Well it's what equates to Memorial Day weekend here in Korea. And we get a 3-day weekend! Woohoo! Am I being ungrateful to wish this long weekend happened on one of the weeks when I have my worst class 3 times? We get the Monday off next week and that's one of the days I teach the Dementors on my bad weeks. M/W/F. I only get them once next week. On Thursday. Can we, um, remember the people who died for this country on Thursday? Please?
Yeah, I'm being a bit ungrateful. But I'm not much different from anyone else here. Or, let's face it, in our countries. Most of us don't give much of a thought to the people who lost their lives for us. We just like the extra day off. For drinking. Which is what I'm doing now. You will notice from my random segueing from topic to topic, I'm sure. So speaking of the price of eggs in London...
No, I'm not that drunk. But like we do on a long weekend, I'm having a few beers. And if I have a few more, there just might be more forgetting than remembering going on here for the Memorial Day weekend. But, and I know, I know, this is a bad sign, I'm drinking because I have had a week I'd really LOVE to forget! And you'd know that if you had read my previous, random segueing post. I treated a student much the way I was trained to deal with drunken vagrants in the emergency holding rooms of the various Calgary hospitals I guarded for. I have tackled, jumped, restrained, tied up, cuffed, and actually engaged in physical interaction with people in my capacity as a security guard. I have hurt people, put them in painful wrist and elbow locks and the like. I have never felt guilty about doing so, because it was required and always done in response to equal or greater escalation on the part of the person I was subduing.
I am drinking because I don't know if I can really say that about the kid I gave the bum's rush outta my classroom this past week. I don't think I hurt him, but I was in that adrenalin amped state of mind that might have lead to some pain if things had escalated. Luckily, he didn't push things. But I sit here wondering what would have transpired if he had.
Add to that the various other stressors I've had this week and I am in DIRE need of a good long weekend! So here it is! YAY!
I just got home, glad to be done with the week last night and didn't do much of anything but watch some TV. I ate my late dinner and, as always, paid for it. Had a hard night of reflux. Then the damn choir of tiny hounds in my neighbourhood started warming up at 7 AM. So I knew I was screwed for any catching up on sleep. I decided to go to E-Mart and stock up on groceries. I am out of almost everything. I half forgot about the damn bank amalgamation notice I had received! KB bank and Hanna bank here in Korea are amalgamating. For this they need to suspend all banking services for 4 days. I sort of half remembered this, but thought that it must be referring to only things like paying bills or the sort of things you do in person at the bank. SURELY the card would work at E-Mart. If not the bank machine? No? Well, I got up at 8, went to E-Mart and found out, yup, everything. I had taken a good hour shopping for all kinds of stuff I wanted and needed. Had a full cart. A fan, a new keyboard so I can write Korean characters, the first bottle of Chianti I've found here in Gangneung. A lotta stuff I was looking forward to getting back to my place. Then I just got stuffed at the check-out counter. Like Shaq rejecting some 6 foot guard! NO GROCERIES FOR YOU! I tried to go to the bank machine but that didn't work either. And because the whole place was BALI BALI, (in a big hurry), I just left the whole works of it and walked out. I went to the little Lotte Mart near my house and got the essentials. Instead of 160,000 spent at E-Mart, I spent 40,000 at Lotte Mart. Cuz I had the cash and didn't have to use my card.
But, let's not just be all negative here! I had to walk to the E-Mart this morning and I always go by way of the huge farming area in town here. Today it was the first time I'd been there for a while during the day. At night the frogsong from the flooded rice paddies is a nice accompaniment to a good, bracing walk, but I hadn't seen the progress of the crops for a while. It was amazing! Things are growing fast! Not just the rice. The corn, though there's just a little of it, was thick shafted and strongly erect for the ears to start growing. The smell of frogspawn and fertilized, flowering crops was wafting warmly in the air on my walk to E-Mart. The sloshing water splattering its way onto the carpet of hair-like rice plants created a foam that washed over the eggs of insects that I don't even know. Big, white birds were mating at a dangerous distance and for some reason I was singing Barry Manilow in my head. "Love is in the Air."
And, NOT just to prove the point of my previous post, a couple of old Ajushis sharing soju on the back of a Bongo truck, (who had probably been working since WAY before I was up), said, "Hello! Anyong Haseyo!" and I waved to them and greeted them in Korean. They didn't laugh their asses off! I was breathing in the combination of sunshine, crops and, the wonderful perimeter of the fields that the city of Gangneung had garishly festooned with thousands and thousands of fragrant roses. It was not as nice as the piney air of Dong Mountain where I hike, but it was a gorgeous change of pace. There are many things in this country that are just beautiful! And I guess I don't talk much about them. This might be because normally, while enjoying them, one of the BAD things jumps up and bites me in the face!
I was in my glory, washing away the memory of the previous, hellish week and shopping for food. The only kind of shopping I really enjoy. And going back a little bit to last night, I felt a little ache in the throat all day long. I thought if was probably a result of overusing it the night before after the previously described exchange, or possibly from sleeping in a craned neck position or snoring more aggressively than usual. I would guess the latter due to the dogs wailing. And, as an aside, I believe that the little, white, RAT can hear me snoring and actually barks when I do. That is when I get the really helpful sleep, and, since she is waking me up from it with her wailing, I've been getting hours of sleep but none of the really good REM stuff. That's my theory anyway. Anyway, I decided to use one of my Neo Citron packets last night. It's medicinal hot lemon tea for anyone who doesn't know. And it knocks me out normally! I mean I can sleep like a log! But I opened the box, which was in the shipment I got from Canada and I hadn't checked it yet, and inside I found a Vicks inhaler and a razor! BONUS! That was a nice pick-me-up! Two things I can't get here. Gillette razors here are crap compared to the ones in Canada. And there ARE no Vicks inhalers. Have to go to Thailand to get something similar but not quite the same. Inhaled a bit from it just now. But, the medicine must have worn off a bit in the Neo Citron. I was up WAY too early and I still have that nagging throat soreness. Not to the point of a cold, but way past the, "what the hell is wrong with me?" point.
So I was in a very good mood, mostly because I wasn't working, and also because it was a nice day and the air was fresh and being a bit of a Pantheist, fresh air can pretty much serve as good wine to me. AND, I had some good wine! Chianti! Can't find fava beans, or liver for that matter, but I had Chianti! It was shaping up to be a really good day of recovery. Then I got to the check-out counter. My card was refused at the counter and the bank machine. I had to just unpack my packsack and E-Mart bag, which were both chock-a-block full! People were looking at me like I was an asshole costing them valuable seconds in the check-out part of their shopping experience.
Now I'm in a bad mood and the walk back through the very same fields of wondrous nature became a fetid swamp full of bugs and pests. I got home and got online and found that the greatest boxer of my lifetime had died. These things on their own don't amount to much but when you add them together... I started thinking about the sad news about Gordon Downie, lead singer of the Tragically Hip this week announcing that the band name was apt because he's going to die soon of cancer. Tragic, but still hipper than most bands ever. And he's not going down without a fight! They're doing a cross Canada tour before he tragically checks out. Brain cancer! If that's not the most tragically hip thing about the Tragically Hip EVER, I don't know what is. The brain behind the poetry of this great Canadian band is being eaten away by cancer. Let that sink in.
Now, there's just another thing to make me go "Grrr grrr GRRRRRR Hulk Smash!!!" You see, now that this beloved Canadian band is doing one last tour, rather than do what should be done and allow the fans to see them one last time, Canada, in its present state, is saying, "Fuck you!" to its citizens yet again and allowing the scumbags of the country to buy up all the tickets and price the regular Canadians right out of the market for them. Oh sure, big fans will sell their houses or hockey card collections to see this last concert, but this is absolutely not what Gord would want, nor is it the Canadian thing to do. Justin Trudeau said he respects the hell out of Gordon Downie, so how bout doing something? How about making this the once and for all removal of these bottom feeders who just cash in on the artistic love of music in the least artistic way they can? Let's keep these capitalist tone deaf, money grubbing, fucks out of the music industry forever in Canada and give Gord the send off he would probably like the most! How about instead of wasting time in the House of Commons with tit bumps and fucking national anthem adjustments, let's do something for the majority for a change! Let's get rid of these ticket scalpers in music AND sport! There is no fucking way a person should spend a month's salary on a concert or a hockey game! Let's call it the Gord Downie law. How 'bout that? That would be a fantastic way to commemorate Memorial Day instead of drinking beer and forgetting your problems, like I'm doing right now.
This is just one of the many great songs we all love.
I really think the Hip is the hardest band to choose my favourite song from. The Eagles? AC DC? Pink Floyd? Nope I think I can choose from them. "I Can't Tell You Why," "It's a Long Way To the Top," "Comfortably Numb." But try as I might, I just can't choose my favourite Hip song. Too many.
I am honestly listening now and my eyes are sweating. I remember walking through the agora of my university, Lakehead, in Thunder Bay, hearing the Hip for the first time when they were absolutely unheard of. I'd like to say it was New Orleans is Sinking or Little Bones or Long Time Coming or Ahead By a Century or So Hard Done By or Boots or Hearts or Grace Too, or one of their many recognizable songs I heard them singing, but I saw them singing a song I can't for the life of me remember, stopped, watched them even though I was late for class already, thought the lead singer is a spaz but this band is going places, stayed for 1 1/2 songs and ran to class. And now I look at that as one of the worst mistakes of my life. Ahead by a Century? I have to say, at this time, it could change tomorrow, my favourite Hip song might just be Ahead By a Century. No. Probably not. Never mind.
Know what I mean? You have a band like that, don't you? They have so many awesome songs that have inspired you, soothed you, fired you up, made you think, maybe made you dance, did all the things music is supposed to do and all the while becoming more important to you than 100 other people who have more money and power than these far superior souls. And we know they don't even care about the money. That's why we like them.
Well it's time to give back to one of them. Do something for him in return for all the joy he has brought to us. At one time people sold tickets to people for concerts. NOW people sell tickets to scumbags who have created their jobs out of nowhere for fair prices. They make those prices Unfair in proportion to how much the people want the tickets they have hoarded. It's time to remove these middlemen from the rightful enjoyment of artistic pleasure and joy that we all deserve and that pretty much all these artists do their thing for.
Instead of wasting time with boob bumps and changing a word or two in our antiquated national anthem, how 'bout let's make Justin Trudea, who has expressed his respect for Gordon Downie, make the brand new Gordon Downie law against legal ticket scalpers in Canada. And let's make that include the ridiculous prices for NHL hockey tickets that allow only the rich to attend our national sport any more.
Just an idea.
And I just thought I'd add this for fun. The guy on the left is Colin James. Best live concert I have ever seen. Never heard of him, right? The guy on the right is Jeff Healey. Heard of him? If you have it's probably from Roadhouse. Blind, lap guitar player just might be enough for a Canadian to get some attention. Well he's no longer alive either. There are spectacular artists in Canada going unnoticed for the same reasons these scum sucking ticket scalpers should be done away with. Give the gift of music to the future generations and do something. While we still can.
Just one more.
And one more. Colin James should be a superstar!
No comments:
Post a Comment