This long Friday night I was comfortably lying in my couch, browsing through my Inbox when I found this spectacular email from someone I'm almost quite sure I've heard of before. There's this guy from Norway called Oystein who seems to have set himself on a mission to write emails once in awhile, and today the bell tolled for me. He wrote a mail to me. Well, not technically, he sent it to a list and suggested that it was to me. Quite a sneaky move, I'd say. Nevertheless, without even thinking one tiny fraction of a second about corn fields, this Oystein entity comissioned the following bytes from his keyboard:
Are we referring to that live 1975 semi-official thingy from 1998?
To this I can but say: I'm referring to that reissue of "Machine" which goes by the name of "Somewhere in Europe", if I'm not totally drunk and am mixing up releases as I go by... And believe it or not, but there were more letters to be had:
Because, for a CD of a Kraftwerk concert, "crap" would hardly be the word, would it?
Kind of in a mood to eat a large hamburger, I say: CD? I've never seen that on CD.. Perhaps you're thinking about "Concert Classics" ? As the heat licks the walls on my house and the birds are singing tiresome songs to eachother merely as an excuse for staying awake, Oystein shocked me with:
Dash your impertinence.
This caused me to sit back and relax slightly, before I poured another drink and settled with this random composition of gobbledegook: I'm dashing, I'm dashing. There, gone! The next sentence I take as an act of love and understanding between our beloved countries. Hear the passion in his voice, when my fellow Norwegian brother utters the sensible reply to my words of love for this particular recording:
"Machine" is one of my fave bootlegs, and everybody should have it :) Now, so far I can agree.
Realizing the soft parts of his mail just simply had gone too far, and trying to instigate a topic to which I have only a tiny interest in, the man from the west goes on:
Was it rereleased on CD?
What can I say? Two strongly negative messages in one sentence. Clearly, there must be some sort of aggression in my dear brother's voice. I'm pausing for a bit, thinking about the starving children in Romania, and then suddenly decide that there is only one way to move forward: Nope. Clearly in the grey mists now, I was then greeted by a completely mysterious question:
Title?
I don't see what that has got to do with anything, but I go by the title "Database Manager". Moving on to uncharted territories (never mind the Stazi), an open question was formed:
Do you know how many un-numbered copied there were?
Well, what do we have here? This is obviously a trick question from our sneaky Norwegian. Of course we don't know how many un-numbered copies there were, because if we did they wouldn't be un-numbered, now would they? Gotcha. Jumping from one trailer park to the other, the letter continues with a completely random statement:
It's one of the real classics, anyway, as bootlegs go, right up there with "R Tbon Pagothnk".
Are T-Bone Pagothink? I would think they are, but I haven't checked. Nonetheless, I tend to agree anyway. I'm not so fuzzy about things, you know. At least I know a good burger when I eat one. Actually, that reminds me of an old friend (let's call him "M"), who could really filter the good burgers from the bad ones. At one particularly nice lunch, after finishing the nice burger he simply stood up and said: "Now, that's one hell of a burger." Understandably, I was awed by this. Now, here was a man who could tell a good burger from a bad one, and not only did he so, but he did it with such intricate passion that when he spoke of them, sheer poetry escaped from his mouth. Are footballs round? Do boxers hit people? You tell me, but this next statement got me kind of puzzled:
Oh, and Peo, never mind the frogs.
I can only speculate as to what the intention of this line was. Do I come out as a person who is particularly caring about frogs? Not that I don't, but really, it would be interesting to know. Getting close to the end now, our dear Norwegian simply don't have much more to say. This is evident by the fact that his next sentence is a simple personal attack:
You're probably their type even less than they are yours.
What can I say? I'm not your type, that's for sure. But I do like Springbank. I recommend the 21-year-old. Now, this is the kind of thing I like to hear at 3:28am - let's hear it:
Copulate and let copulate, that's what I say.
Word. At the very end, the letter becomes quite cryptic. I'm not sure how to interpret this next sentence, but I guess it's got at least something to do with flowers:
Oystein.
Peo. No comment. Well, one, actually:
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Yeah. And George Bush became president. Isn't the world hilarious? The End:
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Yep. That's the only place where you can read about trailer parks and Springbank in the same mail. Come to think of it, I think that is a first. That must mean I'm totally unique! Wohooo.. Hi Mum!