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decreaseI was living in Isaan when it occurred to me that my life had gone down the toilet.
My pathetic existence had negotiated the basin and proceeded down the ‘s’ bend and ended up in the gutter. At least I still had a European style toilet. For ones life to go down a squat toilet would be unbearable. Least I went down in style, sitting with some shit paper. But I was in the gutter nonetheless. I would like to say I was looking at the stars, but I wasn’t. There were no stars. I was just in the gutter. Looking at the gutter. That was it.
On my desk sat a lawsuit complaint from the Herge orgnisation who handle the intellectual rights on all Tintin imagery. I had been selling T-shirts with the picture of the Belgian boy reporter on the front and the owner of the rights weren’t happy with it. Apparently the shirts were not the real thing. I was being sued by fucking Tintin. To compound my gutter type persona on my computer screen was an erotica novella that I had been writing for the past ten days. As I say, I had hit rock bottom. Sued by a cartoon character and writing porn for money.
Knowing that I could gravitate no further down I decided to move to Bangkok and train to be an English teacher. I was lousy at it. The non-native Asians on the course knew grammar back to front. The thirteen types of tense were for them a piece of piss. For me it was and still is much a mystery. They knew how to elicit words and decorate a whiteboard with pretty colours. They understood form, context, drilling and all the other buzz words that make an English teacher feel important. All I knew was how to speak and write English. Perhaps this was not enough to teach how to read and write English. Apparently speaking Thai is of no advantage for an English teacher. It’s better to wave your arms and play games than teach bilingually.
I kept writing. I wrote a strange story about a man that meets a girl. They drink together and he takes her back to his room. She takes off her clothes to reveal a scar and her belly grew until a baby popped out. The guy had fucked her before and she was waiting to meet him before presented the baby. The guy took care of the baby. I sent it out and a magazine bought the story. I wrote another about a vampire that works as a literary review journalist and feeds on prostitutes at night. Again another magazine bought the story. I kept selling the porn. Maybe this writing gig could work. But of course it can’t. Common sense tells us it can’t. But if you keep that tiny glimmer of hope and keep submitting maybe one day it might happen.
In the meantime I start teaching tomorrow.
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June 24, 2009, 01:32
Reminds me of the saying: Another Hope Dashed On The Rocks Of Disappointment.
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And now for something different:
If you want to feel lucky about where you live (wherever you live) read Guy Delisle's wonderful hardcover graphic book entitled Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea.