New Normal in Bangkok

Beyond my immediate neighborhood, I ventured into the city again on Thursday last week to meet my libertarian friends, one of the events I most look forward to.  I time my travel on such adventures to avoid all rush hours on public transit and any crowds in movie theaters.  (I don’t ever do weekend crowds if I can help it; I’m a lifelong misanthrope of sorts, a loner.)  The trains were not packed, and, in the theaters, there were at most two other people in the entire room.  Restaurants and pubs follow our New Normal safety rules during this Plague Era, as do all the above services.  Masks; track and trace registration, etc. 

And live music at The Rock Pub, once again.  This last Thursday I could only arrive late on my way home before closing, and I hoped to hear at least some music.  I sure did!  Mundee was the closing act.  The crowd was small – as it quite often has been on Thursday nights in the past – but the band was hot and I really wanted to hear as much as possible from this favorite band of mine. 

Recognizing me as I came in the door, they played one they knew was a personal favorite of mine: “Here I Go Again” by Whitesnake (a power-ballad from the 1980s).  This song was on the radio at a time when I had my first hope of escape from the bondage of an unbearable relationship.  It helped give me the courage to eventually strike out into freedom: 

“Here I go again on my own,

  Goin’ down the only road I’ve ever known,

  Like a drifter I was born to walk alone. 

  I’ve made up my mind,

  I ain’t wasting no more time.” 

Next, they played an excellent Led Zeppelin favorite from the very early 1970s.  Then, they asked for requests from the small crowd, and, not wanting to hog the show with a Zeppelin monopoly, I shouted, “AC/DC.”  They played “Highway to Hell”, in a great rocking rendition.  Then they played Zeppelin again with “The Immigrant Song” (“Valhalla, I am coming!”).  Next to last was “Sunshine of Your Love” by Cream, a great favorite from my teenage years.  They finished the night with Zeppelin’s “Rock and Roll”, which everyone at the Rock Pub knows is my all-time favorite since the song encompasses the entire span of historical Rock experience – “It’s been a long time since I Rock and Rolled....” 

It was one of the greatest live sets I’ve ever heard – worthy of Valhalla. 

-Zenwind. 

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Live Rock n Roll Once Again!

As Led Zeppelin famously observed:

“It's been a long time since I Rock and Rolled, . . . 

"It's been a long time, been a long time,
Been a long lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely time.
Yes it has.” 

Oh, Yeah!  The Rock Pub is finally open again!  I attended the first opening night gig there on 2 July.  As I was the first customer in the door to this long-delayed re-opening gig, proprietor Luke Tao took my photo and posted it on the Facebook page of The Rock Pub, Bangkok’s House of Rock, for 2 July.  Jimmy Revolt played the song they know I like, “Rock and Roll” (above).  I attended again on 9 July and Mundee played Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song”; and because I’ve always felt like an immigrant – an eternal wandering exile – it thrilled me to the core:  “Valhalla, I am coming!” 

In the cinema, I saw Mr. Jones (2019), an outstanding low-budget biopic depicting the true story of journalist Gareth Jones discovering the massive horror of the man-made famine/ genocide of millions of Ukrainians/ Russians in the early 1930s by official policy of the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics.  Integral to this history is how the genocide was systematically covered up by the New York Times man-in-Moscow, Walter Duranty, the apologist for Stalin.  Duranty’s lies persuaded Western governments (e.g., FDR) to think that Marxian socialism was benign.  To be humane, this film should be more widely known. 

Theaters and pubs have strict social distancing.  Mass transit now is back to normal while masks are still mandatory – yet I found traditional rush hour to be far from the crowded mad crush of the past, maybe because all incoming tourism has long been shut off.  Come to think of it, now I see that I am almost the only farang on the trains, an immigrant, in exile. 

-Zenwind. 

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Asalha Puja

This past extended full-Moon weekend has marked Asalha Puja, commemorating the Buddha’s First Discourse, in which he laid out his most basic recommendations:  the Four Tasks and the Eightfold Path.  This day is followed by the start of the Rains Retreat in Theravada countries, where, traditionally, the Rainy Season forces monks to stay in one place and contemplate. 

I hold the Buddha’s First Discourse to be one of the most important pieces of wisdom to me personally – in a lifetime of study in philosophy, psychology, comparative religion, history, etc. – and now I re-read it again along with commentary, learning its deep psychological insights anew.  As a secular Buddhist, I find Stephen Batchelor’s work on this to be most significant.  His 20-page essay, “A Secular Buddhism” (2012) opened up healing possibilities that I wish I had had 50 years ago.  I am happy to now finally be reading his major work expanding on these insights, After Buddhism:  Re-thinking the dharma in a secular age (2015).  It’s a new world, and I am refreshed.  Blessed coolness, Zen delight! 

-Zenwind. 

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