“The Toilet and the Coup”

If you remember that big thick book about spies and the intelligent community by Norman Mailer, you would remember there is a streak of homosexuality in that world. Frankly, there has also been a streak of such a thing in me for a long time. Since not all homos have a mental problem and not all people with mental problems are homo, having a homo streak is really nothing major these days.

But for me, it was during these bloated times, as my writing was making a real impact, my schizophrenia was truly getting out of hand. The old saying "when a person looks out, they forget to look in” applied to me. I was a good journalist, but becoming a horrible person. The more I scouted for bits of information to trash the coup and the more I followed the news to stay ahead of the wave - and also the more I wrote - the more distance I put from myself.

That is to say, I was very much living in the realm of the media and my private life suffered the lack of attention.

One of the craziest things I did was to e-mail practically all my childhood friends, and tell them I was into Lady Boys or “Chicks with Dicks” and no longer interested in girls. Thailand is still Thailand and to be gay here, while accepted widely, is still seen as a sign of a character flaw, immaturity and un-manly by many - especially the people I went to school with because it is one of Thailand’s best and oldest school.

But in fact, I was still into girls, and I was hitting the whorehouses with increasing frequency. I was also doing all sorts of weird stuff like getting two or three whores to have sex with me at a time. And that meant two to three Lady Boys also. I was also drinking and smoking heavily. Then I started to tell lies to people all around to solicit money to hit the whorehouses, drink and party with. I was getting very good at manipulating people around me.

To sum it up, I was moving beyond the boundaries of what is acceptable. My family obviously suffered as I suffered and the schizoid became more in control.

Writing wise, I was getting better however, from all that devotion to focusing my energy on it. I focused on four areas only - and they were writing about how the coup was undemocratic, how the Amart system meant a class system and division of society into higher and lower classes, then defending corruption cases against Thaksin, that the coup people brought against Thaksin, and lastly about how good Thaksin’s policies were and how much they helped Thailand - in the past crisis and through his prime minister years.

My main contribution was a string of articles arguing that since the coup people didn’t have the Thai King’s blessing in many things it did, by law - since in Thailand practically all things must get the King’s blessing - so by law many things the coup was doing were illegal. That story sparked a great many people to start thinking seriously about the legality of the coup and many of its actions. The question I posed was kind of simple really and that is, if the coup can do things without the King’s blessing - apart from the impact on Thaksin’s corruption cases - what does it mean for the institution of monarchy in Thailand.

The main theme of the story, however, came from I guy I met at a building that housed Pricewaterhouse Coopers, the global leader in accounting and law. I was there for an interview with a high-tech firm for CIO Forum, which was coming close to ending publications. Sitting at Starbucks a foreign guy struck up a conversation and he said he was an American Constitutional lawyer, studying Thailand’s constitutional law development for a paper he was writing on third world political development.

And he said that in a country like Thailand where the legal system in practice is a mix between the US and the UK system, there is a social contract between the Thai King and the people, in that in theory, what ever goes on in Thailand, by tradition and stated law, it must be approved by the Thai King. He said his name was Bill Sarosa, and he said that he saw in his research that many things the coup people did, simply stated, were not acknowledged by the King. Bill’s point wasn’t Thaksin, but of the future. He said Thailand would likely have many more coups and what of the King in that future?

So then I was off thinking about the King, coup and politics. Well it really was about time because every Thai in Thailand and loads of foreigners have been looking into this subject. But then I was one of the first who raised this angle. Years would pass before Thaksin was using these same arguments about the legality of the coup and many things it did, to fight against the corruption charges against him.

But for me, it meant another escalation of my writings into subjects that could easily land me in jail for les majeste. I truly was losing myself to my media and writing world. Most of my senses were just going into the subject. And to relax and cure the imbalances, I was truly turning into an animal with little humanity left in me.

Perhaps one of the craziest things I ever did in my life at that point, was to expand my web presence from only thai-journalist-democratic-front.com into about five or six other full fledged and cutting edge websites - all on politics. For a sense of how crazy I was, please visit freewebs.com/tavivoot-web-portal.

As I was going-off high minded, fighting for democracy and justice, personally I was literally full of shit. My lust for sex was getting very crazy - if you want a sense of it, visit tavivoot.hi5.com. My drinking and smoking was getting heavier and heavier. My lying, manipulation and greed for money had turned into as close to criminal as can be. Literally, I had traded my soul for my writing. I was a true hypocrite.

I was going off the edge of a steep cliff. I was losing more and more of my mind everyday that passed. Almighty but rotten to the core - exactly like all the people I was criticizing with no differences at all.

If there were a God or Buddha, only they know why a handful of friends-including my father and mother, sister and wife - would years later still care enough about me to help put me together again. Today I am still a schizoid ofcourse, but with their help - a changed person for the good - sort of a schizoid in a good way!