Tiger, Viruses and Bruce Lee...Oh My!

What’s with this Tiger Woods story? Is it really a surprise that he actually cheated on his wife? C’mon let’s not be totally naïve about this and think that Tiger was an innocent and pure soul. Think about any person in high profile or celebrity role. No matter how they appear, you know it’s not the whole truth. When I found about the news that Tiger Woods crashed his car near his driveway and heard that his beautiful wife had to use a golf club to get him out, my initial thoughts were this (this is the actual, God’s honest truth where my wife can verify) “Boy he must have cheated on his wife and his wife was using the golf club to beat him up!” Think about this: How many people in this world actually have a golf club nearby so they can break car windows? That’s the first thing that came to mind as well. Was there a golf club lying around the driveway on the Wood’s family property like most of us have rakes on ours? You can argue that since he is a professional golfer that he would leave his golf clubs around the house. I would counter that and say I am an acupuncturist and I know I do not leave needles around my house for my wife to poke me with. Let’s face it, any high profile athlete like Tiger is bound have a “cheatin’ heart”. No matter how good his public image may be, history has shown that many athletes especially if they are portrayed “too good to be true” will always have a some sort of infidelity in their lives. I will name you some athletes who have very positive public images but were caught cheating. Ready? Here is a brief sampling:

-Michael Jordan

- Kobe Bryant

- Dale Earnhardt

-Muhammed Ali

- Patrick Ewing

-Martin Brodeur

-Shaquille O’neal

- David Beckham

- Alex Rodriguez

-Roger Clemens

- Chris Everett Lloyd

- Greg Norman

- Magic Johnson

Those are just some of the samplings. I think there should be a scientific equation to detect if a sports star is going to cheat. Sort of a probability equation if you will. If your sports image is too perfect, they are likely to cheat on their spouses. I am no mathematician and have no clue on how to devise such equation. Just remember, if the celebrity seems to be too good to be true, just know they will stray from their spouses or significant other.

This past week, my computer has been bugged. I opened up an email and, lo and behold, it was a virus. This caused such a headache. So much that I lost my patient files that I usually save on the computer. Thankfully I have hard copies of their paperwork and billing in their charts but the whole ordeal was a problem. To those who created these “Trojan horse” viruses, “What the f^%&$?! Why the hell are you guys doing such a sh#@@$$# thing!!!” Because of this, I was unable to attend my Wednesday night seminar because it took literally three hours to reboot my computer. Luckily, I was able to retrieve my school and some valuable documents but to lose the files on my work….Man don’t get me started. I am still fuming about that I lost over 150 patient files. 150 files!!! Do you know how many man hours was put in this!!! So last night was not a happy household at the Kim’s residence.

Now I would like to share a true story of how I met Bruce Lee’s brother. I used to live in the Los Angeles area and worked at an outpatient physical therapy clinic in El Monte, which is about 20 miles east of Los Angeles. I was employed as an acupuncturist and treating most orthopedic conditions. One of patients happened to be Robert Lee. He was a very soften spoken, mild mannered man who wore glasses and was slightly overweight. Robert and I got along great and I enjoyed having him as a patient.

One day of the front desk informs me that Robert was actually Bruce Lee’s brother. I guffawed at such notion and told her that it was an old Asian trick that he pulled. Any Asian person with a last name Lee always claim to have some sort of familial relations to the great Dragon (i.e. “Yeah Bruce Lee is my unlce” or “I’m Bruce Lee’s third cousin removed and remarried and adopted nephew on his mother’s father’s side”). I was incredulous that the front desk girl actually fell for this old trick. Well Robert came in and I asked him “Hey Robert, why are tricking these ladies?” and the following exchange actually took place.

“I don’t understand. What do you mean by tricking?” said Robert.

“C’mon now. Why are you pulling the old ‘Bruce Lee’ is my relative routine?”

“Because he is my brother!”

“Get out of here! Look I’m Asian as well and know that routine since I was 5.”

“John, Bruce is my brother!”

“Ok, if you say so…”

“Next time I see you, I will prove to you that he is my real brother!”

“Please do…”

As you can tell, I was very dubious about Robert’s claims. The next time I came into the office, Robert was there with a bunch of photo albums and other items with Bruce Lee on it. Time for me to eat my own foot…

I looked at the photo album of Robert’s and, lo and behold, there was a family picture of him and his brother. There was another picture of them as kids as the “Immortal” Bruce Lee was holding his infant brother. There was another one where Robert and his brother stood side to side, smiling endlessly like any family members would do when they love each other. And there was another where Robert is just standing still and we see Bruce doing a flying kick over his head. Robert even brought an old album that he recorded with his brother’s help which was a folk song album titled “What Kung Fu means to me”. On the album cover, there was Bruce Lee in his menacing pose ready to beat the living tar out of someone while Robert was in the background smiling peacefully.

“Hey look Robert. I apologize to you if I ever doubted or offend you in any way.”

“It’s ok, John. I never lie about my family.”

We talked a while about his brother. I was and am still a huge fan of Bruce Lee for many reasons. The obvious was that he was a small guy who just whupped anyone that messed with him. The other and more importantly, was that he was actually the first person to make Asians and Asian culture to be seen as cool. Prior to that, Asians were portrayed negatively on film and in print. It didn’t help that with World War 2 and the Vietnam War, the portrayal of Asians, in general, were downright racially offensive. I looked back on those images of Asians and it made me angry as a young man. Then in came Bruce Lee. Not only was he a good looking guy but this guy with all of his flying kicks, fast punches and the use of nunchucks would beat any man down who crossed him. He wasn’t the biggest man in the fight but he was the toughest and would let his opponents know firsthand. Because of his visibility, he made Asian culture to be cool. Many wanted to learn his fighting methods and were influenced by the beauty of the culture as well. I really admired him for that.

After talking to Robert for a while about his brother, I learned a lot about my idol. Here are some facts:

- Bruce, as a young man, was a wild child. So bad that his father actually made him learn Kung Fu to be disciplined. It didn’t work because he got into more fights. His father, tired of his actions, sent him away to America on his own at age 17. This is like a very extreme version of “I kicking you out of my house” but only move across the Pacific Ocean.

- Bruce, prior to being a movie star, struggled a lot and led a tough life alone in America. He did receive a college degree in University of Washington but he literally paid for his education working at various jobs as a waiter to even a Chinese food delivery person.

- Bruce was the only one of siblings who actually fought. The rest pretty much did other things. Robert was into music and said that “I am a lover, not a fighter like Bruce.”

- Guess who holds the entire fortune to the Bruce Lee estate? His widowed wife and daughter. How much did Bruce Lee’s actual family received? None. Zip. Zero. Nada. Plus, his wife Linda, has pretty much distanced herself from rest of his immediate family.

- Here’s a surprise. Guess who meets with Robert on a monthly basis to have lunch. The mistress that was with Bruce when he was found dead. They meet every month for lunch and pretty much talk about Bruce and his life.

- One of the hardest thing for Robert to deal with was not the death of his brother. He kind of knew that something bad would happen with him (he was one of the pall bearers for who carried his coffin). The toughest thing he had to deal with was the death of his nephew, Brandon Lee. He said that he knew him ever since he was a baby and he always loved him even though he did not get to see him much. Still, Robert never saw him as a Bruce Lee’s son. He just saw him as the little nephew that he always knew and loved.

Well that was my brush with a legend in an obtuse way. One more thing I want to mention before I end this. Since we have like 3 units left, do any of you guys want to hear about some of the patients I have treated in the past? I will not be using any real names. I have been doing what I have been doing for the past 10 years and I have encountered a lot of wacky situations. Let me know and please comment on it…