Lek at Pretty Lady

Lek at Pretty Lady, watercolor on paper, 5x7 inch

Almost thirty, Lek’s body is still slender and supple.  But she has seen too much, known too many men, danced too many nights.  Her only desire is to go back to her hometown, take care of her ten year old son and live out the rest of this life in quiet, hoping the next cycle will be better.

Two Dancers

Two Dancers, water color on paper, 5x7 inch

They’re watching him.  Is he a player or just someone passing through.

Upstairs at Baccara

Upstairs at Baccara, water color on paper, 5x7 inch

Plenty of room to sit, smoke, chat, buy Lady Drinks, listen to the Club sound track…..and watch the Japanese business guys throw their hard-earned money at the feeding frenzy of stylish, clever and hi-income Baccara girls…............

Blond Gogo Girl

Blond Gogo Girl, water color on paper, 5x7 inch

                                       

She has a power beyond herself, a dancer in the Bangkok Night…..dark brown skin, dyed blond hair, blue lenses in her eyes, she’s more mythic than real and the guys are there to worship and adore………..

Three Friends

Three Friends, water color on paper, 18x24 inch

One of them smiles while the other two watch carefully to see what effect her smile might have.  They’ve known each other since they were kids and see the world with six eyes, adding to each other’s knowledge every day by sharing everything they learn.  It’s the key to their survival.  Very few Thai’s live their lives alone.

Pretty Lady Bar

Pretty Lady Bar, water color on paper, 5x7 inch

Up on stage, she has a power beyond herself, a dancer in the Bangkok Night.  Dark brown skin, dyed blond hair, blue strobe lights in each eye, she’s more mythic than real and the guys are there to worship and adore.

G-Spot Girl

G-Spot Girl, water color on paper, 5x7 inch

Working at G-Spot on the 2^nd floor of Nana Plaza, she has learned to watch men very carefully.  Even though she only understands a little English, she listens to them talk with great attention, closely following their cadence and intonation.  She notices each hand gesture, detail of their clothing, fingernails and hair.  There is so much you can learn about a man  without saying anything at all.

Number 26

Number 26, water color on paper, 5x7 inch

Number 26 has a magic about her as she floats through the Bangkok Night.  A commodity for sale, holding onto her pole, she retains her smile and sense of humor as she constantly examines her world.  She likes the men who understand her distance, her value beyond herself, who know that knowing her for a night or two can change their lives and point of view.  No matter who and where we are in life, we are all holding onto a pole and we are all for sale and we must all examine our lives.  And we must still be able to smile.

What Your Name

What Your Name, water color on paper, 5x7 inch

What your name, where you from, first time in Bangkok?  The girls are like police, checking out the guys.  Sometimes the abbreviated English makes the guys forget how complex these girls are in Thai.  They let their guard down and become easy marks.  But why not, the girls need the money and they guys have way too much.

Lighting Up

Lighting Up, water color on paper, 5x7 inch

At what moment does a guy’s brain click?  What button does she need to push.  He’s young, looks pretty good and has a wallet full of cash.  How does she stand out, get his attention, focus him on her.  There are so many girls.

Dancer Agogo

Dancer Agogo, water color on paper, 5x7 inch

For a thousand nights, she’s danced in a daze of smoke, sparkling disco balls and the thumping beat from gigantic Bose woofers.  She has seen the faces of a hundred thousand men, their eyes caressing every inch of her flesh.  Tall, short, handsome, ugly, dark, tan, yellow and white, obese and thin, some of them in wheelchairs, others with stutters,  old and young, every kind of man, from every country on earth.  What are they thinking and what do they want, why are they there, in the Bangkok bar where she works and lives and dreams?

Flirting

Flirting, water color on paper, 5x7 inch

She likes the guy so much, she’s like a young girl flirting in school, sticking out her tongue and pushing him away in order to get his attention.  If he’s got any brains and can think after drinking so much beer, he will realize how incredibly sweet she is and how wonderful she can be.  But, surrounded by so many other girls, he will probably break her heart.  That is, if she lets him.

Happy Happy

Happy Happy, water color on paper, 5x7 inch

Thais are taught to smile as kids, in a hundred different ways.  No matter how happy, afraid, angry or sad, they always know a smile costs nothing and will lubricate their path.  The world is so full of trouble and the power of a smile can light up someone’s day.  In Bangkok, a city full of smiles, it is hard not to smile back.

Jackpot

Jackpot, water color on paper, 5x7 inch

Tonight she’s hit the jackpot.  Next month’s rent, school fees for her son and daughter, money to send to her mother, a chance to pay off the Indian loan shark.  Her guy’s from Australia, in Bangkok for the first time, fresh, excited by what he sees.  He’s come to the bar every night for four nights, paid the bar fine and taken her to his room.  He may be an awkward lover but she loves him just the same.

Beer Garden Girl

Beer Garden Girl, water color on paper, 5x7 inch

She works in a beer garden off Soi Nana, the early shift from eleven AM until nine PM. For two weeks, every day, a German man has come to see her.  He buys her a few drinks and they go to a nearby hotel. He gives her more than she asks. He talks to her in broken English, almost the same as hers. He’s over 50 and kind, also nice to her friends. Tonight he’s flying back to Germany and gave her some flowers when he said goodbye.  He promised to come back, he’s not sure when.  She smiled and wished him good luck. Inside she’s crying.

Pat

Pat, water color on paper, 18x24 inch

Pat used to work as a dancer, now she works serving drinks.  Her kids are ten and twelve, living with her mother in Udon.  She visits them once a year for a week, taking the bus for eight hours each way.  Her life has been exhausting, more than most middle-class women from Europe or North America could imagine or endure.  At eighteen, she was beautiful and could catch a man with just her smile.  Now, she’s wearing out, with many years still to go.

Lai

Lai, water color on paper, 5x7 inch

Lai came to Bangkok from Ubon near the border with Cambodia when she was eighteen.  She was recruited to work at a Soi Cowboy bar after she won a local beauty contest.  Her monthly salary is eight thousand Baht but so many men want her, she sometimes makes as much as forty thousand Baht a month.  In two years, she’s had hundreds of men, a few of them more than once.  So many men, she’s lost track of who they are and how they look.  Already, she has built a new house for her family back in Ubon and bought a pickup truck for her father and brother.

Showing Off

Showing Off, water color on paper, 18x24 inch

A couple of Isan bargirls looking for attention, trying to provoke, bored and predatory.

Happy Hour Tilac Bar

Happy Hour Tilac Bar, water color on paper, 5x7 inch

Happy Hour at Tilac Bar, before the real punters show up and everyone just pretending…….

Blue Dancer

Blue Dancer, water color on paper, 5x7 inch

During the day, she works in the Duty Free shop at Bangkok Airport.  At night she works in Doll House bar on Soi Cowboy.  Her mother, sister and sister’s two kids live in Sukothai, a place full of Buddha statues and temples a thousand years old.  She makes 30,000 Baht a month, sending half to her mother and sister. She tries to go with customers she likes, who know how to smile.  An Australian guy her to fly to Sydney for a week but she said no.  She doesn’t want to give up her daytime job.  It’s what keeps her life intact.

Neng

Neng, water color on paper, 18x24 inch

For two years, Neng assembled DVD players at an electronics factory in the Rayong industrial zone, making 7000 Baht each month, her son with her mother upcountry.  Then her father became ill and stopped work.  In Thailand, there’s no pension plan, unemployment insurance or disability, only the family, especially the eldest daughter.  She went to work in Doll House on Soi Cowboy, where her monthly take home is 30,000 Baht.  Her life in shreds, she, her son and family will survive.  At least for now.

Kung

Kung, water color on paper, 18x24 inch

Kung is a very nice young lady, with a smile that can light up your day.  She is slender and sexy, her hands supple and graceful in an Isan way.  She works six days a week at the Central Department store on Ratchada and three nights a week in a Soi Cowboy bar.  Her older sister has become an Australian Expat’s minor wife, set up in a condo all her  own.  Kung stays there when the Australian’s not around.  She’s taking English classes and one day hopes to find an Australian too.

Suzy Wong Bar

Suzy Wong Bar, water color on paper, 18x24 inch

Too many girls, too few guys, it’s rainy season at Suzie Wong Bar on Soi Cowboy.  Soon, some of the girls will start drifting back to their villages in the Northeast to visit their kids, families and friends.

Husband and Wife

Husband and Wife, water color on paper, 5x7 inch

She married the Russian guy two years ago.  He needed to get a residence permit to stay in Thailand, a perfect place for him and all his stuff.  She only knows what he’s doing when he’s right in front of her, little else.  They share a Bangkok condo and she no longer works in a bar.  He doesn’t pretend to be anything he’s not and on that basis, she’s happy to hang around.  She might even have his kid.

Young Blond Expat

Young Blond Expat, water color on paper, 18x24 inch

Young and handsome, the Young Blond Expat is a prize Bangkok possession.  He has so many female options, he ends up confused and lost, a combination sex object and ATM, where do the girlfriends start and end, struggling to find his focus.

Jeffrey

Jeffrey, water color on paper, 5x7 inch

Jeffrey works for an Australian bank. He’s got a tax-free salary, company condo, living allowance and free flights back to Melbourne.  In his office, the ambitious and well-educated Thai-Chinese girls compete for his attention. Every night, there’s plenty of beer, bargirls and laughs.  Another year and he’ll never be able to live a normal life again. When the bank sends him back to Melbourne, his salary will go down and 30% will go to tax.  He’ll have to pay rent, clean his own house and buy his own airline tickets. Only the girls will be free. At least until the divorce…

Norman

Norman, water color on paper, 5x7 inch

Living in Bangkok makes Norman feel alive 24/7, at a constant peak, feeding off the relentless energy flowing all around.  His older sister back in London disapproves.  She worries that he’ll never come back and settle down.   When’s the last time you had a girlfriend who was your own age and white, she says.  What will happen when you’re old? What can Norman say, he’s become a Bangkok addict, needs his Thai energy fix every day. Going back to England would leave him cold.

Timothy at Pegasus Club

Timothy at Pegasus Club, water color on paper, 18x24 inch

Timothy’s been 10 years in Bangkok, Director of Asia Marketing for a leading luxury goods company.  He spends his days in a gleaming office tower, reviewing the latest campaigns,  checking demographics, chasing down manufacturers of counterfeit goods. He’s built an Asian luxury goods empire, made a few million along the way. A regular at Pegasus, the Mamasan knows him well, as do many of the 200 girls.  He brings out-of-town clients there as well as the guys from headquarters. The smiles, beauty and style leave them dazzled, dizzy and grateful, an ultimate boys night out.

The Corruptionist

The Corruptionist, water color on paper, 5x7 inch

He’s a predator in the world of the Bangkok Night, constantly on the lookout for weakness, vulnerability and greed, ready to rip apart and devour whatever he wants and needs…..

Tilac Agogo

Tilac Agogo, water color on paper, 5x7 inch

The girls at Tilac Bar are often mothers of one or two young children left back in dusty farming villages with grandparents.  They finished school at the end of sixth grade, had their babies before they turned 20 and came to Bangkok after their husbands died or left, looking for a way out, trying to be stylish, hoping for the best and sending 5000 Baht a month back home.  Sometimes they get lucky and end up in California, Germany, England or Australia.  Sometimes they don’t and disappear off the face of the earth.

Australian Guy

Australian Guy, water color on paper, 18x24 inch

 He’s been living in Thailand for ten years, owns a few beer bars in Pattaya and a Bangkok condo.  Some weekends, he heads over to Saigon, Singapore, Shanghai, Hong Kong or Phnom Penh.   Once every year, he goes back to Sydney for a month, sees his Mum and a few old mates, shaking his head, how can they live such routine lives?  Twenty year wedding anniversaries, a little house with a yard, a mortgage, promotion, maybe a raise.  Only the kids seem worth it

Old Hands

Old Hands, water color on paper, 18x24 inch

Two Old Hands, they’ve lived in Bangkok for over twenty years, on military pensions plus scams.  It’s an easy life with plenty of free time, beer and girls.  Sometimes they play golf, sometimes head over to Saigon or Bali or the Philippines.  A lifetime ago, they grew up in Texas trailer parks and spent their teenage years trying to get laid.

Doll House

Doll House, water color on paper, 18x24 inch

He stops by Doll House every night, to have a beer and meet his friends.  He has a regular girl and always buys her a drink.  Sometimes he takes her out, to an Isan music place, a Thai disco on Ratchada or just to sit at a street stall and eat.  Whenever she wants and if he’s not busy with other stuff, he takes her back to his condo where they watch TV, play music and make love.  Sometimes she likes him too much.

Battle-Scarred Expat

Battle-scarred Expat, water color on paper, 5x7 inch

In Asia for thirty years, Hong Kong, Jakarta, Singapore, Shanghai, Saigon and Bangkok. The grown-up children from his first marriage back in Sydney, his first wife, their mother, a distant memory.  No matter how much beer or how bald, he’s still a player and will be until the day he dies.  Worldly and cosmopolitan, he has already led so many lives, he’s lost count.

Party Time Nana Plaza

Party Time Nana Plaza, water color on paper, 5x7 inch

Too much beer, too many nights, too many girls, family forgotten, he’s lost, already dead, still alive until he wakes up.  Soon there will be no one to claim his body and the puff of smoke from the chimney at the Buddhist temple will be all that's left.

Oil Worker from Saudi

Oil Worker from Saudi, water color on paper, 18x24 inch

He’s a supervising engineer at one of the petroleum loading ports in Saudi Arabia, originally from Oklahoma, earning big tax free dollars under a very hot sun.  Every three months, he flies over to Bangkok for two weeks of beer, sex and rock and roll, booking into the Nana Hotel and chasing cute Isan bargirls 24/7.  They tell him he’s not just a Butterfly, he’s a Helicopter, flying between girls so fast.  For them, he’s the perfect guy, loaded down with cash and happy to spend it all, polite and kind to a fault.

Ronnie at Nana Plaza

Ronnie at Nana Plaza, water color on paper, 5x7 inch

His first year in Bangkok, a great job, big salary, living allowance, penthouse condo, even a driver……and the excitement of Nana Plaza and the Bangkok Night still alive and fresh…..

Bangkok Soi Dog Number One

Bangkok Soi Dog Number One, water color on paper, 5x7 inch

Every morning he wakes up, on the street, surrounded by his pack…no clothing, no bank account, no credit cards, no car, motorcycle, no nothing…but he wakes up happy, wagging his tail, wanders over for some scraps from the garbage bin at the back of a Gay Karaoke Bar, drinks a little water from a mud puddle, then looks for sex…if all the girl soi dogs are still asleep, he humps a hole in the street and settles down for a daytime nap in the midst of the traffic, happy to be a Bangkok Soi Dog…………..

Hungry Guy

Hungry Guy, water color on paper, 5x7 inch

He’s been in Bangkok a hundred times, knows a bunch of Thais as well as Expats. He’s got a Bangkok mobile and stays at the Rembrandt Suites. His first night, he always heads over to his club, orders a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black and soaks up the scene.  Beautiful girls, smiling, dancing, whispering into their mobiles, Resident Expats, business guys passing through from Europe, Japan, the Middle-East, Australia and the U.S..  After a while, he spots Som, her bright white smile, tanned face, black Armani top, washed out jeans, thin waist perfect butt.  His mobile rings. “I wait you”, she says.

Norwegian Guy at Dali Bar

Norwegian Guy at Dali Bar, water color on paper, 5x7 inch

In Bangkok for a week, he’s an engineer specializing in mobile phone towers.  He comes out once every 3 months to run training seminars.  Back in Oslo, it’s minus ten degrees and the sidewalks are full of snow.  In Bangkok, the hot night air’s fragrant with the smells of Southeast Asia.  He’s staying at the Novotel on Soi 33. Every night, he wanders into Dali Bar to drink beer and flirt with the girls, mostly young and beautiful, dazzling smiles and soft dark skin.  If not for his wife and two kids back in Norway, he would fall in love and never go back.

Tony at Spasso

Tony at Spasso, water color on paper, 5x7 inch

Spasso’s at the Erawan, one of Bangkok’s top hotels.  The cheapest room’s 200 dollars a night, a month’s salary for the average Thai. For Tony, it’s not worth thinking about, he makes a million dollars a year plus stock options. He always stays at there. He likes the location and at the end of a long day of tough negotiations, Spasso is only a step away.  It’s stylish and deluxe, Tony’s kind of place.  A lot of the guys are hi-income types, from all over the world. The band rocks and the Thai girls look like fashion models.  Smiling, friendly, slim and sexy. They cost less than the room.

First Time in Bangkok

First Time in Bangkok, water color on paper, 5x7 inch

In Hamburg, he’s a family man, 15 years married to a woman he still loves. He adores his two children. His family comes first, his work as the VP/Sales at the steel company second. They’ve sent him to Bangkok, finalizing a new deal. His first 3 nights, socializing across a blur of restaurants, bars, clubs, he was smiling, laughing, enjoying the crowd and scene. He said no to every girl offered, no matter how beautiful and friendly. Until last night.  Slender and silky, speaking perfect German, smiling eyes and an animal grace, he’s never been with any woman quite like her. Suddenly, he’s not so sure.

Goya Bar Soi 33

Goya Bar Soi 33, water color on paper, 18x24 inch

He grew up in the Bronx.  After law at Harvard, he did corporate takeovers, making millions, enough for a Park Avenue Coop, Ivy League wife, 2 kids at Horace Mann and summer house in the Hamptons.  When in Bangkok, he drops by Goya Bar and takes 2 girls to the Novotel on Soi 33. He’s rough and crude, acting out his power. They pretend it’s what they like. He pays them twice the going rate, pocket change for him.  For them, 3 month’s rent, their kids’ school for a year and more.  They shower and tell him he’s a handsome man, embrace him at the door, their night’s work done.

German Sex Tourists

German Sex Tourists, water color on paper, 18x24 inch

Three German sex tourists, in Thailand on a two week package that will take them to Nana, Pattaya, Chiang Mai and Phuket.  One or two girls a night for fourteen nights, plenty of beer and Fuck You to anyone who cares.  It’s a long cold winter in Berlin and party time in the hot Bangkok night.

Ping Pong Balls

Ping Pong Balls, water color on paper, 5x7 inch

The guys buy a tray of ping pong balls and throw them at the stage….the girls scramble to scoop them up…..each one’s worth 20 baht from the bar, two are a bowl of noodles…

Patpong Mona Lisa

Patpong Mona Lisa, water color on paper, 5x7 inch

She came to Bangkok from Buri Ram when she was eighteen, working in a Patpong Bar, going to school, sending money back home to Mom and Dad. Now twenty and going on fifty, she wonders where she will end up. Back in the house on stilts in Buri Ram, destroyed and dead in a Bangkok slum before she's thirty, or living in suburban Los Angeles and driving her kids around in a Mercedes.

Wild and Crazy Guy

Wild and Crazy Guy, water color on paper, 5x7 inch

In Manchester, he works as an accountant for an insurance company, every day in his cubicle, inputting the numbers and pouring over the print-outs.  After a few nights in Bangkok, hanging out at Nana, he’s a wild and crazy guy, ready to hunt large animals with a club and drag women back to his cave.

German Guy Nana Plaza

German Guy Nana Plaza, water color on paper, 5x7 inch

The young German’s handsome and thin.  The girls all want to touch his bleached blond hair, look into his crystalline blue eyes.  He listens to their stories about where they’re from and why.  He’s polite and even though he’ll give the girl he likes some money, he acts like he’s on a date. It’s the first world and third world intersecting with a mutual exchange of feelings, knowledge and excitement.  In Berlin, it would be at a coffee house, in Bangkok, it’s in a bar.

Drink Too Much

Drink Too Much, water color on paper, 5x7 inch

He’s young and handsome but drank too many beers.  The girls are pretty kind, trying to take care of him, and one of them will help him get back to his hotel.  Although it would be easy, the chances are she will leave the money in his wallet intact.  Sometimes they don’t understand why the foreign guys are so lacking in experience, so naïve and unprotected, what kind of world they live in before they come to Bangkok and how they manage to survive.