Text – Page 148 – Citizen Reporter

Speech… Speech!

Lots of good folk orbiting the blogosphere might read my blabber and think: “He’s living the life!” It’s a romanticized image of “that guy who went to live in Europe,” as illustrated by BitchPhD last night (doesn’t that sound dirty?):

bitchphd: shit, you’re 25 and in Amsterdam. There’s no real excuse for not getting laid regularly.

And then there’s Brian @ TheStateImIn, who is so close to packing up and moving to Ireland, referring to me:

Who wouldn’t want to be able to live a life of riding your bike everywhere, spending Euros, and enjoying fabulous European culture? (And fabulous European women as well.)

I also get the occasional email from a reader asking about my-so-called charmed life in Amsterdamage. How did I get this image? Have I not outlined by part-time professional status? My poverty? And how the hell did so many read between the lines and decide I’m a connoisseur of European women? Maybe I shouldn’t spoil the image, I suppose I represent something to certain people. They look to me and the Communiqu? as an example of what one can do to escape the horrors of the mundane. Plus, I did wake up at 10:30am today, and I won’t go to work because I don’t have to today, and I’ll spend the afternoon shopping for Teenwolf-costume material at second hand shops and stroopwaffle scented Dutch street markets. So never mind, that whole charmed life thing is pretty accurate, thanks guys.

Next week, on that faithful day – Nov 3rd, or -Judgement Day- as me and Arnold like to call it, I’ve been slated to be a speaker at the U of Amsterdam’s “Election Morning Brunch.” Me and other staff have arranged for C-SpaM to be shown on the bigscreen as the results roll in, and the riots begin. A student-friend of mine from Cali stopped me yesterday and said “Bicyclemark, I so want to buy a ticket, fly home and riot with all my friends.” – “That’s the spirit!” I told her, “Go break some shit in the name of democracy!” But alas, she won’t, we’ll have to enjoy that special episode of the surreal world from our cozy brunch catered by Toronto’s finest Chef-in-exile, no one cooks like him. I’m appearing as a “Political Blogger”(hahah) and I’m speaking about the insane amount of voter fraud in this election. (seriously how many states is it — even Saddam couldn’t have organized this much chaos.)

Speaking of kickass speeches, Bunny MacIntosh’s man – Jon Stewart did it again. The man is a slacker-folk hero. (at least mine) Speaking at the William & Mary graduation ceremony, he said some crazy shit, and received an honorary doctorate. My favorite part is where he talks about getting a Doctorate for doing nothing:

I?m sure my fellow doctoral graduates?who have spent so long toiling in academia, sinking into debt, sacrificing God knows how many years of what, in truth, is a piece of parchment that in truth has been so devalued by our instant gratification culture as to have been rendered meaningless?will join in congratulating me. Thank you.

By all means, cut and paste your favorite part of that speech into my comments, there are so many.

Now, before I get bitched at any further – Swordfish ala BM:

Ingredients:

-500 grams of Fresh Swordfish from the excessively upbeat fishmarket guy with the paper hat.

-1 Tomato, pronounced however you like.

-5 to 6 potatoes regardless of if you can spell the word.

-1 Onion to be cried over and when a roommate asks what’s bothering you blame the onion and supress your sexual disfunction problems.(i kid i kid)

-Fresh Coriander bought from the Dutchman with the excessively dirty hands.

-1 Lemon that you pick up with your own hands before he can do it for you.

Lots of Olive Oil from the Alentejo which is over-priced at a Portuguese Import shop that is quite un-Portuguese with its unfriendly staff.

Preparation:

-Boil them potatoes til they’re soft like the Bush admin. on environmental protection.

-Slice up the onions, tomatoes and lemon and lay them out in the tray, like Jon Stewart did to those crossfire hacks.

Then add the coriander, potatoes, and whatever spices you want – put it in the oven, I really don’t care what temperature. Leave it in they’re for quite a while, and carry on conversation with your attractive dinner guest who you hopefully have impressed with your newfound cooking skills.

-But don’t be distracted, keep an eye on the roasting fish and at a bit of water to prevent it from getting as dry as Kerry’s sense of humor.

-When it smells ready, and looks ready, it’s ready! Now go eat and maybe you’ll get laid like you’re a 25 year old blogger, working at a University, and living in Amsterdam.

Today’s Sounds: Johnny Cash & Willie Nelson – Storytellers (roommate was singing ‘you were always on my mind’ this morn.

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

Our Portuguese Loser

I was speaking with a slightly Drunken Dutchman and a Spaniard last night, enjoying the conversation about the tiny Russian exclave Kaliningrad, when Crazy Dr. M jumps in and dramatically warns, “Watch out! This whole conversation will end up in his blog!”

Touch? Dr. M, and yes.. it was me outside your window on Thursday night, standing on the edge of Big Jim’s boat trying to tip over your badly painted houseboat.

So it has now been a few months that our former Portuguese Prime minister got promoted and moved to Brussels as the new President of the European Commission. At that time, anyone could have told you that Dur?o Barroso had always been a Portuguese foot stool. Our lamest politician, with little personality, and not much left of a spine. But alas, Brussels wanted him, presumably since nobody had ever heard of this multilingual brown noser. They loved it when he arrived and spoke French with the Frenchies and then English with the Englishers, and you can bet he gives good Spanish. Hell I could do that job, except that I don’t like the taste of boots on my tongue.

But our hero continues to be a disaster, wherever he goes. His latest comes with his cabinet selections, for minister of justice and security, the imfamous Italian asshole Rocco Buttiglione… aka Butt.. aka Ass. The Ass recently declared that to him, homosexuality was a sin and that families existed for women to have children and be protected by a man.

Isn’t that just inspiring? This man will oversee justice in the EU. Nevermind Dur?o’s choice for competition minister, the Dutch Neelie Kroes, who has already lied about her dealings-on-the-side with Lockheed Martin.

But don’t give up on the EU yet, because what these chumps don’t realize, is that you have to get by some of the frumpiest and critical socialist and liberal representatives around, the EU Parliament. And amongst these folks, anti-gay and anti-woman rhetoric is never acceptable. All i can say is hooray for our entrenched Euro Greens/socialists/liberals, who may be lazy and pampered, but at least reflect a smidgen of our cultural values. (yes, I said our, cause remember, Im a citizen and a resident)

I’ve been following the pride of Toronto, the Accordian Guy engagement, via his multiple blogs. Good news, he discovered what the bulge is under Bush’s jacket.

And finally, good news – A Line in the Sand and Chris Missick are back. He’s moved camps, and he’s back to blogging.

Today’s Sounds: Caetano Veloso – A Foreign Sound (have you heard it? the mans a genius)

This Guy

Everyone else had already boarded the rather large and spacious boat, the engine was running, and the beer/wine was securely stowed. The Torontonienne was attempting to keep what was left of her balance after one of those unbeatable Amy-dinners. As she stepped from the random boat that we were double parked with I whisper, “I’m so blogging about this!” To which she smiles and replies, “Your such a nerd.”

And so it is, and so it was, courtesy of Big Jim, a man who knows about water, and a veteran Jersey exile who once again – makes me proud of the people coming out of my homestate. He took us around on the fantastic vessel which had actually been salvaged, a once sunken treasure now decorated with church candles, random expats, and the beer I spilled around 2am.

This is not one of those “here’s what I did last night” posts. This is about a new goal or a renewed goal in my life which Big Jim accomplished in the mid nineties. The man rode a Yamaha motorcycle (he says he’s not actually into motorcycles) from the UK to Saudi Arabia and then thru Asia down to Indonesia. I’m sure some other dinner guests saw me drooling for more of his stories. I kept stopping him in certain countries, shouting things like “Did you make it down to the Atlas mountains?”, “What was Sarajevo like, all destroyed?”, “Did they give you shit at the Israeli border with Jordan?”, “Did you see mount Ararat?”, oh and the all-important “Had the entire Nepalese Royal Family been gunned down yet?” He seemed to welcome the interruptions, and told stories of bribing middle eastern border patrols with German porno mags given to him by random truckers. Or the futuristicness of Dubai and the UAE.

The journey took him 3 years. 3 YEARS! I kept thinking… could I? Will I? I can definitely say this, when I do, I’m going to my new friend Big Jim to plan my route. But I suspect it won’t be as long. I think the first thing I’m going to get working on is re-doing the Guevara/Granada trek from Argentina down and around the South American cone. And no, I doubt I’ll go by motorcycle.

Like the Fenway Park, the Communiqu? has been setting attendance records this week. I hope that means new readers, be they old or new friends, or simply folks I haven’t met yet, I like having discussions, welcome to the blog!

AND – This is an announcement: After lengthy discussion, and still standing by most of the points I have made, I have decided to put the blogs electoral support behind JFK.

Because I intend to be his biggest critic once his worse-than-Clinton ass gets into office.

Because I listen and respect the experienced opinions of good friends like Drock and blogger friends like Professor B and all the other people.

Because I reserve the right to change my mind and be a hypocrite where and whenever I please.

Because I still love Nader, Peltier and Cobb, and I’ll defend them at any dinner party.

Because yeah, I want to see Bushie shrivel up and be forgotten like his loser father.

Because I keep thinking of that Simpsons episode where the two Aliens take over the bodies of Clinton and Dole, and they make campaign promises like: “Abortions for everyone!” (boooooo) “Abortions for no one!” (boooooo) “Abortions for some, miniature American flags for others!” (yaaaaay, commence flag waving)

So that’s it, I’m laying down my guns until this election is over, which according to past experiences should be sometime in December right?

And And- Happy 111 years of age, to the man who inspires me to blog.

*NOTE – This ol’park might return next week. I’m too beat and busy today.*

Today’s Sounds: Joe Strummer – Streetcore (damn I miss him)