The Super Bowl is bearing down once again this Sunday and with it comes cloying speculation as every sports media outlet/loud drunk focuses their collective efforts in poring over the minutiae of details for weeks and then shitting down our throats with their opinions.  The line is tempting but I’m going to pass this year, hell I’ll be working while the game is on.

Saturday night is my Super Bowl:

Fuck.  Yes.

Saturday night, Hawaiians and Canadians (especially those filthy Quebecers) are gonna pack the bars to witness something historic.  Saturday night, two of the finest mixed martial artists to ever step into the cage, at their physical and career peaks, to sort out the pound for pound rankings.  Current UFC Lightweight (155 lbs) Champion Hilo, Hawaii’s B.J. Penn is going back up to welterweight (170 lbs) to take on that division’s champ Georges St. Pierre in a rematch.  Ignoring my penchant for hyperbole, a quick Google search will land you legions of fan boys (blogs) as well as mainstream media (believe it or not NPR deigned to come down from the ivory tower to mingle with the peasants) frothing at the mouth for this fight, one major possiblity of having one man, Penn, hold two titles in  separate weight divisions at the same time since Dan Henderson did so in Pride FC.

Riding historic pay per view numbers as well as exposure via network deals for other fight organizations in the past year,  the UFC went all in with an HBO 24/7 style mini-series that does a better job of filling casual/new fans in with the fighter’s backgrounds as well as filling out the narrative for this fight.  I don’t know what it is about coming from the boonies that breeds such fucking hardasses but Hawaiians and Francophones tend to carry pretty big chips on their shoulders.  Both essentially are marginalized, border line separatists.  America’s hat vs America’s war time gas station.

The end product is probably the finest MMA pre-fight documentary I’ve seen, eschewing the normal nu metal riff chugging over the homo-erotic scene of bleeding, sweaty, men “wrestling” for more hip music cleverly kicking in (OMGZ OMGZ Black Keys and Cool Kids trax OMGZ OMGZ) over arty/high-budget cinematography (soft focus, slow still in/out zooms, helicopter panoramas) , as the post production editing has each fighter filling out their respective roles: George St. Pierre the soft spoken, good looking, world class athlete to BJ Penn’s, much to his chagrin, lazy, loudmouth, blood-lusting psychopath (the segues between Georges trudging/driving through frozen Montreal while BJ lounges in the black beaches of Hilo doesn’t get old).

If you like what you saw I suggest you do yourself a favor and start searching for their first fight as well as fight videos for both athletes to gain context.  For Georges look up his fights against Jay Hieron,  the trilogy against Matt Hughes.  For Baby Jay, look up his fight against Takanori Gomi, both fights with common opponent Matt Hughes, and the bloodbath against Joe Stevenson.

Now here’s where I give my arm chair analysis so just go ahead and stop reading this and start calling around to find a nice sports bar showing this epic fight on Saturday or you could read on, compare it to your own and call me a fucking idiot in the comments.  According to the betting lines, currently Penn is a +165 underdog with george as a -185 favorite.  Barring my natural bias, but I’m writing down something that might be considered treasonous if I spoke it out loud here in Honolulu.

The jump in weight once again puts Penn’s cardio in question.  Whenever Penn goes the distance, and this fight will go into the later rounds, with someone who doesn’t fold he tends to allow the takedowns and stays in guard which plays to Georges strength, being the best wrestler in the UFC, would more than happily stay busy on top without trying to pass grinding out a decision.  BJ has never won a decision against top tier competition (Renzo Gracie and Matt Serra are NOT top tier)  for Penn to win he needs to FINISH Georges.  If GSP uses his superior conditioning and dictates the pace and keeps Penn at distance with say a constant front kick ala Thompson vs. Melendez dragging him into the deeper waters of rounds 4 and 5,  he could wear down Penn and get the takedown maybe even followed by a TKO.

Penn does have a serious edge in the grappling and hands of motherfucking dynamite, with a lightning fast jab that wrecked common opponent Sean Sherk in BJ’s first title defense.  The jab RUINS rythm, and a guy like Georges lives on what he calls “da riddum”, if Georges decides to push the action standing Penn needs to use that snake like right jab to greet him in the pocket.  Penn has a chin of granite, I have never seen this man take a shot that fazed even in his ridiculous fight with Lyoto Machida, if he pushed Georges against the fence (and lately Jackson fighters have been drawing their opponents with THEIR back to the fence) he will find that left hand connecting which could lead to a TKO or a submission.  Which leads me to the one thing even my know it all dumbass is unwilling to answer.  How good is Georges off his back after that trip to Brazil…

The one X factor to me is Georges’ jiu-jitsu.  Georges has the amazing ability to constantly pick up new skills, a good example being his slowly evolving wrestling was good enough for an invite to train for the Canadian Olympic team and out-shined the American alphabet soup of credentials that opponents like Josh Koscheck possessed, but wrestling comes naturally to physical specimens like Georges.  Penn points out that martial arts (he really means his bread and butter jiu-jitsu) favors the skilled man.  Though Penn might be the more intelligent fighter, Georges matches Penn up in creativity, and that’s what’s getting me giddy.  The unpredictability of the mat work.

So there you have it.  Gather up some friends and whet your appetite with this once in a lifetime fight, that not even boxing can promise in terms of talent.  Oh and if there was any doubt?  WAR PENN!!!  Knock Georges on his ass and choke that motherfucker out.

Well actually more like 36 days, but just like Morgan Spurlock it’s to adjust my perspective. That’s how long I’ll be away from the States, and as much as I’d like to harp about not being part of the contiguous 48 as generally a good thing, I’m spending 18 of those days in Myanmar. Good old Myanmar where banks, cell phones, democracy, and the internet don’t exist. Well they do, but in some kind of Orwellian dystopian variety. Who really needs those things anyway right?  I mean God saw fit to put its people through the ringer this summer.

I have a good buddy in the Marines and he loves to lecture about simplifying one’s life. He’ll tell me in the same excited tone about the temptation of selling his computer as equal to shrugging off a booty call from his ex-girlfriend. That’s a point of pride for someone who’s going to deploy this July and fight to secure our country’s right to buy oil so as to make more stupid plastic shit.  To have and to have not I guess.  It wasn’t too long ago when I would have punched him in his face for displaying that kind of leftist arrogance.  Those kinds of statements have slowly pushed my politics squarely in the middle.

I am a Philippine immigrant and I fell by the wayside.  I’ve lost sight of the opportunities that my mother found so important as to sacrifice her own graduate degree to put on a blue collar and make sure I get a good shot at a better life by herself.  Recalibration is necessary at certain mileage intervals.

But let me say this to you, the American pop junkie in me is pissed at the records/movies/fights I’ll be missing, however short 7 weeks are. 

In the coming weeks I’ll let you know how the KFC tastes like in Hanoi; how far I get in Singapore without getting caned; how brutal Muy Thai fights are in that shady border area between Thailand/Laos; and in Taiwan, how much the mark up is on Apple products (Brendan, FUCK YOU and that culture terrorist Steve Jobs).  I’m pretty sure Myanmar’s gonna be a basket of kittens/pony ride.

Let’s all have a constructive summer.

We here at obviate met Fred Carlos by chance at last year’s Lollapalooza during Ted Leo’s set. He traveled from Hawaii to the festival. Yeah. Real far. Since then, he’s become a good friend to us as well as a fierce critic of just about everything imaginable.

Without further adieu, ladies and gentlemen…Fred Carlos.

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Obviate 808: Outpost State by Fred Carlos

“I’m going to say some basketball player or some football player is my role model? That’s an insult to my mother, who scrubbed floors. That’s an insult to my father, who picked up junk in the alleys and preached on Sundays!”

-Mr. T (A.V. Club interview 1993)

So yeah, fuck baseball. There I said it. Fuck baseball. This the last season I try to understand what the fuck is so exciting about American cricket. No longer will I nervously fidget as I sit around with my white mainland expatriate friends, wondering if I should say something like “Getting Johann was HUGE”, without actually knowing what the fuck that meant, and wondering if I know another Hispanic named Johann. On the other hand I could see myself spending the rest of my life arguing, analyzing, and perpetuating this last vestige of colonial rule with friends and family:

I’m sure your natural reaction will be one of the following extremes:

“What an UNAMERICAN thing to say Fred! We should send your immigrant ass to an undisclosed location, hold you indefinitely without a warrant, and tie you down to a board and pour water down your throat until you reveal everyone else holding these terrorist thoughts.”

Lou Gehrig

Jackie Robinson

“You just don’t understand Fred. There’s a history, a science to this game, that might take a lifetime to understand. A family can support the same team generation after generation regardless of record. A team becomes ingrained with the cultural identity of a city, members of it’s roster becoming modern day heroes, for bringing pride in their performance as consummate professionals, at well as displaying class and an indefatigable drive to compete and succeed through hard word and determination. Baseball’s history and it’s players encapsulate all of the ideals that brought social equity and economic success in the United States.”

I say fuck all of that. If there are four generations of fans waiting for a World Series, then you have four generations worth of chumps.

Maybe it’s because my state doesn’t have any NBA, NFL, NHL, or MLB teams that makes me feel uncomfortable with watching those sports. Maybe it’s because Judo was my preferred sport/hobby in high school. Maybe it’s all that hardcore I listened to at an impressionable age. Or maybe it was when my classmate Takashi, a Japanese expatriate/fellow nerd, who handed me my first Pride video in AP U.S. History. All I know is when I first saw Bob Sapp tap out to a man who weighed two hundred pounds less than him in front of a stadium, I knew I was hooked.

You know what else has a long storied history? One that knows no cultural, racial and social boundaries. You like science in your past time? You like tradition? Well let me show you the face of freedom.

UFC Lightweight Champ BJ Penn

BJ “The Prodigy” Penn Vs. Joe “Daddy” Stevenson

What do you see? I see a Hawaiian man promoting the Kau Inoa movement for Hawaiian recognition/sovereignty the best way he knows how, hurting white people until they get it. If you see a barbaric display of testosterone, then you drink tea with this man and his friends.

Watch this.

This man is a Member of Parliament representing Zagreb and a former member of Croatia’s counter-terrorist task force. You heard me right. Member of fucking Croatian Parliament and a cop. Hence the nick name CroCop.

This guy has a masters in mathematics and taught high school Algebra. (I’ve had a beer with a couple of Mr. Rich Franklin’s students and they claimed he was super laid back.)

Have a problem with your network? Ask these guys. The used to be IT directors. They are Joe Lauzon and Elvis Sinosic.

The summer sports doldrums will soon be here much to the dismay of my beer swillin’ brethren. The Olympics doesn’t have much to offer in terms of excitability to the point worth brawling here in U.S., but it does give me an opportunity to turn a few of your hipster heads to an alternative. Attention haircuts/hipster douchebags, if you feel the need to intellectualize/wax philosophic endlessly about a sport this summer without feeling emasculated then try MMA out. Do it quickly though since two of the major promotions netted network deals (Elite XC with CBS and StrikeForce with NBC) and we all know how you feel about things coming out of obscurity. If you feel better this guy loves it too:

Douchebag.