I am becoming...?

I've grappled twice this week, fairly light stuff but I'm yet to be wracked with pain. I'm debating whether or not I should do it tonight. I may just do some kickboxing and call it a night. It would appear though, that I should be able to grapple in a limited capacity at least.

The slow build

I took two fitness kickboxing classes last week, coupled with a JKD class each. I've yet to feel any serious pain from this experiment.. I worked out earlier today, and I'll be taking another fitness kickboxing* class tonight. My legs still feel...I don't know, soft, vulnerable. Granted some of that is psychological, I'm very much afraid of the potential pain, and some of it is purely physical: my legs simply haven't been used much in the last 6 months.

I still feel the pain, two needles dancing on my nerves. Reclining continues to work though, as I've managed to control the pain at 0-3 most of the time.








*In our dojo think of this as a level 0 foundations class that emphasises the basic 10 boxing combinations as prescribed by Sifu. I've discovered that, when used judiciously, it constantly reinforces the basics, while offering a solid hour of work. My goal is to do this class twice a week, and limit my dojo sessions to 2 hrs a night tops for the forceable future.

Teetering towarids the irrational?

I was pondering the nature of the hip/leg pain I've been experiencing. It's not the all out blow-up that the pain normally is, and I've been trying to parse out a strategy, read the signals of my body like tea leaves--soggy tea leaves rescued from luke warm green tea--in order to decide on what I should do next in respect fitness. There was a 48 hr lull between the last workout and inflammation. It seems cruel, unfair for pain to manifest thusly, all the while keeping myself in check, this isn't even really a short term solution, more of a desperate hobby until I find an insurance plan. I am experiencing something new though, a side effect to the pain. My brain may be catching on, releasing opiates to cope with the problem.

A few hours ago I was mulling over this development. I couldn't go to practice with a high pain level, but if I could keep the pain level between 1 and 5? And I was teetering towards the irrational. I could adopt a truly monastic lifestyle: condition, diet, practice, and pain. I am teetering towards the irrational, and diving headlong into Catholicism. Yes, you wil find me on page 235 of Butler's Lives of the Saints. between Saint Anna the twice told-virgin, who scrubbed her coochie with a brillo pad to honor the angel Gabriel's impregnation of Mary, and Saint Marcus Vitus who tied a boulder to his leg to show solidarity with those unable to make it into heaven because they they died before Jesus came along.

I'd be a perfect monk. I am acquiring an altered perception that comes from the rush of opiates. Don't worry I---wait, maybe you should worry. This appeals to me. But forget about all that celibacy crap; if Girlfriend dumps me, I'm going to Vegas and gettin' me some fancy shmancy escorts.

Misery Loves

It's to fall in love with pain. It's an excuse to write about pain, to masturbate in your own shit. I have the awareness that I am writing about my pain, as I snear and crank out haymakers with a baby's skill. Fuck those Ginsbergs, those one note beats snapping like pushed farts. I see those best minds, starving hysterical naked to quote their leader. One howl is enough. I heard you the first time. There is something beyond it, but you settled. Yes, there is a something I can smell it. Help me, join me, or get out of my way. You've failed enough people. Second rate Pinheads in cheap leather.

Pain

Feeling low level pain this evening. I worked out 48 hrs ago. So is the pain REFERRED and DELAYED or was because I couldn't stop squirming in the recliner lkast night? (is there even such a phenomenon as delayed pain?) Will pull back this week, air squats in the warm up only.

Testing Limits

I did 30 airs squats in my warm up yesterday, added in some to the main workout. I was feeling bold today so I di Fran (21-15-9, thrusters and pull ups for time) in an abysmal 5 minutes. It was ugly, but I've yet to feel any pain. The way I see things if I don't feel pain by Saturday my hypothesis will be validated---the pain imminating from my hips is caused solely by the way I sit.

Sidenote: all that swimming and no lower body work has given me weak wobbly knees. Best all around exercise my ass :P

Batman and Jeet Kune Do

The follow up to R.I.P, Last Rights, arrived today. Whatever momentum was muted by the last issue has been renewed with a twisted silver age smile. I'm a bit giddy after reading it, the mark of a true comics fan. During Morrison/s run, one thing that he's gone to great pains to establish is Batman is prepared, always. There is no such thing as an unprepared Batman. The guy has put himself in isolation chambers and death trances so that he could be prepared for the day someone dopes him up with weapons grade meth and street heroin, not to sound reductive but would a death trance really prepare you for everything. Batman is human; he still makes mistakes, and he can still lose a fight. At some point there is an inconceivable, a thing that must be missed (similar to the irrational, the thing that cannot be...but is). In this respect Batman has become a true practitioner of Jeet Kune Do.

JKD eschews form for practicality, a JKD fighter is a new fighter every moment. Why? He has transcended form. HE has the ability to improvise. to conceptualize, to adapt any given situation even if he hasn't trained for that EXACT event. Batman has adopted this philosophy (whether he names it as such or not, or if Morrison names it as such or not) writ large. Doesn't have an antide for a poison on hand? He can improvise one. He didn't practice escaping death trap 542? It's ok, based on his knowledge of death traps in general, and traps 15, 972, and 400 specifically, he can create a solution. R.I.P appeared to be a large elaborate multistage death trap that began with a psychological assault long bere he was imprisoned physically, but in Last Rights part 1, maybe Batman didn't escape the death trap, at least not the death trap we thought he escaped.

One of the famous Silver Age conventions, the one I think most contemporary readers--myself included--loathe is the ole' "it's a dream!" shtick, and with good reason. It's cowardly, nothing more than cheating, an unwanted concession to the status quo, and since we are clearly in a Neo Silver Age Morrison finds it appropriate to bring the damned thing out of the closet...but with a few modifications. R.I.P was noted for blending in a lot of the goofball silver age stories, but in Last Rights we're finally understanding why (this ties in with Final Crisis). Batman is being mind raped by toadies of Darkside, a god, supposedly folks waaay out of Batman's league.

(How does one prepare for a deathtrap designed by gods, who could theoretically, design an infinite number of deathtraps within deathtraps, a Matrix trilogy of deathtraps and torture, torture and deathtraps, and what if those authoritarian anti-life praising gods wanted batman's courage, his spirit, his intellect, all the things that make Batman Batman and mass-produce for an army? Could Bruce really have prepared for that? That isn't just out of left field, that's the left side of the Negative Zone (which would make it the right side ). He may not have been able to prepare for such an ordeal specifically, but he could train himself to generate false memories in the event of a mental probe, which is exactly what I think is going on.

And this has ramifications for R.I.P. Maybe the story didn't happen the way we were told, maybe the version we got is the Apocalyptian death trap version, thus fucking up their plans for a clone army. That, or the silver age hallucinations were a stew of false memories activated in R.I.P. because the given situation was similar too some idealized trap Batman HAD prepared for., and his only way out of Final Crisis is to invoke a similar strategy.

Lessons from Dr. House

Just because you call something a dog doesn't mean it is, that's called a faulty syllogism.

A sense of impending doom

I just can't shake the feeling Girlfriend is going to leave me. We were talking on the phone. I told her I was willing to make the sacrifice; move with her to the great unknown when she finished her thesis and got a publishing job (I just can't live in the scene of the crime, there's nothing for me regardless). She did not take this well; in fact, anything other than "that's great!" would have signaled Big Trouble in Little China (why does saying that make me feel like Balky from Perfect Strangers??). She huffed and puffed and was quite confusing.

In our next conversation she said she wanted a slower transition. Same city; different doors. Nearly a year ago, the roles were reversed. She took my remark as a betrayal. It was months before she forgave me. I have not pointed out this hypocrisy. I should and will. Still, I understand why she would want the space, but it's clear to me she didn't--and doesn't?--understand why I wanted the space. It's the emotional burden. It's one thing to live with a loved one, another entirely when that loved one reminds you, through no fault of their own, of the rape and torture you suffered--together--at the hands of a couple of cruel, ignorant bastards.

Our relationship has become a game of cat and mouse, can we put an end to this before it descends into Tom and Jerry parody?

Batman R.I.P.

Since the big bang I've rediscovered superhero comics; a joy that has been a surrogate life support system, a fantasy escape from the physical pain of my legs/hips, and the spiritual agony of seperation from my practice (the martial arts) One of the stories I've been following is the much ballyhooed Batman R.I.P. It's been billed as the Batman story to end all Batman stories, complete with the most shocking revelation in the 70 years of the character. The basic premise is someone may have spent a good ten years preparing to destroy Batman, a foe that Batman doesn't know, a being who has studied Bruce Wayne with fanboy thuroughness; a foe Batman can't prepare for in any conventional way; and the antagonist is a foe who cannot be prepared for. This villian, goes by the moniker Dr. Simon Hurt, but claims to be Thomas Wayne, Bruce's father.

I loved this story, but it is best appreciated in a larger context; it is the fourth story arc from writer Grant Morrison, who has devoted significant time and energy to setting all the pieces in their propper place. There's just one problem There is no revelation!! WTF gives??? DC Comics has taken some serious marketing liberties in the last few months with Mr. Batman. First, DC Comics made it seem like the Kevin Smith penned Cacophany, would occur in the wake of R.I.P; it did not. THis killed my interest in the story. I am not a huge fan of Kevin Smith, New Jersey Film god, but I've always enjoyed his work in superhero comics (I think as an artist his best work is in the 4 color world). Then this b.s. happens with R.I.P itself. I love Morrison's work as a whole, so I'm a bit puzzled by this decision especially given the marketting involved, a machine he helped fuel. There is still a chance to fix this, either in the Last Rights follow up or in the pages of Final Crisis (both written by G.M.) .

If not, despite the quality of the story, instead of being the most shocking revelation in the last 70 years, this could be the biggest FU in the history of the medium, bigger even than Spiderman's Clone Wars saga (horrible flashbacks involving Spidercide).

Delay that Order

MRI now officially scheduled for next thursday, Dec. 11.

Countdown

I have an MRI tentatively scheduled for thursday morning. My father pulled a few strings.

The Story so far and abbreviated....

It was The Crow It was James O'Barr. Laughing Clowns from the Blackest ID The Joker's disciples a Dead Man's Hand of gangsta minstrelsy swinging guns like cocks swinging cocks like soft gummi worms It was the Crow It was James O'Barr there was violence rape torture They were the Laughing Clowns I became the sad clown and she became Thomas the Doubter Shock Shock Shock seperation then anxiety then more seperation and anxiety I left with the shame of infection I wanted to hit her wanted to make her stop needing me just enough that I could breath My wounds were psychic She had a name for her pain; it was rape I had no name so it named me I was the object of the object, an appendage of the victim cast off in a bathtub dusted with kitty litter and bath rain He can destroy a thing controls a thing but you can't destroy or control without the name so I wandered into a dojo and I did not leave

I trained for over a year only to be smited by a spiteful body I'm grounded by a birth defect a hip defect and I'm waiting for an MRI and that brings us here, but if I don't start reclaiming the things I CAN name it will be nothing, that's the story so far without nuiance without all the little violent melodramas that come with life

Greetings from Exile

After "taking it easy" for 5 months the source of pain has now been diagnosed as my hips. Seems I have retro-something or other hips--my hips are pointing towards my ass and have been since I was a wee fetus. Why wasn't this detected years and years ago? I don't know. It would certainly saved me time and energy I don't want to waste right now. In all likelihood I will have surgery in a few months and then begin rehab. I have mixed feelings. On one hand, I'm happy t know the source of the pain. On the other, I'm frustrated this wasn't diagnosed months ago and even more time will be wasted not training. When I finally return to the martial arts I will be back to square one. Posting will still, regrettably, be sparse. It seems I am gonna have to re-evaluate a great many things.

Side-note: the good doctor said that pain as a result of sitting was a strong indicator that I had hip problems.

Other side-note: Upon being told told my hips pointed backwards "This explains why I was a shitty soccer player in high school!"

A brief state of the body

Pain. My quads have gone nuclear. They are the real source of the pain, not the knees themselves. Sitting upright serves to aggravate them; hence, sparse blogging. Will resume regular blogging duties when normalcy returns--or a painless approximation of it.

Tomcat in Love

This is a really good book. I'm glad I read it. That's all I really wanted to say, well that, and I met Tim O'Brien years ago. He is quite the bar fly.

Battle of the tendons...and swimming!

I'll say this for Ben Gay. Sure it has a ridiculously anachronistic name loaded with menthol charged gay jokes, and it doesn't have the cache' of Mr. Fancy Pants Ibuprofen Cream with its 'scrip only allure; but I can tell when it's working. As soon as it makes skin contact you know Ben Gay is going for that deep penetrating action (sorry, couldn't resist). Ibuprofen cream just makes your knees shiny for hours, I'm not sure how much of the stuff is well and truly absorbed by the body. Hmph.

There was more swimming today. I did a 20 min time trial (850 Meters? I lost count more than once!). I've found a lot of good swimming routines off of Crossfitendurance.com. I hate the fact I'm confined to a chlorine box, but at least the routines are varied and interesting, lots of short burst speed/sprinting work peppered with time trials, tabatas, and the occasional long distance work. (I wish I knew how to go about doing a tabata in a pool. How am I supposed to time myself? Get an underwater time piece that vibrates during intervals??) If you've ever wanted to incorporate swimming into your training/workout regimen then check the site out---also has programs for bikes, running, C2 rowers.

The coming crisis

I've been feeling a bit depressed, all the body stuff is finally getting to me. Oh, and my girlfriend dreams of getting married, and I don't want any part of it.

I don't know when she decided this; I'm not even sure I remember when she started talking about it, but I feel tricked, like we agreed we had no taste for marriage, and then bam! she's a convert. She isn't putting pressure on me to get married, but that day will come, and it's got me down in a big way--that and the tendinitis.

Ah yes, my tendinitis. My taunting stand-in conscience with the maturity of a third grade bully, and all the grace of a fickle thirteen year old girl, toying with the affections of the lovestruck and luckless.

Feel free to shoot me if I stray into emo territory.

I am physically and spiritually confined, bound in taunts, weighted down with machine guns and wedding rings.

Pain

Sitting still? that hurts most of all.

Fantasies

Here I am at the keyboard with two packs of frozen vegetables on my knees listening to Alice in Chains (Lane Staley: the only rocker who well and truly HAD to die of a drug overdose? His voice is like a sea of weeping blisters covered in salt? Of all the grunge artists and heroin romantics he is one of the few who was truly suffering, not charmed by the charisma of suffering)

Have you ever fantasized without realizing it? I don't mean caught in a daydream, I'm speaking to the issue of recognition--a pattern, a method to your wish fulfillment. Well, I've been having a lot of fantasies about saving people. Stopping robbers, saving a nerd from a vicious high school beat-down, finding THEM, crushing THEM, sending THEM to dreamland before I throw 'em in jail. This isn't just about reimagining the rape with a positive outcome; my imagination has expanded. I'm the guy in the local paper who foils the bank robbery, who saves the clerk in a Circle K, the human shield for a toddler trapped in a burning building.

For a large chunk of my life, I've fantasized about death. My death, the death of those I love, melodramatic stuff. "How will I go on without them? Blah blah" It has been my way of fetishizing death, of taming it, of living it's reality on a day to day basis.

Lately, that has largely been replaced by these savior fantasies (Things don't always end in a rosy frame of mind. I might die saving the day or I might save three kids, but fail to save the fourth from the burning building). Seems there's more to this superhero thing, doesn't it? ...

Shit, I just had one right now! Another recurring one. A gunman, this time two, have stormed the gym, and it's up to me to take 'em down. Hmm, something I should expand upon.

I'll come back to that later, right now my knees have me paranoid. Ice or no ice, sitting in this chair aggravates the tendinitis, so I'm gonna lay down for a bit, maybe read a bit of Tomcat In Love.

State of the Body: My knees my knees my knees

There is a malformed eidolon, a shadow tinged meme, a pulpy grease stain of bravado whispering with wet lips against my ear lobe "work through it, just pull back a little." It never works. Never. I "pull back" for a few days, convinced I've done my time. My return to full throttle never works, only fucks things up: ears, toes, skin, skin, and oh god more skin left on a mat or scarred over, a new window into my obsession, an impressionist viewfinder into the emerald green trauma of the bathtub, the semen, the guns.

Ears. Toes. Skin. Guns.

Add my knees to my list of mistakes. I've got tendonitis in both knees, (technically it's the quads), the tear drops of my quads have tears of their own because the pain is speaking in a plain language we can all easily understand: the catch as catch can game of neural energy.

Sitting in this chair? Even that aggrivates it. I reduced lower body exercise to swimming, as there is no pressure on the joints (but aren't I still using the muscles??).

I have a problem. I'm afraid to stop training. I can make myself stop training, but it requires tremendous mental effort and a Mac truck full of misery. I need to establish a new rule. A way to determine when to stop training before I let it go to far, I can't keep doing this to myself. Whatever guilt or shame I may feel about the rape, *I do not train to punish myself, and I can't allow it to turn into that. I'm gonna...I'm gonna have to trust someone to help me. Girlfriend doesn't live here, so I guess that means a Sifu. Wonderful. I'm gonna love having this conversation--no, wait there is someone else.

I've decided I need supervision. I need someone to look at me and say stop training. You have to take time off. I don't think I can make the decision for myself anymore. Martial Art training has become part of my identity, I'm at a point right now where I don't know if I can function without it--and yes, I realize that may not be a good thing. It is something I may work through, but I feel scared and helpless without it, that's irrational, but so is rape and assault, and that blow job your mom gave me**.


*Also, training gives me the luxury of a kicked up metabolism, and allows me to pig out on the weekend, without training, I'm afraid of getting fat.

**I'm sorry, your mother is a wonderful person, I would never speak ill of her. She's very giving in the bedroom;)

Yoga and the violent imagination

Downward facing dog. Downward. Facing. Dog. The pose is supposed to be fluid, but my body never quite gets it. Each time a new adjustment, a different tweak in the pain-without-pain-just relax-just-breath sphere of iconic poses. There are five ways to do downward facing dog correctly, give or take a million; and five ways to do it incorrectly, give or take a million. Downward. Facing. Dog.
"Push your hips back, straighten your legs. The elbows should be tucked underneath the arms. Extend the fingers wide," Down--ward, "the index fingers should be pointed to the front of the room," face--ing, "your hands are rays of sunlight reaching, reaching outward beyond the self,"
rays of sunlight. I like it. I imagine an assault, I blind the bad guy with rays of sunlight. This makes me smile, and smiling kills the pose.

Trying not to start WW III

I am taking deep breaths, big fat yoga breaths. I am the king of yoga. I am the oxygen man; my blood cells are just bursting with the stuff; my veins are coursing with love and peace and pituli (sp?) and hugs, Fozzy the bear wocka wocka wocka hugs; they are not frantic with a million savage fire ants; my brain is not a Heavy Metal spectacular.

I am not going to misuse my martial training.

Only one "person" is capable of setting me off in a berserker rage, the girl who put the kicker in babykicker, my sister.

Her boyfriend, will call here--looking for her---incessantly. Once he gets started, he can't seem to stop. I kid you know he will call here 10 times in the course of two hours. This might be cute if he was a fifteen year old stricken with puppy love (the slobbering stupid love that gives you fleas), and if he didn't drive around our col-de-sac (sigh, sp?) when she didn't answer, AND IF the babykicker got her lazy ass up just long enough to answer the fucking phone.

If I see his name on the caller ID I don't answer it; I want as little to do with him as I do her.

Most of the time I don't say anything about it, but today it was just too much. There had been more phone calls than usual, a few of them even, were sane people. I didn't check the caller ID, as he had called the last three times. "Babykicker, answer the phone, bitch, it's your boyfriend"
Now I admit, I cursed, which is a no-no in the rhetoric of argument in this house, as it allows the other person to claim the pseudo-moral high ground. It was off the cuff, both babykicker and myself are prone to tarantino-esque tirades.

She answers. She talks. She clicks. She shouts "That wasn't my boyfriend, it was mom, blah blah angry blah don't call me bitch angry blah-blah" I shouted back he was 90% of the calls in the morning, she said something about males thinking they are entitled, and I tried to let it die at that. I bit my tongue, astounded by her hypocrisy. (Project much? No one behaves as if they are entitled more than you), but it just wasn't worth it.

I thought the issue was dead, when mom came home from work though, Babykicker complains, assuming a posture of false outrage. How dare I call her a bitch blah blah blah angry blah. You couldn't wash her mouth out with two magic erasers, a swiffer, a pound of soap, and a olympic pool of shock treated chlorinated water. I told mom "the real reason she's pissed is I dared to wake her for a phone call, when it turned out to be you instead of the psycho boyfriend she was mad" Babykicker started to say something but I just added, calmly to mom, "sometimes, he will drive by the house when she doesn't answer, it's fucking creepy" I removed myself from the conversation , deciding to take Captain Charisma (one of Radar's many nicknames) outside. She went to tell my mother about how she could speak ghetto, using as much motherfucking profantity as motherfucking possible to motherfuck the point.

It was wet, and Radar surveyed the pool for turtles. She was trying to start a fight with me, looking for a way to push my buttons. I thought about why doing anything would be wrong; if I hold out long enough, maybe her nutjob boyfriend will do it for me...as long as he doesn't come here to do it.

Tentacle PS

This is a summary of rolling with The Tentacle: triangle-triangle-armbar-triangle-triangle-armbar.


I’m coping one day at a time.

Tentacle PS

This is a summary of rolling with The Tentacle: triangle-triangle-armbar-triangle-triangle-armbar.


I’m coping one day at a time.

Day of The Tentacle

He trained two days a week for about 8 months. He’s a blue belt. He been kicking my ass since he moseyed on in the dojo. He’s reason numero uno, I started writing about little victories on my blog.

Getting crushed by super heavy weights I can handle. Outmaneuvered by college boy and his wrestling toolbox, is frustrating but I could cope with it intellectually, but the Tentacle? I couldn’t handle it. He’s a prodigy, forged from hot southern days of laying stucko. His grip is aquatic, you might as well be staring at a giant squid—and his guard?—inner thighs like iron…and then he’s stretchy again.

He’s a lanky guy, but his lank is low key, southern like his drawl, stretching his vowels through his lips. Hell, even his workman’s tan seems stretched out thinly over his skin. It has a mustard bbq quality you could only find in the bible belt. They just don’t make tans like this in Texas.

Most of the time when you think lanky, you think tall, b-baller height, since I started bjj I’ve been paying closer attention to bone structure—not merely physique I’ve always done that—analyzing bodies for functionality in the fighting arts, a habit inspired by The Tentacle.

Victory is mine

Last night I earned my green belt in Judo. It's the first belt above white. I'm very happy with the results. Although, I had this weird head ache at the end. I passed the test by doing the following:

1. Demonstrating basic competency of breakfalls and forward rolls.

2. Demonstrated competency in four throwing techniques:

a. O-soto-gari>>>>> major outer reaping throw (a sweep)
b.O-goshi>>>>>>>>major hip throw
c. Koshi Goruma>>>>hip wheel
d. Sote Tsiri Komi Goshi>>>> sleeve driven hip throw

Believe it or not the spelling should be correct for all 'dose things (I'm reading from a sheet).
I also had to demonstrate a basic competency in two pinning combinations and escape from those pins.

a. Kesa-gatame>>cross chest hold
b. Kata-gatame>>shoulder hold

For the throws I had to breakdown the technique then perform a line take-down (keep throwing people with the same throw). One of my ukis (sp?) is easily 300 lbs. He worker for WCW as a jobber. I was surprised I was able to throw him at all (even if he was offering minimal resistance)

This makes me a Gokyu in the Judo world. What comes next? As far as the throws are concerned I want to further develop my technique, perform them left sided, and learn what ever variations I can absorb. But what about new techniques? I know I want to develop a sacrifice throw, an inside reap (basically a Judo style strip), a throw whose name I don't remember but requires me to balance on one leg, and another hip throw or trip--haven't decided yet.

As far as the pins are concerned, they work within a jujitsu environment, and I'll have to continue to work on them. When I can lock down a blue belt, I'll know I've made genuine progress on Kesa-gatame (most pins are really a variation of this).

I want to keep these techniques with MMA in mind as well as grappling, so any changes I make will largely be driven by those factors. As far as self defense is concerned, competency with a large variety of throws (to fit the context) strikes me as best so this won't be a major determinate for now.

PS
Sote Tsiri Komi Goshi is not a beginners technique. I chose it for the test because I demonstrated apptitude for it, and I believe I can use it in an Attack By Draw strategy for jittery BJJers in a takedown phase.

State of the body: ow my knees hurt remix

I think I have tendonitis in my knees or, more specifically, the teardrop heads of my quads. Fun times in misery land. I've been taking Naproxen (generic Alleve) and using a script strength Ibuprofen cream (great for by passing all that nasty liver damage).

I've done a couple of swimming and yoga workouts to manage the pain (and calibrate the muscles around the knees) I SHOULD be icing them; I'll make sure to do that tonight.

Sowwy

Blech, I've been a bad bad blogger. Busy work for my classes has been a distraction. I've been doing this Accreditation goo-goo ga-ga for my classes. Surveys on what I think competency of my students are. (that sentence can't be grammatically correct). I don't remember the exact name but is something to the effect of Assessment of Skills Survey...ASS. That's right someone in acadamia hates their job soooooooooooo much they consciously (or subconsciously) named a survey--one that deals specifically with accreditation of a junior college--ASS. I love it. Long live subversives

Seminar PS

Even though 50% roll training has done right by me; I still need to throw in a few full speed rolls for fitness and adaptive purposes (tournaments, working under stress and time constraints, etc)

Seminar

It was a relaxed affair. Carlos had us do a light warm up, push ups, squats, crunches, and then we reviewed a few escapes from side control and applying the Kimora from sidecontrol and mount. He tried to structure the lesson in terms of strategy as much as technique. I can't really say how much I remembered, as my brain tends to max out around three techniques, but I think I remember the basic escapes and their moral: when in doubt use your hips and your knees. Since I tend to focus on kimora and kimora variations as my primary submission attack, it'll be interesting to see what happens at tonight's open mat.

I spent most of the session working with a child and teen from our dojo. We didn't get a lot of reps in, but really, no one did. Five reps is not a lot for anything, and I hope the four day seminar is more focused.

The dojo we trained at was huge, easily dwarfing ours. Two full sized mats, a heavy bag array, offices, and a full sized ring. Oh, and the man has his own buses, not bus, but buses, plural. Suffice to say, this is one sensai whose doing quite well for himself, economy be damned, thank you very much.

Back to the mats. At first glance I feared those mats. One set was new and shiny, the other looked positively jurassic. Big fat stegosaurus vs T-Rex old, but you know what? Despite the wrinkles and peeled patches (that reminded me of a week old sunburn) rolling on the mats was smooth.

Ah, and the rolling. I didn't get much of a workout, was a bit disappointed. I rolled with the kids, a couple of times, but they don't do much for me cardiovascularly. This was followed, by a couple of CWBs of the no gui variety. How did I know number 1 was a CWB if I didn't know him at all, and he wasn't wearing a belt? One, the excited way he ran to the mat, all legs and arms in his MMA get up (If it sounds like I'm being condescending, I'm not, the outfit was spiffy, truthfully, I liked it, the kid had spunk), and as soon as as we locked up he was stiff as a board. He went full tilt--the only way you can go when you're that stiff--and I kept it close to my habitual 50% as possible. He was looking for the kill; I was looking for position and control. I got sidecontrol, and tried to hold it as long as I could content to let my partner gas out, even though he did gas, he tapped me by way of my arch enemy the triangle (a CWB, but one who knew a few locks). I tapped him with a guillotine a little later. The second guy was larger, working on a spare tire, and since I caught him with a simple sweep, I didn't mind tapping to him; in fact, hitting the sweep felt like a bigger victory than tapping someone out. Those rolls didn't last particularly long, and my partners weren't particularly well conditioned. After spending so much time grappling behemoths, college wrestlers, and prodigies, it would appear raw physical ability just doesn't intimidate me.

A sweep is a game changer. You want to build a game around control and movement, then damn sweeps are where its at. How do you get to top from bottom? Sweep. How do you catch an MMA fighter off guard when he's committed to pounding you? Sweep. You're in a life or death scenario you're on the ground and on the bottom with one yahoo, while his buddies from the The Good Sam Club are comin' your way with glass and bad intentions? Sweep----and then run!

Tigr's definition of privacy (adendum)

definition 2: the ability to pee in the house with the bathroom door open.

Cash Money

Endorsed THE check a few hours ago, fed ex-ing it back to my lawyer. I'm hoping to have the money by next week so I can invest it and stop worrying about the damn thing.

I'm pretty sure my uneasiness disqualifies me from the high risk tolerance category of investor. My politics are all left, but this may very well be the one issue where the words "Tigr" and "conservative" exist harmoniously.

I know what my problem is, it isn't that I don't trust someone to manage my money for me, it's that I don't trust the corporate sector to be honest about its books. I've seen Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room one too many times (they just made their profits up! how scary is that?).

August Surprise

Carlos Machado is holding a one day seminar tomorrow (BJJ) about an hour from where I love this. This was announced five days ago. It's only 50 bucks, so a few guys from the dojo are going up. Carlos is one of the Fabulous Machado Brothers! family of bjj champions. I may have mentioned that all 5 brothers are holding a four day seminar in October (600 dollars!!! ack!). Since I'm saving money to go to that one, I figured this one day thing would be a good way to preview what's in store for me in October.

I expect a lot of basic drills, some roll time, and I hope to god no one is in the "crazy white belt" stage of development. I hate trying to go 50 percent and the other guy goes nuts. It forces me to work harder than I should, rather than focus on technique, and since I'm the little guy, I always end up on the short end of the bruise stick. (But I have learned a neat little armbar from the bottom for when the CWB tries to neck crank you--this is a good self defense armbar, as the neck crank looks very much like a choke, 'cept the hands go behind the neck instead of around it)

Hope to post thoughts on the seminar tomorrow evening--now that I'm awake and all.

"now that I'm awake and all"
(half a Joss Whedon)

Phew!

Well, that was a nasty 6 weeks I hope never to revisit again. Taught my last 8 am class wed; I gave them thursday as a research day for their papers. Will they take advantage of that? One or two will, but I bet most of them slept in like I did.

I still don't know what "light and wacky" means. Hmm, "light n' wacky" the new salad dressing bottled in a giant pezz dispenser. There's something just a little bit sinister about that phrase, like Kraft branded a tiny piece of my imagination and is using me, unknowingly, to churn out exciting new flavor adventures--another phrase that sounds off. This line of verbiage is givin' me the willies!

I wonder though, in our corporatized democracy--the one that gives corporations all the benefits of bein' an individual--has a certain syntax been staked out? Shakespeare is known for enjambment, blank verse, etc. Tarantino is known for rhythmic profanity. Their style of writing is a finger print (if not them exactly then a contemporary, etc).

Light n' wacky.
flavor adventure.

Phrasing lacking in any substance, nonthreatening, ludicrous.

Crash Burn Slide

Last week of this 8 am death march. That's what I've been like, a stupid sucker on a death march in a trail of tears that is --well, it's a trail of tears for christ's sake.

Actually, tomorrow is the end of this terrible violent cycle of violent intellectual molestation. They can have thursday to work on their paper. Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!


Funny enough I've got a back log of material, I just haven't had the patience and brain power to hammer out some edits. Good lord, you know I have material from over a year ago I haven't revised at all? Yikes! My head is going light n' wacky (don't ask me what that means I'm not entirely sure) Will lay down for a few minutes before going to the dojo.

Where Tigr stops whining, abruptly, and meditates on victories.

There should be forward motion in our life together, not inertia. We should be making plans to move in together again. Why aren’t we? Isn’t that the very first thing we should have done? Mariann still doesn’t have her thesis done. When will she defend, December? I’ve got work as an adjunct, but Jesus, I don’t want to a full time position at Backwater Tech, I want an MFA, I want to be writing, I want a degree that will give me more versatility in the leaning tower of ivory.

God, enough with the "shoulds" and the "why nots", and "I wants" my life is not at it's nadir. This isn't heroine sheik(sp?), this isn't a Greek Tragedy, or a Morality Play. On occasion, it may be something out of Satan Says, but those moments are brief, with the lifespan of a single firework; you see that red splash before you've heard the booming shriek.

Let’s not downplay the obvious victories here. One, we won. Doesn’t matter if there wasn’t a verdict, the defendants paid out six figures. Two, hello, we got a six figure settlement! We can lay down the foundation for a spiffy retirement plan. Three, our sex life is workin’ just fine thank you very much. Oddly enough, under all the pressure and strife, our sex life has improved. Four, we beat Super Mario Galaxy two days after the verdict. Yeah I know, talk about a little victory, but we did it together and it felt good, even if the substance of the thing itself is imaginary. Stoppin’ on koopas is fun. (Where were the Hammer Bros. in this installment?) Five, as far as PSTD goes, I think the worst is over for G (I hope). Six, I keep getting’ my ass whipped, but somehow I’m improving in bjj and judo and JKD.

Seven, I will be going to a four day Machado seminar in October providing me with intensive training so that I will improve even more (I think I can get that damn blue belt in under two years). Eight, I’m still writing on this here blog. Nine, I’m still writing poetry and prose. I’m on to something here. I think the superhero inflections of the poetry is slowly shaping into a shrewd cycle at worse and at best a book length collection at best. Nine, I’m living in exciting times for comic books films (and comic books in general) hell, whether I like it or not, I’m living in exciting times (ancient curse/blessing). And ten, that’s right ten, my overall level of conditioning keeps going up.

That’s how it’s done. That’s how you put the focus on the positive. It doesn’t kill the negative, but it puts everything in perspective. When I make alterations to my diet—and I use the term to mean a long term lifestyle choice not a temporary fix’er up’er—I focus on what I want in it, rather than what I take away. I need lots of lean protein, fats, fruit, and water, so I focus on consuming those rather than obsessing over not having pizza (hmm, so there is a context in which I DON’T obsess about things). I need to maintain the same outlook with the rest of my life. I cannot allow myself to navel gaze at the scars and traumas, that (to a certain extent) is what the poetry is for.

Bragging

I used the word "stentorian" in the post below. This pleases me greatly. It's one of those words you really like, but rarely have occasion to use (ex: exponentially, gargantuan)

Dreamless

When I was four I stayed up a solid 24 hours, dragging my poor abuelita past the midnight hour, storming through the blackness of 6 am. As a preschooler I despised nap time. To paraphrase Roger Ebert, I hated nap timed. Hated, hated, hated it. I was wide awake in a room full of alphabet clouds and big bold blues, greens, and whites: summer, winter, fall and spring all at once on the poster boards. The cosmic balance of the universe, the barrier forming order out of chaos, a thin black cross, kept the sun from melting the ice which would have caused an avalanche, killing the roses and the little boy skipping to school in his shorts.
It was me alone in that quiet, motionless sea of young bodies wrapped in corduroy. My classmates floated in dreams, I floated on a red mat firmly rooted to the carpet. My only dreams were of the day variety; they were the only stimulus I had for two hours--those, and the questions. I wondered if the teacher knew she had the most beautiful legs I had ever seen, and if she realized I stared at them when she taught us the days of the week. Would the cafeteria serve the best brownies in the world tomorrow, served up on white paper discs? Is papi coming home with surprises hiding behind his giant mustache which unfolds upon the world like a pair of giant batwings [note to reader: do you know the Spanish word for mustache? I'm looking for a particular term that starts with a "b" it might be slang, or possibly a variation created by a 4 yr old mind]--long, dark, and curly?

I tossed and turned and fiddled, very much like I do now as an adult. Fingers twiddling frantically, a glass ball of lighting in a madman's lab. My legs would open and close, flapping without purpose, rubbing...rubbing. My penis caught in the cleavage of my inner thigh and underoos. In these long waitings I discovered myself accidentally. I do not remember the first time I masturbated, all I know is it was there, and it would become a daily activity (and nightly) as I tried to surf through the boredom. I enjoyed the tingle but desired no one.

I've often wondered if these habits said anything about me specifically. Was my sleeplessness at this age a sign of a specific personality? Did it imply something about my home life? Was it a signifier for a learning disability or worse?(My sister was tested, rigorously, and found to have ADD. Papi has an anxiety disorder. Our grandmother wandered the halls of schizophrenia in an asylum). At the end of the day, was it simply the sign of a stentorian imagination, already cultivating my first superhero myth-life?

One time, I wet myself because I had nothing else to do.

Pan's Hellboy

I saw Hellboy 2 this weekend with Girlfriend. I enjoyed it. It doesn't play like a superhero movie, rather it plays like a fantasy film that just happens to have superheroes in it. One of Del Toro's--who directed Pan's Labyrinth strengths as a director is his ability to create immersive worlds, rather than a pastiche of CGI effects trying passing itself off as an environment. This is one of those movies I would recommend to people who aren't fans of the superhero genre.
Del Toro is a gifted filmmaker who has the ability channel the old school: the golden age of monster movies, the black and white classics. Karloff, Lugosi, Chenney( Sr and Jr.) would all thrive in Del Toro's world; in fact, just writing that makes me a little sad that they aren't around to do just that.

THUMP!

Am back at the homestead. Things have changed drastically, yet there is no feeling of change, I've even started to break down what I'll be doing with a hunk of change, and things still don't feel any different.

My one concern with respect to the money is I fuck it up. I want to invest it, I don't want to do anything risky, but the market is doing a performance piece I like to call "Little Viet Cong Boy trips on land mine, plays hopscotch"

A quick word on a Major Victory

I can't say I believe in closure; I can't say I've ever experienced closure, but yesterday was a victory--a Major Victory--for both me and Girlfriend, one that has nothing to do with jujitsu technique. I've alluded obliquely to civil hearings on this blog. I don't want to say too much at the moment because I signed a confidentiality agreement, and anonymous or not, should honor the agreement in good faith. Until I figure out where "the line" is, I'll just say this.

The perps are still out there, but yesterday a specific entity learned the value (we hope) of real security versus the illusion of security.

I need to talk to my lawyer before saying anything else, and I've got reading (Faust) to do.
To quote Scott Hall, "survey says, score one for the good guys" (insert smirk here, throw toothpick at camera).

Tigr's definition of privacy

The ability to masturbate without fear of discovery.

A musing

I've been toying with an idea.

See, since I got this here fancy shmancy web cam I've been brainstorming ways to use it for the blog. One of my ideas, is to record yours truly (audio only) reading a few poems I've written since the torture/rape. There is really one thing stopping me--correction, two things. One, privacy.
Two, ::doing my best Gollum impression:: we hates the sound of our voice. It burns my precious; it burns! Smeagel loses all objectivity, everything sounds so nasal, precious!

I think it would be cool for the two people reading this blog to hear my voice, and a different, yet strangely obvious way, for me to play around with the performance aspects of writing. (Sidenote: my girlfriend has a fantastic reading voice: strong dramatic range, good sense of cadence and rhythm.)

Would doing so count as publishing a work? Hmm. I hate lit mags and their namby pamby rules. They burn! Gollum! Gollum!

1-2-3 Get off my grandfather's apple tree

Tomorrow, I turn around and go to Florida. I meet up with my Gal, and we prepare to do battle in that ugly ugly thing called mediation. Hopefully, this will symbolize the end of one battle in our search for justice. We have no wish to fight that even uglier battle often referred to as a "lawsuit"

Vacation

Beach was fun. Got to spend time with girlfriend. We made ice cream (Golden Oreo). We played Super Mario Galaxy, and yes, we even went to the beach, and we even went to the movies. (Wall-E is another Pixar homerun, filled with Kubrick homages, top notch animation, and that darn fine Pixar Wit. Despite this, Pixar makes what, for a "family film" is a deeply cynical vision of our future, but one with the ring of truth.) We got to be a normal couple for a while.

And Radar was a dog, spending his time in a way befitting a Scottish Terrier: barking at golfers. It was wrong and we wagged our fingers at him, but the filled me with impish pride.

In fact, by vitrue of shared heritage, Scottish Terriers should be the only living thing allowed to totally fuck up a game o' golf. If you screw up a shot or putt or whatever tough shit, you just got a scottish beatdown Radar style.

Think of the drama! You would never know when it would happen, only that it could.

"It's the eighteenth hole, Woods needs an eagle to win. He's about to--Oh! that scottie came out of nowhere!"
"Bob, the lil s.o.b was hiding IN the bag, he emerged from between the 8 and 9 Iron like some sort of demon"
"Ah, the ole Brown Sauce Voodoo , pioneered by that great warrior, Angus IV"
"It may be Brown Sauce Voodoo, but poor Tiger looks like he just received a big wet *Glascow Kiss!"
They laugh that snarky white laugh of the country club caucasian. I smile. You smile, and we all just grew a little bit as people. We've got the power to ward off Monday. Sports are back people, sports are back.

*headbutt, Radar has given me a few of those!

The next couple weeks

Posting will be light. Spending the 4th weekend with family and girlfriend at beach house. Lucky man that I am, I'll be attending a mediation. This means an extra dose of Girlfriend, also means an extra dose of what I hope will be the end of a legal battle. If things go my way, I'll be training at the Alliance dojo again.

Oh! Fifty if you're reading this I hope all is well, and you should make sure none of my emails are in your spam folder.

Double Oh! This guy is is good, and my ego usually prevents me from admitting that about anyone
In Second Person

Check this out also
The Evil Overlord Handbook

Fistful of L.V.s

Tonight I unquestioningly had my best 3 min roll against Mr. Wrestling. Heck, it might be the best 3 min I ever had in practice (college wrestler, blue belt in 9 months, great conditioning, soon to be MMA pro. undefeated as amateur). He whips my ass on a regular basis, but tonight I mounted him with a Kimora sweep, got him in trouble with a guillotine, and ended the period with me working a kimora out of side control and what I THINK was a triangle. He wasn't going to submit, but I clearly had the offensive advantage at the end.

Tigr Dumb

As a favor to the interim dept head I took on another class this semester. It got lost in the beaurocratic shuffle between chairs. No one noticed until after the first class session. The class meets at 8 am four times a week :(

To paraphrase a wise ninja master, I hate 8 am classes with my whole body, including my pee pee.
::::falls over and dies::::

Intervention for the sober

Yesterday, I woke to the sound of my mother yelling at the babykicker.

I was looking at the huffingtonpost with a toothbrush sticking out of my mouth. There was generic classical music blaring from the den. Papi stood in the doorway “You’re really addicted to all this technology stuff, aren’t you?” He had this smile, this glassy I’m seeing you for the first time even though I’ve said it a thousand times smile. Brown eyes projecting—disbelief? pity? smugness?—an alien vision of reality. He was positively beatific! Was there a USB cord running from my temple to the hard drive? Was I bound up in wires? Were my eyes cracked and dry from spending an entire week playing WOW only to break for pizza and piss? Were there little piles of shit in my room?

I had to suck my cheeks together as so not to spit toothpaste everywhere. I swallowed the red flush creeping up my cheeks. I didn’t know which made me angrier: his condescension, his genuine belief that I really was addicted to technology, or his blindness.

With a pop I yanked the toothbrush out of my mouth, “Really, then why are you the one insistent on blaring the stereo?” That’s what I meant to say. What came out of my mouth sounded more like “muff glufff bigooph!” on account of the foamy soup between teeth and tongue, but the meaning was clear, and he left. He turned off the stereo.

Let me back up. I need to elaborate on my emotional response. As a rule any form of condescension makes me angry, particularly when it comes from a parent or friend. My father is an M.D. an infectious disease specialist. Back in’85 when AIDS ascended to arch-fiend in humanity’s never ending battle against nature, he was one of three doctors in ::censored:::, who didn’t run away from gay men dying the slow death of wasting syndrome; he never freaked out, he never turned a patient away from being HIV positive.

He’s very good at being a doctor, but he’s a luddite, and on top of that he ‘s got that great white ego that comes from being a doctor, so already we have an irritating concoction in the works. All my life he has been saying I watch too much tv or spend too much time on the computer or waste my time reading comic books (yeah, I know not technology per se, but the pattern here is obvious). He’s even gone so far as to call the t.v. my best friend. (that was insulting and it hurt)

Growing up I did watch my share of t.v, but even then he over exaggerated. Soccer and Football didn’t matter. All the studying, the extra time I put in on my honors courses. Getting the lead in the school play didn’t matter. Have you read Neil Simon’s Fools? The lead is in every scene, lines on every page. In order to know the part you have to know the whole script! Here I am, with a Master’s degree in English, I devote about 20 hours a week to the martial arts and conditioning, another 5-8 hours on writing and blogging, and I spend some time with my friends on the weekend. When it comes to my father, I have no life outside of the predetermined narrative he’s constructed for me. Nothing I have ever done has squashed this belief and nothing I do ever will, and I stopped trying a long time ago but hot damn it pisses me off somethin’ fierce, like someone shoved a bottle of Tabasco sauce up my nose.

Then there is the issue of my sister. A person with real addiction issues, who has waged a war of emotional abuse that has left my parents’ marriage entropic. Speaking of the babykicker, I’d say her only accomplishment to date is sucking up well over 100,00 dollars of my parent’s money, forcing them to take out another mortgage and dip into their retirement savings which has resulted in nothing but a shallow, directionless parasite, and papi keeps letting her get away with it. She’s a real Rolo Tomasi. Have I mentioned that I hate and despise her? I really shouldn’t. It should be clear from everything I write.

And yet the term addiction is slung at me carelessly as a way to criticize nonexistent behavior. I wonder though....

Oh, and for the record I've never played WOW (World of Warcraft)

The Best thing about my girlfriend

If I clean a room, or do dishes, the very first words out of her mouth are "that's great! thank you!" I didn't know people like this existed. Sometimes, well most of the time, I'm still not sure how to act when she says it.

A Rant

I get the distinct feeling I’m viewed as a parasite by my mother. This is not a groundless claim. I live at home. I eat her food. She still takes care of my car insurance. She screams at me, that or reminding me that “you’re not a college student anymore, stop acting like you live in a dorm” by which she means I’m messy, even though I confine the mess to my room. Any fight between my sister and mother will inevitably make a turn at “Why does he do the dishes?” She demands with her tuneless southern twang. “Well yeah, your brother’s no better, he’s next on my list.”
Or it is about a car, or something the babykicker said. It doesn’t matter if it’s true or not mom always agrees with her, and I’m in my own room stunned, feeling sold out, angry that mom would accept such reductive infantile logic, instantly put me on par with that piece of shit who harms people carelessly and without regard. We’re not people to the babykicker, merely things, obstructions to her grand quest of loafing 14 hours a day while everyone else works—unless she needs something from us.
So that’s that then. Her crimes are my crimes; she should be allowed to hurt as many people as possible.
How did this become the status quo? I work. I pay my own credit card bill. I don’t drink. I don’t smoke. The only bad habit I really have is jerking off to porn, yet I am struggling for a satisfactory counter-argument. No, I don’t want a satisfactory one, I’m searching for one without peer. I want a coup de grace: a simple retort that says “that settles it, he’s a self sufficient adult who takes care of himself. There’s only one parasite in this family.”
I can’t. Is there a difference between being a loser who lives with his parents and an adult with a different set of priorities? Right now, in the age of the idiot king, the economy is in the shitter, more people are getting more jobs that pay less, working longer and longer hours, achieving nothing. Seriously, what do they have to show for it? It hasn’t lowered the price of gas, or repaired our relationship with the world writ large or given our children a better education. Hell, most people are easily controlled authoritarian puppets, they’re just waiting for the right leader to tell them what to do.
This excuses nothing though. I’m not talking about everyone else. I’m talking about me. When I was 19 I remember the first night I was in my dorm room. I had this revelation “I’m a man now!” I’ve doubted that epiphany ever since.
Look where I am. My girlfriend was raped and I was powerless to stop it. My track history in relation to grad school is piss poor. I chose the wrong program, and I was miserable, now I can’t get into MFA program because you can read the misery in my grades.
My girlfriend is hundreds of miles away. I moved because I thought I was sparing her. I was afraid I’d lose it and knock her brown eyes right off her face. The only thing the decision engendered were feelings of betrayal and nervous breakdowns. When was the last time I made the right decision about anything? Hell when was the last time someone offered me advice that didn’t bite me in the ass?
Joseph Campbell wrote about the call. See before the hero’s journey begins he hears the call. He is summoned by light or the powers that be or George Lucas or whoever. But there are heroes who resist the call, and they are punished. Jonah and the whale: man is called by God to do his work, man runs away in fear, man is eaten by whale. Only when Jonah repents and accepts his ministry is he released.
What if you’re tone deaf though? What if you can’t hear the call? It might as well be static, covered in noise pollution, trampled over by car stereos with bass five miles high, a giant arrogant robot, straight from the big-eyes-small-mouth fantasy world of Japan, making the rest of us shake and vibrate against our will. We don’t even get to enjoy the song. You can’t hear it! There is only bass, and a smug asshole at the eye of the storm, king of his chrome world.

I wrote this and I haven’t inched to clarity, not one bit.
I doubt, and it scares me. I doubt, and it tires me, wears me down.

Just a bit of dialogue

Gave Radar a shower. "Why?" My mother asked. I said, "he smells like dookey." "Don't say that, say feces, you have a Master's degree in english" "Yes, and in my professional opinion this dog smells like dookey, not feces."

That smarts

I was hit in the ear during judo practice, take note boys and girls, getting hit in the ear causes headaches.

George Carlin is Dead

:(




A brilliant comedian, a frustrating defeatist. He, more than anyone, shaped my view of religion. I'm not going to cry, but I feel a sense of real loss here. He was a philosopher, a curmudgeon, a truth-sayer. He has been proven right about a great many things, but his death, it reminds me....
It makes me fear his final judgement of humanity all the more: that we are doomed. I have never hoped more that a person be proven stone cold wrong.

Obama is testing my patience

At 5 am on Saturday morning I wrote a long tirade about the rape, the FISA bill that gives telcos retroactive immunity, and Obama, and then ...I did nothing. I decided not to publish it Part of it is my paranoia, but I wanted to give Obama a chance to rectify his colossal blunder, but it isn't a blunder. It's calculated.

Also, I didn't know if I wanted to tie rape/torture directly to Obama.

But I'm publishing it here. Maybe I'll publish it somewhere else in an altered form...probably not, but I went through the trouble of writing it so I'll just print it here, originally intended for the Dailykos:

Let me preface this diary with a clarification. I don't use "howl" lightly. This is not the work of a D.C.village idiot or a mercenary pundit or even a savvy front pager. My howl is a grunge howl, an Alice In Chains howl, a Lane Staley howl, blisters weeping heroine weeping blood weeping memory, scarred over, disfigured.

Disfigured by torture, real torture. For a solid hour, I was hostage as my girlfriend was raped. My body is fine, but my psyche? It has been cut open, exposed to the dangers of fresh air. There was nothing I could do. The barrel at my temple was cold and light, fate waited on the other side of the trigger. Despite our best efforts the perps have yet to be found, and I fear they never will be. Since then, I've developed a keen interest in terms like justice, gun control, power, you get the idea.

I'm not a vengeful person, despite the agony inflicted, I want justice, a fair trial,nothing more, nothing less, but as I said, we will never get that. And I crave justice, I thirst for it, and it has made me a bit impatient, even a bit critical of victims of sexual abuse.

A funny thing happens to me when I watch Law and Order: SVU. When the victim can identify the attacker and takes his sorry ass to court, I'm with 'em all the way; their bravery pleases my sense of ethics and my need for snack-food escapism, but if that victim should cower, should he or she fail to press charges? I hate them for their cowardice. I hate them because they have the luxury of cowardice; they fear their attackers will identify them or harm them further?? Ha! If only I could reach into their fictional brains and rip out the identity of their assailants, take that precious CHOICE away from them that the writers think make their cliches sympathetic characters. To me they are fools a few words away from vindication, they lack force of will to act. I'm quite willing to have my face plastered on the tv screen, mocked by O'Reilly, the butt of a thousand tv monologues, rejected by my friends, if only I could identify our attackers and drag them into court.

I was a hostage for a solid hour. I watched the act of rape once...twice...three times...I....lost...count......as they moved from room to room.

I will not be a hostage again.

I will not be held hostage by craven psychopaths, nor fear mongers like Roger Ailes, and I damn sure won't be held hostage by the Great Black Hope, his apologists, or the fear of a McCain Administration.

Despite the rabid dogs barking in my head

That's right I called Obama the Great Black Hope, and until he proves otherwise, that's all he is: the manufactured hero-myth of a desperate and abused liberal circle jerk. (I can feel some of you pulling away from me, you don't think I'm being fair, give me just a few more minutes of your time).

Ya see, some of you are held hostage and you don't even realize it. "Obama is our best hope we have to vote for him It's him or else" Or else what? All Obama had to say was "This bill is a farce. The constitution will not be held hostage by Bush and the Telecoms. No one is above the law. I, the democratic nominee, will not vote for it" That is all he had to say, but no, he equivocated. If McCain had been in a similar position he would have done the same thing, and if he would have done the same thing, well then, if they both would do the same thing, why should I fear a McCain Administration more than an Obama one?

They will both cave WHEN IT MATTERS MOST, so don't even try with that supreme court stuff. If Obama falters on Telecom immunity, if he confuses bipartisanship with wisdom, then what makes you think he can get a pro-choice judge on the bench when the heat will really be on?

No world, I don't HAVE to vote for the big O. He has to earn my vote by demonstrating exceptional leadership. Why? Because I AM NOT A HOSTAGE TO THE DEMOCRATIC NOMINEE. The future president of the United States works for US. We invest in his campaign. We cast the votes. Many of you roll up your sleeves and do GOTV. You need to remind him that HE works for YOU, not the other way around. If this is his idea of leadership, then quite frankly it won't matter who is at the helm. We might as well be in the Demeter drifting towards London as Count Cheney sucks the progressive blood right out of our bodies. If he doesn't learn that your vote isn't guaranteed, then you are authorizing him to behave as a coward.

Chalk up another little victory

Dunno how to explain this one.

I'm rolling with Sifu Right-wing

I've shrimped out of side control. We look like a pair of clumsy lovers goofing their way through Kama Sutra positions. My wrongside leg, the left leg, is lifted at a 45 degree angle. I'd be a dog with a fire hydrant, but my right leg is splayed backward sliding underneath the wrongside. I am open palmed, hands at the level of my eyes, waiting for the heaviness. The wrongside shin presses against his pot belly. My right hand reaches deep for the space between my legs; the rest of me follows. I forward roll on an angle--think Pluto's orbit around the sun--and come back to guard. Both of us are impressed. He grins. I grin.

And in two minutes The Tentacle will kick my ass.

Eh.

I've been writing poems that play with superhero iconography...

hmm.

Does martial arts.

Does crazy crossfit workouts.

Writing about superheroes.

Deep down do I aspire to be a superhero? Nothing deep down about it. I've wanted that since the age of five ;)

Whew!

Drilling from various positions, side control, mount, and back, we pulled out an epic 36 minutes of grappling time. I felt gassed at several points, guess I overdid it with my workout (ugh! as much as I hate admitting it, I need to workout in the morning, there are days I really need a solid 6-8 hrs of recovery time). And the workout? 5 sets: row 500m/10 36 lbs DB Swings/30 sit ups for time: 20:43. The prescribed workout called for 30 swings, but I just plain forgot. For the best in the long run, grappling would have been miserable.

Feeling Fine

I feel good. I feel good about jujitsu. I've done it three nights in a row, and will go again tonight.
As I move back to a heavy schedule I've resolved to do jujitsu 4 nights a week as best I can and two hours of JKD a week, and 1 one hour of Judo throws.


In unrelated news, I'm reading Dracula, prepping for my brit lit class that starting monday. Funny, how the department head thought my 4 classes in brit lit qualified me to teach it, when in truth, I know little, my real knowledge base is horror, but I think everything will be fine as I'm dividing the class thusly: half a session devoted to student presentations on poets, the other half devoted to teaching Dracula. Only problem now is figuring out what do we read when Dracula is finished? I've had a few ideas ranging from Alan Moore's Watchmen to Fowles' The Collector. (The closer I got to modern times, the wider my knowledge base).

And where am I gonna find the time to write and blog? Ugh. It's back to good ole will power and elbow grease.

Back on the mat

Went to jujitsu last night, felt really good. Learned there are now classes on tues and thurs too (finally!). Went tonight, had fun. CrossFit workout today was killer. Cindy (5 pull ups, 10 push ups, 15 squats, on a loop, 20 min) I got 27 sets, thought i was gonna puke. I'm gonna be sore in the morning.

Ah, one more thing, "passing the guard is about controlling the hips," said the rubber band.

PM DAWN-PAPER DOLL

I've been storming through YouTube lookin' for my favorite hip hop vids from way back in the "YO! MTV Raps" era. This one came near the end of that period.

Your Ex-Lover Is Dead by Stars

My girlfriend said the lines "live through this and you'll never look back" remind her of me.

Her apartment is cramped

Her apartment is cramped.

I’d leave it at that if I could, but I’m writing a blog, and there is an expectation that I say things. If this were a poem I’d leave it at that really:

Her apartment
is
cramped.

I’d give it a pithy smart-ass title, something excessively longer than the content like “Waiting for My Girlfriend of Five Years to Dump Me after a seven hour drive” M. lived on the second floor of a two story building at 215 Lovelace drive. I like that name, Lovelace, very provocative. I hear Lovelace I think super-spy with red hair, a tight blue shirt hugging a pair of DD breasts the envy of every mainstream comic book artist and pornstar. No matter what she wears, shorts, jeans, a skirt, she’s got a garter belt just above the see line, hence her code name.

What I don’t think is three cats, an ice cream maker, a long distance boyfriend, and a wooden staircase that is begging to be THAT staircase in Psycho, where every step carries the risk of a knife, the inevitable fall burned in celluloid, THAT staircase in Abigail, vibrating with King Diamond’s thrashing falsetto, dualing guitars fight for the scraps of your soul, THAT staircase on the 6 o clock news that sent little Timmy tumbling down into the afterlife when he broke his neck on the third step from the top. He just forgot to tie his shoe!

Fuck Abstinence Ed.

Abstinence Ed is a bad idea. It doesn't work. It's been proven again and again not to work, but still it persists. As the country begins a long swing to the left, I hope the damned thing will be taken to the shed. Until then, I've tried not to let it get to me, but this article really pisses me off.

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=5054210&page=1

RAINN is one of those websites I was talking about earlier. They help victims of rape and abuse, but might as well say women only. Again, that's the vibe most survivor outfits send. Nevertheless, they deserve a million dollar grant a hell of a lot more than a ridiculous D.C. outfit dedicated to abstinence ed. To paraphrase one of the commenters, they prolly have a zero percent dropout rate because they kick 'em out!

It disgusts me that an organization dedicated to helping survivors would be summarily dismissed in favor of what? Trying to score a few points with the radical religious right? a blowjob? Any administration will have a little nepotism, and I know how politics is played, but god damn!

Law and Order Conventions

1. There MUST be a smart ass cop on every episode. Sometimes he is a streewise hard ass too.
2. There MUST be a streewise hard ass cop in every episode.
3. Gender of 1 and 2 is irrelevant; but, if female, costuming, make up, haircut will aspire to a
masculine haircut.
4. Female lawyers may be hot, but the true power of their cleavage is never to be revealed.
5. "You're too emotionally involved in this case!"
6. If a guest star is a comedian; he will be unbalanced. He will be the criminal.
7. Old ladies on telephones discover dead bodies.
8. The best episodes will have the careening plot structure of classic Simpsons.
9. The worst episodes will have the careening plot structure of classic Simpsons.
10. Dick Wolf

Searching for Survivors

In my never ending battle to find other survivors I've learned:

1. Surprise! The overwhelming majority of sexual trauma survivors are female (shock!)

2. I am desperate to connect with more people who've survived, I have this need to
build...a context, a reference point.

3. It seems the vast majority of survivor/victim blogs are one time howls
One, two, three entries tops, then they disappear into the techno ether.

4. Uh, I'm not going to name blogs, but I don't think everyone is working on all thrusters.
I contacted one blogger who compiled stories on rape, it's a worthy goal, but I was a bit put off
by her phrasing of "rapists and their allies" In respect to the United States and Canada this seemed like paranoia. A suspicion that was not alleviated when said blogger, cited a unsourced comment as proof, that level of gullibility is dangerous. There are people who will say anything, lie about rape, pregnancy, even their own last name. (I had an ex who did all three AND lied to me TWICE about where she went to school.)
Challenging such claims is difficult though since you're likely to run into blog rules such as "no denying the experiences of others." Sigh, trauma studies means well, but censoring truth in favor of affirmative speech is not one of it's strong points (also has a bad habit of constructing binary oppositions.

5. If these websites were people, I'd want to choke out 90% of them. Part of it is the Trauma Studies vocabulary, which can sound like a bad self help manual. Also, I find most of the blogs alienating. I think, regretfully, this is because of the target audience: women and the most likely publishers: women. A few of these pages are excruciatingly frilly or a Neil Gaiman cosmo-fart, that's not a knock in and of itself, just a disconnect with me. Maybe it's connected to my experience as a victim maybe it isn't, buuuuuuuuuuuuttttttttttttt I'm thinkin' "I'm a guy, I've been emasculated, effectively feminized, what do I need? A huge dose of girl power!" After all, I did dive headfirst into martial arts.

SVU

Episode is about raped retarded girl. The mother reports gives static won't let Wong test her comprehension. My hatred of the old woman is instant. At least the show is characterizing her as overprotective. Another sentiment I'd never thought I'd articulate.

I want to reach into the show and kick the woman in the head.


Stabler is doing his interview thing.
He is interviewing other retarded folks (PC aside, I'm using retarded for expediency)

oh my god I'm living blog SVU, wtf??

It's the bus driver! That evil lech!
Eew. the more I think about retard sex...forget it,

At the park with crazy mom.

Does the girl understand the concept of no?
I don't blame the girl.
OK I'm gonna stop this.

They got the girl to talk, she cried, mom freaked.
Ok THIS time, I'm stopping

How To Save a Relationship Shaken By Rape and Torture

Super Mario Galaxy.

Didn't even mention...

My crossfit workout was a real killer. 10 sets for time: 12 pull-ups/ 12 burpees. It was a nasty 16 minutes. The yoga class I took afterwards suffered for it.

Further Meditations on Dogs (and humans)

In literature, movies, pop culture as a whole, there is a tradition I like to call the Anachronistic Man, or the man out of time. By out I don't mean "time's up!" rather the figure has existed outside the boundaries of time. Sometimes he ages; sometimes he doesn't. They are hapless time travellers.
Odysseus is the earliest example I can think of. Dragged into battle against his will, he spent ten years fighting the Trojan War and another Ten trying to get back home. In fact, at one point in the Odyssey, the isle of Ithaca is in sight when Poseidon blows him away, adding years to the trip. Rip Van Winkle goes to sleep a youngin' only to wake up an old man. Even though Philip J. Fry doesn't age, he wakes up a thousand years into the future. The hero of I Am Legend (the novella), stands at the very end of human civilization, hopelessly alone. They are living a kind of trauma, not like mine, but a trauma none the less: violent seperation from all they know, disorientation, culture shock.
In most cases the figures share a common episode. They are accompanied by or have an encounter with a dog. When Odysseus finally lands on the shores of his home, the first creature he meets is his dog, who has waited twenty years on a pile of shit and flies just to see his master one more time before he dies. It is heartbreaking, very rarely have I felt palpable anguish from any art form, and this is one of them. Reading the Odyssey for the first time, the scene brought me to tears. Desperate and lonely, the hero of I am Legend, tries and fails to save a dog. In the 20th century, a dog waits, and is still waiting, for a Philip J Fry who will never return (and this from a geeky screwball sci-fi comedy!).

Why does this pattern exist? Well, I'm glad I asked that rhetorical question!

I don't wish to lionize humanity's relationship with dogs, and I admit that the dog could be a symbol for ANY pet, could symbolize our relationships with the animal world as a whole not just canines. Still, I think the dog works in these stories because of something specific about our relationship to them. They wear their hearts on their sleeves, even stubborn rascals like my Scottish Terrier, who wears his postured indifference on his sleeve. A dog is lonely with his whole self, he does nothing half-way. When he suffers, he suffers completely. Maybe it is because we tamed them early in our history, but we see something of ourselves in dogs. They were with us before time mattered, so perhaps they are a reference point, a marker. Regardless, when they suffer, we see our own suffering. Their pain is our pain. We are spiritually linked.


(If there is an alternative symbol, it would be the horse. They are the only animal I can think of who shares a history analagous to that of the dog)

Meditation on my dog

I look at my dog and see the person that I am and the person I want to be. Radar is, in his quietest moments, looking at the world, looking through the world, above it, below it, yeah, he transcends it. He is alert, living not as a dog, but a frozen beam of light. He is magnetic, not merely larger than life, but larger than himself. Any martial artist worth his salt would envy this clarity. The Shaolin developed the five animal style of Kung Fu, incorporating the natural motions and rhythms of the animal kingdom into the postures, strikes, and blocks of the human world. When Radar stands on my brown aztec porch, the wind blowing in his brindle fur, I’m convinced within him lies the secret of a Terrier Kung Fu, the ability to harness charisma, presence, majesty, into its own martial style. The style itself, its practice, its execution, imbues the monk with an expanding sense of courage.
He survived that awful night just as we did. He barked before I opened the door. I brushed it off as his usual theatrics, and there was a moment I thought, inexplicably, about not opening that door. He should be dead. Men that vicious should have shot him or beaten him to death, but despite the noise he made Radar lives. In his canine memory is he haunted by that night? Does he ever feel an instinctual irrational pang for a thing greater than his IQ or is it gone, cleaned from his fur by a soft breeze? Does he know that his father sees him as a totem, a myth, an irascible die-hard?

The future

Is uncertain. Very. Not had much luck with grad school. Not exactly enthused about my current financial state. And my girlfriend and I aren't together, literally separated by distance.

I am dissatisfied. Hmph.

Next week is the last recovery week. I'm gonna go coo-coo for cocoa puffs pretty soon.

Life just seems to be in a general state of impotence. I exert effort, but nothing moves.

The Grand Tour 2

I cheated. I used my visit as an opportunity to train at another dojo.
This place was small, real small. Imagine your typical half-strip strip mall, three unrelated offices: a comic book store, a tiny furniture outlet, and an a law office.

We'd turned into this building on the advice of the cluttered signage fifteen yards away, a series of squares, rectangles, and other forgotten four sided shapes. Each promised something: a service, a store, an idea, and three more offices than were visible. With its clashing fonts and competing reds, blacks, and greens, the uniform white background fused into one off kilter asymmetrical meme "Jujitsu-Comics-Furniture-Insurnace!-Attorney-Space for Lease" Somewhere in a tiny cubicle cluttered with Go-bots and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, a graphic artist, a twenty something named Bob with a tiny pot belly and a odd devotion to Plan 9 from Outer Space, imagined a world where Jenga was the ultimate form of advertisement, but something went wrong. He fused Jenga, played right to the point of inevitable folly, with a Totem pole. At least, he did so half heartedly. Only he knows why he gave up. Only he knows why someone was nuts enough to purchase his work.

"I don't see it--well, now, check this out"
The blacktop curved down and around the back.. The building had another side, an underneath. There were three more offices in the building, jujitsu among them.

It seemed appropriate that a dojo would be wedged into the lower left hand corner of the building, a violent id for an inanimate object-space. It was the suppressed desire of fanboys dipped in toilets, the sinister urge of lawyers beaten by the excrutiating non- precision of legalese, a sweaty dungeon hidden away from those blinded by the anti-razzle and the anti-dazzle of the signs.

"Bow before you enter."
Girlfriend and I went inside.

The mat was a light brown, a thin tan. I reached down to touch the floor. Hard mats, not a lot of give. It was the first time I'd seen mats with a bamboo pattern. Waves shaped into tiny sticks, criss-crossing the floor. I was amused and disappointed. "I was hoping for something a little softer." I'd driven over 300 miles, and god damnit, I walk into another dojo with hard grooved mats. My toes wiggled and grumbled, one of them ached stupidly. "I must have tortured a burn victim in a former life."

And yet....

I look at that sketch and I wonder.

Accidental Discovery

Sifting through the sands of the net I found this:
Rape Victim Says Attackers Forced Her Husband To Watch - News Story - WFTV Orlando

Very similar to what happened to me and girlfriend, except for the hispanic accomplice and the batshit crazy cousin angle (which I'm not sold on) and the kids! Jesus Christ.

The Grand Tour 1

Visited Girlfriend this weekend. Had to attend to visit. Had to see an IME.

Independent Medical Examiner.

Do you know why you see one of those?

I can't answer that question directly...yet.

C.R.

Another exercise in cinema verite? Any suggestions on mixing forms welcomed. The IM is with my girlfriend.

Over the weekend I had a distrubing dream. I know, I know, who doesn't have those from time to time? It's one of those irksome disturbing dreams though. I know what in the dream shook me up, but not how or why. I can't remember the narrative, can't name a location or time-space. (Btw my toe hurts). But I'd recognize the what from a million internets away. What is a who and that who is C.R. and C.R. is the who, the what, and the where, because she's bigger than life, bigger than Monopoly, bigger than the warped trauma that got me writing this blog in the first place. Good? Bad? Pffft. SHe's bigger than both.

G9: poke?

TigrMchine: hi

G9: How are you?

TigrMchine: am ok, doing laundry before I leave tomorrow

G9: Good man.

G9: I am...uh...well, "taking a break" from tidying up.

TigrMchine: you haven't done anything at all have you?

G9: Well I did the dishes last night, cleaned part of the shower, all the dirty clothes are off the floor, and I've been doing mini-sweeps

G9: So yes, I have been doing something.

G9: I just...got sidetracked looking for the damn clorox green cleaning spray

TigrMchine: ahhh.

MarenG9: You know, reading these blogs....

My first kiss. My first grope. My first love. My first horrible, no good very bad experience with the opposite sex. My first mindfuck. The first time I cried over someone while taking a hot shower. She was my first in every conceivable metric except the one most commonly used: she was not my first fuck, she was not the first person I made love too, hell, we never had intercourse.

G9: I am SHOCKED at how many women, infertile women no less, get pregnant while on the pill.

G9: I know two women in real life who have gotten pregnant while on it, both times from taking antibiotics.

G9: I mean, what is up with that?

TigrMchine: maybe they're not infertile, maybe their vaginas are on backwards---a constant "today is opposite's day in my hoo ha!"

G9: I suppose.

G9: Actually, one of the ladies has a disorder that the pill may have corrected

G9: and then she either missed a day or was on some drugs that may have essentially made her miss a day

G9: so the pill, by causing her to ovulate, may have *made her get pregnant*

G9: unfortunately she miscarried early on

G9: same thing with the other lady who just (maybe) miscarried

TigrMchine: :/

G9: Sorry to be sharing all this with you.

G9: I just find it funny that the pill is so dicy.

Once in a blue moon, we talk. In the wake of the rape, she was one of the first people I told. I was compelled to tell her, although I'm not entirely sure why.

G9 returned at 9:02:30 PM.

G9: ok, that was totally gross!

TigrMchine: ?

G9: There was...the tiniest of punctures in that bottle of bleach I was keeping under the sink.

G9: It made the pot I was keeping it in....rust.

G9: resulting in a puddle of brown goop under the sink.

G9: Happily, I had shelf paper on under there so clean up was a breeze.

G9: But still, yuck!

TigrMchine: that's gross, good thing that stuff never made it's way to the floor

G9: Seriously.

Seeing her in a dream is a portent in itself. What does it mean? I dunno, solving it usually involves talking to her, so I may be writing her for the first time in about a year. Oh yeah, Girlfriend was in it too, and I woke up feeling vulnerable, scared, hurt.

G9: Which description fits you best?
You are a perfectionist and can't leave anything unfinished
You need time, over-prepare and hate pressure
You're scatty, forgetful and disorganised
You put things off till the last minute and are often late

G9: All of these are me at some point

G9: What would you say is dominant/

TigrMchine: in you or me???

G9: me

TigrMchine: this is like being asked "does this make me look fat"...

G9: :rolls eyes:

G9: Just guess, please?

TigrMchine: wel you certainly hate pressure....

G9: yeah I probably would have picked that one

G9: I actually forgot to pick that one lol

G9: I really like the quizzes in okcupid.

TigrMchine: but each strikes me as incomplete, it doesn't get the full scope

G9: Apparently I am 42% introvert, 23% extrovert.

TigrMchine: playing with radar

G9:

So I guess it's time to contact her. Ya know, I feel a bit weak when I do this. I contact her. I can't remember her ever seeking me out. She's very charismatic, extremely intelligent, and one of those people who sets a goal for herself like "I'm gonna run the New York marathon!" and then does it (and she did). I've seen her at her worst though, the pre-psychotic break drug addled teen; I've seen the darkest parts of her psychic landscape. Fall in love with her and you could fall into The House of Leaves. Wander a 5 and a half minute hallway and watch out, a low growl could emanate from anywhere at anytime.

G9: ok I just cleaned out the gunk in the sink so it will drain properly when you brush your teeth.

G9: You are not allowed to say one goddamned thing about the state of the place

G9: It is official!

TigrMchine: okie dokie

G9: :chews on you:

There is a piece of me, a tiny piece now, but a glacier when I was 14, that is in awe of her in that Torah fueled way, tinged with fear and blood, leary of the miraculous, exiled to a dustbowl on the farside of a nutjob's fevered, sweaty bound-and-gagged notion of an all mighty God.

We choose many things in life, but personal mythology? That's shoved up our butts by the Boogie Man at the age of five.

Nothing is erased, merely moved around and revised.