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!!!