Portrait

I'm sitting on a stool at the counter of a Thai place, sipping the Negroni the bartender just made me — good Negroni. A few minutes later, the same bartender hands me a notepad that has a whiff of 1980s junior high. On the open page there's a pencil sketch.

It's a face, in profile.
My jaw drops in surprise, and then I smile at him.
That face is mine.
I don't know how much it looks like me, but it's definitely me. And the less it looks like me, the more I like the idea, because it means that by observing me and letting his creativity run free, he was able to imagine me in his own way.

I don't even know if it's a good drawing, technically speaking. I like it, but I'm no expert. I can have a competent opinion on a piece of writing, an idea, a movie, a piece of music, but when it comes to drawing, I understand very little. To me, every effort at GENUINE creativity is beautiful. My little niece's drawings have always looked like works of art to me, in their own genre.

In a world where you have to stay on your guard and slip away so you don't end up as an extra in some goddamn "video story," running into someone who draws your portrait while you don't even notice is a pleasant throwback. A return to the past that, amid the disorientation of the present, feels like a good omen for the future.
Kudos to the "bartist" — part bartender, part artist.

Drafted from Italian with Blog Translator, then revised by me.

Milan derby in Pattaya

All of the dancers
got off the stage:
a cool lighted volume,
like a transparent cage.
Two foreign tourists
wearing football kits
climb on the cubo
and start to feign fits.
While they shake their limbs
the stripes on each shirt
are rosso-nero-azzurri
snakes that flirt.
One guy is Ronaldo
and the other's Kaká,
derby vibes are turned on
in Walking Street, Pattaya.

#acmilan #inter

TOO SWEET FOR ME - Bangkok, Thailand

Everything here is
sick-making pink,
the walls are wainscoted
with pink teddy bears.
Just fluffy toys,
all of them pink,
it's like eating honey
with sugar on top.
This is too cute,
sweet kind of cute,
I'm feeling noxious,
I'm about to puke.

Boozy lingams - Bangkok, Thailand

on the shelf of a loud pub
where they only play k-pop
a file of glass cocks
filled up with sweet shots
of colorful fluids
by lasers x-rayed
are about to e.j.
with some sort of b.j.

PARALLEL - Bangkok, Thailand

...dozens of glasses
on the table top
the dj spins techno
trance and hip hop
the fine tuned vibes
send the mood glide high

Developing country? - Bangkok, Thailand

When disabled passengers enter any station of the Bangkok SkyTrain system (BTS), they are accompanied by an attendant to the right platform and assisted while boarding the train. The arrival station is then informed of the relevant train, car, door and seat numbers. When the passengers reach their desired destination, an employee will be waiting for them in front of the specified door and will accompany them to the station exit.

Khaosanroadsunrise

All of a sudden an incandescent blob
has popped up right at the end of the road,
it might be a nuke test, like in Alamogordo,
but only a fat tourist here is called gordo.
A few seconds later we can breathe again,
the overweight guy can return to Spain,
the light is still there but this is not Nagasaki
and the noise we've just heard is of an old Kawasaki.

Economics

I am walking down a busy sidewalk and I badly need to pee. I remember that at the end of that narrow alley on the right there is a public toilet. I rush. When I get there I am reminded that to unlock the toilet gate you need a 10 baht coin. I don't have any. There is no one around who can give me change.
My nearly exploding bladder is enhancing my resourcefulness: I have an unexpected idea. I remember seeing a nice lady with a radiant smile squatting on the floor at the alley entrance, begging the passersby for some spare baht. Hadn't I been distracted by my body needs I would have already dropped a coin in her bowl. I grab a 20b note out of my pocket. For most people this note is worth double a 10b coin. And that, of course, includes the lady with the lovely smile. However, I want to pee now, and I need the 10b coin, which I don't currently possess, and that makes it priceless for me, no matter what's worth for you or anyone else.

The TV car - Bangkok, Thailand

The usual crowd sits in two rows:
football, curries and cheap beer
flood with good mood the atmosphere
and help all conversation flows.
A sudden force engulfs the scene
and in seconds every movement stops,
spoons are hanging in mid air,
all the faces turn as one.

Combustion - Bangkok, Thailand

At six in the evening
as hell replaced heaven,
a skyscraper was scraped,
by the clouds up in flames.

Three illusions and a truth - Bangkok, Thailand

What looks like a Lego brick is a walkway tile,
What looks like a holy shrine is a wooden hall,
What looks like red paint is a filtered light,
What looks like a child is indeed a child.

Polarized - Patong, Phuket, Thailand

 

 

Hard like steel, soft like cotton.
Dark like an eclipse, bright like a star.
Still like eternity, floating like a leaf.

The 25th hour - Patong, Phuket, Thailand

 

Ineffable, elusive
Pathologically shy
Spotted by few people
Just when dawn steps over night
Barely one time photographed
By the man who took this shot.
Ladies and gentlemen
This is a rare chance
The 25th hour
Was there for nearly an hour
And about an hour later
It got swallowed by the past.

 

South East Asia disgust test

Thinking of going to South East Asia for an adventurous, fun or relaxing trip? If you are not prepared to face the following scenes it is better for you to change plans before it is too late. Well maybe the aseptic Singapore can be fine, but just that one...

Summary justice - Bangkok, Thailand

The year 2013 was indifferently fading away while I was standing petrified, watching a mob publicly lynching someone who got caught stealing a shirt, or something like that. While he was lying unconscious on the road, perhaps already dead, someone used his heel to smash his skull on the asphalt a couple of more times. He raised his knee high and used all the strength he was capable of. The guy's head rolled on the ground in a peculiar way, like a coconut being hit by a machete. Then two cops arrived, checked his pulse, couldn't make much of that, handcuffed him and took him away. Yes, they really handcuffed him: after all a thief is always a thief, even if he seems to be dead. As for the executioners, they proudly walked away. Obviously unpunished. 

The "motorsai" experience - Bangkok, Thailand

Taxi "Motorbaaai"

Have moooob! Taxi no gooo, mo-ter-saaai gooo! OK mai krab?
You say OK, and you hop on, with all your luggage, guitars, saxophones, dogs, pigs, chicken coops, bread, cheese and ham, radio, TV set, satellite dish, dad, niece and grand mum...skirting cars, bikes, food stalls, protesters, cops, journalists, office workers, tourists, hookers and ladyboys, from the airport link terminal to your hotel, air, chili vapors and smog on your smiling face.
And that's when you suddenly remember why you liked it so much the first time you came here...

Conflicting rights - Bangkok, Thailand

Seated on the tables barring the passage

Sometimes we have a lot to learn from the simplicity, the humanity and the flexibility of South East Asians (for an example you can take a look at the last picture below). Or better, to re-learn, as fifty or sixty years ago we were pretty much like them.
For some other aspects though it is better for us to go and take our lessons somewhere else. I realized that when I was having a bite and a beer at at table near the edge of a street in Bangkok. The restaurant management had placed their tables on the section of the sidewalk in front of the entrance. Normally people prefer to walk on the road - especially in this area and in the evening - turning it into a sort of pedestrian area. The road was jammed though, as it often happens here: a taxi, a tuk-tuk, a street stall and a few people ordering their food. The passersby were forced to move to the sidewalk. Notice that this is exactly the opposite of what should normally happen. This is a very common thing in Asia though, and it is not what I intend to point out here.

Yet another cynical post: the Thai prostitution myth

Penis rock and vagina rick at sunset, how romantic! (Koh Samui, Thailand)

This is the cynical post that I promised here.

Next time I see one of those cheese TV reports on prostitution in Thailand I swear I am going to puke. Of course the majority of western journalists are good professionals and I wouldn't dare say anything about them or their work. There are some, though, who should have their pens, laptops and tablets confiscated. A bunch of low level word-workers who rely on trite myths and stereotypes to justify the salaries their editors give them.
Those that for years have told us the story of the poor Thai girls taken advantage of or even enslaved by old and slimy sexual tourists are among the most sly.
It's hard for me to believe that they have really been in Thailand, collected evidence, looked around, tried to understand and finally got it all wrong that way. It must somehow be intentional. They must have based what they wrote on hearsay, relying on some urban legend or isolated tear-jerking case in order to achieve some sensationalist effect and exploit the overwhelming Western hypocrisy. Reading Michel Houllebecq could provide some inspiring ideas on the subject. On the other hand it is quite unlikely that over the years I've only come across exceptional cases. I got to an apparently arrogant yet unequivocal conclusion: I just know more than them about this subject.

How to fuck up a nice place - Koh Samui, Thailand

Beach party

My fingertips are itching. I need to write a couple of cynical posts, and the first one is going to be about the Thai island of Koh Samui: the perfect example of a heavenly place that have been fucked up in just a few years. 
I've been coming to Chaweng beach for about ten years. I remember well the impression I got the first time I got here: a beautiful bay with white sand, clear water and tropical vegetation. Lively at night: a few pubs with live music and screens for sport events, a couple of discos where you could spot a certain number of hookers but also a lot of "normal" customers, including Thais, and a few bars. The general atmosphere was still very simple, in line with the rural origins of the country: a lot of street food stalls, mototaxis that could take you anywhere for a small fee, songthaews - something in between a taxi and a bus - authentic local markets, nice people, some funny odd ones, smiles, coziness. I liked it a lot. I'm neither the no-electricity-faraway-island type of tourist nor the luxury resort one. Koh Samui was just the right mix. 

A passport photo is NECESSARY! Unless... - Hong Kong

An old 20 HKD banknote and a passport picture

Usual stop in Hong Kong to get a Chinese visa. Usual stay at the Nathan road mansions, where the foreign hasslers who come here to start a new life are getting more and more annoying and the smell more and more pungent. The beehive cell-like rooms haven't gotten bigger by a bit though. Only the prices might actually have been increased. 
The Forever Bright agency at the New Mandarin plaza by Tsim Sha Tsui East MTR station is way more crowded than the last time I was there. They have even hired a guy who wears a suit and a tie and stands by the door and mounted a movable structure for the customers to form an ordered line. 
The situation at the counter is chaotic: it's a mess to receive the forms, to get information about the fees and to hand in the application papers.  I was planning to get a six-month, multiple-entry, business visa but in just a few years the fee went from 600 to 2000 HKD. I opt for the three-month, single entry, tourist one which only costs 500 HKD. 
"You need to give me a passport picture."
"Here you go!"
"No, this one has a white background, we need one with a blue background."
Shit, the blue background...