Whatever turns you on…

It’s always been about being extremely wary about being stuck in reverse and just spinning my wheels for nothing- not really nothing per se, but not moving forward and bringing new things to my table- and not giving more free lunches to others.

I’ve been a gun for hire like Will Paladin during what could be termed my formative years, where I tasted what was offered, decided what worked best for me- this was always somehow or another linked to the wide world of advertising- and from where I took my lead from the one person to steer me in the right direction. 

Did I know it was the right direction?

I was just glad to be entering a new pathway and there was the excitement of absorbing everything going around and see where I could fit in best.

These days, I look at the global landscape and I don’t see much other than the phenomenal success of the Netflix production “K-Pop: Demon Hunters”. 

But it’s not Beatlemania. 

There’s not that opening chord at the start of “A Hard Day’s Night” that signalled this heady mix of the Swinging Sixties full of fashion, Twiggy, The Shrimp, David Bailey, independent film makers, the British Beat Boom and the Independent thinking that led to flower power and Pop Art, Studio 54 and sex, drugs and rock and roll, Rolling Stone magazine, Bob Dylan etc and in between being the assassination of JFK and Richard Mulhouse Nixon’s eyebrows and the lumbering figure of Henry Kissinger. 

We who were there might not have understood what was going on, but we inhaled it all and either got lost in the mists of Avalon or else somehow found our own Camelot and she who became Guinevere. 

Today, the barren landscape that we have waited to flower is not exactly blooming which makes some restless and others fall into a Xerox machine and come out being where some of us have already been, which gives the impression that the world has stalled.

Perhaps, but when looking back to from where you came- your family history, all those classic films by film makers like Hitchcock, Billy Wilder, the different storytellers, E.T., the childlike magic of Sesame Street, the life and times of Jim Henson and the Muppets, David Bowie, Prince, Motown, Bob Dylan, the Godfather trilogy, the films of Scorsese, Annie Leibovitz, David Lynch etc etc, we have an amazing library of Imagination from which to draw on and create whatever the hell works best for us. 

Imagination has no boundaries.

We have also learned through trial and error what doesn’t work for us. We might not know it, but we are very probably guided by experience and those angels travel with you and who whisper when to beware of darkness. 

Having said this, one cannot live in fear and trepidation because this takes you nowhere. It’s about facing your demons, exorcising them and clearing the path to what lies ahead. 

My personal feeling is that everything can be enhanced to be more than it is, but this comes from- yes- inspiration and imagination and, if me, listening to Dylan snarling his way through “Like A Rolling Stone”, tuning in to the Sound of Young America from Motown, the opening to “Love’s Theme”, the beauty of “Moon River” and knowing that you’re the only influencer you need, because you know what works best for you and how to keep optimism alive. 

The most creative thing I have seen from Hong Kong in the past couple of days?

The dish below made from white snail caviar carved on a lotus pear and created by the always creative chef Margaret Xu Yuan.

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