off the grid

sorry about the delay, man, but things have gotten out of control as the time dwindles. it always happens: things ramp up and people realize we have 2 days left to get everything we need. they start jumping and shouting and things actually get slower. and louder. and more stressful. but alas, i am out of the woods for shooting. finished in a flurry of activity. some highlights:

last night's dinner with pi song (mifune)-his favorite chicken stand

jaywalking in bangkok at night

jaywalking in bangkok in the day

some giant street market situation with loads of smelly indian men (confirming my desire to avoid india. i will eat indian food in london, thank you very much. all the pros without all the poverty, crowds, smells, and devastation.)

staying in a new hotel (this one has hot water!! how luxurious!!) but i forgot to take my computer, hence the lack of posts

traveling 5k in an hour and a half (yeah traffic!!)

watching the waitress get scared out of her wits by a rogue elephant at pi song's chicken stand

getting scared out of my wits by a rogue elephant at pi song's chicken stand (actually, it was not rogue but was being walked by a couple of down on their luck types. you pay them 20 baht or like 60 cents and they give you a bag of sugar cane to feed the little guy. he was two years old and about 7 feet tall. hairy. he trunk would reach into your hand and suck up the cane like a slimy vacuum attachment. he has sad sad eyes. apparently this type of activity is illegal in bangkok but so many folks used elephants to make their livings years ago that it has kind of clung on. i mean, come on...homeless guys in the states just fucking lay there. these guys had an elephant! none of this "why lie, i need a beer" shit. they had an actual elephant. i paid them and smiled. and then had to eat my meal with an elephant snotted hand. if i get sick, i will blame the elephant. so far, i feel fine.)

room service at the new hotel (i am tired)

traffic

hot hot heat

coming home monday

peth maak/the weirdest thing i have eaten

dude. another night that started out so ordinary that just exploded in an unseen direction. about 2 weeks ago, spencer and i were shooting a really simple scene on the beach in ao nong (near krabi) and-remember, it is monsoon season-the heavens opened up. we scurried back to our massage parlor trailer (shit, i wish i were that good of a writer to come up with some of this stuff) and played spendy. well, last night, it was the make up. which means a 2 hour drive out to some horrid beach town after an already long, slow day of work. guh. the fun started when on the way out to this joint, we passed through a town called si racha and i, being the wonderful smart/dumb ass that i am, asked if they had any hot sauce here. well, the joke was on me, because, yes, that is actually where that wonderful rooster sauce called si racha comes from. see, i thought it was sri racha and did not know it was thai. well, it is. so eat up!

baen sen beach has a distinct el segundo/dockweiller vibe. factories close behind. lame path with vendors. phalang resorts. but it all changed when the crew, waiting for dark, kind of just dispearsed only to reappear with boxes of food. crazy food. we had just eaten lunch, but these crazy asians love to eat the good shit. that is when i heard half of the grips sucking in air and waving their hands in front of their mouths. i had to get in there and see what was blowing the tongues of the hardest thais i know. and it was hot, sean. really hot. in a creep up on you kind of way. fuck, man. it was just a salad. that damn papaya salad with bits of crab in it. it's like a baited trap-so damn delicious and impossible to stop eating. then, like 5 bites in, the crowd going crazy for me, i feel it. nothing embarrasing happened. i even had a few more bites, but pet maak. pet maak maak. they all laughed and told me i was just super. respect through hot ass food.

as my mouth was surfacing, neung (whom i think i have mentioned before) slapped me on the knee and said, with enthusiasm that is impossible to convey on a blog, "dancing shrimp!!!!"
anyone who is that excited about something means you should immediately grab your camera and go along. we walked over to a guy with a doctored motorbike which had an aquarium balanced on it. i think you see where this is going now. i leaned my head in (and whacked it so fucking hard, by the way, i am too big for this country, you would be in hospital with multiple concussions) to get a good look at his tank. it was filled up with tiny shrimp darting every which way. they looked like a swarm of bees. except clear. neung ordered up a box (she made him make it pet maak for the phalang with the leather tongue) and bank (pronounced "bang," our sound guy) closed it tight and held it up to my ear. the little guys were pinging off the top of the box. it sounded like microwave popcorn about 2 minutes in. bank kept the lid on tight and then opened it just enough for me to get a spoon in there. the first load all escaped into the night air in my confussion. i paused a bit too long on the journey to my mouth. they just danced right off the spoon. my next bite hit the target though. the good news: they stop dancing by the shock of being in your mouth. or the biting through them. not sure which, but you don't actually feel them moving in any way. also good: they taste damn good. damn damn good. i was worried about the shell but the fuckers are so young they have not had any time to get a good shell on. soft and fresh. dancing shrimp. as spencer said, well, i have done that now and don't need to again. dancing shrimp. good old thailand.

spencer and the spendy

in the trailer with some spendy...good ole spendy. i am up 7-1 (including spencer's recent forfeit after i slammed down "carried" for 72 on the third turn yesterday).

more separated at birth

again, the pics don't do this justice...but we have our producer urs brenner and quagmire from the funny and well known american animated comedy "family guy."

separated at birth...

alright sean...i am a bit at a loss for funny tales. had a great dinner last night. work is long. yeah yeah yeah..so, separated at birth. here we are. our dp pi song and toshiro mifune. the pics hardly do it justice.

death cab ride home

yo man...again, sorry for the delay but we have been humping it of late. traveled back up to the big mango that is bangkok and then had got hijacked on my day off (hahahaha) to get zee papers and then a press conference that was actually just a dog show (jim brolin and spencer and some other bitch in this movie who has no credits were told to sit still while the thai press grilled us on thailand and how great the movie we have yet to finish/see is). anyway, it was all a build up to traffic. we think we have it bad in la la land. man. if i complain about only getting a bit slow on the ten, i will remember my commutes here. an hour and a half this morning to go just about 35 kilometers. granted, we did end up in a riot zone. i think the international press is all over the story, but there are giant demonstrations going on in bangkok at the moment (thai's are crazy about the king-i mean, hitlerian levels of devotion-more on this later). this morning on the way to work, we managed to drive directly through the protest and right past the police lines. we were the only "civilian" vehicle around for a mile. nice work guys. literally, right in the middle of about 200 cops, we just drove right in (obviously) without the proper identification. all of this was a great lesson in how things work around here with traffic and cops (also, fyi sean, the cops wear really tight trousers. i mean, really tight. kind of weird and femme. and brown.) while the cars are stopped. you think things would mellow out when they get moving but not at all...i actually saw a guy riding a bicycle down the highway. the wrong way. in the fast lane. wow. and it wasn't just a bike, it was actually some type of storefront cart. and no one cares. this was a major six laner, too, not some version of sunset. we are talking the 101 here man. and on our way home, spencer and i were just cracking our chang beers (yes, it has come to getting beers for the ride home and i learned tonight that i can open a beer with a razor-spencer called me macgeyver!!) when the driver actually stopped on the highway. from about 90 k/hour to a dead stop in about 500 feet. i don't think the tires squeeled, but they may have. we held our brews tight and wondered what we had just avoided hitting. the answer: nothing. he simply had missed his exit and rather than doing all those pesky safe things like taking the next exit and turning around, he just put on the hazards and went in reverse. down the highway. we clutched our giant bottles and said, repeatedly, it was a nice life, nice to have met you, etc. we, of course, were turned around watching the oncoming headlights careen our way. they all just kind of feathered around us. nary a honk was heard. we were in reverse sean. on the highway. the wonders never cease here.

the jungle

Sean:

Sorry to belie the title of your blog but since I am taking you on this tour of southeast asia, it would be almost impossible not to talk about the power of the jungle in this place. It is everywhere here, doing what jungles do-taking over the roads and throbbing into the cities and being dense and green and powerful. They are unimaginable. When I have been hiking around (whether at work or play-tons of scenes of the movie have been shot in the coffee fields south of krabi and “coffee field” actually means jungle with coffee trees in it ((by the way, coffee trees are kind of cool and only grow about 9-10 feet. Quite pretty. And the coffee harvest here lasts only 3 weeks a year, so for the other 49 weeks, they just do their thing and the farmers grow palms (for oil) or rubber (for rubbers))), one has some of the same feelings when surfing, “I am in nature’s hands,” or “ I am soooo small.” Something like this. The sun is blocked out and the earth is always sweating and pulsing and air is suffocating. Another thought that comes to my head is what the hell this place would have been like if someone had been shooting at me. Maybe because we were boys who played war and are just old enough to have never really had to deal with one, it is easy to slip into that mindset. You feel the 60 pound pack. You hear dick ritter yelling at you (well, I guess not him since he was sipping mai tai’s in the city). You can’t help but raise your umbrella to the “ready” position. What our boys must have gone through. I am not getting political or patriotic, but man, we were fucked. Not in the wrong (read another blog for that shit), just fucked. You could train for a thousand years in the states but until that first wave of jungle grabs your ankles, you have no idea. These people have been here for thousands of years and it is deeply in their blood. They take the heat and the effort and the secrets of the place to heart. It is theirs. We had no business trying to take it (again, not in the political sense, just the actual sense) because we could not possibly get it away from them. If you could just hear the jungle hum and zip as you simply pound through it. The way the logs look sturdy and then explode under your foot-the termites the size of your big toe. The things that slither off as you round a corner. This place is remarkable on so many levels but you cannot help thinking of how foreign it is on so many levels. A million of our boys came over and felt that same thing just 40 years ago. Our mother’s friends. Just one generation off. I am sorry they died here. I am sorry they had to hate this place. i am sorry they never got the chance to just glide through the jungle and memorize the patterns of the falling leaves and the centipede trails. To the Vietnamese, it was just a part of their long history of war. No better or worse than any other. But to Americans, it looms large in our heads and hearts. I kind of think I know why now, even if most Americans don’t.

finally some real waterfall pics

the pictures are working.  sort of.  mutiny is on the bounty around here.  bad internet.  long hours.  no days off.  seriously, seven days a week and 15 hours days.  not a good combination.  there is a distinct "you are not selling xerox copiers" feeling in the air.  guh.  also, the little people in the previous shot are full grown adults.  not kids.  good times.

big small things/small big things

pone

Sean:

Man. It has been hectic around here. Thais don’t like hectic. They kind of panic and forget things. It is not in their nature. In so many ways, I feel like this is the Italy of Asia. Without all the yelling and the lip hair. And good fashion. Oh, and they kind of don’t have any major works of art that matter to me. But other than that, just the same. They have a slow, lackadaisical approach to life, especially when it comes to eating. They take their time and enjoy every bite. We seem to live by this motto in the states and it is nice to see it as a countrywide practice over here. Every girl knows the best dish on the menu and they always finish their plates. They tend to like beer. And spicy food. That makes every meal kind of fun. But when things pick up, like on a movie set, they tend to forget some major things. When I put my shoes on this morning for a nice little scene in the airport, I felt a bit of something in the front of my loafers. i took it off and gave it a good shake and into the heal plopped a rather large portion of corn bread. Or possibly corn pone. There was certainly some weight to it-the fat content must have been higher than usual. Maybe some of my sweat had congealed things a bit. But man. Corn bread? In my shoe? I just lolled over to the director and made him hold his hand out and dumped the contents into his palm. He kind of freaked and then laughed…the night before, there was a lovely bit where a dog was supposed to “eat” my shoe. The corn bread was the bait. And the thais just kind of forgot it. Huh. They like things a bit slower around here I guess.

Blog Hijack #3 / Lucky #17

In case you were wondering what the future holds, Sean, Thailand knows. Fortune telling is conveniently located in your neighborhood temple. And, so you know, Buddha doesn't go in for any of that tea leaves/palm reading malarkey. Buddha is efficient. He uses a bulletin board. Its 28 fortunes correspond to numbered lacquered sticks, one of which you have drawn from a cup. And you can re-pick if you don't like your lot in life. I liked mine, #17, just fine so no need to double dip:

"Bright future and success is yours. Never in a lifetime that you'll be wretched. You'll be loved and kind by all. You'll always have good fortune like a fruitful plant never lack of fruits. Asking of a spouse, you surely will find one. If you're expecting a child, it's certain that a baby will be born. Your cousins and escaping debtors will be in touch. For you who are involved in a lawsuit, you're likely to win the case."

Hear that, Sean? Never in a lifetime that I'll be wretched. I am like a fruitful plant that never lack of fruits.

Never.

don't go chasing waterfalls

Hey man…

Hope you are enjoying the east coast and your family…you should have your own blog. And it better be funny, damnit.

Things are getting a bit busier around here. Working the looooong days. 15 hours easy and none of those pesky sag rules that keep me in the sleep and trailer. Just a chair (if I am lucky) and 5 hours off or so for the weekend. We pulled a hard night on Saturday until 5:30 am which basically killed our day off Sunday. The call for Monday: a dreadful 6 am. Guh. I tried to make myself sleep and then tried to make myself wake up on Sunday so I could get to bed that night and have a decent night’s rest. Spencer and I decided to hit up one of the islands just off the coast here but the rains had a different idea. The sky was dark and turning and we were beat down. Our driver, kwan, recommended we go to the waterfall just 50 k away and we begrudgingly agreed. Sometimes it is easier to just say yes than to try and have things translated, especially things like I am not able to hold my eyes open or riding in the back of this van on these less than paved roads is hurting my neck. But alas, we made it. And man. It changed the whole of my (minute) weekend. Turns out this waterfall is a national park and is a seven tiered wonder spanning almost 600 meters. Spencer and nueng (one of the wonders that is Thailand) climbed up past kids doing back flips into the shallow pools near the bottom. We thought that was kind of it but then noticed the idea of a path into the jungle. I am not sure when the last time you hiked in the jungle was, but I am sure you did not wear flip flops and shorts. It does not make the climbing any easier. And I say climb because that is what it turned out to be for much of the way up. Hand over hand, tight, winding path that just disappeared into the clouds overhead. The three of us stopped about 30 minutes up the way and spencer made a dash for the pool at the base of the third tier. Nueng joined him. I had to press on. Buy stock in rainbow flip flops. Man, they held their own up there. Slipping and sliding and dripping sweat for another 30 minutes I up, I was beat and, honestly, a bit scared of the jungle. By now, it was not the tame, friendly place near the bottom. Dark, loud, and buggy as fuck. I kept stepping onto logs that just burst from my weight, the insides ravaged long ago by some termite hoard, each one the size of you thumb. By the time I reached the pool where spencer was, he was almost ready to get out. He jumped right back in thought when I learned we could jump off the cliff over looking the pool. Then he jumped. Then he made me climb higher and jump. Then we gave the camera to nueng and did flips for her. The sweat from the climb and the mineral water rejuvenated us in so many ways. We ended up staying for hours.

We thought our day was over, but it only got better on the drive home when we learned our new driver was also a local cop. And as you know, sean, cops always get the best deals and know “the praces wit da best taste.” After a quick swim in the hotel pool and shower, we headed to his local joint (he carried his police walkie and his gun) for some southern thai food. As I think I have said, southern thai food is spicier, heartier, and more seafood oriented. We hit all three of these. Dish after dish of amazing flavors. fried fish with crispy garlic. Prawns the size of small birds floating in coconut milk which we grabbed with our hands and sucked to the shell. Spencer was consuming ice cubes whole to cool the fire. That is when I got the nickname “pha lang mahasachan,” or miracle foreigner. The owner of the restaurant came out (he is a driven fan?!) and gave me a house special he wanted me to try. Before I knew it, my first real fear factor food was there: sautéed cricket pods from the coconut tree. They were fried with garlic and thai chilis (natch) and looked every bit the part. But, when in Rome…I was first up and after the initial explosion of juices, I was actually quite pleased. Kwan, the cop driver, hit his. Spencer tried to wriggle his way out, but I was not having it. He said he does not have to it again but was not totally turned off. None of the thai gals got involved. I think we drank 700 chang beers (elephant in thai, malt liquor) and finished with a street bought coconut to end the night. I slept like a child. Another thai day that just brought the unexpected and surpassed any of my wildest thoughts…


nb: spencer is old. therefore, he has not figured out how to work the interweb in this country and has yet to email me pics. they will be up soon. in the meantime, i pulled this waterfall pic from the web to whet your appetite. i could not find pics of the bugs to whet it even more.

Blog Hijack #2 / Ducklet Interlude

Make way for ducklings, Sean.

spendy game

Sorry for the delay man…the interweb no worky for two days at the hotel. Berry strange, but hopefully this will work…all for the best though because now I have some ammo. Man, last night was hilarious. And it started off so innocently. But that is the thing about this country, just when you think you have things under control, they slip a few more chillis in the sauce and you are crying into your breakfast (fyi-the thais don’t really have “breakfast” or “lunch,” they have “food,” there are words for the meals we eat, but they rarely use them and they are all built off of the word “ahan” which is food and the meals themselves are not that different. For example, for a traditional southern style breakfast today, I had cow yum which is rice mixed with coconut, basil, scallions, fish sauce, and bean sprouts and then a green curry with a thai version of collard greens and shrimp.) we have been slipping into nights on the movie so things have been getting later and later but last night, the other round eye in the movie, a guy called spencer garrett who is funny as hell and an absolute trip to hang with-a lovely partner in crime, and I got off early. On the way home, the other people in the car asked to stop at the mall (guh). Spencer and I relented and went in-the options were to 1) pull card and not let them get away with this or 2) wait in the car or 3) go in and let them have 3 minutes (spencer’s idea). We chose three. This worked out fine since spencer and I got the bright idea to purchase scrabble if we could find it. We could not, but we did find “spendy game.” Amazing. Just like scrabble in every way save the name. brilliant. I will never play scrabble again, it will forever be known as spendy game. So we plopped in the lobby around 9 and ordered a mai tai. And another. And another. Then a French guy showed up and asked us where we were from. I spoke French. He said (and pass this on to frenchy and alyson please), obviously you have lived in france or live there now, your accent is perfect. Awesome. I love this guy. I love mai tais. He said he was on his honeymoon with his new wife and she was on her way down. She was brazilian and awesome and we bought them mai tais. And mai tais. Then we went to crazy pub with them. Spencer got the massage in the bathroom and tipped the guy 30 bucks. He was so thrilled with it, he cracked the guys back as well. Reciprocity in the toilet. The same band played. We drank some singha (which, also fyi, is pronounced “sing”). Everyone got hungry after dancing for an hour or so and we stumbled out into the streets of krabi only to find one joint open. It was a sidewalk café with plastic tables and loads of young thais downing beer with ice (yes, they do that here) and smoking cigarillos. We asked our wonderfully androgynous (no, she was not a lady boy, but those stories are not far off-there are loads on our crew) waitress/er for food and she said they only have noodle soup. We got three to share for the four of us. It was the least spicy thing we have eaten here but the frenchy and his wife were begging for mercy. Spencer and I told them to fear the food then. They were in trouble. Then spencer and I went on stage (did I mention this lovely café had a karoke machine on the sidewalk?) and cracked off a wonderful, off key rendition of my way and then closed the night with the four of us belting out red red wine or some such euro type song. Epic. Hilarious. The brazilian wife (daniella) turned to me at the end of the night and said I may have forgotten your faces from your movies, but I will never forget this night. Nor will i.

Photo post / Blog Hijack

Sean... Alyson here. I broke into Kip's Gmail account because I think the blog needs a photo today and also this picture of Kip and me at the Grand Palace in Bangkok is so awesome.

The matching tank tops were his idea.

and it rained all night

Sean:

So the rains came in a bit last night. Not so tragic or even that long but it changes things in a way that is hard to describe. It is a bit like florida in that way. A gusher just passes right through and kills off the humidity and the mosquitoes for a second. Sometimes the sun does not even stop shining. It just makes all the greens of this place pop that much more. When we were up on the tiger Buddha temple, a bigger storm passed through. We were, of course, 1200 steps up and making a movie, so we just decided to wait it out. It made me think back to the times when I was a kid and I would sit on the screened porch and watch the rain just come down in sheets on the those hot, Atlanta nights. I just pulled up a limestone crag and enjoyed the view (my camera was at the bottom, so just read and imagine). I have never seen rain move like this. Where we sat, it was sunny (we were on the highest mountain in view, so I did have a unique perspective of things) and light, but just off to the left, over the town of krabi, was a huge storm cloud. The line of rain pulsated. We watched that knife edge just crawl across the country toward us. Persistent. Diligent. Like those days I am sure you had in philly when the sun would be shining in the front yard and the back would be spitting so you ran back and forth with your friends just laughing until finally it was all sun or all rain and you were tired and wet and just amazed at this world. We were just sitting there, being taken over by mother nature. This part of the world has had its share of bouts with her, so you pay your respects. The monkeys even seemed to know her power. Things are quite raw here, sometimes in a bad way. You see how the water could sweep them all away. But man, you also see why they stay.

krabi town center

Oh man sean….i am beat after a day in the jungle shooting, rushing around, dodging elephants as they walked down the dirt paths on which we were shooting (my first elephant encounters) and, of course, eating. So I will leave you with not so much a funny story, but one sure to make your mouth water. I think it may have been the best meal yet. So good I had to get up to watch the lady at her cart make the dish I now will try and repeat at home, pha lang style (this means whitey in case you forgot). It is called hoi tod-and I think it might combine one of my faves with one of aly’s-hoi means mussels and tod means fried (tonight I also learned another reason why this place is so fucking good to eat in-they have at least 5 words for fried!!!). so the lady takes a bowlful of shelled, cleaned mussels and puts them in a bowl. In goes a nice ladle of what looked like pancake or crepe batter. They sit and stew for a second while she cracks an egg into another bowl and whips it gently. Then the mussels hit the black top and on goes the egg. She let them sit and get all crispy. The batter makes a nice, crunchy pancakey dumpling skin thing that gets all chopped and stirred in with the moules. All of this goes on a bed of stir fried bean sprouts and a good hit of chilis on top. Oh man…I was in heaven. With this there was also two (2!) kinds of pad thai (from different stalls) and fresh veggies and a pineapple smoothie and coconut ice cream made on the spot. Not bad for 12 bucks total (there were 4 of us by the way)…


nb: having a problem with the pix right now. will post in the morning. also will add some pictures of the lovely little lady who was running a butcher stand right near where we shot. they were in the process of cutting up huge slabs of moo (that is pig and yes that is confusing). i had someone ask her when the pig was slaughtered and she laughed and said "this morning." it was about 11.

wat tham sua

Hey man…

So today was the first day of shooting on bitter/sweet. And it lived up to the title, mostly that bitter part. The actual shooting and movie making aspects were perfect-great crew, awesome food (totally thai breakfast of seaweed soup, rice, fried eggs with chili peppers in oil, and stir fried octopus and veggies), fun cast, and not raining. Those were the sweet parts. The bitter parts were the unbearable heat and the location. The location is actually one of the more beautiful things to see in all of southern Thailand-wat tham sua (wat is temple, tham is cave, and sua is tiger…or shirt if you are whitey and say it wrong). What made it so bitter was my costume. Stupid brian has to be all cool about things and wear a polo shirt (on him: light cotton long sleeve button down, perfect for those early fall cookouts while hanging on to the last nights of the summer on Nantucket, roll up the sleeves for that casual look or pull them down for the office, in stripes of pea soup, butternut, ochre, and aubergine on white, page 32) and corduroy pants (a classic of the city bound wilderness lover, these long knap cords keep you warm and smart in the chilly onset of winter-easily goes from subway to office to Christmas get together, available in khaki, mud, sand, and forest, page 76). Oh, I also got to wear sweet sandals. That really kept things cool and light. Oh, and I think I forgot to mention that this temple is on top of a mountain. A mile up. Straight up. With steps made of concrete of varying heights and fortitude. Facing east. We climbed up at 6 am. Wow. I was an awesome sight of sweat and heat stroke. But still, I am in better shape than all the thais save the muay thai guys who can kick my ass. So that was bitter. Another bitter part: when we finally got up it started to rain so we could not work for hours and were stuck up there waiting for the helicopter to be able to fly. I slept some. I learned some thai (not easy, but now I can say that shirt is blue or that shirt is orange or that tiger is orange or that hat is green-pretty rad!!) I mainly learn thai for two reasons: it is fun for some reason and, because MY accent is so bad, it gives me free reign to make fun of the thais and use my engrish. I am a diplomat!!

Talk soon…I am a bit too tired to tell you about the monkeys and what it was like when the rain came in (amazing). Will get to that stat i am sure...

it's my riiiiiife

Shiggins…how are things? I know your head is spinning a bit as you read the title of this post. Mine was too as we walked into the crazy pub in downtown krabi. Saturday night. The thais are raging. All slicked back hair, appropriately frazzled t-shirts, skinny jeans. Unhip hipsters all huddled together listening to a thai cover band in full force. Howling “it’s my riiiiiife” and I turned to alyson and said aerosmi-no no, bon jovi. Awesome. Awesome. The lyrics were their interpretation of the English version. Had we had the opportunity to ask them, they would have said they were speaking actual English but in fact it was just made up words, an approximation of the lyrics set to the tune. So great. This shifted into some thai songs (I am assuming) then a full thai language version of that super annoying song about how he’s sorry he can’t find the words(I’m sorry if I keep thinking of the right words to say, but I know they don’t sound the way I planned them to be, but if you wait around a while…you get it). The crowd loved this. This is crazy pub. This is thai youth at its finest.

Also, next time you get all annoyed at the guy who sits in the bathroom in “fancy” places and turns on the fucking water for you so you have to tip him a buck? I always find myself wondering what he should be doing for that dollar. The thai answer? After you have been at the urinal for a while-just a courtesy to get the flow going-the guy lays a wet towel on your neck-which since you are reading this will not scare the shit out of you, but I had no such blog or foreknowledge. And since I am assuming you don’t have your dick out right now, I will remind you just how vulnerable one feels at this particular moment. A wet towel, though very much welcome in the all encompassing heat, can be quite startling when placed on your neck by a strange man in a bathroom. I also must stress that you are unable to move as urine is blasting out of your penis. Handcuffed. I just froze. Which was the right move since he then started to give me full thai massage. Well, I guess not full-but neck, back and shoulders. He left before I finished. I can’t say I liked it but I can’t say it was horrible either. I went to the sink to wash up and he slapped a couple of well placed fist along the spine just to make sure it was in line. Again, I just froze. Dried my hands and threw some money in some guys hand without making eye contact but did glance over my shoulder to make sure I was not the only “special” one in the joint. I was not. Everyone who comes in gets the treatment. Pha langs (whitey) and thai alike. That and thai bon jovi covers? Yes. Yes indeed.


Things I have eaten:

Rice noodles with three curries poured over top and at each table by the cart a full bowl of fresh mint, basil, beans, cucumber, and homemade sweet pickles

Street fried chicken

Herb salad of indeterminable ingredients too numerous to name

Congee with an egg poured in, soft soft soft boiled to cook in the bowl (this is typical thai breakfast)

Duck eggs fried sunny side up

Best mai tai ever

Whole fried mackerel dressed in sticky curry and onion

Durien (the super smelly fruit)

Nori flavored lays (I was curious)

Fish jerky

Tom gai khun


Islands we have snorkeled near:

Ko Phi Phi
Ko Hong
Railay Beach
Ao Nang

More to come…who won the moto gp? Has it even happened yet? I have no idea what time it is there or even what day it might be. I hope you had fun at the berlin show…I will send you aly back…take care of her for me. Thanks sean…werd up yo…