Old love never dies!

Old love never dies. Or so they say... But I guess they're right. I've been running into, contacting, meeting, ... ex-girlfriends (or old loves) a lot lately. And it's not that I have that many! I do have to admit that in most cases it's been quite a good experience. Patched some old wounds or buried some old hatches, or in some cases it was just good to see or hear from each other again. Nothing more, nothing less. Perhaps that's just another part of the old "growing up" process.

Another old love of mine is music. Hardcore/punkrock and perhaps a touch of metal to be specific. I used to go to every show, all around. I still play in a band (well, I do the vocals) but going to shows or gigs is something I've been missing out on a lot the last couple of months. I just didn't feel like it anymore. On the other hand my taste in music has never been this broad as it is now. But yesterday I changed all that. You know, it was one of those reunion things and perhaps even more an anniversary thing. A couple of bands hadn't played for a while and another one isn't going to anymore. (I won't bore you with the details.) So of course I had to check it out!
I don't know what it was but for some reason I kinda felt out of place. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed it all very much. But perhaps I felt old although there were plenty of people that were older. Perhaps I didn't fit in anymore. I'm not trying to live a lie, living outside of the real world and doing my own thing. I'm living in the middle of the real world and I'm still doing it my own way. At least I'm honest about it all. I enjoy music, I love music, perhaps music is even still my everything! But I 'm not going to shows to show my face, to tell the world I'm still around. If I feel like going, I will, and else I'll stay at home. Perhaps some of my old friends don't get that. But at least I wouldn't turn my back on someone that makes a change in their life. And at least I'm not claiming to be someone I'm not. I'm sick of the entire "holier than thou" and "better than you" mentality. Even last night, Scott Vogel (the singer of Terror - the dumbest and smartest person in hardcore combined all in one - and perhaps - a living legend) claimed that everyone in the venue was his friend and his family. Praise the lord, everyone thinks the same! But yet again people can't wait five minutes to split someone else's head. I wouldn't call that family feuds. Bunch of hypocrites!

Perhaps this might sound dumb and totally unexpecting coming from me, but I'd rather hang out in a club or a bar where everyone thinks they're better but all in all you get treated nicely. Cause besides the music everything else is pretty much the same. The clothes, the style, the shoes, the hair, the friends and all the other things might have different colours or shapes, but they 're all as important in both worlds.

days off

On Thursday I had a day off. So as things usually go, I just bummed around all day long and didn't do anything useful. Around 14h I got bored of myself and decided to fill in my tax return for next year. My God, what a major disappointment! Especially in comparison with the huge succes of this year's return. I actually owe the government a couple of hundred euros. Damn!!!

Luckily I had some cooler plans for the rest of the day. Me and some buddies were having a poker night. Something we hadn't done in ages. Texas Hold'Em was the game and a sketchy bachelors appartement in Antwerp our playground. And again the night delivered some more financial consequences as I lost miserably.

With this in mind I really have to find something to keep myself entertained in a couple of weeks time, cause I have a full week off ahead of me. I was hoping I could've gone on a holliday, but all my friends have work or other obligations. Trust me, sitting at home getting bored during the few days off you get a year, really sucks! So this is an open invitation to anyone around: if you have some time to kill during the first week of July, please let me know so we can hang out!!!

Just a short post today, cause my computer is acting up and I need to leave some room, cause I feel a big angry blog coming up in the next couple of days! Take care!

Olympics, here we come!

The -21 European Championship of football in the Netherlands are taking a turn I wasn't expecting. The last couple of years "Belgium" and "good news" weren't two words that combined very well when talking about football. But things change, and sometimes even for the better! We actually managed to qualify for the semi finals, where we probably will team up against Serbia. Besides that we qualified for the Olympics in China next year! For the very first time since 1928. If that isn't good news, I don't know what is...

Of course, I couldn't miss this event. So me and some friends teamed up to head over to Heerenveen in the Netherlands, way up north in Friesland. It's been a couple of years since I last went there so I was really looking forward to this road trip. Not only is Friesland a really nice region if you like peace and quiet and a lot of nature, but Heerenveen is a nice and charming town as well.
We wandered about in town and came across a "skutsje sielen" event. The people in Friesland are mad about two things: ice skating and "skutsje sielen", which is basically sailing old ships.
Besides that we made peace with the local population and shared many beers, regretfully the beers were Dutch.

As the stadium was turning orange we sang and laughed and were pleased to see a lot of Belgian flags everywhere. The atmosphere was great and I'm still euphoric about the result. All we needed was a draw and the end result of 2 goals each and an exciting game was more than satisfying. More than 25.000 people agreed with me and I'm sure all of the Netherlands and Belgium are looking forward to the semi finals and perhaps we can meet again in the finals...

The only thing that bothered me was the fact that all the Dutch supporters sang their national anthem at heart and most of the Belgians have no clue how the lyrics go. Therefor (in all official languages) our national anthem:

(all rise!)

O Belgique, ô mère chérie,
A toi nos cœurs, à toi nos bras,
A toi notre sang, ô Patrie !
Nous le jurons tous, tu vivras !
Tu vivras toujours grande et belle
Et ton invincible unité
Aura pour devise immortelle :
le Roi, la Loi, la Liberté !
le Roi, la Loi, la Liberté !

O dierbaar België, O heilig land der Vad'ren,
Onze ziel en ons hart zijn u gewijd.
Aanvaard ons kracht en bloed van ons ad'ren,
Wees ons doel in arbeid en in strijd.
Bloei, o land, in eendracht niet te breken;
Wees immer uzelf en ongeknecht,
Het woord getrouw, dat g' onbevreesd moogt spreken,
Voor Vorst, voor Vrijheid en voor Recht!
Voor Vorst, voor Vrijheid en voor Recht!

O liebes Land, o Belgiens Erde,
Dir unser Herz, Dir unsere Hand,
Dir unser Blut, dem Heimatherde,
wir schworen's Dir, o Vaterland!
So blühe froh in voller Schöne,
zu der die Freiheit Dich erzog,
und fortan singen Deine Söhne:
Gesetz und König und die Freiheit hoch!

Not my flag!

The Christian Democrats won the federal elections on Sunday in my native country Belgium. The Flemish Christian Democrats called CD&V. Together with the nationalistic party NVA.
Their leading man and probably our next prime minister is called Yves Leterme. He currently is the minister-president of Flanders, the Dutch speaking part of Belgium. Belgium is torn apart by ethnic and linguistic problems. In short: the rich northern Flemish speaking part wants to get rid of the poor southern French speaking part of the country. It's as simple as that.

Yves Leterme is shown here on his party headquarters on the day of the elections. Waving in the background are Flemish flags. Separatistic Flemish flags used by "flamingants", nationalists. You can recognize them by the black tongue of the lion. The official flag has a yellow-black lay out with a red tongue, as yellow - black and red are the colours of the Belgian flag.

Not only was this pure provocation it 's also a sign of disrespect. Not only towards our country but a direct attack to anyone who actually has a positive view on our country's future. It disgusts me that this "media-druling", "lusting for power", egocentric individual wants to grab control and is actually convincing people to believe in him and his ideas.

This country only has a short history; it was founded in 1830. We never had it easy, being a small country stuck in the middle of Germany, France, Holland and overseas the UK. But we always stood our ground. In WWII the Germans ruled our nation and bought the sympathy of the Flemish people by calling them a "brotherly people". If we would take their side we would benefit of the war. And many of us did... Especially in the part between the North Sea and the river "Schelde ", the part of the country originally called "Flanders".
After the war these people were treated as war criminals and were often captured, abused and stigmatised. This was probably the first and still most important reason of the Flemish nationalistic movement. They wanted amnesty for the collaborators.
As things usually do, it all got out of hand. Movements were started, parties were founded and hate and intolerance were born. The most well known result of this movement is the neo-fascist and nationalistic party Vlaams Blok (currently known as: Vlaams Belang). They currently have about 20% of the votes in Flanders. A couple of years ago, they reached peaks up till 25% and in some cities 30% and more.
CD&V (formerly known as CVP) was always the safe vote as this party stood somewhere in the middle of the political spectrum. But nowadays they seem to have taken a swift turn towards the right. Not only are they teaming up with another nationalistic party (NVA), but also are they taking over their views! They 've always been a popular party so people continue to vote for them, not always knowing what they vote for...

I stand firmly in this matter. Belgium is not to be split. The history of Belgium, Flanders and Wallonia is too complex and tied in all matters. I long for an increasing influence and unity of all the European nations. I think a real future lies in the European Union. I don't think splitting up and separating populations will bring any benefit for us. As the Benelux was the first step towards a united Europe, we especially should be proud of what we reached. The only reasons are financially inspired and pure selfish. The only reason people are buying this, is because it's force fed by the media, the companies and anyone with money!

The Flemish flag is not my flag! I won't ever think of it that way. The flags you see here waving above are disgusting misinterpretations. Any Belgian should be outraged about this. They were misleading and bring forth nothing but hatred and an ongrowing conflict. We are not growing apart because of cultural differences, there are cultural differences because we are growing apart!

I still believe: Eendracht Maakt Macht! L'Union Fait La Force!