Women May Be From Venus, But Men Are Not From Mars

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That's Gay

Can You Hear Me Now?

Several years ago there was a best seller called Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus. It was a popular book that attempted to address the vast differences between the sexes using the premise that we just come from two entirely different worlds; that we don’t speak the same language. I didn’t read it.

I’m fairly certain that it was written by a woman. Had it been written by a man, it would have been all of one page long. Women may be from Venus, but men are from their gonads. Or slightly above where those puppies hang. End of story.

Women are unable to fathom the very simple truth that to guys, everything is about their dick. Everything. It’s pretty black and white, pretty cut and dried. That’s the language we speak. Regardless of what we do, what we say, how we act: it’s about our dick. And that’s the major similarity between straight guys and gay guys. Where we use them may differ, but their importance in our life is the same. Our dicks are our reason for being. They are the only thing that matters in our world.

There was an episode of Sex and the City in which the little scrawny ugly one’s latest boyfriend informed the red head (who I always knew was a dyke) that her date  who’d turned down finishing the night off in her apartment but promised he’d call, wasn’t going to because he really wasn’t all that into her. It was a liberating idea to Red. All the other fish insisted that there were multiple reasons why she’d not heard from the guy, that the scrawny one’s boyfriend was wrong, that the missing date would call. Wrong. His dick had decided it didn’t want to go there. Fini. Complete. That’s all she wrote.

Women live for their emotions. They speak with their emotions. Their emotions play the same role as dicks do for guys. They need to feel. And need to talk about how they feel. They need to dissect everything about their relationships. They hang out in groups to be able to get as many possible opinions of what their guy really meant when, for example, he sneezed. When a woman is in a relationship – which means she had a date – she feels a need to share, and get input from all of her friends. Not so much so with guys.

When a straight friend of mine is in a relationship – which means he’s knocked off the same piece more than three times – and decides he needs to share, that means showing me a few of the poloroids he snapped of his bitch du jour when she was either asleep or in the shower. The next time in that relationship he’ll feel the need to share is a week or two before their wedding when he calls and says, “Um, you know those pix? Probably wouldn’t be a good idea to ever mention them.” No problemo. I‘m gay. Those images were wiped from my mind within 3 seconds of me being forced to look at them.

When there are problems in a relationship, such as the aforementioned sneeze, women gather their hen pack together for a long ‘guess what he means by that’ session filled with emotional stroking. When one of my straight male friends has a problem in his relationship he too will talk about it. But all he wants is someone to listen to what a cunt the cunt has been. While I think, “I thought that was the attraction.”

Women want advice about what they should do. Men want advice too, but by that point in the conversation a guy will have already told you what advice he wants to hear: either dump the bitch ‘cuz he’s already decided he can land another fish before the week ends, or forgive and forget because even though he knows he can land another fish by the end of the week, he’s addicted to make-up sex.

The most seductive question to a woman is, “What do you think he meant by that?” Their women friends will spend hours helping to decipher the hidden message behind what some guy said or did. If instead they could find a guy who’d be willing to get into that conversation (which we won’t,  because there is nothing for our dick there) he’d tell her that the fact is, for guys, we don’t mean anything other than we say. Unless we are being polite. And then that is the meaning: we’re just being polite. Or lack the balls to come right out and say, “Later, the little guy says we’re gonna take a pass.”

That’s why being a guy is so much easier than being a woman. Well, one of the multitude of reasons. The problem arises, however, when one of the guys, possibly both, are gay. I don’t know why, but for some reason, far too many gay guys turn into women when they get into a relationship. They forget it really is always about dick, and instead start trying to figure out what the other guy meant by what he said or did. You’d think their little buddy would speak up and remind them of the facts of life. But their little buddy is usually oblivious, busy plotting his next outing instead.

When I lived in Hawaii, there was a guy whom I dated for about three months. He had the most incredible ass I’d ever seen, tasted, or bounced on. We’ll call him Mike. Because that was his name. My dick really liked Mike. He was fun to be around. Even out of bed. Which was cool with my dick ‘cuz it knew sooner or later we’d be headed back to bed. He had different enough interests to not be boring. And we got along smashingly. For about a month and a half. By then, Mike’s dick had decided it had found the man of its dreams and became complacent, allowing his other head to take over. Bad mistake. His other head worked on a fequency known only to women.

As Mike drew closer, I pulled away. Where he’d been interesting before, mistakenly,  he’d thought by shrinking his world of interests to meld into mine our relationship would be cemented. Clingy and dependent are not positive attributes. Regardless of the ass they are attached to. I probably should have moved on down the road by month two. But my dick was still having a good time; the bloom of our relationship had faded but the attractiveness of his ass had not. By the end of month three Mike was ready to say I do. I was ready to say I don’t.

And did.

So Mike went a bit psycho, acting like a bitch, sending long letters by mail and calling at all hours of the day and night either professing his undying love for me or screeching about what a complete asshole I was. Close. Wrong side of the body at fault, but close.

Seemed to be the closure he needed so I let him rant to get it out of his system. And there is a good example of when a guy really does mean something other than what he’s saying. I’d cared for him enough to allow Mike to flip out as needed. Had it just been about my dick, and his ass, the phone calls would have gone to the machine, the letters thrown away without being opened. Though to be honest, a lot of that probably had to do with my dick twitching in hope for at least one more ride.

Three years later I got a call from Mike. He’d finally reached closure, finally come to terms with the end of our relationship, finally had begun his own version of a twelve step program and was calling to share. Unfortunately for me, my dick answered the phone. Mike asked if we could get together to talk, so I met him at my go-to restaurant in Honolulu for breaking up. And yes, that I had a go-to restaurant for breaking up speaks volumes.

My dick, having a one track mind, heard the ‘get together’ but failed to catch the ‘to talk’. Mike started with how much better he was now, how he’d finally pulled himself back together, how he’d finally lost the 40 pounds he’d gained thanks to the end of our relationship. My dick heard the 40 pound thingy and considered how traumatic that must have been to such a fine ass.

Mike wanted to make sure that I too had finally come to terms with the end of what we’d had. I assured him I had, though it had taken me two years, eleven months, three weeks, and four days less than his journey had taken him.  Above everything else Mike had to say – that my dick failed to hear as it had begun to flirt with the studly waiter – was that he needed to know what I really meant when I had told him, “I think we are after different goals, our paths have diverged, and it’s best if we went our separate ways.’

Huh. Seems to me that was not an ambiguous statement. Seems to me that had been pretty clear. Seems to me, coming from a guy, it meant exactly what those words would be defined as if you bothered to look them up in the dictionary. Evidently, I was wrong. Evidently, I’d been communicating in some secret language. Evidently, everything I’d done or said in our brief three months together was rife with hidden meaning. Evidently, I’d been speaking in Venusian.

Unbeknownst to me, I’d pledged my undying love, a lifetime commitment through an act that I had attached no meaning to other than the gesture it was intended as. Valentine’s Day hit during our three month long romance, and he’d planned a romantic evening, a candle lit dinner at a five star beachside restaurant. My dick and I both showed up, and one of us had been thoughtful enough to bring along a Valentine’s Day gift.

I’d got him a large, cuddly, stuffed animal. An elephant. With a big red heart on it. Sweet. Somehow that had translated into a commitment to a long term relationship. Because elephants have long memories. Had I been looking for hidden messages, I’d have gone with something having more to do with an elephant’s long trunk. Silly me.

I was glad to hear Mike had lost the poundage, sad to hear he’d still not turned his life back over to the wise counsel of his dick. And didn’t want to hear anymore of his nonsense. Especially since my dick had already figured out it was gonna be a no-go as far as reunion sex went. No problemo. My dick scored the waiter’s phone number and got to play two nights later.

Mike had brought my stuffed token of undying love with him and wanted to return it to me. An excellent exit line, I agreed to meet him at his car to pick it up, hopped into mine and drove home instead. And allowed the subsequent and not unexpected phone calls to go straight to the machine.

I don’t know if the second ending was as traumatic as the first, don’t know if Mike gained back the 40 pounds he’d lost, but do know he had a nice big fluffy elephant to commensurate with. And to talk to. In what ever language he desired. Cold? Possibly. But I’m a guy. And my dick saw no future for itself in carrying that little piece of drama any further. The guy part of me couldn’t understand the woman part of him. And didn’t want to talk further even if we could speak the same language.

Women may be from Venus, but guys are not from Mars. Which planet some gay guys are orbiting is beyond me. But then, there’s Noom.

Noom speaks passable English, and can even be surprisingly eloquent at times. Face to face we communicate well, though a lot of that communication is through gesture, a litany of nods each a definite expression of its own, a lot of eye movement that speak volumes. Over the phone, understanding on both of our parts suffers without the accompanying gestures. But the Thai language relies upon tonal inflections and Noom makes use of those in his English too. So there’s that. Communicating by email sucks. I know it’s a struggle for him to compose written words in English, so we don’t email much. But regardless of how we communicate, we both still speak guy.

The first email I got from him after returning home from our first time together, he used a noble attempt at my name in the ‘To’ portion of the email address. For his own edification, he included some Thai, a word that would remind him who in the hell that email address belonged to. It did not have a hidden meaning. It was not intended as some significant clue. It was just a form of identification for him. But lust was busy working its way into love, so holdong my breath, I bitched out and used Google to translate. The word was sweetheart.

Awwwwwwwwwww.

Um, what do you think he meant by that?

Noom’s emails are usually pretty basic content-wise. He’s either doing good, or not so good. It’s either raining or not raining. And work is either busy or not very busy. Most emails are really nothing more than an opportunity to say Hi. But I just got an email from him asking when I was coming back for him.

Not to Thailand.

Not to Bangkok.

But for him.

That could be nothing more than his tentative use of English. That could be nothing more than asking when my next trip will be. He’s a guy, so it probably means nothing more than what it was: a scheduling query. But I want to believe it means something. Something more. Maybe the gay part of me is going Venusian on me. Or maybe, in relationships, the language women speak has some validity after all.

Magic Mike Promises To Be A Magical Movie Going Experience

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Movies & Television, That's Gay

Channing Tatum and his penis will soon appear in the male stripper film Magic Mike.

Now that the apes have risen, the cowboys have topped the aliens, Thor has quite playing with his hammer, and everyone has quit drooling over America’s captain’s chest, the world of movie goers – at least the world of gay movie goers – are anxiously awaiting the premier of Steven Soderbergh’s hunkorama production Magic Mike, which is shaping up to feature some of Hollywood’s hottest shapes. Sure, first we’ll all get to see Leo bottom for Armie Hammer in Clint Eastwood’s biopic J. Edgar, but Leo is getting a bit tired looking – and fat – and personally I’d much rather see Armie spreading those golden arches than treating Leo as the little sex pig we all know he is.

I made mention of Magic Mike, a movie based on Channing Tatum’s early years as a stripper in Florida, in my post ticking off Chan’s gay points and wouldn’t bother commenting further until the flick hits the screen. But the steady stream of hunks being signed for the flesh-epic has got me drooling in anticipation. The latest piece of beef to take on a role in the movie is none other than True Blood’s Joe Manganiello. Since Joe has shown everything but little Joe on TV now, ya can’t help but pray  wish  think his little buddy may make its screen debut in the movie.

Joe Manganiello has been signed to drop trou in the movie in the role of Big Dick Richie.

Joe joins hunksters Matthew McConaughey, Alex Pettyfer, Matt Bomer, and of course  Channing Tatum and his penis, in the cinematic beefcake extravaganza of taut torsos. Chan plays an older, experienced stripper who mentors newbie Pettyfer in the art of taking it all off in a strip club run by McConaughey. Bomer and Manganiello are members of the member showing dance troupe (which sounds to me like they need at least another half a dozen pieces of man-meat to fill the stage). Joe, by the way, will be playing the role of Big Dick Richie, which just cries out for cinematic proof. And none of that fake Dick Diggler crap either, please!

Pretty boy Alex Pettyfer will be oiling up his bod as the newcomer to the world of male strippers.

And proof we may get. When asked about the possibility of full frontal being featured in the feature film, a source ‘this close’ to the picture said, “Stephen isn’t afraid of going there. I’m sure he will do it.”

The word was that hunky William Levy was also slated for a stripping spot in the film that will begin shooting in September, but he has since turned down the role. Career-wise, that decision means his fame will not spread beyond his Latin American audience as quickly. Mastabatory fantasy-wise it means I’ll just have to make do with previous pictures of the Latino hottie (and ‘cuz I’m that kinda guy, will add one here for you anyway).

Matthew McConaughey, who has never appeared in public with a shirt on, will play the role of the strip club owner.

The world of male strippers, a line-up of some of the hottest bodies in Hollywood, and a sorta out leading man (that’d be Bomer if you weren’t sure which fit that bill best) would seem that Magic Mike would be full of gay sensibilities. Or at least a few gay sex scenes. That remains to be seen. But Soderbergh has been travelling down the pink brick road lately, with Michael Douglas and Matt Damon starring and locking lips in his upcoming biopic about Liberace. He jumped at the chance to feature Chan in the bares all production saying, “It was one of the best ideas I’d ever heard for a movie. It’s sexy, funny and shocking. We’re using Saturday Night Fever as our model, so hopefully we’re on the right track.”

Matt Bomer, who is gay in real life, will take it all off too. Will Bomer’s boomer make it’s debut?

Saturday Night Fever was pretty gay in its own right and launched the movie career of Hollywood’s worst-closeted ‘mo, John Travolta. Well, not counting Tom Cruise. Or Taylor Lautner. So there’s hope with the bodies and subject matter he has to work with in Magic Mike, that rainbows will be sprouting all over the screen.

A few young actresses have also been signed for the movie, but, ya know, that’s just fish. And they’ll largely go unnoticed. With the exception of Avatar, I’ve not yet been impressed with the recent rash of 3D movies, an unnecessary trend that’s been overused. But with Magic Mike and the possibility of a galaxy of Hollywood’s hottest hunks going full monte? Give me them damn glasses!

Sadly, William Levy has turned down the chance to show us what he is really made of.

Magic Mike will start shooting on Sept. 14 and is scheduled for release in 2012.

Relaated Post:
—Channing Tatum’s Penis Gets A Bump

All Aboard For The Chiang Mai Handcraft Factory Tour

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Chiang Mai, Markets & Shopping, Scams

A handmade paper umbrella from Chiang Mai. Pretty as a postcard and just about as worthless, too.

“Okay.
Fifty Baht.
One gem store.
One silver place.
One silk factory.
And if you even look at a rug merchant’s store, I’m fining you 100 baht.”

Mr. Ot giggled. Not a normal part of the bartering process. But I’d just busted him. He’d been holding the rug merchant in reserve, planning on pulling that one out as a surprise while underway.

I was in Chiang Mai, haggling over the price for a tour I didn’t want to go on but had no choice but to agree to. My opponent, Mr. Ot, was a driver I’d used several times during the trip already. It was the one day in the over month long visit that I actually had something I needed to accomplish. Unfortunately, where I needed to go was buried along Sankamphaeng Road, which meant participating in Chiang Mai’s ubiquitous craft factory tour.

If you aren’t into trekking, have no desire to risk attempting to cross into Burma just so that you can say you did, and have already experienced the wonders and smells of riding an elephant, what is there to do in Northern Thailand? Go shopping in Chiang Mai. The city has taken this pastime to new heights with its miles long night markets and daily night bazaar. But shopping is not just a nocturnal desire. What about spending cash during the day? Chiang Mai’s answer is the handicraft village tour, a visit to nonexistent villages of factories that aren’t, strung out over several miles on the road heading out of town,

You can not visit Chiang Mai without making the craft factory pilgrimage. Go ahead and try. It won’t work. You might as well just suck it in, man up, and accept defeat. But that doesn’t mean you have to accept being mauled, too. It was the maul avoidance issue I was dealing with at this point with Mr. Ot.

A photogenic setting compliments of the Bo Sang Umbrella Village.

I’d like to tell you to avoid being suckered into a day, or half day tour to the craft villages. I’d like to tell you the whole thing is a scam best avoided. But, preparing to write this post and trying to pick which trip to use to tell the tale, I realized I’ve done the craft factory tour more than any other activity in Chiang Mai. When I have no choice in the matter, as in this trip, it’s a drudge. When it is with first time visitors, every single one of them has enjoyed the outing. And it’s a cheap way to spend the day.

I’d also like to tell you if you make the trek, don’t buy anything at any of the factories you visit. Whatever catches your eye you’ll find again (and again) back in town at one of the markets for half the price. But then every trip I’ve made with friends I’ve sounded that warning and every time they’ve made purchases anyway. As did I on my first tour of the craft villages.

So instead, I’ll tell you go ahead, take the trip. Stop at a tour desk first, check out their price, then walk away. Go find a private car and negotiate a lower ride. Or if you feel you need to be punished for agreeing to taking a tour, negotiate the trip with a tuk tuk driver. Both your body and wallet will then share equally in the punishment.

For a fairly low price you can get a half day or full day trip that will take you to as many craft factories as your heart desires. In fact, no matter how many you visit, when you get back into town your driver will suddenly remember one or two you missed that are just what you’d been looking for. And he’ll suggest doing the whole thing again the next day.

Umbrella maker at work at the Bo Sang Umbrella Village.

Bartering for the cost of the tour is a must – it’s not difficult to get your potential ride down to a song. The drivers do not make their money off of what you pay for the tour. They make it off of delivering your ass to the factories. And get extra if you make a purchase. So your driver will keep an eye on you. If you come close to buying something, say at a gem store, he’ll make sure to stop at several more gem shops before calling it a day.

The drivers do not get cash for providing a factory with fresh meat. They get food while there, chits for gas, and a big payoff at the end of the year which often includes the local rot gut Thais call whisky. That payoff is the entire reason drivers love the factory tour business. It’s like winning the lottery. Trying to give one of them cash now, instead of a reward later just doesn’t have the same appeal. It won’t work. I know. I’ve tried. Even my driver Mr. Ot wasn’t foolish enough to fall for that one.

There is a merchant, not on anyone’s tour, whose shop is out by the Bo Sang Umbrella Village. They make wood bowls, vases, etc. I use them for custom made mango wood bowls, about the size of a small rice bowl, that I use for display in my business. I have to keep ordering more because customers like them and buy them, even though they are not something I consider as merchandise for sale. I could call and order more. Or email an order. But I like doing the face to face thing. Plus, even though they know what I want, it’s too easy, and happens too frequently, for an overseas order coming in from Asia to be nothing close to what you asked for. So when I need more bowls, I make the trek out to the store.

That should be easy. A direct shot out takes about fifteen minutes by car. I should be able to book a ride and go. But as soon as a driver realizes I’m headed into the world of craft factories, forget it. None will take me directly to where I need to go. All insist on at least a half day tour. So my bartering with Mr. Ot wasn’t about getting the price down so much as it was in limiting the number of stops we’d be making. And he wasn’t a happy camper. My needs were in direct conflict with his. I was ruining his chance at winning the big bottle of whiskey at year’s end.

A cavernous gem factory showroom floor may not be quite the quaint handcraft village you had in mind.

I’ve offered as high as 800 baht for the ride minus any stops and have never found a taker. But if the tour is your goal, you can get it as low as 100 baht. I’ve noticed the fuller a driver’s gas tank is, the lower he is willing to go. Whatever you pay, he may consult with you on what type of factories you want to see. Don’t spend a lot of time on this decision because once he drives down the road, all of that will change.

When you visit a factory/showroom you’re driven to the entrance area where a bevy of women in traditional garb await. One will greet you and ask where you are from. This is to ensure the woman assigned to accompany you speaks your language so that you can speak theirs: cash. Often you will be offered something to drink, a nice gesture in the hot climate that is designed to make you feel obligated to make a purchase. Next you get a quick tour of the factory operation where underpaid locals work as craftspeople producing the goods (well, some of them) available in the showroom.

You will see at least one huge gem shop. The gems shops, selling pricey merchandise, treat the drivers the best to encourage them to make a stop at their place. Most have an area you’ll walk through where workers are grinding and polishing the gems. Which can be quite interesting. And educational. Costly too if you make a purchase. You’ll also make a stop at a silk factory. Most have a bowl of silk worms for you to stick your hand into. Not quite as educational as the gem places, but kinda cool anyway.

Almost every place you stop at has some form of hands-on or ‘look how we make it’ portion for your visit. So it’s not just shopping. Though shopping is the singular purpose behind the factories’s existence. At one time, years ago, these stops were at local villages, with each specializing in a specific handicraft. Now, except for the umbrella village, they are large warehouse-like stores, that may or may not actually produce goods on-site. Seems though, that every tour dead ends at the umbrella village, so you’ll get at least one stop at a place that qualifies as producing handcrafted goods.

The sweet scent of wood shavings fill the air at the umbrella factory.

Nowadays, you’ll also make at least one stop at a rug merchant. I don’t know who the marketing whiz was that decided the perfect souvenir from Thailand would be a rug made in India and sold by an Afghani, but the merchants responded and there are now a dozen places along the route selling carpets. Your driver will want to take you to all of them. They reward drivers even better than the gem shops do.

I have a feeling touri are not as taken with the ‘buy an Indian rug in Thailand’ concept, so the merchants’ rely on numbers – huge numbers – of potential purchasers watching and waiting for the one who is too much of a pussy to say no. Because a visit to one of their shops is not about shopping, its about facing down the most polite yet aggressive sales pitch you’ll ever experience.

Though Chiang Mai’s rug merchants usually practice either the Islamic or Hindu faith, they excel at the Catholic precept of guilt. They are masters of making you feel guilty for daring to visit their store to waste their valuable time, and then refusing to buy a rug. Especially since they’ve offered you such an incredible deal that they will have to sell one of their daughters to make up for the loss.

If you do not have the strength of will, you’ll walk away with a $30 rug that you just ;paid $3,000 for. I guess the bonus with buying a rug is that it is the one purchase you’ll make during your craft factory tour that you won’t find back in town. While Thai merchants love to jump on the train and offer the same merchandise all their competitors do, none have fallen for the lure of cheaply made fake Afghani rugs. Yet.

Usually when visiting a Chiang Mai factory I smile politely and act as though I’m actually interested in possibly buying something as I determinedly make my way through the place to the exit doors. I can’t summons that degree of politeness dealing with carpet merchants and immediately began contradicting their claims, pointing out the obvious machine stitching on their ‘handmade” rugs – not that I can really tell the difference; I don’t know carpets but do know hype when I see it.

The last thing they want is to deal with a knowledgable customer, especially if there is a chance you’ll contaminate the other unfortunates who were led into their shop. You’ll be whisked outside and sent on your way as quickly as possible. Good trick. Feel free to use it.

And I get yet again the opportunity to enjoy the elephant’s ass on Helena’s ass.

Not surprisingly the biggest hit with everyone I’ve taken on a tour is always the umbrella village. Not that it should be if you think about it. Who really wants or needs a humongous paper umbrella or fan? But, these places offer a glimpse into the past when villagers made a living working at a craft. Technically, they still do.

The nice thing is the umbrella village continues to evolve. Every visit I make they’ve added yet another enticement for touri to drop some of their cash. And even though I always warn my fellow travellers not to waste their money, I end up spending a few baht at the umbrella village on every trip. It’s hard not to, too much of their merchandise is priced so low, seems like such a bargain, you can’t help but pick up a few souvenirs. For some reason, even when you get back into town and see the same stuff for a fraction of the price, you’re still happy with what you bought.

On my first visit with my friend Ann, she had her heart set on having a picture taken of her fake painting an umbrella. Cool. You can do that. Provided you buy an umbrella. But they were cheap enough, so it was no big deal.

When I took my friend Noom from Bangkok, the village had added a row of artists who’d paint a design of your choice on anything you wanted. He had a large Om done on his T-shirt. The other visitors got an added photo op bonus of a beautifully muscled Thai bent over, shirtless, providing step by step instructions to the artist. I got that shot as a souvenir instead of an umbrella on that trip.

Helena, Dee and Chris all had paintings done. Oh, wait. Wrong. Chris passed. Forgot. Even 50 baht was too outrageous for Cheap Chris to break away with. But he did drop twenty baht at the entrance to free a caged bird, a form of Buddhist merit making that works much like blowing out the candles on your Birthday cake. And is just about as useful. But Chris had a new business he was trying to inject with as much good karma and good luck as possible, so the twenty baht was well worth the price.

Helena paid to free a bird too but wanted more instant gratification and had an elephant painted on her ass to go with it. Well, on the ass of her pants. Not a real smart move when you are travelling with a smart ass, the opportunity for comparison was just too delicious to resist. I’m never above taking the cheap shot. And seriously, that she decided her new decoration should be an elephant’s ass just screamed for ridicule.

The perfect souvenir from Thailand: a rug made in India sold by an Afghani.

Photo Op-wise the umbrella village is choice. They’ve always had old local women set up slowly making an umbrella for you to photograph. And have upgraded the scene over the years with an eye to providing a dummy proof setting for even the worse photographer. A smart bit of marketing there. Those photos travel the world and everyone who sees them goes, “Ooooooo!” I think the local drivers should pass some of their hard won whiskey over to the umbrella village folk for providing the visual enticement that sends so many touri off sailing down Sankamphaeng Road.

We’d accomplished Mr. Ot’s portion of the trip on the way out, stopping at his favorite gem, silk, and silver stores before hitting the wood factory I needed to visit. Crafty little bastard. That left a long trip back into town where surely I’d be interested in stopping for some refreshments. At yet another gem, silk, or silver store. But I held firm. At least until he turned to pleading. Seems he was just a few points shy of winning another bottle of booze. And I caved. I’d done what I needed to do, and what the hell, ten minutes of my time to make Mr. Ot happy seemed a small enough sacrifice. Until after our first return-trip stop when he started slowing down at a sign for a rug merchant’s shop.

I cleared my throat in a disapproving tone. Busted again, he giggled again. Then wisely delivered me back to my hotel. No problemo. Besides, Mr. Ot knew of a wood factory even better than the one I’d been using. And he planned on taking me there, as well as to a handful of other factories, the next day.

(The following stop-action series of shots of Chris freeing caged birds is priceless Or worth the 20 baht it cost him to do so, at least . . )

Ambiguously Straight

Tags

That's Gay

A finely tuned sense of gaydar never lies.

I’ve always relied upon the gayness of strangers. At least since I’ve refined my gaydar. Prior to that calibration, it was pretty much hit and miss. Unfortunately, the ‘miss’ side of the equation meant I missed out on a lot of sex.

You don’t have to be a rocket scientist – or even gay – to recognize that some men play for the pink team. A finely tuned sense of gaydar is not necessary. Take Liberace for example. Who could have ever confused that man for anything other that what he was: a big shiny ‘mo. Ditto for Elton John. Sorry, but there was never a question about his sexuality from the first time he stepped onto stage in sequins. Little hint for those trying to pass as straight: straight men do not wear sequins. Ever.

More recently celebrity-wise, Chris Coffer, the gay guy who plays a gay guy on Glee is too gay for that to be acting. On the plus side, he knows he can not fool anyone and just owns up to being gay. Unlike Taylor Lautner.

Gaydar, however, comes into play with the less flamboyant. The ones the straight folk never get right. Ricky Martin is a good example. Sure, I know a lot of gay guys now say they always knew Ricky was gay. But that was just mastabatory wishing. Kinda like Jake Glyndenhall, a straight guy who far too many gay guys fantasize over and so he ends up with a ‘might be’ rep based on nothing more than he’s been fucked by so many gay men in their dreams that it has rubbed off into real life. I think. But then for all I know Jake’s a power bottom with a minor in rubber fetish. Or maybe that’s just my fantasy.

Good looking celebrities are always suspect. Both for their mannerisms and their appeal to gay men. Outside of Hollywood, picking out the possibles is a trickier proposition. Flamboyant gays make it easy. Guys who act like other guys are the ones that you start watching carefully for clues.

‘Straight acting’ has always been a term used to describe gay men who don’t act like stereotypical gay men. I’ve never cared for that term. It implies that you are ‘acting’ in a manner not true to yourself. The truth is straight acting gay men are just being themselves: men who don’t fit the gay stereotype. It’s not like when no one is looking straight acting gay guys suddenly throw a boa around their neck and start belting out show tunes. Some of us don’t even know any lyrics of a show tune.

Gay or straight? Okay, so there is such a thing as a dumb question.

I recently caught the last half of The Rocky Horror Picture Show on TV. I hadn’t seen that movie in decades. It brought back a lot of memories. And made me wonder how anyone ever watched that flick without noting how gay it is. (And as a side note, if knowing the lyrics to Let’s Do The Time Warp Again counts toward the show tune thingy, then I’m gayer than I thought).

When the Rocky Horror craze was at its zenith, few urban youths had not seen it. Most had attended a audience participation showing. It was cool, in, an instant classic, and no one ran about saying how gay it was. Even though it’s about a alien drag queen and has copious amounts of gay sex in it. That Meat Loaf had a starring role in the movie made it okay. I guess to some, it was a straight acting movie.

I saw Rocky for the first time when I lived in Monterrey. It used to show every Friday night in an old warehouse on Cannery Row back before they built the aquarium and changed the entire nuance of the place. A friend from work, Tim, a guy who I hung out with a good deal, suggested we go one night when he found out I had not seen it nor knew anything about it.

The movie was enjoyable, but it was when the audience started in with squirt guns, umbrellas, and throwing toast and rolls of toilet paper that it became an event. I loved it. There is no other movie going experience that can match Rocky Horror. It was fun. It was hot. So was Tim.

Tim was basketball player height, well past 6’ 5”. Thanks to being the offspring of a Caucasian father and Japanese mother, he hit the dark mark, too. Some would call him handsome, but at that age he qualified more as cute. And mommy must have been Okinawan, ‘cuz the boy was a hairy little dude; his mustache made Tom Selleck’s look amateurish. Tim was an all-around nice guy. The kind of guy everyone wanted to be buddies with.

Tim was also gay. Not out. And not gay acting (I think I like that term better). Having just come to my senses myself, I knew what interested me, but hadn’t a clue about how to figure out if some other guy had the same interests. Rocky Horror could have been a clue, but then lots of straight guys liked that movie too. That we saw it together in a funky old warehouse, huddled together on a bean bag chair meant for a single occupant could have been a clue, too. But that was the available seating, so who knew? That he leaned over closely and told me how sexy he thought Tim Curry looked in drag should have tipped me off. Got no excuse for that one other than youth and being plain old fucking dumb.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show: A straight acting movie?

Looking back I should have known. And should have scored. There were other instances that, upon reflection, should have told me he was fishing damn hard, hoping I might also be a not gay acting gay guy. We had lunch together often. Once, at a park along Del Monte Ave., on a sunny day – an unusual occurrence for the Peninsula – he suggested we take our shirts off. That’s gay. A straight guy, if he wanted to, would yank his shirt off and catch some rays. If his buddy did or did not would be of no concern to him. Dumb. Dumb. Dumb.

Part of my problem, besides having a newbie gaydar set, was that I was in lust with the guy who later became my first lover and partner. At that time, I was in lust rather than love because he was straight. Unlike Tim. Tim never stood a chance. At least not at a full blown love affair. But for a quickie now and then, even as a regular fuck buddy, he’d have made the grade. But was too not gay acting for me to have realized it.

I met the straight guy who wasn’t acting, whom I eventually had all that with, through his sister, a good friend, a close friend from work who I hung out with a lot. She had a good twenty years on me, but was lots of fun to be around. And had a real cute son. Which is where my lust affair with that clan began. (Do the math, he was younger, but close to my age. I don’t do kiddie porn).

One morning I stopped by to pick up the sister for work. Phil had arrived late the night before for an extended stay. He’d been sleeping on the couch in a pair of shiny green shorts and got up when I arrived. The blanket fell off him and it was instant lust. My heart thumped loudly, my eyes lost focus on anything other than that body, my dick got hard. At least that was the gay acting part of me. The normal not gay acting part smiled, shook his outstretched hand, and welcomed him to California. Phil quickly became an integral part of our pack and our friendship blossomed.

When I landed a fortuitous contact up north and decided to move to Washington for a year, Phil decided to join me. I was still in lust. He was still straight. His decision came after a long debate, a long talk, little of which made much sense to me. Seemed it was a fairly simple decision to make and yet he poured his soul into it. Our first night on the road we stopped at a motel, I checked us in, and when we got into the room Phil was surprised. ”Oh, you got us two beds.”

If you stared at this picture for more than 10 seconds, you’re probably gay.

The newly minted gay guy with the baby gaydar failed to catch the significance of that statement. Remembered it. But didn’t realize what had just been said. Hey, I already admitted to being dumb! We remained sleeping in two beds for the trip and for several weeks once we got to Washington. Until one night when we got into a silly argument. I don’t remember what it was about but do remember it ended when Phil complained (so obviously the argument had been about me acting like an asshole), “I gave up women for you!”

Whoa. Didn’t even need the gaydar for that one to work its magic. Make-up sex is always hot. Make-up sex when it’s first-time sex is even hotter. Phil and I stayed together for the next four years, never once mentioning the ‘gay’ word. At least about what we had going on. But I mentioned Tim once, who Phil also knew, and he immediately said, “That guy was so gay.”

Huh. Good. The previously straight not gay acting now gay guy had better gaydar than me. Fortunately, even with faulty gaydar, the gods looked upon me with favor, and I had the perfect first love experience. With a straight boy who temporarily decided to go gay. If you can consider a full blown four year love affair temporary. Which goes to explain why I’ve always claimed that there is a certain fluidity about sexuality among straight guys.

But then some gay guys have no interest in landing a straight boy, even one who is willing to go gay. So they rely on their gaydar instead, at least to land the not gay acting gay guys. That wouldn’t be a problem if gaydar actually worked. But too often it fails. Scientists agree are and are constantly performing trials, studies, and research that attempt to identify the physical attributes that differ between straight and gay guys.

Some results are useless, at least useless when trying to determine if a guy you are interested in is a potential bed partner or not. Others, such as the study that showed ovulating women could determine a speaker’s sexual preference just by the sound of their voice, are flawed. You don’t need a study or gaydar to know some guys are gay, their campy voices scream that fact.

In some studies, the conclusion is so insignificant that a wild-ass guess could be just as accurate, such as the research that determined that statistically gay men and lesbians have about a 50% greater chance of being left-handed or ambidextrous than straight men or women. Uh, 50% is a flip of the coin folks. That’s not science. But god bless those federal grants, huh?

Hair growth patterns can be used to distinguish the gays among us. Um, does this mean bald guys are bisexual?

Richard Lippa, a psychologist from California State University at Fullerton, is one of the leading cataloguers of the many ways in which gay people differ from straights. Besides the obvious one. His most recent hypothesis is that the hair-whorl patterns on gay heads are more likely to go counterclockwise.

Lippa studied the heads of 50 men and noted that hair growth patterns tended to show counterclockwise whorls in 23 % of the subjects, all who were gay. In the general population, that figure is 8 percent. Says Lippa, “We assume that whatever causes people to be right-handed or left-handed is also causing hair whorl. The theory we’re testing is that there’s a common gene responsible for both, and that gene might be a marker for sexual orientation.”

Possibly a more scientific approach than relying on gaydar, but even the gay guys are gonna think you’re pretty strange studying the back of their heads. An Ontario-based psychological researcher named Anthony Bogaert performed a study that I can much more easily support.

Bogaert resorted Kinsey Institute data – in which 5,000 men answered detailed questions about their sex lives, practices, fantasies, and measurements of their erect organs – along sexual-orientation lines. His results found that gay men have bigger peni; gay men’s dicks were thicker – 4.95 inches versus 4.80 – and longer – 6.32 inches versus 5.99. Which must mean I’m really, really, really gay.

So I’m retiring my gaydar. From now on when I want to figure out if a guy I like is gay or not, I’m just gonna ask to see his dick. Even if the results of my measurements are not conclusive, that he was willing to let me play might be all the proof I need.

End of The Week #3

Tags

That's Gay

This was an ass-tastick week, starting off with Joe Manganiello showing off his bodacious buttocks on True Blood. The bat-shit crazy front runners for the Republican nomination all took time out from worshiping the devil to show yet again what butt-holes they each are. And the entire east coast clenched their collective sphincter because the ground trembled a bit (and are now squeezing even tighter as Hurricane Irene tours the eastern seaboard). Seems like all good reasons to finish off the week with a peak at what promises to be prime Grade A meat . . .

Gay of the Week: Apple Computers

Tags

That's Gay

Huh?

Yup, this week’s honoree goes beyond a single individual and encompasses an entire company. Not so much because the outfit is gay, gay-friendly, supports gay causes, or is popular among the gay folk of the world; though it is. But rather because it’s new CEO plays for our team. Not officially, but that’s the word.

Maybe that doesn’t sound like a biggy, but considering that Apple Computers recently became the biggest company on the stock exchange, we’re talking a real power house in the business world being run by a gay man. Or ay least by a ‘confirmed bachelor’.

This week, Steve Jobs resigned as the head of Apple, though he requested to remain Chairman of the Board. He also requested that Tim Cook be named President of the company. And a request from Steve Jobs is akin to the word of god. Cook has been Jobs’ right hand man at Apple for the last thirteen years and took over operations as interim CEO when Jobs left to treat his pancreatic cancer for six months in 2009.

Cook lives in the glass closet and has never publicly acknowledged his homosexuality. But that didn’t stop Out Magazine from naming Cook as #1 in its Power 50 list of powerful LGBTs in the country, bumping Ellen Degeneres from that spot. Even Apple executives have publicly stated that they would continue to back him if he came out. But stepping through the closet door is a personal decision. Even though every news story announcing his rise to the top spot at Apple made at least a cursory mention of his sexuality, making it official is Cook’s choice. That he has kept his preference for men out of the spotlight suggests that he will continue to do the same as CEO.

The 50-year-old former COO of Apple, a workaholic and a fitness nut, has been described as the genius behind Jobs and a key to the success of Apple’s operations. He joined Apple in 1998 as senior vice president of operations, overseeing computer manufacturing after a brief stint as VP for Corporate Materials at Compaq and working in PC logistics for 12 years at IBM. With this promotion, Cook takes over the second most valuable company in the world in terms of market capitalization.

Within the company, Cook is known to be the first in and last to leave work daily. He also has a rep for silently eviscerating underlings with one look, a trait many gay men have perfected. That he prefers men is an open secret, as is that that preference leans towards Asian guys.

Should Cook decide to make the announcement, he’ll join Facebook cofounder Chris Hughes, Google Product Management Director of Search Properties Ben Ling, Microsoft’s openly lesbian HR chief Lisa Brummel, and Google’s vice president of new business development Megan Smith as the most powerful openly gay executives in the world of tech. Which these days pretty much means the entire world.

I Fell In Love With A Bar Boy: One Pill Makes You Larger

Tags

Gay Bangkok, Markets & Shopping

Noom, my bar boy friend and current love of my life, burst into the hotel room before I barely got the door opened. He was in a panic. Seriously upset. His wa had flown east. Dropping to his knees, he threw his arms around my waist. Burying his face in my stomach he wailed in Thai, English and possibly several other languages, telling his tale of woe. And not making a bit of sense. Didn’t matter. I’d never seen him so upset. I cooed soothing words at the top of his head while trying to make some sense out his story. Whatever had him so disturbed needed to be handled. Whatever caused him so much grief needed to be set right.

I’d only been out of town for a few days, having taken a quick trip down to KL. When I left, there was nothing on the horizon that would result in such trauma. Or drama. But obviously something had happened. And it had been bad. Once he calmed down enough to explain I got the full story. He’d had a brush with death two days before. He’d been in a motorcycle accident. It wasn’t a bloody crash. No one died. His bike was still operable. The only visible sign of injury was a minor wound along one of his arms. Internally, he had a few slightly bruised ribs. And had a set of x-rays to prove it.

Before he managed to get to the accident part of the tale, he pulled his x-rays out to show me. Because I’m an expert at reading x-rays. That wasn’t the best start to explaining his problem. Not knowing what I was looking at, what the x-rays showed, I assumed the worst. A brain tumor, lung cancer, any one of numerous fatal diseases began playing through my mind. When he finally got to the motorcycle accident part of his story I considered bitch slapping hard enough to require a hospital stay. I realized the event was traumatic to him, but my unnecessary worry was as grievous. I should have remembered he’s quite expressive before I started jumping to conclusions.

I made the right amount of sympathetic noises and showed an adequate amount of interest in his x-rays to calm him down. And then he quickly became his normal happy go lucky self. Though over the next few days at odd times he’d pull his x-rays out to admire yet again. His brush with death had scared him. But the x-rays made up for the accident much like a lollipop does handed out by a nurse after a child goes through the trauma of getting an inoculation at the doctor’s office.

He also had a small plastic bag filled with pills of various colors and sizes. If the x-rays were a lollipop, the new stash of pills was Belgium chocolate. He lined them up by color, and then rearranged them by size. I’m sure I’ve mentioned his arrangement/OCD thingy before. (I probably should suggest to him they have a pill for that.) When he was satisfied with the line-up, he dug out his normal daily pill regime and rearranged the whole conglomeration again. I’m not sure what all of the pills he takes daily are, but am sure none of them are Prozac. Just having such an abundance of medicine is enough to keep him happy, mellow, and content.

Back home, over the counter medicines tend to be a one pill fixes all type of cure. If you have the flu, for example, you can pick up a concoction that promises to cure the specific symptoms you are experiencing. Runny nose, cough, high temperature and body aches? No problemo. Only three of those four? Got ya covered there too. Not so in Thailand. Tradition dictates a single pill for each symptom. I think the Thais feel gypped if they are given one pill to handle multiple symptoms. They do not believe one dose can fix numerous problems. A bag full of different pills is always preferable to a single one.

I think Grace Slick must have spent some time in Thailand. From the lyrics to White Rabbit alone she should have obtained goddess stature in Thailand equal to that Angelina Jolie holds in Cambodia. Nightly, sex tourists pay homage to the line that one pill makes you larger. But Grace also totally got the single pill/single symptom ideology that is a national obsession in Thailand. The Thai version of the lyrics to White Rabbit translates to: If one pill makes you happy, a few dozen have got to make you ecstatic. That any one of them may happen to cure whatever ails you is just a bonus. If not, well, maybe you just need some more pills. Besides, if the illness is serious, any Thai knows your best bet is to go see the local mor phi.

When I first started visiting the Kingdom, there was often a glass bowl filled with small packs of Tylenol 3 by the cash register at 7/11s. The kind of display usually used for penny candy, an afterthought, an add-on purchase. I’d always grab a handful to take home; you never know when a bit of aspirin loaded with codein may come in handy. Or could be fun.

In those days, you could stop in at almost any pharmacy and pick up a supply of valium, too. Buying drugs in Thailand for recreational use conjured up the proverbial kid in a candy store. Not so much anymore. Now the pharmacies have switched their stock over to Viagra. There are still places where you can surreptitiously purchase the other blue pill, but the interest has dwindled and sales are more brisk for what will get you hard instead of what will mellow you out.

I read somewhere on the ‘net that the only legal dispensary for prescription medicine in Thailand is at a hospital’s pharmacy. Automatically, you’d think that’s bull; there are almost as many pharmacies in Bangkok as there are 7/11s. But then, we are talking about Thailand; that would make perfect sense following Thai logic. Especially since there is money to be made.

Illegal substances, of course, are readily available on Bangkok’s streets. Thai prisons are also readily available. A stay in a Thai jail almost guarantees you’ll have a great need for prescription medicines. Kinda ironic when you think about it. But then if you thought about it, you wouldn’t end up in a Thai prison in the first place.

Up north, beyond Chiang Mai, is Thailand’s portion of the Golden Triangle, the mystical, magical home to the world’s major source of opium. Opium smoking in the hill-tribe villages in north Thailand is quite common. It is legal for the villagers to possess and use opium, but it is illegal for them to sell it. Visitors to the villages are asked not to indulge in opium-smoking as it encourages the people in the village to use opium. Or so the guide books warn. I suspect the hill-tribe villagers turn to opium for no other reason than having had to spend the day dealing with touri.

Second in stupidity to buying illegal narcotics in Thailand are the foolish touri who pick up Viagra and its many competitors on Bangkok’s streets. The vendors who sell drugs to sex touri know who they are dealing with and offer their wares at high prices. Maybe the idea is the more you pay the harder you’ll get.

Of course, what you are buying is not really Viagra. But they do a great job affixing important looking seals to the package to help qualm any doubts. That you could turn around and step into a real pharmacy to make a purchase of the real drug just goes to show you that the old adage a sucker is born every minute is the overarching motto to Thai street vendors. Now that you can get hard, maybe you’d like a genuine Rolex for 2,000 baht?

My sole concession to medicinal needs when travelling is a rather old bottle of Advil that has a permanent home in my suitcase. Probably should update that, it’s at least ten years old and has never been opened. I know from reading the message boards that many of my contemporaries travel with a huge medicine cabinet. I’ve seen posts listing the numerus daily medicines a poster takes, complete with a cost comparison between what it runs back in the States and what those prescriptions cost in Thailand.

Drugs, even the legal ones, are much cheaper in Thailand. That’s cool. And I’m sure those posts are informative for some. My response though is to wonder why there was not some point in your earlier life that you didn’t realize a major life-style change was in order to prevent spending your middle and later years immersed in your daily medicinal needs. You’d think the thousands of dollars required to support those regimes alone would be enough to suggest adopting a healthier life-style. And then maybe they’d not need that blue pill either. 

Not that I never fall ill when travelling. I have. Twice. Once in London on an extended three month trip during the winter. I came down with a cold. When I woke up with all the nasty symptoms of a cold I headed to the corner pharmacy for some Nyquil, my go-to medicinal concoction for a cold. They didn’t have it and when I asked, the pharmacist laughed. You get that reaction as an American in a foreign land quite often.

Instead I tried an over the counter medicine that knocked my cold out within twenty-four hours. Damn. There’s nothing like that available back home. I can’t remember what it was (I’m sure it is common enough most non-Americans know), but do remember that it was not for sale back home because if you took more than the specified dose you’d die. Can’t have that in America. The FDA won’t allow it. Dumb. Not only would it cure the common cold, but it would strengthen our country’s gene pool, too.

Once, at the end of a trip to Thailand I ended up with stuffed up sinuses from an air conditioner blasting its frigid force directly onto my face while I slept. Noom’s fault. We’ve come to an acceptable nighttime air conditioning setting that keeps me cool enough to sleep and him warm enough not to freeze. But while in Phuket, he was on holiday, an official touri. And touri, in his experience, set the a/c to freezing. So my sinuses suffered and I was dreading the flight home. Take offs and landings induce mind boggling amounts of pain when your sinuses have decided to fuck with you.

The next morning, Noom could tell something was wrong. And attained nirvana when I told him. Taking pills is second in enjoyment to a Thai only to sharing their bounty of medicine. Noom dug through his travelling supply of medicines and pulled out a small bottle of antihistamine he frequently takes thanks to spending nights with touri and their love affair with air conditioning. Dr. Noom then got very serious and explained the dosage, use, and expected results to his patient. I took the pills and made a mental note that he’d probably enjoy a bit of doctor/patient role playing in the future.

Worked like a charm (the pills, not the role playing thingy). I’ve never looked, but I don’t think you can even buy just an antihistamine back home; it’s usually just one of many active ingredients in the multi-symptom pain relievers available. Maybe the Thai fascination with single purpose pills makes more sense than I’d thought.

Whenever I visited Thailand with my friend Ann, she’d end up with a case of the trots from eating street cart food. Never stopped her from doing it, but always caused a day or two of down time. I’d hit the nearest pharmacy, pantomime her symptoms and for a few baht walk out with a plastic bag filled with a variety of pills.

On the way back to Ann and the hotel, I’d repeat the mantra provided by the pharmacist, “Black pill now, white pill twice a day, pink pill after eating,” hoping I didn’t screw up the dosages. I never knew what any of the drugs were, but they always worked. It may not have been the drugs that solved her problem, it could have been the amount of pills she’d ingest served to block her system up.

When Noom and I are out shopping it’s easy to put a smile on his face. Any minor purchase will do that. But nothing makes that smile wider than a few pills. The idea of medicine excites him. He already has a few hundred pills to be taken daily. One more just makes life better. Most are vitamins. Some are for body building. I’ve no doubt the majority are placebos. But they work just as effectively as the real stuff. Just being able to take a pill works its magic on Noom.

Unlike old people who are so fascinated with their medication regime that they feel compelled to share it with you, in great detail, Noom’s daily pill popping regime is not much of a topic of conversation. “What’s that one for?” usually gets nothing but an affirmative nod in reply. If he’s feeling particularly generous he’ll add more details, “Black.”

There are several he takes daily for his body building routine. Some kind of amino acid supplement is one of them. I only know this because he decided since they come from America they must be cheaper in America and since he hates wasting my money suggested I pick up a supply for him back home. My visit to a body building supply store was a trip to a foreign land in its own right. Picking out the correct bottle of pills, even with help, took almost as long as it  takes to fly to Thailand. On my next trip I proudly showed him my booty. Noom nonchalantly informed me he’d changed his pill routine and now used some other supplement instead. I went in search of some Tylenol 3 for my headache.

Now, on our first night together on each trip we stop in at his favorite candy store pharmacy on Patpong 2 and pick up a new bottle of supplements. For the last few trips it’s always been the same product, but purchasing the pills is only half the fun. A long discussion with the pharmacist is also part of the enjoyment and since that conversation is all in Thai, I step outside and watch the Japanese tourists show the same amount of detailed scrutiny in picking out which gogo bar they will visit for the night. A visit to one of Bangkok’s flesh pots is medicinal in its own right. And you don’t need a prescription.

I always slip him more than enough baht for that purchase because I know the change will be put to good use. When he finishes he comes out with a big smile on his face displaying a bag of some new pill the pharmacist convinced him he needed in addition to his regular supplements. I’ve learned not to ask what the new pills are, what they are for, what they do. My reaction is supposed to be a smile just as wide as his; I’m supposed to be happy to be sharing in his good fortune. That’s not hard to do. His joy is infectious. And they haven’t come up with a pill for that yet.

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Monk Shot! #27

Tags

Chiang Mai, Monks, Photography, Wats

Monk @ Play

Usually, when I take a shot of a monk at a shrine or wat the photograph has a certain reverence to it. This one from a wat in Chiang Mai, at first glance would appear to be a novice monk attending to a small shrine. Actually, with a few free minutes, like kids the world over, he was immersed in a fantasy world he’d created, busily playing with no regard to where his playground was at.

I think Buddha would have been pleased.

Packing Right

Tags

Money Matters, Transportation

“What should I pack?”

I got that question from Dee during a phone call a few days before our planned trip to Thailand. Helena asked the same by email. Chris, who I barely even knew, also sent an email wondering what his suitcase should hold. My answer to each was probably not of much help. Unless they planned on hauling a suitcase full of sarcasm with them on their trip.

In my defense – not to dissuade you from thinking my reply wasn’t heavily laden with sarcasm – I had previously gone over our planned destinations: Thailand’s capital city, a large hillside college town filled with backpackers, and a tropical beach. Did adults really need an itemized list of what to pack? If so, they didn’t get it from me. And that was probably a good thing; I’d have never considered to include Dee’s dildo on the list. Ditto for Chris’ matching BFF.

The girls’ naivete emphasized the difference between my current dyke travel partners and my old model of travelling lesbians. The previous version included my friend Ann. Even though I’d already been to Thailand once, prior to our first trip together she did what Ann did best and attacked the packing part of the trip with gusto. Scouring the internet and local library for tips she came up with what she determined was the perfect packing scheme. Mistakenly, she assumed ‘packing light’ was the Japanese/English version of ‘packing right’. And managed to fail on both scores.

The principle theory to Ann’s packing was that rolling your clothing instead of folding it consumed less room in your suitcase. No problemo. Being a guy, I already practiced that tip. Before a trip, I’d throw all the clothes I planned on taking on the bed next to an empty suitcase. Then I’d wad each piece of clothing into a ball and stuff it into my bag. Her version was a bit more advanced, a bit more regulated. The result was a lot neater, but the outcome was the same: way too much, a suitcase overflowing, stuffed to the brim. And since she’d saved on space, she packed even more stuff than normal. The idea that less is more never applied to Ann’s suitcase.

The important thing to Ann was that all her clothes were neatly rolled into equally sized bundles, tied off tightly with string, the twine color-coded for use. Ann was the poster child for OCD. She used a yardstick to decorate her Xmas tree (and had a printed diagram of where each ornament belonged). At one point in our friendship, we decided to buy a house together. Out house hunting – showing that gay folk and straight folk have a lot of similarities – she’d scope out the kitchen while I checked out the garage. At one place I heard her scream with delight, “Come here! You’ve got to see this!”

Wandering from the garage into the kitchen I considered the possibilities of what had gotten her so excited. An indoor grill? A restaurant style side by side? An Easy Bake Oven? (Okay, maybe there are some differences between gays and straights.) When I made it to the kitchen Ann was standing in front of an opened cupboard gazing in with wonder. “Look!” she said.

“Uh, canned goods. Amazing.” Yup, the sarcasm thingy has always been with me.

Ann invented the bitch slap, which she applied upside my head before crackling with delight, “No asshole. Look!”

The slap didn’t help. Nor did the term of endearment. It still looked like nothing more than a cupboard full of canned goods to me. And then she pointed out the wonderment. Ann had found a fellow traveller. The cans were arranged by type; veggies, fruits, soups, etc. each on their own shelf. And alphabetized within each grouping. But the crème de la crème was that each can sat equidistant from its neighbor. The owner had used a ruler to stock her canned goods. I think that was the last house we looked at together. But Ann still qualified as a great travel buddy. As long as you overlooked the packing thing.

Packing light has become the new buzzword thanks to airlines now charging extra for every ounce over their minuscule baggage limit. In the old days the paradigm was how much you could cram into a bag. Now it is how little you can take with you. And for a trip to Thailand, at this I excel.

On my initial forays to the Kingdom I too was an overpacker. And usually bought at least one suitcase during the trip to haul everything I bought home. Now I travel with an almost empty suitcase on the way over, and usually on the way home still have room left after filling it with all my purchases. And that’s not about overlimit fee avoidance. I fly Eva, am a diamond card member, and my baggage allowance allows me to pack the entire country in my luggage if I so desire. It’s just that I’ve come to realize how little I really need to take with me.

The secret to packing light, or packing right, is not limiting what you take, but taking only what you need. And you don’t need much. The bulk in most suitcases is clothing. Casual clothing is so cheap in Thailand it is disposable. If you buy clothes at street markets, the quality means it will be disposable whether that was your plan or not. T-shirts and casual shirts can be had for less than $3. Jeans or casual pants for less than $10. Laundry service is so cheap, so you don’t even have to load up on cheap clothes; you can launder what you need as you go.

Toiletries are often cheaper in Thailand than in the States, so unless you will only use a particular brand of something, one that’s not available in Thailand, there’s no reason to be hauling that stuff half way around the world. In deference to Xian Darkthorne’s travel words of wisdom: check, your hotel probably supplies a hair dryer so you may not even need to pack that.

Ooops! Wrong kind of packing. But, well, ya know . . .

The only thing you really need is underwear and shoes. Sizing in the latter may not be available for American feet. And fly-front briefs are not something you’ll run across in Asia very often. Men there prefer briefs that look more like women’s bikini-style underwear than something a man would wear. (I’m not complaining.) Boxers, however, are to be found everywhere.

If you plan accordingly, even nicer outfits need not be packed. If you have a few days before you need them, you can have suits, shirts, and pants custom fitted and tailored at exceptionally reasonable prices. Or of you prefer to participate in a scam, you can have an entire outfit custom made in twenty minutes; no fitting required!

Off the rack business wear is also inexpensive and can be tailored to fit for a song. Which segues nicely into the ‘dressing right’ part of this post. And I don’t mean which side you like to hang on. Unless you are a perfect size 40, ninety percent of dress shirts, pants, and suit coats that you buy off the rack should be altered to fit you properly.

Off the rack does not mean ready to wear. It just means you’re saving a few bucks by not having the entire piece custom made for you. A trip to the tailor is still advised. Oh, and that perfect size 40? That’s in suit coat sizing, not pants. Size 40 pants are only perfect if your full time job is working as a department store Santa Claus.

Packing right is not just about packing light. It’s also about packing clothes that help you avoid making a fashion faux paux while on holiday. Just because you are on vacation does not mean your sense of style should take time off too. Regardless if you are hauling a suitcase full of clothes with you or buying most of your clothes when you land, even though you are on holiday, you should show some pride in what you wear.

Looking good during your night out has its benefits.

Bangkok is Thailand’s capital city. Running around in short pants is a no-no. Yes, there are plenty of touri who do so. Please recall your mother’s advice about jumping off of bridges. In Bangkok, any man over the age of twelve should be wearing long pants. Always. Daytime or nighttime.

You can go causal in jeans if that’s your thing. What you will find is that Thais are very clothes conscious and will judge you by what you wear. Even in (clean) jeans and a T-shirt you will be treated with more respect than dressed in board shorts and your favorite rugby shirt. You get respect because you are showing respect, too. Don’t run around looking like you are sharing a room with a dozen strangers in Khaosan. Unless you are sharing a room with a dozen strangers in Khaosan.

When it comes to shirts, anywhere and everywhere you go in Thailand will be hot and humid. Cotton clothing breathes. Polyester does not. You will be cooler wearing a cotton shirt than you will be wearing something made out of man-made fibers. The plus is cotton shirt manufacturers tend to not use the bright colors and loud prints which lines that rely on polyester tend to favor. Garish and gay are not synonymous, despite what you may think. And that was never more true than when it comes to aloha shirts.

I’m not sure why or when aloha shirts became the shirt of choice for men who travel. But having come of age in Hawaii, I can tell you there is a big difference between what a business man and a yokel wears in aloha shirts. A small, dignified print in muted colors with a button down collar is classic and classy. Big floppy collars and big floppy prints, of colors not seen in nature, are only suitable when your entire family is wearing matching aloha wear. And that’s so the rest of us can giggle at the spectacle. If you have to wear an aloha shirt, do so with a bit of dignity. Please.

The dress code for men in Chiang Mai is a bit more relaxed. Chiang Mai is a college town heavily trafficked by young backpackers and adventure travellers, so casual works. Short pants are okay. At least during the day. Provided they are no shorter than just above the knee. No one wants to see any more of your legs than that. Unless you are under 25 and have a body by god.

This is who Abercrombie & Fitch markets their T-shirts to. If your six pack abs look more like a pony keg, pass.

T-shirts work fine up north, too. Um, but the ‘Starfucks’ T shirt you saw at the night market might have been good for a laugh hanging on the vendor’s wall, you wearing it is not so funny. And in case you didn’t know, Hollister is branded for the preteen crowd and Abercrombie & Fitch for the high school crowd. Both, in knock-offs, are readily available throughout Thailand. Either worn by a fifty + year old man will get the laugh you missed by wearing the Starfucks T-shirt.

Sandals, flip flops, slippahs, whatever you want to call footwear that doesn’t cover your feet, should not be worn in Bangkok. At least at night. I don’t really think it is proper during the daytime either, but have to admit if you are touring wats and have to take your shoes off twenty times during the day, they make sense. In Chiang Mai, they are the norm. However you refer to them, it is footwear designed to be worn without socks. If you need to wear socks to keep your feet warm, put on a pair of real shoes. And unless you are packing a pair of black dress shoes, do not even think about packing black dress socks. Much less wearing them with sandals in public.

In Phuket you’ve hit a tropical paradise and short pants, board shorts, T-shirts, and slippahs are perfectly acceptable. Tank tops – singlets for non-Americans – are only proper if you have the upper body of a twenty year old. And have no hair sprouting from your shoulders. I’d say ditto for Pattaya on both shirts and shorts, but then in Pattaya if you aren’t exposing any part of your gross anatomy you’re already ahead of the pack. So no worries.

That you are even in Pattaya means you won’t be getting much respect from the locals, and your fellow touri won’t notice. They are all staring at the piece of ass they bought the night before or are planning on purchasing for that night’s fun.

That leaves us with swimwear. And already I shudder. Go to Google Images. Search ‘President (fill in the blank of your choice) and beach’. That’s what you should be wearing for swim trunks if you are over forty. I don’t care if you are European. Yes, I know, Americans are puritanical and uptight about sex. When it comes to swim trunks, we’re right. You on the beach in a G-string is not about sex, or about being comfortable or cool. It is about grossing the rest of us out.

If you are more than ten pounds over weight, if any part of your body qualifies as sagging, if hair grows on any part of your body it did not grow on when you were eighteen, you should not appear in pubic in a speedo-style swim suit. If you are male, you should never appear in public in a g-string style swimsuit. I’ve a strong feeling the gods invented tsunamis to wipe the blight of skimpily dressed old folk and fatties off the beaches of the world.

. . . and this is what the rest of see when you hit the beach in your skimpy bathing suit.

Sorry, but that cute beach boy that just called you handsome man didn’t really mean it. And since he’s already seen what he’s gonna have to deal with, his asking price just skyrocketed. Save yourself a few bucks, and the rest of us from losing our lunch, and cover that shit up. Maybe with a nice polyester aloha shirt in a loud pattern.

Here’s what I pack whether it is for a week or several months:
2 T-shirts
1 Polo shirt
5 Pair of Underwear
1 pair of socks
I pair of sandals
1+lbs. of good coffee
1 Travel french press
1 Ten+ year old bottle of Advil (Really need to buy a new bottle)
1 Pen light
1 Jeweler’s scale
1 Set finger & toenail clippers
1 Brush
1 Case of XXXL condoms
1 Bottle of Bodyglide

In my carry-on I pack my camera and lenses, travel netbook, a pen, a spare pair of underwear and T-Shirt in case my luggage is lost, a few books, and a big wad of cash. Technically, I could get away with just a small carry-on, but I often also pack a ton of stuff for my friend Noom.

Everything else I buy, launder, and/or dispose of as needed.

So, what’s in your bag?

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Chicken

Tags

Markets & Shopping, Stupid Tourist Tricks

Phuket Fried Chicken Vendor

Ann was a tough bitch. Unfortunately the same could not be said about her stomach. But that didn’t mean she’d back down; she was always game to try whatever we ran across on the streets of Bangkok that someone decided to identify as food. In fact, she hunted down the most unappetizing looking dishes. The only plus in dining with her streetside was that the vendor often spoke no English, so you had no idea what in the hell it was you were putting in your mouth.

I made several trips with Ann to Thailand. After the first visit I realized, on any trip, a day or two needed to be set aside for Ann to spend in bed. After a quick jaunt to the nearest pharmacy, pantomiming a case of the trots, and getting a miracle bag of pills for her to ingest to overcome the powers of whatever it was she’d recently ingested.

I like Thai food. Even when I don’t know what it is. And I really like eating from streetside carts in the Kingdom. It’s always cheap and often an incredible meal. I can usually identify fish, no matter how they’ve tried to disguise it, so I always pass on those places. Fish is not a favorite of mine and if you have concerns about the safety of eating food off the street, staying away from fish is a good rule of thumb.

I know a lot of visitors won’t touch street cart food. They’ll usually use sanitary conditions as an excuse for being pussies. All that accomplishes is to tell me they have never actually seen what goes on in restaurant kitchens. I know some people, perhaps many, just don’t have a constitution strong enough to handle the occasional bug. Pity. Ya’ll just don’t know what you are missing.

The aroma of barbecued meat is enticing any time of the day.

I don’t know how anyone can walk out of a disco or club at two or three in the morning, after a night of drinking and partying hard, and not be tempted by the aromas wafting down Bangkok’s streets. Small barbecues, red lights warming up meats of dubious origin, soup bowls steaming and filled with bite-size pieces of something only a Thai would call food . . . it’s all good. Unless you are Ann. Then it is good until an hour or two later when your system decides to remind you it is American.

Food, and water, from an area your body is not used to can be problematic. It does not mean unsanitary conditions are at fault. Having lived in Hawaii, I am very familiar with touri from the mainland visiting and getting ill from what is still American fare. Though sometimes it is their stupidity to blame. Watching honeymooners share straws poked into the top of a freshly shucked coconut is always good for a laugh. You know part of their honeymoon experience will be a battle of major proportions over who gets use of the toilet first back in their hotel room. Ah, memories are made of this.

The trick to eating whatever comes your way in Thailand is, first, know your own body. If you can’t handle a few odd bugs, use your head and stay away from anything that has come into contact with water that isn’t boiling hot. If your system is a bit more resilient, just look for the stalls that have a nice big pot of brown water used for washing plates and utensils . . . that’s usually tea, not dirty water, and it is an excellent way to sanitize the kitchenware.

If you can pretty much eat anything with no problem, just go for what has been freshly cooked. Streetside vendors are always willing to cook up a raw portion for you; you do not have to accept what has been sitting underneath their glow lamp for the last two hours. And if you are like me, and your body is too stubborn to react to what you forced down your throat, gross out your travelling partners by eating the most disgusting looking things you can find. Choose right and you can send them scurrying off for a toilet even though nothing has passed through their lips.

You can easily grab an entire meal from a hawker on the streets of Bangkok.

I ruined the fun of a local in Chiang Mai we’d hired for a boat trip down the Ping River on one trip. Part of the excursion was a stop at his family home, a small waterside farm. Among the few crops he grew, much more like a backyard vegetable garden than farm, was one of the local varieties of chilies. The small red ones.

His normal routine, which I’m sure he quite enjoyed, was to get one of his guests to taste a freshly picked chili. He even had a small bowl of sugar at hand to douse the flames that would appear on the unsuspecting touri’s tongue. My taste buds love heat. So after finishing off the first chili, I snapped another one off the bush and had seconds. He spent the rest of our tour giving me wary looks. I think he’d decided I must be some kind of demon and should not be trusted. Good instincts, wrong reason.

Ann was always willing to join me in trying local fare. The only time she balked was in Kowloon on night when we passed a small booth that had tiny little crabs for sale. Each had a string tied around one leg to keep it from scuttling off the table. Like many Americans, being confronted with the actual animal your meal originated from was an unappetizing idea to Ann. Vegetarianism would become much more popular if you had to actually kill whatever you planned for dinner that night.

I’m not as squeamish. I’ve cut the head off a chicken (and yes, they do run around headless if you let them), plucked the sucker over a pot of boiling water, and chowed down at dinner, savoring the taste of what had been alive an hour earlier. I’ve never butchered a cow, but do plan on blowing one to bits with an RPG the next time I’m in Cambodia. But that’s more about sport than dinner.

Streetside fruit carts offer sweet temptations, even if you can not identify the fruit.

Ann’s partner Char was not as much of a fan of foreign food. To put it mildly. Char refused to take any chances. Period. The free breakfast buffets at the hotel caused no problem, she could always find at least one dish that was known and acceptable. But for lunch and dinner? It had to be chicken. Fried chicken, none of that odd crap Thais throw into the pot to Easternize the fowl.

Every afternoon and night we had to peruse menus outside of possible dining places to ensure fried chicken was offered. If not, down the street we sailed until we could find a place that would serve Char the only dish she’d accept. Which after the first two days you’d think she’d have realized was an iffy proposition in its own right.

Like with many American foods offered by Thais, fired chicken is defined in many different ways. The only thing you can be relatively sure of is that it is chicken (usually). But travelling with Char’s taste buds, there were very few meals when what landed on the table would ever be considered to be fried chicken back home. Even when it was, trying to identify the cut was a non-starter. I don’t know why we spent so much time ensuring fired chicken was on the menu for Char because half the time what came out of the kitchen didn’t qualify. And she wouldn’t eat it.

You’d think someone that picky about foreign food would just settle for an all-American meal at McDonalds. There are few places you can travel to in the world where a set of golden arches isn’t visible. But Char refused to eat there. She was in Thailand. And wasn’t about to be eating American fast food. Good thing she found a suitable version of friend chicken at least every other day. She needed her strength to take care of Ann when her gastronomical adventures caught up with her.

Bagged to go: a complete dinner from streetside food carts.

As willing as I am to eat pretty much anything that hasn’t come out of the ocean, the one dish I stay away from in Thailand is Char’s choice as the only acceptable food: fired chicken. The American version is readily available at KFC. But I refuse to eat that crap at home, so I’m not about to visit a branch in Thailand.

McDonalds in Thailand has fried chicken on the menu too. Thais seem to love it. I’m not above eating at a McDonalds in Thailand, though why you would is beyond me. But I am above eating their version of fried chicken.

There are plenty of streetside carts selling fried chicken, too. My fiend Noom can not pass one without grabbing a few pieces, even if it is for consumption hours later back in the hotel as a snack. But whether it is McDonalds or a street cart, the fired chicken in Thailand always has a ghastly smell to it. I’ve no idea why. I can’t imagine what it is they do to it to make it smell that bad. Chicken, by itself, doesn’t have much of an aroma. Unless its sell by date was a few weeks ago. But fried chicken in Thailand stinks. I’m too chicken to get anywhere near that stuff.

Maybe that’s the trick to eating safely in Thailand: follow your nose’s lead and you’ll never go wrong. Unless you are Ann. Then eat whatever you want, just plan on spending one day gobbling down nothing but handfuls of Thai pills.

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