Drunk & Afraid

I recently took to twitter and regaled the story of drunken shenanigans when I lived in Korea, so I guess I'll post it here for future purposes.

It's Sunday and I have done nothing all day, planned on doing nothing all day, and was finally relieved to have something to do. It's about 4pm and I get a text from my friend 효진 (Hyojin) telling me I should come hang out with her and her friends. The plan was to meet in two hours. So I grabbed my backpack (normally filled with the proper things to survive a night that I may not return) and left for Seoul.

When I finally reach Hongdae, I give her a text to figure out where she and her friends are at. She give me directions to a "restaurant/bar" in the area called "Dorothy's Diary." Which in Korean I had to admit sounded more like some road thing, so I had no idea what it was gonna be. Turns out it's like a Wizard of Oz themed place and the Dorothy in Question is the one and only. There were drawings all over and a mannequin sitting at a picnic table in the front of the restaurant/bar. I feel I must explain this restaurant/bar deal. In Korea, people don't go to the bar and just get drunk and play bar games like pool or darts. No, in Korea you usually order food, then drinks. Sometimes you can just go in and order a small amount of food then a ton of alcohol. So you could imagine my confusion on what the hell the theme of this place was. It seemed like Wizard of Oz, but there was Korean food and alcohol everywhere. Not to mention, I didn't know that Dorothy kept a diary.

I walk into the restaurant and just start wandering around, which immediately put the hostesses on edge because I'm pretty sure they didn't think I spoke Korean, and I'm just this guy walking around looking into all the booths. Once I find the correct one, I open up the door and we sit down and start talking. There were three people in all, and outside of Hyojin I didn't know the other two people. One was named 경한 (Kyong-han) who was shortly going to the army, and the other was actually American born named Ernest. He was excited to talk in English and would constantly teach me new Korean drinking words and ask me what we'd say in America. Honestly, I didn't play drinking games that much, or drink all the much period before moving to Korea, so I feel I may have left him down. However when we were talking about drinks, he explained this drink that was a shot of Soju and then dropped in beer mixed with some Coke. This was going to be the killer of the evening, and I don't say this in a bad way. So he orders what seems like a million shot glasses and a "Big Boy" glass of beer, and we begin pouring the drinks.

Now, I'm not sure if either I'm a heavy weight drinker or what, but after I had about 13 or so of those, spread out with shots of soju in-between, Kyong-han had passed out, and shortly followed by Hyojin too. So I told Ernest that we should probably get her home. About here, I look at my watch and it is impossible for me to go home since the trains have stopped at 1am, so I ask if they know any motels. He tells me of the Sauna room that they were staying in and invites me to go with them. But first thing first, we have to get Hyojin home. This was such a chore, in-fact the next day after sleeping I realize that I was actually supporting all her weight, because my arms and chest were so sore from carrying her. Looking at her, she can't be more than 100 pounds, but it was like carrying a large dog who was trying to jump out of your arms the entire time. I'm trying to figure out where she lives by asking her constantly, and every few seconds or so wakes up and says something like, "left" or "this way." After about maybe 15 minutes of this, I finally get to what I'm convinced is her door. I think I may have blacked out slightly because I seriously thought I was sleeping, and this is where shit goes crazy for me.

We got to her door and I was so drunk that I could not understand why it wouldn't open. I thought maybe I was dreaming so that if I willed the door open, it would. I think we called her roommate and knocked on the door several times, but I don't think anyone was there. Somehow after what seemed forever, we got the door open and I helped her to what I assumed was her room. I tossed her on her bed and was already dead asleep. I turned to leave and as I walked out the door I don't remember if I closed it or not, but I remember looking for Ernest, who was now gone. Without much thought, I began walking into the darkness. Later on, I was thinking about the door and I began to wonder if I had just broken into someone's house and just left my friend there, because I seriously could not remember how we got into that house.

So it's dark out, I think at this time it's 1am and there are people, tons of people just doing. . stuff. Like picking up garbage bags, riding bikes, and construction. I'm scared out of my mind, why are there so many damn people outside right now? Where am I? Are there any hotels near here? I somehow get to a road, and start walking down it in way too much darkness. My how I hate being alone and drunk in unfamiliar places. Eventually I see this brightly lit beacon in the night that is a convenient store. I walk inside, and go buy some water and ask them in shockingly good Korean, "Is it okay if I stay here? I'm drunk and too afraid to go outside." The clerk's only response was something along the lines of, "Holy shit, you can speak Korean."

We talked about how I was a translater, Korean Reunification, his stance on North Korea, you know regular everyday conversations.So I stayed at this convenient store, just talking to these two guys helping them work, and we had some good conversations.  Every so often the long haired one would go outside for a smoke and there was usually a new character in this story waiting outside. This one particular time, a woman was yelling at these cops. I could not understand her, but my two new friends were nice enough to let me know that she was hit by some guy. Now if she was hit by like a fist in the face, or by a car, I couldn't be sure. To be honest, I don't think they knew either. I think she almost fought with the cops, and they eventually somehow got her into the squad car and took her away. She was pretty hostile about the whole situation, but most old Korean women are about everything. 

After 4-5 hours of this, the subways start to run, and having worked at this place, literally restocking, and partaking in squid jerky, which tastes exactly how you think it would, I decided to make good my escape. I don't remember what happened between leaving the store and getting home, but I somehow made it and slept until 9pm the next day. I later learned that I wasn't actually abandoned on the street outside of Hyo-jin's apartment, but that Ernest and Kyong-han had actually passed out in the street. I've tried to return to find that store to say hello and hang out with the shopkeepers again, but I have no idea where I was, and I never could find it again. 

How MCIHAD was born

I'm not entirely sure anyone reads this at all, but I figured I might as well just put some behind the scenes sort of stuff in here.

So when we started doing "Mom Can I Have Another Dollar?", Nick was originally living out in Florida in the same apartment complex as myself. We were eager to make some new sketch comedy as we used to years ago. When we originally started, we were incredibly ambitious with very little experience in what the hell we were doing, but we thought what we had was funny or at least entertaining so it seemed like it was always worth our time. However, what we have now, is education. Nick came out here to go to film school, and I came down similarly to go for a bachelors in audio engineering. So we should be able to make better videos right? Well we still had the same issues we always run into, no people to help us make anything. At least no one committed as we were.

So I had gotten all this arcade paraphernalia, and Nick would come over nearly every night where we would get drunk as lords and go through our favorite old arcade games, and even play new ones we'd discovered using Hyperspin. After a few days of this, Nick suggested, "You know, why don't we just record ourselves doing this? We're already gonna get drunk and play video games, why not make something of this?" I'd always hated the idea of making our channel about video games, because it seems like everyone does it. I actually like a lot of channels on YouTube that are focused on gaming, but it seemed, cheap and too easy to do. I didn't want to just do something everyone else was doing, and I only ever considered doing game related stuff if it was a unique angle. I don't think I'd ever run across a channel that specialized in playing specifically arcade games, so I thought, "Why not?"

Nick and I made a few "Proof of Concept" episodes for the show and were showing them around to other people, asking if they thought it would be funny or interesting. We got a few people saying they liked it, but then we showed it to our old cohort, Keith. He seemed to latch onto the idea and immediately wanted to insert himself into the equation. I really liked that idea, only one problem, Keith lived over 1,300 miles away. So how would we do this regularly? Well, Keith didn't seem to have an issue with coming all the way down Florida way just to do the show, so thus was born our "Seasons". We sit and play these games for about a week straight until we have something crazy like 50 episodes which give us a few months worth of content. We all have military background and are used to lack of sleep and being pushed past a point of comfort, but these sessions are literally some of the most exhausting things I've experienced. You can sometimes hear the fatigue in our voices, and when Nick isn't in an episode, you can bet it's because he needs a break from doing the show. Keith though, that guy is a monster when it comes to doing this thing. He's either completely on, or completely off, and it's a struggle to keep up with him on the days where we're all literally exhausted. Then much like the storm of humanity he is, he blows out of our lives for a few months until the next "session" is set to start.

And that's how your sausage is made folks.