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The Hakka Round House

Survival to Kitsch

Me: I dunno. I think we might be bored. And it’s in the middle of nowhere.
Her: I think we should see it. You’ve always wanted to see one and now’s our chance. I’ll handle all the logistics.
Me: Well, ok, I guess…

One of the things that Sara did for our trip, because I’d mentioned wanting to visit a Hakka round house – called a tulou (土樓) – was to discover that there was a replica round house built in a town called Miaoli in Taiwan.

I mentioned us visiting it briefly and said that I’d tell you about it someday.

Seems like today’s the day.

This is me standing in front of the replica.

It’s not so much a house as it is more a round apartment complex with an open courtyard in the middle.

For the replica, they built a glass roof over what is usually the open roof.

You can see how there are rooms all along the side of it.

Now, the reason that these things were round was pretty simple: The Hakka were living in a world that just didn’t want them and was always trying to kill them.

So, the buildings were round so that archers could defend the home from all angles.

They had walls that were up to six feet thick at the base to prevent siege weapons from breaking in.

On mainland China, there’s a whole preserved village of them in Fujian – what we saw in Taiwan was merely a replica of one.

Again, they weren’t so much homes as they were mini-fortresses that were meant to keep the inhabitants – my people – from being murdered.

I mean, think about that for a second.

Even if you’re not told that you’re hated and despised, just looking around you – being in remote areas living in fortresses that were meant to be completely self-sufficient – how do you not grow up feeling like an outsider and unwanted?

This was the mindset of the Hakka for thousands of years and one has to think that this mindset permeated everything about us.

In some ways, the Hakka are truly like the Jewish community in that, like them, the Hakka really focused on education and vying for positions of power.

Because, like the Jewish community, the Hakka were tired of being powerless and persecuted, so we have been over-represented in the military and politics post-WW2.

In fact, post-Mao, the most powerful man in all of China was Deng Xiaoping, a Hakka.

He modernized China more than any other single human being, including Mao himself.

In other words, (and this is purely my opinion but I think I’m right) he made modern China more Hakka-like and this is why China is so powerful now.

And that is why I’ve said, so many times in the past, that the US is not prepared to go to war against a country like China.

America is not prepared to go against a society that has, because of Deng, a culture based on education, power, and survival.

The Hakka survive shit.

You don’t know what you’re up against.

This isn’t the China that the US carved up in the 1800s and Japan beat in the 30s and 40s. This is one that’s modern and has learned its lessons.

Now, the immediately preceeding two pictures are of more replica round houses, this time, built on top of a department store in my my mom’s hometown of Hsinchu in Taiwan.

I find it funny that these things created for survival and defense have now become cultural kitsch.

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And like I said in my last entry, I think the Hakka culture explains so much about why I am the way I am: Focused on knowledge and education but never forgetting that survival is as much an issue of physical ability as well as mental acuity.

The Hakka round house is a synecdoche of the Hakka people, in my opinion.

Me: I think I’m finally gonna write about the Hakka round house. Hey, thanks for insisting that we go [when we were in Taiwan]. That was really cool to see.
Her: Oh, sure! I’m glad we got a chance to go.

The interior of the Yuchang tulou. By Gisling – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link
The exterior of the Yuchang tulou. By Gisling – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link

Location: my regular rectangular pad
Mood: ridic busy
Music: I learned my lesson young (Spotify)
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I’m not exactly Chinese

Travelers, safe at home

Me: (years ago) It’s hard to explain. Essentially, it’s kinda like how Jewish Europeans were looked at by other Europeans. [My people] mainly look like everyone else but everyone else hated us for how different we were from them.
Lea, my Irish friend: (in her Irish accent) Ah, you’re a traveler!

When I was a kid, I read the Diary of Anne Frank, and it really messed with me. I only ever read it that one time because it shook me so much.

Couldn’t wrap my kid brain around it; I had Jewish friends and they looked exactly like all the other Caucasian kids.

This was from when we visited Vienna.

Remember that this was the 80s and, at that time, Asians were only starting to move into Queens so there weren’t a lotta us.

I remember thinking, “Man, white people are so weird. They hate and try to kill off an entire group of people just because they’re different.”

It wasn’t until way later that I discovered that this wasn’t limited to Jews and Europeans.

The Indians had their caste system, the Japanese had their Burakumin, and the Chinese – I later discovered – had…us.

You see, I’m not exactly Chinese in the same way that a Jewish citizen of France may or may not call themselves “French,” and/or “Jewish.”

My family – prior to my marrying Alison and then Sara – is 100% Hakka, which is what we called ourselves, for at least the last 700 years. This means that I’m genetically 100% Hakka.

Man, did I mess that up.

But that’s neither here nor there.

Just like the Irish called their itinerants “travelers,” the Hakka literally translates to “guest people.”

We were “guest people,” because no one wanted us, so we were essentially nomads

But we were called less savory things and treated even worse than that.

It was estimated that in during one reprisal, the Chinese killed 30,000 Hakka every single day for weeks.

That’s just a tiny bit of our story but essentially, people have been trying to kill or get rid of us for centuries.

That’s why so many Hakka are in Taiwan. There’s a dark explanation that I told for years and still tell.

We’re kinda like the Jews of China. No one wanted us and everyone was always trying to kill us. When there wasn’t any more China to escape to, we left the whole mainland and went to Taiwan. My parents went even further and came here.

But it’s true.

And it’s deeply imbedded into the psyche of many/most Hakka that the next reprisal could come at any day, so safety has always been a theme of this blog.

So too is embedded the concept of home, probably one of the top two or three recurring themes in this blog.

The place that this mindset shows up the most, though, is in our houses.

But, this entry’s getting long, so I’ll wrap it up in the next one.

Oh, but here are some pictures of classic Hakka food before I go.

Location: my little slice of the world
Mood: stressed
Music: I’ve been travellin’ a hard road (Spotify)
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The unexpected athlete

Couples Picnic Table Challenge

It’s funny – you know me as this peanut-butter, rum, and chili-obsessed dreamer but the world at large knows me more as Logan from Scenic Fights.

Which is definitely cool, don’t get me wrong.

But I find it humorous that most people know me as an athlete these days, something that I never woulda imagined in a million years growing up.

I literally played two games of base/stickball in my entire life.

And in high school, I doubt there was anyone in my entire school that was worse than me at basketball anything sports related.

And yet, somehow, along the way, I became exactly that.

Because we are what we constantly do and I’m as much at the gym as I am anywhere else.

The kid takes after Alison in that he not only loves to watch sports, something I have zero interest in, but also loves to play sports as well.

I think that she would be thrilled that he loves soccer and baseball, two things she always adored.

The kid unexpectedly got a chance to go with his school to catch a Yankees game the other night – he was out until 11PM – AND also got a chance to walk the field.

Plus, he came home with a ball from the dugout to boot.

Man, this kid’s face musta been sore the next day with the amount he was smiling.

Sara is pretty athletic herself – she played softball for years as a kid and tells me all about her childhood working with the track team in high school.

Seems everyone in her school was involved with athletics.

Plus, I marvel at her walking all the way to and from her office on the east side of Manhattan on the regular.

She also started coming with me to kali over a year ago, which is something that I really appreciate.

Which brings me to the videos below.

Before I messed up my back, Sara and I saw this video with couples doing the Couples Picnic Table Challenge.

Clearly, we had to try it.

The last time I did anything like this was with my buddy Lorin out in LA and he’s a professional. Ours was decidedly less refined.

In any case, the kid found it on his phone so I’m putting it up below (sound was awful so I just killed it).

This is not what I pictured my 50s to be like but, here we are.

Man, just watching this hurt my back…

Location: with the kids and my nephews having a sleepover
Mood: hungry
Music: We make it look easy, we make it look good (Spotify)
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Fellas, at my pad last night…

Corny Sad Logan

Her: Well, I found your blog before I met you, so I was interested to see how much of your online persona matched you in real life.
Me: No kidding? What’d you think?
Her: You are exactly as you are in the blog. Even the corny things you say.
Me: Corny?!
Her: Like, you say, “fellas,” in the blog. And I was like, “Well, there’s no way he uses that in real life.” Nope, he does.
Me: CORNY?!

I wonder sometimes how I come across in this blog.

When I first started writing it, I remember that my buddy Nadi felt like I came across as a sad sack – but that was mainly because I thought my failures with women was far more entertaining than my successes.

Still, a number of people, including Sara, have said that this blog pretty accurately reflects the way I am in real life.

Sara does say that I’m happier in real life versus how I sound in the blog, but I think that this blog allows me to sit with my thoughts and sadness does occupy my mind a lot.

It’s not always like that.

But yeah, I glad that at least some people think that I’m not trying to pretend to be something that I’m not.

Her: And who says “pad,” for their apartment? The 1990s called. They want their word back
Me: Well, that’s more of a 70s thing…
Her: (interrupting) They still want their word back, Logan.

Sara in high school – better pic than any of me in high school, trust me on this.

Speaking of the 70s, Sara and I had a fun time the other night reminiscing about things we loved from our past that are gone now.

For her, she loved Squeezits as a kid.

For me, I loved something called the Reggie Bar, which was named after famed baseball player Reggie Jackson.

I told her that the thing I loved the most as a little kid was cheese in a can, which was something that I could literally eat with a sleeve of saltine crackers for brekkie, lunch, and dinner.

No wonder that I such a fat kid.

I could go on and list a million more things, but I’ll relate a final story for this entry.

Told you in the last entry that Sara’s sister and BIL came over for dinner the other day and we got to talking about drinks.

Him: I definitely had a Zima before, I just don’t remember it.
Me: It looked like a bottle of vodka but tasted like…well, kinda like beer. (later) What about a Bartles and Jaymes?
Him: The coolers?
Me: Yeah, that was pretty huge when I was a kid and then it just…stopped.
Someone (I don’t remember who): That stopped being a thing by the time we were in college.

I wonder what memories of stuff happening right now the kid will bring with him into his future.

Man, I hope it’s a whole lotta good things.

I wish that more than you can imagine.

Location: Chinatown with everyone, having hand-pulled carbs
Mood: nostalgic
Music: Give me a paper and a pen so I can write about my life of sin (Spotify)
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Everything you have now you once wished for

More than anything

Him: (playing guitar and suddenly noticing me) Hey, what are you doing?
Me: (standing at his doorway) Sorry, was just in the kitchen and heard you play. Didn’t mean to scare you.
Him: Oh. Do you want to hear what I’ve been working on? I can play you what I got so far.
Me: (wiping hands and sitting down) Sweeet! I’d love that.

My last entry stuck in my head because of a line I wrote which was that there was once a time I dreamt of having all that I have.

    • I have a great kid that is smart, talented, kind, and healthy. That alone is worth the world to me.
    • Speaking of kids, as a kid, I had this thing called Compuserve for like two weeks because I got some sort of free trial of it somehow. It was pre-pre-prehistoric Internet. And I thought it was the most amazing thing ever. My mind could never have imagined internet and alla you people reading me.
      • This is to say nothing about the communication device/GPS/music player/video camera/photo camera/translation device/television/video game system that we all keep in my back pocket 24/7.
    • I regularly look at Sara and think, “How on earth did I convince someone as drop dead gorgeous and sweet as Sara to marry me?”
      • Granted, I may have incriminating dirt on her, but still…

    • I wrote a book, or two, that I’m proud of and this blog has been 20 years of me just putting my thoughts out into the aether, hoping someone responds – and, most times, someone does.
    • I was a respected member of the bar, and my office regularly tells me that they’d love for me to come back and do more work; I remember being in law school anxious that I’d never find a job.
      • Heck, I remember being sick with anxiety about even making it to law school, or college, or my high school, or my middle school.
    • When I was a fat kid, I dreamt, more than anything, to be slim and have friends. I’ve now been slim for at least 12 times longer than I’ve been fat.

    • I’ve always had massive imposter syndrome when it came to my ability to fight but I just destroyed a guy that was my level, twenty years younger than me, and 40 pounds heavier than me. Just…destroyed him. And this happens more often than I would have expected.
    • My mortgage is paid off some six years early and I live in the heart of Manhattan, something I dreamt of all the time when I was in Cornell.

I could go on, but I don’t wanna sound like I’m bragging.

I’m not.

I’m just reminding myself that everything I have now I once desperately wished – more than anything – for.

And I couple this idea with another one that I heard someone say once: You’re in the middle of the last big great thing you wished for.

Alison and I dreamt so much – you cannot imagine how much, which is why her death guts me – about being parents and now I am one.

Yes, it’s not at all the way I thought it would be and it’s far more difficult than I ever would have imagined.

But still, I have to remind myself that I’m in the middle of the thing that Alison and I (mainly Alison) worked so hard to have.

May is tough on the kid and me for reasons you know, and this year has been no different.

But I’m better enough now to recognize that I need to be grateful for all that I do have and not dwell on everything that I don’t.

I’m also not in a hurry for the next big thing because this thing I’m in now, is pretty good.

Mostly.

Me: Hey can I…gah! What’s on your face!?
Her: (face mask on face and with a southern accent) Look Logan, you’re used to “Tryna Get Me a Man, Sara.”
Me: Wha?
Her: This here is “Done Got Me A Man, Sara.”
Me: I don’t think this is what I signed up for. 
Her: (shakes head) Too late. No backsies.

Location: where I belong
Mood: grateful
Music: There’s so much more. Be grateful (Spotify)
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Going back to baseline

Nuthin

Him: 53! You’re another year closer to death.
Me: I’m another year closer to baseline.
Him: What does that mean?
Me: (shrugging) I’ve been dead a lot longer than I’ve ever been alive. Once I’m dead, things will go back to normal.

98% of the universe is hydrogen (74%) and helium (24%); the remaining 2% is the stuff we care about and most of that is nuthin.

In fact, most of the universe is just that: Nuthin.

No light, no heat, no life.

Just..nuthin.

But on top of all the current nuthin, everything before us and after us was and will be…nuthin.

Life itself and everything we know is an anomaly.

If all of time was the following, then the entirety of all life from the Big Bang onwards – planets, stars, galaxies, people, dinosaurs, hot blondes from the south, everything that ever existed and will exist – would be a single atomic particle somewhere inside another atom, inside that green cross below.

…++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++…

And all those white crosses before and after that atomic particle would stretch out into infinity and just be fulla…nuthin.

Mark Twain once said, “I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.”

That’s probably the truest thing the fella ever said.

And, after these short 53 years, I’m not so much afraid of dying as I’m a little weary of life itself.

Don’t get me wrong, I AM afraid of dying, and I definitely WANT to stick around for as long as possible I’m able to enjoy it, but I’m also old enough to feel, well, tired.

But the kid’s not ready yet and I’ve gotta do everything I can to stick around until he’s ready to face the world alone.

Alison once said that the moment you become a parent is the moment you start worrying and never stop. She was right.

In any case, I look at people that spend their lives watching Netflix and gorging themselves on junk and wonder if they truly appreciate the astronomical odds that gave them life in a universe filled with nuthin.

Like, you’re actually sentient and have free will and what you choose to do with it is buy MAGA hats and believe nonsense.

It seems insane to me.

We’re so unbelievably lucky to even exist – we are in such an infinitesimally small minority that, if I think about it too much, I feel my own madness begin – and yet so many people, myself included, squander it.

I suppose that’s why most people seem insane to me.

Because this – existence itself – is the outlier.

Since the beginning of time, most of everything was nuthin.

And someday, it’ll all be nuthin again and never stop being nuthin.

And that’s when it occurred to me that perhaps everyone else is sane and I’m the insane one.

Not that it would surprise me.

Him: So how are you gonna celebrate?
Me: Gonna have some rum, make out with the wife, go to bed with a good book. The kid’s gonna let me sleep in.
Him: (laughing) Living the dream, man.
Me: (nodding) Living is the dream, man. Few people get the chance.

Location: here in space and time, if only for a moment
Mood: philosophical
Music: each one and the next one to arrive; the argument for consciousness (Spotify)
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I kinda have high cholesterol

I mean I do, but…

Me: Well, the good news is that I called the doctor like you asked…
Her: OK…and the bad news?
Me: I may have told the office to go fuck themselves.
Her: You understand that this won’t help you get that appointment for your back.
Me: I am not unaware. In my defense, they deserved it. I did apologize to the unfortunate soul that was unlucky enough to pick up the phone.

I’m gonna be – Jesus Christ – 53 in a few weeks.

Up until Alison got sick, I used to always get my annual physical around my birthday but, like most things, that went out the window once she got sick.

Only just got back on track a year or two ago.

Which is a good thing because, as I get older, the things that are falling apart on me is increasing on the daily.

On that note, my cholesterol is now solidly in the “high” category BUT my HDL is pretty high, and my triglycerides are pretty low.

In the past, I’d be on statins now, but research seems to show that, if you have low triglycerides and a high HDL, your chance of getting a cardiac event is pretty low.

According to the American College of Cardiology’s Risk Estimator Plus, despite having a fairly high cholesterol level, my overall risk of getting a heart attack is only 0.6% higher than what they consider “optimal.”

I almost got a heart attack when the doc called me to tell me my test results, but it turns out that he’s just old school and likes to actually chat to his patients on the phone rather than just have his office email results.

Him: Do you eat a lot of red meat?
Me: Well, not particularly, just about…
Him: (interrupting) Try to limit it to once a week – ideally once every two weeks.
Me: OK, I’ll try but…
Him: (interrupting again) You’re a nice guy, I’d like you stick around.
Me: Frankly, I’d like to stick around too.

I wouldn’t say I’m a nice guy – I’m not a jerk but I’m hardly a nice guy either.

Case-in-point, my back is crap again and I tried to make an appointment, but they insisted that I come in for a third consultation – which is ridiculous, as they literally just see me for five minutes.

They screwed up two prior injection visits so with this last phone call, I may have gone went off on the poor soul that picked up the phone and told me that I’d have to get a consultation first before getting an injection.

I did apologize afterwards but I don’t think I’ll be heading back to that office again.

Her: (sighs) Do I need to start making appointments on your behalf?
Me: Evidently.

Honestly, I think that part of the reason that my cholesterol was so high was because I made a four-pound cut of corned beef and cabbage for St. Paddy’s day the night before my tests.

Looks like it’s gonna be a lotta fish and chicken in the Lo House moving forward.

Sigh.

Location: earlier today, Chinatown again – been busy with work
Mood: thoughtful
Music: I don’t want to stay here on my own (Spotify)
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All classic pizza comes from Lombardi’s

…and his assistants

Years ago, *early* in my club days when I was just getting into the biz, I met this mafioso.

Now, in NYC, you meet a ton of Italians who say they’re connected, just like every single army guy you meet was an Army Ranger or Green Beret so take that with a grain of salt BUT I recall that he really did seem the part.

Anywho, we got to chatting we started talking about pizza. I had my local pizza joint, John’s in Times Square, which is where I lived before I moved to the Upper Best Side.

Him: You know alla the best pizza in NYC comes from Lombardi’s downtown, yeah?
Me: Howso?
Him: See, years ago, Lombardi had four assistants – Totonno Pero, John Sasso, Patsy Lancieri, Patsy Grimaldi – and alla them left Lombardi and opened their own joints. Outta respect for Lombardi, Totonno opened in Coney Island, John’s opened in midtown, Patsy’s opened in Harlem, and Grimaldi opened in Brooklyn.
Me: No kidding?
Him: Yeah, no kidding.

Well, it turns out that alla that was mostly true – the Grimaldi part is the part that’s the most incorrect, at least according to this article.

Honestly, this means that alla what we generally consider to be pizza in the US – not stuff like that casserole people call deep-dish pizza – comes from Lombardi’s.

In any case, I thought of all of this because of the kid and Alison.

See, after the kid’s talent show, because his grandmother, Alison’s mom, was in town, I wanted to bring them both to Patsy’s, which is just a few blocks south of my pad – Patsy’s being one of the five original pizza joints in America if you also count the original, Lombardi’s.

The last time I was there was with Alison, my brother, and some friends, on October 26th, 2013 – I wrote about it here.

Anywho, I heard that it was gonna close soon so I wanted them to try it before it closed but…

Me: Wait, is it closed?
Sara: Looks that way. (checks phone) It closed in January!
Me: What!?! Google said it was still open!

It was not.

Because of all the carbs, I don’t really eat all that much pizza but now I regret not going when I had the chance.

In any case, that’s why we went to the other joint – where we did NOT have pizza.

BUT we actually got a second bite at that same apple, purely by chance.

See, we were supposed to see my SIL, Alison’s sister, for the boys to go swimming this past weekend.

And she just happens to have a Grimaldi in Hoboken so that’s exactly what we had.

To wit, while we didn’t get to have Patsy’s, we still got to have some killer OG NYC-style pizza…in New Jersey.

We can just keep that last part to just the two of us, ok?

Oh, extra credit: If you head to Naples and order pizza from one of their oldest and most respected pizza joints, you’d be ordering from this family’s restaurant:

The Lombardi’s, which opened in 1892.

Here’s famous eater Mark Weins finding out that US pizza comes from Lombardi’s in Naples.

Location: my local supermarket, wondering if four pounds of corned beef is enough
Mood: dog-tired
Music: Hatee-hatee-hatee-ho! (Spotify)
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The courage of despair

Chapter 7 – Maneuvering

Recently got into a pretty bad argument with a business partner. It was bad.

He called me a few choice invectives, and I invited him to say them to my face when next met.

Went downhill from there.

He later apologized but I refused to take his apology, which was my shortcoming.

I lost the high ground when I refused to listen to him, and I realized that I was being a hypocrite because I’d been upset – for years – with a former friend for not even hearing my apology when I tried to give it once.

We managed to sort it all out, but I thought about it again recently when I heard about Trump’s attack on Iran.

One thing that I messed up with in my situation was that I cornered my business partner.

See, I was physically, legally, and ethically in a stronger position and he was not, at all.

But I overplayed my hand.

I left him no room to save face so all he could do would be to either dig in his heels or completely capitulate and acquiesce, which he wouldn’t be doing.

So, in the end, I had to reach out to him, which is what I did.

In Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, Chapter 7, Maneuvering, the general wrote:

When you surround an army, leave an outlet free… The object… is to make him believe that there is a road to safety and thus prevent his fighting with the courage of despair.

It makes sense, yeah?

Because every trapped animal instinctively knows, “Well, I’m trapped, I’m dead anyway, I might as well fight with everything I’ve got because…what have I got to lose?”

And so, any victory becomes a Pyrrhic victory.

That’s precisely where we are right now.

We have almost completely decimated Iran and have shown zero mercy – attacking without any notice or real provocation.

But the key word is almost.

They have enough left to drag this one for years and, even when things may seem quiet, continue the attack in ways we may not expect for years and decades to come.

We’ve boxed the Iranians in – and ourselves.

It’s the stupid, yet wholly obvious, result of an ill-conceived idea by stupid and wholly incompetent people.

All this to distract from the fact that my most gullible of fellow Americans voted for a pedophile.

Him: Are you ok, papa?
Me: What? Oh, I’m just reading.
Him: About what.
Me: (shaking head) Nuthin good. But also nuthin for you to worry about.

Location: the UPS store, being told that they can’t ship something – “Isn’t this what you guys do?”
Mood: exasperated
Music: Captain America’s been torn apart now (Spotify)
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Gay Freddie from Steuben

What he’s wrought

This gay fella named Fred created the US Armed Forces that we know today.

Lemme back up a bit.

Baron Friedrich Wilhelm August Heinrich Ferdinand Freiherr von Steuben – let’s just call him “Freddie,” for obvs reasons – arrived in Portsmouth, New Hampshire on December 1, 1777, with:

    • is young aide-de-camp, Louis de Pontière
    • his military secretary, Pierre-Étienne du Ponceau
    • two other dudes, and
    • his doggie, Azor – an Italian Greyhound, which he, reportedly, took with him everywhere.
Baron von Steuben Drilling Troops at Valley Forge, by E. A. Abbey (c. 1904), Pennsylvania State Capitol, Harrisburg

When he arrived, there was no real American “army.” This fact is reflected in our own Constitution which talks about a “well regulated Militia.”

Yes, the Continental “Army” existed but in name only – it was really a buncha militias tossed together.

Enter Von Steuben.

According to Wikipedia:

He arrived at Valley Forge on February 23, 1778, and reported for duty as a volunteer. One soldier’s first impression of the Baron was “of the ancient fabled God of War … he seemed to me a perfect personification of Mars. The trappings of his horse, the enormous holsters of his pistols, his large size, and his strikingly martial aspect, all seemed to favor the idea. He turned the volunteers into a great army.”

How?

Basic stuff.

From establishing “standards of sanitation and camp layouts that would still be standard a century and a half later” to enforcing “the keeping of exact records and strict inspections,” to prevent graft and profiteering.

He also set up a training program to train soldiers on HOW to be soldiers.

To be clear: The historical bad-assery of the US Army would not have existed but for Baron Von Steuben.

Note that it was a pretty open secret that he was as gay as a unicorn in a glitter factory during Pride Week.

That’s probably why he was slumming it with the colonists instead of fighting battles and having afternoon tea back in Prussia.

Plus, he never married but had several young male “friends,” that kept him company throughout the years; in fact he settled in Manhattan with a fella named William North for a while.

So, yeah, as gay as a rainbow wearing another rainbow.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

In any case, wonder if Freddie would be proud or ashamed of what he’s wrought.

What’s the point of this entry?

It seems to me that it’s always the people draft-dodging, fat fucks with bone spurs that have only ever experienced violence from the safety of a movie seat or a living room couch that have strong preconceived notions as to what constitutes actual strength or violence capacity.

In fact, violence and the ability to inflict violence really only comes down to two things: How good are you at violence and the ability to inflict violence.

Everything else – if someone is gay or straight, likes to wear slacks or a dress, is black or white, is male or female – is really just mental masturbation.

Those things are really only important to someone that cares about something besides violence itself.

Speaking of violence itself, anyone that’s experienced either the giving or receiving of it, it’s not something you take lightly or without a clear plan for finishing.

In Scenic Fights, we’re always talking about finishing the fight.

Because, in the end, that’s really the main thing, isn’t it?

Good thing no one is quite so stupid as to embark on something so dangerous on a global scale without these things clearly at the forefront.

Location: home, reading the new
Mood: incredulous
Music: you talk about death and everything in between like it’s nothing (Spotify)
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