The Derpy Diaries - Part 1

Hey Tribe!

As most of You know by now, I've been travelling to Dubai and London recently, to meet up with some of You crazy folk from the Tribe.

I've been asked to write down some of my experiences and reflect on them. I'm pretty sure Adnan is just trying to get me to write Blog posts so he doesn't have to, but oh well, why the hell not.

I'm gonna write this in 3 Parts - describing both vacations in the first two, and my conclusion and overall thoughts in the last one. I hope You're all interested in hearing about it, otherwise this will be very awkward, heh.

Part 1: Dubai -

In the evening of April 24th, i stepped into a plane in Düsseldorf, and sat in there for 6 hours and a bit, to arrive in Dubai in the early morning hours.

Just as a side note: Goddammit, whose idea was it to build an airport THAT long? Took me a solid 15 minutes to walk from the Terminal to baggage claims. Not including the passport and security check.

Anyways, after making my way down the seemingly endless halls and grabbing my suitcase, i walked out of the exit and got greeted by a Decaf Cappuccino and my best friend from half across the continent. Which is still such a weird fucking thing to say or write, but it's true - one of my most valued friendships was kicked off by random chance and spans thousands of kilometers. But more on that in Part 3.

I think we were both kind of awkward for about 2 minutes, until we got over the first "Wow, You're here / Yes, i'm here" moment and actually started talking. And it felt just like when we're sitting in a call on Discord. I would have expected a longer period of adjustment to actually meeting each other in person, but nope - it felt incredibly familiar and comfortable right away. Actually stepping into the Dungeon felt a little more... strange. It's a room I've seen from every angle and in different setups - yet actually, physically being in that space was unreal. But it quickly became one of my favorite places to be, and still is.

It was a pleasure to meet the rest of the family as well - Tara and the two boys: Big (who happily showed and explained his whole collection of toys to me, and very patiently corrected me on the proper colours and functions of each car and truck he owns)

and Small (who started out giving me the Death Stare for 2 or 3 days, until he decided I wasn't a malicious intruder and seamlessly moved on to giving me flirty looks across the room). They are noisy little shits, and they have the tendency to just crash everyone's plans for the day, but they make up for it in charm.

Seeing Tara deal with the kids, Adnan (also sometimes a kid), the chaotic schedule and the extended family staying there was quite impressive. Definitely a Badass Boss Mom and i was very happy to offer any help i could, even if it meant just changing out the water container, or getting stuff from the high cupboards. ;)

I felt very welcomed in their home, and am still grateful for the invitation.

I also got to meet a bunch of people from the Tribe - Raz & Katie, Manav, Svengali22, JM, Temimi (and I've probably forgot a name or three, sorry). All of these meetings and hangouts were fun and not the slightest bit uncomfortable, at least for me (Sorry for being so tall, JM, I'll try to work on that ;) ). I hope to see even more faces when i come back next time! :)

I didn't do a lot of touristy stuff in Dubai, but i also didn't set out to do that. I loved being around for the Streams, and working on everything around it beforehand. We went to fucking HELL'S KITCHEN and had Scallops! Something to check off my bucket list. Thanks again, Adnan.

We went to Möto's a bunch of times - amazing place, every wall and corner oozes character. The owner Marco's.. well, he's Marco, I think You have to experience him to really get what I mean. If You ever set foot into Dubai, visit that place and ask him about his stories. He'll keep You busy for quite a while, but You might get a slice of free cheesecake out of it ;)

Despite not going for the "sightseeing" kind of vacation, I still got to see a lot of Dubai while we were driving to and from all different places, and the contradictions You see everywhere are kind of fascinating to me.

You see high-rise buildings of chrome and glass, super expensive hotels, giant shiny malls - and right across the street just a huge patch of desert, fenced off and waiting for the next expensive building to be dropped down on it.

An overabundance of wealth projected at every corner of some areas, and then 10 minutes down the road, abandoned building projects, derelict parks and cramped homes for the migrant workers.

A building that has stunning architecture, but when You step closer, that stunning architecture actually blocks the view for the people inside the building.

Dubai seemed to me like a woman with too much make-up on. If You look at her from further away, she's wearing perfection, portraying stunning beauty and form, but once You step closer, You start to notice that it's mostly a façade... her dress is making it tough to move, and she's trying to hide some perceived blemishes and imperfections under all that glamour. That's probably not a very new or profound observation, but i hadn't seen this degree of dichotomy before. I think Portugal shows that as well, but not as pronounced or deliberate.

My absolute favorite activity during my stay was seeing Adnan and Bailouni work on music together. I wish we could have had more sessions in that time. Seeing creative minds at work like that was very special to me. It's probably something very common for a lot of people in the Tribe, but for someone like me - who has only been on the "outside" of music production - actually being allowed in to witness the creative process is something I'll never forget. It's such a unique combination of technical and emotional aspects of creating art. You see lyrics and melodies being pulled from a deeply personal place in someone's mind, and then use very technical, analytic means - PC and software - to bring them together into a song. That still doesn't do a good job putting into words how I felt, but it's the closest i can get.

The rest of my favorite memories shall remain undisclosed. If You ever hung out with Your best friend for a longer time, almost day and night, You know what i mean. There's late-night walks, long conversations, bursts of helpless laughter, and silent, shared moments that defy description to anyone else. Lots of memories have been made and plans to make more have been set in motion.

That has been a very wordy description of my time in Dubai. If you made it this far, thank You very much, and i hope it was an interesting read. If You have any remarks or comments, feel free to use the comment section here on the website or hit me up on our Discord Server.

Part 2 and 3 will follow as soon as possible.