Now with Kung Fu Grip

This weekend I was on the phone with a friend when her roommate’s significant other tooled into the room and asked who she was speaking with. To this she replied, “James,” and then in response to Joel’s look a bafflement she elucidated, “You’ve never met him.” Before I even thought about it, I said, “’Cause I’m a goddamn ninja.” She thought it was all sorts of funny, and when I related the story to RF he told me it was comedy gold, and thus I am sharing it with all of you.


I have also decided it is time for me to come out of the closet and admit to you that yes, I am in fact, a goddamn ninja. As the only male issue in my family (on both sides until my punk-ass brother came along) it fell to me to take up this tradition of stealth and bad-assedness that has been in my family for generations. My summers where not the idyllic respite from school that many of you enjoyed, but rather they were spent deep in training; first at the feet of my grandfather and then, as my training progressed, at the side of many masters. I traveled to exotic lands and learned from many masters. From the savage beauty of Ti Kwan Leep to the subtle minstrations of the Spicy Tuna Handroll, all the secrets of my heritage were poured into my soul.

While the other boys were spending time at church camp, my time was spent in meditation upon a stillness so profound as to appear as death upon those who mastered it. While the other kids went to band camp my summers were spent in hidden refuges high in the Himalayas where a word was never spoken. My taskmasters were harsh, pushing me beyond the limits of human endurance again and again, forging me in to the lean, stealthy creature I am today.

“But James,” I can hear all of you say, “how could you be a ninja? I mean, not to be mean or anything, but damn boy, look at you. And while we’re on the subject you’re not the most graceful of water buffalo, either.”

My only response to this is to quote the French poet Baudelaire, “…the Devil’s best trick is to persuade you that he doesn’t exist!”