Trink's "codes"

[Flashermac]

2003 - one day the column was gone, no announcement, no retirement party, no gold watch, just 'sod off, Trink!' A lot of folks were not happy with the Post's editor over the way he sacked him.

 

But Trink must have known it was about to happen, since it really wasn't doing much towards the end - mostly a lot of cut and paste from emails. Several bar owners told me they sent Trink news on events they were having - anniversaries, free buffets etc. - but he never used it.

 

When I added that link to Wikipedia you could view all of the columns there. Then the Post blocked many of them. Strange the columns don't go back that far, since Trink started writing in 1966. I've got 2 or 3 of his old Bangkok World 3-page sections around somewhere. We used to wait for the World to arrive every Friday evening so we could check out the places to go. Trink told you who had free food, where there was a party and which bars were hot. Cav would have loved it!

 

 

[buffalo_bill]

Didn't he also find out that AIDS is a mystery ?

 

 

[TheCorinthian]

Seriously, if he did say this:

 

...but his belief that HIV did not lead to AIDS brought him considerable criticism and may have contributed to the demise of his column.

 

He had lost it.

[Flashermac]

Trink is a nice person, quite likeable. He is not a major intellectual.

 

He picked up this theory from somewhere and clung to it for some time.

 

[Central Scrutinizer]

I've run into him a few times over the years. Last time was about four or five years ago at the US Embassy 4th of July gathering. Nice guy, very approachable and friendly for a New Yawker. :-)

 

I think he still has those pants, Flash. And he was wearing his trademark maroon polyester pants up to his chest, and the medallion when I last saw him.

[Flashermac]

He used to ride the buses around Bangkok, before traffic was bad. I'd often see him on the buses making his rounds. In the '70s he used to take his son Ricky along with him. Poor Ricky died of leukemia when he was about 17. Trink has a daughter who must be in her 40s by now. His wife is a former teacher. I've never heard a bad word about Trink, except after one of his notorious book reviews. (Trink apparently thinks review means "rip to pieces". Did it to me once and really pissed off Fly. He slagged me off for not mentioning a hotel that hadn't even been built when I wrote it. Oh, yeah - I failed to mention his favourite noodle shop too. He compared Fly's photojournalism unfavourably with Dean Barrett's "Beautiful Women of Thailand"!)

 

 

[Wallenda]

I looked through many of those columns of his posted at archive.org. I have to say, it seems as if this code wasn't really in use in those days (late 90s thru early 00s), but was probably being done in earlier days, which of course aren't included since they'd be pre-internet times.

 

I'm still hoping to track down some of those code terms he used to use back in the day. Pretty sure I won't find it in those columns. I have to say, those columns posted there sure are padded out with what looks to me like filler. Long lists of quotations one after another? Food and drink specials at the bars, restaurants, hotels? He could have written all that never leaving his desk or typing one original word. If he was making the rounds, not much evidence of it in those columns, not the ones I'm seeing at least.

 

I guess if I was working alongside him, and saw him getting the same salary as me (me doing a full day's work) when he was churning out, well... look at them. I could put one of those together in 30 minutes. Also he would be coming to write this after hours at night, from what I gather. I can easily imagine some tension in the office there, and not all due to his odd views on issues. I mean, compare one of those columns to anything Stickman writes, for example. Or any major columnist in any big city paper. It just doesn't begin to hold its own.

[Flashermac]

The Post bought out the World around 1983 or '84. Trink's massage parlour days were before the Post stopped him from being naughty. As I recall, each week he have something like "Number 27 and I found it a tight fit getting into the tub together, but I was satified." I often wondered what his wife thought. She must have known what he was up to at the MP. Trying to think of the name now ... it was on the east end of Patpong. Never went to it myself, but I walked past it often enough.

 

By the late '80s Trink wasn't allowed to say much of anything. No pics either - the Post took his cameraman away from him. But once upon a time Trink had his own 3-page section in the Bangkok World. It had plenty to read and always lots of photos of the hottest BGs that week. There is no comparing the Post-period Trink to the the unexpurgated Trink of old.

 

A younger generation had also taken over the Bangkok Post - lots of yuppie type Thai women who'd studied abroad and become feminists. One Brit who worked at the Post told me new girls would be warned to stay away from the Farangs, since they were old dirty whore mongers. The Post in the old days - in the old building off Silom - was a fun place to work. I'm told it isn't any more.

 

--------

 

Aha, google turned up this:

 

<< The early 1970’s saw the overflow from Patpong Road starting to creep around the corners into the narrow alleyway that was then being called ‘Patpong II’ as a means of easy reference. Correspondingly, Patpong Road was now being referred to as ‘Patpong I’ . It was in these years that “A-Go-Go†bars debuted, and [color:red]‘Steam & Cream’ massage parlors opened for business in and around the Patpongs ( Khun Ladda’s establishment, which was originally the upstairs of the Takara Barber Shop, was the most memorable).[/color] >>

 

That was it - the Takara MP Trink was where used to get his freebies.

 

 

http://www.bangkokeyes.com/mappat2.html

 

 

[Pom Michael]

The Patpong MP was Cherie or La Cherie - up the escaltor if I remember correctly. What is there now?

[Nervous God]

Fly's pics of dying whores Vs Deans dubious women of beauty?