The Bar Skank of Korea: A Play in Three Acts (Cont.)

Act 2

Scene 1
[George arrives at the Busan train station, smiling and reanimated.  He hops out of the train car, brushes dust off of his jacket sleeve, and looks up to see...]

 

 

George: What the fuck?

Scene 2

[George sits outside of a raw fish restaurant in which patrons can pick out the fish they wish to eat, watch as a loud, thick-armed woman kills it in front of them, then dine on it five minutes later.

(There are several such restaurants along Haeundae and Gwangalli beaches.)  George holds a half-empty bottle of soju, looking out at the "beach."]

George: I've been had!  Hoodwinked!  Butt-fucked by life once again!  To think, a few meager hours could transform my beautiful muse into a common harlot, a woman of easy virtue.  Damn these silly revelries; these impish wishes that leave a man's heart more soaked with melancholy than before!  Ay!  Curse mine eyes!

[Busan enters, stage left.  She is drunk and provocatively dressed.]

Busan: [To a group of young men] Hey boys, lookin' for a (hiccup) good time?  Welcome to Busan, home of bitches, babes, and boos.  Haa haa (hiccup) haa!  You guys wanna make out?

George: Enough!  In the immortal words of the poet-warrior Popeye, "That's all I can stands, I can't stands no more." I am off!  To the deep, quiet grave of the East Sea (don't call it the Sea of Japan, Koreans will get mad) I resign my empty heart, which beats now merely in procedure, for there is no passion nor purpose left in its chambers.

Busan: [To George] How 'bout you stud, wanna like feel me up along the boardwalk?  I'm famous for my (hiccup) authentic American-style boardwalk.  Don't mind the weird smell, that's just the local (hiccup) fried squid vendors.

George: Be gone, vile temptress!  You've made a cuckold of me!  This hideous mermaid's call has drowned its last victim!

[George beings running toward the sea.  Busan blocks his path.]

Busan: Why don't you check out my aquarium?  [Lifts up her skirt.]  We have like (hiccup) twenty different kinds of fish or something.  And you can swim with the sharks, only 80,000 won...

George: Oh God!!

[George shields his eyes in disgust.  He turns around and runs up the stairs toward the raw fish restaurant behind him.]

Scene 3

[Raw fish restaurant, interior.  George sulks at a corner table, surrounded by happy, chattering Korean couples.]

George: Stupid...rasrfrn...no good...frsnrs...Yogio!  Soju chusayo!  Another soju over here!

[The waitress enters with a bottle of soju and a plate of food.  George looks at the plate quizzically.]

George: What is this monstrosity?  I ordered nothing of the sort.

Waitress: (Loud Korean gibberish.)

[George pokes the plate with a chopstick.]

George: Ugh..it appears to be some sort of wretched sea creature.  I don't know which is more deleterious to my appetite, the look of this insidious bile or the ghastly odor emanating from it.

Voice: Mind your tongue young man!

[A light appears from within the plate.  The restaurant goes dark.  George is frozen with fear.]

George: Who...who are you?

Octie: I am called Octie, the magical talking octopus.  And you are George Mugin, English teacher from Yeongcheon.

George: How do you know that?

Octie: There is no earthly span that my enchanted tentacles cannot reach.  I know all about you George Mugin; I know why you're here, and I know how you've failed in your quest.

George: Failed?  It was not I Octie; it was Busan.  Or rather, there was no Busan to begin with, only the fleeting thought of her..

Octie: Fool!  Your eyes deceive you.  Are you so callous as to be blind to the beauty in the everyday happenings of this world?  Or are you a mere vagabond in nobleman's clothing?

Geroge: I...

Octie: Silence!  [Lifting her tentacles.]  I feel the good in you yet, George Mugin, but you must learn to look past mere aesthetics, to see beyond Busan's rash exterior.

George: How do I do that?

Octie: Here, drink this.  It will help you realize your hidden love for Busan, the bar skank of Korea.

George: What is it?

Octie: It's a magical concoction called..17 jello shots.  It will relax your mind's eye and leave a wonderful cherry aftertaste on your tongue.  They sell them at The Fuzzy Navel for 1,000 won each.

[George drinks 17 jello shots.]

George: Then I shall seek the fair Busan once more and retry my love,
But first, to Family Mart, for surely I will not touch her without a glove.

[George exits.]

[End Act II]

The Bar Skank of Korea: A Play in Three Acts

Cast

Greg as GEORGE MUGIN
The City of Busan as HERSELF
Venessa Redgrave as Octie, the Enchanted Talking Octopus

Act I

Scene 1

[Yeongcheon, small town in Korea.  Elementary school interior, teacher's room, Friday afternoon.  Outside a light spring rain waters the dirt on the children's playground (because Koreans don't believe in grass).  George sits at his computer, looking dejected.]

GEORGE:  Oh I am dejected!  Dejected am I!  What is a poor, handsome teacher to do when the spark of elementary school education has been smothered by the harsh realities of elementary school education?

[Looks at his watch.]

I guess I'll just kill myself.  Like noble Brutus of ancient times or that kinky guy from the 1-800-COLLECT commercials, I shall take my own life to spare that which is most precious in this world, dignity.  Now to find appropriate ladies' undergarments in which to fondle myself to death.

[Begins clicking and typing furiously at his computer.]

White lace be damned!  Can't a man meet his Maker in a black silk camisole to establish ambiance for the event?

[Pauses at an advertisement.  Reads out-loud.]  Life got you down?  Need a break from your everyday routine?

Fates alive!  It's as if they've crawled into my brain, spent an evening having a conversation with my soul beside a warm fire, then invited my heart over for a three-way.  I go on!

[Continues reading.]  ...Come visit Busan and leave your troubles behind!  Beaches, bars, and bright skies await you!

My word, what skilled author penned this poetry?  Dante himself could not articulate such beauty!  Surely he has shot Cupid's arrow of whimsy straight into my very core.

[Stands]

I shall leave my mundane workstation behind me and meet this fair Busan.  Perhaps her delicate visage alone will be enough to restore harmony amongst my four humors.

[Exits the building.  Walks quickly across the parking lot and mounts his bike.]

Ride now, faithful Oberon!  Make haste, for we set sail not only for romance, and adventure, but for destiny!
As I await Busan, so too does she await me with wild anticipation.
Onward now, onward!  Bravely we ride to the Yeongcheon train station!

[End Act I]

A Tale of Two Gyeongju's (Part 2)

And now the action-packed conclusion of our two month-long epic:

The Setting: April 2010, a cool spring morning.
The Place: Shilla Millennium Park, Gyeongju, Korea.
The Story: Adventure!

Shilla Millennium Park is like an amalgamation of Colonial Williamsburg and Epcot Center; it's chock full of culture, history, and other vag-tastic stuff that parents try to sell their kids because they don't want to take them to Six Flags.  Among its many--I hesitate to use the word "attractions" because they don't really attract anyone...more like "things you see on a mandatory class trip-ions"--are life-size monuments, park-like grounds, and an army of listless reenactors whose expressionless faces make you feel a little better about the decisions you've made in life.

 To-scale model of a trash bin

To-scale model of underwhelmed children

But on this particular day, during an otherwise peaceful celebration on the park's main performance stage, disaster struck!  Right in the middle of a traditional Korean dance parade composed of what appeared to be the smallest village in the whole Shilla kingdom, an enemy vessel sailed into the unguarded port next to the town square/royal bedchambers.  The local sentries were taken off-guard as the hostile forces slew man upon man with wooden swords and well-choreographed fight sequences.

Asian rappers often cite this battle as a call to end yellow-on-yellow violence.

By the end of the massacre the village lay in ruin, and the invading army returned to their ship drunk on victory and probably low-grade soju from backstage.  It was indeed a dark day for this town/city/empire (it was never really explained, in English anyway).

This was the best I got.

But just when all hope seemed dashed to bits--by wooden swords--a group of brave and inexplicably alive villagers mounted their ship cleverly hidden behind a stage curtain and pursued their attackers with a vengeance.  In a hail of cannon fire and ear-splitting digital sound effects, the two vessels met head to head on the briny, capricious wakes of the waist-high pool.  What ensued was one of the bloodiest naval battle reenactments ever to take place in the history of Korean education-themed amusement parks.

Each actor represents between 1 and 1,000 people.

In the end our heroes emerged victorious and the kingdom was saved, thus ending a tale of Korean gallantry and perseverance that to this day serves as a paradigm for the nation's noble cell phone manufacturers and AAA baseball players.  To witness it firsthand was truly a once-in-a-lifetime experience, available for viewing at 10:30am & 2:30pm Monday-Friday, with a third performance added on weekends, weather permitting.

And what trip to an edu-musement park would be complete without seeing a guy riding on a horse shooting a bow and arrow at stuff?

Surely not this one.

In fact throughout the years of class trips and family vacations taken as a child, I don't think I've ever NOT seen a guy riding on a horse shooting a bow and arrow at stuff.  Gettysburg, The Alamo, even Alcatraz Island, which in retrospect was a little misguided but hey it made for good entertainment, and it taught me almost as much about the history of our nation's penal system as did Sean Connery in The Rock.

"Losers always whine about their best.  Winners go home and fuck the prom queen" is a line that I still say to myself when I'm in a harrowing and painful situation, like riding my bike up a really big hill.

As I made my way to the park exit, which at this point seemed to be many lifetimes in the distance, I saw on the hill in front of me one of the most recognizable sights in all of Korea, a replica of the Bell of King Seongdeok.

Also known as the Emille Bell, this 1,300 year-old artifact, which now resides in the National Museum of Gyeongju, is the largest preserved bell in the entire country, and a symbol of the Korean people's industry and engineering prowess.

Standing at over 12 feet high and weighing approximately 19 tons, the bell is embroidered with beautifully intricate floral patterns and East Asian calligraphy.  This true-to-life replica seated proudly atop the park's tallest hill gives all of its visitors a priceless taste of the fortitude, history, and dynamism that embodies the nation of Korea today...

...curly fries are 50 cents extra.

BAM 2.0!!

Two exclamation points means it's extra important.

Yes, it's been over two months since the last entry.  And yes, I am well off my mark of having 52 posts by the time I return to America in February.  But as the late great Rodney Dangerfield once said, "I tell ya I get no respect.  My dog watches me in the bedroom..because he wants to learn how to beg."  Not really relevant here, but still funny.

I've crunched the numbers (40 more posts/21 weeks) and I have to write approximately 2 entries per week in order to reach my goal and eventually get a publishing deal for "52 Faux Pas: A Big American Guide to Living in Korea."  I haven't talked with any editors yet, but I hear they're practically giving book deals away these days: http://www.nydailynews.com/gossip/2010/09/29/2010-09-29_snookis_an_author_jersey_shore_star_writing_novel_a_shore_thing.html

 

Author

So my promise to you, my devoted friends and readers, and whoever Yessi B is, is that I will update you on my ramblings twice a week, Monday and Wednesday, for the next 5 months.  Or at least until I can figure out how to bypass the time limit on Megavideo.

And in the process, I will be working on a top secret project that is sure to change the way the world thinks of documentaries, which right now is pretty much nothing.

I also have a new Twitter account--@bigamericanman--where you can follow my daily thought process as I think about nothing at all.  Invigorating!

So keep reading, this is the beginning of an ambitious new era for the Big American Man!

...starting tomorrow.

...maybe.