Shake the ring ropes like a Polaroid picture

As promised, here are some pictures from WWE's "Monday Night Raw" at the E Center last month. Most of the pictures were taken by my brother Derek (his turned out better because he has a better camera, and he had better angles because he's several inches taller and was on the aisle. But I still had a really good view).

The ring, a few minutes before the event got under way. It's like Christmas Eve! Derek dared me to jump the rail and see how many times I could bounce off the ropes before security escorted me from the arena. But we had just been to Cracker Barrel, and I was feeling a little sluggish.

You may not be able to read the sign, but it says "Polygamy 3:16," playing off the late-90s "Austin 3:16" phenomenon, which of course is a reference to the "John 3:16" posters often seen at sporting events. You'll see several clever posters at most wrestling events, which is even more impressive when you see who's holding them up. As I mentioned in the last post, the majority of the audience is rather hick-ish (plenty of people from other races were there, so I can't just call them white trash). Unfortunately, neither of us took good pictures of the crowd.

This is from one of the two "dark matches," where the wrestlers who are either too new or too crappy to be involved in any televised storylines earn their money. Amazingly, the match ended just in time for the broadcast to go on the air. How convenient.

That's John Cena, one of the top WWE superstars today. See the shirt he's wearing? I bought one just like it at the concession stands. It was grossly overpriced, but unlike 75% of the audience, I didn't buy any $9 beers, so I had just enough cash. (Seriously, they were charging $9 for a cup of beer. Crazy.)

Cena ended up in a match against Umaga, "the Samoan bulldozer." He prevailed, despite this rocky moment early on. This was a picture I took--I got much better shots of the "Titantron" video monitor than I did of the actual action going on in the ring.

The biggest ovation of the night went to Ric Flair, who made a surprise appearance--his first since his "retirement party" three months earlier. Woooooo!

I'm amazed that Ric has stayed "retired" as long as he has. Even though he's nearly 60, no pro wrestler ever really retires--they keep wrestling until injuries force them to stop, or in the case of far too many of them, they die. Literally dozens of wrestlers I've watched over the years have died relatively young, often due to suicide or drug-related reasons. It's quite sad, actually.

This is Vince McMahon, chairman of WWE and, more than any other single person, the man responsible for those untimely deaths. Here he is on the stage about to give someone lots of money as part of "McMahon's Million Dollar Mania," a publicity stunt that ran for a few weeks. I didn't get any. Mr. McMahon is a heartless, savvy businessman who's brought me a ton of entertainment over the years. I have a love-hate relationship with Vince.

At one point Vince brought out Hacksaw Jim Duggan, another 50-something wrassler who refuses to quit the biz, to help him give away some of his cold, hard cash. Hooooo! USA! USA!

My favorite picture from the whole night. Hacksaw always carries his trusty 2x4 to the ring with him; on this night he dressed it up, and here it looks like he's a walking piece of wood. It's a considerable improvement, actually.

One of many ways Vince McMahon has made today's pro wrestling way different from the stuff your dads used to watch: this "summertime bikini showdown" (or similarly smutty segments) between six of the WWE's "Divas" is a regular occurence. Derek took a LOT of pictures of this part of the show.

This is Hardcore Holly, who reminds me of John McCain (what do you think?). By the way, his real name is Bob Holly; he's not just an extremely roided-up woman.

All of the Divas have the occasional match, but it's usually just an excuse to have them on TV wearing very little clothing. This is Mickie James, one of the few who actually has some wrestling training and ability. She's not bad-looking, either.

My favorite picture that I took. This is Triple H, the man who shared his Juicy Fruit with me and my friend all those years ago. He has one of the cooler entrances in the WWE. (When he first started wrestling, he played the character of a blue-blood, stuck-up snob named Hunter Hearst-Helmsley. His character is now a tough guy, so he goes by Triple H, which is kind of weird. He's also known as the Game, the Cerebral Assassin, and the King of Kings. Most wrestlers have multiple monikers, and yes, some of them are quite ridiculous or even sacriligious).

"Hey! You in the second row! Give me back my gum!"

The night's main event pitted WWE Champion Triple H against Intercontinental Champion Chris Jericho, one of my all-time favorite wrestlers (the IC title is a lower tier belt, sort of like comparing a AAA team (not Triple H) to a major league baseball team). When I first started watching wrestling, this kind of champ vs. champ pairing would've been a really big deal, but now it happens all the time. In the late '90s, when WWF and WCW were involved in bitter competition for the wrestling audience, both companies kept upping the ante, to the point that each week they were booking matches of the caliber that used to be reserved for the five annual pay-per-views. Overall, it's not as good as it used to be.

Here's Jericho and his protege Lance Cade, after the show went off the air, yelling at some fans who threw stuff at them. It's the kind of behavior that earns wrestling fans their redneck reputation, and also the kind of thing that might make WWE hesitant to come back again. But they perform in New York all the time, so chances are good that I'll get to do a post like that again sometime in the future. Don't worry, I'll give you advance warning. Thanks for bearing with me through my wrestling homage.

The Doublemint twins would've made a great tag team

It was bad enough that I missed last Saturday's free Bon Jovi concert in Central Park. (Why couldn't you wait until August, Jon? Why?) But I was also denied an opportunity to see a nearly-as-awesome concert the night before.

Journey, Heart and Cheap Trick were playing USANA in West Valley, and my friends Rhiannon, Adrienne and I decided semi-last minute to go, hoping to get a good deal from scalpers. The concert started at 7:00, but thanks to unforeseen traffic delays, come 7:45 we were still eight blocks away from the venue entrance in a barely-moving line of cars. Figuring we wouldn't get in until at least 8:30, and since we hadn't actually bought tickets yet, we glumly gave up on our quest (could've used journey there, but that pun is too weak even for me).

Still wanting to hang out with white trash, we headed for the local drive-in. I was unaware that we still had drive-in theaters in Utah. I think the last movie I saw at a drive-in was Honey, I Shrunk the Kids.

But if you really want to see a lot of mullets and guys in sleeveless shirts, there's one event that tops even a Journey concert or a movie you watch from a lawn chair in the back of a pickup truck, and that's pro wrestling.

In about six months, I will reach the 20th anniversary of the first time I watched the WWF. I'll probably run a week's worth of wrestling blog posts or something to commemorate the occasion.

Last month, the WWE (the new name since losing a lawsuit against the World Wildlife Fund in 2002) came to the E Center, and my younger brother Derek and I were there. I'm surprised I've waited this long to write about it.

I've been to live wrestling events probably at least a dozen times. This one was televised, so everyone sat down during the commercial breaks, then we'd all stand back up when the show resumed. I kept feeling like I was sticking to my seat, but whenever I examined it or my pants I couldn't find any sticky substances.

It turns out I wasn't looking far enough down the leg of my jeans. As I got out of my bro's car at the end of the night, I saw that I had in fact sat in gum. Fortunately, lots of picking and scrubbing, an application of WD-40, more scrubbing, and two trips through the washing machine later, my pants are none the worse for wear.

I've never been much of a gum-chewer myself. The few kinds of gum I've actually enjoyed eating have been attractive more for their novelty value than their taste: a wad of Big League Chew added some legitimacy to my backyard baseball games against my older brother, Bazooka Joe provided comics and fortunes along with the gum, Bubble Tape allowed me to measure how many feet of gum I could cram into my mouth at once, and the gum that came in packs of Topps stained one of my new cards and helped me know what it would taste like to eat cardboard. And yes, when I was a kid, I was a gum swallower.

Big Red is the only gum name that would also make a good name for a WWE superstar. Most of the new gum brands would make good American Gladiator names, though. Eclipse. Orbit. Stride. Ice Breaker. Five. Well, not so much that last one...but it would fit in on my new game show, "Gladiator, Gum or Boy Band?"

Now that I'm done trying out my new stand-up material, I can tell you about a much happier gum-related wrestling experience (I'll wait until the next post to put up a photo essay of last month's event).

Back in the summer of '97, my best friend Jerrett and I (we actually became best friends through our WWF fandom) decided to bring dates to a wrestling event at the Delta Center. The practice of elaborate, creative but absentee date-asking made it difficult for me to just pick up the phone, call a girl and ask her out (I actually still have problems with that). I knew several weeks in advance who I wanted to invite, but I waited, and ultimately sent Jenny Erickson a postcard from Missouri, where my family was vacationing. Amazingly, she agreed to go, and thanks to e-mail, when I'm too afraid to call a girl I've never had to use the postal service to get a date again.

We had second row floor seats, the closest I've ever been to a wrestling ring. Our dates didn't know what to think; overall, I think they had a good time, and I'm pretty sure they've never been to a wrestling match on a date, before or since, but they definitely didn't like the Godwinns, because they thought some of the hog farmers' spittle might land on us.

They actually weren't too far off: during the Mankind-Triple H match, the action spilled outside the ring. Mankind gained the advantage, and with HHH prone against the guardrail, the masked superstar punched him in the face. Hunter Hearst-Helmsley's head snapped back, and his gum flew out of his mouth. It slid underneath the front row and settled on top of the "It's Hoover Time!" poster I had made (a reference to the wrestler Vader, replacing his name with my high school nickname, which I may explain the origins of in this space someday--and yes, I brought a poster with me on a date).

Jerrett had purchased a pair of Bret "Hitman" Hart's signature wraparound sunglasses earlier in the evening, and he quickly scooped up the gum in the plastic wrapper they came in, and he had himself an unexpected souvenir.

Which is the bigger surprise: that I never went out with Jenny again, that Jerrett did go out with Anjuli again, or that Jerrett's mom threw the gum away while he was at Ricks College? Oh, if only we knew about eBay back then.

See you in the funny papers

If you're curious about the origin of that old-timey expression, here's a good resource.

I got a lot of comments on my previous, comic-filled post, and I wish to make it clear that I wasn't seeking pity or feeling sorry for myself or anything. I just wanted to preserve the humor in those cartoons before they got too yellow and faded--which is also the purpose of this post.

As of last Thursday, I am now unemployed, in preparation for my return to New York in a few weeks (I'm hoping to rejoin the workforce as soon as possible after I get there, but I don't have a job yet). On my last day, I cleaned up my work area and packed my personal effects, which included the only comic I have ever used as a decoration other than those pictured in last week's post. I got it from a coworker's Dilbert calendar back when I worked for Marie Osmond, and kept it all through the three-plus years I spent at Backstage Library Works, the longest I've ever been at one job. Here it is:

Isn't it great? It still makes me laugh, nearly four years after I first saw it. I'm hoping whatever job I end up with doesn't leave me feeling like Dilbert.

I actually don't read the funnies that often, especially since the greats like Far Side and Calvin were retired. I used to like Fox Trot and Sherman's Lagoon back in high school.

However, my best piece of "investigative journalism" from my days as a reporter for the BYU paper involved comic strips. When The Daily Universe stopped running Rubes, a Far Side-esque single panel strip, I stopped at nothing to find out why. (Holy crap! In searching for that article, I found out that I'm now a Wikipedia reference! How cool is that?) The only other piece I wrote that could've been considered investigative was when I reported on the practice of BYU students making Las Vegas gambling junkets--and I only wrote that because I hoped it would inspire some passionate letters to the editor. As everyone knows, the DU editorial page is much funnier than any comic.

I'm no chick magnet

A couple of things happened last week that reminded me of my thus far life-long bachelorhood. One was July 4th, which marked the seventh anniversary of my return from my mission in Scotland (yes, I've made many jokes about it being my "Independence Day" from the strict missionary lifestyle). I don't feel like I'm too old to still be single, but my mom does, and as each year passes I remember assuming while on my mission that I would be one of those guys who gets married within a year of coming home.

The other thing was more random--I was at Macey's (the grocery store, not the department store) a few days earlier, and I saw this weird guy who had been in my social dance class way back in 2002 (one of many places where I failed to find a wife; I was too much of a wuss to ask Kelli Towers out). I've seen him around Provo occasionally ever since, but last week was the first time I've seen him with a wife and child. Within a few seconds I had three thoughts: 1) good for him, he looks happy; 2) if even someone as strange and semi-creepy can get married, then surely I can find someone who wants to marry me; and 3) if even this weirdo can find a wife, what's wrong with me?

I actually have those last two thoughts (or similar manifestations) quite often, though the more positive version occurs much more frequently. I would like to get married, and would rather it happened in the near future rather than the distant future, but I don't stress about it. Maybe I should stress about it more; I would probably date more often. But, as with most things, I don't take it too seriously. In fact, here are some comics about relationships that I can kind of relate to which I've had up on my refrigerator for the last few years. They're usually clumped together, in a way that's kind of like a story, but I'll show them one at a time so I can comment on them too. Hopefully you'll be able to read them.

I've never asked anyone to marry me, but I have experienced rejection, more than once by someone who I considered the "girl of my dreams." This has always happened long before a proposal would've happened, but it still hurts. It must really suck to ask someone to marry you and get turned down, though I suppose that's better than them saying yes and one or both of you regretting it afterward.

This is something I worry about. When I do eventually get married, I assume I'll be getting someone out of my league in the looks department; almost every guy does. But I don't want someone who's "blah." In fact, if I were to make a list of attributes I want in a spouse, after the items relating to moral standards and values, the first one would probably be "spunky" or some similar word. I need someone who is feisty, sarcastic, and can get my jokes.

If I was more humble, or maybe even just more thoughtful, this might worry me too, but I have never considered myself a "blah" person. I hope I'm not wrong. But it's still a good representation of the frustration that arises from failed attempts to find someone you like who also likes you.

Dilbert is basically a grown-up Charlie Brown, wouldn't you say? After too much frustration like that referred to above, I find myself in an apathetic state similar to Dilbert's. Plus he's watching TV, which is probably more responsible for my lackluster dating record than any other single thing.

So to sum up: Dating is hard. I'd like to be married someday. I get bitter/discouraged about it far less often than the average 28-year-old single Mormon guy. And those comic strips are funny.

Here's a bonus picture of some of the other magnets on my fridge.

I've got some cool Scotland magnets (do you like how I've come full circle here? I'm good), and the Laugh Out Loud one is pretty good (well done, Kenny). The four corners have arrows, presumably pointing to stuff the magnets are holding up, with clever accompanying phrases like "don't forget," "precious," "what the?" and "knew each other for 3 weeks."

But I'm sure that, like me, you're wondering why I have a magnet showing a guy throwing away a swastika. I have no idea. It was left by a former roommate, a guy at least as weird as the one I saw at Macey's. I'm just hoping it's not actually a drawing of a guy pulling Nazi paraphernalia out of the trash.

So whether it's women, magnets, or trying to figure out how long that leftover potato salad has been in there, I always have a mystery waiting for me when I go to the fridge.

Gosh, I love America!

A few times, I've linked to the old blog for my comedy troupe, for which I was the primary writer. Recently, the web site became inaccessible, but luckily I can still access the original posts. To preserve them, I'm going to occasionally put them up on here. In my oh-so-humble opinion, most of them are pretty good; they ought to be considering how much time I spent on them. I seriously spent, on average, about two hours on each of the two dozen or so posts on that blog. There isn't two hours worth of enjoyment in each one, but they are a little entertaining.

To start things off, here's my first-ever foray into the world of blogging (not counting a brief introductory post). I figured that would be a good one to rerun first, especially since it mentions Stadium of Fire, which is happening tonight. Happy Independence Day, everybody!

While driving from Salt Lake to Provo on Saturday, I was passed on the freeway by a Hummer limo. I figure the chances were pretty good that inside was Taylor Hicks, the American Idol, on his way to perform at Stadium of Fire.

I'm not ashamed to admit that I'm an Idol fan. I hate Ryan Seacrest, I find the judges' comments predictable and lacking substance, and a lot of the performances are boring. But there's something strangely addicting about the drama, plus they have those ridiculous Ford music videos that the contestants will regret for the rest of their careers.

In LOL, we have an American Idol-style game that we dust off once in a while. The last time we did it in a show, Courtney was playing a Simon Cowell-type judge, and after one of the "contestants" finished their song, Courtney offered the following critique: "I'd rather play leapfrog with a unicorn than listen to you sing again." Hilarious. It was my second-favorite Courtney moment ever in a show (#1 deserves its own post at some point).

I bring all this up because...several friends and family members have been calling me Taylor lately, because I bear a resemblance to the leader of the Soul Patrol. That's fine with me, since People magazine, that bastion of journalism, recently called him America's hottest bachelor. When I was in high school, a lot of people would tell me I looked like George Clooney; as I got fatter, it was more like, "Hey, you look like Jay Leno"! It's good to have a doppelganger closer to my age for a change, even if he does have gray hair.

Most people I know remind me of someone else, famous or otherwise. Sometimes it's because of their looks, sometimes it's their personality, and sometimes I have no idea what triggers the comparisons. Probably the weirdest one: whenever I see Reese Witherspoon, I'm somehow reminded of Robin Givens, the actress from "Head of the Class" (ask your older siblings) who was married to Mike Tyson.

That being said, of course some of my fellow LOL-ers make me think of other people. Here's some that remind me of celebrities, for various reasons (you can probably find pictures of them somewhere on the website and see how crazy I am):

Allan--Conan O'Brien

Kenny--Seth Meyers (the guy on SNL who played John Kerry)

Lauren--Natalie Portman

Mark Bohn (LOL alum)--Ashton Kutcher

Erica--Winona Ryder

Jared--the elf/dentist from "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer"

Andrew--Brad Pitt (but that was a no-brainer)

So, when you see us on stage, who do we remind you of? Or are our shows so engrossing that your minds have no chance to stray? Let us know.

Soul Patrol!

More potty humor

I know I have at least one Ivy League alum among my readership (hi Tamara!), and it's conceivable there are others (President Bush? Elisabeth Shue? Stephen Colbert? who knows), but in general mine is more of an everyman blog. Not blue collar, common man, but everyman.

I come to you regular folks today with good news, although it's something you likely already suspected: you're just as smart as people who go to Ivy League schools. My proof: the graffiti in the stalls of at least one bathroom at Columbia University is no different than what you'd find at Florida State or Texas Tech.

(Quick side note: while Columbia students seem to possess average intelligence, whoever designed this particular bathroom is a genius. In an isolated area of the basement of one of Columbia's minor libraries, there were nine stalls and seven urinals! Compare that to the three or four stalls and two urinals--one always out of order--in the heaviest traffic area of the Wilkinson Center, the busiest building at BYU. Plus, the toilets in the stalls are ridiculously powerful--not even I could clog them. Anyway...)

Admittedly, some of the graffiti was academic in nature. In one stall, someone had written "You are not your GPA." Beneath it someone else had scrawled, "But it counts." And some messages indicated varying levels of social awareness, from "stop snitchin'" to "Male circumcision is mutilation and is not an appropriate means of HIV prevention" to an interactive piece of graffiti put up during the presidential primary season.

In one stall someone had created a "Who would you sleep with?" poll, and listed some choices beneath the query. The last time I used the stall, there had been no love given to McCain, Clinton, Huckabee, Edwards, or Paul, but Romney had one vote and Obama two.

But most of the loo-ny self-expression was much more juvenile, including crude drawings, vulgar expressions, and racially and religiously discriminatory statements that I won't repeat here. (We should probably keep in mind that some Ivy Leaguers are just one year removed from high school; surprisingly, I didn't see "4:20" written anywhere, although there was one stall that was always locked, so I wasn't able to see everything. Of course, that means someone probably had to get all the way down on the floor to slide underneath the stall door, which is pretty gross.)

Thankfully, at least a few people think of pleasant things while in the bathroom. Some just want to express affection for their favorite musicians, including Pearl Jam, Jack Johnson, and Dishwalla (seriously? Dishwalla?). I was surprised to see Jack's name on a stall door, since I assumed all of his fans were too laid back to put forth the effort to write his name down.

And, of course, in the stall farthest from the door, someone had left a "All your base are belong to us" graffito-tag. Beautiful.

All of this begs the question: why in the name of El Barto are so many people bringing pens and pencils with them when they use the bathroom?

Potty humor

I think most of my regular readers (wait, don't you have to be a regular writer to have regular readers? dang) already know this, but here's my big news: I'm moving back to Harlem in early August! I have a place to live, but I don't yet have a job. That's just a minor detail, however. (If I'm still unemployed in, say, December or January, that detail would be a little less minor, but right now I'm not too worried. Who wouldn't want to hire me?)

In honor of my impending return, here's a "lost" New York blog post. I call it that because, well, until recently the notes I took for this post were lost.

As I've written before, the little room I worked in at Columbia often became unbearably hot, which led to me drinking a lot of water, which led to frequent trips to the bathroom. The nearest lavatory was down the hallway from my little office, at the back of a group study area. Three or four visits a day over six months allowed ample opportunities for me to observe some unusual behavior from some strange people.

There was one guy who I saw in there all the time who looked like a younger version of my Uncle Lewis--tall, with a big beard. We either had identical urinary cycles, or he went A LOT, because he was in there when I came in almost every time.

Another guy I saw on a regular basis had a strange, Lady MacBethian hand washing routine, but that's better than the dozens I witnessed leave the room without washing at all. Some did much more than wash their hands. I saw a few people shaving in the bathroom, and several brushing their teeth. Once a guy went into a stall and, um, started multitasking while brushing his teeth. Your schedule is probably a little too tight if you don't have time to do those things separately.

In my notes, I've written "Sly Stallone" with no explanation. I must have seen a guy who looked like him. Or maybe I saw someone injecting steroids so they could continue going to the bathroom long after they should've retired.

The study area, and by extension the bathroom, was often crowded with international students who reminded me of Eric from Head of the Class. I'm glad to see that hairstyle is being kept alive somewhere in the world. Alas, the library didn't feature nearly the same number of Simones.

I realize that most if not all of these examples of strange bathroom folk probably fall into the "you had to be there" category. So to reward you for your patience, in my next post I'll get into a much more interesting bathroom topic--the graffiti I found in the stalls. Check back soon.