John Ain't Privy

I, like Ray Charles, got a woman, way over town, and she's good to me. Actually, mine's better than any woman that old blind bugger ever had - mine just bought me an iPod. I asked, his didn't. Say what you will, this thing holds about 1,000 songs, stores data, and gives me an enema every morning.

Which leads us back to the head...

Hope you'll pardon a return to the bathrooms of Korea and the wonders therein but I've had a strange week vis-a-vis the latrines of Daehan Minguk and you're damn well going to read about it.

It's not uncommon in Korea to see a female bathroom attendant in the men's room, usually mopping, emptying the trash or wiping down the sinks. These women are generally well into their sixties and - despite some initial trepidation - I've come to accept their presence and just go about my business. Last week, though, I went into a restroom at COEX Mall in Seoul and while there was the usual female - mop in hand - she was all of about twenty-five years old. Double check for urinals: yep, this is the men's room. So thrown was I that, before deciding to just find another restroom, I briefly considering peeing in her mop bucket.

And then.

And then...

Na Young and I went out for dinner last night at BizBaz (stupid name, tony joint) and after the meal I slipped off to use the facilities. As I was headed to the sink, a man emerged from one of the toilet stalls...licking his fingers. I can only hope and assume that he'd had one of the strawberry tarts in there with him, because I don't want to consider the alternative.

This latter incident brought to mind a long-running debate I once had with my friend, Sean, about the old addage "don't shit where you eat," with which we both agreed. He maintained, however, that eating where one shits is or should be acceptable. He didn't think he should be stigmatized for having a plate of flapjacks in the bathroom once in a while. Call me compulsive, but I prefer elderly bathroom attendants and a separation of input and output.

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Mothers Superior

Say what you will, Lennon/McCartney, about warm guns, but for my money happiness is a mute ajumma. These middle-aged women (generally over the age of 50) are without question the squawkiest, pushiest Korean demographic. The NYSE trading floor has nothing in noise over a pack of ten floral-print ajummas - unless we're talking mute ajummas.

I was walking down a street in southern Seoul yesterday when I suddenly found myself surrounded by a gang of about twenty ajummas, swarming about me and catching me in the side with their Zach Randolph elbows. After returning a few blows, I realized that these women were sure a helluva lot quieter than your average ajumma - silent, in fact. The elbows stemmed from their sign language, which was as loud in its own way as any other ajumma conversation but far easier to ignore.

I stopped one of the women and, pointing at her and miming muteness in my broken sign language, tried to convey to her how happy I was that she couldn't talk. Not sharing my joy, she hit me with her bag full of cabbages, threw another elbow and stormed off, obviously unaware that ajummas, like BoA and Shakira, are better seen and not heard.

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In Yo' Face

Elaine Rohse

One morning, when we were still finding out things about each other unbeknownst before, as I ate my toast I pulled off the peeling and left it on my plate. Homer eyed it with interest.

'You aren't eating your crusts," he said.

I steeled my eyes and growled,

"I hate crusts."

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Calling Out Oscar

By and large, acting strikes me as a pretty decent way to earn a living - certainly better than, say, chicken sexing*. But I also know that actors invest a lot of physical and emotional energy in their work, so when they don't win an Oscar for a great role, they must think, "what else can I possibly do?"

Mind you, I don't normally get much into the Oscars and in fact can't even remember the last time I watched the show. Nor do I much care who walks away with the trophies, especially since the Academy showed its hand by honoring Forrest Gump over Shawshank and Pulp Fiction in 1995.

This year, though, I really feel for Heath Ledger. Dude should've won. His performance in Brokeback Mountain was one of the best pieces of acting I've seen in a long time and, as much as I like Phillip Seymour Hoffman, I think Ledger deserved this one. Plus, he had to do sex scenes with Jake Gyllenhaal. I don't know about you, but if I spend six months of my life making out with another guy - even Jarhead Jake - I want a goddamn Oscar for my efforts.

Compare Ledger's situation with that of Joaquin Phoenix who, despite also losing out for Best Actor this year, got to spend his months of movie making in the embrace of Reese Witherspoon.

In that situation, I could live with losing.


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* It's a little known fact that the world's best chicken-sexers come from Japan.

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Stone Cold Buggin'

I'm not sure why Young MC crossed my mind this morning as I was sitting on the crapper, but there I sat and cross he did. His Stone Cold Rhymin', which included the classic "Bust a Move," was my favorite cassette back when I was in the fourth and fifth grades and, with the preachy exception of "Just Say No," the album was a high point of late '80s Americana. It was the first rap album I ever bought and, if I'm not mistaken, I still have it in a storage unit somewhere in the States.

All of which is wonderfully nostalgic, but I'm still not sure why - in the midst of my morning glory -I got to thinking about Marvin Young and the only time I ever saw him in concert. Wait, I know: the concert was shit (I'm working out these connections as I go along, in case you couldn't tell). I never got to see the guy in his prime, which no doubt accounts for something, but forgive me if I expected more from the man who gave us "I Come Off" and Tone Loc's "Funky Cold Medina."

I saw Young MC about ten years too late, I suspect. I was a university student in DC and after pulling off a heist and getting George Clinton the previous year, the student union announced in 1998 that for the annual concert we were to get Young MC, Biz Markie and a collection of middling rappers whose names I've long since forgotten. Budget cuts, they said. As it happens, Young MC was the only one to show up for the gig, which didn't disappoint too many people because, well, there weren't enough to disappoint: less than 100 people showed up to see the show. That the show was in a small outdoor amphitheatre at 2:00 pm on a Sunday afternoon, when most university students are still hitting the snooze button, couldn't have helped the gate.

Being both the opening act as well as the headliner, Young MC was the first performer to hit the stage - and let's just say it was anticlimactic. As he walked out, someone dropped a cassette (probably got it from my dorm room) into a stereo and the instrumental karaoke track for "Bust a Move" rattled forth from the shoebox sound system. Mr. Young forced his way through a perfunctory version of his one true hit, after which the crowd - such as it was - went about as wild as Old English hangovers allowed.

Encouraged, he then turned the cassette over and slipped into some of his newer material, the first such number being a bumbling piece entitled "Madame Butterfly." People started falling asleep, kids began to fidget, dogs set to licking their asses, and Young MC stopped midsong:

"Yo, I can't just sing 'Bust a Move' eight times, y'all."

Folks looked at each other with worried looks and said, "what? Why not?"

Young MC grumbled off a few more lines ("She's my madame butta-fly") and then stalked off stage. Disillusioned at yet another childhood icon pulling himself from the pedestal, we ended up sitting around the dorm room for the rest of the afternoon feeling crushed. Even now, listening to Stone Cold Rhymin' remains a bittersweet experience.

So, Mr. Marvin Young, if you're reading this, you still owe me a good concert, and I want to hear "Bust a Move" eight times.

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This Holiday Brought to You By Ex-Lax

Today, March 1st, is one of very few Korean national holidays, called - appropriately enough - National March 1st Movement Day. On this day in 1919, the Reverend Young Shik Rhee had his first crap in three years and, lo, there was rejoicing in the bowels of the country. Since then, Korea's citizens have commemorated the event every year with parades, ruffage and laxatives.

Actually, the real story of this particular holiday is rather less fecal, but perhaps no less interesting (read about it for your own damn self over at Wikipedia). I'll just pique your interest by saying that Woodrow Wilson makes a brief, steamy appearance wearing nothing but lip balm. Now if that doesn't get you excited, I doubt anything will.

Here in modern-day Seoul, however, we like to play a game called "Is It a Supermarket on Sunday or Is It a Mountain?", and what better day for a round than a mid-week holiday? Hiking in Korea - particularly in Seoul - generally involves queuing up and waiting your turn to take a step toward the summit, where you'll probably have to sit on the lap of a middle-aged man while he slurps ramyon (that's actually the fun part) and the situation is especially dire on holidays and other days ending in 'Y.'

For Na Young and I, it was Gwanaksan this morning with her parents. As a service to our German readers who might be unfamiliar with this mountain, here's a brief description:

Der Gwanaksan ist ein 632 Meter hoher Berg am südlichen Stadtrand von Seoul, der Hauptstadt Südkoreas.

Das Bergmassiv erstreckt sich von den südlichen Vororten Seouls bis hinein in die Gyeonggi-Provinz. Auf dem felsigen Gipfel befinden sich eine Radarstation und mehrere Antennenanlagen. Am Gwanaksan liegen auch der Wongaksa-Tempel und die Yeonjuam-Einsiedelei, welche von König Taejo in der Joseon-Dynastie während der Verlegung der koreanischen Hauptstadt nach Seoul im Jahr 1394 gebaut wurden.

This blasted mountain is one of the most notorious in Korea for crowds, but there you go: true to this site's title, we're idiots. We went anyway. Going up wasn't so bad, but coming down was like trying use a urinal at a highway rest area on a holiday weekend.* I wouldn't have minded so much, but for two things: it was icy after last night's snowfall and old Koreans are some bumptious sonsabitches. I lost count of the number of times someone tried to fumble past me as I worked my way down or across a slick rock slope.

In the end, the match was a close one. There were a few times where I was guessing "supermarket on a Sunday," but Na Young stuck to her "mountain" guns and sure enough, it was - despite the pushiness - a mountain. For her correct answers, she won the March 1st Grand Prize: Independence from Japan.

The rest of us remain subjugated.


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* Headed south a couple years ago, we stopped at a rest area outside of Daejon to use the restroom. My friend and I walked into the men's room and found nuts-to-butts lines for every urinal. Absolutely packed. After finishing, I went to the sink to wash my hands and - get this - there wasn't a single person at the sinks. We washed our hands, slowly, and watched all the other men head out the door toward the food court, where all the restaurants had lines similar to those at the urinals.

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