Can One of These "Days of Our Lives" Divas Pass for the Other's Daughter?

Photo (and joke) courtesy of Salem on Salem, my new favorite Days website.

When did Lisa Rinna (above, left, reprising Billie Reed on Days of Our Lives) stop being an occasionally entertaining actress/frequently annoying television personality and burst into an out-of-control raging hot mess?

I missed her first stint on Days of Our Lives from 1992 to 1995 (I didn't start watching until late 2004), but I adored her as Taylor McBride on Melrose Place. I'll never forget ROTFL (before that acronym even existed) every time she hid behind a potted plant eavesdropping on any private conversation between two people who were dumb enough to have one when she was in the vicinity. Although her bitchfests with Heather Locklear's Amanda Woodward didn't quite rival Alexis vs. Krystle on Dynasty, Rinna had me glued to my couch from 8 to 9pm every Monday evening from 1996 to 1998.

The bloom started to fade from Rinna's rose in 2005 when I met her at the official Daytime Emmys after-party. I was disappointed that the chatty "Let's dish, girl" persona she had cultivated as the co-host of SoapNet's Soap Talk couldn't have been further from the woman posing in front of me.

It's not that she was rude, just aloof and super serious. Maybe she was missing hubby Harry Hamlin, who was nowhere in sight. Not once did she crack a smile, and I would have noticed if she had because those lips didn't once leave my line of vision. After I was so charmed by multiple-Emmy winner Erika Slezak (Victoria Lord on One Life to Live) -- who'd triumphed for the sixth time as Best Actress that very evening and was so thrilled when I called her "fierce" that she bragged about it to her costar Robin Strasser (Dorian Lord) -- and Daytime Emmy-winning General Hospital stars Steve Burton (Jason), Nancy Lee Grahn (Alexis Davis) and Anthony Geary (Luke Spencer), who'd take Best Actor for the fifth time the following year, who was Lisa Rinna to play too-A-list-for-that-Manhattan-ballroom?

After that, I lost interest in her. I missed her stint on Dancing with the Stars during the show's second season because, as I've noted before, I don't like to watch... people dance. I also missed her last year on Celebrity Apprentice, but I didn't miss her very public war of words with Star Jones. I'm still not sure what was up between the two D-list divas, but you've got to be doing something very wrong to make me root for Star Jones.

Too bad I couldn't have been spared Rinna's recent return to Days, too. I was already over her before she even came back, due to some unfortunate comments she made on Bravo's Watch What Happens Live earlier this month. While playing host Andy Cohen's game "Plead the Fifth," Rinna suggested that Taylor Armstrong from The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills should have lip reduction surgery and that Joe Mascolo, who plays evil genius Stefano DiMera, was the worst actor ever to appear on Days. Now I couldn't care less what you say about any TV Housewife who isn't Desperate, but you don't mess with Stefano DiMera!

Of course, he can stand up for himself. Ever the gentleman, Mascolo, whose winter scarves could act circles around Rinna's lips, publicly responded thusly to Soap Opera Digest: "Lisa saying that Taylor should have her lips reduced and calling me the worst actor on DAYS is sort of like the pot calling the kettles black!" (She tweeted an apology the next day, but why did she have to "go there" in the first place?)

If only her return to Days this month had been so entertaining. In just a few short episodes, she's already woken up in her brother's marital bed, fake-cried over a comatose Bo Brady in a hospital room that looked like somebody's linen closet, and challenged the levels of implausibility acceptable even for a campy soap opera that has seen countless characters come back from the dead and its lead diva possessed by the devil.

Mother and son, or cougar and prey?

How'd she pull that one off? Simply by sharing scenes with Lauren Koslow, who plays Billie's mother, Kate DiMera. Although Rinna is 48 and Koslow is 59, which makes the mother-daughter relationship acceptable in soap years (over on The Young and the Restless, Genie Francis is playing mom to an actor nine years her junior), the two are as believable as mother and child as Annette Bening and Naomi Watts were in Mother and Child. It's not all Rinna's fault -- though her, ahem, enhancements have aged her in the wrong direction. Koslow must be the hottest near-sixtysomething in Hollywood.

But then, Koslow is an actress whose character has bedded the same guy as her granddaughter, and who's been cast as the romantic rival of Nadia Bjorlin's Chloe Lane, possibly the most beautiful character (and actress) ever to grace a soap. Sadly, and somewhat predictably, Kate lost -- but that's another story full of intrigue, attempted murder (by poisoning), a suicide attempt (by drowning), prostitution, and, of course, a child-custody battle.

I think it's time to invite Emmy winner Julie Pinson, who was the last actress to play Billie, back to reprise the role, and make Rinna Kate's long-lost (more) evil sister. God knows Kate could use some competition her own age -- oops, who looks her own age -- and then Rinna can play the bitch she was born to be and let the cat fur fly!

Songs I Forgot I Used to Love, Starring Corey Hart

I can remember falling for him like it was yesterday. After an early childhood spent swooning over the likes of Olivia Newton-John and Jaclyn Smith, he was my first celebrity guy crush.

I guess you could say I was something a gay late-ish bloomer. It was 1984, and I had just turned 15. The new issue of Billboard magazine arrived in the mail (my mother had bought me a year subscription for Christmas of 1983, and it still ranks as the best gift I've ever received), and there he was in a front-page ad promoting his debut single. Coming soon: Corey Hart's "Sunglasses at Night."

To be honest, I never cared much for the song, and I still don't. At the time, it was all about the face staring back at me from the front page of Billboard magazine -- the dark, brooding good looks, the pouty lips, the spiky hair. I guess you could say Corey Hart kicked off my thing for 22 year olds!

Like most first loves (and lusts), Corey Hart and I didn't last. By the end of the '80s, I had entered my alternative-rock phase, and bad boys and tortured artists were my life. Hart was a relic from a simpler, clean-cut era. My heart belonged to Morrissey.

I probably hadn't thought about Hart in years until a few days ago, when my iPod landed on "Hold On," his contribution to 1987's Beverly Hills Cop II soundtrack, my favorite one from the '80s -- yes, even better than Footloose and Flashdance, thanks to the musical magic of Bob Seger (via "Shakedown," his only No. 1 hit), George Michael (via "I Want Your Sex," his first solo hit), the Pointer Sisters, the Jets, Ready for the World and Jermaine Jackson, whose album-closing "All Revved Up" was as bad (in a good way) as anything his brother Michael was doing at the time. Shockingly, "Hold On" is the only Hart song on my iPod.

"Whatever happened to him?" I asked myself. I considered doing a Google search, but I was afraid of coming across a photo of a pudgy middle-aged man. (He turns 50 on May 31.) I wanted to remember Hart the way he was. At least for the next few hours!

I'd forgotten all about him all over again, when that evening, out of the blue, a friend posted a Glass Tiger video on my Facebook timeline and mentioned the band's fellow Canadian by name. "What was your favorite Corey Hart album?" he wanted to know.

Corey Hart album? Was there even such a thing? Wasn't Corey Hart all about the singles -- and of course, the videos? Like most people, my friend erroneously categorized Hart as more or less being a one-hit wonder, for "Sunglasses At Night," which hit No. 7 in 1984. I consulted Wikipedia for the lowdown (and came across some recent photos, in which he looked better than I expected him to). Hart's biggest hit came the following year, when "Never Surrender" went all the way to No. 3. He had two further Top 20 hits, including "I Am By Your Side," which I adored when it came out in 1986 but probably hadn't thought about since then, and in total, nine of his singles made it into the U.S. Top 40, which might make him Canada's biggest male '80s musical export this side of Bryan Adams.

According to Wikipedia, he wasn't just a singles act. Two of his albums went gold, and 1985's Boy in the Box went platinum. Apparently, someone was listening to his albums back then. I just wasn't one of them. I chose Boy in the Box as my favorite anyway, because it included "Eurasian Eyes" (also heard in 9 1/2 Weeks) and "Boy in the Box," which I selected as my favorite Hart song. Wikipedia also taught me that Hart wrote and produced "Miles to Go (Before I Sleep)" and "Where Is the Love," two major highlights on Celine Dion's 1997 album Let's Talk About Love. Beauty, brains, talent and staying power, too?

In honor of Corey Hart's underrated contribution to '80s pop and to Dion's best album (and for being the first Canadian guy to turn my head, a tradition recently continued by Ryan Gosling and, occasionally, Ryan Reynolds), here's a brief video overview of my favorite Hart songs before returning to our regularly scheduled Sunday soundtrack.

Searching for Muhammad: When Did Muslims Become "The Help"?

A guy walks into a bar.

No, not a bar. The guy is dead. And he probably doesn't even drink. He's walking through the pearly gates, knock knock knocking on heaven's door. On the ground floor, St. Peter answers.

"Can I help you?"

"Is Muhammad here?" the guy asks.

"He's upstairs," St. Peter replies.

So up the flight of stairs the guy goes, to the second floor. He knocks on the door. Jesus answers.

"Can I help you?"

"Is Muhammad here?"

"He's upstairs."

So up the flight of stairs the guy goes, to the third floor. He knocks on the door. God answers.

"Can I help you?"

"Is Muhammad here?"

"Yes, he works here. He's cleaning the toilet."

I'm not sure why the guy from Düsseldorf, Germany, told me that joke yesterday. Or why I remember his date of birth (April 26, 1955), but not his name. Or why I remember the joke at all. I never remember jokes, but I can recall this one almost verbatim. And it wasn't even funny.

In fact, although I politely laughed, it didn't even make sense. Was it supposed to play on religious stereotypes? Which religious stereotype casts Muslims as the help. Wouldn't it have made more sense for the main character to be looking for Jemima, or Aibileen (the name of the character Viola Davis played in The Help)? And why did the German feel the need to tell the joke to me?

I had just finished watching a show on the Fox Crime network about female law enforcers in Dallas in which every single detainee -- a crackhead, a drunk, a drug pusher, a teenage hooker, an all-purpose thug, a rifle-wielding maniac with crazy hair -- was black, and all of them spoke English like it was a second language. Racial stereotypes were fresh in my mind.

Like so many guys before him, the German also felt the need to tell me that he isn't attracted to Asian guys. Why does this subject keep coming up in Bangkok? By now, for me, it's a very tired song and dance, but at least he didn't use the same old "That's just what I prefer" excuse. Some guys are breast men, some are butt men, some are dicks. He said he's an eyes guy. He falls for someone because of what he sees in his eyes. Presumably, the shape of Asian eyes precludes him from seeing anything special in them.

I understood where he was coming from more than I understood the joke, which made me a little uncomfortable. I'm not sure what that says about me. And I'm not entirely sure what to make of this: Despite his over-awareness of religion, ethnicity and race (I'm almost certain that if I were white, the conversation would have taken a completely different turn), I found the German somewhat engaging.

That's possibly partly because there were no stupid come-ons, no "top or bottom?," no mention of stereotypes that might apply to me. Not once did he try to touch me there. Our conversation was completely innocent. There wasn't the remotest possibility that it might leave that room, and he seemed to be completely okay with that.

He told me that the older he gets, the younger the guys who pursue him get. His theory is that because a lot of young gay men grow up without a strong bond to an older male (their fathers, or whomever), they end up seeking out father-figure lovers. This made even more sense than his comment about Asian eyes, and that silly joke that cast Muhammad as God's house boy. I'm not sure if it explains why the guys are getting younger for me, too (I seriously doubt that 22-year-olds look at me and see some kind of father figure), but it did give me something to think about.

And the next time I want to get rid of one of those twinks, I'll have the perfect joke to do it for me.

Torn Between Two Cities: An Urban Love Triangle

Have you ever been in love with two people at the same time?

I haven't, but the very idea sounds like torture. I have enough trouble negotiating a single affair of the heart, let alone two of them. "One lover at a time" has never been my motto, but it could be. I don't believe I have the mental, emotional or physical capacity to juggle two at once.

In a way, though, that's exactly what I've been doing for the last six months or so. Only I'm not in love with two men. I'm head over heels for two cities: Melbourne and Bangkok. I guess you could say that this is my tale of two cities. I guess you could also say that if cities are women, then I'm once again exploring my heterosexual side.

I won't go into the things I love about each place, having pretty much exhausted that angle on this blog. But it wasn't until yesterday that I realized it's like I am front burner in one of those old familiar soap-opera love triangles, except instead of having a guy on either side, I am waffling between two cities, two women.

The bright side is that if I pick one over the other, nobody is going to get hurt -- except perhaps for the people I leave behind in either city, and if I'm being completely honest here, unlike the friends I left behind in New York and Buenos Aires, they wouldn't miss me much, or for long.

The three months I spent last year living in Bangkok were some of the best times of my life, but memories of Melbourne were lurking in the corner of my mind the entire time. Reunited with Melbourne in January and February, it felt so good, but I couldn't get Bangkok out of my head. Now two weeks into Bangkok, Phase II, I'm looking forward to doing everything I didn't get to do here the first time around, but as of a day or two ago, Melbourne began invading my dreams again.

Now I know how Mary MacGregor felt when she sang her 1976 No. 1 hit, "Torn Between Two Lovers," only I have a terrible singing voice and a less sappy melody playing in my head.

I suppose it's a pretty enviable position. Most people have a hard time finding love once, or one place where they are thrilled to call home. So many people end up in a particular city based on the job opportunities there, but if they had to choose, they would opt for an entirely different living situation.

In the end, the same deciding factor (work) will likely come into play if I decide to settle down permanently with one lover over the other. Whoever is ready to make a commitment (i.e., a full-time job offer that I not only can't refuse, but for which I would be willing to give up my freedom to decide how I spend my days) will end up getting me for good. But it won't be as simple as putting a ring on it. It's going to have to be such a jaw-dropping stone that I'd be ready to not only pack up everything I own and move in, but I might even sign a lease, something I haven't done since last century. (During my final six years in New York CIty and my entire time in Buenos Aires, I owned my apartments.)

Or maybe there's someone else, an undercover angel (to quote the title of another '70s No. 1 hit, this one by Alan O'Day), holding out on the sidelines, waiting for the perfect opportunity to fly in and sweep me off my feet. Perhaps she will be ready to offer that long-term commitment I won't be able to refuse.

I just hope she's somewhere warm with less than a 50 percent chance of rain.

Which Guy Would YOU Talk Dirty To?

The other evening I had one of my epiphanies? It was nothing life changing, mind you, just an interesting observation/theory about the baser instincts of gay men.

What if the number of crude opening lines I'd received over the course of a week or so on Grindr had less to do with the application itself and more to do with what I wearing wearing in my photo on it. Make that, not wearing.

In the photo, I'm shirtless and wearing low-rise jeans allowing for a bit of peek-a-boo underwear action. But because of Apple's standards of decency -- no visible underwear, period -- you can only see me from the waist up. So for all anyone knows, I might be wearing nothing at all.

Could it be, I asked out loud, that people were taking one look at the photo and assuming that I was after only one thing? In the previous 24 hours alone, the opening remarks thrown my way had run the gamut from "hi" to "you got big black dick?" to "do you want to f**k me?"! Maybe, like the rape victim in the eyes of some truly twisted people, I was getting exactly what I was asking for.

The person sitting across from me, considered, but not for long. "I don't think so," he offered. "All of those websites and applications are the same: Grindr, Manhunt, Gaydar..." He mentioned a few other ones I'd never even heard of. "Guys go there looking for sex, so they'll say anything." In fact, he said, he found it kind of refreshing. At least you knew where they stood from the beginning. And anything was better than those boring "hi" openers.

I understood where he was coming from, which, in my humble and shirtless opinion, still doesn't make it less crude. Though I have no idea what goes on with most of the sites he mentioned, I am familiar with Manhunt and Gaydar. I've been asked all of the expected questions on both: "Top or bottom?" "What are you looking for?" "Is it true what they say about black men?"

And far far worse. I've written about it on this very blog. Yes, I've read just about everything. But on Manhunt, I've found that there's generally a bit more content -- at least coming from users who aren't on mobile devices and can more easily type more than a few words at a time. "You got big black dick" doesn't seem quite so bad with two or three sentences surrounding it.

That said, for me, on Grindr, there was a shocking increase in shocking vulgarity. As I had been told by the comedian in Melbourne who'd written an entire stand-up act called "Grindr: A Love Story?," there's something about Grindr. Like all of those other forums, most guys go there in search of one thing only, but something about this particular format encourages extreme behavior (which might hold true for other meat-and-greet mobile-device apps, none of which I've actually used yet).

Perhaps, I considered, this is just how things are in Bangkok. It's a city whose name is almost synonymous with sex (it's even pronounced Bang-COCK!), a place where guys will walk up to you in a bar and grab your crotch. Maybe it had nothing to do with what I was wearing -- excuse me, wasn't wearing -- in the photo.

Part of me remained doubtful, though. I spent a couple of days pondering my hypothesis while fielding vulgar come on after vulgar come on. On the third day, I decided to try an experiment. I switched the shirtless photo with a far more modest one in which I'm seated at a dinner table, the only thing naked being my head and my arms.

The first thing I noticed was a dramatic decrease in activity. Over the first 12 hours or so, only about five guys messaged me at all. Maybe the new photo wasn't that attractive. Perhaps, it was just a slow Grindr day. Nobody called me "hot" or "sexy." Everybody opened with a simple "hello," except for one guy.

Him: "Hey, man, where are you from?"

Me: "hey, i'm from the u.s. u?"

Him: "From indonesia. U work here?"

Me: "sort of. i'm a writer."

Him: "What do u write?"

I couldn't believe what I wrote next.

Me: "google jeremy helligar and find out! :)"

That stupid smiley face and my arrogance surprised even me! Maybe I was so accustomed to coming up with clever responses to that tired old "Is it true what they say about black men?" question, and old habits were dying hard. More than likely, I was just tired of answering that work question online and offline.

Also, typing on an Ipod Touch keypad is murder, so I wanted to keep my responses short and brief. But if I really put all kidding myself aside, I was probably partly trying to impress him and partly trying to get rid of him. Who would bother to check something like that?

Moments later, he responded.

Him: "Get out! You wrote for People mag and Entertainment Weekly???"

You would think he'd just witnessed the second parting of the Red Sea. He went on to name EW's two movie critics, who have been with the magazine seemingly since the first parting of the Red Sea. He couldn't believe I knew them.

Him: "I read Entertainment weekly religiously, man! I even have a copy right now from jakarta. This is huge!"

Now he was really saying something. I liked him already. A former devotee of Premiere magazine, he turned to EW after it folded. Now he was as addicted to it in Jakarta, where he works in advertising (his "day job," as he put it, which had brought him to Bangkok) and writes a movie column for a local magazine, as I was in the '90s, years before I was hired as a senior editor there.

Our exchange went on, until I couldn't bear to type another letter on that ridiculous keypad. Not once was there any talk of tops, bottoms, "fun" (that annoying Asian euphemism for sex), or dicks. By the end of the conversation, at which time we agreed to meet up at some point before his Saturday departure to share war stories, I was wondering if we would have had it, if he would have messaged me at all, if he would have cared what I do for a living, if I hadn't changed my photo.

Maybe it still didn't matter. After all, I've gotten crude comments when I've been standing fully clothed on a sidewalk. But maybe it did, and if this was a preview of what was to come if I kept my clothes on, maybe Grindr wasn't so bad, after all. Better much less attention than the unwanted kind, or having to answer that dreaded question yet again: Is it true what they say about black men?

If you're rude enough to ask, chances are you'll never find out!

Moved By Jagger: Why Sir Mick Should Have Been a Bigger Solo Star

Since we're on the subject of '80s flops that deserved to be bigger hits... Oh, wait! We weren't? Well, it's a topic that's never too far from my mind, so let's discuss, shall we?

What about "Ruthless People" by Mick Jagger? If you remember the song at all, you probably haven't thought about it since 1986, the year it appeared on the soundtrack to the Bette Midler-Danny DeVito film Ruthless People and peaked at No. 51 on the Hot 100.

Today when my iPod landed on it while I was running up that hill, via treadmill, I accelerated, thinking about Midler's glory days as a movie star, then I slowed down, pondering -- and imitating -- the unfortunate commercial trajectory of what has been Mick Jagger's career outside of the Rolling Stones. I always thought he deserved better. Perhaps he officially launched his solo career a bit too late, in February of 1985, when he was several months away from turning 42, with She's the Boss, an album that was released a half-decade past the Rolling Stones' prime.

Sting would go solo four months later, with far greater success, thanks, in large part, to his better timing: He disbanded the Police at the height of the band's success. As a solo artist, from The Dream of the Blue Turtles on, he also veered in a completely different musical direction, indulging his inner Mingus wannabe who would dare to ask if the Russians love their children, too, while, for the most part, discarding the reggae-lite trappings he'd worn so well while in Police custody.

Jagger, too, went in a markedly different direction as a solo artist, diving straight into the mainstream, playing the pop star that had always been hiding in plain sight behind his rock-God poses. It produced a few successes -- "Just Another Night," "State of Shock," with the Jacksons, and "Dancing in the Street," with David Bowie, all Top 15 hits in the U.S. -- but despite having a surplus of excellent moments -- "Ruthless People," "Lucky in Love," 1993's Wandering Spirit, ripping off part of Tina Turner's dress at Live Aid in 1985 -- solo Jagger was mostly a commercial dud.

Too bad. Though he began his solo career ensconced in the world of '80s pop, by Wandering Spirit, his third solo opus, he was branching outside of the limiting confines of the genre, producing one of the great rock & soul albums, while delivering his usual flawless, instantly recognizable vocals. They've always been one of his underrated strengths, but because he's not as inclined to vocal acrobatics as some of his lead-singer contemporaries -- say, Robert Plant or Roger Daltrey -- it's easy to overlook what a fantastic vocalist Jagger is, both solo and with the Stones. His moves like Jagger always upstaged his voice.

Too bad. Now rock & roll's first great frontman, the guy who influenced everyone from Steven Tyler and Michael Hutchence to David Bowie and Iggy Pop, might be best known to whippersnappers as the titular subject of a No. 1 hit by Maroon 5 featuring Christina Aguilera. Meanwhile, to sneak into the Top 40 as a recording artist, he has to team up with will.i.am. and Jennifer Lopez -- which he recently did on the clumsily titled and even more clumsily produced (by will.i.am) "T.H.E. (The Hardest Ever)."

Screw Satan. We should take our sympathy for the devil and give it a rock icon who deserves it a hell of a lot more.

If I Don't Look a Day Over 30, Why Do I Feel So Old? (Hint: It's Noisy, and You Haven't Seen One in Years)

Last night I had dinner with Edward, a 24-year-old guy from Moscow who has seen more of the world than most people his age. He recently returned to Bangkok, where he'd previously lived for two years, around the same time as I did, after spending awhile living and working in Japan. He speaks fluent Russian (naturally), English (with a proper British accent), Japanese, French, and, I gathered, another language or three. He lived through last year's earthquake in Japan, which hit shortly after he arrived in Tokyo, and he once moved halfway across the world (to Bangkok) for a guy he'd known for only three days on holiday.

As life experiences go, he put my 24-year-old self to shame. He's also one of those twentysomethings with highly evolved conversational skills, whose oral communication never betrayed his youth, until the conversation somehow landed on something which, to be honest, I hadn't thought much about since the last time I used one -- circa 1987, which, incidentally, is the year in which Edward was born.

He'd seen and done a lot in just short of two and a half decades, but the one thing he couldn't wrap his head around was the typewriter. Remember those? (And if you do, welcome to the old-folks club.) He'd seen one before, but in his mind, typewriters belonged to the pre-historic age, an era well before cassettes, vinyl records, 8-track tapes (which he'd actually never seen), and that really cool, antique-looking thing that his mother used to play music on.

I wasn't sure if I should say anything, but then decided, why not? I told him that I can remember a time when it was typewriters or nothing. The word processor had begun to emerge by the time I started college, but only the kids whose parents had a lot of money had one. In high school, every paper I ever wrote I wrote on a typewriter. Students were required to take one semester of typing class in order to learn how to use them. That's the only reason why I am able to so rapidly negotiate my way around my laptop keyboard today.

Edward looked at me like I had three heads and was telling him a tall tale set on another planet. "A class where you learn how to type... on a typewriter?" He made it sound so silly. "Yes," I responded. "And in 7th grade, I had to take a sewing class, too." This amused him, and may even have surprised him had he not been so focused on the typing thing.

He couldn't believe how backwards things were back in the '60s. I reminded him that I was a child of the '80s -- and at least we used electric typewriters, not those ancient-looking things you saw in black-and-white movies set in newsrooms or at the Daily Planet offices in the old Superman TV series -- not that he would have known what that was!

"So how did you learn how to type then?" Now I had to know how the younger generation learned how to use a keyboard. Had I thought about it before, I would have figured that typing classes must be a relic of the distant past, but I must have assumed that kids were required to take computer classes during which the mechanics of using a keyboard were taught. Maybe in some countries outside of Russia, they are.

But not for Edward. Spared the requirement of having to learn how to type properly (years of practice has helped him to remember where each letter is on the keyboard), he proudly does it the way people we used to make fun of back in the pre-computer days did: one finger at a time. Later on, when he was Googling the name of that cool, antique-looking thing that his mother used to play music on (a sort of plus-sized cassette, which he wasn't able to find it by its Russian name, so if you have any idea what he was talking about, please let me know), I watched his fingers. He was typing words on my laptop keypad the way he would a message on an iPhone.

I couldn't believe I'd never noticed it before: This must be how all people his age do it. But then, I'd never before had any reason to pay attention to anyone under 30 using a computer keyboard. Usually, I saw them plugging into their phones. I had no idea that's how they used computers, too. It looked as strange and foreign to me as my stories of typing class sounded to him.

If I had to do my job that way, I'd probably have to find another profession. It just wouldn't feel right. Although it would get the work done, it would take at least twice as long. It didn't seem conducive to communicating in more than two or three short sentences at a time. No wonder Generation Z is one of few words when it comes to sending emails. For them, Twitter, with its 140-character limit must be a Godsend.

Although Edward didn't think I looked a day over 30, I felt older when he went home than I had when we'd sat down to dinner. That said, I wouldn't give up my adventures in typing class for anything. It's the reason why I'm doing what I'm doing now -- typing away so early in the morning, sharing this story with anybody who will read it. One word, one sentence, but thank God, not one finger at a time.

From the Hollywood to Bangkok: Julia Roberts Vs. Ellen Burstyn, and The Sweetest (and Occasionally, Most Annoying) Thing About Thai People

A couple of weeks ago, I was talking to someone about Ellen Burstyn's performance in Requiem for a Dream, a 12-year-old movie that, for no apparent reason, keeps popping up in my conversations these days.

The second time it happened, the other person, a notable Australian actor, screenwriter and film director, was raving about Burstyn, who was fresh in his mind because he had just seen her at a speaking engagement in Melbourne. She was fresh in my mind because a few nights earlier, I'd watched The Last Picture Show, the 1971 film for which she received the first of her six Oscar nominations, on TV. (She won Best Actress for 1974's Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, the film that later spawned the TV series Alice.)

Burstyn, not Julia Roberts, the filmmaker insisted, deserved to win the 2001 Oscar for Best Actress. I concurred (also agreeing that Central Station's Fernanda Montenegro, not Shakespeare in Love's Gwyneth Paltrow, should have won two years earlier), with one adjustment: It should have been a tie, because Julia Roberts deserved that prize for Erin Brockovich just as much as Burstyn did. Yes, Burstyn's was the showier performance, but that doesn't necessarily make it better.

Thus began our debate over the merits and demerits of Roberts' performance. I was particularly moved by Roberts in the driving scene during which Erin was talking to her boyfriend on the phone, listening to him tell her about her daughter's first steps or first words or something monumental that she had missed, and Erin began to silently weep. In the recent Newsweek actress round table, Charlize Theron talked about how hard it is to emote during driving scenes, which as I think back on that deceptively simple Erin Brockovich sequence, makes it even more remarkable.

The Australian filmmaker was unimpressed.

"It must be an American thing," he concluded. "They seem to be the only ones who like that performance." Typical Australian, I thought to myself, taking any opportunity to disparage Americans. If Roberts' performance was such an "American thing," then why was she named Best Actress by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association and the British Academy of Film and Television Arts. I scolded him for his typically Aussie attitude -- My tastes are mine, not America's -- not even realizing that I was making a similar sweeping generalization about Australians and their anti-American fervor.

The sort-of-ugly truth is that for anyone who travels, particularly a journalist with sharp powers of observation and a need to organize everything, it's hard not to make generalizations about the people and cultures you encounter on the road. The secret is to be open-minded enough to look past them and not lazily fall back on them every time you see or hear something you don't like, particularly for journalists and filmmakers, who should be as unfettered by preconceptions and misconceptions as possible.

I've made a few blanket statements of my own about Australians, several of which my friend and former colleague Traceye shot down when she was visiting Melbourne a few weeks ago, while making generalizations of her own. For the most part, she found Australians to be somewhat cold and hard to get to know.

The hard to get to know part I understood, having spent months trying to break down their walls before losing interest and giving up completely. They're not touchy-feely the way Argentines are. Unlike in Buenos Aires, you can leave a room in Australia without having to kiss every stranger in it on the cheek.

But on a superficial level -- offering directions, chatting you up from a bar stool -- I always found them to be friendly and charming. Customer service workers, though, with the exception of unfailingly friendly supermarket cashiers, were hit and miss. For every one who offered service with a smile, there seemed to be several, particularly bartenders (a profession, which, in most countries demands a somewhat personal touch, but not there), who could barely be bothered to serve up more than the basic requirements.

Which is completely the opposite of the experience I've had in Bangkok, where people are so friendly I often worry that I'm not being nice enough. The only exception is on the road. Taxi drivers are as obnoxious here as they are in any large city, and pedestrians never have the right of way with impatient automobile drivers. (Again, the opposite of my experience in Australia, where cars always stopped to allow me to pass, even when I didn't want them to.)

But elsewhere, Thai people, especially the employees in my hotel/apartment complex, can make me feel like the most important person in the world for all of five seconds. I can't walk through the lobby of the Anantara Bangkok Sathorn without encountering half a dozen smiling personnel, assuming the pray position with their hands and bowing, which means that I have to do the same.

Sometimes I simply smile and wave, but I've begun to wonder if they understand the meaning of the "wave." Maybe they think I'm brushing them off. Today, the man I bought grilled chicken from on the street, smiled enthusiastically and actually squeezed my bicep as he handed me my change.

I know some people like that kind of attentiveness, and usually, as with the bicep-squeezing grilled-chicken guy, I go along with it. But there are days when I just don't want to turn my frown upside down. I can fake it, because I've had a lot of practice, most of it reluctantly gained. Over the course of 11 years living in doormen buildings in New York City, I'd come to despise having to muster up a smile and a "hello" upon entering and leaving when sometimes all I wanted was to walk in and out unnoticed.

Even the guy at the entrance to the driveway of the Anantara seems more devoted to smiling and bowing at guests passing by than directing traffic. He bows at me when I leave to go the supermarket, and he repeats the gesture when I return five minutes later. Once when I tried to look away, he actually stepped in front of me so that I wouldn't miss his welcome.

I can't decide whether this guy -- who can't possibly be so sweet off the clock, but then, he seems to work 24/7 -- is sincerely super-friendly, or if he's making fun of me, or if he thinks I must be some black American celebrity whom he just doesn't recognize. I pick one depending on my mood that day. And on the days when I just don't feel like bowing or being bowed to, I exit through a side entrance and leave the property from the other side of the building, where there are no smiling, bowing employees, just the smell of trash and a deserted alley.

It's not exactly five-star splendor, but on those days when service with a smile -- and a bow -- are the last things on my wish list, it's the perfect escape route.

The Best View in Bangkok?

Though I wouldn't dream of kicking Mr. Perfect out of bed, if I must sleep alone, what better sight to wake up to than one of the best views from above in Bangkok? It makes getting out of bed in the morning so much easier, and frankly, I can't think of any guy I'd rather see first thing after I wake up other than Ryan Gosling, who happens to be in town filming a movie and could very well be staying in a condominium in the Met (to the far right in the above photo), easily my favorite building in Bangkok.

When I was booking my second stay at the Anantara Bangkok Sathorn, I requested a suite on the opposite side from the 14th-floor apartment I stayed in last time because despite my stunning-but-somewhat-less-so view, there had been so much direct daytime sunlight that I had to keep the curtains drawn during regular business hours.

This time, I was determined to let the sunshine in, without having it scorch me and my living space. I was given a 10th-floor apartment on the opposite side, highly desirable, according to the rental agent, because it overlooks the pool. But I've yet to see the pool from anywhere but ground level. Why look down, when there so much beauty spread out right across from you?

Burning Question: Who Does Kate Nash Have to Sleep with to Become a Star?

Now that I've got your attention, let me ask you this: Do you remember where you were four years ago?

I do -- give or take a week, or a month. My best friend Lori was visiting me in Argentina for the first time, and the weekend before Super Tuesday of the Democratic Party presidential primaries, we went to Mendoza for a few days of rest, relaxation and wine tasting at Cavas Wine Lodge, in the middle of nowhere. It was a memorable weekend, filled with excellent conversation, copious amounts of vino tinto y blanco, and a horse-riding trek through the Andes with Salvador, our handsome Portuguese tour guide-for-a-day.

One memory that I'd tucked away until earlier this evening when it came blasting through my headphones while I was working out is "Pumpkin Soup," the Kate Nash song that was playing on repeat one particularly gorgeous morning that I spent running laps around the vineyard.

Whatever happened to her?

She scored a quick No. 2 UK hit in 2007 with "Foundations," which didn't even chart in the U.S. Her only other Top 20 UK hit, "Do-Wah-Doo," made it to No. 15 in 2010, while her only trip to Billboard's Hot 100 was with 2009's "Merry Happy" -- which hit No. 97, 19 notches higher than it peaked in the UK!

I won't pretend to know what makes a hit a hit, or why some stars rise and others never do. Why Katy Perry is a multi-platinum superstar and Robyn isn't. Why, as a Facebook friend recently wondered on my wall -- or timeline, as they apparently are now called -- Kelly Rowland has yet to fulfill her once-seemingly guaranteed destiny of solo stardom.

Why, of all the British female singer-songwriters to emerge in the mid-to-late '00s (Amy Winehouse, Adele, Duffy, Joss Stone, Lily Allen), Kate Nash is the one whose star never quite blasted off outside of the UK -- and even there, not for long. (According to her Wikipedia discography page, My Best Friend Is You, her 2010 follow-up to Made of Bricks, her 2007 platinum debut, peaked at No. 8 and hasn't received any UK certifications.)

Why the others and not her? Sure she lacks Adele's vocal prowess and Duffy's coquettish sex appeal, but her songs are sturdy and memorable. Perhaps it's the strong British accent she sings in, which since the '60s has contributed to the success stories of mostly one-hit wonders in the U.S. (Madness, Oasis, etc.) That wouldn't explain her UK lull, though, since Lily Allen sings in a similar Cockney style and still managed to sidestep the sophomore slump.

Perhaps Nash's upcoming third album, which is currently in the works and due late this year (again, according to Wikipedia), will reverse her chart trajectory. May it include a line as fantastic as "I'm not in love/ I just wanna be touched" from "Pumpkin Soup" (No. 23 in the UK, 2007), and a much bigger hit!

Love Songs for the Romantically Impaired

One of the most pleasantly surprising things I noticed about Bangkok when I returned after two months in Melbourne, was how little everything had changed.

And what a welcome, um, change that was! During my four and a half years living in Buenos Aires, I'd become accustomed to radical, rapid, constant change. It was the way of the world over there -- or down there (depending on where you are as you read this, if you're reading this). Leave town for one week, and when you returned, everything had gone up up up: the price of ensalada de fruta, new buildings, the number of streets under construction.

Bangkok, though, for the most part, was just as I'd left it. Same personnel to greet me at the Anantara Bangkok Sathorn (once again my home away from home, wherever that is), same congested roads, same price for delicious 4-star street food.

One thing, however, would have benefited from some major revamping: the playlist at DJ Station. When I walked in on Saturday night for the first time since New Year's Eve, the first thing I heard was "I love you like a love song, baby." Here we go again -- again: "Love You Like a Love Song" by Selena Gomez.

Wait, wasn't this playing the last time I left, as I walked out the door? Possibly, but it's not only still popular with Thai DJs and my friend David, whom I think about whenever I hear it. Although it's gone no higher than No. 22 on Billboard's Hot 100, it's been on the list for 36 weeks and currently sits at No. 33. I still don't get its appeal, but then I'm extremely picky when it comes to loving love songs, which I tend to prefer with some kind of sexual angle (see "Baby-Making Music"). I'd rather listen to a song about how love stinks, or how it hurts to be in love, than a chaste declaration of what a beautiful thing love is.

That's not to say I don't fall for the occasional "love song." A few of the ones that I love everyone else loved enough to send them into the Top 20 on Billboard's Hot 100: Anne Murray's "A Love Song" (No. 12, 1973), Tesla's "Love Song" (No. 10, 1989), Sara Bareilles's "Love Song" (No. 4, 2007).

The Cure's "Lovesong" (from 1989's Disintegration) might not be my favorite song by my third favorite group of all time (following the Smiths and R.E.M.), but it totally deserved to be the band's biggest hit (No. 2 on the Hot 100). That said, I wish Adele had picked something more challenging and less expected by the band to cover on 21. I'd pay money to download her singing "Close to Me," from the Cure's 1985 Head on the Door album, or 1983's "The Lovecats," one of the Cure's four Top 10 UK singles (a list which, oddly, includes neither of the aforementioned songs). Now who would ever have thought of her -- or anyone -- covering that?

But getting back to love songs, for me, the best ones come with a subversive twist, like  "Love Song" by Madonna and Prince, from her 1989 Like a Prayer album. In it, they insist that it isn't a love song at all, which means that it probably is. Aside from Prince's late '80s/early '90s work on singles and albums by Sheena Easton (particularly "101," from 1988's The Lover in Me) and Kate Bush ("Why Should I Love You?" from 1993's The Red Shoes), it's my favorite of his collaborations with fierce ruling divas of that time.

My all-time favorite "Love Song," though, might be Simple Minds' (from 1981's Sons and Fascination, the Canadian version of which featured "Theme for Great Cities," the song that gave this blog its name) -- partly because it sounds nothing like how we expect a love song to sound. It's brash and urgent, an aural approximation of the burning glow of love, which can be as violent as it is soothing. But mostly I love Simple Minds' "Love Song" because like Sarah Bareilles' great heart-shaped f**k you of a "Love Song," it's anything but.

And let's face it, as song subjects go, contempt, anger and resentment are so much more interesting than sweet sweet love.

Adventures in Hospital 2: How Dr. Feelgood and an MRI Finally Eased the Pain in My Head

As a general rule, I'm not particularly fond of cold, dark, enclosed spaces -- especially when I'm stuck inside of them for 30 minutes as a machine zaps my body, looking for strange, dangerous growths.

But no pain, no gain, and it was two weeks of excruciating pain that had brought me here. Yesterday, a headache that was heading into its third week and made turning my head from side to side nearly unbearable, finally sent me to BNH Hospital in Bangkok, the only medical center I've ever been to that's run like a five-star hotel.

The experience there was just as I'd remembered: polite, smiling employees; beautiful nurses wearing traditional nurse hats who looked like they'd stepped out of a time machine from the 1950s; and, of course, BNH's custom bottled water. For a moment, I forgot all about the pain in my neck that was extending all the way up the sides of my head.

After one of the nurses weighed me (81.6 kilos, down nearly three from my last BNH visit in October) and my blood pressure (surprisingly, normal), I was sent into the office of Chakraphong Lorsuwansiri, MD. Was my eyesight deceiving me (and possibly even causing this blinding head pain), or did Dr. Lorsuwansiri look like he couldn't possibly have been born before I graduated from high school in 1987?

He looked more like someone I might be flirting with at DJ Station next weekend than the man to whom I should be entrusting my medical well-being. That his English was only occasionally intelligible added to my unease. Did he even understand anything I was saying? I started pointed to the places on my head that hurt most just to be sure we were on the same page and the same body part.

Eventually, we settled on three courses of treatment: Arcoxia for the head pain, Amitryptyline to help me sleep (I suggested that chronic lack of sleep might be the culprit), and a 9am appointment for an MRI the following day (again, at my suggestion, since I knew I probably wouldn't rest in peace until I knew my brain was tumor-free). MRIs are all in the same language, I told myself, still unnerved by the language barrier. He wouldn't need to speak mine in order to tell me if there was anything wrong.

This morning, as I was introduced to the cylinder where I would spend the next 30 minutes shivering, I nearly called the whole thing off. The medication that Dr. Lorsuwansiri had prescribed was working wonders. Though the tiny 10-mg Amitryptyline pill had kicked off my night's sleep with a few waking nightmares, once I'd fallen asleep, I'd only woken up one time over the course of eight hours, and for the first time in more than two weeks, there was no pain in my head. I could even turn it from side to side, though the MRI would hold it so firmly in place, there'd be none of that for at least 30 minutes.

"It's sleepy time," one of the nurses announced to me, after I'd changed into a hospital gown and was about to enter the frigid room containing my X-ray chamber. I was still feeling a bit drowsy. I figured that the Amitryptyline must still be working on me, and I'd doze off right away. I laid down, and in I went. Seconds later...

Vroooooooom!!!!!

Who could fall asleep with such a racket ringing in the ears? Not even the earplugs that the guy operating the machinery had inserted into my ears helped. The noise coming from the MRI machine sounded like the introduction to a Strokes song that kept getting interrupted by one of David Guetta's deplorable techno beats.

Every time I tried to change the subject in my mind, the cacophony of rock and techno sounds jarred me out of my reverie. Just when I was about to squeeze the ball I had been given in case I needed assistance, it was over.

Thirty minutes later, Dr. Lorsuwansiri delivered the good news: The MRI was normal. My brain was in perfect working order. He suggested that I try to avoid stress, eat well and continue to take the Amitryptyline until I finished the prescribed supply of 10. If I didn't die another day, it wouldn't have anything to do with anything in my brain.

As I later shared with my concerned Facebook friends via a status update, there was nothing in there that wasn't supposed to be there, except for the odd and occasional dirty thought. I had a feeling that for the next several days, a few of them might involve Dr. Lorsuwansiri and his healing hands, which, after two weeks of nearly non-stop pain, finally had prescribed relief.

The Importance of Being Jeremy: When Did My Name Become the Hottest Thing in Southeast Asia?

When I think of Western names that are big in Asia, my own has never even come close to making the hot list.

It's not that I'm under the delusion that Jeremy is an uncommon name. My social life over the years has been stocked with friends and acquaintances named Jeremy. So much so that when my friend Robert, who, like me, is black and whom I met in Buenos Aires, told me that Jeremy is his middle name, I shrugged. Isn't everyone's? I'd even dated several guys named Jeremy, including the sexy Australian who convinced me to visit Bangkok in the first place last June, as he would be going there on holiday a few weeks later.

I fully expected him to be the only Jeremy I'd ever meet here. Late last year, I read a story about a member of Jeremy Renner's entourage getting into a brawl at one of Bangkok's many after-hours watering holes, but my chances of running into him then were about as slim as my waking up one morning next to Ryan Gosling, who's been in town for several months shooting a movie with his Drive director Nicolas Winding Refn and Kristin Scott Thomas. I couldn't imagine either Oscar-nominated actor by chance winding up at DJ Station or G.O.D. one dark and drunken night.

Since returning to Bangkok nearly one week ago, though, Jeremy has suddenly become a recurring theme for this great city I'm once again calling home -- and not only in my dreams, starring the sexiest man alive (my apologies to People magazine and Bradley Cooper) repeating it over and over in the heat of passion.

It first popped up the evening of my interview with Kristin Scott Thomas at the Hotel Muse Bangkok Langsuan, a six-month old branch of the Accor hotel group's MGallery Collection, for which Scott Thomas is the ambassador/spokesperson, and not because the conversation suddenly shifted to her Gosford Park costar Jeremy Northam. The press interviews were to be done in groups of two, and I'd been promised by Accor's Group Director of Marketing & Communications that I would get one-on-one time with the Oscar-nominated star of The English Patient.

While I was sipping my orange juice in the hotel restaurant, going over my questions in my head, the Director of Communications came over and asked his colleague, "Have you seen a writer named Jeremy."

"He's sitting right across from me," she responded, with an embarrassed chuckle. I was slightly miffed that he'd forgotten my name (never mind that I'd totally misplaced his somewhere in my cluttered mind), but I was too busy rehearsing my serious actress-interviewer technique to care too much. I've interviewed plenty of Grammy winners in my day but never an Academy Award acting nominee, so I was understandably nervous.

"Oh no, I know this Jeremy's already here," the Director of Communications said, much to my ego's relief. "I'm looking for another Jeremy."

Another Jeremy?

I would have been annoyed that I wouldn't get one-on-one time with Scott Thomas as promised had I not been so shocked to find that there was another Jeremy running around Bangkok, and he would be interviewing Scott Thomas with me. He was a young, handsome writer from Singapore. How could he possibly be named Jeremy?

"How do you spell your name?" I asked him, still incredulous. "J-E-R-E-M-Y?"

"Yes, I do," he answered, less interested in our matching names than in what I was wearing. "Did you get your shirt from Zara?" (I did, from a branch in Kuala Lumpur.)

I would have chalked it up as an interesting coincidence had another Southeast Asian Jeremy not entered my life via a story that my Spanish friend David told me two nights later. After we spent a full five minutes hugging and pulling apart to stare at each other in disbelief because we were standing face to face for the first time since December, when he left Bangkok to spend the holidays back home in Barcelona, he proceeded to tell me all about the hottest Vietnamese guy he'd met weeks earlier.

"His name was Jeremy," he said. "Can you believe that?"

Had I not met Singaporean Jeremy just two days earlier, I probably wouldn't have, but the only thing I could think was "Hotter than me?" Then he told me an unlikely story that had me laughing so hard that I back-burnered my ego again.

He and the guy had met at DJ Station, and a few days later, he received a "Hi, this is Jeremy" text message from him, inviting David over to his hotel. David, aware that I was due back in Bangkok any day, immediately thought that it was me. But why was I being so suggestive, insisting that he come to my hotel room? We're close, but not in that way.

In the end, David, still thinking that he was talking to me, arranged to meet up with "Jeremy" at a local bar. On the day of the "date," he showed up at the appointed time, fully expecting to see me for the first time in months. Obviously, I never arrived. But Vietnamese Jeremy did, much to David's surprise.

"Hey! What are you doing here?" The greeting must have sounded strange to Jeremy No. 3.

"This is where we are supposed to meet. Well, here I am."

Suddenly, it all came together. All that time, David had thought he was making plans with me, but he'd actually been making plans with the "hottest Vietnamese guy." Once I stopped laughing and picked myself off the floor, I thought about asking him if he'd been disappointed, but I reconsidered.

If Bangkok is going to be crawling with good-looking guys named Jeremy from this day forth, I'd like to at least continue looking into my mirror mirror on the wall, deluded that I will always be the hottest Jeremy of all.

4 Reasons Why Grindr Sucks

Some of my best friends are gay.

Many of them swear by the efficacy of Grindr, whether you're looking for sex for breakfast, love in the afternoon, or a midnight snack. Occasionally, I've been told, a boyfriend can be part of the deal. An American friend living in Melbourne recently found his on Grindr. ("I went over there for sex," he told me, "and we just clicked.") Another found true blue love.

Frankly, I remain skeptical about Grindr, this mobile app on which horny guys search for Mr. Right Now based on proximity. Since I first heard about it a year and a half ago, I've been pretty certain that it's not for me. Something about all of those shirtless, faceless torsos angling for attention on an iPhone screen overwhelmed me. And a miniature keypad isn't exactly conducive to real conversation. If I'm going to meet up with a perfect (if I'm lucky, and I rarely am) stranger for drinks, dinner, sex, or all three, it's imperative that we've gotten beyond the "Hi. Top or bottom?" phase.

But I was curious. Before I took the plunge on Grindr, I did my research. Beyond, the testimonials of friends who'd found love in that hopeless place, I interviewed two playwrights who'd written productions about Grindr for a piece in the February issue of Time Out Melbourne. I wasn't particularly encouraged by anything either had to say.

"If you're looking for a boyfriend or a relationship, get the fuck off Grindr, mate, it's not going to happen," one of them told me. So the benefit would be?... "It takes the awkwardness out of being rejected by someone face to face. If you meet someone on the dance floor and you buy them a drink and ask them if they're keen, and they say no, it really hurts. It's a slap on the face. But on Grindr, for some reason, there's this fake wall where nothing really hurts that much. If you say something to a guy, and he's not into you, it doesn't really matter. It's like it doesn't count. It's not real."

Not exactly a ringing endorsement, but upon my return to Bangkok, I decided to try it anyway. A few things quickly became abundantly clear.

1. Mr. Right (Now) doesn't generally hide behind torso shots and pictures of beautiful sunsets. As Metallica would sing, sad but true. I've had a few message me, and they rarely have faces that are suitable for framing. Sometimes I'll respond, just to make sure I'm not missing out on something good. That's why I responded to the Brazilian with his back to me.

Him: "Hi."

Me: "Face, please!"

Pleasant surprise: Although I wouldn't slip his photo into a picture frame, it didn't make me want to end the conversation, which wasn't even much of one.

Him: "Looking for?" He was losing ground quickly. Why must guys on Grindr treat hooking up like a cold, clinical business transaction between a prostitute and a john, only without the exchange of cash? I mean, we weren't even speaking in complete sentences. Damn that iPhone keypad!

Me: "Cool guys to talk to, drink with and maybe sleep with, too."

Him: "Cool... We too." Unfortunately, the guy in the photo with him, the one he sent after he'd secured my tentative interest, wasn't quite so picture perfect -- and although my years of living dangerously are not entirely behind me, I'd rather do windows than couples.

Case closed.

Another guy, one I could have sworn I'd met in real life the last time I was in Bangkok, sent me the following message. "Hi, wanna fuck my friend?" The guy in the photo was cute, but even as a newbie, I knew to avoid Grindr pimps and the guys they're peddling.

Case closed.

2. Grindr brings out the stupid in people. Though I can think of better ways to begin a conversation, I can live with a simple "Hello" to break the ice. But if I've taken the time to write you two complete sentences, and all you can say is "Cool"...

Case closed.

3. Grindr makes people disrespectful. My friend Marcus told me about someone he knows who used to respond to guys he didn't like with a simple "Yuck." Harsh, but isn't that so Australian? Yes, I can say that because I've had pretty much every move I've made in Oz, including saying that spectacular as Ellen Burstyn was in Requiem for a Dream, Julia Roberts earned her Oscar for Erin Brockovich, chalked up to the fact that I'm an American.

Frankly, I'm floored by how many Grindr profiles -- almost always ones that originate Down Under -- specify "Sorry not into Asian guys generally," which is bad enough when you're in Melbourne, but in Bangkok, shouldn't one show some respect to the natives of the country that's hosting you? Yes, I know, I know, it's a matter of preference, a predictable excuse, and one that doesn't give you carte blanche to be racist and rude.

Case closed.

4. Grindr is all about sex, which, if it's anything like those clumsy come-ons, won't be worth getting out of bed -- or into it -- for. Love or even normal conversation, if they come, will have to wait. And guys who say they are looking for friends and/or a relationship never really are. My most recent Grindr dialogue.

Him: "Hi. R u top or bottom?"

Me: "If that is your opening line, you gets no love." (I've always wanted to quote Faith Evans in normal conversation.)

Him: "Just curious. Sorry if it makes u inconvenient."

Case closed.

Now I can delete my profile -- experiment and mission: accomplished -- and off I go, into the real world to meet people and interact with them the way God intended: face to face.

Thursday Evening with Kristin Scott Thomas

Doesn't it seem like with each passing year, they go by more quickly?

On March 2, exactly 366 days ago, I left Buenos Aires to begin my year of living dangerously on the other side of the world. Four months in Melbourne were followed by six spent gallivanting around Southeast Asia, with an emphasis on Bangkok. After January and February in Melbourne again, as of three days ago, I'm back where I belong, in the place where my Asian adventure began, Bangkok.

So far there have been no wild nights at DJ Station (coming soon, for sure), only intense writing sessions, intense workouts (squats with two 20-kilo weights is murder on the ass, but it hurts so good!), intense jet lag, and the highlight of Bangkok 2012 so far: my Thursday evening rendezvous with Kristin Scott Thomas in the penthouse suite of one of Bangkok's most glamorous boutique hotels.

Actually, it was a 20-minute interview for a Scott Thomas profile that I'm writing for the Bangkok Post's bi-weekly themagazine supplement, but who knew I'd be celebrating the one-year anniversary of my departure from BA with the Oscar-nominated star of The English Patient? She's in town for work, shooting Only God Forgives, a film with Drive director Nicolas Winding Refn, in which she plays Ryan Gosling's gangstress mother from hell. She's also the ambassador for MGallery Collection of hotels, whose Hotel Muse Bangkok Langsuan opened in September of 2011, hence her presence at the opening gala. I pretended it was all about me, though, a celebration to mark one full year as a wanderer.

Scott Thomas was everything you would expect her to be if you know her best from her work in English-language films, such as Four Weddings and a Funeral, The English Patient and Gosford Park, all Best Picture Oscar nominees in their respective years. Beautiful, slightly aloof and an interesting mix of French sophistication (she's called Paris mostly home for years) and British candor.

I was surprised that she hadn't even seen the trailer for Bel Ami, her upcoming period drama with Robert Pattinson whose preview I wrote about so rapturously at the beginning of 2012. In fact, she had to ask me about the release date. Though I had no idea, and neither does anyone involved with the film, it seems, I said March or April because it sounded good.

My favourite revelation: She admitted that she was genuinely disappointed when she didn't get an Oscar nomination for 2008's I've Loved You So Long, despite collecting lots of pre-Oscar buzz and a Golden Globe nomination. I didn't have the heart to tell her that Sarah's Key, another French-language film with Scott Thomas in the lead that's about to open in Bangkok, has been available as a pirated DVD on Silom Road since last year.

Hadn't she suffered enough? I was so impressed that she wasn't too proud to reveal that being snubbed by Oscar hurt that I just couldn't bring myself to break the bootleg story to her. As I debated it in my head, I decided that since Oscar has rarely been able to resist a mother from hell, Scott Thomas might already be a 2013 Academy shoo-in in the Best Supporting Actress category. Maybe Oscar will stop ignoring both her and Gosling and invite them back to the party in 2013, just in time for my next anniversary.