supaswag counter culture

When Casios cry - Der Peter ist tot

2016-05-12T11:19:00.000+01:00

Da Da Da fand ich immer scheisse.

I never really liked Da Da Da, Trio's official hit. I never liked anything that was verging on 'Schlager', the cosy German shit musik niche that Stefan Remmler loved to flirt with and, after 85, built his whole career on: Turaluraluralu, Herz ist Trumpf, Alles hat ein Ende nur die Wurst hat zwei.. bullshit. Neue Deutsche Welle Light. Neue Deutsche Fröhlichkeit.

What I loved was the first album and a couple of live gigs that I only discovered 5 years ago via Youtube. Only the third edition of the first record, now with Da Da Da as single included, was successful. Like Helge Schneider, the Kaiser of German Dada Jazz, needed a vehicle to break into the mainstream [Katzeklo], Trio became famous over night and nothing was the same again.

With success came pressure and with pressure came dependency. The story of Trio post 1983 is a sad story, with Peter Behrens [Drums] and Kralle Krawinkel [Guitar/dead] trying to keep up with co-songwriter and singer Stephan Remmler's commercial pop sensibilities.

But in 1981/82 Trio was shit-hot. Remmler's cocky buzz-cutted & suited new wave persona paired with Behrens' and Krawinkel's raw and cool simplicity made them the only real and futuristic German post-punk band. Songs like Los Paul and Ja Ja Ja were pure first generation punk rock with clever German lyrics, urgent and dynamic, dirty and quick sketches of modern urban life, always questioning authority and the general musical forms of the time.

Like Falco, Trio mixed German and English lyrics, cleverly playing with stereotypes and expectations, transcending the classic form of punk/pop and creating something fresh and unique. This was serious not-to-be-taken-seriously stuff.

Broken Hearts For You And Me

Es ist Zeit für etwas Flottes

Stimmung gute Laune

Die Damen in den Innenkreis

die Herren in den Außenkreis

in Gegenrichtung

Marsch Fox

And the monkey wrapped his tail around the flag pole

to show his arse hole

to the one two three

Broken hearts for you and me

I guess we agree

the party ‘s over now it’s plain to see

Broken hearts for you and me

Why should we stay

you know it’s better if we go our own ways

Broken hearts for you and me

We tried our best

too little future though and too much past

Broken hearts for you and me

Don’t you cry

kiss me good bye

Broken hearts for you and me

We made so many mistakes

we know it better now but it’s too late

Broken hearts for you and me

Why should we stay

you know it’s better if we go our own ways

Broken hearts for you and me

Don’t you cry ie ie ie

just kiss me good bye ie ie ie

you know why ie ie ie there are

Broken hearts for you and me

Don’t you cry ie ie ie

just kiss me good bye ie ie ie

you know why ie ie ie there are

Broken hearts

Later, the aftermath: The inevitable band split because of royalties disputes, Remmler's shallow commercial success with ironic couplets, the slow descent into sad alcoholism, running out of money.. never mind the bollocks, here's the Trio. Unlike John Lydon, Remmler's message wasn't sustainable, probably because he never really had one. What Remmler had was vision, and that somehow saved him.

RIP Peter, Dada Clown und Stehschlagzeuger. Traurig ist das.

When Doves Cry - The Kid Is Dead

2016-04-21T19:27:00.002+01:00

1984. An epic year for pop music. Welcome To The Pleasuredome by Frankie Goes To Hollywood, Some Great Reward by Depeche Mode, The Gun Club's The Las Vegas Story, the first The Smiths record and of course Purple Rain by Prince. I can remember watching the Purple Rain film on VHS with some ex girlfriend, feeling all deep & funky. I remember studying the album artwork and taping the record so I could listen to it in my first car. Driving around the German countryside blasting When Doves Cry.. I never felt more "now" that back then.

And it wasn't just Prince, it was Prince and the fucking REVOLUTION! And that's what it was. I never liked "funk" much, and I never really warmed to Prince's very funky side.. whenever a slap bass appears I'm normally out, but Purple Rain opened up a world of black spunk. I stayed with Prince till the late 80s, Lovesexy the last interesting album.. after that I lost track and somehow interest. I remember a couple of nice tracks on Diamonds And Pearls but that's about it.

Prince was probably one of the most underrated guitarists [and drummers] ever. He could play like Hendrix, and before [and after] he started using these weird 'Symbol' shaped custom guitars he always played a simple Telecaster. Keeping it simple.. I love simplicity. That's why I loved Purple Rain. There's a lot of air and space on that record. It was also the first time that I saw that word shortening shizzle: 4 = for, U = you, etc. that was proper "cool" back then.

So, for me Price will always be The Kid from Purple Rain: Problems at home, problems with authority, problems with the girls, motorbike.. basically a black version of me :D

De-program >> Re-program

2016-03-28T13:00:00.001+01:00

I have lost my patience with almost all forms of religion. Oppressive, patronising, smug, violent religions.. just FUCK OFF. All of you.

As long as you do your "praising God stuff" on your own or with some mates, do as you like, but as soon as you start preaching and "converting", that's it, you can go fuck yourself.

My parents who were never openly religious [except from my dad who loved being in churches because of the calm atmosphere], had some friends who were really lovely people, they had kids that I used to play with, etc. Then the parents [mostly the dad] got sucked into the New Apostolic Church. They started to go to church 10 days a week and they also started, pressurised by their new church mates, converting other "non-believers". My parents even went with them to the church one weekend after lots of begging from them, just to not be rude. A long story short: Their long friendship broke down, they were just hanging around with their new church buddies and trying to get as many others into the church as possible. There were quotas and when you didn't bring in new people on a constant basis, you got looked down on. That couple's marriage went down the loo a long time ago and the whole family including their two brainwashed kids are not talking to each other any more. The creepy thing is that the kids still have partners [and kids] that are also part of the New Apostolic Church.. like they can't/won't say good bye to that lot. So, these people don't even build real bombs to blow up non-believers, but they were throwing mind-bombs, playing psycho-games. And that's already enough for me.

So, if you are into organised religion and can't do that without preaching and inciting, you might want to get out of my social bubble, thanks. Like I said, my last bit of patience has gone.

Actually, I can expand this.. any form of fanatics that think that they have to tell or make others do stuff because they think it's the only way: Do fuck off.

My grandparents were proper Nazis. They were also very nice and there is a long story for another day that explains very well why they became Nazis, but they were basically unable to leave all the brainwash behind after the war. They never killed anyone but they were stubborn and frustrated armchair ideologists. I spent a lot of time with them when I was a boy and a teenager, they loved me like no-one else.. one of their dearest sons got killed after the war in the late 50s in a terrible accident when he was in his early 20s, so my grandparents were very focused on me and were always very protective of me. So I grew up with conservative parents and Nazi grandparents. When I was a teenager, I was [without actually really thinking about it much] a fully fledged neo-Nazi. I was really into war-stuff, weapons and when asked, my career was either German border control or army. My parents were very naive about all of this. I recently asked my mum how much she actually knew about all of this, especially me and all of my stupid countryside/village mates all being juvenile delinquents, getting into fights and talking shit, and she said that she had no real idea. I do believe her, as my mum is VERY naive. But that's also how any extremism thrives: People's ignorance, fear or naivety.

Another long story short: I somehow managed to de-program and re-program myself. I met new friends, away from the village and over the course of some years, we opened our eyes and minds and started questioning everything and anyone. That was a very painful process for me, as I was finally able to see my grandparents and parents as who they were. It also started a long and painful process of arguing about politics and history and our story and history as a family. I had verbal fights with my grandparents and my dad about politics and the state of the world nearly all the way up until they died. I let it go at some point because sometimes you have to let it go when you finally realise that you can't change someone. As long as they don't hurt other people that are dear to you, you need to let them go, as it sucks too much energy and just creates more bad vibes. You have to walk away.

Anyway.. I've been brainwashed and I have seen and dealt with other brainwashed people, so I know how easy it is to end up like that and I also know how hard it is to actually de-program and re-program. We exist in believe systems, our reality is made up of billion fragments of distorted reality. There is not much over-riding truth and if there is a bit, it's hard to find and one man's truth is another man's lie. The world is a rainbow of grey, there is no black and white, red and blue, right or wrong. It's all perception and context.

So, we need to find our own way through life and it's often confusing and crazy ways and possibilities. The only things that have really helped me during my 30 years since leaving the village are:

Empathy

Love

Respect

Stubbornness

Laughter

..and a bit of ignorance in the right places ; ]

Never take yourself too serious ever. Because you might suddenly discover that you are a bit of an idiot.

I am still a work in progress, I still get irritable with stuff that I should laugh at, I still shout and get angry at stuff that I should let go and I still get upset when I see this theoretically beautiful world descending into chaos.

I have to be calm and content and be happy that I survived a lot of crazy shit with a functioning brain and bright eyes. The answer is always Love Life. I believe in a positive evolution of the mind. That's my church.

Hate is for losers.

ps: I originally ended this post with "Death is for losers" and then Sharmila said "Shouldn't it be 'Hate is for losers'?", so I thought about it and then changed it accordingly. We all have to die, so death is just another part of life. No death, no life. A terrible paradox ; ]

But I think my original point is: We need to be good and awesome in life and not in death or "the afterlife". I don't say that there won't be any form of afterlife [what do I know?] but the thought that we get rewarded with a glorious afterlife just because we've been cruel arseholes in life is equally crazy and sad.

pps: Additional possible forms of 'religion':
Consumerism
Politics
Fashion
Food
Plastic surgery
..anything that has the power to replace that empty bit inside you that should be filled with love and happiness.

KIDS VS FOOD

2016-02-07T12:04:00.000+00:00

As an aspiring half-broken/half-defiant father of two daughters [2 & 4] the only kids thing that can really set me off is "food". Well, that's actually a big part of raising kids.. the crazy dance to make them eat something 'healthy & nutritious' at a certain time. Because they graze all the time.. they grab and munch and snack like there's no tomorrow.. half an apple here, a plum there, little biscuits that my mum always smuggles into the house, ..anything that is not "real food", when they are supposed to eat something properly a.k.a. breakfast, lunch or dinner, the grand spiel begins..

There's a great variety of scenes and plot twists:

I don't like this spoon
I want the red bowl
I'm not hungry
I wanted honey
I wanted golden syrup
I don't like the green bits
It's too spicy
There's not enough sauce / too much sauce
It's too hot
It's too cold
It's too lumpy / not lumpy enough
I want more!! (you make more) I don't want it now!!
I want something different!!
I don't like pasta
I don't like the stuff around the fish fingers
I want water instead of milk
I want milk instead of water
I want the spoon with the flowers on it
etc.

Baked beans are the only hassle-free food in existence. Baked beans are my happy place.. they will eat them without moaning and whining.. again and again .. the only stable thing in dad-world. God, I LOVE baked beans! ..and bacon.

‪#‎BreakingDad‬

Put Your Love In Me

2015-05-07T00:03:00.000+01:00

I only actually cried two times so far when someone died: One time was when my dad died of cancer in 2006 and the other time was this afternoon when I read that Errol Brown died. Just a couple of tears.. but still.. I have no fucking clue what happened there but it happened and if it says anything, it probably says something about the state that I'm generally in at the moment. There is a very well protected, very emotional person inside that grumpy old fuck.

I think the death of Errol made me realise that everything will come to an end. Everything. Everybody. And all that will be left will be the thoughts of the people that knew us - and this blog post will most probably still be on-line after I packed it in.

I never cared about Errol Brown. I don't know anything about him. And still, his death has touched me - because some of his music had touched me once when I was young and it stayed with me forever.

Tonight I wanna touch the stars

Tonight I wanna be in heaven

Put your love in me

This was my favourite song when I was 10. I loved that song more than anything. It's still in my top 10.

Most people know and like the more obvious Hot Chocolate songs like You Sexy Thing, I Believe In Miracles, It started With A Kiss, etc... the list goes on.. all nice, slightly boring pop songs.. but there was a couple of songs that were better: Emma is a dark soul ballad with that dirty guitar sound that should re-appear some years later on the great dirty disco bump ride that was Everyone's A Winner. But one song always stood out for me: Put Your Love In Me is the killer track.. my ticket to ecstasy, the soundtrack to my first wet dreams, later topped up with amazing stuff like Supermax's Lovemachine..

These things stay with you. They become a part of you. There's a version by the Tindersticks which is interesting but can't touch the original.

I remember hearing about Bobby Farrell, the dancer of Boney M, dying and that was a similar feeling because it also remembered me of my childhood and early teenage years, it left me feeling a bit empty and clueless. Like hearing that a cartoon character has just died.. you don't seem to be able to compute it properly. Boney M also only had a couple of great songs, well.. probably only one. Look at Bobby, the coolest guy on the planet.. who would have thought that he'd ever die?

Some music just does something to you.. it lights up something inside you, it actually talks to you and takes you on a journey to something new and nothing will be the same after that. It preaches in a language that is completely new.. shit like this:

Shit that grabs you with one hand by the throat and with the other by your balls and drags you in. Soul music. I just read that Errol died of liver cancer - like my dad.

RIP Errol Brown, you sexy thing.

How Pinterest killed my blog.

2015-04-16T12:02:00.004+01:00

Well well well.. not REALLY. But hey, I definitely spend more time on Pinterest nowadays than here, writing up little nuggets for you, the counter-culture-loving armchair-revolutionist.

I am 'big' on Pinterest. That's not actually my words, that's the general reaction when people look at the number of my Pinterest followers:

Funny thing is that I've never done anything to get that many followers except from pinning pics that I like to some boards that reflect some of my interests. No networking or following or god knows what 'increase your Pinterest followers' tactics. My main reason why I actually enjoy Pinterest is because I don't have to talk to anyone. I only follow a couple of other people there and never really talk to anyone. It's very meditative. It's like doing a massive puzzle, or like collecting stamps. It's therapeutic. It provides a safe visual haven in a digital world of action & reaction, of opinions & spin, of neediness & arse-licking galore. It's my safe place. That's why I love it and that's why I nowadays spend more time pinning than blogging.

There is a lot of trash talk out there about "Pinterest being for women", which I find both ignorant and misogynistic. It's just a platform for whatever you want to do with it. Just a canvas, nothing more. And of course, like any open platform and forum, it reflects society, so there is a lot of boring shit on Pinterest ; ] But also a lot of nuggets - if you know where to look.

I also often get asked "why don't you monetize your account??" Well, that would probably take the joy and lightness out of it, no? And therefore corrupt what I actually love about Pinterest. It's the same with this blog here: "Why is it not on wordpress with added SEOplugin??".. "why are there no adword ads??" .. "why oh why?" .. yeah.. because I don't care. I can't be bothered. I even ditched my custom supaswag.co.uk domain last year because the [German] host was a total dick because of some payment issues. No-one cares.

But hey, never say never. I rank front page in Google for a couple of great keyphrases with some of my boards. Please send your generous offers in a letter.

xxx

ps: I just challenged myself to spend one hour every week to write an interesting blog post. No fillers.. if I can't come up with something interesting after one hour I'll leave it and jump a week. I don't want to be a lazy arse blogger.

Visit Ingo's profile on Pinterest.

PERSPECTIVE / CONTEXT

2014-08-22T10:05:00.002+01:00

View the other 1,299,000 Earths

The Saturday Before Sunday - With Friends

2012-09-20T11:15:00.000+01:00

The day before my 40th birthday five of my best friends came all the way from Berlin to Cornwall UK to surprise me. A toast to friendship! A toast to the sea! This is The Saturday Before The Sunday.

La mer c'est mon cœur

Hot Chicks on Mopeds

2012-05-14T19:58:00.001+01:00

I just checked what keywords people were typing in to get to Supaswag.co.uk and one was 'hot chicks on mopeds'. So, having read in an online-marketing blog post that as a proper blogger you have to listen to your audience, I can now unveil that I indeed have listened and here it is, the 'Hot Chicks on Mopeds' post!!

I will from now on scan the world wide web and will not rest before I have gathered a substantial amount of hot chick on mopeds pictures. This shall from now on be a work in hot progress. Promised.

For now you have to make do with this:

Two hot chicks on mopeds

One hot chick on a moped

Another hot chick on a moped

Chick in a long coat on a moped

Hot moped chicks on video

Hot chick next to a moped

60s Italian Teenage Angst - Dancing On Your Grave

2012-03-24T22:43:00.003+00:00

Just came across this amazing video of a 1960s Italian cafe racer gang in a video for The Dukes:

It seems that the biker scenes are from the 1964 film 'Malamando' [music by the young ENNIO MORRICONE!], a typical Italian Mondo documentary that looks at "strange behaviors and practices in Europe, including nude skiing in Switzerland, hot-butchering in Italy, and an orgy in a graveyard."

Fuck Yeah!

An elegant look at early-Sixties' teenage angst and 'way out youth'..

"War babies. They want to be different. They don't want to belong to any mass society. They have their own-type clubs, their own 'in' groups."

It even stars the great Adriano Celentano!

Stardust C'est Moi

2012-03-04T10:37:00.000+00:00

You might have already read this somewere..

Every atom in your body came from a star that exploded. And, the atoms in your left hand probably came from a different star than your right hand. It really is the most poetic thing about physics: You are all stardust. You couldn’t be here if stars hadn’t exploded, because the elements - the carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, iron, all the things that matter for evolution and for life - weren’t created at the beginning of time. They were created in the nuclear furnaces of stars, and the only way for them to get into your body is if those stars were kind enough to explode. So, forget Jesus. The stars died so that you could be here today.

Atoms, eh? They come a long way. Our idea of time and size and space is like a baby gazing into the distance, trying to make sense of something that we can't actually comprehend, as we are still not even able to use our tiny little brains to capacity. We still have a long way to go.

We are stardust, we are golden,
We are billion year old carbon,
And we got to get ourselves back to the garden.
Well, then can I walk beside you?
I have come to lose the smog,
And I feel myself a cog in somethin' turning.
But then maybe it's the time of man.
And I don't know who I am,
But life is for learning.

"After we die, our materials are recycled throughout the universe, and some of it will eventually become a part of another person or another kind of animal. So even though your consciousness is gone, a part of you is "reborn" within another living being. Wouldn't this make the idea of reincarnation closer to reality than that of an undetectable part of you being sucked up into space and ending up in a place in which we have no evidence even exists?"

Recycling, baby ; )

Girls On Bikes? Girls RIDING Bikes!

2012-02-18T08:22:00.001+00:00

I looked at a lot of bike websites recently and learned two things:

1. Women seem to feature mostly as idiotic soft porn models in tasteless lingery, draped over bikes, pretending to 'ride' them.

2. A lot of bikers seem to have a bit of a shit taste in women and a weird attitude towards them:

"Look at the pictures and cast your vote for some of the hottest Motorcycle Babes on the Internet." >> www.motorcycle.com/babes/index.html

Err.. no thank you, you morons.

This is how most 'babes' look on bikes:

Ridiculous..

So, I had a look around for images of girls / women who actually ride bikes: Fearless girls, cool girls, normal girls, sexy girls, leather girls, stunt girls, chopper girls, cafe racer girls, old girls, young girls.. all sorts of great girls.. bike girls!

"I like flowers ..and grease"

Where's your helmet Erika?

I really hope this is not just clever posing

Just imagine the excitement of speed in these times. Mental..

Frau Shaft on her way to the butchers

HELL YEAH!

I don't think she's actually riding that bike but it's a great picture, especially with the original censoring

Now THESE are gloves!

Cuban Moped Gang. Everything is better in Cuba.

Poser Alarm! :D

She might not ride that bike herself ..but it's a very nice bike

Well.. this is just a great pic. Great hair, moody look, great machinery.

I bet her name is Angel. Or Lizzy.

Call the cops!! Or the airport police. Or the post office.

Lillian.. flirting with ☠

RIDE ON!

Das Madonna Hip Hop Massaker - Lost In Music

2012-02-07T00:05:00.000+00:00

I found an old video..

Well.. it's not THAT old. It's from 2001 but that already seems like a light year away. I found it on a CD that I have from my old band Madonna Hip Hop Massaker - when I put the CD into my laptop, a video icon also popped up and there it was: Big Mistake, The Trash House Remix Video. The last hurrah of my band before we split up. Our record company didn't trust the original 'indie rock' mix and got some hip remixer in to deliver the goods.. but no big radio hit - again.

Oooops.. It all started so well in 1995. During the 'Bands From Berlin Hype' of the mid-90s we managed to get signed by a major record label and produced our first record in a rancid Hinterhof studio in Berlin Kreuzberg. The 1st single Super Pop Peepshow [an ironic comment about the state that we were suddenly in] sold more than 10,000 times in Germany and a lot of other European countries and for a year or two we were one of the next big things.

From there we recorded 3 albums, played more than 250 gigs all over Germany, Switzerland, Austria and Italy since 1994, shared festival stages with KISS, the Beastie Boys, Sonic Youth and many more, went through more arguments and fights than Oasis, wasted 6 drummers, 3 producers, 3 keyboarders and 2 managers ..and did a lot of crazy regional radio and TV.

Rob Zoom, Miss Megatrance & myself

In the end it was too much Spinal Tap and not enough record sales to keep us going financially. Time for the burn out.. the end was near. There are some more interesting videos on the still existing Madonna Hip Hop Massaker website. Here's a song from the last record Radical Romance:

You can buy our first two albums on iTunes - What happened to the third album.. I don't know. It's not even on iTunes. We still owe two record companies money because they gave us advance cash that they never really recouped. I lived through the whole of the 90s just by playing a bit of guitar and arguing with producers and A&R managers. My main goal - a Japan tour - never came through but, hey, if all dreams would come through, there wouldn't be any dreams left. Rock'n'Roll & Vollgas baby!

Live is where the heart is:

..and to quote Miss Megatrance: "Danke, Tschüss!"

Sleazy Biker Movie Posters & Halbstarke

2012-02-04T20:13:00.002+00:00

People in the 60/70s seem to have been obsessed by Savage Orgies of Murder, Killing, Blood, Lust, Hard Living, Hard Loving ..and Werewolves on Motorbikes. Bit like today. So, that's a whole movie weekend of CGI-free cheap thrills sorted!

'Hog straddling female animals on the prowl' Just playing around..

'Belted, buckled and booted Superwomen' These Pussycats kill faster!

'Wild and wicked living with no tomorrow' Mega-Mayhem One Day Only!

'He'll take his chopper and ram it down your throat' [the whole thing, down your throat]

This gang found a new type of hell.. THE BRIDE OF SATAN!'

Satan = Werewolf?! Mmm..

'Their game is sex and violence' [and blood and lust of course]

'Chopper outlaws riding their hot throbbing machines to a brutal climax of violence!' In Color

Clearly everybody involved in the production and design of these cinematic pearls was on acid 24/7 ..except from Russ Meyer who was square like a cube. There's a great Russ Meyer biography called 'Big Bosoms And Square Jaws' by Jimmy McDonough and I recently bought a great photo book called 'Rebel Youth' by Karlheinz Weinberger who documented the arrival of Rock'n'Roll in Switzerland in the early 60s. It's full of absolutely amazing pics of rocker/biker youth gangs in all their DIY glory. It shows in a great way how the kids had to invent their outfits which were clearly inspired by US Rock'n'Roll and cowboy movies.

"In Germany and Switzerland the German term 'Halbstarker' was created in the 50s. It literally means half strong. The 'half strongs' were gangs of young people who were looking for an identity of their own. They rejected society’s expectation and were pioneers in the establishment of youth culture through music, clothes and assimilation of American culture.

©Rebel Youth: Karlheinz Weinberger, Rizzoli New York, 2011

Interesting stuff I found on the web last week

2012-01-23T23:58:00.000+00:00

..and the personification/machinification what's generally wrong with the world today:

I think we should take the Halloween decoration down before the neighbours call the police

2012-01-14T23:16:00.001+00:00

White Punks On Dope / TV

2012-01-09T20:57:00.001+00:00

When I was a pre-teenage village punk I was in love with Nina Hagen. I had heard her on a record that my older cousin had. There she was on the cover of the record.. all punk hair, smoking a fag, looking like Malcolm McLaren personally manufactured her in his Punk Lab. She was a trained opera singer and grew up in East Berlin, her mother a famous actress and her dad.. he was probably a Marxist terrorist or some freedom fighter in South America.

So, that's her version of White Punks On Dope by The Tubes. She wrote some great German lyrics for her version about hanging around and watching the telly, delivered in her weird operatic dada language. It was everything that my parents didn't understood condensed in a couple of minutes. Perfecto.

I later actually met her when we supported her at an open air festival in the late 90s. I was very late for that gig because for some strange reason I got there by train instead with the others from Berlin in our shitty little rent-van and there were two towns with the same name and I ended up in the wrong one and then had to take a taxi to drive for ages to the right town, so everybody had to wait for an hour for the support band to start which was quite embarrassing but I remember her having a chat with us afterwards and she was very sweet and even knew our band.

This is The Tubes' original version which is also one of my favorite tracks from this era..

Cafe Racer Pictures

2012-01-08T03:25:00.001+00:00

I finaly bought a motorbike. After years of denial I got a 1973 Honda CB125 S from Ebay which I christened 'Piccolo Bastardo'. The breaks are a bit shit but it's very loud, so I might survive because you can hear me coming from 10 miles away.

I like the idea of a bike in the living room

Next year I might upgrade to something bigger, but not too big. I like the idea of a small, light bike. Maybe something like this:

But that's $8000, so that's not really realistic, huh? Fuckin' hell.. where do I get $8000 from?! Maybe I should put Adwords on this blog and make some extra dosh with you and you and you ; )

Here are some nice cafe racer style bike alternatives..

I think this is my favorite:

It comes with a knuckle duster. Nice detail.

Sexy bike moto blogs I like:

Corpses From Hell
Bubble Visor
Ze Last Chance Garage Du 78
Eat The Rich

Disclaimer:

I nicked the pictures above from all over the web. If you have the publishing rights to any of them, please drop me a mail [supaswag at gmail.com] and I'll take them down if it's a problem for you.

Kitchen Design - A Handmade Tale

2011-03-23T12:46:00.001+00:00

The UK’s desire for handmade kitchens and bathrooms highlights a modern twist on nostalgia. It’s often said that the British have an over-developed love of nostalgia. And so what if it’s true? After all, there’s nothing wrong with celebrating the best lessons from the past and preserving tradition while looking forward.

And it’s this kind of nostalgia that’s central to the recent resurgence in popularity of bespoke and handmade kitchen designs that reference the past, while at the same time integrating modern innovations. Resurgent British design values are concerned not with trends and fads, but with timeless class and elegance. Hence, British kitchen design in the present is being defined through reference to architecture of particular eras, to the solidity of trusted materials, the use of balance and space, period details, and by a sense of finely crafted understatement.

It’s not just how kitchens look once they’re installed, either. Bespoke kitchen companies speak glowingly of their close-knit relationship with their teams of skilled craftsmen; harking back to a time when trades were a lifelong commitment. They encourage their clients to savour the importance of traditional joinery techniques like mortice and tenon joints, and handcrafted period details like pilasters and moulded dentil cornices – this craftsmanship has become a luxury, and its vocabulary a promise of quality.

Traditionally minded though it may be, that’s not to say that this new take on heritage doesn’t have a few ingenious tricks up its sleeve. Modern space savers like pull-out larders and pop-up spice racks hide clutter; appliances are cunningly disguised, resulting of course in a kitchen that looks less modern and more traditional as a result. Materials also appeal on the basis of heritage values, but wood choice and types of grain, pattern, variation, texture and so on are more varied than ever as bespoke kitchen makers source their materials (responsibly of course) from a global marketplace.

And to differentiate their services, the companies concentrate on a different kind of history – their own. It’s a case of the older and more distinguished the better; the likes of Smallbone Of Devizes is forever associated with the hand-painted kitchen and unfitted kitchen innovations, for example, and other bespoke makers proudly incorporate techniques carried over from other vanished industries, like boat building.

It’s not just kitchens that are benefiting from this timelessness. The luxurious haven of solitude that is the bathroom is similarly well catered for. Hand-carved stone slabs and bespoke cabinet furniture are available for your private sanctuary, and the period option is a popular choice reflected in the ranges of many design company portfolios.

It’s not that Brits are dismissive of the rest of the world’s design know-how. Flick through the glossy catalogues of any bespoke kitchen, bathroom or handmade furniture designer, and you’ll regularly spot elements of German, French, Italian, American and Japanese aesthetics. The desire to make exotic interior design statements or blend different cultural reference points will never leave the multicultural British psyche after all.

It’s more as though we’ve seen what’s on offer and opted to return, time and again, to a bit of luxury based on traditional values. And that’s surely the ultimate compelling argument for investing in one of these top-end handmade kitchens or bathrooms – heritage will never fall out of favour, and the traditional will remain eternally stylish.

Did I just write about expensive kitchens? I sure did. Watching Masterchef for six years in a row has left a deep mark.

Popes & Cunts

2011-02-06T15:55:00.002+00:00

PLUS!

Not the Pope's son [possibly not a cunt]

Not George Clooney [still possibly a cunt]

Mega Shark vs. Santander

2011-01-02T16:11:00.001+00:00

'Mega Shark VS Santander' 2011. $100.00 - For sale by the artist. Please contact us.

Just remember..

2011-01-02T15:21:00.000+00:00

Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving
And revolving at nine hundred miles an hour,
That's orbiting at nineteen miles a second, so it's reckoned,
A sun that is the source of all our power.
The sun and you and me and all the stars that we can see
Are moving at a million miles a day
In an outer spiral arm, at forty thousand miles an hour,
Of the galaxy we call the 'Milky Way'.
Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars.
It's a hundred thousand light years side to side.
It bulges in the middle, sixteen thousand light years thick,
But out by us, it's just three thousand light years wide.
We're thirty thousand light years from galactic central point.
We go 'round every two hundred million years,
And our galaxy is only one of millions of billions
In this amazing and expanding universe.

The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding
In all of the directions it can whizz
As fast as it can go, at the speed of light, you know,
Twelve million miles a minute, and that's the fastest speed there is.
So remember, when you're feeling very small and insecure,
How amazingly unlikely is your birth,
And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space,
'Cause there's bugger all down here on Earth.

By reddit_user13

Happy New Year

Crazy Caravans

2010-11-08T18:04:00.010+00:00

Have you ever been caravanning? No?! Well, checking out this madness on two [or more] wheels, it looks like hours of fun.

The last time I stayed in a caravan was in Bisbee/Arizona on my honeymoon trip. We stayed for a couple of days at the Shady Dell vintage caravan park in an 1957 El Ray which was beautifully restored and equipped with all sorts of period accessories. They even wired up the original radio so it only played 50s rockabilly. Sweet.

So, here we go.. Caravanning - Where the cool and the very un-cool mix effortlessly.

Home Sweet Tiny Home

Yes, birds love caravanning. Seriously.

And bunnies love it too!!

And royal midgets.

You can caravan on the water..

..in the air

..even in the future!

You can caravan in the past:

On a motorbike:

In a river:

In good company:

In disguise:

In style:

In even more style:

You can take everybody you know on a trip:

Or you can go on your own:

You can be patriotic:

Or reflective:

Folky..

..or Rock & Roll

..or alternative

You can even race caravans

But whatever you do..

..be careful

..and transparent.

Respect nature

..and be creative.

Don't be a jerk:

And whoever you are and wherever you go: Never forget that you are towing a caravan!!

HAPPY CARAVANNING!!

This post was brought to you by Woolacombe Holiday Parks, North Devon's most beautiful Caravan Holiday Park.

Keep On Joaquin

2010-10-13T22:07:00.007+01:00

So, after the bearded cat is out of the bag and Joaquin Phoenix is our favourite stuntman now, Jedda sent me her new video. Here's what she said:

I'm a film student at College of Fine Arts in Sydney Australia. I just recently made this funny animation in After Effects after seeing Joaquin Phoenix's 'Im Still Here'

I put it to this track by Deep Sea Arcade who have been getting heaps of Blog attention lately

Check it out....

BERLIN - International city of mystery

2010-10-10T18:50:00.002+01:00

Great food

Outdoor Karaoke

Great friends

New vs Old

Boring vs Epic