09 March 2016

Some Bad, Some Good

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On the Bad side, I’m in a lot of pain.  A lot of pain.  It’s physical pain, and it worries me as far as my hopes of visiting my sister and her family this year; the prospect of the extreme pain involved in travel haunts me.  It scares the shit out of me.  My back hurts all the time, and my hips and legs are failing.  It hurts to simply walk.  I’m not sure if I can do it. 
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It is hotter than Hell here.  There was no Rainy monsoon season last year and no “winter” either.  It is unbelievably hot and humid, far worse than any of the years I’ve experienced here in the last 10 years.  “More uncomfortable than you would ever believe” sums it up. 
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On the Good side, I did a rare Saturday night pub-crawl recently – pure delight.  As a full day’s outing, I targeted films in Bangkok theaters and live music gigs.  The timing of events is crucial since any public transit travel around Bangkok during the insanely crowded evening rush hour is something this Country Boy tries to avoid at all costs.  So I timed it thus: 
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The House Rama RCA Theaters.  This is an out-of-the-way theater with two screens, and they often host movies not shown elsewhere here.  (Thank the gods for Google’s GPS, because the taxi drivers don’t know where to go to find this obscure place until I show them the route on my phone.)  Arriving at House RCA in mid-afternoon, I saw, back to back, two films that were nominated for recent Oscars:  45 Years for which the incredible Charlotte Rampling was nominated Best Actress; and Son of Saul which later won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.  Both great. 
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The timing was perfect, for I had time to leisurely walk through the early evening from this theater (two or three klicks) to that great music venue, Nothing But The Blues, another place that is hard-to-find.  I heard the fantastic Bleusline Band for the first time and was completely delighted.  Their rendition of the classic Robert Johnson/ Cream song “Crossroads” was excellent. 
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I left before the third set of the Bleusline Band to meet friends at The Rock Pub.  My favorite Rock and Roll band, Mundee, played there from midnight on.  Three Led Zeppelin songs:  “The Immigrant Song”; “Stairway to Heaven”; “Rock and Roll”.  Wow! 
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Another Good side item:  Just the other day I had such wonderful relief from a long-standing money problem.  My very small pensions from teaching, etc., go to a US bank from which I have a Debit Card to use for ATM withdrawals and modest online purchases.  My Debit Card was blocked in the week before Christmas!!!, effectively crippling my finances through the holidays and till now.  They were “updating” their tech, they said.  The timing was pure Ebenezer Scrooge obliviousness.  They sent me a new card, but it was blocked again because of inept failure of delivery from a top international courier company here and I was unaware of the entire plan.  (We have a home address that is almost impossible to find, even by professionals.)  I finally got another card in a successful delivery, but it was blocked also, probably because of my odd and “suspicious” status as an expatriate living in this corrupt region. 
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Week after week, month after month, phone call after phone call, I have tried to straighten out the problem – with maddening results.  Bank operators pass me off to other operators who cannot speak English, or who at least cannot speak English understandably.  Total frustration and failure to solve the problem.  Well, I finally connected with a person who spoke English that we could both understand, and my card is now activated for modest use.  About damn time. 
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“Christ, you know it ain’t easy,
  You know how hard it can be,
  The way things are going,
  They’re gonna crucify me.” 
(-John Lennon.)
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-Zenwind.

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