It’s all swell when you’re well

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.
Later Baby mentioned Laika. I always thought Laika survived, but it turns out her spaceship wasn’t even designed to be able to make it back into orbit. Later Laika was honored with all sorts of statues, postage stamps etc, which somehow makes me feel even more sorry for Laika. I bet all she wanted was some food, a place to run around, and a good fuck.
Well, in a nutshell: I’m sick, we’re all going to die, and existence is futile.

The libertine

I first learned I had no soul in Egypt in 1999. I was in an oasis town called Al Fayoum, taking photos of romantic poverty, when a local man purposely walked into me, knocking me sideaways, mid-photo. I assumed it was an accident and looked up at him, and he turned to face me while he was walking away and gave a clear grimace, somehow both facing me and walking away at the same time, grimacing, with piercing, unfriendly eyes. I’d seen that look before a few times in Egypt; enough times to make me stop and think what it meant. This was pre-9-11, when I still had a healthy disrespect for all religions, and didn’t know the difference between a Jew and a Muslim. I now know there is no difference – they are just the same as me: insignificant human animals with overblown senses of importance. I’d made a lot of faux-pas during that trip. I still remember the whole room filling with laughter - absolute uncontrollable, unexpected mirth, after I asked if I could get a flight to Israel. I remember the student coming up to me in the Mohammed Ali mosque (no, not that Mohammed Ali) and telling me I was not behaving respectfully. He was unapologetically angry, veritably incensed. I remember the man saying, with contempt, “No, they are not singing, they are praying”, and I especially remember that pregnant pause during an argument about money in the Khan al-Khalili souk, after a non-Muslim female had literally ripped the cash out of a male Muslim’s hand, when I could see in their eyes the thought: “Should we beat the crap out of them, or laugh it off?”. That look followed me everywhere, and I eventually interpreted it to mean “that base infidel”. Those challenging eyes, coming from an animal that had spent an entire lifetime in devotion to a spiritual ideal, facing an animal that had spent an entire young adulthood in devotion to folly and fleeting sensual whims.
What troubled me most was that it was all true. Where they had a deep spiritual conscious, no matter how absurd it was, I had only an indiscriminate fancy, based on nothing but orgasms, pride and desire. I have no soul. I am like a Labrador, running through a sunlit field; it’s tongue hanging out, with a glorious, idiot smile on its face.
I wish I had a soul. I listen to Mahalia Jackson and I wish I had a soul. I meet my fiends and relatives who have a certain and defined faith and I wish I had a soul. I speak to virtual strangers who are discovering subtle and profound truths about themselves and I wish I had a soul. But I don’t. I am hollow and empty like the rotten core of a decaying tree trunk. Like a shell whose inhabitant has long left for a larger housing. Like Kenny G. I am on a path of existence, leading towards a death that will lead me into eternal nothingness. It makes me feel so … liberated.

Men’s stage-fright (a true story)

Several years ago I was in the men’s room in Penn Station in New York. The urinal was one long, stainless steel trough with no partitions, long enough to accommodate about 20 men. I took the most free spot and started organizing the dormant Mr Thriller to pee when I noticed some commotion to my right. Men were hurriedly stuffing their trousers and scurrying away and I saw a man at the other end running his hand up and down his penis. By the time he had it to its full length everyone had vacated the area except me, and he was calling after them “You see it, don’t you? You see me doing it!” He had an enormous smile and he looked really pleased.
I was defiant, and I stood there facing the wall, determined to do my business. But I couldn’t. I waited, I concentrated, I tried not to concentrate, but I couldn’t pee. I can’t remember if I ever had men’s’ stage-fright before, but I definitely had it after that episode.
I have made an amazing discovery though; a Nobel Prize worthy discovery … I think I have cured men’s stage-fright. If you’re a man, or if you know a man, please read this.
Now, when I feel stage-fright coming on, I think of the Buddha. Yes, the Buddha. I visualize him, with his happy face and big belly, and I can pee. I can’t for the life of me remember how I came to this discovery. I know, over time, I tried various things to think about, and various techniques, and this was one of them, but I just can’t remember why on earth I would decide to try thinking of the Buddha. I haven’t been in a situation as dire as a masturbating stranger yet, so I’m not sure if it works in extreme circumstances, and I’m also not sure if it’s just me because I have a certain innate reaction to the Buddha, but it’s worked for years, so I think it’s a pretty good discovery. This is not a joke, by the way, and it doesn’t contain an indirect hidden message, so please try it and tell me how you get on.

Fish eat fish

I dreamed there was a tank full of fish which were to be culled. The culling was acheived by poisoning the water and slowly draining it, so the poison became less and less diluted. As the fish started to weaken, the stronger fish started to eat the weaker fish, but these stronger fish then became weaker and themselves were eaten, till it was just shallow water with various fish wallowing around with strings of half-dead fish half swallowing each other.
This reminded me of when I got a free pass to a new gym. My regular gym has a big, open changing room, but this new gym had a tiny one cluttered with ill-places seats. In my regular gym people are generally polite and generous in the changing room – they stand back and make room for each other, but in this new gym it was dog eat dog, with everyone vying for a good spot to change, jumping all over each other and the furniture and aggressively protecting their little patches.
This in turn reminds me of the Middle East.
Silly little fish.

Flashbacks

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.
When I was walking to the bar I passed a 24 hour disco, windows all covered up and an endless thumping of dance music vaguely muffled. The girlie bars were still open too, and I was glad to see they now use little girls in polyester hot pants to lure customers in, instead of the ancient and wholly uninspired “mama sans” that used to invite you in back in the day when I walked those streets.
Photographing the bar bought back endless memories too. It smelled just like the room I used to live in during my first summer after college – above a bar, next door to a bar and opposite a bar. Twelve rooms altogether, all sharing 2 bathrooms (one for boys, one for girls). The light bulbs were always being stolen, so I learned how to shave in the dark. It was a great summer. It’s okay to be poor and working 3 jobs when everyone around you is also poor and working hard and, most importantly, young. I had a double bed, and Pony lent me a small refrigerator which I kept cheese and beans and which kept me alive together with the stale pastries I salvaged from the deli trash.
We took six hours, photographing booths and drinks and private rooms, and all the time it was like the radio was stuck in 1986. The memories just kept piling up and up till I really felt a little touched when the Neil Diamond, Barbara Streisand duet “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers” came on. I was only about 11 years old when I used to play this song incessantly on my Walkman, and it was weird to realize I still know it word for word; especially when I think I had absolutely no experience of breaking up from a serious relationship when I was 11. Then again, I was singing my heart out to Bronski Beat 3 years later, even though I had no idea what a homosexual was. The music also slipped back into hippie times, and when the 25 minute instrumental version of “Marrakesh Express” finished I was just about ready to walk out of the job. I repaired myself by illegally downloading everything I could find by Bright Eyes when I got home and then, when I was sure I loved it, I bought it, and played it until there was something like truth stirring my blackened soul.

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I talk to myself a lot. For posterity, I wanted to record the various names I use to refer to myself and their variants:
Dom, Domboy, King Dom, Big Dom, Big Bad Ass Dom, Big Bad Ass Motherfucker, Big Boy, Dom Dom, Natty Dom Dom, Natty, Fatty, Fatty Dom Dom, Fat Boy, Daddy, Mr Me
I think that’s all of them – I’ve been writing them down all day as they come up.

Loving the alien

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.

On a more sober note, why is it that in Hong Kong, where there is only me and one male assistant, we go through one roll of toilet paper every three or four weeks; but in New York, where there is me, one wife, and one female roommate, we go through four rolls in three days? What on earth are they doing with all that toilet paper?

Fast times

It started when the waitress brought our fried vegetables, and there was a thick, pubic hair spiralling out of it. We protested and the waitress picked it out, flicked it on the floor, and then put the plate down for us saying “Sorry, there you go”. That was maybe the cue to pay and leave, but really, it’s not that big of a deal. I did complain to another waiter, but I only knew how to say “there was a hair in the food” in Cantonese, which just doesn’t have the same weight as a “pubic hair”. Anyway, he was very sweet and brought us back an even bigger dish, as well as bringing our original dish back just to prove they hadn’t given us the same food.
Apart from the hallucinations that come with poison derived fever, I never thought there was anything good about food poisoning … until now.
Three days without eating leaves a man somehow mentally cleansed. I usually trip over words and can’t communicate tête-à-tête, but after fasting for 3 days I found my mind actually able to express itself with speed and clarity. It’s been over a week now and I don’t feel hunger for anything. My old bedfellow, overindulgence, is conspicuously silent, and I feel liberated.
Oh, and during my convalescence, I finished Yukio Mishima’s “Spring Snow”. If anyone has the chance to read the end of this book, and follow Kiyoake’s descent into fever, while they themselves have a fever – I highly recommend it!

I’m having a nightmare

I’m back in Old Lady Manhattan, and the country is celebrating the 40th anniversary of the murder of Dr Martin Luther King Jr, or something. I’m not an expert, but I can clearly see a divide here in New York between the races and what kinds of jobs they hold. If you’re black, you have a simple job without much responsibility and a low salary. If you’re Hispanic you have a more difficult job with more responsibility (but not a very high salary). If you’re white you have a better salary, more authority and less actual work to do. Asians seems to fit into all categories, and I haven’t seen any Native Americans. Anyone who says you’re not privileged to be white in America is either lying to you or themselves. No disrespect to the Reverend, who did more for human progress than most, but something really seems broken here but I don’t think the white people who admire you so much are really trying very hard or really give that much of a fuck.

Eyes for eyes

I’ve been very angry recently. No reason, it’s just in my blood I think. I’ve been drunk for about a week, working, not sleeping to alleviate it. Exhaustion brings peace and calm.

Because it’s the 5th birthday of the Iraq war, everyone’s talking about it, especially the cost and the body count. The costs are phenomenal, and I’m thinking, what the hell have I been doing for the last five years? I should have set up an ammunitions factory in China, or a funeral home in Iraq – there’s just so much opportunity I’ve missed. Staying in my field, I could have even bid for the job of designing the new Iraq flag (or do you have to be associated with Cheney to get these contracts?) What ever happened to that flag anyway? I remember they released a new Iraqi flag about a month after Iraq “fell” then someone complained it looked too much like Israel’s flag, and then I never heard of it again. That happens a lot with news. Do you remember Yasir Arafat? He was the leader of Palestine, then one day he got sick, then he died with no explanation. That was suspicious, right? It wouldn’t have been, except absolutely no newspaper ever mentioned that it possibly could be suspicious. It’s like no paper ever mentions Barak Obama is half black, or Hilary Clinton is a female. They pretend it is just two people, because we’re not supposed to care who is what sex or colour, but in reality it is pretty exciting.
Speaking of Obama; Wrong design will now like to formally rescind our backing for him to become the next president of the United States. I was thinking today, George Bush should have been impeached when the US invaded Iraq. I understand it’s a pretty big deal and there was an uncertain feeling, so I forgive the public for hesitating; but when the public re-elected him, I really lost all compassion for them, and I think I have to hold them more than a little responsible for the outcome. That’s why I think Barak Obama is too good to be the next president. Instead I think Dick Cheney should be president for at least 8 years. America shouldn’t get off so easy, they should stick it out, till there’s nothing left of the country except a heavily fortified White House with a golden temple in the garden housing the chief executive of Halliburton and a couple of other elite cronies.
Another option: Barak becomes president, then everyone who voted to re-elect Bush gets lined up and shot.

The Japan odyssey

The Japan trip started out both fine and dandy. Baby had a show in Tokyo and she’s great. We stayed with Gwa and Mrs Gwa and Baby Gwa. Itarru (Baby Gwa) is very cool and I have to admit more than once I thought it was amazing they were speaking to him in Japanese even though he couldn’t even speak English yet. Fancy that, introducing a difficult foreign language to a seven-month-old.
We went to a Toulouse Lautrec exhibition at the Suntory Museum in Tokyo. This is the first touring exhibition I’ve been to in Japan and the procedure seems to be pretty much: stand in line for 30 minutes, get into the show and then move in a single file line with hundreds of other people. Can’t move ahead, can’t dilly-daddle. It’s a drag. Imagine all the genius of Toulouse Lautrec seeping into you and then being torn away, over and over again.
Gwa took us to an amazing tofu restaurant, recreated like a beautiful series of private rooms overlooking a landscaped garden. We had this amazing tofu picture on our wall.


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.
My sty, by this time, had grown to amazing proportions. I think it was the combination of sake, flu and allergies, but it swelled up to an impressive, red globe with a portentous white head. Each day I awoke I had to pick the snot-like crust and goo out of my eye-lid. It would have been unbearable, had it not been so fascinating.

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.
My nose was running non-stop and my 4 year-old Armani Exchange jeans had finally given in under the bulk of my manhood and split along the crotch (I had to wear these jeans for the rest of the trip).

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.
Next day, though, things started to change. We both felt much better, maybe from the fresh air and excitement. The staff were convinced I was, or was a double for, Ewan McGregor. I’m no big fan of his, but I’ll gladly take it if it means girls dig me. We took a tour of the area, the highlight of which was Kiunkaku, an old Ryokan (Japanese traditional inn) which hosted several famous writers, including one of my heroes Yukio Mishima (this is me with Yukio in one of the rooms he stayed in).

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.
Oh, and when I got back to Hong Kong I bought Chivas Regal at duty free and a photo of Baby as a teenager in her school uniform fell out of my wallet onto the counter, and it looked really, really, really bad as I scurried to pick up and put away the photo of the Japanese schoolgirl while buying cheap whisky with my swollen eye.

Plane of fools

Back from Japan. Just quickly, everyone, seriously, is it really going to kill you to sit in you seat and wait till the captain turns the seatbelt sign off? Are those 25 seconds you jumped the gun really going to get you home any earlier? I’m not unfamiliar with an over-inflated sense of self-importance, but I can’t see the benefit of getting out of my seat and getting my luggage out of the overhead compartment and getting my phone turned on before the plane comes to a complete halt, just to stand there, just 3 feet closer to the exit than I’d been if I’d stayed in my goddamn seat, for ten minutes while they park and connect the walkway to the door.
I hate you all.

Close, but no cucumber

Day 4 in Japan. We’ve been staying at Gwa’s house till now. Gwa is one of those people who are much cooler than me but still let me hang out with them. On one hand it’s great, but on the other hand it makes you feel like a dick when you’re obviously the less cool one. I’ve allowed my sycophancy to bloom to the point where I actually went to a shop with him and bought exactly the same shirt as he did.
Eye update: my sty has returned bigger and badder than ever – and this time it has sprouted something that looks not unlike a third eyeball. Tomorrow, I looking for a doctor … and a sunglasses shop.
This is me with a patch of shade that makes me look a little bit like I’m wearing clown make-up.

Toodle-oo

I am leaving for Japan for 2 weeks now. Not sure how I can blog while I’m wandering around lost and confused, though I guess that never stopped me before.

Could've been you, Should've been me

Baby got interviewed for a newspaper today. I, of course, sat in the sidelines, desperate to start talking about myself, about her, about anything. Baby is famous in ways I can only dream of. Google her and you’ll see, she’s practically Wikipedia material.
I’d love to be an interviewer. I imagine it must be like taking portraits photos. You kind of warm them up a little then step by step strip away their masks till you get down to their naked soul, which you steal and encage – it’s just like falling in love.
I think I will do that, I will interview people. One thing I’ve learned taking so many people’s pictures – they love talking about themselves, and I love them all. Ah, the freedom to love everybody without reserve or incarceration.

Neighbors from nowhere

So, I live and work on the third floor at the front of the building. It’s basically a studio/office with a pretty bathroom, open kitchen, and little, hidden bedroom where I get dressed, sleep, fuck and play DS Lite. Someone just moved in downstairs, and they’re selling some kind of hippy, mood music. Okay, fine, the building is less cool with you, but to each his own, live and let live etc etc. Your business will fail and you will leave eventually.
Today, though, they really moved in and I could hear that nonsense from my office. At first I thought it might be some strange mix in the music my assistant was playing, then I thought it may be my neighbor’s niece practicing recorder again, then I recognized it as piano – like, floating piano, like scales, but in a really mellow way. Like a really peaceful, meditative, repetitive noise. Like a really pointless noise. Like when you come home, dragging your soulless carcass like the dead luggage it is, and you have the faint, nagging little demon on your shoulder insinuating that the past nine hours of work as a trading assistant, and three hours of commute, was in fact a waste of time. You put this music on and it soothes you.
When you come home and the future 4 hours of television, regurgitated conversation, casual mention of a wish that will never be fulfilled, and obligation you dodge, start to seem like the foundation of a repulsive, pointless, hateful existence. Put this on and you feel relaxed at last. Like when you lay in bed, and remember a moment of passion that led to nothing 25 years ago, and you start to realize you are like one expendable, already half rotten piece of cattle being hoarded forward to a death that benefits not even the consumer causing it. This music is for you.
This music; this casually calculated noise, is just for you. It soothes not the savage beast, but the sluggish pedestrian. It is designed for the hollow, ever-so-slightly pricked, least human of humans; the masses that infect this broken world with nothing more than nothingness.

Paper moons

I read an article a while ago about a man who owned three Sony AIBOs. He said he felt love from them, then went on to explain that it is the same as having a ‘living’ pet; that we, as humans, project our own emotions onto animals even though they have no concept of such things. This felt like a revelation at the time.

Humans aren't really that sacred ... just me.

Welcome to the free world

Me and Baby went to Shenzhen today. I do love China, it’s so free of so many of the useless things my own society has been cultivating over the years. Children hang out together there, like little gangs of little people. I once saw an older child leading a younger child by the hand, and the smaller child fell over. I expected it to start crying. Instead, I witnessed the older child just drag it along the ground till it as able to find it’s feet again, and they continued along their merry way.
I also saw a little boy in a restaurant, whose face was all cut up and who seemed to have a badly cut up foot, all bloody and bandaged around the toes. He was filthy and looked poor in the good-old fashioned sense. To amuse themselves, the restaurant staff tried to stamp on his bad foot, and he danced around trying to avoid what promised to be excruciating pain. They thought it was funny, and he thought it was fun, and I thought, wouldn’t it be nice if I could have fun too.

Inside my comfort zone

2:30am, and the party is over. I drank enough, drank some more, and still got to draw a little. I feel a little disappointed, there was no drama. I feel like going downstairs and causing some trouble, just a little bloodshed before the night is out. Maybe I’m in the wrong town. Those girls I thought were Russian prostitutes turned out to be only French models.

It was a fantastic year of wedding parties. It is now time to look to the future. From this beautiful gutter, the only way to look is up, into that world where the streets are lined with tinsel. Lord have mercy.

The downward spiral

A lot of things to get through tonight:

1. Just a few days till our party, I was starting to worry – what is no one shows up? What if nobody likes me and nobody comes? But then I realized – I have 6 bottles of champagne, a night off, and an amazing party mix in iTunes. Fuck ‘em if they don’t like me.

2. A doctor took my blood pressure. She said “This is suspicious, it is too good”, and took it again. She seemed excited when it was the same result. 60 over 100, or was it 100 over 60? Anyway, it was good. Then it came. She said: “This is excellent … for a man your age.” A man my age? A man “my age”? This is the first time anyone has referred to me as a human who has passed from young adulthood into absolute maturity. This is bad, bad news. I guess senility will step in when I get too tired of self-deception. I would like to announce, by the way, that I have a high sperm count.

3. It seems Fidel Castro has stepped down. This seems great – the man didn’t die or get assassinated like a Kennedy. I hope the personal vendetta of the United States and the voting public in Florida fades into its own hideous obscurity now. We all know the truth, by the way; just in case you think you were fooling any one. Everybody knows you sanction Cuba out of a petty, childish, need to empower yourselves after a series of failed invasions in what looks like your own backyard. Good for you Fidel – no matter how you are painted by your peers, and no matter even what evil you may actually hold, you will be written in history as a victor against an even bigger evil.

Promulgation time

On February 22nd (happy birthday Dad) we will be staging a party at the Wrong design Hong Kong headquarters in Sheung Wan.
This will be a landmark project, not only because it will be the final date on our “Wedding Tour”, but also it will be the only of our parties of which I am totally in charge.
I’m getting excited. I hope loads of people come, and everyone gets wild. I want cheap champagne and easy access to drawing implements. I want heated arguments and unplanned pregnancies.

How does one promulgate decadence? Is there a drug I can slip into the punch? Or should I just dance naked with a paintbrush in my hand and hope everyone follows suit?

Don’t sweat the small stuff

I once found a dead housefly in my ear while cleaning it out with my finger. I was telling Baby about it tonight, and she had the same questions as usual: “Didn’t you feel something was in there?”, “How did it happen without you knowing?” etc etc.
I really feel we, as human beings, are far too distracted with petty matters, such as television, gossip, truth and all other obvious things. Come on friends, we’ll never get anywhere if we don’t focus on the obscure.

Nocturnal

4:30am, couldn’t sleep, got up to draw.

What a beautiful moment. If I die and some god says “Go back for an hour and do what you like” I’d come back here, put on some Ryan Adams, draw, and slip back into bed with Baby.

Shock and awe

There has been a scandal in Hong Kong involving my idol, Ah Giu (B&W photo in earlier post "The Twins effect"). Local celebrity Edison Chen had a problem with his personal computer, which was then taken in for repair. Before returning the computer to him, someone in the repair shop copied all his files, including 1300 photos and movies of him having sex with various girls, including 4 celebrities, including Ah Giu. These photos are now everywhere, and before I even had a chance to search for them, someone sent some to me. It’s a very odd occurrence, watching a carefully crafted image shatter in front of you, and discovering your idol is just another animal, just the same as you and everyone else. It’s strangely heartbreaking, particularly as Edison Chen is such a hollow, untalented and uninteresting celebrity. After the shock, I realized that I too am naked under these clothes, I too have had sex, and I too recently took my computer in for repair even though it contained homemade pornography, and that actually, it’s nothing shocking.
Why is the penis so sacred? Why is it so titillating to see photos of African women with their breasts exposed? Why do we get an uneasy feeling when a child is walking around naked in front of strangers? An exquisite patch of pubic hair following the curves of a woman’s mound is intoxicating, but so is the curve of her jaw, or the corner of a boy’s mouth, or the nape of a child’s neck. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but I feel sensuality has been distorted into something violent somewhere, and humans confuse aggression with sex with passion with love with attraction.
It’s strange, now my idol has been exposed to have an actual, clearly visible vagina, and a seemingly un-romantic and non-utilitarian use for it, what has been exposed is not really her body, but more my and the general public’s two-dimensional passion for her.

I have been famous two times in my life. The second time was when I moved to Cheon-Ju, a small city in South Korea, where I was the only young, Western person most people had ever seen in the flesh. I had attention everywhere I went - it was like being in the Beatles, or a zoo animal. On a good day it would be a crowd of high school girls squealing, and on a bad day it would be hoards of little children spilling into the public toilet to watch me pee. I quickly learned that nobody actually liked me, they all just had an image in their head of what I was and, in most cases, would get very offended if it turned out I didn’t want to go to karaoke with them or be the special guest at their birthday party. Since then I’ve always tried to treat celebrities as human beings.
But, who wants to be a stinky old human being? Who wants to be reduced to Winston in “1984”, without either the bravado or the insight to follow a truth either real or concocted?
It’s that old demon reality again, clawing away at the rotting veneer that is my façade - the only definition I have of myself.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Chinese New Year

Four days till the start of Chinese New Year. This is the best time of year in Hong Kong, the only time when a real festive spirit hits the nation. As a relative outsider, I like to join in with full gusto. The jaded little me tries to point out this is just a social phenomenon cultivated over the years to provide a welcome annual distraction to the populace. Just like me and my life – I try to pack every type of activity and reward into every single day – work, games, snacks, alcohol, orgasms, drawing, music, gym etc. Each and every day is full of little landmarks that keep me happy in some way or another. When I miss one it just means I get to have it even bigger tomorrow. I have to say, I like existence, it’s quite fun. Is this the path to enlightenment? Everything’s good, but it just doesn’t feel like I imagined nirvana would.

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This is me in Kangol cap, scarf and fake fur jacket from South Korea, for the Pony. I haven't drawn myself in weeks - months? It is strange to revert, after drawing other things all this time - the synchronicity becomes derailed momentarily, and things that were separate encounter each other. I like it.

Good goddamn if it isn’t cold

Every year around Chinese New Year Hong Kong gets really cold, but it only happens about twice during the winter and lasts around 3 days. A few old people die because they’re not prepared, and the rest of the population dresses up in their most wintery outfits, which is a lot of fun. None of the regular people have heating in their house – this is the 7th place I’ve lived in here, and it is the first place that has hot water (apart from the shower). This year is extreme though, even under my Hello Kitty fleece blanket plus my 'white cloud' feather down duvet, it is still cold. It is kind of fun, actually, and I like to dress up in hats and scarves, but being part English, I thought I had to mention the weather.

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Baby and I have reached new levels of unreality, thanks to the wonders of Nintendo DS Lite and the game “Dōbutsu no Mori (どうぶつの森)”, or “Animal Crossing”. I now have my own town called “Domville”, and she lives in “Harvdom”. Even when we are in separate countries we can visit each other if we’re near a wifi connection. Our conversations weave in and out of real life and virtual life. Part of me is adding value to my imagined existence, and the other is starting to think that conventional existence is more hollow than it is made out to be.
Or maybe that’s just me.

Rearticulation

I’m not sure if this looks like anything to other people, but it’s feeling more and more like the restaurant I used to visit most days in my late twenties.
When I was a little boy, I had a fantasy that I might one day recreate an image exactly how it is seen with the human eye. In my juvenile mind, this entailed painting a picture with the edges all blurred, because I felt that when you looked at something, only the point you were looking at was in sharp focus, and everything, from that point out, becomes gradually more and more out of focus. I felt if I accomplished this accurately, and people looked at this picture, they would be transformed somehow – it would be like the renaissance, when someone figured perspective out, and visual communication was never be the same again.
Now I think something similar, but slightly different. I think I don’t see anything in focus. I just see colours and lines and these are combined with temperature and smell and the other senses somehow. It is combined with all sorts of things, but essentially it is a blur of sensation, tinged with a bit of memory and a bit of expectation.

What the devil wanted

The second last time I was in Japan I spent a lot of time in my head formulating a story of a man who was delivering sake on the devil's orders. Over the course of his deliveries the man drank more and more of the sake, and cheated the people he was delivering to more and more to compensate for his lasciviousness, until he met the ultimate delivery recipient, who was the devil himself. Unable to cover up his cheating ways, the man was finally exposed, only to discover his actions were exactly what the devil wanted of him.

Ah, I love a happy ending.

One of my great friends is the BBC 6 Music radio DJ Chris Hawkins. Like most of my friends, he exists more in virtual reality than in old-style physical, tangible reality. We have had a minor scuffle recently over Ryan Adams. I am willing to put Ryan Adams up as one of the greatest living artists, next to Bob Dylan, myself and possibly Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Chris, on the other hand, hates him. Chris is violently mistaken, of course. As evidence, I offer some of the lyrics to Ryan Adams’ “What the Devil Wanted”:

My idle hands
They are but tools
Apply them well
And you will loose

It’s what the devil wanted
What the devil wanted from me

Put your lover to your chest
Put all your fears to rest
Forever, baby
Ah, ah
Forever, baby

All my time is wasteful now
All my time is wasteful now
All my time is wasteful now

Ah, ah, ah, baby

The bounce back

All tonight’s pictures are unfinished or still too wet to scan. I’m visibly excited, I think it must be the influx of energy you get after you recover from a cold, combined with anger. This must be what Joan of Arc felt like. It reminds me of the happiest week of my life, when I was accidentally prescribed steroids in college.
Imagine waking up and literally hitting the ground running, going non-stop till you collapse for one hour of sleep, feeling your heart thudding inside your rib cage, which seems to be moments away from cracking wide open from the pressure. What a momentous week – drawings and paintings on every free spot in my room, I moved from one to another, letting them dry while I worked on others, day and night, breaking only for coffee and pills and laundry. By the end of the week I was sure I was going to die if I carried on. Fortunately the pills ran out and unfortunately life slowed down to it’s natural pace.
Reality, I always hated you.

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Tonight’s soundtrack:
Radiohead: “Jigsaw Falling Into Place”
Radiohead: “Killer Cars (Mogadon Version)”
Ike Turner: “Jesus Loves Me”
Whiskeytown: “What The Devil Wanted”
Jerry Lee Lewis (with Buddy Guy): “Hadacohl Boogie”

... all over and over again, till i was ready to strangle something to death.

Outside

I went outside today, my first day in two weeks as a not-sick person. It was nice outside. Outside has people and shops and I even saw a big, black dog. I hope to go outside again soon.

I liked Ike

“I know regardless of what I've done, good and bad, it took it all to make me what I am today", Ike Turner

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I watched “A Streetcar Named Desire” on a plane recently. Even though I’ve seen it many times, it was still better than all the other movies available. Every time I encounter this play I progress a little bit. This time, for the first time, I felt pity for Blanche. Initially I was so taken by the beautiful, swaggering Stanley I had nothing but contempt for her. I never knew he raped her till I read the play. The first time I saw the movie after I read the play it seemed obvious, but this time I was again unsure if they actually implied this in the movie or not. Either way, what an amazing study of violence and the human condition. I’ve noticed recently that when I yell, I affect a Stanley Kowalski accent. I know it’s bad to romanticize such men, but when you’re surrounded by hollow people, it’s just so appealing to release yourself with abandon, regardless of what may or not be right or wrong.

Born again atheist

That was an awful 2 weeks. At the end I was casually contemplating suicide rather than spend another day suffering the common cold. Now I’ve entered that beautiful stretch of recovery time. It’s great when you get life handed back to you, and all your blind, reckless, futile ambitions rage up again in full force. This weekend I tidied up my desk and moved a set of drawers. There’s no stopping me. I have plans, big plans, I’m going to be great, and everyone’s going to like me.

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This is a sketch I made a long time ago of myself masturbating. It was a brilliant concept – the violent frenzy of impending orgasm both reflected in, and affecting the drawing. Technically, though, it can easily slip into chaos. All-in-all, though, a fine step in the right direction.

Insult to injury

It started as an annoying, persistent cough, and then became a battle of might between my lungs and some stubborn piece of phlegm holding sanctuary somewhere deep, deep down. Somewhere near the beginning I pulled a muscle in my back from the heaving. Supporting myself on the sink, my body defiantly went into convulsions trying to cough up something that I was starting to think didn’t actually exist. The pain was amazing and the convulsions and choking made me start to vomit. I tasted the spit and salty tears in my mouth and I had a kind of nostalgia of youth and sickness and heartbreak, then I looked in the mirror. Apart from the zigzag of dozens of tiny, red veins, the colour in my eyes was gone, my mouth was all distorted, I looked like the corpse of a man who had drowned – you could see the struggle and panic, but the battle was long lost.
Then the doorbell rang. I didn’t think and obediently answered it, putting on my mask, partly to hide myself, and partly as an explanation I was sick without having to talk much. It was Josie, delivering the banners we’d ordered for Japan. She came in and started to arrange them, saying “I’m sick too” between sniffles, then she took a clear look at my face and said “You’re really sick” and pretty much bolted out the door, telling me I can pay her later.
I’ve never been a monster before. I quite liked it, striking terror into people by my mere appearance. I can see myself, the monster on the third floor, up all night, making poisoned candy to give to unassuming children in the park. People will pity me sometimes, and I will abuse them and cackle with laughter as they run away. I won’t have any visitors, apart from one well-dressed man from the bank who visits on the first Wednesday of every month. I will cultivate an obsession with Natalie Wood and all my plants will be dead.

Hurry tomorrow

Wrong design is happy to announce we will be formally backing Barack Obama to be president of the United States. After careful consideration, I think his wife would make a really good first lady.
I was excited thinking Bush II would be leaving this year, but then I realized he won’t be out till Jan 2009. I guess there’s still a little time to make some smart investments in mortuaries in the Middle East. Then I started thinking maybe someone will kill him before then, and then I realized he has the perfect security against assassination – Dick Cheney. What could be worse than Bush II as US president? Dick Cheney. How clever, they really thought of everything. I also realized for the first time that together they are “Bush & Dick”. That’s funny, right? Why did I never see that before?

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This is drawn from photos of “the Palace”, my favorite restaurant till it closed down and became a real estate office. I don’t know what it was really called – we used to call it the “Gangster’s Palace” because it was full of working guys – sweaty men with no shirts on eating in a run-down hole-in-the-wall, just like the great HK movies they used to make before 1997 when China asked the film industry not to produce anything that made it look like the police didn’t have a firm and trustworthy hand on society.

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My illustrious cold has developed into a persistent, dry cough. I know the routine well. This will subside into an annoying little cough that seems to hang around for weeks. Soon my body will pass the barrier from fighting into healing, and I’ll be full of ambition and an urgent need to impregnate my wife. That, and seeing enormous lumps of what I imagine to be ambergris coming out of my body, are my favorite parts.

Tamed

Deep in the slithery grip of a cold, slowly working the disease out of my system in large, dark green clumps of mucus torn violently from my lungs, I am strangely calm. I dreamed of half-eaten hamsters – one half the cute, furry, white face and fore-paws, walking gaily along, it’s back half, dragging behind it, like a chicken wing with the flesh chewed off, just one bone left, the other one being picked at by some monster rabbit with webbed feet, wrapped in something like a rolled-up carpet of earth, in a cage, in the garden.
I’m not angry anymore, I’m not even participating. I’m disappointed, but it doesn’t matter.

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).

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.

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.

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!

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.