Amster-daaamn!


My days of smoking copius amounts of pot as if it was pure oxygen have been a distant memory for a good 10 years now. At the time, it was like losing a really good friend that you used to have an amazing time with, staring at the sky, tasting amazing food and of course making incredible mixed tapes for all those girls you had massive crushes on. Oh, those girls! I still love 'em all, really, I do! Anyway, for some reason that great awesome friend decides to turn on you and fill your head full of paranoid thoughts about life, death, insecurities and self doubt. So I happily left it all behind except for the occassional moment with "actual" good friends, or in this case a trip to Amsterdam. What an amazing place this is. Amsterdam is a bastion of progressive culture that I fully support but question at the same time. This is a city that lets human beings be just that, human. The rest of the world puts so much money, time and energy into judging and legislating human morality. It is an uphill battle that will never be won.

I am no anarchist; I am a definite fan of some sort of order in my world. I would be lost without order. The problems lie in trying to keep human beings from being what they are. It's like trying to tell a cat to stop clawing the f'ing couch! You can lay down the law all you want, spray them with water and clap your hands and yell like an idiot forever, but the cat will always try and claw the couch. Why? Because he is a cat! So what do you do about it, you give the cat a scratching post and say "Here! I'll give you a place to scratch, just stop ruining the goddamn furniture!" People do all sorts of things that we either like or don't like, drugs and sex seem to be the big offenders. So Amsterdam is the proverbial human scratching post.

The thing about Amsterdam is that it is not a "no holds barred" free for all of debauchery. It is a regulated industry and regulation has successfully reduced the criminal activity that is so often associated with drugs and the sex industry. You need to look at the actual statistics to see the huge difference between what the U.S. and other countries do as compared to the Netherlands. Things have been changing slowly for the better in the U.S. lately with medical marijuana laws in certain states. Marijuana's impact is considerably less than the massive damage that alcohol wreaks on populations around the world. It's politics, money and control, that is not my paranoid opinion on the subject, it's the facts, plain and simple.
Jack Herer's "The Emperor Wears No Clothes" is an extremely informative book about the history of cannabis and hemp and the politics that led up to its eventual prohibition. Whether you approve or not doesn't matter, it's about having the facts to base what ever opinions you may have on, the same goes for absolutely anything. Knowledge is power, use it!


OK I'm off the soap box. Aside from all of the stuff above, Amsterdam is one of the most beautiful European cities I have been in. The architectural preservation in this city is beyond belief. A huge percentage of the original 17th and 18th century city is right there for you to marvel at. Walking along the canals looking at the reflections in the water of all these old beautiful buildings is really humbling to me. I love the way so many of them have settled into such odd crooked angles but have retained so much of their dignity, like so many wise old people staring at their reflections in a mirror and marveling at how much the world has changed during their lifetimes. There is an amazing book by Anthony M. Tung called "Preserving the worlds great cities" that meticulously describes the best and worst examples of architectural preservation around the world; Amsterdam is one of the best. It's a bit of a nerdy read, but if you're interested in this kind of thing, I highly recommend it.


In an earlier post I went on about how 36 percent of people in Copenhagen commute by bicycle, I had never seen such a thing before and I was amazed and impressed. Well it just so happens that in Amsterdam it's 50 percent! The bicycle rules here, cars are a secondary thought in the way the city flows. I had to drive a giant tour van around the streets here and it was a serious challenge to say the least. I'm proud to say my driving skills are impeccable, but at times it was like trying to squeeze into those favorite pants you wore in college, it just wasn't gonna happen.

This is my second visit to Amsterdam, I would love to come back and properly do this city with people that live here and really know it, I'm sure I have barely scratched the surface. Tomorrow is Leuven, Belgium! See you there.

Comments

  1. Ola El Guapo! Ollie just put me on to your blog. It's great! Just as energetic as you are in person. I really like the scratching post analogy- so true. Hopefully see you Friday at the London show!

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