Tag: reminiscing

Minari: chicken soup for the Korean-American soul

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I finally got around to watching Minari.  I didn’t watch it because of all the Academy Award acclaim it was getting, nor did I watch it solely because it was a film about Koreans, starring Koreans and was produced by mostly Koreans.  I’ve been wanting to watch Minari because based on the premise of the film, it was something that I knew was probably going to hit home to a Korean-American person like me, and I went in knowing that there were probably going to be a lot of moments of reflection, reminiscing, comparing and probably shit that was going to make me cry.

Without giving anything away, the basic plot is a Korean family moves from California to Arkansas, primarily so that dad (Steven Yeun) can chase his dream of starting up a farm.  Naturally, this is a cause of culture shock for Koreans to move into rural middle America, and the struggles and rigors of surviving and adapting at the same time.

What was endlessly amusing to me is that I feel like Steven Yeun, since rising as a star from The Walking Dead, I feel like took his appearance in David Chang’s Ugly Delicious to heart a little bit, where Chang’s circle-jerk of celebrity friends was giving him a little bit of shit for being able to make it as a big-time American star in spite of being Korean, and almost since then, has been doing a lot of roles that inject him into his Korean heritage.  Despite the fact that his Korean sounds a lot like most Korean kids who did a lot of their growing up in America, it’s his attempts to sound like fresh-off-the-boat English that had me cracking up. 

But if there’s anything that was truly right about the entire film, it was undeniably Youn Yuh-Jung’s role in the film, playing grandma Soonja.  Obviously her performance was justly recognized seeing as how she was a shoe-in to win best supporting actress and did such, becoming the first Korean actor or actress to win an Academy Award.  But she shines from the moment she shows up in the film, and it makes me reminisce to my own childhood, where my grandma often stayed at my home to fulfill the same role as Soonja did, being the free babysitter for primarily me since I was the baby of the generation.  My grandma wasn’t nearly as hands-on, or quite nearly as sassy or show as much personality as Soonja did, nor was I nearly the shithead to her as David was to Soonja, but it definitely gets the memories flooding through the gates.

Frankly, there’s a lot of parallels to the film I could feel with my own life, seeing as how both my parents were also chicken sexers growing up, and how my family grew up in rural Virginia, which wasn’t nearly as remote as Arkansas, but was still similar in the sense that there probably were like 15 Koreans in the entire town, with some of them being relatives.  And I imagine just about every Korean family in America could probably feel some sort of kinship to the film as I did, and just about everyone in my own family has stated similar feelings themselves.

There’s a lot of subtle symbolism and interpretation necessary in the plot and its happenings throughout the film, and at first blush I was kind of perplexed at the way the film concluded, but when I lay in bed thinking about it, most of it kind of falls into place, and it makes me admire the film even more than I did while watching it.

Bottom line is that the film really is like chicken soup for the Korean-American soul, and although it’s nowhere near as critically acclaimed or attention-getting as Crazy Rich Asians or Parasite, but in my opinion, is still a tremendously important film for Korean or other Asian cultures to try and watch sometime.

Year One of Forever (New Father Brogging, #036)

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

If it’s not clear by now, I’m a very nostalgic person.  I get kicks out of internet content that puts the spotlight on things in the past, I take enjoyment in reminiscing, and one of my favorite features of theFacebook and one of the only things that I routinely indulge in is the memories feature that shows you the things you may or may not have posted on that day in previous years. 

With that latter thing, I was pleased to see that I could integrate such a function into my brog when I got it back up and running again, and even if I don’t have the time to write, I try to make a few seconds each day to refresh my main page and glance at the kinds of slop that I’ve posted in prior years, most of which is poorly-aged trash, but occasionally there are some things that I’ve churned out that even I look back at positively.

Naturally, March 5th will forever be immortalized as an important date in my history through the end of time, but before we get into the sappy meat of this post that I’ll likely have a hard time remaining dry-eyed while writing, I like to glance back at my own history, to see what trash I’d written in the past that I could make the lame joke about how that was the focal point of historical Marth 5ths of yesterday instead of the obvious.

It’s funny to think about how in prior March 5ths the most important things in my life were getting Garen in an ARAM game of League of Legends, or how I appeared to have been triggered by an SNL skit where they took a cheap shot at Waffle House, or when I found out that of all the Marvel properties in existence, fucking Morbius is the one that is slated to get a film, starring none other than the gross-looking STD-riddled magic troll, Jared Leto.

Obviously, everything changed in the March 5th of 2020, when one of the most important milestones in my entire occurred, and has permanently elevated the date to a point where anything else in the past has become inconsequential and white-noise, and only exists to be ironic, and where in the future I won’t even bother planning on posting anything on the date, and try to manage any non-birthday posts to occur before or after the date alternatively.

Regardless, it’s been approximately one year since the birth of my daughter, my first child, and pretty much the largest event that has occurred in my life.  Sure, getting homes and getting married are massive deals in their own rights, but neither involve the manifestation of another human being coming into the world, so I think I have to give the torch of priority to this specific birthday, the first of forever, as far as the rest of my life is concerned.

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Not sure if sad or Oh, Atlanta

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Pretty sure this wouldn’t be news if it weren’t tied to Shaquille O’Neal: Atlanta Krispy Kreme owned by Shaq basically burned down

Not entirely sure how I feel reading this.  The fact that I’m writing about it speaks to the fact that it clearly triggered some sort of response in my brain.  I maintain the fact that this wouldn’t have made national news if there were no ties to Shaq, but it is somewhat of a deal for those Atlantans who all hate change, are attached to their city’s things, and come out in droves when something they haven’t thought about in years changes or is harmed.

Frankly, moving out to the burbs and being at peace with the fact that I don’t really miss the city at all, and I’ve long passed the days of where I used to feel like I should have some finger or limb still associated to something in the city, so I could feel like I could always have a stake in all-things City of Atlanta.  And unlike the people who probably never went there because doughnuts are inherently bad for your health, but are pretending like they care about this Krispy Kreme getting severely damaged, I do have many memories of this particular place.

Ponce de Leon Ave. is one of the major thoroughfares in the actual City of Atlanta, and just about everything on it people tend to get attached to, like Murder Kroger, Paris on Ponce, the Plaza Theatre and the Majestic, the old Kodak building, among other things.  The Fellini’s on Ponce was a place where I’ve had lots of meals with friends and in the very rarest of times a few dates.  The Plaza Theatre was one of the go-places to watch indy flicks, and although I never was interested, where Rocky Horror allegedly took place.

But the Krispy Kreme on Ponce, this was the place to get late night donuts after a Braves game, get donuts after eating at somewhere like Cameli’s or Willy’s, or in more than one instance, an excuse to duck out of traffic and circumvent a red light by cutting onto North, but then actually stopping for two donuts and coffee instead and then passing through.

And like in the photo above, when friends would come in for past Dragon*Cons, and actually wanted to leave the con-space and see shit outside of the then-three hotels, where we’d go to stop and get donuts spontaneously, because we saw the red hot-and-ready light on.

The reality is that I’m sad that a place of business is going to be put on indefinite hiatus until it comes back, and make no mistake, it will come back because Shaq is rich as fuck and is real business smart, and not likely to let his investment of a Krispy Kreme on prime central real estate go to pot.  But I’m not really that sad that this happened, because like me, there are lots of people reminiscing about a simple doughnut shop and thinking about happier memories, and I know that when this place comes back, it’ll ultimately be business as usual, but for at least a week or so, I’m sure they’ll have a blowout of a return which will once again put this place in the news and most likely be an appearance by Shaq, and Shaq is always amusing to me.

New Father Brogging, #034

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Normally, I wait until I finish a series before I write about it, but I feel like writing right now, and there’s no guarantee that feeling will last later.  But I’m just about finished with The Queen’s Gambit on Netflix.  Although some of the subject matter about substance abuse is a little uncomfortable watch, not because I can relate so much as it’s just not always pleasant watching people degrade themselves through the things they do to themselves, it’s an excellent series that I’ve enjoyed very much and hope the finish is as strong as the series has been.

It’s a show that’s legitimately made chess seem as cool as I typically think it is from a metaphorical standpoint into actually being cool to watch a series that revolves around it.

Whenever I run on the treadmill, I’m usually watching wrestling highlights or shit on the WWE Network, most notably any of the documentaries that the service continuously puts out much to my delight because if there’s one thing that the WWE does very well, it’s produce documentaries.

Among the documentaries that I enjoy the most, are usually the ones that are about the female talent.  Alexa Bliss, Charlotte Flair, Sasha Banks, and most recently, an episode of Chronicle about Bianca Belair, which was especially good, because she’s a particularly extraordinary woman in the sense that she’s probably pound-for-pound the best athlete in professional wrestling, but also a hell of an artistic talent that designs and fabricates all of her own ring attire.

What I’m getting at is that especially lately, I’ve been enjoying watching stories, be them fiction or documentaries, about strong women, because as a dad to a daughter, it lets my imagination run wild about what my own little girl can grow up to be when she hopefully becomes a strong, talented and intelligent woman one day.

I’m not saying that I want her to be a chess grandmaster or a professional wrestler, specifically, but what I do want for my kid, and it wouldn’t have mattered if she were a boy or a girl, is for her to find at least one thing; one hobby, one activity, that they can hopefully become passionate about and hold onto through adolescence.  Swimming. Drawing.  Gymnastics.  Piano.  Martial arts.  Anything at all; multiple would be great, but I really just want her to have at least one thing, that she can hold onto, and make into some sort of lifelong habit.

One of the few regrets I have in my life is the fact that of all the things that I was doing as a kid; piano, Tae Kwon Do, basketball, drawing, Japanese language; I never really held onto any one of those things, never persevered through adolescence with any of those potential talents, and I let the talents and skills erode and fade away over time, and I can only wish that I didn’t, and that I could be above average at any one of those things today.

I don’t want my daughter to make the same choice, and obviously I know there’s a fine line of her voluntarily maintaining an activity versus being volun-told to stick with it, with the latter obviously leading to inevitable failure, but all I can do is really hope to encourage and let her make her own choices with her life, and watching stories of strong females in the world today gives me hope that there’s an endless bag full of possibilities for my daughter in the future.

Every blet has a story

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Originally written on December 24, 2020 (I wanted to start the new year with a positive-to-me post)

I recently redecorated my office.  Primarily because I had exceeded too many running medals for my medal bar, and I had exceeded too many blets for my blet wall, and my running medals and my blets are my favorite things to collect, so I decided to do some reconfiguration in order to proudly display all of both that I have.

First, I decided to create a new medal bar that would one, go all the way across the entire room, and two, actually be made of metal.  Not because it would be metal to make it out of metal, but the fact that a large number of medals accumulates weight very quickly, and I simply needed something strong and sturdy to be able to withstand a gradual increase of weight over time because I have no intention of ever stopping running and collecting medals.

So I basically made a new bar out of actual iron pipes and flanges, mounted to the studs, and measures in at 128” long, which basically accomplishes my goal of going across the entire room.  There is now plenty of room for expansion, and I don’t have to fear that they will eventually bend, sag and break, because it is not a weak curtain rod but is made of actual iron.

And then we have my pride and joy, my wrestling blet collection, which simply needed more space in order to display them all.  So I decided to swap walls between the blets and my giant Jinx graphic, because I needed to have one entire wall in order to accommodate all my blets, and Jinx could comfortably go on wall vacated by all the blets.

I simply had to procure more wood to mount more belts onto and do a good bit of patching and repainting to all the walls prior, but in the end, I was able to comfortably get all 18 of my blets up on the wall, and I couldn’t be happier with the way it all turned out.

But the whole point of this post ultimately was the fact that (almost) every blet has a story or an inspiration behind it, and really for nobody’s edification except my own because I can’t really imagine anyone other than me actually caring, I decided to share all of them, because I have 18 fucking blets so that’s a lot of stories or inspirations to relay.

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I want to like this more, but the jokes

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Impetus: Thirty years after WWF Wrestlefest is released in arcades, some company announces the release of RetroMania Wrestling, the “official” sequel to WrestleFest

As the title of this post says, I really want to like and be excited about this game more than I am, but there are just so many jokes and snark to unleash and get out of my system before I can resign myself to the fact that I’ll still probably impulse purchase this on Steam so that I can play with my brother and my bros.

When I was a kid, I loved Wrestlefest.  I almost always picked the Ultimate Warrior despite the fact that by then, I was already well on my way to being one of those contrarian mark types of wrestling fans and was a by far bigger fan of Mr. Perfect than I was the Warrior, but the cheapskate cheesing kid with very limited quarters didn’t like the fact that Mr. Perfect lacked many power moves, but most importantly the ability to drop a body slam, so there was no way to get cheap easy eliminations with Mr. Perfect when playing in the Royal Rumble mode.  One of my fondest memories of this game was being a such a master button masher, that no matter the fact that I had zero health in a Royal Rumble match, I would still kick out of every pinfall attempt, and I ended up outlasting two other human opponents, with me winning the rumble after back dropping the last human player out.

Hell, even as an adult, I loved Wrestlefest, and I installed Mame and got a rom of Wrestlefest, it was basically the greatest thing on the planet, that I could now play one of my favorite arcade games ever, with basically unlimited quarters, since credits could be added with the press of buttons.  I dabbled with all other characters I didn’t want to waste money with when I was a kid, and realized that the best player in the game was Sgt. Slaughter, who not only had good power moves, but an automatically initializing submission move in the cobra clutch, that anyone slapped into it had like a 20% chance of actually not tapping out of.

Needless to say, you’d think I would be over the moon that when a “sequel” was announced, I’d be more excited about it, especially since at first blush it’s basically the same game, just with different characters, settings and some modern polish.  But you hear the title, you see the roster, and realize that there’s obviously no legal affiliation with the WWE, and it kind of feels like something is missing, and the whole thing kind of comes off like a non-canonical fan-fiction of a production.

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Happy Trails, Animal

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

The end of the road for this warrior: legendary tag team wrestler, Joe “Animal” Laurenaitis passes away at the age of 60

Here’s a big oof moment – when looking for a picture to use for this post, I came across this particular image from Survivor Series 1990, and realized that now, every single person in this particular promo was dead.  Kerry Von Erich, Road Warrior Hawk, the Ultimate Warrior, “Mean” Gene Okerlund, and now, Road Warrior Animal, all gone from mortal existence.  This particular Survivor Series was also the debut of the Undertaker, whom has just officially retired from the business after 30 years in the WWE but is otherwise alive and well.

But back to Animal, 60 is not quite an age where the royal we can say he’s gone too soon, but at the same time it’s not really an age where we can say that he lived a full life, closer to general white male in America life expectancy than not.  The cause of death hasn’t formally been revealed, but I don’t think it’s going out on a limb to assume that it was probably his heart, it was probably enlarged, and couldn’t have been helped by some of his life spent with his former tag team partner, who was a notorious partier, substance abuser, and was someone who was gone too soon, at the age of 46.

For the record, I was always more fond of Animal than I was Hawk, even though I fully understand that when the day was over, Hawk really was the stronger worker and more talented of the two.  I guess I just preferred Animal’s power game and his general aesthetic, and the single center mohawk looked cool, and not like he was prematurely balding like Hawk’s dual mohawks.  Hawk would carry matches, take the brunt of the punishment, but then make the hot tag to Animal, who came in and bulldozed opponents, before eventually putting someone up on his shoulders for the Doomsday Device, which to this day, is still one of the more legitimately devastating looking finishers in all wrestling, and there’s a reason why so few tag teams even try to replicate it today.

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