MsGuy

Several of the regulars here are nostalgic about the good old days of New York, so I thought y'all might enjoy checking out the work of Patrick Angus, a painter who documented NYC's gay demi-monde back in the day. The sedate piano bars, brassy dance clubs and the oh so private dinner parties in Park Avenue co-ops of the up-scale Gay scene held no interest for Angus. His was the world of the bath house, the strip club and the hustler bar. I'm betting that at least a few of our frequent posters will recognize some of the locations depicted in his paintings. Maybe it would also be worthwhile to say that some of his work can be viewed at the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay Art, located a couple of blocks off Broadway. There are a couple of others that just have to be scenes from Stella's (or some other locale very much like it) but I haven't been able to find them to add to this post. I'll tack them on later, if I run across them. ==== Motherfuckinggoddamned soft ware for the board does this to me every time I try to post multiple pics in the same post. It tells me I'm "not allowed to use that extension (or some such) here but doesn't tell me which image it's talking about so the only thing I can do is delete one image at a time until it lets me post. God damn that's frustrating!!! Where is lookin when I need him? OZ, is this something your slaves in India can fix? I don't mind so much that I can't post some image but the damned shit software could at least have the courtesy to tell me which one is causing the problem...@%%!!*+**$@! Hell, here is a link to some of Angus's painting. I guess y'all will just have to sort through them for yourselves.

LOL, I was thinking more of something like a brown paper bag than one of those plastic things... But not to worry, RA1, I can always cut out a hole for my oxy tube before I slip it on.

You know England once had a similar situation. Back in the day, those on the outs with the ruling faction in London often rallied to the court of the Prince of Wales in hope of future preferment. I've read that the King is trying to insure the succession of his son, not least by giving his son personal control of an infantry battalion independent of the regular Army chain of command and that the Prince has concentrated recruitment mainly from the North and East, the Yellow Shirt heartland. Also read that the old royalist establishment is trying to weasel the succession of the Prince's more controllable sister. I have no doubt there's more going on behind the scenes than we hear about on the evening news. (Sorry, can't find the articles about the succession for a link; should have done this post while I had them in front of me. My bad. ) (P.S. If the source article turns out to be on of Paragon's linked articles, I will put a bag over my head and not come out for a week. That would be just too damned embarrassing. )

Comcast (and yes, it's every bit as bad as you've heard.)

You're all looking in the wrong places. I see them all the time on the History Channel. (Big foots, too... )

hahahahahaha...OK, other than a runway or Halloween?

Almost as dangerous as Danger Mouse! ===== Would one of the fashionista cognescenti here please tell me if anyone actually buys this stuff? And if they do...why?? I mean seriously guys, where would you wear this shit (other than a runway)?

LOL, but would you ride one maintained by Cuban National Airlines? That's the question. (Remember there was an embargo on spare parts for 50 years.)

I call it 'crony capitalism', they call it 'a poisonous patron client network'. Different name. same thing. ==== Paragon, the authors of your article are imposing a Marxist (or 'structuralist', diff name, same thing) analysis on a society that probably will not support it w/o considerable distortion of Thai realities. Or so it seems to me but then I've not had the pleasure of spending several months offing rentboys personally experiencing the wonders of Thailand, so what do I know? All I've been trying to do here is get you to see that (1) the folks behind this coup are extremely nasty fellows even though they may seem quite pleasant and congenial to a Western tourist at a dinner party; (2) This isn't really about Thaksin, it's about whether or not the poor and the rural North and East will share in the benefits from the development of Thailand. Thaksin and his bunch are just opportunistic pols who have latched onto a general dissatisfaction with the antics of the Bangkok elite. The Yellow Shirts could have undercut the Red Shirts after the last coup, if they had so wished...all they had to do was build some clinics, schools and roads. But they didn't. They can't. It's not in their nature. Sooner wait for the leopard to change his spots and go Vegan. What set me off was when you opined that you supported the coup and favored rule by the educated better class of folks. I've lived under the rule of the best and the brightest here in Mississippi most of my life and, however nice and pleasant they may be as individuals, their collective sense of entitlement and the public policies they get up too are sickening. So curse Thaksin if you will but don't deceive yourself about the nature of the folks you say you support.

LOL, are those DC 3's still flying? (Cuban National Air parts department)

I said a while back in another thread I was afraid that Thaksin had broken the social consensus in Thailand like Humpty Dumpty. As for the Reds doing "almost nothing".... And I suspect that the overwhelming majorities the Reds poll up North are a tad more rational than you credit: "Let's see...we can have arrogant corrupt scumbags who steal tons of money but who pave some of our roads, build us some clinics, improve our kids education and subsidize us. OR We can have arrogant corrupt scumbags who steal tons of money and who wouldn't piss on us to put out the fire if we were burning alive. Hmm..such a difficult choice." Paragon, what you're over looking is that Thailand, like many Asian and South American countries, operates under a kind of crony capitalism where access to political support is a major factor in who is successful and who fails. If you ask me who would do a better job of running the Thai economy, I probably pick the Yellow Shirts but only because the last collapse of the SE Asian economies in the late 90's burned the hell out of those crony capitalists they represent, making them a bit skittish of dumb-ass economic policies. Thailand is a major rice exporter (or was before those goofy rice subsidies came into play). Under the Yellows the hard currency earnings from those exports went into commercial and industrial development, mostly around Bangkok (plus a spot of corruption but what's a few baht amoung friends?). Precious little found its way back to the Northern heartland. But then what do the educated, better class of folk care about those rural piss pots? If you want an American parallel, think Huey Long.

Harrow, Oxford, pedigree runs to 1066; favorite quote: 'They have not bread? Why then let them eat cake." LOL, born to rule! ===== My dear Paragon, it is precisely my experience in a poor, corrupt and ignorant backwater here in America that leads me to view the Yellow Shirt propaganda in Thailand with a bit of skepticism. The "better class of people" who rule my state use a set of arguments indistinguishable from from those being brandished against the Red Shirts. One more time: I have no use for the Thaksin family, scumbags one and all, for sure. But that is not at all the same thing at all as buying into the crap the Yellow Shirts spout. As to prefacing your support for the Yellow Shirts with the pious wish that they act a bit less nasty toward the benighted rural folk...hahahahahahahahaha ...

LOL, he made a ton of money on its sale to foreign interests, of course! Not to mention acquiring his personal interests in telecom companies under murky circumstances in the first place (under prior governments; the Thaksins have been politicians for several generations now.) But objectively speaking and comparing scores by NGOs on Thailand's transparency and corruption indices, Thaksin's own government was pretty much business as usual for Thailand. The Thaksins are paid up members of the western educated Thai governing elite. The only real gripe the Yellow Shirts have against them is that they and their faction hit on a novel way to jump from 2nd or 3rd tier pols to the top by breaking ranks and appealing to the rural rice farming majority through rural development programs (& lately that insane rice subsidy). Get real, Paragon. The Yellow Shirt pols are no more honest and no less consummate scumbags than the Thaksins. They just don't see any need to squander public funds on those subhuman, ignorant village dogs when they could be pocketing it for themselves and their business friends.

As opposed to the honest and upright leaders of the Yellow Shirts? Really? You don't think that's just a teensy bit over the top? Well, true those clinics, schools and roads for the rural North seem to have been affordable but the exorbitant rice subsidy for the farmers ain't anybody's bargain basement bribe. It's wrecked the budget; basically an insane price that's impossible to sustain.

If the Joint Chiefs ever stage a coup in Washington, they would be well advised to time it to avoid blocking Monday night football.

More accurately, new elections were held (which the Reds won handily) but the Yellows were able to block by force polling places from opening in a sufficient number of southern districts (their stronghold) to prevent a constitutional quorum from being formed to convene a new parliament. Clearly the only reasonable thing to do was to sideline the police (too Red), bounce the remnant Red government at gun point, arrest much of the leadership of the Reds and (just you wait) install a new interim government of Yellows tasked with re-writing the election rules to prevent the Reds from ever, ever, ever winning an election again. This isn't the first time around the coup merry-go-round for the Reds. Some areas in the north (Red heartland) are said to have formed up local militias to oppose a new coup. What will come of that remains to be seen. Who is running Bangkok ain't necessarily who is running the rice growing regions up north. ==== Not saying the Red Shirts are the good guys here, just that the Army is a Yellow dominated institution. PS By my count the Yellow Shirt crowd hasn't won a legit election since 1992. Just thought that might be worth a thought.

So your friend worked for the CIA?

Follow-up photo in motel room later: "Jesus, 5 more minutes in that girdle and my spleen would have ruptured."

Clever lad!

Mormons missionaries are a lot cuter than those pugly Jehovah's Witness drabs.

Close the blinds tight before you peep out the window, Oz, but that noise outside is tanks in the street. http://www.foxnews.com/world/2014/05/19/thailand-army-declares-martial-law-denies-coup-underway/

Having had a sufficiency of hibernation, Oz prepares to set the world right... or off a massage boy, whichever.

Don't worry about Oz. I'm sure the boys keep his blanket tucked in on cool nights.