almost a diary

Dick Cheney is probably a much cooler guy than you thought he is. After a hard day’s work of conspiring with his freshly indicted former Chief of Staff Lewis “Scooter” Libby, the man still has time and energy for a jam session with the legendary surf music band “The Surfaris”. Well, one of the two bands using the name, each featuring one member of the original band’s cast (info from surfkraft.de)

Alright, maybe it’s not really Cheney. It could also be Paul Johnson, a surf music veteran, who is, along with Dick Dale, one of the genre’s principal founders and pioneers. At least that’s what his introduction was on stage, and that is also what’s written in the biographical part of the band’s website. He is also credited with the first record to be tagged as “surf music” – Mr. Moto, back in 1962. I wonder if Motorola’s ad agency thought about this when they created their latest campaign… (“hello Moto?”)

As part of their current European tour, the Surfaris stopped in Wiesbaden yesterday. And someone else did too. Standing behind the guy pictured on the left I somehow couldn’t stop thinking about the song Eric Bazilian wrote for Joan Osborne – “What if God was one was of us?“

Despite the title, no porn here, gentle readers. But have a look at the book on the left which I found in the “family library” of the happy couple whose wedding celebrations I attended in Bochum this weekend: a loose translation of the book’s title would be “The way young housewifes bake.” The presence of said book is particularly interesting given that the newly wed wife admitted publicly during the party that her husband is the better cook…

Oh, before I forget: It was the first time I visited Bochum. And although I haven’t seen too much of it, Herbert Grönemeyer seems to be right to claim that is a better place to be than one usually thinks.

Or maybe they were kidding. But the toilet did have an emergency exit.

The staff of the state-theatre Wiesbaden performing a machine-symphony…

Seen in the Turkish quarter of Wiesbaden… apparently, displays of affection for the club from the city across the river aren’t even too uncommon there.

I’m zapping through the channels while getting myself a coffee and I’m finding out about a new kid in German tv town – an NBC subsidiary called Das Vierte (the forth). They’re broadcasting mostly older American movies and tv-series. Its a good guess I’m gonna like that channel – everyone would like a tv channel he finds out about because he recognizes scences from one of their favorite movies. In my case, it’s “Grace of My Heart“, a good, unfortunately underdeveloped film about a songwriter/singer (sic!) allegedly modeled after Carole King and wonderully played by Illeana Douglas.

I first saw the film nine years ago in UIP Germany’s executive theatre, while doing an internship with their avertising agency. Among other things, it was our job to come up with a decent German title. But the film was never released for cinema. Since then, I’ve watched it a couple of times and I like it just as much as back in 1996.

And the the soundtrack, featuring new Brill Building era songs specifically written for the film by, among others, Burt Bacharach and Elvis Costello, is, in my opinion, nothing short of spectacular.

Just to let you know, my gentle readers, I have blogged in German for the first time today. Following an intriguing conversation with Lyssa, the current winner of the afoe Satin Pajama for “best German blog” at the Frankfurt International motor show last Saturday, I felt I should at least try once something that comes natural for most bloggers: blogging in their native language.

So should you be able and willing, you can read my ‘coverage’ of the initial reaction to Germany’s biggest social marketing campaign “Du bist Deutschland” (“You are Germany”), which was launched today, over at my new German blog Ich bin (auch) Deutschland.

Finally a holiday experience that will impress my grandmother, who is, among many other things, fluent in all things concerning “European royalty.” Well, I suppose as fluent as reading women’s and celebrity magazines will get you in this respect.

So on my way back to Stockholm airport, I saw a tall guy with an earpiece standing in the middle of a road I had to cross. Then the royal carriage appeared and King and Queen of Sweden passed on their way to the annual opening of the Swedish Parliamentary session. Not sure, but it appears to be something like the “Queen’s Speech” in Britain.

Remembering what GWB’s visit to my home town had been like in February this year – remmeber, people who lived close to the place where he met with Chancellor Schroeder had to pass the entire day behind closed curtains not to risk being shot by US secret service snipers on the next building – I was mostly surprised about the relative lack of royal intrusion in people’s lives.

Where Bush had 3 motorways closed as well as airplanes diverted, King and Queen came, greeted and went to the Parliament with amazing royal understatement – despite the impressive amount of cavalry accompanying them.

Despite my still serverely limited mobility I made it to Stockholm for the first bi-annual afoe stakeholder meeting.

Too bad that only a couple of fistfuls came to Sweden this weekend, but it’s great to finally meet some of the people I’ve blogged with for two years now.

Too bad as well that I won’t see as much of Stockholm as I would like because of overly frequent foot-caused coffee breaks.

Too bad, too, that almost all of those coffee breaks are taking place in self-service coffee shops. Waiting is a apparently an activity limited to rel restaurants in Sweden…

Just to let you know, I’m firmly standing on the ground again – using both feet. For those who don’t know. I broke my left foot after attending a “Hooters” concert in June and had to spend most of the summer indoors, which wasn’t too pleasant. Tomorrow I’ll find out how much longer I need those “additional feet”…