Indian Summer

I hope I didn't bore you with that last post. It was a tad bit long. Kudos if you made it to the end. I've decided to add a link to the song I ramble on about anyway, in the comments section, for those of you who don't know what I'm on about.

Today I enjoyed a fantastically sunny day with friends, sitting outside on a terrace on a nice square in my hometown. I spent most of the afternoon talking to a good friend of mine who had just broken up with her boyfriend. I tried to be the best friend I could, and came up with a theory about how I would deal with the situation if I were she. It seemed like the appropriate thing to do. Knowing very well that we each have to walk our own path, and my advice will offer little more than a bit of comfort. It can hardly be taken at face value.

I mentioned to her that I was writing this blog. In English. And for the second time it felt weird to tell a friend I was writing in a language other than our own. I'm pretty sure that part of the reason I'm writing this in English is that writing in my own language is a less technical, and therefore an even more personal endeavour. Another part is that I've been in love with the English language since forever. I clearly remember being six years old, on a climber on the playground, blabbing away to my dumbfounded little friends in what I was convinced was English.

Sort of like what I'm doing here, only even less comprehensible.

In any case, here’s another resolution, as that seems to be the thread that links all these little ramblings of mine; I’m going to start blogging in Dutch too. And I’m not going to keep blogging daily on here. I’ll think of a feasible rhythm, but I’m thinking maybe three English posts and two Dutch ones each week.

We’ll see.

Oh, tomorrow (Wednesday) I’m going to an Interim office to be tested, to see what kind of job would be fitting for me. So fingers crossed. Light a candle. Wish me luck. See you tomorrow.

Here's a picture of me, diving through a crevice.

Little old me, under the sea.

Matrimony, napkins, principles and letting go.

One of the things that has kept me from writing these last couple of days was a wedding. My cousin, my mother's goddaughter, has tied the knot.

Marriage has always seemed to me like one of those useless side-effects of organised religion. Why bother going to a temple of a god you don't believe in to stand in front of family you're not particularly close to and tell them that yes, you're really serious about your relationship. Shouldn't this be a matter between you and your significant other? And how ridiculous to claim that you will be in love with that person for the rest of your life. Who's to say what will happen, or who you will meet.

Lately, as with many things that I used to be adamant about, I'm not so sure.

Quite a few of my friends are married. Many others are not. Neither am I, although I am in a loving relationship, and have been for more than four years now. Those friends who did get married all had their reasons, all slightly different for each of them. Some blatantly got married for practical reasons: it's still the most convenient way to take care of your affairs as a couple. For some it seemed like a very intimate thing, between the two of them. They only hesitantly invited other people to attend the ceremony, if at all. For others still it was a social happening. A reason to amass all of their friends and relatives around them and celebrate life together.

I have never felt that any of their weddings was a "mistake". So my theoretical objections to marriage never held up when confronted with the reality of a happy couple taking the vow.

I live in Flanders, the northern, dutch-speaking part of Belgium. I was brought up in a suburban, middle class environment and have always felt alienated by the hypocrisy and frigid atmosphere of that environment. From a very early age I decided to try and discard as much as I could of this culture that I hated, because the last thing I wanted to become was as lifeless en emotionally awkward as my parents and their friends.

Here's where the napkins from the title of this post come in. For decades now it's been considered appropriate to put on a certain horrendous French song at Flemish weddings, usually at the end of dinner. I'm not even going to link to the song, or mention the title. Trust me, it's horrible. And if you have ever had to endure that part of a Flemish wedding party, I'm sorry for even mentioning it, and possibly causing you to have the damn thing stuck in your head for the rest of the day.

Anyway.

Napkins.

When the pseudo-epic intro to this song comes on, the wedding guests all grab their napkins and stick them in the air, waving them slowly from the left to the right. The tempo of the song at this point is painfully slow, so the whole bunch of grinning aunts and uncles has to wait for seconds with their napkins to one side before they can move it over to the other. At this point in time, the air is filled with anticipation. While the singer sings about black clouds coming from the North to cover the scorched earth after a war somewhere in Ireland (hardly anyone speaks French well enough to understand, and those that do aren't paying attention), the whole family, and their embarrassed friends, are sitting there slowly waving their stupid napkin to and fro. 

A cymbal splashes, and the song switches to a horrid symphonic polka-beat. This -of course- is the cue for the wedding guests to start swinging around their napkins in circles, like shipwrecked idiots that think they saw an aeroplane fly over. At this point we are a minute and twenty five seconds into a six minute song. The singer butchers every rule of where the emphasis of a French word should be as he tries to keep up with the supposedly Celtic rhythm of the orchestra. Lyrically, he switches to pictures of springtime and naked women jumping into the Irish lakes. 

By the time the wedding guests have managed to synchronise their helicoptering, and found ways to wave their napkins around without hitting their neighbours in the face repeatedly, the song switches to a kind of operatic middle part. Cue the renewed awkwardness of a tempo too slow to do anything interesting with a napkin. The singer shows off his tenor voice with a Pavarotti-like loud note. The lyrics as he hits the high note translate as "over there". Why on earth one would choose to belt out these words at ear-shattering volumes remains a mystery to me. Meanwhile the wedding guests try to translate the passionate wail of the singer into kinetic energy. They're not hitting their neighbours as frequently as they do during the up-tempo part, but when they do, it hurts.

After this, the song switches back to the intro, only this time even slower. And it starts speeding up. Slowly. The anticipation is murderous. Some grandfather's grin has reached scary widths and with his face all red and swollen you're afraid he's going to kick the bucket. But he still has his napkin forcefully up in the air, so you guess he'll be alright. The singer growls. Again with the black clouds, only this time they're even more ominous. The string section of the orchestra delivers screeching stabs against the beat. The threatening atmosphere seems rather inappropriate for a wedding ceremony. Or is it? Like I said, I'm not married, nor have I ever been.

Then, rather unceremoniously, the song switches back to the up-tempo bit. And off they all go, swinging their napkins like there was no tomorrow. For about another minute and a half. By this time -I am certain of it- there isn't a single soul in that wedding party that doesn't realise they look like an absolute idiot. Even the bride is looking around helplessly, with a confused expression on her face that seems to say "Should we be doing this"? All the while relentlessly swinging around her napkin, narrowly missing her recently acquired better half on every beat of that French song about lakes in Ireland. At least if we knew the lyrics, we could sing along. Or maybe just listen to them, if it was a language we actually spoke.

Straight to the operatic bit now. Back to wailing "over there" loudly. This is the only part of the lyrics that most wedding guests can grab on to, and some sing along, or pretend to. Back to the forceful to and fro of napkins clenched tightly in sweaty fists. Only by this time the movement lacks conviction. By this time we're past the amount of time a song should last. And nothing manages to keep their attention from their painful shoulder muscles. Try holding up a napkin for five minutes. Let alone waving it around like a madman. 

The operatic bit dwindles into a suspended note that slowly fades out. Giving you hope. (One of the crucial ingredients of proper torture.)

But then synthetic bagpipes appear in the distance. A ghastly nasal squealing. Playing the up-tempo theme. Slowly. The only thing worse than a polka beat is a slowed down polka beat. That starts speeding up.

Back to the helicoptering.

Again.

Cramped up shoulder and all.

Back to full blast.

Whenever I have looked around at a wedding party this deep into this preposterous charade, I have seen nothing but dead looks in people's eyes. The singer has given up on making up idyllic scenes to sing about (he's been repeating stuff for the second half of the song anyway) and lets the orchestra and the synthetic bagpipes fiddle on while the choir lazily makes do with a "lai-la lai-la" that the wedding guests pretend to merrily sing along. Well the singing is mostly real. The merriment isn't.

And then, the music slowly fades out and the crowd applauds the newlyweds, presumably for surviving the first real ordeal of their budding marriage.

I never, ever used to take part in this nonsense. I think I have made abundantly clear why.

This week-end, however, I realised that just sitting there doing nothing while your entire family indulges in this ritual is about as horrid as taking part.

I realised that I might make my cousin and her fresh hubby, my mother, my aunts and uncles, and everyone there happier by swinging my napkin around.

So I swung that thing over my head like my life depended on it.

 I didn't particularly enjoy it.

But it somehow feels like a victory.

Here's a picture of the moon that I took just now.

The moon over Antwerp on the night of september 15th 2014.

"Just Write": about starting, persevering and becoming good at what you do

The activity of writing in and of itself does something weird to my thoughts. I haven't written as consistently as I have during this last week in ages. If ever. Some of these blog posts just flow out in one go, others take almost the entire day to come up with a subject, and something more or less interesting to write about that subject. Having written down what I have over the last week has given me quite some peace of mind. And the desire to write some more.

Today I went to rehearsal with a couple of friends. We are starting a band. It's in a very early stage of its conception, and it has been for quite a long time. We'll see what comes of it.
In any case, the creative juices were flowing today, but not towards what I would write.
So I just sat down and started doing what I'm doing now: just writing.

When I started playing guitar, I was obsessed by it. It was all I did for about two or three years. At the very beginning, when I was just learning, I fell ill during an easter holiday break. I had nothing else to do but play guitar for two weeks. By the end of those two weeks, I knew almost as much as I do now, 25 years later, about playing guitar. But I wasn't any good yet. You get good at something by doing that thing. Lots. Malcolm Gladwell's "Outliers" is a very interesting book about that. Its core thought is the theory that to become exceptionally good at something, you have to spend ten thousand hours doing it.

Jacques Brel said talent is nothing else than the desire to do something, combined with the sweat of hard work. I'll link to the interview below.

So anyway. Here I am. I didn't know what I was going to write. I just sat down, started writing down what popped into my head, and I came up with a couple of interesting things to write about.

I don't consider myself a writer by any means.

But I'm writing.

And that's better than the other way around.



Here's the Jacques Brel interview that I found very inspiring:
(don't worry you Angloes, it has English subtitles)

And here's a fragment from "Finding Forrester". I think it's a rather average movie as a whole, but this fragment has stayed with me ever since I saw the film a long time ago. It's about writing. But I guess it's applicable to any creative undertaking.

Patting yourself on the back

Let me start this one off by patting myself on the back for sticking to at least one resolution for a week. That's right. This is a fucking jubilee. A week of blogging. Yay me. Well done, Rikster. Now keep it up.

There.

As embarrassing as that was to do semi-publicly, I had to. It's one of the things I'm learning. It's part of growing up. Self-parenting if you will. Patting yourself on the back is nothing to be ashamed of, he told himself sternly. I won't bother you with it too much anymore, at least not as explicitly as I did there, but I'll be doing plenty of it in my head. I'll be doing it when I find a job, I'll be doing it when I finish a blog post, I'll be doing it when I climb back on stage for another open mic, I'll be doing it when I help someone out, I'll be doing it when I manage to get out of bed before noon (8 am this morning. Great job, Rik!) and I'll be doing it when I actively engage in a conversation. (Another resolution. I'll get into that in another post.)

You see patting yourself on the back is something that's frowned upon both in the world I was brought up in (a middle class world of catholic Flemish hardworking suburbians, chronically frightened of sticking out against the grey background they dwelt in) and in the world I tried to flee to and define myself by as a teenager (defiant anti-ambitious generation x-ers using integrity as an excuse to psychologically self-destruct). Neither the priests in my high school that were supposed to teach me morals, nor Kurt Cobain who became my hero, felt that is was appropriate to blow your own trumpet. Not even (or maybe even especially) to yourself, in your head. We're all finding out about the supposed morality of catholic priests, and we all know how mister Cobain ended up.

So I'm learning. And that's another resolution I'm sticking to.

Good boy.

(Thanks)

Here's a picture I took of a close encounter I had with a tarpon in Mexico.

Cool picture!

I know, right?

Optimism

The general tone of the blurbs I've written so far has been rather more optimistic than my usual train of thought. When I talk to my friends about my current situation I don't manage to stay as bright and positive as I do in these blurbs. Dealing with being unemployed, not knowing what to do next, confronting my own limitations and my procrastination usually lead to thoughts that are somewhat bleaker than the tone of my musings on here.

However, I feel that the attitude I present here is the only way out of the rut that I'm stuck in. Writing down resolutions to a readership that is hitherto non-existent hasn't thus far helped me actually get my ass in gear and DO something about my situation. But being depressed and moping about hasn't either. And in the end optimism is the only option. Every alternative leads to nowhere.

I hope that writing down these resolutions and affirmations will help me get in gear.

And who knows, maybe one day someone will read my story on here and find inspiration to get their head out of their ass and get their shit together.

Tomorrow's a new day.

I'm sure I'll think of something to do.

Here's a video of a turtle I once swam besides for a beautiful minute in the Red Sea.

It seems optimistic about its future. It too has little alternative.

It's ok to suck

I have just received an audio recording from the last open mic I performed at.

Boy do I suck.

This was the first time I heard myself perform stand-up comedy. It's the first bit of public speaking I hear myself do in about a decade. I was a theatre actor for a strong minute in the early 2000's. I saw a few video recordings of that. I was sometimes good, mostly just ok, sometimes annoying to look at. So I was prepared for this recording to not be the best bit of stand-up comedy I've ever heard.

But boy do I suck.

The thing is though: I need to get over myself. In a lot of ways. But first and foremost in accepting that I suck. And sucking is good. Because I know that I'll be learning from that suckage. (Suction?) And I know that next time I'm on stage, I'll suck just a tiny bit less.

I didn't always look at things this way. I was raised to believe that I was very special and talented. I'm an only child, and my mom has called me a genius for as long as I remember. My IQ was tested in primary school and high school, and I always scored really well. I did very well in primary school, and by the time I got to high school my sense of entitlement was so inflated that I didn't even bother to take the effort to study anymore. I did well enough to pass without any effort in the beginning. And I hated that school so much that I wasn't going to indulge them with actual study. I was sent to a strict catholic school that focused on dead languages and mathematics. I wanted to be an artist. (Of course I did. I was very special.)

My pleas to transfer to another school fell upon deaf ears with my father no matter how bad I did.  It wasn't until my dad passed away, when I was 23, that I gathered up the courage to go to an artistic school. I did my entrance exam at a somewhat renowned theatre school here in Antwerp. Successfully. Very successfully, in fact. The six minute monologue that I did at the end of the week-long entrance exam was so good, that even the fact that I hardly ever did anything good throughout the four years of theatre school didn't persuade my teachers to flunk me.

So there I was, all graduated from theatre school. Ready to be unleashed upon the world.

The world, however, didn't give a fuck.

I was devastated. To this day I catch myself telling people how I mostly regret that no one ever found a good use for me in the Belgian theatre or television world. This, I have come to discover, is exactly what entitlement sounds like.

It's up to me to find a good use for me. No one else will. That still sounds kind of sad to me. But it's just true. And on a good day, I realise how that statement is in fact a very positive one. And that hidden in it is a world of opportunities for me.

All I'll have to do is work.

And suck at what I'm doing. Until I get good.

Here's Ira Glass explaining it better than I just did:


Ira Glass on Storytelling from David Shiyang Liu on Vimeo.

Let's talk about butts

I'm writing this on the evening of the Monday that I promised myself I was going to get a job on in my first blog entry three days ago.
Needless to say I didn't. I'll make sure and brag about my accomplishments here whenever I get the chance. You can tell by the title of this entry that that's not what I'll be doing tonight.

I was walking home earlier today, and in front of me was a young lady wearing a pair of fashionable sweatpants, that beautifully outlined her derrière. A fact that I found impossible to ignore. As I looked up from what I hope was only a fraction of a second of getting lost in the hypnotic dancing motion of her rear, my eyes met with those of a dude sitting on a tram. He had been checking out the front of the spectacle I had been enjoying only a moment ago, and the filthiest gleam of recognition appeared on his face, as his mouth creased into a wicked smile. It was as if he had found a brother. A partner in crime.

I felt insulted. Surely his filthy cravings had nothing to do with my getting lost in the poetry in motion that was her posterior as she was walking down my street. The guy looked like a manual laborer, possibly of eastern european descent. Plus he was using public transportation. That didn't help my appreciation of him. The fact that I had gotten off another tram a few minutes ago didn't cross my mind. Nor that I don't even have a job, and manual labour is infinitely better than none at all. His look of recognition had dragged me down to his sordid level, and I would have none of it.

I decided that was what I was going to write about tonight. Women's butts. About how they're mostly beautiful. And hypnotizing. And that when I dream off when I'm staring at them I don't dream of filth. Not most of the time. I just enter a trance. And feel happy. And peaceful.  I find staring at tush in motion very relaxing and meditative. My sincere concern is that -by god- I hope I don't look as rapey as that guy on the tram when I'm in my trance. Cause you see with me it's a spiritual thing.

I'm all about the spirit.

Here's a video.

A hangover and a woodpecker

Today I am hung over.
I can't think of things to write.

Here's a picture of a woodpecker.

A woodpecker on a palm tree in Xcalak.

Today I visited a friend and made another resolution

My friend is the mother of a beautiful two year old girl called Stella.
It takes guts to give your daughter the same name as a very famous Belgian beer.
Especially if you're Belgian.

Today I have decided that I'm done with sitting on my ass. On monday I'm going to get myself a job.
I've decided to go for a random temping office job. Work until the end of the year, then head off to Utila and become a dive master.
Maybe I'll even complete my instructor course.

I am tired of doing nothing much. It was good while it lasted. One might even argue that it was necessary.

Here's a picture of the most beautiful little patch of palm trees I've ever seen.

Palm trees on a beach in Xcalak, Quintana Roo, Mexico

A little blurb // a resolution

What if I wrote a little blurb here every day. Just some thoughts. For myself.
Something to bring rhythm to a life that's currently lacking that.

My name is Rik. I'm 40 years old and I live in Antwerp, Belgium.
I'm an aspiring comic, and when I grow up I want to become a dive instructor.
I live in a beautiful apartment with a fantastic view of our city.

I share this apartment with my beautiful girlfriend Klaartje.

I used to own a bar here in the city. That was a lot of fun, but unfortunately a bit of a financial disaster.

Before that I used to be a social worker, and before that I was an actor. Not a very successful one.

Right now I'm in between jobs. I'm trying to come up with an idea for a job that I can get passionate about.

It's kind of hard reinventing yourself when you're 40. At any age I guess.

Here's a picture of me and my girlfriend diving in Mexico a few months ago.

This picture was taken by our diving buddy and instructor Jo Swannell.

I'm very happy in this picture.