Happy trails, Hulkamania

Meeting the Hulkster in 2005 at a car show, coincidentally wearing this shirt. He greeted me “nice shirt, brother”

Countless sauces: “Hulk Hogan” Terry Bollea passes away at the age of 71

  1. Long ago, one of my closest friends and I were bullshitting about the random things that bros do, and at one point we talked about, how would we feel when Hulk Hogan inevitably dies? Nobody lives forever, and although we weren’t really so much die-hard Hulkamaniacs so much as we more or less liked him in this ironic manner because he was just so over-the-top and often larger than life,  we still were fans of the guy that basically embodied professional wrestling.

We knew that his time would eventually come, and although we’ve witnessed countless professional wrestlers from our childhood pass away from various reasons, there weren’t many who were going to be at the tier, that of someone on the echelon of the industry as Hulk Hogan was, and we pondered on what would happen around the business, and how we might possibly feel when it inevitably happens.

  1. Over the span of the last week, the world saw the passing of Malcolm-Jamal Warner AKA Theo Huxtable, and days later, Ozzy Osbourne, the so-called Prince of Darkness. And is often popularly murmured upon hearing the deaths of celebrities, it always comes in threes.

In one of the group chats I share with many of my closest friends, I specifically mentioned that a probable high likelihood name to be the third, was Hulk Hogan.  Leading up to today, it was known that he had gone to the hospital, but it was very ambiguous and this kind of gross game of information being spread on his condition, where some parties were spreading that he was on his death bed and didn’t have long to live, while others proclaimed that all was well and that recovery was oncoming; but when a 71-year old former professional wrestler of the rockin’ 80’s era goes to the hospital, there’s always the possibility that things are going to go tits up.

Unfortunately for me, wrestling fans, and all those whom might be interested, I just so happened to be right in this case.  And as much as I often extol the wondrous feeling of being right, this is one of those cases where I don’t feel any sense of satisfaction at it because in the end, the world lost an icon, whether people were a fan of him or not.

  1. As is often times the case whenever someone of a degree of celebrity passes away, I become fairly judgmental towards the parties that spout their condolences and keep them in their thoughts and prayers, primarily when I know that at some point(s), they’ve turned their backs on the departed. To me, their sudden returns to grace come off as disingenuous and attempts to piggy back sympathy and attention to themselves and it often disgusts me when I see people pulling 180s on guys like Hulk Hogan, just because they passed away.

I understand why a lot of people cancelled Hulk Hogan over the years; him getting caught dropping the hard-R on a recording was enough for many.  His absolute shitshow lawsuit against Gawker Media, revolving around the fact that he was involved in some bizarre cuckolding scenario with a Tampa shock-jock and a sex tape “leaked” didn’t really help his general public image.  And of course, who could forget him pledging his allegiance to the orange turd in the 2024 election, complete with him showing up to the RNC, cutting a pro-turd promo, and ripping his shirt off on stage.

I get it, man hasn’t been remotely close to the bastion of a paragon that prime 80’s Hulk Hogan was, encouraging children to take their vitamins and say their prayers, since his retirement, and I wouldn’t challenge or argue with anyone who decided to cancel post-career Hulk Hogan.

Yeah, I don’t dig the hard-R, and his over-the-top alignment to the right.  The Gawker trial was personally endlessly amusing, and I probably made no less than 13 posts about it during its lifespan.  Honestly, Hulk Hogan, or Terry Bollea, or whatever you want to call him, clearly wasn’t a perfect human being, but quite frankly neither are any of us.

If I decided to cancel every single celebrity that had done something offensive, then I probably wouldn’t be a fan of anyone.  If I decided to cancel any random people that I know, friends, colleagues or otherwise, for something that they’ve done that’s slighted me, I’d probably become a bigger island of a man than I already feel like sometimes.  And if I held myself to the same criteria as those I should be cancelling, I’d have cancelled myself probably 168 times.

The point is, yes some of the shit that Terry Bollea has done has been less than socially acceptable to people like minded to me, but there’s always been this part of me that always gave Hulk Hogan, as well as lots of other people a little more leeway and resistance to cancellation than others might, because I often think about people in the aggregate, and if I cancel a Hulk Hogan, then I probably ought to cancel 58 other guys that might have similar rap sheets.

I’m not saying what bad discretions that Hulk Hogan may have done are okay or acceptable, but I’m just not going to crucify and cancel everyone who conducts themselves in manners that I disagree with, because we’re all imperfect human beings and frankly I don’t want to expend the energy to consciously cancel other people.

Furthermore, a guy like Hulk Hogan, he’s built some equity with me personally, in the sense that he was basically the living embodiment of the professional wrestling industry.  Yeah, the whole business used to be something that I kept my fandom about under wraps, but it’s something that has outlasted countless other interests in my life, and I take some joy in how much more acceptable and mainstream it is these days, and the whole carny shitshow of an industry never would have gotten to where it did without the contributions of Hulk Hogan. 

So yeah, I’m not going to turn my back on him for discretions that I think a lot more people might have in common than they’d care to admit, and it did punch me in the gut when I found out about it, and it has been living rent-free in my head all fucking day, to where I was itching to be able to sit down and get to write this in real time, and not a post where I write it as retroactively as I can.

I’m not going to say that I was the biggest Hulkamaniac in the world, but I was still a fan.  As a kid, I ate his shit up, believing that he was getting his ass beat by Andre the Giant, Earthquake, Sgt. Slaughter and everyone else he ever feuded with, and was always blindsided when he kicked out of their finishers, Hulked up and ended the match three punches, a big boot and a leg drop later.

Even as I grew and learned, I was still amused by his whole schtick, and even though it was kind of lame, there was a comfort in familiarity in seeing him do it again and again throughout the years.

The nWo and the birth of Hollywood Hogan was pretty groundbreaking for me to digest, and it really was something of a renaissance, as he worked evil for the first time in history, but by then, I was older and wiser and more cynical, and well, Hulk Hogan was older then too. His whole sinking with WCW was an ironically hilarious ride, as he reverted back to yellow and red Hulkamania, FUNB Hogan, and back to nWo for sporadic stints.

His later years in wrestling were pretty awful, but there was still something to be said about a man who kept lacing up his boots and getting in the ring and taking F5s from Brock Lesnar, or giving an extremely rare tapout L to Kurt Angle.  As much as he was accused of gatekeeping and being selfish, man did give back to those who were the most worthy of getting his rubs.

I didn’t really follow his TNA career into ultimately true retirement, and by then, shit like his hard-R scandal, and then Gawker overshadowed his wrestling legacy.  But I was always amazed at how the man simply knew how to stay relevant and not stray from the spotlight for ever too long, and even up to his passing, the man always managed to popup somewhere, every few months, and kept reminding the world of who he was and that he still existed.  Whether it was his clown show at the RNC, the debut of Real American Beer, or his hilarious bomb at the Netflix premiere of RAW, if there was one absolute truth, it was that Hulk Hogan always knew how to remain relevant.

In the end, you didn’t really have to like the guy, but I do believe that it was pretty undeniable that he was a force of nature when it came to his footprints on wrestling, pop-culture, and celebrity status.  The man was truly larger than life, and especially in the professional wrestling industry, I would say, is one of the most monumental passings of an icon there could be, for at least three different generations.

Rest in peace, Terry Bollea.  Hulkamania will live forever.  Brother.

Happy Trails, Jonathan Joss

AP: Actor Jonathan Joss, shot and killed at the age of 59

Although falling through the ceiling of my attic really sucked, in retrospect it was nothing compared to finding out that Jonathan Joss was tragically shot and murdered.

And it’s not just because of the freshness of the incident that I say this, but the man was legitimately part of two shows that I hold in the highest esteem, in Parks and Recreation as well as King of the Hill, with the latter being where I knew him from the best, but then being super stoked when I got into Parks and Rec, and finding out that the guy behind Ken Hotate was John Redcorn.

Needless to say, my sadness is legitimate sadness, and not just sad that someone in showbusiness I liked is gone kind of way.  I didn’t need a refresher on the roles he played when I saw his name in the news as being a murder victim, and it’s all just really sad and tragic and fucked up in a variety of ways, and it boils down to the fact that guns in America are long past out of control, and shit like this happens way too frequently.

Frankly, I didn’t even know that Joss was gay, not that it matters at all to me, but seeing as how it’s Pride Month, and learning that the shooter was using homophobic slurs just adds to the infuriating tragedy of the whole scenario.  He was clearly a proud representative of the LGBTQ+ community, as well as the oft-overlooked indigenous community, both of which take a sad hit in the loss of Jonathan Joss.

At this point, I don’t really have anything much else to say.  It’s just he was a guy whose work I loved so much, making me a fan of his by proxy, and I felt like I had to at least put some words down to express my grief at this senseless and tragic passing.

The whole John Redcorn joke was pretty much my favorite subplot on King of the Hill, and it was always a treat to see whenever he appeared on Parks and Rec, playing white people like a fiddle.  It’s all just a fucking shame that the world will never get to see him pop up anything else anymore, because aside from being such a strong advocate, man was just such an iconic talent.

Dad Brog (#150): Next stop, kindergarten

I blinked a few times, and now my eldest daughter has graduated pre-K, and is en route to starting kindergarten the next school year.  I still have a hard time digesting that, considering that the last five years have soared by, where my kids were born the generation of COVID babies, and the world has gone through a whole lot of hoopla to get to where we are today.

Like, it didn’t feel that surreal when #1 began 2K and went onto 3K while #2 started a year later, but more recently, it dawned on me when I went to the last Friday sing-along of the year, that this was also the final Friday sing-along for #1 outright.  Very soon, the school year was going to come to a close, and all the classmates she’s mostly had over the last three years, almost all of them are going their separate ways, since being a private pre-K, kids are from all over the place, and despite the fact that this school is zoned for a specific elementary school, almost none of them will actually be going there.

Obviously, #1 doesn’t seem to grasp the fact that she’s not going to be seeing a lot of her classmates again with any regularity very soon, and instead it’s me the parent that feels sentimental for her that she’s not going to be seeing her friends, some of whom she’s grown quite close with over the years, and we as the parents can all tell each other that this doesn’t have to be the end, but much like our own adult relationships, it basically is.

Such is the relentless passage of time and the journey of life, and my first kid has completed one of the first stages of life, being preschool.  She’s a whip-sharp, intelligent and observant kid, that has a beautiful imagination, loves to draw and paint, and I’m often floored at the academic development she’s shown over the last three years of preschool, and it’s going to be all sorts of emo-dad emotions in the future to see what she does next, starting elementary school.

As most parents aside from myself probably opine at similar circumstances, I just can’t believe that time has flown so fast, and I’ve already got a kindergartener on deck.  Aside from the financial alleviation of having one less kid in a private pre-K, it’s going to be exciting to see what lies ahead in the future as #1 takes the step into the next stage of life, entering contemporary education.

Astoria, Oregon and the birthday bucket list trip

I could easily say that probably for half my life, I’ve always wanted to visit Astoria, Oregon, most prominently known as the prime filming location for one of my all-time favorite films ever, The Goonies.  But seeing as how I live in the southeastern United States, and Astoria is about as far northwestern as they come save for the state of Washington, such has always been somewhat of a logistical challenge.

Adding to the difficulty is the fact that frankly among the people in my life, nobody else has been interested in making this trip.  Mythical wife, nobody in my family, or any of my friends, really has had any desire to go to Oregon, much less Astoria, the small coastal town that’s 90 minutes away from Portland, the closest major airport to get there.  I almost managed to talk several of my friends into it a long time ago when a brother of mine got married in Olympia, Washington, but most of us got so smashed at the reception that we were too hung over to make the daytrip the following day.

So I decided that for my birthday this year, I was going to stop hoping other people would try and wow me with things that I don’t even know would do the job, and to just do something for myself, instead of having another birthday where I end up feeling droll and melancholy when the day winds down.  I decided to make the trip I’ve wanted to make basically my entire adult life, by myself.  I wouldn’t have to inconvenience anyone to make a trip they’re not fully in on with me, and I wouldn’t have to feel bad about any traveling companions’ feelings or preferences that might alter my own.

Months ago, I began my planning, and started making bookings in Oregon; where I was staying, a rental car, and booking an actual flight instead of trying to play the standby game for a trip that I really had my heart set on.  Originally, I had the idea of making the trip on my actual birthday weekend, but it just so happened that my birthday collided with Wrestlemania, and of all the things that could make me want to postpone, that was adequate enough. 

It was kind of surreal when my actual birthday came and went, and I was suddenly closing in on the trip that was definitely a bucket list trip for me.  It was finally happening, I was finally going to get to go to Astoria, and do the whole Goonies thing; see the Walsh home, which I had innately watched throughout the years go from being owned by a tyrant who hated Goonies fans, tarping up the whole place, to being flipped to a Goonies fan, who not only welcomed the fandom, has apparently made it a mission to restore the house to its 1985 camera-ready 80’s-tastic aesthetic. 

Go to the Astoria County Jail which is now the Oregon Film Museum, see the ORV that was always parked out front, and make the journey down to Cannon Beach, to see Haystack Rock, where the opening and closing scenes of the film took place.  And of course, while I’d be there, do some other, non-Goonies/film things like see the Astoria Column, the Astoria-Megler Bridge, and seek out new food and try local beers.

So I’m writing this while sitting in the terminal at PDX waiting for my redeye flight back to Atlanta, and I can say that by and large, the trip was a great success.  I got to do and see all the things that I had wanted to see, and although the weather was a bit on the nippy side while I was here, I planned for it adequately enough and it did not have much bearing on my experience.  I saw pretty much all of Astoria, which isn’t saying a tremendous amount as it is not a very large town by any stretch of the imagination, and there were times where I was like, well what now? because I had accomplished all of the few things I had wanted to accomplish, so I found solace in coffee, beer, relaxation in my hotel room with an entertaining book.

Continue reading “Astoria, Oregon and the birthday bucket list trip”

The expansions of Erris Irand wounds my soul

Look, I know and understand that the point of any business is to grow, improve, and make money.  And I genuinely am happy for ellis island • casino • hotel • brewery for continuing to grow, presumably making more money and gaining success and foothold in the crowded Las Vegas ecosphere, but this is definitely one of those old man, it’s straying away from the charming little shithole I once knew and loved things going on, and every time I check in with what I endearingly have always referred to Erris Irand, things continue to change and stray further and further away from Erris Irand and becoming a more, miniaturized little posh typical Vegas casino with less and less character and personality with each change.

It recently came to my attention that Erris Irand is embarking on another round of upgrades, and although I’m amused that they along with other businesses I remember fondly like Battista’s are suing the shit out of F1 for wrecking shop in the city I used to once really really love, and went to at least 2-3 times a year, it adds to the melancholy mood of things changing yet again, furthering it from the specific place that I would say that nobody loved more than my big orange brother and I did.

The photos they used was deceptive in making it look like there was the possibility of upward expansion, as in building a tower on top of the existing structure, but that’s just a silhouette of the hotel behind them that I frankly don’t remember what it was called or is called now.  But that’s the only real relief I get is knowing that they’re not going to (yet) turn into some posh, metrosexual named joint, much like Imperiar Parace and Bill’s and O’Shea have all done over the last decade or so.

And although the proposed upgrades are all purposeful, and will undoubtedly help boost business, revenue and general success for the business as a whole, it’s just so, so far gone past the little locals shithole that I first really discovered back in like 2006, that it wounds me in the soul to see just how much things have changed throughout the passage of time.

Like, when I first stepped into the place, the floors were hard oiled concrete, decades of cigarette ash, spilled booze and the dreams of degenerate gamblers ground into them by the footsteps of ornery locals, adventurous travelers and, degenerate gamblers.  The sirloin special was $6.99 and came with a $5 match play coupon for table games.  Metro Pizza was buy one get one on Sundays, applicable to a single slice or an entire pie.  Their excellent house beer was a dollar a pint, if you weren’t actively gambling, and that’s if the cougar-ey bartender even bothered to take it.  There were only a handful of table games, roulette was almost never going, and they barely had enough room for a half craps table, where there’s nowhere in the city where I fared better at, earning so much in one session that I was able to get a brand new replica wrestling blet.

For years, there wasn’t a single trip to Vegas without at least one trip to Erris Irand, where I ate well, gambled well, drank well, and spent many great hours with my brother and whichever of my friends could lower their noses to realize the charm of what Erris Irand was and represented.

Frankly, I’m the only person I know that has actually stayed in the attached Sleazy Super 8 motel, twice in fact, and I have no regrets in doing such.  From what I understand, it’s now not even a Super 8 brand, and is actually branded to the casino itself.

But as is the case, no good things truly last forever, and perception is the eye of the beholder, and as much as good is what the business perceived, the change was not good to me, but like I said, I understand the business aspect, and growth and expansion and change is inevitable in successful operations, and such was the case with Erris Irand.

The BBQ restaurant grew and blew up, the sportsbook turned into a respectable setup that wasn’t just a bunch of 19” screens inside of basically cubicles.  The brewery was opened up to the public, and more tables and more slots entered the establishment.  The floors were eventually cleaned and refinished and tiled, and the dim smoky ceiling lights were replaced with actual bright and welcoming lighting.

My last time at Erris Irand wasn’t that long ago, and after a few trips where mythical wife and my friends had no interest in going, I was by myself on this trip, and I literally took an Uber directly from McCarran to Erris Irand, because nothing was going to stop me from visiting my old friend on this trip.

And it was a surreal experience walking into the side entrance, where everything was different, the air didn’t reek as much of smoke.  The bathrooms were all posh and even had branded wallpaper and backdrops, inviting people to take selfies and be shitty millennials and shitty Gen-Z’ers.  The restaurant was without all the framed artwork of warships and pirate ships and infernos, and I had to wait an inconvenient amount of time for a shift change to occur despite the restaurant being kind of empty.

The sirloin special was still unlisted and available, but it was apparent that the kitchen isn’t used to making these as they once did, as my steak came out overcooked, but not inedible, but the magic wasn’t really there this time around.  The table limits were still fortunately lower than the rest of the Strip, but I didn’t have the time on this trip to come back despite the fact that I really wanted to, with my friend who had just gotten hitched by Elvis.

But now we’re deviating even further from that, with the next wave of expansions to implement rooftop access, so people can presumably look at the Total Rewards Group’s parking lot and training facility, unless there’s plans for something to take up the giant concrete lot between Koval and Audrie, for Erris Irand visitors to stare at being constructed over the next few years alternatively.

Like I said, a lot of old man things changing rambling going on here, so I’m going to stop here before I continue to write in circles like I tend to do sometimes about the things I’m passionate about.  I won’t not go to Erris Irand the next time my travels actually take me out to Vegas again, but honestly I’m kind of over the city as a whole lately, and I just don’t have the disposable funds available to finance the gambling I’d like to do, so it might be a while, but I imagine it’ll be yet another surreal experience of seeing just how much the place has changed. 

Here’s hoping they’ll still have the sirloin special and the best hefeweizen when that time comes, and that I don’t go broke in an hour like the rest of the Strip’s casinos had done to me my last time out there.

Cobra Kai, fin

Over the weekend, when I was having one of those nights where I didn’t feel like I had any real time to do anything, so I was instead just sitting around dicking around on my phone min-maxing my Duolingo XP as well as playing Fire Emblem Heroes, my au pair pokes her head into the media room and asks if I had started watching the final installment of Cobra Kai S6.

I looked at her perplexed and asked if it had dropped yet, and she said that it just released.  I looked at the clock and immediately grabbed the remote, and I said, why the fuck are we not watching it right now then?

We ended up watching four episodes and then it was 1 am, and I said that I needed to stop so that I wouldn’t be butt-tired in the morning, and that I wanted to save the final episode for the following day, preferably in a scenario where mythical wife wasn’t aware that we were going to watch it in front of her, since she’s such a giant fan of the show like we are.

Mission accomplished, and with that, the saga that is Cobra Kai is finally completed.

Frankly, it’s a show that desperately needed finality, not just because it’s the worst show in existence that had no right to be good as it was, but as is the case with any show that features child actors, it’s been like 6-7 years since the show started, and all the youth talent was growing the fuck up faster than kudzu, and the show needed to wrap up ASAP, before Dimitri grew to 7 ft. tall and Kenny turned into Terry Crews.

[Obviously at this point, spoiler alert is on, because I’m probably going to say shit that would be construed as spoilers]

Continue reading “Cobra Kai, fin”

Once again; the path to the IWGP World Championship has been opened up

WCPW: Miro AKA Rusev finally released by AEW after contentious dispute

Man, how quickly time flies sometimes.  Much like seeing the end of a professional athlete’s contract, it’s hard to believe that it’s already been five years since Miro, formerly Rusev in the WWE, jumped ship to AEW and is already on his way out.

Most of my zero readers know how much of a fan I was of Rusev, to the point where I didn’t really speak ill of his jump to AEW, and desire to see him succeed there as well, just because I liked the guy.

I was genuinely happy for Miro when he won the Popeyes TNT Title from Darby Allin, giving him his first championship with the company, hopefully to be of many, but we all know how that all turned out.  Like many have witnessed throughout the years, once the luster of newness wears out on whatever big acquisition AEW has, Tony Khan has absolutely no idea what to do with all the talent he amasses, and in some cases, guys take the time to rest and recover from their choice of lifestyle as professional wrestlers, but in lots more cases, talent just sits and rots, and become reliant on independent bookings or wrestling at Flatbacks or Natalya’s new Dungeon in order to keep their skills sharp.

Miro kind of falls into both categories, where he got hurt for some of the lengthy time in which he hasn’t been used and on television, but there’s also a tremendous amount of time in which the guy has been sitting around and doing nothing.  When careers head in this direction, it’s more of a disservice to keep a worker employed and doing nothing, versus giving them the release they want, and the ability to seek exposure and bookings from parties who want to use them. 

As DDP has opined numerous times, in this business, exposure is key, and every day when you’re not on television is writing your own death sentence, which is why he refused to sit and cash Turner paychecks after WCW was liquified, and opted to take a 50% pay cut but immediately be thrust into the WWE ecosystem.

Anyway, the wait is over, and Miro has been officially freed from the shackles of AEW, and the world has once again become his oyster as far as resuming his wrestling career.

So once again, I revisit this old post that I wrote in 2020 when he had been freed from the WWE, about how Miroslav Petrov Barnyashev is now free to fulfill his professional destiny of becoming the next great New Japan Pro Wrestling evil foreigner, but also become the IWGP World Champion along the way.

I don’t like my odds, seeing as how New Japan has kind of been swirling in mediocrity for quite some time now, having been gutted in talent by mostly Tony Khan and AEW, but from a holistic standpoint, I still think New Japan would be an incredible journey for a guy like Miro.  The man is monster worker with discipline and seeming tons of respect for the industry, which should lend him a quick path to earning respect in the Japanese puroresu scene, and as much as things change, there’s no changing something that ain’t broke in NJPW, by making an evil foreigner the threat to the world championship, and becoming a mountain for the next great Nippon hero to ascend and conquer.

I just think a guy like Miro could really thrive in a place like New Japan, and be the change the company needs to steer them away from the remains of Bullet Club and all their stale creative.  Miro could just be this monster from a foreign country to wreak havoc on the promotion, crush the G1, ascend to WrestleKingdom and demolish Hiroki Goto or whomever they have as the IWGP World Champion at the time, and become that insurmountable obstacle over the next indeterminate amount of time, before he’s ready to pass the title off to someone else.

But the reality is that he ends back up with the WWE.  He’s always a Triple H phone call away from being brought back in with a good idea, and whether it’s through NXT, or maybe a stop over at TNA, but I think for a guy as talented as Miro, all roads lead back to Rusev, and Rusev’s home is the WWE.

As a fan, I’d be stoked to see him back in the E, but one of these days, I’ll be even more pumped when I’m eventually right about calling one of these guys one day crossing the ocean and fulfilling their destiny to become the next great foreign IWGP World Champion.