Lucha VaVOOM

In high school, people used to approach me for drugs all the time.  I have no idea what that was all about.  I suppose the tie-dyed tights and combat boots might have had a little something to do with it, but the purple hair and tattoos were still a few years away.  Not only did I have no idea what the hell a Candy Flip was, I certainly had no idea where to get one.

I’ve just never done drugs.  I don’t generally react well to medication of any kind – prescription, over the counter, or in baked goods.  For example, pot makes me just plain mean and angry.  The one and only time I tried it, I ended up kicking everyone out of the apartment and ending the party.  (Did I mention it wasn’t my party?)  Sadly, my one and only experience with codeine involved vomiting, hallucinations, and my trying to hide in a silverware drawer.  Claritin D makes me tachycardic.  Dayquil makes me dizzy.  Hell, give me an honest to goodness RC Cola and I can’t sit still for an hour.  I long ago decided to stay away from any drugs I could avoid (which yes, made chemo all the more enjoyable – but thanks again to all that offered me marijuana anyway).

Every now and again, I wonder if I’m missing something.  I wonder if my paintings would be more colorful if I did a little acid.  When I watch movies like Pineapple Express, I’m pretty certain that the glowing recommendation that motivated my decision to watch the flick was written by someone tripping their face off.  If I was high, would this stuff make sense to me?

Here’s a perfect example.  Would drugs help when I’m watching a midget in a chicken suit dive off a balcony to land on a Mexican wrestler dressed in some bizarre drag homage to the love child of Mary Lou Retton and an Oompa Loompa?

Seriously folks, I can’t make this shit up.

I’m still not entirely sure what I witnessed last night at Webster Hall.  Were I the drug doing type, you really wouldn’t have a hard time convincing me I’d hallucinated the entire thing.

Now I am about 900% sure that the people running the show were very much into mind altering substances, which made the beginning of the show awful rough.  This was their first ever NYC performance and I suspect they were more worried about getting a mark on their next hit rather than hitting their mark.  The music wasn’t working, the wrestlers were missing their cues, and I was very disturbed by a decidedly un-sexy burlesque performer’s horse tail.  Other than an entertaining routine from a gender bending Prince impersonator, I could have skipped the first half entirely.

The performers took a seventeen minute intermission to readjust their blood alcohol (and other substances) levels.  Maybe they really just needed that bump, but the second half was much…I guess “better” is as good a word as any…than the first.

They kicked it off with the Wau Wau Sisters performing on a trapeze above our heads.  They spun and flipped wearing their “Fuck” and “Yeah” panties as Poison blared from the speakers.  I think they were about four spins short of a full cycle, though.  By the end of their performance, I was wearing the better part of the Pabst Beers they kept spitting as they somersaulted in mid air.

The next wrestling match involved a character named Dirty Sanchez.  He wore a flesh colored mask and costume.  I really didn’t notice a whole lot of the introductory hoopla for that match as I was so distracted by the ginormous merkin sewn on to the front of his unitard.  (I have to take note of brave fashion choices, you know.  Somebody has to design Dad’s ensemble for his retirement party in January.)  I’m guessing you can figure out his patented wrestling move.  If not, I’m certainly not going to be the one that explains it to you.  Blech.

The highlight of the night for me was one of the Sexo vignettes where Karis performed.  (S)he was absolutely stunning.  It was by far the most memorable performance of the evening…and the sexiest.  In a night filled with decidedly weird shit, her performance was the only one that left me with my maw hanging wide open like an idiot.  I found a video snippet of a different performance here, but it’s really nowhere near as powerful as seeing her live.  I will never, ever look at a hula hoop the same way again.

By the time we got to the last wrestling match – the heavyweights – the crowd was chanting, “Bring on the Midgets.”  I got the feeling that 90% of the crowd was “with the band” if ya know what I mean.  The bad team consisted of a giant day-glow alien dude with butterfly wings, and his midget duplicate.  The good team was Mary Loompa Retton (as previously mentioned) and her midget yellow chicken wing man.  (Wing Man – get it?!?!)  If that doesn’t sound stoner enough for ya, did I mention the match didn’t start until they fired up the black lights?

Had my shoes not become permanently affixed to the concrete floor due to the drying beer and tequila puddles, I would have toppled right over at the sight of these wrestlers flinging themselves from the balcony onto their opponents below.  Sure, it’s wicked choreographed, but there was no padding to land on and these folks wore no harnesses.  You HAVE to be high to fling yourself from a balcony, dude.  I’m pretty sure I learned that watching an after school special on angel dust.

Was Sexo and Violencia all that I dreamed?  Not quite.  I guess this spoiled New Yorker just expects a slightly higher (pun not intended that time) level of production.  Then again, I also did not expect trans-gender hula hooping nor midget chicken leaping – and that’s a pretty fair trade off.  Next time, I think I’ll partake of a margarita or two before attending…and wear wellies.