Armadillos

Hello Students.

Professor: here.

Before I begin on my little snippet of me for the day, let me begin by mentioning some exciting updating stuff.First...a BIG reminder to go to the grand re-opening, newly designed and still worth double my weight in gold (to know me is to know that that is funny) blog of "The Professor Says..." longtime friend Ed Pettit. It looks great and is one of the more interesting sites on the whole world wide web (that's wwww.cool!!!)

So check the blog: Bibiliothecary Blog

AND check out the also new Ed and Edgar section to hear all about Ed's adventures in the world of Edgar Alan Poe...and if you didn't know...now you do! Congrats Ed, on all the newness!!


AND...I know most of you are visiting Crystal Jeffers web page already, but I thought I'd let you know that two new songs have been added. If you're cool (and just by reading this blog...y'know you are) then you'll check it out. And remember, I've already given you the Professor guarantee that just by visiting the site you will get better looking and smarter, but just to add to that, it will work more then once. I recommend at least once a day. And check out her blog as well!!! You can also just click on "Blog" from the main site.

So...This weekend I went to Amarillo, Texas with some friends. Cool town. I had passed through it a few times and stayed there once or twice, but never really saw everything it had to offer. First, let me apologize for calling it Armadillo for so long. Yes, I knew that wasn't the name, but I liked pissing folks from there off. Now that I know people from there and call some friends, I will refer to it as its rightful name and not as the mammal from the order Cingulata, family Dasypodidae. I also have been told to call Jellystone Park by its real name, Yellowstone Park. And yes, I was told by a park ranger right there at the park. And embarrassingly enough for the people who were with me, I then asked if he could help me find my little buddy Boo Boo or at least a pic-a-nic basket. The ranger did not think it was funny. Anyway, I had a really good time in Texas, highlighted by some sushi, Hibachi and Sake (Oh the little things we miss out on here in Roswell USA) and a visit to Big Apple Comics where I got to meet some really good folk.

This week is racket ball week for me. I haven't played since my Millersville days, but I'm ready to get myself all black and blue in the name of fitness. I'll be getting up at the butt crack of dawn from now on hitting the gym and the courts. Ugghh..I'm tired, achy and grumpy already!

And for those of you looking for another Komikazee archived gem, please read on. For the rest of you: DISMISSED!!!

Professional Wrestling and Cultural Relevance

Say the words Professional Wrestling to most people with an education and you are bound to get some funny looks. Some people will tell you to grow up or just to get serious. So, after years and years of hearing these responses, I have decided to do just that. As Lance Storm, the most monotone of wrestlers used to say, “if I could be serious for a moment”. Let’s have a serious discussion of what Professional Wrestling is to us today and what it means in the overall schema of society.

Let me begin with providing you with my credentials for undertaking such a heavy task. I was an avid wrestling fan back in the eighties when I was a child. I remember vividly my first wrestling experience. I was flipping around the channels on the telly and saw Hulk Hogan standing in the squared circle against the champion, The Iron Sheik. I didn’t really know who either of them were, but I didn’t really have to either. One guy was tan and blonde and was waving the American Flag proudly. The other man had a Rollie Fingers like handlebar mustache, was bald and held an Iranian Flag. Not that at that age I even knew where Iran was, but knew I was rooting for the Hulkster. By the end of the match, Old Glory was raised high, Hogan was the new champion and I was a fan.

Every Saturday morning I watched religiously as a superstar would beat up some scrub. I started watching that “other” brand too: NWA. It was there that I fell in love with rooting for the bad guy. Ric Flair. The Nature Boy. The Jet flying, Limousine Riding son of a gun. I’ve had the chance to meet some of these larger than life performers, and to be honest, I love watching them on the TV and seeing what they are up to.

But enough about me and my guilty pleasures. The real question is, why do so many people watch this stuff? Is it only the violence? We all know it’s as fake as cheese whiz, so why do we care? There are, as my colleagues here write often about, many real pugilists who fill the airways. We can see real violence any time we want. So why do millions (and millions) of fans flock to this phony-baloney display?

Here’s The Professors take. Yes, we are attracted to the violence. We do like seeing people get hit over the head with trash cans or thrown through tables. For some of us, it’s a great outlet. Not being a violent person myself (anymore), I find that watching wrestling cools down the venom to commit these acts unto some of the people I know. For me, it’s enough to watch someone else do it.

But…isn’t it ridiculous? Uh…yes! It is! It is wonderfully ridiculous. But is it any more stupid then a Jim Carrey flick or a WB sitcom? I don’t think so. There are tons of ways to entertain ourselves with bad entertainment…bad writing, bad visuals…bad sound; don’t make me go through that entire list!!! So it is silly. How many of us have jobs that do not allow us enough silliness in our lives?

But there is more to it then that. I firmly and honestly believe that for a “low” art form, professional wrestling contains all of the ingredients that we crave and have craved for thousands of years. And to that effect, I would like to argue that professional wrestling is in fact the greatest form of entertainment we have available today!!!

Let’s take a quick walk through history together. Let’s go all the way back to the ancient Greeks. What were they doing for entertainment? Well…one of the things they did was tell stories. Yes, believe it or not, people would sit around and tell great tales. They’d sit at home or go to the pub and listen. And what kind of stories did they tell? Think about it. Are you going to sit and listen to someone telling boring stories about what they did today? Probably not. You probably want to hear fantastic stories about things you would never experience. So the Greeks told stories of heroes of war and great deeds. They told of myths and gods and things supernatural. They told of things we could only imagine. Incidentally, this is not much different than why we read comics.

Profession wrestling works in many of the same ways. Just look at what we have going today. The Undertaker, aka, The Dead Man. He’s not just a guy who dresses like a guy who digs ditches. No, he’s got his powers. When he enters the ring, he is accompanied by smoke and eerie lights. We’ve seen him shoot lightning from his hands and appear and disappear like a great magician. Then there are other strange mythical beasties like the Boogey Man. We’ve got soldiers and foreigners, masked heroes and monsters called Abyss or Umaga. They are everywhere. And unlike the old story tellers, we get to tune in and see them in action.

Something else the Greeks liked to do was a little something we call theater. Yes, live performance. They would get together at festivals and have theater competitions. Days and days of plays being performed and judged. Often these plays would have the same kind of feel as the stories: Great heroes and mythical beasts, lots of bloodshed, and villainous plans. What made these performances great is that they were live. Of course back then they had to be. But theater lasted the test of time. We still go to live performances today whether it be concerts, plays, sporting events, or live tapings of TV shows. There’s just something about a live performance.

For the most part, this is what professional wrestling achieves too. Sure, 20 some odd years ago, they taped the shows, but today, most of the wrestling shows are live. Live theater in front of 20,000 fans in person and millions on the TV. How amazing is that!?!? And…they do it every week! It is the live performance that wows us. Yes, sometimes there are mistakes; someone zigs when they should’ve zagged and gets a knee to the face. Yes, sometimes it is horrible; someone dives off a wall and misses the mark. Sometimes people die. Sometimes they mess up their lines and can not recover. Sometimes it’s funny. But that’s all part of the live experience we as a people have flocked to for thousands of years.

Back to the Greeks. You might recall they started this little live performance called the Olympics. This was great stuff. All the athletes competing in front of a live audience. And again we come back to professional wrestling. Fake or not, what these guys do athletically is amazing. Sure, they know how to pull a punch, but they also know how to pull it off and make it look good. Plus, they are flying around, defying gravity and making it look so easy!

As a final argument for professional wrestling, I would like to argue that it combines all of these things we have been watching for thousands of years. It is the greatest theater we have. It tells stories that are larger then life. It is a live event where anything can happen. It mixes acting, athletics and choreography. It does it all…and they do it every night.