Amsterdam - city of bikes and boats

How we missed Belgium has to do with our stateside sense of geography, our free wheeling - no plan approach to travel, and just how much fun we were having on the train.

We looked up just in time to see the Bruxxels sign silently glide across our window and disappear. So much for chocolate and beer it's on to Amersterdam! And that's how we travel. What happens, happens. "People plan and God laughs."

Amsterdam appeared as if out of a dream. Bicycles everywhere, canals and boats. Utopia discovered. Stone archways shouldered streets over the gloss black waters as the grand parade of Netherlanders pedaled their way along cozy streets.

Then the dream was over. We found ourselves in a cab being called "motherf*ckers" by an irate or ironic driver - I wasn't sure. Then dumped off at the American Hotel where the lawyer bid farewell. We followed the doctor and his wife to McDonalds for free wifi while the bathroom attendant scowled at us no matter how many McNuggets we bought.

It was all too much for us and Samantha and I wondered off into the square to find our own way in this dichotomous land. The streets were full of pedestrians and bicycles, cars shunned to the margins. As the light faded on the city of dreams hostel after hotel turned us away. Saturday night in September is not a time to simply "grab a room."

It's late now, we are collapsed on the couch in yet another full hotel, exhausted, and hung over, the temperature dropping steadily. We finally call on our American Express card who promptly books us in the most expensive hotel in Amsterdam. We are too tired to care and glad not to sleep on the street.

Fifteen minutes later we have gone from homeless to soaking in a bubble bath with a view of the entire city 15 stories below. Jazz pipes into the bathroom through a Bose sound system, our robes, slippers and king bed await.

We miss the entire next day, we simply sleep through it. I manage to call the front desk and book for another night before tossing myself back into bed for the afternoon. We awake at dusk and stumble our way down a canal a

nd onto a street car. It takes us to cobblestone streets with enchanting little cafes and sidewalk tables. We float over bridges where the soft lights of evening reflect in the water.

We settle in for Chinese on the street. Sipping on hot, spicy soups and cold beers while we people watch, trying to get a read on the inhabitants of this strange city. We have only heard about prostitutes and pot, which completely misses the entire heart and soul of this place. No one ever told us it was a pedestrian and bicycle friendly utopia, with a lattice of romantic canals and cozy, candle lit pubs. It is more romantic than paris and more wet than Venice. The beer is incredible.

We spend the next several days bicycling, visiting a "coffee shop," exploring the red light district with a local friend (and even it manages to be quaint). We sit on the balcony of our cheap hostel, hanging above a canal and feast on spicy asian. We are in love, with eachother, with the city and with this great unplanned adventure through Europe.

Our last few days it rains, the temperature drops and we begin to feel the pull of Germany. We give in to our wanderlust and board the train.

Homeless Americans in the Bowels of the European Union

For two transtastic weeks Samantha and I, backpacks on, wandered from Western Europe to the brink of Eastern Europe, stared over the precipice of western civilization, and declared it good.

After precious little sleep and a pre dawn ride to Dulles airport on the skirts of America's Capital we emerged, stinking of jet fuel and tomato juice, into the labyrinthine corridors of Paris' Charles De Gaul airport.

Groggy, disoriented, and lost we stumbled our unstylish American asses into a slightly foreign land. We waited in line for customs, we waited in line for Euro's, we waited in line for change, then we waited in line for a ticket on the train.

We rumbled past Parisian slums and graffiti. If Charles De' Gaul airport was the Louvre than the colorfully tagged concrete of train tracks and overgrown tunnels was the Musee D' Orsay.

Gare du Nord is a classic European train station. In the lower floors underground tunnels feed trains from outlying suburbs and above, under arched steel beams and glass, modern, high speed trains enter and exit to most everywhere in Europe. These trains would be our transportation, our bed, our living room and our local pub for the next two weeks as we aimlessly tracked our way through the history and architecture of some of the worlds oldest and most spectacular cities.

We climbed from the tunnels onto streets that had no signs, no organization and no street laws that anyone cared to obey or enforce. The peril of an old city is that hundreds of years of random building result in complicated maps but also the complex tapestry of old and new that defines a European city.

We were too exhausted and hungry to appreciate Paris. We ordered food from a menu we couldn't read, sat in a sidewalk cafe sipping surprisingly bad cappuccinos and decided to simply get on a train out of there. But not without buying a liter of Russian Vodka and witnessing a butcher literally and firmly spank a duck to recommend it to us. These will be our memories of Paris.

On the train we discover ourselves seated next to three Americans. Lawyers and doctors traveling for fun. We crack the vodka, their wine and speed out of the station on a high speed train across the late summer fields of France. We think we are headed for Belgium but by some twist of fate or fortune end up in Amsterdam . Our toughest night and greatest days lie ahead.

St John sailing, snorkeling and daysails to the British Virgin Islands

Shameless Post to Promote my business:

We have a new boat, new sailing destinations and great sailing escapes. Our snorkeling tours have been going really well for several years. Now we are offering St John sailing trips to the British Virgin Islands. We've also have a new St John snorkeling guide for the Virgin Islands.

Ocean Beach hangout

We sought refuge in Ocean Beach, our trans American journey complete. A charming little hamlet of head shops, bike shops, skate shops, surf shops, coffee shops, burger joints, burrito joints and bars.

Head Spun

The tarmac layed out under our humming wheels. America, the home of the endless highway. Imagine living on a 9 mile island and going 25mph and then, finally, hitting the flat black of American ashphalt. Cape Cod to Florida, Daytona Beach to Ocean Beach. Coast to coast cruising. The incredible flatlands of the southern U.S. desert right up to the border where the talk is all about the big wall. The wall to protect us from the Mexicans. "I thought we tore down the wall?" I over heard someone say in a little market not too far from the border. Onwards over rock strewn, heat baked mountains and down into the San Deigo netherworld.

SNOWSTORMS IN BROOKLYN

The streets of the biggest city in America abandoned, a ghost town of frozen buildings and knee deep fluff and we celebrate in the margins, in a temporary gasp of the deisel engines of progress.

72 HOURS IN BROOKLYN

Leather Clad Bohemian Upstarts Make their Mark on the Cultural Fringe of Urbania

The raw urban landscape, cruising the outer reaches of the bohemian aesthetic, graffitti, basements, wharehouses, alleyways. The Brooklyn Brewery warehouse with its resident catnipped mouser, random musical genious that only the composers appreciate and the endless orange steel of the Williamsuburg Bridge. Who knew the biggest snowstorm in recorded history was about to soften the edges of the city's raw cut steel and granite.

WAKE BOARDING OFF A FORMULA 40!!!

REVOLUTION!

(the american one)




The fourth of July came like a brilliant climax to a week of Carnival. But besides the fireworks what is Independence Day really about?
Imagine a group of ragtag farmers, political radicals and free thinkers who dared to challenge the largest, most fearsome military on earth. People who dared to imagine a different kind of society; one based on freedom, self determination and the liberation of desire. What kind of revolutionaries would be insane enough to believe they might overthrow a superpower in favor of their own free society?
Of course you know their names already: Thomas Paine, George Washington, Samuel Adams, Thomas Jefferson, John Hancock and thousand of rebels who today would, no doubt, be labeleled terrorists and probably enjoy free room and board at Guantanamo
Bay or Colorado’s Supermax prison along with Theodore Kaczynski and other politically motivated criminals.
In 1776 Thomas paine, sat down and wrote a little pamphlet entitled “Common Sense.” Today Barnes and Noble wouldn’t carry it and Borders Books would pressure the publishers never to print it but at the time it had a massive circulation large enough to inspire, well, a revolution. What was Mr. Paine saying?

“Society in every state is a blessing, but
Government, even in its best state, is a
necessary evil; in its worst state, an
intolerable one.”

In America we have a kind of double standard. Erecting a monument to Thomas Paine in Washington while villanizing revolutionaries all over the world. Given our history we should be embracing revolutionaries, making allegiances with anyone championing humanity over capital and tyranny.
Shortly after our successful revolution a group of Massuchesettes farmers and veterans of the Continental Army marched into Springfield. They were opposed to the new State Constitution which was heavy with polling taxes, property taxes and effectively blocked the poor from voting. One time radical Samuel Adams, now part of the Establishment, drew up a “Riot Act” allowing authorities to jail anyone without trial. He said in its defense.
“In Monarchy, the crime of treason may admit of being pardoned or lightly punished, but the man who dares rebel against the laws of a republic ought to suffer death.”

The rebels who were acting against the same excessive taxation they had suffered by the crown were captured, imprisoned, hung and a lucky few were pardoned. Shortly after, the “Alien and Sedition Act” was passed which stated,
“If any person shall write, print, utter or publish...any false, scandalous and malicious writings against the government of the United States...than such person...shall be punished by a fine not exceeding two thousand dollars, and by imprisonment not exceeding two years.” Revolutionaries who had so bravely fought for their freedoms just a few years earlier were now jailed for criticizing their new government.
While St Croix considers secession from the Virgin Islands government, much the same way American colonies did, the territories are put on high alert for terrorism after three bombs explode in the London Underground and a fourth rips the top off a bus. We are put on code orange, which to Virgin Islanders means that no one can get on the ferry without identification. All of a sudden the chain link fence that protects Cruz Bay from the terrorist infected world doesn’t look high enough. A policeman patrols the dock along with our homeland security guard. Perhaps now is not the time to start our own revolution, maybe we should be happy under the protective umbrella of Uncle Sam and just keep quiet. Then again as Thomas Paine put it so eloquently when considering the American Revolution,
“We have boasted the protection of Great-Britain, without considering, that her motive was interest not attachment; that she did not protect us from our enemies on our account, but from her enemies on her own account, from those who had no quarrel with us on any other account, and who will always be our enemies on the same account.”

And the truth rolls out like a terrorists oily tongue. The efforts for Homeland Security on St. John aren’t for the safety of St. Johnians. We are an extremely unlikely target. After torching the World Trade Centers and most recently London, targeting a marginal territory of the U.S. would be laughable. We are more likely considered some sort of gateway - a hole in the border to the land of the free.
Fourth of July parade St John style

What the attacks against the U.S. have done, their real triumph, one that reaches much deeper than the original tradedy, is to make America less free. A place where, like communist Russia, one must carry one’s “papers.” we have sacrificed freeedom in the name of security.
Meanwhile in Perthshire, Scotland thousands of people gather in popular protest of the policies of the G8, namely the industrialized nations of the UK, the US, France, Germany, Japan Italy, Canada and Russia. As the world leaders gather behind a militarized zone with a 150 million dollar security budget to protect them from thier own citizens, the folks outside dance and chant and maybe some of them might quote Mr. Paine when he said,
“Society is produced by our wants, and government
by wickedness; the former promotes our happiness
positively by uniting our affections, the latter
negatively by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The
first is a patron, the last a punisher.”

MOUNTAIN SHACKS, FLYING BEER BOTTLES AND THE DEATH OF THE MIDDLE CLASS

Or How to Save St John From Itself










We are walking through dense undergrowth in search of a shack for rent. We have hitchhiked up Centerline Rd and stumbled down a goat path. The shack clings precariously to the hillside. It’s screen door hangs on one hinge.
“It’s perfect” we exclaim, “We’ll take it.”
That sad little hut on the mountain is as precarious as St John itself. Rising property values put shacks in high demand for renters. At the same time they are an endangered species as more land is cleared for new development. In some areas expensive houses spring up next door to plywood and corrugated tin huts. The contrast is shocking. Alas the old St John is quickly disappearing into memory.
Old St John was lawless, rough around the edges, quirky and sometimes unpleasant but a real place. A place completely different from the homogenous suburbia that smothers America.
The new St John doesn’t pick up unshowered long hairs with their surfboards heading to the break. It’s residents are tucked safely inside brand new SUV’s, air conditioned and sealed up tight. The new St John is gated developments, with homeowner’s associations. Meanwhile, the soul of old St John dies with each Suzuki Samurai that belches it’s last breath.
No longer can you buy a piece of land, build your own little house, and live like Robinson Crusoe in the jungle. That would hurt your neighbor’s property value, not to mention violate building codes. Impractical dreamers beware, the new St John is about money, lots and lots of money. Funky, eclectic shops like Natures Nook are under siege by parking garages and supermarkets where a gallon of milk is $7.95.
But there’s no point in waxing for the past. The question is, where are we headed? Headlong into a race of progress, development and estates, leaving in its wake an entire population of pool cleaners, driveway sweepers and housecleaners. I’m talking about no less than the death of the middle class. Aspen Colorado has to bus in it’s resort workers because no wage earner can afford to live there. The tragedy of St John would be a ghost town of massive empty houses and a phone book full of property management companies. Communities can literally be gutted by the onslaught of wealth. Property taxes continue to rise as the uber rich speculate and the native population, unable to sustain, must cash in.
Of course the dynamics aren’t quite that simple but judging by the crowds at the ferry dock each day, more and more people are forced to live on St Thomas and commute to St John.
I have a suggestion on how to save St John. It’s radical and unheard of, except in the little town of Ward, Colorado. This small mountain town, sits precariously in the Rocky Mountains just above the burgeoning, exploding, wealth pit of Boulder. Boulder is a town so infamous for yuppification and massive demographic shifts that one needn’t even mention what state it’s in. Boulder suffered from being beautiful. A perfect town with a mountain backdrop and an urban core of escalating property values.
The outlying areas boomed as speculators and developers rushed to meet the new demand for Rocky Mountain high - rises. Only one place was spared, the odd little town of Ward. A town so eccentric that when the mayor died they never bothered to elect another one. And since the dead mayor never told them what to do they did nothing. You see Ward was and is a kind of haven for bohemian types and hard toothed mountain men. When our car broke down just outside of Ward and we sought out the warmth of the wood stove at the local market a large bearded man with knee high moccasins sat next to us, unsheathed his knife and lay it pointedly on the table between us. Then he proceeded to berate us city folk, our inability to fix our own car, our inability to survive out here. His point was, basically, go away and don’t come back. From that moment on I loved Ward. I loved it’s mountains of trash, old hippie buses, shrines of rusty car parts and half finished sculpting projects. I loved its cabins fashioned from recycled barn lumber and homemade stained glass clinging stubbornly to the hills above the little town.
Passing through Ward there were always people in the road to glare at you, jealously guarding their hamlet from speeders and realtors. There also might be a procession of flautists and other musicians prancing along. Or a group of unkempt kids lighting off fire works in the middle of the road. My point is, this eclectic community survived Boulder’s excess by leaving a wall of old cars, buses, trucks, trash and unsavory and unpleasant characters to guard against attack.
Perhaps St John should do the same. We need more abandoned vehicles, less trash removal, less government, less showers and more spontaneous festivals of the weird. Investors, speculators and second homeowners are notoriously finicky. They don’t like messy, chaotic, un-manicured, anarchistic places. So spit in the street, wear your dirtiest shirt, roll that old heap from the back of the yard to the front, take a jackhammer to the street in front of your house and generally be unpleasant. Watch our local homeless for tips in how to head off the













impending shifts in our way of life. Each person must take personal efforts to smell badly, drive badly, talk badly and landscape badly. We can no longer afford to be charming or cute or friendly or pretty.
When you go to the beach go naked and bring your dog, let ‘em poop wherever he wants, then put your cigar out in the sand. Have a huge fire, and roast a pig. The horrifying sight of a burning pig carcass skewered on a stick while we all jump around naked and the dogs howl might make the beach a little less attractive. Don’t worry, after things get back to normal we can sift the cigar butts and pig bones out of the sand.
A few days ago I ducked as an irate man hurled beer bottles down the ferry dock at our “Homeland Security Guard.” As the bottles hummed overhead, bouncing off vehicles and shattering down the dock the guard collected up his own bottles angling for a clear shot back at the trouble maker. I had to admit, in spite of all the changes, St John is still like nowhere else on earth.