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kottke.org posts about wrestling

An HBO documentary about Andre the Giant

A documentary film about pro wrestler Andre the Giant is going to air on HBO starting on April 10.

André René Roussimoff was born in 1946 in Grenoble, France. In his early teens, he exhibited signs of gigantism though he was not diagnosed with acromegaly until his twenties. He began his training in Paris at 17 and eventually became known in wrestling circuits around the world. In 1973, Andre joined the organization now known as World Wrestling Entertainment, where he became a superstar and rival of WWE legend Hulk Hogan.

I loved watching pro wrestling when I was a kid and Andre was always a favorite.


Who died in 2015?

The New York Times Magazine has published its annual death roundup: “The Lives They Lived.”

rowdy-roddy-piper.jpg

Rowdy Roddy Piper:

With Andre, Piper asks if it’s true that Big John Studd body-slammed him. No, Andre says, it isn’t. Piper, neck veins pulsing, suggests that even he could body-slam him. Interview over. Andre grabs Piper’s shirt, uses it to fling him across the room and walks off the set. Piper, red-hot with rage, screams, “You think you’re tough?” He stares into the camera and does an Incredible Hulk pose that shows off his terrifying trapezius muscles. “You ain’t nothing!’” You have never seen a man so committed to seeming to have lost all control.

Little Rascal Jean Darling:

Still, she said, her childhood wasn’t unhappy, just different. “A lot of people say their childhood was stolen,” she wrote in a 2014 interview on Reddit. “Mine was never stolen, I just worked a lot! I might have had more fun if my mother hadn’t spent all my money, but that’s it!”

Glenn Ford:

From then on, Ford lived in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, in a concrete cell the size of a bathroom. Three hours a week, he was allowed outside to exercise, but even there he was alone and in a cage offering less freedom than a dog run. For his last seven years in prison, Ford refused to even go outside. He called the exercise pen “ridiculous.” Being in a solitary cage outdoors was more like a taunt than a respite.


Foxcatcher

Whoa, how did I miss this? Steve Carell, check. Channing Tatum, check. Mark Ruffalo, check. Based on a true story, check. Positive reviews, check.

Currently on the to-do list: watch every single movie produced by Annapurna Pictures, a production and distribution company founded by Megan Ellison, who is Oracle founder Larry Ellison’s daughter. Look at this list of directors they’re working with: Kathryn Bigelow, Paul Thomas Anderson, Spike Jonze, David O. Russell, Richard Linklater.


When legends gather

Barber Valentine Terry

I watched a lot of pro wrestling when I was a kid and this photo of Brutus “The Barber” Beefcake, Greg “The Hammer” Valentine, and fashion photographer Terry Richardson is just too much for me. If nostalgia truly is death, someone better make some arrangements for me.

(If you’re not with me on this whole reminiscing about 1980s professional wrestlers thing, Richardson also recently took a photo of Miley Cyrus eating a salad, so you’re basically all caught up on current events and you’re welcome.)


Marriage is like a wrestling match…

M: Ack, what are you doing?

J: I’m putting you in a wrestling hold. It’s called a full nelson, I believe.

M: Well, that’s not nice. This is how you treat your wife? How about a hug instead?

J: No, no, I am being nice…it’s a love nelson.

Despite the sentiment, the love nelson remains an illegal hold of endearment in our household.


The tortoise and the hare

Remember that old fable of the tortoise and the hare? Basically, the faster hare is overconfident and loses a foot race to the slower, but steadier, tortoise. Somehow, the moral to this story is: “slow and steady wins the race.”

I beg to differ. The race was not won by the tortoise; it was lost by the hare. The moral should read: “don’t fuck around when there’s shit to be done.” Or something like that.