sun 22 jun 2008 12:00:00 — witte de withstraat
everyone had a tv
saturday evening i ate at nachtwacht with kh and jud the pilot. it was mild weather, technically the first full day of summer, so we sat out on the teras. jud was talking about the book he is trying to start writing.
in rembrandtplein there were lots of festive orange people, because that evening holland was playing football against russia. it was like a mini queen's day. after dinner we thought to have another drink elsewhere, if we could find somewhere with no football (a long shot, i know). we had a nice walk up reguliersgracht, then kh took us to check out a bar on utrechtsestraat that was known for not having any television. when we got there we saw they had *hired* a big tv just for the occasion. at that point i suggested we just go to the cave. surely there would be no football in a metal bar. but kh figured yes they would. so just to be sure, i phoned chicha to ask. chicha told me oh yes, indeed they had set up a big screen to watch the football game -- at the cave. holy fuck, what's this world coming to? we decided to quit and go home. kh later reported that i had said they only have "heavy metal and porn" on tv at the cave. i think he must have conflated my experience with someone else's; i've never seen porn at the cave, unless you count that scene we shot in eindhoven.
kh makes the point that during these football fugues, if just two or three bars in town publicized being football free for the duration, they would get stinky rich. after all there's no *law* against not liking football. and almost all my friends don't like football. but instead, everybody has to go out of their way to get some tiny piece of the action. just like FM radio, everybody trying hard not to be too different. this sort of business behavior is based on faith, not reason.
if anybody out there knows of one bar in amsterdam that ignored the european cup altogether, i wanna hear about it.