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Rubber Johnny

Chris Cunningham released a pretty strange but never- theless fascinating 42 page book and DVD recently, indeed called "Rubber Johnny". The music was made by Aphex Twin. The only drawback is the price, because the video is a rather short affair. If any DVD should have included a section with extras (making-of etc.) it´s this one. But be warned some of the pictures in the book are not for the fainthearted! If you do like his videos, this is a must.

Richie Hawtin

c/o pop finished in style last night. While Ricardo Villalobos didn´t bother to turn up and Magda bored us to death with a six hour set, the Plastikman saved the evening in his blaz- ing four hours. As the video shows, he even enjoyed himself when some kind of DJ cabin invasion took place after sun- set: Plastikman

First Song On My Mind

Did you ever wake up with a song in your head that didn´t go away for the whole day after? It just happened again this morning and I came up with the idea of storing the informa- tion here. I´ll call it the Frankly Randomized Anthem Recommendation (FRAR) from now on. I found out you can increase the effect by playing the song on your stereo during breakfast or your iPod on the way to work. I was able to do it again today, since the song is indeed on my iPod.

So todays FRAR is:

Most Anything You Want - Iron Butterfly

Funny to wake up in 2005 with a song in my head that was released in 1968, three years after my birth. Is there a psy- chedelic psychologist around to sort that out for me?

New Blogs

Today I found two great blogs that are now listed in the Essential Blogs section to the right: Retro Thing and Music Thing! You can spend hours following the various links provided there. A must for every techy music freak!

Seems like there are new features for the blog around, have to try them out soon...

Sign 'O' The Times

With all the chit chat around us, the millions of televisions, radios and iPods, the honking cars, rattling trains and noisy planes one does rarely notice the massive amount of sign language in the modern world. Sometimes it does become apparent in midtown traffic, but I can assure you there are millions more, waiting to be seen, noticed and somehow understood. If we only could understand what they all mean or are trying to suggest. Some of those are shown in the Signs photo section of this blog.

There should be a little sign with an arrow pointing to the left hand side here, but I´m sure you´ll find it anyway...

Gone With The Sinewaves

The late Dr. Bob Moog has left the planet yesterday. Over the last weeks his guest book spilled over with more than 2400 entries. He saw the list growing and en- joyed the response, as you can read in his journal: MOOG

His vision and his instruments will stay with us for ever!

The Birdie Flu Dance

Best guess is, the pope and his sheep will soon be replaced by massive stories about the Bird Flu rolling over from Russia. Reminds  me of the old scare in the late 70s and early 80s: if the Russians want to, their tanks are crossing the Rhine in 48 hours... I´m awaiting detailed statements, if the wet summer will increase chances of the Bird Flu hitting us earlier, later or never at all. And I´m deeply worried if a politician will babble away about not eating chicken any- more, even if the flu does not turn up. Or maybe it´s a fair chance to start nuking North Korea at least? Someone could argue that the oil price will be affected by the bird flu clos- ing in, as the corpses of chicken will have to be transported to cemeteries, hence an increased petrol consumption. I´m sure one of the effects will be the increased price of Chicken Vindaloo on my favourites restaurant menu - shall I order a Mutton Madras instead?

Jürgen

Jürgen was one of the last people ever you would expect to turn up at a house party and stay until the very end. But he did.  He came to our parties, helped us out where ever he could and seemed to enjoy him- self, while being 50+ already. We just were informed he was found dead at his flat by his son last Sunday.

Here It Comes Again

The summer is having it´s odd comeback, at least yesterday and today with no rain and temperatures rising. Let´s keep out fingers crossed for the c/o pop weekend in a weeks time. What, you never heard of c/o pop?

Have a look: We build this city on electronic music

Night Bar

Before The Door there was the night bar. Perhaps another reason why I felt so bad yesterday. To be honest there was a tapas bar before the night bar... At least we had some lovely food at the tapas bar, but already the habit of drinking San Miguel beer and red wine at the same time started. Or bet- ter it continued from Wednesday night at Pablo's bar, where it was San Miguel and rose wine. So if you really want to vi- sit the Night Bar without headache afterwards please pro- ceed to the photo album to the left!

The Door from Last Night

Through the door a window to the kitchen could be seen. The kitchen itself was orange, the hallway blue. The room was quite dark. We waited there because a friend decided to go shopping in the middle of the night. He didn´t come back for around two hours so in between we got terribly drunk. And shot 150+ photos. The colours made the door look like instant modern art paintings. The result can be seen in the photo section The Door to the left.

Told You

This city attracts strange people at the moment

Pilgrims

Pilgrims have started flooding Cologne. Don´t we all love baby blue Rucksacks? Every registered pilgrim seems to get one plus a likewise coloured key band... Praise the lord in baby blue!

Interesting to watch are the side effects of the pilgrims: the city seems to attract shady creatures of all kinds, trying to cash in on the popes visits. One guy was selling candles in front of the cathedral around noon today, inner city shops develop a strange passion for related t-shirts, banners, key rings... Loads of pickpockets have arrived I read in a news- paper.

Strangest sight today was a junkie standing more or less helpless but very angry in an alley behind the central station. Think he brought some postcards to sell them to pilgrims. But somehow he could not kick his habit and was completely out of his head. He had put his jacket  around his waist and fastened it with the arms of the jacket. But he was not satisfied with the jacket and tried to fasten it more, pulling as hard as he could. That would not have been a problem but additionally he brought a pool cue with him, which he was holding with one hand at the same time. During the process of this all his pope postcards must have fallen to the ground. In this very second I passed him by, seeing him in this angry but somehow frozen position (think his gear was kicking in).  STRANGE. No, I didn´t take a picture of this misery...

Boycott Nokia Covers!

The cover of my Nokia 7610 mobile broke today. Found out the company is selling covers at 45 Euros a piece. Beg your pardon? 45 Euros, nearly 100 Deutschmarks for a handful of plastic pieces which break after half a year of use? That is nearly a quarter of what I payed for the whole mobile.

Just went to the Turkish shop around the corner, got a  cover for seven Euros which fits perfectly, even if it is no original part. So I hope anyone will do so and Nokia will have to start eating their "original replacement parts". Bollox!

Time For Some Science

Italian scientists developed a new way of measuring drug abuse. From what I´ve heard they tested river Po for traces of cocaine, or better to say one of its urinary metabolics. They found out that - measured by the concentration of this metabolic - the equivalent of 400000 $ is flowing thru the river each day!

Even worse, this is much more than they estimated be- forehand. They thought there would be roughly 15000 cocaine use events in the Po area every month, but given the concentration, 40000 doses per day are more likely!

Don't talk of dust and roses
Or should we powder our noses?
Don't live for last year's capers
Give me steel, give me steel,  give me pulses unreal

Suppers Ready

At least once your holidays in Asia you will end up in a restaurant that has a dinner show running. We were cap- tured twice, once in Bangkok and once in Bali. The latter was more amusing since one guy on a table next to us had a severe problem, he couldn´t read the menu in the theatre like twilight! He already came into the place with his little mag lite exploring the aisles between the tables. After that the mag lite came in handy when choosing the dish.

Anyway, the shots in the Suppers Ready photo section to the left capture comic like impressions from the show that followed, taken with my mobile. The Japanese party next to us opted for having their pics taken with the dancers on stage, but I could miss that...

Walking across the sitting-room,
I turn the television off.
Sitting beside you,
I look into your eyes.
As the sound of motor cars
fades in the night time,
I swear I saw your face change,
it didn't seem quite right.
...And it's hello babe with
your guardian eyes so blue
Hey my baby don't you know
our love is true.

Poor Ad

Every day in the subway I see this big sized ad. Billboard sized.  Somehow they must have choosen the model by face but didn´t pay too much attention to her hand, which indeed holds the mucho praised product. Or better: did not pay any attention to the nails on her left hand.

Waiting for the subway home I´m standing in front of that advertisement, thinking she must have broken one of her nails and no one did care while producing this ad. Or is that a new secret sign, having two round nails and one flat one? Her eyes seem to make up for it, all colours, lights and desperately looking into the direction of the product. The size of the ad allows you to see a reflection of the camera in her eyes!

Insane Summer

Two open air parties on Sunday have been called off! Tem- peratures are down to 10 degrees at some spots in Ger- many, while Spain sees temperatures approaching 40 degrees. And we´re not talking about April, it´s August.

Testing!

I said it was going to rain tonight but I didn´t know it would be the first real life test for the flags attachment on the bal- cony! This is not a summer breeze, this is a minor storm. Guess surfers would be happy now... So far the flags stay where they are, but you can clearly hear the noise they make inside.

This is a test, this is only a test!

The Act Is Done

At 1.40 Euros for one 2.80 meter bamboo pole, something was definitely wrong at the garden centre. 3.00 meter poles were sold for 10 Euros each, so I guess we were just lucky. As for the transport, no lorry was needed, it worked with a tiny little car. No one could sit in the front and a bit of the bamboo came out of the back of the car though. Sticking a yellow bit of plastic to the rear end helped a few meters until it flew away on the road...

Fixing the flags to the balcony is a different task. They are fixed now but bets are now taken for the next storm, leave alone autumn or winter weather conditions.

Worst idea is, people might think we rolled the flags out for the popes visit. Barmy no! Becoming Hindus is more likely than welcoming Gods Rottweiler in town!

Fortress Cologne

While in the UK the hunt for the Third Cell goes on, Cologne prepares a mass event of  "soft targets" plus their well known idol, the pope. Today I saw newspapers pro- claiming Cologne will be a fortress in two weeks time. I do remember Bill Clinton being in town and armed policemen taking control of windows in the office buildings around the cathedral. Clinton walked along as if he was on holiday and later dropped into a traditional brewery to quench his thirst. Apparently the latter might not happen with the pope.

On the streets shops show a multitude of pope t-shirts by now, the rushed release of the first shirt is fading already. A combination like "I´ve been to the Fortress Cologne and saw the pope from row 112" might appear soon. Or there might be a "I´ve been to Cologne but all I saw of the pope was this lousy t-shirt".

10th Planet

A 10th planet - larger than Pluto - has been discovered in the system. The temporary name is 2003UB313, other sources claim it will be called Sedna, like the Inuit Goddess of the Sea.

So can we now expect a frenzy of dogs being christened Sedna? A Sedna chocolate bar? Or a very devilish radio- active substance called Sednaium? Or should they simply come up with a better name? Answers on a postcard please!