Allergy to Silence

2012

Last month I staying in bannok about sixty kilometers from Chai-nat. Every morning I was woken by the village loudspeakers. The announcer read off farming information to the locals. I couldn't understand a word that he was saying. Finally someone pulled the plug and the world was serenaded by a chorus of birdsong for several minutes, until a Loso fan decided to play KAO MOTORSAI with the volume knob locked on 11.

Anyone who has lived in Thailand will notice almost that the Thais are allergic to silence. The blare of TVs drown out quiet in every corner of the land. Loud music assaults the ears from every possible stereo device and they don’t seem bothered by two TVs competing with a boombox in the same room. Any time I mention the cacophony, the Thais stare at me as if I’m anti-sanuk or anti-fun.

Maybe I’m getting old, but years ago in New York I would have a day of silence on Sunday. No talking. No conversing with anyone. Only reading and later break the fast with THE SIMPSONS.

I even went so far as to unplug the telephone, although not many people called on Sunday, due to my friends suffering from life-threatening hang-overs. It was so peaceful.

Thais love noise. The louder the better, although the world’s noisiest people have to be the Taiwanese. I never heard anyone talk so loudly, almost as if shouting is the only way to get another taiwanese to understand you.

Back in the early 70s my family invited a Spanish student to live with us, while my younger brother stayed at his house in Madrid. My father had a little French, but not Spanish, so he shouted at the young man, whose grasp of the English language was rudimentary. He thought that my father was always angry with him and on several occasions I heard him crying in his room after my father yelled a simple request like 'are you hungry' or 'why do you call soccer 'football'.

I said to my father that the young student mistook the loudness for anger.

"Well, that's plain stupid." And my father went to the Spanish boy's room to upbraid him for this misunderstanding.

Muted sobs.

Some health authorities see no danger to the public from the incessant noise bombarding the Thais, however one irate Thai complained to this next-door neighbors, who thought they had the right to make as much noise as they wanted in the privacy of their own home. He shot the 8 of them dead.

Now that’s a health hazard.

What’s the hand of one hand clapping?

A click of the fingers.

Cool like beatnik.

Yes, I really am that old.

Sunday Quietude

Last night I took a young friend to see the Strokes at Saturday Night Live. The host was Miley Cyrus, the Disney teen sensation. The 19 year-old's current worth is in the hundreds of millions and SNL's producer followed the svelte brunette's every move, as if he had plans for the perennial good girl. She wasn't my type, but neither were the Strokes. The New York indie group played two songs. My young friend was enthralled by their performance. He had tickets for their April concert at Madison Square Garden. I couldn't visualize their impacting a 13,000 plus audience from a big stage, but decades spanned the chasm between our generations and I restrained from any derogatory comments about his favorite band. We said goodnight outside the NBC studio and I traveled south to Fort Greene on the D train. I made no eye contact with the other passengers. It was well past my bedtime, as I exited from the Lafayette stop. Frank's Lounge was packed with more young people. I hadn't had a beer in several hours and thought about stopping in my local, until Chris rock's line about old man in the club resonated in my skull." "He ain't really old, just a little too old." I agree, but the bouncers shouted out my name. I waved that I was done for the night. Henry and three of his girls crossed Fulham. His skinny girl winked at me. Henry must have told her that I have money. I nodded, "Thanks, but no thanks." I should have been safe, but LA exited from another bar. The Lakers fan wasn't accepting my refusal. "Fuck Chris Rock. You're having a drink on me." LA and I are basketball watching comrades. Lakers versus Celtics. Every other team in the NBA doesn't matter to us. Gold/Purple and Green/Black are our colors of Spring. "If you insist." I retraced my steps to the door of Frank's Lounge. The doorman and I exchanged a four-step handshake and then raised our fist in the Black Panther salute. Sandy the bartender poured a Stella as soon as she saw me. The Trinidadian is good to her regulars. LA and I spoke about the weaknesses of the Miami Heat and Duke's loss to NC that afternoon. LA had to take care of some business and I dropped $10 on the bar to pay for LA's next cognac. The brownstone on South oxford was dark from basement to the top floor. Everyone was asleep inside. I crept up the stairs with my shoes in hand. It was a bit before 1:30am. I was out cold within a minute of laying my head on the pillows. Rain splashed against my window. I checked my watch. 7:30am. My usual hour to get out of bed during the work week. Today was Sunday, a day of rest, and I shut my eyes in hopes of making it to noon. I came close. 11:16am. I read a little of Edward Eutherford's NEW YORK. The segmented series of interconnected stories about the city has a wonderful way of dismissing any urge for action and the book fell on my chest for a good half-hour. Waking once more I looked at my phone. No calls. I could hear my landlord/friend/architect's two kids on the 3rd floor. They were having fun with each other. The rain had been replaced by a drizzle. I opened the windows of my bedroom, despite recent reports of New York's horrid air quality. At 58 I don't have many fears about the impending doom of Earth. After a good ten minutes in the bathroom I was ready for the rest of the day. It had been over 10 hours since my last spoken word. If I didn't leave my top-floor apartment, I could spend the entire day without speaking and I emailed Ms. Carolina, my love of the 90s, that I would be incommunicado for the next 24 hours. She of anyone would understand my need for quiet. "Sometimes I think you're dead when you're reading," she said one Sunday back in the last century. "You barely breathe." The blonde heiress accepted my shrug as an answer. We had one week a month together. No one got more from me. She deserved more, but I could only give what I had to give. I had explained to her about the 'vow of silence' and was surprised when she retorted that the Trappist monks never really had a 'vow of silence'. "St. Benedict, their founder, had three tenets; stability, fidelity to monastic life, and obedience. Benedict preferred the monks to exist in silence, because speech was disruptive to contemplation." Ms. Carolina had been educated by the nuns. She was as good as a nun. Only wicked with the lights out. "He's got that right." I like my Irish mother have the gift of gab, although dampened by my father's taste for quietude. He held his piece for years faced with the blitzkrieg of my mother's monologues. "I've been to the Trappists monasteries in Belgium. They made good beer. Actually not good, but excellent. "I ever tell you how my 'vow of silence started?" "No." Ms. Carolina was a repository of my vocal history. She had heard many on our road trips through Guatamala, Peru, and the Far West. Listening was one of her better traits. "Back in 1979 the phone in my 10th Street apartment was shut off." "Non-payment." "Yes." I had racked up a $700 bill tracking down the whereabouts of my blonde model from Buffalo. Paris, London, Milano, Hamburg, and points in between. I finally contacted her in Madrid. She told me that she was going out with a dealer in Russian icons. I wouldn't meet him until Vadim helped finance our after-hours club, The Continental in 1981. My broken heart remained broken all that time. "My service was cut for years. I never could get together the money to pay the bill. The phone gathered dust under the sofa. One Sunday I was watching a BONANZA re-run and a telephone rang. I thought to myself, "That's funny, I didn't think they had phones on the Ponderosa." "And they didn't." Ms. Carolina laughed at the image. She was my best audience. "No, it was my phone. It rang for a minute and then stopped. I picked up the phone. There was a dial tone. I tried a number." My parents. I hadn't spoke to them in ages. "It worked and not only that I could call anywhere in the world." "Strange." "Even stranger was that the phone would ring the same time every Sunday." "During BONANZA." "Correct." I liked the chemistry between Little Joe and Hoss. "Did you ever pick it up to find out who was calling?" "No." I was scared it wasn't the blonde model from Buffalo. "The phone stayed in service for two month, then went dead again. After that I never spoke on Sundays. At least until I met you." "You're still quiet on Sundays." "I try my best." I led her by the hand into my bedroom. There was no need for words in the darkness. Our bodies did the speaking and this Sunday I've yet to say a word to a living human being. It's 1:36. No Sundays last forever.