War and Emerging Remembrance (washingtonpost.com): An interesting article about German veterans of WWII and their coming to grips with the war and its aftermath.

” The shifting current funneled the landing craft toward the eastern end of Omaha Beach, where they disgorged men directly below Hein Severloh’s camouflaged machine gun nest. He recalls emptying belt after belt of ammunition, raking the shoreline for hours as wave upon wave of American GIs struggled through the blood-red surf.”

The effects of the war are still present in everyday live here in Germany. Every once and a while old bombs from allied raids are found in the woods or during construction and have to be detonated/defused. When that happens everybody in like a half kilometer radius needs to be evacuated. M’s mom watched Hamburg get annihilated from her attic window when she was a child. There was an anti-aircraft gun about a kilometer from her house. She remembers going out into the garden as she was a kid and seeing a fighter pilot (English or American, alive or dead, I don’t remember) hanging with his parachute tangled in a tree. Then ladies in the neighborhood cut down the parachute just to get at the silk.

Crazy.

So there was an article in the NYTimes magazine last weekend about adults with ADD and how it affects their work/lives/etc. I’ve been meaning to read it. The only problem is that it is 10 PAGES LONG! Ironic, don’t ya think? I keep getting to the middle of page 3 before my mouse finds the slashdot bookmark and I’m gone. If anybody has read it can you just sum it up for me?

So on the weekend the sun was out and the weather was great. And then it rained Monday and Tuesday. It’s an improvement.

I’ve spent the time indoors making music. Here is a song that I once played back in the StarPhase 23 days. Back then it had no lyrics and was more or less just something we would jam on. I recorded it two times after that on 4-trk and once on ProTools Free. Finally I’ve laid it down using the DIGI002. This is just a rough mix. The vocals need to be balanced a little and the bass needs de-muddying. It will probably be recorded again from scratch someday.

Mainline

A joke I heard:

Marine One landed at the White House and President Bush gets out with a big pig cradled under each arm. The guard on duty remarks, “Those are some nice looking pigs you got there Mr. President.” The president proudly replies, “Aw thanks. These ain’t just any old pigs. These here are purebred East Texas razorbacks. I got ’em fur Cheney and Rumsfeld.” The guard snaps a quick salute and says, “Good trade sir.”

Ba-doom! Really folks, your too kind. I’ll be here all week. Be sure to tip your waitress.

I want it to stop raining. Seriously, its mid july and it has been raining since the beginning of June. Oh sure we get an hour or two of sunshine here and there but it isn’t enough to work with. It was so awesome outside today for like an hour and then it was replaced by a huge storm and now just steady showers. Grrrr.

Tourist got lost following 1914 guide book

Jens partied into his birthday last night. It went into the wee hours at Café Klatsch.

Some fool is playing “Achy Breaky Heart” right now somewhere behind my house at FULL VOLUME!

Make it stop.

Barbara Ehrenreich in the NYTimes: Their George and Ours:

“But it is the final sentence of the declaration that deserves the closest study: ‘And for the support of this Declaration . . . we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.’ Today, those who believe that the war on terror requires the sacrifice of our liberties like to argue that ‘the Constitution is not a suicide pact.’ In a sense, however, the Declaration of Independence was precisely that.”

I wanted to have a barbecue today and make some burgers in the backyard for a few friends. It didn’t come to pass unfortunately due to the shitty weather we have been having here for the past 2 weeks. Rain, rain, and more rain. Sometimes it clears up for 5, 10 minutes but then it starts again. I looked at the forecast yesterday before making my final decision as to whether or not i should go through with it. The online weather forecast showed three little dark clouds with animated lightning and raindrops. So I decided against it. Naturally the weather outside is wonderful with the sun shining. We’ll see how long that lasts though.

Spice it up!:

“The Currywurst: It’s a favorite pick at the office cafeteria and considered Germany’s answer to the otherwise American and Turkish dominated fast-food landscape. “

Sonic Youth on KCRW found via Metafilter. It’s a nice set so far. I’m 10 minutes into it. rawk.