It is the eve of my bigass speech at one of the biggest Universiteit van Amsterdam events of the year. I just noticed my name on the website, it’s in Dutch, but if it helps any, my name is still spelt the same. Speaking in public is my fort? normally, but this audience has me a little worried, a mix of students, faculty, and important government types. Why be nervous? I don’t know… maybe I should resort to the traditional “everyone in their underwear” fantasy. Then again.. that could prove disastrous what with all the good-looking folks in this town. I’ve written a speech which I have no intention of using… I’m tempted to physically rip it up on stage.. I love spontaneous speakers, or at least those who make me think they’re doing it off-the-cuff. Later maybe the text of my speech will be made available on the Communiqu?. Most of my speech training today has consisted of watching my Eddie Izzard DVD (given to me by king B of Queens)… so you can bet I’ll sound like him tomorrow. Someone should stop me when I start doing the “Death Star Canteen” skit.( commence downloading!)
Today’s reading included this article about how Iraqi squatters in luxury homes are being punted out by the police. I’m disappointed. These houses used to belong to all the powerful government types and they all ran away or whatever, I feel it’s a finders keepers situation! I hate hearing the same disneyfication going on there that we saw happen in time square and I see happening to squats here in Amsterdam. What am I talking about? This government push to make housing that only the very wealthy can afford in city-centers, so that the regular people have to go live in shitty neighborhoods in the outskirts in the shadow of a nice paint factory or nuclear power plant. (oh wait.. they still haven’t found those in Baghdad… hahah.. I kid.. I kid) I just think if the owners have fled the country and they’ve abandoned their nice house, someone who needs a place and takes real care of it should be able to move in. Maybe over time they can even be encouraged to legally take steps to acquire the building they’ve squatted. This has also happened in Amsterdam.
In my quest to explore the wild-wild west of the blogosphere.. I came across Bunny McIntosh. She’s quite well known in some circles I think, but for me it was a great new discovery reading her blog. I think she’s crazy and creative in just the right way, and so I wanted to recommend her to you. Plus after one quick IM from me.. she told the tale on her blog. Oh and don’t miss the photoessay of her meeting Tony Pierce.
Two last things:
Tuesday begins my South America theme, so look out for that.
And how the hell am I ever going to get into these hip blog conferences if I can’t afford the 90 Euro plus entry fee. Fucking elitists, gimme a nice 9.99 price.
Today’s Music: King of Convenience – Versus (dam these guys are great.. Chris Missick was right)