New Year's Eve 2007 Pattaya

On the afternoon of December 31, 2007 heavy lorries, pick-up trucks and 125cc motorcycles with sidecars exited from the distributor at the end of my soi with thousands of beers every minute. Thousands of Thai and farang tourists were flocking into the city for the year's final drunk in the beach resort's countless bars, go-gos, hotels, and brothels from Jomtien to Naklua.

"What are you doing tonight?" Sam Royalle asked on my porch in the shade of a Norfolk pine. He had been out the previous night with our friends and couldn't remember coming home. His skin exuded a sheen of excess alcohol.

"Nothing." I planned on avoiding the debauch in the Last Babylon and falling asleep before the TV during a Star Trek ENTERPRISE marathon. The mozzies from the swamp in the backyard will party with my feet during my unconscious state.

Nothing?"

"Sounds good to me." I had worked in nightclubs through the 70s, 80s, and 90s. My fellow workers referred to 12/31 as 'amateur's night' and the same stupid behavior of fights, accidents, and stupid conversations held as true for Pattaya as it did in New York, London, Paris, or LA. "I'm giving it a miss. My wife is going out with her friends though, so I get to care back of my daughter. We're going to watch the fireworks from my garden."

"Have a party." Sam was a family man and understood kids came first. He drove off my his scooter in the direction of home.

My wife left the house at 8:30 without any good-byes. Angie didn't care. She and I had KFC and played rodeo on the bed. We had a glass of Pepsi and watched some more Star Trek. It put both of us to sleep before 10. I was dead sober.

I heard the fireworks and tried to open my eyes.

Not a chance.

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.

What has happened to my wickedness?

Children. Tonught was Angie's birthday. I was gratefull for her in my life.

They tend to rescue a bad man's soul.

Better them than the devil.

Another Year of Bosox Sux

Four years ago the Red Sox traded away their stars and finished last in AL East under the manager Bobby Valentine.

That inglorious season I listened to one Red Sox game on the radio driving up to Western Mass with another loyal New Englander. They lost the game against the Angels 7-1 and I took a sports holiday the rest of the summer.

The following year my hometown team shocked Major League baseball by going last to first with their future Hall of Famer David Ortiz hitting over .700 through the World Series.

The Re

Once more I watched no games.

The Red Sox Nation was back on top of the world, however the 2014 team sucked from start to finish, as if the Babe Ruth Curse had risen from the zombie dead and this year the Bosox are so bad that now I can only watch ESPN's FOUR DAYS IN OCTOBER chronicling the Red Sox's 2004 miraculous comeback against the Yankees to feel good about the team of Ted Williams, Jimmie Foxx, Luis Tiant, Bernie Carbo, Dewey Evans, Jim Rice, Oil Can Boyd, Tim Wakefield, Tony C, Roger Moret, Pedro Martinez et al.

The good, the bad, and the forgotten.

All that be said I will remain true to the Red Sox Nation.

My daughter Angie would expect nothing less.

She likes the color red.

A Brief Interruption

Eighteen days in Thailand went fast in the company of my big family.

Fenway, Angie, Noy, Pen, and Fluke gave me little time to write.

Then again I hadn't come around the world to write poetry, but to bond with my horde at Rayong Beach.

Oh, the humanity.