Lord Buddha on a newspaper page

Nude lady on a newspaper page

A visitor at the petting zoo

I don't usually take my sketchbook with me to the petting zoo in Westerpark where I do my volunteer job, the work is too hard and too much, but I did today and made a quick study of one of our visitors.

This is the result 

African model on a newspaper page

Amsterdam on a newspaper page

Amsterdam Prinsengracht, near the Anne Frank House

Thai model on a newspaper page

African model on a newspaper page

From a photo in a newspaper

Rest for the weary

Amsterdam, 23 Dec. 2012.

An amazing period of tranquility, rest and relaxation on the battlefield that is normally waged full scale inside my crazy head, these last couple of weeks since returning from Spain...Dhai Dee, Dhai Dee some of my ladyfriends in Thailand would normally say, f*cked in the head but not these aforementioned last couple of weeks, locked up in the house, alone with my paint brushes and the free of charge Metro newspaper pages I substitute for canvasses and that in these worldwide times of monetary crisis come in handy to inmortalise all these Thai Hot mommas who sooner rather than later will be the reality of my life again but right now only fill my gray brain cells....

My only distractions out of the crappy old house I live in here in wintery but rainy Mokum are my hard work at the local neighborhood petting zoo - the pics show our X-mas celebration by the way and merry X-mas at that for whoever might read all these mental tribulations of a pour soul whose literature attempts of nonsense are meaningless and illusory - my early morning cycle trips just to return to my home and in a hurry and filling my walls with complete non-purpose artwork...

Back to Thailand soon

Most of these Thai lady newspaper portraits com from portrait sketches in my sketchbook, done during my latest stint in male friendly Pattaya last winter

...Soon to be back again, only four more weeks before leaving the infamous miserable Dutch winter weather behind for more Farang male comfortable conditions in the Kingdom of the Smile

Alone in my tent, holding the demons at bay..

Amsterdam, 17 Dec. 2012.

I feel alone and on the run, as always on the run, no friends and , maybe even more important, no women, just me and my Kross bicycle, all the crap that during the day is precariously tied to the bike's luggage rack and at night strewn around chaotically inside my tent, that tent hidden among the trees of some forest in the Spain interior...

Me in front of it, in front of my campfire, drawing women, loads of them, faces and nudes...if I wouldn't do this, insanity would set in, and going crazy in a foreign country tends to become much more complicated as going nutty as a fruitcake back home. A madman far awy from native soil has no anchors to hold on to, there are no helpfull Amigos or free - though totally tasteless - food at the Tweede Mijl, back home the police doesn't want to arrest you while you are off your mind, no Banditos intrested in the empty linings of your blue jeans's pockets...

But here in the Spain interior faces tend to follow me when I pass through small farmer villages, the lingo maybe not unfamiliar though that of the unpredictable Gods might be, still going out of one's head is a bad idea, running away from the demons at night even worse...

So I hold them at bay, madness and crazy mental tribulations, drawing female faces and Hot Momma nudes!!!

A story I wrote in front of my tent last autumn in the Spain interior...late at night, facing absolute boredom and physicall desperation, mental lonliness and sexual frustration, on the brink of .....fill it in for yourself.

Amsterdam Brouwersgracht corner Prinsengracht

Westerchurch

The Amsterdam Westerchurch, as seen from the Leliedwarsstr. in the Jordaan.

Ladies relaxing on the bed

Some of the sketches I made in my sketchbook late at night in front of my tent, in the light of my little campfire, remembering all the Hot Mommas that will probably harrass me again next month when I retrun to Thailand, during my cycle trip last autumn in Spain

Waiting for my Thai visa

Reasonably sunny weather today so I could go out and made this sketch near the Anne Frank House, Leliegracht corner Prinsengracht while waiting for my Thai visa at the Royal Thai consulate on the Herengracht 444

Crazy Amsterdam bridges

Ladies, two dimensional or three dimensional

Amsterdam, 12 - 12 -2012.

Beautifull and nearly naked ladies fill my house here in my beloved Mokum, though all of them in the two dimensional state and acryl painted on free edition pages of the Metro daily, winking at me with oriental and devouring eyes, reminding me that my next trip to King Bhumipol's Asian realm is imminent - five more weeks to go and counting down - two months of fun and Pas De Hiver in Europe, instaed pleasant temperatures and never ceasing attention by the opposite local gender will be my deal and constant part of life...


When not working my volunteer thing, my do-good Pero Non Soldi sort of shit for the neighborhood, then spending all my time working on my newspaper page project, portrait after portrait, nudes a-plenty and the occasional Crazy Amsterdam Bridges produced by paint covered Farang fingers that mentallly are already at that ten hours of flying trip away from present domicile, Asian female faces from the Isan looking at me the moment I close my blue shiners to drift off to Lord Morpheus' realm late at night just to be there again when I wake up and soon to be transported to the third dimensional state of existence...only five weeks, remember and counting...

Quick sorties on my rusty old Giant bicycle for excersize purposes after morning cups of Java, brakes a sorry affair that puts me at risk in the Amsterdam traffic, maybe even a bigger risk of not catching that plane, that alu can of enormous dimensions and capable tio get me to that male paradise called Pattaya in a mere twelve hours, missing my plane at the cost of a stupid ten Euro repair costs at the local Fietspiraat bicycle repair shop here in my street and only minutes away...runs in Westerpark for more fresh air and braving the cold of the Low Countries winter...

Coming back to my Spaarndammerstr. condo just to face these two dimensional faces of Metro newspaper pages, more and more nudes, some more Crazy Bridges acrylics..just not enough place on my walls, the way my room in Soi Honey Inn's New Star gu est house will five weeks from now, be too small for all my female three dimensional visitors

Thai model on a newspaper page

Most of these newspaper page portraits I have been uploading to this blog are based on pen drawings in my sketchbook, done last winter during my latest stay in Pattaya, Thailand.

Thai model on a crumpled newspaper page

Crazy Amsterdam bridges

Thai model on a newspaper page

Moslima on a newspaper page

Crazy Amsterdam bridges

Amsterdam Leliegracht near the Anne Frank House...

Acrylics on a newspaper page.

Nude lady on newspaper page

Moslima on newspaper page

Thai lady on newspaper page

A nude model

The indecent nun

Acrylics on a newspaper page

The three lady-bosses

The three managers at the Westerpark petting zoo, Laura, Andrea and Sanny....only tow left no I am afraid.

Andrea hard at work

Goodbye to Andrea

Me and Andrea, on the right, who was one of the managers at the petting zoo where I do my neighborhoodly thing, volunteering to shovel horse manure, goat shit and cow dung twice a week...no pay but hard work.

Unfortunately she decided to

return to her Sauerkraut and Bratwurst country, leaving us and the farm behind, too bad really...

Also too bad about that date we were supposed to have at the Amsterdam Hortus Botanicus last summer and that never came about, two failed attempt at getting to know each other apart from our mutual work at the petting zoo...

I don't hold it against you, my dear and wish you all the best for the rest of your hopefully happy, long and healthy life.

Portrait on newspaper page

About hardship and salvation

Amsterdam, 28 Nov. 2012.

 Rumour has it that life's hardship leads light the path to salvation...

Maybe in these so-called times of world wide crises, where the countless unemployed have Nada more to do but wasting the afternoon watching football matches on TV, though I have to be carefull making these grand assumptions knowing fully well that numerous males might disagree totally convinced that watching football matches on huge flatscreen TV set while knocking down cans of brewskies is much more preferably than getting thin soles on the undersides of your shoes running crisscross all over the city looking for possible job interviews, maybe play cards with the mates, joyfully aware that the financial problems hitting hard is actually a blessing in disguise for us the lads...

Me, I spend these dismal days of talking heads on the aforementioned flatscreen talking pessimism into the ground, analysing the future of the doomed Euro and the support packets for the "lazy" Greek, keeping myself busy with my jars of paint, though trying hard to stay economical by painting on newspaper pages instaed of buying expensive drawing paper, trying hard this way to show some simpathy with these fat bellied soccer fans idling all over the couch in unwashed jeans while Mommy The Wife is busy getting the kids from school, prepare the green pea soup we, the Dutch, call Snert and not all that popular by Argentinian born queen to be of Holland, Maxima...

No real hardship here in this country but spoiled semi-drunk soccer watchers, so no path to salvation either I guess...

11.22.63

I guess I have a carzy habit of drawing naked ladies on the blank pages of the books I read, amusing myself with the thought of after finishing them and selling them to second hand book shops, what other customers will think of these drawings.

These drawings I did in Steven King's latest novel called 11.22.63

Funny sight on a balcony in Barcelona

I discovered this very dead looking person on a balcony in Barcelona last week

My first night in the Spanish bush

My first night in the bush after cycling out of Barcelona, south of Sitges in the forest, nice bottle of Vino Tinto, good book and not yet being assualted by these terrible clouds of La Soledad.

Have to change my life style

Amsterdam, 21 Nov.. 2012.

A drunken degenerate making over a hundert doomed Euros on top of his cherished dole money, a social wellfare system called Workforce and set up to keep people like him of the street by keeping them busy collecting rubbish each morning, reflecting shirts costing the avarage tax payer even more bread in the daily wallet...keep them off the street by making them walk the street...and still needing some stupid spare change to buy tabacco and Alu cans of beer...

"Beers has become expensive, tabacco another twenty cents a bag, maybe you can help me out, Jos, Bor, was it Joost or plain old Shiva", not much left there in that block of concrete that has to pass for his head...another ten Euro down the drain and reminding me I am most definitely back in Good Old Mokum...oh Yeah and I have to do my volunteer job again tomorrow, hard work, cleaning stables, shovelling horse manure and goat shit at the neighborhood's petting zoo, but no financial bonus.

Maybe I should change my life style and enroll in that Workforce programm myself instead!!!

The Universal Will to ignore

 Amsterdam, 20 Nov. 2012.

Long bus trips can be best described as an excersize in total contemplation, consternation and irratation on the other hand have got to be banned to an absolute minimum...

Meditation is the key to the mystical union between body and mind, the spiritual power so necessary to endure the stinking farts and noisy snoring of fellow travellers, bored children and thier annoyed parents, all paret of an Euroline overnight bus crossing Europe from south to north, a bus toilet to small to turn around in, never mind having a cr*p, stale piss covering the floor...

I close my eyes and let the Universal Will to be elsewhere take over, pretent none of this is real, resign myself to the divine will to be home again...

Eventually I am immersed in spiritual mental waters too deep to be aware of this 24 h. trip through Ancient Europe. 

People on La Rambla in Barcelona

Two people who were friendle enough to pose for me on La Rambla Raval in Barcelona

Sylvia from Down-Under, The Land Of Ozz

My buddy Sylvia from Down-Under, The Land Of Ozz and her drawing, in Bar La Monyos, Barri Gotic in Barcelona.

Back in Holland now with only the memories and the Pics she send me on FB.

facing the home trip to Mokum

Barcelona, 16 Nov. 2012,

I don´t really need dozing in a plastic chair back at Sant Station waiting for my Euro Lines bus, annoyed at little black African children wailing, bored shitless while waiting for their bus up north to the Land Of Honey, Mummy giving me the accusatory look like it is all my fault she has got no control over her offspring, or maybe the accusation goes even further back, all the way to the Dutch and English slave trade...shit, I wasn´t even born then but will have to put up with the bloody blame nonetheless,

Tipsy men laughing while knocking down cheap Estrella beer proving to me that bus station are the same the world over, a haven for semi-professional drunks and homeless losers...

a bunch of taxis parked at the curb waiting for arriving travellers, their drivers are as bored as these aforementioned black enigre kids, reading La Vanguardia without any real interest...

Wainting for a bus back to wherever home is supposed to be these days while surrounded by crying babies and fustrated Big Black Mommas, overhead speakers annoucing the arrival and departure times, people who try to hard to look important, trying to look like businessmen in motballed suits that could fall apart at any given minute reading El Pais, middle aged people seemingly bewildered and probably on a social visit to son or daughter who is trying his or her luck outside of economically battered spain carrying hold-alls and duffels full with worthless belongings...

A definite feeling of duplication and Deja Vu in full progress here and will be my main obstacle tommorow...17.00 h. departure time for my bus to good old mokum, and all that comes with it...

Deja Vu in Barcelona

Barcelona, 15 Nov. 2012.

There is no duplicate of my life though it feels like that when I enter Barcelona, a city I have history with and  the capital of these independence loving Catalunians, red and yellow striped flags bungling from countless balconies betraying the  strong sense of We Are capable Of Our Own Destiny, fuck you Franco in the Land Of Ago and the same message to the present ruler called Rajoy...though he might not be El Caudillo, wellcome he ain´t here in this anarchistic city as is evident by all the rubbish left over from yesterday´s Vaga General...

Barcelona, a long time favorite urban metropole for me and dating back to my interrail years...I can feel the adreline rushing through my veins, the loniness that has plagued me so much during my cycle days and the solidary campfire nights in the spanish Campo, having come over me like ominous clouds pregnant with the promise of heavy Thai monsoon rain, fall away like they never existed...

streets full with people, Indians, Pakisani and phillipino imigres, illegal africans with a dull but dark skin complection pushing shopping trolleys full with Basura, hopefully worth something for the daily Pan, all of it familiar and a giving me a strong sense of Deja Vu, the feeling of duplication all over me...

My spirits lift all the way to high heaven and beyond while I enter the historic Barrio of Barri Gotic where I plan to take up lodgings in a small Hostal, dormitory style though I can affort to splash out and take my private room, still nostalgia and my ever present fascination with the abombination demand for cheap accomodation in a Hostal where everything is possible, whether it be a school class of rowdy French teenagers on a three day Barcelona excursion or drunk English hooligans on a stag party kicking people out of their beds upon returning drunk like skunks late at night, just for the heck of it...      

Vinaros impressions

Vinaros, 12 Nov. 2012.

It is late afternoon when I pass the sleepy beach resort of Vinaros. The N340 highway might not go right through this crappy and unpopular beach place but what I get to see is more than enough to last a life time and never return...

The air heavy with cracked petroleum having leaked into the raw sewage system at my left hand site while depressing concrete blocks of apartment building line the other side of the N340, women hanging clothes from rusty balconies, wearing garments probably purchased at second hand shops or else picked up from garbage belts, all appearing to be pregnant and eyeing me curiously...

A couple of bare chested men playing what appears to be soccer but might as well be basketball for all they care - or me for that matter -  on wasteland that is probably supposed to be a lawn and littered with red colored Alu cans of Estrella beer. The sigarette buts dangling from the corners of their mouths somehow seem to be out of place with their sportive endeavours, kicking the soccer ball repeatedly but I imagine without any real interest...

A boy with saggy daiper and a T-shirt reading ¨Watch Me¨ holding hands with another filthy little child but of the female gender here, equally dressed in the unavoidable saggy daiper but her T-shirt adourned with the brightly smiling face of Donald Duck, way too much alike to be anything but twins, look at me sort of in big time wonder...

A huge Big Black Mamma with a brightly colored blue dress that should have been motballed a long time ago and probaly dates back to her native Africa, does little to hide the rolls of fat that remind me of coccooned insects just before hatching, the posoinous type you know, going close to fifty or maybe even sixty, gives me the big friendly grin, revealing teethless gums. Dispite the dark facial color I detect the fading remains of a black eye, maybe Daddy The Hubby was drunk and angry again last night or maybe the evening before. I might not want to know her bra-size but give her my best smile in return nevertheless, realising this poor African lady inmigrant is more likely then not a prisoner of her own time and space in her particular life, no doubt having a bunch of undernourished and savagedly street educated Niños at home she has got to take care of...fat posoinous bugs waiting to hatch inside these huge rolls of fat notwithstanding!!!

Back on my Kross bicycle

Valencia, 10 Nov. 2012.

Do I feel disappointment, maybe even outright terror or a certain sense of panic - maybe relieve would be more in order here - when I leave my newly found dope smoking ´friends¨ behind in that third rate Hostal after five days of Valencia city wandering while they were at IT back in the dormitory, smoking pot all day and maybe a good snort of bad quality cocaine for the heck of it, 23 centimos German beer from the Carrefour to wash it all down, bought by yours truely though not on Pobre Moi´s dole money, Miss Rasta Haired Bob Marley Singer entertaining them with her sugar sweet voice, not exactly suited to sing Reggae but what the heck, take it or leave the dormitory...

Five more days of cycling ahead of me and the Soledad that comes with it probably responsible for my confusing feelings of terror and panic, sleeping in the forest again after partaking in Vino Tinto drinking in front of my tent while watching the flickering flames of my little campfire, my mental processes miles away in the Land Of Negative Dwellings, ponderings of long lost family and crazy adventures in third world garbage belts, totally fucked-up gray brain cells going helter-skelter, honkey-bonkey inside the Gringo head again...not exactly a way to enjoy what was suppose to be a relaxing cycle holiday, though negativity is also a sensation to grap on to...

At least a period of much needed withdrawal from the Sacred Internet, enough perpective gained here to realize how fucking addictive that nutty piece of human invented technology is, hours of useless sorting through unwanted Penis Enlargement E-mail adds with glory detailed photo attachments to get you going, visiting websites that are as useless as humankind spending all that dough in the late sixties to send a man walking on the moon...

Yeah, Barcelona, here I come, five days of cycling along the mediteranean coast and we will one more time meet like old Amigos!!!

 

My accomodation in Valencia

Valencia, 05 Nov. 2012.

The accomodation of my choise is as always in my life of the rock bottom type in Valencia, an old woman in rags that have probably seen no washing machine for some time, sitting in the lobby and having her eyes glued on an old yellowish paged comic book...

I will probably have to anaesthysize myself with at least half a gram of bad quality cocaine if I want the odour of s

tale urine and cheap perfume out of my nostrils that radiates off her...

Still... this dumphouse is dirt cheap and satisfies my fascination with the abombination I guess, apart from the fact I can stall my Kross bicycle in their luggage room free of charge...

Dragging my smelly packs up several flights of stairs, somehow I have never cared much for elevators in my life, I soon find the dormitory assigned to me, marijuan smoke oozing from the crack underneath the door I prepare myself to make acqauintance with my fellow room mates, floozy guitar music spilling into the corridor upon opening the door, a raspy female voice chanting a Bob Marley song ¨No Woman, No Cry¨, the cocaine I needed so bad to clear my nose earlier on the lobby of this seedy hostal is spiking the air like the ozone in a bad refridgerator...

Hippily dressed youngsters lying on bunk beds, smoking pot and humming along with the Rasta haired redhead Bob Marley singer, somehow remind me of my years in India when I was much younger and constatly doped up in my head, pretty much as these alternative members of the back pack scene are now....

Something bankers should try

Close to Valencia, 04 Nov. 2012.

The cacophomous roar of the metropole called valencia seems to rise up up and engulf poor Moi on my bicycle, especially so after all these lonely weeks on my Kross evading any sort of populous human centres on purpose...

Lanes upon lanes of nightmarish traffic crawling along at a slow pace in any direction, traffic jams reminding me of that other metropole back in South-East Asia called Bangkok, cars and busses jammed bumber to bumber with daily commuters, rural immigrants whose heads are full of hope for a better future and totally unaware of the bleak days ahead, sleeping in the streets a very real option for them...

Thousands of cars spewing black exhaust fumes and foul air into my Gringo face, no way to escape it, horns blaring betraying the fustration of its occupants, brakes hissing madly while I enter the city, passing block upon block of ragtag greyinsh appartment buildings, the only real color that of laundry blowing on balconeys, old battered Fords and Datsuns lining the shoulders of a bad tempered road, black porches with raggedly dressed local kids watching the endless parade of iron boxes, latin juvenile eyes darl like coal...

The two big yellow tits of McDonals and a billboard screaming Pepsi Cola at me, paper-bag luggage in Supermercado trolley cars belong to the homeless sitting in city parks, the dirty air of the city washing over me....

Life and death, blood, violence and sex, is it all back and after these weeks of self sought isolation I seem to sense it more intensely as I can possibly remember...

Maybe that was my intention all along, the realisation that this human society is hopelessly nuts to begin with...maybe something those corrupt wordly bankers in their 1000 Euro Armani suits who pushed this so-called financial crises upon us, should try!!!

More street children in Spain

Beyond Ibañiz, 01 Nov. 2012.

They remind me of a pack of orphans, a bit like the street children in the third world capitals I visited during my crazy backpack years, looking ragged and dirty, hardly human and all of them scrawny, prowling around me while I park my bike, my dirty equipment like a heap of garbage tied to the luggage rack, dark brown latin eyes full with curiosity looking up at me...

After all these little Spanish villages I have passed through, stopping every so often for much needed morning Cafe Con leche or an afternoon breqak and stocking up on my supplies, food and of course a few small cans of Estrella beer as well as a bottle of Vino Tinto to survive absolute boredom in front of my tent during boring evenings under Spanish stars and in the middle of proverbial f*cking Nada, I have come to hear their stories, most of them having moved back from the big coastal cities or else maybe Madrid where they were born, the offspring of parents who had to move back to their parental Pueblos because of Spain´s massive unemployment...No Dinero to pay the rent or food on the table...

Goodbye for these raggedly dressed city children to school mates and the Plazas and broad avenues of their erstwhile Ciudanial lives, having to cope with the dusty Calles of the Pueblos where their parents once, long ago, ran after soccer balls and upon reaching adulthood, moved to the more mundane cities of an Spain in better economical times...

I pay them a couple of cans of Pepsi coke, tell them a bit about my trips around this nutcase mudball, draw them in my sketchbook while sipping Cafe Con Leche out in the very dusty streets that have become their new playground, let them have a awkward go at my bike and have a good laugh when they tumble over unaccustomed as they are to the heavy weight of my worn out equipment, winning juvenile friendship in the process, for a short moment in time forgettng about my depressing feelings of loniless before moving on to the coast...it comes closer every day!!!  

Oppresive clouds of loniless

El Bonillo, 31 Oct. 2012.

The blood red eye in the sky, almost like the eye of God, watching my endeavours trying to keep this bike in motion and getting closer to the coast every day, trying harder even to ignore my Soledad, the ever growing sense of loneliness which by now, nearly four weeks of cycling  , though I have to admit I have lost track of time, one day gliding into the next, is becoming synonimous with the stygian depths of self chosen hell...

I don´t remember from previous cycle trips, long hikes in forgotten forests and sea kayaking, sleeping on solidary sandy beaches somewhere on Asian beaches under an opaque moon after wolfing down tons of food, feeling these oppresive clouds of loneliness attacking me with such an overwelming ethereal reality...

My pitiful atrphied human spirit, my frenetic soul, willing my body to keep pushing the pedals of my bike,  inwardly counting down the days to the end of this trip but completely out of sync with time, trying hard to conclude this disparate purpose of being alone, away from the hustle and bustle of good old Mokum but longing for the entertainment of Pattaya where I never can possibly be alone, never possibly could be suffering from this omni-presence of utter mental desolation...

Trying to create entertainment for myself evening after evening in front of my tent, drawing countless nude Hot Mommas in the flickering lights of my small camp fire, moels who could have been there in the flesh if I had been more intelligent and bought that ticket to Krung Thep, as the Thais call their sweltering capital, and got myself on that local bus straight from Bankok´s new airport Suvarnibhumi, ninety minutes of easy transportation to that male paradise called Pattaya...

But no...I had to create a totally different sort of entertainment, but a Kross bicycle and test myself one more time, physically as well as mentally, to my very limits...cycling every darned day in the very midst of nowhere...

Still the coast is getting closer and with it Barcelona, my bus back to Amsterdam and a cheap ticket back to my second home called The Land Of Smiles...

Curious young village boys

Piedrabuena, 29 Oct. 2012.

Just another small dusty hamlet in the midlle of nowhere, scores of kilometers south of the Spanish capital, where my underwear from the day before hanging from the handlebars of my Kross bicycle as well as my spair couple of socks - I wash them in the sink of the toilets of the bars where I have my morning Cafe Con Leche and then tie them to my bike´s handlebars so they can dry in the wind for use of yet another day - is attracting unwelcome attention by the village soccer playing youngsters, hurrying over to have a serious look-see at this crazy Gringo who must be so poor he travels the world on a muddy Bicicleta...I strech out the rain soaked pair of knickers just to amuse them, have after all been young and curious myself once long ago, before entering yet another local bar for much needed early morning coffee, leaving a bunch of highly entertained village Niños behind, probably more entertainment as they normally get all week.

Dark latino eyes belonging to mostly elderly men drinking copious amounts of red wine judging by the number of empty Vino bottles strewn around tables and lean-tos, maybe Spain is being hit hard by the European crisis but that is hardly noticable here where rural social life is still inside the bar and not back home in front of the telly watching Rajoy trying deperately to explain the country´s latest round of austerity´s measures....and anyway, every bar in these god forsaken Pueblos seem to sport at least one big flatscreen TV. Like I said crisis or not!!!

Nobody paying me much attention compared to the young Barca Aficionados outside, the way is should be, an ancient computer in a dark corner perfect for reaching access to the internet again, slow as it might be...

Back outside my newly found Barca friends are still admiring my Kross and all the crap tied on top of it, probably wondering what that huge load of garbage contains...my tent, my blanket falling to pieces, bicycle repair stuff and dirty spare clothes...I will tell them when I get back out of this dirty, empty sugarbags strewn and wine invested boozers bar...    

The logic of Spanish thirsty Zorros

Plasencia, 23 Okt. 2012.

No idea what  I am doing here in the kingdom of the former Conquistadores who had high hopes of getting rich in what is now considered Latino America, Central America and the Mexican homeland of the Peones, trying to check on my E-mail in bars where the computer is slower as my poor legs can do the job on my bike going uphill and strong wind in the face, darker hellholes than the backside of a black rat, the ground covered in empty sugar bags and sigarette buts, locals getting drunk on Damm beer and Estrella brew, strong Espresso cafe in the morning followed by red wine to start a easy day... well not for me, uphill and wind in the face it will be again for another day, unwashed underwear covering my Gringo ass and sweaty socks sumping in my sneakers all day.

Sleeping at night in the forest with local Zorros checking out my empty beer cans for possible nutricious contents, or else they too just wanna get smashing drunk - Borracho as they call it here - before retiring to their burrows come morning, probably wondering what in the name of the Zorro species´ equivalent of God a human being is doing here, enduring the hardship of Spain´s enterior instead of enjoying the loving administrations of Thai Hot Mommas...

No cheap contacts with those Isan ladies of the notorious Thai nightlife but rain and, or burning sun pestering my existence here on my Kross bicycle while I struggle up steep hills, trying to survive chilly nights wrapped in a thin blanket that tends to fall apart more every night I enroll it on top of my sleeping mat, also falling to pieces more every passing day, , just the way I feel like falling apart each morning waking up in my little tent, shit...seriously wonder if this dirty blanket will continue serving me more or less well untill the end of this month, never mind the other two weeks into november before hitting the Catalaunya capital...

Every minute of my cycling hours damning myself to burning hell and beyond for having chosen this nutcase hardship...yeah, these nighttime visitors to my tent, Spanish Zorros attracting by the strong stale smell of Damm beer are right....I am a human being living in the not so rich West where comfort and an easy life are still a serious option, where one does not to endure the harsh reality of the outside life the way they have!!!

The logic of Spanish Zorros is irrefutable!!!

Paranoid Africans

Amsterdam, 07 Sept. 2012.

I have a strong suspicion this will be a very empty bus seeing all these African would be passengers making a hasty half paranoid retreat, dragging heaps of luggage behind them with one dark skinned hand while the other is holding their cell phone, talking excitedly no doubt about these plain clothes officials giving everybody the Can I See Your ID, What Is In Your Bag treatment...

 

I remember the Eurolines bus Amstel Station stop from twenty odd years ago transporting loads of alternatives across all of Europe, rastahaired chicks and second hand clothed boyfriends hastily skinning up their last coffee shop bought treasures before it would turn into illegal substances upon crossing the international borders...

Nowadays with airline companies slashing it out among each other with bargain tickets the Euroline company has become a haven for the illegal immigrants, open borders and the Schengen Accord an easy way to visit relatives and friends down south...

What should have been a half bus at least turns into a comfortable four passengers trip to Belique...

Last minute preparations.

Amsterdam, 06 Sept. 2012.

0700. h. up and drinking coffee, last minutes preparations, heavy rain outside a bad message of what is ahead of me???

Walking to the railweaystation for my bus to Barcelona with heavenly piss on top of me.

Painting in my house

A theree and a half minutes videos of me painting in my house in Amsterdam on www.youtube.com, made by my friend Susanne from Germany

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ui6JMKzuHqU&feature=plcp

My own version of the Vuelta

Amsterdam, 03 Oct. 2012.

The days of hardship and self choosen isolation are drawing close, a twenty-four hour bus trip to the Catalunya capital in a Eurolines bus full with ilegal immigrants has got to be survived first and a number one test to my endurance...

Hard physical excersize trying my own version of the Vuelta , up and down Sierras and Cordilleras testing my determination to the max, spending my nights in long ago abandoned barns and  Pueblos Abandonados where my neighbors will be curious mice and nosy rats always checking out my food reserves at the midnight hourn after I have knocked myself out with sweet to the tougue Spanish red wine...

Maybe a barn owl ridding me off my not so cozy co-inhabitants...

An early morning Cafe Con Leche in small Bares in a country  where every village even when it only has two houses, will have bar. The locals will probably eye me with a certain suspicion while I wolf down Bocadillos De Queso and watch the morning talk shows on telly...

Bares where I will hopefully return after 14.00 h. to enjoy that typical Spanish Menu Del Dia served with a bottle of Vino Tinto, lets get heavy on the food and easy on the red wine...

It is all there for me come soon and be prepared, mentally mostly and get my Gringo ass on that Eurolines bus saturday morning 09.00 h. check inn time thirty minutes before departure...      

Preparing for Spain

Amsterdam, 02 Oct. 2012.

Back on the way home, ready to engage myself with the isolation of my jars of paint, sweaty all over after working my Giant ATB all moring preparing myself for six weeks of cycling in Spain, the Sierras and cordilleras of the Spain interior are awaiting me and I don't feel like having to put with their hindsight sarcasm about my fitness...

Life is like a kind of living theater, a kind of Tableau Vivant that will get the better of me if I start my cycle tour unfit, the crazy weather gods like Thor and his allmighty hammer Mjölnir laughing their heads off while I struggle up steep Sierras that are no match for even the highest category in Le Tour De France...

Better get fit and struggle daily head first against the strong autumn winds pestring the Dutch capital before my long and arduous bus trip to Barcelona come saturday morning nine o'clock

The forest of the Guezen

Amsterdam, 01 oct. 2012.

With fresh country wind blowing in my face, emptying my mind of the constant conflict in my head, the mad scribblings I so often try to write down here, I cycle the 12 km. out of Amsterdam West to Het Guezenbos, The Forest of the Guezen, Le Bois De Guex, a small wed land nature reserve populated with stray Scottish cattle and equally stray Islandic ponies...

A cycle trip I try to make every autumn, enjoying the sight of animals that have once again found freedom after centuries of mankind's abombinable's animal slavery...

And yes, I am lucky spotting a whole herd of Scottish cattle and a stallion with three mares.

My eyes in a pro tem mood

Amsterdam, 30 sept. 2012.

The railway station is always a great place for people watching, international train passengers waiting for delayed departures shuffling up and down on wooden benches impatiently, heaps of luggage like overstuffed suitcases and heavy looking backpacks reminding me of my frequent Interrail trips in my younger days...

I could never be bothered about delays and mistimed departures, my sketchbooks and pencils, colored markers and aquarels happy to come in handy, hunderts of fellow travellers would appear on the pages of my scrapbooks while waiting for trains that would somehow or someways show up eventually...

Train stations are still my favorite places now in my older days when I feel bored to the max in my old crappy house here in Amsterdam West, my new leather coat falling off my slender frame, my blue striped bag, once a gift from Charlotte's mother in happier days together and by now so old the gaps seem to appear like miracles in its ancient fabric, filled to overflow with my artist's necessities, my crappy old bike downstairs in the street awaiting me to get me to that international waiting hall...

My eyes are in a pro tem mood, scanning each and every face, trying to creep into the minds of my unaware models...what is it that moves them, made them choose good old Mokum as a tourist destination, the destinies of their collective lives, where are they going next, what are they thinking about while waiting for yet another european city???

A hooded middle aged lady with a strong american accent wanting to know what I am drawing...it was her as a matter of fact.

An occupational suicide

Amsterdam, 26 Sept. 2012.

feels a bit like there are cleansing rites of passage running amok inside my brainhouse department, thoughts going down memory lane, vividly remembering my last couple of nights of passion with Michella though a more intimate domestic arrangement is out of the question as I made it clear the last dreaded morning after...

A bottle of Spar house wine, color red in my hand, waiting patiently in the queue while my thoughts go down the aforementioned memory lane, not a bad way to while away the enevitable line of working stiffs coming out of the office and desperate to get home at this advanced hour of the afternoon. or is 18.45 h. considered the early hours of the evening...

The frontiers of passion that were there for us to penetrade, have as always in my life been terminated with extreme prejuidice....

An occupational suicide in my existence I guess!!!     

Michella in caricature.

                                                         Amsterdam, 26 Sept. 2012.

I guess her dingy illegally and overprised rented attic room in the Elisabeth Wolff street, not even all that far away from my spacious totally renovated and government rent supported appartment in the Spaarnd. street, has got walls claustrofobically zooming in on her, when I find her in front of my door, soaked by the autumn rains pestering the Dutch capital, her umbrella blown to pieces by the strong western wind that is a prelude to a, no doubt, heavy storm hitting Amsterdam come nightfall...

A bottle of Merlot probably ensuring her confidence I won't leave her in the street, alone and disappointed like when I left her and her tupid little attic room early last sunday morning...

Never sure what to do with situations like this...it was, after, all just two lonely souls meeting in a dark brown Amsterdam cafe, no attachments or promises but a single night of passion Y Nada Mas...

I made this caricature of her, belittling her true beauty as a caricature drawing always does!!!

   

Prelude to oblivion

Amsterdam, 24 Sept. 2012.

Most times I feel like the mad scribbling of my chaotic mind are a prelude to oblivion, or maybe publishing them on the sacred internet like a digital blasphemy but still the sort of stuff I tell the ladies downtown when I am hunting for nighttime partners to keep the demons at bay and a warm female body in my bed, something to snuggle up to upon waking....

Strangers in the night meeting somewhere in a dark brown Amsterdam cafe, feeling the same sort of loniness and physical longing, a bit like inter gender based search collectives, never been to the husbands, wives, children sort of routine so familiar for many working stiff's unadventureous type of life...

Or maybe the other way around...

With good old Mokum full with singles, every nationality of the world living in small and dingy illegally rented overprised rooms, the height of the rent just as illegal as the occupant, a lady like Michella who works as a dishwasher  and Mhe Baan room cleaning lady in a certain well known hotel not all that far from the central railway staion and is desperately looking for a Holland man to take care of the paperwork, five years of devoted marital bliss in exchange of a legal status...

I can hear it in her voice, I can detect it in her mannerism, sense it overwhelmingly in her dark black shiners when she looks me in the eyes, prepared to invest in a 2.80 Euro glass of red wine to keep my attention focused...

The adults only game is indeed a game with both sides wanting something important from the other but who is getting what remains the question...

Getting Michella on the back of my rusty old bike might well be a prelude to the oblivion of my singel state of life, or maybe just company for the lonely night and a new model in the morning...   

Space art; volcanic eruption

On being a benign god

Amsterdam, 19 Sept. 2012.

Can Allah be supremely indifferent to the lakeys of his number one profet killing ambassadors in His name, maybe the actions of a Neurotic Self being a bit more than an Ideological Appendage...

If the almighty Christian God is so powerfull why does He not make the misguided minds of his most devoted so heavy they are unable to move their hands and commit heideous crimes against those that just happen to have different views on faith...

If He is so omnipresent, never mind how man does address him, Manitoe or Allah, maybe the Christian God or Poseidon, above the matters of us mere mortal beings, way beyond the morals and ethics of us the greatest mistake of creation...

If so maybe we should continue our sorry lives instead of trying to enforce our fanatic religious views on our fellow brothers and sisters, discontinue killing in His name...

Leave the matters of God to Him...or was it Her???