r.g. tamaki

Working Through Pain: Principles of The Relentless

desert

My face hurt every time I turned to look at something. My head harrowed like a bitch if I made even a slight expression. Exiting the freeway, I turned into the gym’s parking lot with my brain feeling like a sore testicle.

No parking spots.

Suddenly the lies began speaking to me again: Look at that. The gym’s full. You’re hurt. You’re tired. You’re hungry. Besides you fought well last night. Why don’t you just use this day to rest. You can come in tomorrow and train twice as hard.

Bullshit! I told myself. Don’t listen to the lies!

I saw a car’s reverse lights come on and immediately my hand clicked the turn signal to claim the spot. Are you really gonna do this? You can’t spar today. Look at you. The wind felt its way into my spine despite the sun. Global dimming or global warming, they’re never there when you needed them.

As I reluctantly waited for the car to back up, my thoughts drifted to last weekend, when I visited my friend, Nazy, in Fremont.

I knocked and the door opened.

“Hi, Roun,” Nazy greeted—tiny and sweet—peeking out with her smiling Persian eyes.

“How are you Nazy,” I said, leaving my shoes outside before entering. I gave my friend a hug and then we went through our routine. First she complained that I hadn’t visited her in a long time (even though it really wasn’t that long), and then she accused me of completely forgetting about her. To this I responded with my usual, “of course not,” and, “I would never do such a thing”—just a few of the many counters I had come up with over the years.

“How’re the kids?” I asked, referring to her twins—two twenty-one year old boys, whom I had become familiar with through our acquaintance. Nazy was older than me, but for some reason we became very good friends. In fact, by this time I was somewhat part of the family—a stepchild of sorts, a bastard that only comes for dinner and leaves without washing the plates.

“Oh, you mean those little shits?” Nazy said, her smile quickly turning into a gathering menace.

I laughed at her sneer. “You love them,” I teased. “They’re your babies, remember?”

“Yes, dumb babies!” Nazy shot back. “What is they do all day? Eat, poop, sleep?” Then her eyes turned to their pet, a little brown dog walking in a red t-shirt. “At least that little shit doesn’t ask for money.”

I laughed again. (more…)

The Danger of Holding Back

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There was a flash of leather in my face and suddenly I was looking at the ceiling. When I looked back down, the bastard was already moving to my right. And when I turned to follow him, he just stabbed me again with another jab to the face. I felt something burst behind my front teeth and then something warm leaked down my nose and into my mouth. Ten seconds into my first fight at King’s Boxing Gym in Oakland, CA and I was already on the rag.

Served me right.

Two weeks after joining the gym and I was already salty. I wanted some action. But the coach wasn’t letting any newbies spar. Nevertheless I insisted. In my arrogance I figured, “hey I fought for my high school’s karate team and I didn’t do no pussy kata’s either (the display of posture, patterns and movements), I did kumite (competitive fighting)!” But this was not karate where fights lasted in two to five second blitzes; this was boxing, a three-minute, all-out, fast-paced hell with just you, your opponent, and your inadequacies. Needles to say, I wasn’t ready. I lasted two rounds because my opponent (this “white boy” I thought I could bully) bestowed mercy upon me.

Sitting in the corner—heaving and humbled—this little black girl came and began wiping the blood off my face. “You did good,” she consoled me. She was probably one of the gym residents because she obviously knew what she was doing. And she knew what I was—a beginner, an amateur. At the time all I had was ego, not pride. And there’s a difference. Pride is earned, ego is for free. (more…)

Denouncing Innocence and Deferring My Childhood

Because_it_s_summer_III_by_incrediPeople always say, “protect a child’s innocence.” But then I ask, at which point does innocence become ignorance?

You see, nobody tells you that. Because every teenager knows that at some point, their once encouraged and tolerated behaviors somehow turned into shameful and moronic offenses without notice. It usually happens when you go through the mutation phase—when you get zits and pubes, when you sweat excessively and you start to smell, when you develop breasts, skin oiliness, voice fluctuations, vaginal discharge, ass hair, menstruation, large teeth, disproportionate nose, and hanging testicles. In short it all happens when you cease being cute. (more…)

Roun’s Rants vol. 3: F-U! N-U, N-U, N-U!

Fil's Middle Finger Salute To The Rich2

You’ve heard it before. Using profanity means a lack of sophistication, a lack of education, a lack of creativity, a lack of vocabulary.

Well respectfully what I say to that is, go fuck yourself.

Saying poop, crap, butt, freak, freakin, effin, flippin, fudge, screwed, dang, darn, shootdarn, doggonit, golly, geez louise, shiittake mushrooms and sufferin succotash is not creative, it’s god-abhorringly retarded. I mean either say it, or don’t say it at all.

Whether it’s the s-word, the c-word, or the f-bomb, pseudo-swearing is a halfhearted attempt at an empty gesture. It’s like saying “I don’t eat meat,” and then buying fake meat. It’s like saying “I’m an atheist,” and then going to an atheist church. It’s like feigning offense when in fact what you’re really afraid of is getting disapproval from other people—mainly from your version of the ruling class.

Despite its commonly accepted purpose, these squeaky-clean, prim and proper “frustration words” are not there to protect children or display poise and refinement; instead it is there to offer an illusion of righteousness and respectability for the would-be adults. I mean, these fucking sausage-jobs are so uptight you couldn’t slide an American Express card between their asses. (more…)

Generation-R(onin)

city samurai

Gone is the age of Kings, of Royalty and Executives. Gone are the days of being tapped on the shoulder and becoming “discovered.” Gone are the studios, the record labels, and the idea of Hope because now man can lay claim on his destiny once more.

Free of institutions, titles, and guidelines, the ronin wanders as a rebel and a vagrant. A vagabond in the eyes of many, he has long ago thrown away the dagger and the plate, and now carries with him the strategies and tactics he has acquired from his former academic lords. Masterless and socially adrift, he climbs heavenward into the clouds on the back of the serpent—the ancient star-spangled snake.

Hurled into the centrifugal force of Wall Street and cyber space, he is instantly met by a stream of dedicated non-thinkers on TV: the depraved and debased cynics, the bile-faced despisers, the castrating thundercunts, and the love anorexics who sell confidence-boosting suppositories to the masses of the walking dead. (more…)

21st Century Censorship: Designing Decent Men

censored__by_khos_prinzAndy Schneider was a decent man, a swell guy. Yeah he had some alcohol problems back then, but so what? I mean he ain’t no Christian at the time but he was certainly into guilt, which made things much easier. Whether it was a stroke of luck or a twist of fate (so to speak), Andy eventually met Jesus at the bottom of a Cutty Sark bottle and married a meek Asian woman named Susan Cho—a good woman. Why, the first time I saw her she kinda reminded me of that song—your mama don’t dance and your daddy don’t rock n roll—which was a good thing of course. There’s a lot to be said about a woman’s clothing in relation to her respectability after all. Not to mention, Susan was very progressive—she buys coffee beans above their market value, observes “No Meat Mondays,” and bags her groceries using recycled materials.

Andy was indeed a very lucky guy. (more…)

10 Things You Didn’t Know About Vampires
Original by another default @ Deviantart.com

Original by another default @ Deviantart.com

It is the advent of a new American century, of hope and change, of humans and vampires living together. With the help of the National Organization of Altered Humankind (NOAH), pro-Integration United States is now at the cusp of immense technological progress, state of the art medical innovations, and new promising careers with unlimited growth potential.

Rising from a global recession, unpredictable climate change and unemployment, recycling didn’t save us in the 21st century; vampires did. (more…)

Roun’s Rants vol. 1: Boys, Fathers, Males, Men

Leaving_It_Behind_by_StarDuskDreams

Maybe it was because the car in front of me was leaving too much space in front of him; or maybe because it was the fifth road traffic collision of the day; or maybe because there was nothing playing on the radio except that stupid Bastille song with the chanting monks going “EH-EH-OH! EH-EH-OH!” which is probably the lamest chant in chanting monk history, which then forced me to turn to NPR. (more…)

Let the Campaign Begin!

Today is officially the start of my book campaign.

As a debut author, I really have no idea what’s going on. I just got out of my hermit cave and now I’m reengaging the world through my ancient social media skills. Like the first fight, the first drug trip, and the first holy experience in the snu snu department, I’m literally clueless. Yes I’ve read the books, watched the videos, listened to advice, but now I’m running through the beach with bullets zipping, half-drowning, ground exploding, while someone over there is looking for his arm.

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And that’s why this is going to be fun! (more…)