Matty's Ballgame

Okay, surprisingly and entirely undeserved, many of you have asked what I’ve been up to since leaving my last gig. If you just want to skip my indulgent recap below and get to the real blog post please follow this LINK

Okay, some highlights from my 2012 thus far:

–  I bought a fish. Named ‘em Peter. Not a great 2012 for Peter.

– Foiled a grift.

– Came into a not insignificantly-sized cash windfall. Double downed. Pulled a minor Rain Man.

– Shot my first commercial. For a New York tri-state HMO. Fittingly it runs as one of those annoying ads before films.

– Politely turned down an exciting opportunity to help pilot a media criticism-based television/satellite radio show currently in development by a former fan of my last gig, the brain-child of a tremendously talented producer.

Do keep an eye out for it.

– Lost my bar. More devastatingly, lost my bartender: a Latvian neck that couldn’t quit, quiet eyes and a smile that demanded immediate reprioritization of your weekend if not next six months.

Thankfully things didn’t end on much of a sour note. It was more miscommunication than anything else — obviously from my end.

We weren’t together long enough to have Paris but she’s the type of woman you wouldn’t mind dancing or even tripping her way back into your biography.

– Talked Dorothy Parker, Neil Gaiman, and cult films with the bassist of a popular Welsh rock band, post-gig, well into the morning. We promised to pen-pal when she returned home.

– Became a finalist to appear and compete on a Swedish reality TV show. So … there’s that.

– Spent my sixth consecutive Valentine’s Day alone. Well, not alone, but rather in the familiar embrace of the bottom of a bottle, interred in a torn vinyl booth in a crypt of a bar buried deep beneath Chicago’s downtown.

That’s not really true. I’ve just never met a good sentence I couldn’t destroy with purple prose.

In reality I spent Valentine’s in great company along the rail of my second favorite new bar, Maxim’s, commiserating with my dear friends Keith, Keith of the infectious belly laugh, and Reggie, the only black man I know that genuinely enjoys Aerosmith.

However I did get a Valentine’s kiss from a 40 year-old Korean cougar. You haven’t lived until you’ve heard “You are soooo cute” in broken Korean English. I once dated a Korean American Princess. I told her how devastated I was when I lost access to her mother’s Kim Chi.

Two days later, same bar: “Matt, Korean broad left something for you.”

I was forced to leave the bar because of the smell when I opened the tupperware but I was more than happy to devour its contents on the stoop. You can do a lot worse than a belated Kim Chi Valentine.

– Oh, yeah, found a new bar. Great bar. Cole’s, 2338 N. Milwaukee Ave; Milwaukee and practically Belden. Stop by, six-ish works (just lemme know: mattyballgame on the Twitter), we can talk about most anything but the darn cinema. No, that’s not true, I need someone to talk about the darn cinema with.

– Oh, I gave up swearing.

– Learned running an explicit and revealing blog is kind of an impediment when you’re trying to meet women and your face is the first to appear when you Google “Matty Ballgame or Matty Robinson.” Apparently people still use Google as a verb. Can we not continue to live in some small cloud of mystery people?

– Began to steel myself for June when I lose one of my dearest friends to geography. We both went through a lot this year, I don’t know if I’ll ever find a better salve than a couple of porch beers in the gloaming, endless dueling insults and a round or two of something called Call of Duty: Black Ops. Sh**, I love that guy.

– Began to steel myself for a possible ugly divorce from an eight year affair with a Lake.

I don’t know what Carl Sandburg had to say about Burbank.

Exeunt, chased by a bear.

– Learned from the same producer that an actor I interviewed on my last gig listed my interview as the best he had ever done.

– Met a Childhood Hero. See post below.

– Wore through a pair of the greatest invention known to man: House Socks.

– Lost 20 pounds in a myriad of unintentional and intentional ways.

– Made a great new friend when I finally mustered the courage to talk to the attractive woman who shares my bus stop.

“No violin case today?”

Seriously guys. ASK QUESTIONS. That’s all you need to do. She appreciates it. You’re interested. She might be interested. Find out why.

I wasn’t looking for anything else other than friendship; my mind still lingered over the Baltic (sigh, she had curves that confirmed the existence of a benevolent and giving God).

Plus I couldn’t afford to lose my bus too.

– Most importantly I was reminded that if I find myself at the entrance to an exclusive, eternally rewarding club and I’m asked why I deserve admittance, I’ll answer without hesitation:

“Sir, Madam, I spent my life defining my worth by the company I kept.”

“You’re in.”

–  Not a bad start.

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Mother would like me to add a disclaimer to every blog post. These reflections ARE fictionalized. In fact, the entry  you are about to read is actually complete fiction.

In This Corner …

Last weekend I managed to shorten the Bucket List I created when I was nine-years-old by one.

The scratch registered only #12 on the list: well behind my number #1: “touch a boob*” but it was still a biggie.

I was given the once unthinkable opportunity to arm-wrestle my childhood hero: a professional wrestler now reduced to autographing appearances in shopping mall food-courts. It cost me a measly twelve dollars to stand in line for the chance. I would have paid fifty.

I stood in line alongside 30-odd kids at best (pun completely intended) in the middle of a subfuse shopping center in one of Chicago’s nondescript outer suburbs. The queue ran from the east end of the lower-level Sbarro to the far edge of J.C. Penny.

Despite the fact most of my fellow attendees looked no more than age 14, I silently mocked them, ruthlessly, undeservedly for their ignorance. It wasn’t their fault, I know. They were simply too young, too young to appreciate the privilege awaiting them at the end of an unassuming dais, dais perched on risers borrowed from the “Dotty Mac and Farm Friends” stage plopped strategically next to Baby Gap.

No, to these kids my hero was just another of the handful of hulking, balding men, wrestling days long behind them, sitting in a row of  folding chairs (yes, for those in the know, apropos) underneath a drooping yellow banner that announced “Legends of the Ring.”

These kids never had the honor of witnessing the breath-taking exploits of these Masters of the Universe in their prime when they plied their trade in front of thousands; in arenas packed to the rafters; to millions glued to their televisions at home, hanging on their every move, gasping at the effortless grandeur of their ballet of death.

These were proud men, now shells of the magnificent Titan-defying Gods they once were.

And they once were Gods. Vengeful Gods. Old Testament style.

They were Yaweh in tights.

And my hero stood head and shoulders above them all. He was the golden calf a young “Matthew” venerated every Saturday morning.

The routine went unbroken for years: promptly at 11:00 A.M. after Smurfs I turned to channel 9 to watch the greatest hour-long program television has ever known: “Wide World of Wrestling’s Weekly Weekend Showcase.”

I cleared our downstairs coffee table in front of the television to the side of the room. I called for my best friend and wrestling manager Slapshot, our wire-haired dachshund; he took his post and sat attentively in the corner of the “ring” (adequately played by our downstairs rug).

My Spiderman pajamas were quickly cast aside and I squeezed into my custom-fitted Zubaz. I slipped on my dad’s tuxedo bow-tie and began circling the rug like a Chippendale’s dancer mid-strip.

With one eye locked on the TV, I began to imitate my hero’s unmistakable cocksure strut. Just like him, I stared down imaginary opponents (an unlucky combination of GI Joe’s, those homely Cabbage Patch Dolls stolen from my sister’s closet — sometimes even my sister) all unknowing lambs brought to the slaughter.

Suddenly my theme music would begin to play: sometimes Hammer, sometimes Wilson Phillips, most often Nelson. Then I yelled in time with the television’s “Ding, Ding, Ding” announcing the start of the first match.

I rushed forward onto the carpet, scraping bloody knees across the floor, dodging an open palm slap, delivering quick kicks to the chest, maybe a forearm to the midsection. Commentator Jessie “The Body” Ventura roared with approval as I climbed outside of the ring to smash my opponents over the back with the ubiquitous folding chair! (In reality there was no folding chair, this particular move was mimed, commissioner’s orders).

Then, just as my opponent began to retaliate and possibly gain the upper-hand, Team Robinson’s strategy began to fall into place:

Slapper’s job was to berate an incompetent referee (poor Paddington Bear) in order to distract him long enough so I could sinisterly introduce a “foreign object” into the match – usually a pink Sharpie-branded eraser that I used to wound my opponent.

Perhaps I landed a sharp jab to my opponent’s eyes or maybe a crowbar across the knee (crowbar = mimed). Finally, the unknowing referee would turn to see me draped over my dazed opponent and pound the mat three times with his palm.

It was the slap of victory.

I didn’t need to cheat every time … but I did win every match. Each contest was won in grand style: Big John Stud was no match for my flying elbow off “the ropes” (the armrests of my parent’s late 60’s putrid-orange corduroy couch). Rowdy Roddy was no match for my violent close-lines across the chest.

And no less than the Great Hulk Hogan himself could possibly escape my hero’s patented move – replicated to near perfection – the devastating, debilitating “Sleeper Hold.” I would laugh diabolically as I dragged my prey to the middle of the ring, sling my arm around his neck and squeeze my biceps until I fully restricted the flow of blood to my hapless victim’s brain. The poor man would flail helplessly until he fell unconscious to the floor.

Once the move was applied, escape was futile. No one escaped The Sleeper.

It was a move so perilous my sister once chipped a tooth … which lead to a suspension from the ring on orders of the commissioner including a denial of access to my “Star Wars Guys” for a good month.

As you can tell, my hero was a villain, a “heel” in the parlance of the ring. His was a character created solely to be despised, created solely to draw the ire of millions.

And I loved him for it.

I’ve always loved the Iago much more than any hero.

The villain is so much harder to play, so much more rewarding, so much more fun.

And here was my hero now, once an esteemed, laureled gladiator sitting in the gosh-darned (I’ve been told to watch my language on this blog … yes, by order of the commissioner) platitudinous confines of something called the Gurnee Hills Mall, a Suburban morass of Honda Odesseys, Land’s End strollers, a darn Chili’s in the darn parking lot.

Such magnificent an actor, showman, athlete, should never be reduced to such a fate. Here was a champion slumming it with mere mortals. One should never be drummed out of Valhalla to the sounds of muzaked Hall & Oates.

As the line drew closer to his table, I rehearsed what I would say:

Do I tell him about the BETA cassette tape my dad recorded for me as a child? The tape of his biggest match, a tape I watched over and over, watched so many times until the on-screen action became indecipherable.

Do I dare admit the genuine anguish I felt as my hero’s “tag-team” lost their title under the spotlights of the grandest stage of them all, none other than Madison Square Garden itself? About the agony I felt at the match’s end when the announcer, the legendary Gorilla Monsoon, exclaimed in a far too enthusiastic tone, “It’s over! It’s over!”?

Do I tell him that the only shred of relief I clung to watching that worn tape was the fact that my hero wasn’t the man pinned to the canvass, the one given the three-count? Or about the life-long animosity I held for his partner who allowed himself to walk into a flying body slam and a (far too quick) three-count resulting in the loss of their Tag Team Championship Title and its accompanying glorious, nay, PULCHRITUDINOUS gold-plated belts.

Oh, the helplessness I felt as my hero’s title was forfeited to a pair of non-descript, milquetoast “Good Guys”; Generic Good Guys outfitted in red, white and blue tights (really?), a duo of baby-faced newcomers the Wrestling League was eager to promote.

No, I didn’t need to tell him. He’d heard it all before. He already knew.

Finally I reached my hero’s makeshift desk. I was a nervous wreck.

I can stand in the wings of a theater about to perform a 20 minute monologue in iambic verse and not require the aid of more than two Clonopins and vodka sodas.

I was achieving a goal that seemed so impossible far too many years ago and now seemed far too easily within reach.

I was about to shake hands with a man, whom, along with my father and “King of the Hill’s” Hank Hill, completed the Trinity of men whose respect I value most. I learned knees do in fact jelly.

But truthfully in that initial moment, I wasn’t there, standing ten feet from the combination KFC/Taco Bell. Of course not, I was perched on the ropes of a stained couch, I circled a worn knock-off Persian rug, my pal Slapper, gone for more than 17 now sat right there in my corner …

Standing there, I marveled at my hero, marveled at how much larger he appeared in person, unconstrained by the limits of our 18″ inch Zenith television. Sitting there, dwarfing the table, his presence as commanding and larger-than-life as ever.

Sure, he no longer sported his signature jet black mullet; his muscles didn’t threaten to bust out of his shirt; he was actually wearing a shirt. But little else had changed. He still wore that devious smirk, the same smirk he wore when he raised his arm to the spotlights hanging above the ring, gleefully inviting a cacophony of boos to rain down on him. The crowd booed futilely because they knew what was coming next, they knew all too well their precious “Good Guy” was done for.

No one escaped The Sleeper.

Now my hero’s smirk gave way to a smile. Sizing me up, he quickly realized he had a true fan on his hands.

He knew his demographic. He knew I wasn’t one of these young punks in love with what passes for today’s wrestling: a glorified pyrotechnic light show offering plotlines callouslly crossing every racial and mysonygnistic line. A multimillion enterprise of excess, a depraved product built on graphic violence, the worst of the worst of what passes for modern bread and circuses.

Maybe I’m guilty of looking back through a scrim of rose-colored nostalgia. But the artform I knew, the one that played after Smurfs, offered a whimsical, self-depracating, considerately configured theatricality complete with a knock-off cartoon show. It wasn’t Chaucer, but it was a heckuva young adult beach read.

My hero could identify the kids that grew up with his action figure. Our hairlines and Violent Femmes t-shirts gave us away.

He asked politely what I was up to, what I did for a living.

His voice hadn’t changed either. He spoke with that same guttural mix of spit and sweat-stained acrimony.

And, well, he seemed genuinely interested.

I told him far too gleefully (oh God Matty, gameface, gameface) that I was a film critic on the radio.

(Seriously Matty? On the radio? It just sounded awkward. “On the radio guy” would eat at Chili’s.)

Surprisingly he didn’t follow up with one of the typical responses I get when I’m forced to admit my profession. He didn’t ask what films he should see. He didn’t list his personal favorites.

Instead he asked “Where did you go to study that?”

I was a little taken aback; I reached frantically for an answer, I went to school, right?

“Brown University.”

(Technically not true, I studied theater, but, heat of the moment, best not to pick nits.)

He nodded. “Good school.”

At that moment I was arrogant enough to hope MY HERO felt some small notion of pride that he once provided hours of entertainment for a future Ivy League graduate student and a microscopically celebrated film critic.

It passed quickly. I mean, of course he didn’t. I was small fry. Like his peers and the other greats before him, Verne Gagne, Paul “Mr. Wonderful” Orndorff, George “The Animal Steele,” my hero had brought joy to so many different walks of life: future Heisman Trophy Winners, Supreme Court Justices, bankers, bus drivers. I was merely a small soldier in a phalanx of believers.

My hero reached down, grabbed my blank white index card and wrote, “Harvard sucks.”

I told you! All-Knowing!

He reached out with his fist and prepared to grapple with the pixie sticks that pass for my forearms. (Don’t worry ladies. I’ve since started a regimen of Hot Yoga).

I paused.

I’d been watching the shtick he had been performing for the younger kids in line ahead of me. The routine followed pretty much along the same lines every time: he would wrap his massive palms around the youngster’s wrist, grapple with them valiantly for a good ten seconds before the kid somehow managed to summon superhuman strength and began to turn the tide.

Ever the showman, shaking from head to toe in amazement at his impending fate, he unthinkably let his wrist begin to fall and land with a dull thud on the blue dish towel serving as a mat.

Every now and then he would reach out and try to perform a half-a**ed sleeper disqualifying himself from the match. After each loss, he would dejectedly lay his head down on the card table or complain loudly and wave his arms at his handler standing beside him, complaining that the kid had cheated.

For those in line of driving age, he would sometimes pretend to compete a little more outright, and, against those with suitable physiques actually looking for a match, at times, he would let himself win.

But I couldn’t do it.

I said I had to get going. That he would crush me and that I could never live it down to my girlfriend. (Ahem, non-existent, ladies).

He laughed, shook my hand and wished me well.

I did the same.

I walked away with a smile I hadn’t worn in years.

See, I couldn’t risk a victory, no matter how unearned.

A win would have been a disservice to all those Saturday mornings, to the army of Transformers that honorably lost their limbs in combat, but, most of all, I could never betray my wily old manager Slapper, my partner in crime for twelve unforgettable years …

Truth was I could never bring myself to be the good guy.

*Joke unabashedly stolen from Drew Carey. Yes, he was funny once.