A Triptych to Youth
I started reading Haruki Murakami’s 1Q84 at the beach in November. The beach, Mui Ne, Vietnam, is a strip of road wrapped around a cove, anchored at one end by an old fishing village. Travelling in the semicircle of the cove, one first goes through a passel of nouveau-riche Russian-owned vacation bungalows. Blondes and their bulky boyfriends mill in packs only to be separated by the call of spas, salons, and massage parlors’ Russian-language neon signage; the women go to those establishments with a more reputable look, while the men search for happier endings. Afterwards, the wives and girlfriends, now with blindingly colorful finger and toenails, buy cheap swimwear and cheap straw hats so that the men, mute and docile with release, may not sunburn their tender Slavic noses.
The novel — I put it down after Book 1 and have yet to pick it back up — carries on Murakami’s interest in jazzbos, lady assassins, and little monsters. This preoccupation seemed to fit well with the environment of the Novela Mui Ne lounge where I spent some pages and a couple/few stiff G & Ts deftly entertained by the strains of George Michael’s “Careless Whisper” as played by the Essence Band, two Filipina women of uncommon talent and beauty.
The Power Station epitomizes the term “supergroup.” Sparked in 1984, when a temporary break in Duran Duran’s touring schedule became an extended hiatus, the group brought together John Taylor and Andy Taylor (no relation) of that seminal eighties pop band along with the accomplished, and dapper, vocalist Robert Palmer. Filling out the line-up on skins was Tony Thompson of Chic. The Power Station is best known for the high-voltage single “Some Like it Hot,” along with a rendition of the T. Rex classic “Get it On (Bang a Gong),” which in many senses usurps the power of the original, no pun intended. Audiences remember Power Station from their role in the critically acclaimed soundtrack to the immensely popular film Commando, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. Their electric contribution, “We Fight for Love,” follows the theme of the film in its moving tribute to the unbreakable current between parent and child. The jolting refrain “We fight for love!” only matched in shocking urgency by the first verse, “I am a mountain, surrounded by your love / You are a mountain that dreams are made of.” If that were The Power Station’s only contributed wattage to the canon of late-twentieth century music, their blinding light would still not be dimmed.
Next to the Resurrection Palace in downtown Saigon is a biergarten decorated in the traditional German style. The waitresses are dressed as milkmaids. A father and son troupe provide entertainment, playing Eric Burdon’s “House of the Rising Son” over and over again on their guitars. A balding Japanese man in his late fifties sits with a stunning Vietnamese prostitute and lazily watches the performance. Despite the late hour he is wearing dark Ray Ban sunglasses. He has a Bluetooth device in his ear and a leather satchel slung around his chest. His watch is Tag Heuer. His shoes are loafers, Yves Saint Laurent. He and his woman are drinking margaritas.
The pony-tailed Vietnamese troubadour sings: “Mudder, terr yer chidren, not ter do wat I herv dun… Pain an misry, in der hourse of the riding sun.”
Empty margarita glasses collect on the table and the man is increasingly drunk, slumped into his chair. The lady-of-the-night sits straight-backed watching the musicians, waiting for the turn from her client. Will it be violence or generosity? The man stands unsteadily, bracing two hands on the table and knocks off one of the glasses which shatters on the floor sending milkmaids in increasingly wild oscillations. His mouth opens and shuts like a thirsty fish; a trickle of drool reaches the collar of the Armani suit jacket he wears over a powder blue V-neck T-shirt. “Carl Perkins!” he shouts into the collected silence of the awestruck patrons and the sweeping sounds of milkmaids. The band changes midtune to “Blue Suede Shoes.”
This piece started on the blog of the now defunct Rattling Wall, was in-part repurposed for a story in the now defunct Mount Island, made its way recently over to the soon-to-be defunct Fight Prose, and finally here.
