Monday, December 31, 2007

Goodbye, cruel year …


We rang in the holidays watching the “Rockettes Christmas Extravaganza”. I don’t know how I went this long without cultivating a love/hate relationship with the Rockettes. It was everything you’d want it to be –toe-tapping family-orientated sex, bright lights, with a little religion thrown in to round it off. The first number, when they came out as reindeer, with those long reindeer-legs gyrating just for me, I knew it was going to be a good show. During the Santa number I had something of an epiphany. Santa was explaining how he could be in so many places at once. It started out as one Santa, and with the use of cleverly hidden partitions on the stage that one Santa pulled out a 2nd from nowhere, and those two multiplied into four, etc, until there was a whole chorus line of them. Rockettes dressed as Santas everywhere, singing and dancing. Whoever orchestrated this is a goddamn bonafide genius. I can’t remember what my epiphany was, but it felt pretty earth shattering at the time.
We had a wedding party at Yoshi’s and are having another one at none other than Anarchy Pony’s house in a few days (we're serving 'whore pasta'). It turns out she owns half of Brooklyn and saw a rapper’s bodyguard shot dead outside her door. How cool is that? We have one more wedding party in Hong Kong on Feb 27, 2008; and then I think the “Wedding Tour” must sadly end, and make way for some other gimmick.
New Year’s eve will be spent at what might now be the greatest show on earth – Gogol Bordello. Good goddamn. I hope the new year crushes me in the sheer magnitude of its magnificence. 2008, ‘bring it on’ (George Bush II, what a fucking asshole).

Sunday, December 23, 2007

I don't know whether I'm coming or going


I drew this for my good friend (don’t actually know her) Shannon, but I don't think it's appropriate. I didn’t have any model so I used some pornography that had struck me as interesting to draw for some reason. I need to pack and fly to America though as I’m leaving in a few hours. It’s that horrible clash of stark reality and indirect reality that keeps dogging me recently. I need to choose which socks to pack and copy over some new Twins songs to my mp3 player. Is this my life? It feels odd.

Saturday, December 22, 2007

All work and no play


I had to stay up till 5:30am folding brochures because of some production mistake. I amused myself by watching Twins music videos and about 6 episodes of “My Name is Earl”. I think that affected my 2 hours sleep because I dreamed in American. Somebody in a library in my dream called me a “butt hole”. Nothing personal, they didn’t know me; they were just directing it to a faceless customer, who happened to be me. That made me a little annoyed when I woke up. I mean, who the hell do they think they are? It’s my dream.
Work was busy. It’s now 4am. I really should be in bed, I need to get organised to fly back to NY on Sunday, but my assistant got us Santa hats today, so I just had to draw, just a little.
I hadn’t had a chance to have an orgasm for days. I finally stole some time to myself, and for one moment, in the darkness of my fevered mind, I remembered all the beauty of humanity that got buried in the last couple of weeks.
Must sleep now and get back to inhumanity tomorrow.

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Ring it in


The 2008 Wrong design calendar is finally designed and has been sent to print. If you want a copy let me know. If I have your mailing address already, you're getting one anyway even if you don't want it!

Sunday, December 16, 2007

The Twins effect


I feel it is time I introduced some of my idols.
I would like to start with Twins. Twins are a Hong Kong pop duo who make mindless pop tunes and bland movies and are the cash cows for and aggressive and downright scary multimedia conglomerate called “Empire Entertainment Group” (EEG) who ‘own’ a lot of the major HK stars plus a variety of businesses.
I, like the rest of Hong Kong, love Twins. I, like the rest of Hong Kong, can’t decide which of them is better for me. I’ve always had the gut feeling that Ah Giu (Gillian Chung – B&W photo) was better for me, yet I would somehow end up with Ah Sa (Charlene Choi – colour photo).
I never really liked them, until one day I was on a plane and saw a movie starring Ah Sa, and in the movie she was a pretentious little teenager trying to seduce a staid lawyer, and when I saw her naked shoulders and back I realized how great Twins really are. From then, I always thought Ah Sa was the cuter of the two, and Ah Giu was a little boring-looking, till I invited myself to a Biotherm press-launch they were appearing in.
My friend told me they would be doing the event, so I thought it would be amusing to show up and pretend I was a magazine photographer and see what would happen. I ended up spending about 6 hours photographing them.
I took the photos here, plus about 800 others. Ah Sa (colour), who was so beautiful in the movies, looked the same in every photo, and seemed lost during the whole, disturbing ordeal. Ah Giu (B&W), who I thought was so plain before, turned out to be so enchanting in person, and so amazingly photogenic and beautiful.
The day really was odd. They showed up about an hour late. It’s really tiring to jostle for an hour in a contained crowd of about 40 photographers, each trying to hold their own precious spot. The photographers were getting restless. Unlike me, they were there for a genuine job, and they had other genuine jobs to get to afterwards, so the delay was really screwing up their schedule. Then I chanced to see Twins’ schedule, and I realized for the first time what a job it was. They had appearances all day, combined with video shoots, training, etc etc. This may not seem like a hard job when you imagine it, but when I saw it in front of me it was kind of shocking.
We were in a restaurant that had been hired for the day for this product launch. There was a makeshift stage set up with the Biotherm logo plastered all over it. There was a section directly in front of the stage for the press. There was a section to the left reserved for more formal studio shots. Next to this was a table reserved for spoken interviews. To the right was an area for the staff involved to wait, and behind this was closed off – for make-up and various behind-the-scenes activities. Behind the press was a long no-mans-land, and beyond that, near the entrance, was a long line of specially invited fans.
There was a not very inspired intro act involving cute children and two MCs, just to warm us up and remind us of how great Biotherm is. Then, finally, Twins appeared. I, and the rest of the press gang, launched in will full gusto; then the crowd of fans joined in, screaming things like “I love you” and “beautiful girl” in Cantonese. It was creepy. The girls looked up and waved sheepishly at the fans. They knew as well as I did that the fans didn’t really “love” them. The fans didn’t even know them. Suddenly, I wished I wasn’t a part of this.
The next couple of hours was a pretty well-rehearsed set of events, mixed with photo opportunities, where Twins introduced the wonders of Biotherm, which included a cute act where they applied make-up to each other, and a lucky draw where one of the press guys won a big bag of Biotherm products. These guys are real pros, I thought, as I shot away, full of beans like a rabid dingo let loose on a chicken farm during a full moon.
Afterwards, they did the professional shoot. I think anyone who asked got to shoot them with proper studio lights in a sectioned-off area, but I’d stretched my luck so far, and tricked and lied to so many people’s faces I thought it would be best not to get involved in this. I stuck around though while most reporters left, and made it to the interview section, where I could even walk up to them and touch them if I wanted to. I didn’t, of course. They made eye contact with me a few times. In my fevered imagination I assumed they were fascinated and gradually falling in love with this exotic stranger, but in reality I must assume they were just wondering why there was a white man there. At one moment I imagined I read their mind, and they said “he was sent on a job, but doesn’t know who we are, and doesn’t care, but that is okay, because none of the others care either, and neither should I.”

Soon after this experience, the tabloids reported that Ah Giu (B&W) was dating a famous local swimmer-turned-pop-star. My friend told me that it was just a publicity exercise though, and it turned out to be true, because later that week I had a dream I went to a party, and Twins showed up, and Ah Giu told me in person that the relationship wasn’t real. In telling me, she was also indirectly saying that she was single, and might be interested in me.

So, that is it. Today, I bought 3 Twins albums. They are great. They come in big boxes full of photos and coupons and samples of products that Twins sponsor, plus extra things like Twins towels, karaoke bar photo frames and Pot-Noodles rulers. I adore them unreservedly. I just wish the music wasn’t so mainstream.

Saturday, December 08, 2007

Fast awake, wide asleep


I’ve been dreaming so much lately. I’ve been going to bed with a happy anticipation of seeing brand new friends ‘again’. Memories of these dreams are intertwined with memories of real-life events. Waking is much the same. I don’t know where I am anymore. I don’t know who I am. Is that bad?

Friday, December 07, 2007

Apply yourself


I don't see the news much when I travel. It's always kind of fun to look at the news after a break of a few days. I see another spoilt young American has committed mass murder.
I could never figure out why they kill so few people though. I'm sure it's pretty easy to kill at least 50 people if you have enough ammunition before someone kills you back, and if you plan it carefully you should be able to get a few hundred easily.
Eight people? I could have done that with a hammer and still had time to steal their wallets.

Tuesday, December 04, 2007

Precious Sight


Saturday morning, me and Baby were on Delancey Street and I noticed an attractive building with a huge arched window and what looked like a bar with thousands of bottles behind it, and god himself leant down from heaven and said “Dominic, remember this building, it is very, very special”.
6:30pm, on the subway, I was flipping through a Village Voice and saw Richard Hawley was playing at 7:30pm at the Bowery Ballroom. We rushed, rushed, rushed; my heart thumping with fear at the thought of seeing my idol. When we arrived, it was the same building god had shown me earlier. We got tickets and my fear subsided.
That night, the music swayed and roared out of His vicious soul, along the floorboards, up the wall, onto the balcony and deep into my own vicious soul.What a guy.

Monday, December 03, 2007

Old NY

I’m in old lady Manhattan now. On the 2nd leg of my flight here, South Korea to NY, I sat next to a child. Very cute, when she sat her extended legs just reached the end of the seat. Children are just like people, but smaller. I think because they have all that joie de vivre and pathos normal people have, wrapped up into that small space of their bodies, it comes out in little explosions rather than steady streams. She kicked me a lot while she was sleeping, and stepped on me and took my empty dishes to play with, she hooped and hollered when something funny happened on her cartoon and she had one brief crying fit, but it wasn’t annoying at all. I think if people are good natured then it doesn’t bother you.
I slept most of the flight, which is unusual. I didn’t even get around to playing ‘If you had to choose just one flight attendant…’

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No chance to draw sadly. I've scanned old pictures of cats I drew after my hero Toulouse Lautrec.