Mother Theresa in her younger days

Holland, Amsterdam,
25 Oct. 2010.

I love to spend some time in front of my house after my late afternoon sort of daily jog in the park, admire the Yings of the Amsterdam Multiculti society walking by on high heels and throwing provocative smiles in my direction - yeah I knew I needed that shave this morning - , the fat Pensionado from next door always willing for a daily dose of gossip before mounting the steps of his third floor appartment, panting heavily and groaning under his breath due to the arithmic pains in his short O-shaped legs....always reminding me old age comes with a certain price tag.

My lady neighbor, the smells of freshly washed clothes and expensive shampoo invading my nostrils while I keep myself busy with Hannes, her three year old son who she has picked up from his playground, Mon Grand Petit Ami as I always call him in French though soon enough the roles will be reversed I fear...

An unshaved and dirty clothed Rob, bringing me back the dough he has been borrowing this month, reminding me that today was the social wellfare pay day...stale beer smells and a walm of cheap tabacco engulves me before he rushes up my stairs on the way to my toilet, good ole alcoholic's diarrhoae once again getting the better of him...I guess I will have to spend some more time out here admiring the street live of the Amsterdam Spaarndammer Barrio to let the stink evaporate and I can take my shower.

The painting is of a woman I saw today at the Tweede Mijl and who reminded me a bit of Mother Theresa in her younger days...

Random thoughts on the Muslim faith

Holland, Amsterdam,
24 oct. 2010.

Some random thought flashing through my head while reading the saturday newspaper...an article about the present court trail for racist remarks, hate mongering, ect, against Mister Wilders, a populist, rightist Dutch politician who is on a personal crusade against the - what he calls - excrescenses of the Muslim faith...

In the present Dutch political world he is the leader of one of the biggest parties in Holland and though not openly participating in our new governement, but according to many the pupet master though officially only giving it popular support...

Anyway here are some of my flashing thoughts...with the danger included that this will make me the next Danish cartonist to suffer from Muslim hate.

The Muslim fanatic; you must wear Burka!!!
The Muslima: me not like, is too hot, is not sexy.
The faithfull: Wilders or Allah, that is the question.

Waiting for internal problems, or was it interior shit.

Holland, Amsterdam,
22 Oct. 2010.

The waiting room at the OLV Hospital in Amsterdam Oost is full with sorry looking characters, despair and hopelessness beaming out of faces that have quite obviously already given up believing in the miracles of "modern medecine'...this being the waiting room for internal health it seems a fair bet most of these people suffer from cancer, ulcers, heart and artery related diseases, the sort of internal problems that one could quite happily do without...

Maybe long time smokers that have come to the conclusion that life time decisions have in later life become quite cancerous, s*x addicted johns that loved to do the "act" withouth the dreaded rubber but now feel sorry for themselves due to HIV related bodily complains, maybe too much sitting down in sterilised offices with rivers of strong daily coffee and stress to the max making their haerts go boom-boom-boom in the dark and their blood pressure seriously out of hand...

The little spider hanging high overhead in its web seems to pray on all this human mental suffering...

The pages in my sketchbook fill up fast and furious, more despair with each page I fill up before the results of my yearly medical health check will be made public to me...not that I feel all that worried...nearly a year without pot or tobacco, minimum amounts of booze and daily running in the park have given me mental peace and physical comfort.

 

After all, we are Africans

Holland, Amsterdam,
20 Oct. 2010.

This is luchroom and cafe Saloon, on the corner of Lijnbaansgracht and the Korte Leidsedwarsstraat near the famous Rijksmuseum, better known as the Rembrant Museum among the foreign visitors to Amsterdam because of the Nachtwacht - the Nightwatch in English - painted by Rembrant when Holland still controlled the spice trade in the Far East.

When I first arrived to Amsterdam in the mid eighties of the last century and was still selling my funny little Mandala games, my acrylic city paintings in glass frames and my handmade leather bracelets under the Rijksmuseum tunnel, I used to take my lunches in this cafe, sometimes alone and sometimes with illegal African ambulant vendors trying hard to sell fake gold and silver jewellery to the tourists passing through the tunnel on the way to the nearby Van Gogh Museum after admiring the handiwork of Dutch Masters from Holland's golden Age inside the Rijksmuseum...

I still vividly remember the many stories these young black fellows from that hopelessly impoverished continent told me about their homes in dust ruled African villages where their mothers used to do the laundry in the nearby rivers and their dreams of marrying Dutch s*xbombs - preferably blond - for the passport and good cooking, "never mind the sex, we can get that outside the marital bed plenty, plenty", "they told me repeatedly, after all we are Africans"....whatever that was supposed to mean...

In the end the Dutch Amsterdam police kicked them all out of the city.

Big ugly motherf*cker at De Tweede Mijl

Holland, Amsterdam,
19 Oct. 2010.

Oh, I have seen this ominous looking character before at De Tweede Mijl, always giving me ugly hostile looks, trying to impress me with threatening twisted smiles, trying to make me sh*t my pants with pure agression coming out of bayou blue colored malignious eyes...not that I have ever exchange a single word with this big ugly motherf*cker, but I know perfectly well were the hostility comes from...

It is that time of the years again where I move through the city with ease and a certain sef-assurance, c*ck sure of my yearly wintering place, tropical beaches, cold to the touch Leo beers, good Thai food and local Yings all clamouring for my Farang attention while all these street alcoholics, druggies, yunks and equally assorted losers from the inner city, Amsterdam West and the Westerpark ask themselves the same questions that has been plaqueing them since my sorry exsistence in their hopeless lives...

"How does he do it?", "Hoe doet-ie 't?", after all the news is out, Mister Shiva the crazy street seller at the Anne Frank House will be off again for his three month stint in an oriental tropical paradise, with all the aforementioned little pleasures in a single male Farang life...

I smile back at Mister Big Ugly Motherf*cker benignly while sketching him in my drawing journal, trying hard to make him look even more ungly as he is in real life, having no doubt whatsoever he detects the little speckles of absolute - almost orgasmic - amusement beaming back at him from my own bayou blue shiners...

When I show the result to some of the Tweede mijl more friendly habitues, I have the certain feeling I have a near nuclear explosion on my Gringo hands here.

Three houses in Kolksteeg, Amsterdam centre.

Holland, Amsterdam,
17 Oct. 2010.

These three houses in the Kolksteeg in the heart of Amsterdam centre, I did yesterday returning from my one Euro breakfast at the Hema in the Nieuwedijk - special offer.

They tend to tilt a bit to the left which is normal in old Mokum with the city being built on marshland...the second entrance doors are for the people living overhead the steakhouses and the coffeeshop Boop.

The two steakhouses have been there for as long as I can remember but coffeeshop Boop on the right used to be a bar where I drank pints of Heineken while watching American wrestling on their ancient telly, together with a friend from Liverpool, good ole England, in the mid eighties when I had just moved to Amsterdam.

The original sketch was done with black pen out in the street...once back home I finished it with my markers and the aquarel pastels I bought last week.

Mexican Gran Hombre at the Anne Frank House

Holland, Amsterdam,
16 Oct. 2010.

This being late autumn with the Dutch weather way to cold to do my little one-man Mandala business at the Anne Frank House, still having to sit it out for my next stint in Asia, I have plenty of time on my hands and still feel inspired by this endless long queue of people from all over the world, obsessed with the idea of seeing poor Anne Frank's hiding place...

Fear of Nasi swines was making the Jewish family Frank go Tip-Toe around the Achterhuis during office hours - part of the house was used as an office - and the admosphere thus created is still tangible in the air...probably the main reason the Achterhuis is still so popular since in reality there is very little to see inside...

A Sigarillo smoking man with flanel suit and lightbrown hat attracts my attention, looking latino and somehow standing out in the crowd outside this world famous house, looking a bit like a mexican stately Haciendero...a good character for my sketchbook...

A lone ederly Mexicano male doing a six week tour of Europe and originating from Distrito Federal as he told me after I showed him the sketch when finished...