funtobealive

There are many differences between the U.S and Germany, but the one which is the most striking to me is the supermarkets. One goes into a supermarket in Germany and it is as if a magician came and shrank everything to a very cute size. In one American shopping cart you can fit at least 3 German ones. It is funny to compare the same brands – for example a bottle of head&shoulders shampoo, in germany it will be a size of a hand in the states you can get it in a two gallon barrel. The shopping habits are also extremely different- the german hausfrau will go to the supermarket every day; she will get one tomato and one cucumber and tops 6 eggs, the American how ever will get a supply for a year and will deepfreeze everything. I think I prefer the smaller german supermarkets, ( I really hated getting lost in the vast supermarket near my place in Boston ),  the only problem is that the german ones closes at fucking 20:00, and that is a beech I can tell you…              

Today I had a chance to play a unique concert. It was a special request from a women dieing of cancer, she doesn’t have much more time. she is laying on a hospital bed awaiting death to stop her misery. She is the sister of the person I’m staying with and while he was visiting her today he called me from the hospital and said she wants me to play for her something over the phone. So I took the cello and played a movement of Bach. I think it was one of the most important concerts of my life. It was unbelievable how much joy it gave her and even some sort of emotional relief, well, some times it is REALLY not “fun to be alive”. And for myself- since I was thinking of quitting the cello the very moment the phone from the hospital rang, maybe I should reconsider. Because It’s fun…

i was taking the orange kugel today from the downtown crossing station  in downtown Boston.  On the platform there was an extremely untalented black  tenor saxophone player. the tune he was trying to play was the American national anthem. it sounded so terribly out of tune and rhythm that everybody on the platform were quite amused from the situation, all except one white older lady that was so appalled that she asked him to stop.  at first i thought she was annoyed with the musical level, ( well, that was what i was mostly disturbed by…) and than i thought, ho, maybe it’s the fact that the guy is butchering the national anthem, but than she actually came over to me and said that she cant understand how come this black guy that was oppressed for years by the Americans is actually playing this melody for his own and the general public’s fun….  

A few days ago in New York myself and the chairman of the Kishkash Patput club had an interesting experience. We were playing with an Indian singer ( Indian as in India ). The funny part was that we were playing on western Baroque instruments- violin and cello, and in addition there was an electrical keyboard player and this weird Indian drawn instrument. I can tell you that was one hell of a combination. To start with us- two western classical musicians trying to improvise Indian Ragas on baroque instruments which by the way are tuned half a step lower than the modern instruments so in addition we had to transpose everything to extremely remote keys.  Well, maybe I have a new carrier in front of me..           

Yesterday I saw king Tom ( cruise ), I happened to be around Lincoln center in New York and he was of course there to calibrate his nomination to the king of the Kishkash monarchy. He had so many Limos that all the unsatisfied artists would fit in his cars with no particular problem. I hope he will be a kind ruler to us all. Long live the king!!!

One of the problems of the   future kishkash country is to decide what kind of state would it be. A fascistic totalitarian monarchy or maybe an anarchistic republic? I really wonder what kind of regime will be most appropriate for artists that nobody understands. Since almost all the performing art forms are basically totalitarian,( you know, in music you have to follow the score, in theater the play and the director etc.) so probably a monarchy would be rather  better than a democratic republic. A monarchy is anyway better because than you get to have a king, which is a very cool thing indeed. Now there is only to decide how will be our king, this I can answer quite easily- it must be Tom Cruise other wise known as ” the artist who suffer the most” . long live the king!!!

 For further understanding of the choice you may read the breathtaking analysis of Prof. Yosefus “Sugar-Ray” Flavorless at: http://www.funtobealive.com/readers%20comments.html

You know how they always warn you from a grand piano that might fall on your had from the top floor? Well today the exact opposite happened and my had randomly hit a grand piano ( Steinway… ), I’m feeling kind of blared since than, cant really remember what is going on, but  the way my life has gone lately this is a vast improvement. If you were kind enough to check this blog, you probably noticed that I managed to delete every evidence of it prior to march 12^th. Well, that is what happens when you let a musician play with HTML….

Don’t you think it could be remarkable to start the kishkash land? It would be a country for all the artists who think nobody understands them. Anyway most of the non mainstream art is being preformed by artists who nobody understands, to frustrated artists who nobody understands . in case you have been to a modern music concert lately I think you would know what I mean. This land would live on artistic tourism, it is most likely that almost all the artists would want to move there so not so many would left behind to feel the cultural needs. Well, the main problem is to find a place, ( maybe Uganda…) .

To be continued…