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Looking back
2006 was my first full year in California and as you can see I started blogging. I had learned XHTML and CSS so I rewrote this site in proper code as a project of sorts. Tommy (my son) moves back to Atlanta for work. Julie and I remain very happy living and working here. I talk to the kids once a week by phone. I miss them and as you can read below we fly to Atlanta to visit them.

The Deadliest Man Alive 08.20.06

Count Dante (February 2, 1939- May 25, 1975) was a controversial figure in the American martial arts scene of the 1960s and 1970s.

I had a big interest in the martial arts starting at age 14 and this ad in the back of the comic books drove me nuts.

Born John Keehan, he trained under various martial arts masters during the infancy of organized American martial arts in the mid 20th century. Most notable of the early masters he trained under was sensei Robert Trias. Keehan, after gaining his black belt in karate, went on to become a highly skilled karateka and sensei producing many highly skilled teachers.

John Keehan was the co-founder of the United States Karate Association and served as the Head Instructor for the USKA until 1962. He left that organization in 1964 to form the World Karate Federation.

Keehan grew disillusioned with conventional karate instruction's focus on ceremony, tradition and protocol over raw effectiveness and began developing his own style that he would promote as "street-effective". Through these efforts, he developed a heavily condensed but effective system that is now known as the Dan-te system, Dance of Death or sometimes improperly (given Keehan's dislike of traditional forms), the Kata-Dante. Theoretically, by learning all of the steps of this Dance of Death, you were an effective fighting master. From about 1965 to his death in 1975 he was regarded as the black sheep of American karate. He developed an obscene fascination with the most brutal parts of the martial arts. His style was designed specifically for street combat and so this may simply be a reflection of how society itself has grown more violent over the years. Unfortunately, little technical material has been printed on the Dante style outside his one book, "The World's Deadliest Fighting Secrets", which stressed smashing, gouging, and joint breaking techniques. Even more than technique however, Count Dante stressed the importance of attitude. In contrast with many Oriental concepts of "mind like placid lake"... "Mind like the moon", of being calm, cleaning the mind of all thought and emotion prior to combat, Dante believed that you should 'psych' yourself up with 100% aggressiveness and viciousness, attacking in a furious and unrestrained manner. Dante then advocated attacking (or counter attacking) at full speed, exploding at the enemy with total ruthlessness and ferocity. Many of Dante's students were violent criminals, mobsters and streetgang members who meet and use violence in their everyday life. This was Chicago.

On Bruce Lee. "They resented Bruce Lee when he was alive. The martial arts people made him a legend after he died because they weren't afraid of him anymore."

During the mid 60s, John Keehan abrubptly changed his name to Count Juan Raphael Dante and began heavily promoting himself via comic book ads as Deadliest Man Alive. One had only to mail order for his instructional booklet The Worlds Deadliest Fighting Secrets (in which he outlined the Dance of Death) and they would also receive a free Black Dragon Fighting Society membership card. The Black Dragon Fighting Society founded by Count Dante is an American martial arts organization and has no connection with and should not be confused with the Japanese Black Dragon Society, an ultranationalist society during the 1930s and 1940s.

Keehan explained the name change by stating that his parents fled Spain during the Spanish Civil War, changed their names, and covered their nobility connections in order to effectively hide in America.

In Chicago, Dante co-promoted America's first full contact style martial arts tournament.

Dante drew an enmity from many of the Martial Arts traditionalists (many of whom were non-asian as well as Asian) who believed that he was destroying tradition and respectability. Although extremely campy by today's standards, the famous Deadliest Man Alive comic book ad reinforced this image. Many also felt that he was defiling the art by having "undesirables" as students. During that period of nationwide racial strife, Dante was one of the first American sensei to openly accept Blacks and other minorities as students. Admittedly, however, Dante also had many gang members and mercenary types as students. He also was vocal about how he felt that the Asian community was only willing to teach "watered-down" martial arts to outsiders or non-asians. During this period, Dante, also admittedly was charged with attempted arson when he and an accomplice (while under the influence of alcohol) were arrested while taping dynamite caps to a Chicago dojo. Dante explained this as the result of a disagreement with the dojo's owner over payment for a tournament that Dante had arranged there. The various enmities culminated in the Dojo War incident of 1970 where Dante and some of his students went to a rival Dojo of the Green Cobra Hall. Upon entering the school, they claimed to be police officers and attacked the rival Dojo's students. The brief battle resulted in the death of one of Dante's friends and fellow sensei, Jim Koncevic. As a result of this incident, Dante became much more subdued in his activities but nonetheless, he was officially disowned by the rest of the traditional martial arts community.

Count Dante died in his sleep of internal hemorrhaging caused by a bleeding ulcer on May 25, 1975. The Black Dragon Fighting Society that he founded has since then been under the directorship of his personally chosen protege and successor, Grandmaster William V. Aguiar. It is currently headquartered in Fall River, Massachusetts.

Billy Bones 06.13.06

We got a "Billy Bones" !!! (as seen on TV)
It's so cool. You just hit that little button on the bottom and he starts squirmin' like a fish out of water and singing "Bad to the Bone". If you'd like your OWN "Billy Bones", just go to EBay. That's where we got ours.
That's it for this update, sickos.
SiCkPuPpY

Spider catches fly 06.06.06

I have a pet spider. She lives between my bedroom window glass and screen. She seems to eat pretty well. There's always bugs in the web. Here she is enjoying a nice lunch.

The dead opossum 06.03.06

So my dog was barking like crazy in the backyard last night. We had an old wooden board leaning on the back fence and the dog was barking at it. I returned to the house to get my flashlight. I looked under both ends of this board and didn't see anything, but the dog was still going crazy at it. I decided to pull the board away to show the dog there was nothing there. Well, there WAS something there and the dog pounced on it. It was a baby opossum. The dog would NOT let go of this thing. I ended up hitting the dog in the head over and over until he finally let go of it.

Music sux ... 05.27.06

This will be known as the year I stopped listening to new music. New music holds nothing for me. I find myself more and more listening to music from the 70's, 80's, and 90's. There may be a few new bands out there, but not many.

Our trip to Atlanta 05.18.06

Well .... Julie and I had a GREAT time in Atlanta. She got to meet my family and my 2 younger girls. It was 5 days of fun fun fun.

Trip coming up 05.01.06

I'm excited about going to Atlanta the middle of May to visit my girls. YaY! Busy busy busy .... I'm re-doing all my stuff in style sheets. Style sheets are so cool.

Pissed Kitty

Learning XHTML 04.29.06

Oh gosh. Guess where I have been the last two weeks?!? ..
Learning CSS (style sheets) and XHTML. If you don't know what all that is .... it's the way to design/write web pages today. My skills were six years behind and I only knew HTML. Well HTML is on it's last version as XHTML becomes the standard. This page is now written in XHTML and style sheets. My goal was to make it look the same as it did before the re-write project. It came out pretty well. Don't ya think?
You can see the older version as it looked in straight HTML HERE.
A big thanks to Julie for helping me with this re-write project, and teaching me style sheets and XHTML.

Deported 04.12.06

POOOOOOR Dora the Explorer.
Sorry, Dora, but you know that "American Dream" thing?
Welllllll ...
D-D--D-D-D-DEPORTED
Sorry, folks. Couldn't resist.

My smokes 04.11.06

I can't believe what they did to my cigarette packs. I smoke Camel Wides and look what they did to the packs.

... and they didn't even put Camel C-Notes on them. This really sucks. I want my money back.
So that's it for this update, sickos. Check back later.
PuP

What's wrong with this blog? 04.06.06

There is something VERY wrong with this blog. I just figured out what it is. I hate to write stuff. I don't have anything to say. So why do I have a Blog page ?
Hell, ... I don't know. Have a good day.

Cool Links 03.01.06

Hello everyone, ... from Southern California.

The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it. Resist it and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden itself.
Oscar Wilde

Cool Midget LINK
Check out this blind guy on guitar LINK

About getting old .... 02.26.06

Here comes March. OMG!!! I'm going to turn 45. CRAP!!! : (

• Don Knotts dies.
• I'll be adding more new links in the link section at the bottom. I have some really cool ones for you.
  Oh, and thanks for reading my "Blog" page.
• Our friend Ken, (Tool) and his girl are expecting a baby. Congrats to you both from me and Julie.
• Web1000 is a really cool place for free web space. You get 50MB of space and UNLIMITED transfer. Click HERE
• Oh, and Uncle Sam wants YOU to read my blog so .... come back soon.

... to read SickPuppy's Blog

Saturdays 02.25.06

What a beautiful Saturday. The sun is shining and not a cloud in the sky. I love southern California.

• Yesterday was one of my daughter's birthday. I can't believe she is 20 years old now. She is doing so well in college. I couldn't be more proud.
• Wanna see my tattoo? Click HERE
• Wanna see a picture of me when I used to play in 80's hair metal bands? Click HERE

Why I'm here in California 02.22.06

So, anyway .... I moved from Georgia to here in San Diego, California a year and a half ago to be with Julie.
She is my girlfriend and she is so awesome. See a pic of her HERE

I'm working on the links on the links page trying to weed out all the bad ones from years gone past.
We made spaghetti and garlic bread for dinner. It was so good.

Get it going again 02.21.06

WOW! Almost 2 years and this place is still here. I had to have them resend my password to here so I could update it.