There were unbelievably horrific scenes at an amateur soccer match in Maranhao, Brazil, on June 30th, when a referee was lynched, and his head put on a stake, after he killed a player during an argument.

Eurosport are reporting that the 20-year-old referee, Otavio Jordao da Silva fatally stabbed 30-year-old Josenir dos Santos Abreu, during an altercation on the soccer pitch.

Santos Abreu was believed to have remonstrated with da Silva over a refereeing decision. Santos Abreu then struck the referee before da Silva fatally stabbed the player.

Santos Arbeau was taken to hospital but died from his injuries.

Angered by the incident, spectators took a horrific revenge on referee da Silva. According to Eurosport:

‘..the referee was tied up, beaten, stoned and quartered. They then put his head on a stake and planted it in the middle of the pitch.

One man, Luiz Moraes de Souza, 27, has been arrested over the incident. He has admitted to assaulting the referee but denied killing the man. Police are searching for two more suspects.

They are currently viewing video footage of the incident filmed by a witness with a mobile phone.

In a statement, the regional delegate of Santa Ines, Valter Costa, who is looking after the case, said: “One crime never justifies another crime. Actions likes this do not collaborate with the legality of state law.”

The original news report (plus photographs of the scene and victims) published in the Brazilian press, can be found here.
 
Via Eurosport, with thanks to Scheme Comix

 
Karate champ and film star Jim “The Dragon” Kelly has died of cancer at the age of 67.

Six foot two with an explosive Afro, Kelly made an indelible impression in 1973’s Enter The Dragon by holding his own against the film’s massively charismatic star Bruce Lee. Kelly’s character, Williams, was somewhat of a symbol of the Black Power movement in America at the time and Kelly’s look, defiant demeanor and no bullshit attitude fit the role perfectly.

Kelly went on to make a string of films in the 70s, the most popular of which were Black Belt Jones and Three The Hard Way. He also appeared briefly in the wildly twisted The Amazing Mr. No Legs.

Kelly exuded a cool intensity and had a screen presence that should have made him a bigger star than he was. But the scripts he was offered he turned down because they were generally exploitation flicks that he felt didn’t give him an opportunity to project a positive image. His martial arts training had made him very aware of directing his energies toward a higher goal. Playing Black stereotypes in low-rent B-movies wasn’t the kind of karma he wanted to accrue.

In this video shot during the 2012 Albuquerque Comic Expo, Kelly is interviewed by martial arts film historian Ric Meyers. The result is a wonderfully insightful take on one of cinema’s shooting stars and one of martial arts true legends. Kelly’s feelings for Bruce Lee are profound.
 

 
It’s like a drinking game, but much healthier. Want to watch another season of Doctor Who on Netflix now and work out later?

No need to procrastinate. You can do both!

Via the fitforinfinity.tumblr.com.

 
Yoga came to the West from India, in bits and pieces from the 1920’s to the 1960’s. From the 1960’s to about ten years ago, the only people teaching yoga were more or less hippies. Teachers who emphasized the spiritual aspect of the practice and taught small classes made up of a ragtag assortment of humans beings. Grandmas, new moms, pregnant moms, college students and athletes getting over injuries, wearing loose fitting clothing that resembles nothing like the yoga bras and tight, wedgie-inducing Yoga Tart pants on offer today. Somewhere along the way over the past twenty years the fitness industry and corporations got ahold of yoga (I won’t even go into the whole Pilates fad) and turned it into just another way to get fit. Oh, and look HOT.

Yoga is supposed to be much more than that. In 1997-98 the most sought after yoga teachers were from Golden Bridge in L.A. They were Western Sikh followers of Yogi Bhajan, wore extremely modest clothing and their long hair was tucked up in a white turban. The stars of this yoga school were Gurmukh, who taught prenatal yoga and also helped more than a few people stay sober through yoga, and Gurutej Kaur. Flea from The Red Hot Chili Peppers was one of Gurmukh’s students. A punk singer and music producer from the Midwest reinvented himself as a yogi named Mahan. They didn’t preach Sikhism, but there was a definite spiritual emphasis, with talk of meditation, chakras, energy, auric fields, and the like. It was cheerful and comforting.

Then came power yoga, Bikram yoga (hot yoga), and provocative yoga, complete with porn soundtrack. Now the women demonstrating yoga positions in magazines (even Yoga Journal) or videos look like (usually white) gymnists.  Or like lingerie models. There isn’t anything about your soul, centering, meditation, union of body, mind and spirit, or communion with the divine. But they make damn sure to use the impressively long original Indian names for every single pose in a stab of authenticity, which gets lost among all the accessories you’re suddenly supposed to have, like “yoga bricks” and special “Toesox” socks.

Kate Potter’s soothing yoga show, Namaste Yoga, once shown on Canadian televison and the cable channel FitTV, used to feature women from a variety of ethnic backgrounds, but all pretty much at the same level of ultra-fitness. I’m not asking for robe-wearing sadhus exclusively, but it would have been nice to see a few bigger ladies included as well. Or Chris Grosso wrote for yoganonymous.com, “Unless I missed the memo, spirituality is not just for pretty, clean cut, white folks who have more money than they know what to do with”

There are authentic sanghas who teach “old school” yoga, but they might not be as easy to find if their message and ads are lost among the flashier teachers. Which leads to the fact that teacher training in some states is laughable. Just because someone has a yoga teaching certification doesn’t mean that they are actually qualified to teach.

Julie J.C. Peters righteously ranted about the sexy Equinox Yoga video in Elephant Journal:

“Yoga advertising has been trying for a while now to make me feel bad about my body so that I get insecure enough to buy whatever they are selling.” You mean not everyone works out in Agent Provocateur underwear?

Although Susan “Stop the Insanity!” Powter produced her own down-to-earth yoga video for all fitness levels, Trailer Park Yoga. This DVD did not receive the advertising push that a video like Equinox Yoga or Provocative Yoga received, and so is therefore an obscure resource for women looking for alternatives.

In her article “Tits and Ass in a Mala,” Portland, Oregon yoga teacher Maya Devi Georg asks, “How about featuring non-sexualized images of young women, or celebrating images of older women, women of color, or men at any age?”:

“This is a call to practitioners and teachers to take responsibility for the practice—not just for themselves but those who will follow us. What does the future of yoga hold in the West? Will it be reduced to corporate ownership, making bad classes better, but making great classes extinct? Will it be ruled by greed, glamour, fads and gimmicks? Or will the word yoga become so overused that the inherent meaning is lost?”

Namaste to that!

 
The Reverend Jesse Jackson and ‘Prince of Motown’ Marvin Gaye shootin’ hoops in 1976.
 

 
H/T Retronaut
 

 
It’s been said that Mexican juggler Rudy Cárdenas rehearsed 9-5 everyday, then went on and performed his act in the evening. Now that’s dedication.

During his long career, Cárdenas was a major star of stage and TV variety shows, from the 1950s-1980s, and he was regularly considered the world’s greatest juggler. But don’t take my word for it, judge for yourself.
 

 
This week, I’ve been wandering around DM Towers dressed like this. While it’s been fun to whack about with a 9-iron, I doubt I looked as cool (or as cheesy) as these two guys: Donald Sutherland and Elliott Gould in Robert Altman’s M*A*S*H.

M*A*S*H was the first ‘X’ certificate film I sneaked into, when I was about 14. It was on a re-release with the pornographically titled The Last Hard Men, which was (disappointingly) a western starring Charlton Heston, James Coburn and Barbara Hershey. An interesting double bill that nearly explains what was good and bad about the seventies
 

 
Previously on Dangerous Minds

Donald Sutherland gives a brief history of his career: Rare interview form 1979

 
Who else would play ping-pong in an astro-kimono and sunglasses? David Bowie, that’s who.
 

 

 

 
Garrett McNamara pushed the farther reaches of the envelope this past Monday when he rode a wave believed to be 100 feet off the shore of Nazare, Portugal. It could be his second world record ride at this location. The 45-year-old surfer from Hawaii had a Zen approach to the challenge:

I was totally in the moment. PCP – present, connected and protected.

When I got on the board and they pulled me up with tow rope everything just felt right, it was like magic.”

The question being asked by many folks, including surfing contest director Bill Sharp, is “How do you measure a wave that doesn’t break?”

Here’s some breathtaking footage of Big Monday in Nazare. 
 

 
The Charlatans frontman Tim Burgess on Lance Armstrong.

Can’t we give Lance Armstrong a break? I tried riding a bike once on drugs. If anything it was a lot harder. I was in a hedge within seconds.

 

 
Tim released a rather superb album Oh No I Love You at the end of last year, and is touring in February more info here.

Tim Burgess on twitter.