Blog Love Omega Glee: The Bodyslam Poet (25 February 2012)

This week's episode of Grapple Groove opens not in an arena, but in what appears to be a small, dark coffeehouse. The camera pans the interior to show beatniks dressed in black turtlenecks and berets. Everyone in the coffeehouse wears glasses. Steaming hot cups of coffee are served and people nosh on French pastries. The walls are covered with abstract expressionist art as if decorated with the unsold remains of Jackson Pollock's garage sale. After panning the interior in general, the camera zooms in on a stage outfitted with bongos, acoustic guitars, and a single microphone on a stand. The camera cuts to a sign next to the stage, which reads, "Tonite: Open Mic Poetry Slam."

Jake, watching this on television, can hear a large arena crowd start to boo, and knows this is no real coffeehouse, but what a wrestling writer and set builder think is shorthand for a coffeehouse in the minds of a wrestling crowd in the television audience and the live audience watching the skit on giant video screens in the arena. The camera focuses on the stage and a young beatnik with a goatee and a bad ponytail approaches the stage, and starts to recite poetry into the microphone, "War. Bore. Endless tour. Stop loss. Gotta stop stop loss or we'll all be lost. Society tries to compel me to serve in the military. Ferry me off to war. Oh, lord. Swing a sword. Fire a gun. Ain't killing fun? I explode some guy I don't even know. Yo! Oh, no. People got to know. Wake up to the military industrial complex. Technology likes to flex. We got to spend less. It's straight up senseless. We got to go 'Om, om' instead of 'Bomb, bomb'. Create enemies for you and me and all the money. Tax tax tax. Get the facts. It's all an illusion. You're under a delusion. If you want peace, work for justice, cause it's just us in this here piece. My private is private. I ain't going be no buck private for the public. This hubbub sick. I want to go to the pub and have a beer with no fear. Military is silly scary . . ."

At this point, a large sweaty man wearing black trunks, a dark blue and white striped shirt, and a Mexican wrestling mask that vaguely resembles the head of Mickey Mouse with its big, floppy ears steps onto the stage, and puts the poet into a headlock. The man says, "All right, I don't think your three minutes are up, but my patience is. I won't have anyone badmouthing the military. If it weren't for them protecting you, you'd be dead by now. Too bad for you they're not here to protect you now, but I won't hurt you. Much."

The man in the mask punches the beatnik in the face, then releases him, and pushes him offstage. "I'm next," the masked man says, "My name's The Bodyslam Poet and I'd like to read you some better poetry than that."

The masked man digs into the front of his trunks, pulls out a wet piece of paper, and says, "I wrote this one this afternoon and it's called, let's see, 'Love Is An Abdominal Stretch'."

The beatnik has returned with a woman who looks to be the open mic organizer and they point and shout at The Bodyslam Poet to get off-stage. "Shut up!" he says, pointing at them menacingly, "I listened to your crap, now listen to mine!"

The beatnik takes out a clipboard and threatens to pass around a petition condemning The Bodyslam Poet. He waves it in The Bodyslam Poet's face, who grabs the clipboard, and hits the beatnik over the head with it, then The Bodyslam Poet casually throws the clipboard behind him. The Bodyslam Poet then spins the dazed beatnik around in a circle by pulling on his ponytail, lets go of the ponytail, picks up the beatnik when he slows down from spinning, and bodily throws him off-camera. "Okay," The Bodyslam Poet says, smoothing out the piece of paper in his hand, "I hope you don't count that in my three minutes. As I said, this is 'Love Is An Abdominal Stretch'."

The Bodyslam Poet clears his throat and reads, "Love is an abdominal stretch / It makes my insides want to wretch / When I see you I cannot think / You make my stomach start to sink / Like a steel chair shot to my head / I see stars and my face goes red . . ."

At this point, the coffeehouse crowd has risen en masse and surrounds The Bodyslam Poet booing him and pelting him with the remains of croissants. After one woman splashes a doppio latte macchiato in The Bodyslam Poet's face, he throws down his poem, and starts scooping up audience members and body slamming them to the ground. Most flee, but the last remaining audience member, the beatnik who read before The Bodyslam Poet, gets slammed on top of a table. The Bodyslam Poet looks around at all the carnage--spilled drinks, stepped-on pastry, bent poetry chapbooks, broken chairs and tables, and sprawled bodies of beatniks--and says, "I'm going somewhere where I'll be better appreciated."

The camera cuts to a sports arena in Dubuque, Iowa USA filled with wrestling fans, and on the screen flashes, "Next week: The Bodyslam Poet debuts in ring on Grapple Groove."

The arena crowd cheers. The television cuts to a commercial for the U.S. Army. The army pays to advertise; beatnik peaceniks don't. Wrestling always butters those who give it bread.

Blog Love Omega Glee is a novel by Wred Fright about two bloggers who fall in love while the world falls apart, which is being serialized on his blog. To start reading from the beginning or read another installment, please visit Blog Love Omega Glee Central on WredFright.Com. If you like what you've read, or you've read all of Blog Love Omega Glee and want more Fright, then please read his first novel, which is available in print and as an ebook.