Ask Grandstander

[skrable]

What's your next move?

[Grandstander]

Originally Posted by skrable

What's your next move?

Change the channel.

[LongtimeBravesFan]

Did you ever do any substitue teaching after leaving the profession on a full time basis? I'm thinking about possibly doing that and wondered if you had any insight. When I was in school the subs usually didn't do much but make sure we didn't set the room on fire.

[Grandstander]

Originally Posted by LongtimeBravesFan

Did you ever do any substitue teaching after leaving the profession on a full time basis? I'm thinking about possibly doing that and wondered if you had any insight. When I was in school the subs usually didn't do much but make sure we didn't set the room on fire.

Yes, I did subbing at various points along the way. After my first job, my next three were all ones where I began as a sub and wound up taking over for the teacher the rest of the year. One of those I wound up doing for two years.

As for the subbing itself, your last sentence describes the main function, and in some schools I would add making sure that they didn't set you on fire. In the SF school district, there were only two high schools where a substitute teacher was expected to teach anything, Lowell High and Phil & Salla Burton High were high achiever schools and I loved working at both places. I of course applied for every opening either of them had, but then so did everyone else in the area with a teaching certificate. I was in my mid twenties at this time with a resume showing I moved around a lot, competing with people who had put in twenty uncomplaining years at some hoodlum hell hole, so I never had a chance and I didn't really deserve it anyway.

The strangest subbing I did was at the SF Youth Hall...kiddie jail. By law, even when locked up, kids were subject to having a public education forced on them, so to meet the requirements, a sub was sent everyday. One sub.I pulled this duty a half dozen times. They lock you in there with them, and they do not give you a key, sensibly so since the kids would have it away from you in a few seconds if they did. What unnerved me was that the guards were not locked in there with us, they were safe behind doors and walls. It was just me and the juvie dees.

There of course was no education going on at all, teach them what? There were no tests or grades, or books or desks or writing tools, so no one has any reason to pay the slightest bit of attention to you unless yolu look like a good target for tormenting. My strategy was to try and be inconspicuous as possible. Most of the time they sat around talking about their crimes and the crimes that they would like to do and the mudda fudda dey was gonna kill soon as they was out of there and so forth. It was a very macho atmosphere, these were kids who had been humiliated by getting locked up, and their main interest seemed to be trying to reestablish ferocity among their peers.

[KiNgJoSiAh7]

Are you going to or have you already written a thorough autobiography? You should, I think it would be rather interesting, quite enjoyable and entertaining with your sense of humor combined with your experiences and artful writing style. I would seriously read it. Look at it as your lasting and most meaningful contribution to history; who knows who will read it and receive inspiration from it. C'mon do it!

A couple of days ago while on my break from work I started a semi-detailed timeline graph of my brief life and I couldn't help but receive so much perspective and enjoyment from thinking of the peculiar predicaments I placed myself in, my stages of progression and the unique people who have had such a profound influence on my life that I wasn't even cognizant of until I took a glance at the past.

[Grandstander]

Originally Posted by KiNgJoSiAh7

Are you going to or have you already written a thorough autobiography? You should, I think it would be rather interesting, quite enjoyable and entertaining with your sense of humor combined with your experiences and artful writing style. I would seriously read it. Look at it as your lasting and most meaningful contribution to history; who knows who will read it and receive inspiration from it. C'mon do it!

This thread is it, I've answered so many personal questions over the years that I doubt that there would be much left to put in a book which has not already been presented here. Another thing is that I have an inclination to be suspicious of autobiographies in general because you are hearing just one side of the story and that one side is being sculpted so as to clean up past indiscretions or justify selfishness or rationalize immorality. A biography is better because at least in theory, the author is going to be looking at all sides. So, if you want to be my biographer, go ahead. You can rummage back through this thread and reconstruct my life....and just make up stuff to fill in the missing elements.

[LongtimeBravesFan]

Cincinnati Bengals receiver Chad Johnson has changed his name to Chad Ocho Cinco. Is this the most monumental name change in sports history?

[Grandstander]

Originally Posted by LongtimeBravesFan

Cincinnati Bengals receiver Chad Johnson has changed his name to Chad Ocho Cinco. Is this the most monumental name change in sports history?

Second most. # 1 was in the early '80's when the Giants traded for Jeff Leonard of the Astros and in very short order had nicknamed him "Penitentiary Face." The following year at Spring training, Leonard arrived and announced that from now on he was to be called Jeffrey Leonard, not Jeff. His teammates obliged, they started calling him "Correctional Institution Face."

[vtred]

Weekly "what if" fight match-up:

Hurricane & Volcano Eruption vs. Earthquake & Tornado?

[Grandstander]

Originally Posted by vtred

Weekly "what if" fight match-up:

Hurricane & Volcano Eruption vs. Earthquake & Tornado?

This would probably depend upon your personal risk aversion pathology. Deconstructed by frequency of events, prep time available and relative destructive capacity:

1) Earthquake.
frequency-rare.
prep time available-zero
destructiveness-possibly huge

2) Volcanic eruption.
frequency-extremely rare
prep time available-usually sufficient to escape
destructiveness-absolute for all it touches

3) Hurricane.
frequency-often
prep time available-usually 2 to 3 days
destructiveness-potential for great severity

4) Tornado.
frequency-hard to predict
prep time available-typically short
destructiveness-typically localized but bad for what it touches

So, what is your greater fear? Inability to prepare? Certainty of strike? degree of devestation?

I grew up in South Florida and then moved to California, hurricane alley to earthquake cental. However, I cannot say that geo disasters had anything to do with the move. I had been through four hurricanes, but never one as a responsible adult where I fully appreciated the dangers. And of course I had never been in an earthquake until I got out here. While I do not care for either event, I prefer the quake risk because at least you don't have any seasonal worry.

Selecting a home near an active volcano? Seems like the sort of foolhardy risk that removes sympathy from the victims. I have never lived, nor would wish to live, in any of the regions where tornados are frequent, and not just because of tornado threats, so the twisters are sort of irrelevant to me.

[LongtimeBravesFan]

Were you aware former pro wrestler Killer Kowalski died last week?

[Grandstander]

Originally Posted by LongtimeBravesFan

Were you aware former pro wrestler Killer Kowalski died last week?

Yes, I saw the obit, he's gone to join the Fabulous Moolah in grapplin' heaven, or grapplin' hell, wherever they go. He was before my time, so I never knew much about him other than that there was a wrestler out there with that name. Wrestling was regionalized when I was a kid, and Kowalski did not work the SE circuit.

[perfectstormhits]

Oh man the SE circuit.

Guess you followed Jackie Fargo, Sam Steamboat and Eddie Graham

[Grandstander]

Originally Posted by perfectstormhits

Oh man the SE circuit.

Guess you followed Jackie Fargo, Sam Steamboat and Eddie Graham

The Graham Brothers, Eddie and Jerry, were far and away the top villains in the circuit when I first started watching, mean, evil, wicked bad and nasty, no move was too underhanded, no level to which they could not sink to secure their victories. When I was ten years old, I went to NY City with my grandfather and watching tv in the hotel room, I was shocked to discover that Eddie and Jerry Graham were the beloved heroes in a different venue. It wised me up pretty fast as to the true nature of pro wrestling and my reaction was to start liking it even more. My grandmother believed it was all quite real and I could drive her bats by rooting for all the villains. "Did you SEE what he did?!!! How can you....etc.."

Jackie Fargo doesn't ring a bell, but I remember Sam Steamboat, he kept winning this vague "TV Title" belt which was sort of a championship for lesser stars, an identity for some guy with which to market himself I suppose. But Steamboat never won the heavyweight championship. The other big stars of that circuit and era were the Brisco Brothers who were the good guys, The Great Malenko and Bobby Shane who were my favorites. (Million Dollar Man Ted DiBiase's whole character was a rip off of Bobby Shane) I also loved The Missouri Mauler who was probably the least scientific wrestler of all time, his name describing his entire tactical m.o. The Mauler was of average height, but was one of those wide as a truck sorts, not fat, but just immensely broad, he was always introduced as being from "The Badlands of Missouri."

"The Assassains" were the badass masked tag team which generally kept the tag team title on the evil side of the ledger, but my favorite villain tag team was "The Medics" because I enjoyed their manager, "The Good Doctor" who also wore a mask. The Brisco Brother vs The Medics was probably the longest running continuous feud that they ever had. And then they added a Jack Brisco vs The Good Doctor feud to stretch it out some more. After a long series of false starts, treachery, outside interference etc etc, it all finally came down to a Brisco vs The Good Doctor match with the stakes being a Doctor victory forcing Brisco to quit wrestling, and a Brisco win compelling the Good Doctor to have to unmask on live tv. They bashed one another around for the required time before Brisco finally emerged triumphant. They unmasked The Good Doctor but it turned out it wasn't the Good Doctor, it was this ham n' egger wrestler named Eduardo Perez who had been hired as a ringer. You knew right away that Perez couldn't have been the Good Doctor because the Doc talked with an extreme southern cracker drawl while Perez's accent was also southern, but much further South, he was Mexican.

Dick Murdoch and Dusty Rhodes joined the circuit in the latter part of their careers and formed "The Outlaws" which had been the top villain tag team before the Assassains arrived. Dory Funk also put in a few years but they never seemed to find an identity for him, switching him back and forth between hero and villain far too often.

Cowboy Bob Orton was around, doing his neckbreaking bullthrow finishing move that always looked to me like it was hurting Orton as much as his victim. Bobby Duncan was around in his pre managing fame days, but he was never one of the big stars as a wrestler.

And of course holding it all together was the wonderful ringside announcer Gordon Solie who could remain deadpan serious no matter what manner of nonsense was whirling about. I absolutely loved his interviews with Malenko and Bobby Shane. They would both just ignore whatever Solie asked them and blab about what was on their minds. Shane was hilarious, his character was the sort who shows ultra contempt for his inferiors, which according to Shane was everyone else. During his interview with Solie after he had captured that TV Title, he kept using the trophy as an ashtray for his cigar while talking in an eyerolling monotone about how much winning it meant to him. He also had a female valet (The Macho Man Randy Savage/Miss Elizabeth act was a direct ripoff of this) whom he mistreated on a regular basis.

[perfectstormhits]

Originally Posted by Grandstander

Jackie Fargo doesn't ring a bell.

Yeah, Fargo was mostly Memphis and the Mid-South. Here he is going up against Lawlor. He was known for the "Fargo Strut."

YouTube - Jerry Lawler vs Jackie Fargo