Swing night

i don’t feel like writing right now.  my brain is in shambles, and there is an alcohol induced haze floating around in my head, but my bed is currently occupied by some thai chick and, what else is there to do when you’re waking up at 3 pm, hungry as a somalian, but you don’t wanna leave and get food because what if she’s a vagrant klepto hooker and all of your shit is missing when you get back?  which is highly unlikely, but…well why else would she be at Swing at 8 AM?

Swing.  this story is dedicated to you, for making all my dreams happen.

what is Swing?  Swing was my destination on that fateful night (last night).  i had never heard of it, but my swedish friend alex was a big fan.  this was his set-up: “it’s where all the prozzies (prostitutes) go after they finish their night shifts, to go and get free dick.”  wow!  i’ve always wanted sloppy seconds!  or thirds. or fourths. or fifths…

since it was one of alex’s final nights in bangkok, i granted him his wish, and made a pact that whatever happened on this night, we would end up at Swing.  and apparently it stays open til like 10 AM, so we wouldn’t be going there for another nine or ten hours, at the earliest.  also, i felt like i had something to prove this night, since alex claimed (falsely) i always get my phantom on and go home “early” around 1 AM.  fuck that shit.  i can go til 1 PM if i wanted to.

knowing full well that it was going to be another notorious Dirty Darby Night™, we started the night off in the dirtiest place available: khaosan road.  the place where the scum of the universe assemble into one tightly constricted little hairball and bludgeon braincells with booze at breakneck speeds.  we sat down at some random drink stand and ordered cocktails.  not the ones that come in a teensy little cocktail glass… the ones that come in a fucking sandbucket.  that you play with at the beach.

we had one each and then went across the street where they had a buy-one-get-one-free special on buckets and ordered two more.  i could tell the buckets were running their toll on us when i noticed alex schmoozing a conspicuous ladyboy, and i was sexually prioritizing between the two 18 year olds sitting on the other end of my table.  i walked up, grabbed one of them, and we swallowed each other’s tongues until she fell backwards and destroyed two tables.  me and alex slithered away from the scene of the crime.

next we went to my favorite club in bangkok, “the club”.  yup, that’s it’s name.  we didn’t stay long, but i climbed up on stage, did about a dozen mid-air crotch thrusts, and then left having completed my mission.  we hadn’t been thrown out of a single club until this point, which was shocking considering alex is banned from at least ten of the best clubs in bangkok.

back on the street we ran into mr. thailand, a quasi-celebrity that dresses in flamboyant colorful clothing and has appeared in few hollywood movies.  alex shared his intentions with the man, and mr. thailand understood “i want pussy” as “i want to pay for pussy.”  he shepherded us into a tuk-tuk vehicle and escorted us to a ladybar.  it was my man’s final night out, and if this is what he wanted, so be it.  but the one thing i know about ladybars is that these places are like black holes for money, and i would have to make a big ATM withdrawal if we were going in.

at the ATM and out of earshot of mr. thailand, me and alex decided that going to the ladybar would be retarded.  why not keep the club rotation going?  it was early, we could pick up girls at clubs, and not ones we would have to pay for.  i went off to piss, and when i came back i spotted mr. thailand going absolutely mental on alex.  we lured him out here for nothing, he said.  he thought he would be getting a commission from the ladybar for finding two new customers, but we ended up costing him time and money instead.  that’s what he said.  to alex.  meanwhile, i hid behind a trailer and watched him go mental on alex.  fuck that shit.  i ain’t getting involved.

eventually we escaped mr. thailand and found ourselves at the windsor hotel club called “scratch dog,” where 400 baht bought us three free drinks.  and by three, i mean two.  but we put on a superbly acted spectacle where i claimed i put $$$ on the bar for two long island ice teas and never received them.  i couldn’t remember the waiter’s id #, or his face, but he was about, “YAY-HIGH” i claimed, holding my hand up to a height that describes nearly everyone in thailand.  we started this charade at 4:15 am.  we had our free drinks at 6 am.  that’s right; a full hour and 45 mins of bitching, blaming, drama, letter-writing threatening, and finger pointing, will earn you free drinks at scratch dog.  as alex put it: “if they’re not gonna give us our drinks, let’s make their lives MISERABLE.”  oh and i had a pocket voice recorder with me that night and stuffing it in their faces threateningly and acting like a journalist kept the pressure on them to comply with our ridiculous demands.

if you’re wondering why i had a voice recorder… it was so i could capture quotes like this: “you know that little midget that walks around here selling flowers?  last time i was here i almost fucked her in the ass, but someone beat me to it.”  –actual quote made by alex back on khaosan road.

when we finally left scratch dog, we stopped in the lobby of the windsor hotel for something that demanded our attention:  it was a buffet.  at a nice ass hotel.  and goddamn did something smell good.  it wouldn’t be right to leave that hotel without some sort of attempt at breakfast infiltration.  we were stopped walking into the buffet by a man at a podium, holding a list.  room number, sirs?

me: uhhhh, 7… something?  712, perhaps?  what’s mom’s room number again?

alex:  blah blah blah

buffet guardian:  do you have your card key?

alex:  blah blah blah

me:  (*looks at random name on the list while attention is on alex*)  i don’t know the room number, but our mom’s last name is craig.  c-r-a-i-g.

buffet guardian:  (*flips through a couple of pages*) (*comes across MR. craig, craig being the FIRST name*)

nobody speaks for what seems like minutes.  i blew it, i thought.  there is no way he is letting us in now.  and then the man does something incredible:  he puts two tally lines next to mr. craig’s name… and then he smiles and welcomes us in!  i couldn’t fucking believe it!  i was trying to remain inconspicuous as i filled my plate up, but i was laughing so hard that potatoes kept rolling off my plate and were spilling ALL over the fucking place.  the tears and laughter continued after we were seated, and i could barely swallow food without spitting it out into the air.  i kept a watchful eye on the guy who let us in, just perchance mr. craig himself walked in.  how fucking awkward would that be??

mr. craig never came.  so we just pigged the fuck out and left.  and now as appropriate time as ever to get to Swing.

we got there 8 AM.  man, that place was juking!!!  despite the sun having already penetrated the morning sky, it was pitch black inside the club.  the DJ was laying down some real fresh beats.  and it was absolutely packed.  plus we ran into a few people we knew.  i knew a girl named san, who is either a hooker or next in line to become one.  and alex knew, inexplicably, the only child in the club.  upon further inspection, i saw that it wasn’t a child, but… it was a midget.  and not just any old midget.  me on the voice recorder: “alex is giving me a look that confirms that yes,  that is the midget that he tried to fuck in the ass.”

she left shortly after we got there.  i’m not sure if she had stayed, whether or not alex would have been in hot pursuit of that tiny ass?  it didn’t matter.  he ended up leaving with a girl–on each arm.  and thus continued his streak of taking a girl home from Swing each and every time he’d go.  he had promised me the same thing, and while i was skeptical, the chick with a nose-ring snoring in my bed right now validates his statement.

Swing.  i highly recommend it.

onward to laos!

so i’m headed to laos in a couple hours… i haven’t packed yet, but you can see that i have my priorities in check since i’m blogging and not doing that.

laos.  i’ve waited two years to go here.  heard some real wild shit, and chances are, it’s only gonna be wilder than i can imagine.  i’ll be there for a couple weeks max, then i’m back to bangkok to await the arrival of my parents.  wow.  my fucking parents are coming.  my mom hasn’t left america in 35 years.  her bum ass!!

i need this vacation.  the past couple weeks man, have been, wait a sec, let me find the right word here…

hel·la·cious

yeah, that works.  first of, my arm thing (refer to previous post for details) is STILL going on.  it’s been a month, and to this day, no one knows what’s wrong with my arm.  i didn’t take pictures of it in it’s “prime”, but i did take some other pictures of the hole in my arm and shit which i’ll consider sharing with you in the future.  if you can stomach it.  so going into laos, i’ve still got this issue, and the most recent doctor i talked to (#4 so far) told me that i shouldn’t go to laos.  i told him to shove it.  he told me to get my bandages changed in a laos hospital everyday.  i figured it would be easier to nod my head understandingly than tell him that i’m about to be on twelve hour buses, trains, speedboats, all sorts of animals which man thought previously unrideable–and nowhere NEAR a hospital.  oh well.  hopefully this is NOT the straw that breaks the camel’s back (and causes my arm to fall off).

aside from the arm, i was homeless the other night when my thai friend told me i could move into his apartment as his neighbor, so i move all my shit over there in the middle of a rainstorm at 10 pm, then when i get there the landlord comes out and goes “what open rooms?  everything is full”.  so my thai friend thought it would be a good idea to ask the landlord if i could move in AFTER i had attempted to move there.  bravo, thai friend.

also because of the arm, i realize that it’s highly unlikely i’ll be fighting in any muai thai tournaments in december.  fuck.

oh and the last thing worth noting is that my school somehow forgot to give me a work visa, and the lady at immigration told me i would have to pay an overstay fee.  20,000 baht.  that’s about 600 dollars.  after a long and exhausting investigation into who’s to blame, i finally went ballistic and managed to convince my school to pay for all of that.  (*high fives self*)

well, that’s all getting put behind me.  i’m going to laos motherfucker.  with no plan.  none.  except the gibbon experience.  that’s the one thing i have to do.  i’d explain it, but it would be better to write about it after i’ve lived through it.  i’ll get pictures and maybe even video footage too.

not going to blog while i’m in laos.  well, not planning on it.  so this means i won’t see you for a couple of weeks.  once i get back though, expect some big changes.  big, big changes.  i won’t spoil what exactly, but prepare to be pleasantly suprised.

until next time.  one love.

a farewell to arms

hey guys!  miss me?  think i was dead?  no, not dead yet… but i am probably going to need to get my arm amputated.

let’s rewind to approximately one week ago, when i wake up with not-so-pleasant stinging in my right elbow.  my first instinct, as it always is, is to ask, “was i drunk last night?”  i recalled that i had not been.  but i was inexplicably drunk two days earlier, so then i ask myself, “did i do something retarded to my elbow on two nights ago?”  the answer to that question, also negative.  comparing both elbows in the mirror, the pained one looked just a tad more reddish than the other.  i decided it was nothing.  “must’ve fallen outta bed!”

later that day, i went to thai school, and when i was on the train home, i started getting cold.  you don’t get cold in thailand unless there’s something wrong with you.  back at home, i huddled under a blanket, and stayed there until… ten minutes later when i got a call from a filipino friend saying she leaves bangkok tomorrow and that i need to see her on her last night.

her guilt trip worked and i obliged.  still hurting, i took tylenol, more than i should have, combined that with beer, and went clubbing, where everyone in the club kept bumping into my elbow.  it didn’t help that i was dancing on a crowded, elevated stage, but hey, i have standards.  what, do you expect to dance on the normal dance floor with all the commoners!?

the next morning i woke up, fevery again, my arm still hurting, and i headed into the bathroom to compare arms again, expecting maybe a little more redness on my elbow, but what i saw made me gag…

i had…

a third arm.  literally.  wait a sec (*looks up definition of literally*)  oh my bad.  not literally.  let me put it this way: my right arm ceased to resemble a right arm.  on planet earth at least.  maybe on pandora, or some other alien planet filled with extraterrestrial fauna and creatures and pathogens, but my arm said “fuck it!” and just decided to stop being human.  on my elbow, there was a magenta colored welt the size of a donut.  and goddamn, was it sensitive.  i immediately canceled my thai lessons and went and lay in bed, where i remained, lifeless, on my back, for the entirety of the day.  i couldn’t move, i couldn’t stand up, i had no urge to eat or drink anything, no WILL TO LIVE.

“i should probably go to a hospital.”

from the point i decided that, and the point that i actually left my house and got in a taxi going there, took me three hours.  THREE HOURS.  that’s how low my vigor was.  after a one hour taxi ride to go just two blocks, we were there at the hospital…  the first one.

hospital number 1:

a private hospital.  i came here for a physical once.  the doctor tells me that he wants to put me to sleep, operate to remove anything inside, and keep me there overnight.  “sounds great doc!  oh, you wouldn’t happen to know what caused this, would you?”

“uh… probably a contusion.  or a spider bite.  or a…”

i can’t remember the rest of the other several very broad hypotheses he made, but it was clear that he knew just as much as i did.  whatever.  as long as they take care of it.  i agree to it, and they present me with the bill.  50,000 baht.  that’s more than i make in an entire month!  nigga, you’s got ta be out yo goddamn mine!

i started walking out and was intercepted by the same billing staff, who said even if i declined the surgery, i still had to pay for the doctor consultation.  the doctor consultation!?  that man told me nothing!!

hospital number 2:

before going to the public hospital, i enlisted a thai nurse named gate who would come and help talk some sense into these crazy doctors.  we get there and i’m talking to the one doctor but not really listening because the air con is exacerbating my chills and mosquitos keep buzzing around and i don’t have the strength to swat them down, but… i think i hear her say i can get better just taking an oral medication.

gate comes flying into the room, waving his arms like “NOPE.  you will give this man SURGERY!”  next thing i know, i’m on an operating table in the back, next to a coughing baby and a muai thai fighter who got the shit kicked out of him.  i’m back there for a good hour, watching all sorts of freak injuries roll by beds past me, when the doctor comes back, sees me, and says “oh!  i thought you went home already!”

“you thought wrong bitch.”

time to get this party started.  i lay on my stomach with my arm making a 90 degree angle, elbow out.  deep breath.

the anesthesia.  it goes in.  they don’t inject it directly into the wound, so it’s not too painf– OH WHAT THE FUCK!  THEY ARE CUTTING ALREADY!  THE ANESTHESIA ISN’T WORKING GUYS!

it was a miscalculation i was prepared to live with.  whatever they did next, i wouldn’t feel that.  right guys?  guys?

a barrage of squeezing, probing, fluids irrigating the hole in my arm, just the worse discomfort imaginable, all happening in the same concentrated spot endlessly.  about half way through, they give me another shot of anesthesia, which was about as useless as if a nurse just walked up to me and presented me with a VCR.  20 minutes of full body shock.  i was squeezing my fist so hard, that if you put a baby turtle shell in my hand, i would’ve crushed it to grain.

the next thing i know is that gate is saying “that wasn’t so bad, was it?”

“FUCK YOU GATE”

the nurse gave me a bonus tetanus shot, because i couldn’t remember if my last one was 1 year or 11 years ago, and i trudged over to pay my bill.  384 baht.  well now.  there is salvation left in this world.  11 dollars for surgery?  i can deal with that.

but please god, buddha, vishnu, zeus, isis, shiva, flying spaghetti monster, mr. miyagi… the only thing i ever ask of you celestial beings, it that you PLEASE: don’t ever put me through that pain again.

my prayers were not answered.  the story, in a reasonable world, would end here.  but it does not.

amsterdam diaries.

so when i was in amsterdam, i kept a diary.  why?  well, because i didn’t plan on remembering SHIT about the place, i thought that was obvious.  i handpicked a couple selections from that diary that i will share with you.  the first is a story:

*     *     *

last night i kicked it with 4 homies from brazil.  the night was going fine.  despite me having to wake up at 10:30 for checkout the next morning (and without an alarm clock), we were kicking it strong into the wee hours of the morning.  after a leisurely stroll through the red light district, we were back at the bar in the lobby of our hostel, the notorious “flying pig hostel”.  i had no qualms with the idea of losing precious sleep for a good fucking time.  but everything changed at 4:30 am.

the brazilians

i’m sitting down near a pool table watching two people play.  one of the brazilians, and some other clown with a mohawk.  the rest of the brazillians are sitting near the reception desk appearing to be having a friendly conversation with the bald dude working the desk.  i continue watching the match for a few minutes, a slow game between two absolutely mediocre opponents, but hey, anything is entertaining when you smoked three joints, a bubbler, and a bong… IN THE PAST TWENTY MINUTES.

and that’s when…

i see one of the brazilians, the tallest one, just turn into absolute dead weight.  he was sitting on the stool one second, and the next, he has taken on liquid characteristics and is oozing to the ground.  i notice him falling first, but i don’t say anything.  no need to alert the authorities… maybe he’s a narcoleptic?  besides, this could be interesting.

to my dismay, his friends see and catch him before he totally eats shit.  they didn’t seem that alarmed so i returned to a state of apathy.  one minute passed and he woke up.  but not in the way most people wake up… unless you consider it normal to spring up with your hands to sky, looking like a zombie punching his way out of the earth, and then belt out “HELP!” so loud that i tightened my whole body and clenched my buttcheeks together.  he did it again too, even more violently.

meanwhile his friends tried to lasso him up and get him to just sit his ass back down, but he wasn’t having it.  he started flipping out, treating his friends like total strangers, and trying to break their grip to escape.  escape to where?  i had no idea, and looking around at all the startled faces in the lobby, neither did anyone else.  and then people started looking at me, like i was somehow responsible.  sure, i came in with these guys, but aside from sharing a bedroom in the hostel and having just met them that night, that was the fullest extent of our relationship.

i made up my mind.  i had to do something.  i had to… get myself the fuck outta that environment.  no way am i sticking around for this freakout.  the freakout child started to walk around, pacing, breathing heavily, falling over, bitching babble.  i tried to play it cool.  i told his friends “he’ll be alright.  he just needs to lay down.” and that was my ruse to try to get them upstairs so they can unlock the door of our shared bedroom for which i did not have the key for.

they didn’t take the bait.  they were seriously considering the hospital.  i didn’t wanna be a dick and be like “hey guys, ignore your dying friend, just let me get the key so i can get into the room,” but i did NOT want to be here.  and i knew that the longer i stayed up, the more of a chance i would miss my checkout in the morning.  so i waited.  but no resolution was in sight.  “ugh!  this is taking forever,” i thought.  finally after about 20 mins of deliberation, i made up my mind.  “guys, just give me the key.  i’m going upstairs to sleep.”  i wasn’t helping anyway, so yes, they gave me the key and i went to bed.  i wake up two hours later to them all coming back.

“where were you?”

“the hospital”

“you guys went to the fucking hospital?”

“…yeah.”

“so what was it?”

“panic attack.”

“ah.  i’ve heard about those things.”

in actuality, i hadn’t heard of those things.  i don’t know what the fuck a panic attack is, but i DO know that this guy over here is like a ticking time bomb, and i don’t want to in his radius the next time he explodes, let alone sharing the same bunk with him.

i slept in the lobby that night.

*     *     *

so that’s the story.  i had one more thing written in my amsterdam section of my journal that i thought was pretty hilarious.  it said this:

okay so rule of thumb!  don’t smoke anything titled “amnesia haze” on a day when you have to remember things, like, you know, YOU HAVE AN AIRPLANE TO CATCH IN 3 HOURS.  well, that’s what i thought i had was three hours.  it was that small error of judgement on my part that set off a string of unfortunate instances that ultimately led me to miss my flight to sweden.

but that’s a whole ‘nother story.

warrior training, pt. 3

so i haven’t written about my muai thai adventures in awhile, and that’s because for the most part, it’s just been learning the small technical shit, and as we all know, nobody wants to read about punching things when you can be out punching things yourself.  — old irish proverb

BUT there have been a couple of exciting developments lately.  one concerns the local trainer, jahk, whom as i mentioned in my previous logs is a former superstar champion who STILL appears to be in his prime.  i learned that he had some kind of foot injury/breakage that is the likely cause of him not fighting anymore.  he was demonstrating a kick once and when he lightly hit the bag with his foot he folded like a lawn chair.

nonetheless, i think we’re starting to bond.  when i was leaving the gym the other day, the stars aligned and i actually understood what he asked me in thai, which was “have you been making friends in thailand?”  i said i was, and then he asked if we were friends.  “rao pen pooan gan,  chai mai?”  waiting for me to respond affirmatively, i delivered a resounding yes and then high fived the shit out of his hand.

as i walked home that day, i knew what had to be done.  no more living in a foreign country and completely ignoring the local language.  when i got home, i was going to find a thai school in bangkok and enroll in private lessons.  it wouldn’t be cheap, but the results would be prominent and immediate.  plus i would get to talk to jahk, my hero, not to mention up my muai thai game.

and getting back to the muai thai itself, i learned something today.  which is that i will be fighting.  in a match.  for real.  december 5th, the day it goes down.  i don’t know where.  i don’t know against who.  i don’t know diddly squat except for, being my first match, if i win, i get 300 baht.  9 dollars.  shit cousin, i’ll do it for free!

the one thing i’m not as adamant about is what my fellow boxers and coaches are asking that i do to prepare for the fight.  give it up.  all of it.  FUN.  sex, drinking, smoking, those little scrumptious cappuccino almond rolls i did a nude photo shoot with in the previous blog.  most fighters i hear about in the professional world train for a soul-destroying three months before they have a match, but i…i just can’t.  one month, maybe.  three?  suck my sock.  now if i lose, which lets face it, given my haphazard determination seems very likely, i’ll be cool with it.  i did man up and fight, after all.  but i’m not going down without a fight.  it’s gonna take more than a few broken ribs to keep this mamma jamma down.

december 5th.  mark your calendars

married for a week

most people don’t know this, but in recent times, i was actually married.  i’m not gonna say WHEN this was, because i’m not even gonna say WHO this was, and if i said when this happened, you could figure it all out.  hell, i’m sure most of you could figure it out anyways, and it’s not like i give a damn.  i just wouldn’t want her to be like “I CAN’T GET INTO HIGH SCHOOL BECAUSE OF THAT STORY YOU WROTE!!”  oh shit that just narrowed it down a tad bit.  ermm…moving on

so i learned a lot from my trial marriage.  nah fuck that.  i learned one thing.  i… could never, ever, ever, everevereverev (*passes out*) get married.  that’s not to say that my marriage wasn’t awesome.  it was, in many ways, ideal and perfect.  but that’s only because we knew that, when one week expired, so would our marriage.  if i had the same thing, but was constantly reminded that this was something i was STUCK in regardless of how i felt about it, then i would just figuratively go bananas and start killing people.  (that’s an expression, right?)

before i delve into details, since i can’t say her name… oh shit!  that narrows it down even more!  what i meant was, since i can’t say HIS or HER name, we’re just going to give her an alias.  i shall call her… clarissa from clarissa explains it all.  that’s got a nice ring to it.  wait but that also means i’ll have to type that a thousand times, and my fingers are calloused from choking the store clerk at 7-11 this morning.  (it’s a long story).  wait a minute!  i’ve got it!  i’m gonna call her… (*strikes a gong*)  MY WIFE

so what was notable about our marriage?  a lot.  let’s make this easy on the reader (i’m there for you dawg) and bulletpoint this shit

• i had to kick my wife out of the building anytime that i wanted to make a shit
• didn’t get anything done.  like my production output was as low as my pants are right now.  and i just took my pants off and threw them on the floor.  THAT’S how low it was
• “eating out” was a much more enlightening experience.  and yes i’m talking about eating food, you clowns
• my eyebrow ring got tangled in her hair and ripped out of it’s socket.  i tell people this happened during a “hug”, which i guess is technically true.  it’s just that the hugging was done with legs and not arms
• i was the proverbial breadwinner in our marriage.  i bought my wife lots of shit, and ya know, i didn’t really mind.  but there’s no way i could do this joint account shit full time.
• it wasn’t always about the sex.  it usually was, but not always
• we held hands.
• my friends would make comments like, “now that girl, she is girlfriend material”  and i was like, “no dickhead, she is wife material.  one week wife material”
• my wife could go out and do her own thing
• she got jealous when she saw me talking to an ex-fling.  reminded me that jealousy is a natural human reaction… well, for all you people with hearts and souls.

in summary, marriage is great when there is a timer attached to it.  incidentally, relationships that are destined to fail/end/implode in my face are the only kind i engage in.  no really.  marriage is not something that offers you the option of taking some time off because you wanna travel, or because you care about the other person and you need some rejuvenation period so that you can go back to them in the future and everything will feel fresh again.  it has one or two privileges that come attached with it (a tax break NOT being one of them, because if you choose to spend a lifetime with one human being to save a couple bucks, you are, essentially, prostituting yourself), but most of this can just be extracted from a normal relationship.  i’m starting to go off on a tangent here, and i’ll save my “why marriage sucks” speech for another day, so

IN SUMMARY (for real this time), being married was… surprisingly fun.  to my wife, although you are no longer with me, our time spent was short and sweet.  if i ever see you again, i’ll be ready to do it all over again… as long as it doesn’t exceed one week.

the ten commandments (for avoiding ladyboys)

1.  if she seems too good to be true….she is

2.  the darkness is her personal servant, and she will use it as a weapon against you.  plus, can you really trust your vision in a dark club when you’ve had four buckets of vodka redbull?  i know i can’t.  therefore, i ask of thee: GET SOME LIGHT ON HER FACE.  invite her to be in a photo with you.  if she’s against it, SKEPTICISM.  give her a cigarette and then offer to light it, but keep missing the cigarette cause you are really combing her face for masculine properties.  or just carry a giant flashlight around with you like i do.

3.  hand and foot size.

4.  voice.  this one seems obvious, but sometimes you like to say, “well maybe it’s just a cute girl with an unfortunate vocal situation” and let her good looks sway you away from the fact that she sounds like the lead singer from the band “o children” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uh1o_03ilQY).  immediately get skeptical when a girl has a voice deeper than you.  unless your name is alvin.  and you are a chipmunk.

5.  THE POWER OF THE QUESTION: do not, i repeat, do not be afraid, in times of doubt, to flat out ask your POI if they are a lady boy!!  everyone i have ever known to be pretty sure they were chatting up a ladyboy, and came right out and asked, recieved a truthful answer.  ladyboys can’t lie.  i mean, why would they?  it’s their life, they chose it, and they’ve got nothing to hide, right?  (except that schlong tucked between their legs)

6.  choice of clubs.  there are some clubs in bangkok which are known hooker and ladyboy clubs.  if you meet a girl there, ASSUME she is one of the two.  and if you meet a girl who doesn’t fall into this category, consider yourself lucky.  extremely.  well, but then again, it’s you we’re talking about, so there’s probably something else wrong with her… (oh come on!  i’ve seen the ladies you bring home.  nothing to beat your chest about)

7.  ladyboys tend to roll solo.  ask who she is there with.  “nobody?  just you and your penis, i see?”

8.  ladyboys are more aggressive than most women.  they might brush by you erotically or stare at you seductively and, let’s face it, real women aren’t into those kind of machinations

9.  clothing choice is conspicuous.  inspect your suspect for anything that could hide a boy’s anatomical parts easily, like a LONG OPAQUE SKIRT, some baggy pants, a sarong, one of those bear-hide carpets that rich people always have in the movies, a twister mat, a pizza box, or something of that breadth

is that...britney spears!??

10.  shakira said it best: “hips don’t lie”.  what do women do?  pop out babies.  thus, they need a solid set of hips to accomodate the baby popping.  if you don’t see at least a slight curve of the hips, chances are she wasn’t ever meant to have babies in the first place.  (*austin powers voice*)  that’s not your lover, it’s a man, baybee!

warrior training. part 2

day 2:

the challenge was significantly upped during my return to the gym.  also, my translator, old man tea, dropped me off and said, “you’re on your own now.”  sooooo that’s it;  i’ve officially relinquished the concept of verbal communication.

after taping my hands up and throwing gloves on, i had my first opportunity to enter the ring.  here, the former champion jahk, invited me to chase him around the ring and throw 1-2-3-4 punch combinations, topped off with a kick.  sometimes when i kicked he wouldn’t even bother blocking, and just cooly lean back and watch my bony leg swing right in front of his face.  we did these drills for an hour and a half before i retired to dumbells and chest exercises.

as i walked home, cutting through a homely little neighborhood, a passerby named sue-pop started chatting me up and invited me into his house to show me something.  i had no idea what it would be, but judging from his chizled appearance, i guessed that it would be something pertaining to athletic achievements of some sort.  it was athletic achievements of some sort.  this guy had a shitload of trophies and medals, all won from boxing.  and then he showed me a large framed picture of him in a ring and said “atlanta.  olympics.”  wh-wh-what!?

and then a golden retriever brushed up against my leg.  i hit the deck because i expected to see a vietnamese guy wearing a bib, chasing the dog with an axe, laying stake to tonight’s dinner.  but then i remembered i don’t live in vietnam anymore.  i shook the man’s hand and promptly returned home.

day 3:

-starting to rapid fire kick (one lightning charged kick followed by another, and another, and another)

-added some more punching combos, and HOOKS

-shadow boxing while traversing across the ring.  when i would run out of space, i would throw a HUGE spin kick, bounce off the ropes, and begin violently punching the air going in the other direction.

-starting to understand simple thai phrases.  like “jep maak” (that shit hurts!) and i was able to convey, in thai, that i had to be at work by 4.  but what is “tong tong“?  jahk is always saying it

-KNEES.  i SUCK at knees.  jahk can rattle a punching bag with his knees.  i just awkwardly smidge it a little to the side.  MUST IMPROVE

day 4:

my mentor jahk wasn’t there.  so i trained alone.  punchin’ and kickin’ the bag.  some guy who was loungin in the rocking chair ended up coming over and teaching me a few tricks.  like, the KNEE!  the ELBOW!  the SPINNING ELBOW!  the STRAIGHT-LEG SHOULDER-SWINGING KICK!  and then, following a kick, counterattack with the LEG GUARD AND PUNCH COMBO!

the elbow is by far the most satisfying.  the whole bag, it’s chain, the CEILING–rock violently when i make collision.

it started raining, which created a nice soothing effect to counteract my struggle for oxygen.

i learned what “tong tong” means: straight.  like, “punch straight and not backwards you fucking idiot!” (pretty sure that’s what they were shouting in thai)  also learned that i gotta start running.  i HATE being out-conditioned in a sport.  if i gas out in a fight, well, FUCK DAT!  i’m gonna be able to run for 29 seconds, instead of 14.  i can do it!

why bangkok makes more sense than anywhere else in the world

1.  signs of the street names FACE you when you drive along that street.  meaning that, i don’t have to swivel my head sideways and try to read the sign quickly as i drive past it and rear end the shit out of somebody because i took my eyes off the road.

2.  all of the street food–the vast majority of it, anyhow–has a sign hovering around it that denotes the price of this mango/coffee/heart attack inducing bacon-wrapped sausage stick.  unlike cambodia and vietnam, where buying an apple is an absolute struggle and you get charged a special tax just for being a foreigner (lucky you!).  the price signs aren’t even that necessary once you learn that all of the prices in thailand are universal!  pad thai?  30 baht.  EVERYWHERE.

3.  when you buy any beverage at a convenience store, they give you a bag, your drink inside that bag, and a STRAW.  genius, right?  you see, a straw enables the liquid to enter my stomach directly, and not make a pit stop at my dental region, which is exactly what coffee has a propensity for doing, and then staying there for the next 12 hours.  straws don’t get enough love from the rest of the world.  but thailand knows what up.

4.   do you ever wake up at 4 am and say “damn.  i really wish pizza hut was open right now.”  or maybe not pizza hut.  maybe you want a subway footlong?  well, neither the pizza hut or subway shops are open 24 hours in thailand, but that’s okay, because there’s food, ALWAYS within walking distance of you, that IS open in the middle of the night/buttcrack of dawn.  bangkok loves insomniacs.

5.  price haggling.  WHAT A CONCEPT.  SOMEBODY IMPORT THIS INTO AMERICA.

6.  everything runs on a special clock in thailand, something everyone likes to refer as “thai time.”  all of the punctuality of the japanese society has no place in this one.  thai students show up for class no earlier than 20 minutes after class was scheduled to start.  even the teachers are like, “ahh, fuck it.  i’ll be late too.”  because nobody wants to get grey hairs over being a few minutes late.  first date?  better show up late.  or else your date is going to think you’re a total loser.

7.  sure, it’s another language.  and even though making those tonal sounds is a little cumbersome, thai’s are accepting toward your butcherment of their language because hey, you’re trying.  they don’t laugh at you, or throw eggs at you, but they will give you a mini-thai lesson, absolutely free.  i’ve been to other southeast asian countries where, upon failing to convey a message in the native tongue to somebody, they call other people over.  “oh great, maybe this person speaks english,” i think.  nuh-unh.  they call over the brigade so they can ALSO gawk and stare at you with a blank face.  and before you know it, you are surrounded by 20 people just staring at you with cold, dead eyes, wondering why you even attempted to speak vietnamese in the first place.

8.  everyone is smiling.  always.  it’s contagious and it minimizes your bad days.  if you just found out you had testicular cancer, i’m sure you’d have forgot about it by that night.  such is the dearth of negativity in this country.

9.  transporting yourself around is a cinch.  you have a ton of options.  will you be taking a taxi, sir?  or would you like to saddle up on a motorbike taxi?  how bout the subway?  skyrail?  care to test your fate in a TUK TUK??  (a tuk tuk, for those in the dark, is like an evil version of santa’s sled.  it’s wicked.)

10.  infinite tolerance.  you’d be hard pressed to find a country more tolerant of alternative lifestyles than this. this is a country where gays aren’t just accepted, but if they go an extra step and live their life as the opposite gender, then that is just peaches.  people who are poor, ugly, mustached women, fat people, midget breakdancers, hey, EVERYONE can live here, free of being chastised.

11.  living here in bangkok, sometimes you feel like you are part of the world’s biggest zoo exhibit.  there are stray dogs and cats everywhere you look.  none of them are running around, terrorizing the town with rabies.  and they aren’t neutered and living caged up in some pop diva’s purse.  they are living free lives, the same as before man domesticated them.  seem pretty happy to me.

12.  you can get away with most anything here, because the thai people will let you, but that doesn’t mean they are pushovers.  not in the slightest.  there are few cultural taboos here, but they do exist, and if you break one, then thai people have the ability to go from fun loving smiley guy to muai thai world champion in a matter of seconds and make sure you think twice next time you think about urinating on that buddha shrine.

13.  hedonism is a central part of the culture.  it seems like everyone’s got a tattoo, or is getting a massage, conversing with hookers, and so forth.  if it feels good, why not?  that seems to be a running theme around here.

warrior training. part 1

and so… the journey begins.  and it all started with a man named TEA.  old man tea, my thai food advisor and local alley cat delivered me exactly what i asked for.  i knew what i wanted; a large, clean, air-conditioned, foreigner-friendly, easily accessible muai thai gym was not it.  no.  i wanted that grungy, janky, beaten-down, grimy, dilapidated, foreign-to-foreigners, third world gym.  and i got more than i bargained for.

i followed tea through a series of alleys, which became passageways, which became tunnels, and suddenly we were there.  i didn’t see it coming because, if you don’t walk directly in front of the entrance, no signs discern that yes, this is a muai thai boxing gym.  and you’d NEVER suspect that any talent made it’s way out of this place, let alone a champion at ratchadamnoen stadium (that’s the big one, guys).  but there is, and his name is jahk, and he was my trainer for the day.  and by “for the day”, i mean 1/2 hour, but godDAMN it was the most grueling shit ever.  endless jab, cross, kick combos.  as jahk would call out “1, 2!” i’d throw the combo, and then he’d say “kick!” and i’d swing my leg for all it was worth, like it was attached by a flabby little piece of skin, and my goal was to kick it right off.

this drill was so exhausting that i effectively forgot about the other pain that had been inhabiting my body for the past two weeks, my shredded lip and my missing tooth (that’s…another story.  (which you can read about in the previous blog entry)).  at one point, a beer-bellied man in a redbull shirt strolled in and tea barked at me to wai him (the thai version of the bow), insinuating that he was a P.O.I.  how am i supposed to differentiate between the royalty and the slack jawed yokels loafing around out front?  anyways, mr. redbull shirt is a promoter, which means that if i’m going to be fighting competitively, this is the guy to get in with.  mental note: watch myself around this guy.

the workout concluded, and i was struggling to fill my lungs with air.  jahk cooed me to the corner and dumped a bucket of Titanic-crash-site-frigid water all over me.  i went from a hot tamale to human icicle in nano-seconds.

after that, i caught my breath, stripped off the muai thai shorts they lent me, which i absolutely destroyed with ass sweat, waied the shit out of everyone (of my own, probably culturally-incorrect, accord), and i was hooked.  this was a huge moment.  when it all took place: the birth of a [champion/loser] …. that’s TBD

oh, i’ll say this.  i shocked the HELL out of all the thai guys with my “basic knowledge”.  look out y’all.  don’t think you’ve seen everything yet.