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Stickman - This weeks Closing Comment


Zeb

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Closing Comments


I visited my parents a few days ago and, jokingly, Dad asked me how many more of my friends in Bangkok had died since I last visited (10 days earlier) when I told them that two people I knew had died in two weeks.

Two more have died, I said.

They thought I was joking but, sadly, I wasn’t.

Khun Sanuk is the 4th person I knew in Bangkok who has died in Thailand this month.

My best guess is that since I left Thailand to return to New Zealand, more than 20 people I once knew in Bangkok have passed away.

What makes it worse is that many departed way too soon. Most were in their late 40s or early 50s.

In New Zealand, over the past 10 years, I think only 3 people I know have died, 2 in their 80s and one in his early 90s. It does make one wonder about the life expectancy of expats living in Thailand, and how it compares with life expectancy in one’s homeland.

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3 minutes ago, Zeb said:

Closing Comments


I visited my parents a few days ago and, jokingly, Dad asked me how many more of my friends in Bangkok had died since I last visited (10 days earlier) when I told them that two people I knew had died in two weeks.

Two more have died, I said.

They thought I was joking but, sadly, I wasn’t.

Khun Sanuk is the 4th person I knew in Bangkok who has died in Thailand this month.

My best guess is that since I left Thailand to return to New Zealand, more than 20 people I once knew in Bangkok have passed away.

What makes it worse is that many departed way too soon. Most were in their late 40s or early 50s.

In New Zealand, over the past 10 years, I think only 3 people I know have died, 2 in their 80s and one in his early 90s. It does make one wonder about the life expectancy of expats living in Thailand, and how it compares with life expectancy in one’s homeland.

I think it’s down to the drinking culture personally, some have a higher tolerance than others, so live longer.

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I think it depends on who you mix with and become friends with and what lifestyle they lead.

I was happily working in Indonesia in 96 but was asked by a friend if I wanted to join his Project in Bangkok. He is the only friend that has died in that time and it was a drugs OD, something that would never happen to me or my other friends.

So for me 1 in nearly 30 years.

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1 hour ago, galenkia said:

I think it’s down to the drinking culture personally, some have a higher tolerance than others, so live longer.

Yea, there's no boundaries in Thailand, literally anything goes. 

Which can be good, and bad.

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So @Zeb - you bring a lot of good material to this Forum and I appreciate this. You are in general more knowledgeable about life in Thailand than I am.

I have read that the original "Stickman" stopped posting to his blog and that imposters (one claiming to be his son) have tried to take that over.

Just saying as I am a little curious about the sources for this info.

https://aseannow.com/topic/998490-stickman-bangkok-packs-it-in-after-two-decades/

 

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2 minutes ago, ChiFlyer said:

So @Zeb - you bring a lot of good material to this Forum and I appreciate this. You are in general more knowledgeable about life in Thailand than I am.

I have read that the original "Stickman" stopped posting to his blog and that imposters (one claiming to be his son) have tried to take that over.

Just saying as I am a little curious about the sources for this info.

https://aseannow.com/topic/998490-stickman-bangkok-packs-it-in-after-two-decades/

 

Stickman sold his site , but went back to posting, from his home in New Zealand , I assume he is now paid for his contributions....but all of his information is 2nd or 3rd hand now 

there was another guy on Twitter called Stickboy , but I believe he also stopped years ago 

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27 minutes ago, Stillearly said:

Stickman sold his site , but went back to posting, from his home in New Zealand , I assume he is now paid for his contributions....but all of his information is 2nd or 3rd hand now 

there was another guy on Twitter called Stickboy , but I believe he also stopped years ago 

Stickboy packed it in during the Covid fiasco, reading between the lines he ran out of money and went home to Scotland 

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4 hours ago, ChiFlyer said:

Just saying as I am a little curious about the sources for this info.

ChiFlyer - That is the original Stickman as @Stillearly and @richy65 have posted etc.

I look in on his website from time to time more out of old habit then anything else.

😋

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47 minutes ago, Zeb said:

I look in on his website from time to time more out of old habit then anything else.

Some of the oldest blog postings from pre-2008ish were entertaining and useful (if one lived in, or frequented Bangkok). 

 

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3 hours ago, lazarus said:

Some of the oldest blog postings from pre-2008ish were entertaining and useful (if one lived in, or frequented Bangkok). 

I used to read NightOwl's columns in the Bangkok Post (together with the Database section, especially the articles by Wanda Sloan).

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3 minutes ago, Freee!! said:

I used to read NightOwl's columns in the Bangkok Post

Yes so did I.

He did that column for many years.

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52 minutes ago, Zeb said:

He did that column for many years.

Bernard Trink wrote the Nite Owl column for 37 years, from 1966 to 2003.  Nite Owl had originally been a three-page weekly supplement to the Bangkok World which covered all aspects of the Bangkok nightlife scene.  Trink was most famous for his articles on go go bars, massage parlors and the like

When the World was sold to the Bangkok Post and ceased publication in 1987,  Trink's Nite Owl was reduced to one page and then to half a page in the 1990s.   In 2003, the Post finally pulled the plug on the Nite Owl and Trink. 

Evil

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When I first moved here I read Stickman's column every week as it was useful and informative with first hand info. When he moved back to NZ my interest in his site moved on as well.

I remember the time when he attracted a cyber bully, John Galt and his Not Stickman site. Here's the article Stickman did on the cyber bully.
https://www.stickmanbangkok.com/weekly-column/2011/02/cyberbullying-and-karma/

A few other links with more details about the tosser.
https://teakdoor.com/the-teakdoor-lounge/26241-notstickman-clayton-wade-internet-lawsuit-10.html
https://aseannow.com/topic/90132-stickman-bangkok-versus-not-stickman-bangkok/

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14 hours ago, ChiFlyer said:

So @Zeb - you bring a lot of good material to this Forum and I appreciate this. You are in general more knowledgeable about life in Thailand than I am.

I have read that the original "Stickman" stopped posting to his blog and that imposters (one claiming to be his son) have tried to take that over.

Just saying as I am a little curious about the sources for this info.

https://aseannow.com/topic/998490-stickman-bangkok-packs-it-in-after-two-decades/

 

The original Stickman is definitely posting the weekly blog. Whenever he's in Pattaya we always meet for a drink and discuss the latest happenings. 

He has a few friends in Pattaya as well as Bangkok that give him information about what's going on around town and I posted before while it may be second hand information in most cases it's spot on. It comes from people that were in the industry or are still in the industry so they have a good handle on what's going on.

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21 hours ago, Zeb said:

In New Zealand, over the past 10 years, I think only 3 people I know have died, 2 in their 80s and one in his early 90s.

That made me think of a Kiwi colleague, Wilf Lammerink, whom I worked with in the Netherlands back in the early 80's. Wilf was a keen mountaineer, his passport was full to overflowing with stamps from exotic but mountainous countries. One day, I found him in his office looking as if he was close to tears. He said he'd just heard from back home that one of his best mountaineering buddies had recently died in an accident. I made the usual sympathetic noises, but he then explained that, of all the members of the mountaineering club he'd been a member of in his youth (probably the university club, I  guess), now there was only him and one other guy left alive. The high peaks are dangerous places.

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On 5/26/2024 at 6:56 PM, Stillearly said:

there was another guy on Twitter called Stickboy , but I believe he also stopped years ago

He still posts with a couple of accounts under his own name of Mike McKay.  Mostly Thai centric stuff on one I follow.

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