14. My Perfect Friend
My father is a family archivist. He has our ancestry traced back to goat farmers in Poland and Lithuania. I remember sitting on his knee in darkened library carrel as he scrolled microfiche for wedding announcements and other evidence of broken branches of the family tree. In my parents’ basement, in a room my sister and I call “Stalker’s Gallery,” he’s hung hundreds of photos. Half of them are of me, an infant, a toddler, my first day of school, an Easter here, a Christmas there, school photos, football portraits, my college graduation, where I wore just a white t-shirt under my cap and gown.
VHS tapes only last about 35 years or so before they stop working. I know this because my father only recently attempted to digitize the bin of home videos that he’d shot in the late 80s and early 90s. Several of the tapes had completely degraded. Still, he has hundreds of hours of footage. He’s edited them down into 90-minute digests and uploaded them unlisted to YouTube.
He played one for my wife and I when he and my mom visited for our baby shower. I was four years old. My sister two. We’re singing songs, playing in the yard, doing puppet shows off the back of the couch. In the moment, my reaction was what you might expect. I was embarrassed and annoyed at my younger self, but only a little. I was impressed at my parents’ patience, unmoored by how young they looked and sounded—they’re my mid-30s peers in these movies, after all. And then there were the nuggets that really would only speak to me. My dad quipping to himself when his young stars wouldn’t take direction. My mom reading a newspaper (an actual newspaper!), in a futile effort to carve out some time for herself.
What was unusual was my reaction after the movie was over and my parents had left. It’s tough to articulate. You know how nostalgia can produce that warm, wistful longing? Imagine the underside of that? A sharp, cold, sense of loss. I broke down and wept.
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“My Perfect Friend,” the final track of the Macho Man Randy Savage’s debut rap album, is a tribute to Savage’s “real close friend and good buddy, Curt Hennig.” Hennig wrestled in the WWF as “Mr. Perfect,” in the late 80s and 90s and died in 2003, as Savage was completing Be a Man. Hennig was a second-generation wrestler from Minnesota who, like Savage, is remembered as one of the best technical wrestlers of his era. The “Mr. Perfect” gimmick stemmed from his in-ring prowess and an exaggeration of his real-life, preternatural skill at football, basketball, golf, fishing, and basically every other sport. As a heel, Hennig’s athleticism, pudgy cheeks, and pouty lips allowed him to easily draw heat. He’s the varsity letterman who’s hot shit and knows it, basically the sworn enemy of every professional wrestling fan.
Macho’s eulogy of Hennig in “My Perfect Friend” transcends the joke. It’s not a good a song, save, maybe, for the hook—which bizarrely foreshadows Justin Timberlake’s “What Goes Around…Comes Around.” In several interviews, Savage’s brother, professional wrestler Lanny Poffo, takes credit for drafting the song, and it shows from the first, clumsy couplet. But there’s undoubtedly some Macho Magic in this song. The spoken word outro reminds us that part of what makes Savage so good is that he has this extra gear of emotional openness and authenticity that few wrestlers had. Hennig is well-known in wrestling circles, but his star power, especially in 2003, wasn’t something this rap album could draft. Savage really does miss the guy. This tribute means something to him, enough that he claimed that he'd never perform the song live out of respect for Hennig and to protect his memory from “the haters” that sometimes attend his shows.
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I’m an emotional guy. I get angry, frustrated, choked up. But I don’t really weep. Folks, I wept after watching those childhood home videos.
Yes, it was seeing relatives who aren’t around anymore. It’s the feeling of the chasm of years separating me from that 4-year-old boy and how brief that time has felt in retrospect. But what really did it was thinking about my dad rewatching all those hours of footage night after night. It brings my old man, the family archivist, a lot of joy to have this record. It must feel satisfying, to have taken the time and effort to record, store, and transfer these memories into the cloud. Who knows how long they might last up there? I don’t have home movies of my parents as children. There were barely movies when my grandparents were children. Now, my dad can watch them on his phone, whenever he wants. He can easily share them—these precious, adorable moments. It’s a good thing. Right?
When these home videos were on VHS tapes slowly denaturing in my parents’ basement, it was easy for me to separate myself from any responsibility for them. That isn’t my house. Those aren’t my tapes. It would’ve been easier to deny their profound importance in my father’s life if they had simply been left in their analog state. But now I must reckon with them. At great personal effort and time, my dad ensured that these movies will persist. Will I do the same?
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How perfect was Mr. Perfect? Hennig died at the age of 44 of cocaine intoxication. He was survived by his wife and four children. One of his late career gimmicks was guitarist and vocalist in a kayfabe band called West Texas Rednecks. With tunes like “Good Ol’ Boys” and “Rap is Crap (I Hate Rap),” the heel stable was unintentionally getting over with many fans.1 “Rap Is Crap” reportedly got legitimate airplay on some country stations. The stable was squashed by the powers that be for, depending on who you believe, not being successful heels, not being liked by Hulk Hogan, or being too racist according to the Turner’s network’s standards and practices department. Regardless, Hennig said working with the West Texas Rednecks was some of the most fun he’d had in pro wrestling, which, heel or not, should tell us something.
In interviews, wrestlers note how good of a prankster Hennig was. Ribbing the boys with innocent and not so innocent gags is a right of passage in pro wrestling. I’m not a part of this community, but it’s not hard to imagine that the line between playfulness and being an outright bully was one Curt may have crossed from time to time.
The standout example is the infamous “Plane Ride from Hell,” where, after hours of heavy drinking and who knows what else on a chartered flight home from a European tour, Curt let loose one of his famous pranks on newcomer and human mountain Brock Lesnar. Lesnar responded as you might expect the scariest man alive to respond. The brawl was so burly that witnesses reportedly feared that the two would bust open one of the plane’s emergency exit doors. Pro wrestling, of course, is known for its tall tales, but the outcome, again, says a lot. Brock Lesnar, in between wildly successful runs with the WWE where he would become one of the company’s biggest, most menacing stars, would win the UFC undisputed heavyweight championship and even enjoy a brief stint in the NFL. WWE released Hennig, reportedly due to his behavior on the “Plane Ride from Hell.” He would be dead within a year.
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And that, my friends, brings us to nostalgia. Nostalgia for a childhood more than 3 decades in the past. Nostalgia for the golden era of professional wrestling, as real as anything could be to this 11-year-old in 1999. Nostalgia for Macho Man Randy Savage’s Perfect Friend. The older I get, the more I’m convinced that nostalgia is like alcohol, undeniably unhealthy in any amount. I crave both. I chase both. I’ve killed brain cells with both. When I could have been producing something or calling my mom, I’ve spent too many nights scrolling through old WWE videos on my phone, whiskey in hand.
It's bad for you, but at the same time, I know with 100% certainty that without alcohol, too many of the insufferable traits of my Christian, right-wing youth would have survived into adulthood. Without alcohol, I would have never met most of my friends, my wife, and by the old transitive property, this super cute baby wrapped against my chest.2
Is “My Perfect Friend,” the final track on the Macho Man Randy Savage’s debut rap album Be A Man a good song? No. But is it any good? Well, on one hand, it’s kind of evil. It’s an oil derrick tapping the deep, deep wells of professional wrestling nostalgia. Not only is this the lifeblood of the industry, its main source of capital, it’s also a substance that WWE and other bad actors bathe in, a protective coating that blinds fans from its role in perpetuating a system that has driven so many, Curt Hennig included, to an early grave. On the other hand, “My Perfect Friend” is a heartfelt tribute to one of Macho’s amigos. It may lack artistic merit, but so does, for example, a child’s drawing of their family. The fact that it’s messy and juvenile and bad only deepens its significance, its authenticity. “My Perfect Friend” is not a product. Macho said himself that he’d never perform it live. It’s not cool or tough or hard. It’s a eulogy. It’s a flickering birthday candle in a dark, dark room.
The older, insufferable version of me would want clear answers here. Nostalgia—good or bad? Those childhood videos—a gift or a burden? The unsatisfying but true answer is both, and so, so much more.
It’s maddening. Isn’t it?
2.75 out of 5 plane rides from Hell.
One does wonder whether “My Perfect Friend,” a rap song eulogizing Curt Hennig, is a deep kayfabe practical joke from Macho to Hennig. The real Curt by all accounts didn’t HATE rap as his song repeatedly states. However, if an afterlife exists and Hennig is there, I do like to imagine him rolling his eyes.
He was born! At press time, everyone is doing fine.