letters to thailand - part 11

To the boys and girls of the LEO CLUB
C/o The honourable chairperson BeeBee,
The Construction View Hotel Ao Nang, Krabi

They say Idi Amin had a white sister

As you all know, my dear gay bunch, I’ve never been so wary of any decision in my life as when I decided to move my ass back to the Netherlands.
The more I went on about premonition, this jewel in the crown of super-consciousness, the more you all insisted I ‘d been living far too long in the land of rumour and superstition… where men dress as women for fear of being eaten alive by a vengeful ghost with an appetite for unfaithful husbands.

Well, in case my letters didn’t convince all of you that life overhere at times can be spooky, to say the least, allow me to invite you infidels to a realm where no-one has ever before dared to set foot…rumours say it exists only in the imagination of the happy few, the chosen.
If so…fine by me, along with them I’ve taken my precautions, such as changing my name into ‘De Wit’, a real Dutch name to cover my ass in case descendants of French Huguenots get their call.

Up to now there are some 127 boys missing in The Netherlands, they vanished from a shelter for refugees. Nothing to worry really, them just being from India; would they have been from a decent country, where people are properly white and all, it might have been been somewhat different, but in this case nobody takes even the slightest bit of notice to the rumour that is buzzing through the streets ever more loudly by the day…a rumour that wants us to believe that a government minister keeps the neatly chopped corpses of those missing guys in her fridge.

‘Verdonkeremaand’ is the Dutch word for ‘Embezzle’…a new dictionary will probably explain that, besides money, one can embezzle boys just as easy.
One thing though, ‘Verdonk’ being the name of the government person who some believe to be a sister of Idi Amin is one thing…I will for ever fail to see what that’s got to do with cosmic poetry (read: coincedence).

Chaos ruling as ever, the latest news is that some of the missing boys ended up in Teheran while others insist it is just the first bunch of gays that has been sent back to where they came from; they’ve apparently been told they’re safe as long as they don’t show off their homosexuality…lest they’re willing to go around in a burqa, cross-dressing is a definite no-no.
Some of those boys now feel the heat and ask themselves if really all there is for them to choose would be the gallows in Teheran or the fridge of Amin’s little sister.
Can you believe that?

letters to thailand - part 1
letters to thailand - part 2
letters to thailand - part 3
letters to thailand - part 4
letters to thailand - part 5
letters to thailand - part 6
letters to thailand - part 7
letters to thailand - part 8
letters to thailand - part 9
letters to thailand - part 10

letters to thailand - part 10

To the boys and girls of the LEO CLUB
C/o the honourable chairperson BeeBee,
The Construction View Hotel Ao Nang, Krabi

SON OF CHAINSAW HAS GRANDPARENTS TOO

Clog-country, these former wood lands, is going through its darkest days of terror…my friends, stay where you are, for grave danger is awaiting you.
The going rate for heavy body armour triples by the hour, you can spot the bravest amongst us bang clang rattling by…a take out of a new episode of Robin Hood.
The fear in their eyes remains unseen, they keep their visors closed, cautiously on the look out for the latter day frighteners…crazed seniors.

Left to look after themselves for too long these took to the streets, directing their scootmobiles and motorized chairs towards the major shopping malls. They didn’t exactly bring their ATM-cards to get their daily needs, in stead they follow people, hurtling abuse, scolding them for filling their carts with unneeded garbage they holler and howl, threatening those poor innocent shoppers with hell and eternal doom.

Insane grannies have been seen steering their vehicles after desperate mothers with screaming kids, clinging with their nails to mama’s neck, as they dashed head over stiletto heels for the parking lot.
Many stories remain untold… most victims are ashamed, as if they were taken up the ass by a bishop of the most catholic of sorts.

Taken by surprise city councils all over the country are looking to create hang-outs for the elderly…a desperate call to counter a problem that is now threatening to disturb the very mechanism that would otherwise, ever so smoothly, flatten any sparkling ripple on the surface of this once glamorous society…drowning in a puddle of fear.

letters to thailand - part 1
letters to thailand - part 2
letters to thailand - part 3
letters to thailand - part 4
letters to thailand - part 5
letters to thailand - part 6
letters to thailand - part 7
letters to thailand - part 8
letters to thailand - part 9

letters to thailand - part 9

To the boys and girls of the LEO CLUB
C/o the honourable chairperson BeeBee,
The Construction View Hotel Ao Nang, Krabi

THREE WOMEN

My last bowl of noodle soup on Thai soil I had in Bangkok at a food stall underneath the Phetburi road overpass.
It was more than a food stall; at night some extra canvas created a shelter that Lek stubbornly called “our house”.
The husband of this courageous lady died of aids, leaving her behind to take care of their five wonderful daughters. He left her two more things…the HIV virus and an enormeous debt created during his numerous visits to brothels. Scattered all over town, Lek eventually managed to make the rounds to all of them, paying off the money her beloved husband owed.

Lek very much reminded me of another brave woman I’d met in the deep south of India, her name is Amba… never shall I lose her face from the vault where I keep the fondest of memories.
‘Untouchable’ yet raped for a fee a million times over she lived at the outskirts of Pondicherri, a former French colony still populair with confused souls from the west as it is the base of just another sect, the Ashram of Sri Aurobindo. As I know most of you followed the old hippie trail from Kathmandu over Goa to Bangkok and Denpassar, I trust you all know the type, dressed as a native, tikka dot and all, I found in front of Amba’s house, shaped somewhat like an igloo it was created out of sun-dried manure… the house, not the type.

Hailing from Maastricht, a town in the deep south of the Netherlands she thought the igloo “sooo cute, sooo picturesque” and I…I couldn’t think of anything else but inviting her to collect her own crap and build a fucking igloo on the steps of one of those famous churches in her hometown, where you are expected to pay a handfull of silver before you can go in and reboot your karma. In tears she went back to the compound of mama’s ashram.

This week I was in Maastricht; as I walked along the banks of the river Meuse I came across a a spot where the ground was strewn with syringes, inside many of them brightly coloured blood was glistening…still.
Overhead there was this ancient tower connected to a wall…there was a hole in the wall…I stuck my nosy head in and stared. It was as if I was looking inside a cave…at the far end I could just make out the candle lit face of a woman…it bore no expression.
After I crawled my way in we first just sat there and watched eachother, sometimes boldly staring, then studying the medieval walls, pretending not to be there…catlike. Suddenly she spoke: “We’ve met before yet it cannot be said that you realize…I see it in your eyes.”

In India, at the time, heroine was cheap. Once slipped out of Mothers arms, back in her hometown Katya quickly found that not only would she have to pay a hell of a lot more, she couldn’t even make the money by selling noodle soup…to get a license is harder than connecting with your local dealer.

letters to thailand - part 1
letters to thailand - part 2
letters to thailand - part 3
letters to thailand - part 4
letters to thailand - part 5
letters to thailand - part 6
letters to thailand - part 7
letters to thailand - part 8

letters to thailand - part 8

to the boys and girls of the LEO CLUB
C/o the honourable chairperson BeeBee,
The Construction View Hotel Ao Nang, Krabi

DANTE’S WORLD

If ever there is a period, my dear band of gypsies, that reminds me why it is that the more sane amongst us do not wish to be involved in politics, it’s that mind-boggling event called election time. Sure enough we’ve all had a good laugh when one of the clowns in the Thai Parliament took out a few hundred amulets from underneath his shirt and rattled them in the face of an adversary…more often than not the bastards accused eachother of murder, mayhem and corruption and they all had it right.

While most of the dutch candidates in this month’s elections, probably cannot be put into one and the same league with those criminal murderers, they sure enough make a good laugh, wearing silly hats that actually suit them, as they shout obscene language in bars while the stoutest women of them all indulge in wet T-shirt contests.
Whatever their handicap, they have one more thing in common…no one ever uses words like PEACE… ART… BEAUTY… let alone the word LOVE.

My birthday being March 11, it is aspecially the word LOVE that springs to mind when I think of that courageous mother, who lost her son in one of the explosions in Madrid, that wiped away the lives of 191 people on that very date in 2004. Nine months after this woman by the name of Pilar Marjón speeched for over one hour in the Spanish Congress, wiping the floor with all those cowards…shameless politicians who, in the face of upcoming elections (just three days after yet another doomsday) rushed to the scene to point their fingers in that one direction…the other way.

Up to this day Pilar, who unintentionally became the voice of all the people who had lost their children, their parents, loved ones, friends, is being bothered by Spanish Flies working in his Majesty’s Secret Service. As we all know, flies have shit for brains…even with multi-facetted eyes they cannot make out the pain, still radiating from those who actually lived through that day in hell.

ps Filmmaker Ramon Gieling and composer Paul van Brugge, both from the Netherlands, worked together in the documentary ‘The garden of absentees’ (original title: de tuin der afwezigen). In this chilling movie one is confronted with the faces of those who where actually there during the blasts…as they listen to Van Brugge’s music they seem to return to Dante’s World.

letters to thailand - part 1
letters to thailand - part 2
letters to thailand - part 3
letters to thailand - part 4
letters to thailand - part 5
letters to thailand - part 6
letters to thailand - part 7