When I “divorced” the late Annie Shapiro at the end of my version of ROKon Magazine, she got “Talking Crap.”
Talking Crap was a little group of would-be Algonquin Roundtable expats who drank a lot and did really funny, interesting things. They were way ahead of the curve in these little videos they used to make with their digital cameras.
Me with the late Dave Hat a long time ago in Seoul.
In hindsight, Talking Crap would probably have been huge during the social media age.
We lost a member of Talking Crap recently, Dave Hat.
Dave Hat was a great guy. He and I were, at least in my view, two sides of the same coin. And his unexpected death has really gotten me thinking about my own mortality. I’m not going to live forever and I really need to put up or shut up.
We are slowly creeping towards it being 20 years ago that the late Annie Shapiro and I started ROKon Magazine. Not a lot has happened in my life since then, sad to say. I’ve been in emotional neutral since about April, 2007.
Ugh.
But, there are signs of hope. I’m hoping to wrap up some sort of novel by spring 2026 and start to query it not later than maybe Sept 1st. I just don’t know, though. It will be interesting to see.
The premise of the novel is pretty good, if a bit dark. But I’m so moody when it comes to working on a novel I don’t know how much of that thinking it’s “dark” comes from I just sometimes don’t feel like working on anything at all for long stretches of time.
Anyway. I keep thinking about what happened to me way back when in South Korea and how I would do everything different if I had a second chance. I learned what NOT to do, that’s for sure.
Don’t fall in love with your co-founder, if you start a magazine, is one big issue. And also don’t be afraid to accept defeat and start over again in a different way.
And, yet, I think the key thing, the biggest thing, that I didn’t realize about the whole ROKon Magazine rigmarole is there is a time limit for 99% of the expats who live in South Korea. And you have no idea what your time limit is. It just strikes and you HAVE TO GO, no matter where you might be otherwise in your expat expereince.
Sigh.
I’m so much older now that if I ever return to South Korea (the way it’s going it will have to be the fallen DPRK that needs English teachers that will be how I get back) that it just won’t be as much fun. Maybe no fun at all. Sigh, sigh, sigh.
For some reason, I find myself thinking of Seoul AGAIN. I keep thinking about all the adventures I had while I was in Asia and how nice it would be to go back and have people actually…care. That was probably the biggest difference between now and then — back in my Seoul days, people actually gave a shit about me.
Now…lulz.
I am well aware that if I went back that it would be a very harsh reality. Everyone I knew from way back when are long gone. It probably would seem very, very boring. There might be a few Koreans who remember me, but, I don’t know, I just would have to manage my expectations.
And, what’s more, I’m not going back to Asia anytime soon. It could be years and I’ll be even older than I am now. It’s all just kind of sad. I could be dating a robot by the time I have the funds to go back to Asia.
The way things are going, I’m just not going to return to Seoul anytime soon. But that doesn’t stop me from daydreaming about where I might go if I did. Of course, whenever I did return to Seoul I’ll be so old that it’ll be difficult to have any fun.
But here are some places I’d like to see again.
Haebangchon This was the neighborhood that changed my life. I have a lot of fond memories and lot of bad memories from all my carousing there. I think returning there will be a huge let down because I’m not as cute as I used to be and I won’t be able to chase women like I used to. Sigh.
Nori Bar I don’t even know if Nori is still open. But I’d at least like to swing by and see. I may be too old for them to let me in (Seoul clubs sometimes do that.) Who knows.
Anyway, it will be years before I can return to Asia. I still have a downlow, lingering desire to backpack around Southeast Asia. But, again, I’m so old. So very, very old, relative to my time in Seoul. Sigh.
I like to think that I have “the knack” to a limited degree and I feel a tinge of something out of sorts in the universe. I don’t know what it is, but I feel like something I don’t know about is happening that I would find of interest if I did know about it.
Then, for some reason, I also find myself thinking about South Korea — specifically Seoul — and the late, great Annie Shapiro. I still can’t believe that woman is dead. It just blows my mind. She was so manipulative and crafty that I STILL have a 10% belief that she faked her death for some reason.
She really was that sneaky.
And, yet, all indications are that she did, in fact die. At a very young age, too. It’s all very sad.
But I also think of Seoul and all the crazy things that happened to me there. It’s been so long ago that I was last in Seoul that if I ever go back, oh boy, will things be very, very different.
Which makes me feel kind of sad. But I’m also a lot different than I was when I was in Seoul. I’m older, wiser and the whole context of any new time in Seoul would be so different as to make the trip nearly moot.
As it stands, the only way I would ever probably live in Korea long-term would be if there was a war between the Koreas, South Korea won and suddenly there was a absolute need for as many English teachers as possible in what was once North Korea.
Otherwise, lulz, I probably can just visit at some point in the future. (When, I don’t know….maybe when I sell my novel?)
But I wonder what I’m feeling that is making me tinkle in my psyche. I wonder what’s going on just outside my vision.
Every once in a while, I’ll stop out of the blue and think, “Wow, ROKon Magazine is a bonkers story.” I’ve written a document about all that bullshit — Somehow — but I still, to this day, have a lingering hope that someone ELSE will see what a great story it is and want to do something with it.
But, as it stands, I just am going to use what happened to inspire me in my own art. And, yet, wow, just wow. The crazy things that happened from late 2006 to early 2008 in Seoul with me and the late Annie Shapiro at the center of it all — wow!
The crux of the issue whenever I think about Seoul is it’s obviously my youth, not Seoul itself that I miss. And I’ve Romanized my time in Seoul to such an absurd degree that I know if I ever return it will be a huge let down.
Hell, it was a huge let down the last time I was there.
But a part of me wants to return just to touch base with the place before I drop dead. Though, obviously, if, say, the DPRK collapses and there’s a sudden surge in demand for English teachers there….who knows, I might somehow, magically, find myself there?
And, yet, I have to accept some basic things — even if I suddenly become “famous” and “successful” enough to go back to South Korea some sort of conquering hero — that is not going to change how fucking old I am. I’m just a very, very different person than I was in late 2006 – early 2008.
If you want to read about what the fuck happened, here it is:
The key thing is even if I magically got the money to go back to South Korea — and Asia in general — at some point in the future, I wouldn’t get what I really wanted: my youth back. I would be returning to Asia a far older and far wiser person and the entire context of whatever happened would be very different.
Most everyone I remember from my time in Asia would have drifted off to a different country and the South Koreans MIGHT remember me, but I’m not so sure they would actually want to hang out with me.
I only bring this up because I keep having these long, extended dreams where I’m back in Seoul. It’s really wild. Or, I find myself daydreaming for way too long about what might happen if I ever do return.
I don’t know. This is all very speculative. I just don’t think I’m going to have the money to go back to Asia for a long, long time — probably years. And, like I said, it just won’t be the same.
Today, 20 years ago, was my first full day in South Korea. It was the single most dramatic changes in my life, ever. Even more than my first day at college. I really did go from “zero to hero.”
But that was all a long time ago. Lulz, nothing matters. I just have to buckle down and get back to work on my novel(s.) I am angry again that nobody takes my writing seriously.
I know I got a sold three or so novels in me. The only problem is, of course, that, lulz, the world may come to an end before all is said and done — I may never get the chance to query the novels. Below is a link to the craziness that happened a few years later I arrived in South Korea.
The case could be made that with the rise of A.I., the ESL teaching economy in Asia is about to undergo a severe retrenchment. It could be that as A.I. gets better and better at real-time translation, the idea of actually learning English will become quaint in the eyes of South Korean parents who are already often strapped for education cash.
But, I don’t know.
It may not be as simple as that. There is a lot to be said for the simple cultural exchange that takes place when young Korean children — and Korean society as a whole — are exposed to people from outside the country.
So it’s possible that there will be a lot of hand wringing, but, in the end, nothing much will change. Maybe a lot of the poorer school districts, outside of the major cities in South Korea, will give up on ESL, but in big cities nothing will really change that much.
I feel like trying to write a column about this for The Korea Times.
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