Anni vs. ´ary

Tempus fugit! Today LIFE IN HEL celebrates it´s first anniversary and what a ride it was. An eventful and exciting year lies behind this blog now, almost matching the whole time that I´ve been living in Finland so far. It´s nice to see that besides friends and family also other people are interested in my little online diary. Even Timo Soini, a true fan, congratulated because he likes foreigners so much [sic].

Joking apart and to bore you with some stats, let me tell you that after the usual suspects Finland and Germany, USA and the UK are peeping in most often. This year´s award for most visited post goes to "Night of the living DEAD ELVIS" which is no miracle at all. Well, that entry has been in the limelight now ad nauseam and I promise to stop mentioning it. When it comes to leaving comments the major part of blogheads likes to avoid it like the plague. I once read a juicy comparison by a frustrated blogger, who stated that "writing a blog is like fucking a corpse - it can be fun at times but you are also very, very lonely." I don´t buy into that entirely yet have to say he had a point there. Maybe a change is about to come and soon I have to delete all your annoying comments, har har har...

So one year has gone by and all but let´s shortly interupt the ballwashing. Before we let the champagne corks pop and enjoy the cake, what happened between February and August? Nothing. A huge gap, a hiatus, some sort of hibernation that lasted almost half a year. Call me a pilkunnussija (which I really can be) but doesn´t that cut the blog´s lifetime in half?
What a bummer - not so hasty now with that champagne and half the cake back to the fridge, please. Next year we´ll have a real party, word.

On taking a stock I see that I really have learned quite a bit of this language that I called "close to being extraterrestrial" in the very first post. My investigations revealed though that it takes the average maahanmuuttaja between five to seven years to master Finnish properly. Oh boy...
Still I dig my LIFE IN HEL and feel that there´s so much more that I want to do, see, achieve and experience. Gonna try my best to make you a part of it through this blog.

As we´re moving on to the songs for today, I´m introducing something new here. It´s an attempt to avoid linking to another page by imbedding songs from YouTube instead. Now you can listen to the songs while reading my nonsense. If you give a flying fuck about the songs for today, it would be cool to know if you approve of the new system or not. Here goes...

SONGS FOR TODAY:

Slim Whitman - Happy Anniversary


The Kings Of Nuthin´ - Another Year


Leslie Gore - It´s my Party

Red Light

Quiet please, recording in progress! This weekend my yet unnamed new band hits the "studio" to lay down our first demo. We´re in charge of the whole thing ourselves with bass-tard Pate being the knob twister abusing the console.
Stay tuned for more info on this endeavor...

SONGS FOR TODAY:

W.A.S.P. - I wanna be somebody


S.O.D. - What´s that noise

Kids will have their say

Yeah! Right on! How old is that kid? Ten? Twelve? The small man showed real guts as he was blasting through some rock classics at the most incredible volume in front of the fancy pantsy shops in downtown Helsinki. Awesome! I wouldn´t have gotten away with it but kiddo turned the place into a gold mine. What the picture fails to show is the huge pile of Euro coins on his guitar bag! If he continues like this he´s gonna be huge one day - remember you saw him first on LIFE IN HEL.

Please note the Iron Maiden shirt. I see a lot of kids here in Finland wearing metal shirts. First I thought that most of them must be stuffed into rock apparel by their parents and actually can´t tell the difference between Judas Priest and the Teletubbies. But no! Finnish kids know their metal pretty damn well. That´s because metal is played here on the radio and I´m not talking about some pirate channel broadcasting from a ghost ship at night time. Radio Rock for example is playing death metal and grindcore on a Sunday afternoon. Heavy Metal is the law!

SONGS FOR TODAY:

Anvil - Metal on Metal


Iron Maiden - The Trooper


SSD - The kids will have their say

Temporary popularity boost

Wtf was that? Checked my blog stats yesterday and thought I must be looking at someone else´s. The number of hits was rising like the oil price! First I was indulging in conspiracy theories but after a little investigation I got to the bottom of it. Both Facebook profiles of Black Magic Six and Dead Elvis had linked to my review of the DE / BMS show in Bar Loose. By the end of the day I had 120 visitors, that´s roundabout twelve times as much as usual! Very usual indeed was that NO ONE left a comment, boo hoo...still I´m glad that so many of you took the time and read my scribblings! Kudos to Black Magic Six and Dead Elvis for beating the big drum for LIFE IN HEL!! Today it´s already back to normal proportions...

Bon appétit

Spotted today on the streets of Helsinki

Yummy, yummy!! How appealing...when I saw this I had to immediately burst into laughter! My German blogheads will already have gotten the gag, all of my non-German speaking readers please click here.
Do they produce it themselves or are they supplied by...a factory or something?

When you least expect it

Couldn´t believe what I saw last morning on my way to work! When I flipped through Metrolehti (a free daily newspaper that you find in all metros and most busses) to kill some time, I stumbled upon this, jaw dropping, eyes popping in disbelief:

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Das Weisse Album closed Beatles-project

Singer Klaus Beyer from Berlin has finished his 13-year project to release the complete work of The Beatles in German.
The German magazine Der Spiegel reported about the matter.
Beyer´s Beatles series was completed when Das Weisse Album (The White Album) was released.
Also The Beatles managed to record in German almost 50 years ago.
Therefore "I Want To Hold Your Hand" got the title "Komm, Gib Mir Deine Hand". "She Loves You" translated into "Sie Liebt Dich".
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(Roughly translated by me)


Klaus Beyer might and must be the biggest Beatles fan alive, who else has ever shown so much passion for his fave band than this simple man. The only thing weirder than Klaus Beyer himself though is to find a small article about him here in Finland. There is still only a chosen few in the know about the Fab Four maniac, who originally began to translate the lyrics because his mother didn´t understand a word of English. Klausi wanted mommy to know what his fascination with John, Paul, George and Ringo is all about, so he started to "sample" their original songs with two tape recorders, a pair of scissors, scotch tape and his own off-key vocals! DIY, anyone? His effort expanded over 13 albums in 13 years and had the side effect of many funny Beyer originals. He also made hilarious super 8 mm short movies, some of them are "music videos" for - of course- Beatles albums.

Weirdos have a way of attracting other weirdos and it´s unbelievable but true: while the general public is totally oblivious to Mr. Beyer, he somehow managed to team up and work with e.g. Christoph Schlingensief (theater director and Germany´s enfant terrible, RIP), Jörg Buttgereit (notorious German splatter movie director, Nekromantik, Der Todesking, etc.) and just recently John Cafiero (American film director, producer and musician). The latter is founder of "all-star punk group" Osaka Popstar (absolutely disposable if I am asked), featuring Marky Ramone, Jerry Only, Dez Cadena and Ivan Julian. Now Beyer has even refined one of their songs, "Shaolin Monkeys", so Beatles kind of meet Black Flag in "Shaolin Affen".

KB at WP8, Düsseldorf

I´m happy to have seen the man himself in 2009 when he performed his adapted Beatles songs not only in Düsseldorf but also in a homemade Sgt. Pepper uniform. He was troubled by a nervous bladder but rocked the place until the small hours. During the cause of the night I was interviewed by a small film crew that was working at the time on a Beyer documentary. I think I said that he´s a punk by definition because of his DIY ethics and the fact that he is in it for the cause and not for anyone´s acceptance (except mommy´s) nor money. The most beautiful thing, I added, is that he doesn´t know about any of this shit, so he must be unbiased and thus the real deal.
Well, I was a little bit tipsy, so my sermon was gibberish to that extend.

 
I even did something that I hardly ever do, in a flash of total starstruckness I asked the maestro for his autograph. It kind of surprised me when he seemed to be only too happy to clumsily oblige.

Many thanks to you Metrolehti, old fish wrap, for reminding me of this outstanding artist and the fun night two years ago. But now, without further ado, please check out the pure genius of the one and only... Klaus Beyer!



Aaaand make sure to check out:

Das andere Netz des Klaus Beyer (German only, sorry)

1.000.000

A reliable source just broke the news to me that there are currently one million square meters of empty office space in Helsinki! ONE MILLION!!
And guess what: there´s a huge need for 1 or 2 room flats which are hard to come by. Singles are worried sick because when you are on your own and do not earn a fortune, a flat is almost unaffordable in the 7th most expensive city in the world. Supply and demand, right? This sucks big time...

SONG FOR TODAY:

Dead Kennedys - Let´s lynch the landlord

Dawning of a new era

Change of pace in my life from tomorrow on, dear friends. Työharjoittelu is the name of the game and it spells w-o-r-k. I´m happy and excited, mostly about the fact that I will speak Finnish now everyday for 6 weeks. Found myself a great place and I am looking forward to this experience!

SONGS FOR TODAY:

The Specials - (Dawning of a) New Era


The Godfathers - Birth, School, Work, Death

Fill in the gaps

Here´s a little cull from the archives, just to show you a bit of what happened during the big silence on this blog.

Laskiaissunnuntai, 6th of March

The skipper, moments before busting his knee

Laskiainen is celebrated on both a Sunday and a Tuesday. The Tuesday announces the beginning of the fasting period and the 40 day countdown to Easter, so it´s like Veilchendienstag in Germany, just without the carnival. I don´t have a clue what the Sunday has to do with it, but maybe the Finns just want a bit of the fun happening during the weekend, too. It wouldn´t be the only holiday which exact date they´d fix just a little to make it fit their needs. But maybe the Sunday has a fundamental meaning in the religious calender, I´m clueless. Nowadays Laskiainen is associated more with outdoor activities and fun in the snow anyway. You grab your sledge and take some hot cocoa, pea stew and delicious laskiaispulla to the nearest hill. There you meet your friends and feel like a kid again - at least I did on that day.

Yippie!

Riku, Marika, Susu, Minna and Jaana enjoying some cocoa.

28th of March

Winter had us still in a tight grip. Here´s a picture of the alley leading to my language school. It´s called Edupoli and is located in Herttoniemi. Takes me about 20 minutes to go there.

30th of May

When the snow had finally melted, despite a few piles here and there, some drivers seemed to have severe difficulties adjusting to the altered road conditions. Especially parking posed a problem as you can see in the following picture:

Good attempt, better luck next time. The red building is my school Edupoli. 

Juhannus, 25th of June

Juhannus is the celebration of midsummer. Officially speaking it is the second most important holiday, only topped by christmas. I wonder if all Finns would agree to that ranking. Originally called Ukon Juhla (after the Finnish god Ukko), it was later on christianized (like so many other traditions) and was named after John the baptist (Finnish = Johannes Kastaja). Anyway, many Finns go absolutely berzerk on Juhannus weekend. Depending on where you are in the country the sun doesn´t set at all during the night. Whoever can leaves the city and spends the weekend in a summer cottage (mökki). Bonfires (kokko, sing.) are burned at lakesites and the sea. Sauna, swimming, Bbq and heavy (HEAVY!) drinking are on the schedule, which can lead to certain problems, for example death. After Juhannus 2011 you heard on the news that this year only 8 people died. I think last year it was 22. Lots of drowning, a bit of good ol´ stabbing and the occasional drunken accident. But no worries, I figure that for every death on Juhannus at least one child is conceived in Suomi. I didn´t take it to any of these extremes and rather followed the general schedule at a nice mökki nearby Pori, with my girlfriend and three good friends.

Finns like their nearest neighbor to be not near at all. We used the boat a lot.

The old bridge to the sauna.

Hyvät löylyt! Good steam!

Susu having a nice swim after sauna.

In the beginning of July I had an awesome trip to Germany, two weeks of meeting friends and family for the first time in one year! The spookiest thing was that I arrived at the airport in Düsseldorf exactly (!) one year later after leaving the country with a one-way ticket in my pocket.

Finally in August we had Lutz visiting us. Lutz is one of my best friends, lives nowadays in New Zealand of all places and stupid old me did not take one single picture. In-cre-di-bly stupid!!