In Memoriam: Nina Simone. Principled woman with one helluva voice.
To switch subjects…
Hmmmm. Too bad for now.
Chris, you and I know that we can both do gonzo like nobody’s business. We, of course, would have prime choices of who to take along on the car ride and give him a thrill by duct-taping a butt plug in him for hundreds of miles at a shot. My candidates are Albert, Maven, and Stevie Richards, because they seem like the types who would enjoy having a butt plug duct-taped inside of them (Richards especially; Heyman had something up his ass for years). In fact, along with Grut, let’s bring along Chris Nowinski. You know he’d do it in a heartbeat. My fun would be to force-feed the three aforementioned wastes of oxygen enough Klonopin to sedate a hippo in heat and see if the tranquilizers actually have a visible effect on their workrate. I’d also like to give some mescaline to Rob Van Dam just to see what happens, after I slap the shit out of him for selling the Five-Star Frog Splash like he’s had electric shocks applied to his nuts. Maybe we could also track down Goldust and ask him if he’s kicked that involuntary erection problem yet. I’d also like to inquire Booker on whether Rob Fuller really was hung like a moose, as rumor has it. Hey, if Foley could tell everyone who bought his book about Eric Embry’s jealousy-inducing genitals…
Hell, doing that stuff, we’d be sedate and well-mannered compared to the idiots on Jackass. Also, if we filmed it, maybe MTV might think that wrestling is cool again.
Let’s check the logistics on this road trip. Obviously a convertible is out. However, the Damn Vaninator seats eight. Therefore, we bring along My Beautiful and Beloved and Your Beautiful and Beloved, drugged if necessary (which it will be). So, we have me driving, you riding shotgun, Nowinski between the women (Harvard guys always love getting caught in the middle of catfights; besides, the jumper cables will be clearly visible at all times so that if he acts up, we give him 750 cold-cranking amps of Van Dam Selling), and Grut in the backseat with the wrestler with the butt plug in him. If necessary, Grut can reach behind him into the hatch and pull out one of my golf clubs to go Nine-Iron on said wrestler if necessary, or if he just wants to have a little fun. That’s seven, but if we take Albert, he eats up two seats. Especially after we also duct-tape his hands and feet and Grut applies the Nair to his back and the Clairol to his pubic hair. If we’ve got Richards or Maven, let’s ask Bradshaw along for the ride. At least I can get some good financial tips from him, and you know he knows every good beer joint in thirty states.
Now that can be accomplished to the satisfaction of me, you, and the book company, not to mention Stacy and Trish by the end of this. We hope.
The stream-of-consciousness stuff I recommended last week was the best I can do without involving WWE. Obviously, TNA is out because we’d never get the f*ck out of Memphis, and all the cheap motels are in West Memphis, Arkansas. You know who comes from there, don’t you? Sid. So if one of us comes down with an urge to play lots of softball and to get a compound fracture, the other would have to beat him to death with a bat. Even in West Memphis, this would be noticed.
As for the indy sequel, I’d love to have Shark Boy around. He’d seem like a fun guy to party down with, for some reason. Give him enough booze and drugs, then snap pictures of him wearing only his mask and a leather G-string. Now THOSE would be great insert photos.
The problem with doing the Japan book is the lack of decent gaijins over there. Johnny Smith? Boring. Now if Mike Barton wasn’t back in the States, he’d be good for a lot of abuse, like why did he shave his mustache when it actually made him look like a man, what was it like getting the shit kicked out of him by Butterbean, and did Mister Ass try to peddle his to him. I’d also like to ask him what he’d do first: come back to Vince if he demanded reviving the Smoking Gunns as a condition of employment, or f*ck a donkey in public. My money’s on the donkey.
Hell, everything we’re good at is in there: anal fetishes, B&D (in tribute to our mutual enemy Shannon), violence, oversized genitalia, male whores, bestiality…hell, it sells itself.
(NOTE: At this time, I’d like to quote from 411’s Terms Of Use:
411mania.com contains entertainment-related content, specifically relating to music, movies, pro-wrestling, video games, comic books, and action figures. You use this site at your own risk, and acknowledge that, while every effort has been made to correct errors before they appear, this site may include certain errors, falsities, or omissions. 411mania.com makes no representations as to the suitability, reliability, availability, timeliness, and accuracy of the information on this site for any purpose.
So, in other words, if you’re offended by said subjects, tough shit.)
IT WAS A GOOD DAY
So, it’s springtime, and a young man’s fancy turns to golf. Unfortunately for me yesterday, it was drizzly and cold. So I played agoraphobic’s golf: fired up Links. I’ve been playing Links for over ten years now, and there’s still a few things I haven’t done. One of them was to get a hole-in-one. Well, it happened to me today, and I was in total shock. I was in enough shock that I figured I’d blown my good karma for at least that round. That was until I nailed the double-eagle on a par 5. During the same round. This is like a guy my age finding out he’s still hard after cumming a boatload on the first go-around. And then finding out he’s still hard after the second go-around. Well, that’s the way it used to be before Viagra, but you understand my meaning.
SOME GUYS SHOULD AVOID SHAVERS
Scott Peterson, everyone’s favorite wife-and-unborn-child killer presumptive, actually looked pretty good with his goatee during the arrest. Definitely the young, modern professional type if you put him in a three-piece instead of an orange prison jump. For the sake of contrast, Austin looks like a dork in his. Bald guys with goats…silly.
Someone made him shave before his arraignment, though (not Austin, Peterson, although if Austin’s arraigned again, and you know it’s coming soon, maybe they’ll make him shave his off too). Now, the guy looks like complete trailer trash. I think he’s more likely to be found guilty without the goat than with it. Well, he’s going to be found guilty anyway, but with the goat, at least he stood a bit of a chance.
(Author’s Note: I do not wear a goatee. I do wear a mustache, though, so I’m half-qualified to speak on the subject.)
A RIVETT-ING RETORT
Far be it from me to argue with Joe Rivett. I’m a fan of his work and all. However, his latest column was slightly…well, misguided, to put it politely. Let me respond to some of his occasionally tangential arguments:
1) Presumably, the South Park episode Joe was talking about was “I’m A Little Bit Country”, but it wasn’t really a debate. It was more bringing up the fact that, when it comes to war, Americans are hypocrites. Also, Matt and Trey were putting out a very clear statement when they had all the intelligent, responsible adults (ignoring Mr. Marsh’s jumpsuit) on the anti-war side and all of the low-class, perpetually drunk rednecks on the pro-war side (not to mention Mr. Garrison). So, you can read things into entertainment if you care to.
Oh, boy, I’d better stop now before I get into another of my long-winded “entertainment is an interactive process between presenter and viewer” spiels. Hell, I’ve done five thousand words at a shot on that topic before.
2) Let’s go over some quotes that Joe said:
Here’s a question, did the points that Christopher Nowinski brought up make that much sense to begin with?
Yes, actually, they did. He made a cogent argument against the conflict made on rational, intellectual, and understandable bases using data available to anyone who wants to read, so his points have been well-established in the media. Big Sump Pump didn’t present a case. He pandered to the audience and played on emotions. That’s not a debate, that’s demagoguery.
We don’t attack North Korea because they are willing to TALK and ADMIT they have weapons.
Huh? Pyongyang isn’t willing to talk about this stuff, and they sure haven’t come out and admitted they have nuclear capability. Their entire line right now is attempting to make it seem like they want to normalize relations with Seoul. Plus, let’s be a little bit cynical here: if Dubbaya’s pals were in the semiconductor business instead of the oil business, we’d be in North Korea in a heartbeat.
Iraq also harbored terrorism so bringing up 9/11 does make sense.
Oh, Joe, Joe, Joe…how do I explain this? “Terrorism”, first of all, is the wrong word. I think you mean “terrorists”. I’m not arguing that point. However, what terrorists or terrorist movements did they harbor? Was it al-Qaeda? Absolutely not. al-Qaeda almost certainly scared the shit out of Saddam. Any type of religious fanaticism not under his complete control would scare the shit out of him. That’s the nature of dictators. Hence, bringing up September 11th, which was al-Qaeda’s doing, is irrelevant.
Just to show you why you can’t use “terrorism” as a blanket for all such activity, let’s look back to the halcyon days of the 1970s. Baader-Meinhof and the Red Army Faction (whether Italy or Germany) were terrorists. They believed in violent action to promote communism. The more radical members of the Weathermen were terrorists (okay, I’m delving back into the late 60s as well; bear with me). They believed that terrorist action was the only way to end the war in Vietnam. Black September were terrorists; they murdered 11 people at the f*cking Olympics. They believed that terrorism was a way to strike back at Israel for the benefit of Palestinians. And let’s bring up the IRA and UDA if you want English-speaking people conducting terrorist activites. We all know what that one was (is?) about.
You want something a little more recent? Is March 19th, 1995 recent enough for you? That’s when Aum Shinrikyo released sarin gas into a Tokyo subway. 12 killed, 5000 incapacitated. A terrorist act. Their motivation? Apocalypse is approaching.
Five different sets of terrorists, five different sets of motivations. You can’t bundle them together, Joe. There is no grand conspiracy theory linking all acts of terrorism into one network.
Speaking of grand conspiracies, if you don’t consider the Council on Foreign Relations a part of the great international conspiracy to form the One-World Government, check out this website for a lot of great answers on terrorism and terrorist groups.
Also, support for the war is 77% according to the NYTimes/CBS poll, so it would make sense to have Steiner appear as the face on the pro war side.
Point 1: We’re back to pandering to the public again. If you’re making decisions on whether or not something that gets the larger measure of public support is correct, then President Gore would be a cinch for reelection next year while Dubbaya would be making plans to do Viagra pimps just like the last failed GOP candidate.
Point 2: Why Steiner? The man has one barely-active brain cell. All he could do was spout out platitudes instead of making cogent arguments. Even the marks think he’s a complete imbecile. Joe, if you’re saying that appealing to emotions rather than intellect, usage of symbolism in place of logic, and pandering to the basest common instincts of your audience instead of presenting a proper case for your position is acceptable, fine. It works. The Nuremburg Rallies proved that.
…this was a different and finally a fresh way to build heat between two superstars. It also was very slapstick, which it had to be in order to be funny.
Agreed on the first point, Joe. However, on the second…it wasn’t funny at all. It was boring, because Steiner couldn’t string two words together given the world’s biggest ball of twine. And slapstick? No. “Slapstick” is usually defined as fast-paced exaggerated physical-based comedy. Sorta like a Rob Van Dam versus Jeff Hardy match.
For those who think Steiner is too good for Nowinski and 3 Minute Warning, then I guess you are the most hypocritical Net nerds in the world because all I hear is that top guys should be working with lower guys, but then when it happens, it isn’t right.
Agreed on the hypocrite thing, but I think that Nowinski is too good for Big Sump Pump and Three-Moron Warning. I love the guy, and I want to see him in a better feud than this shit. Hell, they’ve got enough mid-card faces for him to f*ck around with right now. Spike Dudley or, God help us all, Jeff Hardy would give Harvard more rub than Big Sump Pump ever could, and God knows the matches would be better.
Hey, Joe, someone has to have a liberal bias here, and it might as well be the person who made it safe at 411 to admit that they’re liberal.
THE PIMP SECTION
The latest Matt presentation of Raul D. Dice’s column is up, and he decides to Gimmick Infringe me by doing Mailbag. However, Matt says that these pimps are bumping traffic up, so I’ll keep doing it. Well, next week, anyway.
You know, I don’t think I’ve ever pimped Poffel. That’s weird. I thought I did everybody here, but guess not.
Nason only gets one pimp this week, and I decided that it would be for the feature column and not the Indy Update…damn.
(One point about the first column, though: a number of years ago, Da Meltz made an assertion that the core audience for wrestling (WWF and WCW separately, since they appealed to different demographics) was a 3.0. This does mean two things: 1) The casual TV audience has abandoned wrestling almost completely and 2) WWE is not appealing to the former WCW audience, despite Flair, the NWO, Big Sump Pump, Goldberg, etc. The fault for this lies completely on the creative end, and, you’re right, that ain’t gonna change any time soon.)
Syl isn’t obscurantist enough for me this week, and I’ll leave the agreement phase of his article to Hyatte, the only man who can do it justice.
However, there is something that I can do justice to…
THE SHORT FORM
Yes, folks, it takes a whole boatload of cynicism and lots of pills to get through Raw these days, and aren’t we all lucky that I’m in that situation?
Match Results:
Chris Jericho over Novocaine Helms (Submission, Walls of Jericho): Thank you, Mister Flair. Your check is in the mail. No thank you, booking team, for curtain-jerking Jericho. Your anthrax is in the mail.
Rodney Mack over Some Guy Named Evans (Pinfall, Who Cares?): Five f*ckin’ snowflakes for having a jobber match on Raw. Minus five f*ckin’ snowflakes for having Rodney Mack involved. Also, I’m sure that 1bullshit will tell us quicker than lightning who the local guy was, but I’m not going there to find out, and neither should you. WidShish will reprint it here as soon as they put it up. One more thing: Slick Rick thinks the angle can work coming from Coachman. If he ends up joining Long’s stable after Ross comes back, then it really could work.
Test and Big Sump Pump over Three-Moron Warning (Pinfall, Steiner pins…one of them, reverse DDT): Oh, My Beautiful and Beloved, why did you let HIM touch you? Why HIM? I’m going to have to spray you down with Lysol when you come back to daddy. I can’t afford to be contaminated. To quote Slick Rick yet again: “They’re extending the Stacy/Test/Steiner thing specifically to piss YOU off, Eric. I can’t think of another logical reason…” I’ll agree.
Trip vs. Booker, World Title Match (ND, PPV Pimp): Let’s face it, until the match degenerated for the purpose of promotion, it was going along pretty well. We can be cynical for a moment and say that Trip was only looking good for the benefit of his palsy-walsy Michaels. However, if he puts in that much good effort into actually making someone look good (which he, shockingly, did for Booker), let Michaels or Nash ref all his f*cking matches. In the eyes of a lot of marks, Booker became a major threat
Angle Developments
Memo To Jerry Lawler: Nobody gives a rat’s ass anymore if you’re a face announcer, a heel announcer, a horny old goat, an Alzheimer’s patient, or all of the above. Give it up.
And The Word “Lawsuit” Wasn’t Mentioned: You know, every time I see Flair and Bisch in a room alone, I think that they’re going to beat the living shit out of each other to finally take out the frustrations of a few years ago. So, it’s really disappointing to see Flair go batshit about a special guest ref and not about how he got f*cked by Bisch during the WCW days. Of course, if you could get Flair and FatDust into a room together…
HLA = Hot Lita Action: In the real world, this would prompt a sexual harassment suit so fast that Bisch’s head would spin. I really do think that reviving HLA would have been a helluva lot better, especially for the horny adolescent males of all ages in the audience. That pretty much means all of us except for Bob Ryder. So why not?
“F L _ X…I’ll Buy A Vowel…”: Damn you, Atlanta. Damn you for those face pops. He actually has to go out there and purposely antagonize you in order to get a heel reaction. In fact, no one out there is booing him on his entrance. I may have to revert. Believe me, you don’t want me to do that. As for the concert, back to Links I went. Five under at Riviera is a helluva lot better than seeing this shit.
That being said, the ending sure gave away the result at Backlash, as if we didn’t know it already. And Gillberg had better NOT be a one-shot. Keep him around to antagonize the big guys, or team him up with Novocaine. Call them the Delusions of Grandeur or something. Just keep Gillberg around.
Call AAA: I’ll leave the automotive comments to the Ravin’ Cajun: Well, we knew Goldberg couldn’t drive a racecar. Now we know he can’t handle a stick either. Yet another unintentionally funny moment provided by someone in a car on RAW. Of course, Slick Rick got a little more morbid: I was hoping Goldberg would put his fist through the limo window again like an idiot. Anything at this point, guys.
Coda: Riviera is my bitch, folks. Oh, yeah, what content I did see…Apparently Goldie did, indeed, go to a pay phone, called AAA, then came back to watch the rest of the show while he’s waiting for a tow. Also, he took four less chair shots than Foley did from The Rock. What a pussy.
Oh, God, this went a little longer than I thought (thank you, Rivett). Tomorrow…well, Mailbag for certain, bitching at Ashish’s ratings write-up, Smackdown Somewhat Spoiled, and whatever other crap comes along.
About Eric Szulczewski
