Friday, November 9, 2007

Yoga To Try And Stay Calm,...Especially If You Ain't A Punk Anymore,...Why Ain't You A Punk Anymore? (Shit Like Yoga, Maybe?) Quitter.

"The personal assistant to a multimillionaire real estate agent and punk rock pioneer was arrested Friday after confessing that she fatally beat her boss with a yoga stick when a barrage of insults threw her into a homicidal rage, police said.

Natavia Lowery, 26, was charged with second-degree murder in the slaying of Linda Stein (above) a former co-manager of the Ramones who was found face-down in blood inside her $3 million Fifth Avenue apartment, said Police Commissioner Ray Kelly.

Stein, 62, was smashed a half-dozen times in the head and neck with a weighted yoga stick typically used for stretching exercises. Lowery was captured on a surveillance tape leaving Stein's building shortly after the Oct. 30 assault, Kelly said.

Lowery told police that she was subjected to profane and derogatory comments from Stein as they worked in the real estate agent's apartment that morning. Lowery said she finally snapped while retrieving an e-mail from Stein's computer, with the boss blowing marijuana smoke in her face and telling her to hurry, Kelly recounted.

Lowery then snatched the stick from Stein's hands and battered the businesswoman until she collapsed, according to police. The murder weapon was not recovered, but the videotape showed the suspect carrying something with her as she exited Stein's Upper East Side building, Kelly said."


- From the Associated Press

I couldn't make this shit up if I wanted to: There's just too much cultish symbolism in this for me to process clearly.

For some reason, this story immediately reminded me of Henry Rollins's recent endorsement - in The Onion - of the hippy-dippy, U.F.O.-loving, Dennis Kusinich (What's "Punk" come to? It was supposed to be a reaction against stuff like this, remember?) as well as that Buddhist chef who treats cutting carrots better than the people he's paid to train in cooking and meditation. And the fact that a black girl did it - with a "weighted Yoga stick", whatever that is - is just too much. (I've already had one black friend (female type) say, "Black people don't go for that crazy shit." though I didn't ask what "crazy shit" she was referring to - was it Cultish-thinking? Yoga? Ex-Punks acting like they still 'got it' while doing Yoga to sell Real Estate? It certainly wasn't marijuana,...)

I don't know what else to say about this, except, I'm glad I'm black, and still a punk; I still swear a lot, and will never do crazy-making shit like Yoga. ("All aboard the Express Kundalini!") No, The Crack Emcee is staying on the American straight-and-narrow:

This "new paradigm" stuff can get you killed.

5 comments:

  1. Some lyrics come to mind...

    "Now meditate, meditate, meditate, Hold that pose
    Meditate, meditate, meditate,
    Hold that pose
    Meditate, meditate, meditate,
    Hold that pose
    Baby, I be likin' it when you do that Downward Dog thing..."

    Or something like that (writing from memory, not looking at the lyrics)...

    The yoga-stick murder is a sad story, but, yes, one that's rich in symbolism.

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  2. I was expecting a bit more on 'yoga related injuries' than someone going mental and bashing somebody with a stick!

    the ex-Vietnam vet who ran a yoga class I went to for a while was pretty intense but never anything like that. Mainly he tried to run you through different poses too quickly; before you'd had time to learn each one.

    I guess, if it makes you feel better, I could abandon a perfectly good aid to suppleness but is there any other practice that incorporates shoulder stands cos that's a very good one.

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  3. Left-wing politics and yoga, Berk:

    They got you, man.

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  4. that was about 15-20 years ago. I'm not a group-joiner so I only do the occasional stretch at home.

    It's more effective than the old athletics and karate warm-ups we used to do and I was athletics champion of my district till I hit high school.

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  5. That's all good - except for one little problem: yoga is a 5,000 year old practice for "enlightenment" (AKA mind control) not just good ol' stretching, as so many are trying to say these days.

    Check out some of the links on my yoga posts. You might learn more than you thought you knew.

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