white-trash dept.

Not many people know this, but the first real blogger was a certain Mr.Bernard Trink of the Bangkok Post newspaper, Thailand. Here he runs a weekly column called Nite Owl which can still be found in the Real Time section of the Bangkok Post website, which recounts his night-time prowls in Bangkok's infamous Pat Pong district. The articles were totally bent, off the rocker, and ended with his trademark line "...BUT, I DON'T GIVE A HOOT!!!". Another famous tag line was "...this is of course a case of TIT (This Is Thailand)...".
Not many people know this either, but I spent some part of my budding adult life in the Land of Smiles, interned in its capital with my parents for company.
Hmmm...W0lf Howl...I wonder if there was a subconscious connection there...
Well, I checked out some of Trink's recent columns today, purely out of nostalgia, and somehow the humour seemed forced and jaded. This happened to me with Saturday Night Live, the American Comedy show, too, and I don't know why. Trink seems ever the gentle old grandfather these days. In one of the February columns, he even had a line asking couples to enjoy Valentine's day. Anyway, some people don't seem to like his *real* style, and here are some of the kind words about Trink posted by readers on the Bangkok Post online forum:

It's about time you ditched Trink and Nite Owl. The guy's past it, he's still living in the era of the Vietnam War, and his attitude to women is highly offensive. (No, I'm not a woman). If people want to find out where to obtain @#!%&* in Bangkok and Pattaya they know where to turn: that pimp Trink.


Nick

To which someone replied:

Leaving aside for a second that his articles are turgid and boring, is it appropriate for a newspaper widely regarded as being the best in South East Asia to carry regular updates on where to go whoreing? Just a thought!


David

And a loyal Trink fan exploded with this reaction:

so far the most comprohensive information on whats going on in the nitery-entertainment area.
pimp? missed the jokes? if you don't like his stuff don't read it, guess trink doesn't write this to offend you and all the other puritans around.....
he has a piont, many others don't.
ever looked into the bangkok-metro-magazine?
lucky we got a relatively free press and people with the guts to express themselves-either some like it or not.
hope the controversial stuff from whomsoever it might be will be with us for long.
i dont like the sterile, the unisono its colorless.


regards


jonny

BUT I DON'T GIVE A HOOT!!!