Sunday, March 04, 2007

Too Much To Tell

I've had a busy past few days. The kind of busy where you do so much, there's too much to really tell. So, as Inigo Montoya said, "There is too much. Let me sum up."

The Belterra Casino in Southern Indiana rented the boxing ring from the boxing club Dad runs for a fight that aired on Showtime's "Friday Night Fights", so I rode down with Dad and another guy to help set up and take down the ring.

We left early Thursday morning, the fights were Friday night, and we took it down immediately afterward. We got done packing up the ring around 3:30am and left straight for home. I got back to my apartment around 9:30 Saturday morning.

My sleep schedule is still way off. Because the ring is basically a bunch of steel, I'm a little sore and achy from all of the lifting, pulling, dragging, and lugging.

I brought the notebook with me I always carry around in my back pocket and didn't find any good comedy bits per se, but did take notes on a couple of interesting anecdotes I witnessed:

*While dining in the buffet, I heard a man behind me exclaim "We're giving all our money to Iraq!!!" I turned to see who said it and sitting there was this hugely obese guy. Massive. And the first thought that popped into my head was No, you're giving all your money to Hostess.

* While in the same restaurant, I saw a morbidly obese woman (the casino was obviously full of giant people...that's what you get for opening a casino in redneck country) in a huge black and white leopard-print smock. She was eating cherry cheese cake. But not before drowning it in pepper. PEPPER. On her cheesecake. It made me shake my head.

* Because it was a Don King-sanctioned fight, there were a couple of overweight guys in bad white suits running around with Straight-from-the-Sopranos accents who loved letting people know they were from New Yawk. They loved trying to boss people around, and most people let them do it. After you set up the boxing ring, you tighten the ropes a bit and after a few hours you have to tighten them again. Knowing this, we don't tighten the ropes up as far as they can go when we first put up the ring. Mobster Wannabe #1 pulled on the ropes and started to complain they were too loose. "I work for Don King!!" he started to yell. And then he and the other Mobster Wannabe started yelling "We work for The King!! We work for The King!!" Excuse me, but there are only two people who can call themselves The King: Jesus and Elvis. Don King is not The King any more than Stephen King is. You work for the most crooked rat in the boxing business (and in my opinion, someone who dodged a murder sentence). That's not really anything to brag about. At least not if you want to impress me. In a nice bit of irony, though, I have turned their proud claim to fame into a different catchphrase of sorts. Now, when I see someone do something foolish, I shout, "I work for The King!!" Heads up, friends. You're going to hear it.

* One of the annoying things about going to boxing shows is the fact that every guy becomes a wizard of all things boxing and feels they must supply commentary to everyone around him during the fight. Hillbillies aren't good at it, as represented by this horribly mixed-up cliche one tried to get away with: "Boy, he's really clipping the sails out of him." Did he mean "he's really taking the wind out of his sails?" Or "clipping his wings?" I think what he meant to say was, "Boy, I really don't have any idea what I'm talking about."

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