In my last post I wrote about a long-lost acquaintance, Paul, who resurfaced during this holiday season. He was not the only person from my past about whom I recently received an update. A few weeks ago I obtained some news about one Al "Stankie" Stankiewicz. In 2006 I mentioned him in this post. Now it seems that Al has become something of a reality TV star. I can't believe it, but yet I can. On a personal level it seems fitting that someone has sent me news of Al during the Christmas season. About five years ago or so I happened to be sitting on a plane bound for Tokyo with good old Al. A group of us were flying to Japan for a mixed-martial-arts fighting event. Al proceeded to get obnoxiously drunk. The flight attendants feared him. They informed him that they could not serve him any more booze. He became belligerent. They pretended not to notice and tried to stay out of his way. It is hard to do that on a plane. Al stormed up and down the aisles. At some point his eyes fixed on mine when I made the mistake of looking up from my book.
"Order me a drink and pretend that it is for you." he commanded me.
He must have seen the resistance in my face because he started to become a bit obsequious as he wasted a few sentences trying to cajole me into doing so. I really did not feel like humoring him and I refused to go through with the transparent charade of ordering him another drink that the flight attendants would refuse to bring.
"Fuck you then!" Al barked at me in a relatively quiet, guttural growl as he flipped his middle finger in my face.
I shook my head, he stomped off, and I settled back into my seat. Shortly thereafter the anxiety-ridden flight attendants approached my friend Raul who was napping in a different row with his baseball cap pulled down over his face. After waking him one of the female crew asked if Al was his father.
"No." Raul responded flatly. "He's not."
The flight team asked if Raul could calm Al down. Raul brushed the sleep out of his eyes and nodded his head. Everyone in our section of the plane (coach) seemed to breathe a collective sigh of relief. Raul wearily got out of his seat, found Al a few rows behind him, and told the ornery drunk that he needed to calm down and go to sleep. Al was still extremely agitated but he seemed to sense the futility of continuing his tirade.
"Just get some headphones and watch the movie." Raul advised as he clapped his hand on Al's shoulder.
Evidently Al did so because about 30 minutes later I heard Al's voice ringing out in the quiet plane.
"Look at all these yellow niggers!" he bellowed. "They are nothing but a bunch of yellow niggers!! It was these goddamned Japs who killed my uncle in World War 2!!"
Everyone on the plane froze in their seats. Aside from Al, Raul, and me I think that just about everyone else was Japanese. I tried to make sense of his foolishness and it took me a moment to realize that the in-flight movie featured a lot of Asian people. I stared at the silent images for a few moments since I did not have any headphones. Al continued to rant. No one interfered. I took one of my ice cubes and lobbed it at Raul who was trying to sleep a couple rows ahead of me. I saw him silently shake his head without even turning around. Within 15 minutes Al had fallen fast asleep and begun snoring loudly in his seat.
Many hours later our plane did arrive in Tokyo without any further incident. I will never forget that Christmas Day flight all those years ago. Al did continue his antics in Tokyo and it was just more of the same. Eventually we all returned to Los Angeles and I never had to spend any time with him ever again.
Imagine my surprise at receiving this article about Al (taken from CagePotato.com) in my inbox recently:
Right away we knew that Al "Stankie" Stankiewicz (aka: Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira's boxing coach) had a certain magic about him. From his crazy motivational sayings to his semi-coherent ramblings about sardines, the man is straight up charismatic. But the more stories about him that trickle out, the more it's starting to seem like he is being criminally underused in this season of The Ultimate Fighter. The latest Stank-tastic tale comes from TUF 8 cast member Ryan Bader, who paints a portrait of Stank as a lovable old card getting the most out of his affiliation with Nogueira:
I have a funny story about Al Stankie, who is our older boxing coach. After practice the coaches would go grab something to eat -- most of the time without showering and in full Team Nogueira garb, which (I'm pretty sure) they were not supposed to be doing. Stankie had on a rashguard, full TapouT velour red warm-up, a TapouT beanie and a couple long gold chains. They went to The Palms to watch the Lakers vs. Celtics game. Stankie is a big Lakers fan, and when a Celtics fan expressed some joy about his team scoring, Stankie walked over and slapped the guy -- with all of our Brazilian coaches looking on in horror. Before the other coaches could grab him, he yelled out, "I am with the heavyweight champion of the world! You want some?" Those of us that saw this understood that this could be Junie's relative, and maybe that is why he wasn't kicked off the show yet. Stankie is a great man, and Spike TV should give him his own show.
There are many stories that involve Stankie that I will try to give to you each week. We would all gather around Dan Valverde, one of the assistant coaches, and he would tell us the stories of what Stankie did over the weekend.
Bader also described Stankie as "drunk and funny as ever" when he and Nogueira showed up at the house to try and squash the prank war, which might at least partially explain the disrespect shown by many of the Team Mir fighters.
As for the suggestion that Spike TV should give Stankie his own show, we're all for it. The fact that Brooke Hogan has her own show and Stankie doesn't, well, let's just say it's a sign that this nation has lost its way.
Yep, it seems that Al has become a full-fledged reality TV star - his grizzled physiognomy and drunken antics are now routinely viewed by numerous people around the world on a weekly basis.
Who could have predicted this?
The demise of reality TV is imminent. I don't think that anyone will argue that point. Let's hope that it happens before anyone even considers giving Al his own show :)
XO Tanya
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