Forget the oxygen

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

“Well, probably, I guess so.”

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

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

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

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

Thanks … suckers!

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

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

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

Election fever

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

In between days

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

Andy Warhol created me

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

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

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

It's good to be District Councilor

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

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

World Comin' Down

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

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

Desperate, but not serious

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

Forgive me Satan

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

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

Shopping spree

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

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

I am becoming sensible (somebody shoot me)

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

A cry for help

I really want to keep sheer reality at a comfortable distance from this blog, but I have a problem I can’t figure out and I’m going to ask you, virtual pals, if anyone can advise me. It’s about setting up a fixed IP address. I have a server and I want to access this while overseas, and give clients FTP access. My internet provider is just too expensive to justify signing up for a fixed IP address, so I have tried using NoIP.com, and directing my noIP.com address to the server’s FTP address (the server, by the way, is connected to a router which is the gateway to the server and various computers). Inside my office I can access the server via the NoIP.com address, but people outside can either not see it, or not login.
I’ve been trying for over 2 months to figure this out, and I just can’t get it together.
I’ll pay you, any of you, anything you ask (be reasonable, this is reality, remember), if you can help me understand and resolve this.

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To balance that unpleasant slice of reality, I’d like to tell you about my dream.
I was traveling and was waylaid in Iran. While we packed the Jeep and arranged documents, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad came to see how we were doing and joined us for tea. I’ve long been a fan of Mr Ahmadinejad (until he made that odd comment about there being no gays in Iran), and this made me feel a tad misunderstood when he behaved the way he did to me. During tea he was pontificating on things in general, as he does, which is fine; but then he added lots of sugar to his tea, and explained it was because Muhammad (peace be unto Him) had suggested he dose his tea with sugar to counterbalance the corruption that had infested my soul. President Ahmadinejad wasn’t entirely hostile though, explaining that it was because I showed promise that he deigned to take this action (regular infidels would just be disregarded without sympathy). I was kind of flattered, yet, really, President Ahmadinejad, I’ve championed you before, so I wish you would think of me as less foreign than you do. Or am I fooling myself? Really, is it so bad to be soulless, corrupt, self-absorbed, with a history of bursts of violence? It’s the human in me.

Lord, get me off this wagon

I have a sty in my eye. It’s been there over 2 months and has grown to the size of a small baby’s nostril. These days, unless I require a scalpel or desire some perception fucking-up drugs, I go to a Traditional Chinese doctor; so I went to a Chinese doctor, as my friends were telling me I looked revolting (and the bloated sty wasn’t making it any better, ha ha ha ha ha).
This doctor always has the same line – “No alcohol and no ‘fire’ food” (no fried, or spicy, food). Usually I take his advice for a day or two, then consider myself on the road to recovery, but this time, considering the sheer magnitude of my affliction, I stayed stone, cold sober for 8 days straight. For those of you who don’t know – it wasn’t actually that bad. The nights were sensible, which is pretty much a crime against humanity, but the mornings were fine and dandy. I’ve woken up every day sharp and ready to lay the world, one at a time.
All in all, it was a pleasant diversion. All in all, impregnating the planet one filly at a time is all good and well, but there’s a time when sheer abandon needs to be given free reign. And that time, well, frankly, is now. And the next time the question poses itself, the answer will also be "now".

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Commissioned portrait went very well. The client told me I was great and gave me cash money and I had a new order within 45 minutes. I am amazing, I knew it all along, even when I’m not, I’m sure I am.

Lucky Dube

I first saw Lucky Dube at Reggae Sunsplash in Bermuda. It had been one bland act after another, until this enormous group of musicians came onstage, and one solitary voice wailed the intro of “It’s Not Easy”. Not the 17 second intro you get on the album, but something like a 2 minute beautiful, violent profession. Imagine, the whole field of us, in our thousands, stopped in our tracks, mesmerized, by one voice.
I feel very sad Lucky Dube has been killed, that his voice cannot continue, that he's been robbed of enjoying the effects of his enormous influence, that such a source of wisdom and peace has been stopped by a gunshot.

I'm not a spiritual man, but the world somehow feels very quiet right now, like right when the tide starts silently pulling back, only to build a wave.

You can call me Falstaff

My commissioned portrait is now done. I had to scrape the dredges of my soul, but the thrill overwhelmed the sight of the devil’s claws clutching that long-sold piece of divine flesh. I’m tempted to say I don’t give a monkey’s what the client thinks, because I love it, but the reality is my seemingly eternal giddiness is balanced precariously on the genuine reaction of this. It should be okay though, I’ve failed so many, many, many times before, and I still dogmatically believe myself to be, well, something not unlike god.

Post Futurism

“Construction is the arrangement of elements.
The future is not going to build monasteries for priests, or for the prophets and clowns of art.
Down with art as a glittering extravagance in the senseless lives of the wealthy!
One has to work for life, not for palaces, churches, cemeteries and museums.”

I found this in a college sketchbook. It was during my ‘Futurist’ phase (lasted about 1 year).

I wish I was as insistent now, but less unoriginal.

Give me liberation, or give me death

Not long after college I lived in a house with my friend Rich. We had the basement and a group of inconsequential, Long Island ‘party girls’ lived upstairs from us. One day I had an idea in my head. I’d been thinking about how much energy I had, and how overwhelming it was becoming … I just couldn’t use it all up.
When I came home from work there were no cars in the driveway, which meant there was nobody home. I decided to make an audio piece. I took a cardboard box and a broken pane of glass I had, pressed ‘record’ on the cassette deck and smashed the glass in the box with a hammer; making violent, tinkling noises; then I screamed “I have an incredible … amount of … energy”.
I then heard something like muffled distress coming from upstairs. Seems someone was home after all, and my little project, sadly, was over. I just couldn’t continue knowing someone outside myself was somehow involved.

I took all day to muscle up the balls to start drawing today. To step away from all the dull humans that somehow own a part of me took all day. It took till I was too impatient, too bored, too urgent.

What a drag. I must start being more free.

Not quite not quite myself

Although the weekend is only half over, it’s already been a series of ‘firsts’.
To begin with, I bought mushrooms. As far as I can remember, I’ve never purposely bought mushrooms before. Sure, I’ve bought them before, when someone’s asked me, but never on purpose. I just don’t understand them – either they taste of nothing, or they taste too much of mushroom. I was at the vegetable market on Friday and they looked fun, so I bought 3 packs. 3 PACKS! I’m half way through already; not because I like them, but because they interest me.
Then today, when I was preparing dinner, I turned on the TV for company. TV! Now, I don’t watch TV. My television has just one purpose, to play PS2 games, and very occasionally watch DVDs when I’m sick. I think I spent so long at my in-laws that I can’t adjust to my regular life of work and solitude. Normally, I can genuinely stare at the floor for 20 minutes and muse on existence and humanity and consider it a worthwhile experience. I'm really not used to this phenomenon 'loneliness'.
Thirdly, at 2am I allowed myself to go to 7-11 and buy ridiculous snacks for my amusement. Now, I’ve had this impulse plenty of times before, but I’ve never allowed it to manifest itself. It’s kind of like yoga or heroin – if you capitulate and try it, you’re kind of tied to it for the rest of your life, so best to steer clear. I was inspired by Ken-chan, my new brother-in-law (he’s married to my wife’s sister, can I still call him that?). He’s pretty much the man all men want to be, 2nd only to Lyle Lovett. We got a wedding present of Bermuda black rum from Bryan Adams (not THE Bryan Adams) and Straight Richard; and Ken-chan went out in the middle of the night to buy Coke to drink it with, and came back also with instant noodles and various snacks.
Going out in the middle of the night reminded me of when I was younger and I used to come home in the middle of the night. I saw all the odd people who exist only at this time. I saw a young Indian couple walking the street, laughing together (I always see young Indian couples laughing together in the middle of the night, why is that?). On the way to 7-11 I saw a woman sitting in a chair on a street corner smiling, listening to her phone, but not talking. On the way back she was still there, in her pretend conversation. In 7-11 I saw a man eating, reading the paper, and talking to himself. I saw a girl behind the counter who was almost pretty, except something about her face wasn’t quite right. And I saw regular club-goers – guys in flashy shirts that don’t quite suit them, talking on their phone to their guy friends, neither of them found an easy girl … again. I try to walk past them as if I was sober, but I end up tripping on the perfectly flat sidewalk.
Aaaaah, it’s nice to see some things never change.

The gift

When I was in college we had a small bookshop in the town centre. Whenever I visited I was always attracted to a book on the top shelf called "The Gift" by someone called Vladimir Nabakov. It was a 'Vintage Classic' - they always had beautiful covers and paper that felt so good in your hands. Every time I went there I always took the book down, flipped through it, and decided it didn't look interesting. It always attracted me all the same, and finally I bought it.

I read it, but I didn't understand it. Its characters were made up of great Russian writers I'd never heard of, like Pushkin and Lermontov, and it seemed to be split into 2 sections - older writers, and more modern writers.

One night, after I'd been reading the book, I woke myself up screaming "Turgenev! Turgenev!"

This book ended up changing my life. I still don't understand it though.

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I'm scanning old pictures from sketchbooks for the time being. I have a commissioned portrait, yipee, so I'm not drawing me, me, me. It's confusing to draw for someone else. You have to forget them and do it your own way, but then you need to remember it is for someone else. I like it, that beautiful balance of discipline and freedom.

Blogless

I had my new blog entry all planned, but I can’t access my phone (which has the photos I need), and I’m too damned drunk to figure it out, so I’m stuck with my natural self (what a drag).
As a result, I can provide you with only random thougts:
Texas: I love it, I want to move there. I want to wear my cowboy hat and boots and be charming.
Sex, pussy, big, throbbing penis: nothing new here, I just want to mention this phenomenon because, frankly, no matter how smart you are, it all boils down to this.
Whiskey/rum/vodka: come, all of you. I know you don’t love me, but you’re fun as hell all the same.

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This is Lucky. My friend gave him to me the night before I left New York. I remember, I was in my underwear, tied to a chair, and I was so hungry and my friend was eating food and not giving me any, just waving it infront of my face. We didn't have any kind of romantic relationship, it just seemed interesting at the time. The 90's were like that.