In Memoriam: Chick Hearn. That’s all the Lakers need, a motivation to go for four in a row…
Tommy, can you see me? – Pete Townshend
ULTIMATE SUPER MEGA-PIMP SECTION
The Laser Vision Institute. Dr. Farooq Ashraf is a diva with an excimer laser. A diva, I tell you. Fullest, heartiest thanks and balls-to-the-wall pimp to Doc Ashraf and all the staff at the North Loop Chicago location, especially the blonde optometrist with the big yabbos who did my initial examination.
THE STORY IN YOUR EYES
(Special thanks to one of the eight billion oldies stations in Chicago. I was struggling to think of a better title than “Zap!” for this section, and all of a sudden the Moody Blues came on. Bravo.)
Okay, here’s the short version of the boring, long story. I’ve worn glasses since the age of 10. Contact lenses were an abject failure with me due to the fact that I wouldn’t tear up enough to make them comfortable. The ol’ specs also constantly fog up on the job, making it a lot more dangerous than it has to be. So on Saturday, I finally broke open the wallet and had LASIK done.
I know what the first question will be. Sixteen hundred, and worth every penny. They took my vision from 20/800 (in layman’s terms, blind as a f*cking bat) to 20/20 (in layman’s terms, I can watch ABC programming unaided) in fifteen minutes. Zap, zap, zap, all done, have a good day. The pain on Saturday was no more than I had when wearing my contacts years ago. It’s Sunday morning as I type this, and I just came back from the 24-hour post-op, where the optometrist said that I was healing perfectly well, and that any fuzziness or alterations in focus will vanish within the next two weeks.
If you have the cash and have to wear glasses, goddamn it, go get it done. It’s one of the true miracles of modern medicine. My life’s already changed for the better doing this. In fact, I’m experiencing some emotion I can’t really identify. It’s familiar on sort of a racial-memory level, but I have to go deep into the memory bank to find the word…oh, yes, that’s the word. Happiness.
You know, I’m pretty blase about modern science and its achievements, except when it impacts me as personally as this. I mean, normally, I’d be all in a tizzy about me “accidentally” giving Micro$oft permission to root my box by installing Windows 2000 SP3 (which I have; lotsa nice bug fixes), except that this type of thing is normal right now (hell, with billg and crew, expected). However, to walk into a room not being able to see shit in front of you and walk out of it with normal vision…talk about a mindf*ck. As Paul Simon put it, these are the days of miracle and wonder. Let’s appreciate them a little more.
THE BORING OLD NORMAL PIMP SECTION
Memo to Flea: I’d go Germanic and stick with verboten, a word with a nice menacing air to it. However, if you want to go Latinate, you could always say that going after columnists not on 411 can make you persona non grata here.
Daniels. Yes, agreed, WWE storylines are mental origami. You know, superstring theory states that universes can only be expressed in terms of ten or twenty-six dimensions. How many does it takes for WWE plotlines? The mind can’t conceive of the math necessary to describe that.
Rivett makes a convincing case for Mae Young. Hey, I’m sold. She really is entertaining, which is more than you can say for most of those dopes out there right now.
Memo to Hyatte: yes, I do suck. However, I can’t say the same thing about you, since you’ve moved upscale from pigs to Trish.
And speaking of pigs and Trish, let’s go to the Short Form…
THE SHORT FORM
As usual, Keith and PK gave you the details while I slept. Of course, I have a good reason to go to bed early and they don’t.
Match Results:
Buh Buh Ray Dudley, Spike Dudley, and Trish Stratus over The Big Show, Tables Match (Duh): Instead of pulling out the old “’twas Beauty what killed the Beast” line, I’ll just give you another entry in my “Why I Hate Wrestling Fans” list: morons who tried to start up a “We Want Tables” chant fifteen seconds into a Tables match. Well, no shit you’re going to get tables, jackasses. That’s the WHOLE DAMN POINT of the match. Hear that faraway whistle? That’s the Clue Train from last week, passing by without any discernible effect other than Doppler.
Well, come to think of it, they did have a point. This sucker should have been kept as short as possible.
Tommy Dreamer over Bradshaw, Hardcore Title Match (Pinfall, DDT on to Steel Steps):
Hear the loud alarum bells-
Brazen bells!
What a tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells!
In the startled ear of night
How they scream out their affright!
Too much horrified to speak,
They can only shriek, shriek,
Out of tune,
In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire,
In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire,
Leaping higher, higher, higher,
With a desperate desire,
And a resolute endeavor,
Now—now to sit or never,
By the side of the pale-faced moon.
Oh, the bells, bells, bells!
What a tale their terror tells
Of Despair!
How they clang, and clash, and roar!
What a horror they outpour
On the bosom of the palpitating air!
Yet the ear it fully knows,
By the twanging,
And the clanging,
How the danger ebbs and flows:
Yet the ear distinctly tells,
In the jangling,
And the wrangling,
How the danger sinks and swells,
By the sinking or the swelling in the anger of the bells-
Of the bells-
Of the bells, bells, bells,bells,
Bells, bells, bells-
In the clamor and the clangor of the bells!
– Edgar Allan Poe, “The Bells”
Since Raven’s “permanently” barred from Raw due to his loss to Dreamer, guess that Bradshaw’s equipment was the closest they could come to a tribute to a certain former Baltimore resident.
Booker T and Goldust over Billy Brass Knucks and Chris Harvard (Pinfall, Booker pins Regal, scissors kick): This was a major test for Nowitzski: put him in a match with three seasoned pros who are all past masters at tag team action and see if he holds his own. He did, and quite well. Sloppy match all around, true, but he did hold his own. He was also taught a few lessons about things like crowd manipulation and when and what to sell. Tough Enough gave him the basics; this is the post-grad work.
BTW, in case you’re wondering about Harvard’s earlier promo, Animal House was based on Dartmouth, despite the contributions of real Harvard grads in it. Yeah, both Ivy League, so that’s close enough for WWE. However, Elliot Olshansky will never forgive me if I don’t mention this fact, so I’m doing it.
Victoria over Trish Stratus (Pinfall, Rollup With An Eentsy-Weentsy Bit Of Cheating): So after hearing everything about her in OVW, we finally get to see Victoria in the big leagues. Well, she didn’t disgrace herself like Jackie did, and she does a good fake injury. Dull match, and the horrible commentary from Lawler didn’t help. Sounds like the writing staff pulled out an old promo that Flex rejected for quality reasons and conned Lawler into using it.
Matt and Jeff Hardy over Lance Storm and Christian, Tag Title Match (DQ, Don’t Fuck With Li’l Naitch): The Un-Americans versus Queer Nation. Gee, what a great way to start the tag title’s sojourn on Raw. I think that they’d be better off right now if they took Rick McBride’s advice and did the old Freebirds/Demolition routine: have the UAs declare the belts collective property among the team and decide which two defend the belt at match time. That way they can pull in Test for a little size cred on occasions when it’s needed. It also plants the seeds for the breakup the moment Test f*cks up and blows the belts for them. Of course, since I’ve printed it, WWE will never do it.
Rob Van Dam over Chris Jericho, The Fight For Mister Monday Night (Pinfall, Five-Star Frog Splash): I consider this just a teaser for some future PPV giving them twenty and letting them rock. So I pretty much ignored any significance to this.
Angle Developments
Jericho Interruptus: Actually, the Trip and Van Dam promo-ins were a blessing. Jericho just wasn’t on tonight. He is not at his best bitching at the audience for being complete losers (guess he hasn’t mastered shoot promos yet). However, one thing that did work on the shoot level was his “Bischoff is a genius” section. Under Bisch, Jericho had the best angles and promos of his career. There’s no argument there. Anyone who watched Nitro can remember being consistently entertained by his antics and left wondering “What will he do next?”.
This week marks the third anniversary of Jericho’s arrival in WWE. Three straight years of false pushes and burials (most notably by Flex and Trip). Three straight years of being in a situation where there’s reason to complain. No wonder he snapped at us Nattering Nabobs of Negativism on the Net. We can say the things that he has to keep to himself for fear of losing his job. It’s screwed up his mind so badly that he thinks that his facial hair is the height of fashion. Yeah, once upon a time, it was, but as Rick McBride put it to me: If he’s Chris Jericho, why is his beard starting to look like Hammurabi?.
That being said, being interrupted from my plans is one thing that I absolutely hate. Let’s take yesterday as an example. I’m trying to get a major portion of my work done in a complete blur of frenzied activity, since I have to leave work at 10:00 for a job interv…sorry, doctor’s appointment. So what happens? Two of the assholes in senior management call me in at 9:30 and ask me to do something that takes an hour, just so they can cover themselves before they all leave to shoot a round of golf. Gee, any wonder why I have so many “doctor’s appointments”? Thank God traffic was light and I made this one on time.
Un-American Activities Committee: If you’ve been reading this column for any length of time, you can already assume that I regard Storm’s promo comments as shoot. If you’re new to this column, don’t be shocked when I say that they were a shoot. That being said, I think that anyone who’s ever been through Basic Training like I have feels this visceral vicarious thrill any time Slaughter is in wrestling gear and gets the crap beaten out of him. Thank you, Mister Martin, for bringing a little pleasure into my life.
Lilian Does The Islands: “Get pummeled by a 300+ pound Samoam and do a stretcher job? I’d really like to see if that’s in my job description…it is? Funny, I never saw that before…”
That Incredibly Dull Last Promo: So boring I fell asleep. A showcase for hammy acting by all people around. If it had been a little camp, it would have been entertaining. But they had to show us how serious they all were. Bleh.
In fact, falling asleep again has made me late. More about this crap tomorrow.
About Eric Szulczewski
