Sid

There have been many pro wrestlers that were better wrestlers than Sid. There were a few that were taller than Sid. But, not including Hulk Hogan's performance in Mr. Nanny, nothing about wrestling makes me laugh more than Sid.

Sid was born Sid Eudy in Arkansas back in 1960. At some point in his life he decided to join the ranks of Pro Wrestling. After all, he was 6 foot 9 and 320.

And, he was dumb as a bottle of strawberry syrup.

Sid started wrestling in 1987 after running into Randy "Macho Man" Savage. Can you imagine what that conversation sounded like?

MACHO: Oh yeah!
SID: I am really tall.
MACHO: Dig it! This is Macho Madness talking to you right now.
SID: Really, really tall.
MACHO: Snap into a Slim Jim. Spicy beef snacks! Get down!
SID: I could really go for some milk, with strawberry syrup.
MACHO: Macho man says dig it! Ohhhhhhhh yeah!

Yeah, I bet it was something like that.

Sid started wrestling under the name Lord Humongous a name it is assumed that he could not spell. It's also interesting to note that he was the THIRD guy to play Lord Humongous. The character was actually ripped off from the film Mad Max II and the name "Lord Humongous translated into Spanish and then back into English means "fat deity" or "Buddha."

Sid also wore a mask which was a good thing since he kind of looks like a hulked up William Katt.


Soon, however, he dropped that mask and the whole Lord Humongous gimmick and decided to become Sid Vicious.

Like this guy:



Not the most intimidating celebrity to emulate, but remember, there was already a wrestler with the name Sting.



Sid Vicious was a staple in WCW for many years until he moved to the WWF. I guess Vince McMahon was not interested in having a giant redneck sharing the name of a skinny, British punk who killed his girlfriend. So he became Sid Justice.

Sid Justice had one of the most bizarre matches in Wrestlemania history. At Wrestlemania 8 he faced Hulk Hogan. After a long battle, Hogan hit him with the leg drop, a move that meant certain doom at the time.
Sid kicked out of the leg drop and then his manager, Harvey Wippleman, jumped up onto the ring apron.

Let us take a moment to ponder the name Harvey Wippleman.

At some point a man named David Lauer showed up for a job with the WWF somehow a discussion took place ending with the decision:

Harvey Wippleman is a good name for a pro wrestling manager. Harvey Wippleman translated into Spanish and then back to English is still really freaking stupid.

Anyway, Sid kicks out of the pin fall, Harvey jumped onto the apron. Thirty seconds later a wrestler named Papa Shango (a guy with a voodoo gimmick) ran down to the ring. Thirty seconds after that the Ultimate Warrior came down and chased Shango away. Even the announcers seemed puzzled by the awkwardly staged series of events.

Urban legends abound as to was supposed to happen, but it does seem clear that something went wrong.

Sid soon left the company for a variety of reasons. For starters, he was not the most skilled wrestler and apparently failed a few drug tests.

And he liked softball.

That usually wouldn't be a problem, but Sid really liked softball.

In fact, he often would skip televised events to play softball. He would pretend to be injured, call in sick and 30,000 people who paid to see him would see someone else.

And Sid would play softball.

Sid went back to the name Sid Vicious in the WCW. His wrestling there was not any better, but he was very interesting OUTSIDE the ring.

Once he stabbed fellow wrestler Arn Anderson 20 times with a pair of scissors. Another time he fought with wrestler Brian Pillman in a bar and threatened to hit him with a squeegee.

I'm not making that up.

Sid later came back to the WWF under the name Sycho Sid. Then he went to ECW, then back to WCW and then over to WWF again. At this point they just called him "Sid."

His career in the big leagues was highlighted by sloppy wrestling and sloppy speeches. He also held the WWF and WCW titles 2 times each.

He wrestled his last big match in 2001 for WCW. In the match he jumped off the second rope and broke his leg.

Really bad.

It was a double compound fracture and it was pretty ugly. Basically, it looked like his foot was connected to his knee by a big piece of rubber. It just wobbled around. The match finished as quickly as possible and the leg took a long, long time to heal.

In 2004 Sid returned to the ring, but in the small time wrestling federation Syndicate Wrestling.

He's still as dumb as a bottle of strawberry syrup.

My Favorite Rejection Letter

Rejection letters are not usually fun.

Usually they are just cold form letters that rip out a piece of your soul and never return it.

That is why I am particularly fond of this one:



This arrived a few months after I entered a contest to become the Vice President of the Dukes of Hazzard Institute.

It was a pretty odd contest. The Institute is (according to commercials) a real place where the Dukes are studied. The winner of the contest got $100,000 for one year of work.

The tasks involved writing a daily Duke's blog, appearing on TV interviews and driving the General Lee at some Duke's event.

I sent in some articles from this site, a video of me talking about TV and the lyrics to MY personal theme song. Luckily I didn't keep a copy of any of these things.

But I did keep this letter. It arrived long after I saw some dork on TV announced as the winner.

Sure, he got $100,000 but he didn't get one of these:


It reads:
"Two VP's would have been more than the law would allow"

Then it says the obligatory "thanks for entering" nonsense followed by a "Uncle Jesse would be proud."

This pleased me until I started to wonder if they meant Uncle Jesse from the Dukes or Uncle Jesse from Full House.

In retrospect, I am sure they are both proud.

Mister Rogers soaks his feet

Like most kids, I grew up watching Mister Rogers.

When I was a teenager I started to look back at those shows and was fascinated. That's when I became a FAN of Fred Rogers.

Over the years, I have watched the show occasionally. I have also read many of the books that Fred wrote before he died.

The show is still on daily, on local PBS stations and on some of the PBS cable stations.

Watching the show as an adult is interesting. Sometimes it's touching, other times it's dull, and sometimes it is unintentionally HYSTERICAL.

The other day PBS aired an episode from 1993. The description in the TV Guide said "Mister Rogers relaxes by soaking his feet."

That was the whole plot.

Mister Rogers told us his feet were sore, so he went to the yard and stuck them into a kiddie pool. Francois the police officer stops by.

Why does the Mister Rogers neighborhood NEED a police officer? Is there any crime here? I can't imagine.

Still, with the EASIEST police beat in the county Francois has sore feet!

So now, two men are soaking their feet together.

Mister Rogers tells Francois that he was telling his "television friends" about ways we can say "I love you." He asks Francois how HE says "I love you."

Maybe I am a prude, but this doesn't seem like proper foot-soaking conversation.

It does to Francois, however, who breaks into song.

As their feet soak.



Yup. Soakin' and singin'.

Francois finishes his song and Mister Rogers says "I'm very proud of you."

Realizing that he should probably get back to PRETENDING to police a crime free area, Francois takes off.

Not before, of course, Mister Rogers helps him dry his feet.

The Skipper and Mr. Carlson TOGETHER!

I have watched many movies in my life.

Too many perhaps.

I always felt that I was watching films because I was searching for something. Something to make me feel whole. Some display of unity and humanity that would make me a better person just for watching it.

This moment had eluded me for years.

Until now. I found what I was looking for.

What I really needed to see was a movie featuring both Alan Hale Jr. and Gordon Jump.

You know, The Skipper and Mr. Carlson!

To be fair, Alan Hale had almost 200 other credits to his name but we all best remember him as The Skipper on 'Gilligan's Island'.

Gordon Jump had about 100 credits but is best remembered as "the guy who tried to molest Arnold and Dudley on 'Diff'rent Strokes.'"

Oh yeah, he was also Mr. Carlson on 'WKRP in Cincinnati.'

Together Hale and Jump play a cop and a medical examiner in a 1979 suspense thriller, Evidence of Power, about a small town that is besieged by a bunch of accidents that may be murders. All of the accidents involve electric power in some way.

WARNING: I am going to spoil the end of the film. If you plan on someday seeing it, DO NOT READ ANY FURTHER!

The Skipper has a grown son who shows up in town and becomes curious about the deaths. He starts investigating them himself, much to The Skipper's chagrin.

As he probes the mystery he learns that Mr. Carlson's son had died tragically. The more he investigates the more tragedy mounts. A man is killed by a meat slicer, and The Skipper dies in a car crash.

This was a shock since he seemed to be the prime suspect at this point. The other prime suspect was the deputy who looked like Charles Manson. To be fair, most people in the 1970s looked a little like Charles Manson.

The deputy and most other characters display a trait only found in suspense thrillers. They all act incredibly suspicious all the time.

The only person who really doesn't in Mr. Carlson.

Why?

You guessed it, he is the killer. See, when his son died it was because he couldn't get proper medial treatment due to a power outage. So, he sought revenge by turning power tools on people that wasted electricity.

It was THEIR fault and he killed them for it.

Except for The Skipper. He killed him because he said "he was getting too close." I think he killed him because the production really couldn't afford TWO sitcom legends and had to cut the payroll half way through the picture.

I liked the film. I was very surprised when they killed off Alan Hale and a little surprised at the ending. The video has been pretty hard to find, but I found a copy of it in a dollar store. The dollar DVD transfer was pretty murky, but there were a few scenes with Alan Hale and Gordon Jump standing side by side and that was all I needed.

So, with no further ado, here is THE ONLY photograph on the Internet with Alan Hale and Gordon Jump TOGETHER:

Mocking the List: 5 things you GOTTA do this October

Try as I may, I am often late. Punctuality is a virtue, and I am one without virtue.

Turn you eyes from me as you walk down the street.

Today, I will try to fix that. I'll go to work early, I will be on time for dinner and I will read that stack of Disney Adventures magazines that have been piling up since October.

Holy Ida Lupino! I opened the magazine and there is a list of "5 things you GOTTA do this October" and I still haven't done them! Let me get to this NOW! Work and those other things can wait!

1. Design a wacky face for your jack-o-lantern...
Wow, this is gonna be tough. I threw away my jack-o-lantern MONTHS ago (of course by "threw away" I meant "threw off the overpass into traffic," but charges are still pending. So, lets pretend I just threw it away.)

Maybe I have an orange... nope. Maybe a potato... Oh wait! I have a jar of dry roasted peanuts! Let me carve 'em up.

I call the one on the left "Scary Sam," the one on the right I call "Dick Cheney's Trigger Finger."

2. Help rake a pile of leaves and the jump into the pile.
See why you shouldn't procrastinate? Now I have to go help some one... uh... I will help em shovel snow and then jump into the pile.

Hey, this list is pretty stupid, what if you live in any of the parts of the world where the leaves don't fall? What if you are too poor to afford a tree? What if you are having waaaaay too much fun playing with your peanut-o-lanterns?

I'm skipping this one.

3. Visit www.baseball-almanac.com to find a fun fact...
FACT: Milwaukee Brewers' pitcher Dan Thomas was arrested for rape in 1980. He hanged himself in jail.

Wasn't that fun?

How about this one:

FACT: Sox pitcher Frederick Oscar Bratschi killed himself in the early sixties by ingesting battery acid.

These really are fun facts! (Source:www.baseball-almanac.com)

4. Invent your own catch phrase...

"This is as ill as battery acid to a Bratschi." That's my new catchphrase. It's pretty dope.

5. Map out the "good" houses on your trick or treating route to avoid those that give out pennies...
Piece of cake! I did that back in October:

It's as ill as battery acid to a Bratschi!

Toilet Duck

I wanted to do a song about the Toilet Duck, the greatest invention of all time. I figured I could cover the entire product line: the duck shaped cleaner filled bottle, the slow dissolve tablets and the flushable brush.

Since I am not a songwriter I decided to do it to the tune of "Silent Night."

After I finished, I worried that I would be eternally damned for making a song about a duck-themed toilet cleaner to the tune of a song about the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ.

I talked it over with some theologians and it turns out that it is NOT a sin to make such a song. In fact, they believe Jesus WANTS us to keep our toilets clean.

So with no further ado, here is "Toilet Duck."


Toilet Duck
Toilet Duck, Toilet Duck!
So glad to have you, what awesome luck.
Funky necked bottle curved up like a worm.
You kill 99% of all germs,
Also bacteria too,
You help us clean up the loo.

Toilet Duck, Toilet Duck!
Like a super cleansing hockey puck.
No more stubborn build up of lime
You keep it clean for months at a time,
It’s triple action clean!
Triple action clean.

Toilet Duck, Toilet Duck!
Finally! A disposable brush.
It actually breaks up in your plumbing
The whole idea is just mind numbing,
Toilet Duck we thank you.
Toilet Duck we thank you.