Nightmarch

[PattayaPete 530]

They get bigger the more you gogo.

 

The Clayton's Column: This is the column you get when you aren't having a column. Confused? Your liver-wasted correspondent is currently on sabbatical Down Under

 

Last of the Great Contests: The ever-popular Diamond gogo (Soi Diamond) monthly dance contests will be coming to an early end this year with the final 2005 effort to take place on Sunday evening 20 November. Management has taken the view that December will be too busy to stage a contest so this last effort promises to be a no-holes barred extravaganza (did I really write that). Action will get under way around 9:30PM.

 

Two More Happy Weeks: The management of the Carousel gogo (Soi Diamond) intend to continue with their 50 baht all house libations happy hour until the end of November. Prices will rise at the beginning of December.

 

Stone the Rumours: Even before it opened, rumours suggested one of the myriad of partners in the Coyotees gogo (Soi Marina Plaza) was the famed American film director and regular Fun Town visitor Oliver Stone. I have been asked whether he is or isn't involved so many times I decided to ask someone closely associated with the director, and his answer was an unequivocal 'no'. Logically, why would Oliver Stone, a multi-millionaire in US dollar terms, be bothered with a penny ante operation in Thailand? The return on investment would be a pittance compared to his overall portfolio and any involvement would soon become public in the United States resulting in the femi-Nazis baying for his blood and claiming he was no better than a pimp exploiting the hapless maidens of the Developing World.

 

High Season Awaits the Gullible: Plenty of people have had their fingers burnt and their wallets considerably lightened by getting involved in the local night-time entertainment scene and as high season bears down upon us once more there'll no doubt be a veritable P.T Barnum of suckers champing at the bit to part with a wad of folding stuff to invest in a surefire winning boozer. Despite increasing numbers of chrome pole palaces and therefore greater competition for the ogling baht, there are still a few places that seem to be able to fill up with paying customers from opening until closing. Three or four of them manage to take in upwards of 100,000 Baht a night during the high season and drop to around half that during the low season.

 

Of course, they also tend to be in prime (and therefore expensive) locations and employ large squadrons of dancers, so they need to turn a decent baht every night to make a profit. For the most part running an gogo is time-consuming, expensive and beset with both major and minor problems. Many owners sound like they are just making ends meet, but I've noticed very few seem to sell out. Many spots have had the same owners for a number of years and obviously earn enough to keep them more than interested.

 

There are easier and more hassle-free ways to make a living, although maybe not quite as much fun. While ever there are girls (and boys) in this town and punters to come and watch them perform, there will always be people ready to part with their hard-earned cash and open a nightspot.

 

He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother: If ever a young working damsel is caught by a walking wallet as she wanders the streets or through the markets hand in hand with a young Thai man, it is amazing how often the dear sweet thing will say, 'He my brother/cousin.' Of course he is dear, and you come from a very close and tactile family. Wasn't it Elvis Presley who gave the world a hit tune with 'Kissing Cousins'?

 

Watch the Promenade Parade: Located on Beach Road right on the corner of Soi 10 is the well-established Steak Bao noshery and boozer. It's a nice place to sit in the evening if you can snaffle a table with a view of the promenade. From your vantage point you can watch as pedestrians sauntering along the promenade disappear into unmarked holes, trip over raised pavement, impale themselves on protruding rusting metal bars or find a companion of easy virtue for a short period of comfort and relief. Libations run between 20 and 70 baht for lolly water; 45-65 baht for coffee/tea; draught amber fluid is 50 baht and bottled amber nectar 70 baht.

 

Who's Your Daddy? A recent raid on the popular and nicely set up Lucifer's late night boogie barn (Walking Street) didn't cause foreign imbibers too much grief, but if we segue this incident into a recent story suggesting all foreigners wandering around the bars of Soi Cowboy in Bangkok must carry ID or face a fine, then the question must be asked: when will the local plod start enforcing a similar rule here in Fun Town? Maybe they'll wait until this next high season and then descend with all their bluff and bluster to annoy the crap out of visitors in the name of social order.

 

Sensibly, in Bangkok at least, the peelers accept a genuine photo ID or a driver's licence in lieu of a passport. Given that 99 people out of 100 behave sensibly (if a little over-indulgently on some occasions when it comes to the giggle sauce), any ID enforcement policy will only serve to annoy revellers. The one in a 100 who is a complete moron couldn't give a stuff anyway about a direction that he carry ID.

 

Shares in Silicone: The value of Dow-Corning shares must be going through the roof if visual evidence on the garishly lit streets of Pattaya is anything to go by. Asian females are not generally noted for their impressive chest sizes, but in recent times more and more of the sweet young things are taking pills or having a little doctor-supervised needlework in an attempt to gain those few extra centimetres. Where the pills and the needles don't work, it's the surgeon's scalpel and a blob or three of silicone.

 

It's been noticeable in recent years that large numbers of the damsels who parade their best assets around chrome poles are sporting sets of lungs that hadn't grown in the usual spot courtesy of Mother Nature. Watch the passing parade late on Walking Street and you will see plenty of ladies, and of course, gobbles of lady-boys who have contributed healthy profits to more than a few plastic surgeons.

 

When I ask some of these tender young lasses how much such chest-enhancing operations cost, the figures invariably come in anywhere from 40-60,000 baht. Given the average salary of a chrome pole molester runs to about 10,000 baht a month (in Pattaya) it doesn't take a degree in Keynesian economics to work out the damsels with the scuba-lungs either have a generous paramour or two feeding the bank book or they are turning more tricks than a politician running for office. Funny how most of the damsels I question about their shapely new form deny having a boyfriend. Are they being casual with the truth?

 

Price Comparison: A friend with a drinking condition and a fondness for Singha tells me a six-pack is currently AUD$13.50 in a retail boozatorium nearby his humble abode in the southern suburbs of Sydney. At current exchange rates that equates to around 420 baht or 70 baht a bottle. A slab of 24 bottles of the amber fluid is flogged off at AUD$50, or about 1,555 baht or 65 baht a bottle. The Singha is export quality and coming from a developing nation into a First World country, yet the price for one bottle is virtually the same, or in many cases less, than many beer boozers and some gogos charge for the local product. Agreed you do not get cavorting dancers or importuning former farmer's daughters stroking your hand or other parts of your anatomy while you sip your imported Singha, but it does make me wonder how it is possible to sell a product so competitively to consumers in Australia and yet here imbibers really pay a premium.

 

A Couple of Active Posts: In the 1860s, Jack Black was given the Royal Appointment by Queen Victoria for two positions. Name them.' This was a question in one of the recent Wednesday night quiz leagues and the answer makes me think the quiz-master at least has a sense of humour. The two positions were: Rat Catcher and Mole Destroyer. City Hall please note.

 

Footnotes in History: 1914 The governor of Virginia in the United States sent his secretary to administer the boom town of Copperfield . She closed all the saloons within 80 minutes of arrival. (The Interior Ministry awaits you my dear)

 

Try this Quick Quiz: How can you delay milk turning sour? A: Keep it in the cow.

 

Piece of Pith: The women who take husbands not out of love but out of greed, to get their bills paid, to get a fine house and clothes and jewels; the women who marry to get out of a tiresome job, or to get away from disagreeable relatives, or to avoid being called an old maid; these are whores in everything but name. The only difference between them and my girls is that my girls gave a man his money's worth.' -Polly Adler (1900?1962), U.S. brothel-keeper. A House Is Not a Home .