Amsterdamned

Afghan, Bubblicious, Amnesia, Blueberry, White Widow, Purple Haze, Jamaican, Thai. No these aren’t the lyrics to a Chingy song, this was my reality for 3 days in Amsterdam. Obviously American cinema deceptively portrays Amsterdam, but not in the way you may think. All that we’ve seen, all that we’ve heard, and all of the rumors have all been diluted versions of the truth. Amsterdam is more than even the most creative and whimsical tall tale you believe you’ve heard. Harold, Kumar, Ted, Bill, Rick Steves, and Jerry McGuire are all full of shit. Not because he said something about wild adventures or travel, but everyone knows Tom Cruise doesn’t love black people.

  

Friday night:

1:51 PM

I crossed the Rubicon. At this point there was no turning back. My girlfriend knew that I’d forever be a changed man, which is quite likely why she was all like, “Hey if you keep trying to touch my leg I’m going to tell the train attendant, dirtbag” and moved to another seat. Forget her. I was taking the first step towards manhood. This was my vision quest, my Walkabout—like my first time watching Brad Pitt in Troy and being perfectly comfortable with my hard-on.

 7:27 PM

I stepped foot into Elysium. In my heaven, the streets weren’t covered with gold, but rather with half-smoked blunts and more evidence of sexual deviance than a Catholic school playground. I met my friends and we headed to our first bar. In hindsight, everything that happened after that could have been an Absinthe-induced hallucination. I wasn’t sure of my friends’ stance on smoking, so I cleverly suggested that we eat something before we head to the next bar hoping for a stop at a coffee shop. Unfortunately, I hadn’t anticipated that every restaurant adheres to the same hours of operation as Michelle Duggar’s vagina, so after a cheeseburger I’m like, “Hey let’s smoke some weed and shit.”

10:05 PM

I remember thinking to myself, “Wow this must be what Nate Dogg feels like” then I opened my eyes and we walked into the coffee shop. I hadn’t realized the ease of acquiring weed. I’d obviously heard stories, but you can literally just walk up and buy a bag of weed or a pre-rolled joint from a wide selection of different strains. Unfortunately, Holland is likely soon passing a law prohibiting foreigners from entering coffee shops and the shops will now be “Members only” clubs allowing only card-carrying Dutch members access because of border countries’ pressure.

Rest of the Night

After I was high, my usual monologue evolved into something else entirely. We ended up trying to find a house party we had been invited to, and we were instructed to take a “slight right.” After we took the right and didn’t see the house, I started to question how slight that right really was. The subtlety of the right was a quagmire. After considering that the “right” was as subtle as anything I’d done in Amsterdam, I was reassured and we kept on the path.

I then saw a midget on the bus we took. I thought about asking him for directions, but I remember thinking that because of his small stature he could never grasp the gravity of the situation and our urgency was way over his head. I hate to be intolerant…but seriously fuck midgets.

We finally reached the house. Shortly after we arrived, a guy came in carrying a puppy. After someone asked if he was the owner, he replied, “I like to think he’s an individual so I’m not his owner, but yeah I take care of him.” I immediately wished I had Chinese parents and I was a second-born female child. After that statement, I seriously called every response he would give before he said it the rest of the night. I’m all for autonomy and individuality, but a predictable dogma of non-comformity is still conforming.

 This guy inevitably has a t-shirt that says, “I’d Rather Be Occupying” and a bumper sticker that reads, “My Other Ride Is My Feet Because I Don’t Like Leaving A Carbon Footprint” on his dad’s Prius. Whom he probably hates by the way. He undoubtedly is infuriated when the bands he likes get popular and nothing pisses him off more than “The Man.”

Here are a few gems he spewed out:

Quoting Bill Hicks: “The only good system is a speaker system.”

On his carpentry: “I have one rule: no electricity, no glue, no metal.”

To a guy about his girlfriend: “She’s beautiful.” Other Guy: “I know that.” Douche: “Yeah, but does she know it?”

On a discussion that nothing in life is free: “Love is free.”

Exactly in line with what I’d expect would happen, he got wasted by the end of the night and turned into a guard from the Stanford Prison Experiment. At one point, the puppy got into the garbage and he grabbed it by the neck yelling, “You need to fucking listen to me I’m your master!” Don’t really need to elaborate on that guy. Thank god Ike and Tina finally got kicked out after that.

After I drank myself into tolerance, I started hitting it off with a Romanian married couple. They brought some moonshine and the only thing more beautiful than the way I felt after a few shots of that was the Romanian guy. Like seriously, this guy was gorgeous. I’m not gay or anything, but just saying, if I was caught sucking dick, it’d probably be an Eastern European guy.

I ended up waking up in a bed I’d never seen next to a strange, burly man. I may have felt like I went home the night before with Helen Hunt, but I left with a sense of satisfaction that not even the subsequent HIV test and rape kit could stifle.

Big Trouble in Little Deutschland

After a strenuous last few hours, I finally made it to my dorm room. I’ve been carrying two huge baggages of luggage around all day which means I’ve done the equivalent of 10,000 shoulder shrugs, or roughly ½ the amount Tom Hardy did daily when preparing for The Warrior. Due to the growing income disparity in America, I find the sociology of different countries incredibly intriguing, especially because of the Eurozone debt crisis. Coming into Frankfurt, I couldn’t help but notice some of I guess what we would call “slums.” However, living up to its heralding as one of the best countries for baked goods, every house looked like a half-eaten gingerbread house. I’m aware that income disparity in Germany isn’t even close to that of America which is on par with Pakistan and has grown increasingly since the 80s (who was president then, conservatives?), but wait, never mind that’s just a sign of economic prosperity. Thank you Rick Santorum, you’re free to go off and delete e-mails supporting an individual mandate for the healthcare system, as well as throwing away some of the diapers Chris Meyer left at your house.

I digress.

Braunschweig, on the other hand, was a much nicer city, albeit small. I walked in a loop that would give any compass vertigo and invariably ended up lost quite a few times. However, like Edison said, “ I didn’t fail, I found 1,000 ways not to get laid because I was trying to find a fucking reliable carbon filament.” The culture in Braunschweig revolves around the The 12th century Duke of Bavaria and Saxony, Henry the Lion. After a short period of being inconsolable upon learning all of the lion statues weren't because this was where Sinba was born, I was rather drawn into the history of the city. 80% of the Altstadt (old city) was destroyed in World War II. Which, if you don't know much about history, that was a period in the 20th centruy where 6 million Jews were no-call no show at work because they were vacationing in the Cayman Islands and somehow, somebody mistook their absence as being murdered, they showed back up as bankers on Wall Street...just a big mess. So basically the city resembled Lindsay Lohan's vagina after the war, and now, the combination of more modern buildings and early architecture really gives you that "Demi and Ashton" feeling.

 My biggest blooper of the day was unrivaled by all of my other shenanigans in that I tried buying a pre-paid phone, and for some reason it came out to 999 euros. It said 16 euros on the shelf. Anyway, it took an unnecessarily long time time to tell the clerk I didn’t want it after she failed trying to explain to me why it rang up to be so much. And by tell her I didn’t want it, I mean nodding and looking at her boobs until she took it off of the register.

Another thing I’ve noticed, possibly more salient than the rest, was that the women don’t show any tit. I realize it’s Winter, but in America, there would be women in mittens, a scarf, jeans, and a bustier. Women in college reliably validate the covercompensation that accompanies sexual regression and stigmatization…”you Catholic girls start much too late.” Am I complaining? Obviously not, but, I’d rather have a girl dressed like Ellen DeGeneres that would suck my dick  than a girl dressed like Kim Kardashian that is Kim Kardashian. Thankfully for my fellow American brethren, a new study found that abstinence training  does not lead to abstinent behavior. So girls in America open up a Pandora's box in finally shedding the chains of earlier sexual stigmatization and the realization that they hold a potential to see sex as more than a preparatory labor pain (well unless they have sex with me) and thus their clitori became an easy button beyond Staples's wildest imagination. Like all things in life, drugs, sex, and abortion, you can't regulate what you ban, you only create the necessity for deviance and unsafe activity. Basically what I'm trying to say is I hope she really was 18.

 I plan on going out tomorrow night for the first time, hopefully squired by what is supposed to be my advisor, but she took me to the bank after hours if you know what I mean. Like she went and helped me get a bank account because I can’t speak German very well…but she totally liked it……hmm.

One more note, I paid .50 euros for a trip to the restroom at the mall. Now before you get all defensive about your fecal and urinary privileges, I will let you know that there was a sanitizing, automatic toilet seat rubber thing that was concurrent with the flushing action. Now I don’t mean the bubbles scrub so you don’t have to. This was 1950s housewife, just got done cooking supper and nursing the 3^rd child so I decide the toilet needs a clean scrubbing action. In my book, that kind of confidence in the cleanliness of the area in which my balls will inevitable brush by at some point is well worth half a Euro.

2nd leg: Atlanta to Frankfurt - A Revelation

The first two legs of my trek were like watching Braveheart and Sex and the City. One may be much longer, but it was of significantly better quality. The only difference was, in my trip, the longer leg had all the old, decrepit, consumerist hags. By all this I mean, of course I got bumped up to business class on my flight from Atlanta to Frankfurt.

In business class you can fart and there is someone to suck it up like a bong hit as to not bother the other passengers. Seriously, no amenity is spared in the lands of hot coffee, chilled wine, and desperate 40 somethings trying to compensate for their failing marriages by drinking Champagne and scoffing at those in coach while trying to make the 8 hours pass by playing Sudoku in a Prozac-induced stupor.

I digress.

Upon landing in Germany, I noticed a few things right away. Well, I guess just one thing, and to be completely transparent it has completely dominated my cognition. Don’t think about the white bear……or in this case the fat chick. Yes that’s right, while they were letting the French eat cake, apparently the Prussians didn’t touch the stuff. I’m completely serious when I say I didn’t see one fat person at the airport or train stations. Apparently, sucking down sausage is great on the figure….or at least that’s what I’ll be telling girls when I get back home.

Now I know what you’re thinking, because for a brief moment, I did as well. This has to be great, right? No fighting back Henry VIII in the buffet line, no goofy trombone players in the school band, no underarm fat resting on your shoulders during hugs that feels like someone poured tapioca pudding in a garbage bag. But then, like the great Siddhartha Guatama (also a fatass), I came to a revelation.

I need fat chicks.

Yep, fat chicks are a commodity, not a burden. Why’s this you ask? Well, when I get drunk and desperate at the bar after being rejected by a countless amount of females, where do I turn? Who will be there holding me in the morning when I roll over, and mortified by my actions from the night before, draw a boiling bath and slowly rock back and forth in the fetal position? Goddamn it, I’ll tell you who. The same person that was there when the Diet Coke was invented. The same person that was there when McDonald’s started telling people their food was healthy and believed them. The same girl that revolutionized wearing a butt on the front of your pants, not just the back. And that same girl who kidnapped Hans Solo and kept us on the edge of our seat as we contemplated his fate. I’ll tell you who. The fat chick.

So be careful what you wish for, and tell Mr. Rick Santorum that we don’t need to cut food stamps because America has an obesity problem. And no Mr. Santorum, we don’t want our women to be stuck in the house cooking, cleaning, and eating all the Bugles. No, we are a country founded on the principles of reckless consumption. So this one is for you fat chicks. We love you. America! America! America!

First leg of my Journey: Omaha to Atlanta

Buddy. Budy. Bud E. Regardless of the spelling, I'm flying on a buddy pass from a gracious friend that works for Delta and despite my attempt to complicate it akin to the spelling of Gadaffi's name, I successfully boarded my first flight from Omaha to Atlanta, but it did not go without event.

As I entered the plane, I immediately knew I hated everyone on it. Not because they sucked or were bad at art or anything, but this was literally the tiniest plane in the world. I'm no Manut Bol, but my legs are sufficiently long that I usually don't use booster seats outside of the bedroom and I was absolutley crunched. It's hard to describe, but have you ever like tried sticking your dick in a shampoo bottle and it got stuck in an awkward position? Oh...no me neither. That's needed here nor there. This plane would leave a quark wanting leg room and Gary Coleman would need to buy an extra seat if he planned on puffing out his cheeks.

Anyway, as I desperately tried to find solace in sweet slumber, I found my neck and head were much too high for the seat, so every attempt to lay back ended up in me bending backward over the seat like a human Pez dispenser. However, instead of sweet, monosaccharide-filled treats, I dispensed hatred and disdain for anybody who looked my way. I was Maximus Decimus Meridius staring down every chump that looked at me like they crucified my family.



It was inevitably the first day on the job of the appointed spokesperson of the Flight Attendant clan. As the patron saint of stuttering searched earnestly for a combination of words that would result in a coherent sentence, all I could picture was a black labrador tilting his head to the side and making that dubious "broolp?" sound. Which brings me to my next point. Do you think Scooby could have possibly been saying "Faggy" instead of "Shaggy" this entire time? I sure do.

Well, I ended up falling asleep, despite the rocking and my knees being wedged between the seats, but I woke up looking like this:

I awoke like a tranquilized lion in a cage surrounded by crafty zebras. After a large roar (or oomph) I was happy to hear that we would soon be landing, but it would be a bumpy ride on the way down. Now, I'm about to go on an international flight, so the last thing I need is Air Marshalls and the TSA on my ass, but I noticed when we landed that I had blatantly disobeyed the request to shut off any electronic devices. I'm not prepared to say whether it was an accident or an unconscious drive to make the flight attendant dead, but either way, people need to know I don't play no shit.