One thing I noticed when I first moved to Germany was that most Germans take driving-and-drinking very seriously. This may have something to do with the severe penalties in Germany. Although there are lots of things in the American media warning about it, it often tends to be ignored or not taken that seriously. That is just from my observations though. I can’t find any statistics comparing DUI/DWI incidents between Germany and the US. Google has failed me.

…than anything else in this world. One is going to the dentist. The other is moving and all that it entails. The dentist visits are the lesser evil of the two. Moving sucks more than anything else in the entire world. But sometimes it just has to be done.

M and I have been looking to move to more roomier digs for sometime now. We looked at a bunch of places over the past 6 months but we didn’t find anything suitable. This past Friday we signed a contract for a 3 story house smack dab in the middle of Lüneburg. The price is right and there is over 130m² of space for us and all of our crap not including the celler, which may end up being the new Chillmost Studios. We’ll see once we get everything moved in and renovated. There is a bit of work that needs to be done before the big move. A few rooms need new carpet, wallpaper or paint. The kitchen needs the most work but once it’s done it will be rocking.

As far as we know, the house is a little over 100 years old. We may have to check the city archives to found out for sure. The bottom floor, which will be my hideout, used to be a bar about 50 years ago. Supposedly, the landlord has some cool pictures from way back taken in the bar.

We pick up the key next weekend. On Saturday I pick up pal:ndrøm at the airport in Hamburg. We will depart on the following Monday on a whirlwind tour of Berlin, Hamburg and Amsterdam. After that I am Nate der Baumeister.

I can hardly wait.

I just wanted to relate a weird experience that happened to me when I was in Copenhagen a few weeks ago. I was riding a Citybike and was waiting on a curb to cross the street. As I was waiting, I suddenly had the feeling that I was being watched. I turned around and was shocked to see that I was being photographed by about 20 Japanese tourists. Huh?

Before I could yell, “I am not the guy from Scrubs!”, I realized their tour guide was explaining the Citybike concept to them. Somewhere there are a bunch of photos belonging to Japanese tourists with a picture of me with a shocked expression on my face that says, “What the fuck are you all staring at?”

On my birthday last Sunday while I was in Copenhagen, I stopped into a pub called Bloomsday for an afternoon pint or two. What drew my attention to this pub from over a block away was the live Irish music coming from inside. Supposedly, sessions happen regularly on Sundays between 3-6pm and musicians just show up, both Irish and Danish, and start jamming. I was lucky enough to have my video camera with me and I was able to record a few minutes for your viewing enjoyment.

We arrived back from Copenhagen last night at about half past midnight. If you get a chance to visit, I highly recommend it. It’s so choice. Some observations…

• There are lots of children in Denmark. All over the place. They can’t all be on vacation can they? Surprisingly, they all seem to be very well behaved.
• Consequently, there are a lot of pregnant women in Copenhagen. This is no surprise as there are lots beautiful women there as well. Seriously though, I have never seen so many pregnant women in all of my life. I kept asking myself if there was some sort of power outage 9 months ago or some other event that prevented Danes from leaving there house for like a week or something.
• There are lots of blonde people.
• In addition, it also seems to be a very racially diverse city, including many Greenlanders.
• Alcohol in bars and clubs is very expensive. Thus, many Danes will buy beer in bottles or cans in a kiosk and drink on the street. In the summer this can lead to spontaneous parties breaking out in market squares.
• The Danish seem to be very chill and laid-back. Oh, that guy walking down the street wearing women’s lingerie? Interesting, isn’t it?.
• Lots of bicycles. Especially of the Christiania variety, which fits in with the whole theme of children.
• There is a lot of cool scandinavian architecture and minimalist design. There’s even a museum.

There is also a city-bike program there where you can pick up a bike at a designated points in the city. In principal it sounds like a great idea. The problem is that most of the bikes were falling apart or missing key components like wheels or seats. It took us a 2 days to find one that wouldn’t kill its rider. Then M rode that all over till she found another. Even though they both had fucked up chains/pedals/sprockets/brakes, it sure beat walking.

Other highlights included:

• Christiania and the guided tour from longtime resident, Pete.
• Boat ride through the canals
• Watching people’s reaction as M wandered through the streets of Copenhagen with braided hair while wearing a huge plastic viking helmet.

More to come…

So the time has almost come. I will turn 30 on Sunday. In order to avoid a common North-German tradition that befalls unmarried men on their 30th birthday, M and I are driving to Copenhagen for an extended weekend. For those of you who are geographically challenged, Copenhagen is the capital of Denmark, the happiest place on Earth. The drive is about 4.5 hours both ways and includes a ferry ride. I am really looking forward to it. I’ll be sure to check out Freetown Chritiania. I have been in Germany for over 5 years and this will be the first time I have visited the closest foreign country. Unless you count Bavaria.

Posting has been minimal lately, and for good reason. There is a bit of a heat wave going on in Germany. As most houses in Germany do not have air conditioning, I have been avoiding unnecessary sources of heat. This includes turning on computers that quickly turn my room into a mini sauna. Instead I have been biding my time in outdoor shady Biergartens with friends and loved ones. And I am not gonna lie, I have been gawking at lots of hot chicks.

Here are 2 pictures I have been meaning to post. They both deal with graffiti.

This one is across the street from my building. It was obviously written by a supporter of Antifa. The message is somewhat contradictory. “Fuck Nazis!” but then “Kein Sex mit Nazis!” (No sex with Nazis!). I’m torn. Should I fuck them or not? Congratulations renegade graffiti artist. You are making me think.

This one was found on the wall of a beautiful old building in the Trastevere neighborhood in Rome. It adds such a needed touch to the building’s otherwise lacking architectural presentation. I am glad to see that the Azz Kickerz are reppin’ hard. We gotz da East Side on lockdown beeyatches! Uh, prego.

Are you still reading this drivel? Well, as a bonus for sticking around, here is a rough mix of a track I did this week. For now it is called “cool beat” because that is the smartest thing I could think of when I had to save it in a hurry. It was recorded and mixed in Live. Download it here (5.2 MB of high quality MP3 lovin’).

See you all on the other side of the dirty thirty.

Cool. Link updated!

That was fast!

Tomorrow I will be on the “Langspieler” program on Radio ZUSA, live from the Universität Lüneburg. The show is co-hosted by my friend Ingo. We each introduce a new release, discuss it and then give it a rating. Yeah, kind of pretentious, but this what music nerds do who wish they worked in a record store in Chicago’s Wicker Park district.

It will be at or around 9pm (3pm EST) on Monday. The show can be heard live over the Internet via this link. Keep in mind in is in .ogg format, so you will need some obscure audio player that can play it back. So, for those of you who are not Linux admins living in your mom’s basement, you can use winamp for Windows or VLC for Mac.

If you manage to tune in, you’ll get to hear me speak German.

You can watch the astronauts bustling around on the Space Shuttle Discovery. Right now they are fixing something on the boom and remarking on the beautiful view over NYC. Cool.