Same Same {But Different}

I was at home lying on my uncomfortable lounge watching a show about pumpkin growers, as in folks obsessed with growing the largest pumpkin possible, and who then play this out at a competitive level at local fairs. After that was a doco about an international
gathering of Santa Clauses that meet up every year in Copenhagen. A few hours earlier I had been rolling bowling balls down a strip of grass trying to get as close to the jack as possible. People who might choose to hit a little ball obsessively
around a golf green (and to think that I have become more ‘rebellious’ than Alice Cooper is impressive) are free to do so, and I have tried this ploy myself but the only handicap I got was my golfing ability. No sir, it's quite
true that when I think of ways of spending my time in the ephemeral games that people play I think to myself that I would rather get a birdie in Thailand. It's all about the pursuit of complexity and excellence and filling in time.

Anyhow I was actually prompted to write this when I read about the upcoming Stickman Submission Writers Get Together. Hallelujah I exclaimed to myself in a form of semi-religious praise to the Stickmaster.

Them "So where are you going for your holidays." (as if they didn’t know)

Me "I am heading off to Thailand in January."

Them "Why don’t you go somewhere different, I can’t see what the point is going to the same place all the time." ( pretending for the sake of indecency to protect me from the real reason)

Me "No that’s right you can’t."

Needless to say this conversation was never entirely satisfactory to either party.

Now however it will go something like this

Them "So where are you going for your holidays."

Me "I am going to Thailand in January to attend the Stickman Bangkok Annual Submission Writers Get Together."

Them: "Really? I didn’t know you were a writer."

Me: "Yes I have been published several times under the above label and we will gathering for a week or more of discussion as to how to eventually attain Green Star status which is rare award given to exceptional writers by the publisher."
<
10,000 baht in an envelope with "For Stickman" written on it and deposited with Dave The Rave in Angelwitch is the accepted means of attaining a green star – Stick>

Them: "Oh really. I have always fancied myself as a something of a writer, do you think I might be able to join in something like that."

Me: "Well that depends, being a tranny fancier might work against you but ultimately it’s a matter of whether you can write."

Them: What’s a tranny fancier?"

Me: "Ok maybe you better take a trip first and then we will see."

The above is what happens to a writer without any recent actual material to write about who nonetheless retains both feet planted in his homeland while his head (both big and little) remains in Thailand. This is a uncomfortable stretch, a
situation of mental conflict that is not getting resolved reading these articles so it's time to write again in another attempt to form my own opinion (the pursuit of excellence and filling in time). Perhaps by the time I reach submission
200 and have many more trips under my belt I might nail it. In the meantime I will give up on this nonsense about trying to be a writer (except for the abovementioned purposes) and simply become a contributor. One who contributes out the generosity
of his soul and perhaps I should add for the purpose of one day resolving his personal mental anguish. My teeth are wearing down from too much gnashing and my garments are too rendered for the Salvos to sell.

Take two recent articles such as Anecdotes 197 by you know who and the earlier Thailand Obsession by Bob Thomas. I nearly pissed myself laughing at the former but on a more serious note, since I also identify as a "mature and honorable
man of a certain age" who is facing a moral crisis I simply had to agree with the author's argument that in this situation I also should be "banging whores like a demented carpenter." I came to agree that until such time as
I am sensible enough to fall in love with a BG there is simply no way out of a "circle of logic" like this. The "women to the left of me and women to the right" theme as penned by the poet Bon Scott was a highly suitable (if
unachievable at the time) anthem for my teenage self. To find it achievable when one’s self now wears a grandpa cardigan over his Same Same tee shirt boondoggles the mind and discombobulates the senses. Put another way it makes me wanna
make up for those lost opportunities of the teenage and married years.

The alternative of again being responsible for Babies and other Lilliputian folk (delightful as they are) will have to be restricted to ‘short time’ visitations by one of my grandma girlfriends grandchildren (Triple G’s)
as ultimately they are most unsuitable ‘long time’ companions for a man of intellect, vitality and a fair slab of selfishness.

Fairy nuff but then I also found myself taking heed of the counsel of Bob who admonished those of us who spend 50 weeks or so of a year dreaming about spending two to six weeks living our ever diminishing illusion. It is a sobering contemplation
fit for a long stint in a (preferably Buddhist) monastery while I working it out. Is there some middle path I can tread or is there something I am missing that may help me make sense of these two conflicting truths?

Now Bob also raised the question of how many attractive women are we BOLD (bald, old, lonely, depressed) guys actually game to have a crack at in our homelands. I know for myself that since visiting Thailand I definitely prefer to have attractive
women served up on a boardwalk than to risk rejection by the silly buggers here at home. As I follow this personal quest for some rationality it occurs to me that something else may be going on. There’s a little blonde here in my home town
that I keep seeing over the years and she is always by herself. She’s about 40 and a good sort with, I am almost certain no kids, and my intuition tells me if I ever approached her its possible I may find she is gettable even despite my
constant smoking, getting drunk, BOLDNESS and other ‘less than desirable to women’ single man behaviours but hey we could argue about that after the seduction. Looking from the outside in at an imaginary future with someone like
this still doesn’t quite stack up despite the fact that she would be capable of creating lust in me before (the missing factor in most of my female interactions) she even gets her long painted nails anywhere near the trouser snake.

Warning Warning Will Robinson. Light bulb moment. I know what it is now. Go to the article "Escape from Reality." by Calvin. That’s what I’m afraid of, selling myself out by degrees in order to keep this new lust creator
on side and, then before I know it, in the blinking of an eye or the cracking of a fat, becoming trapped again in a cycle of rebellion and remorse just like it was before on those two occasions I ventured into the land of "commitment."
When the lust runs out and the river of commitment dries up it’s a barren place to be. We are usually the harbingers of our own downfall but don’t we men feel bad at the end while they seem to find a new bulb to put in the socket
and light up. Weird.

Still I have to admit that spending too much time alone is becoming as boring as watching too much porn and I am similarly wilting. The past 6 months is the first time in my life I have ever lived alone and I am discovering that, just like
in marriage, being successful at it means making an effort. Effort equals work and their opposites are entropy and laziness. Powerful motivators albeit motivators to do nothing or watch TV. I need a companion to argue and be dissatisfied with
again or I need to be doing the bi annual trips. Which one it is gonna be is the work in progress.

So perhaps by taking the advice of the above authors I can still somehow have the ‘best of both worlds’. Ray Bradbury wrote a story with this title about a bloke whose wife was an actress and he wanted her to quit her job for
the sake of the marriage and so they made a trade off that satisfied both of them. She quit working as an professional actress but would change her entire being every year or so and adopt a different persona (appearance, style, voice etc) and
so they both had the "best of both worlds."

The above scenario is appealing but unrealisable (as that Kevin Spacey contributor wrote you can’t even get them to grow their hair up there long let alone do something about the long hair down there) so how then can I personally then
achieve the best of both worlds? St Paul wrote that in order to convert folks one had to become all things to all people and maybe it is time I took some Christian advice after all. So the beginnings of the plan are that while I am here in OZ
I will become the best emasculated fawning male I can be and be willing to agree with all that the 40 plus plain jane hairy pussy holders say do and want and I shall try to make them as happy as I possibly can. For this I will in return get the
intimacy, companionship, the holding and being held and arguments that I am missing. Despite all the complaints they are still women and I like em. The sex will lack that something that sexy women have but I can make up for that later when I become
‘the other guy’. It is unlikely there will be any unwanted complications over issues of commitment because as soon as I explain that I am off to the Annual Writers Convention in Bangkok I am sure the matter will be settled as going
to Thailand for a holiday with all those disgusting sex tourists is unlikely to on her agenda.

The other guy is Thailand Tone. Sitting in a bar somewhere in LOZ (Land that is not OZ) chatting to a young, fit and handsome 30 year old potential sex tourist like myself (apart from the age, fitness and handsomeness) and having just as
much choice as he does.

Him "So what about that one over there then wow."

Me: "Nah the mini looks good on her, great smile, nice package but she has a pimple on her forehead. I might wait a bit longer."

As I hear myself having this conversation I can feel myself wiggling out of my emasculated skin and slipping off my grandpa cardigan to proudly reveal my beer filled paunch (there are little and big statues of me everywhere) protruding from
under my Same Same T Shirt and smiling away at all and sundry while I give an elephant a banana and have my sweating brow attended to with a nice cool cloth.

"Yes no doubt about it young lady I am a most handsome and sexy man and I commend you for being so perceptive as to notice it. Dontcha wish ya boyfriend was hot like me? Cool towel again please. Here, have some of this baht, I have too
mut. I no want. Kop Kun Kap."

"Thank you Sir (curtseying in that delightful Thai way) You are welcome Sir. Have fun Thailand. Kop Kun Ka."

Stickman's thoughts:

See you in January.