by Sam Winston

When I say that I’ve got an addiction, it’s not the German chocolate, the good beer, or the endless variety of freshly baked bread here. It’s the 2008 U.S. presidential election.

No matter how many articles, blogs, video clips and op-ed essays I read and watch, I can’t get enough. It doesn’t matter how silly the press, the pollsters, and the entire circus of overconsumption seems, I read on. And although I already decided who am I voting for about a month ago, I continue to scour the internet compulsively every morning.

Why? Because like the rest of America, I’m dying to see who is going to win. There is nothing more American than a good fight. A battle. A contest. A competition. I don’t want to just see who wins. I want to inject myself into the competition and say, “I’m going to win too!”

I suppose that I’ve justified my overconsumption until now for a number of reasons. I’m abroad so my access to information is limited. I’m a journalist so it’s important for me to know what’s going on. I’m an American and this is such an important time in our country, it’s important that I make an educated decision with my vote.

But we know that’s not why I watch. What you tell yourself is not why you watch, either. Of course it’s not. Read the rest of this entry »

 by Sam Winston

When I first visited Germany a couple of years ago, I was stopped on the street twice by virulent George W. Bush haters who went out of their way to berate me in public and give me an earful on American foreign policy. I’m talking about men who looked one cut above homeless but spat out political and historical references like they were on Jeopardy. Rough English aside, the words “idiot” and “stupid American” dwarfed my response of, “I’m may be a ’stupid American,’ but I never voted for Bush.” There also might have been some expletives exchanged.

However, strolling the streets of Hamburg now as an Obama fan, it’s a different story. The German media has made a plethora of Obama comparisons to JFK, an icon in this country ever since his “Ich bin ein Berliner” speech. So much so that Obamamania is spreading fast here in Deutschland.

Here’s what some of the major papers are saying about him… Read the rest of this entry »

by Sam Winston

The aging warrior known as Buckwheat Zydeco, the full name of my dog adapted in part from the band of the same name, is on his last leg. He’s got a metal plate in his right leg from when he was hit by a car as a youngster. Further down the same leg, he’s missing a toenail that bleeds incessantly. It is now theorized to be a tumor that evicted the toenail from its natural resting place. He has another large tumor on his chest, believed to be benign, that split open recently causing yet another bloody mess on his blue bedspread.

Additionally, like all big old Labradors, his displaced hips make his back end simply deadweight. His eyes are cloudy, his hearing is shot, and his memory seems to be limited to the short term. Truth be told, that was always one of my favorite parts about my friend Buck. He never holds grudges.

On our most recent daily walk in the park, he had a seizure. Read the rest of this entry »

 by Sam Winston

The past four months I’ve sporadically mentioned the Reeperbahn, Hamburg’s red-light/party district(pictured), as a world example of what happens when forbidden fruit is no longer forbidden. I may have spoken too soon.

Come January 1st, the place where prostitutes work corners across the street from one of the city’s major police stations (fully approved and regulated by law), where you can drink a beer in a glass on the street, on the train, or in a movie theater, where marijuana is “tolerated to personal use”, is getting a tightening of the rules. Stores will stop selling alcohol earlier, bars will be “encouraged” to close earlier, and stricter zoning laws, included increased penalties and “spot searches” against weapons, will take effect in the district.

That’s the trial period, after which it will go into law if all goes as planned. It’s an attempt to get a handle what the city perceives a growing violence problem (perspective, I guess).

It made me think about what would happen if New Orleans ever Read the rest of this entry »

By Sam Winston

Guess where there this picture was taken? I’ll give you a hint. The city has an openly gay mayor. The country is considered one of the safest industrialized nations in the world. And the two neighboring shops were an upscale hair salon and a yuppy cafe/lounge.

If you guessed Read the rest of this entry »

 By Sam Winston

Philip Roth in his Pulitzer Prize winning book American Pastoral described Thanksgiving as the quintessential American day. Where the battle of life halts and “just one colossal turkey for two hundred and fifty million people- one colossal turkey feeds all… A moratorium on all the grievances and resentments for everyone in America who is suspicious of everyone else. It is the American pastoral par excellence and it lasts twenty-four hours.”

It is certainly going to be weird to not have a Turkey Day but it will be even stranger to not even have the idea of Thanksgiving here in Germany. Roth was onto something when he said that it is truly “American.”

My first realization that there would be no Turkey Day for me was Read the rest of this entry »

By Sam Winston

The Camellia Grill waiter known simply as Marvin likes to call the tap water he serves “Mississippi mud water.” Indeed just about every time I drink New Orleans water from the faucet, at the grill or otherwise, I can hear Marving humming, “Getchyall some of that Mississippi mud water, Hom bruh!” Read the rest of this entry »

by Sam Winston

I know I’m not the first one to say how pathetic it is that New Orleans can’t get its basic recycling program together. However, living in one of the world’s leading recycling countries in Germany, New Orleans looks especially sad. And wasteful.

Yet New Orleans city officials already know what I’m talking about! They were here to see first hand what it means to take recycling seriously. In Germany, companies (see video) and governments lead by example, with the people following. New Orleans seems to be the opposite. Read the rest of this entry »

 by Sam Winston
Forget about Poydras Street, the Dome Foam and the “Who Dat” chant. Next year we’re 2nd-lining down the Champs Elysees in our black and gold sipping bordeaux, munching on a baguette with brie and shouting with disdain “Qui est la!” Err, what?

With the NFL’s Giants/Dolphins game officially deemed a “success” in London this past Sunday, there is the very real possibility that the Saints could go to play a game in Europe in the coming years. What more logical place for the Fleur De Lis toting New Orleans Saints than Paris? Read the rest of this entry »

by Sam Winston

Here’s a tally of my proximity to death and violence in New Orleans within the last year.

A longtime family friend was choked unconscious for his wallet in the Marigny at 5 p.m. after leaving work last month. Another friend driving in Algiers had bricks thrown at his car windshield. I myself heard gunshots on two separate nights sitting in my apartment on Nashville Avenue in Broadmoor. A young friend committed suicide due to a battle with depression. There was a person murdered Read the rest of this entry »