He Called Me a Ch!nk B!tch

But I'm alive and he isn't. A story in 3 parts.

Part 1: Back when I was a young journalist covering music, part of my job was to interview some very talented bands. Often, the groups and their management would invite me to attend their concerts.

In this instance, INXS's publicist asked me to check out their concert and said she'd leave a pair of tickets for me at the box office. But when I got there, there was just a photo pass. I’m not a photographer and didn't even have a camera with me. Mistakes happen and are usually handled quickly.

So, I asked the rep at the venue’s box office if he could help locate my tickets.

He called over the band’s road manager, who said there was nothing he could do.

His attitude was clear. He wanted me to go away...and an odd thing happened. I felt apologetic for bothering him. I felt embarrassed that he wouldn't help.

I mentioned politely that I came because the band and their publicist had specifically asked me to check out their new stage show. One of his colleagues told him who I was. He looked at me, scowled and pulled out a pair of tickets — the tickets that he had said just a few minutes ago didn't exist.

Instead of handing them over directly to me, he told his assistant, "Give this to the chink bitch.”

And then he walked away.

Because that's what cowards do.

A very famous photographer witnessed all of this. He said, “Jae, you should do something about this.” In retrospect, it would’ve been nice if he — someone who had the kind of power I didn’t yet — had said something to stick up for me.

Part 2: What could I do? I was young and didn’t know what recourse I had. Who would I report such behavior to? Would the label or band fire him for referring to me with racist and sexist slurs? Not likely.

The next day, the band’s publicist called to ask me if I enjoyed the show. I described what had happened and she apologized profusely for his behavior. A few days letter, I received a letter (up above), supposedly from this road manager. Reading it, I could tell that this very kind publicist had written the apology and told him to sign it.

I told her this and she didn’t deny it.

When I was cleaning out my office files recently, I found this letter stashed away with some fan mail (yes, I actually had readers who wrote me lovely, meaningful letters). And I'm glad I saved it. It's a reminder to me to not use stress and aggravation as a cheap excuse to behave like an asshole to people. My having a bad day isn’t anyone else’s problem.

Photo courtesy: Polina Tankilevitch

Part 3: This weekend is Father’s Day, a time when we will celebrate my husband. We will also pay homage to my father as we did when he was alive.

And had my first baby survived, he would’ve turned 17 now — that was the same age my father was when he became the primary breadwinner in his family. My father supported not only his parents, but also his siblings. If you want to talk about stress and aggravation, imagine being a teenager whose duty it was to keep his family alive, because he had been born as the oldest son in a family whose country had been arbitrarily torn in half.

The mark of a decent person isn’t how well you handle things when everything is going well. It’s how you deal with people when the shit has hit the fan.

That road manager, Bruce Patron, died of lung cancer four years ago at the age of 70. As vile as he was to me, his premature death was unfortunate. I hope his loved ones are faring well.

© 2024 JAE-HA KIM | All Rights Reserved

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