What's the crack?

Me fucken ribs. That's what. Well, ok, not cracked but bruised and sore. Sparring a guy on Wednesday morning, when he lands a textbook shot on my ribs. Thought I was just winded but noticed the pain wasn't going away. I was only able to shallow breathe for the rest of the day. They've been getting steadily better ever since. Not really the sort of fight prep I was hoping for, two weeks out, but there we are.
Glad to hear that the are only bruised, so not the end of the world but it sure fucking felt like it on Wednesday. Had an EMT who trains at the gym examine them and he says that I can treat them with anti-inflammatorys and muscle relaxants, which I've been doing. Got them easily as they are over the counter here, much like everything else. Which leads me to an amusing story....
Years ago, when I used to work in a porno shop, I would occasionally get a customer in, asking me if there was any 'under-the-counter' stuff available. I would look around, and explain that he had in his hand a video of a transsexual dwarf, fellating an hermaphrodite while a bearded and pregnant teen, urinated blood on the lot of them. How much more under the counter does he need.
A tenuous link, I'll grant you, but it came back to me today and I wanted to share. Peace and Fucking. Believe.

End of week 4

Okay, I know I'm nearly a week late with this one. Trained very hard for week four. Diet went very well, though I was nearly out of my mind by Saturday. Went into town with the guys, to an all you can eat barbecue. Got stuck in to the beef and chicken, even had a bit of pork to wash it down. Damn, it felt good to be stuffed with so much meat, as any porn star will tell you. Went on to a cool bar afterward but I split before I gave in to to temptation and started drinking.
Had the tuc tuc try to rip me off on the way home as well, the little scumbag. I gave him the card with the gym address on it and after a while he goes'"yes, yes, I know this place" We then go for a scenic tour of Chiang Mai's Muay Thai arenas. I kept giving him the card and he kept repeating his earlier lie. So anyway, we finally get back to Sunpaliang where he goes, "150 baht. We had to go to all those other places. Very far." I pointed out that we didn't have to go anywhere but where I fucking told him. I gave him the 70 we had agreed on and started to walk off home. He jumped out of his death trap and started shouting in Thai then walked over to me and squared up. Now for those who don't know, the world of scumbags is dog eat dog, and this little terrier tried to stare down a rottweiler, who was in no mood for being ripped off. He went back to his tuc tuc and started shouting again, while I made good my escape. That brings the total to; Dave 1 Tuc Tucs "rip off united" 28
In other news we had a mad french guy join the gym. Not mad, in the quirky, takes a while to get to know him mad. Mad in the, don't give him scissors way. I can see him coming to blows with someone very soon, though he doesn't bother me. Mainly cause he hasn't tried to talk to me but so far this arrangement suits me perfectly.

Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight!

Well, as some of you may have heard by now, I have decided to take a fight. It's on the 8th of March, and Damage will be in town to capture it on video for y'all. It's about four months ahead of schedule. Hopefully I don't make a total dick of myself.
Since I took the fight I'm having a bit of trouble getting to sleep. You know when your drifting off to sleep and you think your falling, and you bring your hands up to defend yourself and the resulting jerk wakes you up? Well, that's what I've been doing every night as I drift off, only I'm in the ring, and I'm countering moves with full battle cry. I'm very popular in my house, natch. If I don't get a handle on it soon I'll be up to the chemist, where seemingly everything's legal, and getting some sleepers.
Training is naturally stepped up, although it nearly wasn't. Tim (gym manager, also my buddy) put my name on the board for a fight, but he put up my Thai nick name. Pom pui. It means fat belly. The Thais have trouble with the 'V' sound and also the 'F' sound, as in fifty. So, on day one they all tried in vain to pronounce my name, and eventually settled on Pom Pui. Anyway, when they saw my name up there, they thought it was a joke. Then the head trainer asked me yesterday, with a smile on his face," Pom Pui is fighting soon?". And when I said yes, his expression changed to the most serious one I've ever seen. Picture a man who has just discovered that his family have just been kidnapped, like in an eighties revenge movie, or Jack Bauer. And just found out he has cancer. And his cancer has Aids. Bad aids. Like you'd get off a bummer. Yeah, now you've got it. This crazy man drilled the fuck out of me. Hard, intense stuff. Really pushing it. I mean, I know I have to do a lot of hard training, but I didn't think I'd have to do it all on the first night.
So, I'm dieting hard now, trying to get down to about 86kgs for the fight. I'm down to 94.3 today, and still 3 weeks out so I'm fairly confident I'll make it. I actually started dieting the day before I took the fight, but was still planning on having the odd burger or pizza at the weekend. Not every weekend, but it's still nice to know that you can, if you want. Anyway, that's all out the window now, and I'll be training 3 hours a session, two sessions a day, every day until the fight. But, I have a sneaking suspicion that I'll be raping a burger and chips the day after my fight. Viking style. Or maybe like that movie with Jodie Foster and the pinball machine. The important thing is that I will be doing unspeakably vile sex acts to junk food. Also, taking the fight on the 8th means I can hang out with my buddy for the weekend. Fighters are allowed two days off after a fight and one or two before. So I fight on Thursday, take Friday and Saturday off and then it's Sunday. Gods day of rest. That's what I call myself now. God. Fitting don't you think?

Night Bazaar

Or should I say night bizarre. Only if I want to beat Richard Whitely for worst puns in a year. Still he's dead now, so I can take my time. Anyway, Chiang Mai's famous night bazaar is made up of stalls along every available inch of footpath over several city blocks. Stall after stall of exotic and fabulous trinkets and plenty of mundane crap too. But even the crap's not so bad, at the very least it makes the exotic stuff all the more special.
As I stood there for the first time, I felt like Marco Polo must have, as he discovered the silk road in China. Rows of exotic silks, in every conceivable colour. Strange and wonderful incenses filling my head with images of the mysterious orient. Wicked and evil weapons in racks that would make Tomás de Torquemada cringe. A bouquet of cheap, knock off watches at give away prices. Yep, exactly the same as Marco Polo. Well known for his discount Tag Heuer's he was, when he got back from China.
So, while I am filling my head with all sort of delusions of grandeur, a fairly well used hooker interrupts to talk to me about whatever the fuck hookers use as small talk. I said, "do you mind? I'm trying to have a poetic moment here!" She says, "Poet? Yes. Like Oscar Wilde. He fuck arses. You fuck my arse. 200 Baht" Well, god loves a tryer. Nah, I'm just kidding about the hooker.....she only wanted 100 baht.

End of week 3

Well, That's week three over. I can't believe I'm only out of Ireland 3 and half weeks. It feels like a lifetime already. I'm actually posting a day early today as tomorrow, the lads from the house and I are planning a trip into town and as many burgers as can be shovelled into a human being.
A bit up and down this week in terms of training. Had a hard day Wednesday, with the head guy, after putting me through my paces and nearly breaking me, did some inhuman things to my carcass. But in the nice way. Not that nice you mucky bastards. In the healing way. He walked up and down my back, making a sound not unlike squeezing a handful of rice crispies, bending me around like a retard playing with a stretch armstrong. Left me feeling like a man of 28 again. Still have that cut on the ball of my foot so no right kicks until today. Naturally my left kicks have been improving all week. Really looking forward to having a left kick like Mirko crocop. Look for his highlight reel on youtube if you're unfamiliar. Still pissed off with myself for missing the run Tuesday morning but I can make that up over the next year. Had to take this morning off. A combination of waking up with what I thought was a head cold, about four hours sleep and a sore pussy. Turned out to be blocked sinuses and an ear infection. Lucky me. I know that sounds sarcastic but it's not. An injury signifigant enough to miss a class but not enough that I'm actually out of action. Ideal.
Got a bike from one of the girls who was leaving so now I've transport. We also got a fridge, a television and a vcd player. Set for life. Totally self reliant now. Then the electricity went out. We never payed the bill. Nor did we ever receive the bill in the first place. Got the gym's Arthur Daley type to sort it out for us. Actually, his name is Noom. He's a gas dude. Anything you ask him for, from a puncture repair kit to an F-14, he says, "Hmmm, I can probably get second hand. I talk with you later". The next meeting he explains that it's on it's way to the gym. Tops. All legal too. A bit more than he pays for it but a lot less than I'd be charged. We call it the Noom tax.
Found a fruit tree on my run the other day. Well, it's always been there but it's bearing fruit now. Tried one and nearly had my face melted off like the end of Raiders of the Lost Arc. So Thursdays lesson was what unripe fruit looks like.
Had a couple of savage wrestling sessions over the last couple of days. I grapple with a guy called Tim. One of the best Thai clinch guys I've ever met and resembling a strategically shaved gorilla. Between us we are nearly 200 kilos and when he throws me I am at the mercy of the laws of physics. (Pretty much everyone else can only move me a step or two) When we grapple the little kids run around the ring screaming. It's a lot like being Godzilla, I imagine, as I look at tiny terrified Asians, although I generally keep my racist stereotyping to myself.
I was delighted to see so many young South East Asians getting into the energy conservation buzz this week. Now they are not far enough along to be building recycling centres and things like that but at least they are making the effort. The most common form of this is for a young Asian to not bother sticking the lights on his moped on after it gets dark. They're doing their part....are you?
My final bit of news is I fed an elephant this week. No, that's not code for a fat chick, (thankfully they are outlawed in Thailand) an actual elephant. It costs about 50 cents for a bag of little veggie sticks that the elephant likes. So, I gave him the first one, which he didn't really get a good grip on and knocked out of my hand. Poor eejit I thought, not even able to feed itself, but when I held it up again he wrapped his trunk round my hand like a giant sandpapery anaconda and squeezed, then slide his trunk off like he was stripping bark. This freed the snack for him, which he promptly ate. This also hurt like a motherfucker. Naturally, I was a little reluctant to go through that again, but when all two tonnes of him stepped forward I held out another treat without a second thought. Like a certain frog eating country during the second world war, I instanly capitulated and gave everything I had to the massive jackbooted bully, hoping it would buy me enough time to scream the lords prayer a few times and repent my sins.
Th, th, th, th.... that's all folks.

D.G. phone home

Raaay! The internet cafe beside my house finally upgraded it's crappy line and let us in. For weeks we have been going up to the door and looking at 5 or 6 guys, bashing away on keyboards to be told, "sorry, closed". We thought they were just being racist, as there is a fair bit of that over here. People skipping you in the queue, cars ignoring you, (had to jump into a ditch on monday to avoid a smack of a car), shopkeepers triple their price etc. I had a long rant about all this to my new flatmate, a black guy from the states. I hope the irony wasn't lost on him.

Those who can, do...

Those who cant, teach. So, I've decided to teach. Nothing serious, certainly nothing that will interfere with training but enough to keep a few bucks coming in, so I can eat lots of chicken breast. The thing about teaching in Thailand is 99% of teachers are long-term sex tourists who never got any attention in their life and who've realised the only chance of getting laid is if they can stick around getting the rock star treatment, albeit as teachers. Getting to spend your days ordering about young Thai beauties in mini-skirted school uniforms, (even in college, these are still the uniforms) does have a certain amount of appeal, I'll admit but there's no point in letting them think that the tabloids probably add the prefix 'Vile sex beast' when they mention me, now, is there? . So, you can understand my reluctance to stick my flag in this camp. It's not the reason I came here.... but what a happy coincidence.

Leader of the pack

One of the hardest things to get used to in Thailand is the dogs. Packs of the little bastards everywhere. They hang around outside their respective houses during the day but at night form packs that like nothing better than to chase anything, man or beast that comes within range. And a dogs range is pretty impressive. There quite chilled out during the day, a mixture of heat and exhaustion from working on keeping me awake.
Anyway, the Thai who I asked about this the first day it happened said, "I'll take you into town and we'll get you an airgun". We all had a good laugh at that. Today I find myself thumbing through the airgun section of a Guns & Ammo summer special, wondering if I can afford the Rambo, first blood kit.

It'll be all fight on the night.

Went to watch our guys and girls in the fights last night. Great buzz all night, from the fifteen people in the pick up truck, to the hookers arguing with me over which toilet I was using. Yep, huge agro. Apparently, I was using the stadium toilets but I should have been using the bar toilets coz I was drinking their 7 up. It's 5 baht to use the toilets you see and they thought I was ripping them off by using someone elses toilet. For fuck sake, I can go to the toilet on you for 10 baht you contrary bitch! The ride there and bag was great fun too, with twelve people in the flat bed part of a knackered Mazda pick up. Leaning this way and that like catamaran riders in a round the world yacth race. Drove straight past the cops who didn't even bat an eyelid. Drove past a load of ladyboys too, who batted a lot more than their eyelids.
The promoters had a bit of a cock up unfortunately, and our fighters were spread out in two stadia so we all went to one and then all went to the other. I was filming at both and hopefully will have them on youtube as soon as I've edited out the almost continuous swearing. Our first fighter, Kat, a girl from Slovakia, went for three hard rounds against a tough little Thai girl. Great fight altogether, very relaxed. At taiphae stadium we watched Jovan, a Canadian fighter take on a viscous looking Thai. Another cracker of a fight. And a cracker of a rib kick too. Literally. The Thai was carried from the ring after a scorcher of a kick, after only two minutes or so of the first round, which we understand cracked two off his ribs. Last but not least was Andy from Australia, who had a four round war with a wiry little Thai. Heavy blows all round, a real spectacle. Great to watch, it really was Thai boxing at its best. The Thai went four good rounds but was unable to continue in to the fifth and Andy won by tko.
Now more than ever, I can't wait to get in the ring. I'm thinking about 4 to 5 months but the rest of the fighters are thinking I'll be ready in 3, so we'll see. Watching some off the warm up fights, I realised my biggest fear is not getting knocked out, it's being in one of those fights where both guys are afraid to make the first move so the sort of stand there bopping their legs a little and looking terrified, desperately hoping the other person will make a move and leave themselves open and vunerable. A lot like my younger days, at the wesley and grove discos. How I longed for the person I was facing to make the first move towards me. So I could knock her out with an uppercut. BAM! 'Nothing personal love', I'd say, 'but this'll make a great blog in fifteen years'.
Unfortunately, I cut the ball of my foot on something sharp yesterday, and unbeknownst to me tore it open spinning on my foot to kick the bags in the evening. All of which meant I couldn't run today, and had to leave my runners on to train so no ring time. Felt like a bit of a cunt, to be honest, but I suppose it's an injury and I'm not just crying off. In the net cafe by the chemist now so going in for some plasters et al. and hopefully I'll be back in the ring by this afternoon.

Second Week of Training

Well, week two under my rapidly shrinking belt. Training is going better than I thought. Running is going very well. Did 55k this week. The left side of my body, especially my legs, is quite sore though. I think it's because of all the slopes on the road (no pun intended). Anyway, going to try running the opposite direction next week and see if that takes any pressure off. Went to the chemist and spent a months rent on anti- inflammatorys, muscle relaxants, and various other things to relive pain. Better living through chemistry :) A months rent sounds like a lot but it's actually only 45 bucks.
Had the head guy take me under his wing at the start of the week. Training with him is hard, for a lot of reasons. He expects a lot from his fighters, he knows a lot of wierd and difficult exercises but mainly it is because he is a proper fucking sadist. And his English is not good enough to understand things like tendonitis and enflamed ligaments. He tests the limits of human endurance hard enough to make Joseph Mengele blush. Yes, my suffering this week was easily the equal of the holocaust. I did so many footwork drills on Wednesday, that Thursday and Friday, I needed help to go up and down stairs. Did some grappling with him too and was amazed that at 57 he still had the measure of me, a fat, sweating, smoker with rickets and possible arthritis. Seriously though, he has mad skillz. He rarely grapples these days but he schools everyone when he does.
I was feeling ok after Saturday morning class but decided to take the evening off anyway. No point in being the fittest guy in the doctor's office. Also, Herr Oberst promised me a hard session for later.
Was invited to join the trainers for their daily barbecue after training and thought 'lucky me'. So i sat down and as I went to swat a couple of flies of the plate of pork, about ten of the fat little buggers got up and buzzed off. I was about to duck out when my pad man said 'eat, eat', so I dug a piece out from as far under the pile as I could. I mean, what was I meant to say,"actually I'm rich enough to afford restaurants and air conditioning?" So I ate it, and another piece, then made my excuses and left. On the way home, I thought 'ewww, but then again, how bad can it be?' The very next thing I saw, and I swear this is the truth, was a pile of shit with about ten flies on it. Hopefully not the same ten. So tomorrow, I'll be explaining the whole wealth versus poverty argument to them as tactfully as possible.
So that's it for another week. Later squares.

Pest Control

Like those guys in American mental asylums I spend most of the the time walking around thinking there are bugs all over me. Except in my case there really are. And also uniquely in my case the CIA really are trying to steal my thoughts.
Anyway, spent a few bucks on a deadly mosquito net, which I have since given up on. Not there's anything wrong with it, it's just sleeping in such a confined space is impossible. So to combat the mossie problem we have got a few geckos in the house. There are hundreds of them living wild here so there easy enough to catch. The more geckos you have the less mosquitoes. Unfortunately, they breed rapidly, so in a few weeks we are going to get a couple of cats in, to eat the geckos. The cats have a similar breeding problem so in a few weeks we'll be getting a dog or two to finish the cats off. "How the fuck do you get rid of the dogs?," I hear you ask. Well, my foul mouthed friend, the answer is simple: we get a hungry Vietnamese and a bottle of barbecue sauce. The circle of life turns once more.

Eating out in Thailand

Just don't do it. No matter how sweet she looks, she was probably a hooker. But seriously forks (last bad joke - promise), eating out is not only cheap and delicious but practically compulsory. At around 45 cents for most meals, you'd be mad not to. Also, considering the distinct lack of any sort of cooking equipment in almost every house, you'd not only be mad, but able to do magic, and no one wants that. No one.
Anyway, funny story about eating. (Please bear in mind that I go for lunch after three hours of the most intense training I've ever done, and intense hunger is always a factor.) So, I was at lunch with a friend of mine. We go to a particular restaurant every day and are always served by the one english speaking waitress. Today was her day off so we had to try and negotiate with some of the other staff. Actually most of them had a go. Now every day we order the chicken, so that wasn't a problem, but my house mate was trying to order a red curry as well. Not one of them knew what he was on about. So he makes a shape with his hand, like if they were around a bowl, and starts going through the process again. It was as hard for them to understand as it was painful for me to watch. Unfortunately, no matter how many times, nor how loud or slowly he continuously repeated the words R-E-D C-U-R-R-Y, could anyone make head nor tail of his request. Anyway, after what seemed like the rest of the day one of the staff said they understood and went off to prepare our lunch. But it doesn't end that easily. My pal calls after him and says in quite a heavy Dublin brogue," eh, would it be possible to get that without the crispy noodles?" I put my head in my hands and thought; Jesus fucking wept.