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).
Friday, October 07, 2005
Saturday, September 24, 2005
Better run through the jungle
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.
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.
Monday, September 19, 2005
Brown on blondes
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.
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.
Thursday, September 08, 2005
Close your eyes (and think of England)
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???
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???
Saturday, September 03, 2005
Dear Pat Robertson,
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
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
Saturday, August 27, 2005
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.
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.
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.
Wednesday, August 24, 2005
It's a jungle out there
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!'.
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!'.
Tuesday, August 09, 2005
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.
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.
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