 DORIAN COUSINS
In Albert Camus’ 1956 novel The Fall, Jean-Baptiste Clemence asks ‘Have you noticed that Amsterdam’s concentric circles resemble the circles of hell?’ I consider this poser as I cycle through the red light district toward central station. Junkies sneaking around as irksome demons, ready to inflict torment on anyone stupid enough to acknowledge their presence, and, as a matter of fact, I’m on my way to meet the very devil himself: Dorian Cousins: international antiques dealer, confidence trickster, first class scoundrel and one of my oldest and dearest friends.
I have known Dorian since we were children and we always have a scream. Always egging the other on, always pushing the boundaries, bending Lady Liberty over a chair and slapping her rump with a paddle. But I have to admit I also hate Dorian!
I hate him with all my heart and the feeling is mutual. We have discussed it; it is not a simple, pure hatred based on dislike but a complex, mystical hatred of respect, verging on fear. Perhaps similar to a schizophrenic’s self-loathing of an extended self. It’s an intensely funny, dangerous friendship and as much as I look forward to his visits, I know I’ll be relieved when he leaves. We are the devils on each other’s shoulder and the monkey on the other’s back. We were born on the same day, under the same star, and, thankfully, we meet only once or twice a year.
Amsterdam is shaped like a giant spider’s web with the straight streets and canals shooting into the city center with ever decreasing circles joining these together. ‘As you go through these circles,’ Jean-Baptiste adds, ‘life - and all its crimes with it – becomes denser and more obscure,’ though the only crime I can think of at the moment is Dorian’s insistence on me coming to meet him at this ungodly hour. It’s only just gone 10 a.m. and he is already waiting for me in the station hall, the flight from New York having arrived early. We exchange pleasantries and make our way out to the taxi rank. On the two-minute ride to the hotel he tells me his business trip went extremely well and insists on my wallet staying concealed in his presence. I’m happy to oblige; I’m not a proud man! It’s worth adding that hotels in Amsterdam are expensive. A one or two-star hotel in the city center will cost as much as a three or four-star anywhere else in Europe, though this is hardly an issue with Dorian. He’s stinking rich. Not a self made man but somebody who was born rich, so any money he makes himself he sees as a frivolous bonus. When it comes to the ostentatious spending of money, Dorian is a hard act to follow, so of course we pull up outside the five-star Grand Hotel Krasnapolsky in the very center of town and right opposite the royal palace. For Dorian, this is basically just an extravagant luggage locker. He always sleeps in the guest room of my apartment when in town but for some reason can never bring himself to ask, and that’s if he gets any sleep at all. A room is acquired, the porter takes his luggage, and we make our way to the hotel’s Winter Garden. Built in 1879 it’s a delightful venue for breakfast and very easy on the eye. Light radiates in from the glass and cast iron ceiling, illuminating the pale green room, giving the light a hue not dissimilar to a woodland clearing: spacious and delightful! You don’t have to be a hotel guest to eat here and it’s open from six a.m. I have brought an events program with me and over breakfast we discuss our itinerary. There doesn’t seem to be any theatre on in English this evening and Dorian doesn’t speak Dutch. Art exhibitions are plentiful but nothing to kindle his interest as Dorian’s line of business has molded him into a fine art lover, and, unfortunately, Amsterdam is interested in all things contemporary. Therefore, one must be careful when choosing an installment as Amsterdam is also known – quite unfairly so - for its poor quality art. Every Tom, Dick and Harry calling himself an artist seems to get exhibition space here, and to be fair, it’s not because all the art here is particularly bad that it gets its reputation, it’s just that there is so much that there’s bound to be as many misses as hits. This also means that there is some truly remarkable modern art to be found - just don’t expect to see anything exceptional that’s more than fifty years old. There are of course the collections at the Rijk’s and the van Gogh museums (both are compulsory viewing, it goes without saying) but we just don’t have the fine art exhibitions you would find in, say, Paris or Madrid.
Dorian has already seen the Rembrandt’s and Vermeer’s at the Rijks so we decide on the Stedelijk museum of modern art. Or at least I decide on the Stedelijk and Dorian concedes with much humming and hawing. Once settled, Dorian begins to tell me of his female exploits over the last year. He’s obviously feeling a little amorous as Amsterdam can easily turn a man into pubescent teenager. He starts getting a little too carried away with this train of thought for my liking, for there’s nothing I find more boring than discussing sex with another man. ‘Let’s just have a quick wander through the red light district, before we go to the museum?’ comes Dorian’s inevitable suggestion. The Stedelijk is a fifteen-minute walk from here, straight through the center of the red light area, so of course I capitulate.
It’s still early in the afternoon when we get outside but the red light district doesn’t really come alive until after dark. That doesn’t stop Dorian from looking in and discussing the contents of every porn shop window we pass and he’s starting to get on my nerves with his lascivious conversation. I decide to take him where I take all my overly eager friends arriving here with wise in their eye. I curve our trajectory to encompass ‘Cuban corner’ where only the old and truly hideous creatures of depravity abide. They dangle in the windows behind the old church wall, appearing as gargoyles to scare evil spirits. The prostitutes on this street are very ugly. They are ugly on purpose, as if being repulsive was their life-long ambition. There is one particular lady (and I use the word lady in the loosest possible terms), a plug-faced troll of perhaps seventy years old with a fat, obnoxious cigar immersed in her wet, sodden lips. The door is half open and she’s beckoning us in. I begin, with a firm grip, to guide Dorian towards her. He panics, hyperventilates, then at two feet from the door lets out an involuntary scream and runs away. That should curb his concupiscent cravings for a while! But just to make sure, I make a point of passing a speciality sex shop and draw his attention to the DVD covers displayed in the window. Some with dogs on the cover, some with monkeys; all with girls… You get the idea. Dorian is looking a little pale now and completely deflated. Good! Perhaps I can now get some intelligent conversation out of him.
 The Stedelijk is temporarily located on the second and third floors of the old post office building, close to central station whilst its permanent location is being renovated. The building is an ominous looking 1960s tower block ready for demolition and I think it’s the perfect location for a modern art museum. At the moment there are works from well over 500 artists on display here and just as we’re depositing our overcoats in the cloak room, I faintly hear Bend It by Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick, and Tich breezing its way through the corridors. I know exactly what this means. There is not a moment to waste. I whisk Dorian through the maze of corridors, excited as a little girl, following that holy sound. The anticipation is too much to bear until at last we find it. I knew they had it in their collection but I have never been lucky enough to see it on display. The World of Gilbert & George - a 69-minute video installation - is an amusing, disquieting, eerie, and complex conception of optimism, anguish, hope and despair. It was created in 1981 and, like Gilbert &
George’s suits, timeless. The film is about halfway through arrive but it doesn’t matter. There is no plot or structure and it’s on a perpetual loop. Themes appear and disappear and as we sit ourselves down the theme is touching on the civility and decency of an England lost or perhaps never was. The artists are sitting opposite each other at a table with tea and an assortment of victuals.
The scene starts with a question from George in his posh English voice.
‘How is the tea Gilbert?’
‘It’s very nice, would you like some cake?’
‘Thank you, yes. Would you like some cheese?’
‘Yes, I would like very much a piece of leicester’
‘There you are.’
‘Thank you George.’
‘How do you feel Gilbert?’
‘I feel relaxed after the long walk, how do you feel?’
‘I feel fine thank you, rather brainy and relaxed.’
The World of Gilbert & George was created at a time when English society was on the cusp of social and political upheaval. Marching soldiers with triumphant music replaced by dreary, urban landscapes, closed down factories, interviews with disaffected youths being compared to flowers, an intelligent drunk, filthy tasty meat, all interspersed with Gilbert & George’s running commentary, reading like some tragic, abstract, comedy poetry. Gilbert & George consider themselves living sculptures and they first burst into the art scene in 1969 with their installation named The Singing Sculpture. It had them both standing on a table, skin painted gold, wearing their stylish trademark suits and singing Flanagan and Allan’s Underneath the Arches for sometimes hours on end. Their work is always open, honest, and they are the self-proclaimed ‘Godmothers of Modern Art’. Their work in the last decade or so was quite typical of the art scene for this time, using shock tactics to draw in the crowds and the critics. Drawing on such sources as religion, sex and bodily waste. They are best described by themselves:
We are unhealthy, middle-aged, dirty-minded, depressed, cynical, seedy, badly behaved, ill mannered, arrogant, intellectual, self-pitying, successful, hard working, thoughtful, artistic, religious, fascistic, blood thirsty, teasing, destructive, ambitious, positive, damned, stubborn, perverted, and good. We are artists!
If you like their double-breasted tweed suits and would like to wear something similar yourself, I’m afraid it’s just not possible. Their tailor, David London of Hackney Road, London, has recently retired, but don’t feel too disheartened, for their supplier of resplendent silk ties - Swiss fabric producer Frontline - is still very much in business!
We’re both feeling a little drained from such a demanding piece of art so we skip through the rest of the exhibits as quickly as possible. We whiz through the drawing exhibit (Yes, drawing as a medium of art! Highly controversial in this day and age.) just pausing in front of a charming little picture from a feminist artist by the name of Maura Biava. The piece is called Polly’s Graduation Night and it depicts a young girl who has just graduated as a graphic designer with little computer icons around her representing her social, professional and love life. There are then another forty similar pictures representing how her life could turn out from career decisions, twists of fate, coincidences, and love choices. It’s a sweet little piece - a bit like a Barbie doll for intellectuals. As we move through exhibits the installations seem to become more and more sinister. There is The Dancers by Pawel Althamer, a video installation where visitors can sit in the centre of a circle of t.v. monitors with naked homeless men holding hands and dancing around the viewer ring-a-roses style. There’s also the portrait of a Palestinian suicide bomber by Marlene Dumas titled The Believer, and it all culminates with a series of photographs by Ukrainian artist Boris Mikhailov. These photographs we both find truly disturbing, heavy as thunder and dark as vampires. The scenes are staged but the subjects are very real. These are the destitute and homeless of the Ukraine whom the system won’t help because they are criminals, alcoholics, solvent abusers, or drug addicts. The models range in age from children to pensioners, some photographed naked, exposing themselves, or in some other undignified pose. He is trying to capture the disintegration of the sitter’s humanity and the installation is supposed to bring awareness to the plight of the poor living in the Ukraine but we can’t help feeling he was just aiming for the shock factor. Yet it worked. We are both truly shocked. I suggest a stiff drink. That’s enough art for today. ‘Isn’t Absinthe legally available here?’ asks Dorian. Indeed it is. What a splendid idea. We decide we’ll come back here later tonight. On the 11th floor of the building is a bar/restaurant/club called Club 11. Dorian tells me it’s been mentioned in the review of the world’s best bars and I’m not surprised. I’ve been to the club a few times and it’s always been a tip-top night.
We’ve only just left the museum, heading back into the red light district, when we’re accosted by one of the multitude of Amsterdam’s street urchins. Whilst here expect it… constantly! He asks if we need any ‘business’ in quite a pressing fashion. I smile, give a polite ‘no thank you’ and keep walking. This usually suffices but he persists in his harassment. ‘Excuse me sir,’ I say, ‘but if I do ever decide to become a drug addict I am hardly going to choose to become addicted to crushed up Paracetamol and talcum powder am I? So kindly be on your way before I report you to the police.’ He is now thoroughly piqued with my insults and blocks our path, pressing us to give him some change. Dorian is hardly in the mood for this and it seems that the Ukrainian art didn’t soften his heart to the plight of the world’s pauperized aficionados of the crack pipe. He throws a handful of change right in his face and booms ‘be gone you stinking Lazarus!’ in operatic baritone. We quicken our pace and leave the officious beggar picking up the coins. Mr. Cousins can be a beastly stinker at times…but a funny, beastly stinker!
If you've ever been to the Vatican at the height of summer and joined the shuffling horde staring at the paintings with empty eye (for individual veneration and wonderment has fused itself into the dull experience of the thronging masses), well, the red light district is exactly like this…inverted. Instead of paintings, there are sex shops, in place of sculptures there are window-framed prostitutes, and the
numerous clergy are replaced with crack addicts. I believe if you were to experience this fleshy phantasmagoria of depravity alone for the first time, it would be heart-wrenchingly overwhelming, but, strangely, as you glide along with the sightseeing crowd, you feel almost numb. I say almost for I notice Dorian has wistful, wanton glint in his eye and so I push him into the first bar with an absinthe sign before he thinks about ruining his already fragile reputation.
The cafes in Amsterdam's red light district are unique. There are all manner of foppish, bohemian characters alive in these bars and the conversation can run on without limits. It is almost impossible to offend anybody! The air is thick with an exotic, smoky fragrance and we pull up chairs at a table of cheroot smoking freaks. Amsterdam is an extremely social place and before long we've got a round-robin conversation running about being, nothingness, the universe, God, Death, Mickey Mouse, and anything else you care to add. We're having a gas when we're suddenly - and rudely - set upon by one of the battalion of rowdy, coarse, old enough to know better, middle aged English 'boys' who have been making a racket in the background. The English gangs of soccer-shirt wearing hooligans are about the only source of danger in Amsterdam and unfortunately there are hoards of them. The one who approaches us is obviously the comedian of the group - you can tell by the ironic expression on his silly looking face. He asks us a series of banal questions and has a guaranteed pun for each answer we give him, each pun generating an uproar of guffaws from his fat bellied compadres. We feed him a pack of lies and keep him amused for a while. Eventually we have him believing that we could well be a pair of kingpin Amsterdam gangsters. I ask what brings him to Amsterdam. ‘For the whores’ he proclaims with a slimy wink, and a series of cheers from his audience ensues. This is something I have never quite understood. Many men seem to think it’s perfectly acceptable to visit hookers in Amsterdam because it’s legal. The Dutch government didn’t legalize prostitution to cater to horny baboons but to protect the girls from pimps and gangsters. It trusts that everybody can make moral decisions for themselves without nanny-state intervention. Dorian and I are gentlemen of the most punctilious honor and you’ll never catch us behaving so deplorably, no sir, you’ll never catch us! The simpleton then goes on to give us a boasting description of his conquests all proud of himself. Does he really think we want to know this? Dorian asks the dunce if he's married. The monkey-faced gagster pulls out a picture of his wife and two small children as a beaming smile of pride bursts across his big orange peel face. If he were to defecate himself in public he would no doubt be proud of that too. ‘So… you're here on holiday having sex with prostitutes whilst your wife is at home looking after your children?’ asks Dorian, and the cheeky wag suddenly looks hurt while the rest of the gang look down in shame. Dorian shakes his head solemnly, ‘What a rotter, you absolute rotter.’ The rotter would like to give us a witty retort but the air has been taken out of him, yet after a few moments the look of shame begins to take on a tint of hostility so we make a hasty exit. Outside we laugh. We're the last people on earth to have the right to get sanctimonious with anybody. Where would a chap get the compunction to brag to complete strangers that they've been having sex with prostitutes? What a fool, and, besides, you shouldn’t act the wise-ass when you’re merely an ass. We decide it’s time for dinner.
We go for some traditional Dutch cuisine at restaurant Vermeer. There’s not really much to say about it. The food and wine are excellent - absolute top quality - which is why it is one of the most expensive restaurants in town. After dinner we decide on some jazz for our early evening entertainment but first some cocktails. We’re back in the red light area at one of many cocktail lounges there. I'm at the bar sipping on a Singapore sling; Dorian is on his way back from the rest rooms and I notice him talking to a snappy dressed cat at the edge of my periphery. A few minutes later Dorian comes back to his bar stool and I ask him if it was a friend. ‘Certainly not,’ he says looking perfectly offended. ‘He is an incorrigible knave and a peddler of illicit substance.’ He pauses, shaking his head, and then continues theatrically. ‘’How dare he, offering such services to an upstanding gent of my standing. What does he take me for?’ We are both deeply appalled. Or at least we feign it. Is there no end of depravity in this godforsaken city? It's time for Jazz.
Cafe Alto is a small, busy, smoky filled bar that could have appeared anywhere in the last eight decades. Acoustic jazz from nine in the evening until three in the morning, seven days a week. We manage to secure a table; people come and go all through the evening, so if you wait a while you’re sure to get one. On stage we have drums rattling out tribal beats gone wrong, like tin cans blown down wind ravaged streets. We have double-base throbbing like big whale sorrows, pulsing as blood through elephant veins, and the piano man - hunchbacked, cigarette in mouth - he must be a thousand years old and looking like he's been playing hoodoo on the keyboard since the day that jazz began. We tune in and chase the juju train; riding dramatic glissando, cresting the freak waves, getting lost in the abstract, pulled back with the vibe, fragmenting, uniting, the beat goes on and on. We're lost in the groove tunnel for two hours and I’m sure I don’t usually appreciate music this much. In fact, I’m not really feeling myself and my perception of the world is becoming very peculiar. I then remember Dorian’s wicked sense of humour. When we were at university he would find it amusing to spike people’s drinks with narcotics and watch what they do next. This kind of irresponsible recklessness is exactly why I hate him. I’m actually quite enjoying myself but that isn’t the point. What if I were on medication? I don’t give him the satisfaction of knowing there’s anything up. I suggest we go to the Jet Lounge to meet up with my friends and I talk about dead mutual friends all the way there just to bring him down. Even though I depress myself in doing so.
Amsterdam is a small city with a population of only 730,000. This means that everybody knows everybody from Amsterdam society and if you live here you need never be alone. At least Dorian has the decency to behave around my friends and I begin to warm to him again. After a few more drinks we all make our way to Club 11. In the club, I bump into a friend of mine. Her name is Tamara and I say ‘her name’ but I could just as well say ‘his name’. Tamara is a pre-op transvestite. Amsterdam is the gay capital of the world and if you are partial or unsure about your sexuality then perhaps this isn’t the place for you. After a while Dorian spots me talking to Tamara from the dance floor. By this time Dorian is flying, he is completely smashed and every girl he’s tried to speak to all night has ignored him. I’ve tried to explain to him before but he never listens: Dutch girls are strong and independent. They like to lead and they just don’t tolerate cheesy chat up lines or egotistical boasting. You’ve just got to be pleasant and cordial and hope they pick you. He floats over to us and hangs around waiting to be introduced which, of course, I do. ‘Dorian meet Tamara. Tamara meet Dorian. Shall I go and collect a round of drinks?’ Tamara makes quite a convincing picture of a female - especially if one is as drunk as Dorian - and from the bar I can see what I was hoping to happen occur. Dorian is kissing Tamara with fervor and I have a camera in my pocket. I can’t believe my luck. The internet can be a powerful tool these days and this is a picture with defamation written all over it. Dorian can be swine but so can I. The rest of the night I remember only in pieces. Huge parts of the evening are a blank. I do remember Dorian looking much chagrined after finding out Tamara was a man but he must have forgiven me because he picked up a couple of 30-year-old bottles of malt whisky from his hotel room to bring to the party at my house (although that didn’t stop me printing out the photo and giving everybody at my house a copy). The party lasts two days. Some of the events are forgotten and the rest I shan’t mention out of decency. I have woken up alone, the apartment is a mess and I feel truly awful. I feel like I’m in a horror movie, Two days of drinking spirits leaves a chilling feeling of impending doom, anguish seeps into every cell of my body and soul. This is how Poe must have felt when he wrote his most macabre works of fiction. This really feels like the end for me, the end of civilization. But deep down I know that after a healthy breakfast, a swim, and a couple of highballs, I’ll feel much better. Then I’ll no doubt go out and do the whole thing over again. God I love this city!
|
