Meet Charlie Gonzalez

The first of Ed Parker’s Infinite Insights into Kenpo series came out in 1982. As I’ve written in my books, Mr. Parker told me he thought it would be one volume. However, as he talked with his students and continued to write he found the work became “more pregnant” with information. What eventually happened was that he expanded it and made it into the five volumes we know today. He arranged it so the volumes would be released around the time of the Internationals, in August of every year. But there’s a back-story. And I’d like to introduce you to Charlie Gonzalez, the man who printed the books and more for Mr. Parker

I met Charlie way back around 1980 at the Pasadena studio. This was when Frank Trejo was managing the studio and Charlie was one of the “home boys”. I’d see Charlie when I went out to train and he’d run the line with us. He’s a great guy and we recently re-connected on Facebook. I thought it might be interesting to get the lowdown on how he became the printer and any historical info on the book development he could provide.

Charlie was a yellow belt at the Montebello studio when he first met Mr. Parker. He says, “Frank Trejo was my instructor and I was testing for yellow belt. He (Mr. Parker) came in to judge, our performance. He was very friendly but did not know I was a printer yet.”

He continues, “I believe it was 1980 when we started talking about doing the printing for the Internationals, I started with the flyer and brochure. Then in 1981 I helped Jim Grunwald with the photo shoot for the covers we got the idea for the color background ! Nice I thought.” Charlie knew Jim from the Montebello school. He says that with new technology the covers could have been sharper and more colorful than back then. Every year at the IKC Jim, who was a professional photographer, would have a booth set up to do portrait photos and many people took advantage of that.

I asked Charlie how he got along with Mr. Parker. “I liked Mr. Parker, we got along real good.  He took some advice from me on the books, he gave me credit on book one. He also took me to Hawaii as a reward”, Charlie wrote. Mr. Parker had said once that he wanted to do some particular type of illustration and that his printer told him it could not be done. He said he thought about it and went back to him with four or five ways to accomplish it and that his printer was amazed. Maybe Charlie was that man?

How many books were printed? His answer was that “It’s been a long time but about quantity and lay out of the job… the run was 3000 books and 3000 every year after that.” Charlie thought Mr. Parker’s idea of the family tree was pretty good. Over time, Charlie estimates “book one we printed about between 30,000 and 40,000. On all five books we must have printed over 120,000.”

Personally, I remember Mr. Parker talking about wanting to do a book on the knife but that the technology would not allow him to illustrate the effects of the knife use. Charlie commented that Mr. Parker would “stay up all night working” on what he wanted to show but would then “say they were too gruesome”. Interesting to know he was thinking that on the empty-hand material, too. Ed Parker Jr told me a few years back that the technology has caught up with what his father wanted to do and it would be possible today. Mr. Parker wanted to be able to show the layering of the body with respect to the effects of a cut; a superficial cut, a deep thrust, for example with the respective anatomy affected.  

You can find Charlie on Facebook if you want to know more. I thought this little bit of kenpo history might be interesting.