The Midnight News
That Ray Gordy Fella seen last leaving with Trish will next be seen in the company of Orlando Jordan. it just seems to fit.
Kristie
Hey! Another female reader! I've got more of those than ANYONE else!!
And I don't think "Jack" was Ray Gordy.
Anyway, hello Feinstein admirers. I'm Chris and this is the Midnight News. I showed up last week. I did. I felt bad about not doing a Monday column
so I went ahead and recapped Raw! It took me two days, because I am really a lazy, lazy fuck, but I did it... it's there, and you can enjoy it. Fun times. Not the hard-core brutal stuff I was good for a few years ago, but still not bad.
This week, back to business... so let's get down to it.
ME ORDERING THIS THING WAS AGAINST THE ODDS
But I ordered it anyway. Yeah, I did. I just had to see that three-way. I had to see what all the fuss was about.
You can go elsewhere to read the results. No one has ever accused me of being Mr. In-Depth recapping... so a few observations.
-Does that fat Canadian slob who also books TNA, Scotty D'Amore always gives himself as much PPV screen time as he did during this show?
-Christian pulled up in a Porsche, which is almost free advertising for the workers to send their tapes to the WWE the moment they can.
-It's not good that I used the opening Naturals/Strong & Aries match to play a Briana Banks porn tape.
-Jay Lethal won a four man X-Division match, which means nothing since Samoa Joe, the guy lethal will presumably be challenging, obliterated the poor kid on Impact a few weeks ago.
-Rhino's STUPID, STEREOTYPICAL rasslin' promo where he growls about growing up in the bad side of Detroit was further ruined when Larry Zbyzko interrupted him and told him not to interfere in the main event, which made no sense at all since Rhino was focused on Abyss at the time and isn't anywhere near a main event title program right now.
-Jeremy Borash is taking wardrobe lessons from Jeff Jarrett and deserves to look like a tool for it... and DOES look like a tool... and IS a tool... and he deserves to be raped by a horse.
-All you need to know about where TNA's head is at is by watching the James Gang/LAX video package... the most lavishly, detailed, well-produced video of the show
-Billy Gunn wears pig tails and truly thinks it works.
-I always pictured Homicide to be bigger. That Mafia asshoel must be a fuckin' midget to be scared off by this guy.
-Bob Armstrong, who damn near fell apart just walking across the ring, scared off Konan. You can't even count the numbers of things wrong with that.
-I didn't even care about the tag team title match. This purchase looks to be a huger mistake and I will take it out on them when I Mop-Up Impact next week.
-Then Rhino and Abyss had a HELL of a good brawl. I don't care for Rhino and I think Abyss is a permed up joke and fuckin' James Mitchell NEEDS to die... but god DAMN I liked that throw-down.
-The Three Way match was exactly what everyone has been screaming about... it was good and hard and real and brutal and exciting and I enjoyed it.
-EXCEPT... the sheer illogic of it all. AJ Styles and Chris Daniels should have ganged up on Samoa Joe from the get-go and NEVER have stopped... this should've been a handi-capped match... instead, and for no REAL GOOD reason... they all fought each other equally. Daniels and Styles are NOT mortal enemies... they've never been booked at HATING each other... but they both hate Samoa Joe... so why fight each other when the Monster who has never been beaten and promised to end both of their careers is right there? STUPID, STUPID, STUPID
-AND... they wrote themselves into a corner with Joe. Either he steps up and challenges the heavyweights, or it's a few more months of these three going at it.
-I'd order a PPV with Joe vs Monty Brown... that would be fun.
-I'm tired of the Dudleys. I can see why the WWE wasn't too fired up to re-sign them
-After a sluggish match which featured a RIDICULOUS glom onto the 1997 Survivor Series (ask WCW about piggybacking yourself to a different angle from a different company... ask WCW just how alluding to a WWE angle only makes you look as second rate as you are), Christian beat Jeff Jarrett for the NWA title. Which, in my opinion, didn't do a thing to elevate Christian as a main eventer... it only reminded me that the NWA title, which used to be the most prestigious belt in all of wrestling... is now being passed around by former WWEers who held second and third tier WWE belts like the Inter-continental belt, the European belt, and the Hardcore belt.
Seriously, this belt became meaningless once Rhino won it.
But the ring filling up with fans as Christain held it up was nice... and his wife is hot too.
So, two matches ROCKED... one of them surprised the shit out of me... AJ Styles should be doing more... Chris Daniels looks out-classed... Joe is booked VERY well... Abyss and Rhino surprised the shit out of me... and really, unless they hire a new Heel, Jarrett really is the only guy this company has to be the primary asshole.
Not a bad show, but I'm thinking twice before getting another one until after the $50 Wrestlemania.
HIS A-HOLE LIVES UP TO HIS NAME
Every so often, someone sends me something that makes for killer filler. Less work for me + plenty of column for you = Everyone happy!
Hey Chris,
Been Reading you for a while. A friend of mine and I came up with an idea for a new project for Chris Kaynon, now that he is out of the closet. Thought you'd like to see what we came up with.
Kevin
Week 1
From TV Guide:
9:00 Pm PST
Ch 32 - [MTV] "Tapping Out" - PREMIER
Host Chris Kaynon, (Monday Nitro, Monday Night Raw, 2005 GLAAD Awards), Takes a look at the lifestyle of a gay professional wrestler throw the eye of the documentarian. This week, Chris prepares for a match against long time lover, Scott Levy (AKA Raven), and the emotional repercussions of pretending to hate someone you love so much.
Week 2
From TV Guide:
9:00 Pm PST
Ch 32 - [MTV] "Tapping Out"
Host Chris Kaynon, (Monday Nitro, Monday Night Raw, 2005 GLAAD Awards), Second episode follows gay pro wrestler Chris "Champagne" Kanyon to an independent show in New Jersey,where he must confront his fears about working in a homo- phobic locker room. Guest stars Jasmin St. Claire, Blue Meanie, Tony Hawk and Bruno Sammartino
Week 3
From TV Guide:
9:00 Pm PST
Ch 32 - [MTV] "Tapping Out"
Host Chris Kaynon, (Monday Nitro, Monday Night Raw, 2005 GLAAD Awards), Heartbreak awaits, as Chris and Raven await test results after a match with a veteran exposes all three to a harmful blood-born illness. Guests - Juventude Gurrera , "Cowboy" Bob Orton
Week 4
From TV Guide:
9:00 Pm PST
Ch 32 - [MTV] "Tapping Out"
Host Chris Kanyon, (Monday Nitro, Monday Night Raw, 2005 GLAAD Awards), A bitter feud between Chris and his partner's former straight lover Missy Hyatt erupts into a backstage tussle at a Philadelphia wrestling show. A mutual confidant must step in to sort out the tears. Guests: Missy Hyatt, Rob Feinstein, and a special appearance by Jimmy Valiant.
Week 5
From TV Guide:
9:00 Pm PST
Ch 32 - [MTV] "Tapping Out"
Host Chris Kanyon, (Monday Nitro, Monday Night Raw, 2005 GLAAD Awards), Chris Competes in a battle royal in Puerto Rico. Guests : Fab 5 From "Queer Eye", Carlos Colon, Abdulla the Butcher
Week 6
From TV Guide:
9:00 Pm PST
Ch 32 - [MTV] "Tapping Out"
Host Chris Kaynon, (Monday Nitro, Monday Night Raw, 2005 GLAAD Awards), A chance encounter with a longtime object of his desire leaves Chris questioning whether or not Scott is really "the one." Special guest: Amish Roadkill
Thank you Kevin. Came in handy at 4:30 am Monday morning.
SCHERER AND SCHERER ALIKE
Okay so two weeks ago I went into Dave Scherer's latest low-rent attempt to get some money out of you... that being his PWInsiderXtra site.
And yes, it IS low-rent... fucking low-rent. Nothing but columns from assholes you've never heard of and plenty of pop-ups and Spyware-friendly programs await you... unless you pay a premium to get in for free.
And blogs... Dave Scherer, Buck Woodward, and Mike Johnson are now posting blogs.
Because.... you know... we really, REALLY want to read Buck Woodward's "take" on 80's metal.
But Scherer is the ringleader here. He's the douchebag running this show. And he's always full of shit.
No, really... he's full of shit and I have proof.
You see, it struck me about Dave Scherer. Everything he says is suspect. Everything he talks about, when its not about wrestling, is reeking of bullshit.
How do I know this? Because Dave Scherer's life ALWAYS has a happy ending. Everything Dave Scherer tells us, every idea he has, everything is ALWAYS a rousing success. Dave never fails. Dave never loses. Everything Dave touches turns to gold.
If Dave takes a stand against Vince McMahon, if Dave speaks "the truth" that Vince doesn't want the Internet to hear, Dave becomes the most HATED man in the WWE... his voice carries influence, his voice speaks for the FANS... a rousing success.
When Dave left Bob Ryder's 1wrestling and started up pwinsider. Fans WHIPPED out their credit cards to sign up! Dave's site became the MOST POPULAR WRESTLING WEBSITE OF ALL TIME! No ifs, ands, or buts about it... a rousing success.
When Dave coins a new phrase, like "Shork" (half shoot, half work), or "Stephanie's Boobs" (WWE Creative), he has introduced a new term that is INSTANTLY accepted into the "Smark" vocabulary. Don't fucking argue... Dave says it and posts letters from peoplke who LOVE it. Dave's the funniest. A rousing success.
And, of course, when Dave decided he needs to lose weight and get back to the gym. Oh it's not a question. He is now the MODEL of physical fitness. He has lost the weight and KEPT IT OFF... he now looks like Randy Orton. A rousing success.
So, of course, in 6 months, look out for the column where Dave celebrates the IMMENSE SUCCESS of PwInsiderXtra. EVERYBODY has joined... EVERYBODY loves it. ANOTHER score in the win column. ANOTHER happy ending. ANOTHER.... rousing success. It's going to happen. It HAS to... it's already been preordained. Dave already has the "aw shucks, couldn't do it without you fans" blog written up. Dave Scherer never fails. He's a WINNER!
Which doesn't explain why he's NOT rich and his wife still has to work and pay most of the bills (true). There lies the bullshit. You CAN'T be successful in every venture... you CAN'T go through life without dissappointment. It's impossible. But in Scherer's world... it's the law.
He's a lying sack of sewage. As phony as the "sport" he reports on. 100%.
Anyway, he blogs now. And two weeks ago I broke down his first "blog" entry (about the NIGHTMARE that is Dave's quest for the perfect treadmill) and openly wondered just how long it would take him to "blog" about the one thing he absolutely LOVES to talk about... how he turned into Randy Orton.
For two years now, Scherer has been bragging and bragging and bragging some more about how he turned himself into a physical SPECIMEN.... how he dropped 50 pounds and rebuilt his body into a lean, mean CUT machine. The problem is, that Dave COULDN'T expound on it. He had this stupid WRESTLING to write about. All he could do was mention it in passing 90000000 times in order that we understand just how ripped he was. Poor Dave, for years he couldn't devote a full Lariat to how he beat the odds... to how he overcame all obstacles... to how he turned his body into a... rousing success.
Then the Blog came along. And by week three, after he sufficiently NOT talked about it (because that might indicate to the readers that he's a mark for himself) for the first two Blogs... he bit the bullet and FINALLY... after TONS AND TONS OF LKETTERS FROM FANS DEMANDING TO KNOW... he gave in and wrote the Blog he's been waiting two years to write... the Blog about Super Dave:
And it was in two parts... of course.
I remember it like it was yesterday.
Hyatte: Because he's been writing and rewriting this since '03
I was going down the escalator that cascaded onto the wonderfully decadent Harrahs Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City...
Hyatte: Where he BEAT the house at the Blackjack table... he never loses. Another rousing success
...when I looked into the mirror on my right and saw something that truly scared me.
Hyatte: My wife. How did I end up with this old bat? I'm Dave Scherer! I should be dating Francine!
It was some time in the early spring of 2003, so all I had on was a T-shirt and a vest. I never like to take a coat into the casino because it becomes a pain in the ass to drag around all day.
Hyatte: Only the hoity toity high rollers dress up for the Casinos! Working class folk like me and you like it CASUAL
So, as I rolled down the steps and glanced to my right, the mirror showed that that there was a lot more of me than there used to be. No amount of "sucking it in" could have hidden the fact that my gut had grown to a record proportion. When I got home, I got on the scale and was floored when I saw the number: 280.
Hyatte: Probably a lie. If it's 250 then it's not that successful a story, if it's 300 then even he can't sell an 80 pound weight loss. 280 is a perfect weight for this bullshit
When I had quit my job at Coca Cola back in May of 1999,
Hyatte: I told the Man to shove it! I am now fully self-reliant! Another rousing success
I weighed 245 to 250 pounds, which was 10 to 15 pounds more than I should have weighed. I am a large man by nature and if I ever get down under 230 pounds, I look like death warmed over. Some people would look at 225 as I did at 280, but for me 235 is my natural weight.
Hyatte: 235 is still a fat fuck, unless Dave is 7 feet tall.
Back when I was working at Coke, I was putting in 40 to 50 hours a week there, plus at least 60 hours a week working on 1Wrestling.com, The ECW website and writing for WOW and ECW magazines. There was "no time" for exercise, but at least I was incredibly busy so it kept my weight from getting too out of control. I worked a lot and was on the road quite often, going to shows and PPVs, so at least I hadn't become completely sedentary. Then, ECW closed down and I found myself at home, sitting on my ass, a lot more than I ever had before.
Hyatte: I would never step foot at a WWE show because A: I won't get comped and B: Vince has trained snipers out to get me! I'm HATED by Vince. He WANTS ME DEAD
Oh, I was still working hard at my job, but there was absolutely no physical exertion being done, and that isn't good.
Yeah, no effort in lifting those cases. None at all. My Dad delivered beer for 30 years and his forearms were as thick as fucking firelogs. Lying sack of...
In the two years that followed, I had gained at least 30 more pounds and was now a roly-poly 280, devoid of much of the muscle tone that I had most of my life. Looking in the mirror that day, I knew something had to be done.I decided that I needed to change the way that I did a lot of things, both in getting physical activity and evaluating the way I was eating.
Hyatte: And none of those high priced workout videos either. I will do it myself. I will do it the Dave Way! I bet he already had his Weight Loss Column written out before he took his first step into the gym
There was also a bigger issue that needed to be addressed as well, and that was my mental state. Why was I eating so much and letting myself get that out of shape?
Hyatte: Because you're old and simple and arrogant and pissed that your freebies went out with ECW?
With Coke out of the way, the magazine work gone, and ECW and WCW out of business, it's not like I didn't have the time to take care of myself. It's just that I didn't care. I had grown soft and complacent because I wasn't happy and I let it affect my overall health. My blood pressure was high. My triglycerides were bad. My cholesterol was rising to unhealthy levels. And, when I tried to sleep on my back, I had developed sleep apnea.
Hyatte: And I figured out all these things without using a high priced Quack! I am Dave! And how was my sex life? STILL AMAZING! No matter how fat I became, I am still a wonder-stud with a 9 inch penis.
I was becoming a mess. Why was I letting that happen? The answer was pretty easy to uncover. Around that time, things at my job were starting to unravel. I won't get into the whys and wherefores, but I wasn't at all happy at 1Wrestling,
Hyatte: All this money that I had to SHARE with Ryder
so much so that I was seriously considering life after wrestling altogether. I had about a year left on my contract and I knew even then that the odds were minimal that I would re-sign with them due to major philosophical differences that I had with one of the owners (and that isn't to say I was right, I just didn't agree with the way he did things).
Hyatte: This is the part where Dave tries to get himself over as a wrestler. Look at how he phrased that sentence. He sounds like Christian
I always had the idea of doing my own site, but who knew if it would be successful? I had to be ready to return to the work force if I couldn't make a living here at PWInsider.com.
Hyatte: HAHAHAHA Of COURSE it will be successful... a ROUSING success! And if it isn't (and it really isn't as successful as he says), I won't admit it.but I have to appear a LITTLE humble. Keep up the "regular Joe" gimmick
I figured a that point, if I was going to back on the job market at 42 years old, the deck was already starting to get stacked against me so I had better look as good as I can. I decided to turn a negative into a positive and the end result was a 55 pound weight loss by the end of 2003.
Hyatte: Yes I can! Yes I can! Yes I can! You probably can't, but pay the premium and let me INSPIRE you!
It wasn't easy, but it wasn't all that hard either. It just took a plan. Here is mine.
Hyatte: Been waiting two years to write this. Counting the days. This is the column I was BORN to write
First and foremost, I want to say that I hate diets.
Hyatte: Diets are for losers and weaklings.
I have always thought that the vast majority of people will never completely successfully change the way that they eat. I think that they eat how they eat because it's the way that they like to eat. It's become a habit that is very, very hard to break. Sure, people make modifications and can stay on a diet for a short period of time, but most go back to doing what they always did because they like doing it or it's what they know.
Hyatte: You weak, weak, weak people. Why are you on my planet?
Going on a diet often works while you do it. Then you lose the weight and go back to eating the way you always did, putting the weight back on. That's why health care people say that it's just as big of a challenge to keep the weight off once you lost it. So, I hate unrealistic diets.
Hyatte: Dave Scherer just discovered this. It's a filthy little secret that those money grubbers like Richard Simmons and those bastards at Nutri-System DON'T WANT YOU TO HEAR! Dave is now the most hated man in the "weight loss industry". He's spoiling EVERYTHING
Personally, I have always preferred behavior modification to dieting, and you have to commit to it for it to work. Diet, no. A complete change in eating habits that you will abide by for the rest of your life, yes. What you eat is obviously very important, no doubt. But I think it's even more important to accept and embrace the fact that exercise is even more instrumental to losing the weight and keeping it off. I look at it as simple mathematics. Diet with no exercise means that you are solely counting on the reduction in your caloric intake to reduce your weight. Proper diet, as opposed to a diet, along with exercise not only reduces your intake of calories, but also burns fat and thus doubles up the process.
Hyatte: And if any publishers want to commission Dave to write a book on the subject... well, as you can see, he KNOWS what he's doing!
For example, on a day you cheat and eat something you shouldn't, you can do extra cardio and negate at least some of the affects by burning extra calories. The real benefit is that adding exercise to your program (after talking to your doctor first of course) is also good for your overall health, which dieting alone isn't. There are reed-thin people everywhere who don't exercise and have cholesterol and blood pressure levels that are through the roof. Being thin alone doesn't always equal being healthy. Cardiovascular exercise is great for your heart and, in many cases, will help lower important levels, such as those mentioned above.
Hyatte: DAVE DISCOVERED THAT EXERCISE HELPS LOSE WEIGHT!! THE MAN IS A GENIUS!!
To make it work though, it takes commitment. When I say "accept and embrace", I mean it. It has to become part of your every day life, and as you get older, it should even if you aren't overweight. Why? Because there will always be a reason to blow off working out. You have to make sure you always find a reason to work out. I did and within seven months, I had safely lost 55 pounds, weight that is still gone two years later. It can be done, and you can do it, if you commit.
Hyatte: A rousing success.... a happy ending
I was going to go into my program, but this blog ran long. If anyone wants me to write about my workout routines, drop me an email and I will cover it in my next blog.
Hyatte: Right there... did you notice? Dave just set himself, and us, up for another happy ending. IF we want to hear about it... IF we FILL his mailbox with begging and pleading for him to tell us how he did it. IF we pull his arm hard enough.... then... MAYBE... because his LEGIONS OF FANS demanded it... he'll tell us how he did it.
People... no one begged. Maybe 5 people... at best... asked. He had the fucking thing written already. He created this whole blog specifiucally so he can brag. So he can crow about another happy ending.... another rousing success... he wants to put himself over... as usual... as always.
And the next week, he posted it... because EVERYONE demanded it... we NEED TO KNOW how Dave managed the IMPOSSIBLE.
And next week, I'll rip THAT one to shreds too.
Everything anyone has ever said about my ego... it's nothing, NOTHING compared to this guy. He's the biggest asshole in the IWC. He's a con man. He's a liar. He's a bullshit artist. He's a spin doctor.
And if you doubt this... if you doubt what I'm saying even a little. If you think Dave Scherer is telling the whole, entire truth and is a good man and a true success story, then I have one question for you:
How come he's never put up a picture of the new, improved, in-shape Dave? Where are the before and after pics?
Exactly.
TRIPLE H IS BETTER THAN YOU
I, for one, am so sick and tired of HHH bashing. The net is jammed packed with it, non-stop.
But here at DOI, youngsters with a gleam in their eye and a PASSION for landing on their heads and laying pipe on every rat they can get their hands always come here for the latest news and gossip. It is these young rasslers who need to know. Triple H isn't to be hated. Triple H is to be WORSHIPPED. And here is one of the many, MANY reasons why...
Triple H Is Better Than You Because...
He's arguably the all-around most successful wrestler in the last 100 years and he hasn't done more than 20 sit-ups since 2002
THIS HAS BEEN "TRIPLE H IS BETTER THAN YOU" STARRING TRIPLE H, WRITTEN, DIRECTED, AND PRODUCED BY CHRIS HYATTE. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
A FUN FACT THAT WILL MAKE YOU LOOK SMARTER
*American Green Cards haven't been green since 1964*
And just like that, you're smarter than you were three seconds ago
Hyatte LIVES to inform.
THE WORLD ACCORDING TO FLEA
Whenever we talk, I can always count on Flea to give his opinions on just about anything.
So, I decided to grab a pen and paper and start jotting down his thoughts. Everyone likes Flea.
The following is 100% true... more or less:
WHERE DOES FLEA STAND ON...
...Hockey?
The dumbest sport that ain't spelled "soccer".
Flea: The guy who every chick who's ever crushed on me goes running to to ask what I'm REALLY like.
THE INSIDE PULSE BOOK-OF-THE-WHEN I GET TO IT-CLUB
Flea: Only three writers in the world have ever meant anything, Hy-Ingr8
Hyatte: Oh yeah, which ones?
Flea: Stephen King, George Orwell…
Hyatte: And?
Flea: (takes a long, drawn-out, desperate pull from his bong – followed by a nice, generous sip from his glass) and… whoever.
Hyatte: Whoever?
Flea: Yep
Hyatte: Who the fuck is whoever?
Flea: When you know, then you’ll know
********************
Okay, now we get into something big and wordy and intelligent and meaty. I think you can handle it.
Back when I started this thing, the third book I selected was called Hooking Up, a collection of short journalistic essays from Tom Wolfe. The excerpt I used from that book was from a Wolfe article called My Three Stooges where Wolfe bitched at three mega-weight writers - John Irving, John Updike, and Norman Mailer - for trashing him and and a book he had written. Basically, they called him a sell-out and he called them old, doddering assholes.
So I thought I'd tell you about the book that started that little war. You probably heard of it already, and maybe even read it (HA! Wrestlers reading something? half of you don't even read your contracts). It's called A Man in Full.
Tom Wolfe, whose most recent book, I Am Charlotte Simmons wasn't all that well-received, mostly because Wolfe was deemed a bit too old to be telling a story around college life. Which could be true. The man is in his 70's, after all, and was perhaps a bit confounded by the wildness of today's youth. But that doesn't mean he should be dismissed altogether. Give him a setting which he can relate better with and his eye for detail is potent. Wolfe, who spent much of his career as a journalist and made his mark by the way he wrote of worlds and cultures that no one wrote about (I'd love to see him sink his teeth into the world of professional wrestling, THAT book would tell the story that has no one has been able to EVER tell), took his reporting style and applied it to full fiction. His first book The Bonfire of the Vanities, put him on the fiction map. Then he set about writing A Man in Full, and it took him 11 years to write it.
He explains why in Hooking Up, so I won't get into it here. But the end result is probably the high mark in Wolfe's career. A Man in Full is a piece of art, pure and simple. It's centered on a very rich, very wealthy, very egotistical Atlanta businessman, Charlie Croker, who finds himself in massive debt. His financial woes are explained very thoroughly in a "work-out" with his bank. A work-out is a meeting where the bank sits someone down and says, "Look, you owe us millions and we want it back and this is how you're going to pay us and if you don't like it, we take everything anyway." Since everything Wolfe writes stems from real life, it's a fascinating look at how banks go after power brokers, and how even the obsenely rich get treated when they don't pay their loans.
A Man in Full is Croker's story, but it's also about power-plays in high Atlanta society, it's about racial strife in Atlanta politics, it's about how Croker's financial woes ultimately lands a hapless factory worker in prison. It's about racehorses and southern arrogance and college football and how it all comes together... in exact, vivid, almost annoying detail.
And Wolfe loves to paint pictures. Almost like he doesn't trust the reader's imagination. That is his biggest shortcoming with this book. The plot grinds to a halt many times as Wolfe lays down the setting in all too fine detail. The prose is there, the characters come alive, but the pacing suffers. And only a few times does Wolfe show his age in this book. But it's worth staying with.
The exerpt I'm using for A Man in Full best covers Wolfe's attention to detail and gives you the best look at who Charlie Croker is. In it, Croker just finished his work-out with the bank is is in the process of deciding how best to handle it. He and his lawyer, called "The Wiz", have just flown into Croker's immense estate, called "Turpmtine". Croker is a little shaken up by what he just went through, his pride has taken a bit of a beating.
Then something happens which reminds Croker of just who he is... a Man in Full:
The landing strip was an alley of asphalt cut through a pine forest. It was almost a mile long, so as to accomodate a jet this big... What with the landing lights, the maintenence hangar and its asphalt apron, the fuel pumps, and the access roads that had to be built, the whole thing had cost him $3.6 million. He thought about that as the pines whizzed by in a blur on either side, and they glided in and touched down for the landing.
When they reached the hanger apron, Durwood was out there with the big Chevrolet Suburban, as promised, and Rufus Dotson, the black man who was in charge of the crew that maintained the runway and the hangar, was standing beside it. As soon as Charlie slid himself out from under the tupelo desk, he could tell his right knee had stiffened. He didn't want to be seen hobbling down the stairs, not even in front of Durwood and Rufus, but it couldn't be helped. His knee hurt so much he had to hold on to the cable that served as a railing. When he reached the bottom, Rufus was right there waiting. He was a short, squarely built man built man, in his fifties - or his sixties - Charlie had never known his age for sure - with the dark skin and gray hair that stuck out on either side of his head. He wore an old-fashioned cap, like a golfer's cap, that covered the top of his head, which was bald, He touched the cap's little visor, respectfully, with the thumb and forefinger of his right hand and said:
"How you doing, Cap'm Charlie? Lemme give you a hand."
He reached out with his big, powerful right hand. He was wearing a long-sleeved gray work shirt of a sort you seldom saw anymore, buttoned at the wrist, and a pair of jeans.
"Aw, 'at's all right, Rufus," said Charlie, who would rather have died than be helped down those stairs, "it's jes'at damn knee of mine, from playin' football."
Rufus chuckled deep in his throat and said, "You don' have to tell me 'bout the rheumatiz, Cap'm Charlie."
Mines's not rheumatism, damn it, Charlie wanted to say, mine's from football!
All around were the deep cooling shadows of the pines, which reached up a hundred feet or more, but out here on the hangar apron it was painfully bright. Charlie squinted. Mirage slicks flared up in front of your eyes when you looked back down the runway, and caloric waves rose from the ashalt. It made him feel hot and tired and weak. Durwood was ambling over from the Suburban.
"Hey, Cap'm," said Durwood. "Mr Stroock."
Every time Charile saw this big man and heard his deep Baker County voice, he just knew that he was the archtype of what the overseers had been back when overseers rode heard on the field hands who were slashing pine out in that murderous heat ten or twelve hours a day, not only before the Civil War but for a good fifty years afterward. Slashing pine was as hellish as working in the pulp mills, the way Unclke Bud told it. It drove men so close to the ragged edge, the overseers used to sleep with loaded shotguns by their beds, That Durwood could have lived such a life Charlie had not the slightest doubt. He was stone cold Georgia Cracker, top to bottom. He was one of those big men who are more intimidating in middle age than ever before, because their hide has gotten tougher and they've learned what it takes to be mean in a claculating way, which is the meanest way of all. He was about Charlie's height, a few inches over six feet. His head and neck were huge, and everything seemed to droop, his eyes, his cheeks, his nose, his mouth, which gave him a perpetual scowl. His beefy shoulders drooped, his huge chest drooped, and his belly drooped over his belt, and some sort of horrible and irresistible power seemed to be packed inside all of that flesh. He wore a khaki colored shirt with the sleeves rolled up over his immense forearms and khaki balloon seat twill pants whose cuffs rested on top of a pair of old battered calk-high boots of the sort that anybody in Baker County who spent time in the fields wore as protection against the rattlesnakes, which usually went for the ankles. Riding on top of his big hips was a gunbelt and a holster with the handle of a huge .45 calibur revolver showing. The revolver was for shooting snakes.
"Hey Durwood," said Charlie, "'zat First Drawl's foal I saw ovair kickin' up his heels when we was comin' down?" He said it mainly to get some conversation going, to keep everybody thinking about something else while he step-gimped-step-gimped-step-gimped-step-gimped-step-gimped the twenty or thirty feet to the Suburban.
"S'peck hit was, Cap," said Durwood. "Tale you what. If you'n Mr. Stroock ain't too hongry yet, ahmoan swing on ovair fo' we git to the Gun house. 'At's the biggest, kickin'est dayum foal - I ain' never seed one 'at big, not fer no dayum two days old, anyhows."
So the three of them, Charlie, Durwood, and Wismer Stroock, got in the Suburban, and they swung on over there by the stables and the enclosure where First Draw's big foal was kicking up its heels. No sooner did they get out of the vehicle than they saw five or six of the black stablehands and the two little Australians, Johnny Groyner, the stud manager, and Melvin Bonnetbox, his steerer, standing in a semicircle out on a whitish sandy road where it emerged from the palmetto scrub and wire grass into the open space by the stable. They were so absorbed in whatever it was they were looking at, they barely even noticed that the Suburban had pulled up with with their overseer, Durwood, and the master of Turpmtine, Cap'm Charlie Croker.
Durwood didn't take that too well, not with his boss having just arrived. "Hey!" he yelled out. "Cain chew boys think a nuthin' to do 'cep clusterfuckin' inna ballin' sun?" Clusterfucking was a term Durwood had picked up in Vietnam, where soldiers in the field weren't supposed to gather in clusters, lest all be wiped out by a single strike.
To Durwood's - and Charlie's - surprise, Johnny Groyner, a chesty elf with a close-cropped ginger-red beard, turned toward them and put his forefinger to his lip and motioned with his other hand as if to say, "Come on over and take a look at this."
So Durwood, the Wiz, and Charlie, limping worse than ever, walked on over, and right away they saw what all the fuss was about. On the edge of the road, next to a clump of palmetto scrub and wire grass, out in the boiling sun, was a diamondback rattlesnake, a huge one, six feet long if it was an inch, maybe seven... motionless... torpid...
A cold-blooded creature, it had found that toasty stretch of sandy road out in the sunshine of an April afternoon... and was soaking it up, oblivious of the growing audience. it was a monster, even for a part of georgia notorious for big rattlers. It had such girth that you could see its skin's entire pattern of big and small brown diamonds outlined in black against a tan field. The stablehands stood a respectful distance to the rear. No one dared approach the head. Rattlers had no lids over their eerie vertical slits-for-eyes, and no one knew whether they actually slept or not.
One of the black stablehands, Sonny Colquitt, said, "Hey, Cap'm Charlie! What you want do with that big sucker? Want me git a hoe?" He meant a hoe to chop the head off with.
Charlie stared at Sonny. Then he stared at the snake, which was a magnificent brute. And then he was aware that everybody else, including Durwood and the Wiz, was staring at him, Cap'm Charlie.
So he said to Sonny, "Go git me a crocker sack."
He motioned toward the stable, and Sonny hightailed it toward the stable to get a croker sack, that being the local term for a burlap bag. While Sonny was gone, Charlie took off his jacket and loosned his necktie. He didn't care if they saw his saddlebags, because they wouldn't know what they came from, and nobosy in Baker County was surprised to see a man sweating in the first place, Mainly he wanted to give them a proper eyeful of his huge chest, his broad back, his massive neck. Gimp or no gimp, he was still Cap'm Charlie Croker.
In not time Sonny was back with the croker sack. He handed it to Charlie. Charlie held the sack in his left hand and stepped through the semicircle of gawkers, right between the other Australian elf, Melvin Bonnetbox, and one of the new, black, employees, Kermit Hoyer, and advanced toward the snake. Step-gimp-step-gimp-stepgimp... and he walked as slowly and as softly as he could... pausing by the row of rattles... eight of them... still had the original button, or so it looked like... and now he crept on toward the head, and a strange and wonderous thing happened. The pain began to recede from his knee. He was now close enough to the beast's head to see its graceful heart shape and the sinister but beautiful mask of black that ran across its face and eyes, And now he stepped across its body, so that he was straddling the great somnolent brute.
He knew that what he was about to do was foolhardy - and he knew he would do it anyway. The only sane way to go about it would be to get a sapling branch and whittle it into a forked stick and pin the snake's head down first. But by the time he managed to get the forked stick made, the beast might come to and retreat into the underbrush, and everybody would just be staring at poor, feckless, gimped-up Cap'm Charlie. No, there was no other choice but the foolhardiest possible way.
He could no longer hear a thing from the outside world. A rushing sound, like steam, filled his skull. He was no longer aware of telling his sixty-year-old body what to do. He crouched, he leaned over the waist, and -
- a flash of white filled his brain, and he thrust hios right hand down and grabbed the rattlesnake around the neck at the base of its skull. With a single motion he straightened up and swept the reptile off the ground and held its head out in front of himself at arm's length.
He had done it! he had done it right! Right behind the jaws he had him! One inch off in either direction - one slip of the fingers - and the brute would have sunk its fangs into his forearm - but he had done it!
The snake was now six or seven feet of writhing bestial anger. Its huge mouth was wide open, and its two fangs, which were truly like hypodermic needles, were erect, and it bit at the air, and great gouts of yellowish venom spurted from the fangs, and its forked black tongue flicked in every direction, and a hissling sound burst from its throat. The beast was more than six feet of muscle, vertebrae, and ribs, literally hundreds of ribs, and it lashed about until Charlie wondered if he could maintain his grip much longer. A heavy musk, like a skunk's, spewed from the snake's body and choked the air, and to Charlie in that moment it was as rich as frankincense and myrrh. But above all, there was the sound of the rattles.
A chattering terror fills the place!
That was from a poem about rattlesnakes by somebody - Somebody Harte? - that Charlie had read in high school. It was one of the few poems he had ever willingly memorized.
The wild bird hears; smote with the sound,
As if by bullet brought to ground;
On broken wings, dips, wheeling round!
Smote with the sound! Full-grown, one-ton horses would bolt on you when they heard the terrible castanet of the rattlesnake. The sound seemed to be a trigger of terror built into the nervous system of every creature possessing the sense of hearing, including, above all, man.
Clarlie turned and held out the rattling beast toward everyone in the semicircle, and they all shrank back, even Durwood, as if the incredible Cap'm Charlie were about to march upon them and cram the venomous serpent down somebody's windpipe.
In fact, Charlie wondered how much longer he could hold the damned thing. Seldom did a rattler weigh more than five pounds, but this one did, and it was thrashing with tremondous jerks and spasms. On the other hand, as Charlie well knew, it couldn't thrash like a buggy whip, and it couldn't wrap itself around his arm. it could only thrash from side to side, in a lateral plane, and once its belly lost contact with the ground it was disoriented. The Wiz, he noted with grim satisfaction, had now drifted back a full twenty feet. He Who Would Live Forever had done an instananeous back-of-the-envelope calculation and decided that the vicinity of the Chevrolet Suburban was a better strategic alternative than anyplace anywhere enar that whitish sandy road above which a gigantic terror-chattering rattlesnake now thrashed in the grip of his boss gone berserk.
Charlie gave them all one more terrible look down the gaping, venom-spouting gullet, and then he flopped the mouth of the croker sack open with his left hand and thrust the head of the rattler down into the bottom of it. Then he relased his grip on the snake and jerked his right hand and arm out of the sack and drew the drawstring tight and held the sack aloft by the strings. The sack was now a hive of primal anger. The burlap thrashed about furiously, the clattering terror filled the place, and you could see the beast's fangs knifing through the fabric's loose weave and squirting its seemingly inexhaustible supply of venom into the air.
"Awright, y'all," said Charlie in a tone of coldest command, "c'mon ov'ere."
He started walking toward the Snake House, which was about fifty yards beyond the stable. He held the croker sack far out from his shoulder, suspended by the drawstrings. He'd known of cases where men had got bitten by diamondbacks because they let the bag get too close to their bodies. The strain on his arm was firece, but he was damned if he was going to ask anybody else to help him; not now he wasn't, not after having gone this far. Out of the corner of his eye he could see the others forming behind him in a straggling line... with the Wiz bringing up the rear. he could hear a couple of the stablehands going, "Unnnh-unnnhhh-unnnnnhhhhhh." It was music to his ears.
Charlie's body was gimping on him a little bit, but he didn't feel a thing. he felt light on his feet. he felt as if he was floating. he had... done it. And he was about to...do more.
Inside, as well as outside the Snake House was an absolute jewel of a little building; or that was the way Charlie saw it. Outside, its octagonal, almost circular, shape and its ancient red brick (meticulously hunted down by Ronald Vine) and its white wooden trim and its heavy slate roof made it look like one of those little buildings Charlie had seen when he was in Virginia and had visited Monticello and Colonial Williamsburg. Up on top, where eight sides of roof came to a point, instead of a weather vane or anything like that, there was the bronze sculpture of a coiled rattlesnake. Inside - and this had been Ronald Vine;s true stroke of genius - the Snake House's tiny interior was lined with what at first looked like some sort of lurid wallpaper. But then you realized the stripes were in fact rattlesnake skins, flattened out and stretched up vertically and touching, edge to edge, so that they created a vast field of rough, scaly diamnonds. Around the lower part of the little eight-sided room ran an ornate white wainscoting, and at the top of the wainscoting was a wide white-counter, and in the center of the counter on each of seven wall sections of the octagon - the eighth was devoted to the doorway - was a big glass aquarium, or, better said, terrarium, and in each terrarium were live snakes from the fields and swamps of Turpmtine: rattlers, copperheads, cottonmouths,and corals... all of them poisonous and all of them deadly.
There were plenty of Turpmtine employees, black and white, who didn't even like to go inside the Snake House. They had a sound instinct: you steer clear of snakes, and when you see them, you kill them. Some of the boys believed snakes were the Devil's agents. So the little band that followed Cap'm Charlie into the Snake House - they were quieter than they would have been if they were going into a Methodist church.
Charlie carried his croker sack over to the far wall, where there was a terrarium with six huge rattlesnakes, each one almost as big as the one in the sack, slithering around one another like the Devil making his appearence on earth in a slimy, moving knot of coils bristling with fangs and swollen with pent-up venom. Sonny, Durwood, Kermit, Johnny, and Bonnie, as melvin Bonnetbox was called - all of them hung back. The Wiz truly hung back; he made sure he was nearer the door than the terrarium.
Carlie shifted the croker sack from his left hand to his right hand and then, without asking anybody's help or looking at a soul, he lifted up one end of the wire-mesh grille over the terrarium and laid the mouth of the croker sack on the lip of the glass. Then he lifted the bottom of the croker sack up to about a 60 degree angle. You could see the snakes in the bottom of the terrarium looking up at the croker sack and Charlie's bare left hand and wrist. Then you could see the head of the rattler in the croker sack beginning to protrude from the sack's mouth. That head and those fangs and that venom were no more than six inches from Charlie's left hand, which held up the lid. Now more and more of the snake's huge body began to slither out the mouth of the sack. Suddenly the serpent thrust its entire body, all six or seven feet of it, out of the croker sack and flopped down its brethren on the bottom of the terrarium and joined the moving knot of slithering coils.
Ever so gingerly, Charlie lowered the lid and withdrew the croker sack. For a moment he just stood there and started at the seven rattlesnakes inside the terrarium. The biggest of them all, the newcomer, the monster he had picked up with his bare hand, slithered about among all the deadly coils in a state of high agitation.
Then Charlie stepped back about two feet and stared some more. Out of the corners of his eyes he noticed that the boys, including even the Wiz, had now stepped forward to get a closer look. So he reached into his pants pocket and withdrew his car keys, concealing them in his fist. he stared at the serpents a few beats longer - then suddenly threw his keys against the side of the terrarium. The angry newcomer struck the spot first, his fangs smashing into the glass, but the other six hit the same spot, fangs bared within the next fraction of a second. Everybody in the room, except for Charlie, jumped back, as if rocked by an explosion. Even Durwood; even Sonny; and the Wiz, He Who Would Live Forever, was almost out the door.
Charlie turned around and let his gaze run over the whole bunch of them, one by one, and then he said, in the calmest voice imaginable, "Boys, that's one damn fine snake."
Outside the Snake House, as they dispersed, the others were conversing excitedly with one another. But not the Wiz; he was standing alone, his hands in his pockets. Charlie walked over to him, and he wasn't conscious of any gimp at all in his right leg. he put his arm around the young man's shoulders, and he said:
"Wiz, I been thinking it over. I've made up my mind. We're gonna do it. We're gonna lay off 15 percent of the food division."
The Wiz didn't look at his boss. he just nodded yes and looked straight ahead, Behind the titanium frames of his bar-code-scanner eyes were open wide enough to take in the world.
Charlie Croker felt almost whole again.
And that 15% lay-off is how an unlucky kid in San Fransisco ends up in jail, and a worshipper of Zeus.
And HIS story ties in with Charlie's story. One of many satellite stories that revolve around Charlie Croker. And within these stories, Wolfe takes us into Atlanta politics, Old Southern money, high society, and prison life.
Wolfe is a unique writer. His incredible attention to detail tries hard to derail you from the story, but each line does its job in painting the picture in your mind. I read this book years ago and I still remember much of it, from the vivid description of the annual Atlanta "Freaknic" to the round, manly shoulders of Croker's ex-wife, to the suspenders of "workout artist" Harry Zale, to a good ol' fashioned country breakfast, to the extremely descriptive process by which racehorses mate. You read this book and you will remember much of it. That's a gifted writer.
A Man in Full will frustrate you at times, not because it's heavy or anything, far from it. It will frustrate you because Wolfe's attention to detail doesn't do a lot for the pace of the book. And the plot seems non-existent sometimes, but stick with it. You get a story. You get interesting, fully-fleshed out characters colliding with one another in over-lapping sub-plots as Croker tries to escape the inevitable bankruptcy. Croker's pride, as evident in the excerpt, is far from beaten. His ego doesn't accept what's happening to him. In the meantime, a black star college football player is accused of raping a white girl and the Mayor of Atlanta has a major crisis on his hands and a Senior Loan Officer from the very bank that is after Croker has plans of his own and dammit, Wolfe ties everything all together and makes sense of it. The story is there, the culture is fascinating, and the images that he describes to you will stay with you for a long time.
A Man in Full took Tom Wolfe 11 years to write, and put him of the cover of Time and got him on Letterman, and is a best seller. It won't blow your mind, but it'll show you a style of writing that not many writers can pull off. You may like it, you may not, but you'll never forget it. Give it a try.
And Jesus Christ... after reading that excerpt, who DOESN'T want a "Snake House" of their very own?
My name is Chris Hyatte and I won't rest until every professional wrestler LEARNS TO READ!!!
I SHOULD wrap up here, because lord knows I've given you enough... but what the hell...
TRUTH BE TOLD...
I've been at this for a while, yeah? I mean most of you know this.
And I have always prided myself on being rather observant. I see things, I detect things, I... I READ BETWEEN THE LINES...
So, while this may not be all that witty, it is what it is... truths... observations... FACTS that I have concluded, using nothing but my sharp eyes and my damn near brilliant mind.
So, in case any of you were wondering... I'd like to share a few hard and cold truths as I see them...
The FACT is: Eddie Guerrero isn't in Heaven or Hell, he's just no more.
The FACT is: Vince McMahon ONLY cares about his family and money, and not in that order
The FACT is: Independent feds really suck
The FACT is: Independent promoters have no imagination
The FACT is: Independent promoters don't run shows in order to build something, they run shows so they can pretend to be Vince McMahon for a night and order TNA stars like Samoa Joe around.
The FACT is: WWE stars have to do road shows four days a week in great pain and with limited sleep. How do YOU think they can pull this off?
The FACT is: The Wellness program will result in a few mid-carders getting busted, just for show, then will quietly go away
The FACT is: If you were in his place, you would do everything Triple H has done.
The FACT is: Feinstein did it.
The FACT is: McMahon harrassed the tanning booth girl exactly how she described. He's done it before only this time got caught,
The FACT is: I won't be sleeping with either Trish Stratus or her online imposter anytime in the near or far future
The FACT is: Your standard wrestling mark doesn't still live in his parent's basement. He has a life and lives it normally. He actually gets laid too.
The FACT is: Your standard wrestling mark IS socially inept and DEEPLY insecure, however.
The FACT is: Most of the people reading this are fat
The FACT is: Most of the people writing wrestling columns are fat.
The FACT is: Matt Hardy made a bad mistake
The FACT is: Frank Goodman so badly wants to be Howard Stern
The FACT is: Billy Firehawk has no business being in the business
The FACT is: Too many of you people use wrestling terms in real life, in front of non-fans. And look damn ridiculous.
The FACT is: Wrestling t-shirts are NEVER fucking cool
The FACT is: John Cena will NEVER be the Rock.
The FACT is: Canadians are better people than Americans
The FACT is: CM Punk is going to fuck up in the big time.
The FACT is: Paul Heyman took the money and gave up his dignity
The FACT is: Jericho might not come back
The FACT is: You have no idea what to do tonight because Raw isn't on so you'll spend it online waiting for results.
The FACT is: People should NOT LOOK LIKE Mike Johnson
The FACT is: If you have any self respect, you do not openly admit to being a rasslin' fan.
The FACT is: I gave up on getting anything out of this column deal a loooong time ago and now just do it because it amuses me.
The FACT is: People who call others a "mark for themselves" are just insecure babies who can't deal with people showing confidence.
The FACT is: You're not going to get laid if your mission is to post 100 times on 4 different message boards every day.
The FACT is: I could change my name and be writing full time for the Torch within 6 months. I'm that good.
The FACT is: Bret Hart will go down as the only wrestler who Vince couldn't buy.
The FACT is: Hulk Hogan is the greatest politicion wrestling has ever had.
The FACT is: Kurt Angle won't stop until his body goes numb and stays numb in the middle of a match.
The FACT is: Shawn Michaels learned that years of loyalty means nothing to Vince.
The FACT is: I'm well aware that I am mostly filled with shit.
That's enough.
Next week I'll have more, more MORE things to put in this little column o' mine. Feel free to read... or scroll... just don't skip. Click the damn column... who KNOWS what I'll have in here.
And I didn't write about April Hunter because I'm not sure what to write. I DO, however, find her new boyfriend interesting. He looks like a TOTAL tool. I'll think of something... or not. Who knows.
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This is Hyatte
Glorydog@cox.net