tvc15

Bye!

Official Statement

The holidays are there! No office today, no phone calls, no papers hiding the desk. The bags are half packed, so we can enjoy a friends birthday drinking session tonight before we leave Europe tomorrow. Ex oriente lux, or so they say. So what´s behind the orient? Darkness? Even more bright light? Giant letters reading "42"? I´ll tell you later...

Ambient Picknick

Yesterdays Ambient Picknick is pre- senting serious problems. The consump- tion of mineral water is up by 150% and my forehead deep red. Somehow I just won´t stop sweating, it´s 27 degrees in my office. Standing around on a field on Sunday, sipping half a dozen of Dai- quiris and Mojitos is no good, I´m telling you. But the unlikely combination of a footie tournament and a party worked yesterday. I think there will be more people with red faces and limbs running around the city today. Some danced around for ages in the hot afternoon sun, they could be worse off than me today. Maybe I´ll post some pics from yesterday this evening.

Vintage Birds

Looks like the forthcoming Kraftwerk DVD will provide material in high quality we only got as 78th generation copies so far. Tasty! Have a look: The Model

Mobile Test

From my Moms house!

Join The Queue

This week I read, that the queue at the opening party at DC10 in Ibiza was stretching all the way from the traffic circle up to the club. So what´s the problem you might think. Actually it´s quite a long way most people would prefer to take a taxi! So how fast was that queue moving? Madness on a Monday morning!

Zgy-Om

We heard news today that Zgy-Om died at 77. He will always be one of the true Ibiza characters. He is the only person I ever heard about that had free entry granted to all of the clubs on the island. I saw him at Space one sunny afternoon, at that time not knowing anything about him and his life. Imagine yourself at 70+ years, going to clubs full of twisted people, smiling happy party casualties. I doubt many of today's clubbers will do so.

The God Of Engineering

Temperatures in Cologne are rising every day, it will be over 30 degrees by Sunday they say. What a wee little trainingcamp compared to the hot swamp by the name of  Krung Thep Mahanakhon Bowon Rattanakosin Mahinthrayutthaya Mahadilokphop Noppharat Ratchathani Burirom Udom Ratchaniwet Maha- sathan Amon Phiman Awatan Sathit Sakkathatiya Witsanukam Prasit.

This is Bangkoks old name and quite a long one! It means: City of angels, great city, immortal jewel of Great Indra's Ayutthaya, land of the blissful nine-jeweled capital, with abundant palaces, immortal palace where Brahma's in- carnation dwells, built by Vishnukarma (the god of en- gineering).

It´s Welsh equivalent is called Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgo-gerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch, though the weather in Wales is not that hot...

Anyway, updated the Passing Strangers Section last night, now you can find out where those strangers were catured.

Confederations Cupboard

Oh no, the Cologne Hilton has withstood the BStreet Boys fans, now I´m seeing and hearing Tunisian Football fans, waving a flag in front of the main entrance. I don´t under- stand a word they are yelling, but the air horn adds an in- ternational touch to their mayhem. So good the holidays are just three and a half working days away. But I heard the general mayhem in Bangkok will provide an extra test for my nerves.

Loving The Alien

Watching the telly today reminded me of a photo I once took straight off the TV, when Michael Jackson was "showing" the re-mainders of his nose. Funny thing is the picture from the television looks like a comic and I didn´t have to filter it much. Just that ghostly white face and the shades make him an icon of devilish proportions. Think Marilyn Manson looks like a twin brother of Michael. Maybe they´ll tour together next...

Allive And Not Allive Eight

Pink Floyd might have read the post from 10.06.2005 and decided it´s time to reform? Anyway, the line-up for Geldofs Live8 in July reads part like a museum of ageing rock stars (Elton John, McCartney, Sting, U2...), some MTV fast food for the masses (Mariah Carey, Snoop Dogg, 50 Cent, P Diddy...) and the odd star in need of a big global advertisement (Madonna, A-ha, Annie Lennox...) The German line-up is one big laugh too. Geldof is basicly supporting a good cause, but he´s mainly doing so in 1985 rock & pop style. So good a lot of great music has been happening in between! But Bob doesn´t know, it seems.

Schafskälte

The cold period that usually happens around here in June is called Schafskälte (sheep´s-coldness). Do I need to men- tion the open air party on Sunday has been called off? How will I spend the weekend? Sober? Blogging away? Listening to Pink Floyds "Sheeps"?

Have you heard the news?
The dogs are dead!
You better stay home
And do as you're told.
Get out of the road if you want to grow old.

Copyright Infringement

Now and then I´m reading news that websites run into problems, because they contain song lyrics or bits of them without permission. So what´s next, teenagers sued be- cause they sang a song in the street? Two pensioners sent to prison after they whistled an evergreen in their cellar? Baby prosecuted because it dreamt the text of a lullaby? Come on, gimme a break lawyers!

Please keep them away
don't let them touch me
Please don't let them lie
don't let them see me

For those of you attorneys not having enough proper work to do, here is an important announcement: This weblog is basically cheap art in progress, instant bits & bytes literature, picture fluxus fastfood for webjunkies and internet geeks. If ever bits of song lyrics do appear here, it´s solely due to artistic reasons, quoted out of the context of my steady steaming train of thoughts. It´s iPod-induced madness to recall the songs that play in my head, the ones I read on 1000s of record and CD sleeves. Many will be quoted incorrect because my English is so bad and I can´t understand half of the lyrics Gary Numan ever sang. I swear.

We opened doors by thinking
We went to sleep by dialing 'O'
We drove to work by proxy
I plugged my wife in, just for show
New ways, New ways

Summer In The Subway

This picture smiled at me from a subway train one the way home today. Brings a little bit of summer into the tube...

As it looks now, another Pollerwiesen might go ahead on Sunday, at least if the weather stays stable. I´ve got to work on Monday but what the heck. There are not many open air parties in November. At least in Cologne...

For those who enjoyed 12345678, here is more: ROBOTS

Known Faces I

From time to time friends and people from Cologne will be introduced here. We´ll start with a photo section called Watsy (to the left hand side). One day she showed up urging me to take pictures with my digicam for her appli- cations. Around 50 shots were taken that evening, but somehow non served the purpose. It would have been easy to come up with some very strange mugshots, but I opted for this big grin. Strange how the different colours bring out special expressions on the face, while it´s basicly one photo! Anyway, the real name of Watsy is Anne, she was born in the UK "thirtysomething" years ago but has lived in Cologne for many years now.

Some Time Left

Today I got received the first best wishes for my 40th birthday, nearly a month too early. But anyway, better too early than forgotten! Actually it´s nearly one more month left stressing to be thirty some- thing. But as someone pointed out before, the 40s are the new 30s. Or something like that.

For those wanting to come around for round for a party, it will be quite long way by bus, leave alone walking. Free drinks for 24 hours whoever makes it. Easy to say, we´ll spend my birthday in Bali, preceded with a stopover of five days in Bangkok. Possibly a local party, called Chill Birthday  or similar will follow later in July.

For those not afraid of boats, there is a Pollerwiesen party on the MS Rheinenergie on July 10th, celebrating 11 years of Pollerwiesen. Being back from Asia, we´ll be "all aboard" and having a brilliant excuse to party on...

Grill Bill

Rumours arrived that Chill Bill No. 2 will be called Grill Bill and features a Tandoori BBQ session of epic propor- tions. But Panjabi Bill is a vegetarian and always slams us for eating Lamb, Chicken or even Fish Curries. Huh, Tandoori Spuds galore? Tandoori Yorkshire Pud? Tandoori Peas & Mash?

Talking about indian food...new books added to the section to the right, just as fodder for your ears!

Total Confusion

We´ve been to Total Confusion at Studio 672 on Friday. This venue is one of the last places worth going to on a Friday night in Cologne, ever since it started in 1997. It´s the place that saw Michael Mayer (see picture) rocket from a local DJ to one spinning in various countries and at big clubs like Fabric in London. Friday night he was back in the Studio 672 and rocked the place. Hence no post in this blog yesterday... The picture was taken at the 5 years of Total Confusion event in 2002, the digital treatment happened this afternoon. Let´s say it´s a remix of his face...

D. T. Confirmed

Oh yes, Danny Tenaglia has confirmed he will be playing at the closing of "We Love Sundays@Space" this season. It´s Sunday the 25th of September to be more precise, plus there will be three other dates at Pacha and Space from June onwards. For the last couple of years I would have been at home, kicking myself for not flying to the closing parties, but this year the Cologne posse will be present. Did I tell you we booked an apartment just across the road, about two minutes from Space and Bora Bora?

So the only questions is: how long will Danny play at this spectacular end of the season and where will the party move on to after Space closes? We´ll keep you updated.

Welcome back to Europe, Danny!

The Girlz Are Gone

It´s unbelievable, some spotty girls were still hanging out at the main entrance of the Cologne Hilton today. The local Bouncers looked unhappy after three days of guarding the Lobby. There were less girls than before, but they where still there. But The BBoys have checked around noon out so the last faithful fans have packed it in as well.

Passing the hotel today I saw some female fans leaving the Hilton with bags and trolleys, so they must have lived there for some nights. Is this dedication or is this just being daft? I don´t think the room rates for the Hilton match their pocket money. They didn´t look like groupies, more like school girls with too many posters on their wall. Maybe they exchanged two weeks in Majorca with two nights at the Hilton, but being so much closer to the Backstreet rat pack. Barmy!

12345678

Just a quick information there is a teaser from the forth- coming Kraftwerk Live DVD avaiable now, possibly not for very long. This great mouthwatering piece of streamfodder is located here: 12345678. As you may have guessed al- ready, it´s their classic "Numbers". Enjoy!

Front Door Girlz, Aaargh!

Just wanted to mention it can be quite irritating to work in an office close to a major hotel. Those horrid Backstreet Boys played Cologne last night and the hotel next door is besieged by hordes of teenage girlz ever since yesterday morning. While they behaved on Tuesday they are now singing and chanting, as if the saviour was about to throw a party and had invited them. I´m dead sure the Bstreet Boys had their back or front door fun last night, so all the bad singing in the street is in vain. Maybe the girlz should finish school first or queue for 1 Euro jobs straightaway...