Holy shit!

Dude can climb!
He got to the top on his own but had to use a fire-truck ladder to get down...

Dude decided to climb to the top of a cross, strip, shit in his hand and wipe it on the cross...

Maybe he is the second coming of Christ?
He kind of looks like Jesus but with shorter hair and smellier hands...


From 8 a.m. to around 3:15 p.m. yesterday, an unidentified nude twentysomething man, reported to be suicidal, sat 50 feet in the air atop the cross at West Bethel Presbyterian Church on La Brea Ave. between Wilshire and Olympic. He finally came down after a seven hour confrontation with the fire and police departments (including SWAT), who had placed an air cushion on the ground in case he fell and a ladder for him to climb down on, which he used.

A witness told KTLA that the man told her he was "protesting against Christianity." He apparently climbed up clothed, but stripped and threw is clothes down. His only request during the standoff was a towel to wipe his hands clean after wiping his waste on the cross. An officer told the TV station that one of the crimes he would be arrested for was defacing a church, which is a felony.

(story from: http://laist.com)

"We don't like Jesus either, children."

Party party party

Santina turned 24 yesterday so she had a little hoo haa. I got pretty leathered, took over the ipod and taught the Dutch all about Australian musicians like Daryl Braithewaite, John Farnham, INXS, Frenzal Rhomb, Toe To Toe, The Gifthorse and Amity. They liked all.

I didn't take many photos, in fact I only got a couple when everyone was here and then when there were only five of us left sat around at 3am... Too much drank.

I learned today that the Dutch say "Ik heb een kater geadopteerd" when they have a hang over. It literally translates to "I adopted a cat". I must be a fucking animal shelter or a demented old cat lady if that is the case.

Santina's mum gave her a Bon Jovi picture book.

Apple cake!

High five!

Sander and his lady were the last to leave. Pretty sure he would have fallen off his bike on the way home. Dude was shit faced.

Gijs!

I like food, food tastes good

I've travelled as far from Australia as you can go before you start coming back. I'm immersed in a foreign culture and an unfamiliar climate. I "sit on a park bench thats older than my country". All around me fine art adorns the walls of historic buildings. The buildings themselves venerable architectural masterpieces. For centuries Amsterdam has beget poets, artists, musicians, philosophers and other brilliant minds.

It is only fitting then that I pen a blog concerning the preferred food stuffs I've acquired a taste for over the past few weeks. Low brow. Still, who would want to read my opinion on Rembrandt or Caravaggio?

2, 4, 6, 8, blog in, don't wait.


#1 - Party Sticks.
These delicious little guys are simply gerkhins sliced length wise into quarters. I think the appeal lies in the name, because we all know you can get pickles in a jar anywhere in the world, but where the fuck else can you chow down on a party stick?

#2 - Choco Muesli (Master Crumble!)
I stumbled across the poor mans muesli in LIDL the week I arrived. Another brilliant product name - Master Crumble! (I'm quite sure the name is followed by an exclamation point, which makes this cereal especially toothsome). Since then I have stepped it up to other more expensive brands of chocolate infused muesli such as Quaker, Albert Heijn and o'Lacy. However this has not been a gracious choice on my part. LIDL; the poor mans supermache, carries what ever they can get their greasy merchant hands on. They have to ply the bottom feeders with the cheapest products and often times do not replenish stock once it has sold. I speak for Gijs, Santina and myself in saying that we long for the day the Master returns to the shelves and our breakfast (and sometimes mid afternoon) table.

#3 - Strawberry + Orange Juice
My favourite in a series of Albert Heijn exclusive "split" juices. Strawberry and Orange. So simple, yet such a treat for my tastebuds. These fancy fucks are found in the refrigerated section of Albert Heijn which means they are a little more expensive than the other cartons out on the shelves, but goddammit I can taste my extra 25 cents in every drop.

#4 - Stroopwafels
An old favourite of mine. I first encountered the Stroopwafel (English translation is Syrup Waffle) back in 2006. I think they are one of the most famous Dutch treats as most of my friends in the UK used to ask me to bring them back when I would come to Amsterdam. A nice trick with Stroopwafels is to place them on the top of your hot mug of coffee or tea. The heat from your beverage melts the syrup and the snack becomes ten times more delicious.

#5 - Curry Ketchup
You can put this shit on anything. Gijs actually puts it on pretty much anything. The Dutch love to eat fries, and they soak them in either mayonaise, peanut sauce or this spicy liquid. They don't fuck around with the size of the bottle either. I haven't seen one smaller than this juice cannon.

#6 - Pear Icy Poles
Holy Santa shit! Why hasn't someone from Home Ice Cream or Streets or another icecream company in Australia done these? They are without doubt one of the best tasting ice blocks I have ever had. They taste like a really cold pear, on the end of a little wooden stick. Can you taste it right now? Have I whet your appetite? Also - they're like €1.29 for a box of 12. Shit off!

#7 - Capsicum Chips
Santina thought I invented the word Capsicum to try and fool her. I didn't. This is another flavour that the Dutch seem to have conjured while the rest of the world sits eating salt'n'vinegar. Another personal favourite is bolognese chips.

Boring pointless blog. I have one. You read it.

Good work son!

So you might have read that while I was waiting for Matt and Pat a few weeks ago at the airport I saw a newspaper cover that made me laugh. After having a read of Gareth's blog I found the link to the story. Wow. Look at this fucking kid...He looks like an eight year old. The father that is. He is thirteen now which means he was just twelve years old when he stuck it in. Brilliant. I don't think my dick even worked when I was twelve.

Fatty and skinny went to bed, fatty shat out a kid nine months later.

Byron Baywatch

The week before I left Austraaaaalia I went to Byron Bay with TVs Ryan Sim for a hang with Kevin and Rosie. Comeback Kid had just toured Aus as well and Casey had stuck around for a bit as well.

I was getting all nostalgic and shit today and found some photos that I took that day. It was an awesome day. We had ribs and chicken for lunch. We also accidently burned the BBQ cover.

Ryan Sim and Kevin Call - completely rad dudes.

Kevin Call cutting chicken behind a photo of himself in New Zealand.

Casey. Normally has better hair than this. Watch his videos - over there on the Bros link.

Junior Master Chef.

I kissed Katy Perry...And I liked it

Well I didn't really kiss her, but it would have been nice. I would have liked it...
Here is what happened...

Last night Gaslight Anthem and Polar Bear Club were playing at Melkweg in the smaller room, and Katy Perry was playing in the larger room. Gaslight and PBC were great, and I snuck in to watch a few Katy Perry songs as well. Over all, I had a great time - caught up with lots of people who I hadn't seen since I arrived - might have sorted out some possible tour work and maybe some work in Amsterdam as well...

The bands finish and my friend Ernesto and I were having a beer in the lobby bit of the venue where the coat check and the merch tables were...Out of an elevator pops Katy Perry and (presumably) her two assistants...walks straight towards Ernesto and I...

So before I left Australia, "One Summer Crew" (fucking YES Daryl Braithwaite) were blasting at Helmets house and we had a look at the gig listings for Amsterdam for when I got over here...and who should be playing, but Helmet's Summer '09 crush; Katy Perry. I made a promise to the grizzly little man that day that I would track Katy Perry down and make her phone him.

For reference, here is a photo of Helmet. I miss him a lot!


As luck would have it, she walked straight into my arms.

The following conversation ensued:

Me: "Hey Katy."
Katy: "Yeh? Hi."
Me: "Hey, I saw your show, it was really cool."
Katy: "Oh thanks, that's sweet."
Me: "I'm a sweet guy."
Katy's assistant: "Yeh, so we have to keep going to the cab out the front now."
Me: "Wait, I have a friend at home in Australia who really wanted me to try and meet you and get you to phone him."
Katy: "You're from Australia? I fucking love Australia!"
Katy's assistant: "Yeh, so the cab is out the front."
Me: "We'll just be a second here."

At this point, I already have my phone to my ear waiting for Helmet to pick up...

Me: "So can you say hey to my friend? It's ringing now."
Katy: "OK...oh it went to a voice mail..."
Me: "Can you leave a message?"
Katy: "Sure - Hi...uhm, what's your friend's name?"
Me: "Helmet."
Katy: "Like on your head? OK...Hi Helmet! I'm here in Amsterdam with your friend...what's your name again?"
Me: "Nick."
Katy: "I'm here in Amsterdam with your friend Nick and he wanted me to leave you a message - so hey what's up! Good morning! I wish I could have spoken to you!"
Me: "Thanks! He's going to do things to himself while listening to that voice mail you realise..."
Katy's assistant: "Wow...thanks...we have to go now."
Katy: "Nice to meet you Nick."
Me: "You too Katy - bye bye."

I would love to have heard what Helmet would have said to her had he answered his phone... He tells me he was only seconds away from picking it up. Time differences are a motherfuck.

So that was that. If only Ernesto had come through and taken a photo. Alas. You'll have to take my word for it and hope that Helmet gets around to somehow uploading the conversation so we can all whack off while listening to it!

The last supper

I left London on Thursday morning just gone. On Wednesday night I had dinner at Jimmy's place. He cooked up a mad mexi feast which was a good way to end a quick week in London catching up with everyone.




The trip back to Amsterdam sucked. EasyJet... More like Fucking RudeyJet. The staff and the customers. It is basically a discount supermarket in the air. Real assholes. Real Euro swine.

I might go see M Ward play tonight. Gaslight Anthem and Polar Bear Club are playing on Sunday night and then we might go see Titus Andronicus on Monday or Tuesday? (Ryan might be jealous - that is about it though).

De Zotte tonight. I can't wait.

Job prospects looking up... We'll see.

For British Eyes Only....

Have been hanging in London for a few days - haven't really been using the camera much.
Hasn't been as cold here as it has in Amsterdam. Have caught up with a lot of people that used to love me. Stayed at my sister and her dude's place a couple of nights, stayed at Gareth and Nina's place on Saturday night, now I'm going to stay with Jaimie and Tim and their unborn son Vince for a couple of nights.

Still sniffing around for some work. Havn't had much luck thus far, but I was expecting that... So I'm just kind of hanging out and enjoying seeing old friends.

Currently sitting in the pub that Jaimie works in Camden. She is pregnant and due on the 3rd of June. I hadn't seen her for about a year so we have been hanging out and she has been serving me a lot of beers. There have been two customers in here over the past five hours. Good times.

Jaimie and I.

Chiswick Tube Station. Saturday afternoon.

Saturday night - Matt, Gareth and Lucy's birthday party. We ended up at The Nordic Bar which is just near Oxford Street and has a shit tonne of beers and drinks that are Scandinavian. Matt was my old boss at Atticus/Macbeth, Gareth is my homeboy who lived in Australia with Nina and I for a year, and Lucy is a good friend who used to work at Atticus/Macbeth as well and lived with Gareth and Jimmy whose couch I crashed for a couple of months. Three of the best Londoners you will ever meet.

Matt and Sabira.

Lucy made Gareth a cooking apron for his birthday.

Gareth and his cousin Nick. Nick was one of the first people I met when I came to London in 2005. Good dude. Loves cats.

Nina, Sari and Lucy.

Jaimie and Tim's cat - Dizzle. Used to be called Pandora until they found out if was a boy.

ps. If you didn't know - you can click on the photos to see the big versions of them.

Back in the state

I fell asleep on the tube last night and woke up in Ealing Broadway. I now remember the dangers of getting drank in London...

Mum said I swear too much on here, so I am going to curb my enthusiasm from here on and fucking edit my shit before I post it...

Love you mum xo

Scream, shout, rip that mother out

Santina said one of the funniest things she has ever said to me just before. She asked, "Nick, do you think there are any cultures that lay down to take a shit?"

On Friday morning I woke up at about 9am and got the tram to Central Station, then I got the train to Schiphol Airport. I arrived at 10am. I was of the understanding that Pat and Matt were flying in from London on a British Airways flight that was to arrive at 10am. Unfortunately I'm an ignorant asshole who doesn't read emails properly. The shitty thing is, I wish I could be mad at them, but they gave me the correct flight number and time, I just had my head in my ass and didn't read the message from them... Ugh. I hate myself.

Turns out the guys were arriving on a British Airways flight at 11.25am. In the time I had to kill waiting for a flight that I wasn't sure was ever going to arrive I saw a trashy newspaper with the headline "A DAD AT 13" with a cover shot of a kid who looked no older than 11 cradling his new born son. I wish I'd have taken a photo of that shit, it was hilarious. I watched hundreds of people unload through the arrival gate from four different British Airways flights over the space of an hour and a half. By the time the guys got out I was ready to storm through the customs hall and grab the first two Australians I could find and get the fuck out of there.

Matt, Pat and obnoxious French child

Matt & Pat on the train

We get the train back to Gijs' and Santina's place and on the way, we talk a heap of shit and the guys fill me in about their holidays so far in Barcelona and London. Highlights included something about a dude named "K-hole Matty" who organised for the boys to each pay forty pounds to go to a rave and score a shit tonne of MDMA... Understandably they declined. Matt has a great photo of that guy resting his sandwich on his head while he rolls a cigarette. Genius. Also, both Matt and Pat were pretty haggard because they'd been up all night at a pub where Matt's ex-girlfriend works. Turns out Mastodon were staying in a hotel across the road, and dudes were getting wild until stupid o'clock. I guess dudes with face tattoos know how to party!

To deviate from the story briefly, early that morning I watched the garbage truck drive around the residential streets near Gijs and Santina's place, collecting the trash... Sounds boring huh? Sounds like another Nick Lucas story... WRONG MOTHERFUCKER! Look at these photos. There is a city of fucking trash under this city! The Lost City of Trashlantis! What looks like a simple bin on the side of the road in fact has a container underneath it big enough to drop a car into. Not even a Ford Laser. More like a fucking Jeep Grand Cherokee or something. Amazing. There is a giant magnet hanging from a crane which pulls the whole box out of the trash cave, and dumps it into the back of the truck! Small things I guess... That I was excited by this feat of civil engineering is a window into my mind. I'll endeavour to take some better photos on next week's rubbish day.

Amazing

So Matt and Pat, in Amsterdam.

Day one! We hang out for a bit, go and get some free coffee from Santina. She works in a coffee shop called The Coffee Company which is kind of like Starbucks but with good coffee and less assholes. It snows briefly. We buy some cheap German beers from the poor man's supermarket LIDL, where Matt gets hassled by a homeless guy who parrots everything after Matt says it. We come home and cook some pasta, watch a Kevin Smith spoken word DVD and then go to De Zotte.

Koala sausages

Pepsi bullet

De Zotte is a Belgian beer bar where one of Gijs' friends named Joep works. You might have heard me tell a story about a Belgian beer called Brigand which is 10%, and how I drank six of them when you really should stop after two, and I couldn't talk and almost shit my pants... If not, then you've missed out on a great story about a night which lead to one of my top three hangovers. Anyway, De Zotte is a cosy little non-tourist bar where a group of Gijs' mates go each Friday night to drink beers and be all Dutch and shit. We hang for a few hours and switch beers after a couple of Brigands.

De Zotte Bar

Neils!

A few of us go to the Paradiso to watch a band from Brooklyn called Gang Gang Dance. My friend Neils here vouches for them and so we each pay our €11. If only you could test drive a live show of a band you've never heard. Like you get to watch the first song from the stairs and if you don't like it, you can fuck off and get your €11 back. Alas, not the case. The band is complete horse shit. Just because you've got a girl singer and a dude with more keyboards than the bald asshole from the Letterman Show doesn't mean you are as good as The Knife or Portishead. The band had potential, and Neils assures us that the first album was great but the new stuff they're playing live is lacking. Pity.

Condom vending machine..."Don't open this vending machine by force. It's pointless." Smug fucking Dutch

Day two! Late wake up, subtle hangovers, free coffee and Internet from Santina, I book flights to and from London to stay for a week, we walk to the Anne Frank House and the queue is really big. (I could be uncouth here and say that the line of people looked as long as people waiting to get on a train for a ride to a special camp in Germany...uncouth though, so I won't). We decide to postpone the Anne Frank experience until Monday and instead walk to the Museum Square. We hit up the Rijksmuseum which although is partly out of order due to refurbishments, is still a pretty interesting few rooms. The Van Gough Museum has another one of those 1940s style line ups, so we skip that and Matt goes ice skating while Pat and I take photos of him, laugh as a child kicks his mother with his skate blade after she has fallen onto the ice, and wonder who the guy taking photos of kids next to us is actually related to... Hhmmmm.....

Matt on ice

Matt had a blast

It means "You Can..."

This guy thought it would be a good idea to stand in our photo, and smile at my camera. Asshole.

Home time for a brief sit down and some quick duty free Jack Daniels, then it is off to Maoz (felafel joint) for dinner, and onto the Melkweg (Pointless fact #217: Melkweg is Dutch for Milky Way) to watch Rise Against and Strike Anywhere play. Matt, Pat, Santina and I get pretty drank. Mum and a few of my aunties read this blog, so this is edited version of our night.

Dat three! It is Sunday and I have a pretty gnarly hangover. We get bagels and coffee for breakfast/lunch, Gijs bought another Kevin Smith DVD so we stay in and watch that tonight. We get fast food Mexican for dinner from a place called Taco Mundo up the road. Complete horse shit. Never again. We were going to do one of the touristy things tonight and go watch a live sex show, but everyone is too tired so we might hit that up tomorrow night.

Bagels and Beans - Every Sunday

Day four! Monday...Anne Frank House. I've visited it before but it is still really interesting. Pat and Matt thought the Frank family and co. were hiding in a box under the floor boards and not in an actual house...
We went for a walk through the red light district. Always amusing. There is a kindergarden next to some ladies in some windows... oh you crazy Dutch.

Matt, Pat & Gijs on a canal

Niiiiiiiiiice

Pigeons in this country are fucking huge