BOMBS AWAY!

2010 draws its last few breaths and as it is the habit you turn your head to recall what has happened during the year. In my case that´s quite a lot and I think that 2010 stands out as one of the most nerve-wracking, exciting, incisive and inspiring so far. This year I went from the known into the unknown, I said goodbye to Germany and hello to Finland. I said goodbye to family and friends in my home country which was a hard thing to do. This is only eased by the fact that it was no goodbye for good. We had our first visitor this year and if all are coming over in the next who have announced themselves so far it´s getting pretty busy here - Cool! Then I´m planning on a trip to Germany next year, hopefully two but let´s see what the future holds and let´s not lick before it drops. I´m happy to realize that I can keep close contact to my people in Germany and this blog is one of the tools which come in handy. Just recently had my first conference call via Skype, pretty funny, more of that, please!

I had to let go of something else when leaving Germany in July and the odds are that this was a goodbye for good, something that still saddens me. I am talking about the mighty BOMBODROM, the hardcore/punk sensation that stirred up the scene in Düsseldorf for two hot summers and this shall be their (rather short) history!

I had known Andi A. and Fränkie Disco for a long time already before actually starting the band in March/April 2009. We weren´t close friends but we met often whenever something cool was happening in town, and sometimes it was even them who made it happen. They had a band together called Bratseth and organized punk gigs and movie nights in local cinemas as the Celluloid Suckers. Especially the movie nights were pretty memorable because they always had a certain theme and you didn´t only see one or two funny flicks. Quite often a band was playing fitting to the theme and everybody was dressed up as if they were coming directly from the silver screen. When the Suckers showed surf movies you had an instro band, Hawaii shirts everywhere and a cold cocktail in your hand. Satisfaction guaranteed!

Andi and me had already spoken a couple of times about making music together but we were somehow busy with other projects all of the time. I remember that in 2008 also Fränkie asked if we should just try to get something started. Back then Andi was still in Karateclub, Fränkie played (and plays) in Sonic Dolls and I fought the last battle with myself wether or not I should start the Noctunes again, my old band from the 90ties.

Andi A. Great pic, don´t care it´s crooked.

Fränkie Disco. Always a flash of lightning.

After a difficult end of 2008 I had to suffer a great personal loss in the beginning of 2009. All the frustration and anger inside me needed an outlet badly, so I made the call(s) and in spring 2009 I met both guys in their rehearsal room with two riffs and a lyric in my pocket and we almost completed our first song right on the spot. It was fucking great and raised the appetite for more. In retrospect I think that the timing couldn´t have been any better. Everybody involved was longing for something new and exciting and there it was! I kept the songs coming, after a long time it felt so easy for me to write new material. Soon Andi began contributing with his compositions and we had a flow!

What we needed was of course a bass player and we had a ridiculously precise idea about how this guy should be like. I just list the really important requirements here that the potential candidate had to meet:
1. Cool guy you want to spend time with also before and after the rehearsal
2. Understanding for our music, we don´t have to explain what´s punk
3. In our age, no teens or twens
4. The certain, unexplainable something.

Andi S. behind the knobs and buttons

After a few auditions it was Andi S. who brought the certain, unexplainable something to the band. Plus he´s a multi-instrumentalist and a certified sound technician but only vicious tongues would claim that these features got him the gig, hahaha...Mr. S is a real nice guy and maybe what you could call the Ying to the Yang of the rest of us. When we had some creative catfights he was the one to cool off the hotheads. And I definetely was one.

Hey, we were a punk band, not the fucking Bee Gees! Although it wasn´t always easy-peasy I am still proud of every member´s input and we decided everything together, we made it happen! Funny example for certain quarrels in the camp was the necessary evil, the horrid process of finding a band name everybody could live with. We met several times when we were still a trio to discuss the matter and come up with ideas. The scenario was always the same, we would just pass around our roles in the play. One would burst out "I have the best band name e-v-e-r!" and tell it to the others, one would say "Well, doesn´t really knock my socks off, but I could cope with it." Then the critical last third in the band would always go like: "Over my cold, dead body!" Time passed on, in the meantime we had a bass player and the first show to play but still there was no name in sight, goddamnit! We had to come up with something before opening the 10th anniversary show of swamp-a-billy trashpunks Hack Mack Jackson which was about to take place in Düsseldorf´s highly prolific AK 47 club, the address for live punk in town!

Then, all of a sudden, it was there: BOMBODROM. Only one week before we took the name I had heard it for the first time due to a marginal note on the news. Turned out there was a military base in East Germany trying for 17 (seventeen!) years to turn their terrain into a test center for bombs. Bombs from the sky, bombs from the ground, bombs from the left and right (no pun intended), bombs everywhere 24/7. The people living in that area of Brandenburg were very pleased! The region is quite dependent on tourism, bombs and tourists don´t mix! They gave the army a hard time and won the battle against the so-called Bombodrom after almost two decades! We figured the moniker is somehow punk as it transports the positive idea of fighting against whoever tries to piss in your punchbowl. It sounded tough and silly at the same time - Perfect! Now we could hit the stage with a proper name and coincidence had it that we even got to play at a AntiFa meeting before the actual show with the Jacksons. It was some kind of baptism by fire before what we all concider our first real gig. Both shows went great and the crowd really liked us so much they didn´t mind our (and especially my) constant babbling between the songs, we had to play for time a bit since the set list was rather short back then.

Next project was the recording of our songs which was an easy task. Bombodrom shared the rehearsal space with Sonic Dolls and Oiro, who had attached a little recording control room to the place. So with the help of our very own recording engineer Andi S. we were able to comfortably take care of business for free! The mixing took a while cause some of us where busy in their jobs. Well, what can you do? Punk doesn´t pay the rent, punk doesn´t put bread on the table. Something´s gotta give and time (or the lack of it) was slowly becoming an issue. Two more gigs followed before the year was over. The first was again in AK 47. We opened the whole shebang, next up were Oiro who played a farewell gig for their parting bass player. Then came the initiators of the evening who took the stage by storm one last time: Karateclub with our Andi A. on vocal duties had announced to call it quits and they gave everybody in AK 47 reason to miss them a lot! Both Karateclub and Oiro were great, unfortunately we had not been in the best shape that night. But we had already the next gig coming two weeks later, this time supporting Düsseldorf´s recently regrouped NDW legends Nichts in a cool punkrock joint in Köln called Sonic Ballroom. That night we felt we had something to prove and played a very energetic show, much to the delight of both us and the crowd. 

When things started to look promising and people began to take notice of us we actually should have taken action and play live as much as possible. The busy schedule outside of the band however just didn´t allow anything like that, which was sometimes frustrating yet very understandable. I mentioned it before and I say it again: this, our beloved type of music, which is universes away from billboard charts and Emmy Awards, will never pay our bills. It´s a matter close to our hearts but here comes the bitter pill that I swallowed already years ago: Either you sell out and play soulless bullshit or your music has to come second to a dayjob with which you can make a living. People like us will always choose the last option so we have to live with the obvious consequences. But I digress and don´t want to forget that it was me who dropped the biggest bomb on Bombodrom. When I told the guys in spring 2010 that I will emigrate to Finland in July our fate was sealed. But it spawned some very cool things, too!

We immediately decided to have a big farewell party and release the six songs of our recording session by ourselves. On vinyl, of course! There was also a real cool gig offer from Endless Grind, an anual oldschool skateboard contest held in Bremen. It´s also linked to our jacks of all trades Andi A. and Fränkie since they were part of the crew that founded the whole thing.

Our 7" is D.I.Y. as fuck, limited as hell (100 copies) and I´m damn proud of it! What we could do on our own we did and only close comrades and likewise minds helped us where it was needed. So a big thanks again to Arno from CHUD, Ralf / Graphica, Günter at Slowboy, Flight 13 Duplication and of course Dirk for the pics. We designed the whole thing, we cutted, folded and glued every single sleeve and cover, we printed the stickers that came with each copy, we stamped the labels, we...well, you get the point. All happened in a terrible hurry and around 30 degrees every day since summer had arrived to D´dorf. But we had the final package ready in time to sell it at our farewell show for a ridiculous price.

Cut-out & gatefold cover, band pic inside, sleeve w/ lyrics and print, sticker incl. 

...and green vinyl!

For our last show in our hometown we had picked a superb location! Bei Moni im Fortuna Eck! This traditional corner bar had dedicated itself to the football team Fortuna Düsseldorf and was mostly frequented by locals from the district - until we came. We all love these kind of bars and to do something different and memorable, we planned our final gig there with immensely cooperative owner Moni. She suggested that since it´s summer, we should start early and the band could sell some BBQ food in front of the bar where she had some benches and tables. Right on! When we tried to tenderly prepare her for the outrageous volume of Bombodrom, she just chuckled and said: "Oh, that´s no problem. I had bands play here before." Well, we knew that she had had some singer/songwriter acts perform there but that´s comparing a bee to a F-14! "We are really loud.", we said. Moni: "If it´s getting too loud we can close the windows." As if that would help. "But we are really, really loud!" "Ah, don´t worry! When am I ever doing something like this over here? The neighbors will have to live with it." Ok, case closed, we had a deal. The day came and I will never forget it. We had so much fun! The place was packed like crazy, I had even family from North Germany coming down, we played a truely great show (did I already mention that we were veeery loud?), the cops didn´t show up, the only bathrobed neighbor who complained sat down at the bar and had a beer, Moni and her crew sold drinks like never before and the topping of the night was Der dicke Olli, a good friend of ours, giving us the DJ set of his life! Everybody involved was happy about the event and I´m glad to hear that Olli and Moni have developed some kind of business relationship. Olli throws well-attended parties there now and Moni has the money rolling in!

Only one week after the Fortuna Eck show we went to Bremen for Endless Grind and our absolutely last show. I had stayed at Andi A.´s already for a couple of days (thanks again, man!) because all my belongings were on their way to Finland, my flat belonged to someone else by now. A very strange feeling! We managed to concentrate rather on the fun than on the melancholy that the knowledge of impending doom brought with it. Everything worked out like planned, after the big party with friends, comrades and family in D´dorf it was great to celebrate us, our friendship and our band in a setting that made it very personal and a band matter only. Nothing to organize and just us to enjoy the final moments. The setting couldn´t have been cooler, skaters everywhere competing in various categories and we played directly at the pool while the contest was on! Later that evening we went into town to party. Again this was so much fun and a really worthy ending to the Bombodrom chapter. Next day we went back to Düsseldorf and a few days later I was on the plane to Finland.

Our very last setlist.

In all this hectic time between the last shows, my personal moving stress and yet again temperatures around 30 degrees we even recorded all the songs we made after the first recording session so we have a recorded legacy of 14 songs. I haven´t heard all of them yet, but what I´ve heard so far really "kicks ass"! When they are mixed and ready I will figure out how to upload them here for free download. That stuff should be heard!

That´s the story of Bombodrom in a nutshell and I treasure the memories. I hear that both Andis and Fränkie will maybe continue to make music together and I think that would be cool, keep me posted, guys! I have bonded with a great drummer over here and got something in the works but it´s still too early to be more precise about it. Let´s see what 2011 has in stock for all of us! I hear it knocking already...

Bombodrom was: Andi S. (bass/bvox), JottEff (git/vox), Andi A. (git/vox), Fränkie Disco (drums)

Make sure to check out:
bombodrom.com (all songs of 1st session)
sonicdolls.de (Fränkie´s other band)
Hack Mack Jackson (Comrades & countrypunks)
endlessgrind.eu (video of Endless Grind 2010)
Oiro (rehearsal room buddies)
AK 47 (punk club Düsseldorf)
Sonic Ballroom (punk club Köln)
CHUD (Cool clothes)
slowboy.de (art & vinyl)
Grafica (pimp up your shop)
...if I forgot someone and you want the link, let me know...

                                     UND JETZT : GUTEN RUTSCH!

Christmas Chronicles

Yet another christmas behind and this time it was the first in Finland after four years. It was really about time! As mentioned before we spent it in Pori and I can say that we enjoyed every minute of it. Perfect mix of family visits, leisure time, good traditional food and beverages in a setting that emphasized the christmas spirit with lots of snow and temperatures peaking at minus 23. This might be so far the lowest I have ever experienced and now I finally came behind the meaning of the "nostril hair test". It´s a funny thing: below minus fifteen the nostril hair somehow reacts as if it would freeze, quite a strange feeling. Nothing you couldn´t cure with some vodka fuelled glögi, though. Here are some pics from a chilling walk to the cemetery on the 24th:

After such a walk you realize that the best Finnish invention by far is the sauna but due to a frozen plumbing system in the outdoor sauna we had to let this option pass and so it was back to glögi. As soon as we could feel our toes again we prepared everything for the christmas evening. I already mentioned the traditional food and some of you might wonder what traditional finnish christmas food actually is. Well, I would say that most importantly you have joulukinkku, the christmas ham, which is baked for hours depending on its weight (1h per kilo) and is eaten warm or cold. You´ll find salmon and potatoes on the table, maybe meatballs as well. Then you have different casseroles, for example with carrots or rutabaga.Yes, rutabaga! Since my blog is read to over 90 % by people (like me) whose mother tongue is NOT English I want to share this small anecdote with you. Some christmases ago, also in Finland, we sat at the table about to eat. Back then I didn´t know all the goodies on the table, so my polite Finnish family wanted to explain to me what is inside this one casserole. But what is lanttu in English? They described the contained vegetable to me and I had a hunch it might be Steckrübe in German. But I didn´t have a clue what that translates to in English either. We did the next best thing and checked the dictionary. I think it was my girlfriend´s sister who victoriously read the answer to our question out loud: "It´s Rutabaga!" We all looked at her like cows seeing a lightning, not understanding how this could be the solution to our problem. The word didn´t sound English at all, rather like some language from Africa.
But the dictionary´s cover read Suomi - Englanti, so it was official. All bursted into laughter and we started to imitate tribal chants like Rutabaga - Rutabaga - Ruta - Ruta - RUTABAGA! and transformed the last words of Elvis´ Burning Love (I´m just a hunk, a hunk of burning love...) into Rutabaga Burning Love! 
It´s a running gag ever since.

I would like to use this opportunity to thank everybody once more for the nice christmas cards, messages and gifts. Some of them came very surprising, as they were totally unexpected (a terrible word in this context since you should not expect anything). It´s just heartwarming to see who has you on their list in a time which is meant to remember the ones who are somehow important to you. The presents were all great and I don´t really want to highlight one in particular. But I received a gift that means a lot to me in a special way because it has to do with the foundations of my taste in music.
The Sex Pistols Never mind the Bullocks! On Tape! I think I was 13 when I bought it as a vinyl re-issue in a meanwhile defunct departement store chain. This here was bought and sold in Finland round 1980. Now it´s mine, yeah! And by the way: when Johnny Rotten sang I was waiting for the communist call in 1977, it sent shivers up some Finnish spines! For real!

Feast your eyes on this!

SONGS FOR TODAY:

Sex Pistols - 1. Holidays In The Sun 2. Bodies 3. No Feelings
Sex Pistols - 4. Liar 5. God Save The Queen 6. Problems
Sex Pistols - 7. Seventeen 8. Anarchy In The U.K. 9. Submission
Sex Pistols - 10. Pretty Vacant 11. New York 12. E.M.I.
Elvis Presley - Burning Love
                    (Karaoke version, sing RUTABAGA as loud as you can!)

Hyvää joulua kaikille!

Let´s all sit on his lap and tell him that we were kind kids this year!

The best way to get through this experience is to listen to the...

SONX FOR THE DAY:

Fear - Fuck Christmas

Die Toten Hosen - Schöne Bescherung

Ramones - Merry Christmas, I don´t want to fight tonight
The Sonics - Don´t believe in Christmas

Merry Christmas to all of you!

Message from the Underworld

Hey boys and girls, sorry for the long time of silence here on this blog. Some of you expressed their worries I might have died a sudden death caused by a lethal overdose of gingerbread and vodka or simply complained about the shortage of new material. There is only one reason for my writing hiatus and it is pretty simple: I just didn´t have the time to sit down and type it away. The annual christmas hassle took its toll and some personal obligations had to be taken care of. I was in Pori for a couple of days last week, went back to Helsinki only to get ill and returned to Pori now again, fit enough to spend Xmas. Most of what went on during this time has no place on this blog but worry not, dear friends, as I have quite a lot of stuff on my mind that will find its way here in the near future. You will have to stay tuned for that. I know your patience is already strained beyond limits waiting for Santa Clause / Joulupukki / den Weihnachtsmann but isn´t Vorfreude die schönste Freude? Good things come to those who wait and I promise that it won´t be long!

SONG FOR THE DAY:

The Weirdos - Message from the Underworld

Grmph...

This, dear friends, is an angry post because something posted got me angry!
I´m just coming from the post office. Had a note in the mailbox that a parcel is waiting for me there. Turns out that my folks kept the Nikolaus tradition alive and sent a nice package containing some German chocolate and (since I´m a big boy now) a bottle of vodka. Some of you might wonder if sending vodka to Finland ain´t like bringing coals to Newcastle since a pretty popular prejudice has it that the Finns drink vodka all the time anyway. First of all that ain´t true, second and more important for me: alcohol is so damn expensive here that it is cheaper to have a bottle of decent liquor shipped from Germany than buying it in a local shop. Sad but true.

So I was happily coping with the christmas commotion at the post office, waiting for my turn, only to receive a wet mess in a transparent plastic bag. That poor old lady behind the counter tried to save the situation by saying: "Well, this is a pity but the packaging is inappropriate." She absolutely failed to save anything because the package even said Flasche. My folks are hypercareful with these things and chose a packaging especially designed for the safe shipping of bottles. Then they stuffed the whole thing with soft material TO AVOID what eventually happened. At home I still opened the box to see if I can rescue at least the chocolate. It was buried in the debris of broken glass from big pieces to microscopic particles. I figured I rather leave eating glass to trained professionals and don´t perforate my gullet. Four pieces of chocolate were in a plastic wrapping, so that´s the bottom line. Everything else went to the trash. Today I´m angry and there´s no one to blame. Grmph...

SONGS FOR TODAY:

Jay Reatard - Night of broken glass
Circle Jerks - World up my ass
Descendents - Everything sucks

Independence Day (not the movie!)

Ho, ho, ho...Finland might be the home of Santa Clause but the 6th of December has no meaning in the Finnish advent season at all. German kids have been eagerly waiting for Nikolaustag, shining their boots in advance. Today they expect to find lots of sweets and goodies in them.

The meaning in Finland however is entirely different and of a existential nature, literally. After belonging to first the Kingdom of Sweden and then the Russian empire, Finland declared itself independent on the 6th of December, 1917. This achievement didn´t come easy and it took a bit more blood, sweat and tears than it took me to wrap this long lasting process up in one sentence. Itsenäisyyspäivä is celebrated with lots of flag waving, parading and showing what you got, military-wise. Something that totally creeps me out, I´m German and we have a certain history with these things. Interesting enough that Germany and Finland share some of that history, but I don´t want to get into detail about this. These are my personal associations and I know that they are off-topic here. So let´s not compare apples to oranges.

One tradition on Independence Day is to light two white candles in each window of the house. Legend has it that this used to be a sign to inform young men on their way to Sweden and Germany to become Jägers that the house was ready to offer shelter and keep them hidden from the Russians. Today young Finns might be more fond of drinking Jägermeister than becoming a Jäger, but that´s just a wild guess. Anyway, Itsenäisyyspäivä is of course a holiday, everything is closed and people mostly celebrate at home, have good food and prepare for a television marathon:

What Dinner for One is in Germany on New Year´s Eve The Unknown Soldier is on the Finnish Independence Day. Tv station YLE doesn´t get tired to show it year after year, this year will be no exception. Then they show the centerpiece of the day: Linnan juhlat or the Castle´s Ball, held at the Presidential Palace. For the ones of you that didn´t know, Finland has a female president, namely Tarja Halonen. Finnish women have a long history in politics as Finland was the first (!) European country to establish women´s suffrage in 1906 (!!), 12 years (!!!) before Germany. But that only on a side note.

I wish Tarja strong wrists and hands because there are about 2000 hands to shake today. The guests list comprises the who is who in politics, clergy, military, sports, music and entertainment. Entertainment is the key word here: the whole extravaganza has become a crowd favorite with the highlight being the entrance of the guests. Who is wearing what? Who is coming with whom? Who is coming alone? And why? Who is not coming? (a huge insult!) Any scandals this years? People (not only women) spend hours to be able to answer all these questions from first-person perspective. Right on!

This may sound as if the glamor part has become the most important but deep down many Finns really remember that it was pretty damn close that history might have taken a different turn and there would be no Finland today at all. The Finns are jammed between two big powers. They are the underdogs that always had to stand up for themselves. And they did.
My heart beats for the underdogs.

Happy Independence Day, Finland!

SONGS FOR THE (Independance) DAY:

Porilaisten Marssi  
Monty Python - Finland
David Bowie - Suffragette City

Fifteen and falling?

Me and my girl...

No, this blog is not turning into the weather channel. I´m just quite excited about the experience of having a real winter after years of austerity. Seems that after this year´s absolutely exceptional and record breaking summer we´re striving for sensational readings on the other side of the meter. Minus 15 so far, ladies and gentlemen. Winter wonderland. I like it! Just got my first pairs of long johns since I was a child. So I´m well prepared to find out how low we can really go! Next couple of days should be a bit warmer though. Sunset starts about 3.30pm now. And all the time I have these lines of Turbonegro´s Are you ready for some darkness ringing in my head:

You want it, you got it... 
But do you have the guts?

SONGS FOR THE DAY:

Turbonegro - Are you ready for some darkness
Joy Division - Ice Age

Hyvää syntymäpäivää!

Life in Hel would like to wish all of its readers a happy birthday!
Regardless if it is your birthday today or not. I mean who knows if I can meet or contact you on that particular day? And maybe in YOUR case the great day has already passed, so let´s get it over with: Happy birthday to all of you!
I should actually like the Finnish way of honoring the very existence of their friends and loved ones. Finns are quite careless about the exact date, sometimes even about the whole thing itself. Since I´m a sucker when it comes to remembering birthdays it would suit me absolutely fine to disguise my disability as an attempt to adjust with the Finns and their habits.

But I can´t. My German genes kick in immediately. My long term memory might be as bad as it is but I still care about congratulating or being congratulated on the exact day. And I hate everytime I forget it. Don´t know if that marks me out as a German (other peoples might be as pedantic as us) but it definetely marks me out as not being a Finn.

Of course birthdays can be a big thing here, too. But that´s for either children or aged citizens. Kids are even the synttärisankari - the birthday hero! Then they must get weaned from this affection like from mother´s milk and by the time their 50th or 60th anniversary is celebrated they don´t even think it´s such a big deal anymore.

Just recently a Finnish friend of mine invited me to his birhday party on a Friday. When I asked him if this was his actual birthday he said: "No, that will be next week´s Wednesday. And the weekend after that I´m out of town so I will celebrate already this Friday." I´m already accustomed to this habit for a considerable time now but an unknowing German brain would read out of this information Syntax error!

To celebrate (days, hours, minutes, seconds) before your birthday is unthinkable for a German mind. We get spooked out and superstitious because - don´t you know? This brings bad luck! If someone suggest doing that to us we have to close our eyes and bite our lips not to scream:
"Witch, witch! Burn the evil one! Burn, burn!"

Back in Germany me and my girl once went to one of these parties where you celebrate "into" the birthday. That is a common habit over there: If your birthday is on - let´s say - a Sunday, you have your party on Saturday and EXACTLY at midnight the music is turned off, everybody goes ape and screams "Häääbbie Böörsdee tuu juu, häääbbie böörsdee tuu juu...!" Then you get your presents and you can open them. But this all has to happen after midnight and not a second before - it wouldn´t be your birthday yet, you see? This system luckily doesn´t take your actual time of birth in account, nobody would wait until...eehm, e.g. 04.37 or 23.41 or whenever you were born.
We´re not that mad. But it seems that the right timing is crucial on a German birthday party!

Obviously I hadn´t briefed my girlfriend about our tribal rites. When we went to the party and rang the bell, the birthday boy (40something) opened the door and my better half said: "HAPPY BIRTHDAY!" with a big smile on her face. The reply came muttured and without a smile: "Well, actually it´s tomorrow..." I felt bad because it would have been my responsibility to tell her that you can only congratulate after midnight. But how was I supposed to know that she didn´t know? We had just encountered a cultural difference, not for the first and not for the last time.

I have to admit that sometimes I feel a bit stupid about clinging to this unwritten birthday rule myself but at the same time I like it. What can I do, I am German and it´s in my system! Maybe here the old prejudice applies that Germans are always on time - Dienst ist Dienst und Schnaps ist Schnaps. Hhmm, I dunno...maybe. About this I can only say the following: I have played in bands where we had to tell certain members that we would rehearse half an hour earlier. If we showed up at the original time we would arrive with them around the same time at the room because these certain members would always be half an hour late, no matter what. Pathetic, but that system really worked!

To wrap up this post I hereby proclaim that I don´t intend at all to kiss my stupid habit goodbye! We can party but I congratulate when it´s due!
Hugh!

SONG FOR THE DAY:

The Smiths - Unhappy Birthday

Weather report

Nearby Klaukkala, 30 km from Helsinki

Please forget everything what I said about melting snow, too high temperatures and grey mess on the ground in my last post. That was guessing and I guessed wrong. In fact the snow hasn´t left since it came and according to the weather forecast the temperature will fall to -8 °C next week in the South of Finland. This starts to get interesting!

First snow!

Webcam picture from Ruoholahti, Helsinki

The view isn´t exactly pretty and it´s not exactly the first snow either. But for the first time this autumn it´s constantly snowing today in Helsinki and the whole town is covered by that white stuff. It won´t stay long, that´s for sure because it´s still not cold enough yet. Soon the ground might be as grey as the sky after the snow has melted into a dirty mess. This is the time many people like the least and everybody is happy when it´s getting real cold with lots of snow. The reason is quite simple:
Snow is white, white is bright and bright means light, something that we have less and less on a daily basis now.

Somebody must be fooling around with the dimmer...

Tour de Turku

Back from a very nice trip to Turku! We went there by bus to pay my gal´s cousin´s family a visit. I had been looking forward to this since my arrival to Finland, because due to several reasons (we´re living in busy times) we had not been able to make it happen sooner. In fact we hadn´t seen each other at all since I´m living in Helsinki. This had to change and last weekend the time had finally come.

They just moved earlier this year to their impressive and big house with lots of space for both kids and parents. The place was very nice and cosy and they were so hospitable that we actually stayed indoors most of the time and didn´t see that much of the town. So many things to do, you know? Exploring all corners of the house, chatting, enjoying delicious food, playing with the kids, going to sauna, kicking out the jams in the rehearsal room (cousin is a music maniac, too!), 1-2 beers / glasses of wine (I didn´t count)...Quality time!

I respect privacy so I don´t post any pictures except one, permitted by the man of the house. Thanks man, I just have to share this. Like said, the whole house was impressive, but here´s what impressed me the most:

A drummer´s dream come true and it really flushes! No interruptions anymore, just go with the flow!

On Sunday we shortly went on a small trip through the city and saw Finland´s oldest church, the Cathedral of Turku (or Turun tuomiokirkko), consecrated in 1300. Buildings this old are really rare in Finland which made it even more interesting to have a peep inside. Blockhead JottEff had forgotten his camera, so please don´t be led astray by the snow and the beautiful sky in the picture. I nicked it from the internet to be able to show it to you. We had quite bad weather, grey clouds and rain. Nothing unusual for this time of year though. More sightseeing included a car ride along the river Aurajoki, which devides the town in two parts, the harbor side with the Forum Marinum, a national marine and navy history museum and Turku Castle (Turun linna). They started to build the castle around the same time as the cathedral was built. Lots of alterations and augmentations have been made over the centuries, so it constantly grew. Today you can see all the different periods of time since groundbreaking carved into the stones of the largest surviving medieval castle in whole Scandinavia. Definitely worth a visit! By the way, again the net provided the picture (which only shows a small part of the building), next time I have to nail the camera to my forehead and take my own pictures. Sorry for the cheat and thanks to Wikipedia! Talking about thanks, visit and next time...

Dear turkulaiset, thanks a lot for your hospitality and the fun we had! I am already looking forward to the next time we´re visiting you. There are still so many things to do, you know?

1 + 1 = 0

Did a lot of thinking lately. Isn´t it funny how big things become small from a distance? In some cases it´s even the other way around. This kind of perspective doesn´t make sense geometrically but cognitively it does, at least to me. It can be a difference in time or space which makes you see things differently. For example: your view on your home country. Being no patriotic person at all, past, present and future, especially in my adolescence I wasn´t a big fan of Germany, to say the least. I still am not but today I´m far away from my teenage mindset that everything is more interesting and better, brighter, (  fill in comparative  ) elsewhere.

Touring and travelling abroad did not only enlighten me about ars vivendi in other countries, it also opened my eyes to the good sides of Germany. And it definetely has its good sides. Certain advantages I never paid much attention to because they have to do with rather small things and I took these things for granted. What else do you do when you don´t know anything about the world from first hand experience? I made my experiences over the years, the small things grew in size from a distance and I learned to value them. Today I can honestly say that I like Germany, nothing more and nothing less. Then again - what´s good, what´s bad? Human beings tend to be lazy, so good means for most of them something they know or are used to, their qualitative parameters are determined by force of habit. I can´t really claim to be an exception to that rule myself. So is the conclusion that when something doesn´t exist in another country that you call "good" in your own - then this is "bad"? Well, simple minds might think so, I think this assertion is bullshit and I just call it "different". Just to calm down anybody who is afraid of the word "different" and thus might get the mad idea that I use it in a disparaging way:
Again this is bullshit. I have positive associations to the word, in fact I somehow like to think of myself as being exactly that. What was the opposite of "different" again? "Same", that´s what it was and depending on the context it equals "boring" in my book.

Now guess what: I just discovered something that is in a way different yet somehow the same and it´s pretty, pretty bad in both Germany and Finland. Let´s embrace each other in harmony and unity because both our systems suck!

                                        Case study #1, Germany:


Civil servant: "Well, you are actually not entitled to get any financial support from us. You are young, healthy, intelligent and speak the language, you are not married and you don´t have any children. I can get you a job at McDonalds immediately. Then you will be able to pay your bills."

Person X: "But I haven´t learned two occupations to end up making burgers for a minimum wage. I just need some support for the time I´m applying for proper jobs."

Civil servant: "Sorry, no can do. You have to take on any kind of job. You are young and bla bla bla..."

Person Y: "So does that mean that if Person X would have lots of children, would not be able to speak the language and would have no talents whatsoever, Person X would get financial support?"

Civil servant: "Well, eem...eer, yes."

Person Y: "Thanks for nothing and goodbye!"


                                        Case study #2, Finland:


Civil servant: "I see here that you are voluntarily taking part in an intensive language course which is not organized by us. According to Finnish law that makes you a student. Students are not entitled to get any financial support from us. If you visit one of our courses it´s possible but they are all full and the lines are long. Maaaaaaybe next January..."

Person Z: "But I´m paying this intensive course myself to learn the language asap, also in order to be more employable on the job market. It´s pretty tough finding a job with my current Finnish skills. Any kind of job!"

Civil servant: "Sorry, no can do. We appreciate your effort but if it´s not one of our courses you don´t get anything. If you would quit your course though..."

Person Z: " Are you telling me that if I would quit my course and would not learn the language to be more employable on the job market but just sit at home doing nothing, then I would get financial support from you?"

Civil servant: "Well, eem...eer, yes."

Person Z: "Where´s the door, I´m leaving!"

Call me one-dimensional, call me polemical, call me what you will but being an eye witness of both case studies (and rest assured, they were only the tip of the iceberg) I say:

                                        FUCK THE SYSTEM(S)!

In case study #2 the civil servant even called the system illogical herself and apologized at least three times for what she had to tell person Z. I know that this doesn´t represent the whole system of either country, I know it´s not all black and white. But if person Z isn´t entitled to anything, I think person Z should be allowed to let off steam.

Yours truly,
                   Person Z     Person Y     JottEff


POST SCRIPTUM:

I would like to hear your opinion about this.
Any similar experiences out there?
Do you think someone is complaining on a high level over here?

Pro or contra, I don´t care - But leave a comment!

SONG FOR TODAY (naturally):

The Exploited - Fuck the system

Strong feeling of déjà-vu

Wait a minute...wasn´t that already last weekend? Oh, I see. Although many other European countries celebrate All Saints´ Day on the 1st of November, both Sweden and Finland always use the Saturday between 31st of October and 6th of November. Very diligent, those Scandinavians. Let´s not waste a working day! So it was a little bit like Halloween revisited and the bakeries were still able to sell their pumpkin doghnuts. Déjà-vu.

We started the Saturday with a visit to a "rock flea market" as it was advertised on the internet. The add said that records, DVDs, clothes and the whole shebang around the world of ROCK would be waiting for us there and I took the bait. Why they provided the exact address but didn´t mention that it takes place inside Nosturi is beyond me. You might remember the venue from an earlier post about Killing Joke´s gig there (déjà-vu?). I bet 9 out of 10 Helsinkians wouldn´t be able to tell you where Telakkakatu 8 is but all 10 would know where Nosturi is located. After a small detour we realized that the flea market must be in that place and ta-daa! - Right we were. It was set in the lobby and the restaurant of the venue and radiated a real cozy and relaxed atmosphere. Not too big, not too small. Not too crowded, not too empty. We even spotted a "punk rock celebrity". Kari Heikonen, founder of the prolific underground record label Bad Vugum, was selling some records and books. A few days ealier I wouldn´t have known who this stylish looking gentleman is but thanks to Finnish television - déjà-vu. The channel YLE Teema is currently showing a series called Rock Suomi. It contains ten episodes and no. 1 focused quite much on the Finnish punk movement. Kari himself contributed some words of wisdom every now and then, of course I didn´t understand almost anything. I was happy when they played some music on the show, I think Finnish punk has a lot to offer. On a side note I would like to add that it´s great to have so much cool music here on the tube, more about that later.

It´s getting dark quite early now in Finland, at 5 p.m. it´s basically dark as night. Perfect for our plan to go to Hietaniemen hautausmaa which is an old cemetary. On All Saints´ Day it´s the custom to bring candles to the graveyard and remember the dead. A beautiful sight and a peaceful aura. Here are some impressions for you:

 After returning home a hot sauna helped to shake off the cold. It sounds maybe lame when I tell you now that we spent our Saturday night watching telly but like mentioned before, they show real cool music related stuff here since the beginning of autumn and I was waiting for the upcoming documentary like it was christmas. Anvil! The story of Anvil. The movie proved to be definetely worth the wait! It´s about the Canadian metal band Anvil. Founding members Steve "Lips" Kudlow (lead guitar / vocals) and Robb Reiner (drums) are trying for thirty years now to become rock stars. Although they had their 15 minutes of fame in the 80ties and the likes of Metallica, Anthrax and Slayer name them as highly influencial they never had a real break through and became something like an obscurity. Getting by with depressing day jobs and hitting 50 already they never gave up and have released a total of thirteen (!) albums over the years. You see disastrous tours with shows in front of 3 people, band internal struggles and fights, problems with their families and tons of devotion for their dream that one lucky day they will make it. Big time!

O Canaduh!

I want to recommend this movie to everyone, regardless if you are into music or not. This movie is about chasing and NEVER losing hope to finally fulfill a dream. It really moved me and I´m happy to read that the documentary helped them to be put back on the map somehow, playing huge festivals all over Europe. They even played in Finland shortly before I moved here. The movie´s similarity to the comedy flick This is Spinal Tap is absolutely striking. Almost spooky that the latter was written and directed by Rob Reiner (remember, Anvil´s drummer is Robb Reiner). Coincidence? Déjà-vu? Some smart guy in the tv station realized that the fictional Spinal Tap and the very real Anvil have a lot in common and put both movies on the programme, yeah! If you have never seen This is Spinal Tap something is missing in your life. It´s hilarious! Do yourself a favour and try to get to see both documentaries, doctor´s orders!

Stonehenge...

Make sure to check out:

www.badvugum.com
www.anvilmetal.com
This is Spinal Tap

Escalators & Constipators

Come on, it looks more difficult than it actually is. You can do it! 

Take a good look at this picture. Let´s say you are in downtown Helsinki and you are approaching this site. Then let´s imagine these escalators in a total rush hour at 8 in the morning. Now tell me how you would use them together with a friend / collegue / lover / parent / nurse / etc. and / or just the other people on the escalator. I will be able to tell you straight if you are a native or a foreigner.

The Finns are able to perform the following cunning stunt when using this technical marvel: They form a line on the right side and let others who might be in a hurry (rush hour, mind you) walk by on the left. Unthinkable for example in Germany. Ain´t it funny? I bet a common cliché would be that Germans like to form straight lines, but no way, Sir! It´s rather the opposite!

Let´s do our little exercise from the beginning once more. This time we imagine the same escalators in a total rush hour in let´s say, Düsseldorf, Germany. This time I can tell you that the place would be absolutely jammed with people. If you have 30 seconds to get up there because you have a bus to catch you are doomed. This bus will leave without you, no doubt about it. You will never make it in time unless you mow your way through the human obsticles with a machete. Well, one of my teachers always said when I used this case as an excuse for being late: "Get up earlier!" I can´t argue with that but this is not the point here. 

How come Finns are able to make room for others while it seems impossible for Germans? I know some will play the population card now: 82 million Krauts to 5 million Finns and their countries are about the same size. Yes, you might take that into account and of course that means that Finnland just provides way more space for its inhabitants. But do you really want to tell me that a busy city like Helsinki doesn´t look like an anthill in the morning? That Mika, Jussi and Pekka can´t possibly constipate an escalator because there is nobody else but them? I´m not talking about any small village in the countryside. The countryside is what makes Finland so big compared to the number of inhabitants, there is countryside without end. I´m talking about Helsinki, a city that matches Düsseldorf almost exactly. Same amount of people, same hurries, same shit, different day. Here and there people are late for work but here in Helsinki they have a pretty good chance to catch the bus that saves them from their bosses´ anger. But why?

My conclusion is a fundamental difference in attitude and social behavior. Finns don´t have to be told to line up on the right side of an escalator, they just do it. They don´t question it and regard it as a matter of course. Germans in contrast regard it as a matter of course to question everything, especially when it is totally pointless to do so. It becomes a matter of principal and the principal is me, myself and I. Why do I have to make room? It is my right to stand in your way! Why can´t you use the stairs? Why do you bother me? The same pathological behavior applies to the road traffic. In Germany you know how to drive a car, no one else. Only morons on the street, you are the only sane person in a madhouse. And of course you let them know, let´s teach them all a lesson. The biggest problem about this stupid attitude is the fact that it leads to many avoidable dangerous situations in the traffic. But you can notice it already by the usage of the car´s horn, actually meant as a signal for danger. The Germans use it more often as "Argumentationsverstärker", as a tool to prove their point. A pointless point. Every morning on the streets of Germany: Concerto grosso! I paid a lot of attention to this over here and I can say with utter conviction that what you hear on the streets of Helsinki is: Silencio. 

Halloween

Boo!

October 31st: Samhain, Halloween, All Hallows Eve, or whatever you want to call it, today is the day. Happy Halloween to all of you, no matter if you like it or think it´s yet another corny, all-american bullshit adopted by Europeans. Well, Halloween flirt-parties, Halloween bargain advertising, Halloween cough syrup...I hate all of that, too. But still I love Halloween and the mood it sets me in because I have a liking for things dark and gloomy.

Strange that most people think it´s an (North-!)American event because the origin is definetely European. The Mexicans celebrate their Dia de los Muertos, which has certain similarities with the Celtic Samhain. Both believe that the border between life and death is very thin today, so spirits can pass through and you can communticate with the dead. In Mexico it is a happy and colorful celebration, their culture embraces death as a part of life and you don´t have to be afraid of it, death is no taboo like in most other western cultures. The pagan European celebration had a lot to do with harvest and the change of seasons. The word Samhain (originally spelled Samuin) is Old Irish and means roughly "summer´s end". In autumn the light part of the year ends and the dark part begins. Life and death.

Around 1830 the Irish packed their culture, jack-o-lanterns and pumpkins in a bundle and left for America. That´s where it got re-packaged and commercialized to a product that most people know today. I have to admit that I like this product but I liked it so much better when it was still only available in limited quantities in Central Europe. Most people didn´t know it in Germany when I started to celebrate Halloween with a bunch of like-minded friends as a teenager. It gave me the feeling to really be into something special and secret. My link to the whole thing was again music, as almost always. The German metal band Helloween (no misprint) had (and still has) a pumpkin in their logo and I wanted to find out what their name actually meant. What I found out was cool and spooky, so I went with it. Thanks to Helloween for the impulse, although I can hardly listen to their music anymore.

Shortly after this discovery I wanted to find about another thing: What was this strange band on almost every shirt the guys from Metallica were sporting in the 80ties? When I then discovered the Misfits I was taken into another dimension and to this very day it is a love that doesn´t grow cold! I became a horror fanatic and the Misfits provided the perfect soundtrack. Punk + horror = Horrorpunk. Brilliant! I even started my own Misfits inspired punk band in 1996 to somehow fill the void they had left after their demise.

The Noctunes from Flensburg played some shows in Northern Germany, released a demo CD and were featured on a local sampler called "No limits", the second incarnation of the band in Düsseldorf recorded another demo and was part of the "This is Horrorpunk, Vol.1"  sampler on Fiend Force Records. Due to problems in the band and my venture with Black Raven I laid the Noctunes to rest in 2004. Every now and then I thought about resurrecting the dead but for quite a while now I´m 138 % sure that this sleep is an eternal one.

You wanna know why? I´m bored beyond belief with what happened to both Halloween and horror punk. What is cool about something that EVERYBODY is doing? This whole horror punk thing took off a couple of years ago and went through the roof all over the world. I could start my thing again, I still have a bag full of songs nobody has ever heard except for close friends. But when I founded the Noctunes there was no trend, no formula and at least I didn´t know any other band doing the same stuff in Germany at the time. And even if there was somebody else, that didn´t make the thing generic like it is today. We were known in only small circles in our heyday, so if I´d do the thing again everybody would think I´m just another copycat. No thanks, I rather pass and leave the field for others. By the way, I came across some lame ass band on the net that took the name. They are from the South of Germany and play some kind of college rock. I can only say that I check potential band names first and see if they are already taken before chosing one that is and trying to be original. Oh, I might want to add one more thing: Fuck you, assholes!

But let´s get back to the initial topic: Halloween. Every American will laugh at my complaints that nowadays accountants and bank clerks are celebrating it because in the US of A, really everybody from kindergarten to retirement home is doing it. I quit going to parties years ago when the trend hit Germany. The parties I went to before that were mostly organized by myself and friends. I miss the intimacy and the uniqueness of it all. Oddly enough I still get a thrill, a restless excitement every year when Halloween arrives and I gotta say that I still celebrate it each time. It´s not a big party anymore and I don´t even leave the house. It has become something personal and I´m back to what I did when I was a teenager: light some candles, spin the Misfits and watch some good old horror flics. Happy Halloween, goddamnit!

SONX FOR THE DAY:

Halloween - Misfits
Halloween - Siouxsie and the Banshees
Halloween - Rob Zombie and The Ghastly Ones

No sleep till Sunday

Was that a great weekend or what?! Sure this posts title is a bit exaggerated but with Mighty as our first guest we tried to squeeze as much as possible into the little time we had. And we did that quite successfully, so sleeping long was not on the menu. The mighty man arrived last Friday noon at Helsinki airport. After a lesson in Dos and Don´ts concerning how to use Finnish cash machines (Blue slot? Jackpot! Go and spend your money. Yellow slot? Tough luck! Stay and spend one hour in the bank.) we had a good meal to prepare for the upcoming event: The Kallio Big Night Out. The plan was to check out the cheap bars in Kallio and many of them! If you want to make your night out a big one over there you better start early because they got this unpleasant 2 a.m. curfew. I think our saldo was a total of seven bars in the end, including a karaoke session.

The poor people in that karaoke place got completely steamrolled by us. Whispering into the microphone to mellow tunes at a ridiculously low volume they were unaware of things to come. You had to fill in a little form with your name, your requested song and believe it or not: the volume you want your song to be played in. One top of that tiny bill was a scale with ballot boxes from -5 to +5 where you had to mark your desired level of noise with a cross. We decided to turn the place into CBGB´s and yell along The Ramones´ "I wanna be sedated" (somehow fitting to the place), needless to say we made our cross at +5! The bartender lady asked me in disbelief whether we were sure we wan´t the highest volume possible. I made her understand that our decision was well considered and thoroughly thought through (I´m getting a lisp here) by saying: "Of course!" And lo and behold! They really cranked it up! BOOM! Some people even did a little pogo, quite cute. For our next song I had drawn an additional box on the bill for +6, maybe to make a point, and as we screamed at the top of our lungs to "No sleep till Brooklyn" by the Beastie Boys the whole bar was shaking. Well, at least we had the feeling it was.

Karaoke attack! Old farts need glasses to read the lyrics!

Saturday surprised us with perfect weather and was packed with record store tours, sightseeing, kahvi ja korvapuusti, sauna and a nice trip to Suomenlinna. That is one of the many islands at the shore of Helsinki. You can reach Suomenlinna by a ferry that belongs to the public transportation HSL, it´s like taking a bus or tram in Helsinki. The trip takes about 20 mins and I can only recommend it. Very nice view on Helsinki´s harbor with the big ferries going to Sweden, Estonia, Germany and Russia, the city skyline and all the other small islands surrounding you there. When you arrive at the island your feet touch the ground of an UNESCO world heritage site that is popular with both tourists and locals. Suomenlinna means "Castle of Finland" and is a very important strategic defense spot for the Finnish military, protecting the mainland. 900 people are living there and many Finns frequent the island for more peaceful purposes. In the summer time it is a picturesque picnic site, buns not bombs, just the way I like it.

Susu and Mighty on Suomenlinna.

 On Sunday we went to an indoor flea market, which is said to be the biggest in whole Finland and provided Mighty with a good variety of souvenirs. I wonder what his salmiakki craving collegues thought about his collection of licorice that he brought for them. Salmiakki chocolate anyone? Certainly unique. In the afternoon it was time to say "Auf Wiedersehen" and Mighty hopped on the plane back to Germany. Thanks a lot for the visit, my friend. It was great having you here! So schön, schön war die Zeit...

Daughters lock up your mothers!

Mighty and me going mental at Wild at Heart, Berlin

The man is coming to town!
Mighty Mayer has booked some extra large space on our sofa bed for the weekend which makes him our first visitor from Germany! Trophy is gonna be in liquid aggregate state, I figure he won´t mind at all. Mighty and me go way back and we did a lot of cool stuff together, most remarkable in the public eye was maybe our band Torpedo Quintett. I´m very excited to have him here. We share the love for hot music and cold beer, now it´s time to put Helsinki to the test. Banzai! 

Make sure to check out:

www.myspace.com/torpedoquintett

I´d like to buy an Ä

Bing-bing-bing-bing-bing-bing-bing...There you see. No, wait. I´m not talking about these blind German retards who insisted on dolling up all by themselves for their big moment of fame on Glücksrad. I´m talking about the unique nature of suomen kieli, the Finnish language. If you are from another European or English spoken country and you stumble over finnish noums like posti, grilli, bussi, taksi, etc. you might think that a) this is rather cute, b) this sounds all pretty familiar and therefore c) learning the language is gonna be a piece of cake. Well, you are terribly wrong. Forget everything you know. It ain´t gonna help you because you are fooled by loan words and here the similarity ends abruptly. In my first post I described Finnish as close to extraterrestrial, which was maybe a bit mean (Yours truly was in for a dramatic effect as usual). But it´s fair and more friendly to call it a secret language. The term is accurate because a) it´s spoken by 0,05 % of the global population, b) even if you learn it, spoken Finnish and its many dialects might differ so much from its written form that you´re still absolutely clueless and c) to further round off the mystique Finns sometimes start to whisper at the end of a sentence. They sound as if they are exhausted from carrying the burden of a dark, well-kept secret. And they can talk while inhaling! It´s like writing with magic ink or something...just miraculous! Today the first part of my intensive language course has endend. I like to imagine that I get a glimpse of light at the end of a long tunnel but quite much still looks like this to me:

Bon appétit!

Let´s face it, it´s not the easiest language on the planet. It doesn´t belong to either the indogermanic or romanic family and that makes it so difficult for many foreigners like me. Finno-Ugric, that´s what it is. Estonia and Hungary are linguistic relatives and while you can really see some similarities between Finnish and Estonian, love letters between Helsinki and Budapest will most likely be written in English. All of the above makes Finnish highly unique and interesting. I am surrounded by that secret language every day and I wanna crack the code to become agent 00 JottEff with the licence to spell. If you like to aim high I recommend you to try it yourself. You will find that Finnish sounds very nice (listen to a sample), the grammar is in fact very logical and it is one of the world´s best languages to curse in, perkele! You will start to like these funny details that make Suomi so adorable. For instance, there are no equivalents for the words he and she. Both is hän in Finnish, that´s why Finns mix up the English personal pronouns on a regular basis. Don´t be confused when you hear someone say "I was talking to my girlfriend and he said..." That doesn´t mean that his girlfriend is still a boy about to have a sex change. The more plausible explanation is that this person has made a common mistake, Finns are just not used to distinguish between male and female personal pronouns, the context tells them if the conversation is about a woman or a man. One thing you should always keep in mind when speaking Finnish is the pronounciation. Of course this is important in every language but the Finns are pretty uptight with it. Some words look almost the same but it´s a double consonant or vowel that makes the difference. The difference though might be enormous. For example, if I say: "Minä tapaan sinut kello viisi" I tell you that I will meet you at five o´clock. If I say: "Minä tapan sinut kello viisi" it translates to "I will kill you at five o´ clock." So if you confirm a date and she starts running for her life, you know that you screwed up the pronounciation. Quite interesting somehow that the Finnish verbs "to meet" and "to kill" are so close to each other. Wonder why...has anyone done some research about this? Another curiosity is the shortage of words at first sight. Sentences can manage quite well with only one or two words: "Oletko iloinen? -Olen." ("Are you happy? -Yes, I am"). Even one word alone can be bursting with information. If someone tells you for instance that he is "talossani" you have a quite distinctive description of his whereabouts. He says "house-in-my" or "in my house" without wasting too much breath. Then there are so many other interesting things like untranslatable words and verbs, or words that even the Finns regard as sounding funny like "lämpimämpi"(comparative form of warm, = warmer). The list is long and you should really take a look at it. Needless to say that I am still making many mistakes but at least I have heard some nice compliments about the way my poor broken Finnish sounds. Sometimes I´m a bit frustrated when the grammar won´t penetrate my thick skull but giving up is not an option! The quest continues next week.

The house of horrors, I´m in torture chamber No. 17 on the 3rd floor. Just kidding, of course...

I´m attending class at Työväenopisto in Herttoniemi, that´s just three metro stops from my place. Hopefully four times a week, three hours a day will do the trick in the long run. Part 2 of the course is ahead of me and the going is about to get tough. No easy way out anymore with explanations in English which was the habit in the first part. Our (very nice and friendly) teacher told us (very nicely) that from next Monday she will speak Finnish 98% of the time and expects us to answer in Finnish, too (not so very nice but more than reasonable). I know that the day will come when I´ll be able to communicate with people over here in their mother tongue, it is just a question of time. If I just wasn´t so impatient...