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Due to Raven's birthday having a deleterious effect on the writer (Raven), this item is going out seven days late. Better late than never.
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Raven's Log
Stardate: 9.4.04
"I don't want to be a member of any club that would have me as a member" - Groucho.
I just wrestled in Oregon for the first time in thirteen years, and it's probably the first time I've been there in at least eight years. It's amazing to me the quantity of holes in my memory. There are so many drunken, drug induced, sex filled adventures that I do remember and, unfortunately, even more that I don't. I lived in Portland for two years and it's really where I learned how to work, and the reason no one today knows how. We wrestled 12 to 20 minutes a night, six days a week minimum, and sometimes, seven. I had more matches in those two years than most guys like AJ or Chris Daniels (my new bitch), who are in very high demand, will have in four or five years, and probably whole careers for lesser known indie guys. I'm not bragging, I'm just exceedingly grateful that I had that opportunity and it's unfortunate that no one will get that now. But the learning didn't stop there because all the boys would ride together to and from the shows and discuss their work and pick their matches apart and have the veterans teach them (actually, they didn't teach so much as we would be forced to pick their brain). The average drive was probably 150 to 200 miles round trip and Oregon was a small territory. In the bigger ones, like Watts' Mid-South, it would be a minimum 400 mile round trip. Now, its all flights and a quick drive. Plus, the veterans aren't traveling with the underneath guys, so theres not going to be a lot of discussion of the business. Plus in the old days, everybody drank which insured even if you didn't want to talk about the business, once you got a few beers in you, you couldn't help it. I'm completely amazed that we all didn't die or kill someone else from drinking and driving and I would never do that now, but that's how things were done and you didn't question it as a rookie. That's not an excuse and I'm just grateful I'm alive and I can work.
A tale from Portland and the good old days. Obviously, this is before I got sober. One day, me and _________ decided after a long drive that we had to get some coke. However, our dealer, known as "The Mountain" because of the piles of blow he would leave on his ironing board, had just gotten raided, his door had been kicked in and he was hauled off to jail. Still being drunk, I convinced my colleague that we needed to go scour the premises because I knew that there had to be some hidden somewhere. We gingerly knocked on the half kicked-in door and silently creeped in. We started hunting around and finally I found a small rock. He was like, "Gimme some," I was like, "No way," and snorted the whole thing. He starts cussing me until my knees buckled and I 'bout took a face bump. He starts laughing hilariously at me when we realized I just snorted sheet rock.
Ah, the good 'ol days.
It was tremendous to wrestle in Oregon, because of the history for me but what made it weird is the fact that so many people were there who attended thirteen years ago. I was meeting people who now aged 20 and were like, "Don't you remember me when I was 7 and you took a picture with me?" Even my buddy, the booker, homesteader, flim flam man, and the guy I learned the most from on how to work from "The Grappler" (Lynn Denton) had kids that were all grown up now. I mean they were so little and now Brandi is 21 and hot. I think she was digging me. Come on Grappler, she's safe with me, old buddy, better the devil you know, right? Now if he's reading this, he should be grimacing and laughing but probably laughing harder from when he watched me snort the sheet rock - oops.
Thanks Lynny for all the knowledge,
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