The Coin

Going to an audition for a short film this evening so I thought I’d write up my own piece for the part of a banker/serial killer.

“People spend their lives chasing a coin. They see it as the be all and end all to existence but the reality is that this coin is a means to power.
People can be bought and sold and I have yet to come across anyone who doesn’t have a price tag. Their beliefs, ethics and morals can all be modified or eliminated. Just pick the right number and they belong to you.
Now you see, once you understand this, you understand the power you can have over life itself. You can control what is most precious and as they chase the coin you will have the ultimate power over them.
That ultimate power of course is having the ability to take a life and simply walk away.”

R.G.

Advertisements

George

I was around 11 years old when my grandmother took me to see my grandfather for the first time. He was in Edinburgh castle and I had been nagging her to take me for some time before she accepted. At the entrance we were stopped by soldiers who informed us that their was a fee for admittance but the old bird wasn’t having any of it. “Young man, I lost a husband and I am taking my grandson to see him, now let us through or go and find someone with the authority to do so.” The young soldier jogged off, came back and the fee was wavered.
We entered a room that had a long line of books against one of the walls. I followed her to one of them where she started going through the pages. She stopped at one page and I could see tears swelling up in her eyes. I got up on my tip toes to see what was written and to my surprise it was a long list of names. Pages and pages of names filling up book after book but it was the one name that made her pause. The name of my grandfather. I took her hand and said: “I’m sorry, I didn’t want to make you cry, let’s go home.”

19/11

Time. Time is life and I only have so much life left so don’t waste my time. After four decades of abuse, disappointments, betrayals and having to bury most of the people I care about I don’t have a lot of time for my fellow human. I’ve survived sexual abuse, extreme violence and attempted murder so what ever may be bursting your bubble today is most likely very trivial to me. Everything that I have ever achieved I’ve had to fight for and most of those fights were against the odds. So yeah, I’m hard headed and often brutal in the way I cut social ties with people but that is what experience does to you.
I respect honesty and punctuality. Lies waste time and I always get the truth in the end and if you keep me waiting, well, obviously you are wasting my time. So tell the truth and be where you say you’re going to be when you say you’re going to be and we’ll get along just fine.
Anyway, the point of this little ditty is to say that I am forging ahead and you either keep up or get left behind. I shall be taking no prisoners, granting no forgiveness and taking the heads of anyone who gets in my way. If you’ve been with me so far then you know that I have your back. If you’re new to my world then show me that you are more than a bag of meat breathing my air or move the fuck on and do your own thing.

HKH Flyer V.1

Along with a young lady called Carolyn Siu, I have been gearing up to help people discover the darker side of Hong Kong and document our ventures.

From haunted buildings to crimes scenes, we have been researching the history and urban myths of the city with the dual purpose of taking people on a different kind of journey around HK and recording our adventures. We shall be both on the ground and on the net, posting pictures, write ups and streaming live.

The main website shall serve as a place to conserve research and as one of the means for the general public to contact us. We shall also be present through social media for live and other social interaction.

White

It was some time around the year of 5 when I walked in to the shower room and looked in to the mirror. At first I saw my face but the more intently I looked the more I could see my skull. To the point that all flesh was gone showing me nothing more than bone and teeth. I didn’t know that I was tripping out at that point as I hadn’t, to my knowledge taken anything but I was tripping none the less. I took a step back, closed my eyes, shook my head then opened my eyes to see everything back to nearly normal.
I walked through to the living room alone and called someone on the phone. Maybe a few people. Then I saw her: Eyes of gold staring at me and lifting a fear I had never felt before or after that short part of my life, a fear that had seeped in to my everything and was holding me petrified. She made the pain go and filled me with a warmth that lifted me gently. Taking my hand with a firm grip, she started to cry as the word: Finally went through my mind. Then a great flash of white took me away.

Saving Faces

Pride, honour and saving face are all rooted in the ego. Out of the three I have conserved a certain sense of honour. Whether it be through my work or certain aspects of my behaviour. Honour is simply a set of rules that you live by and as long as you chose those rules I can go with it.
However being proud of something because you are in some way connected to it is really just a form of narcissism and saving face when scandal comes your way is simply trying to cover up the truth. I chose to detach myself from that way of thinking many years ago as both make us blind to reality in different ways.

So why the title? I hear you think.

Well, at the beginning of the year I picked up a second camera for stills and safety shots when shooting video. I’ve been testing it out in various ways, one of which has been taking people’s portraits to test lighting, depth of field and put an online portfolio together. The portfolio is so I have something to send people who want a gun for hire for events but the portrait testing has sprouted wings and become a little something of it’s own. What was originally supposed to be a dozen portraits has now reached 25 faces and is growing. These faces are from different backgrounds, gender and age and are slowly building a mosaic representing the fibre of Hong Kong’s society. Each person simply comes as they are, takes a seat and I take 10 to 30 shots of them. Some stay for 30 mins, others stay for a couple of hours and once they are gone I save their faces for the record.

8.40am

I’ve not done a diary entry in a long time so here goes. I’ve been juggling several projects over the past few months and added to them over time. I’ve stockpiled video footage, photos, collected a bunch of reference images and expanded my notes on the semi fictional city of 6.1.3.Kong.

Yesterday and today are all about sound design for video and this evening I shall be trying different voices to narrate Tik Tak Toe. The image side of the video was finished during the week and is a combination of 375 still images and some footage taken in the studio. As soon as the sound is done it will go online and I can get on with editing a series of photos for S!X (more about that another time as it is still being defined).

I shall be drawing around 25 sketches of faces to use as cover art for a dark ambient album I’m putting together which will double up as a sound track for the White Devil’s Dozen videos. I’m still looking for a model to finish that project as well as needing to write up a script for the Devil himself. So the date of release for that one remains unknown.

Finally: I am still working on The Mysteries, both the poems and the graphic art. It has mutated quite a bit over time from stories and portraits to poems and masks. The latter being what stuck. It’s a follow up to and development of 22 secrets singling out two characters and focusing on the cycle of life. Another CC project although I will make digital downloads available for purchase for those who want prints.

That about sums things up for just now. Stay tuned for work in progress, dirty jokes and pictures of your mom cooking me dinner.