Laying With a Beast Who Does Yoga

Recently, I was looking at a YouTube Video  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-XEZDG0mtU of a morbidly obese Latina woman and her small sized friend doing "yoga" for free in her living room sitting on an area rug.  I was looking at some of the comments left by previous viewers, and while I applaud this marine mammal's effort to stretch her blubber, I offer some words of advice.  Of course, people never listen.  They never believe that foul smell is their own goose cooking until it is too late.

The first time that I heard of the Fat Acceptance Movement, I felt a deep sense of fraud in my heart.  When I was a small child growing up in suburban Los Angeles in the 1970's, it was a rarity to see a morbidly obese person in public.  I remember seeing one at the Eagle Rock Plaza that was far lighter and leaner than that big woman-cow in the yoga video.  Me and my siblings gawked at her girth.  It was evident that it took a great deal of mass consumption to maintain that obscene and unhealthy weight.  Morbid obesity is no longer a novelty but something that we are supposed to look at squarely in the double chinned face and somehow acknowledge that it is normal behavior to maintain such a huge mass.

Most Mestizo and women of African descent are fat because they eat the white man's diet and do not exercise.  If Mexicans ate an indigenous diet, obesity would only exist among the ruling and priest classes.  Same with the brothers and the sisters.  You are fat because you should be eating chapulines, carne de venado, tortillas de maize, frijol, chili, calabazaz, huitlacoche, small organic birds and fish, water spinach, tomatoes, fresh fruit and nopal.  If you are so raza, then why do you eat food produced by multi-death corporations and then buy their diabetes medications?  Why do you drink firewater?  If Africans were eating fufu, groundnuts, bushmeat, yams, and fresh fruit instead of Popeye's Fried Chicken and the McDonalds value meal, the race would be experiencing far fewer health problems and the obesity rate would plummet.

The Orca in the video takes a jab at the yoga classes and studios she claims to have been to, and takes a jab at women who wear a particular brand of yoga pants.  She clearly states that Mexican women do not attend yoga studios nor do other people of color.  What a fat pile of horse shit!  I regularly attend yoga studios where the most beautiful people of color perform yoga daily.  People of color who love their bodies and don't eat a whole roast pig for dinner every night.  Just because Mexicans are the fattest people in the world does not give license to fat opinionated pigs to make blanket statements about all Mexicans.  You are not the Raza police.  There are plenty of Mexicans that regularly do real yoga in an integrated studio.  The particular school I attend does not charge an up front fee.  It is by donation only and therefore completely accessible to low income people of all colors (and sizes).

If you truly love yourself as you profess than why do you place yourself in dire peril by maintaining and defending a lifestyle that it going to kill you?  Now for those words of advice:

Go to the doctor and have him test your heart and organs out.  The size that you are means that all of your internal organs are encased in fat.  Go to a real doctor who has no stake in your health insurance and ask them for their frank but professional prognosis.  Find out if it is safe to exercise vigorously.  It may not be too late if you are still in your 20's and your arteries have not yet hardened.

Do over 45 minutes of cardio every day.  Cardio means working more than your sandwich muscles.  Everything over 45 minutes counts.  Anything less is a failure.

Lift your body weight.  Everyone should be able to lift their bodyweight.  That means a pull up, a chin up, or a dip.  Whale pose does not count.

Stop eating the white man's food.  If you are really a Chicana, than you should probably be eating the Native American diet.  And much less to boot.

Four things that will help you live.  If you believe you are not harming yourself by feeding your illness, you should probably be institutionalized.

Where are the handcuffs for Mark Ridley Thomas?

I never trusted Ridley Thomas.  I used to live over on Vermont and Jefferson, and for a little while there, he was my City Council person.  I communicated with his office on a frequent basis back in the early 1990's, usually via US Mail.  Sometimes I got a reply or call from one of his aides.  The majority of my letters were ignored.

At the outset, I tend to look at most African Americans who obtained an advanced degree at USC prior to the year 2000 with a great deal of distrust.  It is for a good reason, and that reason is that many were awarded a degree that was not based on merit.  In my professional career as an academic librarian, I worked with several people who attended the now defunct USC School of Library Science.  Some of these people were advanced to candidacy not even knowing how to spell at a fifth grade level.  I know Ridley Thomas is no intellectual powerhouse, especially when I see that he earned a doctorate from that clown college.

In 1992, after the riots, I noticed that Ridley Thomas was working side by side with people high up in the Nation of Islam.  He had this one guy call me up in response to a letter that I had written to him supporting my Korean neighbor who happened to be the owner of a liquor store that they were agitating to close under the guise of alcohol being bad for Black people, the neighborhood, a crime magnet, and some other tripe.  I don't customarily talk to white supremacists and feel about the same as the black ones.  When the Nation of Islam guy got on the phone, I started asking him questions about Wally Fard, the con-artist that invented their pseudo-islamic horseshit.  Then I asked him if I could get him to smuggle me aboard the Mother-plane.  I asked him if they should instead call it the "Brother Plane. " He did not find my questions to be one bit amusing.  I asked him what prison he had been in, and then he hung up on me.  NOI is racist and divisive.  I would just assume talk to a representative from the Aryan Brotherhood.

So fast forward a little bit to the point in time where he becomes the most powerful Black politician in California.  He uses his position to remodel his garage at taxpayer expense is what we know for sure, but where is the FBI and the Obama Justice Department?  Clearly, he is getting a free pass.  Just like that free pass that SC gave him.

America is on the precipice of disorder.  When the top Uncle Tom can't keep his paws out of the cookie jar, then what is everyone else going to do?  What a great example he has set.  Now get the fucking handcuffs and put this ass-clown in a cell in Parker Center!

Santa Monica Power Yoga

What is your fighting style?  Are you a brawler, or do you do Jujitsu?  Judo, wrestling, whatever your poison, I am going to let you in on a little secret.  If you want to learn how to prevent injury, train your breath, and give you the extra something to get your opponent to black out when you punch their face, come to this place.  You may have some pre-conceived notion that yoga is for pussies.  But no matter what your workout, you are bound to be challenged by the 90 minute sessions here.  The poses require strength and some degree of flexibility.  If you do not have said level of fitness, you run the risk of blacking out.  Upper body strength is mandatory.

My workout usually consists of waking up at 5AM and having a small breakfast of fruit, beans, rice, and at least a liter of cold water.  Then I do my first 50 chin ups and some other work on the pull up bar targeting my abs.  Then, I run uphill for about 2 hours or in the alternative, ride my bike for approximately the same duration.  The bike is essential to build the thighs and the gluteus.  Just forget about running alone.  Upon returning home, I do the balance of the chin ups to total 100.  Then I use my cervical traction device and deep breathe for about 30 minutes.  Eating tons of fresh vegetables, rice, pasta, fresh wild local fish, canned sardines, and drinking water should replace any fast or prepared foods and a banana with water is better than any energy drink.

Any way that you look at it, this regimen will leave your muscles pretty knotted up.  You can stretch, and I do, but you are not really going to unwind by stretching alone.  You need to do yoga.  In addition, I also swim in a pool and the ocean a couple of times a week to target those hard to reach muscles.

Power yoga is the glue that holds all this shit together.  It is the only natural thing that I have ever tried that quiets my head.  And I am sure the teachers know that it is some great conditioning if you are a fighter.  All of those poses cross over to give someone a real face punching all calm, cool and collected.     If you follow this simple program which does not require much of an investment, come to power yoga and challenge yourself.

A Pretty Substantial Victory

The three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals held unanimously that there is no difference between a journalist for a media outlet and another speaker when it comes to First Amendment protections.

There are many things that I dislike about the Internet, but it sure does provide us bloggers with a pulpit that can expose the evildoers.  I have never been hesitant to call a spade a spade.  Over the course of the last couple of years, I have shared true stories of individuals who have attempted to masquerade as respectable members of the community when it is clear that their souls are filled with excrement.  Some of these people have been so angry that I have exposed them that they have filed Civil Harassment Restraining Orders against me, your humble narrator.  I had to defend my speech and my freedom to keep arms to protect myself at my own expense.  But I persisted.  And won.  Shitters, you can run but you cannot hide.  

Open Letter to the Consul General of the Republic of Mexico in Los Angeles

Dear Consul General for the Republic of Mexico: 

Please be  advised that I have some helpful suggestions to assist you and your fellow countrymen in overcoming the obesity epidemic that threatens to kill more people of atherosclerosis and diabetes than your bloody fucking drug war.  It has recently come to my attention that Mexico has now surpassed the United States and has emerged as the fattest country in the world.  It comes as no big surprise, and it has been about 20 years in the making, but make no mistake about it, you, your morbidly obese little kids, y tu pinche puta madre are fat for a reason.  Or rather, reasons.  

Mexicans are not genetically programmed to eat things like macaroni and cheese, enriched white Bimbo Bread, Gansitos, Chocomil, Ding Dongs, carne de res, Fud Hot Dogs and lunch meats, pork, wheat, refined sugar, butter, milk, and sandwiches.  Mexicans had a decent diet for millennia, and after the conquest, the obesity epidemic certainly did not take place.  They did not get morbidly obese on Pallella so don't blame the Spaniards.  It happened after the Costco and Sam's Club conquest when people stopped buying their tortillas at the neighborhood tortilleria and instead went to Costco where their culture was essentially placed into the dumpster and replaced with a food culture that is not well tolerated genetically by people from this region.  And an alcohol culture that may just be as harmful as the food that the Yanquis peddle to them.  

Mexicans should be eating deer meat, grasshoppers, non-GMO corn, squash, chilies, fish, nuts, chocolate, berries, verdologas, small mammals, fowl, chocolate, and ant's eggs.  Did I mention American Cheese?  No, I did not, because it is just unnatural.   Did I mention In N Out Burger?  No, because Mexicans weren't designed to eat that abomination.  If you do not believe in evolution, please refer to your nation's obesity crisis as proof in the puddin' so to speak.  

So senor, while you ponder your next move, please consider what I have written and pass my message on.  Now, if only Michelle Obama had the courage to say to Black America that they would overcome 90% of their collective health problems by following a traditional African diet of groundnuts, bushmeat, grasscutter  cassava, fish, fufu, and native vegetables instead of eating smothered pork chops, ribs, fired chicken, and cornbread…..

Resolute

This year, I am cutting down on salt.  Everything else is cool.  I plan to continue running on a daily basis and continue with my chin up challenge (+-100/daily).

Believe in yourself and be fit to lead.  Choose life.  Stop making excuses.  Everyone can get results by following four simple steps.  You do not need a gym membership or any equipment other than tennis shoes and work out clothes if you live in Southern California.

Here are the simple steps:
1) Wake up at 5AM don't make excuses
2) Stop eating shit (anything you do not cook yourself)
3) Vigorous calisthenics DAILY
4) MORE than 45 Minutes of Cardio every day (I suggest walking uphill)

Good luck and see you on the trail.  Happy 2014.  Thanks for reading.

Langer's and the Heart Attack Factor

Like many of you, I have been very fond of Langer's #19 for several years.  I remember my first meal at Langer's in 1982, when Mac Arthur Park suffered from a little bit less cocaine and heroin and violence, while not seldom, was not nearly as commonplace as today.  The American Cement Building was still fully rented, and the paddle boats still were present on the lake.  The Boathouse was not in a state of demolition.  I ordered corned beef hash and two eggs over easy.  I did not discover the #19 until 1995.

The #19 is arguably the best sandwich available in a shitty sandwich city.  Bay Cities Importing is pretty good, but it has nothing on the Central Market Muffletta, for instance.   Or a real Italian Sandwich from a deli in North Beach.  The #19 is the best pastrami I have eaten, that is for certain.  The Hat is just pure gristle and salt on a mass-produced roll from the Francisco Bakery.  The chili fries are large enough to give the City of Alhambra the runs.  The pastrami at Langer's is in a whole different  universe than the Hat as far as I am concerned.

For several years, I indulged in artery clogging goodness at Langer's on a weekly basis.  #19, fries, extra Russian Dressing, and a couple of refills on the pickles.  And a cold beer.  Your cardiologist could not hope for a better lunch to increase his profits.

I have heard several people talk about how they don't go into Langer's too much after suffering their first heart attack.  I don't go in too much anymore.  Across the street, you can buy a nice big crack rock for $20.00 without any references.  I am inclined to say that the sandwich is probably more harmful than the cocaine.  Especially if you do it up like I used to.  I'm not saying I'll never do it again.  Langer's, I mean.