Wednesday, April 15, 2026
Thai New Year's Traffic Festival 2015
When I was young, the radio listed the national traffic death toll on the holidays.
As a tribute to our nation's patriotism America scored the highest fatalities on the 4th of July. New Year's Eve and St. Patrick's Day were never close. These announcements were designed to warn the public about the dangers of driving drunk and thanks to draconian DMI-laws holiday tragedies have been reduced to a sad footnote.
I personally thought that passing a law to have a drunk driving hour would have been more appropriate.
3-4am.
Only the inebriated behind the wheel in a mad demo derby of boozers. My letter to President Bush on this matter was returned ADDRESS UNKNOWN.
Thailand on the other hand seems to revel in the idea.
New Year 2015 stretched into a five-day holiday and so far the traffic deaths for road mayhem amounted to 190 with thousands of injured swarming into the hospitals. TV warnings and police road blocks did nothing to prevent 2015 overtaking 20015 with a late push on 1/1, especially since another two days remain of the holiday.
Breathalyzers are new to Thailand and the police usually let the driver go after drinking a lot of water to lower the alcohol content in his blood. Serious offenders are arrested on the spot. This might seem a lenient policy, but there are only 114 breathalyzers for all Thailand.
This weekend it was not unusual to spot motorcycle drivers with beer bottles in their hand, which was almost as dangerous as talking on the cellphone while driving, the main cause of accidents in the 21st Century.
Even better the other day I saw a girl texting an SMS while driving her scooter.
Go go Thailand. I can hardly wait for Songkran.
Sophie's Bar Phnom Penh - a touch of darkness - 1999 - 2007
Entry by Ty Spaulding
In 1999
Cambodia was at peace. No weapons were seen on the streets, but once off the main avenues the streets were unlit Phnom Penh landmark was located on an unlit side street. Nik and I were looking for Sophia's a notorious short-time bar. It is not easy to find even with the address. A taxi motorcyclist pointed out our destination. No lights shone behind the shuttered windows. Two scarred men on the sidewalk eyed our entrance, as if we possessed entry tickets stamped by the Arok or the Devil. We climbed up a decrepit set of stairs, which looked like the Khmer Rouge might have executed cadres against the walls. The second-floor metal door was securely steel. A knock opened an eye hole. A single eyeball approved entrance. The main room was a bar about the size of a Holiday Inn suite. Only there's no bed, just six stools and a few tables.
But no one visited Sophie's for the decor.
The flimsy attired girls were ages 18-30. They numbered around twenty in this evening. The attire was flimsy. Young and old, beautiful and ugly. Something for everyone's taste. They swore to be Khmer and not Vietnamese, as if working at Sophie's fulfilled a patriotic duty.
Once inside the red-lit bar four hostesses sat us on stools before auditioning to star in a remake of DEEPTHROAT in one of the two backrooms. Permission was not asked nor denied. Resistance was futile.
At this point the old hag behind the bar asked for a drink order.
A bottle of beer. Wipe the top. The male clientele were NGO pervs fighting off a heroin habit, incurable drunks, balding sex tourists on a Viagra binge, Euro-trash libertines, and missionaries seeking to save souls somewhere other than Sophie's.
Secretive glances. This was a very compromising situation and thankfully no CCTV cameras dotting the ceiling confirming the clientele wasn't spied on by the NSA or worst friends porno surfing the net.
About two minutes after our first breath in Sophie's (the smell of cigarettes, cheap liquor, and man sweat) the girls broke their crotch huddle and asked who was best and we wanted to retire to a side room for more research.
As sinful as it may have seemed, saying no was more damnable than saying yes. Two or three girls will drag us into a back room, where they will be darling for however long it took to achieve paradise. Jagged cracks decorated stained walls and soiled sheets spoke of hundreds of successful rendezvouses. Nik conversed with me about his experience through the tar paper thin walls, thin as cheap pizza and almost as greasy.
The menage-a-trois cost $20 and beers at $2 were the price for our souls. Eternal damnation.
In 2007 Nick and I had scheduled our Cambodia trip to avoid Songkran in Thailand. My wife thought this voyage was simply a sex tour, but we passed through Koh Kong and Sihanoukville without a passing glance at the local talent, mostly because S-ville’s Chicken Farm has been dramatically reduced by the port expansion and the bars of Victory Hill were devoid of pulchritude. The taxi drivers vainly attempted to hook us up, but we opted to wait until Phnom Penh.
We arrived in the capitol in the late-afternoon and installed ourselves at the Hope and Anchor Hotel on Quai Sisiwoth. Several beers smoothed the edge of a five-hour bus trip and darkness turned our minds to Sophie’s Bar.
The sleaziest bar in the world.
We rode our rented dirt bikes around 153 St.
For 30 minutes.
Finally finding the infamous haunt of sex tourists.
No lights.
The doors shut.
I asked the taxi drivers, “What’s up?”
They signaled with their hands.
Closed.
“Closed?”
Nick asked, “Why?”
“How the fuck should I know.” I tried to hide my disappointment, because I considered Sophie’s Bar one of the Seven Wonders of the Wicked World. Its closure was more tragic than the Taliban’s blowing up the giant Buddha statue in Afghanistan. After all those statues were stone and Sophie’s Bar was flesh and blood.
Martini’s and Sharkey’s were too tame for my taste and I returned to the hotel alone to drink with Peter, the owner.
“Is Sophie’s closed permanently?” I had to know for socio-anthropological purposes.
“No, only for the Buddhist holiday by order of the mayor. He didn’t consider it a holy place of worship. Not like some. But it will be open after the New Year.”
“I’ll be gone then.”
“Win some, lose some.”
“Yeah.” Next year I would have to plan my trip more carefully.
Sadly it’s gone now.
As are all good things and bad.
Koh Samui 1990
Alice In A Rubber Dress
1984
London
Leicester Square
The Cafe de Paris
DJed by Albert de Paname
The young
Dancing
Fun
The place to be___
Black Jack and I
At the ropes
A ten-thick crowd
Other side of the ropes.
We control the destiny of the night.
In or out.
Ingrid arrives with Alice
Svelte
Blonde
English
A black rubber dress___
Jacques and I part the crowd
Like Moses and Aaron
At the Red Sea.
Kisses on the cheeks
Happy to be there
Happy they are here.
Friends forever
Day or night.
ps Years later the rubber dress melted in Tanzania.
Tuesday, April 14, 2026
Mad Dogs And Farangs
Several hot seasons ago Jamie Parker and I met Jamie Parker at a bar on Soi Concrete. I wasn't going to my old local. The owner had stiffed Nick Von Reiter for $5000. I had fought him on Soi 6. One punch with the keys in my fist. At my age there is no fighting fair.
Jamie looked ten years younger. He was recovering from his affair with the Ice queen Ort. New teeth and the furrows in his forehead had been smoothed out like 5-star hotel sheets. I was a little jealous.
“Looks like you’re ready for a gigolo position on Palm Beach.”
“Botox. A full body dip. Breathed through my nostrils. Tightened my skin like a drum. Teeth too." The only sign of his age were his eyes. Jamie had seen a lot in his 50 plus years. The doctors had no cure for too much life.
"I'm staying with the old body.
"Are you sure?" Jamie pinched the loose flesh under my jaw. "They can get rid of that chicken gullet for $500. Then the two of us can hit on all the old board at the Leopard Lounge."
"You know about the Leopard Lounge?" The bar in the Chesterfield Hotel was infamously renown for heiresses seeking hot men in their 50s.
"A little bit of luck and you and I could be living in the lap of luxury."
“Not the right season.” Palm Beach swung between Xmas and Easter. After that the rich fled the heat.
"And this is the right season here." The temperature hadn't dropped under 90 since Songkran. “Damn, it’s hot.”
“Lorn mak.” Pattaya has been baked by the seasonal heat wave. “I think it’s hotter than last year.”
“Me too, but check out that fat Teabag across the street.”
“He seems fine with it.” The Brit was about 55. Tattooed like a druid, 5-5 and weighing about 14 stone which is a XXXXL in the USA. Bare-headed and no shirt. Skin burnt to a tender red. I was wearing a full-length shirt and a cowboy hat. Long pants too. Standing in the shade we ordered two beers from the PIM bar.
“Yeah, mad dogs and Englishmen. Only ones that can take this heat.
“You know this isn’t really hot.”
“Up in Isaan it gets hotter.”
“Cambodia is a frying pan this time of year.” My friend Nick and I had spent last Songkran in Phnom Penh. Both of us would have suffered from water depletion if it wasn’t for a steady replenishing our liquids with Khang beer. (7-11% alcohol).
“What about the East Village in July?”
“Worst is Needles, California in August. I got off a bus there and smacked by a wall of heat. The thermometer inside the Dairy Queen said 135. didn’t have any money and had to hitchhike out of there. Old couple heading to Lake Havesu saved my life.” I can remember a cold glass of lemonade. The old man wasn’t scared of madmen on the highway because his wife had a gun. A Colt 45.
“What year was that?”
“1974.”
“You were a hippie then, right?”
“I had long hair.” At least I listened to the Jefferson Airplane and Iggy Pop, instead of the Dead.
“Here come some more mad Englishmen.”
A trio of skinhead beer-drinkers on motor scooters. Bare-chested to the tropical sun. Sometimes Pattaya seems like the Millwall hooligans have a training center on Soi Bukhao.
“They're all early melanoma cases.” I used sunblock 50 on my face, which had vanished the black circles under my eyes. “Madmen. I was stranded in Penang once and wandered into the old English graveyard crammed with Brits struck down by the heat.”
“No one sane should be out in the heat this time of day.” I was melting like the Wicked Witch of the West.
“What about us?” Jamie was no hypocrite.
“Let’s go up to Maggie’s for a cold one.”
Jamie was primed for a pint. Me too. Cold beer is the only way to go to avoid the madness of Englishmen. We were only a little bah or crazed by the sun. Back in the 70s hippies went to the California Welfare Bureau to get certified in order to collect insane status checks from the state. I don’t think Cally offers that service anymore, but if the State does, California here I come.
The sun has got me again.
Revolution Versus Songkran
I first came to Thailand in 1991. It was April. I traveled to Koh Samui on an overnight ferry. No one told me about the regular boat service, but I spent that night staring at the stars flickering in a tropical night. The boat was a service barge. Slow. We arrived at dawn. I got off the boat and was immediately drenched with buckets of water.
My intro to Songkran.
Thailand's water festival.
In 2022 I flew in from New York, I couldn't stay long. I had to get back to the hospital for treatment, missing Songkran. At the airport my wives asked when I'm coming back with big pockets. Bangkok had been shut for two years under the rules of Covid. Faced with such a crisis the government announced that it was dealing with the crisis the only way possible.
An extension of the Songkran festival until Friday.
Party. Sanuk. Forget everything.
If only salvation was that easy.