With its climate and cheap prices Pattaya is livable, despite missing several vital ingredients for a sophisticated life. The most glaring omission is music, mostly since so many of my years have been dedicated to the appreciation of music; rock, jazz, folk, ethnic, classical, country, blues et al. Here you only get techno in the go-gos, vintage dinosaur rock in the bars, and Thai pop in the local bars. No punk, no Coltrane, and certainly no opera.

Not that I really miss the fat ladies singing, but I was lucky enough to have acquired a small warm spot in my heart for the most high-falooting music of all.

Wasn’t always that way and Luca Pavarotti has a part in my conversion.

Throughout my youth if you said opera, then I’d head in the opposite direction. Girlfriends tried to break through my savage resistance. I said no. No. NO. Until working at the Cafe De Paris in London. I was staying with my friend, Barry, outside Russell Square. Right next to the British Museum.

We both liked drugs and our connection worked in Covent Garden. The opera house. We would go to the stage door and wander to the upper loges. Our connection worked as a dresser. During THE BARBER DE SEVILLE we would score. Neither of us were in a hurry to go. It was so decadent. We waited at least five minutes before fleeing the premises like narcs were on our trail.

When I returned to the States my Aunt Jane told me she had season tickets to the Rangers. I didn’t really care, because I’m a Bruins fan. Not care, until they played against my team and then I pleaded with her, “Take me, take me, take me.”

“Only on one condition.” Aunt Jane was from Maine. Cumberland County. The last place God created on earth. She did nothing for free and bargained hard to get her way. ”One hockey game. One opera.”

“Opera?” Fat people singing forever.

“Bruins-Rangers. Madison Square Garden. Pavarotti at Lincoln Center. It won’t be so bad.”

“Which comes first?”

“The opera.” She was too smart to play it the other way around. “And I want you to wear a jacket and tie. I’ll pay the taxi. You have ten seconds.”

“I’ll go.” I loved the Bruins that much.

I picked up Aunt Jane on East 11th Street and Avenue D. I was wearing a suit from Jaeger. Dark-blue pinstriped. Aunt Jane was in a flowing gown and a battered mink, which her husband called ‘dog’. The dealers on the street said and did nothing. Aunt Jane’s husband had taught them better. Uncle Carmine had laws unwritten by courts.

The taxi took us far uptown. The crowd before Lincoln Center was excited like it was a Who concert. Most was full of themselves. Noses raised to a snobby Two o’Clock. I searched the crowd for a pretty face. The women were wrinkled and Aunt Jane at 55 was the youngest in our section.

The seats were good and I made myself comfortable. Aunt Jane elbowed me with the power of a defenseman’s forecheck. “No, snorting or sighing. This is something special and I wanted it to be for you as much as me.”

I had never heard of Pavarotti, but when the curtain raised, the audience applauded wildly and shouted his name. I probably could remember the opera if it were for all the marijuana I smoked in my 20s. I do remember Pavarotti’s voice. Clear and strong and on the money. Aunt Jane was crying it was so beautiful. Me too. Almost everyone was, despite his acting being awful. Sort of like Eric Roberts in that Dorothy Stratton movie.

I didn’t look at my watch once and when the first act ended, Aunt Jane asked, “Now that wasn’t so bad, was it?”

“No, how more acts are there?” The first took about 40 minutes.

“Three, but each gets shorter.”

“Three.” Heaven would become purgatory somewhere in the second and hell during the third.

“Don’t worry, let’s get some champagne.”

“Champagne?” I would have preferred a vodka-tonic.

“Yes, you didn’t think I’d let you stay sober that long, did you?”

“You know what I like.” And the rest of the evening passed pleasantly with each intermission celebrated at the bar. Pavarotti received a standing ovation for about ten minutes. I shouted like he had scored a hat trick, so I was sad to see that the big fella had passed into history. Critics said his voice faded in those last years, but then they would say that, if only to immortalize his true glory.

At his last performance the audience gave a Standing O for 12 minutes.

Like Bobby Orr. Bruins #4.

“O Sole mio.” Will never make it in Pattaya and maybe it’s better that way same as hockey.

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