NOT CONNECTING

Kraggenburg, Nederlands - August 13th, 2005 - - I took the train from Riny's town to Amsterdam. I didn't have the correct change, so had to pay 5 Euro extra to the conducteurto write me a ticket. I'm gettin screwed here. Tip: ALWAYS have a lotta change at the treinstation.

We got to Amsterdam and though I tried to call Rory Campbell, the famous Amsterdam RocknRoller, I was unable to reach him. I hooked a left and hoofed it up to the Future Coffeeshop, said Hi to Marcel...tell him I sent you.
"Nice haar,"he says. Ï like the very VERY redness of it."
"Shit happens," I say.

I hang awhile, smoke a hashjoint. "Think the Pollux is open yet?" I ask.

Marcel slopes out from behind his counter. He peers through the glass and the drizzle and says, "Yes I think so."

I haul my Dean and my grouch box outta the Future Coffeeshop and across the bridge toward the Cafe Pollux.

Lemme tell you about the Pollux. In the same family from ever since Rembrandt was a little guy livin on the Mass River, this place has been through it all, Napoleon, the German occupation, everything...you can put your head down on the bar, you're passin out on history...Espinoza used to peddle his newpapers here.

Frits and Tanja, who know more about me and my family than any others this side of the Atlantic, are, en tableau, just as I remembered them. Dutch kisses all around. How wonderful to see old true friends! How delightful to let pretense fall from your shoulders and be with family. I feel like the side of a freakin herbal tea box here, but it's true.....these characters were so very important and helpful to us when we were lost here...Tanja teaching us Dutch common sense and Frits ever ready for another story. So it is not superficial, but important that I see these wonderful down to earth people again,

Meantime, I'm trying to get ahold of Rory , but his phone's gefukked or I'm gefukked. I can't reach him.

I leave my grouch box at the Pollux, hoof it over to Lijnbaansgracht and the MelouMalo..no Rory. I have a chat with Jur and with Patrik, who says Rory may be over at the new Last Waterhole, which has moved without my permission to the Leidseplein from the old Centraal Station neighborhood where it was back in the day.

I metatarsal it over to the Leidseplein to the Last Waterhole and to Bourbon Street, but no Rory. I take a taxi back to The Pollux, which costs me as much in Euros as it used to cost me in guilders.

Well, after all this ankling, hoofing and metatarsaling. I'm about ready to give up on Amsterdam, so the Pollux stays open one hour longer in my honor and, accompanied by my good friend Rene, I go to the station and buy a ticket to Zwolle, where The Doc thinks I may show up tomorrow night.

I get in to Zwolle and call The Doc. He's not awake yet, but after a little while he comes and picks me up. I crash at the home of his girlfriend Christien (more about her later).

I sleep a long time....