cocktail review no. 64 - Agwa Bomb

Cripes!!!

The last time I did a cocktail review was October 28, 2011??

That's too long. I need to re-drunkify this blog.

The trouble is, I haven't gotten the bar up and running yet. I had hoped to lay in a stock of liquor and mixers within a few weeks of moving into my apartment, but various emergencies (and fripperies) have kept my booze-budget a trifle low.

Fortunately, there's a plethora of bars in Bucheon, and they come in all shapes and sizes: dim, smoky, expat watering holes; the ubiquitous hof-and-soju joints; a smattering of hostess clubs; and even a Japanese beer bar. It was at one of the expatriate hang-outs that I had occasion to sample an Agwa bomb.

First I should explain what Agwa is, though.

Agwa de Bolivia is an herbal liqueur made from—if you can believe it—coca leaves. (It's got 30-odd other ingredients in it, ginseng and green tea among them, but those take a backseat to the main ingredient.) Yes, coca leaves—the same stuff they make cocaine and Coca-Cola out of. The cocaine alkaloids are removed during production, however, so wipe the drool off your lips. This stuff won't get you high. It's street-legal. Nonetheless, the manufacturers make a huge deal out of the coca-leaf content, hoping to fool the unaware into thinking they're drinking their way to a high. (They do the same thing with absinthe.) 

Unsurprisingly, this stuff is manufactured and bottled in Amsterdam...

Anyway, here's the recipe for an Agwa bomb:

• 1 ounce Agwa coca leaf liqueur
• 1 can Red Bull energy drink

Pour a can of Red Bull into a tall glass (or, if you can find it, one of those hourglass-shaped Agwa bomb glasses) and stir in the Agwa.

I had the shot-sized version. I'm quite glad I did, for this meant that I had only one vile ounce of the stuff to drink instead of a glassful. It was abhorrent. I have never been a fan of Red Bull (if I had known that RB was a component of this drink, I never would have ordered it). And, after several terrifying encounters with Jägermeister at college, I have learned to steer clear of so-called "herbal liqueurs." They're uniformly disgusting—like cough syrup or bitter vegetable mash. Combining Red Bull and an herbal liqueur is a monumentally stupid idea, probably conceived by some tattooed bartender in an L.A. nightclub. This concoction should be outlawed by international treaties. Fizzy anise-flavored piss-water, that's what it amounts to. I gulped down in one go and vowed never to touch the stuff again.

Before I sign off, I'd like to add that Agwa represents a disturbing trend in the alcohol world: fruit-flavored vodkas and liqueurs made from strange plants. They're utter crap. They don't mix well with anything, and taste gross when taken straight. But they're taking over, slowly but surely. At best, they're little more than bottled marketing gimmicks; at worst, they are liquid crutches for the trend-setting club-hopping crowd, made to conceal the taste of any real liquor in their drinks. Perish the thought.

Rant over. Postie out. Steer clear of Agwa.

foundation, inspiration

Cover art from Isaac Asimov's Foundation series. Hence the title.

Basically, the situation is this. Rather than sit around and watch video game walk-throughs on YouTube all day (damn you, Shadow of the Colossus), I decided to update this here blog. Since I have no worthwhile news to relate (well, I do, but that will come later), I'll bring you up to speed on some novel-ish things. This originates from my recent decision to whip my novel into working order and publish it for the Kindle™ before the year is out.

First, however, I'm making some changes to my manuscript. There's a major overhaul underway. (Yes, I paired those two words intentionally.) I'm incorporating elements of my second, third, fourth and fifth novels into the first one, to add more characters and spice up the plot. In addition to this, there are several minor changes I'm making, some of which have only occurred to me in the last few days.

I'd like to sit down with you and dissect every little change I'm making, and elicit an editorial, literary and thought-provoking critique from you. But that's not going to work. For starters, I'm paranoid about revealing any details about my baby on this Internet thingy. Some scurvy rotter might come along and steal my idea, and I'd have to commit suicide (after decorating my apartment with the miscreant's entrails). Second, you'd be bored to tears. This is a rather nonsensical, esoteric novel I'm working on: social commentary wrapped in epic adventure-filled action-packed speculative fiction, with a few metaphysical touches thrown in for good measure. It's kind of like a hot dog buried under layers of onion, tomatoes, sweet relish, cheese, chili, and all the other crap that Cthulhu knows should never be put on a hot dog.

Eldritch analogies aside, however, you wouldn't like hearing about what exactly I'm writing. It'd spoil the surprise, anyway. You can read it for yourselves when I publish this beast. What I'd like to talk to you about today, because it has special bearing on my writing (and rewriting), are the foundations for this work.

To put it bluntly, I'm mad as hell. And I'm not going to take it anymore.

I'm about to get political/pseudo-philosophical, so all of you intolerant or opinionated types (or just those who don't want their impressions of me ruined) should get the heck out of Dodge, right now.

The world is sick.

It's backed itself into a corner, run itself up a blind alley. And now it's got nothing to do, nowhere to go, and it's eating itself.

Like Cyrus says in The Warriors: "Now look what we have here before us." Look at the world today. Overpopulation. Cramped, smoky, grimy cities, soaked in sin and desperation. World trade, economies, businesses, the very definition of success—all built upon cramming people into stuffy cubicles in monstrous floodlit buildings, where they slave their lives away for peanuts, pushing papers and dozing through meetings.

It's a horrendous job, and somebody—a million somebodies—has to do it. I'm aware of that. I'm not castigating the white-collar worker. All of them, men and women alike, have my respect. They've built something amazing. Human civilization as we know it depends upon them.

No, my beef is with human civilization itself.

I'm not pleased with how it turned out. I don't like that our society depends on things like corporations, Wi-Fi networks, stocks, bonds, markets, trades, mergers, industry, commercialism, business, economy, commodities, digital technology, and all those other intangible things built on numbers and figures and data. I resent that Western civilization revolves around forcing its youngsters to educate themselves in the purgatory of public school and the political chop-shop of college, so they can graduate with a pile of debt and a host of half-formed ideas and forgotten facts, and thence obtain a soul-crushing, unfulfilling job in the private sector and work until they die.

I like things...simpler. Freer.

(I realize, as I sit here and rail against the modern age, that I am typing on my laptop computer and sitting in my ninth-floor apartment with Owl City playing in the background and an electric fan preventing me from succumbing to the sticky Korean heat. I am the world's biggest hypocrite; I admit it. I don't give a pair of dingo's kidneys. I am spreading the word, my fauxslophic ideas, with the only viable weapon at hand. Indulge me.)

I'll be the first to tell you that I was born in the wrong century. I often find myself wishing that I could have taken part in the great explorations of the past five centuries. Ah, those were the days. There wasn't a single piece of plastic anywhere in the world. Everything was made from romantic materials like wood, metal, and canvas. The map hadn't been completely filled in yet. Anything—literally anything—could happen. Anything was possible. The sky was the limit. No, there were no limits. Even the sky was up for grabs.

I want to tag along with the famous explorers—Marco Polo, Francisco de Orellana, David Livingstone, Sir Francis Drake, Lewis and Clarke...even the doomed ones like Captain Cook, Burke and Wills, Mungo Park, Robert Falcon Scott, and Roald Amundsen. Heaven only knows what these guys really saw, and what they felt as they did. It seems like there's no room for expeditions like theirs anymore. Today's intrepid souls (Sir Ranulph Fiennes, Mark Jenkins, and others) know what's waiting for them at the end of the trail. I long for the days of romance and mystery.

I guess I don't really hate human civilization as we know it. I just said that out of spite. I don't even hate technology. Technology saves lives, eases burdens, facilitates communication, bridges gaps, expands minds. And it lets Adam Young make music. I dislike the mindset behind technology on occasion. Progress for progress's sake, and whatnot. And I wish e-readers wouldn't replace my trusty paperbacks. That's all.

But most of all, I wish the world wasn't so small. My most cherished dreams are those in which the world has become vast, unexplored, and dangerous once again, and it's up to me and a few other intrepid souls to plumb its mysteries.

So that's what my book's about. The decks have been cleared. Human civilization as we know it is kaputt. Earth's surface has been rearranged, altered unrecognizably. It's awash in eldritch abominations, mysterious monuments, savage beasts, colossal monsters, alien technology, sentient inhuman races, ferocious weather patterns, cosmic anomalies, laboratory experiments, fractured space-time, a hodgepodge of familiar cities and nations...and, of course, the terrified and scanty remnants of humanity. Into this mess are thrust my two protagonists, office drones from the Earth we know, refugees from the chaotic, hopeless, stifling present day. It's the end of the world as they know it, and they feel fine. They were actually sort of waiting for it to happen. So they jump at the call. Off they boldly go, throwing away their old lives and seeking their fortunes in this new and barbaric world. "Going for howling adventures over in the territory," as Mark Twain put it. Fighting, exploring, befriending, rescuing, and just generally being heroic and badass.

That's something I think every human being should have the chance to do.

But the world is sick, remember? First, we're poisoning the crystal waters of pure human existence with the drug of digital immersion, an ersatz life lived in the virtual world. (When was the last time you had a conversation where somebody didn't quote a movie, mention a video game, reference a website, or whip out a cell phone? I catch myself doing this distressingly often, and feel like running up to my apartment and hurling my computer and my smartphone out of the window.) But second, our worldview as a species seems to be shifting. This is particularly notable in the United States, but it manifested first in Europe and other notable civilized nations.

I'm speaking of the distressing trend of liberalism.

lib·er·al·ism [lib-er-uh-liz-uhm, lib-ruh-]

noun

1. the quality or state of being liberal, as in behavior or attitude.
2. a political or social philosophy advocating the freedom of the individual, parliamentary systems of government, nonviolent modification of political, social, or economic institutions to assure unrestricted development in all spheres of human endeavor, and governmental guarantees of individual rights and civil liberties.
3. (sometimes initial capital letter) the principles and practices of a liberal party in politics.
4. a movement in modern Protestantism that emphasizes freedom from tradition and authority, the adjustment of religious beliefs to scientific conceptions, and the development of spiritual capacities.

I've already talked your ear off about the state of human civilization, so I'll be brief. I disagree wholeheartedly with the liberal mindset. As innocuous as it sounds on paper, liberalism is a destructive cancer, a pernicious gangrene corrupting the world. I define myself (categorize myself, Smithy) as a conservative atheist. This means I have the advantage of looking at the world through the practical, no-nonsense lens of your garden-variety conservative, yet I don't have the obfuscating religious hangups that fundamentalist Christians do. I have a clearer view than most anybody.

I have observed, by monitoring the major news networks (most of them) and the general trend of American politics, that the liberals are taking over. Conservatism is passé. It's discredited as a system of thought. People (liberals) believe that conservatives are barbaric, violent, hidebound, intolerant, insensitive, cruel, racist, corrupt, money-grubbing Neanderthals. We're an unpopular lot right now, and I don't see that changing anytime soon.

The popular consensus seems to be that we are moving toward a state of world peace. A utopia. Everybody gets along, the state oversees every aspect of the citizens' welfare (that's what they mean by "the government guarantees individual rights and civil liberties"), people pay sky-high taxes to support the bloated and all-powerful government, but don't mind because they're off their chumps on sex and drugs and other hallmarks of an indolent, cared-for lifestyle.

Hogwash, I say. That's not what humans were meant for. Humans strive. Humans overcome. Humans pioneer. Humans explore. Humans hunt. Humans kill.

[grunt, snort]

Sorry. As I was saying, humans don't fit the mold which the liberals seek to jam us into. We weren't mean for a utopia. We weren't mean for a civilized, caring society. I think pastoralism and minarchy are the ideal fit for humanity. Anything more threatens us with a total stagnation of the human condition, a decadent travesty of civilization, a sparkly balloon easily punctured by external or internal pressures. (If you think I'm wrong, ask Thomas Cole.)

I wondered why, as a boy, I loved watching movies and cartoons where governments and bureaucratic order had been overthrown, and the world had descended into lawless chaos. (Mad Max and Thundarr the Barbarian come to mind). There was no law to tell you what you could or couldn't do; you had to decide for yourself. You could be bad or good. I loved the idea, without really knowing why.

As I got older (and politically aware), I figured it out. We've got too much government right now. So much that it's stifling our very nature as living, breathing, entropic beings.

To be properly free, we need a minimum of government, a government which fulfills no further function than that of a night watchman. The government doesn't try to control the administration of things like health care and welfare and job creation and other social programs; those things aren't rights, they're privileges. They aren't guaranteed, they're earned. The people are on their own for those things. The government should merely ensure that the people's basic rights—speech, press, arms-bearing, assembly—are guaranteed. Then it can back the hell off.

So, naturally, in my novel, all the world's governments and governing bodies—particularly the United States—vanish in an instant. The world is now leaderless, anarchic. And of course, a host of baddies rise up to fill the void and impose their will upon a helpless population. Enter our two heroes. They save the day, move on, do it again. Live life as they want. Oppose oppression. Exercise independence, common sense, human decency. Explore, strive, create, inspire. If those aren't true American values, then I'm more idealistic than I dared to admit.

And then...well, I don't want to spoil the plot-lines of future works, but I will say this much. My two heroes, after kicking around for a while and saving the day here and there, decide to found a country of their own in the midst of this bellowing wilderness. It's a free country, a good country, a large and powerful country. It's filled with hardworking souls who don't feel entitled to anything, who know that the government isn't there to support them or care for them, but simply to protect their rights. It's a country where moral goodness and common sense are valued above political correctness, affirmative action, reparations and the crippling overabundance of tolerance. And it's a country unafraid to defend itself or its allies from threats. Actions, not words. Guns, not sanctions. Confrontation, not appeasement. That's the American way. 

Long story short...I'm writing a novel which is essentially American in its character, in which I create the ideal world as I see it. One that makes sense to me. One that feels right. A world where our fates aren't decided before we're born; where we're not dependent on technology or successful careers or upward mobility; where we decide who and what we want to be, every minute of every day; and we have the freedom to follow whatever path we choose. And those who challenge our way of life, those who seek to dominate or terrorize us, are dealt with, swiftly and permanently, at the point a sword blade or a six-shooter.

I hope this makes you want to read it.

And now kindly listen to this, a paean to unexplored worlds. This technology is allowed:

things I've done in Seoul

First, I'd like to tell you that the new semester has begun at school. My schedule's a bit heavier—especially Thursdays—but nothing I can't deal with.

Second, Heather and I have been having a lot of fun. Last weekend we went to the 63 Building in Seoul (on Yeouido Island), took in the view from 60 floors up, saw a show at the IMAX Theater, and totally skipped going to Sea World Aquarium (not the same SeaWorld as in the States) because the line was literally around the building.

I also sallied forth to the War Museum in Yongsan, and take in some of the finer points of Korea's military history, going back thousands of years. Korea ranks right up there with Israel on the List of Small Countries Who've Spent Their Entire Existence Surrounded By Much More Powerful And Unfriendly Nations Who Want To Brutally Conquer Them Or Wipe Them Off the Map But Haven't Been Able to Because This Particular Small Country Is Rather Defensible And Also Really Good at Busting People In The Nutsack With Superior Weapons And Tactics When They Come Invading Thank You Very Much And Have Therefore Managed To Survive For Thousands Of Years When The Odds All Said Their Chances Were Close To Nil.

(I really need to stop reading Badass of the Week so much.)

But in all seriousness, Korea has spent much of its existence in the company of larger and militarily powerful countries like Japan, Mongolia and China, and has been invaded countless times throughout its history. Through a combination of skill, fortitude, resolve, badass military commanders, and the occasional advantageous alliance with China, Korea has managed to preserve itself all this time.

 

Oh, and did I mention their weaponry?

That's right. This is a mortar which fires giant iron-tipped arrows.

The sword of a commanding general, given by the king, inscribed with constellations, sacred texts and symbols. Effin' badass.

The turtle ship, a tank-like vessel covered with spiked armored plates. Oh yeah, and the dragon's head up front? It spews poison gas.

The Goguryeo Kingdom favored the use of tridents in combat. And that spear in the back appears to be covered with razor-sharp leaves.

The crowning glory of medieval Korean battlefield might: the hwacha. Those are 30-40 rocket-propelled arrows attached to this thing. It mercilessly chewed up enemy formations. This thing was badass enough to be featured on an episode of R. Lee Ermey's TV show Lock 'n' Load.

There! All done. I just needed to bring you up-to-date on my more exciting doings...

Oh yeah: I finally got another travel article published. The last one was...jeez, I don't even want to think about that. This latest one's in GoNomad.com. It concerns the balloon launches. The editor-in-chief gave me some very lovely, if unspecific, feedback. Maybe I should write articles like this more often, hmm?

In the next post I'll tell you how the novel's going. First I need to go work on it, though. Postie out.  

Dostoevsky revisited

As none of you are currently aware, I just finished rereading Fyodor Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground. It is and shall remain one of my favorite books of any genre. For the longest time I was never able to say exactly why. It resonated with me, certainly; I could relate to the corrosive, self-deprecating tailspin of insecurity and the crippling, isolating lack of self-confidence. (It was the hallmark of my school years—where, like Dostoevsky's unnamed protagonist, I looked upon my ant-brained classmates and their crude ambitions with disgust.) But thanks to Dostoevsky's evocative style, and the quality translation which preserved it, Notes from Underground interested me—compelled me—far more than any other work I read in school. The exact reason eluded me.

Then, on this third reading, more than six years after I first laid eyes on the novel, it hit me.

Dostoevsky hit the nail on the head.

He exposed a universal but uncomfortable truth.

With the jolting truthfulness which no other work has achieved so bluntly and plainly, Notes from Underground lays bare a portion of the human psyche which absolutely rules human interaction and individual ego. And yet, it is the most secretive, skulking, shameful part of us. It imparts a need unto our consciousness which we staunchly deny in public, but furtively—even subconsciously—seek to assuage.

And that need is, simply, the need to be recognized as a worthwhile human being. No, not even recognized—simply acknowledged. 

This is not the weirdest thing I want to tell you about tonight, though. It does have something to do with acknowledgement, rest assured. Listen to this:

I have not yet met the director of the academy where I work.

Weird, right? I've been there four months and I've only seen the guy in the corridors, or ensconced in his office. Mr. Rah is his name. At my first hagwon, the director, Mr. Hwang, met me at the airport, introduced himself, and did everything in his power to make my stay more comfortable. In the present day, Mr. Rah can't even be bothered to introduce himself or ask me how I'm doing. It makes a person feel mighty insignificant, let me tell you. I mean, I realize I'm not much more than chattel as far as he's concerned. I'm a warm body. A brain that know English. A mouth that can teach Korean children. A foreign name Mr. Rah can slap on a newsletter and send to potential customers.

Still, being reminded of that fact is unpleasant. Nay, cankerous.

Two weeks ago at work, Mr. Rah and I had...an encounter. You can't really label it as anything else. It was not a conversation, or even an exchange. The bell had rung for third period. I got up from my desk, grabbed my teaching materials, and sauntered into the hallway. Approaching me down this hallway was Mr. Rah himself, strolling along as though he owned the place. His mouth was set in a firm line. His thick body dominated the narrow space. His idle gaze swept the corridor. Our eyes met. There was no one behind me. We were alone in that passageway. The squeals of bleating children, the thunderous beat of their sneakers and sandals as they charged in through the main entrance, submerged into a pool of silence. The moment stretched into infinity.

With an internal monologue that would've made Notes from Underground's protagonist proud, I wondered what to do. I had been told that it was respectful to bow to Mr. Rah (in the Korean fashion, with a swift jerk of the head) upon seeing him. He was the Great and Beneficent Director and all. My mind and spirit rebelled against the idea. Why should I pay him his due as my employer, when he had done nothing to formally accept me as his employee? What did I owe him? "One good turn deserves another," they'd readily cry at me, but what if the inception of that goodwill is lacking altogether?

And, of course, I decided to comply. I lowered my head to him. I gave an almost spastic yank of my neck. My reluctance must have been painfully obvious. But I did it. Why not? After all, it couldn't hurt. It would force him to acknowledge me. He'd see my show of respect, the extension of goodwill, a selfless act of international cooperation. He'd be compelled—no, forced—to reciprocate. I knew the Koreans by now. They were bound by such laws as these. A cockroach living in Mr. Rah's pantry, eating his rice, could've jerked its head at him, and he would have been forced to bow back, just to calcify the relationship between benefactor and beneficiary. To have left such a gesture unanswered would have been unthinkable, anathema, contrary to millennia of cultural norms.

He didn't bow back.

Far from it. When my head came back up, his eyes had slid away from me, and were pointing purposefully down the hall, already forgetful of my presence. I might have been a dust mote wafting through the air. I was reminded, jarringly, of Aesop's story of the gnat and the bull. But then came the crowning humiliation. Without once looking over at me, Mr. Rah lifted his index finger and made a sort of twirling, hurry-up motion with it, indicating that I was loitering in the hallways and needed to get to class. The bell had rung mere seconds before. I was in the hallway, in the very act of stepping toward Room 203, materials in hand. And yet I received the "get to class, thou sluggard" treatment.  

I stood there for perhaps 5-10 seconds, stunned beyond belief. My mind had caved in. I could not conceive of it. The nerve! The impoliteness! The callousness! How rude! How crass! How impolitic!

And here is where I really channeled Dostoevsky's underground man again. Outwardly, I remained calm. Inwardly, I gnashed my teeth, foaming at the mouth in fury. I squirmed like a worm stuck with a pin. It was too much to bear. I hadn't been insulted; I had been ignored, which was a million times worse. If he'd stuck out his tongue at me as he'd passed, I'd have branded him a loony and contentedly passed the remainder of the day. But being ignored was indigestible, insoluble. I felt like hurling my books at him. Mentally, I stuck out my foot and tripped him as he walked past. I spat on him, hurled invectives at him, plotted the sweetest and vilest of revenges. I even went so far as to ask my coworkers in the staffroom whether intensive courses were voluntary or not. (Intensives, which will take place in August, mean an extra round of morning classes for us, as we metamorphose for a time into a full-blown cram school.) Upon learning that they were, I thought "Hang them! And hang Mr. Rah! I'll take a vacation that week!"

Later, over beers with my friends that night (again channeling the underground man) I calmed down. I mellowed out. In fact, I felt as though I had overreacted (and later regretted feeling this way, and gnashed my teeth again). I was persuaded to believe that Mr. Rah was an odd duck, who took funny turns, and liked to twirl his hands and snap his fingers when the mood took him. Perhaps he was strolling the halls with a sort of restrained but barely-containable jollity about him. I must have tweaked his sensibilities, triggered a reaction, loosened a brick in the emotive dike, and coaxed some strange gesture of gaiety from him. Later, when the beer had worn off, I saw that this was hogwash. One doesn't twirl his fingers with a deadpan expression on his face. Innocuous his gesture may have been, but it made me mad. It wasn't just a personal slight. I sensed some monstrous injustice in his actions, a base incorrectness, a gross discrepancy between zeitgeist and reality. With a wave of his hand, the director had epitomized the callous Korean (nay, Asian) corporate mindset, which holds that people on the lowest rung are mere bugs compared with the executives. They can be bullied, coerced, taken advantage of, and ignored in equal measure.

Miss H and I took a night cruise along the Han River last evening. As the ferryboat slid under bridges and past the twinkling lights of Seoul (one of the most intentional cities on Earth, as Dostoevsky might have written), we had occasion to meet an American couple. I'll call them Betty and George. They lived in Daegu, and taught at the U.S. military base. Betty had run a half-marathon in Seoul that morning, and George was part of a jazz ensemble, and played concerts and gigs around Korea. Still stung from my encounter with Mr. Rah, I asked George for his opinion of his employers and managers. Did they treat him like a commodity, or like a person? His answer gave me food for thought. He said that the greatest obstacle to proper business relations was the language barrier. The more English the Korean speaks—or the more Korean the foreigner speaks—the more human the relationship. Frostiness becomes friendliness, impersonality fades away, familiarity breeds cooperation and harmony and companionship. Learning the languages, he said, did wonders to improve the interrelation between employer and employee.

To that end, I have resolved to learn Korean to the very best of my ability. I'll lay in wait. I'll let Mr. Rah cruise along, master of his domain, comfortable in his position and his superiority. Then I'll rattle his cage. I'll knock the foundations out from under his castle. I'll be Dostoevsky's underground man, dressed in his finest clothing, going to slap Zverkov and challenge him to a duel. I'll invite myself into Mr. Rah's office, plonk myself down in a chair (maybe even his chair) and say, in flawless Korean, "Howdy boss-man, what's the good word today? You don't know me, because you've never bothered to meet me, but I'm one of your employees. Don't you think it's about time we had a confab and got to know each other?"

And, just like the underground man, I will probably never do it.

That's why I like Notes from Underground.