"You no have girlfriend?" The fifty year old, self-concious Mary Magdalen said. She had all the appeal (and more than half the size) of a Sumo wrestler and above her shoulders orbited a full moon face - dark crater's shadows marring the bloated disc. She was a lovely girl and popular among the Scandinavian expats who found themselves short on cash. The last week of every month she doesn't have a moment to herself.

"No."

"Not in Thailand?"

"No."

"Not in Portuget?"

"No."

She didn't believe me and demanded to see my hands. It would have been great if she was a palm-reader to boot, but she was looking for a wedding ring. She seemed puzzled that I didn't have one and thought about it for a second.

"Maybe you are buttefly," she said at last, and I thought she meant something else. "You know butterfly? Fly from plant to plant, and kiss every flower."

I have you guys as my witness that I am no such thing - but isn't it a delightful description?

"I have only met two Americans in the past month. One licked my book, the other nicked my wallet. The first one's story is rather complicated, the latter's a rather simple tale.

The old, grumpy American had abused the staff and insulted the guests and earlier in my stay had forced me to change beds as he would not allow the cleaner to climb up our bunk's steps to change my sheets. On that occasion, and then a second time after that, the hostel made it perfectly clear that were I to complain, they would request he leave the establishment. I told them I was not particularly bothered.

He was in the room, though I had thought he had his back turned, when I reached into the secret compartment of my backpack to pull out some cash for the night. In the hour that followed, I watched it later on the security tapes, he would come into the room and leave the next minute and he did this three times and then he disappeared for two days from the hostel he hadn't left in thirty. My money, my card, and my made in Ramalde wallet that smells of old milk were all gone too. The wallet had two sweets that monks had blessed, which were supposed to be good luck for the money to keep in it. They had melted a long time ago.

When I saw him again, he was at the supermarket and all his clothes were brand new. He didn't look any happier and I was almost moved to break a bottle on his nape. It was not for the money - it was gone; or the card - I had cancelled it already and it was now useless to me; it was not even my not having certainty or evidence of his guilt (I, like Justice know these two to be triffling matters). It was the awful black basketballcap with some red character on its side, the black tacky shirt that sparkled on the shoulders which he had remembered to tuck into his black tracksuit trousers and the spotless, white trainers. It was like one of the Sopranos had gone shopping in China Town.

I knew, if he had taken the money, there was not that much to take, and he could hardly have gone to the opera with it. But surely he could have hired himself a concubine for the weekend instead of buying contraband Nike."

-One Nation Under God

Know What I Mean?

Addendum:
This was written before I was sent an extract of my bank account which registered the dimwit's six dollar Burger King feast and two hundred dollar sportshop extravaganza. We can only conclude the NIKE weren't contraband after all. I leave to you whether or not this is a redeming point.

Johnny played second fiddle to no one, or at least any that played beneath this Sun. He was, they say, the very best - or at any rate, was much better, much better than all the rest. But he came across the Devil in Georgia on the crossroads one day - and this that old and beautiful fiend had to say:
Money's the only answer for the predicament you're in, nobody cares if you are holy or if you were born in sin. Unless you find some silver coins to pay your way, you'll have to wait, who knows how long, at least another day.
 

 "The mysterious East faced me, perfumed like a flower, silent like death, dark like a grave. (...) This was the East of the ancient navigators, so old, so mysterious, resplendent and somber, living and unchanged, full of danger and promise. And these were the men."

Joseph Conrad in Youth

I went to  Bangkok's LIDO theatre, a 1960s relic I believe, to watch On The Road. It's a Franco-Brazilian production, strangely enough, which meant it was mostly naked people, great music, and some more or less awkward dialog in between.

This isn't a film review, though, it's contextualization.

It brought back to mind something I hadn't thought about in half a decade, that had really flaked to the dusty bottom of the mind. I think it was New York Maria who told me this story, and though it might have been in a letter, I can hear her soft voice perfectly, shaping the words.

A Professor in a writing class was criticizing (probably oblivious to the irony) this new generation of "classroom" or "textbook" writers compared to the older Authors saying something like:

"I mean, think about it. All these writers, they really lived, they did things, they had seen a part of the world most other people hadn't and wanted to share it." I assume Kerouac was the example with which she was illustrating this, but Conrad sailed the Congo river and Melville actually whaled; Theroux took up a cabin by the lake and Dostoyevski was exiled in Siberia; Shelley and Byron waved their little flags ever so romantically. "But people nowadays sit at home on their computers and think they will write a masterpiece." 

Whaling's a little out of fashion nowadays, and most people think hitch-hiking across the States will end up with you dead or worst, but there you have it: an incentive to do something a little crazy this weekend. If not for the novel you're not going to write, do it for your biographer.

Bukowski, by R. Crumb

I was accosted on the streets just now by a man. He was slender, tall, young enough, but there were white stubs to his day-old beard. Green eyes, Indian, very well dressed: no brands but a far shout away from what  passes as smart around here.

"Do you know," he said, "you have a very lucky face?" Now I haven't slept in three nights, haven't had a breath without a sneeze in two days, am too sick to eat anything since last night and woke up today with a killer pain that shoots from my right ear all the way past my shoulder and doesn't let me turn. I was walking stiffly down the street and I wasn't feeling particularly lucky - nor could I imagine how he could have seen anything remotely lucky in my scowl, and this sparked off a little curiosity. "Have you ever been said this before?"

"No, can't say I have."

"You have a very lucky face. I look in your face you know, and I see good things coming. A big change, and three definite things will get a lot better."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. See, I see that you have two bad problems in your life. Did you know? And that's why you've never been successful in your life, because it's true, isn't it? You've never been successful in you life."

"That's a little harsh."

"It's truth. I'll tell you what they are, why because of this you are always only twenty or thirty percent, never a hundred. One, you think too much, friend. You always worry about little things, it gets in the way. Two, you don't know how to separate the good people from the bad people in your life. Sometimes you'll sit at night and tell all your secrets to somebody you think is a friend and then they are not. Do you know this feeling?"

I said that I didn't.

"Well, you have. I can help you friend. I can make life better for you. Do you want to know more? I can give you proof, friend."

"That's more truth than I can handle in one go, friend, but thank you very much."

"I can give you proof," he said, but I thanked him and turned to go. He waved at me courteously and as I walked away I wondered whether I had proved him wrong or right about knowing who to trust.

The lack of appropriate footwear is really the reason why Napoleon's troops didn't carry the day in Waterloo.

(-Why Wellington Won the War)

"It's been a very bad year," the old man told me, in a conversation that was mostly mimed. He pointed to the pair of Havaianas some other farang gave him which were now tied by a string. He pointed to his old, worn shirt and then to his trousers. "Look, look at the state of my clothes. They are not good like yours. Your shoes, your shirt-" then he pointed at my trousers and stopped there, scratching his head.

He was a little bit more impressed when I snatched a cricket out of the air for him.