Where am I, Anthony Mandich, self proclaimed “artist and urban legend” going with this opening you might be asking yourself.  Fuck!  I don’t know myself.  I don’t want to go off on some idiotic babble ridden tangent like usual and yet I feel the need to vent.  I’m torn, as always, because if I vent the truth and it is read by certain people, I’m going to be judged harshly, critiqued mercilessly and possibly shunned universally.  Good Lord I’m dramatic.

One thing I have to say about the adjective tenacious is that there is a fine line between being admirably tenacious and insanely tenacious.  I should have prefaced the above sentence with “In my opinion”.  Steadfast, unwavering, and resolute are terms that I believe are somewhat interchangeable with tenacious.  When you think of the concept in these kinds of terms it certainly leads one to believe that being tenacious is an admirable quality for a human being to have.  History is full of examples of plucky types who define the ideal vision of the concept.  It’s 4:33 a.m. and right this second there isn’t a name that just pops to the fucking forefront of my brain who I could list here as an example of this ideal vision I alluded to but I’m pretty sure anyone reading could do a reasonable job of filling in the blanks here.  I’m not writing this spew to point out a bunch of dead people who did wonderful things.  So I’m going to leave the positive aspect of tenacity alone for you the reader to mull over in your minds.  I would actually be really stoked if you could maybe comment on this post and possibly list out a couple of examples of  people that should be admired for their tenacity.  Maybe give a few details of what they did, how it helped the human race etc.  That would be great.  If I can get say, 10 comments from you guys, then I’ll feel it worthwhile to continue this whole thing.

It’s probably worth your time and effort if you are interested in hearing the dirt on the other side of tenacity and how it applies to me.  Trust me there are some compelling stories to be told.  I just don’t feel it worth my time to do so if nobody is interested in hearing them to begin with.  So I’ll leave it up to y’all.

I’ll even get the ball rolling for everyone.  Lin Zhao was a poet from China who was executed in 1968.  Prior to her trial, one of her doctors tried in vain to get her to stop her hunger strike.  I forget what she weighed exactly by this point but 70 lbs comes to mind for some reason.  Anyhow, her doctor tried to get her to eat and she refused, stating, “better to be destroyed, then to give up one’s principles”.  She was tenacious.  One more example of her tenacity has to do with her poetry.  Long story short, officials at her jail, in an attempt to silence her, took away her writing utensils (pen and ink etc) that she used to write her poetry.  The fact that she no longer had access to ink didn’t stop Lin Zhao from writing thousands of additional poems up to the time of her execution.  Since she didn’t have any ink, she had to make do with the closest thing to ink that she had at her disposal.  Can you guess what I’m referring to here?

Yes, she wrote them in her own blood.