Post by The Killenial (Caleb Ronan) on Mar 19, 2016 13:16:27 GMT -5
Caleb Ronan and his best friend, Randall, are sitting at a table in a Starbucks.
Randall: You’re becoming a professional wrestler? You don’t really have any training in that sort of thing.
Caleb: I’m not doing it because I can wrestle. I need an experience to write about, like an investigative reporter who goes undercover in a sweatshop.
Randall: This is not the same thing.
Caleb: I think I’m going to start a blog about it. Maybe a publishing company will notice it and give me a book deal. I’m coming at it from this angle: “imagine a 20 something fresh out of college finds that his prospects in a post-George W. Bush world are bleak. With nowhere to go, he gets desperate and resorts to the world of human cockfighting.” I'm calling the blog "On the Ropes," like I'm on the ropes in the ring and in life.
Randall: Bleak prospects? Nowhere to go? You live with your parents. And if you want to be a writer, why don’t you apply to a magazine or a newspaper?
Caleb: And what, get an entry level job in the mail room? I’m a writer, Randall, not a postal worker.
Randall: But it’s been almost a year since you graduated from college. I know your dad has been on your back about getting a job. How did he take your news about becoming a wrestler?
Caleb: Oh, you know, he wanted to kick me out again but my mom convinced him to let me stay. He’s such a fascist.
Randall: I think he just wants you to do something besides eat his food all day while you pay no rent.
Caleb: I’m going to tell you the same thing I tell him: there are no jobs out there.
Randall: No jobs? Didn’t you see the “now hiring” sign on the door when we walked in?
Caleb: Randall, I have a college degree. I’m not working at Starbucks. Besides, I’m protesting them.
Randall: But we’re in a Starbucks right now drinking their coffee.
Caleb: I’m not protesting their coffee. I’m protesting their working conditions. How can their CEO be making more than their baristas? It’s the tyranny of the 1%.
Randall rubs his head as if he’s trying to rub a headache away.
Randall: Look at it this way, Caleb. You could get seriously hurt wrestling. I’ve watches some of it. These guys are huge and they do some crazy shit. I watched a guy pull a fan over a guardrail and beat the shit out of him a few weeks ago. If they do that to the fans, imagine what they’ll do to you.
Caleb: I’m willing to suffer for my art. Look at Van Gogh. He cut off his ear.
Randall: He also committed suicide.
Randall thinks some more.
Randall: Which is basically what you’re doing by becoming a professional wrestler, so I guess you’re on to something. Good luck.
Randall toasts to Caleb and takes a sip of his coffee. Caleb reads the copy of the New York Post that’s been sitting on the table.
Caleb: I really think the New York Post has been more highbrow than the New York Times recently.
ontheropes.blogspot.com
On the Ropes
Saturday, March 19, 2016
A Whole New World- But Not the Kind from Aladdin
Imagine it’s graduation day at your college. You have your cap and gown. You’re wearing your honors cords. You’ve worked hard for four years trying to get that piece of paper that society says is your key to a good life.
The master of ceremonies calls your name. You walk up to the podium with your head up and your chest out. They hand you something that looks like a diploma even though the real thing won’t be coming in the mail until a few weeks later. You shake hands with a few important people and head back to your seat.
You spot your mom and dad and stop so they can take a picture of you. You get to your seat. You’re not thinking about college loans. You’re not thinking of having to make it as an adult. All you’re thinking about is how proud you are and how proud your family is that you’ve made it. You’re thinking about how much the world has to offer. You’re thinking about all the great things you’re going to do, all the books you’ll write, the articles you’ll pen, the places you’ll go, the people you’ll meet. Nothing can stop you. It’s the first day of the rest of your life.
Then you get home and reality sets in.
You’re burdened with student debt. It sits on your head like the anvil when it fell on Wile E. Coyote.
There are no jobs for writers. Sure, if you want to be a mail boy or a coffee gopher, newspapers and magazines would love to hire you.
You can’t move to a place like Brooklyn because you don’t have enough money to afford rent. You have to live with your parents, who constantly tell you what to do at the age of 21 years old.
And speaking of your parents, they ask you every single day “Have you applied to any jobs yet? Have you found a job yet?” You try to tell them over and over again that there are no jobs out there for you but all they want to hear is “Yes, I applied to that gas station down the street that’s looking for someone to pump gas into someone’s gas guzzling Hummer. Yes, I applied for the coveted barista position at Starbucks so I can passively endorse the slave wages that they pay their workers. Yes, I applied to that CVS and/or Walgreens that ran the Mom and Pop drug store out of business.”
Then one night you wake up in a cold sweat and you realize you’ve become an old man. You have no prospects. You’re headed nowhere. No one told you it was going to be like this, not your parents, not your professors, no one. If you don’t do something bold, you’re going to hit 30, still waking up in the blue bedroom where you played Lego.
You turn on the television to try to help yourself go back to sleep and you see something barbaric on your screen: big, gladiator like men throwing each other around a wrestling ring, willing to maim each other just to make a living. You think, what makes someone want to do this? Is the money worth the risk?
Then the light bulb goes off. Instead of just wondering, why not actually DO it? How many great writers learned and reported about something by actually experiencing it? That’s it. That’s your ticket to get out of the doldrums that you find yourself in. You are going to join a wrestling promotion and write about your experiences. Who wouldn’t want to read about it? A 21 year old college graduate finds that the only way to survive in today’s post-George W. Bush world is to commit horrid acts of violence against his fellow man. It’s the stuff that puts writers on the map.
That 21 year old college graduate is me. That wrestling promotion is the World Championship Federation.
My first match is tomorrow night.
I have three opponents.
It’s what some people call a “baptism by fire.”
The three men who are baptizing me are Chaos, “Freezer Burn” Wayne Hammon, and “The Kraken” Jesper Lund.
Chaos is what people in the wrestling world would call “hardcore” or “extreme.” He brings an innovative weapon to the ring that he’s named Demento, like it was some kind of pet. It’s wrapped in barbed wire and has thumb tacks sticking out of it. He wants to watch his opponents bleed, in his words, “A LOT.” Aside from the fact that that is a very non-descript amount, I get it. I don’t see how in a legitimate competition he’s allowed to use a weapon but I guess I should get over that pretty quickly and prepare for him to come after me with the fury of a sociopath in who hangs around Central Park, terrorizing tourists because our mental health system in this country has failed him. Perhaps he is mentally ill himself. Perhaps he needs help and people keep looking ignoring him because they’re too concerned with who’s going to be on the next season of Dancing with the Stars. Well, Chaos, I’m here for you. We may do battle in the ring tomorrow, but if you need someone to help you get back on the road to mental health, I’ll offer you my hand.
I don’t agree with Jesper Lund’s choice of name. The Civil Rights Movement worked very hard to get rid of hate words like the N-word. It’s still used by the most ignorant amongst us, but society at large has mostly rejected it. I think it’s only fair that if we’re going to rid the English language of a word that degrades African-Americans, we should get rid of words that are used to offend white Americans as well. A word like “Kraken” only serves to stoke the fires of hate and Mr. Lund should be ashamed of himself. He seems to come from a long line of great people. I would hate to see him shame his family name by using words that bring people apart.
I’m always promoting the idea that we are global citizens, especially on Twitter. #GlobalCitizen is my favorite hashtag. One person who I suspect is a global citizen like me is Wayne Hammon. He’s been around the world, wrestling on every continent. I guess that means Antarctica, too. Perhaps after this match, Wayne and I can talk about how to break down the borders between America and everybody else. However, he likes to use underhanded tactics to get an advantage on his opponents. That’s a very un #globalcitizen thing to do. The corporations that are killing this planet use underhanded tactics to defeat their competition. The NSA is using secret, deceitful tactics to spy on us. Don’t be like them, Wayne. Be your best self.
Wish me luck tomorrow night. I’m stepping into a world unknown to me. I may win, I may lose. What I do know is that I’ll be in pain, but I hope you come back to my blog to read about my pain.
And if I die, don’t blame wrestling. Blame society for putting in a position where I have to lose my humanity just to “make a living.”
Posted by Caleb Ronan at 1:38 AM
Randall: You’re becoming a professional wrestler? You don’t really have any training in that sort of thing.
Caleb: I’m not doing it because I can wrestle. I need an experience to write about, like an investigative reporter who goes undercover in a sweatshop.
Randall: This is not the same thing.
Caleb: I think I’m going to start a blog about it. Maybe a publishing company will notice it and give me a book deal. I’m coming at it from this angle: “imagine a 20 something fresh out of college finds that his prospects in a post-George W. Bush world are bleak. With nowhere to go, he gets desperate and resorts to the world of human cockfighting.” I'm calling the blog "On the Ropes," like I'm on the ropes in the ring and in life.
Randall: Bleak prospects? Nowhere to go? You live with your parents. And if you want to be a writer, why don’t you apply to a magazine or a newspaper?
Caleb: And what, get an entry level job in the mail room? I’m a writer, Randall, not a postal worker.
Randall: But it’s been almost a year since you graduated from college. I know your dad has been on your back about getting a job. How did he take your news about becoming a wrestler?
Caleb: Oh, you know, he wanted to kick me out again but my mom convinced him to let me stay. He’s such a fascist.
Randall: I think he just wants you to do something besides eat his food all day while you pay no rent.
Caleb: I’m going to tell you the same thing I tell him: there are no jobs out there.
Randall: No jobs? Didn’t you see the “now hiring” sign on the door when we walked in?
Caleb: Randall, I have a college degree. I’m not working at Starbucks. Besides, I’m protesting them.
Randall: But we’re in a Starbucks right now drinking their coffee.
Caleb: I’m not protesting their coffee. I’m protesting their working conditions. How can their CEO be making more than their baristas? It’s the tyranny of the 1%.
Randall rubs his head as if he’s trying to rub a headache away.
Randall: Look at it this way, Caleb. You could get seriously hurt wrestling. I’ve watches some of it. These guys are huge and they do some crazy shit. I watched a guy pull a fan over a guardrail and beat the shit out of him a few weeks ago. If they do that to the fans, imagine what they’ll do to you.
Caleb: I’m willing to suffer for my art. Look at Van Gogh. He cut off his ear.
Randall: He also committed suicide.
Randall thinks some more.
Randall: Which is basically what you’re doing by becoming a professional wrestler, so I guess you’re on to something. Good luck.
Randall toasts to Caleb and takes a sip of his coffee. Caleb reads the copy of the New York Post that’s been sitting on the table.
Caleb: I really think the New York Post has been more highbrow than the New York Times recently.
ontheropes.blogspot.com
On the Ropes
Saturday, March 19, 2016
A Whole New World- But Not the Kind from Aladdin
Imagine it’s graduation day at your college. You have your cap and gown. You’re wearing your honors cords. You’ve worked hard for four years trying to get that piece of paper that society says is your key to a good life.
The master of ceremonies calls your name. You walk up to the podium with your head up and your chest out. They hand you something that looks like a diploma even though the real thing won’t be coming in the mail until a few weeks later. You shake hands with a few important people and head back to your seat.
You spot your mom and dad and stop so they can take a picture of you. You get to your seat. You’re not thinking about college loans. You’re not thinking of having to make it as an adult. All you’re thinking about is how proud you are and how proud your family is that you’ve made it. You’re thinking about how much the world has to offer. You’re thinking about all the great things you’re going to do, all the books you’ll write, the articles you’ll pen, the places you’ll go, the people you’ll meet. Nothing can stop you. It’s the first day of the rest of your life.
Then you get home and reality sets in.
You’re burdened with student debt. It sits on your head like the anvil when it fell on Wile E. Coyote.
There are no jobs for writers. Sure, if you want to be a mail boy or a coffee gopher, newspapers and magazines would love to hire you.
You can’t move to a place like Brooklyn because you don’t have enough money to afford rent. You have to live with your parents, who constantly tell you what to do at the age of 21 years old.
And speaking of your parents, they ask you every single day “Have you applied to any jobs yet? Have you found a job yet?” You try to tell them over and over again that there are no jobs out there for you but all they want to hear is “Yes, I applied to that gas station down the street that’s looking for someone to pump gas into someone’s gas guzzling Hummer. Yes, I applied for the coveted barista position at Starbucks so I can passively endorse the slave wages that they pay their workers. Yes, I applied to that CVS and/or Walgreens that ran the Mom and Pop drug store out of business.”
Then one night you wake up in a cold sweat and you realize you’ve become an old man. You have no prospects. You’re headed nowhere. No one told you it was going to be like this, not your parents, not your professors, no one. If you don’t do something bold, you’re going to hit 30, still waking up in the blue bedroom where you played Lego.
You turn on the television to try to help yourself go back to sleep and you see something barbaric on your screen: big, gladiator like men throwing each other around a wrestling ring, willing to maim each other just to make a living. You think, what makes someone want to do this? Is the money worth the risk?
Then the light bulb goes off. Instead of just wondering, why not actually DO it? How many great writers learned and reported about something by actually experiencing it? That’s it. That’s your ticket to get out of the doldrums that you find yourself in. You are going to join a wrestling promotion and write about your experiences. Who wouldn’t want to read about it? A 21 year old college graduate finds that the only way to survive in today’s post-George W. Bush world is to commit horrid acts of violence against his fellow man. It’s the stuff that puts writers on the map.
That 21 year old college graduate is me. That wrestling promotion is the World Championship Federation.
My first match is tomorrow night.
I have three opponents.
It’s what some people call a “baptism by fire.”
The three men who are baptizing me are Chaos, “Freezer Burn” Wayne Hammon, and “The Kraken” Jesper Lund.
Chaos is what people in the wrestling world would call “hardcore” or “extreme.” He brings an innovative weapon to the ring that he’s named Demento, like it was some kind of pet. It’s wrapped in barbed wire and has thumb tacks sticking out of it. He wants to watch his opponents bleed, in his words, “A LOT.” Aside from the fact that that is a very non-descript amount, I get it. I don’t see how in a legitimate competition he’s allowed to use a weapon but I guess I should get over that pretty quickly and prepare for him to come after me with the fury of a sociopath in who hangs around Central Park, terrorizing tourists because our mental health system in this country has failed him. Perhaps he is mentally ill himself. Perhaps he needs help and people keep looking ignoring him because they’re too concerned with who’s going to be on the next season of Dancing with the Stars. Well, Chaos, I’m here for you. We may do battle in the ring tomorrow, but if you need someone to help you get back on the road to mental health, I’ll offer you my hand.
I don’t agree with Jesper Lund’s choice of name. The Civil Rights Movement worked very hard to get rid of hate words like the N-word. It’s still used by the most ignorant amongst us, but society at large has mostly rejected it. I think it’s only fair that if we’re going to rid the English language of a word that degrades African-Americans, we should get rid of words that are used to offend white Americans as well. A word like “Kraken” only serves to stoke the fires of hate and Mr. Lund should be ashamed of himself. He seems to come from a long line of great people. I would hate to see him shame his family name by using words that bring people apart.
I’m always promoting the idea that we are global citizens, especially on Twitter. #GlobalCitizen is my favorite hashtag. One person who I suspect is a global citizen like me is Wayne Hammon. He’s been around the world, wrestling on every continent. I guess that means Antarctica, too. Perhaps after this match, Wayne and I can talk about how to break down the borders between America and everybody else. However, he likes to use underhanded tactics to get an advantage on his opponents. That’s a very un #globalcitizen thing to do. The corporations that are killing this planet use underhanded tactics to defeat their competition. The NSA is using secret, deceitful tactics to spy on us. Don’t be like them, Wayne. Be your best self.
Wish me luck tomorrow night. I’m stepping into a world unknown to me. I may win, I may lose. What I do know is that I’ll be in pain, but I hope you come back to my blog to read about my pain.
And if I die, don’t blame wrestling. Blame society for putting in a position where I have to lose my humanity just to “make a living.”
Posted by Caleb Ronan at 1:38 AM
