Written Glowingly by John Irvin                           No. 25                                           June 1, 1999

In Search of the Neon Light

The rainy season has definitely started – we have had rain almost every day this month, some of it coming in tremendous downpours that flooded parts of Chiang Mai. When I turn on the porch light at night, a thousand orange winged insects arise from nowhere, like locusts, and swarm around the fluorescent neon tube. If I am working inside, they try to get in through the screen windows and under the door (possibly, they want to say something in my newsletter).

It almost feels like a science fiction thriller, with the insects trying to invade the house. To add to this affect, big lizards appear on the window screens, like prehistoric monsters, and gulp them up. Sometimes I just turn off the lights inside my house, and sit near the window and just watch the action on my front porch.

When these creatures, which the Thais call mang-mao, have flown around and batted themselves against the light a certain number of times, their wings fall off, and they drop to the ground and crawl around until the lizards, or the neighbor’s cat, finish them off. In the morning, when I come outside, I find hundreds of little wings on my porch, but almost no bodies. The mang-mao seem to have been created only to come out of the forest to storm the neon light, and then die on my front porch.

Traffic Is No Picnic

Late one evening my girlfriend and I decided to drive over to one of the new superstores to have dinner and do a little shopping. It was threatening to rain, as usual these evenings, and when we approached a stoplight, the road was already wet from a previous shower. Crossing the intersection we noticed an obstruction in the flow of traffic, causing the cars to thread through the intersection very slowly. Sure enough, there was a car stopped where it wasn’t supposed to be, and in an instant I got that feeling that this was going to be a scene where something had gone terribly wrong.

I was right. The wreckage was on my side. In front of the car, on the street right up against the front tire, a person was lying motionless on the street, peaceful, as if sleeping. There was no blood. On the other side of the car, two people were pulling another person along the ground. These things shocked me, in that kind of deep cold penetration that I couldn’t really feel at the moment but that I knew I would feel later.

But the real shocker came when I saw the carcasses of the two motorbikes lying in the street. You see these kind of bikes everywhere in Thailand, carrying students, families, couples, laughing youngsters, all kinds of people. They make up about forty percent of the road traffic in southeast Asia, and they are practically indestructible. Now, I saw the bikes on their sides, inanimate, and their seats, those sturdy seats like the one I sit on everyday, had been knocked off and lay strewn along the pavement. The wreckage of those bikes drove home the violence of the collision.

We saw another car stopped, and people were getting out to help. We continued on to the store, where we tried to have as normal an evening as possible under the circumstances. But I kept thinking, what had happened? How many cars were involved? Which car was going which way? I couldn’t stop my mind from thinking about it.

About five minutes after we arrived in the store, it began to rain, so hard that the roof of the building was rattling like a herd of typewriters. The lights dimmed in the store several times. And then, my girlfriend said to me, "What about those people? What will they do now?" And the thought of the rain falling on the people at the accident seemed to intensify the tragedy.

I feel sorry for Thai people. They ride these bikes around without helmets, not expecting anything wrong to happen, unable to plan for bad luck because to plan for it might make it happen. They gleefully break traffic rules, cross intersections when they’re not supposed to, take all kinds of chances. Everything is sanuk, happy, all the time, and then suddenly something like this happens, someone loses their life, their loved one, and someone else’s memory is scarred for life. And the next day, I go back out in the streets, and see more people laughing and riding without helmets, cutting in and out of traffic. It just goes on and on.

Visitors and the Land of Took

Took in an acoustic moment     © John Irvin

Last weekend I was very happy to receive two readers of my website, who came to visit me in Chiang Mai. Theresa and David, who come from the U.S. but who now live all over the world, dropped in to see me play at the restaurant. After I finished playing around eleven o’clock, I suggested we go out and catch some live music.

The place I had in mind is along the river, where there are lots of restaurants, each with live music, and most catering to a mixture of locals and tourists. We were still early at 11:30, and we were able to get a table right next to the musicians. In front of us, five Thai musicians were playing an acoustic set: drums, bass, keyboards, and two acoustic guitars. They were well-rehearsed, and made their way through several blues numbers before doing a lengthy number inspired by the Gypsy Kings. My two guests were well-impressed by the band and by the place.

The leader and lead guitarist of the band, who goes by the name of Took, is a local legend in Chiang Mai. He has styled his playing after western players such as Jimi Hendrix, Bob Marley, Duane Allman, and other popular players of the 60s and 70s era. Every night he works out at this restaurant, which is his restaurant, and gives a demonstration in the kind of inspired guitar playing that thrived in the 60s: improvisational, emotional, sometimes rough and sometimes clean, but never the same two nights in a row. Like his idol, Jimi Hendrix, Took isn’t just giving a performance when he’s onstage, he’s having an experience, and when you’re in the audience, you’re part of it.

Took is the son of educated parents. He was raised in Nakon Sawan, a province of Thailand that hosted a U.S. airbase during the Vietnam-American war. He grew up during this era, went to the foreign movie house, and developed an affinity for overseas culture at an early age. He went to Chiang Mai University, where he majored in English, and wrote his papers on the likes of Bob Dylan, rather than on Shakespeare or Chaucer. During college, he also began experimenting with the guitar.

After graduation, Took traveled to Europe, where decided to make music his career. He spent several years there, playing gigs and doing studio work. Since returning to Thailand, he has written a commercial for Pepsi, and played various festivals and clubs around Chiang Mai. He opened his restaurant, the Brasserie, at its current location six years ago. Every summer, he spends about a month in Japan, where he has developed a following, and some of his Japanese fans also come to Chiang Mai to see him play.

Confessin' the blues                     © John Irvin

Took is a charismatic performer, not only with his guitar, but also with his voice. He is able to shout the blues in a style that brings life to songs by the Allman Brothers, Jerry Garcia, and Eric Clapton, and at the same time, give a rich quality to the softer songs in his repertoire. He draws on traditional elements such as blues scales in his guitar playing, but he also incorporates new styles such as flamenco into his performances, and he is not afraid to take a song apart and put it back together in a new way. I have seen him put the guitar behind his back and play it, like Jimi Hendrix, during his songs. His supporting musicians are also very good.

We stayed through the end of the acoustic set, and then watched Took and his band go electric and launch into some heavy blues. There seemed to be a style for all tastes, and as my guests and I talked about living in a foreign country, we watched Took and his band play. At the end of the evening, we all felt quite satisfied that we had had a full evening of entertainment. ____________________________________________________________________________________________
If you come to Chiang Mai, you can see Took every night at the Brasserie, at 37 Charoenrat Road, tel 241-665. Music starts late, around 10 pm. There is also an outside terrace along the river.

© Copyright 1999, John Irvin

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