2009 blog entry

boy, i sure did forget to keep a blog this year. i even remodeled this thing at the beginning of 2008 to make sort of readable, thinking i'd actually get around to writing crazy korea stories. then i got here and i got sidetracked and i just forgot about it. so strange how having an active and interesting life makes one less likely to blog about it. i guess if you're busy and active, you have no need to write longwinded anecdotes to imaginary audiences. oh well. i'm pretty bored right now, being stuck in an airport in tokyo, so here are some shallow, meaningless thoughts for you to enjoy. this free wifi almost makes up for the $17 filet o' fish paha.


preachy political rant

it was nice to see the guy i actually voted for get sworn in for a change. i guess now i can't complain anymore. that'll be an adjustment, cuz this is the first time i've backed the winner. well, technically, the guy i backed in 2000 sort of won, but for some impossibly retarded reasons, we decided to put his opponent in charge. that was fun. my first time to participate in democracy brought with it the lesson that one person does not necessarily equal one vote. 2004 was even more depressing, as it showed how easily jingoistic fear mongering will out-publicize sanity and compassion in this culture. but this year, things somehow worked out. many people are attributing this to republican party fatigue or the economic crisis or john mccain's awful, awful campaign, but i'm pretty sure the only reason obama won was because i wasn't in the country to jinx everything this time. i have phenominal jinx potential. i guarentee you that if i'd voted for bush in 2000, the votes would've been recounted and gore would've won. this happens with sports, too. i'll be watching my team get their asses handed to them, but if i leave the room, my team starts coming back. sports, politics, even the korean currency began it's steady decline the very week i arrived in the country.

unlike most of his fans i don't think obama will magically solve all that much (it'll be many, many presidential administrations before the extent of W's damage is cleaned up), but it'll still be nice to have a leader who's not a total fucking embarrassment for a change.


stop sending me online petitions

i've been getting a lot of online petitions on facebook lately. online petitions are really stupid. many of my friends are currently passing around a petition calling on congress to forgive everybody's student loans in order to help the economy. how can (as of this writing) 19,092 people be naive enough to believe this would ever, ever, ever happen? i know almost nothing about finance, so i can't say exactly how unrealistic this is (though i imagine there's some sort of well-kids-it's-really-not-that-simple rebuttal to be given here), but that's beside the point.

whether it's a sound solution or not, can somebody name just one online petition that has ever made the slightest impact on any social problem? just one? seriously. i'm asking. has this ever happened? why do people insist on forwarding these things everywhere? i guess by electronically signing your name, you can clear your conscience and feel like you've "done your part" to support whatever wildly unrealistic change is being offered.

that's another thing. these petitions always have some vague and ideal objective, like "let's end poverty!" or "put an astronaut on mars by next april!", and they rarely, if ever, indicate who the recipient of the petition is supposed to be, let alone how said person is in any realistic position to enforce these changes. the aforementioned student loan petition is at least addressed to "congress", but how is that supposed to work? do the people signing this believe that once the petition gathers enough signatures, somebody will run to capital hill and slam it down on the house speaker's desk, where nancy pelosi will then skim over it and slap her forehead and shouting "of course! stop everything! these facebook douchebags have the answer! how did we not see it sooner?!"

there was another petition floating around (i can't find it now for some reason) calling upon the "CEOs of the top banks receiving bailout funds" to disclose exactly what they're spending their bailout money on, and to apologize for not disclosing this stuff sooner. at least that student loan petition is intended for politicians, whose livelihoods are (supposedly) dependent on public opinion. but i think it's pretty obvious by this point that these "CEOs of the top banks" could give two shits about what anybody thinks of them, particularly facebook users with way too much spare time.


movies

the best film of 2008, in my correct opinion, was slumdog millionaire. frost/nixon was also really good. i never saw the play, but i'm sure any productions of this from now on will seem like horse shit compared to frank langella's performance. milk was pretty good too, and i wouldn't mind seeing sean penn win best actor, but i think the film was only nominated for best picture because of that prop 8 business last year. benjamin button was fucking stupid.

that reminds me. if there are no good movies playing this weekend, DON'T GO TO THE MOVIES. americans tend to flock like lemmings to megaplexes during weekends not because they're all that interested in seeing a particular film, but because they can't come up with anything else to do with their time. i mean, how else can paul blart: mall cop gross over $92 million its opening weekend? at least i hope that's the case.


eggs

i've been watching the food network lately. a lot of these gourmet chefs like to put quail eggs in everything. from what i can tell, quail eggs look and taste just like chicken eggs, except they're smaller. they probably cost more too. that's stupid.

some homeless guy came up to me in busan this weekend, so i gave him something like five thousand won, which was more than i meant to give him, but whatever. a little while later i ran into him again, and he tried to act like he'd never seen me before and begged for more money. unfortunately, i don't yet know how to say "go fuck yourself" in korean, but i tried to get the point across the best i could.

fucking yellow dust.

naturally, they do this when i'm 523,028,239 miles away....

Radiohead, Nine Inch Nails, Expected To Headline Lollapalooza.

and saul williams is kicking off his tour at sxsw this year. fuck.



look at what these guys wear to their shows. just a shirt and jeans. no costumes. no eyeliner (fucking greenday). just the same threads you and i wear when doing our laundry. they can get away with that.

kaylin has been selected to represent her school in the district-wide read-a-thon. they select ONE kindergartener from each school and, yeah, they picked her cuz she's a nerdy bibliophile like her paterfamilias.

she keeps asking to borrow my copy of kingdom hearts II, but we should probably avoid that pitfall.

they say that shortly after you quit smoking, food regains its flavor. i started smoking in my late teens, and officially quit sometime in college. i don't recall food ever losing or gaining any flavor during this period, but i can't really be relied upon to confirm or deny this theory because i'm a rather unobservant eater. food is placed in front of me and i just kind of shovel it in. during certain meals throughout my life i've been reminded that i have to "peel" the shrimp before attempting to eat it, or that the fish is better if i remove the bones first. wasabi has never really been a problem for me, and a crab's bone marrow goes down fine if you just sorta ketchup it up. i'm like homer simpson eating insanity peppers through his wax mouth. many a dinner companion has been horrified by my belief that anything is digestable, if you allow it to be. in my defense, i seem to have lived to the ripe age of 26 with no notable side effects.

this gift has been quite handy here in korea (i moved to korea by the way), where you're served some bizarre, broiled sea monster nearly everywhere you go. my coworkers are amazed at how well i take to ultra-spicy kim-bop-whatever, implying that most westerners are usually pussies who seek out innocuous fast food outlets upon their arrival. i'll kindly thank them for the delicious chicken soup, only to be informed that i had actually eaten duck stew. whatever. some have asked me if i've tried any dog meat yet. i don't think i have, but the language barrer here makes me even less likely to actually ask about what i'm eating.

i've developed a similar knack for drinking (but who hasn't?). i used to have issues drinking hard liquors. after my mid-twenties metabolism speed bump, i stopped drinking beer in order to thwart an emerging paunch and moved onto whiskey and vodka, which also has admirably prepared me for korean culture. out here, you're expected to go drinking with your boss(es) fairly often. training myself with tequila has allowed me to pound the liver-eroding substance soju with relative ease.

soju is the most absolutely vile drink in the universe. i swear, some of this shit makes absinthe taste like flintstones cough syrup. rubbing alcohol is easier to drink than this. soju could've powered my old suzuki esteem, easily. i think korea is attempting to solve industrial pollution by bottling it all up and selling it back to the populace. i suppose if america had been invaded as many times as korea has, we'd drink like this too. and smoke enough to allow us to eat whatever's at hand.

jesus goddamn motherfucking tapdancing christ. why is god, or whichever cosmic ballbreaker is in charge these days, allowing scarlett fucking johanson to record an album of tom waits covers? no. no no. does this benefit anybody? at all? fucking cock ass. what, just because she's scarlett johansson,hhh that means she can make pointless cover albums butchering my favorite waits songs..? ㅎㅔㅡㅁㅃㅂ damnit. f david bowie has finally gone senile. why does shit like this keep happening without my permissioN? 쇼돔;ㅗ롣농려sdfaasgd

over the last few years, my music career has been in the dumps. my old college buddy, ian hawke, who works as a big-time label exec in new york, won't even return my calls any more. he says all the songs i write stink. they're no good. they don't flow. they're not the next big thing. he says i'm a has-been - no, worse than a has-been, a never-was. every time i try to make an appointment with ian, i can't even get past the lobby. back in the day, the young, swedish receptionist would alway greet me with a fruit basket and a bottle of perrier while i waited. now days, she pretends not to know who i am. i've made every effort to reminicse with ian, to try remind of the good ol' days when we dreamed of taking the industry by storm, that when we ran things, it'd be all about the music instead of dollars and cents. but clearly he's changed. he's no longer about the music, just fast cars, faster women, and lots of blow. i'm dead to him now.

but all that's about to change. last december, i was sitting at my piano, bitter and frustrated, when suddenly i heard these soft, cherub-esque voices coming from my porch outside. i peeked out the blinds and saw three tiny chipmunks, roasting acorns on my patio and singing christmas carols. i asked them if they could sing anything else, and they looked at me curiously. the leader of the trio, melvin, said that that all depended on if i had anything to eat. before i could answer, the three critters scurried into my apartment and began raiding my pantry. i went to work writing music with extremely high-pitch harmonizing vocals while the three of them swam in bowls of cereal, squirted whipped down their throats, and launched flapjacks from pans to spatulas, using all of my guest china. when i noticed the havoc they were raising, i shoulted melvin's name at the top of my lungs. the three of the froze and stared at me. i told them that snack time was over, and that we had work to do.

needless to say, these guys are a hit! i pitched their demo to the ceo of sony records and he signed us immediately. we have a video shoot next week, and then we embark on a european tour. i have it on good authority that once ian hawke found out all this, he immediately turned red in the face, pounded his fists on his mahogany desk, pointed at the tv screen and shouted "get me those chipmunks!" so you better believe i'll be watching my back. meanwhile, the chipmunks are getting airplay all over the country, and the royalty checks are flooding in.

looks like it's gonna be smoothe sailing from here on out...

fuck amy winehouse

yeah, we get it. you're a wild, loose, free-spirit who can't make it through an entire set because you're wasted 24-7. have some more awards.

statesman endorses obama

scroll down past the article to read a funny, grammatically incoherent, & wildly uninformed comment thread.

By Dale
February 3, 2008 2:23 PM Link to this
If ya’ll back Obama,I don’t need to read ya’lls paper……thanks for the memories

By Bill Roberts
February 3, 2008 4:15 AM Link
to this
I’ll never vote for a Muslim and no matter what he claims, he is. Would never vote for for McClain either because of his stance on giving away out hard earned (not his) Social Security money to illegals aliens who decided to seek amenesty again. Don’t believe OClinton is for anyone but Clinton, but putting a Muslim in office is not a good alternative.

By Nugster
February 2, 2008 11:38 PM Link to this
Its not the economy, not the war in Iraq, or Healthcare, its Israel stupid. Hilary is in the pocket of the Israeli lobbyest, and that’s enough to win the white house.

do these people make it a point to look at the screen when they type? seems like they just close their eyes and pound the keys with their fists.

sooooooo gassy...