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Nina
Hagen
By
Rob Rosen
I was on my way to see Nina Hagen perform at the DNA Lounge. It had been a long while since I’d been there, but I figured that Nina had few touring years left in her and I’d better not miss the opportunity. Nearing fifty, I assumed her vocal chords were reaching their limits as well. Though, if you’ve heard Nina sing before, I suppose she’d sound much the same way before, during and after the limit. In any case, I braved a Sunday evening in SoMa, choosing to walk rather than catch a cab. Why not? It was warm. Well, warm enough. And I’d certainly walked through that part of SoMa before. Many times and to many bars. Or should that be “too” many bars? Yes, I was reaching my limit as well, though fifty was still a good ways off. Thank God.
And yet, it always feels just a tad unsafe to make the walk from Market Street up 11th. It’s dark, mostly deserted and there are just a few too many alleyways for my liking. But again, this was for Nina Hagen. The Nina Hagen. It had been my dream since I was a teenager to see her live. Ever since I saw her in Cream magazine with that black strap-on dildo tied around her waist. Now that was a woman I could relate to. So I made the trek through SoMa. Alone, as not many of my friends shared my predilection for the grandmother of German punk.
I sang a little of NunSexMonkRock under my breath as I walked. It relaxed me. I had made it to Mission Street, passing the darkened side of the GoodWill warehouse, without incident. Almost. Just as I was about to make my way across the street, a beat-up, ancient, brown Chevy Impala pulled up along side of me. The windows were down and I could smell the vestiges of a joint and could clearly make out the music blaring from the rear speakers of the car. “Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto, domo.” It wasn’t Nina, but it would do in a pinch.
“Hey,” shouted the stranger in the strange car.
“Hey,” I answered, bending down to see whom I was talking to.
“Um, where am I?” he asked, which wasn’t as odd as it sounded considering that we were in San Francisco and all.
“Mission and 11th,” I responded, smiling all the while. From my vantage point I could see that he was about my age and cute. Cute enough for me to remain friendly, despite the bad-ish neighborhood.
“No, I mean what part am in?” he asked.
“Ah, you’re in SoMa,” I said, moving closer to the car. The song had changed to Jukebox Hero. The stranger must have had a compilation on. Still, not an awful selection.
“Huh?” he asked, leaning in closer to the passenger seat window in order to get a better earful. Now I could see him better as well. He was blond, with long hair down to the middle of his back and he had an equally blond goatee, which hung a couple of inches down his chin. He was nice looking, symmetrically speaking. Even in the dim light I could see he had blue eyes. Oh, and yes, like the song said, he had stars in them. But that might have been the pot. And no, he wasn’t my type, not by a long shot, but it was late, I was alone and, well, did I mention that he was cute?
“SoMa,” I said again, slowly and louder. “Rhymes with coma.”
“Ah,” he said, and nodded. “My bad. I was looking for The Mission. Isn’t this The Mission?”
“No, you’re on Mission Street, but a ways out of The Mission,” I explained, bending further down and almost leaning into the car so he’d be able to hear me clearly. (Okay, I was flirting.)
He pondered on what I had said and then looked back up to me for advice. “Could you point me in the right direction?”
“Sure, just stay on this street and when you start seeing Latinos, you’re probably in The Mission.”
“Thanks,” he said, turning back to face the road. He was off with a wave and a smile. I watched his car as it drove down Mission Street.
Oh well, I thought, no harm no foul. Now, back to Nina.
Staying on 11th, I crossed Mission and once again made my way towards the DNA Lounge. I sang Born in Xixax. My mood turned from apprehension to glee. In just a couple of short blocks, I’d be standing in the same building as Nina Hagen. Hallelujah.
I started to cross Kissling, but something out of the corner of my eye made me stop. The brown Impala was headed back my way, this time in the opposite direction. It had circled the block and, for the second time, it stopped at my feet.
“You get lost again?” I asked, secretly glad to see him.
“Nope, not exactly.”
“You need directions again?”
He paused and thought on that one. “Nope, not exactly?”
“Well, what exactly then?” I stood there, shifting my weight from my left foot to my right one. I was anxious to hear what the exactly was.
“Where were you headed?” he asked. “I thought I’d offer you a ride, since you were kind enough to help me out.”
Hmm, nice, if a bit unexpected.
“Oh, actually, I’m headed right down there,” I said, pointing just past Slim’s, which I could easily see a few hundred feet up the street. He followed my finger with his eyes and nodded before he spoke again.
“Oh, okay,” he said, without emotion, but still sat there with the engine running. The Kid is Hot Tonight was now blaring from the speakers. Appropriate, I thought, and a better selection than the previous two. I looked at the stranger, waiting for him to say something else, anything else, and I sang in my head, “but where will he be tomorrow?”
After a brief moment, with no further repartee, I said, “Well, I better get going to my concert then.”
That perked him up. “Oh, you’re going to a concert?”
“Yep. Nina Hagen. Right there at the DNA Lounge.”
“Nina Hagen? No kidding? She still singing? She must be near fifty now,” he said, grinning and nodding his head back and forth in disbelief. I was amazed he even knew who she was. His musical tastes didn’t seem to point towards Nina Hagen and, though famous in certain circles, she wasn’t exactly a household name. Unless your house was, say, in Berlin.
“Mind if I join you?” he asked, grinning up at me. “I’m a Nina Hagen fan from way back.”
Hmm. That was a toughie. Yes, he was cute, but he was also a stranger I had just met on the street. Just barely met, I should say. Still, I wasn’t totally thrilled at seeing the concert alone and so…
“Sure, why not. I mean, it’s not every day you get to see Nina Hagen perform live.”
“Hell no,” he agreed, and opened the door for me to get in, which was kind of silly considering all he had to do was turn his car up 11th Street and then park a couple of hundred feet up. But I got in and rode with him for the minute or two it took to park.
“Name's Jeff,” he said, pulling the car into a parking space in front of Butter, nearly across from the club. I figured that the parking Gods must like him and, therefore, I must have made a good decision.
“Steve,” I introduced myself, shaking his hand once he was done parking.
“Nice to meet you Steve,” he said, grinning at me. “This should be fun.”
“Won’t your friends in The Mission be worried?” I asked, curious that he was suddenly so available.
“I wasn’t meeting anyone in The Mission. I was just looking for it. This is my first time in San Francisco and I have a room at a cheap hotel there, but that can wait,” he explained, getting out of the car.
Okay by me, I thought.
Thankfully, there was someone scalping a ticket as we walked up to the club. As I suspected, the concert was sold out. This was, after all, a big deal to a lot of people. A lot of people dressed in black with heavy black eyeliner and heavy black army boots, to be exact. Jeff and I stood out in our jeans and tee shirts. Though Jeff’s rather hippy-like appearance made him stand out even more than most.
We walked in and quickly got our bearings. Bar to the right, dance floor to the left, stage to the far end of the dance floor, upstairs for coat check or to view the festivities below. Not much had changed. I was glad, this would be the perfect way to get close to Nina. And Jeff. But first…
“Drink?” I asked, already bellying up to the bar.
“Gin and tonic,” he responded.
“Two gin and tonics,” I informed the bartender, a tall man in pigtails and bright red lipstick.
“To Nina,” I said, clinking our plastic cups together.
“To Nina,” he echoed, his blue eyes twinkling beneath the dance floor lighting.
We stood there like that, drinking our drinks, our feet bouncing up and down to the eclectic mix of pre-show music, until the crowd started to swell and we were pushed closer and closer together. My leg quickly ran up against his leg, my arm was brushing his. He turned to me and smiled. I did the same. The loud music, thankfully, muffled the sound of my increasingly beating heart.
And then…
“Ladies and gentleman, please welcome to the stage…Miss…Nina Hagen.”
And there she was. My God, she looked exactly as she had way back in the early eighties. Big black hair, big black lips, big black smudged eyeliner and eye shadow and a matching big, black frilled skirt. Her skin was still the same milky white and in her hair she wore a bouncing blue butterfly. The effect was dazzling. She was dazzling. Yes, I was dazzled. And looking over at Jeff, I could tell I wasn’t alone. It’s like she had been cryogenically frozen for the last twenty years, popping out of an MTV time machine, to perform for us at the DNA Lounge here in the next century.
Oh, and when she sang, man, it was magic. I had always assumed her voice was produced on her albums. Surely no human being could drag their vocals through the pits of the low bass to the high screech of the upper most limits of soprano. But there she was, effortlessly running through her scales like Kate Bush on acid. I had goose bumps.
Actually, the biggest bump I felt was coming from behind me. I could swear I felt Jeff’s crotch pressing against my ass. Of course, the crowd was pressing forward in an effort to get as close as possible to the diva herself and, with Jeff behind me and to my right a bit, he had little choice but to press against me. Still, I took it as a good sign.
Two or three songs into the concert, and with the gin amply taking effect, and with Jeff’s crotch still poking me from behind, I decided to be brave and made a strategic move. I swung my right arm around my back and placed the back of my invitingly open hand against my hip. Well, sure as shootin’, he took the bait. He shifted over a couple of inches and now his crotch was firmly pressed against my hand. I gently gave a squeeze to see what reaction I’d get, just in case I was tactically off base.
I wasn’t, he moved even closer to me, so I could feel his breathe on the back of my neck. Now, normally I wasn’t so brazen. But normally I wasn’t in SoMa on a Sunday night by myself with a perfect stranger. How many times would I get this chance? Judging from my previous ten years experiences, I’d say none. So I played on. The fourth song, Cosma Shiva, Nina’s daughter’s name and one of my all time favorite songs, bolstered my bravado.
I could feel he had on 501’s, which, fortuitously, have those lovely gaps in between the buttons. I deftly jimmied my index finger through one of the holes and let my finger do some walking. Woohoo, no underwear. Even better, Jeff was already semi-hard. By the end of the song, my finger was practically stuck in his now swollen jeans. It was all I could do to concentrate on the show.
Song number five was New York, New York, Nina’s first big dance hit. Being from said city, I took it as an omen to continue my exploring. I added another finger to the fray and effortlessly unbuttoned one, then two, of the buttons. My hand now easily slid into his jeans. A soft moan erupted from Jeff onto the back of my neck. Jeff put both of his hands on my shoulders and moved in even tighter. The only way anyone could have seen what we were up to was if they were crouching on the ground along side of us. An impossible stunt given the size and depth of the crowd.
Jeff was just the right size in my hand, but still, I was cramped. So I slowly worked him outside his jeans until his cock and balls were brazenly hanging against my pants. It was an unusual sensation to be standing there, surrounded by a throng of people, unaware that a partially naked man was being stroked right in front of them. I ached to turn around and see the expression on his face, but new it might call attention to the scene below. Instead, I stood there, dancing to the music, singing along with Nina, and stroking Jeff. A truly magical, once in a lifetime moment.
A good hour into the show, both Nina’s and our own, I added fuel to the fire by inconspicuously spitting into my hand so as not to rub Jeff raw. He responded with another moan and an even harder cock in my hand. That was all I needed and I started pounding his prick even harder and in time with the music. When he tightened his hold of my shoulders, I knew there was no turning back. After a quick frenzy of rapid strokes and with his hard-on pointed down to the ground, he shot his hefty load straight onto the dance floor. Luckily, by that time, there was so much shit down there I seriously doubted that anyone would ever notice. Jeff’s softening prick found it’s way back into it’s home and the event was sadly over.
With almost an hour left of the show, I returned my concentration back to the stage, almost forgetting that Jeff was there. And when she was finished and the house lights were turned back up, I turned around and said, “Wow, that was amazing.” But Jeff was nowhere in sight. I waited around for a while, but he never returned. And when I left the club, his car was no longer there.
Oh well, I thought, it was still an amazing night. But when I turned to start walking back down 11th Street and towards my home, I noticed something in the street where Jeff’s car had been parked. There was a cassette lying there, which I bent down to pick up. Written across the tape, in pen, was, “Best of a Decade”. Yep, I thought, the eighties were a great time, but hey, the next century was looking brighter by the moment.
Copyright © 2002 Rob Rosen
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