Post by Steve Sinclair on Feb 26, 2016 19:10:47 GMT
Out near Inglewood on Slauson Ave is a Home Depot and it’s early on a Friday morning in LA. The doors have just opened and pulling into the parking lot in a 24 foot U Haul is this guy. He parks up near the front of the store and hopes down from the truck. Wearing blue jeans and a green and black polo shirt with the UWL lion head on it is…..Fred…..Fred, last name is not important. Fred works for the UWL. Fred is one of the drivers for the UWL. That’s right Fred drives the ring truck and by ring truck we mean a rented truck from Uhaul, Penske, whomever is close by at the time and whoever has the cheaper rates. Besides driving the ring truck, Fred is also involved in set up, tear down and whatever is needed to help get the show ready for the UWL and today, Fred hit the road early and made sure he is at Home Depot the second it opened up to do some shopping. On his list:
Ladders. Cheap ladders
Tables. Cheap tables.
Chairs. The cheaper the better.
Green and black spray paint.
As Fred is making his way to the entrance door of the store he is greeted by a familiar face.
Sutton.
He was hanging out at the store, waiting for it to open as well but he was waiting for Fred to show up, to aid him in his shopping for required items.
Fred ”Billy?” Almost unsure that he believes his eyes.
Billy looks up from his phone. “About time Fred. Traffic wasn’t that bad.” Billy says.
Fred ”What are you doing here?”
Sutton “Making sure you get the right shit.”
Fred ”Okay? How did you know I would be getting the stuff for the match today?”
Sutton “Because you told me you wait till the day before the show to get this sort of junk. It’s Friday, match is tomorrow. Not hard to figure out Fred.”
Fred ”Oh yeah….I told you that once huh?”
Sutton doesn’t respond. He slides his phone into his back pocket of his Wrangler jeans with the patented U Shaped cut that you can only find in Wrangler jeans. The pair Sutton is wearing today were once wore by Brett Favre in one of the many commercials he has done. It was for charity and yes, he washed them. He steps in front of the automated doors as they slide open.
Sutton “Come on. Before they sell out of ladders.”
When Billy first got hired on with the UWL and was broke as phuck as he wasn’t in the moonshine making business he would bum rides from show to show with the crew as his El Camino he had at the time wasn’t the most reliable vehicle on the road. Billy ended up spending allot of cab time and miles rumbling down the highway with Fred and they kinda became friends and it was Fred who really clued Billy into some of the little points that everyone just takes for granted in the UWL because if there is one person who knows how the UWL works, it’s the driver of the ring truck.
Inside the Home Depot, the smell of freshly cut lumber fills the store. They are setting up for spring time in the garden center as it is filled with brand new gas grills, seedlings and everything else you need to start your garden in SoCal. Fred and Sutton with Fred pushing a flatbed walk past all of that towards the tool section where they have the ladders. Fred and Sutton walk up the rack where they have all of the ladders they have on hand. Brand new ladders, wooden ladders, fiberglass ladders and the go to, must have for a wrestling match, aluminum ladders. Sutton slides out a 20 foot step ladder and kicks the back legs out. He starts to climb it.
Fred ”What are you doing?”
Sutton “Shut up Fred.”
Later outside in the parking lot of the Gersten Pavilion is the same truck Fred drove to the Home Depot along with several tables leaning up against it. In the center of the tables in neon green spray paint to help it pop, is the UWL lion head logo. A couple of folding steel chairs are also leaning up against tables, they have been painted flat black and in the seat part of the chair, the lionhead logo has been spray painted in the same neon green and along the backrest the letters UWL in matching green paint finish off the chairs. A couple of ladders are set up flanking the tables and chairs and they have been painted flat black with green treads. Sticking out of the back of the truck are more tables and ladders, looking like they have slided out the back of the truck and standing on top of the truck is Sutton himself. Blue jeans, stained Bionic Redneck's Tee with a Redneck Remedy MoonShine flannel shirt over the top of that.
One thing we learned this week kids is that Sunday Night Heat, he can look at a team, a person, two people and he can read them like a book. Boy he did a great job in dissecting Steve and I this week huh? Pointing out of our so called flaws, how this doesn’t work, how that wouldn’t work. Pointing out the obvious to everyone like he was the only one who could see it. Then just to be a smart ass or a wise ass, I’m not sure yet, Sunday Night Heat, the branding expert that he is, the entrepreneur that he is, found himself a farm somewhere, kinda like how I once set up shop at my Uncle Ned’s second cousin’s farm in Knoxville and he copied me by brewing up his own Shine. His own brand. I let that slide because brewing up your own shine is the in thing nowadays. Legal like or illegally it doesn’t matter. Every Tom Dick and Harry out there think they can mash up their own white lightening and they will think they have the best Shine in the world but there is only one man on the face of this earth who learned from the best, who has it in his blood. That, as Hank Williams Jr sang was a family tradition. The legendary Popcorn Sutton is my uncle and no one, no one made better Shine than Popcorn and that is an undisputed fact. So Heat, when I made my own Shine, there was no question about it that it will stand the test of time against the best brands out there, in fact my stands apart of them because of my last name. It better to have the name Sutton on the bottle. My customers, they have high standards when it comes to the Shine they drink and much like Popcorn, they hold my brand of Shine to a higher standard and I’m perfectly fine with that, in fact I embraced it and I have delivered a brand of Shine that exceeds those standards placed on me by my customers.” Sutton says as he stands on top of the truck with his hands behind his back.
”Of course with success there comes my fair share of competitors who quickly mashed up knock offs products and rushed it to market to cash in on not only my name, but my Uncle’s good name. You will find brands out there with the words Popcorn and Sutton on it and lately you’ll find knockoffs with a beard on it, HillBilly on the bottle, all trying to be like my brand but not being my brand and all this really does is confuse the customers. The die hard ones, they will just push that mickey mouse sh*t to the side and pick up a bottle of the good stuff, the real stuff. Guys with the rip off stuff, like you Heat, that’s when you cash in on a unknowing consumer. I know for a fact that as soon as this Saturday night outside of this building no less, someone will buy a bottle of your crap, Sutton’s tears thinking that it’s a new line I just produce and without even shaking your bottle up, I know that is some awful tasting stuff. I could make a phone call, get my team of lawyers on your case and they would hit you up with a cease and desist before those doors open up tomorrow night and that would be that but you know something. You didn’t start that operation for the money. Nah, You started it up because you thought it would either get me mad and irate and distract me this week which it didn’t, or you started it up because in your pubescent mind you thought this would be a hoot. I bet you thought you would get all of the guys laughing and joining you in mocking me somehow.”
Sutton pauses for a second.
”Only that no one is laughing and the one thing you forgot to take into consideration Heat is that making Shine, even legal Shine like I do is a very serious business and guys like me, like Popcorn, Junior Johnson, we take it very seriously and when someone news tries to take up even a tiny piece of the market share…...sometimes you just have to take matters in your hand and drive the competition out or in this case, make sure you’re ill tasting crap never makes it to the market. In a lot of ways, we are just like drug dealers, protecting our territory, our customers. You should be familiar with how that works being from LA and all. Compton isn’t that far from here, I’m sure you caught the news now and then about the gunfire going on around there. Same thing goes on in the hills of the Appalachians. Sometimes your product comes up missing because back in the day you had to hide your product. That was just a warning. If you didn’t get the hint, then we would find your still and poke holes in it, maybe burn it down and if for some reason you still didn’t get the hint, the shotguns would come into play. Well, I ain’t burning your still down and I ain’t going to pull a gun on ya, but I’m still going to bash something and fill it with holes and spill the contents of it all over the ground.”
Sutton pulls his hands out from behind his back and in his one hand is a Ax. A big old Ax.
”In this case Heat, the big tank I’m going to swing this bad boy at and gash it wide open is that head of yours. After I get done beating you with tables…..ladders…..and chairs. After I drive my fist into your face, After I take out your knees by snapping them around the ring posts. After I tie you up in the ring ropes…..locking your arms between the ropes leaving you wide open and defenseless, then I will teach you a lesson Heat. A lesson learned the hard way, a lesson in pain and brutality. A lesson in why you shouldn’t run that mouth of yours because it will get you hurt. A lesson why you shouldn’t poke the bear and phuck with a redneck.”
Sutton spins the ax in his hand and he watches it. He holds it up next to his face…
”You think you know me. You think you have this match won. But you don’t know anything Heat. Not a GD thing but the one thing you will learn, one thing I will drive into that thick headed skull of yours, what the rest of the world already knows, is why you can’t win the important matches in your career, like this one. I WILL be crowned the number one contender to the Triple Crown and Heat, if you don’t like that….”
Sutton glances at the ax and runs his finger down the edge of the blade, he cuts his finger on it.
”Not like I care.”
Sutton tightens his grip on the ax handle and is ready to go to battle. Steve Sinclair walks into the picture down on the ground and he looks at the pile of tables, ladders and chairs. His hands are in his front pants pockets.
Steve ”Timmy, Timmy, Timmy. You just couldn’t stop could you? You just had to keep running that mouth of yours. It’s alright, I mean, it’ll get you hurt tomorrow night but that is okay. You just have to remember something Tim. When you have been in this sport as long as I have been, you make a few friends, a couple of acquaintances along the way and these guys that I know here in the UWL, they're not fans of you either so one of them, gave me something and when Sutton here, when he gets done with you and is crowned the number one contender….”
Steve pulls his hands out of his pockets and in his one hand is brass knuckles. He slides them onto his big right hand and forms a fist.
Steve ”You’ll know why the name Chamber…...is one you fear.”
Steve holds up his fist and shows off his gift.
Steve ”Like I said….I always get what I want…..”
“One way….”
“or another.”
Fade out.
Ladders. Cheap ladders
Tables. Cheap tables.
Chairs. The cheaper the better.
Green and black spray paint.
As Fred is making his way to the entrance door of the store he is greeted by a familiar face.
Sutton.
He was hanging out at the store, waiting for it to open as well but he was waiting for Fred to show up, to aid him in his shopping for required items.
Fred ”Billy?” Almost unsure that he believes his eyes.
Billy looks up from his phone. “About time Fred. Traffic wasn’t that bad.” Billy says.
Fred ”What are you doing here?”
Sutton “Making sure you get the right shit.”
Fred ”Okay? How did you know I would be getting the stuff for the match today?”
Sutton “Because you told me you wait till the day before the show to get this sort of junk. It’s Friday, match is tomorrow. Not hard to figure out Fred.”
Fred ”Oh yeah….I told you that once huh?”
Sutton doesn’t respond. He slides his phone into his back pocket of his Wrangler jeans with the patented U Shaped cut that you can only find in Wrangler jeans. The pair Sutton is wearing today were once wore by Brett Favre in one of the many commercials he has done. It was for charity and yes, he washed them. He steps in front of the automated doors as they slide open.
Sutton “Come on. Before they sell out of ladders.”
When Billy first got hired on with the UWL and was broke as phuck as he wasn’t in the moonshine making business he would bum rides from show to show with the crew as his El Camino he had at the time wasn’t the most reliable vehicle on the road. Billy ended up spending allot of cab time and miles rumbling down the highway with Fred and they kinda became friends and it was Fred who really clued Billy into some of the little points that everyone just takes for granted in the UWL because if there is one person who knows how the UWL works, it’s the driver of the ring truck.
Inside the Home Depot, the smell of freshly cut lumber fills the store. They are setting up for spring time in the garden center as it is filled with brand new gas grills, seedlings and everything else you need to start your garden in SoCal. Fred and Sutton with Fred pushing a flatbed walk past all of that towards the tool section where they have the ladders. Fred and Sutton walk up the rack where they have all of the ladders they have on hand. Brand new ladders, wooden ladders, fiberglass ladders and the go to, must have for a wrestling match, aluminum ladders. Sutton slides out a 20 foot step ladder and kicks the back legs out. He starts to climb it.
Fred ”What are you doing?”
Sutton “Shut up Fred.”
Later outside in the parking lot of the Gersten Pavilion is the same truck Fred drove to the Home Depot along with several tables leaning up against it. In the center of the tables in neon green spray paint to help it pop, is the UWL lion head logo. A couple of folding steel chairs are also leaning up against tables, they have been painted flat black and in the seat part of the chair, the lionhead logo has been spray painted in the same neon green and along the backrest the letters UWL in matching green paint finish off the chairs. A couple of ladders are set up flanking the tables and chairs and they have been painted flat black with green treads. Sticking out of the back of the truck are more tables and ladders, looking like they have slided out the back of the truck and standing on top of the truck is Sutton himself. Blue jeans, stained Bionic Redneck's Tee with a Redneck Remedy MoonShine flannel shirt over the top of that.
One thing we learned this week kids is that Sunday Night Heat, he can look at a team, a person, two people and he can read them like a book. Boy he did a great job in dissecting Steve and I this week huh? Pointing out of our so called flaws, how this doesn’t work, how that wouldn’t work. Pointing out the obvious to everyone like he was the only one who could see it. Then just to be a smart ass or a wise ass, I’m not sure yet, Sunday Night Heat, the branding expert that he is, the entrepreneur that he is, found himself a farm somewhere, kinda like how I once set up shop at my Uncle Ned’s second cousin’s farm in Knoxville and he copied me by brewing up his own Shine. His own brand. I let that slide because brewing up your own shine is the in thing nowadays. Legal like or illegally it doesn’t matter. Every Tom Dick and Harry out there think they can mash up their own white lightening and they will think they have the best Shine in the world but there is only one man on the face of this earth who learned from the best, who has it in his blood. That, as Hank Williams Jr sang was a family tradition. The legendary Popcorn Sutton is my uncle and no one, no one made better Shine than Popcorn and that is an undisputed fact. So Heat, when I made my own Shine, there was no question about it that it will stand the test of time against the best brands out there, in fact my stands apart of them because of my last name. It better to have the name Sutton on the bottle. My customers, they have high standards when it comes to the Shine they drink and much like Popcorn, they hold my brand of Shine to a higher standard and I’m perfectly fine with that, in fact I embraced it and I have delivered a brand of Shine that exceeds those standards placed on me by my customers.” Sutton says as he stands on top of the truck with his hands behind his back.
”Of course with success there comes my fair share of competitors who quickly mashed up knock offs products and rushed it to market to cash in on not only my name, but my Uncle’s good name. You will find brands out there with the words Popcorn and Sutton on it and lately you’ll find knockoffs with a beard on it, HillBilly on the bottle, all trying to be like my brand but not being my brand and all this really does is confuse the customers. The die hard ones, they will just push that mickey mouse sh*t to the side and pick up a bottle of the good stuff, the real stuff. Guys with the rip off stuff, like you Heat, that’s when you cash in on a unknowing consumer. I know for a fact that as soon as this Saturday night outside of this building no less, someone will buy a bottle of your crap, Sutton’s tears thinking that it’s a new line I just produce and without even shaking your bottle up, I know that is some awful tasting stuff. I could make a phone call, get my team of lawyers on your case and they would hit you up with a cease and desist before those doors open up tomorrow night and that would be that but you know something. You didn’t start that operation for the money. Nah, You started it up because you thought it would either get me mad and irate and distract me this week which it didn’t, or you started it up because in your pubescent mind you thought this would be a hoot. I bet you thought you would get all of the guys laughing and joining you in mocking me somehow.”
Sutton pauses for a second.
”Only that no one is laughing and the one thing you forgot to take into consideration Heat is that making Shine, even legal Shine like I do is a very serious business and guys like me, like Popcorn, Junior Johnson, we take it very seriously and when someone news tries to take up even a tiny piece of the market share…...sometimes you just have to take matters in your hand and drive the competition out or in this case, make sure you’re ill tasting crap never makes it to the market. In a lot of ways, we are just like drug dealers, protecting our territory, our customers. You should be familiar with how that works being from LA and all. Compton isn’t that far from here, I’m sure you caught the news now and then about the gunfire going on around there. Same thing goes on in the hills of the Appalachians. Sometimes your product comes up missing because back in the day you had to hide your product. That was just a warning. If you didn’t get the hint, then we would find your still and poke holes in it, maybe burn it down and if for some reason you still didn’t get the hint, the shotguns would come into play. Well, I ain’t burning your still down and I ain’t going to pull a gun on ya, but I’m still going to bash something and fill it with holes and spill the contents of it all over the ground.”
Sutton pulls his hands out from behind his back and in his one hand is a Ax. A big old Ax.
”In this case Heat, the big tank I’m going to swing this bad boy at and gash it wide open is that head of yours. After I get done beating you with tables…..ladders…..and chairs. After I drive my fist into your face, After I take out your knees by snapping them around the ring posts. After I tie you up in the ring ropes…..locking your arms between the ropes leaving you wide open and defenseless, then I will teach you a lesson Heat. A lesson learned the hard way, a lesson in pain and brutality. A lesson in why you shouldn’t run that mouth of yours because it will get you hurt. A lesson why you shouldn’t poke the bear and phuck with a redneck.”
Sutton spins the ax in his hand and he watches it. He holds it up next to his face…
”You think you know me. You think you have this match won. But you don’t know anything Heat. Not a GD thing but the one thing you will learn, one thing I will drive into that thick headed skull of yours, what the rest of the world already knows, is why you can’t win the important matches in your career, like this one. I WILL be crowned the number one contender to the Triple Crown and Heat, if you don’t like that….”
Sutton glances at the ax and runs his finger down the edge of the blade, he cuts his finger on it.
”Not like I care.”
Sutton tightens his grip on the ax handle and is ready to go to battle. Steve Sinclair walks into the picture down on the ground and he looks at the pile of tables, ladders and chairs. His hands are in his front pants pockets.
Steve ”Timmy, Timmy, Timmy. You just couldn’t stop could you? You just had to keep running that mouth of yours. It’s alright, I mean, it’ll get you hurt tomorrow night but that is okay. You just have to remember something Tim. When you have been in this sport as long as I have been, you make a few friends, a couple of acquaintances along the way and these guys that I know here in the UWL, they're not fans of you either so one of them, gave me something and when Sutton here, when he gets done with you and is crowned the number one contender….”
Steve pulls his hands out of his pockets and in his one hand is brass knuckles. He slides them onto his big right hand and forms a fist.
Steve ”You’ll know why the name Chamber…...is one you fear.”
Steve holds up his fist and shows off his gift.
Steve ”Like I said….I always get what I want…..”
“One way….”
“or another.”
Fade out.