Counterfeit Pennies 12.12.02: Escape With Me

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For those of you who are (or aren’t) wondering, the name for this new little column came from an old collection of random real-life stories I had purchased from Troll Book Orders in the mid-1980s. (Yeah, I was a PARP kid, too.)

My parents and elementary school teachers forced me to buy one reading item a month when I was in 3rd or 4th Grade, and so I always tried to order the book with the catchiest title, if there were no Choose Your Own Adventure Books available. Because of this, my book collection to this day includes Pulitzer contenders like Perfect Putdowns and Instant Insults, The Baseball Hall of Shame Volumes 1 and 2, Timmy & The Bubble Gum Monster With A Superfluous Nipple and my favorite kiddy cult classic masterpiece: Strange & Amazing But True Stories (not of the Highway Patrol).

It is this last compilation that caught my eye with a little vignette about a man called Old Eight Eighty, who for over fifty years got away with counterfeiting one-dollar bills. No one ever cared to look at dollar bills to see if they were fraudulent – after all, Puffy never said It’s all about the Washingtons – so Old Eight Eighty got off scot-free until he was caught at the ripe age of 84 at a grocery store near his house. I have no idea what propelled someone to spend all of their time and effort into making fake dollar bills, but the story stuck with me for one reason or another, and I always thought to myself, imagine if he really went the distance made counterfeit pennies? The name stuck with me for all this time, and I finally found a reason to tell share this little pop culture gem with the rest of the world.

So, what’s the point of all this, besides the fact that I couldn’t think of a better intro?

Well, if there is one, I guess one can say that sometimes people need to lighten up … I mean if someone were to go through all the trouble of counterfeiting dollar bills or, say, tell this little tale, then maybe the best thing to do is just appreciate the effort and look the other way and if just nod your head and smile is a frequent quip you hear from your friends, then you damn sure know what I’m talkin’ about, don’t you holmes?

So, about this wrestling thing; well, just so y’all know, I have spent the last 17 years as a fan of the genre, and the past four or five years trying to break down and analyze Vince McMahon’s juicy little product as if it were a game of Tetris and I was on the 148th line.

I actually think Tears For Fears said it best when they exclaimed, “Break it down again/No more sleepy dreaming/No more building up/It is time to dissolve.” What exactly do I have up my sleeve in this currently cloaked wrestling analogy? Probably not all-too-hard to figure out if you’ve been examining the WWE product lately, but allow me to 1) Let you know where I am coming from on the wrestling tip and then 2) explain what the h, e, double-hockey-sticks I am trying to get at.

You can say I consider myself to be a wrestling fan first and foremost. While I have doled out plenty of criticism along the way, I also try to give credit where credit is due. After all, if Hulk Hogan taught me how to say my prayers and take my vitamins and all that jazz, then it was G.I. Joe who reminded me that Knowing is half the battle, Sesame Street that taught me honesty was the best policy and Inspector Gadget who showed me that helicopter heads do not make you any smarter than little blonde girls with computers. [Or it was my parents, but we wouldn’t want to give them any credit, would we? (Love you mom!)]

Pointlessness aside, I do think that the best way to broach the subject of the current state of pro wrestling and examine the latest storylines, superstar pushes and other events is to just be honest with yourself and not give a damn about what anyone else thinks. I guess what it boils down to is that I am a wrestling mark with a true love for the industry and the vast array of characters – sinister or savory – that perform their guts out on these unique national (and regional) stages.

Pro wrestling also tickles my fancy because it enables me the opportunity to escape from my own trials and tribulations. I mean if you ask the average fan whether or not they would rather talk about how RVD making a split makes you question whether or not he has two little rubber frogs instead of family jewels down there or what he/she thinks about unemployment lines, salary freezes or terrorist attacks well, I think that most of us would rather look at the former for sanity’s sake and not be bothered with which we cannot control in our own mortal existences.

In summation, I must say that these be volatile times, ‘fo schizzle my nizzles and wizzles, and WWE is not impervious to hitting a downswing and falling off the radar of mainstream popular culture. Attention spans are shorter than ever, meaning that two thirds of you who started reading this column have probably given up by now and gone to your own blogs to write about how upset you are that Emmet Otter’s Jugband Christmas is no longer played on HBO or Nickelodeon during the Christmas season. (If you by any chance have the full and accurate transcription of the lyrics to Riverbottom Nightmare Band, I would love an email from you so I can settle a bet with a friend.)

If you have in fact stuck with me to this point, let me say that with the increasing amount of ways to escape from reality, we don’t necessarily have to turn to pro wrestling anymore to get our fill of fantasy. Therefore, without the development of good, fresh storylines; without the development of feuds that make sense and in-ring action that is believable and fluid; and without the willingness to realize that patience is a virtue no matter how trite it sounds Well, then pro wrestling and its top organization will feel excruciation that comes with disinterest.

Those of us who still watch do so because a little itsy bitsy part of us believes that there really is nothing like professional wrestling; I guess you can call it The Little Engine That Could Syndrome. But if you’ve grown up on the product as I have, then you realize that while you can always call yourself a pro wrestling fan, it’s much more fun to say, “Yeah, I’m a fan,” when you’re actually proud to do so.

Right now, it’s more like a forced admission than anything else, and the name Armageddon might hit a little too close to home for McMahon and company, if this ship isn’t righted soon.

Now how’s that for an intro? (Let me know all that and more by doing the email thing.)

Until next time

– Chris Biscuiti

CB is an Editor for Pulse Wrestling and an original member of the Inside Pulse writing team covering the spectrum of pop culture including pro wrestling, sports, movies, music, radio and television.