Tag Archives: UK

Turkey Day Marathon

Round these parts Turkey Day doesn’t mean much, and I’m quite used to it. Hell, I’m a card carrying European, so this shit is normal for me. But alas, as my m?ezinha reminded me this afternoon, this holiday is part of my culture.

So on that note, I bring you – yet another list – stuff I praise the golden calf for bringing this earth:


    – A-Ren, my nephew celebrating his first gobble gobble.

    – Amsterdam, the city she loves me, celebrating our third bird together.

    – My family, in Portugal, Brussels, and especially Jersey, who called to say they miss me, and the entire office knew it was a mom conversation even though they couldn’t understand the Portuguese.

    – Shirtsleaves in Rome, who sent me a kickass veggie-lasagne recipe for my 1-day late celebration tomorrow night.

    – XTX, cause I heart her alot, and she’s the best dam wingwoman on the blogosphere.

    – Ukrainian Demonstrators, for showing the world that they can brave harsh weather and fatigue and demand some real democracy instead of the bullshit they’re handed.

    – The internets, cause they have taught me more about who I am and what I’m capable of.

    – Tony Pierce, who’s ass just published a book, and of course, I have ordered it.

    – Ethiopia, for accepting the border/peace agreement with Eritrea, thereby ensuring my future visit.

    – Ms. Thingk, who I’m happy to be cooking with on this holiday.

    – Brian of the StateImin, Jamie of the Known U, and all the bloggers I’ve gotten to know in the past year, my blog-neighbors who I look forward to living next door to for years to come.

    – My boys in Portugal, the craziest and best support group a guy can have.

    – Marty McFly in Stockholm, for teaching me Din n?sa ?r som ett wedge ost, dina ?gon som choclat chips.* which is all I will say to charm Swedish ladies.

    – The D-Rock

    – All ye blogreaders, you’re good folk and I hope you enjoy.

Oof I just left off a ton of people that deserve to be on here. ~wink wink~ and and lest I not forget you over there, ^wink wink^.

There, now everyone feels included, and no one hates me. Except the pope, but he’s grumpy all the time.

* You nose is like a wedge of cheese, your eyes are like chocolate chips.

Today’s Sounds: RFI – A l? une

F Film Festivals

Of course I like films.. generally speaking… what other medium keeps me in my seat, in the dark, compulsively munching on shit, actually believing that I can’t go on with my life until I see Marty McFly get back safe to good ol’1984. That is… provided he gets the 1.21 gigawatts.. how could Doc have been so careless?

So of course you’d expect me, as a film lover, to be a fan of those fantastical Film festivals, like Cannes, Venice, Berlin.. and fuckin.. Sundance; guess that’s a city too. Amsterdam’s got one, the International Documentary Film something (IDFA). All the intellectuals, so basically everyone in the whole city, and their big brains- head over to see anything and everything at the IDFA. They sit in huge theaters, medium rooms, and claustrophobic broom closets, so they can see films with titles that sound like “Beep Beep; How Cars Really Feel About America” or “Leave me Alone; the wishes of a Zimbabwean youth“. And obviously many of these films are masterpieces which might never see the light of the mass audience day.

Yet as an observer of the third IDFA since I arrived in the Dam, I don’t dig the scene anymore. Since I’m lazy and last minute, I pay a fairly steep price for whatever isn’t sold out when I get there. Usually this means I wind up watching some Australian dude’s home videos from 1980. Which, while compelling in that voyeuristic kind of way, bores the shit out of me. What’s that you say? Book early BM? It’s not that bad BM? I’m not listening. Because I found the underground way to do it.

I’m so hip, that I’m at the vanguard of a new trend. Have the filmfest at your house. How? Two words: Dutch Public Television. Ok that’s three words, you’re right. Point is, they have quite a few of the HOT documentaries on their website, archived for your convenience. My favorite this week? BIG BROTHER MIDDLE EAST.

Forget what you know about the stupid reality show, this is a documentary of how they planned and prepared a version done specifically for the entire middle east. The culture clashes and questions left me dumbfounded and drooling for more. I loved the candidates who came in and sang in Arabic and danced around, and then weren’t chosen because they “might be too eccentric for the audience.” I also loved seeing the Saudi minister of Information running around the house praising the whole thing, probably envisioning the big bucks ahead. All the staff as well as the participants were from many different arab nations, and one minute you could hear the differences in culture and values, and the next you couldn’t. Fascinating. Not all of it is in English, but much of it is, and I highly recommend it.

UPDATE: In the end, the show was pulled quite early in the game. But that’s a whole other story.

Now back to the bicyclemark underground documentary festival. (budfest)

Today’s Sounds: Jimmy Eat World – Futures (wonderfully good)

Sir Yes Sir

Over the past week I’ve watched, listened, and read the testimonies. Some news media has tried to hide it, cover it up, bury it… anything to avoid making their audience feel uncomfortable. So I hope you’re sitting with a pillow propped behind you and a comfy seat cushion donut thing, cause this shit is anything but comfortable. And I promise you it ain’t funny.

Now I know you might have family. A cousin. A friend of a friend. A blogger-friend, as I do. Or an uncle’s neighbor’s daughter. There are so many people in the military, stationed in Iraq, we are all somehow connected to someone. And so we can’t possibly think badly of them. Cause how could you look at your brother or sister as anything but this person who you unconditionally love, no matter what? – But I’m blogging, so I can. 

While I continue to tape, a marine walks up to the

 other two bodies about 15 feet away, but also lying 

against the same back wall.



Then I hear him say this about one of the men:



"He's fucking faking he's dead - he's faking he's fucking dead."



Through my viewfinder I can see him raise the muzzle of his rifle

 in the direction of the wounded Iraqi. There are no sudden movements, 

no reaching or lunging.



However, the marine could legitimately believe the man poses

 some kind of danger. Maybe he's going to cover him while 

another marine searches for weapons.



Instead, he pulls the trigger. There is a small splatter against

the back wall and the man's leg slumps down.



"Well he's dead now," says another marine in the background.

Let me guess, you’ve heard this story? I have read it over and over. I listened to it. I read the letter from the cameraman who can’t sleep at night after filming it. And what I’m here to scream and shout, is that this is a crime. A war crime. And the old “They’re just following orders” didn’t work at Nuremberg, and doesn’t work now.

It’s called Jus in bello for those who made the Laws of War. For me it’s just another atrocity within a larger atrocity the world calls WAR. And whether the person pulling the trigger, to kill the man who is bleeding to death in the mosque, who had been injured, disarmed and interrogated the day before.. whether it’s my cousin or your neighbor’s neighbor… it’s a crime, and even if you’re ordered to do so, you’re not a robot, you know it’s wrong. When the order is to dispose of the bodies, to set fire to the houses, to collect all the men, to rape the women, or to round up all the Tutsi’s… there’s nothing honorable about saying “yes sir.”

And before I go, let’s not forget the forever ignored warzones in our own backyards.

Today’s Sounds: London symphony Orchestra Special on the BBC Worldservice

And I feel fine

What will the end of the world look like? I mean.. the initial day, if you look at the sky, what color and things will you see?

What I love about this city is that there is always at least one day in the week where I wake up, look outside, see giant baseballs of hale, black angry clouds, and a junky flying away on a broom, and I think: Yeah… could be today. And then I go grab a bowl of Fruit and Fiber and a banana. Cause shit, I want to start off end of the world day with a healthy breakfast.

As I was cooking my specialty last night, in honor of Jamie’s last night, we were talking about forms of government. The Netherlands is a type of constitutional monarchy, like the UK, and so the Royals handle most of the symbolic handshakes and ribbon cutting. Plus they keep the tabloids in business. On the other hand, I’m a fan of the republic system, as in Portugal, where the president is mostly symbolic and runs around like he’s everyone’s dad. Thus leaving the PM to be the national asshole; yelling in Parliament (toiletpaper… toiletpaper in our time!) and on executive decisions. We both agreed that the US system, despite being a type if republic, is a drag. The pres has to make all the photo ops and empty speeches, while presumably also handling the bill signing and vetoing, etc. In the end, spending more time on one or the other, how can he/she be good at either one? They can’t. It would nicer, at the very least, if the VP handled the executive tasks, while the pres ran around kissing babies and foreign leaders. Considering the current duo in the white house, this might -unfortunately- already be the case.

Anyhoo… there goes Jamie, off to NYC via Munich, and I didn’t even get a photo of us together. Oooh photos, have I mentioned how much I love Flickr? Mostly thanks to Jill/txt I’m spending alot of time fiddling with FLickr, and I recommend it to all of you. (how bout that photobox in my left tab, nice eh?)

Today’s Sounds: Howard Stern on WJFK (DC)

Black Actors

This subject has been floating around my atmosphere for the past week or so: racism and hate. So if you’re michael powell and seeing a woman’s ankle offends you, skip this post and consider resigning like your father, and stop HURTING the world.

The first part of this concerns the comical and potentially offensive “black petes” who do all of Dutch Santa Claus’s dirty work.(and they have weblogs!) All the newbies in Amsterdam are always shocked by this, but I am not, and that’s not what I’m here to discuss today. What interests me is how Americans react and what this reaction means:

Pardon the generalization friends, but it is most commonly Americans who have trouble seeing white people dress in black face, red lipstick, jerry-curl hair, and big gold hoop earings, in order to give candy to children who are screaming “PETE PETE PETE PETE” in adoration. Dutch people think nothing of it, they grew up with it, they’ll defend Piet’s painted black-ass to the end. Americans see it as offensive-imitating another race, and that this character is effectively a slave for old-white Sinter Klas. Of course the inevitable Piet revolution is already being televised.

But wait, there’s a part two:

During a friendly-match in Spain, against England last night, fans started chanting racist slogans towards black players like Ashley Cole and Shaun Wright-Phillips. Much like the Lazio fans in Rome are infamous for harassing the shit out of non-white players. And then FIFA comes out with all these statements about how it is unacceptable, and shocking, “in this day and age.”

Each of these stories keep resurfacing in different ways. And all I keep thinking is, does it matter? I mean, are Americans less racist because they’re so much more concerned with not doing anything overtly racist? Would Spanish or Italian fans be less racist if they showed up to matches and behaved themselves? Underneath it all, aren’t all these cultures seemingly hiding the fact that they are no further evolved then they were 50 or 100 years ago?

I suppose if I had to choose between the two, I’d rather live in a world that was only secretly racist, rather then publicly proud of its racism. But the truth is, both scenarios suck anyway. Was in not dostoevsky who said “The level of evolution of a society can be seen by the conditions at its football matches.”

One more thing that kind of sucks, but in a nice way, Jamie of the Known Universe is set to return to the people’s republic to brooklyn tomorrow. I will miss his Amsterdam blogging and his presence in the city.

Today’s Sounds: Bill Frisell – The Willies

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)