Fancy a wrestle?

Emma and I like our visitors and for the last week we have had another one in the form of Jeremy Hammett. The Jezmeister (as all the cool kids call him) arrived last Monday evening and since then it’s was a non-stop social whirl. Listed today are three great things that we did before Jeremy sadly left on Monday.

Jeremy is a fan of the American Wrestling. It used to be called the WWF until the World Wildlife Fund got cross and sued them. It’s now called WWE fact fans, with the ‘E’ not meaning a drug. Oh no, it means ‘Entertainment’. Anyway as a youth I quite liked the WWF. I used to watch it on Sky and even I knew it wasn’t ‘real’ I liked all the crazy storylines, the showbiz and even the fact that some of the wrestlers got injured. Some even died! Yep – it may be fake but it’s ruddy dangerous. This dude called Owen Hart did a move that went wrong a few years back and broke his neck live on the TV. Horrid eh? Back in 1992 they held ‘Summerslam’ in the UK (one of their big events). It was at Wembley Stadium and 82,000 tickets sold out in minutes. Luckily my brother and I managed to get some. His favourite wrestler was Bret ‘The Hitman’ Hart (who is now recovering from a stroke). My favourite was Davey Boy Smith – The British Bulldog (who is now dead from a heart attack). They were fighting each other in the main event for The Intercontinental Belt (which is a bit like the F.A. Cup was when it meant something. E.g. an ace cup to win but not as good as the league). The British Bulldog won! (funny that with the fight being in Britain eh?) I was happy and poor Jon was distraught.

Over the last sixteen years I haven’t really watched much wrestling though. I discovered girls and to be honest I would much rather see them wrestle than some steroid pumped maniac of a man. Jeremy has stayed a fan of wrestling though (whilst maintaining an interest in the opposite sex too it should be said). He therefore suggested that it might be good to see its weekly show ‘Smackdown’. This was being filmed at the 20,000 capacity Staples Centre in Downtown LA. I agreed! Live events are always great fun and it was something different to do. And do you know what? It was ruddy brilliant. It was great looking at the kids home made banners, hearing all the crazy Americans go mental and watching these bonkers characters have pretend fights. The three hours went dead quick and I was sad when it ended. There was one bad bit though when I chucked my beer over me and Jeremy. Some fireworks went off and it was so loud that I jumped ten feet out of my chair. My beer went everywhere. Some annoying seven year old brat next to me said “You didn’t want to do that man”. Some small tiny part of me would have loved to have biffed the annoying, precocious brat on the nose.

Friday night saw us heading into Hollywood to check out some of the nightlife. Jeremy had found a place for us to visit called ‘The Echo’. On Friday nights it had live bands mixed in with DJ’s playing a barrage of indie tunes. The venue was just like one back home and I liked being there. Both of the bands were total rubbish but it didn’t really matter. I was happy to be out and about, drinking a beer and watching some live music. I also had a dance to Morrissey at the end of the evening which is always is good thing. I had five drinks over five hours. The barman thought I was a crazy alcoholic. I thought I was pacing myself and being rather sensible. That is LA for you. I will say though that it’s a myth that all LA women are obsessed with image and looks. There were a lot of women in that place who I don’t think looked in a mirror that often. I’m not being rude or anything, but they didn’t seem bothered that they looked a bit like a tramp. All power to the tramp ladies I say!

On the Sunday evening we went to see Russell Brand do a stand up gig. It was at a place called ‘The Roxy’ which is an indie gig venue/theatre. It’s quite small (holds about 300 when people are seated) but a really ace place all the same. It’s on Sunset Strip near ‘The Viper Rooms’ and ‘Whiskey A Go Go fact fans’. Anyway the show was packed and was about 80% full of women all of whom wanted to do it with Russell Brand (including Emma who seemed to take a shine to him in the flesh!).

He was dead funny though and it was a brilliant show. I really like Russell Brand, his radio show is brilliant and his autobiography is a joy. His life has been packed full of incident and he writes about it in such a witty and verbose way. He has an amazing grasp of what you can do with the English language and his prose zips off the page. His stand-up is similar in that he can go from sounding like an Essex yob one minute to Oscar Wilde at his most ostentatious the next.

The thing was though that when going for a pee just before Russell came on I realized Robbie Williams was going for a widdle next to me. He was looking a bit worse for wear and had greasy hair and was a bit chubby. I didn’t say anything to him as I was being cool and things (in my new Abercrombie and Fitch gear that all us LA dudes wear). I was going to have a quick look whilst he was weeing, but not in a gay way but just to see what size it was for curiosity value. I bottled out though which in retrospect was the right thing to do. Imagine forever having the image of Robbie William’s penis imprinted in your mind! I would rather see Gary Barlows’ (who is more famous over here anyway).

Robbie was sat behind me during the show and was obviously a bit cross that nobody knew who he was (apart from a few English dudes there). He kept on standing up and being really loud in order to be recognized (when everyone else was sat down). When this didn’t happen I don’t think he knew what to do. For some reason I briefly felt a bit sorry for Robbie Williams. Without fame I don’t think he could cope. He is a man who craves attention, so he can subsequently moan about the attention, but take away the attention and he wants the attention. A vicious circle methinks. I might change my name to Joseph Heller and write a book about it called ‘Catch 22’.

After the show a queue of girls all waited to have sex with Russell Brand and not Robbie Williams. Russell Brand, before going over to his harem, had a chat with Robbie Williams and the conversation looked awkward. I think Robbie wanted to be his friend but Russell didn’t want to know, and just wanted to do it with some ladies. Crazy eh?

Until next time,
Marc x

P.S. We also went to watch LA Galaxy again. We won 3-2 and it was just as good as last time. I think Jeremy loved it. David Beckham is ten billion times better than anyone else though.

P.P.S Shout outs to birthday boys Jon Ollington and Gary Eastwood. And not forgetting birthday ladies Sinead Taylor, and reaching middle age, Laura Miller. 

P.P.P.S Speaking of wrestling (as I was earlier) my brother once thought of going to wrestling school in the US. At the time he was about 16 and needed to bulk up a bit. He thus bought some of that muscle powder and everything. He was going to call himself Shawn Johnson. Sadly Jon never did become a wrestler or, indeed, Shawn Johnson.