Archive for June, 2008

I will let The Animals tell his story:

Now lets hear the story of Bo Diddley and the Rock n Roll scene in general
Bo Diddley was born Elias McDaniels in a place called McCoom,
Missississipi about 1926
He moved to Chicago about 1938
Where his name was eventually changed to Bo Diddley
He practiced the guitar everyday and sometimes into the night
Till his papa’s hair began to turn white
His Pa said Son, listen hear, I know
You can stay but that guitar has just gotta go
So he pulled his hat down over his eyes
Headed out for them Western Skies
I think Bob Dylan said that
He hit New York City
He began to play at the Apollo in Harlem
Good scene there everybody raving
One day, one night, came a Cadillac with four head lights
Came a man with a big, long, fat, cigar said, C’mere son, I’m gonna make you a
star
Bo Diddley said, Uh..whats in it for me?
Man said, Shut your mouth son , play the guitar and you just wait and
see
Well, that boy made it, he made it real big
And so did the rest of the rock n roll scene along with him
And a white guy named Johnny Otis took Bo Diddleys rhythm
He changed it into hand-jive and it went like this
In a little old country town one day
A little old country band began to play
Add two guitars and a beat up saxophone
When the drummer said, boy, those cats begin to roam
Oh baby oh we oh oh
Ooh la la that rock and roll
Ya hear me oh we oh oh
Ooh la la that rock and roll
Then in the U.S. music scene there was big changes made
Due to circumstances beyond our control such as payola
The rock n roll scene died after two years of solid rock and you got discs like,
ah…
Take good care of my baby
Please don’t ever make her blue and so forth
About, ah, one year later in a place called Liverpool in England
Four young lads with mop haircuts began to sing stuff like, ah…
It’s been a hard days night and I’ve been working like a dog and so on
In a place called Richmond in Surrey, whay down in the deep south
They got guys with long hair down their back singing
I wanna be your lover baby I wanna be your man yeah and all that jazz
Now we’ve doing this number, Bo Diddley, for quite some time now
Bo Diddley visited this country last year
We were playing at the Club A Gogo in Newcastle, our home town
The doors opened one night and to our surprise walked in the man himself, Bo
Diddley
Along with him was Jerome Green, his maraca man, and the Duchess, his gorgeous
sister
And a we were doing this number
Along with them came the Rolling Stones, the Mersey Beats,
They’re all standing around diggin’ it
And I overheard Bo Diddley talkin’
He turned around to Jermone Green
And he said, Hey, Jerome? What do you think about these guys doin’ our..our
material?
Jerome said, Uh, where’s the bar, man? Please show me to the bar…
He turned around the Duchess
And he said, Hey Duchess…what do you think of these young guys doin’ our
material?
She said, I don’t know. I only came across here to see the changin’ of the
guards and all that jazz.
Well, Bo Diddley looked up and said to me, with half closed eyes and a smile,
He said Man, took off his glasses,
He said, Man, that sure is the biggest load of rubbish I ever heard in my
life…
Hey Bo Diddley
Oh Bo Diddley
Yeah Bo Diddley
Oh Bo Diddley
Yeah Bo Diddley

Bo Diddley died today.
Bye, Bo.

Also; Bye, Yves Saint Laurent. The Animals never made a song about you; but Aerosmith gave you a passing mention.

Thai Visa is a forum which offers much more than visa advice. It’s a regular source of gossip and one of the hot debates at the moment arose from this post:

Just a little story, which is continuing each and every day. If the person I’m talking about is on this board I welcome his reasons.

Emporium, Friday morning 10am, food floor, Oriental coffee/cake shop. I went in there for breakfast, all seating is on stools in the window and there were only 2 other customers in there and plenty of seating. Ordered my food, sat at the stool and read the paper. 10 mins later I head some raised voice behind me in a “complaining” sort of way, then this guy in shorts/shirt, 50ish, blonde/grey hair, glasses grabs another paper and slams it down next to me. He slams his phones down and mumbles. I was staring him by this point wondering why someone can be so dam_n unpleasant to staff and in front of people at that time in the morning, and if he had glanced up I would have asked him why he was having such a bad day.

Anyway, out of the corner of my eye I noticed that he sharply and quickly pushed my bag further towards me when he had the space for 4 seatings. Soon after the waitress brought his food and again he did some Italianesque gesticulating and mumbling, which I couldn’t hear. But I could hear him on the phone (again speaking fairly rudely in Thai then English). This was a businessman who had the manners of a chav.

I stayed for an hour and assumed this guy might have just lost a big contract/been cheated on/got locked out of his condo or something equally as bad. Oh no. As I went to pay he quickly summoned another waitress and again fairly loudly gesticulated towards my plates, but not quite loudly enough for me to hear from the counter. All waitresses looked uncomfortable with this guy and I was in two minds whether to go up to him to ask him why he was taking it out on people.

Then came the reason: he liked to sit in my spot every day. Yes, that’s it. He was absolutely devasted and blatantly rude because he was a businessman regular and I was in his regular seat, so he was mad at the girls for not reserving it..and mad at me (or any other) that would be ONE seat further up than himself that day.

I had to laugh in both disbelief and suppessed anger at hearing this, at which point he STILL didn’t turn around or make any eye contact. Maybe he was too important. The amazing this is, there is no way he would have acted like this at home…he would be hated wherever he went and probably banned. Embarrassingly for me, I think he’s English.

On Monday it happened again. Got there 10am for their superb breakfast and coffee. A middle-aged ex pat couple were in the middle seats and so I sat in “his” place which was in the corner next to them.

Sure enough, just 2 minutes later I head a commotion behind and the women next to me turn around and then asked me why he was so upset. He made his feelings quite clear by loudly stating to all around him that “that place was reserved” before slamming down his paper and storming out before anyone could comment. The couple were amazed when I told them the story.

One hour later I was still there and sure enough he came back with his little gf/wife. As soon as he saw me he went mad again with the nearest waitress saying that he’d told her 4 times to keep that place reserved for him. The security guard came into vision. At this point I called him to come over and talk to me about it instead of the staff but he stormed off again.

I called the waitress over to apologise for HIS rudeness but said that I would be sitting wherever I wanted. She took it in good humour and said it nearly happens every day with this workaholic guy that likes his own way.

A repeat performance again this morning. He had called the manager beforehand to lay out his breakfast in “his” spot before he arrived. When I got there I chose to sit there and the staff were very amused to move his food.

5 mins later I heard him say “I give up with you!” loudly to the manageress before stomping off quickly.

10 mins later he telephoned the cafe from downstairs and asked the manageress to go down and speak to him! She came to warn me that she will be saying that she can prepare his breakfast but cannot prevent other customers sitting in that seat, and that I chose to sit there. She was worried that he may come up and argue with me…to which I asked her to tell him to come and see me.

10 mins later she came up without him and told me that he was going to complain to Oriental Hotel top brass that he was a 5-year regular and that he wanted that place reserved for him every morning and lunch (including weekends), so the manageress (very polite girl) was worried. She said he didn’t wish to talk to me, but only to the staff and they should set the rules. I sense a coward.

No matter how long it takes he waits at another cafe downstairs and comes up get his place, which is most likely what he did when I left at 11am.

Yes, I’m winding him up. He is one of the rudest most openly aggressive expats I’ve met here and he’s a bully. I will be asking him to complain to me if he has a problem with where I’m sitting, but at the moment there are only two ways he’ll be able to reserve a stool in the corner: get there before it opens, or offer some explanation to me and an apology to the staff with some admittance that a stool in a cafe cannot be reserved for a morning coffee customer.

I just felt like telling this and maybe someone has met this guy, or maybe some want to. It’s the windowed cafe next door to Piri Piri on 4th floor. In front of the till there are stools at the window. Go and sit there in the corner next to the coffee machine and participate in some entertainment you may normally see on a stereotyped TV comedy sketch. He may soon realise it’s game over for the stool reservation plan.

A couple of hundred posts later and a posse has been assembled, dedicated to gaining access to the Oriental Coffee Shop in the morning before Mr. Grumpy and taking his seat. Someone has even managed to photograph him in the act:

Confrontation is inevitable, I just wish I could be there to join in the fun. If you want to follow progress, go here.