Dear Diary,
Last night I tried to learn German but didn’t.
In a few weeks I’m traveling abroad because my life is dope and I do dope shit. In preparation I thought it’d be a good idea to start learning some German phrases. The only problem? When I went to google German phrases, I accidently googled David Hasselhoff instead. Common mistake I assume.
Diary, do you know how dope David Hasselhoff is?
The dude has been in some really cool shit. Sure, he had those iconic roles in Baywatch and Knight Rider (Which, by the way, if you don’t think Knight Rider is permanently embedded in American culture, you need jump into Microsoft Word, type “Night Rider” without the quotes, and watch Clippy’s underground army of underliners flip the fuck out.), but I didn’t realize he had been in so much cool modern shit.
Just going down his IMDB at random here, but he’s made cameos in movies like The SpongeBob Square Pants Movie, Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story, and Click (Honestly, fuck Click, but people irrationally defend that movie for some reason), while popping up in TV shows like Sons of Anarchy, West Wing, and The Young and the Restless, which, oh by the way, has been on air for 42 YEARS! (42! The Young and the Restless is the meaning of life! Shout-out to Douglas Adams fans.) He was also in Anaconda: The Offspring and Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No!, two straight to TV movies I haven’t seen, but will undoubtedly watch at some point in my life. The Hoff’s career might not be littered with Oscar-worthy performances, or tons of life-altering dramatic roles, but damn, tell me that doesn’t sound like a fun life!
His IMDB naturally lead me to his Wikipedia page, where I took away three major things:
1.) He was born in Baltimore, Maryland, which what? That doesn’t seem right. He definitely wouldn’t have fit in on The Wire. But learning that fact on his Wikipedia page lead me to a link titled “History of Germans in Baltimore”, which featured a subcategory called “Notable German-Americans in Baltimore”, which did not include The Hoff, but did list Babe Ruth, who is dead, and also buried in New York, which is definitely not where Baltimore is, so I figured maybe they had meant to title the subcategory “Notable German-Americans born in Baltimore”, for which I suppose Bath Ruth would qualify for if you can even consider anyone born in America as German-American, but there’s a whole bunch of dudes on that list that were born in Germany so that theory doesn’t work, and if it’s just famous people with German ties that lived in Baltimore, then how is the The Hoff not on that list? He’s definitely more German than Babe Ruth, but maybe he’s really just American-German instead of German-American? Either way, I love you Wikipedia, but the curation on the “History of Germans in Baltimore” page is hot garbage.
2.) The Hoff has his own casino app with a Valentine’s Day theme. I don’t want to question The Hoff’s business acumen, but I’m just not sure who the target market is for that app? Was it designed for degenerate gamblers who want to romance money, in hopes of luring it to bed before throwing it down hard on red? No sane guy in the world is going to give the gift of a Valentine’s Day themed casino app to their significant other on Valentine’s Day. There’s definitely guys dumb enough to do that (and just guys because women give like, real actually thoughtful gifts from the heart), but there can’t be enough of those idiots to actually make that a viable market segment. Maybe it’s a European thing? Do Europeans celebrate Valentine’s Day year-round by gambling away Euros on digital slot machines? Related: is Cupid a metaphor for financial risk? Man, I know even less about Europe than when I started this. (Ben note: Going back and rereading Wikipedia, I now realize the app was just launched on Valentine’s Day, but may or may not be Valentine’s Day themed. I stand by this paragraph regardless.)
3.) The Hoff helped Dirk Nowitzki win an NBA title. Dirk “made a joke” about signing Hasslehoff’s 1989 hit single “Looking for Freedom” during free throws attempts (Dirk, dude, it’s okay to sing corny crap when you’re shooting free throws. You’re one of the greatest basketball players ever. Do you.) in the 2006 NBA Finals. Miami Heat fans responded by waving cardboard Hasselhoff heads at Dirk during games. The Heat went on to win the series, and Dirk went back home and cried sad, lonely, drunken tears with “Looking for Freedom” on repeat on in the background. Years later, when Miami had cultivated a team that was essentially the Monstars from Space Jam, Dirk would use the pain from that dark, Hasselhoff-driven place, and transform into a basketball angel, willing Dallas to an NBA title. If not for The Hoff, Dirk never finds THE SPIRIT OF THE CHAMPION inside himself.
Anyway, I didn’t learn any German.
Later Diary!
Ben
Ben and Siya Blog Shit 
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