Ray's Place

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.