Right? Left.

New ink. Yes. I admit. I'm a little addicted to tattoos. I just got my new one about 4 hours ago. I have "Right" on my left shoulder and "Left" on my right shoulder. Why? Because I never knew (and know..) what right or left is and I have some hilarious memories of that. Back in the days when I cycled to school with my mom she was always like "go to the right" and then I ALWAYS flew to the left and almost made my mom fall. Things like that, it's just really funny and pretty dumb. This tattoo is just funny and that's why I love it. My parents didn't know (again..) that I was getting my tattoo tonight. I mostly hangout at the tattooshop so I was like "I'm going to the shop, bye" but for some reason my mom said "Don't come back with a tattoo". When I came home all she said was "WHY DIDNT YOU JUST TELL ME! I like it.".

It's already march 28 in Holland and that means it's my sister her 15th birthday. So if you're reading this later: Happy Birthday Claudia! This is her twitter, congratulate her if you want to: Le click!

I'm also really looking forward to thursday, we're going to see Greg Holden TWICE. You all probably get sick of me talking about it but I don't care ha.

Time to get inked.

It has been almost 8 months since my last tattoo and I am in serious need of a new one. The bad thing is; my parents told me I couldn't have a new one until I got my own place. Well. That's gonna take a while. But I now have a very awesome idea which made my mom laugh also. So I might just get a new one very soon.. I have my design ready but I'm not going to show you just yet. I just wanted to update you on this. I had 3 tattoo designs, put 2 together and then ended up with 2 more. Oops. But now I just want one and I know which one I want first. The rest has to wait til next year or so.

-

As I walked to you
I had a strange feeling
These flowers have all opened up
And you're surrounded by them
This is your place great-grandfather
I know you love the view
With all the birds and colorful flowers
But I'd rather have you sitting next to me
Drinking some tea and talking about the weather
It's been 8 months since you left this world
But you'll never leave my heart
You will be living in my mind
I miss you, but you will always be with me
As I hear and see the nature I think of you
With your garden full of flowers
And your walls full of pictures
I wish we could take one more last photo together
But when I see myself I see you I think of you
I don't wanna go away crying
Cause I've got many great memories to think of
Your company would be so lovely right now
And I just wanna hug you another time
Leaves are falling from the trees
And the sun is shining through
I'm just sitting here
Trying to find the words
That explain how much I miss you

This is something I wrote 8 months after my great-grandfather passed away. I went to his grave with a towel, a pencil and paper. I just sat there, thinking of him and everything he loved and this came out. It has been over 3 years now, last monday he would've turned 96. I'm happy he didn't suffer too much before his death, he was a happy, funny man that always knew how to cheer me up even when he didn't know I was feeling down. I miss everything about him. I miss his voice, his face, his long jacket, his words and I even miss drinking tea with him. I miss his hugs, I miss the day he gave me strawberries for my birthday and I miss him being around. I constantly want to visit him but I can't. I think he would've liked my photos and that cheers me up a little. He loved nature as much as I do. The birds, the flowers, everything. When I take the bus to Rotterdam, it always drives by his last house. Then I just have the feeling I want to walk out of the bus and go visit him. But I can't. And that's very hard to realize, every time again.

portfolio.

In a couple of weeks I have to show my portfolio to people from my possibly future school. It's important for me to show what I can do, which means showing so many different things. Portret photography is something I have to learn, I'm not good at that and the camera I have now won't help me any further with that. That's why I have been saving up for an other camera the past few months. It has been hard but I'm almost there. Here's a few pics I put in my portfolio. I have a lot to learn about photography and I still need to improve my pictures. If I get accepted I will work my butt off.

A few of my favorite photos.

That 70's Show. This pic is in this blog because it's my favorite TV show of all time. It's different, it's hilarious and every character is unique and funny.

Fresh Pots. You have to be a Foo Fighters/Them Crooked Vultures fan to understand this one. I think it's genius & I'd love to have it on a t-shirt.

I love this image. I just love it. I can picture me sitting there when I'm older.

That's him. This picture, is him. Neil Young. It sort of represents him. A fun, talented guy.

This blog kind of sucked but I didn't know what to blog about. I'm sorry. Lol

Top 10. - songs.

Currently favorite songs.

1. Nick Howard - Falling for you. - A simple and lovely song by an amazing singer. Watch/listen: here!

2. Foo Fighters - Summer's end. - This song is simply awesome. I like the way it sounds, I could listen to it all day and not get bored. You can find it here: le clique

3. Neil Young - Ohio. - Again, simple yet so strong and beautiful. I especially love this video of it: tadam

4. Foo Fighters - Stranger things have happened. - I can't help it, I love simple & fragile songs. And I love manly voices, so you'll find no women in this top 10. Stranger things have happened is an amazing acoustic song which gives me goosebumps every time I listen to it. You should have that too: Clickclick

5. Joe Bonamassa - Black lung heartache. - What a surprise! A bluezy, kind of complicated song. It's so different yet so amazing. You either love it or hate it and I'm 100% sure I love it: fall in love with it too. Or not

6. Drew Tabor - Teenage Dirtbag (Wheatus cover). - Ok, I admit. This is one of the very few female singers I like. She has an amazing voice that convinced me to watch all her videos the first time I heard her. This cover is great. I hope she gets discovered and comes to the Netherlands some day. That'd be totally awesome. Here's the link to Drew's video: Yep it's right here. All you gotta do is click it. DAMMIT CLICK IT ALREADY. and if you're interested in more of her covers OR original songs (love those too) just click her youtube name!

7. Gavin DeGraw - Run Every Time. - The lyrics. The song. The voice. Everything works. I recently saw Gavin live and seriously, this was one of the songs that really stood out, to me. Here's the songgg

8. Jessie J - Who you are. - Another female, yes. I know. But it's Jessie J, how can I not love her? She's unique, has great talent and she has a great voice. I love most of her songs but this one in particular. It has such a strong message and it's so different how she truly believes in the message that she's sending. Many artist just sing a song but she sings it and believes in it. She writes her own songs. The live version. I choose to show you this version because it's the song I heard from her and it impressed me right away.

9. Neil Young - Old man. This will forever be in my top 10 favorite songs of ALL TIME. I can't explain what it is about this song but sometimes it just makes me cry. It's beautiful. Really beautiful. Muchos clickos

10. Gotye - Somebody that I used to know. - Come on. How can this song not be in my top 10. I love how simple it is at first but then Kimbra kicks in and makes the song even better. I love how it sounds. I love how you can scream along to it. In case you haven't heard it yet: Shame on you

Soon there's gonna be another top 10 of something else. Yep, I started of with my nr. 1, my currently favorite song. I should've started with 10 but I don't want to change it because then I have to re-new the links and I DON'T WANT TO DO THAT so be quiet and read/listen/watch :-)

Music March!

It's march. Which means there's a lot of gigs waiting for my visit! It's gonna start sunday.

3.4: Rammstein. Yes! I am going to see Rammstein. Rammstein is a german band, one of the biggest german bands EVER. Even though I won't make it through an entire album, I am sure I will LOVE the live show since there's lots of things going on. Like fireworks and costumes. A good friend of mine is coming with me and I'm sure we'll have a blast. I wish it was Sunday already!

3.11: Case Mayfield. Case Mayfield is a dutch singer/songwriter and trust me: his music is awesome. It's different and has a lot of character, just like Case (Kees) himself.  He's funny & very active on twitter which is fun. I'm going all by my self but that won't matter because it's not that far away. His website.

3.29: Greg Holden. Another singer/songwriter. I wrote about him before. My younger sister is coming with me, and so are 2 other friends of mine: Krijnie & Anita. It's always a party when they're there!

3.31: Bluesfestival. Every year there's a bluesfestival in my hometown. Blues artist from several countries come to my hometown and perform. The past 3 bluesfestivals were amazing and the artist were great. This time, we have an ever better line-up. My absolute favorite is King King ft. Alan Nimmo. They replace Sherman Robertsen, who recently had a heart attack and is still recovering (I hope he gets better real soon and he'll  be able to make it next year!). With six bands, the line-up is complete now. Driving South Bluesband (NL), CC Jerome´s Jetsetters (NL), The Mick Clarke Band (UK), Danny Bryant´s Redeyeband (UK), King King featuring Alan Nimmo (SCO) & Marcus Malone (USA) will be performing that night! I've been asked to photograph, that makes me even more excited.

Because it makes me laugh.

Lots of people wonder why I always use this picture. I mean, look at it. It makes me laugh every time I see it. It's so much fun to put it behind a tweet, like "bought a new dress" or "love my ice cream". And then people click it and see him. Maybe it's irritating but to me it's fucking hilarious. Someone once send me a tweet with that picture, saying it was my father (which was a joke and made me laugh) and I just had to use it. I once sent it to my father, saying the photos of his photoshoot on Aruba had arrived. That makes me laugh so loud, I love my own jokes. I really do. I'm sorry if that comes across arrogant, I'd rather call it self-knowledge. So enjoy this picture as much as I do and feel free to laugh at my jokes. I don't charge.