Vote seymour

By Seymour Cumming

You know, the other day me and the dudes was sitting in the Spotlight bar discussing politics, when one of them says; "hey Seymour, why don't you run for president? "you're a controversial kind of guy, lose morals, gun ho, culturally unsympathetic, brash, an intellectual lightweight…, hell yeah you'd be perfect". Mmmm, president eh? Hot damn, now there's an idea. So, I went home and discussed it with my daddy and I've decided to run for president of the united ex-pats states.

Well, to be honest I had my doubts at first, afterall I don't really have any issues and stances of my own, other than the price of bar girls, and anyways I only really got where I am today, as a champion lifestyler that is, because my family back home is rich and powerful, but the boys all chipped in with a few ideas.

So, me and the dudes got together, came up with some campaign issues, and we reckon we're onto a winner. First, we've decided that as president I will declare war on tourism. Yup, the world will be a safer place without all these outsiders pouring into Chiang Mai, throwing their money around, spoiling all the bar girls, getting all hotheaded in our sleepy little town. Make no mistake, we will win. Daddy told me that even if we aren't winning we can at least we'll win the war of rhetoric and if we aren't winning that war, I reckon we can change the objective and even change the enemy, just like that George Orwell book he wrote back in 1984. Hoo boy, we can take the fight to them, 'smoke em out'. I'll be a war president. Our enemy are crafty and have lots of money, and so do we. They are intent on victory and destroying our sleepy town, and so are we.

This is still a dangerous world. It's a world of madmen and uncertainty and potential mental losses. And when we've driven all the tourists out, the boys have suggested we can ship over my mates from back home to pick up the business. Crickey! This is sounding better and better. And we're sitting there, sipping our cocktails and eyeing up the pole dancers when my mate Wolfie comes up with a brilliant idea. "heck, we can convince the government that all these foreigners who are coming here hoping to teach English have the means of developing weapons of math instruction. Yeah, says I. That is definately a threat. We'll have to invade a country that harbours tourists.

What will we tell the voters, I said. But Donnie, my other buddy, he has all the answers. "Seymour" he says, "let me share a secret with you, we have some intelligent intelligence to baffle the intelligence of those who have to make intelligent votes about our intelligent policies. Huh? Says I. "Seymour, nobody reads this intelligence anyway, we can go to that Khao San road place in Bangkok and get some fake documents made, proving that these weapons really exist, that'll convince them for sure. We'll mention Burma and find an excuse to link them to the whole plot, the press will buy it hook, line and sinker". Sounds good to me. Right, lets have a press conference immediately.

Being president will be fun, I can take plenty of vacations on my own private ranch. Another of my campaign promises, something that my other mate Dick thought up is to promise to rob the poor to pay the rich (see, as Dick explains, the rich will love this one and will help me buy votes in all the rural areas). Don't misunderestimated me. I understand small business growth, I was one. Anyways, I'll go on a spending spree and rack up record budget deficits, afterall that's what conservative presidents do right? I'll buy plenty of arms, because I will, afterall, be a War President. We will protect all ex-pat men, women and children from the new global threat of tourism. We will seek out the enemy, and our liberty to freedom to lifestyle will prevail. Forget the suit and tie, I'll don a flight jumpsuit and spend my time doing photo shoots on aircraft carriers and at scenes of destruction, which is fine because I guess I won't have any foreign leader friends to hang around with anyway.

My other friend, Leeza, has got another brilliant idea; my cousin, Mikemore Cumming, whose a famous filmmaker can do us a crackpot docudrama discrediting the current president, we'll call it farangheit 9/11.

Leeza's quite a clever cookie, she's taught me everything I need to say. I have opinions of my own, strong opinions, but I don't always agree with them (did that come out right Leeza?). I know what I believe. I will continue to articulate what I believe and what I believe - I believe what I believe is right. Hoo boy, being a president's candidate is fun.

Heck, I've got plenty of role models both here in Thailand and abroad. When I become leader I'm gonna pass a law forbidding any criticism of Seymour, and I'll censure the press to ensure I don't lose any face. Man, I'll be a self-styled ceo-president, we'll get things done for sure, I'll demand results and figures no matter how dodgy we have to be to achieve them, that'll please all the duped middle class for sure! I have made good judgments in the past. I have made good judgments in the future. We will declare a war on fun. Afterall, I am a War President. We will have a nationwide manhunt, draw up lists of non-persons (like those hill tribe folk), and wipe them out, blaming it on the casino barons. My adviers say we can just wait until there's some big news elsewhere and conduct it all in the media blackout.

You teach a child to read, and he or her will be able to pass a literacy test.

Investigative-journalist-at-large, Seymour Cumming has previously been a used car salesman, fruit picker, 'shock jock' and newsroom war correspondent. He has written for Farmer's Weekly, Nyet!, Chessworld and Cross-stitching Magazine.

He's been to more than 50 countries, some for less than a day, and is currently working on a travel novel, but he's written the author's biog, and not progressed much beyond that. His controversial commentary on ex-pat life in Thailand appears in Chiang Mai City Life Magazine.