Irgendwie hinterlässt diese Kokaingeschichte einen faden Beigeschmack auf meinem Gaumen. Zum einen sehe ich absolut keinen Grund whatsoever, warum der Konsum von Kokain strafbar sein soll. Soll doch jeder konsumieren, was ihm Spaß macht. Dann verstehe ich nicht wieso sein Name so früh in die Schlagzeilen kam. Als das Verfahren noch gar nicht abgeschlossen war. Hätte man das nicht etwas vertraulicher behandeln können? Jetzt ist der Typ vorbestraft. Wurde Daum eigentlich auch vorbestraft wegen seiner Schniefstory?

Außerdem fand ich das Timing eine Woche nach Möllemann's wirklich sehr schlau eingefädelten Suizid, den man wohl nie als solchen nachweisen kann, seltsam. Verschwörungstheorien sind zwar scheiße, aber manchmal kann man sich doch nicht ganz von Gedanken in dieser Richtung frei machen.

Wirklich überrascht hat mich dann Friedmann's reumütiges Eingeständnis seiner Fehler heute. So viel Offenherzigkeit hätte ich ihm gar nicht zugetraut. Wahrscheinlich war das seine einzige Chance. So muss sich die Presse ein neues Thema zum Füllen des Sommerloches einfallen lassen.

P.S. Mit einem Tagessatz von 116 Euro hat der Mann sich ja ganz schön armgerechnet. Als Stundensatz würde mir das einleuchten. Vielleicht arbeitet Friedman ja nur eine Stunde pro Tag (just joking). Ich glaube da wurde die Auswirkung des Strafbefehls auf die zukünftigen Einkünfte ein bisserl übertrieben. Bin jetzt mal gespannt, ob er wirklich seinen Lebenswandel ändern wird.

I am still alive. Thanks for asking. In the past days I have been mainly making some naive, crude and undigested comments on Adorno's Minima's Moralia. Every time it is the same thing with me and Adorno, I let myself provoke by him and I think I can outsmart him but it always finishes badly.

I have also started working on the review of my favourite album of 1976. Two days ago I even had finished a draft version. I lost it when I answered an e-mail on the subject of saying "Du" (instead of "Sie", that is the formal way of addressing people in German whereas "Du" is the informal one) to someone. After having to log in to Antville again the post was gone. Lesson: Thou shalt never do two things at the same time.

My fave 1976 album didn't receive any votes in the now closed poll. Somehow that always makes me happy. I am such a snob. Tom Waits Small Change won the poll in front of my favourite album of my favourite female songwriter ever, Joni Mitchell's wonderful album on travelling Hejira.

Einer meiner deutschen Lieblingsfilmemacher über sein Kino, das Wasser und zwei Frauen:

Es gibt zwei neue Filme von ihm, der erste läuft gerade in München beim Filmfest:

Rot und Blau und Frau fährt, Mann schläft.

From Monday's Philosophical Quotation:

Though I would scrape the last sentence. The bamboozle (a fine new word in my vocabulary) has been obvious from the beginning on. I have got used to being bambloozed and I have given up on the truth. Is it really important anymore after what has happened? Action has replaced truth. And we have to live with it.

On the Radiohead@Glastonbury mp3 I always hear

instead of

And it makes so much more sense. Joy according to christianity has always been something which had to be payed for later with a burning in hell. Hell and joy are brothers and sisters.

I just saw the excellent DVD The Miles Davis Story, one of the best films on music I've ever seen. Many interviews with his wives, his children, his musicians, his biographer and the record company guys. Miles in between music, women, drugs, fast cars, boxing, drawing and music. Always moving forward, never standing still. Very well illustrating his lifelong fight against his illnesses and against the prejudices of white people against his skin colour. His rudeness and bad way of treating women. And his niceness when he apologised etc. The almost complete liberty he left to his musicians which made the phantastic collective music possible he and his bands created.

Finally his raspy whispering voice which seemed to have been the price he had to pay for his amazing, magic, pure and crystal-clear trumpet sound. A jazz musician in the film said that Miles' trumpet sounded like a human voice. I think it actually was his voice.

At one point he said:

And I thought YES. That is so bloody true and so bloody sad at the same time. The love songs are just an ersatz for not being able to fall in love again after the first time.

Nine short live audio clips (mainly spoken word intros) of Neil Young's new project Greendale which is supposed to be released as CD and DVD in August. Some impressions of Greendale which Neil Young performs on his current tour here at ILM:

P.S. Here is my review. I am still not sure what to think of this album.

Caroline from Amsterdam on the beginning of the European REM tour in Amsterdam. They will play in Wiesbaden on July, 19th and I will be there. A band I got into quite late and I never understood why critics always cherish their beginnings. They have become better with each album from my point of view. Reckoning was the dullest folk-rock I could ever imagine but the world hit Losing My Religion won me over. There are some romantic reasons for that, of course. No more details here, it is the past. But it still is haunting.