Strange how the world can change without our knowing it. On 15 February 2008, I was traveling with a group of colleagues to a conference near Nashville, Tennessee. Sometime during that day, some few hundred miles away, one of my childhood heroes, Johnny Weaver, died. And I didn't know it until today. I did a search on YouTube, looking for any new Weaver videos that might have been posted recently, and a memorial video came up.

I never met Weaver, of course, but I hold so many pictures of him in my mind. Pictures from the wrestling matches on TV through the late '60s, the '70s and the early '80s. Pictures of him wrestling live in high school gyms near where I grew up.

Weaver was my grandfather's favorite wrestler, and possibly for that reason he was mine as well.

http://johnnyweaver.blogspot.com/

Yesterday, I wrestled with this man in the black singlet, the third time we've wrestled. As usual, our conversations between falls and over lunch were great. And I think we both enjoyed the wrestling, even though our time on the mat was shorter than either of us wanted. If I counted correctly, we wrestled some five or six falls to submission, most of them fairly short.

The last time we wrestled, which was 12 December, I left thinking that I wasn't much of a wrestler, that I didn't even enjoy wrestling. M had punished me every fall with takedowns into powerful holds that I no skill either to escape from or counter. So, I submitted. And submitted. And submitted again.

M and I talked about that match via email quite a bit and came to some understandings, and I came up with the idea to wear my wrestling mask in an effort to allow me to forget fears of my hair being pulled and to instill in me, perhaps, a little more attitude and aggression.

So, yesterday, as I drove to his place, I kept telling myself to get a good workout. I told myself to stop playing and wrestle.

When I arrived, we each dressed out in the same gear as in the picture above. Except that I wore my mask. It worked. I didn't worry about my hair. The mask stayed on reasonably well. And I wrestled harder than I had before. These elements came together--with, I suspect, a little easing up from M (although I couldn't really tell if he was easing up or not) to make our match much more even than the one in December.

Here's what I remember:

First fall--This one actually went on the longest, and both of us were fairly winded when it was over. M called this one a draw when he had me on my back well off the mat. I had him in a body scissors, but given the position I was in, I didn't bring much power to bear on it. He was on his knees and between my legs, but he loomed over me and was mostly in control. I somehow kept him from pressing his advantage to a submission hold, and he pulled out of the weak scissors and moved away.

Second fall--from a standing position, he fairly quickly had me down and in a headlock. Or it might have been closer to a chinlock. Anyway, a bone in his forearm pressed painfully hard agains the right side of my jawbone, and I submitted pretty quickly. My jaw is sore today.

Third fall--I think we began this one on our knees. After a few attempts to lock up, I reached through his defenses and took him in a pretty good headlock. I rolled him down to his back and cinched it tight. I don't think he was in pain, but he wasn't really going anywhere, so after a few unsuccessful attempts to break the hold, he tapped out.

Fourth fall--If I'm remembering correctly, this one when much like the second one and ended with a similar hold--and a similar pain.

Fifth fall--This one began standing, I think, and seemed as if it would end like the third fall. I think I took him down and into the same headlock, and I thought I had him again. This time, however, he surprised me. Just as he has me in the picture above, I had him. But he worked his right hand under my chin and pushed backwards. When let go of the clinch with my right hand, holding him in a one-armed headlock and trying to push his hand off my chin, he caught my right hand in his left and kept pushing both my arm and chin backwards. I still held the headlock for a few breaths and struggled to regain my balance and leverage, but it was not to be. He was quick! Before I knew what hit me, his legs had exploded upwards and pulled me back into a powerful head scissors. My head was sideways between his knees, my face toward his powerful calves and locked ankles. I love a good head scissors, and this was a good one! He could have held me like that for a long time and the forced me into submission. But he put so much into the hold that I thought I felt my bottom teeth grinding against one another and shifting out of place! I tapped out pretty quickly.

Sixth and final fall--I think he took me down from a standing position and was working me into another of his tough headlocks. The mask allowed me not to worry about my hair and pull out. I got him off balance, I think, and tried to get him in a head scissors. But the angle of attack was bad and his arm half blocked me, so I couldn't lock it in. He pulled free and pushed me back, but somehow in the process left his head open and somehow I locked on one of the best head scissors holds I'd ever applied in the heat of a fall. I had him cleanly, and I had him good--he flat on his back and trapped, I on my left side with his jawline and chin tucked neatly into the crook of my right knee and my right foot locked tightly behind my left calf. I pulled his left arm toward me, pinned it under my side, and he wasn't going anywhere. In just a few moments, he tapped out.
More than my jaw is sore today!

This powerhouse is working me over! How can I apply a good scissors hold when my legs are cramping up after something like this?

The new year always gets busier than I want it to be. The coming of 2008 is certainly no exception. And the busier I am, the less I think about wrestling. And that's a good thing for me, at least from time to time. I have a tendency to obsess about it--as this blog proves. When I have time away from thinking about wrestling, I find it refreshing. Such times clear my head just as a good wrestling experience does.

Near the end of last year, I became somewhat discouraged about myself as a wrestler. I didn't want to see that I wasn't very good. I didn't want to see that perhaps I was more into the eroticism of it than I was the competitive parts. But those feelings have faded a bit. I don't know if they've faded because of distance from the event or because of some rethinking a good friend and I have done. All I know is that I have another match coming up on 30 January and that I'm looking forward to it. In part this anticipation must have to do with the fact that I'm wrestling my good friend that day. Also in part, the anticipation has to do with some ideas we've discussed for the match. For example, I'll wear a mask, which I haven't done before. My main reason for doing this is to protect the long and thinning hair that becomes a handicap to my concentration whenever I'm wrestling seriously. The mask might also give my attitude an edge that might in turn raise my level of aggression a notch to match somewhat better with that of my friendly opponent. We have a couple of other "match" changes under discussion, and I'll write about those soon.

As for life, it's pretty good right now. The world confuses to the point of frightening, but I'm balancing it fairly well. I live in one of the 5 February primary states, so I'm starting to think some about voting. I've refused to think of it much before this, in personal protest against the sudden extension of the campaign season. How long has this election been going on? How long does it have left to go? The answer to both questions is too long. I believe it's criminal the amount of money the candidates are spending to be elected. I believe it's criminal the amount of money required to be elected. I believe it's criminal that those candidates currently serving in another capacity--as a U.S. Senator, say--are spending so much time away from the jobs they were elected to do and are currently being paid to do. Those people and places who elected these candidates as their representatives ought to be pissed off.

Personally, I'm still wrestling with the angel or wrestling with God. Our pastor at church recently included in the service a renewal covenant that John Wesley used to do with the early Methodists. It called for absolute honesty and had a place for a signature at the end. I couldn't sign it--at least I was that honest. Sneaking around to wrestle when I'm supposed to be doing something else--whether or not anything illicit is going on--is dishonest. But still I do it, all the while hoping that one of these days I'll either stop wrestling or figure out how to do it without half truths and misdirection. I rarely tell outright lies, but I'm not sure a difference really exists between lies and half truths.

If I had many millions of dollars and a desire to be president of the United States of America, I wonder what would happen when somebody discovered--and somebody would--that I've wrestled men in homes and hotel rooms across the country. What would happen to my campaign when somebody discovered that I like being caught in a good figure-4 head scissors. What might these truths reveal about me, and how would a public dazzled by the strange react?

19th-century French artist Gustave Dore depicted the forgers in Dante's Inferno. This looks like a tough wrestling match and not one that I would want to be involved in for an eternity, even if I were the man on top.

A few nights ago, I settled down to watch an episode of South Park. This installment on the DVR was called "Butters' Very Own Episode."

It begins with Butters at home with his mother and father, and they're making family plans for the parents' upcoming wedding anniversary. Mom already has her husband's gift, and Dad takes his leave to shop for her present. At Mom's request, "Inspector Butters" follows to see what he buys so that she can know how her present for him competes.

Butters follows his dad, not to the mall or Walmart, but to the gay porn theater called "The Studcat" where Fisting Firemen 9 is playing and then to "the gym," to the White Swallow Bath House, where, according to Butters in his innocent report to his mom, Dad "wrestled with all kinds o' guys. He wasn't too good, though. This one black guy had him pinned down for fifteen minutes straight." Butters doesn't know what all this means: "The only thing I can't figure out is why dad told you he was goin' shoppin' for your present when he was goin' out to see the movies and wrestlin'."

His mom faints. In her next appearance, her hair and face are a mess and she's obsessively painting the house. And when Dad says he still hasn't found an anniversary present and must go out shopping again, Mom says to Butters, "I don't think Daddy's shopping. I think Daddy's going out wrestling again."

Butters follows once more, on his own this time, to tell his dad that a great anniversary present for Mom might be a new paint brush. He goes in the White Swallow Bath House this time and finds his dad masturbating (inspired by something not shown) in a private room.

Caught, Dad later explains to Mom, "It just . . . it started as some curiosity on the Internet. I would chat with some other married guys in the chat rooms and . . . Well the things they would talk about, Linda, I, I don't know why I found it exciting. I just did, and it, and it grew from there and it spun out of control, and--eh, ugh, DAMN YOU, INTERNET!"

The show is about white lies (big ones) and deception and the catastrophic events that can follow their discovery.

This gives me pause . . . to say the least.

Butters Episode

Script

What follows is an email written to the good friend who holds me in this powerful bear hug. We wrestled on Wednesday, 12 December, and what I write here is in response to that match.

Now, as for Wednesday, I've been thinking about it a lot, and I've come to this sad realization: I'm not a wrestler. Not a real wrestler anyway. I play. I pretend. I don't wrestle. I'm not aggressive or competitive enough to enjoy the kind of wrestling we've done in our two sessions. Don't get me wrong--I like wrestling you. But that's because I like you, not so much because I like the wrestling. Our sessions are great exercise (like you, I'm sore), but like exercise sessions, I find them physically rewarding and beneficial in the results while not all that enjoyable in the process.

So, I must admit to myself that my interest in wrestling has more to do with the erotic than I have wanted to believe. I came to this realization after puzzling over why our--your--pushing the limits didn't have the same effect it did in my match with T***. First, wrestling with you is much more intense; while the wrestling is friendly, it's never easy. The hair-pulling is a good example. T*** had his hands in my hair, and he pretended to use it to slam my head into the pillow turnbuckle or pull me back into a head scissors. Some pulling naturally came along with this play, but when all was said and done only a few stray strands were loosed in the combing. When you and I were in that standing position near the end of our session and you pulled my hair, I thought my scalp was going to pull free. And when I combed out after the shower, a great clump of hair choked up the comb. Who knows how much went down the drain before that!?!

Second, the notion of multiple submissions to a single hold. Again, near the end of our session, why didn't your not letting me up immediately after tapout or "I give" play out the same way it did with T***? I must admit that it's because I didn't enjoy the holds you had me in. T*** wouldn't let me out of my favorite holds. And with him, I was actually able to get him in some of my favorite holds and keep him under control after tapout. You said that you thought your chin bruise might have come from some vicious head scissors. Well, there were no vicious head scissors holds in our match; there was not a single head scissors at all this time except for the ones we posed for the camera. Again, this points to my being nothing more than a pretend wrestler. A selfish one at that. If I don't get my favorite holds, I don't enjoy the wrestling as much (or at all)--I hate that realization.

I don't want to dampen your enthusiasm for wrestling--that "smile." More importantly, I don't want to dampen our growing friendship. But I'm going to have to try to change my understanding of myself as a wrestler--or change my reasons for wrestling--if I'm going to continue to wrestle you. I don't want to get together and dread the wrestling just to get to the good conversation or the breaking bread together. I want the wrestling to continue to be good and enjoyable part of the friendship developing between us. Maybe we can find common ground, alternating approaches or styles with each fall. But as you say, you have no "easy" button, so I don't really think that would work.

I'm saddened and confused here, and I don't know what to do. I still want to think of myself as a real wrestler, as somebody who is into wrestling. And as somebody who is fun to wrestle. But the evidence points to my not being either of the first two, and because of that, I don't see how I can be the other.

It's now 5:00 in the morning, and I'm going back to bed. I think the need to write this note woke me up for the past couple of nights. I'm both glad and sorry to have written it.