Jack Hoff (Almost) Meets Billy Blanks

This was in my favorite section of the Daily News yesterday. It's that "Around the Valley" column. For me, any reading material labeled "Around the..." is almost sure to have something JackHoffian within.

This is the item verbatim:

(source: Daily News 3/22/08)

AROUND THE VALLEY - Van Nuys

Blanks, Cardenas to teach self-defense

Celebrity trainer Billy Blanks, creator of the Tae Bo workout, will join City Councilman Tony Cardenas, who became interested in self-defense after a female staff member was kidnapped and freed herself, today in teaching a self-defense workshop for both men and women. The free session runs from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. in Delano Park, 15100 Erwin St., Van Nuys.

The item ran Saturday morning for an event that was scheduled for, uhm, Saturday morning and I missed it.

But, I still find this "Self-Defense with Blanks & Cardenas" concept interesting -- and I do have just a couple of questions:

So, if I'm abducted, is the idea here to get my captors to start doing Tae Bo?

Or if I do Tae Bo in front of my captors, are you saying they will free me?

What if my captors don't have the Tae Bo DVD's...what should I do then?

Hey, if I'm abducted, how long do I have to warm up before I can free myself?

Should I invite my captors to do Tae Bo with me in the hope that they will suffer cardiac arrest and die within the first 20 minutes?

From the writing, I'm still unclear as to who kidnapped whom -- did Cardenas' staffer free herself from...Cardenas (??) and that's why he's interested in self-defense?

Did the staffer know Tae Bo?

HellifIknow...it sounds like an interesting story -- and, frankly, a rather "big" story, but I couldn't find anything about it through Google....maybe it happened pre-internet...

As to the headline, since when did Cardenas "teach" self-defense anyway?

Last I heard, he had "Get out of my face!" down pretty well, but that was when confronted by a miniature City Controller weighing in at about 67 lbs.

JH Addendum:

Tony, I'm just having fun at your expense, but in all seriousness, this city needs "group" defense, not self-defense.

And you know which "group" I'm talking about.

Onward, brother, come on, let's get this done!