AMERICANS IN BERLIN 2003: GABRIEL WALSH
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About This Video
Americans in Berlin 2003: Gabriel Walsh. Another portrait in the Berlin expatriate series. Low rents, high cultural production, a city still becoming itself. Van was 28, documenting the Americans who had landed there.
Transcript
oh my God in 2003 I lived in Berlin as part of Tom Sax's nsis installation at
the Deutsche gugenheim I was 28 years old and I had a social life there and through friends I met a bunch of
Americans who were living in Berlin at the time this was 2 years after September 11th 2001 and I began filming
these interviews on September 11th 2003 how long have you lived here you're in the
track that was Brandon uh I've been in Berlin almost 5 years and I'm not
telling people that it's that long because my German is bad so the story goes everywhere between
2 and 1 half and 3 and A2 years and then I look like an
overachiever so what why did you move here uh because I was in New York and I
was doing a lot of stuff there but I was also working way too much and trying to make my way and the two things were very
difficult together and I got burnt out and I went camping Upstate New York for like 5 months and I taught theater to
young adults in Upstate New York and then I went back to New York City and I met this guy from Berlin and I told him
that I just wanted to make shows and he said you should come to Berlin you'd like it and so I did 2 months
later uh and then I made my first show a month and a half after that and so like everybody who I first met in Berlin or
people that I said have you ever been in a show before would you like to be in a show and then also people for a hammer or everything for free I didn't make the
show with any money so you just moved there so I worked for two months at I lived by my parents I worked for 2
months at this uh restaurant vegetarian snacks and um and then I left yeah then
I came here without ever seeing it I stayed at zul loosa Garden about 10 years ago when I lived in prag I took a train around Europe and then I was
coming back and I had no money so I slept at zul loosa Garden the first time I was ever in Berlin and so now when I walk through it it's a totally different
place but my first memory of Berlin is a really dark dirty place that I slept in and they were really rude to me so I
always hated Berlin before but but then what what's zo logo shoes got that's the big station where lots of hookers hang
out and also like where just people lots of people go in and out it's it's a hub
station so did that make you afraid to come back to it just I just set my first thought like just like Brussels I'm like
I hate it cuz I was at Brussels at 4:00 in the morning and I got got kicked off of a train one time and so I had to be
there for like the darkest coldest hours of Brussels and I hated the town so I haven't been back there since that's how
Berlin was except certain things were pointing to Berlin for me about 5 years ago so I had to follow those patterns
and come and so what all are you doing here now so I've produced my own plays I've
like gone into the cannon and done like commercials film in German and
like I started music and then had a band and then that project keeps going on like everything I've ever wanted to do
I've been able to do here because I was able to somehow like I had a good family supporting me
so and yeah lots of good spaces yeah energy you can really you it's much
easier to uh create the cannon here in Berlin than it was in New York the you feel like you're just part of the Spiral in New York but in Berlin you feel like
your energy can make a difference and you see it actually very quickly when you put your energy out you see the room change and that's um that's pretty
exciting when did you first experience that when did I first experience the room
change uh it was it wasn't my first show um for my first show this woman sat on the front row I I put signs all over that said work in progress the people are alone that was the name of the show the people are alone and um and this
woman was sitting in the front row writing in a tech in a notebook and I'm like oh a reviewer came and so then after the show I'm like so are you from
a newspaper D and she was like no it said work in progress I thought You' want some notes so and then she starts going through and she's giving me really
really like detailed notes about you know I don't think you should talk so long I
think like okay so that was good taught me a lot but uh the first time it ever really
happened I don't know probably like when I did drag the first time which was also the first few months I was in
town and I did um something from I did it for Drome Castell and he only knew I was from New York and he assumed I was a
drag queen although I wasn't but he booked me for the show so I was going to do track I guess and so I did maybe this
time I'll be lucky maybe this time he'll stay and the whole time I have a noose around my neck and I'm just about ready to jump and then I do at the end and I
hang there and finish the song and so that they liked and that was like the first time that because I had so much
makeup on I was really in a mask and so I was putting on a big show that was the first time I really put on a Big Show and then after that was like I
don't know I made a commercial one time and uh I kind of created the end of it and and they said that's what saved the
commercial and everybody applauded and took this the robe off of the star and put it on me and that was actually the
coolest day like as far as like that's what I want just do what you want and then everybody's like that's exactly what we needed
what was your commer it was for this power company actually it was like it was on TV all the time the next guy that got my job was Arnold Schwarzenegger and
I'm sure he got paid a lot more but I was the first one that did the commercials in that series and it was seen by everybody and it's been played
and everybody knows it and like but I just don't want to keep playing that character so I haven't pushed that cuz it was a really like famy familyi
character like oh and I don't have a problem with that but I don't want to keep playing big gay characters just because I don't want to play a kiche so
they would have to have something that I could play that they' want to work with me on I don't want to keep playing cliché so and aside from the acting and
Performing do you have other jobs um yeah right now I've got three jobs
and I guess jobs are really hard to get by in Berlin unless you live here and you know people and then you just put the word out as far as I know know
that's just how it happens it's just all by how you know people and then you don't really have to worry about too much of anything like you'll never be I'll never starve I'll
never be homeless because I live here and I've got a big family here so but I work in two bars on one restaurant and
then uh one of the bars I'm working at because they give me a new performance space so I'm making money in the
meantime until I work there and then I bring that down and yeah how is it for you going from like New
York where you get a dollar tip every time you get a drink to hopefully getting 20 cents 50 cents hopefully
how's that well you get a higher hourly wage here because in New York you make like you know four or something like that and
here you make like seven or 10 or whatever you can't do anything about it
I mean I'm an American so I'm serving and so of course I'm serving more I'm like hey here you go do you need another one and in Germany they never ask do you
need another one they'll just oh you need something you know and your glass can be empty for a half hour
but you have to ask them for it and so just that little extra American thing moves the money a little bit
faster and so like kind of feel my difference there I don't even remember the question
but you answered it exquisitly okay um where were you on September 11th two
years ago I was getting this tattoo that says forever meet I was getting it because my brother
and I were always going to get it together and he was out of town for one year and I missed him and then he told me that he and his wife were going to
have their first baby and she had a miscarriage in the toilet and she's like well there it is and they looked at it
and they named him meat so the tattoo was going to say meat forever and then I changed it forever meat and that's for my first
nephew while I was getting that done then my father had a crush on my tattoo artist and she liked him for some weird
reason cuz my father came and visited and then he stayed for a year and she had a gold tooth and a pig in her
armpit and he came in with a couple beers and I was like hey hey I was getting it done and he's like he told me
what happened like he's like uh I think we need to go back to my house and so we went back to his house and we watched TV
for the next 8 hours and kept drinking beer and then I didn't get my tattoo finished until one year later on September
11th and so you finished it on sep no actually I was supposed to get it read finished today but she and I couldn't
hook up cuz I never got the color totally filled in and the shading done but I only really wanted to do it on September 11th cuz I just never really
feel like getting a tattoo anymore that was the last time I felt like getting one so I should finish
it fix this real quick oh did I do that no just did no it was the motor it was
the motorcycle really it's crazy I think that was a good Cube um
do you what do you miss about home anything convenience being able to just because I could do damage on the telephone like I could pick up the telephone and get myself three jobs you know five
appointments I could do anything over the phone I could make people think I have a lawyer I could you know I can I've seen so many law shows I can make people
think that I know my stuff here I cannot do that so like I really miss that being able to work my
rights and you know being able to sue everybody I've never sued anybody but just knowing that you
can I kind of missed that and uh stores open late at night and
uh God I don't know I don't really miss hearing English spoken around me because I have it with my friends
and besides that it's like it's funny I don't know sometime I I don't really miss hearing things around me because I like kind of blocking it all
out so I haven't really seen TV I don't read the newspapers and I don't hear voices around me so much unless I listen for them and so that has made my life
very different than it could be so I don't live in fear you know and I think that's better cuz when I was in the
states I couldn't help but read the newspaper watch the TV and everything and the Fear Factor is just at an all-time high and it's
disgusting and nothing will get finished that way nothing well it'll get finished but nothing will get done that way
so I like to keep a certain level of naivity so I can have that here find out what I need to find out there's people
that pay attention you're on the internet you know so people tell me things and then I figure if it's so important I'll
find out about it otherwise then I pr prefer my ideas to be my ideas and to find out that there's a general pattern
of things later instead of like jumping onto the pattern you know I find a lot of my ideas fit into the pattern anyway and that's nice it feels like there's
some kind of universal Consciousness somehow through all the levels of media through all the levels of borders and everything there's a Consciousness so if
I have something that if I'm thinking Scooby-Doo and then all of a sudden a movie comes out which is Scooby-Doo we're totally really different ideas but
for some reason we both felt that you know and then there's other deeper things but that comes up it's cool so
from the small amount of media that you have absorbed recently has anything stood out in your
mind that was only when I was in New York and I was there in February and that was during the orange alert or whatever like the huge Fear Factor they
put over New York and then the CNN and then also hot or not this new TV show and all these reality shows and help me
I'm a celebrity get me out of here these things Chang my life in some weird way because it made me realize that the
truth is Stranger Than Fiction and it's just a fact and the truth is
fiction and that's just a fact and so I just need to go back to my bubble you know I don't know
you get enough inside of your bubble you can you can work with enough people you can put your message out you know unless you want to be Martin Luther King and
get shot you know which I'm not ready for yet then I'm happy in my
bubble so here in Berlin um what do you think of uh aside from
your personal projects um aside from your personal projects what
do you think of the art and performance scene in Berlin in Berlin yes when I first came here I got really
into dance because that seemed like more of universal language and there's a lot of really cool dance that happens here they support it really well um one of
the new people at the State Theater at the Shauna she was most famous for dance Sasha vaultz and she came from this sophian zor where I've been working and
that's also a big dance theater um so there's a lot of dance happening and I think it's really inspiring because it crosses so many
borders dance these days a lot of people coming from um Amsterdam and Holland they have nothing to worry about except for
ideas they don't so it's nice there's lots of ideas coming in theater is pretty much ruled by the the
the big people which are like big pictures big money long um big acting
like you know really big like acting and film is on the opposite side
where it's really naturalistic to the point of like I fell asleep what did you say so like now there's like something happening which is happening in between
I hope which is like what you know like hopefully I'm part of like coming up with some which is
something natural but it's something a little bit crazy also and having this level but like
uh yeah visual art there's a gallery scene I think they're a bit pompous um but there's a lot of really good stuff
and more and more good people are coming to Berlin because it's becoming a force and you can't turn on the TV
anymore with that something mentioning it but it's not a money town it's just a town that you have to put on your belt
and um you know either you find your way here or you go through it and you love it but you don't stay here but it's something you have to put on your belt
but it'll never it's not really a money town unless you're playing with the big money people and then you could do that
anywhere describe some of your living spaces you've had here how big they are are what the neighborhoods are like
prices you've paid I've lived here 5 years and I've lived in six places first place was a bed bedroom of
that boy that told me to come to Berlin you know um next was a waiter who fell in love with me who gave me his
couch for two months until he fell too in love with me and then I was homeless then I lived in a place for 2 months
during Christmas which was an Indian man's flat which he rented only to keep
his dry good supplies which is mango and rice and everything for his Indian catering and also the place where he had his
mistress and so I stayed there and then this other guy who really
liked me said he had a room and I kept seeing him in a bar and so I took his room then my brother came to Berlin he
lived with me in that room and then I had a boyfriend that met through that guy and then he introduced me to Ruth
and Alex where you live now and then I moved in there and then Johnny moved in another
boyfriend it's it's too detailed and then he was a living Nightmare and so I moved out and I lived with a 40-year-old prostitute who was an alcoholic on the
cam and then she fell in love with me and that became a nightmare and then I lived with somebody else and then we got
our own flat and I got a movie so I was able to pay for everything and then I bought a flat and then we stayed there for 2 years and then I just moved out
and now I live in trto in a 200 oo flat with one other person I Consolidated all of my articles and I want my life to be
a lot easier now there it is there it is in a nutshell that the flat we saw
today no the blue one Ron's roommate that's Noah that's my brother wait you're not just
kidding where are you from I I guess we already knew well we're from Nebraska Noah and I are from Nebraska um but then I've lived in like
eight places since then and he's lived in like five places since then were you in the Army kids or something
no my mom's dad was in the army or navy he actually he was an admiral and
Fidel Castro had a bounty on his head how much I have no idea but there was like these seals swimming up to the boat that they were
getting down and then also Oliver North was in my grandfather's graduating class that he taught like he remembered him
but he's dead now long time so why were you moving around some much my parents had like you know mosquitoes and the bridges I don't know
they kept moving around divorce jobs and then my mom always just for you know saw a better place with a better future and so
we always went there and so now they they've been in New York about eight years so but I just kept moving on my own so looking for
places and I've lived in good places I lived in I went to from Kansas which was where I was stuck and then I was free
and then I moved to Kansas City and then I moved to Prague and then I traveled all across Europe and lived in Barcelona very
briefly for like two months and then went back to the States and drove across the states and lived in San Francisco for 2 years then New York for
2 years then here for 5 years almost Crazy Jet Set and Gypsy and I
don't know where to next I really don't do you foresee that next place happening anytime soon two years but I I
want to keep a place here but I I want something which is like close to America but not in America like Mexico or
Canada where I could come over for jobs but I can live a cleaner life where people are more
honest like in a real way I want I want more I want more life around
me there's Vermont yeah there's all of this also I mean if I got myself a gay architect
lover Vermont's a little whack to they local well Pennsylvania also if you're
not if you're not picky because it's beautiful like when I went camping I was camping all during Indian summer and so
I was in Vermont New Hampshire Rhode Island Massachusetts like I was in five different states just driving and camping during Indian summer so nobody's
camping so I was really alone and like okay what the heck am I doing cuz in New York I mean I have a lot of talents I just don't know what
it is I do and none of my talents make me good enough for anything and
so yeah it still took a little bit of time but I've made a lot of things here and a lot of things go it's really you
could see if your energy your energy can take you everywhere what would you say the most
fabulous thing about Berlin is the underground bin underground is like a is something that changes all the time um and it only comes through word of mouth
and then you go and it's a very special conglomeration of pictures and tastes and sitting and
music and everything together company and youve realize what an amazing group of people are in one room and that they
didn't have that back in Kansas what is Berlin underground Berlin underground is well I mean this is this
is like you know a little fit on the mirror it's oh you just mean the
underground culture yeah oh okay okay it was an event or something no no no I mean it's it's the uban yeah that's too
much like people sitting and saying where's the show it's like it's something where you never know that's the beautiful thing you can never know when to say not I'm not going out
tonight because it could be a really special night and then won't happen twice and you know and these things are
buding all the time all over the place you know that's the biggest thing I've noticed since I'm only here for
four months I'm like a poser but it's the biggest thing I've noticed is like the spontaneity and like the makeshift handmade kind of balage of the whole
thing and that's really interesting it went along with my aesthetic because my theater aesthetic is like high effect but cheaply made you know it's like the
the most Comfort the most beautiful whatever but with what I have which is nothing and that's how how it's always been and but even when I have a lot of
money I still like to keep that idea of like you know the beautiful things about trash you know things are not thrown out
and just left they're like brought back in and used in another way that's very Berlin I feel like we pretty much got everything I think we're good
People Referenced
Gabriel Walsh, Tom Sachs