Just this past February — which is a terrible
way to start an article, because apparently nobody on the internet reads
dates, & people are still sending B hate mail five years after making
fun of the state of Alabama while he works at Olive Garden — the
P-boi staff celebrated BLACK FITNESS MONTH, a four-week initiation program
that acted as the first step toward self-improvement. B began a strict
workout regiment, &
now each of his arms is roughly the size of a toolshed. Pholby
& Lindy are training to be wrestlers... the professional kind, not
olympic high school starvation diet kind, or the oops my shirt fell off
kind. Thus, their bodies are also becoming quite tone,
& Lindy can now crush a Pepsi can with her breasts. By just thinking
about it. Jon is still scrubbing toilets... but with a toothbrush.
A toothbrush with boxing gloves that punches the germs off of
it.
As for myself, I'd already resolved to work on becoming
a better & more frequent writer back when I rang in the new year, & while
it's nice to have my writing arm be nimbler
& beefier, I figured now would be a good time to get the rest of
my body that doesn't hold a pen into shape. But I'm not a fan
of gyms, & I
don't have the serious sense of fandom or devotion to wrestling
that Lindy & Pholby
do. And there's got to be a more satisfying alternative to cleaning
toilets. So I looked around, did some reading up on different
kinds of popular workout programs, but then got sidetracked by
one in particular.
 I remembered hearing about the Tae Bo craze back when
I worked in video retail, & I didn't think about it too much then,
because I wasn't in the market for a better body. But for my money,
any workout that involves kicking & punching imaginary bad guys
is the exact sort of workout I'd be interested in. And, in a
stroke of expert timing, Tae Bo creator Billy Blanks happened
to be taking his workout program & new
motivational speaking stint to the college campus where my best friend
works. So I asked her to find out more about the program for me.
Her findings were startling...
Karen: billy blanks is the devil
At first I thought little of the statement, assuming
that she was simply in the sort of pain that comes with rigorous
workouts, but I ended up making an ASS out of U and MING when she continuously
insisted that Blanks was, indeed, the prince of darkness incarnate.
Boy, were the Houston Rockets upset with me then. As for Karen,
we're both practicing Catholics,
so she has no real reason to test my faith. So her firm belief
in the true, evil identity of this supposed fitness guru left
me both worried about the future of humankind,
& curious about Billy Blanks's rise to popularity. Then, as if a
sign from God, himself, I found further evidence of the dark truth late
one night/early one morning on HBO, when it aired one of Blanks's karate
movies from the early 1990s.
Showdown's disguise as an after school special-esque
motion picture about learning to stand & defend yourself when there
is no other way to change a situation sickened me, especially in its
similarities with better, more popular
& soul-enriching films such as The Karate Kid. It is with
the positive memory of that film & the concern for our safety as
children of God that I present to you evidence that Billy Blanks is
the Devil, as seen in the movie Showdown, lest you be lured into
its clutches by its ridiculous cheesiness.
Following a cryptic message that the threat of violence
is becoming an everyday occurrence to our children at a very
young age, the movie begins with Blanks, at the wheel of a police squad
car, giving into common social stereotype by sharing a break & a
doughnut with his partner, Spinelli.
 
"Here, have one," Spinelli insists. "I
got yer favorite."
"Chocolate, eh?"
"Yep, chocolate."
EXHIBIT A: Billy Blanks
tolerates "low" to "moderate" acts of racism
with a mere curl of the lip & a shake of the head.
The fact that Billy says nothing in response to his
partner's small yet uncalled for & unfunny black people joke is
almost as frightening as his response to his partner's insistence that
he wear his gun while on duty.
"You know I don't like those things."
EXHIBIT B: Billy Blanks
has somehow graduated from the police academy with an unconquered
fear and lack of mastery of firearms.
Normally I'd let that one slide. Lots of people don't
like guns. Lots of cops don't like guns. But Billy's answer was
spoken rather timidly & cautiously. Certainly not the tone of voice
you'd want to hear from a man paid with your tax money to uphold
the law at the cost of possible violence. Regardless, he agrees
to pack the heat as the two respond to a rather loud party at
a nearby mansion-sized residence.
 
Inside, two uninvited brothers have crashed the party,
bullying everyone in their way & harassing the women. When Billy
arrives to break things up, it's obvious that these two are somewhat
experienced fighters with no fear of the law. A brief struggle
with the younger brother for Billy's gun results in both brothers
being thrown aside & pushed
to the floor. The younger hits his head on the ceramic
tile steps,
& the elder, who is also apparently a physiological genius, pronounces
him dead as a result almost immediately, & while making this face...
"You killed my brother, pig!"
EXHIBIT C: Billy Blanks
doesn't care how much karate you know. He can easily kill
you just by shoving you.
Billy, however, was merely acting on killer instinct.
Which makes perfect sense, because his haircut in this movie makes him
look exactly like T.J.
Combo.
But, as expected, Billy's fear of guns is accompanied
by a fear of death, & upon verifying that he has, indeed, killed
a kid, he lets out a rather laughable NO!
 
Not even an invitation to share a hot shower with
his partner, who for some reason didn't strip all the way for
the shower scene & you can see his shorts nine feet below his crack
oh dear God look away, can convince him to stay on the police
force. Billy is so troubled by his lack of temptation, especially
as the Devil, that he goes searching for a safer, more enticing
work environment...
 
At a local high school! Seven years later, Billy is
quite content with his position as the school's creepy janitor & anti-software
piracy enforcer.
EXHIBIT D: Billy Blanks
insists that you not copy
that floppy.
Actually, Billy is helping the new kid in school,
who just got beat up & had his wallet stolen by the school bully &
his obligatory right-hand man. Of note, the new kid happens to
bear something of a resemblance to...
 
John Cryer ... with
the mumps? This Duckie look-alike's name is Ken Marx, & the reason
why the lead tenor of Rockapella felt the need to turn Marx into
Duck Soup was because he made the fatal mistake of (gasp) talking
to his girlfriend!
 
Thine eyes deceive thee not. That is, indeed, Christine
Taylor. No wonder Ken couldn't help but want to talk to her.
Not only is she still in her gorgeous prime, appearing here just
after "Hey
Dude" & a
few years before The Brady Bunch Movie, but you know she obviously
goes for the not too attractive, middle of the road types. She
grew up to marry Ben Stiller, for crying out loud. Christine
Taylor is in love with & has had sexual relations with Ben Stiller.
If I went to high school with Christine Taylor with that prior
knowledge, I'd spend whatever time I wasn't spending pitching
for the Cubs trying to score with Christine Taylor, too.
Even the stern warnings from Mike, the exponentially
nerdy kid sitting next to him wearing fucking eyeball glasses
so that "he
can sleep without the teacher catching him," don't thwart Ken.
He doesn't see the harm in trying to make new friends on his
first day at a new school, & that's when the lead tenor from Rockapella
has to lay down a few ground rules by grounding him into the
duck meat.
Billy attempts small talk while cleaning Ken's wounds
by acknowledging how tough it must be being the new kid. Ken explains
that his old school in the midwest was a lot less populated, & wasn't
so broken up into different social sects.
"You must not be from around here," Billy
determines.
No, stupid. I'm the new kid. We established that.
"No, I'm from Salinas. It's in Kansas."
(lol)
"What's so funny?"
"You're not in Kansas anymore, are you?!!@!~!"
EXHIBIT E: Billy Blanks
is so money, & he
doesn't even know it.
Billy tells Ken that he's got a lot of guts, & that's
all he needs. Well, that must be enough to give Ken the confidence he
needs to take another shot at talking to Christine Taylor. But, sure
enough, Rockapella catches him in the act again.
 
OOOOOOH THE CHAAAAAAAAAAASE
 
Rockapella — herein referred to as his character's
name: Tom — & his Italian cohort trap Ken in the
gym & are about to wail
on him when Billy shows up, unhappy that there are shoes on his
newly washed gym floor. Tom doesn't have time for this shit.
He tries to take out Billy with a back kick...
 
KIIIIIIIING? COMBO
EXHIBIT F: Billy Blanks
will not hesitate to snap your fucking neck if there isn't
a morally sound student nearby to tell him to stop.
Billy wakes up & understands that killing a student
puts his job & life at risk, so he runs away, leaving Ken alone
with the beat up Tom & other guy for the rest of the school to find.
Naturally, they assume that Ken was responsible for the ass kicking,
despite his insistence that it was the janitor.
EXHIBIT G: Billy Blanks's
idea of solving your bully problem is by making the whole
school think you can beat people up. From there, you are on your
own to back up that claim.
Worried that Tom might think he was taking credit
for beating him up, Ken takes his trendy, two-colored designer shirt
& explains to Billy that, while he appreciates helping him out,
he may have very well made things worse.
"Hey Ken, everything will be alright," he
responds.
Yeah, Ken. You'll just get beat up every day from now until graduation.
No big.
Billy Blanks fails to see how this is a problem. One
would think that this is because Billy Blanks is a 7-time karate champion,
but startling information from Karen's experience with the Morning Star
suggest otherwise. If Ken's just getting physically beat up, that's
not so bad, because Billy Blanks does not bring pain into the equation.
He feels that there are much more powerful things to be afraid of.
Karen: He would ask questions and
be looking for the least obvious answers.
Karen: ex: "What's the most powerful thing?"
Mike: A punch in the face from God?
Mike: I mean love. Yeah, love.
Karen: Nope. Next audience member?
Mike: No that's correct.
Karen: Right, but not the answer billy is looking
for. "Listen to me! What's the most powerful thing?"
Mike: Has Billy Blanks ever been in a fight with
love? Clearly he has not.
Karen: I'm trying to prove a point. 
Karen: If Billy Blanks is on stage and asking
this to an audience, what do you think some obvious "ask the audience" answers
would be?
Karen: "Heart!" "Mind!" "God!"
Karen: "Chuck Norris!"
Yeah, some college kid fucking said Chuck Norris.
Karen: His response "No! No! NO! Chuck
Norris is great!, but no!"
Karen: Words.
Mike: Words?!
EXHIBIT H: Billy Blanks
thinks words are more fucking powerful than God and Chuck Norris.
Mike: Billy Blanks must have nightmares
about STICKS AND STONES then.
Karen: Oh, oh! He used that! "Sticks and
stones may break my bones but names will never harm me? WRONG!"
Karen: Right, but he's billy blanks, he can snap
sticks and crush stones with his teeth. But words... woah-ho! Words hurt.
words are POWERFUL. If you're a writer, great. Draw conclusions about the
power of words.
Mike: That means I could kill Billy Blanks very
easily.
That means if Billy Blanks finds this website he should
die a sure & painful death. The end is very near, indeed, friends.
But what of Tom, the bully? Does he, too, not also
have evil intent?
 
It turns out that he's merely being brainwashed to
act the way he is. Tom's mentor just so happens to be Lee, the hoodlum
whose brother Billy killed seven years ago. The two have not seen each
other since, & Lee has opened his own fighting dojo, in which he
teaches his pupils that SUCCESS IS CONTROL! CONTROL IS SUCCESS! He has
them repeat this like zombies.
 
Lee even flaunts his own power to even the most novice
of his students. I have never seen this concept in any other motion
picture ever, have you?
The best is when Lee very easily defeats a student,
he proclaims
"I wooooon!" in a sing-song, nyah nyah sort of tone... followed
by yelling "WHO WON?"
"SENSEI WON!"
"WHOOOOOO WOOOON?!"
"SENSEI WON!"
 
Lee, of course, is not happy to hear that Tom lost
a fight to someone, especially a school janitor. There are only winners
at his dojo, you see. So he sends his woman, Kate, to see what's up
with the guy. Gee I wonder where that could lead! Kate also acts as
a fighting manager for Lee's top students, who it turns out are making
big time winnings in an underground fighting circuit. And she's not
happy to hear that Tom's been fighting at times when she hasn't told
him to.
That doesn't stop Tom from going after Ken again once
he finds out that the whole school thinks he beat him up. It's when
Ken comes back for first aid this third time that Billy realizes that
hey wait a minute, Ken doesn't know how to protect himself! So Billy
agrees to teach him...
 
By making Ken mop floors & clean bathrooms!
"This is self defense?"
"Screw self defense. This is called gettin' into shape!"
No, this is called you just found somebody to sucker
into doing your job. But Ken is an avid pop culture enthusiast. He thinks
he might know what's up...
"I get it. When this is all over, I'm going
to know how to do all kinds of karate moves, right? It's
like... wax on, wax off? Paint the fence? Sand the floor?"
EXHIBIT I: Billy Blanks
is a hypocrite regarding plagiarism of ideas not involving
the copying of floppies.
"No, this is called toilet cleaning. It teaches
humility!"
Oh.
Billy & Ken continue training, eventually going
on to running laps, & then moving on to actually punching & dodging
things. Real things, not just the air like Billy teaches now.
 
EXHIBIT J: Billy Blanks
will give himself an unfair advantage by leaving you unarmed
in boxing matches &
American Gladiators.
EXHIBIT K: .......No.
Just no.
Word gets out that Ken is learning how to fight, & Tom
waits for him outside of school after a full day of training,
anxious to see what Ken can do. Not as ready to fight as, say,
Scott Stapp just yet, Ken opts instead for
a kick square in the junk.
EXHIBIT L: Billy Blanks
will teach you to fight dirty.
Kate just so happens to also be waiting for Ken, & offers
him a ride. As long as it's a ride away from Tom, Ken quickly
& easily accepts.
EXHIBIT M: Billy Blanks
will neglect to teach you to never get into a car with strangers.
"I saw you fightin' Tom out there. You're
pretty good!"
You saw him kickin' Tom in the nuts & running
away, lady. Stop layin' it on so thick.
 
Sure enough, it seems that Kate is actually interested
in Ken & his nut-kickin' approach to fighting. She takes him to
the underground fighting circuit & offers to be Ken's manager, waving
a large sum of money in front of his face. He politely declines and,
having recently discovered Billy's old police badge, goes to tell Billy
about his discovery.
Naturally, Billy doesn't like the idea of using & hurting
kids to make money, but tells Ken that declining their offer might be
very dangerous.
EXHIBIT N: Billy Blanks
wants you to be used & hurt for money.
So the two continue their training.
 
EXHIBIT O: Billy Blanks
will teach you the improper way to bow.
Meanwhile, Billy calls up his old partner & asks
for his help to investigate this underground circuit.
 
EXHIBIT P: Billy Blanks
needs your help to get back onto the Police Force after 7
years of not speaking to you by diving right into a conspiracy
he knows very little about & trouble he's unsure of.
Trouble comes in the form of '50s doo-wop legend Marvin
Berry
& some other nearby ethnic thugs. Billy & Spinelli make rather
short order of them, but not without a fight, & not without being
watched.
 
EXHIBIT Q: Billy Blanks
has no reason to believe he is being watched.
Kate snagged a surveillance tape & recognizes
Billy as the school janitor. Lee, of course, recognizes Billy
as the cop who killed his brother seven years ago. In a fit of
rage, he sends some thugs to the school to kill Billy... & to
make sure everyone sees his lifeless body.
 
Billy has moved Ken's training into the school gym & cranked
up the heat, claiming that heat is pressure. You do better under pressure.
This reminds me of something Karen told me about Billy's current workout
scheme. During running exercises, he kept yelling, "The floor is
hot! Keep your feet off the floor!"
EXHIBIT R: Of course
you're used to it being hot when you live
in HELL, Billy.
Meanwhile, Christine Taylor catches up with Ken & wonders
what he's been doing.
"Well, nothing. Just getting ready to do a little workout."
"With that big, black guy again?"
EXHIBIT S: Christine
Taylor doesn't like negroids.
Ken agrees to tell her why he's been training with
the janitor he she'll go out with him Friday night. Unfortunately,
she has a date with Tom to the movies... a date she's not exactly
looking forward to, but feels trapped. Maybe it's because they
were supposed to go on at the beginning of the film, or maybe
it's because Tom is being played by a guy who's obviously in
his 30s.
 
Or it could be because he still insists on dressing
like fucking Rockapella, even on dates. This whole time, Tom
has had a rather controlling relationship with his girlfriend,
feeding her such romantic lines as "Heyheyheyheyhey,
don't walk away from me... I own you," and "You are
my girl, and you'll do exactly what I say." You know, I've
heard of boyfriends & girlfriends who get jealous &
controlling about stupid things like who they can associate with & whether
or not they can have a MySpace profile, but I'd really, REALLY
like to believe right now that Tom's level of stereotypical controlling
Rockapella boyfriend is exclusive to bad teen movies. Unfortunately,
I doubt that's the case, but luckily, we have characters like
Christine Taylor who finally have enough & dumps the jerk. She may
be ending up with Ben Stiller, but at least Ben Stiller doesn't
dress like an overrated abstract painting.
She ends up asking Ken to pick her up after all, & he
takes her on a proper romantic date... roasting marshmallows in the
middle of the woods! There's actually no sarcasm in that sentence. That's
actually an awesome idea for a date, & a perfect setting for Ken
to admit that the reason he's continuing to train to fight is because
he wants to steal her away from Tom.
"You already have," she proclaims
with a twinkle in her eye.
And then, at long last...
we cut to Billy fighting some thugs who have hunted
him down to the school auditorium.
 
EXHIBIT T: Billy Blanks
will not be upstaged by your sappy kissing scene.
And just to show how non-upstaged Billy Blanks insists
on being, the fight takes place on the auditorium stage, amongst
the already finished set of some school play. Despite being stabbed
in the arm and the thigh, Billy manages to not only make quick
work of Lee's goons, but also break any piece of breakable setting
on the stage in the process.
EXHIBIT U: Billy Blanks
enjoys breaking stuff.
NINJA APPEAR!
Tom drops in (lol) on Christine Taylor, still under
the impression that they are together. He owns her, remember? That's
when she threatens to get Ken to "kick his ass," & Tom
won't hear any of that.
 
He proceeds to slap her across the face, but Ken's
nearby enough to come to the rescue. Do you guys remember Donkey Kong
the video game? Because THAT'S WHAT IT IS ABOUT TO BE ON LIKE. Or so
it would be, if Tom's guido friends didn't hold him back, warning him
that Kate will find out he's been fighting outside of the ring.
That's when they decide on a Showdown. Ken & Tom
will fight at Tom's dojo on Friday night. Some kid even made
fliers to hand out to everybody. Aww look, they have little karate
dragons on it. They get thrown all over the school. Literally. They're
all over the floors & everything. Where the hell's the janitor to
clean all this... wait... aw nuts.
EXHIBIT V: Billy Blanks
will ditch you when you need him the most.
 
Leaving nerdy kid Mike to dress up like an idiot in
a bathrobe
& a towel wrapped around his head to show that he is a karate person, & give
Ken some last bits of advice that may or may not involve butterflies & bees.
And while Mike has already admitted that he thinks this is an awful
idea & he told the cops that something was going down Friday night
at the dojo, he's seen like three seconds later telling folks they pass
on their way to the ring to "put the money on the kid."
EXHIBIT W: Billy Blanks
may or may not be using the weak, nerdy kid as his pawn.
 
With Billy nowhere to be found, the fight must still
go on. There are a lot of impatient people waving money in the stands...
including a disturbing number of soccer moms.
 
The fight is actually fairly evenly matched, & goes
back
& forth for a while until Lee demands Tom to "kill him,
my boy!" The thought of murdering the needle dick who stole
his woman gives Tom enough charge to gain an advantage by ramming Ken
into guard rails, kicking Ken while he's down, & of course, sweeping
the leg. It looks like it's all over for Ken, until a sudden change
in background music catches his attention.
 
EXHIBIT X: Billy Blanks
thinks the ideal mood music for climactic fight scenes is
the theme
song to Doogie Howser, M.D.
The sight of Ken's teacher makes him wake up & realize
what he has to do...
 
He has to take his shirt off. The shirt was holding
him back from winning, & that's exactly what he does with a well-placed
spin kick to Tom's bowl cut face. It's also right here that we
notice how insanely buff Ken has gotten after like a month's
work of training. Either Billy Blanks is an insanely good trainer,
or...
EXHIBIT Y: Billy Blanks
has been duping us the whole time.
Billy's character in the movie is actually named Billy, &
that's not the only unoriginal name. The guy playing Ken is actually
accomplished martial artist Kenn Scott, who is also known for wearing
a giant muppet suit & playing Raphael in the first Teenage Mutant
Ninja Turtles movie. Has this all been one big setup by Billy Blanks
to get us excited about fighting?
 
Lee knows something's up, & he goes right up behind
Ken & punches him in the ass. That's not a cleverly timed
screen capture, friends. Lee actually punches Ken right above
his assbone. While he's there, he manages to punch Tom in the
face again, too. There are only winners in his dojo, & SENSEI WON...
But not if Billy Blanks has anything to say about
it. Taking Lee's attention off of beating up his students, Billy breaks
things up, so that he's the one Lee is pounding on now.
 
EXHIBIT Z: Billy Blanks
will make himself out to be a Christ figure.
Right down to getting whipped by Lee's belt. Billy
sells this fight for a good two minutes before the Doogie Howser music
stars up again & he puts Lee away with a rather simple spin kick.
 
Lee's been almost invicible throughout this whole
movie, & Billy Blanks was able to end him with a spin kick in the
face the entire time. All it took was letting him use & hurt a couple
of kids for money first.
 
And now look. Billy is the hero. Tom makes peace with
Ken,
& he & his posse ask Billy to train them properly. Spinelli
shows up & offers Billy a job on the force's self-defense department.
And Ken gets to give Christine Taylor a big, open-mouth, bloody kiss.
She seems to have no problem with that, though. Even
Mike is impressed by the moment. A passionate kiss involving that much
blood can only be a sign of satanic brainwashing.
Billy Blanks is the Devil. He neglects your pain & talks
of things more powerful than both God and Chuck Norris. He tempts
you with his training for a better body by having you do his
dirty janitorial & investigative
work. Is that the kind of teacher you want? A teacher who makes
you clean up a shitty toilet because he saw it once in another
movie?
There are other alternatives to a life of getting
beat up by your winning-obsessed sensei. Billy Blanks is not
the only answer to your problems. You, too, can have a personal relationship
with The Karate Kid, if only you just talk to it. In your own
words, repent of your sins and ask The Karate Kid to save you, & you,
too, can get to know The Karate Kid personally. |
