Stupid Luck and Happenstance, Thread III
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Part 140, Chapter 2422
Chapter Two Thousand Four Hundred Twenty-Two
5th December 1975
Charlottenburg, Berlin
Grading papers in the staffroom was how Jo spent most of her afternoons. She didn’t like working in her classroom once the students went home for the day. It was too quiet and various noises in the room would drive you insane as Jo had discovered when she had started at this school this year. At the moment, she was reading an essay written by a student of hers who was too clever by half. It was the sort of paper that would get the student a high mark, except it was as if he were deliberately trying to anger Jo.
Once Suse moved out of the house they had shared in Wunsdorf, Jo had decided that she needed a change of scenery, and it would be nice to work with students who were not old enough to vote. The job offer Jo had received from the Realschule in Charlottenburg had come at a good time. Finding an apartment in Berlin was taking longer than she had thought that it would though, and she was commuting across town from Kat’s house in Tempelhof.
“What are you doin’ Josie?” A rough voice asked, as there was a pop-hiss of a can of beer opening.
Jo looked up and saw Ian, who Jo guessed was a Welsh transplant because he said he had lived in Cardiff, who taught English in the Realschule and coached the Football team. He looked less like a teacher than anyone else who Jo had encountered. Even wearing the clothes appropriate for someone in his position, Ian still looked the part of the Rocker that he was during his off hours. Ian had told Jo all about how he had originally come to Berlin to be a Builder but because of the visas had gotten messed up, he had been unable to get a work permit. Needing to come up with something quick to avoid an uncomfortable trip back to the UK, Ian had enrolled at University because that was where his girlfriend at the time was. To his astonishment, he had excelled as a student even as his career as a Guitarist in a Rock band had gone nowhere. Now at the age of thirty, his irreverent attitude and lifestyle made him extremely popular with the students, much to the annoyance of the Headmaster and many of the parents. Comparisons to the Pied Piper of Hamelin were used a lot. On the first day Jo had arrived at the school, she had made it perfectly clear to Ian that she was not going to take any shit from him and that he was decidedly not her type. Oddly, that was when he had decided that they would be friends. As it turned out, the two of them were the outsiders in the school faculty, so they did get along well.
“Don’t let the Headmaster catch you with that beer” Jo said.
“Its after-hours” Ian said, “And besides, he’s gone home for the day. When the cats away and all that.”
“You pay attention to the movement of the Headmaster?” Jo asked. “That seems like a lot of effort with little in return.”
“No, I paid a few of the kids to keep an eye on the carpark” Ian said, clearly satisfied he had come up with that idea which was wrong on so many levels. “They tell me when his car leaves.”
“I don’t suppose that there is any way you could do that without encouraging delinquency” Jo said.
Ian just shrugged. “The boys and girls need something to do, I suppose” he said, “They could be doing far worse.”
Helping Ian break the rules? That was the sort of thing most of the students hardly needed to be asked to do.
“This is not a joke” Jo said handing him the paper she had been reading, “Look at what I get to deal with, what you are encouraging.”
With that, Ian took the paper and read through it, laughing a few times to Jo’s annoyance.
Looking at the top of the page, Ian saw the name. “Lindemann, I’m not in the least bit surprised.” He said, “I had him in my first period class last year, he gets off on yanking people’s chains.”
“You see the obvious problem?” Jo asked, “While this essay meets the requirements assigned, the aim here is not to get a passing grade.”
“With the understanding that you would be the straight man in the joke, as it were” Ian said, “This paper is full of inuendo, suggestions, and goes right up to line of what would get him into serious trouble. No one ever accused him of being stupid, this is brilliant for a twelve-year-old.”
Which meant that the student in question was expecting Jo to overreact. She had once been told that adolescent boys posed a problem for her, stemming from her appearance. Suse had joked about for years that Jo looked like a Nordic Goddess. Most of the trouble had not been from her students though, instead it was their fathers acting like complete bores and the occasional jealous mother. It amazed Jo just how often paunchy, balding, middle-aged thought that she would be in the least bit interested in them. Of course, they were barking up the wrong tree, but Jo understood that for her the personal and the professional had to remain forever separate.
“So, what am I supposed to do about it?” Jo asked, only to get an evil grin from Ian.
“Give him an ace and make him read the paper in front of the class” Ian replied, “Then call his mother, tell her that her son’s crush on you is entirely inappropriate.”
“That is cruel” Jo said.
Ian shrugged again. “You want Till to stop being the class clown or not?” He asked.
5th December 1975
Charlottenburg, Berlin
Grading papers in the staffroom was how Jo spent most of her afternoons. She didn’t like working in her classroom once the students went home for the day. It was too quiet and various noises in the room would drive you insane as Jo had discovered when she had started at this school this year. At the moment, she was reading an essay written by a student of hers who was too clever by half. It was the sort of paper that would get the student a high mark, except it was as if he were deliberately trying to anger Jo.
Once Suse moved out of the house they had shared in Wunsdorf, Jo had decided that she needed a change of scenery, and it would be nice to work with students who were not old enough to vote. The job offer Jo had received from the Realschule in Charlottenburg had come at a good time. Finding an apartment in Berlin was taking longer than she had thought that it would though, and she was commuting across town from Kat’s house in Tempelhof.
“What are you doin’ Josie?” A rough voice asked, as there was a pop-hiss of a can of beer opening.
Jo looked up and saw Ian, who Jo guessed was a Welsh transplant because he said he had lived in Cardiff, who taught English in the Realschule and coached the Football team. He looked less like a teacher than anyone else who Jo had encountered. Even wearing the clothes appropriate for someone in his position, Ian still looked the part of the Rocker that he was during his off hours. Ian had told Jo all about how he had originally come to Berlin to be a Builder but because of the visas had gotten messed up, he had been unable to get a work permit. Needing to come up with something quick to avoid an uncomfortable trip back to the UK, Ian had enrolled at University because that was where his girlfriend at the time was. To his astonishment, he had excelled as a student even as his career as a Guitarist in a Rock band had gone nowhere. Now at the age of thirty, his irreverent attitude and lifestyle made him extremely popular with the students, much to the annoyance of the Headmaster and many of the parents. Comparisons to the Pied Piper of Hamelin were used a lot. On the first day Jo had arrived at the school, she had made it perfectly clear to Ian that she was not going to take any shit from him and that he was decidedly not her type. Oddly, that was when he had decided that they would be friends. As it turned out, the two of them were the outsiders in the school faculty, so they did get along well.
“Don’t let the Headmaster catch you with that beer” Jo said.
“Its after-hours” Ian said, “And besides, he’s gone home for the day. When the cats away and all that.”
“You pay attention to the movement of the Headmaster?” Jo asked. “That seems like a lot of effort with little in return.”
“No, I paid a few of the kids to keep an eye on the carpark” Ian said, clearly satisfied he had come up with that idea which was wrong on so many levels. “They tell me when his car leaves.”
“I don’t suppose that there is any way you could do that without encouraging delinquency” Jo said.
Ian just shrugged. “The boys and girls need something to do, I suppose” he said, “They could be doing far worse.”
Helping Ian break the rules? That was the sort of thing most of the students hardly needed to be asked to do.
“This is not a joke” Jo said handing him the paper she had been reading, “Look at what I get to deal with, what you are encouraging.”
With that, Ian took the paper and read through it, laughing a few times to Jo’s annoyance.
Looking at the top of the page, Ian saw the name. “Lindemann, I’m not in the least bit surprised.” He said, “I had him in my first period class last year, he gets off on yanking people’s chains.”
“You see the obvious problem?” Jo asked, “While this essay meets the requirements assigned, the aim here is not to get a passing grade.”
“With the understanding that you would be the straight man in the joke, as it were” Ian said, “This paper is full of inuendo, suggestions, and goes right up to line of what would get him into serious trouble. No one ever accused him of being stupid, this is brilliant for a twelve-year-old.”
Which meant that the student in question was expecting Jo to overreact. She had once been told that adolescent boys posed a problem for her, stemming from her appearance. Suse had joked about for years that Jo looked like a Nordic Goddess. Most of the trouble had not been from her students though, instead it was their fathers acting like complete bores and the occasional jealous mother. It amazed Jo just how often paunchy, balding, middle-aged thought that she would be in the least bit interested in them. Of course, they were barking up the wrong tree, but Jo understood that for her the personal and the professional had to remain forever separate.
“So, what am I supposed to do about it?” Jo asked, only to get an evil grin from Ian.
“Give him an ace and make him read the paper in front of the class” Ian replied, “Then call his mother, tell her that her son’s crush on you is entirely inappropriate.”
“That is cruel” Jo said.
Ian shrugged again. “You want Till to stop being the class clown or not?” He asked.
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Stein, meet Ram. Ram, this is Stein.
I'm pretty sure I should know who Ian is too but I'm drawing a blank.
I'm pretty sure I should know who Ian is too but I'm drawing a blank.
Upon being asked to read out his work to the class…
TILL: …du hast mich gefragt? Ich hab’ nichts gesagt…
TILL: …du hast mich gefragt? Ich hab’ nichts gesagt…
Way too soon for that particular song. And I always laughed at the people blasting it who obviously had no clue as to what it was actually about.
Oh, I know, just it seemed too good a joke to pass up
Oh, same.
…actually, ditto a lot of Rammstein music in the Anglophone world
Ian "Lemmy" Kilminster. There are some massive butterflies at work here.
Ian would likely be a huge gutter blues fan ITTL, Till's first band was a rock n roll band OTL, so in terms of taste, they're not that far apart.
However, Lemmy will not be Lemmy ITTL. As the music career never took off, he wouldn't have developed a speed habit that got him kicked out of Hawkwind after getting arrested on the US/Canadian border for drug possession. This in turn means he hasn't returned to the UK, (yet), in disgrace to form Motorhead.
Now let us see where these butterflies flap.
LOoks like Till has a, a mother wich stuck with his father, and be they moved from Rostock to Charlottenburg. Makes one wonder how that will effect any possible musical career. I mean, he as to meet the others from Rammstein as well to kick off.
This TL takes an iconoclastic approach to music.
Artists and groups that have been butterfly'd so far, (that I remember, other followers may remember more):
Richie Valenz
The Beatles
The Doors
The Jimmy Hendrix Experience
Black Sabbath
Pink Floyd
Motörhead, (for which I may never forgive @Peabody-Martini 😝)
Rammstein
By extension I suspect the following bands have also been butterfly'd:
All 1980's and 90's thrash metal, including Metallica, Slayer, Testament, Anthrax, and Megadeth, (so, not all bad I suppose...
Everyone inspired by 80's and 90's thrash metal, (very long list).
80's Punk will have a different sound without Motörhead too.
No Fields of the Nephilim either.
No Sepultura.
Basically, everything I listened to in my Teen years... Is gone. Well, almost.
New Model Army and Sisters of Mercy may still happen, although given his love of the German music scene, SoM are still at risk if Andrew Taylor decides to stay there instead.
Ugh! Also, with a very different drawdown of the British Empire and corresponding financial disasters, the conditions for Margaret Thatcher coming to power have also gone, which means in turn that the conditions that saw New Model Army formed have also been butterfly'd.
I'm going to go and sit in the corner and cry now... 🤣
On a serious note, this is something I love about this TL, the people may still exist, but that flap of the butterfly's wings have changed so much that this world is almost completely unrecognisable.
Not all is lost, wait until you find out who Ian Killmeister is working with...
And you are correct about Megadeath getting butterflied being for the better. Dave Mustaine is the classic mean drunk who replaces alcohol with religion and becomes even more obnoxious.
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Mille Petrozza?
The Danish boy would be the year below.
So a lot of the bands that defined the heavy music I've listened to (or even played in the bands I've been in - I'm usually the lead guitarist) since the 80s (when I was a university student), and even the 70s, when I was a teenager (Judas Priest, Rush, and Budgie may have also been butterflied away) are gone. Oh well, assuming hard rock, metal, and the other heavy music sub-genres manage to spring up in the ensuing years, you'll just see different bands. Hey, one of them might even be the Bee Gees if disco doesn't make an appearance (or has less of an impact that it had IOTL). IOTL, before they were talked in to performing "Staying Alive" for the Saturday Night Fever movie soundtrack, the Bee Gees were seriously considering changing their sound to playing hard rock, due to their careers (which had been built upon performing ballads - anybody want to hear "How Can You Mend a Broken Heart?") flagging at the time. It'd be interesting to see if they could pull off the whole heavy music thing in a decent fashion.
Oh well, assuming hard rock, metal, and the other heavy music sub-genres manage to spring up in the ensuing years, you'll just see different bands. Hey, one of them might even be the Bee Gees if disco doesn't make an appearance (or has less of an impact that it had IOTL). IOTL, before they were talked in to performing "Staying Alive" for the Saturday Night Fever movie soundtrack, the Bee Gees were seriously considering changing their sound to playing hard rock, due to their careers (which had been built upon performing ballads - anybody want to hear "How Can You Mend a Broken Heart?") flagging at the time. It'd be interesting to see if they could pull off the whole heavy music thing in a decent fashion.
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Anyone saying Staying Alive doesn't work as a rock song hasn't heard the Springsteen version....So a lot of the bands that defined the heavy music I've listened to (or even played in the bands I've been in - I'm usually the lead guitarist) since the 80s (when I was a university student), and even the 70s, when I was a teenager (Judas Priest, Rush, and Budgie may have also been butterflied away) are gone.
But seriously, the Bee Gees could go into rock easily, especially if Berlin Gutter Blues are still involving the heavier brass
Agnetha Fältskog?
Buddy Holly
Johnny Cash (probably; last we saw of him, it was implied that he was career USAF)