Home is where the Wal*Mart is

"This right here is where Mama and your uncle Shingo grew up! Now unbuckle the baby, Chibiusa. Candy-corn Oreo's are on sale and your daddy has a coupon!"

So on this, the eve of my 26th birthday, I got some unexpected news.

I'm sure you recall that in July of 2011, I posted this blog: http://codenamesailorearth.blogspot.com/2011/07/guess-whos-close-to-homeless-victim-of.html long story short, my parents got snookered into a predatory lending scheme and NationStar wants to foreclose on the house.

Now after I stopped crying, I got wise and shared the blog around. I found other people going through the exact same problem, and the blog went viral.

For the record, I've never believed in the adage of "We don't air our dirty laundry" because there are other people going through what I am ~ AND WORSE. Why keep the pain bottled up when I can share it, and let a few people know that they are totally NOT alone? If my pain can result in one less person feeling alone, one less person contemplating suicide, then it's worth whatever embarrassment or "shame" this causes me. If I can make one less person feel ashamed of their situation, so be it. I'm not scared.

But I did only tell a select few. I didn't want to worry anybody, unless I knew for sure how this story was going to end.

One month later, the threats came to a screeching halt. And I had a good nine months worth of quiet.

Of course, my mom isn't stupid, so during the lull, she got a lawyer to help sort this mess out. He's also a divorce lawyer, so for one reasonable fee, we can deal with the house, and my parents long overdue divorce is almost over. I can't tell you how big of a blessing that is. >< No more refereeing fights between those two, just because my "DAD" has an obsession with cutting into my wrestling feed so he can watch Project Runway or American Idol. THANK GOD. MY PARENTS ARE 99.99% DIVORCED!!

Well two months ago, we get a call from the lawyer. The house was set to go on auction TODAY. Nothing quite says "Happy Birthday Kori" like "Get the F out" does it?

Well the lawyer managed to halt the auction for a while. I don't know how long "a while" is, but it was long enough to run a Google search.

Turns out that my whole freaking block is up for grabs. Ah... WHAT??

Here's how it's going down.

The city I live in wants more commerce. The hundreds of businesses around here just aren't enough, so they want to take out my block, and it looks like the next few blocks over, since over 100 houses are up ~ starting with fully PAID OFF houses. Yeah, I said PAID OFF. As in "the debt has done ceased to be" and stuff.

But the city doesn't want to do imminent domain ~ because that would give everybody in my block a stipend for the houses. We'd each have a little less than what the house is for real worth, which would be enough to find a new place to live and move. Perish the thought! We don't want to pay people for their own houses!

So instead, they have the banks all playing screwy with my neighborhood. So now any house under the guidance of NationStar, Citibank, Bank of America, JP Morgan and the rest of 'em are up for grabs.

Same goes for the Sub-way, Tobacco shop, fireworks stores, car dealership and even the church I vote at, which are now up for sale. (The church might be saved, but I have no data on that.)

So this morning, while my house's sale was stopped, everybody else on the block had their houses group bid on by "an anonymous investor". No, that doesn't sound shady or anything.

So I decided to look around, see what exactly they intend to do with over 100 houses and a few strip-malls.

Ah.

They want to put up another Wal*Mart.

... About 2.7 miles away from the other Wal*Mart near the heart of the city.

... No really. I'm not joking. They want to build a Wal*Mart 2.7 miles away from an already established Wal*Mart.

Say, do you remember when "The American Dream" wasn't just Dusty Rhodes's nickname, but it also meant owning your own home & having a really good paying job, benefits and a vacation every year? My mom said it was a cool time to be alive in. Too bad I missed that.

This is the American NIGHTMARE, this is everything my grandparents constantly complain about, this is not the America they anticipated. What the hell happened??

So while sipping my coffee, taking this news in, I looked at my baby brother. (Okay, he's 20 and twice my size, but dammit I have five years over him.) And I placed my arm around his shoulder, and told him something quite sad.

When he was eight years old, my mom drove us to one of the places she grew up in. It's still standing and owned by a very sweet couple, who showed us around the property. She took us to her first apartment, which is now Rosa Parks Middle School. The building itself was torn down for the school, but it's one of the better schools in a very bad neighborhood, and they try to do right by the kids, so it all works out. The trailer she used to live in is also still standing, and the neighborhood hasn't changed.

I told my brother that we can never have a moment like this with our kids.

No.

Now the first place I lived in was an apartment in Lansing. It's still standing, but the exact floor I lived on was burnt to a crisp, overrun with vermin and had drug dealers squatting in it before the fire. So it's been totally rebuilt, but aesthetically, it looks the same as it did in 1990 when I moved.

The first house my brother lived in was a teeny-weeny, Snow White cottage. It was a Sears home, one of the first ever in the area, and although it had a massive problem with creepy crawlies and mold, and was too tiny to have a thought in, it was adorable. And my ancient aged neighbors were friendly. Everybody baked and shared stories, and it was the all American home.

When I was 12, it was gutted out and "updated". Didn't even look the same. When I was 14, it was boarded up and condemned. I have no idea what happened after that, but it broke my heart to see it in shambles.

The next house was a townhouse in Virginia Beach. We lived there for a year and then abruptly had to move to New Jersey. That whole weekend I protested. I wanted to go home to Chicago. New Jersey is NOT Chicago. Why was I even moving to begin with??

Have you ever heard "there's always a reason" or "God has a plan"? This was one of those moments.

I moved on a Friday, was on a plane to Jersey Friday night.

Saturday morning there was a flood that ran through the townhouse complex we lived in. The front of the house spilled out into the street.

Sunday the rest of the house caved in on itself, taking the whole strip of houses with it.

Monday the landlord was taken into custody for fraud.

Tuesday he was on Dateline.

O_O; Okay OKAY Things happen for a reason.

The hotel I lived in in Wayne is underwater. The apartment I lived in in Wharton is part of a store.

The room I had in Reading is now an office.

The last house I lived in I HOPE has caved in, because it's not up to code, was owned by a Derpasaurus Rex, and almost caved on me when I was moving the boxes out. It also flooded like crazy, had wires from the 1930's left over, an ancient furnace and the insulation ~ I kid you not ~ was literally newspaper. Yeah, nothing quite says "ready for winter" like brown, water damaged papers that say "I Like Ike".

My current home is falling apart (see other blog) and is now in danger of becoming a Wal*Mart.

That makes me a little sad.

Someday, the place that I lay my head down and call "home" will be the men's goods section of a retail giant.  My basement will be cemented over. My kitchen and bathroom will be the baby goods and buttwipes department.

And my bedroom, currently pink and cheerful with dozens of wrestling and Sailormoon memorabilia, will be just one section of an aisle, where an obese woman with pock marks and a "mo'billity skooter" will be putt-putt-putting her way to a display. Her glassy eyes all beady with cataracts, will dart over to a display. And with a gasp, she'll lean over, grasp hold of a tenderly wrapped, mas manufactured plastic case, and yell out into the wilderness:

"HONEY BOO BOO!! They got tha candy-corn Oreo's on SALE!! Get Momma the cart!!"

And an obese child, wearing clothes much too adult for her own good, will roll down the aisle where my mom had once set my coffee cup on a little table for me, and she'll say "HOO-WEE MOMMA! An' they got the Disney Princess Leia dollies too! Can I have this one? She's got a dress on that's as sweet as honey, chil'e!" And she'll roll and tumble right past the lane that once had my bookshelf, and adjust her shorts, with the phrase "juicy" bedazzled on the back, and the two will beep on past the men's jeans display, where my TV set is now.

...

♫ Happy Birthday tooo meeeeeeee ~ Happy Birthday toooo meeeeeeeee ~ Happy Birthday dear Korianderrrrrrrrr ~ ... *whimpers, bites lip, cries* ~ Happy birthday to meeeEEEEeeeeee.... ♫

Dear Bruce Tharpe

I would like to preface this by saying that I have been watching the NWA from afar since the week I was born. I've never known a day without the NWA, and I've defended the respect for it's history from many a naysayer.

Not anymore.

While I will always hold a fondness in my heart for what the NWA used to be, and I hold a larger spot for it's wrestlers and for the title (or what it once meant) recent events have caused me to turn my affections elsewhere.

For those of you out of the loop, the NWA was recently restructured, under the guidance of it's new owner, Mr. R. Bruce Tharpe. Much like Vince McMahon Jr. back in 1982, upon letting the ink dry on the spiritual deed to the company, Tharpe began severing ties to many of the promotions and wrestlers who kept this company alive.

Then just a mere two weeks before the last of the 7 Levels Of Hate matches was set to be booked, Tharpe pulled the NWA sanctioning of the cage match, meaning that if Colt Cabana were to win the match, his prize would be essentially a pat on the head. Why? Because the NWA title cannot change hands in an unsanctioned match. The belt had prior been on the line, Tharpe pulled it.

Now Colt did win, but again, his prize is a sense of accomplishment. Nothing more.

Adam Pearce, being a man of honor, said that he felt Colt deserved the belt, and offered it. But Colt declined, based on what the NWA has become. So both men walked out of the cage, leaving the belt behind.

And how does the NWA respond? Via a Facebook post, like a 15 year old girl, of course, complete with the misspelling of the word "endeavors"

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

The NWA™ World Heavyweight Title has been vacated. The Board of Governors wish former champion Adam Pearce the best in his future endeavours. There will be a new NWA™ World Heavyweight Champion crowned on Friday, November 2nd in Clayton, New Jersey.

R. Bruce Tharpe, President
National Wrestling Alliance™

So this is my response:

Dear Mr. Tharpe,
       Colt and Adam were your two biggest and brightest stars. While I appreciate and understand why they both chose to walk away from the belt, I hope you understand that the changes you have made to the company Mr. Tharpe, are the reason why they walked.

Adam was your biggest supporter, and the one person who made the loudest noise defending your company. If not for guys like him, the NWA would not be at the level it is right now, and I am very sad to say it is downhill from here. This company has an illustrious past, built off of the blood, sweat and tears of wrestling's finest, and by ruling the final of the Best of 7 an unsanctioned match, your company not only screwed over Colt Cabana, costing him a title he deserves, you screwed the fans out of their money. And it's obvious that you do not care about it.

And in not caring about anything other than your outdated and selfish demands, you are costing the NWA it's very existence. The NWA itself was hanging on by the thread from the heart strings of your biggest supporter, Adam Pearce. And now that this last thread of destiny has been severed by your own greed, this company, the one I have loved since I was fresh from the womb, has no future to speak of.

Sincerest in disappointment,
Ms. Koriander Ake

UPDATE: This is Adam's well said response to the NWA:

How Colt Cabana inspired me to be brave

I hope this story will inspire you the way I was. We all need a reminder that not everything in life needs a limit, and if you really want to make a change, you have to take chances.

It was April, 2009. I was excited. It had been two years ~ almost to the day ~ since I had last seen Colt Cabana, and I had my Fuji Film disposables ready. He had just come back from a tour of WWE's Mental System, and he was about to face one of my childhood favorites, Jerry Lynn.

Now before I left the house, I read my horoscope from Yahoo!. It read something akin to this:

"Don't make waves today, Scorpio. Tow the line and keep your head low."

So off I went to ROH. I was determined to get more than a few good shots, so I pleased and thank you'd my way through the crowd.

Right near the ramp were four guys, three of them really tall. The whole show long, they had no problems with me getting my entrance shots. "Let the little lady through, she wants her pic of Kevin Steen." they didn't really care.

... Until Colt's music hit.

The crowd was deafening and there were streamers everywhere. I tried to make it through the crowd, but was being hurled back by the large men in front, who were now reduced to screaming girls. "COLT CABANAAAAAAAAA!!!!" "OMG OMG COLT!!" Picture a sea of Brodus Clay, suddenly screaming and jumping up and down like girls at a boy band concert.

It didn't look like I would get a good enough shot. And I remembered my horoscope.

"Don't make waves. Tow the line."

And that's when it hit me.

Colt Cabana is in the ring.

Colt.

Colt makes a statement. He does what he feels should be done. He's not ordinary. Colt never tows the line.

... So why should I?

With all the gusto of a Mentos chomper, I did something that I'm not 100% proud of. Something I never did before and have never done since, and I usually advice people against it.

I walked over to the two men that hurled me backwards, took a chair, popped it open, climbed up onto one guy's shoulders, climbed to a second guy's shoulder, and took out my camera.

Now guy number two is moving back and forth, trying to get me off of him. He's threatening to hurl me back a second time. The first guy is amazed at my balance, and the third guy is yelling that a wrestling arena is no place for a "Little Lady".

"HOLD STILL DAMMIT! I want to get a good shot of Colt!"

Colt spots me in the crowd and waves.

That's when the fourth man SLAPS the second. "You stop that this instant!! The Little Lady knows COLT!! You stop that right now and let her take her damn picture. You let her take the picture!! Colt is watching US!!"

I'll tell you what. If I had listened to that horoscope, I never would have gotten such a great photo.

Colt's always reminded me to do my best. And he's always been a great model too!

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.