Send Him Back (Pilooski Edit) - Pointer Sisters (MP3)
Spiraling
Stephen Tagging Cycletia
"You want me to write what?"
You Never Walk Alone
MARS & MAPS
Hail Brave
^ Rogue.^
Peres Dwellings
Peres Armless Alien Child
Peres Geometry
The Ancient Profession
Fuck Me Like The Whore I Am,
You Sexy Beast.
Nathania Shines Her Brights
A City With Two Faces.
"And He Wear Fancy Adidas."
Now it just wouldn't be right (or usual) for me to post a blog without some sort of insane violent dramatic occurrence (usually involving drugs or alcohol) and this post certainly doesn't disappoint (well except for perhaps my mother.) But lets not get ahead of ourselves. On August 30th my friend Michael held one of his "Borderlines" readings/spoken word/literary events at his STYX project space. Usually I find these literary events to be a complete and utter bore, but this one was different. Most of the writers were German and read to us in German including my glamourous friend Thomas Götz von Aust. My good friend Travis Jeppesen was also one of the writers included and he read us (in English) a great short story that he wrote. Travis is an incredibly talented writer and is even being touted by some in the art/literary world as the next William S. Burroughs. Although some of the subject matter he writes about is a bit dark and bleak at times, (definitely not for the faint hearted) he however earns my applause for his unapologetic fearlessness in exploring themes that most other writers wouldn't dare to go near. I'm actually reading his first novel "Victims" right now and I'm really enjoying it. It's all about an insane fictional religious cult (think, david koresh, heavens gate, or jonestown) He and his boyfriend Mario are actually two of my closest friends here in Berlin. I'm pretty sure you can buy his books on Amazon.com or from the publisher (maybe even directly from him) so all of you should go out and buy his books. He really is a unique talent and deserves all of our support. Travis also has a blog devoted mostly to art criticism, so check that out too. - www.disorientations.com - I was actually quite surprised at how many people showed up to listen to all the authors read. It seemed even more crowded than some of the art openings STYX has hosted. After about an hour of attempting to grasp the gist of what the German readers were saying, Mario and I went out into the stair well and smoked a joint. By the time Travis went up to read, Mario and I were quite stoned. When the readings were finally over, thats when the real party began. I was really drunk, having downed about five glasses of wine, then we turned on some electro music and I became a dancin fool! Someone brought this amazing, raggedy, Morticia Adams like black wig and we were all taking turns wearing it as we got more and more drunk and stoned. That is where the night should have ended but instead we took the S-bahn for a bar crawl in Friedrichshain. I have very fuzzy memories of sitting in the middle of some random side street drinking beer and carrying on like crazed lunatics as we tried to decide what bar or club to go to. Finally we ended up splitting up. Travis and Mario very wisely called it a night and decided to go home, while Michael, Thomas, Tilo and I went to some club near Warschauer Strasse. They all cut the line and went directly into the club while I was still outside locking up my bike and chatting with some random punk girl. When I got to the door the bouncers refused to let me in saying that I was way too drunk (I definitely was) although had I entered with my friends I'm sure they would have overlooked it. They wouldn't even let me go in to tell my friends that I couldn't come in. What happened next is a typical example of the kind of foolish decisions I seem to routinely make when I have had too much to drink. I thought to myself, I'll show these dumbass goons! So I climbed a tree and jumped over the back wall into the outdoor biergarten of the club (nearly breaking my legs in the process.) I dusted myself off and stumbled inside where I found Michael and everyone. When I found them they asked me where I had been and I told them what had happened. My friends are used to me pulling these kind of antics, so they really weren't surprised. I was there for maybe twenty or thirty minutes when all of a sudden some big muscular german bouncer spotted me and grabbed me by my collar and then literally threw me out of the club! Hahaha it was so embarrassing and I was really fucking pissed off. I would have gladly left on my own. But this idiot had to put on a big macho show for everyone. I drunkenly asked him his name so that I could file a complaint. I was such a mess. He refused to tell me his name. He was wearing a name tag but it was face down against his chest. So all of a sudden a lunged for him and snatched his name tag away and took off running with it down the street. I don't know why but for some reason I was laughing hysterically as he chased me down the cobblestone street. Then my little espandrilles slippers that i was wearing fell off and I threw the name tag to the ground, but he didn't see me throw it. He tackled me to the ground and started smashing my hand against the pavement thinking his name tag was what I had clutched inside my hand (it was actually my phone) My thumb actually still hurts and that was almost a month ago. I must have fractured it or something. I have to say though that I put up a pretty good fight considering how drunk I was and the fact that he was probably three times my size! He didn't get off of me until I started screaming rape, rape, rape at the top of my lungs. Then all of a sudden out of nowhere my friend Tilo arrived and brought me my shoes that had fallen off. We stupidly decided to call the police (even though I knew they probably wouldn't do anything.) We were right. The police didn't do a damn thing even though I had about three witnesses who saw the whole thing and were totally on my side. They said that I should go to the station the next morning if I wanted to file a complaint, but the next morning when I woke up, I just felt like a complete idiot, douche bag for allowing things to escalate as they did. Yes, they shouldn't have been so rough with me when they kicked me out, but I was very stupid to jump the wall in the first place and to grab the bouncers name tag. But when you're as drunk as I was that night you don't really think rationally. I guess I just need to learn when to call it a night and go home to bed. But I'm quite notorious for learning my lessons in life the hard way.
U R A Fever - The Kills (MP3)
Disco Zombie
WELCOMEELEPHANT
Fertile Decay
Beauty In The Grotesque
Travis Reads About Grandma
I Write For Porn Too
Only In Berlin Kids
Potsdamer Platz Is Rising
Morticia & Michelle
Free As We Are
I Wanna Screw!
Greasy, Sexy, Cool!
Adrianna: Berlin Fashion Icon/PORK Fly(er) Boy Extraordinaire...
Drunk Mess.
Chemtrails Will Kill Us All
Blame The Masonic Serpents
This past August was actually a bit boring and uneventful especially towards the beginning, Most of my friends were out of town on vacation. The city felt a bit like a ghost town for a couple weeks there and I was getting a bit lonely and bored of Berlin and starting to think that maybe I needed a change of scenery. This always happens to me whenever I reach the six month point somewhere. I just can't seem to stay in one place. I swear I am perpetually transient. Anygypsy, (xomk!) I decided it might be cool to move to London just for the winter and shake my money maker over there for a while hahaha. Now that might sound like a good idea in theory but in actuality London is a tough town. London is great if you have money, but like New York, or any big city for that matter, it's quite miserable to be poor there, I would think. Regardless, I was all set to move there, I found a room to rent and everything and then literally in the space of one afternoon everything changed. I was doing some research online when I started reading about the dire predictions so many important world economists have been making in the past few months; total economic collapse, the devaluation and eventual destruction of the U.S. dollar, intoduction of the amero, panic, fascism, police state, martial law, some even predicting a worldwide economic depression that would make the great depression of the 1930's pale in comparison. It It all sounded so alarming. But It also seems so very calculated. The other day when I saw an, almost weepy, sullen George W. Bush on CNN in a very serious tone begging for the American tax payers to pony up another 700 billion dollars to bail out Wall Street in order to avoid grave danger, three words came to my mind. ONE LAST HEIST. These crooks make me wanna puke. Seriously. This shit is gonna happen regardless.. These crooks are purposefully creating an atmosphere of panic and fear in order to exert more power and to rob Americans even more than they already have. Anyway, that afternoon in August as i was reading what all these economists were saying, I began to wonder if London was the sort of city I would really want to be living in the event of such a calamity as a total economic meltdown. Just then my phone rang. It was my friend Michael Rade, the gallerist behind STYX project space. He asked me if I would be interested in participating in his upcoming show featuring the paintings of another American born artist; Prague based painter, Jeremiah Palecek. He asked if I would like to do a performance piece at the shows closing reception on September 26th. I thought it over for a few hours and decided to hold off on moving to London. I called Michael back and agreed to do the piece. I wasn't exactly sure what I wanted to do for it just yet but I saw it as a great opportunity for me. September 3rd saw the opening of the exhibition and Jeremiah is an undeniable talent. Most of his paintings are YouTube stills. He paints the Internet, video game and porn stills. His work depicts a sort of suburban American angst and an isolation that North Dakota born Palacek is certainly no stranger to. The internet seemingly acts as a sort of muse and provides for him an inspiration and an escape to the outside world. This is also quite true for me. So when considering my performance, I stayed in keeping with this theme. I drew from my own personal angst and isolation growing up in America in a Mormon family. Although I have been estranged from the religion since around the age of fifteen, I still often feel conflicted about what exactly my purpose is in this life and where we all come from etc. Although I believe that this inner conflict is ubiquitous throughout humanity, I must say that I think the brainwash and religious indoctrination imposed on children in the Mormon faith is certainly on the more intense end of the spectrum. In fact I think it amounts to a form of child abuse and for those of you who disagree, I suggest you watch the film "Jesus Camp" on YouTube. So anyway, for my performance I wanted to express this angst and inner turmoil through the art of dance. I coupled this with the age old question of who am I? and where do I come from? I found a passage on creation in the book of Genesis (2:7) " And the LORD God formed man from the dust of the earth and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living being." For the piece, I had this scripture graffitied on my chest and stomach in large block letters. I walked into the gallery naked as the day that I entered this world. I knelt down and covered my body from head to toe with the dust/dirt of the earth and danced to an insane recording mash up of tribal music and a very lively/spirited pentecostal church service replete with screaming clapping and people speaking in tongues. I wanted to illustrate the insanity that I feel religion induces. I think I suceeded. I called the piece "Sunday Morning" and the experience of performing it was far more therapeutic than any shrink that I have ever visited. Make of it what you will. I actually find it a bit strange explaining and dissecting my own art, so I will leave it at that. For those of you interested in learning more and getting another perspective on my performance, here is a link to a review of it.
http://disorientations.com/2008/09/30/a-star-is-born-tennessee-claflin-at-styx-project-space/
After I finished my performance I was whisked away to take a shower at the Potsdamer Platz penthouse of my glamourous new gallerist friend Nathan Scheider. I had met Nathan a couple weeks before after chatting with him online for a few months. Nathan is one of those people that just has such a natural, nurturing and caring personality. He is extremely intelligent and witty. He also has an incredibly compelling personal life story. Although we come from two very different worlds, Nathan understands the intrinsic and often interchangeable relationship between artists and their muses. I have to say that there is indeed something very inspiring about this man. Nathan was born in Saigon in the early seventies at the height of the Vietnam war. Often times American GI's would father children with Vietnamese women, usually sex workers. When the babies were born, most of the time they would be abandoned or left in the care of an orphanage. By nineteen seventy five there were thousands of these rejected, unwanted children running around Saigon. In a rare ethical move, at the end of the war, the United States took responsibility for these children, bringing them to America in a move which was coined "operation baby lift" Nathan was adopted by a family in Minnesota where he grew up in a loving family that taught him the value of hard work and good character. Upon growing up, he lived in New York for many years doing various jobs before finally meeting his husband, who is a German pharmaceutical executive and they settled down in Berlin. He owns a large gallery space in the center of Berlin and it's grand opening is actually coming up at the end of this month. So anyway after my performance and subsequent shower, I invited a few of my friends over for a little after party. Not surprisingly all of my friends loved Nathan immediately and he has since become a part of our little circle of friends here in Berlin. I feel very fortunate to have met some really great people here in Berlin this year. Although I must admit it is a bit strange feeling attached to a place again. Since leaving New York back in 2004, I have led a somewhat gypsy like existence. I have enjoyed traveling and have had many different experiences, some good, some not so good. But I do think that it's good for me to finally settle down somewhere instead of moving to a new place every year. Berlin is starting to feel like home and I am getting more and more comfortable with that.
Leni (Crystal Castles Remix) - GoodBooks (MP3)
Performance Announcement
Primary Colors
The Star Of My Previous Blog
We Are
Freedom Fighters.
We See Other Things.
Expensive Sadness
Suburban Harcore
Wanna Make An Error
Big Bird Pentagon
Ecstatic Vision
I Like Turtles
I've Walked With Ghosts
Lavender Lust
Wedding Lot
The Shade That Is Charles II
Death To American Capitalism
Back in 2005 I was living in Istanbul, Turkey teaching english. After about seven months of being fucked over by the director of the language school I was employed with, I decided that it was time for something new. Every month on payday before I spent money on anything else, I would go to the currency exchange booth down the street from my apartment in Beşiktaş and buy 100 euros. By the time July rolled around I had saved about 600 euros, so when I got into a huge argument with my boss over my wages and hours that month, I finally decided to quit the gig and just pick up and move to Berlin. It had always been in the back of my mind to live in Berlin at some point in my life. I had fallen in love with the city the first time I went there for the Love Parade back in the summer of 2000. I had a lot of baggage in Istanbul though and I couldn't bring it all to Berlin with me so I kept it in storage at my friend Murat's house in the old city. With just six hundred euros in my pocket I knew that I couldn't spend a third of it on a last minute plane ticket to Berlin. The day after I quit my job I got up early in the morning and took the train to the outskirts of Istanbul and started making my way west hitch hiking. I have hitched a few times before but never cross country. Needless to say it was quite an adventure. My first ride was with a trucker whom I met at a gas station. I found that gas stations and truck stops were the easiest places to find rides. the side of the road, um not so much. While I was riding with the trucker he let me listen to the BBC during the drive. The date was 7-7-05. I listened intently as the details unfolded with regard to the London terror attacks that had occurred that morning. I was of course in shock like everyone else in the world. It was also quite strange to be in a muslim country on a day of such finger pointing and speculation. We reached a town near the Turkish and Greek borders and we went our separate ways. I had to walk with my heavy backpack in the hot afternoon sun about five miles before I was finally picked up by a motorcyclist and driven the remaining four miles to the border crossing. I had no problems leaving Turkey but when I attempted to walk across the half mile "no mans land" which divides the two nations, the Greek army was having none of it. They demanded that I return to the Turkish side. When I asked them why they said it was not permitted to cross the border on foot. (which is considered dangerous due to the many land mines that dot the border landscape.) When I told them that I had no car they looked at me in astonishment. They helped me flag down a car whose driver agreed to drive me the half mile or so to the Greek side. Upon going through passport control I spent the rest of the afternoon literally begging truckers for rides. That was when I realized how different the Greek mentality is versus the Turkish mentality with regard to hitching. I find that the Turks are so much more friendly and laid back. Although I suppose my knowing a bit of Turkish might have something to do with that. I waited at a gas station for more than four hours until finally around nightfall I met a couple on Macedonian guys who agreed to give me a ride. They dropped me off on the side of the highway on the outskirts of Kavalla, which is a city in northern Greece. I had to trek ten more miles to finally reach the city center. When I finally arrived I found a park where I just collapsed on the grass from exhaustion and went to sleep. The next morning I was still exhausted and covered in mosquito bites so I decided to splurge a little and buy a bus ticket to the city of Thessaloniki. It was only about ten euros and I was able to sleep on the bus much more comfortably than in the park. When we reached Thessaloniki a couple hours later, I decided to stay there for one night. So I booked a bed in a hostel and slept most of the afternoon and was able to take a hot shower. I was feeling refreshed and rested and it was a Friday night, So I decided to investigate the gay scene in Thessaloniki. I wandered around the city and the waterfront and just hung out drinking beers and people watching. Then when it got later I went out dancing at some gay club and had a fabulous time. I would have liked to stay there longer but I had to keep telling myself that I wasn't on vacation and that I was merely trying to get from point A to point B. At the club I met a couple from Skopje who were leaving early the next morning back to Macedonia and they agreed to let me hitch a ride with them. I wasn't sure if they would really follow through but sure enough they arrived at my hostel bright and early the next morning. I was so groggy and hungover having only slept for four hours. So I wasn't very good company for the drive up. In fact I slept most of the way there, much to their disappointment. I think they had been keen on practicing their english with me. When we arrived to Skopje they bought me lunch and then we went our separate ways. I spent the afternoon getting drunk and wandering around the Macedonian capital. Skopje had a very sort of bleak Soviet feel to it (certainly not a place I would want spend much time) after spending an afternoon there, I was ready to continue moving. So I made my way to the train station and saw that there was a night train to Belgrade, Serbia. I waited a few hours until the train arrived then immediately headed for the train cars toilette, which I turned into my own private compartment for the next three hours as I read a book. I emerged only when I was sure that most people were asleep and the conductor had already checked everyones tickets. I found an empty sleeping compartment where I passed out. We arrived to Belgrade very early the next morning. and I spent a few hours wandering around the city before again telling myself to keep moving. Rather then attempting to hitch again, I decided to try my luck at hiding in the train cars toilette again and jumped a train bound for Zagreb, Croatia. I soon found out that it's a lot harder pulling those type of shenanigans during the daytime when the train is crowded with people banging on the bathroom door every five minutes. I kept on having to switch cars and was constantly on the lookout for the conductor. Every time I saw her I would switch cars again and lock myself inside the toilette. It was really not so fierce. The whole charade was almost not worth the trouble. Finally we arrived to Zagreb just as it was starting to get dark. I was soooo happy to get off that train. That little game of cat and mouse was tiring me out. I found a park where I hid my pack in some bushes and then I hit the mean streets of Zagreb. Actually there is nothing mean about them. Zagreb is actually a very beautiful and refined city, at least what I saw of it. I went to an internet cafe and found out what gay bars were good. I can't recall the name but I went to one gay bar and as I walked into the packed bar. Upon entering I immediately heard a loud American accent that belonged to a handsome older man in his 50's. He seemed to be there alone chatting up random people at the bar. It had been a while since I had had a conversation with another American, so I had a couple of drinks and went over to introduce myself. His name was Pete Smith and he was a pilot from Fort Lauderdale, Florida. He told me that he had rented a car and was just touring around Europe alone in a rental car. We ended up getting very drunk together. He asked where I was staying and was utterly shocked when I told him about the way that I had been traveling. He invited me to come and stay at his hotel with him. We left the bar together and went back to his hotel. It was really nice to get a good night sleep in a comfortable bed. The next morning we had breakfast together and he made me a proposition. He said, why don't you join me on this road trip and whenever you get sick of me and want to leave, I will buy you a plane ticket to Berlin. The idea sounded good to me. He seemed like a nice guy and he said it wouldn't cost me a cent. So I agreed and that morning we jumped in his rental car, dropped by the park where I had left my backpack in the bushes and we hit the road. We headed south toward the Dalmation Coast. Over the course of the next couple weeks we visited various national parks and beaches, we went to Split and Dubrovnik. We took a ferry over to Italy and drove across to Napoli and up through the Italian countryside. We ended up in the south of France, in Nice. I was getting a bit tired of him by then and one night we had a big blowout fight over the map. We were looking for a bar and Pete was saying how I should listen to him and we were going the wrong way (even though I knew we were going the right way) He went off on me and was like listen, I'm a pilot blah blah blah and I know how to read a map. So I asked him point blank, if you're so good with maps and directions Mr. Pilot then tell me which way is north? He had no idea and I was laughing my ass off. He stormed off in the opposite direction and I went out alone that night and had a fabulous night. But I was tired of him and kinda pissed because I didn't have a key to the room, so when I got back I told him I wanted to fly to Berlin the next morning. He booked the flight and that was that. I was in Berlin for about three weeks that summer and I spent all of the money that I had saved. I had no idea what I was going to do after that. Then I went to the internet cafe one day and received an email from Pete. He was in Barcelona and he said that he missed me and was about to go on a gay cruise of the Mediteranian. He told me that the package he had bought allowed him to bring one guest and that he would be delighted if I would join him. By this point things with us were totally platonic and so I flew to Barcelona and that afternoon we boarded a huge ship filled with thousands of gay men! It was so much fun. Very sexy, boozy, dancey and fun! I met so many amazing people; one of which was from my hometown of Salt Lake City. Actually he lived in Park City. His name was John Poole and I spent a lot of time hanging out with him and his fabulous Los Angeles friends on the cruise. Pete was totally cool with it, as he had met friends of his own. We made several stops including Ibiza, (where Pete and I almost died on our motorcycle) Pisa (I had already been there so I stayed on the ship that day) Rome, Santorini, Mykonos, Istanbul, then ending in Athens. I decided to just get off the ship in Istanbul where I still had a ton of my belongings in storage. So basically my first attempt to move to Berlin was a total failure (albeit a fun failure) and I ended up back at square one. Istanbul. I stayed there for another few weeks at my friend Murats house. Just long enough to earn enough money for a flight back to America. Anyhobo, that is sort of my adventure story for the summer of 2005 and the backstory of how I first came to know my friend Pete.
Embrace (feat. Ladyhawke) - PNAU (MP3)
The Waning Light
Welt Center Lines
18 Roosters
BMW Welt Center
Treading On History
Captive Angels
Creepy Creations
Leather Bar Decor
Neuschwanstein Castle
Bavarian House
Austrian Alps
A Dream Come True
More Austrian Alps
Hill Top Castle
He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not
Innsbruck Sidewalk
Over the years since that summer of 2005, I have stayed in contact with Pete. While I was living in Madrid in 2006 I met up with Pete and my best friend and roommate at the time Jared. Pete flew me down to Cape Town, South Africa. Jared had bought his own ticket and just sorta did his own thing staying at a youth hostel while my broke ass would stay with Pete at his guesthouse or sometimes I would crash on the couch at Jared's hostel. That was such a wild trip. Getting mugged with Jared on our first night in Cape Town stands out as a treasured memory! But that's a blog in it's own right! I'll write more about that some other time. Later on that year Pete hired me to paint his entire house in Fort Lauderdale, so I spent a week there doing that and hanging out at the beach. After that I didn't see or speak to Pete very often until just recently when he emailed me telling me that he was planning to do another car tour of Europe. He said that he would be going to Munich in October to pick up the new car he had just ordered from the BMW factory there. He told me I should fly down from Berlin and meet up with him in Munich so we could drive around the Austrian/Slovenian alps and Italy for a couple of weeks. Never one to pass on a free trip, I jumped at the opportunity. I arrived to Munich from Berlin on the 15th of October and took the metro to the gay area where Pete was staying. At first it was a bit awkward, because I hadn't seen him in more than two years, but after we had a few drinks everything was fine and it was as if no time had passed at all. Above all Pete and I are drinking buddies. Both of us are total alkies so I think that's why we get along. What can I say we're hardcore, bitches! There are definitely those times though when we aren't drunk where we are at each others throats. It can be quite funny actually, the way we fight. Pete was at the BMW Welt (world) Center everyday that we were in Munich. One visit was good enough for me, although the building is a very impressive modern structure designed by world renowned architect Wolf Prix. Fierce name right? Hahaha, I just like it because PRIX is my DJ name. So most of the days Pete went there, I would just wander around Munich visiting museums and little shops. One afternoon I discovered this obscure little 400 year old cemetery. It was so amazing filled with huge towering trees and all the leaves were changing colors. I laid down amidst the fallen leaves and graves (some of which dated all the way back to the 16th century) and I read for a couple of hours before drifting off to sleep. When I woke up I had this half eery, half peaceful feeling that I was not alone. When I got up to leave I wandered the streets with the careless stoic serenity of a ghost. It was a good feeling. This physical world is both beautiful and tiresome. At night Pete and I would eat dinner together and get drunk out at the hustler bar or one of the gay saunas. It's so strange you know, it seems like the only time I ever go to saunas is when I am traveling. I should go more often. Berlin has plenty of them but I never go to them. Even though I really enjoy them. There is something that feels very relaxing and comforting about sitting and socializing with like minded men at a sauna. It's something that is so entrenched in human history dating back to ancient Greek and Roman times. I used to go to traditional Turkish Hammams all the time in Istanbul, but again that's a whole different blog. All in all we spent about four days in Munich before picking up Pete's new car at the BMW factory and heading for the alps. It was so funny to see how excited and giddy he was about his new car. At one point while we were speeding down the autobahn, I looked over at Pete and he had tears in his eyes. I wanted to say dude, it's just a car, just a thing, it's no big deal. But I didn't. We all value different things in life and I didn't want to mock something that obviously brought him so much joy. Then I looked off into the distance and saw just how stunning the landscape was. It was absolutely awe inspiring and I began to wonder if I would be able to hold back my own tears. We were driving so fast that at some points I had to tell him to please slow down. It was really nice this time not to have to deal with maps. His car is equipped with a global positioning system (GPS) and lemme letcha know that little device averted more than a few arguments. It made the journey so much more enjoyable and stress free for both of us. The afternoon we left Munich, we drove southward up into the alps to a place I have been wanting to see since I was a little boy. Ever since I was eight years old I had maps covering every square inch of my bedroom walls. The only exception was a poster of Neuschwanstein Castle. The castle is located south of Munich on the border of Bavaria and Austria. Pete and I went there and albeit crowded with tourists, it was absolutely spectacular. We spent the entire afternoon wandering around the grounds and the nearby town. We decided later on that afternoon that we should hit the road so that we could drive through the Austrian alps during daylight hours. It was about a 2.5 hour drive through the mountains to Innsbruck, Austria. During that drive we saw some of the most stunning scenery that I have ever seen in my life. It was outstanding. We arrived to Innsbruck in the early evening where we checked into a hotel conveniently located right next door to a gay bar. We went and ate dinner and then wandered around Innsbruck. I can usually tell right away whether or not I am going to like a city within the first hour of arriving and I have to say that the general mentality of the people of Innsbruck was so warm and welcoming. Everyone seemed so kind and quick to smile. It also seemed to be a very lively and young city, population wise. I found out later that it is actually a university town with nearly a third of the population being students. Later on that night after Pete went to bed, I went out to the gay bar downstairs and stayed out drinking and dancing with all the fabulous queens of Innsbruck until 5 am. Needless to say I was not feeling it the next morning when Pete dragged out of bed at 9 am wanting to get an early start on driving. We had a lot of ground to cover that day. Although It was an incredibly beautiful drive through the Austrian, Italian and Slovenian alps, I must say that by hour number six in that car, I was out for damn blood. I wanted to kill. I don't work so well hungover and sleep deprived. Finally we reached our destination for that day; Lake Bled, Slovenia. We checked into our hotel and after a hot shower and a few drinks at the bar I was back in business. Lake Bled was amazing. It's set against in incredible backdrop of steep granite peaks, a huge fortress and a charming little town. We stayed there for two nights just relaxing and taking in all the scenery. Haha the staff at the little guesthouse where we were staying must have thought we were so crazy, what with me ordering two double vodka tonics at lunch. What? Don't judge! I told you that Pete and I, we don't fuck around. When I'm around him I turn into such a raging alchoholic. Hahaha, I guess it's probably a good thing that we don't see each other that often. Not that things are much different in Berlin, I drink a lot there too, although I can say that I don't normally drink during daylight hours. After a couple days we got back on the road and headed to Slovenia's capital city; Ljubljana. When we arrived there we drove around for a bit and decided to hold off on getting a hotel room there. The city was infested with traffic, police and security forces all because some skeezbag named Elizabeth Windsor was in town. It was almost impossible to find parking and a lot of the streets were closed in the center of the city. We finally found parking in a garage and we had lunch and spent the afternoon wandering around the old city. Ljubljana seemed nice enough but we kinda wanted to get out of there because we were actually pulled over as soon as we got there and there were cops everywhere. Perhaps if that trick heauxbag and her smut peddling friends weren't in town we might have stayed the night in Ljubljana but instead we opted to press it down into Italy. We thought about spending the night in Venice but I spent ten days there last year and I thought it might be cool to check out some other city. I had always heard that Bologna was a sort of cool/liberal/university town and so I convinced Pete we should head down that way. He was sold immediately as soon as I mentioned to him that according to the gay guide book, the most luxurious gay sauna in Italy is located in Bologna. We arrived around 10 pm after driving through a thick haze of industrial smog that lasted from Venice to Bologna, quite a stark contrast from the crisp clean air of the Slovenian alps. Despite the air quality I really loved Bologna, even though we only spent two nights there, we had so much fun exploring it. We found a really amazing pizza place and a charming little wine bar that had an odd obsession with pigs. The walls were covered with postcards and pictures of them from floor to ceiling, I took a picture of the walls thinking that I could perhaps use the images for a future flyer for the new dance party that my friend Travis and I are starting in Berlin which shares a similar theme;) Our new party is called PORK. It's a new weekly Sunday Party @ Ficken 3000 and it's poised to become the hottest new party in the city. Trust. Our opening night: November 2nd. Pete and I did visit that bathhouse and it was very beautiful, the only problem was that there were only about five people there including us. I guess it's only crowded on weekends? We were there on a Thursday night. Friday morning we drove through the hills of Tuscany to one of my favorite cities in the world, Florence, Italy. The last time I was in Florence I was 19 years old and was backpacking around europe. It was the summer of 2000 and by the time I reached Florence toward the end of my trip I was completely broke. I slept in the train station and snuck into both the Uffizi Gallery and the Galleria dell'Accademia which houses Michaelangelo's "David." I snuck in through the exit doors of both museums. Hey sometimes ya gotta improvise when you're broke. This time I just enjoyed the amazing Florentine cuisine, the famous gellato, and Just wandering around this amazing city photographing it's street artisans, stunning architecture and graffiti. I also had the chance to explore Florence's gay night life, which I missed out on last time as a result of my dire financial situation. At one of the gay bars I met a really sweet bartender guy around my age. By the name of Pietro Spirito, He is an artist as well. A very talented painter in fact. We spent the evening chatting and at the end of the night we exchanged email addresses. Since then we have stayed in contact and he sent me links to some of his work. He is an incredible talent, his work is very figurative and realistic in nature. He has expressed an interest in moving to Berlin to work as an artist and I am working on organizing an exhibition of his work here in Berlin. Meeting him was a wonderful cap to an amazing trip. We will share an apartment here in Berlin when he arrives in early December. Below are some links to his work... Although overall I had a lot of fun with Pete on this trip, But I was also really excited to get back to my life in Berlin and begin preparations for me and Travis' new weekly party....
-Pietro Spirito Links -
www.premioceleste.it/ita_artista_opere/idu:1394/
http://www.piziarte.net/spirito.htm
Lights Out (David Rubato Remix) - Santogold (MP3)
Lake Bled (view from fortress)
Lake Bled (view of fortress)
Lake Bled Mallard
Ljubljana Dragon
Arno Solar Reflection
Battistero di Santo Giovanni (Ghiberti Doors)
Bridge Over The Arno
Florentine Street Artisan
Il Duomo Firenze
Meine Schwester
Determination
Duomo
But Not For Much Longer
Duomo By Night
Florentine Sunset
= All The Haters
I came up with the idea of starting a new party here in Berlin last summer. I was brainstorming with Travis and Mario one night trying to figure out an easier more legitimate way of making money here in Berlin. Finding work here is not an easy feat and it's even harder when you are like me; illegal and don't speak fluent German. I had this concept floating around inside my head of a trashy, non-stuckup, indie-rock/electro dance party that also had a sexy streak. I wanted to do an all encompassing, sort of get it all here night. So I came up with the name PORK - drink-dance-strip-fuck. and I thought Sunday night would be the perfect night for a party like that. Since the only other real party on Sunday night is GMF and that party attracts a whole different crowd anyway. I live in an area of Berlin dubbed Kreuzköln, It sort of Stradles the neighborhoods of Kreuzberg and Neuköln. There is one gay bar in the neighborhood. It's called Ficken 3000 and It's right down the street from my apartment. It's a regular bar upstairs and has a darkroom for cruising downstairs. From time to time I would drop in for a beer and eventually I became friendly with the owner Frank. I mentioned to him every now and again that I had this idea for a weekly party and I might be interested in using his venue to host it, but we never really talked seriously about it. Then last September I was invited by two different friends of mine to participate in a film project by the legendary German, queer filmmaker Rosa von Praunheim. The shoot was scheduled on a Saturday afternoon at Ficken 3000. The gig paid something like fifty euros for five or six hours of work and even though I wasn't feeling well on the day of the shoot I still went because I had invited my friend to participate, who was visiting Berlin; the Portand based performance artist Lee Kyle, and I didn't want him to have to go there alone. So I headed over to the bar for the film shooting around noon. As usual on the set of a film there was a lot of waiting around and what not, So I got the chance to hang out with and get to know Frank the owner of the bar a lot better, and that is when we began to seriously discuss me starting a Sunday night party there. I told him some of my Ideas and he instructed me to put together a proposal on paper for him. At that point I called my friend Travis and asked him if he wanted to become my business partner and host the party with me. We could take turns hosting and DJ'ing. Travis writes for a living so I sent him a summary of my ideas and he typed up the proposal. Then we went together to Ficken and presented it to Frank. After a few meetings and with a bit of help from our friend Nathan who speaks perfect German it was a done deal. The party was to begin in November. Travis and I also enlisted the help of his boyfriend Mario who is a genius graphic designer and the two of them designed a great flyer and began promoting the party while I was away on my road trip. I returned about a week before the opening night and did promotion almost every night leading up to Sunday giving them a much needed break. Then on the Thursday before our opening night, disaster struck. Now it is said that "when it rains it pours" but what happened to me takes that saying to a whole new level. first I had two fillings in my back mollers come out while I was eating dinner (I have no dental insurance), then I had my second performance piece cancelled an hour later, and then I spilled beer all over my laptop that I had just bought earlier this year and it shorted out and died. All this happened just as I was putting the finishing touches on to both my DJ set and this blog. I was completely devastated and spent the entire next day in bed. Luckily for me I still had some of the songs for my DJ set on my I-pod so when Sunday rolled around I was able to DJ using my I-pod and actually our opening night went great. We had more than a hundred people show up (which is a lot for that bar) and our friend Snax was there to help DJ and emcee. Everything turned out great in the end. Although the next couple of weeks were a bit rough for me being without a computer. I had to DJ from my I-pod again for the second week and we earned even more money for the second week, So I'm hoping that it will just continue growing as more and more people start to hear about it. Then all of a sudden this morning I tried turning on my laptop again and voila! Miraculously Computia woke up from from her two weak coma and is now working again like a charm, as if nothing had ever happened! I guess she just needed a little rest and to to dry out? Anyway I couldn't be happier to have my laptop up and working again and now that I have ALL of my 5000 songs back! This weeks PORK is gonna be even more amazing than the last two parties. So spread the word kidz and get ready to "shake tha dice and steal tha rice." As far as I'm concerned, I'm just glad that I'm not longer "going through it" It really is such a damn relief to no longer be "going through psychological changes in my life" ;) Hyleaux!!!
Half Mast - Empire Of The Sun (MP3)
A New Party Presented By DJs PRIX & Disaster Area
Friedrichshain Skull
Green Ghosts
Rock On!
Frank & Christoph
DJ DIANA RRHEA
When Ya Gotta Go, Ya Gotta Go...
So Original ;)
Bolognese Street Art
Oink Oink!
Clap 4 Claudette!
The Glamourous Screen Legend - Susanne Sachße
Pretty In Pink
Sound Art @ STYX
Caroline Retro
Eat Me On Tuesday
Mind In The Gutter
Living Like A Gypsy In Spirit
Neon Mitte
