Homely Planet
FUCK CARS
It's also a city teeming with cars - loads of 'em. The roads are rivers of steel and aluminum and rubber, belching exhaust and heat and creating moving walls of humans and machines.
Korea is a crowded country. It has one of the highest population densities in the world. It's a mountainous place with little flatland, so the locals are forced to build gargantuan apartment blocks - mini cities of beige concrete shoe boxes. They are literally stacked on top of each other. They basically live in square Habitrails (TM). Yet, despite this lack of space, Koreans are car-crazy. They all drive cars - big four door sedans at that. There are a smattering of compacts on the road, but they are definitely the exception rather than the rule. In fact, Koreans who drive Ticos and Matizes, the local economy brands, are regularly mocked by their countrymen. And don't get me started about the driving habits here. This is a culture that 40 years ago was riding donkeys.
Not only is there no room to drive cars, but there's also a dearth of space to park the fucking things. Take my aparment building. The whole seven story complex is built on stilts, allowing a modicum of parking space underneath, that gives the building an extra-rickety look. Let's just say I hope I'm not home in case a Szechwan-style earthquake hits.
The worst thing is trying to walk to my front door. I have to try to squeeze past the jam of parked vehicles - two deep and with only inches between them. The building owners are too cheap to allow a walking path through this sardine-can parking lot. That would undoubtably sacrifice valuable "parking space" for a non-paying and irrelevant pedestrian. And moving in was a real cuntball. We had to push all the furniture and objects high over are heads - like soldiers raising their rifles when crossing a stream - and precariously snake our way in. When I take my bicycle out for a ride I have to do the same - balancing it on my noggin like a Darfur refugee's bundle of fireword or dried buffalo dung.
Why do I hate cars? Because they, more than any other invention, are responsible for the greatest amount of douchebaggery perpetuated by the human race today.
CARS TURN EVEN THE NICEST OF US INTO ASSHOLES
There is something about driving a car that gives people a sense of entitlement and power. Perhaps it's the walled-in effect coupled with the power of the engine. A car is an absurd territorial domain, only one that moves. Every perceived slight from another driver is amplified. There is none more righteous than a person behind the wheel. I've ridden with so many mild-mannered people who transform into fascists when they drive. My Australian friend has a car here, and he's probably set the world record for yelling "wanker" in a twenty-minute period.
CARS POLLUTE THE ENVIRONMENT
I know it's an obvious one, but most of the nasty foul-tasting haze floating around any city is primarily the result of cars.
CARS CREATE NEGATIVE SPACE
Nowhere is this more true than in The States, where the proliferation of the automobile is responsible for suburban sprawl and malls and massive parking lots. They've created a culture where most people living outside of city centers have to get into a car to do anything outside of their homes. In a lot of communities, it is impossible to buy a carton of milk without a car.
I just went back to my old apartment here in Busan to pick up some mail, and two lots on the sidewalk that used to be little gardens are now parking lots. Abominations.
CARS MAKE US FAT BASTARDS
People bemoan the obesity epidemic in the US and rippling elsewhere. They blame McDonalds and the shitty diet. But cars are the real culprit. Or at least the supreme catylist.
CARS CAN KILL PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION
The city of Los Angeles once had a streetcars and a comprehensive subway system planned. The automotive industry paid off the politicians and now it's just cars and a nasty-ass bus system that takes hours to get around. There actually is a subway line, but it only has four or five stops and nonone takes it because it doesn't go anywhere.
CARS ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR MAKING THE WORST CULTURE ON EARTH THE RICHEST
And no, I'm not talking about the U.S. I'm talking about the stoneage reactionary Wahabi shitheads known as Saudi Arabia. Sensible Muslims can't even justify the extremes the Saudis go to to ban joy and normal human relations. At least they don't let women drive, which cuts down on their greenhouse emissions.
This idea that we can all, as individuals, own these giant metal contraptions and drive them at our will is pure folly. Can 1 billion Chinese own cars? Indians? I recently read that they've launched a 2,000 dollar car in India. Just what the world needs. Cars should be 200,000 thousand dollars each, minimum. Then only the rich could drive, which is unfair, as the rich should be burned out. But at least there would be less cars on the road.
The reality is that 90 percent of cars are driven by one person. Just look around on any given road in any developed country. But we are now too many and the room too few. It's pure folly.
I've owned several cars and I drive when I go home. I rented three cars during my recent trip to New Zealand. I realize that the system is set up in many places making a car a necessity for any sort of career or regular life, but the sand is falling and we can't continue like this for too much longer. Eventually corporate democracy will fail and the personal car will be mandated out by a visionary dictator.
I nominate myself.
IS E.T. CATHOLIC?
DISASTERS
I've instead perused the web reading articles and looking at photos of the disasters in Myanmar and China, and it's put me off my mood. Tens of thousands have just been killed rather randomly, and it makes my own rantings seem a little silly. Well, they're silly to begin with, but I'll wait a couple more days at least. My attention is elsewhere.
RUMBLE IN THE JUNGLE (or watch some lions get owned)
A nod to the amateur tourist video cameraman, who steadily captures all of the action.
IDAHO: EDUCATIONAL BASTION
When later asked for an explanation, he said that he put it into a garbage can because he "had no place else to keep it."
Ah, Idaho... where the teachers are dumber than the students.
BACK IN ACTION
Ah. I feel like Superman taking to the sky after the Kryptonite necklace has been removed...
Today is a beautiful morning, if you don't count the film of smog and dust lingering in the sky like pedophiles outside of a Hannah Montana concert. I'm drinking a cup of Batdorf and Bronson coffee (Olympia's best) and listening to a Woody Guthrie compilation (America's best). In a few minutes I go to meet the girlfriend for an overnight trip to Namhae, an island a couple of hours away from here, where we shall walk the seaside, eat raw fish, climb a small mountain, and hopefully breathe in some fresh-ish air.
And did I mention that it suddenly got HOT?
SNAPSHOTS OF THE GIG (photos courtesy of Will Jackson)
John
Me
Glen
Our Korean female fans.
Rockin'.
Shots from our upcoming "KISS" style solo albums.
Blood on my face.
Blood on the setlist.
The End.
F+ FAREWELL SHOW
It's guaranteed to be a fun and beer-saturated event, so come on down and rock with us and watch us stagger around while playing Ramones covers and maybe pee our pants.
The music starts around 11.
REDUNDANCY
So we were drinking away - not yet drunk enough to start abusing each other over the merits of fish farming or the viability of socialism in the 21st century - when in walks a group of women. One of the women in the said group was of the larger variety, or more accurately, massive. This girl was HUGE. Morbidly obese. When she lumbered up to the bar to order herself six free rum and cokes, I caught sight of her red and white jacket, which looked as if it was made from a dome tent. On the back was a giant red maple leaf, with the word "CANADA" emblazoned underneath.
Like we didn't know already.
ANNOYING THING ABOUT KOREA #887
Blocking.
It's happened to all of us. You're in a hurry. You're late to work or for an appointment. You grab your bag and lock your door, take the elevator down and head out of your building. You spill out into the hissing city, breathing in dust and bus diesel fumes. A river of cars chokes the road and you are almost run-down by a Kimbap Chungook deliver ajjoshi riding his scooter on the sidewalk. A grandmother sells lettuce on a cardboard box next to the payphones that nobody uses, and a wizened old man hocks a loogie out of a taxi window, splattering your work shoes with kimchee-flavored saliva.
You, however, are undeterred. You glance at your watch and pick up the pace, steaming ahead, only to find your way blocked by four high school girls plodding down the sidewalk at the pace of valium-popping tree sloths. You slam your feet on the pavement, hoping that the sound of someone approaching from behind will cause the uniformed girl-wall to give way, at least enough for you to squeeze by on the side. But no. They continue talking in machine-gun Korean and frantically tapping away at their cell phones, their speech and actions in absurd contrast with their painfully slow gait. They proceed glacially, oblivious to the fact that you are three inches behind them and can now feel their body heat.
You finally have enough and attempt a pass:
"Sillaehamnida...," you say, pushing around.
Two of the girls, catching sight of your protruding nose and round eyes, shriek in half fear and half amazement. The other two nearly swallow their tonges.
"Ung!"
As you leave them behind, a shrill chorus of "hellos," both playful and cruel, shadows you...
Sidewalk blocking is an everyday nut chafer here in The Special K. But nothing kills me more than Koreans on escalators. The escalators here clearly have a standing and passing lane marked, but as soon as almost any Korean gets on an escalator, every muscle in their body goes into stasis. I often leave the subway and charge up the escalator, only to be stymied by one obstinate and oblivious ajumma blocking my path.
Once, in Germany, I made the stoned mistake of standing in the escalator passing lane, and I was loudly castigated by a stern Bavarian woman for my oversight. The Germans have it right. They let you know when you fuck up.
But it's as if most Koreans are even aware that walking on an escalator is an option. Or maybe it's just a general aversion to stairs. I've seen students at my college wait three minutes to take and elevator two floors down. I'm talking about fifteen seconds worth of downhill walking. Tops.
And don't get me started about the pokey ass "exercising" ajummas who block the bike path down at the river bike and pedestrian paths. That's right. There's one path for people, and another for bikes, but I'll be fucked if the bike past isn't mobbed everynight with 47 year old ladies who seem to have singularly tuned out the frequency of a bike horn telling them to move their visor-wearing asses to the side...
TOPIK
The test was a bit easier than I expected, especially the writing part, which beforehand caused me the most consternation. The essay question simply asked us to write a personal introduction - name, country of origin, hobbies, career, etc. This is stuff you do day in and day out in a language class, as well as in real situations. So I had that part dialed in. The listening was a bit more difficult, but I think I nailed most of it. The hardest section was reading. It consisted of thirty questions about reading passages. The last five passages were exceedingly difficult with words and grammar points I have yet to learn, so a bit of dartboard answering was employed.
I need a 70% average or more to pass both levels, with a no less than 50% score in any given section. I think I'll squeak by, though if I do eat a big dick, the reading will be to blame.
Why did I even take this test?
Well, I live in Korea so I'm trying to learn the language, and the test gave me a goal to work toward. My Korean has probably improved 100-200% over the last three months. I speak it all the time now, and can hang out with Koreans for hours exclusively speaking the language. I may speak it poorly, with grammar fuck ups left and right and an over reliance on a bag of tricks of phrases and verb endings, but I can speak it. I'm comfortable going anywhere in this country and expressing most any basic thing I want to say. That feels good.
I also took the test to prove something to myself, that, despite the fact that I am at times an alcoholic thirty something waster, that I am a super smart motherfucker who can learn any language I put my mind to. I grew up in a monolingual house and am now facile in two other languages besides English. I think that's cool. A-fucking-sah!
If you would have told me ten years ago that in a decade I would be semi-fluent in Korean, I would have asked what flavor of meth you were shooting up your dinkerhole and then asked you for a taste. But here I am. This has been a very strange avenue indeed.
I'll find out my results in about a month. At risk of sounding Pollyanna-ish, even if I don't pass it will have been worth it. However, if I do pass, it means that the Korean government officially recognizes my mastery of basic Korean and now considers me an entrant in the league of intermediate, which means I'll have to start studying to pass Levels 3 and 4, which now seems like an insurmountable task. One day I'll pass Levels 5 and 6, and, having mastered this Griedo-like tongue, I'll promptly leave the country and never speak it again.
ANNOYING THING ABOUT KOREA #347
I usually take lunch at the school professor's cafeteria, which serves buffet-style 정식 (jeong-shik), which is the basic Korean meal of rice, soup, kimchee, and a few other side dishes, one of which is usually cooked fish. It's a pretty healthy affair and I love the fish and happily eat it. However, the Koreans can't be assed to clean the things. Each cooked fish comes complete with a belly full of half-rancid guts. So when you pick at the usually bone-infested carcass with your metal chopsticks, you also need to take care not to get gooey-ass brown shit-tube intestinal bits in with your regular fish flesh.
Friggin' naaaasty.
I shouldn't be surprised, seeing as how most Korean supermarkets come complete with a fish egg and innard "salad bar." That's the one station where I skip the samples every time.
I've known about this proclivity for a while now. A couple of years ago I was dining at Mr. Cho's house. He's an older Korean gentleman and a friend. We were eating his wife's massive spread of home-cooked dishes. I pointed one filled with glistening red bits and enquired as to what they were.
"Fish innards," he replied nonchalantly, taking a wet livery chunk between his chopsticks, lifting it to his lips, and chomping away...
This is a country that used to be so poor that it couldn't afford to throw fish guts away. The country is no longer poor, but it seems the national tastes have yet to catch up.
THE BITTER AROMA OF CAT PISS
I'm supposed to be studying right now, but instead I'm at a PC room, where I've come to download a document necessary for the test. But instead of gettind straight to the download, I'm wasting time by blogging.
But's it's been a CUNT of week, mainly due to Myeolchi, the younger of my two cats. About three weeks ago she started pissing on my bed. It's happened two or three times since I got her, but something's changed, and now she has it in her head that my bed is her big pee pad. I don't think she's even peeing in the box AT ALL anymore. She just wants to pee on my comforter. My laundry machine has been in perpetual spin cycle for two weeks now.
This is a sudden thing. She wasn't doing it before. It seems to have arrived straight outta the blue. So I did some research as to why a cat may start peeing on beds.
*Urinary Tract Infections (had her checked yesterday, the vet says no)
*Territorial Markings (She's not "spraying," but straight up emptying the bladder
*Stress
I believe it's number three. The house move, combined with the heat cycles she's been enduring have stressed her out. Also, I have a girlfriend who comes over a lot and doesn't like it when the cats come up on the bed, so I believe my little kitty is being a jealous bitch.
I was told that once she was spayed this behavior would stop, so I had her spayed yesterday.
She's peed on the bed twice since then. So far, no good.
At this point I'll need to burn my bedding, since the scent is in the fabric and now the cat identifies the bedding with her pee instinct. I may even have to replace the mattress, though I've washed most stains out with bleach water and I don't notice a smell, though I'm sure she does.
But what's the solution here? Is there a solution? I CANNOT keep a cat who continues to piss on my bed. End of. I also can't give her away in good faith, knowing that she'll wreak urinary havoc on her new owner.
I've tried disciplining her puppy style - nose in the pee, loud "NO's", swats to the butt - but this obviously hasn't worked. It's probably exacerbated the problem by scaring her and making her more stressed. Most everything I've read online discourages this method, if only because it produces no results. But when I catch her in mid-squat on my bed with a nasty wet spot underneath, it's hard to resist the urge to hit the fucking cat. You'd think that the cat would put two and two together, would begin to indentify bed peeing and getting the shit slapped out of her, but no dice. Cats don't learn like dogs. Are they stupid? Can they not help it? Or don't they care?
Suffice to say, I am at my WIT'S END. This cat has driven me crazy. She has totally disrupted my home life, as well as my relationship with my girlfriend. There is a chapter of the SPCA here in town. I may have to give her to them, which would likely mean euthanization, since there aren't a lot of Koreans chomping at the bit to adopt cats, especially pee-y ones. The other option is to drive her back to the alley I found her in and return her to her urban feral roots. It would be a rough existence, but she may be able to readapt to life as a streetcat. I know some people will be horrified by the fact that I'm thinking of abandoning my cat, but maybe if she pissed on your bed ten times in the last week you'd think differently. I just ain't havin' it.
But she's still recovering from her surgery, so I can't do anything with her for at least ten days. But I'm trying one last thing at home...
Cats are notorious creatures of habit. Their lives are defined by routines. Myeolchi has somehow settled into a routine of peeing on my bed, so perhaps I can break her of the habit. So what I've done is bought a collar and a leash, put them on, and tied her to my TV stand, right next to the litter box. She has about five feet of length on the line, so she gets a modicum of mobility. I've included a pillow for her bed, as well as food and water (with medicine for her recovery.). The idea is to get her back into the routine of peeing in the box. I plan on keeping her there for at least a week. At least this way I know that she can't get to my bed.
In the end, I'm pretty convinced that this is a behavioral thing on her part and it must be broken.
Any advice, cat people?
HI
I still have no computer at my place. My computer guy is utterly blowing me off, which wouldn't really bother me if he still was not in possession of my hard drives, which makes me want to drive spikes through his kneecaps. I don't like being jerked around.
As a result of no home computer, I've pretty much ceased blogging as of late, which is of course a cause of utter consternation to my hordes of adoring fans and the one or two hating droolers. I do have a computer in my work office, but I don't really like hanging out here after hours, and I'm so busy these days that I really have little time to blog about how much soju I drank on Saturday or what flavor of fire burst out of my ass this morning.
My main concern this week is my upcoming TOPIK Korean test, which I will endure this coming Sunday morning. I'm feeling that I'm getting close to possessing all of the mad knowledge needed to pass the test, though I'm still a bit deficient. So it's study study study all week long.
In other news, I may have found my new band last night. F+, my glorious punk rock cover party band, will be breaking up soon, as our drummer is returning to Canuckistan. So I'm shopping for a new project. I hit an open mike/jam last night in PNU and played with these two new American guys who rock balls and want to start a band that plays - gasp - ORIGINAL tunes. Really really evil sounding heavy ones at that, which is how all rock and roll should be played.
Who would you rather see lose in a knife fight, Jack Johnson or Dave Matthews? I'd personally opt for mutual neck stabs.
WINNER!
There were a lot of categories and awards given out, but I won first place in mine and am totally stoked. The story is now being considered for publication in their annual Best Travel Writing compilation, and in any case will be published online at their site.
This story has had a lot of traction. It's alread been published at Travel Explorations and will come out soon in a new online subscription-based travel magazine, which I am actually being paid for.
Shit. This inspires me to get back on it and crank out some more writing.
I need to get a new computer, first.
REPENTENCE
I just got out of a meeting with the department chair and yesterday's thief. The thief is indeed a student, one of my students, to be precise. He arrived at the meeting with his head down, staring at the floor. He delivered to us two handwritten notes of confession and contrition - one in English and one in Korean.
Here's the English version. I'm known by "John," my middle name, at the college.
"Yesterday, I went to your room to be given sam professor's lesson print. There were no professores, then I thought print is on the desk. I looked at deskes accidentally, I saw Bike' key. Ordinary time, I have thought Jone professor's Bike is great. As soon as, I saw the key, I though I'm very wish for riding the Jone' bike. I knew that casue big trouble. with no scared my, my hands went to the key. I stolen Jone's bike keys, as soon as out of room I went down riding the bike, but starting was difficult, I put the bike in an apartment parking space. not catch sight of the bike. Next I ran back to the college. I repented all along from when I stolen bike key and go out of the room. My big troubles scared me keeping up. then I knew mistakes. When I met Jone that stolen the bike, I couldn't tell you the fact. keeping up I was scared when lesson next lesson. I repented keeping up when lesson in the middle. then I got a calling from breaking I gave the key to breaking I know my fault. I beg forgiving to you. stealing professor's precious bike, that I told you the lie sincerly I beg pardon. I'm sorry you."
The verdict?
He flunks my class, his parents are contacted, and some other "punishments" to be admistered by the department.
I argued for expulsion, but the department chair insisted that it was impossible to expel the kid without pressing charges with the cops. Having a criminal record is a huge stigma here, and the kid's clean, so I didn't want to involve the cops.
Do I buy that it was an impulsive joy ride? Or was he stashing the bike next door to take home after class? And why did he turn himself in? Guilt? Or did he learn that he was caught by CCTV?
Who knows...
I'm just glad to have it back and happy that it's in one piece, though I still may make him toss my salad. I could use a good twenty-minute ass eating.
BIKE RECOVERED
I just got my bike back. It was parked next to the school in the lot of a huge apartment complex. An ignition key was mysteriously delivered by one of our security guys two minutes later.
The student captain for the English Department figured out who it was, evidently. Or the thief got cold feet. I just met with my two bosses and they said we'll continue tomorrow, though they're already pushing for leniency.
Was this just a prank? A thief who chickened out?
What should I do? Press charges? Insist on him being expelled from the college? Accept his apology, if offered, or offer him the justice of the baseball bat?
도둑!!! THIEF!!!
As if this spring hasn't already shat upon enough so far, someone stole my motorcycle today from the college. It was parked and locked in front of the building where I keep an office and teach all of my classes. I was teaching a class one floor and left my keys on my desk in my office, which I share with Sammy. During that time someone entered my office, took the lock and ignition keys from my keyring, and made off with the bike. I didn't discover it until later, when I went downstairs to take my bike.
It was unregistered, so the police probably can't track it down, but I just received some good news: Supposedly the campus CCTV capture the image of a student riding the bike out of the front gate and then walking back onto campus.
He's fucking toast.
APRIL 1ST
Today is April 1st - April Fool's Day - a day for jokes and pranks and merriment. It's also my father's birthday. He would have been 67. And no - this isn't some April Fool's prank I'm pulling (JUST KIDDING! HE'S ALIVE AND WELL IN CENTRAL FLORIDA!). I wish to Hell it was. During his illness I had repeated dreams of my father miraculously being healed - no more oxygen tanks and blood transfusions - visions of my father in a state of vigor and health, his old self, as it were, readily joking and slapping backs and filling the room with his huge laugh and sheer force of his presence. Last night I dreamt I held him as he died - which isn't too far from the reality of it all - but in my dream it was just him and me, a complete and sad intimacy.
Losing parents is something many of us must go through, and that's what I'm doing now. I'm going through it. It still seems unreal, as all death does, and I expect to ring up and get him on the phone. But that's not going to happen now, and I constantly have to remind myself of the fact. Meanwhile I'm back in Asia living my life much the same as I did before, despite the fact that I do feel different, that what I went through - what the whole family went through - has left me permanently changed.
So April 1st has changed for me. What should be the silliest day of the year takes on an unwanted gravity, but these are not the type of things that we get to ask for. This April 1st,, today, is a day of little joy, though I can only hope that in the coming years I'll be able to find the mirth that is inherent in the day and spin a good lie or pull a good prank, only to reveal the punchline with a big booming laugh.
Because that's how dad would do it.
Happy Birthday, pops.
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