AEW: DYNAMITE | 08.19.26

The thing about professional wrestling that I find really and truly fascinating is that it takes place in a setting where

1. Magic is unambiguously real
2. That fact is completely irrelevant 98% of the time and has little bearing on anything

Most settings where magic is real are about magic. The wizards are the main characters or the antagonists. The presence of ghosts or mutants comes up within the first three sentences of any reasonable summary, or is a major plot twist that changes the entire story.

Meanwhile pro wrestling is a combat sport with scripted outcomes and surrounding storylines. "And also sometimes they do necromancy" is such an extraneous detail not worth mentioning. But also I cannot stress enough that sometimes they do necromancy.

You can go an entire show with zero wizard nonsense, but at any given point on any show in any promotion it wouldn't be shocking for a wizard (or demon or alien or vampire etc) to appear.

The wizards don't even win particularly often. Having actual magic powers that you use to cheat is actually somewhat less effective than "hitting someone with a blunt object while the referee is distracted" or "being large".

Funniest possible approach to magic.

One sad side effect of big box stores is that you just don’t get lifelong hyper fixation guy access like you used to.

Like yeah I can go to Menards and buy a door.

But it used to be I could go to the door store, and speak to a man whose sole passion in life was doors and who would talk about the history of door insulation patterns over the last 50 years without stopping to breathe.

That man is gonna find me the BEST door option for me.

Seriously my neighborhood had one of these. They were across the street from the lighting shop owned by the guy who could tell you the exact date, off the top of his head, that your property got electrical wiring based on your address.

Now these guys rarely get to own a shop, make a good living, and sell the very finest doors for decades. They’re relegated to Reddit posts which are informative but ultimately do not replace door guy having a door shop.

I don’t want to talk to some miserable, underpaid 20 year old who was in plumbing last week and in doors this week and doesn’t know a hammer from a hanger.

I want my door guy back.

Since it's mid-august it's time for a reminder for the DIY folks or those who like to cosplay

Even as an advertiser (especially as an advertiser), I am convinced that outlawing advertising is the best thing we can do for our world now. More than gun control. More than tackling climate change. More than lowering the price of eggs.

Removing these advanced manipulation tools would force everyone—politicians included—to snap back into reality. By outlawing advertising, the machinery of mass delusion would lose its most addictive and toxic fuel.

I started out reading this smugly saying to myself yeah, right.

But by the end I'm sold. Let's ban advertising.

We can start small, maybe with city ordinances. Then roll it out county wide, then at the state level. Once other states see how quiet and sane things can be, they'll adopt the ban too. The ones that don't will remain snarling islands of rage & delusion until the people move away.

Let's ban advertising.

it still comes as a surprise that closeness cannot be achieved from a safe distance

you have to get this piercing!