LEGENDS!

Glorious fun facts looking back on my life in Bakersfield! Now, once a week! (Or whenever I feel like writing it.)

As many of you may or may not know I have lived in Bakersfield for three years now (my Bakersfield anniversary was Jan. 2nd) and like many journalists / crazy people, I have amassed lots of random, ridiculous things that have happened to me in my life. Some of them which will go down as things of "LEGEND." These are the inside jokes that random people will tell for years about crap that was not funny at the time, but now, in retrospect, is funny, sort of as I am the sort of person who is known for being incredibly smart, but still prone to doing incredibly dumb things or even, marrying incredibly dumb people (we're divorced now.)

So here is the first edition of a "Legend" in the life of one neurotic journalist, Danielle Belton.

Sgt. Kabukiman

Once upon a time (about four years ago) I was married. No one wanted me to get married. Not even God. Literally. Jesus totally took a break from heaven, sat me down, looked me in the eye and was like, "Dude, what are you doing? This guy is going to totally, like, ruin your life and stuff."

In my head, Jesus talks like he's from the valley which is remarkable since he's this Jewish guy from the Middle East, but I digress ...

And I was all ... "Jesus! I totally love him. Plus, this will really piss off my parents."

"Um," said Jesus, "Like fourth commandment, dude? Fourth commandment."

"What? Is that the one about stealing and stuff? I don't get it."

And so Jesus squinted at me and got all serious and was like ...

"Hmm," Jesus said. "I still don't think this is a good idea. I mean, I seriously think the guy's nuts. His devotion to Japanese action figures is borderlining on idolatry and you know how I feel about that. Golden calf, man. Golden calf. That's all I'm saying."

"Nope, I love him," I said. "Besides, he said that you said that we should be together."

"Um, but we've never really got to talk ..."

"Nope!" I interrupted. "He said that you said that we BELONG together. He told me. He said, and I quote, 'God thinks you and me should get married,' end quote."

"I don't think he was talking too ..."

"Nope, I love him," I repeated.

"Well," Jesus said. "I'm getting you a job in Midland, TX. So HA! Try marrying him from there!"

But Jesus, much like my parents, failed at stopping this horrific trainwreck, (Free will, man!) so they sort of hung out waiting for me to be sensible and get a divorce.

But I tried to slug it out. Honestly I did. My husband, great guy, wouldn't get a job. Spent most of his days watching playing Playstation while naked and eating French friends talking about Japanese stuff. My ex-husband had a total, full on, Asian fetish. He was a Karate thug. He loved anime. He had this unnatural obsession with the X-Men comic where Wolverine fights the ninjas and "Dragonball Z." Which may quite possibly be the worst piece of garbage Japan has ever produced. Karaoke? Great. "Sukiyaki?" Wonderful song. Taste of Honey does a killer cover of it. Sushi? Fabulous. Obscure art house films? Gotta love 'em. Tiny cell phones? Genius.

Dragonball?

Please. Shoot. Me. Now.

Aside from that I had to deal with his insistence on me calling him "Honoo Sama" (pardon the spelling if spelling is wrong) which essentially means, Mr. Blaze, the incredibly stupid English nickname he gave himself in Japanese. I did not call him that. I'm not really a nickname person.

Sometimes he thought he was Japanese. I don't know how actual Japanese people felt about that one. (I'm sure they'd argue different since he was a dreadlocked, African American male.) Plus, he didn't care for "Americanized" Asians. You know? Or even actual Asian people for that matter. He wanted the Asian people you saw in old Jet Li movies. The kind where no matter how many times Jet Li saves the girl he can't still can't, like, get any. This used to drive me crazy. I mean, I understand that sex is often taboo in Hong Kong cinema. But C'MON! Cary Grant got to kiss people and the sex was "alluded to." There was an air of sexuality. But in Kung-Fu flicks only the bad guys ever seemed to be getting some action.

Even in the Jet Li movie I liked, the Bruce Lee remake "Fist of Legend" where he totally has a girlfriend and they never touch each other or appear to have any chemistry. You'd think they were cousins if it weren't for the fact that she's supposed to be Japanese.

But I digress. We were talking about the ex-husband. Not my annoyance at all that romance and no smooching. Or even hand holding. Or even a longing stare of devotion.

Anyway, we'd be in Blockbuster where that one really annoying kid would always say I looked like Macy Gray and I'd want to punch him and I'd want to rent the art house films that were being banned in Hong Kong because, gosh darn it! Those people had sex and had problems like, gasp! REAL PEOPLE! And he'd want to rent "Ninja Scroll" for the umpteenth time. Heaven forbid the Asian people act like people. Give me some stilted talking automatons that try to kill each other for two hours.

Then he'd want to have a little Playstation, preferably "Street Fighter 3" which he was also obsessed with and have enlightening conversations like, "Who would win in a fight? Goku or Superman?"

The whole time I'm thinking, "I went to college. COLLEGE!"

A lot of other horrible stuff happened (we don't have all day), but the love of the fortune cookie spouting wisdom of Asian stereotypes, the fetishization of Asian people as a whole, the insistence on eating everything with chopsticks, carrying around the Japanese to English dictionary and the whole Honoo Sama bit was bizarre to me. So bizarre that long after he'd threatened to stalk me after I divorced him and moved about ... hmmm, 2,000 miles away I was telling this story to my then co-worker, now good friend Tim Bragg and he commented that we should dub my ex, "Sgt. Kabukiman" after the Troma film.

For those who don't know Sgt. Kabukiman is a film about a police officer who through some fake Asian magic mumbo jumbo gets the samurai power of the Kabuki mask, turning him into Sgt. Kabukiman, some sort of fake Asian hero.

Yeah. Naturally it seemed fitting.

Afterwards Jesus and I had a discussion about Sgt. Kabukiman over coffee.

"Well, you can't say I didn't warn you," Jesus said. "But I'm not going to beat you over the head about this. I mean, it's all good. I totally forgive you and stuff."

"Thanks, JC," I said offering him some cinnamon biscotti. "That means a lot. Can you like forgive him too, because, you know how I'm trying to forgive him and stuff. You know? To keep from tracking him down and killing him?"

"Yeah," said Jesus as he sipped his ambrosia latte. "That would be bad. I don't really like the idea of you killing people. Besides, he's bigger than you and I wouldn't want you to, like, get hurt and stuff. I'm really more of a lover than a fighter."

"Yeah, I know."

"I mean, c'mon. What good would it do?" Jesus said. "You gave him a mean nickname. You get to write about it. Folks get a good chuckle. I mean, that's enough already. Let it go. He'll have to deal with his stuff later, you know? I mean, I'll take care of it."

"Yeah, you're right. So I'm curious what's going to happen next to me after I move to Bakersfield?" I asked as I sat in my sparse apartment with my cat Shaggy.

"Well," Jesus said. "You're going to date some guys that you'll never want to see again, one that you'll wish you could see again but won't. And then you're going to declare that you're going on strike against all men and not date for a really, really, really long time."

"Man," I said. "That sounds kind of tedious. Can't you fix that?"

And Jesus sort of shrugged and was all like, "Dude. What do you want from me? I got like this thing in Iraq that's riding my ass."

So I gave Jesus some dap. And it was good.