Happy Hour.

I haven't forgotten about Simon and Arthur. We last saw them in the lobby of the Landmark Hotel, Bangkok. Old friends meeting after many years.

‘Arthur!’ Simon exclaims, ‘you look great!’

Yeah, yeah. Arthur knows this to be something of a professional exaggeration but he goes along with it. Simon does the introductions. 

‘Arthur this is Quentin, my producer. And Giles, my cameraman. Arthur is an old school friend. He lives in Thailand. He’s going to show us the sleazy underbelly right Arthur?’

It’s all happening a bit fast for Arthur. ‘Can we have a quiet chat first?’ he asks.

‘Good idea. Let’s go somewhere for a beer.’

They find a place overlooking the street behind a rustic barricade, pieces of tree conjoined with old wagon wheels. Quentin and Giles say something about ladyboys and wander off.. Simon and Arthur are soon approached by a waitress who asks them what they want to drink.

‘Beer I think,’ says Arthur. Simon concurs. Two Singha beers duly arrive.

‘This place,’ says Arthur indicating their immediate surroundings, ‘has an interesting history. Once upon a time, during the Vietnam War, it was a small restaurant popular with US soldiers. Later it became Tom’s Quick, a nice place to read the Bangkok Post over breakfast after bidding farewell to one’s companion of the night. Now as you see it has become a bar for off-duty punters. Though the waitresses are open to offers. It is well located. Some enterprising Thai saw the potential for a daytime hangout within walking distance of the Nana Hotel, that large building over there, and Nana Entertainment Plaza which is behind us and which we will visit later.’

‘That’s very good Arthur. Exactly the kind of background we need. We may not have time for all of it though.’

‘What’s the documentary about? Surely it’s all been done before.’

‘Don’t worry. We’ll come up with a new twist. Basically we shoot a lot of footage and I interview a few people. Stereotypes, that’s what we’re looking for. The real work is in the editing. By the time my producer gets through with it we’ll have this place looking like Sodom and Gomorrah.’

‘And me? What do I do?’

‘Recommend the best places to go basically. I do the commentary and the Jeremy Clarkson jokes.’

‘You’re not thinking of bringing cameras are you? You’ll get lynched.’

‘Oh we’ll be discrete. It’s amazing what you can do with smart phones.’ 

Hmm. Arthur isn’t sure this documentary about Bangkok nightlife is really for him. It all sounds a bit tacky. He was hoping for something more along the lines of Michael Palin. He's starting to feel like a pimp.

‘People want things more edgy now,’ says Simon, ‘it’s getting hard to shock anyone. We have to push the envelope.’

They watch the go-go girls getting dropped off by young Thais on motorbikes. They are closely observed by men in the bar. These, Arthur explains, are the customers.

'Who exactly are they?' Simon asks. 

‘The customers? Oh all kinds. Some are looking for a quick screw. Some want a girlfriend experience. Some fall in love. And they aren’t all lonely middle-aged men by any means. Lots of young blokes in Bangkok these days, doing IT jobs, teaching English. They all succumb.’

While we're waiting....

I just can't decide about this Trump bloke. He's like a bull in a china shop. Maybe he knows what hes doing but he makes me nervous. I thought he was going to fire everybody and drain the swamp but it hasn't happened yet. And the stock market goes up but for how long? And what about the national debt? I've been buying gold. I know, I know....it's just metal and the gold market is manipulated. Where am I going to keep the stuff anyway?  But what else is there?  ETFs and mining stocks are just paper anyway.

It’s funny the things that go through one’s mind when one’s out on the ocean on a small boat trying to ignore ones loathsome companion, yes you Oscar, the mind plays strange tricks on one. I just got a flashback to our old days together in LA when we were doing porn. For no reason at all I was marveling at the dimensions of  Johnny Wadd’s member, then I was having tea in Fortnum & Masons with William Burroughs, helping Julian Lennon fix his bike, feeding swans on the Cam with Samantha. It’s amazing the way the human mind works.

Or one could say one’s mind plays strange tricks when one is out on the ocean. One starts sailing round in circles. One may even be in danger of disappearing up one’s own Sargasso. That could quickly get boring for one. So one needs something to occupy one’s mind. How about this? One, me for instance, catches a bloody great marlin...straps it on the side of the boat and takes it back to Cuba. Alas, sharks eat it before one gets it back and nobody believes one. A proper writer could make something out of that. I’m tempted to have a go myself (good thing I brought the laptop.) But what’s the point? Probably been done already.

Like most people I scour the internet looking for free entertainment. Maybe someone somewhere has posted something interesting or amusing. You never know your luck.

I did try Facebook once but nobody wanted to be my friend. I didn’t bother me unduly. I’ve got used to my own company. But I do enjoy the internet. I’m a compulsive writer  and I like leaving the odd anonymous comment here and there. Yahoo is good for that. I just find a news item think of something irrelevant and throw it out there. You may have read some of my comments.

So we walked around Vieux Fort for a bit, me and Oscar, getting lots of dirty looks from the local rudeboys. We must have just missed Blackjack and his mates. According to Alphonse, the harbour master, they stopped in long enough to buy a kilo of weed from some rastas and they were off again. To St. Vincent most likely he thought.

The teachings of Lin Chi.

If you live in Thailand for a while you start to think about Buddhism. It has a lot of attractions. With the right mental acrobatics it's possible to integrate spiritual practice into one's life without giving up things like beer and sex. To demonstrate their commitment some expats cover themselves with sacred tattoos and Buddha amulets. Others find the discipline required a bit restrictive so they become what is known as Bar Buddhists. I used to get a few of those in my bar in Pattaya.

This angry looking gentleman is Lin Chi Yixuan. Actually it isn't. It's a pixellated version of some long dead artist's idea of what Lin Chi's physical form looked like at a certain moment in time. But never mind that. Why was Lin Chi so angry you ask? He was angry because he had discovered the meaning of life and frankly it wasn't what he had been hoping for. That didn't stop him treating novice monks like shit in order to bring them to the same state of enlightenment. He would say things like...

"Followers of the Way [of Zen], if you want to get the kind of understanding that accords with the Dharma, never be misled by others. Whether you're facing inward or facing outward, whatever you meet up with, just kill it! If you meet a buddha, kill the buddha. If you meet a patriarch, kill the patriarch. If you meet an arhat, kill the arhat. If you meet your parents, kill your parents. If you meet your kinfolk, kill your kinfolk. Then for the first time you will gain emancipation, will not be entangled with things, will pass freely anywhere you wish to go."

Strong stuff. He was a great believer in discomfort was old Lin. If he was really pissed off he might strike you with his fly-whisk. Come to think of it he ran his establishment rather like an English public school. Cold baths and rough games. We need more of that kind of thing on Facebook. Builds character.

I don't think Lin would have approved of the version of Zen as practiced in my bar. Cheers.