the narrow netherlands

please hold your horses.

the netherlands have just become a tad more narrower. right as i started to believe the shrinking of my beloved country hade kind of come to a halt, one initiative put us right next to our already pretty petite neighbour, belgium.

in belgium, they leave the lights on. anywhere, anytime. belgium, together with the south of the netherlands and the north of france are one of the brightest areas in the world. we can't see any stars - maybe that explains our humble nature.



but can it explain this?



the dutch organization that monitors safety in traffic and advises the dutch government on the issue, 'veilig verkeer nederland', has just launched its newest bid in the very highly regarded competition of most retarded, most what-the-fuck-is-going-on-with-you-people proposal for the people in the street, us. you. me.

and this is it: to counter the increase in violence (both verbal and physical) in traffic, they propose a gesture to make, to explain you're sorry to whoever you just pissed off. they want you, him, her, me to lift our open hand in the air.

well, let me just do that right now, because i think this proposal is outright stupid and blind.

1. i already apologize when i fuck up. i don't draw a gun and start shooting around (something they sometimes happen to do in los angeles - other story). and i don't think a lot of people react different from me. it has a name: common sense.

2. why the fuck does this have to be presented as an official proposal. there is something as, once again, common sense. if you don't get this concept, please shoot yourself. this is not a threat, but just a suggestion because if you don't disappear from the surface of this planet it would be a straight waist of oxygen, water and space - things a lot of people can obviously make better use of than you.

3. and this is the cherry on the pie.
the dutch union for sign language strongly disagrees with the proposed sign, because - apparently, not that i care a flying fuck - the official sign for sorry is circling your fist in front of your chest. kind of like stirring the soup, i guess. while driving.

this stupid kind of ruckus once again acknowledges the dutch's image as 'best boy in class'.

biggest turd would problaby be better.

back to my polder.

to ask a chinaman

since i had acquired so many books, clothing and other shenanigans during my stay in the city of angels, i figured it wouldn't all fit in the suitcase i brought to los angeles. given this problem being a problem of supply and demand, i had to figure if i was in a buyers' market or a sellers' market.

demand - space to store my stuff
supply - one measly suitcase

well, what other people know more about supplying demanding citizens that the noble chinese? where else to find a cheap, spacious suitcase that would at least be sturdy enough to rock it out all the way back to amsterdam, than in chinatown, north of the 101, just around broadway. not much later, we were standing in front of a nice collection of suitcases, all very eloquently prized.

the vendor, however, was not of the same eloquence. meaning: he spoke fuck-o english. it was a very short talk with him answering all our questions with "yes, very pretty bag, cheap!" before i made the purchase.

if this guy answers all questions in exactly the same way, why did the conversation not go a bit more like this?

we: "so, would you recommend this suitcase for transporting a chopped-up body, or do we need a smaller, second suitcase for the head?"

him: "yes, very pretty bag, cheap!"

we: "but i think you want to remove the family members that are still stuck in that corner first, right?"

him: "yes, very pretty bag, cheap!"

we: "is it fireproof?"

him: "yes, very pretty bag, cheap!"

we: "..."

anyway, you can probably guess that this whole scheme very quickly slid down the slippery slopes of stereotyping and more of the stuff you don't want people to know about when you're running for congress.

if this sounds interesting to you, my dear readers, i would recommend going to the pearl market (hong qiao) in beijing. just see this image and imagine...



5 stories full of cheap knock offs.

oh, and the suitcase i bought cost me 18 bucks.

superbowl say yeah!

i just, accidentally, happened to be in the US of A during the superbowl. and, ow how super it was...

as a reminder or maybe a refreshment, understand this: watching sports in the us is not just about supporting your team, as it would be in old europe. it is a social thing. and it is big.

every year, cbs (lucky fuckers) brags about airing the biggest happening in television. more than 1 billion (1.000.000.000) people apparently take some time of to watch this game. well, i never knew there were that many people in the world that had a tee-vee, not even mentioning rocking cbs on channel 2. so cbs wants a lot of money from advertisers, to get even.

because, let's make this sure: watching the superbowl on tv suck. big time. donkey balls. now i have to say that i have never been a big fan of football (i tried to watch the last two superbowls - kick-off at 2 am CET) but damn! this sport was never ment to be televised! but if they stop the game every twenty friggin' seconds just because some retard in a black-and-white sweater saw one of the guys catch the ball and hit the ground with both knees before running off towards the enemy's endzone, i might as well get a drink and a sandwich.

and that is exactly why the superbowl (or suPPerbowl) is still going strong. it brings in a lot of money. together with the three people i watched the game with, we spent 40 bucks on beer, tortilla chips, fries and cheesy corn-on-a-cob (a recommendation, nevertheless) and in the end we felt nothing but disappointment. come on, what ever happened in this game?? the indiana(polis) (indiana for short, because indianapolis is way too difficult for the average wal-mart-shopping, superbowl-watching american) colts won, but for whatever i care, manchester united would have won with a 12-goal difficient! okay, our reception was assured through having the cable hanging from a wire behind the sink, but even that couldn't stop me and the others from experiencing some genuine american deception...

and it still amazes me: americans spend a (probable) whopping 400 million on this shit, but at the same time, the economy suffers from a lot of slacking on post-superbowl-monday, when we all talk about peyton manning's incredible passing and the bucketload of fumbles and turnovers on the side of the bears of some nice cup of "fresh"-brewed starbucks coffee.

...and than i haven't even discussed all the statistics stuff. what's up with that??

#6. raunchy red tape and beautiful booty

red tape aka bureaucray will be the demise of humanity.

a friend of mine had his car impounded for driving around with an expired license. shit happens. today we went to the police station to try and get the car back. we all took a day off, just in case it would take some time. and take time it did.

the detective at the station managed to tell my friend his car was impounded for:

1. driving around with an expired license
2. driving around with a suspended license
3. driving under the influence

we are all confused.

but even cops get to have some fun. waiting in the reception area, another detective walked out a lady that didn't exactly were fugly. she was nice. and the cops knew it, too. while she slowly walks out, 5 pairs of eyes (mine plus 4 cops') watch her behind. the moment the door falls shut behind her, everybody looks at the detective, and then we start laughing. here is my recollection of the discussion that followed - sort of, i was still impressed by her physical appearance:

detective: "i feel so bad, i just couldn't help her, she really didn't deserve to be the bad guy!"
cop 1: "well, to protect and to serve, right?"
detective: "i just couldn't stop staring at hear shirt man! i wish i could wear my sunglasses..."
cop 2: "you should have just said you were suffering from some eye infection."
detective: "like too many beautiful victims of undeserved crimes crossed my eyes?"
cop 1, cop 2, cop 3, detective: "mwoehahahah!"
me: (silently smiling) ...



anyway, back to the red tape story. i took my friend 45 minutes to get the papers to go and pick up the car at the impound lot, a few blocks away. the detective didn't understand the whole story either, so just gave him a pass on the whole expired-suspended-dui thingy.

in the impound lot, we discover that it's gonna cost 1303 dollars to get the car back. my friend kept trying to cheer himself up by saying it's just like shopping. well maybe, but shopping for a car that is probably not even worth 1303 dollars, you must have a pretty distorted sense of irony to see it a shopping.

but... more red tape. it turned out the car was not in the impound lot we were, but at another one across the town, one that - of course - is only open from something like 6-8 am. we just did our duty, paid, and then started asking for how long we could leave the car in the other lot before we would pick it up. not too long, obviously, the lady told us, asap would be best.

the friend still doesn't have a valid license, i don't either, so we needed the third guy to pick it up.

next time: why my friend still doesn't have a valid license...

#5. on parks and parkinglots

walking around downtown los angeles is an exhausting experience. of course there is a height difference of around 50 meters between the lowest and the highest point in the intra-interstate downtown area, but that is just a small detail.

what i am talking about is that even though 'downtown' la is the center of one of the biggest cities in the world, it doesn't feel like it. besides the conglomeration of highrises around bunker hill, downtown la feels more like some second-rank industrial area that also happens to house people.

lately however, the city is trying to improve the image and experience of downtown. no more ridiculously tall skyscrapers is one thing - mike davis described the bunker hill dilemma in his book city of quartz, more skyscrapers means more money for the city. true, but it also drives away the people and thus the spirit of the town. - bringing in more people is another one. los angeles still looks like a bombed out city in a lot of places.



and like in most other bombed out cities - detroit, philadelphia (sort of), berlin (still!) - these barren lands have been filled up with parking lots to accommodate the ever growing number of people that work in downtown. a lot of these parking lots are being demolished to make way for medium to expensive condos, lofts and appartment buildings. the city tries to attract a crowd to downtown that could possibly compete with the swank crowds of manhattan, downtown san francisco or boston.

sci-arc moved into the artist district a good 7 years ago. back then, rents were still afforable and there were still plentiful structures available capable of housing a crowd of 450+. sci-arc was on the vanguard of the re-urbanization of downtown. back in 1999, nobody wanted to go there. it smelled, there was nothing to do and it was plain ugly. a lot has changed since then. it is less smelly and there is more to do. it is, however, still fairly ugly:



this was once a parking lot. now it houses overpriced condos for people that don't mind about gentrification.

sci-arc's lease will once be over. if downtown continues to gentrify, it will probably be too expensive to continue the lease of the freight yard. we will have to move. isn't it ironic that in the mobile environment of los angeles, the architecture schools follow that same trend of mobility, only staying in every place for a couple of years, infecting the site with creativity, and moving out before it gets too boring?

of parking parks
recapture: one step of beefing up downtown is building more housing. but here, more housing also means more cars and thus more parking lots of parking structures. there are a lot of people that live in downtown but work somewhere else, in the valley, hollywood or down south. they live here however, because they can travel against the traffic. no jams in the morning, on time for dinner in the evening.

these people need a place to park. in-house parking lots are expensive - up to $ 25,000 a spot), so it is easier to build it just next door. these parking lots still spread through downtown like an agressive virus, overwhelming everything within reach. downtown now not only suffers from film shoots blocking up street and disturbing public life, it has also caught a parking fever.



plans have already been proposed to counter the inconvenience caused by film crews: convert empty structures around downtown into warehouses for film equipment, so that trailers no longer have to crowd the streets whenever bruce willis is shooting a new installment for die hard.

so what to do with the parking lots? is there perhaps a possibility to turn parking lots around downtown into parks? if we were to do that, los angeles would become one of the greenest cities in the country, given the enormous number of parking lots that already exist. don't allow anymore cars in the center, but offer a high-density public transport network, allowing for people to get around quickly and cheaply. turn downtown into a neighbourhood where you could actually raise a child without worries. if we want to repopulate downtown, and make it look like a real city, density is not the only solution. a liveable environment, where you can safely walk your dog, cross the street without having to worry about being run over by some renegade driver. make people proud of the place they live. make them live there because they want to, not only because it's easy with the traffic.

can you imagine if all this were green?