Profilific

A delicious not-Dutch beer

My 'Profile Writing' assignment for class:

He was already seated by himself in a quiet bar, in the striking inverse shadow of a lit-up St. Jan’s Cathedral. ‘The Rode Pimpernel’ is not a premiere night spot in ‘s-Hertogenbosch. But like his home town of Kerkrade, Limburg, the faces here are familiar and the not-Dutch beer is very, very good. It’s the only place that serves Murphy’s Irish Red op de tap.

When choosing our interview spot, the 25-year old Limburg native simply texted, ‘meet u at the pub, 21.30?’ We’ve been to a number of bars in the city, yet I knew exactly where we were going to meet. This is his place.

His head full of spikey, dark brown hair was bent over a black laptop computer. Atop his bright orange t-shirt emblazoned with a company name, the computer’s supplier, he looked like an absurd PEZ dispenser. A strange description, but not quite so much as his action here: working outside of office hours.

The Dutch are supposedly known for keeping their 40-hour work week well in check. He may be an exception, but perhaps working late is how to keep a decent job in Holland these days. ‘It’s a big shift for me to have a job that’s actually a bit challenging, that takes up some time,’ he says, comparing his current work with the temporary positions he held back in the languishing Limburg.

Dutch Limburg has been experiencing both significant ‘brain-drain’ and ‘ont groening;’ both educated individuals and not necessarily educated youth are all leaving the province. He is part of the former. He loves where he’s from – he just couldn’t get going there economically. The Dutch government is neglectful, and the Dutch public, disrespectful.

His old apartment was ten minutes from Germany. Now he lives in Nord Brabant, where few, if any, consider his home part of Holland. What’s a person from Limburg? A Belgian who thinks he can speak German. Given negative regional stereotypes, this is not exactly complimentary. Despite what everyone thinks about their beer.

Not directly harmful, Limburg jokes evince a deeper lack of respect for the governed province. Many revolve around the coal mining that features in its economy, along with gravel and peat. Limburgians mined, North-Hollanders owned the mines. You do the math. But the low, low-landers are having their voices heard louder than ever, as Limburg native and Dutch Freedom Party leader Geert Wilders has been on a fast break in recent Dutch elections. ‘That’s a result of having a province where there are a lot of people without jobs,’ he says. ‘They’re not satisfied with what’s going on. They’ll just latch on to the first demagogue who offers them a solution.’ But so far the offer is just words. In Dutch.

At home he speaks a dialect, a mixture between Dutch and German, almost unintelligible to either. ‘Dutch started as a dialect of German and what we speak is still stuck at that phase of being somewhere in between the two,’ he humbly explains. From social interactions prior to this interview, I actually thought he was German. ‘Many people do,’ he jokes, still with an air of pride.

Members of each town have their own version of dialect, changing about every ten minutes by car. Locals can detect slight differences from around the province but he feels a special kinship regardless, as long as you’re speaking the language. ‘Even if you’re being pulled over by the police - if they speak dialect and you do, you’re probably fine,’ he says.

Dialect may not be as strong a unifier as ideology a divider, he observes. ‘For every Dutch-German marriage - two people that met in a bar or club on either side of the border - there’s been huge fights, almost like battlefields between young Dutch Socialists and Germans on the Right. But Limburg has Neo-Nazis as well as Germany does.’ The re-emergence of Limburg as an international gateway location has only helped fuel these interactions as such groups routinely cross each other’s borders in search of drugs and paraphernalia.

But he still regularly visits his hometown. The warmth of his boyish face is genuine as he describes it, for better or worse. ‘It’s where I grew up. It’s where my family has been for a long time. It’s nice to speak dialect with people who have spoken it from birth, and not be mocked by people who happen to overhear you.’ The waitress brings him another Murphy’s. He shoots her a wide and true grin and he thanks her, in proper Dutch.

Gaga Redux, WP-style

My mother just sent me this article from the Washington Post about our dear highness, Lady Gaga. I really like the article, mostly because I think Robin and I are pretty much in agreement. An outfit describer after my own heart, Robin really gets after the costume concept and makes a mountain out of the obvious comparison between Gaga and Madonna.

All well and good, except I don't remember hearing Gaga refer to herself as an 'icon.' Givhan references Oprah pretty much bestowing icon status on the Lady that gets blasted for the rest of the article. But where is the attack on Oprah, icon-status bestower? Givhan acknowledges that Gaga is exactly what she set out to be - a pop superstar with shocking fashion - and nothing more.

The thing is, I really don't see a lot of people looking to her as a fashion icon. Madonna's looks were attainable and so girls copied her. Gaga's 'Thanksgiving parade float?' Not so much ready for the streets. And people love that she's just a spectacle. No one really cares to get their style tips from her. They just enjoy being thoroughly entertained.

Fireworks?

Dan's hair was a little shorter

Happy Belated 4th of July! The holiday still means a lot to me, but I'll be honest, the day loses a lot of its charm and excitement when no one else around is involved with the celebrating. Like drinking alone. Besides spending the entire day relaxing on the couch with Katie and Season 4 of Dexter, a highlight was chatting with one of my best friends who is currently serving in Afghanistan. Through the Facebook. God bless technology, right? He wasn't in the field yet so had an opportunity to spend some time in an internet cafe on base, across from a TGIFridays. Sounds like a hard life. We didn't talk for very long, just some quick blurbs about this and that. But it was a little surreal to feel connection with him at the 'front', actually in the war. He wasn't doing anything special for yesterday, just getting on the road in/to Kandahar, I believe. He seemed nonchalant, just business-as-usual. It was both calming and frightening. I can't imagine going in to work in the desert in a humvee, in violent hostility. But I'm not him. It's not my job and it's not my war. I pray for him and the others. We wished each other a happy 4th, and happy Canada Day, and that was it.

A week ago - better late than never - Katie and I went to the city of Nijmegen, the Netherlands, for a second week of Summer concert festival. Previously it was 'Dirty Dutch vs. The World' dance-stravaganza (blogged it a couple posts ago) and this time it was 'Rockin' Park', a Sunday full of concerts. A couple big names: Ben Harper, Stereophonics, Rise Against, a little band out of Seattle named Pearl Jam. But we went for The Black Keys.

'I didn't realize how nerdy they are!' was Katie's first response to seeing Dan and Patrick walk out on stage. They were pretty signature: Mr. Auerbach in a western-check oxford shirt and Mr. Carney in a tiny vintage 'Ohio State Nat'l Champs' tshirt. And glasses. Yes, they looked a little nerdy. But nerds harbor some of the most angst in society. And nerdy angst is like lighter fluid for guitars and drums. These guys have been on fire for several years delivering soul-deadening blues-rock to the underground masses, though the world finally began to like them about a year ago. It's always bittersweet when a beautiful lesser-known group blows up but, greedily, I love that I could see them play in Holland.

The show was perfect. Their set lasted for an hour in the early afternoon of an unusually hot Dutch day. Everyone was already pretty dirty and sweaty, which is probably why folks didn't bunch up close to the stage like at the previous week's dance fest. It was nice to have space to rock out, mere feet from Mr. Auerbach himself doing the same. But the heat and grit went perfectly with their industrialized blues. Theirs is not a clean music, musically. And not necessarily fast. Katie remarked 'It's the kind of music you want to dance to somehow, but you just can't.' You can only bounce, juke and nod your head.

Theirs is the great-great-great grandchild of the Devil's music. Inspired by Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, Junior Kimbrough and the like: the soul of gospel with the driving repetition of slave songs and the profound hurt of love gone bad; The Black Keys electrify the sounds of their founding blues fathers in a simple yet full way that just makes your soul heavy. Which happens to be the name of one of their songs.

They played a great mixed set, opening with half a dozen tracks from various albums. Later they were joined by a keyboardist and bass player to run down some tracks from their latest, Brothers, then closed out with another half-dozen with just the pair again. No encore, no stupid dialogue with the crowd, just filling up the whole hour with as much rock as possible. Later, from the beer table we saluted them, souls on the floor.