DMX: Died Before Elon Musk Rebranded Twitter, Haunts Him From Beyond the Grave

 

Booker T vs. Triple H

 

The "award-winning announcer" Booker T got buried in 2003 when Triple H not only made a bunch of racist jokes about him, but also beat him decisively at Wrestlemania and got no comeuppance for it. Now it appears the only burying going on is burying the hatchet between the two of them, so that they can join TKO in their quest for milking the fans' wallets for all they're worth with a mediocre product and high ticket prices.

RPG Memoirs: Fiction or Nonfiction?

So…I’m at a little bit of a crossroads here when it comes to my nonfiction. Many months ago, I wrote a memoir about a D&D campaign I did with my brother in 2003 where I was a bounty hunter named Regal (it went about as well as you’d imagine, haha!). Ever since then, I’ve wondered if I should do those kinds of memoirs in the future. A small little voice told me that if I’m going to do them, why not just write them as fictional stories instead of memoirs? There’ll be more opportunities for showing instead of telling and it’ll feel like a real story. But given how some of those role-plays panned out, they wouldn’t make for very good stories on their own. Under a nonfiction microscope, I can analyze what went wrong and why. That’s basically the point of these memoirs: to show how much my storytelling skills and I have changed since those days. They can either be cautionary tales or legitimate master classes. What do you guys think? Are these kinds of stories better served as fiction or nonfiction?

"Wrestlecrap" by RD Reynolds and Randy Baer

BOOK TITLE: Wrestlecrap: the Very Worst of Pro Wrestling

AUTHORS: RD Reynolds and Randy Baer

YEAR: 2003

GENRE: Nonfiction

SUBGENRE: Wrestling Biography

GRADE: Pass

The history of professional wrestling has seen its fair share of colorful characters and soap opera storylines. Wrestlecrap documents the silliest of those gimmicks from the cartoonish WWF days in the 1980’s all the way to 2003 when the book was published. Whether it’s a voodoo priest named Papa Shango who put curses on his opponents, a magician who was one monocle away from looking like Mr. Peanut, or a baseball player named MVP (Most Violent Player) to name just a few, the idea was for various wrestling promoters to throw something out there and to see what stuck. In many cases, they’re simply throwing wrestle-crap.

The first quality I’d like to praise this book for is the historical significance and research that went into writing it. The authors traced the first real gimmick back to the 1950’s, when Gorgeous George, an effeminate and arrogant athlete, would spray his opponents with perfume so that they didn’t stink up the joint. In the 1980’s, Vince McMahon, CEO of WWF, would take this inspiration and create the colorful characters that era was known for, whether it was the muscle-bound superhero Hulk Hogan or the corrupt millionaire Ted DiBiase. The late 90’s saw a period of more realistic shades of gray characters with TV-14 rated bloodbaths and sex angles. But just like the end of this biography says: the less things change, the more they stay the same. New company, same old wrestle-crap. While some gimmicks stood the test of time, most of them were too unbelievable to be taken seriously. Even in the year 2017, nothing has changed.

As long as we’re having a laugh at these bizarre characters (not the wrestlers portraying them, mind you), feel free to enjoy the lighthearted and comedic writing style employed in this book. The style comes off as extremely sarcastic and razor-tongued, but there are also some good zingers in there to leave you chuckling as well. I mentioned the Mr. Peanut analogy in the opening paragraph. There’s also a line about how Mantaur, a guy dressed in a bull suit, looks like his costume was made by a deranged taxidermist at Disney World. My favorite zinger in this whole book would have to be the author’s answer to, “What could be better than [the plot of the Ready to Rumble movie]?” A trip to the dentist. Getting beaten with a lead pipe. A Pauley Shore movie marathon. I got a few chuckles just transcribing those lines. If wrestling gimmicks and storylines are going to be silly, then expect nothing less than a hearty laugh.

While it’s nice to have a few laughs at the expense of the characters, never forget that RD Reynolds and Randy Baer are wrestling fans to the core, which means they know when it’s time to get serious. Remember, they’re poking fun at the characters, not the people playing them. They have all the respect in the world for anybody who dares get in a wrestling ring to ply their craft. It’s a tough job that taxes the human body like nothing else. That’s why when I read about Renegade’s suicide, it legitimately broke my heart. Say what you want about the guy’s wrestling ability, but he didn’t deserve to have a gimmick completely ruin his life and send him spiraling into the path he took. The way that segment was written was done tastefully and respectfully, which is more than anybody could say about the promoters who saddled the wrestlers with these awful gimmicks.

One thing I will criticize the book for is its occasional grammatical errors. I say occasional because they don’t happen often enough for me to downplay the fun I had reading this book. But noticeable they are, such as when there are dashes in between words that are already whole. It’s as if the book formatting placed the hyphenated words at the end of a sentence in the middle of the paragraph. It looks awkward and doesn’t paint a good picture of anybody who takes up writing as a profession. However, I still give this book a passing grade for knowing when to be funny, knowing when to be serious, and caring enough about the sport to delve into its history. Wrestlecrap is nothing to sneeze at (the book, not the actual crap).

Dreams About Fighting Criminals

I haven’t been in a fight since 2003. I’m not talking about a pitty-patty slap fest, I’m talking about a real, down in the dirt, drag-out brawl. In 2003 when I had my last fight, I punched my opponent in the face and then he ended up dragging me to the floor and returning the favor tenfold. Ever since then, I’ve thought about getting in more fights, but I’ve never actually done it. It could be that I’ve developed allergies to a jail cell and the people who occupy it. But lord knows there were plenty of people in my life worth kicking the shit out of. I could do it too if I put my mind to it. This must be the reason why I keep having dreams at night about getting in fights with criminals. Not just anybody, but criminals. High school bullies, street thugs, people who think they’re street thugs, and just plain guys from Seattle: in my dream’s theater, they all want a piece of me. Every time they look for a battle with me, they always lose. I’ve done everything in these subconscious battles from twisting them into submission holds to breaking their necks to just plain delivering punches and kicks. Hell, there was even one dream where I collected the scalps of everybody I fought. What exactly do these dreams mean? Do they mean that it’s time to kick some ass again? I’d like to think so, but again, I’m not looking forward to a life in prison. That reminds me of a little trope about growing up. When you’re a kid and you get in a fight, you get a time out. When you’re a pre-teen, you get a one day vacation from school. When you’re a full-blown teenager, you get a five day vacation from school. But when you’re an adult, that vacation can last anywhere from a short-lived night to a 25-year sentence behind bars. The lesson here is that the older you get, the worse the punishment. If you have people to beat up, do it before you’re old enough to go to prison for a life sentence. This is especially important if you come from a poor family. Matt Taibbi wrote an entire book about how poor people are punished worse than rich people. If you’re a working class black lady and you slap your cheating boyfriend, you’ll go to jail for a long, long time. If you’re a rich white cocksucker who molested his children, the judge will give you probation because rich people “don’t do well in prison”. No wonder I have so many dreams about fighting people: there are lots of people to fight and lots of anger to go around. But this is just the dream world. In the real world, I do all my fighting through my short stories. I have characters who fight for their lives, for justice, for love, and for honor. They don’t always do it with an AK-47 and a Sherman tank. Sometimes they just scream with all their soul power and that’s often enough.

　

***FACE BOOK POST OF THE DAY***

“If Mike Tyson asks permission to do something, is it wrong to tell him to knock himself out?”

-Me-