Sorry Pakistan.

Not that long ago something terrible happened in Pakistan. Like you probably all know, a big part of Pakistan flooded. Almost fourteen milion people are homeless, and it costed approximately 1.400 lives. Horrible ofcourse. I think we can’t even imagine the scale of such a disaster.

Because of all that misery there was a big media campaign last week in The Netherlands, aiming to raise money for the Pakistanis. If you realize that we collected 208 million euro (268 million USD) for the tsunami-victims five years ago, and 83.4 million euro (107 million USD) for the Haitians earlier this year, it’s a brilliant idea! Unfortunately we only raised 20 million euro (26 million USD) for Pakistan. I have to admit that there are days I don’t have that amount of money in my wallet, but still.

The cause of this isn’t really clear. First of all this disaster just isn’t visual enough. We all saw the same images of water and.... well, more water. And that’s it. There just wasn’t more footage of ripped buildings and swimming donkeys. The reason why is really simple. I mean, when was the last time you wanted to go on holiday in Pakistan? Exactly, there just weren’t big, fat Americans with cameras or iPhones screaming ‘Oh my gosh!’.

The second reason is the same reason why I didn’t gave money to Pakistan. Honestly, I feel really guilty about it, but it just doesn’t feels right. I’ll explain it to you. Each year Pakistan receives 1.5 billion USD (1.16 billion euro) from the world, for aid. I don’t have a problem with that so far, because they really need it. But at the same moment Pakistan is spending 5 billion USD, that’s 5,000.000.000 dollars (3.9 billion euro) on defense. They bought lots of weaponry, armor and even an atomic bomb. Obviously you won’t have any money left to build dikes and sluices.

I realize that the Pakistanis can’t help this and that they’re the victim of their own government. But that’s the problem in all of this. When I’d donate money it eventually would go to the Pakistani government and that makes the vicious circle complete. And even if it didn’t, I still won’t want to donate money. Besides the fact that only 70 cents of your euro/dollar will be used over there, I don’t want to be responsible for their failing government. I know it’s easy to say for me that they have to stand up against their government, but I’m not responsible for that. 

As long as this kind of countries won’t be able to take care of their own people I’m not in the mood to help these countries, and that includes the people unfortunately.

I don’t want to say that we have to solve this ‘American style’, by bombing everything and build Burger Kings on every corner, but I think the UN needs to intervene. Because if they won’t, thousands of people will die every year because of this kind of natural disasters.

J&R 

Hottie of the week!

Epke Zonderland, professional gymnast.

Buy Your CD.

With the release of ‘Love the way you lie’ (watch it here) by Eminem featuring Rihanna I was really fed up with it. Someone really has to tell me why rap-songs always contain the most addictive choruses. It’s such a shame, such a waist of talent. Do I really have to listen to 4 minutes of rap to hear a 10 second beautiful sung chorus?
Of course ‘Love the way you lie’ is just one of the examples of thousands of songs who used the same trick. An other song that uses the same structure is the new hit from B.O.B featuring Hayley Williams (Airplanes). It’s been done over and over again. It really is a trick.

The rap scene is more popular than ever these days, unfortunatly not because of the great rapping that’s been done. This scene is been made so much more mainstream than it originally was. Not that I’m a big rap fan, but I think that people will understand if I say that the highlights in the rap world were ten years ago. The mainstream-idea is extremely visible by all the female singers who clearly don’t mind having to sing just one simple sentence. I really wonder: if they can sing such pretty choruses, why can’t they use their talent to fill a whole album with breathtaking singing and high notes? It’s such a loss.

Once again the music industry proves us that it is extremely moneybased, and much of the passion which fed it for so many years has gone.
It’s a pity really, especially with rapmusic. Its source lays in the need to let themselves been heard. A feeling I recognize as an artist myself. A primary need, which was more important than stupid dollar bills.

Now everytime I hear such a song - and believe me, if you pay attention to it, you hear them very often - it’ll give me a bad and filthy aftertaste. And because of my point of view, I’ll try not to sing the chorus, even if it is so damn catchy and addictive.

J&R

Paying it forward.

A while back I saw the movie 'Pay it forward', based on the same named novel from Catherine Ryan Hyde. The movie is about a 12-year old boy who wants to change the world by doing three good deeds. In return he asks the favor of 'paying' the good deed 'forward'. I think you can see where this is going.

It didn't make me thinking right away, but last week I thought that I had to be a good person too! So I started to think about the things I could do. I was going to start with elderly people, and it didn't took long before I was going to do my very first good deed!
Across the street was a 147-year old woman struggling with her limbs. I ran to her, wrapped my arms around her and carried her to the other side of the street. When we arrived I told her she had to do something good for three other people because I helped her. She was apocalyptic furious! She called me names, that were really insulting when we'd lived in 1884. I ran away, before she'd bite my head off with one of her three teeth.

It wasn't easy so far, so I came up with a new idea. Why don't I just do things that I normally don't? And again, it didn't took long before I had a chance. Two parking maids walked towards me and I stopped them. I told them I wasn't going to call them 'parking-nazis' this time, so now they'd have to do three other people a favor. This was easy!
Unfortunately they threatened to call the police, get me arrested and then get me quartered or hung or whatever that's normal these days.

Obviously this wasn't a success as well, so I had to come up with something else. I couldn't think of anything until I was in the local supermarket. I was standing in line with my roommate and behind us was a boy with only a bottle of milk. So far so good, but we had a shopping trolley with groceries for 17 months. I told him that he could stand in front of us, and then it happened. He looked surprised, my roommate looked surprised, the people before us looked suprised, the cashier looked surprised and even I was surprised. I did a good deed! In all our joy I forgot to tell him to pay it forward, but it didn't matter. I'm a good person now. No, wait... I'm a great person!

J&R

Hottie of the week!

Nicolette Kluijver, presentator.

Glitter, feather and leather.

Glitter, feather and leather. Is there anything gays can’t wear? Yes there is! It’s their own pride that has fallen. Pink, as a universal embraced colour for the gay-community, isn’t wearable for a gay. I always wondered why this is, what makes a queer with a pink shirt so wrong and oldfashioned? Even if a pink, tight shirt shows every muscle of the welltrained chest of the ultimate boyfriend perfectly, it always looks awkward. And eventually it strucked me.
 

This awkwardness is evoked because of the contrast pink raises. This is which makes this colour more suitable for a straight guy than a gay guy. The scene is automatically linked with pink. And so it isn’t a very fortcoming, fresh, new idea to wear and it sure isn’t a fashionstatement you want to make. The unaware thinking of a mans mind creates a certain edge aka contrast with a straight guy wearing such a shirt because the pink is linked to the gay-community. For them it IS a fashionstatement. Because this idea is unawarely been indoctrinated in our minds that straights have nothing to do with pink, and homosexuals do.
Unfortunatly we gays did it ourselves with our Prides, protest marches, etc. Don’t get me wrong. Those are certainly not bad things! But they do made us unable to wear our favorite colour ever again.

J&R

Note:
Nevertheless pink can suit someone well, even if that someone is gay. It can be a great add for blonds and brunettes. So don’t panic! Don’t throw all your pink clothes away. This blog is written to make you aware of what you're wearing and what meaning they can carry.

Why we all should have private planes.

When I boarded the plane in Chicago last year I was horrified to note that I was to share my section of the cabin with six dozens of pensioners on a Saga holiday. Great.
Half of them were at the stage where they’d need to go to the lavatory every fifteen minutes, and the other half were at the stage where they didn’t bother with the lavatory at all. But the seat next to me was still free. So who am I going to get? Please God, not the girl with the baby I’d seen in the departure lounge. There’s nothing worse than sitting next to a girl with a baby on a flight. 
I got the girl with the baby. 


After one hour I was desperately in need of a white wine, but not only did it cost 16 dollar but it also’d make me drunk. And unlike a screaming baby, that’s considered as antisocial.
Luckily the girl with the baby didn’t had the same connection in Atlanta so I would get a new neighbour. This was a Californian beach babe who was going to Quito and Rio de Janeiro with her equally volleyballish friend. To start with, I didn’t think too much of the fact that they were holding hands but as the flight wore on, and they started holding rather more intimate parts of one another’s bodies, the penny dropped. I know I shouldn’t have been surprised. I know there must be good-looking lesbians too, but mostly you only see them in movies.


I tried to read my book, in which the hero tried to rescue an American spy from the Russians with nothing more than bubble gum and a comb, but it was impossible to concentrate. You should try sleeping when you’re seventeen inches from two pneumatic blondes playing tonsil hockey.


After 9 hours I finally landed in Quito where a man took my papers into a back room and emerged ten minutes later wearing rubber gloves. I nearly fainted.
Believe me, you do not want a body search after a 15-hour journey. You do not want a body search after a 15-minute journey, come to think of it. Fortunately he only wanted to check my suitcase.
My point in this is that flying over great distances is horrible. I already opened a savings account so I can buy my own private plane some day. 


J&R

Hottie of the week!

Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, actor.

Why, for crying out loud?!

We made this blog not only to entertain you, but especially ourselves. We don't see the world as black and white. We don't see people as a rase, religion, profession, sex or age, only as gay or straight. Why? Because that's the only thing that really matters.


But don't think we only talk about gay-issues, like gay rights, same-sex marriage or Cher's comeback. We talk about things that happens daily in our lives. We hope you'll enjoy it as much as we do, and if you don't you should stop reading this.


So who are we?
Well, we're two students living in The Netherlands. And before you ask: No, we don't have a relationship. Seriously, we don't! We can be big drama queens sometimes, but also very laid-back the rest of the time. Mostly we complain about everything that we don't, or sometimes do, like. Always with lots of self-mockery and even more humor. But there also will be serious content, depending on the things that happen to us.




That's it for now. Be sure to read our next blog.


J&R

The start of something beautiful!

We did it! We started our own blog, hooray!


Really soon we'll be blogging some more about.....who knows! So add this page to your 'favourites' and keep your eyes open.


J&R