Interview With A Weasel

"The purpose of life is to live it" --Terry Trahan

If you haven’t figured it out by now, the hooligans who congregate at the Michigan Gathering of the Tribes are a close-knit bunch. We train whatever we feel like, freely grabbing portions of each other’s art to fill in where we see gaps in our own. The broad range of arts and systems to choose from always leaves me with full pockets, but the camaraderie is what its really all about. Terry Trahan, like myself, was inducted into this group a few years ago, and had a short teaching session also. I remember his segment from that Gathering well: He was nervous, unsure of himself, and struggled to find the bridge between what he was thinking and what he wanted to say. He had good material, but it was very disorganized.

What a difference a few years makes.

Terry and I come from similar backgrounds, both in life and training. Maybe that’s why we’re still good friends after several years and over a million insults, racial slurs and musical disagreements. Long before we were friends, however, I knew him on several different self defense forums, knife fighting chatrooms and various bestiality websites. Never one to shy away from expressing his opinion, we’ve butted heads on more than a few occasions as well. I think this may be why we’re still friends…I so rarely meet someone with the same skull density as mine.

I’ve watched Terry struggle for years between systems, teachers and philosophies, looking for answers from those of the supposed “enlightened” set. The bottom line for him hasn’t changed since I’ve known him: Get to the point of what you’re training. Get to the truth of it, and start from there.

Listening to this interview, it was clear to me that Terry has come into his own in the martial arts, finding the balance between having something to say and having something to teach. His eclectic, straightforward and terribly effective combative system, dubbed “WeaselCraft”, premiered at the Gathering of the Tribes this past summer, and by all accounts was a hit. The interview was recorded during that weekend, and it appears that a lot of things were still fresh in Terry’s mind.

Terry discusses his experiences growing up in the wrong side of Colorado Springs, and the difficulties he faced, as well as his insights into martial arts. I was going to write about my favorite part of the interview, but to tell the truth, there isn’t one: It’s all good stuff. Terry goes into the mindset of the street fighter, the urban survivalist and the martial artist without getting preachy, and he doesn’t lose us in the classical debates of “which is better for the street” bullshit. Given his upbringing, and his highs and lows in various fighting systems and the teachers of them, his reasoning behind the martial arts and why he still trains hits home with me. I have to admit, I found his insights refreshing and his advice for people of different strengths and physical shape who still want to train is important for both teacher and student alike.

Something I’ve always liked about Terry is that, despite his upbringing and his martial arts training (as well as street survival experience,) he doesn’t posture. There's no bravado in his teaching, nothing for him to prove. In the interview you really get the impression that, for Terry, life is about the living of it…Not racing to the finish line in a blaze of glory. It isn’t like I haven’t heard this before, but it’s usually from someone much older, with a lot more scars.

It was an awkward moment for everyone when Terry realized that was a DUDE he was proposing to...

Terry is also one of the members of the Gathering Peer Group, of which I am as well. We know each other’s flaws, we accept each other the way we are. As I said earlier, we all train, mix & integrate our various systems in unique ways. I see a lot of what we’ve been sharing with each other the past few years resounding with maturity in Terry’s interview. At this point, I would LOVE to say that Terry got that from me…Honestly, I don’t know where he got it from, and some of the things he speaks about are intellectually above my head.

The interview is a little over 45 minutes long, but it doesn’t seem like it. I’ve listened to it several times, and I get something new each turn. You can check it out HERE.

Congratulations, Terry. MacYoung couldn’t have done it better.

It makes me proud to call you my brother.

He's not that deep, really. He just doesn't know what happened to his underwear.

The End of an Era

I suppose I should post something about this, since I've been thinking about it for a couple of days now.

Michael Jackson. The good looking black guy who desperately wanted to be a white girl, and ended up being a sideshow freak in his own self-made media circus. I've never felt sorry for Michael, his music got progressively worse after "Bad", no pun intended...But man, did I think "Thriller" was the shit when I was 13. I wore the first tape I bought completely out, from choreographing two or three dances to every song on the album. I never copied his look, like most of the kids in my school, but then, I didn't need to; I could actually dance.

Like everything else, my tastes in music changed as I got older, and Michael never measured up to his former glory in songwriting, so he eventually dropped off my radar. Every so often I would see him on T.V., and some horribly disfiguring surgery would have altered his face yet again from the last time. I find it hard to believe that, with all that money, no one stepped in and said "Hey, Mike...That's enough with the fucking scalpel. You look like Skeletor wearing expensive clothes and a goofy-assed hat."

I was kinda stunned when my wife emailed me with the news (I wasn't logged onto CNN, I had no idea this had happened) "Did you hear about Michael Jackson? He just died of cardiac arrest!" I didn't believe it. You never think you're going to outlive the people who inspire you. You see certain people as Gods, in a way, immortal and everlasting. You never see the celebrities on the screen and think "They're human, too". But they are.

So, this is how I prefer to remember him...Not as the pedophilic, sociopathic jackass who consistently made one wrong move after another until he had pissed his career and life away, but the young guy who made great music and inspired a generation to get up and dance. A young man who got people aware and brought them together for the unprecedented USA for Africa movement. The spaceman who gave us the moonwalk, and freed the galaxy as Captain EO. The guy who, for the briefest of periods, made us believe.

I don't want to end this on a down note...'Cause This is Thriller

Kembangan

The Flower Dance of Indonesia

I have a real love-hate relationship with forms in martial arts. I don't have a problem with solo work per se, but I do feel that prescribed forms worked repetitiously ad nauseum don't do much to promote growth in training. That's not to say they have nothing to teach, but...How many of you still need that damn song to remember your ABC's? I see forms in a similar way, necessary to point but you need another point to progress to, or they tend to be stagnant.

People train forms for different reasons, depending on the style they prefer, and the national birthplace of the style will usually reflect a kind of blanket tempo that the forms' are worked at. I think most will agree that, whatever else they represent, forms are a collection of techniques indigenous to the style of origin, strung together in a particular order to reflect different variations, combinations, speeds and timing. I don't need forms to learn technique. I don't believe realistic technique can be qualified by so blunt a tool as "forms" in the martial arts. My reasoning is this:

Empty air doesn't attack me.

Empty air isn't armed.

Empty air gives no feedback in positioning, timing, sensitivity. For me, learning technique and the application of it is all about partner training.

"Structure" - "Posture" - "Rooting" - "Base"

These terms are bandied about as the all-important aspects of ANY martial art. You know what? They are important, no denying that. But the idea of a structure that promotes rooting in your stance over moving with balance is usually one that carries a kind of subliminal message with it, something like: "In this stance, you will be able to absorb ANYTHING if you can only root deep enough". It's like they want you to just stand there & see how much incoming force you can take. Well, to seven hells with that, I wanna get out of the way! But you can see many practitioners searching for that so-elusive secret to tapping into the energy of the earth's core when they should be looking at their lack of footwork.

But I was speaking of forms. As I get older, I see much wisdom in the idea of forms being presented in a dance structure instead of a kata-like structure. Dance is perfect for training balance in motion, and kembangan is a martial dance. Referencing my points above, I appreciate the fluidity Kembangan promotes, as well as the freedom to change, rearrange, adopt and adapt different techniques and rhythms to suit the individual training it.

Its easy to attain balance in stillness, most martial arts capitalize on this with sinking and rooting being the only options (Wing Chun & Karate come to mind). You see it time and again in the forms of other styles; that kind of "Sink-Root-Step-Repeat" staccato rhythm. Kembangan is called a dance for a reason, it is at once fluid and meticulous in that fluidity. A skilled pesilat has balance in MOTION, as well as rooting and stancework. He can lurch, jump, twist, drop, stand erect, post on one leg & return to a harimau position without once losing his balance. But why is this important? What does it have to do with fighting?

That's not something that can be answered in the same two-sentence interrogative that it was asked, there are too many factors to consider to brush it off with a simple answer. Silat isn't a cookie cutter art, it looks different as night and day even between two practitioners of the same style.

First of all, balance is needed before you can successfully attack or defend ANYTHING. Balance in motion is the critical deciding factor in a fight between a strong opponent and a weaker one. If you are constantly trying to regain your footing or get a purchase on the incoming attack, you will never be able to defend let alone retaliate. Many Silat techniques require multiple target spreads to make them work, how will you do this if you are always imbalanced at close range with the opponent?

Remember, kembangan (like all other forms in the martial arts) doesn't teach you how to actually FIGHT, although there are fighting techniques and motions included in the dance. It doesn't teach you how to enter on a punch, how to read your opponent's timing, when its time to switch from sapu dalam to sapu luar. It doesn't teach you trapping.

But what it does teach you is to move fluidly to a rhythm while lurching and jumping from one are to the next gracefully without losing your balance or your tempo. It teaches you FLOW at the basic level. You will finds many of the same techniques in your kembangan that also exist in your Jurus, but with a wider range of motion (bigger circling arms, stances are wider). This is not a mistake, it is there to ingrain certain balance principles in your body's development. It is also there to help you promote flow. That wide range of motion will serve you well in a fight, allowing you to move comfortably and skillfully at your discretion, and not hindered by a limited motion range, had you only trained the Jurus. You can move at a quarter, half, or the entire range of motion at your disposal, because you already do it in kembangan. The Jurus give you a more precise key to EXACT motion, the Kembangan gives you a key to GENERAL motion. I usually describe it like this:

1: Jurus give you the TECHNIQUE tool.
2: Buah (or Sambuts) give you the APPLICATIVE tool.
3: Kembangan gives you the MOTION tool.

Below is a Kembangan video of me shot during my last visit to Indonesia. I cut out some parts in the middle, because the form itself is almost 10 minutes long. But this should give you an idea of the varying tempos and styles that are contained in a single Kembangan.

Also; I'm not, by any stretch of the imagination, a good representative of flower dancing. This one in particular is a real alligator, and you will see that I blew it in a few places, especially the last section (Sera). Don't think I don't know this. I only had a couple of weeks to learn three Kembangans at once, combine them with the other 5 I knew & perform them all as one. On camera. I think I can be granted a little latitude here.

I'll post some of my teacher later, and you can get a really good comparison between an untalented white boy and an Indonesian Silat master.

The End in Sight

I'm working on the last chapter of Broken Horizon right now. I can't believe I'm saying that.

I have three other episodes that I could be cultivating into full-blown stories, but lately I've been feeling a pull to bring this to a close, and trying to mold those chapters into more stories just feels like treading water to me. It just happened a couple of weeks ago, I was writing something else and I thought of a great ending sequence for Severs, Robbie and Maria. I jotted it down & thought "Maybe that's how I'll bring it to a close in a year or so." And then the story started to really take shape, so I HAD to pay full attention to it.

I really was thinking that I could drag this out into something resembling novel-length, or at least big enough to put into a paperback. But the more I wrote, it became apparent that, as much as I didn't want to face it, in my heart, I knew;

It was time.

Broken Horizon started as a fun exercise in writing for me, it made me write every day until I got into the habit of doing so. I started the first story off in medias res, and it forced me to do some backtracking to unravel things a bit for the reader. Every episode had mistakes and flaws that were learning curve lessons for me, and I tried to make each one successively better.

The thing is, I have so many other stories that want out, and so many characters that are starting to demand attention that I'm not going to be able to keep returning to this world for much longer. And when writing becomes a chore, it's time to think of something else.

So the final chapter should be ready in a few days. I'm considering putting them all together, perhaps with a few episodes I still have half-written, into a PDF. We'll see.

Thanks to everyone who read and commented on my writing, and especially to Steve Perry who doesn't let me get away with shit.

See you all in a few days.

There Will Be Repercussions...

My back won't be scrambled forever, bitches. Laugh it up while you can...

Waiting for God

This is a short story I wrote for my friend Chuck. I thought it was good enough to publish here, so enjoy!

Waiting for God

Thursday.

Found a clean tape I can use for this. I haven't seen much extraneous material in at least six weeks. Maybe not so many. God, I can’t tell anymore. The sunlight is beautiful today, like long golden streams are falling down around my head. I can almost forget the rest, but I can’t drown out the sounds coming from downstairs, the other room, my own mind…

I am sitting in a wheelchair that’s dripping rivulets of my own shit. Not that I mind it so much, after three days without food or water. The cramps that wrack my body are much worse.

Honestly, that’s not what’s most pressing right now either.

Oh how I wish the noise would stop! I would shut the door if I could.

Time is growing short, I can feel it. My time, anyway.

I will not go into details of how they first appeared. How the governments of the world thought they could cope. How people were unprepared for the geographical infestation.

Whoever finds this tape will already know.

SHUT UP! Fucking Christ, spare me this noise! I can’t stand it. Ah, Christ. Looking down on me from your place of reverence on the wall above my bed. And there you will remain, long after I’m gone, that’s for sure. I can’t reach your plaster image to throw it on the floor and shatter it into a million beloved pieces. Sorry, that was crass.

I have no more food, and anyway, starvation is not what scares me.

I…My name is Robert Williams. I am…was, I guess, a priest. Oh God how did it all get to this? Are we so arrogant that You feel the need to wipe us out? It would not surprise me. Those times, the ones each human has in their pasts…No! I have got to focus. There is no time!

I am finding it increasingly difficult to concentrate. My mind keeps wandering. I cannot afford to have this happen. I do not have much tape left. I expect this to my epitaph, as there will be nobody to bury me or say any words for me. This does not upset me as much as it once would, since nobody is being buried lately.

Since the dead began to rise there has been little cause for funerals. Ha Ha.

Mrs. Davis had moved in with me to assist me, as I am virtually helpless. Three years ago I had an accident that left me paralyzed from the waist down, and precious little mobility in my arms or neck. I can, at present, barely lift a spoon to my mouth in order to feed myself. It seems that Fate has a sense of humor.

Mrs. Davis lost her family to this, this...I don’t know how to describe it. Onslaught. Plague. Curse from God. The screams from outside are terrifying to say the least.

At first, they were alive. Now, they’re just…Moans.

And they sound hungry. Oh, so hungry.

It would be so much easier without the noise. On and on it goes. That same strangled gasping. I am sure that soon I will go mad. Not in some melodramatic sense but actually medically insane.

Mrs. Davis could not go on. Her faith left her, no matter how hard she prayed. I didn’t blame her, mine had left long before. Four days ago she kissed my forehead and told me she was sorry. She walked into the other room.

That was the last time I spoke to her.

Starvation is not what scares me.

There is a reason for this tape. I want to ask forgiveness. Whoever finds us here I pray they end us before we end them. Please…if you are listening to this tape...I am sorry. I pray to God that I will not know what I am doing. Whatever you have to do to stop it, just DO IT! I don’t care, I probably won’t care. You are forgiven. I wanted it.

Mrs. Davis hanged herself in the next room. Her monotonous, choked gasps continue to torment me without end.

When the sun shines through the curtains I can see her shadow kicking. Also I hear the creak of the light fitting she obviously hanged herself from. It will not hold.

Soon the fitting will fall and Mrs. Davis will find me, in my wheelchair, unable to defend myself.

And then God will have some things to answer for.

Terry

It's been over a week since the Gathering. Do you suppose you could be bothered, in between slathering generous amounts of Branston pickle over your body & running down the street singing "Hot, Hot, Hot!", to write a fucking post about it?

I know, I know. You lead an active social life, between ministering to the homeless, learning the chords to all the Hall and Oates greatest hits and offering sexual favors to the criminally insane. But still, perhaps you could share with us some amusing anecdotes of your recent activities, no? Something to arouse interest in our stunted cerebral cavities, a taste of the whirlwind, giddy-as-a-schoolgirl lifestyle with your usual devil-may-care panache and literary apotheosis. We would be most...Grateful.

Most grateful, indeed.

Hope You All Had A Great Memorial Day

Steve Perry should be back from Louisiana today, so you guys probably won't have to look at that full urinal bag at the top of his blog much longer. Unfortunately, his colostomy bag is probably next in line...

Lately this whole undead thing is getting a little out of hand....

I’m getting sick to death of the zombie deluge that’s happening these days. Does that sound strange coming from me? I can’t help it. The latest trend in Hollywood “Undead” style movies seems to be “Throw unsuspecting teenagers in front of a camera and let zombies eat them.” You can’t just make walking corpses lumber into a living room, grunt twice, eat some poor bastard who can’t be bothered to stop reading his Sunday Times and investigate his wife’s screaming, and expect miracles on celluloid.

Movies like White Zombie, Land of the Dead, Dawn of the Dead (1978 version) Shaun of the Dead or The Serpent and the Rainbow seem to be fading bulbs in a dead Christmas light string left on the roof trim in the middle of February.

On the other hand, World War Z is hands-down the best zombie apocalypse book I have ever read. Every once in a while, I suffer from the literary version of penis envy; I read a book so good that I wish I had written it myself.

WWZ is that book.

World War Z is a collection of individual accounts in the form of interviews with the survivors of a global plague that has reanimated corpses & turned the populated regions of Earth into a graveyard. Ten years after the "official" end of the worldwide zombie war, millions of undead are still active and the geopolitical landscape of the Earth has been completely altered. In colder areas of the globe, outbreaks occur every spring, when frozen zombies thaw and find their way to human populations. Large swarms still roam the ocean floor and occasionally emerge onto dry land.

The plot focuses on the documents of an agent of the United Nations Postwar Commission who published the novel a decade after the “Zombie War”, when the United Nations leaves out much of his work from the official report, as it chose to focus on the facts and figures of the war rather than the human aspects he included. The novel charts a decade-long struggle against the teeming dead told from the view point of many different people and nationalities. In addition, the personal accounts describe the changing religious, geo-political, and environmental aftermath of the war.

Supposedly, they are making it into a movie…We’ll see how that goes. Like I said earlier, it takes more than zombies to make a good movie.

I, too, am here for the Kumite…

Is there anybody here who hadn't lost their fascination with Jean Claude Van Damme by the early 90's? He made about a gazillion chopsockey films, 20 comeback attempts, 12 marriages, four trips to rehab, a very ugly custody dispute, with a complete lack of talent, acting, martial, or otherwise.

But, you have to admit; He was a guilty pleasure. For the first few years, we thought we were on the verge of seeing something really great evolving. Just like everyone has their favorite Duran Duran song, they also have their favorite Jean-Claude Van Damme flick. I happily admit to “Bloodsport”, although I was a fan of “Timecop” for awhile.

Someone from Japan (???) suggested that I check out “JCVD”, a semi-biographical mockumentary/crime drama/heartwarming story about a boy and his dog that’s really a kickboxer.

It’s actually pretty good.

In fact, JCVD is the best movie this man has ever made, period. Steven Segal could not have made such a film. Bruce Lee probably couldn't have either. There's a moment of divinely-inspired inspired writing during the broken fourth wall sequence, where Jean-Claude looks at the camera and says "Sometimes, in Hollywood, they say; "We're gonna fuck him." It’s a sad reminder that not all heroes ride off into the sunset victorious. It also reminds us of how awesome this man once was.

Way to go, Jean-Claude. Looks like you get to go out with your head held high after all.

This one came out of left field

If you're as sick to death of lonesome, lovesick, slightly homosexual, overly-feminine male vampires going on for days about how their lives are a curse of solitary confinement, and how they long for companionship from the living if only they didn't have to eat them, well, let me say here and now that you don't need a good vampire movie. After all that, you need to get your ass to a therapist.

However, if you are so inclined, may I direct your attention to "Let The Right One In". Easily surpassing the overly syrupy teen-angst ridden "Twilight" and the mega-cheesy "Blade" series (Wesley Snipes is about as believable a vampire as Bill O'Rielly was a news anchor). The title refers to the Morrissey song "Let the Right One Slip In", but also to the aspect of vampire folk lore which says that vampires cannot enter a house unless invited.

Set in early 80’s Sweden, Let The Right One In is about a 12-year-old boy named Oskar, and a seemingly same-age girl named Eli, who turns out to be…quite a bit older. Oskar is the typical outcast at school, tormented and bullied, and Eli is new to town. They make friends in the park behind his apartment building, and Eli teacher Oskar to fight back instead of turning away. “Hit them. Hit them hard.”

There are so many great scenes and subplots to this movie, I can’t give a worthy review in one article. Suffice it to say, this one is worth the movie price.

DO NOT bring your kids to this movie. For that matter, your teenage son should avoid it as well. Although Let The Right One In is ostensibly about a pair of children, this is a horror film for adults, and while the scenes of friendship, courage and love are depicted in the best traditions of Disney, the horror shots are INSPIRED, and the pool scene finale will leave you open-mouthed stunned.

I own the book, and it makes the movie seem like a lovely French film about a girl and her balloon. Dark and twisted, the subject matter is barely acceptable for people over 50, and although the movie captures the spirit of the book, I’m glad they toned it down some as well.

(Aside note: As usual, there is an American version being filmed right now, with completely different actors. Why can’t we just accept good things from other countries without always fucking with them to seem like WE thought of it? For fuck’s sake already…)

If you have a Netflix account, you can watch JCVD and Let the Right One In on the free download tab. You won't be disappointed.

Again, with the curse (Must be a full moon, or something)

Something I can’t knock about being a writer is the need for specificity in presentation, to be concise (or, as concise as possible) with clarity and simplicity. When I see something like statistics, quotes or second-hand information being passed around as truth, I WANT SOURCES, GODAMMIT! And, accordingly, I hold myself to the same standard, which I believe makes my articles and stories more readable, and helps my overall craft evolve.

Unfortunately, this has made me a proper asshole to hold a conversation with.

I can’t seem to speak with my friends on topics than breach superficiality anymore, I can’t hold a “deep” conversation with a close acquaintance because I always demand the same verbal acuity of others that I demand of myself. I want factual support to back up claims, I want research and evidence, or at least verisimilitude until proven otherwise. I have subjected several buddies of mine to this line of reasoning lately, hoping to infect them with the same disease that I obviously have. And they are starting to lose their patience with me.

Yesterday my wife, finding the limit of her fuse with me quicker than I anticipated, exploded in a frustrated rage at my correcting her usage of a particular word. After wiping gobbets of angry Chinese woman off me (that one’s for you, Steve) I decided that maybe I should keep my literary smugness to my damn self. I poured myself a nice hot mug of shut the fuck up and write, and left my wife alone to have a good fume for a few hours.

Writer’s Curse: It has many symptoms.

I refuse to accept your version of reality...

Try to pronounce that. You can't do it without giggling. I have tried, God knows I have, to get on board with this "new look". Unfortunately, I just KNOW it won't come with "new writers", or "better editing". Hell, at this point, I'd settle for "halfway watchable".

I dunno. In the late 50's, it was called "Speculative Fiction", and I think it was L. Sprague DeCamp who "came out of the closet", so to speak, with the term "Science Fiction". Whoever came up with "Sci Fi", I have no idea, but it's what I grew up on, so a bunch of Vulcan ear-wearing rejects attending a convention who didn't date much in high school can lick me. I writeSci-Fi. Its short for Science Fiction. I don't know what the hell "SYFY" is, but it souds like a disease you catch between your toes.

Maybe this is just the next generation putting their 2 cents in. To them, I say:

SHUT THE HELL UP, YOU SNOTNOSED BASTARDS!!

This...Is why there's a disconnect.