I Got the Will (Drive Myself Sleepless)

Most common "gym rats" are notorious addicts looking to divert their angst-driven energies into something else besides cocaine and alcohol, and the endless sleepless nights that accompany serious bouts with manic depression. When I trained in martial arts, the sales pitches mirrored the mentality of their community comprised mainly of high school drop-outs, with the occasional two-year college program for a sports-related major thrown in for a better salary, which meant that they tried to sell me on their type of packaging. I didn't "train" to lose weight from the holidays or from over-eating, I wasn't there to get ready to go to the beach for the summer (I'm a native, yo! My routine is: wake up, brush teeth and hair, put on a suit with a cover-up, grab a towel, and LET'S FUCKING GO!!), or counteract my hypertension and/or hyperactive disorders. I was actually much weirder for them.

I was there because I'm a fighter, and I fight everyday to make the world a better place through my works. I know! It was like I was so fucking alien and strange to them, that the sports kids working the joint finally gave up talking to me (a great sign that they finally "got it" about me), or trying to use some tired sales pitch to "get me" to buy more classes. I either have the time, money, and inclination, or I don't. There simply isn't anything some junior can do or say to me that will "get me" to do anything, which makes Gen X the most hated marketing demographic the modern world has ever seen, giving me and my friends a great deal to be proud of, as it reflects our angry young punk view of the world. "Fuck you! Feed someone!" <middle finger> You know? Just get real with it, already. I don't need your tired ass tryin' to pick my pocket, muthafucka. I already ride the subway every day.

That's how I felt about it back then. If you're not adding value to my life, you're gone from it. I didn't have anything leftover to give. I was already making beautiful books for the public as fast as I could, at a cut rate price point that was way below market-value, giving the rest away to rent, food, medicine, clothing, and some fucking gym(s). They weren't putting money in my pocket, you know? It was all one way with them, so no need to be so fucking coy about it. Anyway, it was a "no harm, no foul" kind of situation for me. You don't go out of your way to mess with me, then I will show up, take your class(es), train, and then leave.  That's what I give: a perfect, static-free ride that puts money in your pocket with my attendance. What more do you need?

But, that's not what an addicts sells. They always want more. Way more. When I "leveled up" to my brother's harder martial arts school for the seriously wealthy wanna-be and those athletes who are supported by their deep-pocketed fandom, I knew it was risky just being there. My brother routinely lies about how much experience he has as a martial artist with a lot of disposable income, and artificially lowers his belt rankings whenever he feels like, so he can appear more like a beginner, and win against more gifted fighters with less experience in class and in competition. He's also a lot bigger than most dudes, which makes him less injury-prone in BJJ, and he likes to hurt people. Badly. He's a dude with some serious issues.

And so, his "pro" school reflected this warped world at an insanely jacked-up rate, with a lot more intensity than the average McDojo at your local strip mall. Know what I'm sayin'? Our gi's were embroidered with the word "competition" emblazoned on them already, regardless of a student's level or skill, just to let newcomers know that they're all seen as "fresh meat". And the kooks were quick to come-out. My flushing mechanisms were well-honed by then, so I knew crazy bitches would try to hurt me. What can I say? I was already injured. I popped my own meniscus (already damaged) and my partial ACL tear to a full one at my own discretion, doing a class drill common for BJJ but killer on your knees. Most addicts immediately get surgery (and more than just one or two knee surgeries, these are hard-bitten junkies, after all), but I didn't have the time or money to do so.

Besides, ACL replacement surgery is this harmful roll of the dice where you can either 1) receive a cadaver graft (!!!) from a recently expired person, and hope it takes to your body post-surgery without rejection or 2) get a graft made from a ligament lifted from another part of your body, and then keep your leg almost completely immobile for an entire year, and that's before the grueling PT part of your rehabilitative process even begins. Oh, and then you re-tear and re-injure your knee soon after resuming MMA/BJJ training, anyway. It just buys you another year or two in the game.

Huh? Say wha', muthfucka? I ain't in this business gettin' rich! There was absolutely no reason for me to undergo some serious life-threatening procedure so some out-of-town muthafucka can nurse his growing bank account (including his posh pad in Rio), just so I can pretend to be some bad-ass bitch. I rehabbed my knee injury at the YMCA in Brooklyn, because I had to do a similar thing after my first knee surgery from my dog walking accident with Ted. And then, like my doctor said, I just changed sports. It was hard to do, but I did it. I did Tai Chi, an aerobic kickboxing class (for amateurs), swimming, weight lifting, yoga, Pilates, bag training, and running on the elliptical. Problem-solved.

I still have some knee instability, but I have a professional knee brace for more intensive sports (like, say, downhill skiing that I don't do), and a series of other types of commercially-made knee wraps to compensate for rough times, like spring, when the weather turns really wet and humid. Always bothers my knee. C'est la vie. Here I am still writing to you, and that's what really counts in my world. My life story is what I trained to be a sensei* in, not your broke-ass view of the world, rife with crime and drugs. Feel me? I'm not a gym toy or a work-out machine for a bunch of screw ups to use at their discretion, pro career or not. Seek yo' gym fodder elsewhere.

After my real agenda became known, the intensity of the "hard sell" upon the other gym clients became more intense. If they slept a decent 8-9 hours worth of sleep a night, then they were characterized as "shiftless and lazy" in some classes because (in the words of one famous athlete) "your competition is training while you sleep!" Uh, excuse me? That muthafucka in the UFC was out bangin' last night at some club with a bunch of ugly-ass hookers, and I know that because I saw the footage live on entertainment t.v., whacked out on coke and his own self-created case of OCD. Get the fuck out! 

But, the more susceptible people around me took such wildly-made and totally irresponsible claims to heart. For them, their newly adopted sport held the zeal of a recent religious convert, pouring their emotions about their lives into something that could be as banal as sweating it out on some funky blue mats on a Monday evening with an out-of-shape fat dude in a bright headband sporting a really bad attitude because he isn't a real athlete, or fighter, or warrior. The reality behind any kind of training is the regularity and repetition of it, though with the more advanced classes and sparring sessions of MMA, that boredom is alleviated by the harder challenges each fighter faces, whether they be emotional, financial, mental, psychological, or physical. 

At the end of my stints training in other people's places, I came out with the exact same sense of self that I had before (and after) my MMA training: if I work hard enough, I can do anything. Of course, age and injury visits us all at some point in life, but the awe the other martial arts students in class had for me—and my relative maturity, in comparison to theirs—in those highly stressful fight sessions (regardless of age), pointed out anew to me what every art and design studio I'd ever worked for already knew about me: that I was already a "black belt" in life, and that I'd been one for a very long time. It wasn't something you could buy, or earn at some gym. And dip-shit, get a good night's sleep. That's mandatory. See you out there!

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensei

for Cassius

Sleepless by Soul Coughing

I got the will to drive myself sleepless
I got the will to drive myself sleepless
I got the will to drive myself sleepless
I got the will to drive myself sleepless

So much time is cashed
So much smoke is wasted
Sudden disappearance
And the air is thick and cool

And I can't approach myself
Skidding over this perdition
And now I'm out on the veranda
When I should have gone to school

I got the will to drive myself sleepless
I got the will to drive myself sleepless
I got the will to drive myself sleepless
I got the will to drive myself sleepless

Well I call for sleep
But sleep it won't come to me
Shuffling in the hallway
I can hear him on the stairs

And I hear his lighter flicking
I hear the soft sigh of his inhale
And the whole width of my intentions
He exhales into the air, yea

I got the will to drive myself sleepless
I got the will to drive myself sleepless
I got the will to drive myself sleepless
I got the will to drive myself sleepless

I got the will to drive myself sleepless
I got the will to drive myself sleepless
I got the will to drive myself sleepless
I got the will to drive myself sleepless

I got the will to drive myself sleepless
I got the will to drive myself sleepless
I got the will to drive myself sleepless

Skeedunt, stunt the runt
Smoking Buddha blunt
Skeedunt, stunt the runt
Skeedunt, stunt the runt
Smoking Buddha blunt
Skeedunt, stunt the runt

I got the will to drive myself sleepless
I got the will to drive myself sleepless, sleepless, sleepless

I got the will to drive myself sleepless
I got the will to drive myself sleepless
Sleep, sleep, sleep
Sleep, sleep, sleep
Sleep, sleep, sleepless

Sportsdyke

Infamous 80s hairdo known as "the softball haircut", or more recently dubbed the "Dyke-O'Mullet", as worn by my kind of lesbian, a man: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mullet_%28haircut%29

Psychological warfare doesn't just take place in offices, behind closed doors. Luckily for me, abuse follows me wherever I go! In fact, some of the weirdest behavior that seems to happen around me all the time was during my time on the mats of some infamous dojos, with or without athletic lesbians included, because (and here's the kicker), I'd be there regardless of the other people who may or may not be seriously dedicated athletes. Me? I just don't give a fuck. It's enormously expensive to train with elite athletes, and as such, I take it seriously enough (kinda like ballet as a kid), but better, because there's lots of dudes around, which brings me to another important point: I've done some of my roughest fighting with my brother Bernie, during that glorious time before he hit puberty, and when I actually had a decent shot at beating him or making him cry, which I hated. He was my best friend as a kid, and a beautifully sensitive boy who was bullied at school (he was called "pretty boy" a lot), which I also hated.

It's part of what makes him so angry, because he's always had great difficulty processing his emotions well, given genetic difficulties that he certainly didn't want or ask for, which gave him way more free passes at home and away than I had, but not by much. He gets crazy/angry quickly, which, as an experienced martial artist in the Super Heavyweight class, means I can't train with him in total effectiveness at the dojo for competitions, which he also reminds me about whenever I want him to spar with me. You know, he could do me a favor, instead of the other way around, but whatevs, Bern. No, I know! You pay a lot of money for "your time", too, and I'm so puny and weak, how could you get a decent workout for your money? Not much has changed between us in that sense over the years, besides his obvious big size over me. You think I'm kidding? He's bred one heck of a big boy who took to MMA naturally (without hard time on the mats) much more than his older, smaller, and way more experienced black belt brother in Taekwondo, and that bears a seriously strong thinking-over, too.

Which brings me to the other point about me and fight training; it's in the blood. I'm not a warrior because I choose it, or because I like some trendy fucking gym scene. It chose me. And my brothers. And my nephews....but I digress. What some crazy dyke thinks is a good rubbing around with her strap-on "bestie" while spending our time on the mat to play stupid fucking games with (BTW: thanks, Anne, for rolling with Peg while "dyke-ing" it up at TSMMA, while I tried to stay alive with you two fucks during grappling, you know, because you had a brown belt and Peggy has a black belt), is my real fucking sport. Wackos waste time, and time is money, so get a grip, moron.

Just do what I do. Wrestle it out like a pro during class (while I look at some of the more handsome gentlemen folk with actual penises who may be training) and then afterwards...well that's up to you and me and you-know-who, because that "Big Injun" I know (who happens to be just around the bend) is the best warrior ever, if you know what I mean. Like, the ultimate. Yeah, that's it! How catchy! Training with professionalism without the weird fucking head games that don't work is like being "The Ultimate Warrior", or something like that. I dunno. Maybe.That's what I heard, at least, from those people commentating live on t.v. during MMA fights. See you on the mats, warriors, and leave your fucking crazy dyke shit you think you're working out at home, okay? I don't give a fuck about it. It's "go" time! Happy hunting.

http://www.mulletjunky.com/