“I feel so sorry for Frei.Wild,” says a German boy in a bar.
I shoot him a quizzical glance – like, I literally feel myself doing this, I literally feel myself shooting him a quizzical glance.
“What, that Nazi band?” I ask.
“They’re not Nazis,” he says knowledgeably.
“They’re not? Are you sure?”
“Seriously,” he says. “They’ve just been pushed into this far-right corner.”
“Oh,” I say.
“And once you’ve been pushed into that far-right corner, it’s really hard to get out.”
“Hmmm,” I say.
“Almost impossible,” he says.
“Yes,” I say.
“I feel really sorry for them,” he adds.
I look at him, totally mystified. He seems so nice and normal and fairly sexy, but obviously he must be either ridiculously racist or seriously stupid or possibly both.
“Well,” I say, as politely as possible. “It’s not that hard, is it? To get out of the far-right corner.”
“Yes, it is,” he says.
I look at him, bite my lip nicely and choose my words more carefully than I have ever done before. It is almost Christmas, after all.
“All they need to do, those Frei.Wild-non-Nazis, is bring out one song where they mention that they’re not Nazis and they love Ausländer.”
“They do like Ausländer,” says the German boy. “They are Ausländer.”
“Frei.Wild are Ausländer?” I ask, seriously impressed.
“Yeah,” he says. “They’re Italian.”
“Oh,” I say. “I thought you meant proper Ausländer. I thought they were like Turks or something.”
“In every interview they do they always emphasize the fact that they are not Nazis. But now they’re in this far-right corner, now they’ve been pushed into the far-right corner, there’s no helping them.”
“I could get them out of that far-right corner,” I say. “I could get them out of it in under a week, and forever ever, ever, ever. Do they need a PR woman? I could be their non-Nazi-getting-them-out-of-the-far-right-corner-PR-woman – no problemo. All they need to do is bring out one song where they say they think white people look disgusting naked. Like, they think white people should be banned from doing FKK because their disgusting white skin looks like a load of chopped up lobsters on the beach. Or you know what? We’ll do a Presseerklärung! I’ll write a Presseerklärung for them. I’ll say: ‘We, the non-Nazi band Frei.Wild, we think Hitler was a dick. Thinking some people are better than others. What a dick. Thinking some races are better than others. Dickhead! What a loser. Thinking German people are superior to African people because of, like, Mozart and that. Loser! Obviously nothing is superior to anything else, it’s all just taste and subjective and plus socialization and a tiny bit of racism and plus we’re used to Mozart, aren’t we? But as if any type of culture is superior to another type of culture. Although… we, the non-Nazi band Frei.Wild, we must admit we do think that non-white people are better at cooking cauliflower than white people. When non-white people cook cauliflower – Arabs, Indians, anyone – it’s a vastly superior food to anything a white person creates, and yes, we are including cauliflower cheese in that category. Compare cauliflower cheese – this is the best thing white people ever managed to create with cauliflower – with cauliflower bhaji! Cauliflower bhaji is a vastly superior dish. It’s scientifically superior. In fact, we, Frei.Wild, the non-Nazi band, think white people shouldn’t be allowed to cook cauliflower ever again.’”
The German boy is laughing quite hard now, so I decide he is definitely not a Nazi. He also doesn’t seem THAT stupid. P’raps he just likes their music? This is also an option, I guess. Frei.Wild are like Miley Cyrus and Justin Bieber for me – music that I have never actually heard in my ears. This is quite a nice thing about getting old, I think. Not having to pay attention to modern music and also not being forced to try bubble tea. It’s lovely.
“That,” I say severely, “that would get them out of the far-right corner. For good.”
“Yes,” he says. “It probably would.”
