lucky number 7

Harry Nicolaides, the aussie guy jailed in here in Bangkok for crimes against the king, made it back to Melbourne over the weekend.
For fear of giving the guy undeserved publicity, I have avoided commenting until now, but he deserves some cyberroasting.
What a twat, really. The self-published book sold only 7 copies, and made its way to the Royal Palace via direct mail from the author himself., who has lived here before and should know better.
For a little bit of cheap publicity he fought the law and the law won. I hope for his sake that it will be worth all the crawleys he has no doubt contracted after his spell in Bangkok's jail system.

Burn baby burn..

The New Year's Eve Santika fire finally has a culprit.. And for the Thais, that's very important.. But for Saravuth Ariya, lead singer of band Burn, its tough cheddar.. He has been scapegoated with the blame for the blaze, clumsily diverting attention from the club owners and managers responsible for the inadequate fire escapes and layout of the tinderbox club..
It provokes all kinds of thoughts about corruption, the power of money, and the role of the police here.. Think, as a profession, they are probably to most overweight.. But i still finance their good living everytime i get pulled over on my moto.. its easier to just give them the 100 baht note and perpetuate the apathy.. are we all indirectly responsible for the Santika blaze?..

Wong on..

There is a bar in Bangkok, a wonderful bar.. Remarkable mostly for its unremarkableness and the atmosphere that ensues from the lack of pretension.. It was there on Friday night that I found myself in new friends arms singing along to unnamable deep n dirty '80s hits whose lyrics could only come back to me at 4am.. Even Wong himself was belting it out, standing barefeet on the bar, whiskey soaked eyesockets and temperament.. The beer fridge was empty and the tabs ran wild.. but Wong doesn't seem to care.. hell be there the next night, and the night after.. at least there is one decent boozey afterhours in this turvy-topsy night city..

roadrage fodder

my buddy from work had a car accident this morning.. he hit a guy who crossed the road in front of him.. all on camera, police involved, nobody killed, all good.. somehow both parties agreed to a 3,000 baht ($105) payout.. which is about two weeks wage for an average Bangkokian..

So ive been thinking of starting a business, training masochists to play in traffic and get paid for it.. there is potential there.. somewhere..

Culture 101

it was bangkok's yearly shot in the dark at a rave on saturday with Culture ONE 2009: Bangkok International Dance Music Festival.. but some major elements were missing..
namely:

• a couple of thousand pills and baggies
• a decent setting (surely there must be some forest within an hour of BKK),
  
• more of a pronounced musical line (stage genres merged and got messy)
  
• normal party schedule (things were already wrapping up by about 2am: head-out-your-front-door time)

At 1,200 baht a ticket, not sure if the kiddies got their value, although the mostly hi-so crowd are good for it,and they arent the ones who normally pay anyway..

i guess its important to push such events in asia, even if its 20 years after the fact..

from berlin to manila..

when reflecting on my location recently, i realised that i have moved from one of the most interesting cities in the world at the moment to one of the biggest shitholes.. i hope my personality and personal advancement aren't paralleling my geographic trajectories.. i just hope im not gonna end up in one of those mining towns in rural australia where everyone pretends they want to be there..

koh samed.. the hard way..

was down on koh samed over the weekend for some needed time out of bangkok.. but at every turn i encountered the people that i had fled the city from, albeit just in different disguises.. am tired of 'running from'.. gotta shift towards 'going to'..