Three Colors (of Amsterdam)

 Hi Alex,

Somewhere in the future, my American friend Rick is coming over. I've written about him before, he's the one with the band. Speaking of bands.....the Dutch flag has three bands: Red, white and blue. And the US flag also uses those colors. Mixing in the fact that Rick loves music and will be visiting Amsterdam, it gave me the idea for this musical entry. And there was only one song I could think off....

BLUE

I know, I know, Jacques Brel was Belgian. But since he sang Belgian Blues, he gets the blue band. His version is also the original, which is why I'm going Blue-White-Red. It's one of those renditions where you can feel the passion, even if you don't understand a word of the language. (And the fact that's it in French fits nicely with the Blue-White-Red pattern. Considering what their flag looks like.)

 

WHITE

Eventually, a Dutch band braved a translation of the song. This is how I first learned of this song. Some would say that this song doesn't exactly paint Amsterdam in the best light. The thing is, Amsterdam isn't exactly the grand port it used to be, with Rotterdam stealing its crown long ago. So, IMHO, this song tells the story of the way Amsterdam was doing the Golden Age, when sails ruled supreme.

RED

Needless to say, this entry cannot be complete without David Bowie's version. Bowie was brave to take on this song. Not only is it about Europe, which might scare some people off, Brel is simple hard to translate. But he pulled it off.

(And after enduring two versions that most English speakers can probably not understand a word of, they deserve to be rewarded with a version that actually makes sense.) So without further ado....

And that's all for today.

Regards,

Ruben A. Hilbers (Commander Nash)

 PS. If you hear somebody call Amsterdam "Mokum", that is totally normal. Mokum is the Yiddish word for city/town. (At least, it is in the Netherlands.) And it's become one of the city's nicknames.

If Amazon won't do it...

Hi Alex,

Yeah, the weekend is here. The dust is continuing to settle over here, which is finally giving me some time to think. So the plans that were brewing before are now crystalizing into something solid. And without further ado, moving on to....

 

 Stargate Fan Fiction (Nova Roma)

I figure most of the people reading this already know, but for any newbies.....Before the Amazon-MGM deal, I wrote a lot of Stargate fan fiction. My stories were a continuation that finished the story of Stargate: Universe.  

 

After that tale was told, I introduced a new enemy that threatened both the Milky Way and the Pegasus galaxy. (Making life miserable for the SGC and the Atlantis expedition). Meanwhile, the Goa'uld had packed up and moved to a new galaxy, where an Earth outpost led by Colonel Telford had landed the job of stopping their evil plans...

 

That was the story I was planning to tell when the Amazon-MGM came through. I figured that this meant that a new canon TV/Streaming show would soon appear on our screens. (Wiping all of my stories from existence.) So I pulled the plug and threw away my notes-slash plans. But it's been ages and we've heard nothing, zip, zilch ! 

So, I figure....well, if Amazon won't do it, I will.....sure, it won't be canon. But it'll be fun. (And as a bonus, it'll keep my Twitter account from getting too dusty.) There is on minor hiccup. Like I said, I threw out my notes. So I'll have to do some homework before I get back to it. In the meantime, the has come to move on to...

Professional Writing

 

My professional writing has been stuck behind an old-fashioned writer's block. Fortunately, I had already written a large chunk of my next project before I ran into it. And I write my first draft the old fashioned way, with pen and paper. So I have plenty of typing to do, which will hopefully give me the run-up I need to break through the block and get back into the zone.

And that's all I have for today,

Regards,

Ruben A. Hilbers (Commander Nash)