When the American coach of the Saigon Heat died under murky circumstances years ago, ESPN wrote about it, with a long quotation from my novel, Love Like Hate, in an accompanying video. One of the photos it used was of Bangkok, however, and not Saigon, but what’s the difference? Southeast Asia is Southeast Asia! Of course, only fools think that.
In 2010, The New York Times wanted an account from a Vietnamese about the Fall of Saigon, so it tried to contact Pham Thi Hoai, a Hanoi-born writer who was nowhere near Saigon in 1975. Further, she couldn’t send them anything since she didn’t write in English. Since the deadline was near, I gave them something instead.
When not lying, the American media are often clueless, but if you don’t know this by now, you’ve probably been Jewjabbed two, three or four times, and think Putin is about to run out of missiles, drones, trucks, chewing gum and condoms.
I’m back in Vung Tau. It’s raining hard. Though my cheap coffee is barely drinkable, I’ll order another one, to fuel this article. Water cascading on the tin roof sounds like infinite applause, so I’m well loved, obviously, but Rilke did say, “When people start mentioning your name, change your name.” This pestilent rain that’s trapping me in an unfamiliar cafe sure knows my name.
Though ESPN thought Bangkok could sub for Saigon, those two cities are super distinct, with the latter, my hometown, much messier, thus more alive, though not necessarily in likable ways. Nothing is more alive than war, eh? At my blog, there’s a crank who would show up to bitch about Vietnamese sidewalks and traffic, but even a blind man can cross the street here. He just has to move very slowly.
In lovely Bangkok, I rambled, for you must measure everything with your body, one stride or mincing step at a time, and you must ogle or steal sidelong glances at everything. If you don’t have legs, measure each inch with your nose and belly as you slither. If eyeless, you can still sniff each pebble, toe and turd.
As everyone and his grandma know, sex tourism is big in Bangkok, and there’s something there for granny too, if she’s long bereft. Degenerate or simply so lonesome, it hurts, foreigners flood to Bangkok to stick their pitiful yet prideful sorrow into someone’s hole, or have their plumbing plugged. If bashful, they can simply watch fake love onstage.
I also got my action in. Outdoing y’all, I located for myself, and myself alone, Bangkok’s biggest pussy, and I didn’t just stand there, hard up, to stare at this foreboding cave, but squeezed all of my sick self inside, so I was home, and more home than you can imagine, so go ahead and hate me! Envy away!
Miserable, we look, and since we constantly flee from actual experiences to take refuge in a small, flat piece of metal, plastic and glass, we can’t be more miserable. In our pant pocket, we have live sex shows on demand. Virtually sated, we slackly agree to be bullied, poisoned, deformed or even killed. The tortured are voluminously entertained.
I vaguely remember Schopenhauer saying an indication of man’s misery is the fact he can only look, mostly, at the world’s richness. Since I can’t find anything remotely like that online, I probably butchered it. Maybe it’s not even Schopenhauer. Not the rambling, gladhanding type, dude was such a downer. Down with Schopenhauer!
Before leaving the US, I gave all my books to my friend Ian Keenan in New Jersey. When young, I routinely sold books when broke. I sometimes paid for food with pennies. Clearly, I was not destined to have an actual library.
My old professor Stephen Berg had thousands of books. They surrounded his three desks, at home, the University of the Arts and the American Poetry Review. With tilting stacks obscuring each other, they barely left room for Stephen Berg to walk to his chair. To be drowned in books was his comfort. I’m not so lucky.
In Bangkok, I didn’t go anywhere near seedy attractions, but explored pleasant, residential neighborhoods, rich and poor.
Many of the affluent live in newly laid out, ruler straight cul-de-sacs that are very long. Not meant for through traffic, you must retrace your steps to get out. With no businesses, thus few live bodies, they are odorless and mostly silent, thus have nothing in common with organically evolved alleys, what I’m so used to in Vietnam.
Money buys distance. The rich everywhere dread rubbing against riffraff. They fear our armpits, imperfect teeth and grubby claws. Only the prettiest among us are allowed to become house niggers.
Well, fuck you too, but recently, we’ve been told to keep our distance from each other, which makes no sense, for we must live, work and travel on top of one another. We ain’t got no room, massa.
Maskless, I traveled in subway or skytrain without a problem. When one old guy stared at me disapprovingly, I just ignored him. It was very rare to see another rider unmasked, and nearly everyone was also fixated on his cellphone.
A young woman had the tryzub on her cap. Before 2022, she may not have heard of Ukraine, but cellphone obsession, mask wearing and support for Zelensky’s war against Putin’s Russia have become parts of the conditioning, or brainwashing, of the masses worldwide. Proudly correct, she’s au courant, and most likely Jewjabbed three or four times.
One afternoon, I splurged on three hard-shelled ground beef tacos at Wraptor. Of course, good Tex-Mex is nirvana. Plus, it’s been a while. On Wraptor’s tables were clear plastic screens to prevent diners from infecting each other with the coronavirus. Airborne viruses only zap in straight lines, you see. Pinged against any hard surface, they die instantly. Of course, it’s a Jewish joke, with poker-faced Bourla, Walensky, Garland and Unz, etc., the deftest and deadliest of comedians.
The waiter admitted he had been jabbed three times, and the waitress four. When I told them I hadn’t been jabbed even once, they gave me a surprised look, and probably thought I was suicidal.
In a cheap noodle joint, I noticed many photos of King Bhumibol, alone or with his family. They were placed rather chaotically inside a large frame, the way you’d display family photos at home. Very curious, this worshipful yet loving identification with royalty, as if they’re merely the most distant of relatives, and not inhabitants of an entirely different universe.
There are many photos of King Bhumibol with a camera, so he’s like an overwhelmed visitor to unfamiliar places, a mere tourist. No scepter or sword in ornamented scabbard, this mass-produced accoutrement renders him more common, almost goofy, makes him appear as lost as us, albeit with billions in the bank and an army of servants.
Although a king is as stinky as any man, and may not excel at anything, he’s lifted above the rest, and this miracle alone somehow inspires those who must earn their daily mouthfuls by wading through mud, shit, garbage and abuses. The obligation to pose as a God, though, must be terrible.
Most Thais, though, considered King Bhumibol a living god, and the flood of grief at his death four years ago was genuine. If nothing else, King Bhumibol had the regality of a first-rate statesman.
When pestered by a foreign journalist in 1970 about his rural betterment program, that it was only a feeble response to Communist unrest, King Bhumibol calmly replied, though with a touch of irritation, for he was a king, after all.
“What you think about what the Communists are saying about schemes like this, that you’re involved in?”
“Depends on the ones. Sometimes they say they’re the initiators of this scheme. Sometimes they say this scheme is the devil’s scheme.”
“But in a sense, there’s truth in that. They might be claiming that if it were not for their actions, you and the government might not be doing these things.”
“You like to push this question,” King Bhumibol smiled. “This is a half-truth. If they were not there, we would not have trouble, and we would have built this dam a long time ago. But if… because they’re there, we must take the trouble to come here, because the people who build this, they want to have some encouragement.”
“You’re saying this is evidence you’re winning?”
“Winning against what?”
“Communist insurgency.”
“Oh, I don’t know, but we are winning against hunger. This is what we are doing. We are not fighting against people, we are fighting against hunger. We want them to have a better life. If we make this, and they have a better life, people you call Communists will have a better life also, so everybody is happy.”
So charming, isn’t it, the leftist farang’s “schemes,” as if building a dam was merely a ploy or trick, and not something with lasting benefits for common folks? If you were king, would you have been so patient, and would any recent US president have been so nuanced with his answers? King Bhumibol didn’t claim to be kicking Communist asses, but merely to achieve something particular in a specific locale, and his presence there was needed to boost the dam builders’ morale.
For several years, I’ve been branded a Nazi by the Jewjewed wokesters. Now, they will undoubtedly tag me a royalist. Whatever, man. Those charming soyboys can go castrate themselves, and not just preach it to toddlers.
Sticker in Bangkok, “THE FUTURE IS LADYBOY.” Another, “PUTIN SEE U IN HELL.” English graffiti on a concrete wall in an alley, “FUCK THE ARMY.”
The most prevalent messages in Bangkok, though, are venerations for king and Buddha, and whatever you think of that, such attitudes have sustained them for centuries, and will enable them to outlast the incipient demise of the USA, a flashbang in the pan that’s already petering out after 246 admittedly exhilarating if often atrocious years. Many clams, tortoises and bowhead whales have lived nearly as long, though not, sadly, Bangkok’s largest pussy.
At least I was briefly inside, for real.
1 comment:
Glad to see you succeeded in being born again, even if you had to go all the way to Bangkok to get it done. Not sure if this makes you a Christian or a Buddhist, but you win either way.
Post a Comment