Rant Alley •

The Most Dangerous Band in Seattle: the Story of ¡TchKunG!

Drums. Fire. The screech of violin. Writhing bodies covered in mud. Banners, flags, and air raid sirens. Gas masks, combat boots, crashing cymbals and droning bass. Cascades of sparks from grinders on metal. Smoke bombs and military flares. A bombastic singer howling about spiking trees, rising up, and burning it all down, along with the raw, seductive feeling that anything could happen, that it all could kick off, right then and there. Welcome to a ¡TchKunG! show. The 1990’s were a heady,
Rant Alley •

Return to Nisqually

I met Sean on a bleak, drizzly January morning in the ever-growing suburban enclave of Burien, where we sat down with his teenage son Aiden for an avalanche of calories at the Smarty Pants Grill, a kind of biker-themed bar and restaurant where I inhaled a breakfast burrito the size of a small log. I’d been back in the States for a few days and while I’d done my best to get down with the bounty of grub always on display, this was the first time in the trip that I’d truly plunged into the stroke-i
Rant Alley •

Autopsy of a Literary Hero

Like so many who have aspired to write—especially those of us of the caucasian penised variety—I have long placed the late Hunter S. Thompson in the pantheon of my personal literary gods. After all, throughout his work he managed to infuse our language with a crackling electricity, verve, and raw hilarity that often made me think, Why can’t I write like that? And like any genius, he made it look effortless. So I will freely admit to being one of legions of wannabes who have, from time to time
Rant Alley •

Your Hair is too Long and so is Your Set

When I arrived in the summer of ‘91, Seattle was awash in music, a town in the throes of a full-blown, electric, sweat-soaked, sonic explosion. These were high times indeed, not just because we were all stoned, but because of a thrilling sense of intoxication in the air, water, trees, and rain-splashed pavement over which we trod in our Chuck T’s and combat boots. Bangs in face and guitar in hand, I had come ready to rock, desperate to dive in and gulp up as much as I could. Still, despite my st
Rant Alley •

Another Oly Band

“Do you know how to play bass?” “Sure, I can play bass,” I lied, taking a swig from my 40 ouncer of Rainier Ale in an attempt to bolster my bullshit. “I mean, guitar is my first instrument, but I also know my way around a bass.” “Good, good,” Markus nodded, “because we don’t need another guitarist. We’ve already got two. Everybody wants to play guitar… but bass? That’s a different story.” He was right: Guitarists were a dime a dozen. Not only were there shitloads, but ever since picking up th
Rant Alley •

Beer Belly Putsch: a View from Abroad

“They should just arrest him,” Minhee said, when I told her that the US capitol was in a state of revolt, egged on by the president himself. “It’s not that easy,” I said. “Whatever,” she shrugged. “That’s what we did.” It’s rare that I’m at a loss for words, but over the past couple of days I’ve not had a lot to say. After all, I’ve pretty much emptied the clip when it comes to Trump and the malignancy he entumors. For five years I’ve made it my mission to mine the depths of the English
Rant Alley •

Lost in Ensenada

In the good ol’ bad days I had a friend named Neil. He was English, and not only enabled my worst habits, but amplified them to tremendous effect. I met him during a visit to his splendid, miserable isle, where he ended up becoming my deep partner-in-crime. One of my first memories of Neil was him passing on a camping trip in the far-western county of Devon during what they call the “Bank Holiday Weekend.” While the rest of us rode out the jagged edges of an MDMA/LSD comedown around a campfire
Rant Alley •

New Year’s Eve, Fairlie, NZ

Everyone told us to get out of Queenstown before New Year’s, since the whole place turned into a drunken, bogan-infested shitshow. For a few days this tourist haven, nestled on the shores of Lake Wakatipu, became the nation’s biggest outdoor party, a magnet for every mullethead in the South Island and beyond. This was the beginning of their summer, so Kiwis were in the mood to get hammered and cut loose. But Sam and I hadn’t come to New Zealand to seek out crowds, especially ones steeped in boo
Rant Alley •

ZOOBROO

It’s hard to talk about just how poor I was in college; the fact that I was a middle-class white kid getting to experience such a thing suggests that I wasn’t poor at all. And sure, I didn’t grow up poor, but just a year before I made the plunge into higher education my dad’s trucking business, already on its last legs, gasped its final breath. The tentacles of this implosion robbed us of the house, the car, any notion of “savings,” and most importantly, my family’s greater self-esteem. My paren
Rant Alley •

Crackers

My first “real” job was at Crackers in downtown Olympia, a kind of late-night bistro that was favored by wannabe sophisticates who thought that eating fettuccine Alfredo while sipping white Zinfandel and listening to Billie Holiday on tape loop equalled “culture.” This was a part-time gig but one that I admittedly enjoyed immensely. Of course, the actual labor part of it sucked, but restaurant work possesses an inherent thrill, and I loved being party to people partying—eating, drinking, and let
Medium •

A Portrait of a Korean Neighborhood

Most older neighborhoods in Korea tend to house people who are also long in the tooth, and that’s certainly the case here in Yeonsan-6-dong, where the median age has got to be north of 60. There is a beauty shop two doors down that specializes in grannie perms. It opens first thing in the morning and operates seven days a week. At any given time there are five or six halmeoni sitting around with curlers and foil on their wizened heads, laughing and clucking while staring up at the news, variety
Medium •

COVID-19: Looking toward the US from South Korea

It’s so often gone down like this: I come into class with a hoarse voice, the sniffles, or a cough, and just a few minutes into the lesson, one brave, wide-eyed student speaks up: “Oh.” The student then sizes me up with what appears to be real concern. “Did you go to the hospital?” “The hospital?” I nearly spit out my sip of coffee. “Uh, no. I have a cold… not cancer. I’ll be okay. Thank you.” “Oh, I understand. But you still must see a doctor. And take the medicine.” This used to annoy me.
Medium •

The Day the 90’s Ended

I made my way away from the melee and peeled off my mask in a place where the tear gas wasn’t so thick. I took a slug of water from bottle and wiped the sweat from my brow. My heart was still galloping and the three welts stung, but I was otherwise fine and up for more action. I still couldn’t find Lehanna and had no way of reaching her (this was just before cell phones took over the world), but the group we had come with included several of her friends, and she was independent by nature, so I w
Medium •

Racism, Sparkling

There is a notion — birthed and perpetuated among academics in the outrage factories of liberal arts universities back home — that only white people can be racist, since the framework of power is set up to perpetuate our supremacy. As a result, people of color who judge others by skin tone can be only be guilty of “prejudice,” but never “racism,” since they lack the muscle of the system to back them up. Accusations of racism, according to this school of thought, can only be hung around the necks
Medium •

The Arizona Gun Show

After two days of eating, drinking, and relishing the joy of family, Glen and I dropped brother Mark off at the airport according to plan and then proceeded to the Arizona State Fairgrounds, near downtown, where the gun show was held. Glen insisted on paying my way, which was no cheap affair. It was eight bucks just to park, and another sixteen a head just to walk through the gate, so already my brother was out forty dollars before we had even seen a single Ruger. The event itself was in the Ar
Medium •

The Cult of BTS

Earlier this week, British funnyman and one-liner extraordinaire Jimmy Carr did a very dangerous thing: he cracked a joke about global K-pop sensation BTS. Normally, a comedian taking a pot-shot at a massively popular musical act wouldn’t be news, but these, of course, are not normal times. By putting BTS into his comedic crosshairs, Carr was essentially hurling a rock at a wasps’ nest; without likely realizing it, he was risking the collective wrath of BTS’s international mob of followers, a me
Medium •

Death on the Tree Farm

The greatest sound to ever squawk from the school intercom was the chirpy voice of the secretary saying, “Donald Law, Patrick Denning, Jason Kent, and Chris Tharp: please come to the office.” As soon as we heard this particular combo of names we knew that a search was on, and as a result we’d be getting out of school with an excused absence. After all, there were some things more important than studying algebra and history, right? On this particular drizzly March morning we once again were summ
Medium •

In Defense of Korean Beer

A year or two back, celebrity chef and sailor-mouth extraordinaire Gordon Ramsay did a commercial for Cass beer, where, over a grill of sizzling samgyeopsal, he pronounced the pale brew “Bloody fresh!” The online reaction among the local expatosphere was swift and predictable, with incredulous foreigners sputtering forth barely contained outrage in comment after comment, blasting the British chef for sacrificing his supposed integrity in a…
Medium •

The Super Foreigner Goes Down

Bobby H., busted for meth? Say it ain’t so. Like many people on the peninsula, I felt my eyes bulge from my sockets a few days ago when I read the news that Robert Holley — perhaps the most famous waygookin in the country— had been hauled in for using methamphetamine, or bbong, as it’s known as here. According to reports, not only had the police found traces of the drug in his urine, but they also turned up a syringe stashed behind the toilet in his house in Seoul. That’s right, Korea’s favorit
Medium •

Duhmocracy

Over the years I’ve spent far too much time in the dark trenches of the internet, where I’ve engaged in grueling, bloody, hand-to-hand combat with an army of right-wing thickos. From the comments threads of whack job websites to the gladiatorial arenas of Facebook “debates,” I’ve gone tet-a-Neanderthal brow with legions of racist uncles, Jesus’d up gay haters, “Pizzagate” believers, Obama birthers, Mexi-despisers, Confederate flag flyers, drooling gun worshippers, and guys whose concept of the g
Load More Articles