Marc - ProfilesArchive

About Me

Born in Los Angeles, lived there most of my life, now live somewhere else -- where it snows. Author, I might have written a book or twelve. But they're non-fiction so does that make me a real author? I tend to think of myself more as a wordsmith. Someone who helps people see what is out there, especially when it comes to them staying safe in a sometimes unsafe world.I survived an interesting life (i.e. Chinese curse, "May you live in interesting times"). Now days I love to answer "Nothing much" when asked "What's new and exciting." Believe me when I tell you Louis L'amour had it right when he said "Adventure is nothing but a romantic name for trouble. It's great reading about it in the comfort of your armchair, but it's pure (blank) when it is coming at you in a dark and lonely place." I'm currently enjoying a new record for me of having gone 12 years without getting shot at. About my alias "Animal" ... well, it's like a tattoo, I'm sort of stuck with it. Although I have to admit, in light of my ...shall we say... wild past, I find it funny how many romance writers find my works useful for creating 'rough, but basically good men' characters.

My Interests

Psychology, cultural anthropology, history, martial arts and a couple of other things about what makes humans tick. Oh yeah, they say I'm supposed to know something about personal safety, crime avoidance, self-defense and street violence, but that's work related.

I'd like to meet:

Authors interested in making their action and characters more realistic.

Music:

Varied doesn't even come close to describing it. Who else has bangra, classic rock, bagpipes and classic music on the same CD blaring out of the car windows as I'm speeding down the highway

Movies:

Well, errrr, ummmm... it's kind of embarrassing to admit but I prefer chick flicks over action movies. The reason being is Hollywood gets it wrong so often. They just tend to make me twitch watching the "heros" do things that would get them killed.

Television:

Dexter, Mythbusters, The Discovery Channel and The History Channel. Other than that, I'd prefer to read.

Books:

Read for fun? Hey I remember that concept! A lot of the reading I do these days is work related and even when I'm reading fiction, it's helping people with their books to get the details of crime and violence right. www.nononsenseselfdefense.com

Heroes:

Genghis Khan, George S Patton, Lao Tsu and David Jefferson Bean

My Blog

The Male Mind

Okay, I'm going to take a break from writing about how alpha males behave because I've just finished my part of the new No Nonsense Self-Defense site redesign and a) I'm in a somewhat jolly mood (...
Posted by Marc on Tue, 15 Apr 2008 12:02:00 PST

Alpha Male In Writing, Part 3

This part of the series starts out with me throwing a manly man-hissy fit. In fact, you might even upgrade it to a temper tantrum. I have hard time calling cl...
Posted by Marc on Tue, 08 Apr 2008 09:19:00 PST

No Alpha Male this week

They tell me that if one is blogging you should keep to a regular schedule ... yeah right, this is me you’re talking to... oh wait, stay on task Marc.However, we’re in the last stages of g...
Posted by Marc on Tue, 01 Apr 2008 04:22:00 PST

The Alpha Male in Writing, Pt 2

Okay, I accept that when it comes to violence -- after writing 15 books on the subjects of violence, street survival, how knives are used in the streets and studies in what I like to call, "front-line...
Posted by Marc on Tue, 25 Mar 2008 04:20:00 PST

The Alpha Male in Writing Pt 1

Back in 1989 I was the first to write about Alpha and Beta behavior in a street survival context. Well, just because it came out in my first book doesn’t mean that was the first time I tho...
Posted by Marc on Tue, 18 Mar 2008 07:41:00 PST

Burglary tools for the first time writer

Numbered in the long list of things that people ask me about is the subject of writing. So I have written fifteen books and done five videos, that doesn't make me a writer!... oh wait, maybe it ...
Posted by Marc on Fri, 22 Feb 2008 12:35:00 PST

Violence Never Solved Anything ... yeah right

Barry Eisler set me up on this one...He posted on MySpace comments that he was still chuckling over the following post. And naturally people are going to wonder what we're talking about. Thing is ther...
Posted by Marc on Sun, 17 Feb 2008 02:27:00 PST

Violence Scale

I recently saw a horrible video of a derranged man sitting on his wife's chest in the Netherlands and stabbing her over sixty times. I should point out that while it was terrible, it was to me, just a...
Posted by Marc on Sun, 03 Feb 2008 04:12:00 PST

Checking Your Brain at the Door Pt 2

Before I start this, I'd like to point out the fact that I am politically non-Euclidian.When I hear people talking about whether they are a Liberal vs. Conservative, I realize I'm dealing with someone...
Posted by Marc on Sun, 02 Dec 2007 05:07:00 PST

Checking your Brain at the Door Pt 1

Checking your brain at the doorPart One: The sound bite decision a'la the Jena SixIf you have a stopwatch, try this experiment. Watch the evening news and start the stopwatch when a subject is introdu...
Posted by Marc on Wed, 26 Sep 2007 02:58:00 PST