Post by uglyknuckles on Feb 24, 2007 17:53:54 GMT -5
Saturday.
Saturday morning we got started around eight a.m., which, when I’m home, is only about two hours after bedtime for me. It’s never easy for me to get used to flipping that around while I’m on the road. Tim picked up the breakfast tab the day before, so I picked it up on Saturday. I had ham, bacon, eggs and sausage every day, figuring my heart and its attendant valves and arteries could use a workout.
The con passed in a blur. Not a blur of people stopping at the booth to buy books and spend money. Not a good blur. Rather, like the blur of hundreds of miles of interstate viewed through the greasy window of a greyhound bus. We had too many people behind the table for one thing. Then there was the matter of the jager and red bull. Some friends came by with a 1.75 liter bottle of Jager and a six-pack of red bull in a backpack and opened up a mini bar behind us. I had about nine shots of the medicine too close together. Legions of people filed past us all day long without even turning to look our way. Sketches kept Tim busy, but we didn’t sell more than three or four items all day.
While under the influence, I got up and practiced and discussed some martial arts techniques with Boxx. He’s very good and very sharp. I doubt his knowledge is any more comprehensive than mine, but he still uses this shit every day and, as I said, he’s very sharp. A lot of the techniques I use tend to kill people. Because he has to leave people more or less intact in his capacity as a bouncer, Boxx is infinitely kinder and gentler than I. I don’t worry about lawsuits or insurance companies, I just worry about survival. He showed me some great modifications of techniques that allow people to still walk away. One was The Hatmaker Choke. See pics. This is the most effective choke I’ve ever experienced.
Initiate:
Setting in:
Help me!
The problem with choke holds is that you have to hold on to somebody until their brain has been deprived of the oxygen it needs to stay conscious. This can take up to ten or even twenty seconds, and that is a LONG time to be holding onto somebody who may be larger than you and is almost certainly trying to maim you. The hatmaker choke is pretty impressive. I’d have to demonstrate for you to appreciate it fully, but I can tell you that, once it’s set in, you are done for. In about three seconds I was blacking out. It was so acutely debilitating that I was unable to even tap out and had to rely on Boxx’s expertise, and to his credit he always let me go before my knees buckled. This choke completely cuts off the flow of blood to the brain and the intake of oxygen instantly. You heard me right, instantly. As soon as it’s set, you’re on your way out.
He let me practice on him, too but unfortunately I got no pics of my efforts. He was tapping out pretty quickly, though and he had the foresight to sit down before letting me have my turn. In hindsight, if I had more experience with this technique, I would have had time to tap out, too. Just start tapping as soon as that fucker is set!! I was new to it, so I didn’t react in time. I wish I had, because it was unpleasant as hell. We walked through some small joint manipulations and generally just talked shop about fighting. He is impressively adept and I wouldn’t recommend fighting him. He’s very fast with his kenpo and wing chun strikes as well. If I had to guess I’d say that he’ll never lose a one-on-one fight unless he goes out consistently looking for trouble. In the everyday course of his life and work as security, he’s very unlikely to come across anyone with the skills to stop him.
Do I have the skills to stop him? Man, go slap the shit out of yourself for even having to ask that question!
Megacon is always a lot of fun because it’s the first time seeing Tim, Brian and Gots0 for the year. The highlight of Saturday by far was when Gots0 came through with his girl. They arrived around midday and couldn’t find us. That’s the kind of shit spot we were tucked away in. Tim had just said, “why don’t you give Tommy a call” and I had opened my phone and started scrolling through my contacts for his number when my phone rang. It was him. “I was just about to call you” always seems like bullshit, but this time it was literally true. I gave directions and they found us. They were around for a while and then ducked out to go find a hotel room. The con ended a couple hours later and I still hadn’t heard from him. We were supposed to meet for dinner and I was expecting him to call when they found a room. My back was fucked up beyond belief from a bad turn carrying my luggage up the stairs {it was fuckin heavy} and I was unable to walk back to the hotel that night, so I stood outside the convention center and waited for Tim and Brian to pick me up. I was clocked right outta my gourd on vicodin and jager, which is the only reason I was still standing.
I finally called Gots and found out that they had spent the last few hours in a fruitless search for a hotel room. There wasn’t a single hotel room to be had in the greater Orlando area! Further confirmation of this came the next night when Mike Zeck told me that a friend of his had been trying to find a hotel room on Saturday, also and had struck out and had to sleep in his car at a rest stop! And it was cold. Gots said they would still meet us for dinner, but then drive back to Lauderdale.
I-Drive was a nightmare. If it was four lanes in each direction, it would have been busy, with just two or three lanes it was locked. We moved in twenty yard stretches. It took about an hour to go a couple miles. We hit the Uno’s Pizza and had a great meal. It was a good time. Said goodbye to Gots and his gal {who is beautiful and charming and much too good for a Lauderdale rogue like him} after dinner and the boys went off to play some pool and have a few beers and I went back to the room to ink some con sketches. When they come back to the hotel, I found out that I had been the subject of a bet. Tim had bet that I’d be working. Because that option was taken, Brian bet that I would be asleep. Ivo bet that I’d be working but would also be fucking the maid. Tim won. Goodbye Saturday.
Some con sketches:
Saturday morning we got started around eight a.m., which, when I’m home, is only about two hours after bedtime for me. It’s never easy for me to get used to flipping that around while I’m on the road. Tim picked up the breakfast tab the day before, so I picked it up on Saturday. I had ham, bacon, eggs and sausage every day, figuring my heart and its attendant valves and arteries could use a workout.
The con passed in a blur. Not a blur of people stopping at the booth to buy books and spend money. Not a good blur. Rather, like the blur of hundreds of miles of interstate viewed through the greasy window of a greyhound bus. We had too many people behind the table for one thing. Then there was the matter of the jager and red bull. Some friends came by with a 1.75 liter bottle of Jager and a six-pack of red bull in a backpack and opened up a mini bar behind us. I had about nine shots of the medicine too close together. Legions of people filed past us all day long without even turning to look our way. Sketches kept Tim busy, but we didn’t sell more than three or four items all day.
While under the influence, I got up and practiced and discussed some martial arts techniques with Boxx. He’s very good and very sharp. I doubt his knowledge is any more comprehensive than mine, but he still uses this shit every day and, as I said, he’s very sharp. A lot of the techniques I use tend to kill people. Because he has to leave people more or less intact in his capacity as a bouncer, Boxx is infinitely kinder and gentler than I. I don’t worry about lawsuits or insurance companies, I just worry about survival. He showed me some great modifications of techniques that allow people to still walk away. One was The Hatmaker Choke. See pics. This is the most effective choke I’ve ever experienced.
Initiate:
Setting in:
Help me!
The problem with choke holds is that you have to hold on to somebody until their brain has been deprived of the oxygen it needs to stay conscious. This can take up to ten or even twenty seconds, and that is a LONG time to be holding onto somebody who may be larger than you and is almost certainly trying to maim you. The hatmaker choke is pretty impressive. I’d have to demonstrate for you to appreciate it fully, but I can tell you that, once it’s set in, you are done for. In about three seconds I was blacking out. It was so acutely debilitating that I was unable to even tap out and had to rely on Boxx’s expertise, and to his credit he always let me go before my knees buckled. This choke completely cuts off the flow of blood to the brain and the intake of oxygen instantly. You heard me right, instantly. As soon as it’s set, you’re on your way out.
He let me practice on him, too but unfortunately I got no pics of my efforts. He was tapping out pretty quickly, though and he had the foresight to sit down before letting me have my turn. In hindsight, if I had more experience with this technique, I would have had time to tap out, too. Just start tapping as soon as that fucker is set!! I was new to it, so I didn’t react in time. I wish I had, because it was unpleasant as hell. We walked through some small joint manipulations and generally just talked shop about fighting. He is impressively adept and I wouldn’t recommend fighting him. He’s very fast with his kenpo and wing chun strikes as well. If I had to guess I’d say that he’ll never lose a one-on-one fight unless he goes out consistently looking for trouble. In the everyday course of his life and work as security, he’s very unlikely to come across anyone with the skills to stop him.
Do I have the skills to stop him? Man, go slap the shit out of yourself for even having to ask that question!
Megacon is always a lot of fun because it’s the first time seeing Tim, Brian and Gots0 for the year. The highlight of Saturday by far was when Gots0 came through with his girl. They arrived around midday and couldn’t find us. That’s the kind of shit spot we were tucked away in. Tim had just said, “why don’t you give Tommy a call” and I had opened my phone and started scrolling through my contacts for his number when my phone rang. It was him. “I was just about to call you” always seems like bullshit, but this time it was literally true. I gave directions and they found us. They were around for a while and then ducked out to go find a hotel room. The con ended a couple hours later and I still hadn’t heard from him. We were supposed to meet for dinner and I was expecting him to call when they found a room. My back was fucked up beyond belief from a bad turn carrying my luggage up the stairs {it was fuckin heavy} and I was unable to walk back to the hotel that night, so I stood outside the convention center and waited for Tim and Brian to pick me up. I was clocked right outta my gourd on vicodin and jager, which is the only reason I was still standing.
I finally called Gots and found out that they had spent the last few hours in a fruitless search for a hotel room. There wasn’t a single hotel room to be had in the greater Orlando area! Further confirmation of this came the next night when Mike Zeck told me that a friend of his had been trying to find a hotel room on Saturday, also and had struck out and had to sleep in his car at a rest stop! And it was cold. Gots said they would still meet us for dinner, but then drive back to Lauderdale.
I-Drive was a nightmare. If it was four lanes in each direction, it would have been busy, with just two or three lanes it was locked. We moved in twenty yard stretches. It took about an hour to go a couple miles. We hit the Uno’s Pizza and had a great meal. It was a good time. Said goodbye to Gots and his gal {who is beautiful and charming and much too good for a Lauderdale rogue like him} after dinner and the boys went off to play some pool and have a few beers and I went back to the room to ink some con sketches. When they come back to the hotel, I found out that I had been the subject of a bet. Tim had bet that I’d be working. Because that option was taken, Brian bet that I would be asleep. Ivo bet that I’d be working but would also be fucking the maid. Tim won. Goodbye Saturday.
Some con sketches:
