Killah Jitzu

Night Work We Did

You gotta keep on moving

Remember

This is what you asked for

That night work we did a few months back.  Or was it last summer.  Whatever.  It was slicky and happy, like when I was 10 way back when in the East Village, dancing with Jason when he was a waiter at that restaurant all my friends worked with.  Except us dancing is way not that, because you and I are just side by side partners.  Sometimes I forget what you look like.  That is a good thing.  I know you’re there, like I know my breath is there when I go at it with some huge guy on the mat.  I never think about you.  You’re in my life.  It’s weird never being alone anymore, but that’s only when I think about it, which was all of right now for the first time I thought that.  

 

This Is Why I Liked Church

Sitting there in my seat, while the guitarist plugged in to test the sound system, and the pastor put his book on the altar, I could hear it so clearly, here in Guara Um, Brasilia. My heart. Aha. That’s where you’ve been all this time. I know you’ve been there, around me. It’s only when I’m talking to God that we look at it, together. When I’m alone, I just am the heart. But with God, I can see heart. We look at it together. I smiled. This is why I liked church as a kid. Except back then my head was always so loud that it was distracting and difficult to see heart. Now, there’s just heart to hear. I cried a little at the magnificence of it. If you strip away everything we say about ourselves, there’s a massive amount of love there. Thank you God. We’ll talk soon, I promise.

The White Wall

The white wall. It was so soft, this whiteness that encompassed my sight. It was like I had passed from the real touching things realm to that of the digital space. Except I was in a restaurant bathroom peeing.

As an architect, I could see the countless conversations that created that plaster wall, so utterly smooth that the dim lighting cast zero shadow on its surface, so perfect that it seemed edgless and infinitely deep, like computer places. Except this was all space and nothing in it. A white black hole, so yawning that it had neatly enveloped my consciousness itself.

It was tempting to stay there, in the whiteness that reminded me of computer space, the way I did all those years ago online, flipping from profile to profile, after a time seeing the interchangeable nature of human being and simply being turned on by the space of it. A giant, invisible infrastructure of connection. Perfect and seamless and potentially endless people, and their friends, and their make believe friends. And their desires, and their make believe desires.

A space for everything else about them.

 

Solaris

I've said this over and over, so I'll keep it brief.

Every human accomplishment in the realm of technology has come conjoined, like a siamese twin, with an accomplishment in our souls.  It's no accident, so stop acting like it is, please. We will never be able to discover, much less understand, other beings, if we do not get straight with ourselves. In particular, we can't be with our souls.  The part of our selves we struggle to keep as secondary to our real self, a struggle like divorcing our own shadow. We do this every day.  Catapulted into this struggle the second we wake up, or, to be more precise, the second we think we are awake, and out of terror, renew an endless fight to stay apart.  It is useless, and silly, but with powerful impacts.  We end up spending our lives in this fight, our lives becoming islands (for some of us large archipelagos, but islands nonetheless) all the while not getting that we are always already one being, inside ourselves and with each other.  This tearing of ourselves is ultimately the only reason we die.  There, I said it.

Mystery Men

1999 seems so long ago.  It is a time BMIII (Before Mission Impossible III).  It is a time BIM (Before Iron Man).  It is a time before now, which means it is destined to be a time when superhero movies look a tad dated with their quaint pacing, slow fights, and not-of-the-moment special effects.

Yet 1999's Mystery Men has so much more going for it.  It has a dozen actors doing funny things, even if the funniness doesn't quite reach the level of full-on satire of the comic book flick (still waiting for that one).  Hank Azaria practicing his fake effete British accent in front of a mirror, complete with effete puns, while he brandishes his never-lethal cutlery (his superpower is flinging cutlery, but never knives!).  William H. Macy as a deadpan Shoveler.  Paul Ruebens in his comeback role.  Geoffrey Rush in a delightfully lunatic turn as supervillan Casanova Frankenstein.  Janeane Garafolo as The Bowler.  Ben Stiller just being goofy.  And Greg Kinnear doing his understated but brilliant sleezy thing.  What they all have in common is that if each of these funny people did a satire of comic book movies, these are the characters they would play.  Azaria over the top and under layers of artifice.  Macy as sturdy but somewhat clueless.  Ruebens as adolescent weird.  Garafolo as conflicted assertive city girl.  Stiller doing himself. Kinnear as self absorbed.  All with superpowers, sorta.

If they do a sequel, I am first in line.

Space-Wolf

It happened in a few places in my life, all at once.  Which means I only noticed something that had happened, everywhere, long ago.

A potential client has been sitting on a project for months now.  He's got other business to attend to than the project in question.  I usually sit back, wait for them come to it, don't be too loud about it, maybe they want to look around at other architects, and so on.  Except this is the kind of client who doesn't beat around the bush. I called him and asked that we start the project next week, and that he not look at other architects because I wanted this job.  He agreed to my requests. He heard them as requests, but if I tell you about the words I actually said, you'd think I was a pushy dick about it.  I was.

A long time ago I only dated men who had that kind of power. I wrote a lot about that during the gym diaries. Except what was really going on is that I wanted it for myself.

Fight Cub and I had something, but in the end we chose to live our lives in our respective cities.  Los Angeles is fucking far. And it turns out I don't need a traininer partner in a lover.  I have an entire jiu jitsu school that I helped create, with powerful fighters all around, who are intimately acquainted with my physical training.  And they are intimately acquainted farther than that: they are a literal second family. My professor is like a second father, or a Brazilian uncle, from who I needed to have implicit approval of my next boyfriend before I jumped in whole hog.

At my last tournament fight, a large, international Brazilian Jiu Jitsu tournament, it came out in full force.  I was taken down immediately by a guy who was clearly a good grappler (but not as great with the gi on). He was on top, and almost submitted me.  I've been there a dozen times before, so no biggie.  I get out.  I almost sweep him, and instead of getting swept, he steps away from the fight at hand and stands up on the mat.  I get up, and it CAME OUT.  One of the samurai thought I was engraged, enough to yell out te calma, te calma Shad!.  My future boyfriend was scared of it.  But those weren't what was happening.  I felt nothing but pure power, and had stopped hiding it.  I could have ripped the guys head off at that moment.  Sensing trouble, he backed off. I came at him hard, but in full control of the nuclear reactor within, and it tickled me. And we continued our fight.

Oh, future boyfriend: I saw him in a coaching class and thought he was cute and immediately tracked him through friends and hunted him down on facebook and asked him out and did great coffee and invited him to my big supremely gay fight shortly after. I didn't know if he was for me, but I had grown weary of fucking around. After being all "not sure if we should be PDA at the tournament" on him I just hugged and kissed him immediately after my fight.  And later he copped a feel in the fighter's bullpen. I liked that. It went unnoticed except by one of the samurai and my professor's wife. (The tournament was called the New York Open.  He said "WOW.  It's really Open!".) I was comfortable being not sure for a while, while I made up my own mind, and now I'm sure.  Love.

Aaron has disappeared into the fully formed apparition he was always destined to become.  Time's spiral not only took him, making him ever-younger, progressively forgetful, and eventually just gone: he was sublimated. I became him.  I have become the crazy time-travelleing space wolf I've been writing about all this time.  I even know how to beat someone up along the way. For the first time since I began writing, nine years ago today, I face the unique difficulty that I have in fact become what I want.  My imagination's creations have simply, utterly, incredibly, been fulfilled. Now it's time to really play.

Championship Match

I went to my fifth BJJ tournament with the intention to win. As in WIN IT WIN THE GOLD MEDAL.  

Result: I did.  I decisively defeated two opponents in my division and took the medal. On the mat, during the fight, I was amped, yet fluid.  My teammates started calling me macoco, even though Professor was a tad unsatisfied at all the jumpy mistakes I made.  I could have won by more points than I did. After the championship match I thought he was going to make me do pushups for the two really bad mistakes I made.

After the final match was over, and I was resting, it was like a whole new world had opened up.  I can win any fight.  Or, more precisely, any fight is winnable. It was really that simple. What happens on the mat is heavily influenced by my intention when I step out there. I would have been perfectly fine with a loss, but I was going to sacrifice my eyeteeth for success. In short, I fought for it.

And then I started living my life the next day, and fighting for it was all over my life. No, not combatitive. But taking the initiative, everywhere. Letting others speak up when they have an issue and be responsible for their reactions. Let others react to my doing. A little cockyness where required. Bold actions. Contentedness. Even if things unravel I can pull them back, force of will, and make it work. Optimism is the new violence in this age of 44. The will to make the possible into reality is all we've ever needed.

Four days after the gold, Professor rolled with me for an extended period. I've been fortunate to roll with the new black belt from Brazil for the weeks leading up to my tournament: he is younger than me, much bigger, and not gentle.  It took my game from so-so to champ in short order.  But I haven't rolled with Professor in a while.  Everyone finished early, exhausted, and so it was the two of us, our endurance off the charts, ready to roll.  He often escapes my guard and stands up and runs around me on the mat.  I keep my ass wisely planted on the mat, because he can so easily take me down.  But this time he wasn't playing, he was fight-fighting me.  He insisted I stand up.  I went for a crazy slide takedown he taught me 20 months ago; at the same time he tried a forward trip move. I slipped, he slipped, and his shin landed on the top of my foot.  I yelled OW of course and stopped.  He said "do not stop" and I said "yes sir" and we continued. My body was going to do whatever I told it to do.

Team Family Declares It Will Happen

[note: trophy in one hand, ham sandwich in the other hand]

My third BJJ tournament was so much fun.  We are a huge group.  We all know each other.  We tirelessly support each other.  We are a team.  We are a family. Including the ones we don't love-love when we're in class together. Imagine your entire family going to a fun game together. Not just your mom and dad family, but your brothers, sisters, their spouses, kids, cousins, second cousins, first cousins twice removed, and all their kids too.  I made ham sandwiches for the occasion.  

It was a small tournament, and the only fighter available in my age division was someone thirty pounds heavier. The fight was late in the day, because they had forgotten about our cross-division bracket. Like all BJJ tournaments, they often forget a division, because someone dropped the paper that your fight was written on while they went to get a drink of water, and unless you say something they'll just forget you were there. So after a few hours of restlessness, I said something. I declared that I would be fighting in a few minutes. It happened.

A few days later, I said something to a person who has a big project brewing.  My paper had dropped to the floor while he worked on other affairs.  I called him and said "I want this project. I have not stopped thinking about it since we first spoke of it.  I look at Google Maps satellite of the site every few days.  I sketch.  What I want to know is how do I get the job, right now?" I have stopped playing small.  I think the potential client liked my brashness. But I was just having fun. Who doesn't want that? And who doesn't want to work with someone who declares that he will make a particular outcome happen?

So my last tournament fight was something like this. But I just made that connection up right now. You could also see something else out of it. Just before the fight, I was not nervous. It was the first time. I knew the opponent was bigger, because I could see him in front of me, and also because my master teacher had told me hours ago that he had accepted this fight on my behalf. I trust him, so I said yes to his already-said-yes. Besides, the first time I submitted someone in tournament, during my second tournament, it was against an opponent at least 50 lbs heavier. He tapped on my x-choke from guard, and was dazed on the mat for a minute before he could stand. Fighting a bigger guy is all upside.

I chose that this new fight was going to be fun. Right then standing in front of my opponent. Team Family was all around the fencing there, everyone having finished fighting for the day, and focused only on me. That was nice in and of itself. Master teacher had snuck onto the mat, sitting just inside the fence, illegal but everyone respects him too much to shoo him out like they do the other teachers. He called me over as they were resetting the clock. I bent down, and his advice was this:

"Shad.  Think as if your opponent is me, and oh! you need to get me!" (he used his name instead of "me") and then he smiled wide.

Second tournament's advice: "Keep moving, moving, do your technique."

First tournament's advice: "Do not stay on your back, stay on your side."

So third tournament's advice was have fun. He read my mind. Or, perhaps he and I were of the same mind: he knows me so well, that he can check in with himself and know what I am thinking. I went back to my starting position, faced my opponent, then turned to teacher and laughed and tapped my head. "That's a good one" I yelled over to him.  Then I turned to my opponent, shook his hand, and we started to have fun.

The fight was intense, as they all are.  All four opponents are there, as they always are, but this time the most difficult was the clock opponent. I am old, I only get 5 minute fights now. My sparring partner was strong, impossible to throw around, and sloppy. So he played it safe, playing me to a draw. When he moved I scored with my awesome blue belt jiu jitsu (joke) but he caught me sleeping one time and scored in kind. The fight landed in his favor because he scored two more advantages than I, thus breaking the tie. But we ended well and I felt rewarded getting second place, even though I had lost the fight.

A little later, master teacher got us in a circle.  We had just won our first second place trophy.  Our school is only 9 months old. He said "today" and pointed at the trophy in front of him. "But tomorrow" and he put the trophy to the side, stepping where it had been, "you live your life".  Then he paused.  "This is my family," including us in, which is saying something: he has a great wife and two awesome daughters who were with us all day.  "Brazil was Brazil.  Now, USA.  This is my-time, and this is my-team." Except he said team the way he said family earlier: with unmistakable tenderness. With the certainty of knowing his words cause it to happen.

My Week Has Been Like This

And with any luck, the weekend will be more of the same.

Today On My Computer