Audio – Page 134 – Citizen Reporter

Workin Slob

Other bloggers, especially the experienced ones who, for example, appear on television on some show that will never air in Europa, say don’t blog about work. I’ve seen good people get shit from colleagues or even get the ax, because of their blog. But I’m the part-time king, and I heart everyone in my work-life, so I’ll na?vely ignore such good advice, as I always have.

Day 1 of bicyclemark’s academic writing workshop at the U of Amsterdam somehow went off without a hitch. I don’t really know where I could find a hitch in this day and age anyway, so it’s not that big of a surprise. But I did half expect the audience of serious PHD students to start throwing shit midway through the session. I mean, you’ve all seen the way I spell and use comas like they’re going out of style, wouldn’t you throw tomatoes or potatos? But somehow I held on, got lucky, and had a few laughs preaching to the good people about the inexplicable english language that will save them from eternal damnation.

Let me return to my original topic, working in OLD Europe. Assuming the IRS doesn’t know how to read blogs, I’ll tell you that since planting myself on this side of the pond, I have worked such jobs as: English Teacher, English to Portuguese instruction manual translator (what a disaster, I hope no one was hurt), Election Supervisor at a weed convention, Dog-in-heat walker, Academic publications editor, Dutch-english to real-English transcriber, and of course my present job: Fish Tank supervisor. Impressive CV eh? (I hear that booing and it hurts!)

I wanted to say, out of all the jobs I’ve ever worked, this university gig has, by far, the coolest employee field trips ever. You might remember when we visited a national park, or when we painted the town red. Well today, in celebration of everyone-about-to-skip-town december, they took us for high tea. Just around the block from where ladies stand for sale behind glass and under red lights, there we sat in the coolest bakery les Pays-Bas has ever known. Scones, tea, quiche, tea, jam, tea, carrot cake, tea, bon-bons, tea, fruit salad, tea.. man I’ve been peeing every 20 minutes ever since. And as a bonus, I get to hang with my work people, including the dean who always brings out-of-the ordinary conversation topics. Good stuff.

So what gets me is that I worked some gigs in the states, and I neither had this nor ever heard about it. Work events either didn’t exist or seemed totally fake. Hmm.. the only ones I can think of that might rock are those “company bbq’s” people used to talk about. Ooh.. and bowling teams, like Joe-Bob’s Plumbing vs. Guido’s Construction if that counts. I guess it depends, but still – I’ve heard first hand that the scandinavians do it even better. Take notes world; this is how you live!

Today’s Sounds: Mr. Airplane Man (still not sure I like it)

De-Liberations

December seems like a month where, besides celebrating a whole lot of birthdays, we also pause and remember some of the worst atrocities the earth has ever seen. I love using big phrases like that, cause then someone will think “you say tomato, I say tomato sauce,” and who am I to argue. Just a blogger folks. Just a blogger.

Back to the point, before I do the usual drifting like Tom and Huck, Dec. 11th 1994 was the anniversary I wanted to point out; Ten years to the date, when the rusty Russian war machine invaded the Chechenskaya Respublika. I’m not here to try and debate why they did it or who was wrong, for me there is no debate. The images and statistics that so much of the world have ignored: 50,000 killed in the first war alone, air strikes that bombed Grozny back into the stone age, the (now repeated in Iraq) acts of rounding up all the men older then 16 and imprisoning them. I’m sure it was worth it… this liberty and freedom from terrorism that Moscow promised. So much of the population had to be wiped out, so you had to do some torturing/raping, and then maybe you had to destroy everything in site… it’s all for a better future. Trust mother Russia, and her friends in Europe, US, and around the world, who – if they even noticed- spend those years doing business as usual.

I myself sat in the library of a tiny University in southern France when the second Chechen war broke out. I sat reading 4 newspapers per day, scribbling articles which I’d never have the nerve to send to a newspaper, other than my tiny column in my college newspaper in NJ, and then posting them on my geocities site, which later became this here blog. I guess I’m alot like certain governments and international organizations, I sat around talking a mighty talk and writing articles, and then at night I put it to the side and went to have another glass of wine at Les Deux Gar?ons. Which in retrospect may have not been a good place to meet women. (?)

I joke… cause well.. it’s part of dealing with all the bullshit. But still.. It’s a crazy anniversary… it was 1994, modern times. Now, with all the stupidity of the so-called war-on-terrorism, people who speak on behalf of Chechnya are suspect… dangerous. The government they elected , whoever still lives, is in exile in the US and UK. Hell, I’m sure Chechnyans themselves would tell me to shut up, cause they must be so tired of hearing about all these politicians with blood on their hands…just wanting to live a somewhat normal life. Whatever’s left of it.

So here’s to you Chechnya, in recognition of all the hell you’ve gone through (a reality I cannot even being to understand from my comfy seat)… the world governments may not a have a spine, but bloggers do, bicyclemark’s commmunique (and always has) recognizes the independent and sovereign Chechenskaya Respublika.. if there’s anything left to recognize.

Today’s Sounds: Curtis Mayfield – Best of

FIRST PODCAST

To Do List

Bicyclemark, let’s go to Prague!, she said. I didn’t have to think, I said – OK let’s do it. Then I remembered how much I want to see Moscow this year, and ohhh to go to Stockholm. To which she responded Yeah, I’d like to see those places too. And so it will be. Prague first.

The big 25 is a bit over 1 month away, and I recall a list I once made, of goals to be achieved by the time I reach my silver anniversary. I won’t expose you to the bizzaroness of that list, but I will say I’ve done a little over half of that list. Among the goals not achieved: traveling around S. America and North Africa, working for an NGO in Angola. My biggest unachieved goal involved a lama, a nine-iron, some ice cubes, and Claire Forlani. But well, I guess a boy can’t have everything. (I do have ice cubes and access to a nine-iron!)

Hey since I’m some consider me a political blogger (bows), I have done what political bloggers do – sent a correspondent to a Kerry rally in Philadelphia. Unfortunately girlfriend is too busy fantasizing about Clinton to really give us some hard-hitting analysis of a bunch of people waving signs at a candidate who keeps repeating sound bites. But don’t worry, HELP IS ON THE WAY, because WE HAVE PLAN TO WIN THE PEACE. – I know I know.. he’s my guy now. It’s just hard sometimes.

One of the great things about the election circus coming to a close – THE SALES. That’s right Bush and Kerry gear have been slashed in half, their prices (and politics) are INSANE!

While I slept an incredible amount of excellent posts were written in the world of blogs. BFauth’s family turns out to be a midwest militia, and YES they publish those annual calendars with babes and guns.

For all the times that Blonde But Bright or the Torontonienne have asked me, “Why do you think Professor B calls herself bitch?” yesterday we found out why.

Jamie does what I have so often done, questioning the girl sitting across from him, with the big cup of coffee reading Nietzsche.

And just when I thought I had had enough, The Accordian Guy takes his squeeze box to the streets, and plays tunes like “Should I Stay or Should I Go” at Canada’s crazy-go-nuts University homecoming.

I still owe you a swordfish recipe.

Today’s Sounds: Ashlee Simpson (don’t worry, she’s not singing)

In the State of Swing

I’m going to need a Bosnian to Spanish translator in order to communicate with a majority of my fantasy basketball players. Thankfully I’m fluent in French and Spanish, so I can still talk to my other scrubs and my favorite Puerto Rican point guard who I did get to watch in the Olympics. Funnest part, however brief, of yesterdays fantasy draft was getting to chat with Tony Pierce, who’s family is visiting, and who had a seemingly cool birthday party. It has gotten to the point where I’ve seen enough photos of his apartment, via the blog, that I know my way around. Weird you say? COOL I say.

Speaking of the busblog, I was reading Danielle’s “keeping it real” this morning, as I so often do. Sometimes that girl just hits it right for me. Like some wonderfully-crazy gonzo-journalistic-poet. I see hers as one of those blogs, like anyone’s actually, which is only for certain tastes and might be loved by some and hated by others.

An opposite example would be the man with a blog-god complex, the instapundit. I try my best to be open minded and blog respectful, but reading that blog is like riding a bicycle with no seat and flat tires. I literally gave my monitor the finger as he scoffed at the Brazilian space program and proceeded to give detailed summaries and photos of Bushie’s Florida rally. Who gives a flying fuck if the American dictator appears in a denim-blue workshirt with his sleeves rolled up and talks about how much he loves florida and america needs to give him 4 more years and a few billion more bucks. One of the most read bloggers in the sphere you say? A column in the Guardian you say? No thank you sir.

On a brighter note, courtesy of the most famous Canadienne ever to grace the pages of this blog, I now have a costume for Halloween. I just need some brown shag carpet – extra shag, a varsity jacket, some novelty teeth, and a friend named styles. I hear NoCoins was considering topping last year’s Zombie John Ridder by going as Zombie Christopher Reeve this year. What? Too soon?

Today’s Sounds: Kings of Convenience – Silence is the New Loud

Dad at Breakfast

First thing I asked my mom when she called me from NJ yesterday, “Describe to me what my father is doing right now.” She laughed at said (in Portuguese):

“oh you know the scene, bowl of oatmeal. big cup of coffee with lots of milk, Star-Ledger News section to his left, cross-word puzzle to the right. He’s filled half of it in, and has gotten stuck. Of course, he’ll pick it up again later today and find more answers. No one has a breakfast that takes as long as your father’s.”

I was having fun listening to this. Obviously a simple and familiar scene, but for so many years of my life, I was right there to his right on a saturday morning. Swapping sections with him, and filling in all the popular culture and international politics clues. Dad’s department is always actors, music and movies from the old days, history, foreign languages (though I’ve caught up with him there). Sometimes we’d discuss the news, or dad would point to some guy in the paper and say “oh yeah, I remember this guy, he used to do this and that in Newark when I first came to the US.” And of course I’ll be right back there working on the crossword come Christmas time or whenever I go home to visit. Ah the memories.

Last night, over the finest Portuguese-style baked/roasted Swordfish, the Torontonienne and I discussed a related issue. When you come back to a place where you once lived, but you come as a visitor. We both kind of shuttered at the idea of returning to Amsterdam as visitors. Well into my third year living here, I have no desire to experience such a feeling. But I do get it whenever I return to Lisbon, Paterson, and then there’s Aix-en-Provence, where I once lived and haven’t been motivated enough to return since 2000. That whole feeling of, “this used to be my life, but that’s long gone,” is so often more bitter than sweet.

But of course, it can be fantastic, to remember. I take every chance I can get to go with my Dad to Murtosa(population: 1,364), in Portugal. He’ll stop at random places, point to a building or a lot, and suddenly start piecing together a memory. This is where the tailor lived, this is where the dairy was, this man moved to Canada, this man moved to the states and later died in Vietnam. The most stories come when we visit the cemetery. Dad is able to point to most headstones – those classic Portuguese white marble monstrosities with sepia photos of the people that are buried there – and he can tell you what that person used to do and what part of the world they immigrated to. In recent years, when he tells the stories, I try to memorize who is who, so that one day I can tell the stories as well. I can see it now, Bicyclemark’s guided tours of a small town Portuguese cemeteries. We might even do it on bike, since these places just keep expanding.

Less serious note, the Busblog Fantasy B-Ball draft is this evening, I need some advice on who to draft for my team: The Stoned Tourists. For now, I’m sticking with my “choose non-American players or New Jerseans” strategy. But I’m pretty sure that won’t work for long.

If you’re interested, Swordfish Recipe can be published in my next post.

Today’s Sounds: Midtown – Forget What you Know