Hey kid, you an astronaut?

Hmmm. Very interesting. I’m gonna have to get the book. Courtesy of This Modern World

Prince Bandar enjoys easy access to the Oval Office. His family and the Bush family are close. And Woodward told 60 Minutes that Bandar has promised the president that Saudi Arabia will lower oil prices in the months before the election – to ensure the U.S. economy is strong on election day.

Hmmm. Even more interesting…..

Courtesy of Scoop. Click here for full article.

Given the recent scandals to the effect that the U.S. president was privy to the 9/11 plot, they might try to immediately announce the discovery of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq in order to overshadow the scandals and prevent a further decline of Bush’s public opinion rating as the election approaches.

Sources in Iraq speculate that occupation forces are using the recent unrest in Iraq to divert attention from their surreptitious shipments of WMD into the country.

An Iraqi source close to the Basra Governor’s Office told the MNA that new information shows that a large part of the WMD, which was secretly brought to southern and western Iraq over the past month, are in containers falsely labeled as containers of the Maeresk shipping company and some consignments bearing the labels of organizations such as the Red Cross or the USAID in order to disguise them as relief shipments.

There are sure to be some amazing pre-election discoveries this fall. Just wait and see. Tin-foil hat theories aside, it is stuff like this that makes Noam Chomsky sound frighteningly convincing.

Vincent: But you know what the funniest thing about Europe is?

Jules: What?

Vincent: It’s the little differences. I mean they got the same shit over there, that they got here, but just… just there is a little different.

Jules: Example?

Here.

NYC: It was a blast. I’m really grateful to my friend Bob for letting us stay at his place on the Lower East Side. It is so much better to be able to hang out with locals and check out their haunts rather than hang with tourists and watch them get drunk and spill hot-wing sauce on their midwest teddy-bear sweatshirts. It was especially good for Jens because he got to relax and hang out in NYC and just check it out at his own pace.

We pretty much just walked around and took pictures during the day and went out to bars at night.

My friend Bob is the type of guy that like to sarcastically suggest that you do stupid things that would have dire consequences. For example he’d say something like “Hey, why don’t you go over there and slap that cop in the face. It’ll be alright. He won’t do anything.” These comments can usually just be ignored.

In one of the bars we were in there was a large rambunctious dog barking and howling trying get its owner’s attention. Bob said, “Dude, you should go kick that dog. It’s just playing. It’ll be alright. He won’t do anything.” To which I replied, “Shut up dick, drink your beer.”

First let me say that this bar, 151 I think it was called, was very dark. A few moments later I got up to go to the toilet and on the way I kicked the dog right in the head. He was laying on the floor in the dark. The beast instantly latched its jaw to my foot and I could feel its teeth through my shoe as I yelled, more out of fright than pain. He let go and I went to the bathroom. When I came back Bob was very proud of himself for pulling the Jedi mind-trick on me.

A few minutes later while he was outside using his phone, I went to the toilet again and, remembering what had just happened, started to slow down in case of a dog laying in wait. Too late. This time I kicked it in the ass and the same thing happened all over again. Bob was very disappointed that he missed the second attack.

Back in reality, Germany, work with a thud.

Upon leaving Knoxville we drove through Virginia on up to Washington DC. We got to the hostel, droppped off our stuff and proceeded to find the area with young people and pubs. We were having some trouble finding our way so I asked two hip looking dudes where the party was at.

“I don’t know. We are from Germany.”

Hey so are we, sort of. So that is how we met Paul and André. They were also doing a road trip of the East coast but going north to south instead of the other way around like us. They were just as lost and clueless as we were so we all got along just fine. We warned each other about what to expect on the others respective forthcoming leg of the journey; Cops in Georgia and Florida, Cops in Jersey and New York, Girls in NYC, Girls in Miami.

We all got pretty toasty and I remember a bar with a small white guy on piano singing Jim Croce songs with a voice like Louis Armstrong. On the way home I remember Jens yelling obscene things in German trying to see if it gets anyone’s attention. It didn’t. Maybe he was just yelling them for the sake of being able to and not have anyone understand. That is probably a great feeling: In public in front of God and everybody telling the world just exactly what you feel about it and not worrying about people freaking out about what you said. So public, yet so private.

The next day it pissed down rain so we went to see a few things and took some pictures. Saw the Washington Monument, The White House and the Vietnam Memorial. Even though that memorial is out in the park is is very private. It is hard to find unless you were looking for it. It is just this huge swath of black marble cut into a shallow hillside. There are a lot of names on the Vietnam Memorial. Too many. I was born the year after the last troops were pulled out so I missed the whole era and everything that was going on back then. I just can’t see what the whole thing was about. I can’t see what, if anything, was accomplished. Sad.

From DC we drove on to Stamford, CT bringing the road trip part of the journey to an end. We spend the next few days in Stamford and then on monday the 5th went in to the city to stay with my friend Bob for 3 days.

More about the Stamford/NYC adventures coming soon.

OK Soooo…

Here in Stamford CT. the trip so far has been a blast.

In Atlanta we just ended up taking some night photos that hopefully will be cool. Jens was

laying in the middle of busy intersections trying to get the best shot. Sacrificing it for

art. The hostel there is really nice. If you are in Hotlanta on the cheap, I recommend you

check it out. it”s the one on Ponce De Leon street. We went to a few bars but it seems that

the only place we could find a decent beer with good atmosphere was an Irish pub.

Also highly visible in ATL were the spinning rims on cars, or as I now calls them, “spins”.

I have read about therm but I had yet to see any until I was in America. I am not into what

the kool kids call “Bling Bling”, but I could see myself getting some spins. Sportin those

super fresh all up on my nissan. I would be rocking the Lueneburger Heide. Notice how I

expand the Umlauts because I don’t know how to do them on an American Windows computer.

Anyway, Atlanta was cool but it was only a day.

Next stop was Knoxville, TN. Jens has a cousin that lives there with her American husband.

They are some of the nicest folks I have ever met. They have 2 teenage sons who are also

very nice but not very talkative. It was very weird to be speaking so much German in

America.

While we were there we went hiking in the Smokey Mountain National Park and we even did

some fishing. We each caught a couple of Blue gill and some bass. All were too small to

keep so we threw them back. There might be picture forthcoming.

We had a good time there and Jens’s family was very hospitable.

Of special cultural interest: There are no skunks in Europe apparently (If this is

incorrect please let me know). This is what Jens has told me anyway. When we arrived in

Knoxville and were looking for the house we came upon a dead skunk in the road. The smell

was pretty strong and completely filled the car. Jens was shocked at how bad it smelled and

almost died of laughter right there on the spot.

More to come…..

Status: Atlanta 1:36am local time.

We bailed out of key west on Sat morning and headed to Miami. There are lots of beautiful people in Miami. Lots. Stayed in a cool hostel in the Clay Hotel with an interesting cast of characters. Got there after dark so we didn’t get to see all of the madness on the beach. But we still saw lots of really beautiful women.

Today drove to Atlanta. On the way we enjoyed great jazz, R&B, country and hip hop on the radio. I enjoyed Jens’s on the fly from English into German translations of blues lyrics and other genres.

In Atlanta we went out for drinks and took ltime lapse exposure photos of the skyline. Tomorrow we head out to Knoxville for a few days.

When the trip is over I will have to add to these entries and clean em up. These Internet terminals are expensive.

Tampa was nice. It was good to see family and friends. Jens and I cooked a super meal for my parents. One night we went to this great bar down the street. They had an old jukebox full of 45’s still. Noone has those anymore except these guys. There was old Willie Nelson, Etta James, Billie Holiday, Frank Sinatra, Hank Williams and much much more. They had to kick us out at around 2am

We got to Key West yesterday and promptly started on the local scene. That went till 2am. Woke up in a room in the hostel with japanese students discussing something. Rented some bikes, went to the beach, looked at chicks, rode some more, looked in a shop full of old restored guitars, drank some more, got some food, watched the sunset at Mallory square, called Jens’s cousin in Knoxville, and went to the internet cafe, wrote this entry. We might stay an extra day but we are not sure yet.

Jens and I are here in America where everything is now low-carb this low-carb that. We are in St. Petersburg FL. The weather is great. We spent today at the beach and yesterday we went sailing.

As an aside…..

Giving a German a Budweiser or almost any other American beer is almost like an insult.

Stereolab was cool. It was a super good show. It was in the Phonodrome on the Reeperbahn. At first I was right up front and we could see evrything nice and clearly. Unfortunately, I was standing right next to the huge stack of speakers and due to the EXTREME VOLUME it started to feel as if there was a loose piece of tissue paper flapping around in my ears. So I moved to the back where I couldn’t see anything but it sounded great. Stereolab is one of the most unglamorous bands you will ever see. They just get up there and rock. They don’t really interact with the audience much because they are too busy making great music.

One note of sadness: One of the recognizable characteristics of Stereolab’s sound in the past has been the spacey vocal harmonies between Laetitia Sadier and the late Mary Hansen. Without Mary something is missing but it is still interesting. She will be missed.