Day 32, Weimar

Just a short post today folks. Nice little busking session yesterday afternoon in Weimar, where the average age of the audience seemed to be either 30-40, or 0-10, as evidenced by the picture above. But you know, little kids seem to love dropping coins into guitar cases, and their parents appear more than happy to encourage this altruistic behaviour. Which is highly beneficial for people like myself, singing away in the hope of making enough money to afford some black sesame ice cream from the local gelato shop. Mission accomplished.

Last night's show was at the ACC cafe, directly opposite some sort of palace, the kind that a more diligent tourist would be able to tell you more about (as with the poets yesterday...). Alas my brand of tourism is slightly more unique, as I was explaining last night - I once rode 30mins in Berlin to find Grosse Hamburger Strasse, just so I could buy a big hamburger on that street. That was amusing for me, it probably isn't for the average palace-loving camera-toting foreigner. Not that I don't love palaces, I do. Some of them are quite spectacular. But I'm just as happy munching on a 1 Euro bratwurst from the mobile brat-man, purely for the novelty of buying a German sausage on a roll from a dude with a portable kitchen round his neck. (Unfortunately yet to find one this trip...)

Where was I, yes the show. A very quiet affair last night, but I haven't quite made the front pages here in Weimar so you can never quite be sure who is going to show up... Still I had a nice time, enjoyed playing the old upright in the corner, and with every quiet gig there is a silver lining (of sorts) - I was standing in front of one of the most intriguing pieces of artwork I had ever seen. Particularly the part right behind me, where a middle-age man was getting his fill from a local damsel in distress...

I can't quite figure out what it meant, but then it made perfect sense when viewed in context with the rest of the piece, which took up most of the walls on 3 sides of the room. Sort of like an acid trip, although obviously created by someone who wasn't on acid at the time he created it. Which made it all the more vexing. But three cheers for him/her, because it gave me a funny photo, and a funny story to tell in the future. And life is about stories folks. At least that's what I tell myself when I'm playing music in front of a breast-feeding middle age man. Thanks to the kind folks that came along. Adios. See you soon.... x