WHEN THE ORIGINAL COUNT DANTE DIED, they just chucked him in a hole. His real name was John Keehan. He was a hairdresser to Playboy bunnies and a martial arts pioneer who valued cross training in different styles long before mixed martial arts was even attempted as a bloody form of American entertainment. He placed ads in comic books where he claimed to have defeated the world's grandmasters of martial arts in actual DEATH MATCHES. He posed with a vicious eagle claw death grip. His training manual, The World's Deadliest Fighting Secrets, was sold through those ads and came with a nifty Black Dragon Fighting Society membership card. The book itself lived up to its title and contained page after page of maiming claw holds and eye gouges.
Some time in the late 60s, Keehan started going by the name of Count Juan Rafael Dante. He was an Irish guy from a ritzy neighborhood in Chicago but claimed to be the direct descendant of European nobility displaced by the Spanish Civil War. He called himself "The Deadliest Man Alive" when he was in a modest mood and "The Crown Prince of Death" when he felt the need for extravagance. In 1970, he stormed the rival Green Dragon dojo with some hapless students and his best friend and judo man Jim Concevic. Concevic was a tough guy but it didn't help him. He was stabbed to death with a sword during the melee.
Dante was ostracized from the growing world of martial arts after that. He ended up falling in with a crew out in Fall River, Massachusetts. One of them was Luigi DiFonzo, a crooked securities broker who did business in Chicago. Dante somehow became involved in the Purolator Vault heist in 1974 which netted over $4 million. Dante died the next year under somewhat mysterious circumstances. His death certificate lists the cause of death as a "peptic ulcer." His crooked lawyer turned mob informant Bob Cooley says that he was poisoned by wise guys in his tell-all book When Corruption Was King (Carroll & Graf, 2006).
Today John Timothy Keehan AKA Count Juan Rafael Dante AKA The Deadliest Man Alive lies in an unmarked grave in Chicago. I went to visit it as part of my trip to the Windy City last weekend. It felt weird standing on his grave for a second there. If he was ever going to rise up and snatch somebody all EC Comics style, it was gonna' be me. I was only there for a few minutes. I left an offering in the spot where his gravestone should be and then took off just as the grounds keepers were locking the gate for the night. I'd really like to buy Dante a grave marker some day. It's the least I can do for the guy.
Most of what we know about the original Count comes from the research of Chicago filmmaker Floyd Webb. Floyd met the Count back in the 60s and started making a documentary tentatively titled The Search for Count Dante about him over three years ago. He really wanted to be done with the thing by now but has been dealing with legal dispute with the descendants of some of Dante's Fall River crew. Until the case is settled, Floyd can't finish his film. "A day without Dante is a day without weird," Floyd once told me.
Floyd took me to Dante's grave and the site of the 1970 Dojo War. He also introduced me at Quimby's on North Avenue in Wicker Park on Friday Sept. 5th. Floyd talked about the "Count Dante Phenomenon" and I read from Beer, Blood and Cornmeal. I decided to wear my Dante drag for the show. A decent crowd showed up. They bought some books afterwards. That's always a good thing – especially when you're in a town that you've never been to before. Hell, I've had trouble drawing people in Redwood City and I'm FROM Redwood City!
Dan Kelly, who wrote an in depth piece on the original Count and a follow up piece on me for the Chicago Reader was there. We all went to eat at this Costa Rican place afterwards. Dan Kelly called Floyd and me the "Dante Boys." Now that he's written the piece on me, and his quest for the Count has gone full circle, he's done with Dante. Floyd and I, however, can't get away.
The Boys of Dante (left to right): Filmmaker Floyd Webb, Bob Calhoun AKA the second coming of Count Dante and Chicago journalist Dan Kelly all display their deadliest fighting moves after some fine dining.
Currently
listening
:
Electric Mud
By
Muddy Waters
Release date: 1996-11-19
It's now an American tradition for really crazed evangelicals to protest all major heavy metal concerts in this country. While those who seek to protest the GOP convention (or the Democratic one for that matter) are supposed to sequester themselves in fenced off protest zones or face arrest, the anti-metal Christians are usually given a prominent place in the arena parking lot so they have direct access to sloshed stoners. The metalheads taunt the Christians. The Christians threaten the metalheads with a fiery damnation. This is the Jeffersonian market place of ideas in action folks. This is freedom.
Sunday's Metal Masters show at Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View with Priest, Dio Sabbath (I hate calling them Heaven and Hell – I don't care what kind of deal they cooked up with Sharon Osbourne), Motorhead and Testament was no different. There was a really noisy evangelical with a bullhorn right in front of the venue. He kept yelling, "Christ is coming back and you all should be scared!" He didn't really make a strong case for coming over to his side on things beyond the whole fear and damnation thing though. In fact, he made his whole religion look like a real bummer. His assistant was holding up a placard proclaiming that heavy metal concerts would lead you to (in no particular order) devil worship, sex, drug addiction, drunkenness and homosexuality. I have to say that they were pretty much right about that. They really called that one. (They also handed out "Get Out of Hell Free" cards. Whew, that was a close one.)
Any daytime metal show is going to make one contemplate the joys of premarital or extramarital sex. That's a given. Drunkenness? Well I didn't need to see Metal Masters for that. I drank gallons of bourbon at the Dionysian (no relation to Ronnie James Dio) revelry that was San Jose Goth night the night before. But I will say that after seeing Dio belt out "Heaven and Hell" with Black Sabbath on Sunday under bright red stage lights, that I'm now worshipping the devil. And after Halford hit those high screeches during a balls out version of Pain Killer during Priest's epic, headlining set, I'm now looking long and hard at homosexuality (pun intended). As for unrestricted drug use: just look at Lemmy. It seems to have done all right by him.
While Christians may decry metal's impact on our collective sex drive, I do have to add that John McCain's VP pick's libidinous family has all America horny as hell. I really feel sorry for the poor sop who knocked up Bristol Palin. Now he's going to be forced to marry her as a matter of national security. Thugs from Blackwater are gonna march him down the aisle! How lovely.
Also, in other news, I heard the new Metallica song on The Bone the other day. I really think that they prepared for this latest recording by riding pink girl bikes across the country.
And in still other news, Beer, Blood and Cornmeal has gotten really good write-ups in The Oregonian and WIRED.com! The book seems to be experiencing a bit of a much welcomed uptick in press interest lately. Check out the links.
I wish I had arms like these. No really. This Sean Phillips guy drew me into the newest issue of the Marvel/Icon comic Criminal and he drew me with really big guns there choking a dude out in a diner. Check it out:
Yeah, it's the comic book version of me so of course it doesn't have the big man boobs and short little arms that I'm currently accursed with. If only I could be bitten by some kind of radioactive spider that would make me do 'roids and pump iron so I can look more like this guy. It just goes to show you that if you're gonna draw somebody, and have them like it, draw them about ten or twenty pounds lighter than they really are and a bit more muscular and they'll rave about what a bang up job you did. I'm raving now: Sean Phillips – you made me look great. I'm going to go into the garage right now and pound on the heavy bag for 30 solid minutes just to live up to this image of me. I have to. Comic nerds from here to Christmas will be challenging me to cage matches like I'm "Judo" Gene LeBell or something. I won't be able to show my face in WonderCon any more. I am a marked man–the lone gunfighter biding his time until the bitter end.
I know Ed Brubaker, the guy who writes Criminal. He's won a fistful of Eisners (the comic book equivalent of an Emmy or Pulitzer) and he killed Captain America. I'm not sure how I feel about the killing Cap part even though the comic books themselves were really good. He married my friend Melanie whom I've known since high school. Brubaker put me and my friends Lucky BelMateo and Agent J in Criminal 4 flipping burgers and taking names. Sean Phillips drew me those big arms. Damn, where are those dumbbells now that I need them? I'll just have to rely on good o' Charles Atlas dynamic tension.
But that greasy spoon isn't the only place that I show up in the upcoming issue. Ed's been running features on films noir and hardboiled fiction in the back of Criminal's individual magazines (but not the graphic novel collections) for some time now. Criminal 4 sports my essay on Night and the City, the only pro wrestling noir. And why aren't there more pro wrestling noirs? Wrestling is a form of theater meant to deceive and cause mass hysteria. It's treacherous backrooms are the perfect setting for any noir and I should know. There are carnie noirs (Gun Crazy, Nightmare Alley) and boxing noirs (The Setup, The Harder They Fall) but Jules Dassin's Night and the City is really the only wrestling noir. Ed gave me the chance to examine the movie from the proper pro rasslin perspective and I even throw in a little bit of insight into mixed martial arts while I'm at it. Here's the wonderful black and white illustration that Phillips did of Richard Widmark and Gene Tierney for the piece…
Thanks Ed and Sean for putting me in a comic book. It's a lifelong dream. You know, the second they canceled Deadly Hands of Kung-Fu I figured that my chances of writing at Marvel were toast. It's nice to know that something I've penned is being printed by them. Like I said, a lifelong dream.
Criminal 4 featuring my essay examining Night and the City plus me choking out some dude in a diner hits the comic book stores next week. Be there. Nuff Said.
It was a long walk to the back room at the Citrus Bowl in Orlando for Ric Flair last night. Yes, his loss to "The Heartbreak Kid" Shawn Michaels was not only a forgone conclusion but pre-determined by weeks of booking. His retirement after this match was well known. The drama during the bout should have been scant or even non-existent. The big question was if Flair had one good match left in him. With the weeks of bad Flair matches on RAW, full of run-ins and screw-jobs, the answer should have been a resounding "no." But last night at WrestleMania XXIV, The Nature Boy showed us that he still had a few cards up his feathery sleeve.
It was pre-ordained but still up for grabs. Last night’s "career threatening" match between Flair and Michaels did what all truly great pro wrestling does, it made you almost believe despite everything screaming in your head that you shouldn’t. There were so many near-falls where I thought that Flair could take the thing. There was that moment that Shawn slapped the figure-4 on Ric where I thought that Vince McMahon and Michaels would have the bad taste to beat Flair with his own finisher to build up some ultimately forgettable angle on tonight’s episode of RAW. But that wasn’t to be. McMahon didn’t emerge from ringside to scream "Ring the bell! Ring the bell!" as he did in Montreal in 1997. The match continued.
As it neared its well-planned conclusion an enormity of the moment bigger than any pyro display or mammoth stadium took over. I’ve seen Flair fake all range of emotions before but the tears that he was choking back during his career’s last seconds were real. The sadness was infectious. The 70+ thousand in the arena grew silent. Shawn, another master of emotional manipulation was caught up in it too. It was fake but it was real. This match crossed the line from mapped out drama into a reality – its own reality but a reality none the less. The "I love you," that Shawn said before delivering that final super-kick and putting Flair’s career down on the canvas for good may have been scripted but it didn’t matter. He, as well as everybody watching this match, meant every word of it. Shawn got the three-count and "Sexy Boy" thundered through the arena’s PA. You wished it didn’t. It ruined the moment. Shawn, never one known for tact or good judgement, seemed to know this and left quickly after hugging Flair on the mat. Then the music stopped. Flair, the wounded old warrior, picked himself up off the ground and savored the moment and began his slow march through the aisle to the next phase of his life.
A short time after Muhammad Ali beat George Foreman in Zaire in 1974, the first of the summer monsoons blew in and drenched the capital city of Kinshasa. After the close of Flair’s career, it would have been fitting if a tropical storm hit the Citrus Bowl and forced WrestleMania to an early conclusion but it wasn’t to be. The BunnyMania lumberjack match with Snoop Dogg presiding went on as planned but there was a power failure at the stadium. The lights went dark with so many "WWE Divas" in the ring. It was if the Gods of Grappling were trying to tell the WWE that nothing could follow Flair and Shawn – and nothing could. Flair and Michaels sucked the air out of the building. Titles traded hands. Big Show fought Floyd Mayweather, but none of it seemed to matter.
There are those that say that the 20th Century ended with the fall of the Berlin Wall or even the death of Frank Sinatra. Ric Flair has wrestled for most of my life – not my adult life but most of my life. He started in 1972. I was born in 1969. While Hulk Hogan has been able to descend into reality TV and tabloid divorce hell without a backwards glance, it’s hard to picture a world where Ric Flair is no longer wrestling. You almost wonder if the sport can survive the loss.
On a rare personal note: Every year, Holzfeuer from ArnoCorps hosts a WrestleMania party. Last year, my wife Dana was with me. She stood by me through a wide array of Incredibly Strange Wrestling insanity detailed in Beer, Blood and Cornmeal. However, only a couple of weeks after 2007’s WrestleMania we separated, filing for divorce a few months later. This week I got the papers making that divorce final. Driving to Holzfeuer’s house alone felt a little strange this year.
Some things have a way of ending at WrestleMania. Now, the 21st Century can truly begin.
A video highlight reel of Thor’s epic team-up with Count Dante and the Black Dragon Fighting Society is now on Youtube! This video (excellently edited by a man known only as Mister Wa) was shot at the Slim’s show on March 8th. There’s a lot of footage of the General here rockin’ with the Canadian God of Thunder. Also lots of hot chicks shaking it and masks! Check it out...
Count Dante’s ISW Memoirs!
Current mood: accomplished
Category: Writing and Poetry
Count Dante retired from the brutal arena of Incredibly Strange Wrestling to pen his memoirs and those memoirs are coming out this April from ECW Press! Here's some more info...
BEER, BLOOD & CORNMEAL! Count Dante's Incredibly Strange Wrestling Memoirs Coming from ECW Press in April 2008!
Incredibly Strange Wrestling more than lived up to its name. This sleazy spectacle combined highflying masked Mexican mayhem with the raucous rock and roll of The Dickies, The Donnas and NOFX.
Bob Calhoun (AKA Count Dante) was an untrained grappler and mad master of ceremonies with this subversive carnival. Now in "Beer, Blood & Cornmeal," he tells his tale of urban misfits body slamming themselves for cult celebrity in one of America's most famous cities.
I am so glad this book got written. Take a beloved symptom of American trash culture, add punk DIY and attitude, invite the zoo and it's the best party around. Like music and sex, wrestling is so much more fun when it's local, no-budget, and sleazy. How? Here's how. Read it, dig it, learn the ropes and go out and infect your town.
--Jello Biafra, Singer, Spoken word flamethrower, and former wrestling manager.
In this unforgettable insider's account of the bygone era when punk rock and wrestling ruled San Francisco, Bob Calhoun (aka Count Dante) proves that he's still the fastest mouth in the business. You may run, but you won't be able to hide from this gleefully warped tale. I couldn't put it down.
Dante Endorses Dodd for President.
Current mood: hopeful
Category: News and Politics
After such heavyweights as Chuck Norris and Ric Flair put their muscle behind Mike Huckabee for President, Dante decided it was high time to weigh in on the 2008 Presidential race. After careful considerration The Count is backing Chris Doddfor the oval office, mostly due to the Connecticut Senator's powerful hair.
I just realized that I was seeing The Mentors on the same night as my 20-year HS reunion!
Current mood: chipper
Category: Music
The Mentors show was at Annie's Social Club in San Francisco. The all-girl Mentors tribute band The Womentors opened. The Womentors were so sloppy that they made the El Duce-less Mentors look like 1978 Van Halen. Saying that the Womentors made the Mentors look like the Beatles would be too too much, but early VH -- yeah. Whomever is playing guitar under that hood for today's Mentors really shreds so it all makes sense. Back to the Womentors: They had Boom from this 90s hardcore band called "The Idiots" dressed like Dog The Bounty Hunter for some reason. They violated him in weird ways. There was one gal on stage who's sole purpose seemed to be to suck on a dildo for 45 solid minutes. They also made the audience say "CUNT" over and over again. Hey, scratch the earlier statement about them being sloppy, they were pretty amazing when I really stop and think about it. Much respect.
During the Mentors' set, there were lots of chick fights. Women splashed beer on each other and started pulling out clumps of each other's hair. Drunks kept getting tossed. It was chaos. The Mentors did a song called "Big Donkey Dick." Neither the Mentors or their female tribute opener went more than 10 seconds without saying some kind of vile oath involving sodomy or some kind of godlessness or sodomy AND godlessness.
Last night I was drinking tequila and beer with Ch'i Power, Zane, The Zen Machine and some Swearing Festival mogul and one of them found the flier for my HS reunion and it all came to me that I was seeing the Mentors while all of this was going on! Rad!!! If I ever had to see what passes for the Mentors these days, I picked the right time to do it. I probably did the same sort of thing during prom and grad night come to think of it.
Currently
listening
:
You Axed for It
By
The Mentors
Release date: 24 November, 1997
New Count Dante Song on Myspace
Current mood: accomplished
Yes, the Count, Ch'i Power and the General went into the World Chi Recording Studio (425 2nd St., Ste. 101, SF, CA) and recorded a couple of new songs. For a limited time only, the Mythical epic "Hephaestus" is available for download on this here Myspace page. Yes, Hephaestus, the most underrated of all Olympians now celebrated with searing 80s influenced metal and ripping solo by the General! Listen to it today!
Special thanks to Dave and Manuel for recording and engineering the screams of the harpies.
Here's the official rundown of the Dennis Erectus Benefit, complete with video of Stone Vengeance tearing it up and the Count playing it with gravy on "Hofbrau Lady." (Thanks to Bret of Tiger Shark Video!) Click the link below... www.count-dante.com/Erectus_Benefit_Rundown.htm
confident
contemplative
animated
accomplished
hopeful
