Stephen Rivera's 4th Fall

Session Seven: Sanctuaries

April 14, 2011

I know your pain. You wear your sadness well. Lord Vincent of McMahon brought your hopes up, lifted your spirits to the Heaven Clouds. Then the third day of April sun came and went, and he let you down. You survived the abrupt descent, yet remain scarred. You limp your broken and battered self to this place of worship looking for guidance, for a reason to proceed. I am here for you, my children. I will help you get through this trying time. Wait a second. Is that Stone Cold Steve Austin doing stuff on an ATV? Sweet. I'll be right back.

Excellent news, my children. I have returned. Forgive my tardiness. I was out with Steven, throwing back cylinders of alcohol while driving over unruly terrain. Where were we? Oh, yes. You stand before me with empty pockets and a furrowed brow. "Why me?" you ask. "How could they do this? How could they not do that? Why did everyone deep fry their skin?" In the span of four hours, you are left with an infinite number of questions. Don't be afraid to speak your mind. I am ready and willing to listen to everything you have to say... very soon. Is that Trish Stratus, jangling her city keys? She looks fantastic. Excuse me.

Okay. After an intense and therapeutic yoga session that left me 87.8% Stratusfied, I'm back again. I promise that will be my last absence. No, I'm not ignoring you. In fact, I have not stopped putting myself in your shoes, even though you are still wearing them. That is how much I identify with your anger. You were not entertained. They gave you a cube. They gave you a choir. You saw Michael Cole's figure. I did as well, but are you seeing what I'm seeing right now? This must be some sort of fever dream. Is that Pee-wee Herman in the building? My chair cannot stop talking, Mr. Herman. What's that? Actually, I'm not busy at all. Get Chairy and meet me at the living room park.

Greetings once more, my children. I can't come to your aid at the moment. Roddy Piper just showed up with a coconut. Scottish-Canadians with hairy fruits are unpredictable. Let a man of any other mixed nationality hold a hairy fruit; he is probably going to eat it. Let a Scottish-Canadian hold a hairy fruit. Game over, or has the game just begun? I must see what happens next. Please lend me 70 dollars after the beep.

- I take great joy in that visual in which a wrestler (usually The Undertaker or Kane) bursts through the center of a ring to drag his startled enemy into the manmade hole. With that said, this spot does not need to be a two-person operation. I think WWE should modify the spot so that the ring opens itself up and consumes a wrestler whole. Moments later, the ring opens up a second time and spits out a skeleton in colourful, chewed-up tights. Who would dare enter that ring next?

- I'm glad the WWF/WWE discontinued the In Your House series of Pay-Per-Views. I don't want them messing up my house. From the looks of the wreckage across the street, they permanently ruined my neighbour's house. His house only has one wall now. Plus, they moved his one-wall house into an arena without his consent. That's not nice. How is he going to stay warm during those relentless, arena winters? Backstage curtains provide little insulation.

- At my high school graduation, my classmates thought I dressed up like "The Macho Man" Randy Savage because I knew "Pomp and Circumstance" would blare over the auditorium speakers. They were all wrong as that is how I dress up when accepting any official document. I put on a sparkly robe and pink starry trunks below the neck. I'm ready to play basketball and go skiing above the neck. If you ever see me out and about in regular street clothes, that means I'm not in the mood to receive an official document of any kind. Hey, just give me the parfait, buddy. That's why I came to Baskin Robbins in the first place.

- Triple H's jean/leather hybrid jacket impresses you, doesn't it? According to you, turning a jean jacket into a jean vest, then placing that jean vest over a leather jacket is a brilliant idea. I bet you think his jacket makes him some sort of bad-ass. You probably want one of those jackets, too. If so, good for you. Go befriend Hunter. Go befriend the man who had to slay Sodapop's BFF and Jake Sommers from California Dreams to make a jacket impress you. See if I care.

- I think it's wonderful how every wrestler seems to have his own locker room. I wasn't aware that arenas could hold 40 to 50 locker rooms ? the majority of them empty except for the one wrestler hanging out by himself. Nobody should be forced to dress or undress in dramatic lighting, surrounded by others doing the exact same thing. Leave the half-naked socializing to that one and only arena hallway where people lean against walls and trade nods of acknowledgement.

- Being a man with manly needs, I crave racy Pay-Per-View advertisements. Those old Summerslam promos featuring scantily-clad WWE Divas washing cars were super hot. Am I right, my red-blooded brothers? Whenever I saw those promos, I thought, I've seen what you ladies can do in the ring. Now show me how you translate those skills to my primary mode of transportation. Lightly dab that windshield with your butt, then take a break to pour recycled suds all over yourself and the girl next to you. That's not how Carlos does it at the Chevron, but you make it work. Super hot.

- You will walk down one of two paths in life. You can take the easy path — paved by the trailblazers who came before you — or you can take the path less travelled by becoming a part of Team Bring It. If we are ever going to win Nationals, we will need to bring it. The East Compton Clovers are not worried because they've already brought it. Can you bring it? You better jazz your hands.

- Wrestling fans think of "Parts Unknown" as some mysterious fantasy land where supernatural beings roam. For your information, I've been to Parts Unknown several times and it is a humble environment full of tumbling hills, evergreen forests, and diverse wildlife. Maybe if you got to know the parts of Parts Unknown a little better, you wouldn't have to make such absurd, uninformed assumptions. Us educated folk prefer to call it by its actual name: Portland, Oregon.

- During WrestleMania weekend, I met Tinie Tempah and Eric Turner (the men behind the WrestleMania XXVII theme). Neither my driver nor I was familiar with the Atlanta, Georgia area, so we asked if they knew how to get to the Georgia Dome. Tinie replied by twirling on a rooftop for four minutes. Meanwhile, Eric sat down at a piano and told us that the directions were written in the stars, a million miles away, a message to the main. In the end, they did not help us find our way at all, but at least they gave better directions than Audioslave. Be myself? Okay, sure. What do I look like? A Global Positioning System? This is why you were never known as Audiomaster.

- Sooner or later, Wade Barrett may approach you and ask where I am. Please tell him I moved to Mars because I do not want to join The Corre. Judging by his two runs as a stable figurehead, I continue to have zero confidence in his leadership skills. He is the kind of leader who would initiate an ambush on nobody, only for his group to beat themselves up somehow.

Should he discover my whereabouts, I have a backup plan. As Wade searches the globe for new recruits — depleting each continent of its entire Alberto VO5 styling mousse supply — I will wait for him around a street corner. Upon sight of Wade, I will run into an internet café, log onto the WWE Shop website, purchase a Corre shirt, select "Super Express Delivery," open the package, wear the shirt, and pretend to be knocked unconscious. He will assume that I am already a part of his group and look elsewhere.

- Ric Flair is not ready to retire yet, but he will have to hang up his wrestling boots for good one day. Even larger-than-life legends cannot live forever. Eventually, Flair must come to terms with his mortality. When that time finally arrives, I will be the first to know. Commercials have taught me how to read the intentions of older gentlemen. Once Flair sits me down and shows me how to unwrap and eat a Werther's Original, he is close to saying farewell.

- The fashion industry is up in fashionable arms about my new initiative to take female wrestlers and turn them into models overnight. Specifically, aspiring fashion designers are livid with my superficial hirings. "These women don't know the first thing about wearing sets of increasingly giant wings. Leave these jobs for the real models, posing for gas money on independent catwalks around the country," they said on TheModellingFan.com.

A few designers were so angry that they walked up to my estate with a smouldering, determined stare, paused, turned around in a deliberate manner, then returned from whence they came as someone gave them a bouquet of flowers. Serves them right. What do they know about fashion anyway? They still live in their parents' lofts in New York City.

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Stephen Rivera is the creator of The Swerved (2006-2010), Neon Ropes, and this column. He is so caught up in the euphoria of having all this apple juice that — for a minute — he is living in a world where racism doesn't exist.