A Time Criminal

Are you like me? Do you wish you had been born gay so that you could spend your vacation days in the Kingdom on the north end of Jomtien beach being propositioned by guys who don't even pretend to lisp or put their hands on their hips? Standing in the ocean with the water up to your belly button and the sun on your shoulders and on your back and on your head. A Thai man is standing with you chest to chest and his back to the horizon so that no one can see him from the beach. His breath smells like fish paste and one of his hands is in your bathing suit. Ah bliss. You start to giggle, then get dizzy, then . . . instead, I'm stuck with women.

Women, what's with that? Whose idea of a joke was that? Which god takes the blame for this? Women. I commute every day on the subway in Boston. Never once have I seen a woman reading the newspaper. Think that is hyperbole? Let me repeat: never once have I seen a woman reading the newspaper. And now with cell phones and cell phone culture? Forget about it. We have newspapers for every enthusiasm in Boston but women don't have any enthusiasms that are not self-centric. Daily newspaper reading allows people to keep in touch with local, regional, national, Earthly, solar system, Milky Way, or cosmic events. But women are not interested in local, regional, national, Earthly, solar system, Milky Way, or cosmic events. Facts or speculations on issues or events not 100% all about them simply do not qualify as interesting data. Boys, babies, make-up, and dress-up are the four parts of a woman's brain. Oh sure, in the more complicated womens' brains you might have secondary parts like diet, celebrity sightings, and alimony payments but how about science, philosophy, sports, history, current events, first principles, cosmology, morals, physics, material sciences, engineering, and politics? Forget about it. Boys, babies, make-up, and dress-up. And in Thailand it's boys, babies, make-up, dress-up, and cheating foreign men.

The diet of the sperm whale is mostly squid. The squid live deep, one to three thousand feet deep in many cases. Sometimes even deeper. Much deeper. Imagine the pressure. Imagine the complete lack of light. The slow ponderous whales can't see. The squid are acrobatically fast and maneuverable. So how do the eighty foot sperm whales catch the hundreds of thousands to millions of squid that they need to catch to live? 3% of their body weight per day? Do the numbers. Squid are 89% of their diet and these big boys need squid in volume daily. Nobody has a clue. Not one scientist even has a theory worth considering. A complete mystery. Not one smartipants Phd. whale expert has been able to crack the code on this: how the whales catch enough squid. An interesting question isn't it? Not to females. All they care about is boys, babies, make-up, and dress-up. Brainless hormone machines put on Earth to grunt out more babies we don't need. And three holes in one place? Oh please, give me a break. Is it any wonder they walk around with perfumed underpants? Peeing, pooping, farting, bleeding all in one place? What man would have designed something like that? Have you ever seen a bridge design that messed up? Sweet Jesus on a cracker, whose idea was this? Tip a man's balls and flip a can of talcum powder at him and 'no ploblum kind sir'. Women? Forget about it. But I almost digress: at least if I was gay in Thailand I'd have someone to talk to. A man can dream.

The biomass of krill may exceed E.O.Wilson's ants. And the biomass of squid may exceed that of krill. In fact, it is possible that the biomass of squid exceeds all other individual biomasses on Earth. But that does not explain how sperm whales find, pursue, and swallow squid. With depth deflated lungs they are not suddenly going to become more athletic. In depths without light they do not have a way to generate light. They do not appear to have the needed echo locating type radar to make them top predators. In fact, they do not even have eyes on the front of their head which is a marker of land predators and whales are mammals. And their eyes are so small as to look like afterthoughts. One of the best representations of a sperm whale by artist Rockwell Kent (Rockwell Kent Gallery and Collection, Plattsburgh State Art Museum) does not even have eyes. No one corrected him. And just as interesting, though less dramatic; is Barry Moser's now iconic illustration of a sperm whale in his 1978 illustrated edition of Moby Dick. The whale has an eye of such indeterminate portraiture that you have to strain to see it and then you have to convince yourself that you are indeed looking at the eye of the monster. How did these great lumbering blind-at-depth beasts feed themselves? Is it possible that there are some areas of squid biomass so conjested that all whales had to do was swim around with their lower jaw open? Etc. Etc. A scientific puzzler and it is precisely this kind of problem solving that is supposed to be a marker of higher intelligence. We ought to be able to figure this out. This should get the curious person's (read: homosapien) attention. Try it on women. Good luck. You'll get responses like:

"You talk too mutt."

"You talk funny."

"My last boyfriend was boring too."

Women are not curious. At least with gays, faggots, and homos you can have a conversation. In fact, they may even know something about homosexual sperm whales. I mean, look at the name: sperm whale. At any rate, if you are ever in a bar in Pattaya and you look to your right or you look to your left and you see an eighty foot sperm whale sitting next to you, ask him about this stuff. I'd like to know.

You know, one theory of mine about how sperm whales manage to ingest enough squid biomass to live is that they do not predate at all. Instead, they dive down to Squid Clinics for the Depressed and the squid just swim in their jaws and commit suicide. Seem silly? Ok Einstein, what's your big idea? Do you know why previously I did not say 'find, pursue, bite, and swallow'? Because there are no bite marks on most of the squid found in sperm whale stomachs. So they are top predators that usually do not have to even bite their prey? Really? And while you are composing your patronizing email to me consider this: can you imagine having this conversation with a Thai woman? Hence my theory that most men would be a lot happier as gays, faggots, and homos. Also fruit loops, limp wrists, and 'light-in-the-loafers' but those are subcategories and not for this essay.

Ever been in a Pakistani bar during cricket finals? How about an English bar during soccer finals, or an Australian bar during . . . well, just any Aussie bar anytime. These guys are having fun. At least I think the Aussies are having fun. Can not understand one word. At any rate, as fun as these straight bars are; nothing equals the fun and happiness and hilarity of a fag bar for foreigners in Pattaya. Guys a thousand miles from home with big needy wing wangs, plenty of money, and if you run into your boss from back home that's not a problem, it's an opportunity. They don't always let me in a gay bar in Pattaya but when they do everyone is nice to me. They know two things. They know that I am straight, and they know that I am not judgemental. If you have ever held up tranny Emma's twelve inchs with a stick it broadens your horizons. Want to have some fun? Balance a tongue depressor on a bar of soap and put an M&M candy on one end. Then have tranny Emma slam her log down on the other end and try to catch the flying M&M candy in your mouth. Now that's what I call Thai culture. Anyway, it is hard to exceed the fun to be had in gay bars.

Yesterday I picked up Fa at 9:15 in the morning, Ting at 2:30 in the afternoon, and Mem (or was it Lem) off the boardwalk at 10:00 p.m. I'm straight. It's what I do. But it is mostly a yawn being an adonis macho alpha male because I am forced to consort with women. If I could speak perfect Thai would these women be able to talk about anything besides boys, babies, make-up, dress-up, and cheating foreign men? If there was a subway running from Jomtien to Chonburi would I see any of these Thai femme fatales reading a newspaper? I'll bet you if the subway was full of homos you'd see newspapers. Just thinkin'.

What has the most value? Is it love or diamonds or land or health or power? None of these things has the most value. What has the most value is time. You can never get time back. Everything about your life is linear. Time only goes forward and it can't be stopped, slowed, or reversed. Time wasted is the biggest crime.

"Yesterday I picked up Fa at 9:15 in the morning, Ting at 2:30 in the afternoon, and Mem (or was it Lem) off the boardwalk at 10:00 p.m."

God, what a heterosexual waste of time. A waste of time with women.

"Women? What's with that? Whose idea of a joke was that?"

I wish I was gay. At least then I wouldn't be a time criminal, wasting time and committing a crime against myself.

Are you like me? I'll bet you are. I'll bet you wish you were a homo too. Standing in water up to your waist with the sun on your back, and the sun on your shoulders, and the sun on your head; and a Thai man's hand in your bathing suit.

© Dana. All rights reserved by the author.