Diary of Jones

The moment is now. Dalai Lama.

Drops of Jupiter

The other day I did a shoot with my good friend Sandder Lanen , we tried to tell a story with the images. When I saw the picture below it made me think of the song Drops of Jupiter by the band named Train:

“Tell me did the wind sweep you off your feet
Did you finally get the chance to dance along the light of day
And head back to the milky way
And tell me, did venus blow your mind
Was it everything you wanted to find
And did you miss me while you were looking for yourself out there?”

Click here to see the whole story.

New York state of mind

NYC 2010 shot with Nikon Anolog FM

Like the New York subway, where people are moving fast.
But where silence can appear around the corner at any time.
My thoughts go fast, memories of a city of dreams.
My visions remind me of something that has been.
Sounds of a lonely violist, playing his tunes.

Message in a bottle

After running around for months carrying the weight you put on my heart,
I suddenly remembered something that one of my favorite writers Paolo Coelho once wrote:

“Waiting is painful. Forgetting is painful. But not knowing which to do is the worse kind of suffering.”

So I will stop torturing myself. And today is the day that the letter that was burning in my pocket for weeks, was sent.

And I’ll forget you.

First I thought it didn’t matter if I send it, and that it just had to be written. Now I know it doesn’t matter if you’ll read it, it is all about the choice I had to make to make sure it had to be sent.

‘Cause now I see that sending it is like letting go for me.

Note to self

To my little brother

Beauty vs Mind

When I entered  the room, it was filled with pretty faces.
I quickly got introduced to many people.

Some of them had familiar faces, and some I had never seen before.

But there was one thing they all seemed to have in comment;

They where all wearing the most beautiful clothes of the most respected labels.

And they talked about things I didn’t know nothing about.

About what is hot and what apparently was not. About how cute my skirt was,
and how my style seemed to be so different. About how the girl in the corner
looked like shit and about how good that man looked that was entering the room,
but not as good as they theirselves where looking, ofcourse.

Trouble with paying attention during conversations was a problem
I seemed to have all night.

While I saw their lips moving and I heard the sound,
I was wondering what it is they see when they look in the mirror.

Do they see what I see?

And all of a sudden I felt like I was on a set of a bad movie,
watching it from the outside. And I didn’t fit in.

There was no one who seemed to care what was behind my seemingly pretty face.
They all loved my shoes, but they didn’t gave a shit about the person who was walking them.
There was no one who actually talked to me because they cared to listen.
They just loved to hear themselves speak.

So I left. I got my brandless leather jacket and left.

I couldn’t wait to kick my shoes off. And just be, me.

I walked home through streets wich where wet of the rain,
the cold wind was messing up my hair. And my feet hurt because of those pretty,
beautiful but o so uncomfortable shoes.

I started to think;

Beauty is just a subjective thing. What one might think is beautiful
can be not even noticed by another.

Who actually decides what beauty is?

I was just in time for the subway train which was filled with people of all kind.
Their energy made me smile.

And then this sentence popped up in my head.
That I once read by Gore Vidal saying:
“Style is knowing who you are, what you want to say, and not giving a damn.”

I think it doesn’t matter how beautiful you may look,
if you act ugly you just appear horrible to me.

There are people that will want you because of your beautiful face
and some of them will because they see the beauty in your soul.

Just take off your shoes and

be selective in who you hang with.

Model: Anna by FotoJenique

Fairy tales



Today I went to a theme park with my family. A long day walking around at the park that is inspired by fairytailes of al sorts made me think about a few things. Seeing the kids walking around all inspired and overwhelmed by stories like; Little Red Riding Hood, Hansel & Gretel and the sleeping beauty. I strated to wonder; what is it that make people love fairytales so much? Why is it that we tell those stories, that not seem to be hold any bit of a realistic form of truth in them, over and over again to our kids? Like the story with the princess and the frog. Makes that little girls believe they deserve a real prince, a gentleman and nothing less in their lives? Or does that make them kiss to many frogs in their life (with all consequences included) because they kinda start to desperately want a prince so bad, that they think every frog, as ugly as they may seems, how bad they may treat them eventually changes into a prince..?
And as I looked at the “fairytail telling tree” (those trees can only be found in a theme parc like this and in my mind) I listened to a story about dragons and it hit me. The sentence that I once read and always remembered written by the english writer G. K. Chesterton:

“Fairy tales are more than true; not because they tell us that dragons exits, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.”

And it is true. And if any smart little girl listens to fairytales keeping this in mind. She will always end up beat the dragons and kissing the prince.

My vibe

On repeat, on repeat, on repeat.

O, how I can feel it. I can feel this.

Can you feel it too?

Hiphop

Real hiphop is not about getting high on stage, and say the words f*ck  and b*tches as much as you can in one breath or show off your bling. There is actually a big difference between hiphop and urban entertainment.

And that is one of the things Talib Kweli showed Amsterdam in the Melkweg last night. Together with Hi-Tek who surprised me with his rhymes (I never really realised that he was that good behind the mic himself) they gave a perfect show and I really felt blessed I was able to finally see them performing live as I never been able to see them before. And finally the appearance of Evidence and The Alchemist on stage made my night complete.

Real hiphop is all about thoughtfull lyrics, a sick flow and an even more epic beat to support that all. It was really good to see artists that understand that and are able to perform that live. Thank you!

Picture credits go to my homie Demko Giorgio TerBals Evertsz