rafael pyton

We had a fancy weekend in Tallinn, again. This time Shishi, my favorite interior design and decoration company, turned 10. Shishi is Madli’s longtime employer - and part-time home, I don’t mind telling you. Her very best friends also happen to co-own it.
250 of Estonia’s greatest and most gorgeous - very gorgeous - turned up for the fabulous black tie event. You could hardly take a step without the paparazzi taking a picture of it. TV was there, too. Very absurd, but rather amusing.
Since I know a fair deal of the glitzy people already, I spent the evening mingling my ass off and drinking at least 124 glasses of Moët et Chandon. From now on, I do believe I shall refuse to go to any party that does not have an army of waiters swarming around, ready to fill up the flute at the very hint of low. What can I say? I like it easy.

Yeah, I had a bit of a hangover on Saturday. But I cured it with lots of vodka at a lovely birthday party that came later that day. And then we moved on to a fashion show. Nothing like being gently intoxicated while watching telephone-pole-thin über-models sway down the catwalk. “Are they elves?”, I may have thought to myself. Haha! Yeah, I’m a firm believer in the Estonian gene pool.

And that brings me to my own beib. She showed her fist to me when I threatened to put this picture on my blog. So here she is, balancing a glass of champagne on her belly…

Obviously, the dear day is coming soon. Tomorrow? Next week? We wish we knew, but we really can’t say. I’m just counting days and crossing fingers and tripping over my feet in what can be nothing else than nervousness bordering on breakdown.
There are side effects. For some reason unknown to reason, when I put food into the fridge, I check the best-before dates, and wonder, “when that yoghurt goes bad, I might be a dad…”

My heart pounds like a jackhammer to think that I am now on constant stand-by. The waiting is killing me. I have no control. I jump when the phone rings. But when the right call finally comes, I’ll drop everything I hold, and grab the first helicopter to Tallinn and baby daughter.

Hail to myself. I made it, I made it before snowfall!

Not too many thought I would, including myself, and particularly my neighbours, who must think I’m nuts and noodles to stay out and on my knees every evening since the end of August until now. And the rubber-hammering of stone after stone echoed in the night…

But as my old school teacher said, when she walked by: “Trägen vinner.” How right she was. Again. Most poignant.
Oh, in world language: “The most stubborn fucker will inherit the earth.”

Do you see those long white granite stones that frame the driveway? They are the mustache to Burt Reynolds, and worth every pretty penny I had to fork out for them.
However, to make it look like this, I had to cut just about every stone that lines those long slabs of white granite. Huge and vicious diamond grinder in hand, it took me so many weeks I turned to a dusty ghost.

But when the terror stopped and the mushroom cloud settled, it looked like this.

For good measure, I also floored the car garage and bike garage in stone. Why stop when you’ve passed the point of no return to Saturn?

I dare not add up the bills - just eat the stats I have: 23 pallets of stone. 172,5 square metres. 1 very happy man.

The last words to cross my lips will hopefully be WOOHOO!!! But in the meanwhile, WOOHOO!!!

My great garden variety rhythm was disrupted by a niggling program flaw - I was unable to upload any pictures for awhile. And what good is a post without pictures of how hard you have worked? Ha!
My mind works in non-mysterious ways. So, subconsciously, the question is, do I go through these motions I call projects just to show off in front of you, or do I really do them to please my inner feng shit.. I mean shui?
Frankly, I’m appalled by the mere thought of it. Of course I do it only to show off.

You should go “haha!“, not “I knew it! That sick bastard!”

[Would you believe, this is all I set out to write, when I began this post: Thanks to webmaster Micke for updating the mechanics of rafaelpyton.com.]

Intro over. Let’s jigsaw!

This stage was fun. At least for the first few weeks. Well, especially the first day, when one of my absolutely most ancient friends, the Great Babinsky, came by to improve my motivation. He stayed from the whites of the morning to the reds of the evening, and together we laid stone like a pair of hens made of rock! Kot kot kot!

Hey, who snuck in some pictures of some bike? This was supposed to be about stone! Dammit!

Like I wasn’t busy enough, I went and bought that blood-red beast in the middle of everything. Try to imagine, I mean, really strain to try, because I want you under my skin on this one: Do you have any idea how hard it is to focus on the 3487th stone, when you have a brand new Ducati in your garage, and 3½ years of riding deficit to make up for?

Jesus himself would have succumbed…

For awhile there I felt really silly having dug up half the garden only to fill it up again… but the curse of common sense passed as quickly as it presented itself. I’ll have a cup of freshly crushed stone, please.

Yeah, my motocross pal Stiffe happens to have his own transport company, an arsenal of everything from trucks to tractors. It was a no-brainer to have him stay on for extended heavy duty. And so his huge lorries started appearing full instead of disappearing full…

Don’t you just love the sight and sound of big machinery? Rooaar! However, to my great disadvantage, I am a ridiculous pedant, and I would not allow any tractors on my beautiful lawn = roll up your sleeves and spit in your hands, man.

But! Puff! Huck! Have you ever tried to stick your spade in crushed stone? Yah, it doesn’t really budge, unless you pack a furious amount of anger behind the punch. This kind of horrific slave labor breaks you in half. I’ll leave the image to your own devices; just know that I went to bed for weeks looking like the big letter L.

Perseverance breeds contempt for perseverance. Yet, one day you will look back and fall to your knees praising whatever it is that props up your will when you run out of Red Bull.
That day came when I was powering the crushed stone into submission with the incredible Mr Stamper, k-k-k-king of all vibrators. Done. Ah. Eagle out your arms, landscape your gaze. And I stood there like Gaius Julius Ceasar…

…until I, uh, remembered I had still to touch a single tile of stone.

No, I ain’t done diggin’ just yet! China, here we come!

It was hard to believe just how many tonnes of dirt we hauled away. I lost count many a truckload ago. At the same time, I was growing increasingly worried about it - naturally, the more you dig out, the more you must shovel back in. And the more it costs… talk about digging yourself into a hole, uh?

Alright. I won’t go any lower. In any case, depth perception is shit on camera… I remember scaling those walls and barely being able to look down, heko heko!
In part 3, the long and arduous ascent to the surface begins. Good thing too; it really was getting pretty hard to climb back into the house… with a bent back.

There was a time, from the end of August until lately, when I was a little busy. It seems I got mind-tracked into thinking the driveway to the house was not quite up to par, or worthy of my lofty ideas of what poses as nice, very nice, castlemania.

Every evening I’d get home from the Sealed Air role, jump out of my tie and into my dirty Caterpillars, and dig deep until it got dark. Just how deep, you should ask. About 40 centimeters, I’d reply. Can you dig it?

Grab a spade, and join me on the road to… well, the garage, in a way.

I have to tell you, after the first night, I wondered if I had finally bit off too much to chew. It was raining, I was hurting, and nothing was happening even though I was working myself down to the bones.

It is a good thing I have good friends. That is my old motocross buddy Stiffe there manning the yellow Ford, and young Robin wielding a Fiskars. As the days passed, we eventually built a… big mound of dirt.

Oh my. Surely nothing good is going to come out of this?

We went to see the new Bond movie last weekend, in Tallinn. Kapow! Ka-fucking-pow! I’m happy to report that Casino Royale was no stroke of fluke. Welcome back, Mr Bond. “I never left”, he said…

He did, though. He left when Sean Connery lost his hair.

George was American. Roger was funny when I was twelve. Timothy was a bit of a bore. Pierce was the worst of them all. Welcome back indeed, Mr Bond. I’ve been expecting you a lot longer than Gert Fröbe.

Quantum Of Solace is the first true sequel of the series, spinning the story of Casino Royale into the beyond. As so often is the case with sequels, it does not quite live up to the prequel. No, not quite. But it throws a damned hard punch, nonetheless. Perhaps Bond is turning Bourne, but so be it. 007 sure can scrap these days - I go OUCH and hold my ribs just watching him fight for his life, for Queen and country and the hot babe he loved and lost. Bond is one bitter chap, and that’s exactly why and how we like him; suffering, like the rest of us…

Apart from the flaming inferno at the end, Quantum Of Solace is great. It teeters on the edge of too much boom, but, just like the Aston Martin, falls back onto its wheels.
Finally, there is something incredibly evil and mysterious out there to fight against. Remember old syndicate Spectre? So do I, fondly. Now we have Quantum. And Bond has a raison d’être. I don’t know about you, but I can barely wait to see who the next Blofeld is! They better introduce him from the back, sitting in an egg chair, whispering despotic orders… from his headquarters at Wall Street. Let’s hope he is a corporate crime lord, a hedge fund manager. And that Bond lays him to wild waste in at least the five following movies.

Hark hark. For a moment there I remembered Roger’s ridiculous karate chops. What a juxta! Man, he couldn’t get out of a wet paper bag. New 007 is the spy who we love.

Shakespeare betrayed himself with that line. If words were irrelevant to him, why did he treat them so well? Why did he make them sing?

What is in a name? Only everything. Once mentioned, only nothing. But it is the gateway to your personality, and when I will be calling it out, I want a very special princess to answer.

More than anything, words are sounds to me, associations next, and only then symbols and meanings. If they don’t play well, I leave them be. This particular ability - handicap, if you will - turns even the most menial of sentences into battles with Beethoven. With that in mind, try to imagine the challenge of choosing a name for your first, your daughter, your first daughter.

Madli, my love, has her feet firmly set on the ground. Mine point to Jupiter. We aim to meet in the middle, and there we hover in strange positions. “Did you press the anti-gravity button again!?” “No, honey. I swear. I just sort of, uh, leaned against it…”

We have a list of names here. As a disclaimer, it has to be admitted that some of these suggestions are more mine than hers. No matter how much I want to name our daughter Safari, it probably is not going to happen. None of these might. One of these may. But at least we have a list.

And the nominees are:

Aida
Astrid
Audrey
Bianca
Carmen
Chloe
Demi
Luna
Roxy
Sadie
Safari
Saffron
Sahara
Scarlett
Selma
Stella

Pray tell, what’s your favorite name in the world? I shall welcome suggestions like a door mat!

Oh, you have earned the stars on the banner now! My faith in the American people has truly been resurrected. No longer are you, in my book, a bunch of loud idiots with chocolate cereal for brains. You have proved to me, finally, that your definition of freedom is more than a waistband that never breaks.
Thank you, thank you, for coming to your senses. I salute your savvy with gravy. Your land is grand.

Fact is, I love the United States of America. I always have, ever since Rocky ran the steps in Philly. The way you believe that anything is possible is really rather naive, yet absolutely and perfectly intoxicating. I continue to fall for it; like it was a silly movie made by the dream factory, I have once again come away short of breath, pumping my fists and shouting WOOHOO!

Cinderella, always walk with me.

Obvious as can be, Obama is the black JFK - but don’t let it jinx him. Today I trust the world. Today I’m warm and fuzzy. Today, I am an American. Tomorrow? Well, there is always unyielding hope. Time to take the talk for a walk. But you see that sign? Watch out. Bumpy road ahead.

The fate of the world is being decided tomorrow. Vote for change. Vote Obama. Yes, vote Obama, if only for the reason to stop that Palin woman. Vote Obama, even if some nutcase will shoot him shortly afterwards. Vote Obama, despite your inability to see the obvious. But perhaps you hate your children?

Should McCain win, I feel forced to boycott everything American. I’ll quit my job at Sealed Air. I’ll stop listening to Elvis and Bruce Springsteen. I’ll never have another slice of apple pie. I’ll trash everything Microsoft. I’ll burn my copies of On The Road. I’ll refuse Hollywood. I’ll join Al-something. I’ll call Larry Flynt. I’ll pee on the stars and stripes. I’ll write a book called The Audacity Of Hopeless.

Politik-Polis will be back with the regurgitation. In the meanwhile, go see Nailin’ Palin.