Favorite Kind of Facekick

Did you ever see Billy Jack? I loved Billy Jack, released in 1971. He was an ass kickin half breed Green Beret turned civil libertarian and he didn't take kindly to anyone picking on the underdog. Specifically, and for good movie makings sake, Native American underdogs. He kicked butt in one of the best lines in a move ever.

"I am going to take this right foot and wop you on that side of your face. And you know something?--There's not a damn thing you can do about it.

"WOP!"

There was a sequel, the Trial of Billy Jack, and a couple other attempts at the resurrection of the character, but nothing really came about. I think Billy Jack might have been able to kick Chuck Norris ass. Seagalls ass for sure. Machio, nor his teacher, wouldn't even shown up. Billy Jacks Hapkito/karate scenes pre-date Bruce Lee's movies by a few years. So Bruce Lee...he gets a facekick too.

But that is not what this piece is about. The movie, Billy Jack represents the plight of the underdog, the lower strata, the non-conformist. For me it is the system and what happens if we don't conform to beurocracies. At the time Billy Jack Came out, 1971, our young people were embracing the civil rights movement and the Vietnam war was in the backdrop of just about everything. Billy Jack arrived at our movie theaters and developed a cult following addressing race, war and generation gap.

Posner was the rich business guy, the authority in town, and employed/deployed the gang of thugs who dressed nice and had Cadillacs and were prejudice of anyone unlike themselves. They were the system, the man, it was best we answered to them. Billy Jack was the equalizer. He saw to it that the little guy wins. Granted, Billy Jack ended up getting kicked and punched in the face for 30 minutes after kicking Posner in the face, but that always happens, in movies and in real life. He ended up killing Bernard (Posners son) in retaliation for the killing a Freedom School goer and raping his girlfriend. The Freedom School was where the misfits, the Native Americans went to school. Billy Jack and his girlfriend ran the school, unconventional and within their understanding of liberty.

I think of Billy Jack when I have to defend/conform and/or comply with the system. In this case it has something to do with the 50 boxes of paperwork splayed out over the ground floor of our building. They have sat there for 4 months and it hasn't been prudent to move them or put them away quite yet. They are there because we have just finished a federal sales tax audit that produced a positive result! A credit coming our way in the amount of $138.45 from the fed. Turns out we were no danger to the system, that we actually were doing the right thing. The ridiculous part is that we had to defend it to the tune of $4500.00, paid to our accounting firm, who deployed specialists (former sales tax auditors of the federal government), to explain that we have actually been doing it right. I am not all that good at math, but I think we are in the hole here a bit.

So the awesome park scene...where Posner got kicked in the face, is much like the formal "audit" meeting at our accountants office (which was cancelled twice by the auditor and rescheduled months later). We were able to prove our position and hence forth the $138.45 credit due from the fed. My face was beaten to a pulp by the resulting bill from the accounting specialists. That is the point of this rant, btw.

Posner showed up with his big badge of under tabled authority. I suppose all I needed was a good whoopin.

This is how it goes for the entrepreneur. There are so many hoops to jump through, so many taxes and now that the capital market is junk and tax revenues are down, they go after us. Lets sprinkle some Billy Jack in the mix. Facekick!

One Tin Soldier Rides Away.

"It's funny, isn't it? Only the white man wants everything put in writing. And only then so he can use it against you in court. You know, among the Indians a promise is good enough."
Billy Jack