I would appreciate some of DU's good vibes or

[highplainsdem]

88. Google is usually pretty reliable, including when you narrow search results to

those from the last 24 hours, as I usually do when checking for any news about George. But a few days ago it gave me a link to a Facebook page, a post from the account for Dutch public broadcaster NTR, and as far as I can tell it doesn't have anything recent added to it.

https://m.facebook.com/ntromroep/videos/1197521733616852/

That's about a documentary from NTR about Vreemde Kostgangers, the same 2016 documentary I posted a YouTube video of in reply 55 above...but the Facebook post links to the documentary on the NPO website

https://www.npostart.nl/het-uur-van-de-wolf/29-12-2016/VPWON_1259657

and that video has one advantage over the one on YouTube. On YouTube, you couldn't view any subtitles.

With the documentary I linked to above, you can. You have to click on Instellingen (settings), then Ondertiteling (subtitles), then choose Nederlands f0r Dutch subtitles as the only choice offered.

That still helps since it gives me text I can type into Google Translate to understand at least some of the conversation that sounds most interesting. Though I had to do some extra checking of Dutch slang on other websites. Dutch spoken rapidly doesn't always sound much like the few Dutch words I'm familiar with from translated text and some YouTube languange lessons, so having the subtitles is great.

It's an entertaining documentary, with lots of old footage from their separate careers as well as 2016 rehearsal footage and conversation about themselves and each other and their songs, with that newer footage from meetings and rehearsals at what I think is George's estate in Belgium, just a few miles over the border from the Netherlands.

And it's fun to see how much they're enjoying themselves. Even though they come from very different backgrounds, as Boudewijn comments early in the documentary.

There are some parts that are bittersweet because of what's happened since then.

Henny Vrienten talks about how, even though they're men "of a certain age" - he and George would have both been 68 then, and Boudewijn was 72 - the music keeps them feeling young. Henny died of cancer last year.

And Henny says at one point, after a discussion of whether they should perform standing or sitting down (which Boudewijn as a folk singer was used to), that George "never sits down" because he's "such a rocker" - and he reminisces about the first time he saw George, whom he describes as a long-haired guitar god with an "insanely beautiful" guitar, singing and playing beautifully. Henny was only feet away at that show, but said he felt George was lightyears away from him...and only later did he find out that George was close to his own age, only a few months older. At this point George cuts in to say that Henny was also very good, early on (though I know from Wikipedia that Henny didn't record his first single and album till 1977, while Golden Earring started recording in 1965).

While Henny's talking about George as a young rocker - someone who still at that time, 2016, can't sit down onstage - you're shown footage of George decades earlier, playing his guitar behind his back, dancing on stage and jumping off to get closer to the audience.

None of them imagined then that Henny might have only five more years to live, and George would be diagnosed with ALS four years later. While the oldest member of the trio, the one who would have liked to sit down for shows, is still healthy and recording new music...with some help from George.

But I'm glad Boudewijn, at least, is still well, and still a close friend of George's.