And Then Wednesday Happens
Jan 10, 2021 15:10:35 GMT -5
Odin Balfore, Wade Moor, and 4 more like this
Post by Howard Black on Jan 10, 2021 15:10:35 GMT -5
I hope the viewers – and that includes you, Odin – don’t mind, but it’s been a difficult week for me. It’s been a few difficult weeks to start this year, but this week was a little bit more than that. I’m writing this in my hotel room in Portland, and I’ve been watching the people move about outside – and I can’t help but find it a little funny we’re in this city on this particular week. It draws a lot into focus, doesn’t it?
You know, you find yourself anywhere in the Heart of the Country, and all you hear on the news is that Portland is this battleground. You hear it compared to Beirut or Damascus where law and order has totally fallen apart and roaming militants are stomping around waiting to enact violence on the next passer-by. But here we are in Portland, and I was pretty underwhelmed by the lack of insurrectionary activity. I had to wear the mask, sure, but I could still go to Stumptown and get a coffee. I guess not a lot is open, but I’m certainly not walking past burned-out store fronts and across broken glass. And as you walk around this pretty, but wet and all things considered rather drab Northwest city, you start thinking about those news reports and the conversations with people at the bar. And you start wondering what the hell is going on. That maybe – just maybe – this country isn’t as on a fast-track to Hell as previously thought.
You expected there to be something happening that day; there was far too much whispering for it to be quiet. But what, exactly, was it going to be? They had that stupid Mother of All Rallies a few years ago that got overshadowed by the Juggalo March, so maybe this will be another laughably impotent fart by the worst people in the country, slithering out the door like their fat idiot president is about to. And then we could let out a sigh of relief and laugh about what an absolute waste of time the past four years have been – you just can’t wait to get back to normal.
But even with that, you can’t get this weird little itching out of the back of your head. You see the videos of the cops fighting the Proud Boys, but you can’t help but grumble about how long it took them. You don’t see the mass arrests – not like during the protests over the summer. You make a few jokes about the number of cops in the crowd, quote a few Rage Against the Machine lyrics, but you try to put it all from your mind. It can’t happen here – no matter how stupid and brutish the security apparatus is, there’s no way they could go that far into complicity.
At first, it’s a fucking clown show. How couldn’t it be? You see a mob of hooting, braying dullards whipped into a frenzy at the words of a openly corroding Rudy Giuliani – you see a bunch of fat boys dressed in 3D-printed tactical gear next to minivan mobs all screaming “Lock Them Up” in each other’s faces and (lord willing) passing around the pulmonary virus that has locked the country down for almost a year – you hear a representative say “But one thing Hitler was right about” – you watch Ted Cruz ooze up to the podium and speak in that simpering little whine he has. But when the mob starts their march, you realize Marx got his own wrong: history starts as farce, then becomes tragedy.
You watch the barricades begin to give as the faces like every person who’s ever stepped foot in a Norfolk gas station slam into them. You see the bottles flying and the bikes used as improvised riot shields, and you can’t help but wonder where the hell the tanks and the tear gas and even just the ceaseless volley of baton swings are now. You think back to May and June and July when the crowd would be a good six feet from the barricade, and their distance would be met with an advance and abuse nonetheless. And as you watch the Capitol Police exercise restraint, you feel a twinge of hypocrisy – because in that desire to watch this crowd get the ever-loving shit beaten out of them, you are only ceding the ground. And that maybe – just maybe – the issue is not that the police are showing restraint now but that they didn’t show it before. And maybe – just maybe – this can be that proof-of-concept demonstrating that patience and de-escalation is the proper conduct of America’s so wretched enshrined warrior class.
You see the line break and the crowd stream in. You’ve been paying attention to the security entrenchment around the building – it’s as good as fallen outside. The police are outnumbered and have no choice but to surrender. The Back the Blue crowd is giving ultimatums: “We’re doing this for you”, “Stand down, we’re on your side”, “You’re a traitor to your profession”. These are the lines that have been drawn. This is the Manifesto of the worst people in this country. And nonetheless, you still feel a little relief because the sparse cadre of officers outside can only mean a retreat to the interior of the building to prevent further encroachment.
You’re watching the television – a scrawny white guy covered in stupid tattoos and dressed like a Medicine Man is out front of the Senate door. The chambers of Congress have been evacuated. Windows are being smashed outside to allow the crowd entry, even though the front door is wide open beside them. A woman and her husband attempt to scale the exterior wall of the Capitol steps – she isn’t strong enough and slips to a fall of almost fifteen feet. The stairs, a mere ten feet away, were unblocked. She wanted in on the fun. The Senate Chamber has been penetrated; one man wears a shirt reading “Camp Auschwitz”.
You watch all of this happening on your TV, your eyes glued to it. You turn your phone off – you can’t stand the idea of talking to anyone right now. You just watch, your mind blank and numb, hardly able to process what’s going on before you. On CNN, a sweet old woman is in the Capitol Rotunda. She’s wearing ill-fitting purple clothes, the kind you’ve seen many a babushka from the Heart of the Country wear when they hit that age prioritizing comfort and convenience over confidence. One hand is holding her water mug with its bendable plastic straw, the other one of those lawn-sized American flags you buy at Home Depot for the 4th of July parade. Men around her are waving Confederate flags and stealing Nancy Pelosi’s podium. This is the inherent dichotomy of the besieging force.
It watches like a checklist of every ugly and wretched conservative cliché. A man wear a Black Rifle Coffee Co. hat has a Punisher patch sewn on his tactical vest – he’s got a can of mace and a pistol on his hip and zipties in his hands. A group of podcasters that work for The Blaze have gotten into Nancy Pelosi’s office, where an over-the-hill truck driver-looking type has kicked his feet up on her desk and pretended to make calls off her phone. Someone scales a statue of Gerald Ford and places a MAGA hat on his head and Trump flag in the crook of his arm. A woman is shot dead by a plainclothes officer for attempting to access the House Chamber where Representatives were sheltered-in-place; later, you’d learn from the news that this woman was an Air Force veteran obsessed with QAnon. And perhaps most enraging of all, you see Capitol Police officers smiling and posing for selfies with any and every person who asks for it as they file into the Capitol. By the end of the day, five will be dead including one man who gave himself a heart attack after accidentally tazing himself and a woman predictable crushed by the mob while her hands ironically clutched a Gasden Flag.
And you think about this and think back to what you said to Sam Kidsgrove over a month ago; about that ache in the Heart of the Country and that misplaced rage against the machine. You think about anger and insult and disrespect – how easy it is to cultivate and allow to consume yet how difficult it is to contain. You think about how everyone foresaw this day and yet nobody wanted to predict it. It was shocking, but it wasn’t surprising – was it?
And that really is the rub. There’s a lot of money and power to be made in a little bit of rage and resentment. It’s fuel; it’ll give an exhausted man a second wind. Resentment and that feeling of achievement in the face of adversity – well, it’s a drug, isn’t it? When you think the world is kicking dirt in your face, it’s easy to make that fist and swing back. When fueled by anger and resentment, the challenge is the easy part. But when you’ve overcome? When you’re no longer the challenger but the champion? That rage becomes impotent.
And that’s when I looked over at that belt in my bag and started thinking even more.
I thought about what Ash Blake said about me last week: that I’m at my best behind the eight ball – that when I’m the favorite, I choke. I thought about the United States Championship, and then I thought about the United States. And it’s looking between that belt and my TV that I started thinking about who I was, who I am, and who I’m going to be. I’ll be perfectly honest, it’s kept me up at night.
When you have a chip on your shoulder and think the world is out to get you, you’ll see an enemy in every shadow to overcome. It’s easy to rage against the machine when it involves every single person. But winning in a game of shadow boxing can get addicting – addicting to the point you forget the shadows are shadows and start thinking they’re real. When you’ve spent your time shadowboxing with a perfect record and then lose the boxing match… well, what do you do? That’s where Trump’s base found themselves after a stunning refutation at the hands of a bland, geriatric candidate. They chose to call conspiracy and storm the Capitol.
But me, too… that’s where I find myself.
As I watched the news on TV this Wednesday, I suddenly couldn’t find the energy in myself to be angry. I could come out here and tell you, Odin, that I was screwed last week and all my frustration is going to be taken out on you. I apologize for the circumstances because you’ve been someone on my list since the beginning, but before Wednesday you were going to get a Howard Black ready to build you as an artifice of conspiracy and now are getting a Howard Black fighting for something different. And you deserve better than this, Odin, but I’m sorry – you are going to lose on Monday. I have literally no choice.
You see, this belt is me and is my legacy. There is no more fitting a United States Champion in this company because America is in my blood and bones, and my heart beats in the Heartland. I look at America, and I see a country of potential and ideals. I see greatness – I see a model to be emulated at its best. But that greatness and that model and that potential and ideal requires work and sacrifice. You can’t just proclaim America is Great Again and have it happen in a poof. Someone people don’t understand that, and it’s for a lack of education and naivety. You look at that crowd who stormed the Capitol, and I ask you to forget the Proud Boys and the Three Percenters and the Q Anon types: look at that little purple old woman.
Could you stand across from her, look her in the eyes, and tell her you hate her? Can you really work yourself into that rage and venom? She’s wearing a Goddamn shirt from the SeaWorld gift shop.
I fight to leave behind a legacy and a trust for my son. It’s hard to look at the world today and not be concerned what we’re leaving for the next generation – you’re either a fool or a liar if you say otherwise. I look at what happened Wednesday, and I see everything leading up to that point – the despair, the hopelessness, the concern, the anger, and the manipulation – and for every person who stormed that Capitol with evil intent, I know there were five that were naïve and caught up in the moment. You can take the latter and put them on a big fucking raft to kick out into the ocean… but what about the latter? What do we do about the angry and naïve?
When I hold this belt as a champion, I am expected to be a model for America. Too many people get so wrapped up in the shallow trappings of what this country and its flag associate with but so few understand what it means – you can keep the apple pie, fireworks, and baseball, that’s all ephemera. What I’m concerned with is the dirt underneath my fingernails, fighting spirit, and the honest day’s work.
For, you see, I am America: a powerhouse of potential on the cusp of being an undisputed legend who may have squandered its opportunity in favor of mythmaking and now, in the twilight of its glory, must choose its course. And I could continue the path that America and I have chosen: externalized rage and violence for that number one, hegemonic spot of greatness it feels it deserved but never quite had… or find greatness settling into its role in the greater scheme of things.
I am not going to be the first person to unite the US Title and the AW Title. If I desired, I could beat you tonight and then launch an assault on Ash and Corey until I’ve forced my way back in. I could get on the mic every night talking about how I won Wrestler of the Year and was given a trophy and a Number One Contender’s Match rather than simply being Number One Contender. I could scream and rage and fight and raise Hell until I got my way, pissing everyone off and diminishing my standings in a narcissistic, sociopathic bid for conquest at all costs.
I am going to choose the latter. I have not lived up to my position or my ideals, and it took a rainy Wednesday watching the Capitol Building stormed in a Portland hotel room to get that through to me. But I can do that now. And it starts with you, Odin. And then again at Revolution when I face off against Stuart Slane or Der Metzger.
You are a legend in this business, an unstoppable force of a man with a storied career I can never hope to rival. No matter what the last year has held in store for you in this company, I do not discount you or your ability. And consider that I’ve just come off my first loss in a seven win streak, I don’t feel inclined to start a losing one. I am not the underdog in this match, not at all. But I am a giant slayer. Just as America has been.
I believe in America. Even at its worst, I can see the greatness in it. But greatness is not easy nor will it be handed to you so you’ll shut up. I’m ready to stop raging for and start earning my greatness.
You know, you find yourself anywhere in the Heart of the Country, and all you hear on the news is that Portland is this battleground. You hear it compared to Beirut or Damascus where law and order has totally fallen apart and roaming militants are stomping around waiting to enact violence on the next passer-by. But here we are in Portland, and I was pretty underwhelmed by the lack of insurrectionary activity. I had to wear the mask, sure, but I could still go to Stumptown and get a coffee. I guess not a lot is open, but I’m certainly not walking past burned-out store fronts and across broken glass. And as you walk around this pretty, but wet and all things considered rather drab Northwest city, you start thinking about those news reports and the conversations with people at the bar. And you start wondering what the hell is going on. That maybe – just maybe – this country isn’t as on a fast-track to Hell as previously thought.
And then Wednesday happens.
You expected there to be something happening that day; there was far too much whispering for it to be quiet. But what, exactly, was it going to be? They had that stupid Mother of All Rallies a few years ago that got overshadowed by the Juggalo March, so maybe this will be another laughably impotent fart by the worst people in the country, slithering out the door like their fat idiot president is about to. And then we could let out a sigh of relief and laugh about what an absolute waste of time the past four years have been – you just can’t wait to get back to normal.
But even with that, you can’t get this weird little itching out of the back of your head. You see the videos of the cops fighting the Proud Boys, but you can’t help but grumble about how long it took them. You don’t see the mass arrests – not like during the protests over the summer. You make a few jokes about the number of cops in the crowd, quote a few Rage Against the Machine lyrics, but you try to put it all from your mind. It can’t happen here – no matter how stupid and brutish the security apparatus is, there’s no way they could go that far into complicity.
And then Wednesday happens.
At first, it’s a fucking clown show. How couldn’t it be? You see a mob of hooting, braying dullards whipped into a frenzy at the words of a openly corroding Rudy Giuliani – you see a bunch of fat boys dressed in 3D-printed tactical gear next to minivan mobs all screaming “Lock Them Up” in each other’s faces and (lord willing) passing around the pulmonary virus that has locked the country down for almost a year – you hear a representative say “But one thing Hitler was right about” – you watch Ted Cruz ooze up to the podium and speak in that simpering little whine he has. But when the mob starts their march, you realize Marx got his own wrong: history starts as farce, then becomes tragedy.
And then Wednesday happens.
You watch the barricades begin to give as the faces like every person who’s ever stepped foot in a Norfolk gas station slam into them. You see the bottles flying and the bikes used as improvised riot shields, and you can’t help but wonder where the hell the tanks and the tear gas and even just the ceaseless volley of baton swings are now. You think back to May and June and July when the crowd would be a good six feet from the barricade, and their distance would be met with an advance and abuse nonetheless. And as you watch the Capitol Police exercise restraint, you feel a twinge of hypocrisy – because in that desire to watch this crowd get the ever-loving shit beaten out of them, you are only ceding the ground. And that maybe – just maybe – the issue is not that the police are showing restraint now but that they didn’t show it before. And maybe – just maybe – this can be that proof-of-concept demonstrating that patience and de-escalation is the proper conduct of America’s so wretched enshrined warrior class.
And then Wednesday happens.
You see the line break and the crowd stream in. You’ve been paying attention to the security entrenchment around the building – it’s as good as fallen outside. The police are outnumbered and have no choice but to surrender. The Back the Blue crowd is giving ultimatums: “We’re doing this for you”, “Stand down, we’re on your side”, “You’re a traitor to your profession”. These are the lines that have been drawn. This is the Manifesto of the worst people in this country. And nonetheless, you still feel a little relief because the sparse cadre of officers outside can only mean a retreat to the interior of the building to prevent further encroachment.
And then Wednesday happens.
You’re watching the television – a scrawny white guy covered in stupid tattoos and dressed like a Medicine Man is out front of the Senate door. The chambers of Congress have been evacuated. Windows are being smashed outside to allow the crowd entry, even though the front door is wide open beside them. A woman and her husband attempt to scale the exterior wall of the Capitol steps – she isn’t strong enough and slips to a fall of almost fifteen feet. The stairs, a mere ten feet away, were unblocked. She wanted in on the fun. The Senate Chamber has been penetrated; one man wears a shirt reading “Camp Auschwitz”.
You watch all of this happening on your TV, your eyes glued to it. You turn your phone off – you can’t stand the idea of talking to anyone right now. You just watch, your mind blank and numb, hardly able to process what’s going on before you. On CNN, a sweet old woman is in the Capitol Rotunda. She’s wearing ill-fitting purple clothes, the kind you’ve seen many a babushka from the Heart of the Country wear when they hit that age prioritizing comfort and convenience over confidence. One hand is holding her water mug with its bendable plastic straw, the other one of those lawn-sized American flags you buy at Home Depot for the 4th of July parade. Men around her are waving Confederate flags and stealing Nancy Pelosi’s podium. This is the inherent dichotomy of the besieging force.
It watches like a checklist of every ugly and wretched conservative cliché. A man wear a Black Rifle Coffee Co. hat has a Punisher patch sewn on his tactical vest – he’s got a can of mace and a pistol on his hip and zipties in his hands. A group of podcasters that work for The Blaze have gotten into Nancy Pelosi’s office, where an over-the-hill truck driver-looking type has kicked his feet up on her desk and pretended to make calls off her phone. Someone scales a statue of Gerald Ford and places a MAGA hat on his head and Trump flag in the crook of his arm. A woman is shot dead by a plainclothes officer for attempting to access the House Chamber where Representatives were sheltered-in-place; later, you’d learn from the news that this woman was an Air Force veteran obsessed with QAnon. And perhaps most enraging of all, you see Capitol Police officers smiling and posing for selfies with any and every person who asks for it as they file into the Capitol. By the end of the day, five will be dead including one man who gave himself a heart attack after accidentally tazing himself and a woman predictable crushed by the mob while her hands ironically clutched a Gasden Flag.
And you think about this and think back to what you said to Sam Kidsgrove over a month ago; about that ache in the Heart of the Country and that misplaced rage against the machine. You think about anger and insult and disrespect – how easy it is to cultivate and allow to consume yet how difficult it is to contain. You think about how everyone foresaw this day and yet nobody wanted to predict it. It was shocking, but it wasn’t surprising – was it?
And that really is the rub. There’s a lot of money and power to be made in a little bit of rage and resentment. It’s fuel; it’ll give an exhausted man a second wind. Resentment and that feeling of achievement in the face of adversity – well, it’s a drug, isn’t it? When you think the world is kicking dirt in your face, it’s easy to make that fist and swing back. When fueled by anger and resentment, the challenge is the easy part. But when you’ve overcome? When you’re no longer the challenger but the champion? That rage becomes impotent.
And that’s when I looked over at that belt in my bag and started thinking even more.
I thought about what Ash Blake said about me last week: that I’m at my best behind the eight ball – that when I’m the favorite, I choke. I thought about the United States Championship, and then I thought about the United States. And it’s looking between that belt and my TV that I started thinking about who I was, who I am, and who I’m going to be. I’ll be perfectly honest, it’s kept me up at night.
When you have a chip on your shoulder and think the world is out to get you, you’ll see an enemy in every shadow to overcome. It’s easy to rage against the machine when it involves every single person. But winning in a game of shadow boxing can get addicting – addicting to the point you forget the shadows are shadows and start thinking they’re real. When you’ve spent your time shadowboxing with a perfect record and then lose the boxing match… well, what do you do? That’s where Trump’s base found themselves after a stunning refutation at the hands of a bland, geriatric candidate. They chose to call conspiracy and storm the Capitol.
But me, too… that’s where I find myself.
As I watched the news on TV this Wednesday, I suddenly couldn’t find the energy in myself to be angry. I could come out here and tell you, Odin, that I was screwed last week and all my frustration is going to be taken out on you. I apologize for the circumstances because you’ve been someone on my list since the beginning, but before Wednesday you were going to get a Howard Black ready to build you as an artifice of conspiracy and now are getting a Howard Black fighting for something different. And you deserve better than this, Odin, but I’m sorry – you are going to lose on Monday. I have literally no choice.
You see, this belt is me and is my legacy. There is no more fitting a United States Champion in this company because America is in my blood and bones, and my heart beats in the Heartland. I look at America, and I see a country of potential and ideals. I see greatness – I see a model to be emulated at its best. But that greatness and that model and that potential and ideal requires work and sacrifice. You can’t just proclaim America is Great Again and have it happen in a poof. Someone people don’t understand that, and it’s for a lack of education and naivety. You look at that crowd who stormed the Capitol, and I ask you to forget the Proud Boys and the Three Percenters and the Q Anon types: look at that little purple old woman.
Could you stand across from her, look her in the eyes, and tell her you hate her? Can you really work yourself into that rage and venom? She’s wearing a Goddamn shirt from the SeaWorld gift shop.
I fight to leave behind a legacy and a trust for my son. It’s hard to look at the world today and not be concerned what we’re leaving for the next generation – you’re either a fool or a liar if you say otherwise. I look at what happened Wednesday, and I see everything leading up to that point – the despair, the hopelessness, the concern, the anger, and the manipulation – and for every person who stormed that Capitol with evil intent, I know there were five that were naïve and caught up in the moment. You can take the latter and put them on a big fucking raft to kick out into the ocean… but what about the latter? What do we do about the angry and naïve?
When I hold this belt as a champion, I am expected to be a model for America. Too many people get so wrapped up in the shallow trappings of what this country and its flag associate with but so few understand what it means – you can keep the apple pie, fireworks, and baseball, that’s all ephemera. What I’m concerned with is the dirt underneath my fingernails, fighting spirit, and the honest day’s work.
For, you see, I am America: a powerhouse of potential on the cusp of being an undisputed legend who may have squandered its opportunity in favor of mythmaking and now, in the twilight of its glory, must choose its course. And I could continue the path that America and I have chosen: externalized rage and violence for that number one, hegemonic spot of greatness it feels it deserved but never quite had… or find greatness settling into its role in the greater scheme of things.
I am not going to be the first person to unite the US Title and the AW Title. If I desired, I could beat you tonight and then launch an assault on Ash and Corey until I’ve forced my way back in. I could get on the mic every night talking about how I won Wrestler of the Year and was given a trophy and a Number One Contender’s Match rather than simply being Number One Contender. I could scream and rage and fight and raise Hell until I got my way, pissing everyone off and diminishing my standings in a narcissistic, sociopathic bid for conquest at all costs.
Or I could accept my position as the United States Champion and be the best in this company’s history.
I am going to choose the latter. I have not lived up to my position or my ideals, and it took a rainy Wednesday watching the Capitol Building stormed in a Portland hotel room to get that through to me. But I can do that now. And it starts with you, Odin. And then again at Revolution when I face off against Stuart Slane or Der Metzger.
You are a legend in this business, an unstoppable force of a man with a storied career I can never hope to rival. No matter what the last year has held in store for you in this company, I do not discount you or your ability. And consider that I’ve just come off my first loss in a seven win streak, I don’t feel inclined to start a losing one. I am not the underdog in this match, not at all. But I am a giant slayer. Just as America has been.
I believe in America. Even at its worst, I can see the greatness in it. But greatness is not easy nor will it be handed to you so you’ll shut up. I’m ready to stop raging for and start earning my greatness.
On Wednesday, we saw rock bottom. And it was such a long way down.
But now? It’s time to start climbing back up.
