Ray's Place
The only people who were friendly in Hua In were those who were paid to talk to me. I mean the people at the tourist information office, of course. They were really nice. After the craziness of Pattaya, I was looking for a nice friendly place to relax for a few days. When I arrived in Hua In on the inner Western scissor of the Thai Peninsulas that jut down around the sea of Thailand, I got anything but that. The town was filled with old snowbird Scandinavians who left the snow behind but kept it in their veins. They were extremely unfriendly to the point of rudeness. The bad energy spread to the locals who also seemed sick of trying to be nice to nasty tourists and had their own auora of nastiness surrounding them. That was until I met Ray. I was walking down the street when I saw a sign that said "jam session tonight" in front of a restaurant that looked closed. I went in. As soon as he saw me he walked up and said, "Hi. I'm Ray"
"Hi Ray," I said, surprised and happy to finally meet a friendly person.
"What's in the box?"
"Guess."(my standard ploy). Ray made a number of unsuccessful guesses based upon which I ascertained that he himself probably wasn't a professional musician. Finally I told him it was a sax. "But saxophones are curved," he insisted.
"This is a straight one."
"but "why? "he pushed on clinging to his concept that the defining characteristic of a saxophone was it's curvedness .Why is it that people always want to argue with me on this point?
There were 2 ways I could go here, the scientific way or the straight way. I looked at Ray and figured here was a guy who didn't want complication in his life. "Because it's straight ,Ray." I looked at him like I had just uttered a great profundity, even raising my eyebrows. Ray looked right back at me with the intensity I was using on him and said elusively, "Got it". We glared at one another like sumo's sizing one another up.
"So what time is the jam session?"
"What jam session"
"The one tonight. The sign says there's a jam session tonight."
"It was last night."
"But the sign says it is tonight."
"I know, but it was last night." I glared at him, but he just smiled at me. Touché. I guess he's got me there. What goes around comes around. I broke into a smileI think at that moment we realised we were friends.
"But", and his eyes light up mischievously, there's a special jazz party tonight, why don't you come and play. He looked at me and smiled. He had never heard me play. He just accepted it on faith that I could play. For all he knew, all i could do was squawk. I accepted. This was reason enough to stay the night in Hua In.
I got to the gig, at a very nice hotel with a large and beautiful courtyarx at the edge of town. I got introduced to the musicians, Evan, bassist, band leader and husband to Yurin the singer and front woman in the band (both from Denmark), the pianist, the guitar player from Finland, the drummer, and the trumpet player,Lars, from Finnland. The singer was dressed in a kind of costume that looked like a sexy maids outfit with one long red stocking, and bright green gloves. She was a very pretty full figured woman. She smiled warmly to me. Lars had a head like a cantelope and a body like a squashed down bowling pin, only fatter. As soon as he saw my case he started crying, "I can't play, I won't play with a soprano saxophone instrument". Apparently he had had a traumatic incident with a soprano many years ago. I didnt ask for details. So I suggested we divide the tunes up. "Ok I like jazz and I wouldn't mind playing these 2 songs in the first set". Usually musicians are quite gracious about things like that. "No you play theses 2 songs in the second set, I don't like them." "But I don't even know those songs", I protested.
"I don't care, it's my job, and you play what I say nor you don't play at all." It was like a slap in the face What was this guy's problem. I got all huffy. "Well I can see I'm not wanted here, I'm leaving, and I'm gonna tell Ray about this." The singer looked at me as shocked as I felt. What was HIS problem. She's gesturing to me like ,"I don't know what's going on."
I was really shocked and wanted to leave, but something held me back. Maybe it was the free food there, or the fact that it was a beautiful venue, or Ray's kindness, but I just sat down in the back like a wounded hound with my tail between my legs, and watched. The band started up and , amazingly, they were great. The singer was fantastic. She could really sing, and her stage presence was amazing. She was joking and laughing, and talking to the audience, and before long, she had those cold Scandanavians up and cheering and dancing. Me, for my part, I forgot all about my insult, and started to just enjoy watching the band especially the singer. The trumpet player was also very good, damn him. Ray came and got me and I sat up with his wife and friends. I was smiling from ear to ear. I couldn't remember when I had had such a good time. I felt like another person, and all my anger didn't matter anymore. At the beginning of the second set, the trumpet player walked over and said dryly, "You can play now if you still want to." I looked at Ray and shrugged. He nodded encouragement. "Well when you put it so graciously, ok" I thought. I went up on the stage. The singer told me, "ok you'll hear this song it's very easy, even we don't need music."
"What? I was playing a song I didn't know without music? Ok." I thought. I looked over at the singer. She didn't give me the warmth she was giving the audience. Instead it was a kind of doubtful worried look, as if to say, "don't mess up what we have worked so hard to create." I looked over to the guitar player. He gave me an icy stare, "Hey man, just play your ass off." funny how nice musicians seem looking at them from the audience, but up on the stage, they don't put up with any foolishness. I played and it sounded pretty good. I was getting the LOOK from all around. The look that says, "Wow this guy can play. Maybe he's better than we are." I was just glad not to have embarrassed myself. I sat down after 2 songs and the trumpet player reclaimed his kingdom. There, I had payed my dues, I sat back, had another drink, and just enjoyed the evening. The great singer, the wonderful food, and being treated with the respect an "artist" gets from fans. There were two highlights of the performance. The first was when Yurin sang the old song "You can kiss me on a Monday, a Tuesday, a Wednesday....., except she sang it in Thai, to the uproarious laughter of the locals. It sounded to me like she was executing the 5 tones of Thai very well. Then she proceeded to sing it in all the Scandanavians languages including Finnish, which supposedly is very difficult, and finally in English. The other highlight was when someone requested a song from the band, "We are Family", which they really seemed to take to heart. It became the theme for the evening. Everyone got up and many people got on stage and were hugging and singing, "We...Are...Fam....il...lee....". And for the rest of the evening, it seemed like we really were family, under the wing of Ray and his wife, I felt the goodwill spread around the room, and light everyone up. Were was the coldness I had witnessed just a few hours before.
That was the key in Thailand I guess. If you were included in the "family" it was an amazingly warm and wonderful experience? And if you weren't it felt rather cold and distant. Ray, his wife, and friends included me and the others in their family and it was an amazing experience. He couldn't do enough for me, including taking me home, taking me to the railway station to get a ticket, buying me a dinner later that night, and becoming my Facebook friend immediately that night. I stopped off there on the way to the train, and as I expected, he bought me a coffee and he wanted to drive me to the train station, but since it was only 3 blocks away, I declined the offer. We left with warmth and an understanding, that.....we....were.... family.
Monday, January 31, 2011
I'd Like to Give the World a Rose
I'd Like to Give the World a Rose
I didn't think it was possible, but Phuket was even more depressing than Pattaya. More massage parlors, with the woman pressuring you to choose them...them, more bars filled with women trying get you to buy them drinks or take them home, more beautiful young girls with wrinkly old men, more ladyboys trying to fool you into showing a sexual interest in them, more drunks, more tattoos and more tattoo parlors, more obnoxious Germans demanding things and Russians strutting around like major Mafia figures, more insistent merchants, higher prices and less value, and generally less friendly people. What was I doing here? I guess it was just a matter of being curious and wanting to see places I had heard about but never seen. Now I knew for sure, this wasn't for me. There's nothing more depressing than being alone in a crowd when it seems that everyone else is having the time of their lives; guys sitting with their buddies drinking beers and laughing uproariously, guys being romantic with their girlfriends, people hustling money, and me, walking around alone and angry about it. More than anything I felt invisible and like a loser.
I kept walking around hoping I would see something for me, something i could enjoy, something I could get involved in. Everything that anyone said to me sounded like a cliche and just...depressing. Finally I found it. At one bar there were 2 obviously drunk guys who were having fun in a different way. The one guy was standing in the middle of the busy pedestrian way with a huge bouquet of roses. Each bouquet was made up of more than 100 flowers, and he was patiently passing them out one at a time to a crowd that was already overly worked and stressed. They were all so weary of getting asked to buy everything, that their automatic reaction was to say no, without thinking about it. They were all wrapped up in their little protective cocoons and barely able to peek out at the world anymore. After all how many times can you be asked if you want a massage or a taxi? This what happens when you are bombarded with pleas all day. And some of the offers were quite aggressive.
"Here have a rose"
No response. Looking dully straight ahead
"go ahead take it, it's free."
They still don't believe it.
"really I'd like to give it to you."
Finally the person smiles. Realising it's not a sale, it's a pleasant surprise, a breath of fresh air. Who doesn't like a rose? And a smile and relaxed feeling suddenly breaks through the ice. These crazy guys were having a great time just breaking through the defences that everyone had built up over their days in Phuket. When I saw them do it at first, I just stopped and watched. It was so funny to watch the surprised and often hostile looks they would get, and then the transformation as they relaxed and realised someone was doing a simple and kind act for them. Ahhhhh . A rose. How nice. I just stood there, invisible, and down, watching them work the crowd. The best part was that they weren't always so nice about it. They would get right in people's faces until they accepted it. Most did. I got hooked watching them. It was like they created a ripple effect and you could feel it spreading like ripples along the way. I circled around so I could see the recipient's face better. It was a joy to see those natural smiles breaking through. The best part was that they didn't pick only women. A big burly Boris came along, a guy I would normally avoid eye contact with.
"Here have a rose"
Boris glares at him and snarls like a hound.
"Go ahead take it, it's free."
He walks straight up to Carl. It looks like he wants to fight. Maybe he think Carl is gay and trying to pick him up.
"Hey you can give it to your girlfriend" Carl says walking along with him.
"I dun't haf girlfriend" Boris says slowing down
"Maybe you can get one with this rose."
Finally Boris is grinning from ear to ear and I snap a picture just as his smile peaks.
Carl turns to me, "that was a tough one"
He spoke to me. He spoke to me. It strikes me. Suddenly I'm not invisible anymore. I'm part of this street performance. An old Thai woman who is selling brooms walks by. He sticks the flower in front of her and she smiles sweetly, swept away. She never had a foreigner interact with her before. Snap. Carl walks up to a ladyboy, all dressed up to look like a Las Vegas dancer. She backs away. She/he doesn't want anyone to smear her makeup. She/he makes an x with her forearms. "Win some lose some" Carl calls over. A middle aged couple who obviously had too much sun waddle by. He gives a rose to the wife and then one to the husband. Snap. Now I'm an integral part of the team, Carl gives the marks the rose like a pitcher throwing a ball and I catch it by snapping a picture. People are watching us, Carl and I work the crowd. He's starting to run low on roses. 5 or 6 flower peddlers cue up. "Take mine. Mine are fresher. 500 baht here" selling a bundle of roses is a big night for one of them, usually they sell them one at a time. He picks out a huge bundle of white ones. He picks out a young Swedish looking girl in a stroller who starts giggling when he gives it to her. A young beautiful Thai woman walks by with a much older foreigner.
"here, give her a rose quick, before she runs away", he jokes.
A guy in an all white jump suit walks by, no one can figure out who he is. He looks quite confused, but finally takes one, laughing as he walks away. A woman who looks like she's a prostitute walks by, "wanna take me home" she smiles suggestively. "Why don't you take my rose home?". She walks away, not entirely disappointed. By now a group of people in the bar and standing on the side are watching the action, offers and Ad libs flying back and forth furiously. "I want to give the whole world a rose," Carl whispers to me. In the end he buys 6 huge bunches of flowers, about 100 dollars worth. It takes him more than an hour to give them all away. Finally he takes a break. I go over to talk with him and tell him how much I enjoyed his street theater. I promise to send him the pictures. I shake his hand warmly. "you made a lot of people happy tonight none of them more than me". He claps me on the shoulder then looks a bit confused. He wants to give me something but there are no more flowers, he gave them all away. He looks down. There's a lei around his neck. Without hesitation he takes it off and hangs it around my neck.
I'm a different person than I was an hour ago. I'm relaxed and smiling. People seem to be smiling back at me. I'm no longer invisible. I celebrate by buying some cha yen, Thai sweet iced tea. I hand the money over to the bored looking counter girl. Without pausing I strip off my lei and place it on her neck. She is startled and then delighted. Her eyes light up and she looks so pretty and sweet now. The ripple continues. I realise I want to give everyone a rose too.
I didn't think it was possible, but Phuket was even more depressing than Pattaya. More massage parlors, with the woman pressuring you to choose them...them, more bars filled with women trying get you to buy them drinks or take them home, more beautiful young girls with wrinkly old men, more ladyboys trying to fool you into showing a sexual interest in them, more drunks, more tattoos and more tattoo parlors, more obnoxious Germans demanding things and Russians strutting around like major Mafia figures, more insistent merchants, higher prices and less value, and generally less friendly people. What was I doing here? I guess it was just a matter of being curious and wanting to see places I had heard about but never seen. Now I knew for sure, this wasn't for me. There's nothing more depressing than being alone in a crowd when it seems that everyone else is having the time of their lives; guys sitting with their buddies drinking beers and laughing uproariously, guys being romantic with their girlfriends, people hustling money, and me, walking around alone and angry about it. More than anything I felt invisible and like a loser.
I kept walking around hoping I would see something for me, something i could enjoy, something I could get involved in. Everything that anyone said to me sounded like a cliche and just...depressing. Finally I found it. At one bar there were 2 obviously drunk guys who were having fun in a different way. The one guy was standing in the middle of the busy pedestrian way with a huge bouquet of roses. Each bouquet was made up of more than 100 flowers, and he was patiently passing them out one at a time to a crowd that was already overly worked and stressed. They were all so weary of getting asked to buy everything, that their automatic reaction was to say no, without thinking about it. They were all wrapped up in their little protective cocoons and barely able to peek out at the world anymore. After all how many times can you be asked if you want a massage or a taxi? This what happens when you are bombarded with pleas all day. And some of the offers were quite aggressive.
"Here have a rose"
No response. Looking dully straight ahead
"go ahead take it, it's free."
They still don't believe it.
"really I'd like to give it to you."
Finally the person smiles. Realising it's not a sale, it's a pleasant surprise, a breath of fresh air. Who doesn't like a rose? And a smile and relaxed feeling suddenly breaks through the ice. These crazy guys were having a great time just breaking through the defences that everyone had built up over their days in Phuket. When I saw them do it at first, I just stopped and watched. It was so funny to watch the surprised and often hostile looks they would get, and then the transformation as they relaxed and realised someone was doing a simple and kind act for them. Ahhhhh . A rose. How nice. I just stood there, invisible, and down, watching them work the crowd. The best part was that they weren't always so nice about it. They would get right in people's faces until they accepted it. Most did. I got hooked watching them. It was like they created a ripple effect and you could feel it spreading like ripples along the way. I circled around so I could see the recipient's face better. It was a joy to see those natural smiles breaking through. The best part was that they didn't pick only women. A big burly Boris came along, a guy I would normally avoid eye contact with.
"Here have a rose"
Boris glares at him and snarls like a hound.
"Go ahead take it, it's free."
He walks straight up to Carl. It looks like he wants to fight. Maybe he think Carl is gay and trying to pick him up.
"Hey you can give it to your girlfriend" Carl says walking along with him.
"I dun't haf girlfriend" Boris says slowing down
"Maybe you can get one with this rose."
Finally Boris is grinning from ear to ear and I snap a picture just as his smile peaks.
Carl turns to me, "that was a tough one"
He spoke to me. He spoke to me. It strikes me. Suddenly I'm not invisible anymore. I'm part of this street performance. An old Thai woman who is selling brooms walks by. He sticks the flower in front of her and she smiles sweetly, swept away. She never had a foreigner interact with her before. Snap. Carl walks up to a ladyboy, all dressed up to look like a Las Vegas dancer. She backs away. She/he doesn't want anyone to smear her makeup. She/he makes an x with her forearms. "Win some lose some" Carl calls over. A middle aged couple who obviously had too much sun waddle by. He gives a rose to the wife and then one to the husband. Snap. Now I'm an integral part of the team, Carl gives the marks the rose like a pitcher throwing a ball and I catch it by snapping a picture. People are watching us, Carl and I work the crowd. He's starting to run low on roses. 5 or 6 flower peddlers cue up. "Take mine. Mine are fresher. 500 baht here" selling a bundle of roses is a big night for one of them, usually they sell them one at a time. He picks out a huge bundle of white ones. He picks out a young Swedish looking girl in a stroller who starts giggling when he gives it to her. A young beautiful Thai woman walks by with a much older foreigner.
"here, give her a rose quick, before she runs away", he jokes.
A guy in an all white jump suit walks by, no one can figure out who he is. He looks quite confused, but finally takes one, laughing as he walks away. A woman who looks like she's a prostitute walks by, "wanna take me home" she smiles suggestively. "Why don't you take my rose home?". She walks away, not entirely disappointed. By now a group of people in the bar and standing on the side are watching the action, offers and Ad libs flying back and forth furiously. "I want to give the whole world a rose," Carl whispers to me. In the end he buys 6 huge bunches of flowers, about 100 dollars worth. It takes him more than an hour to give them all away. Finally he takes a break. I go over to talk with him and tell him how much I enjoyed his street theater. I promise to send him the pictures. I shake his hand warmly. "you made a lot of people happy tonight none of them more than me". He claps me on the shoulder then looks a bit confused. He wants to give me something but there are no more flowers, he gave them all away. He looks down. There's a lei around his neck. Without hesitation he takes it off and hangs it around my neck.
I'm a different person than I was an hour ago. I'm relaxed and smiling. People seem to be smiling back at me. I'm no longer invisible. I celebrate by buying some cha yen, Thai sweet iced tea. I hand the money over to the bored looking counter girl. Without pausing I strip off my lei and place it on her neck. She is startled and then delighted. Her eyes light up and she looks so pretty and sweet now. The ripple continues. I realise I want to give everyone a rose too.
Monday, January 24, 2011
Serenading the Ladies of the Night
Serenading the Ladies of the Night
I didn't know what to expect from Pattaya, I had heard it was the bad boy of Thai cities. The place people go to sin. It seemed like a place without grace or any redeeming features for me, until I saw that there was a kind of beach walk where people strolled up and down at night. This was the place where poor girls who had resorted to making money from sex displayed themselves, waiting for a customer to come along and make an offer. They just stood there, spaced apart every 5 meters or so, lifeless and expressionless like mannequins waiting to come to life, while waiting for the fish to bite. Mostly their faces were fixed in a kind of sneer devoid of any personality, the kind that models put on.
Anytime I see a boardwalk or pedestrian way with many people, I think of just one thing, street music. You might say I am a street music addict. It's exciting and relaxing at the same time. Exciting because I don't know what will happen, especially in those few first moments. Maybe the police will come and tell me to get lost. Or maybe there will be a big cheer for me. Relaxing because once I establish myself, I can just play and watch the world go by, while waiting for something to happen or not. I wondered how the "workers" would react to my presence. Maybe they would welcome a change. They could listen while they waited. Or maybe it would draw a crowd and make it easier for shy guys to break the ice, "Hey, he's pretty good isn't he? Where do you think he's from? By the way, how much for a blow-job?"
After getting mentally prepared, I walked out with my sax and background music. It wasn't easy to find a place that was right, not too much noise from a club across the street and a place to sit. Finally I found one. There were a few "workers" nearby. Following established protocol, I asked the one nearest me, "Music ok?". She was quite unattractive. It was hard to tell though if she was a he or a she. Sometimes the most gorgeous delicate looking ones were boys, or ladybugs as the refer to them in Thailand. Interestingly enough, they aren't looked down on in Thailand. In fact they seem to be almost celebrated.They say you can look for an Adams apple or the scar of one. Of course you can ask, they will usually tell you the truth. Ladyboys are usually very nice people, and are happy if you mistake them for a woman. They seem to thrive on that. This one I'm pretty sure was a woman, because she was not nice. She looked at me like I was a bug and turned away. I caught the eye of another one. "Music ok, here?," I pidgeon-Englished out. She kind of smiled and nodded, then looked bored and turned back to her scanning of the crowd. These women and girls were all business. Well I had my permission. I didn't need to get it from everyone, just one was enough, then if someone hassled me I could point to her and say, "She said it was ok." Little did she know that by nodding she was agreeing to be my protector.
I took out my horn and got my amp ready and hesitated. What the hell was I doing? I guess I'd played in weirder places but I couldn't remember when. If someone had taken a panoramic picture of the beach walk it would have showed 200 women posing, and me playing the saxophone. I hope no one thought I was a new breed of hooker. You know, do strange things to me and my horn, or I will play while you defile me. I thought about putting it away, but then I thought, "Ahhh what the hell, I've come this far" and made a deal with myself to play just one song and then I could leave if I wanted to. Carefully I pulled the mouthpiece up to my mouth, felt the woodiness of the reed on my tongue and blew a long sensual note. It was a note in which I tried to express all the different desires and emotions I was seeing around me. It reminded one of the sound you sometimes hear cats in heat make late at night, as if there has been a crack in hell and some screams of that dark place wafted up. For a moment, the briefest of moments, it seemed like everything stopped. The hookers stopped being hookers, and the marks stopped being marks, the tourists stopped looking at the hookers and marks, like someone had hit the pause button on the the great DVD player of life. This lasted for the briefest of moments, perhaps one millionth of a second, or maybe it was just my imagination. In that brief time, the general consensus was being taken and voted on and tallied, and the result was.......this was nothing to pay any attention to. The play button was pushed, and if anything, things seemed to go a little faster than before. So it was just this weird "farang" (foreigner) playing jazz standards while hundreds of prostitutes posed and thousands of people strolled by, some shopping, some gawking. Most people walked by without gIving a hint that they heard me or even saw me. It seemed strange to me. Like if you saw a lion juggling on the sidewalk, would you just walk by without noticing? I wondered if anyone even noticed the song selection that I was playing. I tried to be relevant by playing songs with titles like "All of Me", "My Funny Valentine", or " Ain't Misbehaving". Maybe it was to much to expect that someone would "get" my humor. A few people slowed down and listened with confused expressions. What is that? Is he a musician or a performance artist or just a weird guy? One of the "workers" smiled at me and gave me a thumbs up. I felt the atmosphere warm up a little. I was creating my own little space, my own little happening. One jazz fan walked by and told me the name of the song I was playing, "hey isn't that 'Besame Mucho' you're playing?" It was. I hi-5ed him in between notes. He snorted and sat down and listened. Pretty soon an older Italian man whose name was (you guessed it) Tony, and who was a dead ringer for Tony Bennett sat down and started tapping away. I was tempted to ask him to sing one with me. He had as much class as his namesake I'm sure. After one song he gave me 500 baht (about 16 dollars) then waved it off. After the next song he asked if I wanted a beer. I preferred a coffee. Then he clapped his hands and two of the prostitutes walked over and he ordered a beer and a coffee and "whatever you 2 want". I admired him for his confidence and generosity. He gave the woman 500 baht, and when I warned him they might not come back, because that was the amount it cost to hire them for 2 hours (I was told), again he sloughed it off. "It's nothing." before I knew it there were about 6 older jazz fans, all guys, sitting nearby enjoying listening to me play jazz standards. Maybe they had left their hotels without the idea to return shortly with a woman, but on the way to the beach, lost the urge. So business went on as usual with the long gauntlet of professionals and a short intermission of five seconds of jazz. Somehow it all seemed very natural, like I had been absorbed and diluted by the universal mixer. Whatever, the reason, it was a strange evening of street music , one that won't easily be remembered by anyone but me and perhaps Tony and a few other middle-aged guys. I remember when i was young and we would go to a restaurant, and while waiting for our food we would play this game with the songs on the jukebox. Whatever the song title was, we would add, "under the table" to it. It always seemed to be funny, like "She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah, Under the Table". Guess you had to be there. Funny how the songs in Pattaya also took on a new, but sinister meaning in this context; "the Best is Yet to Come", "Black and Blue", or " Blame It on My Youth". There's a weird wonderful meaning and deep symbolic significance in what I did that night, but I can't for the life of me figure it out. If you can, please give me a hint.
I didn't know what to expect from Pattaya, I had heard it was the bad boy of Thai cities. The place people go to sin. It seemed like a place without grace or any redeeming features for me, until I saw that there was a kind of beach walk where people strolled up and down at night. This was the place where poor girls who had resorted to making money from sex displayed themselves, waiting for a customer to come along and make an offer. They just stood there, spaced apart every 5 meters or so, lifeless and expressionless like mannequins waiting to come to life, while waiting for the fish to bite. Mostly their faces were fixed in a kind of sneer devoid of any personality, the kind that models put on.
Anytime I see a boardwalk or pedestrian way with many people, I think of just one thing, street music. You might say I am a street music addict. It's exciting and relaxing at the same time. Exciting because I don't know what will happen, especially in those few first moments. Maybe the police will come and tell me to get lost. Or maybe there will be a big cheer for me. Relaxing because once I establish myself, I can just play and watch the world go by, while waiting for something to happen or not. I wondered how the "workers" would react to my presence. Maybe they would welcome a change. They could listen while they waited. Or maybe it would draw a crowd and make it easier for shy guys to break the ice, "Hey, he's pretty good isn't he? Where do you think he's from? By the way, how much for a blow-job?"
After getting mentally prepared, I walked out with my sax and background music. It wasn't easy to find a place that was right, not too much noise from a club across the street and a place to sit. Finally I found one. There were a few "workers" nearby. Following established protocol, I asked the one nearest me, "Music ok?". She was quite unattractive. It was hard to tell though if she was a he or a she. Sometimes the most gorgeous delicate looking ones were boys, or ladybugs as the refer to them in Thailand. Interestingly enough, they aren't looked down on in Thailand. In fact they seem to be almost celebrated.They say you can look for an Adams apple or the scar of one. Of course you can ask, they will usually tell you the truth. Ladyboys are usually very nice people, and are happy if you mistake them for a woman. They seem to thrive on that. This one I'm pretty sure was a woman, because she was not nice. She looked at me like I was a bug and turned away. I caught the eye of another one. "Music ok, here?," I pidgeon-Englished out. She kind of smiled and nodded, then looked bored and turned back to her scanning of the crowd. These women and girls were all business. Well I had my permission. I didn't need to get it from everyone, just one was enough, then if someone hassled me I could point to her and say, "She said it was ok." Little did she know that by nodding she was agreeing to be my protector.
I took out my horn and got my amp ready and hesitated. What the hell was I doing? I guess I'd played in weirder places but I couldn't remember when. If someone had taken a panoramic picture of the beach walk it would have showed 200 women posing, and me playing the saxophone. I hope no one thought I was a new breed of hooker. You know, do strange things to me and my horn, or I will play while you defile me. I thought about putting it away, but then I thought, "Ahhh what the hell, I've come this far" and made a deal with myself to play just one song and then I could leave if I wanted to. Carefully I pulled the mouthpiece up to my mouth, felt the woodiness of the reed on my tongue and blew a long sensual note. It was a note in which I tried to express all the different desires and emotions I was seeing around me. It reminded one of the sound you sometimes hear cats in heat make late at night, as if there has been a crack in hell and some screams of that dark place wafted up. For a moment, the briefest of moments, it seemed like everything stopped. The hookers stopped being hookers, and the marks stopped being marks, the tourists stopped looking at the hookers and marks, like someone had hit the pause button on the the great DVD player of life. This lasted for the briefest of moments, perhaps one millionth of a second, or maybe it was just my imagination. In that brief time, the general consensus was being taken and voted on and tallied, and the result was.......this was nothing to pay any attention to. The play button was pushed, and if anything, things seemed to go a little faster than before. So it was just this weird "farang" (foreigner) playing jazz standards while hundreds of prostitutes posed and thousands of people strolled by, some shopping, some gawking. Most people walked by without gIving a hint that they heard me or even saw me. It seemed strange to me. Like if you saw a lion juggling on the sidewalk, would you just walk by without noticing? I wondered if anyone even noticed the song selection that I was playing. I tried to be relevant by playing songs with titles like "All of Me", "My Funny Valentine", or " Ain't Misbehaving". Maybe it was to much to expect that someone would "get" my humor. A few people slowed down and listened with confused expressions. What is that? Is he a musician or a performance artist or just a weird guy? One of the "workers" smiled at me and gave me a thumbs up. I felt the atmosphere warm up a little. I was creating my own little space, my own little happening. One jazz fan walked by and told me the name of the song I was playing, "hey isn't that 'Besame Mucho' you're playing?" It was. I hi-5ed him in between notes. He snorted and sat down and listened. Pretty soon an older Italian man whose name was (you guessed it) Tony, and who was a dead ringer for Tony Bennett sat down and started tapping away. I was tempted to ask him to sing one with me. He had as much class as his namesake I'm sure. After one song he gave me 500 baht (about 16 dollars) then waved it off. After the next song he asked if I wanted a beer. I preferred a coffee. Then he clapped his hands and two of the prostitutes walked over and he ordered a beer and a coffee and "whatever you 2 want". I admired him for his confidence and generosity. He gave the woman 500 baht, and when I warned him they might not come back, because that was the amount it cost to hire them for 2 hours (I was told), again he sloughed it off. "It's nothing." before I knew it there were about 6 older jazz fans, all guys, sitting nearby enjoying listening to me play jazz standards. Maybe they had left their hotels without the idea to return shortly with a woman, but on the way to the beach, lost the urge. So business went on as usual with the long gauntlet of professionals and a short intermission of five seconds of jazz. Somehow it all seemed very natural, like I had been absorbed and diluted by the universal mixer. Whatever, the reason, it was a strange evening of street music , one that won't easily be remembered by anyone but me and perhaps Tony and a few other middle-aged guys. I remember when i was young and we would go to a restaurant, and while waiting for our food we would play this game with the songs on the jukebox. Whatever the song title was, we would add, "under the table" to it. It always seemed to be funny, like "She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah, Under the Table". Guess you had to be there. Funny how the songs in Pattaya also took on a new, but sinister meaning in this context; "the Best is Yet to Come", "Black and Blue", or " Blame It on My Youth". There's a weird wonderful meaning and deep symbolic significance in what I did that night, but I can't for the life of me figure it out. If you can, please give me a hint.
Dynamite boyz
Sin City
Pattaya is Thailand's sin city. It's famous for that. Sin, depravity, ladyboys, strip bars, "live shows" and anything else you can think of or are willing to pay for. I wasn't interested in all that, though I didn't mind seeing it once. I had come down to meet an internet friend who happened to live there. I took the 2 hour 10 dollar minivan ride down from Bangkok after spending a week there. I was surprised that hordes of hawkers didn't descend on me as I emerged from the van, backpack and front-pack-laden.
In fact I was counting on them. Where were they? How was I supposed to know where to go? I looked up and down the street. I didn't see any lodging. These bags were way too heavy; not meant for long distance traveling. I asked the first foreigners where the cheap rooms were. They said there weren't any here. I started to panic. In Bangkok I paid 200 baht ($6.30) for a room a night. I was definitely a low-budget kind of traveler. The first place I stopped was 1,200 baht and it looked like a regular hotel room. Noooooooo. I kept walking and finally found a cheap looking room but it was still 800. I was getting tired. My shoulders were aching. I started to consider that I might have to accept a more expensive room. Damn. I turned down another side street and saw a sign with an Indian name. I decided to try it. She said 400 baht. I had to take it. I could walk no further. I noticed that the entrance was shared with a place called Dynamite Boys, but I was too tired to think about it, I just wanted those weights off my back. The room wasn't bad, it even had a refrigerator, air conditioning, and hot water. I rested awhile and then went out to eat something. As I stepped out, I looked around. Not only was there Dynamite Boys, but X-Men, David (with a big statue of David out front), Dream Boyz and Scream Baby. I had landed in the gay part of Pattaya, which was ok, I'm not prejudiced, but then again I didn't really feel like getting approached by aggressive bar workers and male prostitutes who might just assume that as a single guy I was where I wanted to be and was maybe just being passive.
"Hey handsome!" I heard as I walked down the steps.
"Hi. I like girls."
" We like you" one shirtless young man assured me. "See you later", he said brushing my arm. Shit. I hoped not.
I met my friend who brought her friend, and the 3 of us had a good time drinking coffee, eating a Japanese style dinner of nabe (boiling water on the table that you keep adding stuff to), and then walking around the famous "Walking Street". That's a pedestrian zone packed with strip bars, Thai boxing bars, sex shoes, you name it. I was prepared for the worst, but I was pleasantly surprised. Most of the "girly bars" had themes and they were funny or cute. Like stewardess bar, middle school bar, cowgirl bars. They all had costumes and I thought it was quite well done. I didn't go in any. For one thing it was probably so expensive, maybe 10 dollars a drink. For another, why would I want to watch a sex show and get all excited, and then be left to my own um......devices. I'd rather not get all horny unless I was with my girlfriend, thank you. That's like drinking a lot of saltwater before heading out into the desert. Of course there were a lot of prostitutes around, but I am afraid of diseases and truthfully most of them just aren't attractive to me in appearance or character.
Other than drinking and sex, there wasn't a whole lot going on in Pattaya. There was a beach kind of, it was about 5 meters wide and packed almost completely with lawn chairs that the locals rented for 80 baht for 30 minutes. Along the sidewalk in front of the beach there was a steady stream of people from all walks and regions of the world. There were a lot of military types. Pattaya started out as a recreation destination for soldiers during the Vietnam war, and it maintained that character heavily to this day. Lots of bars and tattoo parlors. Lots of nasty looking Russians and scowling Iranians walking around. Tons of sad looking older men, one stumble from a nursing home, many of them with Thai girls 30 years their juniors. Their bellies were sights to behold, Henri Moore in action. Germans, Italians, French, the whole world was here. There was one old Russian guy with a telescope and he was selling looks at the moon for 10 baht (33 cents). He was a professional retired astronomer and loved sharing his passion. We all looked at the moon. "If you come out at 2 am you can see the rings of Saturn!!!!," he promised.
My friends had to get up early to go to work, so they announced they had to go at 10:30 pm. I begged them to walk me home. They laughed at me but agreed. Getting back to the steps, the "boys" sited me. " We've been waiting for you". they sang out approaching fast.I grabbed my friend's arm. "Sorry I like real girls" they stopped in their tracks like the Coyote might do in the Roadrunner cartoon and showed exaggerated disappointment. "oh you heart breaker. Well we'll be here if you change your mind." I asked my friends to walk me up the 2 flights to my room, past the other first floor club. They did so laughing. I was determined not to go out again. I'd had enough for one night, though seeing Saturn sounded pretty good.
As I feared my room was like being inside a disco. There was the thump thump thumping from the club underneath me, and then another stranger sound from a karaoke club next door. I felt like I had arrived at the gates of Hell. The fact that I fell asleep was a testament to how tired I have been. There was no escaping it though,I had the strangest and most vivid dreams. In my dream I was me with my normal heterosexual orientation but I was in a room alone with a famous gay comedian. And though I knew I wasn't gay in the dream, I acted like I was, my shirt was open, and I kept touching his leg and sat on the bed with him. I woke up at 1:30, unsettled and disturbed. The disco had stopped but the karaoke continued. That was perhaps even worse. They were terrible and the distorted sounds that came to me made it even worse. I felt like I was on some kind of bad trip. Braving the gauntlet of hawkers didn't seem as bad as staying in the room at that moment, and there was Saturn to think of. I got ready to go, and fairly ran down the steps. By the time they saw me, I was halfway down the block and I was able to ignored their calls. I walked up and down the beach walk,but the astronomer wasn't there. Most of the prostates that lined the way, posing in their tacky dresses were gone, maybe they had reached their quota of 500 baht "jobs" or maybe they had gotten a 1000 baht all-nighter.I guess I wouldn't see the rings tonight. I bought a small bag of fresh pineapple and papaya (10 baht each) and sat on the stoop and watched the world go by. It was 2:30 am now and things were starting to slow down. I looked up and imagined Saturn up there, and all the other stars and places we couldn't even see. Maybe someone up there was looking down on us right at that moment. I wonder if they could imagine all the crazy complexity of our world. I felt pretty content to be where I was. For a moment I felt like right where I was, was the center of the universe. Of course I had to still make it back to my room, and hope the terrible sound would stop and allow me to slip in to unconsciousness, but for the moment, the pineapple and papaya tasted pretty good.
Pattaya is Thailand's sin city. It's famous for that. Sin, depravity, ladyboys, strip bars, "live shows" and anything else you can think of or are willing to pay for. I wasn't interested in all that, though I didn't mind seeing it once. I had come down to meet an internet friend who happened to live there. I took the 2 hour 10 dollar minivan ride down from Bangkok after spending a week there. I was surprised that hordes of hawkers didn't descend on me as I emerged from the van, backpack and front-pack-laden.
In fact I was counting on them. Where were they? How was I supposed to know where to go? I looked up and down the street. I didn't see any lodging. These bags were way too heavy; not meant for long distance traveling. I asked the first foreigners where the cheap rooms were. They said there weren't any here. I started to panic. In Bangkok I paid 200 baht ($6.30) for a room a night. I was definitely a low-budget kind of traveler. The first place I stopped was 1,200 baht and it looked like a regular hotel room. Noooooooo. I kept walking and finally found a cheap looking room but it was still 800. I was getting tired. My shoulders were aching. I started to consider that I might have to accept a more expensive room. Damn. I turned down another side street and saw a sign with an Indian name. I decided to try it. She said 400 baht. I had to take it. I could walk no further. I noticed that the entrance was shared with a place called Dynamite Boys, but I was too tired to think about it, I just wanted those weights off my back. The room wasn't bad, it even had a refrigerator, air conditioning, and hot water. I rested awhile and then went out to eat something. As I stepped out, I looked around. Not only was there Dynamite Boys, but X-Men, David (with a big statue of David out front), Dream Boyz and Scream Baby. I had landed in the gay part of Pattaya, which was ok, I'm not prejudiced, but then again I didn't really feel like getting approached by aggressive bar workers and male prostitutes who might just assume that as a single guy I was where I wanted to be and was maybe just being passive.
"Hey handsome!" I heard as I walked down the steps.
"Hi. I like girls."
" We like you" one shirtless young man assured me. "See you later", he said brushing my arm. Shit. I hoped not.
I met my friend who brought her friend, and the 3 of us had a good time drinking coffee, eating a Japanese style dinner of nabe (boiling water on the table that you keep adding stuff to), and then walking around the famous "Walking Street". That's a pedestrian zone packed with strip bars, Thai boxing bars, sex shoes, you name it. I was prepared for the worst, but I was pleasantly surprised. Most of the "girly bars" had themes and they were funny or cute. Like stewardess bar, middle school bar, cowgirl bars. They all had costumes and I thought it was quite well done. I didn't go in any. For one thing it was probably so expensive, maybe 10 dollars a drink. For another, why would I want to watch a sex show and get all excited, and then be left to my own um......devices. I'd rather not get all horny unless I was with my girlfriend, thank you. That's like drinking a lot of saltwater before heading out into the desert. Of course there were a lot of prostitutes around, but I am afraid of diseases and truthfully most of them just aren't attractive to me in appearance or character.
Other than drinking and sex, there wasn't a whole lot going on in Pattaya. There was a beach kind of, it was about 5 meters wide and packed almost completely with lawn chairs that the locals rented for 80 baht for 30 minutes. Along the sidewalk in front of the beach there was a steady stream of people from all walks and regions of the world. There were a lot of military types. Pattaya started out as a recreation destination for soldiers during the Vietnam war, and it maintained that character heavily to this day. Lots of bars and tattoo parlors. Lots of nasty looking Russians and scowling Iranians walking around. Tons of sad looking older men, one stumble from a nursing home, many of them with Thai girls 30 years their juniors. Their bellies were sights to behold, Henri Moore in action. Germans, Italians, French, the whole world was here. There was one old Russian guy with a telescope and he was selling looks at the moon for 10 baht (33 cents). He was a professional retired astronomer and loved sharing his passion. We all looked at the moon. "If you come out at 2 am you can see the rings of Saturn!!!!," he promised.
My friends had to get up early to go to work, so they announced they had to go at 10:30 pm. I begged them to walk me home. They laughed at me but agreed. Getting back to the steps, the "boys" sited me. " We've been waiting for you". they sang out approaching fast.I grabbed my friend's arm. "Sorry I like real girls" they stopped in their tracks like the Coyote might do in the Roadrunner cartoon and showed exaggerated disappointment. "oh you heart breaker. Well we'll be here if you change your mind." I asked my friends to walk me up the 2 flights to my room, past the other first floor club. They did so laughing. I was determined not to go out again. I'd had enough for one night, though seeing Saturn sounded pretty good.
As I feared my room was like being inside a disco. There was the thump thump thumping from the club underneath me, and then another stranger sound from a karaoke club next door. I felt like I had arrived at the gates of Hell. The fact that I fell asleep was a testament to how tired I have been. There was no escaping it though,I had the strangest and most vivid dreams. In my dream I was me with my normal heterosexual orientation but I was in a room alone with a famous gay comedian. And though I knew I wasn't gay in the dream, I acted like I was, my shirt was open, and I kept touching his leg and sat on the bed with him. I woke up at 1:30, unsettled and disturbed. The disco had stopped but the karaoke continued. That was perhaps even worse. They were terrible and the distorted sounds that came to me made it even worse. I felt like I was on some kind of bad trip. Braving the gauntlet of hawkers didn't seem as bad as staying in the room at that moment, and there was Saturn to think of. I got ready to go, and fairly ran down the steps. By the time they saw me, I was halfway down the block and I was able to ignored their calls. I walked up and down the beach walk,but the astronomer wasn't there. Most of the prostates that lined the way, posing in their tacky dresses were gone, maybe they had reached their quota of 500 baht "jobs" or maybe they had gotten a 1000 baht all-nighter.I guess I wouldn't see the rings tonight. I bought a small bag of fresh pineapple and papaya (10 baht each) and sat on the stoop and watched the world go by. It was 2:30 am now and things were starting to slow down. I looked up and imagined Saturn up there, and all the other stars and places we couldn't even see. Maybe someone up there was looking down on us right at that moment. I wonder if they could imagine all the crazy complexity of our world. I felt pretty content to be where I was. For a moment I felt like right where I was, was the center of the universe. Of course I had to still make it back to my room, and hope the terrible sound would stop and allow me to slip in to unconsciousness, but for the moment, the pineapple and papaya tasted pretty good.
Thai t-shirt project
Thai T-shirt Project
The t-shirt project started as a way to justify my addiction. In my hometown there exists one of the best second-hand (vintage or consignment if you like) stores, Village Discount Store. The great thing about the store is not only the price, with articles of clothing going for as little as 50 cents, but the selection. There are literally thousands of T-shirts to choose from, each one different. And being in an out-of-the-way-place like Youngstown, Ohio, the real gems are often overlooked by the locals who don't go in for strangeness, or don't notice how strange some of their own local messages might be, like the T-shirts for the pork specialty restaurant that says, "you croak 'em, we smoke 'em". The patient shopper is rewarded at irregular intervals with surprising gems, which is exactly the same mechanism that makes addicts out of casual gamblers, the thrill you know is coming if you just try one more time. So it's understandable that I started making regular visits and buying lots of t-shirts, more than I could possibly use. But then, what to do with them? That's when the t-shirt project was born. I could give t-shirts away to friends and take their picture and thus have a record of both the t-shirts and the friends. But a key element of the T-shirt project was the matter of choice. Since I had so many shirts, I could give each person a choice of 5 or 6. When they choose, I learn something about the person and perhaps I see the T-shirt in a new way. Then I would take their picture. It was particularly effective when I brought T-shirts from the USA to other countries abroad such as Korea or someplace I was traveling. In Korea they love T-shirts with English legends but more often than not, they don't make grammatical or semantic sense, like the one I saw,"My giant rabbit ate your grandmother."
When I decided to go to Thailand I brought a big bag full of T-shirts and stuffed animals for people that I might meet there. I quickly got tired of lugging that extra bag around. It became quite a burden. Of course, I was hoping to meet some nice locals I could bestow my treasures upon, but it wasn't as easy as I thought. The Thai workers in the tourist district of Bangkok were so fed up with obnoxious tourists that they were not very nice, in fact most were downright icy. So how to get rid of the stuff? I carried some shirts and animals around everyday. Sometimes I would meet a cute toddler on the bus, subway or restaurant, and if we had a friendly moment, I could magically produce a stuffed lion or hippo from my bag and make a special hero moment. The T-shirts were harder. There were the cute young girls at the tourist information office that I visited almost daily, they each got one. Then there were the masseuses at the massage parlor. I gave away a nice blue Jean jacket there and a T-shirt. But one of the workers just looked at me and said, "You know, we all have good jobs and money. Why don't you give the clothes to someone who really needs them?" From her point of view she had a good job making perhaps 10 dollars a day giving hour long massages to tourists. I had looked at them with pity but it all depends on your perspective, and I was about to receive a life lesson.
I didn't really understand. "Who are you talking about? How do I find them?". I was thinking some shelter or organisation.
"Just look around," she said, and then I understood. She was talking about the beggars on the streets, the people sleeping on the streets. There weren't too many of them, but they were there. What to do about beggars, how do we react to them? It was easiest just to ignore them, or you could give them something, say 5 baht, but she was suggesting that I actually engage them; talk to them, give them a choice of a T-shirt, take THEIR picture. I realised then how I had dehumanised the street people, even when I gave them something, it was just putting something in their cup, not talking to them, asking them how their day was?
So I started really looking at the street people, looking for people the right size. I met an old woman sleeping on the street and she must have wondered when I stopped and opened my bag and took out a few T-shirts and a sleeveless blue jeans jacket. She choose the sleeveless jacket. It was quite stylish and I felt a little strange helping her into it, but for her it was something that would keep her warm on chilly nights and maybe make the pavement a little less hard. She was tickled pink. She happily let me take her picture. Whenever I passed her after that, she would always smile and give me a peak at her new jacket. A young mother sat nightly behind her sleeping 5 year old son. I never saw him actually awake. I pulled out some animals and a few small T-shirts, one with a Japanese animation picture on it that was popular in the USA. She choose that one. The next night I saw her again in the same place, as soon as she saw me, she pulled the cover from her son and showed me he was wearing the shirt on top of his other shirt. It was way too large, but she was very thankful. Over the next few nights i gave away all my tshirts to poor people living in the streets of Bangkok, and in the process i got to know them just a little. These were people that had a gentleness born of no hope. Their only goal was to somehow make enough money to feed themselves another night. Where was their life? What did they live for? Perhaps they found some happiness in their dreams. What could be done for them? The t-shirt project lives on, always changing with new people and new t-shirts, and always changing me.
The t-shirt project started as a way to justify my addiction. In my hometown there exists one of the best second-hand (vintage or consignment if you like) stores, Village Discount Store. The great thing about the store is not only the price, with articles of clothing going for as little as 50 cents, but the selection. There are literally thousands of T-shirts to choose from, each one different. And being in an out-of-the-way-place like Youngstown, Ohio, the real gems are often overlooked by the locals who don't go in for strangeness, or don't notice how strange some of their own local messages might be, like the T-shirts for the pork specialty restaurant that says, "you croak 'em, we smoke 'em". The patient shopper is rewarded at irregular intervals with surprising gems, which is exactly the same mechanism that makes addicts out of casual gamblers, the thrill you know is coming if you just try one more time. So it's understandable that I started making regular visits and buying lots of t-shirts, more than I could possibly use. But then, what to do with them? That's when the t-shirt project was born. I could give t-shirts away to friends and take their picture and thus have a record of both the t-shirts and the friends. But a key element of the T-shirt project was the matter of choice. Since I had so many shirts, I could give each person a choice of 5 or 6. When they choose, I learn something about the person and perhaps I see the T-shirt in a new way. Then I would take their picture. It was particularly effective when I brought T-shirts from the USA to other countries abroad such as Korea or someplace I was traveling. In Korea they love T-shirts with English legends but more often than not, they don't make grammatical or semantic sense, like the one I saw,"My giant rabbit ate your grandmother."
When I decided to go to Thailand I brought a big bag full of T-shirts and stuffed animals for people that I might meet there. I quickly got tired of lugging that extra bag around. It became quite a burden. Of course, I was hoping to meet some nice locals I could bestow my treasures upon, but it wasn't as easy as I thought. The Thai workers in the tourist district of Bangkok were so fed up with obnoxious tourists that they were not very nice, in fact most were downright icy. So how to get rid of the stuff? I carried some shirts and animals around everyday. Sometimes I would meet a cute toddler on the bus, subway or restaurant, and if we had a friendly moment, I could magically produce a stuffed lion or hippo from my bag and make a special hero moment. The T-shirts were harder. There were the cute young girls at the tourist information office that I visited almost daily, they each got one. Then there were the masseuses at the massage parlor. I gave away a nice blue Jean jacket there and a T-shirt. But one of the workers just looked at me and said, "You know, we all have good jobs and money. Why don't you give the clothes to someone who really needs them?" From her point of view she had a good job making perhaps 10 dollars a day giving hour long massages to tourists. I had looked at them with pity but it all depends on your perspective, and I was about to receive a life lesson.
I didn't really understand. "Who are you talking about? How do I find them?". I was thinking some shelter or organisation.
"Just look around," she said, and then I understood. She was talking about the beggars on the streets, the people sleeping on the streets. There weren't too many of them, but they were there. What to do about beggars, how do we react to them? It was easiest just to ignore them, or you could give them something, say 5 baht, but she was suggesting that I actually engage them; talk to them, give them a choice of a T-shirt, take THEIR picture. I realised then how I had dehumanised the street people, even when I gave them something, it was just putting something in their cup, not talking to them, asking them how their day was?
So I started really looking at the street people, looking for people the right size. I met an old woman sleeping on the street and she must have wondered when I stopped and opened my bag and took out a few T-shirts and a sleeveless blue jeans jacket. She choose the sleeveless jacket. It was quite stylish and I felt a little strange helping her into it, but for her it was something that would keep her warm on chilly nights and maybe make the pavement a little less hard. She was tickled pink. She happily let me take her picture. Whenever I passed her after that, she would always smile and give me a peak at her new jacket. A young mother sat nightly behind her sleeping 5 year old son. I never saw him actually awake. I pulled out some animals and a few small T-shirts, one with a Japanese animation picture on it that was popular in the USA. She choose that one. The next night I saw her again in the same place, as soon as she saw me, she pulled the cover from her son and showed me he was wearing the shirt on top of his other shirt. It was way too large, but she was very thankful. Over the next few nights i gave away all my tshirts to poor people living in the streets of Bangkok, and in the process i got to know them just a little. These were people that had a gentleness born of no hope. Their only goal was to somehow make enough money to feed themselves another night. Where was their life? What did they live for? Perhaps they found some happiness in their dreams. What could be done for them? The t-shirt project lives on, always changing with new people and new t-shirts, and always changing me.
Friday, January 21, 2011
Dance your tea
Dance Your Tea
Finding a place to pee is dreadfully hard in Bangkok. I tried all the normal places, McDonalds with it's Ronald McDonald with palms together in the traditional Thai greeting in front, offered no restroom, nor did Burger King or the subway station. It was becoming serious and there were no convenient alleys I could duck down and take a quick secretive leak. It always happens when I drink tea. I should have known better than to drink the tea, but there was a reason. In the end, I went into the new Crowne Plaza Bangkok Hotel across from the Lumpini Park in downtown Bangkok. The guard at entrance stopped me right off. I thought my western looks allowed me entrance to anyplace but I guess my slightly disheveled backpacker look disqualified me. "Hotel," I insisted and he finally relented and let me pass. The doormen reluctantly opened the front door. The concierge came rushing up asking what he could do for me, but it sounded more like, "What do YOU want? " Putting on as haughty an air as I was capable of I offer, " Mummy and Daddy are flying in next week and they have asked me to find a suitable lodging for them." That worked. He took out his sheet and went over the room rates, a bargain really at 200 dollars a night which was my budget for about the next 10 days. He directed me to the registrar on the 23 floor where I got a chance to see how the other half (half, who are we kidding, half of half of one percent maybe) lived. After perfunctory nodding and exclamations of, "yes, this will do fine" all the while my bladder fairly bursting, I got to my point and asked in an offhand manner, "Is there a lavatory nearby that I may use?"
"But of course sir," and they directed me to a secret unmarked hall where an elegant urinal awaited my swollen organ, ahhhhh. Why do they hide them like that? I made a hasty exit, told them I would contact them later for a reservation, and continued onto Lumpini park where I saw amazing monitor lizards crawl out of the placid lake and eat insects, not the nearby babies that I had feared. But I digress. The tea. The tea. I know better than to drink the tea, it always makes my bladder feel full.
On Sunday though, I went to Chatuchak Park in Northern Bangkok. It's a very large market. A lot of foreigners go there because the prices are good. I even met some young women from Singapore who were in Bangkok just for shopping, because prices were 2 to 3 times cheaper than in their country. I found I it interesting for about ten minutes, because I hate shopping ( unless it's for vintage t-shirts). There were some interesting things there; some food I had never seen, a few artists, and the food that would fall under the category unhealthy but tempting because you've never seen anything exactly like it before. Like the famous and profound saying which you see on a million t-shirts in Bangkok, "same same but different." Then I saw the Java tea shop. Like a million other sugary drinks and things, but this one had to be aerated thoroughly by pouring it from one glass to another. I'd seen Indians in their tea shops pouring it from very high to very low without ever spilling a drop, which was amazing, but this guy did it much better. He poured from one cup to another while whirling around very fast. The tea in mid-air seemed to make a wild "S" shape in the air as it passed us. It was as if he was painting the air with his burnt orange colored paintbrush, round and round he went, creating a shiva dance, whirling on and on, drawing a crowd, cameras snapping, juice splashing this way and that but always magically somehow into the cup. Then slowing down and down until he is standing in front of the cheering crowd. I ask the guy in front of me who already bought one, "How's the tea?"
"Great," he says.
I get in line behind a throng of others. I was curious and also i wanted to cast my vote for this guy, to support him in the only way i knew how, by buying his product. TThe dancing tea man pours his art into the strainer and his assistant makes the individual portions. He is breathing heavily and smiling. Somehow I can't help getting philosophical about this performance. Maybe it's the key to a happy life. Maybe we should all make the boring and routine part of our lives into art. Maybe we should all dance our tea. As if in answer, I look up and the tea dancer is talking to the guy in the stall next to his who is selling ice creams on a stick. I read his body language as he says to him, "hey why don't you juggle them?" the man gives him a look that says that would be impossible and just smiles and shakes his head. That's what we all do. We never consider the other way, the artful way.
In Thailand you are constantly being approached by people trying to sell you anything, usually you don't want it, so after awhile, you develop a nasty attitude and feel mean. Out of the blue a woman told me her secret, "When I say no, I look them in the eye and give them a big smile. It works great, they don't feel so bad, and I don't feel so mean." I guess she was dancing her tea.
Dance your tea,
make your boredom into art,
dance your tea,
but be careful when you drink it,
or you'll maybe have to sneak it
Then, you can
Dance your pee
Finding a place to pee is dreadfully hard in Bangkok. I tried all the normal places, McDonalds with it's Ronald McDonald with palms together in the traditional Thai greeting in front, offered no restroom, nor did Burger King or the subway station. It was becoming serious and there were no convenient alleys I could duck down and take a quick secretive leak. It always happens when I drink tea. I should have known better than to drink the tea, but there was a reason. In the end, I went into the new Crowne Plaza Bangkok Hotel across from the Lumpini Park in downtown Bangkok. The guard at entrance stopped me right off. I thought my western looks allowed me entrance to anyplace but I guess my slightly disheveled backpacker look disqualified me. "Hotel," I insisted and he finally relented and let me pass. The doormen reluctantly opened the front door. The concierge came rushing up asking what he could do for me, but it sounded more like, "What do YOU want? " Putting on as haughty an air as I was capable of I offer, " Mummy and Daddy are flying in next week and they have asked me to find a suitable lodging for them." That worked. He took out his sheet and went over the room rates, a bargain really at 200 dollars a night which was my budget for about the next 10 days. He directed me to the registrar on the 23 floor where I got a chance to see how the other half (half, who are we kidding, half of half of one percent maybe) lived. After perfunctory nodding and exclamations of, "yes, this will do fine" all the while my bladder fairly bursting, I got to my point and asked in an offhand manner, "Is there a lavatory nearby that I may use?"
"But of course sir," and they directed me to a secret unmarked hall where an elegant urinal awaited my swollen organ, ahhhhh. Why do they hide them like that? I made a hasty exit, told them I would contact them later for a reservation, and continued onto Lumpini park where I saw amazing monitor lizards crawl out of the placid lake and eat insects, not the nearby babies that I had feared. But I digress. The tea. The tea. I know better than to drink the tea, it always makes my bladder feel full.
On Sunday though, I went to Chatuchak Park in Northern Bangkok. It's a very large market. A lot of foreigners go there because the prices are good. I even met some young women from Singapore who were in Bangkok just for shopping, because prices were 2 to 3 times cheaper than in their country. I found I it interesting for about ten minutes, because I hate shopping ( unless it's for vintage t-shirts). There were some interesting things there; some food I had never seen, a few artists, and the food that would fall under the category unhealthy but tempting because you've never seen anything exactly like it before. Like the famous and profound saying which you see on a million t-shirts in Bangkok, "same same but different." Then I saw the Java tea shop. Like a million other sugary drinks and things, but this one had to be aerated thoroughly by pouring it from one glass to another. I'd seen Indians in their tea shops pouring it from very high to very low without ever spilling a drop, which was amazing, but this guy did it much better. He poured from one cup to another while whirling around very fast. The tea in mid-air seemed to make a wild "S" shape in the air as it passed us. It was as if he was painting the air with his burnt orange colored paintbrush, round and round he went, creating a shiva dance, whirling on and on, drawing a crowd, cameras snapping, juice splashing this way and that but always magically somehow into the cup. Then slowing down and down until he is standing in front of the cheering crowd. I ask the guy in front of me who already bought one, "How's the tea?"
"Great," he says.
I get in line behind a throng of others. I was curious and also i wanted to cast my vote for this guy, to support him in the only way i knew how, by buying his product. TThe dancing tea man pours his art into the strainer and his assistant makes the individual portions. He is breathing heavily and smiling. Somehow I can't help getting philosophical about this performance. Maybe it's the key to a happy life. Maybe we should all make the boring and routine part of our lives into art. Maybe we should all dance our tea. As if in answer, I look up and the tea dancer is talking to the guy in the stall next to his who is selling ice creams on a stick. I read his body language as he says to him, "hey why don't you juggle them?" the man gives him a look that says that would be impossible and just smiles and shakes his head. That's what we all do. We never consider the other way, the artful way.
In Thailand you are constantly being approached by people trying to sell you anything, usually you don't want it, so after awhile, you develop a nasty attitude and feel mean. Out of the blue a woman told me her secret, "When I say no, I look them in the eye and give them a big smile. It works great, they don't feel so bad, and I don't feel so mean." I guess she was dancing her tea.
Dance your tea,
make your boredom into art,
dance your tea,
but be careful when you drink it,
or you'll maybe have to sneak it
Then, you can
Dance your pee
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