I am a DANDY LONG LEGS NEW YORKER

Anybody fans of the South Korean variety television program STAR KING?


stage cleaning for my arrival

It’s a weekly TV program where an assortment of guests come on and show off some sort of special skill to a panel of local celebrities and a giant of a host.


The host: Ex- wrestler Kang Ho Dong

They in turn will babble on incessantly about the skill, giggle non-stop, make a bunch of "ehhh" "ieeee" "ahhh" noises and pretty much look like the hot celebrities they are.

They may even try the skill if possible.

Oh, I think there's some sort of competition as well but I didn't see any part of it.

From what I understand, it’s a pretty popular show in Korea.

I was invited to shoot an episode in Seoul late last month to showcase some of my stilt work and slapstick comedy.

It works out perfectly. I was performing at the Chuncheon International Mime Festival at the same time so I would have been in Korea already.

Things were a bit hairy at first.

The producers wanted me to come in, do my act, get the celebrities involved by teaching them how to walk stilts in 15 minutes AND teach some girl from a K-pop group how to dance the tango with me on stilts….in 10 minutes

Really?

Another problem was that the shoot date would have conflicted with my day off.

And I LOVE my days off.

But the allure of manhandling celebrities sealed the deal and I was heading off to Seoul to shoot.

First up, I had to figure out how to train celebrities to confidently on stilts in such a short period of time. I usually have a pair of short training stilts back in NYC but this time around, I went with my pro stilts which are a bit shorter than my show ones.


I built the orange pair, my performing stilts, back in 2003 and refurbished the brown ones to be used by celebs.

Now came the time to rehearse with the the pop idols. One look at my stilts and,much to my relief, they decided against putting them on the celebs. It would have been really bad publicity to watch one of their beloved tv idols try to get up on my stilts just to watch them smash their faces on the floor.

Not that I would let that happen...just sayin'...is all.

They still wanted one of the girls to dance the tango with me on stilts. Since the original girl had some clause where she can't be held or touched by some dude taller than her (or something), I had to do my stilt work with ,not one, BUT TWO K-Pop GIRLS! One to dance with, one to pick up while I'm up in the air.

My hard working Tango student:

Sulli from the K-Pop group f(x)

The rehearsal went pretty well but the show was a whole different matter. It wasn't actually bad...more like a lot of ....uhm...unexpected things happened.

Oh say.....Like that Sulli wore high heels in the show rather than the sneakers she wore during rehearsals. Oh boy, she was slipping and sliding all over the place.

And the other girl from some other group jumped into my arms and gave me a death grip so tight that I barely could breathe during the show. Not too safe when I'm 4 feet in the air with a gal wrapped around my waist.

An added perk was that I get to make fart jokes on one of the male singers due to the height of my ass to his face. Lovely times.

The producers also really wanted me to learn this long line in Korean to introduce myself.

They wrote it down for me and it literally translated to:

"Hi, I am a DANDY LONG LEGS NEW YORKER! I AM ROB LOK!"

Yep, when it was time for me to utter these tried and true words of wisdom, I literally belched them out to the deafening silence of the mostly female audience.

Not sure if they didn't understand me or they had to let it settle in their feverish fan minds that I just said the word DANDY in Korean.

I don't have many photos of the actual shoot since they wouldn't let me take any shots but I do have some photos backstage.


Looking pretty regal with the STAR KING team!

There was a very cute hip hop dance troupe doing some sort of b-girl battle with one of the K-Pop girl groups.

Not sure who they were. Anybody know?


Stage Prep


I had to test the stage out to see if I was able to jump rope on top of it.

I rocked their world.

Here are my stacking chairs. They asked me to perform my stilt chair balance which I stopped performing a few years back but still include it in my promo materials. It was a tough but managed to pull it off.

They had me in a very sleek tuxedo outfit for the shoot that matched my stilt pants.


Wearing this suit with hot stage lights made me realize that I sweat like a whale.

Yes, a whale.

Speaking of whales, that massive beast in front of me? That's the host.
He literally threw me across the stage during the shoot.


The episode will air either on June 21 or 28. I'll get some better photos and a video once it airs. I'll try to post it here. I'm sure somebody will get a kick out of it.

After the episode was wrapped. My favorite part of the day?

Getting driven back to Chuncheon by the awesome company driver, KU.



He has the BEST selection of music and concert DVDs in his van.

Also he stopped his car on the highway, in the middle of traffic, just to get out and talk shit to the guy that was tailgating him.

Now THAT makes him a STAR and a KING!

The BAD ASS-ery crown goes to you, Mr. Ku. Wherever you are.