I miss aspects of being in the Arab world - the language - and there is a tranquility in these cities with great rivers. Whether it's Cairo or Baghdad, you sit there and you think, 'This river has flown here for thousands of years.' There are magical moments in these places. Zaha Hadid
Sadly thisgreat architect passed from his world.
Her jewels live on.
Day and night.
Pattaya iswasnot Venice and certainly no one on the Coasta del Crime pretended to be a reincarnated Thomas Mann writing a Thai version of TO DIE IN VENICE. At least no one I knew, however plenty of farangs and Thais died in the Last Babylon.
Many of natural causes. Some by misadventure.
Dying is what makes us the same, because none of us live forever.
Murder, accidents, and suicides are headlined by Pattaya's morbid editorial staffs. Their photographers barge into the bedrooms of the deceased to chronicle the sad events like Cheap Charley Weegee.
One tawdry rag reported on a senior member of the German community hanging himself over indebtedness to his Thai girlfriend.
Flat broke and 65.
The man couldn't face going back to his Heimat.
He had nothing or so he thought, because there was always a reason to keep on breathing and I learned that secret over 30 years ago traveling out of Mexico out a Tres Estellas bus. The driver stopped in a small mountain village outside of Monterrey. Church, cantina, market. I ate a couple of tacos for dinner and then got back on the bus. We arrived at the Mex-Tex border at sunset. I booked a cheap room at the nearest hotel. My stomach was pitching, as if my innards were in a typhoon. I ran to the toilet countless times. I made it each time with a second to spare. My body was whacked by spasms. Sweat spewed from my flesh. I tried to read my book.
HP Lovecraft's THE TERROR AT INNSMOUTH.
The gothic horror tale troubled my soul and a wicked fever dragged me to a fitful sleep.
I had no watch in my dream. The light belonged to the realm of limbo. I stood in a rusting garden. The rotting flowers smelled of iron. Mumbling voices belonged to shuffling zombies. They weren't fast, but their numbers were countless.
The living dead chased me through the garden. Their green teeth clattered like plates on a tile floor. Their stomachs were empty. I was dinner. The ghouls trapped me in a gazebo. Their nails scrapped at the fly screens. Grave dust filter through the metal. I was two seconds from screaming like a Hollywood extra, when a thin man barged through the mob of flesh-eater and demanded, "What is the secret to human life?"
My Philosophy 101 grade had been a C+. I was no Nietzsche and the leader of the undead offered a once in a dream opportunity.
"If you give us the secret of human life we will let you live another 60 seconds."
"I know and I'm not telling."
"Then," he turned to his tortured minions. "Bon appetit."
My scream woke me from a horrible fate and I shook in terror but also armed with the truth that no matter how bad things might be we want to draw that next breath until there's no sense, despite how in THE COMEDIANS Graham Greene writes about how suicides are great mathematicians since they calculate the odds of ending it to be greater than going on.
There is always a reason to end life and begin it. I have always considered every delirious drunk to be a life and death experience. Living through a hang-over breeds another rebirth.
"It's not the despair I mind so much as the hope." Woody Allen.
More like running out of hope, which killed the German retiree this week.
Life is that intense right now.
So hold onto your minds. We will ride out this storm. Most of us and for those who pick the fast way out, "Via con dios."
And you know I'm not a religious person?
Even In distress.
My SOS will be sent to the bartender.
When Lou Reed died three years ago, a friend called to ask, if I had known the singer.
I said, “No."
El-Roy was a pussy hound and asked if I thought Nico was a good fuck.
“I don’t know,” I replied and hung up thinking one thing.
The Velvet Underground’s singer was probably great in bed.
Once in Paris I had a Nico lookalike girlfriend.
Mirabelle was a blonde aristocratic junkie model, who had more success at ripping off rich men than getting on the covers of VOGUE or ELLE.
I was working at the Bains Douche as a doorman.
An American in Paris.
There were over 200,000 of us in those years. Most of them worked at banks or attended university. My job offered better perks than pay or wisdom. The patron of the Bains-Douches allowed me to treat the French, especially Parisians, in his words 'comme le merde que ils sont'.
I was 'd'accord with that edict, but my friends and beautiful women received start treatment. Mirabelle was one of my favorite thanks my my preference for skinny women.
One winter night Mirabelle accompanied me back to my flat on the Ile St. Louis.
We snorted some H and made love without satisfaction until the drug sang us to sleep.
Neither of us took off our clothes.
The next morning I woke to the bells of Notre Dame.
The windows were open and I shivered with the cold.
Mirabelle’s skin was ice to my touch.
I thought she was dead and grew hard as a rock realizing that realize the dead can't feel anything and shove my cock in her bony ass. My medical diagnosis was wrong. The first thrust woke her from the grave and Mirabelle said, "Plus profound.",then her lungs drew a shallow breath.
I closed the window and fucked her with the dawn.
It was like making love to a beautiful corpse
And she gave a death rattle as a moan.
"Good?" I asked from on top.
She simply pleaded, "Encore."
I gave what she wanted,
Because Mirabelle was very good for such a bad girl
And I bet Nico was the same.
A goddess best undressed in the cold.
When millions of people believe, we can win.
To hear this deeply moving speech, please go to the following URL
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSRUmRYrRLY&list=PLJCQz71gQu-p5oTd-FQmJ9_AAaKLarryW&index=5
The fall of the Iron Curtain inspires various other countries to embrace democracy. Eastern Europe opened its borders and their populaces flooded the West and the American voters exiled the GOP from the White House. Asian countries were not so lucky with their aspirations for freedom. Their leaders were well-supported by the rich, the military, and the police. Burma remained under a draconian dictatorship. Nepal's monarchy repressed the dissidents with gunfire and I was in Bangkok during the 1992 demonstrations against the return of military rule.
The newly-appointed Prime minister had broken his vow to the King. The resistance of the Thai people was bolstered by the lack of action from from hometown troops. No one thought that the protests would ended in violence.
"Violence not Thai Way," Kenny told me, as we stood at the tail-end of the hundreds of thousands gathered before the Democracy Monument. The sun blazed down on our heads. Kenny and I retreated to the Hotel Royale. Tourist had fled the city in anticipation of serious trouble and I booked a room for a quarter of the normal price. The balcony overlooked the entire avenue and we surveyed the masses with a pair of counterfeit binoculars I had bought in Patpong.
Our beers were cold, but I spotted a shift in troops deployed beyond the distant traffic circle.
"Things are going to get ugly."
"Why you say that?"
"Fresh troops are replacing the city regiments. their replacements. Thousands of frightened murmurs wavered through the crowd. "Suchinda has found loyal soldiers."
"They not shoot Thai people." Kenny had a bar near the Malaysia Hotel. He dealt with the police and soldiers. They laughed playing poker in his backroom. None of them ever mentioned anything about his being gay.
"I'm not so sure about that." I focused the binoculars on the new troops. Something about their sinister smiles spoke murder. "Suchinda and his bosses don't want the people to be free."
"Free?" Kenny dismissed the idea with a wave of his hand. "No one free. My mother slave to father. Father slave to big people. And Kenny slave to good time. But Khon Yai not free. Rich people slave to poor people. Everyone know place. Good. Not mob. No one know what come next."
"Nothing good."
And I was right.
The troops had been transported Bangkok from ban-nok or up-country. Their officers told these raw recruits that the King had ordered them to put down a communist revolution. The gunfire came as a surprise to the demonstrators. They died by the hundreds. The number will never be known.
Kenny and I hide several in our hotel room. The police wanted to take them outside. Kenny gave them all his money. I gave all mine too. The students were left alone.
The next day I traveled by a bus to Chiang Mai. Suchinda was ousted by the King.
A week later everything was back to normal. Kenny was right. The Thais knew their place.
Nearly thirty years later the people are not so obedient.
The yellow-shirts represent the old school of Khon Yai.
Privilege and power.
Cars are 30% more expensive in Thailand.
Gas too.
The money lines the pockets of the rich, but violence is only a weapon for the rich.
The poor fight the Khon Yai in their dreams.
Sadly it is the only way they can win that war, because it's the only place the poor can be free of the rich and powerful this side of ban-nok.
การปฏิวัติ
Pattaya is a city not well known for monogamy. Promises of fidelity last until you leave the room, because this city on Thailand's Eastern Seaboard has temptations by the thousands and those temptations rarely say no.
Bar girls, rent boys, ka-toeys, booze, and drugs added up to damnation according to Reverend Joe Stannis of the Holy Revival Church located down the street from my old soi. He preached in a black suit to passing motorists.
A megaphone in hand.
“You are all going to hell.” Only in English.
The Thais thought he was crazy, because attached to his concrete chapel was a sign pointing the way to the nearest ‘Love Motel’.
The Angel Inn.
The rooms rent by the hour or day for Heaven on Earth testifying to Pattaya's motto.
“Good men go to heaven. Bad men go to Pattaya.”
This quip was borrowed from Mae West’s epithet. “Good girls go to heaven. Bad girls go anywhere they want.”
Nevertheless this doesn’t mean everyone in Pattaya is all sinners, because even Sodom had one good man and my friend Richard has never cheated on his wife in Pattaya.
Several years back we were sitting at the Buffalo Bar.
Beers before us.
The DJ was playing HOTEL CALIFORNIA. The Englishman's girlfriend was at his side. Despite working the bars for ten years Lee's undying beauty was a miracle and Richard explained his faithfulness.
“I’m too lazy to be unfaithful and it’s not in my nature.”
Richard was a London contractor working 10-12 hour days, so his lassitude only pertains to matters of the heart.
Thankfully he doesn't know that his Thai wife sleeps with another man. His friends never tell Richard, because the Englishman feels good about himself for being good.
After Richard and Lee left my friend Nick said, "No one is faithful in this town, unless it's to their football team."
Nick was a Tottenham Spurs fan. His girlfriend worked as a service girl at the Buffalo Bar. Fen was too pretty for words and too pretty for just one man. The lanky Brit explained, "Fen has a boyfriend. He pays for her schooling. She only sees me when he leaves down. She considers herself 'faithful' to both of us. Fen never asks me for money, so I'm the only man in Pattaya getting free sex."
"Nothing is free in Pattaya." Everything had a price, even if it was marked 'free'.
Two nights later Richard asked Nick at the Buffalo, "Is Fen your mia noi?”
“No, she not mia noi. She geek.” Richard's girlfriend answered for Nick and waved for another gin-tonic.
“What’s the difference?” Richard's question was directed at his girlfriend. The seeds of suspicion were worming into his trust. Lee stammered for a second, but Nick saved her from having to tell the truth.
“A mia noi you take care of along with having a mia leung or first wife. A geek is someone you have sex with and care about, but only a little. You see her when you see her and it’s no big deal.” Nick obviously had been educated in the difference.
“But your girlfriend doesn’t think she’s your geek?”
“No, Fen is what she is.”
“So you never say the love word?”
“No.” Nick shook his head. “It’s a sex thing.”
“So she’s a geek?” Richard couldn’t fathom why people sleeping together for purely sex.
“No, not geek. Not mia noi. Not friend.” Richard’s girlfriend was exasperated by the his husband’s density, but he only wanted to know where Nick’s girl stood in the scheme of things.
"I like her, but I'm not in love. I'm not faithful to her either. Not like you and Lee."
I got up and left to avoid any examination of my situation.
Jamie Parker was sitting at the other end of the bar.
When I told my friend about the discussion, the New Yorker smiled slyly and said, “This is not a town for the pure of heart. Some women here regard their husbands as faithful if they don’t bring anyone home or are seen with another women by their friends. Other women think you’re cheating if you look at another woman or think of one. Men will believe any story by these bar girls to grant them immunity from a life of sleeping with complete strangers. I call it the Eliza Doolittle syndrome. I can rescue her from this life of sin. Ha, but it’s not the farang boyfriend most men have to worry about. It’s the Thai ex-. They never die, even if the girl says his husband was killed in a motorcycle accident.”
“I’ve heard that story twice.”
“Bet every man in Pattaya has heard it at least once.” Jamie had little use for stories. His girlfriend had been working on Soi 6 three years. Ort liked being a bad girl and so did Jamie. “
Everyone has been unfaithful in either thought or deed and I don’t know what’s worse. Thinking about it and doing it.”
“Doing it.”
“Yeah, but at the end of your life are you going to be sorry about not doing it or doing it?”
"There were twins at the old Blackout a Go-go. I should have taken them home, except I was been faithful to my previous girlfriend. She left me for an Italian."
"Regrets I have a few but then again too few to mention."
“Sinatra the Philosopher.”
“Do-be-do-be-do,” Jamie crooned off-key and several bar girls stared his way, as if he was a dog with his paw stuck in a door. “Are you thinking about going home with someone from here?”
“No way.” I lived two minutes from the Buffalo. Mam was my steady. We had been seeing each other for over a year.
"Are you still faithful to her?"
Yes. Maybe she gave me a love potion."
"Maybe she did, because there's something wrong with being faithful in Pattaya. You're not scared, are you?"
"Of what?"
"Of Mam cutting off your penis and feeding it to the ducks." Castration was a favorite punishment Thai women inflict on philandering males. So much so that Thai doctors had become the world’s premier saviors of amputated penises. Accordingly Thai women cast the severed member to the duck pen, since quackers, unlike pigs, eat anything. Even cock.
“Better to keep your sins in thoughts.” Jamie advised, for Ort was equally vicious as Mam when it came to his roaming eye.
“Deeds we can save for the after-life.”
“Or secrets we never tell anyone else. Is it a sin if no one knows?”
In this town everyone knows sooner or later. Mam also knows that once I’ve had two drinks all I really want is a couple more drinks and I went home to surf through the ennuidom of international TV. Mam was playing cards with her friends. She wasn't answering her phone. The night was still young, but I shut off the TV and went to sleep with dreams of becoming a saint.
At least in deed.
Thought was another story, because anyone in Pattaya is going to hell.
At least according to Reverend Joe Stannis of the Holy Revival Church and a baptist knows Sin when he sees it and so do I.
No Matter what, Bernie's my man.
No more wars.
And the Dove says the same and so say all of us.
We don't have to listen to the others.
Peace on Earth.
To one and all. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jc2TVLoxsDA
Donald Trump has achieved much during his campaign for the GOP's choice as their presidential candidate.
The billionaire has won the hearts and minds of disenfranchised rightwing voters seeking a change from government as usual and his demagoguery has ignited the hopes for a return to American greatness.
His followers are rabidly devoted to their leader and have responded with violence to any opposition.
Nor are they upset by his wife's near-nude appearance on the cover of GQ.
Or joking about having sex with his daughter.
Or that he has a small penis.
Mostly because his greatest rival has small hands.
Even his rival."
I see it.
Maybe no one else does.
But as the French say to Martians."
"Déshabillons-nous."
It always sounds better in French.
Beauty is not separated by time.
Only by years.
And then only by those who never see beauty.
This photo of Paul Coulson was ripped off by Richard Prince for his Instagram series.
Last year he sold them for $100,000.
They now go for twice that.
Neither the photographer nor the model remunerated by the 'artist'.
A rip-off and no one says 'boo'.
As Proudhon said, "All possession is theft.
Believers see their God in many forms and last month a weather blogger on Madeira shot a photo of an amazing cloud formation, which many viewers call the 'Hand of God'.
As an atheist I see the beauty of nature.
I leave seeing God to others.
And he isn't Chuck Norris.
Man has gazed into the stars for millions of years from the time of Richard Leakey's Lucy in Africa to the Neanderthals and Cro-Magnon into the Druids' sun meters at Stonehenge to present-day astronomers surveying the galaxy and beyond with orbiting telescopes and earthbound radio transmitters.
For most of that time the earth was considered the center of the universe, although that belief was challenged by Galileo, who discovered the first hints of a heliocentric solar system. His heresy earned the scientist a lifelong house arrest from a Vatican clinging to the ancient translation of the stars, however his doubt inspired the search for the truth and nowadays most intelligent people accept that the solar system is traveling through the galaxy.
Of course flat-earthers from the Bible Belt still adhere to the bible-thumpers' canon of the sun being stuck on the back of God.
There is no room for science in the hearts of the faithful, but recently DJ Sadhu, a computer graphic designer, constructed a video of Ole Sol's travels with the nine orbiting planets. His naming the passage as a vortex has upset many naysayers attached to the old heliocentric model, calling his video fanciful, but controlled chaos makes sense to me and should to any like thinker, even if it's hooey.
Decide for yourself and view a version of the solar system's passage through space by going to the following URL
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jHsq36_NTU
CHAPTER 1
The blonde woman on the battered chair lifted her black stiletto heels in horror, as rats scratched across the basement’s damp concrete floor. Once the horde scurried into their lairs, she lowered her feet relieved by their passing, but rats were the least of her problems.
A 40-watt bulb dangling from a rotting wooden beam barely illuminated the two men in the shadows and Greta pleaded fearfully, “Please let me go, I haven’t done anything wrong?”
"Nothing wrong? The black man in the spotless jogging suit stepped closer to lean on the chair. Sunglasses hid his eyes.
“Nothing.” Her body shivered with the denial. “Willi told me to meet him here.
“For a good time in a dirty place.”
“Yes.” Greta nodded, stifling a sniffle. She had arrived on time only to have these two men drag her underneath the old meat warehouse. “Is that a crime?”
“No, but let me ask you a question. Are you a saint?”
“No, I'm not a saint.” The expensive wig flopped off Greta’s crew-cut head onto ‘her’ lap.
"Are you an artist?"
“Yes, these black and white shots are very kunstlerisch.” The black man tapped Greta’s gaunt face with a set of grainy photos. “I can’t see that you are a man and your friend’s skin shines white as snow on coal.”
“They are only souvenirs.”
“Expensive souvenirs, nicht war? Your last weekend in a St. Pauli hotel had you cost over 2000 Deutschmarks or half your monthly salary.”
“How do you know that?”
"It is my business to know these things and also to know that you have been raiding the accounts of your bank’s customers to pay for these holidays with Willi.” “I plan on putting back the money.”
“I believe you, but any magistrate will regard your borrowing as embezzlement and sentence you to prison, so now you are in trouble. Big trouble.” The black man flung the lurid snapshots at the man. “You know who I am, yes?”
"You are Cali Nordstrum." Hamburg's newspapers regularly featured stories on the harbor city’s most notorious pimp. Only last week he had escaped a murder attempt.
"What is my real name?"
“Yes, I am and I am here, because my best hustler has fallen for you.” Cali handed a handkerchief to the man and backed away from the banker, so his scarred face melted into the gloom. “Stop your slobbering.”
"Es tut mir lied." The trembling transvestite glanced at the silent white man in the shadows and buried his veiny hands into the fallen wig like a muff.
“Sorry for what? You visit Willie for sex. Sex is sex. But that is not the problem, is it?”
Cali lunged like a cobra at his prey and the man on the stool toppled backwards. The pimp caught his arm and righted the stool. “The problem is that I am not running a marriage service for hustlers, am I?”
“No.” A high heel slipped off the banker’s foot.
“Willi told me all about you, your cross-dressing, your weekends at the hotel.”
“He told you about this?” The banker had trusted the hustler. “All the Kalbflescht work for me. The Schwules tells me everything, which is always better than someone else finding out before me and Willi also told me how you control your bank’s wire transfers throughout Europe and I thought maybe I can help you, if you help me.”
“I couldn’t do that.”
"Then maybe I'll send Willi away to avoid more trouble.”
“Whatever?”
“Yes.”
"Do you have an open mind?" Cali crouched by the chair.
For ten years the banker had protected his name, job, and family from disgrace, yet now he asked hopefully, "Why?"
"First, you are woman trapped in a man's body. Second, your affair with Willi has put your position at the bank in jeopardy, nicht war?” asked Cali, because most people required more than one motive to cross the line from good to bad.
The banker in the woman’s dress nodded in dismay and Cali mapped out the scheme in whispers. The banker’s eyes shined with hope, because the desperate loved long shots.
“This is your chance to leave Germany with Willi. No one will search for you in Thailand, especially if you become a woman. Were you lying about your commitment to Willi?"
"No." The man’s Adam’s apple gulped his commitment.
“Your first name is Hans Roth, nicht war?"
"I prefer Greta."
"Better for our purposes for me to call you Hans. After we succeed, you can be Greta forever.” He handed the banker a wad of 100-DM notes and a business card. “You can contact me at this number in an emergency. Tell Willi nothing about our scheme. This is 'our' secret. Also this money will come out of your cut in the end."
“I’ll follow your every command.”
“I know you will.”
Cali’s hand snatched the man’s ear so hard that the cartilage separated from Han’s skull, then released the ear and Hans shriveled into the chair.
"I don’t want to hurt you, but you must understand there's no backing out?"
" I understand," Hans moaned through watery eyes and re-arranged the wig on his head. "Thank you.”
"Thank me, when this is all over and you're in Thailand with Willi."." Cali nodded and his tall friend opened the basement door for a black leather angel with white-blonde hair. Willi.
While Heroin might have gotten the better of the hustler’s thin beauty, the banker was blind to Willi’s deterioration and the two embraced as man and woman.
“Let’s leave the lovers alone.”
On the stairway Kurt Oster pulled out a cigarette. The flame from a gold lighter illuminated a rugged Teutonic face.
"Are we really going to cut him in?"
"Just because we are criminals doesn't mean we have to be dishonest."
“And no one will get hurt?
“In the beginning it is better to believe no one will be hurt.”
“And in the end?”
“Everyone will receive what they deserve in the end.” Cali shrugged with a knowing smile and the two men climbed the warehouse stairs to exit onto the loading dock, while Cali stopped and lowered his Italian sunglasses.
“Anything wrong?” Kurt flicked the cigarette on the cobblestones.
“Someone is out there.” Cali scanned the deserted street.
“No one comes to the harbor at night.” Kurt checked the block.
The Speicherstadt had once been the busiest warehouse district in the world, although tonight only three cars were parked on the street. The two friends walked to Cali’s Mercedes Benz 380SL convertible.
“We did.” Cali’s premonitions acted as his early radar warning.
“And we haven’t done anything wrong.”
“Yet and if anything goes wrong, the police will come looking for us, but the police are not Our real problem.
“Which is why I picked an American for the Sonderboch."
“It’s always good to have a sucker holding the bag.” Cali examined his car for any sign of a bomb.
Standing up he asked, "Is this American stupid?”
"No, even better. He’s broken-hearted."
“Nothing blinds a man more than a failed love.”
"Plus Petra will keep him occupied."
"Petra?”
"I know she’s a gamble, but the greater the risk, the greater the gain.”
"And the greater the danger too. If she talked to any of my associates, we could end up dead.” Cali’s business partners would impose the death penalty for not cutting them in on the action.
“We don’t tell Petra or anyone else anything, but if you want to back out, now’s the time.”
Cali was aware of Kurt’s debts to the loan sharks and said, “No, we’re in it now, plus after last week I don’t give good odds of dying in my sleep.”
“You were lucky.” Kurt hadn’t been in Hamburg during the attack on Cali.
“Luck had nothing to do with it.”
Two weeks ago Cali had exited from a Reeperbahn restaurant. A 5-DM coin lay in the gutter. He had bent over to pick it up and someone had pumped five shots over his head. Cali fingered the Heiermann hanging from a thick 18K gold chain.
“You have millions, yet stooped to pick up a coin.”
“I was a poor boy like you. Money is money, so this is my lucky coin.”
“Mine too.” Luck was not a commodity for sale and Kurt reached over to caress the coin.
“So we begin.”
Yes."
Cali opened the trunk of the Benz and reached into the trunk's secret compartment to hand over a thick manila envelope.
“Is that enough money?”
"For now.” Kurt tucked the envelope inside his jacket.
“Then it is you and me against the world.”
“Same as ever.”
“Das ist rechtig. Gute nacht, mein freund.”
Kurt shook Cali’s hand and sat in his electric-blue 1960 T-bird, as the black pimp got into his Mercedes to drive away from the warehouse.
His night was young. He had business at the Eros Center, the business of giving pleasure, and no one in Hamburg provided happy endings better than Cali Nordstrum. After all Hamburg was his city and he was King of the Reeperbahn.
Earlier this year Rick Santorum announced his presidential candidacy along with New York's governor from the last century What's his name Pataki. During his governorship campaign I shouted at him to go back to suburbs. He must have heard me and won the election by a landslide, although I doubt whether Gov Pataki has the moral courage to shove a kielbasa down his throat like a 53rd Street Hustler on a rainy night, but it's got to be done.
Michelle Bachmann met the challenge.
As had Rick Scoot of Texas.
A true sausage swallower.
The longer the thicker the better.
Donald Trump has never been photographed eating a hot dog.
But he has eaten pizza with a fork.
Anything beats kissing babies.
It's that time of year again.
One question I wanted to ask the parade marshal of New York.
Why don't the Fife and Drum bands play this Irish hip-hop hit?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZaz7OqyTHQ
An Irishman who goes on to a building site looking for a job and is told by the foreman that he will have to undertake a brief test.
'Fine,' says the Irishman. 'OK then,' says the foreman. 'First up, can you tell me the difference between a joist and a girder?'
'That's easy,' the Irishman replies. 'Joyce wrote Ulysses and Goethe wrote Faust.'
If we can't laugh at ourselves who can we?
The rest of the world because today everyone is Irish.
Except for anyone not drinking beer.
In 1990 I bought a second-class ticket from Singapore to Bangkok with stops in Penang and Suranthani.
The city was quiet.
The Long Bar at Raffles was closed for renovation.
Gone were the 'girls' from Bugis Street.
I was ready for another country.
To the north was Malaysia.
The early-morning train departed Tanjong Pagar rail station. I bought roti and beer for the seven-hour trip to Georgetown.
The conductor called for the passengers to board and we left the station several minutes behind schedule. Several westerners complained about the delay, but the engineer made up time through the Woodlands and the train crossed the narrow straits into Malaysia.
We passed through immigration without difficulty and reboarded the train for the northbound journey.
The train stopped at Senai, then continued through the ricefields into the jungles of Segamat past the peninsula's mountains to arrive at the Malaysian capitol of Kuala Lumpur.
The Central Train Station had been designed AC Norman and and the "Neo-Moorish/Mughal/Indo-Saracenic/Neo-Saracenic" had been completed in 1897. The train was stopping for a few minutes. The platform was slightly crowded with passengers, mostly for local destinations.
I ran across the tiles to a store and bought two cold cans of Tiger Beer.
The day was getting warm.
I bought another beer at Kluang.
Around noon the train passed through Taiping. THe hill station was reportedly the wettest region of the Peninsular, but the monsoon was months away and we traveled under sunny skies.
A Muslim man sat on the train. I put away my beer. Admad spoke of the Koran.
"Everything known is written in the holy words of Allah. It gives all answers."
Having spent the last six months in Indonesia, I did not challenge his statements.
Strict Muslims have no use for atheists.
Neither do Christians.
The Sultan Abdul Halim Ferry Terminal was a short distance from the train station. The trip across the narrow channel lasted twenty minutes. Penang was a beautiful city with ecletic melange of architecture.
British Empire buildings.
Chinese godowns.
Malyasian mosques.
Hindu temples.
Beaches.
Jungles.
And funny hotels.
I stayed a few days extra.
Sara and I had a good time.
But she was heading south and was going south.
We said good-bye at the train station.
The train left on time. Sara waved good-bye. I sat by the window and watched the world got by.
Past Gunung Jerai
Through rice fields.
To Pasang Besar and the Thai border.
Another westerner was heading Thailand
He pointed to a sign proclaiming death for possession of drugs.
"The Thai are serious about drugs."
"So am I."
We spoke on the train. He was traveling with a western world. She was just a friend.
Michael lived in Pattaya.
Maria made a face.
Women didn't approve of that city.
"Come see me some time. It's the last Babylon."
"I've heard of it."
Everyone had heard of Pattaya.
No place on the planet offered such wickedness.
I got off the train at Suranthani
A ferry ran over tourists to Koh Samui.
The day was beautiful.
The weather was warm.
The beer was cold.
The sea at the beach was as clear as gin.
I rode a bike on the bike.
Vee worked a bar.
I was almost sad to go.
The night train left a little before sunset.
The food in the dining car offered a special menu for Thais. We drank Mekong whiskey with soda water and ice. The windows were open to the wind.
I slept good.
The cleaning crew woke the passengers before dawn.
Bangkok was less an hour away.
I held off on breakfast and watched the scenery.
Rice paddies stretched to the horizon.
Steel tracks split, as the train neared the station.
The engine lurched to a halt.
I checked my seat.
Everythng was in my bag or on my person.
I tipped the cleaner fifty baht.
The price of a big beer.
Hua Lamphong wasn't busy.
Almost everyone was Thai.
This was not the West.
None of the trip had been and I would expect anything else.
It was good to be in the Orient.
It was the other side of the world.
