May 16th always remains a strange day. Two rather special folks, Frans Van Roosmaelen en Peter De Ceulaer (aka Peter De Ceulaer) shared a birthday on this day. Both are sadly not amongst us anymore. In a strange way i ended up where i am right now, through both these people. As Café De Kat is a major reason why i ended up living at ERCOLA at Wolstraat 31 in Antwerp. Café De Kat is in my humble opinion the most beautiful bar in town, and has partly always been a place that was visited by artists, musicians and grumps. The first time i went there, i think around 2001, was tbecause i had an appointment with Peter, who was part of the furniture of De Kat, i remember i was early and that i heard somone yell and sing really loud from underneath one of the tables in the bar. This was Frans Van Roosmaelen. We almost instantly became mates and shared many a story, drink, and good time later at Villa Delfia where i lived back then. Frans was the first person to tell me about the interesting activities of ERCOLA, and Peter told me a lot about other subversive, satirical and interesting stuff. Tonight a book of Frans Van Roosmaelen's work will be presented at Wolstraat 29, in the hallway next to ERCOLA, a book that his widdow Suzy Beirnaert and Cy Leong worked on for 6 year, which Stockmans published. I've wrote a short tribute to my pal for this book. Tip Toe Topic will perform live tonight at the presentation. Next door, at Pinkie Bowtie, which is actually at ERCOLA, Guillaume Bijl will present a Dogsalon, and in the basement, a new space called Claptrap opens as well. Let's celebrate Frans, Peter, life and de Wolstraat tonight! It all starts at 6pm!

Tomorrow James Rushford and Francis Plagne are playing at Table Dance! Not to miss!