An ode to Helen Hild

There is one woman who was instrumental in both of the worlds I fell into, and yet so little is actually known about her. I’d like to change that, even with this entirely too short entry.

In Tex Avery’s 1949 classic “The House of Tomorrow” audiences were treated to the image of a beautiful model. A lovely, blonde figure, posing politely of the TV marked for the father of the house.

And so stunning was she that at the end of the cartoon, a note from “The Management” appears, telling the audience that they will have one more glimpse of this young lady. But she is much more than meets the eye. For she is not your typical model at all.

She is Helen Hild. And she is someone no cartoon or wrestling historian should ever forget.

Born in 1927 as Gladys Helen Nevins, a native of Grand Isle, Nebraska, Helen was once a glamorous model, often contracted for work with the MGM studio. Helen appeared in all kinds of promotional material, all kinds of ads and the like, but the modeling industry then (as it is now) was rather cutthroat. As soon as Ms. Hild was of a certain age, she was unceremoniously ousted from this line of work.

Did that end her career? Of course not. Helen was a strong woman. This was just the beginning.

Back in the 40’s and 50’s, a model who was ousted from modeling, often found a home in professional wrestling. There, a still relatively young lady could find work as a valet, and many a former model back then found herself as a “Slave Girl” to a random wild man in the ring.

Helen was much more than a “Slave Girl” and she was eager to show it.

The world's first model to have gone from cartoon star to full time wrestler, the 5’6, 125 lbs. Helen took her training seriously, and began what was a lucrative career as a professional wrestler, and a groundbreaking one at that!

Here’s a scene taken from an Owensboro, KY newspaper, the scene is from a match held on August 9^th, 1957, the first women’s match held in Seattle in 11 years at that time. Her opponent? WWE Hall of Famer and future 28 year Women’s Champion ~ The Fabulous Moolah:

Helen was a force to be reckoned with. The dynamic mixture of beauty and strength, she never cried or screamed her way through a match, she instead used the best of her abilities to take down her opponents as quickly as possible. In a world dominated by looks and feminine stereotypes, Helen was on par with the men, and thrived in brawling and technical matches.

Audiences loved the feisty Helen, who on occasion let her sons sit somewhere in the crowd. And the fans weren’t the only people to love Helen. A young wrestler by the name of Iron Mike Dibiase later married the beauty, and adopted her children as his own.

Helen’s short life was often defined by the difficulties she faced in life, and not too much of her private life was ever really shared with the public, outside of the tragedies that befell her, such as the sudden loss of her husband to a heart attack suffered in the ring, and the substance issues she faced. But one thing she is best known for now, is raising a legend herself. A wrestler named Ted Dibiase:

Who himself has raised three sons who are now wrestlers. The best known being middle child Ted Jr:

But Helen is a legend in her own right that should be remembered. In a world that once demanded that a woman’s place remain in the kitchen, from the silver screen to the wrestling ring, Helen proved that the will of a woman was anywhere she pleased.

Thank you Rhino!

As I write this, it's only a few hours removed from Ring of Honor's Death Before Dishonor iPPV. My hair is completely frizzed out, since Charlie Haas thought it would be funny to drench everybody on the ramp while I was going for a photo of Shelton Benjamin. But there's one outstanding memory I have, that has prompted me to write this blog.

Shaking the hand of Rhino.

Now when I opened this Blogger/Blogspot account in July of 2010, my first article was about why I became a cartoonist: http://codenamesailorearth.blogspot.com/2010/07/why-did-i-aim-to-be-cartoonist.html I'd like to elaborate a little on what caused me to draw wrestlers, specifically.

From the time I was 9 until I was16, I would draw constantly. After giving up on my first dream of going into politics, I found huge enjoyment from drawing cartoons. Originally, I would just draw my family or things I saw on TV, but wrestling of course being in my heart already, had a different hold on me with drawing.

See, I would study wrestling to better understand the human form. Unlike ballet, which shows how far the body can go, wrestling gives me an understanding of physics. For example, you wouldn't expect to see Spike Dudley lift the Big Show with one hand, would you? I'd spend hours either watching wrestling, or holding my figures to a flashlight, so I could understand drawing with a light source. How would the light bounce from The Honky Tonk Man's shoulders if the light was coming from above? How about from the ramp? I'd ask myself this all the time.

Being a lifelong fan of wrestling (having started at just 4 days old) I would draw wrestlers on occasion, usually to make my mom laugh by sketching something The Rock would say, but I don't think I was nearly as serious about drawing wrestlers as I am right now.

That all changed February 27, 2003.

Rhino (then spelled Rhyno) had been off of television since October of 2001. There had been an accident, and he needed to undergo neck fusion surgery. But unlike the other wrestlers that came back from the same thing in those early years of the 2000's, Rhyno stayed out a bit longer. The only thing we had seen of him, was a lone episode of WWE Confidential, where he confessed that he worried the fans would forget him while he was gone.

I could never imagine that! How could anybody forget this man? I had watched him become a star in ECW just before we lost them forever, and he was after all, their final champion. You can't forget the man-beast, it's not possible. What this man has done in the ring is nothing short of ground breaking.

But echoing his fears were several, snarky "dirt sheets" and early radio shows (we call them podcasts now) that scoffed at the idea that a wrestling fan could remember anything past last week.

But these fears were unfounded. And a hungry world of wrestling fans were waiting to quell those fears for good.

February 27th, 2003 he appeared on the ramp. In my area (Chicago) there had been little rumbling of his return, not even a graphic telling us when he'd be back. Nobody knew he was even in attendance, but there he was on the SmackDown ramp.

And the fans erupted.

The arena was booming with chants of E-C-DUB E-C-DUB E-C-DUB as signs went up everywhere "We miss you Rhyno" "Come back Rhino" "GORE GORE GORE!!!"

I don't think he realizes it, but he had such a serene, beautiful look on his face. His eyes were wide, and he had such a grin. A light mist went over his eyes and all at once, he seemed at peace.

Right then, I cracked open my box of colored pencils, and drew this:

Yes, I did draw this in Chibi style, but it was the best way I could come up with to capture the sweetness of this moment. A wrestler united with his fans, this is something that needed to be drawn.

From that moment on, that's what I wanted to do. I had heard my calling. I wanted to get better at drawing, and capture the beauty of wrestling in cartoon format.

Most cartoonists add extra lines to a wrestler's face, to emphasize emotion. The more lines you see, the more expression in the character, but sometimes (as the late Joe Kubert pointed out) it ages the character a little more than needed. I on the other hand take a cue from Chuck Jones, in that I try to tell the story in the eyes. I sort of hybrid anime style with what I learned from his cartoons, to capture that emotion. It's not a conventional means of drawing, but it's a style I feel best shows the life of the scene.

I didn't start posting my cartoons online until 2009. I really wanted to be at a higher level before letting the world see what I could do. I started by posting them on MySpace, and then sharing them on Facebook and bringing copies to different shows, so I could in person thank the wrestlers in said cartoons for their work. I can't always offer much, but I want these guys to know how special they are, and how every match they've had, from the pre-show dark matches to the main event, helps to make my world brighter.

But I hadn't yet told Rhino. I had only seen him once in person, at a Resistance show in January, right as he was on his way through my area to the ring, to speak with Harry Smith. I had no clue he was behind me, until a polite push on my shoulder led my face up to his soft, green eyes. My own eyes grew HUGE in an "I didn't realize Rhino was behind me" moment, as he made his way past my mom. A brief moment with a childhood favorite, one I wouldn't forget. One that inspired me to draw again.

And that takes me to last night.

At the ROH afterparty (which was entirely too short) I got the chance to talk to Truth Martini, who is not only a great manager, he's also one of the best known teachers in wrestling today. He's always been supportive of me and of my cartoons, himself being in several of them:

He asked how the cartooning was going, and I told him which projects I'm working on, and then I produced a cartoon for Rhino. I asked Truth if he thought Rhino might like it.

"Is that for ME????" I hear from behind.

I whip up to see Rhino, his eyes wide as he takes the cartoon from Truth's hand. This is now my second "I didn't realize Rhino was behind me" moment.

I got the chance to shake his hand and thank him, not only for the show, but for what he does as a wrestler. To thank him for inspiring me to take this journey as a cartoonist. I got that chance I had been waiting for since I was 16, to thank him for being him.

I was treated to a beaming smile, and a chance to take a photo with a humble wrestler, just before he had to leave again. But here is the cartoon he took with him:

Thank you Rhino! ^_^

Young wrestler, invest in yourself: The story of Punishing Pete

This is a public service announcement.

Please share this with someone you know, it may save a life... or at least someone's sanity.

I hereby dedicate this story to the many people in wrestling who I am blessed to say are in my life, and are NOT "Pete".

Some time ago, I was told that in order to make it in life, you have to make an investment in yourself. It’s okay once in a while to purchase things that will make your working life easier, even if it means going against the “traditional” methods. I was told this first by my mother, as she was telling me I don’t need to feel guilty over the price of a tablet I now use every week, and again by a friend who was cursing about another friend, whose career has pretty much stalled due to some ill choices he has made. I didn’t quite understand the importance of investing in yourself, until recently.

Part of the web work I now do includes cropping and editing photos of wrestlers. Usually, this is extremely easy work that takes no time at all. Just crop the photo down to a good size, and up it goes. There are plenty of wrestlers on the Indy scene who take pride in their work, and are a joy to watch.

… And then… There are some who really need more schooling.

There’s a man who I’ve known for several years. I’m withholding his actual ring name, because I don’t feel like dealing with the drama. So for the sake of this story, I’m re-naming him “Punishing Pete”. It’s nowhere near his real or ring name, but it is similar in some ways to what he named himself. (Actually this might be a better name overall.)

Now Punishing Pete used to be just “Peter”, a WWE fanboy who spent five years sitting next to me or on me at every single ROH show I ever went to, and would bitch and moan and complain that ROH will never be WWE. He’d go on about it for hours, and if I moved to another seat, he’d follow. It got to the point where other wrestlers would have to step in and ask him to leave me alone and let me watch the fights.

I travelled up to Milwaukee in 2010 for another show (I have another blog about this half written on the PC. It’s an excellent and fun tale I will tell one day) and while I was there, I spotted Pete.

“What are YOU doing here?? ME??! What are YOOOUUUU doing here!?!?!” is how the conversation started.

“I’M here because I was asked to be. What the HELL are YOU doing here??” I snapped at Pete.

“I’M a WRESTLER. Duuuuuu~uuuh!!” Snapped Pete back at me.

“WHAT?? Since when??”

Right away I started flagging down every wrestler I could, asking where he came from and who told him he could wrestle. And while Pete did not wrestle on this card, I was told that he had been in training for five whole years, and that his trainer was listed as “I dunno, some guy down the road who works at Wal*Mart, who was once a high school legit wrestler, but quit back in the 70’s because of a knee injury or something like that”. Note how this story lacks a name? Yeah, it’s always a great start to an epic career when the wrestler’s origins begin with training in “some guy’s” basement. That is also NOT a joke.

The next time I saw Pete was a month later. He was allowed an opening card match against a veteran who was much smaller, had fantastic charisma, and openly JOBBED Pete. Pete did not realize that the older wrestler was throwing the match on purpose, just to get a rise out of the crowd. Pete would smack him, and the elder wrestler would cross his eyes, stick out his tongue and yell “Oooooh OWCH that TOTALLY smarts!!” like a dad playing victim to a toddler’s punches. There was even a spot where Pete was losing a fight to himself, and the elder just stood to the side of Pete, yelling “Oh ouch oof ow take it easy, no stop ouch.” Pete never realized that he was indeed wrestling a t-shirt.

After the show, there was an after party. Pete flexed his girth at me. I say girth because he’s at a level where I can’t say he’s muscular, but I can’t say he’s chubby either. Anyway. Pete flexes his girth at me, and says “HA! I bet you think I’m real hot now, huh? Bet you think I look sexy. I’m a reeeeal wrestler now, I bet you’re pretty impressed. Bet you respect me NOW, huh?”

Have you ever seen one of those cartoons, where there’s a school bully who’s been left back a year, and once people find out he’s actually done something alright, he starts boasting about how big he is, but everyone still treats him like the pink elephant in the room? Yeah, let’s imagine that cartoon character, as (true story) The Iron Sheik is two chairs behind him, laughing loudly “what FAKING BOOLSHEET” as Pete is talking. Did I mention that I adore the Iron Sheik? I do.

This past winter, I saw Pete and the elder in a series of photos. The elder wrestler has long since given up on Pete, and has spent the last two years beating the ever loving hell out of him every chance he gets. This amuses me, since the elder wrestler is about 5’4. Punishing Pete is 6’2 and double the elder’s weight.

I recently saw a few more photos of Pete, and I had to crop them for a site I work on. If you see the photo I’ve posted, you’ll only see Pete from the neck up, and I’ve Photoshopped him so he looks as menacing as his bio says he is. I recently got praise for the photo from another wrestler, who told me this looks professional. I can’t begin to tell you how much that means to me… since this was a several hour job.

Remember earlier when I said that you need to invest in yourself? Well Pete never got that memo.

You see, Punishing Pete… does not have ring gear. Like, at all.

In the (now) 7 years he’s been a wrestler, Pete has never once purchased ring gear. Ever. His persona is that he’s a menacing punisher. A perpetrator of pain, at least that’s the tagline his new promoter has given him. So imagine Judge Dredd, minus the helmet, and that’s Pete’s persona.

Pete does not dress like Judge Dredd.

Pete does not dress like The Punisher.

Wanna know what Pete wears to the ring?

It ain’t ring gear.

It ain’t a singlet.

And it damn sure ain’t spandex.

Nope!

Punishing Pete comes to the ring in a Slayer wife-beater, khaki shorts and flip flops.

… THAT’S RIGHT!! I said FLIP-FLOPS!!!

It has come to my attention that Pete refuses to take pride in what he does. He does not invest in himself, so how can he expect other people to invest in him??

Let me ask you, if you were a wrestling fan, sitting front row at a show, and a man named Punishing Pete came down the ring in dirty, used flip-flops, would YOU take him seriously?

This is not even a comedic heel. This is no Repo Man or Santino Marella. This guy is supposed to be one of those serious, Razor Ramon types… and he’s out in flip-flops!

What’s sadder? He’s one of the main event heels. Pete was in a four way for a title. He went up against one cowboy wrestler (name withheld out of respect), one dude who was wearing a lime green singlet (400 lbs. and no cup or underwear) and another wrestler, who was 4’10 and about 250 lbs.

Of the four, the cowboy wrestler took pride in himself and invested in his gimmick. A sight for sore eyes, he had a gimmick that made sense, hair that had been freshly washed, and a body that screams “I see the gym no less than two times a week”. He reminded me of Bob Orton Jr in Shawn Michaels’s body, and he wrestles like a champion. I’ll be blogging about this dude and his lady another time, and I won’t be shocked at all should he wind up on your televisions screens one of these days. Again, he invested in himself.

The other three??

Now I don’t ever want to be one of those shallow types, so for three weeks, I tried really hard to put this out of my mind, and convince myself that there was nothing wrong with the match. I tried to tell myself that there was nothing wrong with the way the other two looked. And I tried super hard to keep this up…

Until I saw another wrestler post that he was tired of seeing people climb into the ring and take absolutely zero pride in how they look. The sentiment being “for the love of humanity PLEASE buy some ring gear and hit the gym” which let me know who he was probably talking about.

Like I said, Pete never invested in himself, though he’ll gladly bitch and complain for an hour about how the business has treated him, and how to make it in the business, and how WWE is business, and all anybody cares about is business, and business business business. Guess what his favorite word is?

So he’s invested in what he thinks is “the business”.

Guess who hasn’t invested in Pete?

The WWE business.

You know, the company Pete is all about joining someday. “THE” business, if you ask him.

And that doesn’t surprise me at all. Punishing Pete you see has NEVER even sent them a tape. Like at all.

The last time I saw him (hanging around a bar at an after party, bitching about how this guy and that dude will never make it to WWE) I asked him point blank:

“Alright wise-ass. Since you’re all about WWE, why don’t ‘cha send them a tape, head out to developmental and JOIN them? WHY are you even here?”

The Iron Sheik was still sitting two chairs behind him. I’m wondering if he heard Pete, because I do remember hearing his loud, bellowing laughter, and I remember a few people sitting with him pointing in my direction and looking for Adam Pearce.

Pete looks at me like I’m an idiot, and says “DUH! I don’t NEED to send THEM a tape. They’re the WWE! They watch everybody. All I need to do is keep hanging around some of these areas, and wait. Just wait, princess. In another year or so, I’ll definitely be in developmental.”

This was in 2010. Guess who’s not in developmental?

Now I’m sad to say that Punishing Pete’s story isn’t new. There are a few other people, who do not want to take pride in themselves. I wouldn’t know that, except I’ve seen many a Facebook post from actual wrestlers, begging a few of their own Punishing Petes to either see a gym or seek employment outside the squared circle.

So many people do not want to set foot inside of a gym, lift weights, develop a persona, purchase ring gear or even do something with their hair. And yet these are the SAME Punishing Petes who so desperately want to wind up high on the PWI 500. (As they post on their Facebooks.)

So for the other Punishing Pete’s in the world, here’s a diagram I’ve made up of starter looks, totally suitable for the ring.

Try them out for yourself!

Please click on the photo to see all of the details.

The Lost Lion King

When I wrote a blog about The Lion King back in May: http://codenamesailorearth.blogspot.com/2012/05/30-things-to-think-about-for-lion-king.html I underestimated it’s popularity. Blogger doesn’t let me see how many hits I get on any blog, and since hardly anybody uses Google products these days (except for the search engine and YouTube) I just guessed that since I only have a handful of subscribers that maybe this just wasn’t a popular topic.

I couldn’t possibly have been any more wrong.

So imagine my shock when I receive and email first thing in the morning about the blog.

You may recall that my 30^th question was this:

“When the original kid books for The Lion King came out, they listed Nala and Simba’s child as a boy. In the sequel, Kiara is a girl. Was this a misprint in the original books, a simple ret-conning of Kiara’s gender, or was there another cub that Rafiki dropped?”

Well a plucky reader going by the pen-name Angel, in an attempt to answer my 30th question, sent me a link to a Lion King Wikia.

Now normally, I dismiss Wikia pages as they are fan edited, hackable and most often dominated by angry DeviantArt and fanfic writers who have been banned from Fanfiction.net. There really aren’t many good ones out there, but this one was beyond exceptional.

http://lionking.wikia.com seems to be run by people who really do their research, and if anything, I’d like to thank them for posting about a few books I remember seeing at various libraries. Starting with one particular book I remember wanting to read, 1994’s The Lion King: Six New Adventures.

An obscure book, it follows right after The Lion King with Simba and Nala’s…. son? That’s right! In this book, published by an outsourced team with permission from the Disney corporation, Simba and Nala have only one child, a somewhat homely cub named Kopa.

At first I was skeptical, thinking that maybe I was looking at details from a bootleg book, even in 94 I was a little skeptical, considering the low-quality drawing in most of the pages, but a further investigation via Google proves that this book is 100% legitimate, as are the other facts noted in this blog.

Kopa is rambunctious, adores Simba and has a little tuft of brownish red on his head. (A real lion cub won’t start sprouting this until he’s about 2 or 3. A teen in lion years.) Kopa was likely developed to look a little like Mufasa, and was probably made a boy since the end of the movie implies that “The Circle of Life” continues with Simba and Nala picking up where Mufasa and Serabi began, with a baby boy. Or at least, that’s how all of the movie books and Burger King mini-books describe it.

So what happened to Kopa, and why is he absent from Lion King 2?

My first theory was a simple one. Rafiki gave him a sex change. But not only would this be a difficult pain to explain to millions of youngsters in the mid-90’s and would have set off the coalitions like crazy, it would have created more problems down the road, like why would Rafiki make Kopa a girl? Did he anger someone worse than his father did? And of course it doesn’t jive with the opening for Lion King 2, so out that theory goes.

Did Kopa die? The Lion King films are heavily centered on death, and there’s plenty of ways the danger-prone, Simba-lite Kopa could have died before taking the throne. He could have gotten sick, been eaten, crushed in the way Nuka was in the second film, drowned, flung from Pride Rock, set on fire, inhaled one too many of Pumbaa’s farts, plenty of ways to easily kill off Kopa before Kiara’s birth, but I’m pretty sure Disney wouldn’t want to explain a dead cub. Oh sure, they’re totally fine with killing parents in gruesome and terrifying ways, villains, old friends and hell, they’ve even killed off main characters only to resurrect them via “magic” (Belle kissing a back from the dead prince comes to mind) but generally they don’t kill kids that often. I’m not saying it hasn’t happened (a few years ago, they gave us a short for The Little Match Girl) but kids, tweens, babies and teens are usually off the killing menu in these films and film books.

Kopa is listed on the fan pages as Kiara’s brother, but I think the third explanation makes more sense, considering what the original animation team has said in the past.

Kopa is an alternate universe character. Essentially he is Kiara.

Kopa and Kiara are also a cub named “Fluffy”. And who exactly is Fluffy?

Well back when they were wrapping up production on The Lion King, the animators only referred to Simba and Nala’s baby as “Fluffy”. It was a placeholder name used only to remind the team who was being drawn at the time.

Nobody expected the film to do as well as it did, and the Disney team didn’t actually like making the movie at all. It took several years to finish the film, during which time, the title changed, (it was originally a comedy called King of the Jungle while in development, with a little less emphasis on death) several characters were dropped (Nala’s derpy father, Nala’s baby brother Mheetu and a few friends for Simba and Nala, respectively) and several plot developments were scrapped. (Scar tried to get it on with Nala. For real.) Add in time constraints and these people just didn’t have any time left to flesh out a character for the baby. So the cub was temporarily named Fluffy, and the team went on to the next film.

For the record, Fluffy has no gender. This could mean that Fluffy is an intersex cub, or that they kept the gender neutral, in case Disney wanted to add something later. Though Fluffy perfectly matches Kiara, and has long been accepted as her prototype.

Disney outsourced the rights for the movie books to various publishers, including Grolier Books, and granted the writers permission to make up brand new stories and new characters, based on the movie, starting with Kopa, the assumed progression of Fluffy. And since nobody at Disney could be bothered to read any of these books BEFORE granting them release or drawing up a sequel, the books and comics went to print, and Disney never thought about it again. A perfect tale of corporate laziness right there, folks.

And these lost books and comics open up big fat gaping plot holes, such as the addition of uncles for Simba and Nala, cousins, an adopted brother for Simba and an entire fleet of older male lions, who could have easily taken Scar down. This begs many questions. Why didn’t these lack-a-bouts bother to help when Scar was ruling Pride Rock, and where were y’all in the last film? The books barely even keep consistency with each other, further pushing the “this is an alternate universe” theory.

Now the last people to find out about these add-on characters were the Disney writing and animation teams… who didn’t find out about Kopa and the rest until Lion King 2 was WELL into production, and just about to be wrapped. Nice one, Disney! Way to keep your employees up-to-date.

So with the team unaware of Kopa, they just continued on explaining that at the end of the movie, Simba and Nala only had one child, a girl named Kiara. And the opening of Lion King 2 blends pretty well with the ending animation for Lion King 1.

However some people still insist that due to a few animation differences (such as Serabi’s place changing between films and the altered sky) that this could have been a different ceremony, and that both Fluffy and Kopa exist in Kiara’s story, but again, this opens up plot questions. Did Kopa and Fluffy die? Did Fluffy and Kopa grow up and move onto another pride (as most male lions do) and if they did exist, then why is Kiara then the ONLY heir? I’m thinking the differences in the opening to Lion King 2 were just honest mistakes caused by budget and time issues, as is the case with almost all Disney sequels.

Adding to fans’ frustrations, if you purchase some of the DVDs for the second film, the animators fess up, citing that they did toy with the idea of Simba and Nala having twins, one boy and one girl, but the boy was dropped from development and only Kiara remained. While most people speculate that the boy was Kopa, he was more than likely Fluffy, since Fluffy’s animation sheets match the original concept. But again, the three cubs are one and the same in Disney’s eyes.

When asked, Alex Simmons (the person responsible for first drawing Kopa) confirmed that Kopa was never truly affiliated with Disney, and was solely his creation with Disney's label. So while Disney made money off of Kopa, and allowed the public to believe and accept Kopa and Simba’s only child, he does not exist in the movies and Kiara is all there is.

This was a lazy oversight by Disney, one that could have been dealt with rather easily. They could have hidden behind the worldwide accepted excuses of alternate universes or as Disney calls it “place magic”, they could have last minute re-added the cubs to Kiara’s film and just given the animators more time (we didn’t need a sequel right away in 1998 ~ four years AFTER Lion King was relevant) or they could have found a way to write out the earlier Kopa. Instead, Disney just left it alone with absolutely no explanation. Not even a ret-conning.

And on this note, I really feel sorry for my generation’s parents. It’s enough trying to memorize the cast of a movie you took your kid to see, but then to add on a triple personality cub like Kiara, and have to memorize the difference between Kiara, Kopa and Fluffy, it’s just tacked on aggravation.

While I can accept Kiara as the only heir, it is a shame that a company billing itself on quality once again let greed screw with a simple story, that just as easily could have been left alone.

Domestic meteor shower

All I wanted to do was to see the meteor shower.

The following story is sad but true. For the love of humanity, if you are anything like the woman in this story, please, I am begging you, get OUT of whatever pathetic excuse you call a relationship, file a police report and move on.

And I don’t even care what gender you are. If you are in an abusive relationship GET OUT. Don’t even give me the lame, wussy excuses of “But he/she luuuuvs me” or “But I luuuuuv him/her” because if love was actually a part of the equation, the fists would NEVER fly. Act your age, toughen up, pull yourself up and get to running. Never look back.

Hypothetically, I could have posted this the day after the meteor shower, but my gut told me to wait a few days and see what happens. I’m very sad to say it was right.

So a number of days ago was the meteor shower. I had fog in my area but it was clearing up, so I left my window open. Normally I don’t do this, especially at night, but how often can you say you saw a meteor from your comfort zone? So I turned down the lights and waited.

Oh, I got a show alright, just not one that NASA would approve of.

Now across from my house is a little blue cottage. For all the 7 years I’ve lived in this Podunk area, my redneck neighbor lady has been for the most part quiet. The last time I mentioned her was probably in 2009 when on MySpace I referred to her as “drunk lady”. Why? Because on the occasion I do see her, she’s swilling wine, in a white tank top, daisy duke jean shorts and sometimes with car keys in her hand. For all 7 years also, there has been a redneck man coming by her house almost every day in a pick-up truck. I don’t know their names, but I do know that anytime he comes around, she stops drinking, bows her head and goes inside the house.

I’m kicking myself now for not seeing the big picture.

So on Saturday night as I’m waiting for the meteor shower, I hear screaming from the little blue cottage.

I turn to see the pick-up truck man grab the woman’s face, and throw her four steps to the ground off of her porch. He then races down and starts beating her.

I grab the phone and dial 911, trying to stay calm while the seemingly bored operator lazily makes the call to the police. I swear I wanted to hit something at that moment. This 911 woman couldn’t even try to act like she cared. As soon as she had my address, she hung up. Oh real nice.

I wait, watching this man beat the woman. Nobody shows up.

He walks into the cottage. My stomach drops. I don’t know this woman too well, but I know she has a little daughter and an elderly mom with really bad arthritis, both of which stay with her a good chunk of the time. I’m scared he’s going to target them next.

Instead he comes back out, and the two start looking for jewelry. I wouldn’t know that except they are screaming at each other. Apparently in the melee she dropped some Wal*Mart women’s jewelry that HE wants for himself. I’m not even kidding.

She has a flashlight and a cell phone that she’s using for light. He’s spitting and screaming at her, she’s trying to find a ring.

Suddenly, he puts her in a headlock takedown, and begins beating her again. As I turn to dial 911 a second time, he pulls out a BiC lighter and sets her face and hair ablaze.

Mama is now on her phone and we are both screaming “SHE IS ON FIRE!!” I watch the woman run down the street as he is screaming at her.

He goes inside the house, comes back, then from the truck produces a large dog.

Now, I’m no expert on dogs, so I have no idea what breed this is. All I can tell is that he’s big enough to eat Scooby-Doo. This thing looks like a shaved golden retriever but with monstrously HUGE front legs. It’s got an abnormally large neck for a dog and it’s muscles are pulsating. If I didn’t know better, I’d say it was on steroids as I’ve never seen a dog like this before.

The dog starts sniffing around. He’s screaming at the dog to go after her, but when he lets go of the leash, the dog just starts sniffing around in a circle. While the dog does this, the man is turning his truck lights off and on, threatening to mow her down.

Finally, after 15 of the longest minutes you can imagine, the cops arrive. He gets a police escort in his truck while the woman is sobbing. Her lip is messed up, but she will make a full recovery.

The next day I find out that the man was already on the local police radar. Just three weeks ago, he slammed into a pole with his truck, hit another car and nearly missed hitting a kid.

Then another person steps forward, claiming he used to work with him. He’s a locksmith.

Every day he would come to work super drunk, and proclaim that the woman (who is in reality his EX wife) somehow ruined his life, and because of that, he wants her dead, and he firmly believes everything she owns or has ever owned (even prior to meeting him) HE earned, HE deserves, and he wants it all. Her jewelry, her clothes, all of it. This is not the first time he’s beaten her.

Now with a head case like that, you would expect the story to just stop right there.

It doesn’t.

I opened my window today to see his truck in front of her house again. She kisses him, and then screams “OH YEAH?? WELL FUCK YOOOUUUUUU!!!!” and the argument over who deserves the $5 Wal*Mart ring begins again.

I’m hoping at least her daughter and mom are somewhere else today, the last thing I’d want to see is the two most helpless people getting caught in the crosshairs.

In case you’re wondering, the sky cleared up right as the second cop car parked in front of my house. I didn’t see a meteor shower, but I got a shooting star. I’ll let you imagine what I may have wished for.

So my idiot father is dating a psycho woman.

I think I’ve blogged two things before. One that my parents are split and second that my father is dating a crazy woman, whom I have re-named “Maryse”. Why? Because I don’t want to be sued. That’s why.

For a short back story on Maryse, please read my last major post about her: http://codenamesailorearth.blogspot.com/2011/12/does-charles-nyan-or-meow.html Additional notes to today's story, Maryse is 39 years old, a Twilight fan, an ex-cheerleader, and a Public School French Teacher for SMALL children. Oh, and she talks like a nasally wing bar waitress. Leik a total Hooters waitress an' stuff. Leik Ohmaigawd!! Oh and I'm sorry to tell you, she has bred. Her son is a teenager, and she has more than one boyfriend, outside of my idiot father.

Oh, and one more thing, her teenaged son has a 1 and a half year old daughter. So she's a grandmother. Isn't this special??

Now my father the last three weeks has been more than a nightmare to handle. So far, he’s called me a lazy bitch loser for not cooking for him, and a deadbeat because I just “draw pictures” (that’s what he calls cartooning) and I never have a “real” job like the one he was fired from. (Working at a 7-11. No really, I can’t make this up.)

Now he’s blamed most of this on the gout attack from Hell, and just a bit ago, I got a reason “why” he’s been acting like a demon in a Baptist church.

So in a “civil” conversation with my single mother, he tells her the following story:

Maryse is angry with me, because I won’t babysit my father. Mind you, he’s over 50 years old, that’s old enough in my book to take care of himself. But because I won’t go to his apartment, and cook and clean for him, massage his feet and peel him a grape, I am somehow a horrible human being, and she thinks I need to go to her house, obey her commands, clean it and apologize to her for not being my father’s slave. I am not joking, I have yet to even speak to her face to face, and already she wants to destroy my freedom? Bitch, I’m 25.

Oh, and she keeps telling my dad that my life is a lie, that every show I ever went to, and every person I ever met is me lying to her through my dad, and I need to apologize to her, and all three of her other boyfriends, because she also thinks I’m somehow standing in the way of her marrying Billy Corgan. Mind you, she’s never been to Chicago, and God willing, it stays that way. I think Billy deserves better, don’t you??

So because she is so angry, Maryse has been taking my father all over the place at all these garage sales. She feels that by keeping my dad around (and I’m being honest when I type this) she is keeping “the devil” at bay. Yes, that’s right, she thinks that the devil has been living inside her back, and somehow my father and shopping garage sales makes the devil go away.

Oh wait, this is just the forward to the tale.

There’s one strip of land that she calls Garage Mahal. She claims she made up the word to describe this strip, that is chock full of nothing but people having garage sales, and that the new TV show with Bill Goldberg doesn’t exist… and neither does he.

Maryse is aggravated at my father’s gout, and his constant complaining that his doctor told him not to spend too much time on his feet. Doctor’s notes are just silly excuse post-it-notes that mean nothing, after all. Now he says he cooks and cleans for her, and tries to do right by her, because she is a hoarder. He says there is trash in her house from floor to ceiling, she says he needs to respect her pizza boxes. (Wow, what a charmer, right? Keep reading.)

So since he won’t “just stop” having gout, she put a hex and a spell on him.

… I will state this again. She put a hex and a spell on him, because she isn’t able to handle the fact that he’s got gout. That’s as batshit crazy as if you saw somebody putting a curse on a guy in a wheelchair, because that person is handicapped. And I’m fairly certain that witches tend to believe that what ever spell you put out, comes back to you 10 times over.

Now the hex and spell she placed on him? She did this to make the gout WORSE to teach him a “lesson” for his having gout.

By the way… she’s a school teacher. For small children. In a public school. Wait, there’s more.

So then she tells him that she wants to continue casting spells on him, so that they will both eventually die (dad first she says) and then their souls will become intertwined, and he will be reborn as a Black man, so he can properly pay for his sin of having gout in her presence.

… AND SHE’S A SCHOOL TEACHER?!?!?!?! AND A GRANDMA??!?!?!

Now the logical question here folks, is “Why don’t you break up with her????” which is exactly what I asked while looking in the phone book for the padded wagon.

He says “but I like her drama. It gives me something to talk about.”

For Christmas last year, one of my uncles sent me an apology, for smacking him face first with a baseball bat when they were children. Had he known the damage would be permanent, he would have just played with his erector set instead.

Smug closure for a bullying victim

This pic is of me, age 8.

The other day, I read a news story about a young girl who is suing her school bullies for harassing her on Facebook and torturing her at school. And good for her, I hope she wins that suit, because this whole mess with bullying has been out of control since I was a kid.

Now on the side of this news story was a link to a new page that tracks school bullying policies. Now most school policies are a joke, and not even worth the paper they are written on, but I got curious. I wanted to know about the last school I was in before being homeschooled.

Marie V. Duffy Elementary.

I was in Miss Venerosso’s 2^nd Grade class of 1994-1995. We didn’t have a regular classroom. Instead, my class was held outside in a trailer, due to the school’s over population problem. We shared the trailer with the kindergarten class, and both teachers would swap work. So while my class was re-learning the alphabet, the kindergarteners next door were doing division. Go figure.

I was beaten daily by a gang of kids, one of which (a boy named Dan) had been left back. (I promise you don’t forget a 2^nd grader who shaves.) Name something about me, I was beaten for it. I was:

The only mixed-race child

One of a handful of ethnic children

The only anime fan

The only wrestling fan

The token nerd (sans glasses, braces or pocket protectors)

The only Power Ranger fan (Everyone else loved V.R. Troopers)

The tallest girl

The only curly haired girl

The girl with the darkest eyes

The only girl with hair so dark brown, it’s almost black

The only straight A student with A+’s on her record

Name something else about me. I had my ass kicked for it.

Mama went to the school every single day, complaining to the faculty that I was being injured. Just as you see in the new movie Bully, Mama was told “kids will be kids” and “we’re doing all we can” all lies.

My principal even suggested I was crazy, making it all up in my head. “What is she doing to MAKE the kids do this to her? She should apologize for making Kelly punch her and to Dan for making him want to kick her. Bullying is all the victim’s fault you know, Kori must be a problem child. Have you thought about putting her on Ritalin? She’s a bad girl.”

Mama would bring in my medical bills. Suddenly, I wasn’t “crazy” or a “bad girl” anymore.

Every day, she would speak with the teacher, the principal, the PTA members, the moms and dads of my bullies, any adult with an open ear. Nothing was done.

Now my memories of those days are a haze. My mom told me the other day while cleaning out old records that I’ve had about four concussions, all stemming from my time there. I really only remember the last one.

It was late spring, 1995. I don’t remember how the fight started. I was on the playground, and I just wanted to make a quick sandcastle, since the swings were all taken. I saw my bullies start gunning for me at full speed, so I started running.

I made it as far as the parking lot, before I was tackled to the ground and beaten. While Dan left the biggest marks, the worst damage was done by my female bullies, Kelly and Heather. There was an even mix of boys and girls kicking my ass. Gravel and sand were blown in my face in between punches.

They propped my head on a rock, by body prone in the noon-day sun. They made sure my head was facing the school building, because they wanted to know how long it would take for anybody to realize I was gone.

Everything hurt. I couldn’t move. My one eye was swollen shut and became a black eye. My other eye had gravel in it, but I could see the clock pretty well.

That’s how I knew it took 20 minutes before someone realized I was missing.

Finally, a custodian came out to get me. She had come outside several times before because of this, and for reasons I don’t know, she hated me. Big fat cow of a woman too. With a moustache and a bad acne problem. The school worked her hard, and had her doing jobs she didn’t initially sign up for, but that’s no excuse to take it out on a child.

She was my only shade from the sun. She just folded her arms and said “Get the hell up. Stop being a damn crybaby.” She wasn’t afraid to curse in front of kids.

It took all of my strength to stand up. She wouldn’t help me. I stumbled to the school building, then used the brick wall for leverage. I made it as far as the door, before I threw up, and blacked out.

The Vice Principal, Rocco Galucchi, (I’m pretty sure I misspelled that) came outside. He was the only GOOD person at the school, a guardian angel in the disguise of a 1940’s gangster style body. He woke me up, helped me to my feet, and walked me to the nurse’s office, where I again threw up and blacked out.

The next few hours are a blur to me. Mama had to pick me up. The nurse was upset with my condition, but they had no clue how bad off I was. Mama took me home, but when she saw I was throwing up my afternoon snack, couldn’t even keep air down and that I was yelling about how bad my head hurt, she freaked and took me to the pediatrician. He freaked and sent me to the hospital.

After a number of X-rays and tests, the doctor came to my mother. At first, he asked if anybody got the license of the car that hit me. When she explained that my injuries were the result of bullying, the doctor put up my X-ray.

On one side of my back, there was a large footprint from Dan. The doctor looked at the bruising and blistering of the wound, and said “Ok, little Koriander is lucky to be alive right now. See where she was kicked? If he had kicked her one centimeter this way, she would have lost all use of this kidney. One to two centimeters this way, and she’d be paralyzed from the waist down.”

I had a grade two concussion and deep spinal bruising.

I was placed on a medically induced vacation from school. I was just about a vegetable. Everything hurt, and Mama had to help me do everything. Walking, sitting up, even going to the bathroom was a chore. I couldn’t play or run around, I felt useless.

Watching ECW Wrestling was my saving grace. Raven and Dreamer were working a storyline that really shone a light on my life at the time.

Raven portrayed the anger I had inside. Dressed like a grunge-era rebel, he voiced all of the hurt I had in me. How society was a failure, how he couldn’t find a place in the world, so he had to carve one out. How the mainstream world as we knew it had no love for misfits and outcasts. He dealt with all the same hatred I had, and he acted it all out.

But across the ring was Tommy Dreamer. Even though Dreamer dealt with the exact same crap as Raven, he viewed the struggle as a challenge to overcome, not a reason to bemoan his fate. Every rejection from mainstream society was just one more hurdle to jump, one more reason to keep going. Dreamer’s message through his matches was that you could be a screw up, you could be an outcast, but you could still be somebody. If you were willing to fight for yourself, and anything you stand for, then you can become a champion.

It was perfect, yin and yang booking. Raven was the Yin, the darkness, the hatred that I felt towards my peers, but Dreamer was the Yang, the light, the hope, the voice I needed. Seeing those two made me better. Made me stronger. Made me want to get up off the couch, and go face my demons.

I was only back in school for a few short weeks before the summer. By the time I had started getting brave and fighting back, the proceedings were underway for me to be homeschooled. By the fall of 1995, I was already doing 3^rd and 4^th grade work at home.

For years, I often wondered why I went through all of this. They always say “God’s plan” right? Well what kind of plan involves the daily torture of a little girl?

WELL I found my answer. God did have a plan after all. And I’m actually pretty pleased with it. No, I'm excited. I'm actually pretty smug about this.

So getting back to the article, I clicked on the link for the site tracking school anti-bullying policies, and found absolutely nothing. The site is still under construction, so it only had 8 schools up.

So I Googled the last school I went to. And WOW.

The Marie V. Duffy school has been under new management since 2008. The school was bought out some time ago, so NONE of the people that were there when I was in school are there anymore. Their website still looks like a monkey coded it.

Also, a search for former school faculty turned up empty. No ex-teacher bios, nothing. It’s all gone.

A classmate search also turned up empty. In fact, I didn’t even find myself! That’s fine though. Most of my bullies were all about wanting to grow up fast so they could either join the military or a gang, so I’m content to believe that they probably all either died in the war in Iraq, or became victims of gang violence and prison time. I don’t have to know anything about them, so go on and let me just believe that.

The school had been quietly expunging some of their files every 1-2 years since before I was there. This was done to save cabinet space. So IF anything of mine exists there, it’s just the bare minimum. Even records from as recent as 2007 turned up missing and or erased.

The once Caucasian dominated school is now 57% Hispanic. Whites dominate a small minority. This is amazing to me, since in my class there was ONE and only ONE Hispanic kid, and only two other Hispanic students in the entire school.

The education hasn’t really changed. On one school review site, I saw two 5-star reviews from parents ~ who also work there ~ and plenty of 0-2-star reviews from parents who want their kids to have a REAL education. Just like my mom, I saw plenty of pissed off parents loudly complaining that they had gifted kids… doing remedial work. As a punishment for being smart I guess.

Most of my searching turned up empty, except for one, small notice.

As sanctioned by the new superintendent and the new principal, there is a new anti-bullying policy.

Due to a record left behind by an un-named little girl in the class of 94-95, in the case of bullying, strict action is to take place. And should a person or persons elevate said bullying anywhere near the level of the case involving “Ms. 1995” police action WILL be enforced and the children involved WILL have charges against them.

In short, the policy means that NO other child will be allowed to go through what I did, without severe, legal repercussions befalling the bully or bullies involved.

Knowing that future generations of kids will be spared what I went through has brought me closure. I am very happy to see this.