R.E.M., Interlaken and a Black Mercedes



SUNDAY, July 23, 1995.

Back in early May when I was recuperating in Paris from two months of non-stop traveling, I started sending travelogues again. I predicted then that it would take me about two weeks to catch up with the present. I've been chasing myself ever since, but I have finally caught my tail. This installment brings you up to the present. Amazing.

After my long weekend in Italy, I arrived back in Zurich on the evening of Tuesday the 4th. I worked Wednesday and Thursday and then took Friday off because I've vowed never to work three consecutive days again in my life. No. I mean I took Friday off to attend an all day musical event in Frauenfeld, a small town just under an hour from Zurich. It was called "Out in the Green" and the headliner was R.E.M. In Taormina, Laura (the one I massaged) was wearing her R.E.M. shirt and I was jealous. When I first heard about the concert, I got all excited about the chance to see R.E.M. My first thought was - it's probably already sold out. I mean, if R.E.M. came to play Shoreline, it'd sell out in under an hour. Then I realized that it was the Friday of the week I was in Italy. Then I found out that we were supposed to be having a Beyond-Sniff team party to celebrate reaching a project milestone. Then I found out that there were still tickets available. I agonized and decided that, given the fact that I was already taking two days off that week and the fact that it would be bad for group morale (or whatever) to miss the party, that I would simply have to bite the bullet and miss the opportunity.

On Wednesday I found out that the party had been postponed (Bischi had realized a week before that it was the same day as the ET++ workshop - but he hadn't told me). Suddenly, one of my reasons not to go was gone and I flipped out and decided that I simply had to go; I was freaked about there still being tickets available. I managed to get a ticket so I simply had to take the day off. Frauenfeld ho! Matthew and David (two U.K. guys from the lab) and a friend of Matthew's in town were also going. Cool.

We arrived in Frauenfeld just before noon. The first act was due on in an hour. The whole concert going experience was decidedly un-American. Consider this: a big name band like R.E.M. and tickets still available a few days before the show. Special trains running to the concert town. A line of busses at the train station to take you to the festival grounds. We squeezed onto a bus which drove off as another one from the line pulled in behind it. It was a three day festival and there were thousands of people with tents and the thing was totally set up for camping - it was really well organized. It was orderly. So much for sex, drugs, rock'n'roll and chaos. We were going only for one day, but R.E.M. wasn't the only big name of the weekend. Saturday's line-up included PagePPlant and Elton John. Sunday's headliner was Rod Stewart.

I suppose it was pretty much like any of these big outdoor musical festivals - but this was my first one. There was a big stage set up at the front of a big lawn. The stage was split in half - a big half (for the "bigger" bands) and a little half. This allowed the roadies for one band to set up while another band was playing. Early in the afternoon the crowd was sparse and we were able to saunter right up to the stage. The festival opened with Bo Diddly, who played a mediocre set with a guitar that just wouldn't stay in tune. What other bands? The Beautiful South (I liked them), Faith No More (OK- I liked their first album the best), Megadeath (they sucked), Oasis (they rocked), Sheryl Crowe (much better than I expected), and some other bands I can't remember.

It was really hot and the sun was beating down on us all day. I drank lots of water and Nestea. It turned out that R.E.M. didn't go on until 11:15 PM and they were scheduled to play for 100 minutes. This had them finishing at 12:55 AM- past the time of the last regularly scheduled train to Zurich. We figured that either a) there would be a special train, since surely it would be un-Swiss to strand us, or b) we would just stay up all night and take the first train in the morning at 5 AM. After all, it would be only four hours and there would still be things to do after the main stage closed.

With over eleven hours before the main event, I wasn't going to spend the whole day in front of the stage. You could hear the music from speakers quite a ways back and I spent hours playing frisbee with random people in the field. I hadn't run around like that in way too long. I ran, ran, ran, threw, threw, threw. I'd play until I was exhausted and needed a drink, devour an ice-tea and maybe an ice-cream, go find whoever was still sitting up near the stage (we were all cycling in and out but there was always someone there), relax for a few minutes, and go find another game of frisbee to join. That was pretty much the day. I was having a blast. Frisbee, live music, green fields, blue skies... summer!

Walking around, I thought I smelled something "funny," and indeed there were people smoking pot, which certainly didn't surprise me, but what did surprise me was the proximity of the security people and the fact that security just didn't care. The number one security concern was no glass bottles. Safety first.

At about 10:15, we were all together watching some band on the "little stage" and I decided that it was time to go find a good spot for R.E.M. They thought I was crazy, but we went in the nick of time. We were able to get close to the stage, but there were already a bunch of people camped out. I figured that if I'd stood five hours in one spot for Il Palio the weekend before, I could stand for another hour to get a good glimpse of R.E.M. As the hour grew nearer, the crowd grew denser and denser and people greedily pushed their way forward through the crowd. Throughout the entire day, the crowd had been very manageable, but things were really starting to get pushy. I was glad to be bigger than almost everyone else. I can't imagine the claustrophobia I'd have gotten if I couldn't see over the crowd.

Photos of Frauenfeld

Finally, it was time and R.E.M. came on and the crowd really started to surge and I kept losing my footing, but it was impossible to fall because of the people all around me and it was scary and exciting. I got separated from my friends and somehow ended up getting pushed considerably forward. I'd say I was about ten "rows" back from the stage. I managed to pull my camera out of my backpack and got some snap shots of the band (don't know yet if they came out). Michael Stipe came out in a wool ski cap, sunglasses and a blazer. By the time they were done, he'd shed the glasses, the cap, the blazer and three layers of t-shirts (he still had one on). They were fucking great. The bassist who usually looks like a dork in all the band photos, had a whole new image - he got a perm and some real groovy rocker clothing, and I was surprised. They were a real class act - their experience showed and they rocked the place down. Stipe kept saying, "Hi, Hello. Hi. We're going to play another song." He seemed somewhat troubled by the fact that he didn't speak German. As a spokesman, he was very modest, but as a performer he was really confident and crazy and striking wacky poses when he didn't have to sing. They opened with "What's the frequency Kenneth?," played through lots of hits, lots of stuff from Monster, three new unrecorded songs they'd written while on tour, and finished with "It's the end of the world as we know it." Can I have some time alone?

Afterward, I had no idea what to do or how to find my friends or if I could get home or if I'd have to stay the night or what. I did know that I was extremely thirsty. It was so hot being packed together with all those people. Having been near the front, it took a while before I could really start walking as the whole crowd behind me had to disperse first. I finally broke free, made my way back across the field, drank an ice-tea, and decided that there was no hope of finding everyone else and that I was simply going to try and go home. First, I had trouble finding the festival exit and ended up lost among all the aisles of tents. I finally got out and it looked grim. There weren't any buses, although there were some people who looked like they were waiting for a bus, and everyone was confused and no one knew the answer to any of my questions and so I decided to try and walk to the train station since it hadn't seemed that far in the morning. There were lots of other people walking too - to their cars in distant parking lots and I thought of trying to get a ride back to Zurich - I even talked to a couple of guys who were going in the right direction, but they didn't seem to want to offer me anything. I met up with a German teenager also walking to the train station where his dad was supposedly coming to pick him up and drive him home across the border. It was maybe a 40 minute walk - I'm really not sure. Turns out there were sparse buses running all night. One passed us on our way.

When I got to the train station, there were about twenty other people sitting around and I quickly got the feeling that there were no trains till morning. It was 2 AM. First train - 5 AM! Plus, it was cold and I hadn't brought anything warm to wear - during the day, shorts and a t-shirt were plenty - but now... Most of the night I talked with some Canadian college student working for the summer doing room-service at some big-shot hotel in Geneva. He was from Montreal and reminded me in many ways of Elizabeth and he started to annoy me. Just before 5 AM, David showed up. He asked me where Matthew and Dick were and I said I didn't know, I thought they were with you. Apparently we were all separated. He'd stayed the night at the festival grounds in a beer tent. 5:02 rolled by and there was no train. Then we realized that the 5:02 was a weekday only train Oh, joy. One more hour. I was finally back in Zurich at 7. Later, David and I found out that Matthew and Dick had managed to hitch a ride back. Lucky.

This sleep deprivation exercise would normally have been no problem since I could've should slept Saturday away, but I had planned to meet Michele at the station in Bern at 10 AM to spend the weekend in Interlaken! I was home at 7:15. I showered and went to sleep. Michele had said that she'd call me at 8 AM to fill me in on the last minute details, so I managed to catch about 35 minutes of shut-eye before the phone woke me up. I was deep, deep asleep and had it not been for the fact that I had "programmed" myself to be expecting the call, I'm not sure what would've happened. As it was, I got up, knocked the phone on the floor, picked it up and said, "Hi, Michele." People can always tell from my voice if they've woken me up - Michele must've thought she'd reached me from the land of the dead. Later she told me that I should've postponed our rendezvous until later in the day. Duh, why didn't I think of that?

So I told her that I'd see her at the station in Bern at 10:13. I slept on the train and had the good fortune to have the coffee cart come by just before we arrived so I could have a much needed caffeine injection and a croissant. Michele was right where she said she'd be and this was the first time she'd seen me without my goatee - kind of funny to have someone who thinks the "clean-shaven" look is my "new" look. I told her all about "Out in the Green" and R.E.M. and apologized for my catatonic state.

We immediately boarded another train to take us to Thun, a small town on the Thuner See (one of the two lakes that Interlaken lies between) where we planned to take a boat across the lake to Beatenbucht en route to her sister's house in Interlaken. It was a boat exactly like the one I'd taken across lake Zurich to Rapperswil. The scenery was great - the Alps jutting up around us, many of them still with snow and Michele pointed out to me the house where she grew up and that her parents still live in - right up the hill from the lake with an incredible view. I told her that Montclair was nothing like this. Michele went to the bathroom and came back to find me asleep (and I discovered when I woke up) drooling on the bench. We arrived in Beatenbucht and I dragged my ass off the boat. I had my pack with me since I was "away for the weekend" and it was hot and I was tired and I felt so stupid. Michele had planned all of this really well and here I was barely awake, barely able to socialize - but I'd seen R.E.M. and had had a blast, so somehow I didn't regret it. But she's right - I should have postponed until later in the day - so I'm an idiot.

We walked a bit down the road to the funicular station and rode the funicular up, up, up the mountainside away from the lake through a tunnel of trees to the town of Beatenberg. We stopped for a drink at a cliffside cafe with steep, but justifiable prices. It was then about a twenty minute walk down the road to a ski lift that we rode to the tippity top of the Neiderhorn where we got a view of both sides of the mountain. We could see the Jungfrau and the whole Oberland. It was actually a bit cool way up there - but no snow on this peak. It was quite nice - nice enough to wake me up so I could enjoy it and spend some time just sitting up there chatting with Michele. We then frequented another justifiably expensive cafe for another drink before riding the ski lift back down. We then took a bus the rest of the way to Interlaken.

It was another 5 or 10 minute walk under the relentlessly hot sun to Michele's sister house. Not only was I tired, but my body ached from all that frisbee. I hadn't run around outside in way too long and my legs, arms, every muscle in my body was complaining in that sort-of-enjoyable way. I'm happy to say that although my back is still troubling me, it didn't complain about the frisbee in particular - now, if only lunch time ultimate was an option again...

At Michele's sister's house I did my best to meet her sister and brother-in-law with a smile and then quickly accepted the offer of a nap. Michele (ever the nurse) offered to make me some iced-tea to keep by the bed in case I woke up. I told her I wouldn't be waking up. They were going to let me sleep for about 3 hours - until 7 for dinner. I was out like a piece of petrified wood encased in epoxy. They figured they could wake me by sitting in the room and talking. They said they'd been in the room having a conversation for about 30 minutes before they started poking me. I was tired. Not just tired but exhausted. I can't remember the last time - well, maybe the Half dome hike last summer.

Michele's sister (her husband was out working - he's a professional musician - so Saturday night is big gig night) served some supremely tasty curried vegetables with rice and some fruit salad. After dinner, we hit the "panorama bar" at a local fancy hotel to catch the mountains as the light faded and then to a local bar to sip some drinks. I didn't complain when we went to bed on the early side.

A funny note - Michele is the one who suckered me into believing that we might go swimming in the sea in January in Castiglione - "Oh, it's different in Europe - the jet stream and all." Well, she did it again. I'm not as gullible as I used to be, but I'm still gullible - I mean, when there are lots of new things to learn, it's easy to get fooled. They had a foam mattress on the floor of the study for me, and Michele said that she'd sleep between her sister and brother-in-law on their bed. Now, this sounded strange to me, but she said it with such a Charlie Pokorny-straight-faced-good-bullshit-voice that I believed her. She then realized that I'd believed her and said, "You believed that?" There was a sofa bed in the TV room. Duh.

Sunday morning we went for breakfast in a big tent and listened to one of Michele's brother-in-law's bands - a band he's in with his brother - a 25 piece jazz band and they were pretty darn good. We heard them to the end and then walked back to Michele's sister's place on a trail along the lake. My body still ached but it felt so good to be awake and rested. When we got back we were all really hot and gulped down some water and relaxed. Then Michele and I rode bikes around Interlaken and along lake Brienzer (the other lake) down to a little restaurant on the water for a mid-afternoon snack before riding back. I watched about an hour of Wimbledon - SamprasBBecker with Sandro (the brother-in-law) before heading out with Michele to catch the train to Bern and then back to Zurich. What an exhausting but fun weekend!

Wednesday morning at about 8 AM (the phone witching hour) the phone rang and woke me up - who could it be? the PTT? Santa Claus? It was Sabilla Dense - a name that rang half a bell - but from where? My cousin Amy's grandmother, who lives in San Diego, had met some woman from Zurich while eating lunch at a local San Diego hotel. She'd said that I was in Zurich and gotten the woman's name and number. It was reported to me by Laura (Amy's mom) that this had happened and that I should call but that "you never know with my mother." I'd called the number, gotten an answering machine with a German message and simply left a message saying who I was, who I thought I was calling and why, and said if this made any sense that she could call me back. That was three weeks before. I'd already written the whole thing off. It was her on the phone - she could tell (naturally) that she'd woken me up. She explained that I was difficult to find at home so she had decided to try in the morning - effective technique. I was dead asleep so I simply wrote down her name and number and said I'd call her later in the day. I spoke to her later and we planned to meet for coffee on Sunday at 3 PM - she said she'd pick me up at my place on Eibenstrasse, though I'm not sure how she knew my address - these resourceful Swiss (actually, she's German).

Sunday at 3 rolled around and I was busily writing about Il Palio and waiting for my door buzzer when the phone rang instead. It was Sabilla - she realized that she didn't know where Eibenstrasse is. She doesn't know the trams and I don't know the streets and well, it was a bit difficult to give directions. She did know (sort of) where Schmiede Weidikon is - and that's one bus stop away from my place - so I'd said I'd meet her in front of the Migros supermarket there. I said I was wearing a green t-shirt. She said she was driving a black Mercedes! She gave me her car phone number in case anything went wrong. Car phone? OK, any Joe can have a car phone, but somehow this didn't match my expectations.

A few minutes later I was standing on a street corner in front of Migros looking for a black Mercedes. Suddenly, one appeared and it was a convertible (cool!) and there was a woman in it looking at me and we realized that we'd found each other and she was stopped at a green light and people were honking and I tried to signal that she should pull over across the intersection but she waved me on so I just ran and got into this black Mercedes with a complete stranger and we started to drive - somehow this seems like the start of a John Landis film. (OK, so I have a lot of run-on sentences in this travelogue.)

When I got e-mail about Amy's grandmother meeting "a nice young woman in Zurich," I had the image of a 20-something, student or recent-grad, tram-rider like myself. Perhaps this was wishful thinking. The last thing I was expecting was a recently-divorced-40-something, black-Mercedes-convertible-with-a-car-phone driver. The question of the moment was "Where to?" and we decided to cruise out into the countryside, visit an abbey in Einsiedeln, and then go for coffeeddessert at a hill-top restaurant.

It was really strange and somehow awkward at first as I adapted myself to her English and adjusted myself to the fact that she wasn't at all who I was expecting to meet. To be fair, I don't think that she was expecting me either. Amy's grandmother seems to have lost track of the difference between 20-something and 40-something. Actually, I don't know Sabilla's age. I finally asked her if she was married because somehow it seemed like a relevant question. I mean who was this woman and what was she doing with me on a Sunday afternoon and why hadn't she mentioned her husband yet? She said that she was recently divorced after 24 years of marriage. From this and her looks, I say she must be in her mid to late 40's. After a while, things loosened up and we were chatting and having fun just shooting the shit with each other. Two lonely people in Zurich.

After the restaurant, she drove me home (somehow we managed to navigate). We'd both had a sincerely good time and we exchanged more phone numbers so that we'd be easier to find and said that we should get together sometime. She was happy to practice her English with me and said that maybe I could help her learn to use her computer sometime.

This past Friday night, I went down to Bellevueplatz just to see what might be going on. There was a three piece rock band (guitar, bass, drums) set up playing covers at the tram stop. They had a crowd of at least a hundred people all dancing and having fun. They rocked and I spent the evening at the tram stop enjoying the free entertainment. It was a genuine street party. Arsineo Hall eat your heart out.

That's all. Phew.



Copyright 1997 by Bradley Edelman
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E-mail: Brad Edelman