Professional wrestling has a lot in common with pizza. (Stay with me here, I'm trying to use an analogy that hasn't been beaten to death, like how pro wrestling has a lot in common with theater for example.) You've got traditional hand-tossed crust, Chicago style deep-dish, thin crust, stuffed crust, and probably half a dozen other types of crust - and that's just the crust, we haven't even begun to scratch the surface of pizza possibilities because for every style of crust there's at least ten different toppings one might add to a given pie. Likewise, there are many different styles when it comes to professional wrestling. Lucha libre is common to Mexico whereas strong style is more or less the norm in Japan. Here in the United States we seem to be latched onto sports entertainment although that's not to say there aren't pockets of resistance, if you will, dedicated to preserving what would nowadays be considered old school, as in the style of wrestling made popular by greats such as Ric Flair, Harley Race, and others.
There are a lot of promotions out there these days that seem to strive towards doing just one thing when it comes to the style of wrestling they've chosen to display. Ring of Honor, for example, has become known for being arguably the most popular equivalent to a strong style promotion that we have here in the US. Not to say that they are doing a disservice to the wrestling world as a whole, but in my opinion when a promotion is all one style of wrestling the product can become bland. "Bland" is a term you'll never hear in regards to Chikara Pro, a company that is anything but vanilla when it comes to the variety of wrestling styles and characters they put on display at their events.
If you're a regular reader of my blog, you might remember that my wife & I were able to see Chikara's event in Porterdale, Georgia last year. The trip to GA made for a great weekend getaway (we were celebrating our anniversary - we each got our way on the trip; my wife wanted to visit the World of Coca-Cola in Atlanta and, of course, I wanted to see some wrestling) and the show was a tremendously memorable part of the occasion as I feel like we both came away from it with a smile on our faces (at least I know I did). The fact that the Porterdale experience was as enjoyable as it was became the primary influence behind my decision to make the drive all the way to Burlington, North Carolina (all 200+ miles of it) as the stars of Chikara would be making an appearance there for an event entitled THUNDERBALL.
The CWF Mid-Atlantic Sportatorium served as host for this event and the arena was absolutely jam-packed with fans. Indeed, it was great to see that kind of turnout as some insist that pro wrestling is on a downward slide. I would contend that only certain pro wrestling shows are in that state - definitely not Chikara, at least by the number of fans that were on hand this night.
Matches on the card included the following.
1) The Bloc Party (Proletariat Boar, Prakash Sabar, and Mr. Azerbaijan) vs. The Spectral Envjoy (Ultramantis Black, Frightmare, and Hallowicked)
2) Aftermath (Chet Sterling & Trevor Lee) vs. 3.0 (Scott Parker & Shane Matthews)
3) "Smooth Sailing" Ashley Remington vs. Juan Francisco De Coronado
4) The Flood (Oleg the Usurper & Flex Rumblecrunch) vs. The Osirian Portal (Ophidian & Amasis)
5) The Devastation Corporation (Max Smashmaster & Blaster McMassive) vs. The Colony (Fire Ant & Worker Ant)
6) Shynron vs. Silver Ant
7) The Flood (Jimmy Jacobs, Jakob Hammermeier, Nokken & 17) vs. Icarus, Mr. Touchdown, Dasher Hatfield & Eddie Kingston
Of course, it goes without saying that I had my camera in hand! Here's episode 10 of my Rasslin' with Redbeard YouTube program.
If you enjoy the show, please subscribe to my YouTube channel. I try to keep it as freshly stocked as I can with new content include match videos, vlog entries, and others. And if you didn't enjoy the show, all I can say is I'm sorry - that's almost 49 minutes of your life you'll never get back.
In closing I'd like to point out an observation I made while typing up the credits for this episode of Rasslin' with Redbeard. There were 32 wrestlers on the card for this event - yes, you read that right, THIRTY-TWO. That is somewhat mind-boggling to me seeing as how for a typical wrestling event (indie or otherwise) you would normally see around half of that number present as representing a "full" roster. I think the volume of talent present is an indication as to how involved and how passionate Chikara is about their product in that they want to give everything they can to their loyal and dedicated fans.
Friday, October 31, 2014
Monday, October 27, 2014
Our Road to Building a Family - When You Least Expect It
Since I last made an entry to my "Our Road to Building a Family" series, my wife and I had been doing our best to remain cautiously optimistic about our prospects moving forward.
We'd more or less re-established ourselves as we were prior to the moment when the three children who were placed with us came into our lives. We got back into our own routines; work, hobbies, house work, date days/nights, work, and more work. Jill's efforts at being an advocate for us were quieted - not silenced but they definitely became more reserved. Heartbreak has a way of making you rethink what you did to get to where you are, obviously. Her candle had been burning at both ends for so long and so hot that the wicks just couldn't sustain that same fire anymore.
I feel as though we both had accepted the fact that we might have burned a bridge with the organization we'd been working with in having to relinquish custody of the sibling group that was placed with us, and that in so doing we might have put ourselves into an "undesirable" category within their filing system for potential adoptive parents. You'd hope that sort of thing doesn't exist in a program like this, and just to be clear we have no legitimate reason to believe it does. (I wanted to make sure that statement was made as the Department of Social Services in the state of South Carolina gets dragged through the mud enough as is.) Even so, paranoia will make even the silliest untruth seem feasible.
Work, for me, has been particularly busy the past few weeks. As someone who works with information technology in the public sector, the beginning of a new fiscal year tends to be on the other side of ridiculous in terms of expectations. Offices and officials have budgeted for certain items and they want to purchase those items as soon as possible so that they can enjoy the benefits of having new tech in their employ. Quite frankly I can't say as I blame them. Between new installations and service calls, I haven't spent a whole lot of time behind my desk as of late. It's tough to juggle at times, however it's been a welcome respite as it's been something I can use to take my mind off things that have been bothering me. Feeling as though we'd missed an opportunity and not understanding why we had to go through that, mostly.
Similarly, my wife's work has kept her moving as of late. I don't know that I've ever mentioned this here but she's the assistant director for the Calhoun County Council On Aging. I will tell you that I know what she does for a living although I don't know a whole lot about what she does for a living, if you catch my drift. I hate to say that because it makes me out to be an inattentive idiot of a husband but I promise you I'm not. Our occupations really are extensions of our personalities. She's thinks with emotion, I think with logic. She works with people, I work with machines - go figure, right?
There are so many aspects of this process that can, have, and continue to blow my mind. Main among them is the speed with which entire lives can change. Case in point, with the sibling group, we were on vacation in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina when we were called about having been matched with them. We didn't have to rush back home because of it but the fact of the matter was that we suddenly had a choice to make: Play the hand you've been dealt or keep rolling the dice. Likewise, our lives changed in a flash again this past Tuesday when my wife received a call from our adoption worker that a baby had come into their custody and was in need of foster care.
My wife in turn called me - she didn't know if the baby had medical needs or if the child was a boy or a girl, black, white, Hispanic, or Kryptonian. All she knew was that a baby was being offered to us. I, of course, wanted to know more details. (I can't help it; I'm the one with the logistical brain, remember?) I didn't want to say no to the opportunity but at the same time I didn't want to immediately say yes and we wind up in another situation where we'd have bitten off more than we could chew seeing as how we've been down that road already.
Jill got more details on the situation and we talked again. The baby is male, Caucasian, roughly 6 pounds and 18.25" at birth, with no signs of defects or abnormalities. He is, for all intents and purposes, a perfectly healthy baby boy. The identity of the father is unknown. He came into the state's custody as a result of his birth mother having given a verbal relinquishment of custody, however there is a statute of limitations within which she can still claim him.
That last bit wrenched at my heart. Since he is a foster child, he could be with us for days, weeks, months, or forever. A child with circumstances like this is considered a high risk placement due to the fact that any number of biological family members could emerge and pursue custody, and that, in turn, can lead to legal entanglements. The notion that we might grow to love this child only to then have him leave us was so difficult to process. Nevertheless, we couldn't say no to this risk, this chance, this opportunity, this blessing. (As a humorous aside to this I'll say that after my wife & I spoke for the second time she said I had 10 minutes to decide whether or not I was okay with accepting the baby. Yep, 10 minutes. I can't take a shower in 10 minutes and she's expecting me to make a decision of this magnitude?)
After we'd made up our minds we contacted our adoption worker and began to make arrangements to pick up the child. Since our worker is located in Charleston we both assumed the baby was there. As it turned out he was only minutes away at a local hospital.
When we got to the hospital, we first had to figure out where we were going - we had a room number but no real idea of how to get there seeing as how neither of us knew a whole lot about the layout of the facility. We encountered a friendly member of the nursing staff who saw us wandering around and she directed us to exactly where we needed to be.
We met with several members of the neonatal nursing staff, a doctor, and a caseworker from DSS. Everyone kept addressing us as "the parents" or "Mom and Dad". (I've tried not to read too much into that, mind you, but you can't help but take impressions from the way people with more information than you about a given situation talk about that situation.) When you hear those words and aren't expecting them they have something of a sizzling effect on your psyche. It forces you to realize at that moment, if it hadn't already before then, that this is happening.
The doctor, a young woman who looked to have been in our age range, was very kind in her manner and took the time to go over a lot of answers to first-time parent questions without us ever asking them. The nursing staff were also very pleasant to work with. I have to say that seeing them handle the children in their care is like watching a skilled craftsman. Not to say they were twirling babies in the air while walking a tightrope, just that they clearly know what they're doing.
As part of the discharge process we had to watch a video on shaken baby syndrome and sign a batch of paperwork. Before we knew it, a loaned car seat was installed in the back of Jill's ride and we were on our way back home. The whole process took less than an hour.
I am in no way ashamed of saying that after Jill & I got him inside our house that I cried like men aren't supposed to admit to crying. I had accepted that I just wasn't going to get to have certain things in my life - in that moment, hope for those dreams returned.
Jill's Mom and Dad came to our house that evening and they brought with them a literal smorgasbord of stuff related to maintaining a baby that family & friends had given to them to share with us. (I've said it before and I'll say it again, we wouldn't be where we are without the support of loving, generous people. We've got some of the best family, friends, and co-workers imaginable!) I know my way around the realm of information technology but baby technology is a whole new ballgame for me, personally. I was introduced to several varieties of bassinets that either swing, rock, vibrate, or some combination thereof. I had heard the term Pack and Play previously but I'd never seen one - seemed kind of like a kennel for a child, but who's to argue with that logic? Also knew to me, the boppy pillow, which is a great example of what can happen when someone takes an existing product (the travelers neck pillow, in this instance), increases its size, and gives it a cute name. In addition to this, our kitchen is now overrun with baby bottles, cans of formula, and various accessories related to feeding. From the amount of bottles alone you'd think we had 5 babies instead of 1, however I'm quickly learning that bottles are much like .22 ammo - when you think you have enough, you don't.
The baby's biological mother did give him a name. We're not especially fond of it, so if or when we have the chance to change his name we already have one picked out. It's one of the names that Jill & I had talked about a while back when we were toying with ideas for baby names. I can't publish his real name because of the fact that we have to protect his identity, and I'm going to hold off on doing the same with the name we've given him until such time that it's appropriate. Don't worry, though, he's not going to have any identity issues because my Father in-law and I already came up with a nickname (or codename, as I've said to some people) for him - The Duke.
Feel free to read into that as you would like. And no, his name is not John Wayne. If it were that easy to figure out do you think I'd bother calling it a codename?
Back when we were still working with the sibling group, we had applied for a license to be foster parents. We did this in addition to being approved as adoptive parents because of the fact that it would have served as something of a contingency for that scenario due to timing of the proceedings. In hindsight we were fortunate in that we did apply for our foster license. Since they weren't ours, permanently speaking, we were able sever the relationship due to the disruption they had caused and have things end there. Not to make those children out to be horrors but I don't know what would've happened to us - my wife & I - had we not been on a foster to adopt path with them instead of straight adoption. That having been said, it is ironic that we finally received our foster license in the mail on the same day that we brought home The Duke.
At this point we (all three of us - well, four if you count our dog, Roddy) are settling in and adjusting to our new family dynamic. The waking up at night is what's going to take the most time to get used to, I do believe, but we'll get there. Interpreting his needs is an interesting thing to tackle; he's not a particularly fussy baby so when he does cry it genuinely means he's either hungry or in need of a fresh diaper. Jill took him to his first doctor's visit and it was recommended that we put him onto a soy-based formula as it seemed traditional mixes weren't staying with him long enough to get him the nutrition he needs. He checked out fine other than that and a little redness around his bottom for which the doctor prescribed an ointment.
Many people have asked if there are things that we need. At this point, I feel as though we're on good standing thanks to what has been donated to us (it seems as though almost everyone we know has gently used baby gear tucked away in storage somewhere), but we would never say no to things like diapers, wipes, or gift cards. Jill had the idea to suggest bringing a meal - fresh or frozen - for us wouldn't be a bad idea either.
Above all else I would ask that you pray for our family. Like I said earlier in this entry, we don't know how long this ride will last but we're going to take it for all it's worth. With God's will and love, we'll endure. I believe The Duke was sent to us for a reason - we're going to love him with all the affection we have because that's what he deserves.
Thursday, October 16, 2014
A Blog About A Vlog - Medieval Times in Myrtle Beach, SC
A little more than a year ago I published an entry to my blog titled "The Medieval Times Experience - Myrtle Beach, SC Edition", which you can read for yourself by clicking the hyperlink. As you might assume, that particular entry was more or less a gushing love letter to Medieval Times Dinner & Tournament. My wife and I are huge fans of Medieval Times, you see, so much so that we visit their Myrtle Beach castle at least once a year. On top of that, we've also been to the Atlanta and Orlando castles as well but to be completely honest with you of the MT locations we've visited Myrtle Beach is the best of the three in our opinion.
All that having been said, I'd like to share with you a vlog we recorded after a recent visit to MT in Myrtle Beach. I wanted to take the time to document the entire experience, from getting into the parking lot to ticketing, and from navigating the great hall to the tournament itself. I'd like to think I did a fairly thorough job which is why the video clocks in at just under 40 minutes. You people should know me by now - brevity is not something I'm good at.
All that having been said, I'd like to share with you a vlog we recorded after a recent visit to MT in Myrtle Beach. I wanted to take the time to document the entire experience, from getting into the parking lot to ticketing, and from navigating the great hall to the tournament itself. I'd like to think I did a fairly thorough job which is why the video clocks in at just under 40 minutes. You people should know me by now - brevity is not something I'm good at.
Wednesday, October 8, 2014
The Sudden Proliferation of Bad Wrestling Posters - Part 4
We start off this entry with a real beauty from OMEGA Championship Wrestling which was used to promote their recent LOCO IN JOCO 2 event. Something I don't feel as though I've touched on in talking about exemplary posters in the past is the concept of form or how the layout of a poster makes the eye flow from one aspect of it to another. In the case of this poster, the LOCO IN JOCO logo (Say that 10 times fast!) creates a natural center point and the talent form a ring around it. Because of this, your eye naturally floats around the perimeter and you get to appreciate the quality each stock photo of the talent appearing on the show.
I was not at this event put I've seen photos and video from it and it was a literal standing-room-only affair. I have no doubt that these posters being seen in the local area played at least a part in that success!
Premiere Wrestling Xperience is consistently at the top of each of these entries, and there's a reason for that. I don't know if they have a dedicated art department or what but their posters are indicative of their having someone behind the scenes who's remarkably talented. This poster represents their DAWN OF A NEW DAY event. The only possible criticism I could make for this poster, and it would be reaching for something just to rake them over the coals about, is that they possibly could have incorporated a background that played into the idea of the "dawn" aspect of the event title. Like I said, that's me nitpicking for the sake of nitpicking - it's a fantastic poster regardless.
Flatline Pro Wrestling is an up & coming promotion operating not far from Augusta, Georgia that has gotten a lot of attention here lately and for all the right reasons. Their shows feature young, athletic, entertaining talent and their promoter seems to be doing a fine job of using every mechanism possible to get the word out about their events, which is a recipe for success. (Truly, it's amazing what can happen when wrestlers wrestle and promoters promote - people say the business is down, I say it's only down for promoters who aren't working hard enough.) There's a lot going on in this poster, which was used to advertise their REDEMPTION event, and it's a bit text-heavy but I have to say that I love what they're doing.
The talent stock photos are fantastic - clearly someone there gets what I've been saying about having crisp, clear images of the roster available for use in promotional materials. In this regard, I want to point out the center of the poster where two matches are detailed because this area is my favorite aspect of the whole thing. If you look there, what does it remind you of? From my perspective, it looks just like the versus loading screens from older fighting video games like Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter! I dig that and while I know they aren't the first to borrow the idea I think they've done it well enough to warrant taking note of it.
I don't recall that I've ever previously featured a poster from Shockwave Wrestling Entertainment in this series. They are one of several promotions (including Ring Wars Carolina and Steve Corino's Premiere Wrestling Federation) that seem to have popped up here lately in eastern North Carolina. North Carolina has never been lacking when it comes to professional wrestling, needless to say, but quantity doesn't necessarily equate with quality. That said, I feel as though this poster doesn't exactly deliver any incentives in the "I'm a wrestling fan but I've never seen these guys before" department. What I mean by that is, with the exception of Steve Corino, if I see this combination of talent on a poster I can't say that I'm going to become interested in attending the event. I see a lot of guys wearing shirts and two women who wouldn't make me turn my head if I saw them walking around in public. Harsh as though that may sound, this is a business where looks and physique matter almost more than anything else. The washed out, "antiqued" look doesn't help matters as it makes me feel as though it's there to try and hide flaws as opposed to compliment anything. As an admitted hard-to-please fan of professional wrestling, if all I ever see of SWE is this poster, unfortunately I won't have been convinced that the show is worth checking out.
I can't help but feel as though Southern Wrestling Association out of Forest City, North Carolina gets poorly represented by their posters. I genuinely hate to say that because I see photos and video from their events all the time, and hardly ever do I come away from absorbing that content feeling as though their shows aren't worthwhile. Quite the opposite, honestly - if not for the fact that it would be a 3+ hour drive for me, I'd probably attend their events. Be that as it may, this poster is what it is, which is to say more of the same from their "art department". I have no idea why you would select a photo of paint flaking off some random surface as a background image. Why? It doesn't make your product edgy, if that's what you're going for. The stock photos seem like whoever made this is doing the best they can with what they've got to work with, which is admirable in terms of effort but fruitless here because of the overall composition.
Here we have a poster from another North Carolina-based promotion, AIWF Mid Atlantic, even though you wouldn't know it from looking at this poster. Yes, the Allied Independent Wrestling Federations logo is present, but AIWF is the sanctioning body, not the name of the promotion. This is a fine example of a poster where the text on said poster overwhelms the featured talent. That's a bad thing because, as I've said before, a professional wrestling event poster isn't supposed to sell text, it's supposed to sell the wrestlers involved. Speaking of the talent involved, there are a lot of them pictured here - so many, in fact, that I think between them and the massive amount of text this may qualify as one of the most unnecessarily busy posters I've ever seen. On the plus side, the stock photos are of good quality, and there's a piggy bank piñata. (Because, lucha libre?)
Before I get into the next poster, I want to talk about something related to the AIWF. It is my understanding that the term "independent professional wrestling" was originally a descriptor for any promotion not operating under the umbrella of the National Wrestling Alliance. In other words, if you were indie then you weren't with NWA, and if you were with NWA then you weren't indie. Obviously this is a very old term, one that pre-dates the existence of World Wrestling Entertainment. Consider that definition and apply it to AIWF, which is essentially a take on the NWA model. How can you be independent if you're part of an alliance? Likewise, if you're part of an alliance then how can you be independent? It's semantics and it very much reminds me of this scene from the Brendan Fraser classic, Airheads (skip to about the 1:50 mark).
From the "we use images of wrestlers from 20 years ago because current images would scare people away" department comes this gem from the North Carolina Wrestling Association. And no, I'm not talking about Sonjay Dutt - that's a mostly current photo of him as he's arguably in better shape now than he ever has been before. I'm talking about Justin Credible, Jim Neidhart, Ricky Morton, and Buff Bagwell. None of those guys look like that anymore, especially not Morton. (To his credit, Justin Credible had fallen on hard times but does appear to be getting back into form.) Also, who knew Sonny Onoo was still taking bookings? Here I thought he'd retired and moved back to Japan so he could run one of those fancy dance clubs where all the guys are street racers or Yakuza and all the girls are way too young to be in such an establishment.
Professional wrestling isn't an industry that has much in the way of a moral center, but I'm going to get on my moral high horse here for a moment because the poster below from the Alabama Wrestling Federation is a disgusting example of what some people will do in an attempt to draw a crowd.
For years, Matt Osborne performed in WWE rings as Doink the Clown. He would go on to continue performing as Doink on the independent circuit after he was released from the company, however the nature of the costume and gimmick allowed for many people to rip off the character. On any given night you could see "Doink" appearing in Charlotte and Dallas, or Phoenix and Columbia, or Orlando and Brooklyn because there were dozens of copycats.
Sadly, Matt Osborne died in 2013 of a drug overdose. Because there is seemingly no honor among certain people within professional wrestling, here you have a promotion advertising an appearance by Doink the Clown.
I would not go to an event promoted by a company that does this sort of thing on principle alone. They should be ashamed, and so should anyone who works for them.
Moving on from that wretched stupidity, here we have our first ever exhibit from Action Packed Wrestling in Chester, South Carolina. (Not to be confused with American Pro Wrestling just up the road from Chester in Boiling Springs, SC.) I have to tread somewhat lightly here because I used to attend APW events. Their building wasn't far from Lancaster, SC which is my hometown and where I lived for the majority of my life. APW has the distinction of having had quite a bit of very good talent coming through their doors - for example, before he was Gunner in Total Non-stop Action/Impact Wrestling he was known as Phil Shatter and he was a mainstay for APW.
That having been said, I've joked that some of these posters could've been made in Microsoft Paint but I think this one actually was. If not Paint certainly some other rudimentary graphics application where that kind of firey, glowing border/outline thingy they've done there is considered a "high-end" effect. I think if I handed a 6 year old a box of markers, a pack of construction paper, some stock photos of those wrestlers, a pair of scissors, and a glue stick they could've come up with something more respectable than this.
In the wake of Extreme Championship Wrestling's demise there were several other companies that would go on to make use of many members from ECW's roster in an attempt at recreating the same kind of frenzied, chaotic, and oddly entertaining content ECW had been able to generate. One of those was Xtreme Pro Wrestling from Los Angeles, California. XPW never really stabilized itself (for a variety of reasons, main among them being the fact that their owner, Rob Zicari - a pornographer who runs a company known as Extreme Associates - was indicted for distributing obscene pornographic material), but the fact of the matter is that they were an established company that, technically, still exists.
That said, the poster below is not for Xtreme Pro Wrestling - well, at least not that Xtreme Pro Wrestling. This is the Xtreme Pro Wrestling that is based somewhere in the coastal region of South Carolina and has shows at a brewery in North Charleston.
Seriously, guys - I know it's not easy to come up with a unique name for a promotion these days but at least try to be original! And for that matter, if you're not sure someone else might be using the name you have settled on, there's this handy website called Google that will help you find pretty much anything ever recorded in the history of mankind, so you might want to look and see if it's already been copyrighted by someone else before you do anything silly like having t-shirts made.
Speaking of promotions with poorly chosen names, here we have a poster produced by Dirty South Championship Wrestling emanating from Supply, NC. I gather that DSCW is in something of a feud with Myrtle Beach's C4W Explosive Wrestling, which (perhaps not surprisingly) is a federation I've featured here in this blog series in the past. This poster is like Frankenstein's monster in that it's a whole bunch of pieces that don't necessarily belong together assembled into the final product. The shoddy stock photos, layout, and graphics aside, I'd like to point out that they've made egregious use of a copyrighted logo, that being of the Versus TV network (which doesn't actually exist anymore as it was converted into the NBC Sports network some time ago).
Reusing clip art or graphics is one thing but ripping off something like a corporate symbol is something else entirely.
Pop quiz, folks - what's the color of key lime pie filling and loaded with 7 examples of bad talent stock photos? This poster from New Millennium Championship Wrestling!
This is another poster I hate to drag through the mud because it was apparently meant to promote a fundraiser event. Be that as it may, I can't help but throw a few jabs at the gimmicks featured herein. "Ravishing" Shane Austin - nothing says "ravishing" like prison tattoos and cheap sunglasses on a guy with a double chin. "Dreamz" - watching him wrestle will put you in a coma, it seems to say. Chris "Thunder" Anderson - because claiming to be an Anderson is never a bad idea if you're a wrestler who's a heavyset guy with a beard. "Delta Squad" - that's the one Chuck Norris was in, right? (Nope, sorry, that was Delta Force.) "Tank Sherman" - instead of a Sherman tank, get it? (See what we did there?) "Ringlord Speedy" - what the Hell is that about?
Earlier in this entry I brought you a poster from Action Packed Wrestling, which is one of two APWs operating in South Carolina. Up next is a poster from the other APW, American Pro Wrestling in Spartanburg, SC, where there's apparently "A NEW SHERIFF IN TOWN".
That, friends, is nothing short of gimmick infringement. I just wonder if he got the Brahma bull tattoo (which, of course, has been made famous by "The Rock" Dwayne Johnson) before or after he decided to become a professional wrestler.
Conveniently enough, the last poster I'll give you in this submission is from Last Rites Wrestling out of Franklin, NC where they apparently prefer their posters the color of sweet potatoes instead of key lime pie filling. Also, what did people use to dry their CLOTHES before the advent of CLOTHES dryers?
CLOSELINES, that's what...
Thursday, September 25, 2014
A Funny Thing Happened on Our Way Out of Walmart...
First and foremost, this isn't a blog about an experience I had with a Walmart so much as it is a blog about an experience I happened to have had while I was at a Walmart. There is a difference, obviously. While I've had plenty of reasons to develop a sense of disdain for Walmart over the years (case in point, this post from all the way back in March of 2011 - "Reason #340,781 to avoid Wal-Mart") I'm not going to drag the company into the mud when it's not deserved. No, this is more of a look inside the minds of the kind of people you encounter while at Walmart.
My wife & I have something of a routine on Sundays. We typically get up around 7:30 AM, get ready for church, go to church, and then when we're dismissed from the worship service we go to Walmart to pick up our provisions for the week. (Occasionally we'll have lunch out with my Mom as well but that doesn't happen every week.) We attend Cornerstone Community Church in Orangeburg, South Carolina so, of course, we go to the Walmart in Orangeburg. Could we shop elsewhere? Sure we could, but we go to Walmart because of the same reason everyone else goes to Walmart - it's convenient and, generally speaking, the prices are better there.
This past Sunday (September 21, 2014) was different than usual as that particular day we were on our way back from a brief overnight trip to Myrtle Beach, SC. Our plan was to drop off our bags at home then come into Orangeburg to get our supplies as well as pick up our dog, who was being looked after by my Mom.
It was around 3 PM by the time we made it to Walmart. I know my wife well enough to know that she wasn't looking forward to being there at that time of day. Going to Walmart early on a Sunday morning as we normally do (almost invariably we're out of church by 10:30 AM) is ideal for a number of reasons, primary among them being the fact that there aren't as many people there, meaning it's a bit easier to get in and out than it would be otherwise. Judging by the volume of cars in the parking lot, it looked like a fair segment of the population of Orangeburg had beaten us to the punch. To show you how different my wife and I are in regard to our individual attitudes about this shopping excursion, my only fear as we made our way into the store that day was whether or not there would be any good bananas left.
Because, priorities.
We rounded up our supplies (Jill gathered sustenance while I went in search of wheel & tire cleaner and other necessities), paid our bill (just over $80), and made our way to the exit. Heading out of the store I had command of our shopping cart, as I do more often than not. After having walked past the salon, the manicure/pedicure shop, and a cavalcade of oddly positioned merchandise displays (we're not certain but it appears as though some sort of renovations are being done to this store) I navigated past the first set of sliding doors, on into the void between the store and the outside world, then finally I passed through the final set of sliding doors.
Before I go further, I feel as though a visual aide is in order.
What you see here is an image taken from Google Maps of the entrance/exit we were using that day at the Walmart in Orangeburg. There is nothing unique about it as this is an example of what you can expect to find if you were to look at a similar view of pretty much any Walmart. You can see the building, the cars, the parking lot, and most importantly the white painted (albeit faded) lines on the asphalt directly in front of the store. If you weren't aware, these lines denote a pedestrian crosswalk, a construct that is also made noticeable to oncoming motorists via accompanying signage (yes, this is one of the actual signs at the Walmart in question).
For guidelines regarding how the operator of a motor vehicle is to conduct themselves when they approach a pedestrian crosswalk, let us refer to section 56-5-3130 of the South Carolina Code of Laws, which states:
I looked both ways as I exited the store that day to make sure there weren't any oncoming cars nearby. I saw one to my right but it appeared to be far enough away that I would be able to begin crossing the distance from the store to the parking lot as I, being a pedestrian, would've had the right of way. As I got about halfway between the store and the lot I noticed this car didn't appear to be slowing down - it wasn't going all that fast but it also wasn't showing signs of yielding.
I kept walking.
The car slowed a bit but was still coming towards me.
I kept walking. By this point I'm probably 75% of the way to my objective.
The car keeps coming - slowly, but it's still coming.
I'm about 85% of the way across the crosswalk. The front bumper of the car (a black Ford Focus sedan, similar to the one my wife owns oddly enough) is now so close to me that I had to angle our buggy out of its path else it would've struck the cart. I stop dead in my tracks then turn my head so that I'm looking directly at the driver of the car, a black woman wearing sunglasses (the kind that make the wearer's eyes look like that of a bulbous insect). She looked back at me, expressionless - we were in something of a duel at that moment, waiting to see who would make the next move. Suddenly her passenger, a black male, shouted at me through the open window on his side of the car, saying "You need to look around!" I began pushing our buggy out of harms way and as I was doing so I pointed at the ground then said back to the passenger "It's called a pedestrian crosswalk..." It was meaningless effort, but it made me feel a little better.
I know what some of you are probably thinking. "You idiot, that woman could've run you over and you just kept walking in the road!" Yes, that's entirely possible. I could have stopped at the moment I first noticed she wasn't going to slow down and let her pass. I didn't do that because I had decided there was a point to be made in standing my ground, however chauvinistic it may have been. I'm not the one who deserves to be chided for their behavior in this scenario because the driver of that car had decided, willfully and without provocation, that she had no problem with hitting another human being with her vehicle.
Why? I'm a 34-year old white guy. I'm speaking directly to the driver of that car here - would you have been so bold as to aim your car at me if I were a black guy of the same age? (Oh yeah, I'm going there.) Or perhaps if I were a little old black lady who was just out to pick up a gallon of milk and some bread? Do you still want to run me over or do you yield? Likewise, what if it had been my wife in my place or possibly a child? Are you still alright with potentially killing someone or does the race, age, gender, etc. of your potential victim have something to do with your decision?
Would it have been worth injuring me or damaging the buggy and our groceries to say "I belong here and you don't"? I don't think there's a personal injury lawyer in this state that wouldn't have been knocking at my hospital room door had she actually done harm to me. I can only assume she would've been fine with going to jail for that act. I don't know what kind of jail time a vehicular assault conviction carries but I'm sure it's not pleasant (or so I would hope). What would her defense have been, "He shouldn't have been walking where I was driving..."?
I guess I shouldn't be surprised that people like this woman exist. I think we encounter people of poor character every day, unfortunately, but they reveal themselves in varying degrees. Sometimes they might drop an empty soda can out the window of their car, then sometimes they might cheat on their husband with one of their co-workers. Sometimes they might eat a few grapes off the bunch they intend to buy while walking around a store, sometimes they might beat their son with a broom handle when he wets the bed. Sometimes they might take an extra newspaper from the box, sometimes they might bring a pistol into a crowded movie theater. My point being to say that we never know what evil exists inside of a person until it's let loose into the world and by then it's too late. You just have to hope you're not the one who winds up on the receiving end when the levy finally breaks.
My wife & I have something of a routine on Sundays. We typically get up around 7:30 AM, get ready for church, go to church, and then when we're dismissed from the worship service we go to Walmart to pick up our provisions for the week. (Occasionally we'll have lunch out with my Mom as well but that doesn't happen every week.) We attend Cornerstone Community Church in Orangeburg, South Carolina so, of course, we go to the Walmart in Orangeburg. Could we shop elsewhere? Sure we could, but we go to Walmart because of the same reason everyone else goes to Walmart - it's convenient and, generally speaking, the prices are better there.
This past Sunday (September 21, 2014) was different than usual as that particular day we were on our way back from a brief overnight trip to Myrtle Beach, SC. Our plan was to drop off our bags at home then come into Orangeburg to get our supplies as well as pick up our dog, who was being looked after by my Mom.
It was around 3 PM by the time we made it to Walmart. I know my wife well enough to know that she wasn't looking forward to being there at that time of day. Going to Walmart early on a Sunday morning as we normally do (almost invariably we're out of church by 10:30 AM) is ideal for a number of reasons, primary among them being the fact that there aren't as many people there, meaning it's a bit easier to get in and out than it would be otherwise. Judging by the volume of cars in the parking lot, it looked like a fair segment of the population of Orangeburg had beaten us to the punch. To show you how different my wife and I are in regard to our individual attitudes about this shopping excursion, my only fear as we made our way into the store that day was whether or not there would be any good bananas left.
Because, priorities.
We rounded up our supplies (Jill gathered sustenance while I went in search of wheel & tire cleaner and other necessities), paid our bill (just over $80), and made our way to the exit. Heading out of the store I had command of our shopping cart, as I do more often than not. After having walked past the salon, the manicure/pedicure shop, and a cavalcade of oddly positioned merchandise displays (we're not certain but it appears as though some sort of renovations are being done to this store) I navigated past the first set of sliding doors, on into the void between the store and the outside world, then finally I passed through the final set of sliding doors.
Before I go further, I feel as though a visual aide is in order.
What you see here is an image taken from Google Maps of the entrance/exit we were using that day at the Walmart in Orangeburg. There is nothing unique about it as this is an example of what you can expect to find if you were to look at a similar view of pretty much any Walmart. You can see the building, the cars, the parking lot, and most importantly the white painted (albeit faded) lines on the asphalt directly in front of the store. If you weren't aware, these lines denote a pedestrian crosswalk, a construct that is also made noticeable to oncoming motorists via accompanying signage (yes, this is one of the actual signs at the Walmart in question).
For guidelines regarding how the operator of a motor vehicle is to conduct themselves when they approach a pedestrian crosswalk, let us refer to section 56-5-3130 of the South Carolina Code of Laws, which states:
When traffic-control signals are not in place or not in operation the
driver of a vehicle shall yield the right-of-way, slowing down or
stopping if need be to yield to a pedestrian crossing the roadway within
a crosswalk when the pedestrian is upon the half of the roadway upon
which the vehicle is traveling or when the pedestrian is approaching so
closely from the opposite half of the roadway as to be in danger.
I looked both ways as I exited the store that day to make sure there weren't any oncoming cars nearby. I saw one to my right but it appeared to be far enough away that I would be able to begin crossing the distance from the store to the parking lot as I, being a pedestrian, would've had the right of way. As I got about halfway between the store and the lot I noticed this car didn't appear to be slowing down - it wasn't going all that fast but it also wasn't showing signs of yielding.
I kept walking.
The car slowed a bit but was still coming towards me.
I kept walking. By this point I'm probably 75% of the way to my objective.
The car keeps coming - slowly, but it's still coming.
I'm about 85% of the way across the crosswalk. The front bumper of the car (a black Ford Focus sedan, similar to the one my wife owns oddly enough) is now so close to me that I had to angle our buggy out of its path else it would've struck the cart. I stop dead in my tracks then turn my head so that I'm looking directly at the driver of the car, a black woman wearing sunglasses (the kind that make the wearer's eyes look like that of a bulbous insect). She looked back at me, expressionless - we were in something of a duel at that moment, waiting to see who would make the next move. Suddenly her passenger, a black male, shouted at me through the open window on his side of the car, saying "You need to look around!" I began pushing our buggy out of harms way and as I was doing so I pointed at the ground then said back to the passenger "It's called a pedestrian crosswalk..." It was meaningless effort, but it made me feel a little better.
I know what some of you are probably thinking. "You idiot, that woman could've run you over and you just kept walking in the road!" Yes, that's entirely possible. I could have stopped at the moment I first noticed she wasn't going to slow down and let her pass. I didn't do that because I had decided there was a point to be made in standing my ground, however chauvinistic it may have been. I'm not the one who deserves to be chided for their behavior in this scenario because the driver of that car had decided, willfully and without provocation, that she had no problem with hitting another human being with her vehicle.
Why? I'm a 34-year old white guy. I'm speaking directly to the driver of that car here - would you have been so bold as to aim your car at me if I were a black guy of the same age? (Oh yeah, I'm going there.) Or perhaps if I were a little old black lady who was just out to pick up a gallon of milk and some bread? Do you still want to run me over or do you yield? Likewise, what if it had been my wife in my place or possibly a child? Are you still alright with potentially killing someone or does the race, age, gender, etc. of your potential victim have something to do with your decision?
Would it have been worth injuring me or damaging the buggy and our groceries to say "I belong here and you don't"? I don't think there's a personal injury lawyer in this state that wouldn't have been knocking at my hospital room door had she actually done harm to me. I can only assume she would've been fine with going to jail for that act. I don't know what kind of jail time a vehicular assault conviction carries but I'm sure it's not pleasant (or so I would hope). What would her defense have been, "He shouldn't have been walking where I was driving..."?
I guess I shouldn't be surprised that people like this woman exist. I think we encounter people of poor character every day, unfortunately, but they reveal themselves in varying degrees. Sometimes they might drop an empty soda can out the window of their car, then sometimes they might cheat on their husband with one of their co-workers. Sometimes they might eat a few grapes off the bunch they intend to buy while walking around a store, sometimes they might beat their son with a broom handle when he wets the bed. Sometimes they might take an extra newspaper from the box, sometimes they might bring a pistol into a crowded movie theater. My point being to say that we never know what evil exists inside of a person until it's let loose into the world and by then it's too late. You just have to hope you're not the one who winds up on the receiving end when the levy finally breaks.
Monday, September 15, 2014
Wrestlers & Promoters vs. South Carolina's Athletic Commission
It goes without saying that these days in the United States our government - be it on the local, state, or federal level - likes to have its hands in whatever it is we, as citizens, are doing. Indeed, it seems as though there aren't many aspects of our lives that aren't in some way regulated by Uncle Sam or one of his subordinates. Even though that presents a set of issues in terms of "the land of the free" feeling more like "the land of big brother", the fact of the matter is that it's not all bad. I, for one, am happy with the fact that because I pay my taxes I'll be able to dial 911 on my telephone, should the need arise, and get assistance from someone who knows precisely what to do.
There are, however, a lot of things that government does that make me rub my furry chin and wonder "What the heck are they thinking?" And so it goes that, typically speaking, government regulations fall into one of two categories - useful or mostly pointless. It isn't often you find something that gets wedged in between the two but in my eyes that's where things stand right now in regard to a new batch of licensing requirements being imposed upon professional wrestlers, promoters, and other individuals seeking to participate in good, old fashioned rasslin' events here in the state of South Carolina.
The South Carolina Athletic Commission is a division of the state Department of Labor, Licensing, and Regulation. In a nutshell, the SCAC exists for the same reason as other governmental bodies having to do with providing protection for members of the workforce through a code of laws from employers who would potentially put their employees in at-risk conditions or environments. They're something of the enforcement branch when it comes to keeping things in line as far as regulations pertaining to professional sports like boxing, mixed martial arts, and pro wrestling are concerned (yes, you read that correctly - according to their logic pro wrestling is, in fact, a legitimate combat sport).
There are a couple of states that do not have an athletic commission, period, and yet there are also states with an athletic commission that does not include professional wrestling in its scope. North Carolina falls into the latter category and Georgia did as well up until around 2008 when that state enacted a sweeping set of changes that put it in line with South Carolina's operating policies in regard to pro wrestling. (Some believe their abrupt adoption of such regulations was a reaction to the murder-suicide involving Chris Benoit who happened to have been living in Georgia at the time he committed the heinous acts that have forever tarnished his legacy as a wrestler.) This would seem to be because of the fact that (*SPOILER ALERT*) professional wrestling isn't an actual sport but more akin to performance art such as theater or ballet. Yes, I just compared pro wrestling to ballet - because comparing it to clogging or the symphony would've been too silly, although now that I think about it clogging is an applicable analogy seeing as how both it and wrestling require specialized footwear.
The SCAC has been in the business of regulating such things as boxing and pro wrestling for as long as I have been following the independent professional wrestling scene in South Carolina, which I began doing back around 1999. (MMA wasn't big enough to have been worth the trouble back then, however the SCAC does now also oversee those events as well.) Wrestlers and promoters alike didn't seem to have much use for the SCAC fifteen years ago, and matters between the two sides have mostly only gotten worse.
So what does the SCAC require of boxers, MMA fighters, professional wrestlers, individuals promoting such events, and certain members of staff? Paperwork and money, naturally. What else would you expect from the government?
When it comes to professional wrestling, all wrestlers (which is kind of a blanket term for anyone who will be performing in the show as characters who are managers also fall into this category), announcers, referees, and promoters have to be individually licensed. "What good is the license?", you ask. That's an excellent question.
When we see the word "license", it more often than not is an implication that the person holding said license has qualified to act in whatever capacity the license permits. Medical technicians, truck drivers, and many other folks working in all kinds of specialized trades are licensed professionals. In each of these instances the license indicates that the holder of said document has been legally recognized as being able to perform whatever task (or tasks) to which the license applies because they have received training on how to do it and that they more than likely have passed some type of qualifications process. All a license from the SCAC insures is that the holder of the license got a physical, filled out some paperwork, and sent in a check to cover the cost of the salary of whoever it was that had to take the time to verify their information. There is no assurance that the individual has received proper training, just that they were willing to jump through a series of hoops to appease the powers that be.
Promoters must also go through the process of obtaining a license but for them it's more of a business license. In addition, promoters must submit permit applications on a per event basis to the SCAC. What this boils down to is the that the SCAC, as a regulatory body, is keeping tabs on who is running what shows, where, and when.
You might be wondering "Why is the SCAC so interested in this kind of data?" It goes back to what I said before about the SCAC being an offshoot of LLR and acting as an overseer for the sake of maintaining safe working conditions. A promoter is an employer and as such they are responsible for the safety of their employees - it just so happens that in this example an employer can justifiably ask one of their employees to jump off a 15 foot high steel cage.
Everything I've covered heretofore has been in place for quite some time. The paperwork, the physicals, all that stuff has been standard procedure for anyone who wants to legally run a show in the state of South Carolina for at least a decade (more on "legal" versus "illegal" events and how the SCAC has been used by competing companies to combat one another later). What's different now are the fees associated with these filings and as you might expect it's what's really gotten under the skin of quite a few people involved with indie pro wrestling here in South Carolina - but it's also being heralded as a long overdue move by others.
A new fee structure was put in place this year for individuals seeking licensing from the SCAC regarding being able to promote or participate in pro wrestling events. The filing fee now stands at $75 per year for all wrestlers, referees, and announcers. You would hope that they'd be able to recoup that money fairly easily - one good night at the gimmick table for a wrestler could take care of it. (Referees and announcers aren't so lucky, I'm afraid.) Fees for promoters were increased as well. A promoters license will set you back $150 per year. On top of this, promoters are expected to pay $150 per event to receive a permit plus 2% of the gate (ie, profit from ticket sales) is supposed to go directly to the SCAC within 10 days of an event. That last one is important because on the eleventh day after an event the SCAC can levy a $250 fine against the promoter as well as an additional $250 fine every ten days until the gate fee is submitted.
Hitting someone in their wallet is one of the most effective ways of making them take notice of the situation at hand. This is why fines for traffic violations are what they are - because they make a lasting impression. People who perform at these events aren't being affected nearly as much as promoters are. When you consider the fact that they're looking at $300 in expenses before they even sell their first ticket and that they'll still have to cover things like the cost of flyers & promotional materials, building rental, payroll, and more, the prospect of being a wrestling promoter in South Carolina suddenly doesn't seem like a very rewarding occupation. And no, I don't think there are any promoters out there who do what they do because they think it's a worthwhile hobby. If they have that much money to burn, they should try contributing to society in more worthwhile methods.
[SIDE NOTE: I have noticed that World Wrestling Entertainment, Total Non-stop Action/Impact Wrestling, Ring of Honor, and other companies do not hold events in South Carolina with any sense of frequency anymore. WWE, in the past, has run 4-6 shows in South Carolina in a single year, some being televised and others being house shows. I'm working off of memory here so I may be wrong but I recall only two WWE events in South Carolina during 2014. The last WWE event I attended was in November of 2013, that being a non-televised show at Colonial Life Arena in Columbia, SC. Certainly there are other factors at play in their decision making scheme but I sincerely believe that this trend is at least in part due to the fact that these promotions would sooner tour in other states than have to deal with the SCAC.]
The topic at hand now becomes how these changes may affect the state of indie professional wrestling in South Carolina. There are those in the wrestling community who have made it very clear via social media that they feel like this is the SCAC's way of milking promotions for all they're worth, leaving the SCAC to count their money and promoters to count their blessings. (For their input on the matter, search "SC Wrestlers Unite" on Facebook or click this link - https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100004846577863) Meanwhile there are others who take this in the opposite direction, that it will serve as something of a cleanse for indie pro wrestling in the state of South Carolina, the idea being that those who can't afford to be in business probably shouldn't be in business.
Personally, I can see things both ways.
On the one hand, there are quite a few dirt bag promoters operating in South Carolina giving our scene a bad name who could likely be shut down by this new batch of regulations. That sort of thing has happened in the past, though, as every so often a little bird would drop a message to the SCAC about a promotion running in a given town that didn't have proper approval for the event. Those "little birds" were more often than not sent out by other promoters who'd gotten wind of a rival moving in on their turf. The target of such attacks might have been an inexperienced promoter who didn't know any better, or it might have been some lifetime carny who just wanted to see how well he could do in a new part of the world. How better than to take out the competition than by having a government regulator close them down? Why expend the energy needed to beat them when you can send Johnny Law after them (so long as you yourself are up to snuff, obviously)?
Then on the other hand you have the fact that this turn of events will likely leave only the cream of the crop in terms of promoters and talent to operate in South Carolina. I don't have a problem with this because, as I have said in the past and as you can likely tell from the wrestling-related content I share via this blog and other means, I am most definitely what you would consider a wrestling snob. As a fan, I don't care to blindly "support indie wrestling" as some who exist in the community would encourage me to do. (That's like saying you should go to restaurants you know are mediocre because they're mediocre.) "Upward wrestling", if you will, where everyone gets a championship belt and everyone feels like they're on the same level as John Cena. Give me a break, for crying out loud!
The law of survival of the fittest applies in all aspects of life. Some people (wrestlers and promoters alike) need to have their egos squashed because they've been allowed to gluttonously sit at the fattening trough of absurdity for far too long. They've become accustomed to having their posterior kissed by others who believe, falsely and for whatever reason, that doing so will amount to their advancement.
The truth is that a cull, for lack of a better term, wouldn't be the worst thing to ever happen to professional wrestling in this state. Even so, my biggest problem with the status of things regarding how the state of South Carolina wants to be involved in the professional wrestling business now is the same as it has always been, that enforcement of these regulations doesn't seem to be even. Despite the fact that this is 2014 and that government likes to tout itself as being more transparent than it has ever been, in a lot of ways this is still very much a good ol' boy state. It has been my experience that some promotions would seemingly get shaken down every time they tried to have an event whereas others never seemed to ever get so much as a visit from an SCAC representative. Perhaps that's different now but it certainly wasn't in the past.
There are, however, a lot of things that government does that make me rub my furry chin and wonder "What the heck are they thinking?" And so it goes that, typically speaking, government regulations fall into one of two categories - useful or mostly pointless. It isn't often you find something that gets wedged in between the two but in my eyes that's where things stand right now in regard to a new batch of licensing requirements being imposed upon professional wrestlers, promoters, and other individuals seeking to participate in good, old fashioned rasslin' events here in the state of South Carolina.
The South Carolina Athletic Commission is a division of the state Department of Labor, Licensing, and Regulation. In a nutshell, the SCAC exists for the same reason as other governmental bodies having to do with providing protection for members of the workforce through a code of laws from employers who would potentially put their employees in at-risk conditions or environments. They're something of the enforcement branch when it comes to keeping things in line as far as regulations pertaining to professional sports like boxing, mixed martial arts, and pro wrestling are concerned (yes, you read that correctly - according to their logic pro wrestling is, in fact, a legitimate combat sport).
There are a couple of states that do not have an athletic commission, period, and yet there are also states with an athletic commission that does not include professional wrestling in its scope. North Carolina falls into the latter category and Georgia did as well up until around 2008 when that state enacted a sweeping set of changes that put it in line with South Carolina's operating policies in regard to pro wrestling. (Some believe their abrupt adoption of such regulations was a reaction to the murder-suicide involving Chris Benoit who happened to have been living in Georgia at the time he committed the heinous acts that have forever tarnished his legacy as a wrestler.) This would seem to be because of the fact that (*SPOILER ALERT*) professional wrestling isn't an actual sport but more akin to performance art such as theater or ballet. Yes, I just compared pro wrestling to ballet - because comparing it to clogging or the symphony would've been too silly, although now that I think about it clogging is an applicable analogy seeing as how both it and wrestling require specialized footwear.
The SCAC has been in the business of regulating such things as boxing and pro wrestling for as long as I have been following the independent professional wrestling scene in South Carolina, which I began doing back around 1999. (MMA wasn't big enough to have been worth the trouble back then, however the SCAC does now also oversee those events as well.) Wrestlers and promoters alike didn't seem to have much use for the SCAC fifteen years ago, and matters between the two sides have mostly only gotten worse.
So what does the SCAC require of boxers, MMA fighters, professional wrestlers, individuals promoting such events, and certain members of staff? Paperwork and money, naturally. What else would you expect from the government?
When it comes to professional wrestling, all wrestlers (which is kind of a blanket term for anyone who will be performing in the show as characters who are managers also fall into this category), announcers, referees, and promoters have to be individually licensed. "What good is the license?", you ask. That's an excellent question.
When we see the word "license", it more often than not is an implication that the person holding said license has qualified to act in whatever capacity the license permits. Medical technicians, truck drivers, and many other folks working in all kinds of specialized trades are licensed professionals. In each of these instances the license indicates that the holder of said document has been legally recognized as being able to perform whatever task (or tasks) to which the license applies because they have received training on how to do it and that they more than likely have passed some type of qualifications process. All a license from the SCAC insures is that the holder of the license got a physical, filled out some paperwork, and sent in a check to cover the cost of the salary of whoever it was that had to take the time to verify their information. There is no assurance that the individual has received proper training, just that they were willing to jump through a series of hoops to appease the powers that be.
Promoters must also go through the process of obtaining a license but for them it's more of a business license. In addition, promoters must submit permit applications on a per event basis to the SCAC. What this boils down to is the that the SCAC, as a regulatory body, is keeping tabs on who is running what shows, where, and when.
You might be wondering "Why is the SCAC so interested in this kind of data?" It goes back to what I said before about the SCAC being an offshoot of LLR and acting as an overseer for the sake of maintaining safe working conditions. A promoter is an employer and as such they are responsible for the safety of their employees - it just so happens that in this example an employer can justifiably ask one of their employees to jump off a 15 foot high steel cage.
Everything I've covered heretofore has been in place for quite some time. The paperwork, the physicals, all that stuff has been standard procedure for anyone who wants to legally run a show in the state of South Carolina for at least a decade (more on "legal" versus "illegal" events and how the SCAC has been used by competing companies to combat one another later). What's different now are the fees associated with these filings and as you might expect it's what's really gotten under the skin of quite a few people involved with indie pro wrestling here in South Carolina - but it's also being heralded as a long overdue move by others.
A new fee structure was put in place this year for individuals seeking licensing from the SCAC regarding being able to promote or participate in pro wrestling events. The filing fee now stands at $75 per year for all wrestlers, referees, and announcers. You would hope that they'd be able to recoup that money fairly easily - one good night at the gimmick table for a wrestler could take care of it. (Referees and announcers aren't so lucky, I'm afraid.) Fees for promoters were increased as well. A promoters license will set you back $150 per year. On top of this, promoters are expected to pay $150 per event to receive a permit plus 2% of the gate (ie, profit from ticket sales) is supposed to go directly to the SCAC within 10 days of an event. That last one is important because on the eleventh day after an event the SCAC can levy a $250 fine against the promoter as well as an additional $250 fine every ten days until the gate fee is submitted.
Hitting someone in their wallet is one of the most effective ways of making them take notice of the situation at hand. This is why fines for traffic violations are what they are - because they make a lasting impression. People who perform at these events aren't being affected nearly as much as promoters are. When you consider the fact that they're looking at $300 in expenses before they even sell their first ticket and that they'll still have to cover things like the cost of flyers & promotional materials, building rental, payroll, and more, the prospect of being a wrestling promoter in South Carolina suddenly doesn't seem like a very rewarding occupation. And no, I don't think there are any promoters out there who do what they do because they think it's a worthwhile hobby. If they have that much money to burn, they should try contributing to society in more worthwhile methods.
[SIDE NOTE: I have noticed that World Wrestling Entertainment, Total Non-stop Action/Impact Wrestling, Ring of Honor, and other companies do not hold events in South Carolina with any sense of frequency anymore. WWE, in the past, has run 4-6 shows in South Carolina in a single year, some being televised and others being house shows. I'm working off of memory here so I may be wrong but I recall only two WWE events in South Carolina during 2014. The last WWE event I attended was in November of 2013, that being a non-televised show at Colonial Life Arena in Columbia, SC. Certainly there are other factors at play in their decision making scheme but I sincerely believe that this trend is at least in part due to the fact that these promotions would sooner tour in other states than have to deal with the SCAC.]
The topic at hand now becomes how these changes may affect the state of indie professional wrestling in South Carolina. There are those in the wrestling community who have made it very clear via social media that they feel like this is the SCAC's way of milking promotions for all they're worth, leaving the SCAC to count their money and promoters to count their blessings. (For their input on the matter, search "SC Wrestlers Unite" on Facebook or click this link - https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100004846577863) Meanwhile there are others who take this in the opposite direction, that it will serve as something of a cleanse for indie pro wrestling in the state of South Carolina, the idea being that those who can't afford to be in business probably shouldn't be in business.
Personally, I can see things both ways.
On the one hand, there are quite a few dirt bag promoters operating in South Carolina giving our scene a bad name who could likely be shut down by this new batch of regulations. That sort of thing has happened in the past, though, as every so often a little bird would drop a message to the SCAC about a promotion running in a given town that didn't have proper approval for the event. Those "little birds" were more often than not sent out by other promoters who'd gotten wind of a rival moving in on their turf. The target of such attacks might have been an inexperienced promoter who didn't know any better, or it might have been some lifetime carny who just wanted to see how well he could do in a new part of the world. How better than to take out the competition than by having a government regulator close them down? Why expend the energy needed to beat them when you can send Johnny Law after them (so long as you yourself are up to snuff, obviously)?
Then on the other hand you have the fact that this turn of events will likely leave only the cream of the crop in terms of promoters and talent to operate in South Carolina. I don't have a problem with this because, as I have said in the past and as you can likely tell from the wrestling-related content I share via this blog and other means, I am most definitely what you would consider a wrestling snob. As a fan, I don't care to blindly "support indie wrestling" as some who exist in the community would encourage me to do. (That's like saying you should go to restaurants you know are mediocre because they're mediocre.) "Upward wrestling", if you will, where everyone gets a championship belt and everyone feels like they're on the same level as John Cena. Give me a break, for crying out loud!
The law of survival of the fittest applies in all aspects of life. Some people (wrestlers and promoters alike) need to have their egos squashed because they've been allowed to gluttonously sit at the fattening trough of absurdity for far too long. They've become accustomed to having their posterior kissed by others who believe, falsely and for whatever reason, that doing so will amount to their advancement.
The truth is that a cull, for lack of a better term, wouldn't be the worst thing to ever happen to professional wrestling in this state. Even so, my biggest problem with the status of things regarding how the state of South Carolina wants to be involved in the professional wrestling business now is the same as it has always been, that enforcement of these regulations doesn't seem to be even. Despite the fact that this is 2014 and that government likes to tout itself as being more transparent than it has ever been, in a lot of ways this is still very much a good ol' boy state. It has been my experience that some promotions would seemingly get shaken down every time they tried to have an event whereas others never seemed to ever get so much as a visit from an SCAC representative. Perhaps that's different now but it certainly wasn't in the past.
Wednesday, September 3, 2014
Labor Day Weekend 2014 in Pigeon Forge, TN
After the events of the past couple weeks, my wife and I were both at a point (emotionally, physically, and whatever other words you can think of that ends in "ally" that would imply having experienced a whole bunch of stress) where we needed some time away from home to rest, relax, and hopefully get our minds back to where they needed to be. The Labor Day holiday presented us with an opportunity to do exactly that as we whipped up a plan with haste to get ourselves to Pigeon Forge, Tennessee for the three-day weekend.
My family & I used to go to Pigeon Forge quite frequently when I was a child. I have many, many fond memories of having stayed at a hotel there called the River Lodge and of floating down the river behind it in a tube. (What, you expected there not to be a river near a joint called the River Lodge?) Even so, I want to say it has been more than 15 years since I was last there. I was certain that a lot would have changed to the town in that time but I was also confident that the quaint nature of it would still be intact.
Since this was a spur of the moment trip we had a few issues finding accommodations. Nothing major that put a chink in our plans, we just had to take what we could get instead of what we would've typically looked for in a hotel room. As an aside to this topic I'd like to say that it boggles my mind how a hotel room with a normal nightly rate of $45 suddenly becomes $100 a night just because of the demand created by a holiday - all I can say to that is I am most definitely in the wrong line of work. After having looked at condos, cabins, and rooms (some of which were recommended to us by friends and family), we settled on the Ramada Pigeon Forge South as it would be where we would call home for the next few days.
The estimated time it would take us to get there made it seem like we'd be able to make it without our arrival being too late in the evening, which is why we decided to hit the road after work on August 29. My wife & I work similar schedules so we packed up her car in advance to be ready for when the final whistle of the day sounded. After we dropped off our dog Roddy at my Mom's house for safe keeping (she's always willing to do anything for us and I can never be thankful enough for the fact that she's as generous as she is in this regard), we began to make our way along I-26 towards the upstate of South Carolina. We stopped along the way for supper at a Taco Bell - and yes, all you single guys out there, that's how you woo your lady right there. Tacos.
Having ingested our sustenance, we continued onward and upward (an accurate description if ever there was one seeing as how we'd be going up into the Smoky Mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee). I was in the driver's seat as Jill did not want to face the task of handling the winding roadways ahead. I have to say that the drive wasn't too challenging at first but as the sun set and darkness took over those mountain roads became a real test. Add in the volume of cars on the road due to the holiday as well as having to navigate in amongst the big rig trucks that dominate the highways and you can understand why my hands were cramping from having had a vice-like grip on the steering wheel.
Things took a turn for the worse along I-40 as we neared Pigeon Forge. I say that as if we had car trouble or something of the sort - in reality we had GPS trouble. Not in that it stopped working and we had no idea where to go, rather that the Google Maps application on my phone we were using to get us to where we were going decided that we would be better off to leave the interstate and take a road that wasn't much more than a goat path! (If you're ever going to Pigeon Forge or somewhere nearby and your GPS suggests that you take Hartford Road, DON'T DO IT.) I am not exaggerating when I tell you that this was the most insane stretch of road to encounter at night. It was barely wide enough for one car. There were a lot of hairpin turns and absolutely zero signage to indicate that you were coming up on them. You've heard the term "low shoulder"? Well in this case, "low shoulder" equated to a 20 foot drop off the side of the road into some random field. It was a terrifying ordeal but even so we eventually did get to our destination - we were mentally frazzled and in need of a good, stiff drink but we got there!
We checked into our room just shy of 11:30 PM. Seeing as how we got on the road around 5 PM, that meant we'd been at it for almost 6 and a half hours and my tailbone was feeling every bit of it. The rooms at the Ramada might not have been the most luxurious we've ever stayed in but the beds (yes, beds - try as we might we couldn't find a room with a single king) were quite the welcome sight for a pair of weary travelers like us.
The next morning we got up relatively early, as in around 8 AM, got ready for the day then wandered over to the breakfast area in the hotel lobby. (I use the phrase "wandered over" because of the fact that our room was on the first floor not more than 50 feet away from the lobby.) Continental breakfasts are a crap shoot - sometimes you get lucky, sometimes you wind up with a gut full of doughy carbohydrates. In this instance it was the latter, but we at least got to enjoy some tasty biscuits & gravy. Any meal that includes gravy is a victory in my eyes.
After breakfast we roamed around some of the shops near the Old Mill District, which (as you might assume) is a cluster of merchants set up around an old corn mill situated on the banks of the Pigeon River. The shops are, for the most part, all filled with the kind of wares that appeal only to tourists - baubles that will help someone remember the time they spent in Pigeon Forge. T-shirts, pottery, engraved word work, that sort of thing.
Moonshine distilleries have become a real draw for the area as there are quite a few of them set up along Pigeon Forge as well as in nearby Gatlinburg. One such operation is in the Old Mill District, that being the Old Forge Distillery. Seeing as how I had a stomach full of biscuits and danishes, I ponied up to the sampling bar and partook in a few selections. I have to say that if you're not a fan of whiskey no amount of trying it is going to change your mind. I happen to like it and I was really caught back by how many diverse flavor profiles the cooks behind the scenes in these operations have been able to come up with. I fell in love with their chocolate moonshine and purchased a jar of it!
After we'd been around the shops we decided it was time to eat lunch. On this day, that involved us visiting the Old Mill Restaurant, an eatery that came very highly recommended to us. Trust me when I say that we were not lead astray by those recommendations!
Everyone who eats at the Old Mill is greeted with a serving of their corn chowder and a basket of corn fritters served with maple-infused butter. I probably could have made a meal out of those alone! For our main courses, Jill selected the catfish fillets and I opted for the turkey & dressing. All meals off the lunch menu come served with two side items, green beans and mashed potatoes. I want to share the following photos of our meals before I tell you how much they cost us.
How much do you think you'd pay for a couple plates like those? Because they cost us $10.50 each, which is what every lunch menu item will cost you at the Old Mill. I had close to a pound of turkey on that plate - I cannot begin to tell you how tasty it was, and what an awesome value!
After that great meal we decided an adventure was in order. We had seen several advertisements and brochures for the Forbidden Caverns - I remembered visiting them from when I was a child but Jill had never been to a set of caverns, period. Getting there was easy as it's not much more than a short drive out of town and you're there; if you should decide to visit them yourself just be mindful of the fact that the road to the caverns is like a lot of the rural roadways in the area, that being narrow and winding.
The name "forbidden caverns" comes from a Native American story of a princess who died after she became trapped "in a hollow mountain of two streams", and because of this they considered the cave to be a place not too dissimilar from what other cultures might refer to as purgatory or Hades. Later on the caves were used by moonshiners as the constant flow of fresh spring water therein made it an ideal locale for their bootlegging operations. These days the caves are a popular tourist attraction that brings in visitors from all over the world.
After we toured the caverns we played what will hopefully go down as the most expensive game of putt-putt we'll ever play, that being a round of 18 holes at Old MacDonald's Farm Mini Golf. (It cost about $32 for the two of us!) The course was a lot of fun with its theming being all about Old MacDonald and the animals that make up his farm. Pigs, sheep, goats, and more will entertain you along the way. We played the Porky Putts course which was a par 43 - Jill & I both played quite well as we both finished under par but I got the Duke this particular round, besting her by the score of 41 to 42.
After our round of putt-putt we did a little bit more shopping before eating dinner at Blue Moose Burgers & Wings, a local sports bar & grill we happened upon that seemed like as good an option as any given that by that time of day the Clemson/Georgia football game was on television. Ironically enough, Jill & I were on a trip to Asheville, North Carolina last year when that game took place and we watched part of it from a Buffalo Wild Wings location. And just like last year at that restaurant, there were Clemson and Georgia faithful seemingly separated into their own sections at the Blue Moose. I half expected a knife fight to break out at any moment! The game was interesting, the crowd mostly civil, and the wings were tasty, which made the whole thing a great way to cap off our first full day in Tennessee.
For breakfast on the morning of Sunday, August 31 we decided to try another local favorite eatery, that being the Applewood Restaurant which is one of the primary components of the Apple Barn "campus" (for lack of a better term). The Applewood Restaurant is built out of what was once an old farmhouse - it's been modified since then, obviously, but the qualities that made it a home are reflected in the fact that everyone who dines there receives an experience crafted from the traditions of food, family, and fellowship.
We arrived at the restaurant very early as I thoroughly expected to have to wait an hour or more to get in. As it would turn out, we walked in and were seated immediately. (Jill says she never gets to sleep in on our vacations; I can't say I'm not at least partially responsible for that.) All guests at the Applewood Restaurant are initially treated to a basket of apple fritters and muffins served with their homemade apple butter (I could drown myself in apple butter, just so you know; it's one of my favorite things in the world) and a tasty concoction they call an apple julep - a combination of apple, pineapple, and citrus juices. For our meals, I chose the Farmhouse Special Breakfast and Jill had the Wild Blueberry Pancakes.
They are certainly selections meant to stick-to-your-ribs because you're going to be working in the fields all day - or, in our case, because you're going to be walking around Gatlinburg all day.
If you've never been there, the best way I can describe Gatlinburg, TN is to try to have you imagine a Walmart that sells nothing but tacky, themed merchandise chopped up into individual storefronts and stretched out along both sides of a roughly two mile long highway. If you've been to Ocean Boulevard in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina during the peak season when all the shops there are open you've more or less also been to Gatlinburg. Just swap out all the YOLO and SWAG t-shirts for ones with black bears or University of Tennessee logos. There are other attractions in the area, of course, like the Ripley's Aquarium and a number of fantastic restaurants (the highlight of our time there, for me, was seeing the Ole Smoky Moonshine Holler production facility and store), but they seem to be dwarfed in comparison to everything else. What blew us away was the sheer number of people and cars that were in town the day we were there. (Fortunately we got into Gatlinburg around 10 AM and were able to find a parking space.) The congestion seemed especially horrible, which I can only blame on the fact that we were there on a holiday weekend.
Once we'd had our fill of Gatlinburg we came back into Pigeon Forge to knock around town a bit before our dinner date - an evening of music, laughs, and food at the Hatfield & McCoy Dinner Show!
The Hatfield & McCoy Dinner Show is a comical take on the historical family feud that also involves dancers and bluegrass musicians. It's kind of odd that a rivalry so violent as to have spurred on a number of grisly murders could be turned into the subject of a comedy act - I'm sure the descendants of those families have been rewarded handsomely, monetarily speaking, for their involvement in the production.
Even so, the show itself was a fantastic presentation. You're fed a meal consisting of fried chicken, pulled pork bar-b-que, mashed potatoes, corn on the cob, cole slaw, and biscuits before the performance begins. In my opinion, this is an area where they are doing things better than similar shows like Medieval Times or Dixie Stampede as I've always felt at those arenas your attention isn't on the performance because you've got a piece of chicken in your mouth. The whole event runs about 2 hours in length. If you enjoy comedic storytelling and country cooking, you won't get a much better combination of the two than at the Hatfield & McCoy theater. (That said, I will add that this show has a lot in common with the Hoop-Dee-Doo Musical Revue we saw at the Fort Wilderness Resort on the Walt Disney World property. It's close but I'm going to give the edge to Disney in comparing the two.)
Before we knew it, Monday morning rolled around and our time in Tennessee had drawn to a close. All there was left to do was check out of the hotel and deal with traffic. I'm not kidding when I say that it took us just shy of an hour to make our way along the stretch of I-40 where it connects with I-26. Other than that, the ride back was mostly uneventful which was great considering how stressful the ride up became.
Looking back on our time in Pigeon Forge, we sure did cram a lot into just two days worth of vacation. That seems to be how we live our lives, though - doing the best we can to take advantage of every opportunity we have to enjoy that with which we've been blessed. I wouldn't trade times like these for anything in this world.
My family & I used to go to Pigeon Forge quite frequently when I was a child. I have many, many fond memories of having stayed at a hotel there called the River Lodge and of floating down the river behind it in a tube. (What, you expected there not to be a river near a joint called the River Lodge?) Even so, I want to say it has been more than 15 years since I was last there. I was certain that a lot would have changed to the town in that time but I was also confident that the quaint nature of it would still be intact.
Since this was a spur of the moment trip we had a few issues finding accommodations. Nothing major that put a chink in our plans, we just had to take what we could get instead of what we would've typically looked for in a hotel room. As an aside to this topic I'd like to say that it boggles my mind how a hotel room with a normal nightly rate of $45 suddenly becomes $100 a night just because of the demand created by a holiday - all I can say to that is I am most definitely in the wrong line of work. After having looked at condos, cabins, and rooms (some of which were recommended to us by friends and family), we settled on the Ramada Pigeon Forge South as it would be where we would call home for the next few days.
The estimated time it would take us to get there made it seem like we'd be able to make it without our arrival being too late in the evening, which is why we decided to hit the road after work on August 29. My wife & I work similar schedules so we packed up her car in advance to be ready for when the final whistle of the day sounded. After we dropped off our dog Roddy at my Mom's house for safe keeping (she's always willing to do anything for us and I can never be thankful enough for the fact that she's as generous as she is in this regard), we began to make our way along I-26 towards the upstate of South Carolina. We stopped along the way for supper at a Taco Bell - and yes, all you single guys out there, that's how you woo your lady right there. Tacos.
Having ingested our sustenance, we continued onward and upward (an accurate description if ever there was one seeing as how we'd be going up into the Smoky Mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee). I was in the driver's seat as Jill did not want to face the task of handling the winding roadways ahead. I have to say that the drive wasn't too challenging at first but as the sun set and darkness took over those mountain roads became a real test. Add in the volume of cars on the road due to the holiday as well as having to navigate in amongst the big rig trucks that dominate the highways and you can understand why my hands were cramping from having had a vice-like grip on the steering wheel.
Things took a turn for the worse along I-40 as we neared Pigeon Forge. I say that as if we had car trouble or something of the sort - in reality we had GPS trouble. Not in that it stopped working and we had no idea where to go, rather that the Google Maps application on my phone we were using to get us to where we were going decided that we would be better off to leave the interstate and take a road that wasn't much more than a goat path! (If you're ever going to Pigeon Forge or somewhere nearby and your GPS suggests that you take Hartford Road, DON'T DO IT.) I am not exaggerating when I tell you that this was the most insane stretch of road to encounter at night. It was barely wide enough for one car. There were a lot of hairpin turns and absolutely zero signage to indicate that you were coming up on them. You've heard the term "low shoulder"? Well in this case, "low shoulder" equated to a 20 foot drop off the side of the road into some random field. It was a terrifying ordeal but even so we eventually did get to our destination - we were mentally frazzled and in need of a good, stiff drink but we got there!
We checked into our room just shy of 11:30 PM. Seeing as how we got on the road around 5 PM, that meant we'd been at it for almost 6 and a half hours and my tailbone was feeling every bit of it. The rooms at the Ramada might not have been the most luxurious we've ever stayed in but the beds (yes, beds - try as we might we couldn't find a room with a single king) were quite the welcome sight for a pair of weary travelers like us.
The next morning we got up relatively early, as in around 8 AM, got ready for the day then wandered over to the breakfast area in the hotel lobby. (I use the phrase "wandered over" because of the fact that our room was on the first floor not more than 50 feet away from the lobby.) Continental breakfasts are a crap shoot - sometimes you get lucky, sometimes you wind up with a gut full of doughy carbohydrates. In this instance it was the latter, but we at least got to enjoy some tasty biscuits & gravy. Any meal that includes gravy is a victory in my eyes.
After breakfast we roamed around some of the shops near the Old Mill District, which (as you might assume) is a cluster of merchants set up around an old corn mill situated on the banks of the Pigeon River. The shops are, for the most part, all filled with the kind of wares that appeal only to tourists - baubles that will help someone remember the time they spent in Pigeon Forge. T-shirts, pottery, engraved word work, that sort of thing.
Moonshine distilleries have become a real draw for the area as there are quite a few of them set up along Pigeon Forge as well as in nearby Gatlinburg. One such operation is in the Old Mill District, that being the Old Forge Distillery. Seeing as how I had a stomach full of biscuits and danishes, I ponied up to the sampling bar and partook in a few selections. I have to say that if you're not a fan of whiskey no amount of trying it is going to change your mind. I happen to like it and I was really caught back by how many diverse flavor profiles the cooks behind the scenes in these operations have been able to come up with. I fell in love with their chocolate moonshine and purchased a jar of it!
After we'd been around the shops we decided it was time to eat lunch. On this day, that involved us visiting the Old Mill Restaurant, an eatery that came very highly recommended to us. Trust me when I say that we were not lead astray by those recommendations!
Everyone who eats at the Old Mill is greeted with a serving of their corn chowder and a basket of corn fritters served with maple-infused butter. I probably could have made a meal out of those alone! For our main courses, Jill selected the catfish fillets and I opted for the turkey & dressing. All meals off the lunch menu come served with two side items, green beans and mashed potatoes. I want to share the following photos of our meals before I tell you how much they cost us.
How much do you think you'd pay for a couple plates like those? Because they cost us $10.50 each, which is what every lunch menu item will cost you at the Old Mill. I had close to a pound of turkey on that plate - I cannot begin to tell you how tasty it was, and what an awesome value!
After that great meal we decided an adventure was in order. We had seen several advertisements and brochures for the Forbidden Caverns - I remembered visiting them from when I was a child but Jill had never been to a set of caverns, period. Getting there was easy as it's not much more than a short drive out of town and you're there; if you should decide to visit them yourself just be mindful of the fact that the road to the caverns is like a lot of the rural roadways in the area, that being narrow and winding.
The name "forbidden caverns" comes from a Native American story of a princess who died after she became trapped "in a hollow mountain of two streams", and because of this they considered the cave to be a place not too dissimilar from what other cultures might refer to as purgatory or Hades. Later on the caves were used by moonshiners as the constant flow of fresh spring water therein made it an ideal locale for their bootlegging operations. These days the caves are a popular tourist attraction that brings in visitors from all over the world.
After we toured the caverns we played what will hopefully go down as the most expensive game of putt-putt we'll ever play, that being a round of 18 holes at Old MacDonald's Farm Mini Golf. (It cost about $32 for the two of us!) The course was a lot of fun with its theming being all about Old MacDonald and the animals that make up his farm. Pigs, sheep, goats, and more will entertain you along the way. We played the Porky Putts course which was a par 43 - Jill & I both played quite well as we both finished under par but I got the Duke this particular round, besting her by the score of 41 to 42.
After our round of putt-putt we did a little bit more shopping before eating dinner at Blue Moose Burgers & Wings, a local sports bar & grill we happened upon that seemed like as good an option as any given that by that time of day the Clemson/Georgia football game was on television. Ironically enough, Jill & I were on a trip to Asheville, North Carolina last year when that game took place and we watched part of it from a Buffalo Wild Wings location. And just like last year at that restaurant, there were Clemson and Georgia faithful seemingly separated into their own sections at the Blue Moose. I half expected a knife fight to break out at any moment! The game was interesting, the crowd mostly civil, and the wings were tasty, which made the whole thing a great way to cap off our first full day in Tennessee.
For breakfast on the morning of Sunday, August 31 we decided to try another local favorite eatery, that being the Applewood Restaurant which is one of the primary components of the Apple Barn "campus" (for lack of a better term). The Applewood Restaurant is built out of what was once an old farmhouse - it's been modified since then, obviously, but the qualities that made it a home are reflected in the fact that everyone who dines there receives an experience crafted from the traditions of food, family, and fellowship.
We arrived at the restaurant very early as I thoroughly expected to have to wait an hour or more to get in. As it would turn out, we walked in and were seated immediately. (Jill says she never gets to sleep in on our vacations; I can't say I'm not at least partially responsible for that.) All guests at the Applewood Restaurant are initially treated to a basket of apple fritters and muffins served with their homemade apple butter (I could drown myself in apple butter, just so you know; it's one of my favorite things in the world) and a tasty concoction they call an apple julep - a combination of apple, pineapple, and citrus juices. For our meals, I chose the Farmhouse Special Breakfast and Jill had the Wild Blueberry Pancakes.
They are certainly selections meant to stick-to-your-ribs because you're going to be working in the fields all day - or, in our case, because you're going to be walking around Gatlinburg all day.
If you've never been there, the best way I can describe Gatlinburg, TN is to try to have you imagine a Walmart that sells nothing but tacky, themed merchandise chopped up into individual storefronts and stretched out along both sides of a roughly two mile long highway. If you've been to Ocean Boulevard in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina during the peak season when all the shops there are open you've more or less also been to Gatlinburg. Just swap out all the YOLO and SWAG t-shirts for ones with black bears or University of Tennessee logos. There are other attractions in the area, of course, like the Ripley's Aquarium and a number of fantastic restaurants (the highlight of our time there, for me, was seeing the Ole Smoky Moonshine Holler production facility and store), but they seem to be dwarfed in comparison to everything else. What blew us away was the sheer number of people and cars that were in town the day we were there. (Fortunately we got into Gatlinburg around 10 AM and were able to find a parking space.) The congestion seemed especially horrible, which I can only blame on the fact that we were there on a holiday weekend.
Once we'd had our fill of Gatlinburg we came back into Pigeon Forge to knock around town a bit before our dinner date - an evening of music, laughs, and food at the Hatfield & McCoy Dinner Show!
The Hatfield & McCoy Dinner Show is a comical take on the historical family feud that also involves dancers and bluegrass musicians. It's kind of odd that a rivalry so violent as to have spurred on a number of grisly murders could be turned into the subject of a comedy act - I'm sure the descendants of those families have been rewarded handsomely, monetarily speaking, for their involvement in the production.
Even so, the show itself was a fantastic presentation. You're fed a meal consisting of fried chicken, pulled pork bar-b-que, mashed potatoes, corn on the cob, cole slaw, and biscuits before the performance begins. In my opinion, this is an area where they are doing things better than similar shows like Medieval Times or Dixie Stampede as I've always felt at those arenas your attention isn't on the performance because you've got a piece of chicken in your mouth. The whole event runs about 2 hours in length. If you enjoy comedic storytelling and country cooking, you won't get a much better combination of the two than at the Hatfield & McCoy theater. (That said, I will add that this show has a lot in common with the Hoop-Dee-Doo Musical Revue we saw at the Fort Wilderness Resort on the Walt Disney World property. It's close but I'm going to give the edge to Disney in comparing the two.)
Before we knew it, Monday morning rolled around and our time in Tennessee had drawn to a close. All there was left to do was check out of the hotel and deal with traffic. I'm not kidding when I say that it took us just shy of an hour to make our way along the stretch of I-40 where it connects with I-26. Other than that, the ride back was mostly uneventful which was great considering how stressful the ride up became.
Looking back on our time in Pigeon Forge, we sure did cram a lot into just two days worth of vacation. That seems to be how we live our lives, though - doing the best we can to take advantage of every opportunity we have to enjoy that with which we've been blessed. I wouldn't trade times like these for anything in this world.
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