Many a hurdle had to be jumped ... At school, drugs lay waiting - but also staff who wanted to prevent drug-taking. At home, one's scarce leisure time was cut down further by compulsory household chores. "Tidy your room!" The range of tortures started at simple manual tasks like cleaning

assistance and reached extremes like part-time slavery as assistant gardener in parental plantations, provided such were owned by the family. At worst, the youthful rebel's career would end in a sports or youth club, where he was supervised by spying simpletons with hateful haircuts.

The more voluntary the submission, or the more deteriorating the excuses, the greater the benevolence that this behaviour triggered on the part of the adult world. These iniquities were still made tolerable through the secret smoking of cigarettes in school toilets. All the more difficult was the crossing of

the burning doormat on the threshold to the adult world: First Love! It struck like lightning, and all those assumptions that up until then had held legislative status, providing orientation in everyday life, were suddenly rendered utterly worthless. For example: "Girls are daft!" Such a statement would

suddenly trigger smiles of pity instead of general agreement. Out of the blue, everything had changed.
And they were all so confused. All right, the girls looked as if they were in the know. But how could one be sure? After all, one couldn't talk to them. Especially if the developing

baritone always ended in a shrieking falsetto...The lads were busy controlling their secondary sexual characteristics at fantastically short intervals. But despite every effort many a face remained adorned with pimples rather than luscious locks. The former rose proudly like hills above a smooth chin,

their tips like so many Fujiyamas shining majestically in the evening sun... they didn't want to come out. But they had to. Hormone-driven. Let's stay in the picture and observe how the male adolescent approaches, somewhat awkwardly, the obscure object of his desire. Often he will spend hours

hanging around places that, in themselves, are dead boring, such as bus stops. Derisive looks will escape him, since he is convinced that his true motives are totally opaque. At some point the aforementioned object of his adoration will enter the scene, and, visibly excited, the adolescent will

address her: "Ha dzk drr bn obn br buß bum ha haha hihihi lilili leiomen." [Note that this language is internationally (un)intelligible and therefore does not require translating! The Translator.] For a split second - or eternity? - time stands still. Then she turns away - to a really cool dude.

So he remains shattered and doomed to recordcollecting and, later maybe, popstardom.

By the way - it was no less than Richard Huelsenbeck himself who used this memorable sentence in his poem Chorus sanctus. We might even have to rewrite completely the history of DADA. But whatever your attitude to First Love and its circumstances may be - whether you regard it as embarras-sing, trite or sweet: press your ear closely to this PIPS box, and you'll hear the heartbeat ...