The Airportline: Observations

Important things are happening around us. Airportline takes you along to some of the stories of today. The BBC report that researchers have found a correlation between shopping and women having their periods. According to the article:
Psychologists believe shopping could be a way for premenstrual women to deal with the negative emotions created by their hormonal changes.

I'm not sure how to comment on this, but I'm sure it will anger some feminists and please some men who like to blame all bad things on periods.

As the financial crisis is getting more and more severe, world leaders are looking hard to find someone to blame. China is blaming the US, the US Congress is blaming everyone else, and now Sarkozy is threatening to walk out of the up coming G20 meeting unless some kind of 'global financial supervisor' is being introduced. Why? Because it's the anglo-saxons who got us into this mess. Times Online writes about it here.

International Herald Tribune has been incorporated in the New York Times website structure starting this Monday, loosing it's previous layout, which I liked. Now it has the same dull NYT look that's been around for way too long online. Fortunately they still have nice stories, as this one, about Fox News populist crazy pundit Glenn Beck who manages to make Sean Hannity look like a truly fair and balanced person.
He says that America is “on the road to socialism” and that “God and religion are under attack in the U.S.” He recently wondered aloud whether FEMA was setting up concentration camps, calling it a rumor that he was unable to debunk.

You are now free to return to whatever it is you are doing with your day.

‘You might as well put your dick on the table’ I told a friend of mine at a bar once. We had been there for a while, drinking beer or wine. My friend arrives and puts down a large beer on the table and I see an opportunity to connect the beer to a phallus symbol. My friend is puzzled, not expecting to be verbally assaulted before he even got the chance to sit down and have one sip of his beer. Instead a Swedish guy yells that his beer is some kind of exhibition of manhood. I do that sometime, say things at the wrong moment.

This is a short story I wrote this fall. Might go well with a quiet Sunday evening.

He walked through the door with proud steps, steps that said I am here. He was a person who walked through life thinking that walking was the whole purpose of his existence. Days were movement possibilities. When he was eight he broke his leg, but no one had time to sign his cast. No one painted green crocodiles on it, and no one wrote “Chelsea Football Club rules”, even though he did think that Chelsea Football Club ruled, at least that was what we thought. He was everywhere and nowhere, with his white cast. Sometimes I saw him from my window, limping across the wet asphalt of the school yard. When the asphalt was dry and summer planted flowers in the garden where he fell, he still limped around. He became a permanent moving image in a life that did not spin fast enough for any of us. He was a boy with a cast, and now he was a man, still with a cast. He opened the door to the café where I was sitting, reading a two day old copy of the Sunday Times by the window.
Hey! How are you? I said.
The man with the cast moved towards me with a blank expression on his proud body.
Who are you? He said while circling around my round table and me as if he was a planet that suddenly was in orbit around me.
I’m Frank, Frank from middle school. I used to watch you limp over the school yard with your cast.
Did we ever talk?
No, you were always moving around.
Why didn’t you just ask me to stop?
I don’t know, I guess I never thought about that.
Is that a two-day old copy of the Sunday Times? He asked, still orbiting around me as if I was the sun and he was the earth.
You want to take a walk? I asked.
Yes, he answered.
He opened the door and the asphalt was wet and we were both walking, orbiting around the same world, together.

An old man with a terrible cough put down his Arabic newspaper and looked at me. I was laughing, in the library. In the library people are serious and quiet. But I read this article in the International Herald Tribune about the Major race in the Russian city of Sochi (host of the Winter Olympic Games in 2014) and it contains the best introduction I've read in a long time, one paragraph that illustrate both the comedic and confusing events which, for a person that has never been to Russia, makes the country such a fascinating and at the same time scary place:

Now in the running to become mayor of the southern Russian city of Sochi: A former ballerina for the Bolshoi Ballet; a porn star who sometimes goes by the name "Velvet Angel"; the head of Russia's largest Masonic lodge; an Anglophile newspaper mogul; a Yeltsin-era reformer who is anathema to the Kremlin; and, among 15 or so other contenders, the president of Russia's Arm Wrestling Federation.

So it's Saturday again and time for another song. The 23rd of March 2005 I made a mix-cd to my sister with the somewhat mushy and melodramatic title ‘From One Heart To Another’. It consisted of 15 songs with motivations. The forthcoming 15 Saturdays I will present one of these songs per week with the motivations translated into English, so that you always have a song I thought was great in March of 2005 to listen to as you begin the weekend. This is song number 8 in the series. My motivation for this Bright Eyes song was:

The motivation for this song was quite ridiculous at the time, so I won't translate it. But listen to the song, it's very nice if you like plenty of emotion to go with your American folk music.

Amsterdam is full of men in kilts by the way. It might have something to do with the Holland - Scotland football game tonight.

So we went to Melkweg and spilled beers on our arms when we tried to dance to Peter Bjorn And John. And they played new stuff but threw in some older songs as well. And Denis wanted to injure the light man while I thought he was pretty good. 'This song in not about, and will never be about, Rotterdam', Björn said with his base on his stomach before kicking of the first hang over sounding baselines in their Amsterdam tribute song Amsterdam. Other high points was their new single Nothing To Worry About which most people had never heard. At first the giant base caused confusion among the crowd, have Peter Bjorn And John become a hip hop act? Maybe there was fear of a Joaquin Phoenix (Hollywood star turned aloof hip hop pretender) type of development? But at the end there was dancing going on before the band decided to end the evening with my favourite song, Up Against The Wall. This slow building gem was prolonged into a 15 minute whirlwind of energetic rocking which made me wonder how a real rock album from these guys would sound like. After that I bought a t-shirt for 5 Euros that said 'Peter Bjorn And John T-shirt'. This goes in line with the bands backdrop which says: 'Peter Bjorn And John backdrop'. Swedish functionalism has found it's way into contemporary pop. And so had giant hip hop beats, apparently. It could be worse. Much worse.

Peter Bjorn And John are in Amsterdam. Playing for a now sold out Melkweg. The Airportline serves up some pre-drinks and cow petting before the gig in his luxurious apartment. Some music will be played and some drinks will be drunk. Or we will be drunk and the drinks empty. Here are some songs that will be combined with this occasion:

Phoenix - 1901
Peter Bjorn And John - Nothing To Worry About, Lay It Down, Teen Love, Objects Of My Affection, Young Folks, Amsterdam, The Chills
Sebastien Telliér - Kilometer
Yeasayer - Tightrope
Jenny Wilson - Clattering Hoves
Lykke Li - Complain Department
Lil Wayne - Let The Beat Build

No, you can not suggest music I should play.
Basta.
That's Italian.
And it does not mean pasta.

So I was jogging down Spuistraat. I passed some empty red light windows, and I thought about Alvy Singer in Annie Hall who tried to spice things up by putting a red light bulb in the lamp next to the bed, and then I though how funny it was that the Swedish director Måns Herngren choose Annie Hall when he had to choose who he would like to wake up next to in an interview in Dagens Nyheter. And then I thought, how does the prostitutes handle the financial meltdown? Do men go there to forget about the real world, or do they choose to not pay for sex when things are tough?

From Lil Wayne to Ryan Adams. The Airportline is changing momentum, from larger than life insanity to red wine stained lyrics about lost love. It's a reflection of life I suppose, a reflection of an open mind even, that Lil Wayne and Ryan Adams can exist together, both bringing their own individual qualities. In a lecture I attended yesterday with Cees Hamerlink he talked about the danger of monolithic identities. When we reduce someone to 'a muslim' or 'a christian' and don't realize that this person is also a woman, a student, into music etc. People are complex and have multiple identities that can co-exist. When people forget about this, or try and make sense of the world by grouping people according to superficial group identities, that's when problems occur. That is why Lil Wayne and Ryan Adams co-exist here, cause I'm a fan of both gansta rap and melancholic singer/songwriter pop. Complexity defined, right here.

And she said that we were bastards, and that my face looked gay. She continued, claming that also she looked like a bastard. I guess we were a group of bastards, bastards with beer, she had wine. Then she said 'you'll look good in anything' before she claimed that several people at The Prague Post were, fucking, bastards. 'You can't wear orange, you'll look like a bastard' she then told me. She asked us if we wanted to go to Bali with her. We declined the invitation artfully. Well, we said: no. She placed her glas of wine next to the table, making it crash on the stone floor. There was no magic, just a group of bastards, and a broken glass of wine. And we left her in the bar and went out in the Prague night. Old town square was quiet, and old looking. While the bartender cleaned up the shattered glass. Maybe she too was a bastard.

The storm almost blew me of the road. On my way to Yoga. Struggling to pass the central station. It just stood there, visibly unaware of the gusty winds. Oblivious to the weather, trains coming and going. And one floor underground, in a building on Spuistraat we bended out bodies for one and a half hours, and during the relaxing part during the end of the class the guy next to me started snoring. Afterwards I talked to my Yoga teacher, she thought I was German. Then she said that I seemed very present in the moment. That's a good thing in Yoga. And I went out in the storm with a relaxed body, and Lil Wayne sang 'and the beats go, boom, bo bo boom' in Let The Beat Build and he was right cause that's how the beat sounded. And the rain keeps falling but there are still readings to do. There are pages to turn and coffee to drink. Monday in Amsterdam.

It's Sunday and M. Ward is singing 'Don't they love you in mysterious ways. You say yeah but this is now and that was then' in his song Post War against the sunshine outside. I sent a strange email to Miranda July on Friday, a result from a Thursday hangover. And yesterday I went to the Hague to play floorball instead of spending time in the sun. And after over two hours of fighting we lost in over time, and we sat in the changing room with empty eyes and Heineken beers afterwards. Then we drove back, and the sun was setting over the fields next to the highway.

So it's Saturday again and time for another song. The 23rd of March 2005 I made a mix-cd to my sister with the somewhat mushy and melodramatic title ‘From One Heart To Another’. It consisted of 15 songs with motivations. The forthcoming 15 Saturdays I will present one of these songs per week with the motivations translated into English, so that you always have a song I thought was great in March of 2005 to listen to as you begin the weekend. This is song number 7 in the series, which took a break the two past Saturdays. My motivation for this José González song was:

An artist that both me and my sister has liked for a long time, this is one of his best songs, and a song where his development as a lyricist really shows. Here he takes a step from the vague lyrics of his breakthrough album Veneer as he puts the cards on the table. A song about a confrontation in relationship hasn't bitten this hard in a long time. (At that point I did not know that this is a Kylie Minogue cover)

And the fuss ball table is occupied with similar people like us, and sometimes we look at them, not because we care about the score, or because we think it is so cool that there is fuss ball playing going on behind our well crafted backs, but because it's life, and if life plays fuss ball, we will look sometimes. We sit with our student characterized small hunches coming from too many hours in front of the computer reading poorly phrased academic journals. And it is a romantic picture for those without this option, for the people that stopped getting to know more people, for the people that choose safety before experience, and comfort before the wonders of a life not staying on the beaten path, but for us it’s just Saturday and beer.

And we exchange small phrases with the people we don’t know but we really don’t care that much. Maybe it’s the constant movement, the constant up-rooting that is the reason for the lack of interaction. But it’s ok cause if there is someone special, someone that speaks your language without speaking, then the option to be more involved is there. And I go and get beer at the bar, and pass people in their 50s shake their head to the music. They look like people that have lived life without the easiness and healthiness of the people we left around where we grew up. And why is it so that this often is seen as a negative thing? As if aging from experience is something which should be avoided at all costs, as if the quest to not look old is more important than to live so that your age is not something detached from you, but is you. A personality that has a beauty which many people fail to see.

And I see women in my own age, with a smooth skin and energetic hairstyles and eyes that shoot stars. This might be and Arcade Fire song. And all the experience logic I just presented falls out of my head and blends with the beer stained wooden floor. I stand a few centimeters from the bar where the bartender cleans the beer glasses which we will soon drink out of. And the change from my five euro bill is soaked with beer, we are all soaked in beer, it’s effects floating around in our minds with a pleasant and relaxed atmosphere, on tables filled with the foam that pulsate out of the glass when they are handed from the bartender's wet hands, the same hands I mentioned previously in this sentence. And people are still playing fuss ball, and the old people that look their age are still dancing and life is still moving, heading to unknown places with or without you. That might be a U2 song.

And we sit in bars and talk about the smell in Brussels, and the music is louder than it should and the walls resemble a construction site. And we drink beer cause it matches the interior, the well used sofas with the history of unspoken things forgotten about the morning after, of people meeting and learning, of people fighting and finding a common ground, a place where beer stained thoughts have been produced. And there are people from different parts of the world and this night we are here, in one place, and it’s a presence that we don’t think about even though the uniqueness of it will be apparent to all of those that stayed where we came from, in the towns of local culture, from the neighborhood areas where everyone knew everything. And the drums of a punk band we don’t care about crashes over the conversation and we lean forward, yelling in each other’s ears cause we say things that need to be said, and we have no time to wait for the punk music to stop assaulting us with drums. And some people go and smoke cigarettes and we keep sitting, throwing down the chilling smooth beer in our glasses that sweat on the wooden table where so many other beers have been sweating before.

Some people go on holiday and forget about life, war and other bad things. This is fine, and normal. Going to a Communist museum which showed the long battle against the Communists, on streets we were walking on in Prague... (café is playing Timbaland extemely loud, it's very difficult to form conclusive sentences with his beats crashing down on me, Denis is reading a book about Violence, called 'Violence', Ben is Prag Posting towards a deadline)... and then going to a documentary film festival and saw a documentary about the International Criminal Court in The Hague (called The Reckoning, the same title of my now famous leaving Amsterdam in summer of 2007 party), is maybe less normal. We were gonna do some second hand shopping but only found an art deco store with weird lamps. We did eat saussage and drink beer as well though. Today we write 'Andy Warhol' exhibition and 'St Patrick's Day' on the program. But right now it's George Michael and a cappuchino.

Jazz music is playing in the speakers of the Starbucks café me an my accomplice, Denis has retracted to. Outside the rain slowly falls over the majestic city of Prague. It really is majestic, with it's lit up monuments, it's bridges and crocked streets of the old town. There has been walking and drinking and talking going on since we arrived in our poorly designed Sky Europe flight. Today we will learn about Communism, but first some more coffee, an academic article about blogging and some more coffee. Central Europe on a monday. Feels relaxing.

The Airtportline is going to Prague.
Very early in the morning.
Watch this space for more info.
Now I need to pack my flatmate's bag, which I'm carrying. First time the Airportline does not check anything. I love to check stuff. Flying with only carry on normally means much more preparations. One could wounder why I choose to pack less than six hours before I need to get up. Me too. Less preparation, more Prague? I say yes.

As John Steward continues his hilarious CNBC bashing on the Daily Show, The Airportline throws some shit at some big organisations who clearly have no clue of what they are doing. Enter: the greed of the corporate world.

The financial crisis is depressing stuff. It never ceases to surprise me how many mistakes top corporate people are doing at these times when it comes to their actions and their communication. It's like they have lost touch with everything. The GM people fly corporate jets to Washington to beg for tax payer money, Citibank orders news corporate jets, which they cancel after a media frenzy. The Swedish government forbid banks which they have given aid to give out bonuses, but the AP-funds (the government agency which handle the taxpayers pensions) choose to introduce a bonus system after loosing over 20 billion Swedish kronors last year. Volvo decided to beef up their bonus system for the executives even though they have suffered a dramatic decrease in orders. Eventually also they decided to go back on this due to strong internal and external critique. Either these organisations are employing idiots in their communication departments, who have not been able to explain how bad and detached from society this would look like, or, the management has not cared about what anyone says and was hoping that it would never come out.

Organisations need to understand that communication is not something you do only when things are good, it's not a detached part of the operations, and it's not a PR-tool, it's something that must be everywhere in the organisation. It must guide the actions of its people and the decisions taken must be aligned with what the company stands for. Unless GM, Citibank, the AP-funds and Volvo stands for greed, detachment and a lack of contact with reality they should have realized this. Everything a company does communicates both internally and externally, the apparent lack of understanding regarding this fundamental fact both illustrate the greed of the current system, even among traditionally 'good companies' such as Volvo, as well as an amateurish understanding regarding communication.

Ok, that feels better.

Today spring came. From where you ask? I don't know, it just came, I guess it had nothing better to do. I've said this four times already, that spring came, that is. So don't believe me if I'm wrong, again. But anyways, it's coming, now. And I'm going, out, soon. Have you looked at yourself in the spring sun? I have the same skin colour as milk, in the sun. Without sun I'm just pail. This is the case for most people, I tell myself and my skin. I don't know if that makes it more ok. Maybe it's just factual.

The cars outside my window are driving a little bit faster today. Maybe cause they see better now that it's not raining, or maybe it's spring. I bike faster in spring, become more effective, go from place A to place B, in time X. X is a good time cause you decide what it is. It's your own control button. So you go out, with spring and control in your mind, and then you get slapped by the Amsterdam wind. It doesn't care that it's spring for the fourth time, it's still there, blowing you in the face. Laughing at you and your control.

Maybe you thought that Peter Bjorn And John were a one hit whistling wonder. Well, I forgive you for thinking so, but you were always wrong. The Swedish three pieced orchestra is getting ready to hit back after their monumental album Writers Block, and they're doing it sounding like Lykke Li's Breaking It Up (Bjorn produced her debut album Youth Novels, so you should not be that surprised) mashed up with Teddybears Stockholm. The two first tastes from their forthcoming album shows that they've clearly lost their mind, in the same good way as M.I.A.s clothing always did. The videos for Nothing To Worry About (above, containing Japanese Rockabilly gangsters in black doing choreographed dancing) and Lay It Down (containing ironic dancing with face masks in basement party) shows that the band still have a killer sense for what is contemporary (funny videos on youtube) and still know how to put together a pop song, with Nothing To Worry About being especially impressive with it's big beat and fuck you attitude, not so common in Sweden (excluding big mouthed The Hives).

On the 26th of March they grace Amsterdam and Melkweg with a visit, I've got tickets, you should come too. Last time I saw them here, fall of 2006 in Paradiso's small hall the base player seemed stoned and talked about Skellefteå AIK, a Swedish hockey team, in Swedish.

Later in the week I will write about Brussels and yell at corporate leaders and their lack of communication understanding. It will be great.

Stranded. In Amsterdam. Stuffed nose. Headache. Cold feet. Insert: oh I'm so sorry, here---
Watched Frost/Nixon. Great.
Watched The Wrestler. Great.
Watched Melinda and Melinda. Even though it was a Woody Allen movie. Less good.
Took a walk. With music. Nose still stuffed.
Drinking diet Coke.
Brussels tomorrow?
Maybe
Insert: sleep, now.

I'm really into France right now
These are the reasons:

I'm reading Bodil Malmsten's – Priset på vatten i Finistère (in Swedish), about her first year in France after leaving Sweden. A bit too much about gardening, but full of wisdom.

I'm also reading her blog where she writes about life in France, and Finistère.

I'm in love with Phoenix new song 1901 I wrote about here. It was the most blogged about song in the world the past week. If you haven't gone to their website and downloaded it, you really should. They know how to craft a hit, Paris based Phoenix.

I'm going to French speaking Brussels tomorrow for three days of cultural, beer and European Commission action. I will try and write something about my experiences in 'Urine City' on the blog.

I've rediscovered Une année sans lumière, the part French song from Arcade Fire's monumental debut album Funeral.

And I'm watching this video of Eddy Izzard explaining how difficult it is to say the monkey is on the branch in French, in France.

It's all about France and nose spray here in my room.

I was gonna rant about the lack of communication understanding among big wig CEOs during the 'financial crisis', but I'm too tired for that. So I'll give you a movie suggestion instead. Saw this one a few weeks ago and I loved it. It's about a relationship between two awkward and very lonely characters. I suggested it to two friends who angrily confronted me in a bar after seeing it, thinking it came across as justifying the behavior of Jason Patric's character. I don't think it does. In the end the character Samantha Morton's plays says:

Yes, we all want to make a difference I suppose. You ask yourself – what did your love do? What did it really do to the once you gave it to?

I like that question, and if you're into defunct relationships, and like movies such as Magnolia, Punch Drunk Love or Me And You And Everyone We Know you should see this.

I like a lot of things about 22-year old noise punk, surfertrash, indiehypeband Wavves, lead by San Diegan Nathan Williams.
It's a great band name.
The album cover (see above) make me think of playing in the summer when I was a child.
He's packing more distortion in his songs that Clipse packed Cocaine before they started rapping.
On his myspace he explains his music as “slow death”.
His 'hit' song So Bored has that hard to define sound of sunshine, Jesus & Mary Chain, darkness and some of the upfront madness of Nirvana. And there are girls singing aahhhhaaa.
I do like that song.

But.
Most his stuff really hurts my ear.
So did last years South Cal noise hype No Age.
I'm not that punk I guess.
I need more melody.
Like early And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead.
More distortion?
Then I listen to The Raveonettes (klick here for kick ass video) or The Radio Dept.
There you go, you can now run away to listen.
I will blow my nose.
Again.
And again.
And again.

If life would only consist of meatballs,
I would do really well.
Now,
less well.

This is what I just wrote to someone.
Library communications.

This Friday I watched a long interview in Swedish with, probably my favourite Swedish author, Jonas Hassen Khemiri. I understand that you not-Swedish people find his name as non-Swedish sounding as you are. But be calm, Sweden is no longer only a country of blond women with large breasts and white tennis players with hair bands. We also have writers that provoke and enhance the Swedish language with both creativity and bravery. Jonas Hassen Khemiri is maybe the best example of this trend, both his books Ett Öga Rött (One Eye Red in English) and Montecore – En Unik Tiger (Montecore in English) are both magnificent books which he has sold translation right to both the U.S and The Netherlands and Germany.

In this interview he claims that he sometimes is more concerned by fictional character than with real ones, and that he sometimes spends too much time with the fictional characters and not enough with real ones. I find this very interesting, a sort of productive escapism. And maybe it's something that is demanded from a great fiction writer, just as a business man needs to devote time to his work, so does a fiction writer with his/her characters. And maybe that's why I will never be as good as him, cause so far, I'm not willing to trade time with real people for time with my fictional character. Maybe I just need to come up with better characters, characters that I would like to spend time with...