MORE SENSELESS ACTS OF BLOGGERY

A slight addendum to the previous post:

When I walked out of Suntec City, my job done for the day, and I walked back to the hotel, for some reason I began singing this song quietly to myself:


Specifically, the last verse:

I cried when I wrote this song
Sue me if I play too long
This brother is free
I'll be what I want to be

I realize that Steely Dan isn’t the most hip group you can namecheck on the blogs, but I’ve always kind of dug two of their albums (Aja, where this song comes from, and Gaucho), and “Deacon Blues” is probably the best thing they’ve ever done. It makes being a seedy club-hopping layabout sound romantic. It’s full of so many great one-liners:

“They got a name for the winners in the world / I want a name when I lose”

“My back to the wall  / A victim of laughing chance  / This is for me / The essence of true romance”

And so on.

I like it. Sue me.

I already bought the dream,

This is dF

Live from the northwest coast of Phuket, just off of Nai Yang Beach. Which, 30 minutes after I checked in, looked like this.



That’s a marine national park yr looking at, Jim. I plan to swim in it tomorrow.

They’ve put me in a bungalow, and it’s tripping me out. Seriously. It was designed by a local family with ties to the tin industry, according to the brochure. Which is why it “evokes images of a tin mining industry”, because tin mine workers generally stayed in five-star beach resorts, you dig?

Consequently, I’ve got my own private patio with an outdoor tub, hanging doors that roll on wrought iron rails, aromatherapy burners and a complimentary five-piece screwdriver set. And expensive prepaid Wi-Fi, of course.

So far so good. I also have a seven-foot concrete barrier surrounding the place, so if there’s an eight-foot tsunami in the next 48 hours, I’ll drown in bed.

The official welcome letter says nothing of tsunamis, of course. But it does warn of “uncontrollable ‘nature’ and weather” and frequent power blackouts. They have a complimentary flashlight for the latter. For the former, they suggest not leaving the terrace doors open, especially at night.

This is good advice.

Anyway, my crew and I just returned from dinner. Our hosts bypassed the usual tourist traps (which, for some reason, tend to be “Irish” pubs with names like Scruffy Murphy’s and co-located with businesses offering everything from massage and parachute rides to tailor services and botox injections) and took us to a place so local that there’s no English name for it. Damn good Thai food. Their specialty dish: mangrove crabs.



So now I am full of crab, fish, papaya salad and Singha beer, and tonight I shall bathe naked outside and the mosquitos will eat me alive, and we will sing together as nature plots against us.

And Jesus, that’s just Day 1. I haven’t even unpacked yet.

Developing.

Bungalow mentality,

This is dF