Back to Work

Hope everyone had a great weekend.

I guess some of you are enjoying the blog. I was actually getting email and texts asking for more stories...but I took the weekend off!

I do think you will enjoy today's entry about wrasslin superstar Hulk Hogan. And don't forget the comments!

Ken


HULK HOGAN

The summer of 1978 was a good one. I was working as stage security for Mid-South Concerts in Memphis where music has legendary roots. From Elvis to the blues to Jerry Lee Lewis, it is a large part of the cities history and culture. All the shows were at the Mid South Coliseum, a place I knew well since it served as our home court for the Memphis State University Tigers basketball games. All the big touring acts had Memphis as a stop. I can remember seeing Heart, The Eagles, Bad Company, Kansas, The Cars, Jackson Brown, and many other great sounds of the era. It was such a cool job.

Working stage security was a piece of cake. The promoters loved having the Memphis athletes as security for several reasons. For one, we are rather large and served as a deterrent to some of the rowdy fans. For two, Memphis at that time has no pro sports, so we were actually big celebrities in the city, which added to the buzz of the concert when the people saw our recognizable faces at the show. They never gave us the bad jobs either. We were always situated to the side where we could sit near the stage and watch the performance. I always felt bad for the guys in front of the stage. They had their ears blasted by the amps, and had their back to the show the entire time. And when there was a rush of fans toward the talent, I’m sure it looked like a tidal wave of humanity coming towards them.

After the show, the promoters had no problem with us hanging around backstage. This was advantageous for a couple of reasons. We could get a glimpse of the musicians, and catch sight of the female groupies following the musicians. Keeping with the PG theme of the blog, I won’t go into great deal about some of the activities I witnessed going on here, but just let me say that the sex, drugs, and rock and roll theme of the era was very, very true.

There were also levels to the backstage areas. The immediate area was pretty much open to anyone with a badge. There was not much going on here other than the engineers, techs, and roadies breaking down the set for the next show. Then there was the intermediate area where band members would actually take some photos, greet some fans, and make their “appointments” with pretty girls for that night, the next show, or the next time they were in town. Then the ultra exclusive area was the talent dressing room area. This was ultra exclusive with no access permitted to ANYONE that wasn’t a member of the group or close entourage… except for us, of course.

I was a big fan of Ann and Nancy Wilson of Heart. Actually, to this day I think it was the best live musical performance I have ever seen. Ann had incredible vocal range, and Nancy could wail on the guitar about as good as any guy. So my security buddy and I decided to venture towards the “forbidden catacombs” of the dressing room. We got to the final door when a figure emerged from the shadows. This figure looked to be about 6’8” and about 300 pounds. He was one LARGE hurdle to jump to get to see the Wilson sisters.

Back around this time WMC-TV in Memphis had a live local professional “wrestling” show every weekend. I put “wrestling” in quotation marks because it is undeniably orchestrated and should go under the heading of theater rather than sport. I will write about “Dirty Dusty Rhoads” in another blog to follow, so stay tuned.

There was a brother act in the show featuring Terry and Eddie Boulder. It was comical because it was basically the same scenario every week. Eddie was a slightly built guy who would take on the local champ (ala a Jerry “The King” Lawler), get the tar beat out of him, and then his massive brother Terry would jump in the studio ring to save him from certain death, or at least massive injuries. I wasn’t a huge devotee of the program, but I did watch occasionally and the theme seemed to repeat itself over and over and over, with only Eddie’s opponent changing.

As I approached the figure at the dressing room door, the light hit his face and I immediately recognized him as Terry Boulder. “Hey, you’re the wrestler” I said to him. “And you’re the basketball player that never seems to get on the court”, he replied. We were both correct. “Can I get in to see the sisters?” I asked. “No can do my friend” was his answer. “But I can crack the door and give you a peek”. I took him up on his offer, and actually caught Nancy Wilson blow drying her hair. I stared for as long as I could before his benevolence ended and the door closed.

We chatted for a few minutes about wrestling and basketball. He was kind of quiet, but actually a pretty nice guy. He had this “tiger eye” ring he let me try on. Keep in mind that my ring size is 14 and his ring was spinning around my finger with plenty of space to fill. This indeed was one large human.

As I understand it, soon after this Sylvester Stallone was traveling through Memphis and caught Terry’s act on TV. He then went down to the studio to meet him, and found he was just what he was looking for to cast in his next sequel Rocky III. Obviously Terry parlayed that into mega success and the WWF championship, and remains in the public eye today. I often wondered what he did with the $20 a night we got for working stage security. He probably bought razor blades to tuck into his wristbands.