Richie Hawtin (and therefore, by proxy, Detroit) is... ubercoolishe

"It's like trying to define hip... You can give a hundred examples of what it isn’t, but man, you’re gonna have a hell of a time saying what it is." -Del Close

You'll have an ever harder time when you're trying to tie your second-string techno town into the Berlin club scene. You start (and stop) with Plastikman, who was awesome -- eight years ago. Also fading fast are his haircut, stupid reflective lyrics, and Detroit techno, in that order. It's beating a dead horse, but a dead horse that is also a pinata filled with middle-class, middle-American money.

No blood, no foul, right? But have you read the article? Painful lines like "Underground Berlin’s community of controlled madness -- where radical thinkers and doers enjoy the freedom to be uncomfortable and social at the same time," and words like "avant-gay" and "thoughtscapes" relentlessly push this piece into a retardulous netherworld. No holds are barred in presenting us with a load of collated bullshit about clubs, DJs, pot, and techno. It's insanely weak, so conspicuously sketchy that it inspired Ubercoolische, a website that satirizes every inch of it.

I hope Ubercoolische was written by a German (ach, it wasn't); in any case, you should read it, Act 1 to Finale, because it's really funny and does the best it can to bring the levels back down to 0. Perhaps it's premature to judge Richie and company by "Losing Your Mind in Berlin" -- they're obviously good enough sports to literally buy into the joke. Wait a tic -- did those profiteers engineer this whole stunt?