Memphis Wrestling WMC TV (October 19, 1985)

Ah, yeah. Memphis 'rasslin time. The homemade meat sauce of late 20th century entertainment. Savory and thoroughly bad for me. Likely to leave a stain. Delicious.

And this one is gonna be good.

We open with match previews set to St Elmo's Fire, and is there anything better? Spoiler: No. There is nothing better.

Then it is commercial time and I am forced to see an ad for tasty malt liquor while I am at work and cannot partake. I am reminded of back in the day when I worked in a box plant putting boxes into boxes and my girl Shannon used to bring cans of Olde English 800 and leave them in my car. Serves me right for doing this in the office. What would I do if my boss walked in and I'm sitting here slamming Schlitz and watching a rasslin' show from 1985? They'd probably call security and I'd have to Bullet Bob my way out of here.

We're back and Jerry "The King" Lawler and Bill Dundee are talking. They are ruling the tag team rankings! And Bill Dundee is wearing a jacket with no pants! He's clearly coked up out of his head talking trash about every other team on Earth. He's a volitile little shit, and Lawler is amused by his diminutive Australian buddy's bravado. They can whoop 'em all! Including The Fabulous Ones! Sure, buddy.

And here come The Sheepherders, who are legitmately from New Zealand and putting across the idea that they are mad savages who may or may not be cannibals. They talk about Rugby as though it is a mysterious tribal rite. They are doing a Rugby Scrum! I am no expert, but I do not think elbow strikes to the face are legal in rugby. This does not seem like a legitimate sport. They are building up a feud based on the merits of American Football vs. Rugby.

COMMERCIAL! Every Monday is Senior Day at Amvets Thrift Store!

We're back with the Fabulous Ones, and there has never been a more unintentionally homoerotic gimmick in the history of wrestling. How many young Southern 'rasslin fans experienced a funny feeling in their hearts when they watching Stan and Steve strut to the ring wearing Zebra print briefs? It is amusing to see two muscle men bare chested and oily in jaunty little bowties calling some other guys "Panty Waists." It is also amusing that there is a Non-Zero chance that "Sweet" Stan Lane (dude on the left in the picture above) is Lauren Boebert's biological father. It seems plausible. Google it!

Here's where the shit goes down. All because Billy Dundee will not stop talking. He's the only guy on stage without a championship belt and he feels small. He also feels small because he is roughly 5'1" He is little man syndrome personified and he is incapable of shutting up. Lawler is running out of patience with his partner and trying to play peacemaker like he's his fraternity's designated driver. Dundee is losing his mind, because he's the only person who wants to fight and nobody's taking him seriously. So he starts hitting people. He's tearing the studio apart like a malevolent, sawed off Conway Twitty! The Lawler/Dundee team is finished! FINISHED! LAWLER'S GONNA FIGHT DUNDEE! It's kind of like Superman vs. Batman but also like your two favorite uncles getting drunk and coming to blows at the cookout.

Christ, I'm already spent. But I do love that they took the time to make sure that everyone stayed true to their characters for all this. There's a reason this is a classic storyline. Ask a true wrestling fan about Lawler and Dundee. I guess you could also ask the Memphis Vice Squad about them, but those stories probably wouldn't be as flattering.

COMMERICAL! These Toyota Celicas look kind of sweet to be honest. I wonder if Bill Dundee scored a free Celica as part of their sponsorship deal. I can see him cruising Elvis Presley Blvd with the wind blowing through his immobile hair. Maybe he's got some B.T.O. takin' care of business on the 8-track.

Back in the studio, Dundee is back for more hollerin' and broad gestures of rage. It is notable that no actual wrestling has taken place on this show up to this point. Dundee offers up his "$25,000 Sports Car" if Lawler will accept his challenge. Wonder if it's the Celica?

Lawler comes out and Dundee's ensuing rant is solid gold. "You couldn't even afford the paint job on a car like that!"

Lawler's insistence on pronouncing "Dundee" as "Dundy" to further needle the angry little man is also hillarious. He's not interested in Dundee's car, so now Billy puts his beautiful mane of black hair on the line as well! If Lawler can pin Dundee on television right now, then Dundee will hand over his car and shave his head bald.

Lawler, of course, accepts. So they fight. You aren't going to get a much better punch n' kick style brawl then with these two. They are both gifted at delivering and selling fake punches. The fans are way into this, of course. If Dundee loses and shaves his head, he may literally explode with rage like a water balloon filled with Wild Turkey. Unfortunately, Dundee has a chain hidden in his lavender man-panties. He wraps it around his Lilliputian fist and clonks Lawler in the skull for the cheap win! Dundee is the new Southern Heavyweight Champion!

Post-Match, the scope of Dundee's plot becomes clear. The Southern Heavyweight Champion gets a shot at Ric Flair and the WORLD Heavyweight Title once per year, and this year's title shot is coming up next month! The little fucker orchestrated all of this in order to steal a chance at fortune and glory and Flair's big gold belt! Kind of brilliant, really. Lawler wants a rematch and Dundee refuses on the grounds that he doesn't have to defend the title for 30 days, which gives him all the time he needs to beat Ric Flair and become world champ. "After that, I won't just give you a match, Lawler! I'll hand you this belt, because I'll be the world's champion! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" Then he does an obnoxious little dance. Wonderful.

SHUFFLIN ALONG

HALF SISTER by PROTOMARTYR - I used to know this guy named Roach. He started showing up to our D&D and VHS Anime nights toward the end of high school, but I'm not exactly sure how he was connected to us or who invited him. We were living in that amiable "what's mine is yours" headspace that I think a lot of poor kids live in. Like, nobody really batted an eye when this dude showed up in our clubhouse. But these days, if some fucker named Roach just turned up at my house then I would probably have a problem with it. The thing that I remember most about Ol' Roach is that he wore the same pair of shredded jeans every time I saw him, and these jeans were covered in band logos that he'd drawn with a sharpie marker.

DIE AND GET OUT OF THE WAY by AGORAPHOBIC NOSEBLEED - These weren't the cool bands of the day, mind you. Roach wasn't repping Nine Inch Nails or White Zombie. Roach was all about Motley Crue and Whitesnake and Cinderella. Which, in hindsight, was kinda weird. Was Roach truly into the hair metal bands of yesteryear? Did listening to songs like "Girls Girls Girls" inspire him to scribble on his pants and show the world that he related to the sentiment and timbre of a scene 15 years dead? Did he sit down one night and just draw the logos of every band he knew?

GARBAGE by TYLER THE CREATOR - Perhaps the jeans were passed down to him by an uncle or an older brother along with some well-worn tapes and a taste for motorcycles and cold Coors Light. Whatever the case may be, I think about Roach quite a lot. I think I admire the guy in some ways. I mean, it's hard to imagine Roach getting anxious about the future or sitting at a desk blogging about dumb shit when he should be working on something else. I didn't really know that guy, but I'm comfortable saying that he never spent a single second in a 9 to 5. Guys like Roach never do much of anything that they don't want to do unless forced by some authority figure.

SCREAM by TAPE DECK MOUNTAIN - Another thing about Ol' Roach is that everything was always "bitchin." He never played D&D with us that I can recall, but seemed content sitting in a folding chair and telling us all how bitchin we all were. I think we could all use that kind of positivity in our lives. We all have those mental voices of people in our past encouraging us or telling us where we fucked up. The truth is that sometimes, when I'm struggling, the Roach in my memory will lean forward and tell me that I'm bitchin.

HEIST by LINDSEY STIRLING - Roach is frozen in amber. He's perfectly preserved in my mind's eye as a ratty-headed weirdo pinching his namesake between thumb and forefinger in an eternal attic of geeks. I don't want to think about adult Roach. His name is probably Carl or Donnie or something like that. I don't want to think about balding Carl cussing his tax forms or mowing his backyard. No Carls. Only Roach.

TUBI TIME / Dipshit Book Club - New Year changes nothing edition(s)

I was washing down my antidepressants with a can of white Monster in the drive-thru line at Taco Bell and thinking about my New Year's Resolutions the other day when it struck me that we really do live in a dystopia. The holidays are fun, but also difficult. Like, if you think that navigating the usual barrage of Christmas-based nostalgia, guilt, and despair is tough on your own; imagine doing it when you're responsible for making sure your kids have a good time too. Anyway, here are some things I have watched and/or read recently.

ZOMBIE 3 (1988) - This is a confusingly titled Lucio Fulci joint that fits somewhere within the bizarre anything-goes continuity of Italian DAWN OF THE DEAD copycats/spin offs/sequels. Its Fulci's movie, but multiple scenes were directed by Bruno Mattei after Fulci suffered a stroke. None of that matters to us. We simply seek entertainment. And this is one of those goofy Italian zombie movies that make you feel vaguely sweaty and feverish when you watch them. There are a lot of humorous and charming things to enjoy here, including a flying zombie head and some highly dubious firearms safety on display. It's not a must see cult classic, and it never goes quite as crazy as you think it should. With that in mind, it's a fine example of its type. Like, if you were organizing a nonstop zombie movie marathon in order from best to worst, you probably wouldn't get to ZOMBIE 3 until day 4 or so. Perfectly respectable but nothing outstanding.

THE RITUAL by ADAM NEVILL - Nevill is one of the relatively few contemporary horror authors with a distinctive voice. It seems to me that after Stephen King did ON WRITING, we got a big crop of horror authors slicing their prose to ribbons and writing in this bare-bones pulp magazine style. That's all fine and good, but it means that a lot of horror stories blend together into a shapeless blob of paranormal investigators making clever neckbeard cultural references. Nevill doesn't really go for that. He can really get down and wallow in dirty details, and you can tell he's not one of your standard Weird Tales fetishists. This plot concerns a group of buddies who go on a camping trip that goes terribly wrong. There's nothing revolutionary happening plot-wise. The meat is in Nevill's prose and descriptive powers. He's got a way about describing terror and discomfort that lends itself well to the grueling "I guess now THIS wound is infected" surivialist grist throughout. For example: there is a monster doing monster shit in this book, but the most horrible horror parts are about starving hikers chafing in wet jeans. My only complaints are that the book felt overlong to me and there's a plot twist about halfway through that left me unsure if I was still reading the same story. I legitimtely thought somebody had spliced two different books together with scotch tape as a prank. The first half is this "macho survival-of-the-fittest" stuff mixed in with some "is it good or bad that modern man has lost touch with his savage past" stuff and some "married men with office jobs are weak compared to single party dudes" type rhetoric. Which is bullshit, but OK. It's sort of like British Deliverance. The 2nd half is...something different. It was weird and jarring; as though Nevill was driving me to Dairy Queen and took a sharp, unannounced left turn to a hot dog stand. Like, the hot dogs are good too but I thought we were getting ice cream and now my neck hurts.

THE TOLL by CHERIE PRIEST - Cherie Priest writes a lot of fun stuff in a number of genres. I read a couple of her award-winning steampunk adventure books years ago and grew fond of them. I got a pleasant surprise out of seeing that she has some southern gothic/horror books out there as well. THE TOLL is an intriguing tale about a Silent Hill-esque backwater town, a monster under a bridge, and two spinster auntie badasses who play out sort of like a Faulkner short story directed by Sam Raimi. There's a lot to like about THE TOLL, but I found myself getting frustrated before the end. There are a number of interesting bits left dangling and unresolved in the plot. What is the deal with the "Doll House?" Why do the storefront dummies move around at night? What is the fucking deal with the magic these people seem to be able to do? These small frustrations aside, I enjoyed THE TOLL. It doesn't overstay its welcome and I dig the ideas within. Cherie Priest remains cool.

SHUFFLIN ALONG - Fell down / for fifteen years / I know I wasted half my life

Haven't done one of these in awhile.

CHERRY WAVES by DEFTONES - Yes, sometimes I am that dude in cargo shorts and a Deftones shirt. I bought my first pair of black Dickies because of the Drive video. Deftones directly lead me to, among other things; Cocteau Twins, Jawbox, and Spiritualized. It validates me to see dudes built like Maytag refridgerators playing songs about being depressed. I don't think I knew that heavy Rock music came in flavors aside from "pissed," "horny," or "spooky" until I listened to them. Smashing Pumpkins and Nirvana were also like that, but I reached the age where I was interested in such things at the same time the Deftones dropped White Pony. The stars were right. When we are tempted to criticize my affection for Deftones, we must remember my origin story and we should all be grateful that I'm not listening exclusively to Pantera and Aaron Lewis.

DAISUKE by EL HEURVO - I love Hotline Miami so much.

RATTLE by WAILIN' STORMS - For me, the sweet spot of Doom Metal / Stoner Metal / Heavy Blues songs is between 6-8 minutes. So this one fits. Let me hear your cool riff and get into your groove for a little bit. Any more than that and you're just being ridiculous. I see similar bands doing shit like releasing songs that are 15-20 minutes long and I just cannot fathom doing something like that on purpose. It feels like either you're asking me to participate in your self-abuse, or I'm the victim of a prank. "All of side B is one half-hour long song? Haha good one bro." This is one of those songs that had a meta element going where they were like "let's make a song that sounds like you're riding out a thunderstorm inside an old farmhouse," and that kind of thing will always at least pique my interest.

PLANETS COLLIDE by CROWBAR - I really did love Type O Negative a whole bunch, and these guys are basically a multiverse version of Type O who were more into committing crimes than writing sexy poetry. I guess if I'm being honest I could also say that I'm way into the idea of tough guys trying to express vulnerable feelings through aggressive music, which is a medium that makes them feel safe. Crowbar is a band of dudes who look like fuck-off jail chaplains and take on this persona of, like, sad old biker sages trying to warn off the young guys from following in their footsteps. This is a slow, mercilessly heavy song about hitting rock bottom. It works for me on a lot of levels. Plus, it's not too long!

TERRAIN by PG.LOST - I know nothing about this band, but they are doing a funky-Mogwai sort of thing. The ebb and flow of this one gets me pumped, and it's a go-to cardio machine song for me. I mean, I ain't doing more than 30m of cardio no matter what's playing in my earbuds, but this song helps get me over the hump around minute 6.

HEAD OVER HEELS by TEARS FOR FEARS - This song fucks.

PSYCHO MAGNET by LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT - London After Midnight is a band that showed up a whole bunch on the "Cleopatra Records Gothic Club Mix" sample CDs that I used to steal off the covers of scene mags off the rack at Borders. So it's this weird mix of nostalgia and shame when I listen to them today. The "Goth Club Scene" of the early 2000s was a lot cooler and sexier in my head than it probably was in reality.

EVERYONE'S AT HOME EVENTUALLY by STREET SECTS - This band sounds like something Peter Murphy may have done if he'd grown up in California with internet access. I look at them as the heirs to 80s Skinny Puppy. They are very good. I'm not sure what to call what they're doing. Post Industrial Goth Noise? Maybe something like that. Anyway, I've got time for just about everything they've put out.

TUBI TIME - Split a pack of cloves behind Sbarro's edition

I love Tubi because Tubi is the digital equivilent of plunging your hands elbow deep into a massive bin of discount DVDs at Hastings. I feel like one of those kids who won a Toys R Us shopping spree back in the 90s. Just shoveling junk I'll never play with into my cart. I used to get so excited to find dumbass vampires movies on DVD (or VHS!) for a couple of bucks. Now I have access to all the dumbass vampire movies I could ever dream of. Is the thrill sill there? I stood before a sea of dumbass vampire movies, and wept; for there were still so many more dumbass vampire movies to watch.

LORD OF THE VAMPIRES [2002] - This is the masculine counterpart to SONG OF THE VAMPIRE's feminine vamp fantasies from my previous Tubi Time entry. The differences are in the titles, right? One film wants to vibe and the other wants to rule. The woman in SONG OF THE VAMPIRE wants a strong, mysterious, and dangerous artistocrat with a dubious accent to kill her enemies and pledge his undying love. The dude in LORD OF THE VAMPIRES wants to sit upon a throne in his basement apartment and have as much sex with as many goth girls as possible. LORD OF THE VAMPIRES is not great. The titular "Lord" is one of the most unfortunately akward on-screen vampires that I have ever seen. Children trick-or-treating in plastic capes who shriek "BLAH! BLAH!" are both scarier and more committed to the role. This is shot on video, and there's a lot of hideous audio crunch that makes this movie even harder to sit through than necessary. The soundtrack is provided by Abney Park, who used to be a goth gimmick band with synths before they became a steampunk gimmick band with accordions. Watching this film gives you a small taste of what it must be like to live inside a geriatric millenial mall-goth's fantasy world. It's not a great feeling. I couldn't finish it. I am also glad that people these days have generally stopped trying to shoehorn Tarrantino-esque dialogue and hipster criminal subplots into their horror/supernatural action movies. Someday Quentin Tarrantino will answer for his many crimes.

CITY OF THE VAMPIRES [1993] - We have a dude. This dude is in pain due to the untimely death of his girlfriend due to vampire shenanigans. This dude is sick of these motherfucking vampires in his motherfucking city. He's going to handle this problem by walking around a weird urban dreamscape and shooting at people; DEADBEAT AT DAWN style. People also run and sometimes drive cars. The whole thing feels a bit like you're peeking in on another, better dimension. It's like if THE OMEGA MAN was shot by your local high school drama club. There is a charming vampire hunter who is exactly what you'd expect if Kim and Kelley Deal had another sister who was kinda into acting. It is mildly incredible that the quality of this video in 2022 so accurately recreated the "3rd generation tape covered in dust" aesthetic of 1992. It looks like shit, but there is a certain charm to the shittiness. The video quality is so rough that it's hard to see what's going on. Perhaps we are all the better for it. Honestly, I think that the whole experience of CITY OF THE VAMPIRES is served well by the grime. This movie is like an attractive an mysterious stranger at the bar; this movie isn't gonna tell you shit. CITY OF THE VAMPIRES has better things to do than explain itself to the likes of you, pal. I used to work these film fundraisers where people would host an "authentic experience" based on things like watching RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK at the time it was released. You could see somebody setting up a themed exhibition of some kind in order to recreate what it would have been like to watch CITY OF THE VAMPIRES in 1993. You'd need some Flordian first-wave death metal cassette tapes. You could serve warm Busch light at the concession stand and hand out greasy bikini calendars at the door with the program tucked inside. You could have a constume constest that involves tight stone-washed jeans and flannel shirts. Narcotics will be available. The possibilities are endless. Otherwise, I cannot in good conscience reccomend this film to you unless you're really in the mood for thinking about your life while squinting to watch a fella with a ponytail wander around in the dark while John Carpenteresque keyboards play. If that sounds like your thing, then this is the film for you! I had fun with it. I mean, I wrote way more words about CITY OF THE VAMPIRES than I did about, say, DUNE.

BLOODSUCKING REDNECK VAMPIRES [2004] - I went into this film knowing that it would probably piss me off. And it did! Having "redneck" in the title of your film is generally not a sign of quality. We are, of course, treated to the usual lazy Foxworthy-esque humor throughout this move (farts! pee! more farts! gay panic! lazy stereotypes! more farts! a tripe festival! a character named Billy Bob Barney Joe!). Compared to something like LORD OF THE VAMPIRES, this cast had clearly seen movies before and understood that they should pretend to be a character or at least make funny faces. I liked the core concept of a "sophisticated" European vampire with a terrible Count Chocula accent stuck in the hills with a bunch of dipshits, and her performance in particular stood out to me. She looked at this shitty, shitty script and decided to go for broke and own it in some small way. This young lady was like 1/10th of a Matt Berry, but she made it onto the scale and I respect her. Otherwise, most of this movie was a terrible experience. Imagine an enormous, intimidating open-mic comedian screaming a nonstop barrage of the worst, shittiest jokes you can imagine directly into your ear. I mean, one or two of them land (the ROADHOSUE callback made me smile), but going 1 for 10,000 with jokes and sight gags is not ideal. BLOODSUCKING REDNECK VAMPIRES is very, very bad and very, very not funny. You could say that, compared to something like CITY OF THE VAMPIRES, at least I could tell that jokes were being attempted in the first place. But I think I'd rather watch a movie that feels like a fever dream over a movie that feels like an assault. CITY OF THE VAMPIRES is hard to understand. BLOODSUCKING REDNECK VAMPIRES is hard to endure. Do not watch this movie. Someday Jeff Foxworthy will answer for his many crimes.

TUBI TIME - Imagination Never Fails edition

Ah, to be a hungry creator forging ridiculous pieces of low-tier trash with a gang of attractive friends rather than a mere corporate lackey with bills to pay. I'm not outright saying that I'd trade the dad life for another shot at donning plastic goggles and running around the woods in the name of art...but there's a certain appeal.

HALFWAY HOUSE (2004) - An agreeable bit of sleazy fun. The story is on the cover: Naked girls are fed to a puppet monster by an evil nun. There are also jokes. I thought that a couple of the jokes were actually funny, which was a nice surprise. It was amusing to see so many exotic dancers in their mid 30's hanging around at a facility for "troubled girls." I also know for a fact that the process for being enrolled in a halfway house is slightly more involved than simply showing up at the front door with your police detective friend and saying "Here I am. Please enroll me in your halfway house for troubled girls." What I am trying to say is that this movie about naked girls being whipped by a priest and then fed to a puppet monster is prehaps not a credible source of information about the criminal justice system. There are a whole lot of movies like this, and most of them are far worse than HALFWAY HOUSE. Don't think too hard about who built that basement monster temple and it'll be fine. It was also nice to see Mary Woronov again.

SONG OF THE VAMPIRE aka VAMPIRE RESURRECTION (2001) - A sweet, somewhat embarassing little time capsule. People forget that there was a thriving Buffy/Anne Rice fueled vampire romance/roleplay trend going years before TWILIGHT showed up and killed the scene. This movie felt very much like something a group of passionate theatre goths would make over summer break. I was a bit of a theatre goth myself in 2001, and I can smell the "vampire blood" incense in your skull-shaped burner from a mile away, neonate. There were more people like us hanging around cemeteries, shopping malls, and RP message boards in 2001 than you'd think. Of note is that this movie was directed by a woman who also stars in the lead role. That's a refreshing and interesting change of pace for this kind of thing. Rather than a total sleaze fest; this is more of a cute, quaint, kinda bloody romance tale about the usual forbidden immortal love affair. I found it entertaining in a deeply cringy and melodramatic kind of way. It made me smile and roused a powerful sense of nostalgia. This shit took me straight back to to driver's seat of my Oldsmobile with the Lost Boys sticker on the back; listening to some Tapping The Vein on my way to the Book Barn to hunt for Poppy Z Brite paperbacks. Ten bucks says that the director played a Toreador with all their points in charisma back in the day.

SUDDENLY IN DARK NIGHT aka SUDDENLY IN THE DARK (1981) - This had its moments, but was a bit slow for my tastes. The conclusion was worth the wait, but only just. It's one of those "is the protagonist crazy or is she being menaced by supernatural forces" sort of flicks. There was some great imagery and the story is fine, but it's not the sort of thing you want if you're looking for cheap thrills or schlocky laughs. Think Polanski or De Palma but with Korean family drama instead of American urban anxiety. Basically, a housewife becomes convinced that her husband is cheating on her with their younger maid. There's also some juicy subtext about sexual repression and marital expectations and an evil doll that may or may not be alive. It's being billed as a cult classic, and I can see why. There are some giallo-esque visual flourishes, but I found the constant use of the same kalediscope camera effect to be a bit annoying. Everything unfolds just about like you'd expect, especially if you've seen this kind of thing before. I liked it well enough, but it doesn't really fit into my usual diet of all-out batshit excess. Hell of a poster, though, right?

QUARTZ VEIN [2021] - This was awesome. My interest was less "this movie is compelling" and more "what will these lovable scamps try to do next?" I appreciate the balls it takes to film your post-apocalyptic adventure movie in your apartment building and a public park on the weekends. I guess if you have access to goggles, fingerless gloves, pipe and drape, discout halloween decorations, some stock footage, and some girls who don't mind running around in tiny outfits; then just about anything is possible. I am also a big fan of how our protagonist resembles the lead singer of a random pop punk band circa 2006. I guess I just like seeing a kid with fosted tips and a studded belt saying shit lke "throw in a couple of homegrown 3D fishsticks, zoomer" or "fencing is a sport for wealthy breastfed men" in a random dubbed Bale Batman growl. This world's post apocalyptic event seems to have involved radiation, a plague, vampires, and /or black magic; but it just made society into a community college house party. Characters have names like "Eon Pax," "Gargoya," and "Lippy McGee." I loved every moment of this, and I found it strangely inspirational. Shine on, QUARTZ VEIN! Bookmarking this for my next "bad" movie get together. It's a riot.

Memphis Wrestling TV (10-?-1985)

Pro Wrestling will never let you down, except for when it lets you down. Which is often. I am today reminded of that very special episode of The Fresh Prince when Will's biological father shows up and gets his hopes up with reconciliation only to crush his dreams yet again. Pro wrestling is a derelict deadbeat dad that never lives up to his potential. My inner child will never stop pleading for the healing touch of pro wrestling, and pro wrestling will never stop throwing salt in my wee little teary eyes. This is one cycle that will never, ever break.

There is a special vibe about southern-style wrasslin' tv footage from the 80's. It is a fragrant bouquet with notes of cheap whiskey, greasy road side burgers, and unairconditioned housing. It is a special little slice of long lost niche subculture, never again replicated for as long as we live. It feels like the shiny, cheap hopes of a poor man temporarily soothed by truck stop trinkets. Let us pray.

Whoever recorded this on their long-since junk shopped VCR saw fit to include the commercials. Our first ad is for a $20 mail-order unicorn statue. How many of these unicorns decorated the headboards and nightstands of sweaty rasslin' nerds of our past? We also get an ad for the broadcast premiere of Chuck Norris' classic film A FORCE OF ONE. Back in the studio, Lance Russel is talking in front of that infamous and much loved hand-painted Conan The Barbarian Style banner. I am pleased.

It seems that Jerry "The King" Lawler went to meet with some children at United Way and we got the footage to prove it. It is somehow scuzzy and uplifting at the same time. He is the King for a reason. The nearest thing to heaven is a child. You're not going to understand what Lawler is without watching these kinds of videos of him doing local celebrity things. He's what would happen if your local wacky morning DJ was also known as the toughest dude in town who fought everyone from Andy Kaufman to a fuckin' mummy. He's also most likely a man with a severe carnal weakness for teenaged girls based on all available information. What a world.

Then we get some footage from a tag match pitting Lawler and his best friend/worst enemy "Superstar" Bill Dundee against Jonathan Boyd and Rip Morgan. Of note, as always, are Lawler's punches. He is the master of fake punches. Morgan and Oliver are less good, but they are big and scary and that is literally all Lawler needs to unite Memphis against them. Dundee does a hillarious bit when he tries to tag out to the wrong man, then falls on his ass and scoots away in this weird crab walk. Lawler comes in and the crowd goes mental. Beatings ensue. Morale improves. It all ends in a massive brawl as the entire roster hits the ring. Dundee takes a flaming torch (!) to the face as Lawler fights off an entire army of bad guys.

More ads! Games magazine! My dad had a subscription. Remember magazines?

We get some footage summarizing a dastardly attack against the beloved "Bullet" Bob Armstrong by Tom Pritchard and Pat Rose. Bullet Bob is a much more wholesome local hero. He's like the neighborhood dad who everyone knows has a tough guy past but who will also happily toss another braut on the grill for every kid on the street and not make a big deal of it. So it's a big deal that Prichard and Rose tried to crack Bob's head open like an egg. We get an AMAZING bit recorded "in the hospital" by the half-dead Bob Armstrong as his virile, bepermed, and vengeful sons Scott and Steve speak for him. "HE CAIN'T TALK! HIS FACE IS ALL WIRED TOGETHER!" And then, thank the maker, we get a backyard training and hype video of Bullet Bob on the road to recovery set to Bad to the Bone. God is good. The neighborhood dad is doing chin-ups on the playground. You can't keep a good man down, even if that motherfucker Tom Prichard did break the man's face and hang him off the ring ropes. The Armstrong Boys will not abide this shit. "They broke ever' bone in his FACE!" "We're comin' up there to see you boys. You call us the RAT PATROL and the first two rats we're startin' with are YOU." All this while Bullet Bob sits there on his leather sofa barefoot with the thousand yard stare of a man who was almost murdered in the ring by a couple of douche bags. This is, as they say, the good shit.

More ads! Glen King is a TVA advisor who wants to help you save money on insulating your home. I wonder where he is today.

Back in the studio, Tom Pritchard and Pat Rose are here doing some highly irritating fake crying to impersonate those weaklings in the Armstrong family. "I can't help but feel a little sorry for ya, old man. Send those snotty nosed brats up here and we'll take care of 'em." What a couple of assholes.

Then we get those very same assholes taking on the super-mega good guy team of Bill Dundee and "King" Jerry Lawler. Holy shit. I guess that Dundee got better from that torch to the face. Dundee comes out and tries to hug every girl in the audience, which, considering what we know about him now, is problematic. It is clear from the start that Prichard and Rose are outclassed, but they never stop talking shit. Lawler throws right hands and shakes his knuckles out after every shot, and we rejoice. Rose and Pritchard cheat in every way you can imagine. The girls are chanting "go, Billy, go" and we are all troubled by the implications. One of Lawler's more underrated qualities is in his insistence on dressing in the ugliest colors imaginable throughout his entire career. The Masked Superstar shows up to start shit with Dundee, and we're going to commerical.

Charley Pride! 20 songs on one album!

We're back! The match continues! Holy shit they gave this a ton of time. Pat Rose, it must be said, looks like the type of guy who'd throw beer cans at his kids. That asswipe the Masked Superstar comes in again and starts whipping Dundee with a belt. The match breaks down into chaos. Lawler and Dundee are left laying. Justice, it seems, will not be served today.

Dundee has a response for the Masked Superstar. Who is the real superstar? Take one guess.

Commercial! Buy your insurance from The Insurance Mart "next to the Water Plant."

Main event time! Which is, I guess, highlight footage of Harley Race vs. Koko Ware from another place and time. Harley's perm is as robust and fabulous as his gut. I never met Harley, who is a Kansas City icon, but I've heard from those who have that he's an intimidating individual with a cast iron handshake. I'm sure that is true. Harley wins!

Commerical! Life is better in Jackson, Tennessee. Maybe so, but I'm not sure I want live in a place where Tom fuckin Prichard can just run up and punch Bob Armstrong's face into pieces. Also, in case you're interested, the Jackson Central High class of 76 10 year reunion is coming up. It would be best for everyone if Lawler and Dundee were kept away from all high schools just in general principle. I can respect that Lawler routinely saved Memphis from literal monsters, and I like my heroes flawed; but statutory rape is one of those character flaws that I just can't rally behind.

Anyway, Memphis wrestling is the best. My hopes are up, and I need a cigarette.