A personal quest and the trap it represented

Amsterdam,

In Lord Morpheus dream world I still travel the countries of this crazy world as I used to do in my younger years, my worn backpack and mouldy sleeping bag, sweaty T-shirts and dirty bleu jeans - no Mum back home with a washing machine and personal care and love - , my only possessions, a sketchbook full with city sights in aquarel, ready to sell in the world's capitals for a few Pesos, French Franks or German Deutschmark, Tatty Indian Rupees or maybe the worthless Turkish Lira, money so necessary for the daily exspences like food, Bratwurst and Sisj Kebab, never mind a hotel, the bridges in Italy's capital will keep me dry and out of a way from a windy night sleeping under them in the company of down and out winos, raggedly dressed homeless and assorted dregs of any society in this so-called civilised world...

Always on my personal quest, the understanding of the human mind, or maybe enlightenment to the reasons behind the violence I personally witnessed in countries that Mister President Bush would still like to call the Axis of Evil, invade them at a moment's notice...sketching locals in the street for a few meagre local Yen, a caricature for Thai Baht or Mexican currency, the Burrito so much necessary for my physical wellfare...can't affort a local hospital without my non-excistence travel insurance...always asking my customers, my my models for personal info, well placed questions to creep into their minds unnoticed, try to incoporate their private news in my drawings...

Now that I about to enter the autumn of my life I have a house, a place to get back to, but still doing my street "thing", selling my funny little games, making sketches of my models and customers, city sights in aquarel, my fingers holding my pens, markers, pensils ect, high tailing across white colored paper, my tongue still asking way too many questions, creeping into my models' psyche...not caring much any more about that hopeless quest but having fallen into the trap it represented!!! 

 Ah yeah, and apart from all this crazy personal B*llshit, I hope you like these houses on Singelgracht here in my beloved Amsterdam...I cycle by them nearly every day...  

Io sone Lydia from Palermo, signore

Lydia from Palermo who bought three of my games last week, whose hairs were in disarray because of the strong wind that was harrasing my beloved Amsterdam all week and stopping me from going to the Anne Frank House, as usual on my crappy old bike, my battered Mandala suitcase tied to the back...one quick sorti hoping for some nice dough, maybe a bottle of Vino Tinto as a reward for my bravery later at night in front of my telly...  

Nick from Glasgow

Amsterdam,

This is Nick from the Scottish town called Glasgow, or has he pronounced it Glasglow, who complained  vehemently that he was decined entree into the Anne Frank House because of his Fuck You T-shirt...

Explaining to Nick the particular nature of the Anne Frank House policy considering the sad story of that poor Jewish girl hiding from Nazi swines and still ending up with a horrendous death in a Polish death camp run by Oekrainian coloborators did very little to brighten his foul mood or  inspire some sort of enlightenment or sympathy for the message the Anne Frank House organisation is trying hard to get across to the world...

I suggest you return back to these British bars on Leidseplein, Nick, where you probably picked up the foul, alcohol dominated breath earlier this morning and add some more pints of Heineken to that already massive beer belly of yours... 

Li Fang from Beijing

Amsterdam,

Li Wang is actually part of a tour group but unless most Chinese I have met over the years at the Anne frank House selling my funny little and very profitable Mandala games, Li is not too shy to come over and have a look at my handicraft stuff...my open sketchbook showing my latest models, two Thai monks last week in their tradional orange colored robes instantly cathes his Chinese eyes...a long search through the other pages showing all my other models anex customners plus as a bonus thrown in: still some pages with my Thai models from last winter, some of them in the nude, makes his yellowish colored roundish oriental face light up...

Maybe I can do his portrait too, even willing to pay me some old Dutch guilders his neighbors back in his huge Beijing apartment building brought back from their trip to our windmill ruled country - De Kinderdijk and De Zaanse Schans must have been on their Must-Do-List I realise while I listen to this comical description of my native Holland...

I do his portrait for free, one for him and one for my blogspot and sell him four games for 12 Euros - sorry Li but Dutch guilders are out and Euros being the newest currency - and get the whole of the tour group buying my other games...

Good business for me on a rainy and windy Dutch sunday morning in good old Mokum!!!

Two friendly Thai monks at the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam

Amsterdam,

I met these two friendly Thai monks at the Anne Frank House today, still sweaty and the penetrant smell of cow shit and pig urine hanging around me notwithstanding - having just arrived at my Plekkie after my shift of voluntarily cleaning stables at the Westerpark Kinderboerderij, that petting zoo where I have been doing my "thing" for nearly eight years now, two mornings a week of hard work and no pay but the friendly smiles of neighborhood youngsters and their parents my greatest reward - they were quite willing to give me some of their precious monkhood time to pose for me...

Being dressed in their tradional orange Thai monk robes and one of them even carrying his Bindabaad alms bowl atracted quite the scene despite today being a quiet day with hardly a queue  to speak of, a remarkably short line of people waiting to see the world famous Achterhuis on the Amsterdam Prinsengracht...

ten minutes of drawing and nine games sold, a free coffee from a Texas family man whose huge beef belly fell well over his cattle belt - where have I recently seen that before? - "well done, mate", in his Texas drawl while handing me my capuccino, hot and steaming,  sugar free, just the way I like it...

Thanks to all the other international tourists watching me sketch Thai monks and paying me all these compliments, I appreciated it...hope the viewers on the Sacred Internet enjoy these drawings too!!! 

   

Leroy from Atlanta

This is Leroy from Atlanta who told me he loves the Amsterdam architecture, in his own words; "I just love the Amsterdam houses, mon", while waiting patiently for me to do his portrait...

As a bricklayer in his native Atlanta I can understand he has special feelings for the local architecture...

Thanks for the buying my games, Leroy, giving me your precious tourist time for this drawing and the two pints we had together in Cafe Prinsen on the Prinsengracht, just five minutes walking from the Anne Frank House...

Mhem from Khon Kaen

Amsterdam,

This is 28 year old Mhem from Isan's economic boomtime town Khon Kaen, the heart of Thailand's infamous Isan provinces, the northern Thai villages where most of these Hot Mommas the crazy sex-starved Farang males that invade Thailand's beaches year after after year En Masse lust after...

Khon Kaen that has a florishing textile and farming hinterland and makes for a nice and lively stopover if you are on your way to Vientiane in Laos for a visa run...plenty of young local Hot Mommas not yet ready for the big plunge into the Go-Go Bar ruled world of Pattaya or Patong Beach in Phuket, maybe the Soi Cowboy or Nana Plaza nightlife of Sukhumvit Road in Krung Thep/Bangkok, but already willing to please the Farang male traveller with his fat wallet that wander the nocturnal streets and bars of the Isan Khon Kaen town...

It was in one of these bars in Khon Kaen that Mhem found her French Tilac...18 years old and as yet unaware of the harsh life of a more mature and experienced Thai bar girl, she followed her new found frog lover - 40 odd years her senior - to his native Paris, convinced he would give her two/three Leuk Kreug children and she would do the Me Bhan household while he was busy bring in the daily French Baquette...instead she ended up in a exclusive Paris Bordello making more as just a daily Baquette - on her back you know...which Monsieur Frog pocketed...

Once back to Thailand it was high heeling the Pattaya boulevard looking for elderly half drunk Farang males with foul alcohol drenched breath and stinking perpiring bodies, sun burned and all that...banned by her folks back in the Khon Kaen area, shame having taken the better of herself and parents...

I respected her Pas De Baiser and payed her handsomly for these sketches in my New Star room last winter...

Phom Tilak Gail from Krung Thep

Unlike the major part of the Hot mommas I met during my frequent trips to Pattaya, that Farang male party place only two hours by bus east of Bangkok, Gail is from Krung Thep instead of these poor under-educated poor creatues of the Thai nightlife who mostly originate from the impoverished northern provinces in King Bhumipol Asian kingdom, reasonably well educated and in the possession of a three bedroom apartment in Thailand's capital...

No Thai hubbie and five kids with her teenage lover forced her to walk Pattaya's boulevard - just like so many of her Thai female contemporaries - in search of h*rny Farang males with fat well groomed beer bellies and even fatter wallets - who am I to question the actions of a God - Kop Khun Mahk and I need Beaucoup de Baht for my prodigy...maybe some more for my cash flow problem in the making...

Anyway, back to Gail who I first met four, maybe five years ago, her arm in a massive plaster cast due to "me fell off motorbike taxi while Mau - and was therefore unable to get her daily bread together tough like any other Thai in distress, always beaming enormous smiles at me...I supported her until it was back to business, back to soliciting days for her, back to the heavy weight of hairy, fat and sweaty Farang male bodies coupling with her in exchange for a few hundert Thai Baht, the alcohol drenched breath lingering in her Asian nostrils for hours afterwards...

 The friendship stayed with Gail coming over to my New Star Guesthouse room often, big bottles of Hong Thong whisky and bags of ice, American Coca Cola and Thai Red Bull to spice this liquid concoction up a bit - not a combination to recomment, take it from me, unless you are in love with massive hangovers Le Jour Prochain...

Thanks for the countless posing sessions in my New Star room, the horrible hangovers, and the great frienship Phom Tilak Gail frrom Krung Thep...   

Bridge across Brouwersgracht

An artistic view of a bridge across Brouwersgarcht in Amsterdam....

Done with Markers and acrylic on newspaper

Logan Mc'Donell from Texas

Amsterdam,

This is Logan from Texas who told me all about his family Ewing type of ranch he owns near Houston, big as a French castle, would even get Pope Benetictus envious, a garage full with Feraries and Harley Davidson Black Bobs, "the best motorbike ever built and I own four of them"....his big well groomed beer belly hanging over his cattle belt shaking with hiccupped laughter, fat jowls trembling while he tried valiantly to regain his breath, huge rolls of fat under his chin making him look like he lacked a neck...

Sorry Logan but in my opinion you are an ungly and bolsterous bragger, too much mouth and no balls or respect for your fellow human beings   

Unknown character at the Anne Frank House

Amsterdam,

I saw this unkmown but friendly looking character at the Anne Frank House today, waiting in a queue that was remarkably short...  

Valentina from Freiburg

Amsterdam,

This is 20 year old Valentina from Freiburg, a mixed race young lady with a Ghanese dad and a German mother who grew up in Freiburg though visited her dad's native Accra in Ghana while she was still in her infancy, not remebering much of it apart from all the typical African dust and hectic traffic...

As my latest coucsurfer she was really impressed with the walls of my two room apartment here in Amsterdam West, or at least with all the colorful home made art covering the old brick stone walls that constitute Die Mauer of this crappy ancient house I live in...needless to say that the portrait was free of charge...

Valentina's life philosophy is "Don't Worry Be Happy"!!!

I enjoyed your stay in my house, my dear...always feel welcome next time around I would say...

Valentina from Freiburg

Done with the dead wino

Amsterdam,

I feel like being done with the dead wino, feel like being seriously and thoroughly done and over with, really fed up with these Thai inspired nightmares that consume my Farang trained Chai, do a real Numero Uno number on my already seriously fucked-up mind,  my gray brain mass going helter-skelter...

In my mind's eye I am trying vainly to puch liquids into Moo's coughing mouth, attempting to clean her up, medicating her, comfort her in her most darkest hours of need...

Yeah, I still remember these nights when she coughed her poor female Thai heart out, trembling in my arms back there in my New Star Guest House 350 Baht a night room, apologising to me for disturbing my must needed sleep but refusing a quick mid night taxi drive to the Pattaya Hospital next to Disco Duck, her emaciated body shivering...

Her words still echoing inside my sleep deprived Farang mind, "me not like cos is like you customer me", another fit of heavy coughing cuting her short and my feeling wavering between bodily forcing her to that nutcase taxi drive and respecting her feelings and crazy Thai logic...

In the end it were her feelings and Thai logic I opted for, making me feel obsolete in a mental way now, more shit for my dream world haunting me...

Been there before but didn't learn the lesson though, I guess!!!

In this painting on the Thai Bangkok Post newspaper I see her like she was in my latest nightmare...turning her back to me...     

Maria De Madrid

                                              Amsterdam,

Maria De Madrid is only interested in having a look at my work, "Solito Me Gustaria Ver, Senyor", she told me arms folded across her chest like in some sort of self-protection stance...

In the end she bought four games for twelve Euro and gave me ten minutes of her precious tourist time for this drawing...

Thank You Maria, Muchas Gracias como Se Dice En Tu Idioma!!!

More sketches of Anne Frank Huis visitors

Some people I sketched while they were waiting for their turn to enter the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam.

Madame Stoeptegel ( part three )

Amsterdam, 11 May 2011.

Found this sketch the other day of Madame Stoeptegel aka Tui aka Miss Heineken...well, I did several sketches of her, quite a few modelling session in my room with this volatile Asian Hot Momma posing for me in the nude, big bottles of Chang and ashtrays full with Burmese sigars her only vices when she was with me...

Though I have to admit quite a few of my friends where scared out of their Farang heads of her...

Like Kees who got "send" away from his Dutch Bench, "I have been sitting here for 15 years already", he protested. Tui's respond was a serious attempt to smash his Dutch Farang head in with her favourite weapon, her Stoeptegel...Kees took the warning to heart!!!

Ronny from Belgium who we call Rambo despite his diminutive skinny body and who was called Baby Man by Tui who didn't like his piercing eyes, "his eyes are like Indian arrows going through my Chai", she would tell me adding "one day I will take them out of his sockets"....

I guess I could bring forward another bunch of examples but let it suffice to say she deserved her Nick!!!

Me and some of my couchsurfers

Amsterdam, 10 May 2011.

From left to right...Janet from Taiwan, me - of course - , Petra from Slovenia and Ana from Colombia.

Me in the front room of my chaotic house in Amsterdam.

Amsterdam, 10 May 2011.

Made by Petra from Slovenia, one of couchsurfing guests.

Mai Suparb on the early sunday morning

Amsterdam,

Ding Dong it goes inside my Farang mind which at this early sunday morning is still in far-away Thailand, remembering my last week with Nong spending our evening at the Suzie Wong Bar in Soi Cowboy...and that just a small month ago...

Ding Dong it goes again bringing me back to the present where I am in my own street unlocking my bicycle, tying my black with silver banded suitcase to the back of my Giant mountain bike, as always looking forward to another sunny day out at the Anne Frank House, facing the queue of international tourists waiting patiently for their turn to experience the emotional feelings being release while wandering through the world famous Achterhuis, The Dagboek pages of a Jewish girl in hiding from the horrors of the German gas chambers in Poland being devoured while the Dutch sun beams down on foreign heads...

Ding Dong it goes again inside my Amsterdam skull like the impersonation of a modified doorbell...not that I need to look up from unlocking my bike...I know by instinct what this Ding Dong shit is warning me off...Rob, raggedly dressed, big badly looked after horse teeth flashing, pieces of tabbaco stuck between them, the smell of stale beer coming out of the slimy gab that is his mouth, entering my nostrils, making me feel like puking, big unhealthy drops of sweat rolling down his forhead, betraying me the enormous amount of beer that went down his throat last night...

I don't need to know what is up, I don't need to know he has had my house under constant surveilance all morning...I don't need the wondrous chemicals inside my gray brain mass to be released, reminding me off the countless other times, similar to today's early sunday morning...Mai Suparb on the early sunday morning...it is a reddish ten Euro note he is after, a spliff from La Republica coffee shop in the Staatslieden Buurt, a bunch of cheap pilsener, luke warm and all that from the Appie Heyn supermarket...

Shit three times in a row, whish I was back in King Bhumipol's Asian realm!!!

Melissa Di Milano

"Io Sono Melissa Di Milano", this Italian lady told me while I did my little Mandala story in Italiano...La Forma Inniale, Il Sole, La Farafala, Il Mondo Etc...realising that over the years of selling my funny little games in the streets of the world I have memorised my little Mandala sales story in quite a number of languages, believing it makes my international list of customers feel more at ease being adressed in their own tongue while holidaying in far-away countries, strolling the streets of unknown foreign capitals..works too considering I have sold every Mandala game I ever made!!!

Anyway, back to signorina Melissa Di Napoli, La Gran Cità Italiana, the owner of a hair salon and a first timer to my beloved Amsterdam, 28 years old and just seperated from her signorito as she called her ex-husband, facing the world on her own after nearly ten years of marriage...her first time abroad and on her own...

Two games she wanted for her two Cugini back in Milano, the two sons of her three years older Sorella, her sister in Italiano...I charged her seven Euro and five minutes of her time for this portrait...

Thanks for posing, Melissa... and for buying my Games...

Erik Tang from Quito, Ecuador

Amsterdam, 04 May 2011.

With a black Ecuadorian father and a chinese mother - wherever that weird mix got its origin from I forgot to ask him - dressed in his 800 dollar Armani suit and his outstanding ears, Erik reminded me a bit of Barrack Obama who is presently celebrating the biggest event in his life...

Three games and 5 Euro tip for looking after his backpack while he visited the Anne Frank House as well as telling me his life story waiting patiently for me to do his portrait...

The owner of several Chinese restaurants in Paris and his native Quito, his youth in Otavalo - a small Indio village south of Quito - and his frequent trips across Europe and South America...

Whatever, your stories where boring but thanks for buying my games and for posing, Mi Amigo Erik Tang De Ecuador... 

Sketches of Anne Frank Huis visitors

Amsterdam,

Though I seriously lack the time, selling my games at an incredible fast pace these days sitting here at the Anne Frank House, nice sun and all that, I still love to do my drawing of people buying my Mandalas...

Tourists waiting in the queue bored by an hour or even more are easy prey for my crayons and pens, the blanc pages of my sketchbook happily awaiting more victims being immortalised...

But I have to work hard at making new games, a huge group of rowdy French and English speaking Canadian school children at the end of the line will probably empty my suitcase and fill up my already fat wallet...

Sketches of the Dutch Queen's Day 2011 in Amsterdam.

Amsterdam,

Though I spent most of my time inside the house making new games and following all the Dutch Queen's Day mayhem on my telly, I did make a quick sorty downtown sketching these people celebrating...

The day after the Dutch Queen's day.

Amsterdam,

The streets are littered with rubbish, empty beer cans crumbled by half drunk Queen's Day celebrators, old second hands clothes from a local's attic that found their way to an old carpet spread out during a sunny Dutch Konningen Dag but no customers interested, carton signs that proclaim the financial plans of young children but left behind by semi drunk parents once Holland's biggest festival was over, the smells of stale urine still dominantly in the morning air...

Yeah, my fellow inhabitants of the capital of Holland know how to throw a party but not how to clean up after them I guess...

Sitting here as always opposite the incredibly long queue of foreign tourists waiting to see the Anne Frank Achterhuis, bleary eyes betraying me they too suffer from a serious hangover like most of the Amsterdam populace that is probably still in bed...not the city street sweepers though who try valiantly to get some sort of order but know from years of experience that their efforts will not be rewarded overnight - more like double shifting for the next two weeks...

The drawing is of Lydia from Argentina who proudly told me that it is Argentina, Her Home

Country, "Mi Propio Pais" as she called it, that provided Holland with a wife for our crown prince Willem Alexandra who she called Alejandro...like I didn't know...Tres Juegos for diez Euros

Y Pas D'argent para El Dibujo, seemed like a good deal to me!!!