Page 128 - MN

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So I walked around town and saw a bookstore. I love bookstores but it's been a long time since I've been in one. The bridge club has a library where people trade books for free, and when I drive I listen to audible books instead of music. Music was my job, books are my life. At the moment I'm re-listening to Ron Chernow's book about Ulysses S. Grant because I'm playing golf with Joe, a southerner steeped in Robert E. Lee and Louisiana history. He thinks Grant was a drunk and a scoundrel and I couldn't remember the stuff I'd read three years ago. Knowledge is power and I know he'll be delighted to have me enlighten him.
Did you know Grant was a consummate horseman? As a kid he would train horses no one could handle and at West Point he dazzled his graduation classmates by jumping a horse over a high bar and that record stood for years.
I first listened to the Grant book when I drove out to Chiangmai Highlands. I played golf there for 15 years and it's a 45-minute drive each way. I listened to a lot of books. Hell, I listened to War and Peace! It took a month, and as Woody Allen said, "It's about Russia."
Between that and the Grant biography I have reaffirmed my idea that all war is incredibly sad, with millions of young people losing their lives because old people are too arrogant or stupid to figure things out. War is the worst form of insanity and for every brilliant commander there are twenty who throw their troops into hopeless situations. Fuck war.
You see how books can get you riled up? Maybe that's why I used to get angry on the golf course. I was pissed off at Napoleon. How stupid do you have to be to march into Russia in the wintertime? Sure, and after that we can attack Saudi Arabia in July! Good plan!
You see what kind of thoughts come from walking around Chiangmai? The only downside was that I'd already had two cups of coffee, for there were great little coffee places everywhere I looked. I think I should organize coffee tours of Chiangmai. We'd just walk from place to place, sampling coffee on every block.
The bars have changed. When I first got here Loi Kroh street was filled with loud bars filled with heavily made up bargirls in short skirts and halter tops. Now the mayor has tried to clean up the town and there are far fewer girly bars. There used to be a bar by the moat called the Spotlight and I remember a friend taking me there. There were lots of girls on stage pole dancing and I remember looking in the mirror behind the bar and thinking, "Look at those old guys, staring at those young girls." Then I realized I was one of those old guys.
I remember a drunken white college girl getting up on stage with the Thai pole dancers and taking off her clothes while her friends cheered. And I thought, tomorrow she gets to go back to her normal life. Tomorrow, those Thai girls will be back on that stage.