RIF

One thing I don't do enough of is read books. I'm always stoked to power through some pages while on vacation, but it never seems to spill over into my real life. Since I don't have enough dough to constantly travel, I decided to make a conscious effort to step back from the idiot box, plop my ass in the Lazy Boy, and grab a book on a regular basis. Here's what's in the Brown Recluse's Fall 2011 Library and some brief thoughts on each.


This fucking thing will scare the beef outta you. FUCK! I seriously think that I'm going the way of the vegan because of it. Next thing you know I'll be wearing some goddamm poochooli. Basically all animal proteins (meats, dairy, cheese, milk, delicious butter, eggs, etc) will promote cancer, heart disease, and all the other diseases you don't want. Like butt cancer. Eating strictly plant proteins, means you can smoke cartons a day while eating azbestos and you still won't get any death diseases. I've mixed in at least 1 vegan meal a day to see if I can handle it. But on a side note, I first cracked the cover with a 1/2 pound Lefty's burger in my hand.



This was such a great random discovery at this mysterious structure full of smelly people called The Library.I was headed towards the Ecuador section which was just past the Surfing section which was right next to the Judo section. It was just staring at me with the incredible stoney early 70's cover photo and font. It made me grab it for 2 weeks. Plus the title is just simple and perfect. It tells the story of a wandering Judoka who travels along, gets in trouble, meets a chick and eats food. And he's cool with everything as long as he can reach mushin, or the state of no mind. It's intermixed with Judo life lessons and ways of looking at life and everything it throws at you. Deep and heavy, just like you'd expect from the epic Uluwatu single fin era of 1973.



Ever since Bali last year, I've been stoked on them Hindu's. In my world, I was getting used to dealing with a-holes from Southern California who, in a broad generalization, are very selfish and think only of themselves and how they can get ahead in life. While everybody I met in Bali were over-ther-top kind, almost too nice. At first I thought they were just setting me up, but it didn't take very long to realize that it was from their heart and they are super happy people. In amongst incredible stone architecture filled with animal heads, there were colorful flower and incense offerings strewn about making everything look and smell like heaven. They're almost all Hindu on Bali while the rest of Indo is good ol Muslims. The Balinese run their life by different standards. Karma is a key...I think....but I'm not really sure. That's why I got this book. Because I wanna figure out why they're so fucking nice...and happy. All the other books about Hindu tells riddles and stories that are too deep for me to grasp. I'm an idiot, I need people to dumb it down so I figure it out from the bottom and work my way up. To enlightenment.



There's always talk in martial arts circles that Chuck Norris was some bad ass, that he holds all kinds of records, and that he's unstoppable. I had always dismissed it as normal MMA chest pounding, mine is bigger than yours bullshit. So I found this paperback for $2.99 at Powell's in Portland and that's as much as I wanna pay for this book. Sure, it tells of his growing up, and his problems, but it seemed like he was trying to sell me The Chuck Norris Total Gym. There was some good stories about training with Bruce Lee. Then it was a couple pages selling me on Jesus Christ and The Republican Party has all the answers. I also started to gain some respect for him when he started talking about his many legit titles and VERY HIGH Korean belt levels. Then I was sold his new show, premiering somewhere soon. It is after all, Chuck Norris. So expect some cheese with your wine.