Michael LaPalme – Tom Vater

Michael LaPalme captures Pussy & The Learjets, Bangkok’s seminal RocknRoll Band!

December 7, 2012tomLeave a Comment

Bangkok based photographer Michael LaPalme witnessed many of the 2011 shows of Pussy & The Learjets, Bangkok’s loudest RocknRoll band. The Learjets have been defunct for more than a year with Pussy absconding to China and the rest of the band involved in other projects. Michael also shot The Learjets in the studio. Now he’s […]

Bangkok Works of Art

June 3, 2012June 1, 2012tomLeave a Comment

Photographer Michael LaPalme, publisher Hans Kemp, writer Tom Vater and painter Chris Coles at Wordplay, Bangkok’s second literary festival in March 2012, before the presentation of Sacred Skin (with co-author and photographer Aroon Thaewchatturat). Photograph by Aroon Thaewchatturat.

Bangkok’s Second Literary Festival by Michael LaPalme

March 26, 2012May 4, 2012tom3 Comments

Photographer Michael LaPalme shot my talk (together with co-author and photographer Aroon Thaewchatturat) on Sacred Skin at the Neilson Hays Library during the second Bangkok Literary Festival. It had been a while since our last talk on Thailand’s sacred tattoos and I had a great time re-engaging with our book and an audience. I also […]

Tom Vater at the first Bangkok Literary Festival

May 23, 2011May 23, 2011tomLeave a Comment

Many thanks to all those who could attend my talk ´From Rough Guides to Sacred Skin`at the very first Bangkok Literary Festival at the Nelson Hays Library. I really enjoyed talking about the life of a freelance writer in a quickly changing and often brutally competitive and partially collapsing media landscape, trying to explain what […]

My memo on Vang Pao by Fred Branfman

January 11, 2011January 12, 2011tom14 Comments

Writer, anti-Vietnam War activist and US secrets whistle-blower Fred Branfman, the man who exposed the carpet bombing of Laos in the 1970s, has his own take on Vang Pao, the Hmong general and CIA operative who died last week in Califronia, aged 81. Fred Branfman – My memo on Vang Pao I guess Vang Pao’s […]

The Most Secret Place on Earth (The CIA Covert War in Laos) screening at FCC Bangkok

November 23, 2010November 23, 2010tom4 Comments

After showing at numerous international film festivals and several broadcasts on terrestrial European television, Marc Eberle’s The Most Secret Place on Earth (The CIA Covert War in Laos), co-written by Tom Vater, was screened a second time at the Foreign Correspondents Club Thailand in Bangkok on November 22nd, 2010. Director Marc Eberle, screen writer Tom […]