Pap

The Squared Circle (part 1)

2005-10-30T19:14:00.000-06:00

Growing up, to the untrained eye, I appeared to be a normal fifty pound kid. Behind closed doors however, all I wanted to be was a professional wrestler. I'm not talking the kind of wrestling that's on TV these days. Rather, I'm referring to the gory homespun Texas wrestling that took place in the now defunct Sam Houston Coliseum in Houston and Reunion Arena in Dallas. The likes of the Von Erich brothers, Ricky Morton and Robert Gibson a.k.a The Rock-N-Roll Express, the "big cat" Ernie Ladd, Magnum T.A., and Terry Taylor were my absolute heroes. Most kids played with remote control cars or made claims that they blew up their mom's Jeep Wagoneer with the ingredients of a chemistry set. Not me. Instead I chose to run around the house in colored brief underwear pretending to be involved in a "hair vs. hair" or "loser leave town" match. It was not uncommon for my mom to walk into my room as I was in mid-air sailing across the room like a flying squirrel claiming to have just jumped off the top turnbuckle in order that I might smash the larynx of my opponent with hopes of crippling him for life. Her reaction was never what I hoped it would be, usually just a request that I not jump off of the bookshelf in my room and to turn down Michael Jackson's "PYT" that raged in the background. I kind of wanted her to throw a beer in my face and yell obscenities at me like the women in the audience on TV did. I did manage to convince her to take me to the wrestling matches a couple of times, and much to my excitement both times she got ringside seats so we wouldn't have to sit up top with the "trash". Kind of like reaching into a public garbage can and fishing out the least rotten drumstick for lunch. To say the very least, the crowd was rough regardless of where your seats may have been. My mother would watch in absolute amazement as I transformed from a quiet little kid into an absolute beast, yelling at the wrestlers, letting my mouth write checks my ass couldn't cash, and cursing the refs who were always crooked. She would laugh hysterically as I screamed things like, "he's pullin' his hair ref !" or "he's pulling his tights!" or the dreaded, "watch him ref, he's got a foreign object!"Perhaps my mom didn't know exactly what it was she had gotten herself into until one time when one of the matches we attended pitted the Fantastics against the Sheepherders in a barbed wire cage match. Quite possibly the most macabre thing I've ever witnessed, and the last time she ever took me to see a wrestling match. Every Saturday I would insist that she take me to a rundown newsstand in downtown Houston called Guy's News so I could load up on gory wrestling magazines featuring the likes of Abdullah the Butcher whose matches invariably ended in a bloodbath, and Kevin Sullivan "the prince of darkness" whom I feared since he advertised that devil worshipping was his main interest outside of wrestling. In my mind the devil worship had to carry over into the ring somehow. I vowed never to tangle with him under any circumstances. I would spend hours pouring over the interviews and articles by the "experts". I developed quite a vivid imagination as I read recaps of the matches, and pondered some of the quotes by the wrestlers themselves. One of which still sticks in my mind. An old timer by the handle of Harley Race commented on a match that he was involved in saying, "We was down there in Port Arthur and got into a real donnybrook, all hell done broke loose in that arena that night. I guarantee when I get my hands on Superstar Bill Dundee he's gonna wish his momma never conceived him I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired!" Needless to say the vocabulary I was developing was becoming problematic and inappropriate within my age bracket. I didn't know too many other kids that used phrases like, "Woooooooo. Space mountain might be the oldest ride in the park, but it's always got the longest line!" I've recently been informed of a legends of wrestling night in South Carolina that involves, for $19.99, a dinner with all of the wrestlers that I once idolized, the night before their respective matches. If I can stay off the booze long enough to avoid getting on Priceline in the middle of the night and buying a plane ticket to South Carolina I'll be doing good. If not, looks like I'll be eating prime rib in a Hawthorne Suites banquet facility with yesterday's stars of the squared circle. Uh, excuse me Dusty, could you pass the gravy and tell me about the time you won the Great American Bash?

Cheese works alright, but.........

2005-10-26T02:00:00.000-05:00

I'll be the first to admit that I am absolutely terrified of rats, mice, opossums, and other small creatures that don't have the wherewithal to state their immediate intentions. I guess that group would also include babies, but generally speaking I'm really not that scared of them. Rather I just don't have much to talk about with them. To be perfectly honest, I would rather have had dinner with the late John Wayne Gacy while blindfolded than have a mouse anywhere in my domicile. At least I would have an inkling that his intentions were to kill me and then bury me in the foundation of his house. On the flipside, who the hell knows what a rodent is up to? They could be there looking for food, deciding whether or not to suck the breath out of you while you sleep, or maybe just in search of a grandfather clock in which to take up residence.
Why all of the animosity and suspicion? It was Thanksgiving of 1987 in Eagle Pass, Texas and I was 10 years old and under the supervision of several teenagers that I had met a couple of days earlier on my first trip to Victoria, Texas. When I met them they were watching Faces of Death III, drinking beer, and one of them was eating Fruity Pebbles out of the box as he interrogated me as to whether or not I was a hard worker and /or if I liked "hair-pie".
All that said, in Eagle Pass we were deer hunting at a ranch whose house happened to have an infestation of mice. I could hear them running around at night and would occasionally see one dart across the room. To combat this nightmare, I turned up my walkman that was playing the soundtrack to Rocky IV and tried to forget the horror that surrounded me. The final straw came when two mice jumped onto my bed and resisted my timid requests that they go elsewhere. Hindsight tells me that I was probably audibly whimpering because I managed to awaken everyone in the room. My knight in shining armor that weekend was in the shape of a diminutive man who would later that year become my step-brother. He was looking for someone to stay up drinking with and I was looking for someone to help fend off the mice. Despite quite an age gap, we came to an agreement. My end of the deal was to fetch him ice and to mix bourbon and.............ice. His end of the deal, much to my surprise, and against better ten year old judgement, was that whenever I saw a mouse I was to point in the direction and he would shoot it, in the house, with a pistol. Let me just tell you that you haven't lived until you've seen an adult shoot up the house with a pistol in one hand while tinkling ice cubes and bourbon around in the other hand. The point I'm trying to make is that even though I stood a decent chance of getting my face shot off, I at least knew what my human cohort was doing, partially. The mice on the other hand, I still am not sure what exactly it was they wanted with me.

Appropriate?

2005-10-23T01:16:00.000-05:00

I received an email from a good friend of mine that I haven't talked to in a while, and it jarred my memory of an event that he attended with me about 8 years ago. The two of us went to my parents' house which is in rural Tennessee. For the most part the people are great. However, there are some that are a little unorthodox and rough around the edges to say the very least. We noticed a place off of the highway that resembled a rather rundown residence aside from every window in the place glowing with neon beer signs. As it were, my parents knew the old black man, Sweetie Peety, that owned the joint, and called him to see if it would be alright if the two of us stopped by for a beer. As luck would or would not have it, a benefit for a cancer patient was being held there that very night. Having never been to one of these functions, it still seemed odd to me that the beneficiary was actually carried into the bar in a lazy boy recliner, and left semiconscious near a woodburning stove that acted as a heater. They say when you startle a bear with cubs that you should never look it in the eyes. Had this been such an encounter, there is no doubt in my mind that I would now be badly disfigured if not deceased. The old guy would wake up sporadically and light a cigarette, seemingly oblivious to the party raging around his chair. After taking a smoke he was out like a light until one of the bar owner's two rottweilers would jump up on the arm of the chair and profusely lick the poor guy's face. From our vantage point across the bar we took note of this, and were surprised that no family members chided or otherwise attempted to discourage the dogs from climbing on him. What we also noticed amongst the streamers and balloons was a rather large pinata hanging in the middle of the room. I never was too sure who put the party together, but whoever it was made a concerted effort to locate, purchase, and string up a pinata. We didn't stick around long enough for them to throw a bucket of water in the sickly man's face and put an old mop-handle in his paws, but am I wrong in my assumption that usually the honoree of the party gets the first crack? The most fascinating part of the whole evening was the selection of music that sang out of an old jambox set up on the bar. Two songs that got repeat play were "Strokin'" by Clarence Carter and "Ghetto Man" by Marvin Sease. Offhand, I don't remember taking peyote blasters that night, but something must've happened because I've seen a lot of odd shit in my day, but never anything like this. To cap off the evening, in the presence of complete strangers, I won their door prize which was a liter of Canadian Hunter. Needless to say we quickly made some new friends including a guy who bragged of being country legend George Jones' roofer. Do people just have one singular roofer?

Chicago

2005-10-21T01:02:00.000-05:00

I moved to Chicago about two weeks ago and have worn holes in the soles of my shoes, forgotten the sound of my own voice, decided that at one point in her life Oprah probably ate ramen, and have grown a halfbaked beard that requires shampooing and lends the mystique of a kidnapper. I've taken to riding the train, and at each stop am always perplexed as to which way the stairs are despite attempting to act like an old hand. Laughing has become a major issue while riding as it is hard to suppress. I've a developed a routine of mentally pairing the two most peculiar riders together in a relationship that plays out in a very unlikely fashion in my head. For instance, I might have them cutting each others' hair or drinking a milkshake with two straws. Lucky for them, I only see the good times. Otherwise, I got busted sneaking cheese and crackers into the movies earlier this week, but the charges were dropped shortly after the ticket boy realized that I was an adult.