Squat bars, zines, the gossip, spider in the web and system of a down...

so much to say with all that in a title... I guess I can start with the squat bars. There is one in my house called X-B to start with and everytime I am there I think of how it would be the ultimate dream for all my punk friends in seattle... have been doing little sketches of the house and other spaces and think I will be doing a zine about the house. Have learned a lot also about how housing projects work here... there are socialist-leftist organizations that help buy houses with projects and that is what my house is in the process of doing. There is also an info zine that comes out monthly with all the events happening at squats and other radical spaces and housing projects and I have decided that I need to start exploring more of these things going on here... revolations about what I am doing here, thinking about things as a bit more of research, etc.

Friday night at a bar called Suppamolly, spider in the web (oly-ex bikini kill) and party line (dc- new name for bratmobile) play and I chatted for a bit with Chris from spider in the web who I know from working at rainy day records for a long time while I was growing up in Oly. Strange to be seeing people from the US and I also have started to meet all these people from olympia who live here.. but I´m getting ahead of myself. Saturday not much happening, stayed at home and watched the breakfast club with my friend sara from sweden and the sunday was the prenzlaurburg flowmarket and then the house plannum after talking to my aunt on the phone for an hour. It looks as though I will be going with her to minneapolis in jan to do an arts residency and then come back to berlin... there is also a good chance that I will be coming back to seattle for the planning of the recidency... but nothing is set in stone. It is a strange feeling since I was planning on not coming back to see the US for 6 months at least and now I will be back for a visit sooner.... anyways.

So, last night (monday, 7.11) the gossip played at this really strange club called Knaack Klub and I went with my roommate Catalina. Before the show we went to Vöku (basically a secret cafe situation) at this space called ´the black girls coalition´and I met 6 people from Oly there... craziness. The space has two main rooms, one is a little bar in a black room with a little disco ball light and the other room had this Amazing trans woman who was djing and there were films abot the sisters of perpetual induldance playing in the background as all these kids sat eating. After that we headed to the club where the gossip was playing and as we pulled up on our bikes I saw stan and beth and nathan outside the club and basically ran stan over to give her a hug. It was so great to see them and I was able to sit down and talk with stan for awhile before the show.. about all her hot swedish eye candy actions and what not. As we were sitting there with our becks from Bremen, these really kinda tough looking dudes came and sat near us and I could hear that they were american also.. and it was ´system of a down´who I personally am not super familiar with, but they are an mtv hardcore band from what I hear... what the f*ck. After the show we were supposed to go do karaoke at this amazing bar in kreuzburg, but no one ended up going cuz there was drama with shitty equipment and some guy also came up to nathan and pulled out a gossip record and broke it and threw it on the ground... but anyways, and I ended up staying there with Catalina and these two german girls I met (one of who had been at the last homoagogo) and we stayed there talking about gender till 2:30am.

This morning I got up at 9am, took and shower and rode my bike to the hotel where the gossip was staying and we ate breakfast and talked gossip..haha. and about 70´s berlin fashion bound terrorists (... beinhofs). It was strange to again see so many people from home and on my bike ride home I stopped in the park for a minute and cried, missing the familiar. Now I am finishing this up and then going to work.. an now 5 day a week gig and the going to barbie dienhof tonight to see wassan dj.

till next time....