If I Get Big Like Arnold Then Girls Will Like Me

And Clubbing with My Adopted Uncle the MAGA Cultist

April 30th, 2025

Another day and another round of hateful comments and deranged messages. At least nobody directly threatened to kill me today, so there’s that. I think it’s so telling that almost universally these racists attack me as a “communist” and tell me to go back to China(or whatever other Asian country popped up in their addled minds). So full of hate. Boiling in their own personal hells everyday.

Speaking out against trump brings a lot of MAGA haters

I’m heartbroken by every innocent person who is being hurt and traumatized by this regime and wish people weren’t going through so much needless suffering. But, reality is reality and this is indeed happening. The silver lining here is I’m looking forward to the day of reckoning when the people rise and these MAGATs realize that they’re the minority and that 3 out of 4 people around them are ready to kick their ass.

I know I’m training hard for that day. I’ve never been in better shape and my Muay Thai is coming along nicely. We sparred today at my new gym in Germany. I was able to hold my own with every member there and would be confident in winning a fight against all but one of them, even some of the guys who say they’ve been training for 2-3 years. Sessions in the West just don’t compare to the three hour grinders in Thailand, and spending a year training in Thailand vs training in the West is like the difference between an immersive language program vs learning from Duo Lingo.

For example the gym here Monday we learn technique, Wednesday we spar, and Friday is pad work. In Thailand everyday you learn three new techniques, do padwork, bagwork, then six to nine rounds of sparring. Then clinch, core work, and hundreds of teeps and knees on the heavy bag. And you do this twice a day, six times a week, often in 90-100 degree heat. Thai fighters are tough as nails. Don’t let their small stature deceive you.

I am a hundred percent confident in being able to absolutely kick the tar out of anyone untrained, which is most people walking the streets and about 99.9% of MAGA. Hell, I probably wouldn’t even need to throw a punch, just walk in a leisurely circle around them until they collapsed from a heart attack. My training gives me the confidence to speak as loudly and clearly as I do. I’m not afraid of some dipshit inbred MAGA jumping me.

I think we need a new liberal movement based on strength. Kind, but strong. Compassionate, but firm. Tolerant, yet unyielding when it comes to our values. A movement of folks ready and willing to punch a Nazi in the face and prosecute traitors for their treasonous actions.

Big Jack and Little Jack

Fitness has been a core part of my life since I was young. When I was 13 I asked for a weight-lifting set for Christmas. My adopted uncle helped me set it up. It was a cheap, rickety thing from Wal-Mart but it was perfect for my tiny frame. I was 13 and still didn’t even weigh 100 pounds. Sadly my uncle now is deeply entrenched in the cult of MAGA. He’s spent most of his days chronically online for the last three decades. I have fond memories of watching him play Wolfenstein 3D when I first arrived in the US. He would yell and curse at the big CRT screen as he fought chaotic gun battles with the pixelated Nazis. “Big Jack, stop cursing in front of little Jack!” My mom would constantly chastise him to no avail. How ironic it is now that he is now firmly on the side of the Neo Nazis.

In our family my uncle is called “Big Jack” and I’m called “Little Jack” because we’re both named Jack. My aunt Janie still maintains to this day that this was a “stupid idea because I knew one day little Jack would grow up and then he wouldn’t be so little anymore!” It’s true, I now tower over Big Jack and could definitely kick his ass. We’re not on bad terms. Everyone in the family just knows not to bring up politics around him. Well, my aunt Janie hasn’t spoken to him in years, but the rest of us maintain a surface level peace.

Big Jack has lived in the same small house on the Lake of the Ozarks for the last forty years. He has a dock and a bass boat and loves to fish. He worked as a boat mechanic for his whole life and is now retired and spends his days fishing, playing video games, and reposting trump propaganda. For a while he would respond to every one of my anti-trump stories with an angry face but never once left a message or comment. He’s finally stopped leaving the little angry emojis.

We would take trips to see Jack every summer and I’d spend the days swimming in the lake and jumping off the dock. If the water wasn’t too rough and the lake wasn’t crowded with the big tourist boats Jack would take me out on the boat to water-ski. He loves to tell the story of the first time he took me out and how he gunned the engine and I popped out of the water immediately, because I probably weighed about 70lbs back then literally soaking wet. This is the same lake that was featured in the hit Netflix series Ozark, although that show was actually shot in Georgia.

The Lake of the Ozarks was created in 1931 with the completion of the Bagnell Dam, built by Union Electric Company (now Ameren) on the Osage River in central Missouri. At the time, it was one of the largest man-made lakes in the world, flooding over 55,000 acres of rugged Ozark forest, farmland, and small communities—including parts of several towns that now rest beneath its waters. The massive hydroelectric project employed thousands during the Great Depression, transforming the remote area into a recreational destination. Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, the lake attracted wealthy Kansas City and St. Louis residents, including notorious mobsters like Tom Pendergast and his associates, who built luxurious hideaways along its secluded shores to escape urban heat and law enforcement scrutiny. These underworld connections gave rise to rumors of secret tunnels, hidden gambling operations, and bootlegging activities during Prohibition and afterward, establishing the lake's colorful reputation that persists alongside its development into one of the Midwest's premier vacation destinations.

I have a heartbreaking memory of Big Jack. We were driving together to Springfield to go have Thanksgiving lunch at my aunt Janie’s house. Somehow we got on the subject of the VH1 show “The Pickup Artist”. The show featured a man who called himself “Mystery” and he would go around clubs and bars dressed up in flashy outfits, like a purple suit with a tophat(they call it peacocking), and attempt to pick-up women. I believe this was really the first wave of what would become a flood of toxic content aimed at fleecing frustrated, insecure, and unsuccessful men.

“I wish I had the gift of gab,” Big Jack said as he drove down highway 13.

“The what?”

“The gift of gab. I wish I could talk to women like that guy on that pickup artist show.”

Big Jack was married in his 20s but had been divorced for years by the time we met. He’s been single for the thirty years that I’ve known him. When I first came from China he was on the tail end of his clubbing phase. Now, clubbing in Missouri is very different from what you’re probably picturing.

He liked to come to Springfield and go out to this club called “Midnight Rode.” There he would line dance and square dance. I remember he was always buying new cowboy boots and had countless different hats and cowboy shirts and the little bone necktie things, I don’t know what those are even called. Ah, Bolo tie. Thanks Google.

I guess he had a drinking problem back then but I was totally oblivious. I went to Midnight Rodeo a few times after I turned 18. It was one of the only places that you could get into as an eighteen year old. What a trashy place. Seems like there’s a fight in the parking lot every night, but the brawlers liked to wait until they’ve gotten to witness The Contest. Every Friday the club would host a “dance contest” where the winner was given a $100 bar tab or something like that. Despite the name it was never about dancing skill. The winner was always the one willing to remove the most articles of clothing, until the MC stopped her with the excuse that they didn’t have the proper license for what she was about to show.

I don’t even know why I went. Peer pressure. Something to do besides sitting in the Wal-Mart parking lot I suppose. I never danced. I never talked to anyone. None of us were old enough to drink. I just stood around awkwardly with my high school buddies. We’d oggle the entrants in the dance contest and then leave when the fights started.

“I wish I had the gift of gab.” Hearing those words made me so sad. I still feel Big Jack’s sadness, his pain, his loneliness as I remember that conversation. He just wanted connection and intimacy like all humans do. But no one had ever taught him how to talk to women, how to maintain relationships. And so he has spent most of his life alone, lonely, bitter, angry, and frustrated. Big Jack isn’t a bad guy. He has a good heart and honestly is like a big kid. He just was never taught the skills required to be a good partner or to be emotionally mature and available. He was ripe for indoctrination and now he’s been totally sucked in by the cult of MAGA.

I feel his pain so clearly because I can relate well. I watched that VH1 show too because I also had no idea how to talk to women. In my early 20s I literally memorized scripts from online message boards on how to pick up women in a bar. I feel embarrassment radiating from me like heat waves as I write this but it’s true. I memorized these elaborate scripts where you try to trick a woman into coming home with you. According to the authors, if you negged(insulted) your target at the right moments and then regurgitated these ridiculous and elaborate stories you would be irresistible to women.

Sorry guys, it doesn’t work. I tried. Trust me, save yourself the embarrassment. What did work for me was to learn basic social skills. I spent an entire year in my sophomore year of college training myself to look people in the eye. I grew up painfully shy and after my father died when I was 13 I retreated deeply into MMORPGs. Massive multiplayer online role playing games for the non-nerds reading. It started with Ultima Online, then Everquest, and finally World of Warcraft.

I spent increasingly more time in these online worlds and neglected the basic social skills that most kids learn from their families and friends. I trained myself to look people in the eye. I spent another year training myself to speak louder. I still have to fight my habit of speaking too softly so that people have trouble hearing me.

By this time my Chinese mother, Jean, had remarried to an American man. An attorney. That’s a whole different can of worms that I may decide to open in a later chapter. We’ll see. He gifted me Dale Carnegie’s book “How to Win Friends and Influence People.” As corney and ridiculous as that book is, I actually took away one very helpful piece of advice from there that still sticks with me to this day.

Be interested in others. So simple yet so powerful. Just be genuinely interested in other people. Ask them questions. Ask them about their life. The secret to building friends and having successful dates is to simply be interested in other people.

This is such a simple concept but if you spend too much time on the internet, like I do, you’ll come across anecdote after anecdote from women about their horrible dates where men won’t ask them a single question and instead blather on and on about themselves. Someone should have taught these pick-up artists this one simple trick. Just ask women questions. You don’t need to neg them. You don’t need to trick them. Just be genuinely interested in other people and you’ll never run out of dating opportunities.

And of course the toxic internet culture butchers and weaponizes this simple concept. The newest breed of pick-up bros will generate lists of questions for you to memorize so that you can trick your date into thinking you’re interested in them. What the hell, guys. Just be a decent human being and be genuinely interested and be interesting. That’s it. It’s really not that hard. Stop trying to trick people into liking you.

Lifting

I grew up on Arnold Schwarzenegger movies. Commando, True Lies, Eraser, Predator, the Terminator series. Give me a 5 second clip from any Arnold movie and I’ll be able to tell you the title. At some point I decided I should start lifting to get big like Arnold. I reasoned that “if I get ripped like Arnold, then girls will like me.”

Photos taken during college. Note the Arnold poster on my wall

Men really are so simple. All of our actions boil down to one basic drive. “Everything in the world is about sex, except sex. Sex is about power.” Oscar Wilde

My adopted mom, Nancy, had these 6lb plastic weights filled with sand. The weights were golden and glittery. I have no idea when or where she bought them but based on their appearance they probably were from the 80s and originally paired with pink neon spandex and used in a dance aerobic class. I started surreptitiously pumping iron after my mom went to bed. I’d sneak into the extra bedroom where the weights were stored and get in a few sets of bicep curls. I don’t know why I felt the need to sneak around. This was a common theme in my childhood, I always had a sense that I couldn’t voice my needs. That my desires weren’t appropriate and should be hidden away.

I remember when I first came from China I was watching TV at my aunt Janie’s house and a commercial for 101 Dalmations, the animated Disney cartoon, was playing. My aunt asked me if I wanted to see that movie. I told her, “yes, but I won’t be allowed to.” “Why not?” I didn’t have an answer. I had a deep sense that I shouldn’t even bother to ask for what I wanted, because I wouldn’t get what I wanted. I still don’t know where that belief comes from. Obviously some deeply buried experience from growing up in China.

After two months the sparkly, golden weights started to feel light so I moved onto curling a gallon jug of water. 8.34 pounds. I was getting strong! I could actually see muscle definition coming in. I was so skinny that even putting on a few pounds of muscle was noticeable on my small frame. Teenagers are primed to grow with the hormones coursing through their veins and I would flex proudly for kids on the school bus. I took great pleasure in their gasps of amazement as they felt my freshly grown biceps.

I even got a little bit of attention from girls at school and that was the motivation I needed to push past my shame and belief that I couldn’t ask for what I wanted. I finally came out of the closet about my weight-lifting obsession and asked for a weight set for Christmas. I was so excited for that weight set. Christmas day I slid a 10lb sand-filled plate on each side of the flimsy aluminum bar and bench-pressed until my chest started cramping.

Finally, I had the right equipment to get big like Arnold, and then girls would like me. Then my classmates would respect me. Then I would stop being picked on for being Chinese. Then kids wouldn’t dare to pull their eyes when they saw me or call me “ching chong cocopuffs.” If only I could get big and strong then all my problems in life would be solved.

That’s actually a profound thought if you analyze it. My real problem was a lack of power and agency. And I saw weight-lifting as a way to claim power for myself. What we’re seeing in the world today is this simple thought manifest in a million different ways. Trump and all his cronies are desperately clawing for power because at a core level they are insecure and think that more power will solve their problems. Billionaires keep hoarding money because money equals power and again they think more power will solve their problems.

People hoard guns for the same reason. You can only effectively shoot one rifle at a time. This ain’t Goldeneye where you can wield guns akimbo. Okay so maybe you can justify having a rifle and a pistol as a back-up if your primary weapon goes down or you need to quickly engage another target without taking the time to reload. You could even justify having a spare rifle and spare pistol in your house in-case your primary weapon breaks.

But there is no logical or practical reason to collect 30 different AR-15s. Again I speak from experience. I have WAY too many rifles. Half of them aren’t even zeroed because I can’t be bothered to goto the range and zero all these different guns. Guns are not about protection if you’re really honest with yourself. Guns are about power. Just like everything else in this life is about power. It feels good and fun to collect cool rifles because at a basic level it makes you feel more powerful to own more guns.

Oh I’m about to get sucked into the 2nd amendment rabbit hole. I’ll save that for another writing session. But I will say this. I am staunchly in support of the 2nd amendment and have been ever since I came from China. I saw how powerless and scared the citizens were after Tiananmen square. And that is why I believe every citizen has the right and the duty to arm themselves. Many liberal minded folks are finally waking up to the reality that the US government is not immune from tyranny. I’m just baffled that so many 2A “don’t tread on me” folks seem to be cheering on a literal tyrant taking over our country. Isn’t this exact moment why you’ve been hoarding guns for your whole life, bro?

Damn dude I can see your heartbeat in your head

I enrolled in the weight-lifting class in high school, taught by the football coach. Holy shit, that guy was wildly unqualified for that job. There was never one demonstration of proper form. I wish I had videos of the kids attempting complex olympic movements like power cleans. Think of every video you’ve ever seen making fun of CrossFitters with awful form, make it twice as cringey, and you’ll get close to what our high school weight room looked like. It’s a testament to the durability and self repairing nature of teenagers that no one got permanently injured in that class.

I remember my friend Jake loading up four plates onto each side of the bar in preparation to squat. Four 45lb plates on each side, 405lbs total including the 45lb barl. Jake had no business trying to squat four plates. He was at most 160lbs and 17 years old. 240lb college linebackers have difficulty squatting 405lbs.

Jake wiggled under the bar and jammed his feet to the edges of the power rack. You’re supposed to stand with your feet shoulder width apart, maybe slightly wider when you squat. The way he had jammed his feet to the sides of the rack it looked like he was attempting the splits. Spotters helped Jake lift the bar off the hooks and then we all nervously eyed him as his small body shook under the strain of the immense load.

The whole class had gathered to watch Jake attempt this PR. The coach looked on impassively, not concerned in the slightest that one of his students might have his spin crushed right before his eyes. Jake’s face was slowly turning a deep shade of purple and veins bulged in his forehead. Legs shaking he lowered himself about six inches while an involuntary groan escaped his mouth.

“Damn dude I can see your heartbeat in your head,” someone said from the crowd. “Come on Jake, you can do this, up!!”

Jake gasped and groaned and slowly pushed the weight up as his face turned a shade of beet red. You really could see his pulse in the vein popping out of his forehead. “This can’t be safe,” I said to myself. The coach continued to look on impassively. Maybe he was hoping for a couple days off if Jake stroked out.

With a final grunt of exertion Jake pushed himself back up from his six inch squat and slammed the weight heavily back into the hooks. Everyone cheered. After catching his breath, his face decidedly less red, Jake went over to the whiteboard and proudly wrote in his new PR. 405lb squat. A new class record for his weight class! Ridiculous. I wonder how many people will suffer back pain in their old age because our weights coach never bothered to teach anyone how to properly lift weights.

There was never any talk of periodization, rest, nutrition, or form. Just load up as much weight onto the bar and struggle beneath it. The more you struggle and the closer you come to causing permanent injury, the better!

I learned how to properly lift from the internet. My freshman year of college I managed to temporarily replace my video game addiction with weight-lifting. My routine was the same everyday. I would goto the gym at 3pm after class, lift for two hours, and then come back and eat at the dining hall. We’d chosen the unlimited dining plan when I signed up that year at Missouri State University. I’d managed to get a full-ride scholarship there but the real reason I chose MSU was because it was close to my girlfriend. A Korean adoptee who lived in Joplin. Another story, for another time. Just highlighting the fact that men only have one single drive.

I would eat until I was literally sick to my stomach. Every single day. I’d read on the internet that you need to “eat big to get big.” Before bed I would drink a mass gainer shake. A chalky concoction that was made up of whey protein and maltodextrin. Maltodextrin is arguably worse than sugar because it has a higher glycemic index than regular sugar, meaning it can spike blood sugar levels more rapidly. Maltodextrin undergoes extensive processing that strips away any nutritional value. It has a higher glycemic index than sugar.

It worked. I gained 20lbs of muscle(and fat) in my freshman year of college. I still have stretch marks on my biceps, thighs, and lower back because my skin couldn’t keep up with how quickly my body mass increased.

I spent countless hours that year devouring information on anything and everything related to bodybuilding, weight lifting, and nutrition. Most of that time was spent on the Bodybuilding.com forums. A precursor to Reddit and even 4chan. Damn, apparently those forums shut down for good a year ago. I think I've made over 160,000 posts and comments on those forums over the years. I attribute my ability to write and my combative online attitude to all the time I spent arguing with people on those forums. You really never know what will come in handy in the future. Like I never thought my early childhood experience would help fuel me to fight fascism in the United States.

I’ll leave today’s writing with this story that I heard from a park volunteer in Arches National Park in Utah. I’ve long since forgotten his name but I can remember his face vividly. He looked just like Gandalf. Big white beard, wrinkled kind eyes, and a ready smile under his big volunteer ranger hat. The only thing missing was a pipe. He was a retired school teacher and now spent his summers volunteering and taking care of campgrounds in National Parks. He’d spent the summer before in Yosemite and was now spending this summer in Arches and Canyonlands.

For some reason he’d taken a shine to me when I checked into my campsite and invited me to visit his campfire after I was done with my hikes for the day. Maybe it was because I was traveling solo and he was also alone. Maybe he saw how lonely I was beneath the false confidence of a 25 year old kid on his first solo trip, or could sense a bit of how lost and directionless I was. I spent an enjoyable evening watching the fire, gazing at stars, and listening to his stories. He told me how he’d met Edward Abbey once, by accident. He’d climbed what he thought was an empty fire tower in Utah only to discover that it was occupied by a very surly Abbey.

Edward Abbey (1927-1989) was an American author and environmental activist known for his passionate defense of wilderness and critique of industrial development. He wrote primarily in the American Southwest, penning his most famous work, "Desert Solitaire," while working as a park ranger at Arches National Monument in Utah. Abbey later wrote "The Monkey Wrench Gang," an influential novel about environmental sabotage, while living in various locations throughout Arizona and New Mexico. His provocative writings on environmental preservation, civil disobedience, and American culture were largely crafted in remote cabins and wilderness settings that reflected his deep connection to the desert landscapes he fought to protect.

I fear it is time for the Monkey Wrench Gang to ride again. This time in defense of not only our public lands but also in defense of innocent migrants.

At the end of the night he told me a story. “This is a story that I told every class of kids I ever taught. It starts with a young boy walking along a forest path lined with pebbles. This young boy meets a mysterious, wizened wizard. This wizard has a long white beard, like me, and he wore long flowing robes that were the deepest black. Blacker than black. Blacker than all the shadows in the forest combined. And this wizard stopped the young boy and told him that he should pick up pebbles as he walked. ‘Pick up pebbles, but why?’ The wizard didn’t answer. He walked into the forest and quickly disappeared amongst the shadows of the trees.”

“The boy decided to obey the wizard. After all he was a wise and wizened old man and we ought to listen to and respect our elders,” the campground host said this with a twinkle in his eye. “The boy spent the rest of his day picking up small pebbles as he walked. The next morning he woke up and saw that some of the pebbles had fallen out of his pocket as he slept. But upon closer inspection the boy saw that some of the pebbles weren’t pebbles at all. They were diamonds.” My host paused here and looked at me pointedly. “Do you understand this story?”

“Uh… respect old people? Listen to old people with big beards because if you do you’ll get rich?”

“No no no,” my host shook his head in mock disappointment. “This is a parable about education. The pebbles are lessons and knowledge. You never know what bit of knowledge that you learn will become valuable to you in the future. You never know what pebble that you pick up will turn into a diamond. So you should continue to learn your whole life. Continue to pick up those pebbles, even if it seems like just a worthless pebble at the time. You never know if one of those pebbles will turn into a diamond.”

Thank you Arches Gandalf. I’ve held your lesson close to my heart and haven’t stopped learning. And it’s true. So many random bits of knowledge I’ve picked up in my life have turned into diamonds. My million dollar business was built on the knowledge of markets and the psychology of markets that I gained from playing MMORPGs. I think my book will be successful because I learned how to write by spending countless nights arguing with people on Bodybuilding.com forums. I turned my obsession with fitness into a viable career. Learning how to carry a heavy pack around in the woods and over arduous terrain in the Army has led to 20,000 miles of crazy adventures.

Keep picking up those pebbles. You never know which ones will turn into diamonds.

This is an excerpt from a book I am writing. Please subscribe, I plan to write daily. And any feedback you have is much appreciated. Writing in this “live” format with instant feedback gives me much more motivation to maintain the practice. I really appreciate your participation in the creation of this book.