Back in Chiang Mai -- The Edge of the Abyss

"I was about ready to punch Webster right out, the Evangelical prick. If you don't want me to smoke, just ask me, and I won't smoke. I'm a vegetarian, have been for 20 years, but I'll cook you up a steak if you ask me nice."

This was the Scotsman, nearly chewing off his own tongue as we spoke on his last day in Chiang Mai -- his going away party.

Next to him is Webster, who I can't figure out yet. Hates his family, seems to hate America -- I mean, if you find California to be too hardened, you've been rubbed seriously raw.

"So is the breakfast good at the Blue Diamond, Webster?"

"Yes, it is delightful. I had the fruit salad. It had oranges, apples, bananas..." Long pause, Parker goes into his thousand yard stare. Whatever his demons happen to be, they've nearly incapacitated him. He speaks robotically, his grey eyes caught on some distant object, perhaps calculating, perhaps trying to remember exactly where he was when the bus finally broke down.... "Papaya."

He broke his hip in a motorbike accident and has been confined to his room, demanding pot from his caretakers.

This is the world of the standard Chiang Mai expat that I have re-entered. Everyone has their demons, I've decided. Sometimes its as simple as sex -- when yesterday I saw a morbidly unattractive man, who looked something like fetal alcohol syndrome advanced 50 years, with a very loving and attentive Thai girl, I wasn't surprised. Thai culture doesn't bother too much with aesthetics in that way, he was treating her well, she was happy, something he couldn't get in the west. No problem.

But there are other demons, the ones that are hidden a little deeper in the back of the Irish and English bars mostly. Signs in Chiang Mai such as "do not molest street children" and "we are not an escort service" evidence the degree of the sexpat phenomenon.

Then there are the angry people. The fat black middle-aged American screaming at the attendant in an internet cafe had obviously reached the knot at the end of his rope in the States so he simply lashed it on to Chiang Mai and started back towards the other end.

It is a fascinating place that waffles between being a kind of Bohemian, intellectual refuge, laced with a million excellent used bookstores -- where a variety of translations of Homer can be found, thankfully -- but it is also a stomping ground for the perpetually depraved, those sucking the lees at the bottom of the cask.

On another topic: funny signs!!

I drove by a kennel, pet-sitting kind of place that advertised with a big carefully made and illuminated sign: "your pets are in our custodian!"

Well, can he take them out, please?

So I'll be sticking around this joint for a while. Got myself a wordprocessor and a motorbike, just need a house and a girlfriend and I'm all set.. Though a job would be nice too.


updated my Webshots page -- deciding that Flickr sucks -- so if anyone is interested in some pics: http://community.webshots.com/user/allstargangstabiotch