Just for Tonight...

Maybe time to begin posting a couple more excerpts of Mount Royal. Christ, the thing's been cooking in the back shed long enough. Really, publishing is like watching grass grow. 
just for tonight
But, hey, it took so long and was backed up by enough talented friends and associates that it might turn out okay... So here's an excerpt that includes a dire approximation of my old colleague in the photos...

...The moment I hang up somebody starts riding the door buzzer, going crazy on the thing. I run down ready to flip out. It’s Hennessy. His usually crafty features are sweaty and distressed. He skips around me and heads upstairs, starts to rattle on about some government yenta who wants to be double-teamed. The Hen says he’s haggled her up to a hundred and fifty bucks over the phone, but she gets right of first refusal upon seeing the merchandise in person. With almost zero endorphins in my blood, the idea of performing three-way sexual calisthenics with some extra feisty stranger holds about as much appeal as a steak knife colonoscopy.

“She’ll slam the door in our faces,” I tell him. “You look like stepped-on cat shit. Christ, your skin’s not even brown. It’s gray.”

Hennessy adjusts his oversized bowler and brushes off the ragged black suit. “You aren’t exactly appetizing either, you know. I wouldn’t vomit on you if I was paid.”

“Well, that would depend on how much, wouldn’t it?”

“If you have any bright ideas, Johnny, I’m listening.”

“Okay, okay. So where is this hot-to-trot character?”

“Outremont. She’s a doctor, part of the inner sanctum at the Ministry of Culture.”

“Inner sanctum of my ass. Will she write for us?”

“She’s not that kind of doctor.”

“What the fuck? I’ve never understood this pretentious academic bullshit. What good is having Doctor in front of your name if you can’t write a goddamn narcotics prescription? It shouldn’t be allowed. It’s phony advertising.”

Hennessy sighs at my kvetching. “Can we go now?”

When we get to Outremont the deal seems like it might be okay. Nice Modernist box house with mellow Nordic box furniture. The quasi-doctor bureaucrat doesn’t gack at the sight of us. She wears a black cat-suit, which isn’t the best outfit for her short, wide physique, but what the hell, the woman’s pleasant enough as we sit in some sort of ante-room, chatting. Who knows, maybe she’ll do most of the work. But then we find out what she really wants is to have us double-team her husband across his home-office desk while she plays audience and jerks off with some adult toys. I glare at Hennessy. He gives me a weak shrug. Oops.

Hubby’s a snarky, cavey chested middle-aged guy. He’s already down to nothing but a pair of blue and white Y-fronts and has patches of gray hair on his shoulder blades. “Where did you find these two specimens? They look like refugees from a palliative ward.”

“You wanted something street,” his wife bitches at him. “So I found you something street.”

“Yes, Montreal street. Not pox-infested Calcuttan gutter!”

He turns up his nose, looks away and points at the door. The doctor lady walks us out. She gripes under her breath, offers a few mumbled apologies and fifty bucks as compensation. After we score from Benny the Bike Thief, Hennessy runs off to a sociology class at Concordia. The Housebroken Dog As Consumerist Metaphor in Late 20^th Century Western Society.

In a word - no

It’s been smoky in Chiang Mai lately. The slash ‘n’ burn crowd going at it with gusto. The practice had been discredited ages ago, some claim. Others shrug and cough and wear old-fashioned surgical masks in public and at home. Me, I don’t care about the smoke all that much. Too bad you can’t see the mountains to our west on many days during slash ‘n’ burn season but it’s hot and sunny and my little Kawi is still tons ‘o’ fun to ride, smoke or no smoke, so ask me if I care.

Anyyyyway, I was out at breakfast a couple afternoons ago, eating in one of the countless great little places in this great little city – an establishment called Good Morning Chiang Mai. Despite being in the tourist zone, the place attracts a trade that’s about half Thai and half white foreigners – ‘farangs’ as we’re known – pronounced ‘falang’ by Thais.

Like most café/guest houses here, it’s built in an open and airy style with high ceilings and a beautiful courtyard, feng shuied to within an inch of its life, every roofline with a pleasing gentle slope. Kind of reminds me of that famous Frank Lloyd Wright house.

So I’m sitting in this little slice of paradise eating my ginger/clove/cinnamon/nutmeg/pineapple pancakes (yeah, they taste even better than they sound) and all’s pretty goddamn groovy. I notice a white couple, male and female, and these two looked seasoned shall we say, both with a smattering of tattoos but not the sudden mass of homogeneous markings a lot of squares get done here all at once cuz it’s cheap and Thailand has a solid population of skilled tattoo artists. I’ve actually seen some big white galoots laid out on a tattoo table like a beached beluga, three fastidious Thai artists buzzing away on the ape, using spray-on anesthetic to allow the galoot to withstand the pain of several consecutive hours of tattoos that invariably include all the requisite flaming skulls, battle axes, big-boobed Vampirellas, arbitrary old testament quotes, Celtic crosses, Buddhist aphorisms and other quasi-arcane symbols. Six, seven hours later the galoot’s ready to return to his Whiteland buddies and show them he too merits having a gallon of ink pecked into his pasty white hide for a quarter of what he’d pay back home.

So this white couple I noticed, they had a whiff of weed and X about them, a passing acquaintance with blow maybe  – they’d done some hard partying in their time but nothing too nasty. They were way in the back of the courtyard, sitting at a fairly secluded table behind some midget palms and making no secret of their affections; holding hands across the table, legs entwined beneath, gently stroking the inside of one another’s forearms. They stared dreamily into each other’s eyes with little grins, as if they’d just done some awesome fucking – that whole nicely sated vibe. But I guess they had more where that came from cuz the woman scooted round to sit on the same side as her guy and they got into a fairly sweet grope, nothing wild but since everyone wears pretty loose clothing here due to the heat, there’s lots of bodily access. It was hard to tell exactly from my angle but I think the woman was wearing a shirt that had these discreet zippers down the ribs. The guy slowly got one zipper down and slipped his hand inside onto the small of her back – and soon he was up to his elbow. Like I said, it was difficult to see that much but I could see enough to know he had his hand far down her ass. It made me smile to myself and shake my head. Well, not for nothing do they do call Chiang Mai Asia’s most romantic city. But that’s only up to a point.

A trio of Thai girls, who were watching the couple from a table on the other side of the courtyard, were fascinated beyond staring. They were squinting at the lovebirds, who were oblivious and only doing what many couples do in the West and where few people notice, let alone study their methods.

The couple were having a great time, giggling and laughing and rubbing against one another. I thought: Fuck, yeah, go for it. Screw right on the table. We won’t watch – at least not too much and not in a gross way. Gwan awready, give us voyeurs and pervs a nice healthy thrill.

But they didn’t screw on the table. Instead they got up, gathered their belongings and went to the entrance to pay. Since Good Morning Chiang Mai is so open-aired and with tons of windows, I could see the couple loitering out front afterwards. The young Thai women who’d been giving them the x-ray eyes were also carefully watching the action. The couple got into a long good-bye, hands on asses and tongues going, eyes beautifully closed. I dug out my prescription specs to see better. Yeah, they looked really good and really horny together, a nice match. Or maybe they’d just met the night before and were simply enthralled. Travel can be lucky that way.

As a final flourish, the guy leaned down and bit the woman’s breast through her shirt. Not a big chomp but a slow sexy bite, as if it gave them both shivers. Her head fell back, eyes closed and her lips parted slightly as she gently reached between his legs. And this is out on the street during a nice, sunny C.M. afternoon. Talk about your hugely erotic dry-hump. Sheee-ite.

The three Thai girls were now agog, no doubt soaking their undies – eyes practically popping out of their heads, jaws on the table, nearly drooling - all decorum ditched. I wouldn’t have been surprised if they suddenly began screwing on the table. When the couple finally parted and the girl went south, away from the resto and the guy came past the place toward his scooter, the Thai girls gawped at him like hungry dogs. Steam practically rose off them. When he noticed their stares, he scowled at first- clearly a Westerner accustomed to the idea that staring people are giving you an ‘attitude.’ But he recovered a moment later upon realizing it was something else altogether and I think he actually got a little flustered. But as he averted his gaze, he smiled to himself. Hell, wouldn’t you?

That sort of highly public affection is just not done in ol’ straight-laced Chiang Mai. Sure, it’s ‘romantic’ in the traditional sense but couples here do not even hold hands in public and white ex-pats or visitors generally emulate that sadly old-fashioned public modesty. Which is a bit ironic considering Thailand is famous for its full-bore sex industry and for sex toys being seriously illegal here (no kidding - and that subject will be a blawg post all on its own one of these days).

In light of all that, the idea of Chiang Mai’s good burghers holding up a 1950’s style public morality code is a kind of hilarious. Foreigners who live and work here as teachers or with various NGOs and other orgs say such open displays of sexual intent will ruin one’s reputation and career because like any small town, they all talk – and talk and talk and can’t shut up about everyone else’s business – and the less it has to do with them personally, the more they talk.

I guess the couple we were watching aren’t teachers and don’t work for some org with a highly attuned sensitivity for ‘respecting local customs.’ Hey, I too get the whole we-are-guests-in-their-country thing but would that stop me from seriously mauling a favored lover in the bright sun in a very public place if we felt as turned-on as those two looked? In a word – no.

Picasso's Lovers In The Street, 1900

 

No Middleman Required

Six months now in Thailand. The magic still working, becoming a kind of Cauc-Asian half-animal red-light runner. Would it be possible to live in the West again?
Who the hell knows but when i got here, man, i was busted up, body and soul - smashed to bits, held together inside a semi-flabby dead pale bag of poison with a few good one-liners and a decent artificially induced rap (wrap?)

Yeah, all the good stuff worked here, like I keep saying. All the Reki and acupressure and acupuncture and massages and back and neck adjustments and this awesome Thai heat. For a little while in the afternoon, the temp gets up near 40 or 42 Centigrade. I just stand in that sun soaking it up like jet fuel - like uranium rods powering an orbiting nuclear reactor of the soul.


The riding here is a big clincher. My personal version of location location location. Sure, Thais ride a bit wild but not totally out of control, at least not during daylight.
Most red lights are cautionary. You slow down, take a look and if nobody's coming, go. If you actually STOP, you stand a pretty good chance of being rear-ended at high speed by somebody who's just slowing down to take a look and if nobody's coming, go.

When I got here, I refused to budge on my moto-articles of faith: Wear the best full-face helmet I can afford, wear armored riding gloves, jacket, ankle high boots, etc. Now? Now my head protection consists of buzz-cut hair, $3 James Bond-style sunglasses, often no shirt, cargo pants and this is the worst admission - flipflops. All while smoking a cigarette and talking on the phone. Yeah, I've gone native.

In a Western security matrix, you'd last about 5 minutes before attracting the hostile attention of a SWAT team or they'd just gun you down like a mad dog, your carcass hung from a gantry in the ensuing media shot like a particularly dangerous shark that was trolling too close to shore.


Here, the worst that will happen is you get pulled over by some cops dressed like 1950s California Highway Patrol dudes straight out of The Wild One - with knee high parade boots, tight burgundy jackets and Sam Brown belts with actual revolvers in their hand-tooled holsters.
Among those pulled over regularly are students. Faaaar too cool for helmets, they wear skin tight Levis and asymmetrical haircuts they'd never dream of ruining by, god forbid, donning a plastic bubble on their heads. And the mirrors on their scooter serve only one purpose - to allow the constant monitoring of how damn good they look while promenading down Chiang Mai moat roads.

So leave off your helmet and Thai traffic cops will casually flag you down. No, they don't use the Western police technique of striding out into the road and pointing at you with a massive accusing finger that thunders You Have Sinned! Pull over and repent!
Naw. Chiang Mai's traffic cops casually flag you down, like a tipsy drinker signalling for a cab. One cop, not two, will saunter over , hand out for his 200 baht ($6.66 as it happens), a kind of tribute to king, country and pocket. Excellent value. The cop will then smile warmly and wave good-bye.

So my return to the West is delayed. It'll be eight months or so till I get back and I wonder, would I live there again? Could I? Right now in Thailand my applicable formula appears to be: Dog escapes leash. Dog does not get run over. Dog adapting.
So what's the formula if you want to jump on the 1st Division World track? Make List. Find random job then husband heavily tithed resources and carve out 'spare time' to pursue 'your passion'? Perfect for your unemployable old white dude with a penchant for writing smut and ignoring traffic signals.

The other thing is here I'm finding is a kind of smooth as palm and soya and jojoba and coconut and safron oil way of getting shit done - like if you want a long term residence permit. Officially, the process is fafferized up the wazoo by about 40 petit functionaires, all armed with stamps and receipt books, the men in form-fitting uniforms that'd make a  Prussian Colonel blush, and the women in demure 1950's American suburban fantasy wear - ie: pencil skirts, nice blouses with bows and pancake make-up.

But there are options. For example, a fast talking, improbably switched-on, 24/7, fully mega-connected Thai/Indian super-hustler who makes Bollywood seem stoic. So you lay back in your hammock, doze, look out at the mountain and you think to yourself: Do I want to endlessly hang about some immigration office or make a day-long trek to the Laos or Burma or Cambodia border every couple weeks to get a re-entry stamp? Or would I rather phone this Bolly-kok dude? Well, as Bolly-kok dude himself says about running the gauntlet of official channels:
"That strictly squaresville, man."

So when I do the Cost-Benefit Analysis, I find it's not just good and easy, it's really good and really easy. ie; I think I'll wander off on a one-man bike trip up to the Lao border region, get lost, find the way, get lost again and it doesn't matter cuz I'll run across somebody somewhere who'll  point the way or put me up for the night, feed me, all for a couple bucks - no middleman required.

Shrink Your Head

Rolling toward somewhat chaotic final for sure we're not kidding no way that's it no more effin' around version of the Mount Royal manuscript. And now it's done. No, really. Going to typesetter to be etched in stone, doncha know.

So a few all-nighters making sure people's names are spelled correctly...
Now onward and downward; I'm writing a series on FetLife called How To F*ck Your Psychiatrist.
And no, it's not allegorical, nor is it metaphorical. I've had maybe 40 or so headshrinkers of various types over the years. Not all of them official psychiatrists but also psychologists, (main diff is they can't prescribe drugs cuz they're not actual MDs. So what use are they, you ask? Good question.) counselors, therapists, along with various and sundry other psychofaffers. Of all those listeners, almost all happened to be women and yes, okay, I got involved with a few of them. Bound to happen with both of us sitting in some fluorescent lit office, bored out of our minds, our personal lives a dull mess, wondering if there's anything worth bothering over and how useful is a desk of this height, anyway...

And no, these are not blow-by-blow accounts of specific incidents - well, not entirely. I mean, sure, there are some passages that are pretty much lifted from the actual event but there's a lot of blending too, like in any fiction worth reading - there's a level of contextual meaning that must exist if the thing is to be more than a mechanical snore. Y'know, He put this here and she put that there kind of dullery...

The other thing in the works is a novel called The Witch's Belt and other Thracian Tales. I've been futzing with this one for a few decades on and off. (Hey, I've been busy.) I need to go to Thrace (southeastern Europe) to do some research to finish the thing and hope to do so this summer after going to Canada/US/UK for the Mount Royal book launch parties and readings etc at various locales, including a couple fetish clubs.

The first launch party for Mount Royal will be in Montreal on or about June 30th, so it's during the world famous Montreal Jazz Festival, which has grown to include far more than strictly jazz. Now it's a few hundred thousand extra people in the city for a couple week during hot weather, looking to have fun and groove and I aim to please so I figure it's a good time to do my thing there.
That's the plan, anyway, to be followed by a launch party in Toronto and then various other appearances, readings, etc.

We'll see how it all works out but the thing is, these days, with the world turning into a planet full of typists, everyone is a writer to some degree or other. So if you want to stand out at all, you've got to try to raise the bar - offer something of value, something readers want to take in. And that means writing a helluva lot, exposing your process to the world. Hopefully, somebody out there is curious enough to bother reading some of it.

And yeah, I'm still cruising along in northern Thailand, loving the weather and my hot little Kawasaki dirtbike. In fact, I think i'll go out for a ride right now. See ya in a bit...