DEATH, WRESTLING, MUSTACHES AND OTHER STUFF

DEATH AND PROFESSIONAL WRESTLING

Channel surfing my way past World Wrestling Smack Down on Friday night, I am stopped in my tracks by the spectacle of people crying. Big brawny men are bawling and blubbering “I miss you Eddie!” with a degree of theatricality that suggests artifice. But, if the “In memoriam Eddie Guerrero 1967-2005” graphic is to be believed, it’s part of a lavish tribute to a “real” wrestler who’s, evidently, “really” died. There is something jarring and rivetting about the spectacle of real grief in the context of a “sport” devoted to ostentatious fakery. Death is arguably the most unnegociably real thing. And professional wrestling is among the least. There is something completely compelling about the pairing of the two. Like the featured match in the Ultimate Metaphysical Smack Down I cannot stop watching; half-thinking this is singularly undignified, half- thinking that it’s strangely profound. (Oh yeah, and the third half of me expecting the “deceased” warrior to walk back out into the arena, miraculously “ressurrected” and ready to wrestle for the crown.)

KNICKS ACHIEVEMENTS OF THE DAY:

It took almost to the end of the third quarter before the Garden crowd started booing. Then, suitably chastised, they held the crowd boo-less until late in the 4th. So they've got that going for them. Also, let’s not forget, not a single Knick outsourced the security of our vital ports to an Arab nation.

SUGGESTION OF THE DAY:

Yesterday, I was thinking "Hey, if we're going to outsource the security of our ports, why don;t we just outsource the Presidency." But today I'm thinking, "Let’s not outsource the Presidency. Let’s just outsource the Secret Service."

DESCRIPTION OF THE DAY:

It was so hard to recollect and transcribe thoughts had in the course of motion, to summon from the worded rafters of the mind, the felicitous chosen phrases.

PREDICTION OF THE DAY:

Now that Bode Miller has been DIsqualified from yet another Olympic event, I think Nike will drop him as a sponsor and DQ will pick him up.

OLYMPIC CONFESSION OF THE DAY:

I was absolutely spellbound by the curling--my fascination undiminished by the fact that I had almost no comprehension of the rules and objectives of the sport.

QUESTION OF THE DAY:

The current tabloid feud between Donald Trump and Martha Stewart raises the question: Is it possible to imagine a feud involving 2 more unappealing adversaries? Maybe Bill O’Reilly and James Cramer (the obstreperously unattractive, aggressively unpleasant devil spawn host of CNBC’s “Mad Money” who stomps around gleefully touting “terrorism buckets,” “environmental disaster buckets” and “war buckets” of stocks by means of which investors can profit handsomely from mankind’s most grievous misfortunes.) Any other candidates? Oh, yeah, George Steinbrenner. Anyone else?

EXPERIMENT OF THE DAY:

When someone sneezes instead of saying “God Bless You” or “Gesundheit” or even a la Seinfeld “You are So Good Looking,” I think it would interesting to say “Ugh. What a disgusting habit!”

SPEAKING OF UGH: THE FUNNINESS-FREE REFLECTION OF THE DAY:

My feet have been really cold around my apartment today so I dug up a pair of Ugg boots that an old girlfriend had bought for me about 12 years ago. When I put them on (for I think the first time ever), I was hit by a powerful wave of sadness. I had memories of all the love she had offered me--love that I was for some reason unable to receive and return. I thought about how what we send is not always received in the time that we send it. I thought about the mysterious afterlife of our gestures of care.

WISH OF THE DAY:

I hope that the mustache's return to fashionability (thanks to Adam Morrison and others) doesn’t lead to a resurgence in the popularity of Adolf Hitler or, worse , Geraldo Rivera. (Ok, ok...just kidding on the "worse." )

META-COMMENTARY OF THE DAY:

This week’s anthrax episode in New York City was almost immediately identified as an isolated, self-induced, non-terrorist affair and reported as such on all the major news channels, websites and radio stations. Well, almost all of them. A while after hearing about it, I decided to check out Fox news. There, sure enough, was footage of men in Decon 5 suits exiting the building in which the exposure took place above a graphic banner that read “NEW YORK CITY ANTHRAX ATTACKS" with music so dire that anyone who had happened to turn there first would have gotten the fair and balanced impression that the terrorists had struck again and the world was ending.

QUOTES OF THE DAY:

Bill Maher, talking about the Christian religious group that uses the hallucinogen DMT so that members of the congregation can get closer to God:

“This is a really tough one for the Bush administration. On the one hand they love anything that has to do with Jesus and religion and on the other hand they are deathly opposed to any drug that doesn’t put money in the pockets of Pfizer.”

O’REALLY REALLY GREAT IDEA OF THE DAY:

Nicolas Kristof on the NYT has been raising money to send Bill O”Reilly first class to Dafur to learn about the genocidal atrocities first hand. Really inspired.

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002035419

RANDOM PORTRAIT OF THE DAY: (In honor of the start of Spring Training.)

He was very imprecise with his speech. Listening was always an adventure. He had the highest ratio of words uttered to intended meanings conveyed. He was, in short, the Rick Ankiel of talkers.

P.S. OF THE DAY FOR THE SPORTS-REFERENCE CHALLENGED:

Rick Ankiel was a highly touted Major League Pitcher who suddenly and mysteriously completely lost his ability to aim the ball. His pitches would end up flying 10 feet over the batter's head or 10 feet to the left or right of the plate. It was an initially shocking, then briefly entertaining, then finally heartbreaking spectacle.

REALIZATION OF THE DAY:

If you need a footnote to explain a Random Portrait of the Day, you probably shouldn't bother.

CARTOON WITHOUT ILLUSTRATION OF THE DAY:

VIS: Two guys talking.

MAN: I was living outside of the relationship while it was happening but inside of it ever since it ended.

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Posted on 2/25/2006 ( Permanent Link )
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