Mystery son makes amends, Kitti on mend, Aun pumping it

Ice enters the monkhood

Ice

Joe

The mystery son of deceased singer Thanut “Joe” Chimtoum, of the group Boyscout, has entered the monkhood to pay tribute to his father, who died of a heart attack early on Nov 11.

Chokchai “Ice” Uchchin, 27, turned up unexpectedly at Joe’s funeral on Saturday last week, shocking Joe’s father and bandmates, who didn’t know Joe had a family. 

Veteran performer Joe, aged 44, died after performing at a pub concert in the Wang Thong Lang district the night before.

Ice’s shock announcement he was Joe’s son set off a week of drama at the funeral, held at Wat Sai Mai in Bangkok, amid fears by Joe’s parents and fan club that the young man had turned up to gain publicity or lay a claim to his estate.

Joe’s father, Samrit Chimtoum, said he never knew Joe had a wife and son, and at first was reluctant to accept the young man.

Ice, right, and Joe's Dad at the funeral

“I hope he hasn’t turned up wanting money, because we don’t have any,” he said frankly.

Adding to the tensions, Ice failed to contact Mr Samrit to say he was coming, was slow to introduce himself as a relative, and turned up with a young man who live-streamed the event on Facebook which upset Joe’s bandmate and long-time friend, Winrawee  “Ta” Waisamer.

Ice’s mother, Nanthiya “Nam” Uchchin turned up hastily the next day from Prachuab Khiri Khan, where she raised Ice after she and Joe split up. Aware of negative media reaction to Ice’s clumsy arrival the day before, she promptly took her son to meet Mr Samrit and Joe’s mother, Thepee Tosin, 69, to introduce themselves.

Ice, Nam

“Joe and I split up 27 years ago, before he entered the entertainment industry. He was working as a bartender and we parted as friends,” she said.

“He was a responsible dad. If we wanted anything we could ask, but we were not poor, so we didn’t. We don’t want publicity; if we had wanted that we would gone public when he released his first album.”

Asked why Joe kept his son a secret, she said: “In terms of financial status and well-being, he probably wasn’t ready to admit to his parents that he had a son.

“Joe and Ice went out for meals together, but those who saw them together probably thought they were just friends.”

Speaking to reporters, Ice apologised for not contacting Joe’s father sooner. “His bandmates called me the night he collapsed to say Dad was in hospital. I tried to contact Dad’s family but couldn’t,” he said.

“I turned up as a son wanting to pay respects to his father, nothing more. I am sorry if the manner of my arrival upset people, but I am still young.”

Ice showed reporters a picture of him and his Dad when Ice was just four, after the family moved to Surat Thani. “Dad didn’t like having his picture taken, and this is the only one I have,” he said. He saw his dad most recently for a meal about a month ago.

A day later, amid intense media scrutiny, Ice and his grandfather announced they had now cleared the air. Mr Samrit said he was happy to welcome Nam and Ice into the family.

Ice, who entered the monkhood briefly on Thursday, the day of Joe’s cremation, said many people at the funeral wanted to see him take the saffron robes.

The young man, who has a bachelor’s degree in business administration and arrived in Bangkok to take up a job selling insurance two weeks ago, said he would now assume the duty of his father in helping look after Mr Samrit.

Joe’s bandmate Ta, who knew the singer since boyhood, said Joe was admitted to hospital in a coma on the night of his collapse, and died soon after. 

The hospital wanted to contact his kin, so he and his bandmates set about trying to find a relative. “Someone remembered Joe talking to his son on Facebook, and we tracked him down that way.”

Ta

He said he was unimpressed with Ice’s initial reaction to the news, with Ice saying he wasn’t free to attend the funeral until Saturday. “At first I told him his Dad was in a coma. After getting such a cool response, I just lost it and told him his dad was dead and to get over here to pay his respects,” he said.

He was also unhappy Ice turned up with a freelance broadcaster known as “God Dragon” who presents an internet TV show tracking down ghosts. ‘Who the hell are you to turn up doing a live broadcast at my friend’s funeral?’ he said in tears in the hours following Joe’s death.

Speaking as tempers cooled on day two of the funeral, God said both Joe and Ta were heroes of his, and he had meant no respect. He accompanied Ice to the funeral at his mother’s request, as he and Ice were long-term friends, and he knew no one else there.

 “I live-streamed it to introduce a younger generation of fans to Joe’s work,” he said.

By week’s end, he and Ta also had cleared the air.

Arising from the rubbish

Kitti

Veteran actor Kitti Klinkliang, found abandoned in his Nonthaburi home amid a pile of rubbish, is slowly reuniting with his family, who deny being indifferent to his plight.

Rescue worker and actor Ekapan “Tide” Bunluerit found Kitti, 67, at a two-storey home in the province’s Sai Noi district on Nov 5 amid piles of rotting garbage, unable to walk or look after himself.

Kitti, also known as Kitti Datsakorn, was living amid the squalor with his former wife, Sasiprapa “Kitty” Datsakorn, 28,  who initially claimed falsely she was a relative, and their two children.

Tide, head of volunteers for the Ruamkatanyu Foundation, turned up after hearing the actor needed help. He promptly cleaned the house of rubbish and sent Kitti, who has diabetes, to hospital.

His former wife Kitty, who had earlier appealed on the internet for donations to ease the actor’s plight, has since retreated to her family home in Hua Hin amid public claims she wrongly withdrew 80,000 baht in donations for her own ends.

Kitti’s elder brother and sister, meanwhile, last week went from the provinces to visit him in hospital in Nonthaburi where he is being treated. His elder brother Dam, also an actor, denied forsaking his brother. “I am busy performing the provinces every day and came as soon as I could,” he said.

In a news report earlier in the week, Kitti told Tide he had contacted Dam, who had initially refused to see him until he upgraded from a public ward to a private room. Asked about the comments as the family reunited at his bedside, Kitti said he spoke out of spite and was pleased to see his brother again.

Doing the business

Aun

Newscaster and presenter Puwanart “Aun” Kunpalin has been making hectic journeys across town to “do the business” with his wife every month as the two race to have a baby.

Aun, who married the owner of the Miss Tiffany show in Pattaya, Alisa “Ja” Phanthusak, in January, announced last week she was three months pregnant after a friend broke the news prematurely on the internet.

“We are having the baby by the scientific method [assisted reproductive technology], though while we are doing that we were also trying it the natural way,” he said.

Ja, 43, who had made detailed plans to start a family, harvested her eggs at age 39 and froze them. Her pregnancy is the result of doctors fertilising an egg with his sperm, though he said they failed in their first attempt, as Ja had not taken enough hormones.

“We lost our first attempt at the four-month mark, but the doctor said it was likely to fail as we were not ready. After that he gave us more hormones and we went at it again without a break,” he said.

“We tried both methods in tandem mainly to speed things up. When her eggs were ready, she would have to get hold of me in 15 minutes. If I was taping a show she’ll ask if we could put it on hold, and I would grab a motosai and rush over there.

“It was tiring. In a month, there are only a few hours when you can make it work,” he said, referring to the window every month when a woman ovulates.

Aum said they wanted no more than two children. If it was a boy, they would stop there. However, if the child Ja is carrying turns out to be a girl, as doctors suspect, they would try for one more.