AMERICANS IN BERLIN 2003: RON
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About This Video
Americans in Berlin 2003: Ron. Van was 28, living in Berlin as part of Tom Sachs's Nutsi's installation at the Deutsche Guggenheim. He began filming these interviews on September 11, 2003, two years after September 11, 2001. Ron's apartment is full of art from Ricardo, most of it found in the garbage or gifted after karaoke shows. He got almost kicked out of an art opening hosted by the Bolivian ambassador for not having a formal invitation, then introduced himself as "Karaoke Monster" and the ambassador's hands went in the air.
Transcript
oh my God in 2003 I lived in burlin 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 two years after September 11th 2001 and I began filming
these interviews on September 11th 2003 um this is my plant dizzy he's
going to be 2 m tall within the next 5 years uh this is my bedroom this is this lamp up here is something someone made
for me from one of my for one of my karaoke shows it's a guitar that glows when you put a candle in it um most of the stuff here I found in
the garbage these pieces of art are um from Ricardo a guy that also comes to karaoke a lot and they all have a funny
story I don't know how much you want to hear this one I bought recently that's the first one he that I've bought and not given to me he invited me to a
really fancy art opening of his at a fancy hotel in West Berlin where the um ambassador to Bolivia the country he's
from was hosting it so I go just as my normal self and get there and it's all black ties and evening gowns and of
course I felt really out of place and after about 10 minutes the security card comes to me and asks me yeah why are you here do you know what this is I said
yeah it's you know an exhibit hosted by the ambassador to Bolivia he's like can I see do you have an invitation yes I have an invitation can I see your invitation and I said well I don't have
an invitation but I've been invited so right then he just says you know follow me and I was oh no I'm being kicked out of this opening of my good friend so I
was like let me go introduce introduce myself to the Ambassador I'll clear everything up so I walk up to this man and I say hi my name is Ron um you might
know me as karaoke monster and his hands go in the air oh karaoke monster Ricardo told me all about you and welcome and no
problem security guard leaves I buy this picture and the next day I get an email from him that said um that the Ambassador offered him money to buy that
picture but the guy that he that just got kicked out bought it first so that's that picture this is Jesus it's another picture he drew this
is a picture that he drew that he painted of me in 1999 or 2000 but it's
funny cuz i b i got this tattoo on my arm before I left New York in '97 and it's kind of like an I love I hate New
York tattoo and when he painted this I said you know freaky freaky is his nickname what what is this what is this right here he says oh that's New York I
said oh what is this down here oh that's New York Burning Up in Flames there's a lot of weird things that
um I don't know have to do with New York this is no this is um this is something else that a friend of mine
gave me this that's the towers in Frankfurt a photo montage of them being blown up or I don't know it didn't
really happen but it could if you don't learn your lesson and before we go on the other room I just wanted this is this is a
book that has a really interesting reference to September 11th this um a friend of mine was living in New York and um for three months and made this
through this book um it's dedicated to me by the way and in this book within the first few
pages this is really funny cuz the night of September 10th 2001 I read this book before I fell asleep just by coincidence I don't pick it up that often but in
this book it's pretty crazy the sky goes underground and touches some crazy knobs and in the end where' it
go in the end this happens the World Trade Centers fall down when was this made this was was in
'97 I think it says in here '98 okay and you read that the night September 10th I woke up to a phone call
of my aunt telling me this I'm like wait a minute I just read this really weird yeah and that book was um dedicated to you
yeah he stayed with me while he while he Illustrated that this is the office/guest room right now cuz I have
some visitors in from America and this is where all the karaoke stuff happens can you show us your rig behind the
scenes the caraoke machine it's not hooked up right now I was it in a bag don't worry yeah
how about these paintings over here these are paintings that um a woman named urula is doing she does a lot of
art for my karaoke she um right now we're working on a karaoke compilation from all the people that come to karaoke
a lot and she photographs them all and they paints them they look some of them look like this some look like
that um and then we'll be doing a karaoke compilation where all of these people would be recorded and you can buy their
CD cuz they're all superstars really amazing this is freaky this is this is
Ricardo the one that made the paintings in the other room that's kry kryon Superstar still has to sign her picture
wow they photograph amazingly well this is Manny he's also an important karaoke character this guy over
here can we see your tattoo too yeah can we oh I have to take my clothes off um it can't pull it
up maybe yeah tattoo all right do you want to show us your place all right this is the office all sorts of
crap here um this is the meat border I'm not a vegetarian can I see the meat border mhm but I could be a vegetarian
it's not why I did it and I noticed you have a toilet boys
t-shirt do you do you still like you still un like do you know them and do you like how like you still have a lot
of contact with like people from New York and like um not a lot most of the New Yorkers I contact with live here now
really um some a little bit I don't have any more contact with the toilet Bo was I saw them when they were here they pretended not to know who I was even
though we worked for hours and hours ironing on decals to t-shirts when everybody was broke really why do you think that do you think that's the sort
of mentality of like I don't know I thought it was weird cuz we Must Have Spent tens of hours together but they were also like in a foreign city on tour
doing shows every single night of the week I'm sure they get tons of people like hey remember me yeah who knows I've never been a rockar
maybe um this is the hallway it has lights sometimes this is the bathroom I've got a really nice bathtub
all by itself over here it's this is Noah's room he's Place three years I don't think he's home no we're
going to go see him next well I'm sure I should show you his room this is Noah's room Noah also does
a lot of artsy crafty things I think I don't know I think he'd
be proud if I showed you his picture if he doesn't get to but this is a new picture he did it's really nice oh
maybe I shouldn't touch it oh wait yes now I got it Noah's new picture he made that frame
himself isn't that crazy wow and through this Secret Door is back to my room again coal I haven't done any coal this year but it'll be soon time I could take this stuff
up so to light the oven you need coal you need coal starter is best oh it's really full I'd have to empty it first before I I need a metal bucket you talk us you can talk us
through it go through the trouble so yeah you clean all this out you put it in a metal bucket metal that's very important to throw it out and then you stack these
in there with these little white things set it on fire and you close this door in this door and then you close
this door just this far then you wait about half an hour to an hour until first the coals will all be in flames
and then when all the Flames are gone and they're just glowing then you shut both the doors and it takes takes a while to heat up but then this whole
thing heats up every tile will be really warm and it's a nice warm it's not like you get a dry nose
or really expensive it's not like when it goes out it's all of a sudden cold it takes a couple days for everything the temperature to go down it's a nice warm
like really all through all the walls get warm your furniture gets warm not just the air how long does it take uh
how long does one of those little coal bricks if I put all these in this would probably go about I mean these are good coals these are from
Czechoslovakia um um if I put these in it would probably last about 10 to 12
hours Jesus probably how many do you put in at once I usually put in maybe a couple more than this and I do that once
a day cool well thank you for the tour sure when do you uh usually does it get cold enough to use that thing I like to wait as long as I can cuz I just don't like carrying
coal but usually like the 1 of November where do you keep it in the cellar yeah you have your own little Cube yeah
commies man they think of everything it's funny that my first apartment with coal eating in Berlin was on the fifth
floor and through some weird situation that happened over the years my coal Keller wasn't available for my flat
anymore so my coal Keller was rented in the house across the street in the hint house in the house behind so if I ever wanted Co i' have to go down five
flights across the street to the back cow and in the Keller and then back up through the Keller through the across the street and back up five flights that
was a hassle but you do to stay warm in the winter I guess better than Khan Edison
yeah well I was here uh I got here 6 years ago about long time before September
11th um so there are a lot of Americans in Berlin I I don't know why they're all here I don't know if it has something to
do with September 11th I think um I recently just got a visitor who um moved from Los Angeles uh from New York to Los
Angeles and she told me about her experiences on September 11th she was living in Chinatown and watched from her roof as this plane hit the building and
ran across the bridge as fast as she could with millions of other people and I'm I think that's a big reason she moved to Los Angeles I think you know
that's a scar you don't forget anytime soon so I don't know why everybody's in Berlin but I do know that there are
people that were horrified by it and left for some reason I think a lot of the Americans in Berlin are here because not just of what happened in New
York but what's happening in all of America what what were the circumstances
that led up to you moving here I was also sick of America um I was living in New York and it just it got really
ridiculous I you know I moved in right before Giuliani came and then juliani came and everything changed everybody knows that story and I didn't like it
anymore I didn't I felt very felt like I didn't have any freedom I felt like even the simplest things were difficult you know you watch rush hour traffic and
everybody sits in SUVs all alone and honks at each other and there's no bike Lanes you know they rebuild a bridge and they remodel it and now you can't build
your ride your bike across it you know this is this huge City like everybody should be riding bikes really things like that um you know the whole
mentality I don't know what it's going to take for people to realize that sitting in traffic and honking while you're driving an SUV isn't the solu
solution to getting home faster you know that's one big reason a lot of reasons like you know pissing on the street you get in trouble for and you
can't walk around with a beer and not that these things are extremely important to me but it's just your freedom you know it's
just like anything you say you can't do it people will want to do it the drinking age in America is 21 and look how much drunk driving there is there
the drinking age here is what 16 or 18 and they seem to have it under control or in India you can buy volume over the
counter you don't see a whole bunch of people hanging out on the streets overdosing on valume you know what do you do
here I organized karaoke parties I've been doing that for 3
years um do a lot of different karaoke parties live karaoke with a live band I
did porno karaoke with another artist here it was his idea it was pretty funny um also it's the different types of
karaoke All Around Berlin and Germany and sometimes in Switzerland the Netherlands German speaking countries mostly because I only speak English and
German and I only have English and German songs some Italian songs for tourists and do you feel like um you can
make a living at that like you don't have to like starve to death in order to do that or at the moment I'm starving to death but I've been starving to death
for 3 years so it's okay yeah yeah I make it I get by things here and
there um I was recently able to give up my job at the coach Che and Go karaoke 100% of the time which was
exciting where are you from originally I was born in Utah on Hill Air Force Base and I was brought up in
Massachusetts moved to New York when I was 18 so right out of high school yeah yeah what um what was your ambition in New
York um well you know I saw New York when I was young and knew that like in New York it was great cuz everybody was
there it was a big mixture it was okay to be gay that was a big reason I moved to New York you can't be gay in Salt Lake City and moving to Berlin or to
Europe in general from from New York you realized that being gay is just like you know here it's really no problem I mean
of course in the small towns especially in Berlin though it's just so it's a non-issue that's why I like it there's not you know there is a gay ghetto here
and there are gay bars and people that live like that similar lifestyle toot the gays in New York but I never found places where it was just a non-issue you
just go there and you're having fun with people or even at the workplace even what I do I don't do car I don't do gay Karaoke If I was in New York I would
only be able to do gay karaoke CU I'm gay you know do karaoke everywhere nobody
cares you know what can we I kind of hear that washing machine can we turn it off we can turn it off or shut the door door if you want I'll shut the door May
the door is pretty sound and you guys feel free to shout I'm going to get my notebook out
try to you think you'd be able to do like the like the uh karaoke stuff like the monster karaoke and the punk karaoke
in like in New York if you were or in America and live the way you do because he said you were starving here but no there's no possible way in New York it's
funny I I took a six-month break here and um went to America to see my family
and friends and six or four months I don't remember but um I also wanted to do karaoke gigs there and I spent so much money putting presskits together
and calling bars and karaoke places and not very many people were interested that I was you know I was convinced I was doing something really special which
I still think I do I go to a lot of karaoke places and mine are still the best I think but whatever I'm a Leo of course I have to say that how long did
it take for you to to get established here or to get so that it was possible for you to go out and like get set up and have people come when you came here
well I spent my last money on a karaoke machine 3 years ago and did my first party
and happened really fast like of course in the beginning I was just going to bars and being like hey you want karaoke it's really fun and then it traveled
really fast word of mouth so it didn't take long at all I would say within the first I mean after eight months of doing it I was doing a
party here in the so36 which is a huge Club you know it holds 500 people and it usually full you know and I get emails
and telephone calls from all over happen really fast just word of mouth I would say you think that's like a part to do with like the German mentality of being
open or do you think Americans like or do you think it's finan or do you think it's like a character Identity or I
think it's a little bit of um word of mouth and being open that's a lot of it like when people hear about something good they say something and
people are open like oh that does sound interesting we'll try that and um yeah then know I've had I've done evenings
that are complete flops you know but I still get booked in other places and yeah okay we'll try it but I also noticed here that a lot of of
anything is word of mouth it's it's not so much to do with sending press kits around and having a manager it's a lot of word of MTH and you know I don't have
a manager I just you know talk to these people in America nobody would even listen to me unless I had a manager like you know I might as well call as my own
manager and then you know to get a foot in the door but here it's just yeah can you tell us a little bit
about this neighborhood how you picked it is it East or West um what kind of rent do you pay this is I live in
friedin it's former East berin um when I moved moved here it was really run down all the buildings were
Brown um I have cheap rent I have 100 square m and pay under 400
oos I have it's very cold here in the winter I have cold heating um it never gets
above 12 in my house when it's freezing outside but whatever it keeps you healthy and fit um friederick sign in
the meantime has become very tourist for young people I recently read that the average age of the person that lives here is 23 years
old I guess I have to move out but um yeah it's become really touristy there's lots of bars not really any clubs lots
of cafes tourists that come here are immediately sent to the zon daasa to go to the cafes
here um there's a lot of punks in Frick's H there's a there's a couple bagen plza translated trailer parks but
more more trailer parks by choice you can live there for free in your little in your car or whatever you have your
tent um can you show us later how you light the um Co stove or is it like a big deal
I haven't lit it yet this year but I do have all this stuff here from last year do you have the coold water thing or my
water is nice I have gas water which means which is really great it's not like a water heater where the water goes in and heats the water and then you have to wait you you turn the water on and it
passes over a hot flame and it's immediately hot so the pipe passes through like a like a blue flame exactly
well it's like a coil of pipes and the blue flame is in the middle okay and it goes through there and it's heated immediately very efficient do they
include um gas here or is that no I pay gas extra pay electricity extra I have to buy my own coal okay how much is coal
these days um I think I paid 120 oos for a ton then how long was that about a a year and a half oh really yeah but a
year and a half $120 for your heating bills for a year and a half yeah for two ovens I have one in this room and one in that room okay um can you cook in these
things too or do you have your own there my old apartment had a coold oven in the in the kitchen that the that was the stove top also this one you don't cook
in you can put your bread in there to keep it warm a lot of German people put apples in there and it smells
nice so what what have you done to this apartment since you moved in was it as is or it was on it had white um it had
white wallpaper everywhere M so I really like the walls and these in these old Flats so I took the wallpaper off in
this room I took the wallpaper off in the bathroom I'm going to take the wallpaper off in there and in the kitchen I my old
roommates painted it pink and then I put up a meat
border kind of have to see it to understand it but it looks like strawberry milkshake it's a comfortable kitchen do
you want to give us a tour of your apartment sure okay cool I'm just going to take the camera off and um we'll I'll just try to stay within you and maybe
one of you guys can hold on to the wire or something
People Referenced
Tom Sachs