The Saudades Blog is about timelessness, in truth.
So it is in this spirit of mind that I've copied and pasted onto here what used to be found on an old Geocities page that has long vanished into web ether; but the memories remain...
Flash-forward to 1992... (Or flashback, as it is now...! But does it matter, at this point?)
I am at the crossroads - still a student at the university level but not sure what I really want to do with that, which field I want to truly adhere to... I am in a class with a soon-to-be famous (locally) chap simply due to his embracing of a hopeless cause - and the domain that he wound up in, field of studies-wise... Me, I wound up in that program... in those courses... by sheer happenstance, in my view.
I decide that I have stiffled my creative urges for too long
FAR too long...!
And I'll always remember WHEN I realized that and WHAT I was watching on cable television at the time...
Yes - it was that most reprehensible of choices :
(No - not porn! Ok then - it is the second most reprehensible thing to watch... Happy?)
I was watching WRESTLING! Escapism from the humdrum routine at its... well, not best but most affordable?
My lone saving grace there was that it wasn't the sickening WWF (still going by that insignia of sorts, back then - in the good old innocent days BEFORE the panda had struck; via legal eagles!)
I was watching WCW POWER HOUR
I felt kind of justified in my choice by the mere title of the show - simply because there was an evangelical preaching show also called POWER HOUR on some other network, at a very different time, and so it must have meant that to waste one's time watching that "rasslin" stuff wasn't so bad in the Eyes of The Lord after all...?!
I could be wrong there...!
I was siding with the underdog in doing so too - something that surely pleases our Good Lord. :)
WCW was timidly trying to broaden its horizons by coming onto a market that typically belonged to the rival WWF -or "The McMahon Circus" as I call it- whose product I always found profoundly dumbifying... (Hey, I've invented a word, according to Microsoft...)
Hence, I wasn't going to watch THAT...!
I needed something either wittier or more profound.
More wholesome family entertainment too!
In WCW, one found all that in the years 1988-1999! :)
Then they began to emulate the damnable competition - largely due to one VINCE RUSSO, whom I never detested despite all that he did or allegedly did... And, since then, Russo has ceased writing smut and has turned to GOD, ironically enough...!
I guess I really am ALWAYS RIGHT! :)
But I digress...
So then - back to 1992...
I can't seem to stop going back to those two years - 1992-1993...
Pivotal years that they were, indeed...
My beloved Bruins were screwed out of a potential three championships in a row, in those years; yes, three... My dear father took ill then... I had so many personal choices to make back then, too... Truly pivotal, in many ways - as for many individuals.
I only saw that in hindsight, of course - I couldn't see it as I was living them...
Isn't it always like that...
I thought for sure that I could always go back to school - pick up where I left off once dad "would be all right"... I thought for sure that the Bruins would have plenty more "contending years" too... I thought for sure that Cam Neely's career wouldn't end as soon as it did...
I thought... I thought...
Truth is, in 1992, I started becoming less and less a "fanboy" of things - especially when it pertains to artsy things...
And I began, more and more, dissecting those things...
I looked at the creative process behind what I was seeing there...
I actually learned a lot about storytelling techniques from watching wrestling - yes!
It's a lot like folkloric story-telling from old style raconteurs...
The same basic manoeuvers are employed to bewilder one's audience...
The showmanship - the neverending saga - even the soap-opera elements; it all fascinated me...
I was hooked! But not as a fan...
I wanted to do that!
I wanted to indulge the storyteller that lived deep down in me...
The one that I had stiffled - as other forces stiffled my progress generally speaking; that is another story too, one I shall indulge in retelling elsewhere...
I remembered Tully Blanchard's words from 1989...
He and Arn Anderson had left WCW and gone up north to the WWF - and they had won the tag-team titles from the much-feared "Demolition" team - which was nothing more than Road Warriors knock-offs.
(And they didn't say their act of contrition before the match either! Amazing too - for a Bible aficionado such as Arn Anderson and a future pastor, Reverend Tully Blanchard!)
(Oh - and to win the match, they had to get TWO pinfalls, not just one! It was a "2 out of 3" match, yeah!)
(The only drawback: Tully & Arn weren't called Horsemen anymore but "Brain Busters"...! They were the thinking man's tag-team, yes, but still... That name SUCKED! Whether Bobby The Brain Heenan was behind it or not...)
The fact was, if McMahon couldn't get them - he'd emulate them!
Once he'd get them, he'd misuse them and rename them in the unfortunate process (before casting them aside and letting them go back where they originated from; as "tainted goods" that is...! Sure, it is having what one could deem "good business sense" - but it is despicable nonetheless! But I digress once again...)
With Tully and Arn though, he had one half of the dreaded Four Horsemen right there...!
And they had delivered - they had beaten the genuine article, the Road Warriors
Of course, they were going to beat the parodies as well...!
Hence, they should have remained The Horsemen... If copyrights had allowed it, of course! Names mattered very little though; the discerning fan (like me!) focused on the familiar characters, no matter where they popped up next - new gimmick or not! These were still The Horsemen and they defeated Demolition - end of story!
And Tully's words reverberated in my mind, and those words were, really, Julius Caesar's words - but since everything's in the delivery, I remembered Tully's way of delivering those words better than any actor who had ever portrayed Caesar on the silver screen... (And Tully Blanchard was so very good at ''cutting promos'' as they say in that business...!)
Tully said: "We came, we saw, we conquered"
Veni, vedi, vinci!
My conclusion was that, if I stop being my own silencer (self-sabotage),
I too can go, see and conquer!
I have to go for it though!
But what medium would serve my creative urges best... hmm?
THAT was the 250,000$ question!
Writing for wrestling seemed pretty darn interesting, for a fleeting moment... even though it likened itself extremely easily with running away to join the circus! Still... the lure was strong!
Certainly because it could also offer the opportunity to do some "on stage" acting too!
I was nostalgic of the Four Horsemen
And here, in the WCW of 1992, was a group trying to be them - the Dangerous Alliance!
I recognized that it was the brainchild of one "Paul E Dangerously", who was a funny acerbic guy who was just hysterical with his histrionics, mannerisms and assorted idiosyncracies...
That's right - he was a hell of a lot like MOI! And he was, of course, fully part of the "action" itself too...
And so I thought up one of my earliest group scenarios...
"The Luminous Seven"!
Of course, why not? It comes from me - it should be named after me!
As with all my groups before (Aqua Force and other comic-book projects) and after (TBA - to be announced!)
And also just like any other "solo" project of mine ;)
This grouping of seven was purposeful
They had a cause - a mission - a true raison d'etre!
I like things that have logical explanations, you know...!
And so, with my Luminous Seven, way before similar groups would come aborning
(RTC; Raven's Flock; M.I.A.; bWo; LWO; Radicalz; Truth Commission; D.O.A.) (Heck, WCW had a bunch of guys uniting as the Magnificent Seven in its last days...!) (Never mind the fact that, years later, a villainous version of it would be green lit by WCW; nepotism alert right there too, as it was given to be built around long-time ''booker'' and behind-the-scenes controller Kevin Sullivan... His disgusting Dungeon of Doom would become a PARODY of my vision, verily - rendering my project unrealizable soon enough - *sigh*!)
For I had the idea to regroup mid-carders and disrespected legitimate legends, innovators, true originals
And have them rebel against "the system"!
The tyrannical unfair system, I might add!
In a way as to be a sort-of homage to three of my all-time favorite such groups...
The Three Musketeers
The Four Horsemen
and the Magnificent Seven!
And so was born, quite by itself, my famous LUMINOUS EQUATION...!
""3 Musketeers + 4 Horsemen = The Magnificent Luminous 7""
Now the thing was - WHO would they be?
It was after much consideration that I wound up including myself in the mix there...!
In Europe, it is considered the "comble" of narcissism to do autobiographical things out of your fiction...
Only in wrestling could it come to "pass"...!
And so, my original line-up of L7 was...
(BTW - I also do believe that MY L7 predate the sapphically-inclined girl band L7 - whose song "Pretend That We're Dead" is the lone one I like from their entire repertoire, really...! But that is, again, another story...)
So, anyway... ***my L7*** were to be:
TERRY FUNK
BOSTON BAD BOY
MR. HUGHES
ONE MAN GANG
NORMAN THE LUNATIC
LANNY POFFO
and MOI - LUCIANO PIMENTEL!
Hey - I was the glue that would make them come together and gel quick as a team under ONE COMMON CAUSE!
I deserved to be there!
Besides, in tag-team matches, the three huge guys there (Hughes -duh- OMG and Norman) would really palliate to my lack of ring experience...!
And I was and still am convinced that I'd provide much "ring generalship" and overall leadership, even if just as a manager, in the midst of waging battle... ;)
Oh yeah...!
In the Triple B and "Funk U" characters, I was embracing the EXTREMIST cause...
Way before there was an ECW too...
I am not that partial to "hardcore action" - in the ring or captured on film in the bedroom...!
But I can sympathise with people who are passionate about what they do...! Especially in the case of hardcore violence in pro-wrestling which is akin, to me, to monks who are into self-flagellation...!!!
They deserve respect for that - and, it seems to me that Funk gets little respect...
And so did Boston Bad Boy - during the course of his short life as it was...
(Besides, I am a Boston fan - one who had also found 1986 hard to swallow... One who was rooting for the Bruins... One who was Celtic Proud... And in near-despair about lifting the curse that still haunted the Red Sox at that point... Just like Triple B there, I am sure!)
I have since created a character in honor of Triple B...
But that is another story too - for it is another project as well!
I also espoused the cause of the doomed-never-to-main-event jobber...
That was the reason behind having Mike (aka Norman The Lunatic) there...
Although, I thought I couldn't do too much of that...
I realized immediately that I needed to have somebody out there that I could realistically pin for the 1-2-3 count - and that was the generic jobber right there!
So, the real cause embraced by my group here was the MID-CARDER's PLIGHT!
Those guys who will never get TITLE SHOTS; close but never near the top!
They are, at least, within striking distance... in the middle of the pack... stuck in that grey area between stardom and near-anonymity...!
Lanny Poffo was certainly that as ''The Genius''
Plus, we share the same initials!
Curtis Hughes was more of a bodyguard for us all - although he had just "been there, done that" so I thought he'd be happy if we all helped him getting World Title opportunities!
And as for OMG...
OMG...!!!
Well, actually...
He was the ideal goon to have on your side - that's pretty much it! ;)
It is easily noticeable that this group's conception came waaaay before the "T 'n'A" era in pro-wrestling -
And the emphasis on "sports entertainment" (read: smut) that the McMahon circus brought about, soon enough...
But, of course, women could have tagged along with us seven...
Luminous Valets! ;) The natural precursors to the ''L.OV.s'' - Luminous Online Visitors to my TLB Prime Network of blogs and vlogs and websites...!
There were, back then, as there are now, plenty of ladies in wrestling to choose from...!
In 1992 though, I wasn't half as familiar with the "wrestling universe" as Ric Flair called it once, alas - as I was still much into the four-color universes of super-heroics from my youth instead - the DC universe and Marvel universe which I had wanted to write about up to the 80s... (And, as it is, I finally gave it a shot only in the 90s!)
That was, in great part, why I had decided to "stifle those creative aspirations" in me...!
I mean - comic-bookies?
Before I even knew for sure, I had a bad impression about that "industry" - its "cocoonness" - the rampant nepotism there...
And its near-sightedness AND short-sightedness too!
Besides, I had found wrestling to be a "real-life DC or Marvel universe" - very nearly!
Within reason, one could say that indeed!
All manners of outrageousness was there, in this "wrestling universe" - and it was all "real"
You actually had a Thor, a Superman, a Hulk, a Konnan, a Wolverine and a Vampiro (soon enough) - even an Arachniman... in the flesh! (And spandex!)
Best of all, you had actual tangible Horsemen! (Led by an Aquaman - the Nature Boy!)
One didn't have to wait for the Apocalypse to see them either!
I thought I could be a part of that...!
A "sign" of sorts was when I noticed a lookalike/soundalike of mine already involved in the sport - Luc Poirier!
Then again, judging by Brian Pillman, Eddie Guerrero, Louie Spicolli, Mike Alfonso, Scott Bigelow, Owen Hart, Elizabeth Houlette and so many others,
Wrestling can be the theater of so many tragedies
With the bad karma that has been following me around, I cannot believe I'd be any better than just another one of those...
(Note: I do not believe in karma per say - but I do believe in hexes and the evil eye - as I've seen evidence of that...)
Still, I thought wrestling was tailor-made for a creative one like me; sort-of like the modern-day circus to run away to, indeed
And I kept thinking I'd make my pitch to them - preferably to WCW or ECW - and become a runaway hit...!
That was up until my life took a turn for the worst, in 1993, of course...
A turn that enhanced that "inhibition of action" that I seem to have caught at birth - or rather, during my conception, even!
I became more "stuck up" than ever then... Truly no better off as I "came of age"...
Andre Mathieu sure had it bad as well... Back in the late 60's...
He died...
Months later, I was born... I do not believe in reincarnation either, mind you, but...
I sure do have it - that same "inhibition of action" as a popular radio-host here, now in his 70s, called it...
Naturally, as it is - even without any "disasters" afflicting me per say... I "have it"... And it sure is inhibiting me...
Holding me back... Preventing me from realizing my full potential...
And so, years went by...
And before I knew it, my first stage - my stepping stone to fame - my trampoline that would have catapulted me into the stratosphere of multi-media entertainment and made ME a star...
Well - it became stale... And not as much willing to maintain an open-door policy - at all.
Andre Mathieu had also not gone for it full throttle when there was an opening and a chance for it. He did not seize the opportunity, the chance, the moment - and the doors collapsed and slammed themselves shut.
And he wasn't let back in.
Even though he had been "in" thanks to his dad, at a very early age...
(The only difference really, between him and me, aside from the different types of art that are our respective fields: Mathieu's dad made him get a taste of it, way too early, but he did - while my father never opened any doors for me. Neither would my artistically-accomplished cousin Sao or anybody else with "contacts" really...)
A little more and I'd start believing in reincarnation...!
But I do not. (Same as karma; scroll back up a bit for it!)
I believe that bad vibes stick around, though...
And I was conceived, born and raised not all that far from the exact spot where Andre Mathieu collapsed, dead on the floor...
After a life that was hell for him...
I guess it is my turn now.
Hmm...?
The preceding is, all or in part, a preview and first draft of my umpteenth book project tentatively titled "Wrestling Out Of The Womb" - a title that I therefore declare copyrighted and TM to ME - ME - ME! Luminous Luciano Pimentel - whooooo!
It is entirely at my discretion how much of the above text I do end up using in the book...! ;)
It is most probable that I am inspired by the example of a DDP or any number of other late-bloomers all around; but it is true that, even today, I remain intrigued by the concept of stepping into the squared circle...
However, this time, I'd do a little bit of a Kaufman act - with a hardcore twist to it.
And my choice as well as natural opponent would then be... Lufisto.
Allies?
I don't need any "allies" - Lufisto is only a girl...!
With no class either... Nope - she's no lady! But that is another story...!
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Born in the Age of Aquarius, destined to seek out truths in many an art form, trained as a historian and a journalist but truly a prose-lover... Luciano is out to dispel any clichés and reinvent them all both to the tune of a little something called the truth as also to his own image - and being old-fashioned, he does not mind that distinction one infinitesimal tiny bit at all...! "There are two ways to spread the light; be the candle... or the mirror that reflects It." I have chosen to be the latter... okay? ~*~
"To be not only a seeker of light... but a dream weaver of light" ~*~ For as surely as the moon reflects the light from the sun, you and I can reflect the Light from Above - and be, indeed, the light of this world! ~*~*~*~ NOTE: THERE ARE COOKIES ~ from at least three parties~ ON ALL OF MY BLOGS! ~*~ accept it!
