Comments on I Just Got Punched in the Mouth... And I'm Kind of Happy About It

Brendan, I think I speak for everyone when I say I can't WAIT to beat the shit out of you.

with love, obvz.

Brendan,

I'm glad you got off light - I took a punch like that once on BART in SF and was none the worse for wear, but don't get cocky - if you fall to the ground and the perps mean business, you CAN literally get your head kicked in. Or, if they're just casual, they still can kill (or permanently cripple and/or maim) you if they land a good blow and you fall and land wrong.

Count your blessings - it wasn't your fault, and you got off without any serious injuries.

PS - doesn't it suck when you replay it in your mind and you try and figure out what you should have done to avoid (or - if you're more aggro - prevail) in the situation?

Be well.

Hey Brendan. This might come as a bit of a surprise, but a couple of thugs willing to assault an old man because he thought they were gay, are going to be just as happy to beat the shit out of you for defending him.

On the other hand, I'm glad you've discovered your love of pain. Maybe Matisse has some pointers for you.

Seems like those guys just wanted to hurt someone that night.

I love that your kneejerk response was 'why?' After I get hit, I usually can't make words till I'm done with a few minutes of wimpering.

Brendan, I'm proud of you. You saw something that was wrong, and you tried to stop it. I'm also glad you have conquered the whole Bully thang. Like you, I sort of live in fear of being smacked in the face. It's refreshing to know that once it happens, the world doesn't end.

But as everyone else has already said, do be careful. Remember that if those guys were willing to beat the shit out of some old man, they prolly don't have the best moral grasp on the world.

Drop it like it's hot, Good Samaritan!

Brendan, why didn't you call the police and file assault charges?

Call 'em what they are: Thuggish retards, hopefully doomed to an early death. But you did the right thing. My partner saw some similar losers beating up an old man, in broad daylight AND with his own cane, in Renton once. He drove up on the sidewalk, grabbed a crowbar, and went after them. Like the cowards such thugs always are, they ran.

I bet First Dude's hand is KILLING him today.

That was good of you, Brendan.

I think I would have had my first mouth-punch earlier in the conversation, after I asked them, "if you don't like fags, what the fuck are you doing hanging out here? Dumbfucks."

POW.

welcome home brendan!

Brendan: the first rule about Fight Club is that you don't talk about Fight Club.

I totally identify. I've always carried a similar fear, in fact still do. One of those rites-of-passage I missed, I suppose. Thanks for sharing, and glad you came out of it with something positive (and hopefully all your teeth still intact).

I broke my nose about ten years ago, and had a similar reaction -- I'm not especially afraid of physical pain anymore.

An acquaintenance of mine was knocked unconscious by a sucker punch and died later that night. I'm glad you walked away with only a split lip.

It would be fun to see gay basher retards like these guys run out of the neighborhood by an angry Capitol Hill mob.

sometimes integrity means your heart is in the right place, but invisible none the less. there's something evil about having to share the air with people like that, but at least you're able to exhale the reality that you did the right thing. i smile knowing your selflessness will echo in the minds of all of us, long after the initial sting.

I thought that was one of the best Slog posts I've ever read.

Congratulations for sticking up for the old guy (even though it put you in danger and yes you probably got off easy) and for having a lifelong fear vanish.

After nearly ten years of martial arts training, I start to get a little antsy if I haven't been punched in the face in a while.

I admire your nonchalance. I took a punch in the face -- not even a very hard one -- from a young kid exiting a night bus in Oakland that I was riding on. Out of the blue; I was thinking about something else and hadn't even seen he was there. And of course he was on the street a split second later, not that I could have done anything about it. But I was shaken and disturbed for a couple of days and cried in my bed that night.

dude, call the fucking cops! put gay bashers in jail.

They'd be long gone by the time the cops got there.

Brendan you could have been killed. That is a very dangerous thing to do, young man. But you are very brave and I'm proud of you.

Brendan

Good work intervening, bad idea to stick around and talk with thugs. As for fear of getting hit, once you discover you're not made of glass it's great, but even better is the ability to simply decide (as I did after being bullied in grade school) "The next guy who hits me is dead. I will fucking kill him." Once that attitude becomes visible in your body language--stand tall; face your foes squarely; make and maintain eye contact; do not cede an inch of your personal space; keep hands and arms free and ready--no one will ever hit you again, as urban predators look for prey, not for fair fights. I adopted this attitude my first day of high school (at a place far from where I'd been the school punching bag for two years) and no one's taken a swing at me since, except in professional situations (bartender breaking up barfights). And I've had far fewer of those than someone in the "service industry" with my bad attitude and smart mouth deserves. Though then the mag-light in my back pocket has a certain deterrent effect too.

Brendan, do you see this as fulfilling a primordial masculine need of yours for violence? I often fantasize about having a just and noble reason for beating the shit out of someone. (Hasn't happened) Now that you've got a taste, won't it be exciting to hit back next time?

Well you can say you have lived till thirty and beyond, and at the same time assume that these two will either be shanked in prison, shot in a parking lot, or will overdose on meth before their 30th birthdays.

Just another day in the real world.

i totally enjoyed reading this. man, you're lucky you didn't get your ass beat. be careful, for crying out loud! trying to talk sense into street thugs on a saturday night is not advised.

as for the notion of calling the cops: oh, brother.

That story reminds me of some weird old homeless dude, that came up to me last weekend in front of Bimbo's. Not telling me he was gay, but telling me to punch him in the face. "Hey you think you're a tough guy? c'mon, punch me in the face! I can take it."

I, not being a thug, kindly declined and walked on.

Also, did you really not cry, even a little? I cried a little just reading this. When I got mugged (3am, Roy, between Summit and whatever is right above Summit), I was a wreck for months and didn't even get hit with the tire iron they were brandishing, but that's because my first instinct was to go docile, like the fluffiest kitten you ever saw. You crossed the street to help somebody. Good man, Kiley.

Brendan, it's not too late to file a police report. Even though they're long gone it's needed for crime statistics. Please do so.

FILE THE POLICE REPORT!!!! The fact it was a crime needs reported. The fact it was a hate crime against gays is even more important for everyone who lives on Cap Hill. FILE THE REPORT!!!!!

Awesome.

Did you take pictures of your busted lip? I wanna see.

Harvey: Frankly, it's unimpressive. I was hoping to wake up with a giant blue slug on my face, but it's just a little swollen.

Sean: I had a little laugh-cry moment once I got inside. The whole thing was so ridiculous and sad—Old Dude bragging about having killed somebody, Young Dudes even considering beating him up, Second Dude's sycophantic laughter. The world is broken.

But you all have convinced me. I'm off to file the report, for the sake of statistics.

awwww. you're a good guy.

freakin' idiots out there in the world.

I think the beating would have been worse if you were wearing a (red) dress.

Hey, Brendan-

I'm writing from Glasgow.

I performed "Another You" here on Friday, at Tramway.

Some piece of shit punched me in the head last night (Saturday, Feb. 10th). I wasn't even facing him. Total fucking sucker punch. The force knocked my blue knit hat off my head, and threw it 8 feet away. I've been wondering what it looked like to the (avoiding racial/religious profiling here) scumbag that hit me.

I've taken hits like that before, but it's been a few years.

He ran away, fast. I got up off the wet street and checked for my wallet. (Still got it.)

It's good to know you can take a really hard punch, and there's something satisfying and old and affirming about the tremendous rush of adrenaline after the fact...

I'm running out of time on this computer & I've got no more 1-pound coins to feed into it. I'll talk to you on Thurs., or so.

Allen

dangerous or not, it was the right thing to do.

enough people don't stand up for those in weaker positions because they are afraid of the consequences or indifferent.

my girlfriend and i have stopped a number of fights between bums and punks downtown. it's amazing what a stare and a phone call will do.

I was walking home from work. It was still daylight, and I was carrying a copy of the Stranger under one arm and my purse in the other. I saw the short Native American man coming down the street towards me and thought of the book my grandmother read to me about avoiding strangers. "If you see an unseemly character and you want to determine whether they intend to harm you, cross the street and see if they follow you."

Well, I didn't cross the street because I was crossing onto the block where I lived. I felt going out of my way to avoid a potential inconvenience would be absurd so I held my line. He circled around me, grabbed me from behind and put kiddy scissors to my neck. Kiddy scissors, blunt as they are are scary when held to your neck. He said, "Your people took everything. Now you should come with me and see what it's like to live without land, without your people." I had nothing to say with kiddy scissors still at my neck, I started striking him with the Stranger, which didn't have the editorial clout to make any imapct. I was conflicted. I felt a sense of guilt over the treatment of his people, but I also felt an inherent right to walk home without an alchoholic crack-head accosting me - siting past human rights abuses as his justification for holdig rusty scissors to my neck. I felt an urge to explain that my people didn't migrate to the northwest until the 1980's so we weren't personally resonsible for what happened here. But that is a cop-out and I didn't go there, his circumstance is due to the influx of all European immigrants, which brought the issue of immigration to mind. I wanted to move back to Sweden, social democracy tall blonde men…

Luckily my kind neighbor came running down the street with his pitt-bull and demanded that this miscreant leave me alone and eventually he separated the scissors from my throat and moved across the street. I can't say that being almost mugged on my block made was a good thing, but the fact that my neighbor was there to intervene is the only reason I still feel safe.

I thanked him when I saw him on my way to coffee the next morning. I can't overstate how much safer I feel in my neighborhood knowing that my neighbors will come to my defense in crisis. That is the beauty of community.

I see the man that accosted me every few months. When he asks me for change, I say, "No, remember? You're the guy that tried to mug me, I'm mad at you." He says "Yeah, sorry about that."

But I always want to give him $20.

hey Brendan sorry about your ordeal and glad you're filing a report.

Your story (well the tagline at the end) reminds me of a great little Dashiell Hammett story. It's called "Afraid of a Gun" and is available in a book of shorts called "Nightmare Town." You should check it out. His ending is a replica of yours.

You need to call the police. Shit, you want to end up like Spiderman? What happens if the gansta boyz just up and off Uncle Ben? Bet you wouldn't feel so good about that.

I have twice been punched square in the forehead and i highly recomend it. Both times the assailent had a very sore hand and i was completely unhurt. But the nose... dear GAWD i hate getting hit in the nose.

I get some pleasure thinking your teeth probably carved that jackasses hand up pretty good.

When I saw the title of this post, I knew it would have a ton of comments. I took boxing a few years ago and discovered how liberating it was to hit and get hit.

For all the reasons given here in the comments, file the police report!

M ---

Don't be such a goddamn wimp. The least you could do is spit at his ass. Guy holds scissors (dull or not) to your throat and you want to give hime $20? If that had been me, I think I would have told him on subsequent occasions to stay the fuck away from me or I'd claw his fucking eyes out.

Gabe Global: you should post that on craigslist: You'd have 100 emails in your box within seconds: there is a non-trivial amount of guys into impact hookups. Ask Savage for more info.... :)

i'm glad you made it out of that okay -- maybe even for the better. i'm also glad you filed a police report. you were fortunate; not all are as lucky.

the behavior you witnessed and then experienced is intolerable. you did the right thing. it upsets me to hear about people like that.

did someone put something in the water supply? i've noticed more crazies and violent crazies skulking around the last couple of weeks...

and Cap Hill was crazy on Saturday nite...tons of cars and people including a lot of jerks...

He didn't say but i'm guessing the homophobe thugs were black.