The Tortoise and the Hare
To the Wonder
Stuff From Our First Korean Comedy Tour
Filmed and edited by Wilfred Lee who recently stumbled upon year-old Daegu KTX footage which was believed to have been lost.
Tough News Week
Of Doctors and Beaches
The Sticks
Bumping into the headlight of a parked 1972 Chevy C-10 pickup and losing a small chunk of flesh and fur, the rattled white-tail skittered passed the pumping islands and into the convenience store. The bell dinged above his antlers and two rounds from a Remington blasted out the window that marked theĀ new price of chewing tobacco. Wounded and windedĀ from the chase, the deer hunkered down behind the Frosty machine and checked his German Mauser C96.Ā FumblingĀ with hisĀ ill-formed hooves to reload, he caught his battered reflection on the side of a biscuit tin. What horror.
Outside, Heck reloaded his Remington 870 Express. A projectile from the Mauser whizzed by Heck’s ear. He ducked down behind a flame-painted Ford Pinto. The Pinto took three more bullets before the firing stopped. Heck wiped the sweat that had been accumulating between his forehead and his John Deere cap. Silence. The cicadas uneasily started to murmur again.
“Walk away, man!”
Heck peered over the dented hood. The deer had the gas station attendant, the hot barrel of his pistol digging into his temple. Heck spat and frustratedly twisted the corners of his graying mustache. The deer had bandaged himself with gauze and duct tape. He was a handsome ten pointer. The hostage clerk gazed stoically ahead as the agitated ungulate aggressively muttered something into his ear.
“Just walk away!” the deer barked, his voice quavering.Ā “Nobody has to die today!”
The 50 something with the hunting rifle steeled himself and raised his Remington defiantly. The deer, fearing he might have to shoot the clerk, backed inside. A moment later several distress flares were shot directly at the docked Pinto. Taking note of the gas leak that stained the pavement, Heck bolted for the Chevy. Six flares later the Ford erupted in a ball of fire, plexiglass, and metal. The blast knocked Heck to the asphalt. From this new coign of vantage he could see the deer running out the back of the convenience store. The clerk was nowhere to be found.
With the sure-footed maneuvering of a seasoned hunter, Heck stood up,Ā took aim, and fired. The deer saw his ownĀ brains paint the oncoming treeline like a monochromatic Jackson Pollock before everything went black and still. Old Heck left the fiery carnage of the gas station and approached his quarry. The clerk emerged from the store and walked over to the corpse.
“Why’d you do it? It wasn’t deer season.” The clerk’s words were flat and emotionless.
“Deer season nothing. That son of a bitch slept with my wife.”
Creature Comforts
North Korea Media Tantrum
The Veneration of Elders
June Healthcare Issue of 10 Magazine illustrations
Read the whole article here: http://www.10mag.com/the-national-korean-health-care/
As featured in 10 Magazine June 2014.
New Age Crap (Jon & Wassim)
A short video we did because we can.
Statistics Never Lie
Sketchbook Entry 15: Sloths
I think this was for a promo that never came to fruition. Can’t remember why they wanted sloths.
The Mustache Who Came to Asia
It is easy to see why nature might resist the evolutionary urge to festoon with fuzz the philtrums of a people who consume so much soup. I have found that Koreans tend to have a certain stigma concerning facial hair. I used to hear the words of Elwood P. Dowd (in affable, marbly-mouthed Jimmy Stewart tones) echoing in head, “That’s envy, my dear,” but it may be a bit more complex.
As a mustachioed American I was well aware of some of the cultural distinctions before I arrived on Asia’s kimchi-laden shores. Less fat people. Less bald people. Not much facial hair. Got it. But I hadn’t quite anticipated exactly how my own lip caterpillar would be received. I have had a mustache [off and on, but mostly on] for the past six years or so. It had become interwoven into my very personality. They grow on you, you know.
To present my mustache in a more flamboyant fashion, I usually waxed it up like an old-timey fisticuffs champion (or Rollie Fingers, if that helps). This bold Captain Hook-esque look was immediately discouraged and eventually curtailed entirely by my Korean employers. I did still maintain a fairly impressive cookie-duster, loss of the dandy waxen twists notwithstanding. Think Frank Zappa sans soul-patch.
My over 500 students called me Super Mario Teacher, which was superbly righteous. The kids loved it. I did, however, have one smart aleck kid say once, “Teacher! Teacher! You look [like] Hitler!” I get that all foreigners can look the same, but come on. If we were going for the tyrannical despot comparison I think Joseph Stalin might have been more apropos. And I told the boy so. And he made a quizzical face. I asked him, “Do you know who Joseph Stalin is?” and he said “no” to which I replied, “He’s the wise guy who invented North Korea.” Scared the jjigae out of him.
More and more often I find myself going naked these days. Mustache-wise, I mean. It is daily a tough decision that forces me to ask myself if I am denying being true to myself in paltry exchange for greater cultural approval. Strange how the wind blows across my exposed upper lip. Curious how the consumption of soup has reclaimed its former joys. Maddening how my coworkers compliment the perceived improvement. My students, crestfallen though they might be at the departure of Super Mario Teacher, must face facts: I like being able to get the occasional date with a Korean lady.
As featured in 10 Magazine May 2014.
Sketchbook Entry 14: weird nudes and devils
The Big Insane Happy 