"an old hermit wandered out of the woods"

[vagabond]

in this case, i wandered into his camp; looking for a place to make my own. we were in the mountains just above ouray, close enough but far enough. i was back because i had previously discovered a very lightly defended, wood burning sauna. he was there because the ranger had told him not to be. he shook my hand like a ragdoll, i had never been so intimidated by and impressed with a 76 year old before. he had had a few semi-pro fights, he said, before he took up logging and tree work, only to fall and break his hip, femur, shoulder, etc. he was biased to one side as a result, and he shuffled in a way that reflected boxing footwork and extensive physical trauma. i knew if he got weird, cause that's always a thing to keep in mind at times like these, i could definitely outrun him, which was good. he told me about punching trees until he could put knuckle marks in a block of wood, he told me about drinking until he couldn't remember weeks of his life. he shared his voodoo rangers and gave me a solid ounce of og kush for the road, and he told me all about the mexican way of hooking to the body, and why he respected bruce lee. he was a good dude. i pour one out for frank

anybody else meet any stone cold bangers in your travels?

[everything]

I had a friend who literally caught a bird with his bare hands after it flew into one of our classrooms. Everyone said "___ caught it!" I didn't see it, but certainly believe it. We were in a phase where we always read Conan and Tarzan books. We'd go hiking in the woods and pretend we were Rambo or something trying to be "tough". He caught a snake with his hands (grabbed by the head) and stuffed it in a beer bottle. Probably not dangerous but at the time it was one of those things that impressed our preteen selves. The bird thing impresses me. I think he's just a normal dude now. If he had had the opportunity, he'd probably be a SEAL or something like that. Never seen someone more coordinated and I've seen some gifted, top athletes.

Not a bad ass, but I knew an older dude who was nice, but quite messed up. Said he was a Vietnam vet. At night (stayed in the same college student sublet briefly), we could hear him screaming in his sleep (presumably). By day he seemed friendly and normal, but he was an alcoholic and a self-proclaimed thief. He told us he would go put a tv in his shopping cart at Target and then try to exchange it at the Returns counter, back in the days when maybe this scam was still possible. We didn't really know what to make of him. Mostly I felt bad for him because clearly something had really screwed him up. Probably the sort of person who became homeless after that.

[vagabond]

i feel perhaps you the missed point

[everything]

sorry but that's all i got

[Peacedog]

1stSGT Payne was one of my JROTC instructors. Wounded six times as a 50 cal gunner in the Pacific in WWII. Korea and Vietnam vet as well.

One day a gangbanger shows up at school and tries to shoot up the cafeteria.

Sgt Payne rips one of those old 1970 style telephone receivers off the wall. Charges into the cafeteria and proceeds to beat the punk unconscious with the telephone receiver. The d-list "gangsta" spends the rest of his days eating thru a straw with severe brain damage in a prison hospital.

Funny part. Sgt Payne was all of 5’6” and 145 pounds.

[CheapBastid]

I began my studies with Marshall Ho’o in Burbank in the '80s. It was a class filled with a an odd mix of actors, hippies and fighters. It turned out that Marshall Ho’o taught the wife of Craig T. Nelson so he had some ‘street cred’ with Tinsel Town. He had also set up Aspen Martial Arts Academy where a fledgling attempt at Mixed Martial Arts was organized. He had invited folks from all disciplines to come and exchange info and spar together. He was a tough old bird with a very large personality who was most comfortable when speaking to a group.

My 2nd week I showed up early and watched as folks slowly streamed in. Suddenly a bum with no front teeth who smelled strongly of alcohol wandered in. I immediately wondered who might be tasked with herding him out and secretly hoped that a fight might ensue so I could see Tai Chi Chuan in action. Much to my surprise the drunk shuffled to the center of the front of the room and stopped. Everyone fell into formation behind him as he waited. Then he moved.

His movement was like nobody else I’d seen - a fluidity mixed with a contained lethality that radiated from the shapes he made with his body.

Brian.

This man had a very palpable/visceral barrier to those he didn’t already know. It was unpredictable when he would attend - he had some undecipherable personal schedule. He only conversed directly with Marshall and a small number of the senior students. My curiosity was uncontainable so I asked everyone I could about him and learned that he was Marshall’s deadliest student. I also learned he was married to a quiet, sweet, and tiny Japanese lady who was also in class. I started to focus my questions on her directly.

“So… does he teach?”

“Well, um… kinda?”

“What does that mean?”

“There are three people who come to the house different nights and bring him a six pack and they do things…”

“What kind of things?”

“I’m not really sure, he prefers me not to interrupt so much”

I was in love.

After several weeks of questioning, I had arrived early as usual and was practicing before class by myself when Brian arrived and made a beeline for me. He shaped his wrist and hand into a kind of hook (we later referred to it as his ‘Sloth Hook’) and slipped it over my shoulder. He then put an staggering amount of weight on me and pulled me slightly off balance onto the tips of my toes as he leaned in menacingly.

“Stop. Bothering. My. Wife.”

I stammered “I’m sorry…”

He interrupted the beginnings of my sputtered apology with “Come to my house this Wednesday at 6pm”

...and released me from the Sloth Hook. He turned and walked over to Marshall. It took some time for the terror to diffuse into a buoyant joy.

I drove to an address in Northridge, it was a two level building and with his apartment on the 2nd floor. The door was open and looked in on his living room which adjoined a dining area where I could see him sitting at a small table.

He gestured across the table to a well worn armless chair that I will never forget. It was a classic 70’s chair fashioned of chrome pipe with vinyl stretched over minimal padding and wood. He sat in its twin across from me as he began:

“Cheap... This will not be fun and this will not be easy. You will learn one thing at a time. The first thing is how to get out of that chair in one move.”

He stopped speaking and took a sip of his fortified beer.

I waited for further instruction as he flipped open a book he grabbed from the stack of five that I would learn would be omnipresent (he checked out a new stack every week from the CSUN library that was in walking distance - the main reason he chose that apartment). I slowly realized that was all the instruction I was to receive and I started to get up.

“You’ve moved three times and you’re still in the chair. The instruction is to get out of that chair. In. One. Move.”

I took a deep breath. I thought for a while. I could feel the chair uncomfortably gluing itself to my buttocks, as I was hyper-aware of every shift in my body. After some time Brian spoke again.

“You’re not to sit there and think about getting out of the chair in one move, your task is to get out of the chair in one move”

I got up.

“How many moves was that?”

“I don’t know…”

“Was it one move?”

“No.”

“Then you have some work to do.”

He got up, walked back to his room and fetched himself a joint that he promptly lit as he read and drank.

I sat and struggled with that chair. He’d read, leave the room, come back, and occasionally he’d comment on the number of moves he saw me make before I left the chair. After what seemed like an endless amount of time passed he said:

“Well, it looks like you have some work to do, come back next week and show me.”

I left, not quite defeated, but very much deflated. I worked on the puzzle of the chair during the week and slyly/quietly asked folks at class if they knew the trick to it. Nobody knew what I was talking about. The next week I arrived at my appointed time to the same scene: Brian at the table with a Mickey’s Big Mouth, a joint, and a book but he had a record playing in the living room of AC/DC’s Thunderstruck. Walked to the table and sat down. He didn't look at me. I tried to get out of the chair and he let me know that I’d moved four times.

“Keep working on it.”

And so with his disaffected engagement I tried again to achieve what felt unachievable. After a shorter amount of time he repeated his dismissal used last week

“Well, it looks like you have some work to do, come back next week and show me.”

I left and wasn’t sure if I was being hazed or if I was way dumber than I thought I was. Amazingly during that week a flash of insight arose and I had a Very Good Feeling about what I thought was The Solution (I found out later that it was simply ‘My’ Solution).

I raced up the stairs to his apartment at my appointed time the following Wednesday and as I sat down at the table Brian said.

“Now, I have some books to show you.”

“But…” I started

“OK… If you need to show me, show me.”

I got up in one move.

“Yes, I know. Now, I have some books to show you.”

And thus my 2nd lesson began: ‘How To Look’.

I slowly learned about Brian. He worked as a clerk at a paint store (a genius with paint and color) and was drunk/high whenever he was awake. He adopted a small number of people whom he would not accept money (we usually paid him in malt liquor and old records we found). Raised by a grifter mom in San Francisco, he lost his front teeth in bar fights when he was a kid, worked on fishing boats where he developed his deep love of weapons (he had what seemed to be an endless collection that he pulled from behind a curtain installed across one corner of his living room). The early adventures I heard of ranged from him running color therapy at Esalen, working with Fritz Perls, selling dope above a police station, living in a commune that Manson swung by with his crew in tow one night. His adventures continued while I studied with him including: an impromptu folding chair weapons demo at an event, walking back from the local liquor store when a terrified college girl sprinted around the corner past him with two large men on her heels whereupon he set down his six pack tossed the first one into a bush, the second into a parking meter (one of his favorite weapons "they always seem to be around"), picking up his six pack and walking on. He was the most interesting man in my world when I was in my twenties.