Dennis Rodman… oh dear. His attempts at basketball diplomacy–while perhaps initially springing from a good place—have totally backfired. Like Kim Il-sung’s ill-fated crossing of the DMZ, Rodman’s antics up North have resulted in some serious blow back. The only people who’ve seemed to benefit are late night talk show hosts and writers for Korea-centric blogs such as this one here.
We can forgive Rodman for the first trip–after all, he thought he was doing the world a service, didn’t he? Between oaths of brotherly affection and whiskey love shots with Kim Jong-eun, Rodman thought he was chipping through the concrete of the last wall of the Cold War. He was the new American peacemaker–a 6’7″ Jimmy Carter with 5 NBA rings and a pierced cock. 60 years of hostility and intransigent ideology would melt before his magnificence. He alone would put the whole shitty situation in rebound.
The first visit to North Korea was indeed bizarre, and while we laughed, some naively hoped that just perhaps some good would come from it. By his last, however, the delusional multi-car pileup that makes up the man had become self evident.
He chose to arrive shortly after Kim the Younger purged his uncle, senior party official Jang Song-thaek (along with most of the man’s family). One report passed around Western press claimed that Jang was stripped naked and fed to starving dogs, which if you think about it, is pretty much the most ironic way for a hardcore ajeosshi to go. Eaten by dogs. Karma’s a bitch, literally. This story later turned out to be just a vicious rumor, however. The more credible version of events is that Jang was merely shot with an ANTI-AIRCRAFT GUN, which probably left less of him intact than if he were indeed served as dinner for Fido. At least we can take solace in the fact that the poor man went quickly.
That Rodman chose to visit in the wake of this horror show tells us all we need to know about both his hubris and the self-constructed bubble he must live in. In these aspects he is just like Kim Jong-eun. No wonder they get along famously.
The trip turned out to be a disaster for The Worm; first his basketball team fled the country after “losing” to the North Korean national team 39-47 in a game more rigged than a Harlem Globetrotters/Washington Generals match up. Then came Rodman’s spontaneous rendition of Happy Birthday, sung to the young dictator in front of a stone-faced crowd of Party apparatchiks. Right after that, an obviously hammered Rodman appeared on CNN, where he bellowed and raved while defending Kim. It was obvious, at this point, that the plot was lost. Soon after he boarded a plane to America, where he is said to have entered a treatment center for alcoholism.
But, as reported in today’s Korea Times, things got even worse. According to their source up North, Rodman reportedly spent the whole week catastrophically drunk, culminating the binge by vomiting and emptying his bowels in the hallway of the Koryo Hotel. That’s right, South Korea’s English-language newspaper of… um… note, is accusing Dennis Rodman of laying a deuce in the hallway of a Korean (North) hotel. And I’ve been telling people for years that there’s a difference between ‘drinking’ and ‘Korea drinking,’ yet they refuse to believe me. Look to The Worm, folks. Look to The Worm.
The best part of this (probably bullshit) story is the alleged warning given to Rodman as he was shuffled out of the country: “You will never be welcome here again without the completion of your alcohol abuse program.” Does he have to show them a certificate of completion?
Whatever the case, I, for one, refuse to judge . Anyone who has spent any period of time hard drinking in Korea has probably laid at least one brown coil in a dubious location–whether in your pants, in an alley, or on a friend’s floor. But the opportunity to squeeze an errant shit–drunken or not–in NORTH Korea is just too attractive a concept. However, we are respectful bloggers and wouldn’t want to run afoul of the authorities, so we at Sweet Pickles and Corn have contacted our own source North of the DMZ to let us know more acceptable places than the hallway of the Koryo Hotel to crap in the DPRK:
1. ON THE DREAMS OF THE PEOPLE
2. ON THE PLANS OF THE BRIGANDISH AMERICAN CHARLATANS AND THEIR PERPETUALLY-FONDLED SOUTHERN LACKEYS
3. IN MARSHALL KIM’S MOUTH (no really, he likes it)
4. ON ANY EFFORT TO HAVE KENNETH BAE RELEASED
5. ON ANY SURFACE EXPOSED TO DIRECT SUNLIGHT (to be dried and used later for fuel)
6. ON THE CHESTS OF THE BEAUTIFUL LADIES OF THE ‘PLEASURE SQUADRON’ (locally referred to as the “Pyongyang Steamer”)
7. ON ANY FIELD REQUIRING FERTILIZER (pretty much all of them)
