Die James Urbaniak Show!
I have a few days off. It snowed a couple of days ago which slows things down. The city has a huge deficit and they don't spend money on clearing the streets. It is pretty though. My wife and I walked around today. Went to an English language bookstore and bought a biography of Peter Cook and Jon Dos Passos's novel "Manhattan Transfer." I definitely am going to need some more reading material while I'm here since the only English language television on cable is CNN International, which basically just repeats the same business news every half hour. Not that I haven't enjoyed watching German TV. Last night I watched "The Kurt Krömer Show," a talk show hosted by a comedian apparenty named Kurt Krömer. He's a lanky, bespectacled 30-ish guy whose on-air persona is similar to Conan's nerd-bravado shtick, but played much broader. And his set is straight out of "Pee-Wee's Playhouse," a candy-colored representation of a suburban porch, with white plastic lawn chairs and a mailbox that reads "Krömer." His band is a campy three-person combo called Mini Beat and between sequences their energetic frontwoman sings "Die Kurt Krömer Show, Kurt Krömer Show, Kurt Krömer Show!" His guests last night were some guy who I think was an actor, a comedian who did a robot mime routine and a journalist. I understood maybe a dozen words.

I also watched dubbed episodes of "Law and Order: Special Victims Unit" (which here is inexplicably titled "Law and Order: New York;" what do they call the other "Law and Orders?") and "The Simpsons." The German Bart, Lisa and, believe it or not, Moe, all sound remarkably like the originals, enough to make you wonder if Nancy Cartwright, Yeardley Smith and Hank Azaria speak fluent German. Homer and Marge, however, sound completely different. Homer has a high scratchy voice that sounds kind of like Henchman 21 from "The Venture Brothers" (or is it 24? I don't remember. Anyway, I mean the one who doesn't sound like Ray Romano.) Marge sounds to my ear (and obviously I am wholly ignorant of German dialects) dignified and matronly. And don't even get me started on Nelson. Then late last night I watched an old German musical comedy, apparently from the early thirties about a beautiful woman and her various suitors, who included a comic relief duo with an Odenkirk and Cross vibe (tall and drab-looking and short and bespectacled). These guys were actually very funny. I wonder who they were.

Well, mein Anklets, thanks for reading. I'll keep you posted.