Bruce Lee and Me | Hacker News Reader

Bruce Lee and Me

kareem.substack.com

218 pointsyla9277 comments

Enter the Dragon was playing a theater near me recently, and for some reason never having seen a single Bruce Lee film, I figured I'd check it out. It was awesome and I ended up down a rabbit hole of reading about Bruce's life and accomplishments. There are some really great interviews with him on YouTube too.

It's really irritating that the first thing many younger people will think about Bruce Lee is the near-libelous portrayal of him in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

Interesting. I never made that connection. I'm not a younger person, but never had any interest in Bruce Lee movies. I've seen a few, it's just not my cup of tea.

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood was a real stinker of a film, IMO. I'd be highly surprised if young people used it as a benchmark of much. I didn't even remember "he" was in it until this comment.

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is a stinker... that's a take.

Movie wad fantastic. The Bruce Lee scene is fucking hilarious also.

Meh. I got bored and walked out to be honest. We all have our own tastes.

The phenomenon of walking out of a show I paid to watch, even if I'm not enjoying that much is so alien to me. The first thought I might have is "what am I missing", and throughout I'll be trying to either find something good in it or start joking about it in my head. Maybe it'll turn good, maybe it'll be so bad it's good. Maybe the way they tell the story is bad but I still want to know how the story ends. I feel like I have so many reasons to stay there that it hasn't ever ocurred to walk out. Do you walk out of stuff often?

I don't watch enough movies in a theater to measure walk outs there (though I would have walked out of the latest Avatar had I not been there with my son; so boring and long...), but I do stop maybe 1/5 novels without finishing and maybe 1/20 movies without finishing them. There's more interesting stuff I could be doing with my time, and if they are completely not my taste, I'd rather be ding those things.

Not him but I have video games I didn't complete and books I stop reading midway. You already wasted your money, why compound the loss further by wasting your time on things you don’t care for.

Time is worth more than money. It could turn around, but it could also not, and if it doesn't, you're not getting those two hours of your life back. You have a very limited amount of time allotted to you on Earth, choose what you do with it wisely. You'll get more money, you won't get more time.

Walked out once of a movie people convinced me to go to. I found it childish and boring, kept thinking it is a nice sunny weather outside, what am I doing wasting my life in this darkness watching this commercial crap. It felt great being outside. I wish I had used my time similarly wisely in the years that followed :)

You're just a victim of the sunk-cost fallacy.

Come on, Titanic wasn't that bad. :)

Maybe not... but your joke on the other hand... ;)

I completely agree. I posted it in a moment of weakness. Undoubtedly "inspired" by recently watching [0] :)

[0] https://futurama.fandom.com/wiki/A_Flight_to_Remember

I once walked out of a picture, for Ermanno Olmi's Il mestiere delle armi (The Profession of Arms). I was not ready for what I later discovered was a masterpiece about the last days of Giovanni Dalle Bande Nere. If you are interested in the life of the most famous " Capitano di Ventura " of the Renaissance, I recommend the magisterial biography of Giovanni Dalle Bande Nere written by Cesare Marchi.

I watched it at home, so I didn't walk out technically, but I also turned off "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood". The only movies I've physically walked out of have been "The Departed" and "Tree of Life". I don't think it's a big deal to bail on something you're not enjoying, but have given a best effort to get into.

When you start consistently walking out of Oscar nominated or winning films I know immediately your opinion on films is probably not worth much.

I really wouldn't go that far. Oscar nominations are industry nominated movies. There's no real bar of quality aside from what the committee deems worthwhile. The committee famously doesn't care about animated movies, so the generally the only animated films that wins Oscars are Disney films, despite strong international presence.

If I’m falling asleep during a movie or I’ve watched 50% and have no idea what’s happening, I don’t much see the point in staying :)

I've done this once in 30+ years. Little Nicky was a terrible movie, no clue what Adam Sandler was thinking with that one.

The scene was funny but I've never heard anyone who knew him describe him as that sort of pompous douchebag. It's a little defamatory.

Isn't the whole scene like a memory from an unreliable witness, who (gasp) didn't like Bruce Lee? From that point of view it makes perfect sense.

I thought it was hilarious myself, and however "correct" or not did establish his character as completely badass.

Yeah I’m not a fan of Tarantino. My worry is that the most recent cultural work featuring Lee is Hollywood and that’s what younger people will associate him with. We could really use a new biopic or something that involves his ideas.

I don't think people will associate the depiction of a someone in that movie to any actual people, given that the movie is a completely fictitious rewrite of a real event (i.e. Tate murders).

Its art, to each their own. Its also a Tarantino film so its entirely his interpretation and lens of film into what he wanted to produce. I've watched a few interviews with him about that film and others and he is very meticulous about the content down to certain words in lines, no ad-libbing type of meticulous. I like some of his work and some of it I don't.

I certainly hope young people understand not to think of portrayals of real people in works of art+semi-fiction aren't a good representation to bench anything on.

> I certainly hope young people understand not to think of portrayals of real people in works of art+semi-fiction aren't a good representation to bench anything on.

Tarantino's style is so distinctive, and basically never grounded in reality.

Regardless of whether the film is to one's tastes or not, it would be a pretty grave error to encounter a character in a Tarantino film and mistake the performance as an accurate representation of any real world person.

Bruce Lee has been worshipped non stop for 50 years. His legacy can take one dream sequence.

> ...near-libelous portrayal of him

Is it libelous or true? Are you assuming?

You have to realize this is a person who was mythologized. A person who millions believe is the best fighter ever despite never having been put to the test. A great person who accomplished a lot, but reality never quite matches up with perception of the masses.

From what I’ve read online, Lee never claimed he could beat Muhammad Ali, as he does in the film. In fact he said the opposite.

https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/bruce-lee-thought-muhammad-ali-...

That seems pretty misleading to me.

Near-libelous is fitting. I'm a Bruce fanatic since childhood and there are a lot of personal accounts of Bruce and they never painted him as the guy in Tarantino's movie. I love Tarantino but that was bad. Tarantino likes to play with his characters but in this case Bruce was a real person and a hero to a generation(s). That was unfair to do that to a real person for some comedy.

> Bruce fanatic since childhood

You've been fed a steady diet of martyr god.

>There are some really great interviews with him on YouTube too.

I can search, but can you recommend any?

I enjoyed this one: https://youtu.be/uk1lzkH-e4U

Thanks

Don't think you can libel the dead.

tarantino hates asian men and has an asian female fetish. look through the history of his movies. he's the typical 80s/90s hollywood producer type that relentlessly trashed on asians in every fucking way/every chance possible.

>> For me, my hook shot was the one kick practiced 10,000 times

I honestly think Kareem is being a bit modest here. His one weird shot completely changed basketball for a couple of decades.

I went to school with one of Kareem's kids who's now a neurosurgeon (although, looking back, I have no clue how any of us even graduated high school). The father, Kareem, is an honest to God treasure of a human being who has just always had this need to go farther out to discover new facets of what makes existence worthwhile. I didn't even know about his connection with Bruce Lee, but it makes a ton of sense now.

Kareem is always modest, a lovely human. His article of LeBron taking over his scoring record is a great showcase of this: https://kareem.substack.com/p/what-i-think-about-lebron-brea...

He was sort of a dick when he was younger. Very standoffish with teammates, fans, and the media. Definitely mellowed out with age.

So was I. The reason was I was incredibly shy and it was less humiliating to appear aloof than admit I was afraid to talk to people.

Kareem's hook shot was absolutely insane. Highly recommend this video on the 1971 Bucks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtocsxx_i0A.

His hook shot was so perfect and so unstoppable, that it almost "killed" basketball, in the sense that the Bucks were so dominant and the way they played was "boring".

I recommend watching the vid to get what I mean by boring.

>> Motivational speakers are fond of saying it doesn’t matter how many times you get knocked down, it’s how many times you get up. But sometimes, it does matter how many times you get knocked down.

He kind of breezed past this but damn, it really strikes a chord with me. As someone in their early thirties I'm only just beginning to appreciate the toll life takes, even as I grow more resilient.

On an unrelated note, there is a book "Bruce Lee Artist of Life" that is a compilation of Lee's notes on philosophy, martial arts, and more. Some of the notes are what he copied verbatim from his college texts but there are also some brilliant reflections on his experiences. I turn to it from time to time for inspiration and insight.

Slightly off topic, but I recently started Kickboxing, and I finally have the impression that I start to understand the connection between martial arts/combat sports and spirituality as it is emphasized in e.g. Bruce Lee's movies. There is a strange wisdom operating in channeling rage to make a technique more effective while respecting (or even caring for) your opponent/partner. I tried Aikido in the past, in search for this kind of wisdom, even selecting a club of a mostly "spiritual" tradition, and did not find it in the few trainings I did - but started seeing it after one session of heavy bag training. There is something about training for actual fight (which I now aim for, at my own surprise) that shifts one view of oneself and others in surprisingly useful ways. I can only recommend trying this kind of sports, if one is interested but puzzled at the strange dialogues in Kung Fu movies.

When I started training Muay Thai a little over a year ago the first thing that struck me was how kind everyone was in the gym. There's something about training that hard that really starts to remove the ego. I've had a long standing, daily seated meditation practice, and it wasn't until I started training my body hard (first ashtanga style yoga, now muay thai) that the meditation practice really started to deepen.

That's funny, I have exactly the opposite effect with meditation: in the last two years I have been following teachings with which I resonated a lot and helped my meditation deepen a lot, and I attribute my newfound sports skills to this deepening. I was able to run 20km 2 weeks after taking up jogging again after a few years break, which is a distance I never managed in the past. I can see how my meditative work helps me switch the perception of effort and push further than I ever thought possible. The work with pain, effort and strong emotions in boxing also has a lot of parallels with my seated meditation practice. There is definitely something to the stereotype of the martial artist meditating in a cave

For sure, they definitely feed into each other. The yoga practice got me to put that meditation practice into my body in a different way, as did the Muay Thai. Plus the physical practice opened and strengthened my body so I could sit comfortably in lotus for long periods of time. Before that my hips were tight and the first few years of daily seated practice were uncomfortable. I rarely if ever exercised previously.

Anyway, getting the meditation practice off of the cushion was what the physical practices taught me. It's like the story of the arrow making dakini [1], you've got to have the practice in all actions you take.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saraha#The_Arrow_Making_Dakini

Seldom does one find an athlete so eloquent and so willing to share his deeper reflections on life as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. It's sometimes forgotten that he was himself, looking purely at statistics, the GOAT for some time.

Abdul-Jabbar's quiet, thoughtful demeanor and philosophical bent to his conversational style, to say nothing of his imposing height, strongly reminds me of an airline pilot I once met. Really, the resemblance was uncanny.

Can confirm. Was on one of those flights as a boy. Surprisingly there was a video from the flight deck that day. https://youtu.be/iSi6iF9kVBs

Kareem’s writing is fantastic prose. Thanks for posting this. I’m going to read more of his stuff.

I wish I could write like that. It is so effortless to read his work. To me, that is the mark of a great writer.

Just FYI, among other things, he co-wrote a number of novels about Mycroft Holmes (Sherlock's brother), which he discusses in this interview[0] and was part of the writers room for the tv show, Veronica Mars -- he describes the experience here[1].

[0] https://electricliterature.com/how-kareem-abdul-jabbar-is-re...

[1] https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/kareem-abdul-ja...

Interesting. Did he have anything to do with "Glass Onion" other than a Zoom cameo playing among us alongside Angela Lansbury & Stephen Sondheim?

edit: imdb says no, I guess that's authoritative?

Now that movie is bad.

Thanks, this is incredible! As a Doyle fan, I didn't know this and am looking forward to reading Kareem's novels.

For those getting "video unavailable" for the Kareem/Bruce scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJVT4NDinqw

For fans of action films, I recommend this series on YouTube called “Stuntmen React” where they bring on stunt professionals to react to and break down famous action scenes. It’s an entertaining watch, and I enjoy hearing the industry perspective.

Here’s the episode on the Lee vs Norris fight scene from The Way of the Dragon: https://youtu.be/GxnWH7zNZpY?t=267.

I've always held this conjecture that Jeet Kune do (JK do, so to speak) was actually a nod to JK, Jiddu Krishnamurthi, whose writings deeply influenced Bruce Lee while being bedridden in hospital for many months.

He was the David Goggins of that generation. What an amazing human being.

> Jiddu Krishnamurthi, whose writings deeply influenced Bruce Lee

JK's "Total Freedom" is a book I've kept, in various formats, for over two decades. One of those rare works where you can dip in randomly and be confronted with the need to consider. Also loved "The Tao of Jeet Kune Do". Never knew about a connection between Bruce and Jiddu's philosophies. Thanks.

Had no idea that he was influenced by JK.

JK's writings deeply influenced me - you have to spend a lot of time in your head to digest it though.

How is he like Goggins? I can’t think of two human beings farther apart.

Both faced racism and turned to physical training as a way of overcoming it. Both had a belief and practice around "mind over matter". Both consider themselves philosophers to an extent.

As a UCLA alum, I always appreciate seeing Kareem's blog posts on here. I think their friendship was fascinating, and I wish I could have seen Bruce Lee grow old.

Kareem's article does not say much about Bruce Lee the man, the martial artist, the actor, the philosopher, apart from the usual mundane observations. Frankly, it is a rather disappointing article.

Much more about Bruce Lee and the California martial arts scene of those years can be learned by reading the brilliant short book (which I have gifted several times to friends and family), "Zen in the Martial Arts," written by journalist Joe Hyams, himself a student of Bruce Lee and a practitioner of a number of martial arts in the 1960s and 1970s.

Not being super knowledgeable about Bruce Lee, I was completely blown away by the movie Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story [1]. I'm sure it's pretty fictionalized, but from what I've read later it's not too far from the truth. Obviously it focuses on his positive aspects and glosses over his negatives, but damn it's a great movie. As far as I can tell it's sadly not on any streaming platform, but I highly recommend it if you can get it.

[1]: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0106770/

When Bruce Lee died when I was 10 I remember a school buddy who also had the surname Lee being quite moved. I'm not much of martial arts film fan (but did learn a bit of judo and Taekwondo when I was young). Anyway I caught this documentary program on the Aussie ABC a few weeks ago and he certainly seemed to be guy that would have been nice to see carry on. https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/a_life_in_ten_pictures/s02...

"Think lightly of yourself, but deeply of the world."

This made me cry. I'm a nonprofit worker who feels the need to save the world, to right all its wrongs, and yet I'm acutely aware of my shortcomings and inability to have a measurable impact.

I feel as if I've been more and more crushed by my own ineptitude and growing jadedness over the years.

Read into it what you will, but this legitimately made me cry, and I'm not entirely sure why myself.

Another formula I heard that fits your situation is "be hopeless, but not helpless". The idea ia that if you go into activism with the aim to move things and change the world, you will likely burn out fast. Because, as you mention, having a measurable impact is near impossible. So the idea is to give up the hope of making an impact, but try nonetheless. Focus on the fact of doing what feels like the right thing to do, but do not get attached to results too much. Obviously easy to say, but hard to practice.

Your emotional reaction to the saying makes me think that you know what you think is right, but maybe have difficulty not putting a lot of weight on your shoulders. This is rare and precious, so many of us find excuses for not making a lot of effort.

Bruce Lee was a great martial artist who probably paved the way for MMA and a very charismatic man. But people tend to forget that he died at 32 because of his life style. The cause of death, a combination of: he had his armpits sweat glands removed, over-exertion, excessive water intake, overuse of several meds mixed with alcohol. For me that makes him an invalid role model or teacher and leaves him as an extreme entertainer.

Bruce Lee was good at what he did and entertained millions. I had many happy moments watching Bruce Lee movies. I don't need to live like Bruce Lee or follow on his footsteps - it's enough that he impacted my life in a positive way by bringing me happiness.

What you say is a bit related to cancel culture in the sense that we expect every person to be good at everything and, if they are not, we should condemn them. Nobody is perfect. To be honest, I don't mind his bad decisions given that he made the great decision of making movies and sharing with the world what he's good at.

I'm not condemning him at all. Not even judging his choices for himself. I'm only questioning him as a role model and teacher. I though I made that clear in my comment.

I mentioned this because I see young people sacrificing their health for performance in bodybuilding, MMA, etc. They are not being presented the full picture of that kind of life style, the costs it involves. Making a informed decision means having all the data.

Pray tell, who is your perfect human being role model? Seems to me you have unrealistic standards.

I believe there are some people around, who did get older than 32 because of their life choices.

Christ?

Well, probaboy not, depending how you count and what you believe. But yes, there are other metrics for role models, except long life.

I mean have you considered you don't get to be Bruce Lee without being a bit er crazy?

Whilst understandable the misunderstanding of bruce lee, people forgot he wrote books and think hard on the philosophy. Hence he will move onto philosophy and not just fighting.

Also he missed that he is not in his prime. He is better than all of us at that age. But he suffered a lot of problem including 1 whole year no practice or training …

Bruce Lee is my childhood.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com