Random Thoughts

1. I have discovered it is much easier to use the Marina gym locker room to get cleaned up each day. (So far I have stopped smoking, perhaps start exercising next?) It got me thinking about "towel etiquette" even though I am frequently alone in the shower area. There is not a good place to leave your clothing when you take a shower. You have to walk through the locker room naked. This got me thinking. Since I was never a big jock in High School I would always wrap myself up in a towel on the way to and from the shower. The jocks would just sling the towel over their shoulder and swing in the breeze. Amazing that it took Thailand for me to catch on.

2. Being old and a solo sailor leaves me with a lot of time on my hands. Where I live there is nothing to do at any time of day or night. So every couple of weeks I go down to the tourist district of Phuket, primarily Patong Beach. I spend most of my evenings bar hopping from one live band venue to the next. Unfortunately the quality of most of the bands is not very good. The nightclubs play something I don't identify as music so I usually don't stay very late. Except, as Spencer knows, to visit my barber at between 10PM and Midnight. (Nothing happens on Bangla until 7PM.) These trips got me back into playing and producing music. As a consequence I have been listening to a lot of 70's through 90's music. It struck me tonight how much really bad advice is contained in the lyrics of popular music. It also seems that the more popular the more terrible the advice.

3. Most of the people on Bangla (it is a mononym) are tourists. The workers after a while catch on to the people who live in Phuket as we keep showing up. And sometimes it gets funny. As a friend pointed out when the hookers start calling you by name (even if you have never availed yourself of their services) you know you have been doing this too long. I have a couple of friends who are female vocalists at one of the local bars. When I visit them I take each of them a rose (non-tourist street price 100 thb or about $3.25 USD the pair - farang price $15 USD - each) Somehow I have become identified with this particular action. So the bar girls (those whose job is to get you to purchase them a lady drink, and their friend a lady drink, and their friend's .....) will call as I walk by "where my rose" instead of "where you from." Since "where you from" and "you buy me drink" pretty much use 100% of the bar girl English vocabulary I am pretty impressed that they learned "rose."

4. One nice thing about the music production stuff is that I have become acquainted with some of the local recording studio people. I hope this will result in a wider circle of acquaintances here in Phuket.

Fair winds and following seas 😀