A Poor Man's Memory

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.


It's been too long. :)

Sorry guys, I literally lost myself in California. I was riding the waves of Dudeism down to Seal Beach, I did Vegas, I slacked my way through countless lectures - and I finally, finally, finally went over to the dark side.

The result (or cause, whichever way you view it) of those last words is sitting on my lap, gleaming and purring and spewing forth my favorite music. It is, indeed, my very own MacBook Pro. This, together with the new Wheel of Time, Ninja Neishon, some gymnastics (and injuries) caused me to be off the radar for a while. Man, I had an amazing month. Absolutely amazing.

The downside is that I'm completely drained. I faced myself in a mirror the other day and I think I even lost weight, if that's possible. Indeed, I cleansed myself of all my ambition and motivation to 'go forth and achieve' and had an utterly relaxing month, full of simple joys and hearty laughs. The stress was locked away somewhere down there, I bet, and it started nibbling away those mighty Californian walls of peace and happiness.

I now find myself alone in I-House with only deadlines ahead of me. I feel like a sailor having survived the eye of the storm, only to come out to some massive deadly waves afterwards. The waves I can handle - it's the sudden minefield that bothers me more. Yup, looming there between massive finals, plays and essays are things I dread far more than academic deadlines. One of them is called the Future, and in the current circumstances it hit me like a torpedo.

The Future politely knocked on my cabin door while I was dozing off again - dreaming of palm trees and snowboarding and such. Since we go waaay waaay back, I told it to let me chill, because I was in California. Without further questions, the Future knocked down the door and yanked me by the hair, asking me what the fuck happened to all my sweet plans and promises.

It's clear: we need relationship therapy. I'm a terrible long term planner, apparently. A day ago, I received an e-mail from my tutor about my thesis. She was correct in her review of my latest efforts to organize it, and she pointed out I had until November 30th to figure it out.

I knew this, I knew all of this. I knowingly pushed it away. And now I'm writing about it instead of actually writing it. Motivation, show yourself!



Yup. WTF!

As you might have noticed, all these pictures were taken at night. Yeah, I just checked my photo library and really, I hardly bring out my camera during the day. Hmm, 2 weeks left to make up for that.

Wait WHAT - 2 weeks? Well, in exactly 2 weeks I'll be surrounded by 30 goofballs in a bus towards Utah to hit some powder, but yes, my time in California is very rapidly coming to an end. I long to see my crazy peoples back home, but I loathe the thought of leaving all this awesomeness behind. My grief over this inevitable goodbye would be (at LEAST) cut in half if In-N-Out burgers started a franchise in Utrecht. And Den Helder. Hear my prayers, oh In-N-Out people. Please.

Well, the time has cometh for me two write this thesis application. I think I finally thought of a topic yesterday night, so no sweat. Or, as the leader of a great local religion put it: "Fuck it man. Just... Fuck it."

I'm going to get to work. If you want to know what I've truly been up to the last month, you should ask someone else, because I hardly remember. All that Ninja'ing takes a toll on the brain.

Until next time :)

Better, Faster, Stronger, HARD

BOOM!

Now this is a Halloween worth remembering, worth recording, even worth blogging about.
I'll try to cover as many details as I can - it's been a few days already...

We set out Friday, October 30th with Mr. Travis Bass. Below, a picture of Mr. Travis Bass.


Apart from Travis's passion for A Whole New World, acoustic versions of popular rap songs about sex, a fetish for green shoes and a bottomless stomach (as far as cupcakes are concerned) this dude deserves an honorable mention in this post because:

A. It was his birthday
B. He let us crash at his place for a full weekend
C. He's a fucking ninja

Thanks for the cupcakes, champagne, delicious dinner and late breakfasts!

Anyway, Friday was mainly celebrating abovementioned figure's b-day. We munched ourselves into a well-deserved food coma and went to a record store. We continued to Seal Beach, where we disobeyed the law with a passion.

Back home, we watched Paranormal Activity. If you haven't seen it yet, don't worry - it's just like a remake of the Blair Witch Project, but then set in a house... Yawn :)

We woke up around 3.. or was it 4.. PM on Saturday - just in time to suit up and get our asses to the shrine.

We arrived, and ran into some minor trouble at the entrance: the line.


It was MASSIVE. We received a few program booklets, and were pleasantly surprised to see Deadmau5 added to the line-up as a surprise DJ! But would it be worth the wait?

Well, to cut straight to the anti-climax: we got in pretty fast. So fast, that we still managed to see most of Buraka Som Sistema's awe-inspiring set. The 'traditional Portuguese' electronic bootyshaking madhouse turned LA upside down for 50 minutes. One drop two drop three drop four, the sound of Kuduro knocking at yo' door!

We switched a bit between Buraka and Shinichi Osawa - Steve Aoki's Japanese pal, another electro mastermind. Now, as far as the music of the night was concerned, I had absolutely no complaints. Major Lazer? Epic. Basement Jaxx? Insane. Justice? Jawdropping. 2manydjs? "And then I jizzed, in my..."

No - what is way more fun to write about is the audience. I mean, you read those concert reviews here and there (that song was great, that transition sucked, 'they were on cue', 'too bad the bassist was so drunk', etc.) but unless it was a truly legendary evening, one of those shows that will guarantee a loyal YouTube following for years after, you don't really care. Especially in my case: in fact, I'm just making y'all jealous :)

So, back to the matter at hand: skanky bitches.


They were everywhere. On the dancefloor, on stage, on the stairs, on the bar, on the ground, briefly in the air, on each other, in the first aid booth... Skank United came to play and they brought their whole fanclub.

Because there was no alcohol served at the event, there were a few thousand girls from 14 onwards rolling like a bowlingball down the Rockies. "Hey, are you Ian? I SAID, ARE YOU EE-ING?"

You'd only have to walk a few metres before running into another dude flashing his ravegloves to some doped up chick or dude to provide some visual orgasm of sorts.

They were sweaty and seemingly exhausted - but clearly enjoying themselves. I have never seen so many people in one place on pills, damn.

We weren't really dressed up. We just put our uniforms on. The Ninja Neishon invaded Haunted Mansion, and showed no fucking mercy.


After some 6 hours of dancing, messing with people's highs, drinking Gatorade and watching too many wiggly butts for a lifetime (I'd thought there was no limit, but I damn well found it) we decided that it was time to move out. Ninja Style, of course. Big cloud of smoke and shit. Lotta shurikens and blood. Didn't take pictures because we were too damn fast.

That about sums it up. Oh wait - we came back to Travis's place, had the first cold beers of the evening, and watched an old dvd of Mr. Bass performing the Pink Panther with his High School Drama Club. Though he is a fine actor, we passed out very quickly.

To finish, some pictures of the madness that was HARD.


If every coming party here is only half as amazing as Hard, I'll be having more fun than I could've dreamed of before coming to California. And I dreamt a fucking shitload. And then I annoyed all my friends with them. Go figure.

Thanks to all who came along, I'm ready for the next one.

//\\//

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Now playing: Funeral For A Friend - Storytelling
via FoxyTunes

We Watch The Sun Freeze

... And we're back.

Dearest readers, again, I have broken my vow. Regular updates just don't seem to fit in my binge- sorry, schedule.

Before I start another rant about Californian politics, fastfood, healthcare, comedy, consumerism, alcohol, beaches, immigrants, bboys, medicinal weed, bums, xtc, skateboards and unwanted buttsex, I'll explain the images above.

The top image shows the sickest Halloween party ever in LA. On stage: Major Lazer.

The middle image shows our old friend JR doing something with a streetlight.

The bottom one is yours truly. Attempt at dodgeball.

So whats been goin' on in SoCal? Besides the regular yadi-yadi, I've had some really memorable moments in the past two weeks. This one day, I read a book, took a shower, and, beware - I made homework.

Oh yes indeed: midterms. They hit me like a ton of bricks, and then some. I vaguely recall a weekend of hard partying after my last blog post, after that there is just a huge blur of books and essays - with the occasional random dodgeball game.

I'm sure I haven't been the only one overly exposed to this strange phenomenon we call studying, but worst came to worst, and I was forced to pull my first all-nighters. Buhu.

Of course, even with the hardcore studying, San Diego is a far cry from what one might consider boring. In between deadlines I had a fantastic dinner with JR at Outback Steakhouse, where we ate enough food to sustain a third-world country for a day or two. Then, I celebrated my studifinanciering with my new lover:

She's such a beauty.

I also made a little video, which most of you have already seen, I think. I'll put it here anyway.





I'm planning on making more videos, I'm currently in the process of collecting footage :)

Other than getting to know my longboard, indulging in steakhouses and editing video footage, I changed my flight home... The downside is that I won't see most of my Utrecht/Den Helder buddies until January.

Of course I wouldn't change my flight without a good reason, so here it comes: I'm going snowboarding in UTAH for a week with the SD Board Club, just because. Fuck yeah!

I'm running out of juice... It's 3.30 AM, we just watched Leon, and I'm dead tired. I'll post the HARD Halloween report (including crazy pictures and possibly some footage) tomorrow - promise. Really. Honestly.

Egh. My writing is getting bad. I think my brain is slowly getting accustomed to the American intellectual climate. Just as bland as the food they serve :)

No but seriously, I met some super smart people here.

They play fascinating games. I don't know whether I could explain it, but late night Long Beach time-machine thumb wrestling would be the best description.

Monsieur Milton OUT.


PS.

Jean: va te faire foutre

salope

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Now playing: Louis Armstrong - Alligator Crawl
via FoxyTunes