Hip Hip Hooray to the Isan clan of Hot Mommas

Amsterdam,

There seems to be some sort of coffeeshop war going on in my neighborhood. Not much of a problem to my near 24 hour a day intoxicated farang mind - the only mentally clean hours seem to be my mornings at the farm where fresh air, hard stable work and a stubborn Shetland pony rule my excistence.

Once again I find myself in a situation where my departure date for Thailand is coming up fast but with my mind in Ganja green clouds I hardfly seem to notice...yeah, if it wasn`t for my friends, colleages at the farm and people around me constantly reminding me of my incredible luck having three months in Southeast Asia, how little time remaining...tell you, I might well forget it laying on the couch in my crappy old house, with one of my favorite Hliister romans, a can of cheap supermarket beer and a nowadays not so expensive joint...laziness to max, an expensive and self-destructive way of whiling away a boring life.

Funny though, just twelve hours of flying high up in my aluminium flying machine, will bring me to a completely different world where it is not the sweet parfum and mind enhancing smile of Miss Mary-Jane that attacks me with false promises but the sex promising smiles of Isan clan females that will be in control of my mental processes, a different sort of entertainment on sale in tropical country for lonely European males...and that all at deflated prices.

Good food and cold Leo beer, fresh vegetables and veal, chicken or prok used for your meal, cheap but clean accomodation where the receptionist or else the cleaning lady will gladly take the place of the ladyfriend that was so particularly lacking in presence last summer.

A problem with Miss Mary-Jane...don`t worry your new found oriental love will gladly fuck your brains out, give your former lover a firm kick in the proverbial green leaved marijuana ass and take her place...In the end you will be off financially and physically feeling better.

Never mind your mental depression...you`ll feel like walking on clouds, like there was never an endless run to the neighborhood`s coffeeshop maffia, the dealers of a high ,induced by a certain plant life but now replaced by the expert dealers in cheap but great sex. Like I said; Hip Hip Hooray to the Isan clan of Hot Mommas!!!

Marine Iguana from the Galapagos islands

Pastels on paper

Lady with serious face

acrylics on paper

The walker

acrylics on paper.

Waiting for a doctor`s appointment.

Amsterdam,

So there I am, back in my old house, my dirty and covered in cow manure farm clothes still covering my unwashed body. I should take a hot shower, have a shave and put on fresh clothes for my hospital appointment at 15.30 h. But iunstead I find myself in this crappy old house I have lived in since returning to Holland in 1995, smelly and trembling, too lazy to even get up from my chair....the effects of my latest Mary-Jane addiction strong and demanding...a quick walk to the neighborhood`s coffeeshop would take care of my addiction needs...no more bodily shivers but big disappointment of having given inn to green colored mental inducement to laziness.

However, the idea of having to face my doctor stoned out of my mind does not appeal to me. No way to hide my mental trip...my enlarged eye balls will be a dead give away and anyway, are doktors not trained to see "certain things"!!!

Not that I should have any reason to complain. I mean the society I live in takes care of the bills, the bills that keep me alive, the expensive medical care my ravished physic needs to keep going in the here and now...my only payback to Dutch society, a few half days of hard work at the animal farm for children, hard and honest ARBEIT to ensure my rights for the Dutch dole...

Fair enough, square and fair...a few difficult hours without the mind dulling effects of expensive grass, green stained marijuana pods promising paradise on earth, though in truth only inside my european skull.

Theo Van Gogh, five years later!!!

Amsterdam,

Last monday it was exactly five years ago since the ritual slaughter of the Dutch freethinker, big mouth, the man who liked to kick against the establshed pillars of Dutch society and who according to many, was on a personal crusade against the Maroccan inmigrant colony aka - in Theo`s mind - The Fith Convoy of Goat Fuckers...

His messy death might well have been the real kick off for extreme right in Holland like Geert Wilders, or else the beginning of the end for the infamous and equally notorious - abroad any way - Dutch knuffel kultuur, basdically lets smother them with our love and hope they will adapt, get a job instaed of the comfortable Dutch dole, hope they will forget and quit their naughty street behaviour, stop pickpocketing innocent tourists and hunt down the Dutch Santa Claus in noverber/december, maybe a bit of fun stealing a lady`s handbag while she is waiting for a red traffic sign...

The eternal sigarette was Theo`s trade mark, the happy and healthy smoker, light one sigarette with the butt of the last one, keep the public debate going and get a bit of enlightenment on the maroccan problem while dragging away on a Camel butt...

Five years ago during a cloudy autumn day, on the way to his office, on his crappy rusty bicycle that was craeking its protests against its owner`s sheer bulk and weight, just having visited his favorite tabocconist for his daily dose of cancer sticks, he got overtaken by a tradionally dressed young Marrocan called Mohammed Bareidi, a fanatic bound on his seven virgins in the Muslim afterlife, he shot Theo off his bike and ritually cut his throat paying no heed to his victim`s cries for mercy, adios you despicable heathen brought forth by the hated Dutch whose dole money he was quite happy to accept but whose ways were unacceptable to him...

A short shoot-out in a public park around the corner from his bloody crime, a police bullet in the upper Marrocan leg put and end to his dreams of cherrished marterhood, no seven virgins - or were there nine??? - but a painfull leg wound and a life time senctence in Vught`s high security prison, bent forward mate, we have the daily internal search...

Too bad for Theo Van Gogh he will never see the political earthquake his messy death brought about...though the Dutch population might very well need another marter before the message will really come across I fear...

Artwork by Frank Shepard Fairey

The American Artist Frank Shepard Fairey has been commisioned by the Amsterdam City Council to adourn the wooden walls that for now have surrounded the Amsterdam Centraal Station for years due to extensive renovation projects.

Here are some photos of his work.