Tongue Twisted in The Stuff That's Not Interesting But Is The Most Interesting Stuff I'll Write

Last night was random in ways I wasn’t sure I was prepared for…

I had decided I was going to have a nutty night out because I spent nearly all of November in a holding pattern. I’d finished week 2 at work, was relatively successful and felt good about myself.

I had to head out early to pick up a few things and figured I’d just start from there since I didn’t want to have to go all the way downtown and back again just 2 hours later. So I went and said hello to everyone at my usual bar, but on my way there, I saw a loud, raucous group dressed in various Santa outfits at one of the corner bars. I passed by this gorgeous guy and didn’t think anything of it…

Until someone caught my eye. I recognized him as another one of Ark’s models and remember from a cursory Instagram review, he had a husband and spent most of his time living on one of the islands in the Gulf of Thailand. If I recall, I had come across him in person once before, without actually meeting, while I was in Phuket with my little brother.

I thought better of going over to say hi because that corner bar has, on a good night, four seats and they had jammed 20 people into that tiny little space. But later, as I was sitting out on the patio of my regular spot, I noticed them heading just a few doors down to the same shady bar I had been in a handful of times.

The last time I was there was in September, the night I hooked up with the guy who looks exactly how I used to look in that booth when everyone was watching (anyone remember that entry in the Sex Book?). He dragged me in there because they sold three lines of coke for 15 dollars, and I remember him giving me one and thinking it was garbage (if there’s one thing Californians know, it’s if the drugs are good)

I decided to slither down there and check out the Santa crowd. As is a must with these types of parties, there were a gaggle of woo-ing bleach blonde white girls singing Adele karaoke as soon as I walked in the door.

As I was sitting there trying to get my bearings, this Chav looking fella comes over and sits by me, saying something in a British accent I’ve never heard of. Apparently he was ordering those three lines and a beer, the only thing I heard was the beer. The bartender had apparently thought it was me, and shoved cocaine in front of me at the bar. I shrugged, figured what the hell, I can handle snorting some baking soda up my nose for the night, and knocked them back.

About 15 minutes later, I realized they had definitely upgraded their stuff since September…

It was about this time that the gentleman from Phuket’s husband sat next to me. We chatted pleasantly, I could tell they were both far drunker than they really wanted. He dropped something and as I bent down to pick it up, I realized the guy behind him was wearing shoes by the same guy that designed my shoes. I pointed it out to him and he quickly shouted to someone just over my shoulder.

I turned to find that gorgeous guy I had passed earlier sitting on the other side of me. Of course his name was Carlos. Like mother, like son. We took a photo of all of our shoes and sent it to the designer (who, coincidentally, I would run into at a much later point in the story).

I sang a karaoke song (I haven’t sung in 7 months, which is the longest I’ve gone without singing in 30 years) and then headed out the door. On my way out, the Chav fella was stroking himself through his pants and staring at me. Whatever.

My friend Zach had talked about this underground club that played excellent trance music flung way out on the edges of the tourist area, about as far from the gay district as my place is in the opposite direction. After an extremely long motortaxi ride, I found myself standing at the gates of the awful beer garden that I used to go to with my co-workers from my first teaching job back in 2021. I hated that place, but the best bathhouse in city is just down an alley across the street.

The flyer for the club event that night said there were three levels of music and free tattoos on the first floor bar. When I said I was planning for a random night, this was what I had in mind. I had it in my head that I was going to get some stupid tattoo just for the fun of it, I’d never done that before. All of my tattoos are the result of careful reflection… why shouldn’t I get a fucking goldfish just for the hell of it.

As I walked to this desolate empty front patio, I saw a girl with pink hair walk up and approach the guy sitting next to the door. I wasn’t surprised that this place was so bare-bones. Underground clubs in Bangkok are often quite literally under the ground, so it’s not abnormal for there to be a lack of lights or signage.

As I got closer, I heard the two of them talking. It definitely wasn’t English, and it wasn’t French, but I still recognized the gist of what they were saying. She was surprised there were so many people considering how early it was. As I kept listening, I was going through the Rolodex of my brain to try to figure out what I was hearing.

Now, Zach is my friend from Taiwan. He is absolute chaos in the smallest package you will ever find, seriously, he’s the size of a child. I know he spent quite a bit of time in China but he’s completely apolitical, as I’ve found most Taiwan-born individuals to be. As I was going through this in my head, I realized what language I was listening to…

I went inside and hearing the rest of the patrons confirmed it.

He had invited me to a Russian bar.

Bane didn’t think it was that big of a deal when I messaged him and told him where I was (as I described it, he immediately named the bar within 2 seconds, I guess he hangs out there, too). I patiently explained to him that he and I have completely different cultural make-ups even though we’re both from Western cultures. “You are a Thai-born, Hong Kong-educated Aussie… I am the poster-child of California American.”

The line for tattoos was exceptionally long, although the artist was pretty good. It was totally the old-school definition of underground, but it made me miss the old school days when things like this were fun by the mafia.

I know that sounds stupid considering how much I hate things like the mafia, but speak-easies, which have become incredibly popular in the last 15 years, existed because they were bars and spaces for illegal activities (at the time, that activity was drinking alcohol but often times went hand-in-hand with being a haven for queer folk, being able to socialize with other races or classes and other socially unacceptable things). People often forget that the Stonewall Inn, birthplace of the Gay Rights Movement in America, was a mafia-run bar because gay bars only were criminalized.

The mafia was violent and totally without remorse, but they knew customer service and how to make a place look classy. I’ve actually been to mafia-run establishments in several cities: a bar run by the Russian mafia in New York was beautiful (but very red), this cool club in Chicago was run by the mob there, and one of my very favorite places in LA is run by the Yakuza.

Maybe they have a training program because these Russian upstarts that created this underground club need some training about how to make an establishment look nice. Or maybe that’s just my age showing. Gen Z wants gritty, dirty and visceral… We wanted that, too, until we realized that nice and authentic don’t go hand-in-hand.

I stayed for one drink, had a nice conversation in Russian with this incredibly sexy guy (it was surprising because I haven’t had to speak Russian since that time in New York City and that was 18 years ago, which was 12 years after I first learned it).

I decided if I really wanted to cap off the night, I’d head to the big club. It was packed. It didn’t register with me that it was December already. This time of year, Thailand in general is overloaded with tourists escaping the cold, so every homosexual in China heads to Bangkok.

At one point, I found myself fucking this cute Chinese guy, only for someone to start pounding on the door. He puts his pants back on and opens to door, says he’s sorry he ditched his security guards and left me behind. I called out to him in Mandarin, he turned, smiled and kept going.

Come to find out he’s someone famous. Typical. Then someone yelled at me in German, so I said something mouthy to him (out of all the languages I spoke last night, German is the one I know least).

It suddenly dawned on me that I had a very good education. I learned the basics of 4 different languages in public elementary school in the 1990s… my little brothers barely speak English. I should ask Chuckie about the famous guy since he’s all-in on Chinese culture (he went to China in August), but I definitely won’t tell him I fucked him.