Court Musician

I'm feeling a bit like a court musician playing for the royals at Dash Restaurant, owned by my friend Noi.  She's a 60 year old Thai woman who at a young age, came to the States, got a good education, and eventually married a man 16 years her senior, a Jewish musician/producer named Peter Tevis.  I'll need to google him to find out about his career, but I gather that his greatest success was in the producer chair, and apparently he left her quite well off.  He died some years ago of Parkinson's and now Noi lives 6 months in Chiang Mai and 6 months in Seattle.  And she created one of the best restaurants in Chiang Mai, great looking, incredible food and reasonably priced.  They got a bunch of great reviews on Tripadvisor.com and they do an excellent business.  It's called Dash Teak House, the 'Dash' being in honor of her son, Dashiel, 24 or so, who is helping run the operation.

Dash is right around the corner from CU Corner so I would always wave as I passed, sometimes grab a guitar and hold forth over there, make up stuff, get some laughs, and Noi would ask if I wanted to play at the restaurant.  But it never seemed like a good idea, I didn't have the right axe, so I always demurred.  But this year is different, partly because Mark and I hosted Noi for an evening when she was driving through Eugene, and that interaction put us in a different kind of friendship.  She was appreciative, talks about how she called from the road and asked if I could recommend a decent hotel in Eugene, and of course I invited her to spend the night in our guest room.  'He said he'll even clean the bathroom for me' is how she relates the tale.  So now we're buddies, and I don't call her 'Imelda' anymore, which was my nickname for the way she ran the show over here.  It feels like we're friends.  And what a great friend to have here!

So now I'm playing two nights a week for pretty good money and an incredible meal.  The staff is treating my like FON (friend of Noi) and it's a sweet set-up.  I'm playing the music 'for free' in case anyone asks, because it's not OK for foreigners to make money and take away Thai jobs.  I get to hang out for a couple of hours, play a bunch of songs, make up some stuff... whether they need live music is a question, but it's not up to me.  And if Noi likes it, awesome.  She was telling me that she could feel Peter looking down from heaven and enjoying the scene, and that my playing reminded me of him, the material, the singing, so there is something special going on for her (and for me) in this gig.  It definitely puts a new slant on the music scene here, and it's a welcome change from the familiar (and old man vibe) at CU Corner.  Happy about it.

And along with the new slant, I Googled 'Dance Chiang Mai' last night, hoping to find a way to include dance in my life here.  That's always been a bit of a jarring change, dancing all the time in Eugene, and none of the time in Asia.  And what's this, a weekend dance experience with all different kinds of stuff going on, ecstatic, ki gong, yoga, 'breathing earth meditation' yup, it's the hippies, and for $30 I'm going to sign up and take a bunch of classes, hopefully connect with the ecstatic dance scene here, whatever that might look like, and find a way to have dance be in the mix.  Very excited about that development.  I'm ready to take my focus out of the bar and into the studio.

I'm feeling healthy, not a toke, not a drag of a cigarette, (damn, they smoke a lot here) good food, lots of walking (though the air ain't great).  I'm still at the Royal Guest House and I swim every day, do some calisthenics, but I'm still carrying around my US body, rather than slimming into the Asian version.  It'll probably happen eventually.  But nothing hurts and I'm feeling lucky as hell to be able to do this thing again.  The only downside... I miss somebody a lot. a lot a lot a lot.