Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark.
Speaker 1: There's Charles w Chuck Bryant, there's Jerry Roland, and this
Speaker 1: is Stuff you should Know. I couldn't think of any um,
Speaker 1: non problematic nicknames for us to use. Well, you could
Speaker 1: probably just go, yeah, that's what I'm talking about? Is
Speaker 1: that probably figure that? I'm sure yes, we would probably
Speaker 1: here about the man that's uh. You watch any great
Speaker 1: kung fu movie and they all make that great, great
Speaker 1: sound after a good death punch. Did you ever take
Speaker 1: kung fu when you were young or any kind of
Speaker 1: martial arts? No, I'm notoriously have zero interested in martial arts,
Speaker 1: and my biggest fears that my daughter is gonna want
Speaker 1: to do it. I oh really, well, I mean, will
Speaker 1: you tell her to sweep the leg at a tournament
Speaker 1: as she ever does? Yeah? Sure, I mean I wanted
Speaker 1: like to be able to protect herself, so that sounds
Speaker 1: like a very selfish thing. But as far as like
Speaker 1: going to martial arts tournaments kind of like uh, just
Speaker 1: you know, kill me. Now, what you should get her
Speaker 1: interested in, like, um, wielding a knife or something? It
Speaker 1: would be really cool or just being a good person,
Speaker 1: so people don't pick fights with her? Yeah, is that
Speaker 1: how things work? No, not at all. So I'll tell
Speaker 1: you somebody who liked to pick fights, not just would
Speaker 1: get into fights and accept the challenge, would actually pick fights.
Speaker 1: And it turns out that person also happens to be
Speaker 1: the person we're talking about today, one Mr Bruce Lee. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Bruce Lee. I mean, I'm sure, like me, you spent
Speaker 1: the past couple of days watching a lot of Bruce
Speaker 1: Lee stuff. But my question is were you into this?
Speaker 1: Did you watch kung fu movies and Bruce Lee movies
Speaker 1: only in so far as like the whole nineties like
Speaker 1: throwback thing. You know. I would have him on every
Speaker 1: once a while and watch him, but I was never
Speaker 1: super into my friends that were super into them. I remember,
Speaker 1: of course, I underwent extensive ninja training under since a
Speaker 1: Tommy Roper as a much younger person. This is in
Speaker 1: the eighties. Um, but I was never really into kung
Speaker 1: fu or or martial arts movies. Um. Outside of that, UM,
Speaker 1: I will say though, watching Fist of Fury last night, UM,
Speaker 1: I was just absolutely blown away like that. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: whole things I think black Belt Karate Dot com pirate
Speaker 1: of the movie and put it on YouTube, the whole thing,
Speaker 1: and it is just really good. Like the fighting in
Speaker 1: there is astounding and it gives you, like a really
Speaker 1: good like appreciation. It's hard not to appreciate what you're
Speaker 1: seeing with Bruce Lee when you when you watch it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I have still not seen many of those movies. But
Speaker 1: for a movie Crush episode, one of my guests, um uh,
Speaker 1: Stuart Wellington of the flap House podcast, one of my
Speaker 1: favorite other podcast on movies, he had me watch his
Speaker 1: favorite movie, which is Ricky, Oh Colin the story of
Speaker 1: Ricky and Dude. You have to see this movie. It
Speaker 1: is the gory, over the top crazy martial arts movie
Speaker 1: to beat all over the top gory crazy martial arts movies.
Speaker 1: It is when was nuts? When was it made? Well
Speaker 1: ninety one, but it seems like seventy eight. Um it's
Speaker 1: it's amazing. Was there a shot where some guy jammed
Speaker 1: his fingers into his opponents testicles and then they cut
Speaker 1: to a view from inside his screwed them and you
Speaker 1: see the fingers wiggling. Did that happened? Because I saw
Speaker 1: a martial arts movie that had that and I was like, well,
Speaker 1: there it is. But that is the thing I've ever seen.
Speaker 1: It's got a lot of stuff like that. But I
Speaker 1: don't think that was from Ricky. Oh, but it's You're
Speaker 1: on the right track there, as far as you know.
Speaker 1: It's not for everybody. I gotta check it out, man,
Speaker 1: it's pretty fun. You had me. You're on the right
Speaker 1: track there. Um. So, Bruce lee movies were not nearly
Speaker 1: as violent, but for the time they were, they were
Speaker 1: exceedingly violent, it seems like, and Bruce Lee laid the
Speaker 1: foundation that people said, well, I want to top that.
Speaker 1: I want to top that. Um. And while maybe Gore
Speaker 1: there was plenty of like blood in in Fists of Fury,
Speaker 1: at least in other movies that he made, but um,
Speaker 1: it wasn't anything like what we just talked about. But
Speaker 1: the I think the larger point for Bruce Lee is
Speaker 1: that he laid this foundation, like he introduced the United
Speaker 1: States in the West to the idea of not just
Speaker 1: kung fu movie but of like Asians being heroes, like
Speaker 1: like protagonists, like like tough. You know, because up to
Speaker 1: that point, not necessarily exactly up to that point, but
Speaker 1: awfully close to it. Um, especially in the West. Uh,
Speaker 1: the people from China Japan seemed very docile, cerebral. I
Speaker 1: saw um not at all like Bruce Lee. And Bruce
Speaker 1: Lee changed all of that basically singlehandedly, especially as far
Speaker 1: as America is concerned with a single one inch punch. Basically.
Speaker 1: So let's talk a little bit about his early life,
Speaker 1: because he had a pretty interesting background, uh, pretty interesting
Speaker 1: genetic family tree. Um, because you know, we all think
Speaker 1: of him as Chinese, and he was certainly, he certainly
Speaker 1: was Chinese. But um, if you if you poke around
Speaker 1: his lineage and you will learn that his maternal great
Speaker 1: and father was Dutch Jewish, which is really interesting. He
Speaker 1: was a merchant, his name was Moses with a z
Speaker 1: hard dog Boseman, and he went to Hong Kong in
Speaker 1: the eighteen fifties as part of the Dutch East India Company.
Speaker 1: Became the Dutch ambassador to Hong Kong, had six kids
Speaker 1: with his concubine, and then one of those kids, one
Speaker 1: of his sons, Ho Kam Tong. He became a very
Speaker 1: rich man. He had a wife, thirteen concubines and a
Speaker 1: British mistress, and then he had a daughter with a
Speaker 1: British mistress, and that was Bruce Lee's mom. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: it sounds more convenient. Yeah. Yeah. So Bruce Lee was
Speaker 1: part Jewish, part British, um and lots of Chinese mixed together.
Speaker 1: His father was Chinese Han Chinese um and his father
Speaker 1: was born poor. But he actually worked his way up
Speaker 1: to fairly sizeable celebrity in Hong Kong um or was
Speaker 1: it China? I don't remember if if Bruce Lee, if
Speaker 1: Bruce Lee, Bruce Lee's father lived in Hong Kong or China. Well,
Speaker 1: it was kind of both. He was a Cantonese opera
Speaker 1: star and an actor. Uh and then I think of
Speaker 1: visually they did settle in Hong Kong. Okay, all right,
Speaker 1: so um, but he was like very well known, like
Speaker 1: he was in movies, he was on TV, like he
Speaker 1: was a pretty famous guy. He was probably I would
Speaker 1: liken him to uh two, Jerry Orbach. He was the
Speaker 1: Jerry or Bach of his time and place. No, but
Speaker 1: he was like everywhere, he was in everything from dirty
Speaker 1: dancing to murder. She wrote, you know, like he was
Speaker 1: all over the place. And he was multi talented too.
Speaker 1: Don't try to tell me Jerry Orbach is not multi talented,
Speaker 1: because he is sure, but he was no opera star.
Speaker 1: Do you don't know that you're right? You're right. I
Speaker 1: could be I could be a martial arts expert. Jerry
Speaker 1: Orbot could be an opera star. Right, we could be
Speaker 1: whatever we want to be in our mind's eye. But
Speaker 1: so Bruce Lee's father was the Jerry Orbach of his
Speaker 1: time and place. That's right. So uh he was touring
Speaker 1: the US when Bruce was born. He was born in
Speaker 1: San Francisco in nineteen forty uh, and his parents named
Speaker 1: him Lee June Faun and apparently a nurse said you
Speaker 1: should call him Bruce for his English name. He said,
Speaker 1: what what did you say exactly? Did you hear what
Speaker 1: we named him? Originally? She's like, yeah, Bruce Len Bruce. Uh.
Speaker 1: They moved back to Hong Kong when he was a baby,
Speaker 1: and he grew up there, but he grew up with UM,
Speaker 1: going to English schools, English language private schools. Yeah. So um.
Speaker 1: He always kind of had this this UM I don't
Speaker 1: want to say split identity, but his his identity, a
Speaker 1: sense of self was deaf and divided between America and UM.
Speaker 1: I believe the UK to an extent, and also obviously
Speaker 1: Hong Kong UM and then of course his ancestry in China.
Speaker 1: Like he he he seemed to have UM not necessarily
Speaker 1: like felt spread all over the place, but in in
Speaker 1: a different sense, he was more open to influences wherever
Speaker 1: he found them. I saw somebody somebody say that Bruce
Speaker 1: Lee learned from everybody, everyone that he came in contact with, UM,
Speaker 1: including people who he had to fight, who fought of
Speaker 1: different styles. He he was always open to learning something
Speaker 1: he didn't. He was very cocky, he was very arrogant
Speaker 1: by a lot of people's estimations, but he also was
Speaker 1: humble enough to want to learn wherever he thought he
Speaker 1: could learn something new. Uh. And I think that that,
Speaker 1: according at least UM to again named Matthew Polly, who's
Speaker 1: known as one of his UM better biographers. Uh. That
Speaker 1: that really kind of underscored that that UM, that his
Speaker 1: personality just kind of being divided among different places around
Speaker 1: the world and having different influences. Yeah. So well, we'll
Speaker 1: take a little break here and we'll come back and
Speaker 1: talk about UM some of the early formative years of
Speaker 1: young Bruce Lee right after this and shock. Uh, alright,
Speaker 1: So little Bruce was born not only in the Year
Speaker 1: of the Dragon, but the Day of the Dragon, and
Speaker 1: his nickname was Little Dragon. When he became a child actor,
Speaker 1: if you only know Bruce Lee from his martial arts work,
Speaker 1: his kind of short career in martial arts films, he
Speaker 1: he was actually on screen as a baby. Um, but
Speaker 1: his real first kind of role was I think when
Speaker 1: he was like ten years old. Uh. Yeah, he was
Speaker 1: in a movie called The Kid, Yeah, which I watched
Speaker 1: some clips of this. I'm sure you did too. Um,
Speaker 1: it's you know, it's a cute little Bruce Lee. He
Speaker 1: does he kind of throw a lot of child abuse
Speaker 1: and was it really Yeah, He's like, he offers he
Speaker 1: has some money, so he offers to help his uncle out,
Speaker 1: and his uncle just basically deafens him in one ear. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: I didn't see that clip. I would call that child abuse, chuck. No, two,
Speaker 1: I didn't see that clip. You're like, yeah, well, I
Speaker 1: guess if it's your definition of child No, No, not
Speaker 1: at all. I just didn't see that. When I just
Speaker 1: saw the one where he was kind of did that
Speaker 1: famous Bruce Lee sort of uh you know, thumb across
Speaker 1: the nose and throw his little shirt open. I know
Speaker 1: that's crazy that like he was that young ten years
Speaker 1: old and he's already like laying the groundwork for the
Speaker 1: things that we're going to make him famous in the future. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and he was a little guy. He um, I think,
Speaker 1: you know, as a as a full grown adult. He
Speaker 1: he reached five seven, about a hundred and thirty pounds.
Speaker 1: He was not very big when he was a kid.
Speaker 1: He was very small. He was fairly weak because of
Speaker 1: food rations because Hong Kong was occupied by Imperial Japan
Speaker 1: at the time and they were rationing food out there
Speaker 1: was a cholera epidemic. He had one leg shorter than
Speaker 1: the other. He had an undescended testicle, which actually ended
Speaker 1: up keeping him out of Vietnam. So a little bit
Speaker 1: of a silver lining there. Uh. He had glasses, he
Speaker 1: had acne. I think his biographer said that he and
Speaker 1: this is the only person I really saw say that,
Speaker 1: but he said he'd probably be diagnosed with a d
Speaker 1: h D today. I looked for other places to find that,
Speaker 1: and no one. I don't think he's on record of
Speaker 1: saying that, but it did seem like that could be
Speaker 1: possible because he was very active, had trouble with focus,
Speaker 1: but could also hyper focus. Uh, and like he you know,
Speaker 1: like you said, he would kind of picked fights with
Speaker 1: people because he was a little kid, and that's a
Speaker 1: lot of times little kids will do that if they
Speaker 1: want to, you know, they want to prove that they're
Speaker 1: strong and have value, they'll pick fights and try and
Speaker 1: beat people up. Not not the way to do with
Speaker 1: their kids, no, but I mean, like, like, he was
Speaker 1: well known in Hong Kong as being like this kind
Speaker 1: of local tough who would start fights um and frequently
Speaker 1: won them, but sometimes would lose them too. Um. But
Speaker 1: there was one fight in particular that he lost around
Speaker 1: the age of fifteen or sixteen UM to a kid
Speaker 1: who had been studying h kung fu style called wing chun. Yeah,
Speaker 1: wing chun um, And that is where his famous um
Speaker 1: like one inch punch comes from. That style of fighting.
Speaker 1: It's really good for close quarters type fighting where your
Speaker 1: opponents right in front of you and coming at you.
Speaker 1: Wing chun is very good for that. So that was
Speaker 1: the kind of dude that Bruce Lee was, even back
Speaker 1: when he was a little hot shot fifteen year old,
Speaker 1: he lost a fight to somebody and he wanted to
Speaker 1: know how that person had beat him, So he went
Speaker 1: and learned it and that UM actually formed the basis
Speaker 1: for his UH. His formal education and martial arts was
Speaker 1: entering into the Wing Chun school UM at age fifteen. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I looked a little more into Wing Chung to
Speaker 1: see what it was kind of all about. And apparently
Speaker 1: there's two sort of main tenants, which is the center
Speaker 1: line theory and then stand and guard UH. And the
Speaker 1: center line theory is basically, you draw a line from
Speaker 1: the center of your body to your opponent's body and
Speaker 1: that is the quickest route to strike. So if you've
Speaker 1: got someone coming at you, like you know, if you
Speaker 1: go throw a punch like American boxing style, like a haymaker,
Speaker 1: you're going up and around towards the jaw, to the
Speaker 1: side of the jaw. If you're practicing wing chun, you're
Speaker 1: standing right in front of that person, and as you're
Speaker 1: throwing your haymaker, you've gotten a very quick straight punch
Speaker 1: to your solar plexus and you're like, what just happened?
Speaker 1: That is basically the essence of Bruce Lee's as super
Speaker 1: lightning fast would take advantage of you while you thought
Speaker 1: you were about to strike him. He used that against you.
Speaker 1: Whatever flaw there was, and what you were doing to
Speaker 1: to hit or kick him or come at him, he
Speaker 1: would he would take advantage of it and hit you
Speaker 1: within that time. And and like if you watch any
Speaker 1: of his movies, you can see it quite clearly. But
Speaker 1: he'd been working on that. I didn't realize that was
Speaker 1: necessarily wing Chun. I thought that was his own style. Um,
Speaker 1: but it would make sense because again that was wing Chun.
Speaker 1: Is the is the foundation for his style of kung
Speaker 1: fu that he ended up coming up with. Right. So, Um,
Speaker 1: Like we said, his dad was fairly famous. Bruce's in
Speaker 1: the Jerry or box level famous. Don't forget Bruce's in
Speaker 1: this movie when he was ten years old, called the
Speaker 1: kid that was a big success. And then they said, hey,
Speaker 1: let's sign this kid up to do some sequels. And
Speaker 1: his dad said, no, no, no, no, no, My kid's
Speaker 1: not gonna be an actor. He's going to be a
Speaker 1: doctor or a lawyer or something like that. Um. And
Speaker 1: he's always in trouble in school, so I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: let him be in uh sign this contract. Uh. He
Speaker 1: ended up being in some movies kind of off and on.
Speaker 1: I think he ended up being in about twenty different
Speaker 1: movies that before his kung fu movie days, but it
Speaker 1: was never like he never turned into the big kids
Speaker 1: star that they were trying to get him to be
Speaker 1: with that first contract. I think, yeah, apparently he would
Speaker 1: have been had his father not directly intervened to make
Speaker 1: sure that didn't happen, which is pretty interesting. But he
Speaker 1: can't sign a contract without daddy saying so and mommy
Speaker 1: saying so. Well, yeah, you definitely need to have your
Speaker 1: parents support like that for sure. Um. But so his
Speaker 1: father like stepped in and said, no, you're gonna You're
Speaker 1: gonna do something else. And um that was at age ten,
Speaker 1: I don't know, I think at least eighteen at the latest.
Speaker 1: But at some point he um had kind of gotten like,
Speaker 1: like I said, he had a reputation as like local
Speaker 1: tough street fighter in Hong Kong. Um, and I guess
Speaker 1: he fought another kid and and beat him quite badly.
Speaker 1: And the kid turned out to be the son of
Speaker 1: a local mob boss. I don't know if he's a
Speaker 1: boss or a connected mob guy, but it's a member
Speaker 1: of the triad. It does sound like a movie. And um,
Speaker 1: that between that and the Hong Kong police basically saying like, look,
Speaker 1: your kid is totally on our radar and it's a
Speaker 1: real problem and he's going to end up in jail
Speaker 1: or dead if he keeps this stuff up. And by
Speaker 1: the way, the local the local mob now wants to
Speaker 1: kill him because he beat up one of the one
Speaker 1: of the boss's sons. Um his father was said, you're
Speaker 1: out of here. You're going to America. Um. Which again
Speaker 1: this wasn't like a complete out of the blue place
Speaker 1: to send Bruce Lee. This was the land that he
Speaker 1: was born. He was he had an American passport, he
Speaker 1: was an American by birth, and he also had family
Speaker 1: there too, But this is the first time that he
Speaker 1: was living on his own. From what I saw, his
Speaker 1: father gave him eight hundred dollars, which is pretty substantial
Speaker 1: back then, said here the addresses of some family in
Speaker 1: the Pacific Northwest. Head on out to San Francisco. And
Speaker 1: he started in San Francisco and ended up in Seattle
Speaker 1: pretty quickly, I believe, Yeah, Seattle in the um. In college,
Speaker 1: he went to you dub and he you know that
Speaker 1: money obviously would run out, so he had to get
Speaker 1: a job. He worked as a bus boy in a
Speaker 1: Chinese restaurant, actually lived in the restaurant, kind of a
Speaker 1: closet type of deal, and everyone started hearing about his
Speaker 1: his martial arts skills and the fact that he was
Speaker 1: pretty good at this stuff. So he started teaching a
Speaker 1: little bit on the side in that Wing chun style,
Speaker 1: and he met Linda there, who would go on to
Speaker 1: be his wife. She was a fellow student of his. Um,
Speaker 1: Linda got pregnant and they got married. They were very young,
Speaker 1: they were still in college, and they had little Brandon Lee.
Speaker 1: Uh well, we'll talk about him later on, and then
Speaker 1: a daughter named Shannon. Yeah. Um, so, all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: Bruce Lee, who is a bus boy at a Chinese
Speaker 1: restaurant and also teaching um kung fu on the side,
Speaker 1: has a family, a wife, kid, then kids, and um
Speaker 1: he's got He needs money now more than he ever
Speaker 1: did before. And he has a pretty good idea he's
Speaker 1: going to start opening of a franchise of martial arts studios.
Speaker 1: Because martial arts was already known in the United States,
Speaker 1: but typically it was kept within the whatever Asian community
Speaker 1: that practiced it. Right, so like if it was kung fu,
Speaker 1: you would find almost entirely Chinese people learning it UM
Speaker 1: that you know, immigrants to the country, or they're the
Speaker 1: children of immigrants. Um, it's taekwondo. It would be like
Speaker 1: Korean families. UM. And Bruce Lee said, you know what,
Speaker 1: I want to kind of explode that. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of talk about whether he was the first person in
Speaker 1: the United States to come along and open up martial
Speaker 1: arts to anybody who wanted to learn of any race,
Speaker 1: any ethnicity, women, men. From what I saw, that's not
Speaker 1: necessarily true, but they that is UM often credited as
Speaker 1: UH as evidence of just kind of how UM cocky
Speaker 1: and unconventional and and um disrespectful. I guess of norms
Speaker 1: and traditions just for the fact, you know, or just
Speaker 1: for norms and tradition's sake. UM. And And I don't
Speaker 1: know if he was the first person to teach just
Speaker 1: anybody who wanted to learn, UM, but it definitely fell
Speaker 1: within his UH persona, his outlook of martial arts, which is,
Speaker 1: you know, I'll take what I'll learn whatever I can
Speaker 1: and put it in to my fighting style so that
Speaker 1: I survive. And UM, that would make sense to kind
Speaker 1: of flip it on the on the other way and say, well,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm going to teach his fighting style to
Speaker 1: whoever wants to learn it. Yeah, and it turns out
Speaker 1: it was just as he ended up learning Wing Chung
Speaker 1: because of a fight he had early on. He also
Speaker 1: expanded his fighting style because of another fight. Um, which
Speaker 1: this sounds like it. I mean, I think there are
Speaker 1: a lot of legends and tall tales around Bruce Lee
Speaker 1: as well. This story. The story sounds a little dubious,
Speaker 1: but maybe it's true. It's it is. It's not dubious.
Speaker 1: It definitely happened, but there, it was close to the public,
Speaker 1: and there were only three eyewitnesses there and to one
Speaker 1: gives a conflicting report from the other two to a
Speaker 1: large degree. But it's been so thoroughly studied and researched
Speaker 1: by some people like that Matthew Pauly guy spent a
Speaker 1: year just researching this fight alone. There was another guy
Speaker 1: named m Charles Russo who wrote a book called Striking Distance.
Speaker 1: He spent a decade on that book and he interviewed
Speaker 1: a hundred people just for that to for that fight alone,
Speaker 1: because it's the one of the most legendary fights that's
Speaker 1: ever happened in the history of a world, and only
Speaker 1: three people were there to see it besides the fighters.
Speaker 1: Yet they interviewed a hundred people about what they heard
Speaker 1: what happened. Basically, yeah, I mean, that's as close as
Speaker 1: they could get, aside from the people who were there,
Speaker 1: who were again saying, you know, this is kind of conflicting.
Speaker 1: But overall, what seems to be the ultimate upshot of
Speaker 1: it is that it was at least a draw. It
Speaker 1: seems like it was a draw. Yeah, he thought a
Speaker 1: man named Wong jack Man, and apparently it was a
Speaker 1: pretty brutal fight, like you were saying, very legendary and
Speaker 1: uh yeah, conflicting reports. Let's just call it a draw.
Speaker 1: Let's be magnanimous here. But at the end of this,
Speaker 1: you know, the sort of upshot is it was that
Speaker 1: Bruce was like, I have limits now with Wing Chun,
Speaker 1: and I need to, uh like, I need to be
Speaker 1: able to best larger opponents because I'm a small guy.
Speaker 1: I need to I need to really kind of ramp
Speaker 1: up my study if especially if I'm a teacher, and
Speaker 1: and kind of get better. Basically, so he came up
Speaker 1: with his own jam and that's called Jeet Kun do
Speaker 1: the way of the intercepting fist, and this was a
Speaker 1: little bit. He was a really really good boxer. I
Speaker 1: don't think we've mentioned that yet. Um. If he had
Speaker 1: only boxed and dedicated himself to being a boxer, he
Speaker 1: probably could have been like a belt holding boxer, uh
Speaker 1: and like an Olympic champion. Um. So he incorporated elements
Speaker 1: of boxing. He incorporated all the wing chun that he
Speaker 1: had learned. Uh. And then fencing, which his older brother did,
Speaker 1: which is you know, when you're lunging at your opponent,
Speaker 1: but instead of a foil, he would use his fist.
Speaker 1: And if you, um, you know I mentioned that the
Speaker 1: one inch punch earlier. Uh, there was also the six
Speaker 1: inch punch. There's tons and tons of videos and breakdowns
Speaker 1: of what that is. But that's what he was really
Speaker 1: famous for, which is basically and then Tarantino kind of
Speaker 1: you know, borrowed for the uh kill Bill movies. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, you put your fingers on like the stern
Speaker 1: um of a of a human and that's how far
Speaker 1: you punch from. Like you don't rare back and swing
Speaker 1: or anything. You just use your hips and your legs
Speaker 1: and you focus your energy and all your momentum to
Speaker 1: just very very quickly punch and push somebody. And and
Speaker 1: even from one inch you can knock somebody backwards like
Speaker 1: seven feet so and that's super helpful if you can
Speaker 1: do that. But what that one fight UM with um
Speaker 1: Uh Wong jack Man taught him. Wong Jackman kept moving
Speaker 1: away from him. And if you're fighting style is entirely
Speaker 1: about fighting in close quarters with your opponent coming at you.
Speaker 1: If your opponent is getting away from you, you're just
Speaker 1: kind of up up the creek. And that's what really
Speaker 1: kind of opened his eyes that he needed to expand it.
Speaker 1: And so, like you said, he incorporated boxing and incorporated fencing.
Speaker 1: He also realized that he needed grappling too. He didn't
Speaker 1: have any grappling moves, and apparently that came um into
Speaker 1: focus when he was on set for a TV show
Speaker 1: that he would end up being on for a season
Speaker 1: called The Green Hornet. She'll talk about in a second, Um,
Speaker 1: And apparently on the set of The Green Hornet, he
Speaker 1: would he was He became quickly known for actually beating
Speaker 1: up the stunt doubles rather than you know, pulling his
Speaker 1: punch and just you know, not making contact or just
Speaker 1: barely making contact. He was punching these guys and kicking
Speaker 1: these guys and Um they apparently brought in a ringer
Speaker 1: named Judo Geen LaBelle, who was a very tough stunt
Speaker 1: man at two time Judoku champion UM and brought him
Speaker 1: and as a stuntman, and the first day on the set,
Speaker 1: he picked up Bruce Lee out of nowhere, put him
Speaker 1: in a fireman carry like on his shoulder, and Bruce
Speaker 1: Lee had he couldn't do anything. He was just so mad,
Speaker 1: but there was nothing he could do to get out
Speaker 1: of this. And he realized he needed to incorporate grappling,
Speaker 1: and he ended up training with Jean LaBelle for a
Speaker 1: year and expanded his fighting style even further. And that
Speaker 1: fireman carry, that meeting, that fight, basically on the set
Speaker 1: of The Green Hornet is what Quentin Tarantino was recreating
Speaker 1: in that movie Once upon a Time in Hollywood when
Speaker 1: Cliff Robertson Um Brad Pitt fights Bruce Lee on the
Speaker 1: sound stage in the in the parking lot. Um and
Speaker 1: a lot of people were very upset because he took
Speaker 1: tremendous liberties with that fight, but it was based on
Speaker 1: this kernel of history that had a much better outcome
Speaker 1: than than what UM what Quentin Tarantino showed. Yeah, Cliff Booth,
Speaker 1: by the way, Cliff Robertson was a real actor. Oh
Speaker 1: was he? Yeah? The way I thought it was the
Speaker 1: basis from Italica. No, that was close somebody else, I think, Okay, um, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean Tarantino, we we should kind of talk about
Speaker 1: that for sect, because he was taken to task by
Speaker 1: a lot of people, um, certainly people from Bruce Lee's
Speaker 1: own family for that scene, and they were like, this
Speaker 1: is not what Bruce Lee was like, his daughter especially,
Speaker 1: It's like, this is not what my dad was like.
Speaker 1: He was not cocky, he was not arrogant. He was confident,
Speaker 1: and he was a good teacher. But you know, Tarantino
Speaker 1: then fired back in some interviews like he was arrogant
Speaker 1: and cocky, he was known as this guy, and apparently
Speaker 1: the people closest to him said he wasn't at all.
Speaker 1: This is a misconception by white people, and uh, Tarantino
Speaker 1: took a lot of grief and sort of argued back,
Speaker 1: and then she finally, in uh an interview in Variety magazine,
Speaker 1: was like, he should just kind of shut up about
Speaker 1: this and and say I'm making fictionalized movies and not
Speaker 1: purport to know what my dad was like. Yeah, when
Speaker 1: it's coming from the daughter, it seems like you should
Speaker 1: probably just shut up for sure. Probably so, and we'll
Speaker 1: probably get an email from her two because you said
Speaker 1: he was cocky and arrogant. Yeah right, yeah, I was
Speaker 1: thinking back to that flashing back, um. And one I
Speaker 1: guess one thing I saw too kind of that gives
Speaker 1: weight to the idea that he had a certain amount
Speaker 1: of arrogance or cockiness or I can understand how some
Speaker 1: people would take him that way or portray him that way. Um.
Speaker 1: Is he was well known for going around publicly insulting
Speaker 1: established martial arts schools. Like one of the first things
Speaker 1: he did where he made a name for himself among
Speaker 1: the martial arts community, especially in the Bay Area, that
Speaker 1: some people say led to that fight between him and
Speaker 1: Um Wong jack Man was to insult basically every established
Speaker 1: martial arts school in America and say that these were, um,
Speaker 1: they were taught by old tigers with no teeth, basically
Speaker 1: if they were misguided, um, and that they were, they
Speaker 1: were just wrong, and that his way was the right way. Um.
Speaker 1: And it wasn't that he had it out for like
Speaker 1: the old establishment just because they were the old establishment.
Speaker 1: But what he had decided, um with Jeekee Kundo is
Speaker 1: that it was it didn't make any sense to train
Speaker 1: and train and train to know exactly where your feet
Speaker 1: are going to go and exactly where to put your
Speaker 1: fists or that kind of thing, because all that stuff
Speaker 1: dissolved in a real fight. And so to Bruce Lee
Speaker 1: and his fighting style, the whole point is to survive
Speaker 1: the fight, and so you use whatever you can get
Speaker 1: your hands on, whatever technique, whatever style is going to work.
Speaker 1: And that that really doesn't jibe with the idea of
Speaker 1: us an established, rigid school. So he certainly ran a
Speaker 1: foul of, um, of some of the established martial art groups. Um.
Speaker 1: And I think that that has kind of contributed to
Speaker 1: this idea that he was cocky in real life. I'm
Speaker 1: not his daughter, so I certainly can't say, but you know, um,
Speaker 1: that's that's what I was basing my interpretation on. Yeah,
Speaker 1: my read is that he was a business person and
Speaker 1: that he was trying to make some money because his
Speaker 1: idea was that he wanted to open up a chain
Speaker 1: of kung fu schools. Um. He goes back to l
Speaker 1: A to give a demonstration at a karate tournament to
Speaker 1: try and you know, make a little headway there with
Speaker 1: maybe getting investors or getting people interested, and it worked.
Speaker 1: He met a TV producer there and that is how
Speaker 1: he got the role on The Green Hornet, which, like
Speaker 1: you said, ran for a single season. And he stayed
Speaker 1: in Hollywood though, and he really got the acting bug.
Speaker 1: I think he was in a few, um, kind of
Speaker 1: smaller parts over the next few years. He played Winslow
Speaker 1: Wong in the movie Marlo in nineteen nine, and then
Speaker 1: he like you mentioned, kind of at the beginning, it
Speaker 1: was he was trying to do something that didn't exist yet,
Speaker 1: which was become an Asian uh and at least an
Speaker 1: Asian American hero, because they just didn't do that. They
Speaker 1: were like, you can play this kind of role. Um,
Speaker 1: you're probably gonna come in as the bad guy or something.
Speaker 1: You're gonna show off some of your kung fu skills,
Speaker 1: but you're not going to be the star of the movie.
Speaker 1: And he said, all right, I'll hang around here. I'll
Speaker 1: start making a ton of money teaching the Hollywood elite
Speaker 1: uh my fighting style and ended up making making some
Speaker 1: really really close friends, uh, notably James Koburn and Steve
Speaker 1: McQueen ended up being two of his closest friends over
Speaker 1: the years until his death. Yeah, along with um Chuck
Speaker 1: Morris of course. Yeah, he was a ball bear. Also
Speaker 1: saw Roman Polanski and Sharon Tate were two of his
Speaker 1: students too. Yeah, Roman Polanski tried to sleep with him. No,
Speaker 1: he Bruce Lee lost his glasses. Roman Polanski found some
Speaker 1: glasses like his at the murder scene, and Roman Polanski
Speaker 1: was very suspicious of that, and apparently he went so
Speaker 1: far as to um take Bruce Lee to get a
Speaker 1: prescription made to replace the glasses that were broken, and
Speaker 1: then wanted to get his hands on that prescription and
Speaker 1: compare him, and apparently they didn't match, so he, you know,
Speaker 1: he backed off. He suspected Bruce Lee and the Manson
Speaker 1: family murders. He the TB. I don't wanna, I don't
Speaker 1: want to put any words in Roman Polanski's mouth, but
Speaker 1: I'm telling you what happened, which is that he found
Speaker 1: these glasses and had him checked out. Wow, that's a
Speaker 1: Hollywood nugget, Chuck, that you just put that jewel in
Speaker 1: your crown right there. Well, I didn't discover it. I mean,
Speaker 1: I just read it. Yeah, but I mean, I mean
Speaker 1: it's well known. Okay, well whatever, you can wear the
Speaker 1: crown around me and I'll just be like I totally earned. Uh.
Speaker 1: He got really into health and fitness. Um, this was
Speaker 1: the time in the nineteen sixties, kind of before the
Speaker 1: big exercise and weight lifting boom and stuff that happened.
Speaker 1: He was he was eating protein shakes and lifting weights
Speaker 1: kind of before a lot of people were. And you know,
Speaker 1: he wanted to get his body in the best shape possible.
Speaker 1: And if you've ever seen Bruce Lee's body, then he
Speaker 1: you know, he did exactly that. Yeah, Mischief accomplished for sure.
Speaker 1: And I mean again, he was a little guy, like
Speaker 1: he weighed a hundred and thirty pounds, but he was
Speaker 1: just as lean as they come and totally chiseled like
Speaker 1: he he was very very strong for his his size
Speaker 1: and stature. Um, and just lightning fast too. But none
Speaker 1: of this was amounting to anything as far as his
Speaker 1: film career was concerned. He was going quite far as
Speaker 1: a martial artist martial arts instructor for sure, but clearly
Speaker 1: he UM, I don't know if his he felt like
Speaker 1: his calling was always you know, the movies or TV
Speaker 1: or something like that. Okay, well, then that would explain it.
Speaker 1: I had the impression that, you know, he just knew
Speaker 1: that that was something he could do. Um, which he
Speaker 1: apparently was starting to accumulate some debt, and at one point,
Speaker 1: to keep his UH, to keep his his chain of
Speaker 1: um of martial arts studios open, he decided to go
Speaker 1: to Hong Kong and do some acting rather quickly and
Speaker 1: pick up some some fast money. So I didn't know
Speaker 1: if he considered that like a step towards stardom or
Speaker 1: if that was just he knew he could go make
Speaker 1: some money acting and come back and pour it back
Speaker 1: into the studios to keep them open. Do you know.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think the studios were making his living.
Speaker 1: But I think since he was ten years old, he
Speaker 1: was bitten by the acting bug, which is why he
Speaker 1: went on to be in twenty more movies over the
Speaker 1: next eight years. And I think that was his true
Speaker 1: like I think the Kung Fu studios, in my reading,
Speaker 1: was the means to get to where he wanted to be,
Speaker 1: which was a big Hollywood superstar. Well it actually it
Speaker 1: worked that trip Um Like I was saying, he was
Speaker 1: just going for some money to keep the studios or
Speaker 1: his his studios afloat Um or open Um. But it
Speaker 1: turned out to be the greatest move that any actor
Speaker 1: has ever undertaken, just going to Hong Kong and trying
Speaker 1: to pick up some parts and martial arts films, and
Speaker 1: that's exactly what he did, and he blew up as
Speaker 1: a result. That's right, So stake our final break here
Speaker 1: and then we'll come back and wrap it up and
Speaker 1: spanking on the bottom right after this shock shock Alright,
Speaker 1: So Bruce Lee goes to Hong Kong to make some movies,
Speaker 1: make a little dough and he goes to Hong Kong
Speaker 1: and signs a two picture movie deal with Golden Harvest
Speaker 1: Studios and signs on for his first movie, a little
Speaker 1: movie called The Big Boss, which originally in the United
Speaker 1: States was called Fist of Fury. A little confusing because
Speaker 1: then there was a movie called Fist of Fury that
Speaker 1: also had an alternate title, uh to Chinese, the Chinese connection,
Speaker 1: but the Big Boss a k A in America at first.
Speaker 1: The Fist se Fury or Fist of Fury was his
Speaker 1: first sort of foray into those movies, and it was
Speaker 1: a big, big hit. It was it's it's hard to
Speaker 1: explain what happened that that first movie, The Big Boss
Speaker 1: came out and basically made Bruce Lee an overnight sensation
Speaker 1: in Asia as far as martial arts is concerned, not
Speaker 1: just Hong Kong Asia. He just became an absolute superstar.
Speaker 1: The Big Boss shattered the box office record. The previous
Speaker 1: Hong Kong box office record was held by the Sound
Speaker 1: of Music, and it had made something like eight hundred
Speaker 1: thousand Hong Kong dollars um. The Big Boss made something
Speaker 1: like four times that in its box office run um.
Speaker 1: And then as more Bruce Lee movies came out over
Speaker 1: the next couple of years, each one shattered the record
Speaker 1: of the previous Bruce Lee movie. So when something like
Speaker 1: that happens, you know you have something once in a
Speaker 1: lifetime basically on your hands. And he was right smack
Speaker 1: dab in the in the middle of that once in
Speaker 1: a lifetime thing. Yeah, And not only were these movies
Speaker 1: making a lot of money, they were really cheap to make,
Speaker 1: which was like he was like the Golden Boy, because
Speaker 1: I think Fist of Fury, the second movie, cost about
Speaker 1: a hundred thousand dollars to make and made a hundred
Speaker 1: million I think the um The Way of the Dragon
Speaker 1: made a hundred and thirty million and cost about a
Speaker 1: hundred and thirty thousand, So he was making like huge,
Speaker 1: huge money. I mean not personally, but the studios were
Speaker 1: making huge, huge money on very little investment. And Um,
Speaker 1: the thing with Bruce Lee was he was, like you said,
Speaker 1: he was selling these fights better than anyone ever had.
Speaker 1: And his speed was really the key to it. Um
Speaker 1: and a lot of if you watch a lot of
Speaker 1: older kung fu movies and it looks like the action
Speaker 1: is sped up, it's because it is. They would speed
Speaker 1: at the camera or actually slow down the camera to
Speaker 1: make the action appear faster, to make it more exciting.
Speaker 1: But Bruce Lee was so naturally fast they had to
Speaker 1: tell him to slow down just so the camera could
Speaker 1: like record stuff accurately. So there were a few legends
Speaker 1: that grew up around his speed. One speed and strength.
Speaker 1: One that he could steal a dime off of your hand,
Speaker 1: like if you're holding it in the palm of your
Speaker 1: hand before you could just close your hand. Uh, he
Speaker 1: could catch a rice green that that he you would
Speaker 1: throw at him with chopsticks. And these are all, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe true or not, but I just love these legends. Wait,
Speaker 1: you would use chopsticks to throw a rice green at
Speaker 1: no, no no, no, you would throw a rice green at
Speaker 1: him and he would catch it with chopsticks. That's way
Speaker 1: more impressive. So and then the last one was that
Speaker 1: he could he could punch a hole through a can
Speaker 1: of coke with his finger. And I hope these are
Speaker 1: true because they're so great. Well, if they're not true,
Speaker 1: that's okay. Like you're not the first person to fall
Speaker 1: for some of the exaggerations, like I saw Matthew PAULI
Speaker 1: was kind of not called out, but somebody made mention
Speaker 1: the fact that this is one of those top biographers,
Speaker 1: like one of the best biographers of Bruce Lee still said,
Speaker 1: you know, somebody got punched and they flew back six
Speaker 1: ft in the air and it's almost certainly not correct,
Speaker 1: Like six ft is probably an exaggeration. But the fact
Speaker 1: that things like that get repeated and like like smart
Speaker 1: people like say like this, like this is what he
Speaker 1: was capable of, like it at the very least goes
Speaker 1: to underscore his abilities. That they were so mind boggling
Speaker 1: that this is it's possible that that's true. You know
Speaker 1: what I mean, it's not like, oh, that's ridiculous. It's like, no,
Speaker 1: this is Bruce Lee we're talking about. I think I
Speaker 1: can explain the six ft thing. If he's it might
Speaker 1: be an exaggeration that someone literally didn't touch the ground
Speaker 1: for six ft, But if you look at demonstrations of
Speaker 1: his of the one finger munch, he can knock someone
Speaker 1: back six to eight feet very easily until they can
Speaker 1: like regain their composure. Like people are flying back six
Speaker 1: ft but not necessarily not touching the ground in between,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. I think this was quote
Speaker 1: flying through the air. It sounds like the air little
Speaker 1: writers flourish. Yeah. Maybe, but I mean again, it comes
Speaker 1: like people are like, oh that's cool. It's crazy because
Speaker 1: we're talking about Bruce Lee. If if like my biographer
Speaker 1: said that, everyone would be like, stop the pressus, whoa
Speaker 1: you got a biographer? I question every I will eventually,
Speaker 1: I assume. But if people would be like I questioned
Speaker 1: everything that's in this book now Bruce Lee, it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: totally buy that. You know. So Bruce Lee is uh
Speaker 1: made a name for himself. Now. He is drive around
Speaker 1: sports cars, he's wearing for coats, he is a big,
Speaker 1: big pothead, which is something that yeah, I forgot about
Speaker 1: that you don't hear about a lot. But apparently after yeah,
Speaker 1: but after Bruce Lee's training sessions, he would uh. He
Speaker 1: apparently had this wooden box just full of joints, also
Speaker 1: smoked hash and got really into this sort of hippie lifestyle,
Speaker 1: kind of grew his hair along for a little while,
Speaker 1: and I think it was wrapped up in this Hollywood
Speaker 1: hippie thing of the time, understandable. Uh, and his careers
Speaker 1: go along great, and it all culminates with a movie
Speaker 1: called Enter the Dragon in nineteen three. Big movie. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was a huge movie. I think he wrote and
Speaker 1: directed that one, and I think the first one he
Speaker 1: wrote and directed was Way of the Dragon. But like
Speaker 1: by this time on his third movie, he was now
Speaker 1: writing and directing it, and certainly by his fourth one
Speaker 1: he wrote and directed it. I saw that the Way
Speaker 1: of the Dragon, a quarter of the script was just
Speaker 1: a couple of like just a couple of fight scenes.
Speaker 1: Choreography took up like a quarter of the script. Um.
Speaker 1: And it was this was the one that put him
Speaker 1: on the map as an overnight sensation in the United
Speaker 1: States in the West. Like the other two, the first
Speaker 1: two or three. Um yea, his first three had made
Speaker 1: him an overnight sensation in Asia. This was the one
Speaker 1: that taught America what a kung fu movie was because
Speaker 1: we hadn't heard of it before, and now all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, we couldn't get enough of Bruce Lee. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: Bruce Lee had died a month before in one of
Speaker 1: the great ironic tragedies as far as like Hollywood stardom goes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: only thirty two years old. Um, if you look up
Speaker 1: Bruce Lee death, there's a lot of different stories and
Speaker 1: theories out there. Um he was. He had a mistress
Speaker 1: at the time named Betty ting Pie, and apparently he
Speaker 1: had been on and this is the way Chuck Norris
Speaker 1: told it too. Apparently he had been on back medication
Speaker 1: for a while because of a back injury, so pain
Speaker 1: meds for his back. Came home to his apartment in
Speaker 1: Hong Kong with his mitress mistress, and complained of a headache.
Speaker 1: She gave him, I think a different kind of pain reliever,
Speaker 1: although Chuck Norris said it was Ah, what's I'm blanking? Now?
Speaker 1: What's the thing you take to fight an infection? And uh,
Speaker 1: antibiotic anty biotic, which I think he just must spoke
Speaker 1: because that wouldn't make any sense. But um, that's what
Speaker 1: Chuck North said. Uh. So it took another pain reliever,
Speaker 1: went down for a nap, and died never woke up.
Speaker 1: Uh he um. You know, there are all kinds of
Speaker 1: speculation about what happened. It seems like it was just
Speaker 1: a reaction of these medications. Uh. Some people say, including
Speaker 1: the biographer, it was also had to do with a
Speaker 1: heat stroke because because he'd had one ten weeks before, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and he also um a few months before he died,
Speaker 1: had he used to be very embarrassed about his under
Speaker 1: armed sweat, so he had the sweat glands removed from
Speaker 1: his underarms. What and so apparently they said that could
Speaker 1: have contributed to the You know, his body wasn't shedding
Speaker 1: sweat like it should and that could have led to
Speaker 1: a heat stroke. I had not heard that before that.
Speaker 1: That definitely crosses a couple of tease that I had
Speaker 1: anotherwise seen. May be, but I think it was like
Speaker 1: ten weeks before he died, he collapsed when he was
Speaker 1: dubbing a movie in an on an room without air conditioning.
Speaker 1: It was really hot got that heat stroke. Uh, and
Speaker 1: some people are saying this all contributed with these medications
Speaker 1: to a brain edema. Yeah, but again, I mean the
Speaker 1: fact that he died mysteriously. This guy who's like one
Speaker 1: of the fittest people on the planets just dies after
Speaker 1: saying he has a headache and lies down and wakes up.
Speaker 1: That's just conspiracy theory fodder for eon. Sure it's still
Speaker 1: going on today. Like apparently that he had a break
Speaker 1: with the director low Way, who directed the first two
Speaker 1: Bruce Lee films, um, the first two kung fu films
Speaker 1: he was in. He pulled a knife on him because
Speaker 1: the guy the director had been taunting him and Bruce
Speaker 1: Lee was Uh. There was a legend that like low
Speaker 1: Way had had him assassinated by ninja or something like that.
Speaker 1: But the upshot of it is, however he died. Um,
Speaker 1: he died like a month before he became extra like
Speaker 1: world famous, and he's still world famous today. Like everyone
Speaker 1: knows Bruce Lee. He's one of the most famous people
Speaker 1: to ever lived, and he died a month before that happened.
Speaker 1: Which is you know, you say that and you read
Speaker 1: it and you think it's it just doesn't quite sink
Speaker 1: in and when it does, you're like, that is astounding
Speaker 1: that that happened, just the timing of all that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And then you know, many years later, his son, Brandon
Speaker 1: Lee would die very tragically on the set of a
Speaker 1: film because of an accident with a um, a blank bullet,
Speaker 1: um actually shooting a slug out of a gun on
Speaker 1: set of of The Crow, right yeah, um yeah. He
Speaker 1: think he was twenty eight, and his father had died
Speaker 1: when he was thirty two. So a lot of people
Speaker 1: are like, well, there's clearly the Lee family is cursed, right,
Speaker 1: which is nonsense. I think you should probably just shut
Speaker 1: up about that, probably so, but um, one of the
Speaker 1: things that it's hard to overstate like the cultural legacy
Speaker 1: that he left, Like he introduced the West to a
Speaker 1: completely different concept of Asian people, like like, oh, they
Speaker 1: can actually like stars, action heroes, like they're they're not
Speaker 1: like you know, valets or servants or whatever. Like it
Speaker 1: just completely altered americans understanding of Asian people. Like it's
Speaker 1: really hard to understate that. And then the other thing
Speaker 1: too is you know, we were kind of talking about
Speaker 1: whether he was um, you know, whether he was an
Speaker 1: actor or martial artist, and a lot of people are like,
Speaker 1: would is Bruce Lee? Would he actually was he really
Speaker 1: a good fighter? Or was he like a movie fighter
Speaker 1: like Jean Claude van Dam or Steven Seagal, who like
Speaker 1: in a real life fight that we would just be
Speaker 1: hopelessly lost, you know. And um, because Bruce Lee died
Speaker 1: at such a young age, like there's there's not this
Speaker 1: we don't know or a lot of people don't know.
Speaker 1: But if you talk to the people who trained with him,
Speaker 1: who worked with him, who were there who actually physically
Speaker 1: interacted with him, like it seems like completely understandable that
Speaker 1: he was as everything you saw in film, he could
Speaker 1: do for real in real life. And you would never
Speaker 1: have wanted to fight Bruce Lee. So he wasn't just
Speaker 1: a fake movie martial artists. He was the real deal,
Speaker 1: and in a lot of ways largely self taught, which
Speaker 1: makes them all the more impressive. That's right, You got
Speaker 1: anything else about Mr Bruce Lee? Chuck and got nothing else?
Speaker 1: And maybe watch the classic two farcical comedy they call
Speaker 1: Me Bruce. Oh yeah, okay, I will check that out.
Speaker 1: That one more thing, that his death is untimely death
Speaker 1: led to a whole genre of movies called Bruce Floitation,
Speaker 1: which was basically fake Bruce Lee movies. They're trying to
Speaker 1: cash in on his fame. Yeah. I think he had
Speaker 1: a movie, another movie released after his tattoo, didn't he
Speaker 1: That they compiled like footage and stuff for I believe
Speaker 1: they were filming it when he died, and they didn't
Speaker 1: release it for another five years. Game of Death, that's
Speaker 1: the one where he fights Kareem's actually, and Chuck Norris
Speaker 1: is in it too. Game of Death. Yeah, that that
Speaker 1: fight with Kareem was pretty awesome because to see a
Speaker 1: man that tall, be that lithe and that quick was
Speaker 1: pretty impressive. And he was one of Bruce Lee's like
Speaker 1: genuine students, one of his long time students. And he
Speaker 1: credits Bruce Lee with his his longevity and the n
Speaker 1: B a UM. Yeah. So if you want to more
Speaker 1: about Bruce Lee, just go out and start watching movies
Speaker 1: and videos and demonstrations of Bruce Lee. There's a lot
Speaker 1: worse things you can do with your time and thank
Speaker 1: us later. And since I said thank us later, it's
Speaker 1: time for listener mail. Yeah. I'm gonna call this return
Speaker 1: of Noah from Scotland. I'm pretty sure I read this
Speaker 1: on the air, but I told Noah to rite in
Speaker 1: once a year. Um, and here's the follow up. Because
Speaker 1: you know, Sarah, the amazing eleven year old fan is
Speaker 1: now probably in college and has long since forgotten about us.
Speaker 1: So we miss Sarah. We've we've been ghosted. We've have
Speaker 1: been ghosted years ago. But this is our new friend Noah. Hey,
Speaker 1: it's me Noah from Scotland. You told me to write
Speaker 1: in once a year, so this is my annual letter
Speaker 1: in case you don't remember me. I've been listening since
Speaker 1: I was four and writing you a letter every year
Speaker 1: since I was five. I still live in Scotland and
Speaker 1: for most of the last year my mom's been home
Speaker 1: schooling me because of the coronavirus. It's not always great,
Speaker 1: but when I'm doing my own topics, I can choose
Speaker 1: them based on your episodes. My favorite was space weather,
Speaker 1: because I didn't know there was weather in space. My
Speaker 1: favorite fact that I found out was the most powerful
Speaker 1: northern lights can generate over one trillion lots of power,
Speaker 1: which is I think about three million solar panels. Uh.
Speaker 1: It was a hard sum, but I think it's right. Uh.
Speaker 1: I don't you're if you're asking us about math, and
Speaker 1: no we're just gonna say yes, you got it right.
Speaker 1: You just ran a circle around this. I don't want
Speaker 1: to be an engineer anymore. By the way, I really
Speaker 1: like chemistry now. I think the periodic table is interesting
Speaker 1: and I want to find a way to stop global
Speaker 1: warming using science. I love it. I've asked for your
Speaker 1: book for my ninth birthday in May, and I hope
Speaker 1: to get it because I think it be interesting. I'm
Speaker 1: glad you're still podcasting. Love from Noah and this was
Speaker 1: sent through his mom's Rachel's email, of course as always,
Speaker 1: and she added a very sweet note as well, so
Speaker 1: much love to the to Noah's family there. Yeah, thank
Speaker 1: you very much Rachel and knowing the whole fam for
Speaker 1: writing to us from beloved Scotland. Keep us updated. Noah,
Speaker 1: We're pretty your progress is just fascinating. Yes, we love it,
Speaker 1: um and uh, happy early birthday too, from Josh and Chuck.
Speaker 1: If you want to get in touch with this, like
Speaker 1: Noah did, you can give it your best shot. You
Speaker 1: can send us an email, send it to Stuff Podcast
Speaker 1: at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is
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