The Power of Art: Life and Death on HBO

What I'm Reading/Watching/Writing About April 2023 Edition

At the end of the week my mom will be unconscious on a table, a doctor with precision tools operating on the one thing that makes her her—her brain. It’s absolutely terrifying.

Moments like this make you keenly aware of just how vulnerable the human vessel is and how fleeting our experiences on this planet can be.

There’s a good chance she will wake up and still be the woman who raised three kids, who helped make the world a better place with her scientific discoveries, who loved drinking whisky on a muggy Southern evening out on the porch.

But there’s a not insignificant chance that she won’t. That the last time I talk to her before the surgery will be the last time I talk to her. As the oldest and the one tagged with the responsibility to see these things through, I will be there in person for whatever comes.

My siblings? If the worst comes, they will find out much like the Roy children in Succession—through a confused and frantic phone call, time and distance dimming their ability to do something, anything. They won’t be able to control a moment that none of us has the power to influence in any way. By the time they reckon with it, it will be with a ghost and not a body. I don’t know if that’s better or worse.

Succession is typically a comedy masterfully disguised as drama, a keen, cutting examination of our bullshit culture and the monsters who are guiding us towards the abyss.

Not on Sunday.

It started as a regular episode, banter and Byzantine politics, the low stakes game of which dipshit billionaire will be slightly better off at the end of an hour. Escapist fun painted over with a veneer of pompous HBO “importance.” But that was just subterfuge, a way to hide the gut punch. I, for one, never saw it coming, never imagined myself moved by a television show like this one.

Yet, here we are.

Logan Roy’s death was among the most powerful I’ve ever seen depicted on the screen, in large part because we did not watch it happen. There was no grandiose bit of *acting* to see the great Brian Cox off the stage. One frame he was there, the next he wasn’t. The lack of closure, the finality of the experience, the confusion, sadness and helplessness all felt incredibly, impossibly real. Almost too much so, for those of us already trampling through this kind of fraught head space, thinking about how to slay demons that haven’t even materialized yet.

Highest Possible Recommendation

---

BOOKS

Keirn Chronicles Volume One: The Fabulous Wrestling Life of Steve Keirn

Ian Douglass, who wrote this autobiography with wrestling legend Steve Keirn, has a gift for focusing former mat greats and helping them deliver cohesive, accurate and interesting books.

Does that sound like faint praise? In the world of the professional wrestling autobiography, it’s a rare gift, one not to be taken lightly.

Keirn, whose father was a POW on two occasions, has lived a wild life even by wrestling standards. Even better, he’s open and honest about it, smartly cherry picking the most interesting and thoughtful stories to share with fans.

He’s also almost unbelievably honest about both his own failings and those of others around him. This willingness to light bridges on fire, see them razed, then piss on them just to be sure his point was made, make this one of the better books of its kind.

Highly Recommended.

Ozark Dogs by Eli Cranor

Two redneck families. One violent tragedy. Seventeen years later, there must be a reckoning.

As someone who lives in a rural Southern town, let me assure you, this guy nails it. I really loved this. On occasion you run across a book that just speaks to you. I remember reading a thematically similar novel back in the 90’s called Dirty White Boys that felt just as vibrant as this one. Definitely an author to watch.

Highly Recommended

Pro Wrestling

Andre the Giant vs. Sergeant Slaughter (3/16/1981)

Sergeant Slaughter is a big galoot and everyone knows it. That makes it even easier to process what a marvel Andre was. A Giant indeed.

Slaughter works perfectly with Andre here, his offense mean looking, his bumps as wild and fantastic as ever. Though the Sarge was best known for matches later in the decade with Hulk Hogan, he was at the peak of his powers here in the early 1980’s, a revelation as both a babyface and a heel. It’s matches like this that make me willing to pencil his name on my Wrestling Observer Hall of Fame ballot every year.

But this was no one-man show. The big man was smart enough back when he still wore his working boots to give just enough to add a little dramatic tension to a match.

The little moments here, like Andre standing up straight to escape a Slaughter headlock, lifting the smaller man right off the ground, are wonderful bits of visual candy.

See the match for yourself!

---

Support Stunning: The Wrestling Artistry of Steve Austin

The sound of glass breaking is poetry to the ears of a wrestling fan. To anyone who loves the sport it means one thing—"Stone Cold" Steve Austin is about to come rumbling down that aisle to open a can of whoop ass on an unfortunate foe.

Austin was a once-in-a-generation act in the wrestling business. WWE built the Attitude Era around his beer-swilling, ass-kissing, anti-corporate character, unique in the history of wrestling. Austin defined a decade and led to the largest business boom the industry has ever seen. 

How did it happen?

Stunning: The Wrestling Artistry of Steve Austin, dives into the art of Austin as a performer to uncover the answers. Many books tackle professional wrestling as a business or a spectacle. Here, author Zack Heydorn views it through a different lens—as a compelling and diverse art form. Something made Austin standout from the pack and Heydorn delves deep into the weeds to figure out what Stone Cold did and said that resonated so strongly with fans. 

Find out more and pre-order your copy here!

Thanks for your support.