Tuesday, June 16, 2009

greetings from earth and beyond




Classic. Between five and ten people replied to my last email saying
things like 'great email' and 'classic email' and also 'good email
man.'
F*CK YOU! and also 'thanks'.
anyway, juice over here is pretty good.
My bike Trent has another flat tire. Last time it cost me 25 to get
the tire replaced. the bike itself cost 35. I am glad i did not act as
smug as i felt when i got the bike so cheap. Because if i had then the
rest of the band would probably be thinking 'ha idiot' for having two
flat tires in one week. To be honest, i am suspecting foul play. It
would not surprise me if it was Chico from upstairs who has been
sneaking down and slashing tires. Rob and Ede and also Felix  AKA Lix
'Lickety Splitz' Lun have had flat tires. Actually so has Sam.

Chico.

Something has to be going on. I am only really just realising this
now. I know some of you think I sometimes conspiracy theorise, but
realistically, I am onto the right track this time. Which is pretty
obvious.
Chico lives upstairs. He is a composer. He looks like a combination
between Goldblum (top 5 worst actors), 
Larry David and the teacher in
Ferris Buellers Day Off who does the role call 'Bueller, Bueller, Fry,
Bueller, Fry'.

top five worst actors
1. Rick Moranis
2. Matthew Broderick
3. Bill Pullman
4. Goldblum
5. Vin Diesel

Anyway, lucky that Chico's bathroom flooded into our bathroom the
other day. That was pretty good.
He came down and slunk into our apartment, and said that if we were
out he had a key to apartment and could happily hang round for when
the plumber was here.

He is trying to nark us out to the landlord that there are quite a few
of us living here. Chico.

felix cooked some pork mince or something tonight.
but i was out and ate a kebab. berlin kebabs are actually one of the
best things about berlin.
another couple of things about berlin that i love are
a) not having to eat felixs cooking when you go out for the night. but
dont worry he actually makes some delicious stuff. Like hummous.

actually i lost my train of thought because i just remembered when i
was biking back to my house a couple of days ago and i tried to
dismount when i was pulling into the kurb outside and as i pulled my
leg over it got caught on the basket and then i freaked out and
slammed on the brakes and flipped off the front. There was about 15-18
people standing around by the bus stop and they all obviously thought
i was a massive jerk. Lucky i landed on my hip and knee and finger.

It didnt help when i was trying to get into my house and my bike kind
of got stuck etc. There was quite a bit of sniggering. It was not as
bad as the time i got my head stuck in the tube when i was in london
though. Which was definately the most embarassing thing that ever
happened to me. It was added to when i turned up to the party i ws
headed to and people said 'what are those black marks on your face?' i
didnt realise at the time but when i looked in the mirror and put two
and two together i realised it is from when the tube doors closed on
my face and marked them with the black rubber crud which is on the
inside of the doors.
But what doesnt kill you makes you stronger.

All the stuff above this line i wrote when i was drunk a couple of
nights ago. Hence why it is quite aggressive, offensive and
confrontational. so i am sorry for that

It is 8:17am and there is construction happening again. I think the
best part about it is that they stop for about two hours around 10am.
What i think would be a really cool idea is maybe instead of stopping
at ten am for a couple of hours, maybe they could take those two hours
and not start until 8am rather than 6am. But that is only my very
humble opinion. Anyway, no big deal, i just looked out the window and
threw an apple core towards them and muttered a curse, so it is only a
matter of time before they get the bad juju. I can actually see a
bunch of them from my bed with white helmets on. I dream of owning a
slingshot and having very good aim.

Here are a few of the highlights of my life since i wrote to you last.
They are in order. As i find it infuriating when people make lists and
then say 'in no particular'. Why then would you make a list if it is
in no particular order? Sounds a bit Aids-ey to me. Anyway,

1. Getting dressed in womans clothes
2. Getting a flat tire on the side of the auto Bahn where we could nt
get the wheel nuts off because the tire was so fucked.
Anyway, there were trucks ripping past at around 160 km and Sam and
Rob went down the road trying to flag someone to help us. Sam was
wearing a high visibility vest and Rob was bouncing up and down
pointing to our busted wheel jack. It looked like a music video for
The Village People. No wonder nobody stopped except the Police.
The police actually couldnt help, didnt speak english and didnt have a
wheel jack that we could borrow. I  pointed at the pistol on the guys
hip and then did the action of shooting off our wheel. He didnt think
it was very classic at all. Well whatever, he looked liked Colonel
Clink.
Anyway, we ended up getting towed and werent even late for a gig we
were playing in Cologne that night. That was quite a ruly night
actually. Met some swell humans.
3. Playing two shows with the Veils in Berlin and Hamburg. and meeting
Olly and Hauke who are German booking agent team and totally looked
after us, including finding us cheap vodka and giving the band free
Neil Young tickets. We are going tonight. Which will be sweet.
4. Discovering the program The Wire.
5. Getting some new deodorant
6. Receiving a polaroid in the mail of a guy holding his unit in front
of the mirror with the words 'what a view' written on the white bit on
the polaroid. Long story, but James and I stole this photo from the
'gay box' at 92 Lincoln st. and then would hide it in each other's
rooms until the other one found it. I wondered where it had got to. I
was horrified to know that James had made the effort to send it to
Berlin wrapped in apiece of lined A4 refill in an unmarked envelope.
This is actually number 1 i have decided but cant be bothered
rejigging the list. So ignore all that crap i was talking about
particular order etc..

Anyway, i am tired and bored now. We have to look for a van today.

lots of love to you all.

PS we probably arent going to be able to go to London this weekend due
to visa issues. but will keep you posted.

pps i started a weblog aka a 'blog'  http://whateverorwhateveretc.blogspot.com/
ppps. starting the blog was my idea. Noone elses. I also figure out
heaps of rad stuff by myself like not overcooking vegetables, and
figuring out how to maek watching a movie on your laptop go full
screen by pressing APPLE '0


Monday, June 15, 2009

diggers outside my window


Hello friends. I was inspired to write a 'group email' when i woke up
at 6:46am this morning as some concrete dropped on some other
concrete. But i think the edge kinda scraped down the other edge and
made the chalk board sound x 400,000. Then a guy shouted something
which sounded like  'Pig dog death, floor hatred, love?'. So I am
pretty sure thats what he meant. My initial reaction would have been
to reply by saying 'Hey, shut it!' but before i could do anything
another guy said back to him jovially something along the lines of
'buttpower! buttpower kind!'. So, whatever.

It was a pretty good way to start the day. Not as good as nutri grain
or whatever, but pretty close. I can hear the diggers digging crap up
right now. Its a shame actually because if they werent so loud, i
probably wouldnt want to kill the guys driving them. Oh they have
stopped, and it has been replaced by a jackhammer. So that's quite
good. Almost soothing.
I just went and looked out the window and secretly pulled the fingers
at a couple of those guys.

Anyway, I am in Berlin and life of the unemployed is actually ruling
so hard that I almost want to puke. I really like
a) getting up late
b) doing what i want
c) not going to work
d) going to the kids playground and sitting in the far corner by the
swings smoking
e) riding my bike Trent around
f) getting up and looking in the fridge and seeing what you can make
from different ingredients


There are a lot more things I like about being unemployed, but those
are the ones that sprung immedietly to my head.
We have been here a month and it is probably my new favourite town. I
refused to do any sightseeing when I found out that Hitlers bunker can
not actually be seen from the road, and you would never even know it
was there. That put me off.
But there is plenty to do otherwise and everyone pretty much sits
around drinking or mucking round in the park here. There are probably
a billion or so parks in Berlin. It is a really green city which is
awesome. When you contrast that with the absolutely overpowering
amount of graffiti it is such a cool looking place. Some of the
graffiti pieces are whole sides of huge apartment blocks, it is
unbelievable stuff. My favourite one is this big spaceman that you see
out of the side of the train.

I also like the one that says 'Mike sucked me off in here' in the
toilets in a bar near our home. Although it is not as grandiose as the
spaceman.
I never thought I would use the word grandiose in context. So, pretty
much can tick that off.

Have been on a couple of adventures... the most memorable being Sam
and I's journey to Amsterdam to see Jean Michel Jarre live.

Essentially, in a nutshell, we brought some 'truffles' from a lady in
a shop who told us they were a mild form of mushrooms, ate them, found
out that they were by no means 'mild', tripped out and thought that
Jean Michel Jarre was landing a spacecraft on the stage.

The laser show and music actually blew my brains out, it was so good.
And honestly, I was hallucinating so hard like never before. It was
flippen sweet.

Then I got robbed. This guy basically reached for his back pocket
where either a knife or a gun was, or a carrot or whatever
was and robbed me for all the money in my wallet. 10 Euros, ha sucker.

It was a night of various strange and wonderful adventures which i
could go in depth into, but seeing was kind of believing. And I was so
god damn high I dont even actually know if it all happened.
I can confirm neither Sam nor I slept with a prostitute. Although we
did get some pretty good camera footage of a shop window with a
beautiful dildo display.

The band are all here now in Berlin. Rob arrived at 2am this morning
and woke us up. So odds are we are going to ask him to leave the band.

Our first gig is this friday night at a place called Tacheles. It is
like an art squat (trippy), so that will be great. Then we are headed
to Hamburg on Sunday to play with The Veils (which is so f*cking
exciting, i love that band), and then back to do the Berlin show with
them on monday..

We have a bunch of interesting stuff coming up actually, in June
headed to Cologne,London, Cardiff, a bunch of Netherlands shows and
then this great festival called Fusion Festival... We are stoked to be
playing it, it is supposed to be one of Europe's great festivals.
Hopefully I dont get electrocuted or something before that. But odds
are I might.

We are also playing a hardcore metal fest called Ieperfest in august.
Spelt with an I not an L.. but pretty classic.


hope everyone is good. Please write to me back.
And yes, even though I am unemployed, I really want to do some writing
of band bios or any copy for websites or whatever... so if anyone
needs anything like that done you can hit me up. I only want one day
of work per 6 weeks, so take it easy.
I am going now to eat an apple and throw the core somewhere near the
construction workers.

i know i have left a bunch of stuff out in this email. but whatever.

reuben p. bonner

ps. I saw a guy on the train who pretty much looked exactly like Paul
Vahry, Jonny's dad.