Dave Raphael

my brother recently moved back to town.  sadly, he wont sell me his bareknuckle, leaving me with the burden of yet ANOTHER custom build project (this is a disease you dont want) but it was great to see him regardless…

the wine menu looked enticing, but I just got back from the bay with the snob brim riding high on my best afternoon hat, and it was still early…

a long discussion ensued about the shit hand it is to have drawn a life in NYC, how much we both want to get out and all the reasons why we wont.  Now that he’s back, it’s nice not to carry this burden of loathing all alone but there is a big part of me that feels so bad for him, he was out, I was jealous, now he’s back, and as great as it is to not have to drive for two and a half days to see him, it pretty much completely sucks.

unfortunately enough for our social outing, he got one of these infernal fucking things.

the distraction of food brought Im the operator with my pocket calculator to a succinct close, and we were right back into cursing life in the big apple, or whatever it is that the experience of living here amounts to: wanderlust, suffering, anxious scramble to find the ejector lever in a stinging, blinding cold sweat lined panic before the flat spin anchors you to your seat for those last moments of terror before passing out never to scream again, whatever.

on the walk home, I figured the highlight would be someone’s toaster threatening to burn down the cover of Physical Grafitti, however

we were both amused at the arrival of the most cliche of all NYC moments, the stuff of which makes a tourist’s trip remarkable but simply makes the locals totally jaded:

this stuff might excite the the rubes from purple mountain majesties above the fruited plain but as illustrated, the natives are trained to point at the models by three or four, imagine how old this shit gets in your thirties…

uber fun afternoon.  lots (lost) of thoughts to process, but its nice, lucky even, to live near my bro again.  welcome home fucker.

buried under a mountain of film, I took the M8 out to the pool to celebrate the end of the summer with my favorite Pirate.  while it is the most abysmally designed thing *ever* to be conceived by a German National, it can lead to some nice photos if you can stand the frustration of using the damn thing.  Pirate just leads to good photos just by showing up, would be nice if computer camera did the same thing.

I first met Tos in 1998 on rock and roll tour in Western Europe.  He and his amazing girlfriend Eef were the first two Dutch peeps I had ever spent any time with and I can trace my love affair with NL all the way back to the lounge of a Vanhool coach double clutching and weaving through Spain, France and Belgium on the wintery verge of 1999.

Today is Tos’ fiftieth birthday.  He’s been one of my oldest friends, one of the most succinctly unique people I have ever met and also the first of my inner circle to make it to the half century mark.

We’ve been friends since the days when you could buy postage in Guilders at a state run post office in Amsterdam…  He taught me my first (and best) Dutch curse, showed me how to roll a proper inside out cone (because overlap, often, is everything) and shared an unending love of etymology, science fiction writing, toys, 1960’s audio design and white asparagus.

Tos was at the cutting edge of Amsterdam Punk in the 1980’s, played in too many bands to list and has provided technical support to an even larger and fully impressive cast of Seminal Superstars.

He is the first true Phillips freak I would meet (but surely not the last), and has spent the last ten years extolling the history and virtue of the company to me.  More than anything, Tos and Eef have been my Dutch cultural mentors, effortlessly educating me about local customs, Amsterdam living, squatters rights, the impossibly confusing politics of the city and country and cautiously correcting my horrid to non-existent Dutch pronunciation.

This of course, occurred over the course of a decade of the best dinner parties and terrace get togethers a wayward traveler could ever dream of.

The only thing more impressive than Tos’ Telefunken tube collection (which includes the most comprehensive box of SS stamped octals I have ever seen in one place) is their record collection, where our bond was really solidified.

Tos was the guy that turned me onto Split, the single record that arguably had more impact on my adult life and professional career than probably any other recording.  There is not another man or woman alive you can find who will display a white label first edition pressing of a Humble Pie record the way Tos will: with pride, joy and sneaking, giddy lust.  One will also have an equally impossible chance of finding another person out there who has the complete Utopia catalog on a shelf next to the known recordings from the Phillips Research Laboratories…

Endless nights of Soft Machine, Blue Cheer, early Alice Cooper and Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac have tuned my ears into the secret history of rock that few are privy to.  All this played through a proper Phillips Hi-Fi replete with Amperex EL-84’s driving 800 ohm Phillips speakers.  Yes, 800 ohm.

There is a very short list of people out there who have extended such unconditional patience, warmth and hospitality towards this often confused and wandering American.  Tos and Eef, from the moment I met them have always made me feel like family.  The experience of my life has forever been touched, impacted and redirected by the time I have spent with them, both in their home, around town in Amsterdam and on the road, rolling past blurred kilometer markers in the middle of the night, attached to the traveling circus, blazing the path of rock and roll.

I have some awesome people in my life and couldnt be more proud to call Tos a friend, and old friend and comrade.

Happy 50th Tos ! !! !

sometimes, when you run, run run, run, one third of the way around the earth,

you find the solace of home, just the way you left it,

somewhere else.