Smokey Joe's Cafe (aka My Little Town

It's about 5.30pm on any night and I'm camped at and sipping whatever on a faux marble and stone bench and cramped table outside the mom and (no pop in sight) corner store next to my rooming house. The sun is plunging quickly on the radioactive green foothills outside Hua Hin; a temporary tapestry of (I'm color blind, don't trust me on this lyrical, colorful description) yellows, oranges, blues, azure, turquoise that bleed together as night also sets in making my heart bleed for a moment. I can hear the waves crashing on the stone jetties a block just to the east. The store's owner, a 30ish but looks younger woman who kinda reminds me of a younger Thai Miss Kitty from the ancient TV western Gunsmoke, keeps the customers satisfied. Watch her walk. A snake shake that won't let go and snappy advice if you need it.

Beers, pop, chips, squid, sugar, salt, sardines, halibut, energy drinks (ramped-up Thai versions of Red Bull) the occasional women's-only product, water, general juju, advice etc. all overseen by her mother in law - a hulking elderly and stoic soul - flow faster than the sun is setting.

Outside the guy I call "Che Guevera Barbcue" is setting up shop with his portable barbcue stand (a 150 cc Suzuki motorbike welded to a charcoal burning pit and meat rack - Thailand may be the only place in the world where you can get hit and killed by a diner while crossing the road) in his black and white muscle shirt.

Though tonight it's not Che on chest display, but 1992 era Guns and Roses. Che Barbecue is in excellent shape for someone aged late 30s in tight, always-pressed faded blue jeans and an array of well-fitting wife beater t-shirts - all black and white advertising sorta, kinda mostly hip at some time or another - rock, pop and cultural icons.

School's letting out and the kids are crowding in now. I'm suddenly back in Boulder, Colorado after a day at Uni Hill Elementary grubbing like a savage for Almond Joys and pop, Snickers perhaps too, and a glimpse at Playboy at the Country Store just a few blocks down from Mrs Pollard's 6th grade classroom. No Playboys here, but candy, pop and conversation - more than any clerk at the Country Store was ever able or willing to make (and who can blame them?) - at Hua Hin's Corner Store.

Some kids arrive on scooters, others in BMWs and some in lesser SUVs. And a few on foot or bike. Miss Kitty serves them all quickly and fairly, and I am happy to see she ignores the BMW asswad who has parked outside honking incessantly for car delivery although she is quick on the run for the local cop also who wants energy drink takeaway and make-it-fast. All politics is local and her mother in law keeps a running commentary to keep her and the customer bigwigws in line and satisfied.

For a brief moment I'm content and at peace in my little town.

Empty Glass
Thailand - self proclaimed "Land of Smiles" (and military coups)- has made it hard recently to quaff a cocktail. Last weekend was "early voting" for Thai citizens unable to trek back to their home villages to vote (voting is mandatory here) for the main polls on Dec 23. While bars and liquor stores are traditionally closed on election day in many areas of the United States, Thailand took the concept further and banned alcohol completely beginning from 6pm Friday through Sunday.

It's the height of tourist season and the prohibition was announced with less than a week's notice. I was at a Bangkok restaurant with a former colleague on Friday afternoon discussing the keen wisdom and foresight it takes for a country which relies so heavily on the tourist trade to ensure that no inebriated foreigners would vote or otherwise sully what I am sure will be a fair and completely transparent election process. In fact, one of my Thai coworkers had already told me that she thought the amount of money she and her family have been strongly urged to accept to vote for a particular party was "very fair" and would not dissuade her from voting for that group.

Normally packed farang haunts such as Soi Cowboy were shuttered. Of course, Thai bar owners and employees - of which Bangkok alone has perhaps hundreds of thousands - also suffer from the ban having effectively been given two weekends off without pay.

Oh, wait. Of course, resident foreigners can't vote in Thailand. They can own property, but not the land on which it rests. They can open a Thai savings account but not a checking account and cannot obtain a loan or credit card from a Thai bank. They also have the privilege of paying, say, as much as 400 baht (US$13) to enter a national park/forest while their Thai companions - or spouses - might fork over a mere 40 baht ($1.30) or less.

"So..." my Canadian companion-with-a-Thai-wife sighed as we chugged the last of our Singhas at 5.58pm under the worried scrutiny of a harried waitress and watched a European group of tourists express dismay and disgust that they could not have wine with their dinner - "Why couldn't the government, say, just ban alcohol for Thais during voting? If they can discriminate against me at a national park, why can't they discriminate for me on an election weekend? And make some money in the process?"

Meanwhile, one of the vino-deprived Europeans was shouting, "What eeezee theeze? We are in Mormon-Bush USA? Not I think Thailand?"

We Norte Americanos laughed darkly. And my Canadian buddy had a Plan B, short of a foreign-generated counter-coup to dislodge the prohibition-minded generals. Thailand, of course, is erratic when it comes to enforcement and we made our way to a less traveled, older bar and restaurant area where we found one small pub open in which the half dozen or so foreigners were sipping furtively from large brown ceramic coffee mugs - the kind last served up by wise-cracking waitresses named "Flo" or "Lois" in mythic diners along Route 66.

"We'll have two of your 'special' coffees," he told the bar tender, no Flo, but a young Thai woman named "Tai" - "one high octaine Singha and a Jack black 'java' on ice for my friend." We sipped from the mugs and watched an older black American singer and keyboard player perform some vintage R&B standards. He was nursing a cold as well as his own "coffee" but managed to put down some wonderful renditions, including a credible version of all the voices - from tenor to bass - for the Temptations' Papa was a Rolling Stone.

I asked him if he took requests. "Sure," he said. "If I've got it." He patted his computer where he'd downloaded his backing tracks.

"How about some more Temps?" I asked. "Maybe Ball of Confusion and dedicate it to the Thai election commission?" He laughed and raised his coffee mug to me.

"You got it."

See Emily Play

It's almost mid-December and it was only a few days ago when I saw a Christmas tree in a golf course promotion store and a bar girls wearing little red and white Santa caps with flashing LED lights that I realized Christmas was fast approaching. Unlike China - where Christmas is not celebrated but is becoming a sort of secularized cultural mishmash - it's hard to pick up any sense of the season in Hua Hin.

I have yet to hear a carol or pop holiday song, unlike Shenzhen where even in my virtually all-Chinese neighborhoods it wasn't uncommon to hear the maddeningly repeated strains of the barking dogs Jingle Bells,, Little Drummer Boy and - yes, even Mamacita, donde esta Santa Claus blaring in grocery stores. Actually, it's kind of nice, though I confess I'll be eventually breaking out a couple Christmas compilations sent to me while in SZ.

The press to buy presents, I don't miss - still waking up with nighsweats from 15 years ago, circa Dec 23, 1992 with no idea how I'll be able to find a specific model Michaelangelo Mutant Teenage Ninja Turtle for my son ... It was like planning guerrilla warfare conferring with other harried parents: "I've heard the Thornton Wal-Mart is expecting a shipment at 2.15 am..." "Or maybe it's the Castle Rock Toys R Us at 5.37 am?..." No. Please. Stop. No more.

Which had me musing this weekend while sipping a (hard to find) ginger ail on a street corner and watching two Thai boys in spiffy Spiderman wear. Ages 5 and 7 or so, I imagine and apparently the sons or grandsons of a clutch of motorcycle taxi drivers who were lazing away the day also between occasional fares.

The strains of a vaguely familiar song courtesy of a small, amateur makeshift marching band came down the street leading to the beach. No, not a holiday song but one of the most strained renditions of Girl from Ipanema I've ever heard drew everyone's attention. Behind the band fetching young Thai women were distributing real estate development leaflets and cheap paper fans to anyone within grasp and the taxi drivers took a bunch, stared uncomprehendingly at the English print before tossing the leaflets and keeping the fans.

The boys, however, were entranced by the leaflets. The smaller one sat on a curb and paged through it - pointing to homes he'll probably never own and babbling to his older brother and taxi drivers who nodded. The older one began rolling his into a cone to make a trumpet and telescope, alternately shouting through it and peering. Then it wa a sword to attack his younger brother who went from browsing for beach front property to defending himself. Their play went on for close to an hour. Perfectly happy with a couple pieces of colorful paper that bent for whatever fantasy they had.

After one "shot" me, I slumped and died in my chair before reviving and gently reaching for it. A paper airplane was one thing they couldn't make and mine was no beauty but they called for a second. Air wars and test flights followed. Would that a Ninja Turtle or TMX Elmo or Transformers Movie Leader Megatron. provide that much fun for so long for any American child ... Which gave me an idea.

I lunged at the tykes growling and swearing, tore up their papers and laughed. "HA!" I screamed as they and their taxi village protectors looked on in shock. "You're too damn imaginative you little soi urchins!" I dug into my pocket and threw a wad of baht at them - "Go!" I screamed. "TAKE THIS and get thee an X-Box 360 Platinum System and a FurReal Friends Squawkers Mcaw Parrot or a WowWee Robotics RoboPanda!
- if you can find any!...Haahahahah..."

Merry holidaze from Hua Hin.

Born to be Mild

I was dropping off my laundry across the street from where I'm living now - and having some quiet fun watching the owner's small dog making friendly play with her other pet, a kitten - when I heard the familiar sound of Harley rolling thunder behind me. Turning around I was facing two scruffy Thai bikers - members of the Ratchaburi Dragon Jars according to the colors on their leather vests - clutching bags of dirty laundry. Even bikers need clean skivvies, I thought, as they waied polite greetings to the laundress and rumbled away.

I'd forgotten that Hua Hin is hosting a biker fest ("Hua HIn Bike Week 2007") this weekend, kind of a mini-Sturgis minus the wet T-shirt contests and mayhem, but as Saturday night approached more and more largely Thai chopper clubs were clogging bars and streets with their chrome horses. Nagas, Bangbung Riders, Fly Turtle, Black Burapa, Flying Skulls, Jesters, Jikko, Black Devils, Little Devils, Devil Dragons, Dragon Way, Prachuap Riders - a gathering of the Thai chopper tribes. Harleys, I discovered after talking to a Thai member of Chopper Ubon while watching a band do the worst version of Born to Be Wild (no guitar sound, only bass, drums and strained vocals) I'd ever heard, were scarce in Thailand until the '90s. Biker clubs were virtually unknown. Originally most choppers had come in from Singapore and ridden by foreign oil workers up north, "Crazy Dog" told me, until the first Harley dealership opened in Bangkok in 1995.

"It doesn't matter who you are where you are what your job is, you're all equal when you get on your bikes," another biker, a Finn who called himself "Mingo" told me while sucking on a 32 ounce Singha as the band began to happily massacre Metallica's Enter Sandman. "Harleys aren't exactly built for the roads in Thailand so it gets interesting, you know...It a machine we all love. It's a very strange kind of machine, you don't want to abandon it - it is clumsy, loud and very heavy. And the ladies love it."

Just how sedate this whole scene really is pretty much summed up on Schedule of Events.

3.15 - 5pm: Motorcycle safety parade with headlights and helmets.
5.15-6.15pm: Games. (As noted before, did not apparently include wet T-shirt contests, tequila shot contests or urinating on newbie club members. Maybe a heady round of Pin the Tail on the Rice Burner Suzuki?)
8.15-9.15pm: Grand Opening. Provide scholarships for students in need.
9.30-12pm: Music Show.
Midnight: Sing the "Sun Sern Phra Ba Ra Me" song to show respect for the king.

Get your motors running...

Shakedown Street

While staggering back to my new digs like a herniated pack mule with my backpack full of groceries, a couple of Thai cops with their motorcycles parked in front of a gated residence were eying me. I'd seen them before irregularly and assumed they were basically neighborhood beat cops and had done my best to ignore them. My history with authority in any form is, er, well, checkered to say the least, and with police? Well, let's just say I don't wanna talk about it.

Longtime farang residents here had also told me tales of being shaken down by cops for infractions they otherwise didn't know existed - like failure to be in physical possession of a passport - so I smiled tightly at them, nodded and kept trudging.

"Hello! Hello! Where you go?"

Oh shit, I thought. My passport is in my bedroom...

"Hello, officer! Sawadee krup! (Elaborate wai on my part, the backpack's weight forcing me to an even lower level of obsequious, lick spittledom than usual when confronted with armed authorities). I go Soi 51."

"Soi 51? Why you go Soi 51?"

"I live there. My home."

"You live Soi 51?"

"Yes. No holiday. I work Hua Hin. I work Soi 39." I reached slowly for my wallet to show my Official Thai Foreign Correspondent Card, but held it back for a moment waiting for the next question.

"Where you come before?"

"USA, America." No response. Blank stares. Unlike China, I've found the United States' rep in Hua Hin mostly varies from neutral to virtual ignorance. (I've seen several maps in Hua Hin where Thailand is depicted at the largest country in the world, with China, Africa, Europe and North and South America reduced in scale to the equivalent of Texas at best. Geo-nationalism at its finest!) So I went to the Place of Origin Plan B answer, one all Hua Hin Thais seem to know.

"Hong Kong. China." Ohhh, Hong Kong! China! Yes, yes! Very good!

"My mother China," said one cop, beaming. "You have Thai lady?"

"No, I live myself. No lady. No Thai lady. Have lady in China."

Good Cop with Chinese Mother beamed.

"Good, good! China lady good, very beautiful! Thai lady too much yak-yak-yak! Too much, 'Where money? Give money yak-yak-yak-yak, money, money. No money, no honey!' You know?"

I laughed, and thought: Paging Dr Freud, but said, "Yeah, sure. I know. I know, no money, no honey yak-yak. Yes, China lady number one!"

Then Bad Cop with No Chinese Mother asked, "You have passport?" I paused for a beat. Or beating.

"Uh, yes. Yes. But in apartment, Soi 51. Not here. But, but.. I have this with me." I paused and pulled out my Super Dooper Magic Secret Decoder Thai Press Credential. I'd heard these things were gold when it came to dealing with Thai authorities, but wasn't banking on it. They both scrutinized it carefully, passing it back and forth and exchanging comments in Thai.

"You write stories? Make news?"

I didn't bother to say, No, I actually copy edit mostly tedious, poorly written reports and academic tomes by people whose native language isn't English for a website whose readers seem to be largely hysterical Indians, Pakistanis, foreign policy wonks of all nationalities, and extreme left-wing Americans who are still mourning Ralph Nader's failed presidential bids ... and just said, "Yes."

For the first time they looked at me with some modicum of almost-respect. Shit, I thought, this card really WORKS. Maybe there is a Santa Claus, too.

"You write good stories, okay? No bad Thailand stories?"

"Oh, no, no! Only good Thailand story! Good Thailand POLICE stories!" They both laughed and Good Cop with a Chinese Mother Oedipus Complex and Lousy Marriage to a Thai Wife handed me my ID back.

"Bye, bye," he said. "Remember, 'no money, no honey yak-yak'!" He laughed again.

I chuckled, shook their hands, waied goodbye for good measure and kept walking, just grateful that they hadn't asked for any money or honey

C-c-changes

Astute readers (all three of you) noted I'd recently posted a blog entry ('Dark End of the Street') about the unexpected death of a British guy I'd come to know and enjoy here in Hua Hin, only to see it gone when you next checked in - probably hoping for some lighter fare.

For those who didn't ask but wondered (all 1.3 of you) it was a slapdash memorial of sorts to someone who'd all too briefly touched my otherwise fairly uninspired life in this seedy little piece of Thai paradise and my regret and sorrow that he was suddenly gone. It unintentionally touched a nerve, however, among some first-time - and I'm sure by now last-time - readers, who included some relatives in the UK offended at the description of how he died. It wasn't pretty but it was honest, and honesty was one attribute I really enjoyed when it came to him.

What was I thinking?

Here's one of the comments: I'm really close friends with his daughter and i agree with what she said. You ARE a sick fucker and i think you should remove this post. I didn't know him personally but I Know for sure that he didn't deserve some faggot like you to speak about him in this way. fucking remove this or you'll definitely be reported.

Most others were in that same civil, restrained and understated British vein. Though, once I realized I'd hurt some hearts I had no desire to injure, this comment - just due to the basic polite tone - had me hitting the "save to draft" button for the entry immediately. I could relate and understand. And at least he didn't call me a sick fucker, he only had an momentary urge to stomp me on the sidewalk.

X's brother says he would appreciate it if you would remove this posting. Show some respect not just to X but to the rest of his family. The way i feel about you at the moment for posting this at this traumatic time is as though i have just trod in you on the payment.

Thus I was keeping a low profile at one of X's wake's last night, one of about three that have gone one in various bars since his Buddhist-style funeral and cremation. Kind of an extended after-life pub crawl that culminated in a generally bittersweet send-off amid beers, memories, songs that the deceased enjoyed and an amazing culinary spread provided gratis by the only foreigner in Thailand who owns a private butcher and meat catering operation.

I talked with X's wife for awhile about how they met and his amazement that he'd found a Thai woman who appreciated Aretha Franklin as well as Stone Roses, and tried to fend off the pressure of a party-crasher, another Brit who upon learning that me and a coworker were both journalists tried to tell us that we should write a story about a short boat voyage he was planning. It was thoroughly unremarkable, though he was convinced otherwise, mostly I think, because he was a participant.

My coworker, an experienced sailor here as well as other climes, politely played the salty mariner card to no avail.

"It is a story," the party crasher insisted. "It is 'cuz I'm telling you it's one!"

"It's not a NEWS story," we said. "Sorry."

"It is!" he replied. "And, and...(pause for dramatic effect) we're sending a tape to the BBC!"

"Go ahead. Good luck with the Beeb," I said. "But. Not. A. Story."

I left the wake and my next opportunity for a Pulitzer after saying goodbye again to X's widow and a couple of his friends who had seen the blog but hadn't taken offense, and caught a motorbike taxi back to my new neighborhood, a studio apartment with an "ocean view".

Goodbye to former felonious psychobilly roommate R and Faulty Towers, yes.

The ocean view is a small levy about two blocks east facing the Gulf of Siam and flanked by two upscale Thai-foreign eateries and a Thai sidewalk diner. The rest of the area is quiet and close to services I need, like two small mom and pop stores, an ATM, my bank, my office, a "Mormon" 7-Eleven (no cigs or booze, cuz it's close to a school, an oddity here) and what appears to be a combination OBGYN/aroma therapy/Thai massage clinic. Regrettably there are no roaming cattle herds and few soi dogs but it's a largely Thai neighborhood, though tourist season is in full swing which means scads of elderly, large, creaky white haired, bald headed Scandahoovians and Germans filling the sidewalks with their guttural utterances, lumbering gaits and demands for fresh surströmming, frestelse und KROG!

Actually, it feels a bit like Miami Beach if Germany had won the war.

Take a Letter, Maria
Soi dogs yawping, people chattering - their voices mingling with the mynahs and other birds - and most of all the rhythmic thrumming of thousands of frogs woke me again this morning at 6. Outside Thailand was beginning to stir, oblivious to the fact that the Colorado Rockies were shortly taking the field against the Boston Red Sox at Fenway for their first World Series. I was unusually jazzed for a Thursday morning and stumbled down to the TV, fired up the tea water, found the remote and hit the switch looking for the ESPN feed.

Four hours, five innings, one Rockies, and 13 Red Sox runs later it was clear my optimism for Game 1 of the 103rd Series was entirely unfounded. I surrendered the remote to R who was obviously and pathetically grateful that he could now watch WWF wrestling ("A real sport!") and began my daily "death commute" to work. Thailand can be an idyllic and overwhelmingly beautiful place when you have nowhere to go and nothing much to do. but I am one tense, sweating, uptight white knuckled, white skinned mofo everytime I have to cross a road and/or ride on the back of a motorcycle cab.

I often think of a guy I never met on these journeys. He was an English journalist who held the same position I would later inherit in Hua Hin for only about six weeks until he died when his 115CC Suzuki and crash helmet didn't get the better of a truck load of migrant workers and sacks of concrete mix that pulled suddenly in front of him on a badly paved rain-slick road.

According to office lore, the only relative they could locate was a sister in the UK who had no interest in claiming and burying her wayward expat brother, who had also had the bad form to expire with only a month's salary to his name. In addition to a paucity of traffic laws and lights, and minus an efficient and incorruptible police force, Hua Hin also lacks a public morgue, so his remains were stored in a refrigerated locker owned by the local "wat" (monastary) for such purposes for a fee that was three times the standard rate because the dead guy was a "farang" and thus could presumably afford the fee hike. More overseas queries were made...

Then the monks pulled the plug prematurely in an apparent attempt to wrestle more baht from his dwindling bank account ... Suffice to say, I don't want to end up like this guy mourned hastily by coworkers who barely knew me and cremated quickly because I was beginning to smell.

Which brings me to the office where the decaying stench of a new batch of Letters to the Editor awaited me. I have a new duty due to a series of abrupt, unexpected staff changes here and it is overseeing, editing or simply deleting without comment the 12-20something pithy editorial missives e-mailed to us daily from around the world. Most of our 100,000-plus daily readers are in the US, but there are equally devoted and/or outraged voices in Europe, England, China, India and Pakistan - as well as the daily pleas, prayers and promises we receive from the Australian Defence Force, helpful Nigerian banker Mr Eibraham Soto and from "陳蕙菱" concerning 讓清純可人的妹妹解開....鈕扣!! and the ever popular, "MAKE MONSTER BIG PENNIS FASTEST!"

We have a core group of correspondents, however, many of whom don't seem to have jobs, social lives or any other interaction with the world beyond firing off passionate, generally political prose regarding current events, as well as real and imagined intrigue, in their backyards. Some of most heated comes from India and Pakistan where they employ a unique English language style that combines mangled cliches and metaphors not heard since the British occupation along with their local idioms. For example:

Editor Sir, Please to promptly publish my letter! It is something of a sticky wicket we are finding ourselves in lately! I blame Benazir Bhutto for the aftermath of stomach churning carnage of the early hours of 19 October resulting in the death of over 140 innocent Pakistanis. I do not believe she has her horse in gear and further evil meddling on her part puts a distinct chill where the sun does not wish to rise and shine! We have a saying in Pakistan: "Billi soo chuhae kha ke haj to chali!"( A cat after eating hundred rats went to perform Haj for redemption). Thank you! Sincerely, KJ, Karachi.

And there are the stone crazies; one in particular who - apparently depending on his medication ingestion writes daily either about the US government's mind control experiments and why they won't give him a passport or ... this.

Dear Editors, The year 1808. A constitutional provision was also were laid out. Soon enough the kaurava hero hundred thousand cooks to distribute excellent behold anything, for with human eyes nothing can into the roaring river several hundred
feet below moments. I was ready to barter my whole life for for you to assure you that i had no knowledge alive to the slightest violations of decorum.

Of course, I can relate. When I find I am on a sticky wicket, I merely remind myself that even in Thailand with the Rockies in shambles on the other side of the planet, I have no knowledge alive to the slightest violations of decorum. Or as they say, "Billi soo chuhae kha ke haj."