Nightmarch

[PattayaPete 530]

A Taste of Tex-Mex: One of Fun Town's true survivors, Big Al has a record of producing pretty fine Mexican nosh -all beans means farts Pancho- at reasonable prices. His small street stall on Second Road, opposite Big C and in front of the popular Atlantic beer boozer, does good business. He hasn't had much luck with a couple of other locations, for varying reasons, but is now ensconced in the kitchen of the Babewatch ogling den (Soi 16, Walking Street).

 

Plans are under way to use the kitchen to also serve food in the other beer boozers and chrome pole palaces ( Catz, Club Boesche and X-Zone ) in the Covent Garden complex. There are more than 40 dancers hugging the chrome poles in the joint and lady drinks have been knocked down to a reasonable 90 baht.

 

A Long Time Up and a Long Time Gone: After an almost-record 14 years at the one location and under the same ownership, the Tommy's beer boozer closed down on Third Road and the veteran Pattaya hand has moved to a location up the road and around the bend in Soi Bongkot.

 

Down in Soi 8, the Vicky beer boozer and a couple of those around it have been turned into a mound of rubble to make way for, I presume, new-style establishments serving alcoholic refreshments to thirsty persons. The Vicky bar lasted 18 years, easily a record run in this neck of the boozing woods.

 

Along Soi Chaiyapoom, the Texxan ( sic ) Inn, whose sign proudly boasted "the name too tough to die', has been gone a few months now and has been re-named Expresso Lounge.

 

No Comment Needed: As most long-term readers of this column are probably well aware by now, I am not a great fan of the way business is conducted by most of the ogling dens on Pattayaland Soi 2. Some years ago this was a terrific and vibrant street boasting a load of places well worth spending some time in; now I generally use it as a short-cut to Beach Road. I know of many ex-pats and long-term visitors to Fun Town who feel precisely the same way. So, I wasn't really surprised when a reader (French, I gathered from his email address) sent me the following (excuse the grammar):

 

"On visit in Pattayaland 2, I saw a brutal change in quality of the changing damsels at KITTEN CLUB. What used to be one of my favourite places is now just a mix of average looking girls and an even more dancing... KATOYS. What the hell the management is doing here. The mix of those two groups just doesn't work, and when I see the number of customers they had, they are just thinking the same way."

 

It seems as if they've caught that strange marketing disease whereby you sting whatever custom you may have for as much as possible, rather than taking the more long-term view and trying to build up a loyal clientele by offering better service at reasonable prices.

 

Cold Enough for Frostbite: Not being partial to a drop of amber fluid I have to rely on listening to those who know what's good and what's not for the best places to imbibe. Most Aussies and Kiwis love their beer ice cold and for those of a similar disposition there are three places I'm aware of that apparently serve the stuff as if it just emanated from an Antarctic iceberg: Best bar in Soi 8; Tim ogling den and beer boozer on Second Road, and Whisker's bar in Soi Chaiyapoom.

 

I'd be happy to hear from readers who know of other places where an ice-cold glass or bottle of frothy amber is standard fare.

 

A Closed Profit: According to the most recent email newsletter sent out by Deadly Derek of The Clinic sports emporium (Soi Yamato) the firmly closed Stringfellows ogling den is up for sale at 3.5 million baht. Allegedly the advertisement boasts exceptional profit figures'. As Derek penned, "Call us cynical if you will but we can't see how it can have 'exceptional profit figures' as it's never traded under the current owner who bought and promptly shut it down in 2005. Ah well, we suppose there's a mug on every Plane!'

 

Child of the Father: The initial plans were to open a Sierra Tango style establishment, but with the closure of Club Electric Blue (Walking Street), Big Andy decided the Suckers concept could wait and he's opened Club Electric Blue Junior on the site in Soi Diamond. So, the number of ogling dens on Pattaya's premier nightlife street now number 41.

 

Feel for a Pulse: Pattaya's last chrome pole palace before Bangkok is the 1969 den on Naklua Road. A nicely laid out place, it started life about a decade ago with the name Pussycat and for a long time it was one of the best places in Fun Town. It had a name change to Kittens a few years back was basically living on past dreams and glories. Then a few long-term Pattaya operators bought the place and re-named it 1969.

 

Sadly, although the place is still ticking over, the heart rate monitor is pumping a tick above a flatline. I wandered in on a recent Saturday night and spent an hour or so watching a trickle of customers ogle a gaggle of a dozen or so bored-looking dancing maidens. Actually, the damsels weren't too bad as far as looks went, and the music was quite good, but the place has well and truly lost its rhythm and direction. Worth wandering in if you're up Naklua way with a 45-baht happy hour between 8:00 and 10:00PM on draught amber, house liver wasters, and Thai rotgut.

 

Pixed Again: I confess to not being brilliant when it comes to the internet and websites and graphics and gifs and pixels and all the other bits and pieces associated with having material floating around in cyberspace. It's part of the reason I don't bother looking at chat rooms and forums and blogs and the like; most of what I have seen and read -as regards Pattaya and Thailand- is poorly written and edited, and much of the information appears more like backyard gossip and personal invective. The reason for this preamble is to make bar owners aware of a website offering what an internet-savvy informant has told me looks basically like a giant scam.

 

I won't give the url of the website in question, suffice to say it is specific to bars in Thailand. The webmaster has the ironically appropriate surname of Robbery (actually, I've added an extra consonant) and the operation is run out of England. The idea seems reasonable enough: the website has divided itself into category pages and, I quote from the blurb sent to me, On each category page you will find a grid of 1,000,000 pixels split into 10,000 squares of 100 pixels (10x10). We then sell these squares or $100 (US) each. In these squares we will then place an image of your choice along with a link to your website'

 

OK, so for around 4,000 baht a bar owner can have this pixel image of his establishment and if someone clicks on it, bingo, they are brought to the bar's website. According to my internet-savvy mate, what bar owners probably don't know is that a 10 pixel image is about half the size of the letter ?P' at the start of the this piece. In other words, you'd have to be possessed of the eyesight of Superman to even see your advertisement on a page.

 

How to Make a Monkey Jealous: There's an old joke about how it is possible to tell a nun from a hooker by the way they both eat a banana. If anyone would like a visual demonstration in the art of consuming a banana, demimondaine style, then I can recommend the show performed in the Coyotee's ogling den (Soi Marina Plaza, off Walking Street).

 

Get a Tiger in Your Tankard: The Club Boesche chrome pole extravaganza palace (Soi 16, Walking Street) is, according to informed sources, building a new area alongside the bar to fit in an entirely new concept, along the lines of a Las Vegas-cum-Broadway-cum-Siegfried and Roy-cum-David Copperfield-cum too much series of shows. Apparently there will be a magician (Hey Rocky, watch me pull a g-string out of my ass..er, hat) as well as two, I presume performing, tigers. There's no truth in the rumour the tigers are to double as bouncers, consuming complaining customers. If it all sounds a bit over-the-top for Fun Town at least the management of this den are trying out new ideas.

 

I'm waiting for the night when a chrome pole palace opens with topless skydivers parachuting in formation onto a revolving stage in the centre of which is a concrete pit filled with hungry crocodiles; the night could end with a gladiatorial contest ( ala Colosseum, Christians v Lions) between those dancing damsels who failed to be bar-fined and desperate punters looking for a bed partner. Now, if we could just work a couple of Muslim suicide bombers, an aging lawyer and an American Vice-President armed with a shotgun, the whole concept could probably be syndicated via web-cam to an audience of zillions. Better stop there, it's time for my medicine.

 

Try this Quick Quiz: What is artificial insemination? A: When the farmer does it to the bull instead of the cow.

 

Piece of Pith:If we had no faults of our own, we should not take so much pleasure in noticing those in others.' (La Rochefoucald)