Sooyoung Park

My friend Sooyoung Park has been in Los Angeles for the last few days. No reason. Just because it's a long weekend and he felt like getting away from S.F.

When I first met Sooyoung, it was before Giant Robot. His band was supporting the Fluid and the Poster Children at club called Bogart's in Long Beach. It was the first time I saw Seam, and they blew me away. During the show, Sooyoung mentioned that the group needed a place to crash, prefably somewhere with a swimming pool. I didn't have a pool, but I lived alone and had a floor they could sleep on. A friendship was born.

Seam got bigger and even better, but the band kept staying at my place whenever they made it out from Chicago. Meanwhile, I started doing GR with Eric. Interestingly, Seam became THE Asian-American group. Seam even put together a tour with Asian-American bands, including J Church, Versus, Skanking Pickle, and a bunch of Chicago groups! Sooyoung helped form an Asian-Am film festival in Chicago, but eventually stopped doing that as well as the band.

The next few times I saw Sooyoung, there was no Seam. It was just hanging out. Once stayed at my place for a week or so during a stopovers to and from Korea. I can't remember. Then when my brother got married, I took him to Chicago in lieu of giving him a bachelor party. We stayed with Sooyoung. The last time I saw Sooyoung was a couple years ago when I crashed his wedding reception in Chinatown.

This time was like that. We didn't meet at rock clubs or film festival circumstances. Just had lunch at some of my favorite restaurants: gr/eats and Happy Family. That's how it goes when dudes get older...


(Sooyoung still plays in a band, but it's called ee. Look for the band's new release this fall...)