MangoZeen

Big Al called this week while I was in Bangkok getting a pension paper notarized for my retirement visa at the American embassy.

“Oliver Stone is directing a movie about the My Lai massacre. They’re looking for guys your age. Why don’t you go for an audition?”
It was only 2pm. I called the casting director. He […]

There was no Thanksgiving in Pattaya. No parade. No turkey. No football. I drank with my English friends at Soi 6 and came home at a decent hour to eat toasted multi-grain bread with brie. I gave thanks for my daughter’s health, my not dying in September’s motorcycle crash, and my wife not having a temper […]

Luis Bunuel the surrealist Spanish film director said, “First you get married and then you find somone with whom you can be unfaithful.”
My wife and I have been together over five years. You can divine the health of a relationship by how close you sleep together. The distance between our bodies is about a meter. We […]

My age is closer to 80 than 20.

In other words over 50 and I don’t care how much people say today’s 50 is yesteryear’s 40. The face in the mirror has little resemblance to that of my youth. Girls at the bar sometimes call me ‘Papa’. 50 is 50.
At least I’m not bald and better […]

After my drinking partner, Nick, returned to the Land of the Teabags aka the UK, my bar visits shrunk from a daily occurence to once a week. Not much fun drinking on your own, since AA deems solitary drinking as a sure indication of having crossed the line from drunk to alcoholic. I might qualify for several other […]

Dee Dee Ramone and Richard Hell wrote CHINESE ROCKS in 1976 to outdo Lou Reed’s elegiac HEROIN. The song soon became Johnny Thunder’s and the Heartbreakers’ showstopper. While Tom Petty and his Heartbreakers have sold millions of LPs and CDs, neither the Ramones’ nor Johnny Thunders’ versions of CHINESE ROCKS got any AM airplay.

Its omission from the Top Ten can easily […]

Thai immigration offices and especially the Jomtien Branch have been trying to curb the number of long-stay farangs residents without any real raison d’etre for being in Thailand other than having a good time or sanuk.

Gone is the endless merry-go-round of 30-Day tourist visas.
3 and no more.
Nearby Thai embassies or consulates are giving tourist 60-day visas with serious scrutiny. Penang […]

Pattaya and Jomtien are not the only beaches on the Eastern Seaboard, although I’d bet that more than half the bar farangs coming to Pattaya have never touched the sand on the beach, unless it was to get a sexual favor from a ka-toey working the Beach Road. The number is probably greater than half. […]

FROM BANGKOK POST
Recently, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown suggested citizens come up with a five-word motto to capture concisely what makes Britain great.

He might be having second thoughts after seeing some of the hundreds of suggestions the Times newspaper has received.
On the positive side someone suggested: “Britain, a terribly nice place” and another offering was: […]

That 1960s Hollies hit gets a lot of play in Pattaya, only bargirls have changed to words to suit their need for subtefuge.

“He not boyfriend. He my brother.”
The tenacles of an extended Thai family are more tangled than a cluster of fornicating rattlesnakes. The second cousin of a third aunt from your sister’s second marriage is family […]