Excerpts of The Broken Toys tour journal 1998
(by Karl) part 3

    Friday, Oct. 17th. "WET WET WET" shouted a very disturbed Ollie, "SOMEBODY
PISSED ON ME!" Apparently Ollie had awoken wet, very wet, and this large, wet,
punk-rock bass player wanted answers. Steve, who happened to be sleeping nearest to
Wet Ollie, and is about half his size, was trying like hell to keep from laughing out loud
so as to not get crushed by this pissed-soaked irate dude. Then, during the forty-fifth
bed-wetting joke,  "Hurricane Ollie-Oil" calmed down, he noticed an empty beer bottle on
his bed and maybe that was the cause of his wet dreams. Now of course, the rest of us still
wonder if maybe that beer bottle was only just placed there as an excuse to save him from
countless hours of pissing in your bed jokes.
    Got to Duesseldorf, AK47, around 6pm, just in time to watch the neighborhood
drunks smash bottles and fall down outside the club. Several hours later the sound man
was still nowhere to be found, then after much concern, a rumor started that he had arrived!
Then, kinda like Kramer from the Seinfeld show, this completely drunk/stoned? guy
stumbles in and announces that he's ready to work his magic at the sound board, except of
course, that he doesn't remember where the microphones are. This is when Stormtrooper
Axel comes to the rescue, he cleverly brought a bunch of microphones with us! Gee,
pretty good, I didn't even have the foresight to bring an extra pair of pants. So after the
standard confusion, the show turns out to be quite a blast. Die Schwarzen Schafe, the
band we toured all over Europe with in '91, were the openers and it was great to see these
guys after so long. The Stormtroopers were second then The Broken Toys. It was a great
time! After much drinking and much more talking by D.S.S. guitarist Luki; Steve, Kenny
and I finally crashed at Armins flat for a wonderful three hours. During this siesta, Armins
damn cats kept looking at me like they were gonna start trouble! Fortunately all went well.
    Saturday, Oct. 18th.  Excellent breakfast with the Heitmann Family then we hooked
up with the rest of the clowns. A short but weary drive to Arnhem, Holland for the next
show. On this night, there were three local bands, then the S.Troopers, then the B.Toys,
then the Jet Bumpers. The evening was going real good. Good friends (from our '94 tour
with the Harries), good club, good crowd and apparently good hash, because by the time
of our third or fourth song, I started  to get so wacked out, I really don't  indulge in the
art of smoking, so this storm cloud of hash smoke in the club was really doing a job on
me! I wanted to run away and put my head in a hole, but Steve yelled at me and by the
grace of the Gods of Grolsch, I finished the show.  I was told it was a real good time too!
During our shenanigans, Axel did run away! There was some sort of altercation and after
talking with the S.Troopers, he wound up speeding back to his baby. And I don't mean
maybe! The rest of us then probably drank till we passed out.
    Sunday, Oct. 19th.  Harold, formerly of The Harries, now the booker of the Goldfish
club, fed us a hearty breakfast. Then without Axel, and with Kenny singing Snoop Doggy
Dogg songs all the way, we drove to the sweet little city of Amsterdam to spend our day
off. After dragging my sorry ass from one avenue of sex to another and from one
attraction to the next, we finally decided on a coffee shop. As I stated earlier I really
was only interested in coffee, unlike the rest of this traveling circus of clowns who were
searching for just the right weed. As my luck would have it, this coffee shop didn't have
any coffee, the coffee machine was broken and no matter how much time the dude spent
sitting there staring at it and smoking hash, it didnt seem to be fixing itself. So after
everyone was satisfied, we found a coffee shop that did indeed have coffee. During this
quest, one couldn't help but notice certain ladies and gentlemen wearing uniforms sporting
the word polite on them. I found out these were the police. It wasn't made clear to me if
they were there to enforce politeness or if they were skilled in good manners themselves.
They did seem very polite though.
    We had to be in Stuttgart tomorrow for a radio show with the infamous Barny from
Incognito, so at about 5pm we hit the road. Steve went with a few friends of ours who
came to Holland for the weekend and the rest of us went in the bus with Ralf in command.
I don't know how long the ride was, Ken and I made use of a few percocets and beer to
smoothen out the evening.
    Monday, Oct. 20th.  Woke up, dragged a comb across my head and ate. Kenny ate
and then slept all day, no need to waste time staying awake! At 6pm me and Tex met
Steve at the bahnhof. He told us that they were stopped and searched at the
Holland/German border. The police found a joint and gave them a hassle. Then later when
they got to Wurzburg, at a petrol station, some other police stopped them and tore their
car apart looking for dope. This time there was nothing.
    We did Barnys radio show along with Stormtroopers, Texass and Klaushaller and had
a lot of fun, Barny always is a blast to spend time with. After, we all had time to get to a
pub in Stuttgart.
   Tuesday, Oct. 21st.  Tuebingen, Club Voltaire. This was a night off for the
Stormtroopers. The show was The Broken Toys and then Sonny Vincent. It was a blast, a
cool show for us and it was cool to see the Sonny Vincent band, they really smoked. It
was surely an earplug night. We later crashed at Ralfs flat.
    Wednesday, Oct. 22nd.  Woke up with a hangover and ate an exquisite breakfast
compliments of chef Ralf. Tonight is the night of the Seagrams-Seven whisky party that
I've set up at Moritz's flat in Sindelfingen, so after a couple hours of hanging around
downtown Tubingen like scuds, we boarded Ralfs bus to Sindelfingen. According to the
photos, the party was fun.
   Thursday, Oct. 23rd.  Very, very hungover. So we decided to take a trip to a castle up
on a big hill. We very sickly climbed the hill and were treated to a wicked cool time.
Worth the effort. Afterward we drove back to Sindelfingen and partied in the Traube with
another discussion about the Special German kebab pimmelsaft sauce that was once being
offered unknowingly at certain places.
    Friday,  Oct.  24th. The show tonight is in Filderstadt.