Why didn’t Chris and Dan get into Berghain? Pt. 1 (classic)

**PJ Vogt** (0:00)
Hello, it is July at Search Engine, which means our team is out of the office. People are hanging out with their families, their loved ones, going on long walks, training dogs, who are behaving like Europeans. Hallelujah. We do it every year, and the same thing happens every year to me anyway, which is that I spend 11 months feverishly anticipating this break, and then after five days, I have 100 ideas for Search Engine episodes I want to make, and I start itching to get back to work. But anyway, let's talk about you. In our month away, we have some treats for you. We're going to re-air one of our favorite stories when we've never re-aired before, and we're going to share some episodes you have probably never heard from our locked vault, our premium feed, Incognito Mode. So stick around for that this month, and we'll be back with brand new episodes for you in August.
The particular episode that we're sharing this week is one of my very favorite stories. It's the first of a two-part story we reported about at a very exclusive Techno nightclub in Berlin. The story has actually been optioned for a film by Bowen Yang and Matt Rogers, who are both very funny comedians and also podcasters themselves. They host the beloved show Los Culturistas. Bowen and Matt are writing a movie based on the story you're about to hear. So enjoy. I hope at least some of you are listening with Sandy headphones somewhere.
I'm not supposed to pick favorite questions. I claim to love all questions equally. But about a year ago, I got a question from two friends of mine. This question caused a rare amount of delight over at Search Engine HQ.
So we asked the two of them to come to the studio. Um, okay, okay. Do you guys want to introduce yourselves?

**Chris** (2:04)
I'm Chris.
I'm Dan. I guess I'm also a Berghain.

**PJ Vogt** (2:07)
Chris and Dan, two very successful, stylish young professionals.
They had an annual tradition going back years. These two friends would vacation together. Sometimes to exciting nightlife destinations like Berlin, the city they just returned from. And what, what's like the nature of these vacations? Like what, what is your form of relaxing?

**Chris** (2:27)
I would say our form of relaxing is generally not relaxing.

**PJ Vogt** (2:30)
It's like partying.

**Chris** (2:31)
Yeah.

**Dan** (2:32)
Yeah.

**Chris** (2:32)
But you know, respectful, healthy, wholesome.

**PJ Vogt** (2:35)
Yes. Okay. And so this was your second trip to Berlin to do respectful, of whom I'm not sure, wholesome.
What was the last thing? Healthy?

**Chris** (2:45)
Respectful, wholesome, and healthy partying, yeah.

**PJ Vogt** (2:48)
So you guys, these are a lot of like daybreaker parties where you drink water and like do yoga afterwards or whatever.

**Chris** (2:55)
Yeah. A lot of green tea.

**Dan** (2:55)
Exactly. That's the vibe.

**PJ Vogt** (2:57)
Chris and Dan, I should tell you, more conscientious and buttoned up than most people I know. Chris, who I've known much longer, he's the kind of person where when I invite him to a party, I can set my watch to what happens. He and his boyfriend show up exactly on time, bearing a thoughtful gift, and then Chris sneaks out the front door two hours later or half an hour before midnight, whichever comes first.
Not a person given to unplanned improvised fun. I was actually surprised to learn he'd been drawn to Berlin, a city that tends to attract my more late night degenerate friends. You're going to Berlin and how many days were you going for?

**Dan** (3:37)
I think it was like 72 hours in Berlin.

**Chris** (3:39)
Yeah, it was a really short trip.

**PJ Vogt** (3:40)
And what was the itinerary?

**Chris** (3:43)
There was a very unstructured itinerary, which consisted of absolutely nothing.

**Dan** (3:48)
But we knew what the crown jewel of the trip was supposed to be.

**Chris** (3:51)
Yes. Keyword supposed to be.

**PJ Vogt** (3:54)
And that was?

**Dan** (3:54)
Berghain.

**PJ Vogt** (3:55)
And why Berghain?

**Chris** (3:58)
I guess it has this mythical status attached to it, which is no one can get in or very few people can get in. Once you're in, it's like this mystical palace of fun and amazing music and God knows what else because neither of us have ever been inside.

**PJ Vogt** (4:20)
Berghain. At the time of our conversation, rumors about Berghain had certainly reached me, 4,000 miles away in Brooklyn. I'd heard the basics. A decommissioned power plant turned into a multi-story nightclub. People talked about this place as a kind of grimy heaven, and like traditional heaven, grimy heaven was also supposedly very hard to get into.