My Mr. T Experience

^ Has anyone ever taken a bad photo of Mr. T? Honestly! I'm not trying to get a laugh here. I'm fucking serious.^

 I wrote the following tale as an inspirational speech I performed in 11^th grade. Whereas my classmates spoke fondly of heroes, role models, and departed loved ones, I chose the fictitious route. The others were sentimental. I was emotionally detached.

The response to my speech was mostly positive. Some laughed. Some worried about me.

The story has since been lightly revised, but it remains the product of a prolific yet blundering 17-year-old. Enjoy? Yeah. Do that. It's not Shakespeare, but then again, a lot of people hate Shakespeare.

###

Whenever I hear the word “inspirational,” my mind drifts back to my first day of kindergarten. It was a sunny late August afternoon and I remember how hard it was to let go of my mom's hand when we arrived at Waters Elementary.

Our teacher was very nice. Her smile made me feel at ease. I spoke to some of my classmates even though I was nervous.

I ran into a problem during recess, however. After two or three brushes with death on the jungle gym, I decided the slide might be a welcome retreat.

When I got to the ladder of the slide, a burly sixth-grader stood in my way. He scowled and crossed his arms.

“This slide ain't for girls,” the bully scoffed.

“But I'm a boy,” I squeaked.

“Well, then you should prove it,” he said. He pointed to a girl with brown pigtails playing four square. “Kiss that girl over there.”

His virtually toothless cohort sidled up and chimed in.

“Wait. What if the kid's a thespian, like them chicks in them movies yer uncle's always watchin'?”

“You shut that yapper of yours, Q-Bert!”

The bully nearly turned on his cohort.

I wanted so badly to wake up from this nightmare and be back home in my cozy bed. But I was stuck in reality, which sometimes gets ugly. I was on the verge of shamefully ambushing that unknown girl with a kiss when a strong, dark hand grabbed my shoulder.

“This boy ain't doin' no kissin' 'til he's damn good and horny.”

Oh, my God! It was Mr. T!

“Now, listen here,” he went on. “What's your name, kid?”

“It's Chad, sir,” the bully said with a tremble.

“OK. Now listen here, FOOL! This boy has the right to do whatever he chooses on this here playground, and I ain't gonna let you tell him otherwise. Now apologize to him, sucka.”

“Sorry!” Chad said. “I'm really, really sorry.”

Mr. T taught me at a young age how to resolve conflicts with others... when he launched little Chad through a nearby window. As if that wasn't merciless enough, Mr. T then pulled Chad's limp body back onto the playground, where he ordered Q-Bert to keep his friend's dead weight propped up. Then Mr. T hustled up three flights of stairs to the roof of the school. He jumped down about 30 feet—in slow motion, mind you—and diving-tackled the poor kid.

Chad got a little case of permanent brain damage on his day of comeuppance, but I've heard he has recently relearned how to wipe himself. So, he's making progress.

Anyway, the recess monitor came over to scold us, and what does T do? He pulls out a freaking machine gun, that's what. But he was careful to shoot only the ground surrounding the teacher until she retreated. That way no one got hurt. Except for... you know.

Mr. T then hoisted me onto his shoulder, made a mad dash, and eventually forced me into the back of the A-Team van. I'm still recovering psychologically from what he did in that van.

He admitted that he threw his fight with Sylvester Stallone in Rocky 3, through a waterfall of tears, I should add. As if that wasn't shocking enough, Mr. T also told me that the writers of The A-Team stole a lot of their material from The Dukes of Hazard. For instance, the scene where the villain's car veers out of control and winds up sinking in a pond. Also mentioned was the part where there's a cool explosion and people have to dive for safety.

He was really sobbing when I told him what was up between T and me.

“Mr. T, you're still my hero.”

The man looked at me with those soaked brown eyes and smiled.

“You know something, Nick, the fool I pity most is the one who doesn't believe in himself.”

And as the gentle giant gave me a hug, I whispered to him:

“Do you pity me?”

Mr. T shook his head so hard his gold chains jingled. He replied:

“Not after today, son. Not after today.”  

The Confederator: American Gladiator from the South

                                             ^ Not pictured: The Confederator.^

Hidden deep within the chronicles of television lore that I just made up for this month's story, there's a mostly forgotten American Gladiator whose tale I'd like to share. Born in Woodland, Alabama, on the day of the moon landing, the fourteenth child of Travis and Trish Taters accomplished his lifetime goal when he got a Lynyrd Skynyrd tattoo on his back in junior high. After that, he still kept striving. He went on to become a foul-mouthed, muscle-bound showman on TV. As an often-censored Gladiator, Richard “Dick” Taters left an obscure legacy in northern states such as Wisconsin, but in the deep south, plenty of folks know the legend of The Confederator.

In order to express the triumphs and downfalls of The Confederator, whose lifetime record of being the most arrested American Gladiator still stands today, I enlisted the e-mail aid of Nitro, a former Gladiator who now resides in Las Vegas, where he divides his time between doing push-ups on the sidewalk beside a collection hat and performing his one man show: “Saturday Nitro Live.”

Nitro's response was that of a sworn enemy to The Confederator. Now, I will admit that Nitro's criticisms of The Confederator seem exaggerated, but regardless, as Wisconsinites celebrating the 238^th birthday of our favorite country this July, we should give Nitro the benefit of the doubt:

Hello and USA, USA, USA everyone in the Dairy State! Nitro here. Check out my KickStarter site and leave a donation if you care to know my real name. Anyway, the rumors about The Confederator and his rebellion against the American Gladiators are all true. I didn't like him one bit. We got along like peanut butter and bacon, or like Stonewall Jackson and any Southern General loser you can think of.

I'd say the most impressive thing on his resume was that he claimed to be “Party Buddies” with the creator of the show. Sure, the guy could lift a pinball machine above his head just like the rest of us and he was a bodyguard for Jerry “The King” Lawler for two months, but I wouldn't call those REAL credentials. Hell, I took a bullet for OJ Simpson (pre-scandal) just to land an interview.

On his first day, I gave him the grand tour of the arena. When we finally got to The Eliminator, Dick Taters had the gall to scoff at it.

“You call this 'The Eliminator'?” he said. “This crappy mound of pads 'n' plastic ain't nothin' compared to me: The CONFEDERATOR.”

He then spat a stream of tobacco onto the sacred inclined treadmill. It was the first of countless times he spat on The Eliminator. He often did so while shoving medicine balls on ropes at contenders as they crossed a balance beam.

Early and often, The Confederator raised hell. During practice, he used to shoot the tennis ball gun at people. Stagehands, janitors, it didn't matter. When told to knock it off, he'd holler that he had “done it for Shits and Giggles." Those were actually the nicknames of his two “bestest pals” from Alabama, who got to carouse around the arena. Shits and Giggles dared The Confederator to shoot tennis balls at everybody.

For his morning commute, The Confederator rode a Honda 3 Wheeler to the arena. Was it street legal? I doubt it. Plus sometimes he'd be chugging from a bottle of moonshine with one hand, blaring an air horn with the other, and steering with his knees. You call that professional?!

He demanded that since the “Star Spangled Banner” was played before tapings, we should also put our hands over our hearts and sing along to “Sweet Home Alabama.” He was the only one on the show from Alabama. (Besides, the rest of us  were into heavier stuff like Poison and Night Ranger.) The Confederator was one selfish dude.

There was a TV set up in the weight room, and the Confederator always insisted that his shows be played. Reruns of The Dukes of Hazard were his favorite. His childish lack of compromise erupted in his infamous “Dukes vs. A-Team” brawl with Tank. (June 8^th, 1992.)

He hated The Atlasphere event, mostly because of the name. “I ain't gonna use no word what sounds like it been given by some Harvard boy from Europe!” he once screamed. “When The Confederator spins at a contender to knock that sissy off a crater before it shoots up smoke, I calls it a 'Round-y Cage,' thank you very much.”

His trouble-making went overboard. We knew he was a threat to our union of Gladiators when he tackled Gemini, our unitard-wearing brother in arms, off of The Wall. In case you've been living in a freaking cave forever, The Wall was an event where contenders got a head start in climbing up a steep cliff-like thing before we Gladiators demonstrated our upper body strength by tracking them down by climbing super fast. It was awesome.

Well, as the two tussled on the floor, a fiery Gemini called him out right away. He demanded to know What in the name of Mr. T?! was The Confederator's problem.

“You's a slow climber!” the southerner said. “It's survival of the fittest!”

After that firestorm, my fellow Gladiators and I united in our opposition of The Confederator. We took a stand against that dirtbag's antics. One night he crashed a Jacuzzi party at Zap's condo, and within minutes, he was drunkenly taunting her for, “Doing the Human Cannonball like a girl!” She hammer punched him in the sternum and bit off his earring. Zap could be a pretty righteous babe.

Around this time, The Confederator got dumped by his girlfriend, who happened to be the chick who played Snow White at Disney World. Well, Blaze did some homework on their breakup and found out why she left him, which turned out to be because he wanted to invite her coworkers into the bedroom and “Let the Dwarfs watch.” What a sick-o! We sure as heck gave him hell about that. And he battled back.

Only, he battled with the mindset of a conman. For two weeks he acted out of character. He was kind and calm, and then he cordially invited the gang to home town for a charity event. We should have been suspicious since none of us had ever heard of a Civil War reenactment for charity, but I don't know, sometimes American Gladiators do stupid things. Once we put on those blue uniforms, the townsfolk at the park changed. They started booing us. An old guy whipped his dentures at me. Then The Confederator and his “bestest pals” stormed over the hill, waving that Confederate flag. We took aim with our muskets and pulled our triggers, but it was no use.

“Southern man can't be hurt by no invisible bullets!” The Confederator taunted. He then clubbed Gemini with his musket and shoved Zap into a pricker bush. Meanwhile, Shits and Giggles hurled sacks of skunks at us. We were forced to retreat. It was the worst defeat suffered by the American Gladiators at the hands of The Confederator. Plus we found out later that day that the “charity” was just a way to pay off his gambling debts.

We'd had enough of his crap. When he returned to Universal Studios, we jumped him in the parking lot and pummeled him with the pugilist sticks from Joust. When it was all over, he wobbled against his 3 Wheeler with two black eyes and a swollen lip. He cussed and spat and declared his intentions to secede from the American Gladiators.

“Nah,” Gemini said, his pectorals heaving. “We're keeping you in this union of American Gladiators.”

That was the truth. We kept him in our union, where he got perks like freedom of speech and a dental plan and all that shit. He was kept in the union, but he was demoted from Gladiator to janitor, and he couldn't call himself The Confederator anymore.

We proud Gladiators put that bonehead in his place. Sure, there were other incidents, like that time he tried to assassinate the president of the network, but he didn't succeed. Probably because the attempt was made with a tennis ball gun.

When the show ended its run, Dick Taters was almost broken but not quite. He returned to the job he always loved the most: Being a bodyguard for Jerry “The King” Lawler.

I guess there are worse jobs out there. Once I'm done sending this e-mail, I just might send my resume to The King. Unlike Taters, I've got a strong work ethic. Plus I graduated high school.

In closing, keep your feet on the pedestal and swing a mighty pugilist stick, America!

Sincerely USA,

Nitro