Nightmarch

[PattayaPete 530]

Monster Pool Comp: The relatively new King Kong pool shark auditorium, located on Third Road about 20 metres or so from North Pattaya Road, is going to hold a pool competition on Saturday night 3 September with 5,000 baht in prize money. I’m told the first prize is 2,000 baht and there will be second and third place money as well. Entry fee is 200 baht. The place has ‘Sovereign’ tournament class pool tables and could well be worth wandering into for a look and a play.

 

Seven Out, Seven Out: The Casino Club, a yet-to-be-determined style of playhouse and boozatorium, was due to open its palatial doors in the narrow end of Soi Diamond around 19 August, but the finishing work wasn’t quite completed so the soft opening is now due 23 August with a grand opening on Saturday night 27 August. From the look of the work it is going to be nice setup, but I just wonder what kind of crowd they’re expecting to attract as the initial plans are that it will not be a chrome pole palace format. Watch this space.

 

Rumour Has It: The ex-pat population in Pattaya has probably trebled in recent years, but in many ways it is still not much more than a large village. As it also tends to attract people at the retirement end of the scale as well as chancers and con-artists it is the perfect haven for the gossips and rumour mongers. Concomitant with the growth in an essentially idle foreign population has been the explosion in the number of websites devoted to night entertainment in Pattaya as well as Web boards and forums providing an opportunity for the computer literate to write almost anything they like with impunity.

 

I know, for example, large tracts of what I write for newspapers and magazines winds up on various sites; some asked for my contributions, others simply cut and paste it to their site. With such exposure it is inevitable some of the more controversial items I write will attract comments both favourable and unfavourable. I rarely bother reading forums and postings because I haven’t the time or the inclination. As former US President Abraham Lincoln said, “If I were to try to read, much less answer, all the attacks made on me, this shop might as well be closed for any other business. I do the very best I know how - the very best I can; and I mean to keep doing so until the end. If the end brings me out all right, what is said against me won’t amount to anything. If the end brings me out wrong, 10 angels swearing I was right would make no difference.”

 

Of the more personal attacks made on me the usual refuge of those who really don’t know what the hell they’re on about is the ‘well he only writes about the such-and-such bar because they give him free drinks’ line. If I wander into a boozer and the owner or manager offers me a drink I’ll take it; it’s hardly the oil-for-food program. I have been offered money to write pieces for the odd bar and restaurant: I have refused every time and will never compromise my independence for a few lousy shekels. The boozers that do feature on a regular basis are usually those where the owners/managers are pro-active and make the effort to contact me and let me know what’s happening.

 

My e-mail address usually accompanies most of what I write in the nightlife scene. Any bar owner, and I mean anyone, is free to contact me regarding parties, birthdays, promotions and the like and, as long as it’s relevant and, more to the point, sent in plenty of time, I will publicise it. No one is barred.

 

I don’t ask, demand or expect anyone to fork out a free drink if I happen to be wandering into their bar for the purposes of simply checking the joint out. If a bar specifically requests my presence for whatever reason then of course I expect not to have to also cough up my money as well as my time. I think the majority of those offering drinks are well aware I am not going to write something good about their establishment just because they give me a freebie. As those who know me are well aware, I’m not much of a drinker anyway. Most of my friends can guzzle three drinks to my one any night of the week. Nor do I chase other people’s wives and/or girlfriends. Fun Town is awash with females and I certainly don’t need or want to go around chasing somebody else’s wallet-emptier when I can find my own.

 

I happen to believe that, in general, the Nightmarch audience (and I know who he is) is the single man out for a perve and a good time without having his wallet raped and pillaged by avaricious bar owners or bar girls. By ‘single’ I mean he could actually be co-habiting with a Thai lady, running a small harem or be genuinely free and independent. Given that Pattaya is very much a place for ex-pat retirees on fixed or average incomes I try and point out where they may get the best bang for their baht. I do not write for a ‘couples’ market. Nor do I write for those who think because they ‘have money too much’ (as the bargirls would say) and don’t need to budget they can look down their noses at those who go drinking in happy hour and see those people as some kind of pond life to be marginalised. I know plenty of people here with loads of moolah to spread around but no sensible person wants to be gouged, either by bar owners or the damsels they employ.

 

I’ve been at this journalism caper for 20 years and one thing I know for sure, the day I start writing to suit bar owners -in other words writing something’s good when it’s crap and vice versa- is the day the person who reads this column decides I’m full of bat guano and stops taking any notice. Here endeth the lesson.

 

Psst…Wanna Buy A Boozer, Mate? One clear indication that low season is well and truly upon Pattaya is the number of bars that were being offered for sale in the August edition of the Pattaya Trader. No less than four go-go bars were being offered at prices between 600,000 baht (this joint is currently closed) to 7.5 million baht for one on Walking Street. The beer bars range from one in the Pattayaland sois at 550,000 baht to a place in north Pattaya that claims to have been going for 25 years and was offered at 6.6 million baht. In between were places in Walking Street through to Central Pattaya and on to Soi 6 and all in the 900,000 to 1.7 million baht range. Anyone simply wandering about the mean streets with their eyes open can find any number of boozers with a ‘For Sale or Rent’ sign stuck to a shuttered door.

 

To me this proliferation of boozers for sale is a glaring indicator of the severity of this particular low season. Basically, the top 10 to 15 ogling dens and beer boozers around town are doing well; those with a strong ex-pat customer base are doing OK and the remainder are digging into the reserves they built up in the high season to carry them through these lean months. Of course, new boozers are being opened all the time and new areas being constructed because there’s always someone new to Pattaya who will be prepared to invest in boozer, be it old or new.

[davethailand 91]

Looks like nightmarch has been reading alot of feedback

 

I will stand by early comments, Nightmarch should be about ALL aspects of nightlife in pattaya and NOT just the gogo's etc.

This is not said because I own a bar because to be quite frank I don't need Nightmarch to help my business

Nightmarch is a good thing but it sometimes its clearly about only one thing, this is annoying because its published everywhere, It should surely be looking around at whats going on and not waiting for bar owner inputs, which could be a load of crap the bar owner wants his place to sound good.

Edited August 24, 2005 by davethailand

[tangent 42]

Interesting read Pete,

 

Sounds like you have been getting some fan mail, it doesn't matter if it is positive or negative just getting it means that people are reading the column. As the old saying goes " You can't please everyone all the time".

[davethailand 91]

Interesting read Pete,

 

Sounds like you have been getting some fan mail, it doesn't matter if it is positive or negative just getting it means that people are reading the column. As the old saying goes " You can't please everyone all the time".

Pete does'nt write Nightmarch

[Emil 0]

Sounds like someone has upset Mr Stearn's with their comments.

[davethailand 91]

Sounds like someone has upset Mr Stearn's with their comments.

I wonder who

I heard that a certain owner or owners went to the offices of one of the papers to talk about Nightmarch?

Were'nt me guv

[Guest Fatboyfat]

I wonder who

I heard that a certain owner or owners went to the offices of one of the papers to talk about Nightmarch?

Were'nt me guv

Pathetic !

[davethailand 91]

Pathetic !

As I said, it was'nt me.

[bob2005 0]

This edition very light on info.

[Big Daddy 0]

ya know once I had a wise old man tell me, " If you didnt piss someone off , you didnt do a good job.!!!!! and today that stands true in most situations.