Jul 24th, 2006, 06:56 AM
Sartre In Hwikyeongdong & Namguro
A few weeks back I had met Jean-Paul Sartre at the Uijeongbu train station, and I thought it would be the last. After all, I had gotten a new phone since then (ironically shortly after giving Sartre my old phone number my phone self-destructed, its batteries permanently dying and its' antenna fell off). But last saturday night we saw what was potentially the Oi! bands Dirty Small Town's last show, and then drank until 8 AM with an assorted crew. I went with Yoobin to Hwikyeongdong, our old neighborhood, had a couple of beers, and then crashed out at 11 AM.
I was trying to find the subway at 4 PM, shortly after I awoke, and I was suddenly grabbed -- I turned around and it was a grinning Jean-Paul. he looked very well composed where I was in bad shape.
"Haha, we meet again!" Jean-Paul was wearing cut-off jeans and a Polo shirt, but the way he was wearing a scarf made it all seem to come together and look rather chic.
"Haha, yes, how have you been Sartre?" He just smiled and nodded, then we began walking again. He asked me where I was going and we decided just to pick up some grub. I did not have to work on Monday at all, so as the night dragged on and we talked about different foods, I decided I would see if Sartre was going to pull an all-nighter with me and explore Seoul. I had some tricks up my sleeve. After we finished dinner we agree'd to go to Jongro 2 Dong ,to Tapgol gongwon; I told Jean-Paul we were just going to go there to 'have a few beers before we do some serious partying,' but I knew what was going to happen...
We walked about and made small talk, I was almost ignoring Sartre who was continuing a passionate, one-sided conversation about his favorite alcohols in which I could not get in a worde edge-wise, but I was notinterested in that, I was interested in finding Tapgol being that it had been a while since I had gone. It was now nearing 9 PM and I knew that Tapgol would be at its' peak of partying. For about 20 minutes we were lost and Sartre kept up his babble-chatter, occasionally grabbing my arm, he was even becoming annoying. Then suddenly, just as all the other times I had found Tapgol, we were upon it. It was unmistable.
The loud, noisy keyboards piped away while 60-85 year old people were dancing insanely, hundreds of them, singing classic Korean songs to the keyboard noise! They were drinking soju and dancing like there was no tomorrow, but that was because at that age maybe there would be no tomorrow.
"Oh Jesus, what is this?" Jean-Paul was very curious.
"It's Tapgol... These guys come here every night and listen to the music and party. They really do it up..."
"I see that, Jesus, this is crazy music, it is just all this fake keyboard sounds with people singing..." I remained quiet as Jean-Paul marveled, looking at people his own age gettign down. We were drawing some attention, a young American and an old Frenchman joining their ho-down. An old man ran up to Jean-Paul and gave him a sort of awkward hug and offered him alcohol. Soon I was left alone, sitting on a bench, as Jean-Paul danced with a crowd of 70 year olds to the keyboard music. I sat and smoked cigarettes for the better half of an hour before Jean-Paul was ready to come back.
"Jesus, I found my knew home! Haha! Is there a hotel around here?" I put out my cigarette and shrugged, certainly there was bound to be one but the night was just beginning and we had to get on with it. We cannot watch these cunts dance for forever. Sartre was a bti drunk, and so was I for that matter, and we both knew it was time to go at about 9 PM.
People waved bye to Sartre and he smiled and pushed his glasses up onto his face as he waved back. He grabbed at my hand a lot and I did not bother pulling away, Sartre has his right to do t his, he is some sort of European and sometimes that's how Europeans behave, I reckoned.
The conversation was dying as we rode the last subway towards Namguro. I was going there because I wanted to crash Jon Dunbar's party. I knew that Grant, Eric, and Amber had to work early in the morning, I knew that Ken probably did. I decided at the last moment it would have been better to go to someone who always works late, but I figured if we could not get Jon to do anythign at Namguro we could always just go to Anyang. Yes, it is far away, but fuck it, I thought.
"So Sartre..."
"Please, call me Jean-Paul.."
"How about Jean?" He looked slightly annoyed/
"Fine, Jean."
"Well, I have a question about Nausea." Suddenly Sartre grabbed his head witn his hands and let out a huge sigh, swiveled his drunken head at me and put on a half-smile, a smile you give a younger person who you are attmepting to tolerate when they are about to disturb your whole metaphysical balance.
"Yes, Verv, ask away..."
"So did you ever experience a physical nausea similar to..."
"Yes. But only vaguely similar. I would sometimes feel a desire to attack people, to throw food, to lay on the ground and begin flailing my limbs and to scream, to punch things as hard as I can and to yell obscenities... But it was not crippling like his..."
"Did you ever stare at yourself in a mirror for an hour until your face..."
"Just became an object? Yes, sometimes I would do it for more than an hour, usually in the early sunday evening or during lunch break. Sometimes I would sit by the sea, look out onto it, and be paralyzed by the gravity of the world... I could not move. I was paralyzed."
We were on the subway but Sartre did not care -- he lit a cigarette. A few people stared but no one commented. It was 10 PM on a monday and we were going to Namguro. He took a deep drag, and I just looked at him patiently. He continued:
"There were times in my life when I was confused, and thought that I did everything wrong, and that humans are not worth anything, including myself, and that the only worth we have is fleeting moments of joy."
"Fleeting moments of Bbongjjak?" I asked.
"Bbongjjak?" Sarte incquired.
"Yes, happy keyboard music with Koreans singing about their lovers, their hometowns, their everything." Jean-Pauls lips pealed into a smile that gave him a boyish charm.
"Yes, exactly, fleeting moments of Bbongjjak.." He took a few more drags. Jean-Paul was a pretty good writer, so I figured I should not even say a thing, but allow him to monologue at me even though it would probably be arrogant & French, nonetheless it sounded pretty good if he got on a roll:
"Our lives are characterized by growth... But at a certain age you stop growing, so to speak, but not really growing... You stop fundamentally changing... You just exist, and learn, and grow slowly.. It is like trees. A baby tree will grow very fast, it seems, adn even in its younger years it seems you can mark its' changes, but once a tree becomes truly aged, no one notices its changes, not even the tree."
"Oh?"
"Once you stop this process, life becomes more meaningless, and that is when you just start filling in the blanks... Watching a sunset and a sunrise, observing the way that waves crash on rocks, teachign a dog how to play dead, fuckign someone for 8 or 9 hours straight, not because you like to fuck that much, but because you are curious what a body becomes like after 9 hours of intercourse... These sorts of things." Sartre sighed and threw his cigarette onto the subways floor. We were now at Namguro.
"Have you ever watched a sunset?"
"No, not all the way, Jean..."
"Okay, let's try to watch sunrise together." For a second I thought his request meant I was going to get fucked in the ass by Sartre, it sounded markedly homosexual. It left me with a difficult question for myself:
I am a heterosexual male with no desires to switch hit, but for the sake of saying I was fucked in the ass by one of the world's most regarded intellectuals and existentialists, should I let him? The question would race through my mind for the rest of the night.
"All right..." I somehow remembered perfectly the root to Jon's house. It was not that far, but still, far enough. I remember knocking on his door and seeign Jon peak out at us without his glasses, hiding behind the door partly.
"What the fuck are you doing, Verv? It is 11 PM on a monday and I need to go to work in..." he looked at his watch..."8 hours."
"Look, Jon, I got a prominent existentialist philosopher with me and I need to show him a good time, and he's gay, so I am not s ure what to do." Jon looked at me, acting like this was typical behavior for me when in reality ti was the irst time. he was silent for a second, maybe just tired. "Man, you gotta help me."
"Well, who is it?"
"Sartre."
Jon sighed, thought for a moment.
"I did not like Dirty Hands, but I guess Nausea was okay." Jon disappeared behind the door for the second and a few minutes later he emerged in his boots and a Fred Perry polo. Sartre stumbled up to him with bright eyes.
"Hello I am Jean-Paul, pleased to meet you, Sir." He was practicign textbook English -- whenever foreigners speak English they act like the word 'Sir' is used beyond the context of 40 year old men you are trying to sell cars to.
"Hey I am Jon, we have the same name, hahaha" Jon seemed wide awake now.
"So let's go get some Samgyeobsal!" I noted. Jon looked at me like he was not in the mood to eat, but he knew that it was outstanding circumstances.
Soon we were gorging ourselves. Jon and Jean got past the typical a/s/l questions, and now we gathered around the table eating pork together. Jean was getting progressively drunker, his body could not take it, soon he was wildly gesturing with a cigarette in his hand, knocking over bottles of beer and soju.
"Look, look, look, Verv," Jean still said my name the way a Frenchman says the word green, "Jon is right, I am right. You are very ignorant about this..." Jon made the mistake of telling Jean that I was not just right wing, but that I used to have a Mussolini button on my jacket and Chiang Kai-shek was my avatar on bROKe. "You do not know what I know..."
Sartre trailed on and I sighed, continuing to smoke. Sartre was beocming a very impassioned and drunken Communist before our eyes, and I looked at Jon and though he was enjoying a dead existentialist ranting at me about how wrogn I am, I could tgell he now suddenly regretted gettiing Sartre on the topic of fascism. I kept drinking silently, ignoring the drunk Sartre.
Jon and him went back and forth discussing, Jon seemed to really be enjoying himself in spite of the fact that it was 1 AM. I was not. Getting Sartre all sloppy was a mistake.
"Hey, give me this..." Suddenly Jon snatched Jean's scarf away, SArtre protested and it took him about 45 seconds to coherently get out the words 'give me my scarf back,' but by the time he was done he was now wearing it in the gangster style of a doo-rag.
"Oh! Oh... Oh... Oh... What is this? This is a ... headband?" Sartre was now way too sloppy. It was painful.
"hahahha, it is... You are a gangster now... You are a Blood!" Jon and I used to do this same thing in Shinchon. I just hoped that we would not end up doing Jujitsu in Hongdae park, or worst, bringing Sartre to Yoido so attend a worker's party rally.
Sartre gathered himself a little bit and then adjusted his shirt, untucking it from his cut-off jeans, he then silenced us all with his stare. He looked at us both up and down, we were quiet.
"So, where can we go for some adventure now?" Sartre asked with bright eyes.
To be continued....
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