Tag: Seoul

My Experiences In Seoul, My Novel & ‘Write What You Know’


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The expat scene in Seoul — at least when I was there — was an overheated caldron of creativity. And there were a lot — and I mean A LOT — of freaky weirdos running around. Myself included.

So many larger-than-life characters were roaming around that I often would look at one of them and say to their face, “You’re like a character in a novel.” Little did I know that many moons later I would make them characters in MY novel.

But here I am.

I find myself leaning into what I remember of those freaky expats as I develop characters in the latest version of this novel. My memory of those people is so vivid that when I find myself struggling to think up some colorful aspect of this or that character I just say, “Well, do I remember any expats in Seoul that would fit that bill?”

I’ve come up with a pretty direct way of being able to use these characters as well. One of the unique things about being an expat in South Korea is you’re always one disaster away from being kicked out of the country for good.

Anyway. Things are moving really fast with my revised vision for this story where it’s split into two novels, one story. Right now, I need to do a lot of reading and distract myself in some way so I can figure out how to fill up the second half of the second act before the sun goes dark.

Seoul Man 2024



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

A lot can happen in four years — I could get snatched off the street by ICE and die in a camp, for one — but in general, I think I’m going to begin thinking about returning to Asia on or about the 20th Anniversary of my original arrival in South Korea in 2004.

I would just like to visit the old haunts on last time before I drop dead. So, I would go to Incheon, Seoul, Busan, then fly down to Southeast Asia to see some of the countries I didn’t to get see the few times I was down there. The thing is, not only has Asia changed a great deal since I left, I have changed a lot, too. I’m just not the man I used to be.

I’m a lot wiser, a lot more grounded and a lot more careful.

That’s the great tragedy of getting older. Once you enter a new phase in your life, there’s no going back. The worst part about it, of course, is there’s no ritual to help you understand what’s going on. When you’re younger, you have a number of important milestones that help you know you’re in a new era in your life. You go 16, 18, 21, 25, 30….then things become a lot more vague.

Of course, with “normal” people what happens is they exchange their own personal milestones for the personal milestones of their children. That’s the way it’s supposed to happen, at least. So when you reach 40-ish, there’s no official ceremony that tells you, “Nope, can’t date a 24 year old anymore, big guy.”

So here I am.

The older you get, the more you realize no one owes you shit and things don’t “happen for a reason.” Things happen for no reason at all and either you figure out away to give them value by taking advantage of them, or you don’t. I know on an existential level, any return to Asia would be me struggling to relieve my lost youth.

The last time I was in Seoul, things were very, very boring. This was in no small part to the changes in immigration law that forced a lot of the more balls out crazy people to flee to Cambodia. Now, things are quite calm in South Korea and, as such, I’m not going to find some sort of Fountain of Youth. I’m still old and there’s no going back.

But I would like, one last time, to see some of the significant places I remember from Seoul.

‘The Company’ & My Wild Days In Seoul



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

This is an instance of me either being extremely delusional (which is very possible) or sensing something that is true. Way back when, when I was living in Seoul, I was a man on fire. I was EXTREMELY CONSPICUOUS. So much so, that it’s probably reasonably likely that…uhhh…some spooks…in Seoul probably at least were aware of me.

I say this only because given where it is, it seems reasonable to assume that Seoul is crawling with spooks. Like a whole lot. And when I was there, there was a huge fucking military base in the middle of the city. And I was frequenting places like Haebangchon that probably had some military intelligence people living there. (At least in my fevered imagination about a decade later.)

Anyway, the only reason I bring his somewhat (ok, maybe a lot) bonkers idea up is I keep getting the occasional ping in my Webstats from people looking at this Website from Seoul. It makes no sense. None. I haven’t been in Seoul for about a decade now and, so, what? Why? I have been talking to the FBI for the novel and I even went so far as to mention “The Company” to the FBI PR guy.

I dunno. Just seems logical that some long-term spooky people in Seoul might have gotten wind of what I’m up to and thought they would take a look at my Website to see what was up.

I don’t think you can fully appreciate how insanely conspicuous I was in Seoul at my “height.” I was so balls out nuts someone even put me in a book about crazy expats.

All I can say is, I’m a changed man. I’ve learned humility.

Of Music And The #Novel I’m Developing #AmWriting



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

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.

Music Is At The Heart Of This Novel



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

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.

We’ll see.

My life in Seoul, 2006-2007.

‘Spooky’



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

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.

Idle Rambling About #Seoul #Expatlife & #Writing A #Novel

Some rambling.

’28 Hours Before: Train To Daegu’ #WuFlu #CoronaVirus

Yep.
Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

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.

Anyway. Buckle up.

V-Log: The Influence Of My Life In Seoul As An Expat On The Novel I’m Developing

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

Some thoughts.

I’ve Really — REALLY — Romanticized My Time In #Seoul

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

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.