International Kyokushinkai kanji

The meaning of Kyokushinkai is extreme real or truth. Martial art created by Sosai Masutatsu Oyama in 1955. It is a style of karate which focuses on strenuous physical training, especially kumite and tameshiwari, though it also inludes kihon, kata, self-defense techniques, and weapons. It is the utilization of circular movement in the execution of techniques that distinguishes Kyokushin Karate from the traditional styles of Karate that rely on simple linear motion. Kyokushin Karate is characterized by requiring of its participants, strenuous training, conditioning and realistic contact while sparring. Kyokushin karate-ka believe this contact is necessary in order to fully appreciate the resiliency of the human body and spirit and to prepare for any serious confrontation. Kyokushinkai is now practiced worldwide by thousands.

Vancouver info

http://www.city.vancouver.bc.ca/aboutvan.htm
get a feeling for Vancouver B.C. Canada

from my novel Tango Murderoso

McGrath’s heart leaped.
“Where’d he take the bags, Willie?” McGrath met his eyes in a cold stare.
Willie thought a moment. “Don’ know, I waited outside.”
Willie was genuinely confused with the sudden influx of knowledge and his mind couldn’t process it. There was excitement there but he couldn’t fathom the implications. He needed time to think.
McGrath’s voice took on a hard edge and his eyes bored into Willie’s. “Bullshit, Willie, he would’ve had you help him.”
“Naw, he was secret about some things he ...”
“So you mean he packed all those bags in by himself?” McGrath’s voice was rising. “Incredible, that’s what he paid you for.”
“Fuck you, I wasn’t his Joe-boy y’know. I handled other jobs for ‘im.”
Sure, McGrath thought, you were nothing but his strong-arm. Too stupid to be involved in anything cerebral. “What’d he say about them, the bags then?”
“Said they were a surprise for Cassandra, didn’t want my help.”
“Didn’t you even ask him what was in the fuckin’ things? I don’t believe this.”
“Fuck off, he said it was a surprise. Sure I aksed him but he goes, ‘you’ll find out later’. I never thought about it after. Forgot.”
McGrath knew he was going to lose ground once Willie figured he didn’t need him. He’d start lying. If he wasn’t already. He had to find out where those bags were hidden. “Wait a minute, I’ve got a sheet of paper here to show you.”
McGrath leaned into his car, Willie behind him. McGrath imagined Jose Canseco stepping out of the batter’s box to swing at a pitch-out. He twisted away from the car with the baseball bat in his hands and slammed Willie in the head with it. Blood splattered. Willie reeled across the alley and went down in a daze amid garbage piles. McGrath hit him twice on the knees with vicious blows. Quickly had Willie’s jacket open and the gun removed, slid it into an inner pocket of his own coat. Willie didn’t make a sound, he was numb but regaining consciousness. McGrath stood over him, sweat dripping from his brow, fiery anger in his eyes. “Now Willie, where’d you and Condy put the fucking BAGS?”

© RC Westerholm

city photography

gastown building

click picture to enlarge
© Masalla Galleries 2002

a little poetry from a novel character . . .

And silver flows like honey, liquid in my dreams,
and gold is washed upon the shore, and dissipates it seems
until reflections in your eye, recast that muted light
of all the treasures of the earth, of all the starry night.
And all the sunbeams sending down their diamond studded swords
and all the poets' pens abound with fluent wishful words
and all the ocean waters and all the mountains high
do not contain the love that shines within your lambent eye.
from Acts of Empathy

© RC Westerholm

from my novel Acts of Empathy

We made love on that huge bed in the innocent, muted, white morning light; in the sylph garden amid applauding flowers on motionless turquoise afternoons; on those soft lounges before a conflagration of sunsets and in the hushed scarlet of descending twilight; on the veranda watched by smiling blue stars and white porcelain moons; in the shower - one undine stooping in the cascading water and the other clutching the shower curtain until I tore it down in a deluge of watery passion; in every chair and sofa; atop the piano to a crescendo of chromatic screams; in the kitchen on the counter top amid the aroma of tangy herbs; contortively crunched into the nook; sitting on the bar flavouring ourselves with Grand Marnier liqueur. We initiated every room in the house with a delightful, instantly recoverable, erotic memory. Spent effusive days and nights intoxicated with the elixir of each other.
It was the perfect coalescence of two wanton insatiable beings rising through the physical world into the cerebral purity of psychic sensualism. It was the clarity of love.


© RC Westerholm

city photography

lazy afternoon at Spanish Banks

click picture to enlarge
© Masalla Galleries

Some of my favourite websites

http://www.andalucia.com/costa_del_sol/home.htm
Andalusia, on the Costa Del Sol, Spain, a wonderful place to linger awhile

http://www.delphiforums.com/
join and pursue your favourite topic

http://www.salon.com
salon scoops the mainstream media

http://www.guerrillanews.com/
underground news

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/
BBC really news

http://www.fbi.gov/
find out if you’re on their list

http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/shuttle/index.html
track the space shuttle

http://www.straight.com/section.cfm?id=172
Georgia Straight news

http://www.courttv.com/
follow interesting murder cases

http://clevermedia.com/game.cgi?niletiles
don't go here, it's too addictive

http://www.geocities.com/exposcruff/index2.html
remember expo 86?

http://www.writersguildofcanada.com/index.html
Canadian writers

http://www.thepinupfiles.com/AKGallery.html
hey, pinups are so art! check out Greg Hildebrandt

http:/cgfa.sunsite.dk/alma/
Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema & other artists

http://www.formula1.com/
Formula One racing

graphic from TALK ABOUT LOVE

excerpt from my comedy stage play - Talk About Love

HE: Men are more inventive.

SHE: I don't concede that, you’ve screwed up the world with your inventions.

(They stop circling, stare over the table at each other)

HE: Hey now ... Men have contributed to the betterment of Man.

SHE: (Looking into audience at women) Egg,sactly.

HE: Why can't you admit it? We've created the greatest inventions ...

SHE: How many would have been invented if men had to make their own dinner?

HE: Automobiles, for insta ...

SHE: Carbon monoxide pollution. Ozone depletion.

(HE sighs, continues pacing)

HE: Aircraft, to fly you to the sun on vacation ...

SHE: F18s to reek napalm attacks and agent orange ... Would a woman ever have invented a gun?

HE: Electric guitars. You love Eric Clapton.

SHE: Decibels. Heavy Metal. Ozzy Osborne, Axl Rose, bite bats, kill cops, eat babies.

(HE thinks, leans over the table, raises an arm in defiance)

HE: (Rising voice) Rockets to the moon. Teflon!

(SHE leans across the table to face him)

SHE: (Arm up too) Surface to air missiles! And who gives a shit if your eggs stick to the fucking pan!

© RC Westerholm

excerpt from my dramatic stage play - The RIDE

the action takes place in Big John's pool hall ...




CALLOWAY: Beatin’ me up ain’t gonna bring Billy back.
(Hagler is now pacing)

HAGLER: Shut your face, Calloway.

CALLOWAY: Shitsakes, I didn’t stick the fuckin’ needle inta his arm, he was my friend, ya know. (Exasperation) Quit blamin’ me, Hagler!

HAGLER: You were with him. You scored FOR him!

CALLOWAY: How was I to know he wasn’t gonna wake up? I didn’t know what he was doin’ until it was too late.

HAGLER: Just watched him die, didn’t you?

(Calloway retreats whenever Hagler moves close. Big John watches them closely)

CALLOWAY: Billy was a hype like me, you just didn’t wanna see it.

HAGLER: He was my little brother, asshole!

CALLOWAY: (Rising voice) I didn’t kill him, Hagler. He shot every cap he scored that day, he killed himself!

(Hagler steps closer to Calloway, their voices are steadily raising and they hear nothing else but each other)

BIG JOHN: Randal, be cooling down now.

HAGLER: Don’t say that, Calloway, you're a fuckin’ liar!

(Hagler gives Calloway another shove)

CALLOWAY: (Anguish) He told me yer Uncle Jack started on him right after he moved in. He couldn’t tell your Mom, thought it would send her off the deep end ...

HAGLER: Shut up, Jimmy!

CALLOWAY: And Billy couldn’t fight with him like you did. He just wasn’t strong enough!

HAGLER: Jimmy, you’re lying!

CALLOWAY: You know I’m not. Billy wanted to go out in a dream ... He did himself on PURPOSE! Ya still don’t get it, do ya! He WANTED to die!

© RC Westerholm

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SOME INFO ABOUT THE 1950S DRUG SCENE.

In 1952, a Special Committee on Narcotics of the Community Chest and Council of Greater Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, recommended after thorough study: "The Federal [Canadian] Government should be urged to modify the Opium and Narcotic Drug Act to permit the provinces to establish narcotic clinics where registered narcotic users could receive their minimum required dosages of drug." - Such dispensing clinics, the committee predicted, would "protect the life of the addict and support him as a useful member of society." It would also "within a reasonable time eliminate the illegal drug trade. . . . The operation of such clinics would not entail any reduction in the vigilance of law enforcement agencies," which would continue to be responsible for keeping narcotics out of reach of non-addicts.

An addict who shifts from black-market heroin to morphine by prescription moves into another world. Suppose, for example, that be has been paying $20 a day for 40 milligrams of heroin mixed with 360 milligrams of hazardous adulterants and contaminants. Armed with a prescription, he can walk into almost any neighborhood pharmacy and secure pure morphine, U.S.P., safely diluted in an appropriate vehicle, and sterilely packaged, at the full retail price of $5 per dram or less. He thus pays about five cents for 40 milligrams of morphine. If heroin were stocked in pharmacies, he could buy 40 milligrams of it, too, on prescription, for about a nickel - as British addicts do.
The question is obvious: Why shouldn't the addict be encouraged to secure his opiates legally, on prescription, in pure form, for a nickel a day, rather than be forced by federal and state laws to spend $20 per day in the heroin black market?
(NOTE* These figures are pre 1960s, it's more like $300. per day now. And the addicts get it by breaking into YOUR car, your house or your life)

In 1954, a California citizens' advisory committee to the Attorney General on crime prevention proposed that an addict certified as incurable by a disposition board should legally receive specified doses of narcotics and thereby remove said addict as a potential market for criminally or illegally secured narcotics.
Also in 1954, Dr. Edward E. Eggston, for the New York state delegation, brought to the annual convention of the American Medical Association a proposal that the AMA go on record as favoring "the establishment of narcotics clinics under the aegis of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics." The resolution did not pass.

In 1955, the Medical Society of Richmond County (Staten Island), New York, recommended the "establishment of narcotic clinics in large centers where the problem is acute." It suggested, "Suitable private physicians can care for the occasional addict in isolated areas .... The addict will receive his narcotics only at the clinic, hospital, or doctor's office so that he cannot resell them elsewhere."
Also in 1955, the New York Academy of Medicine proposed "taking the profit out of the illicit trade by furnishing drugs to addicts at low cost under federal control."
The academy recommended that "clinics be attached to general hospitals, whether federal, municipal, or voluntary, dispensing narcotics to addicts, open 24 hours daily, 7 days a week."

In 1956 the Council on Mental Health of the American Medical Association, while opposing the immediate establishment of substantial numbers of drug-dispensing clinics as urged the previous year by the New York Academy of Medicine, did suggest "the possibility of devising a limited experiment which would test directly the hypothesis that clinics would eliminate the illicit traffic and reduce addiction."
Also in 1956, the American Bar Association and the American Medical Association established a joint Committee on Narcotic Drugs, which recommended in its 1958 Interim Report:
(1) An Outpatient Experimental Clinic for the Treatment of Drug Addicts Although it is clear ... that the so-called clinic approach to drug addiction is the subject of much controversy, the joint Committee feels that the possibilities of trying some such outpatient facility, on a controlled experimental basis, should be explored, since it can make an invaluable contribution to our knowledge of how to deal with drug addicts in a community, rather than on an institutional basis. It has been suggested that the District of Columbia, being an exclusively federal jurisdiction and immediately accessible to both law enforcement and public health agencies, might be an advantageous locus for this experiment.

Have we progressed at all in the so-called War on Drugs?



© RC Westerholm

excerpts from a few of my songs (SOCAN)

A Common Thing -
There's a coyote yippin' in the hills
tellin' all the world about his misery
Soon he'll have no place to go
just how he feels I know
he's feelin' just like me

Old Men in the Park -
Old men in the park, warming their bones
waiting for darkness to chase them back into their homes

The Carousels -
Will the horses ever know a gentle hand?
Do they ever get away from fairyland?
If someone would give the carousels to me
I would let the horses all go free.

Nashville Tennessee -
Ridin' in a boxcar, trackin' down to Tennessee
Got myself some buddies, playin' music just like me
We ain't good lookin' but you'll know when we're in town

Street Musician -
In a darkened doorway covered with grafitti
stands a haggard man who's aged before his time
In a dusty black case open on the sidewalk
there's a quarter, seven nickels and a dime.

Normandy -
Oh that man there might have been your uncle
or a brother who was very dear
or a father, never having seen his little son.
Now he's lying softly in the grasses
and he keeps on looking at the sky
and he's slowly giving up his dreams, one by one.

A Summer Love -
Remember days, when we sought to escape the sun,
In yonder wood
If I'd my way, I'd walk with you 'till the day was done
If but I could

Emergency Hospital -
A knock on my door about a quarter to four
they came and then they took me away
I dared to disagree and someone told on me
They take down every thing that you say.

Spellbound -
You are in the spell of old Tangier
Where nothing's new, beneath the sun
Love can flow, just like a rumour here

The Smokin' Gun Barrel Blues -
Twenty-five policemen, poundin' at my door
Standin' in the kitchen with a smokin' forty-four

Motorcycle Rider -
Softtail Springer, I own the big sky
chrome plated winger, I'll ride 'till I die
Dragonfire demons and deadly dark flights
I own the days, but she owns the nights.

Who Killed Maxie? -
You know you should 've stayed beside me when the lights went out
and then it never would’ve ended this way

High Country Cowboy -
He was a high country cowboy
came from the end of the sky

Haiku

Children laugh with glee
voices loud as water streams
making yellow snow

© RC Westerholm

Vancouver evening

across Coal Harbour

the Afternoon

I am lying couchant beside her. It is as humid as it gets in East Asia after the monsoon. Close. There is little oxygen.
In the subdued light through the latticed teakwood blinds she seems to shine in her creamy skin. Keeps her silken eyes closed - but not sleeping.
The cotton sheets are cool. The ceiling fan revolves in a lazy turn, keeping the scent of sandlewood floating on the warm air ... and spice, nutmeg and cinnamon from somewhere. A tincture of stale tea remains in the porcelain cups.
Sounds from the frenetic street are muted, barely reach into this quietude, except for the sing-song of Chinese voices as they pass and the moans and rattles of a rambling old truck.
A languorous afternoon drifting through time unnoticed.
Her breathing is slow and steady. She is moist and pleasant to touch. My finger traces an undulating path over her skin, mingling with enough moisture to form a droplet, adding to the tiny pool at her belly. I taste of the glistening pool. Savour the texture as nectar.
My heart beats with regular rhythm. There is no sense of urgency, no need of hurry. No need to think. The heat suppresses thought, only allowing abstracted, dreamy, watery images. The lethargy of time only allowing this entre nous and a wandering movement toward a concupiscent conclusion.

© RC Westerholm

Limerick

A meticulous girl from Vancouver
was cleaning her room with a Hoover
she vacuumed her cunny
which wasn't too funny
'cause it took twelve men to remove her.

© RC Westerholm

My Katana 1100f 

My work in writing (all reg. WGC & WGA)

TREPHINING - a Trilogy of three novels including :-
DEADLY NIGHTSHADE - novel - complete
Police detective Harry Dexter has symptoms of schizophrenia but refuses to do anything about it. He is assigned a case of unexplained death in a private women's college and becomes infatuated with wealthy student Cynthia Bouchard. He comes to believe she is a witch who has murdered her close friend with natural poisons. Cynthia taunts Harry while he falls in love and begins a mystic obsession with her, ignoring everything but proving her guilt. 98,000 words

RIDING PEGASUS - novel - complete
Harry Dexter is finally released from the state mental hospital after serving 12 years for killing a wealthy young woman. He suspects his ambitious psychiatrist has used him unfairly for research into schizophrenia. Prostitutes begin being brutally murdered and Harry becomes the chief suspect. He desperately evades the police with the help of a sympathetic hooker while trying to solve the murders himself to preserve his precarious freedom and his fragile mind. 97,000 words

A PLACE IN THE SKY - novel - complete
Harry Dexter, exonerated in the murders of five women, is released after a seven month incarceration and is immediately asked to solve a very old mystery as a private detective. He is being manipulated by a shadowy rich man but can’t resist being drawn in to playing out the game worth 63 million dollars which takes him to the big island of Hawaii to find a dangerous bush vet. His only assistant, Zac, a mental patient who has sworn to kill Harry. 95,000 words

THE BURGLAR'S GUN - novel - in progress
Harry Dexter, now a private detective on schizophrenic medication who lives with an ex prostitute, and who cannot ever become a real licenced private detective because of a murder conviction embarks on his first case when the Chief of Police, who has political aspirations, kills a burglar with a rare gun. Harry begins secretly investigating a 30 year old gun theft.

TANGO MURDEROSO - novel - complete
James H. McGrath, a corrupt police detective interested in murder and six million dollars in stolen drug money, courts his main suspect, Cassandra Coronado, beautiful owner of the 99 year old White Rose Club, whom he suspects shot gangster Condy Carlyle. The White Rose is frequented by her aged and bizarre South American emigré friends, all hiding a secretive past. A story of lust, murder and love with the background of the sweeping erotic tango and the elegant old White Rose building. 99,000 words

ACTS OF EMPATHY - novel - complete
A young widow traveling alone in Northern Italy meets a lesbian writer, faces death, falls in love and discovers herself. The Dear Diary account of Therése is a love story about a woman's struggle against her feelings for another woman, while falling into adventure and death. The story of Therese and Shawna is fun, adventurous, brave, poignant, and eventually satisfying and inspirational. 97,000 words

ULTIMATE SACRIFICE - novel - In progress
The further adventures of Therese and Shawna living in Italy on the Italian Riviera.

PELLY AND MIRAMAR - novel - in progress
Pelly and Miramar are meant for each other. But small time player and gambler Pelly can't convince her of it. Yet. Pelly tries to win Miramar with whatever crazy schemes he can think up, but finds himself in over his head and desperately eluding real gangsters who think he should be a dead witness to a murder.

NASHVILLE DREAMS - feature screenplay - complete
Songwriter Jackson McDill is determined to be a country star. With two newly found buddies, old Elijah the banjo plucking hobo and young stuttering guitar playing FDR, they head for Nashville. But they are stone broke and must hitch-hike, ride the rails or walk, resulting in harrowing yet hilarious adventures along the way. Throughout, Jackson never loses sight of his desire for success and learns to deal with reality. 122 pages

TANGO MURDEROSO - feature screenplay - complete
Screenplay adaptation from the novel. 135 pages

TALK ABOUT LOVE - full length stage play - complete
Love and war between friends and the constant struggle between man and woman for what each desires in an ongoing relationship. Four stages of one couple's life together and their belief in love and marriage as a philosophy on living. The mutual trait of both is humour. They are adversarial from the start yet often make the other laugh during arguments. The play shows that the goals of love can be attained and that marriage is a worthy pursuit. About 2 hrs Using 4 males and 4 females

THE RIDE - A one act stage play - complete
Young men at their prime facing death in the bloom of life. The tragedy of heroin drug addiction among young people in the fifties. With the subliminal warning that the dangers are amplified today and little has changed because of political inertia. Using 4 teen males, 1 older male About 40 mins

THE TRIAL OF DANCY WHITECOTTON - full length comedy - in progress
Dancy Whitecotton is struggling for a better life. As a single mother who works hard and needs every break to survive with her daughter Fitzie. One day she is accosted by aliens who intend to take her to their planet for study. But she won't go without a fight and a street corner court-case begins as Dancy needs every mote of her evolved intelligence to win. The play is about the invincibility of the human spirit. 6 males, 4 females (1 child)

MADAME MERELDA'S - full length stage play comedy - in progress
Madame Marelda's House of Magyck comes under scrutiny by the police, and even though it is simply a BDSM club, Madame Merelda is charged with keeping a common bawdy house. The new proper Mayor is campaigning for re-election and needs someone to pick on. Madame Merelda calls her most bizarre witnesses and the prosecution calls theirs. To a hilarious verdict and the conclusion that all is not always as it seems to be.

THE BERTRAMEISTER - short story - complete
A literate childhood memory of a cherished uncle and the effect on everyone of his extremely audible flatulence. 2650 words

VITAL MISSION - short story - complete
A literary expression of the joys and fantasies in owning and riding a motorcycle. 1700 words

THE MAGIC BUS - short story - complete
A timid young man struggles to make a decision about his life, while seeking advice from fantastic people from history aboard a magic bus. 4100 words