HugoFastor

Quite possibly it's both.

Turn off CNN and turn on some Steely Dan and you'll be right as rain again.

Those tiny green Mercedes buses from the seventies is something I can definitely say I do not really miss. They felt like rolling death traps. The drivers all seemed high as a kite and who thought they were driving to win in a go-cart race. I think they only charged 3 Baht, but they were a cr*p shoot. Low ceilings, exposed wood on the seats, narrow doorways (with doors that never closed), and you were lucky if you got at least one foot fully onto the stairs when getting on the bus before the driver took off. Even luckier if the driver pulled over at your desired stop. And then you often had to jump off into oncoming traffic while the bus was still in motion. Great though if you wanted to try and strengthen your neck muscles by preventing your head from smashing into a window frame as the driver suddenly swerved to pass another vehicle every 15 seconds. Windows all open, 4-5 loud oscillating fans (usually only 2 were working), and nothing like the smell of that raw diesel belching black smoke out into the Bangkok skyline in the morning. 😊

Thinking back to the Trink era, one of the most interesting things about Bangkok at that time was how a lot of Bangkok had been developed in the sixties and seventies and then very little of it changed up until around the year 2,000. So if you came here in the eighties or nineties, you often felt like you were entering a time warp, whilst visiting a place that very much still seemed stuck in an era from two to three decades past. It almost felt like some sort of social experiment was taking place, with much of the western music, food, and decor preserved in the bars and restaurants, as they reflected those elements from the times decades earlier. Many were Western elements that had already perished in the West, only to be found in personal antique collections, but yet still very much present in modern popular culture in Bangkok. Then, with the juxtaposition of all the SE Asian food, people and culture mixed in, it was a fascinating place like no other. Even Trink walking around with suspenders, and his big brass owl talisman hanging from his neck, seemed like something out of an era gone by, but yet it had its perfect place in Bangkok. Then things changed rapidly in Bangkok around the turn of the century and nearly all the memories and iconography from the previous 3 decades felt like they were wiped out in one fast swoop and, thus the fascinating experiment of the Western cultural time warp in the East was suddenly over. Since then Bangkok started making vast efforts to emulate the look and feel of a combination of Tokyo, Hong Kong and Singapore, with all of its rapid and ongoing redevelopment and, thus its special grit and unique flavor suddenly perished. 🥲

Some things are better left in the past and unsaid. Crazy Jack / Shadow Jack definitely did some unsavory things though. Apparently he was also a Vietnam war veteran who lost functionality of his family jewels as a result of a combat injury. If you want to know more about him, some of what he did in his bar is written about on Stickman. Google is your friend. 😊

Yes, he's not looking great in those photos. He was likely around 70 years old at the time. Looking sweaty, possibly intoxicated, and some fresh blood on the tip of his nose. He made it to age 89 though. So he won the game of life.

Agreed, a second opinion is always better from a doctor at a different hospital to avoid any bias because of possible internal politics or conflicts.

Another GI doctor at Bangkok Hospital who has been doing colonoscopies for over 20 years: https://www.bangkokhospital.com/en/doctor/dr-pisit-naprasert

Gotta be that super powerful 10 baht per gram stuff. 😉

Weed is for anyone who wants to use it and feels they get some benefit from it. Those who don't enjoy it, or feel that it doesn't add anything positive to their life should stay away from it. Drinking alcohol and smoking tobacco kills, thus all people of all ages should stay away from those two things entirely.

Certainly there is nothing magical about his oil. Just make some of your own cannabis oil using fresh cannabis and then experiment with it to see what dose works well for you. Here is an easy technique to follow: https://emilykylenutrition.com/stovetop-cannabutter/ Inexpensive cannabis is everywhere in Thailand now. Many people order from an online seller that sells decent cannabis for making oil at 30 Baht a gram. And you can order the MCT oil here on Lazada: https://s.lazada.co.th/s.n1F2N You can also buy a machine that will do the whole process of cannabis decarb and oil infusion for you if you are interested: https://s.lazada.co.th/s.n1FSE A shop in Siam also sells some of their own homemade THC oil: https://organic-village.co.th/product/cannabis-thc-oil-hybrid-sativa/

Don't think it's age dependent. It comes down to dosing and frequency. I used it when I was young and didn't enjoy it. Started using it again when I got older. Now that the brain is more developed, I understand it better and enjoy it a lot.

No amount of alcohol — not even 1 glass of wine — is safe, global study says: https://globalnews.ca/news/4406827/no-amount-of-alcohol-safe-study/

This doctor has over 30 years of experience as a gastro doctor. He's seen it all: https://www.bumrungrad.com/en/doctors/Charkaphan-Osangthamnont

Totally agree. Back then technology was very limited, there was no Intel around and nothing easily at your fingertips. I once had to walk a mile on Sukhumvit Road just to find a fax machine to send some information to someone overseas. Mostly it was word of mouth. At best you had the latest Lonely Planet, already sporting 2 year old data. As a result, you met lots of interesting characters, and characters they were. Back then you had be intrepid just to be able to navigate somewhere in the East like Bangkok. It might have felt a bit rough and rugged then at times, but in hindsight it was a fantastic time to be around. Those of us who were here back then know how fortunate we were. The ones coming here in the last 20 years haven't got a clue how eclectic the place really was at one time.

I think Stickman was sort of the Trink replacement. He started it a few years before Trink’s column was cancelled. He probably helped to dull the interest in Trink’s column too because Stick could write whatever he wanted and post whatever photos he wanted without a family-friendly editor looking over his shoulder. Can’t say I ever really read Stick much either. For the same reason I never read Trink really; I just did’t need the info. Occasionally I would read a specific excerpt on Stick when a link to something written on that site would come up in a Google search. But that was about it. But Stick was a way for people who didn’t want to have to hunt down a newspaper to be able to read similar content to Trink, but online and for free. Stick is still going it seems, but I think there were periods where it stopped flowing and another site called Stickboy appeared as a temporary replacement. There had also been talk that Stick was often being written by various different ghost writers under the one Stick moniker. He seemed to have changed his story a few times too about who was really behind the writing of the Stick site. I don’t know much about it though, I never really delved into it. The site design also looks very eighties and hasn’t ever been revamped. All the information on there also seems pretty pedestrian for someone living in Thailand. Probably it’s more interesting to people living overseas who are missing the Bangkok nightlife scene and want to stay in touch. That’s probably its main target readership.

If anything his owl pendant was probably brass and the chain was perhaps made from tin or steel.

Interesting, I didn't know very much about his backstory. Only a little bit about his writing. Below is something that was written about him on his Wikipedia page, sounds a bit conflicted: Trink was often critical of the city's seamier, sleazier nightlife and always warned foreign men about becoming romantically involved with bar girls, whom he held in low regard. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Trink Shadow Jack, who seemed pretty close with Trink, was also a pretty, let's say, unusual character. I went in his bar a couple of times. Some pretty bizarre things in there to say the least. I'll leave the sorted details out though.

I think I might have seen him there after that too once or twice chatting with Shadow Jack. Yes, Bangkok World and then over to the Bangkok Post when the Bangkok Post bought out Bangkok World. I think he wrote for BW for about 37 years and then for about 20 years for the BP up until 2003 when his column was cancelled. I think he still did book reviews for the BP after his column was shut down. I never bought newspapers though. I was always more interested in books at that time. I found one of his old BP book reviews from 2005 online here though: https://thailandfever.com/book_reviews.html#trink

TBH, I never read his stuff either so I can't rate the quality of his work. I never actually met him prior to that day either, but he was known for his large owl pendant, so I assume it was him. But if he really was a talentless writer then Asia was a great place for someone like that from the 60's through the 90's. At that time there were a lot of people in Asia who could get by with low level skills simply because they needed a foreigner for the job. But he was well liked I believe. Many people followed his column. I wasn't so interested in learning about bar anniversary parties, happy hours, and which bars had changed hands though. Me and my mates just went out and everything was so easy to navigate that you didn't need a guide for any of that.

He/She/It definitely trolls. But I don't think there are any family friendly pronouns to fully describe this entity.

I thought you had both and the thick requisite wallet to go with it?

Let's have your magical male skincare product list. Do tell! I need some rejuvenationnnnnnn!

Well over 20 years ago, as I was leaving the Miami Apartments on New Petchaburi at about 4AM, the cramped elevator doors opened on the ground floor for me to exit and I was startled by a short, portly man blocking my path who was wearing a neck chain with a huge round pendant of an owl hanging from it just above his abdomen. After nearly plowing into him, we didn't exchange words, and I just chuckled as I went on my way. I never knew him personally, but he had probably just finished up his rounds at Soi Cowboy, getting the latest intel from Shadow Jack for his next installment of his Bangkok Post Sunday column. It left me wondering though if he was residing there or just visiting an honorable consort? If you don't know the infamous Miami Apartments, which are long gone now, there are some references to it on the link below. https://thailand.travel.narkive.com/k7FajqkA/miami-apartments-where Well, as Trink would say, "I don't give a hoot."

Well done. So nice to see you are back in the saddle winning friends and influencing people again, whilst solidly back on the road to death and destruction. As a friend used to say "fu*k it all to hell". Ties in nicely with your love for ac/dc innit.