Glenn Kulka Documentary Journal

The waiting is over.

For three and a half long hours you had to sit and watch as eight undercard fighters camped out in the dressing room with you have had their hands taped, hit pads with their trainers, and marched into the ring.

Finally, it’s your turn.  Yours  is the first fight of the main event.  Casper tapes your hands.  He does a thorough professional job.  Without the tape, your knuckles will crush under the force of your punches… you hit that hard.

The arena is close and hot.

The smoke, the lights, the twenty foot high TV screens, the cage, and the crowd close in on you, suck the air out of your lungs, give you tunnel vision.

Only the men accustomed to this hold their focus.  You and some of the others with few fights under your belts struggle to block it all out.

Strip off your T-shirt.  Strip off your sweats.  Show your mouthguard, tap your cup.

Officials grease your brows and cheeks with Vaseline to help avoid cuts, and check your body for extra grease that shouldn’t be there, grease that might stop your opponent from getting a proper hold of you.

Your opponent is waiting for you.  Run up the stairs.

Hide your fear with aggression, quell the rising puke in your belly with bravado.

Let the horn release you.

Take the center.

Find your distance, find his trigger.  Throw.

Throw and connect.  Feel it but don’t feel it.  He’s fast, good instincts.

He takes your shot… and starts throwing back.

Feeling out, countering your jab, your right hand lead.

You chase… and take a knee for your impatience.  You take the knee, it takes your breath.

He sees you step back, he presses.  Out of nowhere the right hand snaps your jaw left to right and down, the force of it torques your neck, splits the skin inside your mouth.  You feel it but don’t feel it.

The left hook comes, opens up your brow,  you can’t see that either, and then the right, the left again and another right to square  you up for the killing blow.

The knee comes like a wrecking ball into the the tip of your sternum, forces the ribcage into the lungs, forces the air out.  The internal muscles lock, protecting the heart, immobilizing the torso.

You cannot breathe.

A left hook snaps you around as you fall.

There are blank spaces.  People will tell you that your body was convulsing.  Later you will know that your organs were trying to reboot.

Your lungs were sending messages to your CNS; let go, we need to breathe.

It is over.  It is over.

You cannot believe this, even as they raise his arm.

It is impossible that after all you went through just to get into this ring… that the outcome could be this.

But you know it’s true and you immediately think of a dozen things you could have done differently.

You are mad at yourself.

You feel guilty because you are relieved it’s over.

You feel like a shmuck for disappointing your family and friends, when all they care about is that you are okay.

But you cannot hear this.

You cannot hear this.

You cannot forgive yourself.

Not yet.

This is penance.

This is your doing.

You are responsible.

You live through it.

You live with it.

Tomorrow is another chance to stand tall.

But…

Tomorrow hits harder than today.

Last night Glenn fought his third professional mixed martial arts bout.  Mariko took the kids and stayed over at her Mom & Dad’s place in East Ottawa to give Glenn a chance to sleep in this morning if he needed to.  All things considered, we were sure he would.

When dawn arrived, I woke briefly, not sure if it was due to the pattern of sleep that I had grown accustomed to from staying with Glenn and Mariko, or to a stirring in the house.  I toyed with the idea of climbing out of bed and up from the basement to check out the noise.  We’ve had skunks around, not that I was going to try and do anything about that, and there was the other reason, the reason I stayed up later than I should have after a very long day and night of the fight; because Glenn might need a ride to the hospital and I was the only other one home.  But instead, I turned over and fell back to sleep.

When I woke again, the house was still, and without the activity of the Kulka family waking, too quiet.  You know that feeling you get, like something has happened, something that you are too late to do anything about, something that quickens your heart and puts ice in your belly; that’s the feeling I had.  It came with guilt, a conviction that I had not been diligent enough, that while I slept Glenn had needed my help.

Then it came with fear, that I had not seen the warning signs, that the sound that woke me at dawn was muffled and sharp, and hung in the silence with the bitter tang of rust and cordite.  Knowing Glenn’s past struggles, my mind went there with dread, and the growing possibility that my presence, the presence of my camera, had tipped the scales, the last stone on a mountain of building pressure Glenn has had to shoulder surrounding this fight.

The day after I arrived in Ottawa was March 10th, a Tuesday.  I went with Glenn to watch him train at Nabil Khatib’s Bushido Ju-Jitsu Academy.  I took only my still camera so I could get a sense of the lighting and the space.  Glenn told me he would do the bulk of his training there so I wanted to be prepared.  While doing escape drills with Nabil, Glenn separated his right shoulder and strained the tendons in the muscles connecting his neck to his shoulder girdle… all of them.

At this point, Glenn was two and a half weeks away from the fight, plenty of time, he thought, to get the injury treated, plenty of time to recover and get back into training.  Unfortunately, this was not to be the case.  Glenn was not able to train again, aside from riding the bike for cardio, and a light, no-contact sparring session with me a couple of days ago.  As a result, he came to last night’s fight with no training for 17 days, unprepared and in pain.

This was a part of the story I was unable to tell until now, after the fight, because if his opponent had gotten wind of this information, the result of the fight could have been much, much worse.

Add his injury to the pressures from sponsors, the promotion itself, taking on ticket sales as a way to supplement his meager fight fee, a documentary filmmaker scavenging for compelling footage, mounting pressure from family and friends to keep fighting as a badge of honor for his age, mounting pressure from his family and friends to stop fighting as a humble resignation to his age, personal pressure from himself to make good on his fight pledge… and what you get is a man who would have dragged himself stabbed and legless into the ring to make this fight if he had to.

I tried many times to go upstairs and deal with whatever heartbreak I might find, and eventually after steeling myself for several minutes, I climbed the stairs to the second floor.  I could hear the rain on the roof.  The upstairs hallway light was on.  I could see a laundry basket of folded clothes resting on top of Glenn and Mariko’s unmade bed…

But Glenn was gone.

I ran down to check the driveway; the car was gone.  I ran to my bedroom to grab my phone, debating the first call; 911, Mariko, or Glenn himself.

Then I heard the door open upstairs.  I heard heavy feet strain the tired linoleum and floor joists above me…

On his right brow, a comma of dark blood marks the origin of what will soon be a whopping shiner, a light swelling across the bridge of his nose and right cheek tighten the skin giving it that artificial youth of a bad face lift, a fat lip and deep cut inside his mouth turn his grin Brandoesque.

“How are ya?”  he says.  Shit, how am I?

“I was starving.  Had to go out and get some eggs.” he tells me.

His jeans are clean.  He’s in his good golf shirt, the one I associate with dress up occasions like hockey games or church.  And he’s smiling.

I realize that something special has just occurred; for a few moments I lost faith in Glenn.  For a brief time, I expected him to cave and revert to old ways… to escape down the dark path.  Because maybe if I was in his position, that’s what I would have done.  So easy to walk that path, in spite of the heavy toll you pay.  But Glenn didn’t do that.  In spite of every excuse not to, he stood tall.

So many times in my life I have seen examples of extraordinary courage in the face of the unimaginable.  Both my brothers will always remain heroes to me for the lives they have lived by necessity.  They’re not saints, just everyday heroes, the finest kind, the kind that I believe is in all of us, the kind that today Glenn has chosen to be.

Glenn lost his fight last night by TKO in the first round, and if there is beauty in adversity, he has shone the light on it.

On Saturday night, Glenn’s professional mixed martial arts record slipped to 2 – 1, but this Sunday morning, I have never been prouder of my friend Glenn.

Sunday morning comes the dawn… and it is good.

We hate in others what we hate in ourselves.  Some say hate is a strong word… so is love… so is fight… so is empower.

Who we fight is no great mystery; hold up a mirror and you will see your enemy.  Eventually, all conflict in rational human beings boils down to this.  I said rational… the psychopaths are on their own.

In the ring, Glenn will be fighting Hosier Bruno, the man in the background of the first picture.  Hosier is a soft spoken French Canadian Muay Thai specialist, he wears sandals in winter, he looks you in the eye when he shakes your hand, he carries prayer beads.

Hosier could be anybody, it wouldn’t matter.  Glenn’s opponent is always the same.

Today is the official weigh-in.  We travel to Robert Guertin Arena in Hull, Quebec, ten minutes from downtown Ottawa.  The weigh-ins are better organized than most, but still take longer than they should.  Fighters lounge at cafeteria tables.  Those trying to cut weight suck ice cubes or shadow box, quiet, inside themselves.  There is little or no bravado, a bit of territorial pissing between the headliners but that’s about all.

Glenn and Hosier shake hands.  They are respectful of each other.  When they separate, one watches as the other walks away.  Glenn has seen what he needs to see, Hosier has questions still.

After the official weigh-ins we got to Glenn’s daughter’s school in Kanata for a choir recital.  Mariko joins us.  Later she asks me if I saw the tears in Glenn’s eyes.  For her, the fact that Glenn can show this kind of joy one day before the fight is a small miracle.  She’ll take it.

Back to Ottawa for a media dog and pony show at the Hard Rock Café.  The fighters strip down as their weights are announced and flashbulbs fire rockets at their flesh.  The crowd is typical fight; young men with very little hair and fight t-shirts.  I am slightly surprised that I also fall into this description… except that I am not young anymore.

Then we’re at the hotel and the Warrior One (W1) production office.  W1 is the company promoting the fights and all in the fight game have high hopes for what seems to be a stand up crew, but the gate isn’t in yet and the checks haven’t been signed… plenty of time for the greed to take hold.

Driving and still and hour from home, Glenn talks to his kids on the phone to wish them good night.  He doesn’t like this, it upsets him that he is not there.  After a day like today I wonder what motivates him to go through this.  The reality is that he has probably spent more on doctors, chiropractors, trainers, and spending time promoting the event than he will ever get back in pay.

Selfishly, he has a reason, a test of himself the results of which are only known to him.

But aside from that, there is only what will be.

And what will be wakes him up every morning with kisses and I love you daddy’s.

What is and what will ever be…

My wife mentioned that Glenn looked too scary in some of the earlier posts.  So for all of you who agree, here is a shot of Glenn doing some viscious teddy bear grappling!

Glenn is getting into his prefight zone.  He is constantly visualizing, piecing together the fight in his mind, blow by blow and throw by throw.

I know he’s ready for the fight this Saturday because he’s got that far away look in his eyes when he’s going through the fight in his head… and he’s smiling.

I had to take some promo shots of Glenn for DVD covers, one sheets, etc.  This is a test photo I shot with my little Lumix LX3.  Great camera.

The lighting is a little extreme but it’s pretty close to what I’m after.  I think a camera with a little more dynamic range will pick up the tattooed lettering on Glenn’s arm a bit better, then we will enhance the words with photoshop to bring them out.

The tattoo reads, “Only God Can Judge Me”, and I can’t think of a more appropriate creed for Glenn, given his story.

So spiritually, you know, we’re covered.

And from a marketing standpoint… beef in Levi’s… slam dunk!

I’m the little guy getting hit.

Glenn needed a sparring partner to help visualize his new opponent.  The last opponent chickened out.  The one before that had his sternum broken and had to drop out.

I’m supposed to try and look like the new opponent who stands six foot two and weighs two thirty-five.  I’m five nine on a good day, and a paunchy one seventy-eight.

Because I’m editing the blog, I get to choose the pictures.  I left out most of the ones of me getting punched in the head, me getting body slammed and me tapping out when Glenn sat on me.

I seemed to be most successful running away.

What would you do if you had two hundred and sixty-five pounds of mad guy coming at you?

Have you even seen a really bad car wreck, or maybe a train derail?

You know that moment when you see someone stand up and climb out of all that carnage, and you just want to go over and raise the guy’s arm and say, “Hey Buddy, you’re alive!”

Yeah.

Fate is a tricky customer.  The pairing of a pro athlete with a pro broadcaster, for those not initiated into the world of sports reportage, is like putting open flame to chili eating flatulent’s derrière.  The result is explosive… and sensitive parts get burned.

But the day TEAM 1200 think tankers teamed up Glenn Kulka (pro hockey, pro football, pro wrestling) with Lee Versage (pro mouth, erm… broadcast journalist); a formidable team was born.  In spite of the fact that Glenn can bench press Lee at least fifty times, and Lee’s fifteen year younger brain (read stat basket) dances sometimes confusing circles around Glenn’s admittedly rattled and abused skull, the boys seem to get along.  More than that, they produce some of the most provocative and honest sports radio available on the shield.

The question is, how long can they keep it up?  With satellite radio threatening to overwhelm the airwaves, and digital pundits predicting the doom of live audio, radio hosts live and die at the whim of the listener.

It’s no small mercy then, that audiences worldwide are tired of being spoon fed artificial entertainment pap; Hollywood’s digital effects driven blockbusters and radio’s digitally programmed twenty-four hour schedules are supped upon and crapped out like the disposable drivel that they are.

So for now, Glenn and Lee get to do their show, human beings offering live interactive entertainment… a term which fifteen years ago had nothing to do with the booming So Cal video sex trade and everything to do with connecting with an audience.  And if that term also sends your mind adrift in the gutter, perhaps we are doomed, doomed to the entertainment wasteland where cheap, emotionless thrills rule, and good men die like dogs.

Thanks for the warning Hunter S.

After more than a week now with Glenn and his family, living with them, going to work with Glenn, being privy to all aspects of his upcoming fight on the 28th, I can safely say that I am blessed and challenged to witness the transition of a man.  Glenn has been thrust back into the forge, and will in a few short days, be squarely under the hammer… I hope the hammer is ready.

Endings and begginings, doorways and halls were to the ancient Greeks, the domain of Janus, god of time.  As I have witnessed, Glenn’s fight has come to signify the core of his struggle, which has nothing at all to do with fists, and everything to do with Glenn embracing the man he knows he should be and defeating the man he has allowed himself to become.  He is fighting time.

And he is weary, I see it in his eyes.  But there is laughter hidden there, the laughter of the child he once was, the laughter of the man he is fighting to become.

From his throne in the TEAM 1200 control room Glenn dispenses acid sports wisdom designed to burn and leave listeners shrieking.  A colleague happened by as Glenn and I were leaving the radio station and whacked Glenn’s arm, chastising him for his particularly biting remarks on Ovechkin’s lame 50th celebration.  “It made me smile”, she said.

“It made me smile too”, Glenn told her, “but, you know, we have to do it for the show.”

I see him shake his head as we walk away, a self disgusted reaction to shattered dreams and compromised morals.

Crossing the Canadian shield, that hulking turtleback of stone, the anchor point of our continent, is something we did as a family when I was seven years old.  All I can remember from that time was the musty smell of the flannel sleeping bag, worn and familiar, that I used for a pillow in the back of our station wagon.  That and the occasional whack on the ass my Dad gave us when my brothers and I got too exuberant in our quest for stretching out leg space.  I was the youngest… I learned to sit small.

This time around, driving the shield is a journey of wonder, a familiar path with unfamiliar sights, and a drive that has me damning the current recession.

The glory of this vast slab of rock is in it’s scars, and the springtime growth across the praries and plains states that make up the shield’s apron of giving, with new topsoil and ancient alluvial deposits feeding the crops that feed a great portion of our world.  Our most recent techtonic history is written in the thousand lakes that stretch across Ontario, many of them untouched for most of the year.  Deer step lightly across winter ice intuitively knowing if the depth is safe, like European settlers scrabbling over the stone, looking for sound footholds and industry.  The deer knew when to step off, but men hung onto the shield with it’s dotting of hearty vegetation, and somehow got the idea to drill into the rock, too lazy to break out west in search of yellow gold… like the other fools.

Canadians thrive here now, a sumo wrestlers share of our population jammed into a horseshoe connected by the 1, the 401 and the other rich arteries and veins that surround this beating rock heart.  It’s a hard life, lived by good people… good people who have known depression, recession, and survived fortified, some say, by the pure mineral rich waters that run here.

The Twin Spot Restaurant in Schreiber is named for the 28 sets of twins that once populated the town.  I imagine all those matching sweaters as Brian and Ruth Ann Birch tell me how the town’s population has been decimated by the the current economics.  Like a lot of small towns, each of the businesses in Scheiber tend to survive by depending on each other’s commerce, if one breaks down they all tend to suffer.  Some businesses, like the Twin Spot, depend on tourism or other imported trade.  But when the bus companies shave their schedules, and appointed Grey Hound stops at at the Twin Spot drop from three a day to two, the entire town has to tighten it’s belt.

In spite of that, and a particularly cold eastern wind that lifted the shingles that day, Brian and Ruth Ann welcomed me with with eye wrinkling smiles, good home cooked food, and wonderful stories of a town getting by.

Stories of ice fishing, snow machines and Canadian boxing legend Dominic Filane swirl around the diner like warm soup.  When I told Brian of the film I am making and a bit about Glenn’s journey, his eyes lit up.  Dominic Filane it seems has become a light of pride for the area and folks here know the fight game by necessity.  Filane has retired from the fighting but still pulls on the gloves to teach the sweet science to the local youth in the back of his custom embroidery shop.  And he doesn’t stop there, Dom has become an embassador for the region and boxing, attending tournaments, giving clinics, and stopping to correct a stance or show how to turn over the right cross for any child who will listen.

Women and men of industry survive, women and men of community, I am happy to say, thrive.

I will stop at the Twin Spot on my trip home… I hope they have soup.

“One September afternoon in 1960 I was having a drink with an old newspaper friend, Ken Jonstone, when unexpectedly he told me he had a message to pass on from Ronnie Jacques, the well-known New York photographer.  Jacques had been in Sun Valley taking some pictures of Hemingway, and they got to talking about me.  After a while, Hemingway, really opening up, had become warm and jovial.  In the old days in Paris he used to box with me, he said.  It had all been rather wonderful and amusing, Hemingway assured Ronnie, and there had been one ridiculous occasion when Scott Fitzgerald acted as timekeeper, and everybody had been full of wine.  Anyway, Hemingway sent his warmest regards.

But what really happened?  Ken Jonstone wanted to know.”

Morley Callaghan, “That Summer In Paris”

What Callaghan goes on to illustrate in his warm yet beautifully unsentimental way, unsentimental in the sense that a perfectly worn in pair of boxing gloves can, despite being base tools for premeditated violent action, be very difficult to throw away, is that ‘what happened’ can never and will never be able to hold a jockstrap for ‘why’.  ‘Why’ is all and ever.  ‘Why’ is it.

Documenting by design strains at it’s most pure to be completely objective, as impossible a task as it would be for all mankind to collectively agree on the definitive example of beauty.  Truth is as skewed as science is obscure.  The world is in flux, striving, in the words of my friend Ed Haynes, toward equilibrium where all matter is broken down into its most finite particles… and thus devoid of what we know as life.

As Glenn’s journey moves towards equilibrium, predictably less like a horse to the barn and more like an innocent to the stocks, the finite particles of why will begin to filter out.

And though, as documentary filmmakers, this is what we have come to witness, we must temper our observations with the understanding that the why, in spite of being the essence of (the) matter, is pure fiction.  Glenn’s, and all of our, synapses and the electrical charges that run spastic parallels along his myelin nerve casings have written and rewritten his motivation, the why, the only truly unobservable part of his existence, billions of times.

Not to mention my own motivations, the ‘whys’ of this project… why, then, is a mother.

Hemingway, Fitzgerald and Callaghan each documented a summer in Paris, more specifically an afternoon in a boxing gymnasium, in their own way.  Each version is absolutely true… and complete fiction.

So, if you’re wondering why I wrote this post… you could chalk it up to road fatigue, or you can chalk it up to a real thirst to understand motivation, and to capture the truth of Glenn’s in particular as best I can.

But I wonder if that too would be fiction.

Does pure documentary exist?  Or should it?

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