Front Cover - Navigating the Bangkok Noir

My very first book of paintings, NAVIGATING THE BANGKOK NOIR.........

Renoir Club Soi 33

Christie's Club

Midnite Bar

Rainbow Two Bar

Late Night Rainbow Agogo

Party Time Voodoo Bar

Crazy Hour

Tall Blue Dancer

Midnight Patpong

Lazy Afternoon Lone Star Saloon

Happy Couple

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Renoir Club Soi 33

Renoir Club Soi 33, water color on paper, 5x7 inch  

Just off Sukhumvit Road is the quiet and cozy Soi 33, also known as the Dead Artists Street…..the home of Renoir Club along with many others, Goya, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Monet, Dali, Picasso.  About three thousand girls work on Soi 33, many of them in their late 20’s and early 30’s, most of them stylish and beautiful, either from Central Thailand or the Northeast, called Isan, where people are darker and more Lao. The Expat guys are regulars, old hands in Bangkok, and the ambiance is familiar, warm and conversational…

Christie's Club Soi 33

Christie’s Club Soi 33, water color on paper, 5x7 inch

On Soi 33, Christie’s is a relaxed and friendly place.  Every night the same group of regular guys shows up, has a few beers and laughs.  About twenty-five girls work there off and on, depending on the night, many of them in their late twenties and thirties, almost all divorced with one or two kids.  Most of them go with clients six or seven times a month, guys they kind of know, who have their mobile numbers and sometimes call ahead.  It’s like a singles club or dating service in California, only without the dinner, movie and database.

Monet Club Soi 33

                                         Monet Club Soi 33, water color on paper, 5x7 inch

The beautiful and elegant girls at Monet on Soi 33 wear a different dress every night. No one’s dancing on the bar.  Everybody’s acting nice.  But lurking beneath the conversation, smiles and laughter, the transactional nature of relations between men and women swims slowly in circles, waiting to surface.

Midnite Bar Soi Cowboy

Midnite Bar Soi Cowboy, water color on paper, 18x24 inch

One of the oldest bars on Soi Cowboy, Midnite’s friendly and funky with a raunchy over-lay. The beers cost two dollars and the girls, mostly Lao from the part of Thailand called Isan, are easy-going, always looking for an excuse to be outrageous and have some fun. The guys, mostly Expats, some Japanese, think they’re back in college, hanging out at a roadhouse bar for sex and rock ‘n roll, the problems of their adult lives forgotten…….

Expat Hangout

Expat Hangout, water color on paper, 5x7 inch

Certain Soi Cowboy bars are hangouts for retired Expats, Old Hands in Bangkok, where they go to say hello to their friends. The girls are just there, in the background, available or not, no one cares.  Where’s so and so?   I just got back from the States, it ain’t the same.  When’s your next visa run?  I was over in Saigon last week.  You should go over and take a look.  If they lived in Arizona or Florida, they would all be playing golf.

Quiet Night

Quiet Night, water color on paper, 18x24 inch

A quiet night in April, Bangkok’s hottest month.  Outside, even at midnight, it’s a hundred degrees and a hundred percent humidity.  Inside the bar, the A/C is on full blast, the beer cold and everybody’s happy to go through the motions, thankful for the escape.

Re-incarnated German Sex Tourist Soi Dog at Soi Cowboy

Reincarnated German Sex Tourist Soi Dog at Soi Cowboy, water color on paper, 18x24 inch

There are many German tourists who come to Bangkok to chase the bargirls. Every night, night after night, they never have enough. Until their two weeks are up and they catch their flight. In Germany, they dream about their Bangkok girls, hoping to find a way to come back and never leave. Some say when the German guys are re-incarnated they come back as soi dogs and wander around Soi Cowboy to their heart's content...........

Deja Vu Bar

Déjà Vu Bar, water color on paper, 18x24 inch

Lots of girls and not too many guys, hundreds of lights, loud music and the smell of money and flesh…………..

Closing Time Soi Cowboy

Closing Time Soi Cowboy, water color on paper, 5x7 inch

The only customer’s a friend, the last song is from the northeast part of Thailand called Isan.  It’s a tale of endless hard work on dirt-poor farms, the sons and daughters all lost to Bangkok to learn the ways of the City.

Rainbow Two Bar

Rainbow Two Bar, water color on paper, 5x7 inch

Unlike most of Nana’s bars, by ten o’clock, Rainbow Two is full.  The hundred or so girls are young and active, the guys old hands.  They grab a beer, look around and find the girl they want.  She comes over and orders a ladies drink.  They check each other out.  If everything’s OK and both are willing, a few minutes later they’re gone.  By eleven, the bar’s half empty.

G-Spot Agogo

G-Spot Agogo, water color on paper, 18x24 inch

On the second floor of this dense three story nest of gogo bars, G-Spot’s owned by an eccentric and wacky English guy named David.  About fifty dancers and another ten service girls.  Ten foot long Bose woofers blasting out the latest disco.  A sleazy mix of seasoned Expats and tourist guys from most of the Western world and Japan.  Not as easygoing as Soi Cowboy or as raw and nasty as Patpong, it is a hardened battleground for the ongoing transactional war between the sexes.

Late Night Rainbow Agogo

Late Night Rainbow Agogo, water color on paper, 18x24 inch

By one AM, Rainbow Agogo is blurry from loud music, blinding strobe lights and the ongoing river of man-woman interaction.  Too much beer, too much flesh and too many Expats out of control.

Party Time Voodoo Bar

Party Time Voodoo Bar, water color on paper, 5x7 inch

Voodoo Bar is a mix of ladyboys and one hundred percent ladies, it is difficult to tell.  Some say Thai ladyboys are sometimes so perfectly feminine, only their hands can give them away.  With too many beers, multi-colored lights, pounding music and so many bodies moving, the only way to avoid a mistake for sure is to not go there at all.  On the other hand, for whatever reason, ignorance or desire, some guys do.

Hollywood Bar Nana

Hollywood Bar Nana, water color on paper, 5x7 inch

On a Friday or Saturday night, Hollywood Bar at Nana is usually rocking out, hundreds of Expats and girls, lots of beer and raunchy shows.  Except when the police close it down for showing too much.  Or not paying enough, no one’s ever sure.  Sometimes the police make the Expats and girls go pee pee in a little cup which is really hard when everyone’s been drinking so much, the cups are so small.  And the little cups always get all mixed up on the table where they’re doing the tests.  The poor police technicians try to keep track even though they know it’s only for show.  In the end, no one’s going to be arrested and no charges are going to be filed.  This is Hollywood, Thailand, not California, after all.

Closing Time Nana Plaza

Closing Time Nana Plaza, water color on paper, 18x24 inch

The end of another night at Nana Plaza, the Expats all regulars and the leftover girls drifting through a haze of indifference.

Upstairs Bar at Patpong

Upstairs Bar at Patpong, water color on paper, 5x7 inch

Patpong is for the tourists who have never been in Bangkok before and who will never come again.  It’s a nightly show put on according to a European script, what they want and are desperate to see, acted out by Ladyboys, the girls shooting the darts and a of ten thousand pimps, bargirls and sellers of counterfeit goods.

Crazy Hour

Crazy Hour, water color on paper, 18x24 inch

During Crazy Hour at a Patpong gogo bar, the beers only cost fifty Baht, half their normal price.  Most of the girls haven’t showed up and there are only a few guys.  Things are pretty quiet, nothing’s crazy at all.

Thigh Bar

Thigh Bar, water color on paper, 5x7 inch

Pom is the manager of Thigh Bar at the entrance to Patpong.  In the heart of tourist sleaze, surrounded by drunken Expats, desperate bargirls and wandering ladyboys, she somehow manages to stay friendly and relaxed.  If you have been there once in the last ten years, she will remember your name and what you ordered to drink, even the name of your girl and where she ended up.  If you know enough to show respect, you will be treated well and only hustled a little.  On the other hand, if you act like an asshole, it will never be forgotten.   You will always be an asshole, from the moment you walk in the door until the day you die.

Party Time

Party Time, water color on paper, 5x7 inch

Four gay guys from New York, for some reason, partying in a Patpong bar full of girls, who knows why.  Maybe just a whim on their way to Boy’s Town a few blocks further on.  The girls know right away there’s nothing in it for them. 

Thaniya Paza

Thaniya Plaza, water color on paper, 5x7 inch

On Patpong’s fringe, Thaniya Plaza is for the Japanese executive crowd in Bangkok.  They are Thailand’s largest group of Expats, owning and running most of the automobile and electronics factories.  Thaniya’s set-up to look like Tokyo’s Ginza with a vertical array of clubs, KTV’s, bars and cozy hang-outs, over a hundred, all with colorful Japanese signs. The Thai girls are dressed in kimonos and gowns and speak a little Japanese.  Hello, How are you, Handsome man, Do you want whiskey, Thank you so much, Nice to see you, Please come back.  They bow from the waist with heads tilted down.

If a western guy approaches, they turn and look the other way, sometimes pointing towards the little sign on the door that says, For Japanese Only.

Girlfriends

Girlfriends, water color on paper, 5x7 inch

There are plenty of girlfriends in the Bangkok Night, Toms and Dees and everything in between……

Tall Blue Dancer

Tall Blue Dancer, water color on paper, 5x7 inch

Tall and slim, is she a girl or a lady boy….how to tell when everything’s been altered from top to bottom and back to front………..

Ken

Ken, water color on paper, 18x24 inch

Up and down the Patpong soi called Boy’s Town, muscular young Thai guys dance in their underwear, do push-ups, pull-ups and sit-ups to pulsating disco tracks.  Plenty of gay guys from all over Asia, especially Taiwan and Singapore.  Western guys too, from Germany, Sydney and San Francisco.  Sometimes one of them gets drunk and crazy and jumps on stage to dance.

Midnight Patpong

Midnight Patpong, water color on paper, 5x7 inch

By midnight on Friday, Patpong’s full, twenty thousand tourists from Europe, the U.S., Australia, India, the Middle East and Japan, ten thousand girls, hundreds of ladyboys, plenty of beer, whiskey, endless stalls selling counterfeit goods, thirty or forty different disco tracks blasting out of the gogo bars, a world vortex of man woman interaction, a combination sexual theme park, shopping mall and inferno, fiercely consuming an endless stream of humanity and their desire.

Beer Bar Soi 22

Beer Bar Soi 22, water color on paper, 18x24 inch

The beer bars and KTV’s opposite Queens Park on Soi 22 are pretty low-key, only one stop above Soi Zero.  The girls are either straight off the farm and barely dressed for the city or in shabby retirement from a ten year stint at Nana or Soi Cowboy.  The guys are nothing special, staying in the hotels or cheap apartments nearby.  They’re usually there for the beer, a little chat, and to fill out their day.  No one has any expectations and it is impossible to be let down.

KTV Girls

KTV Girls, water color on paper, 18x24 inch

There must be more than ten thousand Karaoke Bars in Bangkok.  The songs are stored on hard drives and delivered digitally.  The whiskey and cola mixer comes on a stainless steel tray with a fresh bucket of ice.  Tasty Thai snacks are cooked to order.  Some KTV’s are hi-end, others tucked in corrugated sheet metal sheds.  There are usually some girls, to laugh, drink and sing with you or for you, smiling, flirting, mixing the drinks and ice.  It’s an instant party, so long as you have the cash to pay.

Lazy Afternoon Lone Star Saloon

 

Lazy Afternoon Lone Star Saloon, water color on paper, 5x7 inch

It’s a lazy afternoon at the Lone Star Bar where Brian’s been a regular for thirty years.  The girl’s worked there for fifteen years. Both of them well past their expiration dates, happy to share a smoke and a few beers.

Washington Square Girl

Washington Square Girl, water color on paper, 5x7 inch

Sometimes she sits the whole day without any clients or drinks.  She thinks about her life as a little girl, in a house on stilts, taking care of the chickens and water buffalo.  Her mother worked from dawn ‘til dusk, taught her kids to smile and sing, no matter how hard their life.  At age 12, she finished school and joined her father in the rice fields.  Before she was 18, she had two babies.  Her boyfriend ran away.  The kids are teenagers now, living in the house on stilts.  Someday, they will come to Bangkok too. 

Old Mamasan

 Old Mamasan, water color on paper, 18x24 inch

She’s been the Mamasan for thirty years, watched too many girls work way too many men.  Heard too many stories, seen too many tears.  Desire is an illusion, she knows too well.  She goes to the temple every day and listens to the monks.  But how else is she to earn a living?

Girl from Chiang Mai

Girl from Chiang Mai, water color on paper, 5x7 inch

As the eldest daughter to a mother born near Kumming, China, she’s working the high-end of the Bangkok Night.  Already, she owns a condo and drives her own Toyota, pays the school fees for her sisters and brothers and bought her mother a shop.

Beautiful, stylish and sexy, highly intelligent and very ambitious, within the generations of her ancestors and family, she is the one who will enable them to finally reach their destination.

Kate

Kate, water color on paper, 5x7 inch

Slender, stylish, often dressed in silk, her mini-mobile is always pressed to one ear, as her whispered Thai words flow across Bangkok’s many-layered spectrum as she weaves her multiple webs.  Her father, a Bangkok police captain, has a gun strapped to his ankle.  When she was a teenage girl, he used to take her on nighttime tours of Chinatown to teach her the nature of Men.  Before she reaches forty, she will be a dollar millionaire with an upscale Bangkok condo, a house in Sydney and a villa in Chiang Mai.  

Om

Om, water color on paper, 5x7 inch

Once a month, she flies over to Hong Kong and works the disco in the Peninsula Hotel. She also works in Singapore.  In between, she’s at the CM2 Club at the Novotel Siam Square, a fire burning inside.  In her next life, she wants to be a school teacher.

CM-2 Girl

CM-2 Girl, water color on paper, 5x7 inch

The girls at CM2 are a cut above, freelancers beholden to no one except themselves. Some are university students, others work at hotels, banks and department stores. The men they hunt are often high-income guys on business in Bangkok for a week.  There’s no upper limit.  If they are stylish, clever and speak enough English, they can end up in London, Beverly Hills or Sydney, living in a big house and driving a Mercedes. Or they can end up no where, too old, with too much mileage, unloved, their dreams of a better life bitter and unfulfilled.

Butterfly Girl Q Bar

Butterfly Girl Q Bar, water color on paper, 18x24 inch

Q Bar is ultra-chic.  Club trance, guys dressed in Armani black, fashion model girls. Along with Living Room and Mystique, it’s one of the top Bangkok clubs.  But even in Q Bar,  the boy-girl action is transactional and fast.  No matter how wonderful the girls, how full of beauty, depth and soul, money determines the outcome,  a pay as you go system with no obligations outside the time frame agreed.

Spasso Girl

Spasso Girl, water color on paper, 5x7 inch

The girls at Spasso Bar in the basement of the five star Hyatt Erawan Hotel are like cruise missiles.  Once they’ve locked onto their targets, the man has very little chance.  Unless he’s a cheapskate.  Then the missile veers away, the radar having read available cash and net worth with the speed of a supercomputer, and the poor man is saved from the night of his life and the woman of his dreams.

Pegasus Girl

Pegasus Club, water color on paper, 5x7 inch

The girls at Pegasus Club are a confident bunch, secure in their place at the hi-end apex of the Bangkok Night.  All the guys are dollar millionaires and above, from all over the world, Asia and the West as well as the Middle-East, Russia and Thailand itself. Brand names, celebrities, movie stars and tycoons.  They fly into Bangkok first class or in their private jets, stay at the top hotels and meet their pals at Pegasus, for drinks, dinner, music and the two hundred constantly changing girls, every one beautifully dressed, perfect skin, a face that could be on the cover of a fashion magazine.  Stylish, smiling and clever enough to know what to do and how to be, to end up with a condo, a beach house in Phuket, a bank account in Singapore, a lifetime of income to raise their kids and put them through school, even send them to university in Australia or the U.S.

Happy Couple

Happy Couple, water color on paper, 5x7 inch

A happy couple, they each have dreamed of the other, hoping to find what they have been missing in themselves.  But what happens if what they see is something they have imagined, not what is actually there.

Patpong Girl

Patpong Girl, water color on paper, 18x24 inch

For two years, she’s been dancing in a Patpong bar, about a hundred tourists a night, thirty-five thousand a year, seventy thousand in all, from Europe, Australia, the Middle East, Japan, Korea and the U.S.  She looks at each one, knows them better than they know themselves, who they are, what they are looking for and whether they are worth her time.