Usually I love Mondays. It’s a kind of feeling that everything is possible and that this week I’m going to rule the world. Or at least my life. But this morning I had the worst possible beginning: I was going to take my daughter to the kindergarten and I hit the  neighbor’s car. It was almost nothing but she was yelling, shouting and crying.

We spent the weekend in Cuacos de Yuste, Extremadura. The most powerful man of the history Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor retired to the Monastery of Yuste in 1556. The emperor suffered of gout and we got sick too. We were were vomiting all the interesting local foods. The area of La Vera is famous for it’s pimentón, a paprika powder made from dried, smoked, and smoothly ground mature red peppers. It’s delicious but they use it a lot and it’s not the most tender thing for a sick stomach.

Now I should work but how can I paint all that ice cream, breakfast cereals and tacos if just thinking of food makes me throw up.

Where ever you are, there is always the South, imaginary or real. Everything what comes from the South is miserable. I used the title Everything in the South Is Third World first time in a drawing I made for Lisa, who is from New Orleans and lives in Brooklyn. Now it's the title of my show in November in the Finnish Cultural Institute in Madrid. The government of Finland is passive in the international politics but we, the Finnish people, have an arrogant, neocolonialist and patronizing attitude towards the otherness.

I made two lists of the countries for the invitation card of the exhibition.

NORTH
Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Germany, The Netherlands, Switzerland, Austria, Luxembourg, Belgium (Flanders and Brussels only), France (Paris only), Italy (Milan only),The United Kingdom, The United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Israel.

SOUTH
Sudan, Myanmar, Pakistan, Bolivia, Spain, Afganistan, Romania, Brasil, Greece, Ucrania, Nepal, Kosovo, Portugal, East Timor, Palestina, Ghana, Morocco, Peru, Liberia, Laos, Haiti, Cuba, Slovenia, Slovakia, Argentina, Bosnia, Albania, Colombia, Ecuador and all the rest.

It’s October and it’s raining. I have diarrhea. I’m drawing Working Poor Super Mario Ecuadorian Immigrant and running to the bathroom. I’m listening to Manu Chao’s Radiolina. The album’s most beautiful song is Me Llaman Calle (They Call Me Street). It includes a list of prostitutes’ names, like my drawing. Puri, Marga, Carolina, Nereida, Carmen, Marcela, Alondra, Soraya, Bibiana, Magda, Heidi, Tamara, Rudi, María, Arantxa, Alda, Marimar, Daisi, Sandra.

I’m going to interview Erkka, who lives in Hong Kong, for the Finnish art magazine Taide. I’m doing a series of interviews of Finnish emigrant artists. I wanted to investigate the theme to compare my own experiences with others but it has been hard to find the others. Not many of us have left the motherland permanently. Finland is a safe place for an artist, there’s lot of public support for the culture and a great social security system. It’s fantastic but makes the most of the artists lazy, they don’t get their ass up from bed before receiving 10 thousand from the government.

I’ve been receiving messages telling me to wear today a red shirt - not from communists but from people who support the buddhist monks' protests in Myanmar (or should it be called Burma). These messages contain attractive words like freedom and democracy.

I told my wife about wearing red and this morning she put a red flower shirt on and drove to the school where she teaches art. I decided to read something about Myanmar and found out that the militar junta in the power is socialist and the monks are supported by the United States. Weren’t these freedom and democracy the same products that the U.S. have been exporting lately to Iraq? It seems too easy to manipulate the masses with a couple of beautiful words.

I wasn’t anymore sure who is the hero and who is the villain in this game and I deiced to wear a black t-shirt made in the People’s Republic of China. Am I ignorant because I don’t know anything about Burman politics? Do all my friends who send these political messages know more? And are they sure that they are supproting the right side? I have my doubts and continue supporting the left side.

I got from Cecilia the box I traded to my We Hate Sweden drawing. I absolutely love the box. It’s Cecilia’s self-portrait drawing. It says Smart Spin - 4-Way Action - Safe and fun for the entire family. I think it’s some gadget for losing weight but the box came empty. Unfortunately, It’s not going to shape my body look better. Last week, I went biking and my neck is still aching. I used to drink lot of beer. Now my doctor says that I shouldn’t consume alcohol and I drink non-alcoholic beer. It tastes awful but I’m getting used to it. I hope that it’s lighter in the caloric value than genuine beer. When I watch on TV Real Madrid playing the Champions League, I drink real beer. I like Mahou Five Stars beer. I think Real Madrid is really good this year. I like Schuster, the new coach. And now we have Sneijder and Saviola. I like the letter S. My surname begins with S too.