CURRENTLY visiting Pattaya is famed futurologist Master Aisee Yoo, a Singaporean adept who describes himself as an astrologer, crystal-ball gazer, Tarot-card reader, feng-shui expert, I Ching interpreter, black-belt Scientologist, clairvoyant, prophet, mahatma, revelator, and seer.
Eager to learn what this great man predicts for 2010, I managed to arrange an interview at his posh digs in the Happy Cockroach Hotel. The results:
Tsow: Welcome to Pattaya, Master Aisee. What do you foresee for 2010?
Master Aisee: Let me begin by saying that I’m not a conventional prognosticator. I call my predictions the Skum 2 Kum, because I focus on upcoming events that are bizarre, salacious, and obscene. That’s why I was banished from Singapore by a callous and unenlightened government. It’s why I’ve chosen to make Pattaya my new home.
Tsow: Excellent choice. So what’s in store for us this year?
Master: The political conflicts in Thailand will escalate as competing groups multiply. This will result in a shortage of shirt colors.
Right now you have only the yellow shirts fighting the red shirts. But soon new groups will arise, proliferating like hamsters, representing every political viewpoint from Fascism to Libertarianism. Each will adopt a different color: orange, green, blue, purple, brown, gray, black, even fuchsia, mauve, and chartreuse. Pretty soon all the colors will be taken. People who want to stay neutral, and show their neutrality by the color of their shirts, won’t be able to find a politically neutral color to wear.
Tsow: Good heavens. What will they do?
Master: In a brilliant masterstroke, Thais who are tired of all the turmoil will stop wearing any shirts at all. Since this accords with an ancient Thai custom and makes perfect sense in Thailand’s horrid heat, shirtlessness will quickly catch on and become the new fashion norm for both men and women.
Tsow: Wow. What else? Let’s have something salacious this time.
Master: Ah. Although it will be vociferously denied by all concerned, rumors will begin to circulate that fugitive ex-prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra and Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen have become gay lovers. These rumors will be fueled by a recent photo taken of them hugging enthusiastically.
Tsow: And will it be true? Will they become gay lovers?
Master: The stars don’t say. They say only that there will be rumors.
Tsow: Gosh. That’s salacious, all right. Anything else? Master: Yes. Osama bin Laden will flee to an unknown destination when it is revealed that ever since the bombing of Tora Bora he has secretly been living in Pattaya as the owner of a chain of go-go bars called Osam-A-Rama. This is a novel new concept that features dancing sheep.
Tsow: Do the sheep, uh, … “show”? Master: No. Nothing immodest. In accordance with its puritanical code of morality, Al-Qaeda enforces a high standard of chaste decorum in all its go-go bars. The sheep wear pasties. And they’re all female. Since Al-Qaeda sternly forbids such wickedness as the mingling of the sexes, there’s no immoral mixing of male and female sheep on stage.
Tsow: And, uh, can the sheep be bar-fined?
Master: Yes, but they call it a baa-fine. A little humor from the fun-loving punsters of Al-Qaeda.
Tsow: Uhhhhh, this is new territory for me, but…what do you do with a sheep after you’ve baa-fined it?
Master: The stars are infuriatingly silent on this topic. But I suspect that lamb chops and sheepskin coats might be part of the picture.
Tsow: That will ensure that customers get their money’s worth. Master: Yes. But the failure of the American intelligence community to locate Osama when he was in Pattaya for so long will prompt a great outcry in the United States. President Obama will promise an intense review of procedures and a shakeup of intelligence personnel. High-level officials will step forward to assume responsibility—
Tsow: Just hold on a minute. I’ve always wondered about these government officials who say they assume responsibility. What does that mean? Does it mean they’ll resign?
Master: No. Usually people applaud and say, “Ooo, that’s cool, he assumes responsibility. Let’s give him a medal.” But beginning with the Osama-in-Pattaya debacle, people will begin to demand that such officials fall on their swords, the way the ancient Romans did. In extreme cases, they’ll demand that they commit hara-kiri, Japanese-style. In public. On TV. It could become a new kind of reality show.
Tsow: And will this become a new requirement for public officials who screw up?
Master: No. It’ll be the focus of a bill that will get stalled in Congress. Republicans and Democrats will fight over whether officials should be issued a Roman sword or a Japanese sword upon assuming office, because they’ll need something to commit suicide with if they screw up. One patriotic group will argue that American officials should not have to commit suicide with swords of foreign design. They’ll propose that Bowie knives be issued instead. That’s a good, patriotic American knife with an illustrious history, used by Daniel Boone, Kit Carson, and Davy Crockett, not to mention Buffalo Bill and Calamity Jane. But the compromise effort will collapse when the Bowie knife manufacturers object that they don’t want the reputation of their fine product to be sullied by association with officials who screw up.
In another development, U.S. intelligence officials will conceive an ingenious plan to siphon off new recruits from Al-Qaeda. They will offer aspiring young suicide bombers a free two-week vacation in Pattaya, all expenses paid, with the option of remaining permanently if they enjoy their stay. The motto of this program will be “Why Wait? Paradise Now!”
Tsow: Won’t that cost the U.S. government a lot of money?
Master: Not as much as fighting the war in Iraq, the war in Afghanistan, and maybe a new one coming up in Yemen.
Tsow: And will the program work? Master: Alas, it won’t even get off the ground. It’ll be blocked in Congress by envious legislators who will demand to be included in the plan.
In a shocking development, mischievous rumor-mongers will allege that famed Pattaya vegetarian Eric Bahrt is a closet carnivore. They will produce a fuzzy photograph of him surreptitiously eating a Big Mac at a McDonald’s in Rayong. Eric’s legions of defenders will produce proof that the photo is a fake—that a malicious agent provocateur disguised himself and committed the evil act in a vicious hoax designed to besmirch Eric’s reputation. This melodrama will have an ironic denouement when the villain is attacked and devoured in an alley by a pack of non-vegetarian soi dogs.
Tsow: Serves him right. Anything else?
Master: Yes, one final note. On the Thai political scene, my ouija board predicts the rise of Wan Yoobamroong to a position of eminence and power, possibly even the premiership.
Tsow: What? Don’t you mean his father, Chalerm?
Master: No, it’s Wan, the erstwhile Mr. Happy Toilet in an earlier administration. As my ouija board cryptically put it, “Young Blood Will Rise.” That’s a coded message: Y for Yoo, B for Bam, R for Roong, with the W for Wan. You have to know how to interpret these things.
Tsow: Sounds like it’ll be an exciting year, all right.

S. Tsow can be scolded for writing such scurrilous filth at s.tsow@ymail.com, except when he’s wondering whether he can save money on lamb chops by patronizing the Osam-A-Rama.