schnoidlblog

started the day in a very low mood. depressed about having to move, feeling obtuse yet again for not realizing the sound would be a problem, and especially, feeling like a dumbshit know-nothing after hearing several stunning sets last night (goddamn artist narcissism, i want to be blown away by people but when i get that wish, I’m crushed. not convenient). was really tired, and really kind of felt like blowing off plans to ride with a friend to hear him DJ in Liepzig, about 2 hours away. but i rallied and went. barely.

not long after we went in, as the club was opening, two girl bartenders showed up. I don’t think a girl has ever offered me her email or phone unsolicited, but i started to chat up one of them (Rusul), and suddenly she’s scribbling. then i started to chat up the other one (Ariane), who didn’t seem all that distinctive to me when i saw her from a distance, but then she smiled, and from then on i just could not take my eyes off her. SO charming. and then, she’s writing too. except when she had to jump in behind the bar, we stayed close all night. I will see her again.

Rusul is like a Jack Russell terrier (hmmm, only just now got the name pun); damn it was just nonstop fun to watch her in action behind the bar, so animated, so full of energy. and then she’d bolt for the dancefloor and bounce and swing, then back to the bar. took about six hours of that to finally slow her pace some. amazing.

and my friend was just masterful on the decks, crowd loved it.

later today I’ll head over to Kreuzberg for a huge neighborhood-wide outdoor party, soundsystems everywhere. 8.30 am here now, going to crash soooo hard.

won’t be living here in the new place much longer. turns out there’s massive sound bleed from this room into the courtyard outside, which is shared with many apartments. windows from all the other rooms point into wide open, who cares blast it. big drama with neighbors from me making noise a couple nights ago, which I don’t recall, but apparently even with the windows closed it’s too loud outside. we’re all at fault, so i guess it evens out, but I’m still gone asap. they offered to give me all my money back, which is super cool, but shit. kind of liked to have settled in for a bit, but it is what it is.

miraculously, the kitchen is now sparkling clean, sure didn’t expect to see that.

would have been an adventure here, to be sure. but, honestly, a large part me was pouting over the meager kitchen, and huge walk to the bathroom. everybody says oh what a great neighborhood but to me it looks like deadsville. whatever, I’m just life’s little pinball. in fact, i just bought a 70mm chrome sphere at Modulor, maybe that’s what I was thinking…

Mercury leaves retrograde tomorrow. fucking prick.

someday, when i am far too old for it to help, i will finally be aware of the outside world, and the consequences of things like playing music loud with the windows open. so lost in my own world. some of this was just inevitable, but a big chunk of it is just me being obtuse, and that goddamned trusting the universe to sort things out ok, which so often leaves me with bloody bite-marked calves.

modulor.de

a big architectural modeler’s supply house. every kind of material, tool, item, thing, all under one roof. they even had signs “no involuntary humping motions”; ok they didn’t but i bet it’s a problem. want to go back and just look at every single thing, row by row. so much joy in one place. and the lean mean designer girls prowling for their needs didn’t exactly destroy the event either. the catalog is fully 2″ thick, wish it was free (15€, i’ll wait…a little). got me some gold-semi-reflective mylar for my windows, meaning the morning sun won’t render the computer monitor almost useless.

might drive 2 hours to Liepzig Saturday pm with a friend to hear him DJ. hell why not; love being a passenger in a car, and road hits (cf: bong) in Germany? easy yes. we’ll see how bad the hangover from Friday turns out…

this morning while I was waiting for the bus a young head-scarved Muslim girl, maybe 10 or so, came running up out of breath, checked the schedule, then started asking me something in German, and I explained sorry, I speak English. she then troubled out “do you…know…what time is it?”, I said no, she said “senk you vary motch”, and I smiled and said your English is very good, which got a sweet smile from her. after that, here and there i kept catching her sneaking looks at me, and smiling, which was just so cute. and i realized (yet again you silly American, center of the world), that to her, *I* am exotic. when she got off the bus she caught my eye and waved goodbye and smiled. fine, warm my heart. right back at you, and keep that openness and curiosity, maybe someday you’ll decide it’s ok to let the world see your hair.

I sometimes kind of understand the prohibition against showing hair, a little. The usual full scarf covers forehead, the entire neck, everything except between brows and jaw. some of the un-scarved wildly-tacky long-island-flavored sluts do such stupid shit with their hair (the dark orange spackle is also a nice touch), but some Turkeisch women have such a massive village of curly dark bounty, you could see it being a major disruption to orthodoxy’s needs.

turned in old keys, got money back, walk on.

found the Home Depot type store, not entirely rewarding, but kind of strange how some things are way more expensive than you’d think, while others are wow, cheap. nine by 2.5 foot hunk of birch-scrap butcher block, oh 60 euros or so. but, eight foot piece of non-crap 3×3, like 35. ??

don’t want to be mr. miss prissy immediately on arrival here, but fuck this kitchen sucks, and i want to see about doing something about it. I’d guess half the items in it are hardly ever touched. no doubt eyes will roll in synchrony when i mention Feng Shui and trying to minimize stuck energy, but perhaps if i buy the beer and wait until the first bottles are gone I can gently prevail. there’s some sort of cabinet shop downstairs that’s apparently amenable to some of us using the tools occasionally, so maybe I can get everyone to agree on a more efficient configuration, and then remove everything and be a little harsh about what they decide to bring back in. come on people, you’ll thank me. I don’t want to lay out for materials, but one or two good days of labor and I can have it locked and shiny.

there’s a very large curved countertop leaning in the hallway I was told i could appropriate, very cool. my last desk was wide but straight, and i was thinking I’d rather still go with huge but have more of it within arm’s reach. mission control, i’m ok with it. then to fantasize about having real monitors again; computer first.

allergies have been driving me nuts, but I got this tiny tiny 11 euro bottle of eyedrops today, just cut the itching right away. only allowed to use them 3x/day though, so not fair. my uber eyedrops from Japan should be here soon, hope the ingredients don’t conflict; i used to put them in my eyes all day long until i decided to ask someone to translate…yeah 4x/day for those, oops.

off to local megamart for more sundries, then i hope the promised synergy between the antihistamine and alcohol is vigorous and puts me right out.

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/

technically there should be peekaboos over that O but not like you’d care. All moved in, was pretty painless. My friend Robin borrowed a car to haul me; all i needed was for her to sit in the car and watch my stuff but no, she’s gung-ho’ing it up and down the stairs, taking heavy bundles, and then refused to accept cash for the efforts. well just make my whole day then.

and yeah, i am so gonna keep teh goong hoo rolling and just unpack everything in a sustained blur. fuck i am, I’m emptying a bag and going down to discount avenue for a towel and something to keep this window from clocking my monitor, then taking a shower and walking out into the world. one merit badge a day is plenty.

kaaa-JING!!!

add: uh, or not. seriously nothing is open here on Sundays.

I have so seriously fucking had it with girls that don’t want to just jump straight into bed with me. so over it. time for some new rules here, girls, and i mean it.

slept at NK last night, was a not long walk home from the second party i went to. goddamn the wall between my roo and the kitchen is just made of lies, hear every sound. wax earplugs will live withoin easy reach, first thing. sunshine comes in hard and warm too. goes great with a hangover, uh huh. wake up drunk! but they cleaned the room out really well and it is just bare and bright. waiting on my ride and then i am shoving stuff in, plugging in the laptop, then running like hell.

heard some truly fantastic noise last night. I didn’t get the meaning of the name of the guy i mentioned the other day, Sudden Infant, but now i do: that moment when you realize that you just don’t know shit. I experienced it several times last night. oh well, let me just pick up my crumbly remains and go see if square one wants to hang out.

and i just got an email Sudden Infant is doing a show tonight, hell the fuck yeah.

ready to close this chapter and turn the page. an odd thing, i have very active vertigo; if I’m on a balcony there is ten percent of me that is seriously waiting for the other 90 to drop it’s guard so i can dive over the railing. Walking over bridges here i have often had such an urge to toss the keys to this apartment into the water (equal and opposite urge and all that), but with the keys to the new place i feel no such urge. what does it mean, woooooo…

nothing like a raging nightmare to put things in context. when i went to bed last night I was emotionally pretty low. but when i first woke up this morning, man oh man this menu of problems was such a relief to return to. somehow i had killed someone, then someone else to cover it up, and then i think the number was up around five or something, and someone was asking questions about it in front of my Mom, and I just lost it. I remember just truly howling from the depths of my soul, my whole life just pouring out, over, gone. I was ready to kill myself, just end it. and then: laying in bed, warm under the covers. holy shit I felt like I’d been hit by a bus. yes, dreams are imaginary, but a couple of hours ago I was really on the last verge.

so, wow, it sure is great to be back! guess i won’t freak out so much if i can’t get the new Mac right away, or pull a girl like real soon. I didn’t just murder five people and end my life. I think I can work with that. FUCK.

I was so excited to move into this current place, where I’ve been for eight weeks. on arrival, i began to question the decision, and while i’m not going to dwell on it any more than I absolutely must, gotta say it doesn’t seem to have worked out all that great. I’ve done yoga all of once, only opened Ableton a few times, produced a couple of jobs, cool, but have done nearly zero in the way of creativity, or learning software, or any of the other not too many tasks i could have progressed in. I did manage to make the transition as far as money, and I’m still in the game, very much so, so i am just going to have to suck up my own favorite advice and say it’s all about the adequate (and it was in fact adequate), and just turn the page.

had a very inspiring night at the new place last night, saw a very cool movie about early 20th c. Russian experimenters with light-to-audio technology, first developing a way to encode sound as an optical track on the edge of a piece of film, and then messing with that to develop synthesis. now that we have wicked complex acoustic modeling software, it’s easy to forget that once upon a time things were very different, that things we take for granted had to be coaxed out of the future inch by inch, and there was no roadmap, or even a hint as to what might be possible. in some sense it also affirmed that, right here right now, other futures wonder if anyone will get around to inventing them, and it might just be some anonymous hermit tinkering alone somewhere that catches that gleam.

and after, heard some fantastic screwy ambient, first by the people playing there this weekend, and then from a nutter name of Sodden Infant* (love it), who will be playing there July 20th…two days before i turn 50. hearing that i realize that, no i do not care if can stretch my ouvre to fit the needs of Berlin’s techno cogniscenti, but that what i came to do is make the most psychotic raging juggernaut of vicious demon dancefloor mayhem (well that multiplied by enough sexytime to make the girls go all highbeam too). One of these days, i will get everybody lubed and lucid, and come in with some Sodden Infant over the beats and seriously, seriously fry people. And then I will have arrived where i’ve been trying to get to all these years.

until then, if adequate’s the best i can do, well, there you go.

*correction: Sudden Infant, and it looks like he’s a Berlin resident, and the show is on the 18th. I liked it better as Sodden, and on the 20th. oh whatever.

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.