WEBVTT

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Let me go on to
something else here.

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My problem is getting longer, I
started off years and years ago

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writing very trim poems and now
they're getting really long.

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I don't know.

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Like this one.

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This one's called "The
History of Karate."

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For the last--

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I don't know, six, seven
years, I've been studying

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martial arts different forms.

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And so I decided, well, I
got to write a karate poem.

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So this is it.

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Now I'm going to
x out some things,

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because it is really long.

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"Our sensei scares me.

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Karate is a kidney shot to
your lover's wife's lover, not

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a bow, not meditation
or a student

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crawling in reverence saying,
sensei, sensei please.

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He doesn't like Koreans and
doesn't think much of us,

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Eurasian, Mexican, Berkeley
women with tattoos,

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three Japanese sissy boys.

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We sit cross-legged
against the wall

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asking questions about karate.

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Questions like, is
it possible to kill

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a bull with your eyes closed?

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What if it hurts breaking
ice with her head?

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Is it possible to swallow tacks?

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Should we eat lightly before
practice and bath in cold water

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afterwards?

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He tells us to shut
up and reminds us

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how he practiced in snow,
not on wooden floors.

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He points to the floor, this is
nice, this and this and this.

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He points to the overhead
lights, the mirrors,

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the punching bag still dented
from one of its kicks."

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I'm going to skip
some things here.

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"There are a lot of goons
who practice karate in Japan.

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When a student
demonstration takes place

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on campus, the Yakuza and the
karate clubs, Shorinji Kempo,

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Shuriken, Judo, and Aikido,
that palsy-walsy martial art.

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They go out and make the
students bleed very badly.

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Karate is right wing,
protector of the state

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and a good workout.

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If you join a university
club, you can never quit.

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You may say, I'm bored and
they say, you are not bored,

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you say again, yes
I am really bored,

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and they say, no,
you look happy.

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This goes on for 20 minutes
maybe in your car at a street

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corner in your dorm before
they bust you a couple of times

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and suddenly you're
not bored in the least.

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In fact, you are happy.

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You stay with the club and
later when you graduate,

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you get a job near
the commuter line.

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Your wife does what you want.

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The family is proud that you
did push ups in your youth

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and hit a demonstrator
so hard in his eye,

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that now his eye is flowery
like the inside of a marble.

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They can now eat fish and sleep
in rooms with coals piled high.

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A PhD student did research
on why people take karate.

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They have nothing else
to do, are often stupid,

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were abused as kids, bullies
pushed them to the ground

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and told them to stay
there, their tears froze

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and their arms turned
blue from the cold.

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Before you knew it,
the kids on the ground

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were high school kids.

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Wimps in the middle
rows learning

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things about the Euphrates.

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Millions along its
shore and only so much

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of the water
crawling to the sea.

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The grown up kids who are on the
ground suffer in their houses,

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but so do the
bullies who have put

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on weight, rings of fat
that cast remarkable shadows

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over their crotches.

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Some of the bullies
go to jail, some die,

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and others cut beef for
a living, drive trucks.

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They all breed with bully
girls with orange hair.

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The wimps get the good jobs.

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Marry wives who believe in
manners and potted plants

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in a row.

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In their late 20s, over dinner,
the wimps remember the bullies.

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The taste of roast beef
dies in their mouths.

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Suddenly angry,
they take up karate.

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They sweat a lot,
kick badly, and enjoy

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bowing before the wrong flag.

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Every time they
kick they say, oss

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oss, which in Japanese
means wimp, wimp."

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Skip some more here.

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"Karate was introduced from
Okinawa to Tokyo in 1922

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by Gichin Funakoshi at
a national exhibition.

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School officials in the
military raised their eyes

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eyebrows impressed.

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If my mother had
been Japanese, say

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the granddaughter
of master Funakoshi,

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she would have
used karate on me.

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I was mean, three crazy
dogs lived inside me.

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I was so restless,
so full of hard fun,

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like throwing mud at girls
and making the girls eat mud.

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But she was Mexican
not Japanese,

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and had her own little
tricks to beat the dogs down.

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Funakoshi didn't believe
in hurting children.

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He himself was not
strong but wise and good,

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a great walker in
his later years.

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On his walks he enjoyed hearing
karate screams bouncing off

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walls, grunts to each knee,
san shi go of calisthenics.

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He enjoyed tea and calligraphy,
Chinese scholarship,

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and remembering his
youth, which was long,

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a careful ant crawling
the length of bamboo.

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Sometimes I think it's weird
that a man can drive nails

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into a board with his
palm, knock out cows, punch

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his fingers through watermelons.

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You hate to get hit and we'll
say anything about the spa.

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Sensei, my toes hurt.

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Sensei, I have feelings.

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Sensei, I have a cold, my
family is not yet born.

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He likes his game
of mild complaints.

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And with hands on
hips, stares at you.

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That Mexican watermelon
he could punch through,

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would you spar anyway, first
with the Berkeley women who

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are all tattooed
then the sissy boys,

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then the Eurasian and
finally the sensei who

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throws a car on your chest?

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Air is never so precious as
when you're on the floor.

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At home it's another story.

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You shower, eat, play with
your daughter, the cats

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hug the cats, you hug
your wife 100 times

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because you're so
happy to be alive.

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And when they're not looking
you throw a kick at air.

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You admit you're a playground
kid who never had enough--"

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I'm going to stop this poem.

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It goes on too long.

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You have to read it in book
form somewhere down the line.

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But so once you joined a karate
club in Japan, you can't quit.

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It's like that's your pack
and if you try to quit,

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then you are sometimes beaten.

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It's well, the way
Japan sometimes works.

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Someone did a study on
that in the clubs in Japan.

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There's another
one Shorinji Kempo

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which is a little more relaxed.

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It's not as fierce as karate.

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