Departure eve classic DF: Missive from Amsterdam 2001

On the eve of my departure, I looked back through old emails I sent to friends and loved ones from abroad and thought this one merited re-publication. It's from summer 2001 when I was researching for Let's Go in Amsterdam, and I believe it was written at this place near Centraal Station where they give you free Internet access if you buy a grote bier. I think it's pretty clear to all that as I was writing it I drank more and more of the aforementioned beverage, but I actually think it helped--it got me to the point where I was unselfconscious enough to think and write freely without constantly self-guessing and niggling over tiny details. Booze making one a better writer? Hey, it worked for Hemingway. Until he killed himself. Anyway, here it is, from 18 June 2001:

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All,

Let me set the record straight: The rumors you'veheard are entirely false. The man who died of cardiac arrest in Amsterdam while receiving a five-dollar handjob from a surinamese prostitute was not, repeat NOT, DF. Some of you seem to have been particularly convinced that this incident involved me by the fact that the unfortunate deceased was discovered not only in flagrante delicto, but also wearing a t-shirt featuring two orangutans smoking banana-shapedcannabis cigarettes and bearing the slogan "go apeshit in Amsterdam." I think i find the implications aboutmy fashion sense most insulting of all.

in fact, my time here has been remarkably tame. let's go research is grueling, and requires me to conserve what little mental energy and acuity remains in my senescence, thus no intoxicants permitted. this has not, however, prevented me from observing other travelers making use of this city's lax attitude toward various sinful behaviors. ladies, if you're in the market for a heavy-lidded nineteen year old in a hooded sweatshirt and sideways baseball cap who reeks of pot and heineken-tinctured vomitus, i urge you to hop the atlantic and discover a virtual seraglio of manly delights.

myself, i have discovered religion in this land of sin and debauch. my catholic past, so long dormant, has taken seed and flowered into a fiery love for christ jesus, and not long ago i decided, thanks to various vaguely threatening visions from above, to take the cloth and become a man of the lord. (please refrain from pointing out that this is yet another parallel between df's life and saul of tarsus' -- i think the point is rather obvious to all.) i was told that the process of becoming a roman catholic priest requires no less than 7-9 years, thus just beating out a phd program for longest delay of adulthood possible in various postgraduate programs. however, my plans were unfortunately dashed when i was told that while the one true church welcomes reformed junkies and hookers, law graduates are considered too far gone for even the healing light of the holy spirit to work its mysterious transformations.

thus unemployed and unemployable, df continues to wander in amsterdam, a palmy atoll of virtue in the south pacific of sin, assailed by temptations but strong in his commitment to asceticism, ever the vessel of rectitude and quasi-jesuitical perspicacity you may recall from his previous lives in america (or, as the case may be, los angeles).

best wishes to all,

df