004 Ringside Gentleman Transcript (Gene Okerlund)

Listen to the full episode and see show notes at this link.

Michael: This person died in 2019 at the age of 76. And he's a man who died in 2019

Colin: Wilford Brimley.

Michael: No, it is not well for print for good gas. Okay. He was among other things. And he sang the song 2d, fruity on a 1985 album,

Colin: not little Richard,

Michael: not little Richard, but a good guess. All right. He was inducted into the WWE hall of fame in 2007.

Colin: Me and gene Ocala.

Michael: God damn it. So

I think I remember reading something about the, I dunno, the announcer, you know, I can't believe you got it so fast. Yeah. Today's good. Guests is mean Jean okra.

Mean Gene: What a pleasure. It is for me to return to WrestleMania. And as I understand, I'll record for the Astrodome guys of 67,925 people. And this back to this.

Michael: welcome to famous and gravy a conversation about what really matters in life. One dead celebrity at a time through a series of questions about the highs and lows of their inner and outer life. We want to figure out what seems desirable to us. I'm Michael Osborne. And

Amit : my name is Amit Kapoor today.

Michael: Eugene Arthur. Oberland better known as mean. Jean died January 2nd, 2019, age 76,

Michael, give me the first line of his obit. All right.

Jean Oakland, who as a ringside interviewer and commentator served for decades as a straight man to the outsize personalities who suffuse the world of professional wrestling died on Wednesday at a hospital in Sarasota, Florida. Your thoughts and that obituary,

Amit : I don't know why they use the word straight, man.

That seems completely misleading you because

Michael: you think of sexual orientation, obviously,

Amit : especially for somebody that died in 2019, that's just a weird choice

Michael: of words. Yeah. Maybe the Elbit sexually the New York times. Isn't

Amit : no, I think it's normally good. This just, this one didn't seem to nail it, huh?

Yeah. Normally they nail it in the first. But

Michael: what's a synonym there for straight man. I mean, I saw

Amit : it. Well, one of the, I dunno if it was one of the obituaries, but someone said gentlemanly.

Michael: That was really good, but I do like outsized personalities who suffused the world of professional wrestling. That's a nice little phrase.

Yeah, the contrast was good. Yeah. Scale of one to 10. How's this a first line of the obituary from what I

Amit : expect from a New York times

Michael: obituary. It's a four. Yeah. Well, let's get to the categories, category one, five things. I love about you, uh, in this category, Aman. And I will work together to try and come up with five things that we feel like really sell this person and why we love them.

Do you want to get started?

Amit : Yeah. My number one is the name mean gene, which is ironic is something that I love because I read that he didn't. And he later came to like it, but it, it was given to him by another wrestler by Jesse Ventura. I think

Michael: another wrestler. I mean, Jesse Ventura, governor Jesse Ventura, Jesse Ventura, for the most part, you've had your way over the past few years, there is a young man that has entered the AWA hall Colgan.

A man who I think could truly test your strength. Oh, heal my strength, but the body will prevail meat and cheese. Let's talk about other stuff. I'll get to this arm.

But

Amit : because he is not mean at all, because he was apparently an incredibly nice guy, even in that arena, no pun intended. Uh, so it was one of those things, like when you call a humongous person tiny.

So he had one of the opposite nicknames, which I just think is like a great timeless thing.

Michael: I had that on my list as well. I had it actually, I narrowed in on just the fact that he got it from Jesse Ventura. Jesse Ventura is forever going to be a fascinating figure to me. I know he's still with us. He's not dead, but in some future episode, see

Amit : your, your number two thing you love about me and Jean.

Michael: This is a little simple, but the act, you know, the New York times obituary in perfectly referred to as straight man, what you call gentlemen, like whatever it was just the role he played. I mean, I'm sure we'll get into it as the conversation goes on. Professional wrestling is just, um, it's a weird beast.

You know, I'm talking about the former Intercontinental champion of the world. Macho man, Randy, nothing, nothing means nothing. Nothing means nothing. What do you mean by that? Talking about all the way to the top here, just to fireball in a position that I'd rather not be in, but the queen. Did the top all year, my true madness.

He has got more cool than proven check Tony. Actually, let me pause on this. What is your relationship to professional wrestling?

Amit : It stopped in about 91 or 92. It was, it was a pretty intimate relationship through most of the eighties, my childhood, but it didn't carry into my, my teenage years. The

Michael: same.

More or less. I aged out of it pretty quick. And I would actually say that my childhood friends were more enamored with it than I was. And I was a little after the Hogan sort of heyday, the wrestler who had my attention the most was the ultimate warrior for whatever reason. Anyway, it is a weird world, right?

Professional wrestling. And one of the things I wonder with mean, Jean is the value add. That he brought, like, is it 10%? Is it 80% more entertaining because of the role he played, you know, match to match and being the straight man, the gentlemanly, you know, interviewer who's acting as if he's in a normal sports journalistic environment, right?

Amit : Yeah. The tuxedo and the perfectly cone mustache. It was all part of it.

Michael: Yeah, exactly. It just, what a great act and what a. What a weird act. So that's my number two. Okay. I'll

Amit : go with the number three. I'm going with the words, 2d, fruity

Did you listen to that? I didn't listen to, it was. WWE album. I think they did these a lot in the mid eighties. Like I remember the Chicago bears didn't want around the time. It was really a thing to record an album and he sang Tutti Frutti and he's singing it really well.

He was really. 'cause he was, he was a musician in the past I read, but he Tutti Frutti. He

Michael: nailed, I had on my list, the music background, so great minds. Yeah. Yeah,

Amit : absolutely. So does that mean, is that our single

Michael: number three then? Or does I think so. I think it's our single number three and we've still got two more.

The fact that he was the best man at the iron SHEEX wedding. Yeah. He has a real friendship with whole Cogan and that seems actually genuine. And I just don't think that that's all show. I think that that is a real friendship. He actually has friendships with a lot of professional wrestlers so much that he's the best man at the iron SHEEX wedding.

I just love picturing him there as the proud best man. Yeah.

Amit : That's a good intro to my number five and it was. He was a superstar without being the superstar. So he was, he was in it without being in it. He was good enough and known enough and popular enough to have the action figures, but he wasn't, he wasn't the thing, he wasn't the wrestler and

Michael: I understood

Amit : his role then.

Yeah. That's such a rarity and it's such a gift to be able to embrace that and do that well,

Michael: like a grace, a grace. All right under the next category. Malcovich Malcovich named after the movie being John Malcovich where the characters in the movie have an opportunity to take a portal and have a front row seat to somebody's experiences in life.

Amen. What was your Malcovich Malcovich moment? My, it was a

Amit : detour. It's not wrestling related. I learned that his son was on the 1988, us Olympic hockey team. I saw that and. To be apparent to an Olympian. That's what I wanted to see most from, especially a guy like him who had his life in let's call them athletics or in the periphery of athletics, but just the pride that must've come from.

That's what I wanted to be

Michael: behind his eyes. That's a good one. I do wonder about his relationship to sports generally, because professional wrestling is this weird. I mean, there is athleticism to it and for whatever judgments you want to lob incredible bodies involved in pro wrestling, but it's also scripted in story and entertainment and has elements of staging.

So what was his second favorite sport? Probably hockey. If his son was an Olympian

Amit : know, not even sure wrestling was his favorite. I'm not even sure dressing was in

Michael: his top 300. Yeah. But do you think he enjoyed sports? Do you think you'd even call himself a sports journalist?

Amit : I think he would call himself a sports journalist, but I don't know.

That's what he was after. I think he enjoyed sports, but I think he enjoyed the announcing and the character playing more than the fact that it was actually around a sport. And I mean, there

Michael: is some caricaturing of sports journalists in his role, in his performance. When I asked the question. What'd he call himself a sports journalist.

You said? Yes, I think faster than I would, because I feel like he's a man playing a sports journalist on entertainment, TV for a product that is, I guess, all sports in a way are entertainment. It's less about competition and more about fan loyalty and who we are rooting for and what different personality traits we get behind as fans.

It's fake.

Amit : No doubt. And it's the personality traits, but it's still. He might've known the outcome of every match, but he doesn't know what happens immediately next. And as a journalist, especially as, as a play-by-play type of announcer, you have to be able to react to that. And you have to be in that quick reactive flow state.

And that's where I think the journalism came in. Your Malcovich.

Michael: Yeah, there's a story in the early seventies. And I think this was before pro-wrestling became as staged as it came to be in the eighties and nineties. There's a point where somebody calls them on the phone and says, you need to step in. And he's like, oh, I don't know anything about wrestling.

And the person says it's going to be okay. You need to step in and do this and take over this job. He did not plan for that. Detour into the world of pro-wrestling sports, journalism slash fake sports journalism. I love origin stories that begin with somebody talks you into something that you're just not ready for, or you don't think you're ready for.

And you wind up being, you know, the most iconic figure in that role for generations. Somebody says you need to go get in there and announce this wrestling match. And he says, I don't know anything about wrestling. And somebody convinces him. That doesn't matter. You're the perfect man for the job I would have liked to have had a front row seat to the slow emergence of confidence that has to happen.

The, okay, I'm being asked to do this, I'm going to do this anyway. The walking through fear that led to everything that followed. So is it the walking through or the overcoming? It what's the. Sorry. I

Amit : imagine the overcoming it is a, is a huge feeling of release the walking through it is an

Michael: experience. It's the walking through, you know, courage is fear with feet.

Courage is not the absence of fear. So if you talk about overcoming fear and being on the other side of an experience and saying I'm no longer afraid, that's way less interesting to. The inner dialogue of, I am scared shitless, but I have to do this anyway. And I'm going to bring my best self to it and hope I get through it and then emerge victoriously on the other side, the dissolution of fear that happens is you realize you are actually way more prepared for the moment than you ever could have realized.

I would've want to have been with mean gene in that

Amit : moment. That is, that is far and away. The most Bernay brown you've ever sounded in our entire friendship. Thanks.

Michael: Take that as the minute as a compliment. All right. Next category. Are there any divorces? If so, how many, anything else? We know?

Amit : I saw one long-term

Michael: stable marriage married since 1964, over 50 years, two kids.

One of whom you already mentioned was a professional hockey player, and I think some grandchildren. Does not seem to have had a tumultuous love life. Yeah.

Amit : And how easy it must've been during the eighties, as far as we know, 50 five-year marriage is impressive. Feat.

Michael: Yeah. Yeah. Enough said, okay, next category, net worth.

What did you find? I saw

Amit : 9 million.

Michael: That's exactly what I found. That's kind of currently my sweet spot. That's a great number. It is 9 million is a really great, I missed that. It's not even

Amit : 10. Yeah, but it's still high for, for anybody, but certainly for it announcer it's high. Yeah. It's a

really

Michael: nice number.

And then, you know, died in Florida. There had to have been a home in Florida and he, it seems like the kind of guy who's got a condo in Florida. Yeah. And

Amit : just to, I mean, just to be able to go back to the kids in north,

Michael: North Dakota or South Dakota, I had one of the Dakotas, I forget what just

Amit : say I, I, I died with 9 million.

Yeah. That's pretty good. That's pretty good. Yeah, no, that's like, you're, you're freezing and you don't have that.

Michael: So, yeah. I mean, when you saw that number, what did you think does that FA did that seem high, low about right. It seemed

Amit : high it's higher than I would have expected. I certainly think he was a millionaire with the amount of merchandising and royalties and stuff that came out of that entire history of right.

So I think he was certainly rich, but I didn't expect it to be that

Michael: high. Yeah. And it does sound like that. There was some real negotiations between the different wrestling organizations through the eighties and nineties. This is a little bit of a detour, but I kind of want to share it. Were you aware of.

Like the history of wrestling and how the WWF got into a kind of war with the, I think WC w and that this was like a pissing contest between Vince McMahon and Ted

Amit : Turner. I've only know of it peripherally. I only know the WWF. I know that there was divisions and unification. And all of those things, but I don't, I don't know the history.

Michael: I did not either. About the time I faded out of being the target audience for this, uh, was I think when these divisions heated up, but I went down a little bit of a Wikipedia rabbit hole, Ted Turner and Vincent man were in this big pissing contest and that what ultimately won out was sex and violence.

And that's where, that's where that's, where

Amit : everything went out. Yeah, I guess

Michael: so. I mean, the other thing I think about when I think about wrestling in this period is. How much it kind of resembles arena rock. Do you know what I'm talking about? I kind

Amit : of get it. I'm not entirely

Michael: sure what I'm trying to point to.

Yeah. I think what I'm trying to understand is the nature of celebrity during this period of American history, why does professional wrestling appeal to anybody? What is the value of this product? I feel like what's most being put on display is the steroid male body, the male physique, right? These giant muscles and these testosterone filled personalities.

What is, what is that representation of masculinity and the entertainment industry say about that? One of the things I'm trying to, I think sort through here is how to feel about professional wrestling as an entertainment phenomenon, and whether it's a ugly celebration of toxic masculinity or whether it's a caricature and a parody of toxic masculinity, where we ultimately, we see it's sort of, you know, silliness and shallowness.

And I want to understand all of that because I want to understand. Me and gene in that environment. Yeah.

Amit : Let me, let me try. What's possibly turning is that professional wrestling? The whole Kogan mean Jean John rhe of professional wrestling rose at the same time that the white snakes in Bon Jovi's music did the same time in excess of business, the Gordon gecko and the wall street and in lifestyle, the Robin leeches and the chandelier ears and other types of music too.

And rap music, it was. Excess. Yeah. And all of those seem to have gone. They seem to have written a wave white. A lot of it corrected later, or at least like went through a cycle where it became a little more arts oriented or a little more conscientious oriented, but it doesn't seem like professional wrestling ever course corrected.

If anything, it went from like what, what they're now calling the eighties as calling family-oriented, we're still looking. As excess and it only got more accessive right. It got more sexualized. And as, as did many things, but it didn't seem to have ridden the cycles that that culture does. Yeah. And that's where it's confusing.

And at the same time, we know it's fake the whole time yet it still continues to go down that path. And I guess maybe it has to, because we know it's fake, but where, where mean, Jean, I think has a role in this is that he was the counter bound. To it. And I don't know if him as an individual could have done that 20 years later.

Like you can only have the counterweight. I think at the beginning, it's just so much, it just seems like it's less believable, but I think more from the mean gene that we're talking about, I don't think he would have done it 30 years later for the first time.

Michael: So there's something about his timing.

Amit : There's something about his timing that made him such a celebrity was sort of the counterbalance of it that he played to that excess at the time. But the fact that that excess went on for another 30, 40 years. And it's still kind of there today. I don't know if there's any appeal to it, but he didn't, he stuck around for a while, but that was certainly, I don't think it was ever the same since, since that initial rise.

Michael: I agree. I agree. Wow. That was all in the net worth guy.

Amit : Well, what does net worth net worth is? Uh, it's somewhat a question about excess. It

Michael: is in some ways it's appropriate. What's right. And what feels right. I think it's also about value, how we perceive value and how we understand value. And what did it mean to ride that wave and did they do more with it and how did they handle it?

You know, 9 million though, way to go mean, Jean pretty good. All right. Next category, Simpsons, Saturday night live or Hollywood walk of fame. This is a category where we try and assess how famous somebody was. If you were on the Simpsons, if you hosted Saturday night live, if you were parodied on either one, then you've made it.

I didn't find anything on main

Amit : chain. Did you? I didn't find it either. I found something that looked like a family guy clip. Yeah. But I, again, I couldn't validate a little

Michael: surprised. I would have thought that this would be ripe for Simpson's territory.

Amit : Yeah. So in those, in those three, which we're talking about our criteria for like validated fame, at least of this generation, we didn't find the evidence, but I, I want to mention that his likeness.

Of the tuxedo and the horseshoe baldness and that style of mustache, it was just emulated everywhere. Anytime you see an announcer or even a often a referee, like I think of like Nintendo games and so forth, anything that had to do with boxing or wrestling. And they always kind of looked like me and Jean kind of looks like Luigi from Mario brothers or no.

Is it Mario? No, Luigi's the Baldwin.

Michael: I didn't even realize. I think that they both had. Hmm. I'm not sure which one's bald, but I definitely see the Mario brothers comparison. Yeah. He is a kind of archetype in a way. And that like, that transcends his body and his personality. I mean,

Amit : I think he's a, he's a pop cultural archetype.

Michael: That's what I mean. Yeah. I think once again, this gives me confidence in this category. And that I don't think most millennials and younger are going to recognize the name mean gene and say 10 years.

Amit : And you proposed him on the list for the show. It didn't immediately clicked to me who he was. I had to think about it.

I may have had to even look it up. I mixed it with mean Joe Green. The, I think it was a football player. Fair enough. There's not a hundred percent Raymond name recognition. Even for me, a child of the eighties, I watched this,

Michael: right. I have to have logged a certain number of wrestling hours for it to even have any kind of familiarity.

And if you have no relationship, Whatsoever with professional wrestling, then this name means nothing to you, even though, you know, mean Jean has a nice ring to it, obviously. Yeah. And 9,000,009 potentially in the bank, not forget about the 9 million. Okay. Next category. Now in the mirror, did he like his reflection as a bald thing and increasingly bald man?

I think, no, that's my hunch. I also. I do think he is

Amit : surrounded by

Michael: men with a certain kind of physique of which he stands in stark contrast. He's shorter little chubbier and everybody around him has gigantic muscles. He might've made peace with that physique. I have a hard time imagining that I liked his reflection in the.

But maybe that's my own bullshit coming out on it. Your thoughts? I think the

Amit : stature would make you think that he does the way he carries himself. He does like kind of body humor a lot. Like he seems to be very comfortable in his own body, but I think that feeling of always being the smallest person in.

The interview and just surrounded by these giants that just, that can't reinforces

Michael: and insecurity. It must rise to mean even, even if you make peace with it and you meditate for 20 minutes at the end of the day and realize my body is just a vessel for my soul for main Jean. I just have to imagine that you can have that lesson on Friday night and then on Saturday morning, when you show up to interview Randy Savage.

You're like, oh God, I feel small

Amit : again. Correct. 'cause you, you're rich. You're famous. You have a wonderful family life. You have all these things, but you still are much, much smaller than everyone else around. I don't get why that matters. I mean, I think genetically and anthropologically, there's very good reasons for that, but it's the thing I can't wrap my head around in life is that it's, you know, it's a genetic sequence that seems to have such a big role in happiness and personal.

Michael: Yeah. And I think we have to assume that that was operating here, given the superficial nature of this work. So best guess is that he did not care for it as a reflection in the mirror. What about next category? Outgoing message. Did he record the message on his voicemail or home answering? Unquestionably unquestionably what a great voice.

I mean, the pipes on that guy so stands in quite stark contrast, which I, I, I love that about broadcasting. I love when you get these radio voices, right. I love when you get somebody who's got a great voice and an awkward physique. I like the disconnect between those two things. Okay. The next category regrets, public or private public is what's been stated private as what we suspect.

What do you got here? There was a troubled

Amit : relationship with alcohol that I heard, which I didn't know enough about it, but I want to talk about it. Yeah. But the other thing I had is maybe a private regret was never being a singer, a musician like how good he actually sang 2d, fruity. And that he wanted to be a musician when he was younger, he was an announcer.

You know, he was at a microphone. There's a lot of substitutes for music, but it's, he never did that expressive art form. I don't know if that mattered to him, but that could be a private regret for me if I started that way. And I ended on that

Michael: career path, that makes a lot of sense. I do have to wonder, you know, there are some art forms for which there are, it's a relatively high percentage of talented people in the world.

Singing feels like one of those, right. That there are exceptional singers, but there's also like a fair amount of really great centers. What are they? Great musicians overall, and whether or not you commit yourself to. Profession, every talented musician I've met, who did not decide to become a musician, faced that dilemma at some point.

And you do in those conversations, get a vibe, get a sense. And there might be some regrets. So I think that's a good one I had in terms of public. The big one I saw was he said he didn't care for the travel schedule. And it was like on the road 300 days a year. It's grueling another way in which this is similar to.

That have a, you know, rock musician, a life that's similar to that of a rock musician that much time on the road. Sounds awful. I mean, I think there are people out there, musicians and performers who have the bus and who likes seeing the country and the world and they like traveling. But for that to be kind of non-negotiable for that to be part of the job.

Yeah. That seems like it sucks. So as, as he expressed that regret, I could completely understand it. The. Private regrets. I hypothesized one was enabling a culture of toxic masculinity. Even if it is a caricature, like, is there a complicitness, is there something evil about pro wrestling? I'm not sure that there is no steroids.

Aren't good for anybody, I guess. And I don't know how many of those videos you've watched of, and especially recently of Hogan. Randy Savage or ultimate warrior or anybody, you know, kind of getting all worked up and yelling in the microphone thing. Main Jane, you know, it's funny on TV, you meet that guy at the bar and you're like, I don't want to run into that guy.

He's about to raise hell, fuck. Those guys.

Amit : There's a glorification of bullying.

Michael: Yeah. Right. And, and, you know, muscles are the only thing that matter. And, you know, there's. That's not the same thing as fitness. That's not the same thing as bodybuilding. This is more about aggression and promoting that flavor of aggression.

And I don't know if it's a bad thing or not, but I'll tell you the moment that actually happened here in doing the research, I clicked through some of the videos and there was an interview of mane Jean with Hulk Hogan, and my seven-year-old son got sucked right in. Thinking to myself. Do I want him watching this?

He thinks it's hilarious. He's like, that guy is funny and he's right. Hogan is hilarious. And Hogan in the eighties had a incredible charisma, whatever else you want to say about the guy, like he could hold your attention on the camera, but it also made me feel kind of uncomfortable in terms of like, there's something that's not sitting right to me about what professional wrestlers.

And I haven't quite put this into words yet. I'm still turning on that one too, I guess. But I did wonder if, if me and Jean, everybody thought

Amit : about that. Yeah. The counter to it, I think though, is that he had the same level of fame. As them, without being that without being the Hulk or you can't call them the Hulk without being Hogan or without being that pumped up giant, he became as famous as them without being them.

But only in

Michael: contrast to them, I mean, only because he's a counterpoint,

Amit : I don't think it changes being a part of something that enables some unhealthy

Michael: toxicity. Does professional wrestling, like, do you look back on it and say, Maybe this is, I don't want to say evil. I don't want to get carried away and sort of saying like the institution of staged professional wrestling is a cancer on society.

I don't, you know, I don't want me to get too goddamn worked up about this, but is it harmless?

Amit : I don't know if it's entirely harmless, but I don't have a problem with it this many years later. And I think because it's so characterized it's action figures just in, in life, it's just, it's not really. Yeah.

And they're open about that. You find that out later, but I just don't see it as that harmful. I wouldn't say it's harmless. I don't see it as not

Michael: harmful. Yeah. I suppose that's about where I land, but I'd also be really open to having somebody present the argument to me of it's harmful. And here's why I think if somebody were to put that into words, I'd be very receptive to it.

But in the absence of that, I agree. I think that. Largely harmless. Okay. So the other regret, the heavy drinking, what did you find on this? All I saw was a sort of quick entry on Wikipedia that he was a lifelong drinker and finally we've reached it. He had five kidneys, he had three different kidney transplants.

One of them. Was given to him by his wife, which boy we should've called that out earlier. Did you see that now? His wife gave him a kidney. It not just married 50 years, but like have my kidney. She had his

Amit : kid and his kidney.

Michael: So I do think that there is a difference between an alcoholic and a heavy drinker. I didn't see a criminal record. I didn't see a broken marriage or didn't see broken relationships. I don't see any public evidence. For alcoholism or regret hard to say that's a little trickier where I saw the heavy drinking come up is I believe around the time of his death and about these kidney transplants.

So I do think that you can not be an alcoholic. You can be a heavy drinker, but you can still pickle your body over the course of many decades and die at a relatively young. He was 76. That's a little

Amit : young. Is that bad? I mean, if you pickle your body, you learn he'd lived pretty long. I mean, not, he, he certainly, you can't say he died young.

Yeah. I don't know that it is bad and have a weird saying he didn't have a dependency. Yeah.

Michael: I don't know. I think that my starting point for trying to answer that question is. Pain. I do think aging looks painful, right? I think as you get older, your body starts to fall apart. Things hurt. I also think that that is an emotionally painful experience.

I don't know enough about it. I'm still learning, but I do think that. People often drink heavily to deal with both the physical and the emotional pain. And I do think you can accelerate both forms of pain through heavy drinking without necessarily drinking. Alcoholically, you know, I think that there's a fine line there, but that's how I understand that.

So when you ask, is it bad? I don't know. I think it's a little bit of a question of where else in life he. As he's aging, you know, as the bright, shiny star of progress, Ling begins to fade off into the sunset as, as culture moves on the way it does. And he has less relevance is, you know, maybe as he's recognized less frequently on the street, you know, what happens to him and his inner life?

I don't know. I don't know. I don't know that it's bad that he was a heavy drinker to age 76, but it also does make me wonder. What's life all about for him after the mid nineties.

Amit : Yeah. And I guess the, what I want to know, and it's something we'll never know is maybe it was just a little more of a home centered life with more than average drink.

Michael: Yeah. So long as the travel schedule, didn't interfere with that. I'd hope that by his fifties, the travel schedules cooling off so that he can be at home more. If the marriage and the family life is good. And if he's in floor, On the beach, you know, checking out the dolphins, next category, good dreams or bad dreams.

These you put out once. This is all about the look in the eye. What are you

Amit : going? I think the look in the eye was pretty good. It seemed like he was having fun. Yeah. I saw a pretty good outlook, but I still went with bad dreams and I'm going back to my answer to the man in the mirror is being surrounded by John.

Michael: Interesting. I wrote bad dreams. I couldn't say why, but to hear you offer a reason, I'm willing to adopt your reason and run with that, that there's an insecurity probably. And that there's the name mean? Gene starts as a joke, but I, I also am not sure. Like I can see a kind of warmth that exists between him and wrestlers in the interviews.

But I also imagine him to be if I'm nine years old and he's my best friend's dad, I'm scared of that dad, but I think that there is actually something commanding. About him or an understanding of what power is and what masculinity is that I sense of darkness. I don't know where it's coming from, but I went bad dreams as well.

And maybe it's because he's a product of that environment. Yeah. The pro-wrestling environment.

Amit : Yeah. It let's also not forget, like you talked about the interviews with Hulk Hogan and macho man, Randy Savage. They were largely yelling. With the whole

Michael: world watching. I'm an approve brother that I can beat ya anywhere.

Anytime. Speaking of the Hulkamaniacs hall Kogan, we have seen them here at Atlantic city, and I know millions of others are watching very intently all around the world. Well, if you look in their eyes, man, have you seen the field?

Amit : Yeah, and that can shake you somewhere inside and that can come back. It's like content

Michael: moderation or something.

You're just exposed to all this awfulness.

Amit : There was a story that I, I must've heard on another show sometime about exactly that content moderation, these people that have to like look at all the pictures, uploaded

Michael: to Facebook that violate the term tests that are pornographic, that are violent, that are, yeah.

Fucked up shit. Yeah. And

Amit : eventually it's just a job. They're like, okay, there's that horrific thing or that offensive thing

Michael: that registers in your brain that accrues over

Amit : time. Correct. And maybe if such a large part of your job is being yelled at by enormous other human beings that could come up in the

Michael: middle of the night.

Yeah. All right. Question 11 cocktail, coffee or cannabis. What'd you have here? I went

Amit : coffee my time with me and Jean. I didn't want it to be a big party or celebration. I didn't want it to be that reflective. I think I saw a lot of myself in him and I just wanted to have that bonding coffee.

Michael: So out of yourself, Yeah.

How so

Amit : we're like just slightly above average people in worlds that a lot of people around us do outwardly very well, you know? And he was the announcer amongst all these gold belts and all these giant biceps. And he was still something, he was still better than average as are you, sir? Yeah. That's fine.

And I think when Jean was, and let's have a coffee, we don't even have to talk about it, but we just can maybe see IDI or

Michael: that's really cool. Yeah. I love that. I couldn't decide on mine. I went cocktail because I would like an answer to this question of how he understands. Professional wrestling and the symbol of the American professional wrestler, you know, the body, the aggression, how he understands that appeal, whether or not that is not necessarily what I mean, whether or not that's good or bad, but I'm just, I don't have great things to say about professional wrestling, but there is a kind of.

Somewhere in here. What is that art? I mean, I think it is putting bodies on display, but it's also, you know, the, the wrestling moves themselves and the excessive playfulness of it in a way, you know, that my dad growing up, I was a rebellious teenager and my father. To this day will tell you that one of his great regrets is that he did not push me into sports more.

Cause he thinks teenage boys need to be planned sports. And you know, I played one year of football. I got too many concussions. Football was probably not the right sport, but I, I agree with my dad on this. Like I don't have a lot of anger towards my dad these days, but I do wish that he'd actually said you need it.

You need to be doing a sport every day. Full stop. You need to commit to that there's structure, there's some discipline. And it's also, it's a place where a certain kind of growing testosterone comes out. Some of that is natural, and this is the best we in society have for dealing with that part of the process of boyhood into manhood.

And I, you know, I don't even know if mean chain was doing the same thing for women's wrestling. I don't think he was mostly focused on the masculine thing because it's such a part of the product, but I, I would have liked to hear him. Talk about that. I would have liked to sat down, I think, over a drink to hear his take on how to feel about professional

Amit : wrestling.

Would you have bought his drink as you did mine last night and later became a guest at the bill?

Michael: Probably based on what I know about main Jean's drinking. Yeah, I think I would've. All right. Wow. We're here already. The VanDerBeek named after. James VanDerBeek who famously said and varsity blues. I don't

Amit : walk your life.

Michael: Hammad. Do you want me in jeans?

Amit : So the pack you and I have is we don't make the decision until we get to this question. Obviously we kind of help our own minds from jumping back and forth, but this has been a true jump back and forth really for me. And I'll, I'll tell you what I don't like, what I don't want.

I've said, I don't like the being surrounded by giants. I don't like being around these people that are. Not just giants, but our trophies, they're the ones getting the belts and getting the girls and getting the more money. And you are just kind of the, to take the line, you know, bitch way, the straight laced guy around it.

And

Michael: they blur and in a lot of ways you're teeing them up. Yeah.

Amit : So I don't like those feelings. But I'll tell you what I do. Like the family life, the consistency, the wealth. And I'm gonna tell you, I will take it. I want your life, me and Jane, where I'm gonna land on is. And I think one of the first words we said at the beginning was grace, right?

We said, grace, I offered the word gentlemanly. So I think to be that, to be surrounded by giants and surrounded by the truck. But to have enough grace to be that counterbalance and to be just at best, we can tell happy and good with herself. And the key to me is I think, greater than right. So he was not the six foot eight steroid giant.

He did not have those giant belts. He was not the biggest star. But the way he carried the way he had fun, the way he lived, a reasonably long life and one marriage and grandchildren and still wealthy. It seems to me a greater than life than being one of the other wrestling superstars.

Michael: You really might've just talked me into doing it.

I'm not sure. I got a whole hell of a lot more to say. I felt like I was a lien, no, leading up to it. I don't know why the travel schedule really turns me off the idea of being on a road and rootless that you can have a committed marriage, but it's only maybe one of the reasons that marriage is so committed is because it's kind of transactional and not all that intimate, maybe, you know, with that much travel.

I do think it looks fun enough. You know, I don't necessarily want a front row seat to all the shenanigans that must've gone on and, you know, on the road and with the wrestlers, but I don't know, it's kind of fun, you know, it's kind of fun. I could see it being kind of fun. He did land in the sweet spot of $9 million.

Can't look past, that's a nice amount, you know, that's good. That's worthwhile. And the fact that there is a long-term marriage. You know, even the, not knowing enough about it and grandchildren, I think there's enough here that I'd say yes as well. I'm not so, so one over, but your argument for grace as a virtue is probably the most persuasive thing to me that there is a humility that's coupled with grace.

That's related to grace that I am here for this one thing. While my body may be a little silly. My voice does a lot of work. And when I look in the camera with a certain kind of deadpan persona, I am the audience's way in to this absurdity. I am the vehicle through which you travel to see this caricature, which I think you need to see.

Because whatever that symbol represents, it's real and it has power. It, it wouldn't be filling arenas if it didn't. So is he a sports journalists? If a journalist is a storyteller who is helping us make sense of. And athletic endeavor then. Yeah, I think he's this forced journalist and I think I'll go yes too.

Amit : I want to add one more thing to my yes. And it's, if you ask somebody like who, who is the best wrestler of the eighties and nineties, you're going to get different answers. You're going to get whole Cogan. You're going to get Randy Savage. You're going to get some junkyard dogs. And under the giant, if you ask who is the best wrestling announcer, there is no other answer to give.

And that's a pretty good place. To secure in this gigantic world of history and facts.

Michael: It's good stuff, man. All right. They've arrived. It's the moment. We're at the pearly gates. Eugene Arthur Aquaman, better known as main Jean you've died and you're meeting St. Peter at the part of the gates. Here's your opportunity to make your.

Amit : They called me mean gene in irony. I was in fact, probably the nicest guy in the industry. And this is the first time I've said it aloud, but so nice that I dive was asked to be best, man, even at some participants' weddings. But the job I did first and foremost was a family person, a father, a grandfather, a husband.

But the other job I did was also being somewhat. Have a TV father. And by that, I mean a role model. So no matter what, there was a lot of children, young adults, mostly boys watching this programming that I was a part of. It was often me next to some gigantic human being who was celebrating anger and violence and yelling and screaming.

And next to them was. Who was also famous, who was also a hero who also had the action figures, who was also in the cartoons to the parents, watching their kid next to them, watching this program on TV, they can look at two figures on the screen. And at least bacon say I would be okay if you grew up to be one of those.

Let me in,

Michael: thank you for listening to this episode of famous and gravy. If you're enjoying our show, please go to apple podcasts to rate. You can sign up for our mailing list@famousandgravy.com and you can follow us on Twitter at famous and grainy. Our show was co-created by Amik Kapoor and may Michael Osborne mixing mastering and sound design by Morgan Honaker graphic design by Brandon Burke and original music by Kevin Strang.

Thank you again for listening and hope to see you next time.