few minutes you got left the best way you can, by killing somebody or burning down his house or doing some other meanness to him. No pleasure but meanness," he said, and his voice had become almost a snarl.

Excerpt from A Good Man Is Hard to Find, by Flannery O'Connor

All pictures taken at Hamburger DOM (Hamburg, Germany) between 18th and 20th March 2016. Inspired by Tom Waits' Blood Money (2002), the play written by Georg Büchner he wrote the album for, Woyzeck, and A Good Man Is Hard to Find (1955), Flannery O'Connor's short story that titled its last song.

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Good bye to a little man who, at least for the last 30 years, could only run a competition in bigness with himself. His stilettos were so high above us that we could not even see him at times. Sleep well Prince, your Texas blow dry and most-awkward-love-scene-ever in Purple Rain (1984) will haunt me for ever, but let's go crazy.