The year is 2019 and it’s just the beginning of this disaster that has claimed so many lives and up rooted so many countries and changed life as we all know it to this awkward new normal. Our hopes for the year 2020 were so high and we’d planned an elaborate and strategic roadmap to success and couldn’t wait for it to all unveil. So we decided to celebrate the new year of the Rat with a Raunchy and Sexy 2020 calendar shot and produced by the dream team consisting of OBK STUDIO and MAEWKHOO.

The Idea of the calendar was supposed to reflect and predict all of the the things we would do in the new decade of the future. We were somewhere in-between in the middle of November, driving through the abyss of our daily routine, visiting our trusty suppliers as per usual when it came into our line of sight in the dead end streets of Samutprakarn district, south of central Bangkok. Literally hanging on for dear life on a weathered and rusty corrugated steel sheet (pretending to be a wall), a make-shift structure seamingly nailed together in a temporary and uncaring fashion, a truly local setting of a shack where a shirtless and ripped old timer of dark leathery skin and deeply pronounced wrinkles of which I remember thinking were the souvenirs of a harsh life lived and a karmic debt paid out to work under this blaring Sun in this lifetime, along with his wife were going about their day selling coconuts, bananas, sator (stinky beans) and all sorts of other local goodies to round up some extra cash for five o’clock drinky poos with the construction boys and girls.

There it was in all of its glory, a cheaply printed yet beautifully branded SME Chinese style business calendar that was presumably given out for free. I said, “stop the car” “what?” replied my trusty old partner “Stop the car!” I exclaimed, I think we replenished our parched throats with the sweet nectar of a couple freshly roasted coconut juices before working up the courage and awkwardly asking to purchase the out-dated calendar, or maybe we got away with the calendar for free to his amusement of what on earth we would need from an expired calendar, I can’t remember exactly and who cares about a foggy old memory anyways, it’s now recorded history.

The idea was there and in absolute form, let’s start the new decade with a MAEWKHOO 2020 calendar that we too could do our part to give out per gratis! The year was almost over and like clockwork people were starting to slow down for the much anticipated new year festivities nearing (almost) just around the corner. In a last attempt for a rushed and final year closure project we picked up the phone and called the only other person we knew who’s crazy enough to give a damn about a giveaway freebie (and its power in branding) and so a meeting was set up the next day.

We headed over to the odd side of Sukhumvit road to O’s for an evening of what we like to call and have internally coined with regularity as our “sexy nights”, which conveniently and in no way is a sad concept that consists of three dudes and a self proclaimed collective, the super team of the KH.Bs drinking and smoking themselves into a drunken stupor until it’s way past time to go home..with the vetted phrase echoing and lurking to those who are sober enough to still pay attention as these famous last words are spoken… this time we go?… Why not?

A place where dilapidated finger-murdering fans turned up to maximum power and primitive teak benches that are meant to make undesirable guests with more delicate than fabric softener derrieres numb to leave as quickly as they came in, in the case that a serious misjudgement of character were to occur of course. Not that it is really needed since few and far between ever get invited to this highly exclusive creative club, the hellish temperatures of an outdoor garden terrace in the affluent part of the city that our hosts firmly insists on an evening with no music as to keep the conversation on topic and as its been proven that our awfully good taste in music tends to disturb the minds of the acolytes who already jump between subjects far too much for it to be funny or productive anymore…

Being the busy professionals that we are, the first available date we all could agree on to do this thing was penned in our calendars for the 10th of December. So we set out on preparing for the shoot with the complexity of balancing a forever tight budget, a looming and nearing date and which sexy creatures would be featured for which month’s concept which was essential for success to an already shaky and half-assed project. Which I might add was challenging to say the least by the fact that much of the talent was already set on launching to the moon for the four nights of debauchery, drug abuse and some culture enrichment at the infamous festival of WONDERFRUIT which conveniently happen to come to an end the day before our scheduled shoot. Smile, fresh faces please, click click…

Back to the evening of inception, the topic of discussion was mostly argued about whether it would be an all female cast or a mixed gender “buffet style” platter to suit our very eclectic following and crowd with the very diverse sexual appetites of form and flesh desired would be appropriately and adequately provided.

So we settled on twelve Inamoratas and three Don Juans we thought wouldn’t tickle and disturb the perverted eyes who’d be fortunate enough to gaze at it for the next twelve months and spice up the air of the fully staged atmosphere of each month’s hypothetical scene.

We headed on the shoot day with three car full of props, countless of lenses and our favorite man which even though being and extremely talented photographer only picks up a camera once a year, today is the day and today was indeed the day as the 12 shots were done in a 14 hours long photoshoot that will stay in everybody’s mind. The ideas and executions somewhat made sense as we moved forward and as the team was putting all their talents into work. Thanks everyone hope to see you next year, not… turns out paper approvisionnement and unprecedented printing issues would delay the most anticipated calendar ever made and so we had to start the year in a total emptiness free fall not knowing which day it was or even which year had started a total mind fuck to all, unbalancing even the tides… a cataclismic event that would only be resolved in february when the first copies were sent out at the back of the fastest motorcycle maniacs in towns fearing nothing and staring straight at the face of Death every single day in a attempt to actually make a living. ‘Maa Reaw” Quick horse in thai, hero of everyday life who never demanded any recognition for their efforts but brave enough to endure driving mistakes of cab freaks charged on M-150, high on speed truck drivers, and self taught drivers with far too many starbuck coffee running through their veins.

The great idea of a calendar was indeed a great idea and we are glad we did it, as if we would do it again? I said yes but 2020 been so fucked up and 2021 even more, successively beating each other on the shit scale in a swirl of disgusting events the answer looks more like a maybe, in the future, one day when we’ll all be intubated into some computer machine and where beauty is everywhere then we’ll shoot the most trashy things we know just to remind us that life is fucked up and so are our lives and only that with this in mind we can find it’s true meaning, for us it was to do things just to do things because we could and because sharing it was more important than the aloof idea of bathing in cash. Thank you, good year!

One meeting one night a substantial amount of Suntory whisky as it offers the right balance between taste, price and hangover and far too many cigarettes as they keep us sharp in that blurr ocean of alcohol and words was all we needed to set the thing in motion.