Deep Purple Cliché, Afghan, Bubblicious, Amnesia, Blueberry, White Widow, Purple Haze, Jamaican, Thai. No, these aren't the lyrics to a Chingy song, this was my reality for three days in Amsterdam. Obviously American cinema deceptively portrays Amsterdam, but not in the way you may think. All that we've seen, all that we've heard, and all of the rumors have all been diluted versions of the truth. Amsterdam is more than even the most creative and whimsical tall tale you believe you've heard. Harold, Kumar, Ted, Bill, Rick Steves, and Jerry McGuire are all full of shit. Not because Jerry said something about wild adventures or travel, but because everyone knows Tom Cruise doesn't love black people.
"Katie, if you make yourself taller they'll back down!"
Here's how my Friday went.
1:51 PM
Pillow check!
I crossed the Rubicon. At this point there was no turning back. My girlfriend knew that I'd forever be a changed man, which is quite likely why she was all like, "Hey if you keep trying to touch my leg I'm going to tell the train attendant, dirtbag" and moved to another seat. Forget her. I was taking the first step towards manhood. This was my vision quest, my Walkabout—like my first time watching Brad Pitt in Troy and being perfectly comfortable with my hard-on.
7:27 PM
I stepped foot into Elysium. In my heaven, the streets weren't covered with gold, but rather with half-smoked blunts and more evidence of sexual deviance than a Catholic school playground. I met my friends and we headed to our first bar. In hindsight, everything that happened after that could have been an Absinthe-induced hallucination. I wasn't sure of my friends' stance on smoking, so I cleverly suggested that we eat something before we head to the next bar hoping for a stop at a coffee shop. Unfortunately, I hadn't anticipated that every restaurant adheres to the same hours of operation as Michelle Duggar's vagina, so after a cheeseburger I'm like, "Hey let's smoke some weed and shit."
10:05 PM
Holland, about 30 years late.
I remember thinking to myself, "Wow this must be what Nate Dogg feels like," then I opened my eyes and we walked into the coffee shop. I hadn't realized the ease of acquiring weed. I'd obviously heard stories, but you can literally just walk up and buy a bag of weed or a pre-rolled joint from a wide selection of different strains. Unfortunately, Holland is likely soon passing a law prohibiting foreigners from entering coffee shops and the shops will now be "Members only" clubs allowing only card-carrying Dutch members access because of border countries' pressure.
Rest of the Night
After I was high, my usual monologue evolved into something else entirely. We ended up trying to find a house party we had been invited to, and we were instructed to take a "slight right." After we took the right and didn't see the house, I started to question how slight that right really was. The subtlety of the right was a quagmire. After considering that the "right" was as subtle as anything I'd done in Amsterdam, I was reassured and we kept on the path.
I then saw a midget on the bus we took. I thought about asking him for directions, but I remember thinking that because of his small stature he could never grasp the gravity of the situation and our urgency was way over his head. I hate to be intolerant…but seriously, fuck midgets.
We finally reached the house. Shortly after we arrived, a guy came in carrying a puppy. After someone asked if he was the owner, he replied, "I like to think he's an individual so I'm not his owner, but yeah I take care of him." I immediately wished I had Chinese parents and I was a second-born female child. After that statement, I seriously called every response he would give before he said it the rest of the night. I'm all for autonomy and individuality, but a predictable dogma of non-conformity is still conforming.
"I'm not sure what to do with my hands."
This guy inevitably has a t-shirt that says, "I'd Rather Be Occupying" and a bumper sticker that reads, "My Other Ride Is My Feet Because I Don't Like Leaving A Carbon Footprint" on his dad's Prius. A dad he probably hates by the way. He undoubtedly is infuriated when the bands he likes get popular and nothing pisses him off more than "The Man."
Here are a few gems he spewed out:
Quoting Bill Hicks: "The only good system is a speaker system."
On his carpentry: "I have one rule: no electricity, no glue, no metal."
To a guy about his girlfriend: "She's beautiful." Other Guy: "I know that." Douche: "Yeah, but does she know it?"
On a discussion that nothing in life is free: "Love is free."
Exactly in line with what I'd expect would happen, he got wasted by the end of the night and turned into a guard from the Stanford Prison Experiment. At one point, the puppy got into the garbage and he grabbed it by the neck yelling, "You need to fucking listen to me, I'm your master!" Don't really need to elaborate on that guy. Thank god Ike and Tina finally got kicked out after that.
Mail-order hunk.
After I drank myself into tolerance, I started hitting it off with a Romanian married couple. They brought some moonshine, and the only thing more beautiful than the way I felt after a few shots of that was the Romanian guy. Like seriously, this guy was gorgeous. I'm not gay or anything, but just saying, if I was caught sucking dick, it'd probably be an Eastern European guy.
I ended up waking up in a bed I'd never seen next to a strange, burly man. I may have felt like I went home the night before with Helen Hunt, but I left with a sense of satisfaction that not even the subsequent HIV test and rape kit could stifle.