36 hours in Amsterdam: Part one
King Adz hits the ’Dam for the launch of Laser 3.14’s new book.
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From an old, old note book:
‘Amsterdam: deep in the belly of the beast; surrounded by mad off-their-head motherfuckers, gorging on sex and drugs. Chanting choruses and staging mock-rowdy photoshoots in the narrow alleyways, beers held aloft, the leader shouting ‘look angry, look fucking angry’… they growl and snarl until the flash and then… PHEW! The street breathes again and the flow of bodies continues…I’m stumbling around Holland -- the land of the mullet, leather blouson and cock-duster tasch…German light entertainment on the SAT at 9am when I’m blazing the Afghani weed riding bikes through the forest, falling off bikes in the town, getting stoned like Scratch: Euro trash in full effect and that’s just me…’
Okay so it’s all a bit cleaner these days: 05:35 and I’m sat in Leeds Bradford Airport (LBA) gulping down the first crappuccino of the day in the departure lounge after having cleared security in about three mins flat (no real luggage to speak of) and now I’m playing the waiting game.
I seem to spend a lot of time in Amsterdam as The Urban Cookbook
Amsterdam anarchy is always top-notch
Twenty-five minutes after the plane kisses the tarmac I’m in town. This is why the ’Dam rocks. On the train in I meet two American retirees who have just got in from Miami and are in town for a week before going to Tel Aviv to do volunteer work for the IDF. After helping them to the tram (they had four massive bags) I schlep down to the Prinsengracht where Laser lives.
Tools of the trade
We go and eat one of the most killer breakfasts at the Singel 404 cafe before strolling to the American Book Centre, where the launch is being held later. I help Laser sign 300 books (there is an old rule that a bookseller can’t return any unsold signed copies to the publisher) and then I’m off to check into my hotel for a spot of ZZZs.
The Lloyd Hotel is an old prison that has been turned into a design hotel. It’s out of town a bit, somewhere east on the canal, but the trek there is worth it. The publishers have scored me a suite and so all is good in the hood.
My lekker cell at the prison
Quote of the day:
‘Can you look after me phone and passport, I’ve got no pockets?’ Wally Man
In LBA airport a group of lads are stood in the bar, waiting to fly off for a stag do. The stag is dressed in a blue and yellow ‘Wally Man’ super hero costume. He has no other luggage and is wearing a facemask.
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36 hours in Amsterdam: Part one (text) by King Adz is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.Comments (6)
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Great stuff as ever Adz...
as much as he'd like to think of himself as amsterdam's banksi, he is not anonymous.
everyone on the scene (or not) knows who he is.
anonymity is something hard to achieve.
free to censor this, did you read me?