Godfrey Ho: Ninja Z-Movie Legend

      Godfrey Ho, ever hear of him? No? Not a surprise, he's not well known outside his native Hong Kong, hell he's not even recognized there either. Where he is recognized however is in the underground sub-culture of bad movie enthusiasts. In recent years there has been a growing trend of being into bad movies, movies that are so bad, so terrible that they are good; and at the top of the food chain was the Z-movie.
      Now most everyone has heard of B-movies, films that are off the beaten path and usually not associated with major film studios, a great example being the campy sci-fi films of Ed Wood, often called the father of the "bad B-movie." However if one digs even deeper you can find a type of movie that goes far beyond the B-movie, films that have such bad production value, such absurd acting and special effects that they can only be categorized as one thing, the Z-movie; and within the realm of Z-movies lies one man who sits above all others, Godfrey Ho.
      Godfrey Ho is a Hong Kong film maker known for his "cut and paste" style of movie making. What Ho would do is film one full length feature and turn that one film into a half dozen movies. But how did he do this? How do you turn one film into six? This is where obscure asian films come into play. What Godfrey Ho did was take already made unknown asian films and re-dub them to suit his needs, then he took about 20 minutes of his film and splices it together so you would actually have 2 movies in one, an unknown asian film and Godfrey Ho's film. Now when you have 90 minutes of footage and you only use 20 minutes for each film then you can make 6 films with that 90 minutes of footage.
      Now as if it wasn't bad enough that Ho is re-dubbing old asian movies and splicing them together with his original films, he was using an all star cast of some of the worst actors in the history of cinema. One thing you notice about Ho's films is that he almost always uses an all white European/American cast which stood out like a sore thumb against the all asian cast of the films that Godfrey was trying to paste together with his. Also to top things off just about every actor on his set could not act there way out of a paper bag.
      However there was one actor that Godfrey used who was not a total hack, that man is the Ninja you see pictured at the top of this article, Richard Harrison. Harrison was a classical trained actor who actually could act, in fact he auditioned for Sergio Leoni's A Fistfull of Dollars, so the man could act. Unfortunately for Harrison he got stuck in a B-movie
rut, making one after another. Sometime during his career he agreed to make around 3 small budget Hong Kong martial arts films for Godfrey Ho. It was not until around 20 years later that he found out from his son of all people that the 3 films he starred in were turned into almost 20 ninja themed movies with Ho's cut and paste technique.
      The reason why Ho is at the top of the Z-movie game is because of the absurdity of his film content. Just about all of his movies involve ninjas, this is nothing new for martial arts films but take a look at the pictured of Richard Harrison on this article, look at what he is wearing, WHAT FUCKING NINJA WEARS A SILVER AND PINK OUTFIT WITH A HEADBAND THAT SAYS "NINJA" ON IT!? It is absolutely hysterical and absurd beyond belief, and if you thought it ended there, oh no it gets much better because what ninja film would be complete without a heavy dose of sorcery, that's right, fucking ninja magic. In Godfrey Ho's breakout film "Ninja operation night and warrior" people "transform" into ninjas by using elaborate hand movements that trigger a camera quick zoom and a puff of smoke, finally revealing a deadly ninja in neon colors ready to do battle!
      Another aspect of Ho's film making style was releasing the same movie under several different titles yet promoted as different movies all together, just another way he can stretch 1 movie into a dozen. What Godfrey Ho also loved to do was use already composed copyrighted music in his films. Often you hear a familiar song and then you realize "holy shit that's the miami vice theme!" Godfrey Ho used everything from the miami vice theme to even music from star wars in his movies, just another reason why he is awesomely bad.
      Over the years I have seen people try to review Godfrey Ho films, but how do you review something that is more fake than it is genuine? You can't review Ho films unless you are comparing them to another Ho film, because they are just too out there to be compared to any other thing in film. You know the phrase "its so bad its good?" Well Godfrey Ho damn near invented it with his ninja films. His movies are so bad and so obscure that you use them as a true test when talking to a fan of bad movies, if you have seen a Godfrey Ho film then you truly know about bad movies; but that's the thing, these movies are beyond bad, that's why they are called Z-movies and not B-movies. Some B-movies can be legitimately good, like the Evil Dead series, there is nothing good about the Ho ninja films; the only thing
good about then comes from sheer coincidence and irony. But just like a fabulous car crash, you cant look away from a Godfrey Ho movie, it's just too "good" to miss.
      If you are interested in seeing what all the fuss is about with what I have been talking about then just youtube "godfrey ho ninja" and you will see everything you need to know; you will see the transformations, the colorful costumes, the god awful acting, everything that makes Godfrey Ho the true master of the Z-movie. So do yourself a favor, youtube the ninjas, sit back, and take in the greatest bad movies you will ever see.
 

College: Part 2, Drinking

In my last post I made quite a brazen statement about alcohol and it's relationship with college, and I stand by it; it really is one of the most important social aspects of a students college experience. Weather you are at a party school like Arizona, or a small liberal arts school like Albertus, there is going to be plenty of alcohol available, I repeat, PLENTY OF ALCOHOL AVAILABLE! If you think otherwise or you disagree because you personally did not drink during college then I feel bad for you because you missed out on one hell of a time. Now before people start to call me an irresponsible booze pusher let me make one thing clear, I am a supporter of social drinking, not binge drinking.
      The problem with college kids is that there is an extremely fine line between being a social drinker and a binge drinker, and if your not careful, I mean real fucking careful, you can end up on a slippery slope with the drink. Now that being said lets go over some of the positive aspects of drinking:

• Booze can be an excellent common ground that can be found between two new people meeting each other, how many people get to know one another over sharing a beer, its natural
• There is a reason why its called "liquid courage," because it helps ease the nerves and make you feel more confidant
• Its a great way to relieve stress, nothing feels quite like that first sip of an ice cold beer after a rough day

      Now before you go on thinking that I think alcohol is all milk and honey, there is one huge elephant in the room when it comes to college drinking, EXPERIENCE. Unfortunately like with all substances alcohol requires a gentle ease into it which most people do not heed. Most kids have never drank before they came to college, maybe they got drunk once or twice from their parents liquor cabinet, but they never seen anything like the availability of booze that college has to offer. However once you find your own personal tolerance, then the real fun begins.
      Now I would be a telling a lie if I never said that alcohol fucked me one way or another during college, in fact It was booze that was the major factor why my senior year sucked so much. It was junior year and I was living in McAullife Hall, a real kick ass Victorian era mansion converted into dorms. This place was straight out of a Hitchcock flick, and as a horror buff it was awesome to be living in the "psycho house." The only problem with McAullife was that it was a dry dorm, no alcohol, NO FUCKING ALCOHOL!?!?!?
Yea it sucked that the dorm was dry but do you think that anyone obeyed that rule? HELL NO! So one night I go to a "classy party," that's where everyone dressed up in suite and ties and dresses and we all act like upper crust douche bags for the night. Everything was going great, the liquor was flowing, the chicks were getting loose, everyone was having a great time. Now along with the bogus dry dorm aspect of McAullife it also had a 10pm quiet hour rule, now this was not normally a problem but when you get 15 to 20 kids in one room, shits going to get loud. Now the RA (residential advisor) at the time was a real cool chick, she'd let you get away with alot as long as you showed her respect. Well we were so goddamn loud she had to come ask us to be quiet twice, well she had to come a third time and third times the charm, she came in, saw the booze and we all got written up. At first I thought it was no big deal, I pay a fine say I'm sorry and that's that. Unfortunately one of the punishments they gave me was that I was ineligible for room draw next year, what did that mean? It means I have no say on who my roommate was senior year, I had no say in which dorm I could live in, I was stuck wherever they decided to put me.
      Because of this my senior year was by far the worst year in my college days when it should have been the best, and it was all because I was caught with liquor. Now that being said would I have changed anything? Yea, I would have been more careful, I don't blame booze for that, I blame myself for being stupid enough to get caught.
      College and alcohol go hand in hand, its like peanut butter and jelly. It can't be denied no matter how much people want it to be; campus authorities spend too much time trying to suppress alcohol on campus when they should be spending more time educating kids on booze, because you cant stop it, there is always going to be alcohol at college, so we might as well educate kids so they can make smarter decisions instead of persecuting them for drinking.
      College is probably the best time in someones life who went there. It is a time in your life that helps define who you become as an adult, and for better or worse alcohol plays a part in this, just another chess piece on the college chess board.

College: Part 1

From what I remember it was around 2:30am and I was stumbling through the corridors of Dominican Hall; fresh from an all night pub crawl in downtown New Haven. There was blood on my pants, holes ripped in my knees and an ever suspicious feeling that the room was getting ready to spin, just another Tuesday night at Albertus Magnus College.
      I was a senior then and getting ready to graduate, but lets go back to where it all began, freshman year.... it was the summer of 2005 and i had just graduated high school, now it was on to bigger and better things, or was it? "Fuck me" i thought to myself, i have to go to college. You see, the mentality i had in those days was "if you want a good job you need to go to college," i sure ad hell knew i did not want to work construction like my old man for the rest of my life so college seemed like the obvious choice.
      The college application process is something unlike anything a young 17/18 year old has ever gone through, you can expect to go through and experience any one of the fallowing:

• Endless meetings with "guidance counselors"
• A multitude of stupid tests like SAT and PSAT
• Getting your hopes up big time
• Having your dreams crushed with the opening of a single letter
• Getting teachers to write recommendations like its a goddamn job
• Losing about 3 years of your life due to stress

So once you narrow down your choices its time to start applying, now if you were like me and did fairly shitty in high school it can be a bit of a problem for a school to pick you because as far as those bastards are concerned its all about grades. So after rejection letter after rejection letter wouldn't you know it, i finally got accepted! After all hope was just about lost and that carpenters tool belt was just within arms reach, good old Albertus Magnus College accepted me. All right! I got accept.....wait, what the fuck is Albertus Magnus College? That was my thought when i discovered the small liberal arts school on the internet while searching for state schools in CT. There was nothing that really stuck out about it when i was checking it out, and i was just about ready to move on when i saw a little statistic showing that they had an 80% acceptance rate, 80 FUCKING PERCENT ACCEPTANCE RATE! Hell if i couldn't get into this school i might as well just walk into oncoming traffic. Well thank god for Albertus because no other school took me, they all said "your SAT math scores were too low," well excuse me if i never paid attention in math because it is FUCKING BORING! So anywho, the summer of 2005 was ending, and i was shipping off to New Haven, off to college.

      Now if your like me and the majority of college freshman, this was your first time really away from home; i remember being nervous as hell hoping i had cool roomates, hoping to get laid, having all the hopes and dreams any 18 year old who has seen animal house one to many times. Now the one thing that really takes kids off guard when they come to college is the amount if independence you have, especially if you come from the oppressive, touch yourself and go to hell catholic school upbringing; in fact it is the oppressed catholic girls who become the biggest party animals once they get to college, and its all because there is no one telling you what to do, it truly is fucking magical.
      The next thing you find out REAL FAST is that your professors do not give a fuck if you come to class or not. Now this can be a slight problem if you unknowingly sign up for classes that start at 8 in the morning like my dumbass did (in fact it got so bad that my prof sent me an email telling me i had missed more than half the classes and would be forced to fail me if i did not start coming to class. I was actually very luck as most professors will not be so nice, they'll just flunk your ass).
      We will end this chapter with an intro for the next one, DRINKING. Drinking is probably the most important social role a college student will take on, its how To meet new friends, how you break the ice at party's and how you build up the courage to talk to the hot chicks. So stay tuned and check out part 2 for alcohol and how it effects the entire institution of college.....
     
 

McDojo: The danger of BS martial arts

Ladies and gentleman this is George Dillman, a man so deadly he can knock you out without even touching you, thats right i said without even touching you, and he does it all with the power of chi energy, BULLSHIT!
     This really is no joke, as much as I want it to be, but it is a perfect example of a growing trend of bogus martial arts being taught across the US, and the venue for these phony martial arts is the "McDojo."
      Now there are mainly two types of BS martial arts being taught in the US today, the first is what i like to call "fake traditional," and the other being the "forbidden techniques" styles. Both are equally useless and both give a false sense of security which can be extremely dangerous and potentially deadly to the practitioner. Lets take a look at both these "styles" and see why they are BS, first up, "forbidden techniques."
      Lets go back to Mr. Dillman, the "no touch" knockout master. Dillman is the posterboy for the "forbidden techniques" style of BS martial arts. Dillman id an advocate for everything this style is known for: deadly pressure points, chi manipulation, secret techniques and of course the "no touch" knockout. If you want a good laugh, youtube "george dillman" and you will see videos of him "throwing energy" at his opponents while they dramatically fly back as if being hit by an invisible train. Now back to the "style," the key selling point the the "forbidden technique" is that it is so deadly and so secret only a chosen few are worthy enough to learn it, let alone teach it. These are the people who will watch a MMA fight and laugh and say "that would never work on me, i would use his pressure points to release the hold and re-direct his chi to incapacitate him." These are also the same people when asked why there are no MMA fighters practicing their style is because it is "too lethal" for competition and that "the UFC is a sport, my style is for the streets," they give one excuse after another. The craziest aspect of the "forbidden technique" styles are the blind faith of the students. The so called "masters" of these schools develop an almost cult of personality, where their students see them as this mystical figure, a master of the human body able to cripple and Mame without even touching the opponent. The style produces fake martial artists who will fallow their "master" to the gates of hell, all the while acquiring a massive false sense of security, which leads into the other type of BS martial art being taught, the "fake traditional."
      Martial arts have been around for thousands of years, ever since man could walk and form a fist, he was using that fist to fight. TMA or traditional martial arts are the old school styles that come to mind when we hear the term martial arts; systems like karate, kung fu, jiu-jitsu and others are considered traditional martial arts. Legitimate TMA can be very useful and effective, just look no further than former UFC light heavyweight champion Lyoto Machida, a traditional shotokan practitioner that has used his karate with great success in a sport where many has claimed "karate doesnt work."
The traditional martial arts boom started in the 1980's after movies like the karate kid showed people kicking ass using asian martial arts, next thing you knew there were karate schools popping up all over north america, the problem is that many of these schools taught a watered down if not all out fake martial art. Many of these McDojos you see say they teach karate, but they do not specify what style of karate they teach, that is a red flag. Karate is an umbrella term for multiple martial arts from Okinawa, so if a school says it teaches karate but does not specify on style, its BS. Another thing you sill find in these fake ass McDojos is the "black belt guarantee," what this is is a contract that the student signs guaranteeing the student a black belt within a certain amount of time, some schools promise a black belt in as little as a years time. Now anyone who has had any training in legit martial arts will tell you that a teacher guaranteeing a student a black belt through paperwork is retarded, let alone promising a black belt rank with only a years training, its just mot possible. These "blackbelt mills" are the biggest offenders of giving out a false sense of security. The traditional thought of someone with a black belt is someone who knows their shit and can take care of themselves, that same mentality carries over to the 14 year old "black belt" who has only been training for 14 months, and this can be extremely dangerous. What this false sense of security does is put inexperienced people who think they are experienced into dangerous situations. although it is good that these schools are teaching their students to be confident, if the martial arts are not effective than that confidence is useless.
      If you are interested in learning martial arts be sure you do alot of research on a school before committing, if it seems to awesome to be true, like no touch knock outs, then it probably is. If the schools main purpose is to make money over all else, move along. And dont be afraid to ask for an instructors credentials, remember there are plenty of geroge dillmans out there looking to take your money! Train hard and be well

Reefer Madness: The "gateway drug" conspiracy

I remember it like it was yesterday, sitting in my fifth grade classroom, playing with my classmates and then there he was; shining like a beacon of morality and hope, the DARE officer. A seemingly one man warrior against drugs and alcohol, here to spread information and save lives.....what a load of shit.
      Every kid growing up in the 90's remembers the DARE program, a national effort to keep kids off of drugs, alcohol and violence. In my DARE program it was pretty much a "scared straight" approach. They would tell us these god awful stories of addicts and their lives and habits. However the one thing that they drilled into our heads more than anything else was that there was one drug, one substance that was so deadly, so intense that after just one use you would be craving cocaine and heroin like a madman, that drug is marijuana. Thats right, old mary jane, the devils cabbage; a plant so dangerous that it lures children into a live of hardcore drug abuse. There was just one problem with all of that, it was a total lie, and the scary thing is, people believe it, and still do.
      The whole gateway drug idea is quite ridiculous when you step back and look at it. The idea is that you start with pot, its cheap and easy to get your hands on, and for the most part it is the least intimidating of all drugs. After a short period of time using pot what used to be a fun and happy high just does not cut it anymore and now the user needs something harder to get the high that weed once have him, *cough* bullshit! *cough*
It is my firm belief that whom ever came up with this whole "gateway drug" crap has never smoked pot and in fact knows nothing about it. Now i could pull the stoner card and list off all the pro's of weed but i just dont have the energy and anyone reading this has already heard them from their stoner friends. What i will say is that there is not one single person i know who decided to use hard drugs because weed just "didnt cut it anymore," that simply does not happen, period. When i was in college i smoked my fair share of weed and not once did i need harder drugs because the weed didnt do it anymore, and i was personally offered everything from XTC and heroin, yes i was offered heroin and i did not even have to think twice before turning it down.
      The bottom line is that if someone is going to use hard drugs its because they made the choice themselves free of anything to do with marijuana. Now anti pot people will tell you that these drug addicts always started with marijuana and it spiraled out of control from there, well news flash, EVERYONE STARTS WITH MARIJUANA! Just because someone experiments with pot at a young age does not mean they will graduate to hard drugs, and it is absolutely absurd that people are preaching this as fact. It is a fact that just about every drug addict started with weed, but that does not mean that all weed useres will be users of hard drugs as well; its like saying all NASCAR drivers started off driving normal cars, but that does not mean all people who drive regular cars will become NASCAR drivers.
      The gateway drug LIE has been spread for far too long, it has kept marijuana, a plant growing naturally that has NEVER killed anyone, in the same realm as actually deadly substances, and it is all simply not true. To quote our buddy Bob Marley, "by going against ganja, you are saying God made a mistake."