Why I Don’t Like Frank Sinatra

Many’s the time I’ve been sitting in my favourite haunt, The Hungry Dog in Haebangcheon in Seoul, nursing beers, doing crosswords, playing chess and chatting music to fellow customers and staff. One tidbit I picked up there was told to me by Will, boyfriend of the owner. He’d studied German, and was, moreso than me anyway, familiar with many aspects of German culture. He told me that the song ‘Mack the Knife’, a huge hit in the late 1950s for Bobby Darin, was originally a German song, written in the 1920s called "Die Moritat von Mackie Messer" (The Ballad of Mack the Knife). You can read about it at the Wikipedia article here. 

This song was, originally, a sinister song, with a feel about it that would, if you like, scare children. It was dark and moody, slow and chilling, atmospheric, haunting. You can listen to it at this link. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QXJ3OXWaOY It is not in any way to be considered a cheerful number. It is not, nor was it intended to be, performed or received as a jaunty, peppy or upbeat song. It’s a song about a rapist, arsonist and murderer. A song of warning.

Now listen to the Bobby Darin version, the most famous and well known version around. It has been translated into English, but that’s not why it’s different – it’s different because now the Bobby Darin version has a jolly feel to it. You can almost hear him smiling throughout his performance. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEllHMWkXEU

I’ve always liked a bit of Fats Waller, the guy was a genius. You’ve probably heard his superlative version of ‘I’m Gonna Sit Write Down and Write Myself a Letter’, which was the first time the song was a hit. If you haven’t, you can check it out here . Again, this is poignant, emotional song. The listener is not quite sure if the lover has left, died, is just absent, or even simply doesn’t like writing letters! Whichever it is, Fats is sad. Fats ain’t happy.  Now listen to Frank  Sinatra’s version. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBvAL6zIst0 You can, again, hear the smile in his rendition, the jauntiness in the song, the happiness, the ‘swing’. Sorry Frank, you’re getting it totally wrong. Can you sing? Hell yes, you’re a great singer. Can you ‘sing’? No. It hurts my brain listening to ‘Letter’ by Frank. The disparate mismatch between delivered style, and the meaning of the song is enormously confusing.

I subscribe to quite a few podcasts from back home, one of which is called ‘Soul Music’ from BBC Radio 4. It’s a fairly pleasant show, and each show’s many guests are invited to explain what that week’s piece of music means to them personally. A few weeks ago the music was ‘Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas’ which I was surprised to learn was originally a slightly melancholic song, with a meaning something like ‘this year isn’t/hasn’t been great, but maybe next year eh?’. Although it was changed slightly from its original by Judy Garland et al as they thought it ‘depressing’, it was when Frank Sinatra got a hold of it that any of its former meaning was lost. From the Wiki of the song “In 1957, Frank Sinatra asked Martin to revise the line "Until then we'll have to muddle through somehow." He told Martin, "The name of my album is A Jolly Christmas. Do you think you could jolly up that line for me?" Martin's new line was "Hang a shining star upon the highest bough."

And there you go. That’s why I don’t like Frank Sinatra. He sucked the life, and original meaning, but most importantly the ‘feel’ of so many songs, he and many of his contemporaries. Songs are allowed to be sad. Songwriters are entitled to have their work remain unpoisoned. 

Korea's Two-Dimensional Fashion

There is something about Korean fashion and style that I don’t quite understand. It is true that they are a fashionable and stylish set, and wear nice clothes and no doubt take fashion quite seriously, but the effect it has, its strength, potency, its expression, just doesn't seem right to me somehow - it seems to lack power, it has no statement about itself. And I can't quite put my finger on why. Perhaps it’s because I’m not that fashionable myself? Or perhaps it’s the definition of the word ‘fashionable’? A middle-aged man wearing a classic tweed jacket and a nice pair of brogues, for example, would be defined as, by me anyway, as stylish, rather than fashionable. Furthermore, said middle-aged man in tweed jacket would be saying many other things like: I’m not a biker, I’m not a chav, I’m not a builder, and so on. Of course, he might be saying none or any of these, but he’d certainly be giving off the impression of, well, something. Wearing the jacket and brogues wouldn’t be an empty statement. The simple fact is, in the West, it would be a statement, about something. Wearing a biker’s leather jacket is a statement. Clothes are a statement, even if the statement is ‘these are all I could wear today because I’m doing my laundry’, ‘I’m getting married today’, ‘I’m going to a funeral’, or ‘I ride a skateboard’. Fashion in Korea seems empty, devoid of having anything to say, other than 'I've bought some clothes recently'.

Fashion here smacks of a limited imagination, a reliance on 'being told what to do', of conformism. Of getting your ideas from a magazine. But also importantly, and often missed here is that if you wear the latest ‘magazine clothes’ you hand over your statement about what you’re wearing to a magazine editor, whose only statement on your behalf is ‘look at me I’m fashionable’. It's why fashion here is fashionable, if fashionable means empty and vapid.

Maybe the problem is that there's no 'anti-fashion' in Korea, and in turn that may be because of Korea’s relatively recent entry into, if you like, the world of ‘Western fashion’. We may have had punks and b-boys and so on in the '70s and '80s, but Korea almost certainly didn’t, or if they did, they were so few in number as to have little effect on mainstream culture. If I see, say, a pair of Dr Marten boots in a store here, they will, for me, have many connotations, for example, work boots, punk boots, skinheads, 1980s fashion and so on, but for a Korean they may just look like 'boots'. That's not the man- or woman-on-the-street's fault, but it's true nonetheless. We make decisions based on decades of previously traversed fashion phases ("I'm not wearing that I'll look like a '90s raver"), but countries newer to the forefront (and let's be honest that's Europe and the USA) of fashion do not have that historical luxury. Everything is new, but simultaneously, everything is meaningless.

That Korea has little or no 'anti-fashion' doesn't necessarily mean it should adopt a whole-hearted punk [or other alternative] ethos with safety pins through noses or knee-high cyberpunk boots, it means Korea doesn't have the guys down the pub who make a fashion statement by simply not being fashionable. Deliberately. In Korea, you're either in or out. Back home, the guys in jeans and bikers' leather are saying 'we don't want to look like the inside of a fashion magazine'. 'That would be uncool'. And suddenly you’re entering into an arena of anti-capitalist, or anti-something, sentiment, of not wanting to shop in Top Man, or wear Abercrombie and Fitch, or wear Gucci sunglasses. To me and many others this wearing of current middle-to-upper high street brands would be highly uncool – like popping the collar on your suit jacket, or holding a  cigarette between your teeth – I’d never do it – to me it looks like ‘trying too hard’, like ‘Top Gun’. Trying to be cool isn't cool. Trying to be fashionable isn't necessarily fashionable. Clothes and the way you wear them, including choosing not to wear something, is a statement of attitude, a subscription to who you are and want to be. In many circles, being 'magazine fashionable' is considered uncool.

Korean fashion lacks any statement outside of ‘I’m fashionable’. Could you tell who likes jazz or hip-hop or rock from it? Doubtful. Could you in London or San Diego or Bruges? Probably. Clothes are an expression, of who you are, of what you believe. Even if you believe fashion is a fat waste of time your non-conformist, conformist jeans and t-shirt (or whatever) are saying so.

I think it will take a decade or two for Korea to realise its full potential in fashion. Many here think it's made it now, but I disagree. Fashion here says nothing, and until it does, it doesn't. It's not cool to try and be cool.  It's a kind of Catch 22 that I think fashionistas in Korea often don't understand. It's simply not that fashionable to be fashionable.

2013, A Year in Clover.

From Hamlet - "When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions."

Very true, William, very true. 

It wasn't all bad. It never is. But the landmark occasions this year were all pretty terrible.

Jobs: My current job is, in fact all my jobs in Korea have been, very nice - no complaints there. But when I first started this one, it was a disaster. The previous teacher wouldn't move out my apartment for a week. When he finally did the school was late delivering any furniture so I had to sleep on the floor. The heating broke down, the washing machine wasn't plumbed in, and the hot water stopped being hot. On top of all that, my co-teacher had a nervous breakdown when my vice-principal jokingly accused her of having an affair with me! I'd been in the job three days at this point. She was furious with him, her husband called the school and everything. It was a right shit-storm. She was never the same with me after that (distant, abrupt) and I was honestly happy when she got pregnant again and quit. My new co-teacher is a lovely woman. So all's well that ends well, I guess.

Dating: been on several dates this year, all of which either ended disastrously, or got cancelled, or didn't lead to a second date when I wanted them to. All in all, dating wise, this year was a total fucking disaster. I've ended the year as I started it. Except I'm a year older.

Friends: Made some great new friends this year, especially up in Haebangcheon in Seoul, but lost a few too. A couple of fall-outs lead to some unhealable rifts with one or two long-standing friends, which is never good, but c'est la vie. The biggest news, friend-wise, for me and many others this year was undoubtedly the loss, due to a climbing accident, of the dear, lovable, funny, surreal, hilarious and warm Kevin Andresen. Never in all my life have I heard so many people cry, so loudly and for so long. And I never want to hear that again.

Holidays: Went to Cambodia. Fell down some stairs. Got sick, including passing out, throwing up, going blind (twice) and for the first time in my entire life, shitting the bed, due to the muscle relaxants the hospital gave me.  Cost me a fucking fortune in hospital fees when I got back to Korea too. Holidays this year? Meh.

And finally, the biggest news of all for me was the loss of my mother, after a two year battle with cancer. It came as no surprise in the end, as she was given just a few days, but lasted three weeks. My Mum had her faults like all of us, but she was always there on the end of the phone if you needed a shoulder to lean on. I miss my Mum.

I'm a realist. I'm not one to mope about going 'life is terrible', despite laying it all out, above. Like most, I'll get morose occasionally, but I tend to laugh at it all in the end. And anyway, it wasn't all bad this year. I finished my Masters Degree before my Mum went, and I know she would have been proud of that, not to mention the personal sense of achievement. As I said above, my job is great, I have some amazing, wonderful and funny friends, and generally, I'm pretty happy with my lot. I hope, though, that the landmarks of 2014 are less harrowing and upsetting than this year's were, and that there are a lot less tears and a lot more smiles. 

Why Seoul Taxi Drivers Are C*nts

I shall relate to you some of my experiences with Seoul’s least upstanding citizens, the utter cunts that drive the cabs around here, but before I start, let me state in no uncertain terms that these cretins in no way reflect the general behaviour or attitudes of the general population of South Korea.

Episode 1: Getting charged the equivalent of a 20 mile journey for a 2 minute ride. So, it’s late, I’m drunk, I hail a cab. “Please take me to a cheap motel you know, thanks”. He says “OK, 20 000 won” (about a tenner UK). I’m thinking ‘that’s cheap for a motel, they are usually around 30 000’, and proceed. He takes me about half a mile down the road, and asks for the money. Suddenly it dawns on me in my drunken state that it was some kind of finder’s fee! Fuck this guy. A large argument ensued, during which, let me say, I negotiated a substantial discount. The hotel was 100 000! I went home. Cunt.

Episode 2: Given the runaround.

I exit Yongsan station, one of Seoul’s biggest, and go to the taxi rank. I get in and say, ‘take me to Itaewon please’. He says ‘you need to go from the other side of the road’. So I do. What do the taxis on the other side of the road say? You’ve guessed it, ‘you need to go from the other side of the road’. They laughed at me at both sides. Names were called.

Episoide 3: Actually being robbed.

I took a long taxi ride home – about 30 minutes and got charged the usual, about 35 000 won, which is about 18 quid. I handed the guy a fifty (about 25 quid) and I’m waiting for my change. He leaned back and said ‘you only gave me a five’. Cunt. I knew I hadn’t as I’d only just withdrawn the banknote, and also knew, immediately, that I’d been stung good and proper. On knowing this, when I got out of the cab, I snapped a photo of the back of it, and reported this guy to the authorities. They got back to me a few weeks later saying that he’d been fined. Fuck you, you robbing cunt.

Sidenote: A friend of mine had a similar experience with a taxi driver and ended up fighting, which cost my friend a very hefty fine. This had only happened a few weeks before, so I was very careful not to just thump the dude.

Episode 4: Crazy bastard.

I’m with a couple of friends, taking a short ride, and the driver is weaving all over the place, doing handbrake turns and jumps over the speed-bumps. We were all fucking terrified. When we arrived at our destination, he tried to charge us extra for the ‘thrills’. Fuck. Off. You lunatic.

Taxi drivers in Seoul are complete dicks. Not all of them, but a disproportionate amount. Outside of Seoul they tend to be much nicer, and more honest. In Seoul, they’re a bunch of cunts, frankly. 

The Holocaust Pt II

It’s been a while, so my apologies for that.

I’ve been busy, finishing a course of study, so forgive my delay in writing anything in here.

I’m ill today too, with a bout of ‘flu (well I was when I originally started to write this, a couple of weeks ago). Hence, I’m sitting at home today with time on my hands.

I've wanted to blog about this particular subject for a few weeks, but due to the studying mentioned above, I really haven’t had time. Add to that that the subject matter for today’s entry is rather depressing and therefore I have had some doubts about actually posting it at all.

It concerns North Korea. I currently live and teach English in South Korea, so maybe more than many back home I take an interest in what goes on north of the Korean border.

A Little Background

About fifteen years ago I took it upon myself to read The Diary of Anne Frank, because I happened to see it in a book shop, had never read it, and I’d heard that it’s one of those books that everyone should read.  So I read it. Of the book, I was very surprised at how posh their family was. Otto Frank, Anne’s father was a banker, and their family was very upper-middle class, and this shines through in the text. They could afford to build their ‘secret annex’ and fund themselves to live there – many everyday Jews in Europe at that time would not have been able to afford such things.

Here is a sweet little girl, full of the chirpiness of youth; and with every revelation of her persona, in every page, you know that she will eventually die a horrible death in a concentration camp. It’s a heartbreaking read for anyone with even the slightest smattering of human compassion. Anne was a very high-spirited girl, not shy of an argument or a bit of back-chat. She was pretty and full of life - cheeky and cheerful. This is, of course, what makes the book so heart-rending, the effervescence of youthful life, contrasted with the knowledge of her death. You would have had to have been in a coma for the last seventy years to not know Anne Frank’s fate, so all the while, with every bubbling page of the typical trials and travails of a teenage girl, you’re confronted with horror. It’s like watching children die. At once she is brought vividly to life, and simultaneously starved to death. It’s what makes the book so powerful.

I was very moved by this book. I researched endlessly about the holocaust afterwards, found out everything there is to know about Anne Frank, watched every documentary, read every book, listened to and read every witness statement. To this day, there is something I do almost daily to remember it, and what it meant, and how moved I was by its words.

You may be wondering what this has to do with North Korea. Well I think North Korea now has its own Anne Frank. This girl. I don’t know too much about her other than like Anne, she’s dead before the story starts. But just watch this video and tell me your heart doesn't break at her condition, her small voice, the desperation and hunger in her eyes. Her name was Gang Rim Jin. And she’s DEAD.

I had few feelings for the North Korean government before this. But I positively loathe them now. How can a country starve its own people? A quick scout around the internet will reveal all manner of human rights abuses taking place up there. It’s akin to the holocaust – millions have died through torture, starvation and overwork in concentration camps. There are Anne Franks dying all over the country. We know it’s happening. And we should do something to stop it.

Anne Frank’s diary, and countless other testimonies, have taught us and reminded us what we as a race are capable of, that we should never forget the past, and that if we have the power to stop these things happening in the future, then we most certainly should.

North Korea enslaves, tortures and starves thousands of its own people every year. If we’d have known (and some say that we did know) what was happening in Auschwitz in the 1940s, we’d have stopped it. Well we know what is going on in North Korea, and it’s very similar to what happened in Auschwitz and other camps. A great many people are starved, tortured, murdered. People are killed because of who they are, who they are related to, or what they believe.

I had high hopes the change of North Korea leadership a couple of years would herald a change akin to that in Russia or China over the last few decades, but he seems as bad as the previous leaders – far more concerned about playing political games than feeding his own people.

Look at this girl’s face. This needs to end. North Korea could easily be as prosperous as its neighbours, with a well-fed and happy populace. War definitely is not the answer here, that country needs a sea-change in its outlook – a huge change in the alignment of its priorities. Feed your people and stop making bombs. It really is that simple.

If you want to do something, send a link of this video to your local MP, or representative in your country. Ask them to ask questions. Thousands and thousands of Anne Franks are dying every year, and we’re letting it happen.

Long have I grumbled…

…about the quality of the music in Korean bars and clubs. You can read a previous post about it here. I’ve also written my views on music before, here and here. I especially loathe, and really mean loathe, despise, abhor with all my heart and soul, the types of songs mentioned here. I went to a club the other day and still had to put up with all that shit, along with “let’s hear it for Nooooooooo Yawwwwwwwwwwwwwwk” etc and all that utter fucking garbage, with people swaying along and singing like it’s the best thing they ever heard. Music for people who don’t like music, is all it is. Fucking garbage. Utter. Fucking. Garbage. All of it.

Oh, and fuck Gangnam Style while we’re at it. I’m happy for Korea, because it is perhaps one of their very first true global songs, so that’s great for them. But honestly. Fuck that shit. It’s a comedy record for fuck’s sake.

During one of my many drunken rants around a bar table here, my good friend Ben said to me, ‘Paul, let’s do a Northern Soul night in Korea!’. Well, frankly, that’s the best idea in the entire history of ever. Fact. He’s done a bit of DJing before, and I have too, so the idea bubbled for a few days, and we still thought it was a good one, so went decided to go find a bar in Seoul that would have us. And we did. It’s called The Lounge in Hongdae.

Sometimes you’ve got to put your money where your mouth is. Whilst I can’t take credit for coming up with the idea, it was Ben’s, I certainly feel that it’s time to stop grumbling, and in the words of, well, everyone.

Do something about it.

Long story short. Short tempered Brit is inspired by friend to put money in cakehole.

We will be DJing soulful, funky, jazzy, dancey, swinging, cool,  and hopefully fucking GOOD music at:

THE LOUNGE, HONGDAE,

OPENING NIGHT: SATURDAY 8^th SEPTEMBER. 9pm till 1am.

Then weekly Saturdays.

Gangnam Style will not be getting played.

Why I Despise Boy-Bands and Girl-Bands, and ‘Teen-Pop’ in General

What’s wrong with ‘teen pop’? I could say that they don’t write their own songs. But hey, some do, don’t they? Most of them don’t though, so there’s that to begin with. Most don’t even choose their songs, they are decided by record executives. And on what basis are songs selected? Positive message? Rebellious spirit? Something to say? A message? Nope. Sales. And the market for this type of music is? Impressionable youngsters. I see boy- and girl-bands as factory produced shit designed to fleece money from school children. To me, it’s as bad as putting junk food machines in schools. It is cultural and financial robbery. 

It could be argued that they don’t play their own instruments, beyond that, I doubt whether these singers and terrible (I’ll come to this shortly) dancers have any input into either song selection, or musical arrangement. Puppets on a corporate string. 

There aren’t any ugly ones either. Appearance has always played a part in pop music. I doubt Elvis Presley or the Beatles would have been as successful if they looked like me. Today though, looks are a prerequisite for any budding pop star. You may get a token ugly one in a ‘band’ like the ginger one in Girls Aloud, but that’s beside the point. Knowing a female who’s a mechanic doesn’t alter that statistic that most mechanics are males. Having a male friend who’s kindergarten teacher doesn’t….you get the picture. We used to get ugly pop stars purely because they were talented. Not now. Now you look at the ‘music’, not listen to it. 

Dancing. What is good dancing? Now I like dancing, I am hugely impressed by amazing dancing. I want to see dancing that makes me go “Wow! I couldn’t learn that dance if I practiced for a decade.” Anyone who knows me well knows that I have spent some considerable time on dance floors. I like dancing, I’m not great at it, but I’m not one of those stiffs who looks totally out of place on a dancefloor either. Dancing has been a big part of my life for a long time. I’ve been a big Northern Soul fan for longer than I care to remember, I wore out my bedroom carpet as a teenager practicing moves, I’ve DJ’d various genres of dance music, in short, I know a bit about it. I’m quite old now, and times and styles have changed since my heyday, but I still think I know good dancing when I see it. And I DO NOT see it in these boy- and girl-bands. What they are doing is synchronised, and I stress the word ‘synchronised’, rubbish. The next time you see one of these ‘bands’ perform their dance routine, look at just ONE of them and imagine them doing it alone, and compare it to a break dancer from the 80s, or a lindy Hopper from the 40s. They look pathetic. Also, I firmly believe that any semi-competent dancer could learn any of those faux-dance moves in a day. IN A DAY! There has been fantastic dancing in and around pop music since the 40s. Now we are spoon fed crap and told it’s steak by suits in factory-offices. Better not make it too complicated, they say. If the kids can’t do it, they won’t buy it. If we took this attitude to sport, we’d lose. 

Music, or at least youth culture oriented music has always been about change. A voice, an ethic, a stance, something to say. Hippies wanted peace and sang about it, punks wanted change and screamed about it. Now we have this abomination. It actually doesn’t matter if the songs are any good – no doubt a few of them are – that’s not the point. We have been silenced by corporations. Punk happened because they were sick of shitty disco (not all disco is shitty) and shitty prog rock noodling. But punk also only happened because they captured an underlying spirit – the people themselves were pissed off with the same things. Who are those people today? The life has been sucked clean out of the popular music industry, and we’ve just stood by and let it happen. Granted not everyone – I know several musicians from back home who have spent years honing their crafts, they have certainly not stood idly by, but where is that underlying zeitgeist of rebellion? Of change? Of creative expression? Not all music has to be furiously rebellious like punk, look at the hippies, they did it with flowers. Music and cultural movements like hippy and punk felt like they were government toppling behemoths, changing the world. These boy and girl bands, teen pop in general do nothing, and say nothing. They are, nothing. Shitty dancers with auto-tuned voices and pretty faces, sucking the culture out of the world. 

You may think I’m taking this too seriously, that I should lighten up. It’s only pop music right? And everyone has different tastes. That’s true, and despite my stance laid out above, I have certainly, over the years, succumbed to a cheesy pop song. Many times in fact.  But there is no rebellion. The teenagers seem to have given up.

Maybe I’m just old and don’t get it any more. But this is how it seems to me. Teenagers today seem like a homogenous culture vacuum. When I was young, ‘cool’ mattered. I wasn’t that cool, but I admired and looked up to those I thought were cooler than me. 

It’s about time suits in offices stopped deciding what young people listened to. It’s about time something changed.