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JerryHopkins

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JerryHopkins last won the day on March 26 2012

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  1. Hefe... Want to talk to you. Misplaced your email address. Drop me a line, please, at jerry@jerryhopkins.com. Thanks, Jerry
  2. Hello all.... I've been inactive in the bars and in moving ahead with the big coffee table book about ladyboys I announced some time ago, but I want to let you all know that I'm back on track and will be at the volleyball competition this week. I haven't made my hotel reservations yet and am unfamiliar with Pattaya's hotel choices, so I'd appreciate recommendations. Please let me hear from you at jerry@jerryhopkins.com and I look forward to meeting you. You can see what I look like at my website, www.jerryhopkins.com. If you see me, please come up and say hello. Thanks.
  3. Thank you, all.... Your posts and kind words are much appreciated. I look forward to meeting those of you I haven't met yet. Farangbah, of course I remember you. I just haven't been in the bars much lately. Hefe, what's the GOTC? And did you notice that part of that Tony Bourdain show was shot at Nana? 4:17, how do you know about TALES OF THE STEAMY EAST? Now retitled (not by me) ROMANCING THE EAST with publication set for next year, I think in March. Send me your email and I'll forward the cover. All of you, please use my email address as I don't check the websites every day: jerry@jerryhopkins.com. And inasmuch as I haven't heard from Midnight Toker, who inspired the update, if anyone knows him, please refer him to this forum site or forward my update to him or give him my email address. I still can't get onto the Pattaya site and his message was forwarded to me apart from the site by a friend. Thanks again. See you soon. Jerry
  4. Hello everyone, after a long silence... Someone tagged midnight toker asked on the Pattaya site for an update on the book I announced some time ago, proposed as a coffee table type book profiling a number of Thai ladyboys who work the bars, massage parlors, streets, escort services, etc. At the time, the toker said, I was about to interview Moo at the Guess Bar and he wanted an update. Well, I did talk with Moo and have seen her at the bar a few times since, as well as others at Nana, but the project has been on a shelf for several months as I turned to other projects. The kathoey book is a speculative effort and I have a family to support. Besides, my photographer is in the US. Now I can say that I'm back on the job and will resume my preliminary interviewing. My photographer and I want to profile perhaps 20 or so in the book but only need three for the proposal, which we will then use as we go cruising for a publisher. I have found several I think are right for the book, but have not found all my photographer and I feel are right for the proposal. I will be back in the bars more often now and the end of the month I'm going to Pattaya for the volleyball competition. Maybe some of you will introduce yourselves if you see me. Check my website atwww.jerryhopkins.com to see what I look like and who I am. I do hope to meet you...and toker, I hope this message finds its way to you. I've always had trouble getting on line at the Pattaya site. Thanks, all...and I hope to see you soon. Jerry Posts: 17 Joined: 30 May 2011, 17:49
  5. Okay, I surrender. You’re right and I’m (partly) wrong. I didn’t give Sky TV the credit it deserves for being so bold and giving ladyboys so much time and kindness. It was also courageous of Scott and David and their ladies to step forward and speak publicly and from the heart. I was most touched by those of you who offered thoughts about how the show was received by the factory rats and other viewers whose reaction to ladyboys up to now has been negative and misinformed. I bet several Mrs. Factory Rats also had their heads spun around. What I stand by is my belief in pushing Sky as far as possible. I know well that everything can be better and it’s usually beneficial to have someone on the outside making suggestions about how to accomplish that. If Sky does do a second season, a sad story or two wouldn’t be out of line, would in fact make the objects of all this attention more real, and therefore more likely to win increased understanding and compassion. A word to Bubba: everyone who commented was right. I may have had reservations, but I really do think you’d enjoy the show. I did. I want to thank you all for your comments and for coming down on me for being such an ungrateful shit. Or crazy old coot, if you prefer.
  6. An Alternate View of Sky’s View of Ladyboys I’ve delayed posting this for some time because nearly everyone who has posted seemed to love the series; surely my contrary view was mistaken. Well, enough time has passed and I haven’t changed my mind, so here goes. I watched all six hour-long episodes and thought them professionally videotaped, but that’s about it. The approach seemed sympathetic, but it for me it was Disneyesque, lacking in depth and perspective and connection to reality. The Thai ladyboy was not placed in a worldwide, historical, and cultural context---which isn’t as dull as that makes it sound---and just saying they are women born in men’s bodies is not only simplistic, it’s wrong. And…cutting away to Scott and David and their ladyboys romping in the surf or cuddling beneath a palm tree every time you get close to revealing something uncomfortable is dishonest. I was also seriously annoyed by so much attention being paid to the beauty contests and cabaret shows. Yes, they are an interesting phenomenon---drawing more coverage by local media than the Miss Thailand competitions---but Sky kept going back and back, in episode after episode, drooling over the fact that the performers could lip-synch to Lady Gaga and then get all that money in tips posing with the customers afterward. As if that MEANT something. It does mean something, of course, but Sky was not applauding, it was condescending. That was what bothered me most---the faux happy face put on ladyboys: isn’t it wonderful that they have rich Caucasian men taking them out of the bars and buying clothes and bars for them and isn’t it nice that one got elected to public office and became “the most famous ladyboy in Thailand” and isn’t it even nicer that an airline no one ever heard of hired a few to be flight attendants (solely for the publicity)? How, exactly, did each of these things happen? Who suffered and who fucked who to make it occur? Nothing wrong with that, mind you, but Sky made it look like someone waved a magic wand. (No pun intended.) A ladyboy I’ve spent considerable time with over a period of about four years---the one who’s helped me most with the book I’m slowly working on---told me, “Every ladyboy has a sad story.” Not according to Sky. Yes, Miss Nigeria said she could be stoned to death back “home” in Africa, but she lived in the US, as did Miss Cuba, who grew up in California. Why didn’t the Sky team ask why that contestant from Chicago spent £60,000 on surgery (including the removal of four ribs!); there’s a sad story for you. Why didn’t Sky interview my friends at Cascade and Casanova? Sky’s take on ladyboys was like what Julia Roberts in PRETTY LADY was to whoring. Take her off the street, buy her a nice dress and escort her to a party and that makes everything alright, makes the whore an improved person, right? When I saw that movie, I wanted to shove Cinderella’s glass slipper up Richard Gere’s middle-aged ass. I also felt cheated when it came to Sky’s not revealing that which was foremost in every viewer’s mind: the ladyboy penis. Even the BBC some years ago in a terrific documentary about the Indian hijras had the guts to show what one of those people looked like, close-up, after having her cock crudely amputated (the only word to use; several bleed to death every year). In Sky’s six hours there was never more than a hint of cock on show: small, limp and inside a bikini, a quick glimpse that they returned to several times, as if to say, “Oh, wow! Isn’t it amazing! So gorgeous and they have cocks, too!” Oh, yeah? This isn’t radio; show me! You can watch these programs on YouTube, but a much better documentary can be seen there called GIRLFRIEND FOR SALE. It follows two young Thai women and a ladyboy into the sex trade and it tells the truth. I never cried once while watching the Sky series. I can’t say that about this one. P.S. to Sky: It’s pronounced PAH-tee-yuh. Not puh-TAI-yuh.
  7. This is something I received in an email supposed to be (I think) a joke, but it contains some important information that I'm sure will be of interest to many of my fellow ladyboy lovers. BIOLOGY CLASS..... This is a great example of "did I say that out loud???" This happened at Harvard University in October last year. In a biology class, the professor was discussing the high glucose levels found in semen which gives the sperm all the energy for their journey. A female freshman raised her hand and asked, "If I understand you correctly, you're saying there is a lot of glucose, as in sugar, in semen?" "That's correct," responded the professor, going on to add statistical info. Raising her hand again, she asked,"Then why doesn't it taste sweet?" After a stunned silence, the whole class burst out laughing. The poor girl's face turned bright red, as she realized exactly what she had inadvertently said(or rather implied). She picked up her books without a word and walked out of class, never to return. However, as she was going out the door,the professor's reply was classic. Totally straight-faced he answered her question. "It doesn't taste sweet because the taste buds for sweetness are on the tip of your tongue and not the back of your throat. Have a good day!"
  8. Hello again...yes, I have been upcountry, but now I'm back. I have just finished the manuscript for another book and although I'm sure the editor will want me to do this and that, I can now devote more time to the ladyboy book. Sorry, I don't think it a good idea to reveal the names of those being considered for inclusion. I'm confident of several but they may change their minds, or something may not work out the way we all hope as we go forward. Let me say that some of those you suggested have been interviewed at least once. Once I have a dozen or so, my photographer will return from Hawaii, we'll prepare at least two full text and photo profiles for the proposal and then nail down the book deal. This is a book that could be available in about a year, but no sooner. Good books take time. Meanwhile, I'm still asking for nominations. Keep in mind that I'm not looking for a good time (although I've rarely run away from one) but, first and foremost, a good story. Thanks again for your interest and support. If you see me in the bars, come up and say hi....Jerry
  9. Hey, guys…thanks for your enthusiastic response. You’re a friendly bunch, but you sometimes remind me of the chickens on my farm upcountry: you sure do like to cluck and crow and peck. I appreciate your support and look forward to meeting you, if you’ll either write me at my email address or approach me in a bar some night. Some already have. No names, because that seems to be the name of the ladyboy game. Someone asked why, if I have more years as a ladyboy lover than many others, would I come to the forums for help. Let me just say that those with whom I’ve either talked or exchanged emails already have taught me a lot. I have never said I’m an expert in this tricky lifestyle and I don’t expect to meet anyone who is. But my book will be worth reading only after many sources and points of view are consulted. I’m even talking to venue owners, the surgeons and the cops. One of the things we want to show in the book is the variety of experience in being a kathoey sex worker, along with the variety of type. Thus, I am looking for individuals who are “different”---an athlete, a porn star, an alcohol/drug-user, an illegal (foreigner), girls whose families were cool about it and those whose families weren’t, post-ops as well as pre-ops, a dancer, a waitress who works in a bar, a cabaret worker, a massage parlor worker, a part-timer (who is a student or has a regular job), someone who mainly works the Net (dating sites, Facebook, etc.), a streetwalker, an escort, a femboy, someone who’s done time in prison, someone who serves the locals and not farang, a mamasan, a retired hooker, etc. As for putting it on your coffee table, no worries. I realize why so many believe they must adopt nicknames and are so secretive. Coming out and admiring ladyboys openly would be to offer them more respect and perhaps one day those who think they can’t now will do that. In the meantime, all praise the forums and when the book is published, Kindle and iPad and Nook.
  10. Let me introduce myself and my partner. I'm Jerry Hopkins, a longtime resident of Thailand, an established bestselling author with some 36 books published, including biographies of Elvis Presley and Jim Morrison. (My webpage is jerryhopkins.com.) I am working on a what will be a coffee-table type book about Thai ladyboys with John Wehrheim, a Hawaii-based photographer who has done two such books before, one about Bhutan, the other with a Hawaii subject. We are planning to profile at least 25 ladyboys in our book, both in text and photographs, and by profile I mean really get into their lives and tell their stories both in text and visuals. I am posting this here to ask your help. I'm asking you to nominate people to profile...and I'd like to talk with you, too, either in person, by email or on Skype. I live near the Nana Plaza and a meeting would be easy and preferable. You can find me at jerry@jerryhopkins.com if you are interested. I hope some of you are. Thank you.
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