I heart Bangkok

I've met plenty of people who say they don't stay very long, or don't like Bangkok. However, after a recent visit, now my third, I'm completely in love with the city. It's hustle & bustle, it's food, it's vibrancy all make for something which excites me. It's a city with many personalities, the obvious example is the difference between day and night.

Day time has all the activity and buzz of any modern city, but on a more grand scale. The traffic is intense and I don't envy anyone driving around the city by car, but the amount of exciting things to be found on foot makes this the most fun way to explore. Then hopping on the skytrain to discover a new area to walk around, or jumping on one of the local buses. They have some really cool old fashioned buses with wooden bench seats, and no fans or air con. So all the windows are open and you just hang your head out watching their hectic world go by. Plus if you can work out which bus you need they cost next to nothing.

Pretty much all over Bangkok streets are lined with vendors selling anything and everything, including delicious food and drink for next to nothing by comparison to English prices. You can pick up bowls of noodle soup, spring rolls, pad thai, rice and mango, fresh fruit shakes... The list is endless. Unlike at home where anyone selling off a cart or out the back of a "rat van" wouldn't be trusted, here so many people survive eating and making livelihoods from the street food it's just part and parcel of the life there. Plus from my experience it's all pretty tasty, and in general agrees with my belly(!)

Night time a new lease of life is injected, which for me is even more exciting. The neon lights everywhere give you that Asian night time feel and areas dead in the day come to life. Places like the Khao San Road and the (in)famous Patpong night Market pop up with stalls where you can buy anything. Seriously anything! Cross bow, tazer, fireworks, fried scorpions, sex, drag show, fake student cards, degree certificates, watches, tailored suits... They have it all. Bars and clubs everywhere mean there is plenty of fun to be had as well, especially with most of the bars having live music. Normally a backing band with one male and one female singer playing popular songs in what can only be described as a karaoke style. They're pretty hit or miss but always hilarious - especially some of the lyrics!!

The city itself also has a huge difference in terms of affluence to poverty. Looking for a Playaaa time, Bangkok has it all. Huge shopping centres like the paragon in Siam square have all the luxury shops and more, then even have car showrooms on the 7th floor for Audi, Maserati etc. Want to go for a cocktail or a meal at a luxury hotel? There are plenty. We popped for a drink at the Lebua hotels sky bar where they filmed part of the hangover 2. And whilst hellishly expensive (£37 for 2 cocktails and a beer) it had amazing views of the city, making you appreciate how vast it is and the free honey roast cashew nuts were pretty badass too.

However it's not all lavish, there are areas of Bangkok that are extremely poor and many of the locals are reliant on the tourism to make ends meat. Whilst many people don't like the constant harassment from people hawking anything from tshirts to tuk-tuk rides, you get used to it and have to appreciate that all the people in this city have to make a living somehow.

Lastly there is plenty to see culturally, as Thai culture is still deeply embedded into Bangkok regardless of the size of the place. From vast temples and buddhist monuments to standing up in the cinema for the national anthem, the cultural experiences are vast. With such huge differences from Europe its amazing fun simply wondering round all the different sites.

Its definitely somewhere I'd recommend to anyone and somewhere I'm already looking forward to visiting again.

Back with Beards

So I’ve been pretty lax in keeping this blog up to date, but having spent the last few months travelling I thought I’d get back in the swing of writing.

Whilst you’re away you start to notice a common theme amongst the men you meet – a beard. The classic image of a weathered traveller now seems to be the image of the seasoned traveller instead. No longer though is it just the big unkempt beard on d

isplay, there is time and attention to these beards despite being miles from home for large periods of time. The big rise in beard trimmers now available means that you tend to find all kinds of facial styling on the go.

But since I got back it seems that this hasn’t just been people away from home rocking new face cuts, but most of my friends. Whilst we’ve always been a hairy bunch I seemed to be noticing the tweaks much more. This blog was pretty much prompted by Callum (@CJKMerriman) rocking up at our local pub sporting the Brandon Flowers.

A standard beard without cheek hair and with the handlebars between chin and tash carefully removed accentuating the moustache. It looked stylish. It also made me start to wonder what everyone else’s beard would class as. Pretty obscure but the more I thought about it the more it made me chuckle.

beard |bi(ə)rd|

noun

1. a growth of hair on the chin and lower cheeks of a man's face

I actually felt pretty dull in all of this as I think I would sport what would simply be referred to as “The Everyday Beard”. No real deliberate attempt at style, but still has good substance. Has a tendency to result in the unkempt look if left for too long, but also has the coverage and flexibility to be shaped into most other styles.

Other wearers of such a beard would probably be Boris (@EveryOlympian), the stylishly dense beard of Josh Bananas (@joshsananes) and when not carefully grooming or just for men-ing it Callum (@CJKMerriman) has a notably Everyday Beard.

The next style that jumped to mind was the Soul Patch, what can only be regarded as an unnecessary patch of hair on the chin. Somewhat similar to the landing strip on women, which is notably located elsewhere.

Brought to local RBZ fame by Humbo (@humbotronn) and known to football fans as the David Villa.

This was later enhanced to the cooler, more suave alternative – the Guy Fawkes. Pointed soul patch with moustache combo, like the V for Vendetta mask.

Although lack of commitment to the Guy Fawkes did lead Humbo to regularly pursue the Chinney, a full chin and moustache combination.

You could probably go on for ages with all this, but the last one Ifelt deserved a heads up was the tramp. A sparce, yet aggressive beard that lacks the capability to fashion it into almost any other commendable style with the exception of a simple moustache. It tends to be the beard of choice for a few people after days worth of growth and no real need or drive to hack it off. Especially popular with Donn (@donnewalks) and on a particularly bad hangover day Pay (@jtvpay).

End.

Suggested Listening: ZZ Top - Gimme Me All Your Loving

Vampires In Vogue

A few years ago we saw the zombie boom, with films like the incredible Shaun of the Dead, a Dawn of the Dead remake not to mention all the other "of the dead" remakes that followed. People challenged the genre (notably 28 Days Later) and made some great entertainment, whilst others just made copy cat zombie tripe.

With 2009 and heading into 2010 we're definitely living in a Vampire world. Almost all types of entertainment are loving the vampire myth and personally i'm loving it. I find the vampire legend a really interesting one, with the different takes on the story all over the place. It had always been an area of interest, with the likes of 1992's Bram Stokers Dracula being extremely popular, however for me this film never did the genre any justice. Maybe it was just the wooden cast of Keanu Reeves and Winona Ryder, but for me the film went too far into the ridiculous.

Films in recent years have brought vampires back in to fashion, the Blade Trilogy and the Underworld films most notably brought it to the big screen early this decade. Areas of these films started to explore what audiences have ultimately taken to, vampires in a real life setting. Easily the most exciting scene of the entire Blade series was the vampire club with blood raining down to the tune of New Order's 'Confusion'. But these films spiralled quickly into the ridiculous with Blade Trinity a particularly stupid example of the Hollywood-isation of what was a pretty exciting franchise. In particular the scene in which Jessica Biel's character deems it necessary to "create a playlist" for her iPod before she can even consider going to slay vamps.

More recently the likes of 30 Days Of Night brought back a dark look at vampires affecting real life, with an attack on a small Alaskan town. For me this was a great film, a dark story shot brilliantly and really captured the idea of a vampire underworld existing in a modern society. However, the setting was harder to relate to being in a tiny alaskan town, even if the snow made it look amazing.

But the big successes have come on the big screen as well as the small screen. Twilight took the younger market by storm with its very cool blue filter take on high school in america with the addition of vampires into the mix. I surprisingly enjoyed the first film in the most part, especially thanks to a great performance from Kristen Stewart, who was also amazing in Adventureland.

Nevertheless by far and away the most exciting thing to happen to the vampire genre in the last 2 years in my opinion is definately True Blood. The whole concept of vampires being able to exist in the real world thanks to a synthetic blood substitute is genius, and the drama created by those willing to conform and those wanting to stick to traditional vampire means of blood sucking just creates real excitement.

Excecuted by a great cast and with some exciting characters both series just kept you hooked. The sexiness of the series drives it on, but the exploration of the vampire legend in a real life context make it an exciting watch. Little nuences such as the vampires not being allowed into a humans house without an invite, and their ability to sense a human after tasting them just added to me being genuinely hooked. Add into that some great songs, and probably one of the best intro sequences ever and you have someone who literally can't wait for series 3.

Long may this good vampire themed entertainment continue, however i suspect it is likely to be band wagoned very quickly and the same thing happen to vampires as the zombie trend of a few years ago. It gets butchered and we are fed rubbish like Lesbian Vampire Killers! The next True Blood series will make or break it, and with other vampire films coming thick and fast (like the recent Daybreakers and the next Twilight instalment) it will be interesting to see if the quality can remain. Lastly i'm keen to see how good the English attempt at a similar series to True Blood will be with BBC's Being Human.

2010 year of the Vampire!!

Suggested Listening = Misfits - Vampira

Generic Mid 90's Punk Rock Bands - Top 5

Although i love my music, i pretty much get the piss ripped out of me all the time for apparently loving music from the 90's, and especially generic mid 90's punk rock bands. So i thought i'd play up to this a little bit and post my all time top 5 most generic punk rock bands from this era:

#5 - 22 Jacks

It's not too often you bump into too many people who would describe themselves as "avid" 22 Jacks, and i was very much the same. They were definitely fairly generic and deserve a place on this list, but they did have a few absolute bangers on their 3rd album 'Going North'. Think one guy in the band formed Side One Dummy and eventually stopped this band, turned out to be a wise choice as SOD have some great bands these days.

Top Track - Somewhere In Between

Key Album - Going North (1999)

#4 - Bracket

Classic middle of the road Fat Wreck band, exuding mediocrity left right and centre. They did, however, have an addictive gimmick in the form of Warrens Song, which the band had various versions of and i always wanted to get hold of all of them in the Napster years. I think i only ever got Warrens Song Part 6, 7, 8 and 9 but either way fairly standard mid 90's stuff. I still really like Warrens Song part 8 and 9 though, they were actually pretty cool.

Top Track - Everyone Is Telling Me I'll Never Win, If I Marry A Girl From Marin

Key Album - When All Else Fails (2000)

#3 - H2O

I really never got the obsession with H2O. They really were pretty mundane, and somehow they even managed to bag a major label release with their 4th album 'Go' on MCA. The only song i really found catchy was One Life One Chance a song i was convinced was drilled into my head from one of the Tony Hawk Pro Skater games. But turns out it wasn't on any of them, but i'm almost certain it was on some sort of computer game? Maybe Cool Boarders or something? If anyone knows tell me as it's doing my head in.

Top Track - One Life One Chance

Key Album - F.T.T.W

#2 - Guttermouth

Ahhh, Guttermouth! The band every

one jokes as still being my favourite band ever. This was a close second to what eventually came first in this list, mainly because of Lipstick. Too many people knew and loved that song for them to be 100% generic like our #1 band. Musical Monkey was one of my first punk rock CD's after hearing them on the Nitro sampler Deep Thoughts, the compilation responsible for my love for AFI. It had some ok tracks, but none as good as Lipstick. Although it does boast one of the most random intro's of any song on 'Do The Hustle' as after 20 odd seconds of dull guitar the music cuts out to the sound of someone confused saying "Hey, how did everybody get in my room!". They also had the weirdest 30 second song on Short Music For Short People, it was basically an advert for a magicians superstore!

Top Track - Lipstick

Key Album - Musical Monkey (1997)

#1 - Jughead's Revenge

The king's amongst men when it comes to generic 90's punk rock, whole albums with a similar sound and vibe. Whilst i liked them at the time, i find it difficult to now distinguish between tracks, hit and run and victims and volunteers might as well be the same track. They also had that hilarious name change incident where they became known as Jugg's Revenge, although i think that's when they decided to pack it in. The only thing which made them in the slightest bit different was that they had a chronically fat bloke in the band, but even Bowling For Soup had one of them. Plus Bowling For Soups bloke was fatter!

Top Track - No Time (From 1999's Pearly Gates album)

Key Album - Just Joined (1998)

Starting from scratch

So here is the start of my new personal blog. I'm really excited about getting this up and running and hope to share some interesting things with everyone.

I'll be blogging about anything really, mainly talking about hot topics and observations within music, film and football with the odd list thrown in for good measure. Comments encouraged, as it's great to start a discussion and hear everyones thoughts.

You can also follow me on twitter - http://twitter.com/josh_mccarthy

Cheers! Josh