Last night was possibly the most bizarre night of my life. The story about the night of March 29, 2007 is one I will probably never tell and it was condensed into a space of three hours from midnight until around 3 a.m. Suffice to say, it was not a pleasant experience, but it was made a little bit worse when I found out this morning that there was a murder on my doorstep occurring in the late-night karaoke bar that is no more than thirty yards from the building in which I live.

The weapon of choice for this particular murder was a knife (if you’ll remember a few weeks ago there a man who was shot on my doorstep) and the victim was, apparently, a soldier. I feel the least safe I have since I arrived in Bangkok, especially as I’m worried their might now be a bounty on my head, but such is life; I guess you can’t let these things get you down.

Techno’ tags: Bangkok, Thailand, Victory Monument

What a sad day Thursdays are sometimes. Bill Cosby is dead; apparently he died less than an hour ago. I grew up watching him on TV; my first vinyl was (I think) an LP of him telling stories, and what great stories they were; he was the star of Ghost Dad, a movie that was so bad it was great; and I had a few of his stand up videos (although for the most part he would just sit down and talk). At the moment there are very few news stories anywhere about this, so I’m half hoping it’s a mistake. If it is true that Bill Cosby is dead then it’s a great loss. Not everybody liked him, and at times he was controversial, with a lot of people throwing the “Uncle Tom” label around, but if you can forget about all of that he was an entertainer. From his hilarious recalling of Noah’s first encounter with God to tales of games of “buk buk” and the unforgettable Fat Albert, Bill Cosby told ‘em all like no other.

Addendum: I think I may have fallen victim to a hoax. As far as I can tell, Bill Cosby is not dead, unless you hear different in which case let me know. This is great news; hopefully Ghost Dad 2 will be made soon.

Techno’ tags: Bill Cosby

Marcus Intalex (UK drum ‘n’ bass producer) is a self-confessed grumpy old git, but he seemed to hit the nail on the head recently when he said that in years gone by we would purchase a CD, listen to it incessantly, and then save up enough money to buy a new one. Now we download more music in a week than we can listen to in a year. It’s the twenty-first century and Bangkok makes it as easy as possible to get hold of any song, movie, or television show in an instant, be it in the form of bootleg copies or downloads. There are internet cafes on every street corner, children walk around with gadgets and gizmos that baffle their parents, and life is being made very simple for all of us. But do you ever feel like somehow the fun of exploration is lacking; that we have now become so lazy that we can’t even get excited about anything? The world is at our fingertips and we don’t need to move to get it.

Where’s the passion? DJs used to spend all of their money digging in crates looking for records. They’d sell their own mothers to buy Technics 1200s (turntables) and relish the time spent at their decks. All that hard work, that innovation, that creativity, that love for something: it’s all wrapped up in a CD-rom now. You don’t even need to leave your bedroom and in a matter of minutes you can be transformed from Joe Bloggs into a DJ god.

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I was walking past Central World Plaza today and saw there was a bit of commotion, a large group of people, a few musical rhythms here and there; but what could it be for? I figured it was a press conference or a mini-concert, and then to my horror I made out the words ‘Fashion Week 2007’. Fashion week? Wait a minute. How many fashion weeks are there in a calendar year? Designers are having their work cut out for them with all of these miniature seasons that Bangkok seems to have acquired. There may not be many real meteorological seasons here, but when it comes to fashion, well, the city knows no bounds.

What is this obsession with fashion weeks? I understand the drive to make Bangkok a fashion hotspot, but really, wouldn’t the money be better off spent on something more worthwhile? Maybe a prosthetic arm for the girl whose life was ruined when she had it cut off by a policeman?

The latest extravaganza in the city is the Hi! International Fashion Week. Is this sort of thing that Thai people in and around Bangkok can even get anything from? Does it make their lives any better? There are still relatively few designers in Thailand, some would argue because creativity is not actively encouraged in many schools. I’d be all for supporting a drive to inspire children to utilize their talents for artistic purposes, fashion being one; but parading fashion show after fashion show really does nothing but place an end product there for a child to dream of without showing him the means through which this end product can be achieved.

To me, it seems like Bangkok is trying to run before it can walk without nurturing what could blossom into a thriving industry. You can’t just have a string of fashion weeks and call Thailand the fashion capital of Asia. As it is, Bangkok fashion week isn’t as productive as it could be.

Techno’ tags: Bangkok fashion week

It’s rare that you meet anyone with your name, but I do remember there being three of four people named Steve Smith in my secondary school. With the advent of Google and Yahoo you can now find just about anything, so I thought I’d find out what the other Matt Crooks in the world have been up to. Dave Gorman was the first person to really do something like this, and a mighty fine job he did of it too. So, Matt Crook, where in the world are you, or I?

The first Matt Crook I found had an encounter with a self-procalimed “marine, scholar, father, husband, marathon runner, flash cartoonist and computer nerd.” Apparently I stole his girlfriend. I should really apologise for that some time.

The last bit of the story ends with Sarah walking me out to my car. Again, it was surreal to be walking with her and she wanted to apologize again for all the pain she had caused. She wanted me to know that it was wrong of her to dump me, especially for Matt Crook (yes, that was his name) but that the relationship probably would have only survived a couple of more months since I was going into the Corps and she was going to college.

Yeah, she was going to college. Probably better off with me. This guy, who goes by the name of Captain Grose, seems to have done alright for himself as it is. He can run a marathon in under four hours. I’m yet to get my time shaved down that low.

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