A Ministry of Music

Steely Dan Cassette

Jul 2, 2010 music cassettes
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Steely Dan Cassette

"Yet for me the first great joy of traveling is simply the luxury of leaving all my beliefs and certainties at home, and seeing everything I thought I knew in a different light, and from a crooked angle."

-Pico Iyer

In 1990 it had been moths since the last brick of the Berlin wall had been removed but the champagne corks still burst in the air. A Unified Germany welcomed an American engineering firm to help design and build the first GSM cell phone network in Europe. GSM, or Global System for Mobile Communications, promised to revolutionize the way people communicated with each other.

As an American engineer hoisted his glass of champagne at the opening of the Mannesmann Mobilfunk office in Tiergarten, he couldn't help but sense in the German team, for lack of a better word...stagnancy.

The following day the German technical manager, Her Schmidt, formally introduced the American engineer to the design group, made up of engineers from both West and East Berlin-a tribute to unification. At the end of the work day a West German engineer eyed the American apologetically and warned him to lock his drawers before leaving. He said one of the East German engineers had worked for the Stasi, the infamous security service, and would go through the drawers at night. The next day the American listened to an East German quietly complain that the West Germans worked more hours than the contract called for that he wore in his shirt pocket.

When the work began, though, the East and West Germans rolled up their sleeves and worked together. After all, Berlin represented the pride of a unified Germany-soon to be her new capital. Still, the American couldn't get away from his feeling that they were complacent.

The American befriended a West Berliner, a vegetarian architect named Herr Muller. He resembled a balding Elton John and wore black plastic glasses with coke-bottle lenses. Herr Muller drove like a terror down Bismarck Strasse, where Hitler's tanks had once rumbled along to the cheers of thousands.

The system design required the team to survey many of Berlin's tall buildings for potential antenna installations. Herr Muller, wearing a two-beers-for-lunch grin, would pull out a Mannesmann Mobilfunk flyer and greet the Hausmeister, or building superintendent. He never failed to gain entrance to the buildings after appealing to the Hausmeister's sense of nationalistic duty. Their Berlin excursions always included other design engineers from both east and west and the drives tended to be quiet except for the American engineer's many questions. The Germans would often discuss a question before one of them from the west (the East Berliners spoke very little English) would attempt to answer it in English.

At the end of the first week Herr Muller invited the American engineer to his party. Deutsche conversation dominated the small flat, filled with people the American had never met. Curiously, none of the East Berliner engineers at work were present. Herr Muller pulled icy Konigs Pils beers out of a ceramic tub with bronze pig's feet in his small living room. The tub resembled some of the urban Berliner art Herr Muller had pointed out to him.

A young purple-haired Fraulein standing next to the American stared at a piece of "The Wall" hanging from the ceiling. With melancholy eyes she said, "When the wall was up we listened to American rock and it kept us going."

She surprised the American. "How did you get the music-was it smuggled in?" he asked.

She laughed, waved over Herr Muller, and said, "No, the American Armed Forces Radio, AFN, broadcast rock music twenty-four hours a day over the radio, even to the east sector."

"Yah, my favorite group is Lynyrd Skynyrd," Herr Muller said, suddenly at the American's side, his face more animated than the American had seen it before. "Sweet home Alabama," Herr Muller sang out, quite loudly. Other members of the party gathered around and began lifting Konigs Pils beer and singing:

"Big wheels keep a turning,

Carry me home to see my kin,

Singing songs about the southland.

I miss old bamy once again and I think it's a sin."

The party turned into a whirlwind of song, drink and dance. The American got caught up in their tribute to American classic rock and the conversation switched to English. He listened to happy stories, sad stories, all with a touch of melancholy for they were about the past. It baffled him that West Berliners could long for the good-ole-days before the wall came down; when people were shot trying to escape over it, commodities were scarce, and Berlin was an island surrounded by communism.

The next week, the American dug into the bottom of his air-freight box for cassette tapes-he too loved American classic rock-and resurrected the likes of Steely Dan, Led Zeppelin, and Deep Purple. At work he lobbied for and received a survey van from Mannesmann Mobilfunk that would seat up to seven engineers for their site visits. Herr Schmidt stared at him quizzically when he mentioned it must be equipped with an in-dash cassette stereo.

Their maiden voyage in the survey van was memorable. Herr Muller still drove like holy terror down the streets of Berlin but now a smile couldn't escape his face. All seven engineers, from East Berlin and West Berlin including the American, sang: "We don't need no ed-u-ca-tion..." from Pink Floyd's "Another Brick in the Wall."

Mannesmann Mobilfunk in Berlin proudly introduced GSM cell phone service the next summer, a few days ahead of schedule. Champagne corks burst in the air in the Tiergarten office. With Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young singing, "Our House," in the background, the American engineer happily sipped on another glass of bubbly. Herr Muller, a proud West Berliner, had his arm slung over the shoulder of a co-worker from the east. Muller nodded his head slightly, beamed a smile in the direction of the American, and raised the glass of champagne in his other hand.

The American hoisted his glass toward Herr Muller and the East German engineer-unification was complete.

Doyle Matthews is a former U.S. Foreign Service officer and civilian radio engineer who has had over sixty-five visas stamped in a shoebox full of passports (including diplomatic). He has written four novels, two of which are in publication http://doylematthewsnovels.com

Nowadays, he spends his time between Los Angeles and Bangkok. The two "City of Angels" provide provocative material to populate his "idea" files for future stories and articles.

Mr. Matthews' current passion is to help stressed out overworked Silicon Valley engineers, who are beset by deadlines to find the time to grow as individuals and get a life. http://engineertimemanagement.com

TEAC W-860R Cassette Deck