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21 Friday Nov 2014
Posted Aloha Friday
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20 Thursday Nov 2014
Posted This Is Thailand . . .
inI never expect much out of the Tourist Authority of Thailand’s (TAT) attempts to lure more tourists to the Kingdom. It’s a doomed affair from the get-go; while there is much about Thailand to love, and while few other places in the world can boast of the exotic mixed with the familiar as can The Land of Smiles, TAT’s campaigns always come from an uniquely Thai point of view. Which seldom has anything to do with how the tourists they are trying to attract think. A few years back, TAT went after the pink tourist dollar in their Go Thai Be Free campaign. Which included a LGBT microsite billed as “Your best source of information when planning your travel experience to Thailand.” The web site had lots of rainbows on it. Info of interest to gay tourists, not so much.
DJ Station got a mention, but the site didn’t know if the popular dance club was a gay friendly establishment or not. And they only managed to find four massage places in Bangkok that catered to gay men. It was commendable that TAT wanted to attract more gay tourists to Thailand, a shame they forgot to include the gays in their attempt to do so. Unless you count ladyboys – the third gender were prominently featured on TAT’s site .’Cuz everyone knows local drag queens are the real draw when it comes to gay tourists.
Thanks to natural disasters, well-publicized scams against tourists, the occasional dead visitor, and civil unrest, TAT hasn’t had an easy job as of late. It’s hard to be pro-active when you’re busy putting out fires. And it’s difficult to put a good face on your country’s leader’s attempt to pull his nation kicking and screaming into his version of a democratic future when the rest of the world is busy saying military dictatorship. When movie-goers flashing the three-finger salute from The Hunger Games get arrested during the franchise’s Bangkok premiere of its latest installment, coming up with an acceptable spin is a Herculean task. Even more so when you are still trying to draw the world’s attention away from a pair of bloody tourist bodies washed up on the beach of Koh Tao. Not that TAT hasn’t tried. But attempting to re-establish your country’s face when the subject at hand is the bashed in faces of what once was a young, attractive couple from the UK is a job even Bill Cosby’s publicist would turn down.
Being duplicitous, even if it is a time-honored tradition in Thailand, is probably not your best move when you’re dealing with the rest of the world. When your theater of operation is within the confines of the Kingdom, however, it can’t be beat. And in the recent efforts of two different branches of Thailand’s public-relations machine, only The Good General’s scored a knock-out. But then scoring a win against Kim Kardashian’s ass ain’t much of a victory.
TAT’s latest attempt to counter reality with fiction is an anonymously posted YouTube video called I Hate Thailand that appeared on Tuesday and quickly went viral. It’s a five minute long uplifting and completely fake tale about a tourist, ‘James’, who misplaces his bag filled with all of his worldly possessions, meets a cute Thai girl who is not a ladyboy who, displaying the friendliness and generosity of the Thai people, befriends the unlucky traveler and eventually helps organize a twenty-person search party to find the unlucky’s visitors belongings. The surprise ending is that James’ wayward bag was the fault of a band of local monkeys, and not the illegal Burmese immigrants you would have expected.
It’s a popular video in Thailand with Thais’ comments fully basking in the glow of how wonderful their countrymen are as proved by this video. Non-Thais had a different take. Most outside of Thailand were immediately suspicious and questioned James’ reality as well as his story. The truth, as they say, is in the details, and the details just didn’t add up. Two days later, James admitted he’s really Oliver and was paid to appear in the scripted video by a Thai production company that was funded by TAT. Oooops. My bad.
Oliver says, “I believe the purpose of making it was to portray Thailand in a good light. This is another angle on Thailand, an upbeat angle that shows the friendly, accommodating Thailand that a lot of expats and travelers alike can relate to.” Although perhaps not David Miller or Hannah Witheridge.
Of course TAT’s attempt at fooling all the people all of the time wasn’t a total failure. Those who’ve decided they love Thailand no matter what claim the video shows what the real Thailand is all about. The boys on Thai Visa debated the merits of the video before it was revealed that it was an advertisement by TAT, and while most pointed out the enormous number of breaches from reality contained within the clip, a few others defended its realism. Because rose-colored glasses have always been a popular item of fashion in Thailand. In the end, the question isn’t about whether the Thai people are all helpful, generous, friendly folk, or all out to scam every baht from tourists they can. It’s about Thailand’s tourism board resorting to a lie in trying to convince travelers their country is where they should be spending their holiday dollars.
Meanwhile, speaking of unbelievable bits of reality and human trash washing up on Thailand’s beaches, in case you missed it Kim Kardashian’s booty cracked its own version of a smile during a visit to The Land Of back in April thanks to E’s travel budget and the media’s insistence that we see more of what we’re all tired of seeing. Just because Rihanna did it first. During the Kardashian’s production crew’s visit, Kim’s ass fell in love with a 13-year-old orphaned Phang Na teen, and decided she wanted to adopt the girl. Just because Angelina did it first. And even though Mama Kardashian told her, “You can’t just shop for a child,” Kim had her heart set on starting a new collection, or as she put it, “I literally cannot stop thinking about her.” Because in reality television, ‘reality’ is not meant literally. But someone forgot to tell Kim’s ass that. Um, literally.
But even in reality, who wouldn’t want to be part of the Kardashian clan and have a valid claim to their millions? I mean other than Bruce Jenner. Well, according to the Good General’s state run news agency, Pink, the aforementioned orphan, that’s who. Yesterday, taking a page from Nancy Reagan’s playbook, the 13-year-old just said no. Which was a lot nicer than saying, “I’d rather live in an orphanage than be adopted by Kim Kardashian.”
Back when Kim was literally thinking about how adoption would be easier on her figure than pregnancy would be, after visiting Pink’s orphanage on camera, she mused, “You can’t help but think like how you could change their life.” Evidently Pink could. And it wasn’t a rosy picture. Or at least that’s what The Good General’s PR machine would like you to believe. According to that source, “The level-headed 13-year-old called Pink said she shook with excitement when she heard the multi-millionaire wanted to adopt her, but insisted she wanted to study in Thailand instead then help her impoverished homeland and the orphans she has grown up with.” Which is the same answer level-headed 18-year-old bar girls usually give when a rich farang offers to take them back to his home country.
Supposedly after thinking over Kim’s adoption plans for her, Pink said, “‘Everyone wants to have a different or a better life, I suppose. But when I thought about it I realized it wouldn’t be good for me, because I would have to leave so much behind. I wasn’t ready for that.” Or maybe she Googled the Kardashians, saw a photo of Bruce Jenner, and decided she didn’t need to leave Thailand to see a ladyboy. Although if she saw her future mother’s sex tape, she probably didn’t think that was necessarily the world for her either. Regardless, this story too has some conveniently missing details. Like that Pink isn’t an orphan. Her mom Rose – whom Kim literally didn’t notice – was present during each of Kim’s visits with the girl back in April.
Whether Pink’s tale is as based in reality as James’ was or not, or if it is just another attempt by The Good General to show how much the Thai people love their country, things probably worked out for the best. Requests for comments about the story from Kim were answered by her spokesperson who replied, “Kim is working and unavailable.” Which undoubtedly would have been the same story Pink would have lived with had Kim’s ass been playing the role of her mommy.
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20 Thursday Nov 2014
Posted Take It Off Thursday
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19 Wednesday Nov 2014
Posted Eye Candy
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I feel sorry for women. Because penis envy is a very real thing. Even though they don’t really get what having a penis is all about. Men, on the other hand, have been blessed. Regardless of size, shape, or curvature, each of us has been granted the enviable honor of having our very own best buddy. Who goes everywhere with us. And does a lot of our thinking for us too. Best yet, he’s always willing to play whenever the mood strikes. Sure it’s usually more fun to have another living, breathing human being to play with, but it ain’t a necessity. At least when you are a man. Going it alone when you are a woman isn’t as easy. Even if you don’t have a partner, you still need batteries.
Recently, Azealia Banks, an ex-stripper female rapper – while trying to defend herself for calling some faggot a faggot – said all gay men are misogynists. Right. It’s easy to point your finger when that’s all you have to point with. But most gays don’t hate women. It’s more that we are ambivalent about them. Kinda like brussels sprouts, they’re best avoided whenever possible and why some people like them so much is unfathomable. Up close and personal, the smell alone is off-putting. It’s not that we are misogynistic, it’s just that we’ve come to realize that women serve no real purpose in life. Unless they are lesbian. Because science has not yet reached the point where we don’t still occasionally need a surrogate. For everything else, we have our penis.
That gay men love their mother so much alone should prove we are not misogynists. Women, on the other hand, are often misandrists. Not that I blame them. Or care. I’d be a misandrist too if I were a member of the weaker sex. It’s easier to hate those who are better than you, those who no matter how much you aspire to be like will still always rate higher in society. And that is Ms. Bank’s real problem with gay men. She works in a field where the only respect she gets is for the size of her booty. And gay guys just ain’t interested. Like most women, she needs to be wanted, to be needed. Gay guys don’t need her. Because we have our penises.
The truth is straight dudes don’t need Ms. Banks either, other than to keep their penis happy. And that’s what pisses women off. No matter how hard they try, it’s always about penis first. As the gods intended. Men enjoy and want sex because our penis enjoys and wants sex. Women only come into the picture because sometimes our hands get tired. To men, and their penis, it’s all about getting sex. Sex to a woman is a gift they give to men. That’s not their fault. That’s how they’ve been raised. Throughout history. There are numerous examples of ancient cultures who worshipped the penis. Vagina, not so much. Ancient cultures that deified women always used some version of the Earth Mother, which was usually a statue of a featureless, fat, pregnant woman. Who only rose to her lofty position thanks to what a penis did for her. Or, if your brain works in female mode, thanks to the gift of sex she gave to some man. Who seldom got named. Because he was off, busy playing with his penis.
The advent of Christianity alone should have sounded the death knell to the idea that women and their vaginas are of any value other than to bring more penis into the world. The New Testament axed that entire gift of sex thingy; God just said no to Mary’s vagina, leaving popping her cherry to some other dude. Because it wasn’t important. Or, if you prefer Eastern philosophy you can go with the venerable Chinese proverb: ‘Give a man fish and you make his penis happy for a day; teach a man how to play with his penis and you make him happy for a lifetime.’ But instead women continue to believe their gift is something men really need, and suffer thanks to that bit of ill-placed faith. Take secretaries – ooops, my bad, administrative assistants – for example. They work for half of what their male boss would pay if a man was doing their job. And then spend their entire paycheck on clothes to wear to work. Because no one is interested in a gift that is not properly wrapped. It’s a viscous cycle. They work to earn a living but then spend all their money on clothes to wear to work so that by the end of the month they are broke again and then have to agree to date some loser just for the food. And then give said loser the gift of sex or they’ll never get fed in that town again.
Everyone knows a Muslim man who dies killing infidels gets 70 some virgins as soon as he gets to heaven. Who knows what a Muslim woman gets? Right. ‘Cuz no one cares. At best, if she died young, she’ll get to be one of the 70 something virgins assigned to some loser who blew himself up just to give his penis a happy afterlife. Sharia law can teach us a lot about the battle of the sexes. Take adultery. The punishment is being stoned to death. Do you ever read about a man who cheated on his wife being dragged out into the village square and stoned? No. It’s always the hussies. That’s because someone did the math and realized they were gonna be one short on their allotment of virgins and is real pissed that their penis is gonna miss out. Not that it’s any better under our form of government. When was the last time you heard about the Supreme Court deciding what a man could do with his dick? Granted, they are contemplating doing something about what a man can legally do with another man’s dick, but generally the Supremes agree penis should be left alone to enjoy its pursuit of happiness.
Women will never know the joy of writing their name in snow. Or sitting on a subway with their legs spread wide taking up the entire seat. Without a built-in reference, they’re unable to read a map. And in the business world, they can’t be seen as being powerful without also being viewed as a bitch. ‘Cuz you can only be a dick when you have one. And as highly as they view their vaginas, they know most men would prefer getting a blow job. Which, not knowing what a penis is really all about, they suck at. And that’s what Ms. Banks is really pissed about. It’s not about gay or men who hate women, but that deep in her heart she knows she’ll never be able to compete against a boy’s love affair with his penis.
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19 Wednesday Nov 2014
Posted Hump Day Is Bump Day
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18 Tuesday Nov 2014
Posted Photo Of The Week
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18 Tuesday Nov 2014
Posted Twinky Tuesday
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17 Monday Nov 2014
Posted Tips
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I can’t tell you how many times I’ve traveled to Thailand with my friend Dave, who (if you’ve been following this blog you know) has more recently had that all important ‘boy’ designation added to the almost as important ‘friend’. My fist visit to the kingdom was with Dave, as were the next several in fact. We never made it out of Bangkok back then, and seldom made it out of Patpong either. There was no reason to. We were there for the nightlife, and in those days Patpong offered all the nightlife your system could handle.
Patpong’s night market was part of the scene in those days, but not the main focus as it has become over the years. Outside of the stalls crammed cheek to jowl down the middle of the street, shopping options revolved around booze and sex. Even then Patpong wasn’t the red light district it had once been, but then neither was it the blue light special it has since become. The naughty bars were primarily upstairs venues; street side beer bars were the name of the game and we spent most nights making the rounds up Patpong 1, down Patpong 2, and back again, drinking our way along the route. We never took the time to visit a wat. Or a museum. Or any of the myriad attractions that visitors to Thailand should. Our biggest adventure outside of Patpong was a night spent on Soi Cowboy. And even that excursion waited until our third or fourth trip to The Land of Smiles.
Over the years our visits together became less frequent. By the time we hit the Big Mango together again I’d developed my obsession with checking out every wat that crossed my path, and the only time I bothered to spend in Patpong proper was in cutting through it when moving from Soi 4 to Soi Twilight. When we did finally land in Thailand together again, Dave only agreed to visiting his first wat because I lied and told him he could get a beer there. But because my horizons had broadened, his did too. Or maybe it was just that as he aged his liver demanded an occasional time-out.
We just visited the kingdom again, this time as a couple, and spent a few days in Chiang Mai for the Yee Peng celebrations. Dave, as I had expected him to, had a list of bars he wanted to visit. He also had a non-alcoholic excursion planned, which I hadn’t expected. We’d barely checked into our hotel before he announced, “I wanna ride an elephant.”
Huh. And he wasn’t even drunk yet.
Visiting one of the elephant camps and taking your turn on one of the beasts’ backs is something I’d assume every visitor to Chiang Mai does. It sounds like a lot of fun. It’s not. Kinda like spending the night with a ladyboy, the reality is just never gonna live up to the expectation. It would be different if it was riding an elephant as opposed to riding on an elephant (and I don’t mean a fat ladyboy although that too probably works out the same). But the reality of riding on an elephant in Chiang Mai is an uncomfortable wood bench strapped onto the back of a bored beast who slowly plods along a well-beaten path following too closely behind another bored beast with another bored farang strapped to its back. It’s good for about five minutes of the 15 minute minimum ride option, and the most memorable thing about your excursion is when the elephant in front of your takes a dump.
Noom, my bar boy friend (who, if you’ve been following this blog you know has always had that all important white space between his designation of ‘boy’ and ‘friend’) was with us in Chiang Mai and was just as quick to change the subject when Dave brought up riding an elephant as was I. He too had been there and done that. On our first visit to Chiang Mai, he too wanted to ride an elephant. And agreed afterwards that riding on a elephant wasn’t all that. He’d also been along for the ride when accompanying other friends to Chiang Mai, who also felt their lives would not be complete without taking a turn on an elephant’s back. So it took longer for me to explain my plan on dealing with Dave’s elephant desires than it did for him to agree to being a co-conspirator in making sure that dream never came true.
Elephants are an integral part of Thailand’s history. And even if you never get near an elephant camp (which was Noom’s and my intention) elephants are an integral part of any visitor’s trip to the kingdom. They are everywhere. Even on the ‘look I went to Thailand’ t-shirt you buy as a souvenir. In fact, someone has glued an elephant on pretty much any souvenir you buy in Thailand. Even back when Dave and I never made it outside of Patpong, the elephant experience was part of your visit. Back then, before it became illegal to do so (wink, wink) some enterprising elephant owner would stroll through the area with an elephant, selling bananas for tourists to buy to feed the poor beast. We’d learned your best interaction with an elephant on the streets of Bangkok was to not to – when those suckers decide to urinate, the entire block gets drenched.
Generally, I think the Thai insistence that whenever anyone thinks of Thailand they think of elephants to be over-kill. But when you are trying to avoid the actual experience of a face-to-face encounter with one, that’s a good thing. Noom decided his contribution to that goal would be to pretend Dave’s desire to ride one meant that Dave loved elephants And the best way to do that was to point out every elephant we encountered. “Look! Elephant!” became his rallying cry every time an elephant appeared, none of which were living examples of the ubiquitous beast.
We only made it through half of the Sunday Night Market thanks to Noom having to point out every elephant painting, sculpture, carving, decal, plush toy, and tchotchke he spotted. The Yee Peng lanterns we set afloat into the sky had to be sent flying while we stood next to one of the elephant statues at the moat by Tha Pae Gate. Dave (and by Dave I mean Noom and Dave, of course) got their picture taken standing in front of an elephant float during one of the Yee Peng parades. And Noom was crushed that he couldn’t find an elephant themed Krathong to float down the Ping river. Even though Dave offered to donate the small elephant statue Noom had bought for him with my wallet to the cause.
Dave is a big guy, standing well over six feet. Now in his late 40s, he’s packed on a bit of weight. So it was only my stern look at Noom that prevented a disaster and kept him from singing out, “Look! Elephant!” again on our first morning in Chiang Mai when Dave came strolling out of the shower naked. No problemo. The thought alone was enough to send Noom into a fit of giggles.
My efforts took the much more non-Thai (meaning subtle) approach of using Google to find elephant experience options in Chiang Mai that didn’t include encountering a real, live elephant. And as trip-planning ideas go, it wasn’t a bad move. Instead of hitting the attractions Noom and I had relied on in showing off Chiang Mai in the past, I found several new attractions worthy of the tourist experience in Chiang Mai. Art In Paradise, which I posted about last week, was one of them (they had a 3D, interactive Elephant painting, which was the initial must do elephants draw). And Dave (and by Dave I mean Noom and Dave, of course) got their picture taken standing in front it. Which was still cheaper and vastly more entertaining than riding on one.
Dave’s no slouch in the brains department, so by our second day in town he figured out what Noom and I were up to and put his foot down. “I don’t want to see an elephant. I don’t want to buy elephant souvenirs. I don’t want to spend the rest of this trip listening to Noom yelling, ‘Look! Elephant!’ I want to be with an elephant, one-on-one. Me. The elephant. Together. Get it?”
Got it. Dave wanted the interactive experience of communing with a pachyderm. And since the lucky man has the world’s best boyfriend, that’s exactly what he got. Our next stop on the Chiang Mai Elephant Tour was the Elephant Parade House, a small venue tucked away in Chiang Mai Land just south of the Night Bazaar off Chang Klan Road. Part boutique, part workshop, part learning center, it’s the permanent home cum money maker for Elephant Parade, an artistic globe-spanning non-profit dedicated to raising awareness for the cause of elephant conservation and the main benefactor for The Asian Elephant Foundation.
Even if you are not familiar with Chiang Mai’s Elephant Parade House, you probably are with Elephant Parade, which has deployed some 1,000 life-size elephant statues created by over 100 Thai and international artists around the world, including on the streets of Amsterdam, London, Singapore, Milan, and Copenhagen, among others. It’s massive art for the masses that delights the citizens of every city where one of their open-air exhibitions have been held, and each concludes with an auction of the fanciful painted statues, some of which find a permanent home in the city where they were paraded.
Located in a modern, three-story shop house, Elephant Parade House features some full-size replicas of the elephant statues that have been part of one of the parades, along with smaller replicas that you can (of course) purchase. The second floor is a learning center that does a good job of explaining why elephant conservation is important, without getting preachy. But the real draw of the place is upstairs where for a mere 600 to 1,000 baht you can paint your very own elephant statue. Dave, who was still holding out for riding one, was not impressed. Until Noom began letting his inner artist flow free. And then, being the competitive bastard that he is, got busy painting his own.
Helpful staff circulates freely among the budding artists, ready to lend a helping hand so that your work of art doesn’t end up being something only your mother could love. That’s probably a great boon to the kids who give a new meaning to the art of finger painting. For adults acting like children, not so much. Dave, working on his ode to Wolverine (seriously, don’t ask) offered a deep-throated growl in response to the first helpful hint a staff member suggested to him. Which put a quick end to any further assistance being sent his way. Noom made up for that by constantly asking for more gold for his Ganesha-inspired work of art, which may have helped explain the staff’s willingness to keep supplying us with yet another round of Chang Beer (which Noom insisted on Dave ordering instead of his usual, Singha, so Noom could point out the elephant on the label).
Two hours and 3,000 baht later (because size always matters) we had a trio of artistic, half-foot tall laughably painted pachyderms. Noom, being the great guy that he is, promptly presented the one he’d painted to Dave as a gift. Which I’m sure had nothing to do with the coveted free space in his luggage, reserved for hauling stuff he really wanted back home to Bangkok. But that still left the elephant in the room – Dave’s desire to ride one – unresolved, with a mere two days of our time in Chiang Mai left. Huh. You’ll be surprised at how many non-riding elephant experiences there are in Chiang Mai. As was Dave.
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