"Look Harry, a telephone!"
- Derrek (old detective series that used to run on Norwegian tv). Taught me everything I know of the German language, which is surprinsingly much! I once talked to a german girl for one hour, me in english, she in German, and it went really well. People listening in gaping :)
- Hitler (really evil guy with a mindblowingly ugly mustache and a penchant for bad painting ). Probably the worst human being to ever have walked this earth.
- Leni Riefenstahl – Documentary filmmaker for Nazi Germany. I had the misfortune to see one of her films at Tromsø International Film festival some years ago, and fell asleep after 30 minutes. Don’t know if that says more about me or her abilities as a film maker, or if I simply find Hitler Germany tedious.
- “Jah Helga ich komme” – Ah, the fond memories of German soft porn on RTL. For some reason RTL was included in the basic cable tv package in my home town, and now and again they would air the most ridiculous shows with Germans in Lederhosens trying their best to shame their country and the human race in general, running around half naked and jumping in haystacks etc. Ooooh, Helga, slap my buttocks!
- Yodeling. Yodeling kicks ass!
- Die toten hosen – Great punk rock! I was on “Interrail” one summer, traveling around Europe on the cheap, and met two Germans that I travelled with through Portugal, and they had tapes with Die Toten Hosen that I swapped with my own mix tapes. We went swimming one day and the waves where hitting the shore so hard that my swimming shorts actually got ripped down the side. I had to hold them together with my hands. When I threw them away I just had to shout “Die Toten Hosen” (dead pants). Drew laughs, good memory. Homepage: http://www.dietotenhosen.de (PS: I have no idea what they are singing about, so if it is something evil and offending, then flame THEM, not me, mkay?)
- Herman Hesse – I had a long “religious period”, and one of my favorite books where Siddharta by Herman Hesse. Stephenwolf is also pretty good.
- Update, 10th of february 2009: Learned something new: “When I hear the word culture, I reach for my gun” – a famous quote usually “credited” to various Nazi leaders, like Hermann Göring, Heinrich Himmler and Joseph Goebbels, is actually (maybe?) from a theater play called Schlageter by writer Hanns Johst , first performed for Hitler’s birthday in 1933.
- Beer festivals! WTF!