Nightmarch 16 June 2004

[PattayaPete 530]

The Spicy Girls music play list is probably the most extensive in all Fun Town with more than 1,400 songs, and of these, there are over 700 accompanying video clips. Punters are able to choose any songs they’d like to hear from the play list; just ask a waitress and she’ll bring you a ‘menu’. If you like music from the 60s through to the 90s, and none of it techno, then you should be able to find enough to keep you entertained all night long. For Ewan’s birthday a member of the swine family will meet its maker and be found skewered and roasting outside the den. As usual, it is requested balloon chasers become acquainted with sex and travel, in other words, f**k off. A Novel Event:

 

The well-known Canadian ex-pat writer Christopher G. Moore will be in Pattaya on Saturday 19 June to officially launch his new tome Pattaya 24/7, the latest in the Calvino private detective series. The event has been organised by Bookazine and Christopher Moore will be on hand at the Green Tree noshery and beer boozer (Beach Road end of Soi 1) from 11:30AM. Anybody purchasing a copy of the book or any of his other titles will receive a 10 per cent discount. I have to confess to having read only two of Moore’s extensive range of books, but can recommend A Killing Smile. A Horse, a Horse, my Ogling den for a Horse:

 

Although it has undergone a series of changes with regard to ownership (or more correctly, partnership) and management as well as music format, the one eminently sensible thing the new brooms kept in the Carousel ogling den (Soi Diamond) was the revolving stage.

 

As for the dancing damsels, there were a couple of faces I recognised who must surely be on some sort of pension plan with the den as they’ve been on the active list for so long. Then there are a few who have yet to pass their first semester in chrome pole polishing school. It would be difficult for even the most curmudgeonly patron not to find someone with whom he couldn’t at least raise a smile. Certainly the place is almost always well patronised, the sign of a successful operation. The new style is Bangkok-ian in that one clutch of 10 or so dancers assembles on the stage and do a turn for a brace of tunes and then they are replaced en masse by another batch of 10 or so.

 

Call me superstitious, but one of the reasons Carousel might well be enjoying such a good run is the return of the horse. The inanimate nag had occupied pride of place in the centre of the revolving stage for many years before being wrenched away and put out to pasture, probably in a broom closet somewhere. This was after having had a colour change from white to jet-black. The nag reappeared a few months ago, albeit at the side of the stage. Unfortunately it now looks more like an over-sized and deformed Dalmatian: mainly white, but with black spots all over its sturdy frame. Nevertheless, I sense its leering grin is a little cheerier this time around.

 

Corporal La Farge Reports: Every year the Thai military has a major re-shuffle of senior positions within its ranks, an exercise that always puts me in mind of a silly game of musical chairs. A similar style of musical chairs is also played out most nights in Pattaya with sundry ogling dens seeming to take it in turns to be closed down for 30 days or so for the criminal offence of permitting their dancing damsels to engage in monetary-induced wardrobe malfunctions. It often appears as though the methodology behind bar closures is decided on a whim. I imagine a senior copper reaching into a bowl of multi-coloured numbered balls, removing one, reading a number- say “69”- to one of his cronies who then checks a list and tells his chief, “Big Knockers, Soi 10”. And so, accompanied by a dozen gendarmes and a few slavering media hacks, they clamber aboard the nearest plod jalopy, screech out of the parking lot and head off in the direction of Soi 10 with the sole purpose of bringing law, order, and clothing decency to the Big Knockers ogling den in that benighted street.

 

After surrounding the joint, they burst through the front door, truncheons in hand, and discover, to their shock, a number of females cavorting around chrome poles in a manner of undress unacceptable in polite society. The den is forthwith closed for the next 30 days and the manager hauled off to face the wrath of sundry official types who demand monetary recompense. A few of the under-dressed damsels are also carted away, although not in tumbrels to the guillotine for being class traitors, but merely to the pokey to be relieved of a few hundred baht in fines.

 

Just in case you are not aware, the ‘winner’ of the middle of May prize of a 30-day enforced holiday was the Paris ogling den (Soi Diamond), followed by Hooty’s (Walking Street). Those who have fallen foul of the law in recent times include Goldfingers (Soi 7), on more than one occasion (recidivists that they are), and Champion (Walking Street). Others rumoured to be in danger of imminent closure include Peppermint and Happy, both in Walking Street. A couple of others have missed out by the lick of a tongue, especially one ogling den featuring a show where young damsels are wont to kiss those parts of another females’ anatomy not normally exposed to the chill night air. One of my well-informed spies told me a senior peeler in plain clothes walked into the den literally a minute after the ‘oh-that’s-what-you-had-for-breakfast’ show had ended. Guide Me In Scotty.

 

Lighting in the 50-plus ogling dens across Fun Town varies from the sublime to the ridiculous, and one place that must have one of the lowest electricity bills on record is the Tim chrome pole palace (Second Road). The lighting is almost nonexistent (ala Tahitian Queen, Beach Road), and is perfect for a bat; at least it can use sonar to find a seat. Of course, lighting is used to hide all kinds of design faults in a number of the dancing damsels. The cold light of a street lamp must surely sober up a number of patrons who have elected to pay the bar for a dancer, only to discover she doesn’t look remotely the same outside the boozer as she does inside. Of course, to be fair, this doesn’t just apply to Tim’s; plenty of other ogling dens have dim lighting for similar reasons.

 

The place is always well patronised and owner Tim seems to have the knack of being able to keep people coming back time and again. The appeal of Tim’s is the good music, with accompanying videos in many cases, the pool tables out the back and the generally laid-back atmosphere of the joint. You will be hassled for lady drinks and asked if you wish to purchase snacks, if not for yourself then for the ladies who have flocked to your table. The snacks may well be a reason why quite a number of these girls could do with a Weight Watchers voucher or two.

 

Off the Beaten Track. Another ogling den offering a good selection of rock and roll style music is X-Ray (Soi Zero). The den offers Chang draught amber at 45 baht all night with Mekong rotgut at 65 baht, bottled amber fluid and liver destroyers at 95 baht. Lady drinks are over priced at 100 baht. There are a dozen or so dancing damsels and I’m led to believe if they do have a shortage of chrome pole molesters for whatever reason, the slack is taken up by importing lasses from the associated Classroom 2000, just down the road in Soi 2. Apart from the usual chrome pole shuffle, there are a few shows to liven up the evening. One involves three rumbustious lasses cavorting about the stage with rubber whips and doing the eat me, whip me, chain me to the bedpost overnight and ravish me with fresh vegetables show. It certainly had me wondering if they’d previously been the star turn for S & M at The Castle fetish boozer on Third Road.

 

 

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