When I was a boy and my written German was quite good, I used to have a pen-pal in East Berlin, a young soldier. We would scribble symbols over the seals of our letters to each other, hoping that we’d be able to tell if the authorities had opened our correspondence. Today I was completely unable to concentrate on the content of this interview at Clive Davis’s place. After reading the introduction, all I could think was: “There’s a Starbucks at Checkpoint Charlie?! Fuck yeah!“