Art or blasphemy?

The Gemeente Museum in The Hague has an exposition of a piece of art depicting two gay men wearing masks representing the prophet Mohammed and his son in law Ali. The artist is Sooreh Hera, a 34 year old woman of Iranian origin currently living in the Netherlands. Ms. Hera says: "Homosexuality is a good example of the hypocrisy surrounding sex in the Islamic world. It is very common for men in countries like Iran and Saudi Arabia to have sex with other men, but it is all done in secret." Ms. Hera took pictures of gay muslim men in the Netherlands, most of whom didn't want their faces to be visible. "To show the hypocrisy I used masks of Mohammed and Ali".
In similar news, Dutch extreme right-wing politician Geert Wilders is working on an anti-islam film. Mr. Wilders is on a crusade against muslims, the Koran and Islam in general. The Dutch government and national security institutions are afraid that showing the film (which will be ready in January and in which (it is said) Mr. Wilders will burn or tear apart the Koran), will lead to violence not unlike the Danish cartoon riots.
On the one hand, I am totally in favour of freedom of speech. And it is true that many people use the Koran or the Islamic faith to spread hatred and violence. And of course everybody who has been to an islamic country knows that they have invented homosexuality there: nowhere in the world do so many men fuck other men. So if people want to make fun of or criticize Islam, they have the right to do so. We have made fun and criticized Christianity for the last 30 years, too.
On the other hand, it is wrong to insult everybody who is a Muslim. There are many peaceful Muslims. Mr. Wilders clearly goes too far. He is a dangerous man and I hope the stupid people who support him will soon come to their senses.

Stress, no thank you

According to this story, 8 in 10 employees in Taiwan are stressed out. The story reminded me of the conversation I had with BR at JE's party on Sunday. I have known BR for many years but we hardly ever talked in the past. He is a good friend of MA, and I believe MA has said something nice about me because for the last few weeks BR is suddenly very friendly to me. BR is originally from Taiwan and very muscular which he likes to accentuate with very tight shirts. Anyway, on Sunday I asked him if he has plans to go back to Taiwan and he told me never. Reason: the difference in stress levels here and there. Confirmed by the news today.

Singapore's propaganda employs clever statisticians

I just read that the median monthly income for full-timers in Singapore rose over the year by 7.7 per cent to S$2,330 in June 2007. Well, that's very little and I am always surprised how people in Singapore can pay all their bills with so little money. Especially with the costs of housing skyrocketing. No wonder that the majority of my Singapore friends still live with their parent(s), even at a ripe age.
On the other hand, Singapore propaganda employs very clever statisticians who report the median income. In countries which have lots of workers with very low incomes (such as Singapore), and smaller groups with middle and higher incomes, the average income is much higher than the median income. For example suppose Singapore has a million people making S$ 1,000, seven hundred thousand who make S$ 4,000 and two hundred thousand who make S$ 30,000. In this example the median income is only S$ 1,000, but the average income is a whopping S$ 5,158. So by presenting the median income (most people won't know what "median" means and they will wrongly translate as "average"), the propaganda machine gives a feel-good message to the lower income employees: "See, your salary is not so bad. You are earning close to average". Whereas if they published the average income a lot of people would be very unhappy with the peanuts that they are paid.

Eating liver with a rich ex-prostitute

Yesterday was JE's 42nd birthday party. JE is a professional cook and he is gooooood. So I loaded my plate without looking at what was on offer. (he usually prepares a buffet of 6 or 7 different dishes for his parties) I dug in to the food and yikes, one of the dishes was liver. I eat almost everything, but liver is one of the exceptions. I just don't like it. I put on a brave face and ate it all. Next time I am going to pay more attention.
It was a 100% gay-male party. All the usual suspects were present and I must say I enjoyed myself. A good change from the hospital visits. I chatted with XX who told me everything about his life as a prostitute. (XX is not his real name but I will protect his privacy on a public site.) I have known XX more than 10 years - he is an ex-colleague (hairdresser) of OS. Later he became the boyfriend of YY, and we always got along very well. After YY broke up with him, he had a difficult period and decided to become a prostitute, dressing up like a girl and sitting in a window of the red light district. Apparently, there is a big market for guys who dress up like girls, and XX soon became popular. At first, he did the 100 euro tricks, but some guys fell in love with him and were willing to spend much more. So he had "lovers" all over Europe and the Middle East who bought him air tickets to visit them, and spent thousands of euros on his services. He did this for two years and he told me how much he saved: a lot. An awful lot.
The doctors told OS that he might be allowed to go home by the end of this week. Finally.

Stepping into a wasp's nest

A dream: I am somewhere in Eastern Europe in a car with 3 people half my age that I don't know, 2 girls and a boy. They have a sense of humour that I don't understand and I am left out of their conversation. The car is hit by a tsunami (in Eastern Europe?), and later I need to push the car as it can not go uphill. I step in a wasp's nest, panic and wake up.
Slept almost 10 hours just now. Had dinner with RE and SO yesterday which was a nice change from pizza and ready-made salads at home. On Friday spent all evening in the bars. KE was so stoned and drunk I had to accompany him home and put him in bed. Some people just don't know when to stop - such a thing would never happen to me. Hehe.

Wish I was heterosexual.....

Serious research tells us that 77% of women prefer a "funny personality", "nice eyes" and a "cute smile" over a "perfect body". The latter is only important for 27% of all women. Bad luck for me that for gay men the figures are 99% for "perfect body", and 4%, 2% and 1% respectively for "funny personality", "nice eyes" and "cute smile". (the figures for gay men were made up by me, but probably not far from the truth hehe)

A ridiculous idea: gay health insurance

I always thought that the idea of gay rights was that gays would belong to the main stream and we would be treated the same as everyone else. And then you get some idiots who come up with this: "Health insurer Agis is launching a special policy for homosexuals next year. The idea has been developed in consultation with gay rights organisation COC." Can someone stop these people? I have an excellent, non-gay health insurance and nobody has ever asked me about my sexual preferences. For all I know, the gay insurance would be more expensive because of the higher risk of venereal diseases......

Having sex with one's sister

So this is the view from my bedroom window - they are replacing the sewers and gas and electricity and what-not, which is going to take 10 weeks. And these men start work around 6:30am every week day and wake me up.....
I had dinner with WI last night who told me this story that he had heard from a friend the night before. A guy was drunk last week, meets a girl who is also drunk, he takes her home and as they are having sex (apparently the woman getting fucked while on her side and looking at the wall of the bedroom), the guy's roommate walks in and asks "may I join?" and guy # 1 and the girl agree so guy # 2 takes over from guy # 1 and happily fucks the girl. When they are done they find out that guy # 2 and the girl are brother and sister.... WI claims he believes the story is true, but even if not it is a good story. Makes for nice dinner conversation when visiting mom and dad.
ER says that I am "daddy material" now after gaining weight during my period of inactiveness as a result of my bruises. Well, this weekend I got quite some good attention so if this comes with being a daddy I am not complaining. First Saturday night a Japanese student was interested and yesterday a nice black man. But I have been quite jaded lately so nothing happened.
OS had his 5th operation this morning and he was quite depressed when I visited him just now. The doctors claim they have no idea why his wounds won't heal. He still can't eat and can't talk and the doctors told him he needs to stay another 2 weeks minimum in hospital. And after the wounds have healed he needs to start 6 weeks of daily radio therapy which will cause bad burns in his mouth (and again, no eating and drinking).

Becoming an alcoholic?

I don't know why (or maybe I do?), but for the last few weeks I like to drink some wine every evening. Until recently, I have always been a social drinker, only drinking alcohol (sometimes too much even) in social settings, but never drinking alone. But now I find myself with a glass of wine (or two) in my hands every evening......Well, they say one glass of wine per day is healthy, so as long as I don't drink more it should be OK........This (picture) is the wine I have been drinking quite tasty if you ask me...
OS is still quite sick because he was complaining about this new "student" nurse who according to OS is inexperienced and clumsy, and when he walked in I thought to myself wow, I'd never complain about this guy.....19 or maybe 20 years old, blond, very, very cute, for a split-second I wished I was in hospital.......
Anyway, work is busy my bosses don't want to pay me for extra days but they want me to do the work so I am working close to full-time again and they'll just have to pay me.

How many nationalities did you have sex with?

I received an e-mail from DL from Bangkok who writes: "Hi Happyamsguy, Remember one day that we were walking in the park and talk about how many nationalities that we had sex with, that question came back to me few days ago & I start count again, about 24 this time!! wanna do your?"

OK just for fun, my total is 28 as follows:

Americas: Canada, USA, Mexico, Trinidad & Tobago, Colombia, Ecuador
Europe: Netherlands, Germany, UK, France, Spain, Italy, Switzerland
Africa: Morocco
Asia: Japan, China, Taiwan, South Korea, Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India
Australia: Australia

I am quite sure some of the faithful readers of this blog have a much higher nationality-count!

Shopping for clothes

There are few things in life that I detest more than shopping for clothes. (hence my very fashionable wardrobe hehe) Usually, I go alone but once in a while I find someone who can actually help me find decent clothes quickly. In Singapore, ER helped me buy some shirts last year, and today AA who was visiting from London assisted me. We went to Hennes and Mauritz and within 15 minutes I had found and bought some new clothes. Earlier, I had dimsum with AA, HS and CHU at Cantonese restaurant Nam Tin. I don't know why this place is so popular with Chinese tourists who are coming in by the bus load, as it is not cheap and the food is very average. They probably pay big commissions to the tour operators.
OS is back in his room and doing relatively well. He is starting to look pale from being in hospital beds for 3 weeks. At the earliest he will be allowed to come home at the end of this week, but they could also decide to keep him one more week.

Gays encouraged to come out

The Dutch government has decided to allocate € 2.5 million to encourage gay people to come out to family, friends and colleagues. Education and Culture Minister Ronald Plasterk (picture) said: "The Netherlands has more than 900,000 gay and lesbian inhabitants, that's about 1 in every 16. During the last decades we have given homosexuals equal rights, and discrimination of gays is against the law, but there are still many gay men and women who are in the closet, especially those that live in conservative Christian and Muslim communities. The government will fund organizations that will go into communities, schools, sports clubs, etc. to provide objective information about homosexuality and encourage gays to come out. October 11 will be "coming-out day" every year, which will hopefully make it easier for (young) gays to be open about their homosexuality. The government has arranged the "hard side" of equal rights, now it is time to spend time, money and effort on making homosexuality really accepted in our country, by all and in every town and village, and within every religion."

Of hospitals and condoms

OS had his third operation on Wednesday morning after more internal bleeding during the night. I was called at 530am and when I arrived at the hospital I was quite shocked seeing the bloodbath that OS was in. After the operation he had high fever and too low blood pressure so they decided to keep him in the intensive care department. The fever has gone and the blood pressure is back to normal now, so perhaps he can go back to his "normal" room later today again. Anyway, early in the week he was hoping to go home today but that has now been postponed by at least 10 days.
In better news, the social democrats in the European Parliament want to keep condoms affordable. "The value added tax on condoms throughout the EU should be kept to a minimum. Dutch Labour Party PvdA and other social democrats in the European Parliament are urging for this. They hope this will help stop the spread of HIV and AIDS in Europe. EU members set the VAT rate for condoms in their respective countries. In Sweden and Denmark they are taxed at 25 percent. In the Netherlands condoms are already in the lower VAT bracket of 6 percent. The legal minimum in the EU is 5 percent." Not that I have been a big user of condoms lately, but you never know when happier times will arrive again.

Dark and depressing

It was not a good day. Work was the same old shit and after lunch I was wondering what the heck I was doing there. While cycling home it started to rain; I don't like this time of the year when it is so dark, wet and generally depressing. There was a letter in the mail informing me that they will replace the sewers in the street and will work on the electricity and gas pipes which will take two months. The entire street is gonna be a mess and they want me to clear the entire front garden as they need to work on the private properties as well. OS is getting sick and tired of being in hospital and he used me to vent his anger, which honestly I think I haven't deserved. And I am here alone in front of my computer when I should be in bed with the sweetest man's arm around me.
Signing off for the night.

The Poppers Factory

Have you ever wondered where they make all of these little nice bottles of poppers? As I was driving on the boring road North today to visit my niece, I found the answer. The poppers factory is not far from the town of Lelystad in the Netherlands. The company first started operating in 1910 in Amsterdam. Here is a picture of their first factory:

The Handbag Museum

It was a busy weekend. After the school reunion and the daily hospital visit, I was invited for dinner at RO's place. Once a year, most of the museums in Amsterdam are open until late (at least until 2am) for the so-called "Museum Night". The idea is to make it "cool" to visit a museum, and I think the idea works as thousands of mostly young people were "museum hopping". Our group consisted of RO, MA, WIB, FR, WI, GO and myself and we visited 4 museums: the Film Museum, the Biblical Museum (where we sang Christmas Carols), the Handbag Museum and the Museum of the Tropics. The Handbag Museum was lots of fun for a group of corny gay men. And I liked the collection of 58 "bisj poles" from the Asmat tribe from New Guinea in the Museum of the Tropics.
Today I drove 400km to visit my youngest niece who was celebrating her 13th birthday. A good family reunion. On the way back I visited OS in hospital. I just checked e-mail and my inbox had an e-mail from RE telling me he had lots of fun at Amsterdam Leather Pride weekend. I missed it completely......

A stabilizing factor

This is a picture of the Dalton Scholengemeenschap in Den Haag (The Hague), where I went to (secondary) school from 1973 - 1979. After graduating from this school I moved to Groningen (about 200km North-East) for my University studies, and I never set foot in the school again - until yesterday. Every year the school organizes a "come-back day" for ex-students and I received an e-mail inviting me to the event. Seven of my class mates showed up and it was so nice to see them again after so many years. It is amazing how people don't really change even after 28 years. Well, one of the girls from my class who was not exactly pretty is now a quite beautiful woman, so some do change. And a guy from my group who I always thought of as "a-sexual" was carrying an "Out games Montreal" bag so that's already 3 confirmed gays from my class. (another guy was out even at that time and at the age of 17, unfortunately he didn't show up for the reunion) I also shook hands with 3 of my former teachers. The teacher of Dutch language and literature remembered me as a "stabilizing factor" in our class, I am still wondering what he meant. Well, he is 83 years old now so maybe his memory is not accurate.

Got US$ 1.3 million to spare?

My friend SI from Hong Kong has this fabulous new job developing real estate in Asia. His first project is now on the market and can be seen here. A good reason to win the lottery.

Long socks

I bought some new socks yesterday and when I put the first pair on this morning I had to giggle as they were quite long. Memories of ML in Singapore, who liked to have sex with both of us having long socks on.......

Man arrested for having sex with a bicycle

A proper follow-up to my previous post. A man has been placed on the sex offenders’ register after being caught trying to have sex with a bicycle. Robert Stewart was discovered in his room by two cleaners at the Aberley House Hostel in Ayr, south west Scotland, in October last year. They knocked on the door several times and there was no reply. They used a master key to unlock the door and they then observed the accused wearing only a white T-shirt, naked from the waist down. The accused was holding the bike and moving his hips back and forth as if to simulate sex. Both witnesses, who were extremely shocked, notified the hotel manager, who in turn alerted the police. Mr. Stewart is not the first man to be convicted of a sexual offence involving an inanimate object, however. Karl Watkins, an electrician, was jailed for having sex with pavements in Redditch, Worcs, in 1993.
Only in Britain.....