Gio’s Feminist Treatise

So, I thought about this while fantasizing about sex. I know, a shaky start to a feminist treatise, but bear with me.

So, basically, the thought was, how does a guy deal with being a supposed “chubby chaser”? Why is that considered a weird thing? If a girl gets with a guy that has thick trunk (live I’ve had in the past and most likely will have when I get old) it’s said she’s likes the teddy bear type of guy. In the gay male community, they are actually called “Bears”. But if a guy does that, if he doesn’t at least make fun of his chubby girl behind her back or hide her from his friends, he’s seen as a weirdo. As if hiding a girl from your friends is not weirdo behavior.

In any case, what are the real truths, if any, behind this discrepancy. I intend to look beyond the superficial “Oh, it’s the magazines, and the TV” rationale and seek a more biological-inspired and universal truth.

Basically, we must start with this–what does it really mean to be fat? There are a number of factors involved of course, genetics, diet, stress levels, and availability/willingness of exercise and physical recreation for the individual.

Now, ignoring genetics (because that is beyond control of the individual) and availability/willingness for physical recreation (only because that’s mostly irrelevant to my argument) I can narrow in on the other two, diet, and, stress levels/stress management.

Many people eat compulsively out of stress, sometimes to dangerous levels. I am personally an anxious eater, if not, at times, “compulsive”. Now a days, I prefer eating standing up or in irregular meals, because I find that’s the easiest way for me to manage my diet. Large meals trigger a response in me to binge. Like a wolf who’s waited weeks for his first kill and intends to eat up all the caribou before anyone else gets there.

Now, what does this mean in terms of feminism? How in the hell can this possibly connect? Well, directly, by using the hungry wolf as an analogy, we see that leader type individuals, the Alpha’s, tend to demand more food, and insist on getting the bigger share at the table. This is because they deem themselves more important and valuable to the squad, as a leader, and so their genetics tell them to binge and not worry about what’s left for others.

For a man to be this way, he is seen by Anglo-American society as fat and jolly, but for a woman, she is seen to be disgusting and lacking self-control. That’s a pretty judgemental dichotomy if you ask me. You can blame it on the magazines and the fashion industry (those faggy bastards) but that’s only the tip of the platinum blond hairline. The root of it, in my opinion is the Anglo-American male deep and, at times, overwhelmingly open, displeasure at the thought of women as leaders.

Sarah Palin, you might say? Bill Maher makes it clear*, in my mind, that Sarah Palin has rocketed to political stardom (a scary phrase on its own) not DESPITE her lack of apparent expertise or basic public speaking abilities, but BECAUSE she is clearly unfit to rule. Men, these supposed Tea-Bag Movement men, support her, either out of a sardonic attack on female empowerment, or else, as Bill suggests, literally because they think she’s hot; more to the point, because they think she’s a MILF and simply wish they had a wife as dumb and seemingly gullible as her. She’s the cheerleader slut of the Republican Party though she doesn’t necessarily give out blow jobs to all the Senators at the back of the aisle (who knows, it’d be f—ing hilarious, though admittedly sad, were this true).

Besides pointing out the need for at least TWO Americas, Right and Dem (Civil War Redux, thanks Abe Lincoln, for keeping us together until we were mature enough to separate), the above point is the best public example of the American male’s fear and insecurity of the female leader. Perhaps we could also look at Meg Whitman’s failed gamble for the Californian gubernatorial seat despite a ludicrous campaign budget.

Thank God for black people, would be my retort to all that. Look at Oprah. Is there a white Oprah? No. Has there ever been a white Oprah? A large, busty, big-trunked female who commanded a large audience who was white? No. Not since Italian Opera which was popular here, oh, about, never ago.

Big Black Commanding Women started with Ella Fitzgerald, and continues with Oprah today. Roughly speaking.

Why does she have to be black? Because despite the centuries of oppression, slavery, degradation, and reckless cohabitation with White America, West African culture, in particular the West African matriarchal spirit, managed to survive and stake it’s place in American society to this day. Thus you see black rappers glorify the biggest gargantuan asses you’ve ever seen in your life. To many feminists I would be committing quite the party foul right now bringing up rap, since it has been so long associated with demeaning of women, but let’s just focus on the part that allows, tolerates, and even glorifies big women.

This is important, according to my theory. Big women are a threat to a male-dominated Christian-conservative culture in two main ways. One, a big woman is better equipped at defending and asserting herself in physical altercations (or you could include violent, semi-violent, playfully violent, sports, etc) which is an area deemed exclusive to males in our traditional Anglo-American society. And it is also a realm where psychological dominance can play out through threat of force. Violence is the tool of males, and females must endure seems to be the old philosophy.It must be a psychological mind-fuck to see big black women who are not only able to defend themselves against the average American male, but sometimes able to criminal attack them (as in a Yahoo front page story relating the tale of two Black American sisters serving hard time for ambushing, attacking, and robbing victims for money).

That is scary, bands of large women attacking and robbing passerbys. But it’s no different from being mugged by a guy (which has happened to many people I know who live in cities) which is considered mostly an acceptable risk of living in dense populations.

The second fear, or rather, the compounded fear, for the American petrified male, is the idea that, on a public level, women will be able to compete with men for control and power. Everyone remarked on the sexist factor in Obama’s victory over Hilary in the primaries back when, but I will try to relate it to fat body types and natural leadership.

Which means we must go back to that actual process of getting fat. Yes, this deserves looking into, I promise. See, in my formulation, the fat loud woman, who isn’t a total mess and has some intelligence–this woman, in general, has the following characteristics: 1) an eating response to anxiety/stress 2) highly sensitive and/or highly judgemental of others.

One is indicative, as I mentioned before, of a positive evolutionary trait in terms of selfish survival and Number Two is a trait of almost all great leaders. Autistic savants can’t be great leaders, despite having incredible isolated skill sets, because they can’t manipulate/read others.

So, in a way, both points show a possible correlation between the Oprah type of woman,and a natural female leader archetype. One, the food anxiety response, by displaying an internal and biological high self-value/self-worth and the other by showing it in the external behavior of the woman.

Now, when a society does not have a lot of food, period, everyone’s skinny and the fat part of this equation doesn’t show up. Think of the remnant hunter-gatherer societies in Austronesia and other parts of the world. Think also of parts of Africa/Asia where everyone is malnourished. That is why this argument is particular to developed Western societies and to Anglo-American culture in particular.

The odd twist comes when you realize that there actually is a dangerous element to overeating in current day America, i.e. the obesity epidemic. But I believe that is largely the result of our diet (engineered, calorie-dense foods and endless bounty in supermarkets). Thus being a “big-eater” while in some societies (like Polynesian ones) is considered a mark of health and strength, it has been, in America, say since the 50′s, a badge of shame for women. The installment of this badge in our collective psyche corresponds to the 50′s ideal housewife and the rise of the female as sex symbol as the only archetype for a female on a public stage.

Thus we come full circle, back to standard feminist axiom, which, thankfully or wearily (depending on who’s using them), has become more or less accepted nowadays, at least in the educated classes, which is: the female as sex symbol is embarrassing and confining for all women across society.

More over, we must embrace and love our big girls, our dykes and tom-boys. We must never tell them that playing sports is for boys. What do we have to fear? That women may, in the end, turn out to be more adept and understanding at leadership roles than men? That they may be more manipulative? Well so be it. I for one, welcome the challenge. And all those men who scoff and secretly quake at the thought of being exposed as beta males to their alpha females–well, then become gay if you can’t handle it. On the public stage, if we do not embrace competition from women and instead, use their insecurities against them, then we are shying away from combat, like cowards, and we would be the kind of men who can’t dance and would never dance with a woman (compete in the one sport that women almost always like).

*http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1a3fSoX3cg0

BS Poetry and Random Vids

POETRY

“Weary Traveler”

If I could hear the sound drip drip
Of thy sideways eye
I would accept blindess, dumbess–
And no amount of yo’ lip
would deter me

For I am off to war
Not really, but I said thus
And you were moved, be it known
In the universe
As in thy neighborhood–all awoken by your ecstasy

Then a river gushed

Then a man gives you  a letter and you read it
“dear baby-kakes, I am stationed afar, please don’t expect my return”
Only I’m not at war
As I said before

I am only  a traveler
A gambler, if you will, who needs
an inn for the night, in your town
And a pillow between your thighs

The last he heard from her was March. Was it raining then? Yes, he remembers getting up one day and looking out, the repressed foliage looking dank after a winter of snow; and the whole scene looking not like Boston, but reminded him of the locale in Robert Altman’s McCabe and Mrs. Miller, up in the mountains of Washington.

He had no idea whether or not her promise to show his work was genuine or else she didn’t want to hurt his feelings.  But it would be doubly worse were that true, because if she lied to him, he would have one more good reason to end their relationship, and as tentative as their relationship was in reality, he still shuddered at the thought of being totally single again. Of not having that life buoy out in the waters.

As things were in the Summer of 99′ he already struggled with seeing beautiful women in the street and realizing he didn’t have one when he got home. He would have to actually snag one, was his revelation. He shuddered more at that than anything.

Ever since that woman cried rape, it really did a number on our fellow. The way that story goes, as he told it to no one in particular on the bus one time:

“But uh, I give the fucking survey to this Indian mom.” (at the time Paren was working at a mega-department store handing out customer surveys)

“I tell her she can do the survey at home or at the computers by the entrance, the only difference is that if she does them at the computers I get a bonus, well, not a bonus (which is true, I get jack shit), but I might not get fired. She seemed uncomfortable by this kind of non-professional talk from her cashier. I should have taken notice. Because the look she gave me later—holly shit. It was like I told her she had 24 hours to deliver the rent or else I would rape her daughter in front of her husband. What happened was that she came back to correct a price error on the receipt, and after I did that I asked her if she was sure she didn’t want to do the survey. She said no, in a shy-ish, bothered way, and I thought it would be funny if I told her, ‘did I mention I think you have gorgeous eyes.’ Then the look. Just talking about this makes me gag. Ugh. She really looked like I had violated her, then she shuffled off, leaving me to wonder if anyone else caught that exchange. In the end, I say, fuck her for making me feel bad. All I said was her eyes were pretty, right?”

Paren would later have a similar;y embarassing episode at Brighton Beach, when he tried to smoke pot on the sand and then imagined his burly Brooklyn co-patriots were glaring at him disapprovingly, which they probably were.

…

Ever wonder how you get good at Parkour?

P90x Workouts: Legs and Back

I. Warm-up (do not do static–traditional–stretches on the legs)

• relax neck and shoulders with gentle rolling
• open back muscles with “wall scratchers” –stand straight, legs apart, extend arms up and out, contract arms with elbow pointed down like you’re scratching an invisible wall behind you with your knuckles–x4
• dynamic leg stretches and any of these

II. Workout Part 1
–all of these exercises should be done as continuous as possible. NO REST. The whole workout will occur in triplets of 2 leg exe’s and 1 back exe. The leg exe’s will specify a number of reps or time period. You are to adjust the severity or load of the exe in order to reach the specified number of reps. So, if you can’t reach 15 reps (assuming that’s the goal), then reduce the resistance or ease the motion so you can reach 15. And if you can reach 15 very easily then increase the resistance or use an advanced motion. All the back exe’s are to be performed to exhaustion (a good method is to go until you feel you can’t do more, then try to do two more). And of course, always breathe and smile.

exe’s:

1a) Chair lunge – 50 sec each leg or about 25 reps each

1b) Calf-raise squats – 25 reps

1c) reverse-grip chin-up or elastic band pull down (’till exhaustion +2)

2a) Super-skaters – 25 reps each leg

–the key is to sink into a sprinter’s position with the front leg while shooting the other leg back. if you keep your front leg straight you will fall over.

2b) wall sit – total time, 1:30

• 0-20 sec, sit halfway, about 45 degree squat
• 20-40 sec, sink all the way to a full 90 degree squat
• repeat 20 sec intervals alternating between half and full squat, until you reach 1:30 (up-down-up-down-up 10 sec)

2c) Wide grip pull-ups – again ’till exhaustion +2 more
–same as first set of chin-ups except palms facing out and arms wide

3a) Back-step lunge – 15 reps each leg – advanced motion:  add bicep curl to the lunge (simultaneous)
–if body weight is to easy start using dumbbells, carried at your sides.
3b) Side lunges, alternating – 24 total, 12 each side
–note, the model on the right is pointing her arms out. this is not necessary. I only included her photo because of her leg positioning.

3c) Close-grip pull-ups (palms out)

4a) Single leg wall sits

• sit against wall, slide into full squat, lift right leg as straight as possible, hold for 10 sec
• lower right leg back, then straighten out left leg, 10 sec
• repeat until 1:00 is done

–note, in between switching legs you can rise up to half-squat to rest a sec before lowering down and straightening the other leg.

4b) Single-leg deadlift squats – 20 reps each leg

–note, the motion is similar to the super-skater except the point is not to bend at the supporting leg too much. The man in the video is only letting his supporting thigh bend around 20 degrees away from vertical. This ensures that the backs of the leg, and the lower back are doing the work.

4c) Switch grip pull-ups — 2 reps palms out, 2 reps palms in, until exhaustion+2

HALF-WAY DONE

III. 1 min rest – take this time to wipe off sweat, drink water, and write down which exercises you need to add weight too, or which ones you failed to reach required reps. Also, keep tab of how many reps you can do on the lat exe’s (pull-ups/pull-downs).

1 MIN REST OVER

IV. Second half

5a) 3-Way lunge — 5 reps each leg

• each rep consists of 3 lunges, one to the side, one oblique (at angle), one straight forward
• at the end of the lunge (standing back up) you can a kick with the lead foot before starting the next lunge for advanced motion
• hold weights by your sides once you master bodyweight
• 5 reps one leg, 5 with other

5b) Sneaky lunges – total of 20 lunges, 10 each leg
version 1

p90x version (deeper-lunge plus turn-around, always on front of feet)

5c) Chin-ups (palms in)

6a) Foward bend alternate with chair pose – 1:00 about 5-8 reps (slowly)
6b) Toe-roll lunge – 20 reps each leg

• forward lunge, exaggerated length (reach for it)
• push off back foot (the toe-roll) and reach front knee to the ankle
• rock back and forth, each rep the lead knee going past the ankle then returning behind it. again, if the lead knee is going past the front toes then you need to lengthen the lunge

minus the arm stretch, this is how the end of the lunge should look like. restart the rep by rocking back, lowering the back heel.

6c) Wide grip pull-ups

7a) Horse-stance walk (or Groucho walk) – 4 steps foward, 4 steps back – 4x

7b) 3-Way calf-raises – each position do 15 slow followed by 10 fast
–Standing calf-raise, 3-positions:  1) feet pointed forward, 2)feet pointed slightly outward, 3) feet pointed slightly inward.

7c) Boxing squats – 20 each leg
Can’t seem to find a good image on web but here’s my explanation

• stand with left foot pointed foward and in front of body by a step
• right foot (in this case the back foot) is pointed about 45 degrees to the right, away form straight foward
• squat straight down with the lead heel (left foot) always touching the ground while the back foot heel is always off the ground

this is a video of a young Mike Tyson, for further example. Note his legs and feet everytime he dips as he shadow boxes.

here’s another rendition
FINISHED!

Aikido’s Purported Self-Defense Techniques

With the explosion of Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) organizations and competition, debating martial arts has become, on the internet, a staple exercise of nerd-passion. One reason for this is that there is now a more realistic context and perspective for the use of martial arts in competition–MMA. There tends to be a split in ontology between the arts for competitive fighting and those for self-defense. Prizefighting arts usually include western boxing, kickboxing and Muay Thai, various wrestling (Greco-Roman, freestyle, Sambo, Judo), and the grappling arts mainly based on Brazilian Jiu-jitsu (BJJ).

The most renowned self-defense arts include Krav Maga (Israeli), Japanese Karate (e.g. Goju-ryu) and various American adaptations of Karate (Kenpo). However, there are some arts that claim to have a leg-up on other schools by some creative and innovative use of movements and techniques. In addition they may claim to have a spiritual and philosophical foundation that allows those who master the art to have an advantage over brute force and aggression; e.g. Aikido. There are even some sensei (masters) who purport to hold fatal techniques involving pressure points that when used in a super-precise manner can disable and even kill an opponent. However, it is my opinion that many of these fringe styles are basically operating in unrealistic and thus, useless, conditions, or else completely fantastical, and have no relation to real life combat situations.

One problem for any martial art is as follows: how do you practice potentially deadly or damaging techniques without disabling all of your practice mates? This problem is adequately resolved in traditional striking sports by toughening the practitioner for a period of time to acclimate them to full-contact sparring and by wearing adequate protective gear. In wrestling and grappling arts, most of the time, techniques in practice and competition are made safe by the conscious concern for safety among participants, but certain prohibiting rules, and by the ability to “tap out” of a given hold. On the other hand, some arts resolve the problem by a combination of feigning punches and strikes and omitting resistance to techniques during practice. It is my contention that any art which requires the uke (the reciever of a technique) to omit resistance and feign the efficacy of the techniques–this kind of art, as demonstrated by the example of Aikido, necessarily fails to develop effective defense techniques and should not advertise as such.

Here is a sample of Aikido techniques from youtube:

This video even sets the techniques in a street setting with a knife attacker, but almost all Aikido videos have the similar throws and holds. To be sure Aikido contains some useful techniques, but the useful ones (like standing arm bar) are all taken from Japanese Ju Jitsu. The techniques unique to Aikido, characterized by flowing circular throws and transitions are only achievable with a willing uke (reciever) to go along with the technique. For example, the first throw of the video is typical. The tori (the practitioner) avoids a horizontal slash from his left to right side, then steps inside to control the knife hand using a figure four wrist lock, like this:

So far so good, that is a standard technique of many grappling arts. Where Aikido looses good sense is when, after securing the wristlock, tori proceeds to circle to his left, pulling uke with him, which apparently off-balances uke enough and allows tori to toss him in a near-complete circle, rotating the 180+ pound man 235 degrees about his center of gravity like he was tied to a gyroscope. This simply cannot happen with the hold and positioning which prior to the throw. The same throw occurs at 0:08 and similarly goofy throws at 0:14, 0:26 and 0:36 and throughout the rest of the video. Now, let’s compare those clips with competition video in Judo:

The Aikido video has two instances of a throw like this one (te garuma) where tori grabs high with one hand and grabs a leg with the other hand. They occur at 0:26 and 0:48. However, it should be clear that the Judo player had a much tougher time putting his opponent on his back and the throw had much less air time than in the Aikido example. How is this possibly we might ask? Surely the black belt Judoka would be better able to score a big throw than the self-defense practitioner in Aikido. That’s all Judo players train for–throwing. The only explanation for this is that the Judo player’s opponent was more prepared and resisted more and/or the knife attacker was grossly passive to the Aikido practitioner.

Defenders of Aikido might point out exactly what I did in the previous sentences; that Aikido techniques might not work in a Judo or any other competition setting, but are still street-worthy because real-life criminals and aggressors don’t expect you to fight back. An analogy to that statement would be to take a BB gun to defeat a stone-age village, because the fact that BB gun’s are worthless in a gun-fight doesn’t exclude the confidence that a BB gun would subdue a band of villagers armed with stone axes and clubs. The truth is, it doesn’t matter how different the BB gun is to a shotgun, it matters that a BB gun cannot stop even a single determined human being (withholding the very unlikely case of scoring an eye-shot).

And, though it’s hard to put in words, any kinesthetically experienced person can see that you can’t throw someone in a circle with only one arm or one side of his body in your control. Take a look again at the first throw of the Aikido video. Now just imagine yourself in that wrist lock, on your right arm. Then your Aikido opponent, like in the video, swings out away and to the right–how much easier would it be for you to simply straighten out your arm than to keep it bent and flexed so that it carries all the torque of tori’s throw to your whole body for an air-born flight? It’s ridiculous. In Judo, these kinds of throws are called uki-waza, or floating technique. They are legitimate techniques but they are rarely used in competition. But, just for comparison, here is such a throw executed in top competition by Kosei Inoue:

Firstly, this was a counter throw. If you watch closely at the beginning seconds, the champion’s opponent extended his right leg out for a leg trip attack which the champion, Kosei Inoue, countered with uki otoshi. Also note that even though his opponent was already off balanced Inoue had to throw his whole body weight into the throw and ended up with his knees on the ground and his chest on uke’s downed body. He didn’t at all, cleanly flip his opponent while staying on his own feet. The point of this comparison is to show that throwing techniques take considerable strength, speed, and force when done on a live, resisting opponent. And I just don’t see the point of practicing loopy foo foo movements where the master somehow control’s his students’ whole bodies with a wrist control from 4 feet away; that is, I don’t see the point of techniques where the student has to throw himself in order to make his master look good.

And if you read articles about Aikido it doesn’t even seem like they care to present themselves as a fighting art. The wiki article “Aikido” starts by declaring the art a fusion of it’s founder’s “martial studies, philosophy, and religious beliefs” and in third paragraph it states that the art diverged from its Ju Jitsu origin in 1920 “partly due to [the founder's] involvement in the Omoto-kyo religion]. So, fine, Aikido is more than a self-defense art; it has a philosophical and spiritual foundation. I don’t have anything against that, in itself–I am a big fan of Capoeira which is usually called a Brazilian martial art, but is really more of a cultural folk art involving dance and combative movements. However, Capoiera never tries to demonstrate supposedly effective self-defense techniques against armed attackers. Organizations baring the name “Aikido” sometimes do just that; the which is actually plain wrong. Morally wrong, because I sincerely believe someone who tries to use an Aikido floating throw in a serious situation would be putting himself in great danger by doing so. And it’s the Aikido sensei’s responsibility that his name and tradition not be attached to such crockery.

Two Stories — At the same Time!

“Liberal Economics”

The illegal had no money at all for gas to drive her son to the prescribed hospital–what else could she do but demand her clinic fee back? The nurse told her she didn’t have permission and sent her to beg at the gas station–how could she risk the only job that put a roof over her kids’ heads? The gas station owner couldn’t ask for yet another extension, so he braced himself and crusted over with reptilian hardness in front of the illegals–how else could he resist helping such a tragic family? The illegal left her son lying on the polyester and rubber mat in front of double glass doors–how could she risk being deported? Breaking a heart striated with hard labor nicks and timeless misery is like squeezing juice from the sun–it takes the magic of a child. With the non-insured life of a little illegal boy on the line, the hospital director couldn’t give his authorization in time because he was out playing golf with the boys–how else could he enjoy a lifetime of dedicated medicine?

“Joie de Vivre”

Je suis totalement obsédée–it’s the fifth time he’s fallen in love. This time his foot is ready for amputation and his ring finger has barely begun to curl back to a more average length, though it is unmistakably deformed. She is half-vietnamese and half-laos and like Central American sugar cane, she has been cultivated by the hard labor of a friendly, neighboring caretaker (his brother, in fact) before she reaches our hero. To let the gravity of his heart plunge him towards her open fields would be to lose a brother, a good man, but to stand his ground would be to lose something altogether unimaginable. She is carnally sexy and our boy would die inside the space between her thighs—which he would, because he cannot live without her sad eyes. He stays away from the femme de vivre, no death call she, because he is scared that his life begins only if he can give her his heart without letting it bleed.

The Real Chuck

Some of you may have noticed the internet culture reverence for Chuck Norris, 70′s karate dude. The schtick consists of a collection of hyperbolic “truths” regarding Chuck Norris’ prowess and magnificence. Like, “Chuck Norris once stared in a Godzilla movie and kicked Godzilla’s ass so bad that he retired from fighting and wrote the Land Before Time movies for Disney.” That’s an original, by the way.

In any case, Chuck Norris is funny, but he’s nothing more than a hairy-chested redneck orangutan compared the real Chuck:  Chuck “the Iceman” Liddell.

If you don’t know, now you know.

Chuck Liddell’s roundhouse kick is stronger than Chuck Norris’, but he’s such a badass he hasn’t had to use it since 1993.

Chuck Liddell’s mohawk was first sculpted by Frank Lloyd Wright before stepping over his thesis advisor on his way to becoming the greatest architect of the 20th century.

Chuck Liddell competed in the World’s Strongest Man competition in 1995 but was disqualified when he destroyed the tow-car using a series of low-kicks, shattering it to pieces.

Chuck Liddell once had sex with 10 underage girls in the same night and then woke up in a bar, beating everyone up severely with his shoe. He would have been guilty of statutory rape except Chuck was 14 at the time.

Chuck Liddell’s abs are actually four extra sets of pecs, and each of them can bench more than Chuck Norris can.

Chuck Liddell once declared, as a joke, his intention to fight a boxer recently diagnosed with HIV–everyone laughed.

One of the lost books of the Bible mentions the eighth sign of the apocolypse:  Chuck Liddell will loose twice in a row. Even though this has already happened, God doesn’t want to come down because he’s afraid of reminding Chuck that he lost to Keith Jardine.

More men have gotten laid because a woman saw Chuck Liddell on TV and subsequently had sex with the first guy she saw, than by any other reason–including wealth, power, and looks.

Chuck Liddell works for the city, towing illeagaly parked cars by hand just to get an extra workout in before lunch.

The Chinese characters on Chuck’s head are complete jibberish meaning “Sky Man Bush Sauce” but after Chuck’s first fight in Japan, the emperor changed the characters for Hokkaido Island to “Sky Man Bush Sauce” in his honor.

Chuck’s high school sweetheart was a woman thirty years older than him who invented double penetration as a porn actress in the 70′s.

Chuck Liddell has no enemies over the age of 12, because that’s when he considers them “fair game”.

Chuck Liddell once left his backpack at a college bar. An English woman stole his creative writing homework from the bag and used it to write the plots to every Harry Potter book published ever since.

After a night of hard drinking, Chuck Liddell finds his way home by sprinting randomly into streets and buildings until he can’t hear traffic anymore.

Spike TV gives Chuck Liddell 2,500 dollars every time he masturbates. Which is never.

Gio Recommends Books

Vonnegut — Cat’s Cradle: about how stupid people are and how Vonnegut is so much more aloof and intelligent because he can write a hilarious and touching sci-fi satire. Also about how stupid, in particular, men are and how Vonnegut is above penis-follies because he values only decency and good taste. Well fuck you Vonnegut, I have a penis and it gets me into trouble and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Because I spell trouble P-U-S-S-Y. And for a real man, there’s nothing like the smell of trouble a-brewing in the morning. Nothing like a good fistful of trouble on my lap. Nothing tastes so good as—OK, you get it.

Asimov — Everything he ever wrote ever, but non-series (stand-alone) titles include: The Gods Themselves and Nightfall, both of which are in the theme of impending global catastrophe, the survival of which is impeded by political/social barriers of the peoples involved.

David Brin — Earth: amazing read, an incredibly believable and engrossing account of an Earth in danger of death by Physics. Epic in heroism and length (500+ pages of smallish print in my 5.5”x7.5” copy).

Engine Summer – Obscure and haunting post-apocalyptic Earth story couched in new perceptions of human nature. A journey of discovery and romance. No zombies, but a tribe of people named after a cat called Dr. Boots.

My favorite non Sci-Fi non-Orwellian stuff:

The God of Small Things – Only a political activist and poet like Arundhati Roy can make a story of sexual abuse, poverty, and failed dreams strike beautiful.

The Good Earth — Historical epic, following the rise and fall of a single Chinese farming family during the times preceding the republican revolution.

Stranger in a Strange Land — Sci-Fi, sort of, but actually a really inspiring tale of the second coming of Christ in the form of a groovy, polygamous Martian.

Lolita – ???

Rumo and His Miraculous Adventures — Super bad ass fantasy adventure, dark and often violent, but with clean, tongue-in-cheek humor. Puts the fantasy genre to shame by its sheer hilarity and engrossing read.

Dirty Jokes and Beer — Drew Carey’s auto-biography. Actually pretty good; a whole chapter on dick jokes. For example: “My dick is so big it is a part of all of us, and we are all a part of my dick.”

Al Franken’s books — I’m tied between Lies: And the Lying Liars who Tell Them, and Why Not Me: The Inside Story of the Making and Unmaking of the Franken Presidency where he writes a fictional journal supposing he became president. Both of these books are freaking hilarious, but Lies will piss you off, even if you’re liberal. Maybe, especially if you’re liberal. Those guys are really fucking liars.

The Alchemist — Amazing story about a boy who follows his heart. Smacks of self-help books like Og Mandias’ The Greatest Salesman in the World, which use a paper-thin alegory to carry their life message. One must like sort of corny stuff, but it’s a great and inspiring story. After I read it I wanted to pack up my stuff and quit my job and pursue my dream of—wait, I don’t have a job. Or dreams. Well, nice read anyway.

The Double — Translation of a Brazilian work, crazy tale about a guy who finds a duplicate of himself in his city. Don’t remember much else about the work, except that it was a total mindfuck.

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress — Short novel about two city kids forced into the countryside indefinitely for being suspicious intellectuals during the reign of Mao’s Cultural Revolution. Catcher in the Rye meets peasant-bungled version of 1984.

Catcher in the Rye — Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress meets Only-One-Guy-In-This-One and old-timey type slang and dialect. Lots of talk about what kinds of guys are which and how they make the protagonist sore. Semi-spoiler: he tries to score with older dames at hotel bars and it’s hilarious. Ah—those were the days.

Wind-up Bird Chronicle — Murakami’s masterpiece about the boundaries between self and others, between pain and pleasure, between cat and dog. A man’s wife disappears and he embarks on a journey into the Weirdness to find her. Other favorite Murakami pieces:    South of the Border, West of the Sun, which is a total boner-popping erotic scrap of a story that is also literary genius;  Norwiegan Wood, which is ironically not as boner inducting as South of the Border. This one’s a semi-autobiographical story based on Murakami’s college days, involving a ghost-like female figure—some good boners in there too, though, to be honest.

Miguel Street – A rich account of a diverse third-world ghetto in British Trinidad. No jokes here, just hard times for a little boy growing up in the ghetto.

Chicago Turnovers Have Been Extremely Costly

What happens when the left-side corner in a cover 3 scheme bites on post route across the middle and the opposing quarterback is actually releasing a beautifully arched lob the left? 99 Yard TD pass happens. If the said quarterback was starting from his own 1 yard line, that is. Which exactly describes the situation of the 2008 week 12 game between the Vik’s and the–no, wait, Da–Bears, as of early in the first half.

[Another pick as I am writing this]

Why is that important? Not at all important. Totally non-sequitor. Except to say what has already been said many times before by sport-conscious comedians:  what is up with John Madden? I mean the guy makes comments as if he was explaining football to his wife. Who is from Romania and has never seen the oblong American football in her life. And he never makes a disclaimer to his juvenille commentary. He just says it as if he was a police chief uncovering the clues that the rookie cop couldn’t decipher. For god sakes, he was an actual coach in the NFL in the 80′s. He coached the Oakland Raiders. He had to know more about football than the fact that failing 3rd down conversions is bad. Of course it is! You don’t even have to watch a game to know the kind of stuff Madden talks about. They’re basically inferable from a standard summary of the NFL rulebook. Every 12 yeard old who’s played any of the football games, which, by the way, are named after the big oaf, would know more than this after his first week of playing. Maybe the first time Madden started commentating, someone working for ABC told him to dumb down the commentary for viewers who were new to football. And Madden has never wavered from that advice. Then again, maybe he really doesn’t know about football. He’s never made a comment about the different coverage schemes, or using motion in the backfield, or whatever. Maybe he secured and executed his duties with the Oakland Raiders with sheer imbecile enthusiasm. Maybe his offensive and defensive coordinators did all the work and he was just a puppet-leader Juan Bautista of a coach. A mascot.

But again, we must ask, what does that have to do with anything? Not at all.

I finished reading The Alchemist. I burst into tears at the end. But I’m no closer to understanding what I want in life. No, I’m only inspired a little. Uplifted. I reckon that I’ll get closer whenever I stop thinking about these things.

What are my dreams?

An Ihmam meets the love of his life returned from the grave after the friday mosque meeting. He walks with her to the pastures outside the town. They vow to always love each other and always be true. Two mounted robbers swoop in like a storm and kidnap the couple, taking the lovely young woman on one of the horses and dragging the man after having tied him to the other horse. They hold short swords and they force the Ihmam to watch his love be pinned down and ravished. She tells her man to close his eyes and wait for it all to be over. But the Ihmam is not scared of blades or of being cut, his only deterrent from violent action is the threat of his love loosing life or limb. God forbid she dies. Her robber enters her and the Imam is aware moments later when he hears the thumping of the forsaken love-making. He sees that her robber has left his sword at his feet. He asks Ala for forgiveness and swings his body to grip his detainer by the sword-less arm. He drags him to his back and switches his grip to control the sword arm. With the now free arm, the Ihmam pins the robber’s head to the ground by his hair. The robber is subdued with a crash of the Ihmam’s knee into the robber’s chin. The Ihmam’s bride to be cries out and her violator’s blade falls on his neck. The woman is raped again and her head is bashed against a rock. When she comes to she lays her head on her love’s chest. His neck was almost cut clean through. She says to him, “I’m sorry that you had to see me being raped. But I am a woman and it is my nature to endure. I didn’t want to hurt your pride, but if you had only closed your eyes and waited, we could have lived to see our families again.” The Ihmam spoke to her amazement, “I’m sorry. I am a man. Weak. Only stronger–strongest–” The woman takes root in another country and marries a good man.

What else? This is the me again. The Alchemist taught me that I’ve always known what I want to do in life. It’s that thing you dream of when you’re a kid. A simple dream. My mom’s dream came rushing out of her one day waiting in line at the D.F. embassy. She looked at the smartly dressed clerk processing walk-ins and a 17 yeard old Eloisa started shouting, “That’s it! That’s what I’ve dreamt of! That’s what I want!” For you see, an even younger Eloisa, soon before being lawfully abducted by her natural parents, when she was living with her uncle Benjamin in the town, she had a dream that she was behind a counter, dressed nicely, and speaking in front of a crowd.

The embassy clerk called my mom forward and asked her what was her commotion. What had she meant. My mom explained her dream and lamented that she had never gone to school. The clerk spoke reassuredly to young mom and told her that with these papers that her dad was acquiring she’d be able to go to the States and learn everything she needed to realize her dream.

I’m scared. Me again. I’m scared.

My dream was simple. I wanted to be a stand-up comedian.

I think I’ll become a teacher. But I promise, in the memory of my mom, who still seeks to realize her dream, and on the memory of my fallen cousins who succumbed to the ill winds of death surrounding their lives, and on the memory of my lost people, I will never, never forget my simple dream to be a comedian. Because that is my Personal Legend. That is my Destiny.

Oh Boi

I’m crying right now as I type the first draft of this post. 10:30am of Tuesday, November whatever–it should be at the bottom of the entry. I’ve been battling the past two days with terminal leukemia. No, no, that’s horrible, the fat headed boy was dying of leukemia. That’s what brought me to write this post. What I was battling was a ferocious urge to masturbate to internet porn. I decided, for perhaps the 24th time in my life, that I had a compulsion, if not a fully diagnosable addiction, around internet porn. We all do. But I decided to do something about it. The first day was surprisingly difficult. Ridiculous. This, the second day, is not letting up either. After a session of reading my AA texts didn’t calm the monkey, I took a piss and got ready to spank it, putting on my short short orange shorts that let me pull my penis out through the left leg and place it securely back inside in case my sister walks in. I’m not even sure she’s in the house, but I’m far past the point in my masturbating career to give enough of a shit to survey the surroundings. Nope, even if the door doesn’t close all the way because of a towel hanging over the top, I’m still too lazy to give a shit. At least that way who will suspect me of jacking off? Not with an open door. Or a door ajar. And short short orange shorts.

Anyhoo, I sits down in front of the ole’ lappy, right, and of course it’s open to the Yahoo main page which is featuring a video of some tearjerking final wish from a chubby kid. The kid looks like a less-cute version of an anime messiah character. And he talks very succinctly for a 11 year old kid. I guess oncoming death grows you up a bit. He said he saw a building or a room full of homeless people and he couldn’t think of anything else for his last wish but to ask that they be fed. So a food drive was started in his town for them.

But the part that drove me to tears was that as the news of this spread, food drives started all over the country in memory of Brandon.

In a more cynical time I would have scoffed at this, remarking how people only give when it’s trendy or sentimental to do so. But this time I just cried. I could try to enumerate and ontologize the feelings I felt, explain them and reason with them, but I have a suspicion such a thing is pointless. I saw a dying kid’s wish for a better world fulfilled, and it was beautiful.

Clay Bones on the Fate of the Universe

Ya’ll think it makes more sense that the universe gon’ keep expanding infinitely (that means a fancy word for always) and die a vast empty death where aint no chemistry, let alone life, possible on account of there being no more temperature gradient because all the stars done died and things is too far apart for gravity to pull ‘em together and fight entropy?

Or don’t it make more sense that the universe is curved positively, like a balloon, and not like a saddle, and that they aint enough dark energy to make the universe expand forever, and then down the road, gravity come and shrink the universe down until it aint nothin’ but the smallest little ball you could ever dream of until a Big Bang does blow it up again?

They say this here oscillitory model (meaning when something goes all the way full up, then down, then full up again)–that it aint got no legs to stand on on account of the oscillations not being exempt from the law of entropy which we all know just plain jiggers up any process where you using and reusing the same pool of energy and matter. I say phoey. Them scientists don’t know nothin’ ’bout nothin’.

They still think we’s come from monkeys. Jeez.