Working Man's Blues, American Dream's Polka

My job is squashing the soul out of me.

I'm surrounded by bitter, aging malcontents all day.  I try to please them by jumping through hoop after hoop, but I'm slowly learning that no amount of appeasement is going to make these bellyaching crab-brains stop spraying bile out of their dumb faces.

I imagine this guy knows a little bit about what I'm going through:

That there is Dusty Rhodes, the closet thing that wrestling's ever had to My White Moma.  He's the hit-maker!  He's the heart breaker!  He'll make your back crack and your liver quiver!  He's fat, he's got a lisp, he's got a forehead like a plate of roast beef...



 But, most of all, Dusty Rhodes knows what it's like to work in a draining job:

See, Dusty Rhodes was a legend before he went to the WWF.  He'd already won the NWA World Championship three times, he'd sold out numerous stadiums, and he was known the world over.  Once he signed a contract with the WWF, though, management put him in a polka dot leotard.

The crowd still loved him, though, because he was Dusty Rhodes.

Then they gave him some random schlub as a valet. 



Dusty only made the crowd love BOTH of them.

Management tried and tried to choke the life out of Dusty, but they never could.  The reason: he enjoyed everything they gave him regardless of the stupidity.  After all, he was still the same son of plumber he always was, and nothing a boss or co-worker did could change that.

This is the lesson I'm now trying to apply to my life.  As much as the people around me try to drag me down with their negativity, I try to remember that I have more control over the way I feel than they do.  They may want to saddle me with the same hopelessness and anger they feel when they come to work, but I know I can rise above it.  I know I can still do a good job if I simply make it my business to have fun.

How I learned to stop worrying and love the Powerbomb

The powerbomb, a throw that involes hurling a lifted opponent from your shoulders to the mat, is one of the most dangerous in all of pro-wrestling.

If you don't believe me, check out what the damn thing did to the Big Show back in 1998:

Then there's what Kawada did to Misawa...

And then there's the one some jackass gave me onto the amatuer wrestling mats in my high school locker room.

[FOOTAGE NOT FOUND]

It's a scary risk to take for entertaining a crowd of yokels, especially if most of those folks are kids, snarky internet fiends, or some other "low-earning" segment of society.  But pro-wrestlers do it all the time, and the reason is because, when a powerbomb is done well, it's an impressive display of impact and coordination:

So what I've learned from the prevalence of powerbombs in pro-wrestling is that risks shouldn't prevent me from taking the chance to create something worthwhile.  That's what I'm doing with this blog. 

To explain, I've been complacent for a long time, and this has resulted in a lack of excitement in my day-to-day life.  All of my weeks are starting to blur together.  I've decided the reason is because I've been too fearful of the "risks" of change. 

Well, no more.  I want to remember, I want to grow, I want to learn.  I'm going to try to push myself to do more, because I want more excitement in life.  And from now on, as part of this resolution to take risks, I'm writing everything pro wrestling (and life) teaches me into this blog.  Hopefully this initiative won't result in me landing on my head.