For the six year anniversary of writing newsletters on my... I mean on Tool's website, I thought I'd share some photos and thoughts... but mostly photos of my recent trip to Europe. (Yeah, I left all my notes at the hotel).
AMSTERDAM, HOLLAND
Some thoughts while leaving Dampkring coffeehouse: In Amsterdam, the Dutch drench French fries with mayonnaise instead of mustard, so be prepared if you're going to see Tool at the Heineken Music Hall on the 27th (maybe even bring your own mustard).
Let me know if she has moved yet. Or the guy watching her... or the dog, or if the candle has melted down any further (from a note scribbled while leaving The Grasshopper).
No more "SPACE CAKES" available here. Now only "SPACE MUFFINS." I knew it was too good to be true... Damn De Rokerij and other coffeehouses in Amsterdam... the laws keep changing!
Saw an actual police order (sign) in the Red Light that was probably meant to thwart the serious problem of (British) hooliganism. It read:
NO YELLING
NO SINGING
SIT DOWN
WHILE DRINKING
But as I read it, I heard someone shout: "I have dope, people!"
Now, where can I piss out all this Heineken?
Guess what they do with bananas here all you Southern Baptists? (I'll give you a hint - they don't make banana daiquiris). Yep, that's right, the same thing your wife does with mutated rutabagas shaped like jesus when you're at work (at least bananas were brought to Earth by E.T.'s).
HAMBURG, GERMANY
I finally managed to eat a hamburger in Hamburg! Even though it was at a McDonald's in the train station. Still, I'm going to count it and check it off my list. Now, all I need is to eat Bombay potatoes in Bombay, Maine lobster in Maine, Coney Island hotdogs in Houston and Chow Mein in Chow Mein, China.
Meet Danny's actor friend, Angelo - the new troublemaker on the tour, replacing the old troublemaker (right, Craig?.. right Todd?)
Goose-stepping room service icon in my room at the Raffles Hotel vier Jahreszeiten. Alright, maybe not... but a "Red Baron" mosquito did attack me during the night. The hotel also had "Amrita Spa Cuisine" and Koenig Pilsner on tap. Some Thelemites might like the sound of that (well, maybe not the Koenig part).
Members of the US World Cup soccer team with the band members backstage at the Hamburg show... but I think MJK is the only one who's going to score.
I'll never forget Michael's line: "How'd you like to be a bicycle seat in this town?
BERLIN, GERMANY
In Berlin you can even find a beer garden on the deck of a rusty boat! (BMB with some uber-fans just outside the venue.)
The band on stage in Berlin as seen through the pall of cigarette smoke.
Would you rather look at this or me trying to find a place to piss?
A stage shot of Tool again. After all it is their website.
Next, a gasoline-powered helicopter to fly into the Restricted Zone at Area 51 (or, so says Danny "a cup might have fallen out of the window" Carey)
Look what I found!
The photographer and his bier (see more of Duncan's work in the booklet in "Salival.")
Communists and their fancy brickwork!
LONDON, ENGLAND
Ah, breakfast in Berlin, lunch in London, and dinner at "The Double-Decker and the Ditch (pub)!
The Rosetta Stone. Security wasn't so tough inside the British Museum after all. It's a lot harder to get a couple of ice cubes in your gin and tonic.
Who says the food in England is shitty? In SoHo, I saw a trendy hamburger restaurant whose sign read: "NATURAL-REARED GRASS FED FREE RANGE CATTLE. Inside they show you pictures of the actual cow that's your burger... and I'm talking about the entire lengthy process of it's ultimate transformation from a natural-reared, grass fed, free range calf into the burger now on your plate. I would have tried one, but I already had a burger in Hamburg a few days before. I'm sure it, too, was of the natural-reared, grass fed, free range variety.
Yes, I really did ask the lady at the reception desk to bring up a bucket of ice to put in our toilet in the Millennium Gloucester Hotel (both days).
HAPPY TRAILS
BLAIR
JUSTIN
DANNY
MAYNARD
ADAM
Photos by Duncan Blake
