I suppose, even if just for a day, or a week, it is possible to possess too many good books for one's own good. In saying this I mean that there are too many options and it becomes a neurological crisis. After finally getting around to Arno Schmidt, Zola, and Saint Augustine, I ended up unable to process rational thoughts, fed self through tube, and 'Hit the Bottle.'
As I hit the bottle, weeping over my shattered attention span and my friend trapped in Martial Law in Thailand, I found myself actually watching television. I have never watched television before. Or rather in some ten-odd years. I don't understand the meaning of television, and when I do not comprehend the meaning of something I prefer to walk away.
Attempting without success to operate the extremely complicated remote control, I was stuck on the USA Network. As manually operating the channels was beneath me, simply out of the question, I arched my elbow, stretched out, took a sip of my triple gin, watched the clock strike eight.
Much to my astonishment, professional wrestling came on. I thought it came on at nine. That's the way it used to be. I endured two or three minutes of the program, and listened to an promotional effort from a man on steroids in bright colors whom looked like a cross between a literal ape and Frankenstein. He spoke of military service in a rap song for children. As I despise war, rap, and children, I was inherently put off.
However, my memories of fonder wrestling days - Nassau Coliseum, autographs, Madison Square Garden (I even used to listen to the pay per views on scrambled TV! It was like a radio broadcast!) and took a stroll out to Skid Row, and visited a family friend whom drinks heroic quantities of beer, and will surely be dead by the time he is 40, and who is also a wrestling fanatic. He collects figurines, taped events, misc merchandise, and autobiographies.
"There are better," espoused he, handing me the japalpeno chips through a long, deep belch which seemed to welcome death in its own roaring, winding way, "Say for instance, Chris Jericho. Bret Hart. But start with Stone Cold. It's easy. He is a born poet."
He spoke the truth. This is a breezy autobiography and includes everything and more: Uneventful childhood, dropping out of college, barbed wire bats, steel cages, religious defamation, alcoholism, traveling the world, spousal abuse, boozing and brawling his way through life as Stone Cold.
It would be of serious interest of Penguin Classics to reissue this text. Perhaps even a more fair-weather publishing house like Melville, or Dalkey Archive, would benefit greatly in having the testicular fortitude to reissue this neglected gem.
Wrestling is not fake: It is scripted. I once dreamt of being a professional wrestler, but it did not last very long. I was in the phoenix of my nicotine addiction, and was woofing down a minimum of three packs per day. I jogged once the ropes, was flipped upside down, and was thereafter bedridden for the rest of the year.
Things have picked back up, and I am back to my regular studies. Still, this book made me laugh and cry. It is the sum of all life experience, written by an obvious, buried (ring)master. Reccomended to all in search of an astonishing life reflection, i.e. Marcel Proust.