do you ever get the feeling that people are repeating other conversations that they had previously when they are talking to you? you know, like when a friend is telling you about a movie or a piece of art, and it doesn't sound like something that they would ever say? when their spiel sounds as if they had read it somewhere and liked it so much that they decided to make it their own? i get that sometimes, and i think it is weird.

sincerely,

jim

people always talk about how safe it is to ride a bike in the netherlands, and that no one needs to wear a helmet here because of the prominence of bike paths. well, i was about this close (pinches fingers together to indicate a small amount of space) to getting taken out by a cyclist who was not paying attention a few moments ago. i was passing him on the left, and he inexplicably shifted over to the left side of the bike path forcing me to ride up onto the curb and evasively maneuver around garbage bins and other such sidewalk stuff. i expect such behavior from small children, not from grown (dutch) men in business attire. these people grow up in a biking culture, and they should know better. i wasn't riding slowly, so the maneuvering was quite stressful. i pulled it off, and the man was very apologetic, but i didn't want to talk to him. i was all amped up, and i think i would have hit him if i tried to discuss what had just happened. i rode off briskly, gradually regaining my composure. if there had been a person on the sidewalk or a row of parked bikes my bike and i would have been fucked. if there were a person, he would have been fucked too.
i thought you would like to know about this.

best,
jim

Jim Turbert at the Hudson Museum, originally uploaded by jimturbert.

Jim Turbert at the Hudson Museum, originally uploaded by jimturbert.

Jim Turbert at the Hudson Museum, originally uploaded by jimturbert.

i walked by the Hudson Museum earlier today so i could see the show that no one has mentioned my participation in. i will not be including pictures of any of the other work since i was left off of their lists.
fuckem.

love,
jim

although i haven't been able to find my name on it anywhere on-line, i am in a show at the hudson museum in rotterdam right now. you should go check this mini-show/mini-exhibition space out if you are in the greater rotterdam area. otherwise, you will have to believe me that i am in the show. here is an (incomplete) informational link >>> http://narb.me/expo/group-exhibited/in/hudson-museum
i get no dutch love.
also, i have nothing interesting to say.

jim

hi. i'm in new york. i had a lovely day walking around and socializing, and now it is time to say good night.

good night.

more later,
jim

i was in a store called kwantum yesterday. marleen and i were looking at a carpet. while we were in the store a song with the lyrics "i want to make love - in this club" came on the the sound system. first i laughed. i thought it was funny that the music in the home goods store was talking about making love in the club. then i wondered if in the club was referring to something other than my assumption that it meant in a dance club. maybe young r&b dudes refer to their bedrooms or the kitchen as the club these days. then i wondered, "who the hell is this, and why does he have a career?" i wanted to know who the "artist" was and who was listening to him. i whipped out my handy iphone computing device, and i googled "make love in this club" and it turns out that shit tons of people listen to him. the song is by usher (featuring little jeezy), and while i am not intimately familiar with their work i can tell you that i have heard enough. i seem to recall seeing usher on a daytime talk show when i was in high school making him roughly my age, maybe a little younger, and i have come to the conclusion that he sucks meaningfully and deeply. i got a little angry that he gets to make gobs of money singing ridiculous tacky songs with a sidekick named jeezy. i know i sound like the crotchety old man saying "damn kids and their crazy music!!!" it's not like that. i don't think the music is crazy at all. i truly believe that the music he puts out is of low quality. the music is overproduced to mask the fact that its quality is so low, and for some reason the demographic that he is selling to is too uninformed to listen to something better. i find it difficult to imagine that in this age of the ubiquitous internet that anyone in his target demographic is uninformed, but that can be the only explanation for this crazy train of pain i will call the rise of the house of usher. it is truly mystifying to me.
as we were leaving the store i was bitching about usher's crappiness to marleen, and she pointed out that ushers is attractive and that he's a really good dancer. that is more than i can say for almost all of his female counterparts in the world of music directed at the top 40 youth of america. most of them can't sing, dance or make a sandwich, but they look good in underwear. at least he can dance as well as being a fine specimen of man.

that is all for now,
jim

p.s. usher, i may be mistaken, but i believe that if you are doing it in a club it is not called making love. it's fucking.

hello. i am still here.
i've been busy keeping it real. later today i'm going to get some spark plugs and pick up some film from het beeldgebouw. i may also go to the store to buy some cereal. i've been eating albert hein fruit and flakes lately. fruit and flakes is a copy of kellogg's fruit 'n fibre. after that i'll take some pictures.
i will be going to an art exhibition opening this evening. it is a painting exhibition of a pair of dutchlings who are known as villeroy and boch. they are acquaintances of mine whom i enjoy talking to whenever i see them. if you are in or near rotterdam, you should totally check out their show >>> http://www.cbk.rotterdam.nl/tentrotterdam/mooij-nl.htm

i will post more in the near future.

best wishes,
jim

p.s. if you live in my neighborhood, and you leave your cat outside all the time, please let him in occasionally. he keeps marleen awake when she should be sleeping, and he wants to hang out with you. also, you should want to hang out with him. he doesn't like being on the terrrace. seriously.

Registered
Originally uploaded by jimturbert

This is a picture of my recently registered in the Netherlands motorcycle. It is a 1978 Triumph Bonneville, and it is beautiful. I find it difficult to refer to the bike as mine. Often I call it "the Triumph" or I find some other way of deferring my possession of the bike, but it is actually mine. The former (and original) owner of this bike was my uncle, whom I called Buddy. Others may have known him as Tom. He passed away just over a year ago, and he would have been 61 on February 19. I always coveted this motorcycle even though I didn't know how to ride it. First of all, it was brown, and I haven't seen too many brown motorcycles. Also, i thought the paint job was really nice. I used to wonder why he chose to ride his other motorcycle more often despite putting so much time and effort into keeping this one. Now that the bike is mine, I fully understand. I got stranded on the side of the road the other day. I had to push the damned thing 10 miles through the Dutch countryside, and it started raining on me. I'm not giving up. I am committed to making this bike an everyday rider. I am just a few small steps away from total reliability which is something that this bike has not experienced since (i'm guessing) the early eighties. I've put in a bunch of money, and I made some sound modifications. Summer is going to be glorious.
I'll keep you posted.

Best,
Jim

>>>> SPOILER ALERT!!! <<<< 

If you haven't seen Back to the Future, do not read this post.

The other day I was thinking about the first time I saw "Back to the Future" (around 900 years ago). If you recall, the climax of the movie takes place in the parking lot at the "Enchantment Under the Sea" dance. Biff is molesting Leah Thompson in the back of his car, and George MacFly steps up, and changes the course of his family's history.  Around the same time in the movie, Biff's henchmen, or cronies, or whatever they are are chasing Michael J. Fox.  They catch MJ, and they lock him in the trunk of Marvin Berry's (cousin of Chuck) car.  Marvin was the leader of the band that was playing the dance, and they happened to be taking a break behind the school while all of this was going on.  I don't remember the dialog exactly, but upon seeing Biff's cronies messing with his car, Marvin (Marvin and the band happen to be black guys) calls one of the white cronies "peckerwood."  I believe that peckerwood is a fantastic insult.  In fact, I want to start calling people peckerwood regardless of what color they are, and regardless of whether they deserve it or not just because it makes me so happy to say it. Getting back on track,  after being called peckerwood, the cronies feel threatened, and one of them says, "We don't want to mess with no reefer addicts."  I didn't understand what he was saying the first couple times I saw the movie, mostly because I didn't know what reefer meant. I thought he said "referratic."  I guess referratic would be a cross between refer and erratic, so the definition would be "an unpredictable reference to something???"  All fictional words aside, that line confused me until I learned that reefer was one of many names for marijuana.  Then I thought, "Ohhhhhh...  The Band guys were smoking weed."  It all came together, and the movie got funnier.  I love that movie.

Yours truly 

Jim Turbert

Because I know that you are interested in even the smallest details of my life, i thought I'd share my most recent purchase with you.  

CYCLON! is a degreaser used for cleaning up the greasy bits on your bike or anything else that gets greasy.  In the US, I used to buy citrus degreaser.  This is pretty much the same thing.  It cleans just as well as the stuff I'm accustomed to, but it doesn't smell like oranges.  The superior label is what does it for me.  If CYCLON! smelled like oranges, I don't know if I could handle it.  I think it would blow my mind, and I'd just sit in a corner rocking back and forth repeating nonsensical phrases to anyone who would listen.    

Okay, I admit that it's not that exciting.

Have a good day.

Your pal,

Jim Turbert  

this post is a retraction of sorts.  i've recently learned that my recent experience at the RDW (or the dutch DMV) was so long and drawn out not because the dutch love to make people suffer, but because my motorcycle is an immigrant.  evidently, every vehicle in the netherlands has a license plate that stays with that vehicle forever.  in the US, the license plate is attached to the person, not the vehicle.  i had the same license plate for the last three vehicles that i owned, but that is not how they do it here.  if you sell or otherwise dispose of your vehicle, the license plate (or more accurately, the registration number) goes with it.  it turns out that what i was doing on thursday was getting my motorcycle a green card of sorts.  it needs a license plate number to keep with it for always and forever.  if i had purchased a dutch motorcylcle, then i wouldn't have needed to jump through so many hoops, and it would have taken far less time.    

i apologize to the dutch people for my disparaging comments about their motor vehicle registration system.  i am dumb, and i will now shut up.  

sincerely, 

jim turbert

the next time you are at the registry of motor vehicles (in the US), and you are thinking about how much it sucks, remember what i'm about to tell you.  compared to the registry in the netherlands, the massachusetts RMV is a holiday.  i spent 4 hours at the RDW (the dutch equivalent of the RMV) in schiedam today.  i know it's a little early to register a motorcycle, but i want to get it out of the way.  also, there are some really nice days, and it would be sweet to take the bike out occasionally. so yeah, i was there for 4 hours this morning.  i waited to get inspected, and once i passed inspection i had to wait for paperwork, then i had to wait to talk to a tax guy, and then i had to wait for him to tell me how much i had to pay him in taxes.  the upside to all this waiting is that the bike is so old that i didn't have to pay any taxes.  the downside is that they don't give you plates when all this waiting is over.  they send you a piece of paper in 5 days or so with a plate number on it, and then you have to go to an autoparts store to order a license plate.  then you have to wait for the license plate for another week or so.  that is far worse than any session i've ever had at any RMV/DMV in the US.  i don't know how people with jobs deal with it.  what takes a few hours in the US takes weeks here, at least as far as registering vehicles is concerned.

until next time, 

jim 

Frosty Holland From the Train, originally uploaded by jimturbert.

I've been back in the Netherlands for almost a week now, and I m back to my fast paced lifestyle.
I'd like to take a moment to curse out the assholes who have locked up my bicycles. While we were gone, the landlord changed the locks on the room where we keep our bicycles, and I still don't have a key to get in. This really drives me fucking nuts. Marleen has been calling them every day, and they say that they don't have a spare key, and that the only one who does is the locksmith. SO CALL THE GODDAMNED LOCKSMITH! It takes (maybe) 5 minutes to make a key. Mail us the key. Have me come pick it up. Anything - JUST GIVE ME A KEY! We rang bells at the complex that supposed also uses the storage area, but the people we talked to did not have a key. We spoke with people coming out of the building, and none of them had a key either. I just want to ride my own bicycle. I don't think it should be a major issue to get this resolved. I really hate people sometimes often.
Oh yeah, speaking of hating people, I've decided to give the French a rest. Now I hate the Swiss. They can go fuck themselves. Seriously though, after the longest, most turbulent flight I've ever been on, the dicks at the gate of my flight from Zurich to Amsterdam wouldn't hand check my film. I had already gone through security in Boston, but they still found it necessary to put my film through the x-ray machine. Dealing with their curtness and inflexibility became insanely irritating due to my lack of sleep and the lingering queasy feeling in my stomach after a night of bouncing through the air to Switzerland. I wanted to smash the smug little faces of the guards into the glass at the gate. I have never encountered more obnoxious people at an airport gate, and I've been through quite a few. Just for the record, all American airports (I've ever been to) hand check film, the Amsterdam airport hand checks film, and the Iceland airport hand checks film.
I'll write a more positive weblog soon. I just had to get that out.

Breathing easy,
jim

Ewok, originally uploaded by jimturbert.

My holiday adventures are coming to a close. I've been thinking about lots of great and interesting things to write, but right now all I have for you is a picture of Marleen looking like an Ewok.
Happy New Year and stuff.

Best wishes,
jim

have yourself a merry little whatever.  

this is for you >>> http://jtfanclub.com/holiday/

december 26 is my birthday.  it will be december 26 in 7 minutes.  you should all send me gifts. if you can swing it, i'd like a printer. this one would be suitable as well.  

give me ring if you want to do something over the next few weeks.  my schedule is mired in a mysterious cloud of uncertainty, and i am open to suggestions.  

best, 

jim 

i am a bad packer. i brought 5 wool sweaters and three sweatshirts with me to the U.S. these garments ad substantial weight to my bags. i had to rearrange stuff, and carry on more than i had anticipated because my bag was over the not very generous weight limit allowed by northwest airlines. i complained about this to marleen before i got on the plane. my main gripe was that i am allowed to check two bags, each weighing up to 23 kilograms for a total of 46 kilograms. i couldn't understand why my 30 kilogram bag would not be allowed in place of two bags with a greater combined weight. marleen and her infinite wisdom suggested that it was a union regulation saying that the baggage handlers weren't allowed to lift things greater than 23 kg. that makes good sense. i understand the rationale behind such a regulation, but i still (rather selfishly) think that if i can lift a bag, then the guys hired to move luggage should be able to lift it as well. i'm not going to write a letter to them or anything, but i wish the airlines to make my travel experience more enjoyable. i also wish they would do something to reduce the impact of my bad packing habits. if you own or operate an airline and you happen to be reading this, please consider increasing baggage weight limits, and in flight ammenities. that is what i want for a christmas present.

good night,
jim

p.s. did you notice the new homepage pictures? no more black eyes.

Sweet Jesus! I'll be returning to the U.S.A. on sunday. Time flies when you have no agenda whatsoever. Once home, it will be nice to eat some barbecue and see some friends and family, but really it's going to be a hassle. It costs a lot of money (which I'm not making right now), and I don't have a place to live. Sure, I could stay at my parents' house for an entire month, but that would make me insane. Instead, I'll be traveling from couch to couch looking for ways to spend my time between meals of delicious barbecued meats. That is my plan for the whole month. I dig simplicity.
I'm going to keep this post short, but I'd like to voice my surprise at how much it has been snowing here. It doesn't accumulate, but it has snowed at least 4 times since the end of November.

That's all for now,
Jim

p.s. Stay tuned for a homepage update in the coming weeks. It's going to be awesome.

Isn't She Lovely?, originally uploaded by jimturbert.

Marleen and I participated in the Snoor Parade at de Kunsthal today. She fooled them with this silly disguise. She's a crafty one. Snoor means mustache by the way.
I ate another olie ball today. I am not sick of them yet. I don't have anything of substance to share with you, so I will go now.

Best,
Jim

Snow Tracks, originally uploaded by jimturbert.

It's freaking snowing in Rotterdam. Shit is crazy.

Reporting live,
Jim Turbert

things are progressing nicely at our place.  it's still messy after the arrival of our stuff, but it gets better and better everyday.  

i just want to tell you about olie ballen.  olie ballen (literally oil balls) are balls of dough fried, often with raisins, that have been deep fried and covered with powdered sugar.  sounds kind of like a doughnut, right?  well, marleen tells me that olie ballen were the inspiration for our (we, the americans) doughnuts.  i believe it, but i've never had a doughnut that tastes like this.  the oil ball is much denser and chewier.  i'm not going to say it's better than a doughnut, but it is a lot different, and given the fact that i am accustomed to the american doughnut, this is exotic and special for me.  i'm told that all of the olie ballen i've had so far, are of average quality.  i am very anxious to eat an exceptional one.  

also, i've been eating dutch goat cheese.  it takes the same form factor as normal dutch cheese, and it seems to be treated in the same way.  the only difference in its preparation is that goat milk is used instead of cow milk.  i must tell you that i love it.  like the doughnut versus olie ballen, it's not a matter of one being better than the other.  it's that they are similar yet different in so many ways.  i wish i could fully explain why this is.  i suppose the goat cheese is smoother.  it has a sweeter flavor, and the texture is finer than normal dutch cheeses.  the great thing is that this is not a specialty item.  you can buy it in the supermarket.  i've seen two varieties, jong (young) and belegen which means aged.  i've come to accept belegen as sharpness.  as a citizen of flavor country, i always choose belegen, but i'm sure the softer jong cheese is also incredibly delicious.  maybe i'll buy some today.

until next time, 

jim 

My goddamned stuff finally arrived this past Tuesday (56 days later). The boat actually arrived in the Netherlands on October 17, but due to the chronic ass sucking of the moving company (more of a broker actually), it just arrived this week. Do not ever, under any circumstances, use a company called Global Ocean Freight for any sort of moving. They are unreliable and uncommunicative. The only thing they are good at is making sure you have paid them. If you would like more info, feel free to e-mail me about them.
I just thought I'd post a little something from the glorious moving day. I'm really excited to have my bicycles, and it's great to have a couch. I will not miss the inflatable air mattress we were using for seating, and I will not miss the lawn chairs we were using for dining furniture. A new day is dawning. A day that includes my stuff. It is awesome. As awesome as it is, it takes a long ass time to set up. Listening to music through decent speakers makes unpacking better, but things are still chaotic and crappy. That said, it gets better every hour. Here's a little video of my motorcycle coming off the truck.


Tot ziens,
jim

"Delicious on Bread"

Hot Dogs in a Can, originally uploaded by jimturbert.

I was in the supermarket earlier today, and I saw hot dogs in a can. The idea of hot dogs in a can is not a pleasant one for me. I understand that hotdogs are a pretty low-brow food in general, but there are some examples of non-schwaggy wieners out there. When I was growing up in CT, my parents used to buy Mucke's, and they were really good. Boston has Pearl and Kayem, not to mention a wide assortment of national (and maybe international) brands that make an equally high-quality product (Hebrew National, Maple Leaf). Hot dogs don't need to be nasty mystery meat that was going to get tossed out anyway. The better ones are made from fine cuts of beef or a mixture of beef and pork. It's true that there is a lot of cartilage, fat and other ingredients that I don't care to discuss in most varieties of the hot dog, but I'd like to let everyone know that quality dogs do exist. Of course, the existence of hot dogs in a can does not help my case. Putting any meat in a can does not inspire folks to say things like, "Now this is good stuff!" Meat in a can is historically undesirable. Think of Spam, or anything made by Dinty More. Having canned hot dogs bearing the label "According to the original American recipe" on the shelf of Dutch supermarkets just reinforces the stereotype that Americans are a classless people with no culture or cuisine. I love eating hot dogs, and I love eating hamburgers. It appears to me that bastardized versions of delightful foodstuffs (like canned hot dogs and MacDonald's hamburgers) ruin an otherwise glorious thing for the rest of the world. Read my words. Tell your friends. Let everybody know.

Sincerely,
Jim Turbert

Not A Giant Shopping Cart

Not A Giant Shopping Cart, originally uploaded by jimturbert.

I have not been inspired to write entertaining or informative weblogs lately. I apologize for that. In lieu of a decent post, I offer you a companion piece to the picture of the giant shopping cart I posted a few weeks ago. Marleen is included for scale.

Sincerely,
Jim Turbert

Giant Shopping Cart

Giant Shopping Cart, originally uploaded by jimturbert.

Today was the first real day i was out in Rotterdam on a bicycle. The bike is a hunk of dook, but, it was free, and that is the perfect price. I had to fix the brakes and stuff, but now I am able to get around the city, and it doesn't take me all day.
Check out this giant shopping cart I saw. Shit is crazy, right?
I finally got my camera today. Fedex came through for me. I don't really have much to say. I kind of just wanted to post the picture of the giant shopping cart. I'll be back in the future.

Best,
Jim

Torch Steak

Torch Steak, originally uploaded by jimturbert.

Marleen and I went to Amsterdam to see a performance by a group known as Dogtroep. It was quite an elaborately orchestrated presentation of rigorously planned chaos. After the performance Marleen told me that the performance was supposed to be based on Hamlet. My 9th grade English teacher Mrs. Tresky would be sad to hear that I didn't get that, but I thought the performance was very cool. Also, it was visually exciting. I don't have any pictures of the actual performance. First of all, I was busy watching the performance. Secondly, my crappy cell phone camera/fixed position seating position would not have done it justice. You'll have to believe me when I say that the spiral staircase with a ballerina on it which was suspended above the performance area by a giant crane was a sight to behold. What I do have pictures of is the concession area after the performance. It was an outdoor performance that finished after 10pm. We were cold, but imagine our delight when we stumbled across these two ladies cooking steaks with blow torches. Warm red meat is very satisfying after watching strange theatre in the cold night air.

Best,
Jim

this is an example of the public art in my new neighborhood.  i believe that it is the only public art in my neighborhood, but at least we have some, right?  i think it's a dear little sculpture relief thing on the wall.  i'm looking forward to posting more images like this.  being a large format man, i haven't done too much off the cuff shooting of my friends and surroundings since my massart days.  i don't even own a digital camera - gasp!  i just got a swell new iphone though, and it has a meager camera built in, so if i can force myself to remember that i have the capability, i will take some pictures of my new surroundings while i'm engaged in unemployed meanderings throughout rotterdam and the rest of the netherlands.  keep in mind that those meanderings are quite frequent, so there could be some interesting posts in the coming days.  

speaking of being unemployed, i've decided that once i have employment clearance from the very precise and rule abiding dutch government i would like to have a job naming dutch products that are supposed to sound american. this profession may seem unnecessary in a land filled with people who speak english almost as well as they speak their own language, but after today, i've decided that this new profession is a viable option.  the dutch tend to name things that are kind of big or have chocolate chips in it "american."  that's just lazy and obvious.  i recently encountered a brand of ice cream from the albert heijn supermarket chain that is supposed to compete with or offer a reasonable alternative to a product like ben and jerry's.  i'm not sure if it's marketing genius or a serious oversight, but they call one of their ice cream flavors "nut explosion."  i find the name hilarious, but am i the only one who believes nut explosion is an inappropriate name for a sweet creamy and delicious dairy dessert?  think about it. this is a family product. 

anyway, it's not that i don't find the name nut explosion funny, but i think they should hire me to come up with appealingly inoffensive names for their flavors of ice cream among other things.  

best wishes,

jim

p.s.  we got albert heijn ice cream for later tonight, and i was going to take a picture of the packaging for you.  marleen thought she grabbed nut explosion, but she got the boringly named cookie caramel instead.  i'm still looking forward to eating cookie caramel ice cream this evening it should still be quite good even if the name is not as racy.  

i'm not going to say much other than i am alive; b is alive, and we are in holland.  i'll let you know more later.

best, 

jim 

this is going to be the last post for at least a week.  i'm getting unplugged from the computer tomorrow.  the movers are coming in the morning.  the late morning.  i've been living in a mess of boxes and trash for weeks now, but i'm almost there.  instead of getting messier, it's getting cleaner and more orderly.  every moment gives me another square inch of floor.  i still need to drain the gas out of the motorcycle.  i can do that in the morning.  i also need to fill out the insurance papers.  i must do that tonight.  it's hard to believe that this is my last week living in boston.  it's so hard to believe that i am currently unemployed.  it's so hard to believe that i'm going to be a foreigner next week.  there are lots of things that it is hard to believe.

if you've recently e-mailed me, i will get back to you.  i can't really do that right now.  i shouldn't even be writing this because i haven't finished packing yet.  i figured it would be okay to post while i ate my trader joe's mojito salmon.  now the salmon is gone, and i have no excuse to keep writing.

i had a yard sale yesterday.  it was moderately successful.  i was, and still am, utterly shocked by some of the stuff that got sold.  on the other hand, i am also shocked at some of the stuff that didn't sell.  people are hard to predict.  so yeah, the next post will be from an expatriated man living amongst the vulcans of the human race.  i hope they don't mind meld me too much and turn my brain into mush.  that happens you know...

i'll talk to you later, 

jim