Barking up the wrong tree...wrongfull irony

Holland, Amsterdam,
30-Sept. 2010.

With my ticket safe, my wintering stint in far-away Thailand in the back of my stained blue jeans, dough in the bank to live it up while the Brotherhood of Westerpark Drunks is freezing their balls off surviving on luke-warm cheap supermarket beer, lots of bad l;uck and malignious curses aplenty mentally send alcross uncharted fast oceans to my New Star Guesthouse and poor Moi...,"how does he do it?" while knocking down another dirt cheap Pilsener...

Far away on my habitual chair drinking tasty cold Leo, watching the Yings in the massage parlour across the road clamouring for clientêle, waiting for Miss Make Pose little Bit, Make Love Nit Noi, I could feel the hatred and jealousy from a past I was mostly done and over with, enjoying the attentions of Hot Momma models who were happy enough to be models to a Ting Tong Farang ameteur painter who never had any motivation in life but enjoyment to the fullest..."sorry Miss Jif but I don't like to feature in the Bangkok Post sunday supplement like Peter Klashorst making big propaganda for his Tuol Sleng torture museum project", "not interested in fame and glory, riches and all that comes with it...I will make money enough in front of the Anne Frank House again this coming summer...

Ring...Ring...Ring...my phone bringing me back to the here and now, reminding me I promised Ingrid to help her out with a troublesome pony back at the petting zoo, sweating and transpering here in my bed in Amsterdam, taking a nap and relaxing from shovelling horse manure all day....

Reminding me that barking up the wrong tree is still wrongfull irony, no Jiff, Tuk or Joy knocking down my door with little feminine knuckles but a plain and simple telephone call reminding me of my social duties...  

Houses on Prinsengracht as seen from Amstel

Holland, Amsterdam,
29 Sept. 2010.

I consider myself rich, maybe not in fanancial gains though the summer as been good to me as far as this colored paper and nikkel stuff is concerned...no I feel rich with the two tickets in my house while I cycle around the city looking for an opportune place to place my Farang ass and make a city sketch in my scrap book...

A two week trip to Barcelona in november and maybe beyond and soon after that a long wintering trip once again to the Land of the Holy Thais, travelling down to Muslim-ruled Malaysia and the colorfull Chinese city state of Singapore, a five days stop in Dubay three months later on the way back...holy sh*t in heaven I will have to stock up on sketchbooks again...

Close to the famous Skinny Bridge I find my treasured spot of peace and tranquility, opportune for a quick sketch of houses on Prinsengracht as seen from Amstel.

No outside-marital contact for a Somali woman

Holland, Amsterdam,
28 Sept. 2010.

Living in Amsterdam, a melting pot of cultures and nationalities, and being an aficionado of portrait painting, I consider myself lucky...lucky with all the inspiration that a single sorty out of the house will provide me, people from every corner of the globe walking up and down the Spaarndammerstraat. Dressed in their tradional garb or in plain old blue jeans spanning over the well-shaped behind of a Turkish female behind,  a Somalia refugee lady with colorfull head covering or maybe an old Marrocan man, grey bearded and with his slippers and Djalebba, on the way to the mosque around the corner to pray to Allah...

A group of young immigrant school girls in the Albert Heyn supermarket queue in front of me, talking in a gibberish of Dutch and incomprehesible Arabic, giggling and sub-consciously redoing their neutral black-colored head scarves...

In this city my inspiration is everywhere, filling my head with color-rich images that need to get out at night with my acrylics paint flying wildly in my house and the result even wilder and more colorfull....

I know nothing about the dark-skinned lady in this painting though suspect she is Somali or maybe somewhere nearby in the horn of Africa, have never seen her in the company of another human being, never heard her conversing with the cassieres of the neighborhood's supermarkets or shops, quietly doing her shopping, shyly avoiding contact with the other city dwellers, self-consciously dropping her  eyes when walking by my door where I often watch the world go by....

A loney being in an otherwise lively city or else has been forbidden any outside-marital contact by a Allah-devout husband back home...

Acrylics on wood

Thai female faces from the dream world (part five)

Holland, Amsterdam,
26 Sept. 2010.

Another female face from my dream world, or else maybe based upon the beautifull eyes of miss Rose from Aidelaide, Land of Oz  but of Vietnamese origine and who found herself a night free of charge on my couch by means of http://www.couchsurfing.org/

It were after all her eyes that kept reminding me of these big Asian shiners in this painting which I did last week way ahead of her stay with me this weekend....

Sharing a glass of wine with her last night when she arrived, and a bicycle ride across town this morning showing her around ancient Amsterdam, playing the experienced tour guide free of charge...or maybe my pay was her charming company and the free meal we had for lunch in the Kam Yin...

Thanks for staying with me, Rose 

The benefits of my destruction

Holland, Amsterdam,
24 Sept.2010.

A mad rush into the city after a near nervous breakdown waiting all morning in my house, waiting desperately for a winter breaking telephone call, permission from the city's finest for another three month winter stint in far-away Thailand...that mystic kingdom at the other side of the globe where I feel complete but at the same time a complete stranger...that crazy place where everything is Sanuk and the benefits of destuction have no meaning...where I have the nutty conviction I am seeing the world the way it is...

I cycle under an occult sun that should have seen me at my Plekkie at the Anne Frank House selling my games before the last of this late summer copper colored sun is giving way to the ravages of King Winter, forcing me once again to feel locked up inside my house hating the cold of the Dutch winter...

But no, this mad rush into the city centre is serving a higher goal, a well deserved three months of Thai Sanuk, cold beer, Khao Pad Khong the way I like it, or else a huge bowl of noodle soup with fresh vegetables, chicken, pork or beef, eaten out in the street among the locals and Farang wintering visitors, at bargain prices and under a warm and comfortable sun, Yings everywhere eyeing me shrewdly, keen interest in slant Asian female dark shiners that promise me the world and beyond...

Pattaya, where ladies of the night run down my New Star Guesthouse door, all so willing to pose for me, happy with a few hours of relaxation from the boulevard, who carry fried barbequed chicken legs and warm soya milk along, cold Leo beers for the crazy Ting Tong painter from ancient Amsterdam whose wallet is fat once again due to a whole long but pleasurable Dutch summer outside the Anne Frank House selling funny little games that they like to use as impromptu bracelets...

A well deserved ever lasting holiday far away from my beloved Mokum, my chaotic house near the Westerpark where Hot Momma knuckles are replaced by the insistent doorbell ringing of members of the Westerpark Brotherhood of Professional Drunks eager to borrow D'Argent for coffeeshop related purposes, cheap beer from Appie Heyn supermarket at the end of the street, strong bodily foul smells of stale alcohol and heavy tabacco accompanying their barging up my stairs, stained social wellfare papers to prove their financial status in the week to come...

Often making me feel like there are definite benefits to my eminent destruction...if it wasn't for my yearly winter stops in King Bhumipol's Asian realm...     

A first class Israeli Mandala buyer

Holland, Amsterdam,
23 Sept. 2010.

I am quite used to bargain-happy groups of Israeli Mandala buyers, after all the Israeli race is originally a merchant race, always in the mood to bring the price down, having hassled me at the world famous Anne Frank House for years to get my funny little Mandala games for as cheap as possible, often making me feel like they actually insult my handiwork, have Pas De Respect for the work coming out of my own hands...why give people a discount for a product that is sold way under the real price to begin with, a handicraft street product that sells much faster as I can possibly produce them, five Euro a game or three for ten though someone is selling them at La Tour Eiffel in Paris for ten Euro a piece and still making a bundle...

Still, the bloke figuring in this portrait, a jewish family man, father of four well behaved kids, bought four games paying me fifteen Euro without a murmer and asked me if I would like a few spare Euros for a beer later at night...I told him 2 Euro for a bottle of South- African Vino Tinto called Mooi Kaap, would be just fine...

Ten minutes of posing for me was Pas De Problem either...

Thai female faces from the dream world (part four)

Holland, Amsterdam,
22 Sept. 2010.

Another Thai female face from my crazy dream world though I have to admit I had the aid of some sketches from my scrap books...Joy loved to pose for me...

This is Joy whom I met some five years ago, or maybe four...at 51 years of age and over twenty-five years of determined Farang hunting as a lady of the Pattaya night, poor Joy has experienced it all, beatings a-plenty by dissatisfied customers with er*ctional problems due to too many Chang and Thai whiskey, Western s*x freaks with outrageous physical demands, outright refusals of payment for services rendered, johns from all over the world s*x starved for young and nubile Thai yings, the corrupt to the core Thai Tamruat ...well, I am reasonably sure you get the general idea...wh*re tough to her very heart but still in the possession of a big heart...

But if you wanna read some more about her sorry life, you might like to read this blog story I wrote last winter during my latest stint in Pattaya http://heraclio-heraclio.blogspot.com/2010/03/another-ting-tong-painter-in-pattaya.html , feel free to contact me if you enjoy reading more about her sorry life or just search the blog.

Hannes working out

Holland, Amsterdam.

This is Hannes, my three year old neighbor's son who loves to sneak into my house, fascinated by all my cans of paint, my pensils and markers lying around at random, my drawing adorning the walls, my paintings covering every free space, the wooden masks in my dirty bathroom as well as all the other typical male stuff b...elonging to a confimred bachelor...

Hannes also is a frequent visitor to the animal farm for children where I fill in a volunteer job, either coming together with his two mothers - Hannes parents are a female lesbian couple - or in the rumourfull company of his day care playmates, often following me around all morning keeping me from my hard work...

In this photo you see him doing a serious work-out with my push-up bars.

Marga from New York

Holland Amsterdam,
18 Sept. 2010.

This is Marga from New York and probably one of my last customers of this year, buying Mandala game number 1400 and happy enough to take the time to pose for me...

As always when I do a portrait of a fellow human being, I like to hear their life story hoping to understand my subjects a bit better and try to get their stories come out in the portraits I draw...

Marga is in her middle fifties, recently divorced and came to Amsterdam to discover her Dutch roots as well as mentally recovering from her painfull seperation of a member of the Adam human race, having been married most of her adult life but unfortunately no children which she considered the reason of her divorce...

Thanks for taking the time to pose for me, Marga, and I hope Amsterdam will help you to get your feet back on steady emotional grounds...

Thai female faces from the dream world (part three)

Holland, Amsterdam
17 Sept. 2010.

Another face from my f*cked-up dream world, fequently featuring in my midnight fears and angst though our contact was always positive and based upon mutual respect...a lady happy enough to wash down countless alu cans of Chang paid by poor me but equally happy to pay me can after can of Leo beer once a good fat wallet Farang customer had passed by in her Hot Momma life, a mere thrity minutes stint in the dirty PS Guesthouse with a overweight sweaty visitor from the Rich West would result in a couple of rosy banknotes easily transformed in some Leo beers for the friendly Dutch old hand whose sketchbook seemed to be his most prized possession...

Ha, the PS Guesthouse, the biggest shorttime hotel in all of Pattaya, where Lek, the unfriendly receptionist lady is rumoured to be still a virgin by her Farang boozing clientele down in the foyer though already in her late thrities if not her early forties...the place where all the Ya-Ba addicted Hot Mommas down on the boulevard drag their johns to despite the huge brown colored rats and oversized cockroaches co-excisting with a steady amount of Khatoeys and an ever returning number of mostly Belgians and Dutch habituees who use the foyer to indulge in their eternal quest for Chang and Thai whiskey...

The name of this lady...I don't seem to remember but I do recall quite vividly how she pointed to her crotch when I asked her if she ever had thought about opening a bank account, save up some cash and maybe use it to buy a souvenir shop, massage parlour or hair salon, telling me "this down here is my bank, Phom Tilak Hans"...

Thai female faces from the dream world (part two)

Holand, Amsterdam,
15 Sept. 2010.

acrylics on wood and done in my house in Amsterdam after finishing my volunteer job at the animal farm for children, shovelling horse and goat manure all morning without pay though the excersize comes for free and would otherwise cost me a small fortune at a local gym

Thai female faces from the dream world

Holland, Amsterdam,
14 Sept. 2010.

With Autumn in the air and still several months before my usual wintering stint in King Bhumipol's Asian Realm, I return to these Thai Hot Momma faces that have been "plaqueing" my dream world for most of last summer, painting them in my house from memory and pen sketches in my scrap books.

Acrylics on wood.

A Dirty Old Man's Stint In Thailand

Holland, Amsterdam,
13 Sept. 2010.

Well, the season might be nearly over but Hans The Big Director, aka The Big Practical Joker, aka The Specialist On Amsterdam Humour - the amount of nicknames I have given this Craze over the 23 years of being neighbors in our mutual ambulant street selling activities, is actually quite extensive - is still selling his Amsterdam city prints like sweet pancakes, boring the whole neighborhood including the Anne Frank House staff shitless and getting all the other Westermarkt business people purple in the face with envy...

Everybody but me, that is...I know after all I will be wintering again in far-away Thailand, that mysterious kingdom at the other side of the world where the local Hembras besiege my New Star Guesthouse room like a pack of starving cats smelling an old piece of tasty cheese at the other side of the door, all willing to pose for me and dragging the colorfull but crazy remains out En Masse to sell it on the boulevard to either the expat community or else the Krung Thep elite...if nothing comes out of that mister Hans The Ting Tong Painter from Holland can always be reliayed upon for a meal for a starving Hot Momma or maybe the doctor's bill overdue by a whole century - well, at least since last I was there - maybe three months of rent or these typical female paraphenelia stuffed in gray colored garbage bags, will be stored into eternity...

That weird and mysterious nation ten hours of flying from Amsterdam where the food is tasty and filling, nutricious to the max and the Leo cans of beer cold to the touch, where my chair outside is always kept warm by the mototbike Taxistas and passing Yings will always greed me politely in passing, dubious respect for the old Dutch hand to a big party place where American marines took a break from mass-killing Vietcong warriors or else innocent undereducated villagers, balling equally undereducated villagers daughters who need cash to feed hungry baby mouths maybe fathered by these same sex-starved marines...

With these toughts running wild inside my Farang skull, I watch Hans The Practical Joker sell print after print, in between his customers pushing me for more and more Thai Hot Momma related stories, physically and mentally preparing himself for another stint of a Dirty Old Man's Stay in Thailand...

Old houses on Amsterdam's Leliegracht

Holland, Amsterdam,
12 Sept. 2010.

When the consistent patter of rain battering my windows, finally stops I can give in to my mad urge of cycling to the Anne Frank House, in the hopes of making some last summer time money, more dough, more D'argent or maybe just some pocket money selling my Mandala games...

But then even pocket money, small change in this Farang Land, will go a long way in the Land of the Holy Thais this coming winter, or else just a few spare Euro for a tasty take-away from the Kam Yin in the Warmoes straat, 2 Euro for a cheap bottle of Vino Tinto to while away a boring night in front of my telly dreaming about the Yings of King Bhumipol's realm...

Needless to say my sketchbook is always in my Mandala suitcase, sketching in a tourist district definitely a serious enterprise, a way to attract El Senyor Turista's attention and make the aforementioned colorfull paperwork and nickel stuff go there where it belongs, my ever fatter growing wallet...

And though hope is an indulgence that has never given me enough time in my crazy life, I cycle home with more money made in a few lazy hours as the Anne Frank House's security guards make in a whole day patrolling the queue, scaring off the Westermarkt alcoholics working the line for spare change and aggressive Roma pickpockets..

Hans, The Big Director

Holland, Amsterdam,
11 Sept. 2010.

Hans, The Big Director, involved in his favorite activity, busy with his most prominent passtime, being on the Look-out for pick pockets in front of the Anne Frank House

Bridge and houses of Bloemgracht in Amsterdam

Holland, Amsterdam,
06 Sept. 2010.

I still sell my games quicker as I can possibly make them...still I feel more relaxed these last days of summer, sitting outside the Anne Frank House ignoring the senseless remarks, the stupid jokes of Mister Big Director, aka The Practical Joker and specialist on Amsterdam humor though he seems totally unaware he is liked by nobody on Westermark, banned repeatedly from entering the Anne Frank House but selling his Amsterdam prints like sweet pancakes, claiming them to be all originals like the Russian mop he buys them from and who sell them on Leidseplein and Rembrantplein, but in reality computer outprints that cost little more then the cheap paper they are printed on...

I ignore his repeated female unfriendly remarks on tourist Hembras walking by, his outright screams concerning mean and money-tight Germans, French or whatever nationality refusing his prints on the grounds of too expensive prices....

Instead I concentrate on Nong's sweet voice talking an endless array of erotic promises inside my Farang skull, reminding me of the lifetime bond between us despite her commitment to Per, her Norwegian sugar daddy...

I concentrate on the Amsterdam urban world around me, slowing down on the Mandala games production, making sketches of Bloemgracht at the other side of the Prinsengracht, my markers and pens strewn all around me, mixing with my Mandala wire, my colored beads and pairs of pincers - my Mandala production equipment, You know - and a certain proof of my chaotic life...

As always when I sketch a crowd is quick to gather and in the end I sell 13 games and feel happy enough with my sketch of Bloemgracht houses and bridge.

Brenda Aus/from Hamburg

Holland, Amsterdam,
04 Sept. 2010.

This is Brenda from Hamburg who bought three of my funny, little games today and invited me for a coffee, telling me in a mix of German and English all her big dreams, about meeting the right guy and getting a house full of children, offspring that she believed would bring her fullfillment in her otherwise empty as yet life, hopefully many hours of joy babysitting her grandchildren in older age...

"I don`t like the idea of withering away behind the proverbial Geranien..."

At 25 years of age I guess she still has quite a few years left to realise her dreams!!!

Old houses on the Amsterdam Prinsengracht

Holland, Amsterdam,
03 Sept. 2010.

Under a perfect late summer sun and not too many customers for my one-man Mandala business, I can finally relax, still sitting nearly every sunny day outside the world famous Anne Frank House selling and making my games...take my sketchbook and concentrate on the Amsterdam urban landscape all around me...

Quick and fast sketches of old Amsterdam Herenhuizen, maybe a few drawings of the people waiting outside in a queue that is at this time of year remarkably short...

A good way of attracting attention too, people coming over to have a look-see at my handywork, asking me if I have a webside where I publish this stuff, are they for sale...oh, and what about these funny little games..are they for sale too?

In the end I cycle home with 13 games sold, a free coffee from an elderly American tourist couple, a sketch of old houses on the Amsterdam Prinsengracht - nothing special but some quick lines done with my markers, maybe a touch of water colors tonight...