Cooking with Teo: The Myth of the Pickle Jar
Nov 18, 2018 23:54:49 GMT -5
Alex Richards, marcmayhem, and 2 more like this
Post by Teo Blaze on Nov 18, 2018 23:54:49 GMT -5
The viewer is greeted this week by a sight that could only be described as peculiar. The viewer is greeted by a polished wooden countertop, upon which rest several different culinary ingredients in cans and jars.
After a few moments of awkward silence, an extremely, almost deliberately cheesy piece of music blares over the scene as the camera begins quickly panning around from different angles. An elaborate, 90s-esque graphic comes onto the screen, multiple comic-sans letters on a bright yellow backdrop spell out the phrase.
No sooner has the logo begun to fade than Teo suddenly pops up from behind the counter, wearing a Must-See TV branded black T-shirt and a white Chef’s hat. He claps his hands together and grins happily as he looks into the camera.
Teo Blaze: Good evening, ladies, gentlemens, and Guardians, how are we doing today?
Teo is greeted by the sound of an obviously piped-in laugh track, and he chuckles and waves to an audience that may or may not actually be there.
Teo Blaze: You’re too kind, really! Okay, okay….no really, keep it coming.
Well folks, it’s been a while since I’ve put on my chef’s hat, hasn’t it? But I knew that each and every viewer watching at home has been curious what I’ve been working on during my time scouring the world for the most delectable flavors that a public-access cable budget can buy.
Teo Blaze: And after checking the 99 cent stores all afternoon, I think I managed to pull off what can only be described as one of the most fitting recipes I’ve come up with since I lit a pile of dollar bills on fire and called it the “Kennedy Matthews”...Today I am going to make for the audience what I have dubbed...the “Alexander Surprise”
Teo Blaze: Ingredient the first…
Teo reaches over to the pile of foods and pulls out a bright green pickle jar, filled with vinegar-soaked gherkins.
Teo Blaze: Although honestly, given who this meal is named for, I might have honestly overspent at ninety-nine cents.
But yes, if you’re going to pull off an authentic, Alex Richards experience, you need to start with something pickled. After all, what better word to use for the man? He’s killed so many brain cells with alcohol you can count what’s left on one hand, even if that hand had been through a horrible table saw accident.
As long as we’re talking metaphors, by the way, a horrible table-saw accident is not a bad way to describe Alex Richards’s return.
Teo Blaze: Such promise, such good ideas in mind when he walked through those doors back into the company. He was going to finally pull off all of those great things that he could never do in Pantheon, he was finally going to be known as more than an Internet Champion…
Teo taps his index finger on a raised eyebrow looking at the camera with a look that is a combination of sarcasm and disapproval.
Teo Blaze: If I may go on a bit of a tangent, I’d like to tell you guys a brief story of the One that wasn’t. There was a time when people were throwing money at WCF, begging for a showdown between Alex Richards and Zombie McMorris at One. The two greatest men to ever hold the internet belt in a final showdown for the ages. Zombie looked unstoppable, but the people were holding out hope for Alex Richards to return. To take to the ring and stand up for them, to be the hero, the only hope to beat Zombie McMorris. At the time I was in the midst of a People’s Title reign so iconic I don’t even have to say a word about it.
And do you know what happened?
Nothing.
Alex spent weeks, months debating, targeting Zombie, there was a buildup, video packages, the whole nine yards, and…
Nothing.
With the world waiting for a certifiable match of the year, with all the people holding out hope that Alex Richards would reclaim his throne and knock off the pretender that was Zombie McMorris…
Alex Richards didn’t even appear at the show.
Teo Blaze: Don’t worry, the story has a happy ending. You can check the record books, Zombie McMorris would eventually lose his championship...to me. And that year at One, the people would finally get their internet title match they had waited almost a year for, when I beat! Zombie McMorris, internet rules, one on one.
Teo shakes his head, giving a “tsk” as he looks at the camera in disappointment.
Teo Blaze: You see, when I chose this ingredient, I was not just thinking of the fact that Alex Richards has consumed so much alcohol that his last coherent thought was back during the Clinton Administration, no!
Consider this. You look at this pickle jar. You hold it in your hand. It feels solid, it feels weighty. It feels like something that you could trust to keep things safe. So what if it is filled to the brim with enough alcoholic liquid breakfast’s to make Jay Price blush? It’s sturdy enough. It’s strong enough.
Teo looks at the pickle jar, shaking his head in exaggerated sadness, then with a flourish, he drops it. The jar seems to hang for a moment before slamming into the countertop, shattering instantly into a cascade of shimmering glass and spilling the contents across the wood. Vinegar and gherkins roll among the shattered memories of what once was, as Teo described, a solid jar.
Teo Blaze: Appearances can be deceiving.
When I look at Alex Richards, I do not see the same thing you do. Where you see size, commitment, strength both inner and outer...I see a man who is only interested in what he can get. I see a man who hides behind alliances at every possible turn and who time and time again has proven that when the chips are down and everything is on the line, he shatters.
The archduke of mass confusion, the man who has claimed to carry the likes of Pantheon on his back, who thinks of himself as the backbone of the guardians? He cuts and runs the moment that things don’t seem to be going his way. The moments that the odds aren’t in his favor? That’s when the real Alex Richards comes out.
Why do you think he’s become so obsessed with the tag team championship? You think it’s because of the prestige, the honor that’s behind them?
Teo shakes his head, wagging his finger at the camera as if to dismiss the thought.
Teo Blaze: Let me go ahead and correct that little train of thought. There’s not a thought in Alex Richards’s head beyond “What belt is the easiest to win right now?”
That’s it. Richards has been with the guardians a long, long time. So where have they been for the years and years that those tag belts have been defended? Where were the tag team challenges when Chaos Theory was dominating the Tag Team scene? Or Mushroom Mandingo? Hell, why not challenge the Church of Singh?
But suddenly the belts are practically handed to Samuel McPherson when Kid Dynamo walks out of our match, and now Alex Richards pops out of the woodwork to try and claim that he wants them now?
It’s all a little too convenient, isn’t it?
Teo leans on the switch to one of the burners, and a small blue flame appears, filling the vinegar soaked-surface with foul smelling clouds.
Teo Blaze: There’s a little saying that I’ve always believed in, and that is: Where there’s smoke, there’s fire. I honestly believe, from the bottom of my heart, that if Alex Richards wanted to be here fighting for those tag team belts, he wouldn’t have waited all this time fighting in some other company.
If he was a man of his word, if he had one fraction of the character that he claims to have in that big jolly pickle jar, then we would have heard about it long, long! Before now.
But the god’s honest truth, the facts, no matter how you want to slice it, is that Alex Richards is not happy fighting the best in the world. Alex Richards does not find joy in competition, nor in putting up a worthy fight against a challenging adversary. You want to know what brings Alex Richards the most comfort, the most joy?
Being a big fish in a small pond.
Teo shakes his head with disdain as he looks over to the burner, which is now pouring thick white smoke into the air.
Teo Blaze: For the record, that’s not a fat joke. I’m bigger than that. And so is he.
Teo Blaze: Which brings me to our match this week. Now, I could bring up how in the past I’ve beaten Alex Richards on multiple occasions, including one of the most embarrassing hellimination matches of all time when the People’s Choice squashed Pantheon in a matter of seconds.
Teo grins and looks up at the sky, as if caught in a happy memory.
Teo Blaze: But we’re talking two different beasts here. That was Pantheon Alex Richards, and this is Guardians Alex Richards, and comparing the two, I have to say…
Well, it’s not exactly an upgrade, is it?
I mean, look at what Bonnie Blue has accomplished this year. Last time we faced I beat her clean, one-on-one, and since then she’s managed to elevate herself to the stature of number one contender for the World Championship.
Alex Richards meanwhile, has managed to elevate himself to...Bonnie Blue’s lackey.
Should I bring up his Helloween performance, where the only move he managed to pull off in the entire match was...a lock-up with Odin. Then he dodged out of the way of a boot, letting the hapless referee take the move instead…
Teo cups his hand over his mouth to let out a whisper.
Teo Blaze: By the way Alex, real heroic move there.
Resuming his usual speaking voice, Teo continues.
Teo Blaze: And then in a matter of seconds he managed to get jumped and completely and totally destroyed not by Gravedigger, but by an anonymous group of Gravedigger’s henchmen! Who beat him so badly that Odin was able to pin him clean. Not from a Ragnarok, not from a finisher, just from taking a modest beating from a group of nameless thugs.
Our hero, ladies and gentlemen.
Teo rolls his eyes so far they look like they might pop out of his head.
Teo Blaze: Come the hell on! Alex. Are you telling me that this group of anonymous thugs, that these henchmen were able to lay a blanket party on you so devastating, so painful, so bad that you just let yourself get knocked unconscious? That you had no choice but to lie down and leave Bonnie, your so-called teammate, to her own devices because a few nameless men managed to get the leap on you?
I think that may actually be worse than your showing against the People’s choice. Both times you got beaten in seconds, but at least you actually managed to take a finisher last time! Oy…
And yet this is the man who thinks that he’s going to take away my Television Championship? This man who steals victories by the skin of his teeth on his best days and goes down in the biggest match of his friend’s career without even getting a punch in?
Teo reaches out from behind the counter and removes the Television Championship, placing it on the counter so the camera can focus directly on it.
Teo Blaze: Do you know what this is, Alex? This is not just another piece of gold, oh no. This is the most sought after prize in the entire company. This belt is proof that you are not only good, but that you are always good. You don’t get to have a bad week when you’re the Television Champion, you don’t get to be a big fish in a small pond, because the wolves are always at the door, Alex!
I have said it before a hundred times and I’ll say it a hundred more times if I goddamned have to. Teo Blaze is a survivor. Last week while you were being beaten so badly by the Monstimals you couldn’t even kick out, I was pouring my heart out in every sense of the goddamned words against Kennedy Matthews. I fought that coldhearted bitch for so long that they had to cut the video feed the moment I won the belt. I had the entire WCF locker room, the entire world hanging on each and every second, pulling for me to do the impossible, and unlike you Alex? I gave the people what they wanted. I pinned her not once, but twice, and settled our feud once and for all. And what, oh what is my reward for this torture, this exercise in brutality?
A fat, title-greedy, washed up excuse for what was once a promising wrestler. A man who once stood out as one of the most important parts of Pantheon reduced to a hanger-on to Bonnie Blue. A man who demands title shots off lucky roll-ups and who lets himself get immediately pinned without so much as a struggle in what was one of the biggest matches of his so-called best friend’s life.
Teo’s nostrils flare as he says the words. His tone has shifted, the fun of the segment giving way to what can only be described as genuine disdain.
Teo Blaze: Alex Richards, you are not ready for me. You may think you know what’s coming. You may think you’ve seen me at my best, but the simple fact is that as long as I am holding this strap, as long as I am drawing in air, as long as my heart beats with the fire of a million screaming voices, you can never be ready for what is in store!
You are standing at the end of a tunnel, seeing a bright light coming towards you, and you’re too damned stupid to step out of the way. You’re imagining yourself holding up the Television Title, imagining yourself with this precious belt like it was a trophy.
Well bad news, you overstuffed turkey of a human being, you fraud masquerading as a guardian, you excuse for a performer who at this point would be lucky to be called a has-been.
Because I am not holding back.
I am done showing sympathy to people like you.
I am going to wring every bit of ego out of your tequila-soaked hide, and I am not going to stop until you get the message.
Stay the hell out of my division before you get hurt.
Teo grabs the championship, slinging it over his shoulder and walking from the set as the camera slowly fades to black.
After a few moments of awkward silence, an extremely, almost deliberately cheesy piece of music blares over the scene as the camera begins quickly panning around from different angles. An elaborate, 90s-esque graphic comes onto the screen, multiple comic-sans letters on a bright yellow backdrop spell out the phrase.
WCF PRESENTS: COOKING WITH TEO, a Must-See TV endorsed product of the Wrestling Championship Federation
No sooner has the logo begun to fade than Teo suddenly pops up from behind the counter, wearing a Must-See TV branded black T-shirt and a white Chef’s hat. He claps his hands together and grins happily as he looks into the camera.
Teo Blaze: Good evening, ladies, gentlemens, and Guardians, how are we doing today?
Teo is greeted by the sound of an obviously piped-in laugh track, and he chuckles and waves to an audience that may or may not actually be there.
Teo Blaze: You’re too kind, really! Okay, okay….no really, keep it coming.
Well folks, it’s been a while since I’ve put on my chef’s hat, hasn’t it? But I knew that each and every viewer watching at home has been curious what I’ve been working on during my time scouring the world for the most delectable flavors that a public-access cable budget can buy.
Laugh track.
Intrigued “Oooooh”
Teo reaches over to the pile of foods and pulls out a bright green pickle jar, filled with vinegar-soaked gherkins.
Teo Blaze: Although honestly, given who this meal is named for, I might have honestly overspent at ninety-nine cents.
But yes, if you’re going to pull off an authentic, Alex Richards experience, you need to start with something pickled. After all, what better word to use for the man? He’s killed so many brain cells with alcohol you can count what’s left on one hand, even if that hand had been through a horrible table saw accident.
As long as we’re talking metaphors, by the way, a horrible table-saw accident is not a bad way to describe Alex Richards’s return.
Raucous laugh track.
Teo taps his index finger on a raised eyebrow looking at the camera with a look that is a combination of sarcasm and disapproval.
Teo Blaze: If I may go on a bit of a tangent, I’d like to tell you guys a brief story of the One that wasn’t. There was a time when people were throwing money at WCF, begging for a showdown between Alex Richards and Zombie McMorris at One. The two greatest men to ever hold the internet belt in a final showdown for the ages. Zombie looked unstoppable, but the people were holding out hope for Alex Richards to return. To take to the ring and stand up for them, to be the hero, the only hope to beat Zombie McMorris. At the time I was in the midst of a People’s Title reign so iconic I don’t even have to say a word about it.
And do you know what happened?
Nothing.
Alex spent weeks, months debating, targeting Zombie, there was a buildup, video packages, the whole nine yards, and…
Nothing.
With the world waiting for a certifiable match of the year, with all the people holding out hope that Alex Richards would reclaim his throne and knock off the pretender that was Zombie McMorris…
Alex Richards didn’t even appear at the show.
Audible sad “Awwwww” from the crowd.
Teo shakes his head, giving a “tsk” as he looks at the camera in disappointment.
Teo Blaze: You see, when I chose this ingredient, I was not just thinking of the fact that Alex Richards has consumed so much alcohol that his last coherent thought was back during the Clinton Administration, no!
Consider this. You look at this pickle jar. You hold it in your hand. It feels solid, it feels weighty. It feels like something that you could trust to keep things safe. So what if it is filled to the brim with enough alcoholic liquid breakfast’s to make Jay Price blush? It’s sturdy enough. It’s strong enough.
Teo looks at the pickle jar, shaking his head in exaggerated sadness, then with a flourish, he drops it. The jar seems to hang for a moment before slamming into the countertop, shattering instantly into a cascade of shimmering glass and spilling the contents across the wood. Vinegar and gherkins roll among the shattered memories of what once was, as Teo described, a solid jar.
Teo Blaze: Appearances can be deceiving.
When I look at Alex Richards, I do not see the same thing you do. Where you see size, commitment, strength both inner and outer...I see a man who is only interested in what he can get. I see a man who hides behind alliances at every possible turn and who time and time again has proven that when the chips are down and everything is on the line, he shatters.
The archduke of mass confusion, the man who has claimed to carry the likes of Pantheon on his back, who thinks of himself as the backbone of the guardians? He cuts and runs the moment that things don’t seem to be going his way. The moments that the odds aren’t in his favor? That’s when the real Alex Richards comes out.
Why do you think he’s become so obsessed with the tag team championship? You think it’s because of the prestige, the honor that’s behind them?
Teo shakes his head, wagging his finger at the camera as if to dismiss the thought.
Teo Blaze: Let me go ahead and correct that little train of thought. There’s not a thought in Alex Richards’s head beyond “What belt is the easiest to win right now?”
That’s it. Richards has been with the guardians a long, long time. So where have they been for the years and years that those tag belts have been defended? Where were the tag team challenges when Chaos Theory was dominating the Tag Team scene? Or Mushroom Mandingo? Hell, why not challenge the Church of Singh?
But suddenly the belts are practically handed to Samuel McPherson when Kid Dynamo walks out of our match, and now Alex Richards pops out of the woodwork to try and claim that he wants them now?
It’s all a little too convenient, isn’t it?
Teo leans on the switch to one of the burners, and a small blue flame appears, filling the vinegar soaked-surface with foul smelling clouds.
Teo Blaze: There’s a little saying that I’ve always believed in, and that is: Where there’s smoke, there’s fire. I honestly believe, from the bottom of my heart, that if Alex Richards wanted to be here fighting for those tag team belts, he wouldn’t have waited all this time fighting in some other company.
If he was a man of his word, if he had one fraction of the character that he claims to have in that big jolly pickle jar, then we would have heard about it long, long! Before now.
But the god’s honest truth, the facts, no matter how you want to slice it, is that Alex Richards is not happy fighting the best in the world. Alex Richards does not find joy in competition, nor in putting up a worthy fight against a challenging adversary. You want to know what brings Alex Richards the most comfort, the most joy?
Being a big fish in a small pond.
Teo shakes his head with disdain as he looks over to the burner, which is now pouring thick white smoke into the air.
Teo Blaze: For the record, that’s not a fat joke. I’m bigger than that. And so is he.
Louder laugh track.
Teo grins and looks up at the sky, as if caught in a happy memory.
Teo Blaze: But we’re talking two different beasts here. That was Pantheon Alex Richards, and this is Guardians Alex Richards, and comparing the two, I have to say…
Well, it’s not exactly an upgrade, is it?
I mean, look at what Bonnie Blue has accomplished this year. Last time we faced I beat her clean, one-on-one, and since then she’s managed to elevate herself to the stature of number one contender for the World Championship.
Alex Richards meanwhile, has managed to elevate himself to...Bonnie Blue’s lackey.
Should I bring up his Helloween performance, where the only move he managed to pull off in the entire match was...a lock-up with Odin. Then he dodged out of the way of a boot, letting the hapless referee take the move instead…
Teo cups his hand over his mouth to let out a whisper.
Teo Blaze: By the way Alex, real heroic move there.
Resuming his usual speaking voice, Teo continues.
Teo Blaze: And then in a matter of seconds he managed to get jumped and completely and totally destroyed not by Gravedigger, but by an anonymous group of Gravedigger’s henchmen! Who beat him so badly that Odin was able to pin him clean. Not from a Ragnarok, not from a finisher, just from taking a modest beating from a group of nameless thugs.
Our hero, ladies and gentlemen.
Teo rolls his eyes so far they look like they might pop out of his head.
Teo Blaze: Come the hell on! Alex. Are you telling me that this group of anonymous thugs, that these henchmen were able to lay a blanket party on you so devastating, so painful, so bad that you just let yourself get knocked unconscious? That you had no choice but to lie down and leave Bonnie, your so-called teammate, to her own devices because a few nameless men managed to get the leap on you?
I think that may actually be worse than your showing against the People’s choice. Both times you got beaten in seconds, but at least you actually managed to take a finisher last time! Oy…
And yet this is the man who thinks that he’s going to take away my Television Championship? This man who steals victories by the skin of his teeth on his best days and goes down in the biggest match of his friend’s career without even getting a punch in?
Teo reaches out from behind the counter and removes the Television Championship, placing it on the counter so the camera can focus directly on it.
Teo Blaze: Do you know what this is, Alex? This is not just another piece of gold, oh no. This is the most sought after prize in the entire company. This belt is proof that you are not only good, but that you are always good. You don’t get to have a bad week when you’re the Television Champion, you don’t get to be a big fish in a small pond, because the wolves are always at the door, Alex!
I have said it before a hundred times and I’ll say it a hundred more times if I goddamned have to. Teo Blaze is a survivor. Last week while you were being beaten so badly by the Monstimals you couldn’t even kick out, I was pouring my heart out in every sense of the goddamned words against Kennedy Matthews. I fought that coldhearted bitch for so long that they had to cut the video feed the moment I won the belt. I had the entire WCF locker room, the entire world hanging on each and every second, pulling for me to do the impossible, and unlike you Alex? I gave the people what they wanted. I pinned her not once, but twice, and settled our feud once and for all. And what, oh what is my reward for this torture, this exercise in brutality?
A fat, title-greedy, washed up excuse for what was once a promising wrestler. A man who once stood out as one of the most important parts of Pantheon reduced to a hanger-on to Bonnie Blue. A man who demands title shots off lucky roll-ups and who lets himself get immediately pinned without so much as a struggle in what was one of the biggest matches of his so-called best friend’s life.
Teo’s nostrils flare as he says the words. His tone has shifted, the fun of the segment giving way to what can only be described as genuine disdain.
Teo Blaze: Alex Richards, you are not ready for me. You may think you know what’s coming. You may think you’ve seen me at my best, but the simple fact is that as long as I am holding this strap, as long as I am drawing in air, as long as my heart beats with the fire of a million screaming voices, you can never be ready for what is in store!
You are standing at the end of a tunnel, seeing a bright light coming towards you, and you’re too damned stupid to step out of the way. You’re imagining yourself holding up the Television Title, imagining yourself with this precious belt like it was a trophy.
Well bad news, you overstuffed turkey of a human being, you fraud masquerading as a guardian, you excuse for a performer who at this point would be lucky to be called a has-been.
Because I am not holding back.
I am done showing sympathy to people like you.
I am going to wring every bit of ego out of your tequila-soaked hide, and I am not going to stop until you get the message.
Stay the hell out of my division before you get hurt.
Teo grabs the championship, slinging it over his shoulder and walking from the set as the camera slowly fades to black.
