If it's not Raven, it's crap...

I wanted to go back to Paris this year. Maybe I'll make it; maybe I won't. Something A La Mode first hit my radar, thanks to their track featuring K.Flay . It's no secret that I've been sensitized to electronic music. One of my current "ear worms" (as the Germans say) has been their track featuring Karl Lagerfeld. The Sacré-Cœur featured heavily in my first and, at this time only, trip to Paris. So much, that it makes me choke up a bit. Still, I am going to go back one day, even if it's just by myself. If you wanna go kick it with me in Paris (and can pay your own way), let me know...maybe we'll go to Paris together. Just not to the Eiffel Tower. Seriously saw enough of that to last a lifetime.

Do yourself a favor and watch this. I know that I often refer to a multitude of things as "awesome". However, what these astronauts describe is the most accurate usage of the word that any living person can give, in my opinion. I found this video to be incredibly moving. It embodies the message of " The Ballad of Oscar Homeslice " (the most important video short of our generation for this moment).

As the company where I work becomes increasingly international, the amount of daily bitching from 1.) Germans lamenting the anglicization of the German language and 2.) New expats to Germany fussing about the lack of English everywhere in Germany has increased ten-fold. My empathy for both groups is super low. Personally, I think German is quite an extraordinarily expressive language and scarily (perhaps even obsessive-compulsively) accurate. But, in the immortal words of Sweet Brown , sometimes... "ain't nobody got time for that!" And as for the expat situation...that should be pretty obvious. For better or worse, that's just how it is when you move to a different country in which the official language isn't English. Some amount of cowpersoning up and learning the language will be required, if you intend on fully interacting with your surroundings. Or at least come to terms that non-native English speakers will speak to you in less than perfect Engl...

It's Saturday night. Instead of being at the 8bit art show , I'm about 30 minutes into making the best mixtape of my life. So far... Why? Because I'm getting probably several hundred euros worth of graphic design for my radio show in return. I actually don't know how to attach value to something like this, but my eyes liked what they saw and my ears heard that it was at least a weekend's worth of work (just for the draft). That's intense. But the result for the draft work was fucking awesome and I can't wait to reveal it to y'all. I told the person doing the art that I could offer them at least a home cooked meal and/or a couple of cases of beer at least -- since hundreds of euros are not something that I have right now at my disposal. The response was that they just like to make art, however, they'd appreciate a music mix, so they can listen to stuff while doing the drawings. Holy fuck. This is like the first time in a long while that someone ...

As many of you might already know, I lived in Barmbek area of Hamburg for about 9 or 10 months back in 2006. I wrote about it back then, but I'm not sure how extensively and I don't feel like taking a trip down memory lane to look it all up again. It was a "challenging" roommate situation and I nearly got deported and I was broke as shit. Ok, that last part hasn't changed so much, but it's definitely not as bad now as it was back then. Despite the crap I went through while living in Barmbek, the place grew on me. It remained one of my favorite areas of the city even after I moved away and, as such, it was definitely a contender during my apartment hunt. So here I am again. One of the things that I simultaneously love and hate about Barmbek is the frequency with which I get chatted up by random dudes on the street. It's not a never-ending, constant stream of men. But it is enough to call it a frequent interruption of my laundry time. Because it's of...

Ever since my co-moderator stepped down (back?) from our radio show, I've contemplated changing the name. She's the one that came up with the name in the first place. And, to be honest, I'm not that great at coming up with names for radio shows. My college radio show was just called "The Best German Hip-Hop Show on the Radio". Although it was 100% the truth, it wasn't a particularly catchy or snappy name. However, even when we were both doing the radio show, R.A.P. statt E.K.G. only made sense in a very high-level/abstract way. Basically, my co-host was a nurse and R.A.P. statt E.K.G. is vaguely "medical" (or medical-sounding) because it means "Rap instead of an electrocardiogram". In a very real medical sense, that would be fucking horrible advice. No, no...go get that electrocardiogram...the rap can wait. I even took up the moniker "Dr. Nic" to reflect that I would be a poor choice in a medical emergency. As time progresse...

I read something interesting this past week, but I can't find it, so I'll paraphrase it. The gist of it was basically about filling your life with things (people, experiences, knowledge...blabla etc) that remind you about the qualities that you like/admire about yourself. On the surface it seems like an incredibly egocentric endeavor. It's highly likely that my misgivings stem from my own personal conditioning, in that I was brought up to believe/view selflessness as a virtue. But the more I've thought about it, the more it make sense and actually coincides with a piece of advice that I've given to others time and again. Namely, that you should probably make sure that your own head is on straight, before you traipsing off to help others get their shit together. That's also a really watered-down version, mind you. Still, it's been stuck in my head for the last two months and I find it applicable to my current situation. I'm not looking for a complete ...