I’m sorry sir, but this is not your seat number anymore – you have been upgraded to First Class.

Hello my friends. While taking holiday in eastern Europe I have gone for a record ten days without doing the following: checking my voicemail, checking my email, checking the DrudgeReport and checking the MOGworld blog. It is with great anticipation that I review all of these the moment I land in the USofA.

So, how am I able to type this now? Well, I am actually typing in into MS Word now – fortunately I have borrowed my legal gf’s laptop for the flight home – I have blogging as well as an Advertising take home final to attend to. I ended up borrowing this laptop because she is actually on a different flight than I – she is flying KLM back to JFK. Long story short, I was supposed to fly out on AirFrance tonight at 6.55p local time but since her flight was this AM at 10p, I got on the first flight for the NYC.

Having to pay a slight fee to allow for this, I learned at check that I was bumped up to business class – how brilliant – it reminds me of flights from London and Paris in trips gone by. When finally boarding, I was further delighted to learn that I had been upgraded again to First Class from Business. J Let me tell you – First Class is hard living. I’m about to down my third glass of champagne and consume a cheese plate prepared especially for me since the vegetarian meal was not available.

I think that after I blog and eat and work on my final, I might watch some Curb Your Enthusiasm as I know for a fact that I have that DVD in said laptop at the moment – what I am not sure, however, is whether I have my cd envelopes with about 15 other DVDs for my viewing pleasure. My only complaint is that the power outlet in my chair seems to cutout every 5minutes…so tough this First Class livin’.

Maybe later I will continue this blog to talk about my holiday…it includes but is not limited to the following: drug smuggling, French cars, industrial gods, gothic fags, German National Socialists, Hammerskins, miles of pavement, litres of petrol, millions of bugs and a black cat.

Ciao!

Someone near me is watching that Broken Glass movie with Hayden Christensen – HC is the Ryan Phillippe of the early 2000’s but without the hot wife. I don’t know what Lucas sees in this momo.

And the flight has been a bit on the turbulent side. And I’ve switched from champagne to Sprite – much more refreshing. I’ve already had the chance to load my pictures into this computer – some keepers, some real losers. I’ll share those at a later date. Now I have to try to finish my final so that I don’t have to worry about it once again on terraferma.

Well this flight continues to be turbulent – making me honestly nervous – and I never get nervous on flights. Let me use this opportunity to report on the musical aspect of my trip – M’ERA LUNA.

What started as a one day festival, M’ERA LUNA has ended up being one of the surviving German events bringing in over 25,000 visitors to a beautiful little town that is pretty much over run with jerks in full clad black outfits in middle of the summer. This is something I will never understand. I don’t care who you think you are or how embedded in the “scene” you think you are – there is no reason to dress head to toe in black, whether it’s cotton or polyester or PVC or leather – it’s just stupid. And the other thing I don’t understand is why these people who love their snow white tans don’t enlist the services of sunblock. I witnessed some of the most horrific tan lines on Saturday that I was in shock. These kids don’t make any sense to me. When the Douche and I were exposed to the “tanned-goth” of the Doomsday 2000 festival – that, too, didn’t make sense to me until this weekend: M’ERA LUNA 2000 was a week before the Doomsday fest we went to, so by the time we saw them, their terrible burns had turned tan. Just sayin’.

So the music. The Jax and I drove from Munich to Hildesheim with much ease and settled into our hostel only long enough to freshen up and hit the festival. Complaint number 1 – when you are charging 45 euros at the door for a single day ticket – ACCEPT CREDIT CARDS YOU FUCK! Or at least accept cards inside at the official t-shirt stands or have an ATM inside or something!!! After that setback and the realization that our purchasing power had greatly diminished even before entering the venue (an old airport), we wandered over to the main stage for the what was the second song of goth-rocker legend Wayne Hussey and The Mission. The band does not fit the man. I’m probably all wet on this but the guitarist looks a lot like Danny Lohner of NIN fame. The open-air affect was not nice to these guys. They put on a good performance considering the heat and the daylight and the stupid crowd. Following The Mission was L’Ame Immortelle – a band enjoyed by the Jax and a band I was interested in checking out because of the hype surrounding them and boy was I not disappointed – they sucked even worse than I had anticipated, though the crowd seemed to enjoy them greatly – see where I’m going here? This 6 piece included a drummer, guitarist, bassist, keyboardist, female vocalist and male vocalist who doubled as cheerleader and occasionally hit a key or two. These cats were weak. Even the Jax was like asking if I felt like making a 4+ mile roundtrip walk to the nearest ATM rather than watch these guys. Pathetic.

We next ventured over to “the hangar” in great anticipation of Fixmer/McCarthy. We headed over a little early and ended up catching the end of In Strict Confidence’s set. I’m not positive, but I think there was another industrial band from LI called ISC, but this is not the same band. This four piece, including a female vocalist for one song, owned the hangar. Their music was a bit simplistic, but was catchy. The lead singer reminded me of Ash if he were a bit more assertive and could sing in a deep German voice. After leaving the stage at promptly the moment they were supposed to (these Germans are proficient at some things) about 70% of the packed hangar left. We made our way to pretty close to the stage and I was beaming with anticipation. Then all of the Nitzer Ebb shirts started filing in. Everyone was ready for something special. Terrance Fixmer, some techno guy, came out and did his own soundcheck only to retreat back behind a curtain for another five minutes before showtime. Truth be told I was not a big fan of this album – but that wasn’t stopping me from strapping on my messenger bag as close to me as possible in case I had to remind the Germans why we won WWII. So Fixmer comes back out and gets some sort of beat going…DUH DUH DUH DUH and the germans are going nuts b/c that’s something they can dance to. Then Douglas McCarthy comes out – aviator Ray Ban shades, close buzz haircut, dark blue Levis (hanging a bit low though), black shoes and a dark blue button down with the sleeves rolled up – and shouts “REMEMBER ME?!?!?!” This man knows that everyone is there not because of his new project but because of who HE is/was – and he didn’t make us wait a single second and Fixmer’s beat/ambient tune turned into the main bassline and drum tracks from “Join in the Chant”. I instantly handed the Jax my camera (What do you call a girl at a hard core show? Coat rack.), then first I said “I’m going to cry” and quickly followed it with “I’m going to go elbow some Germans in the face”. Less than 5seconds later I found myself 3feet from the barricade in the dead center of the stage. All I can say is that McCarthy has been doing this for about 20years and his voice is still like is on the So Bright, So Strong e.p. Other NE songs included Murderous, Control, I’m Here and Let Your Body Learn (as the encore). My only slight complaint is that the old NE songs(except for JItC) were a bit more big 4/4 beat as opposed to the originals and also he tended to leave out verses settling for the big payoff of the bridges and choruses – I guess best delivered over the big beat. I was disappointed in that but I do understand why it was done the way it was, but like DM bringing back Black Celebration for the last (?) tour – it’s just plain not as good.

Aside from having a wound on my elbow reopened by some faeg’s spike (causing blood to pour from my arm), I was thoroughly entertained and look forward to seeing them in the States – maybe Cesar can book it.

Looking at the interactive flight map I can see we are over Québec now – only an hour + outside of Newark – it’s a wonderful feeling entering your own timezone again. Returning to work tomorrow is going to be a giant nightmare but I guess it’s what one has to do in order to take these adventures.

Enough philosophizing – back to my homework for the remaining hour. Tchüess!!! (Brandt can correct my spelling)