Thursday, October 30, 2003: Hugo The Mind-Boggler

Sandy and I have been watching a variety of movies on disc as of late. Her picks are at times rather odd. Last night’s pick being the oddest of all.

Hugo Pool… It had some famous types in it, it was in English with Thai subtitles and had something to do with water, so I think she picked it up based on that information alone. I had NEVER heard of the movie, and after watching it I understood why. It was possibly one of the worst things I’ve seen in a long time, and was so dated, and so bad it was impossible to not watch.

For a Thai, the movie was Farang doing crazy things in some crazy place (Hollywood) because that is what Farang do… Sandy’s English isn’t good enough to distinguish really bad acting from good acting or bad script from as in this case, brutal script. In any event this movie must have been shipped straight here as if I were one of the actors involved I would have had my agent insist at gun-point that it was.

Perhaps I’m being to hard on the film. Perhaps not.

It was made in around 1996, and seemed to be the kind of navel gazing idea that could only be made in Hollywood.

Hey I got an idea, a movie about a cute girl who runs a pool cleaning company in Hollywood and how she meets all these strange characters... pass me a wine-spritzer... Yeah it will be a hit... .

The characters being Sean Penn as some kind of hitch-hiking fop, Malcolm McDowell as an ex-user (how 90’s) with an annoying American accent, Robert Downey Jr. as some kind of European film director who is unable to decide which accent to use, and so on and so forth… The weirdest character is Patrick Dempsey as this guy with ALS also known as Stephen Hawkins disease. (On the upside this did inspire me to annoy Sandy for the rest of the evening by talking in the Stephen Hawkins robot voice. HEY SANDEE… I AM GO-ING TO FEED THE FISH… HAVE YOU FED THEM AL-RED-EEE… half an hour of this prompted the eventual “Aye Dayb, Stop!!” anger response which I so enjoy)

The movie itself was weird in that it had this really dated 1980’s boomer feel to it, but then as almost an after thought had been injected with a heroine overdose of 1990’s trendy Quentin Tarantino pitter-patter. The sound track was THEEEE single most annoying sound track since Jay & Silent Bob Strike Out.

Brrrr…

The only redeeming moment for me was when Chuck "CIA Hit Man" Barris shows up as some bit-part player bookie. It took me half an hour though to explain to Sandy that Chuckie was the REAL guy from that movie we saw (Confessions of A Dangerous Mind) and no he wasn't really a hitman...

Anyways, let me just say that Hugo Pool was well worth the 39 Baht Sandy paid for it.

Wednesday, October 29, 2003: Sun Shine Day

Wow… THREE count them THREE consecutive days of sunshine. Sure there were some rain storms at night but that I don’t mind. This has allowed me to actually go for a swim.

The change of weather is more than welcome.

The tourists seem to be returning. There are buses unloading them now. They stand around in a daze with their guide-books looking like puffy pasty stop-motion claymation charactors from the land of Plupatria.

Come along everyone, hold the string we are going to see the strange rare and beautiful sites of the Kingdom formerly known as Siam... Afterwards we'll go eat some REAL Thai food served by REAL Thais in their traditional costumes...

Yep, I've been here too long.

Saturday, October 25, 2003: APEC: EPILOGE CLOWN IN THE SKY

Well it’s all over. The venders slowly return, garbage can now be collected again. Traffic returns to its normal state of bad (from impossible to move due to road closure for security reasons) and the APEC Theme song fades away from memory... Or I wish it would...

I was hoping for a big kick off between two of my favorite groups, protesting back-packers and Thai Coppers. I thought it would just be swell if they hurled rocks and garbage, tear gas and bludgeoned each other senseless.

If there was any big protest I sure didn’t see any evidence beyond someone spray-painting “FUCK BUSH” on one of the big pillars that holds up the BTS tracks near MBK.

So now they are gone... One by one the Leaders of the world got back on their planes and flew away, the Anti-globalization Hippies have headed to Koh Chang to drop MDMA and do their pagan fire dance on the beach... which can only leave us with the feeling that the Circus has left and now all is quiet once again.

I think Joel and the ‘bots said it best in "Clown in the Sky"…

[On the satellite of love:]

DR FORRESTER and FRANK: It stinks!

Tuesday, October 21, 2003: APEC Part Two

They actually finished the bridge! Sandy and I were walking back towards the Redoubt and there it was all finished. We both gasped. I honestly thought it would never be finished. Ever. But it was finished Sunday night, just in time for APEC.

UBC which is the Thai Satellite TV distributor has set up an APEC Channel, so you, the viewer can watch APEC all day long. In North America this would receive the enthused snore and a viewing audience to rival CSPAN. Not here. They’re all watching it. Walk by any little restaurant that has a TV, peer into any shop window, go to the gym and there it is… The APEC channel.

Why would anyone watch this?

Well, foremost is the chance to see the King live on TV. Thais also seem to be really proud and honored that APEC is being held here. An attitude that must boggle the minds of the concerned Anti-globalization druids who have come to stage their protests… But who haven’t seemed to have got much of a turn out.

They were going to protest down by what was called “The World Trade Center” and which is now called “The Central World Plaza”. I believe the misinformed protesters felt this was some kind of business area, when in fact it’s a shopping mall. The government some how convinced the protestors to conduct their proceedings at Siam Square which is an area with a bunch of tiny shops and some small theaters. I’m not sure how that went for them. Apparently they staged a mock arrest of George W for war crimes or something. I’m sure that bit of street theatre will really change things.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…..

Oh sorry, I feel asleep thinking about it.

As I was saying the Thais seem to love APEC. It’s like they’ve invited everyone over for a dinner party and it’s gone really well. The Farang diplomats are most impressed. There’s nothing more important for a proud people than an opportunity to have something to be proud about. So far, this has been exactly that.

Security is noticeable, both on the streets and in the BTS. There are worse malcontents around these days than the protestors. There are those who would love to inflict death and destruction upon us infidels and the Thais are not taking that threat as lightly as they usually seem to.

Personally the only beef I have with it all is the sudden disappearance of all street venders. I can no longer buy a big hunk of watermelon on Sukumvit. I’m not sure if the authorities were afraid of people launching RPGs from the cover of a meat on a stick stall or whether they feared that the protestors would use the fruit to toss at somebody’s motorcade, or if it was just considered an eye sore… Which ever it may be, they are gone until Thursday.

Friday, October 17, 2003: APEC Part One

APEC is coming to town. It arrives on October 21 I believe and lasts oh, two days… Which is amazing considering the amount of effort being put into preparing the city for the event.

The first bit of evidence of preparation was the fountains at the corner of Phayathai, and Pretchaburi Roads… Inactive as longs I’ve been here, except for use by stray dogs, and rubby-dubbies to drink from or bathe in, and for “yung” (Mosquitoes) to breed in, then suddenly about a month ago the fountains are fountaining and lit up in the finest of First World fashion. Wow. They actually look really good.

Since then preparations have continued, some in keeping with the current Thai governments delusion that Bangkok can be turned into Singapore by shooting everyone who MIGHT be selling drugs. The endless crack-downs have shifted from the difficult to crack-down on “Dark Influences” to the easy to crack-down on homeless people, stray dogs and cats (but no mention of rats), street venders, flower sellers, and of course cripples.

The great mystery to me is the attention to the sidewalks. If you have never walked on third world side walks you have no idea of the challenge. Bangkok’s sidewalks are not as awful as Manila’s (what could be?) but they are none the less … crap. They are not wide enough; they are poorly lit, often cracked or uneven. Suddenly two weeks ago in the middle of the rainiest of seasons some genius decided to fix them. How do they fix them? By first digging them up, then piling big piles of dirt on them, which of course is quickly turned into a quagmire by the first rain storm. For one week walking down Sukumvit between Emporium and Asok was nearly impossible.

Last week they began laying flagstones on top of the dirt, a practice you can see here and there on some of the nicer sidewalks. Its easier to walk on, except during rainy season when the dirt or sand under the flagstones washes away and you get these huge patches of caved in flagstones, or even better, the single flagstone that you step on sinking, tipping or tripping you up. I was surprised at how quickly they got the sidewalks done. TOD was confident it would be done quickly but I was skeptical due to the fact they’ve been working on the Phayathai Bridge that goes over the Khlong since I moved her in 2001 and it’s still not finished.

A few of the flag stones have already begun to shift and sink due to all the rain we’ve had during the nightly thunder-storms.

A few days ago I was in the Zero with Kaboom and we were stuck in a weird traffic jam (due to some APEC related rerouting) and I watched these two construction workers struggle with a pile of dirt for about 10 minutes. Their dirt pile was too close to the street and it was spilling off on the road. They hopped on to the road and began shoveling the bottom of the pile back up on to the top, which of course caused the pile to avalanche more… They’d shovel faster trying to clear the road… more would collapse down on to it… This went on for the whole ten minute we were stuck at that point. It was actually more frustrating to watch than amusing. I was tempted to jump out of the Zero and tell them to shovel the dirt back off the top, but what would be the point, they wouldn’t understand me anyways.

Saturday, October 11, 2003: Sun and Moon

Its been so long since it has been clear at night I was actually startled by the sight of the moon.

Yesterday was the first day in two months I could actually go for a swim in the afternoon. It was beautiful and sunny all day. I was wonderful to splash around for a while then snooze off under the blue sky.

Thursday, October 9, 2003: Naqoyqatsi

This is a film Review

Naqoyqatsi directed by Godfrey Reggio, soundtrack by Phillip Glass

Na-qoy-qatsi: (nah koy’ kahtsee) N. From the Hopi Language.
1. A life of killing each other. 2. War as a way of life. 3. (Interpreted) Civilized violence

In 1984 I had the pleasure of seeing The Philip Glass Ensemble perform at Toronto’s Massey Hall. A year later I saw The Philip Glass Ensemble perform the sound track to "Koyaanisqatsi" live to the movie at Roy Thomson Hall. Recently I noticed Naqoyqatsi was playing at the tiny “Siam Square” theater at selected times so I thought I might try and see it if I had the chance. The poster showed the head of a crash test dummy and a road stretching off in to the distance and had the odd tag line “America is test driving the future”. This seemed an odd tag line considering the “LIFE AS WAR” translation of the Hopi word. On that account alone I was mildly dubious of the movie, er sorry FILM…

This afternoon I bought a ticket for the 5:15 pm showing. Sandy called me as I was waiting outside the theater, and she decided to join me.

The movie opened with a computer enhanced image of some artist’s rendition of The Tower of Babel. For those of you who missed Sunday school, that’s the tower that was supposed to reach heaven but was abandoned when God changed everyone’s languages around to confuse things. With the rather preachy introduction the film propelled itself into 90 minutes of cliché and tired old hippy rhetoric of anti-everything-ism all set to the amazingly beautiful Philip Glass music. It was like some kind of acid-trip though the mind of a paranoid WTO protester who’s smoked far too much hydroponic and watched far too many X-Files reruns.

Godfrey Reggio’s notions were very very clearly presented in this film. His website reaffirms what I figured out fifteen minutes into the film, which is that Reggio and Reptoid have a lot in common.

By any measure, we live in an extraordinary and extreme time. Language can no longer describe the world in which we live.

Says who? Why can’t it? Isn’t that what I and countless others do on our Blogs? Have we reverted to monkey-like grunts? Or can only TRUE ARTISTS describe things…

With antique ideas and old formulas, we continue to describe a world that is no longer present.

Huh? The world is no longer present?? Which world would that be? The idealized world of your youth? Or the idealized world that never existed?

In this loss of language, the word gives way to the image as the 'language' of exchange, in which critical thought disappears to a diabolic regime of conformity - the hyper-real, the omnipresent image.

Oh here we go… The age old “if you don’t agree with my flakey notion it is because you have been blinded” argument. Critical thought disappears? I’ll give you some critical thought. You movie sucked. And you are a flake.

Language, real place gives way to numerical code, the real virtual; metaphor to metamorphosis; body to disembodiment; natural to supernatural; many to one. Mystery disappears, replaced by the illusion of certainty in technological perfection.

Yes Morpheus, what ever you say. We are all batteries. The CIA Space Lizard Freemasons control it all through the satanic rituals of the Stock Exchange.
I could continue on but it’s such a load of bunkum you can read it for yourself and decide.

So basically the movie was all about how America is bad, the stock market is bad, commercialism is bad, technology is bad, war is bad, weapons are bad, competitive sports are bad, eating fast food is bad, celebrities are bad, Hollywood is bad, space is bad… and so on for 90 minutes.

Of course I’m not sure what Mr. Reggio-reptoid is suggesting would be better? To live like Hopi Indians in some cave and paint shit on the walls predicting a future where life will be out of balance? Or maybe he likes Pol Pot’s idea of making it year Zero and starting all over. Or maybe spending 14 years in a monastery have convinced him that it is how we all want to live. I certainly see no evidence of that here, even though this is a Buddhist country.

I disliked this movie in a way that I disliked seeing born-again Christian rock bands when I was a teenager. Yes they might be good players, yes some of the songs may even be catchy, but then they’d ruin it with the message. That preachy shit telling you what is what and what is wrong. They couldn’t just write a song, it had to have a big statement affixed to it. This movie suffers the from the same problem. Its view is limited to the negative and the film maker seems afraid of the big new world he can’t understand the same way born agains fear society’s change away from theocratic ignorance. Technology is shown as a confused mass of wires and computer parts, which seems boggling unless of course you know where those wires go and what those parts do.

Then there is the stock exchange. Oh the evil stock exchange. Something that people love to criticize and blame for everything but none of those people have even the most basic understanding of or any experience with. But then it’s always been human nature to blame the unfamiliar for things beyond your control. Just as its human nature to fear things you don’t understand.

The music was amazing though, and deserves visuals that are less negative and depressing than the film provided. What I wish I had done was gone and bought the sound track and listened to that while walking around Bangkok.

After the movie I asked Sandy what she thought. She said it made her want to vomit. I agreed, but for a different reason.

Sunday, October 5, 2003: Catch Phrases Never Die

“Dayb… I need but not know in English…”

“Show me what you need…”

Sandy shows me something she wants to glue back together, then holds up a glue stick…

“Like this but have elephant” (Elephant being pronounced the same as eleven – when she first said this I thought she was referring to 7-11)

“Oh you mean super-glue, its not here”

“What you call?”

“Super-glue, or Crazy Glue…”

“Why you call Crazy Glue?”

“Because it sticks like crazy…”

Thursday, October 2, 2003: Second Hand Daylight

My class B-visa is all used up so I now have to leave the country every 30 days… that is until I get a new class B. Which I should be next week. In any event I had to get a stamp so today Sandy and went with Kaboom in the Zero to beautiful dusty Poipet Cambodia. I haven’t done that particular trip in two years.

Kaboom showed up at 5:30 am, which is a great time in this city to drive. No traffic, no exhaust fumes, and the sun coming up is always amazing. The drive down was uneventful. We saw the results of one accident, and some road kill. Mostly dogs, although there was a big snake. I can’t say I’ve ever seen a snake as road kill before.
There was lots of fog at one point, about an hour from Cambodia which I thought was very cool.

We got to the familiar boarder zone at around 8:00 am and found a safe spot to park. The whole area seemed much busier than I remember. I’d love to know exactly what Sandy thought of it. She seemed less than comfortable with the shabbiness of the Khmer, and the onslaught of touters, and beggar kids. There were also many of these strange 3 wheeled carts. They were peddle-powered, but the chain was driven by a crank turned by hands not feet. This would be an important feature in a place like Cambodia. Many of the fellows driving these things had no legs.

We walked over the exit area and I was shocked by the changes. New buildings, more traffic crossing the bridge, and clearly more buildings on the opposite side of the Friendship Bridge. In 2001 the place was a dusty backwater crossing that might have existed in the 1920s. Now it looked like it had advanced at least as far as the 1960’s.

Two helpful Khmer “guides” latched on to us, and although I hadn’t intended to use any I gave in to it simply because if I did then the hundreds of others would leave us alone. We were processed by the Thai side, and then we ambled across to the Cambodian side. There were many more changes over there. The old structure and system of doing things seemed to have been totally changed. The other noticeable change was the lack of Expats and Back-Packers.

We had to fill out a SARS form, which was basically a yellow piece of paper saying “I don’t have SARS”. Not very scientific.

Sandy and Kaboom have ASEAN member passports, so no visas were required for them; I paid the many official and unofficial fees, and gave the Cambodian guards my passport and then waited. At one point one guard came to me and told me I had to go with him so they could “Look at my face”. So I hoped on the back of his little motorcycle and road down the road a little ways to another area, sat in a chair (half asleep) while some guy peered at me from behind smoked glass, then followed the guard across the road to do the same thing in a other building across the road. Then it was on the motorcycle and back to a concerned looking Sandy and Kaboom.

With all that done, it was back to Thailand. Stamp stamp and we were done.
I paid our guides 300 baht each, and then we headed back to the Zero, some guy trying to sell Kaboom these ugly sunglasses the whole way.

The drive back was weird. Sandy slept, and I sort of drifted in and out of a near sleep state. I had burned a bunch of mix CD’s for the trip so that made it even more surreal. We made a few pit stops. We took a slight detour and we to this temple but it was more for Sandy’s religious purposes than any tourism thing. I’m no longer that impressed by the temples.

We got back into Bangers at around 1:30 pm and got dropped off at the Redoubt. I was asleep with in ten minutes of entering the door.