11-XII-2013.
Škrba announced he'd arrive around 16:30, which he did. We then had perhaps a coffee or not, and then drove to Belgrade. This was one of the rare opportunities for a photo shoot riding shotgun, as it's usually me driving. The first and so far the only gathering of the samurai (aka "the seven samurai of SKOJ", qv.), i.e. us who write on suština. Also to celebrate Stinge's move into his new apartment, aka fuckodrome. We couldn't get Boća to come, running a rather tight budget, but we had him on the phone and made a kind of conference call - six of us around the table, phone on it.
First we drank the milfovača - the legendary brandy with more history than alcohol to it. Read the article, I'm moving the story about the brandy into it. It does merit an article of its own.
Then we ate host's salties. He had to bake a few rounds, though. Then we switched to unfiltered wheat Paulaner. Stinge knows how to pick beer.
The apartment is neat - nice malachite green on the walls, with some greasy looking texture. LED lights in the ceiling corners, white all around (so the processing of shots was easy - don't touch the color at all) except in the bathroom, where there's a line of purplificents in each corner of the shower cabin. The bathroom sound system, an extension of the house system, was a matter of long technical discussions for months among the oldwave, until he picked the model that fit his specifications. Well, "first world problems" is a phrase en vogue.
The purple room is for his daughter, when she's with him, with a real fuzzball table and a pinball machine, with a Star Wars theme. We took turns. The coin insertion mechanism couldn't be turned off, but could be faked by a small lever behind the front hatch, so at least we didn't have to circulate any coins. And we aren't that bad either... haven't hit the pinball since 2000, then in the building of the A-burg bus station.
This photo is where I just couldn't stand Škrba's silencer on contrast (at least he kept the colors), so I lifted it up to near my levels for purposes of this article.
All in all the evening was good fun, specially we rolled on the floor laughing when the editor of some american serbian magazine recounted how he couldn't understand what's „aftamacki“ (aftamutzky - the Banat slang pronunciation of automatski, i.e. automatic), and how he slapped his forehead when we explained.
Sidenote: Škrba is ten years younger than I, and it seems my driving is better. Whether he's got eye problems (he did mention something) or is more of a scatterbrain than I, it's just that I think I'm reacting earlier and swifter in those more complicated situations like entering the roundabout at Autokomanda.
Mentions: Annenburg (A-burg), Božidar Sokolović (Boća), Gradivoj Škrbić (Škrba), milfovača, oldwave, Stinge, suština, in serbian