Book Review: The Killer Inside Me--by Jim Thompson

Jim Thompson was an American novel writer in the crime noir tradition that was most popular in the 1950's. If you’re unfamiliar with the style, they are usually bleak, sparsely written tales populated with losers, botched plans, cheap women and double-crossers. There is always plenty of deviancy and never a happy ending. The most successful and literary of the writers famous for crime noir were probably Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett.

Jim Thompson didn't receive much acclaim while he was alive though recent re-issues of his books as well as a number of screen-plays based on his novels that were turned into moderately successful movies (such as the The Grifters) have added new cachet to his name.

Like many who wrote in the style, his work cannot be classed as exceptionally well written and with an oeuvre that includes almost 30 novels, some fall under the heading of potboiler. Within that body of work there are certain novels that definitely stand out as more worthy than others do. One of his better one's is The Killer Inside Me.

The story of a smalltown sherrif's deputy who also happens to be a functioning psychopath, this novel follows a pattern similar to many of Thompson's other books (indeed many by other authors within the genre). Told in the first person, the main character has a troubled past that is dribbled out to the reader throughout the tale, as his mask inevitably starts to fall and things go horribly wrong.

Unlike some authors who labour over what would appear to be preposterous plot twists in an effort to make them seem plausible, Thompson deftly inserts them in the narrative and the reader finds him or herself going along without questioning something that might seem absurd from another writer.

The narrator and protagonist, Lou Ford, reveals soon after the novel opens that his brother took the rap for him as a teenager after he raped a young child. As his father was a physician in the small town in Texas where they lived, he promptly castrated his son in hopes he could lead a somewhat normal life(?). Now alone in the house he grew up in with his twisted thoughts and the still fully stocked pharmacy cabinet he uses to jack himself full of hormones so that he can perform sexually when necessary, he puts forth a public face that keeps most people fooled including his long-time girlfriend.

A cheap whore arrives and sets up shop on the outskirts of town and Ford becomes involved with her, triggering his unraveling and setting the entertaining course of the novel into action. A number of seedy and less than scrupulous characters occupy various positions in town and inevitably have some links to Ford’s past and may or may not know the details of his earlier life. They become entwined in the plot and Ford finds it more and more logical in his own warped mind to start topping people.

Thompson offers up a creepy character in Ford whose bizarre musings seem like what a true psychopath must be like (or at least a plausible pulp fiction rendition that convinces the reader that it is authentic). Not a raving lunatic but someone who is affronted by odd things and whose strange rationalizations become almost believable. His skewed sense of compassion almost creates a sense of sympathy for his character but his placid outward appearance that is disrupted by his casuallly violent eruptions ultimately eliminates that possibility. Thompson's dark and truly twisted sense of humour adds to the entertaining mix and made me laugh at inappropriate times…perhaps an attempt to creep out the reader and make them feel an unhealthy affinity with the wacko Ford.

Here's a sample of the ongoing rap Ford carries on with himself throughout:

"You've done something pretty bad or you want something bad, and you think, well, if I can just do such and such I can fix it. If I can count down from a thousand backwards by three and a third or recite the Gettysburg address in pig-latin while I'm touching my little toes with my big ones, everything will be all right."

As things break down the violence is ratcheted up and there are some twists that result in a not totally unexpected finish. Watching Ford's deviant insanity ride its course is the real entertainment however and there are plenty of memorable passages where the weirdness plays out as written in Thompson's unique style.

A simple writing style throughout, Thompson demonstrates that good storytellers don't need elaborate plots and detailed descriptions to keep the reader interested. An ability to move the story along, interesting dialogue and the intrigue of watching as Ford starts to lose it makes this a novel worth reading.

Here is a link to a good short biography on Jim Thompson.

Touched and Torched

I've never been much of a poetry reader. While the very best of poets possess an incredible ability to put words together in evocative and original ways, the vast majority it seems to me are the self-anointed type who are drawn to the medium because they haven't got what it takes to write prose. They see the horseshit that is published in the fraudulent poetry magazines that keep the marginal industry alive and think "Why the hell not give it a go?"

If they've got a good back-story and especially if they come from one of the downtrodden celebrity ethnic groups of the day, they may just dupe enough fools into shilling for their work and manage to make a living at it.

Still, there are a few poems that I have come across over the years that have stayed with me. I realized recently that two of them maybe hold some clue as to my decision to move to Thailand. Perhaps there are certain tendencies and beliefs that have always been with me and which make my choice to come here easier to understand. Each poem contains a sentiment that helps sum up my love of the country that I have chosen as a second home.

One is from Pablo Neruda. I first learned about him a few years ago after watching the Italian movie IL Postino (The Postman), which fictionalizes a period of the poet's life that he spent in Italy. While his poetry was written originally in Spanish it translates well. Unlike the experimental type of garbage that pretentious wackos claim to like just so they can be seen to "get" something which others don't, Neruda's poems just sound pleasing, evoke sensations that make a person feel good and are full of great imagery and crisp, rhythmic language. Here is one I particularly like:

Love Sonnet XI

I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair.
Silent and starving, I prowl through the streets.
Bread does not nourish me, dawn disrupts me, all day
I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps.

I hunger for your sleek laugh,
your hands the color of a savage harvest,
hunger for the pale stones of your fingernails,
I want to eat your skin like a whole almond.

I want to eat the sunbeam flaring in your lovely body,
the sovereign nose of your arrogant face,
I want to eat the fleeting shade of your lashes,

and I pace around hungry, sniffing the twilight,
hunting for you, for your hot heart,
like a puma in the barrens of Quitratue.


This poem makes me think of the dark sultry women that I have always been drawn to. I can look at an attractive woman with blonde hair and fair skin and acknowledge her beauty but I have never found myself in a relationship with one. On reading this poem again there isn't really a lot to suggest the woman being yearned for is one with dark hair and olive skin but that's always the impression I’ve had. Probably just my bias or the fact that Neruda was from South America and I assumed he was lamenting a woman from that region. Regardless, for me it is another reminder of the beauty of Thai women, one of the best parts about living here.

Secondly is this somewhat hokey piece from a long-dead Canadian poet named Robert Service. I found it on my father's bookshelf when I was a child and had an instant affinity with the character whose last wish was to be cremated. Even at that young age the concept of being planted in the cold hard ground as food for maggots did not appeal to me. Some day in the future when the stone marker that covers your final resting place will have absolutely no meaning for anyone on earth was an idea that filled me with dread.

The poem is too long to print in its entirety, but here is an excerpt (Note that these stanzas do not appear consecutively in the complete poem.):


The Cremation of Sam McGee

There wasn't a breath in that land of death, and I hurried, horror-driven,
With a corpse half hid that I couldn't get rid, because of a promise given;
It was lashed to the sleigh, and it seemed to say: "You may tax your brawn and brains,
But you promised true, and it's up to you to cremate those last remains."

There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
I cremated Sam McGee.

As I said, hokey, but like almost any style, when schmaltz is done well it can become enjoyable. The link here is obvious. Thailand is a Buddhist country where people are cremated when they die as opposed to the vast majority in countries dominated by Christianity, who are stuffed into the ground when they buy it.

Torched and touched. Liars and pyres. Flesh; tender, living, breathing and lifeless and rotting. Blissful release and the final release.

Women and death.

Scrapping Sluts

The practiced nonchalance of young girls starts appearing at approximately the same age they realize the shake of their ass is one of the most useful tools they will ever possess. The wiles of manipulation that the female species has been imbued with, and that manifests itself in that dismissive, cold-eyed arrogance, reaches a strange and hideous pinnacle when crossed with ruthless violence.

More than 20 years ago I witnessed a bizarre event that has remained with me to this day....

Whether it was because I was coming into an age where my observation skills were becoming sharper, or if it was actually a trend that emerged at that time I don't know, but there suddenly seemed to be a sharp upswing in the number of girl-on-girl fights at the school I attended. Young men had been gaining a sense of pride at their developing muscles and ability to throw a punch for some time but the vicious cat-fights were a new experience. The after-school crowds they were attracting rivaled any that involved the blokes.

They were a certain type of girl--it's safe to say that most fit under the description of "white-trash". In fact, within a few years, most of those scrapping sluts had squeezed out a few bastards and one even went on to become a grandmother at the age of 25. They had probably witnessed violence in the squalid, welfare housing projects where they lived and in turn become involved with abusive scum who pushed them around. Brutality was part of these girls' lives and as much as it messed them up, it appealed to them as well. They saw violence as a logical way to solve the petty jealousies that all young women of that age become involved in. Most used more benign methods of solving their disputes such as shunning and slander campaigns but a few resorted to fisticuffs.

One day, the possibility of an after-school fight picked up steam and seemed like it would result in some real entertainment. To make things more interesting I always endeavored to get some details regarding the low-class drama that had sparked the show-down. In this particular case it turned out that one of the combatants had slighted her rival by spreading a rumour that the girl, at the age of 15, was still refusing to supply anal sex on 1st dates. Not wanting to be denied the status that the contrary seemed to provide, arrangements were made to duke it out.

The words "white-trash" wouldn't have meant anything to me at the time. That there was a difference between kids who lived in opposite ends of the neighbourhood was probably somewhere in my psyche but not something I was conscious of. Yet it would have been all so obvious if I had connected patterns of behaviour and certain familial situations with the geography of the neighbourhood where they were most prevalent. The cramped, miserly sameness of the housing projects where they lived, the precocious sluttiness, and the arrogance offered up when faced with their own inadequacies was all something that these girls shared.

The usual crowd of ruthless little fuckers (myself among them) desperate to see some pain dished out, gathered at the regular locale designated for after-school violence. Probably feeling like they were part of some bizarre spectacle that they no longer had any control over and surprised at their own presence as much as their opponent's, the standard preamble began with each girl spewing her angry charges at the other. If only they could have stopped to consider how absurd and empty it would have been without the crowd of shameless young punks urging them to start hurting each other. Of course that's what it was all about…achieving standing amongst their peers…the status that because of their broken families and hopeless futures, society would never provide otherwise.

As they did start throwing punches it became apparent that the stockier of the two would quickly gain the upper hand over the tall lanky one. Throwing her to the ground and pinning her knees to the shoulders of the struggling weakling, with a sick triumphant look the bruiser in the skin-tight blue jeans and plaid shirt (the apparent white-trash uniform of the day) started driving her fist into the other's face. Still refusing to give up, the emaciated wretch absorbed alternately the venomous epithets being vomited into her face and the cuffs, slaps and closed-fist punches. Perhaps she had experienced such violence before.

As the crowd circled and lapped up the spectacle, some mates of the nearly-beaten girl happened by, but far from showing any outrage, shock or inclination to help her, simply approached and bizarrely started conversing with their friend. The surreal atmosphere of the whole strange event was exacerbated by the layed-out girl being throttled as she looked up to her mates standing off to the side, trying to maintain eye contact as she spoke to them.

To this day I cannot forget how the struggle to achieve an image of unperturbed cool could trump shame, embarrassment and even the infliction of physical pain. As the punches came down, driving her skull back into the pavement, the battered, truly pitiful individual who was so desperate for the approval of her mates started bantering in a casual voice…"Hey, howsit goin’?" *thunk* "Oh yeah...ya goin' to that party Saturday night? * mash* *cuff* *shwaaaap* "Yeah... *crack*... I'll be there...*cram*...wouldn't want to miss out on that *blam*...by the way..*bash* *biff*..ya think I can borrow some of...*fwup* that foundation for *mash*..covering...*thwunk*..up...*THUMP*... blemishes?"

Ponzie Scheme Writ Large

All supposedly democratically elected governments do it. They take money from their citizens and then in the lead-up to elections dole bits of it back to them in an attempt to curry favour and appear benevolent.

Thaksin Shinawatra, the PM of Thailand, has taken this to absurd extremes. The name of the government instituted scheme to help alleviate some of the rural poverty is called (when translated into English) the "Cash Handout Plan." In addition to the millions of baht given to each rural village administrative council to do with it as they see fit, Thaksin was personally handing out some of his own cash to deserving individuals this past weekend in a tour of the countryside.

He was rewarded with the photo-ops he was after and as usual avoided questions regarding whether the government largesse was possible because of the massive sell-off of publicly owned assets and the fact that many of the rural poor still earn 100 baht (about US $2.50) a day picking rice.

While the brazenness of the tactics are almost laughable it reminded me of something a self-help guru (Robert J. Ringer) wrote years ago and though he was speaking about business it can easily be extrapolated to include politicians.

He posited that there are essentially 3 types of people you can do business with:

1. Those who are up front and say they will do their damnedest to get the best of you in any type of dealings you may have together.

2. Those who claim they only have your best interest at heart but of course have every intention of doing everything to screw you the same as no.1.

3. The most self-delusional type who states he will try to be completely fair and convinces himself that he truly believes this, but well, the situation and developments just forced him to end up having to rip you off in the end.

So which one would you rather do business with and by extension, which type of government would you prefer?

Greasing It Up

Taking the full online meta-blogger cock up my cyber-ass. Or ramming my cyber-cock up to the hilt into the online meta-blogger snatch. Unfortunately the first metaphor is probably more accurate.

I enjoy writing. Taking an idea and hopefully turning it into something unique and entertaining devoid of as many cliches as possible. When I finish a piece I move on. Any feedback is a bonus. Like a boxer who stands back to admire his handiwork, spending any time waiting for responses or congratulating yourself on what you have written is counter-productive.

However, I do have to admit that when I started writing this blog almost a year ago I was under some vague impression that if I posted interesting comments, people would magically find the site and keep returning for more. It doesn't work that way. If you don’t make a modicum of effort to publicize your blog, very few will arrive otherwise.

So for the last few weeks in addition to posting here I have been adding my blog to various directories and posting links in other venues. During that time I’ve come to realize the vast number of other fools out there who are also trying to get noticed. The ease of setting up a blog and starting to post, seeing your words fly up on the screen in perfect script and then with the push of a button publishing it and making it potentially available for the whole world to read has motivated wide swaths of semi-literate morons to produce vast quantities of complete and utter self-serving horseshit.

There are also the occasional well-written, frequently updated blogs that make wading through the other garbage somewhat more tolerable. In the next few weeks I will be posting links to some of the more enjoyable blogs I have found and in some cases writing short reviews. Also, please feel free to add a link for my blog to your site and also add your own link to the new feature added on the sidebar.

Bangkok's New Underground Train

Back in April when they were doing test runs of the new subway system in Bangkok, I jokingly said that I would wait a few months just to ensure that I wouldn’t be around for any potential tragedies initiated by the team of new employees operating the trains. Sure enough, within that 2-week period when they were giving the public the first opportunity to ride the new rail system, a driver absent-mindedly left the emergency brake on, resulting in the brake pads burning up, the passage, train and one of the stations filling up with smoke and all passengers being evacuated.

The system is now in full operation, having been opened officially 2 weeks ago. As there have been no further indications of dangerous cock-ups I decided to try out the new trains.

There is only one line at the moment, slicing from Bang Sue station in the north of Bangkok and terminating at Hua Lamphong in the southwest.  There are currently 18 stations, many of them along Ratchadapisek and Rama 4 rd. It is an excellent supplement to the Sky-Train and pushes Bangkok towards a time in the future when, like London for example, a person will hopefully be able to avoid the rancid and polluted cesspool that is the urban landscape of Thailand’s capital and instead be vomited forth from whichever underground station is closest to their intended destination.

For tourists who should rightfully exit Bangkok as quickly as possible to enjoy the rest of Thailand, Hua Lamphong will be the most welcomed destination on the underground system. Hua Lamphong is also the location of the main station in Bangkok for trains departing to the north and south of the country. With a number of the new subway stops intersecting at Sky-Train stations, it should be possible for most people to avoid the hassle of torturously slow traffic and sometimes unscrupulous cab drivers when making their way to the city's railway hub.

The underground stations have a minimalist, spacious design, featuring polished grey granite slab tiles speckled with black on the floors and walls. There are 3 levels in every station with wide-open concourses accessed from escalators starting at street level where you are greeted with a welcomed blast of air-conditioning.

The fare system involves black plastic tokens purchased from attendants behind glassed-in areas (there may be machines added later when ridership increases) which are touched to a pad on the turnstiles that activates their opening and which allows your departure when deposited into the turnstiles when exiting.

Train level is the narrowest of the 3 with only about 15-20 metres separating the trains running in opposite directions without a dividing barrier like in some systems. There are however sliding glass doors between the trains and the platform to increase safety such as in many operations in Europe.

The trains themselves are fast with seemingly about a one-minute duration between most stations. Plenty of head-space for travellers from foreign countries and rows of seats running lengthways so that if you do snag a seat you will be facing the person across from you. I approve of this choice as the odds are good that a Thai tart in a short skirt will be sitting on the opposite side.

However, with the 7 years involved in building the system and the countless billions spent it is a shame that they couldn’t have simply asked a native-speaker to proofread the (still welcomed) English signs...

"When the door closing warning sounds do not charging the doors."

Where are the Elephants?

I was sitting at the restaurant down the road the other day, the open-air one with the year-round strings of Christmas lights for decoration, when I realized that it has been more than a year since I have seen an elephant lumbering by.

In fact I can't remember seeing any pachyderms anywhere in Bangers during that time, even in the tourist areas where they were most prevalent.

By prevalent I don't mean to imply that within the last few years large numbers of elephants rumbling down the streets was a common sight. However, if you visited the tourist areas of Suhkumvit road with its multiple beer bars and restaurants, one or two mahouts and their charges making the rounds was a regular nightly feature. Those areas simply for the fact that gaping tourists would happily hand over 20 or 50 baht for the chance to feed the out-of-place elephants that still added a sense of authenticity for the fools who enjoy rocking the rubes back home with tales of their exotic trip abroad. Even in the outlying suburb where I live I saw one of the peaceful grey behemoths every once in a while.

Their apparent departure is a good thing. The concrete streets mashed and splintered their feet and there was even the occasional sad case of one getting its foot lodged in a grating and having to be put down. Ignorant tourists simply enabled the inherent ill treatment for elephants existing in the big city by taking part in the banana-feeding charade.

Where did they go? Relegated to some tourist sanctuary in the countryside where they suffer similar treatment albeit in nicer surroundings and where the discomforts and danger to them are not as great? Quite possibly.

Thais have great reverence for elephants because of their quiet, grandiloquent stature and their place in the country's history; mainly their use in hundreds-of-years-old wars with countries such as Burma. The sight of the creatures in Bangkok caused most Thais I know some distress and the growing sense of sympathy and shame seemed to result in something actually being done about it. The Thai government passed a law a few years ago banning the elephants from Bangkok. After the expected grace period it seems this has had some real effect.

No more of the stately beasts in Bangkok but we still have Chang (elephant in Thai) beer to toast them, which appropriately packs a wallop at 6.5% alcohol content and only really goes down well when swilled from the large, well-chilled litre bottles.

Blog Review: Grrrlmeetsworld.com

The artistic accomplishments that a person is supposed to like are legion. The so-called classics of literature that are considered must-reads for example. I've lost count of the number of these that I have attempted to read that have caused me to slump forward in my chair while my eyes glaze over. From the pedantic, long-winded tripe of Ayn Rand, with wooden characters and bland plot-lines, to supposed cult classics with cryptic back-stories such as Confederacy of Dunces.

The opposite of those are the ostensibly low-brow offerings such as Mr. Bean or reality TV shows that many would be loathe to admit they watch but are drawn to nonetheless.

I can't remember how I first stumbled onto this website. It's the type of site I tell myself that I least enjoy. Instant intimacy with all the details of the author's life out in the open, no thought left unexpressed and accompanying photos as well. Loads of gimmicky little items adorn the sidebars of her site; lists, itemized links and all manner of self-referential bits and pieces.

She is a yank who seemingly couldn't find a US university to accept her so she found some frozen Canadian outpost with a campus desperate for warm bodies. What is she studying? Apparently "rhetoric"...which means that essentially she is learning how to be a bullshit artist...and here on her blog she aspires to hone her craft. Perhaps her blog is in response to the paucity of others to talk to in the sterile wasteland she finds herself.

On the face of it the concept doesn't appeal to me. The only thing she feels capable of pontificating on is herself or pop culture examples which she can weave her own experiences into. She reads books about other navel-gazers who seem to provide the hope that one day her self-serving maunderings will be celebrated as well. She is likely skilled at working into conversations the fact that she has a blog and "here d'ya want the address?"

But somehow I find myself returning occasionally to find out what trauma she has blown up, what melodramatic sentiment she has latched onto...it's the voyeuristic appeal, and the sense that she could embarrass herself at any moment...but someone who casually offers up the details of her life doesn't embarrass easily.

She does have a rather striking smile, which is featured nicely on the home page of her blog. In a medium where she has total control over her image, she does let a few pictures slip through where she seems to be built a bit like a fire hydrant...ahh...we'll chalk it up to the layered clothing in the frozen tundra of the north. And while this certain lack of self-aggrandizement and willingness to share some of her vulnerability must be part of the appeal, at times it feels somewhat contrived, catering to the image of the angst-ridden, confused young woman with all the appropriate reference points that seem to make up the current zeitgeist.

A person can generalize and claim to be no fan of a certain genre of book or movie. It's safe to say that some lend themselves more to superficial crap than others do. But when someone is committed to producing a certain style of commentary, the consistent output and relatively good writing skills can make it surprisingly enjoyable despite what the concept suggests.

Maybe my earlier barbs were off target...after all she's only 24 years-old and she did seem to turn her back somewhat on a bible-beating upbringing, which I applaud. Growing up in the overwhelming cauldron of yank wackos desperate to be recognized, where celebrity is more and more something to applaud simply for itself instead of any real accomplishment, she is very much a product of her environment.

And who am I to criticize...while she only fled a few hundred miles north, I went half-way around the world, and I do have this blog, though I make a conscious effort not to get into the constant self-analysis. But I have been slipping lately...

That's it. When you engage in something for any length of time, it can't help but have some effect on you. Still, when I add a sidebar category with a constant update of what my current mood is, it will be time for this cunt to call it quits.

If you have a blog you would like reviewed, send me an e-mail.

Bangkok AIDS Conference

I saw the first indications of the Aids conference to be held in Bangkok starting today and lasting for the week.

A pair of yanks came into a 7-eleven where I was waiting in line to pay for a jug of chocolate milk. One was a lisping fairy and the other a black woman with dread-locks. Both were delegates to the conference as evidenced by the unwieldy, extra-large badges dangling from their necks with string.

"Hey maybe he knows, ask him..." the nasal, flat, annoying yank accent bored into my skull.

"What's the word for bathroom?" the black woman blurted in my face precluded by nothing and with none of the basic courtesy that a person would expect in that situation.

Speaking of yanks and AIDS, Bush has once again held his country up as a bunch of self-righteous, puritanical ignoramuses with the suggestion that the way to tackle one of the most severe health crises to face the world in decades is...simply...to...stop...fucking.

The sheer stupidity of the fuckin' fool bible-beaters who support this kind of thinking beggars belief. Our two thousand year-old fairy tale trumps basic physiological urges...just like our inherent sense of knowing what is best for everyone means that our nation dropping bombs on innocents and slaughtering tens of thousands in no way should drive others to want to lop our bloated, moronic heads off our shoulders.

Perhaps Cheney was simply getting in the spirit of discussing this asinine piece of nothingness that is supposed to be a policy when he told a Democrat to "go fuck yourself..." last week. Maybe he should have added "instead of anyone else..."

JG Ballard

"Twenty years ago no one could have imagined the effects the internet would have - entire relationships flourish, friendships prosper on the e-mail screen, there's a vast new intimacy and accidental poetry (from the osprey-tracking site to tours round old nuclear silos and the extraordinary aerial trip down the California coastline and a thousand others), not to mention the weirdest porn. The entire human experience seems to unveil itself like the surface of a new planet."

This is an excerpt from an interview with JG Ballard that appeared in the Guardian a few weeks ago. It is always rewarding to read someone who can so deftly and succinctly articulate modern-day truisms such as he does in this interview.

Ballard has shown an amazing prescience for predicting societal trends and even specific events in his writing over the years—this is something I gleaned mainly from this interview as admittedly I have only read one of his novels. My earliest attempts at his books left me cold...he has written a few experimental novels and those being my first choices I didn't make it past the first few chapters.

One book by Ballard that I did finish was High Rise, a darkly humorous dystopian tale laden with indirect metaphors and analogies that apply to the larger world. A story of London high-rise dwellers whose microcosmic and myopic existence in the building they inhabit turns into a literal battle of classes as those at the bottom try to usurp the arrogant snobs who inhabit the upper floors. The passage where anarchy has taken hold and a tenant barbecues an Alsatian on a balcony is particularly memorable.

Bangkok's Bootlegs

This city is known as a haven for pirated music and videos. The Thai government is supposedly cracking down but no one seems to have informed the giant super-malls devoted to flogging every kind of counterfeit electronic device and recordings at a fraction of the normal price.

Today I started watching a DVD that was a blatant copy, the quality so shockingly poor that I couldn't be bothered. I laughed at what first seemed to be strange shadows interfering with the action but then realized were silhouettes of people ducking in front of the screen in the theatre. The movie that I was watching had obviously been recorded by someone who had smuggled a camera into the cinema.

Strange that it was only a few days ago I was watching Spiderman 2 at the theatre and noticed for the first time, at the tail-end of the usual barrage of horsehit that precedes the main feature, an announcement urging the audience to alert the staff regarding anyone with cameras or recording devices.

Don't get caught producing the illegal copies but metres down the road pump out millions of bahts worth of bootlegs per day in shops where no attempt is made to hide what is happening...

Internet Explorer a Diseased Whore

Standing on the corner hiking up her skirt and offering her lesioned, blistered, dried out, well-used piece of leather for anyone who desires it. Truly the most worthless internet browser that exists. A virus in itself. Yet likely 90% of all computers everywhere are saddled with this porous piece of garbage that is like a magnet for the majority of threats that are lurking in cyberspace.

Viruses, browser hijacks and parasites of all sorts...with normal use of this completely flawed piece of shitware, that on the 6th edition is still being hammered senseless, a person's computer will be jacked full of annoyances and security threats in short order.

For anyone who has not made the move to Macintosh, there is really no reason to continue using Internet Explorer. Even the usual stable of freeware that is necessary for a modicum of operational peace of mind when using IE is not enough. Still, if you haven't made the switch, I recommend these free downloads:

Ad-Aware

Spybot Search & Destroy

Spyware Blaster

Coolweb Shredder

You may also want to try this:

Hijack This

But only after an apparent problem has surfaced that can't be eliminated by the others. Also, you will need to run the scan log by a reasonably knowledgeable user who can then advise what should be deleted. There are numerous forums such as computercops.biz where you can print the results of the scan and receive help.

Also, for trojan viruses try: Trojan Remover. Your normal anti-virus program (such as Norton) will get some trojans but many will slip through. This program is quite good but you may as well wait until you have an infection that can't be fixed otherwise, as it only has a free, 30-day trial period.

And then the final step, once you have run all these programs and purged your system, download and install Mozilla Firefox, a free internet browser that is far superior to IE. If you have any reservations simply keep IE installed as well but I believe that shortly you will have no desire to ever use it again. Keep all the downloaded security programs in place but note that when running them after having used Firefox, they will find absolutely no problems.

The number of people still clueless as to how IE leaves a person's system open to so much crap is surprising. All we can do is keep spreading the word.

Apes and Chickens

Comments from expats on the actions of politicians in countries where they are guests can come across as especially condescending and hypocritical in light of the lying and duplicity by western governments over the years. Still, when you're in the midst of it...

The head-up-the-ass mentality here that does everything to avoid losing face and in the process worsens things to a point of lost lives and catastrophic fuck-ups never ceases to amaze me.

A number of months ago, the brainless cunts in the government department responsible for food safety failed to sound the alarm bell over an outbreak of avian influenza (bird flu), opting instead to try and cover it up. As a result a number of people died, the chicken farming industry in Thailand was gutted (4th largest in the world at that time), the Thai government was again held up as a bunch of lying, amateur morons for the whole world to see and Thais themselves were aroused to the rarely seen point of being angry at PM Thaksin. There were the usual mea culpas with the assurance that a lesson had been learned.

Here we are a few months later and the incomprehensibly SHTOOPID, lying, incapable of ever learning anything that will result in a smoother operation of things, biggest and most BRAINLESS , FUCKIN' CUNTS ON THE FACE OF THE EARTH have pulled the EXACT same stunt again!! A cover-up of a second outbreak...JAYSUS, JAYSUS...take these cunts to a public square, tie them up lying face-up on the ground with their mouths pried open and let all those who are rightfully enraged at this latest cock-up stuff themselves full of food on the government dime and then line up and spray endless streams of shit into the mouths and on the faces of these fucking apes.

A special punishment should be reserved for the government official whose pathetic statement in response to the revelation this time around ranks as the most comical, asinine utterance by any fucking fool anywhere at anytime. When asked about the second cover-up within a few months, coming on the heels of the begging and pleading for forgiveness last time, this clown said: "We didn't think the people would be interested..."

Stuffed and Mounted Trophy Wife

In this narrative that appeared in The Guardian, a Cuban diver named Francisco Ferreras recounts how tragedy struck when his wife, Audrey Mestre, died as she attempted to break a world-record in freediving.

The single sentiment that resonates throughout his tale, however, is that even in death his wife is another vehicle for his self-aggrandizement.

He seemingly brags about fucking his now-deceased spouse on the first night he met her in the same piece in which he claims to be eulogizing her:

"I needed to know everything about her. And by the time the sun came up, I had made a pretty good start."

If questioned, the author would probably claim that his writing serves a few purposes. The catharsis involved in purging his soul of the trauma at losing his wife would surely be part of the rationale. Perhaps unspoken would be the need to get a version out that cements for many people what then becomes the accepted reality of what took place and most importantly his intentions and thoughts leading up to and as a result of the incident. The books and tales of tragic incidents that have taken place are legion and it's hard to believe that some revisionist history doesn't take place in most as the main actors usually stand as noble well-intentioned individuals. In this recounting there is the normal "why?" questions but in the face of obvious indications of a lack of professionalism. Is the writer's apparent self-absorption so great that he doesn't see his own culpability in the facts as related by him, or does he have other motives?

He offers up contempt for those who dared to question the lack of emergency equipment and not having a doctor on the scene of the dive where his wife ultimately perished. Yet this is an eminently reasonable criticism to level and those things could have saved her life.

In the part of his account leading up to the dive, there is talk about the presence of the media contingent and fans who added to the atmosphere. The details about preparation include some hint at organization but the overall sense is that the nervousness of the day trumped a well-rehearsed regimented system that is normally part of any dangerous undertaking.

In fact, the mention of numerous facts, such as one member of the team suffering from a hangover on the big day, seems almost too deliberate, as if the author is feigning outrage at the criticism that resulted, knowing that his tale will arouse more well-deserved questions while keeping alive the attention he craves.