Dehydration, Bill Shatner and Heel General Managers

I’m at home today instead of being at work. The reason? I’m blaming dehydration. See, ever since my grandfather passed away last October (the week before my wedding, no less), my dad and I have been spending more time together and communicating much more frequently than we used to. I’m not going to lie, I really like it and I’m pretty sure he does, too. The reason that I mention this is that he’s working on restoring his house, which was originally built in 1901, and as part of that he’s planning on added a 3-season sitting room to it. In order to build that room, we first have to tear down a part of the house that was added back when the previous owner had turned it into apartments. (He bought it in 93 or 94, and has spent the last 15 years converting the MASSIVE house back into it’s original condition)

We started yesterday and it was nothing like what I was expecting. First, let me get this off my chest, ripping up tongue-and-groove floor boards SUCKS. Especially ripping up the first few. After that, it’s not so bad, but still not fun. There’s also the whole “working out in the sun all day and not drinking any water until I was thirsty” thing. This was dumb. I was taking in fluids, but apparently not enough.

I’m paying for it today. My back is sore, my legs are sore, and somebody call a priest, because I’m more or less married to the bathroom. Not quite how I wanted my week to start.

Last week I was listening to the Opie and Anthony show on XM. It was getting close to 5pm, and they were replaying the morning show from that day. For those who don’t know, O&A broadcast in syndication on regular radio from 6-9am every weekday, then from 9-11am on XM Satellite Radio. If you’re listening on satellite, the FM broadcast is played there live also. The whole thing is then replayed at 3pm after Ron and Fez.

So yeah, the point of this is that they had William Shatner as a call-in guest during the FM show, and he was there to promote his new book, “Up Until Now”. I still need to go get my copy, but this past week has been  overwhelming with new house prep so I haven’t had the chance yet. Now, in the nerd pantheon of cool celebs, Bill Shatner ranks somewhere up there near the top with Gary Gygax, Richard Garfield, Stan Lee, and Boba Fett. Why Shatner is so great is in no small part due to him knowing that he’s a god in the nerd subculture, but at the same time realizing how silly the whole thing is. That, and he does a pretty good rendition of “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.”

Seriously, it’ll change your fucking life.

And as if this entry couldn’t get any stranger, I want to take a minute to get down my thoughts on something that seems to be running rampant in pro wrestling today: the heel general manager. WWE has three shows, one for each “brand”. On Monday night there’s RAW, on Tuesday night there is ECW, and on Friday night there is Smackdown. The thing is, each of these shows is treated like it’s own in-character sub-company, so each one has it’s own general manager calling the shots. The problem is that each one of these shows has a general manager that’s a heel (wrestling slang for “bad guy”), every single one. I can understand having maybe one or two, but all three? Not only is that boring and unoriginal, it’s also kind of lazy. I feel like the writers were farting on their keyboards one day, pushed a little too hard, and shit all over the script. Not exactly a recipe for quality television.

At least Smackdown used to have Teddy Long, one of the only face (wrestling slang for “good guy”) GM’s in the history of ever, but now he’s been usurped by Vicki “Only Here Because My Husband’s Dead” Guerrero, and as of last Friday Teddy has gone and quit (in character, of course).

Oh, and we got the house on Jeffrey street.

What the…

Apparently Chris Benoit was full-on screaming dog-nuts crazy. It’s the only justification I can think of for what happened over the weekend. If you’re not familiar with the story, it goes a little something like this…

Chris Benoit was a professional wrestler. Undoubtedly one of the best. He had something of a cult-like following, given that he wasn’t the biggest guy, and wasn’t exceptionally gifted on the microphone, but damn was he fun to watch. He always looked like a guy that could do serious damage in the ring, and yet you never really expected him to be capable of it outside the ring. I know that I was wrong there, as Chris Benoit was the third victim in a double-murder/suicide that he perpetrated over the weekend.

Both his wife, Nancy, and their 7-year old son, Daniel, were found dead, asphyxiated. Each was found with a Bible next to their body. Nancy was bound at the hands and feet, showing no sign of a struggle. Daniel was smothered in his bed. After all this, Chris used the gym equipment in his basement to hang himself. No suicide note was discovered, and the toxicology reports won’t be available for a while. Some folks are citing “roid rage”, but it all seems to be a little too deliberate.

Last night RAW was cancelled, in its place a 3-hour tribute to Benoit was aired. This was before the details of the situation came to light. Since then the WWE has pulled all references to Chris Benoit – including merchandise – from their website.

Wrestlers on the whole seem to have a low shelf-life, and it’s become fairly commonplace to hear stories about their passing. This was something entirely different. When I first tuned into RAW last night, I expected to see something other than the memorial graphic. My reaction was probably shared by a few thousand people: “What the fuck?”

A day later, with a bit of time to reflect on it, you realize that WWE aired a three hour tribute to a murderer, which is pretty damned creepy. Granted, it wasn’t common knowledge at the time, but… damn. It’s something of a shame, because I would have expected Chris Benoit’s legacy to be one of extreme technical prowess, and one of the biggest cult wrestlers ever. Instead, this is what we get.

Full-on. Screaming. Dog-nuts. Crazy.