johnpaul

sneaker sneaker sneaker

okay. its easter-friday and germany seems like on valium. no one is on the streets, shops are closed and everybody eats fish. hey, thats not what jesus died for.
anyway, did anyone notice those ads i put on this site? click on them and make me rich. doesnt the blog look more serious now? naw. to be quiete honest i put them there because i was curious how this google adsense-thing works.
but where are gucci, prada, adidas, versace, bathing ape, red bull, vans, triple 5 soul, nike, powell peralta, stüssy, osama bin laden or the rockstar-headz when you need them? i cant believe google sends me ads for security- and background-check-services.
do i regularly write about fucking sherlock holmes or what?
googlleddammitt.

adam

the clouds are getting darker the moment the pilot tells us that we are taking a direct decent towards amsterdams international airport. our flight left 30 minutes late, due to what i assume could be called unimportance.
this is a flying tin-can they put us in here. i am sure they usually sell some old tuna in these, and now there are less than 30 people onboard.

oh,some news from the pilot and „not very good“ ones. no more cruising, amsterdam airport is closed due to heavy snowfall. we get redirected to another airport.

please hold the line...

... okay, next post from düsseldorf. we are stranded in fucking germany. lufthansa is so kind to provide a bus-shuttle with no drinks, no food, no nothing. at least we have some space, cause shizzle vergizzl wasnt afraid of kicking any old lady out of the way to make space for us. hell ya, lets roll. this bus is smoking. from now on.

by the time we got to amsterdam i was too lazy to post anything. what did we do? the usual stuff: some red light action (please ban those mid-40s drunk english there), more smoking and rolling (why cant they stop playing stupid techno in coffeeshops??) and of course some people-watching (which is more fun off-season, cause you get the real dirt unfiltered). these are the moments when you realize that dam is kind of more international and open than all the hype places like barcelona, paris or even london.

or tell me what this guy in his late thirties did? running past as if the devil himself was breathing down his neck, limping in panic at 3 am past us on an empty and dead street. then he stopped for no reason, looking around with some mad cow desease look. panic! and then he ran off in another direction. and like that he was gone.
who was after this lost soul wearing a tight black suit? there was no one in sight, nobody was after him.

only his shadow.

but his shadow didnt limp...

diary of a nomad

another airport. another city. another hotel. always the same sound. 24/7.

thanks to bbc, cnn and mtv.

i have a confession to make: i always feel home when/whereever i hear their anthems - or that quiete evil voice of darth vader saying "this is cnn"!
do you know that kind of home-coming-feeling connected to some sound or smell even when you are far away from whereever you call home?
i do have that weird sentimentality with greenery too. whether its on the hectic streets of new york with someone burning one down passing by. or when that fantastic flavour withers away on a laid-back beach off the coast of southern thailand...

isnt it weird that a smell, a certain sound or just the right lines of a fantastic book can make me feel at home already? thousands of miles away from my real existing home - which by the way gets harder to define every time i think about it.
first there was stuttgart.period.
than home became more bipolar when i moved to london.
now it seems multi-polar, lying on this comfy couch in this cozy appartement in berlin i would love to call home too.
maybe this is one characteristica of the modern nomad: home gets reduced to a place where we get a hot shower, wlan-access, a burning spliff and some clean sheets 

william s. borroughs once wrote about the difference between a traveller and a tourist. and i think i finally get his point. home to a traveller is more than a geographical location. its a feeling. and by that home can be anywhere - or nowhere.

in the end this defines the fatal state of globilization: a generation cut off from home, lost in progress, lost in the -isation, stranded at another airport lounge, waiting for another flight into another city with a different name, yet very similar to the one leaving behind.

maybe globalization is just the feeling of feeling lost, diffuse, not knowing where we belong due to the evil thought in the back of our heads claiming that whatever waits on the other side would make us more happy. the grass is always greener somewhere else, isnt it?

or globalization is merely the fact, that some obnoxious cartoons can now be seen by anyone, anywhere, at any time.  thus producing an outcome affecting everyone of us.

 

... and we grew up thinking that coke-cola, gap, mcdumb and starbucks would be the dark side of globali-ss-ation.

departure

gate 104, 15.43 LAX.
no smoking area, not even one of those disgusting yellow cells they usually put us in...
by the way: what the hell do all these people want in munich? that fat guy with the laptop, a spielberg looking beardy reading a folder that says "21/418" on top, the pale but nervous brunette, that already had panic-attacks just arriving at the airport. and why does the species (gay of course) art directors have to have those silly LV-handbags?

curbside terminal b, 15.54 LAX.
fuck it, johnpaul went out for a last cigarette. a junkie in fear. if only those goddam security-check-slaves hadnt taken my lighter.

gate 104, 16.12 LAX #.
back again. shit, a ciggi would be nice after all this hustle. instead its time to board this monster of a plane, in which stomach i will be locked up for the next 12h.
does anyway out there actually understand why people start lining up even before boading is announced? do you do that as well?
right now a platin-blonde b-class porn-bitch stands infront of my seat, trying to handle her three carry-on-bags - including one pink bag with a little chihuahua inside.
and at the top spot up front waits of course the brunette panic-hootschi, now looking even more terrified. thats probably how i look on the way to the dentist...

dj shadow just helped me stop thinking of the most evil moment - when the light is too bright and the guy in white says: JOHNPAUL, PLEASE OPEN UP. no no no, its here again. i press my teeth together and try to focus on something nice. too late.
all i can come up with now are martin amis painfull sentences on the episode where he had to get half of his teeth cut out and replaced by some granny-inlay... just the way he fills page after page starting with the drive and all the last minute excuses you make up on the way to the always too white and too clean office of the teeth-saddam.

all gone, need to pack up...
... too find myself seated on a rather miserable 44K, fucking concentration-camp-class next to a real life giant, that cant help leaping over to my side. he is really feeling bad about it, but its a serious pain in the ass. at least he sometimes tries to occupy only one third of my precious space. by the way he wears a mustache and his hands are as huge as my head. its so egg. why do i always get the freaks? he probably works as a prize-boxer in some illegal polish-boxing-club...

i just popped the strongest sleeping pill wolle found in LA, had two glases of red wine and the outcome of an experiment with greenery just before check-in still spinns my small headaround. seriously, its time to go on stand-by, get a last glass of wine, pop another pill and fall asleep dreaming about falling asleep next to kitchen-nazi.
if i wouldnt be wasted like that i would continue writing some more nonsens - or i would read some more hundred pages of "lunar park" by bret easton ellis. a fantastic read by the way. but the cocktail seems to kick in big time now, thank god, and i just have to close my eyes, turn up the volume (velvet underground) and forget about the world for at least 8 hours. till we get to munich and germanys grim reality (minus fucking five celsius) guarantees a classic catch 22.

LA 1

useless and always late. i am sorry. and i am guilty. i let you guys down again. and i cant even promise being better till monday next week. as my assistant told you, i am on a roadtrip in wonderfull california - but i promise i will bring back a bag full of stories.
let me just tell you what happened in the last 24 hours... chaotic as usual as the sport cigarette just killed my grammar.
it started off in newport beach, oc, waking up at my friends jamirojames, a place lost deep inside the american beauty suburbia.
newport, o(rganic) c(ounty), is such an off-limits-bubble, its nearly impossible to get a taxi there (obviously cause all the 16 year olds drive fat-ass suvs). if you find one you´ll pay more than for a used jetta.
anyways, we went to huntington beach, so called surf city. the place should be called valium ville. it looks like a cool place at first - and the waves looked very decent too. but after waiting for 90 minutes for another taxi - which never came - we were very happy to leave. thanks to paris hilton!

due to my real life obligations we ended up in disneyworld that afternoon. this is something i always wanted to do. my dads idea of holidays only included 3h of beach, 8h museums and churches and 3 h eating stuff kids hate at restaurants kids hate even more per day so disneyland was number one enemy....

when we finally got to anaheim there happened to be only 2h left (the taxi-problem, remember?).but a whole day inside disneys cash cow would have made us go berserk.the audio-brain-washing in this place is rather intense. i seriously wonder why no one has gone amok in there yet. its quiete ironic: as a kid i always wanted to go there and now i understand my dad never let us. its a tragic kingdom. and the rides suck too. i would have loved to write something more positive. sorry.

later that night we drove up to LA and took over sunset boulevard. i had to learn that "bossa nova" has abandoned its smoking patio. and that the night in botox-town still ends at 2am.
today we decided to pay tribute to the most powerfull (living) austrian - after mr. red bull. and found an emty muscle beach in venice. no arnold, no cry.

instead there were some dudes, lots of tan and the typical traveller establishment with all its persona. but its still low season on this vanity fair in venice.

quiete a market of its own was our next stop back in beverly hills. wollinger and johnpaul drove up rodeo drive to check on george michaels toilette. and as if especially sent to top all jokes and prejudice a guy in a rosé shirt blinked at me coming out of the etablissement.
have a great day. we go now and drink whiskey at the roxy

cambodia callin´

what a good start for a grim day: i was wondering for weeks about my old sport tassilo, who was last ssen in bangkok some weeks ago. knowing that this lad never - or always - gets lost i wasnt worried too much, although running a restaurant at the riverside in phnom penh bears some pretty obvious risks. knowing this, i was quiete sure he got caught up somewhere between the "martini" (a true flashback to the bangkok-days during the vietnam war), "temple bar" and cambodias finest club, of which i cant remember the name... and the obvious triangle of women, sport cigarettes and running a business.
anyway, here is THE proof that tass is actually working and hey, he gets results: "la croisette" was already the top-adress for european cuisine in cambodia - hey, angelina jolie is a regular guest - but has now an pr-stunt to offer, that would guaranteee an adc-award in the western world. this lovely elephant sporting an ad for "la croisette" - which is the best job the old boy ever had. he used to get kicked by his owner to let stupid little kide from france bully him, but tassilo got him a nice retirement-plan. all dumbo has to do for the next 365 days is walking up and down the mekong river... and i am quiete sure tassilo gets him a little sugar on top once in a while...
if you ever see dumbo in real live, print this blog out, show it to tass and i am sure he will give you a little sugar too.
big up from munich to a man, a vision and a lot of sugar cubes!

worn out

whenever i get back from holidays, i seem to be more fucked up and worn out then on the day i left. its tuesday night, i am listening to some dodgy väth-remix my electro-punkster friend wolle (sorry guys, fake name.com) gave me. i wrote three pieces you guys missed, because they were in a language most out there recognize only from films based on a little guy with a funny mustache and only one ball. anyway, sitting, smoking and sorting out stuff, i made up my mind because of some friends in the us, spain and england i wanna share this project with, i decided to write all this in english.
enough nonsense, here is a brief abstract of the last gonzo-adventure

1. vancouver

holy smokes. went there to see my sister, who lives there and forgot how fucking cool van-city is: its got all the bonus of northamerica, without all the attitude of america. people are friendly - and they mean it, not like in LA. vancouver welcomes you with city-styles downtown, snowboarding 20 minutes away, the pacific next door and whales passing by. here is a list of some places you should check out. the coolest skateboard/snowboard-posse since the z-boys chill in west van and run their red dragon flagship there. then there is the westbeach store on west forth. it used to be much cooler when they had a little ramp in the back. gess they needed more space to make more cash from gucci-mummies and there spoiled brats.
a cool place is definitly the new alive shop from the new york chabos. and livestock hosts vancouver sneakerlicious. cool selection of kickz and really safe guys running this den. props and thanks for the adidas bw in my size by the way...
ohh, and what would be british columbia without the chronic. it blew me away: 6, six (!) years since i last needed a hook-up in canada, the old trick worked. go to cambie hostel on cambie street, stand next to the jukebox and within 5 secs you are out on the street through the backdoor and supplied with some of gods best supplies. six years later it still does the trick, unbelieveable.
nightlife is pretty down too. even on a sunday i found a nice joint that was packed and bouncing. sweet ladies - a lots of hot asian chicks -, a cool smoking lounge, fresh raps and funky dancers. wanna know the name, sorry, i forgot. but vancouver seems to be happening under the radar, its got some charm of mid-size towns like munich with a real cities atmosphere and enough urban skillz to feel at home.
uhh, if you wanna take your girl/your man out for a real date, you wanna check the restaurant called lumiere on broadway. okay, its more expansive than the average cinema&popcorn date, but its worth it.
and by far the sexiest waitors are found at caktus club, a food-lounge. hmmm, go get some.

2. seattle

the next stop was seattle where i checked in at the redbull music academy, one of the coolest things the coperate world ever gave back to a community. i am serious, they did a fantastic show called air range at some big ass auditorium in seattle. amazing fusin of strings, djs and dave matthews, who compiled at lot of the night. during daytime the guys who brought the community bob moog three years ago in capetown had again puzzled a great - and even educational - programm together. check out redbullmusicacademy.com for real info on that one.
apart from that i found seattle pretty average. where did the spirit go. the clubs i went to where as clean as a hollywood-setting and lame as hell. especially after chiling in vancouver for nearly a week seattle coulnt really kick in. after i saw nirvanas forgotten son chris n., who was at the concert hall and looked like kurt cobains nightmare. he became as dusty and obsolete as seattle as a whole seemed. he was wearing a mean turtleneck, a sakko your father would call oldshool and boring and a suffering smile like germanys new chancellor miss merkel (although she looks more like a guy really).

3. brooklyn

birthday boy johnpaul decided to rock again with some of his finest mates in new york.there was shizzl-vergizzl (aka the burner, aka bundesheer, aka schmähster), lumpi (aka oider), the long one (aka dirty fingaz, aka dragon 62, aka wild styles) and the downhill-rasta kaysen and the gab, nyc brightest headlight and a real torch through the fog of stupidity.
we checked into a illegal loft-hotel kaysen hooked us up with, where pablo and his sweet girl opened their innocent looking door to one of the most styler places ive ever seen. steve jobs would be happy to film his next commercial in this offshore location. an open, arabesque living area too warm for wallpaper magazin, a real retreat in williamsburg, but to close to manhattan to lean back.

its fucking late and i have to cut this crap so here is the short version:

- why do new yorkers think their hip-super-ultra-club apt is that great. sorry, its boring, music is cheeeeesy and the szaff is more obnoxious then paris hilton. get serious, thats lame for the so called city that never sleeps. where did the disco go. and clubs closing at 4 am is bull too. we need a new decadence for the apple, otherwise miami takes over the nightlife and thats not an option at all

- why does nigo have to sell his shirts for 86 bucks. shit quality and totally overrated. but check out his busy work shop anyway, cause the moving belt is worth putting into moma.

- moma. still too full.

- apple store: thanks for everything. you guys made my life better. and please send the 30 inch display as soon as you read this as promised.. haha

- taxi-idiots still dont like to drive to brooklyn. why? there is no "currry in a hurry", its on 30th and lex av. still good food and nice bollywood for my girl to sing along

- supreme: they keep doing the right thing but tend to forget there roots: its skateboarding, not sucking up to susis. think about it.#

- and the tripple 5 soul heads finally mastered the art of cool jackets for the 21st century suburbia. respect

- urban outfitters. its like the fake hitler diaries. some of the right stuff, nice try, but they suck and sell new yorks soul to people from new jersey.

- magnolia: its all about cup cakes, baby, cup cakes! although i know a guy that does better ones - and a girl that even beats him with her cake.   

enough time wasted on you, sorry for misspelling and being boring - again.

johnpaul

oh, the guy on the picture wasnt me, its my homeboy shizzl-vergizzl - i am the sucker to the right. bäh

ps. wanna konw the nasty, getting wasted, nosebleeding stories of betrayl, falling down and rising again? they are too private . yet - so stayed tuned, i unleash them eventually. promise