24th of July to the 11th of August

My frequency of posting has not gotten better. There is somehow no summer slowdown whatsoever. Things are good. Great even. Everyone is happy and healthy and I am still reading a lot and work is busy but fun. I have always been a big fan of very gory movies and I have had the pleasure to watch the latest Rambo and then the Terrifier franchise on Amazon. Good times! The best of times however was the visit to a music festival with Killswitch Engage headlining and boy, oh boy, that was insane. So good! Every song was incredible. I screamed and sang every single word. So good! If you have the opportunity to see KSE live then by all means please do that! Now to the stories that I write based on prompts from a book.

24th of July: “How do you die in your dreams or what is your hunch about dying?”

I don’t die in my dreams. I believe I never did. I also don’t really have a hunch about how I am going to leave this world. I hopefully fall asleep in a great chair with a book in hand and someone around. Everybody is happy talking about stories where their lives and my life did cross and enjoy something that I have enjoyed. Maybe open up a nice whiskey. Raise a glass of wine. Read from a great book. Play Batman Returns in case it is around Christmas time. Try to be happy. Yeah, I really don’t have dreams about burning or getting a heart attack or lying in a hospital bed. All good, we will all have to go at some point in time. Let’s hope there is still enough time.

25th of July: “A phone conversation between two good friends”

Paul: “Man, that was sick.”

Mike: “Amazing, I have no idea how they did that for 2 hours.”

Paul: “I mean they were sweating like mad!”

Mike: “I couldn’t do that for 2 hours. Sweating or not.”

Paul: “There was just no slowing down. I screamed the whole time with them.”

Mike: “You really know all their lyrics, eh?”

Paul: “Fuck yeah, but to be honest sometimes I just screamed random stuff and tried to stay on tune.”

Mike: “Best concert in a while. Thank you for bringing me along. Talk soon?”

Paul: “Sure thing. Have a good one!”

26th of July: “Eavesdropping or connecting two unrelated conversations”

You know this actually happens to drunk people and I don’t even have to think or make something up. Here is the conversation a comedian friend told me of two drunk people walking arm in arm, keeping each other steady and you will understand that this fits the prompt perfectly.

Drunk Guy 1: “Man, it’s insane what you can do with milk. You can make cheese. You can make it into ice cream. You can drink it. You can put it in a cake. You can put it in coffee. You can put it in tea…”

Drunk Guy 2: “They said it was going to rain on the weather forecast.”

Drunk Guy 1: “You can foam it up. You can boil it and there is this film on top…”

Drunk Guy 2: “I understand that they can only predict like 2 days with somewhat of a certainty.”

Drunk Guy 1: “There is buttermilk and skimmed milk and high fat milk and you can make cream and heavy cream…”

Drunk Guy 2: “Yeah, at least today it is not raining.”

Drunk Guy 1: “All of this with just milk. It’s insane.”

Drunk Guy 2: “I think it is good we talked.”

Drunk Guy 1: “Yeah, thank you, man!”

27th of July: “What is your personal anthem?”

That would be “The Year Summer Ended In June” by “Misery Signals”. I believe they are my favourite band or somewhat up there in my Top 5. This is a song that is as Metalcore as it gets. The lyrics are deeply emotional as the song is an anthem and a remembrance of the bandmates they have lost in a terrible car crash. So this heavy backstory featured makes it hit even harder and I believe one can hear that. It is also a song full of nostalgia and longing for friends you have lost along the way. Somehow this song also doesn’t bring me down. It gets me pumped. To cherish everything that is happening and live in the here and now. To me, the effect is a bit like the Buddhist reminder of making it clear to yourself that one day you will die and instead of making you feel depressed it is supposed to make you live harder. So this is it. That is my anthem. Play it and enjoy life more!

28th of July: “Plot synopsis of two of my favourite films in one sentence”

A rock musician gets killed at Halloween in a rainy, dark and gothic city and then comes back to take revenge dressed to the nines with a crow companion.

Our lives are all connected and that is shown through some almost unbelievable happenings that all come together eventually and all that is basically Aimee Mann songs as a movie."

Can you readers identify the two movies from that?

29th of July: “A sociopath or psychopath and how they make you feel and become part of a villain of your story”

This did indeed happen. I do believe I met some people with sociopathic or even psychopathic tendencies or traits. Sometimes their mannerisms or behaviour made me feel amused, fascinated even, but most of the time I was just in disbelief at how that kind of behaviour had them grow old to the age they were at the time. So there was this one guy who always did the most ballsy stuff. Like driving to a fair without tickets, going through the back entrance with a big black car and then just enjoying the day there. Drinking and eating for free with people that spend thousands on the booths there and whatnot. Just making up stories when confronted that were presented in such a confident way that people just bought it. Fascinating? For sure! Interesting? Yes. A bit crazy? 100%. This person for example also had great charisma to go with that confidence and if I would write a villain I would make the villain also charismatic as fuck with motives that make it understandable to a “normal” person that the villain behaves in a certain way. I don’t think the villains that are evil for just evil sake are interesting. I also like to mention that I have not been hurt or do know someone hurt by a socio- or psychopath, so it is really just fascination for me. Otherwise, I would be scared of these people and again that is something that would work and influence me with the fiction I write.

30th of July: “What themes or ideas surface in your writing?”

This is a difficult question. I should ask ChatGPT to scour through themes in my writing. Thinking about this a bit longer. It is odd characters/misfits and underdogs and the fascination I have with them. It is also a mix of dark themes: death mainly and then the contrast with some amusing and lighthearted stories. A positive outlook on almost everything. I will ask ChatGPT to go through and confirm or deny what I wrote here. What do you readers think shines through?

31st of July: “How would the dedication in your book look?”

To all the misfits out there. The ones that function a bit differently. Be brave and make the moves that make you feel good. You are not alone, just put yourself out there and stop comparing yourself. In the long run, you will be amazed by what you can accomplish and create for the world to see, hear or read.

1st of August: “My take on aroma, like with wine or cheese or coffee”

There is a dude on TikTok who analysis beer with a wide variety of words. He recently reviewed the beer from a brewery just two streets down from where I live. It’s a punk beer. Cheap, cheerful and really only good when it’s cold and you drink it fast. The way he described it was masterful. A crafted beer that is more than that. A bouquet of floral tastes with hoppy notes and a strong malt finish. Sometimes these connoisseur tastings make me laugh. With red wine, I think they did a double-blind test where these people were not able to tell apart different dry red wines, but that is beside the point. Let me describe the bottle of Laphroaig Select that I bought for my birthday. Opening the bottle sounds like removing the butt plug of the most beautiful troll you have ever seen. The smell that leaves the bottle is torfy. It’s the smell of a little puddle in the ground that you have found wandering the Scottish landscape half dying of thirst and this water hole draws you in with pheromones that on top of your thirst make you horny. This waft of air is so alluring that you hold back drinking and dream of the battles you have fought and all the battles before that must have happened in the field you stand in. Once your lips touch the drink tiny little sexy needles touch your mouth and the insides of your mouth. They make a little dance and refresh your tongue with notes of mint and a smokiness that you would know from Amy Whithouses eye makeup. What stays with you after you down the sip is some sweetness. The horniness stays and you just reduced the thirstiness a bit. So you have to have another sip after that and hope that it just lasts. The most beautiful troll now has entered your mind and will possibly never leave.

2nd of August: “Could you write a memoir and what would the cover look like?”

I believe I could write a memoir and to be fair I believe it would have compelling content. Justin Bieber wrote his memoir a bit early I think and others have people write their memoirs for them. I would write mine myself, but it would have to be proofread. Anyhow it would be a compilation of things that have happened and hopefully, it would have merit. As for a cover I think it would have had the forests of the Erygebirge contrasted with the skyline of Shanghai and I guess my face somewhere maybe once with corpse paint from a show and once in a suit or so…

3rd of August: “The most dishonest person you’ve ever met in a few sentences.”

I met this dude on my second tenure in Shanghai. A jolly fellow with a shaved head and glasses with thick rims, most of the time without glasses in the frames. Apparently, a judo black belt and that I almost believed after training a little bit in a school that apparently had free access to it at any time, but then people gave me the stink eye when I dressed in one of the Gis he lent me. He also was always organising parties. Sex parties even, so he told me. Every time he invited me over to one of these parties it was just him. He also forgot his wallet often, so I had to pay for everything we did together. Sometimes even the last beer on his walk back home and the bus he may or may not have taken. He could possibly be the mayor of his district right now, but he for sure is not.

4th of August: “The Pain of Loneliness”

I am glad to say that this rarely ever happens. It just creeps in on a level of me wanting to talk about a different topic in the wrong setting or am elsewhere in my head. Loneliness kills. Literally. We are social animals. It is important to talk to other humans, to be part of a tribe or a group and to be and feel heard and understood. Loneliness is painful but it just creeps in and works on you, it hollows you out. I think especially with young men there are also false prophets that empower loneliness with smoke and mirrors and have it get stronger in your body. Identifying with the loneliness and the long past ideas that make you proud of the loneliness and your incel status. Loneliness doesn’t correct or help you. It smells like stale beer and cheap cigarettes. It revels in conservatism and ideals that might have never existed in the way some people (that you don’t know) sell them to you. Being alone from time to time is power. Loneliness is not something we should strive for.

5th of August: “An alluring accent"

I really like Theo Vons Southern accent, but hearing the same or a similar accent from someone else is not as sexy. British accents are where it is at. Give me Ian McKellen or James McAvoy as Sandman in the audiobook could read the telephone book to me. These accents sound sophisticated, smart and sexy. Like a good suit for all occasions. Like someone who could fit in and stand out, however it pleases them. Love it!

6th of August: “A do-over for one time”

I’m not sure how and if I would use this. I think I would just cheat a bit and enhance my younger self with way more confidence. In my late teens and early twenties, I often made myself smaller than I am. If I see today what kind of airheads are bragging about what they have accomplished and the positions they land in amazes me. I should have just told my story with more confidence and had the moment way earlier to know what I am capable of and have achieved. Even back then I brought a lot to the table but was just downplaying things a lot. Language capabilities, hard- and soft skills and never failing a class for example. So I wouldn’t do-over anything really. I just wanted to equip my younger self with more self-esteem and succeed earlier in the adult world and working environments.

7th of August: “If you could spend the day with one writer…”

Ernest Hemmingway or Chuck Palahniuk. I think I would have a lot in common with Ernest and just drink and maybe spar that day (boxing and ideas). With Chuck, I would pick his brain the whole day and talk about writing exercises and have him go over some texts that I wrote.

8th of August: “Elements of Religionism where you grew up”

In the little village where I grew up Church had a big draw. Catholicism is not big in the former GDR. So the branch of the Christian church there was evangelical Lutheran. That has nothing to do with Evangelical churches in the American sense. So eventually I got baptised and later confirmed because that was just what you did living there. I left the church at age 19. I don’t remember religious nutcases. In fact, I hold some of the religious people from that period of my life in the highest regard. Great friends. Fantastic human beings. But of course, there are some interesting outliers. The wife- and children-beating-churchgoers and some proper businessmen that have cuckoo children left and right in the same village. Also, there always used to be this really clever tactic of taking critical comments or questions and answering them and then later praying for you and questioning that you yourself might be the most devout person. Really interesting stuff.

9th of August: “Confessional literature”

I have nothing to confess. Whenever I had something to confess I did that pretty much right away to the people involved or affected. I actually don’t understand that practice very much. I like how that is portrayed in the Daredevil Netflix series, but what is that in reality? Maybe someone that you might very well know beating off to sexual stories people confess or someone that listens to actual crimes and not reporting them. Why is this a thing? I don’t get it. Who does that help but the perpetrator to clear their conscious?

10th of August: “The smallest place in your home and a story in it”

This must be the letterbox for our flat in the house. I am pretty sure a tiny little spider lives in there and is equally excited and scared every time the flap to her home is opened. She doesn’t know that we consider spiders our friends in our family. We seriously do. But that spider doesn’t understand Human. She sleeps in there and goes and relaxes after building net after net in the stairwell. Sometimes she takes some food home and eats a little fly inside the letterbox. Her kids have moved out. I think her kids live in our apartment and some might not have made it if they tried growing up in neighbouring flats. We don’t know. She doesn’t know. I just hope her kids visit her from time to time so she doesn’t get grumpy and lonely. From us she is safe and as long as she is fast enough to duck away from letters being thrown around her home she will get however old spiders can get. You do you lady!

11th of August: “A picture from 1850 to 1950 of a major city that sparks a flame”

I searched for 1900 Shanghai and wow! This is magical. More than 100 years ago this was already a bustling city. Shops left and right and banners hanging from tall buildings that must have 10 stories or so. The streets are filled with Rikshas and people walking determined around. There is a bit of folder 20s noir flair about the pictures and then there is also some old kung-fu-flick-flair that jumps at me. There is almost no greenery or vegetation that could be seen, which I find a bit sad. But there is also no pollution visible and the streets are very clean. This could be the picture of some sort of utopia and in comparison around 1900, this was for sure a city of and from the future. If I would have been alive and well back then in the 1900s I would have been fascinated by that place too and would have strived to travel there, but in reality, I doubt someone in my village would have heard from a city so far east.