UK – Page 29 – Citizen Reporter

Act natural

I was at the controls of the fishtank when SHE walked in. If I keep eyes on the LCD display, I can’t actually see who is walking in, but I can sense it. Especially when its someone who looks and smells as good as she would. My mystery girl, who for the past six months had been the highlight of my workday. I swear she purposely chose a seat that offered a chance to steal glances my way. And sure enough… she’d catch me looking at her and vice-versa. We enjoyed those moments, and it seemed an unspoken agreement that we’d leave it like that.

That is until.. we broke the rules. Maybe it was the landing on Titan, or the rising of ocean, but for some reason, we spoke to each other. Starting with those magical words she spoke “hi”. I tried to think of something suave… so I responded “hi.” What followed involves alot of blushing, staring at the floor, and fidgeting. Eventually a real conversation ensued… and then came the inevitable: Mystery girl was glad to finally talk to me, but she was leaving the next day for good. Where was she heading, you may ask…. THAILAND.

Yeah.. Thailand.. I was all “don’t tell me.. you’re going to help with the relief effort!” thinking mystery girl was good hearted as she was beautiful. But NAY… she gave me one of those smiles that could turn winter into summer and said “I’m going on vacation.” This brought alot of questions from me… and a larger issue, the whole “best thing to do after a disaster is to get back to normal life… go shopping” philosphy. She explained, and I understand to some extent, that she had booked it long ago, and after careful reflection, she felt it was good for Thailand that the tourists come back, so why not her… now.

What a fucked up world, I tend to think. Which functions in such a system that says, the best way to recover from tragedy and move forward, is to go out and spend money. I know economically it somehow makes sense… but it doesn’t it feel creepy and wrong ? Does to me sometimes. I wouldn’t be able to just, go lay out in the sun of Phuket while hundreds of thousands have just died in one of the worst tragedies in the history of the world. For some reason I’d have trouble spreading suntan lotion on my European-American pale skin, when just a few minutes away, families are desperate for water and food to fall from the sky.

I guess that’s where the mystery girls of the world step in. They have the courage to get past my guilt, and go look beautiful on the beaches of south asia, while putting money into the tourist dependent economy. Hooray.

PS– If you had asked me oh mystery girl… I’d have gone with you.

Today’s Sounds: Radio Clash Podcast

My Brainpan

I was told yesterday by my darling in Portland that my brainpan is full. Not quite full… but definitely spilling everywhere.

I was going on and on about weblogging, photoblogging, and podcasting as rebellious communication, which it is. In different forms. I get so bored whenever I hear someone dismissing what we who publish any type of media on the internet do, as shallow or marginal. Over four million of us, and that’s not including the readers, and somehow we’re all teenagers talking about who fucked who? PLease. We do much more than that, and moreover, whatever it is we write about – even the teen stories, we are indeed rebels. Because what we’re are doing, to some degree, is saying no to the traditional powers. We don’t need your magazine to publish an article. We won’t go crazy to get a spot on your radiostation (traditional or cable)in order to reach a mass audience. And we don’t need a gallery or some fancy pants publication to recognize us as photographers. We are photographers if we want to be.

One of my toubles with doing research into these ideas, is that so-called experts(usually the older tenured kind who know fuck-all about this stuff) will point and say “oh that bicyclemark, he’s nothing but an advocate… with all his cheering and ra-ra, his arguements are tainted. So be it. Tainted love baby.

The hardest thing is that I want to connect all this fun and sharing of experiences/information to greater world problems. YES – Promoting World Peace Thru Internet Publishing and Social Software. Shhh… I know it’s getting a bit past the basic needs that aren’t being met.

Look at this video and the story that goes with it. Just another example of how dirty-grey this Iraq occupation is. How can you put up a banner that says “we support our troops” when you see the business they’re in. Not one fucntioning building left in Fallujah. In order to save the country.. they have to destroy it. In order to bring freedom they have to restrict everything. In order to bring peace, they make war. 1984.. 2005.. doesn’t matter. Except that the world should know better by now.

Oh I know. You’ve got family or friends there. Me too. But I won’t support their work. Just because your pop works in a missile factory doesn’t mean you gotta support the concept of launching missiles at anyone.

Today’s Sounds: Death Cab – Transatlanticism

Back on the Scene

What? You heeeeard? Turn my headphones up! I’m back in Amsterdamage baby, and got back into the swing of things today. Saturday things that is. What are these typical saturday things, you may ask?:

In other news I read about how, 40 years later, the Mississippi burning case is finally going to court. You remember that movie? No not the one where Samuel L. shouts “YES THEY DESERVE TO DIE AND I HOPE THEY BURN IN HELL.” This movie was the one with Gene ‘THE HACK’ Hackman and Willem DeFoam running around like feds while southerners make them feel unwelcome. Exciting stuff… this unswift justice.

Today’s Sounds: XTX’s Audioblog.. over and over..

Jetlag Brings This

I smell. I’m hungry. I can’t keep my eyes opened. Some random dude has been crashing at the Spaniard’s place next door, and he obviously cares nothing for my strict bathroom cleanliness. A brotha goes away for a few weeks and suddenly all of Amsterdam comes over to aim badly at his toilet.

I digress. It’s grey, cool, and windy. Bikes speed past my window and ring their bells. Dutch high speed internet flows through my veins again. I HAVE ARRIVED, all over this city.

I’m too jetlagged to tell you about the nicey-nice Minnesota Femenina who sat next to me for one leg of the trip. We were like travelling peas and carrots.. both carrying our own bags of dried fruit and both working in random European Cities. (she chose Bar?alouca!) Turns out, life in Bar?a is fun, but salaries suck and prices are high. More inspiration never to leave budget life here in the Netherworlds.

Having stopped in two European countries today and read up their newspapers, I thought I would mention that they keep pointing out how many people each country has lost in South-East Asia. They also keep breakin down who donated what. I thought it was odd that the US comes in after Australia, Germany, and Japan. And I think it’s cool that individual countries give money and then the EU as a whole throws a chunk of change. That makes for lots of aid. Imagine individual US states did that… talk about lots of loot!

I spoke to Anti the other night, while in Jersey. I call him Antee, if you must know. And we had a hootenany of a AIM conversation.

And just to get back into my normal inkkernet routine, I chatted quickly with BITCHPHD who seems to be on the verge of big changes, including CHANGING HER BLOG NAME!

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

New but not happy

For some inexplicable reason, I’ve spent the last 4 new years eves in the most random of spots, and often feeling completely alien and out of place. At times it was laughable and other times it was depressing. Last night falls somewhere in between.

When I moved my life in 2001, to Portugal, New Years was spent with my darling cousin N on the beaches of S?o Martinho. You could hear the countdown echoed through the night air, and we were each armed with a bottle of champaign to shake and pop. We also ate raisins… as per the Portuguese tradition, one for each wish (or something like that.. I always forget) Then they did some nightswimming (which deserves a quiet night).

Little did I know then, that one year later, I would be somewhere -lost- in Flatbush, Brooklyn.. having just visited a Dutch gal I had a crush on who was also in NYC for new years, I was on my way to see Mr. David the Worldchanger. I could hear the echoes from Manhattan, as it must have been midnight… but all I could think was — this is symbolic.. I don’t know where I am in life, or at the start of the new year.

Last year was yet another unplanned adventure, as leah8 and I abandoned the portuguese community center and headed to a punk-new year party in New Brunswick, NJ. Oddly enough a few people recognized me from the band days, stopping me and saying “Yo… you were in OCG man.. that was awesome!” To which I just said, thanks, and went on sipping my pbl.

Which brings us to last night. Once again abandoning the community center after having played with the grandparents for a few hours and eating the fair share. The party was at Cathy Van Gogh’s caf?.. supposedly only for friends. Turns out these “friends” were my least favorite people from highschool… mafia types who got extremely fat in the last few years. Found myself wishing I was back in Amsterdam, and promising that next year I’d spend this shit with people I actually like.

Fortunately I escaped in Styles’s VW, and we sped down the highway, dodging drunk drivers, to do something very NEW JERSEY… we hit up a diner for some eats. I ordered all the stuff I love and can’t really get in the ‘dam. A bagel and a chocolate milkshake. Man… I felt like I was Kevin Arnold and we were in the wonder years. Styles misses me… he doesn’t have to say it… he conveys it in his tone. I miss my old roommate too… we’ve got a bond that runs deep… no matter how far away I live or how much time passes.

And so, while the new year starts dark in Argentina and throughout Southeast Asia… to name a few… there’s always a bit of hope. For starters, looks like all is settled in Kiev. Its not much.. but at least its not violence.

Plus… I’m lovin Kalipornia.

Happy New Year friends.

Today’s Sounds: Mighty Mighty Bosstones – Live from the middle east

Dead Man Talkin

Welcome everyone, to my first installment of: I See Dead Historical Figures the series that takes my favorite historical figures who have been dead for quite awhile and asks them what they think of things. This new segment is partially inspired by the work of the Busblog, Winter of Discontent, etc., who have pushed the art of the interview to new heights.

So please welcome, 65 years after his death, Revolutionary, Freedom-Fighter, Book-writer, Military Strategist, and uniform design consultant Leon Trotsky! (applause from blog-studio audience)

BM: First of all Mr. Trotsky, thanks for coming on the blog, especially at such short notice during the holiday season.

LT: please… you will call me comrad.. and spell everything with lowercase letters, just like mr. e.e. cummings and the busblog.

BM: Very well comrad, I see you’ve kept up with developments in the literary world from the afterlife, including blogs?

LT: indeed there is much time for reading after one’s death… and you wouldn’t believe the bandwith and processor speeds we dead people get. i don’t miss a single post from green catfish, or BitchPHD; that pseudonymous kid cracks me up, and occasionally I consult your weblog.

BM: Wow. But lets get away from blogs, lets get back to mexico city, what were those last days in exile like?

LT: purple haze dear comrad… purple haze. although I had barricaded myself into my own personal prison, i had everykind of earthly pleasure my heart desired. except for indoor plumming, what a bitch that was. still, all i did was write and read newspapers… sometimes all day and night, somewhat the way you bloggers might do it.

BM: Were you surprised to have been killed the way you were?

LT: what kind of inbecile questions are these? I’m the founder of the red army for fuck sakes… if I still had body guards i’d have you removed. Perhaps in your own uneducated way, you mean, did i expect to die — yes i did. I knew that bloated bastard koba had his assasins all over mexico city looking for me. the only thing i didn’t expect is that the moron would use the blunt side of the ax. what sort of uncoordinated fool manages to use the wrong end of an ax to kill someone? ironically we still had time to chat about the plight of the proletariat world wide. idiot.

BM: Were you surprised about how the USSR ended? And the last 15 years of world politics?

LT: oh please. it was long overdue. all those bourgois oligarchs pretending to be communists, i tell you… i turned over in my grave for 50 years, it was tiring. i had always said you needed to have a world revolution if it were to really work, otherwise you get places like cuba; poor but with a decent quality of life, surrounded by capitalism, and always on the verge of collapse. too bad the country had to fall in the hands of a new generation of drunk old men and remenents of the white russian army, like putin. still.. i kind of liked that gorbachev… the time of comrad i would have been able to work with.

BM: And what about the west? Bush…terrorism.. etc.

LT: I’m not sure your weblog would have enough space. wbush reminds me of your ted roosevelt and his laughable rough-riders with their cowboy hats and every-human-for-himself philosophy. As a writer and an intellectual, I shudder everytime I hear him speak, and fear the day when he publishes a book. Even if it were a children’s book, I weep for the child that attempts to read it. Terrorism is as old as the world. It strikes me as odd the way many speak of it as a phenonmenon of this melenium.

BM: well comrad, I must be going, my parents are expecting me at their beach bungalow. Before I go… any chances of re-incarnation?

LT: You think you have it tough? I led the bolshevics to victory, and now that damn putin is repealing the 1917 revolution as a national holiday. You privelaged scoundrel, you know nothing of sufferring. As far as re-incarnation, there is a long waiting list. My number should be called in 2006, hopefully I come back somewhere in London.. the place where I actually used to have sex appeal and occasionally.. some fun.

—-

Well there you have it, a perfectly boring new segment on the blog.

Today’s Sounds: Tom Petty – Wildflowers (diggin deeper into my archives)