flying into New York City

One of the first Buddhist teachings I stumbled across was how as soon as we see someone approaching, we immediately begin forming ideas based only on our own prejudice. We make assumptions based on clothes, hair, style, skin tone… Whether it is positive or negative, we do it, without realizing it. Walking through the streets and avenues of New York City this week, the stereotypes of New York (or New Yorkers) that are commonly heard didn’t present themselves at all. People have been helpful, polite, and friendly everywhere we’ve been. I haven’t taken EunBong and Fina into any rough neighborhoods, but even in the busiest places, we only saw one person yelling at a cab driver, and I only heard someone call someone else an assh*le once. We still have a few days left in the city, but we’ve yet to see any middle fingers flashed out of windows of anything like that. My mind wants to compare New York City to Seoul, since that’s where I spend most of my time, and without saying anything negative about Soeul, New York seems quiet (you don’t hear traffic blaring), organized, relatively clean, and rather sane. It’s busy, it can be hard to catch your breath at first, but it’s an amazing city. I kind of see New York as a place of countless potential koans. You can make out of it anything you desire. When you’re done, go get a slice of pizza and a piece of cheese cake!

Of all the “New York” songs, I always thought this one captures it the best!

Tg di France 3, diretta da Berlino: è crollato il muro, vent’anni fa, e l’inviata con guanti grigio-neri e sciarpa gialla, dice che Obama non ci sarà, c’è Hillary Clinton, i tedeschi son delusi ma tanto Obama era un fanciullo e quindi chissene, ci sarà Medvedev e mentre lei dice tutte ’ste cose e sullo sfondo c’è la Brandeburger Tor , alle sue spalle, diffusa in tutta la piazza – e io sento ! – una musica che riconosco…

Ci vuole passione con te
non deve mancare mai
ci vuole mestiere perché
lavoro di cuore lo sai

cantare d’amore non basta mai
ne servirà di più
per dirtelo ancora per dirti che

Più bella cosa!?!? In Germania celebrano il crollo del muro e la musica di accompagnamento è Eros Ramazzotti!?

Al muro crollato per la coca cola, le calze di nylon o i videogiochi mi ero abituato, ma pensare alle adenoidi di Ramazzotti…

Mi chiedo se Michelle e Wetten, dass? abbiano un ruolo…

dieser tage hört und liest man fast überall vom mauerfall vor 20 jahren. und man fragt sich, was dieser staat “ddr” wohl wirklich war. am spannendsten sind da bestimmt so kleine videos, die man so im netz findet und vielleicht das lebensgefühl vermitteln. so wie der song “du hast den farbfilm vergessen” von nina hagen aus dem jahr 1974.

schnuckelig, der drummer aus diesem video

Us presentem una obra de teatre que es fa a la sala Muntaner. L’obra va d’un grup de joves, estudiants de medicina, que viuen junts en una casa de Viena. La historia s’enmarca en l’Alemania després de la I guerra mundial, dins d’aquest context, s’expliquen les històries d’aquests joves, les seves interrelacions i les seves reflexions sobre la vida.

L’obra estarà fins el 29 de Novembre. Els horaris son dimecres, dijous, divendres i dissabte a les 20.45h i els diumenges a les 18.15h. Podeu trobar les entrades i més informació a:

http://www.atrapalo.com/entradas/el-mal-de-la-joventut_e27611/

A més a més, us esmento que aquest dissabte 7 de Novembre s’organiza una festa al bar de davant del teatre (BAR SENTIDOS): Les festes del mal. El motiu de la festa és la inaguració de la plataforma Mayhem Project BCN: “Plataforma des d’on, un jove grup de Barcelona, organitza events relacionats amb la música electrònica i la cultura, per tal de donar-li lloc dins la nit de la ciutat comtal” (us podeu fer fans al facebook i veure tot el que fan).

Hi haurà música en directe a càrrec de Studebaker dj’s, aka Dr.Zoidbeg i Pande Molde, amb la presència de tots els actors, director i equip de l’obra El mal de la joventut.

Koki

20 Jahre sind Ost und West in diesen Tagen zusammen. Und wenn ich so drüber nachdenke, sind meine einzigen Erinnerungen an den Osten eigentlich ein verlängertes Wochenende in Neustrelitz. Das war ein oder zwei Jahre vor dem Mauerfall. Und da wir eine Gruppe von eta 10 Leuten zu Besuch bei einer Familie waren, war das ganze natürlich absoluter Ausnahmezustand. Vom Alltag hab ich da nicht viel mitbekommen.

Eine Sache ist mir aber aus der Zeit nach der Wiedervereinigung noch im Gedächtnis geblieben. Nämlich, das es wohl einige junge Männer gab, die einige Zeit vor der Maueröffnung “rübergemacht” hatten, und ihr in der Zwischenzeit verdientes Geld in das aufmotzen ihres Autos steckten. Und nachdem klar war, das die Grenze zur DDR wirklich nicht wieder geschlossen wird, wurden diese Autos dann regelmäßig für die Besuche bei der Ostverwandschaft benutzt und die damals noch leereren Autobahnen wurden zu Rennstrecken. Es gab einen sprunghaften Anstieg von Autounfällen auf den Ost-West-Verbindungen.

Und irgendwann hat sich Nina Hagen dieses Themas angenommen, und ein Lied draus gemacht.

Quem acompanhou o rock brasileiro dos anos 80 deve se lembrar de Supla cantando a música Garota de Berlim. Essa música contou com a participação de uma certa Nina Hagen, artista difícil de definir, que começou com canto lírico e descambou para o rock, com passagens performáticas pelo punk e outros gêneros ainda mais exóticos.

Em 1999, quase 15 anos depois de Garota de Berlim, Nina Hagen gravou o ótimo Om Namah Shivay!, um álbum só com mantras — merece destaque neste álbum sua versão do Gayatri Mantra, que é muito interessante. Caso queira ouvir só este mantra, vá ao YouTube. Para baixar e ouvir o CD todo, clique aqui.

Nina Hagen tem um vozeirão.

Network-Legende Hagen Horst startet beim Weltverlag

Gute Konzepte erzeugen Sog, so auch das Geschäftsmodell der Weltverlag Aktiengesellschaft. Wer die Schlagzeilen der Network-Medien in den vergangenen Monaten verfolgt hat, dem dürfte nicht entgangen sein, dass sich bereits einige sehr bekannte Führungskräfte der Network-Branche dem Unternehmen angeschlossen und hier einen neuen Heimathafen gefunden haben.

Hagen Horst, der bereits zu Lebzeiten als Network-Legende gilt und zu den bekanntesten Führungskräften der Branche zählt, sagt über den Weltverlag: „Ein derart professionelles Management und einen solchen Karriereplan habe ich in meiner gesamten Laufbahn noch nie gesehen. Das Weltverlag-Geschäftsmodell wird mit Sicherheit einige Milliardenmärkte revolutionieren. Hierzu wird auch der Direktvertrieb gehören,“ so Horst.

Aber nicht nur ein Top-Networker wie Hagen Horst, der innerhalb der Branche über eine Fangemeinde von zigtausenden Networkern verfügt, ist vom Weltverlag-Marketingkonzept begeistert. Im Hintergrund sind bereits eine Reihe ebenfalls bekannter Networkgrößen beim Weltverlag eingestiegen, deren Geschichten wir bislang aus Diskretionsgründen noch nicht veröffentlicht haben. Beachten Sie hierzu auch unsere weiteren Pressemitteilungen und Anzeigenkampagnen in den bekannten Medien aus der Network-Marketing-Branche.

Every once in while I hear a piece of music that impresses me so much the moment is permantly burned into my brain. Doesn’ t happen very often. I usually come to music via a gradual build-up of awareness. I’ll always remember the earth-shattering moment I first heard Nina Hagen. I don’t exactly recall the date, not even what year it was. I’m guessing in the vicinity of me being between the ages of 10 and 15. It was a family vacation. It was night. I was in the back of the family vehicle pretending to be asleep so as to avoid being drawn into any kind of conversation. And then I heard that voice. “This is Radio Yerevan”. Life changed forever. After the vacation, I found the tape, copied it, and listened to it on my little walkman ad nauseum for the next 5 years. I surely have to thank Nina Hagen for helping me maintain my sanity throughout my torturous years in high school. As it happens, Born In Xixax is not the opening song on the album Nunsexmonkrock. The opening song is Antiworld. The tape was set on side B, as if the previous listener had been unable to proceed after experiencing the unmitigated weirdness of side A. Since my first experience was so deeply imressive, I’ve continually insisted on playing side B before side A. I think the songs hang together better and it was the artist’s own mistake to sequence them any other way. The narrative makes more sense, if you will. Such is the magic of vinyl and cassette. When I finally bought it on cd, I had no choice but to play it in the sequence I consider to be wrong. Now I’ve moved past cd and keep all my music on my harddrive. The beauty of playing music through the computer is complete freedom of sequencing. I’ve given up on the old series of mixtapes and switched to compiling the perfect playlist. With all this digital freedom, it seems that the album inself will soon cease to be considered an artistic statement in and of itself and be seen more as a kind of mix and match set of individual songs. Wether or not this is the tradegy of our times, as some critics would have it, I don’t know. All I know is, Born In Xixax is the fucking first song. Ok?

So Tomtom and I were working again last Sunday. I sat down and looked at some of the work I had to review, while he got settled.

“Ugh!” I exclaimed, “She did it again, why does she always do that after I have explicitly told her not to!”

He knows exactly who I am talking about, I have been working with this woman for years, and promised repeatedly to stop and yet here we are again.

Tomtom interjects, “Because mom, she is the Shiv@ to your V1shnu”

Which makes me laugh, lightens my load and I find it impossible to be frustrated anymore. For anyone who is not familiar Shiv@ is the God of destruction, and V1shnu’s role is to keep the world in balance.

This kid has to be my Brahm@. It is one of those times when it strikes me how much this kid, this particular kid, is a tonic to me, but might drive someone else crazy.

Later we are on another topic and he is steering the conversation back to my own adolescence in contrast to his. He often does then when we work, it distracts me from being a task master. I am distracted. I hear myself saying, “no, it wasn’t like that, it wasn’t like that at all.”
Him, “well why not?”

Me: “For one thing Grandma thought I was crazy, I mean seriously crazy, she even called a hospital but they wouldn’t take me, they told her that being an adolescent was not a reason to commit someone. Thank God, because you know the times.” Which of course he doesn’t know because he wasn’t born in the eighties but those of you that were remember in the 80s kids went to rehab or the asylum instead of summer camp.

Him: “Why did she think you were crazy?”
Me: “Well, I told her I was as a goof.”
He looks perplexed.
Me: “Well, Holly and I, well we had type writers back then.” It is hard to tell a story and work at the same time. “We had typewriters, Holly just happened to be dating a boy named Paul, and Nina Hagen had a song, and so she typed out the lyrics to “I love Paul” and her mom saw them, and by that time we had already read in More Mayonnaise that Nina Hagen had found the Golden Key while on LSD…”
At this point I was getting things out of the cabinets and he was staring at me slack-jawed as I was all disjointed.
Him: “What’s the golden key?”
Me: “I don’t know, but it has to be good right, being golden and a key and all”
Him: What’s More Mayonnaise?
Me: *insert eyeroll* A magazine.
Him: “How am I supposed to know that?”
Me: “You are not, it is time for a team building you tube break”

Which I call for, capriciously and at will, often when we work together. He uses this as evidence of my tyrannical nature.

Okay this, after a search for “I love Paul” fails.

He instantly hears the “achtung, achtung”

Him: Oh she’s German.
In a tone that means, that explains it, he thinks Germans are very weird. I have no idea why. I wonder if I should mention that we are part German and bust the ancestral pride that he feels in a culture that he actually shares a bit from his dad’s side, but celebrates his connection with through his agrandparents. Culturally, he does have a claim to it.
Me: You know she sent her daughter to the same kind of school you went to.
Him: Wow, that is a HUGE surprise /sarcasm.

Me: Well bless Madame Blatvatsky, she did. She named her daughter CosmaShiva, I could have named you that.
Him: Well too bad it was already taken.
We watch the video for a few minutes, I am transported back into my 13-year-old bedroom and jumping on the bed with Holly. Something we did frequently, despite being well 13. It was a problem, because we would hit against the acoustical foam that was sprayed on our ceiling and litter the carpet with little bits of the strange cottage cheese, not to mention ruining the bed. We would be playing Nina Hagen on a get this, record player, singing and jumping. A loud angry knock would appear at the door. We would both instantly sit. The door would open. My amom would be standing there with her Bette Davis eyes glaring.
“Were you girls jumping on the bed again?”

“Nooooooooooooooooooooo” I would respond despite the evidence.
“Would you like to?” I would offer.

Then she would use the magnificence of her eye-glare to wear me down, but by that age it was hopeless, although when I got older her glarepower would restore itself. She would carefully and measuredly explain about the bed, and my advanced age for something she never approved of. It was kind of a routine.
I find myself thinking I really was a brat. An adopted brat. I was a difficult kid, that is a thought familiar to me.

I explained to Tomtom, how when Holly’s mother discovered the lyrics she had typed up and assumed they were about the real boy Paul, with the references to space and flying saucers, and how we were then separately questioned about what was going on in our over-charged minds.
Knowing how Ms. Hagen claimed to have the Golden Key via her drug use, it just seemed to us like too ripe a plum to resist. Yes, we believed that Nina Hagen had given US the Golden Key, and in flying saucers, and enthusiastically went one step further with all of their suggestions based on a fear of our relationship with reality.

I explained when everyone started to move too forward based on the belief that we were having some kind of cult like following of Ms. Hagen and her flying saucers only then did we relent and say we were “just kidding” ha. A Ha.

I look at him and remember him again at that age. He “ruined” his grade eight picture. I remember opening it, and scanning the group for my baby’s face. I found it front and center but for some reason, he and the boy he was standing next to, had completely pulled only one pant leg up. Their sweatshirts were in a position I can’t even describe, and their posture, hip out and hand on it, was less than respectful.

There was a big stink and it had to be retaken. At first they were not allowed in it, then they were forced in it. I could only smile to myself and think, “that’s my boy” I confided this to a good friend whose daughter is older than Tomtom. She said, “ I know exactly what you mean, and when my daughter is drinking cocktails, dancing on tables and posting it all on facebook. I think, ‘that’s my girl’”

It occurs to me how baffling it would be to be someone who tried to do everything right, instead of something more interesting. How confusing and frustrating. I have had these thoughts before. No one is a saint, and being met with a confusing energy is draining at best, impossible at times.
I was also left with a deep feeling that however frustrating it was, I would have really had fun being my mom. That is important. As an adoptee you are so trained to be you know the burden, the helper, the healer, the pleaser. I wasn’t very pleasing, but this conversation made me realize on a deeper level that was a result of circumstances. I grew up believing that my nmom was a psycho who wasn’t capable of raising her own child, that my amom had to put up with me because she couldn’t have her own.

It was hard for me to find my childhood value there.

When I was in Kindergarten my teacher told my mother, “there will be teachers that don’t like Joy, but it is important to remember that it will never be her fault”

She told me that when I was in my twenties. I thought it was an incredibly sweet thing to say, a knowing thing to say. She saw both my naiveté and mischeviousness. My agrandma used to say that I was ‘full of the devil’. Which shocked my family as they never heard her speak like that about anyone, it was a great family joke. When she would say it though, she would hug me close and look so pleased. My agrandma always made me feel so loved. She said it with a sense of pride. For example when I dropped out of high school, it was by her perspective because I was “too smart for that sort of nonsense.”
It was very comforting to realize that those kind of kids, the kind of kid I was are my favorite. I would have loved me, I would have found me challenging and engaging. It causes me to look at my bratty, difficult self with a lot more compassion.

Todo mundo que conhece algo sobre Nina Hagen sabe que ela é alemã e excêntrica. Mas poucos sabem que ela nasceu na RDA, mais precisamente em Berlim Oriental no ano de 1955.

A cantora começou a fazer sucesso bem jovem e tocou em duas bandas, sendo eleita a melhor cantora da RDA em 1974. Dois anos depois, no entanto, Nina se mudou para o Oeste acompanhando o seu padrasto, o compositor e escritor dissidente Wolf Biermann, que foi “convidado” a se retirar do país por questões políticas.

Esse vídeo mostra uma Nina já com caras e bocas, mas tocando (pasmem!) reggae com sua Nina Hagen Band. Vejam o clipe de 1979 e continuem lendo o post logo abaixo.

Esse vídeo aqui embaixo é com outra música da mesma época, wir leben immer noch (nós ainda vivemos). Ao escutar a canção, você pode aproveitar para ver fotos de várias épocas da vida de Nina.

Na década de 80, um dos momentos mais marcantes da carreira dessa cantora tresloucada foi sua apresentação no Rock’n Rio, em 1985.

Nesse vídeo abaixo, vemos Nina cantando a canção Ekstasy Drive. Repare no detalhe logo no começo: Baby Consuelo, ops, do Brasil, anuncia o show e aparece com outro nome. Hã?

Com o tempo, Nina Hagen passou a pregar sua crença em OVNIs e a levar uma vida mais reclusa. Atualmente ela milita em defesa dos animais e continua fazendo shows, segundo a agenda do seu site oficial.

Batizado de Nina Hagen no último 16 de agosto, na Alemanha. Foto: arquivo pessoal/site oficial

Para surpresa de muitos, no último dia 16 de agosto, a cantora foi batizada e virou evangélica. No seu site ela diz: “eu estou tão agradecida e tão feliz”.

No último vídeo do post, vemos Nina dando um curso instantâneo de alemão. Sempre com tiradas bizarras e um look pra lá de trash. Sendo uma cantora de versatilidade camaleônica e personalidade  excêntrica, fica a pergunta: Qual será a próxima faceta que a sra. Hagen vai nos mostrar?

]]> http://thegreenfairyblog.wordpress.com/2009/10/01/solo-una-teoria/ Thu, 01 Oct 2009 01:32:11 +0000 andrearebolledo http://thegreenfairyblog.wordpress.com/2009/10/01/solo-una-teoria/

No sé cómo empezar sutilmente, así que diré mi teoría de una vez:

Creo que Hedwig, el protagonista de Hedwig & The Angry Inch, está inspirado en la cantante Nina Hagen.

Me he puesto a buscar por la red algo que corrobore mi teoría; pero no he encontrado nada, lo que puede indicar que ha nadie se le ha ocurrido antes -cosa que dudo, además de que la película es de culto, siempre hay una persona que piensa las cosas primero que tú-. O la otra posibilidad es que esté loca… lo cual es la opción más factible.

Varios puntos me han puesto a pensar que hay mucha similitud entre ambos personajes:

1) Nina Hagen y Hedwig vienen de la zona este de Berlín. Hedwig lo dice en la primera canción de la película, ‘Tear me down“:

On August 13, 1961,
A wall was erected
Down the middle of the city of Berlin
The world was divided by a cold war
And the Berlin Wall
Was the most hated symbol of that divide
Reviled, graffitied, spit upon
We thought the wall would stand forever
And now that it’s gone
We don’t know who we are anymore
Ladies and gentlemen
Hedwig is like that wall
Standing before you in the divide
Between East and West
Slavery and freedom
Man and woman
Top and bottom
And you can try and tear her down
But before you do
You must remember one thing’

Y en la parte de la Menses Fair, Hedwig hace un monólogo contando parte su historia al único muchacho que los fue a escuchar:

One day, in the late mid-80’s…
I was in my early late 20’s,
I had just been dismissed from university
after delivering a brilliant lecture
on the aggressive influence of German philosophy
on rock and roll, entitled,
“You, Kant, Always Get What You Want.”
At my academic career was over,
I had never kissed a boy,
and I was still sleeping with Mom.
The search for my other half
on my side of The Wall
had proved futile.

2) Maquillaje: La verdad es que le encuentro bastante parecido, hasta las sombras y brillos labiales llenos de escarcha. Por otro lado, la mayoría de los drag queens se parecerían a ellos también-cosa que es cierta-.

Maquillaje de Nina Hagen

Maquillaje de Hedwig

3) Ropa: pues estrafalaria, unos conjuntos que llaman la atención. Aunque debo admitir que Hedwig es mucho más conservador que Nina.

4) Expresiones faciales, ambos hacen una morisqueta con la boca que es MUY similar, con lo poco de actuación que sé, este pequeño gesto puede haber sido adoptado por John Cameron Mitchell (Hedwig) como proceso constitutivo de su personaje.

Mueca de Nina Hagen

Pero es mejor verlo cuando de hecho lo hacen:

Nina Hagen – Somewhere Over the Rainbow.

Hedwig & the Angry Inch – Origin of Love

5) Cabello, aunque en la película Hedwig admite que el look se su peluca es asimila al famoso cabello de Farrah Fawcett, recuerdo que Nina Hagen también fue una vez rubia platinada y tenía un peinado bastante alocado y alborotado.

Farrah Fawcett

Cabello de Hedwig

Nina Hagen rubia

¿Qué dicen… sí…no? Pues ahí les dejo los puntos que me han llamado la atención. No tiene nada de malo que se haya tomado a Nina Hagen como inspiración; todo lo contrario.

Y si no han visto Hedwig & the Angry Inch salgan corriendo a comprarla, a mí me encanta esta película.

El biólogo alemán Peter Jäger ha descubierto 200 nuevas especies de arañas en los últimos 10 años y le gusta bautizarlas con nombres de famosos, como la artista Nina Hagen. Su último hallazgo ha sido la heteropoda davidbowie, una araña peluda y amarilla de Malaisia, con la que homenajea al músico británico, que en su época glam creó el personaje Ziggy Stardust, al que acompañaba la banda The Spiders From Mars (Las Arañas Marcianas).

vía: El País.com

David Bowie - Ziggy Stardust

Nina Hagen
The Lady Is A Tramp

• The Lady Is A Tramp

Nina Hagen and die Leipzig Big Band

youtube upload by thecatkeaton

Nina Hagen
Der Wind hat mir ein Lied erzählt

• Der Wind hat mir ein Lied erzählt

Song from the German movie “La Habanera” (1937) directed by Detlev Sierck (later Douglas Sirk).

youtube upload by elfiotik

Der Wind hat mir ein Lied erzählt

Allein bin ich in der Nacht
Meine Seele wacht und lauscht
Oh Herz, hörst du wie es klingt
In den Palmen sich entfacht

Der Wind hat mir ein Lied erzählt….

Am Meer stand ich abends oft
Und ich hab gehofft, auf was?
Ich sah bunten Vögeln nach
Ach mein Glück zerbrach wie Glas

Der Wind hat mir ein Lied erzählt….

Der Wind hat mir ein Lied erzählt
Von einem Glück unsagbar schön
Er weiss, was meinem Herzen fehlt
Für wen es schlägt und glüth
Er weiss für wen
Komm! Komm! Komm!
Der Wind hat mir ein Lied erzählt
Von einem Herzen, das mir fehlt!

Der Wind hat mir ein Lied erzählt
Von einem Glück unsagbar schön
Er weiss, was meinem Herzen fehlt
Für wen es schlägt und glüth
Er weiss für wen
Komm! Komm!
Der Wind hat mir ein Lied erzählt
Von einem Herzen, das mir fehlt!

C’est pour la bonne cause (PETA est l’association de protection des animaux aux USA).

De plus, le clip a été interdit dans les aéroports (à qui il était destiné) car jugé trop “hot”.

Et aux côté de Pamela Anderson, on reconnait Nina Hagen.

Nina Hagen, a bela namoradinha do papito supla nos anos 80, em um dub reggae bem curioso. Mistura de vários rítimos e a voz peculiar da Nina. vale a pena dar uma conferida.

This is the second part in a series of posts about how I discovered Falco. The first part is here, the third part is here, the fourth part is here and the last part is here.

The compilation CD I’d bought, it turns out, wasn’t really a great introduction to Falco’s work. It was a slightly odd selection of songs. A mix of singles and album tracks, taken only from the first three albums. A CD compiled not through any appreciation of Falco’s music, but apparently as a product of licensing agreements and contractual loopholes. The cheap looking sleeve should have been a warning, but at this point I was too ignorant to notice details like that.

Around this time (I think it must have been about five years ago), my taste in music had been gradually moving away from the Hi-NRG disco I’d been listening to for a few years and I was becoming more interested in the music of Europe. An idea was slowly forming in my head. I realised that I’d been short changed by the version of pop history I’d been taught at school. The version of history which goes from the birth of rock and roll through the British Invasion to the experimentation of the last years of the Beatles into hippy, then follows Marc Bolan into glam where it gets made self-aware by Bowie and Roxy, eventually becoming bloated and over-elaborate, being energised by punk, stylised by the New Romantics, before growing too big, stadium-sized, irrelevant, only to rescued by the dance scene etc. It’s a well rehearsed history, which forms a simple narrative, but excludes anything which doesn’t fit.

Unfortunately, everything outside of Britain or the US fails to make the cut in this version of history. It’s a shame, because interesting things were happening everywhere, in countries less chauvinistic than our own. As I soon discovered, the fact is that punk happened everywhere. Disco happened everywhere. There were New Romantics everywhere. The eighties happened everywhere, it just didn’t happen at the same time.

Stumbling across this huge hidden history of pop, it seemed a shame not to let other people know about it. So, Now We’ve Got Europe was launched (the club is currently dormant).

The great thing about launching the club was discovering so much new (and old) music. The trouble was that discovering so much new (and old) music at the same time, meant I couldn’t really listen to anything in great depth, so Falco struggled for my attention, alongside Fancy, Amanda Lear, Elli et Jacno, Matia Bazar, Lio, Ivan Cattaneo, Alaska y los Pegamoides and dozens of others.

Last February marked the tenth anniversary of the death of Falco. The club fell on a night just a few days from the anniversary date, so we decided to dedicate the night to his memory. It was then, preparing for that night, that I really listened to Falco for the first time.

geistlich gesehen.

Direkt auf der Seite von Nina Hagen (danke auch an Stella für den Hinweis bzw. via Don Ralfo) steht ein Text, der deutlicher nicht sein könnte:

Nina Hagen will mit Shiva & Co nix mehr zu tun haben.
Stattdessen ist die Rede vom geliebten Herrn Jesus Christ.

Wow!
Möge sie immer an JC dran bleiben!
Er bleibt auf jeden Fall bei ihr.

So – und jetze beten wir noch für die Hosen…

Vor geraumer Zeit machte Nina Hagen darauf aufmerksam, dass Präsident Bush auf dem Mond eine Kolonie für Übermenschen gründen will. Dass sie Recht hat, liegt auf der Hand: zu gerne würde Bush vom Weltraum aus friedliebende Länder wie den Iran oder die Demokratische Volksrepublik Korea  angreifen, um ihnen die Ölvorräte zu rauben. Doch was sollen das für Übermenschen sein, die demnächst auf dem Erdtrabanten rumhoppeln? Es kann sich eigentlich nur um G. W. Bush selbst und Monika Lewinsky handeln, die sich dort oben bei Mondenschein gegenseitig Zigarren zustecken (wir erinnern uns an die sogenannte Bush-Lewinsky-Schreibtisch-Affäre!). Damit die beiden nicht allein sind, führt der CIA inzwischen die grauenhaftesten Frankenstein-Experimente durch. Mir wurden auf verschlungenen Wegen geheimnisvolle Bilder zugespielt, die ich für Sie interpretiert habe. Oben sehen Sie u. a. den menschlichen Nacktmull, der sich auf dem Mond rasch vermehren und als Schalterbeamter tätig sein wird; dann gibt es den fleißigen Buddler, der aus rüstigen Altersheim-Bewohnern geklont wird: er soll unter der Mondoberfläche kilometerlange Tunnels graben, für Rohrpost und ähnliche Dinge. Außerdem schuf der CIA einen überdimensionalen Säugling, der ohne Raumanzug überleben kann – ein ebenso abartiges Experiment wie jener Möter, der für Präsident Bush Mondgestein apportieren wird.

Wird Monika auf dem Mond ihre Erfüllung finden?

da hat der johann wolfgang damals was richtig schönes geschrieben:

Meine Ruh ist hin,
Mein Herz ist schwer;
Ich finde sie nimmer
und nimmermehr.

Wo ich ihn nicht hab,
Ist mir das Grab,
Die ganze Welt
Ist mir vergällt.

Mein armer Kopf
Ist mir verrückt,
Meiner armer Sinn
Ist mir zerstückt.

Meine Ruh ist hin,
Mein Herz ist schwer,
Ich finde sie nimmer
und nimmermehr.

Nach ihm nur schau ich
Zum Fenster hinaus,
Nach ihm nur geh ich
Aus dem Haus.

Sein hoher Gang,
Sein edle Gestalt,
Seines Mundes Lächeln,
Seiner Augen Gewalt,

Und seiner Rede
Zauberfluß,
Sein Händedruck,
Und ach! sein Kuß!

Meine Ruh ist hin,
Mein Herz ist schwer,
Ich finde sie nimmer
und nimmermehr.

Mein Busen drängt
Sich nach ihm hin,
Ach dürft ich fassen
Und halten ihn,

Und küssen ihn,
So wie ich wollt,
An seinen Küssen
Vergehen sollt!

da kann man sich das gretchen so richtig schön vorstellen, wie sie allein am spinnrad sitzt.

und nicht vergessen, gretchen von nina hagen zu hören. bah, diese stimme …

*gretchen spiel*