constant narrator

Day 2 in Berlin. My brain woke me up at 7:30, so I got up to get bread (OK, an eclair) at the Turkish bakery on the corner to find that there was a film crew in the street outside the apartment filming a zombie-cyborg movie. Yay zombie-cyborgs! In German! The woman at the bakery rolled her eyes when I asked her about the filming, as if saying “Great, another zombie-cyborg movie.” M got around and we went wandering Kreuzberg. Today’s weather was gorgeous, and as it is supposed to be rainy and cold for the next week, every single person who could be outside today in Berlin was outside. We found our way across the Landwehr Canal near our place to Görlitzer Park and sat in the sun in the bowl that used to be the train turntable.

We wandered from there and had lunch(ish) at a cafe along the U-bahn 1 line and watched people for a long time just being lazy and enjoying the weather. From there we ventured up into Mitte to go to Kastanienallee, where we knew there was a great art store to get some supplies. Along the way we saw a park completely packed with bodies soaking up the last summer sun of Berlin which cried out to me “Buy some ice cream!”. Not one to quash ice cream urges when they hit, we found some ice cream and spent more time being lazy in the sun. Eventually we made it to the art store and then headed back to Kreuzberg to meet famed Australian scrytchian Justien and her sweetie Robert. We had an excellent dinner at a bio (organic) restaurant and got to know each other. Both were immensely entertaining.

The apartment we subletted through Craiglist for a pittance is great and convenient to the U-bahn. M and I agree that we’re glad the first time we came we stayed in Mitte and Prenzlauer Berg where there are more young people running amuck and the cafes and such are more densely packed. Kreuzberg, however, has its own charms and holy hell is it cheap over here. I am eating more cheaply than in Austin even with the terrible dollar/Euro conversion.

The jet lag is still kicking me, so I’m off to bed. We’re going to try to head to clubs and shows later this week. I’ll report back with any musical finds.

I returned late in the evening Monday night from an extremely muddy Flipside out at Flat Creek. It was raining sideways when I arrived and I spent the next few hours being pissed off at the ridiculous conditions I was setting up camp in. After a bit I let go of the concepts of “clean” and “dry” and it got to be a hell of a lot more fun.

This was probably my best Flipside, in terms of new connections and personal transformation. I’ve been in a terrible funk the last couple of months and I had my brain dumped out on the ground and sorted through in the rain, only to put some freshly washed contents back in the bin. The themecamp I was with was full of wonderful, hard working, low-drama people and we had many lovely and comfortable places to hang out and enjoy each others’ company. Saturday night had much adventuring with friends and late in the morning Steve played the best set of music in the Hagia Sofia that I have heard since Burning Man 2002. It made it cry it was so perfect and beautiful. The sun put me to bed that night and I woke up a few hours later feeling so much better.

The effigy burn was good but Alissa’s Soulflight temple burn was truly beautiful, with an iron phoenix rising out of the petals as the flower burnt away. I have some amazing friends.

Here’s a pic of one of the arches we built over the road. It was taken from the other arch.

(pic courtesy of g0saru)

We did not fuck around this year, some shit got Done! w00t!

Today I witnessed the birth of my nephew, Hendrix Zion, at the home of my brother and sister-in-law, with midwives helping out and Dominick and Kyra Moon watching. It was truly awe inspiring. I am still overwhelmed by it. It’s been a gorgeous and exhausting day. Here he is. He is perfect.

So today I ducked out of work and ran to the convention center where I nabbed free tix to see The Bravery play live for a broadcast on directtv. My brother flew into town this afternoon so we headed down around 8:30 to get in line. We were pretty early and there were fewer people than I expected since The Bravery had played a sold out crown at Stubbs the night before - that, and I think the satellite channel did a terrible job of telling people about these free and open to the public concerts. At any rate, once the doors were open I was up in front, hand on a monitor, w00t! They came, they played, the rocked. Sam sweated on me, there was contact, I got a pick. I am a pleased little groupie. They didn’t have quite the spunk they did at the insanely hot ACL fest show they gave a couple of years ago, but the whole TV studio thing had a bit of a dead ring to it and it took them about a half hour (2/3 through their set) to really get the crowd awake. The songs from their new album sounded great, I look forward to geeking out over it when it comes out.

Did I mention I got Sam’s pick?

So, I’m standing by our big glass garage door talking to my coworker when something bright catches my eye. Jumping out of an SUV comes a superhero! Blue tights and leotard! Red cape! Bright yellow fins on his shoulders and yellow underwear and knee-high boots! He pauses to fix his hair in the car window, then leans into the vehicle to get… his superhero tool belt? Ray gun? NO!

HIS MEGAPHONE!

And so he was off, to fight crime and harrass the hungovers on 6th street.

Go SXSW.