Tuesday, March 31, 2009

This Land is Your Land, This Land is My Land

Obama is playing all socialist again, signing a massive public land reform bill. Good for him. And for us. And for the marble.

Monday, March 30, 2009

Soren's Song

Jonathan Mann over at rockcookiebottom.com just wrote this song for Soren. It's wonderful.

He even took the time to explain about Soren and made it very personal for him. Many of the lines for the song are taken from Soren's website, curioussoren.blogspot.com, which he also linked to on his homepage.... and he included the lyrics, too. All too cool, really.



Last week Soren and I began a little email conversation with Jonathan after I wrote this post about his "Hey Paul Krugman" song. He said he'd write a song for Soren, and the first thing Soren has done every morning since is to check rockcookiebottom to look for his song.

The thing is, Jonathan made it kinda big this past week with the success of "Hey, Paul Krugman". It led to him being interviewed by MSNBC's "1600 Pennsylvania Ave." and writing their theme song (it's great, see below). He received a lot of exposure, a lot more traffic, and all sorts of requests. He wrote a general post asking for people to be very patient about their song requests. Secretly, I was expecting Soren's song to be put off for some time and was hoping Soren wouldn't be too disappointed.

Not so. Not only did he do the song, but he made it completely personal for Soren as well. We're so grateful. Soren's thrilled. After watching the video, Soren quickly wrote about it on his website and then asked if he could skip art class so he could stay home to write another song. Of course I said yes....

Sunday, March 29, 2009

G'Dragon vs. Donnie Wahlberg

Soren came home the other day and told me he looked like G'Dragon (Gangsta Dragon?), the "bad boy" sort-of rapper from the massively popular Korean pop/hip-hop band, 빅방 (Big Bang).

To put this into perspective for an American in his 30's, this would be akin to my son saying he looks like Donnie Wahlberg from the New Kids on the Block.... and don't pretend like you don't know who Donnie is.

Donnie is the NKOTB (yeah, I'm confident enough in my person that I can both write about Donnie and use the abbreviation for the band). Donnie was the one member that made you think twice about the group. He was the tough guy. The really, really cool, really tough guy that would beat you up. Or at least dress that way and have a scowl on his face that said "I'll fuck you up if you say I'm in a gay boy band."

[side note: I have a pop culture fascination about the NKOTB phenomenon. It was triggered by trying to understand the motivations of my friend's younger sister - she covered every inch of her bedroom walls with NKOTB posters and photos. She travelled to Boston to see the first concert of several NKOTB tours. She told me a cryptic story about being in Donnie's hotel room.... I'm not sure if she was crazy or just a slut. And to be clear, I never liked them - I was just interested in the NKOTB phenomenon. No. Really.]



This is 빅방, and G'Dragon is the guy in the middle with the faux mohawk - or as they say in Asia, the "beckham sytle". In case you can't tell, he's a bad-motha-fucka with gangsta street-cred (and an elite private school upbringing). If you check out Soren's website, you'll see his profile pic is somewhat similar. So maybe his friends are right in that he looks like G Dragon. Maybe he should be happy b/c his friends sure think G Dragon is cool, so that can't be a bad thing.... but two things keep coming to my mind:

One, Donnie Wahlberg.

Two, Korean pop music really, really sucks.

I'm highly biased against pop music in general, but Korean pop music makes me hurl. When I came to Korea 15 years ago, Korea still had terrible boy bands (yeah, and NKOTB was huge), but there were also music stores on every corner hinting that musical diversity still existed. And then around 2000 the Korean music industry semi-collapsed after everyone stopped buying music and turned to illegal downloads instead (Korea has the world's highest percentage of internet users).

With no one buying CD's, the music industry changed it's business structure. Instead of making and marketing music, they began to make and market pop culture. Not completley unlike pop music in the states, but here it's in overdrive. The music industry makes most of its money by having bands do commercials (everyone here is a sellout - that is the entire point), be regulars on TV talk/reality shows, perform weekly TV concerts, etc. Basically they make money by being famous.

While typing this post, I glanced over at the TV show my wife was watching - "Imagination Plus" - a standard-fare Korean talk show. It summarizes my entire post. 소녀시대 (Girls' Generation) is the guest, and the whole point of the show is to talk about how awesome they are - especially their awesomely awesome dance moves (starting after 1:00 cuts to the chase).



This kind of music, dancing, and TV broadcasting is everywhere. I'm constantly dumbfounded. Every new song has a new dance. And most of my students know every move.

I'm torn between telling them that their music sucks or just shooting myself in the head.

I know I'm being condescending of the Korean culture, which I suppose is my intent. It helps me stay sane. I love living in a culture that makes me feel dizzy at times - it keeps life interesting... and really, who am I to judge?

What is happening to the Korean music industry is also happening in many other Asian countries. I wonder what will happen in the states when almost everyone stops buying music. America has a strong tradition of counter-culture music so musical diversity will always flourish... but where will the profits come from?

Last thought: I wonder what would happen if Rage Against the Machine and Ani DiFranco had a concert in Korea. Most Koreans, after running away in fear, would likely have the same reaction that I have when I hear Big Bang: What the hell was that shit?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This is a mix of many famous Asian pop/hip-hop bands. Oh Lord, the apocalypse is upon us.



This is Soren's favorite Big Bang song. He saw me looking for videos for this post and asked me to find this video. He begged me to add it to his iPod. I will, but it'll hurt.



For those who just can't get enough (that'd be you, halloweenjack), you can search YouTube for K-pop.

Lastly, to show that I'm either a hypocrite or not quite so negative about my adopted homeland (answer: both), here is a song by MC몽 (MC Monkey - Koreans think he looks like a monkey). I actually kind of like this song's unique, humorous gusto.

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Paul Krugman Song





I love this song. Any song that successfully utilizes "Paul Krugman" and "Timothy Geithner" has by default earned my respect. But the lyrics are so true. I keep reading Krugman, keep getting frustrated, keep wondering why his ideas aren't being adopted. So yeah, this song is right on. And it's kind of funny.

I saw this video a couple days ago. The odd thing is that tonight as I was walking to the supermarket, I started humming this little ditty, trying to remember the words, wondering what song was cycling through my head.

Damn! It's the Paul Krugman song from that strangely captivating nerd who's making a song a day for year. Came home from the supermarket, pulled up the YouTube video and gave it several listens. I love this song. I paid $0.99 for it and put it on my iPod Touch.

Yeah, and the way he dances at the end even makes me like myself a little more.

So this dude is making a "nerdy song a day" for a year over at rockcookiebottom.com. That's pretty nutty/awesome. You have to be pretty creative and carefree to make a song a day. And probably jobless. Another favorite of mine, Battlestar Galactica. And I'm linking to Saving Newspapers: The Musical (DEMO) in honor of my hometown Ann Arbor News which CNN tells me will publish it's last paper this July.

Soren has been learning guitar and writing many semi-songs, sans lyrics. I showed him rockcookiebottom.com and he found it fascinating. We've decided to make wathching his daily song part of his homeschool project. As Soren is sort-of writing his first songs, I think seeing a new/different song each day will help him learn a little about song structure, but probably even more importantly, better understand creative courage and the willingness to just try. Ah, educational freedom.

UPDATE EXTRAORDINAIRE: This fella says he's open to song topic requests, so Soren and I emailed him and gave him a little background about Soren learning the guitar, making his website part of his homeschooling, and our journey from Michigan to Korea. He sent a nice, sincere reply.

"...maybe I can post the chords and he can learn it. I'll try to write it from his perspective, maybe that way it can be HIS song. I'm seriously honored to be part of your daily homeschool program. That's pretty much the best thing that I could ever possibly imagine."

He's gonna make a song from Soren's perspective.... curious what that'll turn out to be. Pretty cool. Nice guy.

Yeah, the Paul-Krugman-song-guy is gonna make a Soren his own song. That rocks.

Friday, March 13, 2009

A bombshell is about to explode





Step one: play video



Step two: look at tim.











Welcome to tiny's, Tim.

Monday, March 09, 2009

Tuesday, March 03, 2009

Worst. Job. Ever.



A couple weeks ago we took Soren and some of his friends to Kid's Lands for Soren's 8th birthday party. The best part of the day was watching this poor chap get mobbed by rabid children. You can hear me at the end of the video yelling "Kill him... Kill it." Yeah, I might have gotten carried away a little, but man, that was good watchin'.

when I first witnessed this mauling, I immediately said to my wife, "That's what I feel like every day!" I'm the only non-Korean most days, and little children often react to me as if I'm a zoo creature. Staring. Pointing. "엄마, 외국인!" (mommy, foreigner!), an occasional poke, whispers to friends. You get the picture. Overall, no pain inflicted... except the bottomless pit in my heart knowning that I'll never truly belong (key violin). If I'm in a good mood, I'll give them a nice "hello, what's your name?" At times I've been known to make sudden odd faces at the children just to mess with them. Most laugh but some of the younger ones scream and run away. That's always fun.