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Monday, October 5, 2009

Willy Williams, The Champion !!!

There are so many people I worked with on the movie sets, but here's one I didn't say much about yet. Willie Williams, an Afro-American Vietnam veteran and ex navy. He didn't talk much about his tours in Nam. But when he did, his face seemed to be frozen, his eyes looking for something in a far distance, his mind, his thoughts back to that war...The killer-instinct woke up in him. Anyone could see it instantly, don't fuck with this guy....
Willie had weird legs, x-knees and flat feet. He always wore his own boots cos wardrobe couldn't provide any that fit on him. So, once I happened to sit in the office of a casting bureau, elbows on my knees, head in my hands and face down (deep thoughts...:) when a couple of people entered the room. My thoughts were miles away and I didn't pay any attention to these men. But then a pair of shoes entered my 'viewpoint area' , they woke me up....!!! Without looking up I pointed down and said: "I know these feet, I recognize them."... "Willy is it you ???"... I looked up and saw a smile from ear to ear that burst in a laughter. This little moment strengthened our friendship and lasted for the time we met.

Willy also became champion... well, he won...

This was on the set of Hellcamp, there's a scene were the prisoners ( including Lisa Eickhorn) had to undress. David Light and Bill Kipp had a full front view when they 'disinfected ' them. The prisoners one by one had to raise their arms and were sprayed with something like baby powder. David later told me that he almost forgot to spray when Willie was on. He said: "OMG. that guy !! I've seen a lot, but this beats everything. "
Naïef as I was I asked what he meant... "Didn't you see Willy?" he said, "That guy's an elephant..." The other guys who saw it as well ( I didn't see much of it, cos my position as a guard was on the backside of the camp) agreed with Dave and Willy was pronounced 'The Champion'. This was another ear to ear smile for the winner. I think Willy was proud.....

Cast 'Hellcamp'. Raphael Shultz, Bert Spoor, Steve Rogers, Bill Kipp and Henry Strzalkowski..

Henry:
I remember that day well. I was in charge of the bit players in the cast. There was one shot where the director of photography had a dolly parallel to the line of prisoners to be "deloused." The shot was a slow dolly across the line-up of just their legs from the knees down. After the first dolly rehearsal, the DOP turned and whispered aside to his assistant, "I'm gonna have to lower the camera, get me the hi-hat." At the lunch room later, I waited for the right moment when Willy was at the lunch line and said aloud, "Willy, have you ever considered a career in entertainment?" The room exploded.
 (see all comments)..!!



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Sunday, September 20, 2009

The hold-up. The whole story..


Didn't do, didn't do it ...
I hate those hold-ups.

How high ?Hé I do karate...

Hands up ? This...!

We don't belong here. We vote for Obama...

Hands low..is that OK too?


Hahaha, he's in jail.


Happy end.

Dear Lord thank you for putin' the hold-upper in jail.

Don't count me in, burb...



Hi guys, I'm David Copperfield's cat.


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Saturday, September 19, 2009

After the war. When the hell was that ????

I heard it so many times in my youth: before the war or after the war. And still you can hear somebody say: This house is built before the war. Which war ?? Depends on where you live. In Europe it would be 1945. in Korea 1953, in Vietnam 1975, Falkland in 1982, Irak... ??, Afghanistan...?, Palestina...?,
WW2 isn't over yet, let the next pictures tell their own story...

http://djiin.wordpress.com/about-my-blog/

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Friday, September 18, 2009

Trade in children

Ethiopian children exploited by US adoption agencies

Andrew Geogheghan reported this story on Tuesday, September 15, 2009 07:22:00

This transcript is a record of the Radio National broadcast. It will be replaced by the updated local radio broadcast at 10am.


TONY EASTLEY: In Australia, international adoptions are handled by the Government and are highly regulated, but that's not the case elsewhere in the world.

In the United States international adoptions are a big business, where a large number of private international adoption agencies are paid on average $30,000 a time to find a child for hopeful parents.

The number of Americans adopting Ethiopian children has quadrupled, especially since American celebrities adopted African children.

A Foreign Correspondent team has been investigating American adoption agencies operating in Ethiopia and has uncovered some alarming practices.

Africa correspondent Andrew Geoghegan reports.

ANDREW GEOGHEGAN: Famine, disease and war have orphaned around five million Ethiopian children. It's not surprising then that the business of international adoptions is thriving here and Americans in particular are queuing up to adopt a child.

EXCERPT FROM DVD: This is Yabets. He's five years old and both of his parents died; it says they died of tuberculosis. Can you smile? Oh, nice smile.

ANDREW GEOGHEGAN: This is the sales pitch from an American agency Christian World Adoption. In a remote village in Ethiopia's south the agency has compiled a DVD catalogue of children for its clients in the United States.

EXCERPT FROM DVD: Father has died. I'm not certain what he died of and this is the mother. Hoping for a family who can provide for them, they're just really desperate for people to take care of their children.

ANDREW GEOGHEGAN: Incredibly though, many of the children being advertised are not orphans at all. American Lisa Boe was told by Christian World Adoption that the little boy she'd adopted was an orphan, but she soon had doubts.

LISA BOE: There was a picture of the people that had found him, and there's a man and a woman in the picture. I point to the woman and he calls her mamma. I would never, never have brought home a child that has a mum. Never.

ANDREW GEOGHEGAN: At least 70 adoption agencies have set up business in Ethiopia. Almost half are unregistered, but there's scant regulation anyway and fraud and deception are rife. Some agencies actively recruit children in a process known as harvesting.

EXCERPT FROM DVD: If you want your child to be adopted by a family in America, you may stay. If you do not want your child to go to America, you should take your child away.

ANDREW GEOGHEGAN: Parents give up their children in the belief they'll have better lives overseas. But many have little understanding of the process or that that they may never see their children again.

EYOB KOLCHA: It was considered good for the children in the community and the people came.

ANDREW GEOGHEGAN: Eyob Kolcha worked for Christian World Adoption before quitting in December 2007.

EYOB KOLCHA: There was no information before that time, there was no information after that.

ANDREW GEOGHEGAN: Did their parents realise that they were now legally someone else's children?

EYOB KOLCHA: They didn't understand that. I don't think most people, most parents understand even elsewhere in Ethiopia right now.

MUNERA AHMED (translated): I have no words to express my feelings and my anguish about what happened to my children and what I did.

ANDREW GEOGHEGAN: After her husband left, Munera Ahmed gave up two sons - one 12 months old and the other five through another adoption agency.

She has had no word about her children since she handed them over; that's despite guarantees that she'd be kept informed. The agency has now closed.

MUNERA AHMED (translated): As a mother not to be able to know my kids' situation hurts me so much, I have no words, no words to express my emotions (crying).

ANDREW GEOGHEGAN: About 30 Ethiopian children are leaving the country every week, bound for a new home, new parents and an uncertain future.

Koreans in the Netherlands 1 +2:
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Thursday, September 17, 2009

Koreans in the Netherlands 1.

It's only since a couple of months that I had a renewed contact with a guy I worked with in the past. One morning I found me an e-mail all the way from Korea, "If I could remember Don Gordon Bell" he asked. Yes, I did. We worked on several movies together in the 80's. A long time ago but a time never to forget. Don, an ex-Vietnam veteran had a nice record of movie making already. His high light, no doubt, was his input in Apocalypse Now, a classic among the Vietnam war movies, shot in the Philippines. Don was a well skilled martal arts practicioner, doing all kind of unsown Korean styles. Due to his experiences in 'the field of action' he was connected to this film as a military adviser, casting assistant and AD or assistant to the production. Besides that he played characters and loved to do stunts. Don had started a blog as well, (also in april, like me..) His main page is 'Korean War Baby, he writes about him being a half-breed ,(Korean mother and US father) , his adoption and his search for his natural mother. Therefor I'ld like to post something about the Dutch/Korean adoption numbers.

Read 2.

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Koreans in the Netherlands 2.


From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search
Koreans in the Netherlands
Total population
4,968 (2009)[1]
Regions with significant populations
No data
Religion

Buddhism[2]

Related ethnic groups

Korean diaspora

Koreans in the Netherlands form one of the smaller Korean diaspora groups in Europe. As of 2009, 4,968 people of Korean origin (immigrants from North or South Korea and 2nd-generation Koreans) lived in the Netherlands.[1]

Contents

[hide]

[edit] Demographic characteristics

As of 2009, statistics of the Dutch Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek showed:

  • 37 North Korean-born and 2,733 South Korean-born persons
  • 3 persons of North Korean origin and 409 persons of South Korean origin born locally to two parents outside the Netherlands
  • 1,792 persons born locally to one South Korean-born parent and one parent born in the Netherlands

For a total of 4,968 persons, not including ethnic Koreans from other countries. This represented more than three times the 1996 total of 1,492 persons. However, they still formed little more than a minute proportion (0.1%) of the total number of persons with a foreign background.[1]

[edit] Adoptees

About 4,000 of the people of Korean origin in the Netherlands consist of Korean adoptees.[3][4] Dutch interest in adoption of babies from Asia began to pick up in the late 1960s; Dutch writer Jan de Hartog, who himself had earlier adopted two Korean War orphans, was promoting charitable activities for children in Vietnam who had been orphaned due to the Vietnam War bombings of Hanoi and Haiphong in 1966. In 1968, he appeared on the television show hosted by Mies Bouwman with his two adopted Korean daughters; after this broadcast, nearly a thousand people called the studio and expressed interest in adopting Korean babies. Since 1970, Dutch parents adopted 3,993 South Korean babies.[5] The number of adoptions has fallen off; from 1995 to 2006, the total number of adoptions from South Korea was 349, with just two in 2005 and only one in 2006. This made South Korean adoptees about 10.9% of the 3,194 international adoptions and 2.25% of the 15,467 total adoptions during that period.[6]

A small number have relocated to South Korea; however, due to cultural differences and the high expectations placed on their behaviour due to their external appearance of being Korean, they find it difficult to fit in there, and also find themselves the objects of unwanted pity for their status as adoptees.[3][4]

[edit] Notable individuals

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c Population by origin and generation, 1 January, The Hague: Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek, 2009, http://statline.cbs.nl/StatWeb/publication/?DM=SLEN&PA=37325eng&D1=a&D2=0,l&D3=0&D4=0&D5=63,169&D6=0,l&LA=EN&HDR=T,G1&STB=G5,G2,G3,G4&VW=T, retrieved 2009-07-17
  2. ^ "Korean Buddhist congregations in the Netherlands", World Buddhist Directory (Buddha Dharma Education Association), 2006, http://www.buddhanet.info/wbd/search.php?keyword=korean+&prev_keyword%5B%5D=korean&newsearch=new&search=Begin+Search&country_id=70&province_id=0, retrieved 2009-03-09
  3. ^ a b Deters, Sigrid (2003-10-29), "Voordelen van de dubbele identiteit", Wereld Expat, http://www.wereldexpat.nl/nl/wonen/cultuurverschillen/Korea_koreaansuiterlijk.htm, retrieved 2009-02-25
  4. ^ a b Yoo, Sang-ah (2007-10-09), "'Korea zit in mijn bloed': Adoptiekinderen treffen lotgenoten in hun geboorteland", Trouw, http://www.trouw.nl/achtergrond/Dossiers/article1487759.ece/_lsquo_Korea_zit_in_mijn_bloed_rsquo__.html, retrieved 2009-02-25
  5. ^ van de Wetering, Chris (2000-10-26), "Je blijft een Koreaan", NRC Handelsblad, http://www.nrc.nl/W2/Lab/Profiel/Korea/adoptie.html, retrieved 2009-02-27
  6. ^ Adopties naar land van herkomst, soort adoptie en geslacth, The Hague: Centraal Bureau voor de Statistie, 2007, http://statline.cbs.nl/StatWeb/publication/?DM=SLNL&PA=37722&D1=a&D2=0,11&D3=a&D4=a&HDR=T,G2&STB=G1,G3&VW=T, retrieved 2009-02-27
  7. ^ Stoffer, Paul (2007-09-01), "Récardo Bruins Choi niet te kloppen op drogend circuit in tweede kwalificatie", RaceXpress, http://www.racexpress.nl/index.php?nav=Artikel&nid=8274, retrieved 2009-02-27

[edit] Further reading

  • Daamen, Bas; Hennart, Jean-Francois; Kim, Dong-Jae; Park, Young-Ryeol (2007), "Sources of and Responses to the Liability of Foreignness: The Case of Korean Companies in the Netherlands", Global Economic Review 36 (1): 17-35, doi:10.1080/12265080701217165
  • van Tijn, Eli (1991), Nederlanders in Korea, Koreanen in Nederland, Ph.D. thesis, University of Amsterdam, OCLC 71730828

[edit] External links

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Missing in Action 3 , crashes for reel and for real...

I'm not in this shot, I'm on top of it !!! No kidding. When the plane with Chuck Norris and the children on board makes all kinda moves, it's us ( me and a couple of other guys) jumping on the wings. We were jumping like mad-men during the 'crash'. The kids never were air born during these takes. It was shot in Maragondon Cavite. Hé, I didn't go to Manila first to join the cast and crew, I took my bike and was there in 15 minutes. Later on this film a real accident happened with a helicopter crashing near my place. About a mile or so, I mean that's close.





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Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Sunday, September 13, 2009

Friday, September 11, 2009

What the Hack.....?? You godda see this to believe it..



This guy in Holland is hacking the systems and is in full controle. Watch these hilarious situations.
See ...

The Hacker,



Hackin' Windows.



Where's da boat ??



The Matrix

Thursday, September 10, 2009

When the train comes....

If you are impatient, skip the first 50 sec.

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

A very respected adopted friend is no more..Joop Kroesen RIP.

Last week he died, almost 82. He was the first adoptee I ever heard of. Well, we didn't use the word adopted at that time, in the 1930's no one knew that word yet. We called it 'accepted'. Some 80 years ago a little Indonesian boy lost his parents and was raised by a family ( I don't know if there was a relationship). I wasn't born yet, my parents not even married when this happened. Broken families, women being pregnant before marriage, divorces, it was something out of the common. Specially in a small town in the country, I think at that time there were some 3000 inhabitants or less, so everybody knew everything about everybody. Accepting this child and taking care of it was one thing. What else was different? Well, these people were Gypsies, there home had 4 wheels and was moved by a horse. They were collecting patato pealings (to feed their pigs), old clothes and old metals . I believe they were sharpening knives and scissors as well. And this little boy of theirs came along. The next 20 years or so they gained respect and friendship from all inhabitants, they were honest and friendly and managed to have their own home after some time. In his early 20's this boy got married (I'm not sure if she was a gypsy-girl cos she had a Dutch name). About that time my parents were married as well and I was born. Not much later little Gypsy kidds were born as well. I grew up with them and they became my best friends. When they enrolled at school they started to use their original family name. They were well knows as the 'Verstappen family' so we had to get used to the 'new' Kroesen name. They had their junkyard in the middle of town and whenever you needed some piece a pipe or an old wheel to repair your bike, it was found over there. It really became a family busyness and they did very well. Their home had no more wheels but a foundation, they had motorized transportation and even had several cars !! They made a living of stuff that was thrown away by others and they became one of the most respected families in my hometown. And that was because they had a heart, compassion, love and respect for others. Nobody was envious or jealous at them, no, on the contrary !!! Both the old Gypsy parents and now their accepted son are gone, but I will always remember them as one of the nicest people I ever met and I hope ( I'm pretty sure) that their grandchildren will follow their steps and remain the nice people they always were.

Joop Kroesen ( Verstappen)
Knight of Orange Nassau !!
Rest in peace.