I read the post about the your "decline" a week ago....It bummed me out. I would be remiss if I didn't say something to you about it.

I just wanted to write you a quick note to thank you for all of the work that you have done on your website and in your writing in general. I know what you wrote was not some sort of pity party BS. In many ways it was a realistic appraisal of where you are in your life. Being only 36 you know better than me the ravages, aging, fighting and working hard have done to your body. Hell, I don't know you personally...All I want to say is please keep the flame alive as long as possible. The world needs your eloquence and unique views.

Your writing has helped me immensely. I came across it a few months back. It is rare that I have seen anyone sum up the contradictory head fuck that is being a male in society at large and existing as a White man in Baltimore. Not the phony yuppie BS Baltimore either.

You have put me back in touch with the world of boxing and fighting. For that I thank you as well. I have been involved in Russian Martial Arts for the past two years. I really love it. Thing is though, through your writing I have been induced to go back into all of the old solo training stuff from back in the day (aka shadow boxing, jumping rope etc.). It’s like a switch being flipped. I've actually been smiling a little more and have thought about the old group of dudes from the gym I used to train in.... Metaphysically speaking it’s a connected feeling that I haven't felt in a long time. I owe you for that one, man.

I have been forced to spend the past month essentially staring at a computer for hours a day. jameslafond.com is one of the few things that keeps me not wanting to claw my eyes out from boredom.

So I will stop the gushing and just say "Thanks".

Nero the Pict

PS. Relocation to Southern PA is always an option. It is certainly safer than Baltimore. Just sayin’. This area, with all of its faults, is not near as royally screwed—yet.

I appreciate the kind words, Sir.

I did not want to write On The Downside, but thought I would be remiss if I did not. There were two reasons for this.

1. I have, since 1998, written the Harm City material from my current perspective, not a "what if I was a businessman or Dante Justine" perspective. I have fiction outlets for that. When I was doing The Logic of Steel I was still carrying weapons. By the time I was writing full time in 2010 I was physically more able to deal with violence unarmed as my bodyweight had increased. Also, since I was no longer living with a death wish based on my meaningless existence, but was rather writing what I perceived as being important knucklehead literature, and also had a grandson and granddaughter to think of, I rethought my position, and decided I would not use a knife to defend myself unless under very specific and thought-out circumstances. Back in 1979 I used a sword to defend my brother, brandishing it. Then, when the attacker came after me, I did what I had trained to do, and came very close to killing him. I am no FMA Guru that will hamstring a dude and then thumb slice his partner and submit the other guy in a wrist lock. I am a guy who has cut and stabbed men, and who has sparred for over 5,000 hours at full speed and full power with dangerous wooden blunts, and have fought over 200 machete duels. I’m totally beatable. But if you ask anyone who has crossed blades with me, they will tell you that when I pull the go switch I’m a ruthless motherfucker. And recently I have had a hard time derailing combination attacks. The last time Charles and I went at it sparring I kept going on autopilot while he was calling himself out. I could not find the off switch. It was like staring in someone else’ nightmare. He understood. A jury would not. A judge would not. So, for me to decide to begin carrying a knife again amounted to me putting my fate in a potential attacker’s hands. I carry a knife now. The moment I find myself out of my empty hand depth—which amounts to shallow waters now—then I pull the go switch and it’s all over. Whoever I’m dealing with is meat and my ass is on the news, this site probably mined for evidence used to throw away the key. I could not, as a seat-of-the-pants writer, go from explaining why I don’t carry a knife after every attempt to mug me, to just neglecting to mention that I have entirely changed my operational doctrine.

2. I have been a fighter-coach for 20 years now. That carries a certain stigma with coaches and a certain honor with fighters. I write for coaches and fighters and need to be honest about my morphology, about where I stand now. Nero, I don’t like where I stand. I am dead inside, really—like a wind-blown asphalt lot. But I’ve never liked this world, so it’s no crisis. However, that is not important. I have not sought happiness since I made the mistake of cheating on my wife in 1994. Happiness is not for me. I am an odd ball. My place, as I see it, is examining the seams between the world of the odd balls and the greater society, and attempting to help people on both sides of the divide negotiate it. In that sense, giving up on trying to get better at fighting—in fact, I was improving my stick game up until the moment of my career ending injury, and I did it coaching, showing Sean how to throw a double lateral with a lunge—is just neglecting the animal side of my being. But the analytical—and depending on your bent—ascendant side of my mind immediately said to the dying animal, “Okay asshole, without your ego to feed I can write 5,000 more words a week—fuck off and die already.” So, there is an upside.

So, you Half-barbarian Pict, what I am trying to say is that I owed it to the people who use this blog for training and survival advice to continue using my deteriorating physical perspective as an illuminating device. I'm not the last man that will wake up one day a far lesser man than he was the day before. If it happened to Willy Mays why shouldn't it happen to me, or anyone reading this? I’m sure the old dudes were saying, “Could have told you it wouldn’t last, knucklehead,” and the young guys were mostly groaning as they saw the veteran ahead on the other side of the rise patty step on that landmine, knowing it would be their turn one day.

I am glad to say that I finally sparred with Charles. Boxing and grappling are just out of the question and a blunt knife stab to the gut could put me in intensive care—really, an out of network Navy Seal instructor, a guy like me they went to on their own time—actually died from this after getting hit, and I don’t want to leave my carcass on a fighter’s conscience. I found I was able to go light with Charles with the stick for 45 minutes and still give him meaningful work. I’ll do a gimp sparing article on that soon. Fighting though, he would have steam-rolled me and my only win options would have risked crippling myself and rendering me unable to defend against mere hoodrats. I had reached the point where every decision to fight in a sporting context could have seriously imperiled my ability to defend myself and others against criminals. It was time to move on. Also, telling myself that forever being separated from something far better than sex would not affect me mentally would have been bullshit.

I don’t want you guys worrying about me, but hope you use my situation as a learning tool. I want you to survive your scrapes and for the younger athletes out there I want them to win their fights. I will continue to seek being useful in that regard. I will not stop writing until these three fingers stop working, and must apologize in advance for the psychotic turn the fiction will probably take, since I no longer have a physical vent.

I expect to be travelling to Southern PA to help coach a men’s group this coming year, and will let you know when I’m venturing north of the lowlands.

PS: Many of my readers have emailed me offering to help me relocate. For these offers I am very grateful. But, I see Baltimore and cities like it as important zones to study what might happen in these more habitable areas if current trends continue, and intend to stay on and document what happens with this pest hole. These generous and honorable offers reminded me of what Dave—a Taiwan based martial arts instructor—mentioned when he answered my query as to why a classy guy like him would be interested in what a knucklehead like LaFond wrote. He said it was the quality of the comments, which are apparently abysmal on other sites devoted to combat and masculinity. He thought this reflected my judgment in winnowing out crazies and creeps. "No Sir," I told him, "the only comments I have deleted were a few explicit offers of companionship from women."

Our male readers have been entirely unedited, and I'm proud of that—blessed more like.