I said of laughter, It is mad: and of mirth, What doeth it?

 I said of laughter, It is mad: and of mirth, What doeth it?

Ecclesiastes 2:2 

Laughter and mirth fall away from the light
that is shed by the Master of Day and of Night.
Their spurious sounds do not carry the weight
of joy that's provided by our Advocate.
Only a tongue that's Adamic can speak
of the Light beyond laughter to which we all seek. 

On heels of overnight snowfall, serious cold is coming (Minnesota Star Tribune)

On Saturday night, more than 340 crashes and spinouts were reported across Minnesota, with a majority in the metro area, prompting authorities to implore drivers to either slow down or stay home. 

Snow is a marvelous wonder
which causes our autos to blunder
and spin like a top
upon the blacktop;
then tow trucks show up for the plunder.

En Strengen av Perler: Haircut

Note:  After the Minnesota Office of Recovery Services had my driver's license revoked for back child support (even though I was at the time paying $1600 per month) I decided I'd had enough of America for a while and went back to Thailand, where I had served my LDS mission, to teach English. The first time I attempted this was in 2003. As the following blog post from that year will testify, I did not have much luck . . . 

Went for another job interview yesterday. Over at Lad Phrao, Soi 2. The idiot cab driver dropped me off on the wrong side of the street, so I had to play dodge ball with the murderous traffic and then walk about a mile in the blazing sun to the FunSpeak school. I was early. The place was shut up tighter than a clam. It almost looked deserted. I was mucky with sweat and sun and diesel exhaust fumes; I would have sold my soul to the Democrats for a cold shower and even colder bottle of Fanta right then. An air-conditioned barbershop sits next to FunSpeak. So what the hay, I’ll get a trim. 

Things are different from my days as a missionary here. Back then the barbers were ugly old Chinese men who had big, glaberous hands that reeked of Tiger Balm. They not only cut your hair but liked to put wooden splinters in your ears to clean out the wax. Nowadays, though, the barber industry has been taken over by beautiful young Thai women, who sit languidly waiting for customers, showing a lot of leg, while reading the Thai version of Cosmopolitan. And the division of labor is quite to my liking. One gal does nothing but shampoo, rinse, shampoo, rinse, shampoo and rinse my hair. She is wearing one of those very tight white student blouses that University students are sporting this season; one good lungful of air and those buttons would start popping like champagne corks. I’d gladly risk having an eye put out to see that happen. There is something unsettling about a woman running her long nails through your hair over and over again. I wasn’t sure if I was going to tip her or ask her to marry me. In the end I do neither. I’m a shy cheapskate. 

My lady barber is dressed in black leather bib overalls; they squeak like Xena in full armor whenever she bends over me. Once I take my glasses off and gaze at my reflection in the mirror I seem to look pretty dang charming. I’m thinking, maybe this gal is bored with her life of snipping follicles, maybe I can brighten things up for her with some dinner and a movie, and then . . . who knows? I smile at her. She smiles at me. Was that a wink she just gave me? Wait, am I winking at her? No, just some hair in my eyes. She finishes with a hot blow dryer, running it around my head and then down the back of my neck; that’s gotta be a come on! Let me just put on my glasses and pay her, with a generous tip, and then ask her what she’s doing tonight, would she like to go see the new Charlie’s Angels movie? Glasses on. My world comes crashing around my ears. Who is that homely person staring back at me, and when did I get that gigantic bald spot on the back of my head? Must be the size of a flapjack. And those bags under my eyes . . . I look like I’ve just escaped from some Russian Gulag. I’m not going to ask this gal out, instead I’m going to ask her where the nearest plastic surgeon is. Ah well, at least I’ve cooled off abit. Now to stroll next door for that interview. 

A wiry little man with black curly hair pops up and pumps my hand. He’s Gustafo. I hand him my resume. He puts it underneath a pile of paper six inches thick. I never look at ‘em, he explains. He shows me a poster for FunSpeak; it shows Shakespeare down on one knee, emoting in Thai. Ah yes, explains Gustafo, we will be teaching English through the use of drama and theater techniques. How many students do you have right now, I ask. Right now, none. We haven’t started to advertise yet. But once we do we’re sure to get a bunch of students, maybe even more than we can handle. He shows me through the building; bare, stark rooms with no desks, no chairs, and unpleasant-smelling carpeting. He will be auditioning teachers in about two weeks. And the pay, I prompt. You can ask what you think you’re worth, he replies loftily. There are too many flies in the office where we talk, and the air conditioning isn’t working well; I can feel a fine, greasy sweat on my forehead. Suddenly I feel very tired and bored with Gustafo. When are you looking for teachers to start? Oh, perhaps by the end of August. Why am I not more enthusiastic about all this? I love theater and English, this could be a fun job. But the word “charlatan” seems written on the man’s forehead. Takes one to know one. My blood sugar must be low, all I had for lunch was a glass of Noni juice. Across the street I hear an odd rasping sound. I can’t wait to get out of there to go see what it is. I glance at my wrist, wishing I had a watch on. I need to get going I tell Gustafo. Of course, he says, and walks me to the door, where we both watch a group of men carrying huge bones into a courtyard. Must be a dinosaur I say. Whale says Gustafo.

En Strengen av Perler: Knock, Knock: Whos' there? The Mormon Missionaries!

Note:  Back in 2003 I was living in Thailand trying to make a living as an English teacher, none too successfully. Part of the reason was that I kept mooning over my earlier stint in Thailand as an LDS missionary. In those days everything was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.

Went to visit some people way the heck over in Thonburi last night. In fact, this was way past Thonburi, down a dribbling dirt road that looked like it was going to take us into a rice paddy. Instead we drew up in front of a brand-spanking new muu baan, a Thai housing development, that seemed to rise from the mists like King Arthur’s Camelot with banners waving and guards smartly turned out at the front gate. 

My mind, which needs very little stimulation nowadays to flip back on itself with memory spasms, immediately hustled my thoughts to those long-ago glory days when I did nothing but tract out muu baans. 

The Mormon missionaries do not go door-to-door anymore in Thailand. The Thai government forbids it. Street meetings are also verboten.The local church members have to provide the missionaries with investigators.

Housing tracts in Thailand are meant to keep out the tropical shabbiness of shedding coconut palm fronds, mangy dogs and peddlers, and the inquisitive eyes of khamoys – those mysterious black presences that come in the night to steal whatever is not nailed down. Thus in America you might gauge the wealth and security of a person by the wide expanse of open lawn and shrub and garden that surrounds a palatial home bursting with French windows and balconies; but in Thailand the better-off people rear walls around their homes that would baffle Godzilla, topped with broken glass, nails, barbed wire and possibly land mines. The only glimpse you have of the house is through the peephole in the huge metal front gate that looks like something David O. Selznick would use for Gone With The Wind. The gate is always painted black with bronze sunburst outlines that give you the feeling that black slaves from H. Rider Haggard’s novel King Solomon’s Mines will presently troop out to push it open. The houses are solidly built of dazzling white concrete and stone, with driveways laid out in pink brick. The dinky windows are shuttered or barred, or both. The heat of the tropical sun bounces off all that concrete to create narrow streets sizzling with broiling waves of heat. A few hours in a muu baan in the middle of the day and you’d find two Mormon Elders nicely broasted, ready to be served up with some barbeque sauce and coleslaw. 

The utter futility of it was that no one was ever home in these muu baans during the weekday. Mother and father went to work; the kids were in school or at special lessons. Only the maid and the family pug dog inhabited the place between seven in the morning and eight at night. The quiet was unsettling. I remember feeling like one of those poor schmucks in a Fifties sci-fi movie, who wakes up to find himself all alone amidst the towering, empty buildings of some Gotham. My companion and I could do up an entire muu baan in a few days if we walked fast and knocked hard. It was meeting a mindless quota, imposed by our own Pharisee-like conception of what missionaries were supposed to do. 

On weekends, of course, the whole muu baan took on an entirely different aspect. Mom and Pop were sure to be home, exhausted, and the kids moped about the house, wanting to go out for ice cream or pizza or see a movie. Grandma sat in the corner, her lips a thin, disapproving line as she surveyed all this decadent luxury that a really faithful Thai Buddhist didn’t need to indulge in; a wooden house on stilts near a klong with a large clay pot full of rice grains was good enough for her generation! 

The problem on weekends was that we were literally nearly killed with kindness. 

We’d bang on a door, the father would saunter out, we’d give our spiel about wanting to help him be a better father would he like to hear our message please? Without further ado he’d crack the gate open and motion us in. Before we could even mention Joseph Smith or The Book of Mormon he’d say “Of course, you’ll have something to eat first?” Thai etiquette demands that you accept such an offer without reservation, which inevitably led to a full-course meal being laid out before us. The first two or three banquets weren’t so bad, but even a glutton would be hard-pressed to keep eating after the rice starts pouring out of your ears. I never knew a Thai householder who didn’t try to stuff us insensible when we were tracting. And if, by some miracle, we were offered just a piece of fruit and glass of hibiscus water, we still had to compete with the TV and the kids. Thais keep the TV going full blast no matter who they’re talking to or what the subject may be. You can ask them to turn it down, which they’ll do, but immediately one of the kids will rush up to the infernal machine and send the volume soaring again. Thais indulge their children enormously, so that puts an end to all moderate dialogue. You can either scream your lungs out or start miming. 

The very last muu baan I ever tracted out before coming home, I had a greenie companion. I patiently explained to him that we would be spending the next five hours striding from one gate to another, never being admitted and having our brains nearly baked out of our skulls from the heat. That is what the Lord wanted. My greenie innocently asked if we couldn’t say a special prayer, asking the Lord to please put a family in our way. I humored the lad and let him offer up his plea. Wouldn’t you know it, the very first gate we hit, the family was actually home on a Monday. Well, I would show my greenie that Elder Torkildson knows how to take advantage of such an unexpected situation. We ate some mangosteens and guzzled Fanta politely for ten minutes, then I dramatically asked for a glass of pure water. The wife brought me water in a beautiful cut crystal glass. I solemnly explained that we wanted them to know that sin, any sin, leaves you separated from God. To illustrate I took out my fountain pen and plopped a drop of ink into my glass of water. See how it spreads, darkening everything, I told the family. The mother gently took the expensive crystal glass from my hands and went to rinse it out while I told the rest of the family about the Plan of Salvation – but my eye kept straying to the kitchen, where it was obvious that the ink was not coming out of the crystal glass. I’d ruined it. My head of steam dissipated rather quickly; I let the greenie struggle through the rest of the discussion in his halting, toneless Thai. We bid the family good day and went back into the white hot street. 

“Well” I said resignedly, “I guess I blew it with them.” 

“They seemed pretty nice” said my greenie. “Can we go see ‘em again tomorrow?” 

“You can if you want” I replied. “Tomorrow I’ll be at the mission office and then off on the big tin bird for the good ol’ USA! I’m as trunky as a luggage store.” 

Several weeks later, as I was lolling about the snowdrifts in Minnesota I got a letter from that same greenie. He and his companion were still teaching the family, had just given them the baptismal challenge in fact. 

“That boy is AP material” I mumbled to myself as I dodged a plunging icicle. 

I don’t think I ever answered that letter. Sometimes I’m so petty I disgust myself.

En Strengen av Perler: "Joom liked to bite my nipples after her third bottle of beer".

Note:  Because of the graphic nature of this article I am only posting a link to it here. The mature content may offend some people. 

 

http://w.tt/2hxZRRq 

 

En Strengen av Perler: Inlingua International School of English

Note: This piece was originally written back in 2003, continuing my hard luck story as an English teacher in Thailand. 

So I show up at Inlingua this past Monday, ready to spread the gospel of i before e except after c The office impresses me. A long bank of clocks giving the time in different cities worldwide. Actually, that's the only thing that impresses me in the office; maybe I'm just a sucker for clocks. I'm wearing my brand new long sleeve white shirt from Gulati Tailors on Sukhumvit Road, with a dark blue necktie and gold plated tie clip. Black dress pants, of course. 

My first class is a private tutoring session with a shy 8-year old girl. Did I say shy? I meant comatose. The Guinness World Book of Records needs to know that I asked her "What is your name" exactly five-thousand-eight-hundred-and-twenty times in less than two hours with no response. I used coloring books, sock puppets and wound up doing some All-Time Favorite Primary Hits to no avail. The little girl could give Marcel Marceau pointers. The minute class is over she runs out to her parents and begins chattering like a magpie. 

Next is 'Joe', a 28-year old oilrig worker who likes to have English Conversation for three straight hours five times a week. His English is decent, and we get into an interesting discussion about the phrase "I'm pulling your leg". I have no idea where we get that saying in English; 'Joe' seems miffed that I can't explain it. I hear later he has complained about my ignorance to the Head Teacher. 

I have several private tutoring classes with gorgeous Thai female college students. Their English is execrable; I tell them all, with a manly, attractive smile that their English is ravishing. Then comes my last class of the day; six little girls and boys who have spent all day in school and now have been dragged by their parents to another hour of class. I have to pull out the heavy artillery for these mini-juvenile delinquents. We review every animal known to man, and some that are made up just for the occasion, to use in Old McDonald's Farm. I'm hoarse, sweat is pouring from every orifice that decency allows me to mention, and yet there is still twenty eternal minutes stretching ahead of me in which to do something, anything, in English with these tykes. 

"Draw me a picture of your house" I mutter, collapsing into my chair as the kids gnaw on their crayons like ghouls sucking marrow out of a corpse. 

All in all, not a bad day. 

Next day, however, all teachers are required to come in early to hear an announcement that Inlingua is consolidating its locations -- two locations are closing down, including mine. I will be welcome to apply for work at the other Inlingua locations, but am informed at the same time that the other locations won't hire anyone who doesn't have a college degree. As I boarded the skytrain that evening, drenched by monsoon rains, my shoes squelching sullenly, I could only repeat those immortal words of W.C. Fields apropos of my continuing miserable luck with teaching jobs: "There's an Ethiopian in the fuel supply."

Secret CIA assessment says Russia was trying to help Trump win White House

The CIA has concluded in a secret assessment that Russia intervened in the 2016 election to help Donald Trump win the presidency, rather than just to undermine confidence in the U.S. electoral system, according to officials briefed on the matter.

from the Washington Post 

The Russians that deal in fake news

or hack emails as a sly ruse

to throw our election

should have no objection

when Trump bombs them out of their shoes.

The light of mercy

The light of mercy falls upon me like the silver snow.
It drifts as silent as a cloud to bless me here below.
Its brightness does not sting my eyes, still my tears flow amain
because this gentle glow of love delivers me from pain.
The generating power of this light will never fail
to turn my darkest sins into a vapor thin and pale.
Light of Mercy, God of Love, remain my honest guide!
And save me from the darkness of my dogged sins and pride. 

En Strengen av Perler: The Bangkok Blog

Note:  The following is an excerpt from my first blog in Thailand, circa 2003. I have changed all names in the interest of goodwill and not being sued. It tells a strange tale of a teacher's life in that land of ten thousand conundrums . . . 

Okay, so the job I had lined up in Hong Kong went south. It was an English camp for rich little Chinese hobgoblins, but the Sars scare is still keeping people holed up in their shanties, disinclined to let the kiddies congregate unnecessarily. That meant that Camp Wun Hung Lo could dispense with my services before even sampling them.

I hesitated admitting this debacle to my Bangkok buddies, the Good Old Boy LDS Returned Missionary network that has kept me going these past six months. Surely, I thought to myself, they will think I am a premier slacker, always talking about going to work but never actually doing any. I’ve had so many strike-outs in the past two months that I should get a team position with the Minnesota Twins (an in-joke for Minnesotans; you can fill in the blank with your own state’s baseball team.) Well sir, when I finally broke down and told them I had lost yet another job opportunity they merely waggled their heads, not at me, but at wonderful, crazy Thailand where this kind of thing happens to everybody all the time. Then they placed a few phone calls and the job offers came rolling back in like the tide.

A paper company, which I am not at liberty to name, immediately paid me in advance to do some sourcing work for ‘em. They wholesale mulberry and pineapple paper to the States for scrapbooks and other artsy-craftsy things. I immediately found ‘em a good deal down at Chatuchuck Market for hemp paper, forgetting that hemp is still banned in the good ol’ USA. Now I am pursuing the source of one of Thailand’s most delicate handcrafted papers – elephant dung paper. You know how much fiber an elephant chews up & returns to mother Earth each day? I’ve handled the stuff; you wouldn’t know it from newsprint (or what’s printed on newsprint, for that matter.)

But my main squeeze has come from a gentleman named Sathorn Vanitsthian. Being a distant relative to the King, he has his finger in many profitable pies. He came to visit Peter Wilson, one of my old missionary companions, last Saturday on a social call; Peter immediately pressed him to hire me for something, anything. Khun Sathorn was looking for someone to handle his English correspondence, so he called me to arrange a meeting at The Heritage Club, the hoity-toitiest social club in Bangkok, smugly perched atop the Amirin Tower.

I groomed myself with care, even cut my toenails, and donned my one and only business suit, with bright yellow shirt and dazzling blood-red tie. Shined my shoes. Outside of the yellowing piece of string tied to the end of my glasses to keep them from slipping down my nose, I looked like any other go-getting business executive out to cut a few deals before lunchtime. On my way to The Heritage Club, Bangkok experienced one of it’s finest downpours this season, turning the streets into whitewater. When I stepped out of my cab I immediately went into a pothole up to my knees, tripped, and began snorkeling in the muddy, diesel-stained waters. A few curses and hand towels later I was as presentable as I ever would be. Khun Sathorn apparently thinks all foreigners take showers in their clothes, for he said not a word about my sodden appearance, but instead launched into an impassioned explanation of his latest business venture, The Sino-Thai Foods Supply Company, Limited.

China and Thailand, it seems, are becoming friendlier and friendlier; the Chinese are greedy for the fat juicy lychees and pomelos that only grow in Thailand’s steamy jungles. And even as we sat chatting over dry, crumbly Scotch digestive crackers, a road is slowly being built, snaking its way through southern China, northen Laos and eventually into northern Thailand. Once open, this road will allow direct trucking all the way up the Malay Peninsula into mainland China. As the illustrations show, Khun Sathorn is poised to take advantage of this highway to make a killing on kumquats and other exotic noshables.

An hour into his monologue I was still wondering where this would lead for me. The club muzak was one of Tchaikowsky’s violin concertos, so I wasn’t all that bored. All at once he stood up, shook hands with me, and started to hustle me out the shiny brass door that read ‘Members Only’.

“ Are you gonna want to hire me for somethin’?” I managed to squeak as he pushed the elevator button for me.

“ Yes, yes. There are many ways you can be used. Here is my office card. Be there on Monday at 9:30 and we will begin.”

Since I had to go to the bathroom, and since this is Thailand, I didn’t worry about getting more information out of him. I took care of my business (marble basins in the men’s room and a basket of snow white linen towels to wipe your hands on and then throw into a wicker basket – lucky for me there wasn’t an attendant on duty, since I didn’t have anything to tip him with), went down to Santa’s Hamburgers for eggs, rice and sushi (they don’t serve any hamburgers there), and took the 104 bus back to my little room in Nonthaburi, where I changed clothes and continued reading one of George McDonald Fraser’s Flashman books.

Came the dawn Monday, I was at the office bang-on-the-dot at 9:30. Khun Sathorn was not; he was out looking for me, under the impression I would ride the skytrain to Nong Chonsi and flounder around helplessly until he arrived to rescue me. We eventually hooked up. He led me to my computer and disappeared for the rest of the day. I looked at the Sino-Thai website for an hour, figuring this was one way to look busy. Then Khun Tip, the office manager, came over and introduced me to the rest of the staff. There was Oot, and Noot, and Oht, and Noog. I’m not kiddin’. Everybody in Thailand has a nickname, which they go by; I kept repeating the names to myself until I sounded like an aviary.

Then I was given some work. Look at these websites, asked Khun Tip; they are all very similar to ours. You want me to make notes on how we can improve our website, I asked eagerly. Nope, just look at ‘em so you get familiar with tropical fruit vendor websites. I looked at mangosteens, tamarinds, longans, lychees, long kongs, baby bananas, durians and jackfruit the rest of the day, with an interruption for lunch, which I ate al fresco at a noodle stand under a banyan tree. The leaves kept falling off the tree into my soup. Since they looked liked the fried pork I was eating I may have choked a few down; it’s hard to tell with Thai fried pork – the stuff is always crispy and oval-shaped and rather flavorless. Late afternoon Ma and Pa Kettle arrived, one of the company’s major fruit growers from down south. They brought in baskets of dead ripe mangos, pineapple and papaya, then sat around poisoning the air with strawpaper cigarettes while the office staff, me included, glutted ourselves like fruit bats. I always get the runs when I overindulge in fresh tropical fruit. The office bathroom was out back, with the merciless tropical sun beating on it. This was nothing like the honeypot at The Heritage Club. It was a Thai squatter – no sitting in comfort for schnook Tim, and since I have recently been rendered squat-sensitive by my bad back I had to lower myself slowly to the steaming floor and . . . well, it wasn’t a pretty sight, nor very hygienic either.

Then back to the dragon fruit and paw paws. Did you know that jackfruit is susceptible to the Malagasy hissing cockroach, or that the seeds of the rambutan, when crushed and processed, yield a fine shampoo used by the former Rajahs of Sumatra? Dragon fruit is actually a cactus vine that grows up the trunks of peepul trees during the dry season. Tamarind pods were used in the manufacture of the explosive cordite during World War One. And, ladies and gentlemen, I found this same statement on several lychee websites: “A natural remedy for Cancer and Blood cleansing.” Clean blood is something I’ve wanted for years.

I studied many different fruits during my employment there; and when it ended six months later my main reaction was to go on a carnivorous binge for several weeks. Grilled pork livers from street vendors; chicken satay at all hours of the day and night; and so many deep fried fish patties riddled with fiery little chili peppers that I began to grow gills. 

Then I started looking for a teaching job again. 

Fake News: How a Partying Macedonian Teen Earns Thousands Publishing Lies

Dimitri — who asked NBC News not to use his real name — is one of dozens of teenagers in the Macedonian town of Veles who got rich during the U.S. presidential election producing fake news for millions on social media.

from NBC News   

The American public appears
to have not a thing between ears.
They fall for fake news
like alkies for booze,
then share it with all of their peers.