Article about Trink in NYTimes

[adikgede]

An article about Berny Trink @ www.nytimes.com

 

11/16/02

 

Serving as Guide to a Richly Tawdry Bazaar

By SETH MYDANS

 

BANGKOK, Thailand — Bernard Trink walked into the newsroom and

sat down at a gigantic battered typewriter. He took off his shoes, tugged

off his socks, unbuckled his belt, unzipped his pants and leaned back,

ready to talk.

 

It was 8 p.m., the start of a working day that would last until dawn, and

he had messages to sort, doggerel to read, jokes to chuckle over,

nightspots to recommend and prostitutes to visit.

 

Mr. Trink, 71, is what he likes to call the entertainment editor of the

Bangkok Post — a chronicler, critic and booster of the red-light

industry here in what he dubs Fun City.

 

In 37 years of pub crawling, he has become a monument to the world he

writes about — neighborhoods of go-go clubs, beer bars and massage

parlors that dispense sex to all comers in an atmosphere of joyous

amorality.

 

Caravansaries, he calls them in the odd patois he has created; boîtes,

dramshops, gin mills, taprooms, watering holes, all offering damsels,

lasses, demimondaines and maidens.

 

His quirky column, Nite Owl, is a piñata of his crochets and hobbyhorses,

bursting not only with news of the bar scene but with aphorisms, oddball

definitions, cautionary tales, Burma Shave ditties, rumors and stern

warnings never to reply to a Nigerian scam letter and never, ever to marry

a bar girl.

 

His opinions are offered with an emphatic snap of the finger. "The mind

boggles," he will write or, "Need I say more" or, brooking no debate, "

'Nuff said."

 

The moment it comes off the press each week, his column is a historical

treasure, part of an unbroken chronicle of one of the world's great

pleasure palaces.

 

He was here when it all started, in the 1960's, when American soldiers on

leave from Vietnam whooped and reveled in the streets and farm girls

converged from around the country, amazed at the bright lights and the

dollars, for a party that has never ended.

 

 

... Complete Story Here (may require free registration)

[Guest]

just incase board members don't want to get spamed... here's the rest of the story.

 

The G.I.'s are gone now but the bars are still packed, as if there were no such thing as AIDS. The new generation of patrons is the older generation ? graying travelers giving themselves one more go at youth. This is the age of Viagra, and Mr. Trink is its siren.

 

The columnist himself is not so young any more. His face, with its long, emphatic nose, is not as sleek as it once was, and his Julius Caesar haircut looks a bit as if someone had sat on it.

 

At his typewriter, he produces genuine antiques pecked out on a private stash of foolscap so old and brittle that he sometimes needs Scotch tape to repair it.

 

But late on a Sunday night, he can still be seen making his rounds of nightspots, limping a bit on his swollen feet, sometimes carrying with him a couple of plastic bags of shopping. A few steps behind, where she has always been, is his Thai wife, Aree.

 

A Red Cross volunteer and the mother of their three children, she has long since taken his eccentricities for granted, a wordless shadow. But people who meet him for the first time may need a moment to adapt.

 

Noticing a visitor glancing at his partial dishabille the other day, he said, without further explanation: "Whenever I sit down I unzip, no matter where I am. Having done it, I feel comfortable. There's no belt digging in."

 

Born in Manhattan in a struggling Depression-era family, with a mother who he says "wasn't a lovable person," the young Bernard Trink buried himself in books and movies and dreamed of becoming a professor of history.

 

In his early 20's he set off to see the world and visited, by his count, 50 countries before finding a wife in Thailand and settling down in 1965 to work for a newspaper. Almost immediately he took over the Nite Owl column in the now defunct Bangkok World, and it quickly became the crown jewel of journalism in what was then a raw and sweaty city.

 

It was a must-read account of his week on the town, with racy photographs of go-go dancers and a sort of Zagat guide to massage parlors, with prostitutes identified by the badge numbers they wore.

 

"I used special code words," he said: "Go to see Number 47 because she's special."

 

"If I said she's `extra special,' that would refer to particular services and the reader knew what I meant," he said. "If I said she was great, people would line up to be with her. It's like an art expert; when you've had a few you can compare."

 

This is a man who can say with real feeling, "I had the perfect job."

 

THOSE days ? "the high point of the column" ? are a wistful memory now. Mr. Trink's new readers wear neckties and work in air-conditioned offices, and Nite Owl has struggled to adapt.

 

Advertisement

 

 

 

 

The column still carries tips for barflies like "Monokini dancing at Nana Entertainment Plaza ? Have a look-see" and "Hollywood Carousel (third floor N.E.P.), run by Johnny, has had a second carousel (revolving dance stage) installed with additional damsels."

 

But the truth is that Mr. Trink has been tamed by changing times. The paper has told him to back off his crusade to prove that AIDS is nothing but a money-making fabrication of pharmaceutical companies.

 

No longer allowed to recommend his favorite prostitutes, he sometimes touts grocery items, with a strange, Nixonian seriousness.

 

"For years Tang (orange powder to mix with water) was my favorite beverage, until, at 200 baht a bottle, the taste was no longer worth the price," he told readers recently.

 

"It's happened again with Gillette foam and gel, over 190 baht for a half-can. I've switched to Orita body lotion with some olive oil mixed in ? 65 baht a bottle (at Watsons). A reader tells me he shaves with hair shampoo. Both are effective and economical. Check 'em out."

 

For a long time he tracked the fluctuating price of Dinty Moore's beef stew, until "I kind of felt I'd said all there is to say about it."

 

On occasion, he passes on a reader's recommendation of a good podiatrist or praise for the medicinal properties of bananas, along with the comment, "I have no way of knowing whether this is true."

 

Perhaps his greatest service over the years ? all too often ignored ? has been to warn Western men, known in Thai as farangs, not to give their hearts away to the calculating women in the bars.

 

"Though demimondaines generally don't have much schooling, don't underestimate their smarts," he wrote recently to a man who said he had found true love. "With a few exceptions, they can buy and sell farangs of any age, however educated and wary. Just don't believe the sweet talk. If you do, it'll cost you, I'll clue ya. Get it out of your head that you're going to reform them. TIT (This Is Thailand)."

 

Clearly, Mr. Trink is no romantic. But he has had a lot of fun over the years. Every one of his columns concludes with his raffish motto, "But, I don't give a hoot!"

 

"It's nice to have good sex with someone you love," he said the other day, summing up his years as a night owl. "But that doesn't mean you can't have good sex with someone you don't love."

 

'Nuff said.

 

 

 

[Pom_Jao_Choo]

I wonder if it would be possible to find some of his his earlier articles? Let's say pre 1975 ?

[Flashermac]

Back when I was in publishing, I used to see Trink fairly often. I bugged him for years to write his memoirs -- or even do something like the "Best of Trink". But he'd just smile and say "maybe someday". Most likely, it ain't gonna happen.

 

Trink began with the old Bangkok World, an evening paper. Every Saturday he had his own Niteowl Section, 3 or 4 full pages (forget which) full of really useful information, plus pics of the dancers with always a few nude shots sneaked in (a nipple popped out, panties slipped to show a dancer's shaved crotch or whatever). Plus he was always writing about "Ladda the Queen of Patpong" -- manager of the massage parlour Trink went to. He'd use another of his codes to tell you just what had happened -- a BJ, shagging etc. "Number 67 and I found it a tight fit squeezing into the tub together, but we managed it ... etc." First thing when the paper came every Saturday afternoon, you'd turn to Trink. The saying used to be: "People love Trink or they hate him, but EVERYBODY reads him."

 

When the World fell on hard times in the mid-80s, the Bangkok Post bought it out and ran it for a while. Then they just shut it down. The Post immediately told Bernie to clean up his act -- no more boobs or beaver shots, no dirty jokes etc. They also cut him down to just one page. Friends at the Post told me the new owners wanted to shut Trink down completely, but they got so many angry letters when word got out that they didn't. But a few years ago they did take away his photographer and limited him to just half a page. He is officially retired, but still does his Nite Owl -- on Fridays now and just a shadow of itself. I understand some of the new PC crowd at the Post would like to do away with even that.

 

I don't know where you might find his old Bangkok World columns. I have one or two stashed away at home somewhere. Your best bet would be to find back issues of the Bangkok Post on microfilm somewhere. The National Library of Thailand, I suppose. Wouldn't that be a hoot -- go to the Nat Library and tell the archivist you want to read the old Trink columns they have.

[Old Hippie]

I don't know, I sort of like Trink. Reminds me of the long gone era. Much the same way I like hanging around Lone Star or Silver Dollor, and hearing the old guys reminiece. Over the years, I've met some guys! Saw Trink as he was leaving once last year, would like to have actually met him. Something about those guys from the old days...

This passed weekend, I went to see my annoying family, my nephew asked my father to tell his old War stories from Korea and vietnam. My father said he will only tell them when another old soldier is in the room, and then others are free to listen. I feel that way a lot among the "old BKK guard." Almost a privilidge really...wonder if I'll be sitting around a VFW bar in my old age holding court with some young guy who didn't have the sense to run before I started talking...o.k. now I'm just babbling, but I think you get the point.

[Guest]

We may criticize him and we may complain about him, but we all read him, and we all (secretly) admire him.

[Mentors]

yes i get the piont...!

[thai3]

 

DB's site covers the internet years back ro '96-peter

 

 

http://www.geocities.com/doxyblue/alltrink.html

[pattaya127]

Glad his eraso-mania did not reach Trink's Collected Works

[Pom_Jao_Choo]

That would be the same DB who is a poster here?

Just happened to notice that in the May 24 1997 Trink column he was already discussing early closings of entertainment venues. So It was in the works for quite a while ?