Another Letter

Dear Manager of the Black Eyed Peas,

To be honest, I’m not a fan of the group that you are managing. I find their songs to be annoying and was particularly shocked at how badly they butchered Misirlou. I am now unable to watch the opening credits of Pulp Fiction because of this.

With that being said, I would like to commend you on your actions yesterday when you (allegedly) punched Perez Hilton in the face. Your actions have brought more joy to my life than anything the Black Eyed Peas will ever do (aside from eventually retiring), but, unfortunately, you failed to shut Perez up. See the kind of ungrateful bastards you manage? If you were my manager, you can rest assured that I would have gladly joined in and helped you out (and then some), but thanks to your band’s ineptitude, the world has been denied a huge service.

I wish you all the success in life, and hope that one day, you will finish what you have started. Perhaps you can give him the cunt-punching he craves.

- Red

Father’s Day!

I bought my dad a pair of Ray Ban sunglasses for Father’s Day this year. My dad always uses my sunglasses so I didn’t really want to share my stuff with him and decided to buy him a pair of his own.

My dad’s pretty cool, he looks intimidating but anyone who’s talked to my dad before can tell you that he’s a lot less serious than he looks. So, in honour of Father’s Day, I’d like to share one of my all-time favourite stories about my dad.

Growing up, my dad was always one of the smaller kids, so he got picked on, and his older brother and cousin used to stick up for him. As he got a little older though, my dad took some Kung Fu lessons and also bulked up (he’s still pretty stocky and in pretty good shape for someone who smokes and drinks), so he didn’t really need his brother and cousin to help him out, he could take care of himself. I remember finding this out about my dad when I was about 7 years old. My cousins from England came over to compete in a Judo tournament, and while they were doing all this stuff I asked my dad how to fight. He then explained to me all this stuff about fighting, punching, kicking, and offered to teach me some stuff so that I’d know how to take care of myself. Looking back, it’s kinda funny how eager my dad was to teach his 7 year old son the most effective way to punch someone.

My training didn’t end there.

At the time, we used to watch the show Kung Fu: The Legend Continues (R.I.P. David Carradine) together and I noticed that one of the guys on the show moved really slow, but still managed to kick butt. This, puzzled me. So, my dad decided that if I really wanted to see, he’d take me to watch some old people practice Tai Chi at Goldhawk Park, but the catch was that I’d have to get up at 6:30am. Hell, what else was I gonna do? I went the next day and even though I got to see them live, I still didn’t get what the hell was going on (I still don’t), so I just gave up and went home. When we got home my dad saw that I practiced my punches and kicks whenever I could and then gave me this following speech (replicated as best as I can):

“Son, I don’t want you getting into fights now, because you can. You can only use it to protect yourself, but that doesn’t mean you sit there and wait for them. You hit them first! You have to take out the strongest person, and you have to do it quick and hard, so that way the others won’t attack you. Then you walk away. This one time I was on the subway in London and these skinheads started to approach me. I punched the biggest one in the nose hard then kicked the guy beside him and then walked away. If I didn’t do this, I wouldn’t be here right now.”

It made a lot of sense to me when I was a kid, but now that I look at it, what if those guys were just tourists asking for directions? Out of all the lessons my father has taught me over the years, this is the one that sticks out the most. I have no clue how to change a tire, or pick a car, or anything else my dad has taught me, but I do know that if I was ever approached by three guys, I could (theoretically), get myself out of the situation by beating the shit out of the biggest one.

Happy Fathers Day Pops!