Being on guard 24/7

Holland, Amsterdam,
31 Dec. 2010.

Street walkers on platform shoes, dressed in leopart skin mini skirts, some of them with heavily painted faces, walking around the Nana Plaza night food market, well beyond the 14.00 h. curfew, hungry young women from Thailand's northern provinces, no customer having paid the bar fee but empty stomachs a-plenty...

Collective gasping of breath by fat-bellied Farang customers in the Go-Go bars of Soi Cowboy when the next group of stunningly beautifull girls - most of them just past seventeen years of age - position themselves on the stage, flourescent bikini outfits showing of their best female parts, long shapely brown colored legs and apple sized boobies that will fit in the hairy claws of most of these Mau to the max on Chang beer Farang males...

Memories and mental pictures, the result of many winterings stints in far-away Thailand flash through my head while I cycle through Westerpark..."EIKEL"...I hear, bringing me instantly back to the present, reminding me this is Amsterdam where the population of park alcoholics, street junks, homeless losers, addicted alley hookers with a serious expensive habit have taken a distinctive dislike to me off late due, no doubt, to the reason behind my recent mental reveries, my upcoming trip of three months to the Land of the Smile...

Mayke, whose painting I finished only mere days ago, who presently spends most of her waking days searching the Amsterdam inner city looking for customers, Dinero so much needed for her Mary-Jane and beer fascinations, hassling me last week, her nowadays fat middle-age female body making serious work in the street s*x business a difficult affair...

Fat Kees - called Big Kees by all but me, making it clear to him I have no fears whatsoever - giving me harsh and angry stares from watery drunk eyes, can of cheap Spar beer in his big hand, when I return from my daily jogging sessions in Westerpark, but lacking the nerves to follow up on his eyes' threats...nothing to gain there in the way of martial arts practice, I suppose...

Back to the EIKEL screaming nutcases getting off my bike, unrolling the heavy iron bicycle chain lock from the handlebars but Harry The Shithead and normally easy going Pedrito decide to go for the hasty retreat...still no martial arts practice here either...

Yeah, the word is indeed out in the streets, Shiva will be off again to Thailand, agression mixing with jealousy, combined with heavy beer and coffee shop supplied shit making this the time of year I have to be on my Qui-Five 24/7...

    

Susann from Stutgard

Holland, Amsterdam,

31 Dec. 2010.

This is Susaan from Stutgard, a twenty-one year old German lady who spent the last couple of nights testing the comfort of my couch, having found her way to my house with the aid of http://www.couchsurfing.org/, basically my latest couchsurfing guest though I noticed very little of her, leaving my house early in the morning and returning late at night...

She did come with me to the petting zoo though last thursday helping us out feeding the goats and sheep, having coffee with us and then disappaering to do her thing, whatever that was, downtown, returning late at night again, smoking a Big Mamma hash joint from the Heavenly coffeeshop before testing the comfortablity of my couch.

She left today, carrying her big backpack and with the sleep still in her eyes...

I guess if all my couchsurfing guests were as easy as Susann I would have a boring life here in Amsterdam!!! 

Lady looking at God

Holland, Amsterdam,
30 Dec. 2010.

I have seen this middle-aged lady before in the park, standing motionless as always
under the same big pine tree, its boughs laden with a thawing layer of snow, big drops of melting snow falling on her parka, though she seems completely unaware of this cold wed stuff, instead looking up as though at God...

Maybe she is a non-believer, maybe admiring the gray clouds passing slowly by, driven on a slow winter breeze, or else she is paying her respect to the Thai Prah Phum that she probably believes have little wings here in this cold Amsterdam and have nothing better to do but amuse themselves flying around aimlessly...

Could be she is one of these people who believe that the tranquility ruling the life of these timit life forms like plants and trees can be transported into the corporal bodies of us humble human beings...provided you spend enough time opening your soul for them...

Or maybe all of this is just bullshit coming out of my chaotic f*cked-up brain...

By the time I am finsihed sketching her in this little hand-sized notebook I got a few weeks ago from the neighborhood's contact centre, she still hasn't moved in inch...a good model for my ever growing number of hand-sketched portraits but in my head I am still busy trying to figure out her purposes...  

To hear and see but keep quiet

Holland, Amsterdam,

28 Dec. 2010.

I am probably extraordinarily reclusive here in my old house in Amsterdam at this time of the year, shutting out my street contacts who only need money anyway, dough for their personal mortal queste...green colored Mary Jane leaves, little ten Euro balls of crack and cheap Appie Heyn supermarket supplied lukewarm half liter alu cans of beers, their main considerations in their daily Uitkering supported sorry lives...starting each new day with heavy coughing, alcoholics diearrhea and a liter of strong inky black coffee to chase away the dreaded hangover...

I am probably mildly malevolent to my f*cked-up Western trained Farang mind, on purpose allowing that gray brainmass of me to transport me across time and space to countries far away, to times that should have been forgotten long ago, to friends and people who had no right whatsoever to leave me in such an emotional wrecked state of mind with their messy ends, their deaths so stupidly self-inflicted...

I am probably seriously off course with the rest of mankind and, moreover, with myself due to endless train journeys, bustrips across the garbage belts of humanity's dregs, still vividly remembering the stumps of amputated beggars being pushed through the grille work of Latin American chickernbusses, beggars dressed in rags using their festering wounds to work on my Gringo empathy...looking out at worlds that were quite a bit different from my own where the social wellfare system is always an easy way to lifetime boredom....

I am probably slightly misguided feeling like the harshness of a world gone mad can be read daily in the newspapers but where traffic jams and work stress rule my fellow countrymen's lives, totally unaware of how bad things could be when your Kharma decided your birth be in the shanty towns of Johannesburg or Mumbai...in the dusty villages of dictator ruled states where social wellfare is unheard of but read about in the local newspapers and understood in a very different way as the aforementioned viceversa...

I am probably totally misunderstood when I do my blog stories...better I turn to my more serious hobbies like running in the park, my freaking around with my paint, my volunteer job at the animal farm, receiving Couchsurvers in my house, basically having a great time and enjoy my life!!!

Moo's story

Holland, Amsterdam,
27 Dec. 2010.

With my imminent departure for King Bhumipol's Asian realm, that ten hours of flying to a tropical destination where the Leo beer is cheap, the Khao Pat khong extremely tatsy, noodle soup with fresh vegetable, chicken or pork, maybe beef for a change, where Thai ladies of the night run down my door at the New Star Guesthouse for free modelling sessions, watching Star Trek on my one hundert channel TV, making a mess of my bathroom - never mind, the cleaning ladies come up every day - basically where the life is good and comfortable for a confirmed farang bachelor from the Rich West, I can't but help thinking about poor Moo with her glazed over eyes, pining away in her beach chair last winter, the ravages of full blown AIDS destroying her erstwhile beautifull Asian body...

Moo, who has always been my friend, not my lover but more like a younger sister in Thailand, my Nongsao who taught me her Isan Thai, modelled for me more times as I can remember, who took me back to her native village near Buriram...a dust ruled hamlet where we had to sleep on the floor on reet mats, where I played Thai checkers with her dad on the verandah while being plaqued by countless mozzies, underterred by these green colored mosquito coils...

Moo, who came to Pattaya early on in her teenage years, fleeing twelve hours of grueling work in the rice paddies each day under a harsh Thai sun, dreams aplenty of meeting a handsome Farang male who would give her two/three Leuk Kreug babies and support her...

I guess my old German pal, Joseph was her dream man, nutty Joseph who as so many Farang males coming to Thailand the first time, wanted to stay long time, willing to take the risk, not all that unfamiliar to the dope trade back home in his native Sauerkraut Und Bratwurst country making countless runs to Maastricht for that green colored Mariuana leave, cheap and semi-legal in Holland, expensive and forbidden in Deutschland...why not make a couple of runs to Tokio, Japan with a bit stronger dope from Thailand...stay Thailand long time, success guaranteed...

Yeah, success was indeed guaranteed with a nice little article in the Bangkok Post on page three, photo included with Thailand's finest clad in their tight fitting brown uniforms, big Thai smiles on their faces, Farang dope peddler caught, promotion guaranteed as well as stay Thailand long time for crazy Joseph...though not exactly the way poor Joseph had expected, leaving Moo with her dreamed about two Leuk Kreug babies but no Farang male to help her out financially...Joseph died two years later in Yard Lao due to full blown AIDS but Pas De Medicine.

Last year I was willing to help her out, a taxi to the hospital, maybe her last years as a novice in a local Wat...but no, "we like Family, Hans, me can not take your money", "is like you customer me", "me not like"...and gone she was...

Wonder if I will see her again next month when I fly in my big aluminium flying machine, back to Krung Thep, back to Pattaya, back to my models from the street, back to my New Star Guesthouse room in Soi Honey Inn, my cold Leo beer and tasty Khao Pat Khong, a daily bowl of nutricious noodle soup with fresh vegetables but I fear not back to poor Moo whose body probably evetually did end up last summer at a local Wat, but not as a novice...no, at the cremation chamber!!!

A misguided X-mas story

Holland, Amsterdam,
25 Dec. 2010.

I walk through an eery winterly Westerpark, still dark at this early hour, two big fat crows screaming at me from their safe haven up in a tree, anything foul and dirty in their crow language making me realise as countless times before, these creatures actually hate us, the human race...

They have no respect for what I am doing here at this early hour, out in the cold, away from my antiquated heater placed strategically right next to my bed, the sleep still in my eyes, my head only awake enough to place one foot in front of the other...

This god-forsaken early hour out here in the midst of King Winter, at this time of the year, X-mas morning and freezing my *ss off while on the way to the Westerpark petting zoo, on the way to my volunteer job of no pay but hard work and very little recognition from Miss Domenica, The Chief as some people call her in my neighborhood though I hope for the sake of dear peace she will never find out, the CEO of this heaven for kids and little goats alike...

As every year, volunteering for X-mas morning, trying hard to forget my self-chosen solitary life style on this day of togetherness, by shovelling horse manure and cow dung all morning...

I try to make my thoughts go inward while I struggle to get through this blanket of snow, try hard to ignore the protestations of black-colored members of the winged race, back to that self-proclaimed misguided martyr who came out of ancient Nazareth and who died so miserably 2000 years ago but whose birth and subsequent messy death is still celebrated like it was the biggest event ever...

Sh*t, five hours of hard work ahead of me but no pay, no recognition from the lady-boss, aka Miss Domenica, aka The Chief, just a nutcase out of Palastine with a 2000 year old ego problem disturbing my mental peace, a couple of fat crows letting me know what they think of us, the doomed human race...

A free X-mas meal

Holland, Amsterdam,
22 Dec. 2010.

This world is probably a crazy place due to us, the human race, a place where dictators dictate the lives of their servile populations as though they were puppets, crazies with their bloody fingers at the controls of countless of millions of impoverished and starving masses of humanity, generals ruling whole backward but potentionally rich and promising lands, enriching themselves and their closes allies while their subordinates live in wretched conditions...

The much hated Mutawwa, the Saudi religious police, forbidding women to drive cars and puching school girls back into burning buildings for inappropiating the Muslim dresscode - I picked that up in the international newspapers last summer - but willingly partaking in the wild Nana Plaza nightlife in Buddhis Thailand...Yings for the grabbing, remember, but no equal right for their sisters and mothers back home...

Here in cold Amsterdam my main worries are plowing myself through the blanket of snow covering the Amsterdam canals whithout breaking my bones, on my way to De Tweede Mijl for their free X-mas meal, a gift to the Mokum homeless, lost souls from the street, Polish fortune seekers who found no houses to renovate nor rooms to dwell in, Spanish and Italian coffee shop tourists who benefit from the Tweede Mijl liberal door policy...and of course poor and lonely Moi.

The causes of Lord Buddha's sadness

Hollans, Amsterdam,
20 Dec. 2010.

Yet another sad looking Lord Buddha coming out of my amatueristic Farang painting hands, another session in my self-chosen solitary mental monk's prayer cell where I forget the whole wide world around me but my plastic jars of acrylic paint, my pencils still sticky with previous bouts of similar sessions of complete self-indulgence...

Still, whenever I do Lord Buddha - be it sad or happy - I can't but wonder what went through the head of this greatest of mankind, that one short moment of reclining, getting enlightenment and his subsequent Death, that one brief moment of complete clarity, the absolute insight into the psyche of his fellow human compatriots...

Did he understand the motives of medal-dripping dictators, the who and what behind the blood-smeared hands of despots, doomed reformers whose changes turned out bad for those that they were meant for but very profitables to themselves, religious fanatics who killed in the name of their personal Higher Being but never achieved national statehood or cherished recognition ...

Did he see through the blasphemous Death of that misguided martyr in the early Palastine and the subsequent power of the Roman church that came out of it and slowly turned into a private club of childmolesters in modern time...let God judge our actions...

If so I can understand why he died so quickly after his Enlightenment 

shoefiti in Barcelona

Holland, Amsterdam,
18 Dec. 2010.

I saw quite a few sneakers dangling from electricty cables, telephone wires and the like, during my recent stint in Barcelona...having seen this little bit of remarkable urban art in other big cities, I wondered about its significance...

Asking around in the numerous bars of Barcelona, searching the web and reading about this weird habit in the El Pais gave me the following bit of interesting information:

First of all it is called Shoefiti and is not exactly indigenous to the street and alleys of Barcelona...

For example in The States it often indicates a place of drug selling nearby...

City art...

But also a sign of respect to a gang member shot in a gang-related shooting...

Take your pick I would say. 

Mayke from the street

Holland, Amsterdam,
16 Dec. 2010.

Another street character for this blog...Mayke who I first met during my bicycle messenger years working both at the infamous Fietsdienst here in Amsterdam...

Mayke who was already in these years of our mutual excistence as nutty as a fruitcake due maybe to a LSD-propelled trip earlier in her life, accopanying her flower-power parents on the overland trail to the Goa beaches in India in a rusty old van that also funcioned as a make-do house, parttaking in their favourite hobby, smoking pot, with the other beach inhabitants, Mary-Jane devotees from the age of six or seven... probably didn't help her still developing young mind much...

Losing her house after her Fietsdienst years, big money to pay for freeloading boyfriends, acid parties and beer a-many but no dough for the rent...sh*t, when we still dated back in the days of cycling, she used to send me boomerang cards picked up at the public library free of charge, the backs written full with crazy love stories, always ending her nearly incomprehensible words of lust and love, with "Bier Is Vies", referring to my beer drinking sessions with my mates..

I remember how she stalled three or four cubic meters of personal stuff in front of my house after her eviction day, explaining to my upstairs neighbours while out of her head on a Big mamma joint from the Heavenly Coffeeshop, she was the new neighbor while I was sweating away carrying all her stuff up to my storage room...

Nowadays she lives in a homeless centre in Amsterdam North, still drinking beer and smoking herself senseless every day - I sometimes see her at De Tweede Mijl or De Schakel for a free cup of coffee, maybe a bowl of foul tasting soup donated by Appie Heijn..still as nutty as a fruitcake...

I guess her Fietsdienst years were her only sober years...Yeah, Mayke, that was the time that "Bier Was Vies".

I started this panting in these cycle years when she was sober and I was stoned and drunk each day, but only yesterday did I have the right inpiration to finish it...     

Remembering the Phillipines

Holland, Amsterdam,
14 Dec. 2010.

The house is still dark when I wake, the sort of early morning winter darkness that makes me unwilling to leave the warmth of the bed, go back to the dream world instead where I was back in Manilla, playing pool for days on end with very little sleep and a river of cold Miguel beer, a pile of tatty Phillipino Peso notes for every game I would win...

The noice of rowdy generators ringing in my ears whenever Manilla suffered from one of its notorious brown-outs, overpowering the Phillipino love songs coming out of antiquated juke boxes that would bring in hard currency if sold to European collectors but transport costs for these heavy monsters making it a non-profit affair...

The Phillipines that were once the private treasury cove for the Marcos family, leaving a impoverished and desperate population behind upon their forced departure, the rage of the common man and woman impropiating three thausend pairs of high heeled platform shoes left behind by Mrs Imelda, the Royal Lady in exile...

Their biggest hobby during their reign of personal wealth gathering, erecting an army of statues, enormous portraits cultivating a personality cult that knew no bounds...the way any dictator does...

For me the Phillipines was a place of work, dive master jobs on Boracay and Puerto Gallera, Pescador Island with its spectacular coral and reef shark population...

Sleeping in baby rooms in down and out hotels in the capital where my number one passtime was playing pool and paying rounds of San Miguel to an army of Hunting Girls while waiting for my plane to bring me back to the Rich West..."what do you hunt?", "Me hunt You"...plain and simple...

Three two month stints sufficed but in my dream world I often get confronted by an easy and sportive life in yet another third world garbage belt...           

Lady in the library

Holland, Amsterdam,
13 Dec. 2010.

I saw this lady today in the library where I went to read the newspaper...the hood of her pullover wed with the snow from outside.

I liked her smile went she noticed I was drawing her.

The Magic Land Of Lord Buddha

Holland, Amsterdam,
12 Dec. 2010.

Magic Mushrooms out of dreams.
Acid sipping in the air.
Smoking chilams every day.

Please, please take me away.
Fly me back to Magic Land.
Oh, Lord give me your hand.
I wanna live, i wanna stay.
Please, please take me away.
Please, please don t let me stay.
No, no not one more day.
Oh, please take me away.

Babas flying in the air.
Smokings chilams every day.
Finding opium on my way.

Please, please take me away.

Breakfast, chai and morning smoke.
Full moon parties full with hope.
Valium for a trying day.

Please, please take m e away.

Bang lassy in Ratjastan.
Sugar brown takes what i can.
Sugar white has evil ways.

Please, please take me away.

Ganja leaves and Charras cake.
Drugstore speed keeps me awake.
Cosmic dreams and inner ways.

Please, please take me away.
Take me back to Charras Land.
Oh Shiva, give me a hand.
Fly me back to Charras Land.

Magic, magic Shiva Land.
Shiva, Shiva, Magic Land.

I seem to remember having written this story somewhere in 1993 or 1994 while being on my spiritual quest, was it on the beahces of Goa, or maybe Karnataka, stoned out of my crazy head, travelling India's holy places that are frequented by European pot heads...

An invation of pot addicted hippies living in the wrong time and place, cherished social wellfare a good way to live it up in a third world country where the necessary drug of choice was cheap and of good quality...

found it in an old sketchbook the other day.

The Sleazy Corner of my mind.

Holland, Amsterdam,
10 Dec. 2010.

The Sleazy Corner of my nutty mind is that part of that gray brain mass I secretly refer to when my thoughts turn erotic..like tonight coming back from my daily jogging routine in Westerpark, watching this lady jogger ahead of me and the subtle movement of her well-shaped behind...a friendly neighbor on his bicycle cycling in the opposite direction probably guesing my mental processes judging from the knowing smile he gave me, his five or six year old daughter on the back of his bike totally unaware of this little bit of male adult bonding...

Or maybe the part of my Farang mind where blotted-out memories from the past, experiences with countless international females manifest themselves with a vengeance leaving me no peace during my much needed nighttime sleep - or was that caused by that crazy sex-obsessed monster from my dream world...never mind, better I go into Mai Pen Rai mode here...

The part that remembers sitting outside Colombian bars late at night watching Latina Putazas from the night that marched in armies on the hunt for a few meagre Colombian Pesos but were really to young to be involved in such a harsh street life...

The part that remembers Phillipino Hunting girls that all had little babies to feed fathered by h*rny American marines stationed at Angeles or Subic Bay...here it were Phillipino pesos that were so much in demand, needed to feed hungry little mouths....

Yings for the grapping while knocking down cold Leo beers at a small club at Soi Cowboy or Nana Plaza....Thai Hot Mommas pretty much suffering from the same lack of dough as there same gender compatriots in this aforementioned blog story...

Nairobi and its hordes of tall dark-skinned big-*ssed prostit*tes that made me feel like I was their very personal pray...I seem to remember changing my hotel every day to escape an overdosis of female attention I was ill-prepared for considering my young and inexperienced Mbongo excistence at the time...

I could go on here for a while but I feel like it should be obvious why I ain't excatly proud of that Slezy Corner part of my nutty mind...makes me wonder why I publish it on the Holy Internet for this whole carzy world to read...

All ot it just Wrongfull Irony, my dear friend Alie!!!

Lady Fortuna, a fickle lady indeed

Holland, Amsterdam,
08 Dec. 2010.

Maybe I should go Nana Disco where the action can get hot and steaming on a friday or saturday night with all the Hot Mommas coming out of the numerous girly bars on Soi Cowboy and Nana Plaza, no drunk as a skunk English lagerloud able to pay the bar fee - not with the dire straits there economy seems to be in these days -  and therefore unattached but sure as hell on the look out for a handsome Farang male with a fat wallet, or else the Thermae where those ladies of the night gather who really are in need of dough slash it out among themselves whenever a white male face enters for a coffee...OR???...however rumour has it that the Termae attracts huge numbers of kathoys though...

no, this ain't Krung Thep at the other side of the world, instead I am in my nearly 400 Euro a month appartment in good old Mokum remembering my previous trips to that mystic Asian realm where unattached females with very little education do their best to make a living the hard way...or maybe the Thai concept of Sanuk making it quite attractive...

But no, Thailand is not what has plaqued my mind tonight but my compulsive gambling in Macau, probably due to that little confession I made the other day to my upstairs neighbor...the way that the very notion of gambling makes my blood boil, a simple bet on the outcome of a game of pool almost like mental mastrubation...

My Amigos always wondering how does he do it, the trips, the way I handle serious bouts of boozing and dope induced oblivion for weeks or even months on end...just to quit it all overnight with no ill affects to my mental wellfare...a simple ten miutes chat with my neighbor still turning me into a nervous wreck several day ahead in the future...

Better I turn to my Kliederen with paint, no model in the house but maybe that fickle Goddess of all compulsive gamblers will do me the favour of at least a mental posing session....after all, she seems to be on my side whenever I give in to her unabashed flirting...but I have a certain notion that in the long run my Noordu - the Thai concept of luck - will be smashed to teeny little pieces by small female knuckles that can do much more harm than those belonging to George Foreman...

I paint her the way she comes to me in my mental "mastrubation" - her words, not mine -  session...hope you like the outcome.

An open letter to my dear friend, Miss Alie

Holland, Amsterdam,
06 Dec. 2010.

I seriously wonder if this blogsite which I sometimes mentally refer to as the Sleazy Corner - actually a part of my gray brain mass I am not all that proud of - might be a just a teeny little bit too weird for you, my dear friend Alie from the Tweede Mijl aka as the Tweede Kwijl by a certain part of your mostly homeless visitors because of the bad quality of the Appie Heijn supermaket donated free soup...

You seriously consider coming back to this site where I use my Wrongfull Irony writing style to describe my Chaotic Life experieces, my crazy stories from the street, my nutty backpack travels across Europe on forced interrail passes during my teens and through my twenties, my encounters with Hot Mommas from around this nutty globe where injustice and creed is a very realistic part of the daily life you are totally ignorant about living on the Dutch countrysite, that notorious bible belt where the big bad world is preached about in the locality's church by a priest slightly tipsy already despite the early sunday morning on his parish's cup of Christ's blood...

Your one and only day in the big city doing your volunteer's "thing" at a place where the soup is foul of taste and your clientele saves money on food for their very own God, the Holy Spirit present in that green colored leave, King Alcohol responsible for a homeless excistence, maybe a ten Euro Balletje of Crack....your Tweede Mijl soup starts to taste better by the minute here, more dough in pocket for the aforementioned little pleasures in the life of the Faithfull...

But don't worry, Mijn  Grote Vriendin Alie from the Tweede Mijl - or was it the Tweede Kwijl? - it is all Wrongfull Irony and has got no meaning but keeping me off these aforementioned different Deities....

Ain't still interested in that Wonderbaarlijke Hand Van God either, just wanna do my own thing without a higher being looking over my shoulder, no sacreficial lamp to be offered here or spiritual guidance...

But I give you one Santa Claus gift though, no caricature of you, my dear friend Alie, but one of myself instead sitting at my drawing table - or was it the table in my Hostal in Barcelona....

All wrongfull Irony, remember???

Unknown lady in a bar

Holland, Amsterdam,
05 Dec. 2010.

I did this lady last night in Bar Het Haantje across the road from where I live, sitting at a table by myself, my only company a glass of Vino Tinto from La Rioja, my sketchbook and a simple pencil...

The colors I added later back home before retiring for the night.

Waiting for Flikken Maastricht

Holland, Amsterdam,
03 Dec. 2010.

Sh*t three times in a row, having worked my Farang *ss off all day at the petting zoo, hard work and very little pay but doing my "thing" for the neighborhood, going home with my lady-neighbor upstairs and her three year old son Hannes, a couple of cups of strong coffee while Hannes watches a french speaking Muzzy hopping across the screen before drifting off to sleep, having a chat with his Mum...and now being alone, cherished alone, here in my favorite chair in front of my telly, glass of Vino Tinto at hand and my belly pleasantly full with homemade Khao Pat Khong, dead tired and waiting for Flikken Maastricht to start...

Slowly Nong's voice, Joseph's harsh German and Moo's whispering, the cr*p in my life that has befallen poor Moi, all of it coming back to me, finding myself back in Yard Lao visiting nutty Joseph only weeks before his messy death, leaving moo and their two Leuk Kreug kids behind...and his last words before my departure "Wass wird jetzt aus Moo und unsere Kindern, Hans?",... Poor Moo and her ungly whatever it is disease, probably already gone to Kingdom Come and beyond but at least back with her German Tilak...

Maybe Martine from the petting zoo and her stupid personal eutanasia...her last words that last morning she worked with me "Ik heb me altijd zo veilig gevoeld bij jou in de stal"...never had a clue what the damned woman was on about but got to understand it a hell op a lot better a few months later upon attending her funeral together with some other volunteers from the petting zoo...

Maybe I better get back to drawing untill Flikken Maastricht, something out of the Hot Momma dreamworld, a naked Thai lady to distract my f*cked-up Farang gray brain mass....

Neighbors in cold Amsterdam

Holland, Amsterdam,
02 Dec. 2010.

Small flakes of snow come down in huge numbers leaving Amsterdam under a blanket of cold white wedness in solid form that is slowly becoming thicker and thicker, with the people in my street wrapped in several layers of clothes, some of them swearing under their wrap-around scarfs about this cold and good for nothing city, while they pass me by, me standing here on my usual spot in front of my old brick house, sketchbook in hand despite the frostbite quickly setting in in my already numb hands...

But then I am desperate for some people sketches, cold or no cold...maybe this interracial couple walking by, that black small man with his shaven head, no bonnet despite the biting cold, hanging on as though for dear life to his woman's arm...a woman nearly half a head taller, nearly double his size and definitely several years his senior...

Five minutes is all they give me but it suffices for this drawing...and I find out in the process that she picked up her HUSBAND - streching the name with vehemence - during a vacation in The Gambia, love at first sight and enough dough in her bank account to convince the Dutch Vreemdenlingen Politie - Dutch for the alien police service - she could affort her HUSBAND's financial needs...

Just to be on the safe site I drew her a bit less fat as she really was!!!

Mission Barcelona accomplished

Holland, Amsterdam,
01 Dec. 2010.

I wake to darkness, or at least I believe I do, I can see nothing, hear nothing, no heavy snoring from the other people deep asleep in my 15 Euro Barcelona dormitory. I try to move my limps but cannot even feel sensation in my extremities, panic setting in, a horrible feeling of being asleep and at the same moment awake, I feel unable to connect my nervous system with my conscious being, no way to produce action...

I feel like my consciousness is floating in a deep abyss, a pich black void where all excistence has come to an unmovable stop, completely detached from reality and sensations...

Wondering on some semi-conscious mental level if maybe I have died in my sleep in this Cataluña capital with all its Gaudi architecture that I have been admiring so much these last couple of weeks, maybe a stroke caused by that bad quality Vino Tinto I have been drinking night after night in that quiet Jardi where I spent my nights in quiet contemplation, remembering Thailand and my prewvious stints in this Hispanohablante Ciudad...

There is no sound but the pain, a strange sort of tingling, first coming to fingers and toes, slowly invading the rest of my limps, pushing itself upward to my Gringo head, exploding inside my gray brain mass, becoming all of my excistence, all of my mind and being...I try to scream but seem unable to hear my own voice...

Sh*t...I am back in my own bed, my head ache a strong rememberance of the one liter bottle of cheap red Albert Heijn table wine I drank last night after throwing my heavy backpack to the ground, slumping down comfortably in my favorite chair in front of my old Sony telly...happy in the knowledge nobody of the Brotherhood of Evil Friends, the drunk losers of Amsterdam-Westerpark had the bloody nerve to break into my house, no fires leaving this old crappy brick building a heap of charred remains and me homeless in a very cold Mokum...

There are still jagging spikes going up my nervous system, still a breaking hangover from last night but I feel a certain possitive energy entering my mortal body with the knowledge I did it again, another trip, mission Barcelona accomplished!!! 

A mental state of limbo

Marao, Spain,
27 Nov. 2010.

I try hard to close out the cacaphony of Catalan and Spanish speaking voices of my fellow travellers on this slow train getting back from a daytrip to Lloret De mar, making a serious effort of getting Nong´s voice back inside my gray brain  mass, that sweet femenine voice that was with me while I walked the two hours from Lloret De Mar to Tossa De Mar following a rocky coastal path going up and down the rocks and hills that seperate these two popular beach resorts north of  Barcelona...

The strong smell of pine trees, a solitary walk in nature with the sounds of birds making me emotional and melancholgy...the right combination to transport my Farang mind back to Thailand and my many Lady  Of The Night ladyfriends over there...but Nong always foremost in my mind when I make these mental travels...

but sitting here in this early evening train back to Barcelona, the Cataluña capital and my present place of domicile, dead tired from my long walk and all the clear sea air that has invaded my lungs making me even more like feeling asleep on the spot, making it sort of hard to concentrate on what that sweet woman was trying to tell me in that state of mental limbo....

Instead I try to concentrate on my fellow travellers...like this young Arab man in his long Djalleba and reddish beard that should grow on the face of a man much more advanced in age, sitting opposite me, wiping his reading glasses before starting to read his little leather bound version of the Koran, totally ignoring the group of catalan speaking teenage ladies, sort of semi-sluttily dressed and obviously on their way to Barcelona´s friday rowdy nightlife...

The much younger boys who carry their bicycle with them and excitedly talking about this skeeler structure in the urban gonglomerate of Barcelona where they wanna try their iron horses...

A few in black frocks dressed elderly women whose Catalan I find to difficult to concentrate on considering my present state of fatique...

Two Roman musicians busking with an antique looking acordeon amd a drum the size of a child´s play thing, dressed in a fashion that must have been out of time when even my dad was walking around in his shorts during his pre-adolescence years... the music they produce even worse as their dressing code...

No way I will be able to go back to that mental state of limbo back there in the pine woods that covered the hills between Lloret De Mar and Tossa De Mar...not in this slow early evening local train full with people!!!

Sex in the Hostal´s bathroom

Spain, Barcelona,
26 Nov. 2010.

With the sign saying ¨Fuera de Servicio¨ on the door of the groundfloor toilet in my Hostal, I feltl forced to do my Cry Out Of My Belly business - as an old bicycle messenger Amigo once called peeing - in one of the Baños upstairs early last night...

Quickly opening the door, not bothering to check wether it is a male or female toilet I felt an short moment of embarrasment seeing a naked female shape half hidden by a plastic shower curtain, her hand rising up for her towel, her Japanese eyes looking me straight in the face, the tiny drops of water rolling down her well-shaped body made me hestitate for just a slight second before muttering a short ¨so sorry¨, wanting to withdraw back to the corridor...

¨Pst, pst, you come here quick¨, her fingers making the universal gesture of come here...in no time I found myself behind the plastic curtain, my pants around mt anckels, her left leg around my hip, her slender hands holding on to my shoulders while we had a proverbial quicky...ten minutes of pushing from both sides before her pelvic area started to move up and down my belly, a few high pitched shrieks and she was in her female physical and mental heaven...

A quick kiss on my mouth, a short ´thank you¨ muttered from a Japanese mouth stil gasping for much needed air, bending forward and pulling up my blue jeans, my whole male equipment still in its full glory, was expertly packed away by experienced Asian hands, still wed from her shower...¨quick, quick, you go now, before someone come¨´..a soft push in my back and I was in the corridor again remembering I went to that bathroom to have a piss instaed of making out with a complete stranger though ten minutes longer would have been just fine!!!

Saw her again this morning over breakfast in the communal room, flashing knowing flirtatious dark brown eyes in my direction whenever her girlfriend was gulpnig down her cup of tea, the big backpacks at their site of the table a dead give-away they will be leaving today...I presume that next ten minutes I needed so much last night will never come around...

Early morning in Barcelona

Spain, Barcelona,
25 Nov. 2010.

Early morning and still 15 minutes away from the Hostal provided free Desayuno at  08.15 h., fair enough, I can have a cheap Cafecito in a nearby Cafeteria watching this classic medieval warren of narrow Carrers that form the toursit attraction Numero Uno of Barcelona, wake up...an opaque window over my table showing me an early Cataluña capital....

Urdu speaking Pakistanis opening their stores, Hindu speaking Indians preparing their small shops for the day to come, slant eyed Asians wiping tables in Cafeterias and narrow bars, sigarette buts and smashed Estrella glasses from the night before are absent-mindedly brushed away. Outside in the street young rough looking Marruecos have their first smoke of a brand new day, murmuring under their breath, probably discussing the best way to make the first buck of the day...

Homeless losers having spent the night on cartons in quaint little Plazas, have a first peek at the rising sun over the antiquated Barri Gottic from under dirty and gruffy blankets, their dogs waiting inpatietly for their owners to be moved on by the Mossos d´esquadra on motorbikes...

The city´s street cleaners are already in full swing, dressed in green and yellow coveralls, they handle their brushes, expertly moving around the waking homeless, avoiding the smoking Marruecos, greeting neighbors and other early risers, the Hindus and pakistani shop owners preparing for the new day ahead...empty bottles and plastic cups still containing a remnant of Vino Tinto, disappear in gray colored dust bags...

Yeah; I feel like my mission of coming back to Barcelona and feel that old but familiar admosphere of the cataluña capital, remembered from years ago selling Mandala games and be away from the rheumatic cold rains of the Dutch autumn, has been accomplished ...

Narrow Carrers and painfull feet in Girona

Spain, Girona,
23 Nov. 2010.

Small claustrophobic streets, narrow and winding going up the eastern bank of the Riu Onjar, make my poor feet hurt but I push on nonetheless, convinced to make this second daytrip out of the Catalunya capital another success number though Girona is a totally different day excursion as Sitges was...

It were the Germanic members of the Frank tribe that first kicked the Muslim asses out of Gerona, a serious step in a 800 year war called La Reconquista that considering the huge influx of Marruecos in Barcelona is still in full swing today...none of that in Girona though, no Hallal Cacuterias, nor Arab speaking olive colored men in the narrow Calles of this colorfull city surrounded by mountain ridges and full with foreign students from northern Europe, tourists speaking Dutch, German and Swedish pass me by while I struggle up and down these narrow alleys, trying hard to ignore my painfull feet...

Sitting grandly at the top of these winding narrow Carrers. is the fine looking cathedral, majestic steps rising up from La Plaza De La Catedral, a nice baroque facade glinting under a late Spanish autumn sun, almost as though greeting me and heralding my Actividades De Dolor...shit, my feet are really killing me...

I move down slowly, down another set of weathered stone steps, through another maze of narrow alleys, to  another fine looking church, my free city map - Gracias be to the local Oficina De Turismo - tells me it is called Esglesia De Sant Feliu, a couple of Euros put into a slot and in I am, as always wondering why I have to pay money to enter the house of god, finally some rest for the lowest parts of my body...

Local bars in Barcelona

Spain, Barcelona,
21 Nov. 2010.

I have my coffee at small, little bars where the ground is more often that not littered with sigarette buts, Pañules and assorted humna produced waste, where the local cliêntele gathers in the afternoon, noicy and rowdy Catalan is the norm, people run in and out, where I watch this Catalan world go by while my body recuperates from my endless wanderings, the streets and bars of Barcelona and never ending source of fascination for my Gringo braincells, my insides warming up by Cafe Con Leche A La Manera Española...

My ears are being besieged by the problems and gossip of the local Barri, adjusting fast to Catalan which I never studied but seem to have at least partly mastered during my stints in this Cataluña capital, picking up the latest happenings and problems of people who greet me politely when entering, a moment of curiosity in brown Hispano eyes before ordering Un Cafecito, getting into heavy discussions of daily life with Amigos Y Vecinos, vehemently discussing the marital problems of El Señorito Antonio, Señora Benitez and her pregnant daughter of eight months....

I follow it all trying hard to make sence of a language that sounds familiar and strange at the same time...the strong smell of Sigarillos invading my Gringo nostrils while I make notes in my scrapbooks, quick sketches of people around me so occupied with their daily affairs....

The strong hot taste of Una Copa De Coñac paid for by a friendly local gulving down my throat while showing him the Dibujos in my sketchbook, an amable Hombre Catalan wanting to know all about my life in my native Holland, Amsterdam ¨Es Esa No La Ciudad De Coffeeshops, Señor?, Donde Se Puede Fumar Porros Sin Problems Con Los Mossos, Si?¨...

A bit like being transported back in time to a much younger life though my Spanish was not nearly as good in these days of yonder...the days I toured Europe on forged interrrail cards, kipping in overnight trains to save Dinero on Hostales...   

Gays gayly absent in Sitges

Spain, Sitges,
19 Nov. 2010.

I wander the windy small streets of Sitges which is as dead as a rabbit roadkill, at this time of year, with the world gay community all busy with other affairs I guess though rumour has it this place will once again be overrun by homosexuals the world over, the numerous bars of this meditarenean village slashing it out with the volume of decibels...gays dressed in swimming trunks invading the discos with the nightlife continueing untill dawn, holding hands the way lovers do, the beds in the local Hostales being tested to its very limits every morning after a fruitfull Noche of looking for the same gender bed partner...

The stories continue and continue in this small local bar where I have taken up temporary residence for Un Cafe Con Leche Caliente the Spanish way, listening to what these Ancianos tell me about the international gay community that takes over their precious little coastal Aldea each summer, bringing no Paz or Quietut but lots of Dinero, walking the boulevard unabashed and in feminine ways, proud of their Maricon ways, feeling at home in a Hispanohablante world where nobody objects to their gay behaviour...apart off course from these ancient toothless local men who knock down small bottles of Damm Estrella and Copitas of strong Conyac and have Nada Millor A Hacer in their old age but complain...

¨Es Usted Maricon Tambien, Senyor?¨ they wanna know...I tell them ¨No, but the way I see it there can never be enough male homosexuals around in this world¨, after all the more male gays, the less competition with the ladies for me...Guess they never looked at it from that point of view...  

Vino Tinto con El Menu Del Dia

Spain, Barcelona,
18 Nov. 2010.

¨Y Pa El Beguda´, Senyor?¨, I try to ignore the black stumps of teeth left in the grinning mouth of this local Anciano waiting on my table and asking me in the local limbo what I wanna drink. I realise I am in a non-tourist part of town and therefore will be served a whole bottle of Vino Tinto...no way to resist the temptetation of knocking it down completely while working on my Tres Plats Del Menu del Dia- Postre exluded - dark red wine entering my blood stream and doing a serious number on my day time consciousness, mixing in my Gringo tummy with the Ensalada, Paella Valenciano and Bistec Con patatas...let´s not forget El Postre Que Es Aqui Helado de Cafelato.

Surrounded by locals who despite the twenty percent unemployment rate in this Hispanohablante country seem quite capable to pay the daily eight fifty for the daily midday meal, outside in a local bar while gossiping the latest news of Los Vecinos, have a smoke after the necesary intake of food, Una copa de Conyac on top of El Vino Tinto or Blanco De La Mesa...

I ponder on the latest happenings in my life , like the people from the Hostal explaining me this morning the visitors that were around last night while I was sketching Borrachos de Marruecos in La Plaza Reial, my newly found African buddies from the street asking if I was in probably having a bad day of street selling and a thirsty throat for Estrellas...

Persisitent buggers not realising this free Estrella adventure was a one time affair and no ¨Tampoco Tengo Una Hembra Europea willing to marry an illegal African inmigrant with big dreams but empty pockets, no sister or blond daughter willing to take care of the necesary paperwork, a place to stay with the marital bed included...

I am more interested in the two canadian cruise ship ladies having a few days off here in Barcelona untill their Crusero will start in earnest down and up the meditaranean coast, having a strong need for female companionship myself while kipping in a dormitory with males only for five consecutive nights now, the snoring of drunk Scotchmen who return home after long nights of bar hopping in the Barcelona nightlife, keeping me awake at night...

Remembering the soft midnight groaning of Thai Hot mommas with emotional attachments to a Ting Tong painter from far away Holland who always is willing to part with some Thai Baht for food and rent money, willing to let them have the art they pose for in midday sessions inside a fan controlled room while the temperatures soar well into their forties outside...

This Vino Tinto is defenitely doing its number on me and I still have to finish the other half of the bottle, try to get to my Hostal, sleep off dark red wine entering my blood stream with a certian vengeance of the past, making me remember things long since forgotten... 

El Menu Del Dia in Barcelona

Spain, Barcelona,
16 Nov. 2010.

I try hard to make sense of the board outside one of Barcelona´s many small bars, proclaiming the menu of the day, El Menu del dia as they call it in this part of the world. It goes a bit like this...

            Primers,

Mongeta Tendra
Rollito de Primervera
Amaita Tébita de Camamber

             Segons

Calamars a la Romana
Fricandpo amb. Xampinyars
Salsitxes amb. Patats

Beguda, Pa, Postre o Cafe

Good thing this is not my first stint in Catalunya´s capital though the Catalan language is not all that hard to master when one speaks Castellano, the amount of different dishes in this part of the world is staggering, adding to that the numerous pakistani, Chinese, Indian and assorted foreign inmigrant owned restaurants all quite willing to advetise their own dishes in the local limbo and it should be clear that one needs at least a couple thousand of dish names just to make sure one gets his or her necesay nutrients inside the Gringo tummy...

If there is one thing I have learned during my many trips to Catalunya, it is the fierce nationalistic feelings among the local populace, and though probably stronger then in El Pais Vasco...at least the Catalans manifest it in the wrtten word instead of blowing things up A La Manera Vasco.

Still, I love sitting in one of these typical spanish bars after a whole morning of wandering around, somewhere in a busy Carrer or Passeig and enjoy a great meal, Una Copa de Vino Tinto and a Cafecito Al Final Del Menu Del Dia, stronger as my stomach can take it.....

Racist police in Barcelona...or maybe not

Spain, Barcelona,
16 Nov. 2010.

In a few simple but profitable days I have managed to sell all the games I took with me from Amsterdam, a good deal of Dinero on top of my holiday budget, hanging out with dark skinned Africans who sell next to me in the busy streets of this Catalunya capital and are always willing, if not deperate to share some Estrellas with me at the end of a - for them anyway - stressful day...

I guess when you sell fake rolexes, not so real Rayban sunglasses and claim your jewelry is first class silver and gold though a few scratches with the human nail or the end of a room key will give the first layers away to the nickel underneath, complaints are bound to be filed...Barcelona´s finest trying hard to protect the Numero Uno reputation of a city thriving on the tourist buck...

Local shop owners not all that happy with illegal ambulant vendors spoiling their business but not paying taxes, rent of retail prices...yeah, small wonder Los Mossos D´esquadra are less interested in me and my handmade funny little games than in my dark skinned brothers who run on black soles like chicken do for the red colored fox, their wares slung around African shoulders, no eye for the blond Scandinavian sex bombs they were just mere minutes ago trying hard to impress with stories that had no real meaning apart from getting into Swedish female pants...

Not that my newly found buddies from that sorry continent see it that way, no way at all, according to them all the European police are racist and corrupt bastarts who have Pas De Respet for those that come from  impoverished african states where the average education for those from the street and the countrysite is minimal...

On and on they go in this small and obscure little local bar near the Platja Barceloneta while they knock down red colored alu cans of cold Estrella paid by poor Moi...Well, what can I say, I have heard it all before, more than once, C´est La Vie, C´est le monde. Mes Amis D´Afrique 

Free beer for African street sellers in Port Vell, Barcelona

Spain, Barcelona,
15 Nov. 2010.

¨Corre, Corre, Amigo, Ya vienen los Toros¨, and off they are, my fellow ambulant sellers, black as coal, their wares quickly wrapped in the blankets and sheets they sell them from out here in Port Vell in Barcelona, sunglasses and fake rolexes always good for making a quick buck in a tourist oriented city like the Catalunya capital, some fake gold and/or silver juwelry sold in the street by those that are illegal but had a head full with hopes for the future in the rich west when first they crossed the many loop holes of Fort Europe...

They run in the opposite dierction, away from Los Mossos D`esquadra who always love a good chase, run after illegal inmigrants from the dark continent and get a quick promotion...of course the white handmade Mandala seller is no serious option for them though they have clearly seen me and I can`t be bothered to run with my black newly found friends...just wait till this crazy cr*p is over and continue my ambulant activities...

In the end I find myself in a small bar paying a few Estrellas for my colleagues from the street whose life is made hard by local Toros - as these blokes call the coppers - remembering that if there is one thing an african male likes most apart from blond sex bombs, it is beer...my not so hard earned Dinero going down dark skinned thirsty African throats, a good way of making friends with people from a continent that have always beeen the downtrotten...

I tell them about my canoe trip down The Gambia River and the crazy backpacking I did in Sierra Leone looking for adventure in a country where blood diamonts made good fodder for child soldiers, my extra-marital affairs with Kenian hot Mommas in Nairobi, carefully leaving out my upcoming trip to Thailand...I don´t want these poor sods to believe I have plenty of D`argent and sell my games for old times´ sake...

The outlines of my mission

Spain, Barcelona,
14 Nov. 2010.

I slowly open first one eye and then the other, I see people half naked getting dressed, the semi-sickening smell of unwashed bodies after a night of boozing making me feel like puking...remembering the group of rowdy Scotchmen that entered the dormitory late at night, I sort of understand where the stink comes from, the noicy snoring in the bunk bed above me confirms my suspicions...

Contrary to yesterday my throat is parch dry making me remember the carton of cheap wine I finished off before going to bed, even in Spain, the one and only country of good Vino Tinto, the cheap stuff is better left alone!!!

But I remeber the outlines of my mission...three weeks of being out of the rheumatic Dutch autumn rain and bone chilling cold, walking around sunny Barcelona, sitting down every so often to read today edition of El pais or La Vanguardia while enjoying a strong expresso the Spainish way in one of the numerous bars in this great Catalunya city...

Maybe join the illegal African street sellers in Port Vell selling my handmade Mandala games and run when Los Mossos D`esquadra show up, making me remeber the years of Yonder, when I had Pas D`Argent, No dinero to speak of...

stroll the streets of this colorfull and cultural city, maybe do some sketches in my scrapbooks and have good food, El Menu Del Dia being quite affortable these days!!!

By Euro-Lines bus to barcelona

Spain, Barcelona,
13 Nov. 2010.

¨Estacion Santt, Barcelona, Estacion Santt, Barcelona, Todos Bajan Aqui¨, I open first one eye and then slowly the other, my tongue feels a bit dry but not like parchment as it does usually went I wake up in my own bed in Amsterdam...but then I am not in Amsterdam, I am in Barcelona, and that after a whole day and night travelling in a bus with a stinking toilet which door could not be closed, engulving the whole bus with a sour smell of fresh excrement whenever one of my fellow travellers had the evil nerves to use it...

A bus only half full with travellers, most of which I was sure had someting to hide considering they got into a nervous twitch whenever we croassed a border...19 Euro more and I would have been on a three hour flight from Amsterdam to this catalunya city...but then I was adamant doing it the old fashioned way, bunking it up with the lower levels of society...20 years ago it were the coffee shop types, down and out after a extended Mary-Jane holiday to Holland`s capital, the coffee shop dream world of Spanish blowheads with rasta hair, braids carefully bred over years of smoking pot....old and greasy jeans devoid of a laundry job as well as girlfriends that looked hardly better...

Nowadays it were East-European Roma, illegal immigrants from Marruecos visting relatives in the country were they once started their illegal status before moving up north...all of them giving me suspiciuous looks at roadside restaurant stops, scared of my sketchbook - good thing I forgot my camara on purpose -

But then I am on a mission, spending my hard earned dough, being away from Holland and feel the tongue of the Hispano-Hablantes enter my veins and make the neurons inside my gray Gringo brain mass do a dance, make a tumbler and get things sorted out the lazy Spanish way...maybe sell a few Mandala games again out at Port Vell surrounded by illegal African street sellers, or else on Las Ramblas which is nowadays covered by living statues from Roma origin as contrary to the bangles selling Hippies I use to mingle with years, and even more years ago...try to make to old years come back the possitive way by travelling the negative way...

Let´s wait and see how this trip will work out.

Sanny from the petting zoo and a crazy Ho from the street

Holland, Amsterdam,
11 Nov. 2010.

I can believe this crazy Ho walking the Red Light District of Amsterdam, dressed in net stockings, high heels and a tight green colored short and thin dress spanning over rolls of female fat, big sagging boobs nearly popping out of their prison, her eyes provocative and she is apperently totally unaware of the cold hail that alternates with the rheumatic rain that comes down in droves...

Tjee, this nutty lady, probably already into her fifties, must be on someting, crack most likely since it is the hard drug of choice for most alcoholics and druggies from the Amsterdam streets, cheap and easily available...

It almost seems like total injustice to draw her in my sketchbook right next to Sanny from the petting zoo in Amsterdam West who is a hard working lady and mother of little Charlotte, nearly three years old and bearing the same name as my own daughter her in good ole Mokum though my Charlotte is two years her senior...  

Mental Preparations...a new trip.

Holland, Amsterdam.
11 Nov. 2010.

It is slowly sinking into the gray cells, into the neurons that swarm around inside my Gringo skull...provided I wake up in time tomorrow morning, make it to Amstel Station in time and board that darned Eurolines bus...I will be on the way to Barcelona, nearly three weeks in the land of the original Hispanohablantes...

Twenty-four long and boring hours in an overland bus that will probably more or less take the same route as I took on my crappy bicycle when last I made it to the Catalunya capital, the Ciudad of Barca, the city that the Dutch soccer hero Cruiff considers his second home and where I have already been more times as I can remember...either on cycle trips during my nutty Bicycle Messenger Years, during my real young days of Interrailing, and later on selling trhe Mandala Game...

Yeah, can't deny the fact I am quite excited...maybe a ferry to Ibiza or some other Meditarenean island...nearly three weeks of being away from the Dutch cold...

LOVE IT!!!....Just need to get on that darned bus tomorrow.  

Westerchurch as seen from De Jordaan

Holland, Amsterdam,
10 Nov. 2010.

I cycle through rain and wind, high time for my departure to sunny Barcelona, the streets of my childhood far away though probably suffering from the same shitty weatherly conditions, wondering how far I have come in this life, a village boy moving to the big city and street wise beyond these long forgotten puppy years...

Or else, maybe a different life, a reincarnation brought about by the melangoly feelings inside my Gringo skull due to the depressing weather, sleek and damp cold making my bones feel like they got invaded by rheumatic pains...

Nearly a quarter of a century responsible for a comfortable feeling, coming out of time and familiarity, a farmer's son with the experience of backpacking through war-torn states like Sierra Leon, Cashmir and Birma - or was it called Myanmar? - where the police and assorted government controlled institutions were more of a threat than the Borrachos in rowdy Latin American bars in local Barrios Nocturnas....

Besieged by hatred and empathy of different races and skin color...shit it is cold!!!

Noi from Kachanabury

Holland, Amsterdam,
08 Nov. 2010.

I used to meet Noi at the Marine Disco in Pattaya's rowdy Walking Street dancing the night away with her before returning to my claustrophobic small room back in Soi Yamato when I was still staying above Lucky's bar, on the back of her scooter holding on to her for dear life while she would laugh out loud, amused to the max with my fear, half drunk on Chang beer and high in her dark skinned head by all the chemicals released by many hours of wild dancing...the expectations of great s*x with the Dutch Farang probably adding to her merry mood...

Soi Yamato where even at that advanced hour all these English bars with fancy names like The Dog's Bollocks where still in full swing, heavily tattoed Brittons loading their enormous bellies with Thai beer, more interested in smashing each other's intoxicated heads in instead of paying inflateds bar fines for the lady of their choise...

Noi who worked as a cleaning lady in some expensive hotel six days a week, twelve hours a day, who wanted fun on her one and only day of the week off...the way any young hard working lady the world over would I guess...

After years of seperation I met her again last winter during my latest stint in King Bhumipol's Asian realm, but the magic between us was gone the way the dinosaurs have from Planet Earth...

The portrait is from my mind and a small passport sized photograph she once gave me...we never had the time for sketches in my scrapbooks being too busy with the Adults Only Game I guess.   

Lidewij from Amsterdam

Holland, Amsterdam,
07 Nov. 2010.

This is Lidewij from Amsterdam though originally from the Dutch province Overrijsel, who came to Amsterdam to do her studies and hung on in good ole Mokum as many students from the Dutch hinterland tend to do after their graduation ...

I first met Lidewij at the petting zoo where I do my volunteer job, as always shovelling horse manure, goat shit and huge pig droppings, no pay but hard work nonetheless...

Lidewij came to check out one of our farm buildings, hoping for the blue prints to copy the structure back at the neighborhood farm which is just around the corner from the petting zoo and where my present model is involved in a volunteer project called Weggeef Winkel, a shop where you get your articles free of charge and runs on donations..an idea stolen from some obscure native American indian tribe...

The moment I saw her young finely shaped feminine face i knew I had to make a portrait of her...

For those of you who wonder - like all my friends here in Amsterdam do - how I get all these beauties to pose for me...the answer is really quite simple, JUST ASK...all women suffer from a certain dose of vanity and will therefore always wonder how beautifull they will turn out in the drawing. No is just no option for them...I never had a single woman say no!!!

Oh Yeah, thanks for posing for me Lidewij...hope you like the outcome.

People from my street

Holland, Amsterdam,
05 Nov. 2010.

With my head heavy with my latest hangover, a result of last night's boozing downtown looking for female companionship but only finding empty wine glasses that needed constant refills, I watch the world go by from the entrance of my house door...

The pages of my sketchbook fill up fast despite my shaking hands, with my subjects quite familiar, neighbors, people from my street getting inmortalised by my trembling hands, an old man in flanel suit patiently waiting for a sketch, happy with the result he walks on, "good work, mate" he tells me in English...

A few coppers on bike patrol heading for the Turkish bakery next door for their Döner Kebab lunch spare me ten minutes of their precious time, "Leuke Tekeningen, Meneer", before moving on....

A local woman with her grumpy son has got another ten minutes before disappearing inside the care centre on the ground floor of my house...

        

Yang from Shang-Hai

Yang from Shang-Hai, another couchsurfing guest whose company I enjoyed last week, another young Asian lady who found her way to my couch by means of http://www.couchsurfing.org/
....a comprehensible bike ride and the by now habitual Nasi Special Pork at the Kam Yin in the Warmoesstraat...

Yang was a typical victim of the Chinese one-child-policy, spoiled to the max by party member parents who had hardly any time for their one and only child due to party obligations, their daughter being used to a gran array of nannies from the Chinese hinterland speaking different dialects, who helped her through her childhood, parents who would make up their neglect by expensive gifts and costly private schooling...

Yang went to The States to study architecture "I like looking at buildings, Hans" and on to Kopenhagen in the Land of the Danes because it would look good on her resumé...

Being well into her twenties she was still unsure of what to do in her life, what direction to choose, still living on her dad's dough, always slightly bored with her surroundings, never wanting to go back to her native China, or maybe "no wait, maybe I do wanna go back soon"...

Yang from Shang-Hai, another Asian couchsurfer on my couch.   

Hosting couchsurfers

Holland, Amsterdam,
03 Nov. 2010.

Every so often now I have young nubile lady backpackers in my house, sleeping on my couch as a good couchsurfer member of http://www.couchsurfing.org/ should, taking them on comprehensible cycle tours, enjoying a free meal at my favorite Surinam Chinese restaurant called Kam Yin...

But most of all getting all that aspiration to paint, portraits from the dream world, Phillipino Hunting Girls and Thai Hot Mommas, Mexican Putazas with their teeth knocked out by Mexican Borrachos who had serious erection problems due to too much Tecate beer and Cactus fermented Pulque, hard knuckles landing on the dark eyes of impoveriched ladies of the night who had no options in this Vida but selling their bodies...all of them coming out of my crazy f*ucked-up gringo - or was it Farang -mind and getting immortalised in acrylic paint and Internet stories that have no real meaning...sometimes making me fear what the digital world will think of all this shit...

Still, these couchsurfing ladies with their huge backpacks filled to overflow with dirty knickers and assorted laundry, all find their way to my couch...a free meal at the Kam Yin is all it takes to spend time at a local male's house, a real street character who has been the world over and is willing to host...

Free food and artistic inspiration my reward for participating positively in the Amsterdam tourist industry.

The sad Buddha in acrylics

Holland, Amsterdam,
02 Nov. 2010.

The Sad Buddha which I already did in my sketchbook last winter - http://heraclio-heraclio.blogspot.com/2010/06/sad-buddha.html - while waiting out the Dutch cold in King Bhumipol's Asian realm, enjoying more agreeable temperatures and countless local Hot Mommas vying for my attention, the unattached male from Holland, that Farang Ting Tong painter from Amsterdam who is always willing to depart with some local currency for a hungry lady of the night who had bad luck on her side and no Farang customer to help her meagre wallet grow a bit fatter...

The Sad Buddha whose eyes fascinate me though it is my own artwork but seem to bore into mine making me remember all those Thai Yings I shared short or longer periods of my life with, to be met again the next year or maybe never again...

Yeah Buddha's sad eyes coming out of my own hands making me wonder if some hidden part of my Farang mind is trying to come to the forefront, trying to convey a message of some kind...

The Anne Frank House in Amsterdam.

Holland, Amsterdam,
31 Oct. 2010.

So finally a drawing of the tourist hotspot Numero Uno in Amsterdam, the Anne Frank House...on the "To-Do" list of nearly every visitor to Amsterdam - down and out young coffeeshop habitues excluded I guess.

The original house itself is the one in the middle, colored in green...the house on the far right behind the tree used to be a student's home with me hiding behind that infamous long line of tourists waiting for their turn to enter, selling my games without and before I acquired the benefits of my street selling licence, hiding from the police while making a bundle on funny handmade little Asian games that can be shaped in a multitude of different shapes, Mandala games that brought in all that black undeclared dough that enabled me to make my big and long backpack trips across Mother Earth in my younger years...

Not that the Dutch Amsterdam police were ever really Un Gran Problema with me keeping them informed of pickpocket and street robber activity in the neighborhood...now that I have the licence we are just more open about it with coppers on bike or foot patrol often stopping for a chat...

The student's home is nowadays part of the Anne Frank House and the tree in front of it is where you can find me on any sunny summer day selling and or making my games, answering typical tourist questions, looking after huge backpacks not allowed inside the House, having a chat with members from the nieghborhood, my friends, the Anne Frank security people or the coppers...

In short, a very free and happy life with me wintering in far-away Asia when snow and rain have chased me out of my beloved Mokum... 

Mary from Bangkok.

Holland, Amsterdam,
30-oct. 2010.

So there she is, an artistic version of Mary from Bangkok, a Leuk Kreug lady from Bangkok whose father she never got to know but was apperently an American Black marine, who was a  maybe twenty minutes acquintance of her mother, an Isan lady of the night who worked in one of the numerous bars that were to be found on the Patpong Sois off Chilom Road...twenty minutes were all that it took to father a mixed-race child that the black marine in question most likely never got to know about, a small little gift to the mother on top of the three hundert Baht shorttime before returning to his mega tonnage aircraft carrier...

Mary got an English/American name  which is not all that unusual in Thailand for Leuk Kreug babies and grew up in the bar her mother worked for surrounded by dozens of Hot Mommas from the impoverished provinces in Northern Thailand where she herself never set foot due to her mother being banned from her native village by parents and neighbors...

In her adult life she decided to work for a fast-cook noodle soup street shop off the backpacker's paradise hostel area called Khao sarn Road near the royal Palace in Bangkok where I first met her and did my first sketches of her in my scarpbooks...

Years later I saw her parading up and down on the Pattaya boulevard working out of the PS Guesthouse in rowdy Soi Yamato, working out of the biggest shorttime hotel in all of Pattaya situated in the rauchiest of all Sois in that crazy BIG PARTY resort place...

I guess she decided that working as a Thai Hot Momma was more provitable then waiting on tables for a street fast-cook restaurant surviving on a meagre salary and hoping for a even more meagre tips...following in her mother's foot steps and even getting beyond that.

My fat Pensionado neighbor

Holland, Amsterdam,
27 Oct. 2010.

So there he is, the fat Pensionado neighbor I blogged about the other day, the man that always groans and moans under his breath when he mounts the many steep stairs to his third floor appartment due to arithmic pains in his old bones...

That old survivor on his weird O-shaped legs always willing to tell me the latest gossip of the Spaarndammer Barrio where I live here in good ole Mokum...

The old fatso who always wants to hear about my latest trip to King Bhumipol's Asian realm, trying hard to steer our conversation in the direction of the Thai Hot Mommas walking up and down the Pattaya boulevard, their platform shoes - high heeled lady boots, you know, they call them platform shoes over there and are very popular - going clicketyclack on the pavement...the disappointment clearly visible in his reumy old man's eyes when I steer the conversation topic back to the teachings of Lord Buddha, and the merrits of living your life accordingly, even for us Farangs...

That old but friendly fat neighbor who always has time to spend while watching the world go by from the entrance of that old tilting typical Amsterdam house he lives in...ten minutes of his not so precious time and the prilimenary sketch was finished with the colors done later during the night...thanks old man.. 

Korte Prinsengracht plus gallery Van Slooten in Amsterdam

Holland, Amsterdam,
26 Oct. 2010.

Some houses on the Korte Prinsengracht in the heart of good old Mokum, my beloved Amsterdam...

The little house on the right belongs to Carla van Slooten, a Dutch/Amsterdam artist who does nudes, nature and portraits and The Funny Little Cat as well as workshops in aura reading and healing...

The groundfloor is her personal artelier and open to the public each saturday from 14.00 h. till 18 h.