Check out new pixs from Thailand. Click the artshots.
Thanks to Lennard for outstanding longdistance technical support.

being a little discouraged by the elphantitis incident, skating in and out of classy private thai hospitals, and not doing much else, i have had the time to try and get a perspective of the political climate in Thailand. Generally there is one thing you can say about Thailand, it doesnt leave a lot left for imagination. Or to say it more bluntly, Thailand is whorehouse with a lot of temples.

Politically, the country is in a strange limbo. Primemisnister Thaksin wisely took a loooong holiday after massive demonstrations especially in Bangkok in the spring of 2006, after numerous charges of corruption and eledge fraud at the election was presented. But no less than two month later Thaksin is entering the political scene head on again, now, in the media bementioned as Caretaker primeminister Thaksin.
One case stands out though. As he became primeminister for the first time, he sold the largest telecommunication company in Thailand - which he owned - for the stunning price of 1200 million baht, and simoultaniously he changed the legislation, so that the sale wasnt taxed.
The oppositon was infuriated, and publicy charged Thaksin for being a bloodsucking leach on the thail soul.
This didnt go down well with Mr. Thaksin - heading a party called Thai Rak Thai, which in thai means thais loves thai, and have dragged the opposition to court for compensation. His demand...800 million baht.
With approximately 60 million people living in Thailand, and Thailand being one of the poorest regions in southeastasia, he could have given every thai indivdual an even million baht withiut loosing a minutes sleep.

SECONDRATE POET ATTACKED BY ELEPHANT.

Going home from a bar in Kholat, Thailand, the night of june 11th, secondrate poet Morten Alsinger was attacked and literaly run over by fierce 1200 pound elephant. Once on the street he just made a narrow and lucky escape by pulling himself halfway under a parked SUV, and only suffered minor injories and bruces to his legs and back.

Being the class-consious comerade he is, he do not blame the elephant fot the attack as much as he blames the system.
Elephants are becoming a bigger and bigger problem in thai cities. Their traditonal workplaces in agriculture, foresty and construction has vanished at the hands of globalisation, and more and more elephants are lost, with their owners, in the cities, living of various circus tracks and tourism. To keep the animals working long hourss, it has become more and more seen that the animals are kept on amphetamines to up the revenues and hold the expenses down. Everybody knows that junkies dont eat much.
So when the police asked me, what I wanted to happen to the guy and his elephant I could only answer:
"Find the elephant a zoo, and give the guy a decent job".
That, they couldnt provide.

Though I am hurting, the system hurts more.

monday,
exotic train ride acroos the kolat plateau. savanna feeling, water buffalos, big sky and sundown, and pitch black arrival in khoenkaen and hotel khoenkaen.
i awake to a view from the hotel where everything stunningly resembles...silkeborg. thats the first thing that springs to my mind. ALDI and red bricks and contextual lingvistics makes it easier to understand but not to live with.

today,
its not actually Stephens 50th birhday, but the party is on and I am not. That flips me, but none the less, congratulations Stephen for hours of cosmic guidance, musical revelations, strange and surprising meetings in strange and surprising places.
One of the first things I really remember with you was listening to an early Jesus and Mary Chain Album in 86, thats 1986... Its was as shocking new then as it a mainstream sound now.
Stairways to Stephen, up up up and away hip hooray.

It couldnt . It just couldnt frame the picture more perfect. My stommicks all fluid and I have been spicing down the pathetic feeling, the smell of death really, the loss of control, the annoiance, the absence of anything basic, I think ,with my 5th reading of Naked Lunch to try and breed my fighterspirit.

I slip into baggy surplus military pants, a brand new white short sleeved thai shirt, my newly achieved tan only just make me look less pale than I feel. The hotel lobby is crowded with locals and in this here city of Kholat, the white caucasians doesnt win by numbers but merely on cultural impact.
I peak through windows to small bars on the way to my imaginary date with ladyboy Didi who escaped me in the hammering rain nights ago.
Bathed in neonlight an older falang has fallen asleep in his chair accompanied only by his young thai wife, who sits patiently and waits while she watches FightNight: SMACKDOWN, and I wonder how american wrestling has become such a big thing here.
It all happens in those few seconds it takes me to pass the Cafe Anyhting, that the falang also actually wakes up, only another few seconds from drowning in his noodlesoup if it hadnt been for his reluctance towards Isan food and a constant wet and white dream of another valuable core setting.
I enter the bar, my cologne has worn off to an acceptable level. I have hardly sat down and ordered some beers and smoke before Didi crawls out of the shadows and white a broad smile excuses for her poor english and disappereance the other night.
We sat up a date, and its yet up to me to explain, it isnt sex.