Criterion is making me salivate....

I need a Blu-Ray player stat. All these being released soon by Criterion. My head just went POP.

Twisting Tongues on Terribly Boring Day

For the most part this week, I have not taught any classes. After a week long vacation, i'm feeling a bit rusty, and this is making it even worse. Preparations for field day are taking precedent over classes all week, preparations which include; synchronized "She's All That" type dancing, and eerie military like marching on the field. That said, I've spent all my free time on Monday with no class, planning for the whole week, all lesson which I now have not taught and are just going to be rolled over into next week. Oh the joys of being a teacher in Korea.

That said I decided to fine tune one of my lessons for the week, by throwing in some non-sensical tongue twisters to help kids practice their phonics.  I think you can tell by their escalation in weirdness that I'm getting a little bit delirious today. This week it's letters A-E, so ultimately I should have a whole alphabets worth of these to weird kids out with. I really want to do some illustrations for some of them as well.

A

Aardvarks always assume accurately

The apple aggressively ate another apples arm

Adventures alone aren't always all that awesome

The ape arranged an absurdly awesome outfit


B
Bicycles bound bouncily along the big black bricks
I bought brown bananas at a big blue barn
The baboon bakes big beautiful buns
The blue balloon is bigger than the brown bunny

C

The cat called the cranky crow a cruel name

I went camping in a canyon with a cool cat named Carl

The cold cookie and the crayon couldn’t clear customs

The caterpillar creeps calmly along side the crusty clown

D

The donkey dodged the dastardly dragon

The dog ducked to avoid the ducks drooping drapes

Ducks don’t dance on the day after a death

Dirt drenched dolphins don’t do drinks on days that contain the letter “d”

E 

Eager elephants eat evil elves

Everyday eggs are eaten an eel escapes from E-mart

Eagles have enormous, elegant, earthy ears

Every time emus run errands, Elmo escorts them

Korean Karpool

She picks me up on the morning after the typhoon "ravaged the land."

She smiles, nods, pushes aside her rainbow umbrella, and motions for me to sit in the back seat. A backseat completely void of safety restraints.

I'm 8 again. On the big yellow school bus, praying the bus driver isn't leading me to a firey death in which I'm ejected through the winshield

I creek onto the brittle macro-may seat covers, as she slides on her long, bone white, driving gloves. She places them, with authority, on her shimmering bedazzled steering wheel.

She releases the e-brake, nearly kills it, and stops a block later, and begins to feverishly check her cell phone.

Another teacher, "Mary," finally enters.

"Mary" tells me everyday "you look like boy."

"Mary" and "the driver," whose name I don't, and may never know converse sporadically.

Between the "bongs" and the "bops," I occasionally hear what sounds vaguely like "Tay-ler," and polite giggling follows.

"Mary" tells me the driver would like to speak with me, but she doesn't speak English much, or very well.

Smoke spews into the cabin, via the dash. We stop in the middle of traffic.

"The driver" gets out. Stares at the hood briefly. Does nothing, and then re-enters the car.

With her short gaze, she apparently cauterized the beast's wound. We were on our way.

After 45 minutes of pure silence, "the driver" breaks her English celibacy.

"You not here at 5:00...I leave you."

I exit the car, and saunter up my jungle road.

She releases her e-brake, spews smoke, and puts away.

Bon Voyage

Today is the day. I sit with you now broadcasting from the international terminal at Sea-Tac, getting my last taste of America. By that I mean, I'm enjoying the worlds finest pale ale (Sierra Nevada) a shot of well,...americas whiskey (Jack Daniels it was a sultry $3, damn does that waitress know how to upsell!) and a big beefy burger, with baked beans and potato salad. Mind you it is 11am. Save your judgement, I won't have these indulgences in a long while.

The separation from the folks was definitely tough. Even at the airport with my mom and dad we still bickered. Each telling me different directions to roam, which line to stand in and what I should put in what bag, and what have you. Their last gasp of parenting was endearing, but I had to tell them, I'm going to be facing a lot more adversity then figuring out an airport here pretty damn soon, I'm on my very own and no one will be there to help me. I love you guys so much and will miss you everyday.

Same goes for my friends, the last week or so has been spectacular. For the first time in ages I feel at peace with a lot of things that have troubled me in the past. Some relationships have been rocky, others amazing, but all and all in the end, I left everything on a good note and am very grateful for that. Some of you guys are just as much family to me as the real deal.

Somehow, all of this still has not set in. Will it ever? Do I need a heaping waft of spicy kimchi to wake me up to what I'm actually doing? Only time will till, but until then, I am still blissfully ignorant about the enormity of this change, and exponentially excited about it.

Down the hatch goes the Jack, and I'm on my way.

See you in Seoul.

Cheers.

Goodbye USA / Hello South Korea

As my blog is aptly titled, I'm just going to use it for my travels abroad while teaching. Stay tuned.

Playing catch up

Got myself a new iPod after almost a year of the other one half working. Before I was all concerned with getting all my music into one device, but really I think all that did was keep me from giving everything I had a good enough listen. Things would frequently just got lost in the fold of my 80GB beast. Going with the more modest 8GB iPod Touch this roll around (solely because it came free with my new computer), this little mini computer has given me the chance to catch up on some albums that have came out over the last few months (or year) and give um a good hearty listen.

The Hold Steady - Heaven is Whenever
With "Heaven is Whenever" it seems like The Hold Steady have crawled into a dark place. Without the pounding party keys of Franz Nicolay for the first time, the band has definitely found itself in a different realm of the mind. It's a darker place, sparse, reflective and hopeful; a place where the small child burgeoning inside of Craig Finn and his cast of characters have started to face adulthood. Sure their songs have been heavy handed in the past, but this album actually sounds the part, and I dig it. The album cover pretty much tells all, the band is reaching for something (or out of something) they haven't yet reached before, or weren't ready for until now. Craig Finn is, as always, is pure literary form though with his legendary monologues.
Listen to: The Weekenders

Male Bonding - Nothing Hurts
A lot of bands have embraced this "I wanna be Sonic Youth and Dinosaur Jr" fuzzy guitar sound over the last few years: No Age, Times New Viking, Japandroids, etc. Some of it works, some of it doesn't, some of Time New Vikings songs I would barely even consider music because the guitars are far TOO distorted. That said, I would have to say London's Male Bonding have made the first record of this recent trend that I can really sink my teeth into. I guess it's because their songs are just well crafted. Their a mix of heavy, messy Stooges punk, curiously adjoined with summer melodies of Surfer Blood. The best mix of these two descriptions? The track "Weird Feelings," which may or may not have a hijacked riff from The Beatles "Please Please Me." This is a fun, shreddin' summer album for the grungy kids.
Listen to: Weird Feelings

The Black Keys - Brothers
I'll be honest I completely skipped out on the Black Keys last album "Attack and Release." The fact that Danger Mouse produced it, really just turned me off at the time, and I never really had an desire to go back. The only other band that rocks this hard while repping, the grimy, bluesy roots oh so many people try to imitate these days, is The White Stripes. But Dan Auerbach has always had one step up on Jack White (and everyone else) in my opinion...he can actually sing the part. Sounding like a a mix of Muddy Waters and Jimi Hendrix, you would never guess hes a scrawny bearded white guy from Akron, Ohio. "Brothers" sounds like the Black Keys I learned to love on "Magic Potion" and "Rubber Factory," this type of music never gets old, especially when it is done so well.
Listen to: 10 Cent Pistol

Minus the Bear - OMNI
I guess I have never been as big of a fan Minus the Bear as I previously thought I was. Sure I absolutely love the clever, fun loving, easy going nature of "Highly Refined Pirates" and "Menos el Oso," but when "Planet of Ice" rolled around, I started to question my loyalties. That album really me ponder, "who the hell is this band" and "what the hell are they trying to do with themselves." That paired with the fact that I've witnessed a handful of piss poor live performances from them throughout the years, I can't really stay behind um anymore. Although I've only gave it one complete listen, OMNI just seems like more of the same awkward pandering to me. A attempt to recapture some of the glory of "Pirates" but suddenly getting all jam bandy on me. I'll definitely give it a couple more listens before I completely write it off, but it ain't looking great. All that said though I love the acoustic album they put out a while back!
Listen to: Secret Country

The new Moondoggies EP, Shook Ones, The Morning Benders, Tame Impala, Russian Circles, Unnatural Helpers, Madball and The Smiths (?!) still to come....

My final words on LOST

When it boils down to it, the final two and a half hours of LOST really put viewers to the test, in what was surely a very polarizing last hurrah. To me, I feel a sense of peace with it all. The ending for me was so smooth, so emotional and so utterly triumphant in it's realization about what this show was actually all about, I can't wait to go back and watch it all over again.

It blows my mind that the journey of the passengers of Oceanic flight 815 began a whole 6 years ago. I was a freshman in college, and had just moved out of the dorms. I picked up Lost on a tip from a friend, and downloaded the first 5 or so episodes to catch up with what was on TV (this being my first experience with a little thing called a torrent). From the first 10 minutes I was intrigued. The pilot is one of the most dramatic, action packed things I've seen on television, the production is spectacular, and right off the bat the show introduces you to its cast of characters who are almost instantly intriguing. 6 years later, here we are at the end, how did it all pan out? Well I'm sure some of you were rather disappointed, but this is what it all meant to me.

One of my favorite terms to throw around when talking about any sort of fiction is the notion of a MacGuffin. It was a favorite trope of one Alfred Hitchcock, a master of the genre, a man whom "Lost" has without a doubt nodded heavily too on various levels throughout the series. Lest me school the:

 A MacGuffin "a plot element that catches the viewers' attention or drives the  plot of a work of fiction". The defining aspect of a MacGuffin is that the major players in the story are (at least initially) willing to do and sacrifice almost anything to obtain it, regardless of what the MacGuffin actually is. In fact, the specific nature of the MacGuffin may be ambiguous, undefined, generic, left open to interpretation or otherwise completely unimportant to the plot. (Examples might include money, victory/glory, survival, a source of power, a potential threat, etc....or something entirely unexplained.)

The briefcase in "Pulp Fiction" for one, is a MacGuffin. Does it matter what is in the briefcase? No. Does the plot drive forward and all sorts of amazing characters, action sequences, and witty dialogue emerge because of said briefcase. Yes. In the end does the briefcase even matter? No. I think it's a pretty general and maybe hard to digest fact, but to me, on LOST, the Island has all along been the damn MacGuffin. And I'm fine with that.

Long ago in the series, I really gave up on caring whether all these mysteries arising on the island were going to be solved. I chose the man of faith route, although don't get me wrong the man of science route is an enticing one. To me, this was just a weird island, that weird shit happened on. Simple as that. While things on the island change from episode to episode, and crazier and crazier things happened along the way, what was always constant with the show was its utmost dedication to it's characters. From Jack, our reluctant hero, to Sawyer our resident smart ass, and Hurley, the fat funny friend, everyone was severely flawed in one way or another, and this island was going to help them figure out how to fix that, whether they knew that or not. These characters struggles are always what kept me sticking with the show. Their relationships grew, and this truly became a group of people I as the viewer knew and cared what happened to quiet a bit. The journey of Jack in particular, is something that was truly always at the heart of the show, and his struggle (and ultimate redemption) was always something that kept me thoroughly intrigued.

The problem is, I don't think a lot of people where watching the show for this reason, people began to over analyze things left and right, want answers to every mystery, down to the stupidest little obsessive damn details. The writers were toying with them, and they knew exactly what they were doing.  By always showing "how" something happened but never "why," they threw us all for endless repeating loop. Don't get me wrong, I definitely fell victim to this along the way as well.

In the end though, the show was all about the characters and their relationships and that is pretty much it. People can bitch and complain about the final moments not revealing all the answers, even some of the answers, hell the last episode didn't answer ANYTHING of the on island mysteries if you ask me, but to me it DOES NOT MATTER. The characters struggled through their time on the island, they faced death, peril, they had bonds with people who changed their lives, and in the end ultimately helped them all overcome their flaws, and become better people because of it. Is this an absolutely batty way to tell this story? Without a doubt, but you can't deny it sure was interesting.

The fact that the writers chose to not really reveal much about the island, and peoples subsequent reaction, to me is a sort of meta-commentary in itself, an ode to all of our shallowness and reluctance to accept the things we should truly be grateful for in the end.. We all lust after what we can't get, we struggle for it and beat ourselves up, in our quest for knowledge and our quest for the sometimes unobtainable. All the while using this as a big diversion to avoid the problems we all have within ourselves, and realizing how much the people and situations around us can effect us, and help change us all for the better. The facts of the journey aren't what's important, it's what we gained from it all, the connections we made, the progress we made within ourselves. This is what LOST is all about, and therefore to me, seeing them all together in end was absolutely perfect. In the words of Mr. Leonard Cohen, "Even Damnation is Poisoned with Rainbows," (IE the ones tattooed on my arm), I can't think of a more truer phrase to sum up the journey of our Lost friends.

Going back, I think this show is going to be even more emotional to watch, and hopefully to some, it will open their eyes to the crafting of a story, unlike anything that will ever be shown again on network television. All this said, I'm a huge sucker for the emotional twist it all took in the end. The relevance of all that was presented in relation to the grand scheme of life, is something I also find important to strive to achieve.

When it's all said and done, yeah, there are some things that would of been cool to know about the island, and I've had my moments of frustration with it all. But with any fantasy or sci-fi tale, things just work in that universe the way they do, their ain't no explaining them, and part of the fun is deducing your own theories.  Lost, you'll be sorely missed by this faithful watcher.

Take it away Geronimo Jackson