And it came to me via the Stylespion and Kitsune Noir. A brilliant little movie by Temujin Doran about his job as a Projectionist in the Screen on the Green cinema in London. I especially like the way he spends his breaks.

Facts About Projection from Studiocanoe on Vimeo.

- or: we’re all going to die, every single one of us part 2.

So, it seems I did not die. At least not yet. Even though I took to the sky in the bloody smallest airplane you could ever imagine. It was at least 20 years old, looked like a cheap Japanse car from the inside and the window on my side was taped. TAPED. But even though the take-off was bumpy as hell, and I felt like distributing my breakfast all over the cockpit in the first 5 minutes of the flight I was able to keep my posture. And once airborne had enough to do with flying the bloody thing. Not that I really had the controls, but at least could try flying a couple of circles while ascending and descending. And had some kind of epiphany while doing this: while flying in a big passenger jet, I always felt detached and somehow not right being up in the air, as if it was just Vodoo keeping the plane in the sky. But while flying my lovely little Piper Warrior , the air actually felt like something. Like glyding through water with an added third dimension (not that this sentence makes any sense at all, but I hope you get the meaning). So after 20 minutes of airobatic attics even banking 90 degrees before landing did not shock me, and seemed almost normal.

Am I cured of my fear of flying now? I don’t know – this is something my first flight with a passenger plane next week will show. But I do feel much more comfortabler now as I understand the whole flying-thing a bit better than before. And the advantage is that when not flying the plane I can always order a Jim Beam and a Heineken. And I have some of the best incentives in the world: a) Karneval and b) hating Wales (more about Wales and my hate for it in part 3).

By the way: seemingly the Blue Max was filmed at the airport where I took off. Otherwise I can not explain all the black-and-white-pictures of German triplanes and WW1-uniforms all over the airport-buldings…

Gefunden beim roitsch. Eine sehr kurze Geschichte über einen Jungen, ein Mädchen und ein Mixtape. Vom englischen Regisseur Luke Snellin. Ich bin begeistert und werde definitv demnächst bei Tower Records noch einen Packen der hervorragenden USB-Mixtapes erstehen.

Here are some remedies if you have been diagnosed with a broken heart: if, on the first day you think you can’t stand it – drink. Drink and sleep. Mild to medium cases will already improve after this. You can repeat this daily for about a week before your manager will get suspicious. If it is a bad to worst case, keep on drinking and read Bukowski. After a certain period of time (and you will know when) you shall be able to switch to French books about fucking. I recommend Djian and Millet.

Be aware: even when you think your anger and tormented heart will enable you to fell a solid street light with your bare hand, you will only break every bone in your fingers. So it goes.

And remember: time heals nothing.

image via the incredible fuck you very much

- or: we are all going to die, every single one of us. Part 1.

I’ve written this piece about a year ago, and this is how I felt about flying at the time, not much to add. One of my New Year’s resolutions this year however is to overcome my fear of flying. Especially after getting stuck in London for 27 hours thanks to a frozen Eurostar last Christmas and almost getting mad with frustration about it. So now I’ve downloaded Virgin Atlantic’s Flying Without Fear app, and will take on my fears head on with booking a 30 minute flying-course with Sky Trace in Leixlip. Which I am going to take next Sunday. So, if flying a small single-engine airplane on my own does not cure me I don’t know what will. I’ll update you accordingly on my progress in case I should not die.

Here we go again. In an aluminium tube, travelling at 10,000 feet and at bullet speed. And the only thing preventing us from tumbling uncontrollable into certain death is our believe in physics and that burning dinosaur bones generates enough thrust to keep the goddamn thing in the air.

I’ve already ordered a Jim Beam with Coke from the trolley dolley, and The Haunted are blaring from my headphones and are annoying me seat neighbour; but I have to keep my mind occupied, otherwise I’ll go definitively and completely crazy. Every little movement of the plane makes me grab the armrest as firmly as I can, cold sweat it dripping from my forehead. Like Mr. T., I’d need a anaesthetic to make me fall asleep, otherwise I ain’t getting on no plane. I’ve already tried: Valium, Marihuana, beer, whisky, meditation techniques and herbal tea. Nothing works. Maybe joining the mile-high club would distract me enough to make it through the flight. But occupying the toilet on a plane for hours and hours? I’m past that age and performance by now, so until my health insurance is paying a shrink to heal me, I’ll depend on drinking. Drinking on trains. It takes longer, yes, but was has been good enough for the people 100 years ago can’t be bad for me today. At least they have free Wi-Fi on most trains these days.

Image via

Sometimes, yesterday’s hangover dictates that you keep it slow. Henceforth was I really glad to meet some of my usual sidekicks at Whelans for some relaxed drinks and conversation yesterday – without dancing on any table. Not that I’ve ever done that, but I like the sound of the sentence. So we had something you could call a laid back evening in ole Dublin Town. To add even more smotheness to our evening planning we were able to experience a free (free!) singer/songwriter showcase on the main stage. Seated, that was.

Unfortunately we missed the first two bands, Champion Jim and Squarehead, but I was delighted to see Dublin’s own Lauren Guillery return to the stage after an illness related absence. And boy, can Mademoiselle hit the mark with her voice and the guitar. Backed by Georgie Furey on lead guitar, the French lady entertained us with her no-bullshit-stories about every-day life. Headlining was the brilliant ODI, a.k.a Claire Odlum, supported by Dave Redfearn on guitar. A nice mellow ending for this unexpected show, which I was lucky to attend.

I was able to take the rather funky-looking pictures in this post thanks to my new Iphone application, Hipstamatic. I found this neat thing via the Stylespion, and am quite enthusiastic about it. Besides the fact that I posess absolutely zero talent for photography, the IPhone-camera produces rather shitty pictures, which the application is able to transform into simulated analog pictures. Even more shitty, but it almost looks cool.

Boys and girls,

finally my new blog is online. Please consider everything here beta, so there will some changes to layout/content over the next days/weeks, bare with me. However, this location is now where you’ll find anything King of Pain/Marcel. So please keep you comments/mails/feedback coming. Please consider my old blog obsolete, I’m still trying to find a way to transport my old posts over to here; so if anyone has an idea about moving content from blogspot to wordpress please let me know.

Und ja, ich schreibe wieder auf Deutsch und Englisch. Both.

To kick everything off the proper way, here’s the ultimate feel-good-mixtape 2010. A thing we all need due to the bleakness of being snowed in everywhere in Europe. Thankfully I have enough weed and red wine left to make me survive this emergency for at least another week…

Without further ado, here you go. Enjoy and spread the love.

Phoenix – 1901 live from wearephoenix on Vimeo.

Fast da.