++Magazine

Gentrification is something every nice neigborhood has to face at one point. It has nothing to do with Gentlemens or Genetics, but comes from the verb ‘to gentrify’ which means according to our friends at Oxford: 1. rennovate and improve so that it conforms to middle-class taste; 2. make more refined or dignified. We might call it pimping the neighborhood or, as many politicians call it, cleaning up the neighborhood.

In Amsterdam I live in one of those ‘dirty’ neighborhoods, De Baarsjes. Five years ago nobody wanted to live there because it was filled with low-class religious people like our beloved Morrocans and Turks. But after some hip cafes and boutiques opened, I have seen the raise of those scumbag richy rich yuppie wannabe bums with their playfully torn Asics shoes, greasy American Psycho hair you want to wipe your ass with, Dockers pants and their annoying accent within no time. Of course like anyobdy else who isn’t part of their clique I wanted to smash their heads in with their annoying hockey sticks (in Amsterdam that’s field hockey sticks). Because I’m a chicken and am too scared of getting ass-raped in jail, I didn’t do anything, untill now!

I’ve been thinking about this phenomenon for a long time and truth is, it’s not the fault of previous mentioned Money-is-everything-that’s-why-we’re-greedy-like-Jews kids. It’s the fault of the creative and progressive thinking artist! What? Yeah, it’s the creative person that screws us over and makes a ghetto-like area turn into the new Greenwich Village (if that isn’t passe already). I’ll tell you how:

Take any slum that is close to the city center and has low rents. Put a couple of creatives who barely have money to pay high rents, but need a lot of space for their artsy fartsy thought explosions, in some of the empty spaces and you have the beginning of gentrification. What happens is that soon these ‘pioneers’ will talk to their very creative and cool friends about their new neighborhood and how it still is so raw, meaningful and not corrupted. Most of these friends will think that their ‘ghetto’ friends are crazy for living in an unsafe environment where ninetypercent of the people is on welfare. Nonetheless they will spread the word about these courageous and bit goofy friends who have moved to the dark side of town. Because people always want to be the first and want to be pioneers, out of all the people that hear about this (and remember, this rumour only stays in a select group) and soon you’ll have posers that have absolutely no creativity or talent, but have been wanting to be seen as creative for such a long time, and they will take the risk of moving to Gentrification Village. They know that in five years they can claim to know the neighborhood before all the famous people moved there, it got too trendy, and you couldn’t find a parking spot anymore. Because these wannabes are basically greasy hockey kids with parents that are so rich that they never have to work in their life and therefor could look for their non-existing creative side, their dads will buy an appartment block for them to live in and they will rent out the rest to make some pocketmoney.

Soon the rumour about this new ‘Brooklyn’ will spread like a fire and everybody will want to move there. Brokers will see the opportunity and renovate some buildings to sell them tenfold. Conclusion gentrification!

So you motherfucking wannabe slut, look what you’ve done did to my De Baarsjes. You raped it like a priest and now I can’t pay my rent anymore and have to move. At least the real creative didn’t MTV his crib. He really liked it and he found it inspiring. That’s creativity. You are the annoying guy who brags about the ‘nice’ bars and turn them into pieces of shit with overpriced drinks and gold-digging bitches who look for their life provider!

The solution is easy though: the real creative people have to shut the fuck up about how nice their neighborhood is and hide their canvases or Moleskine and MacBooks when they’re outside. This way nobody will find out, not even me, where the next place to be is! And tomorrow I will not spit in their already greasy hair. I will not yell ‘whore!’ at those annoying blond girls drinking rose who have a raspy bass in their voice. Nor will I pee on their stoop or kick in their carwindow of their trendy 80’s secondhand Volvo they got from their dad as a present. No I will do all of these things to the first not so-trendy failed wannabe creative that I see. So if you live in De Baarsjes you better watch your step faux-Van Gogh because I’m ghetto-ing the neighborhood again!

Goddamn! Have you ever felt like a wannabe? A poser? A fraud? Somebody who wants to be something he just isn’t? Well, I feel like that everyday. I claim to be a positive guy and smile a lot to back that claim, but sometimes I just feel like a jealous bitch. A good friend of mine just started with a column on a Dutch newspaper website and I feel very happy for her. I really do. I love her and see her as family and want her to have everything she wants, because she deserves it. The thing is that her success makes me feel like I have failed. With this ++mag site, the friends that write for this site and the emptiness in that nobody else reads this. That newspaper friend and I are the same age, yet she is somewhere I can only dream of being one day. Her writing has a certain ‘je ne sais quoi’ that is so much more refined and writer-like than my scribbling. So why am I even trying to write? I mean there are so many people that write on their blogs, share with us their little stories that they think are going to change the world. Just like I do. But reality is: Who gives a fuck?! Are people waiting to read this endless insecurities? I feel like a wannabe singer who enters ‘Who Wants To Be An Idol?’ thinking he’s the new Justin, while the whole world looks at him and sees the a-melodic, a-rhythmical guy he is and just laughs at him.

The thing is that this inability to produce something creative is a fundamental problem in my life. And I don’t think I’m the only one. In writing these personal stories I hope that somebody will read this and be like ‘I’m not the only one! There is still hope!’ Because I think there is a group of people who are blessed with insecurities and a very negative perfectionism. If I would take the time I use on thinking about writing, designing the cover of my first novel or making up the speech for my first award,  and use this time on real writing, I might be somewhere. However I feel like I’m mentally blocked in putting myself to the test. I think so much about doing, that the only thing I really do is think!

And how to change? I mean, how do you change from thinking constantly to somebody who just does what he fantasizes or talks about? Should I read ‘The Power of Now’ or ‘The Secret’? Should I see a shrink? Try LSD to release my creative mind from its inhibitors? Or is this just who you are? A piece of my personality and will I die wondering what the answer really was to how I could change? I’m scared of that day. Not the dying part, but the part where I look in the mirror and see a fifty five year old guy with gray hair and bags under his eye, who is still working on his first novel, has never published anything except his blogs, has never developed his technique and is still waiting for that day when he isn’t that perfectionist anymore and just writes like he has done thousands of times in his dreams. I don’t want to be that guy. The letters that appear on this digital paper while I write is my savior from being that guy. It doesn’t have to be good or be big. I just want to have the feeling that life hasn’t passed me by. I don’t want to stand on the sideline and see the rest of my friends evolve and achieve their goals and happiness, while I stand and cheer for them but at the end of the night go back to my dream life. And I don’t mean that in the nice sense of the word. So this must be my therapeutic outlet and at least I can lie to myself and be like ‘Hey, well at least I tried to be a writer and gave everything I had’.

Yesterday night I made love to music. Not like ‘He was going down on me and Marvin Gaye was playing in the background’, but like ‘I really made love to music’! It was nice. I came twice he came last. I rolled some grass. He didn’t giggle. How you ask? How now brown cow I say. Some things are just not meant to be written about and I think this is one of those things. I’m sorry I started about it. The world would be a better place if everybody could experience it and I pray to tones, sounds and notes that one day they will appear to everyone. Love your music!

In Turkey we have a new cool kick ass law. Well it’s not that new anymore, but it’s still pretty cool. The law states something like, you can’t say anything that insults Turkey, the State, the Flag, Ataturk (the Don of the Turks) or they’ll throw you in jizail! So, Billy Bob what you think about that? I think we showed the US how to be really patriotic! And a tiny bit fascist as well.

Let’s compare this law to a couple of situations kids have in their playground.

Situation 1
Kid A: Your mother is so fugly with her mustachio and her pistachio moles she makes me puke!
Kid B: I’m gonna tell my brother and he’s going to beat you up.

So Kid B is pretty pathetic right. Not being able to think of something clever to say back or even let it slide he calls his big brother to bring the pain! A little bit what the Turks are doing, ain’t it? ‘You put a naughty video clip about Ataturk on YouTube. Well, we’ll just block YouTube’.

Situation 2
Kid A: I think your family is stupid because your dad takes you to school on a camel.
Kid B: Whatever man! At least my family ain’t on welfare. Unlike Y to-the O-U!! Bam Biaaaiiitch!!

See what happens here. No brothers are being called, but they try to open up a can of ass-whooping between them. Which is alright, because now only two kids get hurt. But hey, they are kids and young and insecure, so you expect behavior like this. This would be if the battle on YouTube would just be fought and the Turks could put clips of Zorba the Greek taking it doggy style by a donkey.

Situation 3
Kid A: Your mother is the cheapest whore on the block and you’re a bastard and your dad is Lenny, the crack-addict balloon seller!
Kid B doesn’t say anything. He sighs Kid A’s remarks away.

Kid B does not go in a lengthy discussion nor does he call his brother. Wow! The perfect situation. This kid must be very confident and smart. If we compare him to a country it’s probably something cold and Scandinavian. See how Kid A looks like a dick now. Just because Kid B ignored him. Maybe Turkey (and actually all other countries and even all other people) should be more like Kid B.

Her earrings still lay there on the same spot. The dust had already covered parts of it and formed an extra layer on the couch. For him it was evidence of a seldom moment of happiness in his life.

It was a Tuesday night around two weeks ago. That Sunday he had recovered from another meaningless drinking and going out night with his friends on Saturday. Monday was always a day of deception for him. How hopeful he always started the first day of the week with bright new ideas and a list full of possibilities. But at the end of the day it was always the same downbeat, almost depressed feeling of the inability to actually change something in his life. So Tuesday was traditionally the start of the new new week for him.

After throwing away another day of his life doing the accounting of a random money lusting company, he met up with his two college friends, the only friends he had. It wasn’t that he wasn’t able to be social, but he just didn’t like people. They made him so sad because he thought most of them were just living without thinking and for him they were a waste of space. Normally on Tuesdays they would eat out, but this Tuesday there was something strange in the air. They did go for a quick bite, but one of his friends knew a girl he worked with whose brother had his birthday in an Irish pub close to them. ‘Might as well pop by since we aren’t doing anything better’ and they were persuaded.

So they went to the pub, not knowing the birthday boy or anybody else except for the sister. It was nothing special: starting out all awkward like a high-school house party, but after two hours filled with beers and shots everybody was mingling. And it was about then when he saw her. No spots on her, no hair or skirt waving in the wind, no angelic choir singing. Just jeans, a blouse and black curly hair. But she had something in her eyes. A spark was it? She looked at him and gave him a Mona Lisa smile. Already pretty tipsy he had the balls to leave his friends, who were auditioning to become a piece of the interior of the bar, and walk over to her. He was tipsy enough not to over think everything but just go for it. No quirky opening line just a ‘hey, what’s up?’ Her smile made him feel on top of the world. He felt so light and strong. He knew it: this was meant to be.

The rest of the night went by so fast. Why are all the good parts of life always fast-forwarded through? No pause button and it was over before you could blink your eye. He was so drunk that night he couldn’t even remember her name the next day. The only thing that he used as proof to convince himself that they got down, were a couple of black curly hair in his bed, the earrings on the couch, the used condom in his trashcan and the eight scratch marks on his back, four on each side.

The first week after that went by as fast as can, still he felt like in some kind of high. Even work seemed like fun because occasionally he would relive the parts he remembered from that night and smile. His colleagues were amazed that their normally emotionally dead looking co-worker turned into a semi-happy guy. That weekend he didn’t go out but stayed in and watched movies and had red wine, alone. Still lingering. But the beginning of the second week that happiness had started to make place for longing for that Tuesday. He didn’t have her number, or just didn’t remember where he had written it down. He wanted to feel what he felt that Tuesday. It wasn’t fair, he was a nice guy and he was still the same guy he was that day. Why couldn’t he have what he had that day everyday? Desperate, he called his friend asking him if he had the number of the sister so he could call the birthday brother and ask him who that girl was. ‘I didn’t invite her, because I don’t know her. I thought you guys knew her’. So she came to the pub but wasn’t part of the party. He felt lost and pretty annoyed. The happiness that day gave him was gone.

Now another Tuesday was arriving. He was tidying the house and understood that the past weeks he had been lingering on that single Tuesday night almost a month ago. How pathetic not to go out and make one night so big. But that’s what he felt. He couldn’t stop thinking about her. Or more even thinking about the wonderful feeling he had after that day. He wanted that feeling. He already had decided not to go out that weekend, but go out on Tuesday again. Plans to do everything the same: same clothes, same breakfast, same lunch, same after-work quick bite, and then same pub. Hoping for a renewed period of happiness.

Dear Dad,

It’s been a while since our last contact. Weird how time flies and things go their way without even having the feeling we can control it.

The kids are growing up so fast. Michael just started school and it’s weird to be you now: preparing his lunchbox, having breakfast together (he loves his Flapjacks so that must be hereditary), doing the minty breath-check you always did on me after breakfast, bringing him to school and picking him up. He likes his school a lot and has made lots of friends in the first few days so I think he’s happy. Little Patrick is still at home with me and I have so much fun just watching him sleep, crawl or drool. Susan has a hard time at work so she’s sometimes pretty cranky when she gets home. I see she’s trying to be nice to the kids, but she’s so stressed the kids are scared of her at times. I hope I’ll find a job so she can work less and be more around the house. I think it will be best for everyone.

Michael has been asking us where his gramps is. I haven’t told them yet what has happened. They are still too young for that and Susan doesn’t want to raise the kids thinking it’s acceptable what you did. Don’t worry, she also thinks we shouldn’t tell them anything about sex or drugs until they’re eighteen.

I really miss you dad! I’m so scared to visit you. I know it has been already over two months, but I don’t want to see you in the situation that you’re in. I hope you don’t think I’m selfish, because trust me, you’re on my mind all the time. It’s hard for me to be without a dad. I miss our talks, your hands and your ugly feet in your leather sandals. But I miss mom as well. Sometimes when I sleep I see her face in front of me. With her lovely smile and those loving eyes. But I feel like everything is fading away. I don’t even know what her voice sounds like anymore. I have no idea. I used to hear her voice occasionally, but now she doesn’t talk anymore when I think of her. We just look at each other. It’s weird that we all shared a life together and now we’re all ripped apart. I wish all of this had never happened.

Susan is still angry with you. It was my mother and it was your wife. I think she should respect my opinion, but you know how stubborn she can be. She can’t understand the situation you were in and the pain you and mother were going through. I wonder what she would do if it would happen to her parents. I don’t visit them anymore because they were calling you murderer in front of the kids. Susan goes there alone now and every time she comes back she sounds more like them. If it gets worse I might have to reconsider my marriage with her, because I’ve started to lose my patience.

Sorry for writing so much about me. I know it must be really hard for you. You’re there while we are out here. Not only did you lose us, but also your wife and your freedom. Just know that there are people thinking of you and you’re not alone in this! We’ve got tons of mail from people across the whole country after the media got hold of your story. I kept most of it so you can read it when you get out. Some reporters from a national TV station even came by to interview me at mom’s grave. There are so many flowers there. You wouldn’t believe your eyes. I’m telling you dad, you are an inspiration to so many people. I’m proud of you! Of course there are people disagreeing, but I’ve stopped listening to them. They wouldn’t be people you would want be associated with anyways. And most of them never experienced what you went through so I don’t think they have the right to judge you.

I’ve met with your attorney again and she thinks there is a big chance that you’ll get out in two years for good behavior. She’s doing anything she can. Hope to hear from you soon. Hang in there, Dad!

Love,

Your Son

I looked at you from a distance, but you couldn’t tell what I was thinking. Now you think I’m in love with him. Whatever you think is going on isn’t really going on. So you might call this the Matrix, but I don’t know what way to go but take the blue pill.

“Help me father, for your heavenly body is just way too sexy” is what I thought when I first saw him, our new priest. The love we shared was hotter than the butter we melted before baking the pancakes. This was life! The way I imagined it would be before even starting to think about consequences and being honest towards God and all the people filling the church every Sunday. He was willing to do the giving and the taking. He was my first man friend.

But this is also why she complained to my brother, because she didn’t want to continue this endless battle with other people that were actors in my sexual fantasies. I was excited. I didn’t have the balls to end this relationship and to be known in town as an asshole and ‘A Homosexual’ as they would say around here. ‘Are you giving me freedom or are you going to be a bitch and take everything like Hilary?’ I asked her. ‘If that’s the situation I’d rather stay at home with our kids and be a frigid mouse just like Mickey’. She stared at me blank like she always does when I use pop-culture references. What an idiot!

The kids felt something was wrong. Hell, they weren’t blind. I slept on the couch for three weeks. Asking me why mommy looked so much older and why she would stay over at Uncle’s place. I knew my brother was no Saint, even though the real Saints weren’t even Saints anymore, but to sleep with my wife, the mother of my offspring, just made me feel so relieved. I’m not the only one who is fucking up life and has absolutely no clue of what is going on. Hallelujah!

With days passing my lust just got stronger and made extra room for the juicy feelings the priest also had. When my wife finally never left me to re-marry my brother, I was the one who was the poor fellow who got left behind in that house. The village was on my side! Now I could do weird stuff and everybody would see it as a way to deal with the rough patch I hit.

Maxim, I could call him by his first name, made me feel better about my body and my whole being. He always caressed me like I was his first and last. But little did I know that he was actually looking at all these other people and that my love for him never meant anything to him. He was a true priest: always a helping hand for whoever is in need. Homo slut! Now I have lost my wife, the kids and my religion. At least I still have my wife’s dildo so I can go ass fuck myself without having to deal with love and talking and stuff. Once you hit rock bottom you can only go up from there. Or stay there for a really really long time! We’ll see.

Man will become better when you show him what he’s like – Anton Chekov

From the first time they had sex, he knew he couldn’t handle the fact she would have sex with other men once they broke up – Andrew McInteyre

One wing man ain’t enough, you need two wings to fly baby! – Stephane Mbeki

To have rules is good, to break them even better – Zeynep Aydin

I’m not born to be cool, I’m born to be happy – Nebil Guven

Listen to your heart, while using your brain – Evren Dogru

I’m overhearing a stupid conversation between a guy in his fifties and a lady who must be about thirty-five. They make me so sad. And happy again. She wants to get married with the guy but is complaining he hasn’t called in two weeks. So now she’s looking at other candidates. She says: I want to get married so badly but I just can’t find the right person. I found a guy who’s still in college, but he just wants to fool around with me. I don’t care if he’s a student or a garbage man. I just want to settle and have kids. Look at me, I’m still good-looking, but I don’t want my best years to go wasted on a no-good guy like you.

He’s working in the creative sector. I can tell by his grey beard and his Converse shoes under his skinny jeans. Not an attractive man though. More like that sad person that missed out his youth and is trying to relive it through his son’s clothes.

She asks him how his work is going and he answers that he’s having a hard time to get by. She tells him she’s not going to give him money again. Their love should not have financial strings, she says.

They’re trying to get in to a fight. I can feel the tension. They want an outburst so they can release themselves from each other. He doesn’t really care for her but he knows this is the best he can get. So he gets angry with her because she’s flirting with other guys. The phone rings and he asks ‘is that one of your lovers?’ The pathetic teasing continues. Oh my god. The drama doesn’t stop.

They are grown up kids. And the world is filled with people like this. When you’re younger a lot of people tell you that you will change and grow up, but when you’re older that excuse is gone. You are what you are. And most of the older people I’ve met haven’t changed since their early twenties. So don’t believe it when they say you will grow up. Look at him, with his grey beard trying to look wise, but in reality it’s a disguise for his lack of life experience. And she’s showing off her saggy breasts and her wrinkled tattoo on her arm. They were never able to change their lives the way they wanted so they changed the way they look. And look at them now. I’m so glad I’m not like them…