schnoidlblog

was gonna head up to Club der Visionaire tonight to hear the Plaslaikoid do his thing with some friends, but it was drenching, so i dove into the last weeps of a 3D project. then the rain stopped, as it occasionally does, and i cleansed and scooted.

and well done. the music was kicking, cause uh yeah it was the same guy who fried my ambitions the other night (Matthew Dear), and then Derek further crossed the fucking line from wallpaper into party’s on, and hmmm, a good night. Stood next to my buddy Timeblind, and he introduced to a fellow whose name I initially misunderstood, but it was Sammy D, from Perlon, one of the great deep deep labels, and, no way, he knew my name, and seemed to know I was someone worth knowing, tunes/quality wise. Well, shit, I just can’t wait to get home and blog all about THIS mo-maunt.

and I am on the gee-ell for Perlon this weekend at panoramabar, plus 2, and for the moment, i have a courtside seat.

not a bad wrap-up to a sputtering wtf day…

YUSSS!!!!

bad info, no such class, but met very helpful lady who gave me loads of good info, including contact/hours for an experienced free counselor who i will meet on Thursday, who will hopefully have some Most Excellence suggestionses to help me keep from going with Plan Not A. Which was, in fact, quite timely; i had some time to kill between talking to her and going to her office hours where she had full info, so came home for a bit…to find that my incompetent lawyer had decided to be incredibly juvenile and shitcan me over some incredibly trivial shit. which is, honestly, totally fine, except he thinks he’s still entitled to the final payment of 125€, which is fairly amusing, except for that i don’t know the laws here and may have to throw some hours at challenging that. what a twat. he’s also fucking up with the two friends who recommended me to him, so i think once this dust all settles whoever provides his professional licenses is going to be getting a nice organized folder of all the emails in question.

aaaaaannd another day where i got like one goddamned thing done. oh lay oh lay–ohhh…

one of the things that impresses visa folks is commitment, particularly in the form of enrolling in the “integrationskurz”, i.e. the 4 hours/day, five days/week, 6 months total language and culture course. and then you have to pass a test. generally they start at 8.30 or 9 in the morning, kind of the equivalent of Mon 8am freshman bio for the premeds. assholes. so i looked yesterday, about an hour and a half after the only 1pm session for the next two months began, nice timing. off in an hour or so to see if they’ll let me in. of course I am actively hoping they won’t, but that voice gets vetoed by the bulk of the congress. yikes. 20 hours a week? with *this* ADD? zzzzzz. but this first slice is one month, then i can start the next or take a break.

even if i don’t go ahead with the visa attempt this round, slouching here in the starting gates is in many ways just as stressful as pulling on the hairshirt of heavy curriculum, so, i guess i’ll go see what they say.

summer’s halfway on today, super humid.

just started digging into the art criticism of Jed Perl, critic for New Republic. found him because he called Francis Bacon “perhaps the worst painter of the 20th century”, massively hear hear to that. He also despises Rauschenberg*, who i have only very rarely been left anything other than completely flat by, and David Salle, who, even as a sophomore in art school i could smell the empty stink rolling off. He also hates Takashi Murakami, who i think is fun, but I will have to admit isn’t really siginificant as anything more than a gee-whiz trifle. gonna read some more, just to have my hate validated. wonder if there’s anything he LIKES? gonna see if I can dig up his email somehow, and send him a couple links to my pieces. fuck you world, i have some stuff that could hang next to goddamn DeKooning and not look stupid, where’s my fuckin pony someday too, mmmmk?

*”I find Rauschenberg’s early Combines, which are nowadays hailed as masterpieces of classical structure, to be stupid and incoherent” >>BRAVO!!

hard to imagine how long it took for life to arise on this planet, and there were many many false starts until it got rolling. early forms found oxygen incredibly toxic, and were killed off by it several times until organisms worked out a way to use it. fascinating evidence of that assertion.

and nothing like a long night of raging zombie apocalypse dreams to make waking up to a bleary do-list seem relatively appealing, or so it would seem on paper anyway. god i am one depressive whiny piece of bullshit some days. got 8 more days in this apartment, then time for another pad. have a chance to live at the first apartment I stayed in here ten years ago, for only 150€/month. room is ok, kitchen and bath are a little crummy, but the sticker is the (tiny, cramped) toilet is outside in the hallway, down half a flight, and that really bugs me. but I might just take it. 150 is pretty sexy, and the location is decent.

pee bottles.

i really need two very productive months or i don’t know if i will ever have faith in myself again. tall order, no wonder getting started seems so hard sometimes. really want my creativity to be freed from material constraints, but if i wanna be a DJ here, and i do, then i will be needing a new mix, and plenty of determined hustle.

maybe what I really need is to go be truly solitary, someplace far from cities. get in better shape physically, work on audio production and networking, try to set up a really good 2010. no idea what it’s going to take to find the discipline for me to do yoga. and if i don’t do that, i think my health is going to start to deteriorate soon, with all the stress I put on myself.

went to see my friend play last night. he did ok, but could have gone bigger and harder.

but shit, a guy named Matthew Dear played, under the name Audion. My god, what genius. speechless. and right about partway though I realized, holy shit, am i ever in the best place in the world right now…actually, he was, up there on stage totally blissing out

off to the big gay pride parade, if i ever get out of here. pretty wiped out.

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…

if you’d like to get a sample of what kind of crazy shit is out there these days, go to beatport.com, get an account (free). this is my current hot crate (thankfully, they finally made a hold-for-later bin, so I have a ton of stuff there waiting for a reason).

aka hint: I turn 50 in July, and can’t wait to open my presents. in lieu of sympathy cards and flowers that just remind me of how mortal I am, please paypal me something to motion@sheldondrake.com so I can buy some of these fuckers, and rip shit. thanks, you rawk.

moved into new room, hauled desktop in last night, got it propped in place, and walked away.

today reconfigured.

it rocks. pictures soon, but four or five foot desk with window at my right, monitor at far left of that, MIDI controllers and open space to right. then eight foot relatively empty worktable at my left. righteous.

off to sunshine and relaxation.

that would be the easiest about move ever.

dragged a few bags one door down a short hall.
new room for two weeks.
regular tenant kindly cleared off his whole desk for me, so i’ll take this one in there and finally have enough space. this one is about a square meter shy. close, but… .