Close Up and Personal: Faces in the Crowd, Pt. 2

[Juan C Ayllon]

If you're anything like me, I think you'll find this Christmas message from my bud, Abby Ryan, inspiring. She sent this out in a mass email earlier today and said it would be okay for me to share at the CBZ:

For the 1st time in 3 decades, I've started to embrace adulthood. I know, I'm a late bloomer!! Well, physically, I feel like an adult; Mentally I'm still a 12-year old tomboy! I've always been a bit of a nut, wondering, thinking and planning for the future. With that, silly me assumed several years ago that I'd die a dirty blonde. I was convinced My Grammy Lynn had passed along her fabulous genes to me. She died a natural, dirty blonde five years ago, at the age of 79. Well kids, of course that's not the case here.


A few weeks before I turned 35, I was suspicious of 2 strands of hair. I pulled them out to investigate... Put them up against a black cloth, then a navy cloth, then a white one. I even pulled out a regular piece of blonde to do a side-by-side comparison. I couldn't figure it out, it was too hard to tell from the light in my bathroom. Well, my wonderment was confirmed on my birthday. I was sitting in my car near the Brookfield Zoo, and right there on the top of my head I saw a wirey, wild strand of gray!! It's amazing how many hairs one can detect in the natural light of the sun! Since April, I've been plucking various hairs on the top of my head with tweezers. I'm happy to inform you that I haven't seen a wirey strand in a while. This is actually an answer to prayer. As I told you before, I'm always thinking ahead... When I was in H.S. I prayed and asked God "IF I don't die a dirty blonde, can I please get a head full of the fine, fluffy white stuff instead of the wild, wirey gray stuff?" Seriously, what kid thinks about grey hair in their teens (only me!) So, after assessing the situation over the last 8 months, I'm pretty sure I'll end up a snowball instead of salt & peppa'. Thank God!


Okay, all humor aside, this year has probably been the most life changing for me. Several things have come full circle. If you were to tell me last October that I'd be doing some of things I'm doing today, I would have laughed at you (One of those big hearty "Abby laughs" that lasts more than a minute). One irony is that I'm once again on the air doing reports for Moody. WMBI decided to go with Shadow traffic last Spring and they requested me. So, even though I left Moody six years ago to work for Shadow Traffic, I'm once again saying those WMBI call letters in my traffic reports. Never in a million years did I think I'd be saying that phrase again. God has a sense of humor; I'm convinced of it!


Then there's college. I thought it was hard enough the 1st time around. I got my bachelor's degree and that was that. I was done; I had no desire to go back. What for? My sister Allie and several of my friends have multiple degrees; other friends have talked at length of going back for more. Within those conversations, people would ask me "Are you going to go back to school Abby?" For the last decade, without hesitation, my answer has been a mix of these: "I'm content with where I'm at; My bachelor's degree was hard enough & yeah, uhh, NO THANKS!" Never say never... I ended up taking a class at Columbia College last Spring for the commercial voice over stuff. All of a sudden my world revolved around Mid-terms, semesters and final projects. We had to make a commercial demo for our final. I had to get a graphic designer to do the design for the CD and I hired someone else to produce it for me. You can listen to it at www.abbyryan.com It's kinda funny. I was amused that several people, including my mother, said they had to listen to it several times before they knew it was me. Weird!!!!!!!! Well, I think it sounds like me... Too funny! On the last day of class we sent the demo's to 11 agents throughout the Chicago land area. By the end of June I was signed with Debbie Kotzen.


In the last five months I have tried out for all kinds of commercials for Radio and Television (Aveeno; Off Bug Spray; Glade Scented Oil Candles; Office Max & Clorox Disinfecting wipes to name a few). It's been pretty neat. My head is still spinning; It's been kind of a whirlwind year. I'm still a Rookie and very green. It's been VERY nerve-racking to say the least, but I plug along trying to find time every day to practice reading out loud. It's kind of like playing an instrument or a sport, you have to practice to improve. So I plug along reading scripts and other things out loud. I try to wait for the moments when I'm home alone!


As it turns out Commercial voice over work is all about acting. The irony in all of this is back in 2005 the Chicago Bike Federation interviewed me for an article. I met the CBF guy for an hour over coffee. I told him that while at Moody I hosted a children's show titled "Just for Kids". Somehow this man interpreted that as acting, and when the article came out, He said "Abby Ryan, a former Theater student..." Needless to say, every time I read that article I laughed at how wrong this man was. Abby Ryan has terrible stage freight.... therefore, Abby Ryan doesn't do the stage...EVER!!!!!! So, you know where this is going right?! So, based on a "had to" instead of a "Want to" I'm currently in the middle of my 3rd acting class right now. So, not only did I have homework this year, I also had to memorize lines for my scene assignments. It's actually been fun... Now I'm interested in taking some improv classes. I'm trying to get Aubrey to take the classes with me; I know she'd LOVE it! I can't wait!


I've been attending Willow Creek Church in Chicago for about a year now. Ironically they've been doing a series on the life of Moses. I've been sitting in church listening to how Moses told God "I can't; I won't; send someone else; I stutter, blah, blah, blah...." and I have to laugh. OKAY GOD, I get the point. Here I am, let's go! I'm learning to let go of the "I cant's" in my life and starting to say "Okay God, but you need to help me...because I can only do this with you! It took me a long time to get here, but it's been a great ride! I'm glad I've finally gotten to this place in my life. I feel more settled inside; I don't worry about stuff like I used to! God is a big God and he will carry us through anything, we just have to ask him for help.


My old Prof at Moody asked me to speak to his Senior Seminar Comm class a few weeks ago. The old Abby would have been terrified... I was fine and relaxed and actually enjoyed talking to the kids. (I was able to sit behind a table..) I think the acting classes are breaking me out of my "I can't" shell and I find myself wondering "What in the world is going on and what's next?" I guess we'll see. It's nice to be comfortable in my own skin, for the 1st time in my life. Thank you God!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Merry Christmas everyone! Keep living for Jesus! He is the reason we live and breath. Enjoy your time here on earth and get to know God; Life on this earth is just Dress rehearsal for Heaven! May we all remember that as we go about our daily lives.

Abby Ryan reports on traffic on a variety of Chicagoland and Indiana radio stations.

[Juan C Ayllon]

Leora Jackson (left) and Mary McGee square up in anticipation of tonight's fights in Gary, Indiana

I'll be at the fights tonight in Gary, Indiana. If you're there, feel free to stop by and greet me!

Here's some info from their press release:

Doors open at 7 p.m. First bout at 8 p.m.

The Majestic Star Casino is located at One Buffington Harbor in Gary, IN.

For more information, visit: www.oneinamillionboxing.com

My friend, Rey Cave, and his girlfriend will be covering the Solo Boxeo fights in Cicero, Illinois for the Cyber Boxing Zone.

Best,



Juan

[Juan C Ayllon]

Just got this in my email!

HBC Lake Zurich Community News
December 14th, 2007 - An OPPORTUNITY to Serve

I was reluctant to pass this on because our church has done SO much this year. You have all gone far and above the call of compassion.

However, you may feel led to help this ministry out.

If nothing else, pray for the need to be met.

God will provide!

Pastor Kevn

----

Dear Brothers and Sisters at Harvest,


I have been a volunteer at W.I.N.G.S. for five years now and we had a difficulty this season with our Christmas gifts. At our "elf site" where we wrap the presents for our kids and moms, we had some fire damage. The office next door caught on fire and due to the firemen chopping holes in the roof and the hoses, our gifts have to be thrown away due to water, soot, and smoke damage.

If you could make a small donation to WINGS via the web site or dropping off a gift card or cash at one of our offices or Resale shops, we have to rebuy the gifts we had to throw away. I appreciate so much anything you can do to help us out. We are serving 120 families this year. (Both residences and one year graduates from the program.)

To donate please go to our website and you can donate online or find locations and phone numbers there, also.

Thank you so much in advance. I know there are angels. Nobody was hurt by this tragedy. Things can be replaced. This also was on Channel 2 and 5 this morning.

www.wingsprogram.com


With heartfelt Thanks,

Julie Pepe

----

This message was sent by:
Harvest Bible Chapel - Lake Zurich
255 Quentin Road
Lake Zurich, IL 60047

[TKO11]

For the last few days I've had this sick feeling in my stomach, and I think it's because I'm not really dealing well with a personal rage issue. I'm going to spit it out here and hope that it makes me feel a little better.

Some background. When I was a kid I found out that my favorite uncle (Vern) and his first wife had a baby girl when they were about 18 or so, which they gave up for adoption. They did this because they realized they were just kids and didn't know if they'd stay together or how their lives would play out. Eventually (about 4 years later), they did get married and had two more girls (who are now 35 and 31). They eventually divorced in about 1981 but they stayed amicable, and they always wondered whatever happened to that first baby. So they entered their contact details into some registry that allows adult adopted kids to find their birth parents if they are looking for them.

In early 2004 they were contacted. Could you have knocked me over with a feather? Her name was Angela, and even though she was a couple of years older than me, she and I had gone to high school together. I hadn't seen her in 18 or so years, but I remembered her right away.

Right around this time, Vern (my uncle) was informed that he had terminal cancer and that he had about 6 months to live. Angela had originally planned to wait a while and get to know him (and his ex-wife) via emails and phone calls, but she didn't want to lose the opportunity to know him so they made their connections. Everyone in the whole family was thrilled to meet her and get to know her. Vern was blessed to know her for the brief time he had left, and since then (another 3 years later) she has been a part of the family. I'll never forget when she and I came face to face in 2004, because the first words out of her mouth were, "I remember you well. You punched my brother in the face in the cafeteria lineup in 1985 and he hated you after that....." We ended up laughing hysterically over the whole thing.

Personally, I've often thought that I should make more of an effort to get to see her more often, as she is obviously the family member I know least, but life gets in the way, you know? Time is always too short. So I let far too many opportunities go by.

Last Saturday night she broke it off with a guy she'd been seeing for a couple of years because she had met someone else that she wanted to get to know better. This guy she'd been with for 2 years was a bit of a nut, and she was looking for something more stable. The now-ex-boyfriend's name was Ray.

Did I mention he was nuts? When she broke it off he kidnapped her and forced her to call her new beau and ask him to meet her. When the guy arrived Ray shot him. He then kidnapped Angela and drove out of town like a madman, finally having the car crippled by police 200 miles and 3 hours later. He then shot her in the face in the car and then blew his own brains out.

Ever since I found this out, I haven't slept. I can barely eat and I am flipping out at everyone over everything. All I can think of is how lucky this cocksucker is that he killed himself because if he hadn't I'd be breaking into the prison to choke him to death. Every time I think about it I get so pissed off I end up shaking. I have no idea what to do about it.

I guess I am having trouble dealing with the lost opportunities. I should have told her I thought he was nuts - always telling people these unbelievable stories about himself. That he'd been a British Secret Service agent, had been a bodyguard for a Saudi prince, that he had been in the witness relocation program but left it when people around him started getting killed. Clearly totally disassociated from reality. But I never made a big deal about it because I didn't think it was my place to tell her what she ought to be doing.

I also should never have said "there'll be time" when it came to me thinking I should get to know her better. I've always been very family oriented, and I had been given a wonderful gift of another cousin and I have pissed it away. This wonderful girl was murdered, probably in mortal terror for the last hours of her life, I feel like I could have and should alerted her to how dangerous he may be, but now she's gone. And all I want is for him to be resurrected so I can kill him myself.

I guess that's enough for now. I am shaking with rage all over again.

[Juan C Ayllon]

Wow. That's horrible, TKO11! I'm so sorry!

I just don't get the evil in the world. Never have, never will.

Hang in there, my friend.


Juan

[TKO11]

Thanks Juan.


My cousin Angie.
April 1967 - December 2007



Sunday, Dec. 9 - Angie's silver SUV after the shooting ended.

[10-8]

Where did this happen?

[TKO11]

It started in London, Ontario (where Ray shot her friend), and ended just north of the Highway 7A exit on Highway 115, south of Peterborough.

Actually 10-8, you're in southern Ontario right? It was in the London and Peterborough papers, and they talked about it on 680 news - I haven't read the nationals so I don't know if it was in there or not, but I would guess it has been.

[Juan C Ayllon]

Wow. Seeing those pics really drove this home.

Angie was beautiful--no doubt equally on the inside, as well as the outside.

I still remember the sudden death of Pete, then-husband of my cousin Cosette. I was in the eighth grade and had just spent a week getting to know him at my grandmother's place. Pete was a very kind and peaceful man.

Funny, at the time, my late grandmother lived and worked in a funeral home in Burlington, Iowa. I used to call it "Grandma's Bodyshop."

Anyways, about a month after we'd hung out, Pete went rock climbing en route to visiting a monk friend of his. He never made it.

He'd fallen some 50 to a hundred feet and survived the fall, but was badly banged up. Apparently, he crossed a stream, dragging himself along. Ultimately, he died from exposure to the elements.

I heard about it over the phone. I stood there stunned. I wanted to laugh, like it was all a very bad joke. Or scream. At least something. But nothing came out.

I was sad for a while. It just seemed so random, so senseless.

I moved on, but I don't think Cosette ever really got over that. To this day, she struggles with a lot of things.

Anyways, my heart goes out to you, TKO11.

Peace.


Juan

[Sharkey]

An absolutely horrific story. My heart goes out to you, Cliff and to all that knew Angela.

[10-8]

Originally Posted by TKO11

Actually 10-8, you're in southern Ontario right? It was in the London and Peterborough papers, and they talked about it on 680 news - I haven't read the nationals so I don't know if it was in there or not, but I would guess it has been.

Burlington actually, and work in Toronto where I read about it in The Toronto Sun. Unbelievable. My condolenses to you and your family

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Crime/20...16788-sun.html

[Juan C Ayllon]

Here's to hoping that, with time, healing and peace will come your way, TKO11.

On a lighter note, here's a link to my report on the fights in Gary, Indiana. By and large, I was pretty pleased with how the photos turned out, even though the lighting wasn't the best:





Gary, Indiana Fight Report Link

Strange thing was, I had talked with my photographer, Jorge, around 4 PM via cell phone. He said that he'd be leaving for Gary, Indiana around 5:30 PM, which I thought was kind of late--with Chicagoland's horrible rush hour traffic--and told him so, adding, "The sooner you leave, the better." He never showed up nor returned my follow-up calls! I hope he's okay.


Either way, guess it's a good thing I brought my camera along with me!

[Juan C Ayllon]

I just heard about this site on the ride in to work: Freerice.com. Apparently, the founder came up with this program to help prepare his son for the SAT tests. Purportedly, it's taking off like wildfire online now.

The concept is this: For every vocabulary word answered correctly, 20 grains of rice are donated to third world countries. The rice is paid for by advertisers affiliated with that site.

Check out the following from their site:

Press
“What if just knowing what a word meant could help feed hungry people around the world? Well, at FreeRice it does . . . the totals have grown exponentially.”

- The Washington Post

“Web game provides rice for hungry . . . FreeRice went online in early October and has now raised 1 billion grains of rice [by November 9].”

- BBC News

“Addictive, yes. But . . . each correct answer results in the donation of rice to help feed the hungry around the globe. Perhaps that qualifies the game as a good addiction . . . one with redeeming qualities, something that’s, oh, didactic and edifying.”

- Kansas City Star

“People from all walks of life and from around the globe have written in to express their appreciation for the game . . . Secretaries admit to playing it during boring business meetings.”

- Christian Science Monitor

“Every grain of rice is essential in the fight against hunger . . . FreeRice really hits home how the Web can be harnessed to raise awareness and funds for the world’s number one emergency.”

- UN World Food Program


“A teacher of fourth and fifth graders on the Yurok Indian reservation in Klamath, CA, . . . emailed the WFP. ‘My students absolutely LOVE the free rice site. Almost daily they earn several thousand grains of rice!’ she wrote. ‘You cannot imagine the joy in my heart when I look out and see 25 kids doing vocabulary work and enjoying it.’”

- School Library Journal

“Freerice.com is an international, viral sensation. Folks from Thailand to Germany and India are just as enthusiastic . . . improving thousands of lives, all with a simple, collective, click of a mouse.”

- CBS Evening News

Check out the site yourself by clicking on the link below:

Freerice.com Link

[Juan C Ayllon]

I just read this piece at the Chicago Reader.

Holy cow! This brings back memories of reading this guy's ads for "Count Dante, the deadliest man alive" and his Dim Mak school of martial arts. Sheesh! As a kid, I wanted to order his course, but somehow never got around to it.

Check it out:

'The Life and Death of the Deadliest Man Alive'
How a south-side Irish boy came to be Chicago’s most notorious martial-arts master
By Dan Kelly
July 14, 2006





IN THE 60S and 70s John Keehan was one of the most notorious figures in American martial arts. He ran dojos and had sidelines in salons and porn shops. He took a pet lion cub for strolls by Lake Michigan. He trained minorities and caught flack for it, and after one fight—part of Chicago’s “dojo wars” of the 60s and 70s—he was implicated in the death of one of his students. He was also a fierce self-promoter: comic-book readers might know him best as Count Dante, the persona Keehan used to sell membership in his Black Dragon Fighting Society, as well as a pamphlet, World’s Deadliest Fighting Secrets, that promised to teach readers how to maim, disfigure, and kill.

Ever since his death in 1975, Keehan’s life has been wrapped in rumor and parody, but Oak Park filmmaker Floyd Webb is striving to untangle truth from fiction. For the past year he’s been working on a documentary about Keehan, The Search for Count Dante, inspired by his own experience in martial arts, as well as his brief acquaintance with Keehan. Growing up in the Harold Ickes Homes near Chinatown, Webb raised pocket money by collecting deposit bottles, scrubbing out Chinatown trash cans, and taking other odd jobs, and on September 4, 1964, he spent part of that hard-earned income to attend the Second World Karate Championship at the Chicago Coliseum. Numerous feats of martial-arts prowess were on display—board breaking, kata (patterns of techniques), sparring—and Webb recalls Keehan, the event’s organizer, stalking the sidelines.

Keehan took a moment to chat with Webb and his friends— which impressed Webb not just because they were kids but also because they were black. Keehan became “Steve McQueen cool” to Webb after that. “He was a snappy dresser,” Webb says. “He had a school on Rush Street. We used to go downtown with our various hustles when we ditched school, and we would always run into him.”

Chicago had 13 dojos in 1964, and Keehan owned two of them: the Imperial Academy of Fighting Arts at 1020 N. Rush and Chicago Judo and Karate Center at 7902 S. Ashland. They were too far away and too expensive for Webb to attend, but he still pursued martial arts, checking out karate manuals from the bookmobile, studying untranslated pamphlets from Chinatown bookshops, and taking lessons from war veterans and immigrants from Hong Kong. He briefly competed in tournaments but eventually pursued a career in film: he studied photojournalism at NIU, founded the Blacklight Film Festival (a showcase for black filmmakers), and later worked as a producer on the films Daughters of the Dust and The World of Nat King Cole.

Webb revisited several old neighborhoods while working on the Cole documentary and ran into some friends from his karate days. One said he’d recently seen Count Dante on the street. So did another. A third said he’d actually talked to Keehan and claimed he was now living on the southwest side. “I said, ‘You’re hallucinating!’” Webb says.

He was sure Keehan was dead, but to make certain he pulled Keehan’s death certificate. The self-proclaimed deadliest man alive, it explained, had died in his Edgewater condo from a bleeding peptic ulcer, probably brought on by years of stress and hard living. He was all of 36.

JOHN KEEHAN WAS born in Beverly on February 2, 1939, to an affluent family: his father, Jack, was a physician and director of the Ashland State Bank, and his mother, Dorothy, occasionally appeared on the Tribune’s society pages. He also had an older sister, Diane. They’re all dead too, according to a cousin of Keehan’s contacted by Webb. (The cousin did not respond to requests to be interviewed for this story.) In his teens Keehan attended Mount Carmel High School and boxed at Johnny Coulon’s 63rd Street gym, and after graduating from high school he joined the marine reserves and later the army, where he learned hand-to-hand combat and jujitsu techniques.

By 1962, after the service, Keehan was teaching at Gene Wyka’s Judo and Karate Center in Brighton Park and made occasional trips to Phoenix, Arizona, to study under Robert Trias, who had opened the first karate school in the U.S. and was head of the United States Karate Association.

Training full-time, Keehan quickly earned his second-degree black belt and was appointed the USKA’s midwest representative. In the early 60s dojos were rough, bare-bones joints largely inhabited by cops, ex-soldiers, and assorted other tough guys. (Trias, who died in 1989, was an Arizona highway patrolman who’d studied karate while stationed in the Pacific during World War II.) But Keehan, wanting a bigger audience, began to organize tournaments that emphasized the flashier aspects of the martial arts; he appears on the cover of one tournament program smashing eight rows of bricks with his elbow. He was a savvy publicist, making sure the first event he organized, at the University of Chicago field house on July 28, 1963, got mentioned in the Tribune’s “In the Wake of the News” column.

Keehan’s early tournaments attracted a host of martial-arts luminaries—like Ed Parker, Jhoon Rhee, and a pre-Enter the Dragon Bruce Lee—as well as new students. James Jones, a 66-year-old retiree now living in Hazel Crest, signed on at Keehan’s Rush Street school the day after he attended the U. of C. event. He studied with Keehan for three years and remembers him as an ideal instructor. “John was a person who focused on basics and fundamentals,” he says. “He had excellent form and techniques.” He also says that Keehan was one of the few men who could side kick or punch a brick in half, though at one event it took three strikes and Keehan wound up breaking five bones in his hand. Still, he showed up at the dojo the next day, his hand in a cast.

But Keehan also had an arrogant streak. “John was the type of person who enjoyed attention and being in the limelight,” Jones says. “‘If you’re talking about me, then you know about me.’ I thought that was a weakness: ‘What can I do for myself instead of the art?’” Arthur D. Rapkin, a Milwaukee-area acupuncturist who studied under Keehan from 1965 to 1971, recalls Keehan’s “chronic” arguing with other karate schools. His ideas for tournaments were the biggest problem. Unlike most other teachers, Keehan advocated full-contact matches—no safety equipment, no pulled punches.

“John was six-foot, well built, and looked like a bodybuilder,” says Michael Felkoff, a friend of Keehan’s now living in Las Vegas. “If you fucked with him, he was liable to hurt you.”

Keehan charged students $20 a month—pricey for dojos at the time—and he gained a reputation for being one of the first white sensei in the country to accept nonwhite students. “Race never played a part in John’s teaching,” says Jones, who is black. Ken Knudson, a white student of Jones’s who later founded the Sybaris couples’ resort chain, was interviewed by Webb a week before he died in a plane crash last January. “John loved the martial arts,” Knudson told Webb. “He loved it, he ate it, he breathed it. He was blind to race. It didn’t matter.”

Keehan claimed that race strained his relationship with Trias. In 1969 he told Black Belt magazine that in 1964 “the USKA didn’t have any Negroes in the organization, except for mine, and Trias didn’t like it one bit. . . . It’s the truth. Of course, now he has no qualms about it, but at the time, that’s the way it was.” Trias, in a 1975 article, dismissed this as “nonsense.” Jones, who trained under both men, believes that there probably was a de facto ban on minorities in the early days of the USKA but that the battle between Trias and Keehan likely had as much to do with control as with race. Whatever the reason, Trias expelled Keehan from the USKA in December 1964. Keehan was on his own.

TRIAS LATER SAID that Keehan “was given too much power too young and too fast,” and in his mid-20s the future Count Dante did seem to start drifting off course. On July 22, 1965, Keehan and Doug Dwyer, a longtime friend and fellow instructor, were arrested after a drunken attempt to blow out a window at Gene Wyka’s school with a dynamite cap. After they were apprehended, Dwyer was charged with four traffic violations; Keehan was charged with attempted arson, possession of explosives, and resisting arrest. He got two years’ probation.

Around the same time Keehan bought a lion cub—a legal, if uncommon, practice before the 1969 Illinois Dangerous Animals Act—which he kept at his dojo on Ashland and walked around town like a dog. (He later sold it to the Lions Club of Quincy, Illinois.) In the summer of 1967 he promoted an audacious exhibition in which, as part of a tournament at Medinah Temple, a bull would be killed with a single blow. Keehan purchased a bull from the stockyards and drove it around town on the back of a flatbed truck festooned with signs announcing the event. He wouldn’t perform the deed himself: he’d picked Arthur Rapkin, then a 19-year-old student, for the task.

Bull killing was the signature stunt of karate legend Mas Oyama, and Rapkin initially seemed game: in a Tribune article about the event (headlined “Karate Expert Thwarted as Bull Hitter”), he’s quoted as saying that if the police prevented him from attacking the bull in the building, he would “kill it in the truck on State Street, if necessary.” But after the seats were filled Keehan announced that the event had been shut down by the Chicago SPCA. In hindsight, Rapkin says, he believes Keehan and his associates never seriously considered staging the event. “They were probably just howling at this little Jewish kid from Milwaukee they were going to put up against this bull,” he says.

That year Keehan legally changed his name to Juan Raphael Dante, telling people that he wanted to reclaim the royal title he lost after his parents immigrated to the U.S. in 1936, during the Spanish civil war. It’s never been clear why a south-side Irish guy like Keehan decided he must be a Spanish count, or how he chose his new name (though Mount Carmel High School is located on Dante Avenue). Regardless, his new name and background came with a flashier stage presence. At a 1967 tournament held at Lane Tech, he arrived wearing a flowing cape and brandishing a cane capped by a lion’s head; he’d dyed his hair jet-black and had a neatly trimmed beard, reflecting his new side gig in cosmetology. Also in 1967 he opened a salon, the House of Dante, at 2558 W. Superior in West Town. Rapkin recalls that Keehan recommended hairdressing to him as a profession; the flexible hours would let him pursue martial-arts training, and it wasn’t a bad way to meet girls.

Suited up in his new persona, Keehan decided to make a play for national recognition. Inspired by kung fu dim mak, or “poison hand,” strikes—which emphasize thumbing out eyes, flaying skin, fish-hooking lips, and suchlike— Keehan assembled the World’s Deadliest Fighting Secrets pamphlet, which promised to teach readers his “dance of death,” a rapid combination of attacks designed to leave your opponent in a writhing, bloody heap. Keehan advertised heavily in comic books, doing his damnedest to separate a generation of kids from their paper-route money:



Yes, this is the DEADLIEST and most TERRIFYING fighting art known to man—and WITHOUT EQUAL. Its MAIMING, MUTILATING, DISFIGURING, PARALYZING and CRIPPLING techniques are known by only a few people in the world. An expert at DIM MAK could easily kill many Judo, Karate, Kung Fu, Aikido, and Gung Fu experts at one time with only finger-tip pressure using his murderous POISON HAND WEAPONS. Instructing you step by step thru each move in this manual is none other than COUNT DANTE—“THE DEADLIEST MAN WHO EVER LIVED.” (THE CROWN PRINCE OF DEATH.)

World’s Deadliest Fighting Secrets was very much a Keehan vanity project. The pamphlet’s first two inside pages were a sustained brag about the martial arts he’d mastered, his “Strikingly Handsome” looks, and his devotion to classical singing. Those were followed by photos of Keehan in a black silk gi, demonstrating techniques like “Groin Slap or Grab and Tear Off (often called ‘Monkey Stealing a Peach’)” on an uncomfortable-looking Doug Dwyer. It wasn’t entirely hooey. “The ‘dance of death’ was overkill,” says Massad Ayoob, a security expert who interviewed Keehan for Black Belt magazine in the 1970s, in an e-mail. “But it also taught that a single blow or attack could fail, thus inculcating the student with the principle of continuing to fight until he had won.”

It’s not known how many comic-book readers ponied up five bucks for a copy of the pamphlet, but Keehan’s fortunes clearly grew—by 1969 he had opened three new Imperial Academies of Fighting Arts in the city. He also continued to hold full-contact tournaments, and his bad-boy rep began rubbing off on the larger Chicago martial-arts scene. Black Belt refused to cover Keehan’s tournaments, and in 1969 it published a roundtable conversation in which several Chicago instructors laid into Keehan’s tactics. Keehan claimed to have taught 60 percent of Chicago’s karate instructors, to which Black Belt managing editor D. David Dreis replied, “Which is one reason why Black Belt didn’t cover Chicago.” One instructor described a Dante tournament he judged as an “amateur boxing match” and said he’d never judge another. Dreis wrote that Keehan’s spectators “come to [his tournaments] to see plenty of blood spilled. Ofttimes they are disappointed; all too often, they get their money’s worth.”

On April 24, 1970, Ken Knudson got a call from a friend, Jim Koncevic. Koncevic explained that Keehan wanted to visit a rival dojo, the Green Dragon Society’s Black Cobra Hall of Gun-Fu and Kenpo at 3561 W. Fullerton, to settle a beef with a member. Knudson asked what the dispute was about. “Oh, you know John,” Koncevic said. “Over a broad or something.” Knudson was still competing and training, but he took a pass, declaring a potential rumble “kids stuff.”

The three men had been friends since the early 60s; Koncevic, Keehan’s top student, ran his own dojo on the west side, the Tai- Jutsu School of Judo and Karate. “Jimmy was a battler,” Knudson said. “He was notorious. He was legendary for getting into street fights, just mauling people.”

Most accounts agree that Keehan did call the Green Dragons’ dojo earlier that evening. In an article published a year later in Official Karate, he claimed that he and his students had received death threats and that he’d planned to “level their entire instructor force.” To do it he called another friend, Michael Felkoff, and Koncevic; he described the latter in the article as an “animal as a fighter with a killer instinct.”

Today Felkoff says he was only called in to act as a mediator. When Keehan arrived at Koncevic’s dojo, he was dismayed to see that Koncevic had called in three of his younger students to join them. Keehan later described them dismissively: “Two . . . were only skinny kids who worked a whippy, snappy, and ineffective karate,” and a third was a “short, pudgy clod.” Still, he led the group to Black Cobra Hall.

According to a Tribune article, Keehan broke down the front door and found six Green Dragons inside. Felkoff, who arrived late, recalls that the Green Dragons were armed with Chinese weapons. Somebody—it’s unclear who—made the first move, and accounts disagree about what happened next. According to Black Belt one of Keehan’s men struck a Green Dragon member, Jose Gonzalez, in the eye with a nunchaku, while a Black Belt Times article says that Keehan himself attacked the instructor, lacerating his right eye badly enough that it required surgery at Belmont Community Hospital.

In every version of the story, Koncevic was ready to dance. According to the Tribune he struck one Green Dragon, Jerome Greenwald, from behind and began punching him. Greenwald grabbed a sword from the wall and stabbed Koncevic while trying to block a blow.

“All I saw was Jim in a big pool of blood,” Felkoff says. “He was using his judo, trying to grab them, and he ended up getting stabbed.” Keehan shouted for everybody to stop fighting or he’d call the cops. Koncevic had enough life left to yell at everyone to “get the fuck out.” He ran out the door and stumbled a few feet before falling. His three students had bolted and called the police. According to the Tribune, Greenwald, 20, was arrested and charged with murder; Keehan, 31, was charged with aggravated battery and impersonating a police officer. (No explanation was given for the latter charge.) Koncevic, 26, died on the sidewalk.

KEEHAN'S ATTORNEY WAS Bob Cooley, who later worked for the Outfit until the late 80s, when he wore a wire for federal investigators in Operation Gambat. A mutual friend recommended him to Keehan; in his 2004 memoir, When Corruption Was King, Cooley recalls his first meeting with Keehan by describing his client as a tall, wild-bearded man wearing a yellow fishnet leotard and a purple cape. As for the trial itself, Cooley wasn’t too worried. The state built its case against Keehan around the accountability statute, arguing that he bore responsibility for Koncevic’s death. Cooley was prepared to assert that there was no way Keehan could have anticipated the swordplay that ensued at Black Cobra Hall.

In 1971 the judge in the case dismissed all charges but not before upbraiding both sides: “You’re each as guilty as the other,” Cooley recalls him bellowing. Though Keehan was acquitted, his name was blackened; interschool rivalries and after-hours grudge matches were common, but this was the first time anyone had died. Keehan offered a mea culpa in an Official Karate article. “I blame myself to a great extent for being responsible for us going over to the Black Cobra Hall in the first place and have gone through living hell because of it,” he wrote. “My days of fighting at the drop of a hat have come to an end and challenges I will accept no more unless first attacked.”

His vow was short-lived, though: Cooley recalls him beating up two men in a liquor store parking lot after they laughed at the bogus Spanish coat of arms on the door of his brown Caddy and assaulting another guy who called him a “fruit” in a bar. One night Cooley and Keehan had an argument, during which Keehan took a grazing swipe at his chin that put Cooley in such pain he felt his skin was “ripped off.” Keehan immediately apologized and promised to make amends by showing him a trick: if Cooley got his pistol and fired at him, he’d catch the bullet.

Cooley kept his distance from Keehan after that, but he couldn’t shake Count Dante entirely. By 1974 Keehan had a financial interest in a chain of adult bookstores and a car dealership. He eventually ran afoul of south-side boss Jimmy “the Bomber” Catuara, and Cooley was called in to intercede. Keehan, Cooley writes, paid 25 grand to Catuara and emerged unscathed, but the situation apparently gave him the connection with organized crime he’d been seeking for some time.

In the fall of 1974, Keehan was subpoenaed by the state’s attorney and given a lie detector test about his possible role in the heist of more than $4 million from the headquarters of Purolator Security. A Tribune item from November says he was slated to appear before a grand jury with Catuara; it describes Keehan as “a former hairdresser who wears a cloak and calls himself Count Dante.”

The experience seemed to shake Keehan, and by 1975 he was clearly unwell—Ayoob recalls him stumbling through one conversation before admitting that he was mixing booze and painkillers. He made a last attempt to revive his martial-arts career by hosting a tournament in Taunton, Massachusetts, on March 16. The karate world was unimpressed: a piece in Official Karate on the event, titled “Sunday, Bloody Sunday,” characterized Keehan as looking bored and concluded that “whatever the reasons for this ‘expo,’ the resulting manifestation was trash.”

In an interview with the Attleboro, Massachusetts, Sun Chronicle to promote the event, Keehan sounded resigned. “I want people to forget me,” he told reporter Ned Bristol. He died two months later, on May 25, 1975.

KEEHAN WAS BURIED in an unmarked grave in Saint Joseph’s cemetery in River Grove. His legacy is modest. Shortly before he died he helped his friend and protege William Aguiar set up a school in Fall River, Massachusetts, and appointed him his successor as Supreme Grand Master of the Black Dragon Fighting Society. Aguiar died in January of last year, leaving his son William Aguiar III in charge. In San Francisco, Bob Calhoun leads a band called Count Dante & the Black Dragon Fighting Society. Originally knowing little about Keehan outside of the comic-book ads, he invented an outsize stage persona that’s part punk, part karateist, part motivational speaker, and wears leopard-print kimonos onstage. “What was funny was how much my portrayal turned out to be like the real Keehan in the first place,” he says. The Aguiars have sent cease and desist orders to Calhoun, but nothing has been settled or gone to court.

Otherwise the person most interested in Count Dante seems to be Webb, who plans to finish the film next year and then shop it to festivals. He’s logging his progress on a Web site for the film, thesearchforcountdante.com, which has attracted bits of archival material, including rare footage of Keehan in action. Webb imagines the film will reflect Keehan’s era as much as the man himself. “It’s the times,” Webb says. “His story embodies every kind of macho popular culture bull crap. It’s got discos and Rush Street and pet lions. . . . You can’t write shit this good.”

“He’s dead and we’re still talking about him,” says James Jones. “He did what he set out to accomplish.”

Link to Article

[Juan C Ayllon]

I just read this a few moments ago during a break. Politics and sarcasm aside, I find that his writing reads quite nicely:

Opinon: William F. Buckley, Jr.

POPULIST HOUR
Sun Dec 16, 7:28 PM ET


There is this to be said for populist oratory: It is generally directed against the big fella, and that is attractive to the American who lives in a world in which collectivity threatens all. The traditional threat of the collectivist dragon was as easy to understand, and as easy to loathe, as the porcine British king who kept on finding burdens for his colonial Americans to shoulder, and contributed especially to the resentment of his subjects by denying them any influence on the Parliament that supported him.

In more recent times, there has usually been a presidential candidate out there who took the populist line, endeavoring to distinguish himself from the establishment, and inviting followers to join him in heterodoxy. He draws attention to the special fragrance that rises from the fetid pools of power -- big business, big unions. However, his remedies usually rely on another of those pools: big government.

So this time it is John Edwards. It is perfectly fair to probe the populist's background in judging his standing to speak. John Edwards devotes much time to his familiarity with the life of the American working man, though not quite as convincingly as, say, Henry Fonda in "The Grapes of Wrath."

Whatever historians end up classifying the young Edwards as having been, they will come upon hard facts that fix him financially at this historical point. This populist candidate lives in a 28,000-square-foot house, and he has paid $400 for a haircut. Before he entered politics, he was a trial lawyer. An extremely successful trial lawyer, in the practice of which profession he taught himself those endearing skills that he now employs in seeking the whole nation as his client.

Consider health care, with which Edwards is so clearly identified. He deplores the fact that so many lower-income citizens are not insured. He has a simple remedy: Decree universal health insurance. But who will pay for universal health insurance? Well ... the big insurance companies can bear some of the burden. And for the rest? Why, let the government pay for it!

Lower-income citizens are victimized by predatory lenders. So, cap interest rates on credit cards and unsecured loans. Prohibit abuses in the mortgage market, including prepayment penalties, mandatory arbitration, balloon mortgages and excessive fees. Encourage states to make low- or no-interest emergency loans to low-income families. Well, why not?

Energy and the environment? No liquid-coal experiments. Require oil companies to install biofuel pumps at 25 percent of their gas stations. Cap utilities' profits on sales of electricity.

And so it goes, the whole latticework of a free economy brought under the control of the federal government.

Mr. Edwards is already declining in the polls. That is one up for the sophistication of the American voter. Indeed, throughout the 20th century we rejected populist assaults on reality. The most popular expression of populist thought was of course socialism. The idea immediately grabs you: Let the wise men judge what are the most rational and beneficial distributions of goods and services. This way, you do not run the risk of leaving anybody out.

A less draconian way of managing the redistribution of resources is through manipulations of the tax code. Increase tax rates, throw out deductions, repeal the tax reforms of the past few years.

The mind reels.

There are those who, while admitting that the populist approach does not work, nevertheless welcome its occasional appearances on the scene. Because, they will tell you, populism draws attention in a theatrical way to what the free market can ignore -- to dissatisfactions that legitimately attract the reformer. Norman Thomas, who ran six times for president on the Socialist ticket, liked to remind his audiences that he had advocated Social Security the first time he ran, seven years before the New Deal discovered it.

Sometimes it works that way. A populist epiphany, followed at some remove by a milder version of it, which could still reduce the size of Mr. Edwards' lawn.

[Juan C Ayllon]

Whew! I got ticked a little while ago. Some teenage kids in the hallway were talking really loudly outside my study hall. I walked out into the hallway and asked them to quiet down and get where they're going.

One of them got mouthy, saying, "Now, I know you're not talking to me!"

I said, "Yes, I am talking to you, and you need to get going!"

Walking away with his friend, he said, "You better go watch your classroom!"

I said, "I'll worry about my classroom. You need to worry about getting to where you need to go," or words to that effect.

He said, "I just might have to kick your ass." He was about 50 feet away about to turn the corner when he said this.

Annoyed, I said, "Why don't you try?"

He spun on his heels and acted like he was going to do something. He said, "Why don't you come over here?" His friend grabbed him and they ducked around the corner.

Maybe that wasn't the wisest thing for me to say, but I'm just sick of the nonsense! Kids trying to throw their weight around and intimidate teachers is beyond stupid to me.

Perhaps one of the reasons his friend grabbed him is that I don't put up with nonsense. I write them up, call home, and follow through. And, I'm one of those teachers that will jump in to break up a fight and, occasionally, restrain a kid. Big whoop, right?

Sometimes, I feel like a glorified baby sitter with these kids. I go in, go to work, try to teach kids something, and do my best to not only manage my classes, but help maintain an orderly high school--at least in the areas around my classroom.

Thankfully, most students at least try and, truth be told, are good at heart. It's just some of these knuckleheads! They're what? Five, ten percent of the students at most? You just want to beat them with a huge stick...

Sorry, that's not very Christianly, but sometimes I struggle. Sometimes I struggle a lot.

I'm bored with teaching. I'm bored with life. I want to write and get paid well for it! I want to do my art. But, right now, it won't pay the bills. I want to travel, get married and maybe have a kid or two.

But, right now, I feel like I'm in a holding pattern. I feel like I'm in that movie, "Ground Hog Day." Same stuff, over and over again.

Oh well, back to the trenches...

[Juan C Ayllon]

You'll have to forgive me. I think I'm a wee bit on the self-absorbed side. I don't mean to be. I'm just in a bit of a funk. I'll get over it.

Regards,


Juan

[Juan C Ayllon]

Hey, I received this encouraging email from a friend at work, whom I'll keep anonymous, but share with you nevertheless:

Juan

Life, the road that everyone travels has twist, turns, hills, valley and mountains. James Dobson wrote a book "When Life Doesn't Make Sense". I've read and well, it's true. Things occur in life that we do not understand nor can explain. Why would a mother or father hurt the ones that they claim to love. Life does not always make sense, but God does. He is the only one that can give Peace, Comfort to a hurting heart. I will not state that I know what you are feeling, only God does. I've been hurt, abused and mistreated. Things that were terrible, horrify have happened to me. The only thing that gives strength was God's word "I'll never leave you, I'll give peace that the world does not understand, He that dwelleth in the secret place shall abide under the shadow of the almighty, my word will not come back to me void, but will accomplish." God stated that heaven and earth will past away but not one letter of his word. I've cried out to him and yes the pain did leave.

I, also am trying to put the past in the past. Remember the 12 spies? Ten had a bad report and only 2 returned with a good report. The 2 were looking from God's view. Whose report are you going to believe? You are what God says that you are! I had concerns regarding my email to you. But I had to tell myself God's view. Sharing yourself with another is not easy especially when you've been hurt. I do not have the answer I only know where to go - God. He is the one with all the answers and the questions before they are asked.

Juan, keep the smile. I do enjoy seeing you smile. Juan you are a very special and wonderful person with a great deal of love to give. In time you will have all that your heart desires and more. Seek first the kingdom of God and all these will be added. Jesus came that we might have life - more abundantly. Only, God can give beyond what we can think or ask. Think, about it, Juan beyond what you can think or ask. I know that I can think of some really great things - beyond what I can think. Wow! That's awesome! My desire is to give all of me, to be a blessing and to love unconditionally.

Well, I've bored you enough. Talk soon.

It's good to have encouraging friends!

[Juan C Ayllon]

It's kind of funny, but in a way, you have to feel sorry for Ms. Upton when she put her foot in her mouth as she did in front of the popular media and paid for it dearly, as exemplified in the following two pieces:

What Freelancers Can Learn From Lauren Caitlin Upton

by Rico on August 30th, 2007


Ms. Lauren Caitlin Upton has gone viral. All thanks to her reply to the final question of the 2007 Miss Teen USA Pageant:

“I personally believe that U.S. Americans are unable to do so because, uh, some people out there in our nation don’t have maps, and, uh, I believe that our education like such as in South Africa and, uh, the Iraq everywhere like, such as and I believe that they should, our education over here in the U.S. should help the U.S., er, should help South Africa and should help the Iraq and the Asian countries, so we will be able to build up our future for our children.”

I totally feel for Ms. South Carolina, because her lack of articulation is now the latest attraction on YouTube. That’s what you get when you feel a need to sound intelligent and witty.

Have you placed more importance on the impression of your message, rather than the content itself? That’s a mistake I’ve committed many times in my life, and it has done nothing but portray me as someone who simply doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Even if I really did know what I was talking about. Rather than just say things as they are, I foolishly tried to use big words and construct intelligent-sounding phrases. An exercise in futility, as it diminished or even negated the potential impact of my points.

I can imagine Ms. Upton messed up her reply because she felt the pressure that many beautiful women feel. She felt the need to let everyone know that there’s much more to her person than her external beauty.

Along the way, I learned to just say what I have to say, and worry less about how I’m coming across. This is especially important for a freelancer. With the limited time a client has to look for freelancers, they will appreciate proposals that are straightforward and to the point, while ignoring those that place more importance on making a good impression. The same applies to anyone looking for information online.

I’m sure everyone will forget about Ms. Upton by next week, after they’ve had their fill of self-satisfied proclamations about the state of education in the US (From what I hear on mainstream media, the American educational system is full of dropping averages, school heads who help their students cheat, incompetent teachers protected by powerful unions and labor laws, etc.). While the discussion is still hot, let’s see what we can learn from it.

We place so much stock in awesome rhetoric and inspirational wording that we often forget that it’s the message that matters, and not the delivery. It has something to do with the widely debated notion that content is king. So, as you actively market your skills and try to attract inquiries for your freelance services, are you focusing on what you have to offer, instead of how you offer them?

"Don't Tase Me, Bro" tops '07 memorable quote list
By Arthur Spiegelman Wed Dec 19, 8:39 AM ET
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - "Don't Tase Me, Bro," a phrase that swept the nation after a U.S. college student used it seeking to stop campus police from throwing him out of a speech by Sen. John Kerry, was named on Wednesday as the most memorable quote of 2007.

ADVERTISEMENT

Fred R. Shapiro, the editor of the Yale Book of Quotations, said the plea made by University of Florida student Andrew Meyer on September 17, accompanied by Meyer's screams as he was tased, beat out the racial slur that cost shock jock Don Imus his job and the Iranian president's declaration that his country does not have homosexuals.

Shapiro said Meyer's quote was a symbol of pop culture success. Within two days it was one of the most popular phrases on Google and one of the most viewed videos. It also showed up on ringtones and T-shirts.

Second on Shapiro's list was this tortuous answer by Lauren Upton, the South Carolina contestant in the Miss Teen America contest in August:

"I personally believe that U.S. Americans are unable to do so because some people out there in our nation don't have maps and I believe that our education like such as in South Africa and Iraq and everywhere like such as and I believe that they should our education over here in the U.S. should help the U.S. or should help South Africa and should help Iraq and the Asian countries so we will be able to build up our future for us."

Upton had been asked why one-fifth of Americans are unable to locate the United States on a map and later apologized for her answer not making a lot of sense.

Third was Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's October comment at Columbia University in New York, "In Iran we don't have homosexuals like in your country."

Shock jock Don Imus comments about the Rutgers University women's basketball team: "That's some nappy-headed hos there," was fourth.

Imus created a national outcry and lost his job at CBS radio in April, but returned to the airwaves in December with Citadel Broadcasting.

Other phrases on the list:

5. "I don't recall." -- Former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' repeated response to questioning at a congressional hearing about the firing of U.S. attorneys.

6. "There's only three things he (Republican presidential candidate and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani) mentions in a sentence: a noun and a verb and 9/11." -- Sen. Joseph Biden, speaking at a Democratic presidential debate.

7. "I'm not going to get into a name-calling match with somebody (Vice President Dick Cheney) who has a 9 percent approval rating." -- Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat.

8. "(I have) a wide stance when going to the bathroom." -- Idaho Republican Sen. Larry Craig's explanation of why his foot touched that of an undercover policeman in a men's room.

9. "I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that's a storybook, man." -- Biden describing rival Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.

10. "I think as far as the adverse impact on the nation around the world, this administration has been the worst in history." -- Former President Jimmy Carter in an interview in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette newspaper.

(Editing by Jill Serjeant and Eric Beech)

[Juan C Ayllon]

Last Friday, Rey Cave, who serves as a counselor at the high school I teach at, reported on the fights in Cicero, Illinois for us. His girlfriend, Edna Escobedo, shot photos.

That same Friday, I was in Gary, Indiana covering the fights there.

I just finished posting up Edna's photos last night, which you can view at the following link:

Rey Cave's Report Link

Rey's a good guy. He was the testing coordinator for our school two years ago and helped me out a great deal when I served in that same capacity--with another teacher--last year. I'm glad he had this opportunity to enjoy the fights.

I also wanted to publicly thank WBC Lightweight Champ David Diaz and the people at 8 Count Productions for reaching out to him. That was very cool!

Cheers,


Juan

[Juan C Ayllon]

I got this emailed greeting earlier today. It's from the band, "Uncle Boogie Pants," which has played a number of times at my brother's restaurant, Cabs Wine Bar Bistro:

Happy non-denominational, non-affiliated, all-inclusive, secular end-of-year greetings to all of you, without regard to race, color, creed, religion, gender, or national origin!



Come out for our last show of the year on Dec 29th, at the Store.

I thought some of you might get a chuckle out of that Christmas tree, which is constructed out of a bunch of empty Grolsch beer bottles!

Regards,


Juan

[Juan C Ayllon]

Speaking of which, Cabs Wine Bar Bistro is hosting a band on Friday

Mark your calender for Friday, December 21! Cab's will present Christmas Rock, a holiday show featuring a local favorite: Hesterman. Picture Santa as the lead singer of Pearl Jam! This show begins at 9:30pm and will be a sell out. Come early, make reservations for dinner, and enjoy this alternative, jammin Christmas fest!



Call 630.942.9463 for Reservations.

I'm planning on swinging by that night. So, if you stop by, make sure to look for me!

--Juan

[Juan C Ayllon]

I just received the following message in an email from a friend at work, which I felt was relevant both seasonally and personally. For those of you with an aversion to religious messages, my appologies:

You're the One I Want!

By Renee Swope

1 Peter 2:9, "But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light" (NIV).

Devotion:

Christmas was only days away and we still didn't have a tree. Living on a college-student's budget with a baby on the way made it hard to spend $25-50 on something we didn't need. It seemed kind of trivial when I told God how sad I felt that we couldn't afford a Christmas tree. Then I felt guilty knowing there were children starving in Africa and people who needed so much more than us.

Yet, God didn't think it was selfish. Instead He provided. The Sunday before Christmas we discovered a nearby tree lot had marked all the trees down to $10!

When my husband came home from classes Monday evening we hurried to the tree lot. As we walked down each row, I looked for just the right spruce to fit in the corner of our one-bedroom apartment. For this pregnant woman, choosing a tree was almost like choosing our child's name. I took way too much time! The sun went down quickly, they turned the spotlights off and the tree lot turned pitch dark.

My creative and very patient husband pulled our car into the rows of trees and flashed on his high beams. The bright lights dispelled the darkness and standing in front of me was the most precious little tree I'd ever seen. Although it had some droopy branches and a gap on one side I pointed and said, "That's the one I want!"

Later that night, I sat on our couch looking at my cute little spruce pine reminiscing about our evening. I'd felt sad earlier when the darkness made it impossible to see the trees but when the beams of light illuminated the lot, my heart filled with hope. Etched in my mind was a picture I wouldn't forget, a picture that drew me back to another time marked by darkness -- a time when I wasn't choosing, but needed to be chosen.

Just when it felt like all my dreams had died and my hope was gone, God's Light punctured the clouds of depression surrounding my mind as His love poured into my heart. It happened on another cold winter's eve when God looked at me and said, "That's the one I want!"

At some point in our lives, I think most of us can identify with that little tree. Scarred by disappointments we wonder if anyone would ever choose us. With gaps that make us feel like candidates for rejection we hope no one will see the holes in our hearts. Like the fate of my little spruce, it seems the only way we'll get chosen is if all the good ones are picked first.

First Peter 2:9 reminds us that through Christ we are chosen! God sent His Son to light our darkness and fill the gaps in our hearts. Hold onto the truth that God sees you today and in His heart He's saying, "You're the one I want!"

Dear Lord, that spruce pine and I have a lot in common. Even with my gaps and broken branches, You chose me and made me part of Your family through Jesus. Thank you for sending Your Son to illuminate the dark corners of my life and bring hope to my heart. In Jesus' Name, Amen.

I can relate to that scruffy Christmas tree! I've put on weight this last year, I've had some personal disappointments, and have had my self-doubts and depression. Also, this time of the year comes with a lot of baggage for me. Growing up, there were a lot of fights, yelling and abuse. Then, at age 35, I went through a divorce just three days before Christmas in 1997. That was just around the time my parents split up for good and a few weeks before my grandmother slipped into a coma after I'd spent Christmas with her and my mom. Needless to say, 1997 wasn't a banner year for me!

Yet, there is a hope rising within. There will be better days ahead. And, when I think about it, right now isn't so bad. I have the power of choice, I have people who care about me, and I've got a God who loves me despite my obvious shortcomings.

Anyways, wherever you are in life, I wish you all the best.

[Juan C Ayllon]

Well, the band, Hesterman's was pretty good, my venison was awesome, and the atmosphere was pure fun!

Here are some pics from last night:

[Juan C Ayllon]

This stunning singer came up and sang with the band later on in the evening. Apparently, her boyfriend tends to the cars of a very famous race car driver.













My brother, Luis, sat in with the band a bit.



Some friends of the band

[Juan C Ayllon]

The wife of "Santa" came up and sang a few songs, too!



http://www.cyberboxingzone.com/news/.../Dave&Lisa.jpg

Dave--whos' quite the card--and Luis' wife, Lisa, take care of the bar.

[Juan C Ayllon]

Whew. Earlier today, I received two phone calls with sad news. My department chair, Mr. Terry Hirsch, passed away this weekend from a heart attack.

My friend, Gaston Placa, and I just had a coversation with him last Thursday, where he expressed support and his thoughts on the current contract negotiations state for teachers in our school district. And, now, a couple days later, he's dead.

As I talked with Gaston and another teacher over the phone, I couldn't help but be reminded of a conversation I was a part of several years ago.

A former department chair and current administrator had expressed heath concerns about Mr. Hirsch, who'd already been in the hospital for heart trouble. My acquaintance had observed him afterwards in the gym, exercising lacksadaisically on a recumbent bicycle exerciser while reading the newspaper, and taking an elevator rather than the stairs. Shaking his head, he predicted that Mr. Hirsch would be gone in a couple years. Guess he was right.

Life can be so fleeting. If nothing else, this is a heavy reminder not to take people--or our health--for granted.

Rest in peace, Mr. Hirsch,



Juan C. Ayllon

[kikibalt]

Juan,
Let me introduce you to the newest member of the Baltalazar's family, her name is Miely Ray and she is a two month old English bulldog.

Frank

[Juan C Ayllon]

Hey Frank,

That's a cool looking pooch! Congratulations!

I'm kinda wanting to get a greyhound or two, but that'll probably be a ways off, seeing that I'm often off and running, which wouldn't be fair to the dog--or dogs!

My roommate's got a cool cat that's been bugging me for attention since my roommate's away. She's a funny critter.

Anyways, I hope your Christmas has been a wondeful experience.

Cheers,


Juan

[Juan C Ayllon]

Oh, that is too funny, Frank!



Miley Cyrus, AKA Hannah Montana


My roommate's cat's name is Hannah--which is short for Hannah Montana, the stage name Billy Ray Cirus' daughter, Miley Cyrus, took on for her TV show and all. A nephew and niece of my roommate gave his cat her name.

And, to think, your dog is named Miely Ray, as in Miley Ray Cyrus. That's awesome!

I'm sometimes flabbergasted at the big hooplah over Hannah Montana and her kind. She's just the latest in a long line of media stars, reminiscent of David Cassidy and the Partridge Family. I hear she's a good kid, which is a nice alternative to the likes of bad girls Brittney Spears, Madonna and all. But man! Enough already!

Anyways, here's a couple photos of our resident Hannah:





Hannah, above, leads the charmed cat life around these parts.