Roadside Awesomeness in Belgium

Okay, so we're on our way to perform in Roeselare, Belgium, about a 3 hour drive from Rotterdam and we're about a half hour away from our destination when suddenly, we pass this. A HUGE, naked, somewhat-primitive-looking dude with a twinkly star festively adorning his private stuff standing in front of a company building which sells cranes and forklifts. WHA'? Please, do yourself a favor, take a minute and click on the image to ZOOM IN on the colossal awesomeness.

But this goes by real fast so i make a mental note to take a picture on the way back. Of course i forget till it's too late but we get to see it again. And again,... 'Wha' the hell was that?!' My experience is that the Belgians are an intriguing folk. For lack of a better word, i'd say they are downright quirky in the nicest way. But this...was highly unusual.

So today, Marko went online to see if he could figure out where we were when we saw this and what it was. Turns out that the giant man is standing in front of HM International in Waregem. The owner of the company, Hervé Missiaen, started a project called 'Artists Meet Business'. Several works of art were installed in front of the company to promote this project, the latest work being 'De Cycloop', also known as 'Éénoog'(One Eye), by the Italian artist Marco Boggio-Sella.

Originally 'De Cycloop' was butt naked but Hervé thought it was a bit much, possibly even a danger to travelers along the highway. So what did Hervé do? He had some custom-made tiger-print underpants made for 'Éénoog'. This didn't last long though. Herve soon received agitated phonecalls and not long after...Eenoogs underpants were stolen!

Well i say, YES!... Yes, let the giant stand gazing with his one eye across the E17 in all his natural glory and YES, let there be more weird shit in the world. This is awesome. I love Eenoog. Most importantly, let's hope that in the future many more business- men and women are as inventive and supportive of the arts as Hervé. I like this Hervé dude. I mean come on, he even invested an extra 500,- euro's of his own cash to buy the big guy some decent underpants. This is a nice guy. In any case, seeing ole' One Eye adorned in just a twinkly star was definitely a very jolly start to our holiday season.