Private: Impulse
Now
Hard part’s over.
So to speak.
I’m not trying to unduly talk up Darin Zion, or talk down Rezin. Ain’t taking anyone for granted in this thing. But for all of us – the hard part is over.
We’ve reopened PRIME Wrestling. We’ve had our first show.
First two shows.
Win or lose, everyone on the roster has proven that they can still wrestle at a high level. We can all still go.
“Isn’t Rezin just doing that, though? Going against the grain and doing his own thing – that’s what you’re talking about. Why is his way bad but your way’s good?”
Well.
That stopped me.
Title. Hypocrite.
Yesterday
“I hope this will be sufficient for your troubles, and we can avoid any negative publicity over the incident.”
Seriously, this low level assistant manager (or is that ‘assistant to the manager?’) and his flop sweat are screaming ‘Please say yes or I’ma get fired.’ Fortunately, this is a very nice and very unnecessary step that they’re taking. And we like Gareth. No, neither of us thought to get his name just yet.
Oh, definitely, I said, biting the insides of my cheek and squeezing Rosie’s hand to tamp down our excitement. Ain’t no reason to bring any more publicity on this.
The elevator dings, and a pair of men in business suits step in front of us.
“Excuse me,” said the one. “You can wait for the next.”
I raised an eyebrow, Cally lifted her arm a bit and sniffed her armpit, then sniffed me. “We don’t smell,” she said. “No more than anyone else in this labyrinth of shrimp cocktail and regret.”
As is common courtesy in civilized society, Rosie, Gareth, and myself stepped to the side to wait for anyone that needed to get off to get off. Our two new best buddies, on the other hand, decided that they’re more the center of the universe than the Plastics.
“VIP elevator,” said Tweedledee, trying to block the way. He had about two inches on me but I’m willing to bet if we removed our respective jackets, he’d back off. But we promised Gareth no trouble, and I’ma stick to it.
“That’s fine,” said Gareth, as he ushered us through. “These are VIP guests of the MGM as well.”
Oh, this was perfect. We just got the eyeball. Tailored suits and spray tans don’t buy class, dingleberry.
“What’s your name, young man?” asked the more tan of the two. “I’m sure your supervisor would be interested in hearing how you treated a pair of high rollers.”
“Patrick Olsen,” replied Gareth. Patrick. While he pointed at his nametag and used the card reader to select our floor before handing the keycard to me.
Cally looked at him, looked at the two dudes, and smiled. They did not return said smile. I can only imagine what they were thinking, this woman with dyed purple hair and a good half inch of reddish brown roots, pink tinted sunglasses, sweatpants, leggings, and sneakers almost as old as she is is getting the same treatment – and just a little bit better.
The ride was as awkward as you can imagine, with Cally enjoying the view out the glass wall and Patrick doing his best to keep me between him and the others.
It didn’t last, fortunately. The elevator dinged and we stepped out, and Patrick found his inner strength and stood at the entrance.
“Gentlemen, may I see your key cards?”
“Excuse me?”
“Your keycards, please. You didn’t scan to get to this floor and I need to make sure you belong here.”
“You little pissant. Do you know who I am?”
“Nope,” said Patrick. “But I know who they are, they make money for this casino and hotel. Keycard, please.”
It was a glorious standoff, until they finally produced a card. Patrick studied it a lot longer than he had to, and finally handed it back and waved them on.
I didn’t think this day could get better, until our door was opened into, quite literally, the biggest hotel room I’ve ever seen outside of the Grand Imperial in Tokyo. The two dudebros opened up the room across from us, which, if Cally’s squeal is any indication, means our view is better.
“Dude! Dude, dude, dude. RK!” she says from somewhere inside. “We’ve got a bidet in the bathroom! My butthole can’t wait to try it out!”
“Hey,” said one of the guys to me. I turn around and face him.
“You don’t belong here,” he says. “These suites are for a better class and we don’t need your type around.”
I smiled.
Rosie, I called into the room.
“What up,” she asked.
Get on Jabber and invite anyone you can find to a little get together up here? The more the better.
“On it!”
The door in front of me slams, and I can hear them arguing over which one of them will call the front desk to complain.
“RK! Ria’s got an ocelot! And maybe a hyena? Can the fuzzies come over too?”
We’re across the hall, but somehow our very presence has ruined two uptight dudebro lives.
It’s gonna be a good day.
“Holy potatoes, I could get used to this,” says Cally. “Am I a bad partner if I say I hope someone else harrasses you outside in approximately two weeks?”
I laughed. Yeah, actual Rezin fan or paid performance artist – getting an upgrade to avoid bad publicity was worth it.
And let’s get the elephant out of the room on the word ‘partner.’ Rosie and I have been together for nearly two decades, we have no interest in getting married, and it just feels creepy to use words like ‘boyfriend’ and ‘girlfriend’ when we’re in our thirties.
We are not ALPs – we are not the Halls.
But at the moment, sitting on a couch in a hella nice hotel suite in terrycloth bathrobes after a long soak in the in-room jacuzzi? Her feet in my lap, a Lemmy in my hand, a Sazerac in hers.
As a tradeoff for not speaking against the hotel for the incident with the maybe-fan of Rezin outside on the curb? I’d do that a hundred times over for treatment like this.
The phone buzzes – Jonathan Groff from Hamilton sings to us, which tells Rosie it’s a text from someone she knows.
“Angus wants to know if he can get the scoop on the fight for his podcast,” she says, reading.
Pass, I said. Angus Skaaland is a friend but we made a deal – no talking about the incident.
“Also got an email from Steppenwolf, asking if we could do a quick Q and A tomorrow. Says we can talk about it if asked.”
We’ve sort of adopted Tom Steps. After apparently saving his job by rote of showing up on time before the inaugural event, and made sure to talk him up to Melvin Beauregard in our one and only meeting with the guy.
I’m down if you are, I said.
“Down from day one,” says Cally.
It’s all about compromise. This place offered a contract to a guy who hasn’t been on television in five years, gave him a kickass hotel room and then upgraded it when it really didn’t have to, with the only requirement being ‘don’t blame us for something that we had nothing to do with.’
Jeez, twist my arm, why don’t ya?
Now
It’s strange how different circumstances provoke different reactions. I’m usually not a fan of the photo op, or the company – sponsored event, or the press conference, since they typically involve industry people mingling, looking to pick up some names to drop at a different event later, or being herded like cattle from place to place.
Have to admit, they did a good job here. Steady stream of fans who want something signed or a picture taken, a few others off to the side asking questions. Nobody’s gotta buy anything, everyone’s just gotta have basic human decency.
“So let’s say you win against Rezin and make it all the way to the finals. What’s your ideal bracket look like?”
Hey, I said to the fan in front of me. What’s your name?
“Brandon.”
Awesome. Good to meet you.
The photo snaps, we exchange another handshake and he gives Rose a hug, and I look back at the reporter.
This assumes a lot, I said, so bear with me and don’t think I’m dismissing anyone out of turn. But we’re in the round of sixteen right now, and in the quarterfinals I’d love to step in against Hayes Hanlon. Rookie wrestler, new to the sport, nothing but emotion and potential. Would love to see what he can do in there.
I gave it another second of thought. Yeah, I said. Man if I had him in Brazen the past few years, that’s the kind of athlete I’d love to have had a hand in training. Hey, good to meet you.
A very shy looking girl steps between me and Rose, and we do the arms – around – the – shoulders pose.
“Can I…”
“Whats up, sweet pea?” askes Rosie.
“Can I get one with just you too?”
She smiles and pulls her in close. I swear, I’m good at playing the game, but to Rosie it isn’t a game at all, she really is this genuinely happy to see people.
“How about after the round of eight?”
Semis and finals, I asked. That’s a no-brainer. Brandon Youngblood and Nova. You want to be the face of the new PRIME, there’s no better way to establish that than by taking out two legends.
I held up a hand to stave off the follow up.
But I know that’s the dream, and at this point it’s really anyone’s game. Anyone I might face off with if I made it to the finals would’ve otherwise already beaten Youngblood or Nova, or beaten the person that beat them.
A photo of me in the ring against Jack Bryant and Jack Harmen from a hundred years ago is held out towards me while I sign it.
What I mean, I clarified, is that while I’d love to be able to say I faced off with the two PRIME legends in the same tournament, is that anyone that gets to the finals will unequivocally have earned it, and that’s really all that matters, ya know?
“But first, Rezin.”
Exactly, I said. First? Rezin.
“What’s your read on him? Do you believe his story about paying some random yokel to harass you?”
I’ve been waiting for this. And it’s not like I’m afraid or hesitant to talk about it – there’s just precious little to say right now.
Dunno, honestly, I said. I mean, as far as his style goes it doesn’t look like he’s lost a step in the ring in the years since we were last in the same company. I think he’s trying a little too hard to be ‘different,’ though.
I sincerely apologize for using air quotes.
“He has always championed being anti-mainstream, though.”
Another photograph to sign. This one is WAY old school – me and Xander Scott as the tag team Excess Impact from way back in the FWO. Curiously, Xander already signed it. I wonder how he’s been the past few years.
Anti – mainstream, sure, I said. But what even is that anymore? Rezin even said it when Simon first talked to him, the creepy, nihilistic stoner archetype is now just another gimmick that wrestling promotions use to sell merch and promote their athletes. But that he doesn’t need to be a cookie cutter professional wrestler… which, by what he was saying, is exactly what he does.
“These days it feels like it takes more daring to say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ than it does to declare yourself Enemy of the State with designs on taking down the system,” says Rosie. Emphasis mine, she didn’t do the air quotes. “There really isn’t a mainstream and an alternative anymore in the transdimensional sense, it’s just, do you look like the people next to you expect you to look? Like the homeboys in the elevator.”
“Homeboys?”
I laughed as we posted for another picture. Two guys gave us the pre-judgement yesterday when we were getting in an elevator, and looked personally insulted when we got off on the same floor. We didn’t look like them, so we got prejudged. But it was cool to see that blow up in their faces, and we can only hope it leads to some self-reflection.
“Hold up, so you were looked down on for how you looked and carried yourself by someone else, and then gleefully rubbed their noses in it?”
“I mean, they started it,” said Cally.
“Isn’t Rezin just doing that, though? Going against the grain and doing his own thing – that’s what you’re talking about, right?. Why is his way bad but your way’s good?”
Isn’t this where we came in?
Later
He really got me thinking, ya know. What is punk rock? What is mainstream? What is it to be counterculture and actually rebel against the system?
You can look at hair metal as an example. Is Motley Crue valid? Is Poison? There’s arguments to be made for both, but the fact is that the Crue acted the way they did because that’s who they were. Poison acted the way they did because that’s how they thought they needed to in order to be in the scene.
If I really wanted to make the brutal, no bones comparison, Rezin is a murder junkie. I look at him being loud, and offensive, and crapping all over Simon Tillier’s admittedly limited knowledge of the music. Rezin says he’s looking to keep the sport PUNK ROCK – but he actually means he wants to keep the sport stunted and unable to grow past the limited definitions he’s set in his own mind, either unwilling or unable to accept the fact that other people can have just as valid a direction or identity in professional wrestling that’s other-than-his.
GG Allin was punk rock, but does anyone remember anything about him but vomit and poop jokes? It doesn’t matter what else he did in life, everything beyond the scatalogical is a footnote.
If Rezin wants to be punk rock – if he really wants to embrace the Punk Rock in the world, he’ll never do so without acknowledging the validity of Straight Edge. Or that the Bad Brains had to deal with the stigma of being a punk band but also the casual racism that everyone now whitewashes from history. Or that the most punk-rock recording ever released to that point was Side 2 of My War.
Or that, if you know your history, one of the most significant punk rockers in the history of music is named Jerry Lee Lewis. Look it up.
Or that selling out doesn’t equate to making a lot of money, it’s making a lot of money by betraying your own principles for the sake of a fat payout.
And on, and on, and on. And based on everything Rezin has said or done since first showing up in PRIME, I think he’d be against every single one of those actions. That’s not a red flag, that’s a tour of the factory where they make the red flags.
Rezin should consider it a compliment that he’s a posterboy for so many antiheroes that want to take down the system and make a buck on the system’s watch. I wish – for his sake – that he’d have learned how to play the game some years back instead of doing… whatever this is.
Hopefully it’s not too late for him, since I have to say there’s nothing more satisfying than going from the van to the tour bus, all while making zero compromises. And it should be easier here than in most places, since LT knows all about breaking down barriers.
Because at the end of the day, the only difference between the guy on the corner, living outside the system because of bad luck or bad advice, and the guy living on the corner because he’s too punk rock to profit off the system, maaaan, is that the second guy’s poops get on television.
But that’s all he ends up getting remembered for.
Now
“Isn’t Rezin just doing that, though? Going against the grain and doing his own thing – that’s what you’re talking about, right?. Why is his way bad but your way’s good?”
I thought about it for far longer than you’d think necessary.
If I said bad, I apologize for misspeaking, if I implied bad, that wasn’t my intent, I started off. I guess the difference – which is the right word to use – is intent.
Pause. Photo op.
If you listen to Rezin, everyone in the sport is a mainstream sellout except for him. The cookie cutter superstars, that’s obvious. But the counterculture punk rockers are also sellouts, because they’re not legitimately punk rock because The Industry tm is making money off them.
Unless you’re an iconoclast like Rezin, that is.
Hands are shaken, a Rose is hugged, and we have a moment’s respite.
You know the real reason why I think what me and Rosie do is a better way?
I smirked. Because our way doesn’t attempt to tell Rezin that his way is wrong.
The next group of fans walk in.
That, I said, is the most punk rock attitude you can have. Otherwise, I’d just be a hypocrite.