Tag: hardcore

The Chiang Rai Alternative Hour #23 – 1st February 2020

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Music from 65daysofstatic, Stormy Six, The Controllers, Kerosene 454, Jawbreaker, Die! Die! Die!, Death, Minutemen, Beefeater, Red Cross, Necros, Hanadensha, Versus, Au Pairs, The Paper Chase, Blast, Soul Inc.

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful to see my friend Fern again.

Take a good hard look at people’s ruling principle, especially of the wise, what they run away from, and what they seek out.

Marcus Aurelius

Weight: 80.3kg
Resting heart rate: 44

To-do list

  • Record TCRAH/upload. ½
  • Put together card for Kru Noon.
  • Do more drawing practice.
  • Do the Coursera meditation. ✅
  • Enjoy evening with Amy, Aing and Gus.

Well, looking at these five challenges it seems like I didn’t do much yesterday!

I did spend a bit more time reading as I was diving into the book about a girl’s abduction and trying to imagine myself in her position. I wanted to try to write down being there and all the thoughts going through my mind.

Later, I compared it with being a prisoner within your own mind – a place we can never escape.

I sorted out more CDs and feel that that task is getting closer to completion.

By the evening and time to go out, I was feeling very relaxed and happy.

As we were driving to the evening festival Amy got upset because I didn’t drive the way, the direction, she wanted. Her anger got more and more and I felt very embarrassed in front of Aing, Gus and Nu. There was no real need for it and I tried to brush it off as best I could.

Unfortunately, I was only able to do this for a short time until I felt sadness and anger too. I had to go and sit by myself for 5 minutes and calm my mind. I felt better when I returned but by then I was exhausted. Amy had a few beers and was happy though I was worried that she would drink too much and start getting violent with me again.

Things were ok though Amy was getting louder and I just felt like I wanted to be somewhere quiet. The noise of the festival was relentless, from every direction and incoherent. It gave me a headache. I tried to constantly talk myself in a positive headspace but it just got worse as Amy loudly tried to put me down in front of the others again. I couldn’t/didn’t want to have an argument in front of others and Amy knew this and used it to her advantage.

We got home and things had calmed down until Amy came and started on me again. I was tired and cranky by this point and bit back and we went to sleep unhappy with each other. I feel like there is something else behind this behaviour, not just a desire to try and control me.

I’d like to talk with Amy about this but will have to find the right time and try not to just get into another argument.

Something else that has been bothering me is Amy always talking about how all the money is with her and everything is in her name. At first, it was just a bit of fun but I’m not amused anymore. It feels like a fascist hold over me. I’m ok for her to take care of all that stuff but I don’t need reminding of it every week.

Again, I think Amy is not happy these days and doing these actions to compensate. I’d just like to see her happy and positive again – preferably without alcohol.

The Chiang Rai Alternative Hour #21 – 18th January 2020

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Music from Motelli Skronkle, The Chords, Dot.Organ, DMBQ, Isocracy, i.e. crazy, Capillary Action, Ruins, Bukkake Moms, Killing Joke, Butthole Surfers, Sex Pistols, Debt of Nature, The Poles, 17 Pygmies and Sebadoh.

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful for Art and Utopia. Nice coffee and nice people and easy to get to. Lifesaver for a hangover!

To return to the books one lived in one’s youth is to risk disappointment – in both the books and in oneself when young.

Joseph Epstein

To-do list

  • Upload TCRAH ✅
  • Finish writing to Chrissie
  • Go for a ride around the hills again ✅
  • Go to the gym
  • Sort out more in the office ✅

I ran out of energy today. After teaching, which was very enjoyable today, it was about 5.3o pm and I spent a few minutes watching TV and energy just zapped out of me. Oh well, despite my best intentions, going to the gym the day after drinking probably wasn’t the best idea.

Today, Amy was upset by some pictures on an English poster we had bought – they showed ‘cute’ as a white girl and ‘ugly’ as a black person. Pretty fucked up and Amy said that she would complain to the makers.

In the afternoon I shared the picture with the TLC LINE group with the question ‘What is this teaching Thai children?’ I was quite surprised at the acceptance from Mike and Ben (himself black). I think it’s a fairly serious issue but felt like they were countering it because they were either used to it or it never affected them.

I feel proud of myself and Amy because we are prepared to stand up for what we believe to be right and fair. Amy even did it last night with the car park attendant as he called me ‘it’, which I was obviously oblivious to. Then Nancy cut the conversation short by talking about loving everyone and Malcolm piping up with emoji support.

I found the whole conversation very thought-provoking. Mike called me a ‘troublemaker’. I don’t know? Is facing issues causing trouble? I didn’t think I really had to defend my position – the consequences of letting things slide are obvious and some are prepared to leave thinking and doing to others and live the easy life.

It was interesting that Mike and Ben are French and I wonder how this affects their thinking? What an interesting day!

Should I not raise these things as discussion – live the easy life myself? I feel like that is what I want but something in me sees the injustices in the world and that I should say something even if nothing can be changed quickly.

Well, what will tomorrow bring?

The Chiang Rai Alternative Hour #19 – 4th January 2020

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 1 Comment

Music from R. Stevie Moore, Alamaailman Vasarat, Kustomized, Sun City Girls, The Monkees, Flesh Narc, Beastie Boys, Cheer-Accident, Milk Burp, Different I’s, Logic Circuit, The Skatallites, Rebel Truth, GIRTH, Mahavita, Toy Dolls, The Woolies, Angelic Upstarts, Lost Nation and Bleach.

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful for our visitors who fill our home with action and variation. It’s nice to be able to share our experiences with other people.

From commonplace book

I’m much more interested in being a hero than a professional.

Billy Childish

To-do list

  • Get out of your own head and talk to people ½
  • Compliment people ½
  • Do something nice for someone
  • Upload TCRAH ✅
  • Write to Kieran and Chrissie ✅
  • Write blog about making friends

A busy and productive day – time ran away too quickly.

Mam and her family enjoyed breakfast and within an hour we had students.

I feel more confident today and have mostly pushed the negative from yesterday out of my mind. This was helped a lot by getting down my thoughts when writing to Kieran and Chrissie.

I was happy to receive a reply from Jochen. Well-considered and thoughtful ideas to my questions particularly about children. I look forward to composing a reply. He has also agreed to do some recorded responses for the podcast which provides me with the challenge to prepare and execute that.

I didn’t manage to do all the things on my list today, perhaps overreaching. I need to take into account that recording a new podcast can take up to three hours.

My self-control was only minimally tested today when Amy wanted to go to a local shop to buy some clothes for the funeral tomorrow. I was fine with this, to be honest – it was necessary. I do feel a little that I am sick at the moment though but mostly just dizziness and not affecting my mood.

We have a 5 am wake-up tomorrow and I hope I can get some extra sleep on the drive to Chiang Mai. I’m somewhat prepared with things to listen to on my phone and things to read. I don’t anticipate any other free time tomorrow.

Something I could have done better with today would have been to help Amy more with things around the house. I’m very lucky that she cooks and cleans for me all the time. It gives me lots of free time and I often feel somewhat selfish for that.

The Chiang Rai Alternative Hour #17 – 21st December 2019

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Music from Captain Beefheart, MIA, Danielson, Screaming Maldini, The Crowd, Lovely Little Girls, Bruno Nicholai, GISM, Sajjanu, Mason, Don Cabellero, Caroliner, Thingy, Thinking Fellers Union Local 282, Family Fodder, Teenage PHDs, The Girls, Soul Junk, Naked Raygun, Discharge.

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful to have developed my friendly personality. I never used to be like this but have practiced hard and now have the self-confidence to talk to people openly.

To-do list

  • Talk to a stranger.
  • Compliment as many people as you can (sincerely).
  • Record new TCRAH.
  • Upload latest TCRAH.
  • Read 3 chapters.
  • Study some more Thai.
  • Sort some more CDs.

Did it list

  • Managed to do everything on my to do list today.
  • Talked with a stranger.
  • Complimented as many people as I could – Fern, Khawthang, Phuli, Sea, Prang, Amy.
  • Recorded new TCRAH.
  • Uploaded and shared latest TCRAH.
  • Read 4 chapters of Anna Karenina.
  • Studied a little more Thai.
  • Sorted CDs and music files.
  • Helped Amy prepare for tomorrow.
  • Got up before 8am.
  • Started looking at old writing etc.

I didn’t think I’d completed my to do list today but realised I did talk to a stranger, JaJa. She was sitting with her cat outside the copy shop. 
I complimented a few people today but realise I could compliment even more. It was good that it was in my mind though. 
Recording TCRAH felt a little rushed today because we are quite busy with other things – this meant that I didn’t get to experiment as much as I would’ve liked. 
Studying Thai at my own pace seems to suit me a little – if I can form that habit continually it will make me feel good.

The dearth of new ideas makes us wallow in our shame (The Chiang Rai Alternative Hour #16) – 14th December 2019

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 1 Comment

I’ve been considering what content I can put here as some of my personal thoughts and feelings about this particular place I am now living (and enjoying) could cause me trouble. It’s funny how Thailand is known as the Land of Smiles but often times it feels like the Land of Fake Smiles. Having a couple of years experience here now, I understand these reasons but cannot fully support a positive attitude towards it. This is the balance I am trying to find in my world.

Perhaps that balance has always been there even in the other places I have lived but I haven’t noticed it so much and oftentimes found myself in difficult or at least odd situations. I don’t ‘play the game’ very well still but I’m getting there. If this sounds like generalised waffle, I apologise. I will try to make an orderly composition of my thoughts at some point.

Out of one of the most difficult times I’ve had in Thailand I found myself keen to focus some energy into something personally (and somewhat selfishly) fulfilling. In what little downtime I had when I was pushing myself too hard preparing lessons for my grade 5 English class I would throw my iTunes playlist on shuffle and found myself quite enthralled at the collection of digital music I collected.

The randomness reminded me of those late school nights furtively listening to John Peel’s radio show under the covers, falling asleep as I lay hoping to hear the latest and greatest punk tunes in amongst all the other genres being pioneered. This exposure to many different styles of music laid the groundwork for events many years in the future when I was organising shows for bands in Sydney and subconsciously decided on mix billed being the best way for people to hear new music. Never a way to a successful financial business model, it kept my brain satisfied and able to calmly appreciate music I didn’t particularly enjoy, anticipating music that I would.

So it was that iTunes on shuffle kept popping up a classic tune (classic to me), a dodgy old punk demo, an experimental noise soundscape and a 60s garage rocker, with many things in between. Nothing really modern mainstream though. It’s amazing some of the music from my youth was considered mainstream back then. It shits all over what is mainstream now.

Anyway, digging this vibe I even ended up downloading a bunch of reggae and African music that Peel always used to play – just to try and get that reminiscence in full force. Things I may not listen to as a full recording of suddenly make a lot of sense squished in between things I was more familiar with. I ended up down many paths of discovery of experimental music from around the world – as opposed to ‘world music.’

With need of some distraction, I decided to put together a ‘radio’ show and upload the result to the Mixcloud platform. I mostly take the tracks as they were shuffled through iTunes and do a bit of back announcing. I also decided to play around a little with some of the songs and introduce some moments where I could read a paragraph or two from books from my shelves.

To give this odd mix a little focus I decided to target my audience to the university students at the local uni which is less than a kilometre away from where I am. I roped in a few of my student friends from there and also from my favourite local coffee shop, to do a bit of speaking and to have their pictures taken. So was born The Chiang Rai Alternative Hour and the push for musical world domination.

The tenzenmen music library
Gus, Mink, Nu and Aing – in the music library.

Understanding that my tastes are almost niche beyond niche I would not expect a huge audience for what I’m doing but really that is not the purpose. I do it for myself. I really enjoy putting it together and messing around with things, trying to come up with some new ideas for presentation. I’m contemplating how to do this mix in a live setting and finding a place to do it but I don’t have much time to practice that part as well as not having a completely reliable equipment setup. A new laptop is a little out of reach at the moment.

So, if you’ve read this far you may be curious to hear what these shows sound like? Or scared to find out. Either way, it seems like this is a good vehicle to post links to each show and also force me to write at least once a week as new episodes appear.

“Remember life on earth is but a flash of dawn
And we’re all part of it as the day rolls on”

Music from Ween, Magic Mushroom Band, No Babies, The Ebonettes, goat, Andy Partridge, Acanthus, Banned, Hebosagil, The Yellow Payges, Bad Brains, Daniel Striped Tiger, Martin Archer, Teenage Depression, Mudhoney and Donovan.

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful that I could do so many things yesterday and keep going even though I was so tired by the end of the evening. I kept a good attitude and wasn’t so anxious about things that I wanted to do compared with some things that I had to do.

Did it list

  • Encouraged Fern to learn to make my coffee at Utopia.
  • Got my haircut.
  • Uploaded TCRAH podcast.
  • Recorded new TCRAH podcast.
  • Prepared and executed a quick fun game for my two students today.
  • Got through a little of the never-ending sorting of music, on computer and CDs.
  • Wrote another blog post and enjoyed the process of writing.
  • Got passport photocopies done.
  • Rosie offered to do quick drawings and send them out as postcards. What an awesome idea so I asked her to do Jochen, Lachlan and Kyaw Kyaw.
  • Finished reading Lonely Boy

Every everything (The Chiang Rai Alternative Hour #15) – 7th December 2019

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

It’s taken me more than a year and a half to recover!

When I returned from the CELTA training course I found my brain had changed.  I seem to flip between data driven thinking and artistic thinking and often cannot find a good balance.  The training was very linear and intensive (as it should be) and on reflection now, some 18 months later, was easier to complete than I imagined beforehand and during.  The pressure to achieve was very high but that pressure mostly came from within.  Now, I realise that I can turn my hand to anything if I wish to.

Of course, the circumstances since the training have mostly helped me arrive at this conclusion.  First I started doing some free teaching with students from the local university.  This gave me a little self confidence though I was often shocked at the students poor language levels, in the language they are studying for their degrees, whatever the subject.  I can suggest to myself that I could probably easily complete a degree at the university here purely based on the fact I can use the language fully.  Anyway, that’s by the by for now as I’m not really considering that as an option at the moment.

After a few months kicking around and enjoying much free time I ended up working with Grade 5 students at a nearby provincial school.  I have a million stories from there, many which I would like to forget.  I soon discovered the crazy dysfunction in the education system here.  If it’s obvious to me, an unqualified teacher starting their first job then the system must be pretty poor.

I don’t intend to tarnish the education system as a whole as that would be unfair.  The circumstances I was in influenced a lot of my impressions and I try to understand that what I saw was not indicative of other places.  It was, however, the belief of many others teaching here that things are not much better elsewhere in the country.  There are a million reasons for this and books could be filled trying to explain.  The main down side for me was that I felt that I was unable to do a good job and provide useful learning for the students a lot of the time.  I hate doing a bad job – especially when eventually someone else is going to suffer for it.  So that was the other down side – watching willing students deal with the inadequacies of the system which lead to inconsistency in almost everything.  Frustrating beyond belief.

Beyond that though I have found myself with a passion and love for the students that has made me incredibly happy.  It’s a job that I really love to invest my time in and to go to work to do it.  I’ll talk more about this in future.

Just a short one this time as I push myself to get back into this.

“Every heartbeat, every movement, every moment, every sigh.”

Gratitude Journal

I am so grateful and happy to go to school on Friday, which was hard as I had been sick this week and had a bad experience on Monday. The kids also drove me crazy and made me quite angry but I survived and talked to Kru Noon about strategies to get them to listen more. I will take her advice and try this next week!

The Chiang Rai Alternative Hour #15

Music from Hamster Theatre, Super Thief, Infidel-Castro!, Arm, Kultur Shock, Captain Beefheart, Fugazi, Bogshed, Brainiac, Neon Rose, By The End of Tonight, Rafter, Huggy Bear, Jimmy Two Hands, Zu/Mats Gustafsson, Secret Hate and The Ex.

The Chiang Rai Alternative Hour #14 – 30th November 2019

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Music from Effigies, Cardiacs, mr sterile Assembly, Charlottefield, Goblin, Charming Hostess, Palberta, Lungfish, Yugen, Subway Sect, Helta Skelta, Hatfield and the North, Churn Milk Joan, Radio Delhi, Midori, Positively 13 O’Clock, Boy Wonder, Blood Brothers and Human Expression.

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful to the staff at the hospital this morning who took care of Amy after she fell over and hit her head. Nothing serious thankfully.

The Chiang Rai Alternative Hour #12 – 16th November 2019

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Music from Ibrahim Maalouf, Pm 7_Jupiter, Vialka, Doctor Coffee, The Fugs, The Fall, Pavement, The Dickies, Turnpike, France Gall, WannFunTastiKlons, uSSSy, Birthday Party, Ween, The Who and And So I Watch You From Afar.

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful that I have learned not to be afraid to stand up for what I believe in and also accept those consequences even if they are not in my favour. Others may do things differently and that’s their choice.

11th Apr 2021 – You’ll have to keep reading to find out more about those consequences – the period between September 2019 and March 2020 was very trying indeed! The last sentence mention of ‘others’ is just about the advice given by other teachers to me and how some considered that it is impossible for a farang to change and improve things within any Thai system. I fought against it and arguably, I lost – at least at the time. Longer term though I consider the minor changes I did create were worth the effort. Being a teacher is not about taking it easy for me, it’s a responsibility. I see others putting up and shutting up, but to me, that is just lazy. Never give up.

The Chiang Rai Alternative Hour #11 – 9th November 2019

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Music from The Misunderstood, Angelic Upstarts, Passage, Surveillance, 13th Floor Elevators, Lozenge, Vaz, Hard-Ons, The Damned, Queen, Captain Beefheart, Melt Banana, Crass, Hitler SS, Meat Puppets, I Am Above and on the Left, Thee Headcoats, Party Diktator, Supertramp.

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful to be living in this part of the world. There are many times in a week when I marvel at the views of the rice fields and the mountains. Their depth changes depending on the weather conditions and time of day. There are good and bad points about every place to live but I certainly feel grateful for my time living here.

Lái – Demo – 4th July 2019

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Cat #: 200TZM

Lái play Swedish influenced fast paced raging d-beat punk that propels the ferocious vocals right into the face of the listener. Vocalist Alda’s lyrics engage with voices that explore politics, religion, feminism and queer rights in South East Asia and the diaspora. Vocals are deliveried in both Bahasa Indonesian and English and the band name is taken from the Chinese Mandarin phrase meaning ‘to come/next.’ Lái invoke these diasporic identities and themes through punk, mixing ideas and personal experiences that often inter-connect but also continue to conflict in the world around us.

For fans of Totalitar & G.L.O.S.S., featuring members of Pisschrist, Extinct Exist, Masses, Ubik & Occult Blood. First released as a limited run of 100 cassettes in August 17th 2018 on Lost in Fog Records.