I don't want to make it seem that I am hung up on Evan Tanner's death. It is sad, but it isn't dominating my week. I have always thought it was sad, however, that there are so many great people in the world doing interesting things that are flying under the radar. And when they pass, who is there to remark that they were ever here. We know more about Brittney Spears hitting a parked car than we know about Lance Hahn's entire career. What an intolerable imbalance. I think the internet is doing a good job of making that less the case. Of course it seems to make it more divided and compartmentalized as well. But this week has seen an outpouring of reaction to Evan Tanner's unfortunate end.
Here is an excellent highlight, one of many that came out this week, made by Machinemen. It is touching and gives pretty good coverage of most of Evan's career.
Here is a video of a talk someone had with Tanner after training. I don't submit this as evidence of his genius or because I would adopt him as a spiritual leader, but because he comes across, as usual, as a really genuine guy who is struggling with the right things.
Jordan Breen, my email pal, put out a pretty good list of links to all things Evan Tanner related.
Of course I recommend this week's MMA Sunday School with two other dudes from Amarillo.
6 comments:
Add David Foster Wallace to the death knell for the week. The struggle for authenticity seems to have been cause of death, and that ain't very street but seems much like the thing that sometimes makes it hard for me to want to wake up too. Then again, I guess I never claimed to be very "street," though when i was younger I used to be pretty "road."
Props for the rap vid from Houston: anybody who hates faggots that much needs more airtime.
I'd never heard of Tanner before his death, but he seems like an interesting guy, very diy, one of those auto-didacts who is a great argument for the irrelevance of iq tests and college degrees. Then again, most interesting people are are arguments for that. Anyway, thnaks as always for keeping the site full of stuff to keep me interested, provoked, and learning something new.
Well, Bushwik Bill hate faggots the way I hate politicians. He also hopes Paul McCartney dies.
Two things I forgot:
1:If Bushwik Bill calls you a faggot just say, "At least I didn't make my girlfriend shoot me in the face, midget." He usually gets real quiet after that.
2: No reason you should have been aware of Evan Tanner
I wish I felt bad about David Foster Wallace, but I am only marginally aware of his existence. That's how 'walking path' I am.
Evan was maybe the last of the everyman mma champions, self-trained starting with the early Gracie tapes. Not a former accomplished athlete in another field, not an olympic or NCAA wrestler, etc. RIP. :(
MMA needs more Evan Tanners and less Tito Ortizes. Tanner was a real person scratching to get by fiscally and mentally and by that I mean he had the emotion/mental problems that so many us have by just living life and he still rambled on, trying to do interesting new things that meant something to him and were authentic. While Tito Ortiz is a WWF style character(in the sense he is not real) who has this back story that is crammed down our throats and trains at a multi-million camp in LA, flying out to train at Big Bear and has nutrionists, etc and so forth. And it seems that may be the way the wind is blowing with the UFC and the Playboy Manison fights while authentic self taught garage gym guys like Evan Tanner fade away. I hope that does not happen.
Really? I like Tito Ortiz. But then again, I am a minoprity opinion. Who do I not like.....Oh let's just say...Brock Lesnar.
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