Following on from the runaway success of my last blog about life in BKK which was hailed by critics as ‘funnier than anything Pants Elk has ever written despite his shameless promotion of his work in responses to his own blog’ I have decided to put together another typical day, this time focusing on the negative.
Really I should have twigged last night, heat radiating up from inside the toilet bowl is not normal - but I was still half asleep and it didn’t really register. However climbing into the shower I now find that wherever I point the handle – boiling hot water comes out. I tell reception but you can see they think I am saying there is no hot water when in fact I am saying there is too much hot water – every tap is giving out hot water – hello – am I making myself clear? Now they want to send someone to my room – hello? – how can the fault possibly be in my room? - someone has made a wrong connection in some plant room somewhere in the hotel – oh, ok – come into my room…. Flush the toilet – ok see? Hot water! – not right is it? You’ll fix it? Good! You have to go somewhere else to correct the problem? Really?
One advantage of having scalded the top two layers of skin off is that by any measure, you are pretty damned clean, but no chance of retaining that freshness because the complimentary tuk tuk driver (you’re looking handsome today Dr Bond) is apparently ‘on a break’ - I’m not terribly interested in his marital problems – wait or walk?
For chrissake girl – this is your country – your Skytrain – why the feck can’t you work out which way to slip the ticket into the turnstile – look you put it in this way, face up with the small punched hole forwards – got it? – no, you’re welcome, and walk smartly through or the automated prostrate slamming device will flick back out into your nadgers – if you have any that is, - you do look quite tall.
Off at Victory Monument? (What Victory? Oh yes, you beat the French – hey well done, that must have been difficult) and the long crowded walkway dodging round the blind vocalist with one of ‘Marshalls’ finest strapped to her back and down to the Dunkin Doughnuts store. I scan the chilled cabinet - I’ll have one of those chocolate ones, one with crushed peanuts, an orange drink and five of those wasps please. Thanks.
Yoo-Tee-Ahhhhh – the cry from a mini bus driver as I clamber into the wagon and note he has the air-con set to ‘scrooge’ – the elderly woman smiles, the hot uni girls look haughty, the eye darting man with a live chicken in his bag has a guilty air about him and the market lady with 27 colour striped bags on her lap shifts a bit to make room for me – They all look like they are thinking…. “ah great, a fecking farang – bet he’s here shagging our women….” - ummm yes, I am actually, but I like the food too….
The name of the game once you have got a minbus crammed with 12 people up to maximum velocity is to never brake – swerving in and out of lanes often missing other traffic by inches. Have you ever got into one of these when they are empty? Thais fight each other to get a front seat – For heavens sake why? Are they so desperate to start the next life as a dung beetle?
Despite believing I had made it perfectly clear I wanted dropping off at Tesco Lotus, we sail (well, drive actually, but you get my point) past it. I am forced to get off at the next stop and find a motorbike – she (yes, it was a she) takes me back. I am so glad to get there I give her a 100 Baht note and tell her to keep it – I think she wants to bear my children – dream on girl.
*I spend my day in Yoo-Tee-Ahhhhh *
The tuk tuk driver comes to pick me up – he’s drunk as a skunk. We’ve only got 100 yards when he notices I am smoking. He sticks one arm out and makes a circular motion with it – for some reason I seem to have correctly guessed that this means ‘give me one of your cigarettes’ – his arm comes out again a few seconds later – I’m on top of this now and hand him the lighter. Another hundred yards and he’s kerbside, beer bottle in hand, having a piss. The rest of this journey consists of him getting hooted at almost constantly because every other Thai on the road thinks he is driving unsafely – yes, it was that bad.
I’ve decided to take the train back but it’s a good hour before it arrives so I go looking for some food. Chicken green curry 20 Baht and Rice 10 Baht – pretty good value until I decide to pull out a piece of the ‘meat’ – now I’m no butcher, but I am starting to feel queasy at the thought of what part of a chicken this could be. I discretely lob the ‘chicken’ into a nearby bin and just eat the golf balls, buckshot and sauce.
Its costs 15 Baht to get here by train but for some reason it costs 20 Baht to get back – is this a ploy to rid Bangkok of street scum? – lure them out to the burbs and then make coming back a cost too far? If you are bony-assed like me, two and a half hours on a plank of wood is… challenging - but eventually I get back to WhoDatPong station. I notice that the green curry is making it’s presence known in my stomach .
Well, what a day, who deserves a visit to Lolitas? Well, me obviously. You know how people put forward propositions that sound quite logical? Don’t always pick the cuties at a BJ bar because often the plain ones try harder…. WRONG!!!! The plain ones don’t get picked often and don’t get so much practice – this doggette is pistoning away like the world is coming to an end and in the face of my growing stomach pains I am seriously wondering if I can maintain some rigidity let alone lodge some protein in the top of her mouth. In the end I give up. Having a good dump has moved to the top of my priorities.
Back in the hotel and I make myself a coffee and watch one of the later premiership matches – it’s an exciting match and half time arrives about midnight in Thailand. At midnight, the channel stops broadcasting to my hotel.
Shower? Cold water this time, but you sort of guessed that didn’t you.
Sequels are always tough
View all comments by 8 ball
The mini buses scare the shit out of me. I wont ride on them. I am pretty much done with tuk-tuks these days. The pricing difference between locals and us folks is awful.
I am hit or miss with lolitas. the old, scary standbys always work and when I test out a new one it usually fails but I keep trying.
What is this shit hotel I ask?
View all comments by smitty
@ 8 Ball - it’s that tough second album syndrome..
@ Smitty - Royal President soi 15
View all comments by doctorbond
drbond: Good to hear a bad day story every once in a while as a change of pace. They do come here and sometimes with great force too. BTW, this is borderline off-topic but I must point out that this:
“and down to the Dunkin Doughnuts store”
must be corrected. It’s ‘Dunkin Donuts’. They’ve been in business for 58 years and have established almost 8000 stores in that time. They’ve earned the right to spell Doughnuts however they please.
I figured I would lump on to your bad day with a negative comment.
View all comments by pmmp
P.S. @ Smitty - Tuk Tuks - got no choice in Ayutthaya, they don’t have any regular taxis
Pmmmp - 8000 stores? How many wasps?
View all comments by doctorbond
Doctorbond has a rare gift – such writing confounds and confronts simultaneously – he creates a Faustian pact with himself, baring his vulnerabilities with courage that demeans neither himself nor the people he observes
The Hegelian philosophical principle that out of a thesis and its opposed antithesis comes the hardy alloy of a synthesis has a seductive power.
He counterpoints the surrealism of the underlying metaphor.
An examination of the implications of different moments in the making of a day by juxtaposing on two visual canvas’ in methodical and analytical fashion the different forms of information made available in the treatment of a limited subject; a study of how mental images embody and convey meaning.
What does Doctorbond believe? What does he argue for? Such obvious questions are considered vulgar among postmodernists. When you first look through the more than 50 comments he has written, it is almost impossible to find an answer. It seems he seeks to splice Karl Marx with the notoriously incomprehensible French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, slathering on top an infinite number of pop-cultural references.
His defenders claim he is trying to stretch the scope of philosophy to cover the everyday flotsam that philosophers have hitherto ignored. But gradually, as you pore through the Doc’s words or watch his audiences, whose bemusement is evident, you discover that the complex manner in which he expresses himself does not imply that his thought is itself subtle or complex. In fact, he seeks to revive a murderous and discredited ideology.
Asked by an audience member what his idea of a good social order is, he replies: “Communism! I am absolutely in favour of egalitarianism with a taste of terror.” Behind Doc’s comedy routines, he believes we need to return to Bolshevism. He is not offering warm, fuzzy Lennonism; this is cold, bloody Leninism. He writes rapturous hymns of praise to the “genius” and “strength” of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, calling him “the politician of the 20th century” and demanding “fidelity to Lenin’s legacy”. Just in case there is any ambiguity about the anti-democratic nature of supporting the man who erected a monstrous one-party police state in Russia, Doc explains that Lenin’s “ultimate lesson is that only by throwing off our attachment to liberal democracy” can we become virtuous.
This contempt for liberal democracy and preference for dictatorship is a constant in Doc’s work. He approvingly quotes Alain Badiou, who argues: “Today the enemy is not called Empire or Capital. It’s called Democracy.” Zizek says about Benito Mussolini: “You know, the democrats in 1925 accused Mussolini: ‘You want to rule Italy, but you don’t have any programme.’ You know what was his answer? ‘We do have a programme: our programme is to rule Italy at any price.’ I love Mussolini.”
When in the mid-1990s, the Slovenian prime minister asked Bondy if he wanted to be a government minister, he replied: “I am only interested in two posts - either minister of the interior or head of the secret police.” He condemns the language of human rights as an unacceptable brake on reconstructing Leninism. Asked about Stalin, he says: “My big worry is not being ignored, but to be accepted. People still have this idea that this guy did some bad crimes . . . It’s not as simple as that - that I am simply a Stalinist. That would be crazy, tasteless, and so on. But obviously there is something in it, that it’s not simply a joke.”
He praises Mao Zedong’s notorious indifference to the potential large-scale loss of human life in a nuclear war as “a cosmic perspective” and a “message of courage”. He says the “terror” involved in Maoism is “nothing less than the condition of freedom”.
When you peel back the patina of postmodernism, there is old-fashioned philo-tyrannical nonsense here. At some level, Doc knows this is preposterous; he lived under Soviet tyranny, and even joined the opposition. Simply by putting a camera in front of him and leaving it running, Taylor shows how his façade and his ideas are crumbling. After insisting that his claim to be a Stalinist “is not a joke”, Doc suddenly admits: “I think there was a thing called totalitarianism, and it was bad . . . You know, if I was not myself, I would arrest myself.” He then admits that his political positions are monstrous: “The worst thing is to play the ‘we are all human’ game. I am not human. I am a monster. It is not . . . that I wear the mask of a theoretician and underneath I am a warm human being. I am a monster who plays, pretends he is human.”
Doc expresses this monstrousness repeatedly in his writing, mocking liberals who shy away from the “cruelty” necessary to build his ideal world. He recounts with admiration this anecdote: “Walking to his theatre in July 1956, Brecht passed a column of Soviet tanks rolling towards the Stalinallee to crush the workers’ rebellion. He waved at them and later wrote in his diary that, at that moment, he was for the first time in his life tempted to join the Communist Party.” He calls this “an exemplary case of the passion of the real. It wasn’t that Brecht supported the military action, but that he perceived and endorsed the violence as a sign of authenticity.”
So is Doc a kind of philosophers’ Borat, taking ludicrous positions to see how far he can push them? His followers dismiss every depraved political statement as an ironic joke. At times he insists he is not a comedian, that he means every word. Then he confesses in a moment of self-awareness: “My eternal fear is that if for a moment I stopped talking the whole spectacular appearance would disintegrate [and] people would think there is nobody and nothing there. They would think I am a nobody who has to pretend all the time to be a somebody.”
As he watches his hero Jacques Lacan deliver an incomprehensible lecture on video, Doc exclaims: “There is nothing behind this obscurity. This is just bluffing.” It is a plain moment of projection, and an unwitting confession of charlatanism. His political thought quickly descends into contradictory drivel, where he claims he is against the people who condemn the bombing of Kosovo and against the people who condone it, and calls for “a revolution without revolution”. He has, of course, constructed a convoluted epistemology to justify this, claiming that, in reality, “we can only speak about things that do not exist” and “we can ultimately only talk . . . about things we do not understand”.
This kind of thought can only be entertained because nobody would ever take it seriously enough to act on it. When Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari say we should all become schizophrenic, when the gay Michel Foucault embraces the murderously homophobic Ayatollah Khomeini, when Doc suggests a return to Leninist terror - these very positions are admissions that postmodernism is merely an unserious confection by intellectuals. It leads nowhere except to demoralisation and disaffection.
In short, Doc’s piece is nothing short of brilliant.
View all comments by Times Literary Critic
Anyone want that?
View all comments by Daywalker
“counterpoints the surrealism of the underlying metaphor”?
Death’s too good for you.
View all comments by Bangkok Bad Boy
pretentious; moi?
View all comments by Times Literary Critic
Thanks TLC for that brief, but enlightening appraisal - you seem to have grasped my inner essence and yet in another way failed to grasp it at all - valiant effort though
View all comments by doctorbond
I’ll have a pint of what Times Literary Critic is drinking please
View all comments by Jaiyenyen
AHHH, the bangkok bad day. The days when the illusion crashes down on you all at once and when it does it’s not in your native language. Good one Doc. I’m having a huge Mekong/Soda in your honor.
View all comments by UnCochinoWetback
Was a long day, huh?
View all comments by Suk Psycho
You know its bad day when the highlight of it is taking a nice, long dump.
Love the phrase ‘old, scary standbys’. In light of the service variance, can anyone reccomend a good blow job bar? SoL kind of appeals, but at the same time, not quite.
View all comments by Milo
milo - SoL is the one!
Times Literary Slick - as a service to Chechen and Finnish readers who might feel excluded from the thread, would you mind translating this memorable review into their native language?
View all comments by mart
Mart - I thought it was in Finnish!
View all comments by Riodon
Riodon - नहीं , ऐसा लगता है जैसे बल्गेरियाई मुझ से अधिक है !
View all comments by Louk
dude, i totally didn’t type mekhong/soda. THE MAN strikes again!!
View all comments by UnCochinoWetback
@ Mart - working on a Mandarin translation for you - should be ready towards the end of 2011
View all comments by Times Literary Critic
Milo - SoL provides the superior service whereas Lolitas provides the better privacy… it’s a toss up - or rather, it isn’t.
View all comments by doctorbond
TLS - Hope you opted for Lan-Yin which is by far my favorite Mandarin dialect!
View all comments by mart
Just wanted to go back to db’s “Don’t always pick the cuties at a BJ bar because often the plain ones try harder…. WRONG!!!!”
I stumbled into Lolita’s last night, slightly worse for wear, to find none of my regulars present. Quite the quandary.
The girls, as one, pointed out the chubbiest, least attractive of the lot, and told me in no uncertain terms that this human/onion hybrid was the greatest cocksucker of them all.
I figured from her appearance that she must be pretty good - I could see no other reason to have her there.
Wrong. Awful.
Next time, I’m picking the cutie.
View all comments by Bangkok Bad Boy
Milo: “In light of the service variance, can anyone reccomend a good blow job bar? SoL kind of appeals, but at the same time, not quite.”
Two other possibilities, both in Patpong:
* Kangaroo Club
* Mike’s
View all comments by werewolf
also, in the past you could get a hand job or blow job at Afterskool in Soi Cowboy. I’ve read some commenters who say that these services are no longer available, but I don’t know for sure one way or another.
View all comments by werewolf
No BJ’s at Afterskool? I stopped going there after all the attitude I got off the rude little urchins there.
They just keep coming up with reasons not to go there.
View all comments by Daywalker
I am not now, nor even been, the Times Literary Critic. His is the sort of writing, at once incisively dogmatic and yet doubt-engendering, to which I aspire.
But back to Doctor Bond’s piece - he is right that this is funnier than my blog piece. For those who find this hard to imagine, I refer them to my blog piece “A Visit To An Issan Bar Girl Factory”, which was by some way the funniest piece of writing on the interweb ever, until the good Doctor wrote this mirthsome rib-tickler.
Incidentally, Bangkok Bad Boy’s First Annual Punch Me In The Throat night at the Big Mango was a huge success, attended by myself and Young Penfold, who took swings on your behalf. BBB got rather ill from drink and vaporised somewhere in the NEP. YP challenged a German to a fight (”I’ll rip your f****** head off, you f****** Nazi c***, I don’t care who your f****** mates are”), and was later seen disappearing under a comely but elderly masseuse at Carousel when I made my excuses and left.
The Mango Egg McMuffin was a highlight of a busy and entertaining evening, but we all agreed the mango shavings in a little saucer were a bit gay. YP and I agreed that BBB was a fat, tightfisted cunt.
View all comments by Pants Elk
“I am not now, nor even been, the Times Literary Critic. His is the sort of writing, at once incisively dogmatic and yet doubt-engendering, to which I aspire.”
Pants, I could be wrong, but aren’t we missing an adjective in this paragraph?
…at once (adjective 1) and (adjective 2) yet (adjective 3)….
I thought the effect of the words, “at once” was to combine two (or more) descriptions.
As I say, I could be wrong as I am no grammarian.
Sorry I missed ‘Punch Me in the Throat’ night. I spent the evening at home alone watching low quality movies on cable and eating Ma Ma Pork-Flavored Instant Noodles which was nearly as fun.
View all comments by werewolf
DISCLAIMER: I have never met Pants Elk in person, nor, to the best of my recollection, engaged him in direct commentary previously. The above comment should in no way should be construed to constitute “insider” commenting. It is a completely non-private engagement of an impersonal nature in a public forum directed at a semi-anonymous fellow commenter. No exclusion of other commenters not directly addressed in the comment is intended.
View all comments by werewolf
**please delete the ’should’ of your choice in the above comment.
in addition to being no grammarian i am obviously also not a proofreader.
View all comments by werewolf
Werewolf: “Pants, I could be wrong, but aren’t we missing an adjective in this paragraph?
…at once (adjective 1) and (adjective 2) yet (adjective 3)….
I thought the effect of the words, “at once” was to combine two (or more) descriptions.”
“incisively dogmatic” and “doubt-engendering” are both adjectival phrases, and conform to the syntactical rules you invoke. The qualifier “yet” acts here as a gerund in the non-reflexive mode.
(The above comment in no way implies any grammatical authority on behalf of the author, nor guarantees success as a come-on line with any bar girl either real or imagined. All comments under the rubric “Pants Elk” or its many derivatives recognisable by the trade-mark Bukkake avatar are offered purely as a waste of your time and in no way constitute contractual agreement between the author and the reader. Adherence to and relevance to the original piece to which this comment acts as addendum is at the discretion of the author, and any complaints as to its data content, relevance to original post, or humour quotient must be made on the correct form available from the Big Mango Bar, which in turn should be tightly rolled, inserted in your ringpiece, and ignited with a blowtorch.)
View all comments by Pants Elk
For f*ck sake boys, take it outside - innit.
View all comments by Times Literary Critic
TLC - I believe it’s “for f*ck’s sake”.
View all comments by go go groupie
Anybody want to comment on BBK’s upcoming piece “The Dummy’s Guide To Banging Scag-Monkey Girlymen From The Nana Car Park Part 1″? I find it to be both thought-provoking and yet charmingly jejeune.
View all comments by Pants Elk
@ ggg - I stands corrected
View all comments by Times Literary Critic
@ PE - I’m sharpening my pencils as we speak
View all comments by Times Literary Critic
Can I please just add, BJ’s are still readily available at afterschool, I even had a free one last week!!!! when I say free, I mean it cost me 2 cola’s and 1 tequila.
Best BJ I had was from a girly in the Cocktail Bar. Most of the girls there are fu*kin ugly but she was just ugly, wonderful BJ though
View all comments by Jaiyenyen