Tuesday, January 25, 2011

The Gambler's Den

Thailand, Pattaya,
25 Jan. 2011.

I flagg down a 125 cc Honda motorbike taxi, not being in the right mood to walk all the way to rowdy South Pattaya, telling the Taxista to bring me to the small Soi where the Dutch W***M*** is located, which is up front just another Go-Go Bar but once inside will turn out to be a sleazy wh*rehouse where it is not all that unusual to see girls going from Farang to Farang with real intercourse taking place...

Not that paid sex is what I am after, rather the back room where I have been told Miss Tuk, Phom Tilac Kheo from last year, spends most of her nights rolling dice and trying her hand at cards which she never told me during our more intimate sessions in her spacious room on Soi Bhukaow but then I suppose our minds where on a very different track in that part of our mutual past...

Big heavy curtains block any view from outside but the heavy swirl of humanity inside is quite obvious nontheless... young Thai girls hurry from table to table, most of them dressed in fluorescent bikinis, carrying trays laden with Foster beers, Down-Under is the norm here despite the Dutch name of this joint, trying hard to ignore all the depravity going on here, I follow the doorman to a small opening behind the bar, a staircase going up, a long corridor, a middle-aged Chinese man lounging on a rackety chair in front of a wooden door, the noices of excited men and women betray me behind there is the Gambler's Den...

Old feelings of Bangkok gambling joints, dark and dank, ill lit rooms, green clothed tables...

It all comes back to me from a misty past, Jamie and his gang of badies from the Krung Thep streets, all addicted to the game of dice, the roll of small sized cubic dices, hands full of Thai Baht and while the doorman knocks twice I turn around, trying hard to fight the urge, an urge I had vowed to leave behind...Tuk Or No Tuk... 

Monday, January 24, 2011

Meeting Moo's parents

Thailand, Pattaya,
24 Jan. 2011.

Nearly two weeks in Pattaya and still no sign of poor Moo, her glazed over eyes, sitting there in her thirty Baht beach chair last year, pining away due to full blown AIDS, open TBC or whatever, still following me in my dreams, my poor little Thai Nongshao in Thailand, the woman that gave her heart to my old German pal Joseph and then lost the protective working of her Isan superstitious Noordu tatttoes soon after his messy death in Yard Lao prison, being spit out by relatives and friends alike, her personal Phra Phum having definetly turned sour on her, bearing it all over years to come with the typical Thai stoical smile that earned the Kingdom its nick...Thailand, the Land of Smiles...

Talking about those past away is supposed to be bad luck according to those undereducated Ladies of the Night, so no info to get there either apart, maybe from a "simple she no here anymore" ...

Back to the Isan somewhere in the late nineties before all that shit happened to us, but more importantly to her!!! Back to one of the few visits she took me on to her folks, her kids, living in that small dusty Thai rice cultivating hamlet where I used the evenings playing Thai checkers with her dad, paying him small bottles of rice whiskey which he drank straight but for a few cubes of ice, no Coca Cola added, stiff upper lip hardly quivering as he knocked it down in huge gulps, his watery eyes peering at me when he asked me "Bok Phom Moo Pen Puying Yangai Nai Pattaya?"...

Some add-libbed question with poor Moi ill-inclined to give him a honest answer...I guess he was pretty much aware of what exactly his daughter number one was up to anyway, didn't need no stupid Farang like me to explain the family's disgrace...

I could have told him "Khao Mai Moo Chai Puying Mai Dee", " Moo, she is not a bad lady", but what was the point, we all have to fullfill our destinies after all, not exactly the first time I mention this is this blog...what goes around, comes around or maybe the Asian concept of Karma...one of the calamities that have befallen me in this life getting mixed up with the Thai way of life as so many other Farang long-timers to Thailand!!!   

Sunday, January 23, 2011

Another female victim of the Pattaya night

Thailand, Pattaya,
23 Jan. 2011.

A small sip of Thai homemade rice whiskey, a bit like a volcano eruption on my tongue but this lady sitting opposite me here at the small restaurant at mike's Shopping Hall, has got iron lining the insides of her mouth, knocking the stuff down like it is mineral water...

Eyeing me shrewdly she returns to her previous occupation, preparing her afternoon betel nut, rolling a heart shaped Bai Plu leaf around an Areca nut, some tabacco and lime for the taste added, a few drops of that devillish whiskey that, as rumor has it, makes thausends of Thai go blind each year, then pressing it into her left cheek, showing me her black teeth and red stained gums...

I know from personal experience how almost immediately the bitter and astringent mixture will start to do its mind enhancing job with my table partner soon enough spitting out big red blobs of spittle, a look of pleasure on her face while gulping down more dirt cheap home brew rice whiskey...

I try to be devoid of emotions while this fifty plus Isan lady of the Pattaya nightlife is spitting out yet more hastily chewed alkaloids, groping for a deck of Thai sigarettes, still eyeing me shrewdly and telling me while lighting her cancer stick, " me h*rny too much, me like go room you for long time shorttime, only need two hundert Baht and more whiskey", " you like me, yes?" ...

Subconsciously I grope for my Thai Buddha on my chest, my talisman, My Siam Noordu, a gift from Nong so long ago, hoping it will protect me from the crazy long nailed fingers and sex hungry clutches of this down and out Thai Hot Momma who obviously has seen better days but has by now in the latter days of her Hot Momma carreer been spat out by family and relatives, probably spending her nights out of her mind, running after Farangs on the boulevard, hoping for clientele that due to equal amounts of alcohol might not notice her far advanced state of deteroration... mind and body a mess... 

Saturday, January 22, 2011

Two Thamruat on a Honda scooter

Thailand, Pattaya,
22 jan. 2011.

His name was Siddharthat Gautama, born to a noble family, a prince of a small fiefdom actually somewhere in Southern Nepal, got married and had a harem of concubines as was probably quite acceptable in His time and age, in His personal social standing in life...but at the age of 29, after enjoying all of the little pleasures of life like women, booze and good food, He decided to wander the Indian sub-continent as one of many ascetics in search of enlightenment, on a quest of total understanding, achieving His goal after years of deep meditation under the holy Bodhi tree, becoming known as the Buddha, the Enlightened One, spending the rest of His life teaching and more meditation though according to some He never reached that treasured state of enlightenment untill he reclined and died...

the latter seeming more realistic to me considering the broader ramifications of complete understanding of the inner workings of this planet and the main life form on it...

As watch with wonder, sitting outside the New Star guesthouse drawing my Buddhas with my markers, Miss Nhi waiting for one, how two of Thailand's finest, dressed in their habitual thight fitting dark brown uniforms, arrive on a Honda scooter, obviously keenly interested in poor Moi and my artistic work...

I am aware of seven years imprisonment for insulting the Enlightened One but I find it hard to believe that my colorfull drawings of Lord Buddha will cost me seven years of my life, though incarceration thoughts flash through my Farang mind wile they disembark and stride purposefully toward me...

but no...they wanna know if  I sell my Buddhas, maybe a few for them, the Thai Thamruat for good luck,  a Noordu for thos involved in keeping law and order in this place of high male Farang testosteron...Ay, tricky question here, being a Farang without a working permit I can hardly ask them for Thai Baht though feel ill prepared to be bullied in giving away for free what is rightfully mine...

" Lord Buddha is not all that happy about the paper of Man" , I tell them in my halting Thai, receiving grunts and words I do not understand but the two tatty notes of one hundert Baht landing on the table, right next to my can of Leo does say it all, ignoring the paper of Man I let them choose five paper Buddhas...

Guess this was a tricky one!!!

Friday, January 21, 2011

Painting women and drawing Buddhas in pattaya

Thailand, Pattaya,
21 jan. 2011.

Being here in my New Star Guesthouse, once again involved in painting naked ladies from the Pattaya nightlife, Hot Mommas who come to my room in droves hoping for a free shower and some precious TV time, a couple of hours of rest and relaxation while poor Moi is coloring my drawing paper lining the walls of my room with erotic pictures in acrylics...

Yeah, I thought I had grown out of that childlike and insecure need, I seriously thought that I am not at all plaqued by that emotional need...or maybe this is every man's dream come true, opening the door to oriental women who love me to death, or at least so they tell me...

Tranferring my physical needs into colorfull artwork that has no reall meaning but to keep me busy and off the booze...not like all the other European males drinking cheap Leo beer, Black cat Whiskey on the boulevard and shooting lewd glan at any passing local woman who are more often then not dressed in short hotpants...

In this crazy party place I have painted short and tall women, the anorexic types, sometimes beautifull, at other times downright ugly, bags of bones, fatsos, deaf mutes and cripples, drunk out of their collective asian female minds, Yaa Baa users and those covered in dirt from numerous nights sleeping on the beach...

Sexual encounters aplenty and more sad life stories as I care to remember...

After the Apex Hotel 110 baht breakfast I usually wander over to the boulevard making my contacts for the afternoon, asking posible art victims  "Laew Khun  Cheu Arai?", what is your name in Thai before getting into a more serious mood...though my visitors often take friends along for the ocassion too which means a full house, almosr like a hand of cars in a good poker game...

When my models are gone, back to the boulevard, back to hunting Farang males with a overdose of Testosteron running through their semi-drunk minds, I spend my late afternoons and early evenings in front of my hotel working on my other project, drawing colofull Buddhas in my sketchbooks which the Thai love as much as the Farang sex visitors love b*lling nubile Thai ladies who have very little say in the matter due to empty female purses and hungry bellies... 

Thursday, January 20, 2011

Gilling-Gilling, it means Bam-Bam in Tagalog

Thailand, Pattaya,
20 Jan. 2011.

" Gilling-Gilling", Marianne keeps telling both Miss Jiff and Miss Ang who are munching away on barbecued chicken legs, orange colored hotel provided towels wrapped around the lith Asian bodies, giggling at the Tagalog word for Bam-Bam....maybe my Tagalog has gone down reall fast since my three two month dive master jobs in the Phillipines quite a few years ago, nor did it progress much beyond this illustrious Asian word but it is definitely not lost on my Farang mind...

I have three female visitors now each night and often in the afternoon when they come over for a shower and posing sessions with the walls of my room covered in drawing paper the size of the Bangkok Post newspaper pages, black lines the beginning of a dozen nudes, plastic jars with paint placed at random around the floor, some pensils and dirty laundry piled up against one wall...

Outside the s*xual galaxy that is Pattaya is in full swing at this nighttime hour just past midnight, attracting all  sorts of mostly male characters from across the globe, on a quest for Thai P*ssy, s*x at inflated prices and a whole lot of booze thrown in at equally cheap Baht to bolster the male s*xual appetite, if not their nerves...

German Krauts that speak English like it comes out of a rusty old and empty can of Chang, pale faces that look a bit like boiled poatatoes betray me they have just recently arrived...

Elderly Poms and Rileys that have probably spent most of their younger years wh*ring across the globe, in and out of the slammer before dicovering the heaven that is Pattaya for a determined John...or at least so they claim...

My lady visitors are gossiping in a mix of Thai, simplified English and recently learned words of Tagalog, a small bottle of Black Cat whiskey, a bag of ice cubes, two alu cans of Coca Cola and several cans of Leo as a present to me, a dozen barbecued chicken legs to satisfy hungry Hot Momma bellies...

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

A Phillipino Hunting Girl in Pattaya.

Thailand, Pattaya,
19 Jan. 2011.

Something is definitely out of shape with this forty year old Hot momma, happily taking swigs from my big bottle of Leo, talking to me in a strange mix of non Thai accented English and...well, whatever..my question "Khun Phut Phasa Isan, dai Nee",  " do you speak the Isan dialect" only provokes bland stares and more gibberish mixed with weird Englsih that sounds familiar and at the same time like Khee Mha as the Thais would say...

Her eyes lack that sparkle that can enslave any first timers to this Numero Uno party place where every vice known to man is available at inflated prices, no way a recently divorced German males is gonna get drowned in these lack-lustre brown female shiners, occupy his every thought and will make the alimony check for next month's payment for the  white ex-misses in the Sauerkraut and Bratwurst home country swindle out of his sweat drenched  shorts reall fast, court order or no court order...

Then there is this smell of unwashed clothes and stale urine permeating out of her red colored dress, Pas De D'argent and beach sleeping aplenty notwithstanding, somehow these Pattaya boulevard ladies always manage to get themselves at least one daily shower, get their clothes hand washed if necessary, a touch of make-up,,,well, the usual female stuff to attract the male Farang counterpart you know...

Not this lady who tells me she is actually a Phillipino Hunting Girl whose Irish boyfriend took her to Thailand then left her alone, running off with a much younger Thai Hot Momma, visa overstay and hopelessly lost in the Land Of Smiles...forty years old in a strange country, holds no currency and not a single word of Thai, scared of the bloody local Thamruat and no return ticket to Cebu City...

I suppose I have always been a s*cker for a pretty woman's face, an easy victim for a poor female heart, inviting her over to my New Star guesthouse room, knowing fully well big Khee Mha is in the making here when Miss Jiff and/or Miss Ang will end up customer negative tonight, looking for a place to crash, unwilling to share with a Phillipino Hunting Girl and all that...

    

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Na Wai, Lang Kok

Thailand, Pattaya,
18 Jan. 2011.

Outside in the corridor a verbal fight is in full swing, judging by the high pitched voice of one combatant I would say a Khatoy, the other probably belonging to a elderly German male speaking poor English and refusing to pay the 500 Baht shorttime on the grounds of being dissatified with sexual services rendered...

Outside in the Soi I can hear a party going on in the beer bar next door, raucous Englsih lagerlouds, drunk on numerous bottles of Thai beer, singing along with Dolly Parton, the giggles of bar girls probably equally smashed outof the Isan heads on ladies drinks, sing along but as badly out of tune as the English males who will probably take them home tonight, pay their bar fees and a couple of big bottles of Chang from the 7/Eleven at the end of the road on the way to their hotel rooms, maybe a Viagra pill already bought subscripsion free from the Soi's farmacy in the pocket of their shorts...

I feel unable to give in to the tender arms of Lord Morpheus, the God of the dream world though my visitors don't seem to suffer from my bouts of insomnia despite the growing verbal discussion outside, despite Dolly Parton next door and her devotees of falsetto intoxicated Bravados...Miss Jiff deep asleep in a feutus position next to me, her friend Miss Ang who Waiied me profusely when entering my room, snoring happily on my army green sleeping bag on the stone floor next to my double bed...

Sitting outside on my balcony enjoying a glass of Mhekong brought along by Jiff and her Buriram lady friend, ice and a shot of Coca Cola added, a few cubes of ice to make it glide my Farang throat a bit easier, I ponder my Farang excistence in this strange Asian Kingdom, as I have done countless times before, with my room more aften than not a gathering place for under-educated ladies of the night, Hot Asian Mommas who feel unwilling to sleep on the beach due to being customer negative...

Wondering if Miss Ang's Wai was one of genuine gratitude or full with contempt for this Ting-Tong ameteur artist from the Rich West..even today, after all these years of coming to King Bhumipol's Asian Realm, I still have a hard time understanding the Thai concept of Na Wai, Lang Lok...smile in the Farang's face while really thinking Mhaa Khee, shit of the dog!!!

In the past I have travelled to quite a few tropical countries, got to learn the local Lingo, get to scratch the cultural and social surfaces, but nothing like Thailand and its inscrutable population, the more I dig the more difficult they get to become to my poor Farang gray colored brain mass...

The whisky finished, the Khatoy heading down the stairs with his precious 500 Baht shorttime leaving a swearing German customer behind, English lagerlouds staggering back to their hotels, supported down the Soi by semi-drunk bar girls wondering how much money their Farang dates will pay them in the morning, I return to my room finding Miss Ang  has upgraded her place on the floor to my side of the double bed...I guess my old sleeping bag and me are old buddies after all!!!

Monday, January 17, 2011

We all have to fulfill our destinies!!!

Thailand, Pattaya,
17 Jan. 2011.

The rice is boiling in a wok inside a a smoking  wok placed over on the top of an earthenware pot filled with burning charcoal, hungry young Isan women just having returned from the boulevard, are squating around it, some of them eating Som Yam from plastic plates, other waiting patiently for the rice to be ready, pigeons hop around anxiously, picking at some grains of rice...

The bar across the road from my habitual place outside the New Star Guesthouse, is housing some fat Germans morosely staring down there pints of Heineken, the cylindrical wooden cups next to their beer bottles and half filled glasses, are stuffed with bills, some slips of myriad show me they have had the courtesy of paying some ladies' drinks though it ain't evening yet..most of them already into their pension allowed age with thin gray hair and protruding well groomed beer bellies, bar girls swarming around them, willing to please European lone males on wintering in the Male Kingdom called Pattaya...

Hard to believe some of these young ladies, hardly past their adolescence years, were only mere months ago planting and harvesting the rice crops under a harsh Isan sun, maybe involved in the intence work of pounding fruit together to create natuarl dyes for the Thai cotton industry, maybe working the construction sites in Bangkok carrying bricks up the wooden scaffolding...

Now they are giggling and laughing at stupid elderly men's yokes who are semi drunk already and will probably be well intoxicated by nightfall, ignorant of the bills piling up in these wooden cups...

I am in the company of Miss Jiff, an old friend from the "scene", who has just returned from a family trip to Korat and has played the game of Cupid and Stupid for well over 20 years..with her skinny frame, serious overbite and roundish monkey face she never had the luck of finding herself a Farang sugar daddy, returning each and every year and sending her some sort of monthy allowance each month, a walking sort of ATM machine and so much looked after by these undereducated, impoveriched and superstitious ladies of the night...

She is waiting for me to have my afternoon power nap so she can watch her beloved Star Trek episode of the day on the SYFY channel, maybe have a much needed shower and convince me sleeping on the beach really isn't her cup of Thai tea...

I guess we all have to fulfill our destinies!!!  

Sunday, January 16, 2011

Waking up in a dump house

Thailand, Pattaya,
16 Jan. 2011.

I wake up to a female hand, pudgy fingers groping underneath the orange colored hotel provided towel wrapped around my waist... though still snoring Nong's hand is allready on the move betraying me she has got a wed dream, probably remembering last night's little party after our dinner date at the Nana nighttime food market...

I have a faque image of Nong sending a motorbike taxi rider to the Nat Two Guesthouse at Khao Sarn road with my room key and my passport, telling him to pick up my old and worn backpack, showing me the 160 Baht, ten o'clock bus ticket from the Akemai bus station for today, I remember our walk back to Soi 23, both of us very much in need of fresh air - wheter it be possible to get fresh air in Bangkok I leave to the reader's  imagination - maybe we really needed that short walk to clear our heads instead...

I leave Nong with her dreams of lust and carnal inclinations, dressing quietly, shouledring my backpack, my long time travel frien, taking the bus ticket and the bank slip - the inetrnet proof of one week free of charge at the New Star guesthouse located on Soi Honey-Inn, courtesy of Nong, or maybe her Norwegian sugar daddy Per who is probably waking up right now wondering where the heck his Thai house keeping nurse is, the administrator of his fat wallet full with Scandinavian Kronor, Norwegian Pensionaer Penge used for a free bus ticket and a week at the New Star...

The corridor of this dumphouse betrays me the true nature of this hotel, a place where the rooms go by the hour or are else occupied by bar girls from Nana Plaza and equally rowdy Soi Cowboy which is just around the corner from Nana's...

An ancient looking washing machine with a plastic bin full with obvious female clothing, I sidestep a pink bra and even more intimate ladies garments lying at random around this rusty old monster, crates full with empty beer bottles stapled on top of each other line the walls, the sounds of a Gecko on the prowl, some human produced screams coming from one of the rooms telling me that some of the girls living in these tiny rooms took their customers home last night, a scrawny cat's head emerges from the plastic clothes' bin, sleepy feline eyes watch me curiously, more interested in me that in the erotic sounds of humans making out...

Though I still have plenty of time to catch my bus I opt for a motorbike taxi, remembering vividly how any five minutes walk in this Asian sweltering capital can break the perspiration out of my Farang pores in huge rivulets, floods of salty and alcohol rich sweat that will leave me soaked to the bone and chillingly cold in my bus to Pattaya...

Saturday, January 15, 2011

A dinner date with Nong at the Nana's

Thailand, Pattaya,
15 Jan. 2011.

The Nana Plaza food market is still quiet, slowly preparing for the 02.00 h. Bangkok bar curfew, hordes of starving bar girls with empty bellies and desperate to exchange the latest gossip... if their bar fee hasn't been paid by some fat bellied semi-drunk Farang from Europe though...

The open air beer bars, sheltered from the notorious Bangkok traffic pollution by a semi-circle of man-sized potted plants, their cutomers still trying to make up their Farang minds which lady of the night is worth their 200 to 500 Baht bar fee, sitting at steel tables under thatched and wooden roofs that protect them from rain and sun alike...

I take it all in though it being so familiar after my numerous trip to this sweltering mega metropole, trying hard to ignore Nong's foot, clad in expensive leathery Gucci high-heeled platform shoes, creeping slowly up my tighs underneath our table...she is cleaning the last meat of her barbecued chicken leg with her perfectly white teeth, having already told me she has paid for a small room off Soi 23 where I have no doubt she wants to continue our little evening date...

Per, her Norwegian sugar daddy back at the Shangria-La Hotel, is probably already fast asleep and most likely totally unaware of his Thai Tilac's carnal interests in poor Moi tonight...

My favorite Thai dish, Khao Pat Khong already down my belly, making serious work of my half liter condensed bottle of Leo while Nong is drinks a small bottle of her own favorite, Regency Whiskey with cubes of ice and a diet coke added, a bit of energy drink as well to get her mind set on the upcoming ocassion we have planned at Soi 23...

From somewhere I can hear the rings of a, usually beribboned, bar bell, announcing yet another drunk Farang customer with too much Thai Baht in his wallet, wanting to pay a bar round...

A small Buddha shrine sitting on the branch of a Bodi tree, small plastic cups of Black Cat whiskey. a bottle of soda and tiny bols of boiled rice in front of this holy stone figuerine the evidence of a Isan Hot Momma's religious ansd superstitious convictions...

Only my second night in the Kingdom but already being in full swing!!!   

Thursday, January 13, 2011

Back in Bangkok, back in Khao Sarn Road

Thailand, Bangkok,
13 Jan. 2011.

The strong smell of black tabacco is doing a little Hunkpapa Sioux wardance insde my nostrils, having a small skermish withe the equally strong spicy smells of Pat Tai Chicken sold all over Khao Sarn Road at make shift fast food stalls...the smoker of this typically Thai tabacco rolled in strips of local newspaper, a hilltribe woman in tradional garb, hung with trincklets, Hmong iron earrings in the form of the Holy Elefant and a colorfull Hmong hat decorated with shining coins, eyes me shrewdly, her gums dark yellow due to a life time of beetle chewing, scaning my Farang face por possible interest in her little ambulant street business. For a short moment I detect the hand wrapped Bhurmese sigars I am so fond off but I manage to ignore yet another addiction in my life, instead hurrying on to the Gecko Bar in Soi Rambuttri, the place to go for people watching while enjoying a big bottle of Leo beer, cold to the touch, maybe get into a conversation with fellow backpackers about the ins and outs of this Asian kingdom, mystic and captivating even after all these visits, never mind King Bhumipol Himself has been in the hospital for the last two years, artificially being kept alive to avoid yet another uproar of the dregs of Thai society against the established succes of the Krung Thep Amataya - the Bangkok elite...

The Khao Sarn road is The backpackers mekka in the whole of Asia with numerous travel agencies, Internet cafes full to overflow with international mostly young travellers, Swedes with a serious suntan, half drunk rowdy Germans and totally smashed English lagerlouds who run around the place taking constants swigs from half liter bottles of Chang bought at the 7/Eleven or maybe Mart Supermarket, loud mouthed big *ssed female Israelis who have just retired from a two year stint in their army and demand to know of me the location of the Riverview Hotel, where to get off the 150 Baht airport bus downtown...

The Thais themselves whose lingo is so difficult to grasp though I tend to do better with each trip, their open character taking in first time visitors but never showing their real inner emotions, their coyless attitude to the number one sextrade of southeast Asia stunning even the most open minded johns who have heard all about it but blush in the face upon their first arrival, however get to learn the rules mightily fast...

I wonder if I should hit the Shukumvit nightlife later on, risking my very life taking a motorbike taxi or maybe turn in early, prepare for tomorrow's meeting with Nong, sleep the sleep of the innocent in a mega city where everything goes...

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

A last colorfull drawing of Lord Buddha

Holland, Amsterdam,
11 Jan. 2011.

A last colorfull drawing of Lord Buddha hours before my departure, on the way to His Asian realm, another three months of my life devoted to travelling around in His spiritual kingdom, where His philosophy is worshipped by devout devotees, where His temples are called Wads and seen all over the place...

Provided I don't get knocked down by a speeding car on my way to the airport, knifed by a drunk as a skunk jealous park alcoholic, taken for granted my aluminium flying machine will not come down prematurely, smashing into some great mass of water called an ocean, drowning all aboard who survive the impact...

Well, lets face it, a list like this could be endless but my confidence of arriving in King Bhumipol's Mystic Kingdom soon are growing by the hour...

Monday, January 10, 2011

Phom Tong Kan Pop Khun, I see you now Phom Tilac

Holland, Amsterdam,
10 Jan. 2011.

Phom Tong Kan Pop Khun, Phom Tilac...I still remember these words, vividly remembering to hatred for the bars between us while we chatted together, nearly twenty-five years ago now, her young oriental face smiling broadly at me, giving me the daily food and strong black Thai tabocco we - her brother and me - would smoke rolled in strips of Thai newspaper...

 I still remember the yellowish foul smelling fumes coming out of that stinking hole in one corner of that overpopulated police station holding cell, the basin opposite with its plastic container used for showering and cleaning your *ss after having a sh*t with brackish light brown colored water...the light that was on for 24 hours a day, how I slept on the hard wooden floor with my T-shirt wrapped around my eyes, trying hard to forget the blood sucking mosquitoes...trying hard to forget about the huge cockroaches living underneath that floor and the even bigger rats that chased them...

I still remember my painfull bruised body, the result of a bit of Thai Thamruat fun, the Farang is here on fighting charges so fight he will, down in the courtyard with half the local neighborhood's population paying one hundert Baht for the police "retirement fund" to watch the show and get into the Thai's favorite hobby, bet on the outcome of these Muay Thay boxing bouts, red earth invading my facial wounds whenever I got knocked down again, being dragged up again by these hated Thai Thamruat coppers who good-humouredly cheered me on...

But in the end I fell in love with the Thai ways, was looking forward to Nong's daily visits, bringing food and strong black-colored tabacco for her brother Jamie and me, the daily chats with this young lady of the night who told me her trails and tribulations, countless beatings and brutal Mau to the max Farang males from the Rich West, with a smile on her beautifull oriental face, like geting your face smashed in, being brutally raped an*lly by s*x-straved drunk f*cks from Europe was Pas De Problem...

Her casual way to the harshness of life itself was what made me survive mentally intact an ordeal that was nothing to speak of but felt like hell itself to an unexperienced kid I was at the time...

The photo is made on Pattaya's boulevard a few months later...sh*t, were we young then...in mere days I will see her again...

Sunday, January 9, 2011

Streetwise kids in Phnom Pehn

Holland, Amsterdam,
09 Jan. 2011.

In my mind's eye I return nearly one year and to the other side of the world, back to Phnom Pehn with its open sewers, its chaotic traffic, its lack of public parks, maybe back to the tourist distrct of Boeng Kak where most of the guesthouses were built on wooden platforms over the polluted water of the Boeng Kak lake but where the carbon monoxide in the air wasn't as bad as in Bangkok or maybe New Dehli, Jakarta or Mumbai...

Back to Phnom Pehn where the numerous motorbike taxi-boys would be more interested in selling their little sister - or maybe brother if that is your preference - as in scoring a ride to, say, the Tuol Sleng torture museum...neatless to say that Mariuana, crack or coke, horse - local slang for heroine you know -  or whatever else your Batang mind might conjure up, was high on their money making list too...

Back to Phnom Pehn and its hordes of street kids dressed in dirty rags and armed with even dirtier garbage bags slung nochalantly across their shoulders...the kids I drew in my sketchbooks and on local newspaper by the sheer lack of better moleskine paper - I must have done at least a hundert of them during my three weeks of constantly being on the move in this Asian dirt heap, short breaks in old colonial french coffee houses where that black brew was so strong it kept me going despite my heavy night owling the evening before...

Giving my underaged models a couple of American bucks each, telling them my conditions, buy some good food instead of glue, give some of it to your Mum...

Always receiving feigned indignation, angry young eyes that would bore into mine, asking me in a sort of pissed-off way why I would think they would buy glue, more often than not with a half smoked sigarette butt dangling from smeary young lips...

 More often than not these underaged streetwise kids would ask me shrewd and lewd questions like "you like Bam Bam, mister, maybe Yam Yam?", as so often before making me realise how sick this world really is...

More often than not I would let them have the sketch wondering what they would do with it, adoration for the wooden shed they live in, maybe something to look at late at night, their nasal passage ways blocked by heavy glue sniffing while focussing on that quickly done pen drawing, a fast drawing in exchange for a couple of precious American bucks, paid for food but turned into nighttime glue-sniffing sessions instead...

The next day they would be there again, waiting at my favorite bench at Wat Phnom, a couple of friends in their wake, my wad of one dollar notes getting lighter by the day...

A pre-study of a lady

Holland, Amsterdam,
09 Jan. 2011.

Nah, this is actuall a pre-study I made in one of my sketchbooks last week...

The idea is to use this lady for one of the two big door-sized wooden boards I found the other day with the garbage outside and plan to completely cover with portraits coming out of my head, maybe include Lord Buddha and Lord Shiva as well, just for the heck of it..

Wild and colorfull Geklieder just before I fly to Asia in a few days time...

Thursday, January 6, 2011

Opposite people in my street

Holland, Amsterdam,
06 Jan. 2011.

Despite my hard work at the petting zoo today, preparations to make for my new trip to Asia, and all sorts of other mental tribulations, I find myself back late afternoon in front of the door of the crappy old house I live in, dead tired but unwilling to go up for a power nap...

My way of relaxation, standing here and watch the good looking babes of my neighborhood walk by, a quick chat with some of my neighbors, my sketchbook at the ready for unusual street characters...

Maybe this elderly gentleman, bald head and rolls of fat around the mid section clearly visible despite the eight hundert dollar Armani suit, big beefy face but with a great smile, friendly enough to give me five minutes of his precious businessman time...

Maybe this down and out English bloke from New Castle who usually spends most of his homeless time in the small park around the corner boozing cheap beers from supermarket Spar, the total opposite of Mister Beefy Face Businessman who, by the way, is very happy with the outcome but less impressed with the appearance of Mister Down And Out From New Castle, excusing himself and quickly walking on, on the way to his next multi-million dollar deal I guess...

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Muslima lady with blue eyes

Holland, Amsterdam,

04 dec. 2011.

I saw this Muslima today in the central library here in good old Mokum where I had gone to read De Telegraaf after returning from Onze Lieve Vrouwen Gasthuis - hospital - feeling happy with all the good news from my docter, my health being less in a state of deteroration as I orginally feared...

I guess I can go to Thailand next week knowing I am still in a good physical condition desp[ite my crazy coffeeshop hobbies and heavy bar hopping, beer and Red Wine aplenty in the days of yore and yonder but apperently having done less damage to my Holy Physical Temple as was expected by my gray brain mass...

As for my latest subject...I was mesmerised by her clear blue eyes and the contrast it gave to her light blue-colored head scarf, the light brown of her - probably - Maroccan skin...maybe she was from the Rif mountains in her native Maocco, a member of the Berber clan

Monday, January 3, 2011

Three houses on Brouwersgracht (part two)

Holland, Amsterdam,
03 Jan. 2011.

The same three houses on Brouwersgracht as I did last summer, http://heraclio-heraclio.blogspot.com/search?q=brouwersgracht,  though I like this one better...looks more like the style I used when I was still selling them in the street, under the tunnel of the Rijksmuseum here in AMSTERDAM so many years ago...I really sold them very good in these years.