PRAISE FOR THE DEAD WRESTLER ELEGIES “Todd Kaneko’s The Dead Wrestler Elegies is some kind of miracle. There’s nothing else like it. The book succeeds as guilty pleasure and love affair, tribute and indictment, myth-making and intervention, a chronicle of obsession and disappointment, and a meditation on everything from gender politics to the points at which we all, eventually, submit. The DWE is all of this, and it’s so damn fun, too. Rarely has a book of poetry (even illustrated poetry) managed to be so profound while being so entertaining. More than a pack of wild horses, more than spray-tanned human biceps confusing themselves for pythons, more than any kind of mania, really, this book is gonna run wild on you.” —matthew gavin frank, author of Preparing the Ghost: An Essay Concerning the Giant Squid and Its First Photographer and The Morrow Plots
“In Todd Kaneko’s The Dead Wrestler Elegies, Gorgeous George is forever beautiful, flexing his biceps and preening about the squared circle. Andre the Giant’s legendary tales still resound in the empty amphitheaters and armory mess halls. And young men gathered around their television sets on Saturday nights still get a glimpse of the baby-oil-slick theater. Kaneko’s poems leap from the top turnbuckle and make the heart pirouette like the choreographed turn off the ropes. When the lights in the arenas go out, these poems, in conjunction with Kaneko’s stunning visual work, honor both these wrestlers and an era. Through Todd Kaneko’s fierce but tender elegies, we come to understand that the gods are mortal after all.” —oliver de la paz, author of Post Subject: A Fable and Requiem for the Orchard
“This chiseled pantheon of superbly-illustrated poems in Todd Kaneko’s The Dead Wrestler Elegies transubstantiates the flesh of babyfaces, heels, champions, and losers to shimmer again within the static halo of late-night TV and nostalgia’s VHS—grapevined between the gaze of a father and son finished by a runaway wife and mother’s over-theshoulder backbreaker. Sheened with baby oil and juice, these powerful poems explore the constructed and painful nature of masculinity’s glory and gory days, where—“[b]ecause the heart is only as strong as the flesh surrounding it, / the body only as strong as a man can stand it to be”—the body’s currency is a site of both invincibility and vulnerability, transcendence and decay, Kaneko’s lines moonsaulting a muscular parabola between cartoon and icon, kitsch and myth, the timeless cage match between ecstasy and grief.” —lee ann roripaugh, author of Dandarians
curbside splendor publishing all rights reserved. no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except in the case of short passages quoted in reviews. published by curbside splendor publishing, inc., chicago, illinois in 2014. first edition copyright Š 2014 by w. todd kaneko library of congress control number: 2014952802 isbn 978-1-940430-43-0 edited by jacob knabb designed by alban fischer cover and interior artwork by w. todd kaneko manufactured in the united states of america.
www.curbsidesplendor.com
For Caitlin. And for my father, mother and sister.
KAYFABE / KAY-fayb / noun Etymology: Possibly stems from carnival slang for “protecting the secrets of the business.” Some believe it comes from a version of Pig Latin for “fake” or the phrase “be fake.” 1. The portrayal of action and storylines associated with professional wrestling as being authentic competition and conflict and not scripted or staged. 2. The suspension of disbelief used to manufacture feuds, angles and gimmicks surrounding a professional wrestling match. 3. The strict observance of in-ring personalities and rivalries by professional wrestlers in public, even when not wrestling or on camera, in order to preserve the illusion that their contests and storylines are real.
CONTENTS
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It All Began with Strangler Lewis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Bronko Nagurski Beat Lou Thesz That Night . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Tonight, Dick the Bruiser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 Be More Like Sputnik Monroe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 Johnny Valentine Wanted to Fight the Crusher . . . . . . . . . . 31 How I Know Stanislaus Zbyszko . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 Judy Grable Makes a Living . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 The Nature Boy Buddy Rogers is History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 2
Gorgeous George Was the Human Orchid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 Killer Kowalski and the Cauliflower Ear . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 Stan Stasiak Was World Champion for Nine Days . . . . . . . . 47 Behind Every Man is Sensational Sherri . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 Big John Studd Lost the Bodyslam Challenge . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
Flowers for Adrian Adonis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 Polaroid of You and Jack Brisco . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 This is a Test . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 Every Night, the Super Destroyer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 Long Live the King of Hearts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 That Night the Big Boss Man was Hanged . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71 3
Bad News Brown Says You Don’t Have to Worry . . . . . . . . . 75 Crusher Blackwell Says There’s Something You Should See 77 You Are Looking at Dr. Death . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 Gorilla Monsoon, Anything . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83 Captain Lou Albano Says He Is the Guiding Light . . . . . . . . 87 Ernie Ladd Explains What Kind of Man You Are . . . . . . . . 89 The Missing Link Explains How to Be a Monster . . . . . . . . 93 Crippler Ray Stevens Doesn’t Have to Say Anything . . . . . 95 Bruiser Brody Finishes This Thing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99 4
Junkyard Dog on a Saturday Night . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103 The Grand Wizard of Wrestling Can Make You a Man . . 105 Autograph from Eddie Gilbert . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107 Here Lies Hercules Hernandez . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109 Playboy Buddy Rose Knows How Much He Weighs . . . . . 113 Ravishing Rick Rude is Still the Sexiest Man . . . . . . . . . 117
Miss Elizabeth Said “Oh Yeah” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119 Luna Vachon is Your Shadow in the Darkness . . . . . . . . . 123 That Night the Fabulous Moolah Finally Lost . . . . . . . . . 125 June Byers Knows What a Woman Wants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129 The Macho Man’s Last Elbow Drop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133 5
Chief Jay Strongbow Knows All About the Sleeper Hold 137 Where There’s Blood, There’s Freddie Blassie . . . . . . . . . . . 139 Rikidozan Was Big in Japan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141 Men Like the British Bulldog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145 Gordon Solie Calls the Action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147 Ain’t No Yard Can Hold Mad Dog Sawyer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151 The Sheik Likes to Hurt People . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155 Sorrow for Woman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157 Heart of the Texas Tornado . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159 Hawk Leaves Animal Behind . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163 Selected Legends of Andre the Giant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167 6
Paul Bearer Says We Are All Alone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173 New Hunting Grounds for Wahoo McDaniel . . . . . . . . . . . 175 A Box for Yokozuna . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179 A Man is not an Earthquake . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183 We Do Not Want to Believe There is a Place in Hell . . . . . 185
Mr. Perfect Is What He Says He Is . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189 You Cannot Stand Against Giant Baba . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193 Eddie Guerrero’s Last Frog Splash . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197 Gene Kiniski Says It’s Not the End . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199 Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201 Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207
1 A man like me, when you put him down you have to put dirt on top of him or he’ll come back to haunt you. —jake ‘the snake’ roberts, world wrestling federation
IT ALL BEGAN WITH STRANGLER LEWIS
He started it all, the Strangler choking men out with that yoke of wrist and elbow. My father said Ed Lewis was the greatest wrestler of all time, that I was too young to understand what that meant. Don’t trust a woman, he said, until you know how it feels to lose your breath. His mouth drooped open, words flitting into dark before I could identify those shapes of their wings. On television, Jake the Snake posed with his enormous constrictor,
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Doink the Clown sprayed Brooklyn Brawler with seltzer. It’s a circus, he said. No one appreciates men like the Strangler anymore. Outside, I imagined the world waiting for my father to wrap it in his arms, break it in three parts—one for me, one for him, and a knife curved like my mother.
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BRONKO NAGURSKI BEAT LOU THESZ THAT NIGHT
Tonight, I am in search of clues on how to be a man, not a man like my father, who traded his motorcycle for a job in the plane yards after my mother left. Before my father tried telling me wrestling was fake, we watched men scrap with brass knuckles and bull ropes. Back then, a dude could get his jaw broke calling the wrong guy a fake. Lou Thesz was a bona fide grappler, stretching men with that toehold facelock, snapping men’s elbows to protect his championship belt. My grandfather saw him lose the title
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to Bronko Nagurski, celebrated footballer who stomped men into the turf on his way to the end zone. Before my father died, he insisted my grandfather never saw that match, that men always invent things when they have something genuine to say. Today, everyone knows that fight was fixed. Tonight, I am thinking about all those shapes Lou Thesz could twist out of a man’s skeleton, and how some nights that just isn’t enough.
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TONIGHT, DICK THE BRUISER
I know a dangerous man will bust some dude open tonight, a witless victim’s body fading beneath his boots. A bad man doesn’t think he is dangerous—a heel believes in lubricating the evening in whiskey, in burnishing dark streaks into the pavement, tonight. I pretend I am dangerous some days, pull my hat down low and swagger like I know that murderous potential of my thumbs, that faint difference between an oil spot and the human heart. Tonight, I watch Dick the Bruiser take off his watch before tattooing his name
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into a dude’s skull with his knuckles. He is the world’s most dangerous wrestler tonight, and I am older than those scars I wear under my clothes. Tomorrow night I will dream about picking a fight in a truckstop, a jackrabbit snagged on fence-wire. The next night, a different fight in my backyard, a stain in the grass.
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BE MORE LIKE SPUTNIK MONROE It’s hard to be humble when you’re 235 pounds of twisted steel and sex appeal with a body women love and men fear. —sputnik monroe
When my father died, he left me a trove of video tapes, a warped memorial for those men he watched with my mother before she left for parts unknown, for those fights he relived once he was laid off from the plane yards. We watched men like Sputnik Monroe bleed the hard way, shook our fists as he broke rules against guys who were easier to cheer. He was a bad Elvis, greased-back hair with a shock of white, Sputnik Monroe mixed it up everywhere, a rodeo fistfight, a henhouse tornado. My mother picked a fight in an Idaho truck stop once, stabbed a man’s chest with her middle
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finger, then stepped to one side so my father could fight him in the parking lot. Afterwards, my mother was silent all the way back to Seattle, her disgust with him—the way he wrapped his arm around her shoulder, guided her to the car, and sped back to the freeway—hanging between them from that point forward. Sputnik Monroe clobbered men wherever he went, sneered at those fists raised against him in Memphis. Some nights, as my wife sleeps upstairs, I watch my father’s video tapes and imagine what I would have done that day if I knew that my marriage depended on what I did with my hands.
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JOHNNY VALENTINE WANTED TO FIGHT THE CRUSHER What can you do other than let the Crusher have his way? —chicago wrestling announcer
Men who wrestle for a living, whose lives are much bloodier than ours, remain under the lights those nights they cannot scrap it out. My father said Handsome Johnny Valentine was a young man in 1961, elbows poised to puncture a man’s skull. Crusher Lisowski bushwhacked him before the bell, haymaker and punt to the gut. When the referee killed the match, Chicago was primed for blood, my father said— the Crusher roared over that stadium chanting for knuckles and thunder, over that wall of turkeynecks between him and his rival.
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Lisowski dragging five men behind him as he lunged across the ring. Valentine, dashing fists first at him over the crowd, a gorgeous promise of agony. Don’t worry about whether or not men fight, my father said. Worry about what happens when they can’t fight. The Crusher howled for murder, charged with gravel in his throat, with beer in his belly. Valentine grinned and punched the air. That doesn’t have to be you and me, my father said. We don’t have to fight.
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HOW I KNOW STANISLAUS ZBYSZKO Zbyszko decided he wanted to win the title and no one had bothered to teach Munn much in the way of wrestling . . . Zbyszko was so dominant the off icial had to count the fall to avoid a riot. —shooters: the toughest men in professional wrestling
The part of me that is my father remembers Big Wayne Munn was supposed to carry the world championship after wrestling Stanislaus Zbyszko that day in 1925. I know that spirit battering itself against my ribs will give out one day, that a man’s body can fight only so long as his heart understands how. America knew Munn as a clean-faced footballer from Nebraska who won with a half-nelson crotch hold and dump tackle—the part of me that is my mother loves how the Polish strongman Zbyszko double-crossed everyone, how he held Munn down and forced the referee to count three.
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She delighted at the sight of a man’s body in defeat, how he sprawls spent, slackjawed, eyes shining like cemetery lights. The part of me that is my father understands how a man is lured into butterfly clutches, into chickenwings. The part of me that is my mother praises dead animals, delights at shapes the butcher extracts from carcasses. Whatever part of me that is my own sees my father’s somber expression when I look in the mirror. Whatever is left of me will be horsecollar, cattlebrand, a skeleton twisted into the shape of a cage.
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THESE ELEGIES AND ILLUSTRATIONS BY ASIAN AMERICAN POET W. TODD KANEKO COVER THEMES OF LOSS, LOVE, REGRET, AND REDEMPTION. KANEKO’S POEMS AND ILLUSTRATIONS BLEND CHARLES BUKOWSKI’S RAW-BONED VERSE AND RANDY “MACHO MAN” SAVAGE’S DEVASTATING ELBOW DROP TO MINE THE HISTORY OF PROFESSIONAL WRESTLING AND EXAMINE COMPLEX RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN FATHERS AND SONS.
CURBSIDE SPLENDOR, CHICAGO