So out of frustration he opted to go in the other direction; and tell the whole story, including admitting his own mistakes.
The repeated death threats he began to receive induced him to place the evolving document onto the internet each day for his own protection, an action no author would normally take. His thinking was that the higher a person’s profile the harder it was to kill them. The more obvious his enemies became, the more likely they were to come under surveillance or suspicion themselves.
Later he came to wonder: would the Thais really care whether one of Australia's better known journalists was killed or not? Just like Americans, much of the rest of the world holds little interest for Thais.
In any case the government moved quickly to block the website, not just in Thailand but around the world; thereby using tax payer funds to protect criminals.
Another difficulty involved with the writing of The Twilight Soi was that the author had become accustomed to having the backing of a multi-billion media company whenever he strayed from the often routine stories of general news reporter into more controversial areas.
Most of his professional life when Michael ventured into disputed or confrontational arenas he was hidden behind a computer screen, a byline, a microphone or a multi-billion dollar media company. If someone didn’t like what he had to say, they were perfectly welcome to write a letter or complain to the management, under whose instructions he was usually operating anyway.
Since leaving News Limited he no longer had the resources of a multi-billion company to back investigations which strayed into more controversial areas.
The author was used to being crazy brave, all for the sake of telling someone else's story. If they threatened to take legal action he had one simple response: "If you want to sue an eighty billion dollar company go right ahead."
He missed the first rate security expertise, the legal advice, the guidance and the physical protection that would have been automatically offered any of the journalists working for the world’s leading news organization, if News Limited decided this was a story they wanted to back or throw resources at.
Whether The Twilight Soi would have attracted such support amongst his former place of employment and the present hierarchy for their publication’s largely public service, legal or business oriented readership was a moot point.
Of course there were worst stories happening to people every day of the week than the one the author tells here. People were starving to death or being killed in war zones in various parts of the world. Michael wasn’t lying in bed dying of cancer. He hadn’t lost all of his money and assets.
But nearing 60 after a lifetime of hard work and after having just brought up two children on his own, this was a time he thought belonged to him, to enjoy himself. It was not to be.
At first the vilification, ridicule and outright hatred directed at him from people he had tried to befriend and to understand was both hurtful and hard to understand.
At the same time the public support for Aek, deliberately rubbed in his face, was difficult to deal with emotionally.
People cat called him, labeling him a buffalo and a farmer, two of the Thai words for stupid or unsophisticated. It was true enough that having come from the relative backwater of Sydney he was completely unfamiliar with the ways of Bangkok’s infamous go-go bars.
But nor are many of those who visit Bangkok.
Many of those busy labeling him a fool had no university degrees, had never had their work published on the front pages of newspapers, had never travelled around the world, had never written books and were on the whole working for miserable wages.
But the mob is a powerful thing and nothing was going to stand in the way of their ridicule.
In the old fashioned world of journalism he had first entered in what came to seem like the profession’s hay days of high principle, way back in the 1970s, attention to detail and the importance of getting “the first draft of history’’ correct were seen as fundamental and noble goals.
You can attempt to blacken and discredit a journalist as often as you like for their misfit natures and lack of conformity to normal social mores. It was the story itself that mattered.
Back then, journalism was a world full of unusual and colorful characters. Reporters were better known for their dissolute ways than their saintliness. From his experience, the public, fascinated by the inner-workings of a media they might all have personal views about but could only observe from the outside, were disappointed if the journalists they met were not eccentric in one way or another. In truth the peculiarities of his own personality meant it was doubtful he could have survived, much less thrived, in any other profession.
Traditionally reporters liked to think they were writing the truth in a fearless way for the public good, making journalism an admired profession. In Australia many thousands of aspirants in Australia lined up for the few cadet positions the major papers offered each year.
Now the world has entered an entirely different era, of 60 second sound bites and news as info-tainment.
In an inter-connected, over-populated world deluged with information, the complex nuances of a story and the art of writing have become increasingly unimportant.
In breaking up with Aek the author should have realized he was dealing not just with one charming but ruthless go-go boy who assumed telling stealing and telling lies was just part of his job, but with mobsters protecting large revenues and with the issue of national pride.
In the end The Twilight Soi is a story about power, mob mentality and money as much as it is about personal failings, gullibility, deception, treachery, betrayal, love and loss.
For those who did nothing but dish out ridicule and abuse or took any opportunity to steal from the author – may no one ever be as spiteful, childish, dishonest or cruel to you as you were to that “ting tong mai dee maw falang, that crazy, bad, drunken foreigner who lived in your midst.
To those few who showed him friendship and consideration whilst living in Thailand – thank you.
Any attempts to negotiate with the bars mentioned in this story over claims for damages or this book’s content and timing of publication through the simple request for the names of their lawyers were thuggishly rebuffed.
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Funeral Blues
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.
Let airplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.
He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.
The stars are not wanted now; put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun:
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.
W H Auden
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