Bits of Random Interconnectedness...

Just random things that I found interesting:

I've read that one of Bill's favorite movies is Labyrinth...which starred David Bowie...
and
David Bowie did the voice of Maltazard in the English language version of Arthur and the Invisibles...
and
Bill did the voice of Arthur in the German language version of Arthur et les Minimoys...
and
He got to work with Nena, his favorite singer, who did the voice of the Princess...
who
Is the mother of twins...
and
Bill is a twin...
and
...more as I discover things.

The Mosaic is born...and it's twins!!!

I got this alert in three different places, so I'm actually current with a bit of Tokio Hotel related information. It's never been my goal to be the first and foremost with stuff, but still...these are pretty wicked mosaics. Sadly, I have no digital camera, so no image of me is in them. Ah well...

They are the same, yet slight different...just like another set of twins we know....hmmm....interesting.


http://tokiohotel.pop24.de/tokiohotel2/specials/us/mosaicaction200810/

Language

I'm wondering how many English speakers prefer to listen to Tokio Hotel in German? I do, for the most part, but because I cannot not sing along with them, I listen to English versions. I think something gets lost in translation, although I think they do a wonderful job, because I don't think English is the easiest language to translate into, or learn, for that matter. And everything sounds better in the language it was written in.

My German is limited to Danke and Bitte...at least I'm polite. And now I could ask someone not to jump, politely, as well. I'm not so good at learning new languages, but I'm trying to learn the words to sing along in German. I've got Heilig down pretty well, except for one phrase that wasn't translated on the video that was also translated into French, so I skip that part. And most of the Zimmer concert videos I watch have Russian subtitles, since the guy who uploaded them did it in really large chuncks, without taking out all Bill's talking to the audience between songs. I have no idea what he's saying...but it's not that important to know the words. Watching sometimes is enough.

I'm usually in the car when I'm singing or, rarely, at the computer, so I don't have the liner notes in front of me (I'm forbidden from singing out loud in the house, because it's embarrassing to some....I think I sound pretty good...not sure what the problem is.) Since the drive to work is almost 40 minutes (or if I'm lucky and have to go to the wind farm, an hour and a half each way of pure TH bliss) I get through most of Zimmer 483 and most of Scream on a daily basis.

I've noticed that I've started singing in both languages on the some songs...only if it's in English can I sing some of the German words...kind of like having multiple personalities.

And when I sing in English...I mimic Bill's pronounciation of words, so I sound like someone who speaks German speaking English with an accent. When I sing German though, it just sounds like a bad Wisconsin accent (which I hate) mangling words, not cute at all. You'd think I'd be able to channel some of my German DNA, but sadly, no luck. Only got the fair skin and stubborn attitude, but no ability to sprechen Sie Deutches.

At my last job, I could listen to music so I had Youtube running constantly. I had turned up the volume louder one day, and someone came out of their office, all alarmed and said, "I'm hearing voices in my office, and I think they're singing in German." Yeah...one of those tricks of acoustics.

Although I'm always hearing voices, and most the time they are singing in German...even when I'm not listening to anything. And I'm not alarmed at all... :)

A Capella Monsoon....a religious experience

I so wish I could find the a capella version of Monsoon (it should be over on the right there, in the Youtube video links if you'd like to take a listen) on CD. Maybe it does exist, but I'm just not finding it.

A capella originally was how religious music was sung (a capella means "from the chapel or church...history lesson for the day) and there is something so perfect about listening to a pure, sweet voice...although it's accompanied by a piano in some of the versions, which isn't quite a capella, but damn close enough for me...that is almost mystical.

A truly religious experience for those who view Tokio Hotel as a religion and ourselves as followers.

I'm So Easily Amused....

I was in my own Tokio Hotel alerts in my email today...and for some reason I'm just so totally blown away by that. I'm such a geek. I scrolled down through all the sites listed and saw "Better Living Through Tokio Hotel" and then "Beautiful Words About Bill" and realized it was my blog...

Anyway, if I can ever figure out how to make the Tokio Hotel Lobby website work, then I can search for myself on Google and really make myself happy. Like looking for your name online.

This was in my email alerts today and it's just so true and beautiful, I felt like sharing with the whole two people in the world who see this and might not see the TokioHotelAmerica site. I've thought the same thing so often, after watching vids of the European tour and the American tour. Such beautiful words and so eloquently written:

Beautiful words about Bill

February 18, 2009 by Schnee

On the Fanclub Forum, we are discussing the new album, well, the rumors and our hopes and stuff. And of course, Bill comes up in discussion. Coolbreezegirl said these beautiful words about him, so I wanted to share them with all of you. Because we love that guy. Hehhee.

“Bill Kaulitz was born to play in arenas and for crowds of more than 10,000. He is not made for 1,000 people capacity clubs. That is like seeing a wing clipped eagle sitting on a branch. It is still impressive due to the sheer charisma of the bird, but nothing compared to seeing it stretch out its huge wings and fly up in the sky.”

Isn’t that AWESOME?

p.s. if that is your picture, I am sorry I do not have the name of who took that particular image. Will be glad to credit.

(I'll also be glad to credit for the picture as well.)

A Diary Full of Trash...An Entry Full of Pain...

Well, that's a dramatic title for a post... geez....makes me roll my eyes just to read it.

I should know that some lyric of some Tokio Hotel song, listened to in English, will hit a nerve...it was By Your Side today. It usually makes me misty anyway, but today was worse. I should know better and listen to it in German, so I don't always know what the words are (or I can pretend I don't know).

Whiny self pity to follow...everything in my body hurts so much at this moment, I don't know where the pain ends and I begin. My teeth even hurt. I'd write help in my own blood, but my fingers hurt too much...typing at this point is almost agony.

I would never wish chronic pain on anyone, even my worst enemy. There is nothing worse than a body trying to destroy itself with it's own immune system...this would be rheumatoid arthritis. The closest description of the pain I've ever come up with is imagining ground glass in all your joints. Every movement is painful. Why now it's decided to flare up is anyone's guess, although I'd suspect the change in weather has something to do with it. It's snowing...which it has done all winter, but in the Northern Hemisphere it's turning to spring soon, so the weather changes are more dramatic. I would suspect I have several months of this crap before summer comes and things become more stable.

I want to see Tokio Hotel when they come to the States...and I want to see it as a healthy, pain free person, so that I can jump around with all the teeny girls, so I can stay up all night driving to or from the venue...so that I can enjoy, drug free, seeing a group I truly enjoy listening to, along with being able to elbow my way to the front for a really good look at Bill :)

So...my life needed some attention and changes, and the sound track for those changes has been Tokio Hotel. It's always playing, even in my head when I'm at work, where no music is allowed. That place is like a library...some day I think I'll just blast Scream at full volume till someone tells me I'm fired! :)

And I go to sleep dreaming under the sweet blanket of German words sung by someone who will never know what an impact he has had on my life...he and his twin and their two friends. And I sound like such a melodramatic person writing this, but what the hell...it's my blog and I'll be a drama queen in it if I want to.

Better Living Through Tokio Hotel...

For God's sake, if you're reading this, find your passion young, and pursue it like there is nothing else you'd ever want to do....don't wake up one day at 47 sitting in a cubicle in someone else's office, wondering where the hell your life has gone. Even if you have no great passion in your life, at least find some direction to go that's more fulfilling than just drifting along to the next...and the next... and the next pointless thing.

"If you can't be a good example, at least be a horrible warning."

SO....be like Tom und Bill und Gustav und Georg und live and liebe your passion...live it each and every day...even if some of those days are spent visiting your bed and having an intimate 24 hour relationship with it :)

At least what led up to, and will follow, that 24 hour relationship was the best thing you could have done, or will be doing; even if it's hard and exhausting at times, seems like you're getting now where other times, even when you lose the competition in the quarter finals or are so sick of pizza you wish to vomit.

You just keep doing it, because you cannot imagine doing anything else.

Music Heaven...

Oh, my God, you'd think I'd died and gone to heaven....I've found sheet music online for many Tokio Hotel songs, particularly An Denier Seite (Ich Bin Da).......which I can't listen to without get all misty.

So, I'm not sure how I'll actually be able to learn to play it...my violin will warp from the tears. (I'm so melodramatic...lol)

At any rate, an instrument that I have not played in over 30 years will get new strings, gets polished, the bow gets rosined up and I get to try again....all because of lovely Bill Kaulitz and his wonderful angelic voice and the ability to Google almost anything. I feel like I have been given a gift...something I could have done all along, all by myself, I know, but I think needing to find the right catalyst. And it is that lovely voice...

It is said that the violin is the closest in tone to the human voice, and I know the versions of Spring Nicht (a Youtube version from 2007 in particular) and Monsoon with strings are breathtaking and heartbreaking all at once and echo the depth and passion of Bill's voice. I'm hoping there are more strings used in their future work.

Plus, it's so damned fun to get good at a piece, to be able to put the sheet music away and just close your eyes and play...to play from the heart and not the mind. The fingers know where to go, the bow dips on its own accord, and the music comes from a different place. It's hard work to get to that place, but I'm looking forward to the challenge of trying to get there. I used to be able to do that...

The Perfect Girl?

In a book I like by Ann Patchett, called bel canto, the character Roxane says, "People love each other for all sorts of different reasons...most of the time we're loved for what we can do rather than for who we are. It's not such a bad thing, being loved for what you can do."

"But the other is better," Gen said.

"Better. I hate to say better, but it is. If someone loves you for what you can do then it's flattering, but why do you love them? If someone loves you for who you are then they have to know you, which means you have to know them."

I happened to read that about the time I read online that Bill is searching for love, but not finding it yet...and it struck a chord.

We all love Bill...me and the 8 million 13-22 year olds that make the majority of his fans. But is he loved for what he does? Because he can sing achingly beautiful songs that pull at our hearts, even those hearts old enough to know better? Or because he can rock a stadium with just his presence on stage with a megaphone...never mind that he and the band kick ass as far as the music goes? Or because there is no other guy that can wear eyeliner quite so devestatingly (and better than us) and still make us weak at the knees (except Johnny Depp in POTC)?

We love Bill for what he does. But I think in this age of MySpace, Youtube, Tokio Hotel TV and instant media, we also think we really love Bill (and Tom, and Georg, and Gustav) because we think we know them. I use "we" collectively, because I fall into the same trap as everyone else sometimes. (What a lovely, sweet trap to fall into though) I see 4 minutes of Caught on Camera and therefore become an instant authority on Bill Kaulitz, et al.

We strive so hard to find some little thing that makes him "ours" and we have such a wealth of images and words now to drown in....it's no wonder he's getting marriage proposals in fan mail.

But where does that leave Bill? With 20,000 screaming girls at a venue, all professing love eternal from the front row, how's he ever supposed to find a girl in a normal way? How would he ever be able to trust that what he says in private stays private? Do you make up things to tell her and then watch to see if they end up printed in Bild or some other tabloid?

Because I am a hopeless romantic at heart....I do believe that love will find him, as it does most of us, in a totally unexpected place, and in a totally unexpected way, with a totally unexpected person. Either right under his beautiful nose, where it's been all along, or in the last place he would ever think it would present itself. But for all that to happen he needs to keep that heart of his equal parts open, but protected. A fine balance between letting in and holding back. Earning and building trust....on both sides.

For my insignificant part in all this (being a fan amongst millions is kind of like being a star in the universe...kind of lost in with all the rest) my sincerest and heartfelt wish that he finds true love.

The Curse of Being a Perfectionist...

Three quarters of the members of Tokio Hotel are Virgos...the sign of the zodiac known for their perfectionistic ways. Bill says he wants everything perfect...stressing out over the details and not wanting to make mistakes.

Not wanting to make mistakes...it holds me back (I'm also a Virgo, a perfectionist person, hardest on myself than anyone else would ever be). Holds me back from doing new things, for fear of failure, and of success. Not just the regular "I might fail"... but that I might actually succeed, but not be perfect. I might make a mistake. If it's not going to be perfect, I might as well never start.

But I forget in all this, that I might also be great. Or...just good enough. Or...I might fail. But if I don't try for fear of succeeding, then I've fulfilled my little prophecy...I have failed.

I watch Bill and Tokio Hotel and realize they can be great...they are great...and they make mistakes...and possibly Bill beats himself up afterward for the mistakes (there's some footage in the Zimmer 483 documentary that he was "really bad" after one performance. I also notice he was saying this with no make-up on, just his beautiful face...hmm...gotta think on that.)

But they follow their passion and work at what they do. And don't give up. So, if this group of boys can make succeed and do what they love...why can't I?

What a rush....

I was just watching the concert footage on Youtube from the Zimmer 483 tour...what an amazing feeling it must be to stand on stage in front of a huge crowd of screaming teenage girls, and have them sing your song back to you...I love watching the looks on the faces of the band, as the whole crowd sings back to them. What must it feel like to have that kind of support from fans? I get goosebumps ever time I watch that video.

I want to go to a concert...and be in the middle of all that energy...all though I'm not sure what being in a crowd of thousands of screaming teenage girls is going to do to my hearing...at my age :)

We'll see...

Lovely Brand New Blog....

Like a blank piece of paper....and my mind goes completely blank. I've been writing entries in my head for over a week, just waiting to do this...

Well, I guess I could start with the name of the blog. Obviously I'm a fan, and most of my musings over the past days (months) have been about Tokio Hotel and what I'd write. What I'm listening to, what I'm reading about, thinking about a website I'd like to start. Thinking I'd like this to be more...more what?...I don't know.

I'd like to write about how Tokio Hotel has made a difference in my life, without sounding trite or pathetic or just plain weird.

We'll see...