After the drive and an hour ferry trip from Hamburg we arrived in Aalborg, Denmark for a show in a small venue that came up at the last minute. This gig basically covered our travel expenses to Sweden. We got a good recording and enjoyed the night thoroughly. Good folks to work with. The accommodations were interesting. One large room with mattresses on the floor. It was kind of a pajama party for grown-ups. Maybe these kinds of sleeping arrangements are cool for teenage rock bands, but at this point in my working life I'm not overjoyed with crashing on the floor.
I couldn't help but notice something so foreign and so unusual to my experience that it deserves comment.
In Denmark, people leave their bicycles unlocked. They go to the market or whatever and they just put the kickstand down and leave their bikes where they parked them. I was dumbstruck. We all were. The idea is so strange to us that you could leave your property in public and someone would not steal it just blows my mind. What is it in the American psyche that finds it strange that normal is stealing and odd is not stealing? Ours is a perverse national consciousness, utterly out of step with the rest of the world and ignorant of it. Merchants leave wares out in the open without security guards standing lookout.
Another example: I went looking for an Internet café this morning and couldn't find the one the desk clerk recommended. I stopped a young woman on the street and asked directions. She took it upon herself to go into a store and ask the owner if he knew of any in the neighborhood. Then, when he wasn't much help, she inquired where I was staying and I told her the hotel name. She made another recommendation and I thanked her and went about my biz. After a short walk through the neighborhood, I returned to the hotel where I was staying, only to find that she had gone there to offer to take me to her office around the corner to use her computer. Don't read the wrong thing into this. She was being helpful to a stranger in her town. What's the chance of something like that happening anywhere in America?
Michael Moore's film "Bowling for Colombine" touches on this a bit. There's an atmosphere of fear and mistrust in America so thick you can feel it. Maybe not without reason, but it's all out of proportion with the way life could be lived. We're out of whack.
Why does Sweden have the highest standard of living on earth? What are the social policies and leadership qualities that make Sweden what it is and America is not?
Europe has its woes, of course, but fear of your neighbor doesn't seem to be part of the fabric of society. Not to mention the long-standing fact that there's health care for all. In every nation in Europe there is a safety net for its citizens. If you're out of work the government will help pay your bills. This is not Pollyannaish. You must perform service work in return. But that's the point. Everybody contributes to the quality of life.
Everyone works at something and can make a living wage doing it. I've seen people whose job it is to sweep the streets. It's an honorable job. It contributes to a nicer city life. It's necessary, too. The word that terrifies American political leaders is "social." Social programs, social medicine, social security. God forbid: Social-ism. It's a word that Americans really have no understanding of and it's a pity. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Seems to be the American way today.
What's gone wrong in America? We are the richest, most powerful nation on the face of the earth? We can bomb you into oblivion with state of the art munitions but we can't educate our children. We can't feed our poor, we can't care for our elderly or mentally ill but we can mass-produce high fat, fast food to the degree that one of the nations leading health problems is obesity. We can't provide healthcare for all our citizens. There's a selfishness and arrogance that's really unattractive in the national character of America. Will we ever grow up?
Arrived in Goteborg, Sweden via ferry from Denmark and had a fine night's music. Had a great dinner and observed a club full of Swedes dancing their asses off to Latin music. Somehow salsa isn't the first thing that comes to mind when I think of Sweden. Go figure.
Got to see my friend Mattias Hellberg who used to be in the Nymphet Noodlers/Hellacopters. He's working on new music and gave me some discs to catch up on what he's been doing. We gave him a listen in the bus and it's great. Very original. I'm always happy to hear when artists come up with a new sound, their own voice in the music. I don't want to hear another version of the MC5. I want to hear your blues, your story. I enjoy being part of a musical community that covers the whole globe. We live on a very small planet.
On to another ferry trip down to Copenhagen for tonight's show. Good dinner tonight at Pussy Galore. Tru dat. It's the restaurant's name.
Another ferry to the small island community of Mariannhamn. This is an isolated place up near the top of the world. Population 25,000. Our show was on a Sunday night and we were the only game in town. The place was packed and they came to have fun. I'm pretty sure most of the crowd never heard of me. We were just a band from the US playing in their town and the only thing that mattered was that we rocked. And we did. The kids (and I mean kids, some were very young) danced their asses off all night long. It reminded me how much fun it is to play for a crowd that's dancing. It's way better than the concert audience that stands there looking at you. Took me back to my early days playing in the bars of Detroit.
It's been so very strange to have sunlight till 1:30 AM. We finished the gig and were getting into the bus and it was still light out! Up this high on the planet it never really gets dark out at night. This really played hell with our biorhythms.
Up all night to catch the next ferry to Turku, Finland for a day of rest then on to Tampere for the first of two shows with one of Finland's most popular bands, the Flaming Sideburns. These are the last two shows of the tour and we're all looking forward to returning to Los Angeles and our families and friends. The Tampere show was very good and I had a good time meeting the fans after and talking together. The venue had a sauna in the basement and I took a sauna with the Flaming Sideburns. It's mandatory when you visit Finland. You must sauna.
God bless, w.
I couldn't help but notice something so foreign and so unusual to my experience that it deserves comment.
In Denmark, people leave their bicycles unlocked. They go to the market or whatever and they just put the kickstand down and leave their bikes where they parked them. I was dumbstruck. We all were. The idea is so strange to us that you could leave your property in public and someone would not steal it just blows my mind. What is it in the American psyche that finds it strange that normal is stealing and odd is not stealing? Ours is a perverse national consciousness, utterly out of step with the rest of the world and ignorant of it. Merchants leave wares out in the open without security guards standing lookout.
Another example: I went looking for an Internet café this morning and couldn't find the one the desk clerk recommended. I stopped a young woman on the street and asked directions. She took it upon herself to go into a store and ask the owner if he knew of any in the neighborhood. Then, when he wasn't much help, she inquired where I was staying and I told her the hotel name. She made another recommendation and I thanked her and went about my biz. After a short walk through the neighborhood, I returned to the hotel where I was staying, only to find that she had gone there to offer to take me to her office around the corner to use her computer. Don't read the wrong thing into this. She was being helpful to a stranger in her town. What's the chance of something like that happening anywhere in America?
Michael Moore's film "Bowling for Colombine" touches on this a bit. There's an atmosphere of fear and mistrust in America so thick you can feel it. Maybe not without reason, but it's all out of proportion with the way life could be lived. We're out of whack.
Why does Sweden have the highest standard of living on earth? What are the social policies and leadership qualities that make Sweden what it is and America is not?
Europe has its woes, of course, but fear of your neighbor doesn't seem to be part of the fabric of society. Not to mention the long-standing fact that there's health care for all. In every nation in Europe there is a safety net for its citizens. If you're out of work the government will help pay your bills. This is not Pollyannaish. You must perform service work in return. But that's the point. Everybody contributes to the quality of life.
Everyone works at something and can make a living wage doing it. I've seen people whose job it is to sweep the streets. It's an honorable job. It contributes to a nicer city life. It's necessary, too. The word that terrifies American political leaders is "social." Social programs, social medicine, social security. God forbid: Social-ism. It's a word that Americans really have no understanding of and it's a pity. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Seems to be the American way today.
What's gone wrong in America? We are the richest, most powerful nation on the face of the earth? We can bomb you into oblivion with state of the art munitions but we can't educate our children. We can't feed our poor, we can't care for our elderly or mentally ill but we can mass-produce high fat, fast food to the degree that one of the nations leading health problems is obesity. We can't provide healthcare for all our citizens. There's a selfishness and arrogance that's really unattractive in the national character of America. Will we ever grow up?
Arrived in Goteborg, Sweden via ferry from Denmark and had a fine night's music. Had a great dinner and observed a club full of Swedes dancing their asses off to Latin music. Somehow salsa isn't the first thing that comes to mind when I think of Sweden. Go figure.
Got to see my friend Mattias Hellberg who used to be in the Nymphet Noodlers/Hellacopters. He's working on new music and gave me some discs to catch up on what he's been doing. We gave him a listen in the bus and it's great. Very original. I'm always happy to hear when artists come up with a new sound, their own voice in the music. I don't want to hear another version of the MC5. I want to hear your blues, your story. I enjoy being part of a musical community that covers the whole globe. We live on a very small planet.
On to another ferry trip down to Copenhagen for tonight's show. Good dinner tonight at Pussy Galore. Tru dat. It's the restaurant's name.
Another ferry to the small island community of Mariannhamn. This is an isolated place up near the top of the world. Population 25,000. Our show was on a Sunday night and we were the only game in town. The place was packed and they came to have fun. I'm pretty sure most of the crowd never heard of me. We were just a band from the US playing in their town and the only thing that mattered was that we rocked. And we did. The kids (and I mean kids, some were very young) danced their asses off all night long. It reminded me how much fun it is to play for a crowd that's dancing. It's way better than the concert audience that stands there looking at you. Took me back to my early days playing in the bars of Detroit.
It's been so very strange to have sunlight till 1:30 AM. We finished the gig and were getting into the bus and it was still light out! Up this high on the planet it never really gets dark out at night. This really played hell with our biorhythms.
Up all night to catch the next ferry to Turku, Finland for a day of rest then on to Tampere for the first of two shows with one of Finland's most popular bands, the Flaming Sideburns. These are the last two shows of the tour and we're all looking forward to returning to Los Angeles and our families and friends. The Tampere show was very good and I had a good time meeting the fans after and talking together. The venue had a sauna in the basement and I took a sauna with the Flaming Sideburns. It's mandatory when you visit Finland. You must sauna.
God bless, w.
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