Embarassments

While the fighting community may look strong, passionate, stoic, and unweilding most of the what is actually happening is just plain embarassing.I refer to when a martial art is represented in media. I blame this on our spectacular society's tendency towards reification (the making of social relationships into objects) and commodification.

This saturday, after my training, I biked over to the Rocha Jiu Jistu gym in downtown Oakland. I'm casually acquainted with one of the instructors there and he let me know about try outs for a new reality tv show. Having a few hours to kill in the afternoon it seemed like it may be worth trying out. As one of the other participants said, "Getting on tv is probably going to get you a blowjob or two."
Upon entering Stefan and I chatted for a while and I mentioned my upcoming match this saturday. Then I was sent on my interview. A grey haired guy and a early thirties year old dude brought me back to the small office for a few questions. They were the producers for a project of Ken Shamrock's. Shamrock is going to have some sort of "School of Hard Knocks" reality tv show. He'll be training some street toughs for a while and showing them the errors of their ways, especially taking testicle reducing steroids. The producers asked me some leading questions about my past.
"So tell us where you were born."
"Well I was born in upstate new york and lived there for most of my childhood. Then my parents split up and I moved to vermont. After a stint in vermont, I finished high school in upstate at my father's house. Then I went to college..."
"So, when you were growing up were you smacked around at all? Did anyone rough you up?" Grey hair asked.
"Uh... not really," was my tentative reply
"Okay and then..." the thirty year old producer said.
"Well then I went to college. I did get kicked out of college for grafitti. After school I floundered for a while and moved out to california. I stayed in the bay area and then went to Las Vegas then back to the bay area."
"And have you had any trouble with the LAW?" Grey hair inquired.
"Ummmm. I guess not so much."
"Well it sounds like you're a real nice guy," affirmed the thirty year old.
"Yeah something like that."
"Thanks. Send the next guy in," said Grey Hair.

Occasionally I like to subject my friends to awful kickboxing movies. Muay Thai is not kickboxing, well at least not in the American sense. For a long time kickboxing has been a fighting sport fulled with dudes with mullets and satin pants snap kicking each other, this would be the American version of kickboxing. In movies portraying kickboxing such as "Kickboxer" with Jean Claude Van Damme you have an American kickboxer going to Thailand to learn muay thai. What they end up learning is how "easy" thai girls are and how to improve their flashy snap kicks.
Last night my friends and I sat down and watched "King of the kickboxers." I watched about two-thirds before it became too painful to go on. The story follows an american detective who goes to thailand in order to investigate a movie production company. The company shoots American kickboxers getting killed by evil "muay thai" bad asses (in this case Billy Blanks inventor of Tae Bo). Our hero finds out that Blanks is the man who killed his brother when he was younger (yawn) and now must avenge his brother's death (snooze). In order to do so he must go into the jungles of thailand (sounds like kickboxer with Van Damme) to learn muay thai (more american kickboxing) from an authentic thai (not thai). This movie had the typical western douchebag walking all over Thai culture and showing off. In one scene he goes to a muay thai camp with his douche bag denim jacket and steps into the ring challenging the nak muay to a fight. He quickly beats the nak muay with his flashy snap kicks. KA-POW! GO TEAM AMERICA!
Below is a sweet scene of Blanks killing out American superstar's older brother.


Finally tonight I got to sit down and see the new series out on the history channel called Human Weapon. The show follows two american douchebags on their to gallivanting adventure to become Human Weapons. In their quest to show how awesome one fat ex football player, and one mma schlob can be they go to thailand to learn muay thai. While in thailand they learn some muay boran, muay thai, krabi krapong, and a few other muay thai arts. The show has quick interviews with our hosts talking about how they're gonna kick ass in the show's last five minute scene. The last segment of the show has one of the hosts fighting a muay thai champion. In order to prepare for their upcoming match they travel through the exotic land of thailand learning ancient secret arts in hours. Its better than getting a black belt in a box kit! The show had some neat visuals, and it was rad seeing shots of thailand but had a typical american covering of spectacular lard. If only billy blanks could gun those two hosts down!

First Amateur Fight

As some of you may know I will be fighting on Saturday July 28th at the USF War Memorial Gym. The doors open at 5pm and the fights start at 6pm. There will be about 15 fights including my first amateur fight. You can obtain tickets at the door or from Fightandfitness gym in SF, Cheetah's gym in north oakland, or Pacific Ring Sports in downtown oakland. The tickets are $25 for general admission, and 45 for ringside. Please come out and support me and my fellow fighters. For further info you can give me a message me.
You can now purchase tickets here:
http://www.worldcsc.com/

Also here is a small picture of me and one of the kids from the saturday kids' muay thai class doing pad work. Joesph has some good form!

Khao No Ma Meuang pt. 2

Last Saturday after picking up some vegan donuts and taking a nap in the park Rob and I went over to the local thai market; Tuk Tuk Thai. Located on University and Sacramento the market is only two miles from my house, a short bike ride. I'd gone in with the intention of procuring a steamer and sticky rice. It took me some time as I had no idea what the steamer looked like. had a vague description from Jon and Mike about a "bamboo hat." The worker I flagged down helped me to get the steamer and after several unsuccessful attempts to grab the right rice, one of the thai ladies at the market grabbed me Butterfly brand Sticky Rice.

Last night I soaked the sticky rice and after running this morning I steamed it. I dumped the rice into the cloth and then put a lid on it. It took about twenty minutes for the rice to steam. It was nice and sticky afterwards. The coconut suace I used this time called for more sugar (1/2 cup sugar, 2 cups coconut milk). I dumped half of the coconut sauce on the rice and let it sit for a while and then I dumped the other half on. Peeled the mangoes and bam Mango Sticky Rice. This time it was much better tasting.
The steamer, bamboo hat, and cloth were inexpensive. The cloth wasn't difficult to clean afterwards and the whole process was pretty easy for such a delicious treat.

Can Dialectics...

Things have been pretty busy for me of late. More intensive training for the upcoming amateur fight is not only take up more time but more energy. It makes doing other things a little harder. I've also had to work more lately which is annoying. With so few other bartenders when one person needs a day off or gets sick we all end up getting fucked. Its a game of hot potatoe to see who gets the shaft the worst.

Today is a usual Sunday. I got up and cleaned the house after Sabrina had her party. We watched this awful scarring movie called Ken Park which evidently was supposed to be some sort of cathartic expression of teenage angst. Instead it was just painful. Anyways the house was littered with empty root beer bottles and melted jugs of ice cream. Then I did half of the large amount of dishes and went running.

Next its a shower, then off to Wat Mongkol for thai language lessons. There is a new semester beginning which is exciting although I'm unsure of which class I'll take. I outpaced the beginner class but it sounds like the advanced class might not be structured very well. After three hours of south eastern asian smack down its off to work. Seven and a half hours of pouring piss to drunks. Hopefully my genital pus will stay out of the beers this time.

I found this sweet clip today off of youtube. Its from the renowned situationist action flick "Can Dialectics Break Bricks?"

Pacific Ring Sport fighter pic

From top left: Me, Emmet, Byron, Violett,
Center left; D'arte, Moses,
Bottom left; Shalon, Tong, Nelson, Jason

Khao Niao Ma Muang

In my constant quest to become the best Muay Thai Fighter ever, or at least on Carleton St. here in Berkeley I have decided it would be a good idea to increase my Thai cultural knowledge. By being a connoisseur of Thai food perhaps I'll become a better boxer. As the old white dude on the corner who sold me a ripped off copy of Ong Bak with a can of coconut milk said; "Eat like the Thai fight like the Thai!"

So Today after training at the gym I decided to make the simple dessert dish, Mango Sticky Rice. This recipe is pretty full proof, unless you burn the rice you're gonna end up with something tasty.

Ingredients:
1) Coconut Milk -I used one can
2) Rice - I used sushi rice that my roommate had around. There are rices specifically made for sticky rice they can be found in the ethnic section of your local grocery or at an Asian food store
3) Mango -I used two small ones
4) Sugar -I used brown and about 1/4 cup
5) Vanilla -For Flava flava a teaspooon
6) Salt -Just a pinch yo

I dumped one cup of rice into a pot with one cup of water and let the rice soak for a little bit while I did other things. Then I dumped another cup of water in the pot and brought the water to a boil. After the water was boiling I turned it down to a simmer and let the rice cook, stirring occasionally so that shit didn't burn at the bottom.

While the rice cooked I made the sauce. I dumped a can of coconut milk, brown sugar, vanilla and salt into a sauce pan. I whisked that shit and added a little more brown sugar to taste. I ended up using a quarter of a cup of sugar, but I think it needed more.

I peeled the mango and cubed it into delicate pieces.

Once the rice was cooked I set it in the freezer. After about twenty minutes it turned into "sticky rice." Then I dumped the coconut sauce in the rice and set some mango on top. I chilled it for a while longer because I like my mango sticky rice cold. Then I shared it with some friends. The one cup of rice served 4 dessert sized portions.

Next time I think I'm gonna experiment with white sugar or maple syrup and use more rice as using the whole can of coconut milk made the dish a little soupy.

A prime number birthday

Kraazy Rob and Javier getting down

Birthday boy and Rob






Yesterday was my friend Aragorn's birthday. It was the second birthday party I'd been to of his, I think. This one involved a shit ton of tooth rotting soda. I drank five or six sodas in the course of two hours, which is a lot of sugar. It made my stomach pretty upset. The festivities were enjoyable and a good time was had by most if not all.

Various people celebrating joyously













to the right is my fighter picture. I'll be in an amateur fight later this month and in order to appear on the poster a mug shot was taken. One of the guys at the gym was "nice" enough to edit the picture cropping off some of my hip fat. I think I have a complex now.