Citizen Reporter

Fear and Loathing in Antwerp

And then sometimes you find yourself in Antwerp, with good friends from Philly and the most wonderful ms. thingk, wandering the diamond district on the Sabbath, when all is closed. It’s a beautiful and under-rated city, even in the cold november rain. Complete with its infamous port where the spoils of the former Belgian Congo once arrived. My guests reminded me of the excesses of Belgian life; waffles, beer, french fries, and – ouch my teeth – chocolate. I usually don’t remember these things as I go about my seasonal family business in Brussels, but today I had some of each (cept no waffles). The other themes that dominated the visit were Paul Rubens the Belgian impressionist vs. Paul Rubens the big adventurist. I’d say that for today, PeeWee won… as nocoins repeatedly screamed about the secret word.

Ms. Thingk brought up a good discussion topic as I was dozing off, leaning in her direction, on the train home: Male vs. Female main characters. She asked me if I could name my favorite male actor and then mr favorite female. Of course I named Denzel, Dustin Hoffman, and Ralph Fines.. but then when it got to females I got choked up. I tried to do the usual Natalie Portman, which she rightfully pointed out – is typical. But otherwise, I struggled to name Carrie Anne-Moss and Dame Judie Densh. Ms. Thingk’s point was the fact that men stick out as main actors more than women. And how if you have a film, the best way to market it is to have a male in the lead role. While if you put only women in the lead roles, it gets dubbed a “chick-flick,” thus limiting the audience. I wondered about this… now I want to go around seeing how fast people can name their favorite actresses.. just to see if I’m the only involuntary-sexist-film-lover.

Other shocking news… ms. thingk will be leaving for DC in a month. Joining the capital crew… who knows, she might become the next wonkette or – gasp – washingtonienne.

Today’s Sounds: Decemberists – Castaways and Cutouts

BM VS Theworld

Today's post littered with photos from Y2K Europe

Like any human on an extremely small budget, centrally located on the continent of Europe, I do love to travel, and travel cheaply. Yet being the part-time king, I haven’t traveled much in the past years. So today as I browsed the travel section of the V&D I made a radical yet non-binding decision: I WILL TRAVEL MORE. Nevermind the money, nevermind the time schedule, forget all of that – Bicyclemark is steppin out!

Today I purchased a Routard guide to Sweden, thin little sucker for such a vast country. It will be my first stop, to see Stockholm and my great friend Marty McFly and his girlfriend comic-book girl. But that won’t be my only stop, over the next four years these are my top five destinations:

Sweden/Norway; ladies, snow, friends, need I say more?

Ireland; cause Mr. English awaits, and Brian is moving there.

Cuba; because I can and I don’t want to miss it.

Libya; My good friend from the embassy in Portugal is being transferred back and will be my personal tour guide

Brazil and Argentina; Both as a Portuguese-Birthrite and part of my motorcycle diaries tour of South America.

Russia;(moscow, st. pete’s, because I’m obsessed with Russian history and Yakov Smirnov– “In soviet Russia, country travels to visit tourists.”

Furthermore I don’t want to do all this shit alone, necessarily, so who’s coming along? Claim the trip now, seats are limited.

I can’t blog straight today, enjoying the presence of NoCoins and Tawdryjones here at the ranch. Today we took on junkies, tomorrow – Belgium. Next week, the world.

Oh, and I bloscar award nominate xtx for her post on that show lost and other posts from yesterday. She has quickly become one of my new favorites.

Today’s Sounds: Wes Montgomery – Fingerpickin’

Feeling Ill

They stole my bike last night. Bicyclemark’s bike was stolen. -THE HORROR- I suppose they needed it. Maybe a junkie had to ride his sick mother to hospital, and my bike was the first one he saw, plus I probably didn’t lock it properly. So that’s how I’ll imagine it… my bike was stolen in the name of saving the sick mother of a junkie; a noble cause.

I’m not surprised it happened.. considering how distracted I’ve been this week. My mind might have been racing from the intensive catch-up session I had with the Torontonienne, who has moved on to another blog(a blog I also love). I can’t explain why or from where the feeling comes from, but I see our lives growing apart, and there’s a sadness there. Then again, I guess some birds weren’t meant to be blog-caged.

On the IM last night I spoke to J.J.legs my long-time college friend, artist, prankster and paraolympian. The man who made stale college parties and nights on the town worth while. One of those New Jerseans who I miss and look forward to visiting. He gave me the odd news that an old girlfriend, Miss America is do to be married. I guess lots of us have experienced that age, when the old significant others start marrying. Haven’t spoken to her in years, and it was odd news to hear. Still, I wish her best of luck with Mr. America.

And then Arafat died, and that’s a solemn and surreal thing to watch in the media. As the angry arab has said on his blog, “they won’t have arafat to kick around anymore.” I wonder who they’ll blame now when they refuse to seriously pursue peaceful solutions.

What has most left me dazed and confused this week, besides potent mat?, has been the siege of Falluja in Iraq. As I watch the videos, photos, and reports of what is happening there, I feel dirty. Like something terrible is taking place in my name and in the name of humankind. I wonder how others feel as they watch? All the explosions, gun-firing, talk of “controlling” the city… what good can come of such madness? Democracy by the barrel of a gun, leaves me quite sad. For my part I would choose neither a dictator, nor militarily-forced democracy… we should be more creative and innovative in our solutions to problems, instead of this archaic bullshit of bombs and armies.

Today’s Sounds: G. Love – The Hustle (Loving Me)

Visitors Eve

Singing: “LET THE EEEEEEEEAGLES FLYYYYY.” Let me echo the sentiments all around the blogosphere, pack your shit and get out Johnny boy, and don’t let the revolving door of cabinet positions smack you in the ass on the way out. Who knows friends, maybe Bush Part Deux will be a kinder and gentler administration………………. FOR ME TO POOP ON!

Big things lie on the horizon for bicyclemark. Join me on a quick preview, won’t you?

No Coins, one of my greatest friends of all time, who comes from “my planet”, arrives tomorrow morning along with Tawdryjones, queen of the livejournal. (if you’re into that scene – HA!) This is one of the most anticipated visits of my 2.3 years in the dam, we’re gonna do it up right, and besides gratuitous tourism, I will do what is necessary so they can meet the characters that make up my life here. Added bonus: they are both Philly cyclists, so they should adapt quickly and enjoy bike-life here.

We are now one month away from my 25th anniversary as a human being, not counting my time in the womb, which -I might add- was a glorious time. Dec. 10th… “mark” it down. I have to start planning that night, so put the champaign on ice, get the handcuffs out of the bottom drawer, and shine those dancin’ shoes, cause this boy is tired of low-key birthdays. For those wishing to do something extra – THE WISH LIST. MST3K on DVD is also a welcome gift. (don’t worry about DVD-regions, I broke that stupid code long ago.)

In less than two months I will be with my nephew… the A-REN… and together we will eat with bibs on, make funny baby sounds, and play with educational toys so that I might finally learn something.

There is more, but who could top those three beautiful things? Plus, did you know teens don’t read newspapers? I know my cousin akindofirony does, but apparently she’s an exception. I looked at the statistics of what media teens spend their time with and decided to do my own life breakdown based on their categories. I encourage you to do the same in the comments.:

Around 1 hour per day.

1 hour per day

6/7 hours per day.

an insane amount of hours per day.

nah… too busy surfing the net.

30 minutes of my day.

They still exist?

45 minutes of my offline day.

You mean a graphic novel?

I think the categories suck. You could (and I do) spend hours on the net reading newspapers, listening to the radio, playing games, and YES reading graphic novels. Something tells me Gallop is too damn old fashioned to be surveying teens.

Today’s Sounds: Rush – Vapor Trails (Yes I sometimes listen to Rush!)

Cheers the Computerlab

An enthusiastic international student friend of mine walked into the fishtank in the wee hours of the morning, and greeted me as I was manning the bridge. He stopped and said:

You know BM, it’s always good to see you here when I walk in. It’s sort of.. comforting, like an old friend who’s always there.

I don’t usually think much of my fishtank duties at the international school, it’s certainly not the reason I work there, but at that moment – I felt like I was making a difference in people’s lives. No wait, I felt like Norm from Cheers, only without the beernuts.

This little “moment” reminded me of my days in Aix-en-Provence, at Spoiled American University. The most loved Internet Caf? was run by these two young, French, computernerds. Of course, I loved them. We all did. It was one of the best parts of the day, that initial walk-in conversation in French, usually consisting of:

Yeah well, I only REALLY learned to speak French in Lisbon. France was more like language training camp, and I was the recruit who kept falling in the mud-puddles. But that’s a whole other story. The point of this trip down memory lane is that I realized for this student, I was Bernard, so to speak; that young, potentially hip guy who lives and works in the country where you are temporarily studying. And just like I’ll always remember the French guys at the internet-caf?, some of these students will always remember Bicyclemark who worked in the Fishtank sometimes. I’m honored to be a fixture in people’s memories.

Freshly back from Paris, Jamie of The Known Universe came to the ranch for some conversation and whiskey. As he mentions in his post, we talked about everything under the sun, including my PHD plans of studying the Culture of Weblog Readers and Writers. He was clearly fascinated at the idea, never having given much thought to the idea of himself becoming the museum exhibit behind glass.

Please do not touch the blogger.

Please do not speak to loudly, as it will startle the blogger.

Notice his leather jacket and walking boots,scientists have yet to reach a conclusion of how this affects his writing.

I’ll be giving the tours of course, wearing a white labcoat and latex gloves.

Jamie and I spent some time talking world affairs, specifically about Ivory Coast. We worried about the safety of a journalist friend of his, and talked about how the situation will undoubtedly get worse. Reading the latest and watching the videos, I’m annoyed with both the French Military and the Ivory Coast. I knew Laurent Gbagbo was a dangerous manipulator, but I couldn’t predict this overtly colonialist behavior on the part of the French. They guard whatever the hell they want, they bomb whatever they feel is a threat to their presence in the country, and they act as if its perfectly natural to do so. Sound familiar? No surprise there I guess, for all their bickering France and the US have many similarities, as do Paris and New York.

Today’s Sounds: Bob Dylan – Blood on the Tracks (its been a while)

Clash of Stupidity

I didn’t even want to give this discussion any attention, but here I go, head-first, just for today:

I swear the Dutch masses dream of a holy war. They seem to foam at the mouth to talk about “the muslims.” I guess it’s a reoccurring thought nowadays, in certain countries – the US versus THEM. There’s a slight tinge of fascism and racism in the winter air, and it has been there for at least 2 years.

A controversial and beloved film director was murdered/assassinated in cold blood by what turns out to be a Moroccan extremist, complete with a note condemning the director’s criticism of Muslim culture. The whole country goes nuts, as if there isn’t an assassination per season around here. (oh yes there is!) Now anyone, including myself, would agree murders are bad and they should not occur. But they’re calling it an attack on free speech, and I don’t feel like explaining that even when you have “free speech”, it is still possible that psychos get angry and violent. Others, politicians especially, use this event to fuel their xenophobe rhetoric: that Muslims aren’t integrating in Dutch culture; fascist-populism at its finest. Hell, now they’re calling it terrorism!

And so the latest, today – a Dutch Muslim school was more-or-less bombed (“explosion,” they report) The press says it could be a “revenge” attack, I guess meaning its revenge from Dutch folk. So here we are again, US versus THEM. I wonder if the Reichstag is burning? Soon I’m sure Sammy P. Huntington will be elected prime minister, so he can orchestrate the holy war.

But don’t believe the hype good readers. Plenty of tolerant people and policies in the people’s republic of Amsterdamage. I’m referring to those of us who don’t buy into the sweeping generalizations. Who get our hair cut at Atlas Kapsalon, where Majid and Mohammed greet you with coffee, a newspaper, and a smile. Who appreciate the people who were brave enough to leave their lives behind and start over in Amsterdam, regardless of race, class, sexual preference, or religion.

White Christians have carried out some of the most disgusting mass murders and wars the planet has ever seen, but I’m not going condemn the kid from Virginia sitting next to me, based on that.

Today’s Sounds: www.tsf.pt Radio Portugues