Ethnic Avenue – The Street That Crosses All the Others

Archive for the ‘Europeans’ Category

I’m always amused when someone is shocked or outraged by people just doing the things they’re predisposed to doing. Look, don’t get passive-aggressively mad at the intimidating black people sitting in front of you for talking through the whole movie. You should know better. Besides, if you’d actually stop and listen to them, you’d realize their commentary is enhancing whatever sorry movie you’re watching anyway.

A lot of us are convinced that we pick and choose everything we do. When, in reality, we can’t help but do some shit. Bring a White girl to a really good concert and try to get her to not “woo” and you’ll see what I mean.

Such is the case with IKEA furniture and Europeans.

For most of us, IKEA is a cheap-ass place to pick up planks of particle board, that we eventually assemble into disposable furniture by deciphering the hieroglyphics in the crappy instruction manual. Some of the stuff is so hilariously modern and abstract, that you buy it because it just looks interesting in the apartment you share with your 16 other roommates. But eventually, you get old–or rich–enough to leave the shit out on the sidewalk and get some real, adult furniture.

Europeans don’t see it that way. For them, an oversized red plastic bubble is a chair. So IKEA, for them, is a just another furniture store.

I learned this lesson a few years ago from these FOB Czech people I knew. They bragged, non-stop for like three weeks, about their “fancy new furniture” and how I had to come over and see it. When I finally did, their house looked like the IKEA showroom. Thinking they were playing some sort of strange Eastern European prank on me, I asked, with as-straight-a-face as I could muster: “is this from…IKEA?” They laughed in my face, and told me it was actually from some frou-frou European furniture store. But, guess what: It. Was. The. Same. Exact. Shit.

If that doesn’t convince you, read this story about a wealthy Icelandic couple that’s being sued for installing a “cheap IKEA kitchen” into a fancy apartment they rented (to the tune of 300,000 smackers) in a “swank hotel in New York.”

The lawsuit filed in Manhattan Wednesday alleges that Jon Asgeir Johannesson and his wife installed an “ugly” kitchen from the low-cost household furnishings store into the 16th-floor apartment at the Gramercy Park Hotel.

…the lawsuit claims the kitchen was unsuitable for such a luxurious home.

Whoever’s suing should have known better.

One thing I’ve learned over the years is that the only way to get your point across to some people is to throw a hard object at them.

Oh, now I see what you mean.

Recently, a Massimo Tartaglia appears to have put this principle into practice, when he, appropriately and accurately, nailed Silvio Berlusconi—everybody’s favorite billionaire media mogul and corrupt asshole politician—in his right-wing mouth with a plaster replica of the Duomo di Milano.

A lousy, overpriced souvenir finally comes in handy.

Frankly, I don’t like violence. But I recognize its important role throughout the history of human communication. I’ve always called violence “the ancient language of last resort.” In the overwhelming majority of cases you can make your point with other, more modern forms of speech (in ascending order: silence; calm, reasonable statements; firm, direct talking-to; screaming and cussing; etc). But occasionally, you have to resort to the oldest language. There are even times when someone may use it with you.

But like any experienced urban dweller will tell you, there are some people who only understand that language. One of those people, it seems, is Mr. Bloody Mouth.

For the longest time, people have been complaining about what it’s like to be heard in Berlusconi’s Italy. The guy almost exclusively owns and controls the media, an advantage he fully exploits to his political benefit. So, if you have an opposing view, you’re pretty much shit-out-of-luck; you’re not showing up on any of his television stations. Add to that his hard-right politics and (habitual) corruption, and you have a recipe for pissed off Italians. Even Berlusconi himself was quoted as having said, “[he] expected this to happen.”

The last time someone took aim at a monumental dick was a few months ago, when that guy threw his shoe at George W. Bush. For his efforts, people all over the world celebrated him as a hero. Women were offering him their daughters in marriage. People were offering him jobs, houses, and other extravagant gifts.

And, that asshole missed.