WHY I'M BADASS: Weston Ochse

ART BY RUSS DICKERSON

Tennessee. Humpback humpback, crooked letter crooked letter. Wait. That's Mississippi.

Okay, let's start over. Tennessee. Home to the Dollywood Mountains and the timeless classic, Hee-Haw. The land is covered verdant rolling hills, cradling Nashville to its ample bosom - the town that brought us Miley Cyrus and Garth Brooks and Regions Bank. Tennessee, known for the dental hygene and higher education of the top 5% of its citizenry - beating out Arkansas and Mississippi by mere fractions. (Thank god for Mississippi and Alabama, sayeth the Arkansan, or we'd always be in last place.) Tennessee, where the barbecue is more piquant than sweet due to the copious use of vinegar.

In this fiery cauldron of country music, religious fervor, snake handling, and gigantic breasts, a warrior was born. A warrior unlike the world has seen before.

A warrior to praise before all others. A warrior whose coming was foretold in the Book of the Dead and the 1957 Almanac.

The original badass, Weston Ochse.

Tennessee, where Weston doesn't live anymore. He lives in Arizona, where all the great warriors of this dimension go to fuck and feast eternally at the Table of Kings, where they serve fajitas, higado encebellado and really strong margaritas, sometimes topped with a shot of Grand Mariner (for only $4.99 more), and other delectable victuals for your eupeptic delight and where it takes a month to get a reservation. There. That's where he lives. Badassville.

Please give a standing 21 gun salute to author Weston Ochse, total badass.

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JHJ: Why are you badass? Please explain your badassery.

WO: I’ve been to 55 countries, jumped out of aircraft, swam in the Coral Sea, hiked through Death Valley, eaten snakes, bugs and maggots, fought for the honor of women, friends and my country, stared down enemy soldiers and fired rounds in certifiable anger. I entered the crucible of badassery and was spat out the other side as a 230 pound man who can kill with chopsticks, eviscerate with a machete, and remove any obstacle by placing the claymore mine with the side that says ‘This Side Towards Enemy,’ at whatever target I desire and depressing the clicker. I’ve driven tanks, fired artillery, and boarded U.S. Navy ships at sea. I’ve faced down cannibals in Papua New Guinea, skipped along the Great Wall of China, played a game of golf through two warring tribes, and pissed on the DMZ between North and South Korea. I’ve conducted jungle operations in the Golden Triangle, ran from four forest fires, and been stung by more than 200 bees and yellowjackets. I am the badass of badasses. I’ve convinced bad people to tell me secrets and removed terrorists to places where they can do the least amount of harm. I’ve walked into prisons in more countries than a redneck has toes and come out the other side without a hair out of place. I’ve been knocked out three times, had my nose broken eight times, broke my hand, my wrist, my ankles and still came back fighting. I’ve been a bouncer at UFC cage matches and stared down more badasses that most people see in their entire life. I’m a badass father to two badass kids, son to badass parents, and husband to a wife so badass, I had to up my badassery just to marry her. Yeah, I’m a badass.

JHJ: And you forgot to add that we've both seen General Wesley Clark buck naked. That guy ain't afraid of dropping trou right in the Little Rock Racquet Club locker room, let me tell you. Moving on. What’s the most bad-fucking-ass thing you’ve ever done?

WO: So there I was, walking down the street in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea (for those who need orienting to a map, that’s the big island north of Australia). I’d evidently momentarily forgotten that it had the highest crime rate in the world. It slipped my mind that the tribesmen who came to the city, calling themselves Rascals, were so displaced and disaffected that they sought out people to kill and women to do just to gain the feeling of identity they had when they were with their own tribes.

And there I was wearing white pants, a Hawaiian shirt, sunglasses and smile. I turned a corner as they turned a corner. I saw them at the same time they saw me and there was no way I could run. There were six of them and each one held a machete. As I got close I could see the dried blood on the cheap metal. Then I remembered reports of Rascals going around and stealing watches. They didn’t ask for the watches to be removed. They rarely ever spoke. Instead, they just chopped the arm of and took it with them. What they did with the arm after removing the watch is purely speculation, but I’m sure it entailed salt, pepper and a certain amount of open fire grilling.

At that moment a million responses leaped through my mind, everything from Samuel L. Jackson standing imperiously and proclaiming himself the motherfucker of all motherfuckers to Bruce Willis shouting Yippekaiyay! But instead of that, I stopped, gave them the widest smile I could and said, “How y’all doing?”

And that stopped them in their tracks. They looked at each other. One said, “You’re not Australian?” I shook my head. Another said, “You’re American.” I nodded and said, “Yes I am.”

Then they asked me the weirdest thing. “Do you know Rosanne?” (This was in 1993 or 1994 and the Rosanne Show was in global syndication.)

“Do you mean the TV show?” I responded. They gave me blank looks. It was then that I realized that they didn’t know that the TV show was just that. To them it was real.

So I nodded. “Yes I know Rosanne.” They asked, “How come you let her talk like that?” I quickly responded, “I’d never let her talk like that. What would you do to her if she was from here?” And that set them to arguing. Some wanted to sell her. Another wanted to kill her. Still more, wanted to send her into the jungle for retraining. I’ll never know what they decided, because I left them to their own selves and walked away. Later, I was told that these same Rascals were responsible for the rape of two women and the murder of more than a dozen men and it was only through one badass smile that I was able to make it back here to be the baddass I am today.

JHJ: Holy smokes. Normally I'd have some quip right about now, but... uhm, damn, that's badass. Gimme a moment to recollect myself.

WO: ....

JHJ: Shit, man. Love having the real deal on the Bastardized Version. It's an honor. Okay, moving ever onward. How many sexual partners have you had? Feel free to give details, provide pictures, give anecdotes.

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JHJ: What’s the most badass book ever written?

WO: Robert Heinlein’s Glory Road. It is an intergalactic Rand MacNally Atlas of one soldiers abduction, translocation and conquering of a coterie of badass aliens and wanna be monsters. Glory Road is a thesis of badassery and one that all true badasses should study.

JHJ: I'm a big fan of Heinlein. Maybe not his ideas on social issues but The Moon is A Harsh Mistress (yes, I know it reads like a libertarian manifesto, but still) is probably the best SF novel in the last 60 years. That's just my opinion. Okay, moving on. What’s the most badass movie you’ve ever seen?

WO: Badassery can be droll without style and there is only one Hollywood director who has ever cracked the badassery style code: Quintin Tarantino. If I could construct my own montage from three of his movies, my Badass Film would have the Michael Madsen Ear Dance from Reservoir Dogs, the Samuel L. Jackson biblical delivery from Pulp Fiction and the Climactic Scene from Kill Bill II where David Carradine not only talks about Superman, but also shows us Badass Uma Thurman delivering the Five Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique that finally Kills Bill.


JHJ: When you’re out and about, being a total fucking badass, what music do you listen to?

WO: Queens of the Stone Age is badass rock and roll

JHJ: You ever kill a man? Describe how you’d kill your worst enemy. Make it good.

WO: Killing things is a personal matter. Badassery aside, it’s something that changes you. But I can tell you about one incident. I was ██████████████████████████████
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JHJ: How would you dispose of his/her body?

WO: But for the sake of this questionnaire, I have to say that there is only one truly badass way to dispose of a body and the Coen Brothers made it famous in their movie Fargo – Woodchipper!

JHJ: After you get caught and are waiting to be executed, what would you have as your last meal? What’s the most badass eats you can think of?

WO: I’d request access to This Is Why You’re Fat dot Com and put together a meal that is sure to top 100,000 calories, including the Meat Baby and the Deep Fried Lobster Twinkies.

JHJ: What would be your badass last words?

WO: “Supersize Me!”

JHJ: So, you write books, do you? What’s your work about and how is it badass?

WO: I currently work for the U.S. government. Without breaking classification, I’m in charge of programs that train people not only how to be disloyal to their country, but how to convince other people to do the same.

When I’m not doing this, I write screenplays, books, comics, articles and short stories. I’ve won awards for Screenwriting as well as novels. I love writing pretty much anything.


JHJ: Where can we buy of those bad mama-jamas?

WO: My latest zombie novel from Abaddon Books. Empire of Salt (link is to Amazon UK) is sold out in the U.S., but still available in Europe, U.K. and Canada and features badass zombie survival techniques.

My new collection Multiplex Fandango is available at Dark Regions Press, which begins with a badass story about giant tarantula wasps and Tarzan wannabes.

I have several badass books available as eBooks, including both co-written badass Scary Redneck Collections as well as Butterfly Winter, a tale of badassery at the end of the world.


JHJ: Thanks for playing. You are totally badass.

WO: I know.