Merry Christmas everybody!

As always!

To my Christian and more traditional friends:

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

To my Jewish friends:

MERRY CHANUKAH!

To my Atheist friends:

MERRY NON-RELIGIOUS FAMILY GATHERING!

and to those bastards at FOX news:

Fuck you.

Oy (A Personal Service Announcement)

You know how you can feel on monday morning? Ok, hold that thought.

You know how you can feel on friday afternoon? Excellent, hold that one, too.

Now, throw those two together, double it, add sprinkles and whipped cream, put a car sticker on it with some silly word play, stick a big Jamaican flag through the window, and throw in that guy who kept yelling "ELTON! ELTON!" and that would be a fair representatio of how I feel right now (and worst of all, it's tuesday).

I'm supposed to write a short article on what I did during my three months here at the institute, but I can't concentrate. I'm also supposed to work feverishly on my chapter on Franklin Delano Roosevelt's 1932 road to the presidential nomination, but I can't concentrate on that either. Its just tired times 23.

I dunno why really, maybe too many 2.5 hour train trips the past three months. Or too much construction work in the building (and I use the term losely) I (try to) live in here. Or too much writing on my thesis (go team!). Or maybe it's the realization that aside from some close friends and family, an utterly insane psychopatic German woman (who I hate, loathe and despise) will be present at the Zucchero concert I will be attending next year (she is obssessed to the level that those who believe I am annoying almost need to meet her... and NO, I do not hate all Germans, I hate this German). Anyway, as the philosopher "bandmember from the Barenaked Ladies who wrote 'Falling for the first time'" would say: I'm so done / just turn me over.

Thankfully, it is almost Christmas, which is a period I like for it's calmness, the food and the occasional present (which is going to be limited this year, but I guess Calvinism among heathens has its purpose too), so I should be good by then. Rejoice! But then obviously the Jamaican carsticker whippedcream mofrinday aftening feeling will return with the coming up of new years eve and the utter nothingness in my agenda for that night... (screw everybody!).

The Wicked Update

A small update on my previous post; after a day of delibirating the Dutch cabinet has decided to strip the below mentioned "minister" from her main job (being unhumanely to people and kick them out the country) and replace that with looking after annoying 12 year olds with a drinking and anger problem.

So, technically she is not as politically dead as I was celebrating in my post below, but her decision to stay in the cabinet despite being degraded and have her policies be turned around by the attorney general (who took over the above mentioned job) have now changed her nickname from "Iron Rita" (I kid you not) to "Rubber Rita" (I kid you neither).

The Wicked Witch

(ahum)

Ding dong!

The Witch is Dead.

Which old Witch? The Wicked Witch!

The Wicked Witch is Dead!

You may ask yourself, "why is Boris singing?". You may also ask yourself, "why is Boris singing a song from The Wizard of Oz? Can he get more gay?". Concerning that second question; f#ck you. Concerning that first question, I shall explain.

Yesterday evening Dutch parliament practically send home Rita Verdonk, the minister in charge of "everything-concerning-foreign-people-in-this-country". The woman (and I use the term loosely) has been an absolute disgrace since the moment she first entered Dutch politics. Her previous job was running a prison, and from that experience she's been left with the charm and human emotions usually reserved to rocks.

After a detention center near the Amsterdam airport burned to the ground and left three illegal immigrants waiting for deportion dead, Mrs. Verdonk was the first to announce that everybody had worked "adequately" and that her department would look after the traumatized survivors. Later investigation would prove that 1) everything was most definetly not adequate and 2) the survivors were transported from one prison to another, strip searched and dumped in jail cells without any kind of psycholigical or even physical support.

Among her latest greatest hits was an episode where a Chinese women and her toddler son were imprisoned. The woman was scheduled to be deported and was given the sensitive choice of taking her son with her to jail, or let him stay with a foster family unknown to her, she choose the first option. Supporters of Mrs. Verdonk like to point out that it was the woman's own choice, but anyone with any sense or heart would know that you can not realistically expect a parent to chose between those two evils and the entire idea of a society considering the choice of putting todlers in jail is disgusting.

So please forgive my merryness but after three years of absolute insanity I can not help but sing, loudly, proudly and happily:

Ding Dong' the merry-oh, sing it high, sing it low!

Let them know The Wicked Witch is dead!

Solomon Burke

As you may or may not know, Solomon Burke is the self proclaimed King of Rock & Soul. He's also a bishop and has eleven children, but that is not in any way unbishopy. Although most people don't know him very well, he is the kind of musician that you just got to love especially the album "Don't give up on me" which meant his comeback to the limelight.

His most recent album is called "Nashville" because (unsurprisingly) it's country. And it's good! Not as good as "Don't give up on me", but still very good. The below is a videoclip of one of the tracks (although not the best... but still good).

Dear John Bolton (2)

Hey Johnny!

It's been a while since my last letter and a lot has changed since then. Unfortunately, nothing concerning your facial hair... honestly John, did you even read the thing?

It was a bit of a dissapointment to hear that you decided to resign as U.S. embassador to the United Nations. After all, I do - in one way or another - consider myself to be your mentor. Obviously not a proud mentor, more one of those mentors who look around apoligetic and say "I know, I know, he just won't listen" to people. Actually, I think you didn't even use the chocolate chip cookies suggestion (and that hurts, buddy).

Anyway, it was clear after the Democrats won the mid-term elections last November that your UN days would be over. Considering that the Senate would not even confirm you in 2005, aka the days that Republicans were still in charge, after the Democrats won so much, politically you were as dead as your hair.

But what about your future plans? I have no idea how old you are and chopping you down to count your inner rings seems crude (I joke obviously, all we need to do is check the length of your nose hairs) but it seems to me you still have some time to go before you'll draw your last conservative breath. Normally, former U.S. politicians write a few books, or go on a speeking tour, but let's be fair my friend: who would pay to see you explain why you were a good UN ambassador?

But fear not, as usual I have the sollution.

Despite my campaign to get Bruce Springsteen, Jerry Falwell and you to assasinate Michael Bolton, he is still alive and kicking. Although this is of course a dissapointment of sorts (cookies, hair, Michael Bolton... the list of your failures is getting awfully long), I think it is also an opportunity for you.

Yes indeed: Michael Bolton and John Bolton on tour!

It's perfect! You both have weird hair, I can't stand either of you (dissapointed mentor mode) and the idea is just freaky enough it'll grab enough people's attention. You can end your active carreer as the freak show you unknowingly always were. All I ask is 15% of the net income of the tour.

Call my people if you're interested.

Boris

PS. SHAVE!

Ze Germanz (A Public Service Announcement)

People end up on this blog for many different reasons. Some because they are friends of mine in real life, some because they are friends of mine in cyberspace and some because they are stalking me and send me emails requesting me to send them my used tissues.

But a much larger group ends up here by searching for terms in google. Most of them look for concerts (Zucchero for instance is performing in Amsterdam in the Heineken Music Hall on May 28, 2007. Tickets can be purchased through this site), some look for lyrics or an explanation of those lyrics (those people tend to leave bitterly dissapointed I guess). I'm cool with all of that obviously.

But, for some reason, lately I have had some visitors who ended up on my page googling "dutch hate germans" and "I hate germans" (these Germaphobes end up on my blog because of a joke I put in an earlier post on how I don't like a certain type of blonde women). Although I believe most people realize that it is a joke, I sense that this might come back to haunt me during my professional future so therefore:

I do not hate Germans. I believe they, like every other people on the planet, have their annoying aspects (in this specific case schlager music and the tedency to invade Poland) but that in no way whatsoever implies me having anything but deep respect for my neighbors (aside from the Poland thing... and the holocaust thing.... and the James Last thing... I'm digressing).

Thank you

Yold

There is something extremely depressing about young women dating older men. I should explain that the rant below is in no way a competition or jealousy thing, because I am not interested in young women or older men, so here we go:

The other day I was sitting in the train on my way back to Amsterdam (also known as "Actual human society") and halfway through this couple sat in the bench in front of me. The woman was probably in her late twenties and not unattractive. The guy was in his late 40's or early 50's, had a comb-over of sorts and wore a leather jacket.

They were on their way to her place in Amsterdam (also known as "A place stores are still open after 6pm") and discussed how they would spent their evening. The woman wanted to see "Borat", the guy had no idea what that was, but eventually agreed. After that they discussed which restaurant to go to, the woman (being young and happening and not unattractive) had about six ideas on where to go for cheap but fairly good food in what, no doubt, are restaurants frequented mostly by young and happening and not unattractive people.

Couples in public generally are highly annoying as it is. Because they happen to be together, they feel the need to be showcasing their physical affection which is both a clear attack on single people, and generally gross. But when the age difference is so clear it's all just so damn stereotypical (midlife crisis, father-figure, you can figure it out) .

While watching them go on about their weekend I could just see them visiting her parents on sunday afternoon. Her boyfriend being about the same age as her father presumably is, a lot of negotating (probably by her mother) had to be done before the visit was arranged. Then, while the four of them are sitting in the living room everybody tries to avoid the subjects "age", "future", "marriage", "kids" and (in gods name!) "sex" as much as they can, leaving only "the weather", "sports" and "music, films and TV".

The older guy and the dad probably at one point find out they have about the same taste in music, and while the talk warms up (the younger woman and her mom glance at eachother reassuringly) they realize that they were both at this 1974 Rolling Stones concert, and both still own a tour shirt.

I give them one more month.

Electification (2): Animalistic

The elections of last week has brought us the following:

- the evil people of the christian democratic party have lost three seats, but remain the largest political party
- the even more evil people of the free-market, anti-immigration, otherthingwitha - inbetweensomething VVD have lost six seats
- labour (my homeboys) have lost a whopping nine seats
- the former mao-ist SP has gained immensly
- a very christian social party has gained three seats
- a very very very scary right-wing xenophobe party led by a guy with weird hair has won nine seats

and
- the "animal party" has entered parliament with two seats.

He's coming!

I can't quite explain my love for the Italian hairball featured in the video below. He's slow as hell in releasing stuff, a bit over the top at times, and occasionally wears leather pants (long time ago, last time was in 1999... I think). Still, I think his albums are amazing, and his live performances are absolutely breath taking. And Zucchero is FINALLY coming to Amsterdam again.

So, on May 28, 2007 I shall by making utterly awkward and very painful to watch moves to this song and many others.

So long Donny

Donald Rumsfeld resigned last week as secretary of Defense in the US and Craig - I would kill to have that accent - Ferguson of the Late Late Show bids him farewell;

Electification

As you may or may not know, the Dutch will hold elections on November 22 to select some people to pretend to run the country for what supposedly would be the next four years, but most likely will be six months (that is, if our current prime-minister remains in charge; in four years he managed to go through three cabinets).

About 30% of the voters are still unsure about who they will support, but seeing that I pay the Dutch Labour party (PvdA) 2 bucks a month (to.... ehm... get drunk?), it should come as no surprise that I will vote for their sorry asses, even though my expectation is they will lose (that is, not become the biggest party). That leaves just one question open; which of the 80 people on the list of candidates will I vote for?

Yes! You guessed correctly, after the amazing succes of the previous edition, it's time to once again play: Vote who Boris will vote on!

The rules are simple, theres a couple of candidates below, one reader one vote (meaning an expected total of at the most three votes) and the results do not in any way have to influence how I will actually vote. Here's my selected candidates:


Name: Wouter Bos
Nr.: 1
Pros: He's the big guy, leader of the pack, he's down with his homies (including those in da hood), he likes progressive rock, is a vegetarian but does not complain about it, to a certain extent he's quite funny, and lets face it; he's not ugly either.
Cons: Why vote for the nr. 1 guy? It's not like there's any question to whether or not he'll get in. Also, he can be a little over the top.


Name: Martijn van Dam
Nr.: 9
Pro's: his weblog is highly entertaining (well, as far as political weblogs are entertaining, lets be reasonable). also, his picture is even more Wouter Bos-esque than Wouter Bos' own pictures.
Con's: he studied something technical. which is probably why he's on hyves, I hear that takes a lot of computer skills to get on. like, you know, press the keys on your keyboard...

Name: Hans Spekman
Nr.: 17
Pro's: was an elderman in Utrecht for social affairs, and one of his claims to fame was helping immigrants the national government denied citizenship but did not have the interest of actually getting out of the country, by giving them shelter on the budget of the city - making sure mothers and children don't have to wander the streets is apparently a Labour thing too.
Con's: has been nominated twice so far for the Worst Dresser In The World award. So far he has lost, but he's confident he'll win it next year. Finger's crossed Hans!

Name: Roos Vermeij
Nr.: 32
Pro's: Studied history. Also, she's a woman.
Con's: She studied it in Leiden. Also, she's a woman.

Cast your ballots before November 20th people!

My Cat

... is missing. Or dead. Either is possible and neither is making me particulary happy. Yesterday morning, as always, she went into the garden but this time she did not return (or at least not yet, fingers crossed). It's essentially triple-sad (with extra chunks of sadness mixed through it, so that with every mouthful there's more than enough sadness to keep you sad) because my cat is both deaf and senile so she probably got lost, hit by a car (which is not extremely likely since nobody reported that to the animal ambulance) or died lying somewhere in the bushes. Option 2 and 3 are actually the least depressing, since the vet told my mom she'd probably have to be put down within a very short period anyway (the cat, not my mom).

Anyhoo; todays motto is "Life sucks, *$*(()#)#)!!!", todays music selections are "Bad Day" by REM, "You're missing" by Bruce Springsteen and "Tobia" by Zucchero (that last one is actually about a missing animal... has the man not sung about anything?) and we're not bothering me today, k?

Micromanagement

The institute I do my internship at has a large collection of microfilm. Specifically of declassified documents from different American governments of the past. Until I started working here I never used microfilm before, but I think it makes me look rather interesting.

To watch it, you need a big expensive machine into which you roll the tape, then you have to wait till the film is sucked up (sucking up most likely is not the specific term microfilmmachinemakers use, but then again microfilmmachinemakers probably isn't either) and then you can go through the documents frame by frame.

Granted, you don't quite get the historical thrill (us historians do actually get historical thrills when we get around old things..... we're pretty pathetic yeah.) as when you would hold the actual documents, but there is a certain charm in having to go through a big role of film, frame by frame, looking for stuff you can use in notes, which, by the way, nobody reads anyway.

The institute buys its microfilm and its books usually from sellers in the United States, they then deliver it to the Roosevelt Institute who then (when enough has come in) send it to the United States Embassy in the Hague so that no taxes have to be paid. The Embassy then lets my institute know they got some stuff and they then send a company to get it.

Microfilm is surprisingly expensive. For a collection of 24 reels (which means thousands of documents) and an index you pay several thousands of dollars (around 4.000 I believe). And, although compared to that amount it might seem peanuts, shipping costs still have to be added to that. It's also questionable how long the films will still be in use, since the internet as a way of getting sources is of course growing very fast.

Most recently, the institute however spend an insane amount of money on two new collections; one on Richard Nixon's foreign policy, another on Eleanor Roosevelt (FDR's wife)'s personal correspondence.

Do you know those movies where luggage gets mixed up, and a perfect innocent guy usually played by a Chevy Chase or Robin Williams kind of actor ends up with a suitcase with drugsmoney, while the gangster, usually played by unknown actors we never hear from again, ends up with dirty clothes?

Well, that happend to us. We got Dick, but the other box was filled with utterly worthless university leaflets. The nice woman at the embassy said the boxes probably got mixed up since the leaflets should have gone to an institute on career choice, and she thought they probably might have our 4.000 dollars worth of microfilm...

I kinda hope we get it back.

Alarmed

Last wednesday evening, after a hard day of reading books at my new internship, I returned to what I reluctantly shall refer to as "home".

Although the outright bastards at the Zeeland housing renting company did finally give me the room they had promised me weeks before, they managed to rent me out a room that (at first) did not have the promised bed, matras, cooking facility, had a bathroom that was utterly filthy, leaking windows, a leaking heating system, a broken phone system to buzz people in and electricity problems. Although in the past week most of these problems have been solved, I'm still expecting the roof to blow off at any moment. "Home" therefore, it is not.

However, since I'm paying 400 euro a month for the frigging thing, not sleeping there probably would not be a very economically sound decision. And so, there I was sitting on my bed (it being the only furniture in the room, waiting for my chocolate milk to warm up, when the fire alarm went off.

At first I was afraid I had triggered it by foolishly using the cooking thing to warm something, but since it turned out I hadn't even plugged the damn thing in yet, it seemed more plausible somebody else was responsible. On the one hand, this was a relief (you dont want to start your tenure in a new community as "the idiot who starts fire alarms"), on the other hand this mean in theory there could be a fire in the building. Although this seemed a somewhat unlikely scenario, I decided to walk down the 6 floors that seperate my room of hell and the relative safety of Zeeland's soil.

Although the building I live in should contain about 200 students who are all enrolled in the Roosevelt Academy, only ten people bothered to come outside. The rest remained inside their rooms, despite the alarm going WEEEHOOOOOOO WEEEHOOOOOO quite loudly in every room, hallway and washingroom in the entire building every three seconds. Some just played their music as loud as they could, others apparently were deaf or immune for loud WEEEHOOOOO sounds.

It turned out that, like most of my building collegues had figured, there was indeed no fire threatening to kill us all, but just some annoying girl whose cooking skills were apparently crap. Which left us with only one problem: when would the alarm stop?

The annoying girl had called the renting company, which was closed so she was redirected to a call center which promised it would send a technician over, but after 30 minutes of non-stop WEEHOOOOOOing, no technician was to be seen and people were losing interest in standing outside in the cold. And so, when everybody else was going back to their WEEHOOOOOOO-infested rooms, I too returned and spent the next 30 minutes of WEEHOOOOOOOOOO-ing with a pillow over my ears chatting with My Friend From The North (who was understandably gloating over my room-troubles) thinking only: "This is not my favorite part of the country".

(The alarm stopped after an hour and I later found out it took so long because the construction crew that is working in the building had build a brick wall in front of the button that stops the alarm. There must be a lot of inter-family relations in Zeeland)

House

As you may or may not know, I live in Amsterdam. I was also born there and lived there all my life aside from six years my family lived in a city thats build on to Amsterdam (so everybody agrees that that doesn't count). Although we had a rocky start at first, ever since I moved to the center me and the city have grown to love each other to death (despite the fact we both have morning breath).

And now, I shall leave my city for places no civilized human being has travelled: Zeeland.

As you may or may not know; Zeeland is a province of the Netherlands. If you look at a map (for instance the one to the left here), Zeeland is the islandy thingy in the bottom left. It's a nice place, friendly people (though a bit too religious for my taste), and a bunch of beaches nearby, but unfortunately it is also two and a half hours away from the actual world (that would be Amsterdam).

The reason I'm going there is not a new interest in survival or Christian politics, but an internship at one of the top American Studies research centers in the Netherlands. I'll be spending three months (with scheduled Amsterdamian intermissions during the weekends) there, running their library, reading their books, doing some research for their professors and (most importantly for me) working on my thesis. Sounds like fun? It does.

Aside from the fact that the Zeelandian house renting people refuse to give me a room.

It's not that they don't have rooms. In fact, there is one with my name on it. It's just that they refuse to understand that I need that room somewhere next week. For three weeks now me, and apparently the otherwise nice lady I've been calling with, have been waiting for a some company to check if the room is in an acceptable state. I appreciate this, of course, if only because I've seen enough episodes of C.S.I. to know that finding a dead body in your new bathroom is nothing short of a right pain in the ass.

However, they seem incapable of understanding that I still need to move stuff in there. They also seem to be incapable of understanding that I am a complete neurotic and that I need structure and certainties to plan ahead (and no, I don't select my clothes a week ahead... I am an excellent driver though.... but never on tuesdays... nope). All I get everytime I call is have the perfectly nice woman telling me it's all going to be done waaay ahead of time while I can see the amount of days I have left before I start working 5 days a week from 9 to 5 slip away faster and faster.

Which leads me to a new theory; people from Zeeland are a lot like Italians. They're lovely people, but if you want something done fast they're totally useless.

God I hope they don't google me....

The Return of the Sugar Man

Zucchero's new album is called "Fly" and will be on sale next week.

Also, he's entering a Fidel Castro lookalike competition.

More info for the few that care, here

9/11

I tend not to write about politics or news events on this blog. Partly because involving myself in the daily dirt of news is below my statesman-esque stature but mainly because my regular readers (that would be Merel and Cybbis) don't really care that much about my opinions on such things.

However, since I am a student of the recent - political - history of the United States of America (in other words, US history is my bitch) I figured I probably couldn't escape writing about 9/11 which (in case you haven't heard it yet) happened 5 years ago today.

On september 11, 2001 a much weirder version of me was at home at my parents place with the flu. In the golden, 'still in high school days', of the flu that usually meant you could lie in bed all day, read comics and have your mom bring you drinks. However, this specific day my mom was sicker than I was so instead I had to go walk the dog. I can't remember the exact time when I returned home, but when me and my dog came back my mom shouted from upstairs that I should turn on the TV. Which was kind of odd, since my entire life my mom usually told me to turn the TV off.

Anyhoo, when I did I saw the two main towers of the World Trade Center burning.

I can't quite remember how I spent the rest of the day. Obviously I watched TV as people were jumping out of the towers, a plane crashed into the Pentagon another one somewhere in Pennsylvania, and as finally the towers collapsed and Manhattan turned into a big dust storm. At the same time, I was emailing and chatting with friends from the U.S. I remember Cybbis and me talking with our friend Kathie, from Los Angeles, all afternoon while she tried to contact our other friend Wendy at work.

About a month later, I was in New York. It wasn't so much a "watching the car crash" trip, as it was an earlier planned exchange my high school had with a New York school. In april 2001 a bunch of New Yorkers had visited Amsterdam and had stayed at our homes (not my home ofcourse, my New Yorker didn't have a passport and therefore couldn't leave the country. Just my luck). Although they only stayed for four days, it was great fun and our return trip was pretty much in the center of my mind when school started again in september.

After the attacks we were all convinced that the trip is off, partly because we weren't sure we wanted to go, partly because we weren't sure the New Yorkers wanted us to come, and partly because we figured our parents would tie us to our beds rather then let us get near any planes or New York City in general. Surprisingly enough, problem one and two appeared non existent when the school in question practically demanded us to come ("We won't let terrorists ruin this!") and we ourselves laughed danger in it's fairly unatractive face. Finally, our parents didn't have much objections either (do they even love us? there were Anthrax letters everywhere!).

That week in New York turned out to be amazing and I utterly and completely fell in love with the city and (surprisingly enough) with its inhabitants. What was amazing was, that despite there being thousands of papers with phone numbers and pictures of the missing throughout the city, and despite smoke still coming off Ground Zero, New York City and the New Yorkers were recovering; they were still the funny, bitchy, complaining bunch of people they always were. And that's probably the best lesson from 9/11; it'll take a whole lot more than two planes and two towers to destroy a city.

Or, to quote the great cultural philosopher that is Ryan Adams: Hell, I still love you New York

Dear David Gray (2),

I haven't heard back from you on living in a corner of my bedroom so I suppose that's a no. I can dig that, also considering that you have a wife and kids and they wouldn't fit in the corner, and I'd probably get annoyed by them so no prob.

But one thing; this entire "two to three years" of doing nothing deal now that your "Life in Slowmotion" tour is over...: No. Puhleeeaaase No. PUHLEEEAAAASEE NO!

True, true. Zucchero will have a new album out in late September so that should keep me occupied for a few months. After that he'll tour so that too will keep me entertained, but that'll be over by the end of 2007 and we all know how notoriously fucking slow he works.

Springsteen's touring now, but the Seeger sessions thing is already growing old. Apparently he's working on some new E-Street band stuff, but we both know Bruce; it might be 2011 before that comes out. Granted, Ryan Adams is always interesting, but he's also totally unreliable. You, my friend, are good. Slow in releasing stuff lately. But really good.

Soooo. lets try to schedule this a bit. Let's say that Zucchero will be able to keep me happy untill halfway into 2007. Springsteen then takes over with a poor version of his former self for another 4 months, that gives you untill 2008 to make a new album and tour again. Or to start living in my corner. Really, either is fine with me.

Lemme know!

Love, Boris

PS. In the case two people don't know David Gray; Babylon, Hospital Food, and my personal favorite This Year's Love

Get Used To It

As you may or may not know, there are a lot of religious conservatives in the United States. Granted, there are also a lot of religious conservatives in the Netherlands, but these people aren't allowed to watch tv and therefore also rarely appear on it, so they bother me very little. Also, their hatred for non-Christians of all kind usually also remains limited to their own bible belt.

The United States is a bit different however. There they have men like Pat Robertson (who has claimed that U.S. judges are more dangerous than Al Qaeda and that Christians and Jews are the only ones qualified to reign) and Jerry Falwell (who believes gays, lesbians and feminists are responsible for 9/11 and that AIDS is not just punishment for homosexuals but also for a society that tolerates homosexuals). They are loving people who have spent their entire life preaching the virtues of Christian society and a close family life.

Oh yeah, and they're the kind of guys that protested during Matthew Shepards funeral.

One of these wonderful men is Dr. James Dobson. Dobson believes that children up to 8 should be spanked (but not too harsh obviously), he believes homosexuality can be cured and (and I believe we can all agree with him on this one) he thinks Spongebob Squarepants is gay which obviously is a great risk to all kids watching.

Brother Dobson and his crew (organized on Family.org) are so convinced of their crusade (most strongly of course their fight against Spongebob but also abortion and... stuff...) that they are willing to send you loads of books on the subject for free! Well, not intentionally of course; it costs them money and they strongly urge you to donate but it's not obligatory.

As The Strangler explains it; you can let Family.org send you books, dvds, cds or any of the other crap they have on their site for free, and you can even make some money by putting it on ebay (although my Friend-From-The-North (ladies, he comes with an accent) did note that that would be furthering their agenda), and let them hurt financially.

Cool :).

If you are considering doing this, may I suggest the following titles?

"Helping People Step Out of Homosexuality"
"Into the Promised Land. Beyond the Lesbian Struggle"
"Out of Egypt. One Women's (sic) Journey Out of Lesbianism"
"She Calls me Daddy: Seven Things Every Man Needs To Know About Building a Complete Daughter)"
and my personal favorite:
"A Parent's Guide To Preventing Homosexuality"
(and throw in the dvd of The Chronicles of Narnia too if you feel like it).

The instructions below are directly copied from The Strangler:

"Here's how to do it:
1. Go to www.family.org and you will see their home page.
2. Once you're at the home page, look for the "Resources" link in the blue bar on the left-hand side, right above the "Search" box, and click it.
3. Under the "Resource Category" menu on the left-hand side, you'll notice categories such as "Homosexuality." Go ahead and click that for shits and giggles.
4. It's time to start shopping! Scroll down a little bit and feel the homophobia flow. How about a nice copy of A Parent's Guide to Preventing Homosexuality? Go ahead and click the "Add to Cart" button.
5. Now comes a tough decision: Do you have the book sent to yourself so you can sell it on eBay for cash (my personal favorite) or do you keep it on your mantel as a high-larious conversation piece to point at and laugh when your friends and family come over? Or do you send it to a jerk? I always opt for sending it to myself. Yes, you may end up on the Focus on the Family mailing list (though I've been doing this for some time and have never received anything beyond what I ordered), but reading Focus on the Family's junk mail is a good way to keep tabs on their activities and it will cost them even more money in postage.
Please note: Focus on the Family won't send you more than $100 worth of materials for free in any given shopping trip, so be sure to keep it reasonable and return often.
6. Select "Add New Shipping Address" and click "Proceed to Checkout." Or, hell, continue to shop and pick up a box set of The Chronicles of Narnia on CD.
7. The next screen will ask you to sign up for an account and give your information. Don't worry, they don't ask for your credit-card number. Enter whatever name and address you like, because you won't be paying. You might want to make up a phone number, too.
8. Once you've filled out all the required fields (you can also create a fake e-mail account if you're super paranoid), click "Proceed to Checkout" one more time. You'll now find yourself at the "Here Is Your Cart" field. Annoying thing alert: You may have to reenter your info again after this field to actually set up your account. But just keep going until you get to the "How Much Would You Like to Donate?" page.
9. So, how much would you like to donate? Zero dollars, obviously. Don't be fooled by the field in the lower-right-hand corner that shows you the suggested donation amounts. Simply select "Enter other total amount" and enter 0.00 as the amount you would like to pay. (Don't put in a dollar sign or it will ask you for credit-card information!) Proceed to checkout.
10. You'll now be led to a screen that will try to make you feel guilty about the amount you haven't donated. But don't feel bad! Just proceed to checkout again.
11. Jesus! Here you are on the twelfth step and you still don't have your self-hatred materials! And you thought preventing homosexuality was supposed to be easy! Click "Checkout Now" and you're done.
Congratulations!
You have just removed a few dollars from the coffers of a major anti-gay organization."

I know

It's been 15 days since my last blog post, but honestly some people can be such drama queens.

(I'm intrigued though, who is that guy, what Boris is he looking for, why the plastic bag? And no, I don't look for videos with my name in it on YouTube, my favorite Finn Cybbis alerted me)

...

(then again, why he is looking on YouTube for videos with "boris" in it is beyond me)

Dear Bruce Springsteen (3),

So you got me again.

A few months back you were coming over to Amsterdam to play in the Heineken Music Hall and I decided not to go. The reason was partly that I had no idea what kind of music to expect (turned out it was folk, but not the boring kind but the fun kind with aprox. 9.324 other musicians on stage with you) but mostly because of the prize.

80 f-ing euro for a ticket. Shameless!

Anyway, I obviously immediately regretted not going the moment the gig was sold out. I regretted it even more when I downloaded the album the tour was based on and realized that I really liked the album (the excellent "We Shall Overcome. The Seeger Sessions"). By the time I read the reviews of the concert I was actually slapping myself in the face and I don't think we have to go through the words I used when I saw some footage of the show on TV.

The problem with the entire Springsteen thing is, that there are many reasons not to like you. There's the ticket prices (yeah like you really need another 6,5 million), there's the weird "Oh I'm really in pain when I'm singing this" faces. There's the prostitute related song. There's the annoying chuckle. There's the lack of an E Street Band album and tour in the last four years. And there's the fact that you record a tribute album to Pete Seeger, and then don't include any songs actually written by the man himself (funny? yes. nice to a shriveled 87 year old? not really). And of course, there's Born in the USA (just because I know all the words and sing along when its on the radio doesn't mean I like it. Oh and Zucchero; same goes for "Senza una Donna" buddy).

But in the end, it's just so much more fun to ignore all that and scream along to "Prove it all Night" or "Ramrod" or any of the other brilliant songs you made.

And so, when I heard you were coming back to the Netherlands, I bought a ticket. I know I said I wouldn't, and I don't think I really wanted to, but in the end I had no choice (I was online when the tickets went on sale, so obviously I had to see if I could get through to the website selling the tickets. When I didn't I obviously had to try again every 20 seconds just to see if I could, in theory, buy a ticket. When I did get through... well, you can't not buy a Springsteen ticket when it's right there on the screen, now can you? It makes sense in my head, let me be).

So yes, I'm going to see your show in Rotterdam in october. I'm going to be alone and I'm going to have a fairly crappy seat probably next to smelly people who are going to complain that you're not playing "Born to Run". You better be worth it.

Love, Boris

PS. Not only is Michael Bolton still alive, he's making a come-back! Another dissapointment!

Buzzkiller

Summer is here and the time is right for dancing in the street.

That's what you'd think anyway. However, due to extremely high temperatures little dancing is hapening in Amsterdam these days. Neither is a whole lot else; the majority of us are spending our days sweating, complaining about the heat and begging for rain. Occasionally our prayers come through, but unfortunately the Allmighty forgot to lower the temperatures (women, sigh) so the rain simply turnes to a steam-like substance.

The heat had some terrible side effects. A big walking event that usually lasts four days (aptly named "Four Dayer") in and around the Dutch city of Nijmegen was cancelled after 2 people died and 300 needed medical attention in some way after only day one. The event is walked by something like 70.000 people (or more... or less.... my research is so good on this blog) and the bottleneck of the day ended up being a several mile long dike that was completely shade-less. A reporter later on asked the mayor if the event shouldn't have been cancelled halfway through the day, but he seemed to not quite get that evecuating 70.000 people would take more time than letting them walk it out (you will be happy to know an official inquiry is held on how this event was organized).

Other events, such as a four day biking ride through Drenthe, have also been cancelled (there goes my tv watching schedule for the week!) while a six day beach walking tour will continue as scheduled. Since beaches notoriously have little shade I suspect a possible repeat of the Four Dayer disaster. (On a side note; although it's horrible for the families of the two people who passed away last week, anybody who goes walking for 7 hours with 35 degrees celcius in the open sun is mentally unstable in my humble opinion). But trust me when I say that all that is not the biggest problem this summer.

What really bugs me are the f-ing musquitos.

I think they were there last year, but I can't imagine there were as many as this year. Either that, or this is the first year that the Musquito Travel Guide mentioned the wonderful and laid-back atmosphere of my bedroom, where there are not only beautiful walls to stand up against, but also free drinks from a guy who sleeps in his underwear (too much info?).

Whatever may be the case, the past few weeks I have spent my nights in bed trying frantically to sleep despite the heat. And pretty much every night, just when I'm about to doze off I hear a "Mzzzzzzz" sound going around my head. At first I try to ignore it, thinking "Oh well, it's only a bit of itching", but then the "Mzzzzz"-ing gets louder, and louder, untill it gets so loud that I'm convinced the mosquito is actually sitting inside my ear screaming his Mzzzzzing sound as if he's a fan at a Metallica concert.

And so I jump out of bed, turn on the light, wait for my vision to come and start hunting for the little black spots on the wall that I can hit. Which is not easy since I have killed a lot of mosquitos lately and my walls begin to look like the first 20 minutes of Saving Private Ryan for insects. When I finally do find the little bastard, the trick is to kill it before it can fly off. If I succeed I can then sleep peacefully, but if it flies away, the result is a minute long chase of my trying to grab it somewhere in midair.

So... my biggest fear this summer?

That the neighbors across from me can look into my place and see me run around in my underwear moving in very mysterious ways and shouting "Die! Die you [expletive deleted]". It just can't look pretty.

Catch my dissease

I'm realizing more and more that I just can't leave this country alone can I? This idea already entered my head a few years ago when I was in Italy for two weeks and on my return discovered that a 60 year old hairy man hosting a house make-over show was suddenly in the center of a sex scandal. It was one of these moment where you stand in front of your TV and all you can say is "QUE??".

This year I left for two weeks and when I returned the government had collapsed. When I left Israel had started peace talks with the Palistinians again and now its practically war. In June all buildings in Amsterdam seemed moderately safe and now an appartment building in the west of Amsterdam has been evacuated because it might be unstable and could practically collapse at any moment.

I can handle all of that because it barely concerns me in everyday life but now something else has been added to it; the Veterans Dissease (TA!DA!DA!DAAAAH!). So far one person has died (a senior citizen, old people can get it the easiest) and in total 24 have been diagnosed with it, in just one week.

I believe the English name is probably different from how the Dutch call it (which is... The Veterans Dissease ( TA! DA! DA! DAAAAAH!)) but I believe it comes down to the following; if water is polluted with some kind of buglike thing (which is the technical term, trust me) it can transcend this dissease through the air. For that to happen the water needs to be transported through the above mentioned air in tiny drops, either as steam or... as... other versions of tiny drops of water.

I so missed my calling in the field of natural science.

Anyhoo, this means that all steam rooms, fountains and cooling towers in the city are in theory deadly weapons of waterdropification (again, technical term) meaning I have to avoid those. Also, it means that every time I sneeze I am afraid that I will have to start making up that funeral song list (see way back).

It's not easy being me.

Calcio

Last wednesday I was in Bologna watching the last thirty minutes of the half finale of the world football championship between Germany and Italy on a big square (not surprisingly the Italian name for the square therefore was "big square") in the center of the city. The crowd existed of Italians from all walks of life: members of all age groups were present (although the famous Bolognese Centennials With Heart Conditions group wisely remained at home) to enjoy what could be Italy's way into the final.

And I was there too. Being Dutch and not a big football fan at first I felt like I was present at a birthday party where I knew only the birthee (it's a word, trust me) and was present while a lot of urgent family matters were discussed. There wasn't just tension in the air, the entire match was loudly commented on by everybody present. Every move the Italians or Germans or the referee made was either applauded (Si! Vai! Bene!) or condemned (No! Sei Pazzo! Bastardo!). This in itself is not unique: my father (a big football fan) tends to talk to the referee and the man doing the commentary - despite me explaining time after time that TV is not a two-way medium. These Italians however, were far more enthusiastic.

Before the game I had been in doubt who I wanted to win. The Dutch by definition dislike the Germans (nothing personal, the Belgiums hate us) and they tend to win in the last minute which the rest of the world finds terribly unfair unless their team does it. On the other hand, Italians (despite the fact that I love them to death) get terribly annoying when their team wins something.

I still wasn't sure while standing in that crowd. It was still 0-0 when we arrived and, although I was hanging towards supporting Italy, I couldn't help but shake off this mean idea in the back of my mind:

It would be so much fun to see this crowd in pain.

I know it's childish, and I'm not proud, but I couldn't help it. It just would have been so interesting to feel the dissapointment, to hear to shouting and the screaming. Also, it would have enabled me to pick up quite a few Italian cursewords that might come in hand later.

Thankfully my Italian loving side took over quickly (leaving my dark side in the back of my skull hoping for a car crash to happen) and soon I "Vaaaaaai!"-ed along as Italian as I could. Which - granted - isn't very Italian but darn it I tried. In between I videotaped the crowds reactions, but sadly I forgot to turn the camera on when the two goals were made at the end of the extra time but the total joy that everybody (including me) felt when the Italians finally scored was unforgettable.

As was the honking, screaming and shouting that continued until 4 in the morning. God knows how long they'll party after tonight. Eitherhoo: Congrats Italy!

Traveling Band

I'm about to embark on an epic journey. Which, in normal people's language, comes down to me going to Bologna for a week and a half. This means that (1) I'm going to be sweating my ass off for 11 days, (2) that I will be majorly dissapointed - yet again - in the quality of Italian record stores specifically due to the lack of Zucchero-stuff-I-don't-already-own they won't have in stock and (3) I won't be blogging in that period (it also means I can work up new frustrations with traveling, planes, trains, politics - not really related but it just happens - and Italian guys, to write about later).

And it means that before leave monday I need to go through both my To Pack and my To Do list. The To Do list includes everything that has to be done for the world not to go to damnation (obviously with 'the world' I mean my life specifically, if I'd care for the world I'd recycle) in the time I will not be in the country. This list contains such timeless classics as "buy shoes", "buy clothes", "e-mail professor" and "find place to live in Zeeland" and, perhaps excluding the last one, should be no problem.

The To Pack list is a lot more important. It is important because it needs to be done right or else I'll spent the first four days of my vacation thinking "I know I forgot to pack something!" the fifth day finally realizing which item I've forgotten and the last six days thinking "Why the hell did I forget [insert item]???". Even if it is a totally meaningless thing, I'd still be left feeling the trip would have been so much memorable if I hadn't forgotten my toothbrush.

Granted, things have gotten easier throughout the years. In 2001, when I went on a vacation with friends for the first time we spent weeks e-mailing eachother on who should bring which CD, and once in Italy we spent days looking for a boombox (we found one that was extremly expensive and utter crap). Thankfully, I now have a (also pretty crappy) Mp3 player to help me through that, but unfortunately it runs on batteries. (Ooh! I have to bring batteries with me!)

Books remain a hazzard however as are remembering to bring my mobile phone, the thing that puts power into my mobile phone (which reminds me the position of being my human dictionary is still open, everybody that looks like Orlando Bloom is welcome to apply), my toothpaste, my shampoo, shower gel, flight information, telephone numbers, cash etc.

Anyway, the big "What Will Boris Forget?" game is open from now on, good luck on betting.

Football

I got a text message from my friend Becky yesterday evening about the Football World Cup. The Netherlands was playing and she informed me that she was watching the game with her boyfriend Elvin (the otherwise nice guy who my friends might also know as "The Cuban" (he's actually from Puorto Rico... or Mexico... or Hong Kong or something) or "The Guy Who Shot A Rubber Band At My Face In A Milan Airport" (bitter? I'm not bitter) ) and her grandparents.

I'm not sure about her grandpa, but her grandma is a huge Netherlands fan. I am not one hundred percent sure about how much (if any) Dutch blood she has in her, but despite being an American she is more nationalistic about the Netherlands than anybody I know here. She loves us. She loves our food (love makes blind), she loves our countryside, she loves our music and she loves our football. Becky informed me that she was wearing, and I quote, a "crazy windmill hat in Dutch colors" (not trying to be too specific here, but are there windmill hats in Dutch colors that aren't crazy?). I texted her back saying that if the hat won't make us win, than I don't know what would.

The reply came quickly and read "She laughed and asked why you took your eyes away from the TV!". Which is sort of the problem. The game was on, but at the same time I was watching Der Untergang on my notebook (great combi really). You see, I am not a big football fan. Usually I can get away with that quite easily, all I have to do is start myself up with hooligans, government money being pumped into big football clubs and before you know it the rant automatically moves to anti-gay slogans, too much media attention and "general pathetic behaviour".

But during the World Cup, this is a bit more difficult. Basically, it's considered treason and although there's no death penalty for it (yet), it will make your social life a lot more difficult. During parties, most lunches, or general conversations with family members (I tend to select friends on them not talking about football) football pops up everywhere.

I personally have found a way out of this problem, by using one simple catchphrase that will get you through discussing every football match you did not see:

(ready)

(here it comes)

REFEREE!!!

Say it like something horrible has been done to your cat by the person in question and the other people in the group will knod knowingly and say "God did you see that..... blablablayadayadayada", after that all you have to do is agree wholeheartedly with the man with the biggest beer belly (he knows best, he clearly spends the most time getting drunk while watching other men be active). Use the force wisely my children.

(Oh, and the end score was 2;1 yesterday, all goals were made in the first halve, the Netherlands weren't playing that great and spent most of the second halve defending which - if you ask me - is always a very unwise thing to do. )

On/Off

I appear to have been dumped yesterday night.

Well, technically it wasn't "dumping" because for that to happen you need to be in a relationship, it was more a situation of ripping the unborn foetus of a potential relationship from the save womb that was two dates (three if you count the pre-date, which technically you can't 'cause it's a pre-date) and leaving it on the cold floor, waiting for its little heart to explode (why am I pro-choice again).

Yes, indeed. He wants to be friends.

Actually, I have no right to complain since (1) the guy in question is really nice and its always best to just be open and fair about these things and (2) I once just stopped answering calls and text messages from a guy I did not really like (I panicked! Stop judging me!), but I think we can safely say that when something like this happens to me, it's much sadder by definition.

It's not like I was head-over-heels-LAYLA!-YOU-GOT-ME-ON-MY-KNEES-take-me!-take-me-here-and-now!-YOU'RE-BEAUTIFUL!-YOU'RE-BEAUTIFUL-IT'S-TRUE! in love with him, but the common sense part of my brain figured that any person you can discuss Gilmore Girls with for an entire hour is someone at least worth considering to have a crush on.

And so, as I was walking home (Sarah Jessica Parker refuses to answer my calls, but when she does she's going to do the voice-over part there) with a rather depressed mood taking over I came up with a rather novel idea:

Dear God/Allah/Buddah/Elvis, could we arrange for my feelings to have an on/off button? Because quite frankly I'm through (this is where Tina Turner takes over and Oprah stands in the background saying "You go girl!")

I'm through feeling alone
I'm through feeling sorry for myself because I feel alone
I'm through wondering if I'm doing stuff right
and for fucks sake
I'm through having crushes on people who don't love me.

Can I get an AMEN people?

Mirror

Last Tuesday I went to see Kees van Kooten. If you’re American you’ll have no idea who I’m talking about, but if you’re Dutch you legally have to, and good manners should make you envy me. Van Kooten used to make tv sketch shows with a guy called Wim de Bie and they were must see tv for the entire country on Sunday night. Unfortunately they stopped some years ago, but van Kooten has recently released a book with his favourite American and English short funny stories.

These stories (think David Sedaris but he’s not in there for some reason) are all “little man” humour and based upon the stupid things men and women (but lets face it, mostly men) do to themselves and others. Stupid things like trying to open a bank account but getting so nervous you screw it up. Or making a complete mess out of somebody else’s medicine cabinet. They’re stories that make you laugh (reeeaaally hard), but at the same time you know that it so could happen to you.

One of the stories he read from was by an American author in the early 20th century (I think) who wrote a piece about him punishing objects that hurt him; if he walks into a door he decided to ‘hurt’ it back by slapping it. You know that a door can’t feel pain, but yet you automatically put human emotions into it; How dare you attack me! I never did anything to you! *BANG* Feel my wrath!. It’s weird but not uncommon; dogs think all other animals are dogs too (which is why they find horses so scary yet attractive), and I spent a few years in high school sitting next to a friend of mine who tried to make his pencilcase open and close itself (he claimed he was kidding, but honestly who was he kidding).

Anyway, I found the hurt-non-living things very fitting to how I felt about the mirror in my parents bedroom this evening.

I have a date (it’s not really a date actually: the date is on Sunday but we decided that we should have a pre-date get together so that we can see if we scare each other to death… and seeing that he’s the cuter one, with “we” I mean “I” and with “each other” I mean “him”) in exactly 1 hour and 45 minutes and my face looks puffy, my hair like crap and my clothes look funny. And while I’m standing in front of the mirror, being absolutely convinced the guy I have a date with is going to run off screaming, I can’t help but think at the mirror:

“Traitor! We bought this place you know! You’d be nothing without us! MAKE ME LOOK LIKE ORLANDO BLOOM!”

Guess what, didn’t work. Anyhoo, wish me good luck.

Vote or Die

Dutch universities have student bodies. Like most student bodies in the Netherlands, they have no power whatsoever, nobody knows who's in them, what they do all day and if they actually achieve anything. So, a bunch of lazy students (ehm... active students with an interest in their environment) take part in it and the rest of us don´t care. Spins like a kitten on drugs.

One flaw in the situation: the lazy sons or daughters of bitches need to be chosen.

I guess they could have solved it with a game of cards or a duel but that would have been too easy and therefore once a year university wide elections are being held. So far so good, aside from the fact that to have elections you need voters, and that's where the plot thickens.

Last year only 17% of students at the University of Amsterdam voted, and that is one of the lowest turnouts in the country. I believe this is mostly because the Amsterdam student bodies are among the most invisible, although the fact that we Amsterdam students actually have a life (unlike those damn Leiden people) might also play a part.

Personally, I like politics and I feel you should always vote, if only to be able to feel utterly betrayed by your political party the day after the results are announced, but I generally can't be bothered to vote for these student bodies either. Last year I felt guilty and did vote, but I voted on the guy with the nicest smile on the posters so I'm not sure that's how the system is supposed to be. This year again none of my friends are candidates (all: yeey!) so I'm down again to having to pick one of the 40 total unknowns on the different lists.

Crap.

Anyway, I went through all the candidates' descriptions of themselves and managed to pick out two. Since none of the candidates really had any surprising points (more freedom! more vacation! more money!) it's down to looks and general writing skills again.

(drum roll)
Candidate 1:


- pro's; seems to want to make studying more difficult.
- con's: studies language (not a language but language in general), which can't be good. Also, is member of a party that my buddy the Squirrel describes as 'the cool kids'
- not sure yet: makes word jokes



Candidate 2:



- pro's: history student (we's smart folk you know), also made the effort to make up a big comparison between a university and flying an airplane
- con's: made up a big comparison between a university and an airplane
- not sure yet: independent candidate. feels like throwing away your vote doesn't it?



So to make it all as democratic as possible; faithul readers (that would be you Merel and Jari) can vote which of the two and then I'll probably ignore the result but at least we had fun.

25 hours of flu

Yep, I got the flu again. Last time was in January (see archives), therefore no coherent blog with jokes and amusing stories but some random fever infested thoughts. Enjoy!

THURSDAY

3 PM: Jump into bed. With jump I mean stumble. With stumble I mean drag. With drag I do not mean the other meaning of ‘drag’.

4 PM: Bored. Start watching the first season of the American version of Queer as Folk

4:05 PM: Decide that, despite better judgment, I like the American version of Queer as Folk.

4:50 PM: Finally recognize the woman playing Michael’s mother. Nice to know at least one person still has a career after Cagney & Lacey. Wonder if Cagney & Lacey is out on DVD yet. Wonder how I can avoid it if it is.

5:10 PM: Text my friend Merel (not the Merely one, she’s in the UK watching 21 Jump Street 24/7) to tell her that I won’t be coming over for dinner. She texts back that she hopes I’m doing better soon since it’s no weather to be sick.

5:25 PM: Decide I like how Showtime can show naked people and not have Oprah or George Bush complain about it.

6:30 PM: Stop to watch the news. Want to physically attack former politician for talking complete rubbish. Consider this a good sign of recovery.

7:40 PM: Starting to get really good at the self invented game “Find the lines the writers of US QAF stole from Russel T Davies, the writer of UK QAF”. Wonder if English QAF would have been interesting for 22 episodes. Realize nobody cares but me.

11 PM: Turn off TV.

FRIDAY

7 AM: Wake up. Therefore start watching the rest of the Queer as Folk season. Ah well, made sense in my head.

11 AM: Finished QAF. Hate the ending. Officially want to hurt the guy playing the guy with the baseball bat (confused? Me no care… notice how flu makes me so friendly). Probably can’t listen to “Save the last dance for me” again… bastards.

1 PM: Text the Squirrel to tell him I have to cancel movie night. He texts back that he hopes I’ll be doing better soon since it’s no weather to be sick. Wonder if my friends secretly communicate with each other.

2 PM: Start watching Brokeback Mountain on my computer.

2.30 PM: Wonder if the sex scense would have been more attractive if they hadn’t been directed by the man who previously made the Hulk but by the Queer as Folk guys.

2.50 PM: Deeply confused. I was convinced that everybody in the world had agreed that a) Dawsons Creek actually sucked and b) all the actors involved should remain off screen. Katie Holmes was bad enough, do we need to keep Michelle Williams in business?

3 PM: Want to hit Michelle Williams. Also consider this a sign of recovery.

3:20 PM: I don’t like Jake Gyllenhaal’s father in law. Also, start wondering if, just like the sheep, Heath Ledger’s accent is also computer generated. Would explain a lot.

3:50 PM: *#$%^@&*^#%@^&*!^@^!&^@!!!!!!!!!!!

4 PM: Just fucking great. Wonder if I should pull out my DVD of Beautiful Thing, but figured I’ve seen enough gay drama. Decide to watch Oprah instead. Realize this is probably a contradictio in terminis.

4:10 PM: Text message from my mom. Hopes I’m doing ok, especially considering the weather. Am now convinced all my friends and close relatives spent their free time calling eachother.

Blackbird

There's a few questions life throws at you that you never get to answer. Questions like "If you fall off a really high building, are you dead before you hit the ground?", "How long would I survive on the North Pole" and " "Do I look fat in a rubber suit?". Questions like these, at least if you're lucky, never get answered beyond a doubt (although if I can guess: yes, probably less then a day and yés) and that's the way the world is supposed to be.

And yet since last week I can answer one of these questions, namely: how long does it take to capture a bird. The answer? The better part of an afternoon, with help.

Last week I was walking through the east side of Amsterdam with my friends Merel (not the Merely one listed to the left, at the time I think she was feeding mineral water to a cat that is not hers...) and Sarah and we were having a lovely afternoon. We had spent some time dissing 1980's pop music, people asking you to join charities on the street and Merel's addiction of doing so (doing good things is so 1999) and some annoying Christian girls who were trying to persuade people to give their life to Jesus.

The normal stuff.

And then we walked past some birds and my, otherwise beloved friend, Merel noticed something was wrong with one of them. Apparently, something to do with his paw. I shrugged and was ready to move on (birds die, women make less money then men and untalented people make hitsingles, it's nature) but Merel had decided that this bird needed to be rescued.

Why we had to save it was never really made clear to neither Sarah nor me. But we love her and so we fully cooperated in Mission Blackbird (actually it wasn't a blackbird, it was a meerkoet but I don't know the English word for that and I honestly don't care). First we looked up the telephone number of the Animal Ambulance (I did not make this up and yes we have too much money in this country) who then told us that, yes, they were willing to come pick up a wounded bird but we had to catch it first.

How do you catch it? Merel asked.

Throw a blanket over them and they'll get calm.

And so, armed with one of Sarah's towels and a box we went to capture a bird. A bird that did not really want to be captured. And a bird that, despite a hurt leg (paw? foot?) managed to get around quite well while Merel and Sarah chased it and I tried to stand as far away from them as possible without them hating me. On the plus side, I did help by explaining the situation to the people that were crowding the bridge wondering what the hell was going on.

Soon two girls, who dressed like 19 but were most likely 15 or something, decided to help with the bird-catching (or better said the bird-not-catching) while I was sent out to get bread for the animal. When I returned with my hamburger the bird had managed to get into the water and as a way of 'catching it' the two girls were waving the towel at it from the side.

Sarah and I were ready to give up and abandon the towels and we were about to convince Merel to do the same when this woman (who was either a performance artist, a junkie or both) emerged and asked if we needed her to go into the water to catch the bird. Amsterdam canal water, I should add, is pretty much black and the swans who swim in it gray. Merel would later describe the woman as "very nice" while Sarah and I preferred "a total lunatic".

Before one of us could tell her "Yes please" or the far more appropriate "Are you mental?" the woman was already taking off her shoes and socks and walked into the water to catch the bird, who, if my mind reading skills are still ok, was thinking "what the f---". After a few tries she did manage to catch the bird but the box was to small and it escaped, swimming to the other side of the bridge.

Which would have been the right moment to actually give up.

But noooooooo. Armed with a new bigger box Sarah and I were send out to get (there's three stores in her own neighborhood she can no longer visit) the two girls and Merel chased the bird to the other side of the bridge where the hunt started yet again. And to my sruprise, this time succesful.

We caught a f-ing bird.

The animal ambulance people managed to show up three hours later and when they took the bird out of the box we had kept it in they looked at us like we were 10 year olds. "Did you three rescue this birdie?". When one of the women (who looked like she was a founding member of the Green Party) examnined the bird she told us probably nothing was wrong with it, but they'd send it to the bird shelter anyway.

Saving those who did not need saviour. I felt like one of those Christian girls singing in the mall.

Damned if you do, damned if you don't

My before mentioned friend who recently moved to a student building in the Northern part of Amsterdam (see below) has been complaining that ever since he moved in, he's hardly met any of the other people living in his hallway. This also means that he has had no problems with loud music or an overcrowded kitchen but he likes to have people around him a lot.

You guessed well, he's not from Amsterdam.

A chance to really get to know his fellow hall-mates came this week when a meeting was organized to discuss who should clean the kitchen and what should be done about the recent discovery of bugs living there (ladies, my friend's single and there's cochroaches in his kitchen! e-mail address available on request). When he arrived at the meeting it turned out that only four other people (of 14 people living in the same hallway in total) had showed up. Seven people were just not home, and two people were in, but refused to leave their rooms.

Right.

As said the meetings main focus was the state of the kitchen, but one of the guys present managed to change the subject pretty quickly to how he used to have an XTC addiction. He had been clean for more than a year now, he told them, but was considering picking it up again. Personally, that would have been the moment for me to wonder if he had been the only one who had seen the bugs. Another guy present threw in his drugs story, explaining that whenever he smoked pot he had to throw up. Thankfully I do not believe he actually demonstrated it, but I think we can safely assume that can't be more than two weeks away.

The conclusion of the meeting was that everybody was going to cook together the next day as some kind of team building. I told my friend he should probably stay away from drinks arranged by the XTC guy. You know. Just in case.

Meanwhile, on the other side of town (yeah, for the movie version of this blog I'm getting Sarah Jessica Parker to do the voice over) a new person moved into the appartment above mine. That in itself is not that surprising, that place has been illegally subrented since I moved in and every three months new people (usually non-Dutch women) take over the place. This one, however, has the most disgusting taste in music.

Trance.

*shiver*

Now, I understand people liking music. Obviously. I also understand people liking music that is not specifically meant to be listened to as much as to be felt. Barely. I even understand people liking music I hate. Sort of. And I understand why people go to clubs, listen to insanely loud music and have their ears ruined...

OK, I don't get that, but it doesn't bother me, so: go in peace and use condoms.

What I don't understand is why Satan's Little Helper upstairs has to play this crap from 8 in the morning until 9 at night (when she leaves the house for what, I can only assume, must be some quiet time) at a volume level that would make Pete Townshend frown.

Conclusion: you can buy up a big house in the middle of nowhere, put all your friends there and make the house rules that include paragrahs on kitchen cleaning, cocroach killing and music (both style and volume) or else you're fucked.

Dear Bruce Springsteen (2)

Hi Bruce,

I think I might as well be as open about this as I can be: our music maker, music listener relationship is in deep trouble. I'm sorry to shock you but I do mean deep trouble. I think we're not yet in the unsafable 'Tom-DeLay's-career' trouble yet, but I'm afraid we are definetly heading into 'Oprah-without-make-up' county.

You see, I thought this thing we had was clearly a win-win situation for the both of us. You sing about how crappy your life used to be, or about how your father doesn't understand you, or how you're confused or something like that and I sing along as loud and out of tune as I can. Occasionally, with my curtains closed, I even might have thrown in some sad airguitar moves (although honestly, is there any other kind than sad ones?).

So, we were having fun.

But lately I fear we've been growing apart. It started with your album Devils & Dust. Although there were some pretty darn good tunes on there a lot of the songs were completely lost on me. And with "a lot of the songs" I am, of course, talking about "Reno" (or as I like to call it "prostitute song nr. 1"), with the completely unnecessary sentence "Two hundred dollars straight in, Two-fifty up the ass" (enjoy that mental image friends!).

Now comes the news that you are to release a Pete Seeger tribute album. Personally, I am not a big folk fan - I can barely stand Bob Dylan when he's not plugged into something - but you performed this album together with a new 17 piece band so I was getting quite interested in this new work of yours, especially when the news came that you were going to do a gig in Amsterdam in a few weeks. But then the ticket price was revealed.

75 bucks for one frigging ticket? Are you out of your mind?? I could have expected this from Rod fucking Stewart, but didn't we all agree that you were the working class man's hero? Granted I'm not that working class to begin with, and I occasionally giggle like a girl but darn it I'm a Springsteen nut and I don't have a lot of money.

So I did some soul searching (and with soul searching I mean watching Dr. Phil bash some fat people) and I've come up with the following solution: I will not go out on saturday to get a completely overpriced ticket, you will do that tour and I will then read fantastic reviews and curse myself for not going after all. After that you will get into the studio, call your E Street Band budies, make an album that is at least half as good as The River and do a big tour with normal priced tickets, and I will then try to be present and scream "Bruuuuuuuuuuuce" at you at an annoyingly high volume.

Deal?

love, boris

PS. You're Italian-American, right? Could you call some maffia buddies of yours and get rid of James Blunt? Grazie!

Go North

A friend of mine asked me if I wanted to help him measure up his new apartment and, despite the fact that it was Desperate Housewives night (how dare you suggest I have no life!) I went along. Partly because helping friends is second nature to me (if you read this, you’re a Nazi… see below) and partly because this particular friend has a pretty lousy track record in apartments and I was rather interested in what he picked up this time.

For instance, he once rented a room with an insane landlady who didn’t allow him to have a fridge or a computer on his room and who demanded that he’d be home each night before eleven. On that point he decided to call the renting process quits and announced he’d move out the next Saturday. When he and his father arrived at the house, the lady had dumped all his belongings in the rain outside.

Currently he rents a small room in a house in the most southern part of the city (there’s cows walking 20 feet away from his place, I kid you not) that ended up not just being subrented to him but also the lady he rented it from, the man she rented it from and the woman he rented it from. When large water bills started appearing out of nowhere this was a nice warning sign to get the hell out.

From the one end of the city he found a place to live on the other side: a room plus bathroom in a big student building in Amsterdam North. For those not into the Amsterdam Know How: North is known as a pretty bad neighborhood with houses built around the 1960´s (need I say more?). An American friend of mine once went there because he thought it would be `nice to see how the working class lives´, to which I replied that the entire problem was that they weren’t working.

But I digress.

According to my friend getting there took only a 10 minute bus ride from Amsterdam’s main train station and so last Tuesday after dinner at the university we went on our way. After 25 minutes in the bus my friend admitted he did not recognize anything and went up to the driver to ask which stop we needed, which we ended up having missed. I believe I gave him the same look I gave The Squirrel when he admitted a secret love for James Blunt music.

After exiting bus 1 we entered another bus which delivered us somewhere in the direction of where we needed to be. But not quite there. We walked through a deserted mall and passed a snack food place with the name Fries Plaza, which saddened me for so many more reasons than one. We climbed up a hill to get to the street because my friend (and by then I was using the term loosely) believed he saw a bus stop. He did, but not one where the bus we needed stops.

In the end he walked into a gas station while I stayed around a DVD rental place to look at the Hooligans poster they had and wonder what the hell Hollywood has done to Charlie Hunnam’s face (I give them one week to undo it).

The apartment was in fact fine, and bigger than what he has now. The measuring took 5 minutes and his view at night is quite good (he’s on the 13th floor and even though North’s a criminal hell hole, with all the lights at night it’s pretty nice). But while I was sitting in the tram, on my way back to my apartment with my own kitchen and my own bathroom and more space than most of my friends former rooms thrown together for only 2 euro 50 per month in one of the nicest parts of the city. I wondered, why didn’t he just get a deal like I did.

Ah, I kill myself.

Realism Sucks

Last saturday there were protests all around the world against the Iraq War, which recently had its third birthday.... oh those military disasters grow so quickly don't they, but the logic of taking part in these demonstrations was somewhat lost on me. I can understand why people took part in demonstrations against the war in 2003, seeing that they believed that 1) invading Iraq was silly (I believe the term was) for many different reaons and 2) that maybe they could somehow make a difference and stop the invasion, which, obviously, was also silly.

The silly-ness (I'm planning on using the word 'silly' more often, it can not be that my bestest friend Merel's blog is more gay after one Johnny Depp related post than all of my posts in the past year combined have been) continues with these same people, although smaller in number, reuniting this weekend. Not to throw the biggest 'I told you so' party ever (that I could relate to) but to demand that the U.S. and the U.K. withdraw their troops immediately.

The point isn't so much that they're fighting a war they can not win (or even if they win probably did not really influence) the point is the illogicality of their ideas. Personally I have not been in Iraq recently (I'm considering going the Italy this summer, but I hear Baghdad in august is also very... swampy) but from what I've read it's a little civil war like at the moment, you know with the bomb explodings and such. Considering the current situation, can anyone explain to me how pulling out all foreign military and leaving security in the hands of the 20 soldiers and 6 horses the Iraqi regime currently has of their own would make Iraq that wonderful succes intellectuals like George W. Bush thought it would become?

I'm not saying going into Iraq was such a smart thing to do, and certainly not that going into Iraq without a plan of what to do when the country was taken over was a smart thing to do, but the reality is that it happened and now the situation as it is now has to be dealt with. My personal gut instinct is that militarily abandoning a weak country usually does not pay off (COUGH Vietnam COUGH). The other option, sticking around until there is some kind of stable regime and some kind of military force, is definetly not pretty but it almost has to be prettier than the former solution.

However, to all those who demonstrated in Amsterdam last saturday I would like to ask a favor. Could we all get together this saturday to protest the weather? It's frigging March and it's still freezing out here! I'm sure that if we combine our forces and have some good lines (ehm, first shot: "1, 2, 3, 4, sun is what we're going for!) we can break Mother Nature!

Sure as hell got a bigger chance than changing George W. Bush's mind.

Proud

I would like to get political for a moment. Granted I get political a lot (for instance when I call high school friends Nazis, see below) but usually on this blog I keep the focus on American poltics (my hilarious letter to John Bolton for example, see archives). But today I would like to talk about Dutch politics. Americans, English people and Finns (hi Jari) feel free to skip this and go straight to the picture below, Dutchies; this is mandatory for you and I will ask questions about it during the test.

Last tuesday we had local elections here in the Netherlands. During those elections about half of everybody who is allowed to vote goes to a local school or old peoples home and votes on parties that will then, together with other parties, rule their cities or villages for the next four years, screw up majorly and then get reelected during the next local election. The system usually works the same: the Christian Democrats get a lot of votes because their people turn up to vote and the other parties don't because it rains.

In 2002 we had a big political shake up here; Labour had been in power for 12 years and had been the biggest national party for 8 years. Lower middle class people felt the party wasn't listening to them anymore and they got their asses kicked in the local election and later on, after the murder of one of the right wing politicians rallying against Labour, during the national elections a few months later. In 2002 I was not allowed to vote since I wasn't 18 yet and so I had to sit by and watch the Labour party get the shit kicked out of it by the general public.

In 2003, after the government collapsed, we had new general elections and Labour made a huge comeback thanks to the new guy (Wouter Bos) in charge, unfortunately not enough to actually take over government and they've been in opposition since having the right-wing government screw up health care and social security.

Last tuesday we (I say we because I pay them 3 euro a month and I campaigned in Amsterdam) won 617 seats throughout the country, that's about 417 more than we had in 1998 (in which Labour did quite well). I, together with a good friend of mine, was present at the official Labour party where people gathered to watch the results and we was muy happy as the following picture, which was published in the Dutch newspaper NRC shows.

Crush the one you love

I was watching the Olympics yesterday and they showed a clip from one of the Dutch commentators on a sports network I never watch. The woman, herself a former skater, made comments on an Italian couple that was figure skating and she was beating them senseless with words, ridiculing every movement they made. Since they were dressed like gypsies I couldn't help but fully agree with her, but still it was fascinating to hear a commentator bash atletes this openly.

The problem is that being brutally honest may be fun to strangers who don't understand what you're actually saying, but when you have to criticize friends, family members or other less or more loved ones in one way or another, often times it hits home quite hard.

Case in point; a guy I used to know in high school became sort of the president of the student body (however no elections were held and he was the only candidate) and started acting a little, well cocky. So I co-wrote a highly intellectual, very intelligent, very mature article in the school newspaper criticizing him and his administration....

Yes. I called him a Nazi.

The article wasn't allowed in the paper because the principal refused to publish it, so we wrote a second article complaining about the decision not to publish the first one in which we basically called the school principal a Nazi (come on people! running gags! they're funny! work with me here!). This article did get published but the guy I wrote about basically didn't speak to me for a year (and honestly who can blame him).

This may not be the best example of lovingly reminding a person of some of his or hers less than perfect qualities (mine for instance are calling people Nazi's for no reason) but how do you do it? How can you respectfully point out a flaw to a loved one or friend-of-sorts without having them hate your guts? Being the genius I am (overestimating myself might also be one of my flaws) I came up with one pretty darn good solution.

A telephone service for crushing dreams.

You can just call them, explain the problem and then a nice friendly woman with a warm voice calls your friend and tells them "Hello, we've received word you are considering a carreer in stand up comedy and/or musical. Well, we know you are a kind hearted person that people love but unfortunately you are not funny, so you probably shouldn't. Have a nice day!".

As long as everybody acts mature and only uses it when really necessary I think this will be a huge hit. Don't you? Oh be brutally honest.

Brokeback Mountain

I want to see Brokeback Mountain. That in itself should not be a problem since I live in a big city with many movie theatres where no fanatical Christian, Jewish or Muslim theocracy has taken over city government (yet). Unfortunately I am one of those people who feels that unlike sex, most things are more fun with somebody else aside from yourself along for the ride*.

And there's the problem.

Most of my female friends (or at least those in touch with their inner fag hag) also want to see the movie but unfortunately my female friends are poor. Not begging on the streets in rags poor, but in a month where Hollywood decided to poor out all the good movies here in Amsterdam (aside from Brokeback Mountain there's Munich, Walk the Line, The Aristocrats, Good Night and Good Luck, Bambi 2) I can't be a 100% sure of female Brokeback support.

My straight male friends on the other hand have no intention of seeing this movie. The main reason for this, obviously, are the sex scenes. And this, obviously, is bullshit: the average gay man or woman sees much more guy on girl action throughout his or her life than a straight person sees gay action. Also, this is Hollywood gay action so I'd be surprised if there's more to see than perhaps one shirtless guy. So, basically just stop being a frigging child, shut up and watch.

But then I got thinking. What if next year a movie comes out about lesbian rodeo riders. Would I go and see it? I honestly don't know. I'm pretty sure my straight friends would be camping in front of cinemas throughout the cities months in advance, because, let's face it, girl on girl action AND horses are basically what former teenage boys' dreams are made off (especially the horses... sickos).

I, on the other hand, though I have nothing but positive vibes for Lesbians all over the world and especially those who can keep themselves standing in the, no-doubt, male dominated world of rodeo riding, am not quite sure it would be my movie. Does that make me a biggot? Perhaps if I followed the "The L World" or had gone to see "The Hours" I could have talked my way out of it, but I have seen neither.

Even if all this doesn't make me an anti-Lesbian (it is an actual word, trust me), it certainly does make me a hypocrite if I were to bitch slap my straight male posse (I have one, trust me) for failing to show interest in, what I hear from my gay posse (I have a small one) who have actually seen it, a very impressive movie.

* This obviously is a joke...... really it is#.
# I will be so dissapointed if there's no "Bareback Mountain" for sale in certain not to be named video stores of certain material that we will not go into with too much detail here... and yet again, I will be so much more dissapointed when there is one.