A Legacy of Hate, and Anger (Part 1)

If I could pick how I would be remembered in Korea, I would want it to be for those Friday and Saturday nights in Anyang, working the room and my magic at Happidus. 

My friend Jeff Sinclair once did a comedy show there on a Saturday night and asked me if I could help him out by inviting some of my local friends to the bar.  When I arrived shortly after midnight, I had missed the show, but the place was packed with people I knew.

Groups of people came up to me and said hello, asking me where I was and why I had been late to the event I had invited everybody to.  I went from table to table, talking it up, and having a great time.

There was a period in history where I pretty much knew everyone at that bar and I was a very welcomed guest.  My favourite memories were the customary sing-a-longs we used to do with Sweet Caroline, by Neil Diamond, and Piano Man, by Billy Joel.

Unfortunately, this does not paint an accurate picture of my time in Korea, but only one small part.

The truth is that I have a really big problem with anger management, and this, above everything else, is the legacy I have left behind.

As a kid I used to throw temper tantrums when I would lose a game or not get my way.  In grade three, after losing a game of dodge ball to a kid in grade one, I gave him a really hard shove from behind that put him on the ground.

At the University of Manitoba I was a very promising student in the theatre department.  I was on the board of directors and directed a very successful lunch bahg written by David Annandale.  I followed this up by acting in the lead role of another successful show.

I was rewarded for this hard work by being named director of Krapp’s Last Tape, for Beckettfest 2001.  Kelly Stifora cast me as the lead in Fat Men In Skirts.  George Toles brought Guy Maddin to see it and I got to overhear their conversation during the intermission in the washroom.  Maddin was saying to Toles that he thought in the second act, the father would become the good guy.

When I bumped into George the next day at his office I didn’t have to ask him what he thought of the show (I never used to do this anyway – it’s the easiest way to get someone to lie to you) when he started telling me.

He said Guy thought I was the kind of actor who could really carry a movie.

But then, all of my hard work was undone because of my anger. 

I was verbally abusive towards my co-star Tracy Penner.  During the previous school year I had directed Tracy in my lunch bahg and somewhere along the way I developed a really big crush on her.  When I found out she was going out with a friend of mine I turned into a kicking, screaming and yelling four year old brat.

My behaviour at times during this production was very shameful and I lost a lot of really good friends because of it, and deservedly so.

Through it all I had such incredible support from the head of the department, Chris Johnson.  I would not have graduated without it.

A year earlier I had lost my temper on Chris because he hadn’t cast me in Twelfth Night, and once again I turned into an angry child and ripped up posters on campus.

A year later, when Margaret Groome didn’t cast me in a Shakespeare I did it again, and once again, Chris Johnson tried to get me help and was on my side.

I shit all over this by giving Margaret Groome a ripped up copy of Hamlet. I left an angry message on her machine and campus security was called.

That was pretty much the end of my acting career, even though I took it up again a few years later, studying 

with Onalee Ames.  I ended up getting kicked out of there after being given multiple chances to clean up my act.  Once again my poor anger management was the main culprit.

After getting kicked out of acting classes I decided to move to Korea and teach English.  The first nine months went off without a snag and I didn’t lose my temper once, unless you count the time I got really mad at my former boss for selling the school I was working at without telling me.  I found out when I showed up for work, asked why she wasn’t there, and then got told.

Spruce up your life!

For the past few months it has been my pleasure to work on a magazine project with three very smart, talented and friendly people.  Tomorrow the magazine project will be over after the magazine fair is held at Red River College.  Anyone in the Winnipeg area who has some free time on their hands can head down to the Princess Street campus to get a chance to interact with some pretty clever people.

Before it all ends I would like to take this time to pay a little homage to the team before we all split up and go our separate ways.

I'll start with Bethany Giroux.  Bethany is from the same home town as my mom is, Carman, Manitoba.  As my grandmother used to say, only the best people come from Carman.  Bethany did a very good job at living up to this incredibly high standard, and I am very proud to call her my friend.

If I can ever get my act together, it will be a pleasure to join Marney Blunt as a journalism major next year.  Marney is also a big fan of classic rock music, something I am very much into.  If anyone out there is also interested in this kind of music I recommend that they check out her blog.

I've worked with Eden Ramsey a lot during my first year at Red River.  Eden is incredibly talented at graphic design and I've learned so much from her during this term.  At the beginning of the year I used to stake out the computer lab just to make sure I could get the computer right next to hers.  Don't know how I could have gotten through Electronic Publishing as much as I have this term without her help.  Thanks again.

If anyone out there would like to meet any of these fine people (sorry, I'll be there too), come and join team Spruce at the magazine fair tomorrow.  You might just win a very nice prize, but you will definitely go away feeling at least a little bit better about your day.

cheers,

rymr

ps. thanks for all the hits in Russia.  go Evgeni Malkin! 

That's it, back to Anyang!

After a 14 month absence, I am going back to the ROK. (Repulic Of Korea).

I couldn't be more excited.  As soon as I posted the news on Facebook I started getting all kinds of messages from so many of my good friends who are still there and they were all excited about seeing me again.

IT only took a few minutes to get a free place to stay for the three months I will be there.

I will be staying with my friends Tom and Janice.

Janice is one of my all time best friends.  She's one of the sweetest people I've ever met in my life.  She was the friend I used to always turn to when I was having 'girl' troubles, and when she needed a shoulder to cry on, it was very often mine.

I didn't really know Tom all that well.  The first time I really hung out with him was on Christmas Eve, 2011.  I bought him a shot of tequila.  Less than 2 months later I was gone.

Tom was the only person who came to all 3 of my going away parties. (I held them in different places and on different dates so I could see as many people as possible before I left.)

Most of the pictures taken from these events were taken by him and I find it surprising that he is only in one or two.

Tom was actually the teacher who replaced my good friend Nathan.

Nathan was from Wales and we bonded because we both had a problem with anger management.

When I met Tom, Janice wasn't in Korea.  She would return after I left.

Tom started hanging out with some of my friends, including my Irish friend Karl.  I used to carry a card around that read: To avoid drama, do what you think Karl would do.

Janice and Tom have now been going out for over a year.  When I get to Korea it will be the first time the three of us will be able to hang out together.

They probably wouldn't have met if not for me, so I guess I must have done something right along the way.

In Korea I tried to always make a point of helping out newcomers by reaching out to them.

The thing I loved the most about Korea was being a part of the ex-pat community.  It just seems that people who are willing to move halfway around the world are just a little more laid back and open minded.

I can't wait to see them again.

cheers,

rymr

Memories of White Day in Korea

The year was 2010.  I had just finished my second week as a public high school teacher in Anyang.  I had been out to Guri and then Hongdae, with one of my all time best friends, Shane Skaggs, the night before.  I checked my e-mail when I got home at 8 in the morning.  There was a message from Amanda Lenz.

It was a Sunday, my favourite day of the week.  I just started playing hockey in the CBHK, a fairly competitive ball hockey league set up by Canadians living in Korea. I was on my way to the game when I stopped at a payphone (I didn’t have my own phone) to give her a call.  We made plans to meet up at the Dublin in Bundang for trivia that night.

On the subway I met Nic Brown.  I asked him about White Day and whether or not I should buy some chocolates for Amanda.  He thought it was a good idea.  I still wasn’t sure and felt a little bit cautious about it.

Trivia night at the Dublin was so much fun.  Sean McConoghey used to do a ‘racism’ category that pushed the limits a little bit.  People in Winnipeg would probably get all huffy about the things he said, but we all took it as the joke it was meant to be.    

One time my Austrian friend Jan greeted me at the door with a very loud ‘Fuck you Neil’.  This was a typical friendly greeting.  The only problem was I was with my parents and they didn’t get our sense of humour.

That night, my parents were very brave as they got to learn what a ‘Dirty Sanchez’ and a ‘Cleaveland Steamer’ are. (They did a 'sex' category.  Some of them were much worse.)

After hockey I cabbed it back to my apartment and took a shower.  I caught the 3330 bus in Anyang and arrived in Bundang less than an hour later.  On the drive, the bus was up on this very high road, overlooking Bundang.  At night you could see the city all lit up below.

I made a quick stop at one of the little shops next to Seohyun station to buy Amanda some chocolates, and went to the Dublin.

Amanda was waiting for me alone in a booth right across from the entrance.  We played a game of pool before the trivia began.

We were playing on a four player team with her friends Tasha, and Shea.  Our team did very poorly in the trivia contest, but I didn’t really care.  I was having a really good time hanging out with Amanda.

My friend Jeff Sinclair from Winnipeg was there and before he left he ended up getting the phone number of Amanda’s roommate Gina.  Next Friday we would have a double date.

As more and more of our friends left, the two of us kept talking. 

Amanda was the first American I ever met that admitted they voted for George Bush.  A few days later, when I was hanging out with my friend Dave, he told me I should dump her, after I told him this.  Not only did she vote for Bush, but she said that she also would have voted for John McCain and Sarah Palin, had she been in America at the time.

She was from Missouri, and her political views were very conservative.  In this respect we were very much the opposite.  I think this actually made me like her more, as I like to be around people who have different points of view.

After a while, there were only three people left in the bar, other than the bartender Matt.  I was about to take a cab home but Gina would not let me.  She and Amanda practically had to drag me into the back of the cab.  I was going to spend the night in Bundang, whether I liked it or not.

Ps. I ended up keeping the chocolates.  I was too shy to give them to her.

rymr

ATF

A Thousand Farewells is a book written by Nahlah Ayed, a journalist born in Winnipeg, of Palestinian descent.  The book is well written and thought out.  I really enjoyed reading about her travels because they reminded me of my own life abroad.  I was so inspired by the book that during reading week I wrote my own 36 page, single spaced, non-fiction story about the week I spent in Thailand.

It did get confusing at times with all of the characters coming and going.  Early on, the story seemed to lack excitement and drama, and didn't give me anything to draw my mind into the world of the book.  The biggest problem for me was that it did not have any 'character' or 'heart' to it.  After reading it, I have no idea who Nahlah Ayed is.  I know she is a reporter and that she has some good advice for anyone who would want to become a reporter but that is it.  There seems to be nothing dynamic or particularly interesting about the story teller, even if the stories she tells are.

I thought the writing was good because it didn’t try to do too much.  It doesn’t get in the way, it just lets the story unfold.  I also thought the structure of the story was very well thought out and organized.  The story is not always told in the order it happened.  Instead the author works within one thread of the story and tells it from beginning, to middle and end.

It starts off telling the story of her childhood in Winnipeg.  Then we get her childhood growing up in a refugee camp.  

When she becomes a reporter and is sent to the Middle East, she breaks each section up into locations.

The Iraqi story is told from beginning, to middle and end, as is the Syrian story and the Egyptian.  This makes it easier to understand what is happening in each country because the reader is allowed to focus on just one country's story at a time.  By seeing each situation develop from start to finish, the changes that occur in each country, appear more clearly

There were problems at times keeping track of all the names of all the characters, as well as all the different places she traveled to. 

I found the early part of the book which told her childhood story to be very uninteresting.  There just didn’t seem to be any drama or story in it that was able to draw me in.

My biggest problem with the book is that it seems to lack a 'heart' at the centre.  I don’t really get a sense of a person or a personality from reading this.  I can tell that she is a very intelligent person by the way she writes, but this does not make me want to read her.  I just don’t find anything exciting about the way she tells her story.  It doesn’t engage me or give me anything to cling to.  At no point while reading this book did I ever close my eyes and try to picture what she was describing, despite the fact that she goes to some very beautiful places, including the Golan Heights.

I just feel like this book lacks an inner life or any kind of real connection between the author and the reader.  Like a good reporter, she’s removed herself from the story and the storytelling. This might work as journalism, but falls flat in a non-fiction book.

This is an excellent book for anyone who wants to learn how to become a good journalist.  She understands that to tell a people’s story the right way, you have to live in the same place, for years if necessary, in order to understand what they are about.

The Last Boy is a biography of Mickey Mantle, one of the greatest baseball players to ever live, written by Jane Leavy.  Mickey Mantle was a drunk and a playboy who frequently cheated on his wife.  He was a hero with many real human faults.  Reading this book I get a real sense of who he was, even if I don’t like hearing the truth all the time.  I still can’t put this book down and want to read more.  By the end, for better or worse, I really feel like I have a good sense of who Mickey Mantle was.  I wish I had been able to get the same thing out of A Thousand Farewells. 

This book did end up having a very positive effect on me.  It reminded me a lot of my own life as an English teacher living in Korea for 3 years.  It was very easy for me to identify with the title, because I can’t even remember how many people I have had to say goodbye to as an expat living in a foreign country.  It made me want to tell my own story, so I sat down and wrote about my time in Thailand. 

 

Neil, pass the puck.

“Pass the puck Neil, we’re on the same team”.

This one kid kept saying it over and over again.

But he didn’t pass the puck, and I’m not really sure if that is how he spells his name, but remember it everyone, because in ten years or so, this kid is really going to be something.  He’s going to be the next Mario Lemieux, Wayne Gretzky, and Sidney Crosby combined.  Children will grow up wanting to be him, and by the time he turns 21, he’ll have made more money than most of us will ever see in a lifetime.

“Neil’s kind of a puck hog,” I told my friend, and we both had a good laugh.

I love going to the outdoor hockey rink.  It’s one of my favourite things to do.  Maybe it’s because I’m so immature and I feel like a big kid most of the time anyway, that I feel so comfortable out on the ice, with all of the other children. 

There is usually a good cross section of ages at the outdoor rink, but usually there aren’t many people who are older, and those people are only there because they have kids on a team or they are the coach.

I think I’m the only person in the world who still uses an aluminum hockey stick.  My dad bought it for me about 20 years ago or so.  I was in grade 9 at the time.  After Wayne Gretzky was traded to the Los Angeles Kings and he started using one, everyone wanted to use an Easton aluminum hockey stick.

I got a gold one from the Hockey Hutch on Pembina HWY for around 60 dollars.  All of my other hockey sticks had cost around 10.  A new replacement blade ran about 15.

The blade on my stick is about 12 years old.  It was a Christmas present in December of 2000, the year I got back into hockey and the NHL.

After the original Jets left I stopped watching hockey for a while because of how upset I was.  What got me back was Mario Lemieux and his amazing comeback to the NHL at the age of 35, after being out of hockey for three and a half years.

I like a heel curve and I’ve been using one ever since I saw a friend use one and he let me try it out.  The name on my blade is Leetch, for Brian Leetch, a player that retired from the NHL almost 10 years ago.  The blade is made out of Kevlar, and I don’t think they make them out of that material anymore.  I guess it’s just too strong and it lasts too long.  I can still stickhandle with it, but I can’t take any slap shots.  The wrist shot also works.

I hope that other Neil will one day learn to be a better team player and pass the puck.  Until then I hope he keeps at it and develops his skills.

There’s no better place to do that, than the outdoor rink.

cheers,

rymr

Part 2 (The Waiting Room)

I thought there were some good storytelling elements in the film.  For the most part the filmmaker let everything happen around the lens of the camera as it recorded it.  I was sucked into the drama as the father was dealing with his emotions and a very sick child.  I was concerned when the guy who needed surgery for cancer and he couldn’t get it.  I was affected by the elderly patient who was having back pain and couldn’t get any kind of treatment for it.  He had a job laying carpet and could not afford proper medical treatment or to stop working even though it was causing him so much pain.  There was also some genuine emotion as a man with a drug problem cried.  He had nowhere to go and it was sad to see this happen to another human being.

I did not enjoy the voice over’s as I felt they took me out of the story.  Everything else in the film, with the exception of the music, which also didn’t work, came out of what was happening in the natural environment.  To take these people into a recording studio and have them overdub lines of written dialogue made it seem a little bit fake.  There was no need to distort the reality of the situation.

The music was also really annoying in the few parts it was used.  At the beginning when they showed moving camera footage of the waiting room accompanied by music, I was pulled out of the film.  There just seemed to be no need for the music as the images did enough to tell the story on their own.

There were some shots shown in the movie that just didn’t work and looked sloppy.  The shots taken outside with the natural light did not work.  It was hard to see the people and looked like I was staring at a blank screen.  It was supposed to be emotional and have tension to see this guy outside who could not get the urgent surgery he needed for his cancer, with his wife.

There were other shots taken with heads cut off.  It just looked unprofessional and did not add to the storytelling at all.

My biggest complaint about the movie is that it does not give me enough information and enough context.  They barely even mention the fact that the hospital is in Oakland.  They don’t say what part of Oakland so that leaves a little to be desired.

The film would have worked better if they had gone to more than one emergency room.  Had they gone to an emergency room in an affluent part of town, they could have used it in stark contrast with the one featured in the film.  It’s hard to judge and say that all emergency rooms are like this, or that this is the problem with the health care system, etc, because of the small sample size.  How does this emergency room compare to an emergency room in San Francisco.

Because of this, I am also left with a sense of not knowing where I am during the film.  They also don’t give much context in terms of time.  What year is this?  What month?  They only show one shot of a clock to let the audience know the time.  This is a mistake because so much of the frustration of being in a waiting room, that the film tries to get across to its audience, is that the people have to wait an extremely long time.  

   

 Having watched the film, I have no idea how long these people were waiting.

To show the passage of time the filmmaker tried to show some time lapsed montages/sequences.  These came off as a little bit cliché (is it cliché for me to say that?).  During these sequences the filmmaker also chose to play some music.  This did not work for me.  If the filmmaker had wanted to convey the passage of time to the viewer it could have been done by simply showing more shots of the clock.  A shot of the clock at the beginning, and then one at the end would have been very effective. 

I have no idea how long these patients spent in the waiting room/emergency room.  The filmmaker could have put up some captions that would have let me know how many hours they had to wait.  I never get this sense.  Time is not dealt with in real terms, only abstract ones.  This is a mistake.  I want to experience time in terms that I can measure.

I would also have liked to have found out how much money it cost for these people, many of them very poor, to receive treatment.  Since this is the biggest difference between the Canadian and American systems, I am very interested to find out about this aspect of the American system.  I think this information is very important and the audience needs to hear it.  They do get to see it in the shots of the faces of the people as they find out what they have to pay, but the audience is left having to translate this into real dollar and cents terms that it can understand.  This is information I want to know and the film never gives it to me.