I know what you’re thinking. No, this was not a strip show. It was something far stranger. Bangkok had no shortage of western male oriented strip shows and various other sexual talent shows, but alas, I did not partake. This cabaret, however, came highly recommended by a college friend of ours. And whether or not I enjoyed the show itself, I certainly appreciated the experience.
In this ongoing series of flashbacks to my Thailand trip, I came across a group of pictures that I am especially excited to share. I imagine that a lot of the trip-to-Thailand photo albums out there have ample images of temples, monks, rivers, rice fields, mountains etc…(I know mine does). However, my most awesomest visual encounters occurred in the sweaty crowds of the Culture ONE Bangkok international dance festival. For the full set of pictures (not too many) ride this link on over to m’website.
Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, according to the honorable Mary Poppins, is what you say when you don’t know what to say. After all my adventures in and out of Bangkok, I am left with no better fitting an adjective than that. Bangkok is supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. Now, satisfied with that non-committal generalization, I’ll move on to the photographs and the brief stories that accompany them. I’ve included a handful of images in this post, but I suggest you head over to the gallery on my website to see my favorite 45 images of Bangkok.
I’m not Irish, nor do I claim to identify with Irish culture in any way. So, I have a hard time getting into St. Patrick’s Day. I mean, how many of us even know who St. Patrick is? I know there are some cities with a strong Irish population, but I can’t help but feel that the rest of us are just trying to crash someone else’s fun party.
Despite all of this, I still felt it necessary to acknowledge St. Patrick’s Day on my blog, just so I could share the above picture, which does have a green theme. I stumbled upon this vehicular masterpiece last Friday night after last call on Dickson street. I was so disgusted impressed that I returned with my camera and tripod. I think the horrors beauty of this paint job speaks for itself. And yes, it does say “Make It Rain” on the side. Simply…pathetic poetic. In these difficult financial times, it’s good to see that someone still has a little green in their paint job pocket.
If this is your car, please don’t park in public beat me up. 
Pictures Pictures Pictures! …from the Beat Bachs Lucky 13 Dance Party @ Scarpinos.
Check ‘em out on my website, or on the Fayetteville Flyer’s Flyer Faces page.
Despite my superstitious tendencies, I’ve had some pretty good times on the unlucky day of Friday the 13th. Tell a crowd of people that bad things will happen on this day, and the fun people amongst them will say, “Sweet. Let’s have a party.” Friday the 13th parties remind me that if trouble is coming, you might as well keep having fun. I mean, we’ll all be dead eventually, right? And one day, the sun will expand to engulf the earth, incinerating any trace of everything we’ve ever known (too much?…it’s true…). When I get too caried away contemplating my inevitable doom, there’s no better medicine that a good ol’ dance party.
On Friday night, the Beat Bachs provided. Bo Counts threw a fun-as-usual dance party at Scarpinos, in honor of his Friday the 13th birthday (…so cool…). I’ve only been back in Fayetteville for a while, but I’m pretty sure these guys play the most funnest-t-t tunes around these parts. I was there taking pictures for the Fayetteville Flyer’s Flyer Faces (FFFF?), but even I couldn’t help bug wiggle around a bit, despite the obnoxiously awkward camera gear I was carrying (Apologies to anyone who was freaked out/blinded by my glorious soft box on a rope. I hope you’ll agree that it was worth the burden.). Thanks to the folks who let me harrass them with my camera. And many thanks to Bo, Tanner, and Luminfire for making these parties happen. Keep us dancing; we all need it.
P.S. Did anyone else hit up George’s on Saturday for the Hardaway and the Commoners show? *So good* I was enticed by Will’s slick poster design (www.archetypeproductions.org), but the band really suprised me, in a good way. I’ve neer seen a live band in Fayetteville play such …groovable?… music. Maybe this band’s sweetness has been known for some time, but I had no idea. I’m psyched to hear what these guys come up with in the studio.
Guess what day it is, children?…PantsDance Day (Hurah!) As expected, here are 20 tantalizing tunes to make you all twitterpated inside. He tells me it’s a good one, if he does say so himself. So, without further ado, here’s the link:
http://www.zshare.net/download/5684824736164ca9/
As before, if you’d like to be added to the PantsDance e-mail list to receive this directly, shoot me an e-mail or comment below.
They say that when you’re in love, you want to shout it from the mountain tops, for all the world to hear; Your promise of continued love and devotion is so strong that you’re willing to carve it into a tree, or a bathroom stall door, or your own body, just to make it known to all, forever. Well, for the long-term lovers of Seoul, Korea, there’s one clear way to lock it down: Padlock your names to steel bars atop the tallest mountain in Seoul! Yes, I’m talking about a literal love lock-down, on a mountain top no less. For the full gallery of Seoul pics, check out my website. Read the rest of this entry »
Greetings real friends, facebook friends, and internet stalkers!
I’m back from the Far East and ready to resume posting with a whirlwind of pictures and thoughts from my trip. For those of you who don’t know, I’ve spent the last 40 days wandering about through southeast Asia, Thailand and Laos to be specific. I saw some good old friends, met some good new ones, and found many interesting adventures along the way. And, of course, I took pictures. Thousands of pictures. So far I haven’t summoned the energy to show any of them to anyone, as I still have a lot of narrowing down to do. You can trust me that none of you, not even my dear mother, has the patience to sit through all of them. So, I’ve decided to get the ball rolling, at least, by offering up two promises and two pictures:
PROMISES:
1. I promise to make many posts in the coming weeks with pictures and stories from my trip.
2. I promise to choose only the best pictures, and keep the stories short. Well, relatively short. Well, as short as they can be, given the subject manner.
PICTURES:
These two pictures do a good job summarizing most of my experiences in Thailand and Laos. Everything, to me, seemed two sided: traditional and commercial, thrilling and predictable, chaotic and calm, beautiful and filthy, inspiring and troubling, nothing I expected and everything I wanted. Both of these pictures were taken on the same day in the same city, Chiang Mai, in the northern part of Thailand. The first one is lovely, but to me, represents the endless chain of temples and statues that, over the course of my trip, began to look all the same. The second one, for me, serves as an eerie reminder of the far reach of american corporations. Each picture on it’s own doesn’t do much for me, but together, they become a wonderful reminder of everything that I loved and despised about Thailand and Laos.
Stay with me. There’s so much more where these came from.
On December 12th, two Fridays back, there was magic in the air. Could you feel it? I could. Had you looked outside just after sunset, you would have noticed that the moon seemed…bigger than normal. It was, in fact, the biggest and brightest full moon we’ve seen in some time, thanks to the moon being full right as it reached the point in it’s orbit at which it is closest to earth. Fun stuff right? Read more about it here.
I forgot about the whole big moon day until the moon was already well above the horizon, but I still ran outside with my camera to attempt a few shots anyway. Anyone who has ever tried this will know that it’s not easy to get the camera to see things your way. I ended up taking two different exposures and putting them together in photoshop to pick up the detail of the moon along with the stuff it was lighting. Looks kind of artificial, but also kind of cool, no?
Here’s the list of my pal Pants’ top 20 wiggles of November. I haven’t listened to these yet, but I’m hoping for some goodies. November is my birthday month, which means that great things should happen in November, like my birth. We’ll see if great remixes happen too. Again, if you’d like to be added to the Pants Dance e-mail list to receive this directly, shoot me an e-mail or comment below.
Here’s the link:
http://www.zshare.net/download/52793183e4c5143e/
Read the rest of this entry »
