Raining Cats and Dogs is a collection of fantasy short stories and poetry that feature an animal as a main character. Stories may be dark and full of strife but a happy ending is always in sight! Lovers of pets or animals in general will enjoy these fantasy tales.
All proceeds for this anthology will benefit Good Old Tails Senior Animal Rescue based in Hanover, PA, USA. This non-profit helps save the lives of older pets by finding them homes.
My name is Garrison and I don’t think of myself as an attractive person. I held off on saying that for as long as I could. It’s not that I don’t think men’s beauty standards are an important idea to dissect and analyze, no, no, no. I was more afraid of potential responses I could get for saying such a thing in public. Some might be kind and say that I don’t look THAT bad. Some might accuse me of being shallow. Some might be realistic and say that every type of beauty fades away eventually. Some might be well-intentioned and say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder…which doesn’t sound promising if the beholders refuse to acknowledge me in any way.
But there’s one response I’ve always feared throughout my entire life. I don’t know the official name for this trope, but I call it the Disaster Porn Excuse. It’s where you talk about your problems with someone and that same ignoramus reminds you that others have it worse. Of course other people have it worse! What is this, the Sadness Olympics? Do I only get a bronze medal for believing myself to be physically ugly? The Disaster Porn Excuse goes something like this: “You know, Chud…there’s a Corona Virus pandemic going on…there’s police brutality all over the country…wildfires and other natural disasters are happening at an alarming rate…and you’re bitching and whining about your lack of good looks? Hyuk, hyuk, hyuk! Get a life!”
Not believing in my own physical beauty (or lack thereof) isn’t anywhere near as devastating as a Corona Virus pandemic. I get it. But that’s not what my brain said to me the other day. Just because someone has it worse, doesn’t invalidate your own problems. Does there have to be an earthquake and a volcanic eruption happening at the same time in Port Orchard for me to have a say in my own personal difficulties? It’s not right to compare and contrast problems. And yes, even having said all of this, not being physically attractive still sounds like small potatoes. It does sound shallow and whiny…until it’s not.
My senior year of high school was pretty much the only time in my life where I was confident in my sex appeal. I had a hairstyle that was parted down the middle and curled at the tips. I wore sunglasses even indoors. I wore a leather jacket that I had no business owning given my family’s income. I had a beard that made me look older than my teenaged years. I had and still have hazel eyes that could be stared into for hours. Judging from all the smiles, giggles, and flirting I got from other girls at my school, I think a few of them caught feelings for me. They didn’t come out and say they were in love with me, but I got hugs from a few of them, they petted my shoulders, one girl drummed on my back with her hands…and you know what? As shallow as it seems now, getting this kind of attention is addictive. It’s validating. It makes me feel like anything other than an outcast. After a freshman year where I was almost bullied into suicide, not feeling like an outcast was pretty fucking amazing.
That is until the voices in my head started getting louder and louder. The voices threatened to kick my legs and break them. They threatened to kick me in the ass and make me shit myself. They threatened to make me their bitch, this being the worst of my schizophrenic insults due to my strong sense of individuality at the time. The voices got so bad that for the second time in my life, I threatened to kill myself. Thank god I was able to get the medication I needed and start the long hard road to recovery. That should have been the end of my misery…until it wasn’t. The thing about schizophrenia medication is that it numbs your emotions and makes you gain weight. Remember the smoking hot sex god that I was all throughout my senior year of high school? He was replaced by a three-hundred pound zombie who couldn’t cut it in a college sociology class or even technical writing. Technical fucking writing! But if I didn’t take the medication, I’d either be dead or in a nuthouse, so being a three hundred pound invalid was the lesser of two evils. It’s a classic case of death or chi-chi.
Losing my beauty was going to happen eventually as it does with every person on the planet. I just would have liked to keep it for longer than my teenaged years. College is supposed to be a time when the real magic happens, when partying, sex, and love are the cornerstones of good education. I had my fair share of crushes, but I never acted on them. Not once. I didn’t believe I had the right to. Why? Because my good looks were stolen from me. I didn’t get my face bashed in with a baseball bat and needed reconstructive surgery. My looks were stolen from me by an invisible force that happened at random. It was complete and utter bad luck that the public ignored me and went out of their way to sidestep me. I had very few friends in college and I owe all of that…to bad fucking luck. Remember how addictive being sexually fawned over was? I was still addicted, but had some serious fucking withdrawal.
It wasn’t until after I graduated from college that I started my own personal education with You Tube videos and internet research. You know that feeling when people treat you differently because you may or may not look good to them? There’s a name for that: the beauty bias. It’s something we all have whether we want to admit it or not. When an employer has to choose between a pool of candidates, he’ll go for the sexiest one. When people decide what friends they’re going to connect with, they’ll choose the sexy ones. Even in celebrity culture, the sexier musicians, actors, and influencers are the ones who get the most opportunities.
Would Nightwish have become a successful heavy metal band if Tarja Turunen had a bulge in her neck the size of a basketball? Would Evanescence be a worldwide phenomenon if Amy Lee’s face was disfigured by a wood chipper? Would In This Moment have been a smash hit if Maria Brink sharted herself onstage at every show? I hate saying this, but the answer to all of these questions is no. That’s not my answer. That’s the public’s answer. It’s sick, it’s wrong, it’s unfair, but it’s reality. While nobody would come out and tell me I was too ugly to fit in, I knew deep inside that’s what they were thinking.
So what do we do to curb this bias? Honestly, I don’t have the one true answer to that. Sure, we could share Body Positivity memes all day long. We could call out shallowness in magazines and TV shows. We could be more inclusive even if we’re not feeling it at first. But these are all surface-level solutions that can only work if everybody gets involved, which they won’t. That’s why I never watch You Tube videos from fitness influencers: they’re the biggest offenders when it comes to making fat and ugly people feel like shit. Many of those exercises are impossible for an obese person to do on a consistent basis. Food addiction is very real. But hey, it’s all our fault, right? We’ve got nobody to blame but ourselves according to these fitness influencers. We don’t lift enough weights. We don’t run far enough. We don’t eat enough rabbit food. But most importantly, we don’t inject enough steroids into our bloodstreams. You know what? Maybe I’d rather be fat and lazy than look like Hulk Hogan and The Ultimate Warrior. Come to think of it, if you do these super-intense exercises, you too can look like The Ultimate Warrior…in 2015…a year after he passed away from heart failure.
Since other people won’t fight our battles against poor self-esteem for us, we have to find ways to do it ourselves. We can surround ourselves with people who believe in Body Positivity. We can self-talk ourselves into feeling at least marginally good. During the days where we do feel good, we could hold onto that feeling for as long as we humanly can. Or if you’re schizophrenic like me, you can use your imagination to your advantage. When I came up with the idea for this essay, my mind was in the shitter. I didn’t want to get out of bed. I wanted to curse myself until I believed in my own bodily mediocrity. But I did something the other day to make myself sing a different tune. Will the feeling last forever? Probably not, but I take my little victories where I can get them.
I imagined a scenario where one of my online crushes confronted me in a hairdresser’s salon after I’ve spent the entire time doubting my own beauty. She said to me, “Your attractiveness doesn’t come from your soft hair…or your lovely eyes. That’s not where you draw your strength from. You draw your strength from your quietness. You’re an enigma in public. You have an air of mystery about you. You keep women at a distance because you’re considerate of them. And the more mysterious you are, the more they want to learn about you. And the more they can unlock from you…the more likely you are to trust them. Attraction has nothing to do with physical appearances. It’s about feeling comfortable and calm around whoever you’re with. If a woman can get you to be yourself around her without any filters…that’s when you know you’ve succeeded.”
Is any of this true? Maybe, maybe not, I couldn’t tell you firsthand. But does it make me feel good for the time being? You’re damn right it does. Being crushed on in high school made me feel good at the time. Now I have to find other ways to feel good. And when I find them, I want to hold onto my happiness for as long as I can. Finding temporary happiness may not always be attractive to the world around me. Then again, it doesn’t have to be. At the end of the day, the only one who gets to decide my worth is me. The sooner this is hammered into my brain, the better off I’ll be. Maybe happiness isn’t six-pack abs and a leather jacket. Maybe happiness is a bottle of Diet Coke and two pepperoni pizza Hot Pockets. I can do this…I have to do this…
If I can get one more jab in to solidify my TKO victory over poor self-esteem, Bill Maher has no business calling fat people ugly when he himself looks like a creature that crawled out of a mausoleum because a necromancer told him it was a good idea. He would know what a necromancer is if he didn’t thumb his nose at genre fiction. But even with his willful ignorance towards my generation, he knows deep down that he should be the one mourning his loss of beauty, not me. Oops! I guess the beauty bias is alive and well! Uh-oh!
There are two potentially toxic mantras that are competing for the most real estate in my not-so-heavenly brain. One of them is, “It’s only offensive when I do it.” The other is, “Everyone’s excited to learn that I’m an author, until they actually read what’s inside my books.” In case you couldn’t tell, my hands are covered in blood when it comes to offensive content that could easily get me in trouble. It doesn’t matter how many bars of Chandrika soap I keep in my bathroom closet, and goddamn do I have a lot of them, because blood doesn’t come off without a fight. Or a war, depending on how deep my offenses run. I’ve tiptoed across the thin line of discussing both sides of “cancel culture”. Am I against it? Am I for it? Do I not have an opinion of it at all? After wrestling with my brain in a match that could break Dave Meltzer’s five-star scale, I’ve come up with a suitable conclusion: “cancel culture” doesn’t exist. I can’t have an opinion on something that isn’t real. It’s like the boogeyman, three little pigs, and Pinocchio: a complete work of pure fiction, I mean, perfection.
Sure, there are celebrities and authors who have a less than stellar record when it comes to disgusting beliefs. J.K. Rowling and her transphobic tweets come to mind as well as John Cleese’s support for her. Rosario Dawson and her mother beating the shit out of a transgender handyman is even worse, for obvious reasons. Marilyn Manson being an abusive boyfriend to every woman he’s ever come in contact with? Cue the shivers. Some offenses are worse than others, but unless the public figure is dead or in jail, their career isn’t really going to suffer much. Sure, the first wave of criticism will hurt like hell, but these celebrities and others have their core base that will stick with them through thick and thin. They know that. They take advantage of that, because they know they can get away with it. No matter how rotten a celebrity acts, they will always have their supporters despite a large chunk leaving for higher ground.
Even if a celebrity does get fired from whatever job they’re doing, it won’t be long until they find another. Adam Blampied was accused of sexual harassment when he was working for wrestling website Cultaholic, so he was fired. You want to know what he’s doing now? Working for Wrestle Talk instead, although he has gone to great lengths to redeem himself, so there’s that. You know who doesn’t give a shit about making amends? Louis C.K., who was accused of masturbating in front of women whenever he damn well felt like it. You know what he’s doing now? Same thing he’s been doing for years: standup comedy. He even has some new punch-down material handy: talking shit about non-binary people, the Parkland shooting victims, and Auschwitz. Lovely. Just fucking lovely. Being “canceled” is not the end of the world. It seems like it at first, but facing mass criticism can easily be deterred by either listening and making amends or staying off of social media for a while.
Do some celebrities deserve mass criticism? Absolutely. But will they go away forever because of it? Hardly. If cancel culture really was as effective as everyone fears it is, then Donald Trump would have never been elected president. His bigotry, insensitivity, and predatory behavior would have gotten him canceled a long time ago. Calling Mexicans rapists and murderers would have kept him out of the white house forever. But it didn’t, because cancel culture doesn’t exist. Jair Bolsonaro would have been thrown out on his ass for threatening to punch a woman. Vladimir Putin would have been eighty-sixed decades ago for being a dictator who assassinated his political enemies. Kim Jong-Un wouldn’t have an entire country brainwashed and obedient if cancel culture really cost people their livelihoods.
While mass criticism isn’t the end of the world, it isn’t completely without merit. In a free democracy, we can criticize whoever we want for whatever reason we want. People call cancel culture censorship when really it’s just the other side of free speech, which is supposed to be a double-edged sword. If one racist celebrity gets to spew their venom, his audience has the right to criticize him for it. By the same token, refusing to watch a standup comedian’s shows because of their vitriol is not the same as censorship. It’s not like Ryan Long’s standup specials are required viewing for college. It’s not like they contain important material for a top secret mission. People can pick and choose what they watch and what they don’t watch. Nobody is owed an audience; they have to work for it. Bill Maher complains about cancel culture all the time, yet he doesn’t produce anything worth watching. He called comic book nerds little children, he called fat people virgins who couldn’t see their own dicks, he calls millennials entitled and lazy, and he called COVID-19 a Chinese virus. Is his show over? Hardly. But do people have the right to not watch it? Absolutely. This isn’t A Clockwork Orange. There are no eye-bracers or straightjackets.
Cancel culture being nonexistent is something I’m going to have to remember for myself going forward. As I’ve said earlier, I’ve got some serious blood on my hands when it comes to my creative writing. I’ve used words in my poetry that I’d never say in a public space. I’ve written about undesirable characters even in the eyes of the reader. I’ve misrepresented sex and romance, sometimes to an absurd degree. Maybe there’s some truth in the idea that my audience will sing a different tune about their excitement for me once they crack open one of my books. I could give the perfectly acceptable answer of, “I’m sorry and I’ll do better next time” and that’s something I should be doing anyways. I should be improving my work. I should own up to my mistakes. I should make amends with the people I’ve hurt with my writing. I’ll do all of that. In fact, I’ll apologize to you all right now for fucking up as badly as I did. Will I be forgiven? Maybe. Maybe not. Honestly, being truthful and kind to my audience is more important to me than potentially losing my career. Yes, cancel culture doesn’t exist, but that doesn’t mean you all don’t deserve a sincere apology. Take notes, J.K. Rowling. You too, John Cleese. Make amends while you still can. We’re not too sensitive; you’re just too disgusting.
That’s something else that needs to be addressed: if the audience doesn’t like a celebrity’s work, it’s not the audience’s fault. It’s the celebrity’s fault for not putting out a decent product. Blaming the audience for your failures says to the world that you’re unable to take criticism. While cancel culture is still nonexistent, I know deep in your heart you don’t like to hear criticism. The more you listen to criticism and improve from it, the less likely you are to hear it in the future. Everybody has room to be better at their crafts. Stephen King may be the most recognizable author in the universe, but the way he sexualizes women in his books is absolutely atrocious. He doesn’t have to lose his career over it, but he owes it to himself and his audience to improve his writing. That’s what we all should do: improve ourselves. Life is evolution. You either fold or you get better. I don’t know about you, but I think getting better is the superior choice. Unless of course you’re like Harvey Weinstein and you raped every woman you came in contact with, in which case, your career is not only over, but you’re spending the rest of your life in prison. Some things can be atoned for, others are too late. Hitler didn’t need a hug. Trump doesn’t need a redemption arc. Vladimir Putin doesn’t need self-improvement. When human life is at stake, prison is the answer.
But no matter how bad things get, people and their legacies will always be subjective. Trump has his supporters despite everything he’s done. J.K. Rowling still has her defenders. People still watch WWE despite the fact that they have a business relationship with Saudi Arabia…and that they did necrophilia comedy in 2002…and that they made fun of Jim Ross’s colon surgery in 2005…You know what? I could go on forever when it comes to WWE’s offenses. But no matter how many times they win the yearly award for Most Disgusting Promotional Tactic, they’ll still have their defenders and supporters. Vince McMahon would have been canceled a long time ago, but he wasn’t, because cancel culture doesn’t exist. He can be criticized. He can be protested against. He can be pressured. But kicked out of the WWE? Hardly. While the audience does have the loudest voices, they’re not the boss who makes all the decisions. They can influence decisions, but they don’t get the final say. Even in an American democracy, that proves to be the case over and over again with our politicians.
We all want to have our dream careers to carry us through life. We don’t want that taken away from us. It’s natural to feel that way. But a dream career isn’t everything. Some things are more important, like integrity, honesty, kindness, and humility. There’s always room in your life to be a good person. If you hurt somebody unintentionally, apologize profusely. Don’t do it to save your career. Do it because you’re a good person who values love. Don’t do things in the name of mass support. Do them because they’re the right things to do. Everything we do has a consequence even if it doesn’t always mean the end of a career. J.K. Rowling has millions of dollars and won’t go away anytime soon. But the damage she’s done with her transphobia has grave consequences for the world at large and undermines every progressive belief she had before that side of her came out. Her readers will be afraid to be themselves. They may even resort to suicide if they believe there’s no avenue for help. We as creators have the power to influence the world. Use it wisely.
MOVIE TITLE: Demolition Man
DIRECTOR: Marco Brambilla
YEAR: 1993
GENRE: Dystopian Sci-Fi
RATING: R for violence and language
GRADE: B
Imagine a future where everybody is smiling and nothing could go wrong. No foul language, no unhealthy foods, no sex, no music other than TV jingles, no contact sports, no drug use…wow…That’s a lot of no’s for a utopian society. John Spartan, Simon Phoenix, and Edgar Friendly don’t fit into this new future’s plans. So what do they do about it? Edgar Friendly leads an underground rebellion, Simon Phoenix causes violence wherever he goes, and John Spartan does pretty much the same as those two, but under the guise of police work. So much for Dr. Cocteau’s perfect society. Taking the fun completely out of life isn’t utopian at all. It’s dystopian. Already this movie is sounding like the libertarian’s bible, right? But let’s not forget that most left-wingers don’t have a problem with so-called “degenerate” behavior either. We like sex. We like marijuana. We like good food. We like heavy metal music and hip-hop. Everybody has their own interpretation of what Demolition Man means to them. I’ll speak for myself and say that this is generally a fun movie that takes place in a boring society. That’s it. That’s all it needs to be. We don’t need to have bloodbaths across the aisle over this fine piece of cinema. Let’s just sit down and watch it with a bucket of popcorn on our laps. And by the way, that popcorn is going to swim in butter and salt until it’s unrecognizable. Be well indeed.
But of all the major food groups this movie represents, none are more heavily pushed upon the audience than cheese. Good old fashioned cheesy goodness. Enough cheese to open a few Pizza Huts in this world of Taco Bells. I’m of course being metaphorical when I talk about how much cheese this movie has. You can hear it in the dialogue, whether it’s ordinary citizens, police officers, Cocteau’s obese assistant, or the socialites hanging out at Taco Bell. First and last names are used so bloody often. The elite vocabulary sounds awkward and clumsy and it’s enough to make the audience cringe. The TV jingles that are on the radio could drive someone insane if they hear it long enough, let alone in the short screen time they’re given. I get that this cheesy dialogue is supposed to be representative of a new future with a new brainwashed culture. Foul language is banned, so that’s a huge part of it. But after a while, it can grate on the audience’s ears. It’s so noticeable that it keeps the movie from being pitch perfect. But hey, when you’re watching a movie with Sylvester Stallone in the starring role, you can expect a little cheese every few seconds.
Which feels weird to say, because Sylvester Stallone plays John Spartan perfectly. He’s gritty, profane, ultra-violent, and loves to have fun even at the expense of a perfect and pretty future. Instead of using the three seashells once he’s done in the bathroom, he wipes his butt with the tickets he accumulates for swearing so much. He eats a rat burger when it’s the only meat available (and he loves it). He constantly has to correct Lelina Huxley after she butchers a 20th century idiom. You know who else likes to have fun at the expense of the future? Simon Phoenix, who’s played by Wesley Snipes. He can make even the most mundane insult sound intense with his delivery. He comes off like a psychopath loony toon not just in his constant laughter, but also in his movements, be it martial arts or otherwise. Couple these things with a terrorist mindset and you’ve got the most dangerous criminal in the movie. And then there’s Edgar Friendly, played by politically incorrect rapid-fire comedian Denis Leary. When he says he wants to eat salty, fatty, and buttery foods while smoking a cigar in the non-smoking section, you’ll believe he’s like that in real life. Denis Leary could start a revolution right now if he wanted to; that’s how convincing he was as Edgar Friendly. The only other character with halfway decent dialogue was Bob Gunton’s character, Captain Earle, who can be strict and aggressive without breaking the 21st century’s new laws. If he wasn’t a brainwashed pacifist, he could take on Simon Phoenix himself.
Yes, this movie was made in 1993, but it has aged like fine wine. Demolition Man sounds like it predicted the future in a lot of ways, but make no mistake, it was a satire turned up to eleven of things going on at the time. Whether you see it as a “libertarian manifesto” or not, the very least you can do is have fun while watching this movie. It’s action-packed, it’s witty, it’s dramatic, and an all-around good movie if you’re not too bothered by the cheesiness of the futuristic characters. You don’t even have to be drunk or stoned to watch this movie; it can be enjoyed at face value. But if you want to be drunk or stoned in the privacy of your own living room, I’m not going to try and stop you. I don’t want to turn your home into a Dr. Cocteau dystopia. Give this movie any grade you want and have no regrets. Me? I’ll give it a solid B.
You butter me up like I’m corn on the cob
Oscar-worthy performance to make me sob
Touch my heart with your fingers and lips
Thirsty fan boys already coming up with ships
But you see who I am, sing a different tune
Bellyful of jelly, peanut butter on a spoon
Head full of dread, awkward to the max
All your kisses and hugs turn into attacks
You throw money at me like a stripper
Looking for poetry to undo your zipper
Stories that will make your soul fly high
You kiss my hand and call me cutie pie
But you see what I write, sing a different tune
Ramblings and rants of a silly little loon
Some swearing, piss, vinegar, and saltiness
Set my book on fire, now you’re assaulting it
You put me in a box before you met me
Now you can’t wait to fucking forget me
Being who I am sent you to a therapist
To complain about my venom and arrogance
Get to know me before you kneel and blow me
Fake promises are all that you’ve shown me
Trying to mold me into something I’m not
Sorry, but my soul could never be bought
All of you motherfuckers will sing a different tune
Not a hint of Happy Birthday in the month of June
Not a Hip-Hip-Hooray or asking if I’m okay
But a nee-ner-nee-ner-nee-ner and Go Away
I’ve never once been the leader of a choir
A perfect brain child, something I can’t sire
A perfect image of what you all call beauty
Sing a different tune so blue and moody
Let me ask you a philosophical question…
If I write a thousand stories and nobody cares
Do they suddenly vanish into nothing but air?
If I fall in love and leave everyone disgusted
Can any of my feelings really be so trusted?
If I make money delivering another cook’s meal
Are they the ones who deserve all of the zeal?
If I pet a thousand cats and make them purr
Does worldwide harmony suddenly occur?
If I feed a thousand hamburgers to hungry dogs
Will anybody hear their little howling songs?
If I have a thousand dreams underneath the sheets
Will I wake up just to taste lifelong defeat?
If I get a thousand likes on this picture of me
Is it true beauty that the public wants to see?
If everybody tells me that I should shoot my shot
Will I hit the target every time? Probably not
Success is more heavenly than the pearly gates
So why is it that I continue to sit around and wait?
Because taking action has a lethal consequence
High risk, high reward, no sitting on the fence
Failure is inevitable, but it shouldn’t be deadly
A safety net is what the gods should send me
But no universal space god watches my back
One big mistake, my whole world goes black
Playing it safe is considered mediocrity
I’m just living my life at a snail’s velocity
Let me ask another philosophical question
If a shooting star falls, does it even get a mention?
MOVIE TITLE: 30 For 30: Nature Boy
PRODUCERS: ESPN
YEAR: 2017
GENRE: Pro-Wrestling Documentary
RATING: TV-14 for violence, language, and suggestive dialogue
GRADE: A
Putting “The Nature Boy” Ric Flair in the Mt. Rushmore of professional wrestling is right on the money and I’m glad the folks at ESPN agree. Sixteen world championship reigns, a WWE Hall of Fame induction, a multi-decade career full of great moments, and the gimmick of a charismatic bad guy who drew the most fans to the arena throughout the 70’s and 80’s. Watching clips of Ric Flair showing off his expensive possessions, horny fan girls, and hardcore partying would make any blue-collar fan pay good money to see him get his butt kicked. Jealousy was a great way to get under the common man’s skin, but more often than not that jealousy would have to sit and stew for a while longer. Ric Flair wasn’t just a handsome rich guy with a big mouth. He was a technical genius in the ring and his long string of victories proved it. You want to see a living legend? You want to see a true wrestling god? You want to see brilliant character arcs that would work wonders in any other story? ESPN will make sure you get all of that and more. This was a superb documentary that could appeal to not just hardcore fans, but also laymen. Ric Flair transcended the wrestling business and you get to see his greatness on full display in this documentary.
But in real life, Gary-Stus don’t exist no matter how many victories a wrestler has. With the fame and fortune came drawbacks. Yes, Ric Flair got to party and have a good time everywhere he went. He got his extroverted needs met not just outside of the ring, but in it as well. But he did so at the expense of not being able to see his family as often as he needed to. He openly admitted to not being a good father and husband and it certainly showed in the reactions and emotions of everyone who loved him. Being a willfully absent father is atrocious no matter what, but ESPN made Ric Flair look like a flawed human being rather than a real life villain not unlike his wrestling persona. Nothing said against him came off as slanderous or detrimental; it was god’s honest truth. Every storyteller knows that creating flawed characters is endearing to the audience, but it must be done in a way that doesn’t turn people against the story. ESPN knew that Ric had his regrets about being a terrible family man, yet he’s still the living legend we’ve all come to admire. Everybody makes stupid mistakes and some of them hurt more than others. But it’s still a very human experience. In the end, that’s what Ric Flair was: a human. ESPN did a great job in showing these flaws without making him out to be a monster.
Easily, the most heart-wrenching part of the documentary was watching Ric Flair fight his tears while talking about the 2013 death of his youngest son Reid. Ric was a hardcore party boy who drank so much that it’s amazing he still has a liver after all these years. Unfortunately, that attitude rubbed off on Reid and he took it to the extreme, including pills and heroin into his self-destructive routine. Something the documentary thankfully left out was a storyline in WWE where Charlotte Flair (Ric’s daughter) and Paige (her opponent) were feuding over the Divas Championship. Reid’s name was brought up and Paige said, “Your baby brother doesn’t have much fight left in him now, does he?!” WWE won the award for Most Disgusting Promotional Tactic in 2015 from the Wrestling Observer Newsletter due to this storyline. It was such a pointless and damaging TV segment that Ric Flair would have had an even harder time fighting back tears than before. He probably would have continued down an alcoholic path if he was forced to delve into that situation again. Good on ESPN for not putting that 2015 storyline into their documentary. Raw emotion is relatable, but it would have been too much if they’d gone through with it. We don’t need more heartache than we already have. Shame on you, Vince McMahon, for green-lighting that angle to begin with.
For Ric Flair, wrestling was both an escape from reality and a detriment to his physical and mental health. The money line at the end of the documentary was that he didn’t want to be remembered as a father and husband (because he was bad at both), but rather as the greatest professional wrestler of all time. Due in part to the respectful nature in which ESPN handled all of the sensitive topics, they deserved the award for Best Streaming Documentary, another honor voted on by readers of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter. They are true professionals not just as filmmakers, but also human beings. They deserve an A for their hard work. Don’t you agree? WOO!
VERSE 1
It’s the year 2000, so grow a set of balls
Get your individuality from Pink Floyd’s Wall
Watch ECW like it’s going out of business
Arena covered in blood as god as my witness
You’re too good for corporate ass-kissing
Too underground with your vinegar pissing
Photoshop videogame chicks into bikinis
Give yourself a reason to stroke your weenie
Watch Newgrounds videos until your brain rots
Watch Dragon Ball Z while smoking crack rocks
Play Tekken and become a badass karate master
Play DOA and become a future boyfriend faster
Become a comedian who punches down low
Smoke fifty reefers in a motherfucking row
No way the pen is mightier than the sword
Such is the life of a Pimp Daddy Edge Lord
CHORUS
Pimp Daddy Edge Lord! X4
VERSE 2
You’re a grown ass man, all the jokes are gone
Now it’s time to figure out what’s right and wrong
The edgy shit that you’ve come to depend on
Leaves you an empty shell singing a sad song
There’s a world out there that needs your help
Good intentioned politicians pave the road to hell
The old you is now a ghost of your distant past
Along with the jokes about fucking some ass
“Georgie-Porgie pudding and pie
Fuck the girls, make their pussies cry”
You laughed back then, but it’s disgusting now
Like the way you compared fat people to cows
Like the way you compared every race to animals
Like the way you wrote a cook book for cannibals
We’re ready to fight, are you standing beside us?
Or have you always been a slacker-ass D-minus?
CHORUS
Pimp Daddy Edge Lord! X4
BRIDGE
The world is in ruin and you are a shoe-in
To be the next savior of misbehavior
Population is sick while you stroke your dick
To the machinegun chick holding dynamite sticks
The country is fucked and it’s going to suck
But you’re still in luck, you’ve got your big truck
You couldn’t let go of your comedic shit show
Enjoy the next civil war, Pimp Daddy Edge Lord
CHORUS
Pimp Daddy Edge Lord! X4
The putty-faced student marched down the hallway at the instruction of her teacher. She was to remain a few steps behind at all times, never once complaining or having an opinion about any of this. There wasn’t even to be a suggestion as to this meeting with the schoolmaster being a luck of the draw punishment. No opinions or critical thinking of any kind, just marching. The dragons, elves, ogres, and faeries that danced around her brain were reduced to meat shreds by constant conformity. She didn’t mind. She was never meant to mind.
“Halt!” shouted the teacher, to which the student complied. The teacher knocked on the door, awaiting for the schoolmaster to let them both in. There was some hasty wrestling going on in that office. But the putty-faced zombie student had no opinion of it. Once the familiar Scottish accent ordered her to come in, the teacher opened the door and in marched the student like a good little girl.
The door slammed shut and all that remained was a dimly-lit office with books on shelves and degrees mounted on the wall. None of those books probably contained dragons, barbarians, or knights, and the nameless slave didn’t care. Her weary eyes peeked through her clay mask at the Scottish schoolmaster sitting at his desk, drumming his fingers and scowling at her. His white moustache was enough to give away his age and every elderly stereotype that went with it. His black robe and square cap gave away every ounce of authority he had over her, a mere zombie student in a blue blazer, plaid skirt, and brown leather shoes. And that mask. Oh, that mask.
“I understand you’re wondering why you’re here,” said the schoolmaster in a low and sinister voice. “I can assure you it has nothing to do with the constant whining, missed assignments, tardiness, and everything else your generation is known for. It’s not just you, lassie. It’s the student body in general.” He smirked. “Student body.” There would have been a chilling feeling in the student’s stomach if she was capable of critical thought.
“I brought you here today…because I need to vent…and you are going to listen to every last syllable…” The schoolmaster slammed his palms on the desk and stood up halfway. “I hate this job. I hate the people I work with. I hate the ungrateful bastards who goof off in my class like it means nothing to them. I don’t have time for little goblins who don’t take their education seriously. I could just as easily walk off school grounds tomorrow and wish a pox on this entire place.”
He sat back down and folded his hands. “But I won’t do that. You know why? Because I learned the other day that it wasn’t the job itself that was dreadful. It was because it was…missing a certain something. I need something to make my job more…enjoyable. More fun. More satisfying. Work is boring. But you, my lady…you’re not boring at all…In fact…you’re just what I’m looking for.”
The student trembled, but not enough to give away true emotions. The schoolmaster continued. “Do you know why I make you and so many other students wear that faceless mask? Because then, and only then, do I not have to see the look of anguish on your faces when I do what I do. No face equals no guilt. No squinting eyes equals no shame. As much as I like to laugh at the Twilight nonsense of the world, the author managed to get one thing right.” He stood up and revealed that he wasn’t wearing pants underneath his robe. His sausage-like penis lifted the hem of his robe, maggots crawling around it. “The one thing she got right…is that girls with no ambition…are wildly sexy!”
As he slowly crept around his desk, the student’s trembling became more obvious as she backed up against the office door. He continued. “No ambition means no objections. And no objections means…free consent!” His demonic snickers morphed into howling and cackling while his red meat erection grew longer and stronger. “Come to me, my sweet Mary-Sue! Let’s make both of our existences…a lot more fun!”
The dragons and elves in the student’s mind were screaming to be free, screaming for her to snap out of his conformist haze, screaming for her to stand up for herself. She shook some more. She dropped to her butt as the schoolmaster got closer, his yellow fingernails unsheathed. He reached down to touch her neck, most likely wanting some foreplay, some tender moments with his underage pupil.
And then…the student let out a shriek of terror. The schoolmaster reflexively pulled his hand back and covered his own ears, the shriek growing more unbearable by the second. The student stood up and struggled to untwist the doorknob. The schoolmaster wasn’t deterred for long as his yellow fingernails gently raked down her back and his sausage poked her in the skirted bum.
He whispered, “If you don’t eat your meat…you can’t have any pudding…How can you have any pudding if you don’t eat your meat? That starts to take on a whole new meaning, doesn’t it, lassie?”
There was nothing zombie-like about adrenaline chilling the student’s body like a morgue freezer. She stomped on the schoolmaster’s foot and had him hobbling around like a lunatic. She finally opened the door and stormed down the hallway screaming. But there was no such exit for her. Clay-masked pupils formed a wall in front of her and gazed into her soul with empty eyes. On her other side, teachers and administrative staff glared at her while one teacher bounced a ruler in her hand.
The two sides closed in on her every so slowly, playing the roles of zombies to a T. The schoolmaster pushed his way to the front of the teacher wall and snickered at her some more. The closer they got, the less oxygen the putty-faced girl had at her disposal. She clutched her chest in an effort to stay alert, dizziness spiraling through her mind like a stroke. And then her saving grace came in the form of a steel door, which she threw open and bolted down at top speed.
She pumped the brakes as soon as she saw what this was a hallway for: a meat grinder pit clanking and clobbering in search of its next conformist meal. A dead end and a dead body: such was the way of compulsory education. The zombie students, angry faculty, and Scottish schoolmaster blocked the doorway, making both of the student’s escape options result in death or worse. The schoolmaster stalked down the catwalk and edged the student closer to the meat grinder. She did her best to stay balanced, though her dizziness began to cripple every limb on her body.
“Do you want an A+, lassie? Do you want to graduate? If you want that A+…you’ll have to take a D first!” The schoolmaster’s image blurred in and out of focus, the student swearing she was going to faint at any minute. She needed something to hold onto. A railing on the catwalk? Her own trembling legs? No. The piece of maggot-infested meat that dangled from the schoolmaster’s crotch. His smile revealed nicotine-stained teeth and a slathering tongue. “What are you waiting for? Stand still, lassie!”
“Oh, you big tease,” the student flirted. “Uh-oh. Did I just form an opinion of my own? Too bad!” With one yank of his slimy meat, the masked student pulled the schoolmaster past her and launched him into the mincer. Those blocking the door gasped in horror at their one true master being reduced to farmer’s shreds and parasites. He could have worn a mask to hide his pain, but that wouldn’t have been nearly as satisfying to the student, who removed her own mask in defiance and threw it into the grinder.
“Just so there’s no confusion, I had a name all along. My name is Jennifer Heath. In my humble opinion…I think this school SUCKS!” More gasping erupted from the crowd. Jennifer lifted her dimpled face defiantly and said, “I guess you’ll have to expel me now. But what will I do with my life? Maybe I can work at McDonald’s and serve up some Quarter Pounders coming from yours truly!” There was a collective, “Eww!” from the crowd.
“Oh, don’t act disgusted!” Jennifer snorted. “If you’re willing to allow a pedophile to run your school, then you have no business pretended that something I said was gross. Why did you let him work here anyways? How many more of you had he fucked?!”
“Watch your language, lassie!” said a random teacher while pointing a ruler at Jennifer.
“Or what?! You’re going to hit me with that little stick?! I’m sure some of you have been hit with a much bigger stick in your day.” The faceless students tucked their heads in shame. “Am I wrong? Am I?!”
Suddenly, the students and faculty had a stare down. Opinions were allowed again, not by the authority, but by someone who dared to resist it. The faculty began backing off and holding their hands up defensively. The students were much quicker on the draw. They threw their masks to the ground and stampeded the teachers with riotous force. They screamed obscenities and threw down with their elders, while the stuck-up teachers begged for help. Their authoritarian ways were all an act. They were tough up until the students sung a different tune.
One of the teachers scrambled into the meat grinder catwalk with Jennifer in an attempt to catch his breath.
“We don’t need no education…” sang Jennifer.
“Yes, you do. You just used a double negative.”
Jennifer Heath cracked her knuckles and smiled at her next victim. The teacher swallowed a cannonball-sized lump as it dawned on him what was coming.
