Cyborg

The other day I got a phone call from my man Zeke and he wanted to know why I sent the Korean cyborg over there to kill the college students . . . I simply told him: "At least he was a good shot."

For the last two weeks I have had to talk about this shooting in a variety of contexts. With the Americans, the subject never really comes up. I suppose that most of them, myself included, simply view gun violence as something that comes with living in America. I always looked at it as a choice that was made a long time ago . . . You can't show a woman's breast or a man's penis on TV but there is no problem watching someone "bust a cap in someone's ass" as means of conflict resolution. America choose violence over sex and the bodies are piled high . . . I am sure that many can argue that my logic is simple minded and the like but I can live with it. I haven't shot anyone, don't own a gun and don't really feel like I need to.

The Koreans are confused as to why Americans have so many guns. So are the Brits, the Irish and the others that I have talked to over the course of this event. Personally I am sick of talking about it. The questions come from everyone and it is almost like I am forced to explain why my family didn't own guns versus why other families do (We are timid pacifists, the others are raging hate-mongers) .

Before this happened I had students telling me how they would love to go to the US so they could buy a gun. I don't tell them that guns are right or wrong (guns don't kill people, people with guns kill people), I simply say that if one has a gun, there is a possibility that it may be used . . . The old if a gun is on a table in a play someone will be dead by the time the curtain falls notion.

My new point has simply been to ask the question as to why a 20 something college student would need a Glock to begin with . . . Further, why is that OK? America can be a cruel place and it would be pretty hard for some Asian kid to assimilate (all those powerful Asian role models that saturate the US media) in a such a place and I know damn well that kids can be really mean (I was one of the mean ones) so I am not really shocked by it . . . You piss someone off and they have an option such as following Ice Cube's adage of "get yourself a 9mm and your as will be fine" and the possibility for some really bad shit rises. Someone's gonna get straightened out . . .

So I tell the kids that American don't hate Koreans because of this; most Americans have no idea where Korea is to begin with, let alone what a Korean looks like. Americans are numb to this kind of shit and they are busy trying to pay their bills. In the end it is simply part of the news cycle and it will be buried with the rest of the bad shit that happens every day . . . When gas hits $4/gal. then rage will be the norm.

I read somewhere that 30,000 people are killed every year in America with handguns so this was a drop in the bucket. A big drop, yes, but a drop none the less.

The same day 184 were killed by a suicide bomber in Bagdad (or somewhere in Iraq). I didn't see their profiles on CNN. I didn't see prayer vigils for them. I guess the value of life differs from place to place although I am not quite sure why that is . . . Language? Skin color? Religious belief?

One of my students is going to the US to complete his MBA and his family is freaked out over this. Not because America is violent - they are worried about his visa. Will he be denied one? Will people hate him because he is Korean? I simply told him that no one will know you are Korean unless you tell them that Korea is where you are from . . . You are simply Asian in the eyes of most. He studied in Holland for a while and everyone there thought he was either Chinese or Japanese . . . No one know shit about this place. No one cares.

I asked him if he was going to buy a gun when he get there. He said that he was more interested in buying a car and trying to see a few things. Too bad gas is going to hit $4/gal. by the time he shows up . . .

Why Austrian Engineers Suck

I always describe 1982 as a year that changed my life. I saw three bands that year and it was a mind blowing experience. There was The Who coupled with The Clash (we'll all forget Eddie Money) and Black Flag at Clutch Cargo's. Ah, such beautiful noise!! The point being that music could cover a fairly wide spectrum and what was being played on commercial radio was far from interesting.

So now I live in Korea. There really isn't a live music scene here in Pohang. This makes me most sad as there is nothing like seeing a great band in a shitty little bar. But the bars here, in lieu of having a juke box, are all hooked up to LIMEWIRE. This means that instead of a few hundred songs to choose from there are countless thousands. Think of a song, download it. It is simple and beautiful and the possibilities are endless.

Sure, the US marines like rap and some silly metal and that is OK as they are amped and seeking some kind of release and they have to be home but midnight (Cinderella Syndrome) so I seldom have to listen to the shit that they choose. Occasionally I see the aftermath of their nights out: a man-boy covered in sojo-laced vomit while his buddy cleans him up, but by then the music has changed to something else . . .

The locals play Korean songs and although I don't understand the words most of it is polished pop, boy-band style, and it is background music which the bar girls seem to enjoy as they sing to it loudly. The men usually play old Korean ballads and sing softly to their beers, much like the cast at the Eastway back in Nap Town did with Willie and Waylon. Music does something that allows us to move forward, get through the day . . . Solace and Peace and the rest of it.

POSCO is our local steel mill. This, and English Academies, are the main reasons that foreigners come to Pohang. Many of the Engineers who work there are Austrians and I think they all come from Linz. This is fine. They have to make a buck and most of them leave their families for long stretches to do so. From what I gather they actually make REALLY GOOD money here in Pohang. And when they go out on the town they spend it rather freely. This is a good thing as many of the locals need this money to keep going.

But it is the following that makes me want to kill every last one of them:

"Mindy, play AC/DC!!"
"Mindy, 'We Don't Get Fooled Again.'"
"Led Zeppelin, 'Stairway to Heaven.'"
"Brown Sugar"

Yes, this crew can make a steel mill run but they have ZERO imagination when it comes to what they want to hear. If music is supposed to transport one to a "special place" where in the fuck does hearing "Angie" one more time take you?

"But she did those special things . . . "

I'll buy memory lane up to a point. Sure, I'll even load some Japan on to my MP3 on occasion, but why in the hell would one subject others to such pitiful whims? You don't get time back. You can't undo the fact that over the course of one's life time sitting through shitty songs was part of the experience. Work a construction site and you will hear dinosaur rock all day long. That is simply to kill the sounds of hammers and circular saws. It doesn't entail that once the shift is over you must continue to listen to that shit . . . To go out and listen to it some more, to evoke a feeling of pleasure - what insanity is that?

What sent me over the edge was when some fuckwit asked me to download "Blinded by the Light" by Manfred Mann . . . WTF?? How sad is that? I mean, there is literally any song one could think of, no matter how obscure (OK finding "Roman P" by Psychic TV proved REALLY hard), and that tired track is the best one can come up with? That's it, that is your choice? That is how you are going to present your ideas of taste to the world? There is this one guy in town who puts, I shit you not, Barry Manilow songs on the air - in a public place!! - and he seems to think that it is OK. The idea that one would walk into a bar and cast "Mandy" into the air and expect to leave with all of his teeth is beyond the pale!! How is this possible. These people are supposed to be "college educated." They are supposed to know some shit. They are supposed to realize that music didn't die in 1975 . . . They have to know this, no?

I suppose to many music isn't too important. They think that Led Zeppelin is worth listening to over and over. I did it when I was sixteen. I got the point - Brits like American blues, let's go check out what they were listening to that inspired them, OK? Then one can find some interesting things to listen to . . . The Wolf, Muddy Waters, Chuck Berry . . . That is just for starters . . . The radio is so boring!! In the age of the internet why would you limit yourself?

Sure, if I get all loaded I want to hear the Velvets and The Stones and Hendrix and other stuff that takes me to somewhere else . . . But I don't want hear the shit that some radio programmer spoon fed me; I want to hear the stuff that I found, the things that I discovered on my own. The Good Stuff.

I know that there is a juke box in hell and I know that "Stairway to Heaven" is on it.

Next time someone plays in on a jukebox, do me a favor and punch them in the throat.