NPR Bound

My lady, otherwise known as the lovely Elysabeth Hahm, has landed the gig of all gigs.

She does not start work until 5 p.m. and gets out at 8 p.m. everyday. Not only that, she can comfortably survive out here with the amount they are paying her. What does she do? Radio. She does radio and does it big.

It's funny, when you listen to talk radio you always picture some face behind the voice. It may even be a vague image but you always do. Minutes before Liz hit the waves for the first time my curiosity sparked because I wondered what people would think she looked like when they heard her voice. I was sourly surprised...She sounded too good to be true.

She spoke with a subtle smoothness enhanced with sophisticated sag-ways. She sounded like a veteran capable of always putting a fresh perspective on things. But she also sounded, for a lack of better words, super attractive. I immediately thought, "I'm screwed." I had joked the week leading up to her debut that she was the next big thing in Seoul. I did not realize that she would be the next 'hot' chick in Seoul. I got really nervous when this thought surfaced but quickly dismissed that silly notion when the reality of the situation rapidly came into perspective.

In that moment her voice rang though ears and speakers throughout Korea. This was the biggest English speaking radio station in Seoul and her 30-minute segment played at 7:30 p.m., prime-time.

My emotions quickly turned toward genuine pride. Of all the things she has done in her life this is by far the biggest challenge and with the most at stake. If she failed, she would be jobless. If she succeeded, coming to Korea instantaneously became a hugely profitable decision.

So she did what she does best; smiled, giggled and rode the wave through, grounded head at the ready. And she sounded absolutely incredible.


She has just entered her fourth week on the job and has officially staked her place behind a mic. It's quite impressive to say the least. Prior to this she only had experience in print media and had never really done any type of public speaking. You would not know it when she comes on air.

The station (http://www.tbs.seoul.kr/ENG/) enjoys her tremendously and the show is picking up momentum. I must also mention that I have been a guest caller three times since the start of the show and I, eh-hem, attribute most of the shows success directly to my calls.

With that being said, it's good being Liz right now. Did I mention she doesn't have to use an alarm clock!?!?

Get Lost my friends.....

The Best Concert I Will Ever Go To In My Whole Life For As Long As I Live, Ever.

Last Saturday I went to a concert with Liz, my buddy Dave and whole lot of apprehension. It was free because Liz's work put it on and none of us really thought it was going to be anything more than maybe a banquet style setup with some food and a jazz band or DJ.

Well, it was much more than that my friends. It was a production of excitement blended with moments of fear wrapped in a whirlwind of "what could possibly be next?" questions that fiddled with my emotions so much I ended up enjoying it more than anything else I have done in Korea.

Yeah. I know.

Here goes...


{The First Band was a reggae band. He told us to, "shake ya' booties and feel dah vibreations," in a slightly Jamaican yet almost American slash pirate accent. If you attempt the accent exactly how I described, you most likely nailed it.}



{This is ToucH, a Korean Pop band. A group of seven dudes, 4 of which could pass as very attractive girls, all dressed in tight denim and some array of brown leather coat with fake white fur frills and if you look closely you can see the lead singer in the middle with wings sewed into the side of his pants. I'm not making this up.}
{The calm before the insanely badly choreographed storm.}
{Then boom, wing pants takes flight!...It was really bad. But so bad in fact, I loved every moment of it.}




{Now this was interesting. It was a choir group that consisted of 13 different ambassadors wives. They did a medley of 18 traditional folk songs and arguably the most confusing part of the night happened when the wives from Papa New Guinea and the Phillipines did a traditional dance other wise known as 'The Electric Slide'.}



{This was by far the best 20-minutes of my weekend. A Korean band that covered Queen. The lead singer rocked a mustache, the guitarist wore a wig and aviator sunglasses and they conjured the essence of Queen magically. No joke, this Korean dude hit every single note and sounded exactly like Freddy Mercury. At the end of the first song I gave a standing ovation with a wildly too loud yelp in appreciation but when I looked back at the hundreds of Koreans giving me that, "come on, don't be so American dude," look, I quickly sat back down...These guys have been a band for 13 years. Which means this guy has rocked that stache for 13 years which, looking back, is what most likely prompted my adoration for them.}

There was about 10 acts all together that ranged from the K Pop scene to embarrassing Korean rappers to young girls playing traditional instruments to a very talented American rapper and finally finishing with a fantastic Jazz quartet that ended up accompanying some K Pop star chicks.

We walked out of that concert with 3 hours worth of conversation and we used every last minute of it.

Get Lost my friends....

The pictures were provided by the beautiful Elysabeth Hahm.