Been months since my last post. Secret investigations require secrecy. With all the crap I got I decided to tone it down with the blogging. I felt like I was accomplishing little, and I could be better served with silence.
Yet there is value in a shared experience. I have had some crazy stuff happen and I have befriended some awesome people. Enough said about that.
Some of my work lately has been on early martial arts history in Chicago.
I will talk about that here in future. There was someone offering jiu jitsu lessons on 36th and State Street in 1908. That’s of some interest to me.
Chicago has been a martial art city for a century. But what does that mean? This is one of the questions raised for me as I complete this documentary.
To talk about John Keehan/Count Dante outside the context of a complex social history and it’s cross cultural relationships just seems a bit lazy.
I can still make it fun and respectful to the living witnesses and family members who have survived some of the seedier and horrible sides of the story.
So consider me back. Lots of surprising things have occurred. Old rivalries have softened, maybe even to the point of cooperation. We will see. I am open to anything that allows for the most accurate telling of this tale.
