If I could be anyone for a day....

So I've decided that it would be fun to make some lists on my blog, like the top five honeymoon destinations for alternative lifestyle-living individuals and the top ten things to eat when you are in a 'I hate men' phase. Today's list is brought to you by men, the only acceptable gender to date. Today's list is simple: The five Korean male entertainers Tim wants to be.

The list of course must start with the heart of the Korean entertainment world: Lee Jun Ki. This actor turned model turned singer turned everything under the sun is easily one of the most recognizable faces in Korea today, but here's something not many of you may know about him: he is in fact not a woman. Now I love this man, more than I should, but being him would be that much greater because honestly he can do anything he wants and millions of people will still worship the ground he walks on. Sure I'd have a hard time keeping my hands off myself, but what man doesn't? Lee Jun Ki looks great, is not a half bad actor, and just is a nice fresh face for Korea than someone like Bae Young Jun, who in all honesty is way past his prime.

My next selection is the ever handsome Lee Seung Ki. This boy just has a smile that can bring kittens back to life, not to mention he is considered Korea's younger brother and good boy. You can't possibly dislike this guy and so it is only natural that I, an American guy who is older than him, would aspire to be him. He has an awesome voice, a very handsome face, and I guess we could say a nice enough body. Not only that, but all boys want to be him and all girls want to get with him. Though the girl part I'm not necessarily too crazy about, I figure if guys want to be him and be friends with him then I should too! Besides, who doesn't want people screaming over you when you smile and say something cute? It just makes common sense to want to be him.

Depending on the day I may want to be G-Dragon (Kwon Ji Yong) that much more or that much less. But all in all, this guy is amazing. He has the talent, the fashion, the look, and the attitude. He is personable, energetic, and really not that bad to look at. I wouldn't be prone to touch myself as much if I were Lee Jun Ki or Lee Seung Ki, but I would be prone to do things like write songs about a horse meeting a zebra, drink beer while at a photoshoot, and wear pink whenever humanly possible. He personifies cool in ways that other Koreans could only hope to incarnate, but will never fully attain. He is the whatever the fancy French word is for exceptionally unique and outstanding, because in all honesty, Korea needs more G-Dragons if it is to survive in the rather culturally-competitive economy we now live in.

This boy is only 17, but is already one of the most sought-after boys in Korea. Yoo Seung Ho has started in numerous dramas, including his current 'God of Study', and always makes both the ladies and the boys turn their heads. He had a place in the sultry Brown Eyed Girls music video for "Don't Go, Don't Go", and it's really been since then that people have started to sexualize this young boy into something more than simply a kid. Who says young Korean teens don't fornicate like older ones do? Well with boys like this, it is easy to see just what drives them to do it. Granted, he is significantly younger than me and I really am not all about reliving my younger years, but perhaps if I were him, with his good looks and current position, I may rethink it. Besides, things 'taste' better when you are younger.

Now he isn't the best looking, not the most talented, and does not necessarily have the best personality, though it does not preclude him from being good looking (which he is), having talent (which he does), or being funny (which he is quite good at). However, Big Bang's Seungri (Lee Seung Hyun) has possibly the one thing that the other Big Bang members, most Korean actors, and perhaps even most Korean musicians lack: the overwhelming love, affection, and support of Korean homosexuals. Now I am not using the term homosexual in a negative way, I mean actual gay Koreans who are attracted to men. Overwhelmingly, when I ask Korean gay guys who their favorite Big Bang member is, or even open the door to just entertainers or 'ideal guys', Seungri outnumbers anyone else you may think. Sure, they like their pretty boys, but they like their boyish boys so much more. Seungri can go either way, for those who catch my drift, and that makes him the ultimate boy in my book, and therefore the most desired guy in the Korean entertainment world that I would want to be.

Holy Twisted Fate Batman, We're in a Boat!

So 60 or so fans fainted over the weekend at the Big Bang concert. I am trying hard to figure out why. I mean, I guess I can kind of see how fans get so enamored by stars that they feel as if they are connected to them in some way, but I don't see Lady Gaga's fans mailing period blood stained notes to her, or fainting at her concerts simply because they see her. This reminds me of a very special episode of 'Will & Grace' when Jack finally is exposed to Kevin Bacon as Kevin Bacon's stalker. In America, stalkers may be thought of as scary contraptions of people, but compared to Korea, a stalker is a welcome sign of relief. We think paparazzi is evil; nothing quite prepares anyone for a rushing onslaught of teen girls (and in some cases boys). Stalker culture in America takes a backseat to fan culture in Korea. Regardless, though, I'm still trying really hard to figure out why 60 fans fainted. Are their lives so void of meaning outside of Big Bang that they are affected by simply the presence of the star? I went to the concert over the weekend, and interestingly I was not the only guy there. To me, it looked more like a party than a pop concert, and Big Bang treated it more like a party than a pop concert. I've also been to a DBSK concert where I saw fans fainting and being carried out of the stadium. Either way, the way Korean fans attach themselves to their stars by all accounts is psychologically, and now physically, unhealthy.

In other news, I would like to know who exactly are the 'Korean netizens'. My impression of netizens, from back in my heyday as one living in America, were the otaku guys with too much time on their hand. Case and point: comic book guy from The Simpsons. But in Korea, I think of Korean netizens as synonymous with these fans, because that's where most my interests lie. But here we are, in the year 2010, and we are talking about how Korean netizens are angered over how one of the Japanese girls (Rie Akiba) from that retarded foreign girls talk about how to get guys and how beautiful they are and how idiotic and absent minded and blah blah blah (obviously I harbor some distaste for this show and its foreign girls), how she was asked about Korean politics from a Korean newspaper and her answers were apparently not all that savvy. First of all, what is a Korean newspaper doing asking a Japanese girl from a TV show about Korean politics, especially Dokdo? I mean, it's like Jerry Springer, because you know that these 'Korean netizens' are going to take anything she says and overreact, because that's what 'Korean netizens' do. To be honest, her answer was nothing special, and she was quite careful to avoid the big ass hole that is Korean politics, but she still managed to anger Korean netizens. So this begs the question, who exactly are Korean netizens, and why do they care? Are they so invested in what some Japanese girl on some retarded TV show says about Korean politics (who admits herself she is a novice to the field) that they are up in arms over it?

I feel as if no matter what anyone says about anything in Korea, Korean netizens, whoever they may be, will find some way to be angry over it. Korea, as I always have said, suffers from a Mommy problem because they find themselves always thinking they need to be on the defense because they believe everyone is out to get them: Korea is one big conspiracy theory. I mean even Mel Gibson is looking this way and saying 'I ain't touching that mess'. We all love Korea, in the way we love our crazy Aunt Harriet, but we don't always want to have to convince it that the world is not out to get it because that takes a lot of time and energy, and frankly, it never listens. I figure if we can start with entertainment, change that, then we can change Korea as we know it. I've learned something valuable, or completely pointless depending on how you view it, while living in Korea: Koreans, much more than any other people I've encountered, place more emphasis, value, and time/money/life in entertainment/pop culture than they do anything else. Sure, family values are important and loving God is good and all, but never have i witnessed such an affinity for television regularity, music influence, and all that is 'the entertainment world' than what I have witnessed here. Granted, Korea is significantly smaller than many of the other places I've been, and most people are concentrated in Seoul, but it is still quite something. I wonder, is Korea the future or the distant past?

"I swear mom, the house was on fire already!"

I've been getting my kpop news from Allkpop for quite some time now, from when they first opened up, that guy and his blogging. Then they started expanding, like google, but unlike google, they hired dumbasses to write articles. Now if you happen to be reading this and are currently a contributor to Allkpop, then I'm sorry you have to read this. But honestly, some of the crap that these people write, the writing in general, and the headlines are about as ridiculous as Pat Robertson accepting my lifestyle, or me going to see any Saw movie in the theater. It brings down the integrity of Allkpop, first of all, and it opens the door to all the twenny and teens from around the world, mostly girls, to congregate at what should be a respectable Korean Entertainment Blog. It's like when Napster turned mainstream... how dumb was that? The first rule of fight club: you do not talk bout fight club.

Case and point: a recent headline reads "Jung Il Woo is gay?" Now, besides the sites explicit discrimination against homosexuality, evident in their description of 2PM being among the most desired men in the Korean gay community, they take a very cavalier attitude towards blogging. Granted, it is the Internet, home of goat cheese boy and napkins for Iraq, but there is a classy way of blogging (like me), and then there is just a retarded way (Allkpop). If it were a site with only a sole contributor, he can say and do whatever he wants; that's what Prez does and it works for him/her/it. But Allkpop was started to bring breaking Korean entertainment news to the English-speaking world (mostly Korean Americans, initially), not to give their uninformed, ignorant, and dumbassary two cents on things they obviously know nothing about. I love when they need to give a mini Korean history lesson and end up butchering Korean history to the point where all us who actually study it are going 'and there goes the dignity in our profession'. The article I started with about questioning Jung Il Woo's sexuality actually has nothing to do with his sexuality, but his upcoming portrayal of a gay man in a play. Now I can see how for the retarded contributors of Allkpop the two may be the same, because playing a gay man and actually being a gay man may teeter the lines of fiction and reality too much for the homophobic and ignorant idiots, but I mean when I go see Tom Cruise macking it with some woman in Mission:Impossible, I don't automatically assume he is no longer gay; he's just acting.

Another pitfall of Allkpop is their recent obsession with things that aren't really news, not even worthy of a tabloid, things I like to call 'shit online'. In other words, some Korean singer/actor passes gas and Allkpop is right on top of that. Most of this surrounds recaps of variety shows, and what these idols say about things that we really could care less about. Like I really give a damn who Go Hara's #1 male idol is, or that 2pm fans with too much time on their hands photoshoped their faces into the 'Gods of Study' drama stills. To me, this seems like stuff that one would find at a fansite, not a news site, which they claim to be. But don't blame it on them, the contributors are probably only 15, if their writing is any indication of age and/or education.

So I've done it again, I've probably ostracized most of the world against me by being too pompous and too educated. Yeah, well bite me. The best thing about the Internet is that you can say whatever you want whenever you want, you know, unless you have work to do or your mom is bitching at you for not doing your homework. Luckily at this point in time, neither is true!

The More You Know... and Shooting Star

Lately, I've been remembering some of the oddest things from my childhood, be it words people would use, searches I've made online, or television shows that I watched for all of 2 minutes. For example, I remember watching "Unsolved Mysteries" all the time as a kid, but it always scared the bejesus out of me, so I could only watch it during the day when I had off from school, and with my younger sister. So, we'd have lunch at 11.30am, watch "Unsolved Mysteries" from 12-1pm on Lifetime, Television for Women, and then I'd go off to my room to watch my stories ("Days of our Lives"). Speaking of which, I remember when Jensen Ackles first stared as Sammy's twin brother Eric. Nothing ever felt quite as nice as swooning over that guy.

This is the curse that befalls a person when they are left to their own thoughts for too long. In other words, I've been bored out of my mind for quite some time now and find it too painful to watch Korean television, except for the occasional show where Shinee dresses in animal PJs; that's just high-quality entertainment right there boys and girls. But honestly, most of what's been happening in Korea and in the kpop world has been quite bland, or over the top. First were the rash of period blood-stained letters, which were the talk of the town! SM Entertainment has also filed a new lawsuit, this time against some artist who drew a cartoon vaguely sexualizing the girls from Girls Generation; it really wasn't all that bad, but you know they have to stay in the limelight somehow. Then the girl groups came back with shitty songs and just blah blah blah... yeah, mostly T-ara and that chick who can't sing or dance from 4 minutes. I mean honestly, you have people saying 'oh man, I wanna work with her!' but in reality, it's men who are actually saying 'oh man, I wanna drive her so hard into my bed that she won't be getting up to go to work tomorrow!' Honestly, if they are going to release a solo debut, could they at least pick people who could sustain singing for at least 3 minutes? Breathing heavily and talking to a melody is not singing, it's making a complete idiot out of yourself. And yes, we are all looking at you Son Dambi and HyunA, because the only reason (and seriously folks, the only reason) you are popular is because you have nice bodies and men of all ages want to fuck you silly. But eh, that's the music business in a nutshell, huh?

In other fun news, I have two new absurd song names to report. The first comes from a group whose name is as absurd as their songs, ZE:A. So to make a long story short, they were first Child of Empire, then to be called Jia (i guess the Korean way of saying ZE:A), only to be changed to saying 'Child of Empire' in Korean because Jia is apparently the name of some member of some girl group and that's not allowed. Their song is that old Jewish saying, "Mazeltov". But, because it's too difficult to pronounce correctly, it sounds more like "Majeltoff", which could pass as a Canadian beer. And apparently, according to the song, it's majeltoff every day of the week. The other song comes from yet another boy group, this one with only four members called F.Cuz. Now in my opinion, the name looks cool, and I'd called them 'f cuz' because the 'f' could stand for any number of expletives. Oh but no, it has to have a more convoluted meaning than that. 'F' stands for 'four', because there are four members, and cuz... is just cuz. So to pronounce this, you have to 'think black' (a rough translation of what they actually said in their explanation) and slur your words together to arrive at 'focus'. Their debut song is entitled "Jiggy", and the melody is actually rather catchy (not to mention them just dancing around like cute boys who may have had too much cake at their 16th birthday party). Their message is very simple: get jiggy [with it]. So somewhere Will Smith is banging his head on the table as his infamous words are now being thrown back at him by three cute Korean boys and a very odd looking Korean guy who should probably be kept in a zoo as he looks like some sort of scary animal.

The moral of today's story, boys and girls, is that running away from home is not always the proper solution. Remember, there are people out there who love and care for you, and no matter what, they'll be home waiting. I'm Bill Cosby telling you to eat your Jello and stop all that gosh darn running away; get jiggy with it instead.

Free Hugs

Where have all the cowboys gone? I remember when cowboys used to rule this land, with their hats, horses, and diamond bracelets. But where have they gone? Perhaps they fled with the talent and originality that seemed to lack in the year 2009. Granted, we had some ups (thank you Alicia and Miss Gaga), but then we had our downs (Oh Chris Brown and most of Korean music). And when we went down, we went down into the pits of hell to find things we never knew existed, lows that were so low we wrapped back around and praised them as 'highs'. Remember that time I was Sandra Bullock and made 'Speed', an awesome movie, only to follow it with 'The Net', a movie that sunk on so many levels? It's like making sequels to 'Bring it On' and 'Cruel Intentions'; why screw up the awesome legacy of the first movie with horse dung found in the second (and in some cases, third) installment?

Anyway, 2009 faced some massive challenges, hurdles we all had to overcome. In Korea, I think so many bad things happened in the music/entertainment world that we (and by we I mean everyone else but like five of us who weren't drinking the kool-aid) simply thought it good. Case and point: girl groups. I miss the days of S.E.S. and their fun and funky music of late 1990s/early 2000s; they were the original pop girl group in Korea (for the most part at least) and they knew how to do it in style. These days, there are more girl groups then there are opinions of Britney Spears, hardly any of them good. The worst part is, they make virtually the same music and are hailed as 'wonderful'. It reminds me of the little known Steve Martin film 'Leap of Faith', also co-staring Meat Loaf and Liam Neeson. Steve Martin plays a fraudulent Christian evangelist attempting to heal people in order to garnish money via offerings. I feel as if Korean music this past year has done that to its people, but then again Koreans don't buy music anyways, so I suppose it all works out for the best.

But why dwell in the past year? We should, rather, look forward to the year 2010 as the year of sunshine, hugs and puppies. Or at the very least, the year of moving beyond crap to mediocracy! Come on everyone, let's shoot for being just okay! We all can do it. You figure, if we all become just okay, then we will have greater incentive to be greater in the future; who wants to be the same anyways (well, besides most of the world)? Then once we all move forward to greatness, greatness becomes average and we aim higher. At this rate, we'll be building colonies on Mars and inventing warp-speed drive in no time! Go team go!

I believe that the year 2010 will be an amazing year, for everyone. Why do I believe this? Because on the first proper day of work of this year I was nearly forced from going to work due to a rather fluke snow storm, dropping snow that came nearly up to my knees. Coming from Atlanta I'd never seen such absurdity as this, so I figure such absurdity this early in the year makes for a kick ass year! That, or the world is going to end. Either way, excitement is just around the corner! Plus, this is the year I enter a Ph.D. program (let's hope for a good one), Doctor Who returns with a new Doctor (I will totally miss David Tennant), Torchwood finally comes back (I can't get enough of John Barrowman), and I grow wings. All things to look forward to in 2010.

In closing, Free Hugs is a good way to advertise, and a good way to start of the new year. Give someone you love, like, want to sleep with, or just someone you tolerate a free hug (charge the rest) and let your year start on the upside. Merry Days.