Nightmarch

[PattayaPete 530]

More more is gogo dancers answer if you want them to gogo

Overpriced and Underlayed: There was a time, about a decade ago, before the spread of the mobile phone and the rise of Internet cafes and the advent of email, when the dancing damsels of Fun Town were prepared to ‘work the room’ in an effort to not only obtain money from libations but would be prepared to offer their mattress dancing skills for a sensible remuneration. Of course there were always the so-called superstars who considered their baby-making factory was lined with gold and smelt like an orchid farm and consequently refused to depart their den of employ for anything less than the average Gross National Product of a minor African nation.

 

Seguel forward to the current high season and I am constantly being amazed by the amounts of the folding stuff people are prepared to part with in order to gain some misguided bragging right of saying they ‘shagged’ the best-looking chrome pole hugger in a particular den. Perhaps, more to the point, it’s how often they are willing to continue handing over enough wedge to choke an elephant to the same damsel in the misguided belief they are somehow also opening a path to what may pass for a heart in the vast majority of these mattress actresses.

 

I have no problem with many of the dens putting up their bar fines during the silly season to 1,000 baht or more. After all, they make their real money from selling booze, not from selling little shaven or partially-bushed felines. An empty den of dancers means an empty den of imbibers.

 

I don’t know what amazes me more, the amounts being demanded by the over-inflated egos of the shufflers or the willingness of so many sex-starved customers to part with so much moolah once their small head takes control of their brain. And it’s not the old farts who are necessarily coughing up the large amounts, most in excess of 3,000 baht for an evening of organ reciting, many of the younger visitors (aged between 20 and 30) seem to be so desperate to be seen parading about with a good sort on their arms they’re prepared to pay through the nose for the dubious privilege.

 

Of course, as I’ve always said, the job of the mattress actresses is to extract as much money as they possibly can from as many walking wallets in the shortest time possible for the least amount of effort. Good luck to them. If there are males out there who really think handing over large amounts of legal tender (in comparison to the real cost of living in Thailand, not Mayfair, London) to nubile young rice farmers daughters this will somehow endear themselves to the recipients then they’re living in a parallel universe to the real world.

 

Obsessed About Noise: It seems as if the latest in what appears to be a trend in opening packed-lunch-in-a-dress dens, this one called Obsessions (Pattayaland Soi 2), is upsetting the neighbours. Located in the Penthouse sleeping palace and next door to the Kittens gogo, the music coming out of the place is allegedly at a decibel level designed to send punters inside the place deaf, while making normal conversation in the open-air joints across the soi increasingly difficult.

 

I received a complaint about the alleged noise from long-time Fun Town resident Terry, the operator of the popular Shamrock beer boozer and noshery, which is located diagonally opposite Obsessions. Terry claims repeated requests to turn the volume down to acceptable levels fall on deaf ears. Perhaps this is no surprise, they are probably asking long-term employees of the said den who are now reduced to lip reading. He also claims Thai staff physically assaulted more than one of Terry’s customers who have taken the trouble to go across and ask for the din to be declined. From all accounts both Obsessions and Kittens are not well patronised and so the staff from these venues have plenty of time on their idle hands.

 

A Place to Get Wasted: In the interests of promoting healthy livers and responsible drinking I shouldn’t really mention this, but the Taboo gogo (Soi 16, off Walking Street) has what they call sambuca Sundays and then follow-up with tequila Tuesdays. You’ve been warned.

 

Expanding the Waistline: A couple of months ago the ever-thinking management of the Heaven Above gogo (Soi Diamond) gave the interior of the den a few tweaks at the edges by pushing the wet bar back through a side wall and also made a separate booth for the DJ at the rear. This increased their seating capacity by about 10-15 percent, a major plus for the bar. On a recent chrome pole molesting inspection I have to say there was one lady of sullied virtue who, by any yardstick, rated a 10 out of 10, at least under UV lighting.

 

Two Years of X: Down in the Covent Garden Complex in Soi 16 the X-Zone gogo celebrated its second anniversary with a big party on 21 December. The den has a good happy hour with all libations at just 50 baht, apparently this includes imported bottles of amber liquid and breezers. After 2:00AM the bar fine for dancing damsels drops to just 300 baht, a move pioneered by the New Living Dolls 1 chrome pole palace (Walking Street) and since adopted by a few other places with, so I’m led to believe, quite good results.

 

I know X-Zone recruited a new mamasan and along with her came a clutch of professional pole dancers, but by the time you read this the ever-changing vagaries of the Fun Town bar scene may mean there’s a new mob bounding about the rather cavernous interior. Still, given the value of its happy hour it is probably worth at least a thirst-quencher or two to check it out.

 

A Stitch in Time: I have seen some strange occurrences in dens of the chrome pole, but recently the Baby Dolls establishment (Soi 15, off Walking Street) held a birthday/New Years party and, I swear this is true, one customer spent literally hours sat, mostly by himself, engaged in the fine art of knitting. Let me set the scene if I can. Here is a den, filled with happily slurping customers, where a platoon of chrome pole molesters are on the main stage wearing scarcely enough clothing to keep the chills of the air-conditioning at bay; where a squad of ladies armed with soft rubber implements are either reddening the exposed cheeks of other dancers or using their tongues to clean, cat-like, the intimate cavities of their sisters; where a trio of birthday-suited belles are engaged in both individual and collective ablutions in a Jacuzzi big enough to float a 12-metre racing yacht, and we have a man who spent his entire time knitting.

 

He reminded me of a cross between a Hobbit and a stereotypical pervert (and I mean this in the nicest way), so perhaps his stitch-one, pearl-one activities were some kind of therapy recommended by a Harley Street specialist as a way of overcoming an addiction to glossy stroke magazines featuring garishly-dressed female garden gnomes. Of course he could just have been trying to give up smoking and needed to keep his hands full. Personally, I could find a far more tactile and interesting method of keeping my hands full, and it wouldn’t mean there’d be any chance of dropping a stitch.

 

He did manage to complete a minor creation: a light-blue crocheted brassiere, which he presented to the mamasan. Throughout all this he never removed a giant shoulder bag, which may well have contained all his worldly goods. Having presented the bra, he dug into his bag of goodies, pulled out another ball of wool and started work on a new ensemble.

 

Changing the subject slightly, if there is one complaint about Baby Dolls it’s the large television screen being located behind the Jacuzzi. How are socceraholics supposed to watch a match between, say, Accrington Stanley and Charlton Athletic, or Knobhead United and Wanchor City, when there are two or three young, sexy, fully-lathered ladies wearing nothing but eye-makeup as they fiddle with their interesting bits blocking their view? It’s enough to make you take up knitting.

 

Around the Poles:

Located as it is in the depths of Soi BJ, off Walking Street, it’s no surprise to hear the E gogo, styled as a Goth chrome pole palace, doesn’t do much business in the early hours of the evening at least. If you are wondering about the location, just follow any male you see on Walking Street wearing black clothes, heavy silver jewellery, black eye make-up and lipstick.

 

The former Climax head-bangers beer boozer (Walking Street) has been remodelled and turned into a den of the chrome pole and named Magic Palace (because your money disappears faster than you can say som dtam perhaps?).

 

The Blue Angel gogo (Soi 7) has managed to stay open for far longer than many would have thought. I can’t really give much of an appraisal of the place because when I last looked in there were three or four bored-looking dancers of ample girth on the stage and it had all the ambience of a mortuary. Could have been an off night I guess, but the ‘blue’ in the name was certainly the impression it gave me.

 

In the same blue vein, the only other distaff gogo in the soi, Silver Star III, might boast a Jacuzzi (ho hum, another one), but its complement of dancers could certainly do with some radical dietary advice.

 

Piece of Pith: ‘Sometimes I fear going home to Boots and Woolworths and cafeterias, and I’d be a stranger now even in the White Horse.’ (taken from Our Man in Havana, Graham Greene)