Oldgringo 1943-2012 R.i.p.

[CMHomeboy78]

An email from his sister informs me that OldGringo the artist and long time Chiang Mai resident died last August at his summer studio at Garrison in the Hudson Highlands north of New York City.

A painter and sculptor of considerable talent, he was an irasible character who I knew here since the late 70's.

Both artists, we had many things in common. But in spite of, or perhaps because of that, there was often friction between us.

I could paraphrase Mark Anthony and say "I come to bury Gringo, not to praise him". But in point of fact there were many things to praise.

He loved Chiang Mai sincerely, with a profound knowledge of it's history and culture.

His early years here, being given over to his pleasure as a stoner and cocksman, more or less came to an end when he married a girl from an old family in the Wat Muang Guy / Sanahm Golf area in the early 80's.

Born to a well-to-do family in New York he attended a private school until his parents split-up when he was a child. That was followed by financial reverses and a nomadic existence with his unstable mother and two siblings.

He quit school at fifteen and went to work on St. Croix in the West Indies as a carpenter. A trade that came as naturally to him as artwork.

Back in New York he enrolled at the Art Students League and took some classes at NYU. A couple of years of that was all he had in the way of formal education.

His twenties were spent trying to make a living as an artist and travelling in Europe once or twice a year.

In 1976 he and a friend went overland on the Hippie Trail from Germany to India riding a BMW 650.

In Iran they met guys working for Bell Helicopter who had been in the USAF stationed in Thailand. The next year he visited one of them here and never looked back.

1977 took him to Chiang Mai to play a small part in a Thai movie being shot on location. This is where he stayed except for summer trips to the US to make money and visit friends and relatives.

He lived among Thais - you had to in those days unless you had enough money to isolate yourself, or were part of the expat business, goverment, or missionary communities with the peer support they provided.

He was a feisty old goat but most Thais liked him well enough.

What he disliked most about Chiang Mai farangs was the arrogance displayed by so many of them. Their almost willful ignorance of the history and culture of the people they are living with, and whose guests they are.

He saw the majority of recent arrivals as nonentities who were trying to recreate lifestyles here that they could no longer afford in their own countries. Their overwhelming presence was as unwelcome to him as it is to the Thais who have to tolerate their often obnoxious behaviour.

He won't be missed by most farangs, but he was a unique character. They broke the mold after they made him

Adios Gringo

[JingerBen]

I knew him and his family rather well in the late 80's, early 90's when our children were at Sacred Heart together. He was a talented but complex person.

The paintings of hilltribe people, Buddhist subjects, landscapes, and mandalas that he did during his first twenty or so years here were really fine.

The transformation of Chiang Mai as we knew it, followed by the events of post - 9/11 in the US and beyond, changed him and his work profoundly.

Political and social satire and a dark undercurrent took over.

Maintaining a friendship with him was as difficult as I would imagine it would have been with the likes of Orwell or Kafka.

His relations with Thais, as far as I could tell, seemed good.

The Thai dislike for the pahk-wahn / doot pree-oh type probably worked to his advantage, combined with his innate respect for the people and their culture.

He once told me that the most important part of getting along here was to never forget you were a guest; because if you lived with them a hundred years you wouldn't be accepted on any other terms.

I guess that just about sums it up.

R.I.P. Gringo

[hml367]

I knew him and his family rather well in the late 80's, early 90's when our children were at Sacred Heart together. He was a talented but complex person.

The paintings of hilltribe people, Buddhist subjects, landscapes, and mandalas that he did during his first twenty or so years here were really fine.

The transformation of Chiang Mai as we knew it, followed by the events of post - 9/11 in the US and beyond, changed him and his work profoundly.

Political and social satire and a dark undercurrent took over.

Maintaining a friendship with him was as difficult as I would imagine it would have been with the likes of Orwell or Kafka.

His relations with Thais, as far as I could tell, seemed good.

The Thai dislike for the pahk-wahn / doot pree-oh type probably worked to his advantage, combined with his innate respect for the people and their culture.

He once told me that the most important part of getting along here was to never forget you were a guest; because if you lived with them a hundred years you wouldn't be accepted on any other terms.

I guess that just about sums it up.

R.I.P. Gringo

I would agree whole heartedly with the comment about always being a guest. It's too bad more guests don't understand that.

MSPain

[jacktrip]

methinks...

were not 'guests', we live here now.

Edited November 18, 2012 by jacktrip

[cloudhopper]

I would agree whole heartedly with the comment about always being a guest. It's too bad more guests don't understand that.

MSPain

I don't know if it's true or not but to the extent it may be it is a measure of cultural dysfunction IMO.

[Dean1953]

Hopefully, he didn't feel like his kids were guests in Thailand. To be able to live in Thailand 9 months of the year and spend summers at his family home, selling his art, doesn't sound like a bad way to live 30 plus years. RIP

[bristolgeoff]

RIP gringo

[CMHomeboy78]

methinks...

were not 'guests', we live here now.

Guests?

We don't even qualify as guests here. I wasn't invited; were you?

We're more like party-crashers - and Chiang Mai was a party in the 70's and into the early 80's as anyone who was here at the time could tell you.

But then again, maybe not. There's an old saying, "If you can remember Chiang Mai in the 70's, you weren't there".

But I can, and I was; sometimes anyway. In my more lucid moments I could enlighten you in all sorts of ways.

Nowadays, we've crashed a party that has ended...a banquet hall deserted. The feast has been consumed - everything from fruit to nuts - and the pits and bones spit out on the floor.

All that's left is the debris and a bunch of know-nothing greenhorns to debate the issue in pubs and on internet forums.

Edited November 19, 2012 by CMHomeboy78

[daoyai]

methinks...

were not 'guests', we live here now.

Guests?

We don't even qualify as guests here. I wasn't invited; were you?

We're more like party-crashers - and Chiang Mai was a party in the 70's and into the early 80's as anyone who was here at the time could tell you.

But then again, maybe not. There's an old saying, "If you can remember Chiang Mai in the 70's, you weren't there".

But I can, and I was; sometimes anyway. In my more lucid moments I could enlighten you in all sorts of ways.

Nowadays, we've crashed a party that has ended...a banquet hall deserted. The feast has been consumed - everything from fruit to nuts - and the pits and bones spit out on the floor.

All that's left is the debris and a bunch of know-nothing greenhorns to debate the issue in pubs and on internet forums.

Really more of an account of your current situation than a reflection of "reality",

[DaddyWarbucks]

A character from a time when Chiang Mai was an entirely different place, and Thais, for the most part, were different as well.

He was easy to talk to but hard to really get to know.

His own country went to the dogs and his adopted country changed in ways he didn't like.

His later satirical paintings were very good. He dipped his brush in acid.

If there's another world he's probably finding fault with it already...but then again maybe not. If Heaven is where he is, farangs are likely to be few and far between.

Just like Chiang Mai in the old days, eh Gringo?

[ARISTIDE]

MeI tink most Thai don't give a rat's ass if you falong are guests or not as long as you have money

[elektrified]

Cue lots of wrinkly old farts saying how much better it was in the old days.

Not really. They are all the same poster (just logged in under different ID's).

[CMHomeboy78]

methinks...

were not 'guests', we live here now.

Guests?

We don't even qualify as guests here. I wasn't invited; were you?

We're more like party-crashers - and Chiang Mai was a party in the 70's and into the early 80's as anyone who was here at the time could tell you.

But then again, maybe not. There's an old saying, "If you can remember Chiang Mai in the 70's, you weren't there".

But I can, and I was; sometimes anyway. In my more lucid moments I could enlighten you in all sorts of ways.

Nowadays, we've crashed a party that has ended...a banquet hall deserted. The feast has been consumed - everything from fruit to nuts - and the pits and bones spit out on the floor.

All that's left is the debris and a bunch of know-nothing greenhorns to debate the issue in pubs and on internet forums.

Really more of an account of your current situation than a reflection of "reality",

What is reality?

Is the perception of it the same for everybody?

I think not.

I don't know what your's is based on. Possibly more knowlege and a longer experience of Chiang Mai than I have.

If so, I'm sure we could agree that the best way to get along here is by being amiable; if for no other reason than the principal of "Be extra nice when travelling; you never know how the locals treat people they don't like". That attitude has always worked for me.

I like to give out a piece of advise that I learned from Gringo a long time ago. That is, always listen to farangs who have been here awhile; if you don't, you will get lessons from Thais that you won't forget anytime soon.

But the smartasses never listen.

[Oscar2]

what was the name of the decedent?

[BookMan]

Cue lots of wrinkly old farts saying how much better it was in the old days. Probably because they had the place to themselves and did whatever they wanted, irrespective of how the locals felt about it.

The world had approx 3 billion people in the mids 70s and has approx 7 billion now....from numbers alone it was a better place to be

[DeaconJohn]

I didn't know him personally but his TV posts revealed an intelligent but cantankerous character.

His peevish assessment of the farang presence in Chiang Mai was lacking in charity but acute in most cases.

He saw clearly that there were just too many of us here, and that we had worn out our welcome long ago.

His love and understanding seemed to be reserved mostly for Thais.

I hope he can R.I.P. on the other side. He couldn't here.

[AnnaBanana]

I didn't know him either, but judging by his posts and the few people I knew that did know him personally he sounded like a nutcase.

His own choice of Ezra Pound as his avatar photo speaks volumes.

The expression of concentrated venom and malice directed against farangs shows he was unbalanced.

Resident farangs can be divided into several groups.

The loners like Gringo see the others as destroying the old ways of life here. But it's more complicated than that.

The influence they have has been almost good in some ways and bad in others, and could be debated endlessly.

He lumped them all together like some little tin-horn dictator hell-bent on the ethnic-cleansing of Chiang Mai.

Tourists and backpackers are birds-of-passage. The farangs who stay, all or part of the year, impact the country and people much more according to the way they behave.

Gringo saw Chiang Mai change dramatically in the past 30+ years. What he saw more recently was the malaise afflicting the US and Europe that created refugees who have come down on Chiang Mai like a plague of locusts.

These people, are looking for the creature-comforts that have become too expensive for them in their own countries.

This development is relatively new and will likely result in a situation similar to the phenomenon of "gentrification" in the US where old low-rent urban areas are invaded by comparatively affluent newcomers who change the scene so much that the original inhabitants become strangers in their own neighborhoods and eventually leave because of higher prices for everything.

Maybe the Thais will take a lesson from Trink's Nite Owl and say "I don't give a hoot".

If not, the farangs causing these problems might someday regret ever coming to Thailand in the first place.

Read up a little on Thai history.

[elektrified]

The whole thing is a farce. It's the same guy posting under 4 or 5 different user names. Get a life.

[BookMan]

The whole thing is a farce. It's the same guy posting under 4 or 5 different user names. Get a life.

Seems to be a few similar styles

[cloudhopper]

Well I don't think that we resident farangs are impacting CM in any significant way good or bad, and whatever has happened here would have happened pretty much the same way without us. The influx of development money here has been overwhelmingly domestic, as are the customers in the general population. Farangs are just a convenient scapegoat to point to as a cause of 'problems', as other minorities have been throughout history. We just don't number enough to really matter here.

[daoyai]

The whole thing is a farce. It's the same guy posting under 4 or 5 different user names. Get a life.

please elaborate on that statement, this could get interesting.

[onthedarkside]

Can we at least have some respect for a former member. I am very close to removing some of the more defamatory posts ... still thinking about removing.

[onthedarkside]

The first off topic post just removed.

[cdnvic]

RIP Gringo

[OriginalPoster]

A character from a time when Chiang Mai was an entirely different place, and Thais, for the most part, were different as well.

He was easy to talk to but hard to really get to know.

His own country went to the dogs and his adopted country changed in ways he didn't like.

His later satirical paintings were very good. He dipped his brush in acid.

If there's another world he's probably finding fault with it already...but then again maybe not. If Heaven is where he is, farangs are likely to be few and far between.

Just like Chiang Mai in the old days, eh Gringo?

re: "His own country went to the dogs and his adopted country changed in ways he didn't like" -- that's a mindset that throughout time has been passed down from one generation of grumpy old men to the next. Sorry, but it's just not a keen insight that the world was at its best in your youth and has been going to hell-in-a-handbasket ever since.

[mcgriffith]

An off topic post has been removed.

Let's try to keep it on the topic, which is Oldgringo.

Thanks for your understanding.

[rene123]

It takes all types to add up making this an interesting place, if for no other reason than learning about different types of people and what makes them tick. Otherwise it would be rather boring if everyone agreed on everything. I even think there was a movie about it with that Canadian actor, Jim Carrey.

It sounds like the Oldgringo was one of those types. If there is such a thing then hopefully he's found a better place.

[JingerBen]

I think too much has been made of Gringo's anti-farang feelings. They were there, to be sure, but he just seemed to prefer the country and people of Thailand.

I can understand that because I feel exactly the same way.

There are many irritations and aggravations here, but compared to the US, where we both came from, they seem insignificant.

Britons and Americans, at least the more intelligent and perceptive among them, more or less dislike their own kind when met abroad. And who can blame them?

Muddled middle-class mediocrities, knuckle-headed lower-class louts and the pompous ignorance of their few remaining "aristocrats" are hardly what you would want to identify with.

And their negative qualities are magnified ten-fold when these people find themselves living culturally isolated in a country like Thailand with traditions of refinement and civility that go back a long time.

Certainly we have similar traditions, but many of us seem to have come full-circle and have descended - to one degree or another - into a state of neo-barbarism. Extreme examples being the heavily tattooed and pierced Goths. The music and popular culture express it very well.

So if Gringo and the oldtimers were "anti-farang" to some extent, they had good reasons to be.

[Beetlejuice]

I knew him and his family rather well in the late 80's, early 90's when our children were at Sacred Heart together. He was a talented but complex person.

The paintings of hilltribe people, Buddhist subjects, landscapes, and mandalas that he did during his first twenty or so years here were really fine.

The transformation of Chiang Mai as we knew it, followed by the events of post - 9/11 in the US and beyond, changed him and his work profoundly.

Political and social satire and a dark undercurrent took over.

Maintaining a friendship with him was as difficult as I would imagine it would have been with the likes of Orwell or Kafka.

His relations with Thais, as far as I could tell, seemed good.

The Thai dislike for the pahk-wahn / doot pree-oh type probably worked to his advantage, combined with his innate respect for the people and their culture.

He once told me that the most important part of getting along here was to never forget you were a guest; because if you lived with them a hundred years you wouldn't be accepted on any other terms.

I guess that just about sums it up.

R.I.P. Gringo

I think artists are very complex people. But this is what makes their talents so unique, because they exhibit they’re works in ways as only they can portray and what establishes the fascination as each creative work of art is a one off.

Did not know the guy, but I have always had the most admiration and respect for artists. Maybe he`s up there now rubbing shoulders with people like Rembrandt and Picasso. We never know?

[CMHomeboy78]

I knew him and his family rather well in the late 80's, early 90's when our children were at Sacred Heart together. He was a talented but complex person.

The paintings of hilltribe people, Buddhist subjects, landscapes, and mandalas that he did during his first twenty or so years here were really fine.

The transformation of Chiang Mai as we knew it, followed by the events of post - 9/11 in the US and beyond, changed him and his work profoundly.

Political and social satire and a dark undercurrent took over.

Maintaining a friendship with him was as difficult as I would imagine it would have been with the likes of Orwell or Kafka.

His relations with Thais, as far as I could tell, seemed good.

The Thai dislike for the pahk-wahn / doot pree-oh type probably worked to his advantage, combined with his innate respect for the people and their culture.

He once told me that the most important part of getting along here was to never forget you were a guest; because if you lived with them a hundred years you wouldn't be accepted on any other terms.

I guess that just about sums it up.

R.I.P. Gringo

I think artists are very complex people. But this is what makes their talents so unique, because they exhibit they’re works in ways as only they can portray and what establishes the fascination as each creative work of art is a one off.

Did not know the guy, but I have always had the most admiration and respect for artists. Maybe he`s up there now rubbing shoulders with people like Rembrandt and Picasso. We never know?

Thank you very much for your intelligent and heart-warming reply.

I started this topic as a tribute to a friend - and occasional foe - of many years standing.

In true Thai Visa fashion it soon became a free-for-all of the wildest views and opinions replete with conspiracy theories.

Gringo would have loved it!