POLE DANCING TO THE END - 2010

Back in the day Pattaya was a paradise for middle-aged western men with money. Food, accommodation, cheap beer and beautiful girls calling old men sexy. None of these seductive women were blind, yet the men forget about the truth of their mirrored reflection, for as Frederick Engels the co-writer of THE COMMUNIST MANIFESTO said, "Money is the one thing that can grow hair on a bald man's head for a woman."

Pattaya most certainly was the closest thing to Eden, however men needed money to operate as a sexy men and this year my friend Jamie Parker found his fun funds close to 'empty'. He wasn't a gambling man, but bought several Thai lottery tickets with a portion of his last 1000-baht bill. The numbers came out in the Thai newspapers. None of which Jamie ever read, however his geek, Ort, discovered that Jamie had purchased a winning ticket.

25000 plus.

Jamie was back in the money and after redeeming the ticket his luck ballooned with the discovery of 5500 baht in an envelope at the 7/11. He waited for an hour outside the convenience store for someone to show up to claim the money. No one came in a panic. Up 30000 baht he returned to his unfurnished apartment on Soi Bongkot, thinking to take Ort out for a nice meal and found the go-go girl packing her bags.

An Englishman had decided she was the prettiest girl in the world and retired her from INSOMNIA GENTLEMAN's CLUB. This was good news, since Jamie had been shedding 1000s of baht on the little go-go dancer's ice habit. She loved the gear. Jamie was semi-sad to see her go, although pleased that she wanted none of his cash.

"You good man. You find new girl. No one more pretty than me. Find ugly girl. She cheap."

"If you say so." Jamie watched her get into the farang's CRV 4X4. The guy was older than Jamie. Bald too. He wished them both luck. It wasn't the first time Ort left him for another man, but it was the first time she left with money in his pocket. Jamie decided to celebrate this Trifecta of good luck with a binge at What-Up's a Go-Go. I was in town for a single night. Mem had cut me loose from Sriracha. I didn't plan on a late one.

"Go with friend. Have good time. No look at other lady." Mem knew that her love potion denied me any opportunity to cheat on her.

"No look. No touch." I kissed her and my son good night. The sun fell fast this time of year. It was barely 6 O'clock. I got to the bar at 7. Jamie bought a round of shooters for two go-go dancers and then went over to the DJ with the Doors' first LP CD. Tik Tok" by Kesha on the sound system. # 1 of 2010. He ordered drinks for the DJ and himself, realizing more drinks was only way to bridge the gap between the generations. The DJ seemed rightly skeptical about a request for THE END. Farangs always asked to play hippie songs. All Thai DJs and dacners hated the Eagles HOTEL CALIFORNIA. Jamie flicked him another 1000 baht. Basically two nights wages. The DJ nodded agreement and the fifty-five year-old returned to the couch with a laconic smile and I asked, "What you ask him to play?"

"I gave the DJ 200 baht to play the Doors' THE END." The song was ranked #328 in all-time great rock songs, despite its lasting over 11 minutes.

"Are you joking?" THE END had opened the movie APOCALYPSE NOW. I remembered watching Coppola's homage to THE HEART OF DARKNESS at New York's Ziegfield Theater and hearing the helicopters waft from left to right to rear to front. There were no helicopters on the LP and once here. The song from 1967 transported the go-go girls by surprise and the old guys in the bar too, but their eyes widened with surprise and their lips moved wordlessly to the lyrics. Some of them had been hippies too.

"In a desperate land."

Jamie bought more tequila for the girls on stage. They downed them with a hearty Chai-yo.

"Lost in a romance."

"Ride the highway west baby."

Other old dudes flipped red 100-baht bills on the stage too. They had been young in 1967 and became young again in THE END's trance. "The snake is long." The girls understood THE END was a cash cow and danced accordingly like naked hippie girls at Woodstock. They were so pro.

"The snake is old."

The tequila and Jim worked its effect. The old guys ordered more shots. The young guys in What's Up were out of their element by forty years. The Doors and go-go girls. Jamie was right. Our generation.

"The killer woke before dawn." The girls crawled against the steel poles like serpents with poison ivy.

The DJ still was uncertain about the choice, but the old age brigade sang along with THE END.

Another 1000 baht tip kept the DJ from segueing to Britney Spears. Ah Pattaya.

I was a Doors fan.Few wgite boys my age hadn't been then and now. They had no bass player in the band, but the bassist from Clear Light i.e. MR BLUE supported them in the studio and on the road. I still play the Door's CRYSTAL SHIP, but having the DJ play that would have been pushing our luck.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah."

Jamie disappeared into the bathroom with the go-go dancer.

I left the bar. Faithful as ever. To quote Jim Morrison, "I only have one friend."

And THE END and Mem, my love, knows that too well.

THE END the 6 minute 45rpm version

Faithful to my Wife - 2010

last night I was sitting in Frank's with Aodren, a French ad producer. We were drinking Stellas and watching the Celtics. He asked if I had any girlfriends in New York. I replied that I was faithful to my Thai wife.

"She is 9000 miles away. She used to work in a bar. How can you know if she is faithful to you?"

It was a good question.

"Because I'm not jealous and my son is more than enough jealous for me." Fenway won't let any man near Mem. I'm proud of his spirit. He's a tough one-year old.

"But you have no one?" Aodren was 25. Men his age are always on the prowl and his girlfriend is a dancer at the Crazy Horse Saloon.

"No one. My heart is true, unless you count the thousands of women on the porno tubes. I love them all and they have sex with me without any demand for commitment. I'm faithful to them, but no sense and telling that to Mem. I really don't think she would understand even if she said she would. Real women are just too jealous.

Finite Immortality - Pattaya - 2010

The Thai people pride themselves in the purity of their language. Few English words have infiltrated the common lexicon. Dtam-ruaat is the word for police. The diphonic annunciation can confuse most farangs. I thought for years that For years I thought Dtam-ruaat meant 'make blood', however make blood is spelled Dtam-leuuat with a falling accent on the last syllable. Thai culture remains strong, however beer is beer and pizza remains pizza, so foreigners don't starve to death in the hinterlands. 1150 is telephone number for Pizza. Pay the gas and the motorcycle delivery boy will drive to the most distant reaches of ban-nok ie the sticks.

Other commonly shared words are whiskey, taxi, sex, and WC for 'water closet', which along with pizza cover most human needs. This week I returned to New York from Bangkok via Narita Airport. 27 hours from Soi 12 in Jomtien to Fort Greene in Brooklyn. Most people would have taken several days to recover from such a trip. I needed money and showed up at work 10 hours after passing through customs at JFK.

I was exhausted from the trip, yet couldn't sleep and tried to explain to my son's mother why I couldn't sleep. I explained over the phone to Mam about the time zone. My Thai is rudimentary and Mam was getting increasingly frustrated by my ignorance of the her native language.

The Thais are the French of the Orient.

Their love for their country's traditions, food, and culture border on fanaticism and after residing in Thailand I have to admit that they aren't half-wrong. The only problem is that I had to move back to America. New York to be exact. The other side of the world and this week my body clock is off by 12 hours.

Day is night and night is day.

"I can't sleep," I explained to Mam over Skype. There was very little echo over the line, but she didn't understand the reason for my sleeplessness. "Last night I had a dream about our staying in a house with no walls. It was in the middle of a rice paddy. Very beautiful. Made out of wood. You were sleeping in bed and I was holding Fenway."

Fenway is our two years old son. Every night his body spins on the bed like a clock. I slept like a stone with him.

"Good dream?" Mam was a firm believer in beauty sleep, however children steal sleep from their parents like professional kleptomaniacs. The theft gives them control. Fenway was no different from the rest of the young in their preparation to usurp the strength of their mothers and fathers.

"Not a good dream. I see men in the dark. They attack us. I wake up screaming." I live alone in the top floor apartment of a Fort Greene brownstone. The walls are thick. No one heard my terror. "A nightmare."

"Fan raai." A nightmare is scary in every language.

"Yes."

"Are you thuuk-phee-am?" Mam was horrified at the possibility that I had been possessed by an evil spiritor 'phee'.

"Not at all." I never scoffed the Thai belief in ghosts. I had been to the house of a 'maih moht'. Magic existed in the heart and soul of her country, however my dream was the harvest of several sleepless nights. My next attempt to clarify the reason for my insomnia pierce the language barrier.

"You mean 'jet lag'?"

"Yes, jet lag." The word was the same for Mam as it was for me.

"Can not sleep?"

"No."

"I understand now." She had never traveled outside of Thailand, so the effects of jet lag were a mystery.

"I can't sleep. Four nights now." The CIA used sleep deprivation to persuade secret prisoners to tell the truth. I had slept maybe ten hours since Tuesday.

"'Oht nawn' not good for old man." Mam was twewnty-six. I was more than twice her age. Youth had a mission to take over the world. No one lived forever.

"I'll fall asleep soon." I couldn't say when, but Mam cared about my health.

"Nawn dee." She wanted me to reach a hundred years old. Thais hated being alone.

And at the tender age of late mid-fifties, so do I.

We have a couple of words for wanting someone else to live forever. Neither does English.

"Never want to say good-bye." Barry White sang those words.

And I feel the same way too.

Like a man born to finite immortality.

Time to go home

Chris Rock does a piece about why men get married.

"You don't want to end up the old guy at the club."

The old guy at the club.

Pattaya was filled with them.

Drinking, drugs, chatting with girls, going to sin here and there.

I'm a witness. I like the night life. Always have. My wife hates it.

She tolerates my going out, because she knows after two drinks I'm devoted to the paganism of drinking. Not sex. I'm a failed writer, a poet, and half-Irish. Booze runs in my blood and I don’t really speak with any farangs during the week.

As i got on my bike Saturday night she told me to drive safely and I head to Waking Street to meet my friend, Sam Royalle, at Heaven's Above.

This go-go is run by Patrick, who owned a pimp club in East St. Louis. He has great stories about the 70s and has revive the legend of his old club at his place on Soi Diamond.

The upstairs bar is decorated in white like the Milk Bar from CLOCKWORK ORANGE. The dancers are temptations from Satan. My will is weak and I quickly order a drink. It goes down in two minutes. Thee next in five. I’m saved from any threat of infidelity, especially after Sam orders tequila shots. His girlfriend collects strays to accompany us to Casino. We drink more. It’s past midnight.

I try to escape, but Sam grabs my arm.

"One more drink."

I'm easy and drink until someone pulls my stool from under me.

I fall through a gaggle of go-go girls. My hands clutch at them. Bras snap off their bodies. I hit the next table and then the ground. The bar staff help me to my feet. Someone laughs. A pretty girl says, "Mao."

Drunk. Damn right. Drunk.

Chris Rock is right. It was time for this old guy to go home.

At home my wife asks, "What time is it?"

"Dunno." I didn’t have that many fingers."

"How much you drink?"

"One bottle of beer."

"One big one."

"Very big."

"Go shower."

I do as I'm told.

Any man in my condition at 3am would, if they know what is good for them.

Why Men Come to Pattaya?

back in 2008 I received this email from my friend Paul Brissman’s Facebook

Thanks to KK New York

When girls don’t put out!!

This was written by a guy … it’s pretty damn smart.

Girls — Please have a sense of humor! I never quite figured out why the sexual urge of men and women differ so much. And I never have figured out the whole Venus and Mars thing. I have never figured out why men think with their head and women with their heart.
-----------------------------------------------------

FOR EXAMPLE: One evening last week, my girlfriend and I were getting into bed. Well, the passion starts to heat up, and she eventually says, “I don’t feel like it, I just want you to hold me.”

I said, “WHAT??!! What was that?!”

So she says the words that every boyfriend on the planet dreads to hear… “You’re just not in touch with my emotional needs as a woman enough for me to satisfy your physical needs as a man.”

She responded to my puzzled look by saying, “Can’t you just love me for who I am and not what I do for you in the bedroom?”

Realizing that nothing was going to happen that night, I went to sleep. The very next day I opted to take the day off of work to spend time with her. We went out to a nice lunch and then went shopping at a big, big unnamed department store. I walked around with her while she tried on several different very expensive outfits. She couldn’t decide which one to take, so I told her we’d just buy them all. She wanted new shoes to compliment her new clothes, so I said, “Lets get a pair for each outfit.”

We went on to the jewelry department where she picked out a pair of diamond earrings. Let me tell you… she was so excited. She must have thought I was one wave short of a shipwreck. I started to think she was testing me because she asked for a tennis bracelet when she doesn’t even know how to play tennis. I think I threw her for a loop when I said, “That’s fine, honey.”

She was almost nearing sexual satisfaction from all of the excitement. Smiling with excited anticipation, she finally said, “I think this is all dear, let’s go to the cashier.”

I could hardly contain myself when I blurted out, “No honey, I don’t feel like it.”

Her face just went completely blank as her jaw dropped with a baffled, “WHAT?”

I then said, “Honey! I just want you to HOLD this stuff for a while. You’re just not in touch with my financial needs as a man enough for me to satisfy your shopping needs as a woman.”

And just when she had this look like she was going to kill me, I added, “Why can’t you just love me for who I am and not for the things I buy you?”

Apparently I’m not having sex tonight either….but at least that bitch knows I’m smarter than her.

Alright Ladies. Forward this if you agree. Hell even if you disagree, forward it anyway. Men, forward this if you have BALLS !!!!
-----------------------------------------------------------------
I left this letter unedited. It’s too perfect for words.

For a related article click on this URL

http://www.mangozeen.com/wrong-size-shoes-short-story.htm

Like Father Like Son

Fenway took a fall in the bathroom.

Lots of blood. 8 stitches. No longer perfect.

Everyone says his mother beat him. Mam would never touch him. Me maybe, but like father like son. My black eye is from a street fight in Pattaya.

"It was a good fight, ma, but I lost."

In fact I did not land a punch.

But I didn't quit too.

Same as my son.

Fenway Superstar.

Yai Chang - Pattaya

Outside my house on Moo 9 in Pattaya I had a mango tree which bore fruit every year. The mahouts of the tourist traps wandered the night with their elephants, selling sugar cane to people to feed their friends. One older pachyderm Yai eyed my mango tree when the flowers burst from the limbs. I knew what time of year it was, but we had an understanding and that understanding gave us a friendship.

To hear the finish of this tale, please go to this url

https://youtu.be/Gmht6sgSqSE

Lawang Jesus

I'm thousands of miles away from Thailand. I wished I could click my heels and find myself in Sri Racha with my family, but instead I shut my eyes and visualize Easter morning on Pattaya's Beach Road.

Most Christian farangs are sleeping off celebratory drunks, hoping to rise from the dead for a recuperative beer in the late afternoon, however back in 2006 an American George Patrick Dubie who purported himself to be the 2nd Coming of Christ, was shot by his Canadian girlfriend in a Chiang Mai restaurant. The Thai authorities gave her 3.5 years for the killing self-proclaimed Messiah and carrying a pistol in public. Her confession of premeditated murder halved her sentence along with her claim to have been driven insane by her beloved partner's affair with a Thai woman.

"I was so pissed that I killed Jesus," the disciple swore before a Thai judge. "He was spending the money he owed me on another woman."

Not Jesus.

Just another fucked-up farang fucking a Thai lover.

And she wasn't Mary Magdalene either.

TO LIVE AND DIE IN PATTAYA by Peter Nolan Smith

Pattaya isn't what it used to be in the 90s or 80s. The coconut plantations have been replaced by luxury villas. Interpol and the Thai Police hunt down fugitives and the Russians have taken over the hills, so three summers ago I moved north to Sri Racha with my son Fenway and his mom. The city was a quiet refuge from the madness of the Last Babylon, which was too quiet some nights, and one Friday night Fenway's mom suggested that I go visit old friends in Pattaya.

"I came here to be with you not them."

"I know, but farang have to be with farang sometime. Same Thai have to be with Thai." Thais understand the concept of fun or sanuk better than westerners.

"Are you sure?" Pattaya was filled with temptation.

"Sure you love me forever, no, but no one in Pattaya can love you same me." Mam knows my heart is hers and hers alone and swore that my longtime fidelity has nothing to do with a magic potion. "I not need magic to make you love me."

"You're right." I loved Mam for her and she loves me for me. No one else can handle either of our special madnesses, plus at my age I was too lazy to butterfly with a bargirl or go-go dancer.

"You want go out. Go out. Not get too drunk." Mam worried about my getting into an accident or a fight more than cheating on her.

"I'll only drink beer."

"No tequila. You have son. Not want him not have father."

"Okay, no tequila."

I called Jamie Parker and we arranged to meet at an old haunt.

I kissed Mam and my son good-night and caught a slow bus to Pattaya.

Forty minutes later I walked into Chez Michel on Soi Sahm. Jamie Parker was on his first beer. He had always been thin, but the new gauntness was worrying.

"I know what you're thinking, but I'm okay." The exiled New Yorker explained that he had gone on a six-month Ice binge with little Ort, the twenty-three year-old go-go dancer from the Paris A Go-Go. "It's all over. Ice, Ort, and not eating food."

He ate three courses; salad, steak, and dessert.

Afterward we walked to the Buffalo Bar for a nightcap at a slow pace.

Jamie was in a New York state of mind.

"Tomorrow will be nine years since 9/11. Remember everyone saying how it would change the world. Nothing's changed. Nothing at all."

He paused and a second later a woman's body hit the pavement with a soft thud. We looked up to see from where.

A second-story balcony.

A groan reverted our attention to the woman. Her fall hadn't been fatal. Jamie knelt down to help her.

"Pai ke ki."

She didn't want our help. Two women came out of the shadows. They regarded us as assailants, until recognizing the woman's face. She was no stranger. We called for help, as a crowd gathered around the woman. A pick-up appeared and two men loaded the suicide onto the back of the truck. They drove off to Banglamung Hospital and I overheard from an old lady that the jumper was one of the other woman’s lover. She had found out about her seeing someone else. Her leap to the street had been an act of love. I explained the story to Jamie outside the Buffalo Bar.

"If she had wanted to kill herself, she would have jumped from the roof."

"Have a little heart." People frequently jumped to their death in Pattaya; mostly jilted lovers and bankrupt farangs.

"She broke her arm. That’s all and you know what day today is?" Jamie dragged me to the bar.

"September 10th." I couldn't recall anything significant about the date.

"World Suicide Prevention Day." Jamie ordered two Chang beers. They were stronger than Heineken. "I read about it in the Bangkok Post. She was trying to kill herself on a day like that."

"Suicides aren’t interested in dates only a relief from their misery." Four year ago during my black period I had contemplated killing myself, although only with a gun, which I couldn't afford, and I rejected jumping as too messy.

"Then she should have picked another day. The terrorists from 9/11 did."

"9/10/2001 was rainy. Ceiling visibility in New York was a 1000 feet." No way they could have found the World Trade Towers in that slop.

"I know, but the real reason they didn't pick 9/10 was that it was World Suicide Prevention Day or maybe someone talked them out of it."

"You really think nineteen towelheads had any idea about what day it was." I had never heard of World Suicide Prevention day until Jamie mentioned it.

"Yeah, I do and your'e being a little anti-semitic with a statement like that. If you're going to drive a plane into a building then you want things right. Everything. They did it on 9/10 out of respect for what they were about to do. Suicide."

"You're crazy."

"Then you give me a good reason why they chose 9/11."

"It had nothing to do with 911 being the emergency telephone call letters for many countries." I sipped the beer from my glass. The ice made it nice and cold. I had actually researched the numbers once and said, "9 is the second cube and 11 symbolizes threat in numerology. Revelation 9:11 warns of destruction. George Bush Senior declared the creation of The New World Order on 9/11/2000. Eleven years later 9/11 and 9+1+1=11. September 11 is also the 254th day of the year: 2 + 5 + 4 = 11."

"Stop it before you go mad."

"Two tequilas." I signaled the bartender to make them doubles.

I had seen a man go insane on numbers before. He was trying to figure out how much a girl loved him by the times that she didn't kiss him. The answer came up zero.

Bix was found dead in a park at the northern tip of Manhattan. His fingernail had scratched arcane formulae in stone. My fascination with number came from studying Math in university. My Multivariable Calculus professor failed me in my sophomore year. He had done me a favor, but I still respected the power of numbers and said to Jamie, "Numbers are only numbers."

"So 9/11 is just a number."

"Nothing more." I wondered how many times 9/11 had been said since 9/11.

Billions of times a day. Those numbers added up to no good, especially since the Pentago construction began on September 11, 1941.

"But not if you consider GW Bush as the anti-Christ." I lifted my glass.

"And you do?" Jamie’s eyes rolled in his head like a broken slot machine. He was no fan of GW Bush, but he didn't believe in any devil other than himself.

"I don't believe in anything, other than my son, my wife, and beer."

We downed the tequilas.

"If you don't mind, I think I'll keep trying to kill myself with beer." I ordered two more Chang. "Is that all right with you?"

"It's not like we have a choice."

"Beer." We clinked glasses. "The only way to go."

On any day of the year.

LOVE YOU LONG TIME

Walking Street was crowded with drunken marines, dok thongs, Englishmen on Ecstasy, tattooed go-go girls, shouting Arabs, Amazonian transvestites, and wide-eyed Chinese tourists. These diverse groups threaded through the gauntlet of dueling music from various beer bars and discos. The heat was driving everyone insane and alcohol was behind the wheel. The collective madness left me in the dust and I realized vengeance was better suited for the Bible. All I really wanted was a cold beer.

Sam Royalle was at Hot Tuna with his wife.

"How's it going?" Sam Royalle glowed with love.

"Everything is fine." I resisted asking, if they had seen Ae.

They would never have said yes or no, for a strange etiquette in Pattaya is that no one ever snitches, if someone’s girlfriend or boyfriend is with someone else.

I ordered a beer. It went fast. The next three disappeared even faster. Two tequilas and a whiskey broke my laughter dam. I played snooker against Pi-ek, the owner, and beat him three games to none. The most beautiful girl in the bar invited me to take her home. I was drunk enough to think it was for my looks.

Pi-ek nodded to warn of approaching danger and I turned to see Ae strut on high platform shoes into the bar. A hair stylist had affixed waist-long hair extensions. Her red satin short shorts left nothing to the imagination and a scarlet halter top covered her flat chest. Her nipples showed through the gauzy material. They were aroused by anger and she demanded, “Why you go with other lady?"

The free-lancer recognized her services for the evening were required elsewhere and fled the beer bar. I should have followed her, but this scene had been rehearsed too many times in my head to not let it play out with my body.

"She only friend."

I had heard someone tell me this before. I was too drunk to remember who.

"Why you not wait me?” Her eyes were on fire.

“Are you fucking mad?”

“Bah? I not crazy.” Ae spat with slurred hatred.

"Not crazy. I'll show you crazy."

A demon was demanding Ae’s sacrifice. The word murder strangely reversed into “Red rum.” Jack Nicholson had said something similar in THE SHINING and I remembered an editor of Heavy Metal magazine introducing me to the author as a fellow Mainiac.

Stephen King had sneered upon hearing I came from Falmouth Foresides, as if anything south of the Bath Iron Works wasn’t Maine. I never read his rip-offs of HP Lovecraft afterwards and wasn’t going to kill anyone with “Red rum” rummaging through my brain.

“You better go with your Italian.”

"You no love me no more?” She was surprised by my surrender.

If I kept my mouth shut, she might walk away, instead I said, “No, I don’t anymore.”

“Ko-hok.” She knew I was lying too and wheeled away onto onto Walking Street in triumph over another crushed heart.

"I'm not a liar."

"You lie me. You lie you too." She gave me the finger. People laughed at me. This scene was played out on Walking Street several times a night, if not more. My audience waited for the one of the two typical responses. The first was to beg her to forgive me, but I had done nothing wrong.

At least that's what I told myself, so I opted for reaction #2.

I grabbed my beer bottle from the bar.

Her Italian stood on the opposite sidewalk. His two friends were laughing at him and me and Ae. So were two transvestites. I didn't see the humor of the situation and drained my beer.

I was free of Ae. I bore no more responsibilities to her or her family. I was the God of my future.

"Good-bye."

"Fuck you, 'good-bye'. You not done me." She stuck out her tongue like a 12 year-old girl threatening to run away from home.

"Fuck you too." I chucked the beer bottle in her direction. The bottle shattered against the wall across the street. Ae ran to the Italian. He held her in his arms. It was the last thing I wanted in this world and it was all my fault.

Time hit fast-forward speed, when he charged the bar. His friends scrummed with Pi-Ek and Sam Royalle, plus several of the bar staff. The Italian threw an overhead punch. I partially blocked it with my forearm. His fist cracked on my cheek. He had a hard hand. Stars fluttered in my eyes. Ae stopped his second punch.

"Yet mung." Ae led him away from the bar. She had lose face, but if the police would show up if this altercation continued any longer and they would be looking for 'sin-bon' or tea money to squash any charges. That money was better in her pocket. She had a family to feed.

"I get you." The Italian was hot. I would have to watch my back until he left town. Once he and his friends accompanied Ae into the Marine Disco, I went over to Sam Royalle and Pi-ek.

"Why didn't you stop me from talking to her?"

"Mate, it's your problem." He ordered the bar a round of tequilas.

"Yes, never step between man and woman. Bad luck." Pi-ek was wise to the ways of Walking Street. “Good, you not hit her. You hit her and have big trouble with police. Expensive. Maybe go to hospital.”

“Yeah, tell me about it.” Ae’s brothers had killed fellow Thais for 5000 baht. My life was worth more than $125 and I kept telling myself that, as Ae staged several comebacks before finally leaving for Italy in late August. She appeared at my house for sex, while the Italian was at a disco. The hour was usually past midnight. She never stayed for more than an hour.

"Boyfriend smoke too much ganga. Sex not same you." Her body shone with sweat. A shadow against my white sheets. "I not finish with him. Finish with you every time."

"I know." It was a good lie and one I told myself was the truth listening to her pleas for more. Ae was a good actress and I was a better audience.

"I go soon." She didn't know the date.

"I'll miss you."

"Not yet. We do again."

She called two weeks later from the airport. Her plane was leaving in the afternoon.

"Please come get me. Take me back."

"Go outside and get a taxi."

"Can not do. He and friends watch me."

"Sorry." Three Italians versus me was bad odds. Ae actually coming back to me were even worst. I stayed where I was.

"Bonna fortuna."

Ae called me every day from Italy. Her boyfriend was a drug dealer. No one spoke Thai. The food was not spicy.

"Come get me, please."

I would hang up the phone before saying something I would regret, because while she might have left Pattaya, her soul was still in my heart. I went to a travel shop on Walking Street. The agent told me the cost of a ticket to Milan. I told him that I would think about it.

Coming out of the travel agency, I spotted Nu heading to work in her waitress outfit. I called her name. She didn't stop walking and I ran up to her.

"What's wrong?"

"I hear you and girlfriend fight." She shook her head.

“I’m an old fool."

"Big fool." Nu turned her head. Her eyes were filled with disappointment.

"I don't know why I did that. I wanted her to go. I did everything to make her go. It's almost like she did a magic spell on me."

"Magic?" This word stopped Nu from entering her restaurant.

"Yes, like love potion." The words to the Searcher's song LOVE POTION #9 rambled through my head.

"You drink something funny?" Nu was serious. Thais are big believers in magic. Ghosts too.

“I think so too.” The green liquid in the glass. “I drank this water once. It tasted bad. I saw a green stain on the glass."

"You drink aa-kom." She was horrified by this love potion. "Your girlfriend from Isaan. People from there have big magic. Not good magic. Bad magic."

"Do you know how to stop a love curse?”

“Have to have old lady make rice. She stand over rice and let sweat fall into rice. Then you eat. Love potion finished.”

“You’re joking?”

“No.”

Her next day off Nu brought an old lady at her apartment building to cook the rice and stand over the steaming pot. I thought they were joking, but both of them watched with interest as I drank the antidote. It tasted terrible. I didn’t sleep or eat two days, but afterwards I didn’t think about Ae.
In fact I didn't think about any of the women I had loved in my life.

This was good magic, except I still realized how much a fool I had been.

“Everyone can be a fool sometimes. Only all the time is bad.” Nu still refused any intimacy. “I have been a fool one time too. Maybe have big heart. Same you.”

We spoke about the potion, Ae, or us. Nu’s husband had left her for another woman and I wondered whether there were any happy endings in Thailand. She said, “Happy ending are good in movie. But only in cartoon.”

Nu accompanied me to Don Muang Airport, saying in Thai. “Thailand is very beautiful.”

“I’ll remember it that way.”

“Maybe you come back one day and you kiss me.”

It was sweet to hear after my year and a half with Ae. “I’ll be back soon.”

“I’ll pray to Buddha you do.”

“Krup kuhn kap.” I wai-ed her, because she had smoothed over a rough spot in my soul. I couldn’t wait six month. Her lips were tender. The kiss was a short one.

My name was called for final boarding.

Nu smiled and I released her hand. I was going to America. Manny would hire me to sell diamonds for Christmas. Sherri would laugh about the love potion. Ms. Carolina would take me skiing. Maybe Bill could convince Monty to make a movie about the Italian Plan.

I would be back in Thailand for the New Year. All I wanted was a little love. It wasn’t too much to ask from life. Not in Pattaya or anywhere else in the world. Even for a fool, especially after being freed from a curse, then again everyone is a fool when it comes to love.

THAI GLOSSARY

AO, MAI AO - want, not want

A-RAI - what?

BAH - Mad

CHING CHING - True

CHOK DI - Good luck

DOK THONG - slut

FARANG - Westerner

FEN - Boyfriend

FIN - Opium

JEP-HOO- headache

JUM JAM Pawn shop

LAK KHUN love you

KHUN-GARH Old man<

KI shit

KO-HOK Liar

KOR-THOT sorry

KRUP KHUN KRAP Thank you

KWAII buffalo

The Day After Loy Krathong

Loy Krathong has long been Thailand’s most beautiful festival with candle-lit balloons rising into a night sky illuminated by a full November moon.

Ten years ago I was in Pattaya. Few girls and women dressed in the traditional costume. The police banned fireworks and their marine patrols gathered the krathong offerings less than 20 meters from shore. No one was allowed to light a fire balloon, perhaps the most exotic image to grace a night sky.

Instead drunken Thais and farangs raced cars and motorcycles, as if to tell the water goddess celebrated by the holiday, “Yet mung.”

Angie's mother was up-country. We weren't a thing anymore.

Mam, my love, had broken up with me. She wanted to move on with her life, so I celebrated the romantic holiday with two beers and fell asleep dreaming of times gone when the world still appreciated beauty.

I woke without my traditional holiday hang-over at 7am.

There wasn't much to do on a Sunday, if you’re not reliving Kris Kristofferson's SUNDAY MORNING COMING DOWN.

I got on my motors cooter and drove south to Ban Samae San. The traffic was light. The drunks were sleeping off copious intakes of whiskey.

Arriving at the outskirts of Ban Samae San I avoided the fishing village with its thousands of racks stacked with fish drying in the sun. The smell drowned out any other smell, for there are only two things in the world that smell of fish and one of them is fish.

I rode to the hill temple overlooking the undeveloped offshore islands. Not a single worshippers was in sight. I struck the bells with a wooden mallet and wai-ed my respect to the water goddess. Afterwards I descended to the navy pier. No one was there either.

The morning temperature was about 75, which was good summer day in Maine. I stripped to my shorts and dove off the dock into the crystal clear water. My balls shrunk to peanuts and my penis to a cashew. Only Cialis could revive them to normal size, but I was celibate these days, so I drifted on the current for several hundred meters and then swam back to the pier.

To be truthful it was a struggle.

But the water goddess forgave my year’s excesses, otherwise I’d make the Pattaya Mail as another farang suicide with a photo of me wrapped in a white sheet, but I wasn't ready for that, because even that year I had a lot of living to do.

Crime and Punishment in Pattaya

Several years ago a 61 year-old farang stabbed his girlfriend three times. She was in her twenties. The hospital staff declared the unfortunate lover DOA at the hospital. The idiot in a fit of remorse slashed himself with the murder weapon. This sad story occurs regularly in Pattaya but also everywhere else in the world.

Hollywood thrives on slasher films.

HALLOWEEN 1,2, 3, 4 ad nauseum.

Men are as likely to be victims as women.

What the heck is wrong with people?

When someone stops loving you, a magic spell won't bring back the love and certainly a knife ain't gonna do it either.

So now this lovesick idiot is facing Thai Justice.

Prison time, death, or pardon?

Everyone seems to be calling for his dispatch from this mortal world, but you have to remember the old axiom.

Kill one person, you get the chair.

Kill twenty and you go to insane asylum.

Murder a million and you get a Swiss Chalet.

This farang won't get door # 3, but neither will be have to settle for door # 1.

Since it was a crime of passion he probably won't sit before the firing squad, which in Thailand is a single marksman. Instead he will be in jail for the rest of his life and life expectancy shortens mighty quickly in prison.

Personally I'm in favor of special justice in this case.

Young girl with her life ahead of her

Only one course of action

If the Thai police could do it to 2000 'drug dealers' why not put a heart-broken farang out of his misery?

Thumb up or down?

Bannok Loves Farangs

Middle-Age farang males vacation in Thailand for the beaches and the temples. A friend sometimes suggests a visit to the Last Babylon. In Pattaya the man meets a girl. Past and present are unimportant. She is something out of a dream and they spent an idyllic vacation on Koh Samet.

The disgust of fat western women rivals the envy barely hidden on these obese cows’ husbands. The two make love five times a day, mostly to make up for years of abstinence. Upon their return to Pattaya, she doesn’t seem to mind accompanying the farang to go-gos. Love so blinds the western male that he can’t see that she doesn’t trust him out of her sight.

This has to be paradise and two weeks into the honeymoon his beloved says, “I want see my family. You come with me?”

It seems like an innocent proposition and he agrees to this journey to Ban Nok.

Hearing your plans his bar friends exchange a knowingly glance.

“What’s wrong?” You really want to know.

“Nothing.” They smile like the farang had brought a blind donkey “Have a great time.”

“Thanks.”

He rents a car for several days and leaves Pattaya for this great adventure. Ban Mai-mee-tee-nai is not on the map. He asks his sweetheart for directions. She is about a minute from a semi-coma and points north. “Isaan.”

Isaan.

The mythic plateau of Northeast Thailand has figured into his friends jokes about the sick buffalo, blind aunt, feeding a host of hundreds and drinking lao whiskey with toothless rice farmers till dawn.

Leaving Pattaya the farang realizes that he don’t know what he has gotten himself into and his tilat isn’t explaining either, because she scrunched against the door in a state of exhaustion.

Oblivion comes easy are two weeks of making love to a Viagra-crazed farang.

The highway turns into a two lane road. At one point his darling opens an eye and indicates a dirt road. By the time the car hits the first pothole, she has lapsed into another coma.

The electric lines disappear and dry fields stretch to a hazy horizon. Buffalo laze in a torpor.

No cars. No people.

Crossing a bridge over a muddy creek and his girlfriend opens her eyes. “We here.”

“Ban Mai-mee-tee-nai?”

“My home.” She beeps the horn, as the car pull into a forested complex.

A horde of Thais surge from several wooden houses. He haven’t seen any place this ramshackle outside of a National Geographic magazine, but everyone is all smiles. He smiles back. Kids pull on his leg. An old geezer man greets him with a bow. The farang gracelessly effects a wai back as directed by his girlfriend. Everyone chortles at his clumsy gesture. Food appears out of nowhere. Everyone sits down and eats on the ground. The westerner thinks this isn’t too bad, until his legs cramp up and everyone laughs at his uncomfortability.

His girlfriend’s ‘brother’ gets him a chair dating back three centuries. The heat is stultifying.Sweat pours from his skin. He is offered beer with ice. The farang disdained drinking it before. Now it’s perfect. More food is eaten. Some of it he doesn’t recognize. He tastes a little. Your mouth is on fire. He drinks more beer. Soon it’s gone.

“Need more beer.” His girlfriend holds out her hand.

The farang reaches into your pocket. Hss girlfriend grabs 2000 baht and jumps on a dilapidated motorcycle. “Be back soon.”

The remaining crones clear the food and he is left to drink lao whiskey with the male family members. They insist on his drinking this villainous concoction, even though he passed triple the legal limit for DWI an hour ago. His girlfriend hasn’t shown up and the man peak his ears for the sound of the motorcycle, only to hear the buzz of the early evening’s mozzies.

Several hours later the man wakes on the floor of a house with three men downing a plastic bag of lao whiskey. His GPS is off line. His wallet is still in his pants. Thais are very honest. Female voices babble under the floor. Nothing they say makes any sense. The man climbs over the pile of drinking men and descends a vertiginous set of stairs to the ground.

Over head stars blaze in their billions. A fire burns in the yard. Some of it is plastic. His girlfriend sits with a gaggle of women. She smiles at him. He smiles back, wishing a doctor could shoot him with an injection to get rid of his growing hangover.

Footsteps sound behind him. The men carry down the plastic bags of lao whiskey. The farang protests against being offered a glass. His girlfriend frowns. The lao goes right to his stomach and he rushes into the bushes to heave like a Girl Scout drunk from sherry. Everyone laughs and that’s the last sound he remembers before waking to roosters crowing in the dawn.

His girlfriend is asleep and so is everyone else.

He tries to go back to sleep, but his feet have been gnawed raw by mozzies hungry for a new taste of blood. Soon dogs are barking and the sky is getting light. A loudspeaker crackles to life. For the next hour a man rants in Thai. No one stirs from their slumber and the westerner wishes that he could click his heels like Dorothy in THE WIZARD OF OZ to transport himself back in his hotel.

Air-con. Cable TV. Swimming pool. Mobile phone service. Western food. Chairs. Beds. Beaches. bikinis. Go-go bars.

Of course his girlfriend doesn’t respond to any hint about a return to Pattaya other than to say that tonight is a big party, which ends up a repeat of the first night only with more family members. Everyone is having a good time, since no one has put a hand into their pocket since his arrival and the farang mentally calculates that he could have flown to Bali for the price of the last two days ie bar fine, car rental, and expenses.

And his girlfriend hasn’t as much as kissed you, as she has reverted to a village girl.

Food, friends, family, everyone having a good time. And she knows how to play a man, farang or Thai, because at the night’s end, she comes up to him and says, “Everyone like you. Me, I love you, because you not make face.”

“Make face?”

“Yes, make face same dog, because you spend too much money.” She sneaks a kiss and everyone laughs. The farang too and he decides to stick it another day.

On the fourth day the farang wakes up and packs the car. Everyone waves good-bye, except for the three family members joining him for the voyage south.

Back in Pattaya the farang drops off the relatives. They get out of the car without a word of thanks. He delivers the car three hours late for a half-day penalty. At the hotel the westerner is glad to be back in civilization, although his girlfriend cries, “I miss my family.”

They make love for the first time in four days and she cries throughout the labor. The farang feels like he's having sex with a war widow and almost stops, except those years of abstinence have created a monster and he completes his mission, after which the farang leave the girlfriend in the hotel room watching TV to meet his friends. She is on the phone to a family member. She barely notices his departure.

Later night the gang at his favorite bar ask, “How was it?”

“It was great.”

And they nodded in unison because they’ve said the same thing too.

And it's all true, because they've never experienced anything in years.

Bannok loves farangs.

NO COUNTRY FOR OLD FARANGS

In 2008 the Coen Brother's NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN won the Best Film Oscar this year. Three minutes of the creepy lead actor's haircut was enough for me. I chucked the DVD into the swamp behind my house and haven't heard from it since, but at the Pattaya court I ran into an aging farang living the title of that movie.

The court clerk patiently explained his trial date in Thai. The Brit didn't understand a word and I translated for him, only to be engaged as a confessor.

John was English. He had been involved with a hot-tempered Thai woman for the past 16 years. 9 months ago he decided to end the relationship, but Thai girls were harder to get out of your life than gum in your hair.

Two weeks ago he was summoned up-country by a phone call. His ex- was in the hospital. As soon as he appeared, two Pattaya cops arrested him for assault. 100,000 baht bail and they seized possession of his passport. His wife had accused him of beating her. He protested that he wasn't that type of man and all the police had to do was check the hospitals for evidence of a beating.

"Where's your lawyer?"

"What do I need a lawyer for?"

"This is a criminal charge." I sometimes wondered if farangs deposit their common sense at the airport. "You don't understand Thai and you want to go to court without a lawyer."

"My last lawyer charged me 4000 baht to get out of jail."

"Cheap."

"Yeah, but she didn't do anything."

This was going nowhere and I explained that he should be represented. I gave him the telephone number of my lawyer. He didn't even bother to write it down and I wished him luck.

John was 54. He had worked all his life. His Thai wife has everything now and he was on the verge of going to jail. In this case Thailand was definitely not a country for old men, although John didn't consider himself old.

He will after a couple of month's in the monkey house.

Gon Gohng = Thai for Scam - Pattaya

Many Pattaya beer bar denizens know kee-kong means cheating. Bad romances are great communication skill enablers, yet few western tourists or residents have the occasion to learn the useful word gon gohng or scam.

99.999999999% of people are honest. Not all.

Several years ago a 25 year-old Australian woman reported a rape to Pattaya police. She claimed separation from her friends led to a friendly conversation with 3 men who drove her to a remote area for a prolonged rape. A young Thai man rescued her and took the victim to Bangkok-Pattaya Hospital, where she was checked for HIV infection. The police inspector vowed to apprehend these criminals for prosecution and drove the young Thai man and Australian woman back to the site of the rape.

Both suffered simultaneous amnesia.

COME ALL YE FAITHFUL by Peter Nolan Smith

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.

Drinking Yourself To Death

Every week the Pattaya Media highlights another farang leaving this mortal coil from suicide. Favorite methods of self-demise tend to be jumping from a condo, poison, or hanging yourself with a plastic bag around your head, but few people ever comment on the most popular technique ie drinking yourself to the grave, since the process takes too long to be considered suicide. Still you do hear friends saying about the decreased, "He drank himself to death."

While drinking yourself to death might not be pretty, it's certainly not as ugly as hitting the pavement from a 7th floor balcony plus you're in good company.

Oliver Reed for one and the church can't ban you from a churchyard burial at which your friends will say, "At leat he went doing what he did best."

So for those desperate souls seeking solace in a final solution.

Get yourself a beer.

Maybe twelve.

A bottle of vodka and one of gin too.

At worst the near-death experience will scare you back from the edge as long as you don't get on a motorcycle during this binge, then you'll have people saying, "What was he thinking trying to dirve in that condition?"

And we can't have people speaking of the dead like that.

THE FAITHFULNESS OF LIES by Peter Nolan Smith

Several years ago my friend, Sam Royalle, suspected his girlfriend was seeing another man.

"How do you know that?" Farangs don't understand how hard it was for a Thai woman to be with a westerner.

They don't speak the same language. Their tastes in food, movies, music, and humor were complete opposites. No matter how hard a Thai woman worked to be farang she will always be Thai and vice versa.

"She's always late."

"Thais are always late." Thai girlfriends normally were having too much fun doing what they're doing to be with their farang.

"She never answers her phone."

"Bad coverage." I knew all the excuses.

"That's what she said."

Not answering her phone was very suspect. Thais love speaking on the phone. Actually they love the sound of their voices, if only to not have silence, since silence opens the door for ghosts and nothing scares a Thai more than the thought of a ghost or 'phew'.

"And she comes home smelling like she just showered."

"Thais like being clean." I always have suspected that Thai girls shower after sex to erase any evidence of sex, although the Thai police insisted that criminals can't leave fingerprints on another body.

"It could be nothing."

"It wouldn't bother me if he was farang, but I think he's Thai." Sam had more than a hunch. He had seen a Thai man driving his car. She had said it was her cousin. The possibility of this being the truth was about .0001%, because Thai women in a relationship with farangs gravitated to Thai men for the comfort of a shared culture. I regarded the situation more as polygamy than infidelity.

One world Thai.

One world farang.

Can't we live together as one?

I learned the hard way that the answer is no.

Sam's girlfriend confessed to having an affair with a Thai man. Said he was a long-time friend.

"Said it was only three months."

"Maybe."

Sam Royalle threw her out of the house without torturing her to find out if it was three months or six.

"She'll be back when she breaks up with him."

"Okay."

Thai women always have a boyfriend in the background. 100% and this week a German farang hung himself rather than leave his girlfriend alone. Suicide was the only way he could be sure she didn't cheat on him.

What is wrong with these farangs?

Magic love potions?

I was poisoned with one and the only remedy is to have a woman stand over a pot of steaming rice and have her sweat drip into the pot and eat it. The rice tastes a little fishy, but I think it works and certainly would save a lot of people from a death before their time.

For those desperate men ask the cook for Khao nam-lai puying.

The life you save maybe your own.

To Live and Die in Thailand

Here's a list of death in Thailand spanning 2005-2008 complied by the US State Dept.

THAILAND
Date of Death Place of Death Cause of Death
11-Jul-05 BANG LAMUNG Suicide
24-Jul-05 UBON RATCHATHANI Veh. Accident-Motorcycle
8-Aug-05 CHIANG MAI Drug-related
23-Sep-05 LOPBURI Veh. Accident-Auto
23-Sep-05 LOPBURI Veh. Accident-Auto
3-Oct-05 CHIANG MAI Drug-Related
4-Oct-05 SRIRACHA, Veh. Accident-Motorcycle
19-Oct-05 TRANG Veh. Accident-Other
17-Nov-05 NONG KHAI Homicide
27-Dec-05 MIN BURI Veh. Accident-Auto
1-Jan-06 CHIANG RAI Other Accident
2-Jan-06 PAHYA THAI Suicide
9-Jan-06 DIN DAENG Other Accident
17-Jan-06 NONG PRUE Suicide
18-Jan-06 NONGKHAI Homicide
23-Apr-06 BANGKOK Homicide
17-May-06 BANGKOK Suicide
28-May-06 CHIANG MAI Veh. Accident-Motorcycle
30-May-06 CHONBURI Drug-Related
11-Jun-06 BANG LAMUNG Veh. Accident-Motorcycle
24-Jun-06 PHUKET, Drowning
2-Jul-06 SRIDONCHAI Homicide
20-Jul-06 PHASALI Veh. Accident-Motorcycle
2-Aug-06 BANG KOR Suicide
4-Aug-06 MAK KENG Suicide
2-Sep-06 Bleft Suicide
9-Sep-06 MAE RIM ROAD Veh. Accident-other
15-Sep-06 HAT YAI Terrorist Action
29-Sep-06 CHAING MAI Homicide
2-Nov-06 UDON THANI Other Accident- fall
5-Nov-06 THIALAND Suicide
16-Nov-06 PATTAYA Other Accident - fall
25-Nov-06 HAYACHI HILL Veh. Accident-Motorcycle
9-Jan-07 SARABURI Suicide
8-Feb-07 RATCHABURI Veh. Accident-Train
30-Mar-07 CHIANG RAI Veh. Accident-Auto
28-Apr-07 CHONBURI Veh. Accident-Motorcycle
1-May-07 BANG NA Veh. Accident-Pedestrian
9-Jul-07 MAESAI Veh. Accid-Auto
19-Jul-07 RATCHABURI Homicide
4-Aug-07 MUANG Veh. Accid-Auto
11-Sep-07 SANGKHLA BURI Homicide
16-Sep-07 PHUKET Air Accident
16-Sep-07 PHUKET Air Accident
16-Sep-07 PHUKET Air Accident
16-Sep-07 PHUKET Air Accident
16-Sep-07 PHUKET Air Accident
16-Sep-07 PHUKET Air Accident
30-Sep-07 SATHON Suicide
30-Sep-07 SATHON Suicide
2-Oct-07 BANG LAMUNG Suicide
10-Oct-07 RATCHATHEWI Suicide
10-Oct-07 WATTANA Suicide
29-Oct-07 NAKHON PATHOM Suicide
21-Nov-07 KM1 SATTAHIP Veh. Accid-Auto
24-Nov-07 LAMUNG Other Accident
3-Dec-07 BANGKOK Veh. Accid-Auto
14-Jan-08 BANGKOK Suicide
26-Feb-08 PARACHUABKEREKAN Other Accident
22-Mar-08 CHIANG MAI Execution
8-Apr-08 PHUKET Suicide
18-Apr-08 PHITSANULOK Veh. Accid-Bus
18-Apr-08 PATTAYA Veh. Accid-Motorcy.
19-May-08 PHUKET Suicide
15-Jun-08 BANGKOK Homicide

Here's the list for 2012

12-20-2012 Rawai, Mueang Phuket, Thailand Vehicle Accident - Motorcycle 12-16-2012 A. Muang, Kamphaeng Phet, Thailand Vehicle Accident - Auto 12-08-2012 Prachathipat, Thanyaburi, Thailand Drug-Related 11-26-2012 Bangkok, Thailand Vehicle Accident - Motorcycle 11-23-2012 Koh Samui, Surat Thani, Thailand Vehicle Accident - Motorcycle 11-19-2012 A. Wichianburi, Phetchabun, Thailand Vehicle Accident - Motorcycle 11-14-2012 A. Muang, Chiang Mai, Thailand Vehicle Accident - Motorcycle 09-10-2012 Prawet, Bangkok, Thailand Suicide 09-10-2012 Mueang Kanchanaburi, Kanchanaburi, Thailand Vehicle Accident - Motorcycle 09-03-2012 Kathu, Phuket, Thailand Suicide 08-13-2012 Chiang Mai, Thailand Other Accident 07-30-2012 Mueang, Udon Thani, Thailand Suicide 07-20-2012 Kathu, Phuket, Thailand Vehicle Accident - Motorcycle 06-24-2012 A. Hangdong , Chiang Mai, Thailand Other Accident 06-12-2012 Kathu, Phuket, Thailand Drowning 06-09-2012 Muang, Sakon Nakorn, Thailand Other Accident 05-30-2012 A. Hang Dong, Chiang Mai, Thailand Homicide 05-24-2012 Khlong Toei, Bangkok, Thailand Other Accident 04-21-2012 Hua Hin, Prachuap Khirikhan, Thailand Vehicle Accident - Motorcycle 04-20-2012 Koh Samui, Surat Thani, Thailand Drowning 04-15-2012 Muang, Nong Khai, Thailand Vehicle Accident - Auto 04-15-2012 Muang, Nong Khai, Thailand Vehicle Accident - Auto 04-10-2012 Chang Phuak, Chiang Mai, Thailand Other Accident 04-01-2012 Bang Lamung, Chonburi, Thailand Suicide 03-21-2012 Chiang Rai, Chiang Rai, Thailand Suicide

Motorcycles win out over suicide.

Which is another form of suicide on some roads in the Land of Smiles.

For the world-wide listing go to this URL

http://travel.state.gov/law/family_issues/death/death_594.html

Be careful and be prepared.

Washing Hands a Go-Go

Another New York survey revealed that less than 1% of men at Yankee Stadium washed their hands after using the bathroom. Even scarier was that less than 2% did so after squatting on the porcelain throne. Thankfully more than 20% did so after puking cheap hot dogs and worthless Bud beer. Last month I decided to conduct a similar survey in the go-go bars of Pattaya.

This meant drinking a lot of beer, but I was surprised to see that more than 30% of the lager louts attending the exotic dance performances actually washed their hands and I hired the one-armed bathroom attendant from the Carousel Go Go to verify these findings. She later reported that almost 50% of the men washed their hands, then again she earns her living from tips, so she might misrepresent the free-style piss and wash statistics, so as not to lose face with her customers.

Me, I always wash my hands, just because I like cleanliness.

Not washing your hands after peeing is a crime in Singapore and the government has trained special agents to sniff your hands after exiting from the toilets, so wash your hands or else expect a caning.

Only 5 strokes for 1st offense.

Masochists need only apply.