I Blame the Communists.

Today was one weird-ass occurance after another. My day began at something like 9:00. After showering and shaving, I just chilling, reading the news, checking my e-mail, drinking a coffee, and flipping through the channels on the TV. I came upon something very bizarre on the comedy channel. There is a show on that channel that has famous singers, dancers, and other performers come on and other, ordinary people try to do versions of the celbrate's tunes, or dances or whatever (though in one installment the stars and ordinary people all had to sing some children's song about a wild rabbit). Anyhow it's usually some stupid pop singers from about 2 years ago (since the channel shows reruns of shows) I could give exactly two and 3/14ths of a shit about, but for some reason on this day it was Crying Nut. For those of you who are totally out of the loop (or no nothing of Korean music), Crying Nut is the big name in punk in Korea. They are like the Ramones, Sex Pistols, Green Day, and Rancid all in one. Anyhow, they were (are?) on an indie label (Drug Records), but got much larger than any of their label mates (18 Cruk, Weeper, No Brain, ect.) and would be on Korean music television (though in all fairness, No Brain has been as well...fuck the singer from that band hosted some show on m-net with some Korean rapper with a huge fro...anyhow I digress). So Crying Nut are a pretty big band. You could liken them to Rancid or the Offspring (circa 1994 or 1995), you might never have heard their tunes (if you weren't into rock), but you would have at least known the name, and known what kind of music they were playing. So anyhow, Crying Nut are on this show, and for some reason all these really typical Korean princess type girls have to rock out with them. It was extremely surreal.


Punk Rock Karaoke.

After this weird karaoke with backing band thing goes down, Crying Nut rock out on one of their bigger hits (without random Korean girls). During this time I hear a crash and glass shattering comming from inside my apartment. I go into the bathroom and notice that the glass dome covering the light in the bathroom has somehow fallen out of the ceiling and smashed into a million pieces all over the bathroom floor, but I have to go to calligraphy class, so I don't have time to clean it up. I snapped one picture and it was out the door...


Broken Glass Everywhere...If It Ain't About The Money, Puffy Just Don't Care!

So I head to my class. It's really weird now that I go in the mornings. There are hella old Korean dudes, and middle aged Korean ladies chilling out there. Each time one of them encounters me for the first time, it's like the are encountering the first western ever to set foot on the Korean Pennisula. So I get my writing on, they converse with the teacher about me in Korean. Mostly stuff like "Can he understand Korean? Does he know words in Chinese characters?" They then inevitably lurk near me and check out my highly skilled writing of lines on newspaper and give me thumbs up or some kind of encouraging words in Korean. After an hour or so of painting/drawing/writing curved lines, I bid the teacher and other students farewell and I'm off to further adventures.

I get on the subway and I'm getting my ride on. I'm studying and not really paying attention to what's going on. Suddenly we stop and one station. The doors open to let people off and on, and I hear some serious sirens going on. I look out the window and see that on the other track all the lights are off, and there are bodies strewn across the platform. Dudes with gasmasks on are dragging the bodies off the platform and up stairs. What the shit is this? Nope not a terrorist attack, just training so the guys in green shirts (a picture of these guys will come in weeks to come) can be prepared in case such an event does go down.

Well it must of been communist attack preparation day today, because in the midst of my first class, the air raid sirens went off not once but twice. I get thinking, perhaps my exploding glass lighting fixture was the work of some commies as well. Anyhow the rest of the day was fairly uneventful. Except when I got fed up with one of my classes and told them to just go home (like 4 minutes prior to the end of class). Stupid kids just wouldn't listen, and haven't been listening to a word I said for the past few classes. I really like all my classes, save for that one. They are dumb and young and poorly behaved, not really a good combo.

Anyhow I also learned that I have to go into my real job tomorrow, which is a pain in this ass, because it means I have to cancel (or reschedule) my private lesson. My bosses said they'd pay me for the time, which will work out to be less then I'd make tutoring. Additionally since Goyang is asstardedly far from my home, I have to get up and out the door around 8 or 8:30, instead of the moderately more do-able 9:15. So if my students take up my offer to reschedule I probably won't be home from 8:00am until 8:00pm...fuckin' fun on a bun! Now excuse me, I have shattered glass to go clean up...Woohoo!