Who(is) the Hell (R) Gregory J. Pleshaw?

OFFICIALLY FAMOUS FOR BEING SUPER WEIRD(tm)

gregoryp™ is the web identity of real-life American journalist Gregory J. Pleshaw. Pleshaw began his career in the 'zine culture of the late '80s before moving on to newspapers and magazines that include The New Mexican, Wired, Fast Company, The Industry Standard, New Mexico Magazine, the Boston Phoenix's Erotica section, the Seattle Gay News, and many, many others.

Past beats include arts, entertainment, politics, social justice, technology, business, Internet security, online gaming, SEO, music, software, real estate, social networking sites, travel, and sexuality and gender issues. He spends an inordinate amount of time on the Internet, particularly facebook, twitter, and various blogs that he maintains. In 2004, he released a book entitled, The Collapse of Time: Confessions of a Quantum Humanist for Plaza Rat Press of Santa Fe, New Mexico. The book sold out to subscribers prior to publication, but Pleshaw declined to do a second printing, favoring his ongoing electronic publishing efforts. His "fan base" exists whenever he writes and publishes online.

In 1994, Pleshaw wrote a polemic about what he believed were two emerging forms of literature - "living-in-a-narrative" which he described as "memoir on acid," and "exploded narrative" which was intended to illustrate the ways in which the online world was intersecting with real-time to allow for rich-media narratives. His latest book, SubDrop, (release date: December 21, 2010, from Strident Press) is an example of the former idea and with the arrival of the e-book and the iPad, the technology has finally reached the time when the latter may be more fully explored. Pleshaw hopes to do this, both as a real person and a web identity. The pseudonym of gregoryp™ was born when Pleshaw wrote an essay on his website in 1997 on Monsanto's proposal (and subsequent approval) to be allowed to trademark seeds. The essay was titled Trademark Yourself before Someone Else Does, and thus gregoryp™ was born.


"The Pure Process Exploded-Narrative Trilogy"
(an editing fiasco)

In the spring and summer of 2009, Pleshaw's carefully constructed external reality and internal identity began to unravel - and then implode - as he realized he was fast approaching forty with the screeching howl of Johnny Rotten's "No Future"s still ringing incessantly in his ears.

Chronicling his own demise (and subsequent re-birth - yes, even sinners get a renaissance) - Pleshaw employed a method of narrative memoir that he had previously dubbed as "pure process narrative" whereby the writer follows the emergent tale of their own useless existenceto whatever actions and conclusions they lead the writer towards and accept each result as a necessary component of an unfolding narrative. No Future? Sure. And No Regrets either, and the result is a trilogy of works in which Pleshaw explores a multiplicity of ever-weirder themes, including identity, insanity, risk, addiction, internal & external discoveries, liminality, time, space, danger, sex, extreme circumstances, trangsgressive non-fiction, health, yoga, religion, redemption and finally - the complete dissolution of both the constructed self the notion of "privacy" through a process known as "pure process transparency" live on facebook with the final book(s) of the trilogy, otherwise known as 'Stumbling Towards Enlightenment" & "the Greatest Love Story of the Century."

A staid work in comparison to the last, the initial foray into this pure process explosion was a linear process narrative called "SubDrop," that explored the author's relationship to self via sexuality, gender and his lifelong battle with bipolar disorder. Briefly "sold" to a press that wished to publish it as an e-book, Pleshaw examined the book's contents in a cheap hotel on the Thai-Laos border and realized that if he could go public with such a work then no stone should be left unturned in what he was willing to write about, and he quickly penned "Tales from Thailand," a 200-page collection of essays and stories about the sex and prostitution culture of Thailand from the context of one who felt as if he were "living in exile" as an expat in Thailand on the eve of the then expected 2010 Thai "revolution" and rumored coup d'etat by the former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

Fearful of the tense environment that gripped Thailand following the February 26th, 2010 Decision Day that determined the fate of the former PM's assets and also deeply intrigued by the possibilities that Eastern religions might offer him, Pleshaw withdrew "SubDrop" from publication and held back on the edits for 'Tales from Thailand" to plunge forth into the third and final narrative, "Stumbling Towards Enlightenment," an experimental novel/"live book" that began when Pleshaw fled Thailand and arrived in New Delhi in April of 2010 and posted his first India-based facebook status report.

At the time, (as is still the case) facebook was the #1 website in the world with close to half a million daily readers. Pleshaw would later dub it "the global newspaper," but long before that point, he saw within it an emergent venue for a new kind of literature - unfolding status report by status report and easily "contributed to" by other random "writers" from one's pool of "friends."

"Stumbling Towards Enlightenment" had many themes, but it's underlying praxis lay in one simple question, "What is a Friend?" a theme that Pleshaw would return to repeatedly as he posted status report after status report about yoga, gurus, street hustlers and World Cup updates from his four-month residence in Dharamsala, the home of the exiled leader of Tibet, the Dalai Lama. While the estimated number of status reports from what ended up as an eight-month experiment number between 1500-2500 posts, "Stumbling Towards Enlightenment" offered Pleshaw's 1200 friends a thrice-updated unfolding of a narrative adventure that even had its own romantic subplot, for prior to heading to India, Pleshaw met Dee Dee Clohessy, a writer from Buffalo, New York, whose seminal work "facebook status reports I hate," attracted Pleshaw's attention to the medium in which they were living.

As Pleshaw traveled and posted, Dee Dee, a denizen of cyberspace on the 24-7 clock thanks to her tireless smart phone, provided Pleshaw with technical, logistical and emotional support and soon became the better half of The Greatest Love Story of the Century, which quickly gained its own website and hundreds of fans who ponied up a buck to send Dee Dee to Thailand to meet Pleshaw, following his much-publicized proposal of marriage to her on facebook four months after their initial online meeting - but three months away from their actual face2face meeting in Phuket, Thailand. In the words of Pleshaw, "anyone who wants to share our innermost thoughts on facebook and youtube and then agree to marry me sight unseen - yeah, that's the kind of person I want to marry, no question about it."

In addition to many many status reports, Pleshaw's output during this period also included at least a dozen long-form "Notes" about everything from seeing the Dalai Lama to finding a cure for his psoriasis to "burying the meds" one full year after deciding not to take them anymore. Dozens of different friends contributed to the threads that Pleshaw seeded via both status report and "Notes," "contributing writers" all to both the journey and the unfolding narrative. Off-facebook, hundreds of emails, Skype calls and chats built a broad subtext of the many convergent and divergent notions, ideas, and themes that Pleshaw chose to explore during the course of the "Stumbling" project.

Originally intended to only encompass the period that Pleshaw spent in India, the "live book" format ended up perfecty illustrating the axiom that "sometimes even the best experiments can go awry," when upon returning to Thailand, Pleshaw's use of a tantric meditation technique caused him to go astral for nine straight days - a phenomena described by others as a Kundalini Awakening and whose revelatory nature took both Pleshaw and his astounded readership into triple-overtime - with the narrative only coming to a final "Stumbling" halt on January the 1st, 2011.

Currently, Pleshaw has disappeared into the remote provinces of Isaan, Thailand to teach English and learn the Thai language. At this time, all three books and their intended vehicle Strident Press are in hiatus pending further reflection and edits. In his words, "it was quite a process, y'know," and he intends to spend whatever spare time that lies ahead of him breathing deep, practicing yoga, drinking beer...and...editing. For more information...check out Strident Press from time to time. There might be something there you want to see.

Original Post - needs a seamless edit, but I am on the fly at the moment

Less than two years ago, Pleshaw joined facebook and immediately recognize its potential as a journalistic medium. Similar to the seminal WELL project of the mid-1990s, the use of asynchronous threading made it possible to treat the status report as a "column" with a threaded conversation beneath from "friends." Abandoning his other blogs (just google) he began to use the facebook status report as a place to "micro-blog" and was in the process of developing theory about "micro-journalism" when he stumbled across Deedee Clohessy's hilarious essay of "facebook status reports I hate" and he immediately friended her. A furious "lovers of the mind" relationship ensued as the two began sharing writing, ideas, feelings, thoughts, and emotion with one another - perfectly exemplifying exactly *WHY* social media blows traditional journalism out of the water -- by removing the intermediary of the "publication," (with all its attendant horrors of bias, so-called "objectivity" and the notion of bylined "author" as the center of all discourse,) social media and the Internet in general allow one-on-one communication *and* one-to-many communication simultaneously across the planet, as well as feedback loops from both "writer" and "audience," smashing any distinctions between the two, eliminating the "fourth wall" of communications forever - and completely re-defining what "news" really is.

Taking the "microjournalism" praxis to the next level, Pleshaw decided to write a "live book" on facebook about his experiences in India, status report by status report, and Deedee Clohessy was his constant co-presence companion on this four-month madcap journey ("personal, political, & mystical") which included at least 600 status reports and is now known as "Stumbling Towards Enlightenment" (available from Strident Press in May of 2011) with Clohessy as emotional support and love interest.

Okay - we admit it. Our love is a po-mo literary fantasy, perhaps, but we both actually believe in our Strange Kind of Love. We're both bookish and writers enough to know that 90% of love comes from our minds, and romantic enough to believe that the best kind of partnership evolves when you find that special someone who "gives good email." Deedee gives the best (her chats are pretty rad too) and I really love her mind. Please support our weird project. Cyberpunk isn't all doom'n'gloom after all - maybe this time around, the matrix actually will lead the two of us - and the rest of you - to understand that sometimes, the matrix really leads to true love.

Infamous Heard Show Essay Gets BUMPED! from top slot! (soon)

{By the way, in addition to getting strange calls in the dead of night and having America Meredith attack me and refuse to talk to me (we had previously been pals of a sort, we're both big drunks and we liked to party together) and then spread a rumor that I would be barred from her show at Indian Market 2009, I also was sorta threatened with losing work from a couple of magazines and was also not "invited back" to write copy for SWAIA, but hey, you know, sometimes you speak your mind and they cut you off and you just have to LICK IT UP, and you might have to someday also if you want to make ART and not PRODUCT, give it a shot, it feels good but you may have to leave Santa Fe to pull it off because..well, because it's expensive there.}

THE DIRTY LITTLE SECRET OF INDIAN ART MARKETS
by Gregory J. Pleshaw, aka "gregoryp(tm)" circa March 2009

In a dramatic reversal from last year’s Heard Museum’s Indian Art Fair & Market, tradition trumped contemporary art on the roster of prize-winning pieces. Nowhere was this better exemplified than in the choice of an ornately beaded cradleboard by 5th-year Heard Show veteran Molly Murphy as the winner of Best in Show. It was a conservative piece of work for decidedly conservative times, at least fiscally speaking. But it may have been an apt choice given the relatively lackluster entries into the Fair’s judging in all categories, but especially on the contemporary side of the fence.

Many people at the Heard Show wanted to blame the judges for returning such a traditional-heavy roster of winners but the fact remained that there just weren’t a lot of heavy hitter works coming in for fans of contemporary art. Painting, for example, was mostly a total wash, with a couple of standouts that might work as merely decorative pieces, rather than actual notable works of art.

A little caveat – in the five years that I’ve been covering this beat, I would have to say that never have I seen so little work that actually inspired me. Perhaps I’ve just seen too much stuff, doodads, paintings and artifacts of all stripes that I now possess a completely jaded eye, but it seems to me like the artists involved in Market(s) aren’t really trying to push the envelope, instead opting to find a good Market niche and sticking to it because that’s what brings home the bacon. However, the tough market has made it so even those who stuck with the tried and true were punished for their efforts at this market, as sales took a nosedive even for market stalwarts, (who for obvious reasons spoke off the record and therefore cannot be named.)

As I said in my last report from the Heard show, the most unwelcome guest at the party was without a doubt the economy, which seemed to bring a lot of empty wallets and overdrawn checkbooks to the show. Artists who were previously used to selling out by Saturday at noon were still lingering at 4:30pm on Sunday, anxiously looking around for one last sale that could justify the expense of coming to the show in the first place.

Last night, while driving home from Arizona I had several epiphanies about the Heard Show and Native Markets in general (this would include Santa Fe’s Indian Market as well.) Is it possible that because these events are by their nature MARKET-driven that they encourage pandering to that Market and that a lot of mediocre work gets created and sold as a result? A number of minds are prone to think so, especially those who have decided for whatever reason that they won’t be participating in any Markets, regardless of how much fast cash might be available in them.

Some of the strongest voices in Native Art today would include Rose Simpson, Gregory Lomayesva and Tony Abeyta. All three simply choose not to do Native Markets for their own reasons, ranging from the vehement disapproval of Markets in general by Simpson to a total disinterest in “begging from a booth” by Lomayesva. But all three of them had a strong presence at the Heard Show through strong shows in the Museum (Abeyta & Simpson) and works in the Berlin Gallery (Lomayesva.)

It’s an interesting paradigm that the Markets which ostensibly exist to drive a Native art scene nonetheless see their heaviest hitters refuse to participate in their machinations, which again strive to be the primary showcases of Indian arts exposure and sales, but it speaks volumes about the power or lack thereof of these Markets to really be a driving force for serious Art-with-a-capital-A. Rose Simpson’s work is beyond serious – it is beyond a doubt in my mind that her clay sculptures in the “Mothers & Daughters” show were hands-down the most arresting pieces of work I saw the entire weekend. Tony Abeyta’s one-man show “Underworldness” feature black and white charcoal murals that seek to explore the sublime meanings behind Navajo spirituality and they again showcase the visionary talent of this fine artist.

Meanwhile, in a show of tragicomedy that may underscore the role that institutions may play in a continual rewarding of weak work and lackluster talent over really innovative vision, Gregory Lomayesva was on his way to permanently severing his ties with the Heard's Berlin Gallery over a display of censorship that is utterly laughable for a gallery that claims to have a contemporary edge in its curatorial direction. On the heels of two successful one-man shows with Ursa Gallery in Santa Fe and Gebert Gallery in Los Angeles where Lomayesva showed both his woodworking pieces and paintings in a tour de force of narrative artistry, Lomayesva was asked to participate in a three-man show with top-flight Native painter Norman Akers, (who, incidentally, also doesn’t do Markets) and deceased Native icon Fritz Scholder. Included among the pieces that Lomayesva brought to the show was a sculpture of a woman shooting up heroin and a sculpture of a couple copulating. The Berlin refused to show the works in question, citing “inappropriateness” and “an inability to sell the works,” according to Lomayesva. After a heated exchange, Lomayesva cried censorship (and rightly so) quit the Berlin Gallery and immediately drove back to Santa Fe.

“I had thought the Berlin Gallery was supposed to be a cutting edge space,” said Lomayesva. “What their actions said to me was that they’re only interested in the Indian art of pretty pictures and noble savages. After we spoke there seemed nothing more to say, so I split.”

The Berlin gallery commented with a boilerplate statement that completely avoided the real issue at hand, (as perhaps they must.) Anyone who knows Gregory Lomayesva knows that he can be a real maverick when it comes to defending his work and he has to be – he has long existed quite well outside of the Market system, with galleries and acclaim across the nation and around the world. The synthesis of this particular anecdote is that when Native artists do step up to the plate with edgier and more interesting work, the very institutions that are supposedly there to help them shut them down with spurious claims about the value of the work – since when is “inappropriate” a reasonable word to use when rejecting a work of art? This kind of attitude on the part of these institutions shows a pandering to a Marketplace, a paternalistic attitude towards artists, and creates a situation where it makes it difficult to create an arts scene that can be taken seriously beyond the level of a crafts fair.

Over the course of the weekend, I had an opportunity to meet with Sheldon Harvey, last year’s winner of Indian Market’s Best in Show prize. Harvey is a bright, well-mannered and engaging fellow whose biopic could be called “Rez Dog Millionaire,” the heart-warming rags to riches tale of the high school dropout with no artistic education who bravely bootstrapped his way into stores and galleries with his inspired Navajo folk art sculptures and allowed him catapult his way to the top of the heap. Along the way, he picked up painting – as if painting was a skill that could be learned in a weekend without any formal training whatsoever and somehow managed to win, at the tender age of thirty, (for a painter that’s a child) what SWAIA would like to believe is the very top prize in Native American art.

Now, don’t get me wrong – Sheldon is a nice guy and I hope he still calls me to come check out his studio after this piece runs – but he can hardly be called a great painter and I would go so far as to say (as I did to him, mind you) that giving him that award did him a terrible dis-service by saying, “Evolve no further – you are already the Best,” when nothing could be further from the truth. While “The Trickster Way” (the award-winning work) is a competent painting, I think it was a grave mistake to call that piece the Best in Show of an event that touts itself as a world-class Indian art market, because here’s what it says: It says that Native Art is unschooled and not very competent, that it is perhaps filled with lovely people and inspiring tales – but NOT that it is in the business of fostering great art. If “The Trickster Way” was really the very best piece of art that Indian Market had to offer last year (and I can’t say for certain because I wasn’t around) then perhaps Indian Market should have considered not offering the prize to anyone at all.

It all comes down to a question of standards – and I’m not talking about the voluminous pile of standards that SWAIA puts out every year. Lots of people in the insider’s circles of Native art shows would like to see this work and these shows covered by publications like Art Forum and Art in America, but the dirty little secret of the Native Arts world is that most of this work simply isn’t good enough to go there. For many artists who participate in Market(s) – and certainly many of the traditional ones who learn their crafts at grandmother and grandfather’s knees – it is simply a question of not having enough of an art school background to be able to make really strong enough work to step out of the realm of craft and into “art.” For those on the contemporary side of the fence who may have spent some time at IAIA or those vaunted few who even managed to get an MFA somewhere along the line, the glittering prizes of pandering to rich white collectors with mediocre “hybrid” statements of one kind or another holds greater promise to them personally than the prospect of really digging deep to produce great art. And the Market system is partially to blame for that sad state of affairs.

A painter friend once said to me, “Paint what you want, and die happy.” But most serious Native Market contenders are making what the Market wants and aiming to die rich. Consider the new Native artist – no longer a lonesome Rez dog with a plastic bag for a suitcase but a well-heeled power broker driving an SUV and wearing a Tag Hauer watch on one wrist and a Pat Pruitt or Fritz Casuse or Maria Samora bracelet on the other. Over the weekend, one prominent Oklahoma gallery owner suggested that what was needed was a return to the idea of the starving artist who will do anything to facilitate his truest visions. The artist he introduced me to as “proof” of that kind of sacrifice said he’d be willing to starve so long as he didn’t miss a payment on his BMW. Clearly, this is not a crowd of people willing to go to the edge to make really quality work – these are folks who’ve seen the writing on the wall and will paint or sculpt or draw or fabricate where the money is in exchange for a grip of cash. The results are many many works of excellent craft quality but poorly thought out statements that do not exalt the greatest ideals of anybody’s art school – Western or Native American.

From my perspective, the Heard Show and Indian Market both have a challenge that has been thrown at their feet, and that’s to either figure out how to bring their greatest talents back into the fold and start cultivating really outstanding work within their spheres of influence – or they need to utterly admit defeat as purveyors of serious art. The latter would require them to encourage the really serious talents in Native Art not to waste their time joining their markets but instead to focus their time and energies on more schooling and on making work outside the Native Art Market system. But Market artists also have a challenge before them, and that is to challenge themselves to make stronger work that isn't about pandering and is about pushing the envelope. The Market(s) as they are right now might not reward them, but history might - the question is, what do artists care about most?

More Thoughs on Georgelle Hirliman, Santa Fe's Writer in the Window

Georgelle Hirliman died a few days ago, and I am remembering her from Thailand.

Here is the original post from facebook:

"Georgelle Hirliman was without a doubt one of the most gifted writers and witches I have ever had the pleasure to know. As "Writer-in-the-WIndow" in the mid-1980s, she provided a generation of Santa Feans (and visitors from other places without a doubt) with advice that has quite similar to the vein of pop occultism later popularized by writers like Rob Brezny. I used her astrological services on several occasions when it seemed certain that the constructs of modern Western psychology and psychiatry did not contain nearly often poetry to explain the strange existence that I began to lead as a teenager and continue to wind my way through to this very day. In fact, she is *precisely* the sort of person I would like to speaking with now. Her death is a loss both to the community and to me personally, but I shall always remember her wry humor and genteel grace in trying to articulate solutions to the twists and turns of minds and heart troubled by the ineffable of the Santa Fe cosmogony, rife with problems both real and imagined, sensed and intuited, visions, notions and strange and dangerous ideas. Were I to attend a memorial for her, I would certainly cry, for she spoke to my heart - and so few people have either the courage or the ability to do that, and if they do have it, they do it so rarely. om nava shivaya, Georgelle - I always recognized the light in you, but without a doubt you saw in it me also and were occasionally able to help me see it."

- gregoryp(tm)...


The courage of that woman in her Writer-in-the-Window project had just an enormous impact on me as a teenager. She had balls and she had commitment to a community that now no longer exists, IMHO. In any case - her work there was art and politics and philosophy and answers and inspiration and courage and strength and hope, and in the past 24 hours I have come to love her in her death a great deal more than I did in life. She has become an icon in my mind, as great people do when they die, and I am indeed very happy that I actually knew such an incredibly courageous person at least once in my life - but fortunately for me, I have also known a great deal many more...

the very act of sitting down to a blank page or facing an empty studio and making the decision to create is not just a courageous act, but an act of treason in a culture where the dominant discourse rests on consumption and apathy and hiding in your house. To create IN PUBLIC and on display is to challenge authority on its deepest levels. Whatever else Georgelle Hirliman was in her life - and I have indeed, heard many many things that I will gloss over completely in remembering the strength of that project - as Writer-in-the-Window she created a moment of temporal anarchy that resulted in a rich rich discourse that was primarily local (as all good projects should be) but that created global resonance that is affecting me with great profoundity as I sit here typing on the banks of the Mekong in Thailand. Goddess knows how many other hearts and minds she touched with what was essentially a dada exercise in creation for the sake of it. Do not forget her, even if you never knew her. Goddess knows, though I may forget the woman I will never forget the work - on par with DuChamp's urinal, to a degree, taking the piss at an art culture that was only just evolving in Santa Fe at the time, where creativity and process where trumped entirely by the need to create decorative work that enlivened the expensive homes of the dull-minded and well-monied.

I really could go on and on, but just remember this - it takes tremendous courage and whimsy to sit in a storefront window and present to people the idea that they have questions and you will make a stab at answers. All those AMAZING questions - and her answers - helped define the cosmogony of Santa Fe during the period in which she worked, and for a generation of Santa Fe youth, she was our oracle.. God bless her soul.


Is there an archive - someone should curate a show. Wish I could, honestly.

What Santa Fe Means to Me

From a long-form narrative inside my notebooks. Posting this to remind myself and you that I'm not quite the bitter queen I sometimes think I am.


"Where are you from?"

"Santa Fe, New Mexico," I said proudly, as I always do when I'm out of town. Santa Fe means magic to a lot of people, myself included, and though I've lived there most of my life and have known its darkest underbelly and its glaring contradictions, it is nevertheless a place of history and tradition, beauty and spirituality, and in my most hopeless hour in that sometimes wretched place, I have found salvation more times than I care to count, it is the place of my family and friends, and though I've left it a million times, I always return, for love it or not, it is my home and I am loved there, strangely enough, at least enough that I can always stop there and recuperate, and learn to love and live and dream again.

Again, my deepest apologies
gregoryp(tm)

Read About Me In Mitote?

"Santa Fe freelancer Gregory Pleshaw is still enjoying time in paradise — he has been in Thailand for the past several months. But friends and readers can keep up with his adventures at http://gregoryp.blogspot.com."

- Santa Fe New Mexican, January 31, 2010

If you want to know what I'm doing on a daily basis, go to http://www.gregoryp.net and friend me on facebook. I miss green chile, but SE Asia is a source of endless fascination. Thanks for coming by.

- gregoryp(tm)

A Visa Run To LaosStep-by-Step Instructions for Those of Us Who Find Border Crossings Make Us Neurotic Wrecks

Kip, the Laotian Wonder Dog, photo by Jana Haentjes

30 tips, 30 hours, three currencies and an excellent meal.

What you'll need: a passport, a pen, a notebook, an overnight bag, a laptop, (not necessary, but there's a bit of wifi to be had) a couple thousand baht, (depending on your eating, shopping and party needs,) and a place to crash because you will spend the night in Vientiane whether you want to or not.

Yeah, it was time again, time for another Visa Run. So I made one to Vientiane, Laos, without a doubt one of the more pleasant capital cities in southeast Asia.

But that wasn't why I made the trip to that particular place. Rumor had it across Thailand that Vientiane was the place to obtain a double-entry visa. A double-entry means 90 days times two - for a total of 180 days to hang out in Thailand. For more information on what that means, visit Thaivisa.com.

Caveat: Lots of great info in the forums on ThaiVisa.com - however, posting can be a bit of a bear. People are not terribly kind there. Post delicately.

Here are the basics of making said Visa Run:

1) Get your ass to Nong Khai. There's a night-train from Bangkok that costs less than 600 baht.

2) If you're smart, you'll get a tuk-tuk from the train station to Mut Mee Guest House and hang out for a day or two. Even if they don't have rooms, there are CHEAP guest houses nearby. Try 150 baht a night for a fan and hot water bungalow, which is super-cheap if you're coming from the south. Nong Khai is a pleasant little "proper Thai" border town (meaning its cheap and it don't really cater to farang.) There's a famous Buddhist-Hindu sculpture garden there that you can ride a bike to and you'll find out all about it if you go there. If you want tubing or discos, don't bother with Nong Khai.

3) The Visa Run itself is appromixately a 30 hour process. You need: a small bag with a change of clothes, toiletries, a pen, a notebook, $36 in US cash (available at Mut Mee or any exchange place) two passport photos and enough dough to drink, eat and crash in Ventiane. (budgets will vary, I will reveal mine along the way.)

4) Get a tuk-tuk to Friendship Bridge. Just say it to the tuk-tuk driver. "Friendship Bridge." He knows what you want and where you want to go and he'll take you there. From Mut Mee, it cost 50 baht (and it's a long ass drive, in all honesty.) It may be less from the train station...get off the tuk-tuk, walk past the uniformed Thai Immigration guy and get in line, but don't forget....

5) Inside your passport is a Thai DEPARTURE CARD. Fill it out before you get in line, perhaps in the slumber-land of the Mut Mee or perhaps in haste on the bus on the way over. (This is where the pen comes in handy, but it will come in handy later, so bring three of them, since others will no doubt have forgotten to bring one, and its fun to share.)

6) At Thai Immigration, stand in line. Prepare to pay 500 baht for each day of Overstay. (ps: Overstay is name of a super-cool guest house in Bangkok that you should stay at if Burroughs and P'Orridge flip your wig. Otherwise...) (They'll make you pay it, up to 20,000 baht ($600) and they might arrest you if you've really OVERSTAYED. So don't. Get to a border before Overstay.

7) Once you've cleared Thai Immigration, it's time to cross Friendship Bridge. 15 baht will get you a ticket on a bus (walking across is not an option, so just pay and get on the bus) that will take you across the bridge. A hush descends all over the world when you enter Laos. It's a new country. A new language, though the food is similar - but better. Eat the laab. It kicks ass, but that comes later...

8) Get off the bus before it stops and RUSH to Window #2 and get an application. There will be 10,000 farangs who think, (like you) that hanging out in southeast Asia is better than being in the West. They are both comrades and competitors. You are aiming for the same goal - a visa that will allow you to keep kicking around Thailand.

9) Fill out the application AS YOU STAND IN LINE AT WINDOW #1. Use your passsport as backing to write that app. Just fill it in, whatever you don't know, leave blank. This is, as are many things in SE Asia, a total shill. They just want your $35 and some kind of effort on your part to show that you want to enter their country. It's $36 if you need photos, so dress neatly - a torn t-shirt and a ratty pair of shorts is not the best way to ask for entry to another country, but they'll probably let you in anyway - after a bit of a WAIT. They know you want to get the damn visa in time to GET TO THE THAI EMBASSY BY NOON, but they'll torture you anyway. Meditate on the pain of their existence and remain calm.

10) Wait like a nervous teenager waiting for concert tickets at Window #3. Efficiency is not the Laotian aim - they have business to do, and it will take at least an hour to get your passport back with your new Laos visa. Talk to the other drop-outs and learn their cover stories - you will see them again in 90 or 180 days somewhere else, and they might have valuable travel information - this is where the notebook comes in handy.

11) Fuck the local bus (number 14) - I would presume its cheap, but it probably takes forever. Bargain for a tuk-tuk - I arranged for the travel of two - myself and an elderly gent from Denmark - for 150 baht from the border to the Embassy - the ride was so freakin' long and so much like a car chase that I gave the guy 200 baht for effort. A 50 baht tip may be too rich for your blood, but remember, these people live on dirt when you're not around.

12) Important points: Get to the Embassy before noon or they'll shut the gates and tell you to come back tomorrow, meaning an extra day in Laos, which really is lovely, but frankly, you're on business.

13) Arrive at the Embassy - the ABSOLUTE FIRST THING YOU DO is GET A FREAKIN' NUMBER. Walk up to the main window and there's a door on your left. Knock gently and someone will open the door and hand you a number. If you've forgot your passport photos, you can buy them across the street for 120 baht for eight, (you only need two, keep the other for later runs or give to people you like) a photocopy of your passport is available for 15 baht upstairs at the Embassy, but again, you could do this in advance, but you might not bother. They take your picture, print the photos, cut them up and glue two to the application for you and give you the rest to take home. Just beneath the photos is a slot for entering your request of 2 entries. Writea BIG 2 and pray for rain and that double-entry visa, because you don't want to do this again for at least six months.

14) My number was 486 - 4+8=12+6=18. 1+8 =9. I was very excited because 9 is the luckiest number in Thai numerological and lottery systems. (it has to do with the sum of the number 108, which is a sacred number in Buddhist and Hindu systems.) Sit and wait for your number to be called. You can smoke in the corner of the Embassy grounds. There are seats under shade but there's also a lovely patch of grass to sit on. Wait. Smoke. Pray. Meditate. Wonder what you'll do next if they deny your visa app, (people do a lot of this in Laos - some more than others, certainly.)

15) When your number is called, stand in line (they call lots of numbers at once) and when you reach the front, hand in the application. There is no fee for a Thai tourist visa until March, 2010, but there's a rumor that will be extended. There are also rumors that they will eliminate the double-entry visa entirely or that farangs will be thrown out of the country. Ignore all these rumors and listen to the last person who did it him/herself - or head to ThaiVisa.com if you really want to see all of them. They wil give you a receipt consisting of a piece of wax paper with a number written on it. Fold it up carefully and stick it somewhere in your wallet. DO NOT LOSE IT. I didn't meet anyone who did, but I was very careful with mine.

16) FREEDOM! Until 1pm the following day, you are a tourist in Laos. Welcome to this fine country. Ventiane is small, but here's the route we took:

17) In more or less the center of town, there's a fountain. Laos word for fountain is "Namphu." Bargain for a tuk-tuk there - ours was 100 baht for three people and an absurd amount of luggage. (some people carry their whole lives on a visa run - find a place to stash the majority of your crap before you cross the border and travel light, IMHO.) Guest houses can be found all over the place. We stayed at a place called Phone Paseuth for $21 US a night for three and got a big bed (for the two women I was with) and a small one for me. There was a tv we never turned on, so perhaps it worked. Next time, I might ask for a tuk-tuk to the Orchid Guest House - it's right on the river and it was about the same price. Ultimately, you don't care - you want a place to stash your stuff & lay your head. This isn't an extended holiday.

18) Ventiane highlights:

* Around the fountain is the famous Scandinavian Bakery. They serve smela, which I must be spelling incorrectly but it was described as a pastry stuffed with marzipan with whipped cream on top and a "hat" of more pastry. Sadly, they've only got it on Saturdays, so I didn't have one. They have wifi for 6000 kip per hour (less than a dollar.) You pay in advance and they hand you a card with login and password. Coffee includes a REFILL, (otherwise totally unheard of in SE Asia.)

* Riverside: Go there. Proper restaurants along the street-side - street stall restaurants by the river. opt for the latter for some of the best damn laab, som tam, morning glory, noodles and anything else Laos people eat. We went to the one across from the second riverside Wat, (there are two and they sort of mark the beginning and end of the main strip.) A ladyboy served us Beer Lao (the best lager in SE Asia without a doubt - Thai beers are mostly horrific) and we ate like pigs for less than 600 baht.

* The Wats. Pretty. If you've been to Chiang Mai, you've seen them already, but go have a contemplative moment anyway - you've crossed a border after all. Give yourself a moment to collect yourself.

* The Market - happens as the sun goes down and until around ten o'clock. Chock-a-block handmade goods, mostly textiles, dolls, bags, etc. The usual. I bought two beautiful handbags (one blue for a friend, one hot pink for myself) for around 200 baht (50,000 kip, to be precise.) A cool t-shirt with the Laos alphabet for 40,000 kip. A stuffed dog for a new friend (whom we've named Kip in honor of the Laos currency) for around 30,000 kip, I think.

* Ventiane does party, but we never found it - there's a rooftop bar somewhere and we got into an absurd tuk-tuk rally with about 25 Westerners and three tuk-tuks looking for it. It was the most fun I had all night (other than dinner, which was really stellar. Laab Moo is wondrous in Laos. Kow Niou (sticky rice) is perfect. The som tam was a little off - too sour for my taste, but the Morning Glory was the best I've had ever.

19) Day Two: Get up and go have coffee and check your email (if you brought a computer) at the Scandinavian Bakery.

20) Loll around until noon. Yes, there will be more lines, but you'll stand in the sun regardless, so why rush?

21) Bargain for a tuk-tuk back to the Thai Embassy. Three for 150 this time. Your mileage may vary.

22) Stand in line to the right of the entrance. Get a water from the street stall and wait. They open the doors at 1pm and you enter the Embassy in single file.

23) You'd think it would be an Orwellian nightmare - men in camo with submachine guns - but it's just like queueing up at the bank. There's an INCREDIBLE picture of the King and Queen behind the counter, with an ornate silver frame featuring an image of Garuda. Kicks ass, this portrait. Look for it. I want it for my bungalow. ;-)

24) Did you remember your receipt? The one you got when you turned in your passport yesterday. DO NOT LOSE IT. Got it? Right. Hand it over to the persons behind the counter and glance at the hundreds of passports from dozens of nations arranged on the counter. Yours is in their somewhere.

25) Get the passport - and open it up. It's kinda like Xmas and a trip to the dentist - you just don't know if it will be happiness or pain. MINE WAS DOUBLE-ENTRY! I wanted to scream with joy, but I just smiled brightly and we all left the Embassy.

26) Out front, bargain for a tuk-tuk to Friendship Bridge. Again, inside your passport now is a DEPARTURE CARD from Laos. Fill it in before you arrive at Friendship Bridge. 150 baht for three again, I think.

27) Laos Immigration is, again, slow. Slow to enter, slow to go. More torture than coming in because you've got what you want and you just want out. Practice patience and breathing slowly. Don't feel grumpy. It's really almost done. When you reach the front of the line, hand in your passport and Departure Card. Get them back and walk away. Congratulations! You've left Laos. Now - you must enter Thailand. Again.

28) Pick up the shuttle bus over the bridge - 15 baht for a ticket - or 4000 kip. Change your money before you get on the bus. Kip is lovely, but useless in Thailand. (Note: Laos will take any currency - kip, baht or dollars. Probably Euros as well, I didn't have any.)

29) By now you're really knackered, honestly, and it's hard not to be grumpy. Cheer up. Your almost there. Step off the bus before it stops and race to Window #2 and get an Arrival Card. Fill it out while waiting in line at Window #1. Hand it in, get it stamped and bingo! YOU ARE IN THAILAND.

30) Bargain for a tuk-tuk back to the Mut-Mee. 40 baht each for three. Wait patiently as the driver hustles for other passengers. Hold your breath while the tuk-tuk stops for a dog who is napping in the street. Arrive home, step out, grab your bags, pay the man. Tip him. You are done.

How to Rent a Motorbike in Koh Tao & Avoid Passport EXTORTION

Simple steps really:

1) Do not ever surrender your passport as a deposit on a motorbike.

Your passport doesn't belong to you - it's a document issued to you by your government, but it's essentially a gift that you cannot give away. Do not surrender it to anyone ever - should you do so (and I did, so I know how obvious it can seem) there are ways to get around it should you be caught in the Koh Tao Motorbike Scam.

2) Give a deposit that you can afford to lose.

Koh Tao's motorbike agencies operate thusly - they make their "real money" by jacking tourists for the smallest scratch or accident. Imagine my surprise when a fall of the bike to a sandy road at 2kph resulted in a bill for 12K baht - you could buy a whole new bike for that and the scratches were QUITE minor. A competing shop told me he could fix it for 2500 - and I got a bill for five times that. I didn't pay it - don't you do it either.

3) Give a fake name.

In case they decided to come after you.

4) And a fake guest house.

Because after all - everyone likes to pretend that Thai *hate* confrontation. Nonsense - they're masters at passive-aggressive confrontation, such as handing you a bill for 12K baht when the proper bill is less than 3K. If they want to find you - make it harder for them. Now - how's that for passive-aggressive?

If you have fallen for the Koh Tao Motorbike Scam and they've handed you a deliriously large bill and they've got your passport - don't despair. Bangkok isn't far and chances are good that your country has an Embassy there. Call first and tell them what's happening. Extortion people for money for their passport is a CRIME in the United States and it's not looked upon too favorably when people in other countries attempt to do it. A replacement passport will run you $97 plus two passport photos and your physical presence in BKK - you have to go there most of the time to leave the country - and I'm thinking Bangkok will be looking plenty refreshing after this particular rip-off, here, on the otherwise lovely island of Koh Tao.

US Embassy Information located at 95 Wireless Road in Bangkok.
http://bangkok.usembassy.gov/faq/frequently-asked-questions/