OPEN LETTERS
TO YOUNG NOW MINDS IN THE YEAR 1 ANO POPULI by M.R.
Bradie
Have to keep those juices
flowing. It seems so easy to grow sated and bored with life
here as a well paid, underworked teacher in Pusan; gorging
on luxurious meat meals and bottled cokes every week, taxi
rides all over the city like an instant cheuffeur; as many beers
as one cares to drink. Nothing wrong with that, but after
too many months or years of these ways, there's the constant fear
that the juices will run cold and settle in the veins. Then
what? Life as a barely working stiff ... plugged into waking
sleep dreamless devices such as computer and tv ... perpetual
consumption and a cessation of production. The way of the
robot, we the sheeple ... Turn Off, Tune In, Fade Out ...
That old dopehead Bocskay once said to me that
modern Korea reflects the behaviors and values of 1950's era
United States ... the social night life ... the conservative
majority steadfast in dress and thought ... values pointed towards
towards the monolith of suburban middle class utopoia under the
protective wings of the LG or SamSung mega-congloms, an
innocent faith in the status quo ...
Well, if so, then so be it ... maybe it's time to
ride that cyclical time loop ... reliving the past on the way too
the future ... it makes sense in this age where the popular modes
of music are based on sampling, recycling fragments of the raging
era's gone-by ... I see music as an indicator of larger social
trends rising, maybe like a seaman or Indian would watch the
weather or listen to the ground.
But there's another facet of the
American 1950's that grew out of the suburban conservatism
like a festering boil... it's that dirty word ... the movement
that dare not speak it's name, for fear of a shallow retro
constume party of pretension and insincerity ... back then it was
the now ... and now it's a relic of the past, the subject of jaded
grins and pop-surface conversaton ... it's the BEAT ... and
if you're in the Then Mind, you can buy it in total at Barnes and
Noble's or on Amazon.com in a few compact volumes ... the
beat was co-oped a long time ago by entrapreneaurs who we'll never
know. Even Frank Tedesco, world reknowned Buddhist scholar
and sexologist blasted the indulgent nature of the Beats in one of
his pieces on Pusan Web ... and not without just purpose and ample
reason ...
But BEAT means something else to this
kitty cat ... it was one of the biggies, maybe Kerouac or Ginsberg
who defined BEAT as a state of exulted exhaustion ... it doubled
as a banner for the perpetual motion of the bombastic musicians of
the time, for whom the BEAT went on ever and ever like the hearts
of a crowded generation, beating as one. And even though we
can't live on the shoulders of such a word forever lest we
find ourselves stewing in the juices of its obscelesence, that
word is a reminder of a pulse that ran under the surface like a
hidden freshwater spring ... a vein of gold or diamond to be mined
along it's tributaries all over the world.
No, the BEATs of old were not
inventors, they really weren't genius's, nor were there creating
something that wasn't there before ... they were beloved ...
condemned ... exulted ... doomed minors ... dredging up the ife of
rythm, the blood of spirit from underneath the earth's cold
surface ... and they were handing it out to the people like Robin
Hoods of the concrete jungle. Those dudes, and if you check
out the Female beats, dudettes, were merely timeless
manifestations of the human spirit that did, does and always will
exist ... the amoral jedi knights of culture... as long as we
battle the robots of the plastic world that is ever encroaching
like kudzu creeper vine or a bad case of cancer ... afterall,
wasn't Gilgamesh BEAT ... Sappho BEAT ... Jesus and the
Aspostles were so BEAT ... Socrates ... anybody who got ever got
beat up, killed, hurt, mangled, fucked up, pricked, stabbed,
sunburnt, diarreah, tossed, lost, over charged, peeved, miffed,
crippled, drippled, nippled, zippled, tripled, bam-bippled,
Bosche ... Chaucer ... Dionysus ... Okonkwo ... Sid Vicious ...
Vinnie Van Gogh-Go ... Cleopatra ... Bootsy Collins ... Buddhas
... Shakespere ... Kool Keith and his 17 personalities ...
Murakami and his Tokyo filled with shopgirls blasting Duran Duran
from compact cars and wearing plastic bracelets ... all
those nameless lovers in the night who never wrote a book or ran a
business ... poors souls who never made a dime, yet managed to
revel in their time ...
I have a feeling that everybody is
filled with the macro-BEAT of the giant human mind at some time or
another ... and I for one wouldn't wish it any other way ... every
newborn baby, and lively child who bites the hand that feeds it
withdull gum-breaking teeth and laughs a pure sort of child's
laugh ...
Well, as it's Now, and never again
will be Then, we can throw that dirty old word on ice and
still feel it and keep dancing the forever dance, with the
timeless pulse throbbing in our dying viens. Bucket after bucket
drawn from an endless well. And for those who still feel the
life, like anti-bodies rallying against the return of the 1950's
dulling infection ... the Bush=Nixon relapse time loop ... the
crushing wieght of the world being up in and judging your personal
ways and business .... there's an endless supply waiting for you
underground, all you got to do is grab your pick and dig in.
And that brings me to this dialectic
clusterfuck we call Pusan Web. Because at it's best, it's
the revolt of one against the many thereby rejoining the many to
the one. If you're looking for idealogical answers here, you
might find them, but they probably won't keep long ... souring
after a few days like milk in my poor girlfriend's broken
refrigerator. The goodness and the gold don't lie in
the static presentation of good character or the man on the
mountain who can tell you how it is ... it's in the flowing juice
... the chunky turnover rate ... the bloodless scrap that changes
everybody's mind just a little ... it's on the move and it's
going nowhere and everywhere ... it's unstoppable, yet it ends for
one person tomorrow and started up for another person
yesterday ... so repulsive ... so perfect ... formless,
shapeless, so fresh and so clean ... and on that note ... or beat,
I'd like to tell y'all a little story that I got to give for the
very little that it's worth ...
A KOREAN NOWHERE TRIP
There I was, at the same bar that I
didn't want to be at; with the same nice girl that I
couldn't even speak to because I didn't speak enough Korean
and she didn't speak enough English. Like old friends
trapped on either sides of a lead wall. We were sitting in
the plush booth of the New York bar in Seomyeon, nursing aging
drinks and pushing the pillows around to pass the empty
time. We'd run out of interesting facial expressions and
funny sight gags. We weren't going to learn eachother's
language that night.
Sitting a couple booth's over was a crew of
my western friends, about ten of them. We didn't join them
because I was trying to spend time with her, and if we did, we
both new that she would merely fade into the background of English
conversation, in which she couldn't particitpate. Things
were at a standstill.
So, trying to get those juices up, I
decided to send a playful message over to my friends by tossing a
plush pillow at the back of one of their heads. Maybe I was
hoping to instigate a slumber-party style pillow fight. So
giving her the mischeif giggle... tee hee hee ... I grabbed a
pillow and let it fly. But instead of hitting Nick in the
back of the head, it cruised over his dome and wiped all of their
drinks off the table in a choir of shattering glass and scattering
ice.
The immediate area of the large bar
tensed like a war muscle ... my friends spun around as if there'd
just been a drive-by-shooting ... the staff came running, ready to
break up a fight. My girl covered her face with her hands
and I croaked out a 'sorry' and sunk loooow in the booth.
The staff began cleaning up the wreckage and my table of buddies
sat drinkless and stunned with empty cupped hands pantomining the
elbow bending barroom motions.
It was time to fly. I ordered
them a fresh round, paid and made for the door with my girl.
It was around 2am on a Saturday morning, October 30th if memory
serves ... and I felt like the proverbial ship without a
rudder.
My girl wanted to join her friends at
the Dallas for some early morning booty-shakin' ... but as I'd
been punching the clock there for countless consecutive weekends,
there was nowhere I wanted to go less. But it was the only
option, in this city of one-pronged forking paths, so I bit the
rubber bullet and we cabbed it over there.
Down the stairs, into the neon cavern
that is the Dallas we went. I felt a wave of oppressiveness
in hearing the same music that repeats there like broken records
... seeing the same faces of the regulars ... friendly faces on a
good night ... unfriendly on a bad one, which this was. My
mind was burning with the word 'ESCAPE'.
So I pulled a flyer. My girl
went up to the bathroom, and I flew out the door without so much
as a goodbye to her or the friends who were waiting for us one of
the tables.
My little 125cc DaeLim Advance
motorcycle was parked nearby, and I'd only sipped on a couple
drinks. I had W80,000 in my wallet and I was hot to
move. It didn't matter where, but I had to go go go.
3am and I was on the highway to Ulsan,
a city I'd never seen, but had only heard the worst of ... I'd
been told by friends who lived there that it was an industial
cesspit, a smoking boil. But of course it didn't matter. The
light rain was drizzling upon me in my lightweight club clothes,
and I didn't care; no thoughts towards the future or the past ...
just the now, moving along at a steady 80km per hour.
My hands soon grew brittle from the
sofly beating elements. I had a full tank, but I stopped at
an SK gas station anyhow, and begged the late night soju drinking,
Hwa-To card playing attendants to give me a pair of those
disposeable white gloves that they have boxloads of. I was
lucky and happened on individuals who understood the wordless
language of kindness. They gave me the gloves, refused the
money I offered them and I drove on.
Aimless as I was, I soon stopped again
for coffee and stale doughnuts at another convenience store,
flirting with the cute little all night girl. I hope it was
as light and sweet for her as it was for me. Finished my
victuals and pressed on.
Somewhere along the road carrying through
Ulsan, I decided that I would drive to Seoul and spend Halloween
there, checking it out and hopefully making some new friends.
I kept on, blasting out of Ulsan on that low
powered Korean bike I own with a seat that's almost too
comfortable. But I was getting tired, and so cold.
Somewhere on the otherside of Ulsan, as day was rising in the 6am
distance, I decided that I had to stop. I pulled over at an
abandoned factory and snuck into the obviously empty guard
shack. It was one of those Korean style squats with a low
table that could double as a bed and filled with old
newspapers. The surrounding area was gray and dull and best
unremembered. So I balled up on the table, trying to
consolidate my warmth and used the papers for a pillow.
Dropping off for that catnap was hard,
as I was a little nervous about tresspassing and the thought of
dealing with some dudes who might happen on me agrily and who I
couldn't really speak to, but eventually I dropped off for a
little bit into a shivering dreamless sleep. Then around 8
am, after a restless two hours of self imposed bum-sleep , I shot
up awake and found myself feeling more tired and haggard than I
had when I'd gotten there. It was still drizzling and the
moisture was being carried through the air. I sat up with a
newspaper stuck to my face and announced to no one, 'This is
Suck-O". I scrabbled out of the squat and jumped on my ride,
resigning myself to blowing some of my money on a Yogwan. I
was starving for a shower and a warm bed ... all those
romantic notions of living in the margins between saftey and
primitivism were out the window.
I stopped at the first roadside yogwan
and tried to explain to the keeper that I only wanted to sleep for
a few hours ... hoping to get the W15,000 rate, but ended up
paying the W25,000 rate anyhow. I didn't care, I would just
have to make it to Seoul and back on my remaining W50,000 (after
deductions of coffee, doughnuts and smokes) ... I thought.
I climbed the stairs and unlocked the
room ... the ever same yogwan room that runs like a constant
throughout the sex motels of Korea ... oh, Yogwan room, how I love
thee ... with your instant light turning-on-sensor and your blue
vinyl marbleized floor and brightly colored bedspread, your
complimentary toothbrush and tube of past, your complimentary
fibre beverage and bottled water in the mini-fridge ... ahhhhh ...
but upon entering the room I saw something that struck primal fear
in my heart!
From under the bed rose a large circle
of the deepest crimson red ... reader I shit you not! For
all intents and purposes, there appeared to be an enormous pool of
blood leading under the bed. What sort of charnel house had
I happend into? Was I the first witness to arrive after the
fact of a grizzly slaying? All I could think as my very
being froze with morbid dread was that there was a dead or dying
call girl or mafioso inhabiting the nether regions under the bed
of this Yogwan.
Still frozen, I attemted to regulate
my panicked breathing. I knew I'd locked the door ... I
karate kicked open the bathroom door with my hands feebly prepared
for last ditch combat ... with another kick and a
'Kiiiiyaaaaah!'I sent the shower curtain flying back ... there was
no one there. Then I crept over to the puddle which was
about as big as an extra-large New York style pizza ...
apprehensively, I extended my index finger towards it, planning to
test it like a toe into the swimming pool ... I gritted my teeth,
preparing for the confirmation of terror ... my finger touched
vinyl floor! I swept back the dust curtain surounding the
lower edge of the bed and stuck my face down sideways to inspect
... nothing. It was a giant red stain in the vinyl ... as
dry as the rest of the sublimely heated floor.
To this day, I have no idea how the
stain got there, or what it really was. Perhaps it was a
gruesome palimpcest of a conflict years gone by, or maybe some
spilled paint. The motel keeper had given me the creepy joke room
... the menstral suite ... the spacial tampon... the heebie jeebie
room ... the fucker!
Nevertheless, I checked the
inside door latch again, checkd the room again to make sure it was
empty, made sure the windows were locked, pushed the gnarly sight
from my fatigued mind and stripped for the shower. It was
one of the mostglorious hot showers I've ever had. I scoured
my teeth beneath the showerhead and dried myself.
Still ignoring the stain, I jumped
naked into the waiting bed.
Hours later I awoke. I'd enjoyed
a dream of womb and gurggly amniotic fluid music ... a whispering
shadow ... the babbling brook voice of peacefulness ... the
lovemother who lives deep in the blood ... I polished off the
complimentary fibre drink and bottle water and took another lovely
shower. I told myself that those two showers were worth the
money I'd spend in pure sensual aztec gold. It was 1 pm and
I'd driven during the worst driving hours and slept through prime
ones. Ahh ha ... such is the folly of my retarded ways, oh
reader!
I checked out and jumped back on my Hardly Davidson. From there I
crusied into Kyongju and spend some time rolling along the
cobblestoned backroads, drinking in the surrounding pine forests
and peasant utopian living conditions. I was swimming in
sublime ... I had no questions at that point as to the
worthwileness of my fools errand.
But the sky was now clear, the fall
sun out, and I was determined to press on to Seoul. It
was at that point that against my better and wholly nonexistant
judgment, that I decided to sneak my little ride onto the NO 1
expressway to Seoul ... inorder to cut the backroad drive which
had the potential of spiraling into an infinity of lost hours,
down to a 3.5 hour strait shot to the big city. I knew that bikes
the size of mine were forbidden on the expressway; I didn't know,
but now do, that all two wheeled vehicles are forbidden on the
expressway. I don't know what I was thinking ... maybe 'hey,
this will make for an impressive story to tell folks later' or I
wasn't thinking at all ... so I got on it going north and rode the
shoulder like everybodys' business.
Everything was cool for the first half
hour. I stuck to the shoulder, maxing out at a pitiful 90 km
per hour and let my freak smile fly from withing my bergundy
Spiderman stickered helmet.
I stopped at one of the larger
roadside reststops on the southern side of Taegu for a
smoke. It was one of those places where all the tourist
busses stop and which offers all different sorts of food. It
was there that I walked by a hardware cart and spotted one of
those green bomber style jackets with the zipper sleeve pocket and
the orange lining that all the workmen wear. Even though the
sun was out, the wind whipping I was taking on the bike was
cutting right through my red vinyl jacket and I decided that I had
to add another layer ... there went another W20,000 from my
already slim bankroll. I realized that I had no more than
another W30,000 to make it to Seoul, hang out for Halloween, and
get back; but as I zipped up the new jacket and felt the warmth
surround me, my regrets vanished. It was hopeless, but I
refused to admit it to myself. I got on my handphone and put
the call through to my fellow associate, 2000 A.D. Pearson.
" Pearson,", I hollered into the
cell phone, " I'm at a rest stop near Taegu, I'm driving to
Seoul".
"Oh yeah?", he laughed, " That's crazy, are
you driving on the expressway?".
" Yeah, but there's no problem, it's
cool. But hey, I'm almost out of money, why don't you jump
on the train and meet me in Seoul tonight with some cash?".
" You fiend! I'm stuck here,
fiending this stinking Saturday fiending bee, and I just
took a bunch of pain fiends. I'm not fiending anywhere,
except to ZYZX for the Hallo-fiend party tonight. I guess
you're going to miss it, you fiend!". He cackled. " Hey,
they're fiending me, I gotta fiend ... good luck and safe
fiending!". click!
" Yeah yeah", click!
At that, I jumped back on my little
green Flash-Gordon rocket sled and slipped back onto the
expressway. Within five minutes there were red and blue
flashing lights creeping swiftly up my ass ... it was the highway
patrol, franticly waving me over to the edge of the
shoulder.
I knew it was the end of my trip to
Seoul, and I suddenly became honest with myself and felt a surge
of relief. The cops jumped out of their cruiser like they
were ready to take me down. They rushed up to the bike as I
was struggling to unclasp my helmet with my soft'n'slippery Mickey
Mouse white gloved hands. One of them grabbed my key and
pulled it from the ignition. As I pulled my helmet off, they
gave me puzzled looks and said to eachother something about my
being a Waygukan ...
But with this realization, their anger
and energy seemed to subside into concern and amusement over my
foolishness. One of them said somthing about '
Baeg-yee-ship-oh cc Anio! Anio!' ... he was telling me like
a big brother that 125cc bikes weren't meant for the
expressway. Then, gently, they put me in the back of the
cruiser and asked for my international licsence. In keeping
with my 'playing dumb' approach, I handed them my Denver driver's
liscence and hoped for the best. The other cop jumped on my
bike and drove slowly behind us, the cop cruiser creeping along
the shoulder, it's lights and caution signals flashing.
I looked back through the rear window
at the officer riding helmetless on my bike and thought, I saw a
glint of glory in his eyes as the wind whipped his finely combed
black hair; I also thought how I would never forgive myself if
something happened to him while he drove my bike off the
expressway.
They took me back to the toll booth
police station where I'd just shot through while reentering the
expressway. We pulled over and got out into a throng of cops
who began buzzing at the sight of this silly waygukan holding a
big red helmet with a Spiderman sticker on the front of it.
One of the cops went of to try to run my liscence, and the others
looked me up and down, laughing and chattering away. One of
them gave me a ciggarette and another gave me some grapes. A
beautiful lady cop who spoke the best English approached me and
told me again that bikes, especially that size were not allowed on
the expressway. I'd known that, but I played dumb, acting
surprised in the hopes of damage control. She said that I
was going to have to tow my bike, and it was at this point
that I felt the first twangs of panic.
" No, please!", I begged, " I'll go
back to Pusan on small roads ... through Kyongju and Ulsan".
She conferred with the other cops, all
of them still in good humor. One of the first cops came back
and returned my licence.
Officer Beauty came back and smiled
and said, " Okay, but we give you map. You go back to Pusan,
maybe you have to stay in Yogwan.".
" No problem, ", I said, so relieved,
" I'll go straight back, no problem, thank you, thank you.".
Then she handed me a couple road maps,
and they took my photo with a digital camera. It was me,
posing my bike, with the liscense plate facing the camera; I was
smiling big and waving ... even though it was probably the sort of
photo that get's posted in the toll booths with a warning which
reads 'look out for this idiot!'.
And at that, they directed me to the
road that rolls through Taegu towards Kyongju, and sped off,
leaving them smiling and waving in the distance. It was all
too silly and painless to be true. I couldn't help but
compare it to run-in's I've had over the years with American cops,
thinking, 'Wow, I've just discovered one of the coolest things
about Korea ... the non-evil Cops! Wooo-hooo!'.
By now it was around 3:30 pm, and my
goals had shifted from spending Halloween in Seoul to spending
Halloween in Pusan with all of my best associates. I had to
make it back in time for the big beach party down at the ZYZX ...
I had to make it back in time to throw a last minute costume
together, lest I be the poop of the party.
From there I trucked back to Kyongju.
As I'd never spent much time there before this day, I figrued I
could burn an hour or so checking it out. I soaked in a few more
back roads, and then I stopped at King Shinmun's Tomb. I
paid the W500 admission, and stolled through the gate to observe
the rows of green grassed hills under which the ancient kings of
that old beat dynasty are interred. Not worrying about cultural
rules and such I started running up the hills, checking out the
scene from the top. And then I got the best idea I'd had in
a long time. I took my new bomber jacket off, with it's
slick green statin outer shell and put it down on the grass and
sat on it and used it like a sled, going swooooooshhhhhhh! down
the green burial hills, and letting out 'yeeee-hawww!' all the
way down, and falling into a grassy steamroller roll at the
bottom.
Only hours ago I 'd felt like Charle's
Bukowski's anus, sitting at the empty bar of soulessness, and now
I was five again. I felt like my rusty cantine had been
filled with fresh water. It couldn't have been more right,
or less permanent.
After a few jacket-sled rides down the
tombs, I noticed that the fall night was coming on, and that I'd
better hightail it back to my home city for the Hallow's eve
festivities. Back on the ride for the roundabout trip
through smoky Ulsan.
Somewhere between Ulsan and Kijang it
started sprinkling again, and the Saturday evening traffic was
miserable, but I phased it out and sang songs inside my
helmet. Eventually, I rolled into Pusan, having ended up on
an unexpected alternate route that landed me up near Pomosa
Temple. It was almost 9pm and I got back on the horn to 2000
A.D.. He laughed when I told him about the cops and my trip
getting turned around, and told me to head down to his Namchundong
hideout for pre-party partying, to which I said I would attend as
soon as I could get there.
But first up to my pad near PNU for a
shower and a fresh change of clothes ... and a costume!
After sitting on the bike for some many hours and in such moist
conditions, my skivvies were dank! Somewhere between ability and
intention, I ended up laying down for a second. When I woke
it was 2:30am and I feared that despite my struggles, I'd missed
the hot Halloween\ party action. But I resigned to catch the
tail end. A costume! I thought quickly about the silly
problem. I grabbed my black summer helmet with the open face
... big black fly shades ... a stroke of minor brilliance ... I
found some duct tape and strapped two chop sticks to the sides of
my helmet like anntennae ... I was an alien!
Then back on the ride and down to
Kwang-ali ... it was sprinkling out, but it felt like the
greatest, most refreshinly short ride of all
time! By 2am I bounded onto the post Halloween
scene. All of my best associates were standing outside as I
pulled up. They laughed and were happy to see me, saying
that they'd heard I was on my way to Seoul and were disappointed
... it felt so good to be missed! " Ha ha!
Whatthefuckeryou?" " You look like Gazoo from the
Flintstones!"
" Hey extra testicle!", cried my
senior, G. Lenny Munny, " Let's take this doobie down to the beach
and get lit!".
It was all-right! Although I
hadn't expanded my extreme-multi-cultural head, hell, I'd pretty
much chopped my culture-head right off playing dumb all the time,
I felt like I'd found the greatest place on Earth. And I was
right.
We got down all night, and after that,
2000 A.D. and I took four little college girls from the party to
his Namchundong hideout. They had to stay up all night in
order to take the TOIEC exam later that morning, and we burned the
dawn tickling and giggling. There were no anal-gang bangs or
sex-billion orgasmo-cosmic voyages to be had and they weren't even
missed. Later that morning, Pearson passed out and I ferried
the girls to an early hours kimche-bap joint one at a time
.... drive one, drop her off, go back for another, drive two, drop
her off, go back for another, drive three, go back for 4 and all
the way back ... with a steaming pot of Kimche Chiggae waiting
on the table when I arrived. We ate, and I wished them good
luck on the exams they were about to bomb for lack of sleep, and
then I ferried them each to their bustop.
It was all so perfect and painless
that to think about it is almost sick; and almost seems more like
a children's show than real life. The only backlash is that
it makes it so hard to wade through the months of constant
workaday realism, until the next glorious moment of sublimeity
randomly clicks into action. Always waiting to get the
juices loose, breath so baited.
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