On more than one occasion, I felt that Tresor was easily the most futuristic space on Earth. Fuck all those fancy mirrored high rise buildings – down in the dungeon and outside in the dust: that’s where modernity was really being defined. Cristian Vogel

I was reminded today of a club I visited the first time I was in Berlin in 1998 called Tresor, which means safe in German. I was a fan of the record label, so after finding it's location in a guide book I decided to make Berlin my next destination.

I arrived on a Sunday, not knowing the club wasn't open until Wednesday. It gave me a good opportunity to see the city—I was only expecting to stay there for a day or two and move on. This is where I... I want to say fell in love with the city, but it wasn't like that. I was scared of it. The people weren't warm and inviting, the language was harsh, and in the former East Berlin where I was staying it was still a relatively rough place.

There was a lot of new development, especially in Potsdamer Platz, where the area was under heavy construction. The scar of the Berlin was being rebuilt as the centre of the city. Behind the fences, I had impression of a future world. One that I would be long gone before being able to realize what the half-built buildings promised.

I had mentioned my second trip to the place I thought was called Hof in my post about my last trip to Berlin. Turns out the place is actually called Tacheles. That was where I spent my nights leading up the the Wednesday at Tresor. It was close to my hostel, it was like our local hangout. Hanging out in a bombed out WW2 era building, and in the sand behind. It was surreal, especially with everything we were doing there. That was my Berlin.

On the Wednesday I convinced a few other hostel mates to make the trip to Tresor. It turned out to be only a couple subway stops away. It was in the basement of a department store vault. The music was phenominal... there weren't many people who would play music like that in Toronto at the time. There was an upstairs, which was alright, but we spent some time in the garden in the back.

There was me the Canadian, one guy from some ivy league college, a Cuban from Miami, and this student from Mexico City. We had a couple drinks outside, watching the locals. They weren't all happy with eyes rolling in the back of their heads. There were no group hugs, no candy, no glow sticks. Nothing you'd associate with the culture here. You could tell they were fucked up on the same shit, but they reacted to it differently. Very cold, very reserved.

Things changed somewhat inside the vault. The music was dark, moody and very minimal. I cautiously ventured onto the dance floor behind the gates, into the tiny room with the DJ. The people were dancing completely differently than I had seen before. They were more deliberate, almost mechanical and asexual. I was used to seeing people dancing with stylized feeling and emotion, but here it was reversed. The style came first.

In minimal techno there is lots of room for the sounds to breathe. Each individual element of the track is forced to express so much more than if there were a wall of sound. It has to be well produced, otherwise every track would sound the same. The same bass drum, the same hi hat, the same riff. It's a music of nuance.

There would be one track at a low point or the beginning of the song. You would have just a bass drum kick repeating for a few bars. There would be subtle tweaks along the way, something else along there, but basically you're just hearing the kick. Then when each individual element of the track would kick in, like a hi hat on every off beat, there would be people in the crowd who would yelp or scream. I had never heard anything like that before... I always considered crowd interaction to be distracting or annoying. Something that you'd get with a rock concert. Here it made sense. These people were going apeshit over the music.

That's the closest I've come to understanding German—or at least Berlin's—culture. They may seem dark and uninviting, jaded and bruised. You just have to dig deeper to find the subtleties, because in the details is where you find all the emotion.

I absolutely adore Wikipedia! It has become my biggest source of information, and my favourite time waster.

Today for some reason while I was at work I was thinking about genocide. Somewhere I heard the Doomsday Clock is going to be set a couple minutes closer to midnight. That got me reading about Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the people who lived through it. I wondered why Chernobyl can't be inhabited for thousands of years from now, but there is a UNESCO heritage site near ground zero in Hiroshima. From there I learned about fusion vs. fission bombs.

From there I touched a little on WW2, and read a little more about the the fall of communist Russia, Sino-Russian relations, and that lead to Albania who was one of the few countries who had aligned with China instead of the USSR. From Albania I wondered how there happened to be a muslim country in Europe. Funny thing was it completely challenged my Greek-biased perception of the country!

Many Greeks are very upset about Albania opening it's borders. There has been a large influx of immigrants into the country, which has caused quite a disruption. There are bigger issues at play, but many Greeks blame them for some new problems in their society. I didn't know that it was a very progressive country, despite being isolated from the rest of the world for so long. People from all religions co-existed, and very often intermarried. Quite a contrast from the impression you'd get thinking about the neighbouring Kosovo War.

It turns out that Albania almost never existed after the Second Balkan War. The Greeks occupied part of the south, and the northern part was going to be given to Serbia. Austria-Hungary complained, and didn't want Serbia to be too powerful, so it was consolidated.

That got me wondering about how many ethnic Greeks were in the area, so I read more about the Treaty of Lausanne, Turkey, secularism in Turkey, the mass transfer of people between Greece and Turkey. Especially the last one. It hits home because of the story of my grandmother.

My grandmother was living in present day Turkey. Somewhere. Apparently she wasn't from Pontus, which probably had the most ethnic Greeks in the country. I don't know where though. 1.5 million Greeks left the country after being given the choice to either convert and assimilate or leave. 500 thousand came the other way. My grandmother walked the hundreds of kilometers alone. She lost her family somewhere along the way.

Somehow there were Turkish families along the way who helped my grandmother out. Someone put a red ribbon in her hair, and called ahead for the next family to find her and take care of her. Thanks to the generousity of strangers she made it to Greece and met my grandfather.

Religion caused societal problems for her family. Government deals kicked her out of her country. These individuals along the way took her in and cared for her. There's a lot of things in the big picture that might make sense. There are generalizations you can make. Sometimes they might be right. Some people say that the population transfers helped strengthen both countries. But when it comes to the individual level we're all the same. We all should be judged on our own merits.

I'm still going somewhere with this, but I'm tired. It's like working out. I don't want to overdo my first day back because I won't want to come back. Haha.

I really haven't been feeling like posting lately or replying to emails (again). Hello inbox which has been hovering around 35 unopened emails for the past two weeks. Sheesh. One of these days I'm going to get over this winter feeling (probably in the spring).

This winter sucks! Skiing would have been enough to get me motivated, but that hasn't happened. These short days are pissing me off. So is the rain and the perpetual fall conditions. Just get freaking cold dammit! I want to seek shelter from it. Be near fire, or heat... those are the things that make the cold worth it. You freeze your ass off all winter, but there's something about warming up that makes it all worth it.

I'm always looking forward to the spring. It's mating season! Everyone just comes alive, and I can't wait. The spring wouldn't be so good if we didn't have a winter. Like how there would be no good without evil. No light without dark (or the other way around... heh).

I was contemplating deleting this blog. I'm not the only one going through it. I was very upset to see that Tanya did it earlier this month. She's the closest to a real-life person I've almost met in real life. Haha. There are a couple more blogs lately where people have been going through the same struggle.

Found an old article on why people blog. I think it still applies... I dunno, I don't feel like reading it now. Haha. I'm such a loser. Well I don't even know why I do this. It's half to keep in contact with friends, but not really, since most don't visit (no, I'm not talking about you, Kim and Amandy). I'm not really into the whole blogging scene (I'm not opposed to it). I guess it's just to write about stuff I'm excited about, thinking that I have an audience. Is that ego gratification?

It's hard to post anything when there's not much that I'm excited about. I haven't been able to do cycle or run because of the back and knee pain (but I'm going to keep trying). I haven't been doing much other than work. Ughness. Fucking shitty winter.

I'm going to get over it... maybe I just have to force myself a little bit at first.

Today when I was stuck at work... wait a sec... this is what I was going. The more people who read this the more I have to watch what I say. This is the problem with blogging for me. I'm not like some people whose mothers are looking at pics of their daughter's tits. I have some shit that I keep to myself. (Raymi's mom is a milf all the way, I like her much more than her daughter)

Anyway, my point is that if my customer was reading this post, he might get offended that I said I was "stuck at work." So you either get a candid anonymous blog, or a politically inoffensive one. There's no happy medium. One day I might have to worry about the world reading this shit, in which case don't be surprised if I hit the delete button or the content is completely changed.

It happens. For now enjoy my somewhere in between candid and political blog... this is how I'd talk with friends. Not work geo, not family geo, not dating geo. Life is sweet.

I don't know what's up with this, but lately I've been seeing red. I seem to cycle through colours I'm feeling, and that seems to be where it's progressed to now. Through my teenaged years I was really into purple... it's such a bright, vibrant colour. In the late 80s it was specifically this car that changed my colour to red.



A little white later I was feeling blue, probably around the time I got my blue del Sol. My favourite car colours changed since then (to white and then yellow), but that was just for cars. Instead of single colours, I had favourite colour combinations. Blue and beige, brown and yellow, brown and pink.... but now I'm feeling red.

My red preference has gone back to a rich, deep blood red. Maybe it has something to do with watching all the blood in Dexter, or the new paint in the office. But the big thing is that's all I can see right now. Red cars, red lights, red stripes on wheels... if it's on any colour it's black. It's always red though.

Maybe I just really like my new iPod nano.


Or these new Volk wheels.


Odd coincidence that I've had three red cars, even though at the time I hated the colour. I don't know if I could do it again, unless it was one of these.


I don't know if it means anything other than it's time to update my site and/or blog. I've been thinking about the relationship between the two of the biggest things the colour represents to me: love and aggression. I've been relating it to music, like drum 'n bass vs. sexy house. Or even some old Aphex Twin stuff with mad screwed up breakbeats with quaint melodies on top. Something I've always appreciated on both levels. Like bittersweet, or sweet/spicy (yum).