boston progress radio

Ed Bok Lee is a Mid-Westerner. But look closer, he speaks several languages. One of them I bet you cannot figure out with only one guess. Ed is a well traveled artist, not a bit impressed by habitual country hoppers. In this interview, Ed reveals some alternative views on everyday attitudes that seem more like old wisdom rather than a slip of the brain. And he was quite the sport, answering all of my questions. As you will see, he gives no vague answers, leaves out no details and definitely has no fear of looking deep under that rock. [Editor's Note: Ed Bok Lee featured at East Meets Words on August 8, 2008. Check out the recap of his performance here. Maybe you'll recognize that photo.]

Jess Man: I saw you holding a 40 at East Meets Words. Do you usually have a beer during a show?

Ed Bok Lee: Not usually on stage, unless like that night in Boston—the cans were already there.

JM: I guess that’s how Boston rolls. Are your shows always in a blissful blur?

EBL: I don’t usually drink before a gig, but sitting on a bus for seven hours right before I got there made me really thirsty for those 40’s.

JM: You seem to always be on the move. Do you travel a lot?

EBL: After the book (“Real Karaoke People”) came out, I was traveling a lot. I did gigs all over the U.S., Korea, Taiwan, and Europe.

JM: Do you ever miss home? Or is traveling your lifestyle? I just know that you flew to New York City and then came to Boston to go to East Meets Words, intense.

EBL: Now I am kind of traveled out. There’s this line in a book by Don Delillo. Something like: “No one is as boring as the well-traveled.” Traveling too much can begin to make everything seem generic. Maybe a lot of travel is good for journalism. But poetry is about the human heart. That’s the rock you’ve got to look under.

JM: Where do you reside now?

EBL: Minneapolis, the oldest city on the West Coast, they say. In fact, the Mighty Mississippi is next to where I live. I cross over it every day. When I lived in Fargo, I used to live by the Red River, which flows north. It looks like a calm brown green thing that you could swim across in 20 seconds, but the undercurrents are deceptive. Sometimes I think that’s what people in the upper Midwest are like. You have to look closely to know what’s really going on below the surface.

JM: It’s not the I35 W Bridge that you cross over? Probably not since it collapsed. Where were you when it happened?

EBL: I was in New York sitting in a play. It was crazy. I got out and had all these texts “U all right?” “U alive?” and I thought there must have been another attack like 9/11. Little did I know we did this one completely to ourselves.

JM: You seem to have a lot of Twin City pride. Do people in Korea or Taiwan know where it is?

EBL: They usually know Prince and Bob Dylan are from Minnesota, and Laura Ingalls Wilder from “Little House on the Prairie.” But what they don’t connect is that all three of these people are also the same height and weight.

JM: What was it like going to school at UC Berkeley? Does the school’s hippie rep represent a side of you?

EBL: I flunked out of UC Berkeley. I was getting a degree in Slavic Languages and Literature. There are too many distractions. And the one or two things that helped counter all the distractions were both really bad for studying.

JM: What about San Francisco and Berkeley is different from Minneapolis that makes you stay in Minneapolis?

EBL: I loved the Bay, but I missed the seasons. I got a little too sun-drunk living in Berkeley. The climate in Minneapolis is nowhere near as forgiving of your sins.

JM: Where did you get an interest in studying Slavic Languages at UC Berkeley?

EBL: When I finally did start to read, I came across Gogol and Chekhov, Bulgakov, Pushkin and Tsvetayeva, and I just started eating them up. I went on to go teach phys ed in Russia and Kazakhstan to get closer to the language, landscape and people. Something of the Slavic Soul, as they call it, really spoke to me. English is great, but it’s a language of business and commerce. Russian seemed somehow more… liturgical.

JM: Yeah English does get a bad rap, ever thought about teaching English?

EBL: I’ve taught English in Korea. I doubt I’d do it again. Something about it depresses me, something to do with my complicated relationship to the colonization of Korea and English as the psychic yoke. English is my linguistic home, and I’m very fond of it, but I also know it’s a language of profit that for centuries now has been known to strip search other consciousnesses all over the world on a whim, often with their gleeful approval.

JM: When did you know you wanted to take the literary route?

EBL: When I was 17, I left Fargo. For two years I traveled around the U.S., Canada, and Mexico, working temp labor and restaurant jobs. During that time, I started reading and keeping a journal. I was in a really bad funk, and had no way of expressing all the negative things I was feeling. Actually, maybe it wasn’t exactly a funk, because I’d been feeling those things for a long time before I was finally prompted to take all the money I’d saved cleaning movie theaters and got the hell out of there.

JM: You now tackle so many genres. Which is your favorite, easiest for you to connect with, and hardest?

EBL: Lately at least, everything starts with poetry, a poetic line, an image, or a thought. I just try to follow the shadow of my best and brightest impulse. The one that doesn’t really care if I follow it, and will never let me look it in the eyes. But it’s going to go where it’s going to go, and I can either follow, or go eat a donut.

JM: I agree that for you everything starts with poetry, even with your explanations you are very poetic. Ever use them on a girl?

EBL: In the fourth grade I once poured my heart out onto the page. Last I heard, she’s a very happy lesbian.

JM: What can you get out of writing fiction that you can’t get out of spoken word?

EBL: In fiction, your job is to create a whole other world. You usually don’t have time to do that in a spoken word poem, but sometimes it happens… You get different things. The feeling when you’re done with fiction is like waking from a long, arduous, but beautiful dream versus having just sung.

JM: So in your perfect world that you could create, what would it be?

EBL: Everyone as flawed as me.

JM: You are a performer, spoken word artist, essayist, poet, playwright, karaoke singer, how do you introduce yourself to people?

EBL: Karaoke Patrolman #439. Ma’am, do you have a permit for that song?

JM: Why do you love Karaoke so much?

EBL: I only like the Asian norae bang (private song room) version. On a spiritual level, karaoke to me has something to do with the primal need to communally confess. In Asia, you can also vent your sins and frustrations in these small rooms rented by the hour with your friends. The point isn’t to sing perfectly, but to share a piece of your soul like bread.

JM: Why have Americans caught on to the trend?

EBL: No matter the culture, I feel there’s a yearning to share what only exists in songs.

JM: You’ve accomplished so much, what’s next?

EBL: I’m still potty training. But I think I’ve finally figured out how the flush handle works.

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Tags: Interview, Minneapolis, spoken word.