But at least it was memorable. I don’t remember pleasant August at all.
Last Tuesday was one of the most exciting days of my life. This was partly due, of course, to that magical moment when I knew Barack Obama had been elected and the weird kind of intimate frenzy that grew within me watching his speech. Less monumental, but more exciting, was my setting the kitchen on fire, which led to an explosion. This was my first uncontrolled explosion and it was scary as a motherfucker. Nobody got hurt, but it took me 2 days to clean and repaint the kitchen. Afterwards I felt fully awake, tingly, like nothing physical existed anymore.
I have been 3 weeks in Hong Kong by myself. I have been drunk for 3 solid weeks, indulgent, caught up in work all day, up all night in a time-lagged endomorphine emergency all night, saturated in whisky, pornography, TV drama, and a million miles away from the beautiful filth of the gutter of my soul.
My best friend Splotchy (never met him) asked me (asked any of his readers) to draw up a list of 8 power pop tunes, and now we are asked to write why we picked them.
My parents’ conversation overheard while watching the US Open:
After a brief and torrid sojourn with the Motley Crue autobiography I have gone back to my true love, the Yukio Mishima Sea of Fertility tetralogy. This is the 2nd book, “Runaway Horses”. The way he writes about boys sets the heart racing. I can’t imagine how great it would be if he liked girls.
I saw a man on the street today playing electric guitar. He was wasted away, all muscle and bone, almost elderly, with a rock’n’roll hairstyle, singing Cantonese pop from the 60’s. His speakers were rigged to his bicycle, and he had a kind of shrine surrounding him of news articles and photos and a fluffy white pet resting on a stool with a sign in English and Chinese warning you not to touch the dog or it’ll bite.
I’m en route from Old Lady Manhattan to Hong Kong, now in the Korean Air “Prestige Lounge” in Seoul. I must have crashed and gone to heaven. First a beautiful girl gave me a towel and took me to my own private shower room. After trying all the free hair products they had and taking “look-I’m-Tommy-Lee” naked photos of myself in the mirror with my phone I realised I was missing out on the free bar, so I dressed and hit the bottle, and the cappuccino machine, and the pastry counter. I finished the bottle of Jack, then when I went back to start on the Scotch there was a brand new bottle of Jack waiting for me. Man, I’m inspired. I gotta make money. This is how I want to live.
I’m flying back to Old Lady Manhattan this morning. It generally takes me 24 hours door-to-door as I fly through South Korea. This 24 hours is fun, fun, fun. I like airplanes. No phone calls - you’re forced to do nothing but doze off and watch movies while beautiful girls serve you and you play “If I had to choose just one” and read the Financial Times. I pay tones of money for each flight, but it still thrills me to get a free newspaper on the plane. 
It’s Saturday morning, or more accurately, the end of Friday night. I’ve been with people. Generally I don’t spend a lot of time with people, I’m quite busy. This is the 2nd weekend in a row I’ve associated with people.
So Israel just swapped Samir Kuntar, plus 4 other Lebanese prisoners, plus the remains of 199 Lebanese fighters for … the bodies of 2 dead Israeli soldiers.
Can’t sleep. It’s been another productive, perfectly coordinated day (the worst kind). Had to get up and draw … spend a little time with myself. I’m seven small inches away from doing a Gauguin – quitting the bank and going to a small tropical island to unearth my soul in purely sensual pursuits. I think I’d take Baby with me though. And I don’t work at a bank. 
I’ve spent the past 3 weeks stone cold sober, and the last 2 weeks in complete control of myself, dealing with mortgage brokers, insurance brokers, printers, deliveries, premeditated ejaculations, hair care, ironing etc. Adult things. Everything is running smoothly. I feel great. It’s so nice. Everything’s nice. Nice, nice, nice. How pleasant to see things running smoothly. How nice. How tediously nice. How comfortable and predictable everything has become. How stable I feel. How clean. Like I’ve been disinfected. Like I’ve been wiped down with bleach. Sterilized. Sterile. Squeaky clean. Like a soldier’s button. Like a happy, shiny soldier’s button. Happy, clean and nice.
Baby has a high school reunion next January so we are in training for the event. To start out with I’ve become a recovering alcoholic again – this is a sure-fire way to get rid of that unsightly ‘spare tire’ flesh that is becoming a constant pest. I thought maybe it had been a month or two since I stopped being a filthy drunk, but actually it’s been only 2 weeks. I remember last time it was 40 days and 40 nights and by the end I felt like some kind of lean, sexual python, slithering down Hubba Hubba Street. This task is, frankly, tedious, but it’ll be worth it in 6 months’ time. I won’t let anyone accuse me of not knowing the sweet poison of conceit.
I have recreated here the painful last moment I could feel my right hand. I have drawn it with my left hand because my right hand has been chewed to pieces by a vicious dog. This is the 2nd time I’ve been attacked by a dog – it happens very suddenly, and all in the same moment you hear that horrifying snarling sound they make through the saliva of their flapping lips, you feel the tugging against your limbs and you feel the sharp pain of the teeth breaking through the skin, pushing into the muscles. Almost immediately they let go and then go in again for a better grip, and at that moment, because you have already analyzed and understood the situation, you try to outmaneuver the animal, which is virtually impossible, but you can at least give it a less important section of your hand/arm to tear up. At this point, you’re in a bit of a conundrum. Do you attack the dog back? It’s hard to kick a dog when it’s locked on to you, and if you hit it with your hand you stand the chance of it shifting its teeth over to your one good hand. This is a good time to find a suitable piece of furniture to beat the dog off with.
This is the last page in a sketch book I’ve had since college (it’s about 15 years old). I’ve been filling up every blank page until now, when I can put it away and move onto the next book.
I did six photo shoots today. One photo shoot sucks your soul. Six pretty much make you god’s whore. I always felt a good portrait session was a lot like a good fuck. You warm them up, you encourage them into a kind of pare and slowly you start directing them, start reading them, start manipulating them, then lure out their inner soul to the surface, then you delve right into the person. By the end you can read each other’s mind, they know exactly what you want them to do by the most simple command, and they comply, because its all good. And then it’s over. You take each other’s email address, promise to keep in contact, and they leave feeling great, but a little empty inside; a little robbed. Me? I feel tired, fulfilled, at peace, until the next stirring.
tured paper, something like really gaudy wallpaper, with an exquisite, etched pattern on glossy card. It’s supposed to be unnerving, the trashy flashiness of the back, next to the natural elegance of the front. I think I fucked the back up though (these are 2 of the 6 versions of the front, by the way). The back looks too hideous, like a neon popsicle that has melted into pure sugar.
your blog yesterday,” and I assume they are going to say “and I think we won’t be doing any more business with you.” But they usually say something like “I didn’t know you were so odd, can you redesign something for us please?” It feels a little wrong, like the time I had a partially nude girl on my name card and I walked on to the exit ramp at a press conference and forced the president of Mitsubishi to take a card. It all happened so fast, the security didn’t know what to do, and I was back in the press section in a flash after he took it, looking completely confused. He never called me, but it all made sense at the time.
Baby and I found a baby sparrow on the pavement last week. We brought it home and a week later it died. I feel a little sick with myself; more than a little responsible for taking it away from its nature, no matter how dangerous, and then not taking care of it properly. I still have no idea what happened, but I’m pretty sure it was very healthy until the last day, and it died because of some kind of neglect on my part.
I ruined the picture I was drawing for Shannon tonight by pouring champagne all over it. It did turn out better in the end, although it was still not good enough to give to her.
That son-of-a-bitch Dom-hating grumpy dick-licker of a security guard has been reinstated by the management of my building. The same whore-fucking dirty rotten son-of-a-cunt who has hated me since the “You’re handsome” (http://dominicharvey.blogspot.com/2007/09/handsome-mans-burden.html) episode. Every time I see him I give him a big smile and a cheery “Hello”, and every time he sees me he half-closes his eyes and his face distorts into a kind of trembling, twisted, infuriating train-wreck of a grimace, which makes me beam with joy like a giddy schoolgirl after the first time she drove a schoolboy to wanton despair.
I think Baby and I just bought a house. That would put us half a million dollars in debt. This is kind of not great as I don’t have half a million dollars and I can’t conceptualize 30 years from now when we’ll have paid it all off. In times like this I like to imagine Dostoevsky’s Raskolnikov throwing the money he stole from the old hag moneylender into the river, and then I start to enjoy the reckless excess of it all.
I saw the photos of the “Uncontacted tribe” on the internet today, one of the few indigenous groups of people who have no contact with the outside world. They are all painted red, full of fear and fire, pointing arrows at the reconnaissance plane repeatedly flying overhead. Man how I love those people – clueless, facing a bizarre phenomenon flying above them, ready to fight to the death. Hopeless, beautiful people. Like butterflies flying in a strong breeze, being tossed here and there, yet still pushing on. Hopeless, like everything else, but with beauty and dignity.
Every just so often I abandon drawing and everything and become someone else, like a playwright or a matador. At this moment, I have become a guitarist. I am already on p21 of “Progressive Guitar Method Book 1 – Beginner”. Studying is a beautiful process. You sit and you look at it and you practice it and then suddenly it all makes sense. Like one little, hidden room suddenly becomes illuminated, and you’re allowed to go in and enjoy. I love the sound of the C chord moving onto the E7 chord. I could do it over and over again. My fingers are killing me; I now know how Bryan Adams felt back in the summer of ’69. I will start using phrases like “At least I still have my guitar”, and “The guitar is my woman”. I also have a new fuck-you rock’n’roll haircut. Essentially I stand in front of the mirror and spend 15 minutes loading my hair with clay and wax until it looks like I haven’t washed in 3 days and just rolled out of the gutter without checking the mirror. Yep, that’s me, the genuine article.
Ah recovery. The days following a minor cold are the best. Your insipid body blossoms with the sweet surges of necessity, and your broken spirit becomes enflamed with guiltless want. You stand at the toilet and your cock weighs heavy in your hand, all rubbery flesh; soft, yet somehow twice its normal size and full of insinuation.
Dreaming I was preparing an exhibition honoring Herman Brood. I was being emotionally tortured. In defiance I offered a knife to use against me, and in greater defiance it was ignored and the torture compounded. When I woke up my throat was killing me and I knew I was sick again. Then I fell asleep and dreamed of hamsters, just like the last time I was sick. A man had neglected his hamster – it was in a poor state, all malnourished and half bald. I helped orchestrate the campaign to save the hamster. Later, I walked past the man’s shop. His hamster sat on the sidewalk in front of his shop. The front of the shop was all glass, and the hamster looked tiny. I saw the man inside, completely broken with his head in his hands, awaiting his fate. I petted the hamster, which had completely recovered. The hamster stared stupidly in front of itself, completely unable to comprehend its current state, or even its previous state. It sure looked cute though.
I spent the best part of Saturday photographing a bar. We started at 9am in Hong Kong’s Wanchai district. Wanchai is a haven for older white men who want to score younger Southeast Asian girls. I haven’t hung out there in about ten years. When I first came to Hong Kong I had no money and used to walk there from home every weekend to dance. I remember I didn’t have pockets in my “cool” clothes, so I used to put my house keys in my mail box, then tie my mailbox key to my shoelaces. I didn’t drink, because I never had cash, and I never spoke to anyone, because you just don’t want to explain why you can’t even pay for a bus home together, or come up with a reason why the bed is just a piece of wood that’s supposed to hold a mattress. My friends came and slept on the floor anyway, because it beat sleeping in the park. Now I have a bed and a futon, but nobody stays over any more – they all have houses of their own.
Back from 2 weeks in Old Lady Manhattan; I’m starting to like the old hag in a perverse kind of way – like the way you watch out of curiosity the lunatic dragging his emaciated body down the road screaming; or the uneducated, angry minority forced to the ground at gunpoint by a lone police officer; it kind of draws you in. Perhaps later I’ll comment on it all. In the meantime, 24 hours of travelling in close confinement with total strangers has left me with an urgent need for an orgasm, and 2 weeks without a drop of whisky (only champagne and wine in Old Lady Manhattan) has left me damned thirsty. The more I see of humanity, the more I both want to help every struggling human being and destroy the human race.
Then things started going bad from there. We moved on to Osaka and Baby caught the flu, then I caught the flu, and I had to miss Riho’s birthday party at Pico-chan’s restaurant. We spent almost the whole of the 1st week in a fever, watching Japanese TV and living with a cat whose sole purpose in life was to inflame my allergies as much as possible. I swear I opened my eyes one night, gasping for breath, and the cat’s face was centimeters from mine, and it was laughing. Like all good women, though, it remained charming while at the same time was slowly destroying me.
We delayed going to see Mom till we were almost recovered, then Baby lost her rail pass, so we spent half a day looking for it, going through the trash and everything. I was almost pleased, it was like a ticket out of every rebuttal I was going to face over the next several months for forgetting or not bothering to do something. We finally gave up and took the train up to Yonnago to see Mom. On the way we stopped at the Police station to file a ‘missing rail pass’ report. I really wish I had the balls to take photos in that police station. For all the wealth in Japan, they really haven’t channeled any of it to the police force. The walls were stained with years of dirt and hand washing. The chalk board was worn down to the wood in some places. The laptop had to be wired up, with a series of bulky cables stretching across from the custom-made reception desk, circa 1975. During the report two teenage boys in sports suits came in to hand over a wallet they found. It was like something out of a government sponsored infomercial from the 70’s. Everything was friendly, disciplined, charming.
Mom had booked dinner and a room for us in a beautiful hotel on Mt Daisen. It was a beautiful, elegant old hotel on the snowy mountain with a magnificent view. We had an enormous room and access to everything. We got there so late though all the family had left, and we had to rush through our luxury meal so the staff could go home. Next morning we had to catch the 9am train to get to Atami on time for check-in. We’d chosen Atami for a mini-honeymoon because it’s where Baby’s Mom and Dad had gone on their honeymoon. When we were eating with Mom though she said “Why are you going to such a boring place?” Turns out Mom never went there on her honeymoon after all. The trip was really starting to go from bad to worse.
We checked out early, so we had enough time to see Grandma. This was exciting, and Grandma and I crossed the threshold of pretending we don’t see each other to actually speaking a couple of words. I like Grandma a lot, she just needs a little time to get used to me.
With our luxury hotel wasted, we soldiered on to Atami with a ridiculous amount of luggage.
Now, Atami was essentially the hottest resort town in Japan in the 50’s and 60’s. We assumed it would be full of old-world splendor. When we arrived though, it felt more like a ghost-town. We got given a room on the 4th floor, at the end of the corridor. This is pretty much the unluckiest room to get in China, because all the ghosts drift towards that spot. I’m not sure about Japan, but we left our shoes crossed at the doorway just in case (this makes it difficult for the ghosts to get in).
We went out for a wander and, I’m not kidding, the same black cat tried to cross our path twice. Things were really starting to feel creepy. We slept on a tatami floor with the sliding paper walls half-open and the light on.
The place was truly enchanting, and the open access to so many of the rooms was amazing.
We also visited the oldest tree in Japan. Each time you walk around the tree you gain one year of life. I went around 5 times, and Baby went around 6 times, the logic being that she wanted to live 1 year longer than me (idiot). 
That night we visited the famous statue of Omiya and Kan-ichi, recreated dramatically here. It was at this beach that the betrayed Kan-ichi said “You were blinded by his diamond” as he kicked Omiya away. Fortunately for Baby we got the shot in one take. By now we were starting to turn the wheels of fortune and things were becoming dandy again. 
Next day we visited the MOA museum. This, like more than a few of Japan’s museums, was set up by a fanatical religious group. Japan really sets the imagination wild with the dizzying possibilities of cult worship and the power of organized religion. The museum is in parts creepy, particularly the enormous elevator lobby-like area that is half-way up the odd series of multicoloured escalators that lead from the first gate to the main entrance. It may have been impressive, had it not been for the fact that we went to the Miho Museum in Kyoto last year – another religious museum set in a remote mountain, but far, far superior. The highlight of the MOA was definitely the tryptich of three Japanese beauties, including the enchanting bitch Sei Shonagon. 
After Atami, we returned to Tokyo. I started getting disenchanted with Tokyo as I saw more and more old men completely ignoring Baby as she was trying to get off the subway with her suitcase. They just walk ahead, blocking her way, and seem genuinely taken aback when you point out they are being complete assholes for not taking 3 seconds to stand out of the way while a female is getting off the train.
