Close Your Eyes

2011-10-30T06:59:00.009+09:00

Skulls, jacks, Tenebaums, and high kicks

We both pack gin and bubbles. He is Richie Tenebaum, post cutting-scene, and I am a Thai boxer. Greeting us in a cab is a graying Miss Liza Minnelli and a Just Dance era Gaga.

Inside is Geri Ginger Spice in Union Jack and Zombie boy, the re-viral living meme and pet of Nicolas Formichetti. Introductions and gossip are followed by four-to-a-mirror primping in the bathroom. The party ends at 11:30 as instructed. We side step to a gay bar.

To Pitbull, where a hairy, shirtless chest of tattoos is the common costume. Give high kicks on the back smoking patio, threaten most with murder. Then slip off a cold street into a cab, the pale shins under a lengthy coat the only sign of a boxer.

2011-10-18T04:50:00.004+09:00

2009 was the best costume ever. (Clothes: canvas. Us: art)

Go ahead, beat me this year. I'll even give you 10 tips. That and some other new stuff up on Canada.com, where I'm currently hanging out online. (Update: GlobalTV and The Province? Hi, friends.)

2011-10-14T12:46:00.002+09:00

When the world tour is over, the band comes back to make another record.

Will reconstruct the past soon. Hiding out now. At home.

2011-09-10T03:14:00.000+09:00

I like you best when I have you all to myself

2011-09-09T02:56:00.000+09:00

Curlers, ties, and Motown

It ended face down on stained sheets, as it sometimes does. But before that there was a stage, a bar, a rain of Motown hits. And on the curb across the street, five undergrads tugged on cigarettes.

Everyone kept asking what my major was. The story was this: I was not in school, not employed, did not live there, nor anywhere else, really had no plans. The conversation turned to other points.

And so I found my friends, who asked no questions, just slurred their words and didn’t mind response. Out the cab window, all I could muster up was: Remember when we were those kids?

2011-09-08T07:50:00.000+09:00

Trips and tunnels

Months of snakes and ladders led to this perfect rest. Too much television and piping hot tea, autumn’s first cold weather top the window sill. Trips to the grocer to purchase foods she’d never eat.

Walks across the Meadows and quiet reading at coffee shops she frequents; life inside her shoes. Big back cabs are painted with Marc Jacobs flowers, they sit stagnant outside of hotels made of weathered brick.

The sun peaks out only once, really, behind some picture tree. Her flatmates wonder what her friends are doing, flying cross the world to hide underneath a blanket, such sleepish slugs.

To them some shrugs and this: those afternoons are the best we’ll ever have.

2011-09-07T07:48:00.000+09:00

Really, really comfortable.

2011-09-06T07:35:00.000+09:00

Red wine afternoons in Edinburgh.

2011-09-05T07:27:00.000+09:00

You remind me of home

The bus pulls in too early in the morning. It's still dark when we cross the bridge out of the old town. Further wheels turn towards the outskirts of Edinburgh. It drops us off at a new resting place, and so begins many months of inner rest, recovery.

So we download an entire season of some TV show neither of us much likes and begin the alternating napping schedule. Many teas and lazy afternoons ahead.

What we call vacation.

2011-09-04T07:18:00.000+09:00

A kid-filled Sunday afternoon at the Tate Modern.

2011-09-04T07:17:00.000+09:00

A lovely afternoon at the Camden Markets

2011-09-03T11:36:00.000+09:00

My week with Lady Diana.

London, autumn, twenty-eleven.

2011-09-03T07:01:00.001+09:00

Lunch with Charlie Saatchi

There are no ropes at the Saatchi gallery in Chelsea. Guests can lean in close enough to drop breath on the artworks. There are no walls full of boring portraits. At the Saatchi gallery it's all the young guns without any of the clutter.

Say what you will about the man. That he's a sneaky bastard with greedy fingerprints on a generation of British artists. Fingerprints all over talentless hacks who should never have won Turners.

But damn can the man place an artwork in a building.

2011-09-02T11:32:00.001+09:00

Friday September 2: 12:00 pm
London

Day one done and on to our mission. Three days, five galleries, spread too many tube stops across London. Saatchi tops the list, so to Sloan Square it is on the most rare of sunny days in England.

We sit and watch the swans in Hyde Park dig their beaks into their feathers. Lose ourselves in the cheap t-shirt labyrinth of Camden Markets. Drink beer outdoors over olives and an envelope of event flyers.

Bring vodka sev to a bench in a parkette up the street from the hostel. Disappear into a plain black bar of east end locals. Stop to marvel at a society of plastic dolls and action figures set up inside the fence of an apartment building on our walk home.

Game over and into bed, Serpentine and White Cube in the morning.

2011-09-01T11:26:00.001+09:00

Thursday September 1: 11:00 pm
London

Sleep an hour half on the basement floor, wake to packed bags and a late night party alley. Up İstiklal Avenue to Taksim Square, buy tickets to the airport. Sleep some more by the ticket stalls, the international seats a welcome home mat.

Slump down into any seat on the aircraft. Find the tube and transfer at Notting Hill, Hugh Grant references noted. Out to Sheppard’s Bush and the first English speaking cab ride of the calendar.

Find a pretty lady on a patio behind a tiny hostel. Unpack and to the park, back on the tube to a terribly crowded Soho. South past hummers and luxury haircuts, heels, botox, and lipgloss.

Down into the gaybourhood; tight t-shirt spilling onto streets and bringing with them breath of nineties pop albums. Right into Chinatown and finally a theatre. Four beers, two tickets, the evening showing of Pulp Fiction.

2011-09-01T06:54:00.006+09:00

Park song, part whichever

Too many months passed on concrete, without so much as a single afternoon spent stretched out on a blanket with a book a best friend. To the big park we go, the one we'd seen on TV. The one she'd been to once before and forgotten.

So much to do in a city pulsing all around us. But the heat wave won over any guide book plans that had been suggested. When London gives you a sunny afternoon, we figure this is how to spend it.

2011-08-31T03:57:00.001+09:00

Wednesday August 30: 12:00 am
Istanbul

Locals tan on towels laid down on the side of the rocky road. The sun beats down heavy on all of the horses’ backs. We curve along the path that circles the island hill. The skinny beach is crowded all the way.

Finally a peak pokes through the trees, the big beach reveal. Tramping down we pass three women and a fire, a shack, and half a path to the empty rocks. Run out into shining corridor dividing the water and the sky.

Float on salty water, wading through schools of jellyfish. Flip backwards and let the waves take the body any way. Slip on sunglasses and close eyelids, thinking that the plane leaves tomorrow but today will never end.

2011-08-30T03:46:00.004+09:00

Birds ate my face

-Istanbul, Summer Twenty-Eleven

2011-08-30T03:45:00.001+09:00

Tuesday August 29: 11:00 am
Istanbul

Hung over from the second night of Wolf. Take breakfast with our motley crue of travelers and make plans for the Asian half. Take off down to the waterfront to find a ferry heading east.

Take the crammed boat from port to port, wondering where we are. Walk down new streets, climbing into each other’s brain. Walk through relationships, friendships, business, travel; sex.

Twist up and down the streets of the outer neighborhood. Turn back to the water and run back on the boat. Step back and shake foggy heads, hoping we picked a ferry to take us back.

Luck in and watch the boat pull up to home.

2011-08-29T04:01:00.001+09:00

Sunsets and car crashes

-Istanbul, Summery Twenty-Eleven

2011-08-29T03:48:00.000+09:00

Topkapı Palace

Skip past all long lines, sunlight leaked into stupid ears. Turn music on full blast and nod head back and forth to take the beauty in. Crop photos close to collage patterns together, the micro maxing out a bigger picture.

Gone go the long lines of columns over walkways and broad, impressive domes. All that’s left is the sunlight in a single passage and a dangling golden ball.

2011-08-29T03:30:00.000+09:00

The quaint and the consumer

-Grand Bazaar, Istanbul, Summer Twenty-Eleven

2011-08-29T03:07:00.000+09:00

Monday August 29: 10:00pm
Istanbul

Stay up most of the night playing Wolf with some Germans and a couple of Australians. Wake after breakfast and wander back to the Old City. Follow a graffiti covered entrance down an alley to a studio draped with grapes where an artist is collaging.

Next, into the park and through the tall tunnel of leaves and out to the ocean. Sit seaside at a café with a Coca Cola. Watch the boats move from the city out into specks of skyline.

Dance to BritPop all around an ancient palace. Lay down in the grass and stare up at the colours and patterns merging. Try shopping at the Grand Bazaar, but give up and into laziness, back to the hostel for a beverage.

2011-08-28T03:40:00.007+09:00

New Mosque

The man removes his shoes and washes his feet, ready for perfect concentration. The Dome of the New Mosque peaks thirty-six metres above him. He spreads legs wide open, and water trickles down, cleansing the fifth sense from its foundation.

The pillars over the court grip stories from three hundred and forty six years of aging. Thin foreign women braze in the doors with cameras, all kneecaps and bare shoulders. Locals shake heads at nonsense.

The spice market is stuffed with tea and basil. On the bridge a man sleeps in the front seat of a car striped like a zebra. Ferries and tour boats pull in and out, cross under the oval columns.

The postcard is alive and moving. If God or Allah is up in the attic, you have to wonder what she’s watching.

2011-08-28T03:15:00.018+09:00

Aya Sophia

The vast, open room is full of silent people. The dangling chandeliers demand hushed whispers. From the painted roof, all the gods are watching. Once it was Jesus and the apostles, then Allah and all of everything; now a cult of tourists.

The awe speaks less of the truth of God and more of the human capacity for belief and greatness. High windows let light in, greet the perfect glow of hats sitting top the heads of architect believers.

Lean out over the gallery and think that for this flash there are no questions, only answers.

2011-08-28T02:54:00.005+09:00

Los Angeles can be anywhere, so long as paperbacks by Mr. Bret Easton Ellis are alive and kicking.

Istanbul at sunset. Summer Twenty-Eleven.

2011-08-28T02:49:00.011+09:00

Sunday August 28: 11:00 am
Istanbul

The Grand Bazar is empty. The stalls locked up, winding alleys silent. A boy pushes a cart, the handles towering over his temple. He hits a tall cobble stone and bounces back, giggling. He leans in, locked arms, then turns back for father’s approval. His father nods.

Buildings are falling into nothingness in the Old Town. They sit waiting for destruction. Cheek blue paint and white trim cracks into old grey brick, missing shingles like empty slots in a fifth grader’s smile.

Newsprint covers windowpanes, its pale colours fading in the sunlight. Vines inch up abandoned buildings, claiming the glassless holes as city homes to share with vermin and addicts.

A tall green room is waiting. A heavy, half open air, and a long, quiet daylight.

2011-08-27T02:57:00.002+09:00

From the cafés under the Galata bridge, men are just wood sticks hanging over cotton ball blue unending.

Istanbul. Summer Twenty-Eleven.

2011-08-27T02:37:00.017+09:00

Saturday August 27: 3:00 am
Istanbul

Stale coffee at Starbucks. Dig into cushion, stick feet up, and cover with a flex-fleece. Wonder where the sun is rising, what these people are doing, loitering early morning in the airport.

Drift in and out of the Beautiful and Damned. In and out of sleep, the past and the present. Open eyelids and find an empty row of seats in the International terminal. Sleep till dawn breaks into airplanes.

Watch the sky open out a bus window over the suburbs. The columns of mosques peek above the waves of the city. Men are fishing on top bridges, pigeons scatter like beer bottles dropped on concrete.

İstiklal Avenue is empty. Clenched yellow fists are painted on the boarded up storefronts. Stumble down hill and on to wide, open water.

2011-08-26T15:17:00.001+09:00

Friday August 26: 7:00 am
Cheonan

It’s a bright, shiny morning the day of taking off. The pool of late summer rainy season runs dry as the sky paints pale blue round clouds regularly wide open grey. Cab back to shuttle bus and airport check-in, the last site of Incheon out of an Aeroflot flight bound for Moscow. Leave stamped immigration card in official clutch. Planes taking off.

The Russian tin roofs shine in the hot sun like so many sequins sewn on a bodice. 5:00 pm local time, 10:00 pm at the last locale, 9:00 am at home. Thirty-five days to get the six hour refund, wait it out with so much stolen leisure.

The monitor is hazy white, puffy clouds forecasting where the world will sink itself in, swirls of dark blue shadows sliding by like ink splotches on The Comedian’s mask. The Watchmen can’t save us from this plane crash, won’t save us from this war.

Good night, good afternoon, good morning. God bless.

2011-08-25T11:44:00.000+09:00

The end is nigh, good Korean friend. So it comes with sunrise.

2011-08-25T10:00:00.001+09:00

The final goodbye

The boys are the hardest to say bye to. The girls pretend they never liked Teacher Russ at all, then slip notes that say “Secret!” asking for e-mails from the departed. The boys, they say, “You’ll be here Thursday?” but know I won’t.

Jake pulls Eric and I into a group hug, then they break away to do the western handshakes that I taught them. Hand limp, slide and snap, bump and break dramatic. Thumb in then up, shoulders back and pull bodies together for the double back slap.

They’re ready for a cameo on Entourage. They’ve got the western slang and know the lyrics to the oldies and current kiddie pop songs I taught them. They’ve got promises to visit one day in Canada and rich parents who will probably send them.

I’ve got my memories and a plane ticket.

2011-08-24T16:56:00.002+09:00

The first last day

The bill is $110 for pizza. Almost as much as the two days extra pay received for acting as host to all the pizza parties. Each class starts with a toothy grin, “Who knows what today is??”

The first last day. The start of student goodbyes. The exchange of e-mail addresses and small presents and I’ll Miss You’s. Exchange stamps for photos of students posing with peace sign, hand out stickers and pencils for correctly answered questions.

Make sure all students know age and favorite member of Big Bang. Know who is the youngest foreign teacher. Give high fives as they exit the building.

Go home and answer goodbye e-mails.

2011-08-23T12:28:00.003+09:00

I'm packing. I'm packing. I'm packing. I'm packing.I'm packing. I'm packing.I'm packing. I'm packing.I'm packing. I'm packing. I'm packing. I'm packing. I'm packing. I'm packing.I'm packing. I'm packing.I'm packing. I'm packing.I'm packing. I'm packing.I'm packing. I'm packing. I'm packing. I'm packing.I'm packing. I'm packing.I'm packing. I'm packing.I'm packing. I'm packing.

2011-08-22T16:45:00.001+09:00

Some cry time for Jack

My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we’ll change the world.

Don’t let them tell you it can’t be done.

2011-08-21T11:45:00.000+09:00

Street Art Hongdae: Post Script

Tried to wrap up Hongade’s street art in a box and hold it. Six blog posts from those morning walks around the abandoned party shelter. Twelve months of carting a bulky camera around in side bag and backpack, catching paint as I saw it.

With the wound sewn tight, the stitches popped to announce the world is still infected. Before the airplane landed, different scribes drew pictures on the caves here. And so more still will etch and ink the city after leaving.

New likeness lent itself to the park walls that last afternoon in Hongdae. As the last errands ran, still ended stopping with whirling neck to discover as art fresh as bloody baby.

So Hongdae streets, tear down walls and repaint forever with fever beauty. And to Zacpot, the omnipotent tagger: paint it again. Paint As Time Goes By.

Forever.

2011-08-20T11:41:00.000+09:00

The Leaving Song: Part II

New beginnings never end, so on goes the Leaving Song, to a new apartment warming party for a friend from the old country. Two weeks in we walked along the walls of ancient palace, lost in a new city, he unsure he could take the twelve months before him.

Time went by and new contracts signed, I’m out the exit six months before him. A sangria toast to that and all happened in the interim. Two more friends for dinner, one Winnipeg, one Toronto.

To the park where many beers were drunk, soju from the bottle. To the favorite furniture museum for one last tall, expensive beer on a summer patio. Back to the first bar found in Hongdae, Exit.

Plug in iPod to speakers and lean into the alley with a crowd of pretty strangers. Say goodnight some time before sunrise, knowing none again will ever see you.

2011-08-19T11:26:00.000+09:00

The Leaving Song: part I

The last bite of beef is taken before nine. Galbi, Korean BBQ, will miss you, dear friend. Crack the final bottle of Fort Garry Dark, saved in its spot for such special occasion: the end.

Down to Dujeon Oasis wine bar, squish in dozens on the rocky floor. Take over the front of house, edging out all the locals wondering when North America flew in. Buy out the cheapest dry red, and leave the second the first expensive bottle is spent.

On to our preferred basement dive to watch the newbie derby blonds grind up a stripper pole. Insist too many drinks be bought in the name of the hour, then threaten to knife the white guy going after your Korean girl friend.

Grab the hand of the oldest ally and fall into sweatpants, two to a single bed. Closer, closer, wind it down. The end, the end. The end.

2011-08-18T16:44:00.001+09:00

Street Art Insadong

Hongade is the go-to place for street art, but it’s not the only. Other areas of the city are covered in tags and mural pieces. One place graffiti has been invited in is the stairwells of Insadong’s open air market.

Down one side you’ll see a spray paint Michael Jackson. On the other, a gaggle of DeadMau5ish bunny rabbits point guns and two scribbly rose sculptures. Follow the stems down to a lovers’ lair. There cartoons and sharpie hangul list the crowd of infatuated patrons.

Leaving some local cred on the tourist neighbourhood, a heart from the ever-present Nana. A skip away we find a torn up old home converted to a multi media installation. Outside that is a row of inspired stencils.

And back in Hongdae the final snap. Spotted: Miss Marilyn.

2011-08-17T20:35:00.000+09:00

Street Art: Bangkok text

Che is staring at my face, the politics written in cheap, runny ink. Black berets and NWA, Soviets, Nazis, commies, and police. Rabbits and retro train cars glued up in children’s punch-on pixels, the afternoon on Khao San Road.

Rain drops drip down back alleys loaded in sticker secrets, street vendors hawk under signatures of touring and local bandits, and on occasion break into full painted tags. The red box reads Bangkok and Other Places for a stack of postcards prepared in the pack.

A rasta bar red green yellows, all familiar tropes. Tells financial tales: In God We Trust, Everything Else, Pay Cash. Pull out the rest of it and slap it down on books to read in other cities, replacement pairs of jeans.

Load onto the airport bus and get prepared for the Other Place.

2011-08-15T17:01:00.026+09:00

This is not an exit

There are three bars foreigners in Cheonan frequent. On Saturday all were empty. The tumbleweed tossed off the backs of the train tracks as we pulled out of town. Our party ballooned through dinner, drinks, then dancing, new familiar faces oft walking through the door.

We settled into a downstairs dive club and brought a party to the empty place. We shook to new and old hits, arms flailing with the rest. Picked up five Koreans who poured tequila down our throats.

Sweaty we climbed back up to open air, hunting gyros on the street. Round the corner to the singing room, twenty beers, nine couches, and the biggest songs on blast. Then sometime round sunrise we rubbed our eyes at the gray-lit street.

Seven thirty the train pulled back in, a quick fifteen-hour trip. Welcomed morning rain, tugging hoodie strings. Hailed cab and said for one of the last times: Buldang Joong-hayko.

2011-08-13T15:24:00.017+09:00

Evenings and envy

Fifty shots lined up and waited for the eleven thirty bell. He pulled a paper from his pocket and started a tally and tab. Two columns and several ticks, he wrote the note to himself. Bought on one half, drank the other, he watched the left explode.

We all tossed back and danced around, watched a skinny girl work the pole. Counted days left and leaving, swapped stories of waking up to unclaimed objects in our rooms. Spiral downward to exit wounds, hug people you will soon have known once upon a time.

2011-08-12T11:25:00.000+09:00

Hongdae Street Art: Day 6

Outstretched jaws make way for raindrops, laughter, and the like. The stencil pulls black around the grey wall, draws a photo from the past. The road stretches out into a walkway and up to a park where a dad plays with his son. The footbridge stands above the city on its hill.

These objects of affection put rose glasses on the past. They warp the boy leaning into girl to every date you’ve ever had. The spaceman in his orbit melts the present moment to the birth.

The speech bubble says, “Swap my gold for bubblegum god,” and the deal sounds like a win. A baby-vamp leers into an alley, tosses purple hair. The ghosts barf their clouds into piles of white garbage bags.

The two hold hands and the line comes again: I remember back in the day. And if you look deep enough into the tape on the trash you can see the art. Look closer still and you’ll see he looks like someone you used to know.

2011-08-10T19:04:00.002+09:00

Head brought back to a time of Burberry coats and bus trips to Montreal with mum. Travel bends its way closer. Days and days of planning ahead. Bring on the rolled t-shirts and packing tape.

2011-08-09T17:10:00.000+09:00

Untitled from russ martin on Vimeo.

My favorite sports fans

2011-08-06T16:02:00.000+09:00

Goodbye homo hill

2011-07-23T21:13:00.001+09:00

Some of my students making me proud with a quick performance of the intro to So Hot by Big Bang.

So Hot from russ martin on Vimeo.

2011-07-22T20:55:00.000+09:00

Samsung cell phone art

Viewed the excellent house collection at Leeum Samsung the other day, then stumbled upon a couple nice pieces on the street. Highlights: a Hirst pill cabinet, the best yet from Nam Jun Paik, and panels by Gilbert & George. Details in the next column for 10. (Last column in yesterday's post).

(pictured: video by Jenny Holzer, sculptures by Takashi Murakami, Louise Bougeois, Donald Judd.)

2011-07-21T18:48:00.000+09:00

Summer art and Starry Night, still life with silver bowl

Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein, Van Gogh, and Jeff Koons: in Seoul this summer and my July art column for 10. Enjoy.

2011-07-20T20:40:00.000+09:00

Love/sympathy letters to Steve Jobs.
-Hongdae, Summer twenty-eleven

2011-07-19T20:28:00.001+09:00

Back alley boredom

In the final hour, my comrades took off on a flight to another part of the country. They to the trees of their eco pit stop, I to troll the streets that had so quickly become familiar. Down those skinny alleys I found children to play with, art to stare at, and clothing for my back.

The trip was had.

2011-07-18T15:21:00.000+09:00

Elephant Eyelashes

We walked out the wooden plank and jumped onto the hefty grey abyss. Taylor’s feet disappeared behind floppy ears as she straddled her neck. I climbed on next, holding on between a plastic bar and deeply wrinkled flesh.

Down between sets of trees we descended to the river. Our elephant walked right in and let us down. The trainer handed over brushes for the bath. We scrubbed roughly on the belly and underneath the ears.

They let us climb back on and stood up tall, telling us the animal couldn’t feel a thing. She pulled us up and down and dropped us in the water, spraying thick mist with her trunk.

And before the ride was over, we pushed our bodies into the mighty grayness for one last mammoth hug.

2011-07-17T15:09:00.000+09:00

Animal Farm

The gaggle of cattle leers lazily in the sun. The mid day shadows drag out below their bellies towards our feet. The slobber slides down the jaw of one, as he slides his mouth back and forth with a smack.

The slender deer lift their heads and eat out of our palms. They toe up and down the steps, plucking fresh leaves from our hands. We run from animal to animal happily, thinking of the trip’s other afternoons, spent so sluggishly stretched out in the mud as the wild boars.

2011-07-16T15:13:00.000+09:00

The biggest kittens

Are playful little cats.

-Tiger Temple, Thailand, Summer 2011

2011-07-15T15:17:00.001+09:00

Tiger-Tiger ice cream

Down into a sandy bowl we walk, the air hot and heavy on our heads. We’re split up at the queue and I step ahead to two women in purple t-shirts holding out their hands. At the first tiger, I don’t know what to do, so I kneel and place hand awkwardly on his back.

Twist my head around and see the calm cats will let you do almost anything, save for a tummy rub. Next pair I grab two tails, see a playful little growl. I find a young tiger and lay right down with it, petting top to bottom down to the tail.

Later we watch a monk play with a small tiger’s paws, sprawled out on his robe. In another area we watch them toss and turn in a pool of water, rolling lumber kittens in the middle of a fight.

Our guide shows us the other animals then nods towards the car, leading us to an afternoon elephant ride.

2011-07-14T11:31:00.002+09:00

The Bridge on the River Kwai

From the morning shopping, the tour takes a somber turn. We pick up an English guide and enter a cemetery full of ally graves. From Japanese prison camps the soldiers marched into the country to build a railroad on to enemy troops in Burma.

On the stones, messages from home. Etched into one: Time Passes Swiftly By But Love and Memories Never Die. We probe for back-stories and current political grief. Through the rows of tombs we move on to the Bridge on the River Kwai.

The famous film created a tourist trap where we eat an extensive Thai buffet. We stuff ourselves with noodles, then cheese and coffee before a walk across the bridge pointed at the border. A phone call warns of water drops, so we speed on to the tigers before the rain.

2011-07-13T11:21:00.002+09:00

The floating market

Like always, the morning comes too soon. We pull ourselves out of bed and make our way downstairs with big water bottles, not ready for the early rise. Our car and guide greets us and points the wheels out of town.

An hour later we wake up in a parking lot and are carted to a long, thin wooden boat. There a friendly Thai pulls the string on the motor and lets it whirl. We splash through the alleys of the market, stopping to buy fruit and mug at the scene.

Taylor sips from a straw stuck in a fruit, while I buy Thai boxer shorts. The palm leaves stretch out above as we glide past baskets hanging from the trees. We lap back past the old women selling mangoes and the men hawking beer. Pull back up to the car with luckily stuffed wallets, ready for lunch.

2011-07-12T11:14:00.000+09:00

Royal problems

Gold plated royal propaganda runs rampant, grotesquely large, lining the main drag. Small sets of frames and stickers collage the sidewalks and crawl up the sides of apartments. Shops sell pictures, portraits, emblems, and flags.

The heads the rebels wanted just a year ago crane over their subjects from every angle. They look out on back alleys and eye into private homes. The country is still divided by the last politician who wanted to curtail the power, but no one speaks a word.

2011-07-11T11:08:00.002+09:00

Zoology//democracy//art

With three days to go, there is no winning team. The streets are quiet enough, quiet as busy Bangkok gets. No screaming political prophets on the street corners of the backpack district, yet.

The cats don’t seem to care, in lazy sleep all over or crawling on pedestrian toes. Traffic stops for every passing set of legs. Still, the election looms. Posts are covered with suited lizards and tigers, an apparent jab from one opponent to the next.

Walk around the neighborhood taking pictures of all the propaganda, pretending its simple, mindless art.

2011-07-10T10:57:00.001+09:00

The Canada club

The first sign of home appears before us on our way out for the night. Wrapped in a maple leaf dress, the pretty Thai girl offers us a drink. Free Caesars to get us started, we all gulp them down. Then in unison, O’Canada comes out.

July 1 across the globe we somehow end up us seven Canucks, talking about Rosedale dinners and Ryerson classes we used to take. We order towers of brew in a second story pub and watch a band play rock covers from the west.

From the pub onto The Club. Order buckets and climb straight on to stage. Make immediate friends with all in arm’s reach, dance by the door. Watch the timer and clock out early in preparation for the a.m.

Slip back onto a mid-night street so full of party with hopes to hear of who hooked up upon the others’ return.

2011-07-09T23:45:00.001+09:00

Soaked and the city river

What starts as a drip too often ends a pour. So we get aboard the river taxi with a heavy mist in the air. A canvas sky is painting black, half storm and sunset hour. The city is blue in crashing wave, the water collecting on our brow.

We ride too many stops in the wrong direction, get off too early without a clue. Beads of sweat wash out sticky t-shirts down to the wettest shoes. We run up and down the street past taxis taken and pedestrians taking cover in orange bulb street food tents.

Finally a tuck-tuck takes us hotel bound, us walking the last few meters to shelter in drenched, happy defeat.

2011-07-08T23:18:00.002+09:00

Temple of the dawn

Wat Arun sticks its head up from the cityscape as the river taxi rides along the waves. The eighty two metre pyramid grows out of the cluster of Buddhist buildings with a shine we’re told is pearly at the first rise of the sun.

The entire hike up the structure is covered in seashells and bits of porcelain left behind years ago from ships en route to Bangkok from China. The Buddha that presides over the temple was molded during the reign of King Rama II. His ashes are buried at the base.

Taylor has to rent two covers for her shoulders and her legs. We grip onto the banisters and pull our way up to the top. There we watch the boats float on the river, quiet little anchors oblivious to our feat.

A cat crawls along one of the closed windowsills. We slide with care down each step, without the kitten’s ease. Out the exit and onto the ferry, just before the rain.

2011-07-07T23:42:00.003+09:00

Construction Site

When you get off work tonight, meet me at the construction site, and we'll write some notes to tape to the heavy machines, like

"We hope they treat you well. Hope you don't work too hard.
We hope you get to be happy sometimes."

-Wat Pho, Bangkok, Thailand. Summer twenty-eleven.

2011-07-06T23:03:00.003+09:00

Wat Pho

Around the corner from the restaurant, a site I can’t resist. Wat Pho is like the Buddha Disney. Poles shoot up all around the site, starting as thick flower covered pillars and thinning into teeny-tiny towers.

Taylor spent a day seeing the city’s temples and leaves me to wander the Wat with my lone gaping wonder. So different from the Korean palaces and temples, Wat Pho is covered in gaudy, ornate details. From every vantage in the sunlight, the buildings sparkle.

Buddha statues line the interiors, the shadows coloring the gold and black paint covered bodies. Gargoyles protect the spirits and monks bow to shrines lit with an eerie clubish blueness.

I lose myself in all the corridors; turn round and round till I find the exit. She’s waiting on the curb outside, ready for the next adventure.

2011-07-05T22:23:00.001+09:00

Deck and dining

Friday July 1

An undetermined time of morning. Hours and days are already foggy. It’s been minutes, hours, days since we boarded planes from other places.

The group has shrunk from five to four. We make plans to lunch at Deck, a medium posh restaurant along the river. The boys buy Newsweek and make plans to watch BBC and dissect episodes of CSI.

We walk to the port and take the river taxi down the dirty brown. Women can’t stand next to the monks, so we shuffle to the middle of the boat. We get off and wander around a white estate, poking our heads into every alley and private room.

The waiters at Deck eye us when we order the cheapest dish, to share, and put our own bottled water on the table. We soak up the view and make the staff take our photo. Then we wander out through the dark, wet walkways back to the port and pay three hundred baht to cross the river.

2011-07-04T13:31:00.005+09:00

The ping-pong show

Dear mom: please do not read.

Our toes glow feet up under the rainbow of lights over our driver’s head. The world whips by, us gripping on to not crash into open air. The tuck-tuck pulls up to a non-descript building. We’ve made it to the ping-pong show.

A tree of money greets us in the seedy black hole of a bar. A woman in a department store set of plain black undies shakes her shoulders with lazy ease between four unused stripper poles.

We sit colosseum style in sniffers’ row round the car-sized stage. We cover our table with my black bandana, picture of a mountain I climbed months ago face up under the gin, tonic, jack, and coke. A performer’s face moves, dimples out and eyebrows up, a plan for our table cover in her eyes.

The first woman rips an orange ribbon from her twat, an easy ten, fifteen feet long, making a police scene of the stage. The next, a row of false flowers. Another, a string of razor blades, pulling softly without a drop of blood.

Still one more comes, a bottle of water in one hand, Pepsi in the other. First the water goes up the twat, then a twirl, and a refill back to the bottle. A grab for the Pepsi: same magician’s trick.

Finally, the bowl of balls comes out. Up the vagina and tossed back out, rim shots and holes in one. She darts her eyes at us and a labia-lifted ball soars our way, bouncing on our tablecloth, a playful gesture to not classy up the place.

At some point a female customer shoots out her seat towards the noise of three Brits’ inoffensive jeers. She smacks him and shouts Disgusting Pig before a big wrapped penis appears.

Two girls scissor kick until the full frontal missionary quiets the patrons. They fuck in all positions but windmill, just before the lights signal the end of the show. Our angry blond on the wrong side of her Eat Pray Problems beats us to the door.

Hand on a performer’s shoulder, she puts on a high school counselor purr and whispers loud enough for all to hear, “Does this make you happy?”

From the woman she gets an eye dart and no reply. We offer annoyed headshakes and the giant smiles of fanboys. “You’re a babe, and we loved it,” is all we have to say.

2011-07-03T13:12:00.000+09:00

Sitting Buddha and shopper

Mannequins on Khoa San Road outnumber locals not hawking food or cloth. Plastic heads are draped in cornrows and beaded braids. Stare at the infantry of tailored headless gents prepped in a three-piece suit every eight steps down the street.

The plastic are even tattooed, an ad for the wet needles ready to commemorate every visit. We walk through the sea of mannequins, buying t-shirts and fingering endless Buddha statues.

Stop at a topless photo of Kate Moss. Wait around for the two teenage Thai storekeepers to bargain a price down. When they won’t budge, pull out a book, sit on nearest stool and wait. Eventually they see you won’t leave, and sell the t-shirt: Three hundred Baht.
v

2011-07-02T13:06:00.000+09:00

Shallow water

Taylor is on the far end of the pool, floating on her back. Her foot is stuck on deck, afraid to leak its fresh ink. The four of them are talking about the monthly Full Moon party they just got back from with a new friend; stories of splattered paint and sunrises spent dancing outdoors.

We lean back pool chairs into the afternoon and wait for the rain to destroy a perfectly fine summer day.

2011-07-01T10:59:00.000+09:00

The lost and the lottery

Two cups of tea and too many Marlie reds. Breakfast of two slices of cheese bread, melted. Try not to think of home. Avert eyes from western white devils in faux-local clothes and forget for now the debt and funemployment that brought the lot of us here.

Think about beds and floors and couches to sleep on in the crutch of Pearson International. Trust the baht bill and tip god damn it, the last North American courtesy left in blood flung far off on a twelve hour rock ride.

Off from that placed lived in better and worse times, all blood in ass and mind. Bleeding toonie-loonie love in Tim Horton coffee cups, rolling up rims to lotteries better left to long lost stonings, economic death, shoebox apartments, and heartfelt faggot love.

2011-06-30T12:33:00.000+09:00

Illegible scribbles

Thursday, June 30
11:00 a.m.

Wake up a wall of bricks in a sticky room with an open window, ash stains on thick white sheets, body sprawled to lengths father never intended.

Housekeeping has to let me back in without my key when I return from the pharmacy. The Buddhist behind the counter finishes morning prayers before greeting me. I take a script and try to exit without the change.

Two notes are written:

1. Where are you? This feels scarily like a scene from Hangover 2. At the pool. Find us. –Tay

2. Taylor and Glav? Gone for a walk. The Beautiful and Damned. xx R

Down a bottle of water on stairway and walk towards the notion of breakfast.

2011-06-29T12:45:00.000+09:00

Bye-bye, Bangkok

Wednesday, June 29
3:00 AM

Wake up with two hours of sleep and splash face with water. Sleepy bang, ask corner store clerk to ring a cab to the bus terminal. Two guards let me in, lights off all through the station. Buy the second ticket to the airport and read Sedaris until the overheads dim.

The rain is as bad as the typhoon the week earlier. Check in, boarding call, back to sleep. Wake up over Shanghai, back to the Chinese authorities. Passport, alien card, staple, stamp, transfer sticker.

Muggy out the airport, bullet to the tarmac. Six hours to the rooftop pool at the hotel, $18 a night. Find friends in the lobby, wet from fresh rain and heavy backpack sweat. Pull out a deck of cards and play Get Drunk.

Order buckets of booze and apple hookah, sit on plastic stools on the street. Talk about Skins and Misfits with Brits, argue with street scammers hawking dying roses and elephant sequined hats.

Head into a tattoo shop at 3:00 am to get feet and armpits inked. Back down to the street for more buckets. Stumble past lady boys, all rouge and slim waists. Turn down happy endings and pull a left onto our street.

Room 304 B, sleep.

2011-06-28T12:01:00.003+09:00

Getting all my ducks in order. Thailand, brb.
-Side of the Han Tan River. Watching bungee jumpers, June twenty-eleven

2011-06-27T11:30:00.018+09:00

Missing months

Some ten months have passed, I told her when we met. Four since winter, when she took off for camel rides and warmer desert nights. Six before we spent together, the occasional crash-in in a south or northern city. An extra six calendar flip and we were both in the same Canadian place.

Where had the months gone? Down throats and through tunnel train rides, last dollars spent. It had evaporated, clouds and outer ocean, back to the ones we used to love. Back here from the Han River and trickling into an Itaewon diner. So goes the cycle.

Six hours then we had together, for the birthday of twenty-four. Ordered buckets, hookah, vodka bottles, said hello to old new friends. Brought it back to Hongdae, the first place in this city us two got trouble started long ago.

A live rock band and dated songs to dance to, spun wet hair sprinkler to the crowd. Out to another bar and onto stage, work muscles never used. Back out to the full early morning streets lit by bar signs and kebob vendors, feeling this will never end.

2011-06-23T11:44:00.000+09:00

We went rafting, but this is the closest we have to proof.

2011-06-22T11:45:00.000+09:00

Saw some pretty photos by Ruud van Empel. Check out.