Notes:
-I can't make out animal name around 1:36, after turkey and rabbit. can someone check? Thanks Derek
-Can someone check I got Master Oyada's name right?
Jim: Yes sir, back there.
(Continued from part 2 about inspirations for Codex)
Audience: Have you gone back and gloated?
Jim: Oh, you know, I don't even remember who I was having an argument with now!
{audience laughs}
Jim: I've had so many computers blown out on me no! But I did go back and tell him "I'm not gonna share this with you, because this is actually turning into a good book and I'm gonna go ahead and write it", none of this was published yet, so he was just like "Yeah, that just means you lost!" And so yeah, I'm perfectly willing to admit now, yeah I lost! No, I don't have to much pride to do that. Yes?
Audience: I was just wondering, just how big and ferocious is your dog really?
Jim: He's extremely ferocious. He's 25lb. He's a bichon frise.
{audience laughs}
Jim: Shhh! He doesn't know that! Don't anybody tell him! He's sure he's a rottweiler! He grew up when we were living in Pennsylvania, like out in Amish country Pennsylvania when at the grocery store there were these horses and carts parked in spaces, literally. And where you couldn't go to Pizza Hut on Monday night because that was Mennonite night, and the Mennonites all came in and had pizza on Monday night. And you couldn't trust those shifty Mennonites! They used cars! There's something wierd about those people! But, that's where we were living, and we had all kinds of wildlife around the house, we had wild turkeys that would cross our property every morning, and the dog would chase them and they'd flee, and we had rabbits, and the dog would chase them and they'd flee, we have groundhogs and the dog would chase them and they'd look at one another and go "You know, we outweigh two of these things, just one of us, are we gonna have to run away?" {Jim mimes flicking through a book} "Well, yeah, according to the union rules...so yeah we have to flee." and they'd flee, and the dog became convinced that he was the ultimate macho. So he's 25lb, a fluffy french dog. But quite ferocious, and actually an excellent watchdog. You know there's a difference between a watchdog and a guard dog. A watchdog tells you what's going on, a guard dog tells you what's going on and then does something about it. My dog tells me what's going on, he says "Right, you're the guard dog, go! I'll be right here behind ya boss." I have no doubt he'd be crouched six inches behind my legs, ferociously unleashing his sonic initiative. So that's how big and ferocious my dog is. Yes?
Audience: Are any of your characters, do any of them have elements of people you know?
Jim: No, I'd have to be crazy to answer that question yes! Bits and pieces. Most of my female characters have got my wife in them, because I've been around her too long and I don't see how anybody else could exist, so... Really, I don't hang out with other people, it's just me and her most of the time, and...the boy.
{audience laughs}
Jim: What? Did you ever raise- OK, did anybody else here have a three year old that got kicked out of their school? For inciting a riot?
{laughter and clapping}
Jim: Yeah, my kid incited a riot at the age of three. Some kind of nap time rebellion. Everyone refused to go to sleep. "No! I am Spartacus!"
{more laughter}
Jim: No, I had to deal with him. Now he's 6'2" you know, so... But as far as people I know, I never grab anybody and just say "Here". Except for a character in White Night-
{Jim holds up book}
Jim: Called Anna Ash, who is there because I auctioned off that character, I was at a convention and I auctioned off a horrible death! It was at the Buffy convention, and I auctioned off a horrible death and they ran up the bidding on it, Julie Caitlin Brown was the auction person, and she ran up the bid on it. And so Anna wound up giving $3000 to a children's cancer foundation, and so she gets a horrible death in my book! So that's based on somebody I really do actually know. Harry Dresden is kind of losely based on my friend Charlie, who's 6'9", British, and Charlie and I, Charlie was an extremely comforting person to have with you in a dark alley. He and I hit a couple of dark alleys occasionally in the days of my foolishness, which are from about 1971 until now-
{audience laughs}
Jim: But back when I was in college being foolish, I had different things to be foolish about then. So Charlie would be with me, he's a very comforting person to have with you in a dark alley, 6'9". You know, skinny, glowering, very intense personality guy. And with the British accent he got all the girls too. He would just collect phone numbers, falling out of his pockets. But anyway, yeah, I don't really base them too much on anybody. I take that back. Shiro in the books, he's one of the Knights of the Cross, I guess maybe you've read that book.
Audience: Yeah!
Jim: Sometimes I forget! You know while you're all here I'm just talking. But he was actually based on a guy who opened a martial arts school in my town, and who was my teacher's teacher. So he was based part on my teacher, who was actually, I knew he was from Japan, I knew he was from a samuri family, that's all I knew. I didn't know he was from a big samuri family until I read an article about his $12 million full Shinto wedding on the roof of a building in New York.
{murmers of approvement, a whoop}
Jim: So like, golly! I didn't realise that! But yeah, he was the one who was a 6th degree, he was a national college champion of Aikido in Japan, he was a 6th degree blackbelt in a martial art he was studying which was called Ryu Kempo, I'd seen him catch arrows! Not arrows that were flying by like here;
{indicates past himself}
Jim: Arrows that were flying by like here.
{indicates towards his chest}
Jim: Pointy ones!
{laughter}
Jim: I'd seen him catch them, they shot three of them at him and he had to catch the blue one to break the red one, and he didn't know which stripe was coming at him until it was in sight, they didn't tell him.
{gasp}
Jim: Yeah. He was that kind of martial artist. And I remember he was teaching in a basic Ju-Jitsu class that I'd been to, and he says:
{Jim puts on bad Japanese accent}
"Though, really I feel I-" Because it's the Japanese accent, I'm not trying to insult anybody, it's just the way that in my head I remember him. " Really I feel I am not really very good at hand to hand martial arts, I think I'm begining to touch potential, but really I feel I am nowhere close to what I will one day be. However I do feel that I have a competent basic understanding of the sword."
{Jim and audience laughs}
Jim: OK! And then his teacher was this old guy from Okinawa who had learned martial arts in the power vacuum between the fall of the Japanese and before the Americans got there in WWII. The Yakuza came in to fill the power vacuum, they came in and they killed this kid's dad, and then they said "You're gonna pay us x amount of money by this time next month or we're gonna kill you." And the kid's family didn't have it, so he went to these two Chinese monks that were living up a mountain when the Japanese invaded, and they had taken shelter in Okinawa, and it hadn't worked out so well. And they were living in a cave up in a mountain, and the kid went up there and begged them to teach him to fight so that he could protect himself and his family. And they told him no, go away, and they started asking him about it, and they found out that actually the kid was a descendent of the last king of Okinawa, Shautai, and they're like "Oh my gosh, this kid's from a divine bloodline, we have to help him!" So they beat him unconcious every day for a month!
{laughter}
Jim: Which, you know, that was the level of martial arts they were operating at, they were teaching serious stuff. And the Yakuza sent an assassin to kill the kid, and the kid killed him, and left his body hanging over the fence in the front yard. The next week the Yakuza sent another assassin, who also got left over the fence, and so did the two that came after that! Then the Yakuza went to the kid and said "We would like you to work for us!"
{audience laughs}
Jim: And the kid said "No, I just want you to stay off my street." and the Yakuza said "Much better business!"
{more laughter}
Jim: It's a true story, and eventually he wound up moving to Independence, Missouri and I ask one of his students "Why does a guy like that wind up in Independence Missouri?" And the student says "Because he wants to."
{audience laughs}
Jim: Ahh! Yes. And that was Master Oyada, and between my teacher Shiro, and Master Oyada they formed Shiro in the books. Actually I ran into Master Oyada at the grocery store the other day, he was getting a perscription. He's this cheerful little Okinawa guy, he's about 5'2", big old broad shoulders, got a big old pot belly, he had a stogie in one hand and was there getting some medicine for something. But a nice guy. A really nice guy. All the really, really extremely... just the most deaadly skilled people I've ever met are the nicest people. You know, or so they seem to be to me, in my terror.
{more laughter}
Jim: But really, when you run into places like that, where the people are serious, they know they're confident, they know what they're doing, they often treat one another very well, they're very polite to one another because you never know when the little 5' nothing blond woman is gonna throw you through a wall! You know, maybe she can do that! So, long answered question, there you go, you've had my martial arts history in there, so.