Happy Forth of July! Although I am not in Amiland at the moment I just want y’all to know that I’m feeling it. I had 4, that’s right, 4 hotdogs yesterday. Hamburgers unfortunately weren’t on the menu. Please read the next paragraph carefully and think about it.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”

Now if your saying,”Oh there he goes again…”, then you are part of the huge apathetic anti-voice that won’t find your courage to speak up before it is too late.

That is all. Class dismissed.

“a little revolution is good now and then.”

-Thomas Jefferson

“Those who give up liberty for the sake of security deserve neither liberty nor security.”

-Benjamin Franklin

Here are three blogs from Bagdhad. It gives a very interesting perspective on what is going on over there. contrary to what The Chimp tells us it sounds like the war is still going on.

Salam Pax. If you havn’t heard of this one then you’ve had your head in the sand for the last 6 months.

His pal G,

And a new female blogger, Zainab.

These people risk a lot and put their lives and security on the line whenever they post. Due to the fundamentalist conservatism over there, a lot of their opinions and frank comments are not appreciated and could get them into some trouble.

Ok a few things:

Dennis Kucinich is who I’m supporting for President. Its a longshot but I’m voting with my conscience.

The best online translator is here: Tha Shizzolator. It makes life that much more interesting.

A fashion accessory I was going to design but someone beat me to it: The American Traveler Apology Shirt: A must buy for Americans abroad.

From the Guardian: In extracts from her book on the curious lives of human corpses, Mary Roach visits a field full of rotting bodies and (below) watches a cadaver help test car safety. Click here for the lovely details. Eww.

More fuel for the fire boys. I hope the press starts asking more questions and stops sucking the teat of the Bush administration.

And last but not least: If you drive this car or think it is cool, you are a dick. Don’ try to justify it. Just accept it and kill yourself asshole.

anger subsiding…..rising…subsiding. All work and no play make Nate something something..

I played at the Lüneburger Stadtfest on Friday with my band April May June. Despite playing with a substitute bassist we did pretty good and a lot of people came out to see us. Here are a few pictures of us rocking out.


The Band!!


Here’s me looking like a chump.

On Saturday I went to see Besser play on the Marktplatz. They seriously rock. They are probably the best band in Lüneburg. The have sort of an Acetone/Velvet Underground thing going on there. Here they are:

After Besser I went down the street to El Toro, a nice little tapas joint where my friend Herbert works. After getting thoroughly toasted with red wine I took this picture:

Then I went to check out the techno tent that was set up in an old courtyard. There wasn’t much going on there accept a few tapped out rave kids. I then went home and crashed at about 10pm. Yeah Stadtfest!

UPDATE!

I had a gig two weeks ago as well in Winsen/Luhe. It is not like I’m a big rock star and want to show off my pictures but check this one out. That’s how you play when your slide disappears and you have to get creative. It is also very rock and roll.

Aww Yeah!! My brother Ben graduated from Highschool. Way to go bro! Get it while you can. At least I know somebody is reading.

Designed cover for AprilMayJune EP. I don’t know if the others will like it. Its actually some of the best layout work i’ve ever done. I’ll post a screenshot when it is done

My Mom sent a huge box full of Girlscout Cookies. Samoans, Tagalongs and of course Thin Mints. I was thinking about bringing them to work and distributing them but I had to reconsider. They are Girlscout cookies after all. The Thinmints are almost gone and I didn’t eat most of them. Hmmm. So I put the rest in the fridge and I’m waiting to put it on some Rotze Grotze. They better still be there when i get home dammit.

A crazy memory came back to me the other day. Being in my aunts garage in the middle of July, fishing a can of grape Vess (its the billion bubble beverage) out of the cooler, and in the background there is Jack Buck and the Cardinal baseball game on KMOX. Just the sound of a baseball game coming in on a crappy AM station…You cannot hear something like that in Germany.

Aww Yeah!. I had a gig on Saturday. We rocked needless to say. No really. I will have pictures soon to prove it. Tomorrow my company is making a Betriebsausflug (um, fieldtrip?) to Kiel where we will check out the university and aquarium. Cool. Anyway here is a picture of the artist as a young man and his muse.


I got a digital camera this week. The Fujifilm Finepix S602Z is nice. I haven’t really had time o seriously play with it yet. There’s lots of buttons. I will have to sit down and read the handbook. However, here is the first picture. This is the view out of my office window. Beeeyootyful ain’t it? I will post more pics in “Media” when I get around to it.


We went to see Yo La Tengo on Sunday night. It was cool and by “cool” I mean totally sweet. They played at the Fabrik which is a really nice venue. We actually stood on a balcony right over the band. I could read their set list and knew what the next song would be. They played a lot of stuff from the last album plus old favorites. The new stuff is mellower than usual but it is still good. Then they took requests and cracked jokes. 3 encores. Zee Germans lav show. Mach Show!!


Mike Ward opened for YLT and also lent some keyboard/guitar skillz on a few songs. His set was really quiet. I bought his CD called End Of Amnesia and it is really good. Its like a male Catpower/smacked out David Gray thing. Good with a seedless.

Notes from Germany