Where else but at Nikky Bar would a Naklua Thailand little Germany birthday would I introduce Richard Wagners Gotterdammerung classical music?
The reason I’m calling this Naklua Thailand little Germany birthday party is twofold. First Naklua has many German residents. And there are a lot of German restaurants here. So, it is no surprise that NIkky Bar has a large percentage of German customers. The second reason is this particular German group of guys attending their pal’s birthday party went overboard to dramatize their Germanness.
Which I found to be hugely entertaining. For example, one of the men, had the karaoke group play a popular German heavy metal song while he played the part of being a head vocalist. The German singer. Axel, is a big guy. His voice was guttural to the extreme. I don’t think his normal voice is, but Axel, was playing his role to the hilt. While the music kept reminding me of German marching songs out of World War II. Or something that might have been played during the Nuremburg rallies.
My mind kept going back to all the books I’ve read and movies I saw of Goebbels and Herman Goering, and even of Hitler himself loudly shouting Nazi propaganda to all their supporters.
The longer I listened the more I was drawn into almost believing that Naklua Thailand little Germany had become the Third Reich.
While Axel took on the personality and appearance of Herman Goering.
And as I looked around me I saw several German men singing along with Axel. One of them appearing to have tears in his eyes. Then I noticed Koyo and Nee Nee dancing to the music. Not Thai music but deeply resonating German sounds that emphasized the guttural tones of the German language. Nee Nee and Koy were dancing like two hyperkinetic animated figures that were totally clueless about what Axel’s intentions were or what was going through my head. The German men and the two Thai women making me think of all the true believers prior to and during World War II. believers
I thought Axel was terrific. Hamming all this Teutonic music as he purposely changed his voice into what so many German SS officers must have sounded like while shouting out orders.
It was all so funny watching all these Germans hamming it up. But when three or four of them started to sing Pattaya’s signature song. Pattaya Pattaya Pattaya in German, I decided to have the last joke on them.
Ever watch Excaliber, perhaps the best movie about King
Arthur that had ever been produced? The same music is played throughout the movie. Passages from Siegfried’s funeral are played thoughout the movie. The passages are straight out of Richard Wagner’s opera “Goetterdaemmerung“. As the great tragedy of Arthur and Camelot unfolds that same Wagnerian theme is played and over.
In the end Camelot and all the good it stood for is destroyed. King Arthus is killed in battle, and all is lost. But all of that is old English legend and folklore. But Hitler and many of his minions identified so much with Richard Wagner’s classical music that Goetterdaemmerung, which means twilight of the Gods, became an ever-recurrent part of their thought processes.
It was a great party, and those particular Germans did a lot to make it unforgettable. But I must have the final say to all that Teutonic Ness, they brought in to liven the party up. By interjecting a few bits and pieces of Siegfried’s funeral I’m throwing in my own contribution of Germanness to the videos I shot of the party.