It's a hard knock life

“All fights. All the Time.”

It was strange hearing that phrase again, in all of its ferocious familiarity. Many years ago, and many times over, this call for continual combat, that trumped all else in my Lisa Frank day planner, leaving room only for a never ending fury of fists, propelled itself from my foaming jaws. I was in with a pretty tough crowd then. We went by The Murderguns and that declaration was our slogan. We were originally going to rally under “Where’s the Beef?” but, unfortunately, Dave Thomas beat us to the punch (and that was just the kind of violent idiom we would use to describe a whole variety of otherwise peaceful situations). So, while he sunk deeper and deeper into the lowlife world of chicken nugget larceny, we focused on our own vicious vices.

Like those valiant knights of old, wrapped tightly in their metal mail, we, for our own protective purposes, suited up each day in a snazzy mesh ensemble. We looked great, and, of course, the majority of our terrible (yet terrific) torsos were visible in the right light, but that was just the commission. The weekly salary was the frictionless fighting that this wardrobe daily awarded. As for economic analogies like these, they were our bread and butter. It’s how we talked. But still, Jay-Z said it best, “I’m not a businessman. I’m a business, man.”

This time though, I was nowhere near the old gang when I heard that anthem ring. Rather, I was seated in a Vietnamese living room, itself situated in the modest city of Vinh. A good friend in Hanoi had graciously invited me to travel with him to this quaint hometown of his. It afforded me a unique opportunity to spend some very telling time in the homes of his aunts and uncles, people who live in a very different place than the ever-bustling capital city I inhabit. As always in Vietnam, I was floored by the warmth and courtesy that was lavished so freely, and everything possible was performed to make both of us feel as comfortable as we could.

However, this place was dealt quite a bit of damage back in a certain war, a fact that, prior to my traveling, had supplied a good amount of anxiety. I was to be the first western guest they had hosted, a role that I feared might be resented. In reality though, as is mentioned above, such notions came to nothing, even with older residents who I suspected had been personally, and directly, affected by my country’s campaign those decades back. With all of that in mind, I couldn’t help marveling at that propensity to forget the past and look lovingly ahead to present matters. At least that’s what seemed to account for this moving reception.

Those five nostalgic words had shaken me though, and my take on the situation was becoming ever less certain. The source of this uncertainty, and thus the phrase itself, was a television tuned to a special American channel, which I assumed was available only to international audiences. I gathered that this aggressive expression was the slogan of the station, titled something along the lines of Fight TV, and that it permeated each and every commercial break. In this specific instance it was preceding, and presumably introducing, a Saturday morning installment of WWE professional wrestling.

In response, an alternative explanation for everything began forming in my head. It started as a seed, but, as I watched hordes of intensely muscular, speedo laden, wild eyes warriors tear into each other, amidst the screaming approval of 20,000 bystanders, it grew into a redwood.

Maybe they were terrified of me. Maybe they had been careful not upset me in the slightest way, as the suspected consequences for such an action would be something strikingly similar to the scenes that filled this television screen. Perhaps.

But I couldn’t be sure. As such, just to be safe, I right away took to ripping off my cloth constraints, that is, my jeans and t-shirt. To my surprise, I found a sporty spandex number, clad with neon-shredded tassels, underneath. Then, to further seal the deal, I followed every handshake with a suplex, because you can never be too careful.

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Here's a link to some photos I posted on facebook:

http://purdue.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2309760&l=aea32&id=13715197