My Korean Adventures

Published by Rick on Tagged Uncategorized

Great to see the summit between Moon and Un, the aftermath of which continues to make one believe Kim Jong-Un has a human side after all. I know Trump will be bellowing incessantly, “I’m responsible for the end of the Korean War. Obama tried and failed, blah blah,” as part of another insane rant to Fox & Friends. Mostly, I’m glad to see this summit because the hostilities had been going for over 40 years at the time I was there in 1994, working US Army bases in South Korea. It’s been going another 24 years since then.

I don’t even remember for sure how I got this gig, but I do remember the booker was based in Las Vegas, and I remember him saying over the phone how he was convinced by what he saw in my video that I could work anywhere. How I made the connection with him is lost to memory, which is a shame because I pride myself in how well I can usually remember details.

The gig was for 2 1/2 weeks, and before I’d gotten it, I’d never been out of North America, and thus was part of the supposed near 90% of the US population that didn’t have a passport. (In 1979, the Rick & Ruby act was able to work two weeks in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, and for some unexplainable reason, didn’t need passports, or even work permits.) I took care of that, and in August, 1994, I boarded the plane for Seoul, a 14 hour journey, and the longest flight I’d ever been on until three years later when I went to Australia.

I was working with a Florida comic, and I use the term comic loosely, for he was a hack whose main source of income was cruise ships. He was a total hypocrite and former military man himself who chastised me for saying “fuck” when we were dining in the officer’s club, then on stage would say such heckler comebacks as “Hey keep that guy quiet, put a dick in his mouth.” During the time we were there, I wore a jacket from LA’s Laugh Factory, and he asked me how he could get in with them. I cringed, having seen his miserable act a couple times by then, but when it got to how much they pay for spots, he backed off, but not before bragging about how much he makes on the boats. (I would acquiesce 12 years later, and agree to do shows on cruise ships, doing them on and off for three years. Some were great, some were Titanics, but they all admittedly paid well.)

The gigs were interesting to me sociologically, for most of the enlisted men and women (about a 10 to 1 male/female ratio) were only a year or so out of high school, now they were suddenly some 10,000 miles from home. Their presence wasn’t exactly hailed by the Nationals who worked on the bases, most likely for minimum wage. In a way, I didn’t blame them for resenting us. Since about 1950, the US has had military bases in South Korea, claiming that the Korean people needed us there. The people thought differently, but the US military said, “Well we don’t care what you think.” That attitude showed itself in the cold reception we got when we were buying something on the base from the people working the tills. I had one incident in performance where I was on and some girl walked in talking very loudly in her native language. I asked her to keep it down, and her response was a mini tirade, to which I said, “Geez, I’m having enough trouble keeping focus here, and now I gotta be fucked with in Broken English.” I didn’t think it was that intellectual a comeback, but the crowd erupted in approval. I was a bit surprised by the reaction, which could have easily gone the other way, then after the show, one of the sergeants said to me, “What you said about Broken English, I’ve been wanting to say that to these people for two fucking years!”

The most nervous I’ve ever felt in any one gig was the day we played Camp Bonifas, located only a couple kilometres from the South/North Korea border, and only 400 metres south of the demilitarised zone. Our driver never mentioned that in the three hour drive from Seoul to this particular base. We only found out when we got there that the camp was on constant alert, and there was no guarantee there wouldn’t at least be a safety drill of some kind. So the laughs came few and far between for both performers and audience as it seemed the recruits were all a bit jumpy from being so close to enemy territory. This was only a month after Kim Il-Sung had died, and his son, the ruthless tyrant Kim Jong-il, father of Un, took over, so you can understand the tension. I was never so happy to finish a set as I was that one. Camp Bonifas is still in operation, and I’m sure the people there are breathing easier at the moment.

I would make a return trip to SE Asia the following summer, with only a few gigs in Korean bases, the bulk of the work being in Japan. That was an experience worthy of a whole mother blog, as I’ve never done a series of gigs so badly organised, but what made it tolerable was working with someone who was pleasant to be with and whose act wasn’t crap. That was it for my military gigs, because the guy who booked me that was such a fan died shortly before I got to Korea the second time. It’s OK that I didn’t do it any more than that. Me and the military have never seen eye to eye, and what kept me in good stead with the people there was letting my politics take a back seat. I don’t think I could have continued that charade for too long.

 

 

April 29th, 2018



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