SPIRIT IN THE NIGHT

It's the end of the world as we know it....

2008-08-09T13:36:00.002+02:00

and I feel fine.

I'm off to New York in 9 days to begin my MA studies in Political Science at The New School, and hereby declare this blog euthanized. Feel free to check out it's younger, more attractive replacement here.

They got a point

2007-08-31T15:15:00.000+02:00

If you think growing up is tough
Then you're just not grown up enough

(Barenaked Ladies - Babyseat)

Holy man said; "Son, there's a light ahead"
But it's nothing like the light from Maria's bed

(Bruce Springsteen - Maria's Bed)

I've been uptight and been made a mess
But I'll clean it up myself I guess
Oh, the sweet smell of success!

(The Travelling Wilburys - Handle Me With Care)

Who's gonna love you when your looks are gone?

(Paul Simon - Outrageous)

She told me again she preferred handsome men
But for me she'd make an exception

(Leonard Cohen - Chelsea Hotel 2)

It ought to be easy, it ought to be simple enough
Man meets woman and they fall in love
But this house is haunted and the ride gets rough
We've got to learn with what we can't rise above
If we want to ride on down, into this Tunnel of Love

(Bruce Springsteen - Tunnel of Love)

I am Un-Zen because...

2007-08-24T12:37:00.000+02:00

- the woman from the temp work agency refuses to mail me the info I need to get to work this monday. Since the University of Amsterdam in its wisdom decided that, despite my brilliance, they'd rather not spend money on US-related studies I need a temporary (again, I repeat, temporary) job to pay the rent, food, cd's and that New York trip I've been drooling over the past few weeks.

- I am drooling over a possible New York trip the past few weeks. I haven't been there since october 2001 and since I utterly fell in love with the place back then, it's been torture (yeah, yeah, I could've gone back earlier but there were trips to Italy to make and degrees to be earned). But now all the stars are lining up: 1) My buddy the squirrel is studying in NYC and I can crash on his floor 2) Zucchero is playing Carnegie Hall 3) I'm not expected to be anywhere study or work related. Soooo, fingers crossed - but until I decide for sure I'm definetly unzen.

- I am somewhat stuck at what I want to do next. First, I was sure I wanted to get a PhD position. Then I got screwed and figured f--- you (you being the university world in general). But now I'm aching to try it again, maybe in the US. Can't get a whole lot un-zen than that.

I am

2007-08-03T12:54:00.000+02:00

but then again, I'd probably be stripped of my degree if I wasn't

You Are a Smart American

You know a lot about US history, and you're opinions are probably well informed.
Congratulations on bucking stereotypes. Now go show some foreigners how smart Americans can be.

Are You a Dumb American?

PG

2007-07-11T15:55:00.001+02:00

I realize this blog is - for all practical purposes - dead, but I would like to do a little experiment. See, according to this website thing:

my blog has a PG rating, meaning that kids should read this only when their parents (both, or, if that can't be arranged, I suppose one will do) are present. The reason for this is the following:

"This rating was determined based on the presence of the following words:
death (2) and dead (1)"

I am shocked! In the past years I have been writing about Satanic worshiping, Republicans, annoying blonde women who should die and (most hidiously) Michael Bolton, and all I got was PG? Fuck!

All Things Must Pass

2007-05-10T11:20:00.000+02:00

Personally I am not a big Beatles fan (we had a music teacher in first grade that made us sing "I wanna hold your hand" endlessly, you do the math), but occasionally one is asked which of the Beatles is your favorite. A lot of people will answer Paul McCartney, but unfortunately these people are just plain wrong: Paul McCartney is an annoying twat who wrote "Yesterday", which is the musical equivelant (sp?) of what Pol Pot did in Cambodia.

John Lennon then is a logical option, but while Lennon was exceptionally cool and wrote "Imagine" and "Jealous Guy", he could also be an extremely annoying junk. The correct answer to the question is, obviously, George Harrison. Although disgraced radio host Don Imus might not be the most "in vogue" person to quote these days, he was absolutely right when he said "if you don't think George Harrison was the best Beatle you're an idiot". And George Harrison put the problem of life and death very well indeed in "All Things Must Pass", a song he wrote after the death of his mother:

All things must pass

All things must pass away

All things must pass

None of life's strings can last

Yesterday was the cremation of my Tracksuit Wearing Friend, Vince. The cremation itself was, for obvious and highly understandable reasons, limited to only his family and best friends, but I was able to attend the service before, and it was a very emotional, very graceful, and a very fitting tribute to this guy's way too short life. There were speeches by both of Vince's parents, his brother, his aunt, his nephew and his three best friends, and each and every one of them brought almost everybody present (the place was packed, another tribute to how Vince was with people) to tears. But it's all, perhaps, best summed up by a line written on his dark red coffin, which read in Dutch:

Quitters don't win

Winners don't quit

God should still be fired, by the way.

God Should Be Fired

2007-05-06T13:32:00.000+02:00

I have returned! I realize that I have been awol from this blog for a few months, and I would like to stress that rumors of me joining a Satanic cult are wholly untrue. As are those of me watching De Gouden Kooi. However, 2007 so far has been a very hectic period, which included a lot of thesis and application writing, and also moving to a new appartment. That last thing occurred thursday, and since I'm very pleased with my new surroundings, friday seemed like a great day. That is, until at 9:something I got a call from My Friend From The North that a mutual friend of ours, Vince, had passed away the night before.

I've known Vince since we both began studying history in 2002, and since we shared both our historical interests and a sense of humor, we spent the next four years sitting next to each other in a couple of courses each semester. Although we never had an in-depth conversation about it, and I therefore don't know all the inn's and out's, Vince had had a heart condition since his birth, which basically meant he could do very little physical activities, and so he crossed through the university halls in a electrical wheelchair (of sorts).

But while he was extremely funny, and very talented, Vince was definetly not someone anybody should have felt sad about. With his usual wardrobe of a trainingsuit (is that an actual English word?) and baseball cap, and his blue fingers and lips, the first thing you might have thought (politically incorrect as it is) when you saw him for the first time could be "Aaaaha." But then he would just win you over completely with his jokes and personality.

Since we mostly hung out at the university, I saw him very little last year when he dropped out of the history research MA and I went to do an internship and worked on my thesis. From what I know, he wasn't doing any worse than normal lately, but last Thursday, while sitting in a movie theatre, his heart just stopped working.

So basically, if there is one (which I doubt), God is an incompetent bastard and should be fired. 2o-something year olds should never die, and certainly not 20-something year olds that I count among my friends. I'm not saying I have all the solutions to our religious problems but maybe we can replace him through open auditions, I'm sure Simon Cowell is more than willing to be a judge in Divine Idol, and it would make some brilliant tv: "That miracle was pathetic. What the f### are you doing here? You make me want to throw up!"

As a historian (in training), Vince was mostly interested in foreign affairs, and particularly in the life and times of homicidal maniac Henry Kissinger. One running joke we had was that he should focus his entire studies on Kissinger, so that when Satan would finally call Henry home, Vince could then make his one and only appearance on NOVA (the Dutch Newsnight), where, when the host would ask him to talk about Kissinger's career, Vince's analysis would just be "Kissinger was cool." To add insult to injury, Kissinger is still alive and drinking his daily dosis of fresh puppy blood to this day.

So, Vince, wherever you are: it's been an honor and a pleasure to have known you, and to have studied, ridiculed and joked with you. Rest in peace, man.

Tidbits

2007-02-23T10:18:00.000+01:00

It turns out I have only blogged once this month (on this blog that is, my new American politics place http://primaries2008.blogspot.com has had my attention, but keep it quiet for this one, she might get jealous). See, generally speaking I write with what consumes me (most of the time annoying people or things that amuse me) but lately I've been busy with some housing problems that I shan't (or can't) go into yet... then again, most people who read this have been personally informed and have been very sympathetic and/or helpful so thanks for that! (To be on the safe side I am also including among these, the "oh blegh" reaction by a certain friend of mine. Still, I'm fairly sure it falls way beneath the socially accepted definition of sympathy and is clearly on its way towards "DoIlooklikeI'mbothered?")

So, in lieu of an actual blog post with a beginning, a middle, an end, a morale and a few jokes. Just some random thoughts that occured to me yesterday:

- Walking around in Amsterdam with headphones on is great fun. Yesterday it felt like spring (which is good because it feels like spring, but bad because it's bound to be snowy and cold in March) so I walked the biggest part of the way to dinner at my friend Merel's place. Now, I'm a big fan of walking but I don't use my headphones a lot because I'm afraid of going deaf.... DEAF! YOU KNOW, CAN'T HEAR.... HEEAAR! WITH YOUR EARS! Anyhoo, yesterday I was junking music and the walk was even more fun with my music selection of pure perfection as a soundtrack. It made me very happy, but it also made me almost walk under cars three times. So; happy vs. dea(d/f). It's a tough choice, I agree.

- "Get Real" is a very good movie. It's mainly good because some parts of it aren't as they should be in romantic teen movies, but that's what makes it more realistic: the school hunk (and I excuse myself for using the word "hunk") is really not that attractive, but most school hunks aren't. The dramatic speech given for the entire school was pretty incoherent and not at all brilliant, but those things never are. I have only one complaint; the ending. (EXPLAINER: Boris will now write about the ending of the movie "Get Real". If you haven't seen Get Real and think you might want to - which you should, cause it's a very good movie!-, and you don't want to know the end of the movie Get Real, which you might want to see at some point or another, do not read any further. End of the explainer). What's the frigging use of having the school hunk fall for the school dork, and then them not ending up together? How is that gonna restore my faith in humanity? Come on "Get Real" people! You've seen "Beautiful Thing" as well, you know how it should be done!

- Why can I write really fast about Robert Kennedy (4 pages a day), but only very slowly about Howard Dean (1 1/2 a day)? I like them both, I know practically the same amount of stuff about both of them, and I know what I want to say. And yet, my Kennedy chapter was done in a few weeks, while Dean just drags on, and on, and on (and on etc.). Maybe I should hire a ghostwriter, preferably somebody blond and muscled.... (if anybody has any suggestions, feel free to mail me... does anybody know the school hunk from Get Real?).

New blog; Campaign '08

2007-02-04T17:38:00.000+01:00

You might know me as a guy who writes slightly amusing stuff on annoying things, but I'm officially a historian (in training) who writes about presidential primaries in the Democratic Party. So, I figured I'd combine the two and open a new (temporary) blog on the upcoming campai(g)ns:

http://primaries2008.blogspot.com/

The Good, the Bad & the Tired

2007-02-04T13:14:00.000+01:00

This weekend has been pretty weird so far, but it mostly seems to be combining the above mentioned three parts. It started out very nicely on friday when my bestest friend Merel graduated. She's now a Master of Science (or in Dutch a Drs.), but she did suggest we should change that to Master of the Universe (I'm considering it - she did graduate cum laude so there is reason to consider). The ceremony was pretty short, and the guy who did the speech seemed a bit out of touch with reality (then again, he is a psychology professor), but we celebrated afterwards at a nice bakery-lunchroom-coffeeplace-thing near the Red Light district which was great fun (and great pie!).

The bad part came the next day when my bestest friend Cybbis told our slightly disfunctional international group of friends that he lost a very close family member. He's keeping it detailless on his blog, but god bless him and his family.

Finally (and the least interesting part of this blog, so if you have other things to do, stop reading now... shoo! shoo!), I'm exhausted. I'm partly to blame for not going to bed at 21:00, and I totally accept responsibility. But let me also say that matters weren't helped much by my upstairs neighbors deciding to do what straight people apparently feel the need to do at 5;00 AM in a bed that makes a lot of noise if you do what they did and in an appartment with a very thin ceiling (breeders make me sick). On the positive side, I did finish my Phd proposal.

That's pretty much all, those still left reading: good day and good luck.

Live

2007-01-31T21:54:00.000+01:00

Yesterday I went to see Ben Folds in the Paradiso. Great hall, great guy and a great show. Although I´m not a huge fan of his recent solo work, he played them very well and he threw in a bunch of Ben Folds Five (the band he used to be in, there were only three members... get it?) songs which rocked. I´m bored now so I decided to list the shows I´ve been to, not sure if this is all but I´ve come up with the following:

Zucchero (7 times)
B.B. King (2)
Bruce Springsteen (2)
Solomon Burke (2)
John Fogerty (2)
Joe Cocker (2)
Acda & de Munnik (2)
Ryan Adams (1)
David Gray (1)
Eric Clapton (1)
Ben Lee (1)
Joe Bonamassa (1)
and now Ben Folds (1)

EDIT:

If we count support acts also:

Keb Mo (1), Joe Bonamassa (2), Ralph McTell (1), Clem Snide (1), Robert Randolph & the Family (1)

Elephant

2007-01-14T14:06:00.000+01:00

Last monday night I received a text message from a friend of mine that read:

"I rode an elephant today!"

Normally this would be either worrying or confusing (or both) but in this case this specific friend is on a vacation to Thailand, which apparently is a country where elephants are a normal means of transportation.

As most of my friends now, me and nature do not co-exist all too pleasantly: I scream like a girl when bugs or spiders appear in my bathroom, I do not enjoy getting my hands dirty and the next time I see a meerkoet with a limp wing I'll walk the other way. But like I do with dogs and cats, I just have a thing for elephants.

The reason for that, is that elephants remind me of human beings. Their memory is absolutely amazing. For example if I leave my parents place and return an hour later, my dog is excited. If I leave my parents house and return two weeks later, my dog is just as excited. I don't know if elephants have a sense of time, but if I go to an elephant and give her an apple, then return a year later she will use her nose to frisk you for apples; that's smart! But even more so, elephants remind me of my mom.

Not because she looks like an elephant of course, a) she doesn't and b) she'd have me killed for saying that.

This realization started during my visit to Kenya last year. During a one day safari we made through one of the reservations, we saw several wonderful animals including a bunch of elephants. Those elephants can be tricky to find (they hide in the bushes most of the time) but we managed to see a few throughout the day.

Then, just when we were off to leave the park, a baby elephant crossed the road behind us. While me, the son of my dad's collegue and my dad all stood in amazement (and yes, I did go "Aaaaww!", stop judging me!), the driver of the truck started speeding away towards the gates (think Jurassic Park). He later told us that he did not so much hate baby elephants, he was just afraid of the mother elephant that had to be walking around there somewhere too.

Although elephants are generally not too violent (just clumsy, big and heavy - you do the math), mother elephants are absolutely lethal: they have the same way of dealing with the world my mom had when I was little: "Don't touch my kid. Touch my kid, and you die".

See, just like an elephant.

Nucking Futs

2007-01-03T11:54:00.000+01:00

It's too early in the new year to post anything coherent (aside from the obligated "My upstairs neighbor was sent by Satan") so instead a nice video on the past year from the good people at Jib Jab.

Merry Christmas everybody!

2006-12-22T07:57:00.000+01:00

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)

2006-12-19T16:01:00.000+01:00

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

2006-12-15T11:56:00.000+01:00

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

2006-12-13T11:45:00.000+01:00

(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

2006-12-11T20:53:00.000+01:00

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)

2006-12-07T10:40:00.000+01:00

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)

2006-12-06T13:32:00.000+01:00

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

2006-11-30T13:40:00.000+01:00

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

2006-11-29T16:06:00.000+01:00

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!

2006-11-18T11:45:00.000+01:00

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

2006-11-14T23:31:00.000+01:00

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

2006-11-03T13:59:00.000+01:00

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

2006-10-24T12:48:00.000+02:00

... 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

2006-10-19T21:21:00.000+02:00

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

2006-10-08T14:05:00.000+02:00

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

2006-09-21T21:36:00.000+02:00

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

2006-09-14T13:10:00.000+02:00

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

2006-09-11T11:12:00.000+02:00

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),

2006-08-26T17:46:00.000+02:00

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

2006-08-26T15:06:00.000+02:00

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

2006-08-19T10:52:00.000+02:00

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),

2006-08-04T14:46:00.000+02:00

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

2006-07-24T23:51:00.000+02:00

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

2006-07-13T13:01:00.000+02:00

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

2006-07-09T22:58:00.000+02:00

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

2006-06-21T15:51:00.000+02:00

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

2006-06-17T12:30:00.000+02:00

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

2006-06-14T15:48:00.000+02:00

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

2006-06-08T18:58:00.000+02:00

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

2006-05-15T19:02:00.000+02:00

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

2006-05-06T11:06:00.000+02:00

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

2006-04-24T17:19:00.000+02:00

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

2006-04-13T14:05:00.000+02:00

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)

2006-04-06T16:12:00.000+02:00

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

2006-03-23T17:17:00.000+01:00

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

2006-03-20T22:57:00.000+01:00

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

2006-03-10T13:31:00.001+01:00

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

2006-02-23T12:06:00.000+01:00

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

2006-02-21T15:25:00.000+01:00

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.

Valentine's Day

2006-02-14T15:35:00.000+01:00

Bruce Springsteen generally is not the most cheery guy in music (it's working class to be sad you know) but by far one of his most depressing songs, and beautiful, is called Valentine's Day. It's on the Tunnel of Love album and Bruce wrote it right in the middle of a period in which his first marriage was falling apart. In the song he captures the complete sadness of that one day us single folk have grown to despise.

(Yes, yes I mean Valentine's day. What are you? stupid?)

In my humble opinion Valentine's Day, like it's sister holidays Mothersday and Labor Day, is nothing more than a cheap bad tasting fake alternative for actual romance. What is there romantic about setting a fixed date for making people know you care about them? Let me start, by pointing out that an exciting and fiery love life can hardly be expected when you need a date set by Hallmark for you to actually get together.

Second, you won't get together. Valentine cards are anonymous. The point in that is that you are too chicken to walk up to the other person involved and say "Hi, I want you" (ok, maybe another pick up line might be better), which is an emotion I can totally dig, and you're also too chicken to write your name because that is the card-writing way of walking up to someone and say "I want to be your tampon" (hi Charles!).

So in the end, the person you are madly in love with will receive a card without a name and is left to guess who likes him or her. You haven't shown him or her you are, at the very least, interested, so how is that going to work out? I would like to have a list of every couple that got together because of Valentine's Day. My guess is that it's going to be a pretty short one.

And then there are the already existing couples. Valentine's Day is that wonderful moment where you give eachother flowers that smell of the supermarket you bought them in and sit in a restaurant being extremely romantic like all the other people there. I'm not trying to be bitter here (it just comes naturally I guess), but if you need a specific day to show that you love eachother, you might want to have a Dr. Phil moment. Maybe even two.

So for crying out loud, fuck Valentine's Day, Hallmark and all the other fascists that are part of this!

And no, I did not get a card this year.

Dear David Gray,

2006-02-06T11:08:00.000+01:00

Hi there!

Before I start, I would like to say that I was planning on writing this a whole lot earlier, but I got the flu. Yet again. This time I spent three days in bed wondering where the hell I was and making up great ideas like "Why don't I make a bed out of a jacuzzi" and "There are words on my wall (there are in fact none) and there must be some logic behind them" (Paging mr. Brown, paging mr. Dan Brown). So sorry.

The reason I'm writing you, is that a few weeks ago me, my buddy the Squirrel, and the Squirrel's Lovely Girlfriend, were fortunate enough to see you perform live in Tilburg. Up until the start of your concert we wondered, maybe too loudly, why the hell you insist on playing there and not go to somewhere civilized like Amsterdam or, if you must, Rotterdam. I have nothing against cities I don't live in - although they clearly lack a certain moi - but Tilburg.... I shall explain.

We arrived a little before 6 pm and started walking towards the city centre for some food and cash machines. Most cities would generally have that, but unfortunately Tilburg wants to be special so neither could be found. In fact, all stores were already closed and the streets were completely empty leaving us, and - being the most Amsterdam minded - me, walking around feeling like we had ended up in an episode of the Twilight Zone (but since none of us could hum that theme song we moved it to an X files episode).

We did manage to get some cash and even to get some food, although we might be stretching the definition a little, and even managed to be right on time at the concert hall. And then we waited another hour and a half for you to actually begin playing but I won't complain, you started on time.

And you blew us away. From the very first word of 'Alibi' to the very last word of 'Babylon'. Your band was amazing, the music was among the best I have ever heard live, and your voice was taking our collective breath away.

Unfortunately something else was also taking our collective breath away; smokers. I dont know why but for some reason a David Gray concert audience - or at least a part of it - looks a lot like a smokers anonymous meeting. Although I am not a very violent person by nature (everybody reading this blog will agree with me on that... OR I'LL BREAK ALL THEIR F*CKING BONES!!!... cheap jokes, can't beat em) I had the urge several times when you were pouring your heart out about this year's love or something and one of the morons lighting up another cigarett to take it and burn their eye, but something told me that might intervere with the concert experience.

After the concert, the Squirrel's Lovely Girlfriend announced she wanted to marry you and with that she pretty much mirrored how all of us felt (well... maybe not the Squirrel, but screw it he's already a really bad metrosexual). However, seeing that open letter marriage proposals generally don't seem to work (Orlando, email me), I would like to ask something else.

How expensive would it be to have you live in a corner of my appartment for a year? You can bring your own guitar, and I might be able to get a piano of some sorts. All you have to do is play some of your songs once a day. Hits or new songs or covers, I really don't care. You can sit in my comfy chair and I'm willing to let you have the bed a few nights a week. Hell, I'll even feed you (not well of course, I'm poor).

Interested? Gimme a call.

Love,
Boris

PS. if you want to you can use the bed-jacuzzi idea for a song.
PS.2. The Dan Brown thing is mine though

Jesus Saves

2006-01-20T15:04:00.000+01:00

There's an article on Dutch ceefax this afternoon that announced the publication of the bible in, and I quote, "text language". With text language these people mean the words we (and with we I mean not-me) use in text messages.

Usually I'm quite conservative considering my choice of words and the way to write them, but many of my fellow human beings are not. Seeing that the word 'great' is very long and takes at least 20 seconds to type, it is nowadays spelled as "gr8". You becomes "u", you get the idea. A lot of those shortened terms come from the internet, of course, and I myself am a faithful user of "Lol", "brb", "btw" and other shortened terms, but I generally keep them from papers and applications (as should u.... eh you).

And now people in Friesland (what a surprise) have decided to publish the bible.... as written in text language.

I swear to God I kid you not.

The article even included an example of how the new bible will be like. In the original bible (if you're confused, the original is the one that does not include "lol" anywhere) God introduces himself (AA meeting? blind date? court hearing? inquering minds want to know!) the following: "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end of everything, says the Lord", a little self obsessed, but clear. The text version, on the other hand, would be something like this: "I = A&O th bgng & th en, sz th alm8y Gd". Granted, it's shorter.

What I don't get is why they would want to make it in the first place. Last time I checked the bible is both long and quite complicated, adding &'s might make it less long but certainly not a whole lot easier to digest. I can perhaps understand where somebody would get the idea (bar, late, too many beers, annoying person-who's-not-quite-as-drunk-as-you saying it can't be done) but generally as soon as the hangover is gone so is the stupid idea.

What I do know is that it's not going to do anything. Nobody is going to read the bible because of this (confused fat high school kid with glasses... maybe, but that's it!). God knows (literary!) how much time, energy, ink and trees have been wasted on this idea. And this made me sad.

But not as sad as reading articles on the famine that will hit Kenya and other African countries in the next few weeks. According to the Kenyan president at least 150 million dollar is needed within the next month but so far hardly any money is coming in. In certain parts of Kenya it hasn't rained in years and if the April rains fail again this year, thousands (if not more) will die of hunger.

I've got an idea, maybe those bible translating morons could send God a text message (oh I'm sorry a txt mssg) it's so short they don't even have to shorten it up:

"Make it rain you f#cking bastard"

EJD

2006-01-17T13:10:00.000+01:00

Yesterday was Martin Luther King Day in the United States, a day Americans nowadays spent celebrating or complaining about the position of African Americans in the USA. Since I am neither American by birth, black or currently living in the US I generally forget all about MLK day until I read about it on MSNBC or Slate. When I then do, for the first few seconds I wonder why Americans have a yearly MILK day and how much lobbying dairy producers had to do before they got one, and then I realise I do American history and I've heard of that King fella before.

Eitherhoo, MLK day is important because it helps people (and with people I mean Americans so yes I am stretching the definition a little..... KIDDING!) remember how only decades ago black people were not allowed to use the same water fountains as white people and how now, even though we all love Oprah, most black people still can't get the same level of payment white people get.

While reading another blog (by someone I shall not mention to for reasons similar to those explained in "It's Christmas Time" (see below) ) I was reminded that there is no such day for gay people. Sure, there's World Aids Day but since AIDS is now spreading fastest under heterosexuals that day has pretty much been hijacked (also it doesn't quite scream partay! now does it). Of course there are the different pride festivals throughout the world, but if you do not like running around in your underwear in the rain the fun is fairly limited.

Which is why I'm here to introduce a new day of remembrance: Elton John Day.

Obviously there were other candidates, even dead people which generally adds to the rememberin' we all love so much, but I think that with Elton John Day a combination can be made of everything of gay life;

For starters there's Camp-Elton, the one who used to dress like Mozart or Minnie Mouse and loved Princess Diana. Then there's Bitchy-Elton, the one that calls Madonna a bitch and complains about other people's work. There's Formerly-Straight-Elton, the one that was married to a woman earlier and there's Gay-Rights-Elton the one that recently civil-partnershipped (darnit it is a verb!) his partner. And let's not forget Stop-Aids-Now-Elton.

On top of that: everybody loves at least one Elton song. You may hate Candle in the Wind (and you may be right) but you might love Guess that's why they call it the Blues or Bitch is Back or one of the other nine zillion hits he had.

Down part? We'll also be stuck with Kiki Dee, but we'll survive, one EJD at a time.

Supermarket

2006-01-11T13:06:00.000+01:00

Last night I was in the supermarket trying to get some food, as, I suppose, one generally does in supermarkets. I was on my way from the candy section to the juice section (notice how I go from 'stuff that will kill you when you eat it too much' to 'stuff that will only kill your teeth when you drink it too much?) when a woman stepped on the back of my foot.

Obviously this really isn't so dramatic. It happens to all of us occasionally. Also, it wasn't like she wrestled me to the floor, kicked me in the crotch, planted a burning cross in my backpack and called my mother a whore. But, I think I can safely say that we will all agree that in supermarket etiquette stepping on someone is pretty much in the same category as being an active member of the KKK.

And so, when I felt a weird feeling at the end of my leg, I turned around to see what it was. 'It' turned out to be a confused looking girl of about 20, that looked at me in complete distress and then exclaimed: "Yes! It was me! It's not like I did it on purpose!".

She made it sound like I had closed down the store and interviewed every costumer, comparing their footsizes to the grey spot on the bak of my shoe until I finally, after hours of merciless interrogating with light bulbs pointed in peoples faces and threats of abuse of some kind thrown at them, pointed my finger at her and said "It was you! You will pay you evil bitch from hell!". Granted, I considered all of that, but I did not do it!

What was even weirder is that I did not even give the girl my patented 'Oh you are so going to burn in hell' -look. All I did was look surprised and after that I had already started my 'Oh I know you didn't do it on purpose, but thank you for apologizing, God bless ya' smile when I realized.

She.
Did.
Not.
Apologize.

All she did was acknowledge it was her. It's not like I expected her to fall on her knees, kiss my betrap-ped feet and beg for forgiveness (would I have liked it? Sure) but a simple 'sorry' would have been nice.

I guess I could have hated her, but she looked so weird and out of touch (black hair, black make-up, look in her eyes as if someone was going to punch her if she brought home the wrong cereals) that she just confused me.

Et flu Brutus?

2006-01-03T16:03:00.000+01:00

I started the new year lying in bed surrounded in bodily flueds and tissues. This could mean I started the new year in a very entertaining way you readers really do not want to have a mental picture of, but unfortunately I had the flu.

I always get the flu at least twice every year, and although I'm hoping that because this time it fell on two years it'll count double I'm doubting it. Flu epedemics are, because I always get it someway or another, extremely fascinating to me: I'm either always getting sick before the big tidal wave of germs reaches the country (which makes me feel special and sorry for spreading it further) or I get sick right around the point the epedemic is over and everybody is already back on their feet (which makes me feel like murdering relatives and friends who had the flu before me). Either way, it sucks.

Being sick used to be fun however. In the olden days (when people still said 'ye', like in ehm... 'ye olden days'?) being sick meant you had to stay home. Staying home meant you did not have to go to school. School, even if you didn't completely despise it, was evil. So the flu was basically a way of getting some extra vacation days. It also meant my mom had to be even nicer to me than she usually is and not complain that my room was always a mess (I have the saddest "Mom, I'm sick" eyes I tell you).

Sure, it included sweating, and coughing, and having slime smeared all over your face and, after a few days, smelling like a corpse. Sure, you missed stuff at school that you would later have to redo faster than everybody else. But all of that was acceptable suffering! My body and the germs made a very simple deal: you guys can play around a little as long as you don't kill me, and I'll relax for a few days. Everybody was happy (perhaps excluding my mom who had to take days off from work, but you know, there's casualties in every war).

Nowadays flu is my enemy. First of all, I don't live at home anymore and for some reason my mom will not bring tea and liquorice to my bed anymore when I have a sore throat (it's only 30 minutes by car, geez). Also, I have to go out and hunt down my own food and then serve it myself too. Sure, the closest supermarket is 2 minutes from my house and I have an oven and a microwave, but come on!

More importantly, I don't have time to be sick! There are papers to write! Books to read! Other people's papers to read! Teachers to email! And even when none of that is happening, there's more fun things to do! Hang out with friends! Go to the movies!

Is there a solution? No.

Is it usefull to complain about it? No.

Am I going to continue boring people with it?

Honestly, have we met?

2005 - a blog post

2005-12-25T22:30:00.000+01:00

I know this blog is generally used for long posts in which I ponder those aspects of life I do not understand and discuss the various reasons why the world in general and my life in particular would be better if everybody would just follow my line of thinking instead of their own (or as some people call it, completely missing the subtle beauty of my art, nagging), but for this post I would like to make an exception and pay tribute to the year that was 2005.

You see, 2005 was probably the best year of my life. It's not that all the previous years were miserable, but they just were missing a certain, oh I dunno, kick. Yes, a cocaine addiction can really add so much to your year.

(I joke, obviously...... sniiiiiiff).

However, I must say this past year has been awfully nice. First of all, I met a lot of very nice people, some I link with in so many ways it's scary. Others, not so much but we still get along. Either way, it fascinates me and it really makes me quite happy. Which is always a good thing. Second, I was able to not alienate most of the people I like in general, while ignoring those I like less so. Both of which is also a good thing.

Second, I was able to do quite a lot of travelling. Italy, this summer, bringing together some of my favorite people in the world (excluding Orlando Bloom and Orlando Bloom lookalikes, sadly). The UK with my bestest friend Merel, where we basically just watched TV and commented on slutty English girls (quite fun, try it). And, most recently, Kenya, which really was a huge eye opener in so many ways.

Career wise things are fine too. History is still the best motherfucking study in the world (to paraphrase Leopold von Ranke) and I'm still pretty darn good at it, which is why I'm doing the research master now (banging yourself on the chest and shouting I RULE! is mandatory warm up to our classes these days).

But none of that makes 2005 unique, and there were certainly some downsides to the year that need to be considered. Most of all my granddad passed away which I still believe should have been made illegal and, yes, we are still considering suing God. Second, there were the occasional "fuck it" moments (one of these moments lasted for the entire month of June) and Bruce Springsteen songs were played quite loudly to fight those moments. But surprisingly enough that didn't really influence the way I look at the year. Shit just happens and it's useless to complain about it; you can make a trauma out of everything if you want.

Overall I'm just really happy (aside from the fact that I still have no official plans for New Years Eve that is) with how things are going lately. So, ehm, goodie!

(too bad this post isn't funny though)

My virtual Christmas card

2005-12-19T22:47:00.000+01:00

I always tell myself that next year I will do the adult thing and sent actual Christmas cards. But then I forget until it is too late, or I just can't be bothered. Thankfully, there's a virtual solution. Last year my hilarious-virtual-Christmas-card had a Jerry Springer theme ("Ho! Ho! Ho!.... you're a ho yourself, bitch!"). This year, my hilarious-virtual-Christmas-card is going 'War on Christmas':

to my Christian friends:

Merry Christmas!

to my Jewish friends:

Merry Chanukkah!

to my fellow athiests:

Merry Non-Religious Gift Opening And Eating Dead Animals Ceremony !

and to Bill O'Reilly

Fuck You!

and to everybody in general: happy 2006!

Under the bridge

2005-12-07T15:42:00.000+01:00

The city government of Amsterdam has decided last year that it wanted to change the way people living in Amsterdam use water. The rules used to be that you payed a certain amount of money each month based on the amount of places in your house that you can use water from. For instance, if you have a big house with three bathrooms you pay more than if you have one. I never quite got the system completely, but overall I think nobody was really bothered by it.

The city government, however, was. We, the people, appareantly were using too much water. They also told us, the people, that we were paying too much per month and that with the new rules we'd probably end up paying less per month. Call me stupid, but if we were paying too much maybe we just weren't using enough water?

Anyhoo, the rules changed and about a month ago I received a letter warning me that a watermeter would be installed in my apartment. The letter explained that the procedure was quite simple but that the water-meter-install-people (which, I believe, is the technical term for their job) needed to be able to get into my home. Also, the letter warned me in a very Martha Stewarty way, that even after the thing was installed I still was not allowed to leave the house because waterpeople (the non technical term) had to check if everything worked after they were done. Also, the letter informed me that during the process the water would be turned off and because of that I should tap water for drinking, cooking and "using your toilet".

Right.

Knowing the efficiency of the Amsterdam civil servants I was already preparing myself mentally for spending days without water, dragging myself through my appartment surrounded by long emptied water bottles and waterpeople telling me they'd probably be done within a year. In fact, they were done within an hour. The installing proces was indeed quick and simple, the water people very qualified and the one installing my water thingie and I spent the 20 minutes he was working in my bathroom humming along to my new Creedence Clearwater Revival cd. The thing worked fine and no problems occured. So all's fine.

..... except that I hate having this thing. It works fine but I can't stand knowing how much water I use. Did you know that flushing the toilet takes 6 litres? SIX! Doing the dishes costs me 3 litres and taking a normal shower 25 to 30. I know I pay per every 1.000 l. but I can't stand knowing how fast I'm moving towards that.

This past week I've told about every single friend I have this story. Most got the clue that this means I expect them not to use my bathroom more than 3 times during their visit. It hasn't gotten so far that I bang on the bathroom door and tell them to quit it, or stop offering drinks after the bathroom break quota has been reached... but I'm considering it, and that's why the water thing is scaring me.

So please, city government: I don't mind paying more and I promise I'll keep my water usage to a minimum but can we please go back to the old system?

It's Christmas time

2005-11-29T10:18:00.000+01:00

We're getting to the end of the year again. People are making plans for the holidays, gifts are frantically being bought, people get snowed in, every single couple I know is breaking up, in the Netherlands some old guy with a beard and a bunch of black guys are handing out presents, and all my favorite shops are selling calendars with undressed men and women again.

Before I continue; If you used to read my old blog, you may remember this is an old pet hate of mine. However, I've decided in this post not to refer to before said calendars with the "p word" (no, not pantomime, moron) because people are still entering my old blog, google-ing "p. calendars". Now, my old blog was a slut and she doesn't complain, but this one has some dignity and therefore we shall not mention the p word here (no, not post-traumatic-stress-syndrome, idiot).

Anyhoo. I completely, utterly and totally do not get the point of undressed-people-calendars. It's not like I have a moral problem with them, far from it. It's just that I really do not get them. I shall explain.

The entire point of graphical representations of a person, or several persons, in an undressed state or in certain positions that otherwise would only occur behind closed doors (unless you have a really good sex life, in that case kudos!), is to give the person, or persons, watching it a sexual high. So far, no problem.

The entire point of a calendar is to give a person, or several persons, a sense of time. It is also a tool for these people to plan their lives, remember birthdays and other important occasions such as Christmas and scheduled court dates. These calendars often have pictures of places or persons to liven them up. For instance, Tuscan landscapes, bluessingers or Orlando Bloom. Again, so far no problem.

But why in earths name are they combining the two?? There's no logic! First of all; can you hang one of those calenders up and still not be an official pervert? Material of that kind (I'm getting good at not using the p word.... no, not panepedemic, weirdo) is perfectly normal, but you keep it in the bottom two shelves of your closet. You don't hang it up on the wall somewhere! It's insane!

Second. What's the theory behind it? That you look at one picture for an entire month? As my Spanish homeboys would say; PORQUE? It's one freaking picture, don't you get tired of looking at the same person in the same, most likely quite uncomfortable, position all month? Are you expected to bond with him (or if you're a sick twisted person with a disgusting lifestyle... her)? It's a picture, it doesn't talk back!

Conclusion? If you want to give someone a calendar for Christmas, pick one that has Italy or France or Orlando Bloom on it. If you want to give someone material of a certain graphic kind that George Bush doesn't agree with, buy them a magazine or a dvd. Do not combine the two.

Unless it's Orlando Bloom undressed, than you can ignore everything said above.

Uh-oh

2005-11-19T20:36:00.000+01:00

Ayaan Hirsi Ali will be making a new movie soon.

If you are not Dutch, you may not know who the hell Ayaan Hirsi Ali is. And, trust me you'd be very fortunate in that. You may also not know what's so bad (and trust me, it is) about her making movies. Fear not, I shall explain.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a Dutch MP for the Conservative Free Market Party Of Complete Idiots (but for some reason they call themselves the VVD) and she is originally from Somalia. She is also a former Muslim who got abused by the men in her surroundings. But then she came to the Netherlands and eventually became an influential member of parliament.

Happy end?

Not quite. As a member of parliament she spends most of her time defending Muslim women who get abused by their husbands or fathers. This, obviously, is a very noble issue to spend time on, and I believe even most Muslim men and women would agree with me on that. The problem lies in the way she does that. Basically, her campaign exists of her being an idiot. For instance, one of her ways of making bad Muslim men stop beating up their wifes is calling uber-Muslim Mohammed a pedophile.

Yeah. Whether or not he actually was one is an interesting question, but somehow I have a feeling that saying it isn't going to make a lot of muslim women feel safer. So, she's an idiot. She is also an idiot that gets a lot of death threats though, and that's what makes her a difficult person for people like me; on the one hand we dislike her because she's an idiot (I think 'idiot' is going to be the theme word of this post.... continue). However, on the other hand, we do feel she has the right to ventilate her idiotness by saying idiotic things without being threatened or killed by even bigger idiots (see, told you so).

Last summer the Hirsi Ali - Muslim men row reached its high point when she released a movie called Submission. In it, a young Muslim woman in a see-through Burqa (honest to god, not making this up) talked about being abused by her husband, while images were being shown of other scarred Muslim women with parts of the Quran painted on their bodies.

This in itself bores me more than it shocks me (naked women... again. Next!), but apparently to Muslims (which I accidentely am not, I know, shocking) it was a big deal. Baiscally all Muslims, including, ironically enough, Muslim women that had previously been abused by their husbands, hated the thing. Some hated it more than others. And one of them killed the director of the movie (Theo van Gogh) last year on the streets of Amsterdam in broad daylight.

Now, ms. Hirsi Ali is going to make another movie. It's going to be called Submission 2 (it's a sequal you see, much like Beethovens 2nd was a sequal to Beethoven) but this time it's going to be about.... the Islam and gay men.

Gulp.

Now, again. This is a very important issue, and attention should be given to it (in the past few weeks, for instance, several men have been executed in Iran just for being gay). But I'm not so sure anything good's going to come out of her paying attention to it. For some reason, I can't get the image of a Usama Bin Laden sitting in a cave thinking "Oh, yes! We forgot about the gays! Lets bash them!" out of my head.

So, in the open letter category;

Dear Ayaan Hirsi Ali,

I have no idea if I'm speaking for my entire people, but as for me; could you not do your new flick about gay issues? I know, I know, we're fun to work with, and we have the latest gossip, but unlike with you, the Dutch government isn't going to pay for my bodyguards.

Here's my suggestion; what about a movie about how some Muslims are mean to pets. Hmmm? Sounds good? You could have sheep in there with Quran things painted on them! Or cats! No, wait, I have a cat. What about birds? Or mice? Nobody likes mice! Would be fine if Islamoidiots would blow them up. Try that!

boris

music in me

2005-11-15T14:22:00.000+01:00

Once a year I torture myself. Ok, I probably torture myself on many ways throughout the year, but considering this particular issue it's only once a year. I don't know why I do it every year, but there's something that somehow forces me to do it again, and again, and again.

You guessed it, it is time to vote for the Top 2000 again.

For those not in the know; the Top 2000 is a yearly thing a Dutch radiostation does to me. The idea is the following; from boxing day to New Years eve this radiostation plays the favourite 2000 songs of the people who voted. You vote by picking your 10 favorite songs from a list they provide.

So far so good. Only problem?

How am I supposed to pick 10 songs out of over 2500 options? There's 5 Zucchero songs alone on the list! 16 Springsteen songs! One Ryan Adams song! 13 Creedence Clearwater Revival songs! God knows how many Acda en de Munnik songs! And I'm not even talking about Elton John, Fleetwood Mac, B.B. King, George Harrison, Johnny Cash, Marvin Gaye, Al Green, Otis Redding, R.E.M., Randy Newman, The Rolling Stones, Stevie Wonder, Sting, The Band, U2 and Van Morrison.

Now, it might not quite be in the same category as world hunger, mass murder or Michael Bolton. But it is annoying to me and it's also a good reason why someone should smarten up and give me my own radiostation (come on folks! it's almost Christmas time!).

Anyway, every year again I end up with a list I'm not quite happy with. And every year I tell myself I'm not going to do it again next year. And, well, here we are again. The list below is in random order, and it lacks almost all my favourite songs;

Bruce Springsteen - Born to run

(one of those few songs that you can listen to a million times and it never loses it's power)

Creedence Clearwater Revival - Who'll stop the rain?

(John Fogerty is one of the best song writers in the history of best song writers. I could only pick one CCR track and this is my favorite)

Derek & the Dominoes - Layla

(Plugged. OF COURSE! Eric Clapton wrotethis song when he was madly in love with his best friend George Harrison's wife, you can feel that absolutely horrible 'wanting-to-tear-out-your-heart' feeling of being in love with the wrong person in this song)

Otis Redding - The dock of the bay

(I would have gone for a Solomon Burke song, but King Solomon wasn't on the list (BASTARDS!). This, however, is one of the most beautiful soul songs ever made)

Rufus Wainwright - Beauty Mark

(Great song, interesting guy. Elton John thinks he's the new Elton John)

Ryan Adams - La cienega just smiled

(I fell deeply in love with Ryan Adams because of Gold and it's single New York New York. Since then I've been trying to get my posse (or my bitches if you will) to appreciate him too, sometimes with success. This was the only Ryan song on the list but it's also really beautiful)

Zucchero & B.B. King - Hey Man (Sing a Song)

(Hey Man was on Zucchero's 1988 Blue's album, in 1999 he performed it live with blues legend B.B. King and last year a studio adaption of that performance was released. It's a song about friendship, don't think I need to say more)

Zucchero - Diamante

(Always one of my favorite Zucchero tracks, for more recent emotional reasons read the "Fai piano i bimbi grandi non piangono" post)

Zucchero - Il Volo

(This song is from my favorite Zucchero album, Spirito DiVino, and it was also a big hit in The Netherlands. Which made me hate the song, but then I stopped hating it and now I think it's one of his best songs. If they play the duet version with Ronan Keating however I will personally come down to the radio station and castrate them)

Zucchero - Cosi Celeste

(I love this song. My Italian sucks but from what I get out of it, the song's about how someone can be a complete asshole at times but can do it so beautifully you still love that person. If it's not about that.... please don't tell me).

So, there you have it. Next year I'm so not doing it again.

ELTON!

2005-11-07T15:37:00.000+01:00

I heard the saddest story today. Sad, that is, in a "I really shouldn't laugh but I do" sort of way, which, as you may or may not agree, is maybe the saddest of all sorts of sad.

Appareantly, last week in the UK a woman (probably in her early 70's or something) murdered her son. Sad isn't it? Wait, it gets sadder. The son in question, a man in his late 30's I believe, had Down syndrome. When I heard the story the big girl in me (the one I also blame for my weight) let out a big "Awww!".

So far, just sad no laughing. Unless you're really weird.

However, the reason the woman killed her son was the following; for weeks in a row her son had been listening to the same Elton John CD over and over and over and over again while constantly (and I do mean every-few-seconds-without-taking-a-break-constantly) chanting "ELTON! ELTON! ELTON! ELTON!". At a certain point something broke in the woman in question and she did what she did.

The thing is, that I can relate to the mother.

For years my sister, whose heart otherwise art blessed, had a fascination with horrible music. She used to not care at all about musicians untill she fell in love with.... 3T. For hours and hours in a row the absolutely horrific sounds of the Jackson brothers would come out of her room. And, sadly, also into my room. Although it was good to know my sister was no racist, that euphoria soon wore off as I (and my parents with me) realized that 3T songs were sweeter than the average Lionel Richie song (... I know).

Thankfully, like most teenage crushes my sisters obsession with Michael Jacksons nephews soon ended and was replaced by a Leonardo DiCaprio obsession. This was right around the time when Titanic was released and when the movie came out on video, my sister watched it at least twice a week (at her mothers place thankfully). For a moment me and my parents rejoiced. This obsession, which would proof far more lengthy than the 3T crush, at least would not involve music blasting through the house.

Obviously, we had not considered the role Celine Dion had played in the success of the movie Titanic.

Hours in a row "My heart will go on" was blasting through my sisters stereo. And although my father, never the best in historical details, later claimed it was Whitney Houston's "I will always love you" (thereby diminishing the depths of our pain by not remembering the actual song), we were hurting. And, I have to say, if we would have had my sister living with us 24/7, and thereby also playing that song 24/7, while chanting either "CELINE! CELINE! CELINE!" or "LEO! LEO! LEO!". Well....

So Elton boy, may you rest in peace. And if there is a heaven, I'm sure there's more Elton John music there than you've ever heard before.

Coughing hell

2005-11-03T11:42:00.000+01:00

I feel one of those old fashioned rant posts coming up, so if you're a fan of one of those... goodie!

It all started about two weeks ago with the flu. Most people who know me will testify that I get the flu a lot. The flu and me, we're like this. We're friends, buddies, homeys if you will. We can, and will, hang together for weeks, maybe even months. Usually nobody gets hurt and I have a good excuse to lie in bed in the afternoon and watch Oprah (you go girlfriend).

Sadly enough, this time, the flu evolved into some weird other thing. First it moved upwards to my throat where it tried to choke me in thin slime (I never said it wasn't going to be a disgusting rant, okay). When that failed, it moved downwards to my chest area where it sticked around for a few days. The result was constant heavy coughing, some fever, and pain during breathing, which, as you may know, is something you do quite constantly while alive.

In short; problem.

The problem was magnified by the fact that the combination really hit me the hardest on saturday night. Although the Netherlands is one of the wealthiest countries per capita in the world, if you need a doctor in the weekend, you're screwed. Either you can try calling one and end up with that always helpful 'take an asprine and call me on monday' advice, or you can go straight to the ER (and since George Clooney left, who honestly cares).

So I coughed my way through the weekend and figured I'd call my doctor on monday morning, get an appointment for monday afternoon and figure out if I was going to live or not. Obviously, I forgot about the Dutch health system and it's prime problem; the assistent.

I started calling the doctors office around 8 AM and found the line was busy. I called again at 8.02 and found the line was busy. I called again at 8.07 and found the line was busy. I kept calling every few minutes untill 10.02 when the phone was finally answered and... I was put on hold. I was kept on hold for another 10 minutes until finally my doctors assistent answered the call. Jubilation!

I explained to the woman in question that I would like to make an appointment with my doctor (I should explain my doctor shares her practice with a few other doctors, thereby insuring in theory that someone can always help you, continue). The woman told me my doctor was on vacation.

Right.

Now, I have no problem with my doctor taking a, no doubt well deserved, break every now and then. She should, it's healthy. But why is it that in the last year I needed my doctor three times and all three times she's on vacation. What kind of evil plot is this? Does this woman plan her trips just around the time I am most volnerable for disseases?

Anyway. I explained to the woman that I then would like an appointment with her replacement. She told me that there were no replacements but other doctors also filling in for my doctor.

"Fine" I told her "I would like an appointment with one of them then".
"Only if it's urgent" she said "What are your complaints"
I explained the problem. The woman did not sound impressed.
"Do you have fever?" she asked.
"Not all the time but every few hours, yes" I answered.
"Temperature?" she informed
"I don't know" I told her "I don't have a thermometer"

The woman was silent for a moment. "How" she began "do you know you have a fever then?". You could hear her celebrate her personal victory on the other side of the line. I retaliated by telling her that, no, I could not give her exact numbers, but I could feel whether or not I had a fever. "No, you can't, because sometimes people say they have a fever and then it turns out they don't. So you can't".

I was stunned for a moment. Was I supposed to get into a discussion on fevers and if you can feel them with her?

"Okay, so maybe I do not have a fever. I have a serious complaint anyway, can I get an appointment?"
"No. We have to know if it's serious or not"
"It is"
"We have to know if you have a fever"
"Right now, I don't but sometimes I have"
"What you should do is buy a thermometer, take up your temperature and call me in the afternoon"

Now, my people generally likes bitchy women. We like them because we don't have to date them but when they start screwing us it stops being funny.

"Look" I said "I want an appointment, I can do any time today or tomorrow"
"I can't schedule you in for tomorrow"
By now I could see her as some human flesh eating African dictator, such was her character.
"I want an appointment"
".... Fine, tomorrow, 2;10 PM"

For the first time in quite a few weeks I was not quite sure what to say.

--
Anyway, turned out the coughing is just a virus and I got some pills that should stop it. Only problem; they make me really sleepy, so I'm not allowed to drive. Or touch machines. Goodie.

Dear Al Franken,

2005-10-25T22:30:00.000+02:00

Hey Al! I know, I know. I thought the entire open letter routine would be over too (especially since nobody cares about them). But, honestly; I haven't posted for a week, tuesday's a slow news day, and I've got the fucking fwu, so bear with me. Basically see it as you making fun of Donald Rumsfeld, it's easy, it's fun, and you can sleep peacefully by the end of the day.

Anyhoo, the reason I'm writing you is because I just finished reading your new book 'The Truth (with jokes)', the long awaited follow up to your 2003 book "LIES and the lying liers who tell them" about... well.. lies. Although the title may fool some, in your new book you're basically doing the exact same thing you did in 'Lies'; talk about how right wing people lie and counter it with the truth.

Well, your truth.

Overall, I have to say; funny. Not always Lies funny, but definetly more funny than Michael Moore funny (but honestly, these days, what isn't?). During certain parts of your book I had a bit of a deja vu feeling (even a deja vu all over again feeling if you will) concerning your earlier material and certain parts I already knew just by following the news.

Mind you, there was some stuff I really liked about the book. Your views on the Kerry campaign, for instance, were pretty darn good (especially on how they decided to make the American people relive everybody's favorite era.... The Vietnam War), I liked your story on how you lived through election night and if what you wrote about Tom DeLay is only true for 20% the man should be in jail for the rest of his life. Oh, and that part where you talk about how you feel about religion and the role your father played in that... tears in my eyes, honestly.

I just have two little pieces of criticism.

First, the title. Now, I agree this isn't really your fault, and I also agree that the title (The Truth - with jokes) is quite funny. So no issues there. The problem is that my beloved bestest friend the Squirrel now adds 'with jokes' to every other word he says to me. If he were to talk about food he might say "Pizza.... with jokes". Sure, our pizzas are usually served with jokes, but I'm afraid this one might stick (we still do the SNL cowbell sketch every week).

Second, and this is sort of the main one; the last chapter, in which you write an open letter to your grandchildren. First of all, open letters, puhlease! So boring. But more importantly; you write the letter from the perspective of the future.

Ouch.

The problem here is, that it's just so painfully awkward. Awkward as in, I'm still trying to get my toes straight after reading it. In the chapter, you talk about how basically the Democrats have won everything after the 2004 election. You yourself even become senator (you live in New York, does this mean you expect Hillary to become president? or are you planning on killing the other senator?) . Then, in the few days between the installment of the new congress and the installment of the new president, you impeach George W. Bush for the fun of it. Also, as of now you have no grandchildren, so you're kind of putting the presure on your kids there.

The problem with the "writing-from-the-future-style" is that you're always gonna be wrong in the end. I mean, look at George Orwell with 1984, man was he wrong with that one! (.... no wait!). More importantly, it's so common. Michael Moore did it in one of his book for instance (and just as awkwardly... I like the word awkward, have you noticed?) and even this particular letter is written from the perspective of tomorrow morning.

Oh, and if you are getting in a fist fight with Bill O'Reilly, could we have video footage of that?

Cheerio!
boris

ps. do you know Michael Bolton?

The fools they are as men

2005-10-18T10:36:00.000+02:00

Before I start I would like to make it clear that the "men" mentioned in this title are not the ones of the "Hi, I have a penis and I like chopping wood" variety but of the general "animals related to monkeys" species. Just wanted to make that clear, continue reading!

As careful readers of this bilog (NOTE; I'm trying to introduce this as a new way of saying blog, you know, like bi-atch instead of bitch, is it catching on?) may know, I have a job. A job that includes way too many responsibilities for the amount of money they pay me and a nice, but homophobic, boss, but still a job. A job I have to get to. On sundays. Just bear with me.

To get to the place where I work I usally take a tram (which didn't drive last sunday because of the marathon, no problem I walked) and then the subway. The subway drives through a trainstation. Usually I have to wait about 10 minutes or something before the subway I need arrives. Honestly, I'm getting to a point.

When I entered the platform (does one enter a platform? I'm not sure) a woman was standing there with two little girls. At first I assumed they were waiting for a train or a subway, but when a man ran up the stairs and started screaming at the woman I quickly figured out what was going on. The man and the woman were either divorced or trying desperately to get to that stage and this was that magical moment where the kids were to be turned over from one parent to the other.

Or, as you could also call it; the moment the shit hits the fan.

Since the man was screaming at his (soon to be) ex-wife, it was fairly easy (if not impossible) for all the other people around them not to hear what was going on. The two had apparently agreed that the mom would bring the children to the station, where the dad would then take them home. Apparently the two weren't on the level of allowing eachother into their homes.

However, when making the appointment, the two had apparently forgot to specify where they were going to meet. The result was that the mom was standing on the platform with the two kids, while the dad was waiting at the main entrance. And, from what I got from the screaming, both had been there for over half an hour.

Usually when a mix up like that occurs, you get worried, you try to call people on cell phones (apparently they also were not on the level of calling eachother), and when you eventually do find eachother, there's a feeling of relief that nobody died. Or maybe that's just me, I'm a drama queen. But when you're in the middle of your divorce, apparently you don't feel that way.

Out of the two, the collective platform sympathy went to the woman. She remained calm while her ex-hubby screamed. Her ex-hubby lost even more valuable points by the sort of sentences he barfed out; "I'm giving you extra service by coming to this platform!" he yelled, "Do you know how much time you've stolen from me?". The fact that he had the worst (nouveau)-riche accent I have ever heard, didn't do much good either.

The entire thing could have been amusing in a disturbing way, were it not for the girls. From what I understand, a lot of kids of divorced parents for a long time keep on hoping that maybe they will come back together after all, add to that the fact that it's never fun to see two people you love scream to eachother, and you have the perfect nightmare. While their dad was screaming at their mom, the two girls wandered off to the end of the platform where they both cried like only little girls can cry; hard and heartbreaking.

When my subway finally arrived, the guy also finally decided he had enough of his own screaming, took the kids and left. Leaving me with the impression that his two daughters will probably be screwed up for the rest of their lives. Now, I may be getting too Dr. Phil-ish here, but all of this made me really, really sad.

Crap, I forgot to put jokes in this thing.

Paperback Writer

2005-10-12T15:52:00.000+02:00

As Jari, my favorite Finn in the world, already said on his blog; it's NaNoWriMo time.

NaNoWriMo, as you may, or more likely may not, know is a yearly thing that enables wannabe writers like myself, Jari and thousands of others around the world, to finally actually write something. The idea is quite simple; so many of us who try to write a book get stuck after page 5. The problem is that, even though we may have great ideas, we don't quite know how to move beyond the first stage. Also, we start combing through that first stage so finely that in the end there's nothing left, really. This generally makes us forget about the project and it stops us from imagening ever winning the Booker Prize.

Enter NaNoWriMo (short for National Novel Writing Month). The concept is the following; in one month (specifically November) people taking part are expected to write a book (fiction, non-fiction, thrillers, short stories, romantic novels, anything goes really) of 50 000 words. You start on november 1 at 0;01 and you end on november 31 at 23;59. If you succeed, the only thing you get is the right to gloat. If you lose, well, you lose.

Last year I took part for the first time. I tried to write a novel about two guys, of which one had just killed their mutual best friend (oh relax, he didn't mean to, he was stoned). The two guys were sitting in a car trying to get out of the country, which, obviously is not a bad strategy after you killed somebody. The problem was, that the amount of stuff you can write about two guys sitting in a car, is... well... limited. Needless to say, I learned that the hard way.

An additional problem was that the story took place in the United States, a country I love but I do not live in. This meant that I had to make a lot of stuff up. Sure, with fiction you make most stuff up, but entire landscapes in actual existing towns and places, I dunno. On top of that, I had no clear idea on what I wanted with the characters, loads of papers to write, and classes.

So yes, I failed. Lost. Screwed up. Crashed. Died. At the end of november I had nothing. Nada. Niente.

THIS year, I'm doing it completely different. Instead of one good idea, I have two ideas. One of them could actually lead to a good book, but it's going to be pretty darn difficult to write. The other one, might be very easy to write but it will be nothing special at the same time. For both ideas I have no plot, no characters, no names, no places.......

But! I do have the titles ready. So, basically, I can't think of a reason why this year I'm not going to win the Booker Prize next year.

===
For more info visit www.nanowrimo.org

Graceland - the pictures

2005-10-10T17:06:00.000+02:00

EDIT; also check the link above.

Obviously I am aware that this blog is not a photo-blog (Perish the thought though, old chap! A photo blog! Will the madness ever end?) but there's a few pics of my Kenya trip I wanted to share. Sorry for the immensly crappy quality of the pics, I'm trying to figure out a place where I can put the bigger versions online.

Two girls working at a school project. Unlike most Dutch and American schools, this school doesn't have internet so the computers are actually being used for studying, instead of porn searching. I am just as surprised as you are.

"You're gonna put this on a photo blog. Dude, you're using too much!"

Buffelos on safari: "Are you.... local people?"

This is a baby elephant crossing the road right behind our car. It's mommy was in the bushes to the right, and the driver was sorta nervous about it. I think he saw Jumanji too many times.

My friends at the school for the mentally handicaped...

... and the kids I talked about in my post below.

I've got loads more, but as I said, I just need a place to put them online. Suggestions are more than welcome!

Graceland

2005-10-07T10:18:00.001+02:00

Fear not my faithful followers (... hi Jari), I have returned! And, just to kill the suspense I know so many of you are feeling right now, so far, I appear to be free of any weird disseases. So sorry Squirrel and Merel, you'll get my stuff later.

Anyhoo, Kenya. To somewhat paraphrase Jon Stewart; the short way to describe it is wow. The long way to describe it is wooooooooooooooooow. It is, maybe with the exception of certain parts of Italy (*Barry White music starts now* Honestly baby, that other country, it meant nothin' to me *Barry White music stops*), the most beautiful country I have ever seen. It's almost impossible to describe it, but there's a certain calmness and serenity in the landscape. Actually, in a way, it's exactly like Tuscany, but then again not quite.

Kenyans themselves are also a lot like Italians. But worse. Basically, I think they are how Italians would be if they had to deal with Kenyan temperatures and humidity rates. What that means is that Kenyan people are the most friendly and laidback people you will ever meet. What that also means is that, like with Italians, it's practically impossible to make appointments with them. In Italy, some trains have 'squigly lines' next to them on the schedules in the trainstations. These lines mean (and I swear to god I am not making this up) "this train may or may not arrive". In Kenya squigly lines would be everywhere. It sounds horrible, but once you let go of European or American time and surrender to Kenyan time, you'll find that an additional 15 minutes (or 30 minutes, or hour) doesn't really matter.

Not that any of the other tourists who go to Kenya ever find out. The hotel we were staying in was somekind of expensive resort located at the beach and with a huge pool. The people that go there generally went into the hotel, laid in the sun for two weeks, and then left. Most never got out of the entire resort. To give you a picture of what their vacation must have been like; at 7 in the morning breakfast started, which meant that at 7;05 at the latest they were awake and active so that they could dump their towels on one of the chairs around the pool. Not that there was a lack of chairs, but imagine having one not exactly next to the pool. Then after breakfast they sat in the sun. Around noon they had lunch, so they were back in their chairs around one. At 4 in the afternoon high tea started. This meant that everybody started waiting outside the restaurant area at five minutes before 4. After that they washed up for dinner, had dinner and went to bed.

Now, personally I don't see how you can do that for one day, let alone for 14 without either killing yourself or your fellow hotel guests (the same goes for being locked up at some godforsaken campingsite in France). The fun of traveling is that you go out, see new things, hear new things and meet new people. You can do nothing (or even worse semi-artistic crap) at home. Is it scary to go out into a new continent. Sure. Is it worth it? Damn right. But the thing I really really don't get is why they go to Kenya for that. It's an 8 hour flight. You can get the same sort of sun in f%cking Spain people!

While in Kenya I got to visit two schools. One is a school for orphanaged girls. Most of these girls have lost both their parents, and usually also some of their brothers, sisters, uncles and aunts to AIDS and god knows what else. It's almost impossible to imagine how anybody can survive that, but these girls are being brought up to basically take over the country. They're strong, they know what they want, they have a sense of humour and, because of international money they get the chance, not only to go to high school, but maybe even to university.

But even more impressive was a school for mentally handicaped children. These kids were dumped by their parents, sometime literary at the front gate, and they are some of the sweetest kids alive. The place they are now going to is, in fact, an actual school where they are being taught to read, to write and to make clothes. Because they can't stay at the school until they day they die they have to be prepared for real life, and the amazing teachers try their best to do just that. One teacher, who was working with four kids who couldn't yet write but who tried to copy lines and shapes, had a student that couldn't use his hands. The kid was extremely bright though, if you showed him a bottle, he could give the English word for it within a minute. The teacher explained that she was trying to help him to find ways to express himself "I'm trying to make it possible for him to try to write with his toes", she said, "Unfortunately, he can't walk so that might not work either. But we'll figure out something".

Forgive me for slipping into JFK mode, but let all those who don't believe in sending money and resources to Africa visit those two schools. Talk to those children. Talk to their teachers. See what is being accomplished there, and then explain to me why it's not worth it.

But then again, they'd have to leave the hotel to see that.

PS. for the record; during a Safari I have seen (aprox.) 8 elephants, one bush thingie, loads of antilopes and buffeloes, an eagle, two giraffes and wild swines. In the real world, I've seen quite a few monkeys, but none of them stole any of my stuff (*......checks for wallet*, nope none of them stole anything), also I didn't get stung by any f##### mosquito, but I was stuck with the side effects of the anti-Malaria pills (which appear to be similar to Malaria itself, so go figure).

Better run through the jungle

2005-09-24T11:10:00.000+02:00

Oh god.

In about 84 hours I will be on a plane. This in itself doesn't scare me too much. I never liked planes, but most of the time I'm fine. And yes, I currently am in complete denial that I will be in this particular plane for 10 hours, thank you for asking. The problem is where the plane will be going. Or, better said in post 9/11 lingo, where the plane is scheduled to go.

Kenya.... oh dear god.

I'm not quite at the point yet where I start questioning the entire trip, but I am in complete awe of the event that is quickly approaching. Kenya. What was I thinking? Aside from the fact that I'll be running behind on papers, classes, and reading assignments, there's a part of me that is in extreme doubt whether I should be traveling to Africa. "Honestly", it tells me, "don't you think there's a reason our relatives left that place thousands and thousands of years ago?".

As said before (see below), I have my shots, and my malaria medication, so in that department I should be fine. Or, in post reading-the-different-articles-on-disseases-you-can-get-in-Africa lingo, I'm scheduled to be fine. That is if I don't touch anybody's blood or sperm. Neither of which I'm planning on.But for some reason the weird people at the travel clinic didn't give me drugs or pills to keep away the monkeys. Or the lions. Or the spiders. Or snakes (oh lord, I had forgotten about the snakes). Or the other bugs.

Oh god, oh god, oh god, oh god.

Sure, in Amsterdam we have those things too, but in Zoos! Where God intended them to be when he created them! Of course, I'll be spending a lot of time in civilized areas where I suspect the amount of deadly snakes to be, well, at least not huge. But monkeys are supposed to be everywhere, and I'm told they carry disseases (which, in a totally off-topic by-thought, could explain how Michael Jackson is these days... damn you Bubbles!), so I should not get in a fight with one of them.

But it is also scheduled that we will go into the bush to visit the orphanage/school that is the entire reason of our visit. I suggested importing the girls that visit the school to the hotel and just stay in our rooms for the entire trip, but for some reason I was outvoted.Anyhoo, I don't know if there will be internet in Kenya (there should be, I hear they even have phones in Friesland these days), I might not be back untill october. And if I haven't posted something about annoying blondes or stupid tv shows by november.... well... blame Bubbles.

Oh and in case I do die; my cd's and books go to the Squirrel, if only for the fact that he can never store them in his boat appartment, my Zucchero cd's go to my friend Merel together with the duty to listen to them every day (and I'll ghostly check that!), and, damnit, I want male strippers singing "Kamachameleon" at my funeral. That's about it really....

Oh god, oh god, oh god, oh god, oh god.

Brown on blondes

2005-09-19T22:18:00.000+02:00

I officially despise blonde women. Well, obviously not all of them, that would be discrimination. And everybody who knows me, knows I hate discrimination. I believe discrimination is the lowest thing one human being can do to another and I absolutely hate it, I hate it even more than I hate Germans (this obviously is a joke.... how can I hate something more than the Germans? *1)/ And, I actually have blonde women among my best friends (Hi Becky!). But it's a certain kind of blonde woman that I really hate. You look puzzled, I'll try to explain.

This morning I was sitting next to one of them during an American Studies class. I didn't really notice her because, well... basically because I really couldn't care less about most women-I-don't-know if I tried (and I have). However, while I was happily ignoring her, she did notice me.

Let me start by saying that, yes, in theory she was right to complain. When I'm listening to a person talk to me for more than 10 minutes I get several ticks running through my body. They're pretty harmless, basically me shaking my right foot a lot, or me imagining a lepricorn sitting on my shoulder and telling me to burn things. Another one is me playing with my pen, the pen in question wasn't one of those you had to press to get the point to go up or down (and by doing that creating a "tsjlik tsjlik" sound). This was an ordinary pen with a little cap that I was opening and closing to the rhytm of "Bad Moon Rising" that was playing in my head.

Now, the sound that an action like that makes is ridiculously undisturbing. It's basically a "thup" sound and because my hands were on the pen I was muting the sound almost completely. Or so I thought. I was just happily thup-ping along when halfway through the lecture, the girl turned to me and whispered "Could you quit with the pen?".

It's not so much that she complained, it's the way she did it. First of all, to convey the message that I should quit playing with my pen, she used the Dutch verb "kappen". It's a word you usually reserve for either a friendly feud or the way you would complain if your next door neighbor would start playing gangsta rap at volume level 12 at 2 in the morning. It is most definitely not a thup-sound verb.

Second, it was the tone she used. She could have gone with a distant "Hi,-I-don't-know-you-and-I'm-sure-you're-a-decent-guy-,-but-I'm-trying-to-pay-attention-and-you're-distracting-me" tone. She didn't. She even could have gone with a, totally misplaced, "Hey,-we're-both-students-,-so-we're-buddies-,so-could-ya-do-me-a-favor-mate" tone. She didn't. Instead she went for the spoiled brat tone. That spoiled little girl tone. That tone that inmediately made me convinced that she had a father with way to much money on the bank and a mother on mood stabilizers. She knew I was going to stop the thupping, not because she was morally right, but because she always gets what she wants.

Then I took a look at her outfit. She wore those hip clothes people with actual sense of style stay away from as far as they can. The woman had a fucking belt with flowers and one of those coats with fake fur around the edges. She also smoked and (and I'm sure my female readers will now hate her too) she was ridiculously thin. In short, I was already in a bad mood, but now I was able to channel all my inner hatred towards a mental image of me smashing her head against her desk. Obviously, in the actual classroom I did the decent thing and stopped the thupping and started the foot shaking. But in the make-believe class room.... boy.

I'll say one thing for her though, great fag hag material.

---
1) this is obviously also a joke. God, you people are slow.
2) bonus points, and a "duh!", to the one who can guess which legendary album title I raped, butchered and spit on for the title of this post.

Close your eyes (and think of England)

2005-09-08T14:20:00.000+02:00

A few weeks ago I spent a few days visiting the UK. Not so much for the tourist attractions but for the fact that my friend Merel's natural habitat these days is in and around Coventry. Since both of us lost most of our money while vacationing in Italy earlier this summer, we spent our days together watching sitcoms on TV and walking around Coventry and Birmingham wondering which 16 year old girl was and which 16 year old girl wasn't pregnant.... in Dutch obviously, I don't know about Merel but I imagine most 16 year old English girls can probably kick my ass quite professionally, pregnant or not.

Every time I spent some time in England there's a few things that always surprise me, and usually pleasantly. For one thing, I love the way the country side looks. I love the fact that they have Queer as Folk on dvd in practically every cd/dvd store there is. In a really weird way I love how the cars drive on the wrong side of the street (for possible UK readers; yes, it is the wrong side). But mostly, I love the English.

I haven't been in France recently, and the times I have been there I didn't feel unwanted or hated by the reportedly bitchy local French population (then again, last time I was in France I was 5), but I can understand how people might react a little annoyed at tourists. Even in Amsterdam, a city where most people tend to be quite laidback, the police and the people running the public transportation system are usually not the most friendly to tourists screwing something up.

From what I've experienced, not in England. Last year, when I was in the UK to see Zucchero perform in London, I had to travel quite a lot by public transportation (trains, subway, busses the works) and I'm pretty sure that in the three days I was in England I broke every single rule there is. I rode on subways with a wrong ticket, I rode in a train without any valid ticket or pounds to buy one, I payed for a ticket in a bus and then didn't collect it from the machine, I tore my train ticket up after leaving the train but before passing the point where my ticket was to be checked again. I did everything wrong I could do wrong.

Now, if I would have done stuff like this in Amsterdam, no matter how well I could explain what I did wrong and why I did it, I would have ended up with half my years salary in fines and a bunch of grumpy people who work for the railway company bitching at me. Again; not in England. The men and women that checked my (torn up) tickets, answered my extremely stupid questions and helped me understand why my train had been cancelled and how I was to get to the airport in an alternative way while I was completely stressing out, were nice, friendly, and most of all easygoing.

Oh, and they called me 'love' (well, at least the women did).

There's only one problem I have with the English: I don't understand what the fuck they're saying. It's not the language that is a problem. After all, as you can see on this blog, English me fery are good. It's the accents. It took me ten minutes to figure out that the, again awfully nice, person selling me drinks meant "Do you want ice" and not "Do youwnjfksoisisuisdize?". The only reason I figured out what the extremely friendly woman selling me a gigantic potato with even more tuna salad meant when she asked "Ya want batr?" was because she was pointing at some butter with her knive. And people from Brmnghm.... well, they were all extremely nice but god knows what they said to me.

So, in short; people of England, I'm totally in favor of getting you guys to run the globe again for a couple of decades, but could ya please lose the accents???

Dear Pat Robertson,

2005-09-03T10:26:00.000+02:00

Most honourable servant of God,

How's life? I've been a little busy the past two weeks so I didn't have time to write you any sooner. I was planning to do it a few days ago, honestly. I'm sorry! I understand you're upset, and I also understand that if I'd be gone from this earth oil production wouldn't be harmed in any way, but please, please don't have me killed!

Amen,
Boris

Hi Pat,

Obviously I didn't mean all that. I don't believe in God, so I'll be damned if I believe in you. To me you're just a silly old guy claiming he's talking to God (who doesn't exist, so you do the maths). But I just wanted to know; is this how your life is like these days? Are people afraid you'll throw a fatwah at them too? "Here's your coffee Mr. Robertson, I know I forgot the milk, please don't kill me!!!!'.

To those of you who missed it (must be tough living in a cardboard box btw). Our good friend and evangelist Pat Robertson recently said in his own TV show ' The 700 Club' that if Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez really thinks the U.S. is trying to kill him (which he does) then ", I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it. It's a whole lot cheaper than starting a war" (which it is). Obviously while saying that, you forgot that Chavez is a Democratically elected president (that is, as Democratically elected as any man can be in South America) and that he's a fellow Christian.

That's not to say that I don't agree with you that Chavez is a bit of an odd fellow and not a really good president to his people. But if that's a good reason to have someone killed, well, I feel for George W . My favourite part of your Kill Chavez rant, was the adding of 'And I don't think any oil shipments will stop'. As Jon Stewart of The Daily Show said 'That's right in line with the 10 Commandments; Thou shalt not kil... if any oil shipments will stop'.

After you proclaimed your fatwah, all hell obviously broke lose, and you responded in your typical Pat Robertson way; deny, attack 'liberal media', be confronted with taped video of you saying what you actually said and then in the end somewhat take it back while the rest of the world mocks you. Hey, if it makes you happy!

Your screw up did give me reasons to go back to the Pat Robertson hall of fame and check out some of your other quotes. My favourites;

"The feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism, and become lesbians."

"I know this is painful for the ladies to hear, but if you get married, you have accepted the headship of a man, your husband. Christ is the head of the household and the husband is the head of the wife, and that's the way it is, period."

"These girls (Robertson is talking about mothers on welfare) are not stupid. If you want to pay them five hundred, six hundred, seven hundred, eight hundred dollars a month, or whatever it is, to have a baby, they'll have babies. And if they'll stop paying them, they'll stop having babies. It's that simple. It's not heartless, it's not cruel, it's an intelligent use of money (Robertson opposes any form of sex education)".

"It's one thing to say, "We have rights to jobs ... we have rights to be left alone in out little corner of the world to do our thing." It's an entirely different thing to say, well, "We're not only going to go into the schools and we're going to take your children and your grandchildren and turn them into homosexuals." Now that's wrong."

and on number one: your "I totally concur" to Jerry Falwells "The ACLU has got to take a lot of blame for this (Falwell is talking about the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001). And I know I'll hear from them for this, but throwing God...successfully with the help of the federal court system...throwing God out of the public square, out of the schools, the abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked and when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad...I really believe that the pagans and the abortionists and the feminists and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way, all of them who try to secularize America...I point the thing in their face and say you helped this happen."

You must be a proud man, Pat!

Anyhoo, I can't write too long; there's children to turn into homosexuals, earthquakes to cause, and women to be lesbianized, and it's a big worls, so you understand I gotta run.

Cheerio!
Boris

Fai piano, i bimbi grandi non piangono

2005-08-27T16:25:00.000+02:00

The above is a quote from one of my favourite Zucchero songs. Granted, most Zucchero songs are among my favourites, but this one, called ´Diamante´, has a special place in the ranking. The song, written by Zucchero and an Italian singer-songwriter called Francesco DeGregori, is about the death of Zucchero’s grandmother, whose name was Diamante. Although my Italian isn’t as good as it should be, I believe a fair enough translation of the sentence above, which in the song is whispered several times during the bridge, would be `Softly now, big kids don’t cry`, which I think is one of the best descriptions of how one feels when someone close passes away.

Yesterday, late in the afternoon, my grandfather died. He was 92 years and 22 days old. He had been ill for months, if not years. And in the past few weeks he had been visibly getting weaker and weaker. Basically, everybody, including himself, knew he was going to die soon, and everybody, including himself, were ´at peace with it´. When thinking about older people passing away, I always remember a Billy Christal movie I once saw in which he plays a comedian getting older. Somewhere in the movie his mother dies, and during a service for her he starts telling funny stories about her before breaking down and saying `She was 99 and she died too young!’.

It’s a pretty good line, but in this case I don’t think it’s appropriate. My grandfather died without too much pain, with dignity, with his mind still in excellent shape, and in the room that had been his home for the past 2 years. He was tired, he was done, there really wasn’t anything left he was waiting for, so he gave up and stepped out. My grandmother, who died in 2002, died in much the same way, and although there’s a lot of comfort in there for those left behind, there’s also the problem of having to combine sadness with realization that there really wasn’t another option.

As a kid with a working mom, I spent loads of time with them when I was younger, and I remember that as being in this big hot bath of complete and unconditional love. The funny thing about my grandparents was the difference between them as parents and the way they were with me and my nephews and nieces. They were both raised in the early 20th century and both strict Catholics, so you can imagine that as parents they weren’t always the most adapted to their 1960’s, soon-to-be-atheists, kids. As grandparents, however, they were simply the best: up until the very last moment, if you wanted to see my grandfather smile all you had to do was mention one of his grandchildren.

In the past few years I’d visit him usually once a week, and though the fluffy warmness of my grandmother had passed on, it was replaced by the sort of grown up discussions I never had with my grandmother. We used to talk about politics, news, history, sports and whatever else was going on. Also, clearly showing that we’re related, we spent quite a lot of time making jokes. His favourite material was money. Whenever there was a news story about stock prices falling, he would look at me semi-seriously and say “Don’t worry, sold everything”. “Phew” my mom and me would reply, “thank god the family fortune is safe!”.

The last time I saw him was last Monday but he was hardly able to stay awake for more than a few minutes. The day before I went to see him after work and we spent about twenty minutes talking, somehow ending up talking about food. He asked if I had eaten already, I said I hadn’t, and he then suggested we should get Chinese food together, ignoring for a moment he hadn’t eaten solid food in two weeks. My family doesn’t have many traditions but joking until your very last breath, thank god, is one of them. Eventually we moved on to my grandmothers cooking, and thinking about her food, but more importantly her, he boasted the biggest smile I have seen on him in the past month.

Now, personally I’m not a big philosopher concerning life and death. I don’t believe there is a heaven, and if there is one Mark Twain was probably right in saying he’d prefer heaven for the climate and hell for the company, but my grandfather did, and who knows, maybe he was right. Or maybe the late Dutch songwriter Bram Vermeulen had it right when he wrote

And when I die
Don’t cry
I’m not really dead
You should know
It’s just a body
That I left behind
Dead I’ll only be
Once you’ve forgotten about me.

And if that’s the case both my grandparents will live on for a long, long time.

Oh, and for the record: big kids most definitely do cry.

It's a jungle out there

2005-08-24T11:02:00.000+02:00

In a month and a few days I'll be spending a week in Kenya.

Like all trips, preparations usually start about a month in advance, unlike my usual trips preparations for this one are quite important. My normal travel routine is standing in front of my bookcase wondering which cd's to bring (a task that is quite difficult and usually takes several test runs before all the boring cd's are eliminated), this time I have to get medication shot inside me so that I won't die.

Fun, and also, such a comforting thought!

To just get it over with me and my dad went to the KLM Travel Clinic yesterday morning. Since he already had his vaccinations last year I was the only one who actually had to get a shot, and it's been a while. I believe the last time was when I was 12 and all I remember from it is that I missed school and didn't cry (tear up, yes, but no crying!). Thankfully I didn't cry or pass out this time around either. Also, even though I got three shots (one against Yellow Fever, one against something call DTP and one against some other thing) the woman who gave me the shots was quite a professional and it only took about a minute to do it.

And then she talked about all the different things you can get in Kenya. Just so you know, there's this bug in still water around there so you should probably ask around before you take a swim. And if you do catch the bug, she added, you'll know because there will be blood in your urine. Oh, by the way she added, hepatitus B is quite big around there so be careful with any blood contact. For a moment I was confused and wondered who wouldn't be careful touching someone elses blood, but then I figured that if someone would give me 5 minutes I'm sure I'd be able to find at least 20 people on Gaydar. I left the building with a pile of brochures big enough to take up 50% of the luggage weight I'm allowed to take with me on the flight.

Overall the people who worked at the clinic seemed... well, they seemed weird, but they also seemed to know what they were doing. Sort of. There's only one thing that worried me.

While waiting for our turn my dad and I overheard this conversation between a woman of the clinic and a guy asking for some advice. The man was traveling to Indonesia soon and he was planning on staying on Java, would he need anti-malaria pills? The woman replied that no, he didn't because Java is malaria free, however just in case he should rub anti-mosquito stuff on him just in case. Then the man said he was also planning on staying on Lombok, would he need malaria pills for that? The woman looked at him and asked 'Will you be there for more than three nights?', the man replied that he was planning on only staying one night. 'Then you don't need them' the woman said.

Seeing that there are quite a lot of malaria carrying mosquitos in Kenya, this has left me with quite a few questions concerning the mosquito that I sort of would like to have answered before I leave. The most important one being; how could a mosquito know if you're just staying one night? Why would they suddenly get dangerous after three nights? Do they pinch humans the way people do in supermarkets when buying avocados? 'Neah, this one isn't ripe yet, come on guys let's go to the fat German in the other room!'.

Tough one

2005-08-09T13:40:00.000+02:00

I was at work last Sunday killing time and chatting with my direct supervisor when I asked her how the hiring was going for other people working at the same place. When I left for my vacation they were still looking for new people to work at the same hours as I do, and I was pretty interested to find out who I’d end up with. My supervisor, a woman who is in her 30´s and seemed perfectly normal till then, explained that so far no people had been hired, though she did do one interview. But, she added, she had decided not to hire him since `well, you know, he had a sexual preference that was a little different than that of most men. Which is perfectly fine of course but I figured you wouldn’t be too comfortable working with him, and everybody should be comfortable going to work!´ after which she continued humming along to a Queen song on the radio.

Apart from the irony that she herself single-handedly destroyed all comfort I may have had in working at the place in those two sentences, and the fact that her gaydar is apparently not as fine-tuned as she thinks it is, the thing that hit me most about all of it was the way she said it. A little different. It reminded me of one of my friend Merel´s favourite stories; years ago during some school trip to the woods she got ill (flu, food poisoning, something like that) and spent a few days lying in bed with fever, nausea, and the urge to bitch at the other girls sharing a room with her. One morning she decided she wasn’t going to get up for breakfast and she stayed in bed, where one of the supervisors on the trip, a geography teacher with a wife and children, came to see how she was doing. He looked at her for a while and then asked the legendary question `Is it a…. you know…. a woman thingie?´.

Right after my supervisor transformed herself from a normal lady into an evil bitch from hell in my head the different me’s started a meeting on how to respond to this full frontal attack. Read-headed me was the first to think and shouted `HIT HER! IN HER FACE! WITH A BOOK! DO IT!´ while white foam was blowing out of his mouth. Against all normal rules he was joined by the idealist in me who, for the time being ignored his anti-violence beliefs, and joined in with a direct `I’d say resign right now, or at least strangle her!` and started unrolling his pride flags and started humming ´Imagine´.

The coward in me joined the realist on the other side of the table. ´Honestly´, the realist said, ´how do you think it will make any difference if we quit? Or kill her? This is a woman who apparently doesn’t like gay people, we don’t like bigots, it’s the exact same thing`. A valid point, to which the coward added a soft `Y-yeah, what he said` from his hiding place under the table. Realist came back with a good point `Guys, come on! Aren’t we the ones that always say `if you don’t say it’s wrong, than that says it’s right`? We have to stand by our principles!´ and started handing out ´We’re here, we’re queer, get used to it´ t-shirts to the other me´s.

By now my head was getting even more crowded than it usually is. The shopping addict in me ran into the room and shouted hysterically that we can’t quit because we need the money to buy things. The Seinfield fan in me wondered how my supervisor knew that the Anonymous Gay Guy was gay? ´I mean, seriously! Was he wearing a ´Kiss me I´m gay t-shirt? Did he tell her?´. The slut in me wondered out loud if we should ask for a phone number but after all the others looked at him in silent disgust for 2 minutes he left the meeting.

After that the stand-off was getting quite difficult. What to do? `KILL HER!´ read headed guy shouted. ´Lecture her!` idealist said. ´Yes! Do lecture her´ history teacher man said but he also was thrown out of the meeting by the others. ´Oh puhlease´ realist replied ´Do you honestly think it’s going to make a difference?´. ´Is she still out there?´ coward asked from beneath the table.

Eventually I decided to leave it for now. I usually find that people’s prejudices fade after one on one contact, but why always take the bullet? You can’t save or change everybody and at least now I have a very valid reason to despise my boss. Also I may quit after all in a few weeks and the nerd boy in me got his way in demanding I’d write a blog about it. But still, the coward in me was much too pleased with this solution.

But maybe, just maybe, I might listen to the bitch in me, the one who gets mad and gets even, and e-mail her loads of gay porn anonymously.

Déjà Vu All Over Again

2005-07-18T11:41:00.000+02:00

I was so sure reality TV had hit it’s all time low when `Playing it straight´ was on. For those who have missed it (bless you!) ´Playing it straight`, or as it was called in the Netherlands ´Recognize the homo´, was a dating show, with a twist. One girl, type: extremely stupid, asked FOX to set her up with a man. FOX said `Sure! But we’re gonna make it a bit harder for ya!` and instead of getting men that really want her, they get a bunch of men of which a certain number is gay.

I know, FOX is so wild.

The girl then gets what felt like seven hundred (but what might have been a little less) weeks to figure out which man is gay and which isn’t. At the end of each show she has to eliminate two men and at the end of the series she is left with one guy. If that guy is straight they both get 1 million dollars, if the guy is gay he gets 2 million and stupid girl gets nothing.

Stupid girl was allowed to test the guys (who looked like they all almost got the cowboy gig in the Village People) by making them do things and observe. So the men were expected to run away from horses (running, that one thing gay men famously cannot do!), kiss the stupid girl (kissing women without throwing up and running around screaming, that other thing gay men famously cannot do!) and chopping wood (insert own joke here, use at least one reference to ´wood´). In the end stupid girl picked a straight guy whose arm was broken earlier on (don’t ask) by a gay guy (go team!) and so dumb and dumber and the straight guy shared 2 million dollars.

Now, if you’re American you probably didn’t know all that, because the show got cancelled in the U.S. after only one episode. That’s right: ´Playing it straight´ was that rare piece of crap even Americans really didn’t care about. As said, in the jungle that is Dr. Phil, Oprah, Real World, Survivor and Friends (oh they fooled you too thinking those weren’t real people didn’t they!) I considered that to be the worst piece of reality TV ever.

Enter `Amish in the City´, a show so ridiculous you wonder how much cocaine people actually do use while making up ideas for television these days.

In this show a bunch of hip and happening (and by using the words `hip and happening´ I have just proved that I am not one of them) 20 somethingers get to share an amazing house somewhere in some American city with…. Amish 20 somethingers. So far I have only seen 30 minutes of this show, but I expect lots of fights, some sex and Amish people getting surprisingly bitchy and mean on the asses of the hip people. Also, I demand more shots of the blonde stupid looking Amish guy chopping wood without his shirt on.

Anyway, we’ll see if this show can live up to it’s badness, but in the meantime let’s see if I can come up with some suggestions for next years reality TV formats that are even worse than this one;

I´m so going to fire my agent when I get out of this dump – Show featuring have been celebrities from earlier Survivor and Real World series stuck in one room with David Hasselhoff for seven months. Interesting? No, but anything that keeps David Hasselhoff from releasing that scheduled rap album of his is worth it. Most boring moment? David telling for the 50000th time that Kit was totally his idea. Most dramatic moment? The point where the former Real World stars realize they are actually less interesting than David Hasselhoff.

Taliban in the Red Light District – Shot on location in Amsterdam’s red light district. Taliban warriors get to spent four months living next door to Betty Sue and her friends. Expect red lights, lewd comments and explosive situations…. Literary.

Playing it gay – 10 guys, plus one gay guy who gets to eliminate them. But some of them are straight! Exciting? No, but will you watch it? Damn right. Expect lots of pondering on why four guys have beer bellies and bore the rest of the group (and the world) with constant bickering on football, cycling or (even worse) car racing. Also, expect old clichés about gay men to be repeated 24/7. Stolen from ´Playing it straight´? I resent that suggestion!

There ya go! And that just took me 3 minutes! I expect royalties to start flowing in any moment now.

PS. Rupert Murdoch: Call me!

Theory

2005-07-04T22:16:00.000+02:00

I have a new historical theory on scientific development, wanna hear it?

Neah, I figured you didn't, but since you are reading my blog you obviously have nothing to do right now, so screeeeeew you (pronounced in a Little Britain way).

Anyway, as I was studying for my last bachelor exam this weekend I realized something that I thought was rather interesting. The exam, in fact an oral exam, which trust me in real life has nothing of the light eroticism of the words, was about science in ancient Greece. What makes that period (a couple of hundred years) so interesting is that, appareantly out of nowhere, a bunch of Greek guys suddenly started asking very interesting scientific and philosophical questions. Questions about the cause of things like lightning but also, for instance, the existence of gods, the shape of the earth, what 'things' exist of, etcetera etcetera.

What makes that even more interesting, is that we have no idea why they were the ones to start. For some reason scientists in other civilized societies (Egypt, India) did not ask those questions but a bunch of beardy guys in Meletus did. Odd.

Just as odd is why the scientific progress stopped at a certain point. Although the exact point is arguable, some say 300 BC, others go for a 100 BC, it is clear that progress somehow stops and is replaced by looking back at their achievements; instead of writing new works and investigating new questions scientists spent their time checking the work of their predecessors. Part of it is blamed on Christendom, which indeed isn't the most science-friendly club at times (or the most anything-other-than-Christians-friendly club for all that matters), but studying history for over 3 years has taught me that the Christians weren't that popular in 300 BC (I know and this isn't even the theory yet!).

Another possible reason are the Romans. Unlike what most people seem to think, the Romans were not really a smart people. They imported most of their knowledge (and in certain cases actual scientists) from the Greeks and hardly added anything themselves. Basically, the best way to look at the Romans is to compare them to those guys you see in football stadiums; in their pre-beerbelly years some of them are pretty attrective, but the odds of them curing cancer are pretty low (however, the odds of them wishing cancer upon the people supporting the other party are enormous).

Which brings me to my theory; people were just sick of scientific discovery. This may sound weird if you wander through the Forum Romanum and think "Oooookaay, so this was civilization??" (or as the American woman screamed "OH MY GOSH! This is the place where they shot Caesar!") but the Greeks made a huge leap forward in just a few years. Case in point; in Homers time a ship could carry 50 people at the most, 600 years later a ship was reported that could carry 7.250 people (!). What's the use then in making ships that can fit 10.000 people? It's not like you even have enough soldiers (or more importantly rowers) to fill the freaking thing!

Also, and maybe even more so, they were probably out of ideas. After the Greek period of science, a long period of nothing follows. This nothing we sometimes refer to as the middle ages. Some people adore that period and like to dress up in obvious fake clothes and call othother "ye". These people should die. Possibly today. But getting back to the point; the reason why hardly any scientific discoveries were made in those years was that people thought that they already knew everything. Hell, Aristotle lived from 384 to 322 BC and in 1450 his books were the only ones used in all (!!!) courses taught at most universities.

Again, this may sound weird and pretty darn pathetic with our current technology, but my idea is that we're currently moving towards that exact same scenario in our world. Example; the music industry. For years all we had were LP's, then suddenly tape was introduced. A shockwave! Then the CD was introduced. Huuuuge news. Then the minidisc, but everybody ignored that. And now MP3. I remember not too long ago that it took an hour to download a song from Napster and then you still could only listen to it on your computer. Now we have Ipods with more GBs than the average computer.

Which brings me to my point; if you can buy an Mp3 player that has more GBs on it then there is music in the world (and I believe you can), whats the use in technological progress from now on? Who needs more space if you can't fill the one you already have? Who needs smaller machinese when the player you have is already smaller than your wallet? The same point could be made with examples of photocameras. However, talking for more than 5 minutes about photography is excruciatingly boring and rather sad.

Anyhoo, we have come to a point where, in certain fields, we think we know everything. Which means we might very soon be done for a few centuries.

....

Ok, so the theory is crap but I got an 8 (out of 10) for my exam, so who cares!

Let the music heal your soul

2005-06-28T13:38:00.000+02:00

I’m a bit of a music junkie (all: No, really?) and from that perspective I strongly believe music is the highest of all art forms. It’s not that I don’t appreciate paintings, statues or photographs, because I do (well, specific photographs). It’s just that at a certain point they just get boring. Books and movies are in the same category as music but, unlike music they are of a more difficult material to work with. A normal pop song generally takes 4 minutes to digest, while a book or movie takes at least 2 hours. It’s true that this means that music can pass you by much quicker than a book, but it also means you can revisit it much easier and more frequently.

The part that I love most about pop music are the lyrics. Granted, not all lyrics, a lot of them are pretty darn bad (all: The Ketchup song!) but sometimes you run across some really nice lines. For some people it’s tough to follow the lyrics, but when you do, the lines do stuff for you. When you’re feeling good they help you feel better, when you feel crap because you’ve been dumped or something, they make you feel… well… less crap. And in case of a light depression (or in my case severe post-teenage angst) it works too, but it’s more difficult.

Problem in that category is that a lot of my favourite artists fail me there in subject matter. Although Ben Folds comes pretty close (“All I know is I’ve got to be/ Where my heart says I ought to be/ It often makes no sense/ In fact I never understand these things I feel” – Don’t change your plans), he loses me when writing about abortion and joining the army. Ryan Adams is a genius but most of the time too self-centred and Jason Mraz is just too darn sweet. Zucchero is God but his songs are all about either being happy because you love someone or being sad because you love someone, which are pretty interesting subjects, but sadly enough in angst- and depression-fighting he falls short.

Which is why I thank God on my knees at least once a month (or in bad months twice) for giving the world Bruce Springsteen.

When you’re down, listening to a Springsteen compilation is like having this guy sitting next to you, hand on your shoulder, saying “Dude, I feel your pain”. Bruce has either been there himself (Human Touch, Born to Run) or he knows loads of people who have (The River, Born in the U.S.A., Streets of Philadelphia, Darkness on the Edge of Town). He gives you lines like “Everything dies/ baby that’s a fact/ but maybe everything that dies/ someday comes back” (Atlantic City), “Will you walk with me out on the wire/ ‘Cause baby I’m just a scared and lonely rider” (Born to Run) and “Roy Orbison singing for the lonely/ Hey, that’s me and I want you only” (Thunder Road), lines which match your mood. But he also gives you “Glory Days”, “Dancing in the Dark” and “Waitin’ On A Sunny Day”, songs that can’t help but cheer you up completely. It’s a bit of an addiction this music thing, but some folks like to use alcohol to fight their problems, I buy Springsteen albums. I'm not sure it'll work forever but for right now it does and at the end of the day, I think we spent about the same amount of money… but my liver still works.

Of course Springsteen occasionally misses a beat (all: If he goes on about Crazy Janey one more time we’ll hit him! With a baseball bat! Hard! And often!) but when he does, he comes right back and hits me between the eyes with something like this:

Now a life of leisure and pirate’s treasure
Don’t make much for tragedy
But it’s a sad man my friend who’s living in his own skin
And can’t stand the company
Every fool’s got a reason for feeling sorry for himself
And turning his heart to stone
Tonight this fool’s halfway to heaven and just a mile out of hell
And it feels like I’m coming home…

People, oh, people

2005-06-23T14:33:00.000+02:00

I've decided I've given up on trying to understand 50% of all people. I know, I know, I hear you saying "Ha! Boris, you're way behind us! We already did that last november when 51% of the American people voted for George W. Bush!" and you'd be right, but, ya know, I'm slow.

Anywayz.

A few weeks ago I was sitting in the bus on my way to a Joe Cocker concert (decent show btw, band sucked, Joe was great). After a few stops a woman sat next to me. No problem so far. Then the woman got her mobile phone out and started playing all her ringtones. No kidding! ALL of them! Then after doing that for five minutes, she stood up, walked to the other end of the bus and sat down there till the last stop. QUE? (For the record I would like to point out I did not smell funny either).

Then in the concert hall we (I was there with my parents) decided to sit down for the show and we picked a few pretty decent seats at the end of the hall. In between the lines of seats were stairs leading to the seats. So, most people would understand that you walk up the stairs, to the seats and sit down, right?

Nope.

After the seats filled up hundreds of people decided to sit down on the stairs. Now, if you want to do that at home, be my guest. But in a concert arena with a couple of thousand people there it might be a smarter move to keep the escape routes open, wouldn't you agree? They wouldn't. Every 15 minutes a security guard would come up to all the people sitting down explaining them they weren't allowed to sit here and asking them to leave. Which they then did (veeeeeeery slowly).... for 5 minutes and then they returned. And then the security guard came again, and they left, and returned, and... and... and....

Then this morning I was sitting in the university library wrestling myself through another G.E.R. Lloyd book for my exam on the 4th of july (lemme tell ya: after studying for this thing I can tell you for sure that all the stuff that was even remotely sexy about the words "oral exam" has totally dissapeared). Now you may never have visited this particular library but it's much like most libraries in that it has more signs telling you to 1) not talk, 2) not drink or eat and 3) most importantly NOT USE YOUR MOBILE PHONE. They're simple rules, anyone can follow them and it only means you're talk-, food- and phoneless for an hour or two.

Enter two girls that sat opposite me. They ate, they drank, they talked (in that annoying whispery tone that's always even worse than normal talking), they laughed, they didn't do anything constructive, and they talked on the phone. After an hour I felt the urge to grab one of them and pinch my ballpoint through her eye (and it's been done before and apparently it does kill).

And then I figured some of the other people in the library would probably write a post tonight on their weblog saying:

"nothing was happening and then some overweight guy suddenly screamed "WHOOOOOOOOOORE!", jumped over his table and strangled this one girl while clobbing another girl to death with her little water bottle! Proves once again 50% of the people are just completely insane".

So, I didn't. Instead I decided that there are many people in the world that I just do not understand and that the feeling is most likely mutual.

(Also, I'm afraid of going to jail.)

RE: Hmm... odd.

2005-06-22T22:44:00.000+02:00

God it's chilly here, let's check the temperature....

yep...

just as I expected:

hell just froze over.

Dear Howard Dean,

2005-06-16T17:46:00.000+02:00

Hi! I'm not sure you remember me, but I was one of those people that were on your e-mail list back in 2003. You know, when you still thought you could become president?

Yeah...

Don't feel too bad about that one, we for a moment thought you could too! Obviously in our enthusiasm we forgot a few rules in politics. Rules like: just because you're hot on the internet doesn't mean you're hot in real life. Or: just because you raised the most money, it doesn't mean Dick Gephardt will shut his f-ing face and give up. Or in the same category: screaming during a rally, doesn't always make you look good.

Anyhoo, I'm glad you have a new job! Chairman of the Democratic party. Well done! Now, it's obvious that your style is a little different than that of the guy you're replacing, Terry McAuliffe. For example, people actually know you. And you can actually talk. And you have opinions. And you're not afraid to state them.... And that's sort of the problem, isn't it?

See, in the past few weeks you've been in the news for saying you "hated Republicans", you claimed that most Republicans "never made an honest living" in their life and you also said that Tom Delay should be send to jail (which is probably true, but I don't think you should say it). And then last week you said that "(the Republican party) is not very friendly to different kinds of people, they are a pretty monolithic party ... it's pretty much a white, Christian party"..... Ehm, Howie, to quote Jon Stewart: "It's pretty much a white, Christian nation. Shhhh! They can hear you!".

So I figured I'd give you some advice on public speaking. Now, don't mock it! If John Bolton and Jacques Chirac would have followed my advice they would be in a whole lot less trouble right now (... and I would probably be the prime-minister of France, see below). Anyway, my suggestions:

- whenever you plan on saying anything, ask yourself if FOX news is going to have to spin something with your statement. If they don't, for god sakes don't say it!

- right before giving a pressconference, sing along to some music on your Ipod. You know, calm, soothing songs to relax you and get rid of some anger. Like Rage against the machine or something.

- please don't do the entire 360 degrees head spin and please please don't say that Bush's mother is "sucking cock in hell", you tried it once and John Kerry is still not talking to you.

- and for crying out loud DON'T SCREAM! I know states are exciting but it really sends out the wrong message.

See ya during the next Anonymous Rush Limbaugh listeners convention!

Boris

Wanted

2005-06-14T12:24:00.000+02:00

Usually I'm not a big fan of filling out virtual question lists, you know the kind: what song were you listening to when you opened this e-mail, what book are you reading, do you have any weapons of mass destruction. All so demanding. However the other day I ran into one that I thought was quite amusing:

"If you would post a lonely hearts ad (which of course you don't cause you're not that desperate) what would it be like?"

Now, if this was my old Dutch blog I would just post the fake ad and continue with what I was doing before (googling you). Sadly enough my Dutch blog has passed away a month or two ago (don't be sad! it's in internet heaven with Netaid and Altavista!) and the entire set-up of this blog is that the articles posted on it should be at least one page long. And I'm not making that ad, even a fake one, one fucking page long. I mean seriously, do you KNOW how expensive these things are?

Anyway, most of the times my ideas about relationships are best described by Stephen Stills' song Love the one you're with, but not quite. The song's message is that if you can't be with the one you love, you might as well love the one you are with. Which is true, maybe not completely fair to the one you're with, but true.

However my main problem is not so much being or not being, it's finding the one you love. My bestest friend Merel (who also has a blog since yesterday btw, nothing's on it yet but you can click on the link to the left.... and then come back and read the rest.... helloooo???) is fond of saying that stuff like that always happens when you least expect it, but I'm not too sure. If that theory was true, wouldn't we all be having sex at age 5 (does explain the catholic church's problems though, I'm sure those altar boys really didn't expect it)? The main problem also isn't that I want someone now. As a matter of fact, right now is not that good a time since my ear hurts and I have to take care of my parents dog till sunday morning. It's just that a time frame would be appreciated (HEAR THAT GOD???).

But even in moments of great dispair and confusion I think of a show I once saw on MTV. They were following a bunch of people around that claimed they would do anything to get some money, for example one of the guys they interviewed was a kickboxer... slash sperm donor (and I swear to god I did not make that up!). Another guy they showed was this fellow that worked in Vegas as a freak show act known as the lizzard man. His entire face was tattooed green and his tongue was cut in half so that it seemed more, well, lizzardy. I also did not make him up. Anyway, in the show they followed Lizzard man around and towards the end of the show he married his longtime girlfriend (who I should add seemed fairly sane). And it made me think: if in this world lizzard man can find a soul mate, I'm sure it'll work out for me too.... (during my more depressed days however I think: lizzard man has someone and I don't???).

Oh and to answer that question:

"21 year old guy with unhealthy, and probably at times annoying, music, politics, books, and history addiction and a pathological fear of being left seeks likewise"

wow.... now there's a fucked up mix in the making...

Part-man, part-monkey (baby, that's me)

2005-06-10T10:44:00.000+02:00

Darwinism has me cornered and I think I have myself to blame for it.

Sigh... explanation.

For a long time I was a strong believer in survival of the fittest, mostly cuz it's like totally scientific and stuff but also because it seems to make sense. Species are confronted with a living environment with specific problems the species have to deal with. Some manage, through generations and generations, change and they survive at least a little longer, others don’t and die. It’s not a pretty picture (and if you don’t believe me Animal Planet has Slaughtering Bullies Night next Tuesday), but it seems to make sense.

That is in a world where physical strength and adaptation is everything, which is no longer the world we live in.

You see, in Europe and the U.S., anyone can survive these days. It hasn’t got anything to do with being the fittest. The problems animals used to be confronted with (food, other animals having them for brunch) are totally lost on us. If we want food all we have to do is walk (or if you’re American drive) to the nearest McDonalds (which I will pronounce as MACDonalds for as long as I live no matter what my insane American friends tell me) restaurant and eat. Really, the only thing that we can add to the human body for future generations is the ability to smell deep fryers from six blocks away.

So surviving is no longer a day to day affair for most of us (unless of course you were born in Africa or certain parts of Asia or the Middle East, then you’re just screwed and have to wait for Bob Geldof to save you). What’s important these days is being successful at living, or in other words in the age we live in now it’s about survival of the smartest. Think about it, if you manage to get into Harvard (which apparently 10% of the people who try to get in succeed in doing) you can pretty much be sure you have a job the rest of your life. If you’re smart (or better said if you use your brain better than some others) you generally get a better education, because of that a better paying job and eventually you live longer because you tend to eat better and you can afford better medical care.

Now those last two may sound like survival of the fittest, but it has nothing to do with the original theory. In this case it hasn’t got anything to do with the strongest parts of each specie continuing, it has to do with the most successful ones having the money to do those things that will keep them alive. And, since I’m not extremely stupid and rather successful in the educational department, I totally dig this new concept. But then old Darwinism reared it’s ugly head.

Enter my ear.

Specifically my left ear (that is, from my perspective, the right for you…. Unless you’re standing behind me, then also my left…. See, smart!). For years the ear has been causing me trouble. You see, normally there’s a little tube somewhere between your head and your ear that is supposed to take fluid out of the ear but sadly enough mine doesn’t work. This means that when fluid does enter my left ear it doesn’t go away and leaves me practically deaf on one side. Me and my ear-doctor (his last name is Stanojcic but everyone calls him by his first name Laki, which gives me a very safe E.R. like feeling) have come to the conclusion that it’s a problem that well never go away and actually might in the end cause me to lose all hearing in my left ear. Which is actually not as bad as it sounds, it just means I can’t hear stuff that happens to the left of me (SEE, smart!).

And then it hit me. This is survival of the fittest historian style! Say, in a couple of years I’ll be out in the open field, munching on a fresh biography I hunted down and killed in it’s natural environment, the library. Then suddenly a young historian approaches me from behind, but from the left so I can’t hear him coming, leaving me totally unprepared. Then suddenly he attacks me with a totally new thesis on Bobby Kennedy and the 1968 Democratic primaries. Not hearing him, I can’t defend myself making me look stupid in front of the other historians that have come to the drinking place to argue about whether Alexander the Great was gay or not.

Believe me, it’s a jungle out there!

Ps. Extra Boris-points for the one that can figure out where the title comes from.

Hmm… odd.

2005-06-06T11:13:00.000+02:00

Things are going pretty good lately.

Actually, suspiciously good. It’s not that my life normally is just one sad mix of depressing failures and bad luck (quite to the contrary actually). It’s just that I don’t really trust it when there’s too many good things happening in a row. I’m not a big believer in karma, but when things are going my way too much I suddenly do. In those situations, I’m always afraid I owe something to bad karma and it’ll want to be repaid by setting fire to my house (which brings us back to another issue, but you can check that out in an earlier post… did I ever tell you, you have lovely eyes?).

Ok, you seem a bit confused (you look really nice today by the way, did you lose weight?) so let me give you a few examples.

First of all, a few weeks back, my application for entry in the research history master at the University of Amsterdam was approved. Which is a huge deal, because it means I can study an additional year. Now, I understand most of you are yawning at the thought of spending another year studying history (I know that because I can look at you through your computer screen, love your hair that way!). For me, however, it’s another step to LifePlan A, do something intellectual at a university, and a step away from SadLifePlan A, which is teach history at Michael Bolton High until I feel like shooting myself (or until a student does that for me). So: good.

Second: I recently had my 21st birthday. Now, birthdays and I have a bit of a hate-despise relationship. But this years birthday depression has been surprisingly mild. Last year this time, I was spending a week looking in the mirror, wondering where my youth had gone (sigh, yes, I know, it comes with the drama queen territory) and being convinced that nothing would ever work out in life. This year, I only did that for a day or two. And I got loads of cool gifts. Like books and stuff. Also I can now gamble and drink in every U.S. state. So, goodie!

Third: I got a call Saturday that I got this part-time job I applied for. It’s not an extremely exciting job. It’s also not that glamorous. Or fun. But it’s a job and it pays. Not real good, but still something is better than nothing. Plus, the people working there seem like nice fun people. A bit too excited about their profession maybe, but still nice. So: money for my vacation. Plus it’s nice to know that at least some people agree with me that speaking clear and slow is an overrated virtue (again, see earlier post. Did you pick that keyboard out yourself? Love your taste!).

Which brings me to point four: my vacation is coming up. Ok, it’s still six weeks away, but that’s a whole lot less than the ten weeks it was four weeks ago (yeah I know, I’m a math wiz and a psychological genius!). Which means that in no time I’ll be in Italy. Which means, well, I will be in Italy. Which is not just good (or goodie) but FUCKING good.

Add that all up, and things are going way too good. As a matter of fact, the only thing I’m really missing is the Blackadder DVD box and someone to keep me from thinking Bruce Springsteen’s Human Touch is my theme song.

So, basically I’m doing what Wilie E. Coyote would do, if he eventually would catch The Roadrunner: I’m looking at the sky waiting for the grand piano to fall on my head

Dear Jacques Chirac,

2005-05-30T10:11:00.000+02:00

I'm so sorry to hear the French people said 'non' to the European constitution. Here in the Netherlands we'll be voting on wednesday, and I'm not too sure yet what I'm going to vote, but with you people saying "no" the tension's sort of gone. So thanks for once again stealing our thunder!

Anyway, I'm sure you're wondering why the election went the wrong way, and I think I figured it out. The problem lies with the French people. Ok, I understand this may lead you to shout out "Duh" (or whatever may be the French version of that) to your computer screen, but hear me out. Most of the rest of the world sees the French as pouty people, people that can be pretty darn bitchy from time to time, people who say stuff like, ehm, oh I dunno, "get away from me you filthy Americain! I hope you get a dissease and die!". People, most of us wouldn't describe as extremely friendly most of the time. Put that together and the French seem more like a people that would say "no" to any question in general than "yes".

Conclusion? You should have changed the question! Instead of "Do you want this constitution" you should have asked "Do you not want this constitution?". I guarentee you that if you would have asked that question you would have won. But you didn't... (so you didn't).

Anyway, the reason I'm really writing is because I heard your prime-minister is probably going to resign after this. Which, as we all now, is politician for "I'm-firing-you-but-if-I-say-I-fire-you-it's-gonna-make-me-look-bad-and-I'm-not-going-anywhere-so-you-just-claim-you-resign-and-I-put-on-my-sad-face-and-say-I-can-only-except-that-resignation". And then you'll have to do some job interviews to get a new prime-minister. Which is where I come in.

See, I think I can give you some advice on how to select a good prime-minister. Now, don't bitch it! I've given John Bolton some excellent advice on taking cookies to the security council and shaving so I think I should be able to give you a few pointers.

First of all, I'd go for someone that makes the rest of the world think "Aha! Vin! Pain! Vive la France!" instead of "Oh f### it, it's the French". Someone who preferably wears a straw hat. Also someone who sings chansons. Basically, Charles Aznavour. He's old, he's cudly, he sings nice songs. The only way your good "friend" (*makes wild hand movements when typing "*) George Bush can beat that is by making Tom Jones his seceretary of state (and he's Welsh, so he won't).

Second, in the case that Charles doesn't want the job, test your possible candidates on general intelligence. The way to do that? The globe test. And, yes, I am talking about the famous inspector Clouseau scene. Just make the possible candidates play with a big globe for a moment. The test results should be pretty easy to understand. If they end up with their hand stuck in the thing and it's funny it's Peter Sellers in disguise. If they end up with their hand stuck in the thing and it's painful to watch and you wonder why you payed money to see the movie, it's Steve Martin doing Peter Sellers doing Inspector Clouseau. If they don't get their hand stuck, well, they had far too much practice with this crap and they shouldn't get the job anyway.

Third: speaking skills. Recently I was confronted with the fact that apparently if you want a job that involves speaking on the phone a lot you can't speak unclear (ridiculous, I know). My guess is that the French prime minister is expected to speak in public a lot, so just let them read out a few sentences. Something like "the grain in Spain" or, if you want to, sentences they will actually use. Sentences like "Whatever happened, it's not the fault of Le Presidente, it's all mine!".

Oh and finally, if the guy you're interviewing keeps on yapping on (and on, and on, and on) about photography... just shoot 'm. You're the frigging president, I'm sure you can get away with it!

Au revoir!

Boris

The animal instinct in me

2005-05-27T10:32:00.000+02:00

Lately I've been wondering how I would survive in a fight. Not a "Who you callin' a bitch, ho?" sort of fight, but more of a fistfight sort of fight. Or a foot-in-your-face sort of fight. Or an elbow-in-your-crotch sort of fight. Or... well, you get the picture.

The reason is not so much a refound sense of masculinity (see below and insert own joke here) but more a general feeling of unsafety. Sure, I could be over reacting (and that is part of the drama queen job description) but the re-entry of bashing in general, and gay-bashing in particular, in the top 10 of "favourite crimes in Amsterdam in 2005" (right below threatening the mayor and wearing mint green coats), makes me feel a bit... oh I dunno, really scared?

The problem is I've never been in an actual physical fight with somebody. Being really bad at sports and all that crap, I generally was able to stay away from all physical confrontations by shutting up at the right time. However, rethinking that strategy now, it has left me with a serious lack in preperation for the outside world. Sure, I can bitch-slap extremely well (especially a certain hair-losing friend whose name we shall not mention), but how does that help you in the street? I don't think my homeys in the hood (with whom I'm down) would be very impressed with that sort of action. Part of the problem is simply that I'm just not that violent myself. The only time I can remember seriously considering punching someone in the face was last year. It was in an airport outside Milan at the end of my vacation.

I should explain that I never do vacations alone, since 2001 I have been spending my summer breaks traveling with a bunch of American, and one Finn, friends. Sometimes it's a really big group (think 6 or 7 people) sometimes it's just 2 or 3 people, it sort of depends on who has money and who wants to sweat around in Italy in july.

Anyhoo, last year we had a pretty big group and we spent two weeks crossing through the entire country in a crappy mini-van. As anyone who has ever been on a family vacation knows; driving for days in a row in the heat with a crappy airco... well, it sometimes get stressful and a bit tense. Which is why most of us were pretty happy when we finally could fly home. That is, I could fly home, the rest was to fly to Amsterdam wait another day and then fly home.

On that morning I was sitting in the waiting area reading the last pages of Uncle Tom's Cabin. Across from me were my friend Becky and her then-boyfriend (currently-just-really-good-friend-unless-I-missed-an-update-and-they're-back-together-again). The guy was obviously bored to death and, as we had already figured out during the weeks before, dealing with boredom was not his strongest thing, so he started playing with a rubber band.

Which was fine.

And then he started aiming the thing at me like he was about to shoot it.

Which was still fine, because I distinctly remember thinking "Neah, he won't do that".

And then he did.

The band flew across the room in slow-motion. I remember thinking I might want to move my head, but it was already too late. The thing hit me straight against my face. Since I personally am totally incapable of throwing anything in any direction I want, somewhere it was actually quite impressive that he pulled it off. Unfortunately I wasn't really feeling in a cheerleading mood: it was hot, I was sweaty, I was tired, clean clothes had left my suitcase a week earlier, I wanted to go home and, hell, it hurt! So I grabbed the rubber band, walked over to him and seriously considered punching him.

Only problem was that he's not only really heavy (and I mean a his-belly-could-be-a-childrens-attraction-heavy), he's also really strong and I'm pretty sure he would have broken my neck if we would have gotten in a fight. Plus we were at an airport and with the new terrorism laws we would probably have ended up in an Italian prison. Which I don't think would have done much good for my mood either.

So I went for the sad alternative and lectured him... And then ignored him for the rest of the trip (which was two days, so it's not that impressive either). Yeah, that taught him!

Which means I still don't have any fight experience. But watch out: next time someone cuts in front of me in the supermarket or someone bumps into me on the street maybe the animal instinct will take over.

Or maybe I'll just look really angry and hope karma kicks their asses.

In dreams I walk with you

2005-05-23T12:05:00.000+02:00

My dreams are driving me absolutely crazy.

I'm not talking about life-dreams or unrealistic carreer goals like wanting to be a famous rock singer... or an actor... or a writer... or a cleaning lady. I'm talking about actual lying-in-bed-and-having-weird-movies-played-in-your-brain-while-you're-officially-sleeping-dreams (which I should add is a term I have now copyrighted).

The problem is that for years I never had any dreams at all. I know that officially they were there and that I just didn't remember them. But let's face it, if you forget about stuff like that, it just wasn't there. So, consequently, night time was a time in which I could just sleep like a log. It may have been boring but it seemed like a concept everybody was happy with.

Sure, once in a while I would have a dream or two that I did remember the next day. Most of those dreams, however, were so boring that it really didn't matter whether I remembered them or not. The only downside of those dreams was that they would confuse me once I woke up. One time I had a dream about e-mailing someone. Yeah, I know, rock n roll. It wasn't even something kinky, like congratulating that years GayVNAward winners or something, just a normal reply to an actual existing friend. It confused me because after I had that dream I spent two days wondering if I emailed her in real life or if it was a dream (this was still when hotmail didn't show if you already replied, you know, way back when, right before colour tv got introduced).

And then suddenly something changed. Now all of a sudden my brain, soul, or god-knows-who-or-what-controls-dreams, has decided that my dreams are to be active and extremely exhausting. Maybe the little people that control my brain were tired of the same old sending-an-email movie and demanded more exciting features for movie-night, maybe I'm just slowly losing my mind, but since a couple of months I have the weirdest dreams.

Most of the time I can't quite remember every single detail but I just wake up in the morning more tired then when I went to sleep and feel extremely confused. Sometimes I remember the outlines of the story. A couple of weeks ago (as previously mentioned in "I'm a man", see below) I had a dream about bread (French baguettes to be precise) which also featured my mother. I don't really care for bread at all so why I had a dream about it, heaven may know. That same night I also had a dream (as also mentioned in "I'm a man") about some kind of wild water animal chasing me (shark, crocodile, goldfish, same difference). Which is also weird because I'm not much of a swimmer so the odds of me ending up in a fight with a shark is.... well.... a little low.

Last night I had a completely insane dream again. This time it had something to do with a non-existing museum in a non-existing Italian town. I don't know how I know it was Italy, because nobody spoke Italian, but I just did. I was there with one of my best friends (who for some reason had taken his shoes off) and we were seperated from two other people who we were trying to find. Then out of nowhere I ended up in a theatre where something completely insane was happening on stage and I felt like my ears were about to explode from huge pressure building up in them... and then I woke up, tired, confused, and with aching ears (but that's normal).

Sooo, if anyone can either (1) explain how I can turn the movies off or (2) change the dreams to something more entertaining for me (say.... oh, I don't know... male strippers singing Chamachameleon? or something involving earlier named GayVNawards winners?) I'll be forever grateful.

Grumble

2005-05-20T09:28:00.000+02:00

How are you supposed to reply to an e-mail telling you you're not getting the job you really wanted?

Lemme explain: last friday I had a job interview for a part-time job that I could keep myself busy with while studying. Although the job itself (selling theatre tickets over the phone) seemed more boring than having to watch a "Little House on the Prairie" marathon (... again), they payed pretty good and part of the deal was that you were allowed to buy tickets for yourself for about 200 bucks every three months for free (which is almost as erotic as an Ipod, see old post way back in March).

Although I thought the job interview went well I got an e-mail on wednesday saying that although they liked me as a person and they really enjoyed the conversation (oh bullocks) they decided not to give me the job because, and I quote, "I talked too fast and too unclear". Which apparently is a problem when you have to talk on the phone all day (yeah, the logic totally escapes me too).

This of course struck a chord. First of all; Idon'ttalkfastatall (and certnly nt nclr)! And second (and I know this is a very Seinfield-esque question) : isn't telling someone he didn't get the job he really really wanted a little like dumping him? And isn't it an unwritten rule you don't dump someone through e-mail? I mean, for crying out loud, at least have the guts to call. As a matter of fact the lady in charge of the interviewing proces (a lady I actually liked during the interview but am now allowed to feel is Satan's part-time whore) could have underlined her point by faking she couldn't understand me over the phone: "Who am I talking to? Are you in a tunnel or something?".

Anyhoo, all of this brings me to the question: how do I respond now? So far I've been able to come up with a few options, but I'm not quite sure which one to go with:

Option 1: ignore her e-mail completely. This will make her wonder if I ever had the e-mail and if I will not end up calling her or even worse just show up in her office saying "Hi, I'm ready to start, where's my work place?" (not that she'd understand a word I'd say of course, but my presence and mumbling would scare her to death). Yes, yes that would teach her!

Option 2: play the guilt card. Write her something like "sure pick on the guy with the hearing problem, does that make you feel powerful? hmmm? am I nothing but a toy to you?". Usually it works on women, but on Satan's bi-atch... I don't know (or as I would apparently say it "Idnno").

Option 3: the arrogance card. Simply mail her back "Ah well, your loss!". That, or I could stand outside her office building and sing Ben Folds Five's "Song for the dumped" or "One angry dwarf and 200 solemn faces". Which isn't really arrogance at all, just angry. And actuallyy I think I'll save that last song for my high school reunion.

And finally the last option: threaten to set her house on fire.... Rethinking that one, option 4 might not be that smart an idea after all because (1) I don't know where she lives and (2) she does know where I live, which would probably mean that even the Amsterdam police should be able to find me (... maybe).

Or I could just be the grown-up and, to quote the Jordanian royal family, "soldier on".... or as I would apparently pronounce that: Hmmmwhmmmhwmmw.

Dear ´Runaway Bride´,

2005-05-17T09:24:00.000+02:00

I just wanted to write you a letter so I could tell you that you really scare me.

Now don’t take this the wrong way! I know it may sound a little rough, especially since we don’t know each other and all that, but it’s just the truth. You really, really scare me. Probably more than George W. Bush scares me, maybe even more than Michael Jackson scares me (not as much as Dr. Laura scares me though (silver lining!) ).

It’s not really the fact that you ran away from your own wedding. Personally I don’t think it’s a very nice thing to do, you know, with your parents paying for everything and hundreds of guests coming over and all that. But after seeing pictures of your fiancée… well, I get the emotion, he seems really boring. And since he now still wants to marry you, he’s stupid too. Of course, I do blame you for getting the nickname `Runaway Bride` (which now makes me relive that horrible Julia Roberts / Richard Gere movie), but I guess it’s the media that made that one up (damn you Fox News!).

The fact that you faked your own kidnapping isn’t the biggest problem either. Looking back on it, you may wonder what the hell you were thinking, but honestly: we’ve all been there! Seriously, if I would have gotten a quarter for every time I was cutting out newspaper headlines to glue together a letter demanding ransom for myself.. In fact I’m impressed that you knew when to call it quits. Some spoiled rich girls might take it too far and lose track, which is all nice and dandy until they cut their own fingers off and realise that it ´sorta, like hurts and stuff´.

It’s also not the fact that you obviously are completely insane. Which you are. No judgement, really. I mean, it’s not like I consider myself extremely stable in the mental department (for instance, I write fake open letters to people I don’t know). But so far I’ve never shoplifted, which you have done many times despite the fact that you are in no money problems whatsoever, or… ehm… or ran away from my own wedding. But I did read the other day that you checked yourself into a mental hospital to do some soul searching, which I guess is a good thing.

What scares me so much are those freaky eyes!

I don’t know what you did to them (maybe it was surgery, maybe it’s lenses, maybe it’s LSD) but you look horrible with them. The insanely happy smile (the kind that says I’m-about-to-drown-my-children-in-the-bathtub) you sport on every single picture I’ve seen of you so far isn’t helping much either (honestly, what are you using???), but it’s the eyes that scare me most. If you look long enough at them (and I swear to god this is true, readers give it a try!) you actually get a little dizzy. So, on behalf of the rest of the world, could you PLEASE start wearing sunglasses?

Thanks in advance, take care, swallow all the pills the nurses tell you to take and I can’t wait for your tell-all book!

Love,

Boris

Shower your love on me

2005-05-11T11:20:00.000+02:00

I think my shower is out to kill me.

I know this sounds like one of my insane rants (and I agree it’ll probably end up being just that) but hear me out. You see, I have been living in my apartment for almost three years now and so far this apartment has been absolutely amazing. It’s in pretty good shape, right in the city centre and the rent is so low I can actually make people cry by revealing it. There’s only one bad part about the entire deal: the shower.

In Normal Showerland (a.k.a. your own bathroom) showers work in a very simple way: you turn on all the hot water and then start adding cold water until you get a temperature you like. And then you take a shower. And then you stop showering at a certain point. And then presumably you dry yourself off with a towel. But that’s really your own business. Anyway, it’s a simple procedure.

My shower, however, works a little different: for some reason the type of water that is last added to the mix (so either hot or cold) takes control of the entire mix. So, if you try to take a shower the normal way it’ll end up being cold as hell, because cold water was added last. A good temperature can be reached, but only if you start with enough cold water and then add enough hot. If you O.D. on either you have to start all over again. Unless of course you want to freeze or burn yourself. Actually, to be fair, although it may sound like a bitch, and in the beginning it was, I got used to it after a few weeks and it’s not really that big a deal now.

That is, until a couple of weeks ago. Out of nowhere hot water decided it deserved to have a bigger representation in my daily shower and now whenever I try the normal procedure the water ends up being so freakin’ hot I’d burn my skin away if I would jump under it (I say jump, I mean stumble, hey! It’s early in the morning). Seeing that I know nothing about plumbing (another guy thing lost on me I suppose, see below), in my imagination the entire problem is a political struggle between hot and cold, and hot just pulled a successful coup. But I’m willing to agree that in reality it probably has something to do with my pipes (enter own lewd joke here).

I tried to do what I always do with annoying stuff, which is complain to my mom, but she didn’t seem to get it. In general the concept of a shower that is too hot is completely foreign to her anyway. If some evil super villain (or in the same category a nurse in a retirement home) would dump her in a bath of boiling water she’d probably complain about the draught. So, I explained it again. She still looked at me like she was an American tourist and I was some inhabitant of the jungle talking to her in my own language: ´WHAT? Do you speak ENGLISH? E-N-G-L-I-S-H?´. In the end she did get it but rightfully pointed out how freaking low the rent was, which sort of killed the rant.

Sigh.

Anyway, just wanted to let you know that if I end up dead in my shower I want the shower brought to justice (or to the scrap yard, whichever will hurt the thing most).

I'm a man

2005-05-09T11:03:00.000+02:00

I noticed the other day how I do quite a lot of things ´like a (little school-) girl´. For instance I scream like one when I see a big spider or other insects I don’t like (which basically means every insect that ever has, and ever will, walk this earth). I also giggle like one when exciting things happen or are about to happen (which is quite embarrassing, especially in a full bus). And, as far as I haven’t already killed the brain cells that remember anything from my gym classes, I seem to recall I throw and catch basketballs like one too. Basically, you might as well give me a long blonde wig and call me Debbie. (Also I bitch like one, but that might be the gay thing).

On top of that I generally don’t care that much about typical `guy´ things either. For instance, although I do root for a team and once in a while watch a match, football is one of the things that I could very easily live without. As a matter of fact, most sports could disappear from the earth tomorrow and I don’t think I could care less (I could give it a shot, but I really do not think I could). Also drinking more than one glass of beer in one session generally makes me sick and cars bore me to death. So, overall, if we look at the score between Boris – Masculinity, it’s not looking too comfy for the home-team (though using a sports analogy here should get me some points!).

There is, however, one thing I recently discovered I like, I find very masculine: I like cutting stuff with knives. Not people or anything, although I should add I have never actually done that, so I can’t say for sure I wouldn’t like it if I did (it’s just that blood makes me scream like a girl too), just food. First I thought it was something most people like doing, but after discussing it with a bunch of female friends, who all said they thought my big cooking knives were, and I quote, `scary´ to work with, it turned out it’s a guy thing.

Rock on!

Out of all things that are fun to cut or chop, mushrooms are by far the funnest (which I have decided is a word no matter what my Word spellchecker says… yeah, well screw you too Bill Gates!). I remember reading in a book once (it wasn’t really that interesting a book so by not naming I’m trying to sound intelligent, is it working?) that the main character considered slicing mushrooms `erotic´, and, although I can’t quite agree with that, it is a whole lot of fun. Mushrooms generally don’t make a mess when you cut them (like those bastard tomatoes) so you can just start chopping in on them with a big knife, like you’re in some kind of horror movie…. Killing mushrooms. Cool! And as a nice side effect mushrooms are very nice in a good pasta sauce, you know, with some fresh tomatoes, some tuna and…

Oh wait, talking about pasta sauce is not really helping my masculinity rating, is it?

F###…

Ok, let’s give it another shot: last night I dreamt I was fighting off sharks (or crocodiles, I can’t remember), that’s pretty masculine right?

On the other hand, earlier that night I also had a dream about bread….

Sigh.

Hi, I’m Debbie, how are you?

Dear Bruce Springsteen,

2005-05-04T09:45:00.000+02:00

Before we start the entire semi-funny fake open letter routine I just wanted to say: big fan. Love most of your work, adore your live performances (Live in Barcelona, best live dvd ever!) and Human Touch to me is sort of a personal anthem (which says many sad things about my social life but let’s not go there). Just wanted to get that straight.

Anyway, I’m writing this letter on behalf of the prostitutes living, and working, in Amsterdam. As you might now, considering that you wrote, recorded, and released it, you have a new album out called “Devils and Dust”. It’s sort of an acoustic album based on a bunch of different life stories and, although that entire idea sounds cornier than the next Freddie-Prinze-jr.-still-playing-a-teenager-movie, it works pretty neat.

The title track for instance is a beautiful song about an American soldier in Afghanistan, Iraq, or wherever you people are these days, wondering what “if what you do to survive / kills the thing you love”. Other tracks are about a young boy losing his mother, Mexican immigrants trying to cross the American border, a boxer at the end of his career and Jesus (it’s an American thing, isn’t it?). God knows what All I'm thinking about is about but that one is my personal favourite on the album.

So far, no problem. However there is one song, and here the girls come in the picture, which is a little more problematic. In the song Reno you sing about a man having sex with a prostitute (presumably in Reno). Although it’s not quite Penthouse material you are pretty graphic in the song which has caused some controversy in the US, more specifically the lyric “ ´Two-hundred dollars straight in, two-fifty up the ass´ she smiled and said”. Although I do think it’s a bit of a cheap lyric the girls themselves don’t really have that much of a problem with that part of the song. But then again they are (what for it!) pretty cheap women (ba-da-dum-tsjing!).

The problem also isn’t in the part at the end of the song where the man and the woman have a drink afterwards and the guy thinks to himself “It wasn’t the best I’ve ever had, not even close”. The girls would like to point out that most of the people they get are stoned or drunk so they don’t really remember anything from the entire thing anyway. Most men will probably wake up the next morning with a hangover and an STD not really remembering anything from the night before. Which I suppose makes the STD a nice souvenir they can give on to their wives. Also, as one of them said, “It’s not like you’re so fucking great”.

Their problem is with this part of the song “She poured me another whisky”. As one of the prostitutes (a woman I totally made up and decided to call Betty-Sue for no reason whatsoever) said “I dunno what them fancy women in Reno do with whiskey an’ all but here in Amsterdam we ain’t doin’ none of that stuff. You’s lucky if ya get a glass of water baby!” (why she talks in a fake Southern accent I don’t really know…. it’s probably a female thing).

So to conclude: the girls would like to ask you if you could refrain from singing that whisky part during your European performances. They’re afraid that men get the wrong idea about visiting prostitutes and they would like to point out that it’s just as it has always been: it’s still about abusing illegal immigrant women who would get beaten up or even killed by their pimp if they don’t do what he tells them to do (without whisky).

Oh and on a personal note: do an E-street band tour next year!

Adios!
Boris

Ps. I guess you don’t know Michael Bolton either do you? You’d think someone would….

Satan by my side

2005-05-02T16:14:00.000+02:00

I'm doing this course as an extra thing called Academic English. The idea behind the entire thing is basically to enhance my... well... my academic english. Not that I really need it because my English is like totally academic and stuff (chews gum while saying this).

Anyhoo, one of the fun parts of this course is that all the people who follow it do different majors and have to do presentations about those majors. I, for instance do (American) history so I talked about elections, but we also have a Jewish girl studying Arab language, a woman from Hungary who does research concerning Hungarian MEPs in the European Parliament and a bunch of other people doing interesting stuff in their own area of expertise.

One of the girls also doing the course has the coolest major of us all. She is a religious studies student and she mostly does research on sexual relations in different cults. Now that's rock 'n roll! Explain that to the parents of your new boyfriend! Appereantly she, through informal channels, is in touch with a bunch of different cults, partly for fun, partly for her research. For instance, she has been to meetings of the Raelians, a cult that believes in aliens and not too long ago claimed they had cloned the first baby (but then they hadn't).

Now meeting the Raelians sounds like fun but it's still a bit bland. So they believe E.T. started the earth and claim the cloned a child of a lesbian couple. Bo-ring! That's like Kahballah with some extra pepper or Scientology with extra fries. In fact how different is believing in aliens from believing in God? (religious debate mode: on).

However, she's also socially hanging out with another cult. Guess which one....

Thaaat's right: Satanists.

Being too curious then generally is good for me a lot of questions were raised in my head when she told us about meeting them. Questions like "What do they wear?". I mean, do they have T-shirts that say "Satan is my homeboy" or "I worship Satan and all I got was this lousy t-shirt" or do they also have these arm thingies that say "W.W.S.D?". Or do they just dress like our prime-minister (who I strongly suspect being a satanist) does?

Another question I had was "do they have Satanist evangelical preachers?". I don't know about you but I think that would make great TV! "Satan just told me he changed a god fearing woman in North Carolina into a drunk lesbian slut. Say, AMEN!". I imagine gospel choirs of women in slutty outfits singing "Sympathy for the Devil" and male strippers doing "Chama-chameleon" (but that's a personal thing). Also, donations can be called in on 1-800-SATAN. I'm seeing a hit!

But the main question is: why in fucksname would you become a satanist?? I'm not talking about voodoo or black magic or all that crap and I'm not even talking about the Marilyn Manson's of this world. I'm talking about actively supporting Satan. When does that start? Why does it start? How do you tell your parents (I actually think that would beat coming out to your parents as "The most painful conversation you'll ever have)? But most of all, how does that effect your daily life?

Example: I was walking down the street today, trying hard not to get hit by tourists on bikes (SATAN!) and this old woman asked if I could help her carry her bike across the road. What would a satanist do? Rape her, make her talk in tongues and burn her while chanting "Usama! Usama! Usama!"?

I just helped her carry the bike, smiled at her and walked on. Man, I'd suck as a satanist.

Fire

2005-04-29T10:24:00.000+02:00

I think it was my mom who always told me to think about what to do in case of a fire in every place you stay. It might sound a bit dramatic (but, then again, so is my mom) and the odds are that you forget all about it the moment the first smoke starts filling the room. However, being a control freak it gives me some feeling of safety. So every time I stay in a hotel or change apartments one of the first things I do is figure out how to flee from them (also I’m afraid someone with a chainsaw could storm in at any time).

In the apartment I live in now the easiest way out is to jump off my balcony. It’s not as bad as it sounds, because I only live on the first floor. However if the fire is on that part of the building I’m not quite sure what I’d do, probably text the final selection of funeral songs (see below) to someone. In hotels it’s usually less simple because generally speaking they’re pretty high buildings so usually I practice running up and down the stairs a couple of times (and then I think I’m about to have a heart attack and stop caring about fire…. Hey it works for me!).

Anyhoo, there’s also an additional aspect to fleeing from fire: what do you take with you?

In hotels it’s pretty simple; some clothes, your passport, your money, your credit cards, that’s basically all you’re going to take with you. At home it’s a whole lot harder. Back when I was still living at my parents place the answer was quite simple; in case of fire I’d grab my cat and run. Seeing that my cat is fluffy, adores me, and is pretty light she seems the most obvious answer, also because letting your cat burn to death but do rescuing your Lego seems a bit… oh I don’t know… would ‘heartless’ be the word?

However now that I live in my own apartment I’m catless and also what I do and do not take with me is all my own responsibility. Which, I should add, sucks because blaming yourself for something isn’t half as entertaining as blaming someone else (sooo in the spirit of being single: if you think you’d like me blaming you for everything, mail me!). Anyway, so if my apartment building does end up being one huge fireball and I wake up in time before the thing totally collapses it’ll all be up to me to decide in the minute or two I have before jumping out the window what to take with me.

Lemme tell ya, not going to be easy at all! The passport and the money thing of course remains the same as in hotels but because I keep that with me in the pockets of my pants, all I have to do is put them on (which is something I think I would do before jumping out a window, it seems to me Martha Stewart would agree that’s the decent thing to do). That leaves me with about 1 minute and 50 seconds to look around my room and think; what can’t I live without?

Books aren’t that big a deal, I mean it would suck losing them but most of my books are not that difficult to replace. The only book I’d really hate losing is my American Studies handbook Enduring Vision, because it has a bunch of election results, all of the supreme court justices, the constitution and the amendments (and also it was friggin expensive!). But that book is really heavy, so how does that go with jumping out of a window? Where is Martha Stewart when you need her? Damn that bitch.

Ok, so no books, cds? A lot of my cd’s are pretty rare and difficult to find. Some, mostly my Zucchero stuff, have taken me years of going through Italian record stores, it’s going to be almost impossible to replace all of them. But can I carry all my cd’s with me? And even worse: LP’s! I have a bunch of LP’s that are seriously not replaceable (well in theory yes, but it would take me another 10 years and the odds are I’d lose interest, which would be a shame). Pictures would be another thing, I have a couple of framed ones I’d want to take with me but they’re heavy and some of them are huge. Plus they’re partly made of glass, how would that go with jumping??

Maybe I should just move my favorite things back to my parents place. Sure, I wouldn’t be able to use them or look at them, or read them, or listen to them but at least they would be save.

But what if they’d have a fire? Are they gonna save their own stuff and the cat before saving my stuff? Maybe they would……… but maybe…..

Damn that cat!

Funeral

2005-04-27T09:41:00.000+02:00

For some reason I’m slightly obsessed with the music that will be played during my funeral. Not that I’m planning on dying anytime soon or that I expect to really enjoy my funeral myself. In fact it’s not even a depressed moments thing (those moments I spent alone at home with the curtains closed singing ´I’m a rock´ by Simon and Garfunkle while OD-ing on candy) it’s just this weird thing I have. Also, I’m a drama queen.

In my defence, I’m not the only one who has a ´funeral songs list´, I know at least one friend of mine who does the same thing (but I suspect she does do it during her ´I am a rock´ moments) and my grandfather has a list too (but then again he’s 91). Plus it’s not an actual list, like on paper or something, it’s more of a mechanism in my head that goes `This would be so cool for our funeral´ when I hear a beautiful song I love. Which, being a music junkie, means I must have hundreds by now. I’m not too sure yet what will go and what will stay but I’ll probably end up with a couple of Zucchero songs, one or two Bruce Springsteen tracks (Atlantic City is a must), perhaps something from Ryan Adams, Eric Clapton or Joe Cocker and maybe, if I’m still funny when I die, ´Burnin Hell´ by John Lee Hooker.

Problem is that there are a couple of do’s and don’ts concerning funeral music. First of all you can’t go too mainstream. ´Tears in heaven´, though a very beautiful song, is a big no-no because everybody does it. You don’t want people yawning their way through your funeral. Same goes for ´Who wants to live forever´ and that Andrea Bocelli song by the way. They might be acceptable if you really really really love those songs but in that case I’d record a video message to be played at the service explaining your choice to be on the safe side. (which, on the plus side, will give you the chance of saying: `If you´ll see this, it means I´m dead´ which will make it all worthwhile!).

Being funny with your songs is allowed but too funny is frowned upon. For instance ´Only the good die young´ is fine when the dead person involved died old but ´Beautiful Day´ might be a bit over the top, although you could probably still get away with it. However ´Hell is for children´ is just plain creepy. The jury is still out on taped performances by stand-up comedians but if that’s acceptable I’d go with some David Sedaris or Bill Hicks.

But at the same time the music can not be too cheerful. It doesn’t all have to be sad and depressing music but the people coming to your funeral should end the day with the overall feeling of ´How are we ever going to live without him?´ not ´It was so good to hear Brown Sugar again!´ and ´I’m so glad whats-his-face picked Everybody Needs Somebody To Love, I haven’t danced like that in years!´. Too poppy isn’t good either. I mean, face it: It might be fun music to sit in a bar too but do you really want people to remember you as `the guy that had ´Hit me baby one more time´ on his funeral´? No, I didn’t think you would.

All of this brings me to a personal do or don’t for my own funeral that I just can’t quite figure out: a bunch of male strippers singing an a-capella version of ´Chama-chameleon´…. Be honest: too tacky?

Dear Jerry Falwell

2005-04-22T09:42:00.000+02:00

I have a little phenomenon I’d like to share with you. You see, I’m pretty new to this entire open letter writing thing but so far interesting things are happening when I do write them. More specifically interesting things happen to the people I write to; basically their careers and lives fall apart faster than you can say `Fags will burn in hell` (which is pretty fast).

Let me explain: last week I wrote a letter to John Bolton, the man who Bush wants to be the American delegate to the UN. In it I shared some foreign policy tips with John like the virtues of bringing chocolate chip cookies to high profile international negotiations (It’s a pretty fun letter you can read it below). And now, only a week later, it looks more and more like John isn’t going to get the job.

Coincidence? I think not.

Maybe this hasn’t convinced you yet, so let me give you another example: Monday I was considering writing an open letter to Tom DeLay, the house majority leader and one of the leading Republicans but decided I’d rather watch Dr. Phil instead (you know self searching and all that crap). And now, a few days later, DeLay’s career seems minutes from being over due to a volcano of scandals erupting all over him. Can't you see? The sheer threat of me writing him a letter pulls the trick already!

Obviously this got me thinking. How could these letters, even the ones not send have any influence? And then I had a revelation, which I’m sure you’ll like, it’s totally your thing, I figured out that there’s only one way we can explain all this. I must be the hand of God. That’s right! God has picked me as an elimination force for right wing people nobody likes! Mysterious ways rock!

However this kind of raised a few questions with me and I figured you'd be the perfect guy to ask them to. Now, I know you've just been released from the hospital and you have a heart condition and you're supposed to take it slow and all that but this will only take a sec. You see, in the past decades you've presented yourself as a man who is in close contact with God. You've also presented yourself as hating liberal, pro-choice, pro-feminist, homosexuals. In fact you blamed them for 9/11 (not your best moment, was it?). Which basically means you hate... ehm.. me. So then, why does God give me this power? In fact, if that's really how God also feels how come I live in a nice appartment, have just enough money in the bank to pay for my food and cd's and a bunch of really great friends? And indeed the power to kill people through letters. Which is a power I actually do not really want anyway, but I suppose you don't say no to God, she’s one feisty lady!

Oh that's right I’m sorry, I forgot to tell you: God’s a woman. Well… woman, actually once you look closer she’s in fact a transvestite. But a really pretty one! Oh, and she’s black too. Jerry? Why are you getting all white? Jerry? Stop pounding on your chest! JERRY???

Darn it, I've done it again. Ah well,

Love!
Boris

Ps. Are you in any way related to Michael Bolton? If so could you make him stop?

Cry havoc!

2005-04-20T14:20:00.000+02:00

Yesterday may have appeared as a good day for me. For starters, I had to do a presentation for my Academic English class which (despite computer and beamer problems) went fine. So far; good day. After that I checked out some recordstores around the city center and found a little vinyl Zucchero single that only cost me 50 cts.. Again; good. Then I went to a great history class I've already done 2 years ago with my buddy The Nuclear Squirrel (which I should say is his internet name and not his real name..... or at least not is real first name) which was a lot of fun too. So, good day?

Hell no.

Because when I got home and turned the tv on I found out that the cable company had cut me off. Those bastards! Sure, I was the one who canceled my subscription but still; those bastards. It's not that I'm now completely tv-less because I do have a digital tv box thingie but it's just not the same. I should say that it's not that bad a system actually. The images are pretty clear and the sound is fine. Plus I also get Discovery Channel which I never was able to locate when I still had cable and some 24/7 hardcore (believe me, haaaard) porn thing called Spice (but alas it's all straight porn, so bo-ring). There's basically only one thing that makes this digital tv thing only a sad and handicapped alternative to actual tv.

That's right: No BBC.

Actually that's not completely true I do get BBC World, which I love (mostly because of HardTalk and Talking Movies), and BBC Prime, which I hate and want the people responsible for dead (people who make BBC Prime should also be on my Room 101 list, see below). But no BBC 1 or 2. So, as a sort of therapy, I would like to pay tribute to some of the great shows that I'm now going to not see every week;

(sad funeral music starts now):

Little Britain, Newsnight (when Jeremy Paxman hosts it anyway), Breakfast, Prime ministers questions, Hustle, Friday night with Jonathan Ross, Ab Fab, French and Saunders, The Lenny Henry Show, Comic Relief (even though it's only once every 2 years), QI, Deadringers (oh god Deadringers is gone too!) and most of all Have I got news for you. I'll miss you guys!

(sad funeral music ends now)

On a brighter side, maybe this will inspire me to spend my BBC-watch-time and get a more interesting life..... That or maybe I'll just watch this show on Discovery on Hitler.