Did Anyone Know Trink?

[thaibeachlovers]

9 minutes ago, HugoFastor said:

Someone mentioned cell phones earlier, I remember the company I was working for gave me a cell phone to use in 1996. That was my first one in Bangkok. They had been around for at least 5-6 years already at that time I think. We also had internet and email access already in 96'

That was probably a brick? My cousin had one and it was quite large.

I don't remember the first time I saw a cell phone in Bkk, but it was in the back pocket of a gogo dancer. They were probably the only non rich Thais that could afford one, and would have used it for getting customers outside the bar. That has to be near or after the turn of the century.

[beautifulthailand99]

7 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

I was left feeling ripped off, so unless you spoke perfect Thai then I don't think you missed anything.

First time left me puzzled, and on the second visit they managed to make me really angry before I even started the meal, which didn't make for a nice time. That one did speak a bit of English so I was able to explain why I was so angry. Nice girl, bad experience. I don't remember, but I probably gave her a tip for putting up with an angry farang and being nice.

It's a niche thing probaly left to high rolling Asians flashing the dosh around and drinking whisky until they are nearly senseless.  Angry farangs in these situations are usually because it is dawning on them, they are the mark and they don't have enough money !

[beautifulthailand99]

double post

Edited March 28 by beautifulthailand99

[HugoFastor]

10 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

That was probably a brick? My cousin had one and it was quite large.

I don't remember the first time I saw a cell phone in Bkk, but it was in the back pocket of a gogo dancer. They were probably the only non rich Thais that could afford one, and would have used it for getting customers outside the bar. That has to be near or after the turn of the century.

It was either a Nokia 2110 or one of the various other Nokia models that looked very similar at the time. Nice big screen. Was actually a bit smaller in width (possibly height too) than many of the larger smartphones around these days. Fit nicely in either my back or front pocket. My company must have paid over 25,000 Baht for it at the time. I had a Motorola brick phone almost 10 years prior to that. 

[thaibeachlovers]

17 minutes ago, HugoFastor said:

We also had internet and email access already in 96'

Would that have been mainly for businesses? If I remember correctly in London internet cafes didn't really get started till 1998. I used to go to a big new one near Trafalgar Square that had free internet after midnight till morning as an introductory offer. I had to get someone to turn it on as I had not a clue. I don't remember what I did on it though. Quite common by about 2002 I think. I went to one near where I lived, but it had to close as the owner let too many friends use it for free and it went broke. Only way I could save anything was on a disc. By then I had a desk top and an internet connection of my own from British Telecom, I saved everything to an external hard drive as big as a large book. It had less capacity than a flash drive the size of my little finger nail now.

 

 

[thaibeachlovers]

17 minutes ago, beautifulthailand99 said:

It's a niche thing probaly left to high rolling Asians flashing the dosh around and drinking whisky until they are nearly senseless.  Angry farangs in these situations are usually because it is dawning on them, they are the mark and they don't have enough money !

I was working in Saudi at the time and was rolling in cash, so that wasn't it. It was because the hangers on kept trying to rush me and I didn't like it. When they tried to rush me choosing a "feeder" that was the last straw.

I didn't have to pay anymore but that was possibly because I didn't ask for "full service".

Is there anyone out there that manged to work it out?

[nauseus]

On 3/26/2024 at 6:09 PM, thecyclist said:

Not that much changed in the eighties, but the construction boom started a lot earlier than 2000.I would say late eighties to the crash in 1997 was the most rapid development. Lots of high rises went up, the expressways and skytrain ,and ,worst of all, one shopping mall after the other was built. It all came crashing down with the Tom Yum Kung crisis of 1997. 

Took a few years for the economy to pick up again, but the changes after 2000 weren't as "dramatic " as the ones in the nineties. 

 

Yes, 80's. Concentration on 1st stage expressway construction but not much high-rise until 90's.

[nauseus]

9 hours ago, thaibeachlovers said:

As I remember it, it got taken over by bag shops, and then that <deleted> night market <deleted> ruined what was left.

Exactly. The useless market in the middle of the soi marked the end of an era.

[nauseus]

3 hours ago, josephbloggs said:

So you say I am full of it because I said he cut and pasted from emails. He did. His column was killed (put out of its misery) in December 2003. I don't know about you but I have been using email since the mid 90's. Would you have preferred me to write "it was cut and pasted rubbish from emails and letters"? Happy to make that change for you.

And I see you're one of those people that attacks those with a different opinion saying I am obviously against the farang bar scene if I don't like Trink. It's like saying if I don't like Thaksin then I must love the military. It is possible to dislike both, just as it is possible to enjoy the bar scene but still think Trink was a poor writer, egotistical, and in his latter years dangerous as he constantly banged on about HIV not being passed on by unprotected sex, therefore condoms with hookers are only necessary if you want to avoid pregnancy or other STDs, but not to worry about HIV.

I can reverse it and say because you loved the bar scene you also loved Trink and can't look at what he wrote objectively, because by any objective measure his writing was abysmal, and like I said, misleading and dangerous.

Talentless creep, nothing more, nothing less.

 

Full of it. He didn't even have a PC for most of his career - makes cut and paste a bit tricky.

[thaibeachlovers]

On 3/27/2024 at 12:09 AM, thecyclist said:

Not that much changed in the eighties, but the construction boom started a lot earlier than 2000.I would say late eighties to the crash in 1997 was the most rapid development. Lots of high rises went up, the expressways and skytrain ,and ,worst of all, one shopping mall after the other was built. It all came crashing down with the Tom Yum Kung crisis of 1997. 

Took a few years for the economy to pick up again, but the changes after 2000 weren't as "dramatic " as the ones in the nineties. 

Expressways and highrises reminds me of an incident some time in the 90s.

I was in a taxi from the airport, having newly arrived and we passed one high rise beside the expressway on which was an enormous poster of a spectacularly beautiful girl advertising something. The intention was to get the attention of passing motorists, which it did, but not in the intended way. Turned out so many drivers were so beguiled by the beauty of her, that they were causing accidents, and she had to go, so next time I passed by she was, sadly, no longer there.

Just one of the interesting things that happens in LOS that likely would not happen elsewhere.

[nauseus]

1 hour ago, beautifulthailand99 said:

Washington Square staggered on well into the 2000s before all being demolished, I used to visit the US rib joint there quite regularly that was very good and there was Soi Zero under the toll way and another small area long since gone whose name I forget.

 

Bourbon St and Buckskin Joe' Village.

[nauseus]

38 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

I was working in Saudi at the time and was rolling in cash, so that wasn't it. It was because the hangers on kept trying to rush me and I didn't like it. When they tried to rush me choosing a "feeder" that was the last straw.

I didn't have to pay anymore but that was possibly because I didn't ask for "full service".

Is there anyone out there that manged to work it out?

 

Yes. It was all done by mirrors.

[nauseus]

11 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

Expressways and highrises reminds me of an incident some time in the 90s.

I was in a taxi from the airport, having newly arrived and we passed one high rise beside the expressway on which was an enormous poster of a spectacularly beautiful girl advertising something. The intention was to get the attention of passing motorists, which it did, but not in the intended way. Turned out so many drivers were so beguiled by the beauty of her, that they were causing accidents, and she had to go, so next time I passed by she was, sadly, no longer there.

Just one of the interesting things that happens in LOS that likely would not happen elsewhere.

 

So we can blame women drivers?

[ballpoint]

From a 1967 guide titled "What's on in Bangkok after dark".  I like how the Golden Palace is advertised as being in the "European living quarter", and who'd have guessed that the Nana had the biggest pool in town, for $8 a night?

 

 

 

[ballpoint]

A selection of hotels in 1967, and their prices.  $18 for a double at the Oriental. Might spend a year there.  And the Nana is described as being "just out of town".

 

[thecyclist]

11 hours ago, thaibeachlovers said:

That's exactly why I read Trink's column when in Saudi- to keep in touch with the scene I relished. I made loads of money in Saudi and spent a lot of it in Bkk ( I never made it to Pattaya till after I left Saudi for good- but once I did, I only passed through Bkk with one night in Nana before heading to Ekkami ).

Before anyone says it- I know Trink didn't write about Pattaya. Had he done so I might have arrived there sooner than I did.

Trink did write about Pattaya. I think once a month or so he would visit, and devote a few paragraphs to sin city. 

[thecyclist]

5 hours ago, n00dle said:

 

Trink was a man from a bygone era, his time passed. you are not expected to understand looking back. 

Stickman too has become obsolete and culturally irrelevant, the lifestyle they documented no longer exists.

That said they have historical significance

Trink would be delighted to hear that he had historical significance. He was full of himself. 

[josephbloggs]

3 hours ago, nauseus said:

 

Full of it. He didn't even have a PC for most of his career - makes cut and paste a bit tricky.

Jeez, another fanboy picking up on a word or two and missing the meaning, deliberately.

Maybe he didn't use ctrl c + ctrl v on a computer, but his column was a mish mash of copied bits of readers submissions, "jokes", and other circulars.

He might have received them by morse code or smoke signal for all I care, then he bashed away at his typewriter and copied them. There, make sense now?

Willing to debate his merits as a columnist or journalist, willing to debate his contributions to society (er, none, other than the dangerous spreading of incorrect and totally irresponsible HIV information), but stop picking on individual words when my meaning is clear.

Hopefully you've got it now. The previous poster decided he could only pick on my timing of email (since corroborated by another poster that it was widespread in Thailand in the mid 90s as I suggested) and not deny that he just copied stuff - his thing was just "email didn't exist".  Now you are doing the same about the technicalities of copying and pasting at the time. Tiresome.

You loved him, we get it. You were a monger, nothing wrong with that at all. But I stick by my guns that he was talentless, arrogant and irresponsible and it is amazing he lasted as long as he did.

I always wonder what the girls thought when they say him coming in to the bar again.........oh God, who's turn is it this time?

[nauseus]

5 minutes ago, josephbloggs said:

Jeez, another fanboy picking up on a word or two and missing the meaning, deliberately.

Maybe he didn't use ctrl c + ctrl v on a computer, but his column was a mish mash of copied bits of readers submissions, "jokes", and other circulars.

He might have received them by morse code or smoke signal for all I care, then he bashed away at his typewriter and copied them. There, make sense now?

Willing to debate his merits as a columnist or journalist, willing to debate his contributions to society (er, none, other than the dangerous spreading of incorrect and totally irresponsible HIV information), but stop picking on individual words when my meaning is clear.

Hopefully you've got it now. The previous poster decided he could only pick on my timing of email (since corroborated by another poster that it was widespread in Thailand in the mid 90s as I suggested) and not deny that he just copied stuff - his thing was just "email didn't exist".  Now you are doing the same about the technicalities of copying and pasting at the time. Tiresome.

You loved him, we get it. You were a monger, nothing wrong with that at all. But I stick by my guns that he was talentless, arrogant and irresponsible and it is amazing he lasted as long as he did.

I always wonder what the girls thought when they say him coming in to the bar again.........oh God, who's turn is it this time?

 

See. Full of it. Drama class auditions end of the corridor then down the fire escape.

[proton]

6 hours ago, n00dle said:

 

The Atlanta Hotel has a rich history, built in 1952, it has the first swimming pools in Thailand. i had never heard the anti venom story in the wikki. They even had a yacht on the Chaopraya.  The original Art Deco lobby remains unchanged.  

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Atlanta_Hotel_(Bangkok)#:~:text=History&text=The first owner of The,Company to manufacture snakebite antivenom.

The family is an odd one, after being something of a haven for drug smugglers in the 70s, things took a very moralistic  turn. Even today, while they have lightened up they is still a chance you will be turned away or asked to leave the premises, if they don't like the way you look.

 

I haven't eaten in the restraunt since before COVID but one page of the meu used to (and still may)  says this:

 

The clientele is very specific, return visitors, NGO's anyone seeking oasis in the area. The rooms are plain and the pool has seen better days but it is still remarkable.

Sadly the woman who ran the coffee shop passed last year and with her went some of the most wonderful inexpensive Thai food in the area. I used to eat there often, others tried but were unsuccessful.

I have several friends who begin and end their stay in Bangkok at the Atlanta and have been doing so for years. i always take time to spend a day by the pool when they do. 

 

The Atlanta changed when the old man died and his son took over. Used to charge 104 baht for a joiner fee, then the girls would moan about no elevator, but that was 25 years ago. The woman in the coffee shop must have been there for decades. Last time i asked about eating there if not staying got a firm no.

[HugoFastor]

1 hour ago, proton said:

 

The Atlanta changed when the old man died and his son took over. Used to charge 104 baht for a joiner fee, then the girls would moan about no elevator, but that was 25 years ago. The woman in the coffee shop must have been there for decades. Last time i asked about eating there if not staying got a firm no.

In the late nineties a friend of mine would check in to The Atlanta early in the day, either on a Friday or Saturday, and then often bring girls back there with him in the evenings. Never a problem as far as I know. Not sure if he was charged a joiner fee or not. 
 

There was also The Golden Gate hotel on Soi 2, in the same area of The Atlanta, not sure what it was like though. 
 

The Manhattan Hotel I mentioned in a previous post was actually on Suk Soi 13. Similar location as The Miami Hotel. Gone now though. There is a new 3-star hotel now on Suk Soi 15 called Hotel Manhattan. Unrelated I assume. 
 

The other 2-star hotel I was thinking of earlier was the Malaysia Hotel (not the Asia Hotel) on Soi Ngam Duplhi. Although, not in the Sukhumvit area, I think it had a lot of girls hanging out in and around the lobby and the coffee shop of the hotel, kind of like the Nana Hotel had back in the day. So it was a bit of a scene at that time and yet the hotel is still there today. 

[d4dang]

On 3/25/2024 at 8:36 PM, Prubangboy said:

I more like the idea of Trink than the mostly dross he churned out; calling go-go bars nighteries and hookers, demimondes. He was the pinnacle of the golden era of mongers, wearing big medallions and over-tailored shirts.

 

I have stayed the Miami Hotel on soi, where the film The Serpent was filmed to good effect. It's been done up since, but retains it's retro charm. Is it still open? I was thinking about booking it?

 

I knew Cleo Odzer who wrote Patpong Sisters, the first feminist, post-modernist critique -but surely unread here, except possibly by Gamma.

 

[Hanuman2547]

Bangkok, as well as the rest of Thailand, was quite a different place back in the 80's when I first arrived and on into the 90's.  I liked Trink's column, Postbag, Crutchly's column, and a few others.  Today so much has changed and the city is very different.  

[flexomike]

On 3/28/2024 at 6:22 AM, thaibeachlovers said:

On my first visit to Bkk in the 70s, we went up the Golden Mount, which must have been the highest point in all of Bkk, and almost all we could see were shop houses. There may have been some buildings over 3 stories, but very few.

I have the photos some where. I'll have to see if I can find them to see if that is a proper memory.

First went up there in 1968, Don't forget the Dusit Thani Hotel would have been open in the early 70's, I watched them build it with bamboo scaffolding 

[n00dle]

13 hours ago, HugoFastor said:

the Malaysia Hotel (not the Asia Hotel) on Soi Ngam Duplhi. Although, not in the Sukhumvit area, I think it had a lot of girls hanging out in and around the lobby and the coffee shop of the hotel, kind of like the Nana Hotel had back in the day. So it was a bit of a scene at that time and yet the hotel is still there today. 

 

you sure it was girls? The Malaysia hotel was gay ground zero in its heyday. 

https://www.khaosodenglish.com/life/arts/2017/11/24/salute-50-years-late-nights-bangkoks-malaysia-hotel/

Edited March 29 by n00dle

[dddave]

I sat next to Mr. Trink on the Bangkok to Pattaya bus one day.  He had a large hardcover copy of Salman Rushdie's "Satanic Verses" of which he was to write a review for the Bangkok Post. We chatted a bit about certain Nana Plaza characters we were both familiar with as I had briefly owned a piece of a bar there. He then politely said that he needed to get as much of the book read as possible and buried his nose into his reading. 

[dddave]

21 hours ago, n00dle said:

 

The Atlanta Hotel has a rich history, built in 1952, it has the first swimming pools in Thailand. i had never heard the anti venom story in the wikki. They even had a yacht on the Chaopraya.  The original Art Deco lobby remains unchanged.  

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Atlanta_Hotel_(Bangkok)#:~:text=History&text=The first owner of The,Company to manufacture snakebite antivenom.

The family is an odd one, after being something of a haven for drug smugglers in the 70s, things took a very moralistic  turn. Even today, while they have lightened up they is still a chance you will be turned away or asked to leave the premises, if they don't like the way you look.

 

I haven't eaten in the restraunt since before COVID but one page of the meu used to (and still may)  says this:

 

The clientele is very specific, return visitors, NGO's anyone seeking oasis in the area. The rooms are plain and the pool has seen better days but it is still remarkable.

Sadly the woman who ran the coffee shop passed last year and with her went some of the most wonderful inexpensive Thai food in the area. I used to eat there often, others tried but were unsuccessful.

I have several friends who begin and end their stay in Bangkok at the Atlanta and have been doing so for years. i always take time to spend a day by the pool when they do. 

Around 2004, A friend and his Thai wife lived not far from the Atlanta Hotel.  Their apartment was being painted and they needed to vacate for a night so they figured the close-by Atlanta would be a good choice. Even when they explained they were man and wife, they were still flat out refused a room. The clerk demanded they produce a copy of their marriage license.

[n00dle]

16 hours ago, josephbloggs said:

Jeez, another fanboy picking up on a word or two and missing the meaning, deliberately.

Maybe he didn't use ctrl c + ctrl v on a computer, but his column was a mish mash of copied bits of readers submissions, "jokes", and other circulars.

He might have received them by morse code or smoke signal for all I care, then he bashed away at his typewriter and copied them. There, make sense now?

Willing to debate his merits as a columnist or journalist, willing to debate his contributions to society (er, none, other than the dangerous spreading of incorrect and totally irresponsible HIV information), but stop picking on individual words when my meaning is clear.

Hopefully you've got it now. The previous poster decided he could only pick on my timing of email (since corroborated by another poster that it was widespread in Thailand in the mid 90s as I suggested) and not deny that he just copied stuff - his thing was just "email didn't exist".  Now you are doing the same about the technicalities of copying and pasting at the time. Tiresome.

You loved him, we get it. You were a monger, nothing wrong with that at all. But I stick by my guns that he was talentless, arrogant and irresponsible and it is amazing he lasted as long as he did.

I always wonder what the girls thought when they say him coming in to the bar again.........oh God, who's turn is it this time?

 

blah fookin blah

[HugoFastor]

3 hours ago, n00dle said:

 

you sure it was girls? The Malaysia hotel was gay ground zero in its heyday. 

https://www.khaosodenglish.com/life/arts/2017/11/24/salute-50-years-late-nights-bangkoks-malaysia-hotel/

I don't know much about The Malaysia Hotel, as I was rarely in that area and never went there myself. But following is an excerpt from the 1992 edition of the Lonely Planet guide book on Thailand. Sounds like it could have been a mixed bag, depending on the time of day:

 

Quote

The Malaysia Hotel at 54 Soi Ngam Duphli, was once Bangkok's most famous travellers' hotel. Its 120 air-con, hot-water rooms cost 496B for a standard single or double, 546B with a TV and small fridge, and 700B with a TV, larger fridge and carpet.

 

The Malaysia has a swimming pool which may be used by visitors for 50B per day (it's free for guests of course). Since the ' 70s, the Malaysia has made a conscious effort to distance itself from the backpackers' market; for a while it seemed to be catering directly to the lonely male hired-sex market. The big sign out front advertising 'Day Off International Club - Paradise for Everyone' has dropped the final phrase 'You'll Never Be Alone Again' and there seem to be fewer hookers around the lobby than in the old days - at least before midnight. After the Patpong bars close, the hotel coffee shop becomes a virtual clearing house for bar girls who didn't pick up an outside customer earlier in the evening. 

 

[Prubangboy]

On 3/28/2024 at 4:16 AM, thaibeachlovers said:

I bought a copy of Patpong Sisters, still unread 20 or even 30 years on. Never quite got around to reading it. Perhaps I might dig it out now I've been reminded of it.

The beauty of this comment is that you said the exact same thing, like 18 months ago.

 

Prediction: this book will remain un-dug out.