Peace and Love in Amsterdam's Jordaan

Some years ago, I started to write a few short pieces. They sat on my computer for a long time until recently when I re-discovered them. I decided to post a few of the better ones on the Blog – I hope you like them. This one is based on a real experience in 2006.

I get my bearings and walk into the Jordaan. Beautiful, small Amsterdam still has streets I don’t know. As I pass the small, independent art and food shops, I begin to think of a drink. I look up and see a Peace flag, and somewhere in the back of my mind, I am conscious of the recent London bombings, and feel happy that somebody shows solidarity. I see the place below the flag is a bar, and wander in.

Even as I approach the door, I begin to suspect this is a Lesbian bar, and the Peace flag is rather a rainbow – the signal of gay pride. As I sit down at the bar, I am still not 100% sure – after all, there are no signs saying “get lost, blokes”, but there are a few hints.

Firstly, out of a dozen people here, I am the only guy. A Postcard behind the bar is from a film called “I prefer girls”, with an image of a strong woman in red standing above a weaker woman, holding her hand up for help. Another postcard shows a wartime propaganda style image of a butch woman in workclothes, flexing her biceps, with the caption “We can do it!”

The barmaid is very butch. The couple that walks in after me are female. The pool players are girls. A woman comes and asks for 3 beers.

Do I feel uncomfortable?

8 years ago, I would have walked out. Why? Prejudice, fear of the unknown, and fear of ridicule – that stupid thinking that takes you from “lesbian bar” to “what if somebody sees me come out of this place and thinks I am gay?” Now I realise one value of journey that has been living and being in Amsterdam for 8 years. I just don’t care about this. I have the feeling they are more bothered by my presence than I am by theirs, but I sit there quietly, writing, not bothering anyone, hopefully.

The woman behind the bar made me feel welcome from when I arrived, asking me “shall I make a tab for you?”, which indicated it’s ok to stay for more than one drink. I get talking to her, and before I know it, she has assumed I am gay. I don’t confirm or deny it, as I have no concerns one way or the other. We get talking (her name is Inssaf) and she tells me a bit about the bar.

It is called Saarein 2 – the original Saarein started in the 60’s and was one of the first all-women bars in Amsterdam. It must have been a great, ground-breaking time, and I tried to imagine the atmosphere of territorial possession that would have welcomed me and any other men that strayed in 20 years ago. But at the end of the 90’s it was renovated, and men were allowed (though it seems they didn’t feel very encouraged, as I was the only man there in the 3 hours I stayed, and their website pictures show only a couple of men…).

At one stage Inssaf tells me about tourists who wander into the place by mistake.

“You should see it”, she said with a mischievous smile. “A bunch of guys, normally English, come in looking for a beer, and of course I serve them. It’s funny to see how long it takes for them to realise. The A-haaa… effect when they realise is great! They are very quick to drink up from that moment…”

She also told me what brought some of them in. “Many of them think the Rainbow flag is a Peace symbol, and come in because of this.” I roll my eyes in mock amusement, tutting about how daft some straight people are…

Inssaf is Maroccan and she told me how tough it was ‘coming out’ at home. She is used to prejudice, being a darker skin than the average Dutch person, and now she experiences the double stigma of Lesbian and seemingly Muslim. None of this seems to bother her much. being a cheerful, sociable and intelligent person, finishing off her journalism degree between long stints behind the bar.

I come out of the bar, a bit smashed. Inssaf had introduced me to a “mini-black Russian”, a small shot of Vodka and Kahlua – yes, a lethal but enjoyable combination. I enjoyed my time there, felt comfortable and accepted, and was reminded of the meaning of community. My hero, Tom Robinson, once said “Community is a word mistreated and misused deliberately by politicians. They suggest that it means we should all be the same, in order to be a strong community. But the real meaning of community is not being the same – it’s about respecting and accepting the difference.” I am not sure how much acceptance Inssaf get's in her daily life, but certainly she and her friends in the bar showed it to me.

First Half Marathon

Some years ago, I started to write a few short pieces. They sat on my computer for a long time until recently when I discovered them again. I decided to post a few of the better ones on the Blog – I hope you like them. This one is based on a real experience in 2004.

I arrived to run my first half marathon at beautiful Hallstatt in pouring rain, which continued overnight, and by the morning the atmosphere was very damp. These are my favourite running conditions, since someone told me the story that running is easier when it's been raining due to the oxygen in the air. Who knows if it is true, but I have felt a boost every time I ran in the rain since I heard this.

At the main registration office, there were all these fit and healthy types hanging around, Mr and Mrs Nike everywhere. I felt out of my depth and nervous. With the muscle stress in my legs from walking around Amsterdam for 12 hours on Friday during Queens Day in Amsterdam, I thought about not running. But I told myself "come on! give it a try, what is there to lose? So what if you come last?”

My Austrian colleague Peter told me that if you run a half marathon slower than 1 hour 45 mins, it makes you a "weich Ei" - a soft egg. I resigned myself to weich-Ei-dom, knowing that my best chance was a slow start and a build up to try to beat 2 hours. That was my goal, together with not stopping - I felt that a stop would be paramount to giving up.

I never give up.

The rain stopped one hour before the run, and conditions were the best they could possibly have been. Not cold, not hot, oxygen in the air... I ran the first 4 km behind schedule - to get under 2 hours, I needed 5.45 per km and I ran much over that. But then I ran the next 6 fast - it was in the woods, cross country style, and I was reminded of my childhood races with my brother through the woods. I felt comfortable, and considering I ran 6km in 31 mins - average 5.10, well ahead of the target time - I felt I could go on and challenge the role of soft egg. Then I hit the first serious hill at precisely half way, followed by another hill, and another. Whoever designed the course had a sense of humour, or of sadism. The next 4 km took 23 minutes. Soft egg, I was.

The next few km passed reasonably ok as we wound back down the hill, but from 17km onwards it was a battle. I had only ever run 16km before, and I think the surroundings were the only thing that stopped me from stopping. I first came to Hallstatt in 1986, re-discovered it in 2000, and had returned many times since, because of the pure magic of mountains, lake and beautiful village perched on the Salz Berg (saltmountain). Looking around gave me a lift, even as people I had overtaken in my purple patch 10km earlier overtook me.

I glanced behind to be sure that I would not be last – there were a few behind me, I couldn’t be sure I would beat anyone, but I realised it was just a time to dig in and finish.

At 19km, the last incline started. I passed a guy who was walking, but it took a long time to pass him, meaning I was running little faster than walking. A couple of doubts crept in – “don't stop, David, just keep going” - but as I got to the top, I realised it was all downhill from now, and I knew I could finish. The relief was huge. A glance at the watch told me that the original target was well in sight and as I got past 1km to go, I knew I had 9 minutes to finish the last km and beat 2 hours. If I walked it, I could do it, but I just wanted to keep going.

As I came into the town, there were more people clapping and cheering even stragglers like me, and the best was the other runners who supported every runner – they had finished but knew it might be something special for the latter runners just to get to the end. I felt great, and yet overwhelmed. 4 months earlier, January, I was unfit, too heavy, unable to run more than 5km at any speed, and short of breath at the slightest exercise. I put myself into a fitness regime which pushed me further than I could have imagined, and I did lose some weight and felt fitter.

Yet if am honest, I didn’t think it was enough to get me through this. As I reached 500m to go, I started to cry with a mixture of joy, exhaustion, who knows what, it was too much. Then I couldn’t breathe and had to stop crying! And I pushed on for the last 200 metres, fortunately alone which meant they announced my name – “David Beckett, aus Brunn am Gebirge, aber er ist ein guter Englander Läufer” (“D.B., from B.a.G, but he is a good English runner”). The pride I felt at this moment is incredible.

18 years ago, I came to Austria for the first time. Hallstatt was the place that impressed me most, and now living in Austria is a pleasure. I try at every turn to break the English “island mentality” - I am trying to learn German, looking for ways to settle into this great place, and want to be open-minded and accepting of the differences in my newly found country. It is 11 months since I got here, and it has not been easy, but my colleagues have been so friendly and warm, it has made it so much easier. That announcement as I ran those last metres was the perfect end to a great day. I finished in 1 hour 57 minutes. All concerns about soft egg were replaced by relief at completion.

The atmosphere after the run was great. Finally the sun had come out and as we munched on mounds of bananas provided by the organisers, I felt happy and (most of all) accepted as I chatted in broken German to other runners.

The Obscure Drunk

Some years ago, I started to write a few short stories. They sat on my computer for a long time until recently I discovered them again. I decided to post a few of the better ones on the Blog – I hope you like them. This one is based on a real experience in 2005.

I come to a part of Amsterdam which I never saw before, after taking a wrong tram. Instead of turning back to familiar ground, I stop at a corner bar, buy a beer, and sit outside in the cold summer air. The whole weekend has been pretty miserable weather-wise. Earlier that day I told me friend Rogier “I love the misery of the Amsterdam weather”, knowing he is also a lover of melancholy. “You’re right, David”, he said, “but not in July…”

As I look across the road, I see some police in discussion with a few drunks, presumably to ask them to move on, or stop hassling the passers-by. One of the drunks wanders off from the police, and comes in my direction. I hide in the refuge of ipod earphones and a book, but to no avail. He says something, catching my eye, and I take one earphone out. He repeats, but I don’t understand his slightly slurred Dutch.

“I have to translate,” he says, antagonistically. “You don’t have to do anything”, I say in similar tone.

“Is there a difference between lonely and alone?” he asks.

It's a question worth stopping the music for, and I take the other earphone out to concentrate on my answer. After a moment’s thought, I tell him my idea.

“I think being alone does not mean you are lonely – and some of my loneliest times have been at the side of another, when our values are not shared”.

“We are looking one another in the eyes” he announces obscurely. We are. He goes on. “There is a man, who does nothing but kill. He kills everybody. He walks free in Paris."

Then he deepens his stare carefully into my eyes and quietly says “I want to learn the pain behind your eyes”.

I don’t know what to say, but it’s ok because he continues, seemingly at another tangent.

“I am not independent. I love women! I lived in Rivendale in New York. I lived with a Madame.” He gives me a conspiratorial nod. “You know what I am saying?”

He looks at me, again straight in the eyes, searching. I expect the question “do you have a bit of change to help me out?” but my thoughts do him a disservice. He smiles, extends his old, dirty hand. I shake it, and he walks away with a wave.

Rellen (Riots) in Amsterdam

In the past 10 days, I started the research on my book, and already something interesting is coming out. I knew that I wanted to focus on the Provo movement in the 60's, the Squatter movement and the Nieuwmarktrellen - the riots against the building Metro in 1975. Now I am beginning to see how these events are linked.

It helped to get some DVD's of times even before this period. Currently I am watching Beeld Van Nederland (Pictures from Holland) starting from 1958. This way I try to understand what was happening in Holland before the period I want to write about and to see what changed. Things seemed so peaceful in the 50's and early 60's - what triggered the people to get on the streets and protest?

Interesting points are how things changed in the early 60's. Car traffic in Holland went from 0.5 million cars to 1 million in just 5 years. The air traffic at Schiphol airport also doubled in a 5-year period. The population of Holland grew from 10 million in 1950 to over 14 million in 1980, however an odd trend came in Amsterdam. The population in the city dropped from 850,000 in 1960 to 700,000 in 1980, and the increase came in the suburbs - from 300,000 growing to 800,000 during that time.

All of these changes put a sudden pressure on the city. It needed new houses because of population growth, but there was nowhere to build in the centre. So suburban areas like the Bijlmer in the south-east of the city were planned and huge numbers of homes were built. But transport to the city was not good, and the idea of the Metro through the centre was formed.

The ironic issue that caused such uproar was that, to build the Metro, they had to knock a lot of houses down - especially in the historic Buurt (neighbourhood) of Nieuwmarkt and its surroundings. That reduction of housing was dramatic and the reason why the central city population dropped when the overall population of Holland was booming. This is the core of the story of Amsterdam in the 60's through to the early 80's.

There is huge detail behind this - I haven't even begin to touch on the Politics behind the story. But yesterday I saw more footage of the Opruiming (clear out) of the houses before demolition in 1975, when many house owners and Kraakers (squatters) refused to leave their houses. Watching film of water cannons, riot police and incredible violence on the streets of Amsterdam is so hard to reconcile with the atmosphere in the city now.

So now I start to interview people who were living in the city at that time, to get under the skin of what happened and why. So far I have some of the What, but with no Why, there is no story.

The real story is still a lot of research away from me. But I am hooked already.

New Jazz, New Building, different feeling

On Thursday, I was lucky to be invited by my good Polish friends to see a Jazz concert at the Bimhuis near Central Station. The main artist was also Polish and we sat or stood in a packed room on the top floor of the new building to hear and see them play.

Jazz-lovers from Amsterdam still mourn the moving of the Bimhuis from the Oude Schans to the big new building near the Central Station, and I understand why. The old Bimhuis was a classic Jazz venue - small and dark, smokey, painted black. The contrast with the new building could not be greater.

Now the Bimhuis is a fancy, open, well-lit place with great acoustics and plenty of space. In the smaller hall, you sit or stand at the back but wherever you are, it's a good location to listen.

Yet something is missing. Why is it that Jazz is associated with smoke and discomfort? My favourite Jazz place in Amsterdam is Cafe Alto. I haven't been there since the smoking ban, but my memories of it are of an incredible dose of passive cigarete fumes coupled with rickety chairs, no space because it is so long and narrow as a bar, a tiny stage, and great music.

Certainly the quality of the music on Thursday was far better than anything I saw at Cafe Alto. There, I always felt bad for the musicians as they hunched over their instruments with barely enough space to play. Yet it seems that is the essence of Jazz - it's somehow not meant to be "nice" and confortable, and smoke-free and well-organised. The stage at Alto seemed to add something to the music, the rough surroundings made the experience better.

In its favour, the Bimhuis has a bar with a fantastic view across the city and the Ij river behind Central Station, and they pipe the concert through into the bar. After half an hour, I went and sat in the bar, watched the amazing sunset with a beer, listened to the excellent musicians and took in the experience. It's not how you should listen to a concert, I know. But in those surroundings, it felt the best way to enjoy it. And I was with great friends too.

And so to Cafe Alto as soon as possible.

...and with a little provocation, it started

The end with Canon was something I had prepared mentally for over a number of weeks. What I hadn't prepared so much for was the start of the next phase.

A big plan like writing a book is perhaps needed to create a big change, and change is what I want to do. And yet, to take the very first real steps towards the dream has been surprisingly difficult.

After the excitement of the leaving party, Queens Day and another holiday on Monday, here it is - finally, Tuesday 5th May is the first official day of my life as a writer.

And I write precisely nothing. The same again for most of today.

I find myself wrapped up in lots of tasks that I had been putting off for weeks when I thought "I can do that when I finish with Canon". I throw things out, answer emails, pay outstanding bills, move all the data from my old laptop to my new one, go running, make lists of things I could do to start the research... in fact, everything except STARTING.

Finally I realise I am a bit lost about where to start. So I ask myself "what would I do if this was a work project?" Well, probably I would take some Post-It notes, look at some reference materials and start picking out the key points. OK, I think - let's get a flip chart, get the post-its out, and start looking at some of the source material. Do your job!

In the last months, all kinds of possibilities surfaced to find information about Amsterdam from 1965-1983. So I go back to a couple of those with the idea of getting a basic timeline - what happened, who was involved, what were the big events that I am going to build my story around?

And then it happens, and for the first time I began to feel exactly why this book idea hooked me.

I start to read more detail about the Provo movement in Amsterdam in the 60's. I find the name Roel Van Duijn - he was one of the founders of Provo. Information pops up on the web about him, an activist who protested against the bomb in the early 60's and who has been a prominent figure in non-mainstream politics ever since. Then an article on Robert Jasper Grootveld - a performance artist who also formed the Provo movement. What was their aim? Social reform via humorous provocation (hence the word Provo) with some big ideas in mind and action.

It's interesting that Grootveld believed that "the masses had been brainwashed into becoming a herd of addicted consumers" and that the Nicotine industry was feeding people a pointless habit with the sole intention of addicting its customers to make profits. So what has changed?

I lose 3 hours in a blink of an eye as all kinds of facts about the period appear, including White Bike plans, sabotage of the Queens Wedding, provocative attacks on the cigarette industry, and scandals of police violence leading to high level resignations. Those 3 hours are pure adrenaline, and all I do is scratch the very surface of the first 1%.

So finally, after months of waiting, it begins and I can feel the subject provoking me to action. The new life begins.

Purposeful dreams

Last week, I had the best ending possible to this phase of my life with Canon. I was able to give a presentation, "16 random things learned in 16 years at Canon" to a group of 150 colleagues and friends.

As I stood in front of the audience, it was quite overwhelming to see so many people, all of whom I had been in some kind of contact with over the years in Canon. It gave me a chance to share my experiences in the company and give thanks one last time to my colleagues, especially to Morten.

And I made a conscious decision to share my dream of writing a book with everybody. That was partly to put some positive pressure on myself and partly to make clear that I am not leaving. I am simply moving on to a new purpose.

Choosing to fulfil the Dream of writing the book was a very carefully made decision, and it serves many purposes.

The book is a tool to give me a chance to refresh my mind and get it moving creatively again, which I felt stopped in Canon at least 18 months ago. And I chose to write about Amsterdam in the 60's and 70's because I love living here and I will need to do a lot of research on a period I know little about. Amsterdam is my chosen city for the future - what better way to learn as much as possible about the culture of the real Amsterdam than by researching the book?

That research has started by getting a lot of DVD's from the library, which cover the politics and history of Amsterdam in the period I am looking at. The first views make clear that my Dutch is just about enough to get something out of the news clips and TV stories on the DVD's, but not enough to get every nuance. So a daily task will be to study Dutch language. In my daily life while working for Canon, I heard Dutch spoken maybe 5% of the day. Now I will be exposed to the language much more - reading and hearing - so it is a great opportunity to improve.

It is also chosen as a test. I have never written a book and have no idea if I can. But I know it's something I am very interested in, and believe I have at least some of the capabilities now. It is a choice to push myself further and learn how to do something I can't do now.

Most of all, it gives me a major purpose, just after my major purpose for the last 16 years finishes. Canon was such a dominating thing in my life, and now I am lucky to be able to spend time focusing on a completely different task.

I get to live my dream, and with this purpose in mind, I start the plans and action today.