Bubbles gives out his phone number

We were watching Trailer Park Boys this afternoon. Season 7, IMHO, is a lot funnier than the past two seasons. I didn't like Season 6 much at all.

Anyway, in Season 7, Episode 4, "Friends of the Road", Bubbles is on his way to Bangor, Maine to see Sebastian Bach at a model railroad show. He and Ray stop at a truckstop for some food, and Ray ends up arrested for soliciting a prostitute. Bubbles panics, hides in a phone booth, and makes a collect call to Julian back at the park for help.

We noticed that Bubbles dialed 0-902-4...something. That'd be a Halifax number, so I got curious. Could he be calling an actual number of interest? It wasn't the traditional TV/movie 555-whatever.

So, we played and replayed until Amanda figured out what number he was dialing.

We went to canada411 to do the reverse lookup on the number.

And whaddya know -- it's the number for Michael E. Smith -- the actor/musician who plays Bubbles. He dialed his own number.

Now, I'm not going to put the number up here so everyone can call Smith/Bubbles. Just a funny bit of trivia discovered through the wonders of PVR technology and the convenience of having a computer hooked up to the TV.

My first trip to the emergency room

As I mentioned earlier, I've been digitizing some old videotapes, and this weekend I got to one that I'd been wanting to share for the past eight or nine years.

Back in 1998, during the boom times of the WWF, I spotted posters for a new wrestling show called Ring 'n' Ears. I noticed that one of my old wrestling classmates, Bill Skullion, was on the show. I hadn't been in the ring in more than five years, but I wanted to see if I could get on the show. The promoters were game, and gave me a spot as the manager for "Sexy Baby" Jamie Jackson of the Hollywood Hunks, in a four-way match against Bloody Bill and two other guys. Awesome.

The finish involved the two other guys being eliminated somehow, and my guy being tied up in the ropes by Bill. Bill would pull out a cup full of sharp and shiny thumbtacks and pour them out in the center of the ring in preparation for destroying my guy. But my guy had backup! The Hollywood Hunks would hit the ring and make the save, triple-teaming Bill. I'd get so excited, I'd hop up in the ring, grab the microphone, and "ha-ha-ha!" boast about how my Hollywood Hunks had kicked Bill's ass and left him bloody. But my back would be turned, and I wouldn't notice that Bill had made a comeback and cleaned house, kicking my guys out of the ring. He'd tap me on the shoulder to interrupt me, but I'd think it was my guy Sexy Baby, and didn't want to be distracted. Bill would blow his nose on me, I'd turn around, and he'd powerbomb me onto the pile of thumbtacks.

So, here's how it ended up happening:

I wasn't hurt badly, but I ended up with tap-dance shoes -- some of the tacks stuck in my Doc Martens. I also ruined a good pair of jeans from Bill's bloody forehead leaving a crimson smear on the ass of my denim.

Later in the night, everyone on the card was involved in an over-the-top-rope battle royal. The ring announcer (drunk) forgot to introduce me, so I had to scoot in just after the bell rang. I wandered around the ring a while before Jamie held some dude for me to hit. I got smacked and headbutted by "Total" Lee Awesome, who's now a big star known as Bobby Roode -- he was in the main event last time I went to a wrestling show at the Halifax Forum. Over to the other corner, where I started throwing elbow shots at a tall guy called Major Punshiment. His head flew forward as I lunged in, and his forehead smacked me right in the mouth. Ouch. I staggered a few feet over and met up with Dangerboy Derek Wylde, who was assigned to eliminate me from the match. He did his best to put me over the top rope, but I ended up clumsily going out to the floor between the ropes. Thankfully Richard Bloom was on hand to capture it on film, as the video isn't super-sharp. Good luck following me as I make my way from the bottom of the screen, to the upper left, upper right, then out on the right-hand side.

After the show, I went to the Emergency Room at St. Michael's Hospital. I was a little worried that my split lip might need stitches. They said I didn't, and were actually more concerned that I'd hit my head during the powerbomb. I never lost consciousness, so they were only mildly concerned.

That wasn't the last time I was in the ring. I worked a few more times with the Renegade Wrestling Alliance in an interview/personality capacity. But it was certainly the most exciting and eventful time I had in wrestling. Or at least the best story.

My days as a wrestling announcer

It's been a long time since I've watched much contemporary pro wrestling, but I used to be heavily into it. I even did some training with Phil Watson, son of Canadian legend Whipper Billy Watson, as he tried to launch a new promotion in the early 1990s called Teen Pro Wrestling.

It never quite took off, but not for lack of trying. Phil even got enough of a crew together to shoot four episodes for TV.

I've been going through my old videotapes lately, digitizing stuff to Mpeg2 for the sake of preservation, and this past weekend I dubbed over the Teen Pro stuff. There's some good stuff there from a few guys who went on to have careers as wrestlers.

Among them, a young Scott Taylor, who went on to fame in the WWF/WWF as Scotty 2 Hotty.

Bill Skullion makes appearances well before he became "Bloody" Bill Skullion.

A skinny kid debuted as Buford T. Butterworth -- a character originally pitched to be played by me, but, frankly, I wasn't particularly good as a pro wrestler. It ended up going to a nice and talented guy named Dennis. Dennis has been working the indy circuit in Ontario for years and even with some of the bigger indy outfits in the States. He's famous in some circles as "Danger Boy" Derek Wylde. The YouTube clip above is his first match ever.

He teams up with a tall skinny Bostonian named Cameron Crude against two skinny guys from Newfoundland who worked just this one time as the Rock Island Rebels.

The match was, in a way, well ahead of its time -- rehearsed every step of the way, non-stop action -- and seemed to get absolutely no heat from the crowd.

And behind the microphone is a young Big Ass Superstar, Scott Simpson. Not much of a broadcaster back in 1993. I didn't quite get the psychology of calling a professional wrestling match, and I hadn't yet "found my voice." I was teamed up with fello radio student and wrestling school classmate Kevin "The Kid" MacKenzie. Last time I saw Kevin, I think he was working at the Rogers campus in a call centre. I hope he's doing well and remembers his time in the spotlight fondly.

Facebook: Scott Simpson not found

I'm not on Facebook. Don't know what Facebook is? I'm not linking it for you.

Deal with it.

If y'all need to find me, you have www.bigasssuperstar.com.

I'm not anti-social -- I just don't want another thing in my life that has the potential to keep me locked in front of a computer.

Enjoy your facebooking.

Shout-out to Greg: stay strong, brother. Don't give in to peer pressure. I want at least one person around in the office who's not on that thing.