Stop Complaining

I’m a stupid person in that I have made countless mistakes in my life. Looking back, I almost have to question whether I was trying to fuck up with some of the mistakes that I have made. But the good thing with me is that I learn from my mistakes. Most things in life aren’t that complicated, but there is one life lesson that I need to impart on the world.

I’ve trained of and on in mixed martial arts. I’m not tough, and since I do it sporadically, I’m not very good either. But when I go, I go hard. About six months into my training, I tried something dumb, got landed on awkwardly and cracked a rib. Would I say having a cracked rib is fun? I would not say that, but it’s also not that bad of an injury. You can’t really take deep breaths and it hurts anytime your torso stretches out in any way, but it’s manageable.

Shortly after the injury, I was getting ready for practice, and my coach asked me, “How’s it going?” I responded by explaining my injury and the pain I had to push through. And you know what he did? He got up and left. He didn’t say a word, just walked away.

At first, I was kind of pissed, like, what a dick. And then I thought about it more and realized I was the dick in this situation. He was just making small-talk, and I tried to turn it into an epic tale of me persevering through injury. Like, what was I thinking? That he was going to pat me on the butt, tell me that I’m the hardest motherfucker he’s ever met, and let everybody in the gym know not to cross paths with me, the legitimate badass? No, of course not. And he also wasn’t going to heal my injury through magical powers. I knew that the best way to heal my injury was through rest, and I wasn’t willing to do that. I realized that I was just complaining to complain, and ever since that day, I have made every effort to never do that again.

My life advice is simple, “Don’t complain about it unless you’re going to do something about it.”

Too often, people bitch and complain about things, and then when you offer solutions, they make excuses. It’s all bullshit, but people spend way too much time complaining when they should be working towards change. When people complain to me, I ask a simple question, “Well, are you doing anything about it?” 99% of the time, they hum and haw and explain that they aren’t before going to their excuses. Then I let them know that I don’t want to be burdened with their bullshit if they aren’t willing to work for a change. That is not the nicest response, but it is the best one, because complaining acts as a temporary release of that stress, but it doesn’t change the fact that they are going to continue to have the same issue. When people don’t have anyone to complain to, they don’t get that temporary release, and they might just work on fixing the issue.

Now there are exceptions. Sometimes, an issue is beyond your control, and sometimes you try to make a change and get shut down, but these instances are a lot more rare than most people realize.

So unless you’re willing to work on a solution, stop putting your negative thoughts out in the universe. When you can’t complain as a crutch, it will force you to do better. Plus, it will make you way happier, because if you try to make a change and fail, you will have earned something to complain about.

Paul Orndorff at the Beauty Salon

Paul Orndorff is one of those wrestlers that never quite caught the right breaks. He feuded with Hogan, but it was early, and it was never at a WrestleMania, so even a guy like King Kong Bundy is remembered more for his feud with Hogan. Speaking of Hogan, Orndorff was nearly given the Hulk Hogan push had Hogan not come back to WWE, and although that sounds great, Orndorff was not the guy to pull that off (which we'll be getting to later). Still, I most remember Orndorff for being one of Hogan's opponents on MicroLeague Wrestling for the Commodore 64.

Hogan's other opponent was Macho Man, so yeah, this was a pretty damn big deal.

Luckily, Orndorff's big push did come during the heyday of Prime Time Wrestling, which is probably the greatest show that WWE has ever produced. It was a late night talk show focused only on wrestling, hosted by Vince McMahon with Lord Alfred Hayes as his sidekick. The best thing they did on these were remote videos with WWE Superstars when they were away from the ring. So where would you find Mr. Wonderful Paul Orndorff when he was away from the ring? The beauty salon, of course, and everything he did was magical.

Paul Orndorff, whose occupation is basically fighter in the kayfabe world of professional wrestling, is out here going to a beauty salon and getting a mani/pedi and his hair done like a metrosexual twenty years before it became popular. This is a man that was truly ahead of his time. In fact, he was so ahead of his time that he has things done that I'm not even sure are actual services that normal human beings can pay for.

One woman just puts a little lotion on his face, and that is her only job.
Another woman shines his shoes. Mr. Wonderful is wearing sneakers.

And one woman simply fluffs his hair for him. She doesn't cut it, doesn't style it, just fluffs it, and she has to be careful as Mr. Wonderful does not want a single hair pulled for his head.

The man has four women working on him at once, and he makes sure to criticize all of their work. You have to feel bad for hte girl who got stuck doing the manicure, as she has the only real job of the four.

But the best part of this video is that they clearly had one take to get everything in, and they were not going to redo this no matter what happened. This lets Mr. Wonderful go into unscripted diatribes where he starts off on the right road, but then plows through dead end signs and just keeps going hoping that if he drives through a field far enough that he might get back on a paved road.

"This is the kind of treatment that Mr. Wonderful gets. This is the trype of...treatment that he deserves, that he owns, that he has, that he is. He is Mr. Wonderful. I pay a lot of money to have my hair, my nails, my shoes shined. And these ladies right here are who help me. They're the one that make me what I am. They help to make me what Mr. Wonderful really is."

"See? I demand this. I demand every hair in the right place. I demand my nails done perfectly, because I am a perfectionist. I demand my shoes to be done right. That's the way I am. That's the way I am when I step in the ring. That's why this face looks the way it looks...and hair...everything. I make more money on my hair, and my face, and my shoes than most people make...in a year. I spend that in a week."

But even with the flubs, it leads to some brilliant moments. He accuses the manicurist of biting his fingernails while he wasn't looking. Just picture that in your head for a moment. Mr. Wonderful screaming at the shoe girl for not polishing up his sneakers and off to the side, this little blond lady is sneaking in bites of his fingernails. That's amazing. I mean, that's so amazing that I kind of want to get a manicure just so I can accuse a woman of biting my fingernails while I wasn't paying attention.

On top of that, he asks the shoe shiner to spit shine his shoes, and she obliges without a second thought. That is some classic woman demeaning that could only happen 30 years ago. It also leads to this amazing reaction from two of the beauty salon employees and then the shoe shine girl herself.

Finally, Mr. Wonderful is fed up with his treatment at the beauty salon. Although he spends "five hundred to six hundred dollars twice a week," he still cannot buy proper quality. It's truly amazing that he plays the victim as he exclaims that he "doesn't deserve this."

Paul Orndorff's visit to the beauty salon ends the only way it really could have. He leaves without paying.