Tag: kreuzberg

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Venus wins again

Not turning into an avid sports fan, but I am fascinated by the Williams sisters and their success. I listened to the whole game today on the radio, BBC while making my morning fruit shake and breakfast etc.. it was so exciting to have both sisters playing against each other. I wonder what the Brits think of Americans dominating Wimbledon again? Do they hate it or do they just stay mutual and enjoy the game? If I was their Mother I would be so dam proud. These girls are go-getters; I LOVE their ambition and drive.

 Venus is now a seven-time Grand Slam champion and she captured her fifth Wimbledon title by beating her sister Serena 7-5 6-4 in a high-quality final. BRAVO!!!

 

 
   


Today in Berlin some German guy ripped Adolf Hitlers wax head off. WTF? Laughing my ass off. It's the talk of the town today. Guess he had it coming to him. ha. The guy is from Kreuzberg, my neighborhood here in Berlin. Guess all the freaks live here in Kreuzberg 😉

Click HERE to read more about Adolf's decapitation. 

<  Adolf wants head.

I did go to the Hard Cock Cafe last night to eat with the German Vogue journalist, who said she'd never been there. It was fucking LOUD (dumb idea for us to go there on the 4th of July I guess). The service was TOO good, know what I mean? They kept interrupting our conversation, which we had to SHOUT over the music, every 20 seconds. UGH. There is no happy medium here. It's either the waitresses are UP your ass or ignoring you. That place has gone down the fucking tubes. It used to have great food, music, service. Now it just has LOUD crappy music and loud bloated tourists on top of Ice Berg lettuce, which I loathe entirely.

We ate and headed over to the Hyatt hotel for some wonderful red wine. If you want excellent service, eat/drink at the 5 star hotels in Berlin. They HAVE to be nice to you and they have the best food/drinks ever. I eat at the Ritz, Hotel Rome and the Hyatt all the time. I am not a clothing snob (hate fashion) or jewelry snob, but I do spend a lot on good food and wine.

I suppose drinking wine with a journalist isn't a bright idea either. After a couple glasses of wine, things get personal and private information rolls off the tongue. Oooops. Lets hope she has a heart. heh heh. If not, oh well, I already have a room reserved in Hell anyways. JK.

Jasmine alerted me today she is in Sicily. Wot? Jeeze she gets around. When I was her age I was on tour with Frank Zappa. She is just on tour. Oh well, I hope she is safe. It can't be more dangerous than LONDON! I think I should stop watching the news, I get so freaked out over the horror stories happening over there. The two French students that were killed in their flat yesterday.. ugh. I had nightmares about that. The news sucks. Not sure if it's better to hide head in sand or watch the news. If you ignore it, you become ignorant, if you watch it, you become jaded and jumpy. No wonder so many people smoke grass. Being apathetic probably has it's benefits.

 

Recently I was asked to contribute to this book:

The Heavy Metal Book of Lists, to be published in Fall
2009 by Backbeat Books, an imprint of the Hal Leonard Corporation—with
a foreword written by Lemmy of Motörhead! The HMBOL is a follow up to
their recent Punk Rock Book of Lists, by Amy Wallace and Handsome Dick
Manitoba.

Just got done with my list. I listed 11 of the top Heavy Metal Bodies that I have massaged but now I realize I have forgotten a few. Dam. It's hard to decide. Naturally I can't reveal my list but I am just saying, it's going to be a good book. Can't wait for the release party. I was at the Punk Rock Book of Lists party: http://drdot.blog-city.com/nyc_december_2007.htm   < click to read that blog… THAT party was the fucking BOMB. Here I am writing about all this current shit and I STILL have not finished my France and Italy blog. OMFG I feel like SHIT about that. It's nagging away at my conscience. It's on my mental lists of things to do, but with Berlin being so warm and fruity (there are trees in Berlin that smell so incredibly sweet and beautiful, the whole city smells amazing in the spring and summer here, it's intoxicating) it's hard to stay inside and concentrate on such a huge project. I will get it done soon, then I can move on and forget it. Wonder if all writers feel like that sometimes.

Off to bed to watch the Gene Simmons ROAST on iTunes. yes!

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1 May in Berlin, Germany 2008

 

Normally on the 1 of May Berlin is chaotic and a tad dangerous… I brought my camera out just in case I came across such action on my daily strut through the park across from my flat in Berlin. This is the video material I gathered on the 1st of May.. (above)

 

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"May 1 is a bubbling sea of discontent. The urban masses are a flurry with protest, parade, and party. Though in recent years a series of more benign events have taken some of the anger out of the day's mood, May Day is traditionally when a motley collection of left and radical groups — communist, socialist, revolutionary, and anarchist — get out for good old Berlin-style demonstrations. In addition to the primary evil, crappy work conditions and compensation, participants protest any and all things negative: racism, sexism, environmental damage, and globalization/capitalism. Other causes are uniquely Berlin: for instance there was last year's march for the release of a jailed Red Army Faction terrorist, a concern that harkens back to West Berlin as the breeding ground for terrorist groups in the late-1960s and 1970s).

Amid the ruckus, Berlin emerges yet again as a metropolis of contradictions. For starters, May 1 in Germany has seen street fights between right- and left-wing radical groups, as when the far right NPD and gangs of neo-Nazi ruffians decide that they can use the day for their own cause, which then leads to battle with Nazi opposition groups. These violent conflicts obviously contradict the messages of coexistence and peace that are the focus of several of the other groups hitting the streets on May Day.

These clashes aside, most of the violence comes from people with little political motivation — a wave of wayward punks and anarchists out for a little destructive fun. More like football hooligans than pensive protesters, these angry champions of disorder charge through the streets come nightfall looking for a chance to throw bottles and/or rocks at cops, vandalize, and, most notoriously, set cars, garbage cans, and such on fire. Their rage against authority just causes grief for a bunch of unempowered average Berliners — the residents of Kreuzberg, street cleaners, and other unlucky souls forced to deal with the aftermath.

I'm eager to see how things play out this year, after the peaceful and goal-oriented activists managed to win the day (but not the night) for constructive purposes last year. But as this year marks the 80th anniversary of Blutmai (Blood May), during which the police injured and killed protesters, it'll be interesting to see who'll claim that as their precedent (and how).

There are eleven demonstrations planned so far this year. On April 1 alone, exactly one month before the Tag der Arbeit, three revolutionary groups registered their May Day protests with the city's police. So, as in years prior, the Revolutionäre 1 Mai Demonstration will begin at 1 p.m. in Kreuzberg (pictured above). Then two other rallies will also hit the streets: Mayday beginning at 2 p.m. and Gegen Kapital und Krieg (literally 'Against Capital and War') at 5 p.m. Once you tire of watching these spectacles, you can wander MyFest, the neighborhood's fantastic street festival. Just be sure to batten down the hatches come nightfall."  From Gridskipper.com