Hong Kong life: Changing Scenes and Schemes.

Those were the times and whether for better or worse, it’s what it was and depending on one’s career path, it’s what led us to wherever the hell we were going with no Google Maps to show us the way.

Were we fraught with problems and danger and careful about where life took us?

Not really, because as the Stones’ once sang, we were caught in a crossfire hurricane and it was alright, because there was nothing to compare it to- something was there and we had to try it no matter how forbidden the fruit might have been. And when this rascally worm finds its way into your personal life and upsets your garden of Eden, who knows what happens next?

Bridges of sighs and vows might be detonated, but it was a chance one took and hoped that you were never found out.

I grew up in a Hong Kong when there were no mobile phones and being a dark skinned nine year old, I didn’t realise what was being said about me in Cantonese when on a Shaukiwan tram to Quarry Bay Primary School, but had racism slap me in the face when a slightly older kid in school called me the “n” word.

I showed my true colours by asking my father why I should be seen as being black when I was brown.

This led to being put off listening to black artists until the Beatles and the Stones came along with their covers of songs by the Marvellettes, the Shirelles, Arthur Alexander, Chuck Berry and so many others and then falling in love with the Ronettes and everything released by Berry Gordy’s “Sound of Young America” through his Tamla Motown label with artists like the Supremes, the Temptations, the brilliant Four Tops, the songs of Holland-Dozier-Holland and the talent of Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder with the Jackson 5 beating the Osmonds at their own game.

I’m really unsure how it’s happened and why it’s happening at this late stage in my life, but I am becoming more and more isolated while trying to make up for lost time and opportunities.

I think about my interviews when pretty much starting out in journalism and being so overawed at meeting people like Quincy Jones, Billy Joel, Sammy Davis Jr, Peter Sellers, Roman Polanski, Led Zeppelin, Ahmet Ertegun, David Bowie and so many others.

Though I wrote some nice enough copy for the South China Morning Post and the American music trade publication Billboard, I missed out in really getting into the subject matter.

For example, I had so much time with Billy Joel, but I lobbed some soft balls his way.

When interviewing Quincy Jones, his then wife Peggy Lipton was serving us tea and songwriter Rod Temperton was in front of us trying to write new songs for Michael Jackson, but I let that opportunity to know more just slide.

These days I am becoming more and more uninterested in what people have to say and which might come across as arrogance, but I really don’t care.

There’s something gnawing inside of me and I am loathe to make small talk.

My taste in women is not what it was, but I have no idea what it is. Those I once loved or might have loved are fading from view. I’m looking for my next Diane Keaton and my Jessie Buckley and this excites me. I guess it’s raising the bar in more ways than one.

I was and am more and more interested and deep diving into different aspects of creativity, especially the criss cross connection between childlike imagery and the imagination of personal heroes like Steven Spielberg and Jim Henson and their work like “E.T” and Sesame Street.

At the same time, I am fascinated by the thinking and work of David Lynch and, of course, I am always travelling with the Beatles and their various magical mystery tours.

This was and is cutting me off from nearly everyone because none have the same interests as me.

I’ve lost track of what once was a family and I have no regrets. There’s no void because there’s no feeling anymore. It’s something that meant something very long ago and faraway and like a balloon, it’s up there flying away.

What’s important for me at this stage in a life where I have embraced so many things and had my fair share of little successes is learning how to let some one dimensional things go straight to the keeper.

It’s about being free in a multi dimensional world where everyone is invigorated and inspired by everything that’s going on around them and about going down the rabbit hole with the Mad Hatter and Guinevere and Lewis Carroll and having tea with The Crumpets and the Teapot People and where music is created by butterflies, new waves and birds and flowers.

This is a new world orderly order where everything is possible, no one is just surviving instead of living and where we leave those right of centre to feed on the crumbs while we bake our own bread.

From the upcoming “Muzical Chairs” project.