Entertainment – Page 5

Soi Cowboy

Soi Cowboy is a street near Sukhumvit Road in Bangkok with over 40 restaurants, bars, go-go bars, and nightclubs crammed into a single block smaller than Little Italy. The over-the-top neon signs in English look like something out of Las Vegas.

The area caters mainly to expatriates and local residents. Soi Cowboy is also a destination for tourists who want a glimpse of Bangkok’s nightlife without ending up in one of the city’s larger red light districts.

Soi (“side street” in Thai) Cowboy was named after T.G. Edwards (no relation), an American who retired in Thailand and was known as “The Cowboy” for his ten-gallon Texan hat and gun belt. T.G. founded the first bar on the street in 1973 and named it after his daughter Loretta. The area was famous for its elephants that paraded down the street as a tourist attraction until the government ended the practice.

The street has several establishments that cater to those not interested in the seedier side of Bangkok. Try the barbeque or have a beer.

Soi Cowboy’s relaxed atmosphere means that you can have a quick glance at the place, walk down the street, or have a drink or meal without being hassled.

While the place is not for everyone, especially children, it offers a glimpse into another side of Thailand’s culture. If you visit Soi Cowboy, it’s important that you still be vigilant and on watch out for theft, scams and rip-offs, and illegal activities. Panhandlers can distract you. Child begging also occurs.

Playing Games

Many expats living in places without extensive entertainment options love playing games for fun. Poker and other card games are especially popular, as well as trivia nights at public places, board game nights hosted at expats’ homes, golf outings, and video game marathons. They’re fun diversions from the norm, particularly when “fun” activities such as the theater, sporting events, or (jazz/disco) clubs are few and far between.

Game nights are a great way to get together with your friends and colleagues and socialize in a competitive atmosphere. Still, I’m a contrarian when it comes to competitive game playing. I would rather channel my competitive energy and enthusiasm into something more financially lucrative. While I enjoy socializing and joining acquaintances at an occasional get together, I’ve never really had much of an interest in playing games on a recurring basis. I often prefer to take the money and time I would have spent on the activity and invest or donate it. I once suggested starting an investment club with someone who enjoyed playing poker. They liked the idea but opted to put down $40 a night on a chance to rake in $200 or lose it all. Personally, I would rather spend the four hours and $40 I would have spent gambling and invest it in the stock market. The odds of success are better, and the returns tend to outperform those of game nights.

Although I do enjoy socializing and occasionally participating in a game night, I usually weigh the cost and benefit and then decide whether I want to spend an evening’s worth of precious time playing games. Other activities often take priority and have a much higher return.

Choose Your Own Adventure

I spent some time this weekend updating an old Choose Your Own Adventure (CYOA) book I wrote when I was younger. Over two decades ago I entered the book manuscript entitled “The Two Sides of Africa” in a CYOA publishing contest. Although my manuscript wasn’t selected, I received a personalized letter from the publisher, Bantam Books, Inc. letting me know that my story was a serious contender. After the contest ended, I shelved the manuscript and didn’t touch it again for another two decades. This weekend I pulled it off the shelf, dusted it off (literally) and started updating it. It’s a great story that needed some grammar and stylistic updates.

I loved the CYOA series as a kid and bought the first 75 books (I still have them). Back then, Bantam Books published the books almost monthly for $1.99. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that one of the original CYOA authors, R. A. Montgomery, bought the rights to the series from Bantam in the early 2000’s and revived it. Montgomery founded a company called Chooseco to publish and market the series. He also reissued some of his old CYOA books and published a few new ones. I noticed that the price per book has gone up considerably since the 1980’s – they now cost $6.99 a book. That’s probably because Chooseco has higher overhead than a mega-publisher like Bantam (now owned by Random House).

CYOA books were the first ones to employ rudimentary hyperlinks, a common feature on today’s web pages, to carry the story. The books feature several different stories and endings and force the reader to choose between two or three divergent story options as it progresses. The series spawned several knock-offs and was quite popular in the 1980’s. It faded as a genre after the Internet took off in the mid-1990’s. That’s a shame, because the books are tailor made for the Internet. While Chooseco has helped revived the genre, it’s unlikely that it will make a significant comeback unless they become popular on Amazon’s Kindle or another electronic book reader.

I learned about Chooseco after I started updating my manuscript (now called “Adventures in Africa”). Although the company states that it does not accept unsolicited manuscripts, I’m planning to contact them after I update the story and tell them about my story. Perhaps nostalgia will persuade them to take a second look at my manuscript…two decades later.