What we should learn is not to put our trust and faith in men who are corruptible. – Charles Colson
GUILTY, GUILTY, GUILTY
Yesterday was the 30th anniversary of the Watergate break-in. For most of you guys, this event and the stuff that followed is just history. For me, it’s living history. I directly trace my cynicism toward politicans in general and Republicans in particular to the sight of John Dean, Richard Kleindienst, et al, parading across the television screen telling everyone that the President of the United States, someone people of my generation and before were inculcated to believe was morally good and pure, was a scumbag. Watergate was a shock to the American psyche that it can never experience again, a true loss of innocence. The only thing I can compare its impact to me to would be for those of you born in 1980 who caught the Iran-Contra hearings. The problem with that analogy is that 1) Ollie North’s spew of FUD and bullshit helped detract from the issue at hand, namely that the Reagan Administration was loaded with jackbooted thugs who thought nothing of circumventing the law to promote their own twisted ideology, led by the father of a certain person occupying the White House at this moment, and 2) thanks to Watergate, that inculcation about the President no longer took place. You weren’t taught that we Americans were somehow morally superior to other countries and our leader was the exemplar of that. Reagan attempted to revive that attitude, but didn’t quite succeed. You can only lose your virginity once.
I guess that kinda explains where the political attitude comes from with me, and this is an ideal time to explain it considering the anniversary and also considering the fact of the verdict against Arthur Andersen in our latest budding political scandal. It’s something that’s worth including as an explanation.
Watergate, though, still has one great mystery (other than “What the hell was the White House thinking when they authorized this crap?”): the identity of Deep Throat. Woodstein still ain’t talking, which leaves people to speculate. The winner of cnn.com’s poll on the subject was the man with nicer legs than Hitler and bigger tits than Cher, Henry Kissinger. For a long time, I was certain it was Alexander Haig. However, as time goes by, I’m becoming more and more convinced of the position taken by the University of Illinois Study Group on the subject. They unanimously concluded it was Pat Buchanan. I can see the logic behind it. Buchanan’s an idealogue who thought that Nixon wasn’t really a conservative. He’s also a person still firmly convinced of the moral superiority of the Presidency and it must have offended his sensibilities to see his bosses engage in behavior that would have embarassed William Marcy Tweed or Thomas Prendergast. Buchanan still behaves like the street fighter he was in his youth (a street fighter who dodged military service, I might remind you), but he has a sense of honor. So, yeah, he’s the perfect candidate, which makes me wonder why he wasn’t in the CNN poll but Diane Sawyer was. Guess her Q rating’s better.
SO HOW DID YOU CELEBRATE FATHERS’ DAY?
Well, I had nothing to celebrate myself. I have no children (that I know of), and as longtime readers of this column know, my father died of cancer four years ago. However, despite the fact that my father was a complete f*cking asshole who turned me into the basket-case I am today, I still found a way to honor him. In between the Orwellian-level psychological torture, he provided me with a post-doctoral level education in flea market shopping. Thanks to my most recent move, I live about five minutes away from one of his favorite flea markets. So on Sunday, I went out there and shopped my ass off (something I couldn’t do if I wasn’t on Paxil due to my anxiety disorder being triggered by crowds). Picked up some socks, some Oxi-Clean, some soap, a few T-shirts, and was able to raid the three Avon vendors there for my favorite hand cream (Silicone Glove) and some of that Green Tea bath gel that I pimped a few months ago. Dad would have been proud.
THE MOST WONDERFUL THING ABOUT TIGGER…
Can the man be stopped? Wire-to-wire, only guy in red figures at the end of the day, whipping the ass of the kid attempting to play Tom Watson to his Jack Nicklaus, Lefty stuck in second again…honestly, while watching this, I thought I was back in Canton watching 2000 all over again. At the age of 26, he now has more major victories than Arnold Palmer. So what’s going to stop him from a True Grand Slam? Certainly not Hazelton during the PGA; that course is laid out perfectly for him. Muirfield, though, is another story. It’s no St. Andrews…oh, who am I kidding? The guy’s the greatest ever, period. I saw Nicklaus in his prime. I saw Watson in his. Some people here think that I might have seen Old Tom Morris in his prime. Tigger’s the best ever, period. I’ve never been willing to say that until now, but he convinced me this weekend.
“ONE…TWO…THREE…FUCK THE MEXICANS!”
Two. Nil. Hasta la bye bye, putas.
Guess who got to act REALLY smug at work today (for those of you who don’t know, the Chicago meat industry is about 90% Mexican workers; if I’m exaggerating, it’s not by much)? You never saw so many hang-dog expressions as I did today. National pride on my part (yes, check for pods, I know)? Yeah, but it was sooooo sweet to see it against Mexico, and I did catch most of the game (I actually woke up before my alarm Monday morning, and since my alarm is set for 2:30AM CT, that’s early). This one was worth any inconvenience of time zones.
So what the f*ck was up with the goddamn refs? I haven’t seen this many cards since the World Series of Poker. Ten yellow and a red? Jeebus. And how dare they yellow-card Brad Friedel? YOU DON’T FUCKING CARD BRAD FRIEDEL!!!
Seeing Marquez’s magnificent head-butt against Cobi Jones (the sole red card in the match) makes me think about something that Kurt Dieckmann, a man with a reason to celebrate Fathers’ Day this year, wrote me. He said that Brendan Shanahan did a better Thesz Press on Steve Yzerman during the Stanley Cup finals than Austin’s done in years, and Stevie Y sold it like a pro. Kurt’s convinced that Vince should offer them contracts based on the fact that they’re charismatic celebrities with the requisite one move that would guarantee them a WWE push. I say add Marquez on to that list, since that head-butt was damn sweet. Cobi’s selling, though, was sub-Flex level.
Ah, but now I have reason to be conflicted thanks to this victory. You see, I’ve only lived in two countries in my life: the United States and Germany (to be fair, it’s actually three countries, since when I arrived, it was West Germany, and when I left, it was simply Germany again…to be really fair, I’ve actually lived in four countries if you count Louisiana). So who the heck am I going to root for on Friday? I was in Germany in 1990 when they won it all, and I saw Frankfurt, the second-most boring city in Europe*, joyously erupt into spontaneous celebration. I don’t think there’s anything scarier than a drunk German leaning out of a moving car naked waving a flag, and there were numerous German genitalia on display that night, let me assure you. Since they’re hosting in 2006 (return visit, perhaps?), they have serious motivation to win. However, the US has the momentum back, and as far as I can tell, Franz Beckenbauer is still retired. I give the US a pretty good chance as long as the refs let them play. Five f*cking minutes of stoppage time due to cards in the second half…sheesh. It’s like watching Game 6 of the NBA Western Conference Finals all over again.
* – Zurich is a metropolitan tranquilizer and wins the competition hands-down; in third place is Strasbourg, the Gary, Indiana of France.
SIGNS OF THE APOCALYPSE APPEAR YET AGAIN
Scooby-Doo is the number one film at the BO in the US. Longtime readers know my feelings about Scooby-Doo. Please, don’t ask about it, because the last time someone did, it engendered a 4500-word article for another website. To summarize in a quick fashion, the 1969 series is still great and watchable, but anything afterward is a bastardization, and they should have retired the character after Don Messick died. That’s all I’m going to say about that. As for the movie itself, I’ve already downloaded it and I’ll decompress the MPEG sometime this week and watch it to give a more educated opinion.
AND IN WRESTLING NEWS…
Considering who came back to Raw last night, I’m boycotting this week. Turn to Scott or PK for coverage. By the way, shouldn’t he be suspended indefinitely for being a Smackdown wrestler appearing on Raw, or is that out the window now too? Guess so, considering that Vince told the locker room that more names will be jumping from show to show.
It’s a good time to get the pimps in, I guess. So here goes…
Norton has the hope that WWE will create a new star courtesy of King of the Ring. Yeah, it worked for Billy Gunn and Edge (the fact that he won KOTR was simply used as a tool to precipitate the endless Edge/Christian break-up instead of being used as a springboard to something else). Hell, Mabel did more with winning KOTR than either of them did.
Daniels is still God.
Memo to Grut: I’m in. Despite the fact that she pissed off every sports fan in Chicago by being one of the biggest media whores around when she was married to Mongo, she didn’t deserve it.
Speaking of that, let me get my two cents in. I’d like to begin by relating a story from my personal life. Yes, it actually has pertinence.
I’ll have to describe my situation first. Right now, at my job, I’m being “transitioned” from one job into another, and they’re f*cking it up, big-time. I’m doing the functions of the one job while attempting to learn the functions of the other, so I’m working for two people. One of those people is the boss I’ve had since I started. The other is a guy who was recently brought in. He’s an old buddy of the vice-president of the company and has his ear (not to mention a tongue up his ass). There’s a little power play going on right now between them, it seems, and last week, I was dragged right into the middle of it. The second boss took me aside on Tuesday afternoon and said to me, “I’d like you to reconfigure the duties of both departments and come up with brand new forms for all the functions in your spare time (“Spare time? WHAT spare time?!”, I’m asking myself at this moment). Oh, yeah, have it all done by Friday. That way you can start working full-time for me.”
Now, my loyalty isn’t to this guy, it’s to my old boss. Frankly, I didn’t accept this reassignment or “transition” or whatever you want to call it with good grace. It puts me into a job position that I don’t necessarily want to be in. However, I know the scent of rodent droppings when it catches my olfactories, so I went to my old boss. He knew what I was going to talk about, and he gave me a resigned, “this is a fait accompli” look and told me to do what the other guy said. So, now, I have to reconfigure two entire departments, take tasks away from one, add them on to the other, create new tasks to do, make sure that the limited number of people we have can do them since this place is too cheap to hire people, and make sure that I don’t piss off or alienate my fellow workers, most of whom treat change like a woman who admits she’s got five kinds of the clap when you’re at third base with her. And I have to do it in my, ha ha, spare time in three days, including coming up with documentation that has to be bulletproof for inspectors and lawyers.
I think you can assume that, last week, I was not a happy guy.
Well, to keep a long story short, I actually pulled it off. On Thursday afternoon, I showed the guys in my old department the forms I had finished up to that point and explained to them what they’d do under this new plan. On Friday afternoon, I briefed the other supervisors in the plant about the plan and what would happen to their departments under it. I won people over to this new plan. It was one of the best acting jobs of my life.
So what’s the point? Simple.
I did something that I didn’t believe in and something that offended me on a personal level (namely, playing office politics) for the perceived good of the company. I did it for people that I don’t really respect as people, but whose position I have to respect.
I followed the orders of someone above me in the chain of command that I had to report to (something that was confirmed on Friday when I found out my annual evaluation/goals form was signed by the new boss).
I, on my own initiative, not under orders, sold the other employees on the new plan, since I knew it had the green light from highers-up.
I did it on a short deadline for a group of people whose planning is so pathetic that they’d f*ck up a one-man jackoff party.
I busted my ass to get this stuff done, even pulling a couple thirteen-hour days to get it done, something I vowed never to do again after the close call with the ulcer a few years ago. It was mentally and physically fatiguing, but I put the effort out, despite the fact that I knew going in that I’d get no real appreciation for doing it.
Why did I do all that? Because they pay me. It’s part of my job. I need a roof over my head. I need food in my stomach. Neverwinter Nights just went gold, and Warcraft III should be on the shelves this week (I already have it through my usual method, and it’s one of the most beautiful games I’ve seen; a definite pick-up, folks), and they are screaming at me to be purchased. The arms on my office chair are broken and it needs to be replaced, ASAP. I need a new set of tires for Damn Vaninator II, and I’ve got to see which sensor keeps tripping the Check Engine light. In short, I need money to live, and they’re giving it to me, so I do what they say so long as it doesn’t break any law that I happen to know about.
Contrast this behavior to that of a fellow Sagittarian born in 1964. He makes a great deal more money than I do, has a trampy wife to support, a beer habit to feed, and a passion for pick-up trucks that seem to receive body damage on a regular basis by people upset at him, and was placed in a similar situation to me recently.
On short notice, he was asked to do something that he didn’t agree with. He knew that it had the support of the highers-up. He knew the people telling him to do it were complete f*ckheads who can’t tell asses from elbows. He knew it was part of a power play by those above him, along with certain fellow employees who shall remain nameless (the initials, though, seem to involve repetition of the eighth letter of the alphabet). He knew that the company rewarded effort eventually, even though appreciation wouldn’t be immediate. What did he do? He walked. Not once, but twice. The first time, his bosses thought enough to him to let him back. The second time, though, the bosses had had enough, and they publicly denigrated him and replaced him. In the meantime, though, upset at the situation, he went off, got blitzed, and beat the aforementioned trampy wife bad enough that she called the cops. The publicity from that may make his anticipated transition into a different job slightly more difficult (although it didn’t stop Kelsey Grammer and his drug antics, among many others in that field).
I didn’t walk, even though I have done so on principle before (my last job before this, when asked to violate the law). I didn’t go out and get loaded and start beating on people. I sucked it up, did my job, and deposited my paycheck with my last remaining ounce of strength on Friday afternoon. That’s the way people in the real world behave, Mister Williams. Maybe you need a dose of reality after inhabiting that fantasy world you worked in for the past decade and a half.
Last week, I said that he should just leave, transition into a TV series ready and waiting for him, and enjoy life without having to be physically pummeled every week for our entertainment. Now the decision’s been made for him. If he’d said “I quit” on his own, he might not be in the mess he’s in right now. How deluded is he to believe that he’s untouchable? Bret Hart was thought to be untouchable too, and he saw what happened with that. However, a return is always possible after the heat dies down. To quoth the aforementioned Kurt Dieckmann:
So Austin’s out for good according to Vince. Because Vince’s track record after saying “they’ll never work for WWF ever again” is soooo unwavering – that’s why the laundry list of other high-profile banishments like Guerrero, Hall, Hogan, etc. are working the Indy circuit right now. What, they aren’t? (You got an over/under on how long this will last?)
Before Raw, Kurt, I would have said three months. Now I’m saying until WM next year, when Austin makes a surprise appearance to challenge for the world title against Lesnar (hey, how long did it take Angle to get it?). That’s if he doesn’t find another job or if the jones is so bad that he needs to go back.
People are already thinking about the possibility of him showing up on an NWA-TNA PPV. If the beating hadn’t happened, I don’t think the Jarretts would have thought twice about going to the money men and begging for more to get him, and the money men would have definitely forked out. But the last thing that a fledgling would-be major needs right now is to have this publicity. Scott Hall is a different issue. Us Internet smarks know his entire history, and seeing him fall back off the wagon was no surprise (in fact, you can say it was anticipated), but it’s not publicly well-known among the marks. He’s no risk. But now that mainstream media has picked this up, there’s no way they’re going to take the danger of picking up Austin.
To summarize this, I think I’ll let what Christopher Arrington said to me summarize my feelings and a lot of our feelings right now:
I thought the way they handled the Austin situation tonight until then (Flex’s entrance) was good. He obviously has bigger problems than wrestling right now that he and Debra need to work out. Was he a prick? To use one of Steve’s lines, “Oh, hell yeah”. Does he need therapy or some other type of help? Yes. Does he need his life to be made an angle at this time? Hell no. I hope he gets what he needs and I hope Debra is safe and stays that way. And I hope if he is ever in a wrestling ring again, he will know in his head the difference between Steve Williams and Steve Austin. Because it seems he has forgot it.
That’s enough from me for right now. I’ll be back tomorrow with more news and views, and Ashish will keep you up on fast-breaking events. Until then, ta.
About Eric Szulczewski
