The Martialist: The Magazine For Those Who Fight Unfairly

The original e-mail I received was a brown-nosing and fairly transparent
attempt. While I figured at the time that this was the fraudulent article
submission for which I’d been waiting impatiently, it wasn’t long enough or
good enough on its own. I refused to take the bait when “Jason” offered to let
me take credit for the idea as my own, too, which I’m sure he would have loved
when he reported the results to his young friends. Authors almost never offer
to let someone else take credit; people who submit articles for publishing
credit (as we don’t pay contributors) are looking for just that – credit
– and are reluctant to see their ideas hijacked.

From: “jason devon”
To: phil
Subject: Your excellent publication

Date: Sun, 24 Jul 2005 07:18:38 +0000

Howdy Phil!

Being in the self-protection business I am an avid reader of your
superb ezine. Through a few years of experience I have a few tricks up my
sleeve and thought it wouldn’t be a bad idea to share them, and what better
way to do that than through your website.

I hope you are not offended by this solicitation. I appreciate that you
don’t know me from Adam. But I also know that you are a magnanimous
knowledge seeker and sharer, keen to spread wisdom on its own merit,
regardless of source. I have therefore taken the liberty of throwing
together a draft essay which, if you desire, you can reconstruct into
an article, or otherwise share the content. I have no desire to be famous,
to get my name in print or even be recognized within the trade. Merely to
share. Here is the secret to my safe movement in hostile urban
environments:

“We should not kid ourselves that luck is enough to save us from the
urban menace that stalks our streets looking for easy victims, unwary
citizens, the weak, the law abiding. This menace, the common criminal scum, the
vagrant, the bully, is not above knifing you in the back for your
wallet! It happened on my block just last month.

It is only reasonable that we take precautions. If you are not already
carrying an “equalizer” then you should be! Whether that’s a sidearm, a
blade or a tactical torch, it is a must in today’s dangerous streets.
But will it protect you from the criminal that knifes first, asks questions
after????? No. The only way to protect yourself from this type of
attack is to be armored.

Few citizens can afford commercial body amour but against knives, there
is simply no need to fork out $2000. You can make your own which will do
the job. Here’s how:

Take two vests which can easily be worn under garments. Use
appropriately sized hardback books, quite thin ones (you can always rip pages out to
make fatter ones thinner!) and distribute them between the two vests as
plate armor. These are surprisingly resilient to knife cuts and thrusts. Sew
these in so that the vests become one. In spaces between the plates, use
rolled up newspaper, which is more flexible and almost as effective.

The resulting vest can be worn under your coat and will give you enough
time to respond to the attack, drawing your own equalizer and dispatching
the scumbag.”

Please do not feel obliged to publish it; I am fully aware that writing
isn’t one of my strengths. And if you do consider the technical content
worthy of publication, please feel free to edit it and even put your
own name to it.

Live safely Friend!
Jason Devon, Braveworld Combat-Do

Hoping I could coax more out of him, especially some photos, I dodged his offer of appropriating the idea and wrote back the following. I thought perhaps he’d stolen the idea from The Sicilian Blade and wondered if I was pushing my luck by referencing it, but I was also holding out hope that maybe I was wrong and he’d turn out to be a legitimate contributor despite my suspicions:

From: Phil Elmore
To: jason devon
Subject: Re: Your excellent publication
Date: Mon, 25 Jul 2005 06:45:02 -0700 (PDT)

Jason,

This is too short to be used for publication and is an idea previously
published in “The Sicilian Blade,” but if you’ve done this yourself
and would be able to take pictures of the process (and the results) it
might make for an interesting feature. Let me know if you’re interested in
doing that (and thanks for your kind words about The Martialist).

Best,

Phil

“Jason” wrote back with an entire article in the body of his e-mail, more or less. I thought asking me if I’d ever worn a “stab vest” myself was a nice touch, but of course I did not give him anything with which to work in that regard:

From: “jason devon”

To: phil
Subject: Re: Your excellent publication
Date: Tue, 26 Jul 2005 18:27:00 +0000

Phil,

Thank you for the advice. I started to make a new one but decided that
it’s
best to demonstrate a simpler one which doesn’t require sewing. I’ve
used
this design on occasions.

I hope that the attached JPEG pictures are useful. I’ve removed my
bedroom
from the background –I hope that it’s OK. Have you ever worn an
improvised
stab vest?

Please feel free to edit or rewrite it, my writing is shitty.

Draft article: Home made Stab Vest (working title)
By Jason Devon, July 2005

We should not kid ourselves that luck is enough to save us from the
urban
menace that stalks our streets looking for easy victims, unwary
citizens,
the weak, the law abiding. This menace, the common criminal scum, the
vagrant, the bully, is not above knifing you in the back for your
wallet! It
happened on my block just last month.

It is only reasonable that we take precautions. If you are not already
carrying an “equalizer” then you should be! Whether that’s a sidearm, a
blade or a tactical torch, it is a must in today’s dangerous streets.
But
will it protect you from the criminal that knifes first, asks questions
after????? No. If a felon is determined to stab you, they don’t show
you the
blade, they just walk up all subtle and bam!!!! -straight in the gut or
back
without warning. The only way to protect yourself from this type of
attack
is to be armored.

Few citizens can afford commercial body amour but against knives, there
is
simply no need to fork out $1000 on Kevlar. You can make your own which
will
do the job at a fraction of the price. I’ve been wearing home made stab
vests working the doors of notorious clubs for the past fifteen years
and
it’s saved my bacon more than once. I recall one such incident when I
was
working new-year’s eve –a slave to the mortgage. Trouble flared several
times and I had to carry a few lively soles out to the fresh New York
air.
It was only when I got home and started undressing that I found a
snapped
off blade embedded in the book about where my left kidney is! I hadn’t
even
realized someone had stabbed me –and the vest saved me. I’ve also
taken to
wearing them when I’m in high risk neighborhoods and so far no one has
ever
discovered my secret. These things work, that I can say with absolute
confidence.

The best armor I’ve found is wood; books to be more precise. Hardback
books
offer the best protection but are not flexible enough to wear at the
flanks,
so I only use them on the front and back. The ribs I cover with thick
softback novels. You can also use compressed newspaper but novels are
probably easier. You can test the protection offered by books quite
simply,
take a knife and stab one. In the spirit of discovery I took the
sharpest
and sturdiest kitchen knife from my wife’s drawer and thrust it
determinedly
into a book –note how the tip hardly penetrates. And that’s a bigger
knife
than I’ve ever seen used by criminals, most assassins prefer a smaller
easily concealed blade which doesn’t have nearly as much thrusting
power as
the heavy kitchen knife. Books like this are actually stronger than
most
types of natural wood because paper doesn’t have a grain so there is no
splitting at the point of least resistance.
-{picture ref Vest-2-a.jpg}-

I’ve made my stab-vests in several designs, always improvised, but the
one
I’ll share I believe to be the most efficient and wearable. It doesn’t
require any sewing and does not ruin the clothing used. It is strictly
covert –the fashion police would arrest you if you wore it overtly! The
basic ingredients:

2 x large (A-4 or bigger) hardback books. Not too thick; 100 pages.
2 x normal sized softback novels, quite thick; about 500 pages.
2 x well fitting T-shirts
4 x Bungee luggage straps with hooks on

The basic armor layout is a hardback book front and rear with the
novels on
the flanks guarding the ribcage (a favorite target of the assassin!).
-{picture ref Vest-1-a.jpg}-

Firstly put one of the T-shirts on. Turn the bottom up and place the
books
into the turn-up. Wrap two of the luggage straps around so that they
hold
the books in place and tight to the body. This is very important; the
vest
will not be so effective if it moves about. It should look something
like
this:
-{picture ref Vest-3-a.jpg}-

Put the second T-Shirt on over the first and wrap the remaining two
luggage
straps around. The whole setup should be tight but not restrictive.
-{picture ref Vest-5-a.jpg}-

It really is as simple as that! You are now armored against the blade
wielding scum that stalk our sidewalks looking for easy victims, and
wander
the nation’s dance floors looking for unguarded flanks. I hope that
this
trick is of some use to someone.

Be safe!
Jason Devon

I was pretty surprised by the results and again wondered if I wasn’t simply being too cynical in suspecting him to be a crank, anonymous hotmail address or no. The pictures were really very nicely done and showed a good sense of humor, even if they were meant as parody rather than in earnest. Either way, I liked them, and the whole concept (with my editing) I thought would make a good article despite his intentions. I did, however, hint again at my suspicions in telling him before the fact that I would probably add an editor’s note. The article still had some holes, so I queried him further:

From: Phil Elmore
To: jason devon
Subject: Re: Your excellent publication
Date: Tue, 26 Jul 2005 11:49:46 -0700 (PDT)

Jason,

This is nicely done. I will edit it and add some thoughts of my own,
probably as editor’s notes, but your pictures came out really nicely.

One
thing, though – the vest looks fairly obvious in the pictures (it
gives
the torso a blocky look) – how do you keep people from noticing that
when
you’re wearing such things? Also, how heavy and uncomfortable is it
when
you wear it? Does it make you sweat more? These are things about
which
the reader will be curious.

Phil

He responded with this:

From: “jason devon”

To: phil
Subject: Re: Your excellent publication

Date: Tue, 26 Jul 2005 19:05:33 +0000

Hi Phil,

Wow, quick response. Thanks for your kind words again.

I hear where you’re coming from; the vest is meant to be worn UNDER a
jacket, like you say it’s hardly ninja subtle. Commercial ones are like
that
too. I’ve never found it overly hot, but I’ve never gone for a road run
in
one. For normal activities it’s fine and if you have to sprint out of
trouble, well who cares if it’s a bit sweaty, there are more pressing
issues. Because it’s tight to your body (very important in case of
impacts)
it feels quite light, in fact you soon forget you’re wearing it. It
might be
a bit more cumbersome in wrestling but we all know that you don’t want
to
get involved in wrestling anyway –hit and run! I think that it’s
lighter
than most police issue stab vests I’ve seen, certainly not too heavy.
You
raise very good questions, I’d never have thought of those.

Take care, The Martialist is the bizzzz
Jason

My mind pretty much made up, I went about making the article usable. I got a couple of messages from “Jason” in the interim, begging to know when the article would see print (I imagine it gave him fits to have to wait to see if his prank worked.

FROM: jason devon”
To: phil
Subject: Re: Your excellent publication
Date: Mon, 01 Aug 2005 08:16:01 +0000

Howdy Phil,

Hope you had a good weekend. How’s it going with the article? Sorry to
be a
bore but it’s quite exciting for us first time contributors.

Jason

FROM: “jason devon”
To: phil
Subject: Stab vest article

Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2006 00:21:24 +0000

Hi Phil,

Long time no speak. I’ve been off the web for the past few months –new
addition to the family taking up all my time. I’ve had to give up the
old
ways and start being responsible.

I hope the article I did on stab vests went down ok with the readers. I
do
hope it’s not too much to ask, but I wondered if I could have a copy of
the
article just for keeps sake?

Yours,
Jason

I eventually wrote to him and told him his article appeared in the Mega Issue. He wrote back asking if he could have a copy and I sent him the address to download it (which he promptly posted, publicly, which I knew he would
– my goal was to see the subscriber content teased to a wider audience, which is why the free content for the Mega Issue contains conversions of subscriber articles for public consumption.

Unable to help myself, I wrote one last message:

Date: Thu, 2 Feb 2006 08:10:15 -0800 (PST)
From: “Phil Elmore”
Subject: Thank you
To: “jason devon”

Thank you for your assistance in helping me promote my publication, by the way. I hope I gave you enough time to distribute enough samples of the Mega Issue for it to raise interest in the circles you travel.

Now is probably an unfortunate time to tell you that I saved all our correspondence specifically to put it in the commentary article I knew I’d be writing. It explains how you’ve managed to contribute something worthwhile despite your intention to do the opposite.

Had fun owning you,

Phil