Tuesday, September 25, 2012

R.I.P. Bataan Faigao



 More sad news just arrived over the telephone...my Tai Chi teacher Bataan Faigao died from liver cancer. Bataan was also a writer, a poet...

 

6 years ago, he made the 800 mile trek to come to my wedding. That's him leading a sword form in our backyard during the wedding festivities. Back when I was still in Colorado and I had started learning the sword form, I was struggling with a particular "hopscotch" type move. I had a lot of stuff on my mind (more so than the usual stuff that goes through your mind, like in the Ginsburg video above) and I couldn't quite get it. After Bataan had showed me for maybe the 4th time in a row, he paused and went very quiet, one of those Bataan moments when he appears to go deep. After a couple of minutes, he finally looked at me, and deadpanned "White guys can't jump."



We used to practice outside by Boulder Creek, under the library overhang. The acoustics weren't so good there, especially when the creek was running high. Sometimes it was hard to hear Bataan's voice because, aside from the bad acoustics, he was soft spoken. When I first learned the move Bend The Bow, Shoot The Tiger, I thought he said Ben Lo Shoots The Tiger. I thought, "Wow, this Ben Lo character must be real bad ass, he got a move named after him." I went about week thinking that's what the move was called until Bataan's wife Jane corrected me. She got a good laugh out of that. Jane was also a painter, and when I showed her a bunch of my paintings, she suggested I name the one above "Ben Lo Shoots The Tiger", so I did.

I drew a cartoon of Bataan once, but I can't find a copy right now, and Wolfe Lowenthal wanted the original 11 years ago, so I gave it to him. And who's got the cartoon of Wolfe? Darren V?

  Say hello to Kuya for us, old friend!

 And now some blues from Jane and Bataan's lovely and talented daughter, Wendy Woo

Sunday, September 23, 2012

Buss the Bus, Bus The Buss Public Service Announcement

I've been reading a rash of writing where people use "bussing" or "bussed" when they mean "busing" or "bused", like "Mitt Romney bussed in people to fill the seats at Univision."

 If I planted my lips on this vehicle, then I bussed the bus.
If I put the above painting on the above vehicle, and then drive, then I'll be busing The Buss.
This Public Service Announcement is brought to you by The Gary Busey Tumblr Tags.

 UPDATE: Special thanks to Bring The Bus, Buseyhead, and Guys From Area 51

Friday, September 21, 2012

Freudian Slit: The Incredible Shrinking Penis

Rush Limbaugh wants to blame "Feminazis" for the root cause of the supposed decline in the size of men's dicks.

"Give 'em time, and they'll blame bush." Limbaugh stated. Which is funny because bush is usually responsible for enlarging men's dicks, not shrinking them. But, it's OK Rush, there's certainly nothing wrong with bush shrinking a man's dick.

Bush isn't for everybody, and that's OK. I can see why Rush might want to generalize, though. He doesn't want to feel alone. If bush shrinks his dick, he wants to feel like he belongs, so he imagines bush shrinks every guys dick.

 And sometimes a cigar isn't just a cigar.

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Bruce From Your Old Wireless Company Just Showed Up at Your Family Picnic

He's driving a Hummer of The Gods, and carrying a rancid potato salad that's overloaded with expired mayo. After the picnic, he's going to follow you home and knock on your door. He'll be holding a clipboard. On the clipboard will be an offer to buy shares in a Check Into Cash franchise, with an option to bundle the shares with a new car elevator company startup. This is your chance to get in on the ground floor. If everything goes as planned, the car elevator will take you to the second floor.

Friday, September 14, 2012

Hey Frank Swart...

...look what I found on Youtube. Where was that, The Middle East? TT The Bear's? The Rat? Saw Clemma a couple of weeks ago when he rolled through town with G. Love. You fellas should put Who Be Dat back together with one of those mean Nashville pickers, and a woman on lead vocals. It just might work!

Stone Roses

Naked in the rain.

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Blues For Kuya

Rest in Peace, Kuya, may you be in heaven a half hour before the devil knows you are dead. I wish we were there right now with everybody in the shop. I'm so glad you held on long enough to walk your beautiful daughter down the aisle.

Sunday, September 09, 2012

The Persistence of Memory

A post over at BDR's got me thinking about memories I've carried for over 40 years.

 In the early 70s, it was a cool Fall day, a Saturday or a Sunday, and I was outside playing. I went inside to use the bathroom, and my brother Bill was watching TV, a movie on channel 38 or 56, a Chiller Thriller, or maybe a Creature Double Feature. The film was in black and white and it had a certain grainy quality. A man was being chased, a close up of his face, he was trying to flee some sort of castle or compound. There was a hedge. He tried scaling a wall by climbing up a rope, and in classic Mr Burns fashion, his enemy released the hounds! He got part way up the rope before the dogs got him, and the final shot was a close up of his hands sliding back down the rope, followed by THE END.

 I have no idea what the name of the movie is, what it was about, who was in it. I only saw maybe a minute or two of the final scene, but I would periodically wonder about it for years. The graininess was stamped in my brain. Flash forward 20 years to the early 1990s, and I was visiting a buddy in Chicago. After a hard night of partying, we were hanging out in his living room watching TV. I was clicking through the channels with the remote, and there it was again, the exact same scene! I recognized it immediately and excitedly announced how the guy was going to try scaling the wall but the dogs were going to pull him back down the rope. When the minute or two was up and THE END flashed on the screen, Freddie asked me what the name of the movie was, and I had to explain how I had no idea, and I'd only seen that exact scene 20 years earlier. It's been about 20 years or so since I last saw that tidbit of film, so I guess I'm due to chance upon it again. Does the description of the scene ring a bell for anybody? I'm really curious about the name of the movie.