Nick Cave Never Did This

I’m off to do some “promo” for my latest opus Soap and Water.

First stop Hamburg. Cooking Vinyl sweetheart Colete booked me into the Europpaisdcher Hotel directly across from the train station. Think: totally urban. You recovering addicts out there know how train stations are.

It was a stupid hot night at the end of a stupid hot day. Everyone is in the sidewalk cafes until 2, 3 in the AM sucking up every last minute of it.

On first glance the Hotel struck me as the kind of place Fidel Castro might feel comfortable. But it displayed more than two stars and it certainly didn’t smell like piss.

After a not so long day of answering questions about the new record and what it all means, I was relaxing in the bar all by my lonesome, where I enjoyed the great service and hospitality along with more than one cappuccino, and the thought that this is perhaps one of the last places- if not THE last place on earth someone might come up to your table and offer to twist some balloons into the shape of a poodle for you and your date.

Oh yes, I was chilling alright, (note to self: this might have been a good time to take up a Cuban cigar habit). Still, I couldn’t help thinking there was something unsettling, something ulterior, something JUST NOT RIGHT about the joint. The Lite-Brite room numbers were one thing, the 70’s era Lego-like color scheme another. (Dig the inset photo of the booth with the red Bat Phone). What really messed my mind up were the photo’s in the lobby. You see, upon checking in I thought I noticed a photo of what looked a like a replica of the Manteca Waterslides. And for that brief second before I put it out of my mind, I was like, what’s THAT?

I got bored. I got restless. It was late. I was wide awake. I wandered around. I found an indoor pool on 2/3 floor with a little pool that had a circular light at one end. Turns out that light is the opening of this tube contraption. In a 10th of a second the night can turn around on you. What I just stumbled upon, was an indoor water-slide that starts on the 6th floor and winds around between the corridor of the hotel and dumps into a baby pool just off the main pool.

There’s a kind of reception area with a woman at the counter. After I plop down 19 Euro’s of my hard earned merch cash and purchased a swimsuit in the conveniently located gift shop, she gives me my own robe, a towel and a locker key and points toward the locker room as if it’s all perfectly normal.

There was no one around.

Rocked that slide too many times to count. Back and forth. You shoot through the thing like a canon. Then you get right back on an elevator. Dripping. Back up to the 6th floor and climb feet first into a tube.

And WHOOOSH!

And coulnd’t help but thinking this must be illegal.

Topped the slide off with a sauna. Thank god I was alone in there or I might have gotten some odd looks. Germans love to get naked and I’m like, no thanks I’ll keep my suit on. I just bought it an hour ago, I’ll probably never wear it again.

I’ll tell you one thing: Nick Cave never did this.