A Rather Sensationalistic Tale of Calm Old Amsterdam
Written in the Style of Walter Agnew Moore II
11 March 2002, Amsterdam, The Netherlands:

I am standing by the 7-foot-long penis in the Amsterdam Sex Museum. Outside on the main drag they call the Damrak, kids are smoking blunts big as my Granddad's old Havatampas. You can hear the taxis blowing their horns...

OK, that is not all true. I just wanted to write about Amsterdam, y'know, and it's got that sex-drugs-rock'n'roll rep, so I spiced it up, added a little atmosphere. Truth is, I have yet to hear a taxi blow its horn. I haven't heard anybody blow a car-horn here. A strangely mellow town. Oh, and there are TWO 7-foot-long willies in the Sex Museum.

But if you are still with me so far, you are impatient to hear the good stuff. Now, I, Walter Agnew Moore II, would never dream of breaking any law of God or man as interpreted by the American Religious Right, but I also feel I have a responsibility to my readers to report this vile Den of Sodom as it truly is. It is in this spirit that I have visited the places and seen the things, horrible things, that I have, and I do hope that any who take offense will forbear throwing the first stone, but will instead sue my editor, MonkeyCompline, who made me do all this.

PART ONE: SEXDRUGSROCKNROLL

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SEX

Yes, there is a big red-light district here where, supposedly, naked girls writhe around, dance in the brothel windows so you can take your pick, all that stuff. Or so they say. I didn't see a one, and I walked the whole blood-engorged throbbing length of the Hooferheffendump red-light canal or whatever it is.

Of course, I did it at 10 am Monday morning. Don't look at me that way. If these are really “working” girls, I don't think it's too early to have 'em up and at it by 10 am. I bet you get up even earlier than that, don't you? I usually don't, but I haven't sold myself to the highest bidder the way you and those hoochies did.

What they do have is little “sex-shops” every other corner or so. They are all about the same. Various plastic toys in the window, sometimes sadly faded from the sun. Tapes, magazines, DVDs with tiny photos of people with strangely orange-ish flesh playing tonsil-hockey with other peoples' body-parts. Yeah... One of them I remember had the name “Erotic Sex Shop” (as opposed to “Erotic Auto Parts”?). That name indicates the general level of imagination and daring that you find in them.

Now, the Sex Museum isn't so lame. It is three stories high filled with naughty pictures and sculptures from the last couple hundred years. I may or may not have gone inside on my own, but after the belching-farting-wine-swilling posh English girls back in Lille told me it couldn't be missed, my itinerary was set.

They have the museum fixed up all clever-like, with manikins chasing each other around brothels, postcards from 1895, little mechanical toys from long ago. I guess the thing that will stick in my mind the longest is a hunting sword that belonged to King Leopold of Belgium. Engraved on the ivory hilt is a games keeper raping a pig. No lie. But with Leopold, are you really surprised? Look what he did to the Congo.

Erotic postcards from 1895. The first 100 or so were interesting. They had walls and walls of them though.

If you get the impression the whole sex angle in the town rubs me (HAHA! HAHA!) the wrong way, you're right. It is not from a moralistic angle that it bothers me—hell, they could have nekkid laser tag on the Damrak for all I care—it is just that the Sex Industry is so obviously an *industry* here, with all the joy and mystery of clocking in for the second shift. I can hear the girls yelling to each other as the customers sweat and heave:

"Hey Helga, how bout dat game last night?"

"Oh ja, I sure spilt my beer when dat goalie slipped! Hey, when's dat break comin' up?"

"Seven, nooo...six minutes. Race you to da snack bar!"

"Fuckin-A! I need my Snickers bar! I'm gonna start cleanin' up now so's I beat dem blow-job girls to da front of da line."

I did walk past one pretty explicit sex-shop window later, really pulled me up in my tracks, but at second glance it turned out to be a butcher's display case.

but cheer up, cuz there's...

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DRUGS

Yes, they have legal pot here. Yes, you can buy it in coffee shops. There are these coffee shops everywhere, they outnumber the (Arnold Schwartzeneggar voice) “Erotic Sex Shops” three to one.

These Pot-Selling Coffee Shops look like any coffee shop in Austin, Texas, or whatever the “cool” (tm) town is in your neck of the hemp-field, except that possibly fewer people here are walking around stoned. I dunno. They have a happy cheerful feel to 'em and just happen to serve good coffee and stuff like Apple Crumble Pie as well. At least, the good people at Barney's at 102 Haarlemerstraat (tel. 625 97 61) did.

"Walter, what does pot cost there?"—I don't know, didn't buy any.

"Walter, do people sometimes just give you some anyway?"—I have heard that they sometimes do.

"SWEET! Dude, what's the quality like?"—Uh, I have heard that it is very smooth and will hardly even make you cough.

"So you just sit in the bar and smoke it?"—

"Walter?"

"Walter?"—Oh, yeah. No. I mean. Like, you sit in the coffee shops and smoke, but it is rude to just light one up in a *bar*. You step—I heard—you just step out on the street and smoke it there, like a dude with a cigarette outside a no-smoking restaurant in some, like, PURITANICAL country, maaaan, it's all like the way you see it? Like sight. Sight. mfmfmf take this man—like, EYES developed 4000 times in the ANIMALS? But not once in PLANTS?...

duuuude...

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ROCK N ROLL

A musical form developed from Rhythm and Blues mixed with Country. Popularized by the genius, Chuck Berry, then promptly stolen by artists of Far Western Asian Origin. Long since a declining caricature of itself, continues to sell. Probably played in Amsterdam as well, but I haven't paid much attention.

There are the de rigueur pods of homeless (yeah right) hemp teens, here and there, dawdling on acoustic guitars in a low-keyed way without too much enthusiasm or emphasis on flashy technique.

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PART TWO: SO LIKE DUDE, WHAT'S REALLY UP WITH AMSTERDAM Duuuude?

OK, in no particular order, all the facts you ever needed to know about this place:

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THE WEATHER VANE

On the front of the train station is a clock with one hand that quickly whoops back and forth in circles, with no bearing on what time it is. This is not a clock. That one over there is the clock. This is a weather vane—there is some mechanism somewhere else that checks for wind direction, and then makes the one hand spin around to tell you which direction the wind is coming from—would have been extremely important back in the sailing days.

I am pretty sure that acid is illegal here, but it would be cool to watch a guy who was tripping look up and think that thing was really a clock.

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THE DUTCH, AND THE DUTCH LANGUAGE

Yes, these things really exist, though you could begin to doubt it for reasons I will explain.

A wise man (well, OK, it was Dieter Burkhardt who lived next door, but it still rings true) once said to me, "Belgium. That is like Germany, with French people."

I would like to add to the Dieter Law the Walter Law, "Holland, it's like Germany, with big tall blonde people who ride bicycles and put up with really brain-fried tourists in such a way that the brain-fried tourists actually act responsibly."

Yep. Big and blonde. (Most Germans I know are little. No lie. And the French are big. What kind of Bizarro-World Europe am I in?) You could get a whole volunteer SS division outta this place—they did—but we all have our bad days, and I am sure everyone else was in the Resistance. Me, I haven't seen anybody even get riled up here. Or laugh much. Just kinda taking it as it comes. They'll smile. Some.

I guess you have to stay calm when you inhabit a town built on the sea bed.

The Dutch language, now that's an interesting topic. Sometimes it sounds so close to English, the same rhythm, usually similar sounds, except for that Dutch “GHaGHKH!" sound that pops up at least once a sentence. I can *almost* make sense of it, but something slips away. Here's the nice couple sitting across from me at our communal table in the all-you-can-eat Chinese place, my first day in town:

She: "Humble bucket fiddle low-down GHaGHKH?"

He: "You know I GHaGHKH indie-rock cat pissin'"

She: "Ash nazg gimbatuluk—"

He: "—Ash nazg durbatuluk but GHaGHKH beer drinkin'?"

And he looks at me with a "What do YOU think" look, waiting for an answer.

I get that a lot. With my snub nose, rumpled French clothes, and 7-foot wong, I get taken for a local more often that not. At least, I *could* be a local; I am not wearing white-boy dreads, tie-dyed shirt, and a jonesin' longing in my eyes. So they speak to me in Dutch first. I have had whole conversations where I nod and do stuff at the right time. Lots of really simple words like "good" or "thank you" are so much like English that you can get by undetected if you mumble them semi-coherently. People see what they want to see, hear what they want to hear. But inevitably comes that question, once me and Joe Dutchman have bonded. He'll ask me, "Voodoo mama how bout dem bears possum vittles GHaGHKH?”, and my eyes bug involuntarily, and then my whole cover is blown.

Then what happens next is truly remarkable, to anyone who has spent even a day in France: Without a trace of surprise or sarcasm, your speaker switches to English, and you just keep on talking.

It is English with a Dutch accent, to be sure. But something about a Dutch accent, when they speak English and don't make that “GHaGHKH” sound, they sound like they have an Ohio accent. (I can hear my legions of adoring Ohioan readers sitting back, saying; "Bot, wee don't hev eccents in O-hye-ya!" Don't wah-ree, I knoo you don't.)

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HOW YOU TOO CAN PRETEND TO BE DUTCH

Get on a bike, aim it at the group of obvious American Stoner Kids, and when you almost hit one, say "Bear Bryant Voody Hayes heaven can vait, GHaGHKH?", then stare at them politely while their little eyes cross. It is very Dutch to never say more than one sentence in Dutch to a foreigner, so you should now say something to them in English. It helps if you are from Ohio. They will no doubt next ask you where "a coffee house is, duhuhuhuuuude", so point in any direction that is comfortable, and say "Theer's one over theer." (You won't be lying). Then you go aim the bike at more tourists. A fun-filled afternoon of Dutch-ness.

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SMELLS

You know, Paris isn't Paris without the mixed smells of good coffee, harsh cigarettes, fresh bread, and dog-shit. (Note to the King of France: Sire, if your subjects will quit letting their dogs shit right outside my door, 227 Route de Rouen, I will gladly quit mentioning the plague of dog shit in your cities. PS: How come you don't answer my letters?)

So, what does Amsterdam smell like?

Well, you have got the cannibis smell wafting everywhere, sort of a sweet edge to it. And plenty of coffee in the air. Goooood coffee.

There is a very faint smell of the sea.

A lot of the people have a pretty heavy smell on them—no wait, that's just pot again.

And then finally, there is this odd scent, it's everywhere, I can't tell you what it comes from, but it smells exactly like an Art school. Makes me think of pastels and oils and long-ago days spent lounging with tattered-jeaned, painfully-sensitive trust-fund babies, surrounded by never-to-be-finished sculptures and canvasses, talking about, like? how they express their feelings? in their like art?

Ah the days. Anyway, if it reminds me of art supplies, whatever is producing the smell is no doubt toxic, but hey, at least you don't have to watch where you step.

My room at the cheap Hotel Centrum behind the somethin'-or-other always smells like Chinese food. This is because the skylight is stuck open, and I am pretty sure there is a Chinese place right behind the hotel. Cool. I like Chinese food. Wonder if it is going to rain tonight.

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MORE SEX

OK, got bored typing out this screed for my slave-driver editor, so I left the giant internet place on the Damrak and headed into the thick of the Wodenhammerdam Red Light District for a gawk at the goods.

This time it's close to midnight, and the crowd is out. The buildings on each side of the canal are about equal thirds bars, peep shows (Only about 2 bucks to get in. How much to get back out?), and, wait for it, wait for it... Prostitutes standing in lit-up windows!

Or sitting. I thought they'd be doing little dance routines with slap-bass accompaniment, but they are quite Dutch, calm and businesslike. Modeling Victoria's Secret style bikini underwear. Some are kinda cute, some aren't.

Aw—that one *winked* at me! She *likes* me! GaHuhuhuuuu...

The people in the street are the ones I keep my eyes on. This has to be pick-pocket paradise, buncha dumb dudes grinning at girls up in windows. There are the standard big scary bald guys who look like they work for the same establishments as the girls, going and coming from non-public side-doors.

The crowd of tourists is scary. "Slack-jawed yokels" is a phrase I have been saving, and this is the perfect time to use it. Groups of corn-fed American college boys, staggering and glassy-eyed, laughing loud. Three or four English lads, right, ponying up all their euros so's one of their mates can have a go. A couple of middle-aged Belgians heads-together, hammering away on some subject in French, in their own world by a canal bridge.

Man, I wish I had the least skill at pick-pocketing. Fish in a barrel.

Most of these guys probably aren't going to get laid, and they will fight afterwards. I see girls in windows looking down, shaking their heads "no" at this or that number of fingers held up.

There are other smaller places on the side-streets. I bet the girls are older, the prices lower, and the pimps crazier.

I don't know, wild crazy hot sex, it ain't. These girls seem a lot less into it than any drunk University of Texas sorority girl. I have heard that most prostitutes don't really like sex, at least not with their clients, but trust the up-front Dutch not to even pretend. Still, the roaming packs of bachelor monkeys point and gawp and work their courage up.

My recommendation: Just go to a shot bar in a college town during homecoming. Chances are, your anonymous date will even buy her own drinks.

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FREE BOAT

This knowledge I owe to the nice couple across from me at the communal table in the all-you-can-eat Chinese place. After my eyes crossed trying to understand Dutch, being Dutch, they naturally switched to Ohio English. Turned out she really was from Ohio. Wheels within wheels...

Anyway, they clued me in to the fact that if your feet are tired and you want a free boat ride, you go down to the train station, walk through it to the water, and just get on one of the ferries. They are free. They are white and blue with a raised wheelhouse up above and a "Saving Private Ryan" ramp on one end. When that ramp comes up, you better hang on, cuz Boat Pilot don't lag around.

We chopped on through the little waves, wind blasting sideways across us, played chicken with a fast-moving coal-barge, and hit the beach at a new island north of town. The ramp dropped, and I clawed my way through hacking tracer fire and screaming shells to a grocery store, where I bought toothpaste and some disposable razors.

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RAZORS

"Higgly piggly GhaGHKH barbarossa dummy GhaGHKH... GHaGHKH!" is Dutch for "We don't sell razors inside the grocery store, nobody ever sells razors INSIDE the grocery store, you dummy, what kinda damn fool ARE you, EVERYBODY sells razors at the little cigarette stand right around the corner from the checkout lines! You're Dutch, you should know that, quit acting like a stupid foreign tourist!"

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WILHELMINA-DOK

This is the restaurant you go eat at after you find your razors. It looks like an orange cube at the water's edge. You watch the ships roar by as you sip your coffee. You know you will not be able to eat all that food—that's enough for two people—and it was cheap, especially for a place with fresh cut tulips and candles on the tables. But the sandwich and the soup and the eight pieces of nutty brown bread jump down into your stomach and the cutest non-hooker in Amsterdam keeps smiling whenever she comes past on her rounds and keeps speaking to you in Dutch but slow enough to puzzle it out and with a very soft version of the GhaGHKH sound.

Her name is Noortje, and she has blue eyes to muddle mens' minds.

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WHY THE IRISH HATE AMERICANS

Back in Amsterdam Proper, I hear Louise at Mollie Malone's make some crack against the Land of the Free, and I have to ask:

"What is it with the Irish, Louise? Why is it the minute I run across an Irish person it's about 20 seconds from a ‘Fuck you, Yank!’ What's up with that—are you still mad because we helped build all those robot spy cameras for the British and then planted them in Shane MacGowan's remaining teeth?"

She thinks. "No Walter, it's not that. I like America, over-all, I lived there for 4 years. No, the thing that gets us about the Americans, is how STUPID the Americans are who come on holiday in Ireland. They're still lookin' for the Leprechauns!"

"Wha-aat?"

"The Little People, they live in legend in the—"

"No, I know what Leprechauns are. But what—"

"The American tourists are still lookin' for the Leprechauns. I worked in a shop, every day they'd come in, 'Can you tell me where the Leprechauns are?', and I'd say, 'First right, down a bit, then left, right on top of the Blarney Stone.' I HATE 'em, I HATE 'em when they ask me stoof like that!"

"Louise, I will pass the word on, don't go looking for Leprechauns..."

"Please do."

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KATRINA AND THE WAVES

There are two lads from Newcastle at the bar as well. That's way up north in England, practically Scotland. These two guys speak Geordie, a far-northern English dialect. Neill looks like Mel Gibson with a big nose, and Gary looks like Michael Caine with a little nose.

Newcastle is the 5th best place in the WORLD for live music, but the rest of England won't admit it, see, there's this whole class-system thing still going on.

Neill and Gary build ridiculously over-priced houses here for the Dutch.

Neill used to have a band in Newcastle. Toured with Katrina and the Waves (I'm walking on sunshine) and Mitch Kershaw (Wouldn't it be nice dada dadaada...). Right now he's only letting me get him a half-pint cos he's got to catch a train in 10 minutes.

Gary and I stand out in front of the bar, takes him forever to find his lighter. "Now look at that church, right there, now THAT is something. And that's not a patch on some things we have in England."

Two cops amble by, I could reach out my arm and touch them. They don't say a thing.