Sunday 9 December 2007

Things Change

It's been a while since my last post, and things have really changed since then, I am no longer where I was, I am in London now. I've been here about three weeks and am going to move here properly after christmas withy my girlfreind. It's good to get back my roots a little, I am still going to move to Cambodia but it may be postponed a couple of years, we'll see. I feel like I'm getting back to where I came from, getting back to the source and finding myself again. I am finding the man I was before all the shit that happened in the last year. I am centering.
Right now I amliving in the wierdest place, a hostel in kensington which is very bizarre, it is full of the oddest people who really have issues some of them, a collection of the drop out society who have not ended up on the street yet but some of them undoubtably will, this is like a kind of half way house but half way from what and to what? The people here are living in London and yet not living here at the same time, they could be anywhere, those that work go to work and come home and stay her adoing the same things and talking to the same people and never really knowing anyone or seeing anything it is a bizarre existance. Living here are illegals, benefit theives and drug dealers and there are always drug parties in the kitchen at the weekend and the kitchen is a total mess, what are they doing here? I don't understand what is going on.
I am working, out in schools teaching and trying to make ends meet both here and in sweden where I still pay my rent. I miss my girl and my son something dreadful at times but it is for the best, things which are hard now will make life easier when my girl comes over here to me. This is a wonderful city but there is so much tragedy too, I will talk about some of the people here over the next few days. I will start with a girl whom I will simply call A, she has real issues, she beleives that her mother has been kidnapped in 1998 and replaced by a mossad agent, her life has been fucked up by two teachers at an art college here in london who she also thinks are connected to mossad. She is also being persecuted by the home office and a home office official is blackmailing her about some sex pictures she took, I have seen the pictures and actually seen messages from a guy called rick who actually is sending her really sick text messages. The girl really has issues to deal with, if it is true she is in trouble and if not she has real mental health issues. I am going to post more about A, she really needs help from someone or she will be one of those who end up on the streets. Back soon.

Lucien

Wednesday 17 October 2007

The Dream

Sure it's a dream.

Sure it's escape.

So what. What is the dream? It has only loose forms really. It involves a chateau, my chateau however could just be a two room apartment with a balcony, it must have a view but it does not have to be the riverside. A balcony overlooking an urban area with a tons of people milling around early in the morning, a market for example, cool. My chateau must however be a safe haven, I must be able to be there and to relax, to escape the world below when I want and to be very close to the world below when I choose to be a part of it.

What am I going to do there? Almost certainly teach. This is of course the best option, but wait I said what am I going to do not what I am going to work with. This is a common mistake, I often ask "What do you do?" but I don't really mean what do you work with, I mean what do you do? What makes you burn with passion? What makes your weekdays worthwhile? One of my two passions is photography and I don't mean digital I mean medium format film hand printed to large sizes and hung to show people. I want to have a gallery. It just needs to be a simple storefront somewhere which can be renovated to be really nice. It would be cool if I could afford to simply display the prints I want to display, my freinds paintings, whatever I want not comprimised by commercial issues.

What do I need? Surprisingly little actually, I have lots of things here, all kinds of things. I have the big screen tv, the dishwasher, the kick-ass hifi, everything. When I move I aim to have two bags with me, I will need some of my clothes, my poetry and my cameras. I don't need anything else.

Sure it's a dream. So what.

----------------

Secret gardens




There’s a secret garden
inside the heart,
where even in the depths of winter
the birds sing.
And the flowers
unable and unwilling
to shade their colours
spring forth.

The wall around the garden however
is strong and tall
to find the door
takes a special kind of skill
the young and wild
stumble easily upon the key,
but with age
our vision clouds,

and the garden becomes more secret every day.



Lucien

Tuesday 16 October 2007

Only time will tell

I have government agencies closing in on me to get me in their grips. Not as serious as it sounds it is however a source of worry, a friend of mine here recently had a heart attack and is now extremely aware of how stress affects our lives and bodies, my stress levels are really high at times. Every time there is a knock on the door and I go and look through the little peephole and see two unknown adults outside then I know they have another form for me to sign. How I got into this situation is irrelavant but the politics behind it are.

Already immediatly after leaving home it begins; the banks see a student and are quick to offer continual increases in the overdraft instead of the government giving benefits which make it possible for students to live dignified lives without borrowing too much, many are obliged to take jobs directly after graduation because they are already ten thousand in debt. As a teacher you earn enough money to live only if you live as a couple and comprimise your lifestyle, if you beome single with a (or several) child then suddenly you don't have a salary which will give you a dignified lifestyle. The only way to survive is to take on credit, tying you to the banks for years to come, if you want to buy a house then you are tied even more tightly.

What is the answer to this?

The answer for me is escape, I don't want to be a part of this any longer. Phnom Phenn is somewhere where I could live and work and earn enough to live a decent life without prostituting myself for the bankers and the polititions. This attracts me quite honestly. I saw a slogan on T.V. yesterday, " Voting only allows us to choose our masters". I have not voted since the middle of the nineties; partly because I am not allowed to vote in the host country and partly because I have no interest in voting in my home country. What right do I have to affect how England is governed as I have no intention of ever living there again?

I do not want to live in England as England is country which is not so slowly falling apart. The state of the inner cities is quite frankly scary, what is happening? The youth of the urban centres are without hope, they are without future so a number of them are creating their own. I am under no pretence. I know that the lack of hope for the underclass in countries like Cambodia is just as brutal if not more so but it is more honest, it is more understandable, If I live there for fiftenn years maybe the society will start to change for the better. I can be a part of a developing society rather than a devolving one, or maybe I'm just talking shit.

Only time will tell.



The battle between light and dark
blue light dark angels
empty pockets spawn a million possibilities.

The starving wolf
kept in a cage
is a dangerous animal to feed.




Lucien

Friday 12 October 2007

What a strange day.

I was two hours away yesterday in a major city on a photo job. It was a fashion type of shoot with a fetish bias, kind of unusual and quite cool, so far so good. After the shoot I headed back to the centre to get the bus home and of course missed it, strangly enough no other buses went until six o'clock the next morning. A small pain in the ass but liveable, I headed to another area of town where I was planning to do an article about the pub life and went to a few restaurants, drank a few beers and made some notes. The photographs were the easy part here, it was quite enjoyable, I would simply drink until two o'clock or so, go to the bus stop and only have to wait a few hours. Everyone has to make sacrifices for their art right.

I however fell asleep at the busstop and the driver did not wake me when he came so I missed the bus and had to get another at nine o'clock. Argggh! Anyway back home now and I have slept. I need to get out of here, am going to meet my girlfreind tonight, It's all about surviving for a while isn't it. Just surviving.

Lucien

The Grey Room

Sometimes, even in the darkest of times, a ray of light comes along. Half a year ago I met a girl whom I liked, I knew that I was not happy and would not be staying here so I kept myself careful, I kept a distance. I mean, no girl here in the western world is going to want to move with me out to Cambodia right?

Wrong!

She is going to come with me, she apparently has never felt like she fitted in here and she seems just as keen to get the hell out as I am, amazing but cool, how often does that happen? When it does you just have to take the chance, get the hell out and take her with you, this is my plan.

I get down at times. I have to wait so long until I can leave, until I can find somewhere I would rather be. I have been in this situation before, I have needed to get away from a place and have moved to somewhere new but I have never had to wait like this, it is torture. I feel trapped. The only way I can escape is inside for now.


I have a room inside my head
which has no doors.

The walls are painted grey
no windows break their even curve.

Within this room
I hear no good or bad.

My senses are reduced
to flat
and grey
and silent.

Nothing can touch me
I am safe here.


Lucien

Thursday 20 September 2007

Livingroom reflections

Been a strange day today. my son got called into the social services to talk a little, my eighteen year old son who is one of the most well-balanced individuals I know, much more stable than me for example. This is the thing:

During the summer, while my son was over in england staying with his mother, I was her alone and was running a restaurant. Now, my headchef and I were out on a bit of a bender. We had been out drinking and then we went to a party at a friends place about three in the morning. Nothing unusual so far. When we left the party at about five or five-thirty in the morning we were more than a little drunk.Nothing unusual so far. Maybe we were making a little noise I don't really know but anyway, half way home we decided to stop and sit on a doorstop, you know just chat a bit as good friends do.

Suddenly two police cars screeched to a halt in front of us, yes, two police cars. The officers got out and told us that there had been a report about two drunks fighting. We of course told them that they must be talking about someone else as we were really good friends and they then asked us if we were drunk. Yes of course we are drunk, it is five in the morning and we are just on our way home. This was the wrong answer as they then bundled us into a police car each and drove us down to the lock-up where we were locked up in a cell together(strange if they thought we were fighting) and didn't let us out untill the next afternoon. There is a law here allowing the police to lock people up if they are a danger to themselves and the ones who judge this are the police themselves....Anyway....

They were not aware that my son was in england and I was living on my own at the time and they called him in to see if he was alright or if he needed some help, actually it is just fine that they do this as long as it helps someone along the way, for me however it caused a somewhat wierd day. The letter calling him in said that they needed to talk to him with regard to me being reported to the police and this alone gave me a worried night the night before, fortunately I have both anxiety tablets and sleepers at home so I did actually get some sleep but really not a good experience. Once he got there and told them that everything at home was just fine so of course things sorted themselves out but it was just one more anxiety ridden night.

I live in a communist country which pretends not to be.

I have to get out of here.

My girlfriend just told me tonight that she has already moved to Cambodia mentally. Right now nothing could make me happier than exactly those words. Her family barely know about me yet, when she tells them that I'm taking her away to Cambodia I can only imagine what thier reaction will be. It really doesn't matter, nothing could be more important than the quest for a better life. I find it hard to imagine that so many people just accept that where they are born is where they will live, or maybe I'm just a missfit, a gypsy destined to move around from place to place. I hope I'm wrong, I really hope that I will eventually find somewhere where I really feel at home.

If I do then I think that I have found the person I want to be there with, for this I am happy.

If I don't fit in there I won't fit in anywhere, for this I am happy.

There is a light at the end of a very long tunnel, for this I am happy.


Lucien

Wednesday 19 September 2007

Falling Awake

It was darktime on a friday
and the ambulances which came
might have been black

the neon lights from the stripjoints
reflect in the puddles
like oil

They mix with the blood

A strange stillness
defines the violence
people stop to look
nothing brings a crowd
like death

He lies crumpled
strangly deformed
nothing relaxes a body
like death

Was I actually watching
at that precise moment
when his body gave up?
could I have seen his soul leave
if I had just watched more closely?

This,
more than any church
makes me question.

I did not know this man
but kneeling closer to him
I can see that he is not there.

Every dead body I have seen
has left me with the same impression
the body is there
but it is empty
a vessel
just flesh and blood.

This,
more than any church
makes me question.

non sum qualis eram ( I am not such as I was)

The kind of things I have been through the last two years leave their mark on a man, I beleive that which has been said; When you go to hell and back you invariably leave a peice of yourself there. The word crisis apparently comes from latin and means to grow and develop yourself, in this case through hardship. I have not checked the source but I hope this is true, sure, I am going through a major crisis but why does this have to be negative? I will come out of of this stronger on the other side or I will collapse along the way, my aim is to become stronger and now I have help, now I have my princess. It's amazing to think that I have made it this far mostly on my own. I know an irish man here who has also been through a lot but he descended into the true depths of hell, he is an alcohol drenched shell of his former self, he did not get out in time. It may be running from problems but so what, escape is the way, I beleive the only way. I am not the man I used to be, he is still inside but he is so well hidden now that even I have trouble finding him sometimes. My irish freind is a warning.

There but for the grace of god.....

Lucien

dum spiro spero (while I breathe, I hope)

I mentioned a woman in one of my earlier entries and really need to expand upon it. I have gone and fallen in love and this is wonderful for my self-destructive tendencies, she gives me a reason to stop doing it, she allows me to trust women again and it feels great. Another thing which is cool is that when I told her I was going to move to Cambodia (this would scare off many a woman) she wants to come with me, my dream, my aim becomes ours, it couldn't be better.
Two and a half years ago another woman made sure that I would never trust again, my new princess has reversed the process. I am going to move out with her and we are going to live in a chataeu, we will write poetry and live a god shot life, maybe even have a small gallery to exhibit photographs and paintings, life can be really good, I am sure of this I've just been in the wrong place with the wrong people. It's time to do something about this, ten months is too long, I can't wait that long. My shangri-la is waiting and small time bullshit is keeping me away from it, although my princess can't move for at least 9 months, maybe I can move it forward to nine months

you are the reason

you are the rythm and the rhyme

you are dawning of days

you are so sublime

you are the light refracting

you are the stopping of time

on a friday night

you are the whisps of white

in a scorching summer sky

you are why

you are when

you are how

you are my history

my future

my now

you are the light refracting

through a freshly cut jewel

you are miles davis’ trumpet

the birth of cool

you are my space

my air

my element

my time

you are my words

my reason and rhyme.


I have a long way to go before I can consider myself in good shape again but I have a plan: I know where I want to be and I know who I want to be there with, now I just have to survive the next nine to ten months.

"dum spiro spero" while I breathe, I hope


Lucien

Saturday 8 September 2007

Thanks for the memories

I was sitting and thinking about all manor of things today and started to formulate ideas around another thoery and thought I would put it out here and see how it looked in words.

I was thinking about all the people you meet throughout your life, all of these people have memories and impressions about you and often I'm sure that these impressions are different from the ones we have about ourselves. I have lived in a few different places in my life and this means that I have a whole list of freinds and aquaintances who have totally dissapeared from my life, Do they ever think of me these days and what do they think in that case? Are their thoughts and memories postive or negative? I've thought about it quite a lot and think that these people are all important, if the people who have known you remember you in a positive way more than in a negative way then the scales will lean towards the positive. At the end of a rich and varied life then this all has to be weighed up and we should aim to be as much as possible in the positive so to speak.

I mean think about it, how does this system work with someone like Pol Pot, or Hitler or the Son of Sam? Sure they are going to be well in the negative but there will be positive too it's this which is so fascinating, there will be people who have positive memories of some of the most evil people who have ever lived. Conversly there must be negative memories of Ghandi too, even the best of people must have a skeleton or two in the closet as well.

I like the system,I'm going to refine the thing over time and will post the refinements.

Lucien.

Sunday 2 September 2007

Demons

It's two o'clock in the morning where I am.

I'm sitting alone on my sofa with a laptop on my knee, It's dark here and I'm not exactly sober at this point. The phone rang a few minutes ago but I ignored it as I didn't recognise the number, had to check it on the computer to see who it was, a girl I know with whom I had a breif fling a while ago. Sometimes I think why can't the phone just stop ringing, I dont even check my mail any more, my box is almost full. How long can I keep this up? I have to get away and escape all of this but I can't leave for at least ten months, the stress levels build up and it gets unbearable, this is why I drink or at least one of the reasons. This is the radar and I am at it's mercy, there is no-where here I can escape it. I daydream about walking along the riverside and being relaxed and free of any wories about people catching up with me, no debt collectors here will ever find me in Cambo. I need to sleep, thoughts of escape plague me all the time I'm going to take a sleeper and drop out of the world for a few hours. I've taken the ringer off the doorbell, I need to sleep.

Lucien

Saturday 1 September 2007

The opiate of the people

When was the last time you saw something good on television?

Over here television is made up of fifty percent docu-soap crap, forty percent cheaply made american imports and the rest is somewhere between ok and decent. Good is not an adjective I've been able to use for a long time while talking about television. I'ts purpose is to deaden the pain of modern living, If Marx had lived today it would have been TV which was described as the opiate of the people and not religion. It keeps us ensconsed in our modern homes for several hours every day, it keeps us controlled, it gives us things to long and work for and it pacifies us and stops us striving for more worthwhile aims.

Children in this country are now about 6 or 7 when they get their first mobile phone, when they reach 11 or twelve the same phone must also be a multi-media player and a digital camera as well. The manufacturers make mobiles which will not last more than 12 to 18 months before breaking which is just as well because by that time they are so old as to be utterly out of date anyway. I can actually watch live television on my mobile so I can combine the two things while travelling to work.

I am just as much a part of this as everyone else, I actually think it would be hard to live without my mobile, my computer, internet, my TV. I am a part of what I detest, I drive it forward with my comsumption and I do nothing to counter it. In Phnom Phenn I would still have a mobile and computer so what would change? Well I would at least get rid of the TV, I actually didn't mention computers in the first two paragraphs because this is a force for change if used correctly. At this moment I am using the computer as therapy, the internet has made the world a much smaller place. I have set myself an aim and can share the process of acheiving it or burning out on the way with anyone who cares to read about it.

Children here grow up with no knowledge or understanding of how it is to live in other less priviliged parts of the world, at the same time as computers have made the world smaller they have also made it bigger, teenage boys here now spend their time living in a virtual world instead of the real one, when I was eighteen everyone was just waiting to get out and travel I don't see this in the eighteen year olds of today. The virtual world must not be more important than the real one, although I may be wrong, maybe it's just an ecape and if so then it's probably more positive than the drink and drugs that I have myself used for the same reason.

T...
e...
l...
e...
vision

societies mission of control

out of control

it's been a naughty boy

spewing out crap about the american dream

spawning mind control, buy our ice cream

do what we want every day

think what we want you to think

in everyway

'cause you're a mindless

gormless fool.

Why do you think that we sent you to school

to be educated?

no.

to learn the ways we want you to behave

thats why we sent the rich ones to the other schools

so they wouldn't have to mix

with the kind of fools

they'd be controlling

in later life

grow up, get a job, choose a wife

and be content

and know the shit you take

is all well-meant

'cause we like yer

we really do

'cause the graft of the many benefits the few

'cause we get richer from the sweat of your brow

and you get poorer

and let me tell yer how

'cause there's interest

on the money we lend yer

then thers taxes

on the bills we send yer

you're in a circle

and yer cant get out

yer need a car just to get about

but then then theres road tax

and the R.A.C

and insurance

and the M.O.T

it's all money you 'avnt got

you're living you're life without a pot

to piss in

you're aiming to survive

but quite frankly you're missing

but theres an answer

go home

switch on your telly

put up yer feet

and turn yer mind to jelly

no need to think

just look

absorb all the messages and dont give a fuck

a new religion

just need to switch on

and you're there

no need to care

T...
e...
l...
e...
vision.




Lucien

Friday 31 August 2007

Desperations of the first world

There will be two posts today.

I have been without electricity for a week now, it could be good practice for living in Phnom phenn I guess although this has to do with not bothering to pay the bills for a long time, it really cost me to get it put back but everyone needs electricity right. I also quit my job today although if I had not quit soon then the choice would have been taken out of my hands.

The happenings of the past week have given me some time to reflect, blacked out nights spent reflecting over my options and what I really want. I have wanted to get out of this place for at least a year now, it is becoming almost desperate now and I have at least ten months left before I can make it happen, I really need to leave and to reinvent myself in a new place where my actions are not watched by the eyes of many. I know an awful lot of people in the town where I live, I really do mean a lot, but I can count my good friends on the fingers of one hand. After a divorce the people you have in your surroundings polarize, many take sides, many dissapear from your life. People are the same the world over but here I was the one who moved, our friends were her friends, they all have thier own lives, I don't really care what the reasons are, the result is that when I really need help there are only a handful of people I can talk to.

I might as well be in another country.

I want to be somewhere where I can feel alive.

I want to be somewhere where television will not deaden my senses.

I want to be in Cambodia.

I spend this period feeling sorry for myself but then think about the many people living on less than a dollar a day and I feel ashamed but I should not, I've explained about the god shot theory of life let me explain it's extension.

One of my very good friends is an intelligent man, he is almost a recluse and spends most of his time either reading or thinking. He tells me that my money troubles are my own creation and of course he is right, for years I have lived way above my means. He says that to live in the modern world you need to make sacrifices, he tells me that to live the reclusive life he lives he has had to give up many things in life that other people have. He is right but....

Why should I give up these things, I studied for years to become a teacher, I am a professional but my salary here does not allow me even a middle class life, why should I accept this? One hundred years from now I will be nothing but a memory, there may even be no-one left to whom I am a memory, what the hell will it matter if I died with debts in a couple of countries, no-one will care! I am a nomad and it is time for me to drop under the radar and start a new life somewhere where I can feel alive.

I am not the man

the one

babylon.

I am not the taker of souls

we know of old

cold like the icy wind

I AM NOT HIM.

I do not have room in my mind for the kind

of thoughts that they possess

I am not less than him

I do not skim the waters

I will not accept what they have taught us

I will not go under

I will not wonder

What it's like to be there

Where?

There

The master of the air

The sea

The land

I will not take their hand

do not need their help.

I am a man of means

I mean

I glean a living

every day

every way I can.

I am

free

I am

me.

I walk the world of men with head held high

'cause I know why they do

the things they do

they do

beleive I am a theif

because I take my time

My time

the time I give them from my time becomed their time

I must not complain

I must not whine on thier time.

My time is running out I shout

I NEED MORE TIME.

Show me a sign

Show me the way to seize the day

'cause I must make a stand

or die today.

I'm just not sure I can

because I

am not

the man...


Lucien

The race against time.

I have already written about the time frame I am thinking about but what I am worried about is not being able to get it all done in time. I am an impulsive bugger in an anti -impulsive environment and it is stifling me. I have Cambodia in my sights and I know that the country like any other(maybe more than many others ) is changing, this does not have to be negative, I do however worry that the Cambodia I know will have changed into something elseby the time I get there. My brain tells me that this will not happen but as I said I am an impulsive bugger by nature and this does concern me. The excitement I remember from the streets of the capital years ago charged me with adrenaline and it was at least partly this which started my infatuation with the country, will this still be there by the time I can move? I hear there is a shopping mall now, there are ATM 's, will the radar eventually reach here too.
Which radar do you mean I hear you ask, the radar I am intending to drop under, I want to become the invisible man and start the next period of my life in glorious anonymity on the streets of a slighty dilapidated asian capital. There can be no Macdonalds in my immediate future although Lucky Burger I can put up with, there must be no Pizza Hut but happy herbs gives another, more bizarre twist to it. There will be no more than four people from my former life who will know where I will be living and this may sound like a mid-life crisis/socially phobic reaction but this could not be further from the truth. I am a very social man who could not live without other people around me, I am just totally done with Europe and I need new challenges. I am not so much planning for a move as a re-birth.

Lucien

Wednesday 15 August 2007

And then there's a woman

Well, there's always a woman isn't there? They are great but they do tend to come along when you least expect it, how can you build up a relationship and then up and move to asia? Women tend not to understand these things, even if you have said it early in the build up to the relationship. I am sure that they think that what he really needs is a good woman and then he won't need to move any more, if it works out he won't want to move any more. It can only lead to greif in the long run. Can I expect an ordinary european woman to want to move to Cambodia with me, hardly likely if she hasn't got the urge to escape in the first place right?
She is really a nice woman too, she says that she wants to live a life less ordinary to quote the film title but I don't really know if she is for real or just thinks so right now. Another thing is do I want a european girlfreind to move with me? I don't have an asian fetish at all but do you move countries with a relatively new partner? All these things have to be thought about but a move to asia it will be anyway. And then there's the woman.......

Saturday 4 August 2007

Changes

I wonder how much Cambodia has changed since I was there last? It was a while ago, I think three years. I am aware that countries change and develop and the changes can seem more drastic for someone who is based outside and only visits occasionally, if you live there the changes can seem quite mild but for a visitor they can can seem extreme. I have read about big modern shopping malls in the capital but maybe they were there before and I just did not find them. How many of the roads have been asphalted since I was there? One of the most harrowing and difficult journeys I ever made was from the thai border to Siem Riep in a pick up truck. This was the first time for me in the country and after taking myself to the thai side of the border I bought passage on the truck along with a group of thais and cambodians and mountains of sacks and wood and fruit. Several hours sitting on the thin metal rim of the truck travelling along those roads made quite an impression, It took me a good couple of days to recover from that journey.

Life shouldn't always be easy, life is suffering according to buddhism right.

I've done my share of suffering now, I want my god shots.

I worked today and after work one of my colleagues and a couple of friends and I went out for a spin in the company boat. Like many towns the town I live in has a river running through the middle of it and we cruised the river at 15 knots and drank gin and tonics, this was a god shot moment. Although now at home I guess we were lucky not be arrested, two nights out of three in a police cell would not have been too cool. I am looking for a place to live where the social norms are slighty less focused, somewhere where decandence has a more tangible face.

"The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom."(William Blake possibly slightly missquoted)

I am an expert on the road of excess but have yet to find the palace of wisdom although a certain amount of insight into the way I personally function has been gained. I master excess, excess has been the story of my life and I am actually starting to accept this, everyone cannot always be level-headed. I am destined to be the one who never learns from his mistakes, the one who always manages to go that little bit further along the path. Sitting at home now and writing this I begin to wonder if Cambodia is the right country for me, imagine if I manage to get through the next year without self destructing and get to cambodia only to totally lose control in a country bereft of control mechanisms. I guess thats just a chance I'll have to take. Maybe I'll get myself shot by some irate local after an untimely comment in a bar at three in the morning. I remember in Siem Riep I ended up in an almost entirely khmer kareoke club the entrance to which was through big iron gates, while there were still a lot of people inside they closed and locked the gates and blankly refused to let anyone leave. It took half an hour for me to convince them that my (recently met and also imprisoned) companion was in fact diabetic and would die if we did not get out very soon( a blatant lie of course). I have never managed to figure out what was going on there, am I safe to be on the streets of Cambodia?

c'est la vie! Cambodia would be the poorer without me and I would certainly be the poorer without Cambodia.

Lucien

Friday 3 August 2007

It Starts!

I've already started to do the research loosely around asia and more specifically about Cambodia. I am often to be found on khmer440.com gleaning all the information I can about day to day life there, it absorbs me almost to the point of obsession. Why Cambodia then? Some people seem almost suspicious when I say Cambodia, vague memories of articles they have read about the khymer rouge or child sex slavery but it's not this. I was in country quite a while a number of years ago and the place just grabbed me, there's a kind of untamed wildness about the land. It's not like any other country I've ever been to, it's unpredictable and lawless, it's a challenge to get around, it's a contrast in and of itself, it's a wake up call to stay on your toes and start living and most of all it's not comfortable and easy like the most part of western europe. I met a westerner in sihanoukville who ran a guest house and he told me;

"First come the freaks, then come the backpackers and then come the tourists and thats when I leave."

Cambodia is a place you move to when you don't really fit in where you are from any more, when the round peg has been battered out of shape so much that it just does not go in the hole any longer. Thats my take on it anyway, I may be way off track for many people but thats my reasoning for the move. I am not a round peg any more and I want no more of this country. I want to live in ten different countries before I die, I've always been something of a transient, nomadic blood I guess.

I woke up in a police cell this morning. I had been out last night and spent ridiculous amounts of money on champagne and I was way too drunk to get home so the police took care of me for the night. It was the first time I have ever been in a cell, hard plastic bed with one blanket and no pillow and a small water disenser in the wall, and of course the best of all, they lock you in. It's a symptom, not of an alcohol problem but of a deep feeling of being grossly unsatisfied with my position in life right now. After release they contact the social services and tell them that they had you locked up as well, I imagine if you were to end up there often you would offered professional help.

I have a theory of life which I like to follow. A trained barista makes tens of thousands of cups of coffee in his life and they say that very occaisionally everything is just perfect, the perfect temperature, the perfect amount of coffee and the resulting espresso is known as a "god shot", it is perfect in every way. I like to look at life the same way, life should ideally be a series of god shots one leading quickly into the other, of course it never is but if you reach for the stars.....

I am convinced that I will not experience many god shots until I get out of this place, this is my motivation.

This blogg is my lifeline, I simply must get out and my therapy involves sharing the process with anyone who would like read it, kind of Oprah Winfrey really. This blogg is a burning fuse, in one years time my final entry will be written from Cambodia, newly arrived, or I will have self destructed along the way. This blogg is a ticking bomb.

I have been chasing demons all my life, it's really just a matter of time before I catch one.


I walk the world of men with head held high
'cause I know why
they do the things they do

they do believe
I am a theif
because I take my time

my time

the time I give them from my time
becomes their time
I must not whine
I must not complain
on their time

I have no time
my time is running out I shout
I need more time!

show me the way
to seize the day

'cause I must make a stand
or die today
I'm just not sure I can
because
I am not the man.



Lucien

What am I doing here?

good question and one I have asked many times before never quite managing to come to any acceptable conclusion. All I know is that I won't be here much longer, europe has lost it's charm and my calling in the near future will be to Asia. Cambodia or Viet Nam maybe? I am not quite sure yet but this blogg's only purpose is to chart my progression from european resident to the tropics and the whole process along the way. as a matter of course I will be taking up all manner of issues along the way as they occur to me or as they seem relevant. It is not my intention to provide anyone with any form of entertainment but as my life can be quite chaotic I wonder if it wont be entertaining anyway.

So, What am I doing here, I don't have the faintest idea but maybe someone can mail me with the answer as it becomes obvious to the as the blogg develops. I have gradually been loosing my grip on my life over the last two years, since the divorce and custody battle, small parts of my life have been falling off and getting lost and I can't seem to find them again. debts build up, alchohol comsumption rises and I dont check my mail or answer the phone if I don't know who it is anymore. The wolf is at the door. It is situations like these that really make you re-evaluate your life, I need clarity and the only way to clarity is through reflection. For reflection you need to be sober, this is my first problem. they say if you have been to hell and back you often leave a peice of yourself there.


Your armchair burnt itself to the ground today
That yellow mug that you liked so much fell off the sink and smashed into a million peices
All the pictures of us together were on the armchair as it burst into flames
Those curtains that you made were unfortunately caught in the ensuing blaze
Your half of the bed got up and jumped out of the bedroom window
falling to it's death on the concrete below.
And yes, I'm doing fine
Thanks for asking


I have one year left here before I board a jet plane bound for Asia never to return. I am going to dress in linen suits and wander Phnom Penh with a camera in my hands before retirning to a small local bar in the evening to drink Bear lao and lie about my past because my past will not exist any more. This blogg is my confession and my witness, I really do not know if I will mange to make all the necessary plans and carry out my aim of a move to Cambodia or if I will totally self destruct first and end up either in jail or a mental hospital, only time will tell.