Archives for posts with tag: Friendship

THE TRAVELING AGENT EXTRA-ORDINAIRE

January 13, 2015 //
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Too Good For His Own Good

Haresh Shah

travelagent
I am sitting in the Lufthansa city office in the center of Barcelona across from the petite German blonde staring at her computer screen while leafing through my four-booklets-thick-stapled- together ticket. She is tap taping her keyboard accessing my original itinerary and then checking it against my neatly handwritten used and the remaining ticket coupons. She looks confused and she looks amazed. One thing she doesn’t look is sure of herself. I have been on the road now for almost three weeks and have practically been around the world with my original itinerary that reads: March 25, 1979, Chicago-Los Angeles-Santa Barbara-Los Angeles-Sydney-Melbourne-Sydney-Bombay-Rome-Zürich-Barcelona-Munich-Düsseldorf-Frankfurt-London-Chicago. April 12, 1979.

I am on the final lag of my journey and am there to re-route my flight back to Chicago via Munich and Frankfurt instead of via Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, London. Normally a simple switchover. But that’s not the problem. It’s no restrictions ticket valid for twelve months.

I watch the blonde shake her head and murmur something to herself.

‘Who wrote this ticket?’

‘Why? My traveling agent in Chicago, Satya (Dev), who is also a friend.’

‘This is really fantastic. But a bit complicated and I need to figure out how he came to the fare base he did. It’s gonna take me a while. Can you leave the ticket with me for a while?’

What Satya had actually done was this: Instead of the real and the obvious Sydney as the turning point of my around the world flight path, to calculate the fare, he had me turning around in Jakarta, Indonesia, a fictitious turning point. Totally legit, and by doing so, he was able to reduce the total fare by as much as a thousand bucks. Cheating himself out of at least $150.- in commission. Something didn’t matter to me and the accountants at Playboy certainly wouldn’t have cared. And the reason he had me return to Chicago from London was because by writing the ticket on the British Airlines stock, he would add to his volume with them and therefore get an extra percentage or two commission from them. Knowing well that I hated the idea of connecting in the congested chaos of London’s Heathrow Airport. But I agreed to do it as a small favor to him. You can always switch to Lufthansa or KLM when in Europe, he would say, the two of my most favorites on the trans-Atlantic route.

‘Your traveling agent must be brilliant. We couldn’t have figured out the fare the way he did.’ The blonde tells me.

●●●

Playboy had in-house traveling desk represented by a woman from the local traveling agency by the name of, I think Mary. The only time the in-house agency had to issue my ticket was a three way Chicago-Munich-Chicago-Munich ticket when I was first hired by the company and promptly shipped off to Europe. Beyond that, I was handed a corporate TWA Air Travel and an American Express cards. By the time I was brought to the corporate offices to work and live in Chicago, six years later, I had mastered ins and outs of how airlines worked. I always booked my own flights directly from the airlines and picked up the tickets at the airports just before boarding the plane. While still living in Santa Barbara, I would book my flights over the phone and take a bike ride to the little airport only a stone’s throw away from my home and pick up my ticket from the young man I will call Joe, at the United counter. He was quite pleasant and we would have good visits. It was a one man operation in which Joe did everything – checking you in, loading and unloading the baggage, taking your flight coupon and whatever else that needed to be done.

But when my itineraries began to get longer and a bit complicated, once with a friendly frown he hinted, why don’t you have one of the local traveling agents issue your tickets? It wouldn’t cost you anything and I am sure they certainly would appreciate your business.

Enter voluptuous Debbie Kaufman and the Professional Travel. I would still book my flights and Debbie was quite happy to issue my tickets. But then I relented and let Debby also book the flights. Carolyn and I even had her over for an Indian dinner one night.

When we moved to Chicago, the house rule was to book our flights and hotels through Mary. But I was so used to and in tune with the international travel that I plain ignored this rule. Also because by then Satya had approached me. He and I were never close friends, but we were classmates from the first through the fourth grades – growing up in Borivali, a northern suburb of Bombay with no running water and no electricity. Beyond that, over the years, we would run into each other sporadically, while I was still in India and later during my visits back home. And then one day I get a call from him in Santa Barbara. He too had made his tracks to the United States and was now living in Chicago working for a traveling agency. Eventually he would open his own Blue Skies Travel. I began to give him my business.

Curiously, no one ever questioned my taking care of my own traveling needs. I think Mary once brought it up, but then realizing that I was better at the international routing and the flights than she ever could be – and when I pointed out to her that I had gotten a better deal for the same flights she had booked for my boss Lee (Hall) on the Varig flight to São Paulo, she must have decided to leave me alone. So Satya became my de facto personal traveling agent.

For Satya, the intricacies of the airfares and routes had become an obsession and a challenge. Finding all sorts of options became for him like computer games. Sometimes he would hold me on the phone for quite some time, and every couple of minutes come up with different fares and different itineraries. Mind you, this was before the arrival of the internet and before the fares were ruled by algorithms.

But he was more than the finder of better fares and the itineraries. He was an old fashioned traveling agent who also took care of your visas and other necessary paperwork. Would often show up at the airport to see you safely off. In those days, there were only the First and the Economy classes. So the upgrading from the Business to the First didn’t come into the picture. But when he hand delivered the tickets, he would show up with a variety of airline goodies. An Aerolineas Argentinas backpack, Lufthansa’s weekender sturdy little suitcase and the matching garment bag, KLM’s large ticket sized genuine leather wallet, Pan Am’s classic flight bag, Japan Airline’s poster sized framed world map with the round clocks mounted on the top, showing four time zones across the globe.

More importantly, he would build you up so much with the airline that at every connection the computer would flash the letters VIP right next to your reservation. Not because the business Satya brought to them would have amounted much to their bottom lines, but he had brilliantly managed to establish congenial personal relationships with many of the Chicago based airlines sales people, especially with the foreign owned airlines with small offices in the city.

Always impeccably dressed in his navy blue three piece suite and shiny shoes, he would show up with a big smile on his face and often treat them to Indian meals at one of the Indian restaurants in town. And he was good at dropping names. In the beginning, Haresh Shah wouldn’t have meant much to them, but he would build up my status at Playboy and spin the stories of how we knew each other practically since we were still in the diapers. And perhaps even drop a hint that in theory he could talk the company’s other executives that traveled abroad frequently into begin flying their airlines. Over a period of time, he did indeed started getting business from my then boss Bill Stokkan. Through Satya I got to know and meet many of the sales people as well and at least with Lufthansa and KLM I had become an instantly recognized name among the city and the airport staff.

So much so that I was almost always upgraded. Once when Lufthansa wasn’t able to bump me up, the station chief Herbert apologized profusely with: Extremely sorry Mr. Shah. The flight is fully booked, But wait before boarding. Just in case someone doesn’t show up. As I wait at the mobbed gate, I sense someone approaching me with, You must be Mr. Shah. Standing in front of me is a very tall and distinguish north German looking man. Perhaps seeing a question mark on my face, he continues.

‘I am Werner Kellerhals, the regional manager for Lufthansa.’

I had never met the man, but remember his name being mentioned by Satya. We exchange pleasantries. Clasped in one of my hands is the blue boarding card. I notice that his card is red for the First Class.

‘Can I have your boarding card for a sec Mr. Shah?’ And he gently snatches it away from my hand and walks over to the check-in counter. Soon he returns and hands me a red boarding card and the one in his hand is blue.

‘No Mr. Kellerhals, I really appreciate it, but I just can’t…’

He cuts me off.

‘No I insist. You’re one of our best customers and paying for your seat, while I am traveling gratis!’

Once when I arrived in Rio, they announced my name on the PA system to be met by Varig’s PR lady just to say Welcome to Brazil Mr. Shah. Other time I was traveling with Anjuli on the United and connecting in Miami on our way to Brazil. I hear my name announced just as we were deplaning. Waiting at the gate was the United’s station rep to welcome and escort us to their Red Carpet Lounge. As we are walking through the airport, he hastily tells me that we have upgraded you and Ms. Shah-Johnson to the First – hope it’s alright with you? Once we’re seated in the lounge, Anjuli breaks out in a smile, No, it’s not alright. She is all of twelve years old and this is all too exciting for her. Incredible! And I had paid for Anjuli’s ticket with my mileage.

Of course, he was able to do this also because I traveled extensively and paid full First/Business class fares. But even so… He walked that extra mile for you.

I remember the time when Christie (Hefner) and I flew back together from Taipei to Chicago. By then they had long introduced Business Class and the company policy dictated that we travel Business. Christie to her credit wouldn’t make an exception for herself. On her outbound flight from Chicago, she was upgraded, and was told by the travel desk that so we would be on our way back. Before we approach the check in, she takes my ticket and rushes to the counter. The girl behind the computer screen checks in our baggage and hands her two Business Class boarding passes. Christie looks at them and handing back to the agent tells her we are supposed to be upgraded.

The girl punches a few keys on her computer: ‘Nothing here says about upgrading!’

‘Did you look at Christie Hefner?’

‘Yes. Nothing.’ This would have been unthinkable in the States or perhaps even in Europe. But the young Chinese girl behind the counter has absolutely no clue who Christie Hefner is! I could imagine how humiliated Christie must feel. So I step up with let me talk to her! Christie steps back. Almost whispering, I ask the girl,

‘Don’t you know who she is?’

‘Who?’

‘Christie Hefner, the President of Playboy Enterprises. She is here to promote Taiwanese Playboy, haven’t you seen her on the news or read about her?’ It draws a blank on her face.

‘I am sorry.’ She answers.

‘Okay. Look. If this would help!’ And I pull out the upgrade certificate issued by the United, something Satya made it his business to acquire and deliver to me along with my ticket. I was holding it back, thinking why waste it if Christie had been guaranteed an upgrade for us?

The girl scrutinizes the upgrade certificate and plugs it into the computer and prints out another boarding pass and hands it to me. She has upgraded me to the First.

‘No. You have to upgrade both of us.’

‘Yeah, but you only have one certificate!’

‘I am sorry, you don’t understand. She is my boss, I can get fired!’

The girl is still not sure and I don’t see her yielding. Not to make further fuss, I give her back the both boarding passes.

‘If you can upgrade only one of us, then upgrade her!’

I see a confusion and conflict cloud her face. She picks up the phone to call someone – probably her supervisor. After letting the phone ring for a while, she puts back the receiver. Resigned, she relents and issues the second boarding card now with both of us upgraded!

© Haresh Shah 2015

Illustration: Celia Rose Marks

SISTER SITE

http://www.downdivision.com

Other Profiles

DEVIL IN THE PARADISE

DESIGNING IN HIS DREAMS

IN THE DEPTH OF HIS EYES

THE KING OF COCKTAILS

THE TRADER OF EVERY PORT

Next Friday, January 23, 2015

OCCUPATIONAL HAZARDS

As glamorous as the life at Playboy could be, you would never imagine the kind of hazards lurk behind such publications. The most recent example being the cold blooded massacre at the French publication Charlie Hebdo.

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Categories Friendship, Memoire, Playboy, Profile, Travel

THE KING OF COCKTAILS

May 22, 2014 //
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The Beginning Of The Longest Cocktail Party

Haresh Shah

bottlecity3

Dieter (Stark) is tickled pink. He s standing behind the kitchen island, swinging the stainless steel cocktail shaker back and forth in his hands. Equally as handsome, he looks like Tom Cruise would behind the bar years later in his movie Cocktail. Surveying the scene and the mood of the night. He is feeling absolutely no pain. His face wears a glow of amazement at the mission accomplished as he looks down at all those bottles of booze lined up in front of him like miniature Chicago skyline. Most of them are half gallon bottles of just arrived Kentucky Bourbon, Scotch Whiskeys, Bombay Gin, Bacardi Rum, Absolut Vodka. There are smaller ones of the mixers containing of red and white Martinis, Crème de Menthe, Grenadine, Tonic water. Open cartons of orange juice, some Coke and 7-up bottles stand ready to be poured in whatever cocktail he would end up concocting. He must feel like a kid let loose in the liquid candy store. Innumerable possibilities, the night not long enough!

●●●

Dieter and I worked together as repro photographers for Burda Verlag in Offenburg, Germany. My early days living and working in the town of Offenburg in southern Germany were some of the loneliest. It didn’t help that I spoke no German yet and the little bit that I did, I misunderstood more than did I understand. I must give credit to the people I worked with in doing their best to communicate with me. But by and large, I was lost like a babe in the woods in that provincial south western German town that boasts of being the gateway to the picturesque Black Forest.

More than me, Dieter, who came from the town of Bad Dürkheim along the German Weinstrasse, some 87 miles (140 kilometers) north west of Offenburg, was like a fish out of water. The job was good. Burda was an excellent company to work for, but what would a young single man away from home do there after work? He hated Offenburg and called the town Apfenburg – the monkey town and often made fun of their dialect and accent. He hated the simple mindedness of the people whose lifelong ambitions he would sum up in three short sentences – auto kaufen, haus bauen und lotto gewinnen – buy a car, build a house and win lottery. I wouldn’t have known the difference and didn’t have any pre-conceived ideas about the place or the people. I was happy just to be out of London living and working on the continent. For practical purposes, both of us were outsiders and that’s what must have attracted him to me.

In the department full of camaraderie, lots of laughs and beer drinking, Dieter remained aloof and removed from such activities. Tall, his curly blonde hair cut short, easy going, soft spoken, Dieter believed in working hard, but not too hard. There was something very child like the way he spoke with his perpetually pouted lips. He could talk without really opening his mouth. Until you got used to his manner of speaking, you would think he was talking to you like one would to a toddler. In my case, it must have also been something to do with my lack of fluency in German and he wanted to make sure I understood what he said and punctuated his speech with the local gel? more often than did others.

Though he never learned to speak English, my German was getting better every day and we would somehow manage to communicate. He must have also taken liking for me, in that we would meet outside of work and he would regularly give me ride home in his flashy metallic gold Opel Record Sports Coupe to the village of Schutterwald, a six kilometer stretch. He maintained a small room in Offenburg, but come Friday afternoon or Saturday morning, depending on the shift we worked, he would be gone and spend the weekend with his girlfriend Uschi and allow his mother to pamper her only child. This left me to my own devices over the weekends – in other words an extended loneliness which I spent solo walking the streets of Offenburg or the forest, even the local cemetery – which was quite peaceful.

One of my fondest memories of our early friendship is his taking me along to Bad Dürkheim’s traditional Weinfest, known as Wurstmarkt – literally the sausage market. I got to meet with his widowed mother Annemarie and his girlfriend Uschi. His father apparently never returned from the war and was listed as missing up until they closed the books on December 31,1945, informing the family that he had died.

Around the same time as I left to come to the States, he got himself transferred to Munich. We stayed in touch on and off which had trickled down to once a year Christmas cards. Who knew that within short five years I would be knocking at his door? Not only we would end up living and working in the same city but that he worked for the repro house Weissenberger, who did lots of reproduction for Playboy and other Munich based magazines of our partners Bauer Verlag. And within the matter of months, his company moved from their original Leopoldstrasse location several block away to Augustenstrasse 10, right across the courtyard from Playboy offices in the front. Small world?

It took me a while, but when I finally located Dieter a couple of months after I had already been living in Munich, he realized how lonely I must have felt during the Christmas holidays. Suddenly he was there for me. Dieter took me along with him, his girlfriend Monika (Kunfalvi) and his Indian friend Kamal (Chanana) to everywhere they went over the weekends. Sometimes I found myself being picked up for breakfast and came home just to sleep.

My Buick arrived separately a couple of days earlier. When Dieter sets his eyes on it for the first time, he goes in his typical wry humor pout: Jetzt Du hast von zwei autos Park Platz we genommen. Now you have taken away two parking spots. In consideration of living in a big city, Dieter had gotten rid of his Opel Sports and bought himself a Volkswagen Bug. And when my stuff from Chicago arrived and he was helping me unpack, his eyes lit up like fireflies when he saw coming out of a couple of boxes half gallon bottles of the premium booze only partially consumed. All left overs from the going away party I had thrown for my Chicago friends just two days before the movers showed up.

In theory, the movers weren’t even supposed to pack them, it is illegal to transport alcohol across the ocean as a part of your household stuff. I had no time to give it all away to my Chicago friends, so I offered the four of them to take those bottles home with them. They politely declined. Considering that there was so much of it, they took pity on me. If someone asks, we don’t know about it. And let’s hope that the German customs isn’t as witless. Lo and behold, they didn’t even attempt to open the container, let alone any of the boxes inside. Seeing that I could practically open a small bar with all that liquor that was piling up on the counter, his face lights up.

‘I got an idea. Let’s throw a party. Moni, Kamal and I will invite all our good friends. You can invite some people from your work. We will have some beer and wine just in case, but I am sure they would all want to drink American cocktails – because they are “in” right now, but they are so very expensive here and you can order them only in exclusive places like Harry’s Bar. It will be a big hit.’

But the problem is, cocktails need ice. In Germany, not something you can run down to a nearby gas station or convenience store and pick up a bag or two. Dieter scratches his head and then snaps his fingers: “Jim”. His friend who once worked for the restaurant chain Mövenpick. Jim comes with a big bag of ice acquired from his bartender buddies.

Voila! It costs me ire of my landlady and the dirty looks from my ehrenwertes – honorable neighbors. Thus hastening my looking for another apartment, which landed me at Johanclanzestrasse 49. And suddenly I acquired all the friends I possibly could.

Some boxes still unopened, we set up my state of the art Fisher Quadrophonic sound system, spread out all the booze and my TWA set of cocktail glasses on the kitchen island – I pull out my Time Life book of Wines and Liquors which came with a small spiral bound booklet containing recipes for all the American cocktails – starting with basic Dry Martini to Manhattan to Whiskey Sour and Rob Roy. Dieter takes over the job of the bartender. Follows the recipes for a while, but for not too long. Now the Chicago skylined counter top looks more like a chemical lab than an in-house bar. He starts mixing them ad-lib, tastes them and then holds the mixing glass against the light to watch the kaleidoscope of colors they would create. Absolutely infatuated, he would try his concoction with different quantities of liquor the colors and the ice cubes.

The guests must have loved whatever concoction he is creating for them. The party is now in full swing and everybody is having good time. Every now and then when I am in the vicinity of Dieter, he would go guck mal Haresh, ist es nicht super? Probier mal doch! – look Haresh, isn’t that super? Here, try it! And then he would let out a hilarious laugh. And then stare at the swirling glass like an alchemist would at a test tube in awe of the clouds and colors and the taste he he has just created. I have never seen Dieter this giddy. He is having time of his life. And so am I.

The night is still young. It’s inching towards eleven and the party has just began to swing with the music and the dancing in the living room. There are people swarming every room and every corner of the apartment, experiencing various stages of happiness. Surrounded by all those people, mostly the friends of Dieter-Kamal-Monika trio and soon to be mine – suddenly I don’t feel lonely. From Playboy, I have invited Rainer and Renate (Wörtmann), and the photographer Jan Parik, who comes with his wife and some of his cool friends. Rainer is amazed at the fact that I have barely arrived in Munich and how quickly I have made so many friends?

As the night begins to wind down, there are still quite a few people scattered around the apartment while some of us are dancing in the living room. Jerry Butler is singing, Never gonna give you up. And I am dancing intimately with Hella, Dieter’s friends’ friends’ friend. We’re swaying ever so slowly in the middle of the floor and kissing, The lighting in the living room is already subdued, but Dieter decides to facilitate even more Hella and me getting into each other. He announces to the crowd: the host wants lights dimmed. Now we are left with only the light pouring in from the street and from the foyer. Dieter is thinking: What can be better for Haresh than for him to have a home town honey? Thanks Dieter! As it turns out, I never see Hella again, but in the real existential sense, that night we lived for the moment – the moment I still remember. As if in the spirit of the Munich fasching – and the carnival of Köln, both of which I would experience soon enough, during which one of the most oft played songs goes like:

Du darfst mich lieben für drei tolle tage      

Du muss mich küssen das ist deine pflicht    

Du kannst mir alles alles schöne sagen        

Nur nach dem name frag mich bitte bitte nicht        

(You may love me for three mad days

You must kiss me – it’s your obligation!

You can say all sorts of beautiful things to me

But please, please don’t ask my name!)

In fact I soon forgot what she looked like or what her last name was, and would certainly not recognize her if I were to run into her today. But Dieter had succeeded far beyond his expectations in throwing the party so I could make some friends in what would be my home for some time to come.

Thus began what I would term to be The Longest Cocktail Party. When it finally and abruptly ended two and a half years later, one afternoon when we sat in a beer garden with his visiting mother, feeling sorry for me, she exclaimed! Poor Haresh! He no longer has a job!

‘Mach dir keine sorgen Mutti. Haresh will soon land back on his feet!’ I couldn’t have said it better.

I am still touched by Dieter’s confidence and faith in me. I linger in Munich for five more months that ended with another big bash at my place. The movers once again packed me up – the remaining bottles of good German wines and all and took the container full of my personal belongings to the local storage until I finally figured out where I would end up living. I fill up my Buick with all that I would need until such a time and drive away to Paris and on to the French port of Cherbourg and drive up the ramp of the QE II. The Queen would bring me back to New York and to the United States.

As during my first departure, and my hiatus of three years in Santa Barbara, Dieter and I would stay in touch. True to his prediction, in not too far of a future I would land back on my feet. And before long, come back to Munich a couple of times a year to work with the Playboy people and of course meet up with Dieter and Kamal and his latest squeeze Irmi (Irmengard Rüttinger), whom he would eventually marry.

The evening I still remember very fondly is the time we went to the Oktoberfest, and how happy drunk we all were. I remember having dinner with him and Irmi at their home. Not too long after that, I got a letter from Irmi that my friend Dieter, after having struggled with the abdominal cancer, chemotherapy and surgery, had passed away on September 21, 1984 – at the age of 40. It all happened quick within two short months.

© Haresh Shah 2014

Illustration: Celia Rose Marks

SISTER SITE

http://www.downdivision.com

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Next Friday, May 30, 2014

THE 75th PLAYBOY STORY

SAILING THE QUEEN

Once the initial shock and the feeling of insecurity wore off, it dawned on me, why was I in such a hurry to return to the States and begin looking for a job without giving myself a little break and regroup before I found something worth while to commit to? Why not first enjoy all that the beautiful city of Munich had to offer and then instead of rushing back on a nine hour flight, why not take my time and sail across the Atlantic?

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Categories Friendship, Germany, Memoire, Playboy, Profile

THREE CHEATING HEARTS

May 15, 2014 //
0

Falling Like Dominos

Haresh Shah

threehearts

The plan is for just the two of us to go out for dinner. Leave the business behind and talk men talk without women tugging at our arms. For me, whenever I am in Munich, it would be Susi as my forever companion. Normally Günter would have brought along his wife Hilda. Our usual double date every visit. For tonight, I am thinking of maybe us two having dinner at my early favorite neighborhood kneipe, Georgen Stuben on Prinz Regentenstrasse and afterwards maybe hit a couple of Schwabing locals like Tangente, Giesela’s and Domicil. Go down the memory lane, re-live the nostalgic days of my not so distant life in Munich.

But first, we’ve got to talk some business. Günter is one of the senior editors at the German Playboy. He has spent time in America as well, so we have got that too in common. We have spent lot of time together and have shared hundreds of silly laughs.

The first McDonald’s in Germany opened in Munich scant ten months before my arrival there in October of 1972. Just in time for Munich’s 1972 Summer Olympics. It must have taken a while for the national Life like illustrated Stern magazine to notice this American invasion, prompting them to run a cover story with the blurb screamingly calling Big Mac der Schmackloss Hackfleish – the tasteless minced meat. Günter and I couldn’t agree more, especially considering the humble German fricadel, a tasty meat ball the shape of a hamburger patty, made of the minced meat, eaten lukewarm with a hard shell brötchen – a bread roll and blob of yellow mustard on side. Lekker.
But that didn’t stop Günter and me to frequent the local MacDonald’s, conveniently located on my way home on Lindwurmstrasse. Often we would feel nostalgic about America and go grab a Big Mac or McChicken menus with some beer. Yup, you could actually have beer at McD’s in Europe. In Prague you also have a choice of white or red wine. And we would talk about the Stern story and how horrified the editors must have been along with a large amount of German population vis-à-vis the arrival of the Yankee Golden Arch. We would agree that fricadel was great, but once in a while, nothing would do but a juicy Big Mac. We would come to the conclusion that it must be Ronald McDonald’s secret sauce. We would often get carried away with our wild imagination of the Big Mac’s sex appeal, calling it a furburger instead, and acting out asking for them to be easy on onions – the silly childish stuff. I really am looking forward to spending this evening alone with Günter.

‘How if we first go to my hotel, have a couple of drinks in the lobby bar, then have dinner at Georgen Stuben and then following that hit a couple of joints in Schwabing, just like god old days?’ I suggest.

‘Sounds like a plan.’ He responds, but lacking in his voice is his usual exuberance and enthusiasm.

We drift away talking something else while I notice a certain amount of uneasiness on his face as he switches his butt back and forth in his chair.

‘The thing is, something else has come up since we made the plans!’ Looking nervous, he finally spills it out.

‘Like what?’

‘I got two press passes to tonight’s Paul McCartney concert.’

‘Wow! Paul McCartney live?’

‘I thought we would have a quick drink. Go to the concert and then get a late night bite at some place.’

‘That sounds super!’

‘It does, doesn’t it? I was very much looking forward to it.’

‘But…?’

First I see a bit of shrinkage with some wrinkles suddenly appearing on Günter’s face and then watch him take a deep breath and let go. That irons out his wrinkles and the smoothness of his face returns.’

‘The thing is, there is this woman!’

‘What woman?’

‘Her name is Ursula. Uschi.’ I wait for him to elaborate. ‘We see each other on and off.’

‘You mean…?’

‘Yup. Seitensprung!’ And we both break out laughing, remembering the fun we’ve had years earlier defining and re-defining the expression. Literally, it means a sideway leap. Simply put; straying or cheating in a relationship. Have a fleeting affair on side. Hoping no one notices it and then leap right back in the line. No harm done!

I am not happy about it, but I understand. An opportunity of a quick clandestine bums always trumps an evening out with a friend. But why tonight of all nights? The crossing in my mind of the expression bums makes me want to burst out laughing. Because it’s one of those other German words – literally it means, to bump! bounce! bang! Or normally used to run into something or someone. But it also means…

And I remembered another one of the editors during the early days: Carmen Jung using it and then telling me what it really meant in answer to my simple question.

‘Do you have a boyfriend?’

‘A steady one? No. But I do have someone I have bumsverhältnis with…recently it was perfectly defined in Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis movie, Friends with Benefits. And then she goes on to elaborate, how perfectly it works for her. That they have each other, and yet they are free.

‘I wouldn’t do this to a good buddy like you. But she called me a while ago whether we could have a rendezvous tonight that her husband had to take a sudden trip to Hamburg.’

‘I still don’t say anything. The expression on my face has a question mark.

‘And?’

‘And Hilda knows I am having dinner with you. You see?’ I certainly do. What could be more convenient?

But I still don’t want to see it. I notice a certain dismay on his face and then watch him slide open his desk drawer and pull out the two strips of the tickets and hand them to me. Printed on them is Paul McCartney & Wings. Not a bad trade off.

‘I guess.’ I say. Since I am busy for the next two evenings of my stay in Munich, I won’t be able to re-schedule another dinner with Günter this trip. But the next time around? After all, how often you get all access press passes to Paul McCartney concert?

‘I am sure, you and Susi will have fun at the concert.’

I am sure that Susi would be ecstatic. But wouldn’t it be great also if Barbara were free that evening? A thought crosses my mind. But out of sheer protocol and the guilt I would otherwise feel, I call Susi from Günter’s phone, wishing that she wouldn’t be around to answer it. And she isn’t.

‘I’ll try to call her again from the hotel.’ I say.

It’s half past five when I leave Playboy offices in New Perlach, wishing Günter nice evening with his seitensprung with his squeeze, Uschi.

I catch the S-Bahn back to the hotel and immediately call Barbara. She’s already home from work and answers her phone on the first ring.

‘I would love to!’ I can hear the excitement in her voice. Takes me back to the days when we both lived in California.

‘Let me hang up. We don’t have much time. I just got home and need to change and freshen up. Where are you staying? I’ll pick you up at 7:30.’

Her little BMW pulls up in Grand Hotel Continental’s driveway. The concert is at the Olympia Halle. Normally I don’t really care for such large venues packed with thousands of people. But though our press passes have no reserved seats, they allow us an easy access to everywhere except the back stage. We spend the entire evening in the arena – which is the open area right in the front of the stage and dance the night away as if in a small and cramped smoke filled venue of Schwabing or on Ripperbahn in Hamburg where the Beatles first began. Instead, on the stage are Paul & Linda McCartney and Denny Lane and rest of the Wings belting out their Band on the Run repertoire interspersed with some Beatles classics.

© Haresh Shah

Illustration: Celia Rose Marks

SISTER SITE

http://www.downdivision.com

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Next Friday, May 23, 2014

MAKING FRIENDS

One of the fringe benefits of me working for Playboy in the job that I did, was an opportunity to meet the most interesting and creative people from around the world, many of them have become lifelong friends. More importantly, it allowed me to maintain those friendships by not fading into out of sight, out of mind state. Because I had no geographical barriers. It also allowed me to re-kindle non-Playboy relationships. Among them Dieter (Stark), whom I had originally met and worked with at Burda in Offenburg.

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Categories Friendship, Memoire, Playboy, Relationships, Romance, Women

FOR THE LOVE OF MARY JANE

May 8, 2014 //
0

Beautiful..Ye High..Ye Wide..

Haresh Shah

weedlove2

Bonnie and David are a cool couple. They are naturally mellow, but often made mellower by the pot induced blissfulness beaming on their faces. I run into them about a year after I arrived in Goleta at one of those shrouded-in-the-cloud-of-smoke filled parties which seemed to be a norm than an exception.

This is southern California in the mid-1970s. A typical tabloid would be, when you entered the hosts’ home, you would be greeted not only with their warm and welcoming smiles and exuberance, but also a large table overflowing with salad bowl full of fresh marijuana, surrounded by the rolling paper, matches and other pot related paraphernalia. Just like Mark and Ann, Bonnie and David too have adopted me and I often hang out with them. Bonnie is a seamstress and makes most of her own clothes. She also designs funky outfits for other people and is quite in demand with young and pretty surfer chicks. David works in incense filled book shop downtown Santa Barbara, that specializes in the counter-culture, psychedelic, transcendental and alternative pseudo spiritual literature by the East and the Western authors such as Krishnamurthy, Carlos Castaneda, J.J.R. Tolkien, Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac and Herman Hess. Kahlil Gibran’s Prophet, Robert Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda are standard fares. The store also sells Indian necklaces and bracelets, silk scarves, patuli and other fragrant oils, beads and a variety of knickknacks that give the subculture its identity.

They live in a small house tucked away in the thick of an orange grove. Quite secluded, a long driveway carved out of the shrubbery lead you to the house. It’s like an oasis. A serene little island on land. I have spent many afternoons and breezy evenings sitting out on their front porch drinking beer with David. Often Bonnie would cook one of her what I called a mishmash cuisine kind of dinners. No matter what she throws in together, those meals are always delicious, deserving of a bottle or two of California wines and then David and I would follow them up with equally as good cigars.

Behind their cottage is a green house, almost as large as the cottage, where Bonnie grows seasonal vegetables. But most of the green house is used to grow some unadulterated organic weed. Mostly for their own consumption, but they also generously spread the wealth and share some with close friends, and the rest would be for sale. For Bonnie and David, growing and smoking the pot is not as much an addiction as it’s a spiritual ritual. To get into a certain state of consciousness that is more meditative than merely getting high. They are reverential of their beautiful shiny green marijuana leaves, like most Hindus are of their household Tulsi plants, to which they humbly bow and worship first thing in the morning. The reason they want their good friend Haresh to experience that level of consciousness and would often try to seduce me into joining them in their smoking ritual, which I would politely decline.

Not that I am against it in principal or otherwise, just that it’s one of those things that never turned me on. Having come from India, I am not ignorant of bhang, charas and ganja. In fact once a year, every Janmaashtami – on Lord Krishna’s birthday, my father would have one of our domestic helps put the fresh green leaves of marijuana to a grinding stone, turn it into a little green ball looking like wasabi and drop it into the boiling milk already mixed with sliced pistachios and almonds, saffron and sugar and brew it into a potent potions of bhang – cooled down and served chilled, tasting like a refreshing glass of pistachio almond milkshake. I may have tried it once or twice, but mainly it was meant to be consumed by his grown up male friends, while us kids and women drank thandai, equally as tasty, albeit sans spiked with the little green ball.

I arrived in the US in 1968, at the height of the pot culture, and if not everywhere, it was still around at some of the parties I went to in Pittsburg and Chicago – my first two homes in America. Especially during the years I hung out with Karen (Abbott) watching passively her and others getting high earned me the reputation of being a square. Smoking it put me in a kind of depressive pensive haze, which I didn’t care for. Once I went to a party in Santa Barbara with Bonnie and David and gave it a real go and puffed on the specially prepared chillum by the host, containing little brown crystals of dynamic hash. I left the party with my head feeling light and fogy. While driving my date home that night, what should have been a five minutes’ ride, felt as if I were driving for an hour. Ditto, getting back home after I dropped her off. It scared me to think how one can lose the sense of time so completely. But for everyone else, that was the point, wasn’t it?

●●●

Bonnie sounds upset and disconcerted. Devastated even. And above all she sounds angry. She’s not her bubbly self, shamelessly flirting with me and me flirting back with I love you this much to my I love you thiiiis much and her coming back with I love you thiiiiiiiis much. Something we used to do with our arms stretching littler bit farther with I love yous while David would sit there shaking his head.

‘When you kids gonna grow up?’

‘Never!’ We would answer in unison.

But tonight she doesn’t sound like herself at all. I am now living in Chicago and talking to her over the phone.

‘You sound like you’re in a funky mood! Something’s the matter?’

‘Don’t ask me. Ask your friend!’ She snaps, sounding angry.

So I ask to talk with David.

‘He’s not here.’

‘Where is he?’

‘He’s in jail!’

‘What?’

‘Yeah. You heard it right. But you can still talk to him.’

Apparently David has indeed ended up behind the bars. Albeit in a minimum security prison from where he is allowed to check out in the morning and go to his job at the bookstore, and check back in every evening.

I call the Santa Barbara county jail at the number Bonnie has just given me.

‘What the fuck!’ I begin and pause. ‘What are you doing in the slammer?’

‘I got caught.’

‘They can’t put you away for selling bit of a pot in California.’

‘I happened to have a lot! I’m afraid.’

‘Fuck!’

‘Yup. What can I say? I guess I just got greedy and lost my bearings. The bastards just don’t have sense of humor, like they used to.’

I hear a slight snicker in the background and know exactly what he is alluding to. The whole scenario of some years ago rushes through my mind in a fast running video clip.

One beautiful afternoon, having finished my chapter for the day, I climb on my Azuki and at the tail end of my bike ride, I decide to stop by for a beer at Bonnie and David. Soon as I turn the corner and their cottage zooms into the line of my vision, my bike stops in its track. Shocked, I pause to focus on what looks like two fuzzy images, like the ones in a 3D photograph looked at without the special glasses. I see the porch, and artificially imposed upon it an image of David – stretched out helplessly on an outdoor lounge chair.

Closer I get, clearer I see. His face is all bruised and patched up. His lips have turned into squashed raspberries, his eyes sunken inside their sockets and the rim around them all swollen. His arms are bandaged.

‘What the fuck!’ I don’t say it out loud, but David knows what I am thinking.

‘Those fucking mother fucking sons of bitches!!’ I don’t believe the string of expletives coming out of the gentle mouth of David. He is normally not prone to utter such profanities.

‘What happened?’

‘What happened? Just look at what they have done to our little paradise!’

The doors of the greenhouse behind their cottage are ajar, almost yanked off their hinges. Inside, it looks helter-skelter as if hit by a wild tornado. The clay pots are turned upside down, shattered into pieces, the soil pulled out of the ground, fragments of the leaves, the branches and the roots are strewn all over. I get the picture.

‘What kind of fucking brutes you have to be to do that?’ David asks. As livid as he is, he is on the verge of breaking down and cry. All that hard work and the tender loving care both of them had given to nurture their beloved garden of paradise.

‘There were four of them. They rode in on their bikes.’ That answers those wide single tire tracks I had noticed and wondered about on my way in.

One of the neighbors down the main road had seen them leaving with loud roars and the loot they carried away with them. From the descriptions of their bikes, David knew immediately who they could be. Boiling with raging fury, he calls up his brother Randy. They get into Randy’s pick up and catch up with the “fuckers”. Fortunately, Bonnie is still at work.

Their truck coming from the opposite direction blocks the bikers. The four riders jump off their bikes. David and Randy jump out of the cabin of the truck. They go at each other like wild horses let loose. Soon they hear sirens. Cops line them all up.

‘What the fuck’s going on here? You kids gone crazy or something?’

‘They ripped off my pot man!’ David is jumping up and down in his fury.

‘What pot?’

‘From our green house. My wife and I spent so much time in lovingly growing and taking care of them, and these fuckers just yanked them off. Our beautiful, beautiful plants.’

The cops look at the mangled and hastily thrown together bundles on the backs of their bikes.

‘That ain’t nothing. They have no respect for marijuana. What you see is all yanked, pulled and butchered.’

‘Looks like those babies must have been beautiful!’

‘Beautiful? You have no idea.’

‘Yeah? How?’ The cops seem to get into it.

‘Yeah. Green as can be.’ David’s hand gestures seem to be painting a large splash of bright green on a canvas and with his arms wide open and then raised, he goes, ‘ye high and ye wide, man!!’ Momentarily he has even forgotten that how beat up him and Randy and all the four kids are. Badly bruised and dripping blood and in need of some quick first aid.

As interesting and amazing the cops find the situation, one of them goes: ‘You don’t want to report this kids, do you?’ At the question, everyone realizes that irrespective of who’s in the right and who’s not, they all stand to be justifiably arrested and locked up.

But this is southern California.

‘Let’s just get you all to the emergency room and get patched up.’

No such luck this time around.

But ever optimistic, I hear David continue. He tells me how it’s not all that bad, considering they found a shit load of pot in the trunk of his Volvo. Caught red handed just before he was about to unload it. Taking into account his squeaky clean record and the fact that he held a regular job, was respectably married and otherwise was a nice guy, the judge handed out a sentence that was kind and considerate. My call had caught him mopping floors. He still had a few chores left to do. His duties also included cleaning toilets and bathrooms.

David is taking it in his strides. He knows that Bonnie is mighty pissed.

‘What can I say? I guess I fucked up really good time time around!’

© Haresh Shah

Illustration: Celia Rose Marks

SISTER SITE

http://www.downdivision.com

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Next Friday, May 16, 2014

THREE CHEATING HEARTS

However in love or committed you’re to someone special, there are moments when your heart wants to be with someone else. A light hearted look at what the Germans so cleverly call seitensprung – a sideway leap.

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Categories California, Friendship, Marijuana, Memoire, Playboy

THE EARTHY AZTEC BEAUTY

February 20, 2014 //
0

The Domestic Arrangements South Of The Border

Haresh Shah

aztecqueen

I met Pepe Morales during a Playmate promotional jaunt in Acapulco. Our publishers have hired Pepe to cover the event – a young Mexican photographer and socialite of some renown . He seems to know everyone we run into and is greeted with the warmest abrazoz and pats on the back, while he bumbles around following the Playmates and documenting the weekend, with me taking additional photos whenever I am able to sneak some shots without neglecting my duties that of the Playboy executive on site.

Pepe and I hit it off right away. When back in Mexico City, we meet one evening for dinner. We have fat juicy steak dinners at Barbas Negras during which we drown three bottles of Los Reyes. Feeling absolutely no pain, Pepe asks:

‘What would you like to do now?’

‘I don’t know. This is your town. Maybe go cunt chasing?’

‘Why not? Let’s just get out of here and together we’ll paint the town red,’ he proclaims.

So we get into his fire red Mach 1 and end up at the cozy Las Nueves. Unfortunately for us, since Pepe’s last visit there, it has now turned into a trendy gay hangout. We have a drink or two there and then make our exit.

‘I know where we can go. To your casa amarilla.’ So we end up at the lobby bar of Camino Real. This gives us time to simmer. As in Acapulco, Pepe seems to know everyone and everyone seems to know him. People would stop by, couples, men, women – especially women and they go through their Mexican tango of hugging, patting the back and then parting with promises to meet up soon again. At the end of which, two of his female acquaintances walk up with exuberant Hola Pepito. He invites them to join us. Introduces me and builds me up as el hombre de Playboy. Curiously, it’s a pair of a blonde and a brunette. Both good looking. Gives me a feeling of being society girls about town. Quite friendly. But they speak only perfunctory English. We have a couple of drinks with them and then Pepe proposes.

‘How if we go to my place and party?’

The girls try a bit hard to get, but then after some prodding from Pepe, seconded by me, we all pile into his compact sports car, somehow managing to squeeze ourselves in. Pepe and Lucia in the front and me and Tere  in the back.

●●●

On that Saturday, Pepe has invited me to his place for breakfast. He feels it’s unpardonable that as long as I have been coming to Mexico, nobody has yet gotten around to take me to the Pyramids. Why don’t you come over to my place on Saturday, we’ll have a nice breakfast and then drive out to the Pyramids?

Pepe’s is a spacious penthouse apartment near the Chapultepec Park in the center of Mexico City. Cascades of light pours in through the skylights illuminating dozens of artworks and the blown up photographs that adore the walls. Some of the photographs with blurred images of the billowing skirts of the folk dancers remind me of Holi festival in India. He’s not only a photographer but also a serious artist and all that hangs on the walls is his own work. The place looks larger than I remember it from a couple of nights ago. I think it contains three, if not four bedrooms. Large kitchen and the dining room. Even though some of the furnishings has that colorful feeling of Mexico, most of it is the modern functional. It feels warm and comfortable.

When I arrive, I am greeted by a tall, angular faced, as if lifted from a cubist art, long necked and sharp penetrating dark eyed woman standing on the other side of the threshold. She doesn’t say anything, but silently welcomes me with a toss of her head. Her long and curly hair following the motion of her neck.

‘Hola Haresh. Bien venido mi amigo a tu casa en Mexico.’  Pepe rushes towards me, suddenly throwing the woman in the background with a fuerte abrazo, and the pat on the back he takes me by the arm and leads me to the table. Such exuberance! But this is Mexico and I am getting used to it.

The table is laid out just so. The plates glowing with vibrant colors are nestled into the larger shiny copper plates that serve as placemats. The clothes napkins are bright burgundy. A jar sweating of freshly squeezed orange juice awaits. The pungent aroma of strong Mexican coffee permeates the air. Engulfed in Pepe’s exuberance and displayed hospitality, for a moment I even forget about the pretty young woman.

I am treated to a sumptuous Mexican breakfast consisting of fresh papayas and mangoes, huevos rancheros with home made red and green salsas, frijoles, chorizzo, piping hot tortillas and even chiles toreados – the pan fried hot jalapeño peppers with fresh scallions. The relish my Latin Valentine Patricia had introduced me to and Pepe remembered me telling him how very much I loved it. And of course the strong café Mexicano served so attentively and gracefully by his maid Clarissa. For every gracias I utter, she rewards me with de nada and with the sweetest little smile and a sparkle in her eyes. At every compliment, I feel that extra hump in her short walk between the kitchen and the dining room as I watch her long curly hair tossing up above small of her back and caressing her shoulders. She looks very young, like in her late teens the most. But even in her innocence, I sense a certain worldliness on her face and in her eyes. Would certainly qualify to be a Playmate. Even in her homely dress covered with an overall, her figure and her beauty excel.

Seeing that I am eying her, should we take her along? Asks Pepe.

‘Sure. Why not?’

‘Let’s do it. It would do her good to get out of the house. Why don’t you ask her?’

‘Me?’

“Si. Then she wouldn’t feel pressured!’

‘No quires ir con nosotros?’ I ask

‘A donde?’        

‘A los Pirámides.’

‘Puess…,’ she says and then hesitates a bit and turns her face to Pepe.

‘Puedes, si quires, Venn!’ She turns around to face me.

‘Entonces si. Me gustaria mucho. Gracias.’

When we’re done and she has cleared the table, Pepe tells her to leave the dishes alone and go and change.

Transformed, a gorgeous young woman emerges from the back room. She is dressed in a simple long white cotton dress. It’s trimmed with wide bands of light grey lace around the neck and the waist and the hem, practically touching the floor, a wide white sash tied in a bow at her back billowing in the air. A simple silver hoop choker with a dangling little ball adores her neck. Her sculpted face with high cheek bones and the shoulders pointed proudly upwards, she stands tall on her plain white platform shoes. Her slightly slanted eyes enhanced with the kohl outline, she wears only a light touch of red lipstick on her pert lips quivering under her dainty little nose.

It seems Pepe too is in awe of her sudden transformation from a simple maid serving us humbly a while ago into a femme fatal. Something he probably haven’t yet had a chance to see. And when placed in front of the Pyramids, neither Pepe, nor I could ignore her. Between us two, we turn Clarissa into the most sought after photo model. She doesn’t say much, except swirl and move as we request, flash shy smiles as if to herself and in her face I see her savoring what must have been a unique moment of her young life. To be appreciated for her own natural beauty and in an environment which undoubtedly is hers. She doesn’t look Spanish and or Indian or a mulatta, the mixture of the two. Her face wears the looks and the pride of an Aztec Princess reincarnate, standing comfortably in front of the Pyramids and the ruins of the ancient Aztec built city of Tenochtitlan, as if she owns them.

●●●

On our way back, Pepe drops off Clarissa before taking me back to my hotel. We are in contemplative mood. We avoid the bustles of the lobby bar and settle ourselves over beers in their by now subdued cantina.

‘She is pretty!’ I say reflexively.

‘Who, Clarissa?’

‘Who else?’

‘You’re right. She is prettier than I ever thought she was.’ And then we are quiet. I see a certain smile cross his face, as if trying to contain a private joke.

‘What?’

‘I guess, I picked her right.’

‘Did you interview many of them?’

‘No, that’s not how we do things around here in Mexico. One weekend, I just drove out to the country bazar, she was standing there up above on cliff under the tree with others, and I picked her.’

‘You mean like from a line up?’

‘Not exactly. But sort of. They are offered for the domestic work, mostly by their parents.’

‘You mean like slaves?’

‘Noooooo mi amigo. Just that they are poor in the backlands and one way for them to make some money is to work in the city. You negotiate with their parents and agree upon the monthly salary and other conditions. But she is free to leave whenever she wants to.’

Having grown up in India in a relatively affluent family, domestic help is not that unusual to me. But all our servants came from little villages to Bombay on their own, looking for jobs. They may have known someone else from their village in the city and then its just a word of mouth. What Pepe tells me is a bit different. Seeing me lost in my unspoken thoughts, he continues.

‘I pay all her expenses. She has every Sunday off and has her own living quarters in the back of my apartment.’

‘How does that work? A young pretty woman living under the same roof?’

‘You’re right. There is always that possibility. And the temptation. As you see, she is very pretty, you know?’ I give him a sideway look.

‘Okay. I could take advantage of her if I wanted to, and get away with it without even risking losing her. But your friend here is a romantic type. I had to pursue her, and pursue her long.’

I don’t interrupt.

‘She always resisted my advances. And I respected her for that. And then one evening, without any warning, she just opened up to me, like a flower. Like an orchid!!’ I can see on Pepe’s face what he must be seeing, something I could just imagine.

‘Doesn’t that put a damper on your social life with other women?’

‘Not at all. At the end of the day, she realizes, and I make sure she knows that the first and the foremost she is my maid.’

‘Yes, but we’re now talking matters of the heart. How does she feel about when we showed up in the middle of the night with the two women a couple of days go? Or was she off that night?’

‘No she was very much there, and she didn’t like it. In fact she is quite crossed with me. Thanks for being so kind to her and making her feel special. I think she is now softened a bit and I’m sure we’ll make up.’

Just a few hours drive from Santa Barbara and you’re in Mexico. What a different world? I think.

© Haresh Shah 2014

Illustration: Celia Rose Marks

SISTER SITE

http://www.downdivision.com

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The Site

ABOUT

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Next Friday, February 28, 2014

UNDETERMINED

Both you and I will have to wait and see which entry in works makes its way up to the top. Whichever it turns out to be, promises to be good. Stay tuned.

 

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Categories Artist, Culture, Friendship, Mexico, Profile

THE PEEPING TOMS

February 12, 2014 //
2

Paparazzi In His Own Backyard

Haresh Shah

peepers

It’s only once in a life time that you meet someone like FHG. The initials stand for Franz Hermann Gomfers from the little BIG town of Wachtendonk, tucked away near the Dutch border of Venlo in Germany’s lower Rhine region. He spoke only German in the Niederrhein with frequently punctuating with nicht wahr? And yet his house on Feldstrasse 29 would be bursting with smatterings of languages and the people from all around the globe. His curiosity knew no bounds, which was always topped with his patience with a common friend going back and forth between him and his new acquaintances, translating and interpreting. Something about him was fraulich,  in which he would dig out all the gory and juicy details from the person and would bring him or her to a confessional mode, with the seriousness on his face that would betray earnestness even that of Herr Doktor Freud. Because he is genuinely interested in their lives and what they have to say. And yet, he was a little boy like mischievous prankster to the core. The plotter, the match maker, the eternal flirt, frequently crossing his boundary to the utter dismay of his dear Lizbeth. And then getting away with a coy and guilty but a hearty laugh, just like not so innocent Tom Sawyer.
Among hundreds other, I feel fortunate to have known him for twenty five years until the moment he checked out of this material world at the young age of 67.  Madhu (Parekh) and I flew out to attend his funeral. We had the hardest time containing ourselves from breaking out in a loud laugh. It was absolutely incredible to see him lying there, down in the cold basement of the village church, decked out impeccably in his black tuxedo and all. But what I found the strangest was to see his hands neatly folded under his chest, clutching the rosary strewn around and across his waist. The rosary!! It seemed like a joke. Someone getting even with him for snubbing the church all his life. It felt so ironic and weird that I was expecting him to open one of his eyes for a split second and wink at me, and let one of his naughty smiles break out, as if saying: so ist es junge. Wenn du bist tod, bist du tod!!! – that’s how it is, when you’re dead, you’re dead. And then withdraw back into the world of the departed.

But there couldn’t be any regrets, for Franz Hermann lived his life as if every day was his last. The ultimate existentialist, living in the moment. As if everyday were an ongoing Karneval and Christmas and Sylvester. His life crammed with hordes of people. Mostly much younger than himself and many of them foreigners such as myself, Madhu and Nasim (Yar Khan). At some point it would seem to me that he had taken upon himself the mission of making us stay put in Germany, marry German women and live closer to where he was.

Comfortably affluent, he was the most unpretentious and downhome mensch, always drove Volkswagen bug up until after they introduced the Golf. But that was the extent of his luxury. Heilpraktiker (Healing Practitioner, described as an alternative and complementary health care) at the time when it wasn’t exactly in vogue. We joked with him that it was more of a hobby for him than a real profession. Plus in such a title conscious society as Germany, it afforded him the title of Herr Doktor. Gave  him an excuse to get in his car every morning to drive from Wacthtendonk to Krefeld – some twenty kilometers. His physician’s sticker gave him an excuse to speed, something he loved to do and did. When coming upon a slow moving vehicle, he would say out loud in his exasperation: eure idioten! Just because they have posted a speed limit!! And then he would shake his head in disgust.

Similarly, he had no patience and or respect for authorities. So very unlike a German. It’s the afternoon of Christmas Eve, and we are stuck in the middle of traffic thick as jungle. Everyone is out doing their last minute shopping before the shops close at two. Traffic is further thrown in disarray by a police car stopped smack dab in the middle of the square, trying to give a ticket. Fuming, Franz Hermann rolls down the window, sticks his neck out and yells at the cops. What you think you’re doing? Nowhere in the world you yell at cops like that, let alone in Germany! Unless, of course your name is Franz Hermann. Would you believe, the cop got into the car and drove away?

And I still remember when he visited me in Munich and we’re in Alte Pinakothek – the art museum. On one of the glass topped display cabinets is a cardboard sign mounted on a wooden stand, which says: VORSICHT! POLIZERIALARM. Just to see if an alarm would really go off, he is about to lift it when I stop him. Ah quatsch – nonsense, there is no police alarm! He grumbles, but then lets it go. A couple of hours later, when we are sitting in a café, what does he pull out of his coat pocket and put on the table top? The sign with the stand and all. Ein geschenk – a gift! And he smiles his knowing smile. I still have it.  

Uncrowned feudal lord of the grossstadt Wachtendonk, he could make things happen, such as when Madhu returned from India with his brand new bride, Uma in the tow, it was the front page news in the regional Rheinische Post.
Politically active, locally and nationally, Franz Hermann was the supporter of the liberal FDP (Free Democratic Party), and hobnobbed with big boys such as the foreign minister Hans Dietrich Genscher. Deathly afraid of flying, he never set foot on an airplane, with one noticeable exception when he flew to Turkey with Wilhelm Dünwald, then the German ambassador to Turkey, as part of his delegation. Beyond that it was in Wachtendonk that he would bring the oceans and the mountains from far away. A big opera fan, mezzo-soprano Mignon Dunn, when in Germany, she hung out at his home in the little BIG city of Wachtendonk.

After Madhu emigrated to Canada, I remained behind in Germany. Soon I too would go west. Those few months cemented our friendship and we even allowed ourselves to be called familiar Du. As with Madhu’s departure, he was sad for me to go too. But then when Playboy brought me back to Germany, we picked up the threads and let our friendship grow and flourish. It gave him boasting rights that I had returned with such a plum job and that I held an important position at none other than Germany’s top quality zeitschrift, Playboy.

Though Munich wasn’t exactly hop-skip and jump from Wachtendonk, Essen was where we printed the magazine and I maintained there a second apartment. This natural proximity allowed us to see each other and to splurge frequently and share stunde der wahrheit – many hours of the truth, with Nasim whom he had practically adopted and when Madhu came for one Christmas – just like in good old days.

Of the several girls I photographed during that phase of me hunting for Playmates, Barbara was already scheduled to be published (July 1975), while I had just done some initial tests of another Playmate candidate – a petite Eurasian beauty, half German and half Japanese, an army brat, Karen Sugimoto.

Other than the home where Franz Hermann lived with his family, he owned a summer home just a short walking distance from the main house, which everyone called Flieth – a German version of the Russian Dacha and the Czech Chalupa. A ranch style low structure cozy dwelling stood at the farthest end of the front gate and the garden path that lead you to the house fronted with a small round pond and a fountain springing out of a large millstone as its centerpiece. The property was secluded by the sheer fact of ten minutes walk from the stadtmitte, the “center” of Wachtendonk. The further privacy was lent by the high fences covered with ivy, hedges and the dense tall trees. A gentle ribbon of the river Nette flowed behind the house under the dainty wooden bridge. The grounds lit by the old fashioned romantic street lamp posts painted white. An ideal dream like location to shoot a  Playmate.

When I asked Franz Hermann, he was tickled  pink. Aber natürlich, he enthused. Karen and I  would spend the weekend at his home. I would shoot during the day and we would visit at night. Only slight concern we had was the weather, because it’s already November. But we’re in luck and Karen is game. If it does get colder, we can always duck in and out of the house.

The only snag is – and a delicate one at that.

‘Don’t you need an assistant? I can help you with things around the house.’

This doesn’t come as a surprise, so I am prepared. I tell him that this is something that’s just not done. An outsider on the set makes every one nervous, especially it’s not fair to the girl. As much he tries to convince me that he would make his presence barely felt, seeing that I am firm, however reluctantly, he gives up. He takes us to the house, which I am quite familiar with, and goes through the motions of showing us around and then retreats back home.

‘Call, if you need anything!’ He winks at me and I see him slowly walking back to the main house like a dejected spoiled little kid.
It’s a bright sunny day and warm enough to shoot. But there is bit of chill in the air, so we are in and out of the house. Karen is a good sport and really gets into placing her natural self in the backdrop of the landscaping and blends in. We end the day with some truly beautiful shots. She has dropped her shyness and is not being as uncomfortable as she was in the photos I had shot of her in Munich.

Everyone in the office loves the shoot and the exotic Eurasian beauty of Karen. She appears as November 1975 Playmate.

●●●

Long after I have returned back to the States and am visiting Franz Hermann during one of my trips to Germany and when one evening we’re sitting around after dinner, sipping on his stash of Rheinhessen, his long time friend and the gardener Egon stops by. After we have drowned a few glasses, they begin to reminisce about the day I photographed Karen in the Flieth.

When I think back on it, I should have known better. Franz Hermann is not the kind who could have sat still at his home all those many hours when I was in his sunny Flieth taking akt photos of this gorgeous and exotic young thing. I could just imagine him sitting at home, constantly wiggling in his chair like a year old baby, crossing and uncrossing his legs back and forth, rubbing his palms, pressing his thighs together as if in pain, imagining me with Karen in his other house, focusing my lens on various tantalizing curves of her anatomy. He couldn’t just sit there and do nothing but twiddle his fingers, waiting for us to return.

‘And you remember Haresh rubbing ice cubes on her nipples?’ One of the tricks of the trade when the nipples don’t pop up on their own. And they kept at it, giggling like two teenage girls.

Would you believe he teamed up with Egon and climbed up one of the farthest and the tallest trees with his camera loaded with a long telephoto lens and zoomed in on us? Just like something Franz Hermann would do! And you know what? You can’t get mad at the man!

© Haresh Shah 2014

Illustration: Celia Rose Marks

SISTER SITE

http://www.downdivision.com

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Next Friday, February 21, 2014

THE EARTHY AZTEC BEAUTY

The poster on the wall of the Mexican Consulate in Los Angeles read: So close and yet so different. And you see the difference right away as soon as you cross the border from the United States into Mexico. The Mayans and the Aztecs had long defined the country way before the Spaniards ever put foot on the continent. You see the colors of the ancient cultures in the people who call themselves Mexicans, and even more so in their beautiful women.

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Categories Friendship, Germany, Profile

DEVIL IN THE PARADISE

May 30, 2013 //
1

Haresh Shah

Bonding Over Beer And The Blue Eyed Bitch

rockshowcolor

Life is what happens to you when you’re too busy planning it.

John Lennon

Things happened at the lightening speed. Instead of a three week vacation in California, I am checking in at the Lufthansa counter at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport for their Frankfurt bound flight on my way to Munich. Everything seems to have fallen in place smoothly. My lifelong dream of working for Playboy has come true. Better yet. I will be working for them in Europe. I am elated.

I won’t bother you with details such as cancelled flights, delays, lost baggage and such. Their significance has long been lost. So is that of the icy reception upon my arrival in what would be my stomping grounds in Munich and Essen, West Germany.  But what is still significant in telling of this tale is that how swiftly my joy of having landed my dream job had vanished at the realization of being dropped off smack dab in the middle of the debris of the hostile war zone. That I was neither wanted nor welcomed in the job they had hired me to do.

In nutshell – unlike Time & Life, Playboy’s foreign editions are licensed to local publishers. To Bauer Verlag in Germany.  The contract stipulates that Playboy would have direct editorial and printing quality control of its editions through Playboy hired and paid representatives to be posted on site.  Neither Germans nor Italians or the French were thrilled with this clause in the contract and had put up strong resistance to the condition. In the end, Playboy prevailed. And here I am – unwelcomed and unloved. Imposed upon them. Nobody other than the management knows of their contractual obligation. To make matters worse, instead of building bridges, Gerrit (Huig) – my predecessor had however inadvertently managed to burn some. Leaving me to waddle through muddy waters.

●●●

Up until then, Heinz Nellissen of the Bauer Team was in complete control of their flagship weekly, Quick. Bauer’s editorial offices were based in Hamburg and Munich and they had their own printing plant in Köln for their mass market publications. But they printed their quality publications in Essen at Girardet. And like us at Time, Bauer’s production team had set up their shop right at the printers’ doorsteps. So Heinz and his colleagues had plump jobs like we did at Time. They would do their jobs, stop for a beer or two or three and then go home. Other than occasional visits from their Hamburg based boss, Herr Schatong, for practical purposes, they were their own bosses. It even got better for Heinz when they assigned him to Playboy. Like me, up until then he had done weeklies and to be assigned to a single product a month for him was a child’s play. But to his chagrin, not one, but two of us intruders were dispatched back-to-back to disrupt his paradise.

Little by little, this becomes clear to me. But what am I supposed to do? Quit? Go back to Time? If I had any illusions about such a possibility, that too is shattered just before Christmas when the front page headline in The International Herald Tribune cried: LIFE DIES. I remember walking past the Essen Hauptbahnhof, struggling to hold back tears. My last days at Time were also my most glory days when I was given Life back, something they were forced to remove me from the very first month of my employment with them. In the meanwhile, I have dissolved my home and life in Chicago, my possessions overstuffed inside a container or two floating eastward on the Atlantic and so is my brand new beautiful Buick Skylark.

So suddenly we have two equally as qualified and experienced professionals assigned to the job which either of us could have done with our eyes closed. Plus, Heinz has an edge. He knows the Photogravure inside out of which I only have theoretical knowledge. I have specialized in Offset, the newer printing process that has already made big strides in the States, but the old world still hangs onto the Gravure.  And he has long established pleasant working relationship with the people at the plant.      

We are practically in each other’s way. So what do we do?  We accept each other’s existence –however reluctantly. We begin to build some semblance of working relationship. Thanks to Rainer (Wörtmann) realizing my usefulness, I carve out a role for myself and become his liaison with Essen – to make sure his creative vision is reproduced and reflected in the final product.  Freddy (Baumgärtel) – the Playboy team leader – invites me to attend regular editorial meetings. I become their direct link to Chicago.  I partner and discuss with Heinz the best technical possibilities and solutions. Something our teams at Time did with art directors and editors in New York. Heinz helps me with finding a beautiful one bedroom apartment in Essen’s ritzy Stadtwald neighborhood, so that I would have my own pied-à-terre there instead of being stuck in hotel rooms.  Thanks to Bauer’s discreet and Playboy’s generous expense
accounts, we feast at some of the most exclusive restaurants in Essen, such as Kockshusen, Grugahof, Schinkekrug, Amboss and  get to know each other: first through the professional respect and then slowly to forge a friendship. Instead of me always going to Essen, I have him come to Munich once a month and us two sitting down with Rainer and discuss every single page of the magazine. Heinz is far from being a stern faced German from Ruhr area in North Rhine-Westphalia, but he would still dress up in his sports jackets and ties to my open collared shirts and sweaters.

I even take him to the Suzi Quatro concert in Munich’s Circus Krone and subject him to her deafening screams. At the time Suzi Q from Michigan was all the rage across Europe. Heinz is in awe of the pint size screaming sex bomb, sliding her guitar as big as herself  between her legs, dressed in the skin tight black leather pants and the jeans jacket, tossing her shoulder grazing full head of hair and belting out…

I’m a blue eyed bitch

And I wanna get rich

Get out of my way

Cuz I’m here to stay

I’m the wild one

Yes, I’m the wild one

Those were the days when the concert halls were not gigantic affairs like today and I am still always able to get seats up front within the first fifteen rows. And I remember, we are standing in the arena in front of the stage. Heinz has loosened his tie and removed his jacket and is grooving to the gyrations of this teeny bopper sensation.

Heinz can tell this one better than I could. Also because its his story, and by me trying to tell it, I am  risking being immodest, and worse yet, boastful. In fact I had completely forgotten all about it until Heinz brought it up two years ago when he came to visit me here in Chicago with his wife Lia.  And then I remembered vaguely the tableau in which we stood around at the end of the plant tour to show our visiting production boss John Mastro accompanied by John Groening – a printing executive from the US. I am not sure if the Playboy German edition editorial director Heinz van Nouhuys was also there or not. But there are also Friedrich Karl Schnelle – Girardet’s managing director and Dr. Wilhelm Girardet Jr. himself. And stepping back from the group was Heinz, wishing us all Gute Nacht and Guten Apetit. Dr.Girardet was hosting a dinner for us all at the Schloss Hugenpoet – a very exclusive  hotel and the restaurant around Essen.

‘Where are you going? Aren’t you going to have dinner with us?’ I ask. Heinz doesn’t answer, but the expressions on his face lead me to turn around and look at Messers. Girardet and Schnelle.

‘He is not invited.’ Herr Schnelle whispers.

‘Why not? He is a part of our team.’

‘He doesn’t fit into the present company.’ Dr. Girardet answers, meaning John and John.

‘Well, in that case, I don’t either!’ It just rolls out of my mouth.

India gets all the bad rap for our caste system, and rightfully so. But if this isn’t a caste system of a different kind, then what  is it?  Put in the compromising position and also sensing John and John’s silent approval of me, Dr. Girardet, feeling however  awkward, invites Heinz to join us. And Heinz isn’t even in socio-psychological frame of mind to gracefully decline the invitation and wiggle out of his predicament. If Dr. Girardet has personally invited him, then all he could say is: Danke. Gerne. It enormously pleases me. And relieves John and John of whatever discomfort they must have felt.

‘I have never forgotten that.’ Heinz has often said to me.

So yes, we have bonded. And yet, there remains a certain amount of indignation that I can sense in Heinz. We never talked about it, but I could imagine him feeling at times that here I was, the devil in what was his paradise. Albeit a friendly one and likable even, making it harder that at the end of the day, I would have the final say on the matters we couldn’t agree upon.

There would be small annoyances and disagreements that would play out between us in front of people of the printing company, and whereas before Playboy’s arrival, he would be the only one to scratch his signature on the corrected forms (normally 16 or 32 page on large sheet of paper), now had to be okayed by both of us. But we always managed to reach a compromise and never allowed those things to come between us and our favorite watering hole Amboss nearby. The place we referred to as Axel’s – after it’s owner’s name.  An added attraction was Axel’s Rubenesque but very pretty and flirtatious wife Bärbel. That is until…

Must have been around 3:30 and we are looking at a form and doing color corrections with Girardet’s Hans (Potisch). I no longer remember the exact nature of correction or the extent of it, but we couldn’t seem to have reached an accord and agree to a compromise. If I insisted and Heinz resisted, it must have been something that would cost Bauer fair amount of money in labor, material and lost time. Something Heinz is responsible for. Whatever it was, it must have been important enough to me to correct. An argument ensued. It gets heated. Normally, Hans would step in and suggest a middle way. Not this time. At some point, Heinz gets so angry, he throws his China marker wax pencil across the viewing table. Frustrated he spews out:

‘Verdamt! Du machts was du willst, Ich habe nicht damit zu tun!‘(Damn, you do what you want to do. I don’t want to have anything to do with it.)  Huffing and puffing, he darts out of our loft viewing room and I hear him thumping down the spiral stairs, opening his office door and then violently slamming it close.

Left behind in bit of a daze, after a while, Hans  picks up his wax pencil and begins to mark the proofs spread out on the table and us two finish the job. He rolls up the pages, shoves them under his arm.

‘Gute nacht Haresh. Bis Morgan!’ And he leaves.

I sit down at my desk and take a deep breath. By then it must be 4:30 or later. I got it my way, but I am far from being happy about it. Heinz and I have grown on each other and I thought we had found a way to work together. And we had. And suddenly, there is a lapse.

I gather myself and walk down. Even though the door to his office is partially closed, I know that Heinz is still there. I don’t even think about walking out of there without wishing him good night. I slowly open the door. He is sitting at his desk. Looking pensive and down like a defeated warrior. I hold the partially open door and say:

‘Heinz.’ He doesn’t look up.

‘How about a beer?’ I say. Now he looks up. Quite confused, probably not knowing what to say to that. So he doesn’t respond. The expressions on his face seems to say: What the fuck! Are you crazy or something? You’ve got some balls! I answer to it, as if he really said it.

‘Look, you were doing your job and I was doing mine. Now is after five, feierabend . Why can’t we go have a beer together?’

From the changing expressions on his face I see that he still isn’t sure. Seems flabbergasted at my audacity.  While just over an hour or so a go I had caused him such a humiliation in front of a technician from the printing company over whom he had reigned supreme up until  not long ago.

His eyes level straight at mine. It just comes out of my mouth: ‘You know what? At the end of the day it’s just a fucking job. Let’s go have a beer.’

He lowers his gaze. Shuffles his stuff off the desk and gets up.

‘Na, Gut!’

© Haresh Shah 2013

Illustration: Celia  Rose Marks

SISTER SITE

http://www.downdivision.com

Next: Friday, June 21, 2013

BEWITCHED BY THE BOA

Ever since La Toya Jackson asked for a Boa Constrictor to accompany her to the popular television talk show to promote her layout in Playboy Germany, I have often wondered what it is about the snakes that enchant women?

SPRING BREAK

Yup: You read it right. The next post to arrive on your screens will be on Friday, June 21st. I was actually thinking of taking a short break after the 25th post, but seemed both you and I were in a fine momentum, so I just kept going. Now Celia and Jordan are taking a couple of weeks’ vacation to go see their parents “back East,”  and even though Celia offered to double up and illustrate the next two posts, I decided now is as good a time as any for me to take a short break as well. Let’s try not to miss each other. The break will give you time to catch  up and me some extra time to build some inventory. So have wonderful next two weeks and Playboy Stories will be back to its weekly frequency on the 21st of June.

Don’t go away. More exciting stories are still to come 🙂 

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