Crisis on Infinite Shows

Dear Wrestling,

So Jack Gallagher turned heel recently. A lot of my friends online are aghast at this--I'd say most are. My first impulse was to be delighted--he is, of course, as excellent at this as he is at everything else. I love seeing weirdos in particular excel. But it's been a week or two, and I've thought about it and I don't think I care for this after all.

My reasoning is this: In wrestling generally and WWE specifically, we're in a cultural trend of bad guys winning. One could liken it to the grimdark era of comics in the 80s. I mean, I'm new here and I can see it. It's hard to miss.

Wrestling sells itself as a kind of moralistic fantasy theatre. People watch wrestling, we are told, because they want to see clearly defined good guys and bad guys and they want to see the good guys win.

In WWE, not so much. Even the babiest of faces cheat or lie or are just dishonorable in some way...if they're on top.

Down in the gutter of 205Live*, art and magic still got to happen, hidden away from Sauron's/Vince's all-seeing eye. Or it did. We had Jack as a gentleman, honorable and true. We had Neville as a crazed king--crazed, but still adhering to his own code at least, bless him, and driven mad by his own excellence, if anything. We still have Mustafa for the moment, but for your health's sake, brace yourself.

Because now we have a Jack who has ignored the praise and admiration of the audience in order to prove himself to his enemy, on his enemy's terms. We have, sweet Thor save us, Enzo Amore as the cruiserweight champion. And so the patterns of the two bigger shows have crushed themselves down upon 205Live, like a stamp or a die.

The cruiserweights were our last holdout where good could triumph--or at least, at very least, it could stay itself. Jack's heel turn feels to me like the end of an era, however short it was. Now there is nowhere on wrestling's largest stage where someone can succeed simply by being good.**  And let me be clear: I think great stories can come from this orientation. I just don't think it should be the only one.

Autumn


*NB: I love the gutter. It's where all my favorite art happens.
**Until Kevin Owen's face turn. I believe KO can turn this trend and set things right.

Heartbreak

Dear Wrestling,

Preface: I worked on this for a couple weeks, knew it was a work in progress and it was bumming me out pretty hard so I put it aside for a minute. Until No Mercy, tonight. The first bit is from before. After tonight, I just wanted to get it out/away. I’ll put an asterisk break for tonight’s…ranting, most likely.


I don't think it's intrinsic to the nature of a heart to be broken--but, once you place a heart in the world, it is subject to the same harm and danger and impermanence as everything else.

In other words, the only place a heart is unbreakable is in a thought experiment.

There are so many different kinds of heartbreak. I've felt quick sharp ones like a finger popping. Aching, festering ones like a gangrenous wound. I have one quiet, constant one that's been ongoing since I was 16 years old. It will probably be with me when I die, an old and familiar friend. I'm even happy about that one, and I hope it never ends.

So now I love this new thing, and it's like loving a new society or civilization: there are a LOT of component parts to love or loathe or be disappointed by. New, exciting ways/people to break one's heart. It's the same human zoo as anywhere else.

Facebook recently reminded me of a status: "Between Bray Wyatt and the New Day, I might have to start paying attention to WWE..."  That was on August 7, 2016. That day I made reference to 'the trombonist in the New Day"--because I didn't know his name yet. I've come a long way since then, although the road ahead seems (happily!) unending. Part of my education in wrestling has been falling in love with the wrong people. As a queer person, it's meant hearing slurs about me from people I adore. It hurts.

At first I thought, “Maybe I’ll hold back. Maybe I’ll try to keep me safe, keep some piece of my heart in reserve, so that it doesn’t hurt so bad when the inevitable happens.” Which just goes to show that I am frequently dumb, and that I really am not very good at remembering what I know about myself. In this case, the fact that when I love, I love hard. I am picky as hell, and once someone or something clears all my bars, they’re in—period. Forever. They can change it: they can be hateful, turn out to want to deny someone basic rights, be a racist—but they have to do it. I can’t.

Which is why I pray to my dear thewful Thor that I never find out something worse about my beloved than that they used the word faggot in the past. That’s plenty, and to be perfectly honest it’s way more than I thought I’d ever be able to forgive an adult for. I don’t know if wrestling has changed me or just shown more of me than I knew existed.

I have found some things that are dealbreakers: calling women whores. Beating or berating them. Supporting people who stand against recognizing the humanity of others—or who are plainly too stupid to live. Being a racist.

********************************************************************************

So Enzo is the cruiserweight champion. This guy who treats people like garbage, who makes a living from making fun of other people’s looks…who has definitely cheated on women and almost certainly behaved abominably toward sex workers…this guy beat Neville.

Neville, who is one of the top five wrestlers in the world. Probably top three. Who has come so, so far in terms of his confidence and mic work and character…who has worked so hard for so long to get where he is.

I tweeted that I’d have to cancel my WWE network subscription. I might. I don’t know.

I know that the story isn’t over. The thing I’m struggling with is, where are the lines for a heel? Some of them are obvious: racism. Sexual assault. Child abuse.

But this guy has a lifestyle of disrespecting women like it’s going out of style—which, god do I wish it was. So his character never crosses any terrible lines…but he sure does.

This company has made it clear that you pretty much can’t be too bad to get fired. It takes a LOT.


I don’t have any answers. It’s the same stupid moral decay and frustration as anywhere else.

So, maybe it’s time wrestling stops selling itself as an escape from that?


Autumn

Volpa Nera on Punk Ethics and Sami Zayn

Dear Wrestling, 

Today instead of the normal letter from me to your incorporeal excellence, I have a treat! A guest post by the wise and kind Volpa Nera, @volpettinanera, about our Best Beloved, Sami Zayn. Please give her all the love this is due and help me convince her to start a blog her ownself. 

In 2017, the real world is a turbulent and terrifying place. The microcosmic world of wrestling reflects this, for better or worse: jingoism is back in fashion, and our heroes are apathetic, hypocritical, egotistical. Beloved tag teams end in shattering betrayal. Skilled performers fall to the bottom of the pile, and 205 Live goes unloved despite showcasing some of the best wrestling on television. At the time of writing, of 9 available titles, 6 are currently in the possession of ‘heel’ characters. Who’d be a good guy at a time like this?

In 1970’s Britain the world was a stagnant and stifling place. The Sex Pistols opined that there was ‘no future’; recession, unemployment and social unrest among the working classes spawned the British punk movement. The rich were getting richer, the poor left to rot at the bottom of the pile. Society, according to punk ideology, had failed; conforming to societal norms was anathema to young British punks. The attitude was slightly different in the US, where punk was largely a middle-class rebellion: youths rejecting the middle-class values they had been brought up to revere in favour of their own, self-determined values. Nonetheless, the rejection of the establishment proved a common thread present in both movements.

Sami Zayn goes by the WWE-appointed moniker of ‘The Underdog from the Underground’; the Underground points to both his past life in the indies, but also his well-documented love of punk rock. His ska-influenced entrance theme stands out in a sea of metal riffs and on the surface it is tricky to reconcile the cheerful, good-guy persona Sami presents with the aggressive nihilism popularly associated with punk.

But punk isn’t solely about nihilism; it’s a nebulous ideology, and its definition depends on our ability to specify a space & time to which we can relate it as a concept. But the spirit of nonconformity remains a constant: the subversion of the establishment, the rejection of the status quo, the elevation of anarchy as a viable alternative. In a narrative environment in which grey morality has become the accepted norm – in which a character accepted as heroic may be applauded for torching another’s house, in which selfishness and egotism are character quirks, in which it is no longer possible to draw a clean line between Evil and Good – if we are to accept the spirit of nonconformity as being key to punk philosophy, then what could be more punk rock than being kind?

(I should add here that punk and kindness are not necessarily antithetical: in 1978 a ‘Rock Against Racism’ concert was held in London’s Victoria Park. Notable punk bands of the era played in support, including The Clash, X-Ray Spex, Generation X and Sham 69. Punk may demand the destruction of social norms, but one could argue that some social norms deserve to be destroyed.)

In a traditional Good vs Evil dichotomy – the kind Barthes posits is the nature of American wrestling, “‘a sort of mythological fight between Good and Evil’” – the archetypes are so broadly sketched and so instantly recognisable that we know which side we are supposed to root for. For the most part, this is no longer the case: AJ Styles spent months in Heel/Face limbo before being officially designated a Good Guy, and we cheer for Randy Orton even as he burns down Bray Wyatt’s house.

Sami is a yardstick by which we can measure the relative ‘Evil’-ness of an act or a character, because we can be sure that his actions and reactions will be consistently and demonstrably the opposite. The precedent for this goes all the way back to his NXT days, in a piece of exemplary storytelling (and which, I believe, has not yet been equalled on the main roster). Sami wants to win the title, but consistently falls at the last hurdle. The potential moral of the story is that nice guys finish last; that you don’t get anywhere without a well-polished ruthless streak. Empirical evidence bears this out, not least when Sami’s friend (and one-man Greek chorus) Neville demonstrates the efficacy of flexible morality. Ultimately, Sami holds firm, does not give in to the temptation to cheat his way to victory, refuses to compromise his morals for success. And when he wins, it feels as though every single heart under the Full Sail roof is about to explode with joy. We, all of us, have wanted this every bit as much as Sami has. We’ve all been on this journey together. (Inclusivity is a key feature of Sami’s character: he frequently pauses to show he’s aware of the audience singing along to his music, or chanting for him. Even the “Let’s Go!” motif is an invitation.)

The key to creating a believably Good character, in my view, is that Good should be a characteristic they strive for. It’s difficult for us to relate to a person for whom Goodness is a personality trait, something innate and embodied, but we all recognise the struggle inherent in choosing to do Good when the alternative seems so much easier. There is an almost Kantian distinction in Sami Zayn’s character between doing a ‘good’ thing and doing the ‘right’ thing – the latter is something we hear from Sami time and time again. For Sami, ‘Good’ is a byproduct of doing what is ‘right’.

Even if we are to accept that punk is essentially cynical, cynicism in its original, purest form is embodied by the rejection of conventional desires – power, wealth, status. Modern usage has transformed the original concept into something more unsavoury, and yet in many ways punk is largely true to the original spirit of cynicism: ancient Greek Cynicism required that the adherent live their unconventional life in full view of the public gaze, indifferent to insults and derision. So when Neville disparages Sami’s virtuous attitude towards victory – his insistence on doing the ‘right’ thing irrespective of the consequences (i.e. failure) – Sami is refusing to conform to the expectation that he should want to be successful at any cost. And when he eventually wins – complete with heartstoppingly dramatic ‘will-he-or-won’t-he’ moment in which the crowd literally beg Sami not to cheat – it’s so much sweeter because he did it on his terms, in his way, without sacrificing the morality which has become almost unfashionable in modern WWE. We see this again in his recent interaction with Kevin Owens: Kevin asks him to be the referee in his US Championship match against AJ Styles. The reasoning, ostensibly, is that Kevin trusts Sami not to cheat him out of a win, in spite of their past history. And here is a wonderful nod to that history: Even with their mutual animosity, Kevin would put his title shot in Sami’s hands because he knows Sami well enough to understand that he does what is right.

The audience, in our omniscience, know that within the context of their shared history, Sami would be forgiven for accepting the ref’s jersey and proceeding to screw Kevin over. Hell, within the context of the Face/Heel dichotomy, one could even argue that this would be a virtuous act. It would represent Kevin’s comeuppance – both for his treatment of Sami and for his multitude of other transgressions (we all remember JeriKo’s own Red Wedding, the Festival of Friendship – he brought you a magician, Kevin!). And if we want to delve even deeper – if we want to get meta about things – we can recall Kevin’s proclamation that Sami has done very little since coming to Smackdown and recognise that this is his opportunity to be significant. I would bet that most of us watching thought we could see the story unfolding before us: the tentative acceptance signalling a potential reparation of a shattered friendship even as that little voice inside of us yells screw him, Sami, he doesn’t deserve you, culminating in a short, sharp return to the status quo as Sami takes his well-earned revenge. Wrestling rivalries run deep, and like the proverbial elephant, a wrestler never forgets.

But Sami doesn’t choose revenge, or significance, both of which are desires we have come to expect from our (increasingly individualistic) wrestling narrative. Nor does he exhibit what we might consider naivety in believing Kevin’s motivations to be genuine. He chooses, instead, to walk away. He does the ‘right’ thing, because that is what Sami does: his values, in keeping with the American punk ethos, are self-determined. Punk values authenticity, and Sami has this in spades: he doesn’t conform to our expectations, nor the expectations of the narrative, and it’s punk as fuck.

Where traditionally Good characters exist, it seems de rigeur to stomp them down, and the implication is that the audience should be entertained rather than outraged – witness Alexa Bliss’ verbal decimation of Bayley, whose inherent ‘niceness’ has been portrayed as a fatal weakness, a character flaw, and the reason for her present inability to succeed. Unlike Sami in NXT, there has been no redemption arc for her thus far to prove this wrong.

Sami’s recent main roster run has been frustrating to say the least, and as with Bayley there has been precious little in the way of meaningful victory to counteract the notion that his essential ‘goodness’ is, in fact, toothlessness. And we have seen glimpses of that frustration; Sami likes to remind us that he has to work to maintain his positive attitude (again, lending an authenticity to his character – even the best of us has wanted to lash out and fuck the consequences sometimes.) You might consider that piling failure upon insignificance might lead to a – whisper it – heel turn. And yet Sami remains defiantly positive. He’s the person who apologises to the Kanellises for a completely accidental transgression, who takes on the monstrous bully Braun Strowman because nobody else will, who turns down the opportunity to screw over the former best friend that betrayed him. Who stands up to The Man (or, pardon the pun, the McMahon) because he can see that Mick Foley is being treated unfairly, and someone has to be the voice of reason. What’s punk about this, you might ask? It’s that nobody else would do it. The only person authentic enough to do the right thing, regardless of the repercussions, is Sami Zayn.

Even now, seemingly doomed to languish in booking limbo, Sami does not give in to his frustration and opts instead to wear his heart on his metaphorical sleeve. His ring gear carries a lyric appropriately borrowed from ska punk band Operation Ivy: to resist despair in this world is what it means to be free. And in that liminal space between our turbulent world and his, the hole in the fabric of the universe in which fiction and reality bleed together, these words resonate.

What Sami Zayn understands is this: When looking after number one is the dominant attitude, when compassion is portrayed as weakness and consideration as irrationality, when the establishment itself lauds austerity and self-preservation as the way forward, the punk spirit demands fuck the establishment as a response. When apathy is conformity, there is nothing more punk rock than being kind.

DDT4 2013

Dear Wrestling,



So. I had been trying to work my way through the Steenerico corpus chronologically, but then Mith​ was talking about watching DDT 2008 and Kev having a strong reaction to losing the tag titles. The way she described it, I wanted to watch it immediately. I have big emotions, and I’m a sucker for them in others. I watched it and then needed to watch DDT 2013, the last time they tagged together.

I’m still learning how to see the subtleties of movement and story that make a match great, so I won’t comment on that. But emotion…emotion I’m good at.

I say on twitter a lot—probably too frequently—that I relate to Kevin Steen/Owens. On the one hand his character is frequently monstrous, possibly evil, and so I slightly worry how those statements will be interpreted. On the other hand, it is so vanishingly rare that I relate to someone as strongly as I do to him, I won’t hold it back.

I am monstrous sometimes. I hope you don’t know this for yourself, it is very fucking difficult to get out of a situation that will leave you with PTSD without doing something monstrous. I have done things that I consider to be evil—bearing in mind, I have a damn low bar for what’s evil. Harming others non-consensually, pretty much. Sometimes I get more angry than I know what to do with, and I lash out at the wrong people—like I just did, just now, to my husband when he interrupted my writing. He’s fine, he’s just curious, but my thoughts are unwieldy and hard to match up to the feelings, so I got frustrated and snapped at him. I feel enormous feelings and whether pleasant or socially unacceptable, sometimes they run away with me. When I first heard the parable of the soul being a chariot harnessed to a good horse and a willful horse, I thought, “Yes!” Enormous animals, far stronger than me, not at all well-trained. That’s it exactly.

Sometimes, when I’m really truly upset—can’t keep it together upset—I shut down. Nothing is safe, anything might push me over the edge. So I lock it all down and figure, I’ll get back to feeling things later, when I can afford to. When it’s safe. When the next thing won’t break me.

That picture up top? That feels like a goddamn self-portrait. That look on Kevin’s face, his posture, that is exactly like what it feels like. I doubt Kevin was feeling quite as bad off as I describe. It’s probably just a ridiculously unlikely coincidence.

Did you know that the word ‘monster’ comes from the same Latin word as demonstrate? Essentially, colloquially, it means a thing you point at. That’s all. A beautiful thing, a scary thing, a numinous thing. That part matters not at all. It’s something that makes you feel something strongly, and compels you to point it out to others.

A friend and I were talking about watching this match, and they said, “Prepare to cry a lot.” Afterwards I responded, “If I was well-adjusted, I probably would have.”

Some emotions are too big for tears.

Heaven is an Indy Wrestling Show

Dear Wrestling,

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

This is the story of my first indy wrestling show.

On July 29 me, my friends Betty and Georgia, my sister (who shall be known as Seestor), and two of our friends went to a Ring of Honor taping in Concord, North Carolina. Miss Betty Rock has a radio show in Huntington, WV called Marking Out, and as a result of said excellence, she was able to get press passes to do some interviews before the show.

Muffins, my first try at college I did technical theatre, because I love working with my hands and seeing the hidden side of things. So when it turned out that we weren't being sent to some sterile room somewhere at the arena, but in fact to the floor, with the ring, and then backstage, I was in *heaven*. Not just because of seeing so many amazing wrestlers, but look! The lights attach to the girders on the ceiling with big ass clamps! And they're testing out the fog machine! And that's a screen for doing promos against! And on and on and on. Admittedly some portion of this was pure naivete and gawping--but I can't overstate how much of it was me being truly in love with seeing how the show gets made. I *love* that stuff, always have. It’s never broken the magic for me: if anything it heightens it, and makes me feel included.

So we meet Betty’s contact and he takes us to the arena. We walk in and it’s mostly empty, and feels huge. It’s definitely not, it’s just a little county arena, but…well. We were generating a fair bit of excitement already. He goes off to find the promoter, and we stand at the top of the stairs, watching.

The ring is full of men in sweats and tee shirts. I have face blindness, so I’m not sure but…but guys, that one there, with the hair…is that Dalton Castle? Waitwait, that’s a Boy, that is DEFINITELY Dalton Castle! Oh god, oh god, they weren’t on the card, they’re here! Betty immediately plans to ask for him specifically because she is a genius and an opportunist, while the rest of us are merely trying to remember how to be human beings. It’s a struggle, and I pray to my sweet thewful Thor that we didn’t embarrass ourselves. The contact comes back and takes us downstairs and backstage/behind the massive curtain and asks us to wait until someone is free to talk.

We're standing by a truck using a crate as a table, Betty's checking her equipment, and there's a promo being taped on the other side of the truck, and a guy changing over there, and guys doing moves and stuff over there. We listen to the promo while pretending to be furniture behind the truck and giggle quietly. A fight ‘breaks out’ during it, and we hear chairs and punches being thrown. We meet each others eyes and marvel at how this turns out to be the best day ever. Who knew?

We ended up being able to interview Silas Young, the Beer City Bruiser, and Jay Lethal, who were all great. Silas and the Bruiser gave fantastic station liners, and Jay was charming and sweet. Betty didn’t have a ton of time to prepare since the passes were last minute but I felt she had a great mix of unusual questions and familiar ones.

We didn't know who else might have time, so we stood about for another hour or so, waiting and hoping* before it was time to go get our seats/food/merch. That sounds like a complaint: we had a BLAST. Marty Scurll passed us twice, and we all met each other's eyes and quietly flipped out. Even given how good we are at entertaining each other, we commented several times on how much fun we were having. Standing by a truck. Being awkward. If anyone ever tries to tell you that wrestling isn’t purest alchemy, you tell them from me that they’re a damn liar.

The show itself...god. How can I possibly put into words the utter joy of it all? The many perfect moments of 'only in pro wrestling'? The power and rush of chanting with a crowd and giving someone the strength to keep going, get up, fight back? I hope you know it or you get to. I’ve had a pretty weird life, and I’ve had some amazing experiences—I’ve gone to France while homeless thanks to the generosity of a teacher. I’ve climbed a seastack on the coast of Oregon. I’ve nearly drowned three times—I am persistent, I’ll admit.

I want you to know that this was the most powerful happiness I’ve ever experienced. I want you to have an idea of what that means, coming from me.

Back to the narrative.

I’m not going to go into each match—Betty and Georgia did that much better than I could on Marking Out. I’m a Romantic at heart, so my best efforts are in the qualitative, not the quantitative. Such as our shock and delight when Dalton Castle came out with the Boys and cut a promo on Colt Cabana, and said that he’d face him in a week, in this building--which we were too excited and slow to catch meant later that night.

So now not only do we get to see Dalton and the Boys, we also get to see Colt Cabana! Bear in mind, I am a tiiiiny little infant baby fan, so what I know about Colt so far is that during the yearlong feud between Generico and Steen at Ring of Honor, he was Generico’s mentor/corner guy. I know a little more already as of this writing, but I didn’t then.

The match is fantastic, of course it is. Colt has the Tempura Boyz with him, and the antics all the various Boys/Boyz get up to are ridiculously wonderful. It’s everything I’ve dreamed and at least 30% more—at very least. At one point Colt Cabana had one of Dalton Castle's Boys on the ropes near us. I turn to my friends and say, "Save that boy on three?" We chant it, and Colt looks at us and smiles a little, and begins tormenting the Boy worse. "This boy?? Oh, he needs you! You're not helping him!" My friends and I fall apart, laughing and mock-horrified.

It was probably the most powerful moment of my life so far. And I've had a weird life, full of strange things, but that moment, that exchange, was something utterly unlike anything I've ever experienced. Later I had two thoughts: that is probably the closest I will ever get to understanding why wrestlers do this, and I can see why so many have issues with drugs.  It’s been a week at this point, and I’ve thought about it every day. Something shitty might happen at work, and that first moment when he looked at us has been my happy place. It helps, and what more can you ask art to do?

That match was the highlight for every single one of us. The rest of the evening continued that high. A week out everything is kind of a blur of joy and surprise and amazement. It wouldn’t be fair to pick out any other highlights because it would be pretty arbitrary. Until the final match, when Marty Scurll fought a Briscoe (face blindness, I don’t know which one) about two feet from my sister—she’d gotten her ticket last, and it was in a different section, so she spent the last hour or so just standing behind our chairs where we were seated on the floor. So Marty and Unknown Briscoe come over the barricade and around the crowd, to fight along the last row—which is us. The Briscoe pushes Marty, who stumbles nearly into my sister, then picks up a cup from the floor and throws it at the Briscoe.

That cup is sitting on my kitchen table right now. We happened to notice it as we left, so I grabbed it and thought, “Eh, I’ll keep until it doesn’t make me giggle anymore.”

The show ended. We’d been at the arena for a little over eight hours. We made our way out with the crowds and saw a little boy sitting on the stairs with his parents. At the very end, when Bully Ray broke a table, he invited two little ones into the ring to take home a piece of the table. This one was clutching it to his chest, like a teddy bear.

We all agreed: that was our best day ever. Yet.



*"All human wisdom is contained in these words: wait and hope!" -Alexandre Dumas

Some Thank Yous

Dear Wrestling,

This will be a post I do fairly often as I am a creature made mostly of gratitude and weltschmerz.

Thank you Kevin Owens for being mindbogglingly talented and sharp on the mic, for being 827 comfortable with your body, and for shutting down fat shamers like there's no tomorrow. Thank you for your beautiful family and what you and Karina share of them. It's a scary, messed up world and my own family was pretty much a trainwreck. Seeing yours gives me hope, and a sense of solace--that it's not all bad out there.

Thank you Sami Zayn for being at least 43% of my inner self come to beautiful frenetic life, for suffering *gorgeously*, and for showing me what it means to fight forever. Thank you for using your fame to draw attention towards those who need help in the world--and thank you, thank you, a million times thank you, for your role in bringing me back to music.

Thank you Kenny Omega for making me feel included in this fandom, even my weird, queer-as-hell self. Thank you for being as out as possible.

Thank you Neville for inspiring headcanons about how you're secretly a fairy prince, pissed as hell to be stuck among mortals. You'll never know and you certainly didn't mean to, but god, it brings me so much joy.

Thank you Mithen for writing the very heart of me in your essays. I have no idea how, but you write what I would if I could--and here I am, still trying anyway.

Thank you Robert Heinlein (hang on, stay with me here), for writing about carnies as human beings who care for each in Stranger in a Strange Land, and thus kicking off a lifelong interest.

Thank you Brian the Guppie for being kind and answering my dumb questions. I've always wanted to go to Montreal, and if I ever do I'll make y'all those biscuits.

Yours,
Autumn

Thank you, El Generico

Dear Wrestling,

This is a story about abuse and music and art. So far, it has a happy ending.

Once upon a time I lived in a place that was far better than it had any right to be. I went to good schools, with diverse classmates, I had friends, we went out to coffee shops and smoked cloves--it was the perfect 90s adolescence.

Then, when I was 16, my parents moved the family to Clay County, West Virginia. Whatever you think you know about that place, you’re almost certainly wrong. It’s worse than you could possibly imagine, and that was years before the opioid epidemic.

I was surrounded by people I didn’t understand, who didn’t understand me. Mostly they assumed I was some version of queer (true) and hated me for it. But there were a few weird kids like me, less than 10. They had all been a group of friends for years and had recently split into two factions in a pretty bad break-up.

I picked the wrong ones.

Her name was **** and she listened to punk music and danced ballet and wrote and was massively better read than me. I thought she was the coolest girl I'd ever met. We got along like a house on fire for awhile. We considered each other sisters, and got matching tattoos. We planned on being crazy old cat ladies together some day. She didn’t hit me often, but she did. More than that she constantly derided me. She was mostly recovered from an eating disorder and felt infinite social pressure, and I don’t think it ever occurred to her to not apply that to me. So I was dumb for being a geek, I was stupid for missing a social cue that may or not have happened, I was such a fucking idiot for anything that didn’t please her. She was my maid of honor, and in her toast to me she called me, in front of all my friends and family, “the smartest dumbass I ever met.” She was bitter as the day is long, and had a chip on her shoulder that colored everything she saw or did or said.

She introduced me to so much music. She was nearly as poor as me, but this was in the days of $3 punk samplers at Hot Topic, and of Napster. She taught me about The Get Up Kids and The Anniversary, The Bouncing Souls and why they were called that, Less than Jake and Reel Big Fish and Save Ferris, Bikini Kill, Rancid, Alkaline Trio, Catch 22...ska and punk and emo when it was new and raw. No one goes to West Virginia on purpose, so we drove to DC, to Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, even Indianapolis to see bands. Cowboy Mouth goddamn near saved my soul one night.

It finally ended in 2005, not long after I got married. I didn’t listen to music for at least five years, maybe more. I slowly started easing back in. I started with Scottish bands--bands that couldn't possibly have anything to do with her, and which would never appeal to her. Frightened Rabbit, the Twilight Sad, There Will Be Fireworks, We Were Promised Jetpacks. I finally went to my first show in 2015, and Frightened Rabbit helped heal my battered heart. But I still couldn't listen to punk and all those bands I'd loved.

Last night (Jun 19) I learned that El Generico came out to Ole by the Bouncing Souls--I hadn't seen a video such that I could really make out the song. I remembered how much I liked them. Today at work I spent 8 hours with a massive headache, so my boss let me listen to music as we closed. I pulled up a Bouncing Souls playlist on youtube.

I haven’t felt music move my heart this way in years--even the bands that I have found and loved on my own haven’t hit this part of me. I listened to them sing about friendship and loyalty and the limitless power of music and hope, and I wondered at the grin on my face and thought, “I’m not broken…”

In spite of everything, in spite of her and worse in my life, I haven’t yet become too cynical for punk. In other words, I’m still alive, I still have hope and fight in me. I haven’t given up, on my life or my dreams or my ideals.

I think it got really close there for awhile. I think I’ll be ok. I think wrestling has saved me at least twice this year--first through itself, and now through music as well. It's such a strange thing to say thank you for--'your walk-out music in the indies brought me back to myself'--but I am nothing if not compulsively grateful. I know he could never have known and certainly didn't mean to. But this is why we do art, isn't it? For the beautiful, salvific coincidences that we could never plan but which give us life and joy and hope. And that, I am certain he gets. Yours, Autumn