schnoidlblog

she just had too much brain damage, they decided it was a lost cause. she wanted to be an organ donor, so she’s somewhere in limbo while that process moves forward. So far, the kidneys are a match for someone, good news for them. Can’t help but wonder how trashed they are though, all the stress and gobs of meds she’s been choking through, but i guess they’ll at least be better than whatever needed replacing. Time to book my flight; services will be in Richmond Va. on Tues and Wed. Things = real.

my sister has been suffering with major health problems since forever. when she was a kid, she used to get asthma so bad it sounded like sawing wood or something, so harsh. She’s also had to deal with two separate spinal fusions, which have left her with nearly zero mobility, and a few pinched nerves that prevent any comfort whatsoever, ever. A month or two ago she had a reaction to some incense, and if her husband’s frantic scramble for the epi-pen had worked out much later, that would be one blue dead girl. and on and on.

the other day she had an asthma attack. a bad one. She got medi-vacced to a hospital and is in a coma. may not pull through. I am very conflicted; i don’t want her to go, but there is so little hope for her quality of life to ever improve, you have to wonder, what’s the point of hoping she wakes up? She has a wonderful relationship with her loving hubby; i worry more for him than her, he will be so devastated. Relative to my circle of freaks and wondergoob friends, she’s a bit ordinary, but relative to the people they hang with, she’s a unique wave of constant magic. He really delights in her, and she adores him. At the very least, for his sake, i hope she at least wakes up long enough to say goodbye. There is significant risk of brain damage from too long without breathing; it might already even be over. Waiting for news, trying not to think about it. Really hope there’s not going to be a funeral.

i had secret doubts about this number 2,000, floated re: this past weekend’s party in Switzy. Yeah, maybe the whole club held that, if it was full. it wasn’t. Maybe 200 or so passed through the dancefloor during Bhu’s set Saturday, but they were on the wander. A core of people stayed for most of it, which was surprising, because they mostly just seemed like ditzy give-a-fuck drinkies looking for a feel from anybody at all, but they managed to cheer and whoop and all. I dashed up onstage for backing vox to one song, and surprised everyone with a quick burst of rockabilly-flare goofyfootin, which was cute and all but…try to enunciate your steady baritone when you just knocked the breath out your chest. Oh, pacing, got it. Main thing, Bhu kicked major ass; and, the band gelled together, they got paid, we got out.

If anybody ever tells you, fffuck Switzerland is expensive: believe them. It’s like the whole place is airport pricing. What’s 2 here is 4 or 5 there, and that adds up out of hand fast and doesn’t slow down.

Back to the desk. Just did final edit on a 2+ hour techno mix from November, will have that up shortly, finally.

in a few hours, we are airborne to Swizzyland. hope we can work in some time to take a funicular train up some steep hunk of snowy rock, go get our panorama on. Mainly can’t wait to see my girl hittin it in front of a crowd that’s Just Her Size. Really hope the band is thinking about what they showed of themselves Tuesday, and are all ready to push the button.

Switzerland, from what i hear it’s so OCD ordered it makes Germany look like a mess. will have to drop a gum wrapper someplace, just to be all punk and shit.

when I was almost 7, my Dad died, leaving my hard-working mother at the claws of two whiny manipulative kids, who were both quite a bit smarter than her (poor thing). Initially, I was pushed into the Man of the House role, at least so far as guys were considered the natural dominator and all that, but after a few years, little sister learned my moves and proceeded to take over. One of her basic techniques was to undermine and even emasculate me, which, dumbass kid that I was, i had no real clue how to respond to successfully. Took a few years away from home to see how much that had crept into my deeper places, how much I had internalized the whipping.

Bhu pointed out that, hmmm, it’s taken two years and she’s still playing bullshit with the box, that seems a bit suspicious. Well just huh, i never even thought of that, right there all along. I sent her a long response to her latest screed last night, and in fine fashion she ignored most of it, picked out two points to wildly distort and overreact to, and dismissed the rest, leaving me thrashing in frustration. Except, no, fuck that, I should know better by now.

Mom’s long gone, nobody needs to win this game anymore. I really don’t want to go back to the US, but at this point, i think it’s time to make it a priority to figure out a new place to store all my shit, and get some cash and go home and move it all out. Somehow. Then she’s holding nothing over me.

when I left the US, there was a leftover box of stuff that i couldn’t bring. Have been asking my sister for it since. Every couple of months I get a “for sure this week I promise” from her, and…nothing. I asked again this week, really need a couple things in it…and I get totally bitched out. Just great.

we are so very different. She tells me how things are, with unstated but blatant shoulds flying like big bold flags, and i have the nerve to respond and she says it’s all laughably stupid shit. No wonder I moved across an ocean.

supposedly, it will go out this week. check the title of the post.

a friend was mouthing off on facebook about how come it’s ok to be against bullying but ok to beat up on that 13 year old insipid wannabe mediawhore/popstar Rebecca Black, whose internet-fury-target song Friday somehow got a billion.4 hits on youtube. I thought that was laughable…and boom, one of my best friends axes me out of her life. Annoying, but at this point in life little in the way of out-of-leftfield immaturity should surprise me i guess. But dammit, she has one of my best paintings ever on her walls, and either she’ll just destroy it out of spite, or i’ll never see it again. Hoping I can get it rescued somehow, but I don’t have high expectations. Dammit. Sandbagged again. Time for beers.

Later Maya, was nice being your friend. Mostly. Wasn’t the first time she’s pulled this juvenile crap, but it was the last.

Time for some beers, bigtime.

vaguely recall blathering about this once before, but not sure. been yakking with an old cohort on facebook and it reminded me:
in high school i was walking with some friends around the track at a football game, and we bumped into some other friends. dumbass boys being etc., somebody said hey X should fight Y, no Y should fight Z, and so on, until the mob mind decided I should fight this kid, and of course at that point there was no getting out of it. I had no problem with the guy, he always had an easy smile, seemed pretty mellow. He was definitely smaller with me, though much wiser in the ways of the world (ie being tough), and stood an excellent chance of whomping me. We took it up on the hill where it was darker, everybody got the bloodlust going good, my buddy says he coached me to pop him good on the bridge of his nose, i don’t remember much except stepping in and taking a swing…and then him on the ground, people pulling me off him. apparently i knocked him out cold with the first punch. Huh. I never did feel good about it though, i guess he was horrendously embarrassed by the whole thing and didn’t show up again for a long time, and when he did he had a huge grudge against me, which never relented. Way to go Napoleon.

He ended up marrying one of the other delinquents from my church, a pistol that was bound for glory/prison; had three or four kids together…and then died, details unknown as of yet. I wonder how much that punch turned the currents of his life, but I can’t blame myself. My buddy says he may have instigated it, thinking i was an easy target to make some bones off. If so, then fuck him.

What could have been my shining high school macho moment was much more overshadowed by my opposite event. there was a short kid with a huge chip on his shoulder, really unbelievable prick he was. we ended up in a scrap over him not wanting to give up the last seat on the bus, got to school and he sucker punched me, moving my front tooth a good half inch into the roof of my mouth. I ran like hell out of there, and stumbled across town to the dentist, and then didn’t show up in school again for like two months. conveniently that was when my sister was laid up in the hospital an hour and a half away, but that’s not why I was there.

Fuck I hated high school.

sister’s surgery apparently went well. that is all the great news i needed today.

holy shit, opening your whole fucking back and cutting away at bones and old metal. nooooooo….

when my younger sister Deborah (apparently I picked out that name) was a teenager, we noticed that when she bent over, one side of her back seemed straight, and the other had a huge lump. hey doctor, what’s that? oh it’s called what, scoliosis? the fuck is that? …oh…fuck. ended up having to have much of her spine fused, lived in a hip to jaw cast for nine months (or was it more?), and had to face the reality that one day it would likely deteriorate. When she was around 18, she was in a Beetle that flipped in the rain, and broke her neck too, and had much of that fused. Um, universe, ok she could be a bitch at times, but was that really necessary?

25+ years later, she’s been dealing with a lot of pain for a long time, and finally it’s time for the major mechanical. in about a week she goes under, for a loooong operation, they’re going to take 2 inches off the existing rods, and then screw in stuff to weld up the last two or three gaps near her hips, so she’ll be solid from hip to shoulders, fucking hell. she’s long since out of cartilage, just bones on bones, with squishy nerve bits running interference, which, is about the worst thing they could be asked to do. if she can walk again after, then one big hell yeah, she has been in nonstop pain for far too long. once in a while she gets some jolly fat steroid injection or something, and is in bliss for a few days, but that wears off fast. we’re off course hoping the neck stuff, also rotting away steadily, can hold out until medical technology catches up (why the fuck aren’t there synthetic injectable discs yet? stoners.), have to deal with that crisis when it comes.

so, whenever your problems seem to much, if it helps, think, well shit, at least I can move my fucking spine, and at least i’m not looking at an operation to dis- and re-assemble just about the whole damn thing, oh and also the bit about constant bone on bone spinal nerve path….yeah, or on the other hand just banish any memory of that whole damn horror, maybe that.

send some golden light down around her, she could use it.

met an interesting guy at Burning Man a few years ago, and have kept in loose contact. i have been dying to get my hands on the manuscript of his (as yet unpublished) book exploring the idea that Jeebus never existed. As an escapee from the xtian insane camp, I am always hot and hungry for anything to beat a preacher/drone with, so when he revealed himself to be another dumbshit neocon follower, i bit my tongue. Just unbit it, and bid him farewell. i mean seriously, the fucker told me, not trolling, that he thought Fox News was the most balanced network out there. I guess I must have wanted the book real bad because just about anyone else, that would have been it right there. He’s been crowing on facebook about how this teabag revolution is just what the US needs, and…well, fuck him.

somewhere those bastard Koch brothers are pissing on hookers, proud at the pile of shit they’ve managed to bestow on the US. I would say fuck it, that diseased country deserves the insane puppeteers they want, and the entire rain of vomit that’s going to come with it, but unfortunately, the fate of most of the world seems awfully tied up in what happens there, and also there’s some cities with some good folks in them.

Molly Ivins once wrote, in a fine column, that if you have a dog that eats chickens you just get a stout piece of wire and tie a dead one around his neck good. by the time the last stank feather and foul wormy shred has fallen off, that dog will never want to see a chicken again. This being her metaphor for why, just maybe, it was in fact a good thing for Bush to be holding court in the good old u of sa. At least she died before she got to see just how inadequate a dead chicken was that horrible chapter. Two years into Obama, and the fucking retards are still gnawing on the endless manna of the stupid tree.

Ok, Obama, you had your chance, you kept rolling over to try to appease those assholes, and now you don’t have much more room to roll. Are you gonna finally kick them the fuck out, and do things right like you promised, or are you gonna keep imagining that somehow someday they’ll change and be a nice loving awesome boyfriend or something? “I can make them love me, I just have to try harder.” One definition of stupid is to keep trying the same wrong thing over and over.

Sad day in America. But even if the Dems won big, they’d still be a bunch of spineless capitulating bickering worms, so i wonder how much of a difference this really does make. And really, i need to stop reading the news of the US, it only makes me sad and sadder.

Good luck y’all. Damn.

FUCK I want to sell my old car, I don’t even like calling it mine anymore, i just want it out of my life. Anybody know somebody with a college-age kid needs a daily driver? I have it listed for 1,500, but Volvos are so damned cheap it’s pathetic, would take a lot less than that just to get it out of sister’s and her husband’s hair. Damn i wish the appropriate fairy would just wave her wand and turn it into a small but acceptable pile of magic beans.

anyone? have a look, if you know anybody, send em over. thanks. currently just south of Richmond Va.

it really wants a new home

if anyone ever says that stupid phrase “it all happens for a reason”, I would like to beat them over the head with my dear friend Monique, who works so hard, tries to take care of so many people, and just gets messed around. Agencies promise her grants, then dick around and don’t deliver. Her family, they sound like greedy scumbags, passing around millions but locking her out, mainly because they are offended by her lack of interest in their petit bourgeois charades, as I recall. Several of the people she has helped so much, when the going gets rough, they turn on her like wolves.

So, if you have a little goodwill to spare, blow it in her general direction. About a half hour north of Baltimore, over by the reservoir, look for the horse barn with the nice little garden just down by the back. Goddammit universe, would you mind please taking care of the good people in this world once in a while?

Grrrrrrr.

I really should give a proper shout out to my (long-gone) Mom, she’s a big part of why coming here is so magical for me. Sophie Virginia Udinski, later Drake, oldest of three sisters, w/3 brothers, child of two broke-ass Polish-American peasants, born 1923 somewhere in Jersey farm country, Camden I think. She was Papa’s favorite, but he died on her 13th birthday, that’ll ruin your day. Her Mom was a house, and got those six kids to adulthood ok. never knew her, she caught the boat to Jesus the year before i fell out of the sky.

She was the breadwinner in our family; Dad had a terrible heart and couldn’t even do stairs. She was a telephone operator back in the day when it involved plugs and cords and stuff. She knew all the goings on in my little town, they all did: which preacher was boinking which wife, which guy was evening the score with his wife while he was out snakin’, etc. And if somebody made a lotsa-coins call from a payphone, she’d try to get me to hustle the three miles downtown on my bike real fast before her supervisor noticed she had her finger on the switch, and I’d have cash for an afternoon, thanks you sneaky. But that was later.

Apparently my Dad, although sickly, was a domineering sort. I heard many years after the fact that after he died my Mom actually blossomed a bit. She was so alone; my Dad’s family was nice, in their way, but were more meddling than supportive. Her family was four hours away. I think she was actually ok with that. Anyway, she was a tractor. She raised two bitchy little kids, who were way smarter than her and so not afraid to use it against her. She bought a plot of land three miles out of town, and built a new house on it. She made shit happen. And of course that house was spotless. I had no idea, i just thought, like most kids do, that things are just always that way. No, she was the real thing, a true supermom.

Mainly I just wanted to say what a dear she was. Simple soul, innocence of a little six year old country girl, her favorite shows were Price is Right and Wheel of Fortune, and she loved her some Golden Girls. Me, all full of myself from college and adventures in the big world, was privately horrified by that, but I was also happy to park by the TV and enjoy them with her. All my friends who met her adored her, she was really not like other people.

She retired from the telephone company after 27 years, can you imagine doing that shit for that long? she must have started when she was like 25 or something. she got disability because it was driving her fucking crazy to be there, good for her for digging in and insisting on that. fuck. When we moved to Virginia we still needed more money, so she re-invented herself as a yard sale gleaner, going out early every morning and raiding carports and stoops all over town, then on weekends selling at a local sprawling flea market. she learned a lot about what was what, and bought things for 50 cents and sold them for $3, which sure, go ahead and snicker at, but she did that all on her own, and over time she built up a reputation and people were always happy to see her.

I was always so proud of her, called her several times a week when i got to NYC, loved her broadly and without reserve, my big huggy bear. She’s who i got my bowling pin calves from, hers were just as big. s-o-l-i-d woman.

Anyway, i could go further, but I’m probably losing you by now. Just wanted to shout out to that big dear. Maybe one of these days I’ll get my sister to send a scan of a photo.

My Soie.

comedy is tragedy from a distance, and you’re far away, so somebody may as well get a laugh out of this:

got my ticket back to Berlin for this evening, in optimistic hopes it would be hard to tear myself away from this or that babe i was destined to meet. when it didn’t happen i considered changing the ticket, but figured why waste the money, spend it on a meal and beers. Um, noted: the time on the right side of the ticket is the arrival time, show up at the station for that and…that train left 3 hours ago. and the next train is in…12 hours. ok, looks like I’m sitting in a train station for 12 hours. phone is out of money, didn’t feel like dealing with buying a card for the payphone…so, now what? pouted and shaky-lipped for a bit, then got out my lil tourista guide and found a hostel 15 minute walk away, waited for the drizzle to relent, and walked over. fuck no, we’re full up. girl was nice enough to call my previous hostel for me, and yeah, they had a bed for $15 equivalent, thanks I’ll be right over. got in, dropped the bags, went to the corner for three pints, brought them back, plopped on the bed, and…fucking DOWNPOUR outside, total cloudburst. let’s hope that 8am wakeup call is on time…time to get up a pint and a half.

hmm, this isn’t a von Berlin category item…perhaps i should start a new one, for On The Road?

one of my clients uses a pair of guys somewhere in India to produce her websites. i have been hired to supervise production of her latest one, a site intended to provide AIDS and HCV awareness for the alarmingly-younger set. I have told these guys all along, you are not the designers, just hurry up and slug together a rough structure for the site based upon such and such clear document, with placeholder art. Today, two days later than promised, they send me art, but no site. Ok, now you’re pissing me off.

Discussed it with client, and found out the other site i had given specific critique for is finally online, nobody told me, so I went through and made a very long list of revisions. I believe it will drive home the point that we are in different leagues. They have a week to straighten up or I am putting it out for bids, fuck this shit.

picking a few choice things off my To Buy list. getting a little pocket size voice recorder, read a few reviews and went with the Sony ICD PX820, stereo mics and USB connecting. Two uses, getting a riff in my head, popping it out and babbling mouth noises into it, and also being in a club and hearing a wicked wtf track and being able to snag it for later instigation. won’t be anywhere near high quality, but I’m hoping it’ll be enough to stick a flame under me for home use. already asked my buddy who runs security at Berghain (where cameras are a serious no-no), and he says no problem at all. Hell yes.

also found a huge bottle of 5-HTP online. had used it a little before, but never regularly. it’s a serotonin precursor, supposedly wonderful for moods. Now that the sun has come out and I have a nice reserve of cash in my pocket, the shit moods aren’t quite the problem as they were, but the allergies are really fucking with my energy and sleep, so why not. when i took it before I sometimes got a nice body buzz for a bit, maybe that’ll be enough to get me onto the yoga mat.

this weekend, my first DJ ever, Denard, is finally in town. he turned me onto techno around 92. can’t wait. and tomorrow is Adam X, always a brutal joy, and Gez Varley, whose Tony Montana album was long a favorite.

didn’t know, very much of southern Europe is experiencing serious flooding right now, from France all the way to Poland and stuff. Intense.

yesterday i was editing a couple of pages on my site, and re-read the whole entry about my long-gone awesome cats, who i miss terribly. When Choggi first died, i used to see them both in my dreams each night, which was great. Haven’t seen either of them in a long time, but last night I saw them both. Was odd, i asked people nearby if they could see them and they said no, but I didn’t care. Maddy was stretched out along my forearm, snuggled up against my belly, smiling away. felt their toes, their shimmering electric, their love. Got a good ten minutes with each of them.

and another ten with a cute blonde chick who didn’t mind me sliding her panties right off. People couldn’t see her either, i guess they thought I was just walking down the street tasting for snow or something.

Yay dreams!

once again, the season of plant spooge is well upon us, and now is a good time to plug one of my favorite things to own. go to ebay, order you up some Sante FX Neo eyedrops, you’ll need to get them from Japan. best to get a 3 pack if you can afford it. They have a little menthol, and some other mediculate stuff; when you first put them in, especially if they’re new, oh, you are sorry, but withing five seconds or so, it upgrades to perfection. I really have to remember to keep them in my pocket now, just went out for errands and forgot them, and my eyes quickly went red and raw. as soon as i get home, two drops, all gone.

they used to be fun at raves; when you are rolling, they are bliss, and of course you want to share them with all your shiny new friends.

spamhaus says my server is a bad person: my email has been spoofed and/or there’s bots on it, or something. translation, no outgoing email for me until it gets resolved. motherfuckers.

yeah, that second week in March, where you go, hooo shit, this year is moving right along isn’t it, whaddawedoNOW????

how you doin so far?

one of the things this paper says (maybe “paper” is the wrong word, he spells segue ‘segway’) is that you can’t just give affection and appreciation fully and completely, or it diminishes your value in a woman’s eyes. Well, fuck. But then again, perhaps this is a problem for me. I kind of live to give myself fully to a woman, completely and utterly adore her, subsume my ego. But perhaps what’s underneath this is not so healthy, and this is what leads to problems. perhaps i want to lose my ego because i don’t truly value myself, and want to find someone else to value instead. Well, just…fuck.

Like I need one more goddamned thing to be mopey about.

got some roid creme for these huge bags under my eyes. supposedly it helps reduce the puffies. A picture of me five years ago looks like 10 years ago (fuck you Baltimore, you stupid energy hole). i do not want to catch up to my age, but I worry that the worry about stress, yeah, is catching up to me, and fast. Ok, go.

a random thought, for anyone listening:

once, in Colorado, I flew a kite at a friend’s. was kind of interesting, and I realized there was some life lesson to be had from it. you just have to figure out where the winds are, and sometimes you pull against them to get lift, other times you let go and let them take you. sometimes if you run a little, it’s enough to get the kite out of the low chop, and up into the stronger stuff. But also, watch where your feet are going, especially if it’s, say, icy.

in other words, follow the love. if you want love to come from this or that direction, perhaps you can nurse at it some, try to coax it, or maybe you’ll have better luck elsewhere. too easy to focus on the stuff you want, to the neglect of perfectly good sources of energy and joy that you’re overlooking.

sometimes when life doesn’t give you the love you want, you just pour love into it with all you can, for as long as you can, and maybe it’s enough to make a wind enough to get you out of the chop. and then you just stand there, paying out string and watch it go.

maaaaan. whenever I feel all boo-hoo, all i have to do is think of the load of raging horrible on my sister’s plate, and take a step back and say it could be so much worse here. She had most of her spine fused in her teens for curvature (they don’t do that anymore I think), then most of her neck fused a few years later from a car wreck. Constant pain, can’t sit, stand, or lay down, and that doesn’t leave much. Awful asthma. Thyroid problems, had to have it irradiated. Her body is a prison. Plus, she still owns a house she has to pay into every month, which her last tenant nearly destroyed, just had to sink a ton of money into it, and her husband worked his ass off fixing it up, on top of his heavy full-time job, and now the market is still so depressed, the money she wanted to get out of it is withering away, which is dashing her hopes for getting a new house, which was really important to her. And there’s even more, but that’s enough unloading. So anyway, yeah, boo hoo me I just can’t seem to get my DJ career off the blocks. As problems go, i think I prefer mine over hers by a massive margin. Ok, exhale now.

( o Y o )

just saying.

the few times I’ve looked on ebay for shoes i can use, i find nothing. buddy Vinnaaaeee offered to find me a pair, which prompted me to look again, and whaddya know. she even had an extra pair. so, two pairs at $30/ea, plus about 50 expedited shipping, and for about $110 I have a new pair and a spare pair headed my way. next best option was a pair here in a style that don’t really fit, dunno what i would have done. and they were 80€, which is about $120 lately. so, after much fruitless trudging in shoes i shouldn’t even be wearing, the solution comes from a different forest altogether. goddamn i hate when shoe shopping time comes around, i really do. this ought to hold me about a year and a half.

oh, this is Vince, a standup guy.

so Nicole’s job is instructor at a school for dental technicians, teaching teeth cleaning and all the other things that go along with assisting a dentist. yesterday was a big graduation ceremony. 200 students stood up and gave her a standing ovation, and that better have brought a tear to your eye about that fast too, still gets me just fine. SOOOO proud of her. ok, I won’t deny being a dental tech would drive me insane quickly, but it’s one of the better avenues for a lot of (usually) women to dig their way up into independence, and this hard-working woman makes it possible for a lot of women to make their way into the future, and I wish i could have been there to see them shove it in her face like that. So, everyone, send a little go you in the general direction of this adorable charming woman.

having such a good time with her. communication is a little bit on the deee-liberate side at times, but then again that means we don’t waste a lot attention on bullshit chatter, we make it count. I love her just a little more every time i open my eyes and see her. pretty much every single goddamn thing she does puts a new smile on my face (and a chuckle in my heart)- just the way she’ll move her mouth, or flash her eyes, or hell, even gnarf into a piece of toast. I guess I could let her go tomorrow if I had to, do not want to have attachments right now, but man as long as it’s good, I’ll sure bring the smiles.

going out dancing tonight, to the club we were at when we first kissed (not the one we met at). and this will be the first time we’ve been dancing since that night, buncha layabouts. so proud to stand next to her. and yes, fuck yeah i want to be seen with her, people will think I am one seriously killer motherfucker to have her attention. And fuck yeah, i am, so go ahead and have a look.

Indeed.

read an interesting article on the health benefits of unroasted chocolate, looks like really worth getting aholta. come on hot new trend!! google it, the article is near the top. so is this online shop.

not entirely surprised, but man I have been so down in the dumps all day. trying to motivate, and it’s just not happening. I have 30 days to make a miracle happen and all I want to do is sleep. as long as i can remember i have had an emptiness in my stomach/guts, and some days i can push around it, but today I just want to go fetal. tomorrow will probably be a pendulum swing the other way, 15 hours straight of work or some such. fuck i sure hope so.

went out top hear a top DJ tonight in a small club, cool how if you know where to look how common that is here…

and ran into my buddy who’s playing at the Shrine tomorrow. funny, he said when he first saw me at the bar, he didn’t think it was me, because I didn’t have some characteristic spark he associated with me…but when I bumped into him later, immediately there’s that spark. yeah, i guess I get like that when i’m not in the immediate vicinity of friends…

then we went to another bar. and funny, spent the day shopping on beatport for tracks for new mix, and one guy’s face sort of stood out, and tonight at the second club, hey excuse me are you…yeah, and I bet that happens a lot in Berlin…rockstars gotta dance too…

cool. I’m up late. will sleep late. then stay up really really late. just like it was a summer Saturday in Berlin…

aka blackbird. found a movie of this so-delightful little jazzwanker (didn’t embed, but please click the link below). in some ways this is typical, in that it’s just a one-off rip of whatever passed across its tiny brain, but the next thing that came out of its mouth would have some initial whistle and then something completely different after. they are easily my favorite thing about this city. often you’re walking and come upon one in concert, and lots of times I stop for a few rounds, always lightens my heart. so incredible how inventive they are, and lots of times I swear they’re even funny.

amsel_web2

edit: new version posted, old one didn’t work for everyone…

any other day of the year it wouldn’t be newsworthy that i bought towels today (three in fact). but guess what, today is actually Towel Day!

towelday.org/

so many times, babies and infants just lock eyes on me as soon as they see me, it’s pretty uncanny, to say the least. there was one in a restaurant today (my friend fed me drink tickets all last night so i came home with almost as much as i left with, so shut up, it’s allowed), tiny thing, just got big eyed right off and barely looked away, and squealed at me a couple of times, and lit up when i squeaked back. I joked with his mother we must have been involved in a past life…nice to see you again! he was only six months old, but totally got waving at me, way to go tinybot.

walking home tonight, I saw a fox cross the road in front of me, then head down the street under the shadow of the U-bahn (raised-track train). I stopped to double-take, he paused by a column to check me out, then continued on his busy way.

stoner bonus: next poster I saw was for Peter Fox (Pete was my nickname growing up)

met a buddy for drinks at a bar tonight. i was running really late, stressing about it, but as I walk up, he is arriving in perfect sync. and later, he saw a friend, could not remember her name, and I said Barbara? yes, that’s it (I hadn’t even looked at her)

sometimes I think I’m psychic, other times I wonder if this is just some greatest hits of the history of earth bootleg DVD, being sold on a corner in some cosmic ghetto, bad xeroxed cover, annoying compression, uh oh cops, everybody run…what about the…just leave them, come on! run!

if a DVD plays in the forest, does the bear see it end?

just spent a couple hours doing recon around the potential new pad, and i think I’m going for it! that was fairly painless, was the first place i looked at. there’s a mall just north with a pretty vast everything department store, like a Kmart, cheapo, which is fine; just south is a supermarket hiding around the corner. I guess when they made this map i have, the neighborhood wasn’t yet relevant (i understand it’s really changed in even the last few years): my block is literally the last one at the lower right corner. but just down a few blocks turns out there is a metro, and just north past that mall there’s another one, and also in that area is a gorgeous park. it’s very close to a canal, in fact very close to where two rivers meet, pretty good Feng Shui. and practically on the border of the old wall, like half block down. lots of busses run nearby too, which i guess I’ll just have to sort out. will be nice to have convenient information services, ie roommates i can ask how the fuck…

zo, tenant here is back on the 25th, and wants it to himself that night, so I guess the 25th will be my first night in the new place. hope i can borrow something to sleep on! room will be completely unfurnished, so i gotta get everything, sheets, light, table, chair, etc. will have a couple different checks hit my US account shortly, then the shopping begins. gonna try and get the floor painted a couple days before that, dark green.

I have in mind to spend at least a year here. hmm, just like that I’m a quarter of the way there…how did that happen? but I think i timed it well, got my shock and transition period out of the way just as summer is about to relax those inner thighs.

chapter next!!

gonna drink a beer, and then go see Star Trek, found place that shows it in Englitch. ain’t doin nuthin else today, except, ok maybe go to twofers tonight, i think I’m permitted to raise too many glasses on this day…

can’t believe I trusted that worthless slimeball of an ex-landlord. asked him for a final walkthrough, he said it’s not necessary, just leave the keys and lock the door behind you, check will take at least 4-6 weeks. ok prick, it’s been 10 weeks. weaselly son of a bitch knew I was leaving the country, and just played it like the piece of runny shit that he is. I just sent a letter to him authorizing my friend as my legal representative in this matter, and one to my friend as well, who has left several messages on the answering machine, and so far no reply. because i had irregular income, i had to give two months rent deposit, plus a damage deposit, almost 3K total. if he wants to try to fuck me on the damages, that’s one thing, but he has no reason to be holding up my rent. I should have a fat roll to be coasting through June and even July on, but instead I’m heading for a chasm.

shaking his hand was one of the most unpleasant experiences i have ever had; as i was reaching, i really thought oh I am so going to regret this; yep, fuck, one of THE creepiest sensations EVER. How do people like this live with themselves? not a hair of integrity in his whole being.

god damn this fucking burns my ass.

in which i wake up mopey…

an acquaintance from NYC is playing one of the local big clubs this weekend, gonna try and get guest list if i can get on his radar. in his pictures he’s always light-hearted and laughing. kind of wonder what would have happened in my life if i hadn’t been such a depressive life support system for mediocre demons, maybe i’d have learned how to network or something. as if.

got a passport photo yesterday for my visa application. god I just look so deflated.

no idea where it came from, but Mim Seg was one of my many nicknames for my mother. perhaps something from one of our past lives together. Her name was Sophie; I always called her Soie. She was really something, most of the innocence of a child, totally charming, but was also just such a tractor, pulling a household and two annoying children through life all but alone. She died much too young about 22 years ago; bitter much: yes. today is her birthday (and my sister’s anniversary), and I am going for 2 for 1′s at a little bar called Sofia.

when i was in high school, more than a couple times i would skip out of school, walk the half mile to the interstate onramp, and hitchhike either 20 miles to a big library (in Corning), or 40 miles to The Mall (they were new then, so it was The), where there was a Waldenbooks, where i used to read Carlos Castaneda books. by now he’s a semi-dated icon, but then, and especially in my tiny world, he was a hell of an alien wild thing. really popped my mind like a grape. squersh.

so, sitting here tonight, all full of it, looking for something to watch on the intertwit, and i find a documentary on him on Google Video.

why thank you universe, a wet kiss in your general direction also as well.

yes, quite uncategorized.

update: hah, err yeah. turns out he was actially a supreme bullshitter charlatan, total demagogue power-hustler cultie manipulator, and ended up bringing the attention of the law down on a bunch of Indians who actually respected and used peyote via a very rich ritual culture. but you know what? his books, even as works of fiction, were still very powerful, and contain much in the way of truth, even if it was borrowed, and jumbled up with a bunch of fabrications. tough call. sure had a positive expannnnsive effect on this lil hillbilly chaaal.

saw a bit from a lecture today on youtube, a guy talking about how most of the heavy molecules that we are surrounded by, iron, nickel and stuff, were all formed in distant stars. “we aren’t only in the universe, it’s in us”. think about that. we’re made of stuff from light years away, forged in intense places. every drop. that oughta light you up.

a nice thought from a passing head at Burning Man once, he said he just does his best to “accept whatever is true”. It doesn’t need to be revealed, or acheived, or known. You just say, whatever it is, yeah, I’m so down with that. Doesn’t that just cut to the chase.

bedtime in Berlin!