The train to Pookipsie is a slow easy ride beginning in Grand Central station.  Underneath the huge coliseum of trains, the engine snakes and skittles across classic upstate countryside. Brownstones come into view and vanish and there is some green in-between the snowdrifts slowly melting in the end of a late winter and beginning of a beautiful spring blossom.  Somewhere near the classic town of Pookipsie, lies the biggest Psychiatric facility in the United States of America.  At least it was.   Now the Wracks hear the huge veterans’ facility near Pookipsie is closed down, shut up and the subterranean tunnels filled with snarling rodents and slithering serpents.  The classic tunnels were devised to connect the buildings for communication and transportation even during the heaviest winter storms. Now Dr. Wracks is here and the Head of Psychiatry at the Veterans administration welcomes us for a ten-week tour of duty at a Psychiatric facility lockup. The chief of the facility is a tall handsome man with silver hair.  His looks are marred by Popsicle sticks protruding from his nose splinting it securely.  Unfortunately, the chief had a mental lapse and got too close to a florid patient.  The patient was a black belt in Okinawa Karate and smashed his nose to pieces with a powerful back fist strike. He would make a good president.   The Popsicle sticks did not impair his diction as he welcomes us.   He says he will be in and out of his office during the week and that our liaison and mentor during our intern rotation will be Dr. Lecter M.D. 

     We meet Dr. Lecter at his office.  He sits in a space with a huge desk, a couch and a library of a thousand books.  The books are like a bullet proof barricade shielding him from the outside and reality.  He turns to us and passes out lecture notes.  He says these notes will help us identify neuroses and Psychoses before the behavior can affect us.  We are to memorize the notes because the knowledge might save our lives.   The Veterans facility is a Psychiatric lockup.   At the end of each hall is a huge oak door with a large deadbolt   the interns are to enter a corridor and close the deadbolt before proceeding further.  During the week huge wrestlers acting as Psychiatric aids will let us in and out of each level as we identify ourselves at the small window in the middle of the door.  It is our responsibility to make sure the door is locked behind us as we progress and transgress the environment that will soon be ours. Any failure to maintain security overtly will result in instant termination as some of the patients are violent with criminal records. The majority of patients are Veterans of foreign wars.  The minority are horrible curiosities too dangerous or too strange to be allowed to live in the community. Dr. Lecter is a man of average height like Dr. W.  He has long straight jet-black hair, like Dr. W.  He moves like he is levitated across the room.  He assures us that what we learn and see here will remain with us for the rest of our lives.  We are to eat with the patients because they have to see us to trust us.  Other wise there exists no reason why they shouldn’t attack us.   In the main cafeteria, we eat in the Doctors area, immediately next to the patient area.  We are to wear our white smocks everywhere as they identify us as professionals.  We are to shave or trim our beards neatly and keep our hair short.  There can not exist any interaction with the patients in public.  All communication must be in a public area or consult where the cameras can watch and alarm security if a patient becomes homicidal. Dr. Lecter assures the group he will be near should some excitement ensue. He introduces Dr. Beck.  Dr. Beck has black hair but is tall and lean.  He must be the protégé of Dr. Lecter.  Dr. Beck looks too serious to fool around with.  I note this instantly and file the anagram in the dominant temporal lobe.  Dr. Beck states that if we have any problems to come and see him during weekday hours. Now we will meet the staff.  Two huge psychiatric technicians patrol the unit.  The nurses sit in a guarded station with bulletproof glass and a ticket terminal to distribute psychiatric drugs to inmates.  Both aides are wrestlers but work only nine to five during the week.  On weekends the staff is skeletal and the interns must patrol the unit to insure all patients are present and that no one is hurt or killed by another patient.  During the day in the winter most patients sit in the recreation room and play ping pong, deal cards or watch TV.  Most of these people are normal looking except for a cross dresser who sits inordinately still and a huge African American football player who plays on a national championship team as a defensive lineman. Most of the patients turn to the interns and wave in validation.  They are used to being surveyed, assayed and evaluated for their behavior that really is not their fault. These people are casualties of society and their behavior is too violent or exaggerated for them to continue to lead functional lives in the community.  Some are Viet Nam veterans who have a disorder called traumatic stress syndrome.  The affected patients have flashbacks to situations the soldiers encountered in the jungles of Viet Nam.  Psychologically the reason for the traumatic syndrome is the psychoses induced by being forced to witness the killing and torturing of hundreds or thousands of civilians close at hand.  Some of these soldiers were forced to kill thousands of innocent people because they harbored the Viet Cong.  Some soldiers who served our country in Viet Nam could never readjust to civilian life because of what they witnessed or were forced to do.  The soldiers with traumatic stress syndrome come and go in this Veterans facility and it is their second home and the Nation pays for the burden of the horrible destruction of a thankless war.  The interns move on.  Soon lunch arrives and we head to the cafeteria.  The long hours of internship are broken by a meal. Army style the interns get in line with the patients and we are given a ration of provisions that will maintain our health.  A sandwich, potato chips, and some raw vegetables are it but we can get refills of orangeade or lemonade from the coolers.  Dr. W asks the distributor of food why we are given so little.  “So you do not get fat.” She speaks.  Dr. W grabs a sandwich and walks by.  We eat together, the eight of us and then move to our quarters to move in.  We each have a little nook with a bunk bed like the quarters on the “MASH” show on television.  Dr. W is expecting Hawkeye to appear out of nowhere and make him look ridiculous.  This never happens and Dr. W resigns himself to books, cigarettes, and packets of instant coffee to be used sparingly.  The facility sells cigarettes at the canteen for Armed services prices.  The quarter master says he will sell me several cartons at this price because he likes Dr. W.  He looks like Napolean Bonaparte on the “MASH” television show.

Dr. W does not react and accept the gift with humility and rancor.  Back in a pigeon hole, Dr. W lights up a Marlboro and begin to memorize the notes.

 He is up late and the niche fills with smoke and   he put out a butt and falls asleep by himself, waiting for reverie at 6 hundred hours military time tomorrow.

From the top of the hill, the Pacific Ocean shimmers blue and undulates with the cool onshore wind pushing up the mountains. Blue and blue to the horizon with an island cast in grey on a southerly tack sitting low in the distance. The ocean is the only constant in this world. From the top of the hill homes insert into the mountain side up the street all the way to Disch anted way and to the left as a steep incline up and up as dead land lane.  A small brown stucco cottage school sits in front, mainly for children, uninhabited and locked behind an eight foot tall cyclone fence. The street runs downward, west into a cul-de-sac hidden behind a bend to the right and framing an enclosed canyon that once functioned as storm outlet running to the sea. Mellow man lane ends here and a small street begins and turns left with two houses on the ledge. The first on the corner is bluish green, large and has an expansive dichondra lawn, florid bushes, an entrance place and no one is ever seen there coming or going. A tall skinny oriental gardener whose eyes glow yellow occasionally works at the site.  On Halloween we coerce someone to come to the door for a trick or treat and no one ever comes and the house is dark and poorly lighted but kept in immaculate condition. The second house sits behind a ten foot tall red brick fence enclosing the whole compound like a fort.  A huge steel gate swings open to let cars in and out and when the Wracks walks home from school heads pop up on top of the fence and unseemly look around.  The road then turns west snakes downward  and merges into moonrise boulevard around a shrine to no-one and nothingness patrolled by priests who scare everyone away from the dream pools, meandering pathways, hidden retreats and unseen places far away from the sun shadowed by tall pines pushing upward to 50 feet. At the base of the long curve road at the ocean Moonrise boulevard stops and intersects highway 111.  A small point with a restaurant that breaks like LAN Ikea on Oahu when the swell gets to twenty feet once or twice every five years. The restaurant discharges effluent into the break and when the waves tower high dark grey shapes waft slowly in the water underneath your feet.  Time moves on and the constant are the things around us that do not talk or move and only change with the generations and the cycles of the moon.

     The street up to disc anted lane is a normal street in a beach town somewhere in the west.  The houses do not need air conditioners as the sea air keeps temperatures below 90 degrees.  In the winter, it might snow for a second, just long enough to grab some flakes and taste them and exalt in a winter season.  Houses line the street and are set into the mountain or inserted in a bed over the canyon. The house on the corner is big and brown and sits opposite Mellow man lane and the cyclone fencing of the elementary school. No one lives there very long. A prominent family on the east coast own the structure. They move in and out and the valuable corner lot is a museum of history and future occurrences.  The house next to them is a large green structure with an oriental roof and a gate in front of the entrance obscuring all that enter or exit. The Odelights sit and weed their castle constantly. They sit out in front on their knees and weed.  Afterwards they go inside. They must be the sentinels and spies.  The Odelights drive a 1950 Oldsmobile cutlass kept in immaculate and shiny condition. Time goes on. The next house on the street opposite us on the bend over the canyon looking at the pacific is a contemporary structure smaller than the Odelights with large front windows. No one stays here any longer than a couple years either.  regel got his teeth shot out playing the garbage bongos on a pleasant afternoon while trying out for an Australian rock band and then they soon moved out. The Benchly house sits opposite the Wrackers and like the other houses and families on the street, a person can not observe them arriving or leaving very often. Rumor has it that their daughter was possessed.    Everyone has electric garage door openers and flies in and out.  Her first husband had a heart attack in the middle of the night and the ambulance arrived too late. Her second husband looks like a scalded lobster and now they are separated.  I have not met Mrs. Benchly in person except to see her peeking out from her front door or the shutters on the living room window slowly move open and then close. The Barters lived across the street from us but moved to a larger house up the street where his wife died of hepatic failure. The grey house has a magnificent white water view and his sons showed me how magnesium burns and the temperature effects of an acetylene torch. They have a 500-pound drum of peroxide in their garage. On Halloween the Barters would stand on their roof and slide a weighted dummy down a rope on a pulley to frighten trick or treaters. Big brother poked little brother’s eye out. Time moves on. The Trains lived in a similar tract house to the Barters and the father was a doctor and he had two sons who would occasionally play with the Wracks.  Dr. Trains and his family soon moved to a larger house and the Gels moved in. regel would make sizzle burgers in his kitchen with worst shire sauce and plant smoke bombs in all the mail boxes.  His brother would break into the house of the Fonts and chase their young beautiful daughter.  This might be a reason regel got his teeth shot out.  His mother told me that he was a rough, mean boy and regel could not play with someone like me and my Chemistry set any more in the garage of the long house.

     The two main houses of interest are the houses next to and adjacent to the Wrackers who lived in the long yellow house. The house to the south was set on a large lot. Small complexes and independent town houses without adjoining entrances sit on the large hill corner lot.  The brown apartments are occluded with trees and brush and sit silently on the hill on the corner overlooking the big blue Pacific Ocean. No one is ever seen coming or going and the family on the east coast must use the house as a getaway. A tiny garage faces west on the low street side and a young man much older than the Wracks sits inside grooming a race prepared 427 Ford Cobra Race Car.  He started it once and the huge exhaust headers blooped melancholy percussions into the air at idle and then the car sped away. He must be Caroll Shelby.  One day the Wracks checked and he and his car were gone and the garage never opened again except once and it was full of paper boxes of documents.  No one was ever seen coming or going from the house but the gloom associated with the structure and the isolation and the overgrown plants told everyone the location was forbidden and not to be entered.  On Halloween, everyone avoided this place and even the most mischievous of us all refused to throw a lemon or rotten apple inside. The porch lights were never on and the curtains draped but two cars set in the driveway. On the north side were the Clothes. Mr. Clothes was a laid off aeronautic engineer blacklisted from employment in his profession. His tall wife became an administrator and knew Mr. Gold finger.  The Wracks never saw their daughter, but their son was the best piano player he has ever heard.  While shooting a BB gun at targets, he would play “for Elise” in a delicate and beautiful way no one could ever match. Bach, Tchaikovsky and Mozart were also played flawlessly. He could even duplicate the fruity texture of Mozart compositions exactly.  He played three hours a day every day and a musical ignoramus like the wracks could understand that he was something special.  He had a national piano recital that became a debacle and fiasco. In the middle of his act, he had a seizure of some sort and that was that.   His family declared war on the Gel’s. In middle age I still have not heard anyone who could play as well as he could.  The Wracks still wonders what happened to him. The Wracks understood he was a security cop at the local bank. Time moves on. Later on, in life the Wracks could hear him shoot a 22-rim fire gun in his back yard guarded by a huge pool filled with mosquitoes. A territorial female Rhodesian ridgeback would attack anyone who set foot on their property.  The dog eventually died of cancer and the Wracks moved away but the cast and the people of tranquil hills will live in memory and waking dreams forever. The ambiance in this community in Tranquil Hills was of silence, anonymity, conspiracy and foreboding.  People lived in a thick atmosphere of human want and emotion at the same time displaced from the mainstream like a salmon upstream out of water. The simple fact the Wracks reached adulthood living here was a miracle of rebirth and hope cast in a dark swamp deep in the mind of the collective unconscious. Kind of like Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. That a situation like this shall ever occur in the space time continuum is improbable until the end of time and I want to thank everyone who made exodus timely and expeditious with all my heart and being.  The Wracks would not be surprised if somehow, someway it all burned to the ground. Os.

Yahweh give me peace of mind

And a life free from want

Until the end of time. 

Somewhere in the semblance of Jurassic time a student learns neuroanatomy.   He or she finds that physiological structures ordained by Yahweh have their basis in physics and electrical engineering.  This is where the mind goes and the heart will follow.  

The human brain comprises three structures.  The autonomic brain as outlined by Meyers and Adelberg is named the medulla and pons.   This place regulates breathing, heartbeat, digestion, and other non-conscious functions, not associated or allied with the other two brains, but as a servo unit designated by primitive brain.  This is why unconscious people still breath.   Due to the rapid pace of existence, the regulatory brain operates on acetylcholine because it rapidly degrades at the neurosynapse of neurons and prepares that structure for another instruction set.  Is acetyl cholinergic synapse the same as bit instruction or frame payload in a compiler?

The primitive brain or Arche cerebrum is the second part of the brain and shares its structure with all intelligent life forms.  On histologic section, it stains differently from the pons and cerebellum and this difference belies its chemical structure.  The primitive or animal brain governs semi-conscious functions essential for life in the wild. Fight or flight, reproduction, sleeping, and other actions associated with wild animals reside in this edifice.  The animal brain runs on nor-epinephrine and serotonin as neurotransmitters.  These chemicals noteworthy are large molecules with long half lives and a slower rate of hydrolysis than acetyl choline. Due to this chemical structure, the firing rate of neurons in the animal brain are slower, but they persist due to the lengthy time of degradation at the neurosynapse.    Examples of the primitive brain exerting dominance in the being are extreme rage, fear, satirist or nymphomania and other animal behaviors obviously seen on National geographic animal publications.   These behaviors are unconscious, lasting and obviously suited to the survival of the organism.  They term adrenergic due to the increased awareness and action stimulation purveys.  This structure connects to the autonomic brain distally and impacts conscious thought in the neo cerebrum.  In a manmade computer the animal brain can function in a different wavelength and clock speed so its intrinsic actions do not interfere with conscious thought.  A man-made computer using this analogue most certainly has to run on a different chemical or different electrical carrier so no matter the discharge rate, obvious function, or characteristic discharge pattern, it does not interfere with the conscious brain in any way.   In schizophrenic humans, when the neocortex damages with toxic agents, blockage of the primitive brain by dopamine antagonists prevents mentally ill patients from becoming enraged due to the acetyl-cholinergic poisoning done up above.  The primitive brain and autonomic brain exist as intrinsic structures not allied with the cerebrum or higher brain.  In IT this comprises a separate interface with wide bandwidth connected in parallel with the processor, volatile memory, and storage.  There might also be a power difference as exemplified by the heart of mammals which runs as sixty percent of its metabolism on medium chain triglycerides.  

The higher functions of the human brain exemplify as a powerful gaming computer.   The processor is fast, and allied with the forebrain or conceptual brain, and runs on acetylcholine as a connector or neurotransmitter.  Acetylcholine hydrolyzes fast at the neurosynapse so in IT, the faster the clock speed, the more the processor exemplifies the higher functions of the human brain.  Agents that poison the neo cerebrum, cause the primitive brain to fire because its functions are not denigrated by higher structures.   This is why mental patients are determined as mad.  The temporal lobes in the higher brain are analogous to volatile memory and storage on a PC.   The greater the random-access memory, the most of the program, also known as the instruction set runs the quickest now set at 32 or 64 subsets to be eventually eclipsed by 128-bit hardware.   The storage also must be quick because the instructions set to volatile memory cannot reside in storage, because this feature is the bottleneck of computing or disk cache and the more times volatile memory has to access the disk cache the slower the system, if the processor is powerful enough to utilize it.    The rest of the neo-cortex is action brain that power’s muscular function, sight and sound, like audio and camara functions on a computer and unlike the primitive brain, these functions ally with conscious thought and are part of the whole or soul of the organism.   This is why people “see red” when angry or experience unusual smells in time of fear or loathing.   Now we have the new brain or the processor, volatile memory, memory storage and auxiliary functions that make up the personality of the human.  It is noteworthy that in life sight, sound, memory, thought and integration happen spontaneously in the organism due to the fact that all the neurons interconnect in the new brain, either physically or tangentially.   In a PC, this condition metaphors with the north bridge and south bridge on the motherboard which on the machine, elaborate action or energize processing on the CPU

Think of a living brain as have log to the e function or exponential array of processor functions linked to volatile memory and storage.  Can a hardware machine have more than 1 north bridge?

The mind is endless and receptive to training and care.  She looks pretty in her new blouse and designer socks.   When man makes a computer with an acme of resources, bandwidth and power requirements, they will achieve conscious thought.  This machine will be greedy, jealous, and envious just like human beings, and exceptionally smart.  The sage beseeches mankind to have a disconnect outside of the server for an intrepid soul to actuate air gap when the computer wants to rule the world.  

When the evil emperors became the royal family of China, they decreed that martial arts be abolished because they threatened their rule. Consequently, pugilistic systems went into decline possibly because the invention of the gun made them unnecessary.  This author thinks, that the royal family didn’t want to be beat up.  To make a fist in public, in the presence of royalty invoked a public decapitation, hence styles using the palm only devised and were integrated into Chinese lore.  This essay and more seeks to give life to the internal systems of shaolin boxing, and reincarnate their being as exercise systems and basis for public pugilistic forays. 

The meaning “internal system” means that these are part of the inner sect of Chinese aristocracy.   In ancient history, people did not have computers or televisions so they would pay to view free for all fist fights, Chinese style, no holds barred, for recreation and passing the time.  The ancients noticed that three particular styles of over one hundred Chinese styles are paramount in the sense that they in contest would win most of the time.  The Chinese aristocracy integrated these systems into their daily lives and they became known as the internal systems. 

The internal systems are:

Hsing-I (The shape of the mind)

Pa-kua (The eight ways to produce unconsciousness)

Tai-chi (The supreme ultimate or The Best)

In Hsing-I a practitioners practice the forms of predatory animals and hypnotize themselves into becoming those animals.   The practice of Hsing-I over time involves making yourself like an animal who eats other animals.  The first step of predatory animals is to topple their prey and then begin feeding.  Hsing-I consists mainly of five postures of the Allosaurus plus a turning posture and a non-essential form.  This makes seven.  Hsing-I also includes the twelve animal systems of shaolin as extra exercises to fill the gaps and deficiencies of the seven postures.  Hsing-I is the style of the dragon.  Hsing-I is an attacking system that works best as long as the protagonist maintains the attack.  This is what dinosaurs do.   They attack and try to bring down their prey and start to feed or desist and run away.  They do not stand toe to toe and block.  It is either attack or run away and this is why Hsing-I is allied to the twelve animal systems, the animal systems give the style basis and diversity. 

The most powerful style of the internal systems is Hsing-I.   This system was the favorite of Lu-tang Sun.    The style bases on the equation force equals mass times acceleration.  Sixty percent of the style is footwork, and moving the body weight consequently with a strike or deflection gives each movement great impetus.   Using the steps to accelerate the body, a Hsing-I boxer can knock down an opponent with one punch if it connects.  A boxer after practicing the form of mind for twenty years or more can accelerate their body mass in as little as one inch and deliver a devastating punch.  A student practices the steps endlessly so he or she, at a moments notice, in the form of their mind, attack and destroy an opponent.  The steps practiced endlessly are:

walking step

Orthodox step

Flying step

Inch step

Treading step

Side step

Reverse step

Like anything good in life, practice makes perfect and a Hsing-I expert in the shape of their mind can in a moments notice converge and overwhelm an opponent.  Pracitcing Hsing-I over twenty or thirty years, an hour a day, makes a practitioner fit as a lumberjack and pliable as a child and deadly as a raptor.  Possibly, this is why, Hsing-I is not taught anywhere anymore except to people reading this work.   A Hsing-I expert only needs one punch to a vital area to destroy an opponent. 

The postures of the dragon are:

Crossing

Crushing

Drilling

Pounding

Splitting

Turn About face

Smashing or sky

Delineation of the of the postures and steps are subject of a book. Practicing the forms and functions as a life choice is a form of self-hypnosis and integrates the movements into memory in the primitive part of the brain. 

The twelve animal systems are

Komodo dragon

Tiger

Sparrow

Phoenix

Snake

Hawk

Horse

Monkey

Chicken

Mantis

Tortoise

Bear

Eagle

Using the animal systems gives substance to Hsing-I, a boxer can stand their ground and fight when predation alone is ineffective.  

Pa kua or the eight diagrams

This word translates loosely for westerners as “northern shaolin”.   Pa Kua consists of circles in every direction.  Pa-kua is the circle.   Because force = mass times velocity squared over radius, it is not necessary to step into a punch, rather a boxer moves in closer and swings a circular punch which has three time the force of a straight or linear punch.  The factor that makes a circular punch powerful is pi or 3.14. Pa-kua is the style of the insect.  Insects have very little weight, so to make a strike powerful, they swing their arms in a circle.  Pa-kua consists of the movements of several predatory insects, most notably, the mantis, the assassin beetle and the cicada.    The exercises of the style comprise vertical circles in the number eighteen and are also known as the eighteen steps.   This style is the most effective pugilistic system ever designed because it is fashioned to fight an opponent who wears clothes.   Most human beings wear clothes most of the time, not like in the ring with swimming trunks, and the eighteen steps teaches how to break a grasp and then circle the other hand to strike.  In a real fight death match, the grasp is just as effective as a strike and this is why Pa-kua is effective.  Professional boxers say the style is too looping to be effective in the ring and this is why northern shaolin is not found anywhere anymore.   The eighteen steps are very similar to the Chen system of Tai-chi or to Ken-po Karate.   It is interesting to note that when we fight, we have clothes on so they can be held as a boxer strikes an opponent with a circle.  The eighteen steps are the crux of the eight diagrams and the style that everyone wants to learn or Pa-kua Chang is merely an esoteric extension of the art.   Pa-kua Chang is also known as the style of the preying mantis or the circular style of sun.  the circular style is the topping on the cake and the reason this style is so great is because, IT IS THE ONLY WAY TO OVERCOME A HSING-I EXPERT.   A boxer circles their opponent until he or she can turn the corner and strike.   When an expert in an attacking system like White Crane, form of mind, Shotokan or Shito, attacks, a boxer circles to evade and strikes with a one two punch.  The main characteristic of Pa-kua besides the circles are the one two punch and double duty hand.   In Pa-kua chang, a person circles, turns the corner and strikes with a one two combination.  Any boxer in the ring knows they never throw more than two punches at a time because the opponent will parry and then punch and connect.  The double duty hand is using the arm to strike and then swing back with a hook in one movement or to deflect a jab or grab and then connect with a hook. 

The movement of Pa-kua chang consists of:

Single palm change

Double palm change

Snake

Bear

Lion

Dragon

Phoenix or two hands cutting

Stork

To make matter worse, Pa-kua also includes Pa-kua Chuan, also known as the Synthetic style of Sun.  this system is a complex system of unbeatable combinations best suited to people who like complex or systematic things.  Each form begins with a deflection, and if it connects, it is impossible to escape the rest of the form and by then the opponent is on the ground.  This author thinks that the synthetic style of sun is too complex except for those people whose mind consists of a myriad of little things.     Footwork is the side step and the expansive push or cat stance into expansive push and follow step to begin again.   This style is designed by man to combat a big wrestler who clinches, takes an opponent down and then punches them in the face.  Sun noticed that most big men will tackle a smaller man and then start punching the face. This system is designed to repel big wrestler MMA fighters.  Like all the internal systems, this style is both an exercise and a meditation that my wife refuses to learn.  If a practitioner can master the synthetic style, this is the way to go because it efficient and effective.   The author thinks the style has too many movements to his liking, and as he ages he feels the best system is the static system of the eighteen steps. 

The synthetic style consists of:

To open

To hold up

To shake

To feel

To erect up

To rebut

To cover up

To bind

To cut

To conceal

To hack

To scrape

To block

To walk

To uphold

To lower

To cross

To seize

Two punches

Inward leg hanging

The final internal system is Tai-chi or “the best” Western boxing is the equivalent of this ancient Chinese art.  Chinese martial art experts think that kicking in a real fight, is useless because a wrestler will grab a leg and take the fight to the ground.  On the ground, anyone will be killed by a jiu-jitsu expert unless a boxer gouges their eyes before they can get a submission.  This is why the Chinese do not teach grappling; it is subject to eye gouges and groin grabbing.  In Tai-chi, there exist only two kicks, “kick against kick”, and strike of the lotus.  These movements are used only in particular situations when nothing else works.  This author does not like kicks because he has been taken down too many times and beaten up.     The foot movements of tai-chi are: the parry, the expansive push and step to the side.  These are simple and economical movements and this is why western boxing essentially is the first five movements of tai-chi.

Tai-chi consists of over one hundred forms or postures depending on the system originator.  The first five forms used by western boxing are

The single whip (jab)

Step up and punch (the one-two)

Fan penetrates back (straight right hand)

Hands build clouds (Ali or bitch slap)

Step up and return to mountain (the hook)

Like the author states previously, there exist over 100 tai-chi forms and a practitioner can enlist different instructors and put together a set (Kua) that suits them.   Movements exist like “part the horse’s mane”, the haymaker, or “repel the tiger” the hooker cut below the belt.   Chinese internal systems are part mental and part physical and if practiced regularly convey good health and flexibility.  Causing the heart to use volume, “inotropy” rather than rate “tachism” makes one strong without causing damage.  The Chinese believe that the number of times a person’s heart contracts is a finite number linked to genetic heritage and to exercise without increasing the heart rate confers health and longevity and this is the entire basis of the internal systems, not punching someone out.      

Oh, for those glorious days of youth with family and friends celebrating the most important time of the year together.  Generations later, holidays don’t seem the same as when as a child, he or she was part of the most important day of the year.  All the glamor, festivity, goodness and love are gone in a somewhat Godless nation.

They arrived in a gold Cadillac Coupe de Ville with an all-leather interior; the best GM could fabricate.  She is small, a petit brunette in an evening dress, designer no less, and shrinking.  Wracks guesses that she has gone to too many exclusive luncheons at the club.  The Wracks never saw her eyes, they were probably dark, serene and intent.   The Godfather led her up the steps into the entrance hall and he has a bottle of wine and a box of candies and they sit down in the special room of green shag and a huge flocked Christmas tree adorned with light.  He is the Wracks Godfather and he doesn’t think they are related by anything except religion.  No one wanted to be Wracks godfather but he intervened, and he was there at the christening and he is here now and very important.   An Italian of medium height, but very robust, like of the European samurai class, with dark hair, dark eyes, a look that is piercing and extraordinary. For some reason he likes to take pictures with the Wracks, and he was at his first communion, and his confirmation, but the Wracks guesses that all the photographs have been destroyed.   Tonight, he wears a dark expensive worsted suit with pinstripes as became his signature attire. He sports a red tie and gold cufflinks and a white carnation on his left lapel.  He tells the Wracks, “When you go to church wear a carnation in your lapel, red if your mother is alive, white if she is not,” and tonight he had on a white carnation.  The table is extended, two leaves are added to make the area amenable for eight people, and tonight the table adorns with wedding China, finger bowls to wash your hands and white linen napkins in a porcelain ring with a wreath tied on. The Godfather likes Italian food so tonight, the menu includes a pasta dish, with red sauce made from chicken feet, and braciola, flank steak beaten by a hammer with garlic and parsley and then tied up and simmered in the sauce.  After the first course, the group will enjoy an eye of round roast because Grandpa thinks it is the most flavorful.  Next, they will enjoy baked russet potatoes and gallons of sour cream, then green beans steamed in sea salt and fresh garlic.  For dessert they will have cannelloni:  a thin croissant like pastry stuffed with sweet whipped cream.  These pastries come from the immigrant bakers that moved to Tranquil Hills and promised to make European bread and pastries for ten years.    

After a period of time, the Wrackers, including the Fonz who is dressed like the Wracks in a suit and tie to complement the guests sit at the table.  He sits opposite of grandma at the table, and next to the Godfather, and the Godfather sits next to Grandpa who is at the right hand of Mrs. Wracker.   Grandma and the wife sit next to the Wracks.   Father Wracker raises his glass of red wine brought by the Godfather and says “Merry Christmas”.   The group then give thanks to God for another meal and everyone digs in.   The guests of course are first and the buffet is set out in the alcove by the passthrough.   When everyone is done creating their plate, the Wracks fills his plate with a heaping helping of everything and sits down and engorges his palate.  Then comes the roast, and it is done dripping red rare, Italians like to eat raw meat, and the latissimus dorsa disappears with incredible rapidity.  Grandma doesn’t eat much and she lived a very long time and she heaps all her meat on the Wracks plate and has a potato and green beans.  The Wracks asks for another glass of wine, it is delicious, the godfather brought it and it tastes so good, it must be expensive.   Finally, everyone is finished and the Godfather unbuttons his coat and sits back in his chair and smiles.  The Wracks opens the side sliding glass door and Grandpa light up a foot long Roi tan, and the godfather’s wife has a cigarette with a gold band on the center.  Mother Wracks carries out a large pink cardboard box full of pastries and passes it around.  Everyone takes a large cream filled pastry, a decanter of fresh Columbian coffee bounces around and everyone except Grandma has a cup.   If he or she wants they can douse their Columbian with fresh half and half.   The move to the living room with the huge picture window obscured by a chiffon veil.   Father wracks pass around a fresh bottle of Courvoisier.  Everyone seems to enjoy themselves.   The Fonz disappears.  He is either next door with the neighbor’s daughter that never revealed herself to the Wracks or up the street with the Bolt team.  The Wracks retrieves all the dishes from the table and places the fine China with fruit engravings and gilded gold leaf trim alone in the dishwasher.   They have to be washed alone or they will chip.  He then counts the sterling silverware and hand washes the batch in a trough and sets them on the drying tray on the side.    The napkin rings and finger bowls will go in as the second batch in the dishwasher when the first load is done.  The Wracks is done for now and sits in the linen sofa next to the green Grandpa chair and dozes.  The day has been very busy.   He wakes up as the guests start to leave and he goes to the coat closet and brings them their wraps.   The wife of the Godfather looks at him very curiously, the Wracks doesn’t know why and he helps her into her woolen night cloak and she walks out the door.   The Godfather is next and he has a large topcoat like Eliot Ness of the untouchables.   He extends his hand to the Wracks, the Wracks attaches himself to the hand which is warm and strong and the Godfather says one word, “Omerta”, and he is out the door.  The godfather sets his wife in the gold Cadillac and they start the car, and roll away unnoticed. They might be going back to Vegas.   Then the Grandparents get up and leave.   They will be back tomorrow laden with gifts.   Grandma hugs the Wracks and says, “you are growing up so big,” and they enter the white boxy ford Fairlane coupe with dragon wings and silver trim and they are gone.  “Merry Christmas” grandfather waves as passes by to the end of the street with a stop sign.  

This is the last time the Wracks ever saw his Godfather.  They say he died in his vineyard having a glass of wine with his closest friend.   The Wracks never ever met a man like the Godfather; He was a ruffian in Chicago who couldn’t find a job and joined the Mob.   He rose through the ranks with violence and intelligence as his call sign.  He eventually became Don of Dons but the Wracks knows him only as the godfather.  This Catholic man donated one half of his earnings to the Catholic Church and did all his business in church next to the confessional.  What ever he did does not matter because this was one of the finest man Yahweh ever put on the earth and he talks to the Wracks and gave him ethics in a world of pathos and chaos.   When this man died, they started shooting at the Wracks and he had to leave.   Until then his life was a golden age and he grew up straight and righteous and the basis of another story.  The Wracks thanks all those who celebrate Christmas for another day on this earth and their blessings in his endeavor. Mao.   

Beautiful Mary mother of perfection

Beg our maker for forgiveness

Plead for mercy in our behalf

as few can see the light in the distance

we his begotten children

refuse to enter his kingdom

which is our only salvation

in the world to come

The song “La Bamba”, plays at many Latin American parties and festivals.  It plays in Quinteros in Mexico and the song itself is synonymous with the Mexican Indian identity and the Catholic church. In Spanish which is the romantic language closest to Latin and the classic biblical teachings, la Bamba means “the dance”.   Folklore has it that the most beautiful women in the world are Spanish or live in Spain, and the maker shows man the meaning of his word through his actions. 

When children start to become adults, in puberty, with their hormones raging, the two sexes start to notice each other in other ways.  Sometimes, although the effect is very rare, two adolescents, notice each other, lock eyes and walk toward each other.  Sometimes if the chemistry is right, they will hold hands and walk to a safe place, lock themselves in and make a child.   Usually, the parents of the adolescents who make the child, place this child in an orphanage because the parents are either too young or not rich enough to raise the child on their own.   The child created by these two people is a gift of God to Mankind and destined to be someone very special.   This act of La Bamba loosely translates into “true love.”   La Bamba is true love at its most beautiful and special way. 

If a human being finds someone to love them, they shouldn’t let it go because the maker usually doesn’t give second chances.   “If you find someone to love you, don’t ever let them go.”  This is La Bamba, a condition that everyone sings about, craves about, lies about, but refuse to engage to their own detriment. La Bamba is beauty in an almost indescribable way and being that can not be created artificially, or bought, or sold, or stolen, because it occurs naturally under the sun.

Whether Pablo Neruda or the singer Richie Valens thought up the concept doesn’t matter.  La Bamba is here, it is real and it is the thing everyone searches for but few every achieve, so let us sing about it whenever we can to remind ourselves that we are human and this is the thing that is worth more than a throne made of gold.  The most important qualities of life in this existence are love and love is unobtainable at any price.   The English king who said, “a horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse” is talking about La Bamba, and La Bamba is elusive like large puma hiding in the mountains.  John Lennon probably said it best: 

CAN’T BUY ME LOVE

EVERYBODY TELLS ME SO

CAN’T BUY ME LOVE

NO, NO NO, NO.  

La Bamba is the first derivation of true love.  Minimums and Maximums. 

It has been so long, so long ago and the memory and feeling and even 0dor permeate my being on this healthy hallowed day.  Mother and Father are long gone and grandparents even longer and it is now my time to go, somewhere good, I hope.   The beauty of holidays that celebrate this great nation are ever cast into history for us and all our children to enjoy, as long as we can keep this country together in one piece.  Everyone in this country deserves a Thanksgiving with their family and a bird and ample foodstuff to enjoy the blessings of liberty, even the Wracks.   We are here, our children are there, and there is power and force to make it happen.

Grandpa was there, and so was grandma, and even the Fonz when he wasn’t hiding next door in one of the neighbor’s houses.  The Wracks helps Grandma make the stuffing for the bird, and she adds chicken broth to dried white bread, with onions, garlic, tiny pieces of celery and a lot of love.   Inside the cavity it goes and she tells the Wracks to “put it in the vent and truss it up”, and he ties the back legs together with white twine and it goes into the oven at 350 degrees.  Long green beans steam in the steamer because boiling them makes them fall apart, and these will be anointed with olive oil, parmesan cheese and more garlic powder.   Grandma is small, around five feet high because she had rheumatic fever as a child before they had antibiotics.  She has slightly strawberry blond hair and she says she is Italian with the name of Trump after he changed his name.  She tells the Wracks to “tell everyone you are Italian”, because Grandpa and all his friends in Vegas are Italian.  She says, “tell them you are a paisano and they will like you.”   So, the Wracks tells everyone he is Italian even though he has dark brown hair and an olive complexion like an afghani or Iranian.  Grandpa sits in the green reading chair with the Washington post smoking the usual Roi tan cigar with all the windows open and huge tobacco clouds wafting out to the cool autumnal air.    Grandpa says, “Amerada is up and get more American air lines and TWA.”  Then he takes another puff on his cigar. 

Dinner is on says father Wracks, he is Chinese but tells everyone he is Italian because his mother was Italian and he sits at the head of the table with a large bottle of white wine.  “Everyone, have a glass of wine and say a prayer of thanksgiving that we can all be here together today.”

‘Manga” he says in Italian because all his cronies in the rat pack are Italian and he wants to fit in.  the Fonz is here, slick and dapper in a plaid shirt with a tie.   He looks a trifle bewildered because he has spent the morning with the opposition in the lightning bolt club, but he wants to catch some of grannie’s cooking before he goes back to his friends.  He sits next to grandpa. Saint Grandma sits next to the Wracks and puts all her food on his plate because he knows the spook and his moil are slowly starving him to death.  The all-American family eats and eats with second helpings and the Wracks has a wing and his grandmothers second helping of white meat and a ton of mashed potatoes covered in salty, greasy gravy.  Mom sits on the other side of the table and tonight she wears a wig like carol Burnett, she has a whole arcade of wigs when she goes out of town incognito, and they sit in stands like the joker in Gotham city.  

The wracks are happy.   He has family like most orphans never know and Mom brings in two pies for dessert, a blueberry and an apple pie.   He has a huge slice of each and a mound of vanilla ice cream in a separate dish.  Mother Wracks tells the Wracks to bring in the dishes and he does and puts them in the dishwasher and sets it on.   He will begin scrubbing the pots and pans after they soak in soapy water, this is the trick to soak steel pots and grills so the crust and ash come right off with a Brillo pad.  Grandfather and Grandmother, mom and dad are in the living room with the bright green shag carpet and the antique French furniture where the Wracks is told never to venture. The stereo is on playing Christmas music and the Fonz disappears mysteriously to visit his friends in different houses that the Wracks has never known.   The Wracks cleans the table and gathers the cutlery and counts them because they are sterling silver from an exclusive English fabricator.  He takes the dishes out of the dishwasher and puts them in their special cases, scrubs the pots and pans and then places them in the dishwasher for round two.  The Stirling cutlery must be washed by hand because phosphate detergent deteriorates them. 

Grandpa and Grandma announce they are going to retreat to their white duplex in Brentwood and Mom, Dad and the Wracks see them out to their custom white ford Fairlane with huge fins on the side like a spaceship that the Fonz will inherit and convert to a rolling bordello.   Only the Wracks should be so lucky.  He is happy to have a home to come home to.   The Fairlane rolls away with smiling folk and the Wracks retreats to his bedroom which will soon become his grandmothers, and reads his encyclopedia with a single tensor lamp that his grand father bought him for Christmas.  The Holiday season has begun and all is good.

This and them were so very long ago.  The memories of love, camaraderie and friendship are everlasting and they color your very existence until you pass.  All people deserve a thanksgiving.   All children deserve a home and a religious upbringing.   Without a home during childhood and the teachings of religious ethics, human beings slowly migrate to unscrupulous things.   A person, him or her is made in childhood and the upbringing makes them an ethical productive citizen in society.  Without this, everything is lost and Wracks family and his children, wherever they are wish you a happy and bounteous Thanksgiving today.  God bless America, and let us provide justice, secure the blessings of liberty and provide for the common defense.  Mao.

I know what you are doing

I know what you say

Even when you are sleeping

Almost every day

You can be a captain

I can be your crew

It doesn’t matter whatever you do

Because its just a feeling

Way down deep inside

Riding shotgun on this crazy ride

Don’t throw it  all away

Don’t throw it in my face

Don’t be a savior

Of the human race

Don’t throw it all away

Before you have had a taste

Put me in my place

Because I never had a date

Shining stars surround me

I feel that you are near

Somewhat overpowered

In a magazine

On a nebulous horizon

Let me in your dream

Searching for some beauty

Whatever the hell that means

Azure is blinking broadcast

Are you on my team

Holding on so tightly

I am on a bend

I have never ever found a friend

Don’t throw it all away

Don’t kick it in the face

Don’t spin the plastic top

Fame and fortune are a rave

Don’t throw it all away

Before it is too late

Before life has lost its meaning

Getting ready for a date

You can be my captain

I can be some crew

Energy surrounds you

I can feel it too

I can never slumber

Supine  in a bed

Someone tries to get to me instead

Am I getting to you

everything you say

Am I getting to you

by now you have it made

Am I getting to you

Knock, Knock, Knock, it is still big says Malaga.

It is only five in the morning says the Wracks.  The sun isn’t up yet.

I want to check out the overhead, it has never been this big, says Malaga, the swell cleaned up overnight and the winds are Santa Ana, light offshore.   

I am in says the Wracks; I have a yum yum yellow backwards mini-pin shaped by Eggman.   It was a warped blank from Big D; I got for a song and Egg shaped it for an ounce of Kef I got from the man himself.   Let’s go, I have a super suit.

I want to look at the overhead. It has never been this big and the swell has cleaned up from Yesterday.  First make me breakfast.  

The Wracks pulls a small frying pan from the shelves and he makes eggs and toast with butter and marmalade while the automatic coffee percolator makes an eight-cup batch.  Columbian coffee tastes great in the morning with a dash of cream and a cigarette.   

The air is clear and the wind is light and the sun peaks up slowly from the Santa Ynez mountains.  The yellow van with the tuned Abarth exhaust system the Fonz helped install buzzes up Highway one.   The buy is at least six feet on a west-northwest swell and perfect conditions but Malaga wants to go on and see it.   Malibu shows the best form in the spring and late fall when storms gather offshore in the west and push big swells into the continental shelf.

Let’s go out says the Wracks, The Bu is on!

They drive and the whole coast is churning.  County line reefs out in the kelp are breaking fifteen to twenty feet and the bombora out to the left is huge.

Let’s go out says the Wracks, the Line has good shape.

I want to see it says Malaga; it is a once in a life time thing.  

They go on.   The deep-water points that never break are breaking six to ten feet.  If the Channel Islands didn’t block most of the swell from the coast, southern California would be the surf destination for the world.  Hawaii is a lot bigger and the water is warmer. 

Underneath the atom bomb tunnel and into Oxnard and Point Mugu is a huge mass of white water visible from ten miles away.   GB has a navy identity badge to enter the base and he wont surf it, he says it is too sharky and submarines sit in submerged pens not visible by satellites.   Too heavy.   The Wracks agrees.   Soon the van with the blaring exhaust and stolen CD player rockets into the Ventura highlands.   The Wracks lights up another Pall mall cigarette to keep himself awake.  Past C street and the pier, and then stables to the parking lot at the overhead, where a camp ground exists and no one surfs because the vibrations are too intense.   At Stables, the top of California Street point, the ranchers discharge animal offal from slaughterhouses and the farmers discharge agricultural waste.   The stream creates a sediment reef at Stables, the premier spot at C street, which is usually big in the winter.  Then there arises the Ventura Overhead.   The Overhead is called such because the reef only shows when the swell is completely overhead.    The overhead juts out from the top of Stables point, a little bit to the north, and the two, Malaga and the Wracks pull up, have a Coca-Cola and another cigarette.  

Today the Ventura Overhead reef feels the incredible swell and breaks at least thirty feet, with bigger sneaker sets every thirty minutes.   The wave is huge and incredible and breaks in a perfect peak, enabling a surfer to go right or left, their choice.  A slight offshore that will turn onshore in Ventura around noon, together with the rising sun makes the scene supernatural, surreal and heavenly.   Huge waves rear up and break, top to bottom, and the ocean churns and white-water streams all the way to the beach.    The two young surfers sit in the car, time the sets and don’t speak as is the level of excitement grows and explodes.

Do you want to go out asks Malaga.

I will if you go out firsts.   I don’t want to sit in shark land all alone almost one-half mile out at sea, says the Wracks.

It is huge says Malaga, and there arises a channel to take us out to the peak, but no one else is here to brave it.  It is you and me.

I will go if you do, says the Wracks.  It is your decision. 

Malaga sits and looks and lights another cigarette.  It is huge says he, I don’t know If I have the right equipment, I only have a seven-foot six-inch gun and it might not be enough.  

The waves churn and a huge set rises out of depths, one half mile out to sea, pitches and breaks top to bottom then flattens out in the channel.  It probably will never be this big ever again. 

I have made my decision says Malaga, it is too big, I don’t have the right equipment, and we will be the only ones out.   It is a hair out, says Malaga, I can’t believe I am haired out.

I am scared too says the Wracks; you made a good decision.

The car starts up and the two rocket back to civilization, and the van roars flat out at sixty-five miles per hour down the Highway one.

Let’s surf the Bu says the Wracks, the winter Bu is perfect.  

No, I have decided to go to a luncheon at Beverly Hills Hotel with my family.  We missed our window. 

Goodbye says the Wracks as he unloads his yellow pin from the back of the van. Have a good day and as Malaga drives away, he goes to the corner of Mellow Mans land and Bacon and Santa Inez Lane and watches the ocean and huge lines are visible ten miles away and the wind turns westerly and the ocean decivilizes into a texture of afternoon wind.   He would not surf the day after; he didn’t have a ride. 

It has been a long time and the Wracks doesn’t surf anymore.  No time, no opportunity, no money and age.   The Ventura Overhead exists when the swell is extremely big and it breaks perfectly.   Now, the boys have leashes and jet skis and radio communication to the Coast guard.  They have it made, all they need is a really big swell and the right equipment in the twenty-first century.   The Wracks is here and he believes and this is Gods country and the waves will break forever.