New Story

Along with the new story "Happy Monday" I also updated "Childhood, its right here," finishing the latter up. Check it out.

Happy Monday's

The sky train, Bangkok's above ground public transport, was packed. I held a center pole and wondered about the aroma or lack thereof emitted by my arm pits. I could smell the woman jammed up against me's mascara. It was cakey and pervasive. It made me self conscious of my own body air. Michael was by the doors and scanned his head around.

"Ah fuck," he muttered. My eyebrows raised with curiosity. "You know what disgusts me," Michael said loudly, his voice rupturing the sound of the electronic voice telling us we'd arrived at Ekkamai station. "I fucking loathe sex tourists."

A fat man sitting in the middle of the car, next to a dark, petite Isaan girl looked around.

"You, you fucking sex tourist, you disgust me! You ought to be ashamed of yourself," Michael screamed pointing at the man.

The man stood up, his polo shirt barely covering his pregnant belly and glared at Michael.

"You talking to me," he said stupidly, in a Queens accent.

"Of course, you oversized lecher! And double your shame for your banal exoticism of the east!" Michael stepped out of the train and made it for the stairs.

"You little shit! You oh my wife an apology!"

I rushed after Michael. We reached the bottom of the staircase at the same time.

"Look at the sodomite lumbering down the stairs! Fuck you creep!"

"You little jerk!" The man's black hair oiled back with gel was beginning to crack and come forward into his eyes. When he was a few steps away from enforcing us to ask for forgiveness we dashed through the gates. The New York man of the world continued to lumber after us. We waited for him, then Michael taunted him one last time.
"Bet you couldn't get a woman at home because you beat 'em don't you?"
Michael shrilled with laughter and ran down the stairs. I followed, laughing hysterically.
"Let's go to Happy Monday's," I said when our mirth subsided.
We crossed the street after a few minutes of waiting for the omnipresent taxis and motorbikes to give us passage. A row of motorbike taxis waited and we each got on one.

"Ekkamai soi 11," I told the driver as we whizzed down Ekkamai. Night had fallen on the " city of angels" but the neon lights of the clubs, and the lights from the small shops still open lit the sky. We passed Santika, the bar that had gone up in flames on New Year's ever. We moved into the opposite lane for about 1,000 meters. We drove head on to the coming traffic. The driver didn't heed the laws of the road, nor did he care if he and I died in a fiery collision.

The club/restaraunt was midsized. The patio contained four tables, the inside had five. The inside of the restaraunt was lit by dull chandaliers. A pseudo bookcase ran along one of the walls. On it instead of books, were old 45 lps from the 80s; Blondie, Elvis Costello, Ziggy Stardust, The New York Dolls.
We took a seat on one of the coaches and ordered two bottles of beer.

"How are things with Kathy," I asked.
"How they usually are."
"Don't be glib."
"What changes? What is there? She asks me to be more emotional, I buy flowers, I cuddle. What does she expect?"
"What do you want?"
"From what? From her? Or in general?"
"First one, then the other."
"I want her to shut up, to quit complaining. Why do men have to be 'emotional?' Its post-feminist bullshit.What does that even fucking mean? I want you to be more 'emotional.' I'm emotional. I'm horny. I'm hungry. I'm annoyed. I'm asleep. What the fuck!?" Michael drank his beer.
"Well don't feel sorry for the things you've done."
"Then how am I supposed to do things differently?"
"I just know that guilt paralyzes. It immobilizes."
Michael sighed. "Have you ever done things you've regretted?"
"It'd be a superhuman feat not to have."
"Like what?"
"I dated this girl. It was an okay relationship... sans me. I was suffocating. I was unemployed and not in school. I demanded her presence., We spent too much time together. We broke up. She got into another relationship. I made all theses threatening collages and posted them to her. I knew what I was doing would cause me pain, she made a big stink of it and it soured my relationship with a whole group of friends."
"And then...?"
"I learned that engagin in actions has consequences. I don't cheat on my girlfriend not because I don't want too, who hasn't seen something bland in the face of a loved one, but because the consequences are too tiresome."
"Too tiresome." Michael drank from his beer and sat back on the couch.

We came to Happy Monday's for the music. When the DJ was spinning he twirled records by New Order, Joy Division, The Faint, The Smiths, Bauhaus, Sonic Youth etc. It was a gem for us. A diamond in the rough. Most clubs played top 40 R&B or Thai pop. Theirwas a solstice in the songs from the 80s. It was a golden era for its lack of self-consciousness and for its hyperbolism.

I was starting to feel drunk. We'd had a few beers at home before coming out.
"Why did you yell at that man?"
"I'm a pisser."
"You just wanted a rise out of him. It wasn't like he was doing something you've never done."
"Those soi cowboii whores were worth every penny. People constantly live without realizing the extent of their actions." Michael laughed. "I was just reminding him."

Love makes me want to puke

I've been watching a lot of channel v of late. Partly because its amusing, partly because we get to see our roommate Mike Wong on it. Every night at 8pm Wong is the VJ for a show called Asian Hero. The primetime show is a big hit with teenage girls and Wong spins out the latest Korean and Japanese hits for the kids. Korean Pop is huge in thailand now influencing style and music a great deal. A lot of the men out here have these awful K-pop haircuts that look sort of like emo mullets. There are some redeeming aspects of Korean Pop, the girl bands. Below is Girl's Generation a 9 member girl band who are disgustingly cute. It makes me want to puke. The second video is by the Wonder Girls. Wong is due to interview them next week. He's got a one in five chance of one of them liking him. Pretty decent odds, although I'd like to meet Girl's Generation, then the odds are even better!

Gee


So Hot

Jogging

Our running shoes hit the pavement. The sun beat down on the back of our necks. The summer light was making my neck red, and David's more tan. Our shirts were wet with perspiration.
"How far are we running?"
"Why are you asking? We run the same course every day," I replied.
"Well, maybe today our training is a little lighter," David said laughing.
"You're incorrigible. It does remind me of how Sagapetch told me how he used to not run when his trainers told him too. He'd hide and then wet himself with water so it looked like he'd sweat."
"He's so lazy. All he does now is talk about girls, he doesn't train anymore."
"I guess that's what America does to you," I finished my sentence by picking up speed. I could hear David groan.

We ran from the gym to Lake Merritt in Oakland six times a week when we were training for a fight. After training we would do sprints on the road by the gym. Sagapetch as lazy as he was would always yell at us if we took too long to run around the lake.

"How's the girl," I asked David after ten minutes of running. We were by the south side of the lake. We were going over a bridge and there was a small beach to the north. On the south side was a small highway that led into East Oakland.

"She's okay. She's trying to get me to go back to school."
"Go back to school? But then you won't be able to fight."
"I know."
"What do you think she's getting out of the relationship?"
"Uh, I don't know."
"I don't really think about it that much either. I think that's why Samantha left, why she cheated on me and then broke things off. I didn't know what she was getting out of the relationship, and then I guess she wasn't getting enough."
"I don't think that's a good reason for someone to cheat on you," said David betweens puffs of breath. David was huffing and puffing not because he was out of shape, nor because of asthma but because he wanted to walk. He feigned laziness and injury all the time.
"I guess there's an implicit trust walking into a relationship," I said.
"Yeah."
"How do you think training is going?"
"I wish we were doing more knee sparring," David replied.
"Yeah, more knee sparring."

Book/Media review

The last few weeks have given me an enormous amount of free time. I've been sick with a staph infection and unable to train. My time has passed slowly and has mainly been spent consuming media, largely books but a fair number of movies as well. Below are quick reviews of the various books/movies I've bit into. Oh yeah there are probably spoilers in the synopsis if you care about that shit, and if you do you're a dumb ass.

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

I know a lot of women that have read this book. It seems like everyone with a vagina has read this book, but why? The cast is almost exclusively male. Perhaps it has something to do with the kites? The book is effectively chopped into two sections. The first section is about a young bougeroisie boy growing up in afghanistan in the early 80s/late 70s. He flies kites with his best friend, Hassan, the lower caste boy that leaves next door. Hassan is raped while trying to retrieve a kite. He is sodomized by one of the local bullies who plays a role later in the book. The narrator is plagued with guilt over his cowardice and inability to stop Hassan from being raped. The narrator unable to deal with his emotions distances himself from Hassan. Fast Forward twenty years and the narrator is living in the bay area! Whoop! He spends his free time with his old man at a flea market and marries a nice afghani girl in the stall next door. He returns to Afghanistan which is torn apart by the militant Taliban. He finds out that Hassan was actually his half brother and takes Hassan's son back home with him (Hassan gets it from the Taliban). The book talks a lot about naan, rice, and kebobs which made me want indian food. The writing is decent, but the novel itself is overally sentimental. You might like it if you have a vagina.

Clandestine by James Ellroy

Before I left for Thailand I was really into reading noir novels. I read a ton of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett. I also looked into some more modern pulp/noir authors and ended up watching "The Black Dahlila" which has Scarlett Johansen in it along with this other famous dude. The movie is long and meandering.

Clandestine is much the same. Initially it starts off well with a rookie cop on a regular beat with his alcoholic, poetry spewing, partner. The two get a dog, play golf, fuck girls and talk about the wonder. The wonder is basically their fascination with the everyday life of the city. The protagonist, the rookie cop, finds a dead body, gets an award for killing a couple mexicans who run around robbing grocery stores, and marries a girl with a bum leg. He then becomes obsessed with a case involving a girl he shagged during his days as a bachelor. The book starts to go down hill from there. His marriage falls apart and 5 years later he finally figures out "who dun it." The ending is horribly soap operaish and I was glad to be reading it in a foreign country where people wouldn't notice that I was reading such garbage. The awesome thing about it is the gender dynamics. The protagonist sweeps the bum leg girl off her feet with simple lines. "Let's get drunk," "Let's go for a ride down the coast," Let's get married." I wish I was born in those simplistic days of one line seductions.

Odd and the Frost Giant by Neil Gaiman

I don't know why I read Neil Gaiman's stuff. Most of it really isn't that good. Stardust was so so, although the movie was enjoyable. Ansai Boys was quick to read, like American Gods, but both lacked substance. Caroline, one of his children's book was good with its dark "through the looking glass" style. This is another of Neil Gaiman's children's books, well more of a young adult piece. I picked it up for 60 baht, about $2, and it entertained me for an hour. The plot is okay. The winter is long, a little boy in norway, somewhere cold, has to stop the winter. He fools a frost giant (in a not particularly clever manner) and winter ends. Blah, blah, blah. The book has some neat pictures in it but not enough.

The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli

While out here I decided to read up on statecraft so I brought out "The Prince," and Clausewitz's "On War." The former is much shorter. Its also surprisingly good and has some great quotes in it. Below are some.

"This is because men are won over by the present far more than by the past..."

"I hold strongly to this: that it is better to be impetuous than circumspect; because fortune is a woman and if she is to be submissive it is necessary to beat and coerce her."

"Violence must be inflicted once and for all; people will then forget what it tastes like and so be less resentful."

"... the less a man has relied on fortune the stronger he has made his position."

Private Dancer by Stephen Leather

There are a whole slew of novels about men coming over here from some shit hole western country and going to soi cowboii, nana plaza, or pat pong, and falling in love with a bar girl. The book follows Peter, a writer doing a travel book on BKK, and Joy, a bargirl. The novel is written from a slew of different points of view, mainly Peter, some Joy, and a few spots of secondary characters. It shows clearly the cultural gap between Peter and Joy. Peter just doesn't understand Joy and she doesn't really understand Peter. Hilarity ensues which includes Joy treating Peter like an ATM, Peter being butt hurt all the time, and the other characters thinking Peter is an idiot. Peter is an love struck dumbass and dies in the end of the book. Hilarious. A quick enjoyable read.

The Stranger by Albert Camus

The Cure wrote a great song about this book. I really like it. This was the second time I'd read Camus' short, terse novel. The book, while written in an American style, think Hemingway, has a bit of french flair. The main character kills an Arab on the beach for no reason really, well the sun had him pretty hot but that's a bit of a twinkie defense. He doesn't really feel much ado about it, in fact he doesn't feel much about anything, even shagging his girlfriend. He seems pretty distant throughout the novel but is pretty clever as well. Who wants to get involved these days? Unfortunately his inability to act emotionally gets him killed. Boo hoo. The existential morale of the story is to pretend to have emotions.

Two Caravans by Marina Lewycka

This is a love story about two Hungarian migrant workers who meet while picking strawberries in england. The cover of the book has quotes that say its; "hilarious," "a funny charming rollicking road trip," those quotes are not really true. It was interesting to read about migrant workers doing shit labor but it wasn't really funny. The novel is told in a bunch of different perspectives including a dog's. The main problem in the book is the inability of the two young hungarians to communicate with each other. They always seem to talk past each other, and are unable to understand each other emotionally (note one has a penis, the other has a vagina, thus their difficulties talking to each other). They meet up with some hippies toward the end of the book which is silly. It was an okay read.

Movie Reviews

Underworld: The Rise of the Lycans

I saw the first Underworld with my twin brother James in our small apartment that I paid too much for in Santa Cruz. It was enjoyable with its heavy action, decent plot (for a b-movie), plus there were werewolves and vampires set within a class war dynamic. Huzzah! The second one was good. I think I saw it out here in Thailand. The most recent one was enjoyable. It had a fair amount of blood, a silly sex scene, and an awesome blue gray tint to the entire movie. Oh did I mention there were werewolves and vampires! Wow! The big plus of the movie was the popcorn which I bought for 50baht.

Zach and Miri make a porno

This movie, like other Kevin Smith movies, are supposed to be funny. Remember Clerks, Mall Rats? They were funny. Then Kevin Smith started to suck. Remember Jersey Girl? That movie sucked. The first twenty minutes of this movie were sort of funny. There are funny racial jokes, jokes about masturbating, and funny banter between two gay men. Then I realized it was a stupid romantic comedy that dragged on too long. That's when it sucked. Kevin Smith should quit making movies.

Before Sunrise

Ethan Hawke and some french girl meet on a train. They get off the train and talk, and talk, and talk. At one point they play pinball. They fall in love or something and promise to meet again in six months. The end. Lots of dialogue, little action, no titty shots. Probably a good date movie, especially if your girl is the real mushy type. Has a sequel which I plan on watching soon.

The Edge

Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin get stuck in the woods. They fight a bear. Yes, they fight a bear. Its sort of bitchin. Alec Baldwin was boinking Hopkins wife. Hopkins is the bigger man. Baldwin tries to kill Hopkins and fails, then he dies because he falls into a bear trap. There was obvious foreshadowing earlier in the movie about the bear trap proving once again that Alec Baldwin is an idiot. Although he did boink Christina Applegate or whatever that hoe's name was which I guess gives him some credit. I would have never watched this movie if I wasn't bored out of my mind and in the hospital.

The Ball with the Woman in the Red Dress

The Princess of Paragon, the hier to vast amounts of Bangkok baht, extended her invitation to the ball held in her commercial castle. I knew her through a decadent friend of mine, Michael. Michael was a well known rake in the city of angels. The festivites were held on the fifth floor of the mall and the gates would be shut at 11pm, an idea the princess, Ploy, had thought of herself. The gates wouldn't allow anyone in, nor out, til the sun rose, its rays cutting through the thick, Bangkok smog.

I bought a suit at a sukumwit tailor's shop two days before, just for the event. It fit tight against my body and was the latest cut. I'd admired myself repeatedly in it, modeling it in front of a mirror prior to my depature.

When I'd arrived at 10:45 the other guests had already arrived. The party held society's nouveau rich, young popular models with bleached eurasian looks, fashinastas clad en masse in orange pants and women's blazers, high class whores with dark skin and flat noses, a small group of falang in suits, girl groups from Korea, and a boy band from Japan...

I moved about the party orienting myself. The floor was divided into a series of rooms depicting a separate fantasy of Ploy's creation in each one.

The first room was all white. A white sofa sat in the midst of the room. Several Thais lounged on the furniture talking in their indecipherable dialect. A white light shone down on the group lightening their skin to an alabaster hue. They bathed in the light.

In another room were a multitude of mirrors whose reflections shifted as you stared at them. I was as one man's image transitioned. His suit became more defined, his groin grew as if he had a sizeable erection or wore a cod piece. His broad smile became wider and his teeth gleamed a pearly white. The image was endearing, desirable. I wanted to live in that body to inhabit it completely. My head shook side to side and my eye caught the inspiration . The real man was a portly short beast with a mouth of rot for teeth. Disgusted I walked away.

I moved into another room reeking of lust. A nude woman stood on a stage and twirled candles through her fingers. She bent over backwards letting wax drip down her naked breasts. She became erect as her nipples and pioured the hot candle wax down her grown. The wax affixed itslef to her cunt lips.

In the corner of the room three young men sat on a couch chatting watching the woman slowly cover dance with the flames. The middle man's pants were pulled down and his shirt partially rolled up. A dark skinned Isaan woman kneeled before him. Her head moved up and down his white cock. Her hand played with his balls. I grabbed an unopened beer from a cooler and watched. The woman's lips ran down his dick and then she swallowed his penis. He looked at her and his body went rigid. A moment later and he relaxed. The woman got up and spat semen on the floor. His friends laughed. I left.

I moved about the rooms, watching each fantasy, each era, each idea brought to life. Occassionally I would join in the festivity if it struck my fancy. It was around one o'clock when I saw the rice paddy girl in her fine red dress. I wondered if she wore matching negligee. I grabbed her arm and pulled her into me. She spoke to me in her Siamese babble.

Slowly and loudly I said to her "Do you not understand... 'I am going to fuck you slut?'" Laughing I bent her over and pushed up her dress. She wore a scarlet lace thong. I guffawed and slapped her buttock. She laughed or sobbed, I couldn't tell which, nor did I care.

I left her and went to the toilet. The men's room was empty. I went into a stall and dropped my pants. I let the back of my legs rest on the toilet seat while my sphincter relaxed and tightened letting out the shit from my colon in six inch logs. I sat for a moment on the seat letting my eyes wander over my thighs.I popped a small pimple on my near my groin. The pus shot from it and landed on my naked forearm. I had rolled up my sleeve to make easier to wipe my ass after shitting. After snickering I took toilet paper from the dispenser and cleaned my sphincter.

I went to the sink to wash my hands. I looked up at the mirror above the sink. I noticed a red mark on my neck. It was a round bump, a hurtful pimple, an almost boil. Washing it did nothing. My fingers grasped it and pulled it away from my skin. It ruptured and a thick trail of yellow gooze came forth like lava from an erupted volcano.

While I cleaned the gooze, the woman in red ran into the bathroom. She spat on the floor and dived into one of the stalls. I could hear her retching.
"Perhaps I'll look at her gash, see if its worth a mash," I said out loud, my voice echoing in the urinals.

I took off my shirt in advanced preperation for my moments of coitus.I looked in the mirror. The image was handsome, moment by moment it became even more so. I put my hand in my pocket and fondled my cock. I turned back towards the stall. I looked downward at my erection and noticed that my upper arms were covered in pustules, little white blisters. I squeezed one and an almost clear liquid gushed out, it dripped down my arm. I washed off my arm in the skin. The open pustule still oozed. I rubbed it with soap, willing it away. I gazed the handsome reflection, it restored confidence. The my eyes went back to my body and I noticed a traill of pus filled pimples running down my thigh. I took off my pants. I slapped my thigh, trying to smash the pimples out of existence. My hand came up slathered in slime.

I washed my hands and washed them again.I ripped off the soap dispense off the wall and broke it open. The heavy bag of pink soap was still one third full after I'd covered my body in liquid cleanser. I let the cleanser sit on my skin protecting me from the bacteria in the air.

I sank to the ground. The woman in the stall laughed or sobbed. I couldn't tell which

Childhood, why its right here

With my child sense of grandeur the lot was gigantic, the bases miles apart and the bleachers behind home platepacked, brimming with parents, all of whom knew my name. I tapped the pate with the bat and nervously pulled up my shorts, then pulled down the brim of my hat. The hat was logoed like the other teams'. Our caps were initial P.A.M, standing for Pacific Atlantic Meters. The town's ode to industrialism was a factory in the eastern part of the town that made gas meters. One third of the fathers of the players on the field worked as assembly line workers in the plant.

Nathan Poole stared at me. He was always staring. His cap was slanted. The jersey and matching cap attested his commitment to the game. For the first few years of the minor league program the boys were given jerseys by their sponsors. Little Italy one of the town's celebrated pizzerias had discovered a cheaper way to mark young athletes, hats. Not only did hats survive the playing season in better condition but were also more adjustable than the oversized jerseys the boys were given.

Nathan filled his jersey out. A predilicition for milk and an early puberty gave him the profile of a man. It also allowed him to throw a stunningly fast pitch that would burn the hands of the fat, lazy, catcher, Mike Biggs. Biggs was enrolled in the summertime sport not for his love of the game, for which he had none, but instead to foce him outdoors and into social situations with his peers. Biggs and I were good friends until he discovered his father's magazines, not pornography but science fiction. Biggs endlessly read and reread Isaac Asimov stories. When he did go out, foced by his mother, he would endlessly blather about robots and would want to play games in which we were cyborgs, whatever that was.

Poole's first pitch slammed into Biggs' mitt and when I heard the catcher moan I swung my bat. The bat sliced the empty air.

"Ssssstttteeeerrrrike Uno," exclaimed Mr. Durie. A lanky man with a penchant for international humor, Mr. Durie wagged his finger at the crowd. Bigg's let his hand recover then lobbed the ball to Poole. The ball fell short and Poole made a long walk from the pitcher's plate to where the ball resided on the turf.

"You throw like a girl, fatty," Poole said to Biggs.
"AS if thee comments of a modern neanderthal would insult a sapien like myself," Biggs replied chortling.
"Eat some bacon, piggy!"
"Boys, boys, no need to mouth off. Nathan pitch the ball, the game is almost over and I want some root beer." Mr. Durie had a prediliction for exotic root beer that I'd never heard of. It made his eyes blood shot and his breath stink.
"What a grade A jerk," Biggs said to me. "Hey, you wanna hit that ball?"
I nodded dumbly, fantasies of hitting a homerun and being the neighborhood pride quickly filled my imagination.
"Just swing when I say so."
I nodded, looked at the sun, daring it to blind me and then at my foe, Nathan Poole. I felt trapped, no place to go, I would die before fleeing.
"Swiiing," screeched Biggs.
My arms whipped the bat around, my shoulders torqued and my hands felt the vibration of the bat connecting with the ball. I dropped the bat and scurried my way to first base. My grandslam made it to the left field where the dexterous David DeGeorge picked it up and delivered it to Poole who glared at me angrily knowing that a fluke like me couldn't have been able to hit one of the county's fastest speed balls.

"Got any gum," Justin Wainwright, the first baseman asked me distracting me from Poole's hateful gaze. Wainwright had a sweet tooth and was well known for falling asleep with a tootsie pop in his mouth. He'd brag about his elaborate dental work done by the town's dentist and his father.

My sweaty hands frisked my pockets.
"Nah, don't got any," I said.
"This stick is losing all its flavor and doesn't really blow bubbles that good. Why they call it bubblegum, if you can't blow bubbles with it? They should call it slightly flavored taffy instead. When I open my candy factory my bubblegum will have long lasting flavor, long lasting, oh damn," Justin said. His rant ended by the thwack of the ball and bat.

My teammmate, Brett, ran towards me. I jumped and ran to 2nd base, considerably further then I'd ever made it before.
My palms dripped with sweaty anxiety. It was such a short distance to home plate! The next hit whizzed over my head. The outfielder fumbled the ball which allowed me to get to third base with ease.

With bases loaded the pressure was on. Poole visibly tightened. Biggs shifted closer to the batter. Pete Putriment had, like myself, never hit a ball that wasn't set up for him on a tee. He was given more to daydreaming than athletics and had a distant air to him, like a wispy cloud in a blue summer sky.

The first pitch came straight down the pipe. Pete swing and missed. The second pitch again was a swing and a miss. I could see Biggs inch closer to Pete with each throw. The last ball whacked Pete on his arm. He looked down at the ball whose motion he'd arrested with his limb. There was a brief commotion as Pete was checked out. Nathan swung his hands up in disbelief and then sat on the mound. Then everyone began to walk.

I made it to home plate and grinned to myself I could hear Biggs laughing.
"Eat more bacon huh, huh? What's eating you, Nathan," I heard Biggs mutter.
I sat on the bench and dreamed of an ice cream cone with a red candy shell. I could almost taste the sugary sweet coating on the soft serve vanilla. The sun shone down on me and I wondered how many days exactly had passed since my birth.