Dagies Blog

I thought my back yard was quite secure. I locked my 15 year old half rusted mountain bike there. Among 20 or 25 other ones more or less rotten. This morning I came down and wanted to cycle to work – and it was gone. At first sight I thought: oh, was I too drunk last night? But I wasn’t even out … Starting Alzheimer? No. It was just simply stolen.

Fuck you, thief! That was really mean. This bike is of no worth, maybe you’ll get 40 bucks for the frame and 1 for the plastic duck honk, you asshole. I curse your Karma. Get scrabies! (Krieg die Krätze!)

Here’s a still from one of my films (The Self-Healing Of My Bike) *sigh* from those days when we were still together …

“Don’t jump from the long side!“ yells the bath attendant in my favourite summer pool called Prinzenbad. I’ve always loved it there, it’s like a melting pot mixing everybody in almost always peaceful coexistance. At least it used to be like that. Except for some cracking pubescents or overheated brutalos but they mostly stay among themselves … and those uptight asshole voyeurs who molest people in the separated nude areal … well … anyway …
What I realized over the recent years: it has always been a normal thing to sunbathe topless. More than half of the girls/women did it. No big deal here. Today? No one except for me and I felt like a medium aged hippie from another planet. What’s that? Americanization? Muslimization? Back to the fifties-prudery? I’ll have to muse about it … Maybe the mood, the atmosphere is slowly turning towards rough and aggressive and disrespectful behavior … and girls … well … react.

Until I found out, here’s a little still from a very short film called “Ducks are watching you”, a film festival trailer that I made some years ago for the Zwergwerk Film Festival in Oldenburg:

and here’s the trailer: zwergwerktrailer.mov

This is how super 8 filmers tame and bind their high towering balcony tomatoes 😉

Last weekend at Force Attack … I don’t really go to punk festivals regularly … but it was a good spontaneous chance to accompany one of the bands that will be part of Bands On Boats – A Pony Named Olga – share some time, work, fun, music, film with them on a small tour.
We even had time to relax half a day at the Baltic Sea which is very close to that festival (Rostock/Warnemünde).

Attack! Ladybug plague at the beach! That was kind of weird! Hundreds of those little beautiful 7-dotted bugs flew around us, landing on us, on the sand, on the towels … never experienced that before.
Sensitive people started to fix mosquito nets to their sunshades …

This is for specialists only … never try to self-process an Ekta 16mm film that has lived more than 20 years outside a fridge. Deborah Phillips my friend and I didn’t believe Mr Draser, the god of Andec, who refused to process her 30 meter long film because of that reason (it would ruin the developer baths with all the black gelatine particles).
It did exactly that. All the beautiful filmed scenes, all work, all images got dissolved in the first two baths. Though … it was fun to do that dirty bucket processing again (30 meters of 16mm film is too much for a Russian tank) so we – thanks to Fernando – occupied a darkroom, set up the scene: 4 buckets, some towels, hot water to keep the chemicals in appropriate mood (38 degrees centigrade), plastic gloves, and my new invention: who tells you the exact countdown time of 6 minutes when you’re in absolute darkness? No red light allowed! So I recorded a kind of down-counting voice with some nice weird music telling every 10 seconds where we are!
Anyway … it all went shit. So we strolled away to have one two drinks around the corner at Syndikat. Good white wine!
I noticed a cat opposite to the bar, it balanced nicely on the balcony rim, said hello to the tree leaves, looked at us and then returned back inside. It was a lovely day anyway!

This is an invitation to a very special evening:

Helen Bittner is a musician and I am a filmmaker. We found each other, spent one day together walking and subwayriding through Berlin, inviting coincidence, strolling around, me filming (on super 8) … and now the music clip for her song You And The Moon (Groovy) is finished. There’s going to be a little party this coming Sunday (the premiere of that clip!!) at Arcanoa (Tempelhofer Ufer 8, Berlin-Kreuzberg) from 8 pm.
No entrance fee!
She’ll be performing some of her songs (with 3 guest musicians) and later I’m going to show some of my films in original super 8.

Here’s the song list:
I’m alive
You are the one
You and the Moon (jazzy)
Where are you tonight?
So blue
You and the Moon (groovy)

… and here’s the film list:
Milchwolken Liebe
Die 6 Astronauten
Ach, es ist so schön, ein Käfer zu sein
Cowboy, reite immer schneller!
Der höchste Spiegel der Welt
Stich 8 juckt einfach super!
Die Salzfrösche von Hiddensee

Come and meet us!

… force people to fold their sunshades and wipe up rain drops in no time.

Riding home from my job through Köpenicker Strasse I saw a beautiful sky, looked like a thundery front approaching, warm tropical evening, beautiful saturated colors, crispy air!
I stopped at a night kiosk (remembering my empty fridge) and bought a bottle of good icecold Rivaner white wine. Stepped in, smiled at the old lady who guarded the open door. The guy (young, friendly, tattooed all over) said, when he realized that I was anxiously watching my unlocked bike outside: „Don’t worry, the owner lady will keep an eye on your bike and if someone’s trying to snatch it she’ll take care of him and throw her crutches at him!!“
I love Kreuzberg …

And then … at home … sitting in my open balcony window I heard a percussion sound, someone’s drumming … I looked down (2 storeys) and I saw 4 guys drumming tenderly on the orange garbage can on my street, a spontaneous 3 minutes concert! Whow! Awesome! Listen and watch! under-my-balcony1.mov

Finally. One of those nights. The summer has come back. The city is humming and buzzing. I light my Guadalupe candle (which I imported from LA last summer!), fill my glass with ice cubes and rosé prosecco, watch the blue-pink sky, listen to the chasing flocks of Mauersegler (European or Common Swift). Mmmh! This is summer and I love it!

In the course of one’s life – film friend Khani told me recently – everybody inhales and swallows (eats!!!!! Yikes!!!) … four spiders.
An urban myth?

Aah, just 2 minutes in the googleverse swang me to a science site!

You can say it’s ugly, this Kottbusser Damm (the street that separates Kreuzberg from Neukölln), yes it is, but it is as well charming on a Sunday noon when you sit at lovely Ankerklause, a café / bar spot on the street. Nothing better than a coffee and a croissant, watching people passing by, relaxing after a long Saturday with too much work.

Happy Sunny day!

Midsummer in the city of Berlin. Suddenly you know: you need to go to the countryside right now or else you go crazy.
So my brother and his son took me out on a ride to the emerald green clear crispy clean beautiful lake called Liepnitzsee, situated about 30 kms North of Berlin. The lake belongs to the district of Wandlitz, which in GDR times was the space where the highest East German functionaries lived.

You can rent rowboats for hours for little money, watch ducks, ducklings, great crested grebes (Haubentaucher), herons (Fischreiher) and coots (Blesshühner) … swim in the soft cuddly water, walk to the Insulanerklause, (a kind of little open air restaurant) and have a wheat beer, a salad, a coke, a Wienerwürstchen, icecream … stroll through the woods on the island and the surrounding banks …
It was a perfect Sunday 🙂

Try to count the mosquito bites on my legs … but funny, the magic water cools the itching away!
And this is my brother taking a dive!!

Good night, mighty ship, dear Spreeprinzessin!

We had a special beautiful evening – 4 great bands which couldn’t have been more different … 4 rounds on the boat … 4 new audiences … 4 new light conditions (for us filmmakers) … 4 little explosive concerts, 4 times diving into fresh music universes (we had them all! Swedish pop with a fresh haircut and the sweetest Pippi Langstrumpf cover version I ever heard, shoegazing superguitars who learned from Daniel Johnston and Syd Barrett, accelerating Texasbilly Umhauer, decelerating Salsacolumbiafusionhiphop, and so many more words to describe them that I can’t think of at the moment … photos will follow … Thanks again 48 Stunden Neukölln for letting us be part of your festival!!

This is me and Nadine (friend, helper, autopilot) waiting for bands at the landing place of the Spreeprinzessin. Sewing boat patches on our shirts.

The ship is full!!

This is Kör Sakta!

This is Milsantos:

From left to right: video, super 8 and Boundary Jim at dawn!

A Pony Named Olga shaking Neuköllns Bridges!

Fotos: Uli Strempel, me

48 Hours Neukölln. It’s like a big fair all over Neukölln, a very special part of Berlin, growing, getting more colorful and hipper.
Starting today, ending tomorrow night. It feels just great, at every corner there’s something happening, something to see and to listen to.
I spent some time at Marie’s Toilettenhäuschen 😉 , former public toilets, now a little art space. Tiny pictures and photos hanging there (I loved the underwater ones!) and Anything Maria playing, a woman from Marseille, now a Berlin resident I guess. First I didn’t really like her lovelyfrenchbrokenenglish singing, too much Lolita I found, but she got better from song to song: one woman, one loud distorted guitar and some weird electronic little helpers.

And tomorrow we aaaalllll enter the bandboat!! The captains welcome you with a warm beating heart and hopefully a warm sun!

I’ve just come back from a very small cellar-hidden concert at Madame Claude, a café/club in Berlin-Kreuzberg (Lübbener Str. 19) – Boundary Jim, a 4 guys combo (2 guitars, 1 bass, 1 drums). I guess they are very in love with their instruments since they kept on looking dreamily down on them … I liked that. I liked them and their honest good guitar-playing. Sweet and beautiful. (The singer’s voice is like a green apple waiting for more sun to ripen. He will surely do.). Looking forward to see them on our ship and share a cool evening!! —-> Bands On Boats – The Neukölln Edition! – bob-neukoelln.pdf

It’s Fete de la Musique in Berlin. More than 100 bands playing for free on more than 100 stages outdoor and inside.
I went out to see only 2 today … found a rainbow … found two special powerful brilliant super-bands:

Las Rainhas do Norte: They played in a kind of sandy areal (sandsational – sand sculptures) – and they really blew me away, sand in my nose, power in my eyes, percussion in my brain … 6 women 6 sunny devils.

Later, Kreuzberg, picture comes later, a promising band called Milsantos, they played in a tiny club called Café MANO, Skalitzer Straße 46a, Berlin-Kreuzberg. Speedy fire latino corazon party beautiful singing a little hip, a great hop. Watch out. They are going to be great. (for example this coming Saturday on Bands On Boats – The Special Neukölln Edition!!!)

Geocaching part two.
Today: Beelitzer Heilstätten, me, my brother Bernd, my nephew David and his friend Lenny. We spent all day long looking for caches, hunting places, collecting clues … it was a beautiful summer excursion!

We stumbled upon weird rotten houses and sheds, one was like spidermans refuge with red threads all over, so magic!

And then, deep down in the tunnels, I found a lonely toad. Must have been fallen through one of the ceiling hatches. I gave it a lift back up (I kept it in my hand, it felt warmer than expected, I felt it struggling in the beginning and then breathing, calming down …) I set it free up in some shady shrubs.

Does anyone remember Catweazle? His toad was called Touchwood – in German Kylwalda! Electrickery! Elektriktrick! Salmei, Dalmei, Adomei! Schampamporasch!

Berlin drowns in abundant rain and people hang their – not sneakers this time – yellow rain rubber boots on traffic lights and signs.
I saw two pairs today!
Confusing!

Oooooph …
My beloved Hamburg Short Film Festival celebrated its 25th anniversary. I popped up there 20 years ago when I was a little skinny shy super 8 film maker and from that moment on I always felt embraced there. 15 out of 20: shit weather: rain, cold. But: friends! Warm crazy punk hearts.

This year they had so many different programs that I really got confused and by accident fell upon the best ever, the 25 hours marathon! Sepp, one of the festival organs (like heart) hosted it and it was like coming home to your dream cinema, laying back, watching, pure watching, enjoying, 1000000 VHS cassettes of submitted films, some of them jumped into the festival program, some of them got lost forever, some of them got polished by time meaning looked like pointillism paintings magnets dissolving …

Who remembers Beyond My Control? A music clip about love and … yaaawn … man, woman, blood, rose, knife, wedding dress … , but the thing is: the actors tried to look like Depeche Mode and to act really cool and the song was so bad that it hurt … anyway, you’ll never understand but it was so cool to watch it again …

That all happened in the B-Movie cinema yesterday. When I used breaks to open my eyes I saw 3 ravens and 3 raven shadows.

and more: later, on my long bike trip home to Willemsburg I saw more ravens and rabbits sitting on lamp / spy / whatever posts. I better stop here now, the story continues.

The headline translates: Mama, I’m In Jail, which is a song by the Runaway Brides. Come to them later …

Today was a lazy day, a holiday in Germany, a day off for working class heroes (at least some). I processed an old color ORWO double 8 film (you never know with that old material that hasn’t been kept in the fridge for 20 or more years … and Orwo color films almost always have problems with the color layer because they were meant to be processed with original Orwo chemicals at 27 degrees, but no more Orwo, what can you do, only solution is E6 (color reversal) developer which works at 38 degrees, so poor Orwo heats up and the red layer peels off partly, looks like bleeding, very magical!)

There’s a nice small music club in Kreuzberg (Wiener Str. 34, Ex-Bronx) called Cortina Bob (wasn’t that the name of a carousel in the 70ies??) – tonite: A Pony Called Olga and The Runaway Brides.

First band: Reeeaaally good punky powerhillbilly music: one guitar/singer, one upright bass Elvis, one hidden drummer. They had fun and they shared it.
Second band: 6 girls with countrypunk in their hearts, very good musicians (I loved the professional ukulele and the violin!!) – songs about drinking and Jesus … ah yeah, coming back to the title, one was called Mama, I’m In Jail, something like don’t worry Mama, your little jailbird will get along. Pure female fun & power 😉 They got better from song to song. They had fun and they shared it.

Berlins world famous Karneval der Kulturen got swept away in cold rain today but people kept on rocking swinging drinking musicking in bars and on the streets. Phew!

I stranded in Arcanoa, a place that has always been there for bands, film makers and underground lovers. Which has a special bar with a river running! And tonight I found out: they serve Bierlikör (beer liqueur). Khani and I have never heard of it neither had the barlady, so we checked it out … and … it tasted like … vanilla 🙁

There was a band playing. Punos. 3 guys: base, guitar, guitar/sax. No vocals, but harmonica instead.
Lovely laidback music, skilled guitar players. I liked the way they shily announced their songs … one about the meanwhile famous Admiralbrücke called „Admiral“ – one of the guys said that he once wanted to play there solo but it was so humid that he couldn’t tune his guitar so he left home … crying? I don’t know.
Anyway. Pleasant laidback evening! Good guys!

How I love to watch my (neighbour)hood shifting! Normally it goes from working class heroes district to yuppy. Same story all over the world.

Neukölln … I remember 20 years ago it was empty, grey, it stank (in winter) of Kohleheizung (carbon stove heating) and EVERYBODY who immigrated to Berlin from Westgermany or elsewhere stranded there, because it was extremely cheap to live there. Or Berlin-Wedding.

Beam up to 2009: it’s getting hip now.
Tonight I discovered a new place in Weichselstrasse 6, called BROSCHEK (the maiden name of the owner’s mother – 3 photos of her as a young very beautiful woman hang on the wall) and watched and listened to Erich, the akkordeon-player who played instrumentals and told accompanying stories and showed slides!
In short: he, living in deep space South Germany / high mountains, got a music cassette from one of his travelling friends (Nepal, India etc), fell in love with the music and wanted to find out more about the musician. So he and his fellows went to Bangladesh and to India and after a long odyssey that took them to the weirdest places he found the guy!

The Regenbogenkino (Rainbow Cinema) in Berlin-Kreuzberg had a good idea: they repainted & repaired themselves and now, in fresh clothes and sofas and colors, they’ve started a great series of pictures & music shows which they say they want to continue monthly: a local band performs in front of a projected silent (or volume down!) film.

Yesterday’s stars: Low Sweet Chariot!
Great performance, boys! Loud, warm, dark, heart&powerful.
(I filmed them and taped the music, here’s a little sound clip: lowsweet1.mp3

At my office, there where I spend 30 hours a week … it’s a nice job: layout, computer, magazines … nothing too creative … there is a coffee machine on the first floor and there is also a swap corner where people leave things they don’t need any more … recently I found 2 items lying there lonely: clips.
A DUCK and a LUCK.
I felt like they were waiting there just for me and I took them home. (Duck is my secret name and luck is all I / we need 😉

I landed back home in Berlin yesterday night!

After 5 days spent in Cambridge and 3 days in London I must say firstly: The Cambridge Super 8 Film Festival is now officially declared (by myself) as my favourite film festival … and London is pretty cool.

I stayed at one of the festival makers home and every day I cycled through Cambridge along the Duck + Toad Path, see here:

… feeling like in the middle of the fresh born juicy green country!
I found rosy trashbins, heavenly beer and cider, delicious sausages in gravy … and a handful of new friends. Thank you for having invited me and letting me be part of the festival.

And then: London.
My first time ever.
I stayed at City Hotel(12 Osborne Street in Whitechapel) which I can highly recommend: book long before on the internet and you’ll get a room for a third of the regular price which means even half-broke artists like me can afford it!
Osborne Street leads directly into famous Brick Lane. If you like Curry, go there. I enjoyed it. It reminded me a bit of my home quarter, Kreuzberg. And the curry and other Bengali meals are just good.

I found this beautiful piece of minimal art in one of a closed down house’s window grating and it made me smile passing:

All in all: Heart Act 😉
More to follow soon.