vaca, 1st post

around midnight, brian and i walked down to the bar where aaron was djing. en route, we stopped by a convenience store and bought some beer. one thing i like about berlin is the walking beer. when you walk somewhere, you drink a beer. it's nice! and the beer is cheap. normal prices are 1.20 euro for 50 ml. the cheap beer is only .60 euro. then we stopped by a middle eastern place and i bought a shawarma sandwich to eat as we walked. we finished our beers sitting on the patio of roberta, our destination bar. we left the empties on the table--street people collect and redeem them for the 8 cent bottle deposit--it's almost an act of charity to leave the bottles out.

aaron collects and spins only 45s. it's an interesting self-imposed limitation. within that umbrella he plays everything--bebop, fred frith, country, rock, neue deutsch welle, his own brand new 45 where he sings with his girlfriend margareth. so, suffice to say, the music was excellent all night. brian and aaron and i talked. we talked a bit with the bar owners, stefan and petra.

after a bit, toby and toby, who are roommates, came down. they're both german, live nearby. smaller toby is a writer. i asked him if people around here are into thomas bernhard and he said, i like him. we talked a bit about books. his dude, for fiction, is kafka. baudelaire and paul celan also big signposts.

'grosser toby' (cause he's taller) is a clarinet player. he had just been in buenos aires (which i guess is where everyone here wants to move now) playing and vacationing, doing cumbia music and other things. he and aaron and i, along with some more horn players, are going to jam tomorrow and see what comes of it.

around 4.30, the tobys left and brian and i walked home to the sound of amazing birds chirping. now i should go to bed so i can play music in 12 hours. ciao!