A rebuttle and agreement

The other day I had submitted a blog post into the blogosphere (located previous to this post) of my issues with heat (or the lack thereof). I was delighted when a certain matter was called to my attention. I was going to leave a small note of reply, but I fear that my comment of such length would be viewed as seedy and unbecoming of a gentleman. The following is my response:

Excellent points, Monsieur Canard. Indeed the Fahrenheit scale is a scale of which I am much more attuned and comfortable. It is quite the truth that the far superior scale for every day life is Fahrenheit, and I should have used its units as my main units as opposed to a footnote when issuing my complaint about the land lord's hypocaust.

Your arguments are correct by my standards, but I have a small issue with one argument that I will visit in just a moment. I would like to take this time to ask if you consider my usage of Celsius condescending. Consider the facts here. I am currently living in South Korea. These humble people have been using the Celsius scale since 1964. I was not there when they decided upon this change, but I am here now and there is not much I can do to influence people to use the Fahrenheit scale. Everywhere around me, people are using centimeters to measure themselves, kilometers to tell other people how fast and far to go, kilograms to weigh themselves, liters for liquids, and, yes, Celsius for measuring any temperature. All thermometers are set to Celsius and one would have to go out of ones way to find a Fahrenheit scale. I have lived in this country for near a year and a half and have since taught myself to use such a scale as the one we call Celsius because that's all everyone around me knew.

At this point I would like to restate that I agree with Monsieur Canard on his points and was very happy to see his words back on the blogosphere. I must add this tidbit of information, however. Monsieur Canard and I were never flatmates, we were but mere neighbors as well as members of the same box social club. Both of us are men of science (though he might argue that I am a child of a lesser science) and so both of us are familiar with the rigmarole of the periodic table and metric system in laboratory practice. We are also both no strangers to the kitchen where both of us have enjoyed cooking and baking alike.

I cannot speak for my contemporary, but I have also dabbled in the art of candy making. For those of you unaware, it's methods are surprisingly similar to Organic Chemistry where one would throw ingredients into a pot, boil them up and hope they crystallize satisfactorily. In making candy, one must be acutely aware of the temperature, especially well above boiling where even a 1 degree (Fahrenheit) change can create a devastating effect and turn the most promising fudge into a pile of chocolate flavored sugar crystals.

This being said, Monsieur Canard had implied that measuring liquids past the boiling point was not crucial, but in doing so failed to bolster his argument for Fahrenheit even more. If I need to know of a 1 degree change, I would much rather be in Fahrenheit's camp than Celsius. I applaud your bold words and your feirce opinions, Howard Canard, never give up and never surrender.

Complaining about the heat and other things.

It's been a bit chilly in my apartment lately. I don't know if I've explained this before, but in Korean apartments, the heating is under the floor in water pipes. It makes for very nice heating for the most part when it works, you just should never leave chocolate or something like that on the floor. When I moved into my apartment, the heat wasn't that much of a concern because it wasn't that cold yet. There was something odd that I did notice, however. The floor is a plastic thing made to look like wood lain over the cement and heating pipes. There is one section of the floor in my apartment that is a lot darker, more melted looking, and hotter than the other places. I found out last week that this is probably the ONLY place where the heat comes out. My landlord has explained to my boss (the one who holds the lease) that the heater would turn on at 9PM and off at 8AM. The apartments would stay warm all day after that. First, I noticed that this was not true as far as the times went. I was being cheated out of an hour of heat (9:45-7:45). This last week was a particularly cold one. I had bought a thermometer about a month ago and for the past week, the inside temperature has never reached above 15 degrees C (around 60 for those in the States). On Thursday night, when I came to my house, it was 11 degrees C (52F) (Wednesday, it was 13). I called my boss and told him about it. He came over and was very shocked to find it so cold. Since then he's been trying to talk to my landlord about either fixing it or moving me out. Every week, I usually open the windows and clean so as to change the air, but I haven't done so thus far because it's been so friggen cold. This is happening along with the fact that that spot still gets hot, and that's where I sleep. There is not much of an alternative as to where to put the bed aside from rearranging the whole place, so I wake up early in the morning because it's way too hot right where that spot is, but it's not that bad all in all. I had a worse time when I was living at the information house on High where I would wear multiple pieces of clothing to bed, have to put on gloves while typing, and where JoMo would climb up into my coat because he was cold.

Besides that, I was informed that the Red Dwarf has taken refuge in my mother's house and that she has demanded he spend Christmas there. He's currently scouring craigslist for jobs and writing a resume (along with copious amounts of dicking around on the internet from what I can tell). Unfortunately, in the bay area, there are also shitloads of people looking for jobs as well. I wish the Red Dwarf the best of luck in finding a job dealing with graphical design.

In other news, I will travel to Busan on Thursday in order to play a small show at a place called Oki's used bookstore and cafe. It will be acoustic, and all of the performances will be performed by athiests, coincidentally (because it's christmas eve). I will play a couple of songs from my DJ Poopslice days as well as an acoustic Son of Gerald. The next day, I will eat Pufferfish stew and then climb up some sort of ridge in Busan and then eat spicy octopus, drink Makkoli, and head back to Daegu where I will see the Yamagata Tweakster show at Organ. It should be an interesting time. That's all for this time. I will probably have more interesting stuff to say next time. Until then, here's a neat toy that the Red Dwarf found: http://www.superflashbros.net/as3sfxr/

Dae-yo Dae-yo Daejeon Come an me wanna go Home

I also Like to Capitalize about Every Other Word or something like that. This past week has been filled with practice room visits, work, and attempting to communicate with a Red Dwarf. He has come to land in the Bay Area of California and is in the process of searching for a job and housing. Mixed feelings were had by all. Most people are still in the dark as to what is going on. If you are one of those people reading this right now, he is in the San Francisco Bay Area and trying to make it for himself and not trying to be a burden on anyone. He knows that he has contacts over there, so a post on his particular condition is in the works, but it will indeed be a post of its own. This will be my adventure to Daejeon.

The show was entitled "Attack of the Great One Man SHOW Show." It was to be a masterpiece allowing the world to see that a one man band need not simply play the role of a DJ, who, I believe, are the evolutionarily smartest of all performing musical acts since all the music they use is known to be popular (though, that's another topic for another post). This was to showcase four one man bands (aka "one man show" 원만쇼) with a diverse range of genres each with the ability to carry on a complete set without need of any other human help. This was to be my first official concert in almost six months (my last one being in Brooklyn, and the last one in Korea being exactly six months ago). My time back in Korea has been spent trying to record all of the tracks that I perform live and to streamline them so that they would all be the same volume and the setup would not have to change drastically for me to switch between them. The tracks that I played at the show were (in this order):

1. Sunday Drive
2. Aporkalypse
3. Son of Gerald
4. Dickin' Around With The Michaels
5. Danse Panse

The last song was a song that I released last week along with an improvised outro on my Kaossilator. The set was just under half an hour long, and that was probably perfect for the fact that the venue and audience was small. I was the last one on (more on this later).

Earlier in the week, 미녀 and I decided that it would be better for her not to attend for the fact that our friends had to work/ did not have enough funds to attend. We decided for her to take JoMo to her abode whilst I was on my business trip. On Saturday afternoon, we went shopping for a winter coat for me as the one I owned sprung a leak of goose feathers on the inside, thus hosing down everything I wore under said coat with down. After the purchase, we ate some Lunch and hopped on the first bus back to my apartment. I arrived an hour before my train was supposed to leave. In a mad flurry, we picked up all my equipment (including MicroKORG, FX pedals, Cables, Guitar, and Computer) and JoMo and too the first busses we could to our destinations. Bad planning was unfortunately had on our part for, you see, it was a Saturday afternoon in the city with warmer than usual weather. This combination of situational and meteorological events was a prime catalyst for the traffic that my bus was to endure all the way from my apartment to the train station. I exited the bus at the first stop that was within running distance of the subway so I would be able to maybe catch my train within milliseconds as it was leaving. Did I have a chance?

No.

The Subway train arrived just as my train was scheduled to depart. I asked 미녀to look on the internet for the next train and found that it was an hour and a half later. I was tired and a little flustered at that point, so I settled and went with the KTX, riding the subway all the way to 동대구역. I was able to purchase a train ticket for a train that left five minutes later. Unfortunately, my ticket was for standing room only, so I spent the next 45 minutes standing/ leaning across from the vending machine in between the cars. Upon arrival at the train station, I was greeted by spooky and the luck o' the Irish (I'll come up with better names for those two later). We drank tea in a cafe while waiting for Glittering to arrive. Once she showed up, we were off onto the heavily crowded subway with one half of the Irish playing roadie as we were all crammed up against one another for 10 out of the 12 stops that we had to endure. A cab was hailed and we entered the club where the manager asked if we wanted to sound check then and there.

This club was called 광대, which my cell phone dictionary defines as "performer." The owner informed me later on in the evening, after my set was over that it, in fact meant clown, which, upon information revealed by 미녀, it does mean performer, but in Korea, to become an artist for a profession is to disgrace your family (to a degree at the very least, correct me if I misinterpreted her). The place was a self service bar, which meant that they had no tap or hard liquor, just bottles of beer in a fridge and packages of Ramen or Squid that they would cook for you if you wanted. The stage was constructed like any other, but with corrugated metal pierced by 4 colored bulbs behind it. All of the sound ran through all of the speakers, there were no dedicated amps for guitars or basses, there was a bass amplifier that could take a high and a low channel. There was a vocal amp that hosted two microphones, and there was a mixer that allowed for six mono inputs. All in all, the sound was much better than I had expected from something that size. The bass was nice and punchy, and my guitar still sounded very nice. One surprise for me was the fact that my sound check went smoothly. I just had to use Yamagata's settings on the mixer. Since my setup was quite complicated, I moved all my wires to the side of the stage until my set was set to go on.

Sound check did not end until 8:15, and that was only a little bit of a problem since the show was technically supposed to start then. Because of the time change, we had Yamagata start the show. His performance was just as energetic as any other one that he's done, but unfortunately with much less audience. G.T. Arpe was on the bill next. He was having trouble keeping the treble down in his set. Many people were holding their ears and Spooky and I had stuffed ours with tissues. His noise was much harsher than mine. The Spookfish was up third, and people were really digging his stuff, as usual. It was really nice to hear all my favorites up there. I hope it's not the last time I see one of his concerts, but it might be since he's not going to be able to play after January. Speaking of last time, right before I went up on stage, I grabbed my coat and tie and was about to head to the mens room to apply them when someone got up on stage and announced that this concert was the last one to be held in that specific venue due to the fact that the owner of the building was complaining of noise. This was a sign. I had got up on stage and played a damn fine show despite the Korg falling off the rack in the middle of Sunday Drive (I caught it).

(EDIT: HERE IS THE VIDEO)





I performed the Aporkalypse with only minor mistakes and Danse Panse was flawless. After that, we ate and then crashed at Knick's place. I caught the train out at around 11AM and was back in my apartment at around 12:30. The bags were heavy, I was smelly and dehydrated, but I was happy with the way the concert had played out. The owner of the bar really enjoyed my music and told me that he's seen many acts, but nothing like mine. That was a good feeling.

An apology

Two Sundays ago in Daegu was very characteristic of the city's nickname. The sky was grey, everything was grey, and it was raining nevermore than what you would need a hood for in intervals off and on like a sine wave with a very long pulsewidth. This was the day that I had chosen to host a sort of housewarming party, if you will. My apartment is small (by American standards), so I didn't invite many people because a small space with many people would trigger a kind of clausterphobic reaction among some people. I set out to invite no more than ten persons for this occasion. All in all, six bodies other than 미녀, JoMo, and I occupied the space of my apartment. I wished for more, but many people already had plans for that day. I apologise to the people who were left off of the guest list. You know who you are. I hope that you can forgive me.

미녀 and I spent Saturday collecting supplies for the event and Sunday morning was spent preparing the mix for the mandu. We would make three types: 김지만두, 고주와사비만두, 그리고 고기없는 만두. We were expecting guests to arrive around 2 o'clock in the afternoon since we said the invitation was at 1 o'clock. Everything was ready to go. The first to arrive was 파랑 with a bottle of the cheapest french champagne he could find (which, admittedly, was not that cheap). Chu and Car showed up with a bottle of wine, and Homegirl showed up with delicious beer. A little while later, 누나 and Wonderboy showed up with beer and 막걸리. We ate Curry, made Mandu, fried some musrooms, drank alcohol in descending order of class and sat around and talked.

As people grew weary of the instruments and chocolate, they petered out until it was down to 파랑. We had put on the movie Little Buddha and began to watch it. This movie is a film made in 1993, and starred Keanu Reeves. Hmmm. What movie can I think of starring Keanu Reeves that was made in the early ninties or late eighties? What movie indeed. In this film Keanu plays Siddartha, telling the ever famous story of the Indian prince who had it all and then threw it all away because he wanted to see the world. The portrayal was not unlike his earlier roles. It was a movie that has never been rifftrax'd (trust me, I searched), but I do believe that it is quite deserving of it since I was able to do so much with what they gave me.

The week following was fairly uneventful as usual. I made a new track for the show that we are going to have in Daejeon on this Saturday as a nod to Yamagata Tweakster. You can hear it right here:


On Friday, 파랑 had his show opening, and on Saturday, we went to the Tuna Attack show in Seoul. It was 16 below up there. I also found out that a little red dwarf decided to leave his plaster base and head as far away as possible.

On festivities.

It's Friday over here and I have one hour until I actualy start working. Last time we met, it was a Monday night and I was rambling on and on about the Korean buses and whatnot. The week following that was fairly uneventful, and the weekend had nothing remarkable other than the fact that I sat in a room for 14 hours learning how to teach. What did I learn? That's a very good question. I will answer it when I finish actually applying the crap I learned.

Of course, the seminar clouded my vision, and only going back and thinking about it, I realized that there was something noteworthy of the weekend. I was able to see a concert from two acts from Seattle (or Portland, I forget and I'm too lazy to look it up). White Rainbow was the supporting act and he makes a lot of landscape music. I'm not going to go into extreme detail and just say that you should listen to his music. The main act was a DFA label band known as YACHT. They were two people who danced around to techno pop and sang along with it. Very energetic, very fun. There wasn't much I was doing after that since I had to go to bed earlier due to having to get up at 7 in order to catch the bus to make it to the place by just before 9.

This past week has involved a couple of events. On Tuesday, my 26th birthday occured (also known as the 25th anniversary of my birth). 미녀 asked if I could come downtown. I did so, and there were people at Zoo Norebang with an Icecream cake waiting for me. It was quite fun. We were out until around 2AM. Of the gifts I recieved, I receieved a Kaossilator from my mother, new shoes from 미녀, and a nice scarf from 누나. A couple of days later (Thursday), was thanksgiving for us Americans. 'Chu took us (Me, Legs, and Babyface) on base for a Thanksgiving brunch. We were all stuffed on stuffing and drunk on Tryptophan. It was difficult to move after that. That night, I went over to 'Chu's house where he was having a Thanksgiving party. It was very nice with a lot of people playing instruments and whatnot.

I might or might not have mentioned that I have a show in Daejeon in about two weeks with G.T. Arpe, Spookfish, and Yamagata Tweekster. It should be fun.

Bus

So, I'm sitting here on the bus, and I really have nothing better to do than to type this up. It's interesting typing on a bus because the buses in Korea have a certain charm to them that you don't get in the good ole' U.S. of A. A friend of mine once said that driving is one of the last experiences that we have left, as everyday every-people, to being engulfed by the surge of battle. If you think about it, almost all societies have experienced battle of one kind or another, and it's certainly not limited to Westernized nations. But, I digress. The thrill of being inside a metal beast who's blood is oil, the epitome of filth, only feeding upon the plants and other matter that have been in a much less than live state for millennia is more than enough to tease our primal war like instincts. Putting this thing on the asphalt battlefield is another matter. Lolling down side streets at a reasonable speed seems no more exciting than galumphing through the forest, picking elderberries. When taken on the main roads, it is indeed a matter of life and death. Speeds faster than most beasts and a roar that is only matched by the fiercest among them, the vehicles themselves do not determine their fate, rather, it is in the soft, jellylike mind of the automator, the sole human life operating the heavy machinery. That human alone decides the worth of its own life as well as the lives of innumerable others around it. The sheer power that one person has in their limbs in those moments, if I may so borrow a term from Bret Easton Ellis, fills me with an unnamed dread, which grows like a yeasty dough in my stomach as the needle slowly makes its way around the speedometer dial. Sitting in a bus in Korea can be a pleasant experience if traffic is minimal, it's a nice day, there aren't a terrible amount of people in the bus or on the street, and if the bus driver is a well-tempered person who has had enough sleep in the previous week. If these factors are not all in alignment, the bus ride will seem as if the asphalt was made of cobblestones and the driver is attempting a rescue mission that's of the upmost importance. Getting to the bus stops upon their scheduled time of arrival is the most important thing as far as the Korean bus is concerned, and nothing will stop them throttling down the parkway among a rampage of Taxis and motor scooters all with the same mission.
If I may put it so bluntly: they drive fast and a little dangerous most of the time. Don't get me wrong, I have personally never seen a bus crash in Korea in the almost one and a half years that I've been living here. The busses are fairly reliable and punctual. The only problem is there is no yellow line that you must stand behind before the bus lurches (no, I'm not exaggerating, it really lurches as if suddenly being pulled by a loose cable attached to a train) in which case, you tend to stumble (the korean word for stumble being 비틀비틀거리다, which sounds like Beetle Beetle Guhleeda, which I find to be an extremely satisfying word for the action) down the aisle. Most of the busses have one row of seats facing the front on either side, so that most of the room is dedicated to the kind that is known as standing.
The sounds on the busses of my Sunny California I have long forgotten. I am only aware of the various bells and whistles (of which there are actually no bells or whistles on the creature) that are not content with staying silent for more than two minutes. When you walk into the bus, you are greeted with a beep not unlike the beep of a supermarket scanner in the 90's (you know, the one that looks like an asterisk) or a truncated bip followed by the recording of a woman saying "환승임니다 (transfer)" if you are transferring when you hold your bus card up to the designated area. From there, you think that you will be able to block out the rest of your journey by listening to the motor humming. The motor doesn't hum, unfortunately, it grinds as all the busses in Korea are manual transmission. From there you also have recordings of the same woman announcing different stops that the bus could stop at as well as the next stop after that, all in Korean, of course. When anyone presses the stop button, I'm reminded of the orgasmorader, the main weapon of the superhero Orgasmo. It's a sound similar to Fran Drescher's whine in her role as The "Nanny". When the bus stops and the exit door opens, a very similar sound is played right above the door to indicate when it is time to move as fast as you can before the driver slams the door on your slow ass. Other things randomly play, such as commercials for businesses near the current stop and, about half the time, radio that the bus driver is listening to in order to keep him awake.
I hope I've entertained the few of you who do read this by describing my experience on a Korean bus. I actually got off the bus around the time I was describing the fact that the person driving was solely responsible for its life and the lives around it. The rest of the time, I've been sitting very comfortably in my local haunt here in Daegu with friends who are speaking a language that I can only pick up on bits and pieces of. It's like trying to get radio reception in the mountains. This weekend was fantastic consisting of a relaxing night of drinking with Mr. Fuck, man and then going to the Round Robin concert where I saw Spookfish, Sssighborggg, Zentaffy, Yamagata Tweekster, and Auxcutor play in a fashion where they traded off songs in a pentagram in a small, packed club outside of Downtown. Sunday found very lazy times where I almost finished American Psycho while waiting for my showing of 2012 to show. That movie was ridiculous, but I'm still uncertain if it is the best disaster movie. The antagonist in the movie was just annoying as opposed to anything else, and on more than one occasion, an important character was killed with no mention afterward about her/him. Next weekend, I have a course that I am attending to get me a certificate in teaching english as a foreign language. It's not going to be terribly easy, but it will make me more disciplined in that department. As far as I can tell, right now, that's all I have to say about that.

House Albume

So, right now I should possibly be preparing for my classes or something. However, I'm not ready to do that yet. I have 40 minutes, so I figured I'd spend some sort of amount of time writing a post for my beloved readers (read: me and no one else). I went into the practice room yesterday morning and was able to produce a version of Untitled that I like except for some mistakes that can only be corrected by rerecording. It looks like practice practice practice is ahead of me, but that's what the practice room is for. Another remix of Sunday Drive has been produced and we are waiting on a couple more collaborators to turn in their projects before I can release "...is not a valid form of music." aka the Sunday Drive remixes and close the case on my first album "Third Wave Ska..." that I started just about two years ago (yes, it really has been two years since I started it). The next album (so far untitled, but once I finish writing and recording, I'll figure one out) will hopefully be released soon and it will feature mainly tracks that I've been doing live as well as some tracks that I've never played live. The cover artist has also been commissioned as the one and only Gray Robaczech of Egar Cadet productions.

In other news, two days ago was 빼빼로 day as well as point day for my students, so we didn't do any learning, we just played games all day. The students really enjoyed it. I brought my guitar for some reason and the students asked if I could play it, so I played a silly song for them and they lost intrest in about 2 seconds. Whoops. In any case, I've now also added "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" to my repitoir of campfire songs and was humming it walking down the street and realized how magnificent its lyrics are. I need to get more campfire songs into my repitoir incase I'm around a bunch of people who need a guitar played for pleasant music as opposed the the stuff I normally play.

I've found that without the proper motivation, I will stay in bed and dick around on the internet until it's just enough time for me to get up, stumble to the bathroom, S,S,S, and get something to eat until it's time to work. A couple of weeks ago (or maybe last week), I asked 미녀 to call my landlord and ask a few questions. Can I get a bolt on my door (there is currently only one flimsy handle lock)? Answer: I can show you a place where they do that service (read: do it yourself). Can I have a portable gas stove (as opposed to the shitty electric one that takes 10,000 years to heat up and then shuts off after 10 minutes)? Answer: Sure. Can you inspect/fix the horrible smell coming from the bathroom sink (where I'm pretty sure I know the source after looking at online stuff, I just don't have the tools or knowhow to fix it)? Answer: Oh, I don't know anything about that type of stuff (read: call a plumber yourself). It's been almost a month since I moved, and that damn thing still hasn't been fixed. Is it not the landlord's responsability to fix things that go wrong with an apartment as far as utilities and structural problems go, or am I just being silly? It's not that she didn't know about it, it's that she didn't try. It's a problem that a lot of people (including myself sometimes) have: they don't even try anything. But, there's nothing more I can do except for ask patrick if he knows a plumber, badger my landlord again, or just piss and moan and wait for May when I can find a new place where the bathroom doesn't smell like a sewer, the floor is heated in more than 4 square feet, and there aren't retards yelling out in the alley at 4 in the morning on weekends.

To not end this note on a negative, I'm going to be attending the Round Robin concert this Saturday and next Weekend, I have a TESOL course that I'm going to take. After that will hopefully be a house party and then (maybe) a concert in Daejeon on the 12th of December.