Amsterdam

HEAVEN

The voice of God came over the PA. Today He has a Dutch accent: “Do you want me to stop zee show? If you want me to stop zee show keep doing what you’re doing. This is not a circus.”

The spotlight moved from the performer to the audience. The bartender pointed at some British or Australian fellows who had been cheering ecstatically and told them to calm the fuck down.

Funny. A woman puffing a cigarillo with her pussy on a raised stage is totally commonplace but some harmless audience tomfoolery at a live sex show is what they call a ‘circus.’

The entire city was a circus, I assert. Dam square had been transformed into a carnival as part of the Queen’s Day holiday, for Chrissake! There were midway games, rides, and a ferris wheel parked in front of the Royal Palace!




HELP!!! CARNIES HAVE SIEGED THE PALACE!!!

For one glorious night through next day, everyone wore orange shirts, drank in the streets, smoked spliffs, and had rummage sales to celebrate the birthdays of Queen Beatrix and her predecessors. Everyone was blasted. Men pissed in every corner. But no-one minded cause, after 9000 years as a city, every cobblestone has been showered with gold. No matter what unhygienic debauchery comes along, including the Black Death, the place will keep going strong. People will dance on yachts and dinghies to Euro-techno, which will overwhelm the Peter Bjorn and John young tourists play in their houseboat for many years to come!

Back in Toronto, the entire police force would be patrolling the streets at a party this large. The mayor would be tense about gun violence. Police forces from neighbouring cities would be called in as auxiliary troops. But in Amsterdam, the cops gave directions. I even saw a cop giggle as his horse leaned down to sniff a Chihuahua. And they were way hotter in uniform.


LAW ENFORCEMENT PONIES

The Dutch are hotter generally. The men are tall and wear snug trousers. The women are slim and possess a natural beauty undeterred by mixing black with brown or incompatible patterns. I spent the trip feeling like the fat girl we all remember from high school whose heart was always breaking due to devastating crushes on popular blonde boys.

Dutch women would all be the popular girls. They cruise around on their Vespas wearing stilettos and men as cargo. They carry flowers in the baskets of their bikes. They’ll knock over shrimpy Canadians who foolishly tread on the bike lane. Raised on raw milk, non-genetically modified foods, and picnics in Vondelpark with legally-opened bottles of wine, the Dutch are as close to angels as mortals can get.


VIEW FROM HOUSEBOAT: BOATLOAD OF ANGELS

At the Bourbon Street Blues Club in the Leidseplein — after the guitarist sat on my lap and had the bartender pour Jack Daniels down his gullet — a stout Englishman also in attendance whined that Dutch women don’t put out easily. They think they’re the greatest, he said. If that’s so, I thought, they’re absolutely entitled.

A Dutchman named Benjamin noted haughtily that Americans are ugly because they are pear-shaped and wear white trainers. I looked at my feet and felt sheepish. But I didn’t worry for long, as I was on Benjamin’s boat cruising around the canals, drinking Heineken, smoking joints, and eating strawberries. Then we grabbed a pizza from a boat-by take-out joint!


BENJAMIN TRADES EUROS FOR PIZZA


THE JULES IS CONTENT

Therefore Benjamin and his arrogant clansmen can say anything they want about my North American footwear. The Netherlands are better than Toronto in every way. I acquiesce to their liberalism, their environmentalism, their architecture (which includes the bright idea of building dykes to reclaim land from the North Sea), their painters, their ceramics, their cheese. I bow to Queen Beatrix.


THE HEATHER, ANOTHER HONOURARY SUBJECT