Zeze Costinha

Found the youth potion, Amsterdam!

August 2000: Amsterdam was hit by a hurricane on a bike, named "Zeze Costinha". During the next few weeks he experienced more than most regular Amsterdam visitors do in a life time. We still wonder how he (and Amsterdam for that matter) survived!

Introduction to the Story

Zeze Costinha arrived in Amsterdam August 13, 2000. He was there to enjoy the holiday of his lifetime. And Zeze was documenting his wild escapades like the best of news correspondents, with an English that may have been unconventional, but full of life and feeling. Like Zeze we lost count of the days, "so could be the 16 or only the 15! That's what happen when you fu.., smoke and drink to much.". His posts were eagerly awaited on the AXXXTW Message Board each day.

Zeze describes his experience as returning from the future to his twenties. Girls were the first goal of the visit! Powered by the "magic power" (Zeze's words) - Yocaine, he explores the opportunities of meeting beautiful girls in the RLD and the Private Houses, to the full. On our site he will be forever remembered for inventing extremely memorable words and phrases, two examples, the word "foundling", the phrase, "Stoned of the night". We are not 100% sure what he means by either, but all the same inventions such as these resonate like poetry in our ears.

Zeze enjoyed his "skunk" at Belmondo coffeeshop, drinking healthy amounts of beer and partying at nightclubs. One of the classic quotes is: "Alone, tired, drunk. Well, let's be stoned too!".

But in addition to that, Zeze also explored the cultural side of Amsterdam, with its museums, monuments, paintings and rich musical life. Sleeping though, he informs us, occupied only a couple of hours now and then, mostly during the daytime. Eating at Plein 26 next to the Belmondo coffeeshop, and a couple of pints of milk for breakfast, kept him alive for the close to 3 week period of his visit.

In the Zeze postings, bicycling also became a subject. Initially inventing the word "Bicyclephobia - fear of riding bike in Amsterdam", Zeze quickly develops to the one causing the fear in others. Picture Zeze on his "funky bike", without brakes, seeing himself as "Speedy Gonzales", thinking that loud singing makes him sound like a fog horn in the night, and that that will prevent accidents. The strategy was not entirely successful, but he survived and as he said: "Nothing broke on me, only bike dead!", and he promised to rest a year or two before coming back.

We do not recommend anyone to repeat the kamikaze Zeze experience, "do not try this at home kids!", but it is a powerful and unforgettable story.

The Zeze Files

Here are the complete Zeze Files, the complete series of original postings. A couple of the many follow up posts are included as well, but only the important ones. The text is as close to the originals as possible, including the charming fractured English and spelling mistakes (the only editing that we permitted ourselves were the paragraph divisions, done to simplify reading). We are proud to introduce the complete original Zeze story from the AXXXTW Message Board:

The Zeze Files.

The Best Of Zeze

A collection of some of the wonderful sentences and expressions created by Zeze. If you find one we've missed, let us know with the subject line: Zeze Quotes

The Best Of The Zeze Posts.