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Evan Kail took one upside the head from martial arts legend Bill "Superfoot" Wallace.
Wallace was in Brooklyn Center for an appearance Saturday at White Tiger Martial Arts.
"Awesome Bill 'Superfoot' Wallace was the undefeated middleweight full contact champion back in the late '70s to mid-80s," said Rob Frankovich, master instructor at White Tiger, who thinks it's cool that Wallace does seminars despite having "both hips and a knee replaced." Frankovich said he watched Superfoot's interview with Kail, founder of Stone Arch Entertainment, but had not seen Kail's "In the Closet" YouTube show, viewable at http://tinyurl.com/h3eb9bk
"He's known for the speed of his kicks, which is why they call him Superfoot. They clocked one of his kicks at over 60 mph," said Kail. "He's one of the deadliest people alive."
What does that mean? "It means if he fought anybody, chances are he'd win," said Kail.
Shouldn't "deadliest" mean Wallace could kill you? "That was something I wanted to ask him but didn't because I didn't want to be rude," Kail told me.
"He hit me once and he wasn't doing it full force, he was just doing it to demonstrate, and I could feel that were he to connect he would have just sent my rib out the other side of my body," Kail said. "What a great teacher he is. I learned so, so much in the three hours I had with him. He just goes around and shares his experiences and had us doing these drills that were really effective."
Kail flubbed the name of his show in this "In the Closet" video, which has the subtitle "Out of the Closet" — since it was not shot at the normal set — and punctuated the mistake with an expletive. That's when Superfoot feigned shock at Kail's language and hit his head.
"Yeah, he slapped me," said Kail, again laughing. That was nothing compared to the kicking demonstration.
Kail is a first-degree in both tae kwon do and kumdo. I was on hand during the summer when he passed his tae kwon do first-degree black belt test.
When Magers were minors
Paul Magers was an intern. Huh, I wrote a couple of days ago, because I couldn't imagine the über anchor was ever a beginner.
I was kind of right. "Paul wasn't an intern at KSTP; he worked there part time while he was living with me and going to law school. He was in the 'dispatch shack' monitoring police and fire radios and dispatching our crews," Ron Magers e-mailed, correcting the recollection of his former Twin Cities co-anchor Cyndy Brucato.
The first lines in the e-mail from Magers, the über anchor of Chicago, read: "I don't recognize, and can hardly remember, the guy in that photo. Give Ms. Brucato credit for being the first woman to co-anchor an evening newscast at KSTP-TV."
While Paul, the former KARE 11 anchor now big time in L.A., was not an intern at KSTP, his big brother's e-mail noted: "There was an intern of note at about the same time. Emily Barr was an intern from Carleton. Then we hired her for her first television job. In 1998 she was the general manager of ABC7 Chicago who hired me after I left NBC. She now heads up all the Graham Media Group television stations (formerly Post-Newsweek). Be nice to all the people you work with; you never know who might end up being your boss."
Now I'm curious if Paul or Ron were ever interns anywhere.
Hell to pay for late dinners
Hell's Kitchen is clearly run by adults.
"We're never shy about sharing our successes, so we do feel obligated to tell you about our failures," read an e-mail to Valentine's Day diners whose meals were delayed by the tender loving care required to prepare mega-size "tomahawk steaks."
Dinner times got extended and "and every next seating got further and further behind," co-founder Cynthia Gerdes told me Wednesday.
"First of all we took care of their meals that night," said Gerdes, who said she didn't know the total number, and "we are sending them gift cards to come back on our nickel a second time. We know which people had reservations."
So the restaurant isn't worried about the hell of feeding fakers.
C.J. can be reached at cj@startribune.com and seen on Fox 9's "Jason Show." E-mailers, please state a subject; "Hello" does not count. Attachments are not opened.
