About Jeff Crowder aka Caliwiener

What’s a Californian beach boy doing in landlocked Austria? 

My parents brought me on vacation to Salzburg when I was two, bought me a Lederhosen, brainwashed me with the Sound of Music, and forbid me to watch Schwarzenegger films like Terminator and Conan the Barbarian. This turned me into the Austrophile I am today. 

Yeah right, but really, how can you trade San Diego, “America’s finest city,” for Vienna, Austria? Isn’t Southern California better?

I’m a cultural and culinary refugee. Left the Eww-Es-Eh in 1997, long before Bush Jr. and Trump. At age 13, I formulated the wish to master the German language. In high school they used to tell me: “If Austria’s so great, why don‘t you go there?” I did, that’s follow-through. Lotta Americans are quick to take offense if you even suggest you prefer somewhere else.

Sounds suspect, where’d this fascination with German and Austria come from?

My beach-boy bubble felt shallow. I sought Old-World depth and sophistication, classical architecture and music, not just beer halls and big-breasted barmaids, but Nietzsche, Hegel, Heidegger, Hannah Arendt, Heine, Goethe, and Rilke. German’s look, feel, sound, and Austrian Schmäh appeal to me.

How can you like the sound of German? Doesn’t German sound harsh and militaristic? Aren’t French and Italian far more beautiful? Growing up in Southern California, shouldn’t you have learned Spanish?

Typical Austrian post-monarchy & WWII inferiority complex. Italian and French are fascinating for me too. I’m here to explore all The Old World has to offer. Learned 5 years of French, cook pasta & carbonara ably, Spanish would’ve been more useful in San Diego, but I wanted to come here. German has compound nouns and a lens of looking at the world that I relish: Stinktier, “stinking animal” for skunk or far rarely Stinkkatze, “stink cat”;

I just don’t get it.

How could I choose to swap my beach-boy bubble to live unter der Käseglocke, under the Austrian cheese lid? You’ll just have to keep reading…