A decade and change ago, Bangkok was everything you might imagine it to be, with some unimaginable stuff to spare, should you be so inclined. Since then, corruption and greed - sorry, market forces - have replaced the lowlife with the highlife, the hooker bar with the cocktail lounge, the street food with the junk franchise. A hangover casualty was Washington Square, a clutter of skeevy entertainment joints and sketchy rooms off the Sukhumvit Road, the haunt of old men who'd stopped over on the way home from Vietnam, and stayed. A few of them had actually seen service, most of them were lying sons of bitches, but it was a community, and it's gone, bulldozed and built over.
I never hung out there - I wasn't in Bangkok to get depressed by old white men. But during a one-beer stopover en route for the fragrant bowers of Soi Sii I found myself next to an Old Guy At The Bar reminiscing about how important music had been, a
lifesaver, over there, back then. Cassettes fiercely
guarded possessions. Like who? I was testing him, expecting the usual Now That's What I Call My Lai soundtrack. He eyed me, testing back. Oh, like Bruce Palmer, Ron Elliott.
Guys like that. Okay. Okay! The conversation was forgotten in Bangkok's insane end-of-the-world charivari later that night, along with everything else, but I remember promising to burn him a copy when I got back home. Home. I
was yet to learn the true meaning of 'you can't go home again'; it won't be home any
more. It's not there, it's gone. Like Washington Square.
May the fates be blind to us, may time be kind to us ...
Often your write-ups make us chuckle, sometimes they make us shake our head and sometimes they touch our heart...just a little bit.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful work, Mr. Throckmorton.
Sometimes Farq touches me where he shouldn't ain't touch another feller. But he sure gots lots of nice rekkids like this here Bruce Palmer one so I guess his givin' me the the feelies along with the ticklin's alright. I mean with his pretty talk 'n all -- not like the feelin' and ticklin' what goes on in the trailer at night! I ain't havin' none of that but it's fine for the rest of youse.
Deletenever even got close. when uncle sam came calling, i went a-runnin, so i lost out on the free green suits and, i'm told, the best pot in the world. home grown had it's plus though, you didn't have to dodge a bullet to pick up nickel bag, so, in the long run, running proved the better plan.
ReplyDeleteBangkok is where you find the answer to "whatever happened to all the fun in the world?", but unfortunately Bangkok right now is a lot of other things, too. I lived there for a year, visited a few times since, and have a great and good friend (a lifesaver) who lives there.
ReplyDelete"May the fates be blind to us, may time be kind to us ..."
ReplyDeleteIn deed.
Line from a song I've been writing for the last forty years or so ...
DeleteI once met a guy who'd flown Hurricanes in the Battle of Britain. Being a teenager, I said something stupid along the lines of "Crikey, that must have been scarey". "Scarey?". He gave me a bemused shrug. "Son, my arse was biting the buttons off the seat".
ReplyDeleteBrilliant!
DeleteBeautiful.
ReplyDeleteAah Bangkok. Used to cruise the markets picking up ...... copy cassettes. 3 for 90 Baht, I think. And such odd stuff they used to put out. Remember picking up the OST for "Until The End Of The World" in a back street on Ko Samui on the way through the alleys to Samui Magic restaurant. Had my wife and kids with me, put the tape into my walkman, earpieces in, completely blown away. What an amazing album, and I've still not yet seen the film. Still got boxes of those dodgy cassettes, think they're in one of the sheds somewhere. Do mice eat tapes?
ReplyDeleteNever been to Bangkok but I grew up near a village in Central Scotland called Banknock. It was full of feral youths led by a boy called Poacher, had a pub that only the brave and desperate would ever venture into and the only resident I knew who left the place ended up as a bouncer in a cowboy-themed strip joint in Blackpool.
ReplyDeleteI think the glamor has rubbed off on you, Shug!
DeleteI drew a high lottery number the year I was 19 and so didn't have the pleasure of visiting that part of the world at that time.
ReplyDeleteAs for Ron Elliot, he was a major talent who had status in the industry but less with the public at large.
The Bruce Palmer LP is.....interesting. I will say that it doesn't sound much like anything else.
Should maybe also mention that the street gang from Banknock were called The Bing. They were named after the Scottish term for a discarded heap of crap left from a coal mine rather than the US crooner.
ReplyDeleteWrite a piece for th' IoF©, Shug.
DeleteIf you want the music, just ask!
ReplyDeleteI'm asking!
DeleteYes please, but can I have mine on cassettes if it's not too much trouble. Ta.
DeleteI shall loadup the cassette as soon as I finish re-stringing my Yo-Yo.
DeletePretty please with a cherry on top of the, um, bing heap? Bing hill? What does bing get heaped into..?
Delete
DeleteStealth Link embedded somewhere in this comment!
The former king, rest his soul, had gone to medical school with my father in law, rest his soul too, so when I first went I got to give him jazz records he had requested. A trio of them had gone to medical school in NY and were life long friends. The 3rd person was Dr. Tawan who owned the Tawana Ramada over at 80 Surawongse Rd, conveniently located where Pat Pong Roads 1 and 2 dead ended into Surawongse. I staid there a lot gratis. When I lived there I opted for Chiang Mai area and also Phuket but visited friends (from the stock market...lol....if you knew me, you'd laugh) in good ole Krung Thep very often. Especially the Dangsubhutras....I just like to say their names. As the outlaw U$ empire's lights are turning down low as the film ends, a lot of those evils are to be found elsewhere. I wouldn't live in Bangkok right now either. Sawaat Di, khop. Peng mai, Peng mai!!!
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