Bullfight, Son!!!

Ok, so before I start this little entry I feel like I should preface the whole thing with some sort of warning in relation to what I’m about to write about. So here we go.

WARNING!
The following blog entry may be offensive and/or disturbing to some people. It includes pictures and word-age which may be disconcerting to the squeamish/animal lovers/little girls. However, it is no doubt a fantastic post describing what was quite possibly the most enjoyable day of my life that didn’t involve my kicking someone in the dome.

A’ight, with that out of the way, I’m now free to wallow in my own crapulence. So let’s do this. There was pretty much only one thing that I really wanted to do while studying abroad this semester. It had nothing to do with going on any trip to some country/place or even becoming fluent in this crazy language. I wanted to go to a bullfight. I gave a speech on such an activity my senior year in high school and became quite interested in the concept. And during my preparation for said speech, I stumbled upon a picture that was taken at a corrida de toros that was simply too epic to be ignored. The following isn’t the actual pic that I’m talking about, but it’s the same concept. The point with all this is that I had a miniature copy of this photo made and have kept it in my wallet ever since. People ask me sometimes how I can always be in such a good mood. Oftentimes I respond by taking out my cartera and saying, “Because I’m not this guy.”
So yeah, like 12 days ago or so I did some internet sleuthing on the matter of bullfighting in Spain and found that there was only one event left for the season. No doubt in my mind that I had to go. Problem: a lot of people don’t actually have a desire to see an animal get brutally slaughtered for sport (although, the meat is actually sold and such, so it’s not a waste – but brutal, yes). Thankfully my gangsta buddy down here, se llama Laura, was more than down to rock an activity like this.

So I booked the tickets for her and me. Now there’s six sections in the arena for seating. Lower level (tenido bajo) and upper level (tenido alto), and then those two are divided into whether the seats are in the sun, not so much in the sun, or in the sun for some of the time. I decided that I was going to rock the cheapest tickets and thus I ordered tenido alto in the sun, or “sol” if you will. 17.25 Euros a pop. Not too bad for something that I HAD to do. I did all this on Wednesday, so anticipation had built up pretty high by the time Sunday rolled around for the fight.

I wandered over to Laura’s room at about 1:03 in the pm for to pick her up and salir. I knocked on her door and was greeted by a person who was decked out in a Minnesota Gophers jersey and ready to friggin’ rock a bullfight. She remarked that she felt like she pretty much had to do up a jersey of some sort for this thing and that it was either the Gophs or a Brazil soccer one. Yeah, that seems like an irrelevant detail to point out, but remember this little tidbit for later. We in the business know this technique as “foreshadowing.” If this were a film, there’d be some sort of music here to get you to notice the importance of the situation, but alas, this is merely a blog… for now. Anyways, Laura and I grabbed our bag lunches we’d requested at the front desk (due to the fact that we were going to miss the meal) and headed out at about 1:10.

Just so you know, I've never actually watched an episode of Star Trek ever...

Shortly thereafter we were on a bus to Madrid and busted out our lunches. One of the sad things about this country is the fact there’s defs a lack of sandwiches. This problem literally kills me inside, so it was with much joy that I opened up the plastic bag containing our sustenance to be greeted by an apple, a bottle of water, and a friggin’ decently sized sandwich! Yay!During consumption of said meal it became extremely apparent to me that there was a very noticeable piece of apple stuck to the end of Laura’s nose. Now this is one of those situations that we’ve all faced before (whether it be a food particle, some sort of residue from inside the nose, or any other thing). It’s just a human trait that can’t be avoided. What does one do when this occurs? Do you say something to the person about it? Ignore it and hope that said persona just dislodges it without noticing? Hope that it falls off of its own accord? I’m not going to lie, I don’t know what the proper protocol here is. However, I can tell you what I did. Nothing.

Apparently Laura was facing the same dilemma as me as I had some apple on my snoz as well. It wasn’t until she wiped her face with her napkin and took a gander at it that she realized that we were both complete tools for staring at each other and not saying anything. Thus, we both came to the conclusion that we’re good enough friends to point such things out to each other in the future. Comedy at its best. Now obviously this wasn’t a very good story. And for that I apologize because it was a hilarious situation. But you know, you kind of had to be there. Nonetheless, while this blog is for the fans, some of the memories are just for me too :-)
So we got to Madrid without any issues at about 2:20 or so in the tarde. Not a problem at all. We had to pick up the tickets between 1:00 and 4:00, so there was plenty of time to say the least. I’d studied the frigg out of the Madrid metro station map the day before and gotten some good advice from the ever-so-cool Jennifer (who’d gone to a bullfight the previous week), so I was feeling pretty solid about the whole traveling thing. So we hopped on said metro and rode it as close as we could get to the Plaza de Colón (the place where the tickets were to be acquired).
Turns out it was only somewhat close. It took us about 20 or so minutes of walking to get to our destination, but that gave us plenty of time to just walk about, dominate the city, and just have a good time. And take a look at the following picture taken during this time and tell me that this isn’t another tight example of foreshadowing. Lucky, indeed.
Upon our arrival to the Plaza de Colón, the search for the ticket store place dealy (AKA Teyci's Office) commenced. The address for the place was Goya 5, Pasaje Comercial Carlos III. Shouldn’t be too hard to find. I mean, the website from where I ordered the tickets said that it was right across from the Plaza and they even provided us with a direct address. AND my dad’s a mailman (and the best friggin’ one ever, mind you), so I feel like I have an advanced knowledge of addresses and other such things due to this. Thus, how friggin’ hard could it be to find this place?

Turns out if you’re me, the answer is somewhat. And if you’re Laura, the answer is none. Thankfully. We stood in the Plaza looking across the street for signs of this place when she noticed a “7” on one of the buildings. I figured this was a marking for the blocks and stated that we probably only had two more to walk. Laura’s apparently smarter than me and came to the conclusion that the number was an address. Good call on her part as the office was two doors down from that one. I guess it wasn’t our time to walk any farther (HA! Do you see what I did there?! See, because “It’s Not My Time” is a song by Three Doors Down, and the building was only two doors down. Holy crap, that’s an incredible play on words! Props to this guy! :-)).
So we walked to the other side of the calle and went up to the door that had the sign for the office right friggin’ above it. It was locked. Raspberries. But there was some sort of buzzing/call system that one would typically see outside of an apartment complex there. Thus, we pushed each of the like ten buttons several times in the hopes that someone would let us in. Each time one was pressed a little mini camera could be heard scanning us from inside this little apparatus. Creepy. The whole thing was to no avail, though. Laura looked at me and asked me what time it was. I peeked at my reloj and retorted by telling her that it was 3:35. Hm… people in Spain have a tendency to close stuff down early, she said. Oh, schnikes.
We backed away from this building and walked to the next one over to see if there was a way in from there. Upon entrance, we were instantly greeted by a friggin’ FLASHING, RED-NEON SIGN for the Teyci’s Office. Ok… so this was the correct building, I gathered. Nice. Probably just disgruntled (yeah, I'm using that as a verb) a lot of people living in that apartment complex, but meh, whatevs. We walked up to the two tellers, and I exchanged information with the people in my broken Spanish. One of them gave me our tickets and turned away abruptly. Transaction complete, I guess… He looked back and bid us a jovial farewell. Ah, old Spaniards and their social skills, how I love them… or something to that effect.

The tickets stated that the bullfight was to start at 5:00. Thus, we had about an hour and eighteen minutes to grab some more food-age before the whole thing. We wandered off back in the direction of a metro station with the hopes of stumbling upon something solid. And something solid we found. Take a look.
Moving on, apparently there’s a food chain in Spain that may or may not exist anywhere else in the world that’s simply titled “Nebraska.” Moderately baffled by this information upon the finding of this place, we decided to eat there. A quick look at the menu revealed that they had hotdogs. For pretty friggin’ cheap. Both of us decided to order such things. I mean, there was no way that I could turn that down. PLUS there was bacon on it. Yeah. Frigg yeah, even.
As we waited for our food, our gaze turned up to the TV the establishment had playing at the time. Huh, a soccer game. Not too surprising. Wait… Spain vs… Brazil!? I later found out this was like the championship game of some sort of HUGE indoor tournament. Darn fine decision on Laura’s part to go with the Minnesota jersey, I’d say. Definitely not the day to roll with the yellow of Brazil, could’ve been interesting. While we pondered over this happening, our food arrived. And I must say that it was nothing short of exquisite. Hotdog, bun, two types of condiments of some sort slathered all over the place, bacon, and fries. Money.
We rolled out of Nebraska and back into Spain at about 4:25. Plenty of time to catch the metro, transfer, and then arrive at the Plaza de las Ventas de Toros for the fight at 5:00. Cake. After repping this whole thing, we followed a ton of people off the subway, up a like a flight or so of stairs, and into like 1929. The massive arena was instantly noticeable as it dwarfed everything around it. I knew that it sat 25,000 people, but dang, I was still taken aback by how gihugeant it was.
Present in the area was a tight statue that we totally had to get a picture of. Now one of the first rules of Spain (and tourism in general) is to hold on to your camera (and err’thing else) at all times, but there were tons of people here and everybody seemed like a tourist (yeah, like no Spaniards here at all), so we found a nice middle-aged fella who seemed to be overjoyed to take our pic. Little did we know that this cat was a professional photographer as he took a couple of shots trying to properly position himself to nullify the sun’s glare. He walked up to us after the snapping of the pics and pointed to the sky muttering “Sun… sun,” in broken English. Good thing he did that, because neither of us have any skills at all in the Spanish department. He probably could’ve pointed and said “Sol… sol,” and anyone would’ve figured it out. But yeah, we’re totally two blonde Americans at a bullfight, so I guess it stands to reason that we probably wouldn’t speak Spanish. Nonetheless, he was a very kind man who took our picture and didn’t steal Laura’s camera. So yay for that!
Of course after this picture festivity, we had to go pick up a couple of t-shirts for ourselves at the little dealy outside the arena. Tourists, indeed. We pondered buying some candy as well for the whole thing, but decided against it. The woman rocking the dulce place had no idea how to answer Laura’s question of what her favorite one was, so thus, we decided to roll sans candy. But I'm not going to lie, the idea of consuming popcorn at a bullfight is an incredibly awesome one... next time...

We walked into the place up to the dude checking the tickets over. As is customary in Spain, he ripped them at the top, and we were allowed access to the impending massacre. Now doesn’t that process of ticket checking seem a bit sketchy to you? Like he just rips it. Imagine that if you accidentally ripped the ticket yourself somehow. You probably wouldn’t be allowed in. Maybe this wouldn’t be the biggest deal at a bullfight, but they rip tickets for EVERYTHING. Including plane and bus. I guess you just gots to be careful with ye stuff.

The man pointed out the direction for us to go, and we wandered farther into the massive edifice. We followed the signs and started walking up the stairs to the tenido alto when I took a look at the tickets. Hm… they said “tenido bajo” on them. Interesting. So we walked back to the steps and asked someone where we should go specifically. He pointed us to an area on this, the lower, level. Tight. We weren’t complaining. We kept moving until we got into our designated section. We looked around briefly and found it to be packed. Except for two spots right in front of us. Holy friggin’ crap! We instantly grabbed ourselves some stone seating IN THE SECOND ROW before anyone could snatch them up. Awesomeness that in no way can be contained in a can!
We looked at each other with chagrin at our good fortune. Epic seats. We turned back to the ring and just waited for the festivities begin. I couldn’t hold back the smile on my face at this whole thing. I was in Spain. With a great friend. At a friggin’ bullfight. With primo seats. After a brief little parade of all the matadors and other people involved in the thing, it got under way.
Now I don’t normally feel like I’m in Spain when I’m here. Like, chilling in Toledo and such isn’t a big deal to me anymore. It’s home. But when that first bull came barreling out into the ring, I felt like I was in friggin’ Spain. Like I actually had a sense of nationalism about the whole country. It was absurd and something that I probably won’t experience again while here. That’s how awesome it was. Laura and I certainly made the people around us aware of our thoughts as well in terms of this. Now I’d be surprised if the old Asians in front of us, or in fact if anyone around us, spoke English, but we (and especially her) got some interesting looks from the fellow watchers of this awesome affair. Crazy Americans.
A’ight, so at this point you’re probably wondering how a bullfight actually goes. Well, dear friend, let me tell you. Said activity consists of three stages, or “tercios” if you will (which translates to like “thirds,” I believe). In the first, the tercio de varas, the matador (or in Spain, the “torero”) comes out and watches the bull to kind of get a feel for what the animal likes to do in terms of charging and attempting to gore the frigg out of the man. As said crazy man watches on, two people come out riding horses to join in the festivities. These peeps are known as “picadores,” or “lancers” if you prefer. The name comes from the fact that these cats each have a GIANT friggin’ lance that they use basically use to wreck the bull’s dreams. Wisely during all this, the horses are wearing some sort of armor, because if they weren’t… well, there’d be a lot of dead caballos on our hands.
The tercio de banderillas comes next. In this stage three more crazy people (the banderilleros) come out rocking what we in the bullfighting world know as the aforementioned “banderillas.” These are basically colorful, absurdly sharp, barbed sticks-o-death. These dudes goad the bull into running at them, and then brilliantly sidestep the charging the beast, jump into the air, and drop the proverbial stick hammer into the bull’s back. Friggin’ nuts.
The third and final stage is called the tercio de muerte. Now” muerte” significa “death” in Spanish, so you can probably surmise where this is going. At this point the torero comes back into action and basically (in theory) owns the bull something fierce. He busts out his cape (muleta) and toys with the animal for a fair amount of time in an effort to sufficiently tire the poor creature out even more so. When he’s decided that it’s exhausted enough, he reveals his sword, does an absurdly gangsta pose with it by pointing said sword directly at the toro, runs straight at him, and plunges the weapon into the beast’s back – preferably between the shoulder blades going down into the heart area.
If all has gone well, the bull collapses briefly after this takes place. Then one of the cronies comes back out with what’s pretty much a knife and stabs the bull in the brain to kill it. And then just to “pay the insurance,” he severs the cervical vertebrae of the animal to ensure death.

At this point, three horses come out flanked by a couple of dudes to drag the bull out of the arena. I swear it looks exactly like the end of The Mummy Returns *spoiler alert* where Imhotep becomes mortal again and the carriage drags away his invincibility-ness. *end spoiler* And as the horses run out of the place, for some weird reason one of the guys cracks a bullwhip to just to top the whole thing off. The whole thing is completely surreal. And we got to see six of these friggin’ fights (each torero gets two bulls)!
I should point out that yeah… like only one or two of the fights ended cleanly. There was definitely some difficulty for the toreros with their finish with the sword, and some problems with the dudes stabbing the creature at the end of it all. It seemed like at times the B-squad was out there, but that definitely wasn’t the case as one of the fighters was absolutely money out there in terms of dominating the bull. I can’t even describe how sick he was in terms of the pwnage.
What I can describe, though, is the fact that we watched the last couple fights from the FIRST FRIGGIN’ ROW, SON! Yeah, a couple of the old Asian people in front of us just got up and left. Holy schnikes, Batman! We sat in the first row of the most famous and important bullfighting ring in the world to see the last fights of the season! How epic is that!?!? Answer: Very. Very epic, indeed.
Yeah, I workout a bit. What can I say? :P

But that wasn’t the end of the whole thing. After hanging around the stands for a bit to take some pics, we noticed that some people were actually inside the bullring. Yeah, we had to get in there. So we wandered around briefly before finding access to this thing. Now there’s no way that any picture can do justice to what it was like to stand in the middle of a bullfighting ring. It’s nothing short of amazing. It’s basically a straight-up coliseum-like apparatus. When you’re inside it, you really feel like you should be either (A) fighting bulls or (B) fighting humans/other animals in ancient Rome. It’s breathtaking to find yourself in the center of it. So after rocking all this, our day in Madrid had come to an end. So we hopped on the metro to get back to the bus station for to head back to Toledo. We found ourselves in the city at about 9:30, which was just a bit too late to catch dinner. So there was really only one way we could end this already perfect day. With McDonald’s. Frigg yeah. Best. Day. EVER!Yeah, this is the VERY McDonald's in Toledo that we ate at. Thanks, Google images! And on a related note, all of the pics from the bullfight that we went to are Laura's. So yeah, I totz just straight jacked them from her. With that being said, gracias TONS, Laura! :-)

Like I said, gangsta!

Check It, "The Knowedge" Drops on October 20, 2008!

A’ight, so it’s midterms week, which means I should probably be studying right now. But my first exam isn’t until Wednesday, so y’all know that I’m not going to even begin to think about partaking in any sort of estudiar action until Tuesday at some point. And if that horrid OMS 3001 class I took last semester taught me anything, it’s that past results are the best indicators of future performance. So if this fun little idea is to be believed, I should be fine cramming for three exams on Tuesday night and then for two more on Wednesday night.

Wow, I’m really a terrible student, aren’t I? Sometimes I wonder what I could do academically if I actually put forth some effort… but then I usually just see what’s on the TV and call it good. But alas, there’s no legit source of American TV here and my internet connection is as slow moving as I imagine a drunk John Goodman to be. Hm… is John Goodman still alive? I should probably Wikipedia that shiz to see. Hold on a sec, I’ll be right back. *wanders off into the interwebs* Ok, I’m aquí, again. Turns out he IS actually alive. Surprising, no? Although, the picture Wikipedia offers for him certainly gives one that idea that Mr. Goodman has indeed past into the beyond and the eternal land of chocolate rivers and delicious pastries – a place where no one’s even heard of “Roseanne.” *shudders at the memory of that behemoth singing the national anthem at a Padres game a few years back*

Anyways, the point with all this is that I don’t have anything to really do right now. So I’m blogging. Why the frigg not? There’s a few things that have been on my mind about this whole Spain thing since I got here, and today seems like as good a day as any to drop the knowledge on my one loyal reader (thanks, Amy! :-)). Ok, so I mentioned in my cargo shorts post about how all the residents of this crazy country seem to care a lot about fashion. Thus, doesn’t it stand to reason that they should be at least moderately aware of appropriate hairstyles as well?

I mean, I probably shouldn’t judge seeing as how I’ve rocked the same basic format of hair for myself since the Nixon administration. Although, now that I cut it short, it doesn’t suck anymore to look at (Hence, I officially apologize for my former atrociously long, crappy 1980’s south beach ugly manner in which I had my hair). Moving on, so what I’m getting at here is that the peeps of Spain have NO sense legitness in terms of their hair. Well, I shouldn’t say that; the DUDES have no idea what’s up. Now correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t believe that the mullet was ever something that one could deem as being appropriate. And that monstrosity is so prevalent here that I believe it’s actually the norm.

But even those guys that aren’t rocking the business/party look are way off. There’s an influx of rattails, faux-hawks, and other items that I don’t believe even have names. Living here and walking around is like being in a never-ending David Bowie music video.

I’ve said many times whilst here that Toledo (and sometimes Spain in general) is basically like a time warp. And that’s certainly true. I mean, this place has existed for over a thousand years and basically served as a military fortress like area for a lot of that time. Thus, the whole thing is cobblestone streets, rock faces, and just tight, old school purpose-serving architecture in general. But it’s basically life a time warp in terms of pop culture as well. I just talked about the hair, but I feel like I should mention the music as well.

Typically, it seems as if this country is just a few months behind the U.S. in terms of said pop culture. Like it doesn’t take too long for movies and music to filter over here, but there’s still some items that make you tilt your head about 38 degrees to the right, 27 forward, move it straight back about an inch and a half, furl your left eyebrow, raise your right one a bit, kind of purse your lips that awkward questioning way, and just direct your gaze directly forward. You know the pose I’m talking about. Try it in a mirror if you want to get an actual visual of what’s etched on my face several times a day here. Or just walk into a room where someone has recently farted. That should produce the same image on your cara.

Example, the other day in some bar I was privileged enough to see the video “Take on Me” by a-ha. ¿Qué? If you haven’t yet seen this video, please head over to youtube and check it out. And after that DEFINITELY take a gander at video that describes the literal happenings in the video. It’s awesome. I also saw a little “Like a Virgin” by Madonna too in a different bar last week. Now perhaps the bartenders or whoever was controlling the TV’s at the time were completely trashed. But nonetheless, seems a bit out of place, I’d say.

Ok, so that’s enough written about the idea of pop culture/hairstyle/and such for a while. Let’s walk down the path a little farther to something else that’s a commonplace in Spain: beggers. All right, so maybe I shouldn’t use that term as (1) the majority of them are offering something in return for money (although, what they’re offering is menial and unwanted) and (2) it’s probably not the most politically correct thing to say. But then again since I’m a terrible citizen, I’m not voting during this election, and thus, I’ll do whatevah the crap I want. Hm… that statement makes no sense at all on any level. *shakes head* Point is, there’s a lot of people around these parts trying to get something for basically nothing.

This was especially noticeable on the beach while in Barcelona. It seemed that our group couldn’t go for more than 8.pi minutes without being offered a massage by some random woman. The girls are consistent too, and a lot of them have their little basic anatomy charts to try and put for the idea of their legitness as well. Needless to say, I’m happier with my five euros.

There was also an influx of people just randomly selling purses and jewelry outside the mall in said city. I mean, it’s certainly possible that all these people were employed by some establishment and were working off commission or something to that effect, but nonetheless, I can assure you that I don’t have any need for a purse at this stage in my life.

However, it definitely isn’t fair that women get to carry such things around. They can put darn near anything they could ever desire/need for any situation in a purse whereas we as dudes have to fit our entire lives in like 10 square inches of leather… that’s possibly bound together via Velcro. But I digress; the day that I start carrying around a bag/purse-like-thing of any sort is the day that I’m wearing a fanny pack. And the day that I’m wearing a fanny pack is a hot summer Saturday in 1993 while I’m at the zoo with my family watching Sparkie the seal balance a ball on his nose while I’m sure he ponders how much he’d love to literally consume his trainer… or the día that I’m in a Richard Simmons “Sweatin’ to the Oldies” vid sporting a jheri curl, hot pink short-shorts, and an unquenchable zest for life.

But back to the matter at hand. I can surely say though that some of these personas are entertaining to watch. In several places in this country I’ve been witness to people who basically pretend to be statues. They dress up in some crazy attire, put on an absurd amount of makeup, and basically just stand still. Some act things out as well. One chap I saw in Barcelona was decked out perfectly as Edward Scissorhands and had all the mannerisms down solid. That was cool. But alas, I have a hard time giving money to people dressed as statues, because… well… they face some pretty stiff (ha – pun!) competition from the actual statues. There’s no way that I could bring myself to give currency to them when they’re clearly inferior to real thing. And obviously I can’t give money to the statues, because that’s both absurd and you know they’re not going to spend the funds wisely.

My favorite of all these people, though, had to be the African fellow in the Madrid metro station at 10:00 at night singing James Blunt’s “You’re Beautiful” in broken, off-key English. THAT guy almost got some change. Almost. And since I didn’t give this guy anything, I certainly can’t give anything to someone of lesser awesomeness than this guy. Thus, since there’s a fair/likely chance that no one will ever top this guy, then morally I can never give to a begger (terminology and semantics aside) in the future.

I should point out, though, that back stateside I have on multiple occasions given to people who’ve just out and out asked for money. My philosophy is that if they really need it, they’re not going to be the cat dressed like Gipetto from Pinocchio that hasn’t shaved since the Cold War who’s out everyday on the Washington Avenue Bridge with a bike, a violin, and a harmonica. They’re going to be real people who you’ve never seen before (and never will again) who look like they really try in life and have just been given a tough break. And they’re humble and genuine enough to admit it and ask for some help. I’ll give to those people darn near every time. But yeah, the peeps in Spain don’t really roll like that. A different item of interest around these parts is the vehicles people choose to conduct. Everything here is a stick shift, so that's actually pretty impressive given how unbelievably narrow, hilly, and curvy Toledo is (and how friggin' massive Madrid and Barcelona are). All the cars are quite small as well and seemingly much more environmentally sound than those that are comman in the U.S. Of course, there's always going to be some toolbag who drives a friggin' Hummer around anywhere you go, but those are definitely extremely rare.

The main tipo de carro that I want to talk about is the moped. They're EVERYWHERE here. And people who drive them show little to no regard for human life. They bust through crosswalks, stop signs, and anything else without any care at all. But whatevs, that doesn't bother me because you can usually hear their whiny sound from blocks away. What is a little sketch is the fact that people who drive them seriously think that they're intense, BA individuals. Sorry. It's literally impossible to have any kind of attitude if you drive a moped.Maybe when you work up to a legit motorcycle you can wear a leather jacket, rock a hardcore mustache, and sport a scowl. Until that day comes, you drive a moped. And no matter how cool you might be when you're not on it, it doesn't matter when you're riding. So don't come at me like you're legit. First, wipe the dribble off your face, have your dad teach you how to shave, and upgrade your mode of transportation. Perhaps a Segway is in order, ya whippersnapper.
Speaking of things that shouldn't really exist, another thing that I’ve noticed around these parts is that fact that seemingly every guy here will catcall any American woman. Now this catcalling bothers some girls a lot and others not at all, but the nonetheless, it’s a pretty inappropriate thing to do on several different levels. Obviously, it’s demeaning to the woman and a dirtbag thing to do. But c’mon, has catcalling EVER worked for anyone? Like is it a valid pickup line that I’m just not aware of? Is there some guy somewhere in the world that once yelled something along the lines of, “Hey, baby!” in his native tongue that actually ended with the female approaching said guy with an attitude that she was (to quote the movie “Swingers”) “ready to party”? Probably and hopefully not. Maybe just walking up to her in a non-threatening manner while in a comfortable setting and introducing yourself would be the best way to go about such a concept. But then again, that’s just me.
On a related note, I must say that someday I’d really like if some female on the street would catcall to me. That’s definitely a bit of a double standard in a way, but I just think it’d be cool as frigg if that happened. Many a girl has told me that she’s baffled that some guy can’t figure out she likes him even after doing all sorts of coy little things to try and get the message across to him. The problem is that guys are stupid creatures. Be direct with them. Make them aware of how you feel. If some girl catcalled to me, then I’d know (probably – I mean, I’m still a stupid guy, but that would make it a heckuva lot easier). Plus, it’d just be funny as crap, so the girl who’d do it would already have an in with humor. There you go. A little Dr. Date for any girls who read this. Like I said, dropping the knowledge today.

This is the part where I usually write something in closing to the post, but I’m thinking I’m just going to leave it as such (although, I realize that this is a closing, so yeah with that). At least it’s not going to go down like the end of The Sop...

A Ballet of Violence.

Ok, so there’s a TON of things I miss from back home. Obviously my family and friends top that list by far, but there’s a few other big aspects of my life that I’m living without whilst over here. I’ve already written about the Christian fellowship and such in a previous post, so there’s really only one other giant thing that needs to be mentioned. My priorities in life (in order) can basically be described by four “f’s.” There’s the standard three that a lot of people speak of: Faith, Family, and Friends, but then I’ve dumped in a nice little fourth to top it all off. Fighting.

I friggin’ LOVE fighting and everything that relates to it. If it’ll improve my abilities in that department, I’ll do it. No questions asked. I’ve been training martial arts for the past 7 or so years and due to my desire to basically one day be the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world, I’ve put myself through untold absurd workouts. I’ve dropped countless weights on myself. Stumbled an innumerous amount of times while pushing through some ridiculous cardio routine. Darn near blacked out (and subsequently gave myself WICKED headaches for about two weeks after the fact) while holding what we in the business know as the “horse stance” because I wouldn’t quit until I’d met my goal for time held in the position. Created literal pools of sweat in my basement around my heavy bag. And tons of other stuff too. Now I’m not trying to be a cocky toolbag or anything about this, but rather just give my one reader a vision of what I do.

Ok, maybe I'm not QUITE as jacked as the late great Mr. Andy Hug here (it's close though), but the point remains the same :-)

When it comes down to training at the old Tae Kwon Do (TKD) Club at the U, I don’t miss class. Like ever unless completely necessary. I’m positive that I had a super-bad stress fracture this past year from all the training and such. So bad I couldn’t even walk one day. Thankfully, that was a Friday and thus I didn’t have class. I was gimping like pirate with a peg leg for weeks with that thing. I only missed one TKD class. I taped that hummer up and toughed it out. Heck, I even fought at a tournament with it (got beat down too). That’s how much I love fighting. If we were just sparring in the gym for class, I’ll always volunteer myself to go. I’ll do 5, 6, 7, whatever rounds in a row. There’s just something about it that I can’t really describe. It’s the most pure, basic form of competition, you know what I mean? There’s something so natural to it. It just feels right for me, but yet I can’t even come close to explaining it. I think Joe Rogan said it best one night when he was describing the great Anderson Silva's fighting style: "It's like a ballet of violence." Beautiful.

Now I’ll be the first to tell you that I’m pretty much happy all the time. Try and catch me in a bad mood. Can’t really be done. And if you do, well, then I’m with you so I’m probably feeling pretty good again. Cuz let’s be honest here, if you’re reading this, you’re a friend of mine and you mean more to me than you’ll ever know. Ok, that was waaaay too emotional for a piece (yeah, I’m calling this a piece, because it’s clearly a literary masterpiece :P) about fighting. My apologies. Frigg, where was I going with that? Oop, got it. So with this knowledge of my being in such a good mood pretty much always, let me describe for you the greatest day of my life.

T’was this past April in the year 2008 (obviously :P). The Tae Kwon Do Club had traveled over to Osseo for a tournament. Heck yeah! My boy Kyle and I were just chilling in the cafeteria of the high school it was being held in when CONAN O’FRIGGIN’BRIEN walks in! Ok, it wasn’t really him, but I swear it was his doppelganger. From the pointed black dress shoes all the way up to the crazy, froffy-pompadour haircut parted just so, this cat had it all. A dead ringer. The entirety of the club had a darn fine time with this little gem for the rest of the day, and Kyle and I had a good laugh at the idea of his actually fighting.

But alas, this was the most action that was to occur for a while, as you see, the Black Belt fighting doesn’t occur until last in the day’s festivities. Thus, I had much waiting to do. You do your best to find things to partake in, such as helping make the whole thing not take eleventy hours to complete, but you know, all you’re (well, at least me) thinking of is fighting. FINALLY, though, the time came to throw down.

The Black Belt’s were divided into three different weight classes if I remember correctly. Of course, since I weigh about 165 or so, I was thrust into the heavyweight division… wait… what? Yeah. No biggie (pun), though, I’d been fighting as such (due to my height) for pretty much forever. Kyle was tossed in the bracket as well. I believe three more guys were put in there too. A five person division. Kind of small, but still, the competition looked good. Beyond myself and Kyle, there was Oy. Oy Lee is quite possibly the most fearsome individual I’ve ever seen in my life. The cat’s about 6’3” or so and probably clocks in at at least a rock-solid 230. Probably more. I believe he’s the head instructor or something of the sort at the World Tae Kwon Do Academy. He’s a former national champion as well. A bad, bad man. And then of course, a certain Mr. Conan O’Brien was in our division as well. NO WAY! Or wait, let me rephrase that, ¡QUE FUERTE! Some other gent was there as well, but meh, I don’t remember him.

Anyways, since there were five people that would mean that two people would have to compete in basically a “play-in” type of match in order to make the bracket work out evenly. Unfortunately for Kyle, he drew the short straw and had to fight here. Against Oy. Sucks to be him. Kyle threw everything he had at the man, and he put up a pretty decent fight, but he wasn’t a match for Oy. Frigg, not a lot of people are.

Very few people throw hands in TKD competition. I do as I’m a huge fan of punches, but they very rarely score, so a lot of people just save them for the gym and the street (assuming there TKD school’s legit and actually teaches good punching technique). Oy’s different. The man THROWS straight bolos with WICKED intentions on them. Like two pistons just driving at an absurd pace into your chest cavity. Example, I was acting as Kyle’s coach for this match and was doing my best to yell out instructions to him throughout it. Right after Oy started throwing the knucks I yelled, “He’s got nothing on those punches. Don’t worry about them. Circle out,” or something to that effect. I think Oy heard this and remembered it for later, but we’ll get there. Point is, Kyle got rocked by those hydraulic hammers. The president of the TKD Club at the time (Nate, who’s since graduated) was videotaping the whole thing, and unfortunately, he’s yet to get us a copy of this tourney; Kyle’s really excited to see this match because the camera had the perfect view to get his facial reaction when Oy started launching those hurtin’ bombs (Rocky Balboa reference, anyone?). He’s pretty psyched to see the look of what’s probably going to be complete terror etched out on his cara.

At another point in the fight, Oy’s daughter (who’s like 4) could be heard cheering for her father. “Kick hard, daddy!” she yelled. A very cute thing… unless you’re the person getting wrecked. Kyle later remarked that all he was thinking about at that time was, “Please don’t.” Now let’s be clear on this, Mr. Hirn (Kyle) is a bad dude. Slightly shorter than me, but a fairly solid 200 - 210 pounds or so. The guy’s very light on his feet for being such a big dude, and he’s got some mad skills. Definitely NOT a slouch, but ain’t you, me, or anyone able to take shots like that from Oy.

Eventually the fight ended. Obviously, you know who won. It seemed clear that Oy didn’t go all out knowing that he could definitely mess this kid up, but by no means did he go soft on Kyle. It was a legit match. Sadly, though, my broheim was out and done fighting.

Next up was Conan vs. some other dude that I can’t remember. They went at it for a bit ending in Mr. O’Brien’s defeat. I don’t recall much from the match as I was just talking to Kyle about the whole endeavor he’d just partaken in. In retrospect, I probably should’ve paid attention, but you know, whatevs.

Anyways, after that match it was my time to roll. I was all geared up and ready to ball. Now, this is the part of the blog where in theory you’d receive an indepth look into the mind of a fighter right before he steps into the ring… but I’d be lying if I said I thought about anything in the moments before the ref starts us. Sometimes right before we get the start, I’ll shake my opponent’s hand, but I don’t like to unless I’m instructed too or the other guy reaches out his mano first. In the past, I’ve led with that gesture, but these days, I just don’t feel it anymore. In the ring it’s all business. Love before the fight and after. Not during… although, technically this is still before, but you feel me on this.

So yeah, right before we’re called to the center, both opponents stand on opposite ends of the ring facing each other at a distance of around 16 or so feet. I ALWAYS stare the guy down. I don’t do it to try to intimidate the person, but just because it’s what I do (Heck, I never wear my glasses when I fight, so I can’t even really see the dude.). I kind of shift my weight side to side on my feet and just watch. I’ve been told that I look like I’m possessed right before we start. Frankly, that’s probably an accurate account of what my appearance is at these times.

This match was no different. I stared across the ring at my opponent in the same manner that I always do. I didn’t care that it was Oy. In my mind, I’m the baddest guy in the gym and I can take anyone. Of course, looking at it from non-fight mode, I didn’t really have a chance to outpoint this guy. But I know I’m more than capable of knocking anybody out if I connect solidly to the head, so I’ve always got that confidence in my mind. It only takes one shot.

Unfortunately, that shot didn’t come this match. I got shiz-booted straight to the moon by the guy. I hit him a little to the body but never anything damaging. Basically, I got handled. And because I’m an overconfident tool, I decided to throw hands with the man. Mistake. I threw a couple and then he threw a friggin’ WHIRLWIND of punches at me. I was literally overwhelmed by them. Like I couldn’t fire back anything as soon as he started throwing that leather (well, not leather because we weren’t wearing gloves, but you know, it’s a good expression, and I don’t know when else I’ll get to use it. So back off! Unless your name is Oy Lee, in which case, I sincerely apologize.). So yeah, remember when I said that he had nothing on those punches during Kyle’s match… turns out he does. A lot actually.

At another point during my gluteus maximus whipping, someone from the crowd yelled, “C’mon, Master Lee!” or something to that effect. And of course while staring Oy down, I said back, “C’mon, Aaron.” I didn’t yell it back because you’re not actually supposed to talk during the matches, but frig I was feeling it at this point. I was receiving one of the best lessons I’ve ever gotten in the ring, so I was on top of the world at this point.

I took my words to heart and went at the guy. But he was lightning in there. I threw at him HARD too. Which was probably an error to some extent because there’s a tradeoff between speed and power (physics aside), and I would’ve needed speed to score on him. But heck, a knockout was a necessity. Although, some quick shots and good footwork would’ve been better at setting that up. Meh, I digress. Point is, my legs burned out on me. My cardio for this tournament was threw the roof, so my lungs weren’t bad at all, but mis piernas died on me. Nothing will lead to gassing faster than throwing power shots and missing.

So anyways, immediately upon the completion of this spectacular beatdown, I was told that I was to be in the next fight as well. Usually in this situation they give you a couple of minutes between peleas to recover, and the ref said this to me, but I looked back at him and told him that I was ready to go right then. I don’t remember it, but Scott (another guy from the club who was watching us) said that the guy was shocked at that idea. Screw waiting, I wanted to go. I love fighting, and there was no need to esperar.

In retrospect I probably should’ve maybe waited a bit to try and recover my legs by walking around a smidge and getting the blood flowing properly, but meh, not my style. I was still REALLY feeling the energy from the Oy fight, and I wasn’t done yet.

I stared across the ring at my opponent while shifting back and forth. The ref called us both to the center. “Jun bi (Ready)?!” he asked forcefully. I yelled back with a passion that I hadn’t felt since a year prior at a different tourney (but that’s a different story). We were close enough to see into each others’ eyes at this point. But I didn’t see fear in his. All I saw was Conan O’Brien. Yeah! I was going to get to fight late night talk show host Conan O’Brien. Hecks yeah! We backed up a bit and the ref gave the signal. Go time, kiddies!

What followed was certainly an epic match. I should preface this all by saying that this tournament was called “The Andy Whallen Invitational (or something como así– there’s a fair chance I misspelled the guy’s name too, so I apologize). Named after a former TKD’er who had died at a young age for reasons that I can’t remember. But what I’m getting at here is that this tourney was supposed to be of more family oriented variety. Thus, knockouts were definitely not encouraged (not that that really stopped anyone from trying). And more importantly, head kicks were only worth one point.

What? Ok, so TKD competition fighting is as such. It’s actually kind of weak, and honestly this pains me to say, but most Tae Kwon Do practitioners couldn’t legitimately fight there way out of a paper bag that may or may not be wet. They train just for competition and not for the street too. Hence, they throw a lot of kicks, but don’t have any hand abilities or grappling skills. I, however, am not like this. I’ve realized such things and made myself legit in other areas. But anyways, back to my point, the basic goal of the fight is to score more points than the other guy. This is done mostly because the guy who gets the most points typically wins. I implore you to find a result in a major sport where the opposite occurred. I’d tell you that I’d wait for you to search, but you’d never come back to read the end of this absurdly long blog post, so yeah with that.

TKD scoring goes like this. It’s one point for a clean kick (or a VERY strong punch – like Oy style, and even then those aren’t really counted) to the body and two points for a solid headshot. This favors me because I’m tall and I’m mad-flexible. So obviously I throw a lot of kicks upstairs. But alas, for this match, said kicks would only land me one point. Sadsies. The scoring is done electronically by four judges sitting ringside (one at every corner). They have little button dealies that they press when they see a point for a person. If like 3 of them hit the sensor within like a second or two of each other, the point registers (because that assumes that they all saw the same shot and that it was clean). This data transfers to a computer at the scorer’s table. This computer is facing the ring; thus everyone’s able to see the score at anytime (including the competitors).

But yeah, on to the fight, my legs were still friggin’ tired as crap and that was starting to take a toll on me, but I still threw with bad intentions at the Late Night sensation. I’m not going to lie, I was landing on him more than he was on me, but the judges either hated me, were drunk, or were stupid because several shots that I connected with got counted toward Mr. Epic-Hair’s point total. I don’t mind getting beat straight up in a match usually, but dag-nabbed if I was going to get screwed. This doesn’t happen often, though. I can only think of two other times when I received the shaft from the people at the corners… and one of those matches ended with my opponent lying on his back for an extended and uncomfortable period of time, so yeah... it didn’t actually end up mattering in that case.

I was getting pretty angry at this whole thing and the screw job I was receiving when I noticed that my belt had come untied and was slipping off. I backed off for a second, ripped it off, and threw it down to the ground. Apparently, this is a big no-no in the TKD world as the ref stopped the match and gave me a warning for that. Friggin’ A this was getting annoying. I wanted to fight, and I was taking it from all sides here.

I took a gander over at the computer at the time and saw that I had less that 10 seconds left, which was unfortunate because the score read (from left to right, my point total on the left) 8 - 10. I shook my head in disgust, hopped back a bit, and then launched into what I can only imagine was some sort of crazy super-saiyan blitzkrieg combo of moves that would’ve made Reptile from Mortal Kombat even greener than he already was with envy. I can’t tell you what I threw, but I friggin’ threw it. The ref yelled time just as I was backing off to regroup for a second charge. My body twisted within this mid hop as my gaze shot over to the computer. 11 – 10! HOLY FRIGGIN’ CRAP!!! I added a fist pump and a “Yeah!” to my twirl as I backed away. I’d done it. 3 points in under 10 seconds. Money.

I shook the Pompadour’s hand, received my medal, and then walked away to be by myself for a bit. I was physically done. My legs were complete jelly at this point. I hobbled away to the bleachers to quick change my clothes (yeah, I changed in the gym in front of everyone. Not too shy, I guess). I got everything back on and went back to the floor, knelt down, and prayed. No doubt that had been the greatest, most enjoyable 10 minutes of my life, and I needed to give thanks for it right then and there.

I finished this, pounded down a Vitamin Water that I’d packed, and headed toward exit with the rest of the U compatriots. I was still thirsty as a guy who’d just been through two ridiculously awesome fights back to back, so I stopped at the vending machine to snatch some Gatorade. I chose orange of course.

We all made our way into Kyle’s car for the ride back. I felt like complete poo, though. I opened the window and did everything I could to prevent it, but I made Kyle pull over and yes, hunched over mere feet from the interstate, I ralphed. Charming, no? I must say, though, that I loved the fact that this occurred. It means that I pushed myself pretty friggin' hard, and like I said at the beginning of this diatribe, that's what I love to do.

We made it back the rest of the way to the U without further incident. Kyle dropped us off at the back of Coffman as per usual and everyone went on there way. Except for me. I sat on the steps behind the building just with a feeling in my stomach much akin to getting rocked in the Rocky Mountain Oysters. Thus, it wasn’t long before I turned the stones back there orange with Gatorade. However, after this I must confess that I felt much better. That was actually my last Gatorade too (or one of them). Not because I became averse to such drinkables from this, but because I decided that they weren’t good for me, so I dropped them.

I started my walk back to Middlebrook, busted out my phone, and called my dad to relay the awesomeness of the day. About an hour and a half after returning to said dorm I was out again to hang with my awesome friend Laura to consume some Perkins. I pounded down the Tremendous Twelve without any difficulty surprisingly and then headed back to the Brook. It was at this point that I rocked some Guitar Hero with da broheims for solid period of time, and shortly thereafter, called it a night. The best ever.

So yeah, the basic point of this ridonkulously long story was just to tell you how much I love fighting. Thus to sum it all up, I do. And now that I’m here, I can’t partake in such things really. I’m doing some decent workouts in the room, but I really want to kick something. I don’t want to get into a street fight obviously, but I miss that beautiful sound of my shin/foot hitting a bag/person. As such, I’m shadow boxing a bit more than usual over here. So don’t be concerned if you see me throwing punches, kicks, knees, and elbows while I’m walking down the hallway. I’m not crazy… but I’m on my way.

Oh, and on a related note, I’m looking for some advice here. Which spelling do you guys prefer, “frig” or “frigg”? I’m leaning one way, but I want to know what the fans want because I’m a people person like that. Drop me a comment, if you’d be so kind and feel inclined :-)

And on annoying note, I was planning on throwing some of my own TKD pics up here, but for some triste reason they won't load up. You'll just have to trust me when I say that they would've been awesome. Again, though as per usual, I like to end all these things on a happy/comical note, so please enjoy the following picture.