Ok, I'm back.

I finally feel well enough to type. Plus Victoria said she'd kick my ass if I didn't post something tonight. Yeah, I know what you're thinking, that I'd want her to kick my ass. You're right, of course, but not posting would mean a random ass-kicking. I want her to show up on the day of my next scheduled ass-kicking.

You can't leave these things to chance. Especially with the month I have in front of me. More on that later.

So I did the wrestling show I mentioned in the last post. It went off pretty good. We had a crowd of about 200 people (which is probably only about 120 or so more than the fire code allows in that outhouse) and everyone seemed to have a good time despite the fact that Jake 'The Snake' Roberts wasn't in attendance as advertised.

Seems he had a transportation conflict having to do with arrangements from Sensational Sheri's funeral. For those of you that aren't Brian, Sheri died of heart failure on June 15th. This caused Jake to miss a show on June 29th. I'm not faulting anyone there (least of all Sheri). Just pointing it out.

No, she's not the wife of Chris Benoit, everyone asks.

Actually, while I'm at it I'd like to point out that I'm not really a wrestling fan. I used to be back in the 80's, but then I hit a point where I couldn't suspend my disbelief any further. Suspending disbelief is very important to watching wrestling. For the women reading this (and I truly am astounded by the number of you that DO actually read this) pro wrestling can be equated on EVERY LEVEL with daytime soap operas. It's been said before and it's absolutely true, pro wrestling is a male soap opera except in wrestling they replace the skin bronzing cream with human growth hormone.

But yes, I simply couldn't force myself to believe the story any longer and Jake Roberts factored significantly into that, but more on that in a bit.

I'd quit watching wrestling in the 80's and then one day in 1996, while sitting in the college apartment twin bedroom I shared with Brian I let the TV rest on wrestling for about 12 seconds, just to see what they were up to since I jumped ship, and Brian DEMANDED that I change the channel because “Wrestling is stupid.”

Mere months after that incident it wasn't unusual to come home from my workstudy job working nights at the engineering library to find every vcr in the apartment taping a different wrestling show on a different channel ALL AT THE SAME FUCKING TIME!

And the truly maddening thing about his obsession is that he wouldn't label the tapes. He just stacked them in the fucking closet and never watched them. Why didn't he watch them? Because he didn't HAVE to watch them because he'd go online and find out who was going to win before the show came on and then he'd check online afterward to make sure that the report he'd read before the match was right and all the while the pile loomed BIGGER...

By the way, he's aparently kept this whole wrestling obsession something of a secret from his wife Andrea and her family (all of whom read this) so don't tell them ok? I mean, I'd hate to take revenge for having to deal with his obsession by exposing it to his new family (hi guys!). That'd take some kind of real cast-iron dick, wouldn't it?

That's right ladies, cast-iron.

Awwwwww, yeeeeeeaaahh.

But yeah, he didn't label the tapes because he knew what was on each tape because of the way he stacked them. I'm not making that up. It's what we mental health-care professionals (and I technically qualify for that distinction, and not just for entertaining you mutants) call OBSESSIVE COMPULSIVE DISORDER.

And I know he never watched them for two reasons. The first being that I used to randomly shuffle the tapes around. The first time was just because I accidentally knocked them over and then after that I just did it when I was bored. I might have felt guilty and put them back in order, but I couldn't tell the tapes apart. If only there was some way to make the tapes distinct from one another. Say an adhesive device, like a piece of tape upon which someone could WRITE DOWN WHAT WAS ON THE FUCKING THINGS!!!

And the second reason I know he never watched the tapes is because on occasion I'd take a random tape and dub over part of it with scenes from Shakespeare's plays acted out with finger puppets and my penis.

The Scottish Play was STUNNING.

So I know he's never watched them because he'd either be horrified, impressed, or turned on (possibly all three, I get that a lot) and in any case I'd have heard about it by now.

But I eventually lost access to the collection apart from those occasions when I helped him move (which was often) and I had to help move the ever increasing mass of tapes. Seriously, like some 5 or 600 tapes in the end there. However, I did discover that his post-college roommates, Jay and Sham, were also in the habit of randomly shuffling those tapes, burying them ever deeper into the pile. And they never knew they were touching the greatest works of human literature acted out by my schlong and bottle caps with faces drawn on them with a sharpie.

Now I didn't help Brian move this most recent time, but last year I did help him move from his old apartment into Andrea's place and I DID see the box.

And that, boys and girls, is why the best revenge can't always be planned. Sometimes it just happens.

But if I can just get one thing across to the youth of America it's that revenge, under any circumstances, is just freakin' GREAT. Really, get out there and get you some of that.

And while you're out there, I saw this TV ad and I was so impressed with the imagery that I threw out my amphetamine diet pills and picked some up.



Strung out chicks are so hot. And they'll sleep with you for a night's shelter.

Where the hell was I? Oh yeah, explaining why I don't like pro wrestling. Hard to concentrate with all the goddamn BATS IN HERE!

Sons-a-bitches...

But yeah, I went from Brian and his collection to Nate and his collection. Now Nate's collection is a bit smaller than Brian's, but it's more annoying because wrestling is all Nate and Jeremy and Ryan and Adam will ever watch. They used to watch the same tapes over and over at the old apartment before we moved here to the ghetto. We kept the computer in the living room so I just surfed the net while they watched wrestling and thought I was tuning it out.

But oh, how wrong I was. One night, for whatever reason, I happened to hear the commentary on a match they were watching and I was amazed to find that I knew what the announcer was going to say next. I kept listening and I kept knowing what they were going to say next.

At first I thought that maybe the rapture had happened and the powers of the antichrist were beginning to manifest within me, but NO, it was something far more bone-chillingly terrifying.

I had subliminally memorized all the dialouge from all their wrestling tapes.

Thanks to them I now know things like The Cow Palace, originally built as the California State Livestock Pavillion, in beautiful Daly City California has hosted many a fine wrestling event, and I DON'T WANT TO KNOW SHIT LIKE THAT!

They fucking jammed it into my brain and I can't fucking get it OUT!

I need a video camera and a sharpie...

So all that crap happened and now I'm working the soundboards at independent wrestling shows.

Irony is a cruel bitch.

It kinda works out ok though. It's kinda fun to work on putting on a show, the people are cool and my knowledge of the industry terms coupled with my total lack of interest in what's going on in the ring allow me to do the job fairly well even if I say so myself.

That brings us up to July 3rd 2007, 10:00 PM. I have a headache. I never get headaches except when I'm getting a sinus infection. By the time I get back into town from my Mom's place I can feel my pulse throbbing in my eyeballs. I probably should have gone to the emergency room and gotten some antibiotics, but I was tired and hurting and I had a perfectly good bottle of Vicodin right there in the house so I drugged myself into unconsciousness and planned to pick up a refill on my antibiotic prescription I had pre-written by my doctor for just such an occasion.

I know I've mentioned before that I don't like painkillers. That I, in fact, distrust their use and try to avoid them when I can.

I've kinda been amending some of my chemical use policies in recent months. Fucking sue me.

Besides, if you're pissed about my perfectly legal use of my legally prescribed drugs after having made it past the story about my pecker starring in A Midsummer Night's Dream then that really says more about you than it does me anyhow doesn't it?

So I toss and turn all night, occasionally popping another pill (yeah, yeah...) and all too quickly morning comes.

By that point my sinuses, upper chest and left ear were all inflamed and throbbing. And just for an extra kick in the ass my right leg was infected too. Pop a few more pills, get a shower, and run downstairs to call in my prescription before the wrestlers come to pick me and my equipment up.

Now you know those stories I tell about how I'll need one simple thing but it seems that fate has set up a series of invisible obstacles for me to trip over and I'm eventually defeated?

Yeah, buckle up.

I call my pharmacy. Seems that sometime the night before I had called in the prescription using the automated phone system. It further seems that while my sleeping, drug addled brain was capable of doing this, my conscious (yet still somewhat drug addled) brain is too oblivious to realize that the pharmacy is closed on July 4th.

I take a chance and call the pharmacy at the supermarket and they're open! A stroke of luck! They'd be happy to call it in! They just have to call the pharmacy there the prescription was originally filled and get it transferred...

SON-OF-A -BITCH!!!

The wrestlers show up, we pack up my shit, and with nothing in my stomach but diet soda, my meddley of other medications and a half a bottle of painkillers I was off to the City Park.

So at least I was going to fit in.

But I got set up and I was collecting the music from each wrestler to be used in the show and I got to see a copy of the card for the evening. Every show they hand me one of these. It's a nice, computer printed outline of the participants of each match so that I know what music to play at what time. At each event they show me this card and then take it backstage and cross out and change everything. What I end up with is a completely illegible mass of scribblings.

In the past I counted on Adam to figure all that out because he was working the mic and he did a damn good job of it. Unfortunately for me (and perhaps society in general) Adam had moved out to LA to pursue his dream of becoming a game show host and I was (and still am) stuck without a competent MC and a brain that felt like it was stuffed with live hornets.

The guy I've had for the last two shows has done a passable job apart from the fact that he likes to wander away from the table during the matches and not wander back before they end. In about the second match I was doing my music thing when someone from the audience behind me had to come up and ring the bell signifying the end of the match.

Fortunately HE didn't move from that seat for the rest of the show. He was right on that bell every time and he paid ten bucks to get into the fucking show.

I guess the announce table is about the best seat you can get though, and hell, he was plenty happy. One of our consistent customers from the St Mary's shows.

Maybe I'll see if HE wants to work the mic at the next show.

That is, IF they ask me to do the next show. See, the new commissioner came out at the end of the first show and explained to me that they didn't need me for the second show.

Wha?

The second show, I thought, was why it was so vitally important for me to be there, and the reason why I wasn't either in bed, at the hospital ER or a barbecue. Well no. Apparently they brought in a professional crew because Jake Roberts was there. No, my ego wasn't bruised by that, I understand bringing them in, but they could have told me beforehand, you know? I mean, it's only July 4th, maybe I might have had other plans? Maybe they could have paid the professionals to do both shows instead of having me do one for them with the vague hopes that I might get gas money.

The money really isn't the issue though. At small shows like that there's not a lot of money to be had and most of the time I don't have to worry about buying gas. It's just that, given the circumstances, I think I do a pretty decent job and I'm doing in on a more-or-less volunteer basis, but these unseen 'professionals' are probably getting at least $50 (probably more) to do the same job I just did for nothing more than wanting to do it and do it well.

Around that time I was realizing my stomach was empty. It was also around that time I noticed we had a new sponsor at the show. And what are they selling? Energy Drinks? The most caffiene the law will allow? Well pick one of those bastards up and throw it right at my fucking head! I'm going in the back to meet Jake-The-Fucking-Snake and maybe hit on a couple of the hot-ass chick wrestlers that showed up and I'm gonna be as wired as fucking possible!

Now I'll say this, I've heard a lot of things about Jake Roberts and a lot of them weren't good, but in the back room he seemed pretty cool. I spent most of my time drinking energy drinks, popping pills and trying to find a good time to ask Mr. 'The Snake' for an autographed 8x10 picture for Brian. Thing is, he's charging $15 for the pics. Now is he charging everyone that much, or just the ticket buying public?

See, in all my sickness and pill-popping and such I hadn't been to an ATM and I had ZERO cash. Even if someone was to tell me he was giving free pics to the crew I don't wanna ask him for one and not be able to pay if I heard wrong.

Of course, I was going to have him sign it “To Brian” and if he was pissed it wouldn't be MY name he was asking for. If he asked for my fat ass, on the other hand, which is far more readily identifiable then I'd have been totally fucked.

Thing is though, and maybe everyone does this or maybe it's just me, but when I'm around a famous person I'm always worried about being the 'annoying fan'. Well I guess it's not everyone since there is the 'annoying fan' designation, but you know what I mean. I don't want to bug someone for an autograph when they're chilling backstage before the show or something, but I couldn't go get a picture during the designated signing because I'm the one person in the show that can't leave my seat.

So there I am, in the 'green room' (not to be confused with the 'blue room' from my prior post) sitting two chairs away from a guy I used to watch on Tv when I was twelve, trying to find a good time to become 'annoying fanboy' and ask for an autograph picture to in some way apologize for undiscovered puppet shows I made ELEVEN YEARS AGO from a guy that had the temperament (allegedly) and size to kick my ass if I really pissed him off.

Here's a list of the famous people I've met:

Jake E. Lee: Guitarist for Ozzy Osbourne in the 80's

GWAR: The whole band. See sidebar for details.

Crispin Glover: Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter, Back To The Future, Charlie's Angels

Zakk Wylde: Current guitarist for Ozzy Osbourne, Black Label Society

And to all that we add Jake 'The Snake' Roberts. Now the first three to enter my list I met in the same freaking bar in Morgantown, West Virginia, the sadly now non-existent Nyabinghi Dancehall. I didn't meet them all on the same night mind you, (that would have been one damn interesting night) but there isn't an ass among them that I couldn't kick if I had too.

Jake E. Lee, I don't know if you can really say I 'met' him. He plowed into me as he was angrily stormed off the stage and I shook his hand when he stepped back to see what he'd hit. I'd put 500 to 1 odds on me in that fight.

GWAR rocks. Really, best stage show on this, or any other planet, but I think I could take any one of them individually. All at once they'd kick my ass.

Crispin Glover? Yeah, I could totally break his ass in half, and had I met him AFTER he did Charlie's Angels 2 rather than before I could see it possibly coming to blows. I have a feeling that had I seen BOTH Charlie's Angels movies when I met him it WOULD have been a fight. I've only seen the second one and dear GOD did it suck. Back then I had just seen him in Friday the 13th Part 4 and Back to the Future and I liked those so we got along great. I even got to hear his story about why he wasn't in Back to the Future 2 and 3, but that's a story for another time. In short though, he was quite cordial and cool. In a kinda creepy way.

Zakk Wylde would tear me a new ass. He's not as big as I am, but apart from possibly pushing the limits of liver failure (and most likely too drunk at any given moment to feel pain) he's in WAY better shape than I'll ever be. It's not an issue though because I can't see any circumstance where I'd ever have to fight him. He's a hell of a musician and a damn cool guy.
And there I was trying not to be a dick in front of Jake Roberts, who might not be in the shape he used to be, but he's still two inches taller than me and is a WAY more experienced fighter I've no doubt. It might be fake fighting, but to fake fight you still have to know how to really fight. We were probably both about equally medicated and he's a full twenty years older than me, but ANY shot to my midsection would send me straight to the emergency room even if he didn't know it. If I would have any chance I'd have to hit dirty and fast and since I wasn't looking for a fight, hell, I liked the guy, I'd have to give him the edge there. If I pissed him off it'd pretty well mean my ass.

And that brings us back around to the reason why I had to stop watching wrestling. In the 80's, Jake Roberts and Randy 'Macho Man' Savage were feuding and Macho Man was getting married to Miss Elizabeth (another female wrestler who's gone to the big ring in the sky) and Jake 'The Snake' sent them a live cobra as a wedding gift. A cobra the leapt out of the package and bit Macho Man in the face.

At twelve years old I was saavy enough to the ways of polite society to know that the police don't see actions like this as playfull shenannigans. No, you send someone a live cobra in a wedding gift and they take you away. Even if it DOESN'T bite anyone, the only issue up for debate is what color jumpsuit to stuff your sick ass into.

I wondered for a while if the story would make a good ice breaker or get my ass kicked. I eventually said fuck it and talked with this gothy girl wrestler for a while (she was cute as hell, I'll see if I can get a pic). Jake did his match and everyone was leaving so I went upstairs to where they were paying people to try one last time to get a picture, figuring everyone is happy after they get paid, right?

Well I'm up there, Jake comes up there, Jake gets paid, Jake ain't happy. I won't get into details because I don't know all of them, but it was a akward moment and he left right after that, so sorry Brian. I guess you'll just have to watch him on your old tapes...

By the way, if anyone happens to have bought a big box of wrestling tapes on eBay and IF they contained some questionable content AND you also happen to be reading this; Hi, I'm Ford. I believe you've met my penis. :D



PS: The 'professionals' that did the second show sucked balls. I am the DJ from hell, and I'll rock your fucking faces off, bitches!




PPS: It's now 1:31 PM. I just talked to the guys and aparently Mr. Roberts was quite justified in being pissed and actually handled the situation better than any of us had been led to believe he would. He was quite proffessional, the matter was resolved, and he even offered to come back sometime. So if anything I wrote above was taken as negative, I apologise.