Life would never be the same again, he knew that.
What a rich history the German city of Munich has. If we swing back to November 1923, we would find a very young Adolf Hitler, a baby-ish thirty-four, and thousands of his fellow national socialists raising hell, killing cops etc.
All the gang was there. Göring. Hess. And so on.
Hitler was found guilty of treason and sent to the can for five years where he would write the best-seller Mein Kampf, Chas Smith’s inspiration, ninety years later, for an issue of Stab.
Five years after Hitler’s release, the nat socialists then embarked on an ambitious program to rule the world while ceding the Pacific, including Australia and the USA, to the Japanese Empire.
It ended with a bang etc.
In this short clip, taken from the Eisbach’s Rapid Jam held on July 28, a naked man attempts to dance down a rail into the water, and into considerable glory, but a horrible slip, suggesting terrific damage to gonads, ensures a wild response from spectators and competitors.
Did you know the joint is crowded? That localism is a thing? That Kelly Slater got told to go home by an arch local known as the House Meister? And so on?
And have you ever wondered what it be like to have your balls sliced off by a medical pro? Here’s a short story in the style of Ernest Hemingway about a man, a doctor and a knife.
He stood there in the stark white room, the cold linoleum floor beneath his bare feet. The light was harsh, unforgiving, casting sharp shadows on the walls. There was no need for words; the doctor’s eyes said it all. This was it. This was the moment he had dreaded, the moment he had fought against in his mind, but now it was real, and there was no turning back.
He thought back to the days before, to the days of youth and virility, when life was a dance of endless possibilities. He had felt invincible then, with dreams of conquest and glory in his heart. But life had a way of humbling a man, of bringing him to his knees, and now he stood there, stripped of his former self, ready to face the blade.
The doctor moved closer, his face expressionless, his hands steady. He had performed this procedure countless times before, and to him, it was just another day at the office. But to the man standing there, it was everything. It was a loss of identity, of purpose, of what it meant to be a man.
He closed his eyes, trying to summon the courage to go through with it. He thought of his loved ones, of the woman he had left behind, of the children he had never had. Would they understand? Would they still love him, accept him, with this part of him taken away?
The room seemed to close in on him, the walls pressing against his chest. He took a deep breath, trying to calm the tremor in his hands. This was a choice he had made, he reminded himself. A choice to live, to survive, to escape the clutches of a disease that threatened to consume him.
The doctor’s voice cut through the silence, his words crisp and matter-of-fact. There was no room for sentimentality here, no time for second-guessing. It was time to face the truth, to confront the reality of his situation. He nodded, his throat dry, his heart pounding like a war drum in his chest.
And then it was done. The blade had done its work, and he was forever changed. He felt a strange mix of relief and emptiness, as if a weight had been lifted from his shoulders but had been replaced by an unfillable void.
He dressed silently, the doctor already moving on to the next patient, the next life to be altered. As he stepped out into the world, he felt a strange detachment from it all. The people on the streets seemed like ghosts, their voices distant and indistinct.
He walked, not knowing where he was going, not caring. The sun was setting, casting long shadows across the pavement. He thought of all the other men who had faced the same choice, the same fate, and he felt a kinship with them, a brotherhood of sacrifice.
Life would never be the same again, he knew that. But as he walked into the fading light, he felt a glimmer of hope, a spark of something new. He was still a man, still a human being, and though a part of him was gone, he was still alive, still breathing, still fighting. And in the end, that was all that mattered.
