Once upon a time…

15 minutes of fame – second time around

The laughter of the crowd was nerve-wracking, and I was totally flustered by the rapidity of the questions and the even quicker response of the other contestants. Frankly, I didn’t have a clue what I was doing, but somehow managed to gain one or two points. The bright lights were hot, and I was rather self-conscious when I tried to answer some of the basic questions. I cannot recall much of the day we shot the three episodes of the game show (yes, they were all shot in one long day). For me to write in detail I would have to go back to the VHS copy that I recorded. I had a sneak peek at it last week to confirm if I remembered some minor details correctly, but that is frankly the only review I want to do of the program – no, you won’t find the actual episodes online, it was too long ago – but if you want to see the show, well, I told you a few entries ago what it might cost you to get me to offer you a glimpse – hint, it’s produced in abundance in South America, comes from a funny looking pod, and the Belgian’s have made a name for themselves with the product…..

I said I made a fool of myself – the video clip here should give you a pretty good idea…

Although it was a long day, we did manage to get through it all, and surprisingly, I ended up as one of the finalists on the program, so my teachers must have done something right those three years earlier when they taught me the basics of the Thai language, because it was on their foundation that I managed to add more building blocks that allowed me to work my way through words such as ‘elephant’ and ‘mechanic’ and actually mime them properly for my co-contestant to guess. Finishing in second place behind the American who had been here for a decade or more was satisfactory, and I walked away that day with the equivalent of nearly 10 months of my salary in prizes, not a bad haul, and the stand-up electric fan came in handy when I actually moved to a small apartment in Bangkok a few weeks later.

News clipping to promote the game show

History repeats itself

My contract at the cooperative had come to an end, and I had still not had a definite job offer from the company in Chiang Mai; I was told I would have to wait until the new year, although the offer was 95% certain. Hence my move into Bangkok, and the thought of staying around to find some short-term employment, or otherwise hang around and relax for a few months. I thought that my allotted 15 minutes of fame had come and passed, and I put all thoughts of any further activity in the entertainment industry out of my mind; it was a fluke, a one-off event, something not to get hung up on. Instead, it would be better if I were to focus on more logical areas of employment.

Then another phone call came, (there were no cell phones yet – it was the dark ages – and phone calls were still a big thing) this time not from a friend of a friend of a friend, but from a production company that had managed to unearth my number by calling the producers of the game show. The show had been on air only two weeks previous, and I had just settled in in Bangkok. “Mr. Ken” began the conversation, “I am calling you from a company called Kantana. We produce television drama series, and have a part in one of our series that we hope you will consider taking?” They were taking a chance – what if I said no? Heck, me say no? I held a whispered consultation with a friend that lasted all of about 3 seconds – I had to make this look good and not seem too eager, as that would definitely impact my asking price (I was already learning the tricks of the trade and hadn’t even set one foot let alone a single toe on a set anywhere…). I cleared my throat, made a sound as though this was going to be impinge on my free time, and agreed that I would consider it. There was a momentary silence, and then the rest of the tale came out: the character they had in mind was a mad Australian scientist who had been forced to leave Australia because he had become too focused on creating a machine that would make people invisible. Settled in Thailand, the scientist gets caught up in a family feud and ends up helping the female lead regain her rightful inheritance and free her mother from a dungeon.

I had never played a mad scientist before.

Another opportunity

Never refuse an opportunity

The role sounded interesting, but it was the next sentence that really caught my attention: “We offer x,xxx Baht per episode, and you will be in all 22 episodes.” I did the arithmetic; that amounted to more than double my annual salary, and I was likely to earn this grand sum within a period of about 6 months – not bad! I took another deep breath, made it sound as though I was really having to think about this very hard, and gave a very quiet and dignified yes to the repeated question, “would I like to take on this role?” I hung up the phone and took what was probably the first breath since the beginning of the telephone call. I was still not sure what had just happened, or what I had gotten myself into, but I did realize that this was about to become another excellent adventure.