Mr. Arthur Watts taught art at Kingston Art School in the 1960s. He was a strict teacher who believed students needed brutal honesty to succeed. In 1963, he called 18-year-old Eric Clapton into his office. Eric was failing his classes, spending all his time with a guitar instead of completing assignments. “Eric, you’re wasting everyone’s…
March 15th, 2015, Royal Albert Hall, London. Eric Clapton was performing his famous song for a charity concert benefiting deaf education. A sign language interpreter stood at the side of the stage, translating the lyrics for the deaf audience. But when Clapton sang the famous opening line, the interpreter did something that made Clapton stop…
The room went quiet the moment he walked in. Not the respectful kind of quiet, the kind that happens when a predator enters a space and every living thing in it decides to stop moving. His name was Victor Kesler, and he had never lost. Not once, not in competition, not in sparring, not even…
At this very moment, somewhere in the ocean, 5,000 sailors are living inside a floating steel city the size of three football fields. They’re eating 17,000 meals a day, sleeping stacked three people high in metal bunks, [music] and sharing four showers with a 100 other sailors. The USS Gerald R. Ford costs $13 billion,…
Rebecca Chen was a night nurse at Hazelden Treatment Center in 1987 when Eric Clapton checked in for heroin and alcohol detox. [snorts] She’d worked with hundreds of addicts, but Clapton was different. On his third night, Rebecca was walking past his room at 3:17 a.m. when she heard guitar music. Not recorded music, live…
For 60 years, Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck were rivals. Both guitar gods, both competing for the title of greatest guitarist alive. They pushed each other, challenged each other, sometimes resented each other. When Beck died in January 2023, Clapton was asked to play at the funeral. He said yes immediately despite the arthritis that…
That morning on Crenshaw Boulevard in Torrance, only a few shops were open. It was mid- November 1971, 9:00 in the morning, and the air was unusually cold for Southern California. A grocery, a barber, a small tailor, and among them a little shop called Herukqi’s Martial Arts Supplies. Its display window slightly faded, its…
Only 17 people knew that Chuck Norris was in the audience that night. The kickboxing champion in the ring didn’t know. The referees didn’t know. The organizers didn’t know. None of the 400 spectators could guess who the simply dressed man sitting quietly in the 14th row really was. That situation would change 8 seconds…
Only 23 people knew that afternoon that Chuck Norris was in the dojo. The young champion who walked in through the door didn’t know. The students training thought he was in a meeting in the back room, but Chuck was there quietly watching and listening. And 9 seconds later, the arrogant young champion would receive…
Only 18 people in the arena that day knew who Chuck Norris was. The karate champion on the stage didn’t know. The tournament organizers didn’t know. The referees didn’t know either. Not a single one of the 650 spectators could guess who the plainly dressed, averagel-l lookinging man sitting quietly in the 14th row really…
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