It will always be 1989

I have two comments on my picture of the Rock and Roll Express last night. The first is that between this picture and what I learned by reading Bret “The Hitman” Hart’s autobiography it is clear that pretty much every person I watched wrestle in the 80’s was on cocaine. Second is that while that picture shows two of the dorkiest guys you could ever imagine they were easily the most popular people in wrestling at the time. Women went nuts for them. If they wrestled today they would be laughed out of the building but back in the 80’s they were the biggest thing going.

(Yes, I read my yearly pro wrestling autobiography. Bret Hart detailed his career over more than 500 pages. Yes, someone could write that many words about a sport in which everything is pre-determined. However, if you ever want to know what really goes on backstage as well as read up on one of the most dysfunctional families ever it is a great book. At times tragic and other times funny, a very memorable read.)

In celebrity news this week, Michael Jackson claimed that he was too sick to travel to a court date. He declined to define the term “sick” though. Was he physically ill, suffering from a malady, or is just so batshit insane that he cannot physically climb into a metal box to be transported to the courthouse? I’m not sure if anyone in pop culture history has imploded in such a fascinating way as Michael Jackson. We give Brittney a lot of crap for shaving off her hair but that is nothing compared to Michael. Her hair grew back. He looks absolutely nothing like he did twenty years ago and is so meaningless from a pop culture perspective that he has become his own parody. Weird Al looks at him and goes “Why bother?”

On that same wavelength we do have the release of the new Guns N Roses album. Yes, Chinese Democracy is finally going to be upon us after a good decade of waiting. I still remember in college having a discussion as to whose career would you rather manage: Michael Jackson’s or Guns N Roses’. At the time they were both the biggest acts on the planet. In the end you would want neither of them. Pearl Jam would have been a decent alternative (they always made a good living touring, though not massively successful).

Now I was never really a metal guy but I am wondering who this new GNR album is for. Just from a marketing perspective it seems like an odd sell. Is it for people in their 30s and 40s who listened to the band in high school and college? Don’t you outgrow that music? I can’t see a teenager wanting it. “Yeah, let’s get that disc from that strange old man yelling into the microphone.” Remember, most people now know Bret Michaels from Rock of Love than from Poison. I’m certain people will buy it out of curiosity but I don’t think anyone really wants to listen to it. They might want to hear it; but not really listen to it.

I’ll end with one last pop culture tidbit and a joke that I am borrowing from another website. So PETA assaulted My Beloved Lindsay outside of a club over the weekend. Apparently, they are upset over her wearing fur. In defense of My Beloved, if God didn’t want us to wear fur he wouldn’t have made animals so warm and defenseless. Anyway, the protest involved throwing a white powder on Lindsay as she entered the club. Her reaction?

“Cool! They cover you with blow as you walk in! This club rocks!”

Sigh. One day she’ll realize that I am the only man for her. I’ve got to be moving up the depth chart.

Back in the day...

At work last week we had a discussion of mentioning your most embarrassing moments. I sidestepped the entire topic, mainly because it would be very hard for me to settle on just one. Making a fool out of myself on a regular basis is something that I take pride in. Such as playing trivia on Friday night where one of the topics was 80’s Teen Sex Comedies and I freaking rocked that category. Not only did I know that Tom Cruise starred in “Losin’ It” but I was able to identify the movie My Tutor from the tagline alone. And I was incredibly proud of myself for remembering that even though I doubt that it impressed the red headed slutatorian.

My explanation as to my encyclopedic knowledge of bad 80’s sex comedies? Well, being a teenage boy back in the days before the internet meant that you had to be a little more creative in your attempts to see boobs. Hence, a great understanding of late night cable lineups as well as discovering various neglected corners of video stores that were pretty lenient on your rental habits as long as you didn’t go into the back room. Heck, I think I rented The Unbearable Lightness of Being when I was fifteen, which I was able to pass off as my being interested in art films when really it was just a beginning of a fascination with Juliette Binoche. Who I’ll picture above just because my hard drive contains more pictures of her than you could readily imagine. Hell, I have a poster of her in my living room.

(True, The Unbearable Lightness of Being doesn’t technically count as a sex comedy but it does have boobs. And at a certain age that is all that matters.)

I really don’t want to know what it is like being a teenage boy with high speed internet. It must take all of the fun and adventure out of the whole enterprise. Twenty years ago I thought I might get in trouble for watching Benny Hill night after night while tonight a thirteen year old is probably becoming very familiar with the works of Bridget the Midget. I don’t think that we can consider this progress. I’m of the opinion that I’m much more lenient in broadcasting sex than violence but there are some things that you shouldn’t see at a young age. Or at any age, for that matter. There are some corners of the internet that you just don’t want to walk down.

I know, a strange topic tonight but it was just one of those weekends. Outside of a little shopping and some hanging out I really didn’t accomplish much of anything. Cleaned my apartment, did some grocery shopping, took care of a bunch of lingering tasks that just had to get done but nothing that was life altering. Spent most of this afternoon watching the history of the Four Horsemen DVD (the wrestling group, not the football players or signs of the apocalypse). Basically I just wanted to relive sitting around on a Saturday night, watching TBS and waiting to see Ric Flair and the boys just beat the ever living crap out of someone. Usually Dusty Rhodes but occasionally Ricky Morton.

Some people would say that watching wrestling videos while in your early thirties is a bad sign. Admitting so in public definitely is. But like I said, making a fool out of myself is just part of who I am. Anything to avoid being typical.

The five random CD’s of the week:
1) Alejandro Escovedo “Bourbonitis Blues”
2) Kathleen Edwards “Live from the Bowery Ballroom”
3) Old 97’s “Too Far To Care”
4) Pearl Jam “Vs.”
5) Wilco “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot”