3.02.2010

Bro.

If I only had a gun.

Please. Please, for the love of all that is holy, please stop advertising teaching in South Korea as one long, extended vacational delay of real life. I don't want these fucking bro-dudes here. I really... just...

Sometimes I wonder if someday, I'll just crack under the pressure and start "swilling soju" and "partying by night", while exclaiming to anyone who'll listen how 'yeah like I'm not really like sure like what I'll do when I like go back home man dude bro. I guess I'll like have to get like a real job man dude bro.' I read an article like this, and then I have to look my superiors in the face and try to make an unflinching argument about how I should be taken seriously. Even I'm struck by the urge to burst into giggles, from time to time.

Mass extermination, kids. It's the only answer. Trust me on this one. Bro.

(PS -- I spotted two [two!] other foreigners in my neighborhood this weekend. Not like, in-my-neighborhood as in twenty minutes up the road at the Homeplus, but in-my-neighborhood as in buying oranges from my fucking orange lady. If either one of them is you, well you definitely didn't look like bro-dudes. Welcome to the 'hood and feel free to grab my grumpy ass out on the street if you have any questions or need help with anything. Two!!)

(PPS -- I know "vacational" is not a word.)

(PPPS -- Roboseyo's got an awesome Open Letter to First Year English Teachers post that I feel like throwing in here, because he explains what I'm trying to say much more diplomatically and with far less sarcasm. It's good stuff. Check it out.)

5 comments:

MikejGrey said...

Fade in. Six AM outside of a Disco Boss night club in bupyeong. LIZ, MAGNES, and SMALLTOWN emerge bleary eyed and dehydrated. Magnes is cranky.
MAGNES
I need a cigarette

LIZ
That was dumb.

SMALLTOWN
I DUNNO WHAT YE ARE ONE ABOOT, BUT I'M JUS GETTIN STARTED

MAGNES
I have to go awkwardly get in a cab, and watch two cars ram into each other on the way home, and then throw up on the sidewalk when I'm able to shout YOGI or ESTA AQUI or whatever when we get to my block.

LIZ
I always get nice cab drivers who sing the alphabet song to me.

A BRO stumbles towards Magnes, Liz, and Smalltown. He is swigging the last drops of a bottle of soju. Mind you, this is 6 AM and in the middle of the street. Or sidewalk. Details are foggy.

A BRO
Dudes. I'm from Seoul

MAGNES AND LIZ
Why are you here?

SMALLTOWN
DO YE HAVE SOME CIGARETTE THEM? THEY TASTE BETTER. COLDER.

A BRO
Where' the nearest bar.

MAGNES
It's 6 AM

SMALLTOWN
I DUNNO. LET'S GO FIND ONE.

LIZ
It's 6AM. Go Home. I am.

SMALLTOWN
(puts on headphones leaves without saying word.)

Magnes and Liz stare at each other, then at A Bro, and then leave walking in opposite directions.

A BRO
Dudes? I am so wasted. I teach at a hagwon. Can I get laid?

GIANT KOREAN enters and begins fisting A BRO.

SMALLTOWN reenters
SMALL TOWN
I'm leaving
(Doesn't leave. Giant Korean goes deeper. A Bro screams.)
I am waiting for Godot.
(A Bro screams. Giant Korean does some K pop dance).
Or Mr. Goodbar.
(Conor throws up and passes out. Magnes returns and steals his wallet. )

LIZ
(off camera)
Aish!

MikejGrey said...

Someday someone is gonna look back at this blog and I'll be the Frank O'Hara writing poems on napkins to your uh... whoever he wrote poems on napkins to.


Also I probably shouldn't have written smalltown's name there, huh? Oops. Inconsistencies. I went to skool for dis?

I'm no Picasso said...

Ha. That moment of Smalltown just fucking walking away... leaving us there with that human trash he had engaged with in the first place.

Oh god. We had some good times in the early days. I'm not sure we could get up to as much trouble if you were to come back. I think I understand too much of what's going on around me, these days.

I'm no Picasso said...

Can I be John Ashbery? But then there has to be this kind of shady thing that happens when anyone mentions how we roomed together in the dorms at university for a while, where we both have to just look at our shoes and change the subject.

MikejGrey said...

Sounds like a good plan.


Although I'm pretty sure John Ashbery made several deals with several devils and will never die. So I dunno if you can be John Asbury.