Category Archives: Candid Crave
Candid Crave: Squared Circle Dreaming
When your body turns off the lights what does your subconscious cinema play? Do your childhood fears manifest themselves into a nightmarish broccoli stalking you down the street in your underwear? Or do you get the nerve to ask out that beauty behind the bar? For me, it’s different. My real life dreams manage to work themselves out in this unrealistic but believable context. A solid 25% of all dreams involve professional wrestling; the majority featuring me being hired to work for WWE Creative. This occurs usually by a chance meeting with Vince McMahon. When these dreams started a few years ago I was hailed as a genius, though lately I’m treated more like a peon. The realization that someone as imaginative as me will never get the chance to create freely under a one-man show operation (WWE) has seeped its way in. It took a heart felt talk with one of the sport’s top stars to break it to me that as long as Vince McMahon holds all the cards, it’s just not worth my time.
Though, somewhere in my veins there must be an optimistic sap. The dreams just won’t go away. For instance, last week one had me watching TNA’s Impact Wrestling attempt to boost ratings with the questionable opening bout of Bret Hart vs. Roddy Piper. Then today for the first time I made an appearance as not a writer, but as a…wrestler. I was on tour with WWE, but what must have been a “minor league” operation for none of the talents were from real-life and were unrecognizable to me. Plus, we were performing in an arena with barely enough seats for a girl scout meeting. But what’s stranger is that I was walking around in tights. You may not know, but I’m a 6 foot 1 man in the body of a 160 pound boy. If I have muscles, I’ve never seen them. Maybe they’re on loan at the Smithsonian, or my parents pawned them before I was born. Though I’m proud of my dream director for not casting me in some far fetched gimmick. You can’t exactly see me “Goldberging” my opponents, in fact I wouldn’t even fit the bill for Gillberg. I was named “Steve Slimmer,” and I paraded around as a body builder yet I obviously had never lifted a weight in my life let alone any past lives. The intentional contrast of my persona was certainly fuel for a comedic heel role to the tune of a heel Zack Ryder or Mike Bucci’s Simon Dean gimmick.
I’m not sure what my future dreams hold, but whatever they are, I’m going to take notes. And you never know… maybe one day they’ll be playing in your reality.