Forget the oxygen

This weekend, an eight year old girl opened her conversation to me with, “Do you know how it is that most of us are probably going to die eventually?”

“Well, probably, I guess so.”

She went on to say she’d like to go by a manta ray encounter, Steve Irwin style.

I’d like to go out like Chopin – “Forget the oxygen, get the champagne!”

And I’d like my memorial plaque to read the last line of Ruggero Leoncavallo’s “Pagliacci” – “La commedia e finite.”

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I have about a week left of being a recovering alcoholic and I’m thinking of going the whole hog – extending it to the full 40 days and 40 nights. I don’t miss all that poison, but I do miss the reckless self-destruction. I survived another party this weekend, this one at a bar – no big deal. The tough one will be tomorrow when I fly 16 hours to New York. Sitting with nothing to do, while beautiful girls bring me food and wine.
My biggest problem, though, is that I’m becoming quite svelte – all lean and slinky. The cruel fat brought on by the gradual decaying of my aging body is slipping away. My clothes somehow look cooler and my gait wilder.
Maybe I need to stop drinking altogether … and start drugs.

Thanks … suckers!

Today is Thanksgiving Day in the US. I never fully understood this holiday, and I always guessed all the surviving Native Americans are sitting around on their reservations, drunk, hopeless and kicking themselves.
Today the Chinese government reversed its decision not to allow US warships to dock in Hong Kong after already kicking them out yesterday – on humanitarian grounds because it’s a US holiday.
Great. I suppose we’ll all be dead by Christmas.

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This was from wandering around a small province called Xin Hui in South China. Starting to feel I’ve drawn myself enough for the time being. I think I need to get out more.

ps, thanks Baby, you're wonderful; and thank you all, my real and imaginary friends.

Election fever

There was no one at the election building when I went to vote on Sunday. Just me, about 14 officials and one police officer. I'm getting more and more confident I can win next time. I also got a letter from the SPCA today asking members to nominate people for the Executive Committee election. I'm seriously thinking of nominating myself for this too. I don't know what such people do, but I want to win it.

In between days

I have a theory that children have more life in them because they still have a memory of not existing. I like very old people, to whom death is a certainty. They have humour, and a sense of life to them. At 36, all I seem to be aware of is myself.

Andy Warhol created me

Thursday, April 20, 1979
Had to go to the memorial service for Ambassador Hoveyda’s brother who was executed in Iran. Cabbed to Riverside Drive ($2.50). Everybody was there. We took our shoes off. There was a rug in the middle of the floor and no one wanted to step on it because it was like stepping on the body because there wasn’t a body there. There was Iranian music. It was like the best cocktail party but with no drinks.
Steve Rubell’s suing Ron Galella, I read in the papers – for starting a fight at Studio 54, he says. And I’m invited to Ron Galella’s wedding on Saturday. I think I’ll go.
- The Andy Warhol Diaries

I read a couple of pages of Andy Warhol’s diaries every night recently. I can’t explain why I love Andy Warhol. No one who likes him can explain why. I think Truman Capote described him as “A sphinx without a secret.”
This world wouldn’t be the same if he hadn’t existed, and I don’t think I would exist as I do now without him.

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Mr Thriller has been on high alert for the last few days. All this clean living and lucidity is starting to get to him. I was in the bookstore getting ideas for our 2008 calendar and all the great ideas were getting me all riled up. When someone with strong perfume passed by I almost broke down from some kind of deviant inability to contain all the pleasing input. It’s a good thing Mrs Wrongdesign wasn’t there, or I may have thrown her down between the aisles. Come to think of it, it’s too bad she wasn’t there - I kind of like the sound of that.

It's good to be District Councilor

I’m excited, this weekend we have elections in HK. I still remember the first time I voted; I was in 6th form in London and I voted for the Green Party. I had no idea who was running for the Green Party or what they planned to do, but I knew it was the cool party to vote for. This weekend I will vote for ‘the Democratic Party’ (not to be confused with another party called the ‘Democratic Alliance for the Betterment of Hong Kong’). Their leader is Martin Lee. When I came to Hong Kong I asked my new friends who they admired the most, and everyone always said “Martin Lee”. Later I got a job to photograph him. When I showed up at our designated meeting spot, the parking lot of the HK Legislative Offices, I realized I had no idea what he looked like, so I stood with my camera out and made eye contact with every man over 40 I saw, until one of them acknowledged me. An important lesson – always know who you are photographing, and try to remember their name if you can. He was an amazing guy, he knew the daughter of an HK painter I admired (turned out the daughter was Anson Chan, possibly the most famous woman in HK who isn’t a pop star, I really need to do my homework). He took me around the court and various offices and we took photos and we went up to the roof - literally on the slanted, tiled roof with nothing between a slip of the foot and certain death. He said he liked to go up there to think. I wasn’t worrying about me dying, but I was really worried about him dying, it would have looked really bad if the most beloved man in HK died while I was photographing him. Neither of us died and the photos were amazing, this man could strike a pose at the drop of a hat, a real pro.
So anyway, this weekend we’re voting for the District Council members. These are the people who watch over our individual regions in HK and make sure the trash gets picked up on time and the road works go ahead. We’re not actually allowed to vote for anyone with power in HK. There is a vote for our leader, but the people who vote are hand-picked by the Chinese government, so it’s really difficult to win unless you are also hand-picked by the Chinese government (though I’m sure it might be possible somehow). The last time he ran for office, ex-Chief Executive Tung Che Hwa spent a million HK dollars on his campaign, even though there was no one running against him. He just had to go through the motions, otherwise it would have looked really bad, I guess.
Because it’s pretty pointless, politics is pretty lackluster in Hong Kong. The government is pretty efficient and has sent me a letter telling where to vote, when to vote, and who my two options are (only 2!). I’m now seriously considering running next year (do they have them every year? I should check that out). I really want to be a leader, I really want the power. At first I thought I might be too morally bankrupt and incompetent, and my opponents would expose me immediately, but then I quickly remembered – this is politics, dummy.

I just have one question that I’ve been dragging around with me for years – after I win, should I cultivate society, or enslave it for my raucous pleasure? I can never figure this one out. People are senseless, horrible things, and if you give them a break they just abuse everything and it all goes to hell. The last thing you want is for them to govern themselves. And they’re just masses of corrupted, fleshy animals anyway. However, you could argue that hundreds of thousands of years of mismanagement and misdirection has left the human race a little regressive; a tad spiritually reticent. I like people, they’re probably my favorite things after romance and art. I just don’t know what to do with them all.

World Comin' Down

I made the first contact with the little boy who lives on my floor today. We were in the elevator and he whistled a few notes, and I whistled a few to conclude our made-up song. He thought this was great. I’m pleased. I’ve always been curious about him, but he’s so odd I usually think it better to ignore him. I call his family “The Poors” because they don’t have running water and use the public toilets to wash. This is cruel and amuses me, but I think it’s okay as I too didn’t have running water for the first 7 months I lived here. Anyway, this little boy spends hours entertaining himself in the corridor – singing songs and playing odd games with himself that usually involve repeating some action at some specified pace. I once saw him on the street waving some imaginary specter towards him, and then dashing behind the building. There was one woman walking in front of me and she didn’t know what to do. She didn’t get she wasn’t part of the event. I’m convinced if he grows up without being completely crushed by his peers he will turn out to be a creative genius. I can’t tell how old he is, I’d guess something between 6 and 10, I’m not very good with children’s ages. He has an older sister who’s beautiful and elegant and poised.

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It was a rotten day, hard disc broken, weeks of work lost. I felt physically sick when they told me. Carton of whisky sure looked good. 3 weeks of sobriety still left. I did the only thing I could do: put on Billy Idol’s “Devil’s Playground” and drew.

Desperate, but not serious

I was looking at naked girls on the internet and I got to thinking, these are just animals, why are they so amazing to look at? There must be billions of chicks, and they’re all a little bit different. This one’s limbs may be a little longer, this one has a very round ass, this one has lots of hair, this one has bigger lips. I love to look at cool guys, and cute puppies and sheets of rain hitting things, but looking at girls is different. It’s starting to annoy me, because I know it’s old mother nature just trying to get Mr Thriller randy so I can procreate. I feel so used.

Forgive me Satan

Today the doctor pronounced me cured. Although the sty is still there, my overall ying and yang are now balanced. He did, however, recommend I don’t drink for one more month to allow my body to become strong. My friend’s birthday today was a champagne brunch. I love champagne; it has that beautiful combination of decadence and intoxication that sits so well on the soul. I watched as my friends became progressively more outrageous and sloppy, until the gays and the straights where all intertwined on a revolving rattan couch on the sundeck of Jumbo Seafood Restaurant in Aberdeen Harbour. Good for them. We all had fun and I don’t think anyone even noticed I’d had less than a mouthful of champagne.
My friend, by the way, announced he had been looking for a garbage can, and his man concurred, and it was agreed I must be psychic, and the Germans among us passed it around admiring the design, and enquired where one could buy such a piece.

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It’s now 3am. I wanted a drink when I started drawing and the Cure came on and I remembered November in 1993; and my whole body shuddered remembering that motel room in Hampton Bays, and that car, and the silent chill in the air and Wish on the stereo and the entire world falling away from under me, when everyone was still alive and the future was still the future.
I’m okay now.

Shopping spree

I went out to buy a present for my friend’s birthday tomorrow. I had in mind a garbage can for some reason, but I thought this may be a useless present as he probably doesn’t need one, so I looked around for something to buy. While looking, I bought myself 8 sticks of charcoal, one charcoal rubber, a pirate copy of Adobe CS3 (Designer edition), ordered pirate copies of Dynasty Warriors 5 Empires and Samurai Warriors 2 Empires for PS2, a kind of soap bar for cleaning stains off clothes, 2 short-sleeved, white undershirts, 2 white vests, one white and one black long-sleeved shirt, 2 washable V-neck sweaters (one black, one grey), one pair of trousers, one button-up shirt, one sponge with handle (for cleaning the toilet cistern - the water’s always dirty and it builds up in the cistern, they’re doing some kind of work on the pipes I think), French chocolate (with orange peel), pesto salad, grilled salmon, and, most exciting of all, overpriced ear swabs (my good wife and I have been stuck with cheap ear swabs for years, that come in packs of 5 million, and they’re finally all gone. I got Johnson’s last time, and they’re great, but this time I upped the anti and bought black ear swabs with beveled cotton, yes, beveled, black cotton).

At the end of my shopping frenzy I chanced to see a really nice garbage can, which I bought for my friend.

I am becoming sensible (somebody shoot me)

I have a brand new neighbour, a Chinese doctor, so I have been seeing him about my sty. My liver has too much fire, and my kidneys have too much water, and he is curing me. I essentially need to sleep proper hours, stop drinking alcohol, eat well, and take Chinese medicine every day. It is a slow process of repairing all the damage, but I feel great already. Apart from last weekend I haven’t drunk in 2 weeks. Boy, I can’t wait till I’m all cleaned up.