Greetings and Sa Wa Dii Khrap (ok, cup for the linguistically lazy Thais and deluded uber hip tourists): this is my last contribution to Stickmanbangkok.com. The main essay is long (about 4400 words) and serious; but first, we will examine an email I recently sent to Stickman about a very important matter. So far I have not received any feedback from him. If anyone can help me with the main content of the email I would really appreciate it.
Hello Mr. Stickman
I am hoping you can help me with this. After I retire from writing for Stickmanbangkok.com I intend to start a website dedicated exclusively to Thai Tranny Rock Bands. It will include music videos, interviews, online gift shop, music criticism, costume and fashion features, as well as tour dates and densely researched academic features on the girls and their personal lives. Emma-the-Tranny of Pattaya will be one of the featured spokespersons, and Fa will be one of the on air interviewers.
Neither of these ladies has any discernible intelligence or abilities so they are, of course, perfect. Thai trannys in heels and guitars kickin' out rock 'n roll. This concept has 100% guaranteed success written all over it, but I need some investors for start up expenses. I do not want this website to be a one man band constantly chasing crumbs and worrying about payroll, so I estimate my start up costs as approximately four million dollars; about the same as the GNP of South Island. Naturally I will be in charge of all budgeting and expense and money spending issues and no line item information on any of these subjects will be generated.
Do you know any people I could get in touch with for investor funds? And yes, Emma-the-Tranny has agreed to meet investors of $50,000 or more for personal time. This rate is a little above her usual rate but believe me the value is there. Ever seen a tranny pound an aluminum tent peg into a bucket of sand with her dick? Like I said.
And yes, no French (FTF), Koreans, Chinese, Indians or Russians will be included. Again, I would be grateful if you could steer me towards investor funds. The time is now to focus a light on this type of entertainment and investors could feel good about themselves for doing it. It is all about the love and serving the community.
Dana
and now . . . Thai Thoughts and Anecdotes — Part 400. I would blow a bugle but I am too tired. This is also my scientific excuse for not using condoms. Too tired. It is very important to have excuses in life. Enjoy the heat and light from this last candle.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I recently finished reading a nonfiction book about a man and a family who had a pet chicken. No, I am not making this up. Things happen, thoughts are revealed, family dramas make you smile. An entertaining book about a man, a family, and a chicken. 310 wide margined pages. The author has been a journalist and an editor for a large well respected high standards U. S. metropolitan newspaper for twenty-five years. He has received awards. He has also written and published other books.
Twenty-five years a salaried newspaper employee and journalist so he has pretty much drunk the Kool-Aid. Why do I say that? Because in the Acknowledgements section of the book, three pages; he thanks twenty-one people. Twenty-one people helped him write a book about a family that had a pet chicken.
It makes me wonder what the Acknowledgements section for Melville's novel Moby Dick would present as a list of helpers. Using the chicken book as an extrapolatory device, maybe Herman Melville (I call him Herm) had two hundred helpers. Maybe three hundred people helped him write America's greatest novel. Too bad he did not list them. It would be a fun list to look at. How about the Acknowledgements page for Milton's epic Paradise Lost or the Acknowledgements page for Dostoyevsky's doorstop novel Brothers Karamazov? No doubt casts of hundreds might have been involved. And hey, those examples are fiction, non-fiction yields much higher numbers for thanking people.
Back to the chicken book. Sometimes there are so many fingers in the pie I wonder who the real chef was. Who really wrote Ulysses by James Joyce? Was James Joyce the author or should the credit go to the editors who took a pile of sloppy 'manuscript' and created a masterpiece?
This, or the opposite of the above, is one of the reasons why I enjoy writing that appears on Stickmanbangkok.com in the Readers' Submission section. No acknowledgements are necessary because no others were involved in the writing. A fiction or nonfiction or example of faction (fiction plus non-fiction) or essay or article or poetry or song lyric or one act play contribution is by the author only. You are reading his/her words out of his or her mind without the pollutions of editors or helpers. And some of the writing is all the more pleasurable for it's idiosyncratic style; someone speaking with a familiar tone and style that has not been neutered by 'publishing' people. I do not want Union Hill or Turk Fist to sound the same, to be improved, or polished. I want them just he way they are. Please no Acknowledgments page writing unless it is short and sweet. Just spew at me from your heart and from your mind. I can take it.
Still not on board? Friday I was in the Boston Public Library and in the second floor maritime section I spied a book titled:
Our Point of View, Fourteen Years at a Maine Lighthouse.
Pictures and text by Mr. & Mrs. Szelog.
The Acknowledgements page lists 115 people and organizations. The list was so long I started to look for my name. Three of the acknowledgements were, I kid you not; Karen, the FedEx lady; and the two lighthouse cats, Puffin and Dupa. The two cats? The mind almost boggles. Were there no other pets: gerbils or turtles or birds or ants (ant farm) or bees or dogs that should be acknowledged in the Acknowledgements section for their contribution to the book? I tell ya, if I was a gerbil that did not get attention and thanks I would be one angry gerbil.
Headline: CASCO BAY GAZETTE newspaper
CRAZED GERBIL ATTACKS LIGHTHOUSE KEEPERS
Question: when is this Acknowledgements page business just silly?
God made the whole world and everything in it. Number of helpers? Zero. Imagine if he had to run everything through a publishing house? His Acknowledgements page? None. Some writers are like this. They get an idea. They write it down. They assign a title and then they make it available for others to read. I call these people writers. Sometimes, I don't know quite what to call the Acknowledgement page scribes.
Two published writers chatting about their next books at the Mickey Mouse Underpants Bar just off Third Road in Pattaya with Dana listening:
Murphy: Hi John, how is your latest book coming?
John: Great, I have 6000 notecards. How about your book?
Murphy: I'm rockin'. I've got 7200 notecards in two different sizes and four different colors.
Dana: Gee guys, that sounds great. How much writing have you done?
Murphy and John: why don't you shut up you Internet asswipe. We are talking about real writing where none of the ideas presented are our own and we admit to it. Sometimes we get tagged and sued for plagiarizing, but the books still hit the stores and we still get paid. Asswipe.
Call me crazy but I do not think the Acknowledgements page should qualify for it's own Library of Congress Control Number. I can't help but wonder if we are observing a new phenomenon whereby writers imagine that they are garnering respect based on the size of their Acknowledgements page. Are we now in a hopefully short-termed ego-intellectual era where we imagine we accrue value to our writer selves based on the number of people and institutions that we gathered unto ourselves? Is the size of the tent now more important than the sermon? A reader with scientific training might conclude that writing about a lighthouse is more demanding than writing about a family's pet chicken. What if it was a story about a chicken that lived in a lighthouse? Is it possible that the Acknowledgements section would be longer than the actual story?
Here is an almost example: Old Shipping Days in Boston–1918–54 pps.
You read that correctly monger kats and kittens: this book is only 54 pages long and has in it's Acknowledgements section (hidden in the Forward) thanks given to:
1. 32 people
2. 2 organizations
3. 31 books, pamphlets, and periodicals
I submit this vanity publication for the State Street Trust Company of Boston may set the bar for an Acknowledgements-to-Text ratio. Hey, I'm not an idiot. I understand the value of being honest and, especially with non-fiction books, telling the reader the source of your ideas and statements. But are we writing books or term papers? I expect adult writers to be able to do better than High School term paper writers. I am not some kind of crank Luddite regarding literary references but I am beginning to wonder if I smell smoke. If you have to credit another source for every other sentence maybe you should not be writing the book. It has already been written by others.
Try and imagine how unworkable this would be with speech. Recently I was trying to find the weekly market in Pattaya. It is not a tourist thing, it is a local Thai thing that Fa goes to. I got lost and ended up in a hole-in-the-wall Norwegian bar asking for directions. These guys were educated and smart and fun. Hilarity ensued. But what if every time they made a statement or I made a statement we had to follow it up with an acknowledgement of where that idea came from? Speech would be impossible.
One more example: David Halberstam's book The Coldest Winter–America and the Korean War says thank-you to:
1. 220 individuals (once again, I looked for my name); seventeen of which worked for Hyperion, the publisher. Seventeen. SEVENTEEN? Seventeen people were required at Hyperion to take this book from draft to book? And 220 people? Hey, and how much do you want to bet that he will tell you that it is not a complete list? You and David at the cocktail party on Nantucket and he says:
"Well, actually; the list should have been much longer but Hyperion cut me off at 220. Working with the seventeen people assigned to my book was very difficult. I sent them 4000 handwritten yellow legal pad pages and they complained. Sometimes it is hard to be a famous writer. I once sent a manila envelope with a handwritten story to Stickman in Bangkok and did not even get a reply. The Internet is so stupid. And if I asked for a gin and tonic, dry gin; these summer immigrant waiters from Jamaica wouldn't know a dry gin from a Rastafarian's donkey turd.
2. the Notes section (pp. 1175-1240) takes up sixty-five pages. Ok, let's just take a deep breath and repeat that. The Notes section (pp. 1175-1240) takes up sixty-five pages. Based on this you would think this famous author would get respect. You would be mistaken. To wit: there is no Index in this Large Print edition of the book by Thorndike Press. I guess everybody was too tired. Actually, I could easily be persuaded to go on and on about this. No Index? My short stories and articles and essays in the Thai-farang genre do not require an Index. But this giant bit of research by Mr. Halberstam should have an Index. No doubt, somebody will email me and tell me I do not understand the publishing industry. Apparently, while I was spending time with Fa the other day the publishing industry decided to do away with Indexes.
David to Hyperion: hey, where is my Index?
Hyperion: The edition you are referring to we farmed out to Thorndike Press ( 'Published in 2007 by arrangement with Hyperion,' ). The small print editions do have an Index. Anyway, we do not like to spend money on those Large Print books. The target market is mostly half blind elderly fools who don't buy books. They take books out of libraries. Scum.
David: I am a half-blind elderly person.
Hyperion: What's your point Shakespeare?
David: Well, non-fiction of a research or documentary kind always has an Index. It does not matter what the size of the type is. And you are responsible for what Thorndike Press has done if you subcontracted to them. You can not avoid responsibility for this publishing crime. You are connected by an ethical thread.
Hyperion: stop complaining. Your Pulitzer prize is gathering dust. You are just an old man still submitting longhand written pages as if it is the 19th century. Obviously, you do not know anything about the publishing industry Somchai and you have forgotten that once you submit a manuscript to a publisher it is not your book anymore. We can do anything we want to do with it. You are lucky we did not publish every other page. Who would have noticed? Come to think of it, I'll bet our crack publishing house editors only read every other page, and I am sure the Large Print publisher did not read anything. Large Print readers do not complain. Hell, they are too weak to hold the books up in the bed or in the bathtub.
David: Yes, but what about standards, and respect for the reader, and respect for the writer, and the sanctity of the book form? Maybe I should start to consider publishing on the Internet. Maybe I should contact Stickman. . Hyperion: I'm kinda busy here. I may be only twenty-six years old but I am smart enough to wonder if you have an important reason for calling. I have Tom Clancy on HOLD and he has just submitted a two thousand page outline for a docu-book about a submarine that flies and shoots atom bomb paint balls out of it's torpedo tubes. Now that's a writer.
Maybe that is why I like writing short stories and articles and essays for Stickmanbangkok.com. I don't really want to be the head of a literary army and be unsure later about who wrote what. Years ago I received an invitation to send in short stories to a new Thailand travel book that was being put together. They had already published a book on Vietnam and now they were putting together a book on Thailand. I sent in five stories to the 'creative editor' and three were accepted. Then it started. The requests for changes. I decided to play along to see where the experience would go. By the time a story was accepted it was not my writing anymore. I canceled everything. I still cling to the idea that writers should fly solo. As soon as a writer starts bragging to me about all of the people that are helping him, I stop listening. It kinda makes me wonder if when they pick up a nice Thai lady of the commercial kind on the boardwalk they tell her that in the hotel room there will be helpers. In fact, the more helpers they had in the hotel room the more of a bragging story they would have to tell.
David Halbertson in the same Norwegian bar I was recently in:
"Yes, I had fantastic sex the other day with a wonderful Thai lady named Bing. I had three helpers and I do not mind acknowledging it. I believe in full disclosure storytelling. Their names were Farmby Wickwire of Ottawa, Canada; Clem Snotdoodle of Sydney, Australia; and Mongo Park of Manchester, England. And as an aside, do any of you fellows know how I can get in touch with Stickman?"
And so, at the end of my writing career for Stickmanbangkok.com I would also like to make some acknowledgements: but not dozens, or hundreds, or to institutions, or to some god, or to cats, or to the long suffering and incredibly understanding wife; just two, two acknowledgements after ten years of writing.
First, I would like to acknowledge myself. My self. Me. I was always trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, and cheerful. My taste and ideas were seamlessly brilliant, my mental health stable, my personal demeanor interesting and fun. I'm an interesting guy and I could not have done it without me. I salute me. I acknowledge me, and I thank me. How much less rewarding and interesting would my writing have been without me? Other writers lose mental stability and sometimes commit suicide. Some writers get writer's block. Not me. I salute a winner. Me.
Second, I would like to acknowledge Stickman as my publisher. Except for a few instances where he flashed off the road, displaying ego and opinion (I must have had 10 mini-heart attacks and strokes); it has been a pretty smooth writer-publisher ride. And what was smooth about it? Why does he deserve an acknowledgement at the end of my career?
Simple. He published what I wrote. Either through indifference, or policy, or appreciation; he published the words that I sent to him. This writer dream is so at odds with writer reality that most writers have just given up. They have been so polluted and disappointed that they do not even dream the dream anymore. They do not even endorse the dream. Editors raping writers they consider non-noteworthy reality. They hope to get raped themselves.
With Stickman of Stickmanbangkok.com my writing went up the way I wrote it. I know because I reviewed every word and punctuation mark. There were sometimes some issues with formatting and the computer program changing things, but that stuff got mostly fixed. I got to live a writer's dream. I had ideas. I committed them to text. The text got published the way I wrote it. No writer dream is greater than that writer dream. Thank-you Stickman.
In addition to myself and Mr. Stickman, I want to thank some participants who made contributions. It was always my dream that readers would take my writing into their hearts and share their lives with me. I received many emails over the years from gentlemen with names like:
Clod Puddentrot, retired honorary colonel fourth Calcutta lancers.
Plonbern Dingo, string theorist — Church of Dana usher until the incident.
Strang Boots, boomerang athlete and linguist.
Ivana Humpalot, Russian lover and fan.
Clyde Foopnoggle, Anal Discharge-on-Tyne, England.
Baron Karl Freiherr von Finkelstroop Bremershnitzelheimer of the Cloppenburg, Germany Bremershnitzelheimers.
Picklip Snodgrass, Christchurch, New Zealand — pretends to know Stickman. Asks me questions about him.
Francois Poopdoogle, Marseilles, France (FTF) — tried to sell me perfume (oh, excuse me: men's cologne) in every social media contact.
Quimby Fotherton, Cows Udder, Ireland — 9 applications to the Dana Fan Club.
Dexter Manparts, Edmonton, Canada (he named his son Manly).
Mr. Stondule Heathcliff Glompus of the Glascow, Scotland Glompuses.
and
Flopnut Bumrash of Muddy Boots, New Guinea.
These are examples. There were thousands. These are not the names of people who contributed to my writing, these are the names of people that contributed to my life after the writing was done. A different, and in my opinion, neglected category. Writers penning prefaces to reprints never mention this aspect of being a writer. Snobs. They conveniently forget to mention humans who have contributed in a positive way to their lives. Where is this Acknowledgment section?
Come on, are we supposed to believe that Fyodor Dostoyevsky never got any emails from readers regarding his novels Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov? Emails and Twitter messages and Facebook feedback that enriched his life? What do I look like? Stupid? And Milton? He never had his life enriched by reader responses to Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained? Milton (I call him Milt) did not receive any meaningful back-and- forth regarding his work on Facebook? Of course they did, they just do not want to mention it. Snobs. And Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John of the Bible never had any responses to their writing appear on social media? Makes you think, doesn't it? Again, and to iterate and repeat and redundify; what do I look like–an idiot? I think we all know the answer to that.
I'm no snob and I gladly acknowledge reader contributions that came in to me after the text was made public. I received reader feedback and I appreciated it. The above partial list is just an example of the worldwide attention I received and I happily acknowledge it. Death threats? Abuse? Ignorance of stunning aspect? It all counted. All part of the writer post-published text big equation: Including legions of young, politically correct western white women with bras made of hemp, shoes made of used condoms, and backpacks woven from the menstrual rags of famous feminist writers. Have they responded to my writing and contacted me? Yes they have and I am a better person for it. I am a sponge for criticism and simply adore having my faults pointed out. That is the kind of author acknowledging that ought to be done and I do not mind doing it. Once again I seem to be on the crest of the writer wave selflessly producing literary photons of cut crystal clarity pinpricking the curtain of time.
THAILAND TOMBSTONE–RETIREMENT REDUX
Here Lies Dana
Stickmanbangkok.com Writer
2003–2013
Friend of the cruiser,
Champion of the 500 baht note.
He'll be missed by his friends,
And remembered for what he wrote.
He's said what he said.
There's nothing new.
It's sayonara time,
A Dana fan boo hoo.
Every literary patch
Has writer grave yards.
He's headed there now
To lay down with other bards.
Time calls us all.
The aged and the young, the short and the tall.
The heart slows it's beat,
And youth is replaced with shuffling feet.
Birds tire of flapping,
And fish tire of finning.
Life is eventually wrapping.
Every day can not be winning.
He's done enough.
He's had his say.
Some writer days were tough,
But mostly it was play.
He's on the path to Godhead status:
A serious life and serious fun.
His text is going to become stardust someday:
His life and times recorded–his work done.
Well Sticksters, Dana haters, and sick twisted fans; I made it to Thai Thoughts and Anecdotes — Part 400 and I'm flippin' breathless. The Smithsonian Museum here in Washington, D. C. called and wants to have me sign paperwork that will allow them to claim my brain for science when I die. They want to know what is wrong with me. Imagine what I could have done if there was a Viagra for writers. Can't even imagine it. Anyway, 400 submissions is enough. Stick a fork in me, I'm done; and you can contact Stickman for retirement party information.
This is my last submission. I am now retired from writing for the Stickmanbangkok.com site. I thought I had retired at Thai Thoughts and Anecdotes — Part 77 and specifically wrote that submission as a swan song; and I again thought I had retired at Thai Thoughts and Anecdotes
— Part 100 and found the notion of retiring once reaching the mythic number 100 very appealing. We will call those errors of judgment. I'd rather call them youthful mistakes but that train left the station a long time ago. I think I also retired at Part 150 — kind of a blur. Anyway, a mean spirited Washington Squaronian has mentioned that I have retired more times than Sinatra and a friend of mine in California has a $100 bet with a Mexican tranny (Question: where is a Mexican tranny going to get $100?) that I will start writing again. When I hear these kinds of small minded comments it is cosmic sigh time. Recently I was conference call chatting with Coleridge and Dickens and they related that they had had the same trouble with the unappreciative and the unfriendly but they just soldiered on.
"Write when you are rich,
and write when you are poor.
Write when you are confident,
and write when you are not so sure.
But just keep on writing." — IDH
Anyway, no one is going to make any money off this $100 Mexican tranny bet and this Thai Thoughts and Anecdotes — Part 400 is absolutely and incontrovertibly without chance of doubt or hesitation or debate my last submission.
I am through writing for the Stickmanbangkok.com site. This submission is Numero Lasto. That's it. Finito. El Endo. I am Done O. I Quito. Don't Even Think About It O. I Don't Care If You Point A Gun At Me O. I'm bushwhacked. Done in. Fractured. Spent. Pooped. DTTK (Dead To The Keyboard). Too Tired To Shit–To Weak To Fart. That's All Folks. To all of you who thought I was the greatest living writer in the history of the English language–good luck to you. You others can burn and twist in the fires of hell for eternity. Ok, forget that last bit. I guess I am tired. So so tired.
It's time for someone else to grab the story reins and give the literary horse a kick in the ribs: slide down the narrative embankment squeezing your groin muscles until you think they'll tear, and ford the cold roiling rushing river while your four legged pal fights for footing on tumbling slime covered rocks. Then the wheeze and the push and the shout and the prayer as you reach the other side only to see another embankment of mud and rocks and rewriting nightmares, grammatical mysteries, and plot point problems.
Sound easy? Sound like fun? Think you can do it? Ok, now do it 400 times. You have to write from the heart, and you have to write from experience, and you can never lie. Heck, I can't even do that in my own life. Anyway, I'm tired pardners. There are no circumstances, eventualities, impulses, fat money contracts, occurrences, emotions, pleadings, legal threats, proceedings, facts, inducements, contingencies, or random influences of the universe that can ever get me to write another submission for Stickmanbangkok.com. For some of you that means it is time to party. Consider it a gift from me. Who loves you baby? Dana does.
And that includes Mort of the beach boulevard in Pattaya from 2005. Sorry Mort, your tight tight tight belly button and your flat flat flat brown stomach make my penis orifice pull and tear with Bunsen burnered pipette pain but even you are not enough to get me to write one more submission for Stickmabangkok.com. Leaning over the stainless steel balcony rail of the fourth floor terrace pool at the A. A. Hotel on the corner of Beach road and Soi 13/0 in Pattaya and seeing you in the early morning sun standing on the curb fills me with pleasure and hope beyond measure. Normally I would crawl over glass with my ass on fire to get to you; but even that is not enough to get me to sit down at the keyboard one more time and type the words Thai Thoughts and Anecdotes
— Part 401. For the rest of my life the number 400 will have special meaning. It will be the marker of my freedom. The last dying ember has gone cold, the sky is without shooting stars, and my brain can not send any more messages to my fingers. I'm making this public personal pronouncement with my hand on top of a stack of bar chits, and used Viagra pill punch cards. It does not get any more definite than that.
I am scheduled for surgery tomorrow at Massachusetts General Hospital here in Boston. By now I should get a frequent patient discount at that place. The last time I was delivered in an ambulance the nurse looked down and said: You again.
Anyway, I am going to have all of my fingers amputated so that I can not even think of doing any more submissions. It's called the Writerium Guillotine Digitus (WGD) operation. Funny story: a writer friend of mine had this finger removal operation about 7 years ago and almost immediately started pecking away at the keyboard with his toes. I had to listen to him bewail his addiction to writing and mention that he might have to have his toes amputated.
Yeah, but you'll still be able to peck and slam the keyboard with your dick. — I said.
Wait a minute. That's not funny.
Anyway, I don't think I'm that sort; I just need a little medical attention to get my life a little more balanced. I'll miss the emails detailing how I am scum of the earth who should be kept from breeding, but other than that high note; I think just kickin' back and not writing will be a pleasure.
And if you do not find this submission appealing do not bother to email me because even as I type these words I am starting to shut the whole operation down. Trannys in electric blue short plastic dresses, and midgets in school girl uniforms, and pool table whore sharks in stiletto heels with chalk holsters are already tearing the place apart. Accountants, and proofreaders, and research staff, and interns, and expat experts, and stringers, and office machine maintenance people, and support staff, and lawyers, and computer people have already received their last pay checks. The office cat has bailed out, soi dogs are boosting themselves in the windows, and the roaches are starting to appear from their hiding places. The air conditioning is shut down, the fan blades have stopped moving, and the phones are fast becoming plastic relics of a past I will never return to. In an hour I am going to take the mouse and the printer and the monitor and the cube and the manuals and the speakers and the keyboard and the files out to a jungle clearing on Ko Larn and pump shotgun blast after shotgun blast into the pile until the barrel burns my hands, there is a ringing in my ears, my laughter has turned into a hyena screech, and I lose control of my bladder. Finit.
I know what some of you cynics are thinking:
"Ah Dana, we've heard all of this retirement talk before. And just when we get our hopes up, just when we think a stake has finally been driven into the heart of this submissions monster, just when we imagine it is safe to cordon off Soi 6 in Pattaya and have an all night party–you send in another submission the next week. Please, we are begging you–honor this retirement; we need to get back to normal lives instead of going from week to week waiting for your submissions like a yaa baa addict watching the Burma border for a mule train."
OK, let me tell you why this retirement is inviolable this time. No, better yet: let me show you. Have Noi and her teddy bear co-pilot fly you over to my Federalist style mansion in Louisburg Square here on Beacon Hill in Boston. Her space buster dolphin shaped plane of melted flip flops and soldered plutonium ingots goes 18,000 miles per second. It will take you about . . . oh, there you are outside my window now. Can you see me? No? I'm right here in front of the Delft tiled fireplace looking at you. Tonight I am burning Taiwanese camphor wood, Irish peat, and tsunami longtail boat kindling. Anyway, can you see me now? No? You are looking right at me.
Do you know why you are looking right at me and yet you can not see me? It is because you do not recognize me. When I first started writing for Stickmanbangkok.com I was young and strong and hansum and sleek. But there have been some changes. My soul and my physique and my mind have been mortar and pestled by the inhuman load of having to submit submissions to Stickmanbangkok.com every week. Look again through the wavy purple imported English glass mullion panes in the bow front window. Do you see the monster with his flipper feet up on the bamboo coffee table? Do you see the scaled beaked visage with the greenish hue? Can you see the fingers that have webbed and turned into claws? Can you see how the ermine collared red Chinese silk nightgown hangs from my narrow shoulders like a funeral shroud? Can you see the outline of a large oblate shell shape under the shroud? That's me you are looking at.
The unrelenting unbending inflexible weekly ticking time bomb of mind destroying stress involved in starting with a blank sheet of paper every Monday and producing a masterpiece by the end of every week for Stickmanbangkok.com has visited upon me the horror of reverse mutant evolution. I have regressed and become a hideous hopeless green hued, scaled, beaked sea turtle of a man. Don't pity me. It's my lot. I wanted to write. This is what I got. Like Icarus on wings of wax I flew too high. I've run my race. Now I sit in my red silk Chinese nightgown with my flipper feet up on the bamboo coffee table and wait to die. My words will outlive me. They are stardust bound. But it's a heavy price. On the one scale genius and art; on the other scale a life now bereft and alone in a house without a sound.
I have become a monster. A night person. I can only go out at night because if I wander from my mansion in the daytime I scare the kids and excite the dogs. I am hideous. Ever seen a sea turtle that could touch his pecker with his flippers? Well, I can't either. Be careful for what you wish for. I wanted to write but I paid a price. Offered again I might think twice. All that remains of my former self are the memories. Writing for Stickmanbangkok.com has ruined my life. I have become a human sea turtle. Scaled and green and beaked and carrying a heavy shell that makes a mockery of the closet full of custom made clothes from Mr. Ambassador, the Indian tailor in Bangkok. I hope you are all happy. I gave and I gave and I gave and this is what I got. I hope you are thrilled. So this is why there will not be any more submissions after this one. This is why, Mr. Smarty-Pants Cynic, there will not be any more submissions next week or any other week. So go ahead and have your block party on Soi 6 in Pattaya. I hope the girls dance on the table tops, and the dogs snap at sparklers, and the toilets explode from M-80's. Don't look for me. I won't be there.
I'll be sitting in my red bricked mansion,
Perched on my sea turtle ass.
Watching the covering night fall
Through the purple wavy glass.
Don't think of me.
Don't give it a thought.
This is my life.
It's what I bought.
You can't calculate life.
Can't predict what will be.
You've got you,
And I've got me.
There, night's fallen:
I can flipper my sea turtle self outside.
Stare up at the stars:
Cry out–and cry in–and confide.
It was a bumpy road,
But mostly fun.
The pleasure of addiction,
Now my race is run.
See you around the boardwalk everybody,
Talking to Ming and Ding and Sing and Dah,
Remember, don't forget;
Stay Away From Fa.
This is my last gasp; article, essay, story,
or rant.
Stickmanbangkok.com is a memory.
More writing I can't.
I can see the palms
and feel the sun;
I love you every reader,
Every one.
But love is not blind,
And I'm not your Pa.
Remember, don't forget;
Stay Away From Fa.
She's my morning wake-up
On the boardwalk at nine.
She's my Thai smile, and hug, and laugh:
She's mine.
We're both getting older,
Shuffling and slow;
Stuck on each other,
And 500 baht dough.
We are your future
When your race is run.
No more writing,
Just palms and sky and sun.
See you around the boardwalk everybody,
Looking for smiles;
Shuffling or walking,
Doing the miles.
See you around the boardwalk everybody,
Talking to Bing or Bang or Kang or Kah.
Remember, don't forget;
Stay Away From Fa.
Stickman says:
Thank you so much for all of the effort and contributions you've made over the years! Your contribution to the readers' submissions is unparalleled.