Elephant

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

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.

The Wicked Update

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

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

The Wicked Witch

(ahum)

Ding dong!

The Witch is Dead.

Which old Witch? The Wicked Witch!

The Wicked Witch is Dead!

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

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

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

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

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

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

Let them know The Wicked Witch is dead!

Ze Germanz (A Public Service Announcement)

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

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

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

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

Thank you

9/11

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Calcio

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Traveling Band

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

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

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

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

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

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

EJD

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.

My virtual Christmas card

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!

The fools they are as men

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

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

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

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).

Fai piano, i bimbi grandi non piangono

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.

Tough one

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

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

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!

RE: Hmm... odd.

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

yep...

just as I expected:

hell just froze over.

Wanted

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...