Last night Stu and I and a couple of friends went to the Tawan bar off Surawong Road. I had said that I wanted to go to a boy bar, because the girl bars really don’t do it for me. This one was reputed to have a live sex show, which I was curious about.

Tawan gets points for a friendly laid back vibe and not-too-loud music but loses a few for extremely expensive drinks. We got there at about 10:00. The show hadn’t started, but there were guys posing on stage. Most were bodybuilder types, too pumped up like bouncy castles for my taste (the bar specialises in beefcake, but I didn’t know this), but a few had nice medium builds and there were a couple of smaller, svelter guys who were very much to my liking. One of them was very cute, an Asian Ganymede, with a sweet mischievous face, lithe natural looking muscles and an adorable little pixieish bottom. While they were posing I noticed a shutter door on one side above the stage. It was open, framing a naked pair of loins. A hand jiggled the penis around. The door closed.

The show got underway at about 10:30. Acts included an elderly katoey performing traditional Thai dance, a frantic S&M skit, a scene that might have been from the Ramayana with pretty costumes and rather vague simulated sex, a sort of dance where the guys (including my favourite) held bundles of small candles and dripped wax over themselves while gyrating, and then the show seemed to be over. Three hunks came back on stage and started posing as before. Then, quite suddenly, three men wearing boxing helmets and condoms came on, swiftly inserted themselves in the three who were there and began fucking them at great speed under strobe lights. The fucking was acrobatic, incorporating remarkable twists and spins and some swinging on ropes. One of the couples went around the tables near the stage, including ours, buttsecksing all the while. One of the fuckees was very cute and seemed to be having fun; I couldn’t see the others so clearly. It was kind of erotic but to me it was really more like watching a live David Attenborough special on the mating habits of a particularly energetic species. There was no buildup of tension, just manic release. And why the boxing helmets?

Anyway, it was fun and I would probably go back - I’d also probably check out some of the other boy bars in the area. After Tawan we went on to a katoey bar, which wasn’t as much fun for me as katoeys look more or less like women, so it might as well have been a girl bar. We briefly discussed whether if a man has sex with a katoey it counts as gay sex. My opinion is no, at least with a post-op transsexual. They identify as female, act female, look female to varying degrees, so you’re really not having sex with a man. If you actually care. It was suggested that it’s only gay if you spoon afterwards.

We split up then and Stu and I headed back to look for another bar, but it was 1:00, the closing hour, and the police were starting to come around, so I’ll have to wait till I come back from my trip home.

N.B. In recent years there has been a cleanup of Thailand’s bar scene. Lesbian shows can no longer include insertions, and in fact in some bars, depending on what they’ve negotiated, nipples have to be covered during onstage muff diving sessions. Nowhere can you see a heterosexual live sex show. However, there are still all manner of vaginal acrobatic shows involving artificial flowers on strings, darts, razorblades, blowing out candles, bottle opening, etc - including the magical bottle opening show where a bottle of soda water is opened, the soda water tipped inside the twat and Coca Cola expelled back into the bottle.
N.B.2 This decadence doesn’t go on all over the place. Like any other city Bangkok has its red light districts, but outside of those areas there’s a general vibe of modesty. I’m saying this because when I was in Europe a lot of people seemed to think of Thailand as a sleazy place overrun with sex tourists, which is a great misconception.

Yet again far from perfect, but I think it shows some of her character. This would be sometime in the Copper Country:

That guy again:

Another imperfect drawing, but I quite like the expression. I think this is towards the end of his bandit days in the Copper Country, when things are going pear-shaped and he’s tired and depressed and getting near the end of his rope. He probably wasn’t so clean, well shaven and unscabby, but call it artistic license.

Edit - to somewhat satisfy W’s curiosity:

It’s dragon art week at Monster Brains. The Oriental specimens are particularly fine. Thanks again to Michael Cisco for finding the eye candy.

From the BBC:

“Australia and the United States have announced a plan to swap up to 200 asylum seekers every year.

Migrants held by the US in Guantanamo Bay will be resettled in Australia, while Canberra will send people held in its offshore detention camps to the US.

The move is aimed at deterring would-be refugees by preventing them from reaching their destination of choice.

But critics say the plan could backfire on Canberra, as many refugees around the world are hoping to get to America.”

Indeed. And not only that, but does anyone think these poor souls from Burma and Sri Lanka and similar lovely spots mind immensely which comparatively safe, liberal and peaceful nation they end up in? The official reasoning as reported is so dumb that you have to wonder what the real reason is. Stu has an idea: Australia gives the US those asylum seekers who would qualify as refugees in Australia but not in the US, and vice versa, so that after the swap and some more hanging around in detention camps they can all be shipped back to their native war zones and plague pits. Could it be?

I don’t know enough about American immigration policy to say anything about the US end of this refugee swapping plan, but on the Australian side it’s just one more shameful blot on the recent record of a nation whose population with the exception of Aborigines are, as one young Vietnamese man put it, “all boat people”. I cringe with embarrassment when I think of our offshore detention centres on islands like Nauru, established so that asylum seekers on boats can’t make it to the mainland where they would automatically be granted certain rights.

Compared to European nations, Australia receives a trickle of asylum seekers. No, our fragile, dry old continent probably can’t support a great many more people (though if we changed the way we live, who knows?). But like most affluent countries our birth rate is declining, so unless the government wants to start paying the nice well brought up middle class folks to breed I daresay we can squeeze in a few more warm bodies.

We shouldn’t forget that the modern Australian nation was built by a mob, or several mobs, of rejects, refuge seekers and adventurers and immeasurably enriched by the migrants who arrived after WWII and the Vietnam War. If we’re now going to turn ourselves into a timid gated community and let our xenophobic streak widen until it colours the whole nation with cowardice - the real Yellow Peril - then I guess I’ll be staying away a while longer.

In a bit of a rush this week so this one has a 1970s newspaper aesthetic, I’m afraid.

I’m not sure when I’ll be able to post the next page. I’m heading back to Australia in a few days and I’ll be pretty busy while I’m there - just as the story is about to get visually complicated. So there might be a break of a few weeks. But it’s not like you don’t have other comics to read, ne.

I’d like to take the opportunity to thank all of you who’ve been reading this crazy indulgence of mine. I think we’re about halfway through (but the story keeps getting fatter in the middle, so who knows?)

N.B. Despite my unkind words last time about Miss S******, I have to admit that I’ve used the skills she taught me - public speaking, talking posh, feigning interest and enthusiasm, and smiling through embarrassing and annoying experiences - far more than I’ve used, say, any high school maths or physics. So ’twasn’t all in vain.

Some friends came over from Australia, so Stu took them to the tiger temple near Kanchanaburi. The temple is a forest monastery that has become a wildlife sanctuary. The main attraction are the tigers, many of them orphaned cubs rescued by border police or local people from the mountains near the Burma border. Others were born at the monastery. There’s no official breeding program; the tigers are doing it themselves. The place has also become a tourist attraction by word of mouth. It must be one of very few places in the world where you can sit beside a tiger, stroke its fur, even put your arms around it. The first time we went the tigers weren’t chained at viewing time. Now the males are. The volunteer assistants have some pretty impressive scratches and the monks don’t want anyone to go home minus a limb.

The tigers act very much like domestic cats - or cats act like tigers. A tiger is warm and immensely solid; the fur on its back is coarse, that on its head softer. It smells like blood and meat. When you look in its eyes you’re reminded that here is a life you will never understand: what a tiger makes of itself and the world will always be a mystery to you. It is the same with all animals, of course, but a tiger happens to possess a profound and occult look that drives the point home.

Stu and tigers:

coochie-coochie…

…coo!

a handsome profile:

Where’s Kirsten? Ask the tiger.

I watched Sophia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette, starring Kirsten Dunst, for the costumes, and was not disappointed on that score. The movie is quite a feast of frock coats, ruffles, printed fabrics and improbable wigs. There are also many yummy images of confectionery, which was a bonus, and obviously some shots of Versailles, though I didn’t think the setting was exploited to its full potential. The movie has been criticised for its shallowness, and my impression throughout most of it was that this criticism was well deserved. We see a lot of Marie Antoinette getting dressed and undressed, buying shoes, gossiping, gambling, going to the opera, and playing at being a shepherdess. The revolution comes at the end but the film finishes with the royal family fleeing Versailles; it dosn’t follow them to the execution block. By that stage I half had the feeling that I was watching an alternate version of history in which they escaped - perhaps to Austria, perhaps to a faerie Cythera where the matter of life is made of love and shoes and cake and playing cards, not bread shortages, national debt and angry mobs. Somewhere before then, perhaps when Marie was showing her friends around her “village” in the grounds of Versailles, or maybe when she awaited a lover in coquettish costume, I got the feeling that I was not watching a shallow engagement with history but a plunge into a young girl’s dream. I certainly recognised the fantasies (let’s not forget that Marie Antoinette was only 14 when she was married to the Dauphin).

The film could be viewed as an allegory about growing up and leaving one’s fantasies behind; even, at a stretch, a story about the female imagination at odds with the demands of the world (much emphasis is given to the pressure on the young queen to produce a male heir, when she would rather be playing with lambs and a harmless, dashing suitor). Maybe it really is just a film about wigs and shoes and cake, but I’d like to think there’s more to it than that, and that the tendency of society at large to dismiss the female imagination as frivolous, while indulging no end the male imagination’s dreams of war and heroics, will cause us to miss what we could actually get out of this film - namely, the possibility of a world that works a very different way to the world we’re familiar with: a world where people work less and fight less, and budgets are spent not on bullets but bonbons and bows - and bread, for that matter. A couple of short scenes are given to the matter of French finances. France must support the American revolution, a minister urges, “to show our strength”. At first glance we think the minister is talking about something important. Then we realise that “to show our strength” may be as inane and decadent a reason for spending money as Marie’s desire for a beautiful, showy life - nothing but the peacock displaying his tail.

The film could also be read as a caution against the consumerist decadence of our own times, of course - but that would be less interesting. Unfortunately I haven’t seen any of Sophia Coppola’s other films, so I don’t have a background against which to place this one. And, heck, it may just be a fun piece about clothes and candies and lambs. Which, for my money, is more entertaining frivolity than yet another movie about men killing each other and stuff blowing up.

Last night Marriott suddenly made me pick up a pencil and draw him. Gwynn got in the picture too, though I didn’t do a very good job of him (ok, neither are very good but I like Marriott’s expression). This is from when they were younger, in the north, hence the fur collars:

Another attempt at Gwynn. He’s a bit older here:

I really need models to copy from, I think. Just got to find people who look like my characters.

From the BBC: Women civil servants in India are shocked at new rules which require them to write down “a detailed menstrual history and history of last menstrual period” as part of compulsory annual health checks. Full article.

Assuming anyone actually remembers her periods in historical detail (”June of 1995 was particularly interesting; I passed a clot the shape of Greenland, with fjords and everything”), what would a history of one’s last period look like? (sordid details following):

Monday: pale pink blood. Maybe I’ll get the guest bedroom done in this colour, it’s rather nice.
Tuesday: bleeding like a stuck pig. It gushes around all obstacles and runs down my leg in the shower. My stomach hurts like I’m being eviscerated with a hacksaw and I feel faint. I wish I didn’t have to go to work today. I wish men had periods too. Still, it’s really quite a mesmerising shade of crimson and makes attractive patterns like red smoke when it dribbles into the loo.
Wednesday: holy crap, the clots! What a waste of protein when there are hungry people in the world. Hey, there’s one that looks like Mother Teresa - more than that stupid bun did, anyway. Removed tampon in too much haste and flung blood across the bathroom wall: spent half an hour with toothbrush and bleach getting the stains out of the grouting.
Thursday: brown spotting. Over already?
Friday: gushing again. Fuck, where does it all come from? I still can’t help wondering if it couldn’t be made into something like black pudding. The Chinese or the French might go for it, they seem to eat almost anything.
Saturday: back to spotting. Show’s over for another month. Please find enclosed all of last period’s tampons, pads and bloodied loo paper, which I saved for you, in the three large plastic boxes accompanying this letter.

Perhaps some histories are better left untold.