As I keep saying, music — specifically pop rock — is at the heart of this novel for no other reason than the novel is really me talking about those brief few months about 15 years ago when I was both DJing and publishing the sole magazine for expats in Seoul.
I finally figured out a way to tell that story, but only as a very deep layer. You would have to have a fairly lengthy drunk conversation with me for it all to make sense relative to what’s going on in my mind. But tell that story, I have, at last, figured out to do.
So, there you go.
Because I really, really have no clue what I’m doing and I’m doing it in a vacuum, I have spun my wheels for months and months and MONTHS. But, now, I think, out of sheer desperation, I’m going to just wrap up the outline about the July 4th weekend and just go for it.
I have to write a first draft so I can have a second.
I’ve worked really hard for this, now it’s time to follow through.
I’m listening to a lot of soundtracks of serious, dark thrillers these days, hoping that some of it will rub off of me as I develop this novel. I simply don’t take myself all that seriously, so I need to get into that vibe as I develop the novel.
At the center of this story (two novels, one story) is music. I’ve come up with a rather unique way to use music in this novel. I only use titles of songs because, well, the medium is the message and all that. But I’m hoping people like me who like the type of music I like will dig it, as they say.
One of the layers of this novel is me reminiscing about those few, brief — but extremely exciting — months in Seoul in late 2006, early 2007. I simply can not tell what really happened in a way that anyone would want to read because it’s a tragedy with a forgone conclusion.
But I can, essentially, hide that story inside another story.
As such, I’ve spent a lot — A LOT — of time figuring out how to re-create the dynamic in my personal life during late 2006, early 2007 when I was publishing a magazine and DJing at a expat bar. Pretty much the entire novel, by accident, is simply an excuse for me to remember how cool I briefly was a long time ago.
I’m going to try to work music into every aspect of the novel. This, of course, hopefully, will make it easier to adapt into a movie should somehow I manage to sell this thing after all is said and done.
When I was living in Seoul, I occasionally would get a weird feeling that someone I was interacting with was….a bit…spooky. Whenever you suspect you’re dealing with spooks, you come off sounding like an crazy person because typically the average person doesn’t run into them.
But the thing about Seoul when I was there was there was a huge military base in the middle of the city. So, every once in a while when I was DJing at Nori in Sinchon, I saw older guys in the audience who just did not fit in. I have an extremely active imagination and so I would stand there, behind the bar, and wonder…are those guys spooks?
The only reason why I even bring this up is I’m listening to the “Wind of Change” podcast and it seems to fit very much in how I view the world in general — “normal” people are way too quick to assume that that just because someone is a kook that they couldn’t possibly have anything of merit to contribute. I am finding a lot of inspiration from the podcast as to how to come up with some out-of-the-box ideas for the novel I’m writing.
It’s this tendency that really bugs the shit out of me about successful Twitter liberals who look down their nose at me because I’m a bit “touched.” I often up come up with rather fantastical ideas. But at the same time, I occasionally do actually figure things out correctly — COVID19 being a prime example. I know why they do this — they have a vested interest in doing things “the right way” and if you don’t fit that metric, then, well, fuck you.
Anyway, I generally have a positive view of spooks these days because, well, we have a mad, tyrannical American Caligula hell-bent on destroying the nation I love and it seems as those if there really was a Deep State, they would be the good guys. Trump is actively trying to replace these good guys with traitors and sycophants, so who knows where things will end up.
Oh boy. The next 24 to 48 hours will be crucial in determining our collective fate. If what I fear what will happen, happens, and the nation I love second only to the USA — South Korea — effectively implodes from an exponential growth in WuFlu cases, well, fasten your seat belts.
We’re out of the blue and into the black.
What I mean by this it will be South Korea that marks the “inciting incident” in the real life horror movie we may be about to lurch into. If by Monday the entire economy of South Korea has ground to a halt because of either cases or the fear of getting WuFlu, I have a feeling that someone in the United States might finally notice that there’s something going on other than the circle jerk of the 2020 Election Campaign.
Source: Twitter
By this coming Monday, the global economy could be exactly where it would be if there was a war between the DPRK and ROK. In fact, we don’t even know what’s going on in the black box of the DPRK. We could very well have an actual fighting war between the Koreas far, far sooner than we ever imagined. Or, put another way, you can’t have exponential WuFlu case growth in the ROK without some serious consequences.
And, yet, let’s step back. I’m making some assumptions. It’s possible that I’m getting way ahead of myself. Things may — as everyone in Trump Administration wants me to believe — fizzle out and we can all go back to praising the Orange Calf of Trump. I keep screwing up — and just being flat wrong — so I’m not prepared to say my end times scenario is in anyway actually going to happen.
But, like I said, the next 48 hours may be crucial. I only say that because of what’s going on in South Korea. They seem to have a perfect storm on their hands and things are moving so fast that the government may simply not be able to control the situation now.
One important thing to note — there are still very few deaths associated with Wuflu outside out Wuhan itself. I keep hearing reports of what sound like a new hotzone in Qom, Iran…but….I dunno yet. Those numbers may be the result of bad translation or bad reporting, or both.
A long time ago, I lived in Seoul. I was, for various reasons, very unhappy during much of my time there and yet now I have romanticized my time there so much that you would never know. I was going to through a really rough patch for much of my time in Seoul and I guess my wistfulness about it now stems in large part from 1) my desire to be young again 2) my desire to “fix” the problems that occurred while I was there.
Neither is going to happen if I ever go back, sad to say. I honestly don’t want to go back to stay — I am too acutely aware of some major strategic issues preventing that — but I do every once in a while moon over the idea of going back for, say two weeks. There are so many problems preventing me from seriously even vising Seoul anytime soon that it’s comical to even do so.
One major problem is money. If I actually saved up the money to visit Seoul, I would have to, well, think seriously that I could use that money for something far more constructive. So, the conditions would have to be absolutely perfect for me to go, even for a visit. Since that’s simply unlikely to happen, it’s best if I focus on my life in the States. I might be able to visit NYC or maybe even LA every once in a while, but going to Seoul is something that, at least for the time being, I can only dream about.
I lived in Seoul a few years, specifically in the Haebangchon, or HBC neighborhood. It was all a long time ago and I have romanticized the experience so much that it’s virtually a daydream. But what is interesting is when I finally managed to find myself in Brooklyn, I found it rather meh compared to HBC.
HBC, at least when I was there, was a small and intense community of creative types from all over the world. It was almost like a really, really small college town. There were a lot of older guys dating younger women. Lots of sex. Lots of booze. Lots of drugs. But all of that has very much changed as best I can tell.
It’s all a very different experience now. The place has gentrified to a great extent and I think native Koreans have largely lost their unwillingness to live near expats. So, things are different. It used to be you could get a decent apartment for about $300 a month with an amazing view of the Seoul cityscape. This is, alas, not the case anymore I don’t think.
I really miss my time in Seoul. It was a lot of fun. But that moment in my life is over. I can’t go back. I’ve gotten older and all the energy I felt back about 10 years ago is long gone. I sometimes idly think about one last trip to Asia at some point in the future before I turn 50, but that doesn’t seem likely at this point.
But for the want of a nail, I would still be in Seoul. But it just wasn’t meant to be. My future is — if anything — one of a novelist. It will be interesting to see how things work out.
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