Views from the Fedhead Chair

My last couple of posts here have been a little bit on the negative side, given the current situation I have “enjoyed” in my waking life. And as you all know, I am actively seeking to remedy that situation. But I feel like I have opined enough about that for a bit without sounding repetitive. I appreciate any and all help I get, no matter the source and I have had some tremendous assistance through it from people who know who they are and how appreciated they are. So with that in mind, I thought we would switch gears and get back into a little hobby I am known for, that being the wonderful of efedding.

For those unaware, I have spent more time being in charge of efeds than I have actually just playing in them. When I discovered the hobby in 2007, I had only played it for a couple months when I was asked to come on board the staff of that fed. I admit my knowledge of what was good and bad was very very limited, but I tried. Even tried to run my own fed after the owner of that one disappeared. And in both cases, it was a miserable failure on my part. But I learned from it. I learned from the mistakes I made then. And applied them to the next fed staff job I’d get offered, which was coincidentally in the next fed I joined. Despite it all, I do my best to learn from every experience. And even today as a fedhead with several years experience, I am still learning things. It’s my experience in life that when you think you know everything, you obviously don’t know much at all.

And since I have enjoyed what I consider to be successful feds to this day, I was inspired to do a blog post on them. Now I don’t plan to do efed blogs constantly, as you have noticed. This blog will cover everything that makes up my life in one form or another. This is just one of those aspects. And after a chat last night, it inspired me to do this post. So let’s get into it.

To me, being a fedhead is comprised of two jobs. And those are: booking the fed and running the fed. And I’ll share a few of my thoughts on both before you are finished reading. Let’s start with running things. First of all, I run my feds as though they were a real business. What do I mean by that? Well ideally in the real world if you bust your ass constantly and consistently, it’s going to get you noticed. And I am the same way. If I see someone really trying consistently and giving it their best effort whether they succeed constantly or not, I will open doors for them to try to do better. Because that’s how you show and reward players to me. 

Another way I run feds as a business is by monitoring what my “employees” say about where they “work.” Just like in a real company, if you have an employee who spends all their time publicly bemoaning their place of work and constantly tearing it down, it doesn’t inspire you as an employer to show them any greener grass. And I’m not talking about privately discussing issues with another player, which is fine by me even if it accomplishes nothing to get your problems addressed. I mean going in public and posting on social media about your issues. That also doesn’t address the issue, and just like an employer, it’s only going to irritate someone. And very few good things come by way of irritation in life. (Note: I tested this theory most of my teen years, it didn’t work.)

Another aspect that I actually started doing when I first began this (only to find out Wal-mart did it first) is the open door policy. This one goes hand in hand with the last point I made. I have always and will always strive to hear out every concern that is brought to me. Now don’t go assuming people always bring them to me, because they don’t. Some prefer to share their problems with their friends, and I understand that. I do it too. But at the end of the day, your friend can’t solve whatever issue you are having within the confines of any fed. Only the people in charge can. And I will always listen to people, and if I feel they have a valid concern, rest assured I will address it. This spans a lot of territory from player issues all the way up to personal life problems. I can’t solve those, but I can still listen as that friend I mentioned a moment ago. I strive to be there for my roster any way I can, because it engenders that sense of family that I think makes everything better. It reminds them that people care, and they do. It reminds them they always have someone to listen, and in a lot of cases, your time is the most valuable thing you can give. 

Another part of running things is dealing with problem players. And yes, there is always going to be a player at some point causing some level of problem. Sometimes it’s very minor and annoying such as a handler trying to explain that characters and wrestlers in efeds were different and then telling me how my angle fed wasn’t really an angle fed. That wasn’t him being so much of a problem as just an annoying twat. But there are also the problem players. Generally I find problem players (as I think of them) to usually have either a real world gripe that is bleeding into this game (which is the case more often than not). Or there are those who just like to cause trouble. They live for it, whether they admit it or not. In the first case, I will do everything in my power to be there for the player having real life issues until it gets to the point where it makes me not want to do what I need to do. Then it has to be remedied somehow no matter how strongly I feel about the person involved. And in the second case, people who just like to cause problems are not really worth keeping. In some circles, they are known as drama llamas. And in all the years I’ve played, I have seen them come and go. Those players are not worth the aggravation, if I’m honest. And the simple fact is that you can never make everyone happy all the time. And in the case of these individuals, none of time. And I have other things I can be doing than focusing on the problems of a player who always has a problem. 

Those are just a few of the philosophies I employ in running a fed. There are a lot more, to be fair. And if people are interested, I can go over some more of them in a future post. Just let me know. Let’s switch gears to the booking side. I’ll go ahead and warn you that most of these that I am going to share today should be common sense. But the more I look around, I find common sense not to be so common. Again, I won’t cover all the things I consider but here’s the basics.

First of all, there are feds where you have a creative team instead of one person. In all the years I have run feds, I have rarely seen this work. There are exceptions, such as a recent place two very good friends of mine ran for a while. It worked there. But in general, the creative team in efedding is a problem because there’s always going to be someone on the team who doesn’t get their ideas heard and played out as much as someone else. Me personally, I do all the booking. But I do encourage people to come to me with their ideas for things, and will try to incorporate them. In most creative teams I have seen, the only plus side to a team is that you can all share the praise as well as the criticism you get. Especially the criticism. I’m not saying it can never work, because I have seen it done. But in most cases I personally have seen, it tends to fall apart. And when it comes to teams that are about six or seven people deep as I have seen, then it’s just too many cooks in the kitchen. 

I believe shows have a natural build, because they do. That’s why when I book cards even for a weekly show, I never will have a load of gimmick matches. For one, that’s just not realistic. I was talking to someone last night who was part of a fed that had 8 gimmick matches out of a 10 match show. One in which was a hardcore brutal death match with loads of gimmicks in the undercard. To me, that is absolutely asinine. I would never put a match like that in the undercard. To me, major gimmick matches involving cages or anything like that belong near the top of the card, if not at the top. Because that is your finale. (This is also why I thought having Hell in A Cell or Lockdown Pay Per Views was ridiculous.) These matches take a lot out of the fans because they are generally intense. And it doesn’t make a lot of sense to completely exhaust your viewers in the early going of a two or three hour show. This is what I mean by natural build. 

Title matches are also something special, at least to me. For those who follow my feds, more often than not if I put a title match on a show, it is either the last or next to last match on the card every time. Starting with the top title all the way down to the low card title, and rarely are there multiple title matches on anything but Pay Per Views. The reason for that is I want title matches to feel like an event, something special you don’t see all the time. And if you have them all the time, they become commonplace and also doesn’t let you build to them as you should. And the reason I only do one generally a show is because every title is important to a company. Not just the upper ones. And I want to show the holder of that title that I believe in them and that I’m confident they can stand in the spotlight and shine brightly all on their own. Like I say, title matches should be special events not seen constantly. And this is why I don’t book loads of them all the time. I’m fairly sure a lot of you have worked this out about me by now.

And the last one I am going to talk about is earning your spot. I get new applications for FFW & SVW fairly often, some are brand new characters and others are long time veterans. And in both cases, they start out from the bottom. Why? The answer is simple. What you did anywhere else, while impressive, has no bearing here. Everyone starts from the bottom of the ladder with me. Now I have seen feds where they put you in the main event strictly based on your other accomplishments elsewhere. I find that to be faulty, because then you are basically letting someone jump the line over people who have been there longer and trying to get where this guy or girl from wherever walked right into. The other reason I do this is because it says you earned it when you get there. In a new fed, that is the only time you have to establish a pecking order. But after things get rolling, everyone should start at the bottom and climb up. They appreciate it more when they reach their goals generally, and it tells a better story.

I’ll tell you a little story. (One day, I’ll do a blog on just the stories I have had from dealing with players all these years, if interested. Let me know). About a year or so ago, I had a guy sign up to the SVW boards and let me know he was joining. Well I was happy with it, always glad for a new member. That was until he started PMs with me telling me about how it wouldn’t make sense for his character to start out anywhere else but the main event because he was such a big star. After all, he had placed in the double digits somewhere of an interfed tournament of only about 160 people or something like that. Well I explained that’s not how I do things in my feds. He suddenly lost interest, and I never heard from him again. At the end of the day unless I am very familiar with said fed, what you did there doesn’t carry a load of weight. And I can almost guarantee most of my roster will likely not be anymore aware of these great accomplishments than I am. This particular player wanted right into the SVW Championship picture from the first day, otherwise it “wouldn’t make sense for such a huge star.” Coincidentally a little research on my part about said character lead me to discover that he was truly a legend in his own mind. And very few others. Moral of the story here is you appreciate something more when you have had to earn it than when it is given to you. I am the same way, I think it’s human nature in fairness.

These are just a small sampling of the things I take into account in my endless unpaid job as a fed head in charge of what I feel is the greatest assemblage of writing talent in the entire game top to bottom. As I said at the start, there are other things I also consider and other approaches to certain things, and if interested, I will cover more of them later. 

I’m not saying everything I have done is the right way to do it. I don’t even think that. Hindsight is 20/20 after all. But so far, they have served me well all this time and hopefully shall continue to do so. Without a roster, a fed is nothing. It’s no secret that feds live and die by the commitment of the people in them no matter how good or bad someone in charge is. And I’ve seen both, good feds with dedicated players (of which I include mine) run by competent people and bad feds with horrible leadership but are kept going by players who are just that damn loyal. (The temptation to cite examples is overwhelming here, but I’ll leave it at I have yet to see someone with the initials JC who ran a fed well…ahem.) 

Hopefully this gives you a little bit of insight into how I do things. And later on, maybe we can get even deeper into that. As always, I appreciate your time and interest in my thoughts on pretty much anything because that means on some level great or small, you care. And that is also a key to being good at a game like this. 

You have to care. 

 

Darkest Before Dawn, Right?

I’ll go ahead and let you know that this blog update is just a more general subject matter than a theme as I tend to strive for. My mind is in a few places of late, and writing here helps me collect those thoughts and give voice to them. Blogs may not be for everyone, but this one helps me to get things out that I have a hard time saying to one person. I know how strange that sounds. I can’t say it to one person, but I can tell the world. But it seems to work for me. 

Not much has changed on the employment front. Still applying, still sending out resumes, still doing everything I know of and shaking every tree I can find. As of this post, nothing has changed. And that’s scary enough on its own. The money is running out. And without my actual family who I never could depend on and certainly can’t now, it’s getting scarier by the minute. Not knowing what you may or may not be able to pay is bad enough. And I’m not even talking about luxuries. I mean stuff like power or my phone. 

I’ve been using eBay a bit, but those are by no means guaranteed sales. I feel like I’m selling out my childhood. The wrestling tapes don’t mean what they did because I can’t watch them anymore and most of them are on YouTube if I want to see them. But the figures, that’s stuff I grew up with. Those are things that I played with and meant the world to me. And little by little, they are going out the door. Well some of them. 

Have you ever been scared? I know we all have phobias. Some are afraid of snakes or spiders. Count me in on the first one there. But have you ever been afraid that you don’t know where you are going to be a month from now? I am. When I had a job, I knew where everything went and what I needed to do to ensure my standard of life stayed the same. I don’t have that anymore. And it scares the hell out of me. It is quite simply the most scared I think I have ever been in my life. 

And I’m just helpless. That’s what hurts the most, that’s the worst part. Not being in charge of your own destiny. Leaving things up to chance, and chance has rarely shown me any favors in my waking life. It’s just terrifying to me. I go to bed each night and lay there staring at the ceiling. Sometimes I can sleep, sometimes not so much. I don’t know where my future is going to go, I just know it’s not looking promising at the moment.

Without the few people in my life I do have (namely pretty much everyone who reads this that knows me), I don’t know where I’d be. I think I’d have given up by now. I’m sure of it. Some of the people close to me have helped me financially, and I will repay them in full as soon as I can. Others have provided some emotional support by just listening. It all means the world to me, because I couldn’t make it without them.

If you’re reading this, then you obviously know me and we have some kind of friendship which I appreciate and cherish. And if you can do it, I need your help now more than ever. I hate asking for anything, a point I have made over and over on this blog. Especially when I can’t guarantee when I’ll be able to always return the favor. But rest assured I will. In some form or fashion. 

I need your help. They say it’s always darkest before the dawn. Well it’s damn sure pitch black right now. If you can help me out, I will be eternally grateful. I can not promise anything but my appreciation right now. It’d be unfair to promise anything else. 

Thank you for listening. Thank you for understanding. Thank you for everything that you do.

Pride Goeth Before the Fall

We’ve all heard the saying that pride goeth before the fall. And I will not even try to hide the fact that I have pride in abundance. At least in certain aspects of my life. In my creative life as far as writing, I believe I am competent and can tell a good story whenever I need or want to. And I am confident in my decisions when I make them, even though I have gone back more than once and told people where I went wrong. I am not so foolish as to think I am infallible. But that isn’t the purpose of this blog today.

This blog is to talk about the world outside of the creative realm. And one right now that is getting somewhat bleak. For those unaware, I have been job searching tirelessly since I left my last employer after they essentially stole from me. I won’t go into details about it here, because it’s over and done and nothing I can do to change it. As many of you have no doubt felt at some point, finding a new job is hard. Finding a good job is even harder. But I have persevered as far as that goes. Each day, I scour websites and shake trees (as it were) as I look for new employment.  I have sent out countless resumes, filled out even more countless job applications. And I continue to do so frequently.

But as the days go by, the money problems get worse. I have been very blessed to have more than one friend come to my aide in this time. And I can’t tell you how much they mean to me, because without them, this would have gotten far worse far quicker. I love them for their assistance, be it one time or recurring. 

But the pride I started to talk about is in asking for help. Because I don’t like to do it. I don’t like asking anyone for anything. I don’t like the idea that someone I respect could think I’m just..a mooch of some kind. Because the people who are close to me, their opinion is something I value more than anything. And while I know they will say it changes nothing, I can’t help but feel I have diminished myself in their eyes. If for no other reason than I had to ask for something. 

Asking for help is something I hate doing, I’ve made that clear enough by now. The people who have helped me are life savers, because this would have gotten tremendously worse without them. But it is my own damn pride that has made me this way. And even now it holds me back from asking for more help. Because I’m afraid of the perception people will have.

“Oh, Mark can’t do anything. He’s useless.” “

There he is asking for something again, just shut up.”

“I’m losing respect for that guy more and more.” 

And while I know that is likely my own imagination at work, it still bothers me. Because all you have with the people you know is your word, your bond. Their perception of you is what makes them believe in you, what makes them trust you, what makes them your friend. 

But at the end of the day, when you need help, pride doesn’t pay the bills. It doesn’t keep the lights on. It doesn’t allow you to use the means to continue to do what you need to do to better your situation. And writing this (and posting it) is likely one of the hardest things I have ever had to do in my life because I honestly will walk away from this post feeling worth about two cents. And that may be overcharging. 

But I need help. I can’t do it on my own right now. I’m trying my best, but pride be damned. I just need help to make it. There, I said it. 

And all I can hope is those that know me won’t lose faith or respect for me in the process. I try so hard to present an image that shows I can be there for anyone anytime they need me. To be a rock. 

And no matter how much you try to be there for them, sometimes you hope they can be there for you too. Thanks for reading this. I needed to get it out. 

I guess I’m not as strong as I thought I was, am I?