Only $399 for the first year and $120 for the second? With titles like New Wave Hookers and Sex Crimes 2084 (plus "OVER 100 OTHERS!"), how could anyone pass up a bargain like that? Frankly, I think the $500 my Dad spent on a used Chevy Citation that year could've been put to better use.
On this day in 1954, in the wilds of Saskatchewan, there was born a man. Nay, not a man. A GOD! Roderick George Toombs, a.k.a. the Hot Rod, a.k.a. ROWDY RODDY MOTHERFUCKING PIPER!!!
Like most chubby white kids who grew up in rural America in the 80s and 90s, I watched a ridiculous amount of wrestling. Even then, I knew the story lines were preposterous, the match outcomes were predetermined, and the in-ring action vaguely homoerotic. But I didn't give shit one, because for a few hours a week, I could watch what amounted to a live-action cartoon. The wrestlers, especially in the pre-Attitude-era, were colorful, absurd, over-the-top characters performing superhuman feats of strength and agility. There was an anything-goes mentality when it came to developing characters and gimmicks. Remember the evil dentist, Isaac Yankem, DDS? How about noble trash collector Duke "The Dumpster" Droese, or the simple-minded Ugandan Giant, Kamala? No? Well, that's your loss, then.
Towering above all of them, in my mind at least, was the smiling bastard you see above. With a fiery temper and the quickest mouth in the game, he set the gold standard for sports-entertainment trash-talking. Even at their best, "Stone Cold" Steve Austin and The Rock were pale imitators of the maniacal Scot's stream-of-consciousness tirades.
Though not the flashiest in-ring performer, Rowdy Roddy more than made up for it with The Piper's Pit, his weekly segment on WWE (then WWF) programing. Ostensibly, he was supposed to be interviewing his fellow Superstars, but the Pit was most definitely all about the Piper. In one infamous installment, the Hot Rod welcomed barefooted wrestler Jimmy "Superfly" Snuka with a desk full of bananas and coconuts. After Snuka accused him of insulting his Polynesian heritage, Piper responded by cracking a coconut over Snuka's head and ramming a banana down his throat. In another, his guest was the legendary André the Giant, whom he insisted was nothing more than "a big body and a teeny weeny brain." André told Piper that thanks to his "big body," he could never be slammed. Piper, in a trademark display of mouth before moves, told André, "If I'm given five minutes, I could slam you myself." André then casually picked the Hot Rod up and tossed him off his own set like garbage into a dumpster. Once André was safely off the set as well, Piper, now completely shit-boiling mad, dusted himself off and said (well, screamed, really), "André, do you want to fight? YOU DO NOT THROW ROCKS AT A MAN WITH A MACHINE GUN!!!" Only Rowdy Roddy Piper could consider his 6'2", 235 lb. frame a "machine gun" in comparison to the 7'5", 540 lb. André's "rocks." You could argue that he was talking about verbal skills, but that's wayyyyy too reasonable for the Piper.
I would be remiss if I didn't also mention the Piper's acting career. Sure, there's a sky-high pile of direct-to-video Z-grade schlock, but there's more than a couple highlights. There was Back in Action, in which he starred as a hard-nosed, wisecracking cop chasing down mobsters alongside a vigilante played by future Tae-Bo shill Billy Blanks. Is it a stupid movie? Yes. Deeply so, especially the fight scenes, with Blanks kicking and chopping and Piper suplexing and clotheslining the bad guys. But it was on Cinemax all the damn time in the mid-90s, and Piper's wit and charisma run full-blast throughout the picture. Maybe it was just Blank's flat, leaden performance providing a foil, but Piper seemed especially on-point. Of course, I haven't seen Back in Action in almost 15 years, so who knows how it's held up.
Another choice Piper performance came just last year, in an episode of It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia. If you don't know the show or didn't see the episode, too bad, because I'm not going to waste time setting up the premise. Episodes are on Hulu, go use your internets and check it out for yourself. In the season five episode "The Gang Wrestles For The Troops," Piper plays a washed-up no-account wrestler named The Maniac who lives out of his car and may or may not have murdered his family. The Maniac is basically a funhouse mirror version of Mickey Rourke's character in The Wrestler, equally desperate, but too far gone down the wrong road to even care about looking back. He plays it brilliantly, looking and sounding every bit of the scruffy, shambling, mumbling mess he would have been had he gone down those bad roads himself.
Of course, no overview of the Piper's career would be complete without a mention of They Live, one of the greatest movies ever made. If you haven't seen They Live, then I'm frankly shocked you're reading this. In a "Man With No Name" riff, Piper plays an unnamed drifter (listed in the credits as "Nada") who discovers that the world has fallen under the control of some butt-ugly aliens (as Nada puts it, "You look like your head fell in the cheese dip back in 1957," one of many quotable lines) thanks to a pair of special sunglasses. Along the way, he befriends a skeptical construction worker named Frank, played by Keith David. Unable to convince Frank of the aliens' existence through reasoned discourse, they get into easily the most epic alleyway brawl ever committed to the silver screen. (As an added bonus, here's South Park's take on the scene.)
Welcome to the inaugural edition of The Omega Blog, home of me, The Omega Dan, a.k.a. The Last Dan on Earth, a.k.a. Random Dan, a.k.a. The Infamous DRC. Those that know me (five, maybe six people tops) should have some idea what to expect from this little venture: Truckloads of antisocial comedy, foul language, non sequiturs, poorly thought-out opinions and ideas, and lots and lots of obscure cultural ephemera. (Oh, and fancy $5 words like "ephemera.")
What it boils down to is this: I'm currently unemployed, frequently broke, and I spend most of my days watching television and surfing the internets, which means I'm fucking BORED. I need an outlet for the spastic machinations of my ADHD-addled brain. (I'm watching Electra Glide in Blue as I write this, plus taking momentary breaks to randomly bang around the net in another browser window. I almost made it through this entire parenthetical statement without stopping. Almost.)
Here's a Toyota Prius (a car you will all quickly learn I loathe for a variety of reasons to be expanded on at a later date) with a Pabst Blue Ribbon shift knob. Whoever owns this probably has a trunkload of David Foster Wallace books and Arctic Monkeys CDs. Hopefully, they were too hip to read their recall notice and will soon experience some "unintended acceleration" off the end of a pier.
Here's a promise from me to you: I will update this blog semi-regularly. I will use correct syntax and grammar. I will check my spelling. I will improve its currently-generic looks once I figure out how to work a computer. (I'm dictating this to Hermes, my trained echidna, who's typing this out with his adorable little paws. He also operates my DVR.) I will take topic requests and prompts. I will promote your band/book/movie/event in exchange for food and/or free stuff. I will not listen to reason. I will not stop until you are dead.
Whoops, turned into Michael Biehn for a second there.
