Late Night Kpop / The Burbs

Here we are my friends. At this fateful hour I sit at my kitchen table having spent the last hour and a half bingeing kpop videos and I ask myself where oh where oh where does the time go.

There was a period when I thought music was a beautiful but frivolous thing. Pretty to listen to but with little effect. I’d wonder occasionally whether there was such a thing as LIFE CHANGING MUSIC.

As I stew in the haze of my post-binge my answer to that is yes. There is such a thing as LIFE CHANGING MUSIC. Little by little do these kpop songs mold my soul and life trajectory as the water molds the canyon.

Here’s why. As I get older (and as I start to believe that “time is running out”) I succumb to a feeling of helplessness. Thoughts of “it’s too late for that” or “life is all the same” abound. And at a certain point I forget that feeling of conquest. The youthful, unshakeable belief that one way or another I’ll get what I want out of this world starts to fade.

I don’t want to live like that.

And when I see these kpop groups with their dancing and singing and rapping—chasing as close as they can to perfect their craft—I am reminded of the fact that I too must muster all my strength and courage to chase perfection where I can. Never succumb to that humdrum feeling.

TLDR: At this late hour of the night I am inspired by kpop groups

Though it’ll make me feel like a complete koreaboo* let me share the videos that have put me in such a contemplative state:

*as a native Korean I don’t think I can qualify as a koreaboo in the first place

As hinted above I’ve been grappling with my return to the suburbs.

In the suburbs I require far more activation energy to do anything.

You want to leave the house in the city? Just walk out the front door and wander around your neighborhood. Walk to a cafe. Catch a subway. EZPZ. Just look out for potential Asian hate crime attacks or belligerent homeless people or gigantic rats the size of small cats or pigeons pooping on you (I’ve literally seen this happen to two friends so far) or rising gun violence and you’re all good.

Want to leave the house in the suburbs? You could walk out the door and wander but the neighborhood’s boring as hell. If you really want to go somewhere you absolutely need a destination in mind since the default mode of transportation is by car. It’s hard to wander around because (again) you’re pretty much going by car. Your method of discovery boils down pretty much to Yelp (or maybe a few Reddit posts).

Anyways I started to get sick of my own complaining (I have so many damn complaints these days… when did I become so cranky?) so I’ve been actively trying to force myself out of the house:

Going on daily evening walks with the rest of the fam
- Also trying to squeeze in a skateboard ride around the neighborhood when I’m not lazy
- Some photos from the hood:

As I peer into the eyes of cat I wonder: am I the observer… or the prey?

Our street in particular has several cats that come and go as they please. My dad was napping on our recliner once and woke to the feeling of fur brushing his feet. A random cat had entered our home 🐱

Buying a hammock as a nudge to spend more time outdoors
- The thought process here is that I’ll feel less encouraged to watch TV or play overwatch if I’m outdoors and therefore more likely to do something I’d rather do like read or listen to music
- So far I find myself just playing overwatch on my hammock but it still feels great laying in a hammock so I count that as a win.

Driving to Kay’s Coffee in Camarillo

I’ve also been trying to build up a social life:

Friday I caught up with Yang to watch Demon Slayer: Mugen Train
- Yang is perhaps one of my oldest close friends. We started hanging out freshman year of high school.
- Wow… Demon Slayer was amazing. So many feelings. Incredible fight scenes. Heart wrenching emotional scenes. Gotta love it
Saturday I caught up with Erika. We got chicken sandwiches from Howlin Ray’s (regular readers will note that I listed that as a goal in my last post. I’m proud that I got to it so quickly). And walked around Chinatown and Silver Lake
- Erika is a friend from church. I guess family friends since our parents are also friends with each other. Wild that it had been 2 years since we last saw each other.
- Howlin Ray’s was delicious. Literally three different groups of passersby commented on how delicious the sandwich was while we were eating them at the park. Next time I’d get medium plus spicy
- Chinatown was cool! Did not know Chinatown existed in LA (obvious in hindsight). Seemed a little dead when we visited but they had some interesting stores/restaurants. We also got tea at Steep
- Silver Lake was also cool. Gave off some hip Austin vibes. Maybe a more compact Austin.
- I realized that I truly hate parking in LA. The panic of slowly driving around looking for an empty spot while countless cars back up behind you.

Some stairs we found in silver lake. Great view from the top… should have taken a pic

Also diving back into making music.

Rejoined my producer discord
Started reworking a song (Waiting) I’d been working on late last year.

Anyways, I’m slowly building out a life out here. Will try to explore more and keep pushing for kpop level perfection.