Ducken, Naked Cowboy, and Sex-Pac: My FEW Debut
So last weekend was my first ring announcing gig at FEW in Indianapolis. A weird experience to say the least.
First off, my genius ass decided to wait until Thursday morning to try to get a hotel for the weekend. Almost every freaking hotel in the Indianapolis area was booked full. One of the guys told me there was a car show on the westside that weekend, and that's why everyone was full. Great.
I finally found a motel I won't name by name as to not ruin their business (you'll see why later). We'll call it the Tracy Motel. The middle eastern lady said in broken english that they had two rooms left, and that they were 5 minutes from the venue in Danville on East Main Street. Plus, the room prices were a steal!! With my luck shining, I reserved a one bed room until Sunday Morning. The reason for this is because even though I would be leaving Saturday, I don't like being told when to check-out. I'll check out when I damn well feel like it, and I planned on sleeping off a big hangover from the huge party I would get together at the show. So if I wanna go home at 7pm on a Saturday, I will.
A few hours later, I drove the distance out to the venue. Armed with my portable DVD player blasting "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back", the trip up wasn't too bad. The only problem is, BLASTING the player at full volume enabled me to barely make out what people were saying amidst the roar of the car and the full-blast AC. So I stopped at a Dollar Store on the way and picked up a pair of lightweight headphones.
Now, I know it's not kosher (actually illegal) to drive with a pair of headphones on, but keep in mind that even with headphones and the volume on the DVD player all the way up, I could still clearly hear every sound around me, including other cars on the road. And I picked "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back" because I have seen it 10 million times and wouldn't have to look at the screen and risk crashing and dying, because I knew everything that happens in the movie.
It was at that Dollar General that I met my new best friend.
I was in line to buy the headphones, and these two old ladies were in line in front of me, taking forever to do the simpliest tasks like getting their products on the counter and paying for their shit. While I was sitting there, and the old ladies oblivious to me tapping my foot and rolling my eyes, one lady picked up this hand puppet that was sitting on the counter.
"Oh, what a cute puppet!" She said.
The kid behind the counter seemed to feel bad for it. "Yeah, I told everyone here that I would sell it before the end of my shift. I've been trying to sell it all day, but no one wants to buy it."
Me being a sucker for a hard luck story, I picked up the puppet and looked at it when the grandmas left. It looked at me with a sadness in his face. His yellow, big headed ass seemed to say in a silent, but obvious tone, "Buy me, Doc. I will be your friend till the end."
My soft heart melted. I turned him over to see how much it would cost me to have a friend till the end....
ONE DOLLAR!
Sold!
"Now you can tell your friends you sold it." I smiled at the kid.
There's only one problem. I can't tell if it's a duck or a chicken. So I named him Ducken. And I swore Ducken would make an appearance (at least in the locker room) at the FEW show. I mean, think about it: what a great gimmick! How many ring announcers share duties with a duck/chicken puppet? Ducken would make me famous. (I'll post a pic of Ducken tommorrow)
So let's recap for a moment: Here's Doc, rolling down the Indiana highway with a pair of headphones on, looking out for cops, listening to a movie, and the thing that's gonna make him famous is a yellow puppet that's laying on the passenger seat, lifeless without a hand up his ass to guide his movements.
Got it so far? Good. Let's continue.
So I finally get to the venue as it's getting dark. Well, at least I was on the same street. I couldn't find the freakin venue! East Main Street was a long street with many fields and a few businesses here and there. aren't "Main Streets" supposed to have life on them? Apparently, not EAST Main Streets.....
No worries (as Samoa Joe always says to me), I will find the venue later, I thought. I need to find the motel first anyway. Only problem was, I couldn't find the MOTEL either!
I went the full length of East Main Street - end to end - 3 times, and couldn't find neither the venue nor the Motel. Finally, I got pissed and called the motel. Someone who spoke good english finally answered, thank God. I tried to tell her where I was. She had no clue what I was talking about. I told her what businesses I was by. She STILL had no clue what I was talking about.
After about 15 minutes of back and forth confusion, the lady goes "There's an East Main Street in Danville, maybe that's where you are. People get them confused a lot."
"Of course that's where i'm at", I tell her. "You guys told me the motel was right next to the Hendricks County Fairgrounds (where the show was to be held)."
"Well, our motel is in Plainfield.", says the girl.
Needless to say, it wasn't me who was confused. It was the broken-english lady who I spoke to earlier that said the freaking motel was right next to the freakin venue. Plainfield was a good 20 minutes to the Southeast of where I was.
So Doc travels his ass even further away to the motel, pissed off the whole way there, and contemplating staying at the first motel I passed on the way. Unfortunately - as one clerk told me - there's no rooms anywhere. Besides, the Tracy Motel has good prices, right?
The landscape got progressively worse as I neared Plainfield. It went from a middle class neighborhood in Danville, to a very-rich vast of beautiful homes on spacious lots in Avon, to a scummy pile trash in my destination.
So I finally limply roll into Plainfield after dark (When I told the promoter I would be in town by 7pm) and am tired as hell. I pay for the room and they make me a keycard.
"Your room is 313. We just got keycards on all our rooms the other day. We're still learning, so if your keycard doesn't work, bring it back and we'll make you another one" the young girl behind the counter says. I parked around the back and lugged up my bags across the parking lot to the two-tiered building on the backside of the property.
Walking through this property was like walking through a courtyard in the ghetto of madness. There were drunk rednecks, drugged up hippies, drunk middle easterners, and drunk gangsters everywhere, all packed into a little space. And who do they all stare at?
Doc.
As i'm trying to ignore stares and just get into my room, feeling like a new fish on his first day of prison, a drunk redneck who is sitting in front of his room with a drunk middle easterner decides to proclaim my arrival in a breath full of vodka.
"Hey....rich GUY coming through!"
Great, I thought.
Let me go back in life a little bit. I grew up in the city, and it wasn't the greatest of circumstances.....But I learned a lot of street smarts. One of the things you want to do to stay out of trouble is not to draw attention to yourself in a scenario full of strangers. And if people think you are RICH....you are the first one they want to steal from or mug.
So basically, in city terms, drunk redneck was telling everyone who will get a mugger the biggest bounty in his opinion.
I tried to ignore this and just get to my room. I get in front of my room and swipe the card, and VOILA!!.....nothing happens.
I swipe it again. Nothing. I swipe it a few more times out of anger and the door still won't open.
Let's pause for a moment and recap: Here's Doc. Stuck in the middle of suburban ghetto hell. With a DVD player that has "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back" in it. With a freakin yellow puppet named Ducken in his gym bag, because he's too stupid to tell if his "one-dollar, friend-till-the-end" is a duck or a chicken. The puppet is gonna make him famous, ya know. And he's stranded outside a motel room in a courtyard full of the biggest mixture of unsavory individuals in white, brown, AND black trash history - with over $2000 dollars worth of goodies and cash on his person - waiting to get robbed the moment they realize he can't get into his room.
Got it so far? Good. Let's continue.
I got pissed.....I called the front desk on my cell phone and told them, "Look. your card don't work. I dragged a bunch of shit up here, and I'm not coming back down. You need to send someone over here with a new card."
After 5 minutes of pretending I wasn't locked out and was just enjoying the scenery by leaning on the balcony and scanning the area (There was a trailer park next door), The middle-eastern assistant manager came down with a new card.
"I'm so sorry", he said. He swiped the new card into the lock, and VOILA!!
Nothing happened.
He swiped a couple more times......Nothing.
"I'll be right back", he said.
"You should have stuck to key locks", I said, pissed off.
"We just got these installed two days ago, so we are not familiar with them yet. I'll be right back." He said, and took off.
As I went back to pretending I enjoyed watching trailer parks and weirdoes.....a big black young man (I'll call him Gang Star, since I like making up names for people I don't know) starting walking across the yard down below, staring at me hard as he walked.
"Sup? You can't get in?", Gang Star said.
"Yeah, the management will be here any second", I said, hopefully dashing any thoughts he may harbor about pulling out a gun and mugging me.
Five minutes later and the Assistant Manager comes back. No luck again.....he leaves AGAIN, and in another five minutes he returns.....with whole freakin keycard-making machine and a bunch of blank cards.
I realize this guy finally means business and he's not gonna let a keycard lock mess with him. He makes a new card attached to the machine, sticks it in the lock, and pushes some buttons on the machine. and....
VOILA!
The door opens up to my wonderful weekend haven!
Unfortunately, my wonderful weekend haven is occupied by a very surprised man in his boxers, laying on the bed, watching TV.
He jumps up as the door opens. "What the...?" He exclaims.
"Oh man, sorry. We thought this room was empty." Says Assistant Manager.
"Man, i just checked into this room a couple hours ago", says fruit-of-the-loom, methed-out looking redneck.
"I'm really sorry" I say, as Assistant Manager closes the door and leaves him to his meth and TV.
Assistant Manager calls the front desk and tells them the room is "full". He asks what's available. Luckily...the room next door is.
Meanwhile, Gang Star is still in the parking lot and decides to get into the act. He's yelling up at the assistant manager.
"Yo, when yo ass touches the bottom of those stairs, i'mma whoop yo ass! Dat's on da real!", Gang Star says.
I dunno what the heat is between Assistant Manager and Gang Star, but I didn't care. I just wanted out of this hellhole of a courtyard. Assistant Manager, for his part, just pretended like he didn't hear the guy.
Assistant Manager knocks on the next door first, this time. "Better to be safe than sorry again", he says. I roll my eyes and wonder how I got into this mess in the first place.
A.M. unlocks the door, and VOILA!!!
The room is not only empty, but it has TWO beds.....a microwave, AND a fridge. JACKPOT!
I finally get into my room, well after 9pm.....As soon as I put my crap down and rolled around in the bed (a Doc Young hotel tradition), I called the promoter, Rob Kincaid.
"Dude, I'm in Plainfield and this whole freakin motel is weird as hell", I told him. He scoffed at me.
"Plainfeid is not weird. It's normal." He said.
"No dude, i'm tellin you. There are drunk and drugged out people all over the place. And there are gangsters across the lot."
"Man, those are just pretenders", Says Kincaid. "They aren't weird or dangerous."
"Dude, i'm telling you....come down here and see. I don't feel comfortable here."
Kincaid laughed at me, but I insisted he come down. We had previously made plans to hold a pre-show party at my room anyway. He made a few excuses, and then later told me to call a party chat line to get girls at my room.
"All the wrestlers do it when they are in town", he said.
"Dude, I ain't calling no chat line. YOU call a chat line." I said.
So let's recap for a moment: Here's Doc. He has a room in suburban melting pot hell NEXT to an underwear-clad meth addict who had his room burst into, AND next door to trailer park; he has a one dollar, yellow puppet in his gym bag that he's too stupid to figure out if it is a duck or a chicken; he has over $2000 worth of goodies and cash on his person, a portable DVD with "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back" in it, and the promoter thinks he's a wimp who's scared of people and tells him to call a 900 number to get company.
Are we caught up? Good. Let's continue...
Kincaid wouldn't call the chat line, but said he would come down soon. He didn't. I fell asleep watching TNA on TV. (No offense, TNA. I was tired.)
SHOW DAY!
I woke up around 10am and watched Jerry Springer. They don't show it in my area no more and I thought it got cancelled. It said it was a "classic episode", so maybe it IS cancelled now. I dunno.
I stayed lazy most of the morning, took a shower, and hit the road to the venue at around 3pm Eastern.
One problem. I STILL didn't know exactly where the venue was. I went back to Danville, took East Main Street like I did when I first got there the day before, and looked around....I saw this big building where I thought it should be. If I was wrong, I would ask them just where the hell the place was.
I got there and headed toward the door and saw flyers for the show on the door and a welcome sign from the promotion. I found it! I started walking back to my car to get my stuff and Rob Kincaid came outside. We went inside and he showed me around and then we watched the hard working crew of a whole TWO PEOPLE put the ring together.
Me and Kincaid went to put up a few more flyers, buy me some black socks that I forgot to bring, and buy the WHOLE crew some McDonalds.
Kincaid was cracking me up with his no-shame approach of tearing down garage sale signs and putting his show signs in their place. He used the garage sale signs' poles as a way to hold up his signs. Me and him discussed how my radio show partner (and wrestling legend) Les Thatcher would be disgusted with him, which I'm sure to hear about from Les soon. lol. It was still funny to watch Kincaid's big ass sprinting across the road to destroy a garage sale sign.
"Damn, dude. Your big ass is really testing my shocks today", I told him.
"F%*k you", he said.
You gotta understand. My car is little. It's a freakin Pontiac Sunfire, and Rob is a lot bigger than I thought he was. At 6'4 and in the mid 200's, he took up most of the front half of the car. I never had a wrestler in this car before (I got it a month ago), and I imagine it wasn't a very comfortable ride for him. Now I know why Big Van Vader always drove Cadiliacs.
We went to McDonalds, and when we got to the pay window, there was a cute girl there. Doc had an idea.
"Gimme a flyer", I told Kincaid, as I grabbed for one anyway.
I handed it to the cute girl while I handed her the money. "Come to our show tonight.", I said.
"What is it?" She asked.
"It's a wrestling show." I said. She didn't seem very impressed.
"Wrestling?" she asked, like she DOESN"T get the USA Network or something.
"Yeah...we're gonna be on the show" I said, pulling into full flirt mode.
"Unless you are going to the stupid football game", Said Kincaid.
"Nah, i'm not in high school", she said.
"You look like it", I said. Then I realized I messed up.....you don't tell someone in their early 20's they look younger, especially a girl.
"I dunno if that's a compliment or not", I said stupidly.
I couldn't hear her answer, but I saw her shake her head no.
I had to fix this. I got my smoothest voice, and said "Ya know, I could put my phone number on the back of that flyer if you want"
She melted. Her whole body position sank into butter as she leaned on the counter, giggled, and turned bright red.
"Look at her, Rob." I said. "She's blushing like hell!"
Rob laughed and I figured I was embarrassing her by then, so we said goodbye (without the benefit of her having my number) and moved to the next window where you get your food.
"Gimme another flyer", I told Rob.
As soon as the girl tried to hand us the first sack of food, I handed her a flyer. "Come to our show tonight", I said.
"What is it?" She said (The apparently obvious question when you don't wanna look at a flyer you've just been handed while you are working at McDonalds.)
"It a wrestling show." Kincaid informed her.
She immediately went ballistic. "Oh my God, you are wrestlers?!"
"Yes", we said, even though neither one of us were wrestling in the show.
"Oh my God!", she said, clutching the flyer like she was Charlie and she just got a golden ticket in a candy bar for a free visit to a chocolate factory. "I am SOOO there!"
Before she could even give us the rest of our order, she sprinted into the restaurant, holding up the flyer like she just won the lotto, saying "I'm going to a wrestling show tonight! These guys are wrestlers!"
When we finally got her attention back, she gave us the rest of our order. Rob was unimpressed at her enthusiasm.
"She had cold sores around her mouth", Rob said.
The girl, by the way, never showed up.
When we got back into the venue, and the show time neared, it was all business. I was running around the huge venue trying to catch each wrestler and get their stats and hometown, and find out if there was anything else they wamted me to say. Then I had to get the notes together to coincide with each match and who came out first and what not. I got to about the fourth match of the card when Rob called "Doc....let's go. It's showtime."
I was sweating like a pig from running around between everyone. Rob had said that if I wanted entrance music, i could have it....so i edited an instrumental of White Stripes "Seven Nation Army" the day before. I had gotten the idea becuase IWA Mid-South used it as a theme song to a battle royal, and I thought it made a good build up music to the mayhem that a show brings, and gets fans hyped and ready. I also knew my co-host on Wrestling Weekly, Les Thatcher, would smack himslef in the forehead at the thought of a ring announcer having music.....so I had to take the opportunity....in a friendly way to tease him, of course. :)
Unfortunately, Kincaid and the sound people had a falling out when they showed up, so Kincaid had two security guards run the sound for the night who had never done it before. So when I was to come out, Kincaid says over the mic (in the backstage area still)...."Please welcome your host for the night, Doc Young!"
I waited for my music. It didn't come.
I wasn't happy, but a show is a show, and i walked out from the curtain. What surprised me was the chorus of boos I got.
So far in the show, I was the most hated man, and I didn't know why. They booed the hell out of me. I figured it out when i heard a couple people yell "Where is the OLD ring announcer?!"
Whoever was the "old" ring announcer, they loved him....and they didn't take very kindly to this brown guy in a 230 dollar suit coming in and taking the glory. I just smiled and waved and came into the ring to announce, even though I was thinking "I hate ALL you rednecks! Bite me!" I learned later that the sound guys, who were rookies, played my music, but forgot to turn the volume up from zero.
I don't think I did a bad job. It was certainly a lot better than my IWA Mid-South aapreance. After the show, the promoters had only one peice of advice, and that was that I run and check with the sound guys during the match to make sure who is coming out next and when.
My notes were good and I feel I did good without incident...except that second match.....
You see...the sound guys had never done it before, and they had a few bad habits.....one of the habits was to hit "STOP" on the CD player instead of turning the volume slowly down and THEN hitting "STOP", so the entrance themes would just abruptly cut off.
They also had a bad habit of playing the theme music while i was still announcing the next guy to come out. so on the second match, I was announcing a wrestler called Hillbilly Jed. The music started playing as soon as I said his hometown, so when I got to his name, I had to scream it at the top of my lungs so the audience would hear the name over the music. Somewhere during the 'JEEEEEEEEEEEEEEED', i heard something tear in my throat. The feeling in my throat immediately wanted to make me throw up in the middle of the ring because of the itching. I sat down and tried to drink a lot of water from my bottle at the time keeper's table.
"Oh my God", I thought. "I'mma have to quit after two matches. Who will ring announce? Would I even get paid?" I tried to do exercises with my throat to lessen the scratching sensation, but they made it worse.
Before I knew it, it was time for the next match. I went up there and everytime I tried to talk, I felt the sensation of wanting to cough until I puked. I really half-assed the announcing on the match, and told myself if I still couldn't do it right by intermission, I would bow out.
I tried to over-relax my throat, drink plenty of water, and luckily it seemed to go away by the next match.
The rest of the show went good, and I made some new friends of the wrestlers. One-time WWE hopeful Sean Casey was there and his valet Samantha caught EVERYONE'S eye. She was so beautiful! I'm sure there's a tape somewhere of me trying to ring announce with myself staring at her body during the main event.
The crowd was actually small and they pooped on a couple matches, so by the end of the night, Rob was not happy. He takes it pretty seriously, especially on a night he considers a huge disappointment in attendance. A lot of the other wrestlers weren't too happy all night, either, so I thought better of unleashing my friend Ducken to people who were in no mood to laugh.
Me and Rob and the other promoter, Skip, went back to my hotel for shenanigans after the venue was cleaned up.
Skip was almost out right when he got there.
"Oh my God, this bed is so comfortable", He said, laying on the spare bed in my room. I had to agree. This motel had NICE rooms, but the rates were so cheap, it brought a bunch of weirdoes and criminals who paid for rooms by the week. They had a special rate for long term guests, so I guess a lot of poeple actually LIVED there.
Me and Rob sat up and talked about what went right and wrong with the show and tossed around obligatory post-show ideas while I drank beer after beer.
By 4:30am, I was very tipsy and started saying stupid stuff. I had a craving for eggs, and since I couldn't drive, he tried to convince Skip to wake up and take us to Dennys.
At first, Rob tried to tell Skip we were going to IHOP (maybe Skip hates Denny's?). Then I told him I would pay for anything under 7 bucks....it wasn't working. Skip wanted sleep.
Then, since Skip (who had won the FEW heavyweight title that night) was rejecting our food offer, was half asleep, and because we were mad we weren't getting breakfast, we started messing with him.
Rob starting rocking his bed while I was saying in a falsetto voice "Oh. yeah, Skip, give it to me! Show me who the REAL FEW champion is! Oh yeah, baby!"
It didn't work and we gave up. We decided to go to sleep, and just as we were out, the freakin motel fire alarm went off.
I went outside to look and nobody was stirring. Then five minutes later, I saw A.M. come down to our building, open a box on the wall, and push a button. The alarm stopped and he went back to his office.
Way to check and see if there's really a fire, A.M. I feel REAL safe sleeping in YOUR motel.
About five hours later, at 10am, we were awakened by singing and guitar. I thought I had left the TV on CMT or something, but lo and behold, it was on mute. We slowly came to the realization that this was LIVE music. We all groggily looked at each other and said in unison, "What the F*$k is that?"
We kept trying to go back to sleep when this "concert" stopped, but 10 minutes later, it would start up again. Skip went outside to get something out of the car, and he comes back and goes "There's a freakin hippie in the other room sitting on the floor indian style, playing a guitar and singing!"
"How do you know?" I asked.
"Cause his door is wide open!"
Rob finally chimed in. "Dude," he said to me. "When you told me Thursday that this place was full of weirdoes, I thought you were exaggerating or being stupid, but now I believe you." Skip had to agree.
We spent the morning talking in between serenades from "Naked Cowboy", as Rob named the guy. After only 5 hours of sleep, and rude awakenings all night, we weren't making a whole lot of sense. Here's an example of the deep thinking session we had:
DOC: You know what you guys should do? You should book a card full of punny names, like Bulk Hogan and Ding Dong Bundy, and Bandre the Giant, and see how many people show up thinking an all-star lineup came to their town.
ROB: That's a good idea.
DOC: Dude, I'm kidding!
SKIP: Yeah, we can have Sex-Pac headline.
*Every laughs*
Needless to say, we were tired still. I decided I didn't wanna stay any longer and went home after 4pm. Next time it's Super 8 for the Doc, count on that.
Ducken will have to wait for another time to make his wrestling debut.
Not a bad weekend, overall. How was yours?
First off, my genius ass decided to wait until Thursday morning to try to get a hotel for the weekend. Almost every freaking hotel in the Indianapolis area was booked full. One of the guys told me there was a car show on the westside that weekend, and that's why everyone was full. Great.
I finally found a motel I won't name by name as to not ruin their business (you'll see why later). We'll call it the Tracy Motel. The middle eastern lady said in broken english that they had two rooms left, and that they were 5 minutes from the venue in Danville on East Main Street. Plus, the room prices were a steal!! With my luck shining, I reserved a one bed room until Sunday Morning. The reason for this is because even though I would be leaving Saturday, I don't like being told when to check-out. I'll check out when I damn well feel like it, and I planned on sleeping off a big hangover from the huge party I would get together at the show. So if I wanna go home at 7pm on a Saturday, I will.
A few hours later, I drove the distance out to the venue. Armed with my portable DVD player blasting "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back", the trip up wasn't too bad. The only problem is, BLASTING the player at full volume enabled me to barely make out what people were saying amidst the roar of the car and the full-blast AC. So I stopped at a Dollar Store on the way and picked up a pair of lightweight headphones.
Now, I know it's not kosher (actually illegal) to drive with a pair of headphones on, but keep in mind that even with headphones and the volume on the DVD player all the way up, I could still clearly hear every sound around me, including other cars on the road. And I picked "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back" because I have seen it 10 million times and wouldn't have to look at the screen and risk crashing and dying, because I knew everything that happens in the movie.
It was at that Dollar General that I met my new best friend.
I was in line to buy the headphones, and these two old ladies were in line in front of me, taking forever to do the simpliest tasks like getting their products on the counter and paying for their shit. While I was sitting there, and the old ladies oblivious to me tapping my foot and rolling my eyes, one lady picked up this hand puppet that was sitting on the counter.
"Oh, what a cute puppet!" She said.
The kid behind the counter seemed to feel bad for it. "Yeah, I told everyone here that I would sell it before the end of my shift. I've been trying to sell it all day, but no one wants to buy it."
Me being a sucker for a hard luck story, I picked up the puppet and looked at it when the grandmas left. It looked at me with a sadness in his face. His yellow, big headed ass seemed to say in a silent, but obvious tone, "Buy me, Doc. I will be your friend till the end."
My soft heart melted. I turned him over to see how much it would cost me to have a friend till the end....
ONE DOLLAR!
Sold!
"Now you can tell your friends you sold it." I smiled at the kid.
There's only one problem. I can't tell if it's a duck or a chicken. So I named him Ducken. And I swore Ducken would make an appearance (at least in the locker room) at the FEW show. I mean, think about it: what a great gimmick! How many ring announcers share duties with a duck/chicken puppet? Ducken would make me famous. (I'll post a pic of Ducken tommorrow)
So let's recap for a moment: Here's Doc, rolling down the Indiana highway with a pair of headphones on, looking out for cops, listening to a movie, and the thing that's gonna make him famous is a yellow puppet that's laying on the passenger seat, lifeless without a hand up his ass to guide his movements.
Got it so far? Good. Let's continue.
So I finally get to the venue as it's getting dark. Well, at least I was on the same street. I couldn't find the freakin venue! East Main Street was a long street with many fields and a few businesses here and there. aren't "Main Streets" supposed to have life on them? Apparently, not EAST Main Streets.....
No worries (as Samoa Joe always says to me), I will find the venue later, I thought. I need to find the motel first anyway. Only problem was, I couldn't find the MOTEL either!
I went the full length of East Main Street - end to end - 3 times, and couldn't find neither the venue nor the Motel. Finally, I got pissed and called the motel. Someone who spoke good english finally answered, thank God. I tried to tell her where I was. She had no clue what I was talking about. I told her what businesses I was by. She STILL had no clue what I was talking about.
After about 15 minutes of back and forth confusion, the lady goes "There's an East Main Street in Danville, maybe that's where you are. People get them confused a lot."
"Of course that's where i'm at", I tell her. "You guys told me the motel was right next to the Hendricks County Fairgrounds (where the show was to be held)."
"Well, our motel is in Plainfield.", says the girl.
Needless to say, it wasn't me who was confused. It was the broken-english lady who I spoke to earlier that said the freaking motel was right next to the freakin venue. Plainfield was a good 20 minutes to the Southeast of where I was.
So Doc travels his ass even further away to the motel, pissed off the whole way there, and contemplating staying at the first motel I passed on the way. Unfortunately - as one clerk told me - there's no rooms anywhere. Besides, the Tracy Motel has good prices, right?
The landscape got progressively worse as I neared Plainfield. It went from a middle class neighborhood in Danville, to a very-rich vast of beautiful homes on spacious lots in Avon, to a scummy pile trash in my destination.
So I finally limply roll into Plainfield after dark (When I told the promoter I would be in town by 7pm) and am tired as hell. I pay for the room and they make me a keycard.
"Your room is 313. We just got keycards on all our rooms the other day. We're still learning, so if your keycard doesn't work, bring it back and we'll make you another one" the young girl behind the counter says. I parked around the back and lugged up my bags across the parking lot to the two-tiered building on the backside of the property.
Walking through this property was like walking through a courtyard in the ghetto of madness. There were drunk rednecks, drugged up hippies, drunk middle easterners, and drunk gangsters everywhere, all packed into a little space. And who do they all stare at?
Doc.
As i'm trying to ignore stares and just get into my room, feeling like a new fish on his first day of prison, a drunk redneck who is sitting in front of his room with a drunk middle easterner decides to proclaim my arrival in a breath full of vodka.
"Hey....rich GUY coming through!"
Great, I thought.
Let me go back in life a little bit. I grew up in the city, and it wasn't the greatest of circumstances.....But I learned a lot of street smarts. One of the things you want to do to stay out of trouble is not to draw attention to yourself in a scenario full of strangers. And if people think you are RICH....you are the first one they want to steal from or mug.
So basically, in city terms, drunk redneck was telling everyone who will get a mugger the biggest bounty in his opinion.
I tried to ignore this and just get to my room. I get in front of my room and swipe the card, and VOILA!!.....nothing happens.
I swipe it again. Nothing. I swipe it a few more times out of anger and the door still won't open.
Let's pause for a moment and recap: Here's Doc. Stuck in the middle of suburban ghetto hell. With a DVD player that has "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back" in it. With a freakin yellow puppet named Ducken in his gym bag, because he's too stupid to tell if his "one-dollar, friend-till-the-end" is a duck or a chicken. The puppet is gonna make him famous, ya know. And he's stranded outside a motel room in a courtyard full of the biggest mixture of unsavory individuals in white, brown, AND black trash history - with over $2000 dollars worth of goodies and cash on his person - waiting to get robbed the moment they realize he can't get into his room.
Got it so far? Good. Let's continue.
I got pissed.....I called the front desk on my cell phone and told them, "Look. your card don't work. I dragged a bunch of shit up here, and I'm not coming back down. You need to send someone over here with a new card."
After 5 minutes of pretending I wasn't locked out and was just enjoying the scenery by leaning on the balcony and scanning the area (There was a trailer park next door), The middle-eastern assistant manager came down with a new card.
"I'm so sorry", he said. He swiped the new card into the lock, and VOILA!!
Nothing happened.
He swiped a couple more times......Nothing.
"I'll be right back", he said.
"You should have stuck to key locks", I said, pissed off.
"We just got these installed two days ago, so we are not familiar with them yet. I'll be right back." He said, and took off.
As I went back to pretending I enjoyed watching trailer parks and weirdoes.....a big black young man (I'll call him Gang Star, since I like making up names for people I don't know) starting walking across the yard down below, staring at me hard as he walked.
"Sup? You can't get in?", Gang Star said.
"Yeah, the management will be here any second", I said, hopefully dashing any thoughts he may harbor about pulling out a gun and mugging me.
Five minutes later and the Assistant Manager comes back. No luck again.....he leaves AGAIN, and in another five minutes he returns.....with whole freakin keycard-making machine and a bunch of blank cards.
I realize this guy finally means business and he's not gonna let a keycard lock mess with him. He makes a new card attached to the machine, sticks it in the lock, and pushes some buttons on the machine. and....
VOILA!
The door opens up to my wonderful weekend haven!
Unfortunately, my wonderful weekend haven is occupied by a very surprised man in his boxers, laying on the bed, watching TV.
He jumps up as the door opens. "What the...?" He exclaims.
"Oh man, sorry. We thought this room was empty." Says Assistant Manager.
"Man, i just checked into this room a couple hours ago", says fruit-of-the-loom, methed-out looking redneck.
"I'm really sorry" I say, as Assistant Manager closes the door and leaves him to his meth and TV.
Assistant Manager calls the front desk and tells them the room is "full". He asks what's available. Luckily...the room next door is.
Meanwhile, Gang Star is still in the parking lot and decides to get into the act. He's yelling up at the assistant manager.
"Yo, when yo ass touches the bottom of those stairs, i'mma whoop yo ass! Dat's on da real!", Gang Star says.
I dunno what the heat is between Assistant Manager and Gang Star, but I didn't care. I just wanted out of this hellhole of a courtyard. Assistant Manager, for his part, just pretended like he didn't hear the guy.
Assistant Manager knocks on the next door first, this time. "Better to be safe than sorry again", he says. I roll my eyes and wonder how I got into this mess in the first place.
A.M. unlocks the door, and VOILA!!!
The room is not only empty, but it has TWO beds.....a microwave, AND a fridge. JACKPOT!
I finally get into my room, well after 9pm.....As soon as I put my crap down and rolled around in the bed (a Doc Young hotel tradition), I called the promoter, Rob Kincaid.
"Dude, I'm in Plainfield and this whole freakin motel is weird as hell", I told him. He scoffed at me.
"Plainfeid is not weird. It's normal." He said.
"No dude, i'm tellin you. There are drunk and drugged out people all over the place. And there are gangsters across the lot."
"Man, those are just pretenders", Says Kincaid. "They aren't weird or dangerous."
"Dude, i'm telling you....come down here and see. I don't feel comfortable here."
Kincaid laughed at me, but I insisted he come down. We had previously made plans to hold a pre-show party at my room anyway. He made a few excuses, and then later told me to call a party chat line to get girls at my room.
"All the wrestlers do it when they are in town", he said.
"Dude, I ain't calling no chat line. YOU call a chat line." I said.
So let's recap for a moment: Here's Doc. He has a room in suburban melting pot hell NEXT to an underwear-clad meth addict who had his room burst into, AND next door to trailer park; he has a one dollar, yellow puppet in his gym bag that he's too stupid to figure out if it is a duck or a chicken; he has over $2000 worth of goodies and cash on his person, a portable DVD with "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back" in it, and the promoter thinks he's a wimp who's scared of people and tells him to call a 900 number to get company.
Are we caught up? Good. Let's continue...
Kincaid wouldn't call the chat line, but said he would come down soon. He didn't. I fell asleep watching TNA on TV. (No offense, TNA. I was tired.)
SHOW DAY!
I woke up around 10am and watched Jerry Springer. They don't show it in my area no more and I thought it got cancelled. It said it was a "classic episode", so maybe it IS cancelled now. I dunno.
I stayed lazy most of the morning, took a shower, and hit the road to the venue at around 3pm Eastern.
One problem. I STILL didn't know exactly where the venue was. I went back to Danville, took East Main Street like I did when I first got there the day before, and looked around....I saw this big building where I thought it should be. If I was wrong, I would ask them just where the hell the place was.
I got there and headed toward the door and saw flyers for the show on the door and a welcome sign from the promotion. I found it! I started walking back to my car to get my stuff and Rob Kincaid came outside. We went inside and he showed me around and then we watched the hard working crew of a whole TWO PEOPLE put the ring together.
Me and Kincaid went to put up a few more flyers, buy me some black socks that I forgot to bring, and buy the WHOLE crew some McDonalds.
Kincaid was cracking me up with his no-shame approach of tearing down garage sale signs and putting his show signs in their place. He used the garage sale signs' poles as a way to hold up his signs. Me and him discussed how my radio show partner (and wrestling legend) Les Thatcher would be disgusted with him, which I'm sure to hear about from Les soon. lol. It was still funny to watch Kincaid's big ass sprinting across the road to destroy a garage sale sign.
"Damn, dude. Your big ass is really testing my shocks today", I told him.
"F%*k you", he said.
You gotta understand. My car is little. It's a freakin Pontiac Sunfire, and Rob is a lot bigger than I thought he was. At 6'4 and in the mid 200's, he took up most of the front half of the car. I never had a wrestler in this car before (I got it a month ago), and I imagine it wasn't a very comfortable ride for him. Now I know why Big Van Vader always drove Cadiliacs.
We went to McDonalds, and when we got to the pay window, there was a cute girl there. Doc had an idea.
"Gimme a flyer", I told Kincaid, as I grabbed for one anyway.
I handed it to the cute girl while I handed her the money. "Come to our show tonight.", I said.
"What is it?" She asked.
"It's a wrestling show." I said. She didn't seem very impressed.
"Wrestling?" she asked, like she DOESN"T get the USA Network or something.
"Yeah...we're gonna be on the show" I said, pulling into full flirt mode.
"Unless you are going to the stupid football game", Said Kincaid.
"Nah, i'm not in high school", she said.
"You look like it", I said. Then I realized I messed up.....you don't tell someone in their early 20's they look younger, especially a girl.
"I dunno if that's a compliment or not", I said stupidly.
I couldn't hear her answer, but I saw her shake her head no.
I had to fix this. I got my smoothest voice, and said "Ya know, I could put my phone number on the back of that flyer if you want"
She melted. Her whole body position sank into butter as she leaned on the counter, giggled, and turned bright red.
"Look at her, Rob." I said. "She's blushing like hell!"
Rob laughed and I figured I was embarrassing her by then, so we said goodbye (without the benefit of her having my number) and moved to the next window where you get your food.
"Gimme another flyer", I told Rob.
As soon as the girl tried to hand us the first sack of food, I handed her a flyer. "Come to our show tonight", I said.
"What is it?" She said (The apparently obvious question when you don't wanna look at a flyer you've just been handed while you are working at McDonalds.)
"It a wrestling show." Kincaid informed her.
She immediately went ballistic. "Oh my God, you are wrestlers?!"
"Yes", we said, even though neither one of us were wrestling in the show.
"Oh my God!", she said, clutching the flyer like she was Charlie and she just got a golden ticket in a candy bar for a free visit to a chocolate factory. "I am SOOO there!"
Before she could even give us the rest of our order, she sprinted into the restaurant, holding up the flyer like she just won the lotto, saying "I'm going to a wrestling show tonight! These guys are wrestlers!"
When we finally got her attention back, she gave us the rest of our order. Rob was unimpressed at her enthusiasm.
"She had cold sores around her mouth", Rob said.
The girl, by the way, never showed up.
When we got back into the venue, and the show time neared, it was all business. I was running around the huge venue trying to catch each wrestler and get their stats and hometown, and find out if there was anything else they wamted me to say. Then I had to get the notes together to coincide with each match and who came out first and what not. I got to about the fourth match of the card when Rob called "Doc....let's go. It's showtime."
I was sweating like a pig from running around between everyone. Rob had said that if I wanted entrance music, i could have it....so i edited an instrumental of White Stripes "Seven Nation Army" the day before. I had gotten the idea becuase IWA Mid-South used it as a theme song to a battle royal, and I thought it made a good build up music to the mayhem that a show brings, and gets fans hyped and ready. I also knew my co-host on Wrestling Weekly, Les Thatcher, would smack himslef in the forehead at the thought of a ring announcer having music.....so I had to take the opportunity....in a friendly way to tease him, of course. :)
Unfortunately, Kincaid and the sound people had a falling out when they showed up, so Kincaid had two security guards run the sound for the night who had never done it before. So when I was to come out, Kincaid says over the mic (in the backstage area still)...."Please welcome your host for the night, Doc Young!"
I waited for my music. It didn't come.
I wasn't happy, but a show is a show, and i walked out from the curtain. What surprised me was the chorus of boos I got.
So far in the show, I was the most hated man, and I didn't know why. They booed the hell out of me. I figured it out when i heard a couple people yell "Where is the OLD ring announcer?!"
Whoever was the "old" ring announcer, they loved him....and they didn't take very kindly to this brown guy in a 230 dollar suit coming in and taking the glory. I just smiled and waved and came into the ring to announce, even though I was thinking "I hate ALL you rednecks! Bite me!" I learned later that the sound guys, who were rookies, played my music, but forgot to turn the volume up from zero.
I don't think I did a bad job. It was certainly a lot better than my IWA Mid-South aapreance. After the show, the promoters had only one peice of advice, and that was that I run and check with the sound guys during the match to make sure who is coming out next and when.
My notes were good and I feel I did good without incident...except that second match.....
You see...the sound guys had never done it before, and they had a few bad habits.....one of the habits was to hit "STOP" on the CD player instead of turning the volume slowly down and THEN hitting "STOP", so the entrance themes would just abruptly cut off.
They also had a bad habit of playing the theme music while i was still announcing the next guy to come out. so on the second match, I was announcing a wrestler called Hillbilly Jed. The music started playing as soon as I said his hometown, so when I got to his name, I had to scream it at the top of my lungs so the audience would hear the name over the music. Somewhere during the 'JEEEEEEEEEEEEEEED', i heard something tear in my throat. The feeling in my throat immediately wanted to make me throw up in the middle of the ring because of the itching. I sat down and tried to drink a lot of water from my bottle at the time keeper's table.
"Oh my God", I thought. "I'mma have to quit after two matches. Who will ring announce? Would I even get paid?" I tried to do exercises with my throat to lessen the scratching sensation, but they made it worse.
Before I knew it, it was time for the next match. I went up there and everytime I tried to talk, I felt the sensation of wanting to cough until I puked. I really half-assed the announcing on the match, and told myself if I still couldn't do it right by intermission, I would bow out.
I tried to over-relax my throat, drink plenty of water, and luckily it seemed to go away by the next match.
The rest of the show went good, and I made some new friends of the wrestlers. One-time WWE hopeful Sean Casey was there and his valet Samantha caught EVERYONE'S eye. She was so beautiful! I'm sure there's a tape somewhere of me trying to ring announce with myself staring at her body during the main event.
The crowd was actually small and they pooped on a couple matches, so by the end of the night, Rob was not happy. He takes it pretty seriously, especially on a night he considers a huge disappointment in attendance. A lot of the other wrestlers weren't too happy all night, either, so I thought better of unleashing my friend Ducken to people who were in no mood to laugh.
Me and Rob and the other promoter, Skip, went back to my hotel for shenanigans after the venue was cleaned up.
Skip was almost out right when he got there.
"Oh my God, this bed is so comfortable", He said, laying on the spare bed in my room. I had to agree. This motel had NICE rooms, but the rates were so cheap, it brought a bunch of weirdoes and criminals who paid for rooms by the week. They had a special rate for long term guests, so I guess a lot of poeple actually LIVED there.
Me and Rob sat up and talked about what went right and wrong with the show and tossed around obligatory post-show ideas while I drank beer after beer.
By 4:30am, I was very tipsy and started saying stupid stuff. I had a craving for eggs, and since I couldn't drive, he tried to convince Skip to wake up and take us to Dennys.
At first, Rob tried to tell Skip we were going to IHOP (maybe Skip hates Denny's?). Then I told him I would pay for anything under 7 bucks....it wasn't working. Skip wanted sleep.
Then, since Skip (who had won the FEW heavyweight title that night) was rejecting our food offer, was half asleep, and because we were mad we weren't getting breakfast, we started messing with him.
Rob starting rocking his bed while I was saying in a falsetto voice "Oh. yeah, Skip, give it to me! Show me who the REAL FEW champion is! Oh yeah, baby!"
It didn't work and we gave up. We decided to go to sleep, and just as we were out, the freakin motel fire alarm went off.
I went outside to look and nobody was stirring. Then five minutes later, I saw A.M. come down to our building, open a box on the wall, and push a button. The alarm stopped and he went back to his office.
Way to check and see if there's really a fire, A.M. I feel REAL safe sleeping in YOUR motel.
About five hours later, at 10am, we were awakened by singing and guitar. I thought I had left the TV on CMT or something, but lo and behold, it was on mute. We slowly came to the realization that this was LIVE music. We all groggily looked at each other and said in unison, "What the F*$k is that?"
We kept trying to go back to sleep when this "concert" stopped, but 10 minutes later, it would start up again. Skip went outside to get something out of the car, and he comes back and goes "There's a freakin hippie in the other room sitting on the floor indian style, playing a guitar and singing!"
"How do you know?" I asked.
"Cause his door is wide open!"
Rob finally chimed in. "Dude," he said to me. "When you told me Thursday that this place was full of weirdoes, I thought you were exaggerating or being stupid, but now I believe you." Skip had to agree.
We spent the morning talking in between serenades from "Naked Cowboy", as Rob named the guy. After only 5 hours of sleep, and rude awakenings all night, we weren't making a whole lot of sense. Here's an example of the deep thinking session we had:
DOC: You know what you guys should do? You should book a card full of punny names, like Bulk Hogan and Ding Dong Bundy, and Bandre the Giant, and see how many people show up thinking an all-star lineup came to their town.
ROB: That's a good idea.
DOC: Dude, I'm kidding!
SKIP: Yeah, we can have Sex-Pac headline.
*Every laughs*
Needless to say, we were tired still. I decided I didn't wanna stay any longer and went home after 4pm. Next time it's Super 8 for the Doc, count on that.
Ducken will have to wait for another time to make his wrestling debut.
Not a bad weekend, overall. How was yours?