To Catch A Predator...And Kill It

I totally got sucked in by American Gladiators. I like to think that I'm impervious to filth outside of pornography, however, this got me.

It's not the competition. The events are lame at best. The "Gauntlet" is like a game that you would play at Gymboree after hours with a bunch of roided out freaks whacking you with pillows. There is the "Pyramid" which is another game that you would play at an abandoned gymnasium. I think we actually played a game similar to it on carpet pad in a warehouse when we were kids. "Assault" is tight, though. Please take note of the subtle Nerf logos and how the announcer really stresses that they are being shot at with projectiles traveling over 100 miles per hour. Dude, they are fucking tennis balls and you make it sound like Dr. Evil saying "One Meel-yun Dollars." I'm still not sold on the "Eliminator" being as hard as it is, but I guess it could be after fatigue set in. The fire on the water is fucking lame, though. There are also wrestling, rock climbing, ring swinging, playground bridge running and stick whacking events.

It could be the gladiators. On the dude side there are definitely personalities that are emphasized in their outfits. There is the Hawaiian guy, the guy who looks like a roided out guy-who-plays-violin-in-Dave-Matthews-Band guy, Jay Mohr on performance enhancers, etc...Then, there is Wolf. I'm pretty sure Wolf used to play bass in Blue Murder after John Sykes left Whitesnake. Blue Murder was a super group and that's all you need to know.

On the girl's side of gladiating, what I call "Ladyators." There are the hardest asses you have ever seen on women. Well, all of them except for Helga. I think Helga thought she was in line for the Biggest Loser and accidentally got on this show. Then there is my Muscle&Fitness crush on well, Crush? She could tone her thighs a bit, but that may just be the picture. Huge fan of her. The only thing is that when any of these women talk they sound like dudes. You kind of want to just be all "Honey. It's okay. Just talk in your inside voice." Some of the Ladyators are better than the others, too, but it's interesting how they rotate them in and out. This week were the B-team definitely. Venom is B-team Joust for sure and Fury is B-team pyramid. Might I add that Crush is still undefeated in Joust? The gladiator version, not the Atari version, sadly.

Also, there is no way that there is a writer's strike going on right now because whoever wrote for Saved by the Bell back in the day must be writing the clever quips and puns that the contestants are using on this show. It is horrible. The stuff they have white trash saying is just demeaning. For instance, a bull rider will be like "I'm going to clean you up like I do to the tables at Shawny's (sp?) every Thursday morning."

So, anyway, perhaps this is an admission of guilt or a confession. Perhaps, I am rubbernecking the devolution of class and taste on the idiot box. I could be watching Nova or reading or making myself a better person, yet I'm watching this crap.

It also inspired me to workout more and train to be a contestant on American Gladiators. I would show everyone what I was made of. High school classmates, co-workers, ex-girlfriends...I would don the contender spandex and let the world see my "Missile-Toe." That's a male camel toe. I doubled my protein intake and spent a day and a half at the Vitamin Shoppe picking out my supplements carefully and dealt with the idea of mood swings, man breasts, and erratic sleeping behaviors.

I had my list ready to purchase at home and then I turned the channel in between commercials when I was just using the TV for white noise and Predator 2 was on. I'm afraid I had an epiphany. Fuck, American Gladiating. The show would be cancelled in at least two seasons, however, there is a looming threat that would never be cancelled for my lifetime. No, not global warming, nuclear Armageddon, bird flu, the second coming of Christ or the complete loss of value in the American dollar followed by the financial collapse of the American economy. The looming threat is a Predator attack. The odds are minuscule, but if it did happen, I want to be that guy. I want a phone call to happen where a guy is like this.

"Well, Hal, you know that thing in the Predator movies?"

"You mean the Alien Vs. Predator movies?"

"No, Hal. The good movies. Remember the one with Apollo Creed and the Terminator?"

"Oh, yeah. Those were great."

"Well, turns out that they exist and there is one in Bakersfield."

"Fuck, dude. Has anyone done anything about it?"

"No. No one really knows what to do, but my boss asked me to call you to see if you had HughVoltage's number. Apparently, he's been training for just this situation. He even put American Gladiating on the back burner for it."

"Oh. Thank god. He really is a forward thinker. Again, I wish we all could be a little more like HughVoltage."

"It's all right to dream, dude. It's all right to."

So, that's kind of what I had in mind for my training preparation. I'm still upping my protein intake and eating nothing, but chicken, rice and egg yolks, but the focus of my training will be inspired by the first two Predator movies. I should probably change my voicemail to let people know and update my FaceBook.