Most Livable City In The World

Monocle magazine did a global quality of life survey. Number one most liveable city in the world: Munich!
Now Monocle is run by Tyler Brulee and his gang, the very people who brought you Wallpaper*, the bible of 90s style dogma . I wasn't really sure I'd care much about a survey named after Giuliani's campaign held by a bunch of homosexuals with a taste for expensive furniture. But then they got me. One of their criterias is local media and there they say: "The city's main newspaper, Süddeutsche Zeitung, sells around 445,000 copies a day and is read nationally, and respected for its intelligent, liberal analysis." And there's also the paragraph talking about the general sense of quality starting with "the level of journalism in the city's main paper". Well, if you've mastered the art of flattery like this...

Fela

Fela's son Femi's gonna play Munich tomorrow. Not to be missed.
The Fela footage above was supposedly shot in 1971 by Ginger Baker, whose footage of Segun Bucknor & the Sweet Things found it's way onto YouTube as well.
Baker lived in Lagos for a while in the early 70s, running the first multitrack studio on the African continent. Eventually he formed his own band there, called Salt. There's some footage from a session, which makes you understand, why he loved it there so much.
Have I told the story about Paul McCartney's visit to Lagos yet? I'm sure I did, but here it is once more. Baker told it to me, when I visited him in the Mojave desert, where he lived being married to some young cocktail waitress who had never heard of Cream before. Anyway, when Baker lived in Lagos, Paul McCartney ant the Wings came and wanted to record their album "Band On The Run"at his studio. But EMI had just opened the second multitrack studio on the African continent in Lagos, so they called him up and after a few days at Baker's studio McCartney apologized and changed venue.
Baker didn't care much, but his good friend Fela thought otherwise. It was about four in the morning when McCartney called Baker in tears. The Nigerian National Guard, who was commanded by one of Fela's cousins, had stormed the EMI studios with guns and bayonets and demanded that the Wings return to Baker's studio, so Baker had to get over there and convince the grim soldiers to leave the Wings alone.

Brillance In Pandering

Even better than the Clintons' clumsy efforts in ironic pop culture references might be Barack Obama's new collection of ringtones, which you can sample right here on his site. Who is he pandering to? The mallrat demographic? The high school swing vote?

Munich Vibe

When Aggro Berlin came out with Rap from the Berlin projects, everybody got all uppity about the types of lyrics they couldn't really understand, when listening to PE, NWA, Snoop Dogg or Eminem. Performed in blunt German that ghetto realism sounded all a bit too real. Well, for every Ice Cube there was always a Puff Daddy, so now there's Aggro Gruenwald named after the millionaires' suburb in Munich's South. Their group's called "Stehkrägen", which is the word for polo shirt collars turned up. Their first single is "Eure Armut kotzt uns an" (Your poverty grosses us out), with a hookline going "Don't you have a father or mother who achieved smoething?". Might be just sarcasm and political incorrectnes, but they sure give a quite acurate picture of Munich, the town of young heirs with Porsches, international boarding school educations, golf handicaps and unlimited trust funds. Funny enough, German Vanity Fair presented them as a refreshing antidote to the social realness of Berlin gangstas without a hint of irony. Well, that magazine is run by a rabid neoliberal hardliner, so he probably found some ideological brethren in the cartoon characters of Aggro Gruenwald.

The Clintons

Awkward? Well, I'll take the Clintons' clumsy heartland humor anytime over the current administration's Kennebunkport cynicism. Although Hillary's musical taste surely has no redeeming qualities, as proven by her selection of a campaign song with the help of the general online public. And the winner is - Celine Dion? That's why nobody likes Hillary. Shameless, market researched opportunism.

6000 Years Ago

And you thought they were kidding.... Whilest on the subject - they just showed Jesus Camp on Austrian TV. Sure it's easy to get creeped out by those little American Christanoids. But things ain't all secular over either. Recently I found thes quote from our dear Bavarian Father. Last fall, Pope Benedict XVI stated clearly, at a conference at the Castel Gandolfo addressing the nature of evolution, "It is not yet the time to reconcile the two domains." And: "This is in the interest of regaining a dimension of reason, which we have lost." Now it turns out the backlash's been going a bit longer. Ralph Boent, novelist and former physicist with a license to run particle accelerators, told me that the last pope told a scientist colleague of his that all those great discoveries of physcis are just great, if they would just please let that big bang stuff alone.

New York Nostalgia

New York's always been a city torn between nostalgia and frenzy, so any visit will be just like that. Took about half a minute to feel home again. And although Mr. Lou Reed and I might differ on the exact definition of a perfect day, those eight were sure right up there. It was nice and breezy days in Red Hook, Bluegrass sessions at Sunny's, soup dumplings at the New Green Bo, Pupusas and Huaraches at the ballfields (see who's volving down Pupusas in the video) and a burger at the Odeon. It was training with David, sparring with Charlie and seeing the Zab Judah/Miguel Cotto fight at a sports bar full of fans from Brownsville and Puerto Rico.



All crowned by a New Jersey sunset on Kara's Brooklyn roof, making the perfect background fro a jumbo shrimp barbeque and an argument about who was the greatest singer of all times. Rich bets on Ismael Rivera (Arsenio Rodriguez thought so too), I'll go with Hector Lavoe (J-Lo agrees, which admittedly ain't quite such a weighty argument). And if Lavoe's best song was "El Cantante" for it's epic range or "Periodico De Ayer" for it's bittersweet cynicism. We must've sounded like two old geezers sitting on a Brooklyn stoop arguing, if it was Sugar Ray Robinson or Muhammad Ali who was the greatest of all times and if Ali's most shining moment was against Liston or Foreman. And of course the dispute was never settled.

(Woop Woop) That's Da Sound Of Da Police

It's mostly sounds and smells that instantly make you feel home again. The classic wail of a NYPD squad car for example. New York cops have a whole set of sirens to choose from. There's the yelp and the manual Woop Woop, which was immortalized by KRS One with a song that all through the summer of '93 had every kid in the neighborhood imitate the siren chorus. There's the priority siren, which has a definite electro-boogie flavor to it, the European sounding Hi-Lo and the penetrating airhorn, which will clear any gridlocked intersection in a matter of seconds. With the right operator a New York squad car can sound like Miles Davis' band circa 'Dark Magus'/'Agartha'.

Just now the NYPD announced it will add another sound to their repertoire - the rumbler. Just tested, it makes the area surrounding the squad car shake with heavy bass sounds. That's about as hip as a police department can get.

Listen to or download the:

wail

yelp

priority siren

Hi-Lo

airhorn

Woop Woop

rumbler

Adverstising For Myself

Hung out with John Brockman for a long lunch. Always impressive, how connected he is (well, he started the A-list networking early, as proven by the 1967 picture above). John filled me in on all the latest advances the forces of faith made in the States (candidate hopeful and evolution denier Senator Sam Brownback given space on the New York times op-ed pages followed by an op-ed by none other than the creationist Discovery Institute in the Times owned Boston Globe ).

And there's of course the advertising for myself - I've got a story in John Brockman's online magazine Edge.

ThisYear's Summer Hit

More mainstream than 'Kick, Push, Coast', not as easily accessible as 'Crazy', but currently heard on street corners in Lower Manhattan, South Brooklyn, Outer Queens and the Boogie Down Bronx.

I Love The Smell Of Tear Gas In The Morning

Supposedly the black block was 3.000 deep in yesterday's G8 protest that escalated into an outright Battle of Rostock. That's quite a step up from the 30 followers of John Zerzan who started the Battle of Seattle eight years ago.

I guess this would be the time now to read up on neo-primitivists Zerzan and Kaczynski, throw in some Lewis Mumford, some Otto Reich and there we go. Although I suspect that reading's not so high on the Black Block's to do list.

My Way Or Death

News flash for all fellow Sing Sing patrons:

A man has been shot dead by a security guard for singing out of tune in a Philippine karaoke bar. Romy Baligula, 29, was halfway through his song on Tuesday night in a bar in San Mateo town, east of Manila, when 43-year-old security guard Robilito Ortega yelled that he was out of tune. When Mr Baligula ignored his comments and continued singing, Ortega pulled out his revolver and shot him in the chest.Senior Superintendent Felipe Rojas said Mr Baligula died instantly. The security guard was detained by an off-duty policeman shortly after the shooting.

Deaths and violence are not uncommon in Philippine karaoke bars. The popular Frank Sinatra song My Way has been taken off many karaoke bars in Manila after it was found to be the cause of fights and even deaths when patrons sang out of tune.


Sid Vicious - not ready for the Philippines

La Candidata

Rigoberta Menchú is gonna run for president of Guatemala for a party called Encuentro Por Guatemala. Back in '92 we lucked out, when Rigoberta Menchú won the Nobel Peace Prize while we were in post for the film about Guatemala we had shot with her and her network of human rights organisations. The gold standard of films about Central American conflict back then was already "When The Mountains Tremble" by Pam Yates. Now Pam, Paco and Peter will follow Rigoberta Menchú's candidacy, which means there's gonna be another great Skylight Pictures classic to look forward to.

Trailer for "When The Mountains Tremble"

The Office

This simple game of self-destructive pleasure is a huge hit in cubicles all over the greater New York area. Sure hits a nerve.