Break dancers really like making gestures about ejaculating
Now I understand why there is an all womens graff jam
Rap in german just sounds unpleasant
Seeing the graff battle and seeing people timed while doing a throw-up reminds me of that scene in I’m Gonna Get you Sucka where they time people thieving from a car.
Funny how security people are always brown no matter what country you’re in
NY caps are most popular 2nd is Chicago White Sox…surprising. Go New Era. and Globalization.
Everyone still loves DA Bulls.
I have never thought that the smell of spray paint could be overpowered…I was wrong…smelled good.
Seeing a little graff kid walk up to a “legend” and asking him to tag his black book was really precious.
Wonderful progress made on the research front today. Painting sesh with some prolific Berliners. Interviews, flicks, and unforgetable moments on a roof. The burner that these three women did will be upped tomorrow. I am saving a bunch of other flicks for the publication.
In other news.
I am dreading my landlord? coming tomorrow. Every once and a while he “stops by for a day or two stay. I am just not looking forward to not being able to just laze around in my boxers while listening to ITUNES U and eating my cereal in the morning. I think I am going to try to spend as much time out of the house while he is here. Not cause he is a bad fellow. Just cause I don’t want to be bothered.
I think I would feel weird having video chats with the rents when he is around. Sigh. Plus I just dont want to feel pressured to do anything. Like dishes. Whatevs, how about another beer then.
1.) Flannel does not have a very good cool exchange rate. While my flannel is a hipster staple across the pond, my checkers here did not get me check’d out. On the contrary the dude at the door was reluctant to let me in. Then again it could also be the fact that I have given up the skinny jeans. Biggots. Whatever the gal I was with was on the list and so she talked some sense into hombre.
2.) In this blogging digital age there is no such thing as regional specific music. I went expecting to hear things I never heard, but what gets played? Le tigre, Digitalism, bloc Party, Does it offend you yeah?, and a bunch of other jammies I am pretty familiar with. Every now and then I had a “oh my god who the fuck is this I need this” moment. But for the most part it was a bunch of same old. Which now that I think about was kind of nice. I mean this way I don’t have to only go to mcDonalds when I need a taste of the familiar I can pay a 3 euro cover (cause I am not on the list) and dance.
3.) If you want to dance like a hipster you must:
A.) do the carleton from Fresh prince
B.)Pretend you have some kind of twitch Epilepsy is extra cool
c.) Pretend you are the kid from Dazed and Confused and pick one part of your body and keep touching it. Most popular move is the wipe the bangs one.
D.) Mock dancing.
4.) Today made it crystal clear I can resist smokes. Here I am awkward in a new place in a club with some beer in my system. I am hipster leaning against a wall surrounded by smokers and the strokes come on. It was the perfect time to light up. But I didn’t. One day at a time.
5.) I am not made for the club scene. I mean I had fun. I like to dance and all. But I felt like I was living a very particular modest mouse lyric or something…in addition I am far to tepid for such a cool place. So like Delaware, it was nice to see but I am going home.
Sunday I transcribe notes and upload flicks. Tomorrow I read about sex work.
So I have been getting a lot of responses to my posts on the movie Hancock (and when I say a lot I mean like 3). It seems a lot of people (again like 3) think I am “reading too much into the film.” Well people, this is what i gotz to say;
I am NOT completely sorry you don’t get it. At least this way I am guaranteed to have a job in the future. See, as long as people don’t get it my AAS and WGS (african american studies and women and gender studies respectively) majors are worth something. As long as you don’t get it my ability to talk about racism, sexism, classism, and every other ism will be worth something. It is kind of like how Superman needs lex luther. I need people like you. i need you to look at a movie and just be like “yo, who cares, it is just a movie…i mean will smith is in it and he made millions so how can it be racist…yo stop taking yourself so seriously…yo your accusations about white people are the racist things” so I can write books explaining why you are totally IN THE FUCKING DARK! So yeah, thanks.
On another note. I love the OC. Only because it provides brilliant fodder for gender and racial readings and because Ryan Atwood always knows exactly when to leave a scene. God I wish I knew how to just drop some knowledge and walk away. I have a tendency of staying around too long. But Ryan, man, he always just says the right thing…makes you think, and then just walks away. I am going to try this. I am going to try to be terse and to just say a few words and peace. We will see how this translates to Berlin…maybe it is a west coast thing. Time will tell.
Anyway expect an analysis of the OC sometime soon.
I am exploring the nature of my human self. Berlin makes it impossible for “me to escape from myself. I can only be my own companion. It is only natural that I will come to know the self that I am” “Now in the solitude of [Berlin,] the only way I can break my loneliness is to seek my inner self.”
1.) Word: theodicy…means: the vindication of divine goodness and providence in view of existence of evil
2.) No matter how low you turn the refrigerator setting it will not keep ice cream. So much for me being economically smart and buying bulk.
3.) Going out today to film this guy…just got second in the razors Prail contest.
Graff shop, Walls of Fame, and Random Bombing and tagging. I thought I was going to transcribe notes today, but yeah that didn’t happen. So Just some flicks and some little thoughts.
Picture doesn’t do this justice, but every stair of the escalator had a tag
In a culture and society where we revere order and structure, the kind of chaos brought about by this kind of tagging tends to make people squirm. Personally I like how hectic it is. I like how it is gushing with visual stimulus. Your eyes are drawn everywhere and nowhere. Also if it were not for tagging; pieces and burners would not exist.
Trains. A moving canvas. A symbol of an efficient, developed, and industrialized city. A technology that is only as successful as it is controlled wearing that which represents to many city officials as a loss of control
Overkill graff shop. No one steals paint in Berlin. Unlike Chicago where paint cannot be sold in the city or where you have to be 18 to purchase it, thus turning 16 year olds with spray cans into criminals, Berliners have fewer opportunities to participate in the criminal aspects of graff because they can just go buy the paint. By commodifying and legalizing certain avenues of graffiti (like having a graffiti shop) suddenly crime goes down.
Wall of Fame. I have notes on this place, but like I said. Transcription will come some rainy day.
Having a voice recorder and walking around talking into it makes me feel like a mix of Egon from ghostbusters, indiana jones, and Jeff Goldblum from the fly/big chill.
Massive update with pix from the first Wall of Fame here in Berlin/some field notes coming this sat or sunday….basically when I feel like transcribing/waiting for the DSL/WordPress to move at the pace of a snail when uploading pics.Actually I think I will be ironic and go to the american Bro bar to do this cause they free wireless and a burger/beer deal for 4 euros or something which is under my 6 euro a day budget.
