Tales Of A Wrestling School Dropout

April 4, 2013April 7, 2013 / Alex Doriot / Leave a comment

(It’s Wrestlemania week on POP GOD! Join us everyday this week as we count down to Wrestlemania XXIX this Sunday with new posts searching for God in the squared circle.)

This is the tale of a wrestling school dropout.

Before my alter ego Ice D ever defended his championship, I flunked out of wrestling school.

A few years back I stepped into a professional wrestling ring with two of my best friends in the outskirts of Harlem, GA. We grew up watching spandex-clad athletes assault each other every Monday night for years. One day we heard of a local wrestling group offering tryouts. We decided to join them.

We had our ring names picked out – a faction known as The UnXpected. Our T-shirts would bear our catchphrase: “Respect The UnXpected.” The merchandising dollars would be rolling in.

We dreamt of winning world championships and entering the Hall of Fame.

We never made it out of training. Continue reading →

Hall Of Fame

April 3, 2013April 4, 2013 / Alex Doriot / 1 Comment

(It’s Wrestlemania week on POP GOD! Join us everyday this week as we count down to Wrestlemania XXIX this Sunday with new posts searching for God in the squared circle.)

4,040 days – the length of time Bruno Sammartino held the WWE (then WWWF) Championship in the 60s and 70s.

20 years – the length of time the WWE Hall Of Fame has existed and ignored Bruno Sammartino’s unmatched accomplishments.
At this year’s WWE Hall Of Fame ceremony, one of the great injustices of professional wrestling will finally be righted. After over two decades of feuding and refusing to appear, “The Living Legend” Bruno Sammartino will take his rightful spot in the WWE Hall Of Fame.

This is a momentous occasion for wrestling history. Sammartino has been at odds with WWE Chairman Vince McMahon since the 80s over the way McMahon commercialized and sexed up the wrestling industry. But the WWE’s new PG attitude seems to have bridged the gap between the two sides.

WWE is finally recognizing Sammartino’s incredible contributions to sports entertainment. A new generation of fans who never heard of his legend will get to see Sammartino’s accomplishments on TV, DVDs, and the internet.

To many pundits Bruno’s career, and his legend, will not be set in stone until he is granted his gold ring. This despite the fact that people like Koko B. Ware are already enshrined. (Also, so is Drew Carey. What?)

Does Bruno Sammartino need the Hall Of Fame? Would his legend die out without it? Continue reading →

One Easy Way To Tell If You’re Crazy

March 25, 2013March 26, 2013 / Alex Doriot / 1 Comment

Here’s a test to answer that looming question we all ask ourselves at one time or another – Am I crazy?:

Look in the mirror.

Do you see a reflection?

If yes, then you are crazy.

We’re all crazy in our own little ways. It’s just a matter of figuring out which type of crazy we are.

Silver Linings Playbook (the best movie I’ve seen from 2012) is a movie about mental illness, the different ways people cope with their craziness, and how they find the silver linings amidst all the negative turns life takes.

Everyone in the movie is unbalanced in their own special way. There’s Bradley Cooper’s bipolar divorcee, and Robert DeNiro’s obsessive-compulsive football fan, and Jennifer Lawrence’s unhinged widow. Even the psychiatrist waves his crazy flag as a face-painting Philadelphia Eagles fan.

I liked the movie so much because I think it’s pretty true to life. God didn’t make any person perfect. He created us all a little quirky. Continue reading →

The Most Embarrassing Situation Known To Man

March 20, 2013March 21, 2013 / Alex Doriot / 3 Comments

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There may be no more embarrassing situation than purchasing a plunger at 2 in the morning.

Because there can only ever be one reason to buy a plunger at 2 in the morning: your toilet is overflowing, and it cannot wait.

You can’t buy a plunger in privacy. You can’t just order one off Amazon and wait a couple of weeks (or even just a couple of days if you have Amazon Prime). If your house isn’t prepared with a plunger already, you would only buy one when you really need it.

I ran into a friend in Walmart the other night doing just this. We didn’t say anything about the plunger in his hand. We both knew.

There’s no way to hide buying a plunger at 2 in the morning. And you shouldn’t have to. We’ve all been there.

You shouldn’t have to hide any of the other crap you have backed up in your life either. We all have sins and secrets, the things we do at 2 in the morning we’re embarrassed and ashamed of.

If we all have secrets, then whey do we try to so hard to hid them? And why do we ever try to hide them from God? It’s not like God doesn’t know what we’re struggling with. We act like we can keep it from him.

You can’t. Your life is on record. You are on camera at all times. There is no moment in your life you can hide. Continue reading →

Wake Up With Purpose

March 19, 2013March 20, 2013 / Alex Doriot / Leave a comment

What does your morning look like? Do you typically sleepwalk through the same routine seven days a week? Does the alarm on your iPhone go off for over an hour before you finally throw off the covers? Are you up every morning at 7:30 but not really awake until 11:30?

Maybe you should try waking up to something different. Maybe you should try waking up like Rick from “The Walking Dead”.

In the first episode of “The Walking Dead”, a routine traffic check goes awry and Officer Rick Grimes is shot. The next time we see Rick, he’s waking up from a coma in an Atlanta hospital.

The problem is he’s the only person left in the hospital. In the indeterminate time since Rick has been shot, the world has become overrun with zombies. The walking dead have taken over the hospital and the world around him.

There is no time to waste when Rick wakes up. His life is in danger. His family is missing. There is no time to fool around with the snooze button. There is no time to procrastinate. Continue reading →

A Lesson From Elmo On Happiness

March 14, 2013March 19, 2013 / Alex Doriot / 1 Comment

My favorite verse in the bible is Philippians 4:4. It reads:

Rejoice in the Lord always; I will say it again, rejoice!

Some people, including myself, have a hard time living this verse out. Take Elmo, for instance:

Our furry friend seems to have some serious emotional problems. One second he’s ecstatically happy, the next he’s nearly suicidal with despair. And why? All because the green frog won’t play with him right that instant.

We’ve all acted like Elmo before, haven’t we? Much like Kermit promises Elmo everything he wants, God promises us everything we could ever desire. Yet we complain because we want it all right now.

Elmo is guilty of an error many of us make in life. Elmo is not finding his joy in the right place. Continue reading →

Reality Interrupted

March 13, 2013March 18, 2013 / Alex Doriot / 2 Comments

“The Joe Schmo Show” might be the most incredible reality television experiment of all time.

This is not your typical competition for a million dollars filled with wannabe actors. “Joe Schmo” asks the question, “What if there was a reality show where everything was fake except one contestant?”

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On the surface, it’s hilarious. Seeing a dozen trained improv actors (and, inexplicably, 90s celebrity Lorenzo Lamas) dance around one unsuspecting mark as they parody all your favorite reality tv tropes is an incredible hour of television.

Underneath the over-the-top parodies, though, “Joe Schmo” gives us a picture of how to adapt to reality.

The rouse is on the poor Schmo 24/7 (who, to be fair, is rewarded with $100,000, luxurious vacations, and other prizes for his troubles). To accomplish this high wire act, the cast spends months getting into character, rehearsing their roles, memorizing backstories, and creating a script to work from.

The cast knows all it takes is one slip up, one drop of an accent, one stumbled line, and a million dollars and months of hard work would be washed away. Perfection is essential.

Of course all of this preparation is thrown out the window when the wildcard element of the Schmo enters the picture. Continue reading →

What To Do When You’re Stuck In The Middle

March 12, 2013March 13, 2013 / Alex Doriot / 2 Comments

Pop culture confession time: I am one of the last people in my generation who has never seen or read the complete Harry Potter saga.

It’s not because I think the series is demonic or promotes witchcraft or any moral reason like that. I actually did start reading the series about 13 years ago.

In fact I was the first kid in my class to get behind the books, introducing them to many of my friends. My mom saw them in a book catalog and brought the first one home to me.

I was hooked. I devoured the first three books. I even ordered the fourth book from overseas before it was released in the U.S. I was a megafan.

Then there was a gap between the fourth and fifth book. From what I remember this is when Potter-mania really started catching on in America, at least around the people at my school. Now seeing another person with a Harry Potter book was not strange; it had become the norm.

The first Harry Potter movie came out around this time too. And this was the beginning of the end of my fandom. I had great expectations, and to me that first movie did not ignite the same spirit as the first book did. I was sorely let down. Continue reading →

Average Sucks

March 6, 2013March 7, 2013 / Alex Doriot / 1 Comment

Want to know why the Harlem Shake is so popular that a new version appears on Youtube more often than a new baby is born these days? (I didn’t fact check that, but I’m willing to stand by it.)

Because we’re ok with being average.

Look, I’m not judging anyone for creating a Harlem Shake video. In fact I just participated in my first one this weekend. I’m in the back somewhere. I promise.

But the Harlem Shake phenomenon encourages us to just be average. And being average sucks the life out of you. Continue reading →

You Are Not Too Old

March 4, 2013March 5, 2013 / Alex Doriot / 3 Comments

You are not too old.

How do I know? Because I’ve heard my grandfather play guitar.

He only knows a couple of songs. I think that’s understandable though, when you realize he just started playing a year ago. In his 80s.

He had never played an instrument before. Doesn’t have a musical background. He just always wanted to learn the guitar, so our family bought him one. And now he’s slowly strumming along, learning chords, and playing Silent Night for our family at Christmas. No big deal. Continue reading →