Assorted Memories Of A Different World

[notsofasteddie]

Test

If this works it should be me smoking in the Bluebird '06

It is!

[notsofasteddie]

Meh. This one should be Rokerij on Singel



Wish I had more photos. Got more for the next 2 travelogues.

Looking forward to more photos -- a picture = 1,000 words!

[HitTheNorth]

Meh. This one should be Rokerij on Singel



Wish I had more photos. Got more for the next 2 travelogues.

Looking forward to more photos -- a picture = 1,000 words!

Thanks Eddie! I do have some more photos, including the overgrown bike. Just gotta blur the exes face out

[free_phil_spector]

Thanks man. Yeah I wonder what the percentage is of Grasshopper being people first cs in the years it was open. It was just there, like a big green beacon, no map needed.

Fairly high I'd imagine. For every naive newbie it had a strong magnetic pull as soon as you exited Centraal and hit the Damrak.

Ps like your sig. I know it's over. Great song, one of my favourites by them.

Your kung-fu is good Ever heard the live version on Rank? It's heartbreaking

[HitTheNorth]

So if anyone can help please? I mentioned in this travelogue an Easter Island style head I'd seen and couldn't remember where, well I've found an image of it here https://www.discogs.com/Various-Music-F ... ase/245319

Any ideas hive mind?

[Rafiki]

.

[HitTheNorth]

[...]One random memory I have is of a big, brown kind of tribal face above a shop. Sort of square, not ornate, almost Easter Island-esque. I don't know whether if it was a cs, smart shop, bar or something else entirely. If anyone can shed any light on this I'd really love to know. And the places, the memories of places. We went in a cs a couple mornings, I seem to remember it was near like docks and it kind of jutted out the end of a block. It was fairly low rent but not shabby. Long and thin, lots of windows. Love to know what that place was, I thought it was out down Prinz Hendrikade past Central cs more east but on a later trip with R and C I dragged them looking for it until they begged me to go back. [...]

So if anyone can help please? I mentioned in this travelogue an Easter Island style head I'd seen and couldn't remember where, well I've found an image of it here https://www.discogs.com/Various-Music-F ... ase/245319

Any ideas hive mind?

Do you mean these Moai ?



http://worth-a-journey.com/2012/05/moai ... amsterdam/

A coffeeshop that is on the other side and might be near to these Moai could be Funny People (click me).

Here is a google view inclusive interior shots: https://goo.gl/maps/hrEXtutrcBuvC9o26

Thanks man but I'm afraid not. This head was on a wall above a shop. More 2D than a statue. Those Moai look cool though, never knew about those

[titus wong]

Nicely done, made for perfect lunchtime reading. Thanks much.

I remember the giant head you mentioned. I thought it might be Coffeeshop Free Adam but can’t find any corroborating evidence.

[HitTheNorth]

Nicely done, made for perfect lunchtime reading. Thanks much.

I remember the giant head you mentioned. I thought it might be Coffeeshop Free Adam but can’t find any corroborating evidence.

Just found it. It was Free World on Marnixstraat. You were on the right lines with the Free part

[Comus]

great post .... great memories .... such a shame that the mtv generation managed to fuck mokum up so thoroughly

[free_phil_spector]

I enjoyed re-reading this thread. It got me reminiscing about my first time in Amsterdam so I thought I would bump this thread by posting an account of it...


October 1997 with G and M

I was in my early 20s and my friend G remarked that as we were both stoners we really should have visited Amsterdam by now. That was all the encouragement I needed, so we booked a hotel for five nights (!) for us both and a friend of his, M, who I'd never met but who he assured me was sound. And just a few weeks later we were standing at check-in at Luton Airport on a Monday morning, raring to go. Back then I had the most appalling, crippling fear of flying and was unable to board a plane without a good few drinks inside me. Unfortunately, due to a mixture of excitement and nerves, I overdid the gins in the airport bar and by the time we touched down in Mokum I was so rat-arsed G and M had to more or less carry me onto the train to Centraal and then to our hotel, where they left me to sleep it off while they went out to explore. I came to after a few hours and saw a lump of Afghan hash on the bedside table with a nice note from G explaining they'd been out, got some pot, and would be back again later. When they arrived I was sitting in the chair smoking a huge spliff and itching to get out into the fun.

We were staying at the Inntel hotel on Nieuwezijds Kolk and, being nervous newbies, G insisted we go back to the same coffeeshop he and M went to earlier ("at least we know it's ok") and so it was that the great green palace known as the Grasshopper became the first coffeeshop I ever visited. Back then I was strictly a hash-only man. Mainly because in the UK weed was still that shitty homegrown piss-weak rubbish (at least it was where I lived), and soapbar was mildly more palatable. My only intention in Amsterdam was to gorge myself on what I had heard were the finest quality hashes you could smoke - Afghani and the legendary Nepalese Temple Ball. So I scored some Afghan in the Grasshopper and we spent a few hours in the upstairs bar smoking huge fat hash-packed spliffs, drinking beer and playing pool. My first night, and I fell in love with Amsterdam right there and then. I do remember at one point they played about four or five songs from Be Here Now in a row, but I was loving the place so much that even that dog of a record didn't spoil our fun.

Over the next four days we did some of the tourist stuff (Van Gogh, Rijks, canal boat trip etc) and spent the rest of the time drinking, eating and smoking as much hash as we could. Coffeeshop-wise, we were fairly unadventurous (the level of sketchiness in De Wallen didn't help) so mainly stuck to the coffeeshops that were fairly close to our hotel. We definitely spent time in Central, Blues Brothers, the awful Paradise on Damstraat, and the Doors on Singel where we (finally) found a menu with Nepalese on it. That was a particularly fine smoke-up that afternoon. We also walked down to Rembrantplein and ended up in Smokey. Fuck knows why, cos it was a dump, but we stayed a whole afternoon in there. That Nepalese was certainly a couch-lock. On the day we went to the Rijks, it was pissing down when we got off the tram nearby so we darted down a side street and found a coffeeshop where we holed up for an hour or so til the rain cleared. I've no idea where it was or what shop it was, but its frontage was definitely onto a main road and it had a shelf along the front window with stools so you could watch the world go by with a spliff.

My only other memory is when G and M suggested we go to a live sex show in De Wallen. Suckered in off the cobbles of Oudezijds Achterburgwal like all mug punters. God it was awful. Every surface was sticky and we had to sit around a circular stage watching a bloke and a woman spending fucking aaaaaaages to actually do anything even remotely sexual. I got so bored I went for a piss. The toilets were down in the basement. I had a piss but when I left the loos, stoned off my noggin after days of smoking Afghan and Nepalese spliffs, I had a classic 'Spinal Tap backstage' moment and turned the wrong way. There were stairs at the end of the corridor I found myself in so I figured they would do but as I approached, a huge cheer went up from above and the two 'performers' who'd taken so long to get going came trotting down completely naked. It was the stairs to the stage, and they had clearly wrapped up their 'act' in the time it takes a man to go for a piss. The woman freaked out and covered herself up (!) while the bloke started bawling me out in Dutch and pointing me the right way. I shambled away giggling like a twat.

All these years later, G and I are still friends, although he stopped smoking pot 20 years ago. Unlike me, he never went back to Amsterdam but speaking to him recently, he and his partner visited a few months ago on business. Naturally he was shocked by how much it has changed. One thing he said really struck me, and probably sums up how I (and many others who went to Amsterdam in the last century) feel about it now: "It used to be like a festival. Everyone was having fun, no one cared, and there were crazy people and mad shit going on wherever you looked. Now it's just like everywhere else."

[Tokeing tom]

So so true ..."it used be like a festival ,now it just like everywhere else..I couldn't have put it better

[HitTheNorth]

I enjoyed re-reading this thread. It got me reminiscing about my first time in Amsterdam so I thought I would bump this thread by posting an account of it...


October 1997 with G and M

I was in my early 20s and my friend G remarked that as we were both stoners we really should have visited Amsterdam by now. That was all the encouragement I needed, so we booked a hotel for five nights (!) for us both and a friend of his, M, who I'd never met but who he assured me was sound. And just a few weeks later we were standing at check-in at Luton Airport on a Monday morning, raring to go. Back then I had the most appalling, crippling fear of flying and was unable to board a plane without a good few drinks inside me. Unfortunately, due to a mixture of excitement and nerves, I overdid the gins in the airport bar and by the time we touched down in Mokum I was so rat-arsed G and M had to more or less carry me onto the train to Centraal and then to our hotel, where they left me to sleep it off while they went out to explore. I came to after a few hours and saw a lump of Afghan hash on the bedside table with a nice note from G explaining they'd been out, got some pot, and would be back again later. When they arrived I was sitting in the chair smoking a huge spliff and itching to get out into the fun.

We were staying at the Inntel hotel on Nieuwezijds Kolk and, being nervous newbies, G insisted we go back to the same coffeeshop he and M went to earlier ("at least we know it's ok") and so it was that the great green palace known as the Grasshopper became the first coffeeshop I ever visited. Back then I was strictly a hash-only man. Mainly because in the UK weed was still that shitty homegrown piss-weak rubbish (at least it was where I lived), and soapbar was mildly more palatable. My only intention in Amsterdam was to gorge myself on what I had heard were the finest quality hashes you could smoke - Afghani and the legendary Nepalese Temple Ball. So I scored some Afghan in the Grasshopper and we spent a few hours in the upstairs bar smoking huge fat hash-packed spliffs, drinking beer and playing pool. My first night, and I fell in love with Amsterdam right there and then. I do remember at one point they played about four or five songs from Be Here Now in a row, but I was loving the place so much that even that dog of a record didn't spoil our fun.

Over the next four days we did some of the tourist stuff (Van Gogh, Rijks, canal boat trip etc) and spent the rest of the time drinking, eating and smoking as much hash as we could. Coffeeshop-wise, we were fairly unadventurous (the level of sketchiness in De Wallen didn't help) so mainly stuck to the coffeeshops that were fairly close to our hotel. We definitely spent time in Central, Blues Brothers, the awful Paradise on Damstraat, and the Doors on Singel where we (finally) found a menu with Nepalese on it. That was a particularly fine smoke-up that afternoon. We also walked down to Rembrantplein and ended up in Smokey. Fuck knows why, cos it was a dump, but we stayed a whole afternoon in there. That Nepalese was certainly a couch-lock. On the day we went to the Rijks, it was pissing down when we got off the tram nearby so we darted down a side street and found a coffeeshop where we holed up for an hour or so til the rain cleared. I've no idea where it was or what shop it was, but its frontage was definitely onto a main road and it had a shelf along the front window with stools so you could watch the world go by with a spliff.

My only other memory is when G and M suggested we go to a live sex show in De Wallen. Suckered in off the cobbles of Oudezijds Achterburgwal like all mug punters. God it was awful. Every surface was sticky and we had to sit around a circular stage watching a bloke and a woman spending fucking aaaaaaages to actually do anything even remotely sexual. I got so bored I went for a piss. The toilets were down in the basement. I had a piss but when I left the loos, stoned off my noggin after days of smoking Afghan and Nepalese spliffs, I had a classic 'Spinal Tap backstage' moment and turned the wrong way. There were stairs at the end of the corridor I found myself in so I figured they would do but as I approached, a huge cheer went up from above and the two 'performers' who'd taken so long to get going came trotting down completely naked. It was the stairs to the stage, and they had clearly wrapped up their 'act' in the time it takes a man to go for a piss. The woman freaked out and covered herself up (!) while the bloke started bawling me out in Dutch and pointing me the right way. I shambled away giggling like a twat.

All these years later, G and I are still friends, although he stopped smoking pot 20 years ago. Unlike me, he never went back to Amsterdam but speaking to him recently, he and his partner visited a few months ago on business. Naturally he was shocked by how much it has changed. One thing he said really struck me, and probably sums up how I (and many others who went to Amsterdam in the last century) feel about it now: "It used to be like a festival. Everyone was having fun, no one cared, and there were crazy people and mad shit going on wherever you looked. Now it's just like everywhere else."

Wow! Thanks so much for posting this I loved reading it.

"That dog of a record" brilliant, had me lol'ing there

I've never been to a sexy place in Dam. I have in Prague and I hated it haha Your tale though if you'd been a minute sooner you could've ended up on stage!

Oh my Paradise ha there was a few ropey ones on Damstraat iirc Free Adam was on there wasn't it? I used to love walking down Danstraat to get to Bluebird, there was always loads of freaks and crazies around.

Which brings me on to how your friend G so succinctly put it. It was like a festival. I think back then, pot was still quite entrenched in the hoppie/psychedelic or reggae thing, these days the hip hop thing has almost entirely taken over. The culture has changed, just as it should as culture should always be in a state of flux. Basically it just means there's less dreads in tie dye trying to borrow a wooden flute off the moon,. The whole scene and experience has changed, weed is legal in many places now, it's overground, mainstream, a commodity. Back in the 90s it was still clandestine, whispered. Pre Internet, pre influencer. It will shift again and maybe our kids will look back on the 2020s with the same dewy eyed nostalgia as I look at the 90s .

Anyway I've just smoked my breakfast while reading/writing so I could be talking shit too

Anyone else got any nostalgic tales to tell?

[free_phil_spector]

Oh my Paradise ha there was a few ropey ones on Damstraat iirc

Yeah Paradise was terrible. I ended up in there on a subsequent trip for some reason. I bought some weed and a coke, smoked a spliff and when I went up to get another coke the guy said I had to buy more weed if I wanted another drink. Haha, yeah fuck off fella. Never went back and wasn't particularly sad to see it gone.