W. BRUCE CAMERON - Oktoberfest

Oct 07, 20100

“Oktoberfest” is a festival named after October and held in September. If you were in Munich last month, you were probably celebrating by eating vast quantities of Rokeg (meat and blood pastry), Schweinshaxe (ham hock) and Alka-Seltzer.

The whole thing is apparently a lot of fun, with men dressed in short pants and singing songs about their wunderbar Stekerlfisch (wonderful fish on a stick). Something like 6.6 million people are participating this year, drinking 7 million liters of beer, eating 58 thousand pork knuckles and standing in line for the 980 bathrooms. I know what you’re thinking — that’s not very many bathrooms for 7 million liters of beer, but keep in mind that in Germany they use the metric system, so they don’t have to go as often.

So next time someone asks you if you’d like a knuckle sandwich, he is probably just asking you to accompany him to Oktoberfest. Just be sure to use the bathroom before you go.

The women dress pretty wunderbar, with plunging necklines in their dirndls that reveal a fair amount of Oktoberflesh. Even the dogs have outfits — a woman named Nicole-Juliana Schrei-Jakobi has created a full line of canine lederhosen and dirndls so that German dogs can look as silly as their owners.

Lederhosen are the short leather pants with suspenders and long socks that make a man look completely unmarriageable. The Lollypop Guild guys wore them in the “Wizard of Oz.” The woman also has designed a bridesmaid dress for her Maltese, so the dog can be maid of honor at her wedding. The awkwardly named Nicole-Juliana Schrei-Jakobi is marrying Hugo-Hermann Ebersbacher-Baumgartner. (Not really, I just wanted to write that sentence.)

According to Reuters, the Maltese bridesmaid is named Emmily and was first-place winner in the reality show “Germany’s Next Dog Model.” Apparently, the TV executives in Germany are no brighter than the ones in America. I imagine, though, that if your idea of a fun time is to put on a leather munchkin outfit, drink beer, eat inedible pig parts and see how long you can go without needing to use the bathroom, a TV show in which dogs compete to be supermodels must seem pretty entertaining.

Another must-have in the Oktoberfest fashion department is the Tirolerhut, which is like a short dunce cap with goat hair sticking out of it. Tradition has it that the more goat hair you’ve got, the wealthier you must be, which I guess makes sense if you’re totally crazy. Apparently, the beautiful frauleins in their daring dirndls will look over at a guy with big tufts of goat hair under his hat and say, “Wow, I want to meet that guy in the short pants!”

I’ve never been to Oktoberfest, so I’ve never worn lederhosen and I’m not sure what they’re really talking about when they say “fish on a stick.” But some of the tourist information is a bit bewildering, such as this entry from a brochure:

Braurosl (Hacker-Pschorr) has the usual brass band and yodeler.

I am just not able to conceive of a situation where a brass band and a yodeler are “usual.” Yodeling was initially developed by Alpine people so they could communicate from mountaintop to mountaintop, saying ,”Hey, dummy, you’re on the wrong mountain!” I don’t know how it evolved from that to something you’d want to sit and listen to with trombone and tuba accompaniment. I find that it’s very entertaining to hear yodelers perform, as long as they stop.

Other tidbits from the brochure:

This year marks the 200th anniversary of Oktoberfest, and, to celebrate, opening day festivities included horses dressed in costumes. Probably the horses now regret they ever laughed at the dogs in lederhosen.

After considerable debate, it was decided not to ban smoking in the tents, but there is a no-smoking section so the non-smokers can get their smoke secondhand.

Cell-phone use is banned in the bathrooms, so if you want to have a conversation with someone, they’ll hear a yodeler in the background and picture you in tiny pants. They won’t be able to help it.

Oktoberfest is now officially over — until next September.

CREATORS.COM