Ryan vs. Red

[Starbreaker]

All RP for Dan Ryan vs. Felix Red should be placed here.

The RP/Angle submission deadline is Wednesday, July 14th, 2004. E-mail angles to enigma_fanatic@hotmail.com

Thank you and have fun!

 

[NotorisSTD]

stranger things

(CUEUP: "Bet against me, you lose" by Death by Stereo...)
(Our subject is a half Irish half Japanese American gentlemen, with a wiry frame, 'n purple and black dreadlocks. not emoting, more resonating a texture. Lucid and dense. Like lead. In a "DARE: To keep kids off drugs" T-shirt and black dickies, sitting Indian style on a black leather sofa "And consequently not wearing shoes," he leans forward slightly and makes noises with his vocal cords...)

"the boy who destroyed the world"

Probably some of you don't know who I am, At least that's what you think, but If I wasn't a part of you, then I wouldn't be here, would I?...All you need to understand for now, is my name is Felix...Well, not really. But as far as you should care, it is. Even then, it doesn't necessarily matter, because I could represent something else entirely...It's all up to you.

For example, when I look at Dan Ryan, if there is a Dan Ryan, what I don't see is a man. What I see is an idea, and the institution that it fostered. Because I don't really like watching television, I'm have a surface knowledge of CSWA, again, no insight, just a vague concept of what CSWA has meant to this business, and thereby what Dan Ryan, it's champion, means to
this business.

Sometimes I don't know if my own firsthand witness account of events can be trusted. But I'm pretty sure I watched what Dan Ryan means to this business tap out to a midcarder from the show I'm on. Again, I know Dan Ryan the idea and not the man, but what little I know about human nature indicates he didn't take this well. Champions are proud men. They are known to beat their chests, cry havoc, shout from the mountaintop "Mother f(bleep)ker! I am victorious and strong, Mother f(bleep)ker!!!"
Never emasculated, never crying for mercy. Not unless it can't be helped. Not unless't is mandated by destiny.

Destiny, of course, having nothing at all to do with what's happening to us now, as indicated by how little is actually at stake. Most of us are probably past the point where bragging rights seem all that worthwhile.

Curious though, it my guess that when Dan Ryan looks at me, he doesn't see me. He sees Copycat, the Superbowl of wrestling, and WFW, and what these things represent to him, and how this reflects on what he represents to this business, and what this business in turn represents to him. He sees soy milk from the utters of a Hindu cow. In the big picture, one bad night means nothing. Sadly proud men rarely see the big picture.

To Dan Ryan, I'm an opportunity to erase a minor blemish. A step closer to perfection. Of course, two bad nights are a little trickier to explain...

And that's how all this is going to fall to pieces...

Bragging rights don't interest me. What does interest me, is the prospect of discrediting the CSWA world title. If one WFW midcarder beats the champ that's one thing, but if two WFW midcarders make Dan Ryan weep like a tiny prepubescent girl with a nasty hangnail, well that would be something...

As has been well documented, Just because I'm not supposed to be capable of such a thing doesn't mean I wont do it anyway.

Ironic. While in Dan Ryan's mind, my image reflects off WFW, in my mind I don't, and in the collective mind of the WFW I couldn't represent it less, I am it's antithesis. The LOVE to it's hate...

I see what Dan Ryan wants to gain from this, but I feel he should understand that I am not what he wants to see. I will not be his revenge against the Superbowl of wrestling. I will not bring him closer to perfection. Quite the opposite, actually. Not so I can brag, not because I'm hoping it will be a stepping stone to more money for less work at CSWA, not because I have a personal vendetta of any kind against Dan Ryan.

I just like to break things. It's how I affect change. It's how I feel alive.

This wouldn't require anyone to endure the opposite sensation if my actions didn't have consequences, and it's unfortunate that they do, but I can hardly be held accountable for that now can I? We all must do something to kill time...

 

[DBrunkGXW]

"The human mind is the last great battlefield...."




- - - - - - - -
FADE IN

DAN RYAN sits inside the back of a stretch limosuine, whose insides are visible on the outskirts of the shot. Dark black sunglasses cover his eyes, a black leather jacket partially obscuring a black t-shirt with the word "ZERO" in bold white letters across the front.

The highway stretches into the background, but all else is left to the imagination.

Ryan: "Probably all of you know exactly who I am, at least that's what you think."

"A simple twist on a simple opening, but as accurate as the original though slightly altered."

"I'd like, Felix, to believe that it's as simple or as complex as you'd like it to be."

"Your surface knowledge of what you assume I represent leads you to the simple side rather than the complex, but I suppose that if you didn't at least make it seem complex we'd all be disappointed."

"I am an idea."

"Except that in the realm of what CSWA represents I am as infant and foreign an idea as any that can be dreamed up. Whatever CSWA means to this business and in turn brings me to mean to this business is the idea of another man, not mine. Perhaps yours, perhaps many others, but not mine."

"But that's what makes any idea an idea isn't it? I could envision an idea that Larry Tact is the reincarnated vision of Cleopatra, or that James Earl Jones represents the evil in all of us."

"How arbitrary must an idea be before it stops making sense altogether?"

"Like how I make more and work less now than before I became this idea of yours when the truth is that I wrestle more often than 99% of the wrestling world."

"I'm amazed from year to year as I wrestle from circuit to circuit at the almost annual onslaught of wrestlers who think they've finally gotten it all figured out."

"And in the end, or sometimes right in the beginning they regress back to 'but you lost to a midcarder'."

"And in their rush to assumption, many times they can't even get simple physical facts straight, much less the metaphysical that they try to impress everyone with. Like how the idea of Dan Ryan actually was pinned by a midcarder and did not, in fact tap out."

Smile...

"Tomato, to-mah-to, right Felix?"

"I imagine that Dan Ryan the idea cried himself to sleep that night, imagining what might become of his glorious career."

"I imagine that same idea struggled to come to grips with a loss to a man who admittedly could gain nothing from the win and with the idea of what an opponent gaining nothing from a win means to it's place."

"But, as you well know - I'm not an idea."

"I shouldn't have to - and won't - pander to you by describing to you how I reacted to that loss or what it may or may not have meant to anyone."

"But I'll indulge you in a bit of what I see when I look at Felix Red, since you've chosen to lump me in with cliche's and cardboard cut-outs in terms of depth."

"I don't see Copycat when I look at you, because Copycat left my mind the moment I left the arena back in April."

"What's interesting is that on August 7th, 2003 I was a six year veteran with six World titles to my credit and yet it was on August 8th that I began to represent 'what I represent' to this business."

"So what does WFW represent to me and how does it reflect on what I represent to this business and so on and so forth?"

"I think you spend far too much time thinking about things that any man ever should. It's a waste of time, and it has absolutely nothing to do with pride."

"I also don't think you give yourself entirely enough credit."

"Last I checked you had a date with the WFW World Title. Only Michael Manson, someone I know decently stands in your way."

"Hardly a midcarder."

"But if your fault, if it is in fact a fault at all, is not knowing when you've taken a step toward greatness - it's not a bad one to have."

"But if I spend the rest of my career seeking out the sources of my blemishes and attempting to erase them, what would that make me, Felix? Would it bring me closer in the everpresent pursuit some engage in for perfection? Would it increase the stature of what Dan Ryan represents?"

"I've lost before, Felix. I'll lose again. I might lose to you."

"If this is a no stakes contest, at least it affords the oppurtunity for challenge. Challenge for you to see if you can stand toe to toe with everything you believe I represent, and challenge for me to see how I match up with one of the sport's fastest rising stars."

"I'd say I know you inside and out, Felix but I don't. I won't waste your time or mine with grandstanding. I know you're one of Harold Fiano's latest, another man learning from a former CSWA golden child - another 'idea' for another era."

"What more you stand for and what more you may ever stand for is left to be seen from my perspective."

"The pursuit of baseless revenge is time lost that could be better used in more important matters, Felix."

"Whatever you stand for, represent, whatever I represent or whatever the company you call home represents is for people like you to decide."

"People like me simply live our lives without telling the world who we are and what we are at every fork in the road."

"I don't know you, Felix - but I'm intrigued at least."

"I'm curious to know if the latest thinker in the game is what he says he is, or if he's simply another caricature - a black sharpie put to paper by a teenager with two art classes behind him, colored in by colored marker and hung on a cheap portable wall at Six Flags."

"It's too bad you're fighting to break something that doesn't exist."

"But then, that's the entire concept with which 'Felix Red' has been built isn't it?"

Ryan smirks...

"Use whatever motivation you will - with time, I'll know what you represent as well."

FADE OUT....

 

[NotorisSTD]

Emobomb

(CUEUP: "Wander Alone" by Tiger Army...)
(Someone's gone and spray painted "SH#TF#CK" On a brick wall, but there's an organism leaning against the wall right in front of the T and the F, so it's all good and FCC friendly. Said organism has greasy purple and black dreadlocks hanging in front of his eyes, is wearing a Hope Conspiracy T-shirt and black dickies, hands in his pockets, sneering and befuddled...)


"The boy who destroyed the world"

Apparently just because your name reads next to "The Ego Buster" in parenthesis on a marquee doesn't mean you're from Pandora Island after all...

I can only be so off the mark when I'm only speaking in hypothetical terms anyway. Ideas stop making sense quite a while before they become flat out wrong. Freud was so coked up he didn't know where he was most of the time, and look what he accomplished.

This is turning into a pattern, where the people I'm encountering with the most to lose don't act like they should. The other midcarders call me a worm before I make them hurt. I threatened
to crucify Manson, and he called me intelligent and sensitive. Now I threaten to disgrace you, Mr. Ryan, and you call me a thinker and a rising star. Champions are proud, but I suppose they
wouldn't be champions if they weren't somehow exceptional. A bittersweet minority, transcending the fundamental crassness and stupidity of what they do; having already asked themselves "why?" and found answers that seemed sufficient enough. Like Anne Rice Vampires.

Which leaves me feeling caught in the middle between the tangible and the cerebral. All we seem to do is beat people up for no reason, or we engineer a half sincere reason beforehand, except the justification is innate, and this is not as it seems. It's savage theater, hollow escapism for children and troglodytes. But maybe I was even more right about the nature of things than I realized. Maybe that's not what's happening here at all. I sked "What if I could have been someone else?" and I think I'm getting an answer, but I'm not sure if I like what I'm hearing...

Humanity is a fun house hall of mirrors. Other people are new and different eyes to see ourselves through. Manson and now you reflect me differently than I'm accustomed to. A different person. Doing the exact same thing the status quo me is doing. I can only complain so much, because I really...really do enjoy kicking people in the head, it's just disheartening to know I probably never had much of a choice. Maybe you never did either.

but then, most people aren't ever going to know if you had a choice, because you're not the one who decided CSWA was important, although August 8th was a beautiful day. You’re not just going to tell us just who you are. You're the type who makes 'em fight you for it, eh? Dan Ryanonly exists here when he's dropping someone on their spine? An idea ceases to be an
idea all together once it results in someone's trip to the emergency room. we all live in the moments between sensory rushes. Some peoples weekends just last a little longer, and some peoples weekends turn into their jobs, and decadence and grueling exercise and pain pay my bills.

This has as much to with what's happening as the CSWA world title or WFW or Copycat, which apparently isn't much, unless it is, and you're not who you claim to be. By the time I find out for certain, it wont matter anymore. The ethereal will turn cold and dense. You can kill a man with an idea, you know. In fact that's the only way we ever die. And what holds our lives together. Abstracts. Non-absolutes. Lies. Like us. Like the bulk of this aimless chatter. Mother f(bleep)ker, stop smiling at me, mother f(bleep)ker....

If people like me tell everyone who we are at every crossroads, then who am I? I'm Felix Red, but I'm actually someone else. I'm the Boy who destroyed the world...but that's impossible.

Who did I say I was again?...

What I'm closest to sure of is my fist and someone else’s face. My only absolute is total abandon for everything but non-specific aggression. I really can't destroy what doesn't exist, so there's no point in trying. But I'm pretty sure you exist. So there's that problem solved.

The only other thing, really, is that I only work exclusive contracts, so if I worked in CSWA, I'd be getting paid more and working less. I know you're on something like two or three shows,
and getting paid in proportion. That's what I meant...Unless what I really meant was “hey, f(bleep)k you. Die.” If I've somehow managed to disturb your zen, you’re welcome. Clarity never solves anything.

So I don't want my questions answered. I just want to think my life is more profound or significant than it actually is, or I'm a pathological liar, and that's just what I want you to think I think.
All you want is a challenge, and I can't think of a reason not to oblige. Like I said, there's not really a choice, is there?
I may not have all the answers, but I do have one.
It involves angry physics.

Things are not as they seem. This is a blessing, as shall become obvious for one of us soon.

Probably you.

 

[DBrunkGXW]

The mirror

"Through the looking glass...."



- - - - - - -
FADE IN

A long wooden bench is perched less than three feet from a bank of gray metal lockers.

Seated in the center is DAN RYAN, dressed to go out to the ring for some nameless match against some nameless opponent.

The stern expression begat from preparation covers his visage - an eyebrow raises at the hum of the camera aiming in his direction.

Ryan: "Not what you expected to hear, eh?"

Ryan shrugs...

"Oftentimes we create a reality all our own without stopping to consider the truth of reality made real in relation to our perspective. What seems to be real to you may or may not mean jack crap to someone else."

"What is deep to one could be the meaningless drivel of a child to another."

"In this case, what generally befuddles is understood and acknowledged."

"Maybe you don't see yourself the way I see you, or the way that Michael Manson sees you - and I'd assume few see anything the way he sees things - but perception is as much reality as an idea, and in most cases much much more powerful."

"Someone perceived Dan Ryan as something special and thrust upon him that idea of something and someone exceptional. None of us are in the position we're in without the benfit or detriment of the perception of someone else."

"Someone excels, someone is buried."

"So simple..."

"That plays right into your outlook on life in general, doesn't it Felix?"

"He never had a chance...."

Smile...

"The question is not whether or not you have any control over your destiny, it's whether or not control is even an issue in the first place. Who knows what makes us what we are?"

"Do these questions haunt you and keep you up at night?"

"For myself, I can only say that this was what I was born to do. I can't see myself doing anything else in life and thus, I'm either smart enough to know my calling - or too stupid to know any better."

"What would become of me if I let the trivialities of this business become what defined and identified me?"

"Tell me, Felix - have you ever heard of Mark Windham?"

"You two would get along famously, I'm sure. The poster boy for all that can go wrong in the personal life of a wrestling superstar and the upstart right there to show him the error of his outlook."

"But for me, it never has gone any deeper than that this is what I live for. A shallow pursuit to some it may be, but then again - that brings us full circle. This 'idea' doesn't measure his happiness against the opinion of others, and so we are at an impasse."

"I might have a lot to lose in the eyes of some."

"I had a lot to lose against Copycat, they say."

"But I can't say that the loss did much of anything in the grand scheme of things. He understood that even then, although if I was able to give him any sort of boost via his shocking victory - I'm glad to have been of service."

"I've had a contract to sign on with WFW since before the Superbowl of Wrestling."

"Should I sign it, Felix?"

"What does the boy who destroyed the world think I should do for the next step in my career?"

"Sadly, things are as you suspected - they have to work for my inner thoughts. For you my friend, all you get is the same circular argument that you've presented to me for this first meeting of ours."

"But one thing is certain - when everything is boiled down to the basics of the here and now - you've got an opportunity to let your purple and black hair down and just take your fist and beat the living hell out of someone."

"I, to your profound joy I'm sure - have never been one to duck a good old fashioned beatdown. I tend to end up on the giving end, but then again nothing gets the old adrenaline flowing like someone's fist impacting your skull."

"Of all the moments between sensory rushes, I think I thrive on none more than the few fleeting seconds between the moment a fist crashes on my jaw - and the retaliation that inevitably comes before the next. If you're lucky enough, and have a quick eye - you'll see a smile."

"You know what they say, Felix - sit back and enjoy the ride."

"This is only the beginning...."

FADE OUT....

 

[NotorisSTD]

Viacom

(CUEUP: "Clear Channel (F*CK OFF)" by Leftover Crack...)
(Felix Red is back on the big comfy leather sofa in his apartment, in a black T-shirt with the "EVIL DEAD" logo printed on Dick Cheney's skull and black dickie pants, a really fat black cat curled up on his lap, watching taking heads pretend to be interested in embarrassing decade old pop culture....)

"the boy who destroyed the world"

Now TV, there's another extension of myself. Another mirror metaphor. I never liked the idea of nostalgia, and I think everything everyone liked in 1995 was really stupid. And so, through the magic of modern technology, my modern temperament is superimposed onto the screen.

Except we all watch the same things on TV, and TV doesn't show us anything but what we want to see. Even what we would rather not admit to ourselves we want to see, it shows us that too. I don't need no on demand guide. I already know what's on. It's the same thing on every channel. The collective unconsciousness.

That sci-fi fantasy cliche about infinite alternate universes? Well it's all around you. Everyone is an alternate universe.

I think there's the person you're doomed to be, and the person you become by accident, and the person you'll spend your entire life wanting to be. Pick your poison. Become a clone of your
parents, a hapless ineffectual wanderer, or someone trying to be something you're not. The big clusterf*ck is chaos. The little glitzes of random chance and fate that no one can control.

When we're all listening to the same music and watching the same things on TV and eating the same food and having the same sex and working the same jobs and speaking the same language, we should all be pretty much the same. But if that we true, No one would be getting decapitated on Baghdad public access. And if that were true, people like you and me wouldn't be pummeling the living snot out of each other, eh?...

I don't think it's about personal choice. I think once you can envision something happening, not fantasize about it, or wonder "what if?" but actually see it coming, then you've doomed it to happen. I'm not the first one to say this. The begining is the end. You can have whatever you want, just as long as you're not looking forward to anything, or curious about anything. Then everything will be perfect.

And that's what makes this so awe-fully dangerous. Because, while I've tried, I can't remove myself enough to see any of this as just two guys beating each other up for no reason. This isn't just a job. And I can't even fake it this time, there's no title, there's not a lot of hostility, there's not even that much hype.

I thought I could goad you into puffing yourself up into something your not, which would give me something to pick apart, and you refused. You told the truth, and in the process, robbed me of
my cherished ability to lie.

I want to thank you and kill you, you magnificent son of a whore.

And that's exactly what I'm going to do.

Because, really, I don't need a reason. It doesn't matter if this is real or not. I doesn't matter how I really feel, or who I really am. Truth is sh*t, Lies are sh*t, Logic is sh*t, philosophy is sh*t, LOVE is sh*t, hate is sh*t, the past and present and future are all nothing, but violence is golden. The only real currency for people like us is how much we can break.

If you're going to join WFW, then you've seen it coming, and you already have. Nothing I could say either way could change this. When you're asking someone for advice, what you're really asking
for is permission. If I happen to beat you, then I already did. I can envision it, maybe you can envision it more clearly. I don't live in your world. But I will soon. So beware.

Needless to say, chances are I wont leave things as neat as I found them...

 

[DBrunkGXW]

"Poor people are crazy. I'm eccentric."



- - - - - - - -
FADE IN

A Black Ford F-150.

In front of it, stage forward is DAN RYAN - jeans, black tank top and sunglasses today's required attire.

Ryan: "Hours of reasoning and inner reflection, time spent grasping for mental clarity...."

"And yet in the end it still comes down to 'F**k you. I'm gonna kick your a**.' doesn't it Felix?"

"I feel compelled to apologize. In refusing to run off befuddled at your musings I've apparently taken your mojo. And now, all of the window dressings - like the tapestry in the temple - are torn in two."

"It all started in such promising fashion. I should know better by now to get my hopes up. After all, you're just a kid."

"What the hell do you know?"

"You want to kill me, and that's exactly what you're going to do."

"How quaint."

"Of course, your mind's eye and the life's perspective you live by forces you to assume this is written in stone."

"If you can see it coming, it's doomed to happen."

"But the more you talk, Felix - the more you bear out to be a steaming pile of donkey crap wrapped in a pretty red paper and topped off with a pretty pink bow."

"At least Keanu was paid millions to talk the way you do. But then again, he also had better writers."

"It's not an insult. It's just disappointment. I have such high hopes for you. You're the new star to be."

"Can't you see it coming? It should be well on it's way to inevitable by now."

"I feel it's my duty to help you along at this point, Felix - to show you the error of your ways."

"I've made my decision on what to do about my open ended contract offer in WFW."

"Would you like to know which path I've chosen?"

"Has it been made for me already?"

"This is just a job, and yet it isn't. It's whatever I choose to make of it on any given day. You can accept this or not, it makes little difference."

"There's a third option to the riddle: the man you're doomed to be or the man you become by accident. It's the man you become by design."

"Oh Felix...."

"I don't expect you to understand."

"I expect you to wrap disagreement in another pretty red package with another lovely pink bow."

"I expect you to say or think about using the word 'whore' at least once."

"And I expect you to continue the script to a 'T', like a good little boy on his path to enlightenment."

"But yes, Felix - it is my duty to show you the light. And just for the hell of it, I'll do it free of charge."

"I've made my choice, and my apologies have been made."

"I hope in time, you'll be able to forgive me...."

FADE OUT as Ryan gets into the truck and drives off-screen....