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Friday, January 11th, 2008
5:03 pm	Well a year later and an update... Everytime I come on here I say how I neglect this journal and I need to write more in it, I'm not saying that this time to be honest I don't have that much to say. Plus I write my best when reflecting on things. So here goes, about 9 months worth of life-update. I've broken it into three parts for the most important areas that has happened in the last 9 months. The first installment (or last installment if I never get to the other 2) is about my time in OVW down in Louisville Kentucky.... Kentucky: Last journal entry I mentioned about how Al Snow said "why don't you just move down to Kentucky and enroll in OVW?" So yeah, I did. I'm pretty sure this marks one of the first times in my life I said I was going to do something and then did it. I gave my notice at Perot Systems (which was an awesome feeling, I was getting really miserable there) and moved down to Kentucky. A few people I was aquaintances with moved down there a few months before me, when I was originally going to go and had since moved back. They basically told me that they liked it down there for the most part but there were some crazy politicking down there, and there is basically ZERO chance of getting signed when down there. Now I wasn't looking to get signed, my chief goal was to work an OVW show. I really wanted to see what the developmental program was like. Most importantly I really wanted to know if I was any good, you can go on diluding yourself in wrestling forever. As I've noticed the biggest shit-bags all have the biggest egos, if they suck in wrestling chances are they think they're the greatest thing since sliced bread. I needed to know if I was any good. Since Al told me that I should go down there, I figured something might happen if he remembered me. True to his word though of having no memory whatsoever he didn't remember me and I was basically working from scratch. When moving down there I had a few people who were supposed to go with me. My wife couldn't quit her job and move down with me, especially since my plan involved staying 6 months. So I set up moving down with Osirus and Mike Volpe. Both ended up backing out of the deal, for good reason as I found out. Mike had a horrible incident with his mother where she ended up passing away while I was down there. Osirus is now a male model and makes more money doing that. Which is actually pretty funny. So I was alone down there, completely. I was hoping to make some friends down there and maybe find a roommate, that didn't happen at all. I lucked into an apartment where the rent wasn't outrageous, unfortunately for me neither were the salaries. Since I was planning on rooming with 2 other people I planned on basically spending 200-300 per month on rent and ended up spending 650 on rent. Which obviously put a damper on things. Not to mention I had a job which in the north would easily pay $20/hour or more but was actually paying $12 down there. Which I was told was basically top dollar. So I went to the school which was probably 10 minutes away from my new apartment for training. I signed up and I was told that they would put me in the beginner's class for a few weeks to get acclimated to what OVW was like, then I'd move on to the advanced program with Rip Rogers. Which is basically what happened. At the time Tank Toland and Seth Skyfire were running the beginner's class, they had a lot of guys who would show up, give critique and so forth. My first day showing up was kind of a trip though. Here's the basic story: I show up at the time I was supposed to and met with Tank. Tank basically wasn't told anything about me, just that I was a new student and wanted to train there. So he told me the best thing to do would be to check out the work out and watch for the day unless I wanted to try and participate. He asked me if I had any expirience and I told him that yeah I had about 7 years expirience to which he replied; "Why don't they tell me this shit, get your gear on and head in there, you'll be fine." Then he went to make phone calls (a pre-cursor to the future) and left me with the rest of the class. There was a guy Jack Bull there, Seth (who was basically in charge) and Doug Basham. Already I'm thinking "fuck man, Doug Basham is helping run the program, this is where I need to be". They did the customary "let's show the newbie that wrestling is hard schtick" by having us do push-ups, sit-ups, squats, jumping jacks and whatever. Before this all I heard about was how "tough" OVW would be, it had ridiculous amounts of cardio, so that's what I did before I went RIDICULOUS amounts of cardio. I did an hour and a half daily, push-ups, sit-ups and jumping jacks aren't exactly going to break me. So here's the interesting thing, they were going through the normal drills but I was told to stand aside and they'd show me how to do them afterwards. Seth was a pretty cool guy, but the first day he wreaked more of sarcastic asshole than anything. I guess they had an influx of new people coming in and he was fairly sick of having to show someone how to do something to have them leave a week and a half later. So he was clearly going through the motions showing me how to do stuff, doing silly anectdotes with everything but basically monotone. I think he was just trying to make Doug and Jack laugh. So he showed me how to bump, and says "now you try it". *Wham* I bump. All three trainers heads go back a bit, I'm guessing people on their first day don't usually take a picture perfect back bump after being shown once. They're kind of peaked up a bit and paying attention so Seth somewhat as a test shows me the standing bump with the same sarcastic monotone anectdotes and…. *Wham* I nail another bump. Now I can actually see Doug Basham smiling. Seth tell the rest of the class to get in line for the next drill and for me to stand outside watch and he'd show me right afterwards. Seth, Jack and Doug all covort in the corner as the students criss-cross several times and slide out of the ring leading to the next two going in. I can see Doug smiling and nodding and Jack and Seth disagreeing with him. So now I'm called back into the ring to learn how to run the ropes. Seth with his now customary sarcastic, monotone jokes shows me how to run the ropes, he tells me to walk them out with him, which I do and then he tells me to try and run them. So I did. To which I hear Doug Basham say outloud "I told you he's a fucking ringer." I'm told I can stop running the ropes and Basham is speaking directly to me for the first time "OK Kid go on tell them how long you've been working." I've heard they're not to keen on workers going down there so I was watching myself. "You mean how long I've been here?" "Sure" "Well today's my first day." "He's a smart one; bullshit it's his first day, but he's a smart one." The rest of the practice Seth stopped showing me stuff and having me stand aside, they just had me go with everyone else. Everyone was really pissy to me after Doug said I was a ringer. They were doing elbow drops, knee drops and some other stuff on the dummy towards the end of class and they called me up to go as well, to which predictably I did better than most there. Now everyone was really pissy at me, and one guy says sarcastically "Wow you're doing really well for your first day"; Tank who had gotten off the phone and back downstairs by then yells at him "He's been working for years, can't you tell that by his work?" Tank asked me if I had a good time, to which I said "It's been a blast" which it totally was. And he told me he'd see me the next day. To which my first day was done. I changed up as everyone was staring at me, pretty much everyone was sizing me up. In my first day I had basically managed to insult the trainers by making them look stupid for not knowing I was a worker, isolated myself from the rest of the bunch because I could do all the stuff they could and sometimes better, and had already managed to stand out instead of my plan of blending into the class. A great first day to say the least. My second day was more of the same, me doing all the drills, but this time all I got was compliments from the trainers. "See how he sells the punch, even though their punches look like shit because he's selling them so well they look passable; good job newbie." "That's a great right hand newbie, OK can you do it again? Alright everyone watch how he pulls his big right hand." "That's an awesome elbow drop, corkscrew style newbie." Every compliment got me further and further onto every students bad side. I got the nick-name treatment apparently a few weeks early when Seth decided to come up with a nick-name for me which came out to be "milky". Due to my apparently milky-white skin, which is awfully homo-erotic if you ask me :) Another thing happened to alienate me on my second day, Rob Conway came in for a work out and asked to work with one of the students. No one volunteered so Tank asked me to go in with him. I just did what he told me and kept up with him. His only complaint was that I didn't act violent enough. Now all the students were pissed at me because I just worked with Rob Conway and got complimented for it. Sounds great doesn't it? Yeah don't be so sure. OVW seemed like a closed pandora's box, all I needed to do was open it up and all the secrets would be revealed, surely secrets to making me the best wrestler around. You know what really happened when pandora's box was opened don't you? Exactly. I keep mentioning how the class was very stand-offish with me, once I got into the intermediate class things only got worse. My first day in the class I cut a promo, and it was a descent promo. That made things worse because now not only could I work, but I could talk too. Then they found out that I had worked guys who were in the WWE, Tomasso (Tom Penmanship) was down there signed and was talking to me at the first show and they all found out I had worked with him before. It seemed every time you excelled at something the more they didn't like you, unless they were going to work with you then it was fantastic. Everyone was so protective of their "spot"; their spot was either battle royal winner at student shows, or cord holder at TV tapings, or suck up to Rip Rogers, it was their spot and you could not have it. The developmental talent was miserable because WWE was going through another one of their roster cleansings, the guys underneath were miserable because WWE wasn't looking at OVW talent to sign they would sign guys from elsewhere and ship them there, the trainers were miserable because they had all been released and some of them for no good reason at all. All in all I was miserable because I couldn't show anyone anything because no one wanted me to and risk the chance of losing their spot. I had listened to some guys who had gone down for a weekend and told me how stand-offish everyone was. They told me to just keep my head down, do my work and learn as much as possible, so that's what I did. That was the worst advice I've ever had. After about two weeks of going no where I just started being my normal sarcastic ass. I figured what did I have to lose, I was low man on the totem pole anyway. I was doing the camera cords at the tapings, suggested for security when they needed to be bumped or whatever. Once I opened up a bit, everyone pretty much opened up a bit to me and were asking me advice on basically everything. The biggest help was when I mentioned my wife was pregnant and I was only planning on staying six months; then the flood gates opened. Everyone was super cool with me because now I wasn't after anyone's spot, I wasn't there forever, they weren't competing with me and everyone was talking to me all the time. So if you go to OVW and you're not planning on staying or even if you are, just tell them you're not going to be there long and everyone will help you out. All in all my OVW was rather disappointing, the developmental system I felt was pretty shitty. Tank and Seth were super cool guys and knew ALOT, but because they were stuck in the beginner's class they were relegated to teaching how to do moves. I learned more from them by striking up conversations than I did in actual class. It was the same with Rip in the intermediate class. Beginner's class in OVW is basically bump, run the ropes, do a universal spot w/ hiptoss, armdrag and bodyslam (AKA International around here), over the top rope and through the rope drill, learn new move, hour of playing (essentially the class asking me how things look or how to do certain things). Intermediate class was basically just drill after drill. The did a universal drill to start off which involved criss crossing and a leap frog, then everyone got in line as Rip called out certain moves for them to take (which more often than not just ended up having a student call it), pinning drill, striking drill, promo (drill, no kidding this was turned into a drill most of my promos involved how much I hated Kentucky and wanted to go home), finally ending with the beating a selected body part then slaping a hold on it drill (sometimes interspearsed with "fancy" pinning combonations drill). The beginner class ran more matches than the intermediate class and to me more psychology was discussed in the beginner class than there was in the intermediate class. Everyone down there was trying to impress someone with their drills, I don't see how that could even happen to be honest. Whenever someone would show up to training I would get pulled aside to run a drill with someone; "dude can you run the drill with me, so and so is here and if I run it with this person it will look bad". Maybe I wasn't there long enough but I didn't once see someone watching say "That was the best universal drill here, you're hired!" I just looked at it as training, a drill was a drill, it just keeps your stuff crisp for matches. It is not a substitute for matches. Which is actually the next point in OVW which I had a problem with, the student shows. Student shows were run once per month, and while you're training twice a week (or in my case 4 times per week) you're only working shows once a month during that time. There's no substitute for actually working shows, crowd interaction and reaction is an integral part of working. While using the stunner as your finisher in the intermediate class because it gets a pop and makes everyone laugh may be great for the intermediate class, on a show it could get completely shit on. The way you got onto shows was to sell tickets, I don't mean at the door to get on the show you had to literally go around and sell tickets to people you know. Which put me at a disadvantage because I didn't know anyone at all. The intermediate guys didn't want me on the show anyway because I was doing well and they really didn't want me to be noticed. First I was told just to show up, when I did just show up no one told me that you need a license to wrestle in Kentucky. So I couldn't be on the show, then the next show I had my license and no one bothered to tell me that you needed to sell tickets to be on a show there. Fantastic, two student shows completely wasted. Yay! The idea of selling tickets to be on a show, that's actually the sign around here that you shouldn't work for a promoter. Mainly because anyone can get their friends and family to come see them wrestle. Let's say some guy who has 2 days training sells 40 tickets, if I'm up North, the promoter might have me work the guy in the Main Event because he sold that many tickets. The problem is that he could do something wrong and I could get hurt. Compound to that it could actually hurt the show because they'll have a bad match and sour the entire crowd on coming back. But OVW is a money making venture, especially when it's the student's money, what do they care about getting people to enjoy shows and come back. One of the trainees who helped run the intermediate training said to me and I quote "You only sold 2 tickets, what the fuck? It's your job to sell tickets to shows, that's wrestler's sole purpose." which pissed me off to no end. I was not in the mood to be yelled at especially when I was being yelled at by some guy who couldn't lace my boots. So I responded "No you fucking dick, a wrestler's job is not to 'sell' tickets, a wrestler's job is to DRAW tickets. When people come back to see me, that means I've done my job." I don't know why they just didn't see it, the wrestler is the attraction not the usher. The other issue with this is that you sign a contract with OVW that you cannot work anywhere else while you're going to classes at OVW. When I signed the contract I told them that I would be working other shows, they told me that I shouldn't at all or I could be terminated from their program, and once again adding the most important part "without refund". So the guys who work there are training there and MAYBE doing a show a month if they sell enough tickets. So that means that in 2 years of training at OVW you may get 24 matches, guys in the intermediate class might get a shot on TV every other month. Oh and it takes a year before that happens. So that would mean 30 matches in 2 years. In essence I had double the expirience of a 2 year veteran in OVW who might be running the class after my first year wrestling. I'd been doing this at the point of moving to Kentucky 7 years. A conservative estimate is that I had 400 matches, that's because I don't track my matches at all. It was a bit hard to swallow seeing guys make mistakes in there that wouldn't get booked up here if they made the same mistake. The girls however since there were so few of them always had a spot on the show regardless of how many tickets they sold. Me I got put in six man tags and so forth to ensure as minimal amount of ring time as possible. So my plan was hatched to get on every trainee show and even probably get a spot on the TV show every week. There was a gimmick going on down there with a Rock Band, none of which were signed, but the gimmick was pretty over so they used them frequently. I hatched a cool idea for a gimmick when talking to a girl who was on the shows but needed alot of work. We were talking about theatre and so forth, I realized that kids who do theatre kind of have their own language. Not only their own language, but an entirely different culture. They have different ideas as to what's cool. I thought that was a gimmick that hasn't been done, "Theatre Dorks". The other thing that hasn't been done was a inter-gender tag team. Oh intergender tag team matches have happened, but never a REGULAR tag team that was inter-gender. She was really well liked and they always wanted to use her, so I could somewhat latch on. But the good part was if her match was going to hell we could plan a little spot where I come in take a bunch of bumps do something cool and get her to win the match via my chicanery. We could do all the fun stuff with women in my matches. We could be bad actors, that was the point, we could over-sell as much as possible, that's what it was for. We'd stand out because everyone came out to some screaming rock, or screaming rap song, we'd come out to a musical. Our entrance gear would be like a Wiqued, or Rent shirt, complete with laminated back stage pass. The coup de grace though was the next idea I came up with. Every heel tag team has a foreign object, Hart Foundation used Jimmy Hart's megaphone, Demolition used Mr. Fuji's cane, the Rock Band in OVW used various musical instruments, the thing I found for us was going to be tit: A framed poster of Donny Osmond. It was such a complete gimmick, it really was quite good. OVW was one thing down in Kentucky, but I was living in Louisville. While Bardstown Road was fairly interesting everything else down there was completely boring. The only type of ethnic food was soul food. I couldn't even find a descent Chinese place to eat. To be honest that didn't matter much anyway because with what I was making I basically had enough for $10 a week in food. The schedule I had down there was killing me too, I had to be up for 6 in the morning and out of the house by 6:30 to get to work for 7. I was out by 4:30 and the Beginner class began at 4:00 (it originally started at 5 but then the intermediate class changed their schedule to Monday and Thursday which meant that beginner class had to be put earlier). Beginner class was over by 6 on Monday and 9 pm on Tuesday. Intermediate class ran from 7 pm to 11 pm on Monday and till usually just about midnight on Thursday. Wednesday I had to be to the TV tapings which I had to be there for 6 pm and I was there till after midnight usually. Since my budget was so minimal for food what I would usually do is that I would buy Kroger brand slim fast shakes for breakfast and lunch. I had that budgeted every week outside of my $10 for food. Everything I bought was $2, I would buy a bag of frozen vegatables, 2 things of meat (whatever was on sale), I would alternate between a wrap and a hamburger roll, and I would pick up a couple things to drink (gallon of ice tea for a dollar and a gallon of water for a dollar). When I first got there I had some money saved and went on a huge shop, so after that I just had to keep up my supply. Weekends I alternated breakfast and lunch, usually Saturday I would drink a shake for lunch and skip breakfast, Sunday I would drink a shake for breakfast and skip lunch, or I'd eat early. A big problem that happened when I was down there was based on my schedule Monday-Thursday I usually wasn't eating till after 10 pm. Actually Tuesday was the only night I ate that early, usually I was eating about 1 am. I didn't have a microwave and couldn't afford anything but the basics, so I was making everything from scratch. On the bright side I learned to make killer dough from scratch in about 10 minutes. I didn't know anyone down there, and I didn't have a TV so my main activity when I was home was to make dinner for myself. That's all I really had to do. I was going to join a gym but really didn't have the money and didn't have the time (since my schedule was crazy), in the infinite advice of OVW teachers that you had to get in shape they said that doing push ups and sit ups doesn't cost anything. That was true I thought so I started a work out routine of push-ups, sit-ups, squats and since my calves weren't being reached I decided to do calf extensions as well. My goal was to get up to 1000 a day. When I started I could do 50 total and could only do like 10 at a time. I got to up doing 600 per day. I wasn't eating any solid food till at least 10 pm at night, when your body is basically in starvation mode when you do get solid food in you you'll get an energy rush. I was getting an energy rush from 1 am to 3 am every night. Which would keep me up until I had to leave for work. Around that time was also the time I could get internet access from siphoning the wireless signal from the clubhouse at my apartment complex or the hotel across the field from my apartment. I would watch youtube alot, I joined a torrent site where I downloaded a bunch of stuff to watch. I downloaded shoot interviews alot as well. My night consisted of making dinner from scratch and either watching an old pay per view, listening to a shoot interview, or watching things off of youtube. I thought I was going to die, I was a complete insomniac, I was burning three times the amount of calories I was consuming. When I went down to Kentucky I weighed in at 200 lbs (in OK shape, a little chubby), when I came home I weighed in at 160 lbs. My last week there was right after we had a show. I had been assured that I would have a match on the show if I sold any tickets, I shot the "Theatre Dork" idea to Seth and Tank who loved the idea, but since the intermediate class leader had something else planned for the girl (which was a re-match from the previous month's show) and I got buried in the middle of a six man tag. I had gotten several e-mails from promoters in Tennessee and Kentucky to work their shows which I was equivically told that I couldn't work because it would get me heat that the students there had to search for work, getting turned down alot and I was getting contacted to work shows before them. My job which was essentially an easy job had just had some complications arise in that I was sitting across from an active Jehovah's-Witness who had decided to make it her job to get me to go to a meeting with her. We had a procedure that had to be followed for a certain installation of a program which was impossible for me to do because I didn't have access yet to half the things I needed to attach. I was told to do what I could do to get the program set up, and most importantly not to transfer the call. I got an e-mail from my department head that was without a doubt the nastiest thing a boss had ever sent to me asking me "What (he) had to do to get the procedure into my thick skull." I would've quit on the spot if I were up north, but seriously what was I going to do there, I was trapped. I hadn't slept in a month, I was starving to death, I was absolutely miserable, I hated going downtown for work, I hated Louisville. I went to Class on Monday, Seth AND Tank both spent nearly the entire time on the phone trying to get work in ROH (Tank was getting bookings) and TNA. Seth was booking a weekend shot in Alabama I believe or Florida. The whole class ended up spending nearly the whole time asking me how to do stuff and to show them how to do various things. There were a couple of girls under contract that I had to show how to do stuff. Tuesday was spent much the same way, the intermediate class Rip didn't even talk to anyone, the students ran the class on their own. What the hell was I doing here? I can do drills on my own, the problem I had when I went to Slamtech was that I always ended up teaching the classes; now I was doing it in OVW. I knew as long as I was there the students would be trying their hardest to make sure that I don't stand out. The TV tapings were ridiculous, really ridiculous. I usually either did security or I would shoot the shit with the various students. Weekends I didn't even leave my apartment, the highlight of my week was when I budgeted enough (through not leaving the apartment at all on weekends thereby saving my gas buget) to buy one of those frozen pizzas on sale. I looked forward all week to when I would eat that on a Friday night. After Thursday Night's class I decided I wanted to go home, I was like a zombie really. Saturday my rent check was due, if I made that payment I was stuck there another month. I told the person when I signed up that my wife was pregnant and if I had to leave due to an emergency I would have to go. She said that was fine, so I wrote a letter stating I had a family emergency and spent all of Friday night cleaning my apartment. I couldn't stop smiling on my way home, I was surprising my wife. I was leaving a job I didn't want to be at, in a town I hated, an apartment I didn't like, and the big one, the whole reason I moved there OVW which was a complete sham. In my entire life I've never made a decision that I didn't at least regret a little bit, I never had a decision that I didn't spend time debating while I was making the decision, I never had a decision that I didn't have positives and negatives for; leaving Kentucky was the ONLY decision I've ever made in my life where I didn't regret it, I didn't spend time debating, and when I thought about it there was not ONE SINGLE POSITIVE point to staying in Kentucky. I left Kentucky and was happy for the first time in 4 months. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, January 10th, 2007
12:09 am	Tell Me All Your Thoughts On God... My somewhat Step-Grandmother passed away last week and today I spent most of the day at a funeral which was much more formal than most of the funerals for my family have been. I think it's the irish family or whatever, it's about remembering the person. This seemed like they were just doing what was supposed to be done, like it was for looks more than anything. But while in church I couldn't help but feel just completely isolated. It wasn't a matter of feeling isolated from the family or anything, it was just in general, when I sit in church I don't feel anything. I always attribute me leaving the witnesses to the fact that I never really believed or whatever, then the picture that I was given of God wasn't what I wanted in a God so why would I follow that. But I digress I'm getting off course, I really just wanted to talk a bit about how I really just feel very isolated from God. I don't know if it stems from my lack of faith, or just knowing way too much about basically everything religious in nature. I come back to a line in Dogma where they say that "Faith is like filling up a cup, when you're younger the cup is smaller and therefore it's easier to fill up, but as you get older the cup is bigger and harder to fill." I don't know if this is it though, I've always felt this way though, ever since I can remember. I guess this kind of stuff happens when I get a little too analytical or whatever. I'm thinking this may have something to do with having a father who was opposed to witnesses and a mother who was the only sincere witness on earth. It was wierd, Jesus said that his followers would be no part of the world, but I wasn't just no part of the world, I was no part of the orginization either. I didn't really fit into the whole congregation thing, my mother would always point them out as the example I was supposed to be following. In all the publications that I read every day of my life I would see all the families serving Jehovah or whatever and I didn't fit that mold, I didn't fit that. I guess it started early then in feeling that Jehovah didn't find me worthy of his presence. Then as time wore on and I actually sinned, forget about it. There's alot in publications on avoiding sin, but you know the one thing strict religions never teach too much about: FORGIVENESS. The only time forgiveness is even mentioned really is when it's talking about forgiving your brother when he stumbles you. Which is really just a CYA measure I feel. It keeps the folks in the orginization. So ever since I could remember I feel I was being told that I wasn't worthy, whether it was because I had a father trying to teach me... well for lack of a better term... loose morals and a mother teaching me the "godly" way. I didn't feel worthy because I didn't stand up to my father to tell him I felt that the Witness-way was right. But the thing is I didn't think it was right, why would worshipping God feel like a huge burden? Why would I want to fake sick to get out of worshipping God, if worshipping God is so ingrained into humans? The problem is two-fold for me though, while I didn't feel worthy of God for whatever reason, be I didn't fit the typical JW mold or the typical ANYTHING mold towards a good christian or whatever. I had another BIG problem that worked in conjunction with this. When my mother would pray with me before meals and going to bed, the prayer was really just a big "I want this" session. She wanted to make it through armageddon, all of our family to become witnesses or "see the truth" or however she put it. And that's how I prayed for as long as I can go back, hell I could sing it. "Please Jehovah Help me, Thank you for the food, please help all my relatives become Witnesses so we'll make it through Armageddon," the follow it up with whatever ludicriss thing I was asking for that month/year. Put that to the Monkees theme and you pretty much have exactly how I prayed as a young kid "Jehovah Help Me" (Here we come), "Thank you for the food" (Walking down the street) etc. Jehovah didn't help me much with not feeling worthy, because I can't think of one instance where I prayed for anything and I either recieved help from Jehovah or that I felt I recieved help from Jehovah in anything, AT ALL. EVER! As much as I'd like to say I outgrew praying, I haven't. In my moment of weakness, whenever I feel I can't do something on my own I'll ask for help in something. But the thing is that I've noticed, I swear if I had the presence of mind I would've documented it, but it seems to me that every single opportunity or every single thing that I've asked for help with I not only didn't get ANY help in, but it seemed like forces beyond me were working against me. My mother would try to explain the phenomenon to me, but tell me if this makes sense: God won't just help you with anything that you're not working for yourself, like if you pray to God to help you pass a test but you didn't study for the test he won't help you because you didn't study, that would be giving you something you didn't work for. But if you study you can pray to God to help you remember it and he will help you then. Well how can you tell when God is helping you and when you just remembered what you STUDIED to remember in the first place. To me that just seems like you're trying to tell yourself there is a God by doing something and attributing him to helping you. Like that stupid poem Footprints, I don't believe that for a fucking second. In my life whenever the going gets tough I always feel most alone. If anyone is helping me through it, it certainly isn't God. If I build a house then say "If it weren't for God I never would've been able to do this." What did God pick up the hammer, did God drop the design plan out of the sky. Or like if I make it in wrestling I'm sure that my mother will want me to say that God helped me along the way. But honestly if I were truly following God's plan for me, from what I'm told I never would've started wrestling because the training interfered with Church, shows did too with my service. God hates violence, I've endured people trying to kill me, countless injuries, friends passing away... I've been working at it for 7 years, I would've overcome a childhood illness, a lack of height and size, it looks to me like I will have overcome every single thing that God put in my way to stop me from making it in wrestling. I would have no one to thank for it but myself. Even if I go with the masses and say that God "helped" me, I hardly consider me working my ass off for 7 years, enduring all of that shit thrown in front of me, taking a huge risk really God "helping" me. If I were stuck in the desert and a pillar of fire came from the sky and guided me to safety, yeah I might consider that God intervening. I hear christians all the time saying they're living in "God's Light" or whatever that may mean. I don't know how that would happen, honestly even giving yourself over to God. I know countless times I've asked God to see the right way, but here I sit aimless towards everything in the world. Another prayer left unanswered. I wonder if it's actually my purpose to oppose God in some way, is it possible to be predetermined to be part of Satan's army. Whenever Christians testify they always say that it's something they feel, they feel God around them. I only feel darkness. They say that they feel God helping them in life, I honestly feel something good, something light opposing me at all times. It feels like whatever goals I have, just continuing life is a battle against the forces of good to be happy in my life. It's probably crazy or whatever, I know. It's hard to describe though, it really is. It's something I feel though, you really can't deny feelings or something as astral as this. I wonder if anyone could answer these sort of questions of faith? I know as a witness you just don't ask these type of questions, hell I don't think in any religion you ask these type of questions. Ha, maybe I have to start from scratch or whatever. Or just maybe surrender to the evil that I'm supposed to be, if I'm supposed to be evil. Maybe that's what God wants, and me trying to follow his ways is actually not in his plan for me. If God has a plan for me, or if there's a God to have a plan for me. But that's a discussion for another time. So I guess until next time I'm feeling utterly hopeless and I decide to jump to the subject of evolution and whether there is a God, and you really should read up on the subject before-hand because Human Evolution is a pet hobby of mine, until next time, this is me signing off... (8 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, October 5th, 2006
12:35 am	Yup... It's been about a year Well I've certainly neglected this thing huh? I was bored the other day and searching for something and this journal popped up online so I figured why not just keep it around? Basically this is my thought that if someone is looking for me if they look hard enough they'll find me, and they can keep up with what's going on with me and what's going on in my head. For the most part myspace has taken the place of this journal, but I don't write nearly as profound things I think inside of myspace. Which for the record is www.myspace.com/timkilgore enjoy if you haven't already seen it. Since this would take too long to do in paragraph form, especially starting from where I left off I'm just going to write in my natural stream of consciencenouss way. Try to keep up, k folks? I left my job at Metlife. There was a point there where I was absolutely miserable because of the calls I was taking. We had a meeting with some higher-ups in the orginization and they said in their corperate-speak that they were making it a point to deny more claims. Those are people, they don't have to speak to, but I had to. Now a claim that would've been approved three months earlier will now be denied to save the corperation some money... Boo to that. It got to the point where a friend I worked with there Rich actually had a break-down and went out on stress leave. I tried to move to a support position but (long story short *I'll get into it later*) I wasn't doing as well as I should've been on my monitors so I was getting dicked out of the position even though I knew the most about the job who applied. Some kiss ass got it, who whenever I called her she didn't have the answer. I realized I wasn't really going anywhere and I applied for a bunch of other jobs. I got a job at Perot Systems, I'm now a membership representative there. No phone work, thank God! So to get to that long story, I realized about 8 or 9 months ago that Spider's death had alot more of a profound impact on me than I originally thought. Originally it seemed so surreal, like it didn't really happen. That whole day felt like I was almost out of my own body. Even up through the funeral it felt the same way. I was doing poorly on my monitors because I honestly felt "who cares"? I mean I had just seen someone die in front of my eyes. Literally, pass away. They called me in, and then they declared him dead. Now why in the hell should I care about asking someone their phone number to call them back at when it's clearly documented in the claim. Of course workahaulic me, I went to work the next day. God what an idiot I was. I really should've been off of work for a couple of months. It didn't occur to me until later, the whole time I was rationalizing that I didn't know Dan that well, in actuality I saw him almost every week. I trained with him probably 5-6 hours at a time on Sundays, every Sunday. I didn't see the people I considered myself close with that often. I spoke to him online, at least twice besides the training. I was alot closer to him than I gave myself credit for. In the end it's hard to care about anything after having something like that happen to you. I always hear that grieving is a process, I think that's true, I just wonder when it ends? On to my new job, I really liked it at first. It was a refreshing change, I love working in downtown Providence. With all the restauraunts around, the scenery. I work right near all the colleges which is pretty cool. That was for a little while, now about 6 months in I can't stand it. Oh, it's not the position or the job I hate. I actually really like what I do, it's the ineptitude of the department and the people I work with. It seems to me the entire point of the job is to make sure that no mistake gets blamed on you. Oh you can make mistakes, they'll even be your fault, but as long as you can pawn them off on someone else, then you're all set. I have a supervisor who when she comes up to me she will tell me "I don't know what you do, but here's something that needs to be fixed, can you go through it and figure out what needs to be fixed, then fix it." So I could in essence give it back to her without doing a thing and say "Here ya go, all done" and she wouldn't know the difference. It's just a very different corperate world than Metlife. I really liked most of the people I worked with at Metlife, I think it was the fact when I started there it was so free and slowly all the fun stuff got sucked out of the job, this job is already at that point. It seems somewhat stuck in the 80's since I am the youngest person in my department by 25 years!!! So they want to do everything via paper, oh and since I know computers guess who gets every single extra project that involves computers? Yeah me!!! It's kinda ridiculous, I just keep telling myself it's not permanent but every day it's more of the same people trying to blame stuff on me so it's not blamed on them, and they have a habit that if you actually do something wrong they'll never just come to you and say "Hey you did this wrong can you fix it?" They'll go to your supervisor to ensure that it goes on your record. Pretty ridiculous huh? Even working in Providence... the thrill is gone. Riding the bus to and from work has killed that dead. I have a pretty good bus schedule where I live right now, but still what a pain. Especially if the bus is full and you have to stand.... Since I'm talking about the bus route to my house I should say I'M IN A NEW HOUSE!!! My great-Aunt Mary passed away (which was sad, she was a very nice lady) and left her house to my father. Now my Dad wants his cabin in Maine (which he just got) and also wants to keep the house in the family so he is letting us rent it for the cost of the upkeep of the house. Wicked cool. This again brings me to the differences between men and women. When we got the bigger house the first thing I said is "Finally we have more room to move around in" and my wife said "Finally we have more room to put more stuff in". It's an on-going battle. And on the on-going battle front, I still don't know what to think about my whole Witness expirience. I wish I could just come to some big conclusion and just close that chapter of my life. It would be really nice. I think I need to speak to a few people first and have a chance for open dialogue with them before I'll be able to just say goodbye to it all. Right now I'll go through a few month phase of needing to discuss my witness past, and then several months of not even talking about it at all. I don't know honestly if I'll ever be over it all, I guess I can look at the bright side that I met alot of people that helped mold my life into what it is today, then I can think of what a great person I would've been had this not happened. Who knows right? All I know right now is I still have a few lingering issues to deal with before I'm able to just shut that book for now. Wrestling is going pretty well lately. I've had some good matches and some bad matches lately. I've been working semi-regularly, but most important it's NCW that is picking up steam. I think if everyone works hard enough that NCW could go on to run regularly every month, maybe even twice a month. Which would be fantastic. We're actually moving into a pretty busy period, we have two shows booked, one for October and one right after in November, which will be a big High School (OK Prep School) show which could literally put us on the map if we do it right. I got a new custom singlet which looks really good on, which I'm pretty proud of, plus I've been working out and getting into pretty descent shape. I think if I were more strict with my diet and a little more stringent with my work out routines I'd be in phenominal shape right now. As it is, I'm in pretty good shape and I'd say about 4 months from being able to go shirtless wrestling. I kind of reached a cross roads wrestling to realize that it's the one thing I'm really passionate about and it's the one thing I spend most of my time thinking about during the day. I figured that I have to try to do something with wrestling, it somewhat feels like it's my destiny. Glossing over most of the details, I went to an Al Snow seminar a couple months back and he just point blank asked us why we didn't just move down to Kentucky to futher our training in OVW. Since I started it's been my goal to wrestle there, and he just flat out said "Why don't you just go there" It kind of hit me like a ton of bricks. So I decided that day that I needed to move down there. I spoke with another participant in the seminar Osirus who I'm pretty good friends with and he wanted to move too. So we decided to move down together in January. It's a really big step for me, and a really scary one. I've never lived outside of Rhode Island. Plus moving down there is no guarantee that I'd go anywhere in wrestling, but it's something I have to try. I can't be asking myself "What if?" 20 years from now. The saying from Paul Heyman kept ringing in my ears "You can't succeed in anything without risking failure, sometimes half the fun is failing, but you've gotta try!" So I'm going to go for it, stupid I know, but man to succeed. My goal is just oVW, anything beyond that is just gravy. Well that's more than enough for now. I'm in the process of refining this journal, getting some of the more profound or interesting entries in public view and if you like what you read ask to become my friend on here because there's 3/4ths more where that came from. Until next time kiddies (whenever that is)... Bye (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, September 22nd, 2005
5:37 pm	Finally Figured It Out... I always though that I was being selfish for wanting to go back and re-live my life. I was always thinking of how cool it would be to go back with my current knowledge and having the free time that only a child has to improve on all of this. I could teach myself patience. I could be a better guitarist, a better artist and a better wrestler all by age 10. How cool would that be? Then the more I think the more my friends come up. I keep thinking of things I could've said or things I could've done to stop the things they became. I keep thinking that if the person I am now was around then, alot of things could be alot better. Honestly, I was a spoiled, selfish brat back then. I never shared my toys, I made a big deal because I had nintendo and didn't want people to come over just to play that, I was so two-faced, I was a HUGE liar, why the hell did these peoploe hang around me in the first place? Now I'm the type of person who cooks for his friends, pays for meals if his friends are short, drives people to work when their license is suspended, offers his home to people who need a place to stay, is even setting up buying long term care for his mother. I'm thinking of all the good I could've done my entire life if this were the person I was right from the outset. Imagine the good I could've done, it really pains me thinking about it. If I were there for Mike when Robbie was being a douche to him he probably wouldn't be in jail right now. Jeff probably wouldn't have been shunned by the congregation after "stealing" the contribution money if I was there. Christopher might not be a homeless drug addict. Luis might not owe thousands in child support to four different women. I know I wasn't the sole caus, hell I probably wasn't even involved in the cause but couldn't I have been a preventative measure? Couldn't I have been a positive influence or something? I know the saying is "youth is wasted on the young"; and people always say "if I knew then what I know now" but that's mainly just to service themselves. I don't think anyone realizes that "if you know then what you know now" you could change people for the better. There's so much I could do, and it really eats at me. I was totally capable, just trapped so much in my own little world, my own stupid ambitions, my own stupid life to realize that I could've been such a great influence. I just focused on myself and let everyone else go to hell. I think that's why I keep dreaming that same dream, it's always on my conscience that I could've done better but chose not to. I guess it's a guilty conscience causing this...how does someone get rid of a guilty conscience? Especially when in reality it wasn't their fault in the first place, they just weren't developed as they needed to be? (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Monday, June 6th, 2005
7:59 pm	I'm only going to say this once... My last post talked about wrestling surprisingly. I said that I was curious if I would take any more wrestling bookings outside of NCW because I wasn't having fun. I took my last booking at UCW in Taunton. I really only took the booking because it meant hanging out with Derik Destiny and Spider. I would get the chance to stiff the hell out of Angel, which was an added bonus. When I got there I was joking around with Spider about doing the face wash, and told him like four different ideas to reverse his finisher, then reverse a reversal of his finisher. The card got changed from what it was supposed to be for whatever reason. Not because people no-showed, but because more people showed up. My match with Angel got changed, Spider was no longer working Derik Destiny. Derik was teaming with me against one of Angel's trainees and The Skunk. Skunk took it upon himself to try and call the whole match, telling me spots he was going to do. The whole time I want to kill him because a.) I don't want to be facing him and b.) he's a moron who knows nothing about wrestling. I decided I was going to stiff the everloving shit out of him. And WAY worse than I was planning to do to Angel. The match came, I chopped the HELL out of Skunk. I no-sold every single thing he did to me, then over sold for his partner. Derik Destiny and I had fun together. I can stress to you I really don't do this on UCW shows, or any show for that matter. But, Ant came in the back with a large bucket of soda for the boys. If there's one thing UCW does and does right is work with the boys. Since my wife is no doubt languishing in the crowd watching a GOD-AWFUL show I decided why not be nice to her and bring her out a soda. So I did, I sat down next to my wife and watched a horrible Big Islanders vs. Some Vermont guys match. Then out came Spider. He slapped everyone's hands like he always does, and I joked with him booing him, then cheering him saying "You won me over". He was doing his luche spots, Hi Lite Kid rolled back for a variation of a monkey flip and Spider rolled over his feet, a classic spot and Spider caught his feet on the ropes. He looked over at me and gave me a "that close" sign. Then Hi Lite took over, I thought it was way too early for a heat segment. Then Hi Lite went for the Plancha, his foot caught and I knew Hi Lite landed right on him. There was like no protection because Hi Lite didn't get his feet or hands down. I'm saying this now because I don't want to have to say this again. This is my journal, so I'm going to write about my feelings. This is the only place I'm going to write about my feelings here because this thing is just so sad. I really feel that I shouldn't try to put myself over in any way, shape or form like guys have about this situation. I can't stand the way they're putting themselves over in here, it's really pissing me off because alot of them barely knew the guy. So here is my chance to just get my feelings out, I really don't want this repeated everywhere, though if some of you want to forward this to people who I didn't sign up for this friend option that's fine. I ran over there because I heard Ant say "Oh God". When I did there was a huge pool of blood. I've never seen that much blood in my life. It was coming out of the corners of his eyes, out of his ears. He was convulsing. I really and honestly thought he wasn't as hurt as he was. I really sincerely thought that he pretty much broke his nose and maybe knocked himself out. I remember when I broke my nose there was blood all over my face. That was a clean break, like two places, with Hi-Lite landing on him I was pretty sure his nose was smashed to hell. They called 911 and the ambulence came. They started drawing blood out of his mouth, and he was breathing. They got my hopes up, I really thought all that was left was him waking up from being knocked out, which I was sure was going to happen in the ER. I told all the paramedics I was his brother so I could ride with him. When he woke up in the hospital I didn't want him to be alone. I wanted him to wake up and make jokes with me and my wife about well anything, everything was really spinning at this point. We got to the hospital and they had to wisk me off to answer questions. "What's his date of birth?" "what's his mother's name?" "where does he live?" I had no idea and just made stuff up. A bunch of the wrestlers came to the hospital too and were trying to console me, I really didn't need consoling. I really thought any minute he was going to wake up the doctors would ask him if he wanted to see his brother and we'd share a good laugh about me being his brother. My wife was calling his parents, then I was trying to get in touch with some guys I knew that knew him better than I did. Bulldog and Nocturne. Of course I couldn't get in touch with them. The doctor came in and basically broke the news Spider had a fractured skull and they were going to try to rush him to Boston Hospital. Fractured skull? I remembered hearing that people had fractured their skull and lived. Really I remembered it was basically a surgery of bonding and they were as good as new. The doctor left and we were alone. Everybody kept hugging me. I don't know why, it really still didn't make sense to me. About ten minutes later the doctor pulled me into the room to see him. It nearly hit then. They were pumping him to breath and he was a light yellow color. I mean his whole body. They asked if I had anything to say to him, the only thing I remember saying was "Spider please pull through this, your parents are on their way." I left the room. It really didn't hit me what they were doing, I thought they pulled me in because he was semi-conscience or something. I really didn't get it, I thought they were trying to show me to say, "hey this is what we're doing here". Like they were trying to convince me they were actually working and not like some behind the scenes thing like in Quincy, or in The Truman Show. "I just came in to tell you the boy has passed", I remember hearing that when I broke down. Everything sorta hit me at once, the second the doctor said that. I knew they called me to say my final words to him, all the blood made sense, the EMTs not willing to tell me if he'd make it. My wife calling his parents. Everything all made sense. I had to leave, I had to get out of there. I ran into the bathroom when the doctors were trying to sit with me and explain things. I just told them that I appreciated the job they did, I knew they tried their hardest. I mean what was I supposed to say "What the fuck are you people here for?" "You suck"; the thought had crossed my mind but they seemed almost as shaken as I was. I really had to go to the bathroom too, like usual I had held it for like the past two hours and was bursting to go. I was holding it longer just so I could hear something like "You can go in now, he's awake" or "We'll be releasing him in like an hour but he can't drive home". I never thought in a million years I would have to meet the parents of a friend for the first time to tell them their son had just died. I remember going outside. But people followed me outside, they wouldn't leave me alone, that's all I wanted just space. Why doesn't anyone leave you alone in a situation like this? I went back into the waiting room and called more of his friends, but this time I had horrible news. For some reason telling someone that their friend was injured wrestling is no big deal, but now I had to say that he passed away. I called Dave Cole and I will never forget his reaction, he was dead silent. I told him what happened and I just heard tears on the other end. He had to hand off the phone to his girlfriend so that I could tell her the details. My wife was calling people and they wouldn't believe her, they thought it was a rib and then I had to tell them just to solidify this was no joke. The hospital wouldn't let us tell his parents while they were driving. So we waited there for them to arrive. My friends Ruy and JC came up from what they were doing, literally Ruy leaving work to do so. I can't tell you how much I appreciate it. To say you have friends is one thing, but to know you have such close friends is another. Really they sat with me as I was freaking out thinking, what am I supposed to say to his parents. It was only like an hour, but seriously it seemed like 7. Dan Bidondi and his nameless thugs all came back to sit for a while, but only JC and Ruy stayed till Dan's parents came. I used to question my friends a bit, even in the "golden era" as JC refers to it (2001) because we would all just drop each other for a girl. There's no question now, there's nothing we wouldn't do or help each other with. If this expirience has taught me anything is that the group of friends I have now are probably the greatest group of people around. There is nothing worse than having to tell a parent that their kid died. No matter what anyone says about anything, I don't think there could be anything worse. Really and honestly, it was like the force was taken right out of my body, all the energy, all of the happiness was just sucked right out. I really barely remember what I did from there, I don't remember like anything I said, I remember offering to drive Dan's car back to the hospital so they didn't have to try and find the venue. Then I remembering offering anything else that I could help them with, I mean really like they would want anything, or even know what they wanted. Can you imagine? It would be like punching someone in the stomach and asking them if they want help with the pain in their stomach, or breathing. My wife actually drove Spider's car back to the hospital. I don't think I could've done that. It's amazing how strong she was during this. I really felt robotic, I knew I was moving, I knew I was talking I didn't have to think about what I was saying or what I was doing, my body was on autopilot. His parents had calmed a bit down and let us off the obligation to stay there. It was nearly 4 am. We offered once again to point them in the right direction onto 195. JC and Ruy who had stayed and had gone above and beyond the call of duty in being a friend lead the way. We had spoken right before getting Spider's car that we should get food. It was 4 am, I had not eaten since Noon. I knew I needed to eat, even though my body told me I needed to do anything else. A small inkling of my brain returning. Finally a little after 4 we got to Bickford's. It was a long harrowing day. I remember just feeling relieved sitting in Bickford's that night, like life was going to get a little back to normal. It kinda hit me on the ride home that nothing was going to be normal again. Yes my friends and I would hang out, and yes wrestling would go on, hell I'll probably even return to wrestling, but in the back of my mind will always be a thought about that night. Be it the site of a man bleeding through his eyes, nose, ears and mouth convulsing on the floor, sitting in the hospital waiting room with the thought "please don't die" constantly going through my mind, telling someone's parents their oldest child had just passed. I haven't stepped into a ring since, I'm sorta afraid to. The fear is two fold actually, firstly of course I'm afraid that I'll be scared of doing stuff in the ring. You know I'll go to the top rope and not be able to do anything, or any move where there's a chance of hitting my head I'll be too scared to perform. The second fear is that I won't be effected at all. Like wrestling will be back to business as usual, I mean how horrible of a person can I be if that happens. I watched a kid die doing this for God's sake, if it doesn't even effect me a little I think all hopes for humanity and empathy in me will be lost. That's the end of my expirience about the actual day of Spider's passing. It was such a long harrowing day. I've decided that this had to be the worst day I ever had. I had some more expiriences as well during the wake and funeral, I'm sure I'll write about it. I'm still trying to get over this I think, I haven't really felt anything but sadness since this happened. I'll write again, I have alot on my mind about God and mortality. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Monday, April 11th, 2005
3:16 pm	NCW FUCKING ROCKED!!! OK So that's all I can say. The more I thought about the show the more I smiled. I mean after the last show which I thought was an abysmal failure and seriously thought about just giving up and say NCW's best days was behind it. The one thing that made me re-think that was the fact that we broke even. I didn't lose the money I thought I was going to lose so I figured what the hell, let's give it another shot. JC booked the West Warwick hall again much to my chagrin and booked it as the Big City Rumble, once again much to my chagrin. I thought we needed a strong show, and a Rumble wasn't going to do that. There were so many stumbling blocks, the rental truck problems (why do they only rent to people over 25? Like other people don't move), JC being gone till 5 minutes before the doors opened. Not being able to shoot the vignettes, then troubles with the entrance, the ring. You name it, it went wrong. But we still pulled off a pretty great show. No one left the building without a smile on their face. Seriously, I haven't been to a show where that has happened before. Maybe a Ringside Show, but usually Davey isn't smiling as he thinks most of the shows suck there. But I've never seen him smile so much in my life. There's so much cool stuff that happened I think I just have to list off my favorite parts/ things to laugh at about the show. -Nocturne being called Nortock, and the name sticking. -Finally getting a good video shot of Doug's finisher on an NCW show to use in videos. -Seeing all of Doug's friends go apeshit when he won the match -Hearing the crowd literally go "Aw" when Afterburn was announced; proving they are the "World's Cutest Tag Team" -Having Rave come in and call themselves "The Immortals" to have me and JC question it, until we hit the music they picked which was the Highlander Theme having all make sense in the world. They were booed immediately; proving that my idea to make them straight heels worked great and I am a genius (ok maybe that's going too far). -Sean on the stick is amazing! Seriously why people don't use him as a heel and put him on the mic I have no idea. They're idiots. -Mike works well with small guys to bump off him, Rob Impact was the perfect opponent to showcase this. I'm glad Mike didn't listen to my suggestions and did the match he wanted. It turned out great. -I was glad Thornn didn't ride the whole way to West Warwick to just have a rumble to be in. -By Buttery's fourth moonsault I couldn't help but laugh. Seriously, how can you think a guy that skinny is athletic. -Hearing Butter chanted made a large smile come on my face, I'm sure everyone who didn't think Bert would be over saw it. -MTE and Tim Pittman was quite possibly the greatest thing I've ever seen. Even though I was involved somewhat, I tried to step aside as much as I could and just try to add to what they created there. It was phenominal. It was so good not only did it get Pittman further over, but it got me and MTE over as babyfaces. -I really didn't see much of Trip and Osirus, but Osirus is cool. And I really think this was the first time in a long time Trip was given a good match, told to go out and have fun and did. -Having the popcorn match be my match was great. Usually I put too much pressure on myself, there was no pressure for this match at all. -I think working the head the way we did was awesome, it showed the crowd something that simple can be awesome. It got over like a mother fucker! -Cameron getting booed when I got announced simply based on the fact people liked my segment with MTE was awesome, more awesome was Cameron saying "Why am I always the heel?" -Getting Cameron over with a headlock as a babyface by the middle of the match and hearing people chant for him makes me feel like I can do my job well as a heel. -The finish to our match literally made people wince in pain, and it's a backbump from a foot off the ground. -Hudson and Thornhill proved everything that PWF Mayhem does incorrectly. They misused Hudson and got rid of him. They used Thornhill as a mat wrestler, we let them go at it and let Thornhill fly. Amber is part of his charm and managing Thornhill helps Amber, having people see them together makes me stick the forks to PWF Mayhem. -Hudson is a God in getting heat, Maniacal Mark actually helped in this match, and I can't believe I need to say this but God Damn did they work out for this show. -I love the fact we use Paul Lombardi in the main event more or less. Seriously, he did great and Ruy's match had the most crowd reaction of the night. -What can I say about the big City Rumble itself. JC proved me wrong. Even after all the changes it all got over. -Sean going over was awesome, the crowd fucking hated him. -Rocco and Davey did some shoot stuff that had people amazed Rocco could pull off that stuff. -I can't express in words how proud I was to bring up Dave Wilcox and having no one think he would do anything worth while, to see the reaction to simply standing nose to nose with Mike and hearing the crowd go "Oh Shit, they're going to kill each other" -The thing with Trip and me worked, if we had the vignette I have no doubt people would've flipped out for it. -I end this with the Wisconsin Badger/Beaver/Beat Box...I've quite literally never laughed that hard. I don't think anyone has laughed that hard at a show for one thing. It was great! (Comment on this)
Tuesday, March 22nd, 2005
11:20 am	My Top Ten List... I saw this in someone's journal and I figured I would do one as well, if for nothing else than to plug my favorite bands and albumns or CD's whatever they're supposed to be called LOL. 1.) Kilgore Smudge: Blue Collar Solitude I listened to this CD for a whole year. I mean I listened to it every day after school, usually for 2-3 hours a day for my entire Junior year in High School. I don't think any albumn has ever influenced me like this one. The music is what I look for in bands, the crunchy guitar parts, the dropped D tuning, and most importantly the lyrics. They hit a chord with me that no other lyrics have ever hit, I honestly to this day don't know why the lyrics seemed to fit so well to me at the time, but I felt like they had found my voice, they were saying the things that I wanted to say. For me this was the right albumn at the right time. 2.) Gorilla Biscuits: Start Today Gorilla Biscuits opened my eyes. While Kilgore Smudge's lyrics were full of introspective ideals, the Biscuits dealt with actual issues. They said things that I didn't really think would ever be said. They are a grinding hardcore/punk band but break into melodies that hook you into the song completely. Like Kilgore Smudge you'll find yourself listening to whole songs just to hear the bridge. This is a must have for anyone who like NYHC, in fact if you like NYHC or Straight Edge music and don't have this CD you're a total poser. 3.) Warzone: Fight For Justice Alot of people will think I'm a sell out for this, but I like this albumn much more than Warzone's epic "Don't Forget The Struggle, Don't Forget The Streets". Raybeez voice is so much more accessable here, probably due to this being their first real big time release on Victory Records, but Raybeez doesn't sound like Pee Wee Herman screaming here. The lyrics are mostly about the scene in NY, but there are a couple of real gems here like "Nothing to Lose", "I Won't Follow" and what I think is the ultimate time capsule that if found years from now will show that Warzone was a band way ahead of it's time "Contempt". This song has hooks on top of hooks, I don't think I've heard a record with this much catchiness in it with such a dark overtone to it. This is the quintissential CD for anyone who wants to find out where Punk and Hardcore music disperates. 4.) Clockwise: Healthy Manipulation This is one of my more recent obsessions. This CD has the crunch sound of Kilgore Smudge but Austin's voice in this is what seperates Clockwise from any other "New Metal" band. Like how Lajon seperates Sevendust from the rest of the Korn wannabe's; Austin makes this CD something of beauty how he harmonizes and makes a rather blase guitar riff into something special. The lyrics are pretty much about the usual "sex, drugs and rock n roll" stereotype, but there's a certain closeness that the lyrics have here which makes it a little different. Not necessarily condoning, telling it straight warts and all. Most of what he says I don't agree with personally, but I have to respect his point of view. This CD also has probably some of the best bass lines I've ever heard in a rock record. 5.) MxPx: Let it Happen This is an albumn that should be standard issued when you decide you like punk music. First off it has a massive amount of songs, it may be a bit of cheating because it's kind of a compliation of some of the 7" that MxPx did before they hit with "Slowly Going The Way Of The Buffalo" but it's got some of my favorite MxPx songs on it like "Chick Magnet", "First Class Mail", "Elvis is Dead", "Crystalina", "Begin To Start". There's just so many songs on this CD that rock is why I think this CD edges out other efforts by MxPx. The basslines are tight, the guitar riffs are original, and the drums are just kickin as all hell. I've never heard a tighter punk band than MxPx on this albumn, they beat the overall sloppiness of the Sex Pistols, the influence from The Clash and Social Distortion are pretty easy to recognize here which loses some points for not being completely different and fresh. Still overall one of the best punk albumns out there. 6.) Nirvana: Nevermind Anyone who likes rock music and says this albumn didn't influence them is a liar. Straight up they're lying to your face. I really shouldn't even have to say anything here as this albumn literally knocked the music industry on it's ear and changed everything about music at the time. I remember actually putting on headphones when I went to bed so that I could listen to this CD over and over again, once staying up all night quietly singing along with this CD. Not just some of my favorite Nirvana songs are on this CD, but some of my favorite songs in general like "Lounge Act", "Drain You", "In Bloom". This is a pitoval albumn for me, it's what made me realize what type of music I liked, it influenced my fashion sense and opened me up to a culture that I feel finally made me feel like I fit in. This albumn is an absolute must-have, this literally should be standard issued not just to rock fans but everyone on Earth. 7.) Offspring: Smash Technically this would be the first "Punk" CD I owned, if you consider Offspring punk. The reason I say that is because I feel this CD is a great example of what punk albumns should sound like. Even though Punk purists will contend with you that Offspring is not punk, which I whole-heartidly would agree with you on Offsprings later albumns Smash has some of the catchiest 3 chord songs out there. This was one of my first CD's I ever owned therefore I wore it out in no time. Well given it was between this CD and John Mellencamp's Scarecrow. There's only so many times you can hear "Small Town" without needing to hear "Smash". Nearly every song on this CD I feel is worth a listen to, the only one I think possibly borders on super cheese would be "Bad Habit" as the lyrics are just grasping for a concept which they think is cool but didn't actually do. But "Nitro", "Smash", "Something To Believe In", "Genocide", all are great tracks and definetly stand the test of time (it has been 11 years since that record dropped). 8.) Thumb: Exposure This is the best unknown band I've ever heard. Completely innovative, and seriously probably the first rapcore band in exhistence. All the lyrics are unbelievable and the writer has no problem sharing his personal life expiriences, which is a huge plus with music as it helps you identify with the singer. This is another CD with dropped D tuning, if it's not down full to a D I think it's at least at a half step, the pre-amp effect definetly gives this a deep sound to it. Not quite Korn deep, but it sounds an awful lot like Limp Bizkit's heavier guitar riffs (while anyone can argue how much Limp Bizkit sucks, the prime target there has to be Fred Durst, I've never had a problem with any of their guitar work). This Albumn came out in early '98 which baffles me as that means this albumn (as most artists who work for Victory) had probably been written and performed for the better part of two years, and since the band is from Germany probably longer, yet it was probably the next summer when this type of music hit big time and yet Thumb was not a part of the boom. Tragic I think. Thumb is an awesome band, and this albumn stands the test of time hardcore, I think I'll be listening to this one until I'm like 60 or something. Worth noting is my first year in college I was pretty into this CD, I think I listened to it nearly every day. Just before I got into wrestling all my college friends were quite ecclectic themselves and this is the only CD where I can say nearly everyone I suggested buy this CD, loved this CD. Even one friend of mine (and the only other member of A.C.R.E.D.) who was into TripHop almost exclusively. Ravers, Rockers, Gothers (is that a sub-group) all love Thumb. 9.) Pennywise: About Time The Punk veterans make my list, this CD is definetly in the list of catchiest hooks ever list. The lyrics are alot more punk than MxPx, and I can see why people who truly love punk would rate this band and say MxPx is simply a Christian poser band. Pennywise completely and totally rocks here, and I think this albumn is their best effort. "Same Old Story", "Every Single Day", "Judgement Day" some of the best hooks ever laid down. Anyone who wants to argue with me, I'll play the CD for them, and see in two hours if you're not humming the chorus of all the songs. I know this albumn backwards and forwards. Just a few days ago I put the CD on after possibly 2 years of not listening to this CD even once, immediately everything came back to me as I was singing as loudly and proudly as the weeks following buying the CD. A true gem of a record, the only real negative that I found with the CD is the ugly red and yellow motif on the CD itself...hideous. 10.) Dramarama: Greatest Hits This is my most recent discovery, but has rapidly made it's way to my favorite band list. When I heard the name Dramarama I actually thought it was Bananarama who are most well known for the "Cruel Summer" Karate Kid theme. At the very least I thought it would be a similar type band, that stupid '80's "let's make everyone dance" attitude. Nothing could be further from the truth as Dramarama were probably the pioneers in grunge rock, or at the very least founding fathers of the alternative scene that was just starting in the early '80's. "Anything, Anything (I'd Give You)" is probably the most amazing song I've ever heard. Lately I have a hard time identifying with lyrics, maybe it's the fact I'm getting older and the normal angst "My life sucks" lyrics that used to appeal to me no longer do, but the words of this song cut through me and nearly brought me to tears I identified with it so much. Anyone who feels a tad underappreciated in a relationship I doubt could listen to this song and not feel a bit of a twinge in the tear department. John Easdale has such a great way of crafting his lyrics, that are so brutally honest, willing to admit he was so depressed "I'm living on chocolate ice cream". I love this band, and will stand and defend them as ardently as I will that Nirvana started the best period of music in history (F**K the '60's). Anyone who likes Alternative and doesn't have something from Dramarama should be shot for stupidity. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, September 8th, 2004
10:10 am	First semi-private entry.... I'm sick of getting yelled at. I actually sat down to think about that yesterday late at night and realized I'm seriously just sick and tired of being yelled at. I honestly don't think a day went by in my life where I haven't been yelled at for one thing or another. What brought me to this monstrous decision is I went home yesterday from work, late due a long phone call two minutes before I was to log out. I was having a bad day, I missed my exit to route 10 so I was stuck in traffic to get home which is one exit past 195 (sidenote: I hate that road, can they do SOMETHING about the traffic flow there?), finally I get home and I'm tired. I take out something for dinner to dethaw as my wife should be home in another 15 to 20 minutes. I put on some music and layed down, and fell asleep. It was honestly the most calming thing I could've done. My wife gets home late from being on the bus and proceeds to reem me a new one for not answering her e-mail which I didn't get, having my bag in the middle of the living room (which she hadn't gone in), and not taking my sandles off when I got in the door (when her shoes were still on). Then what I had taken out for dinner wasn't right, and she had errands to do which I needed to be there for. Growing up I think it was the same way, I would get home from school and chill for an hour, then I would go to work, I would come home to find my book bag strewn about and some half finished homework assignment out on the table, one I planned to finish in study and I would get reemed for not finishing it and had to do it right then. Then I would get yelled at for not wanting to study the bible, or something about how I wasn't spiritual. Then I would get screamed at for having clothes on the floor. My childhood up until Junior High and High School I had nothing to look forward to, then in Junior High I found something I could always look forward to the hours from 2-4:30. I was alone, no one to scream at me. I could do my homework in peace, I could turn on the TV or turn on the radio and do my homework. Or not do my homework, whatever felt good for the day. It was actually up to me what to do, and I didn't have someone riding me to make sure I made the decision best for them. When I got into High School I had the hour from 2-3 all to myself, I completely cherished that hour, I literally thought about it all day. I would get into school in the morning, deal with that day's crap (ie getting picked on by students because I was a witness, being picked on by the witnesses because I wasn't enough of a witness, teachers treating me like crap because I was funny, getting made fun of because my mom drove the school bus, getting made fun of due to my huge ears, the scar on my chest, made fun of by the metal heads because I liked punk, made fun of by the punks because I liked metal, the jocks because I wasn't one, the theatre crew because I couldn't do afterschool activities...etc.) and the whole day from the minute our attendance was taken in the morning I was thinking about 2 o' clock. When I got home, I could just sit there. If I wanted to sit on the couch for an hour and not move, I could sit on the couch for an hour and not move. It was my hour of alone time and no one could take that from me. It's probably why I was so deficient in doing my homework for the day, there was so much I wanted to do that I didn't have a chance to for the rest of the day, and then homework was going to horn in on my hour alone. I actually looked forward to going to work. I got a job next door as a furniture stripper/furniture mover. It was easy work, it wasn't brain surgery or anything, I took staples out of fabric in couches and chairs. But unlike home I never got yelled at. It was simple I did my job, I finished pieces, I delivered them they were happy. I never once got yelled at, even when I slacked off a day and only finished like half a couch it was ok, I was coming back the next day and I would more than likely feel more up to working then. Work never got in my way, I do my job, I do my job well, I've never had a problem. In fact my boss became a friend and would actually make jokes about the times he could hear my mother screaming at me, especially report card day. And my job now extended the time I looked forward to by half an hour, sometimes more if there was a delivery. 2-5 was my time, it was easy time, a time everyday I could look forward to. Is it bad I now look forward to 5:45 (when I get home) to 6:20 when my wife gets home, and whenever my wife goes to bed till I go to bed. It's harder when you get older to find time to yourself, my job is great, once again I still look forward to my job. It's an easy job, I don't do much, I never get yelled at (by my boss), plus the years of tuning out being yelled at comes in handy for customers. I look forward to going to my job in the morning, but I really look forward to getting home, oh 5:45-6:20, how I look forward to it. I can check my e-mail without someone over my shoulder, I can eat if I feel like eating, poop if I feel like pooping, go to whatever websites I want, turn on the TV, watch a wrestling tape, anything. Now that I'm older the free time has died off, there are actually more things to do, even though none of which involve me. I could seriously leave my house three times a week and be completely fine. I'm thinking of taking a 4 x 10 schedule just so I can have a whole day to myself. I don't think that's going to happen though. I don't know what I would do with all that time though, is it possible to OD on alone time? You should see me now when I make it home at 5:30, I can't control myself knowing I have an extra 15 minutes, I literally dance around for a good 10 minutes just happy at the fact I have the extra time. Nothing has really changed over the years, the second someone else enters my presence I get yelled at. I never understood how anyone could even think they have the right to yell at someone else. Maybe it's the absolute expirience I have with being yelled at but most of the time someone yells at me I purposely do the opposite of what they told me. I really don't think I've yelled at someone since I was 9. I used to yell all the time, then I realized I was a jerk and I stopped. Does anyone understand the point of yelling? I mean does anyone stop and think what yelling really accomplishes. I can guarantee you every time you yell at someone they like you less. For example it's like re-chargeable batteries, when you first get them they're at full charge, you can use them for days and days no problem. Then once they run out you re-charge them, but they don't have the same amount of power they once did, it's charged to about 85%, then they run out and you try to re-charge them but this time it's only 70%, then next time 55%, next time 30%. It gets lower and lower, until you realize it's time for new batteries. Any relationship like that, eventually one grows to despise the other and soon enough they leave. Everyone leaves their parents for the same reason, they yelled at them and they were sick of it. After time you find you can leave them without even thinking about it, if I call my parents once in the week it's a good week. I don't know maybe I'm being too critical, or maybe still too unrealistic but is it too much to ask to be comfortable everywhere I am? Happy? What does it take to make yourself happy? (Comment on this)
Tuesday, September 7th, 2004
8:18 pm	Found a better option.... I completely hate this, I'm such a hypocrite I should just close this journal and not look back. But as I sat at work today I was begging to update my journal so I say fuck it why not. I love the name of my journal and it fits me well so I'm not closing my journal, just to those I don't want to read it. This journal is now friends only...this is the last entry public, sorry folks if you like what you read shoot a reply here and I'll add you as a friend and you can read on...if you want to be added so you can bitch me out for the contents fuck off! (12 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, September 3rd, 2004
5:48 pm	When I grow up... "I want to be an astronaut when I grow up" "I want to be a police man when I grow up" "I want to be a fire-fighter when I grow up" "I want to be a junkie when I grow up" "I want to be a political activist when I grow up" One of these doesn't sound right. I find it odd that out of the above choices I chose the last. Especially given my upbringing. My whole life I was told "Be no part of the world" just like Jesus was no part of the world. That makes no sense to me now because when you actually sit and think about it Jesus was a huge part of the world. He's a huge part of the world now. You can't walk three steps without running into some Jesus freak with a fish on their car, a bible, a cross or something Jesus related. Jesus said he was no part of the world in his time but he spoke out against the scribes and pharisees, he went into public places and overturned tables, he spoke out against the Romans. Jesus was a political activist, he just geared it toward the Bible. Now I feel I'm a political activist, the more stuff I read the more I think "How can I not get involved?" How can I just sit back and let someone else decide my future? The most important thing I think I can do right now is get Bush out of office. All you have to do is read, or see Farenheit 9/11, or get Rock Against Bush compilation to realize something is incredibly wrong here. Some of the facts about Bush: The Day Bush took office he asked how could he invade Iraq. The week after war was declared in Iraq, Bush set up a meeting between his campaign contributors and companies he worked for to sell contracts to the oil in Iraq. The 15% of newly created jobs Bush is always talking about is due to the Bush administration classifying Fast Food Workers as Manufacturing positions. Bush has already drawn up and presented a bill that would re-instate the Draft. The companies who funded the Bush campaign are also the companies that own the media, hence why you rarely see anit-Bush anything on TV. Despite making anti-terror his main priority in America Bush cut the anti-terror budget for the FBI by 2/3rds. More troops per capita have died in the Iraq war than did in Vietnam. The Iraq war is not a "smart war" where only the enemy is killed, Bush recently authorized the use of cluster bombs(the world's biggest non-nuclear bomb) and the innocent civilians death toll has raised to 10,000. Almost as many as the death toll for American soldiers. With the media spinning the War in Bush's favor imagine what that number really is. Bush is right now assembling his picks for the Supreme Court with the express purpose of taking away a woman's right to choose abortion. What about all the unwanted Babies, well Bush has it handled he's slashed welfare and cut the amount of funding to Orphaniges. The country was not in a recession when Bush took office, The last time this country was in a recession was when Bush's father was in office, which turned into the largest economic boom in the Country's history, America is now in a recession. Bush has made it illegal to create new stem cells for stem cell research which was making progress in Cancer, AIDS and paralysis. There are more too, tons more. How could I honestly just sit by while one man can destroy my life, if I get cancer I might not have a cure due to a moral decision Bush has made political all based on his Fundy Christian background. I could be forced into a war I don't believe in. It's terrible and there's only one thing I can do to fix it: Vote! I usually would Vote Nader just because he's the alternative choice for everything, but the stakes are too high. We all know there are two seperate political parties and only one canidate from one of those two parties can win. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Tuesday, August 31st, 2004
1:00 pm	Back By Popular Demand.... Conversations from Witness life: This was popular before actually inspiring a comment on this lil' old journal so back by popular demand more conversations I had while I was a witness. A quick disclaimer: These are conversations that I had recited through memory, they're probably not as exact as I would like and my comments were probably less humorous and more caustic when I was answering as it always seemed everything I said I ended up getting in trouble for offending people. The Setting: Out in Service with an Elder, actually the head Elder the one who reports to the Circuit Overseer. He's a total control freak and likes to make funny references about how totoletarian his household is. At least he has a sense of humor....for now. Elder: So when are you getting Baptized? Me: Um how about I worry about the next door before working on Baptism. Elder: Well you've excelled at speaking in the ministry school, you're regular with your monthly hours and I can't even remember the last time you missed a meeting.... Me: January 29th *pleasant sigh* Elder: The next obvious step for you is Baptism, there's no more you can do in the truth without being baptised. If you want I can tell you what the questions are so that way you'll be ready for your baptism meeting? Me: Oh great so I can take crib notes into the meeting, I know the answers you guys would be looking for. Elder: See there's no reason we shouldn't have the meeting within the next month. The next assembly is coming up in two months, you'd be ready by then to be baptized. Me: Oh I can hardly contain my excitement. Elder: You'd actually be getting baptized with my son Jonathan Me: Did he have the same encouragement I did. Elder: In my house I tell my children what the next step for them is, then they have to work for it. By Age 7 they would be talking at doors, by age 11 they join the school, by age 16 they should pioneer over the summer for at least a month, now the step is baptism. Me: No wonder he was so good at jumping through hoops at the congregation picnic. Elder: See if you were in my house you'd be straightened out in a day, if you don't wake up I throw a bucket of water on you. Me: You realize I once fell asleep in the bathtub right? Elder: Weekly family studies and daily personal studies, everyone is up to do the morning text. I set a goal for my older son that by age 19 he'd be in Bethel and he made it by 18. I think you're goal for the day should be to place a book. Me: I already did place a book, remember the Revelation book. My key placing point was the curiosity of what the picture was of on the cover. Elder: See my goals work for everyone. Me: Oh yeah, Bethel here I come. The Setting: A friend and I are in service and by sheer accident we were actually paired with each other to go to doors. Friend: Hi we're Jehovah's Witnesses and we're speaking to people about the bible. Householder: Not interested *slams door* Me: Wow that was like the exact opposite of every presentation I've ever heard on the platform. Friend: What am I supposed to convince them to read something I don't even read myself? God imagine if they actually did, then they had questions about it? That would suck. Besides wouldn't you rather finish our side of the street then sit in the car for a few minutes while our parents finish their side. Me: True enough, I'd much rather sit in the car. Do you have the not at home list? Friend: I thought you were taking that down. Me: No I wasn't Friend: Well that white house wasn't home. Your turn. Me: Hello sir, I was going through the neighborhood showing people this tract. Doesn't the picture look wonderful and peaceful... Householder: (interrupting) I'm not interested *shuts door* Friend: See, what's the point of doing the presentation. The people don't care, at least with my presentation they know what's going on, who we are, what we're doing. I'm not trying to trick them into reading literature. Plus I get to finish my entire presentation while you only get to finish a sentence of yours. Me: Point taken, what if they're interested after your presentation. Friend: I don't know I suppose I'd show them a magazine... Me: Or tell them, we're looking to change your religion and make you leave your family members in favor of the Kingdom Hall. Friend: Yeah good thinking, that'll get us to the car way quicker. The Setting: At the meeting where a curious friend asks me what I've been doing for the past two weeks worth of meetings. Friend: Hey you. Me: (looking up from my Bible) Hey. (Continues looking down at Bible) Friend: Ok so today during the ministry school you flipped in your Bible about 18-20 times, Sunday at the Watchtower you didn't even have a Watchtower on your lap, just continually flipping through the Watchtower, then today again during the Service meeting you had looked up about 5 scriptures by the time everyone else had looked up one, what's the deal? What do you have the Sunday public talk. Me: You mean the public lecture? Friend: What? Me: You haven't noticed when announcing the talk for Sunday they call it the public lecture? Friend: No, do they really? Me: Yeah, it's the public lecture and the Watchtower Study. Friend: That sounds odd. Me: That's what I thought but then I actually sat down and thought about it. The Sunday Talk isn't ever just a speech about how much God loves us, or about the hope for paradise forever and ever. It's usually about what we're doing wrong which is preventing us from reaching paradise or gaining God's love. Friend: Hmmm... Me: Yup God's merciless love, well unless you're luke-warm in the spirit in which he'll vomit you out. Or if you're weak in what is little you'll be weaker in what is much, or heaven forbid you become a stumbling block right? Friend: You've got a point there. Me: And the Watchtower study is later, in which we read the paragraphs then the conductor asks the questions at the bottom. Which is exactly what we do at home. Friend: Uh-huh... Me: So I go home and read the Watchtower and answer all the questions so that I'll be ready for Sunday when we read the Watchtower and answer all of it's questions. Somewhat redundant if you ask me. Friend: So what does this have to do with you constantly looking up scriptures? Me: Well I figure while I'm here and since I've already done what we're about to do, I might as well get some actual research done. Friend: Like? Me: Well when Brother Whitford counselled me on having long hair he showed me a scripture and said "It's in the Bible, whenever someone tells me some counsel I ask them to show where it is in the Bible, then I'll believe it", then he showed me one scripture that said it is a shame for a man to have long hair. Friend: OK, so they want you to cut your hair, of course they're going to find a scripture. Me: So I asked him, "One Scripture? Thou shalt not murder is in there like 10,000 times, almost as much as worship God. You think if something is important God would re-itterate it a few times." Friend: Makes sense to me he would. Me: So since the "only way" he believes something is right is if you show him a scripture, and since there is ONLY ONE scripture saying not to have long hair I decided to come up with some scriptures saying God doesn't care what you look like as long as your heart is right. Friend: It's been two weeks. Me: I'm up to Psalms. Friend: Dear Lord, How many did you find? Me: So far 37. Friend: So there are 37 scriptures that say God doesn't care what you look like as long as you do his will and your heart is in the right place? Me: Yeah, alot of them deal with the Moabites. Friend: But at the same time you can't have long hair? Me: Well yeah, that's what it says in the Hebrew scriptures. Then again you also had to be circumsized, wear all your clothing with a blue line and fringe at the bottom and you couldn't trim your beard. Friend: So what are you planning to do with this? Me: Not too much, maybe write a talk. Basically say that if one of these scriptures hold true than all of them should. Jesus abolished the Hebrew Scriptures, but it seems that I still have to abide by the idea of having short hair. Which I'm sure was a different ideal back then. So if I need to follow Hebrew law of keeping my hair short then women should have to be unclean during their period for 14 days, we should all have to dig holes 50 feet from our homes in order to go to the bathroom, and I'd love to see the backlash on forcing the circumsizion law. Friend: Well that would be a bummer for some of the people. Me: Eh, I already am, it wouldn't effect me. Friend: A talk huh? I don't think you'd get through half of it before all the elders rushed the stage. Me: C'mon they can't do that. Everyone would just have a disgusted look on their face, like when I make jokes in my talks. Friend: Actually some of us were spoken to because we laughed at your jokes in your talks. Me: You've got to be kidding? Friend: No really, when we were out in service with Brother Buell he told us not to encourage you because once you could do a talk without making jokes they were planning on putting you into number 4 talks. All the elders spoke about it and said that if you didn't get such good reactions with your jokes you might stop. So they were speaking with everyone in order to further you in the truth. Me: Well that's one thing that seperates laugher from religion. Friend: What's that? Me: One of those can never be forced. The Setting: An Elder trying to act hip with me and trying to make it seem like he understands my music. Also trying to counsel me on said music because anything rock related must be Heavy Metal. Elder: Hi there Tim, what are you listening to? Me: I'm listening to Gorilla Biscuits. Elder: Oh that sounds interesting, I hear they're pretty good. Me: Have you? What have you heard is their best song? Elder: I can't really remember, since their CD just came out I only heard about their concerts. Me: The CD I'm listening to is from 1989. Elder: Oh....er.....did you happen to read the article in the Watchtower about Heavy Metal and Rap music last month? Me: Surprisingly yes I did. Elder: I'm sure you saw that some of the themes in their music would be things that we as Christians would hope to avoid. Me: Yeah, I'm glad I don't listen to either type of music you mentioned. Elder: Well what type of music is Gorilla Buzzcuts? The article also mentioned Punk music as just the same as Heavy Metal if not worse. Me: They're Hardcore music, New York style. Elder: Harcore music?!?!?! Surely they can't have the themes a christian should be listening to. Me: The song I was just listening to is about watching too much TV and letting your brain go to waste, the one after this is about how companies only try to save animals that are cute, and my favorite song is about not wasting time called "Start Today". Elder: (looks at me dumbfounded) Me: Yeah see check out the lyrics "Sitting on the couch you watch, you're a slave to TV show, you thought before but you sat and dropped; what did you learn you don't even know." Elder: Well that does seem admirable. Me: Actually wasn't the month before the Heavy Metal/Rap article an article about wasting your time watching TV in the Watchtower? Elder: Let me see that CD! (Grabs CD case out of my hands) Well how about this, what's this song "Degredation"? Me: That's about people who go to concerts to start fights. Apparently back in the day there used to be skinheads and neo-nazis that used to go to shows to push their ideals onto kids they thought were weak willed and needed direction. If the kid disagreed they'd usually beat them up or start a huge argument. Elder: That sounds horrible. Me: Yeah I know imagine that a group that targets the weak willed and forces them to join their group or face dyer consequences, how sad would it be to be a part of that group? Elder: Yeah complete......uh, did you notice they're starting a volleyball game? Me: No. Elder: Maybe we should start one. Me: Nah I'm cool listening to my CD. Elder: (walking away) Yeah I'm going to get some people together to play volleyball. (yelling to others) Hey everyone lets start a volleyball game. (8 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, August 24th, 2004
5:20 am	Vintage 1999.... Here's a poem I wrote probably two weeks before I left the Witnesses, I'm watching my mother's house while she's away and found a bunch of my notebooks and stuff from around that time period. Man was I disturbed, seriously I didn't see one picture in those notebooks that didn't involve someone being stabbed, shot, some sort of dismemberment, heads and hands in jars. It was pretty disturbing, though I was more talented of an artist but I feel I'm a better writer now I just wrote way more then. Wrestling has indeed taken over my life, but looking at those notebooks makes me wonder what would've happened to me if I hadn't gotten involved in wrestling. Without any further ado, on to the poem.... Does God think you will never sin? In God's game of life will you ever win? Tell me which one of God's Law Will open for me heaven's door? The dumber you are the more you accept For all your accepting you'll be defined as inept Can anyone speak out and explain to me Why we've gone through so much agony Just to give up this short of Paradise All because we've seen the holy man's vice? So to reitterate I'll ask once again Does God truely think you will never sin? Is God really watching, has he seen his group And all the low depths that they're known to stoop Has he seen the abomidable things they do As they blame all their wrong-doings on you They say he'll step in and right all the wrongs But in this new system will I really belong? They'll still be laws and the Holier-Than-Thou group They'll still train stupidity so they'll continue to dupe Can anyone see how this world will turn out to be Your interprited scriptures can never tell me Tell me truly, is this whole thing in vain This whole worshipping crap and all of our pain? If you want proof I'll give some to you Ask for God, plead him something to do Ask for the heavens, ask for the Earth Ask for anything, anything of worth Why can't we ever get what we want And in our face the Elder's power they flaunt Tell me God those men, did you choose? So the wick can get crushed and the reed they will bruise Why does God allow all of our pain Your answer is sensless I'm without anything gained See in your answers the resolution goes all around as into our brain your oral law is pound Point out a scripture, point out a verse Your point gets diluted, the answer gets worse Threatening me because of a question Or because it's truth may spread like infection See everybody, in all of their change They've become like the others, power derranged In all the fighting up to this date They've become just like that which they hate This orginization, it won't set us free From bathing in it's own hypocracy I ask you can they truly be from God as they tear into the Bible and the truth gets marred I ask you all to open your eyes Don't let this ioda of truth pass you by Take charge of your life, for once take the lead Shun this whole place, this hall of disease The church doesn't care except for itself Only cares for you for a piece of your wealth Strike out on your own, and set yourselves free Know that God looks down angrily God will understand if you go it alone He sees the amount of evil in our Earthly home Live for yourselves, do what you think is good Then sure to follow your happiness should I could be wrong, in these things that I've said It's entirely possible, God is dead Afterall, he's never solved the problems here on Earth He can't even weed out the bad in his church So in that case I say "Do what is wrong" And we'll all get together, we'll all get along God set up sinning in his emnity But through disobeying we're in unity We'll do what we want, as long as it's fun Join in rejoicing! Satan has won! (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Sunday, August 22nd, 2004
11:45 pm	The very worst of Professional Wrestling... Welcome to my weekend. Once again I've expirienced a weekend that can only be described as the reason why I should quit wrestling. Suprisingly my weekend of shitty wrestling begins on Thursday when I have the pleasure to team with Doug Sommers to face the team of Spider and Verge. Well Spider was fine, and the team of Doug and me otherwise known as the Super Awesome Death Destroyers did fine, Verge however is the epitome of bad worker. To start things there was a minor downpour for about half an hour before the show started and then it stopped, though no one had the presence of mind to cover the ring, so the ring was soaking wet and in like three steps I would slip. It seriously cut down the amount of stuff I could do. We kept it pretty simple and got a descent reaction from alot of the stuff we did, especially the abdominal stretch though Verge couldn't figure out that after the ref catches us cheating and kicks our hands apart he's supposed to hip toss me. Honestly, in the years of watching wrestling I've seen that one thing done about 4500 times, I'm sure he has too, how in the blue hell could he not know what we were doing next. Oh and he also turned me into Michaelangelo from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles with one of his overhand punches which turned into an elbow/forearm to the top of my head thereby knocking my head from my jaw up to my nose into my shoulders. I would've loved it if I were actually a Turtle. The rest of the show was ok at best, some matches were spotty and others sucked, on the bright side Punisher Don Vega showed fire, charisma and totally turned me into one of his biggest fans that night. Cueball was Cueball (left side head nod meant he was a heel that night...ooh dripping with charisma). Skipping Friday and moving onto Saturday I had the distinct pleasure of driving an hour and a half with the heavens about to burst open to Framingham to a clinic I've been looking forward to going to for around two months. All I thought was about the cool simple things Mike Quackenbush taught at his clinic about the European style and how I got so much use out of them, how much more is Doug Williams a phenominal world class worker who is actually from Europe (England to be exact) will teach me? The answer is....NOTHING!!! I literally hauled ass doing around 85/90 the whole way to Framingham because I was running later than I wanted to. I was afraid that if everyone was there and the ring was there they might start the clinic without me and I would lose my opportunity to impress Mr. Doug Williams. I got there at 12:45, 15 minutes till the clinic started and I thought I was late, I sprinted with my bag to the building to find...two fans helping with the show telling me that I was the first one there. No not the first person who signed up for the clinic....No not the first worker there...I was THE FIRST PERSON to show up. Sheldon Goldberg the promoter wasn't even there yet, in fact the building wasn't even open yet. I waited half an hour before Doug Williams and Sheldon showed up. Then I waited another hour and a half while Doug Williams went downstairs and slept and Sheldon went to get food for Bob to show up with a couple of his students. Then I waited another half an hour before Bob said that we should do a question and answer session with Doug Williams, and another half hour for the other person who was in the clinic to get back from eating lunch. All and all it was 3 o' clock before the actual clinic began, and the ring was no where in site. I had a show to be at for 6 o'clock in Pawtucket which meant at the latest I could leave at 5, but since my habit is to be early for shows I had to be there by six so I had to leave at 4:30. So a whopping hour and a half of asking "what do you teach your students?" and get this the three things he teaches his students: 1.) Sell every bump you take so it's a reaction 2.) Practice every move out of the lock up 3.) Turn left (dummy turn) when getting up from the ground. Great, thanks Doug Williams, you've taught me exactly what I learned my first lesson in Pro Wrestling. The worst part is after all that waiting, and the disappointing question and answer session, Sheldon still collected the money. No discount because the ring wasn't there, no discount because it started 2 hours late, no discount for anything, I paid $30 to learn absolutely shit. Doug Williams was a great guy, and he knows his stuff, I learned that by asking him questions, because no one else asked him any questions. Well actually this is how the clinic went. Me "What are the most important things you look for in a good worker?" Doug Williams: Some explination. Alex Crowley (Bob student, the same one I spoke about in a previous entry who critisized me in my match even though he can't work) Do you like the american style, I can't seem to like the style? Doug Williams: Starts and explination Alex Crowley: (Interrupting) "See when I moved here I couldn't watch it at all..." Continues with long drawn out story about moving to America and the old British style how it was more real even after Doug Williams disagreed with him. Rocco Abruzi (Yes the other idiot I spoke about in a previous post) Puts himself over to Doug as being a great worker and how he doesn't agree with things people do, ROH is crap and this is what I do in matches. Me: "What would you think the differences between the American and European styles are, and how do you work both to compensate them?" Doug Williams: Some explination. Alex Crowley: (interrupting again) "Yeah the American style isn't as real" Doug disagrees with him yet again and he goes into an even longer more drawn out story about moving to America and how the style isn't as "realistic". Rocco Abruzi: Puts himself over yet again to Doug Williams, in a long story and bashes ROH again. Other kid in clinic: "Where are you working after these shows in America?" Doug Williams: "ROH" It was a wonderful clinic of me asking questions trying to learn how he puts together matches, how to improve to broaden my bookings around the world, how to meld the styles of Europe, America and Japan and how to work any style. Alex Crowley trying to engraciate himself to Doug Williams by mentioning (probably a hundred times) how he was from England. And Rocco putting himself over. Finally I said something to the effect of "How is that work going with your one year expirience?" to Rocco in which Doug Williams started laughing and would smile whenever Rocco would put himself over to him. Paul Lombardi the other "Paid" participant in the clinic sat in dead silence the whole time. As they were about to get into the ring it was already 4:45 and I had to go, it was POURING out and PLW was cancelled which I found out in the middle of my ride there. Not to worry though, PLW was merely postponed to today. I got to the show and I'm seeing many of the guys I was hoping I was good enough to move beyond in my wrestling career. I take a look at the card and I'm still pitted against Amazing Jay, Jay was good stuff when I met him so I'm hoping all will be well and good. Manaical Mark shot me an e-mail saying he had an idea for me, now after the last idea I was a bit weary. Just a warning, this is going to be a long explination so here goes (I'll try to remember all the details): The idea is as follows; after cheating and defeating Amazing Jay I will stay in the ring and live up the fact I won. Stay in there cutting a promo till the next match starts which is Punisher and Blackheart. I stand up to them and they beat me up, I say I'm never coming back to PLW and next show I'm under a hood as "Mr. PLW". "But it's obvious to everyone you're Tim Kilgore". Now for my problems with the idea: 1.) PLW only does spot shows, no one cares about a story at a spot show, they want to see the babyfaces they want to see win, win their matches. Basic as possible, this guy's good, this guy's bad, good guy wins. 2.) Due to PLW doing spot shows, I've never once seen one person travel to more than one PLW show. No one follows them around because they don't run enough, certainly no one keeps track of what's going on. 3.) As much as I'd like to say people know me in the wrestling world, once again due to the spot show nature these fans don't know me from Adam. Not one person in that crowd other than the friends and family will even think that the guy under the hood is Tim Kilgore instead of a guy under a hood. 4.) I'm turning heel by staying in the ring and two heels are going to kick me out. Meaning the heels for the next match are now babyfaces by beating me up. And another problem came up during the match. Amazing Jay SUCKS ASS! He couldn't figure out half the international and when I asked him if he knew what it was he said he did, then proceeded to do it wrong. He came out wearing his awesome robe, his cool hat, and didn't interact with the fans one bit. Since I worked the crowd I became the babyface even though I cheated. He sold the wrong stuff, when I hit him light he went down, when I hit him hard he didn't sell any more than he did for the light stuff. He was a robot, he bumped (on his ass) and got up. He didn't do anything I could work with, he didn't fire up, he didn't sell at all, he didn't work the crowd at all. So in essence due to him bumping when I hit him light the fans thought it was fake, so I had to hit him hard to make up for that (which I thoroughly enjoyed). And because he didn't sell or anything it didn't matter what I did to him, I could've ripped his head off and pissed in the gaping hole in his neck that his head once was and the crowd would've been like "Good, that other guy was a loser anyway". So problem number five was: 5.) I came out as the babyface for the match, so they wouldn't want me to leave anyway. Somehow I got them to turn on me, by sheer annoyance. Though Mark and Paul Lauzon trying to make me leave made them look stupid, and they actually thought I was cooler than them. So they rooted for me. Pun and Blackheart came out, once again due to me being obnoxious I got over as a heel. And just like I said, they got over as babies. Sometimes I question if the people running shows have the first inkling about wrestling in general at all. Seriously, what about this gimmick made them even think it would go over. It didn't get over, and it didn't get the right heat at all. The only highlight of the day for me was the fact "Sweet" Scott Ashworth, who is quite honestly the most UNDERRATED worker in New England for sure and probably the world was there and asked me why I wasn't in YPW. I told him I didn't know (which is part true :) ) and he told me that he had respect for me and thought I was a hell of a worker. He asked if I wanted to go to Yankee and work him, I said I'd love to work him anywhere and he said he'd talk to Jamie for me. So the reason I got kicked out of SCCW (sort of working NEWA) talking about moving to Yankee because I wanted to work Ashworth has turned into something where I would actually work Ashworth. Ashworth is the man, I think he fucking rules and gets without a doubt the best crowd reaction out of anyone I know. To work him would be an honor. Given it will probably never happen, but hey it's the only thought getting me through this atrocious weekend, and probably the only idea keeping me in this business. Oh and BTW my biggest pet peeve proves true in NECW as well, Bob Evans got the book in NECW and immediately put himself in the main event, after beating Doug Williams. Big fucking shock right? Some worker gets the book and puts himself in the main event, whatever, fuck worker/bookers, I still might get to work Scott Ashworth. Every girls crazy 'bout a Sharp Dressed Man! (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, August 17th, 2004
12:12 am	A Loss for Words... A loss for words is one of the last things I would say for myself when it comes to typing, writing in this journal or writing an e-mail. In person I'm completely different, I don't think I've said 3 or 4 words this whole year at work to most of the bosses. I heard a story once about a person who was blind his entire life ask a man what blue looks like. The man flustered tried to explain what blue was, but nothing he could come up with could truly give blue justice. I mean how do you describe the beauty of the sky, or the deepness of the ocean, the most endless blue you've ever seen, now describe that. It's impossible, or as my Dad says describe the difference in taste between chicken and turkey. A similar situation happened to me today when asked why I left the witnesses. It was like describing blue, some people can see all the discrepencies and some people can't. It would be like how you know you're male vs. female, either you can put the signs together or you can't. Maybe that's not the best example; you see I'm completely speechless. Now I'll have to quote from memory here because for some reason I can't find my Bible (must be due to a severe lack of study) but I remember a scripture saying "you will know my followers from they love amongst themselves." I felt that was not something to be described as a Witness. There was another scripture "Do not tell your brother 'let me extract the splinter in your eye' when you have a rafter in your own". I felt that described well the Elders and more so the Elder's children in my congregation. Or the scripture talking about the time of the end "No one knows the day or the hour", which I felt my entire life I was told, "you'll never make it through High School", then "You'll never make it through college" now I'm gone I'm wondering if they're telling my friends "Don't bother saving up for retirement, it'll never make it that far."? I would love to say it was one big event, one monumentous moment in which I realized this is truly not the right religion. It was mostly the people, too many mistakes and things going wrong for God to be in control. I mean we all have stories of injustice in the congregation, I don't think ALL OF US should have at least one story of injustice in the congregation. I never paid attention to prophesy that much in my time as a witness so my scriptures vs. Watchtower is lacking to say the least but the one thing that I remember standing out was the 1914 generation. When I was at the Stone St. bookstudy I remember Al Scungio would always somewhat field questions that people in the bookstudy had. Al was a nice guy, he played guitar with my father (hmmm I wonder if he played the strip clubs like my father :) ) I remember one meeting in particular which I don't really remember the date but I'm pretty sure it was winter and I was around 13 because Crystal was still around at this point (but not in the bookstudy) 1993 was an awful long time for the generation to be around on earth. Especially since the generation started with "Everyone who had an idea or understood what was going on" to "Anyone alive at that time" to "if they were born in that year" till "about 80 years" and now it was rapidly going past 80 years. I remember my mother giving me examples of people in Russia who grew to be 120 years old. Then in a questions from the readers the Watchtower tried to explain this, Al read it to the group saying pretty much to the effect "some of you are questioning whether the 1914 generation should be longer than originally intended, this is by no means the case, the 1914 generation will remain the same." Everybody felt relieved. Then they changed the interpretation the next month. I'm a smart guy I think (165 IQ baby) the ever changing light doctrine, the light getting brighter and so forth is supposed to make me believe you more? As in "other religions don't admit they're wrong, while we do." The publications would always condemn Catholics for things like the Inquisition which happened in the Middle Ages, "if they were truly the right religion..." or the sex allegations in the Priesthood, I remember that being in Brother Casiano's presentation and a staple of my mother's catholic bashing. Well what about in the 20's - 50's when Vaccines were considered wrong due to the same principle as blood transfusions, and if the priesthood is bad about molestation check out Silent Lambs....Hello Pot, This is Kettle, YOU'RE BLACK! The thing is religion is based on faith. My mother is a sincere Jehovah's Witness, she believes with her whole heart and whole mind and whole soul (that's the way it was said right?), I could point these things out to her all day and she wouldn't believe. I could show her every single miscommunication, misprint, misinterpretation, errors in translation, errors in judgement, errors in publication and she would claim the ever changing light. I could show her an Elder robbing an old woman out of her savings by robbing a bank, raping a cockerspaniel, french kissing a guy, while sticking an aids infected needle in his ass and saying "you like that you little pussy bitch don't you" and she would say that "there are imperfect people in Jehovah's Orginization". Faith is what religion is all about, if you have faith, you believe things will be fixed (at God's almighty day I guess), if you're a realist or don't have faith you'll try to fix it yourself, once you realize one person can't fix a multi-million person orginization you leave. I can't shatter anybody's faith, Nazi's couldn't break people's faith, the depression couldn't break people's faith, the Egyptians didn't break the Jew's faith, the Romans couldn't break the Christian's faith, Michael Moore can't break President Bush's faith (LOL). If I could break people's faith I would use it for something a little more important than getting someone out of a religion. They have to want to be out before they will get themselves out. Like a person have to take a cold remedy if they want to be healed of the flu. One's eye cannot be opened until they tell them to be opened. I wish I had a scripture to end this with but once again because I can't find my Bible (an hour later WTF?!?!) I leave with my mother's old presentation for the Truth book (or was it Mankind's search for God) "We encourage you to examine your religion and take an open an honest look inside the religion, at those who are in charge and those in places of power. Do they reflect the personality that God's wants us to put on? Do they show the righteousness described in the Bible? When you look at it's devotees do they show the love Jesus described that would be found in his congregation? And of your doctrine does it follow the Bible exactly with no deviation or special interpretation? We encourage you to read the literature I just gave you with an open mind and ask yourself with an open heart am I truly serving God how he wants to be served?" That's enough for tonight, join me tomorrow when I discuss the politics of wrestling, the many uses of a hammerlock and why I called my finisher "The Double Cheese Rabbit" (too much witness reality in this post, need some humor) (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Thursday, July 22nd, 2004
2:58 pm	R.I.P. Life is short. Sometimes it takes a large jolt to make you realize that. I just had such a jolt this morning. I decided to pop online for a few minutes maybe look at some naked celebs or something, or possibly catch my friend Sean online to see about a show (it's a long story and totally unrelated) when I saw two frantic IM's up both telling me that Stevie Sky passed away in a car accident. To be truthful to myself I didn't really know Stevie all too well, I was married to him in South Coast, I spoke with him at pretty much every show there. But I didn't even know his real name, I had never been to his house or even hung out with him after a show. I did have one of my greatest matches with him, two possibly. All I knew of Stevie was that he (like most of the SCCW guys) was extremely nice and alot of fun to talk to. He was so full of life, always had a smile on his face, and was always positive about everything. For as little as I knew him I shouldn't be as effected as I am. It makes no sense that I sat crying during my ride to work this morning, and I can't bring myself to sound happy whatsoever since hearing of his death. Maybe I feel guilty for not have known him more during my window to know him, maybe I feel bad because if anyone deserved to have a good future it was Stevie, maybe it's just the fact he was 19. I don't know. For one of the first times in my life I'm speechless. Things like this make me realize I shouldn't take things for granted, and I should get to know everyone I can, while I can. Stevie Sky, you were an incredible person, I can only hope that you thought as highly of me as I think of you. I never believed in a heaven but if anyone deserves that sort of happy ending it's you. (Comment on this)
Sunday, July 18th, 2004
1:51 pm	One... People don't realize how important they are. I'm not going to use this as a preaching moment about saying you're an important person therefore no one should commit suicide. That is not a choice for me to make, that's a choice for everyone to make themselves. I'd be lying to say the thought hasn't crossed my mind. However while cleaning up the living room a person actually shot out in my mind. And while he may have been just a passing thought in the brain of a 23 year old metlife worker, I know he was much more important to other people. It was somewhat of a dichotomy, when you come to an ultimate realization that indeed everyone does have a purpose. Though I have to ask what happens when this purpose is completed, do you have more than one purpose? But I digress, I was just realizing some of the importance of just one person in my life. The person I was thinking about, his name was Robbie Buell. He was an elder's son and one of the biggest hypocrites I knew. In fact whenever I'm mentioning about Elder's kids being big two-faced pieces of shit, I'm usually talking about him. The dude used to counsel me on the music I would listen to, which was stuff like Gorilla Biscuits and Warzone, basically writing about very positive messages. Then the fucker would go off and listen to Led Zepplin, Pearl Jam and Metallica. Whatever, that's not what I wanted to talk about. While important enough in my life to give me a bad taste in Elder's children he was much more important to a friend of mine Mike Parillo. Mike's mother became a witness when he was 13. Imagine that, you live in downtown Providence your whole life, then your mother joins a cult and not only are you stuck with all these stupid rules but you've moved to a new town and if that's not bad enough you're now going to school with the biggest self-righteouss asshole on the face of the planet. I didn't really get along with Mike to tell you the truth, I was really good friends with his brothers Anthony and Chuck. So one day before my leaving the "truth" Anthony is talking to me about it. Now I like Anthony alot, he's a real gentle guy and is truly a nice person who wants to help out, quite honestly though he's not the brightest bulb. So in his attempt at a spiritual talk (which was sweet, just I knew much more about scriptures saying I was a witness my entire life) he told me how Mike was dressing semi-gansta. Now nothing that would be bad, baggy pants, ghetto t-shirts. So what right? WRONG!!! Robbie at every turn this kid took would counsel him in school and make fun of him. OK so imagine this, you're a witness being persecuted for being a witness, now an actual witness the one you're SUPPOSED to turn to is making your life a living hell. Where could Mike turn, he said "Fuck this, I'm out of here" and left. So in essence in JW Lore, he chose death and destruction. Robbie, the elder's kid, the one who went on to Bethel, who is now more than likely a circuit overseer or something sent another "sheep" off to his death. Now Mike is tattooed, of course got in trouble with the law, all the things that we're taught ex-JW's do. Hence I thought, now just imagine Robbie wasn't there, would Mike now be a ministerial servant, would Mike have went to Juvie, would Mike be tattooed? The importance of one person.... It made me wonder about my own life and the influences there in. I'm wondering what I would be like if I had never met the people who have had the greatest influence. It made me think about the other influences and if they'll ever know what a great influence they've been on me. Given my congregation have not had the greatest influences over me, but things like Jon Deantuano telling me while on the job with him that if I left "the truth" I would become just like all the rest, I'd end up having sex with the first girl I meet, get into drugs and alchohol and ultimately end up unhappy at some menial job. Maybe that's why I'm always looking for the big score job-wise. Or another time when he told me that I'd never end up in an office like the one we were cleaning at the time and not to get my hopes up, I'm wondering if he was never around would I always seek out employment in cubicle filled offices. Seriously what an influence over someone I only spoke to for a few months, here I sit, making good money in an office, I've only had sex with one girl (my wife), I've had literally 3 drinks in my life, and I've never touched a drug not even caffene. I wonder if I'd still be a witness now if certain people hadn't left my life so early. Joel Klopp was a ministerial servant who moved to our hall after a stint in Bethel. He like all the same music as me, he liked the same movies, he had the same sort of influences. When he was around I went from a kid on the verge of pulling a page out of Columbine's playbook and shooting up my hall to someone who thought I just might be able to survive in it. I remember him being living proof that someone of my ilk could survive in a surpressive environment. He left when I was I think 16. Or I remember Denee Van Aukin (although I think her name is changed now) always hassling me about my long hair. Literally every meeting I went to she would ask me when I was going to cut my hair. She'd offer to do it for me, then usually some elder would come and speak to me after the meeting. If I had never met her maybe my long hair wouldn't be so precious to me. If I didn't have to fight for the right to have it all these years, maybe I wouldn't care whether it was short or long? And now sitting at the computer I twirl my long hair which is down to the middle of my back. My long hair is about as much of my identity as my quadruply broken nose or the scar across my chest. Though when I heard that she left her witness husband for someone else, leaving him with their child, she fucked some other guy and left the witnesses I couldn't help but smile. Long hair doesn't seem so bad when compared to fornication. Adam Boruszko was miserable. I wasn't originally friends with Adam, I was best friends with his brother Jonathan. But as friends do in life they drift apart, while Jonathan and I were still close he was hanging out with the crew that were much like Robbie Buell and rapidly becoming him. Funny how all the kids who were questioning their faith always gravitated towards me. Adam told me about his master plan to move to a congregation where no one knew him and just fall into the back. Become one of the people who were somewhat reckluse, go to the meetings, go home and never shall the twain ever meet. I felt sorry for Adam that day, here was someone who clearly wanted to leave, but too much was involved. I mean seriously his entire family in America was involved, from his grandparents, to his parents, to his aunt, uncle cousins...everyone. He taught me that if one is completely miserable it can't get much worse. A week later I left, I said I wasn't going to become like that, which I already was. I just stopped going, I didn't leave with a bang or anything, I simply faded away. Crystal Diquinzio was possibly the biggest influence of my teenage years. She was exactly like me, loved wrestling, loud music and freedom. The fact she was incredibly good looking and I was a horny teenager I'm sure had something to do with it. I think in that time I grew the most as a person, I picked up a guitar for the first time, I became a rock student, I grew my hair long, I admitted to myself I love wrestling (although in hind sight given my current addiction to it I'm not sure that's a good thing), I started cracking jokes constantly, I even tried to be mr. super witness. I studied the bible like I had never done before. Given all of this stuff was for like the ultimate hook up, now all of these things define me. I write songs, I sing, I play guitar, I'm a pro wrestler, I have long hair, I'm a comedian all due to one person. The day she was disfellowshipped was the day I left the witnesses. With Joel already gone there was no real reason for me to stay. My friends were moving on in their witness life and there was nothing I wanted as part of it. Nothing appealed to me, I didn't care about anyone there anymore. All that were left were the Robbie Buell's, the Jonathan Creamer's (Robbie's second in command who took more pleasure out of being a pompous ass than Robbie did, but I did have a little respect for him, at least he wasn't a hypocrite). All that was left to look up to were Dick Seelingbrandt who while an incredibly nice guy had an accident some years before on the construction site and was truly never the same again. Or Jon D'Antuano, or Kenny Whitford who thought he was the cool elder because he was younger than the others, never a hair out of place and damn good looking. He became my bookstudy leader on Stone St. and immediately started counselling me, I think he took me on as a project. A stubborn, youthful, intelligent and charasmatic person who would be a great front for future generations. I was good at giving talks, I like to think it was my humor, I honestly don't know why it was so important to keep me in "the truth". With no one to look up to, and no one to stay in for, why stay? In the 23 years I've been alive I've yet to have a prayer answered, Crystal made that seem ok, as did Joel. The older I got the more I realized it's not ok, if God doesn't care about me why should I care about him, or the supposed people who represent him on earth. For me the Kenny Whitford's represented what JW's were, just like Robbie Buell represented that to Mike Parillo. The Joel Klopp's and Crystal Diquinzio's were diamonds in the rough, and Adam Boruszko proved that a square peg will never be happy in a round hole. One person can mean so much, one person can represent an entire ideal, one person....think of the importance you could be to someone. I don't know what I represent but I could be someone's Robbie Buell, or someone's Kenny Whitford, I hope to God I'm someone's Joel Klopp or someone's Crystal Dequinzio. Who knows what you are, if you leave what will happen to the people you influence so much. I guess one person can make all the difference, if the only person you're trying to be is you. (Comment on this)
Friday, July 16th, 2004
1:23 pm	Work... Things at work have been boring lately, I'm used to taking upwards of 100 calls a day and now I'm down to 25 due to a promotion. So I have alot of free time. In that free time I've done NOTHING. If I play Fire Pro Wrestling 2 one more time I'm going to die. Not to mention I think I've created every wrestler in the history of New England Indie Wrestling. I wish I had something more profound to say today, like some big metaphor for life that will make people change their entire lives, but I don't. I'm just sitting in the last minutes of my break typing in my journal. I originally created this journal as a way to vent about things in my life, the things I couldn't say in front of people, the only problem is everything I want to say now, I actually say. I don't hold back anymore and now I don't know why I'm keeping a journal. Some part of me hopes that one of my old friends from the witnesses might stumble upon this journal and look me up, or maybe read some of it and laugh, or cry, or even better think. Then again I know that's never going to happen, I've had this journal for about a year and no one has randomly stumbled upon it, ok a few people but none in my area. Oh well, time for less and less frequent updates right? (Comment on this)
Friday, April 9th, 2004
9:25 am	Hit me baby with the quizes.... Your True Nature by llScorpiusll Username The quality that most appeals to you: Sense of Humour In a survival situation, you: Freak out Your hidden talent is: Spiritual wisdom Your gift is: Genius In groups, you: Act as host/ess Your best quality is: Your generosity Your weakness is: Your lack of focus Created with quill18's MemeGen 3.0! (Comment on this)
Wednesday, December 24th, 2003
5:27 pm	Fundy heaven.... I went into a Christian store this weekend. I've never had the opportunity to do so because I've always been too afraid of the various "Boogie monsters" I would find in there as I was taught by my mother in her JW exuberance. My wife bought a hackey sack that said "Smile Jesus loves you". It's kind of an ongoing joke with us because of all the wierd horrible stuff that happens to me I like to refer to myself as "God's hackey sack" and now after buying this toy I can no longer say that because the toy is indeed "God's hackey sack". Other items that struck my interest were the children's books which were wonderful in their simplicity and venom. You can't dance around hate speech with children you just have to say it "God hates queers....er homo sexuals". I was a big fan of the christian Dungeons and Dragons. It's called Redemption. For all those kids who aren't considered dorky enough for being fundemental christians, and they like D&D well now they're fundy Christians with a Fundy Christian game called "Redemption". (It's now on my Christmas list) I guess it's like D&D but without all that harrowing occult overtones, just Revelation overtones which quite honestly is much scarier than witches, orcs and elves. Honestly, all the doom and gloom has given me nightmares since I was 7, I can't say that about ANYTHING else. The final item I'm absolutely facinated/obsessed with is Bibleman. He's like Batman with all the latex rubber muscles and the suit like Batman but he's a Jesus freak. The best part, Bibleman is played by Willie Aames, aka Buddy from Charles in Charge. I've already ordered a Bibleman action figure. The thing that got me is that I seriously didn't know how to express myself there. I mean yeah I was making fun of the store, but deep down I had a feeling that I didn't know how to describe. Like I felt bad because it was so inherintly dorky (even though I'm a huge fan of the Christian band Out of the Grey they are bar none the most original sounding folk type band I've ever heard), not to mention I thought most of the stuff was silly but I was overwhelmed with the sincerity of it all. I mean I'm quite jealous of someone so immersed in something that they lose all touch of reality. I mean seriously how can you not admire someone willing to put a "Smile Jesus Loves You" sticker on their car? I don't know whether I consider them mislead, misdirected, or crazy. See with the witnesses it was so hypocritical, you know I'd get bitched at for having long hair while two of the elder's kids were fucking on the side. Then the elder's kids friends were screwing around with girls in school and never got in trouble, I got in trouble for dating a girl in school for a week....heh, dating I should say calling. That's the thing that bothers me, it's so similar to witnessism that I'm repulsed but I admire the fact it's so non-hypocritical. I honestly don't know what to feel, I mean I know it's not for me but I guess I kinda feel bad I made fun of them, because I'm not a person who does that. I don't make fun of people just because they choose a different path than me, I hated that growing up so now I'm left with what to do in the case of uber-christans. I dunno, it's a wierd feeling. On the bright side I'll have plenty of time to think about it while kicking "God's hackey sack", collecting "Redemption" RPG cards, and having Bibleman do run-ins on all of my wrestling mock shows. (Comment on this)
Thursday, December 11th, 2003
3:46 pm	A little brainstorming... I've been wrestling rougly three years now. It's a long time, I say roughly because I started before I was trained and wrestled throughout that period, so there is no real way to say how "long" I've been wrestling because I don't know if you can count the time I wasn't fully trained or not. But in that time I've yet to really find a gimmick. Seriously in three years I've toyed with ideas for gimmicks never really settling on one thing. Well I think I've got it..... While listening to System of a Down it dawned on me that they've done a hippie gimmick, they've done a striking baseball player, they've done the Iron Shiek's and the Nikolai Volkoff's and the Fritz Von Erich's but they've never combined them. I decided my gimmick would be a protesting college student. Kind of a hippie-esque, throw back but also anti-USA which is the essence of all the foreign heels of the '80s. I think I'd be the first to combine all of these aspects. Not to mention in looking for stuff to wear I found some great sarcastic T-shirts about anti-Iraqi war. So I'd be a mix between the Iron Shiek and the Coz Heads from PCU. It could prove interesting, I sure hope it doesn't fall flat on it's face. And to think in three years I couldn't come up with this idea? God am I dense. (Comment on this)