Blog for 10.06.2005

Hey Cutters…
I’ve got so many things going on that I haven’t had time to write to you all for over a month now. In this email, I’ll bring you up to date with stories about helping Hurricane Katrina victims, my latest movie Jack’s Law, surfing in Costa Rica with my bro Murph the Surf, preparing for my next movie Driftwood, where’s Smokey, Lee and Bo are at in YRG program, and being interviewed for the Wall Street Journal…yes, I said the Wall Street Journal.
Let’s back up to when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans. As we all know many of the survivors were sent all over the country to get a helping hand. To my surprise many of them ended up here in Los Angeles at a place called The Dream Center (http://www.dreamcenter.org). Like a lot of people, I felt helpless and was looking for a way to do something…

My memories of New Orleans are incredible. Some of you may remember that it was in the New Orleans Superdome in front of 33,000 people that I accepted an nWo t-shirt from Scott Hall and Kevin Nash. You could hear a pin drop as I put the shirt on and I hugged Kevin Nash and Scott Hall, apparently joining the nWo, but the roar of approval was deafening when I hit Scott Hall with the Diamond Cutter and then backdropped Kevin Nash over the ropes and through a table below. That was the first time I ever took off through the crowd and into a sea of people.
Needless to say, I have plenty of fond memories of New Orleans. A friend of mine, Jana, who I call sister Jana because Mother Theresa has already be taken… gave me a call and asked me if I wanted to go to the Los Angeles Dream Center to donate a bunch of stuffed animals she had gotten as a donation… She is always asking me to do things for kids… So I put together a whole batch of clothes to donate and went with her. When we got there, the response was incredible. I’d forgotten how important a friendly familiar face can be to people in desperate times. It really felt great. So great I’ll be spending some more time there and taking some of the people there through my YRG program. My girl, Sister Jana, has already gotten the YRG (yoga) mats donated and she’s looking for some heart monitors. So, if you feel like throwing in with a donation… Like a heart monitor email Jana directly at jana@itsallaboutthekids.org. And she will take care of the rest. While I was there, I joined other celebrities who were doing their part like Magic Johnson and Sugar Ray Leonard.

Next, I was off to Salt Lake city to begin filming Jack’s Law, which stars Danny Trejo. Danny has done over 100 movies and always played the bad guy, the Mexican with the huge tattoo on his chest. Danny is a real life O.G. who, in his youth, spent time at San Quentin. Getting out of jail in his early 20s, he turned his life around and is a walking example of what everyone would love people to say about you. Of all the movie sets I’ve ever been on, Danny is by far the most beloved…it’s really crazy. Everybody loves this guy. I’ve really gotten to know him and love him as well by spending so much time together of the last year and a half… It really crazy…I’ve worked on four of my last six films with Danny:The Devil’s Rejects, Nice Guys, Snoop Dogg’s Hood of Horror, and now Gil Madina’s… Jack’s Law. Jack’s Law is Charlie’s Bronson’s Death Wish of the new millennium, and I can’t think of a better guy to play the lead Bronson good guy than a really good guy who has been a bad guy in over 100 films, Danny Trejo.

I play a guy named Spider who is Danny’s #1 adversary… What a piece of sh-t I am in this flick… We meet in prison, and I’m talking about the real Utah State Penitentiary. Gil actually got us access to shoot inside the prison…that was a trip.

After doing the first half of my shooting for Jack’s Law, I took off for Costa Rica with my buddy Murph The Surf. I was headed to meet one of the coolest cats who lives in one of the sweetest cribs on the planet named Chuck Kelly. Chuck invited 23 of his bros for their yearly surf vacation. I guess this trip started with 6 guys and is now up to 23. 23 guys in three houses right next to each other on the beach that are located right on the point of Playa Negro, Costa Rica… A kick ass surf spot. You gotta see all the pictures to really appreciate it. The sunsets, the surfing, some kick ass waves, and I got to meet some really cool regular guys. I think it’s the first time I hung around with a bunch of guys my own age since I was in high school.

Of course, I did my YRG workout before I hit the waves to make sure I was loose as a goose before I got my a$$ kicked by those overhead waves. When I started doing the YRG workout with Murph, before I knew it there were two more guys, then three, then four. By the end of the week I had 9 guys trying the YRG workout on the beach. The funniest thing about Murph the Surf is that he is truly Murphy’s Law waiting to happen. The first day, at Chuck’s house, he bit into a frozen protein bar and broke his front tooth off… Here’s a pic of Murph putting the diamond cutter on me…check out the tooth.
Later on that same day, Murph went out to surf with some huge double overhead waves and had his board smash him in the ribs and totally f*ck them up. That was the first day and he was a mess… This guy had me laughing almost as much as Smokey does.

When I wasn’t surfing, there are some great shots of me and some of the guys going on a canopy ride, where you hook up to a steel cable and glide 200 feet in the air above the jungle. Now this was a trip. I was hanging upside down doing the Diamond Cutter and it was a loooong way down. I want to thank Chuck who is one of the greatest hosts I’ve ever met since my Park City friends J.T. and Diana. They must be related somehow. From there, Murph and I went to San Jose, picked up Ang and headed to Jaco to end up a great trip.
From there I headed back to Salt Lake City to finish up Jack’s Law where I met Bob Burke, who you may remember from countless movies, including Robocop. Bob played Danny’s former cop partner. Who else is in this movie? Jason Mewes of Silent Bob fame, Noel G, and I got to do a scene with one of my childhood heroes, Antonio Fargas, better known as Huggy Bear of Starsky & Hutch. Still one of the coolest cats alive.

After I finished with the movie I headed up to Park City to see my original favorite hosts on the planet, J.T. and Diana. For lady Di’s birthday and then, it was back to L.A.
The latest updates on Smokey and Bo will be up within the next week. Lee Marshall will also hit us with an update. Lee has already lost 40 pounds doing YRG… Damn Lee is almost caught up to Smokey…

Speaking of YRG, if you didn’t get a chance to read the article, click here. There is a kick-a$$ article written by Arnie Cooper about “Yoga for Regular Guys”. It filled up the top third of the back page of the Leisure section of the Wednesday October 5th edition Wall Street Journal. Arnie was a very cool writer who actually came by my condo in LA to see me over a month ago and interviewed me for over three hours. He not only interviewed me, but he did the 45 minute YRG workout with me. He let me know that he’d been doing yoga and was up for a test. I took him to the limit and he passed with flying colors. You can tell from the article that he loved the YRG workout and he gets it. That’s the big thing…he really got the YRG concept. I want to thank Arnie personally because I never thought in my life that I would ever be quoted in the Wall Street Journal. The WSJ also quoted my man Smokey. Remember Smokey is to YRG what Jared was to Subway. But my bro Smokey is the real deal… A to Z… If you haven’t caught any of his Project Smokey articles, you need to check the site and watch Smokey lose weight and become flexible right before you very eyes… Great job RichInKC on the way those pictures change right before your very eyes…
Speaking of websites, Rich is working on an all new DiamondDallasPage.com site which will be ready for the launch of my book YRG…”Yoga for Regular Guys”, the best friggin workout on the planet. You can pre-order the book right now and save yourself $6 on Amazon.com now if you want. Just CLICK here to go right to it.
Until next time… it’s been your pleasure … As well as mine…