Apropos Of Nothing: My 2007 trip to Prague

Lest I leave you guys with nothing to read, I thought at the very least I might provide you with some amusement. I wrote this blog in March of 2007 and posted it on myspace.  Here's a repost, since I just reread it and was heartily amused.  Be forewarned- there's no training in here whatsoever, and I'd obviously been reading a shitload of Tucker Max at the time.

Last weekend ranks pretty high amongst the most ridiculous experiences of my life.  
Things I learned:
-not to allow German dudes with livers like a 6 year old girls and a penchant for sleeping with their Ipods on to handle the sole room key
-Prague is not, contrary to popular belief, a cheap city for partying
-Russia must not have any strippers left, because they're all in Eastern Europe
-Eastern Europe might be cooler than Western Europe, and is definitely more like the US than Western Europe

Eastern Europe.  Good to the last drop.

The Train
Following what I originally thought to be a spectacular failure on my Financial Accounting exam (but which actually turned out to be an intellectual coup that somehow salvaged my grade and procured for me a B in the class), I bought a large bottle of Jaeger and resolved to drown my sorrows in its black licorice bliss.  Alex (the aforementioned German with the liver of a kindergartener) and Travis, two of my classmates, and I rushed to the train station, bought our tickets (for which we had to pay a $16 reservation fee despite the fact that the train was leaving in 5 min) and a lot of alcohol, and boarded in record time.  We had not yet even stowed our shit before cracking open the Jaeger and beer, and began drinking combatively before the train even began moving.  Shortly thereafter, my Jager was empty (mostly killed by me), and the other two were nursing beers, mumbling something about "pacing themselves" as I questioned their masculinity, parentage, and intestinal fortitude.  We passed the time in conversation, pointedly avoiding the topic of the exam, which was agreed to be an unmitigated disaster by all, and arrived after 4 short hours in Prague.

We Arrive
As we disembarked, we were greeted by a Czech woman with remarkably good English who invited us to stay at Hotel Express Prague, which I recommend to anyone in the area.  Alex did the majority of the negotiating, as he was least drunk, and got us a room for $60.  For the weekend.  Nice.  We followed her back to the hotel, me mentioning casually that Hostel was set in Eastern Europe, and that I'd like to live through the weekend.  Upon arriving, Travis was delighted to discover a mega porn shop across the street from the hotel, for which we left immediately upon dropping our bags in the room.  After perusing their massive selection, Alex purchased poppers and began huffing them while Travis and I sought out Absinthe (I enjoined Travis to just download all of his porn like a normal person rather than buying the armful he'd selected in 20 minutes).  Finding the Absinthe shortly thereafter, we returned to the hotel to begin drinking once more.  To spur them on into manhood, I poured doubles for every single they drank,and was soon thereafter obliterated, as were they.

Our hotel  

Partying Begins in Earnest
At some point there was a conversation between my companions to which I was not privy, over the relative merits of strippers and/or prostitutes.  Alex claimed that he hated both, though after a shot of Absinthe could talk about nothing but titty bars.  I believe I was dropping the kids off in the pool during this discussion, and emerged from the bathroom to discover them laying on their beds half asleep.  After threatening to start breaking furniture, they emerged from their state of semi-unconsciousness and proclaimed we should head for a tittybar, to which I assented, if only to get our sausagefest out into public.  We were then waylaid by one of the ubiquitous titty bar hawksters, from whom Alex haggled free drinks and entrance in return for our presence. Several more Jaegers later, Travis and I were fending off offers of everything ranging from oral sex to lap dances that exceeded the price of sex with prostitutes in the town.  I attempted to explain to the Russian spazz who apparently thought I was Donald Trump's kid that under no circumstances would I pay $30 for a lapdance, repeatedly, to no avail.  She continued her unending offers as I ignored her, even turning my back to her, and attempting to drink her out of existance.  Finally I stood and proclaimed we should leave, stopping midsentance as I watched Alex performing the weirdest dance/display of affection to a stripper I have ever seen.  Laughing hysterically at his gyrations, which would not have seemed out of place at Woodstock, I grabbed Travis and pointed out Alex, who then began drinking and laughing with me.  After Alex dropped his $30, we left the bar, constantly corralling Alex to insure he didn't wander off.  While I asked a group of Czechs where we should head next, Alex did in fact wander off, not to be seen for the rest of the night.  I called out to him, but he ignored me, so Travis and I followed the group to a bar clear on the other side of the Czech Republic.  Though I was concerned, having just seen Hostel and having watched Alex follow the ugliest Gypsie I'd ever seen down a darkened alleyway, that he might end up in a bathtub sans his kidneys, I was far too interested in the Czech chicks to worry about anyone's wellbeing.  After more Jaeger, and an inkling that the sun was about to rise, Travis and I wantered back toward the hotel, stopping briefly in the titty bar to see if Alex had returned.  He hadn't, so we abandoned our abbreviated search and headed for the hotel, only to find that Alex had the only key, and was passed out inside the room.  We banged on the door for at least 15 minutes, waking up everyone on the floor, and finally got him to open the door, and collapsed into bed.

Shithoused.

Steak and Jaeger
Upon rising and discovering that I was hungrier than I've ever been in my life, I grabbed a book, called my companions pussies for sleeping through Prague, and went in search of steak.  Soon thereafter I found some,  devoured it heartily, and enjoyed sitting in a sports-themed brewpub that would not be out of place in the US.  That's not to say it was some chain, but rather that it had the same air of unbridled masculinity that you'll find in some better US sportbars, a feature sorely lacking in much of Continental Europe.  Returning to the room, I exhorted the guys to get the fuck up, and they grundgingly obliged.  We then left the room to get more food, and after poking our heads into a number of resteraunts, settled on a pizza place.  The pizza was pretty damn good, if a little bland, and we sat for a while and chatted while planning our day.  They both wanted to watch soccer, which did not appeal to me at all, so we reached a compromise in which we'd walk around a bit and stop at a sports bar if we found one.  We headed for a giant clock in the center of town that's a famous landmark, and happened upon a sex toy museum.  


Fuck an a right, a sex toy museum.  Gods bless the Czechs.

Best. Museum. Ever.

After telling them it would be the coolest fucking thing they've ever seen (which it was), they grudgingly entered, beers in hand.  The museum began with various historical, woman-powered vibrators and other female stimulators, and led into a movie house showing the oldest threesome in porn, which might be the single funniest thing I've ever seen.  Alex and Travis, already in their cups from having been drinking as we walked the streets, were treated to my commentary and added dialogue to the movie, as were the rest of the people in the theater, who were apparently overawed by my hilarity.  I drew quite a crowd, providing MS3k-style quips throughout what might be the greatest display of hideous physiues and sexual ineptitude ever caught on celluloid.  Upon the end of this rare cinematic gem, we toured the rest of the museum, and proceeded along to the giant clock in the center of prague, capturing a comical picture of several thousand people staring with rapt attention at a giant Glockenspiel.  Don't get me wrong, it was cool, and 700 some odd years old, but these people looked as though they were watching the guy with the biggest dick in porn bang porn's smallest midget or something (which, incidentally, is amazing- a dude with an 18" dick fucks some dwarf who's something along the lines of 30" tall).  

The only soccer I'd watch of my own volition.

Thereafter, we wandered the streets looking for a sports bar, as Alex demanded that we watch grown men playing a child's game.  We were then fleeced by some shitbox Slav cabbie, who demanded something along the lines of 40E for what should have cost us 3E, and sat down to watch Man U battle it out with some other soccer team.  As we were sitting with some Man U hooligans, I had a good time with them, chugging Coke Light (for which they mocked me mercilessly, but fuck it, I like my liver right where it is) and heckling the other team and their fans.  I also ordered some wings, which were apparently cooked by a man who has never, in fact, eaten wings.  They were 1) boiled, and 2) covered in some disgusting and wholly bland salsa.  My heckling then began to include the phrase, "Your team sucks worse than these fucking wings!", which was met with no small amount of anger- apparently everyone shared my opinion of the wings

.
Upon leaving that bar, and having vowed never again to pay for a cab ride, anywhere, we began our walk back to the hotel, which turned out to take about four minutes.  Irritation then turned to murderous rage, and we vowed to kill the cabbie if we ever saw him again.  To cap this point, Alex and Travis began on a path of liver destruction to which the previous night paled in comparison.  I, being unused to drinking with either that frequency, or intensity, chose to relax a bit on the chugging of liquor, and I was the voice of sobriety for the bulk of the evening, which was another whirlwind tour of titty bars (Alex found that he was in love with one of strippers, I believe) and bars.  We again misplaced Alex while talking to some chicks, and departed on the bus for points unknown in search of what might be the weirdest club I have ever seen.  Picture, if you will,  a bar from Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, populated with European metrosexuals, metalheads, and ravers.  Quite a mix.  While Travis tried to work his magic with the locals, I grabbed another Coke Light and headed into the dance club, where I found a live band playing techno.  If that were not odd enough, I came to the realization that the band was in fact a jazz band, playing techno on jazz instruments.  I wandered back to the bar to alert Travis to the uniqueness of this band, and found him engrossed in a conversation with two Nordic chicks.  He was, apparently, awaiting my return, completely unaware of the fact that I have the same effect on European chicks that German panzers have on the French-  I inspire  mass, and usually very disorderly retreat.  Before I could do too much damage, I rolled back to the techno room, where I remained until  Travis gathered me up. 

Overhung and tired of waiting for those lazy motherfuckers to drag ass out of bed.

There you have it- my weekend adventure in the Czech Republic.  Lest you worry, the next blog installment will be back to business as usual.

brutal-dom.

SO,
first, sorry you lovely folks! I've been away for sometime thanks to what I had earlier called 'my tantrum-throwing pampered brat of an internet connection'. But occasionally, like now, having three laptops, two connections and a rich daddy helps. ;) As also, the fact that semester exams are finally over and oh what joy! It's party season!

second,
October 20th saw Kolkata freaks witnessing the fourth edition of the first-of-its-kind Underground Metal Fest in the city. The Pit v.4: Rogue Dimension consisted of eight local underground Extreme Metal bands performing for eight hours in a rip-your-throat, melt-your-face extravanganza with adrenaline running down the sides. 11am onwards, a usually sleepy, quiet paara theater auditorium in Kalighat,a posh locality among the oldest areas of Kolkata, saw mysterious-looking pierced and tattooed people in black arriving in hoardes and accumulating...
By 2pm, the theater, its ginormous stage, the auditorium- all of it had been metempsychosed(is that even the word? LOL) into a raging pit- spewing wrath, blood and dust round its circumference.
A space that is usually barred to anything more than 300 people was forced to admit 800-900 tensile-steel-nerved Metal enthusiasts.

Now, for the photos!!
First, obviously, me with the boy...
Next, Evil Conscience in action.
Pritam (the boy) on guitar.


Arunava aka Grimforecast, the beast with the mic.



Niloy aka Imp Estine, the monster on drums


Jonny on the bass


and us, the fangirls/boys. You can see the starry-eyed(Well, not quite..) me sitting (of all places), right *on* the stage in front of the monitors.

Sinful Oath.
Kunzang, the pint-sized decibel demon.

Kunzang, mic-man and Soumabir(aka Pittu) on guitar.


Bibek, bass/bawaal man and Vineet, guitar player.





Oh, and that's Pittu again. Maybe someday he'll grow up, poor dear bro of mine. ;)

Erased Undead

Rajdeep aka Rjd the growler and Pratik the screamer.




Neerajan on the axe.

Chronic Xorn
Sunny aka Saptadeep, growler.

Axeman Suvam



Dead, aka Angshuman, little bass-demon

Tamaghna, the drum humachine.

Yonsample
Arka, voice.

Jojo, axe.

Ani, four strings.


Pupai, melody.

Unfortunately, I couldn't shoot 3 bands- Wranglers, Burnout Syndrome and What Escapes Me, but maybe I will. Next time around. :)

Oh, and here are a few bonus additions:
Me and soul-sis Mallika.

MOSH!!!!! Fuck aye! \m/

Stagediving/Crowdsurfing.

[The last two pics courtesy Kushal.]

Taking It Back To The Old School, Cause I'm An Old Fool Who's So Cool

I've found that little music on Earth is quite so soothing as the timeless epic known as "Whoomp, There It Is" by the whirlwind of musical viruosity Tag Team.  Actually, that's a lie- that song sucks shit, and I vastly prefer 95 South's "Whoot There it is", which speaks to an issue near and dear to my heart:  finding booty.

I think I've located the booty for which 95 South has been searching.

Piratical song lyrics aside, I've mentioned at great length the lessons that can be taken from old school lifters and general strength trainees, and recent personal experience has reiterated this strongly.  People back in the day were, quite simply, far harder than we are today.  This isn't some Hesiod-style reference to a bygone Golden Age of humanity, but a simple statement of fact.  Modern life has made people soft as shit, and we're thus incapable of doing some of the epic crap that people did as a matter of course before the days of mocha lattes and iPads.  Nor is this simply an affliction of the West, as Japanese karateka and Indian martial artists have found their bodies, and their hands in particular, to be far too soft to accomodate the old styles of training, and thus cannot attain the level of tiger-choking, bare-handed alligator killing, mass destruction of entire cities awesome that our forefathers did.

Mas Oyama used to beat up bulls, barehanded, as a goof.  He built his strength by using the implements listed below, in addition to randomly fighting rocks, trees, and waterfalls, and (of course) by running half-naked in the snow on a regular basis.

Quite frankly, the shit's not entirely our fault- modern life doesn't really prepare you for badassery, or generally allow for it.  Everything these days is mechanized, so even farmers are blubbery shadows of their former selves.  Men of bygone eras built their bodies through their daily routines, chopping wood, digging ditches, and walking all over the fucking place.  I mean, for fuck's sake- we're so soft that we now wear shoes while "barefoot running."  The shit's gotten beyond ridiculous.  As such, it seems that we might look to what these guys used to do for strength training, because we can rest assured that it's badass, and it might give you something to do when you're out of ideas.

Hmmmm... barefoot shoes seems like a contradiction in terms, methinks.

All of you know at least a bit about the Great Gama.  According to a certain skinny bald guy with access to a lot of light clubbells and "secret ancient strength training knowledge", Gama did untold thousands of pushups and hindu squats, and then swung around a bit of wood for a while and was jacked as a result.  Well, that's not the whole story.

"Gama used to wear a 60 kilogram granite ring around his neck while doing pushups and squats. Then he swung some very heavy karela or mudgar (Indian clubs). No. Not the puny cola bottle club bells now being promoted as the all singing all dancing fitness equipment, but really heavy ones weighing from 20 kilograms to 60 kilograms. In addition to all these , Gama used to dig the wrestling pit with a pharsa (a heavy hoe like implement) weighing as much as 30 kilograms. Not for fun, not because he could not find something lighter. But because the added resistance helped him to strengthen the forearms. The superior skill and the strength Gama possessed made him the greatest wrestler in the world."  (Venkatachalam)

Now, that shit is fucking hardcore.  Fuck an X-vest- I want a granite ring hung around my neck while I go about my daily routine.  Not only would that add resistance, but that'd build one hell of a thick fucking neck.  Nor was that the end of the road for Indian wrestlers (who were at one time pretty fucking badass):
"Supplementary weight training was the rule - not the exception. The scenario was much the same with Kalarippayattu and other Indian martial arts like wrestling and vajramushti. Every village had some sort of vyayam mandir or gymkhana (gymnasium/health centre), and people who thronged there lifted heavy stone balls, did squats with  heavy stone rings around their neck, swung heavy mudgar or Indian clubs, used sandbags, did exercises on a pole (mallakhamb) and then practiced their martial arts. These exercises were in addition to their menial jobs like chopping wood, fetching water from deep wells. carrying head loads over 100 kgms and walking to the market and the manual labor on the agricultural fields."(Venkatachalam)

Forearms, much?

Clearly, their daily routine was far harder than anything you or I will ever experience.  Beyond that, even guys who work with their hands can attest to the fact that the old guys with whom they work rock 18" upper arms and forearms while eating a diet that consists of nothing but cheese and hard liquor, all due to the fact that they spent their entire lives using pipe wrenches and manual tools.  Thus, we need to sack the fuck up and start building up our workload bit by bit, through the day, to try to regain some of the epic, diamond hardness that our grandfathers had simply because they were alive.

Jack Palance, one of the last of a dying breed of unbelievably hard motherfuckers.  Coal miner, pro boxer, bomber pilot, country music singer, and one-handed pushups at 73-doer.

So, what'd they use to get their badass physiques of yore?  In this installment, I'll go over some Eastern implements for strength building, and then in a future one, I'll throw in any other training system I can find.  (Incidentally, if any of you are fluent in Latin, email me, because I've got a translation job for you)  The Okinawans and Japanese had some sick methods for building overall strength, and given that the Okinawans created fighting systems so they could kill armored opponents with their bare hands, there's not much better place to start.

Chishi: The chishi is a concrete or stone weight at the end of a wooden handle, which basically makes it analogous to the Indian club bell or a sledge.  Obviously, this thing's mostly working your hand and forearm, but anyone who's played with a sledge will attest to the fact that it becomes a full body workout in short order.

Ishisashi: This is a stone padlock that's sort of like a kettlebell. Most of the applications I've seen for these involve punching, and these things apparently build sick arm, forearm, hand, and shoulder strength.

Jari Bako: Anyone who's seen a kung fu movie is familiar with this, and I'm willing to bet half of you (like me) tried creating your own with a bucket of sand or gravel after reading about these in karate books.  Basically, you start with sand and then work your way up through gravel, small rocks, large rock, and then allegedly glass to turn your hands and fingers into rock-hard, esophagus-ripping death machines by punching your hands with a knife fist into the aforementioned bucket.  Using these is undoubtedly what gave Sonny Chiba the finger strength to de-throat the main bad guy in Street Fighter, making that the best martial arts movie until Bloodsport.

 

Kongoken: After seeing these used on Human Weapon, I'm pretty sure I'm going to make one of these bad boys myself (you can get how-to directions here)  It's essentially a heavy hoop that you use in a wide array of exercises either by yourself or with a partner for total body conditioning.  I don't know if they have a standard weight, but I know it seems to have been kicking the piss out of the guys on HW and looked awesomely unwieldy.

Makiage Kigu [aka Maiage Gu]: Nothing more than a wrist roller, which comprises the sum total of my grip work and is definitely indispensable.

Nigiri Game [Sanchingami]: As this weirdly ripped, pigeon-toed Nazi demonstrates, the Game are weighted vases used to strengthen the fingers and arms, again for the throat-ripping.  They're made of clay, filled with sand, and occasionally used to bash the fuck out of casual onlookers at this super-ripshit pumped German karate studio.

That kid missed his calling by about 75 years.

Sumabukuro: Brooks Kubik's favorite exercise, none other than sandbag lifting.  Not surprisingly, every culture around the world seems to have utilized this lift for strength training, which means we probably should as well.  Obviously, the pic above isn't sandbag lifting, but Karelin was a fucking beast, did sandbag lifting, and this pic is 11000 different kinds of awesome.

It's working for this broad.

I've said it a thousand times, and I'll say it again- we've become, as a species, soft as shit on the blacktop in an Arizona desert highway in the middle of August.  There needs to be a hell of a lot more of the shit that went on in the past than there does ridiculous calculations of percentages of 1RM and note-taking in the gym, and even less of weak-sauce idiots wearing sleeveless Under Armor with matching nylon belts and gloves on the decline Pec Flexor 2000 machine.  Less Coach McGuirk and more Captain Caveman.

Boom baddiba-boom, baddiba, boom, boom, boom.

Stop regressing and go lift something, already.  If you want some ideas, check out this text on the use of some of the implements I listed above.

Sources:
Hewitson, Nick.  "Martial Arts Aren't What They Used To Be." Fight Times.  http://www.fighttimes.com/magazine/magazine.asp?article=261

Venkatachalam, R.  "Strength Training- The Neglected Art and Forgotten Aspect of Kalarippayattu." KalariWorld.   http://www.kathinayoga.com/KalariWorld/Articles/Strength_article2.html