Video: Paris Hilton: burn her trashy stories

Amazing: MSNBC reporter Mika Brzezinski (daughter of Zbigniew Brzezinski, US national security adviser under president Carter) tried to burn the opening news story on jet-setting bimbo Paris Hilton last Tuesday on US national TV. Later she trashed the paper. Give her a bonus. When confronted with “Paris Hilton” questions the local Antwerp Hilton hotel staff (almost my neighbour) has been instructed to stay polite, ignore the question and change the subject. The Hilton chain lost a valued customer: I now support only local businesses. “That’s Hot”

Sex in church: Antwerp gallery shows controversial art in former chapel

It had all the hallmarks of a controversy waiting to be ignited: blend one controversial artist, countless sculptures in fiberglass and put them together in the chapel of a former medieval hospital. But then again, this is Antwerp, Belgium: you need more than a fiberglass breast to shock us. The only shocked visitors were those expecting the classic interior of a chapel Which makes me wonder: should old churches be used for controversial art with a visual sexual connotation?

A city for the rich: Turning Antwerp’s riverbanks into a playground for the privileged few

Thirty years ago, the Antwerp City riverbanks were a second-rate neighborhood, with many inhabitants having working (shipping), historic or emotional ties to the river.

During the early 80s, Antwerp City even build low-cost (low quality) rent-controlled apartments near the riverbanks. But much like in Bob Dylan’s ‘The Times They Are A-Changin’, Antwerp city council got into a pact with the devil by unofficially giving the go-ahead sign for a blank contract with a number of powerful developers like Himmos, who were delighted to fill in this 5 km of prime location with truly expensive, upscale condos and lofts in a price-range hitting the 1 million euro price limit.

Ever had a neighbor with a pool on his penthouse rooftop? You can find them right here.

Some of the architectural results may sure look pleasing to the eye, but the social fabric of this area has been shamelessly destroyed, with continuous efforts to chase away the not-so-rich native inhabitants. Rents went through the roof, parking spaces for regular inhabitants mysteriously disappeared and even complete city streets (Riemstraat, Southern Antwerp quays) were sold by this “caring city” to become gated communities for the jet-setting rich. Working class families were forced to move in droves, unable to stop Antwerp City council never ending need for cash.

With a cynical “Antwerp belongs to everyone” slogan the City managed to cover its real aim: turning Antwerp’s riverbanks into a playground for the privileged few.

Recently Antwerp author Koen Calliauw wrote a hard-hitting blog post (Dutch only, unfortunately): in The Mob (Organized crime) rules Antwerp he touched a raw nerve by serving a shocking story involving shady City council members and their affiliations, building promoters like Himmos, cocaine abusing VIPs in ‘do as you please’ upscale clubs with a license to break the law, along with classic stories of police and city corruption.

You know, after I read the book by the head of Antwerp city planning Ludo Van Campenhout’s (OpenVLD, Liberal, City Council) “Dromen is durven” ["To dream is to dare"] I wasn’t surprised to witness him address a crowd of rich riverbank inhabitants from the Antwerp quays at the Zuiderpershuis, a few days before the elections on June 10th 2007. Dear Ludo ‘promised’ to (but probably won’t be able to) to try turning the huge open space used by the yearly Antwerp funfair into (yet another) upscale marina, making sure that no “lower class” citizen or tourist could “upset” the view from the 1 million euro penthouses of his filthy rich audience.

Say again Antwerp, “this town belongs to everyone”? ["t'stad is van iedereen" in Dutch]

You know, many upper class Antwerp riverbank rich from various backgrounds believe that they are where they are in life based on their achievements. They seem unaware that not everyone shares their privileged existence, or seem to believe that anyone who doesn’t has only themselves to blame.

As for Antwerp’s disgraceful “a city for the rich” approach to the riverbanks (and many other parts of town): it’s a shameful sell-out to the building promoters, the speculators and all those who successfully cashed in on destroying the fabric of what once was a real community called ‘downtown Antwerp’. Feel free to comment (if you dare ) [images: Westkaai planning by project² : amazing pictures! Care for a penthouse? According to a local paper they will set you back 2.3 million Euro. Six units available spring 2009, most already sold.]

Torrential rains and fireworks hit Antwerp

After torrential rain showers and temperatures resembling a chilly autumn day messed up the first week of summer, Antwerp city
council decided that a huge fireworks display (June 29) might stop tourists from choosing a warmer destination to spend their cash.
We’ll see, I notice many friends booking flights to Spain and Turkey. Imagine, we had a 30C/90F heatwave last April..

Gay in 30 seconds

One of Belgium’s national public FM networks Radio Donna was losing much of its market share to their countless commercial competitors way back in early 2006. In desperation, they also started targeting a gay audience. Obviously, with numerous all-gay FM stations to compete with, Donna’s effort failed. Notice the “big gun” hanging at the wall - I was expecting one of the parents to use it

Looking at Radio Donna’s commercial on YouTube, I wonder: is this 60 second spot just silly, insulting or actually funny?

[Disclaimer: this video has been on various sites since 2006, malgusto (bad taste) was just one of them]

Let’s dance Antwerp! BorgerRio turns up the heat

While the rain reminded us all that we were still in Antwerp, Belgium, the BorgerRio festival tried to turn the migrant Antwerp borough of Borgerhout into a place to party on the streets. [Click to enlarge the picture]

Imagine blocking an entire incoming/outgoing major road through the heart of an historic district on a busy Saturday, a borough that turned into a place where predominantly Moroccan and African migrants settled 20 years ago: not many cities would be willing to put up with the massive traffic gridlock.

But in spite of the relentless rain people kept on smiling, in fact, it’s been years since I last saw that many happy faces in good old Borgerhout (Antwerp, Belgium). At times, it felt weird though: migration really drastically changed the face of Borgerhout: the area feels like taking a free trip abroad.

Enjoy some of my first sample photographs. [Related: program in Dutch, full program in pdf]

Meet my blogroll, live

In spite of the poring rain, Saturday June 23 became a memorable day: I finally met a couple of bloggers that have been on my blogroll for over a year. And not just “any” blogger: two warmhearted, funny, empathic independent women who have been leaving their comments on a regular basis: New-Zealand photographer Diane MacKey and US expat Veronica McCabe Deschambault. [Photo credits: click the image]

While the weather was lousy, the location and timing couldn’t have been better: the nostalgic Antwerp cine Roma, a perfectly restored former movie theater dating back to 1928, with 2000 seats a place oozing with history. The timing was just as amazing: during the ongoing BorgerRio street festival that turns the Antwerp migrant neighborhood of Borgerhout into an awesome Rio-like carnival, a street festival with enough nationalities to make you forget that this still is Antwerp, Belgium.

While Diana was kept real busy photographing the ongoing events, I spent some time talking with Veronica, who was just as witty as her blog posts. Thanks for the memorable afternoon, “fellow bloggers”

Strantwerpen: a beach for the arrogant Antwerp rich

It has become an annoying tradition: unlike the real beach at Antwerp leftbank (along with its natural sandy beach, an Olympic open air swimming pool and a great boulevard lined with countless riverside terraces) Antwerp City rented out a part of the parking space located near the upscale Southern downtown riverbanks to [video:] strantwerpen: a real tiny, 100% artificial strip of fake “beach” for the trendy jet-setting part of this metropolis.

Be rich, be arrogant and make sure to be young are the three prerequisites to get passed the security guards, trained to ban anyone showing any signs of being a regular native or tourist. At 80 euro for a bottle of Champagne this pathetic “look, we’re rich and drinking our cocktails on a fake beach” ghetto is to be avoided at all cost. Even expatica was not impressed. But make sure to check out their site to convince yourself

“Money obtained from spam will help hungry children”

Someone is laughing all the way to the bank. I took a brief glimpse in my Akismet spam comment folder (at +200 a day I usually don’t bother) and stumbled one item that caught my eye: “Please, do not delete the given message. Money obtained from spam will go to the help of hungry children in Uganda”, with a link to a porn/viagra site.

How low will they go

Video: hype versus reality when visiting Antwerp, Belgium

Antwerp has an impressive list of year round must-see attractions. Unfortunately some of the summer events are characterized by a significant degree of thin air hype. You know, the Mayor, Patrick Janssens, has a degree in Marketing: he hypes this city like a softdrink with a magical nutritional value. [image: the Antwerp Mayor at the EffieBelgium marketing awards - the city won gold for their image-building campaign on June 12, 2007] However, there is a significant difference between “image building” and “building a city”. As natives, we tend to notice that difference. When Antwerp started selling a super-sized park bench as a “wondrous attraction to watch the magical summer sunset”, we just started laughing. As a tourist, it might be difficult to discern the hype from the real attractions.

Some minor details may turn into embarrassing issues when you arrive in Antwerp. Let me list a couple of small details you won’t like.

Unlike Paris, Antwerp hardly has any public toilets. The ones that do exist are dirty or closed at 6 pm. Not a trivial detail when nature calls, but a foul smelling discomfort if you’re visiting the historic downtown area of this city.

[the stench of urine is awful during weekend nights - image locations: riverbanks - right in front of the cathedral]

Basically, once you leave the magnificent historic downtown area, the streets quickly turn into a bland, boring place with little or no value to tourists. My advice: just stick to the historic downtown and the riverbanks if you’re visiting for a day.

Antwerp tends to ignore issues like vandalized or messy tourist attractions. Care for a rivertour ticket? Sure?

These vandalized, burned out ticket boxes have been disgracing the hourly river cruise terminal since 2006. Nobody seems to care while countless tourists board their rivercruise vessels. My advice: ignore them. You don’t have much of a choice anyway.
A final piece of advice: don’t visit Antwerp by car: the ongoing and upcoming roadworks will cause daily gridlock for many years to come.

OK, next: 1001 common reasons for visiting Antwerp and having a great time

The married gay single

Let’s face it: life can be emotionally complicated, with crude reality often overriding pure fiction.

Last night I found myself near the Dutch coast, sharing a perfect meal with my hosts, a married French diving couple and their rather young children. Nothing special, weren’t it for the fact that we were having that perfect seafood diner on a campsite, with rain poring down while gusty North sea winds tried to mess with the lighted candles. But what made it really special was the simple fact the they still saw me as part of a couple, my ‘other half’ being an accompanying close friend who’s also a diver. And neither of us had any inclination to correct their blissful ignorance.

You see, although there’s nothing wrong with being single, being a “slightly older gay single” does seem to raise awkward questions. The same event often occurs when you drop a ‘fairly older single’ into a group of couples: within an hour questions get asked. Somehow it appears married couples feel much more at easy when you arrive “as a couple”, obviously gay, but still, a ‘couple’, an entity they can relate to.

So we had our perfect meal, enjoyed a sparkling conversation in French and made sure nothing broke that magic spell of their imaginary “perfect couples” evening. And you know, I loved the experience. Wouldn’t you?

“Bush administration attacks ’shield’ for bloggers”

I’m not a link blogger, but CNET just published a most remarkable article on bloggers rights two hours ago. Quote:

“The Bush administration on Thursday blasted a congressional proposal that would shield a broad swath of news gatherers, including some bloggers, from revealing their confidential sources. The latest draft of the Free Flow of Information Act [pdf] would pose a grave threat to national security and federal criminal investigations by protecting far too large a segment of the population, a U.S. Department of Justice official told Congress.”

As my blog sources are entirely public, I’m not concerned at all by this US congressional proposal or the attack by the Bush administration, but I’m spreading the news anyway, like most of the blogosphere is currently doing.

And bingo, yet another hit from Echelon or a bored dept of State employee.. Hey boys, I’m the 40,000 Belgian blowjobs guy!

Wheels, booze and fun - a sultry night in Antwerp

OK, I won’t even try to deny it: I had a good old-fashioned night of fun yesterday at the yearly Antwerp city funfair.
Simple question: should I reduce the font size of my (c) notice? “it’s way too large” a reader commented (well,..)

Take a picture, get arrested?

Strolling along the Antwerp riverbanks I couldn’t help but notice a rather run-down street that was pulling a crowd last Monday. I’d passed these buildings before: old derelict residences, waiting to be demolished, with a reputation as a hang-out for vagrants.

Seconds later a number of fire brigade engines pulled up the side walk, along with several Antwerp city police cars. OK, it briefly appeared that I was witnessing one of those daily incidents, one showing all characteristics of a simple fire. Like most people on the sidewalk, I stepped aside to watch the incident evolve, growing slightly more curious, as there was no smoke or visible signs of any flames. Less than 10 min later, all fire fighters and police officers left the building without any explanation.

And than it happened: a young police officer walked up to to me and exclaimed: “stop talking pictures of me right now”. I had been taking a few cell-phone camera shots of the incident, without targeting any of the emergency crew. Under Belgian privacy laws, snapping a shot of police/fire-fighter activity on a public street is perfectly legal and does not require authorisation.

But the rather young Antwerp police officer felt otherwise: ’stop right now’, he exclaimed utterly agitated, implying that I could be booked for obstruction. Booked during an insignificant intervention is not my idea of fun, so I will refrain from posting the ‘truly remarkable shots of this non-event’.

Anyway, I wonder if any of you ever experienced anything similar. The agitated Antwerp police officer obviously crossed a line he shouldn’t have crossed, but I still wonder if any of you ever got into trouble by just taking pictures in public

Virus alert in Antwerp during peaceful HMS Albion visit

No visitors wanted when England’s HMS Albion (L14) visited Antwerp today: the entire area had a metal gated security perimeter, and, most bizarre, a “virus” warning line (??) Was someone playing a game? [click my images for full-size photo shots at Flickr]

Antwerp: post election blues, June 11, 2007

Belgium woke up to a disturbing wake-up call after yesterdays elections. Have a look at the pie-chart above: imagine extracting a workable government out of this mess of parties, conflicting interests and pre-election promises.

After the Belgian June 10, 2007 national elections, a discarded election poster lies between the rubble on a forgotten part of the Antwerp city riverbanks.

Live: Belgian election results - Heavy losses for Government parties

Belgium made a predicted massive swing to the right after this morning’s national elections. The governing VLD (liberal)-SP (socialist) coalition was decimated, with impressive gains for CD&V (catholic-conservative).

Live results available in English at flandersnews.be [permalink]
Live graphical charts available for the Belgian Chamber of Representatives and the Belgian senate

My photograph: Antwerp controversial right-winger Jurgen Verstrepen being
interviewed by national VRT-TV in front of my door at 6.30 pm UTC+2

Urgent: save democracy in Belgium, get a blowjob while doing so

You must act now, there is no time to lose. After Belgian prime minister Guy Verhofstadt (Liberal Open VLD) announced yesterday on national TV that CD&V (conservative-catholic-democrats) had struck an pre-election deal with SPa/PS (left wing socialists) to constitute Belgium’s next national government (24h before 1 vote has been cast on June 10), you, the Belgian voter are the only one left to save democracy in Belgium.

I urge you all not to vote for all these vile, loathsome groups of conspirators banded together to achieve their goal: unrestricted power and world domination!

Stop this harmful political plot and show that you really believe in democracy in this corrupt tiny European kingdom! How? Vote for the last remaining stronghold of real freedom: the only party that had the guts to say “NEEN” (”NO”) to the corruption that has permeated our great country and promised you 40,000 blowjobs along the way: the candidate for “NEEN”/NO. Exclusive VIDEO: WATCH the amazing 40,000 blowjob performance!

On a more serious note (although the NO party is for real, but so is the pre-election deal): it’s truly disgusting that 24h before election day political parties in Belgium go on national TV discussing their pre-election deals. If that’s all what’s left of democracy in Belgium, it’s really time to vote for the blowjob party. Don’t you agree?

Blog comment spam: the deluge - How do you cope?

This blog, “Antwerp Calling” is rather small compared to many of the big shots out there.

I now average up to 300 page views a day, with an additional, dedicated 130 readers/subscribers to my RSS feed.
OK, up to 400 readers is not that bad, along with a rather nice technorati rating (158 links, ‘authority’ rating: 43 · Rank: 118,166).

Although many of you are in search of “Antwerp+sex+prostitutes” I would like to thank you all for visiting/ reading!

WordPress has a truly wonderful spam comment filter (Akismet), but still, I keep on trying to check the trash, as no filter can be really 100% foolproof. Anyway, Akismet is the best tool around. As you may have noticed, the past few weeks have seen a spam comment deluge hitting this blog: I now average 200 spam comments a day when yet another spam-run tidal wave comes along. Way too much to check. If your genuine comment was auto-deleted: click ‘about the author’ to get in touch.

I was wondering: how do you cope at your blog? Comment moderation works fine, but do you just delete your spam comment folder without further checking? I would hate to loose too many valuable comments

An Inconvenient Lie: Turning the climate issues into a cash cow

Let’s start of with something we all agree on: our climate is changing. OK, I won’t go into details, others have done that in a far more professional manner. Ignoring the fact that renewable energy has a low priority overhere (Electrabel, Belgium’s largest power supplier hardly produces any locally), the ruling Belgian government has managed to turn global warming into a most profitable source of unrelated tax revenue.

How about a silly tax on your daily package of margarine or sandwich spread? I’m not kidding, in order to save the planet from melting the tiny kingdom of Belgium (pop 10 million) has hit all of us with a tax on plastic containers since 2004. The fact that the Belgian recycling percentage scores amongst the best in the world didn’t matter: we were hit with a “eco” tax, as if we had any options to buy many daily liquids in other containers. All household waste is selectively picked-up/ recycled in Antwerp, so let’s call this by its name: an arrogant, abusive tax to balance the Belgian budget, supported by fake climate/environmental concerns. [image credit: Chris Jordan]

Belgians are currently being brainwashed into believing that they “pollute the planet”, followed by yet more taxes on every “potentially non ecological move we make”. But we’re not deaf or blind: we know about the corrupt emission credit system, we see how the US en China keep on polluting, and we sure know when we’re abused as a dumb cash cow. [related: world-wide CO2 emissions]

Since “caring for global warming” turned into a shallow excuse to burden all Belgians with new taxes that will not impact global warning the slightest bit, it’s time to draw the line [FYI: Belgian sales tax: 21% (!), tax on a middle class income: up to 50% (!!) - totally insane]

Four days to go until Belgian election day on June 10: someone will have to face the music. How’s your local trash doing?

“Your cheap promises won’t pay my rent”: the royal couple that took Belgium for a ride

It’s a sunny June 5 in Antwerp. Along with the annual Antwerp city funfair, the political ‘parade of promises, meant to be broken’ is also in town, preceding the June 10th election. But we didn’t need an election to get more than our fair share of hypocrisy.

Last December, all Belgian TV channels aired King Albert of Belgium classic new year’s speech. Belgian King Albert II traditionally delivered a public address to the nation, placing strong emphasis on universal human values: honesty, integrity, accountability (etc, etc) while evoking a spirit of “sharing”, being less egocentric in our ever more materialistic world.

Six months later we find dear Albert of Belgium in a somewhat strange position, lying on his newly purchased multi-million Euro second yacht near the port of Ponza, on a vessel build by Cantieri Navali Rizzardi in Sabaudia, Italy. Obviously, all Belgian ship yards raised their voice, asking why the Belgian king totally ignored Belgian ship building jobs. The Dutch Queen obviously bought a Dutch-build yacht, The British monarchy only orders from selected British yards, but ‘our’ king buys Italian. [image credits: unknown]. Who’s taking who for a ride?

Albert appeared to ignore more than just Belgian jobs: his yacht is registered as a Belgian military naval vessel, although it is never being used in any official function. Our dearest Belgian queen Paola (Italian born, still hardly speaks any Dutch after 30y in Belgium) reportedly has the habit of ordering “forgotten items” (like her favorite marmalade) to be flown over by Belgian military jets when the royal couple cruises the Mediterranean during their never ending summer vacation. Our French-speaking import-royals receive a huge Belgian stipend, while they visibly didn’t bother caring for the true needs of “their” country.

Where’s the royal spirit of “accountability”, “being less egocentric in our ever more materialistic world” suddenly gone?
Considering that this ‘royal’ vessel consumes more power in one hour then a regular Belgian household needs in a year, one can only conclude that the Belgian royals own a degree in faking it, with a paid smile. But unlike the soon-to-be-broken election promises by candidates we can choose not to elect on June 10th, this Royal couple (net worth: an estimated 2 Billion Euro, inherited partly from his Saxe-Coburg ancestors who enslaved Congo) is allowed to continue their freeloading, do-as-we-please lifestyle until their royal burial.

Let’s drink a beer on this politically rather corrupt, highly taxed, economically inefficient, and constitutionally undemocratic tiny kingdom in the heart of Europe. And let’s make it a Belgian beer, so at least we can be sure to get something genuine

Exclusive: A visit from Prince Faisal of Jordan

A friend of mine just returned from Jordan, and no, not exactly from a package vacation. Belgium recently got a visit from Prince Faisal of Jordan, who showed great interest in DOVO/SEDEE, the demining team of the Belgian army.

On Friday May 18, a Belgian military 8 seater Falcon 20 jet (generally reserved exclusively for Belgian Government officials or VIPs) flew 5 selected Belgian deminers from the Belgian military airport at Melsbroek, Brussels to Aquaba, Jordan, where they were welcomed by Prince Faisal in Aquaba’s Royal Yacht club . After checking into the 5* Moevenpick hotel they drove a Mercedes and Chrysler Jeep to a selected area near the outskirts of Aquaba, where Prince Faisal owns a vacation home. According to the official Belgian military press-release the Belgian team searched for mines along the border with Israel dating back to the 60’s in order to assist Jordan in respecting the Ottawa treaty on land/sea-mines.

Let’s face it, nobody would like to have the potential presence of old mines near one’s beach front property, not even a Jordanian Prince. [image: Prince Faisal bin Al Hussein of Jordan]

Surprisingly, no mines where found, although one Jordanian diver died from unknown causes and was recovered by Faisal’s private diving instructor at a depth of -50m, so the Belgian team headed to the historic Jordan touristic sites of Petra and the Dead Sea to relax. Two weeks later, the Belgian military demining crew checked out of the Moevenpick resort in Aquaba (assisted by Belgian embassy officials, who also picked up the Hotel tab) and flew back to rainy Belgium in the exclusive 8 seater Belgian Falcon military jet last Friday, June 1st. A most uncommon VIP treatment for a Belgian demining crew. Another party from the American military was involved in this demining operation, but that related story appears not to be public. The US military only posts general stories.

For the neverending stream of visitors from the Pentagon: enjoy the picture (rest assured, I won’t post all 300 of these shots):

Ok, and how did I get hold of this exclusive story you won’t find anywhere else? Quite simple: a friend of mine was part of the selected Belgian military team. Their demining activities were public. If I’m lucky, you might even get exclusive pictures of Prince Faisal of Jordan. At least, if that friend of mine doesn’t read this post before I get hold of his exclusive pictures. So don’t tell anyone, it’s a secret!

Selling dead babies: the rise of morbid tabloid journalism

I just can’t stand it anymore. During the past few months VTM-tv, the largest commercial TV station in this part of Belgium, has managed to give continuous prime-time news slots to stories covering death babies, abused children and bloody incidents involving juveniles. Tabloid journalism at its worst.

The past few days VTM TV has been elaborating on all the gory details concerning the death of an infant, left in a closed parked car by a Dutch mother, but the previous months have seen a never ending stream of hurt-in-accidents/killed/missing/murdered children. The other stations, along with public broadcaster VRT-TV followed suit, airing interviews with the school, the friends, the neighbours, the officers who found the body - you name it, they showed it. If you were a foreigner you might get the freaky impression that Belgium equaled ‘The Killing Fields” for minors.

Belgium obviously was traumatized by the 1996 Dutroux killings, but ever since those tragedies the Belgian media have been milking all stories involving minors, no matter how insignificant they were.

Belgian media have become so utterly obsessed with dead children that the accidental drowning of two infants as far away as Pennsylvania (US) has become newsworthy in local Belgian papers. Are papers/ TV stations from Pa reporting on Belgian infants? Of course not.

Basically there is only one explanation for this morbid Belgian obsession: dead children stories sell, whether it be in newspapers or on ‘breaking news’ TV-newscasts. I know, TV networks are no charities, but I’ve had enough de-humanizing blood and gore on my screen, now also available in distasteful full-HD . Obviously, there will always be a market for tabloid-tv, but ever since the major Belgian networks went overboard in their news coverage, I switched channels.

Should we stop feeding the vultures who prey on our morbid curiosity?

Care for a ride? The annual Antwerp city funfair is in town

For six weeks, starting each year the last weekend of May, Antwerp (Belgium) turns into a huge fairground, welcoming the yearly city funfair. My shot [May 30, 2007] showing one of the +100 attractions and rides. Asap more photos on my Flickr account below.
In the mean time, www.sinksenfoor.be has some more shots and videos online