Amsterdam Fifty-Two (a): The Dutch Yosemite Sam

I spent most of the day indexing, finishing the education textbook and briefly starting on the next. I celebrated with a couple puffs of Arjan’s. I rode my bike to Bloem to have a beer and something to eat. It was late afternoon, cold again, so I wore my winter coat, scarf, and hat. I rode my bike and locked up on the rack outside of Bloem’s side door. When I entered there were two tables occupied. At the bar was a very tall black man. He was sitting on a stool in front of the beer taps. Daniel was talking with him in Dutch while keeping an eye on the tables.

Daniel saw me and waved me over to introduce me. The man’s name was Alexander. We shook hands, his hand engulfing mine almost entirely. He had an athletic build and looked like he could start as a safety or even linebacker for an NFL team. He was good-looking, had a great smile, and a booming voice. He sat back down and motioned for me to sit next to him. I took the seat and the three of us talked for a bit. Alexander was on his way home from work from his catering business. He was complaining about the laziness of the youth in Amsterdam. He said, “Ah, they all say, ‘do we really have to work? I can collect unemployment, you know?’ And the thing is, they’re right. They’re lazy because the system doesn’t reward hard work!” Alexander was animated as he talked, moving about in his seat and gesturing freely. I was fascinated because I’d had the impression that Amsterdam’s social safety net was among the world’s best. I said as much and both Alexander and Daniel responded vigorously.

“Yes, yes, no one falls through the cracks, there is no homelessness like in the U.S., but the youth take advantage and they think they are entitled to everything.” Alexander sounded like an American conservative, but I wasn’t going to argue because he was the one witnessing how his young workers responded. I asked him more about his business and his face lit up. He explained how he contracted with different businesses and whatnot. “But when I have a job and two out of the five workers don’t show up because they don’t feel like it, it reflects very badly on me. They can cost me contracts and eventually my business. But I can’t fire them because of the system!” Daniel chimed in, “In Holland you might get married on a whim, but hiring someone is a life-time commitment. It’s much easier to get a divorce in The Netherlands than it is to fire an employee. Workers hold all the clout. The red tape costs more than keeping them on the payroll.”

I considered this. I said, “Damn, are you guys hiring?” Daniel and Alexander laughed. “No, I understood your point. This would definitely discourage entrepreneurship. I’m surprised, really. This is pretty much the exact opposite of the United States. Businesses can fire just about anyone for no reason at all. There’s almost nothing an employee can do about it.” I then went on a mini-rant about how America sucks for workers while Daniel defended the United States. We went back and forth until Alex—he told me he went by either Alex and Alexander—said, “You both make good points. There should be a happy middle somewhere.” I said, “I wonder whether there is a country that has a system with a happy medium between the rights of workers and the interests of business. The United States had that between the 50s and the 70s. Unions got busted up in the 80s, though, so now corporations rule with impunity.” We went on for an hour talking macroeconomics and international business. It was a lively conversation with three mostly different viewpoints. Nevertheless, the beer flowed along with laughter.

The conversation shifted in natural course. Alex asked me about being an American living in Amsterdam, how it was working here. I explained my indexing business and how I could work anywhere. He loved this, “Ah, Daniel, I need this man’s job.” Alex asked me where I lived in the U.S. I had been asked this question a few times and when I said Madison I got blank stares. When I said Wisconsin I got vague looks. I had been telling people I lived in Chicago since I had less than a year ago. Alex said, “Ah, Chicago! A great city. So much energy! You know, I had work there once. I didn’t mention this earlier, but I do voice-overs.” As I listened to Alex talk I wasn’t surprised. “I had a meeting with Warner Brothers there many years ago and we worked out a contract. You know the movie Space Jam with Michael Jordan?” I told him yes, I remembered it. “For the Dutch version I did the voice of Yosemite Sam.” I laughed and said, “No way! Are you shitting me?!” I looked at Daniel. He smiled and nodded yes. “Have you done other voice-overs as well?” Alex said. “Oh, yes, I’ve done several for Disney, mostly in Dutch. Other production companies as well from different countries.”

Daniel mentioned Alex spoke six languages. Alex rattled them off, “Let’s see, Dutch, English, Swedish, German, French, and Spanish. Well, almost seven. I can speak some Russian but it’s not very good yet. I’m working on it.” I was amazed. Alex continued, “Yes, poor Daniel, he only speaks five languages. How he gets by in the world I don’t know.” I looked at Daniel with my eyebrows raised. “You never mentioned that.” He shrugged. “I guess not. It wasn't relevant.” Amsterdam, I swore, was filled with only multilingual speakers, possibly more per capita than anywhere else in the world. I might have been wrong about that, but it was strange to meet anyone in Amsterdam who spoke less than three languages. I said, “I’m a fucking moron, at least by Amsterdam standards. I speak English, some Spanish, and so little Dutch I may as well know nothing. I can order some food at least. Oh, and I got a wassen en knippen yesterday!” Daniel said, “I noticed that earlier, but I forgot to mention it once we got started about business. Looks good.”

I said to Alex and Daniel, “You know, I’m like the majority of Americans, maybe even slightly more advanced in that I speak some Spanish The young workers here may be lazy, but they can at least travel to some foreign countries and understand what the locals are saying. The only reason I get by so well here is because everyone speaks English.” Daniel said, “Really, it’s not so difficult to learn many languages. The second language is the most difficult, but then the others come easily. Your mind adapts to different structural aspects of languages.” Alex agreed, but I wondered if that was true. I supposed they were the experts. Daniel then shifted back to multilingualism in Holland. “In Amsterdam, yes, there are many multilingual speakers, but it’s not the same in the rural areas. And then there are the ‘traditionalists’ afraid of multiculturalism.” I remembered the drunk Dutchman who had gotten pissed off at my English. I said, “Oh, you haven’t seen anything here compared to the United States. Hell, there’s a strong bent against the speaking of any foreign language there. It’s mostly bigotry wrapped in an American flag. A lot of people want English to be the official language and even make all signs and documents ‘English-only.’ Americans don’t even realize that English is a foreign language. We use the language of the Brits while believing we invented it.”

Two customers came up to the bar to pay their bills. Daniel went to the register which was near the sink at the end of the bar and rang them up. Alex and I continued talking language and racism. When Daniel returned I ordered a chicken satay as it was one of the specials. Daniel went back to the kitchen to place the order with Dorlan. The other two customers came to pay their bills as well, but I noticed a couple more tables had filled since I had entered earlier. I had been too caught up in conversation to notice.

Daniel busied himself cleaning up their tables. Before he was finished Alex enthusiastically said, “It was a pleasure to meet you, Michael. Despite your criticisms of the United States, Americans are good people. You’re a fine example!” I hemmed and hawed as he thanked me for the good conversation. I smiled and said, "No, Alex, the pleasure was all mine. You have such a great presence, good energy. "Alex shook his head and waved a giant finger at me. “Oh, you’re a sweet talker who can’t take a compliment, eh? I’ll remember that.” He laughed heartily then said goodbye to Daniel. He rang out “Ciao!” as he left through the side door. Daniel brought me my meal and continued cleaning and organizing. As I was finishing up I asked Daniel about Alex. “Does he come in here often? You seemed to know him well.” Daniel said, “Alexander? Yeah, he lives in the neighborhood and sometimes stops by for a few beers. This is one of his places. He gets around.” Daniel laughed. “He knows everybody and everybody knows him.” I said, “It’s kind of hard to miss him. He’s huge and he’s got that booming voice. I can understand why he’s in demand for voiceovers.” Daniel agreed. “He’s a very talented man. He's a good storyteller. You have to take his yarns with a grain of salt if he's had a few. He’s always entertaining, though.”

When I finished my meal Daniel took the plate away. I ordered another beer and I mentioned business again, this time bringing up autonomism and anarchy. “Michael, now you’re going way out there.” I asked Daniel what his opinion on squatters was. “I don’t have a problem with them. If a building owner is stupid enough to leave his property vacant for a year then it may as well be occupied by someone who needs it. Obviously, the owner doesn’t.” Daniel’s views were so interesting. He could be conservative on one issue and sympathetic to anarchists on another. Socially he was definitely open-minded and liberal. On issues of economics it was mixed, unpredictable but insightful. “You recognize the difference between property rights and economics. Few seem to be able to make nuanced distinctions like that.” Daniel nodded. “I can’t say how most think, but the difference is obvious.” So nonchalant about it. I shook my head and laughed. Daniel looked up from washing glasses with a smile on his face. “What?” I looked over at him. “You’re just … you’re uniquely you.” Daniel continued smiling as he looked back down at the glass he was washing.

I mentioned to Daniel that I had met an anarchist—then I remembered I needed to check what day I was supposed to meet with Che again! Daniel said, “Really? How did you meet?” I thought about meeting her and shook my head. “That’s a funny story, actually. I had shroomed the previous night and I woke up on the Magere Brug without being able to remember how I got there.” Daniel stopped in his tracks and slowly looked over at me, clearly intrigued. I closed my eyes and nodded sheepishly, with a widening grin.

“I know, it was just, I can’t explain it. Anyway, I felt great. It was early morning, sun was shining, a nice day. I was looking around and everything seemed perfect, wonderful. I was people watching on the bridge and I saw a woman dressed in a bizarre mix of colors. On a whim, I walked up to her and alongside her, babbling to her about how intrigued I was by her, whether she was dressed that way to express herself or to make up for being a bore.” Daniel laughed. “You said that to her?” I said, “Yeah, I was just letting it fly. I didn’t know her, I figured she’d tell me to sod off, and I’d go about my day. I was just having fun, playing around. She didn’t say anything for the longest time, but she finally started smiling and I got her to laugh. After that, we started talking a little more like human beings. That was when she mentioned she was an autonomist.”

Daniel shook his head. “I did not see that coming.” He looked over, still shaking his head. “I don’t know what to say. I’m intrigued, though.” I said, “Yeah, it was a surprise to me, too. I was sort of watching myself while I was talking. Kind of weird, but that happens to me sometimes.” Daniel raised his eyebrows and gave me a sort of “Duh!” look. “Of course it does! You’re a shroom guru. You’ve got that aura about you.” I shook my head and said, more seriously, “That wasn’t always the case.” Daniel, more somberly, said, “Well, you have depth even when your playful.” Interesting. How did Daniel always know everything I discovered about myself before I did?

“We went out the next day to OT301, ate at De Peper. You know it?” Daniel nodded. Of course he knew it. The man knew everything and everyone. “It’s a great vegan spot. I’ve eaten there.” Daniel looked at me with a glint in his eye and asked, “And then?” I raised my eyebrows, took a drink of my beer, and said, “We talked for a bit outside, we kissed. She said she was going to Berlin for a while. We agreed to meet at De Peper two weeks later.” Daniel asked, “When was this?” I said, “Pretty close to two weeks ago. Shit, I had forgotten about it. I wrote it down somewhere. I'll have to look when I get home.” Daniel said, “You and an anarchist. It fits, in a way. I wouldn’t have guessed it, but hey, who knows, right?” I shrugged. “Yeah, we’ll see. I don’t know. Two different worlds even though I agree with a lot of the same principles. But she’s been living the life and she’s active in it. Whatever happens, it’ll be cool to see her again. She’s cool. Intelligent, passionate, and we share a lot of the same views. She's witty and cute, too. Doesn't hurt.” I paused for a bit. "I don't feel entirely sexual toward her, though." Daniel nodded. "That's evident. There's something there, though, right?" I said, "Yeah. Still, I'm so fascinated by her politics and the lifestyle, this squatting community, that the passion shifted to those issues. I haven't thought about it much since I last saw her." 

A customer I didn’t realize was present came downstairs and paid her bill. Daniel waved her goodbye as she left. “Tchϋss.” I turned to Daniel, “She was cute.” Daniel nodded. I said, “She was giving you a hell of a once over.” Daniel brushed it off. I had gotten so used to being around him I didn’t think about his looks, his easy self-confidence, or how women nonverbally responded to him. He definitely drew the attention of the women who came in to dine or drink. He had an air about him. I wondered about his private life.

Daniel and I talked more as I drank my beer. “You think we'll get more days like yesterday any time soon? Daniel rolled his eyes. “We’ll be lucky if we have another day like that this month.” He paused, “You never know, though. We’ve had warmer weather the past few years. When I first moved here the winters were colder than they are now, more snow, too.” My thoughts went to global climate change. Everywhere I had lived as an adult a local would tell me how much milder the winters were than they had been in the past. It had seemed to me that the Dutch were adamant environmentalists, too. I asked Daniel if that was true, He said, “Without question. You should talk to my wife about it.” Wife?! I had no idea he was married. “Whoa, wait a minute. You’re married?!” Daniel sighed and said, “Well … it’s complicated. It was a marriage of convenience, so to speak. We haven't really been together for a long time. We see other people. We’re close friends, but she’s a lesbian.” What?! “How does that work exactly?” I asked, bewildered. “Well, she wasn’t a lesbian when we got married. Or she didn’t know she was. Or … it’s complicated.” Yeah, no question.

I didn’t press any further. Daniel was comfortable talking about it, but explaining the situation seemed like heavy lifting. It amazed me how little his emotions changed talking about such subjects. The man was at peace with his life. He rolled with anything that came up. A rare quality. "What other surprises do you have up your sleeve?" Daniel looked at me slyly, “I think that’s enough for one day.” I shook my head in wonderment. “Daniel, you are an enigma wrapped in a riddle. I’m simultaneously perplexed, awed, and intrigued.”

Our conversation settled down. A few more people walked in, two small groups. I told Daniel I had probably had enough for the day. “You sure?” I said, “Well, one more won’t hurt.” I was easy. I enjoyed being with the man. He had that way about him. I was always happy when he was around. Not ecstatic, not euphoric, but relaxed, easygoing, and mildly playful. I felt ... natural. His presence had that effect. And yet, there was no sense that anything unusual was occurring most of the time. That was the beauty of it. I noticed it most often when I first arrived and when I was about to leave. When I entered Bloem, a relaxed sigh said "welcome home," and when I was about to leave, there was a pang that yelped, “Hey, why are you leaving? You're home and Daniel is here!.”

I got ready to leave around ten. As I paid, I added a nice tip. Daniel always chided me for doing so. He said, “Michael, you don’t have to tip me.” I felt embarrassed, but I said, “Yeah, but you’re working and I appreciate that.” Daniel shook his head. “What, you think I don’t appreciate your company? It's more fun when you stop by, more interesting. You’re contributing, too, you know?” I said, “I don’t think about it that way.” Daniel said, “I know you don’t. It’s refreshing.” I smiled and said, “Thank you, Daniel. Now shut up or I’m going to get sentimental.” Daniel laughed. “That’s your problem.”

In all honesty, he was my best friend in Amsterdam. I could honestly call him a friend. I did have a knack for attracting high quality individuals into my life. I was beginning to realize it wasn’t a fluke. I actually offered something of value to others. How weird. As I waved goodbye and walked outside to my bike, I felt blessed. It never ceased to amaze me how we had met. I didn’t believe in miracles, but the odds of meeting him on that particular night, given what I had been going through at that time, were astronomical. Meeting Daniel, Nina, and Anabel was far more rewarding than winning the lottery ever could be. I thought the odds that I would be invited into their lives in the ways I had been were probably incalculable . I was certainly grateful.

As I rode home I kept wondering, “Why is Daniel so … undefinable?” All I could think was, “because he’s Daniel.”

Amsterdam Fifty-One: Moonbeams and Catwalks

Sunshine, no wind, warm. I rode my bike through Vondelpark. Heaven was somewhere below me. Alive on a day like this? The world loved Amsterdam so much it gave each of us present this beautiful day. Good weather following a stretch of bad weather usually felt special. I smiled, whistled, and sang. A bout of laughter as I spied the silliness of a group dancing through the park. I experienced so many symptoms of peace that becoming a yogi by evening seemed entirely plausible.

How the park remained mostly green through the winter was a mystery to me. The lushness of color too textured for a painting, too drab for a photo. Green played like a remnant of freshness that refused to die, a cancer weakening color that by April would be in remission. Not that green dominated. Most trees were without leaves, gray more than brown. Mostly it was grass that retained the color, maybe some ivy on walls, or just a glint in my eye. It couldn’t be registered or explained by anyone who gave a damn. The only ones who knew the answers didn’t give a shit about life at all except as something to compartmentalize so that it could be erased from consideration ever again.

The sentiment that “everything you think and experience has already been thought and experienced” was believed only by those scared of living and they thrust forth the notion to vanquish the desire to live moments for their own sake, ugly attempts to funnel others down a path toward the belief that only “truly” original thoughts and experiences were worthwhile. Fatalistic nightmares of tired minds and blackened hearts spread like a plague to convince everyone to just give up, give in, stop thinking, stop creating, and stop living. Me? Let me have the green grass year after year; I promise I won’t become bored with the color no matter how unoriginal and predictable it is. Has anyone in love ever said, “I’m bored with these feelings of happiness and fulfillment; I feel wonderful all the time, absolutely thrilled to be alive and in love … oh, but it’s so unoriginal! Please, ye gods, let me feel a terror that has never before been felt.”? That’s not art; that’s stupidity.

I took Van Baerlestraat out of the park and turned on Pieter Cornelisz Hoofstraat, the swank-ass shopping street in Amsterdam. Emporio Armani. Hugo Boss. Azzuro. Gucci. Tiffany & Co. Louis Vuitton. Cartier. Marc Cain. These were companies that had philosophies. Well, they called their images and identities they wanted to project through clothing and other items philosophies, anyway. Marc Cain? "Marc Cain is a declaration of love to a woman. What kind of woman is she? She lives in the moment, is self-confident, open-minded, and curious. She loves being a woman and expresses herself by what she is wearing--naturally and as a matter of course." What the philosophy failed to mention yet was essential to it? "She is wealthy, spends money lavishly, and wants to declare to everyone, 'I am better than you.' She expresses herself through clothing because she has nothing to say. She's vacuous except for her condescension toward those who are not her.'' There were catwalks in the street of PC Hoofstraat on occasion and the runway models showed off designs to gawkers who wished they could be either as beautiful or as plastic as they were. Not all the runway models were lifeless stick figures, but when they were working they certainly were.

Despite my protestations, I had bought a Boss jacket on PC Hoofstraat in 2004, the very jacket I was wearing while riding my bike. I said, “Hey, jacket, say hello to your mother, she’s right there.”. When I'd had money I had been guilty of status-oriented materialism. It was a blip of time in my life, though, a matter of a few years ... a few years that cost me much of my soul and caused internal schisms between what I believed down deep and the surface me that really wasn't strong enough to stand on his own without giving a shit what the rest of the world thought. On the other hand, I did appreciate the high quality of the fabrics and designs. They were extraordinary and judged aesthetically without cultural or financial context they were beautiful. That jacket still looked like new and in that sense it was a good investment, not nearly as expensive as the price tag given that the style was timeless and the quality built to last. A matter of perspective as much as anything.

As I came out of the main shopping area I turned right down Hobbemastraat which curved into Paulus Potterstraat running along the Museumplein. I cut through one of the paths to Gabriel Metsustraat which curved into a new name then curved again to become Albert Cuypstraat. Fucking crazy-ass names everywhere. I was in De Pijp, a hip neighborhood south of the city center and the outer canals. I rode until I reached the Albert Cuyp Markt. I dismounted my bike and walked through the throngs of people wandering through the maze of the huge outdoor market selling everything from Indian spices to fine fabrics. It was difficult to wade through the masses with a bike so I turned down Van Der Helststraat to lock my bike. I walked back to the Markt to immerse in the bustle and browse.

The weather was perfect for a market day; clearly, everyone else thought so. Being in the midst of constant commotion electrified me. My spine tingled, a worm wiggling up and down the center of my back. The sensory stimuli carried me along: burning incense filled my nostrils, garments of every color and design shouted at my eyes, languages I did not know snaked into my ears, and bumps, slithers, slides, and pressure jockeyed my body. I was people watching while being in the midst of people watching me. A dozen eyes made contact with mine each moment. Every race and nationality presented themselves with smiles, frowns, exclamations, whispers, worry, surprise, frustration, and contentment. I was drunk on humanity.

I snuck into a tent to give my senses a break. Whew, intense. I tried to think if there was anything I wanted or needed. Nothing came to mind, but after I left the tent I saw a booth with scarves. Yes, a scarf! The wrong weather for it so maybe I could get it at a good price. I tried to haggle with the Indian fellow in the tent but I got nowhere. I spent five minutes creating numerous reasons why twenty percent should be knocked off, another minute trying to get ten percent dropped, and maybe ten seconds to save ten cents. He knew it was early February. The weather was unusually warm, maybe 60 degrees Fahrenheit. He knew damn well the cold would return soon. He finally acquiesced to a small discount as I was about to leave—there were so many other booths to visit. Still, I really liked the scarf.

Now while riding on cold, windy days I would be a bit more sheltered from the wind and cold. I draped the black wool scarf around my shoulders as I walked. The temperature disagreed with scarf-wearing, but I felt too good to care. I bumbled through the crowded lane while daydreaming about my scarf whipping in the wind while gliding down Kerkstraat. I would be the picture of the cold-weather cyclist in my black boots, black slacks, black jacket, black scarf and … I needed a black hat! I had the black lid with the yin-yang symbol, but the fabric was thin.

I kept my eyes open for a stall selling winter hats. I ran my hand over my hair and realized I needed a haircut. Well, I wanted a haircut, close to the scalp. I remembered seeing a place on Utrechtsestraat near the corner of Kerkstraat. Maybe later in the day. I kept wandering around until I saw a hat rack. I went into the stall, crammed my way inside, and found a black pull-down wool cap. I tried it on, but it didn’t fit. I tried three more until I found one that felt snug but not tight. It wasn’t expensive so I didn’t bother haggling. I walked out of the stall with hat in hand and scarf around my neck. A few beads of sweat on my forehead convinced me to remove the scarf.

The crush of humanity was wearing on me. Between the warmth of the sun and the heat of the crowd, I decided to leave. Problem: I had gotten turned around while wandering through the market. Which way was which? I made my way to the wall of a building on the sidewalk out of the street and away from the throng. From there I was able to tell which way to go. I walked back to Van Der Helststraat and saw my bike. I unlocked, wrapped the lock around the frame, and rode away. I didn’t have my trusty little backpack so I carried my hat and scarf in one hand while steering with the other. I turned right at Stadhouderskade then waited for the light to turn left at Van Woustraat across the Singelgracht to Frederiksplein. I leisurely rode through the park and came out on Utrechtsestraat. I couldn’t have planned the route better if I had known where I was going. I was following the day, the flow of traffic, and I wound up where I wanted to be. Ain’t life grand?

I pulled up to Houtman Kappers on the west side of Utrechtsestraat just north of Kerkstraat. I found a spot to lock my bike and walked inside. The salon was more upscale than I needed, but they had an opening from a cancellation and they pampered me while I was there. Expensive or not, I liked the place and the spirit of the middle-aged man and woman working. It was also convenient, just down the block and around the corner from me, too. Hell, everything just down the street and around the corner was stylish and expensive. The neighborhood did not price out cheap.

The owner, a wonderful blonde woman, gave me a wassen en knippen. I loved this word, knippen. The English translation was the inelegant cut. I wanted a knippen, damnit, not a cut! I joked with her about how much more melodic Dutch was compared to English. She seemed surprise to hear this, but I insisted that listening to Dutch without knowing what was being said sounded beautiful. The pronunciations were melodic and when the words flowed in good conversation the sing-song qualities made the language come to life. I was spoiled, perhaps, from listening to individuals like Daniel and Nina speak the language. Nina’s voice, in particular, was heavenly. I could listen to her speak Dutch endlessly. She spoke passionately and with conviction which resulted in clear enunciation. Combined with the natural tone of her voice and the melodious qualities inherent in much of the language, well, her speech enraptured me. She had a powerful presence as well, but that was true of the trio of Nina, Daniel, and Anabel. Kasper, too, spoke a lovely Dutch. Peter’s was different, but I hardly ever heard him speak Dutch because he seemed to enjoy ribbing me in English.

Simply walking down the streets or in cafes, though, I heard beautiful Dutch everywhere I went. There was some coarseness now and then, but it wasn’t the norm. Then again, I had been living and venturing in the pricier and more international areas of the city. I wasn’t sure if that made a difference or not. One thing I wanted to do was explore areas further away from the city center. With a bike I could do that, but I would wait until the weather was warmer. This day was a freak accident and the warm weather wasn’t likely to last. By the end of the month that would change.

After my knippen, I walked to Café Krom on the corner of Utrechtsestraat and Kerkstraat. I sat at a small table next to a window looking out at Utrechtsestraat. Perfect for people watching. A server came to take my order, a youngish strawberry blonde woman. I ordered a cappuccino and a Cobb salad. The server was curt and impersonal. She had features that may have made her beautiful if she had smiled. I could have said she had a “bad attitude,” but that would have been a disposition I attached to her rather than who she may have been. She turned without a word and walked off.

One thing I was noticing, though, was how the spirit of a person heightened or diminished external beauty. Movement, too, made an impression. I found this fascinating. I had likely sensed these things throughout life, but I had never been consciously attentive; I hadn't explored the phenomena. Perhaps I had withdrawn within as a defense mechanism, an emotional response to protect from possible perceived rejections or judgments. The difference now was that I was at ease with myself, I liked myself, I didn’t need external validation of my worth, and I was not emotionally invested in the reactions or judgments of others. Now I could explore why a woman who, in a photograph, dwarfed another in terms of physical beauty but in person paled in comparison to the seemingly less physically attractive person. I appreciated culturally-created (and likely internalized) physical beauty, but without a spark in physicality through facial expressions, tone of voice, gestures, or body movement, structurally beautiful women and men came across as ornaments rather than humans. Who falls in love with mannequins?

I thought of the Petty Princess. I realized the reason I had never been sexually attracted to supermodels or runway models—when walking down catwalks—was the inhuman physical demeanor. Their total lack of facial expression and the stiffness of their body movements were ugly. On the other hand, I had seen women who looked like runway models walking and biking around the area and they did not have that rigidity about them. They smiled, they were loose with their movements, and they did not appear to be aloof. It wasn’t the body type after all; it was how they were required to be while working as models. I couldn’t figure out the reason why a total absence of emotion helped make fashions more attractive. Maybe designers felt that emotion detracted from the clothing, but if that was the case why use women of a certain body type and facial features? Maybe the wealthy who paid 20,000 Euros for dresses were attracted to emotionless women. Could emotions be so distasteful? Could emotions upstage the fashions? The latter was an interesting possibility. If anyone realized emotional facial expressions and body language looked better than fabrics then the fashion industry might collapse. Heaven forbid! Whether or not women were allowed to express themselves while modeling, they came across like caricatures of beauty. Falling for a cardboard cutout suggested a fairly disturbing degree of emotional underdevelopment. What does that say about “first-world” men? Hmmm …

The disinterested one delivered my cappuccino and I watched the traffic pass by. A well-dressed middle-aged couple, man and woman, arm-in-arm, walked up and stood right in front of me on the other side of the window. I could see nothing but their waistlines. What the fuck? I looked up and they had cupped their hands to the window, trying to reduce glare and look inside. The fucking door was less than ten feet away. “Walk over and step inside, you clueless ghouls.” I was trying to enjoy myself and watch the day pass by, not stare at crotches a foot or so from my face. Geesus.

They finally moved along and fortunately did not step inside. If they had sat next to me I may have screamed. The bored woman brought my salad and I ate in earnest. I hadn’t eaten since early morning and mid-afternoon was approaching. I wished I had ordered a beer, but then I thought of the server and realized I wanted to leave immediately after I finished my salad. An espresso would have been nice, but fuck that. Time to go. I had read good reviews about Café Krom, but on this day I was unimpressed. The interior was inviting, but the waitress was not.

I left, walked down the block to unlock my bike, waved inside Houtman Kappers, and rode home. I cycled past walkers and bicyclists heading the other way. I cut to the sidewalk when a car headed toward me on the street. There was a steady stream of them so I dismounted and walked my bike the rest of the way to the crowded rack just outside my apartment. I squeezed it into a slot and locked up. I carried my hat and scarf upstairs, unlocked, and set them on the table before walking to the couch and tilting the window open, the top angling inward—it opened two different ways. I fished out a cigarette and puffed away, watching the traffic move along the street in the sunshine. Too many cars. All the pedestrians were trapped on the sidewalks and the cyclists had to jockey for position. I wished Amsterdam would just ban cars altogether. There was simply no reason for them. Maybe allow delivery vehicles, but commuters could take the trains and trams, cycle or walk. The city wasn’t perfect and maybe that was for the best. I had to want for something, after all.

I leaned away from the window after my cigarette and ran a hand over my near-shaved head. The stylist had gone as close as she could without a razor. My new aerodynamic head would undoubtedly allow me to break speed records when I cycled through the city. I went to the kitchen to drink some water then grabbed a beer out of the fridge. I guzzled about a third of it in one drink and sighed. “Damn, that was a good day.” I went back to the fridge and pulled out the doses of Hawaiian and Thai. “And it’s still going strong.”

I didn’t open the containers, though. Not quite time. I went to the bedroom and opened the windows to get a cross-breeze running through the apartment, air the place out. Who knew when it would be quite so warm again? I looked out the window at the back porch. Hmmm. Looked inviting. I went back to the living room, loaded a bud of Arjan’s into the pipe, and grabbed my lighter, smokes, the beer I was drinking, and another cold one from the fridge. I walked to the back door in the bedroom, opened it, and walked to a wicker chair with cushions padding it. There was a little table beside it with an ashtray on it. I placed my goodies down then sat. The balcony was the length of both bedrooms, the width of the apartment. There was a yard down below, quite beautifully kept by the occupant downstairs.

I looked across the way, saw a police woman having a cigarette, and waved to her. She smiled and waved back. I picked up the pipe, lit up, and exhaled. Fuck, it felt good to smoke pot in front of a cop and not have to worry about a thing. I put the pipe down and picked out a cigarette. I lit and inhaled. I looked over at the police woman again and she continued to casually smoke her cigarette. I said, “Beautiful day, isn’t it?” She yelled back, “Ja, perfect day.” I picked up my beer and took a drink, still smoking my cigarette. Sunshine, warm weather, lounging on the back porch looking up at a blue sky and over at a lovely police woman while drinking beer, smoking buds, and having a cigarette. What a beautiful fucking day.

The sun was dipping in the west. I was facing southeast and there were trees in the yards next door blocking any view in that direction. Still, the color of the sky told me there wasn’t much daylight left. The air was starting to chill a little, but, damn, it felt good. So clean, so fresh. If I could have chosen anywhere in the world to be doing anything I wanted to do, I would have chosen exactly where I was doing what I was doing. I raised a beer to the thought and finished the bottle off then opened the other.

I loved hanging out with myself. I was good company. Strange, I had been extremely social my whole life, but now I relished my time alone. Quite a shift. I still enjoyed being with others, but not exclusively now. Quality time with myself, my beer, my buds, and a slowly darkening sky on a wicker chair on a quiet back porch. My mind quieted and I simply gazed up with my head resting against the chair and my feet up on a little stool, feeling the cool breeze drift by me.

After it was dark, I took another hit off the pipe then carried everything inside, including the empty beer bottles. I went to the kitchen, made pasta and sauce, adding spices here and there. I put together a small, simple salad to go with it. I ate at the dining table, thinking of nothing, simply enjoying the food, washing it down with water. After I finished, I put the plate and pans in the dishwasher. I had a good load in there so I poured detergent into its container and started it. I had remembered to do laundry the day before so I didn’t need to worry about that any more—finally. I had also watered the plants. Responsibilities.

I went back to my computer and checked my email. I had an offer for another index due in March. I checked my schedule and decided I could do it without cutting into my balanced life. I had a bevy of PDFs on my desktop all waiting for me to do something about them. Their time would come. Nothing urgent could have sustained its urgency on this day. I went back to the kitchen and ate both doses of shrooms. I finished off the bowl of Arjan’s and loaded another for later.

I grabbed another beer then went out on the balcony. Dark now and colder air. I went back inside to put on a light jacket. I went back out to sit, smoke, and drink. The silence filled me and the light breeze lifted me. Strange to be filled by something thought of as nothing. Silence might be the most beautiful music of all. I blew a smoke ring in the air and watched it float away. This was the best moment of my entire life, watching the smoke ring drift up and up, slowly stretching apart then disintegrating. So many new moments with legitimate claims as being the best. The current moment was always awarded the prize while the other contenders smiled appreciatively. No past moment wanted to win that award; they always wanted the next moment to be better than they were.

When I finished my beer I grabbed my cigarettes and the empty before stepping inside. I wanted to go for an evening stroll so I put on my new hat. The light jacket was sufficient. I didn’t need the scarf, but as I thought that I realized I forgot to look for gloves. “Shit. Maybe tomorrow.” I wrote it down on my list and crossed off “scarf” and “hat.” I grabbed my keys, wallet, and phone. I left the windows open and went out, locking up behind me, and walked toward Utrechtsestraat. I crossed the street and kept walking on Kerkstraat, passing by the Albert Heijn on Vijzelstraat. I came upon Spiegelstraat and thought of turning to stroll there, but changed my mind.

As I kept going on Kerkstraat I passed what appeared to be a comic book shop. I looked in the small window and the place seemed loaded with rows of books and comics all the way to the back wall. It was closed but I wanted to go inside. I turned to keep walking and saw Conscious Dreams not far ahead on the other side of the street. That would serve as a good landmark to remember where the comic book store was. They might have some weird, interesting shit. As a person who had been sketching since childhood I enjoyed seeing the work of others. H.R. Giger turned me on while I was in college and, in a way, my drawing style resembled his sketches. Mine were less recognizably biomechanics, but I had similar patterns in my drawings. He had certainly influenced my drawing style. Perhaps that was why Paulette thought my sketches were so disturbing. I just admired the craftsmanship of Geiger’s art. The meanings of the content were less important to me. Pure aesthetics minus conceptualization.

The shrooms made their presence known as I neared Leidsestraat. Interestingly, I didn’t have the panic I’d had in the fall around this area even though it was crowded on this cool but inviting evening. Just as in the day, the warmer night temperatures had drawn everyone outside. I enjoyed the presence of the crowd as I turned south toward Leidseplein. There were so many faces coming and going. A few cafés had heated outdoor seating, but all the seats were filled. I ambled through the center of the square passing by individuals and groups who were passing by me. I felt my senses heightened but I gave no evidence of it. No one seemed to notice. I was just another ambler in a sea of amblers.

I kept walking toward Vondelpark. Being in the park while shrooming intrigued me. I walked the long path through what I considered “the narrow” until I passed under the Van Baerlestraat overpass. The huge park opened up. I saw the lights of the grand Nederlands Filmmuseum and simply stared at it. The lights streaked now and then whenever I moved my head or eyes. A sound often accompanied the streaks, a hissing sound like a bullet passing by my ear. I turned and walked deeper into the park, down less crowded, pebbled trails that followed along the ponds. The park was as peaceful as I was. Couples holding hands passed now and then; they enhanced the romantic aura of the park. Soft-glowing light posts along the paths lightened the dark; easy on the eyes.

I sat on a bench for a long time forgetting about everything. I forgot I had a past, that I had been alive for thirty-some-odd years, that I had once been a child, that I had gone to school, that I had been married, that I worked, that I had traveled all over Europe, the United States, parts of Canada and Mexico, that I had been to the Cuyp Markt earlier in the day, and that I had gotten a knippen. I remembered only sitting on the back balcony looking at the smoke ring floating up into the dark sky.

I was that smoke ring and after dissipating I had reconfigured myself at this spot, on this bench, looking out over a darkened pond. Silhouettes passed on distant paths and shadows snaked up from the ground. A few lights flew in arcs above me in the sky. The only sound was from the breeze and the pebbles shifting beneath my shoes. The pebbles felt like quicksand. Not dangerous, more like a pebble-sand bath that might softly brush away dead skin. I looked up in the sky and saw the glowing white orb. What was it, this round white thing, and how did it manage to become two-dimensional in a four-dimensional world? Ah, the moon. “I’m a moonbeam. I forgot! How could I have forgotten? How long since I forgot I was?” Was it important to know I was a moonbeam? Did not knowing make me less of a moonbeam? Did believing I was anything else make me something besides a moonbeam? No, how could that be? I was a moonbeam. I had just forgotten. I was relieved to remember.

After a couple hours—I assumed; there was no way of knowing—I rose and meandered further inward to the south before crossing to the other side of the park. A most peaceful night to end a beautiful day. I took the walkway up to Van Baerlestraat and followed the route I took on my bike earlier. It was interesting to see the same sights in the dark while shrooming. They weren’t the same at all. I walked down PC Hoofstraat, enjoying the lit-up window displays. Orange was a prominent color and I noticed the clean, sharp lines in the designs of the display backdrops. The design trend was still bold and bright colors with orange playing an especially prominent roledominating. It was the national Dutch color, but I didn’t think that was a factor. Some renowned and influential designer likely had declared orange was the color of the season and everyone who believed they were anyone followed suit. Angles and geometric shapes—abstracts—were prevalent as well. Clean was the word that came to mind. I noticed a favoring for uniformity of color rather than gradations or color mixes. Simplicity through color offset by the complexity of angles and curves. I thought of my sketches, but my work was busier than what I was seeing. Simplicity here. Fewer lines and curves placed for three-dimensional effect. I tried to figure out the purpose but there was nothing being said conceptually. The designs pleased the eye. If they had a purpose that was it. Attract the eye, the attention of the viewer, and attract passersby to transform them into consumers.

I thought about this and realized the design was saying, “I am mysteriously beautiful but beyond the mind of the simple. If you are attracted to me then you are worthy of the quality of the wares inside. You are hip, you are trendy, and you deserve to be associated with me. Come, come and join the Versace universe and be admired by lesser beings while being in the presence of others as exclusively moneyed as yourself.” I thought it was an effective sales pitch, much more effective than words would have been. My shrooming eyes were impressed. “How wonderful to be able to see all of that without having to pay a penny.”

I walked onward to the busy Stadhouderskade and flinched at the noise of the busy vehicular traffic. “Such rudeness!” I felt no anxiety just a vile distaste for the stink of the sounds. I walked on and wondered at the majesty of the Rijksmuseum. A massive rectangular spaceship had landed in the middle of the city and “ohmed” its presence outward in all directions. “I am here. Worship me and be healed.” I laughed at it then bowed. “You are magnificent, oh great one. Continue your omnipresence and I shall pass with reverence.” I crossed the Stadhouderskade and walked to Spiegelstraat. I passed more lovers holding hands. Some cyclists whizzed by me from behind. I liked all of it. I admired the lighting of Spiegelstraat, as I always did, but it was getting colder so I aimed to walk home. My legs were tired after such a long day and night of cycling and walking.

Kerkstraat was busy with pedestrians, cyclists, and motor scooters. There was a car now and then as well. I was getting tired of the hubbub. The cacophony thinned a little past Albert Heijn on Vijzelstraat. I stopped at the park next to Amstelveld to sit on a bench and stretch my legs. The shrooms kicked up a notch. My legs felt a million miles long while also bulging like boulders. I didn’t sit long—I didn’t want to take the chance of a weird-out so close to home. I got up and continued down Kerkstraat, now slightly freaked by cyclists and pedestrians. “Are they looking at me? What are they saying about me? Are they speaking Dutch? Why does it sound like they are uttering word scribbles? They could be aliens dressed in Dutch disguises. They’re saying, 'Srcbbchf iffhrt desjdu ghidoskwe.' What could that mean? Why are their eyes the size of bicycle wheels and filled with moonlight?’ Oh, yes, the moon! I had forgotten about the moon at Vondelpark. Ah, they were completely normal folks who happened to be moonbeams like me, remnants of smoke rings, dawdles on a shring shring.

I finally arrived home. I looked at my watch, but it made no sense. “How could that represent anything meaningful? Ridiculous.” I took off my coat and hat then closed all the windows. I went to the fridge and grabbed a bottle of sparkling water. I downed it in three gulps. I poured water from the tap into the bottle and drank that as well. I went to the living room, sat down on the fuzzy rug, and began sketching to give my mind something to do besides think.

I drew for some time before getting up to get more water. I grabbed the last beer out of the fridge and went to the window in the living room to smoke a cigarette. There weren’t many people passing by. The shrooms had mellowed, but even after they had tuned my identity out of existence I felt chill. With each passing day I was changing, becoming more at peace with myself. I loved the city and it was changing me, too. I blew a smoke ring out the window, watching myself float in the air and disappear. “I’ll be back again, existing somewhere else as something else.” I felt this was always how things had been. I let the feeling be.

After my cigarette I closed the window, went to the bathroom, brushed my teeth, and washed my face. I went to the bedroom, stripped down to boxers, got into bed, and pulled the covers up to my neck. I watched the ceiling, mostly dark except for the glow of the soft light coming from me, the moonbeam.

Amsterdam Fifty: Design of Contextual Thought

Even the slow days, those that seemed less eventful perhaps because I was indexing many hours, still had their virtues. Indexing was an autonomous act. I chose to do it; it had not been thrust upon me. Decision making power tasted of ripened fruit, apricots rather than mangoes, but only because I chose to eat apricots.

Slow days had been absent this visit; every day had been full. Few moments spread out toward an endless horizon of thoughtless waste. My quiet moments watched the rain; I savored those moments. Rain-watching created a mixture of relaxation and serenity. I saved reflection for ceiling gazing and contemplation for pacing. Indexing never bored, either. The complexity of thought required intense concentration and focus. Sitting for hours building intersecting webs of thought while keeping the growing structure balanced exercised my abilities for constructing coherent complexes of thought. Indexing thought formations needed cohesiveness and flexibility to accommodate the constant march of new information.

Once I had become proficient as an indexer, I saw patterns emerging earlier and earlier in every book. The subtlest of contextual clues shouted at me, “This is what’s coming; the concepts are going to build and then circle back around to close the loop of this idea while introducing the next round of concepts.” Even the more complex critiques for graduate studies began reading like familiar articles in the “life and leisure” sections of newspapers. The same concepts and buzz words rose up again and again, differing only from discipline to discipline: Gender studies, international relations, political philosophy, economics, psychology, geography, marketing, information management, law, physics, and more across the spectrum of academic studies. Each academic discipline attempted to define how things were and how they could or should be.

Language is language, its use intended to satisfy an agenda in a particular way for specific audiences. Research for graduate studies in international relations was written in a radically different style than an introductory sociology textbook written for undergraduates; biographies and trade books also differed in style and structure. After thirteen years of indexing, these differing “audience genres” fit into easily identifiable structures and patterns, similar concepts, familiar paradigms. I wondered if new thoughts ever emerged in certain fields; in others, the rapidity of research development and new discoveries amazed me.

The two disciplines I indexed most often? Early childhood development and educational theory. Out of all the academic disciplines I indexed, I noticed more radical changes in thought and theory in these fields. Discoveries about healthy development and learning (lifelong) obliterated many of the ideas and practices that had been prevalent during my K-12 education. I learned about how I had been fucked up by the educational system by indexing these books over the years—though shrooms were proving that life-altering discoveries could be made at the speed of light.

I learned indexing then I learned by indexing. Deadlines transformed the learning into work, though. I couldn’t always take the time I wanted to build a work of art and transform my thought in the process. The books about education and development were the most fascinating. The subjects were rich, the discoveries mind-blowing. More and more and more, play was being recognized not just as essential to health but to learning—not just for children, either. The seriousness of the world, from sitting behind desks as children to sitting in cubicles or offices behind computers as adults, had crippled human development and learning. The old relied on repetitive movements and thoughts while the new of learning and development theories advocated diverse and creative thoughts and movements. Views on emotions, too, had changed. In the past, showing or expressing emotions had been considered detrimental in education or work (except for certain types of education and work). The new research, though, insisted that emotional involvement in learning and work benefited the individual and resulted in higher quality learning and increased productivity.

So many workplaces either deadened emotions or created frazzled stress. It was as true for outdoor jobs as indoor jobs. Across the board? No. Just for the majority of jobs, the majority of workers—not persons who worked but workers. Soul-crushing, no-fun, stress-inducing, hellish work … with little job security.

The schools had been as bad. Sitting in desks in rows or circles, assignments that bored more than enlivened, practicing math equations and formulas endlessly for reasons that would never become clear unless one pursued a degree in mathematics or computer science, writing essays about subjects that had little connection to reality—yet—for most K-12 students, and trying to figure out why knowing the difference between meiosis and mitosis mattered? The subjects were not the problem so much as the methods and the settings. The educational research suggested that authentic learning, the type of learning that would become part of a person’s way of thinking, feeling, and acting, was possible only if the observation, study, and practice within any field felt personally meaningful and allowed interpersonal connections that eliminated (or at least diminished) separation and alienation.

That meant entirely reconfiguring the education system. Not just the governmental institutions and the schools, not just the administrators and teachers, but the methods and settings. Diversity, variety, endless possibilities for awe and wonder. To optimize personal health and learning potential in the United States, education would require an annual investment equal to that of the U.S. Department of Defense. As book after book indicated, though, political priorities dictated whether research would be effectively implemented. I indexed a number of educational policy books and knew well the problems facing the education system in the United States. The Department of Defense presented the biggest obstacle.

On the other hand, the case studies from countries like The Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, and others were surprising and inspiring. Play-centered education had become a reality in many communities in northern Europe. School settings were being designed based on the latest and most reliable research as well. Then again, those countries spent a much larger percentage of their annual government budgets on education; half their annual budgets weren’t wasted on military spending.

The new book I had begun indexing in the morning was an undergraduate textbook on early childhood education. I spent most of the day working on it. I worked at a fast pace because little was new to me. Every idea unfolded in front of me like an old friend. “Hello, Montessori. Good to see you again. Yes, I know what you have to say. I’m mapping the concepts as we speak. Take care and say hello to the kids for me. Toodles. Oh, Mr. Vygotsky and Mr. Piaget, fancy meeting the two of you here. That only happens in every undergraduate education textbook that has a few chapters devoted to the history of education. I see you’re both telling the same old yarns as you always do. Good to know your ideas haven’t changed since you died.”

Indexing the same material over and over again was never tedious, though, because I could fly through the text due to familiarity. I made five times more money on undergraduate textbooks compared to graduate-level texts because of this. I loved the mix: the undergrad textbooks and trade books allowed me to make good money and the texts for graduate students challenged my mind and allowed me to learn far more complex ideas. Taken together, I had been paid well for a thirteen-year liberal arts education. Why would I pay tuition when universities were willing to pay me to learn?

The knowledge I gleaned helped me build a better understanding of the world and my meager place within it. But what I truly valued were the thinking processes I learned and used while indexing. From contextual thinking to analytical thought, I honed my skills. The knowledge gained through content operated as variables for use in puzzle solving—not problem solving but puzzle solving. I could go into any grocery store, walk up and down each aisle as well as the checkout counter, and tell anyone how international relations, economics, political philosophy, marketing, advertising, cultural studies, biology, mining practices, manufacturing, distribution, labor relations, management practices, financial markets, chemistry, anthropology, sociology, linguistics, agriculture, environmental studies, immigration, construction principles, interior design, architecture, psychology, history, and much, much more fit together to result in every square centimeter of surface space.

I increasingly applied my contextual thinking skills in real-world situations, making associations between seemingly unrelated objects, persons, institutions, processes, places, and times. The information was physically evident, known variables in the global puzzle of civilization and natural history. I didn’t need to go to China to see the manufacturing of a bottle of shampoo; that was a variable evident in an aisle of a grocery store. I knew the whole damn process from the political and economic conditions that allowed the mining of materials that were shipped to refineries then delivered to factories to be manufactured into computer chips, Barbie dolls, or plastic shampoo bottles by technology (made in much the same way at different factories after having been mined and refined through similar processes) and workers (who were all but owned by management in many of the countries of manufacture) then sold through contracts to multinational corporations such as General Mills, Nestle, or Samsung--each of the corporations with relations to various governments and other corporations throughout the world--that shipped, through other corporations, the products to various destinations for regional and local storage, distribution, and sale.

On and on it went. The story of a single can of Campbell’s soup would require hundreds of books. The cheap metal shelving that the soup cans sat on at the grocery store? Hundreds of books as well, much of the same information telling different parts of the stories about each product, each object. There wasn’t a need to know every detail, though. The gaps could be filled through context if a person could see the patterns using a limited number of known variables. Contextual thinking was its own type of mathematics for me. Variables were required, but the more complex and comprehensive my internal thought web (“formula”) the fewer variables required to put together the puzzle. Understanding how intelligence agencies and militaries operated was as important in understanding a grocery store’s creation as the local company that installed the dry wall—more important, to be truthful.

Learning all of this came not simply through indexing. I was curious about how the world worked, how civilization, in particular, developed and functioned. I read, studied, and explored other writings, observed institutional and cultural processes in the real world, and discussed with others nuances of thought, design, process, and function. The spark of my curiosity had been ignited by moving from Iowa to Arizona when I was ten years old. A John Deere factory laid off thousands of workers in Waterloo, Iowa, in the early 1980s. My father had a floor installation business and a city that had a population of 100,000 in 1980 had only 66,000 by 1990. The layoffs had a ripple effect debilitating myriad businesses that had a co-dependent relationship with the corporation, either directly or indirectly. The real estate market collapsed, companies providing home improvement products and services (such as my father’s) took a hit, and so on. The tax base dwindled and schools closed as a third of the community fled for jobs elsewhere because a mammoth international corporation eviscerated jobs. The company had been profitable when it laid off the union workers, but it wanted even greater profits—like an impetuous toddler shouting “Mine!” after claiming all but one toy in the room—even though its actions resulted in an entire community being ripped apart.

As a child and teenager, I was sickened as I learned more details about this heinous act. My introduction to the reality that human interests were meaningless in relation to corporate interests devastated me. Why so few understood that this was the beginning of a dangerous trend baffled me. I was merely a teenager and yet I could see more clearly than most of the adults around me. The same thing that happened to Waterloo was happening across the country: communities being decimated by corporate shakeups and mass migrations of peoples from state to state. When anyone decried the decline in values in America I said, “Well, yeah, the communities where everyone grew up and knew everyone for generations were destroyed so the relationships that forged and maintained those values no longer exist. This makes it easier for corporations to pick off masses of individuals regrouped in different environments who don’t know each other, trust one another, or share similar interests. Who is going to put their jobs or lives on the line for co-workers or others in the community after experiencing the precariousness of their own financial viability? Their neighbors and co-workers are essentially foreigners to them, perhaps even another species.” Explanations like that fell on deaf ears or somehow were interpreted as anti-Americanism or communism. I couldn't fathom how others thought, but they came across as morons incapable of understanding simple differences between rocks and plants. Indeed, a different species.

A seminal moment in childhood directed the focus of my attention throughout life. I wasn’t exclusively looking for answers, trying to build a framework to understand how such insane practices failed to elicit even a modicum of outrage from nearly everyone I knew or met. That happened organically, over time, a variable here and there would pop up and I would snatch it, examine it, try to place it here, no there, ah, right there, and then I would step back and see how this design was shaping up. Over time it became evident that the spiraling process of learning created an ever-expanding sphere. Variables appeared as orbiting objects being sucked in by the gravity of my thought. I began seeing the unknown variables just as clearly as the known variables. The design was proving to be well-constructed after more than two decades of thought. There had been fits and starts, mistakes made, but the design eventually managed itself without much need for conscious direction. The thought processes knew how to incorporate new information into the whole. The design was a mind of its own, a mind within my mind.

All of these thoughts came as I indexed the early childhood education book throughout the morning and afternoon. On this slow, simple day, I watched my mind at work. My thoughts while indexing such a familiar book were allowed to roam wild—another benefit to indexing a familiar subject matter. I could work while thinking about all manner of ideas while also playing within my imagination. I liked being able to do that. I wondered if anyone thought like that, if others had several thought processes operating concurrently, mixing together to make a more complex design before separating into entirely new modes of thought. Did others have internal thought-strings twirling round and round making beautiful designs even as each string remained intact as a distinguishable entity? Did they watch those strings of thought unwind while sitting back as an observer, a spectator, fascinated by the show the mind was performing? Probably another reason I had forgotten about my body more often than not; my mind was fascinated by itself. “Wow, this is what I am? Oh, and that, too? You’ve got to be kidding me? I’m thinking that right now as well? Ha! Oh my god, they have nothing to do with one another! Oh, oh, oh, wait, yes, I see, they do. Holy shit, that was awesome. Incredible how they all tied together into a cohesive, heartwarming design. It’s so beautiful … so beautiful.”

It wasn’t unusual for me to cry with joy while seeing inner visions of thought. Perhaps mystics experienced the same thing. I didn’t know. I simply thought, “This is what happens when I allow myself to observe my thought.” I felt ecstasy during the experiences, but I didn’t think they were supernatural or anything like that. They happened to me in the natural flow of thought and feeling, another way of experiencing life, as natural and commonplace as anger and comparative thinking.

I continued allowing my thoughts to roam while devouring experimental learning theory. I thought about how and why I had tuned out current events over the previous years. I knew the patterns. I didn’t need to know specifics. I recognized corporate “journalism” as the charade it was. There was plenty to learn from the way events were covered as long as I identified the distortions resulting from persuasive or narrative writing or telling within specific contexts while recognizing that these were attempts, however fumbling, to pass as objective analysis or a report presenting facts.

I accurately predicted the following four years during the morning of the 9/11 attacks. As I watched the towers falling again and again before noon that day, I knew the Bush administration was going to use the attack as an excuse to limit civil liberties, allow greater institutional invasions of privacy, ramp up defense and intelligence spending, and figure out a way to attack Iraq. I had read the neoconservative doctrine created by Rumsfeld, Rice, Cheney, Wolfowitz, and others in the 1990s, an agenda prompted by what they conceived as the failings of the Persian Gulf War. I knew their domestic and foreign policy interests and that they formed the core of Bush’s cabinet. I knew oil, telecommunications, and infrastructure companies had the most to gain from increased defense spending and war, I knew private contractors would be used to complement law enforcement, the military, and the intelligence agencies, I knew connections between 9/11 and Iraq would be made whether they were true or not. The Bush administration had been looking for any possible excuse to get troops on the ground in the Middle East to rebuild infrastructure and create a pathway for corporate control of the country and region. They also would attempt to manipulate the media and thus the public to gain political license to implement nearly every legislative and policy initiative they laid out as part of their vision for the future. Iraq would be an easy sell because the vilification of Saddam by the government through the media had been continuous for over a decade. No matter who had flown the planes into the Twin Towers, Saddam was going to be blamed in some way.

It was maddening to watch it all unfold over the following years and I was disgusted by the majority of Americans who were so easily manipulated. Their minds were pudding, gooey brain juice that had lost all power to put facts together in any coherent way. They didn’t understand their emotions, they didn’t recognize motivations for specific actions, and they couldn’t tell that they were being maneuvered like pawns in a game of political chess. Absent the ability to think for themselves, they allowed “news” sensationalists to tell them what to think and how to feel; they gorged themselves on anything that gave their emotions a satisfying jolt, any target to direct their futile fear and anger. The public wanted someone to blame, a scapegoat, didn’t matter who just as long as the target was presented as evil incarnate. There was too much fear and hate for ambiguity or subtlety. Truth didn’t matter. Even the best of minds didn’t seem to be able to recognize the orchestration of a new American identity crafted by masterful media storytellers such as Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and others. Noam Chomsky, Robert Fisk, and a few other true thinkers and journalists who had been following foreign affairs and domestic matters for decades identified what was occurring, but their perspectives rarely saw the light of day in the U.S. media. When they were mentioned they were demonized by talking heads as well as so-called panel discussions made up almost entirely of militarized zealots.

Contextual thinking made life better and worse for me. Worse because I could see what was happening without any power to change it; better because it gave me a rush to be able to see what so few others were capable or willing to see. I felt a sense of intense awe for having created a mind capable of developing a web of innumerable links detailing how each phase of the political process unfolded; while I detested what was occurring I was also deeply impressed by the Bush administration’s understanding of how to manipulate and control the narrative they needed to justify heinous actions. Genius is genius and I appreciated watching a relatively small group of men and women convincingly present a history that didn’t match reality at all, doing it all in the light of day, right under the noses of a public as narrow-minded and pudding-brained as proletariat and middle-classed Germans of the 1930s.

Even the worst aspects of humanity were magnificent in the sense that they fit within the design I had created. I was being proven correct by the events that unfolded, confirming that my living framework of the relational functioning of the world was powerful in predictive capacity and extraordinarily well-designed. I could touch any link and watch the coils squirm, the sphere jiggle, and I would have an answer to any question I might ask. I could make the ball bounce just by connecting an international occurrence to a cultural studies theory or I could make the globe pulse by surrounding the way a mother talked to her child in public with a multitude of early childhood development and learning theories. I simultaneously felt sorrow and euphoria observing the orb in action.

Over time, I learned to become less emotionally invested in outcomes so that I could appreciate the process. Even violence became beautiful. Violence in and of itself was not beautiful; however, within the context of the spiraling of the puzzle coming together, violence provided evidence that the design was accurate and useful. I lived in a world that had sold itself out, a single person in a planet of seven billion, but being able to see the process and design filled me with awe. It was no less spectacular, for me, than it might have been discovering that the world was not flat or that the Earth rotated around the sun. I wasn’t always in that state of awareness and observation, though. If I could have stopped the violence I would have. Other than my own fascination with being able to see the past, present, and future all at once, I’d had nowhere to go with this ability.

As the afternoon became early evening and I tired of indexing, I realized I had been applying these abilities in a different way the prior three months. Instead of using the powers to figure out the world, I was using them to discover me. For some reason, it took the shrooms to make this monumental shift. Maybe not entirely; deciding to come to Amsterdam was the catalyst and shrooms had nothing to do with that. Since the rest of the world didn’t care about the gifts I was capable of giving I finally made the wise choice to give them to myself. I started off building the design to change the world, but as Foucault had figured out long ago, persons did not change the course of events in the world; discourses of knowledge-creation and dissemination did. In the contemporary world, that meant institutionally-sanctioned and distributed messages, whether in academics, politics, economics, governance, social mores and norms, or any other environment of society. Why it took as long as it did to figure this out, I wasn’t sure. But now that I had, I focused on my own development and the relationships I could make personally on an everyday basis. In other words, live my life.

I was more than halfway through the book I was indexing and I needed a break. I was way ahead of schedule. Prentice Hall could wait. I was pretty much out of Super Lemon so I ground Northern Lights No. 5 into the bat from my dugout and took a hit. I stretched for about fifteen minutes then made pasta and opened the bottle of wine. After I ate I poured another glass and had a cigarette, thinking of nothing as I watched the street outside. The slow day continued to unfold. I ground more ganja into the bat and burned another hit. My body and mind relaxed as I listened to a smooth jazz station. Around eight I put on my hat, coat, and shoes, grabbed my wallet and keys, and walked to Greenhouse. Felt good to be outside even with the cold sprinkling of rain.

I bought four grams of Arjan’s Ultra Haze #2 and spent heavily on a gram of Bubble Mania hash—65 Euros. I went outside and sat on a bench, breaking off a small chunk of the hash to put into my dugout. I took a hit and used the lighter to watch the reflection of the orange glow. I sucked and sucked and sucked. I could barely feel any smoke entering my lungs, but when I stopped and finally exhaled a huge cloud poured out. I felt instantly alert, euphoric, and gratified. The extraordinarily high THC content was evident; few of the other byproducts from buds were present, the type that create the stony effects from smoking pot. The divinity of good hash. Well worth the cost.

I walked back to the apartment debating whether to shroom. When I walked inside, took off my coat, hat, and shoes, I decided against it. The work and thought of the day had tired me. I wanted to enjoy the effects of the hash, stretch, listen to music, and continue reading Kafka on the Shore. A day off from shrooming sounded good. The day had been slow and easy, uneventful except for thought. Tomorrow would be today soon enough.

Obama Response to CIA Torture Report

From an ABC news report http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/cia-torture-report-stunning-findings/story?id=27473273">: "Zubaydah spent a total of 266 hours in a 'large confinement box' that looked like a 'coffin.' He spent an additional 29 hours in an even smaller box, which was 21 inches wide, 2.5 feet deep, and 2.5 feet tall."

CIA interrogators reportedly told Zubaydah "that the only way he would leave the facility was in the coffin-shaped confinement box."

This is the torture technique that jumped out at me.

Obama's response?

"One of the things that sets us apart from other countries is that when we make mistakes, we admit them." 

May as well have said, "One thing that sets us apart from Nazi Germany is that we don't have concentration camps." Yeah, apologize for torture by saying "We're not as bad as other countries, you know? Like, we could have been even more gruesome and brutal than we were, but we weren't. And we admitted our mistakes about a decade after they were made. That's a timely response compared to waiting a hundred years, right? Heck, I've only known about this for about seven years. Besides, putting a person in a box for 266 hours to make him feel like he's being buried alive is a mistake anyone could make. It's a mistake, for crying out loud. What, you've never made mistakes? Come on, the guy was trapped in a box for eleven days. How bad could that be? It was a mistake, an accident, a slip-up, a gaffe. You trip and spill coffee all over the rug? Mistake! Put a guy in a coffin for days? Mistake! Everybody screws up now and then. Let's try to keep things in perspective, okay?

Basically what I'm saying is that if you put your grandmother into a coffin and nailed the lid shut for a long time, it's just, you know, a mistake anyone could make. Why would criminal charges be filed against you for doing something like that? Do that a couple dozen times, though, and I might start thinking, 'Gee, maybe this isn't a mistake; maybe this is being done on purpose.' But then I would take a deep breath and remind myself that, no, shit happens. I can't tell you how many times I've put Michelle in a coffin-like box. She'll be screaming bloody hell and I'll say, 'Come on, honey, how many times have you fooled me with pleas for your life? Ha ha ha!' A day later I'll think, 'Oh, crap, I trapped my wife in a coffin and threatened to bury her alive!' When I let her out she just sighs and says, 'Mistakes will be made. Oopsy daisy.'

You know, the more I think about it, being trapped in a box builds character. It's a test of will power, a way to learn how to be patient and disciplined. Panicking, believing you're going to die, feeling claustrophobic and suffocated, freaking out when bugs are put in the box with you, those are fears everybody needs to overcome in order to live a better life. Now, personally, I have never been trapped in a box. But I haven't needed to be. I know being trapped in a box isn't as bad as it's being made out to be. How? Because I imagined what it would be like and realized, 'Hey, somebody probably made a mistake putting me in here. They'll let me out when they realize their gaffe.' Would I remain upset about it afterward? No. I'd laugh it off and go out to have a beer with the guy who messed up. Long-term psychological damage? Of course not. If anything, I'd be stronger from having the experience, humbled even. Who doesn't need a lesson in humility at times?

The deeper I get into the issue, I realize that the CIA gave those Arabs a gift. By releasing the report, we're giving the world a gift. We're saying boldly, 'We make mistakes. We're not perfect. Don't hold it against us and we won't hold your mistakes against you!' Whoa, um, no, that last part, that's not exactly true. You know what that was? A mistake on my part. I made a mistake saying that. See, mistakes happen. What I meant to say to the world was 'Don't hold our mistakes against us and we will try not to make mistakes again in the future.' Try, we'll try. Who is perfect 100 percent of the time. I know I'm not. You? Nope, didn't think so. I have accidentally made my daughters stand for days on broken ankles without sleep. I feel horrible about that. Should I be prosecuted and sent to prison if convicted? No! Dear Lord, if we punished everyone for making silly mistakes like that there'd be a couple million people in prison. Oh, well, hmmm ...

The point I'm trying to make is that if you threaten to drill a hole into a guy's kneecap while you've got him tied up against a freezing wall without any clothes it should be recognized that you're not committing a crime; you're making a mistake! Did you dunk someone's head into a tub of water 120 times in a few hours, holding her down for a minute each time, while threatening to drown her every time you pulled her head out? When I was growing up we called that 'horse play.' Yes, sometimes the hijinks get a little out of hand, but kids will be kids. And what is a CIA agent if not an overgrown kid? Sure, maybe he used to be the bully who lived down the block who kicked your dog, wrecked your bike, punched you in the stomach as hard as he could several times each day for four years, and held you down to make you lick a cat's asshole once a week during the duration of your childhood. But he's just a kid and kids make mistakes. The kids that make mistakes like that grow up and they either wind up in prison for rape and murder or, well, they work for the CIA. Luck of the draw, I guess.

Bottom line, rectal feeding is probably more the result of poor eyesight than a malicious act of anal rape. My sight's not perfect, either. I can't tell you how many times I accidentally fed my daughters baby food through their assholes when they were infants. I'd say 'here comes the choo choo, whoo whoo,' and then I'd shove a baby spoon up their sphincter. Yeah, they'd scream and I'd look over sheepishly at Michelle. She'd be shaking her head and rolling her eyes with her hand out saying, 'Give me the spoon, Barack. Geesh, I can't trust you to do anything right.' Then we'd laugh and I'd give her a kiss, missing her mouth by a few feet as I somehow wound up on my knees behind her shoving my face up her butt. It's just, I mean, shit happens. Pun intended! Ha ha ha! Ah, mistakes are funny. Torture, yeah right! Ha ha ha!

The guests at the CIA resorts who accidentally got boo-boos on their knees were actually quite lucky. How many Americans have ever gotten so much attention from their own government? These guys had tons of government employees around them 24/7 for months and even years. Quite fortunate to spend quality time like that with the fine men and women of the CIA. Can we really call hallucinations, paranoia, and insomnia the results of torture? Sounds to me like they dropped LSD and were having bad trips. It's a damn good thing the CIA was there to comfort them in their time of need.

The more I talk about this the angrier I get that the CIA is being vilified.  These are good men and women. Patriots, for crissakes! They made mistakes, but, gosh darnit, there's no use crying over spilled milk. I will not be pressured into calling for the prosecution of CIA interrogators or the parties in the Bush Administration who gave the okay for these mistakes! In fact, I'm going to give out medals to these folks. I'm even going to give myself a medal for acknowledging that mistakes have been made. I had nothing to do with the mistakes being released to the public, but I am, now, after seven years of silence, acknowledging that mistakes were made. I don't know about you, but I'm patting myself on the back for being so courageous. I'm not a weak man. I stand up for what's right, for my beliefs! I believe what people are calling torture are mistakes and I believe admitting that mistakes were made is courageous and worthy of being awarded a medal.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to lock Michelle in a box.