wrestling / Columns

A Brief History of a Wrestling Fan

October 27, 2014 | Posted by Len Archibald

Before we get started, I have to pimp out some excellence: Dino Zee wrote an amazing article this past weekend that stirred an amazing discussion about we crazy wrestling fans. Check it out!

Also, I have look at getting myself on Twitter…but instead of outright activating it, what do you think? Who would “follow” me?

It has been a long, strange trip, man. Last week I celebrated 36 years on this earth. In the grand scheme of things, that does not make me an old man, but I have encountered my fair share of strange events that make me feel that way. One of my nieces approached me and fawned over a “totally new song” about heaven and a stairway (where’s a Chandler face when you need it?) I find it easier to lose self-control and get angrier at drivers who cut me off. I am probably way more concerned about what I put into my body than I need to be. I watched RAW last week and it dawned on me that for at least 31 years, professional wrestling has been a part of my life. 31 years. I am sure that is longer than some of the 411 readers. Damn, I’m old.

I found myself at a place during last week’s edition of Monday Night RAW as Nene Leakes strutted out with the other Total Divas where I had to justifiably ask myself, to paraphrase Danny Glover in Lethal Weapon – “Am I getting too old for this shit?” I grew up in a less politically-correct era, in a city that wholly embraced multi-culturalism. Not to sound like a crotchety old man, but we were allowed to be kids and fight and discover the tenets of right and wrong for ourselves without talking heads or moral police preaching how we should act. The music was a lot better as well, but I digress.

It was around when my father was 36 when I was first introduced to professional wrestling. Once that little piece of business hit me like a ton of bricks, I realized what I needed to write about this week. I needed to do some digging. I needed to find out exactly why and/or how my father stumbled upon professional wrestling and how the love and respect I have for this industry was instilled in me. It has been a…unique week.

The very first wrestling memory I have is of Ric Flair’s grand entrance full of lasers, smoke machines and women during Starcade 1983. I would have been five years old at the time, but we did not have access to Closed Circuit television unless you attended a bar in downtown Toronto. That would have been frowned upon. So how did I witness this event? I had to have, because I always remember how strange it was to never see Flair during my early pre-WrestleMania WWF watching days.

The first wrestling memory I ever had…

A glimpse into my psyche: I grew up with three sisters. My father, a mechanic, was rarely home and was your typical hard-working blue-collar immigrant. Work long hours. Never let your family see you break emotionally. Despite being fairly emotionally distant from your children, be sure to toss around subtle clues that you favor your only son above your other children. That hung over me like a noose. I knew it, my mother knew it, and most importantly – my sisters knew it. They never hesitated to make me pay for my father’s favoritism. I needed an outlet away from being potentially emasculated for the rest of my life.

As a young boy, I craved and sought out action and embraced violence for the sake of violence. This was the 1980’s, where one could not escape a good slasher flick, or an actioneer where Schwarzenegger or Stallone took out an entire army of anti-U.S. bad guys by themselves. In hindsight, a lot of the male-dominated cartoons were horribly violent, and I loved every second of it. Professional wrestling became my main outlet because while those cartoons clearly existed outside the boundaries of reality, my grappling heroes were real people – at least in the sense that I could purchase a ticket to see them perform at Maple Leaf Gardens or Copps’ Coliseum in Hamilton. I have always been of the mind belonging to reason and logic; things are more real to me if I can experience them immediately with my five senses. The irony of considering professional wrestling more “real” because I “see” it with my own eyes is not lost on me.

I have mentioned that Ricky Steamboat has been my lifelong embodiment of a professional wrestling hero, but I have rarely mentioned one performer who may have hooked me on this crazy industry. Every once in a while the WWF would come into Toronto and perform at Exhibition Stadium. This was the site for The Big Event show of 1986 that placed Hulk Hogan against Paul Orndorff. There were over 70,000 fans in attendance. I was one of them along with some friends who had also grown a love for the quasi-sport. It was a big deal. I have no idea what happened to anyone I attended the show with. People grow apart as years go by. I will always remember Mr. Wonderful sauntering to the ring to Real American, making a mockery of Adrian Adonis’ observation that Ordorff became “Hulk Jr.” in the buildup to the rivalry. What a bastard. Before that, though – I got to experience firsthand the ominous presence of Andre the Giant (as Giant Machine from the short-lived “Machines” stable.)

Being a child that was easily impressed, I always thought of performers like Hulk Hogan to be larger-than-life comic book characters come to life. I had seen Andre the Giant on television and surmised that he was a dominating figure, but seeing him live in person was another experience. The man was HUGE. Even under the Giant Machine mask, everyone knew who it was and the memory of witnessing another human being that existed in my own world that cast such an overwhelming shadow upon everyone else will forever be burned. Andre was a true embodiment of Goliath that I was taught about in Sunday School…but he was a good guy. That was exciting. I hopped on the Andre bandwagon with no desire to turn back. I needed to find another childhood hero to latch onto – Optimus Prime was dead.

So imagine my immense heartbreak when Andre decided to show up on Piper’s Pit alongside Jessie “The Body” Ventura and Bobby Heenan to challenge Hogan for the WWF Title at WrestleMania III. Andre was always considered a kindhearted soul and was joyous around his fans. Seeing him – silent, stoic and unemotional – beside a ranting Heenan made my blood boil. I had placed a lot of my childhood trust in Andre and he betrayed me. Not because he challenged Hogan; that was a moot point. It was the sheer audacity of feeling he needed to align himself with Bobby Heenan to make his point that frustrated me. In hindsight, this speaks volumes about Heenan’s effectiveness as a heel that simply aligning himself with another performer made them by proxy instantly hated. I had to find another hero.

It was typical and expected for most wrestling fans my age in 1987 to be full-throttle Hukamaniacs and worship at the feet of the Largest Arms in the World. I was a Hulkamanic as well, but even then I felt some form of disconnect between Hulk Hogan’s bombastic speeches and myself. As much as I wanted Hulk to decimate Andre it was more out of hatred for the Giant than it was love and justification for Hulk’s existence (and foothold on the WWF Title.) I was still searching for that particular athlete that made me stand up and take notice.

As much as I loved Randy Savage (and I LOVED Randy Savage, even as a heel), the moment he took out Ricky “The Dragon” Steamboat with a ringbell and Steamboat was stretchered out suffocating, I was hooked. Savage was an evil no-good coward and Steamboat had become the hero in which I would live vicariously through. I have mentioned that one of the most (if not the most) important aspects of a successful Babyface in professional wrestling is that of empathy. If the performer is capable of making you feel his/her pain, that is the golden goose. Nobody did that better than Ricky Steamboat.

I wound up watching WrestleMania III at my next door neighbor’s house. While I was there with my friend and we were both fans of professional wrestling – in all honesty, I attended more to be close to one of my first crushes. A Portuguese goddess if there was ever one, she allowed me to sit on her lap the entirety of the event. About six minutes into Savage/Steamboat, though – and I had lost myself and forgot about her. Every nearfall, every move was pitch perfect in my youthful mind and by the time Steamboat exacted his revenge and won the Intercontinental Title from Savage, I was hooked. In the warm lap of my childhood crush, I had discovered professional wrestling as my true love. Three years later, my friend passed away in a drowning accident and crushed me. It was the first time I had ever lost a friend to death and I did not know how to cope.

I pulled out my old tape of WrestleMania III to remember him and reminisce over the amazing time we shared, the bond we had over our love of wrestling and the characters involved and escaped. I never considered the artform as a form of catharsis. Professional wrestling has since been a therapeutic means to cope with harsh events in my life – whether events mirrored how I may have felt about a particular social topic, or the ills of the world. Or sometimes, when I just need to sit back and remember that life sometimes is not as serious as I need to make it out to be.

The year my friend passed was also the same year that The Undertaker made his WWF debut. Another way to cope with the loss was to submerge myself with an unhealthy obsession with death that I still admittedly deal with to this day. I am not so much afraid of death as I am with the unknown that comes with it. The arrival of a professional wrestling character that was synonymous with that Great Unknown appealed to me greatly. Even at my young age, I was beginning to understand the concept of human mortality. We are born, we live a little and then we die. While my parents attempted to instill their staunch beliefs of a righteous afterlife upon me and my sisters, a character like The Undertaker resonated heavily with me. The seven foot man in black garbs represented a force of nature that we all must face. It cannot be bargained or reasoned with. It does not discriminate between good and evil. At some point, we will all face the Gravedigger and try as we might to battle, the end result will always be the same. We cannot escape the inevitable grasp of death. Until Brock Lesnar defeated the Deadman and ended The Streak at this years’ WrestleMania, that was the concept of The Undertaker I had carried with me from my childhood. I did not take the loss as Brock conquering death so much as he has taken up the temporary mantle of a similar force of nature. A meeting with The Beast is pretty much a guarantee of one’s certain destruction. A competitor may escape by the skin of their teeth, but eventually, no one survives an F-5 tornado when it arrives.

But while The Undertaker was claiming souls, I still yearned for a performer that embodied what I loved about professional wrestling in the first place: competition. With Ricky Steamboat gone (and putting on classics with Ric Flair that I would not discover until after his retirement), there were not many wrestlers that could satisfy an appetite within me to see someone compete to the best of their abilities. Around this time, I had developed a deep sense of gratitude and patriotism for my home country. Last week, Canada experienced two independent moments of terrorism that shook the foundations of the country. Talking with friends who are fellow countrymen, a strong sense of justice with heartbreak is evident. We have always prided ourselves as being the U.S.’ more peaceful younger brother, but having a lone gunman attempt to storm the parliament building in our Nation’s Capital has given me a new perspective on the violent tendencies of mankind. These are events that bring a nation of people together and remind us Canadians of our great national pride.

For me, this is a pride that was bolstered by the singles career of Bret “The Hitman” Hart. For the longest time, the closest thing I had to a local hero was perennial jobber “Iron” Mike Sharpe, who hailed from Hamilton, Ontario (and as a Toronto Argonaut fan, I was not too keen on having to cheer for someone who probably bled Tiger-Cat colors – especially one who always lost.) Yes, you would have to follow the Canadian Football League to understand most of anything I said, but I hope most can empathize with the concept of team pride.

Hart was the first WWE superstar I can remember that truly embraced his Canadian roots and was for me, the first professional wrestler I gravitated towards because of some form of tangible relation. In a land that was littered with U.S.-born talent and would showcase international talent usually through dated stereotypes, The Hitman was a breath of fresh, Albertan air, and his rise came at the perfect time.

The Toronto Blue Jays had become World Series Champions in 1992. There was a deep sense of pride in our city and our country as we felt that we succeeded in obtaining some measure of respect as a city that could compete with the large markets in the United States. Baseball was also another avenue in which I could communicate with my father. By this time, he had opened his own mechanic shop and was home even less than before, working 18 and sometimes 20 hour days. I had pushed myself to be interested in his craft – as much as I respected him and what he could do with a BMW 325 i-Series engine, I was left cold. I had begun to identify with my artistic side. I had been writing creatively since around the age of five, but by the time I had begun High School I decided that I was going to make a career out of it. I had taken up photography and my love for cinema had enhanced infinitely. Even though I was his only son, me and my father were light years apart. But there were two things we could always use to cut away the awkward silence between us: baseball and Bret Hart.

It was my father who initially introduced me to professional wrestling, but by the time 1992 rolled around, he had developed enough cynicism to detach himself from its “fakeness” and only watched out of habit – probably to appease me and have a reason for us to spend some quality time when he was afforded it. We would converse about the ridiculousness of it all – wildly missed punches that mysteriously connected, stereotypical characters that would never get past Pearson Airport security in the real world and the exaggerated, unrealistic breadth between good and evil. There was not much in professional wrestling anymore that interested my father – except The Hitman. Bret made things look real. And when he was incapable of that, he told stories that were crisp and made sense and made sense to my father. We would break down why Hart would break down a particular body part or how he would apply his Sharpshooter. These were times where I felt the strongest of bonds with my father, away from the pressure of living up to his expectations and the reality that I would evolve from his humble beginnings and become my own man. It was he who informed me with unabashed glee that Hart had become WWF Champion for the first time, defeating Ric Flair for the title. We celebrated with a trip to Dairy Queen. Months earlier, the Montreal Canadiens would become the last Canadian hockey team to win a Stanley Cup. Months after Hart’s Title win, Joe Carter would take a Mitch Williams pitch deep over the right field wall at SkyDome (I REFUSE to acknowledge it as The Rogers Centre) and won the Blue Jays their second straight World Series. Canadian champions everywhere. My father and I celebrated a lot. It took nearly 15 years to reclaim that specific bond.

It would be a fair assessment to compare the plight of Bret Hart and the rise of Stone Cold Steve Austin with the relationship between me and my father. In the wake of the end of the millennium, I had performed way beyond expectations creatively in my school. I was producing, writing and directing stage shows at such a clip and pressured myself to perform at such a high caliber that I had grown distant. My ideas and the subject matter that I wanted to explore did not reflect the values my parents had embraced and tried to instill in us. I was rebellious, calloused against the adult world that had screwed up world peace and abrasive to any form of higher authority. I had identified all authority as a hypocritical institution designed to make mindless, faceless drones of us all in order to lull us into complacency and apathy. The only way to combat this form of authority was to become the complete opposite of what the institution stood for and obliterate the monotony. Chaos and anarchy became my mantras. Stone Cold Steve Austin was the perfect champion of my anti-authoritative stance.

I had done everything in my power to offend and discredit all who opposed my viewpoints. By the time I was ready to graduate High School, I had amassed enough accolades in theater and contacts in the independent film world in Toronto to feel justified in my place in the world. My ideas, as in-your-face as they were, were meant to identify and mirror all that was wrong in our global society. Wrestling’s popularity was at an all-time high, with WCW’s n.W.o., WWE – lead by Austin and even ECW gaining new fans seemingly every day. Monthly Pay Per View parties at a designated friends’ house (or in my parent’s basement – way to break down those stereotypes) was obligatory. We hated pretty much everything except for the occasional Mary Jane headtrip and professional wrestling pissing off the PTC at every turn. We loved the blood. We cheered at Mick Foley being thrown off the cage. We would spear each other and mimic Goldberg’s dominance. Female acquaintances would dress up like Sable for Halloween. The more skin they could show, the better. This was a time of full blown pre-college debauchery that could not be matched. It was a time where the psychology of an entire continent, fueled by a splintered political climate and the uncertainty of a new century (and millennium) aligned perfectly with the tropes, characters and stories presented in mainstream professional wrestling. The absolute chaos that permeated in WWE, WCW and ECW visualized, vocalized and physically expressed how my young peers and I felt about everything. It was a perfect storm of circumstance – one I understand that I may never experience again. Throughout all this, I had broken away from most of my immediate family in terms of their belief system.

I lost my true to life hero at the turn of the new millennium as my grandfather passed away. “Pops” was a pilot for the RAF during World War II and even served during the Battle of Britain. The death of my grandfather affected me tremendously, and that along with the events of September 11, 2001 gave me a perspective in my life that I had never encountered before. In thinking about my grandfather and the sacrifices he made in light of this, I gained empathy and respect for those in uniform. While on the surface the gesture may have appeared self-serving, Vince McMahon assembling the “first public gathering” on SmackDown after the 9/11 tragedy made me proud to be a fan of professional wrestling, and hammered home that the artform can serve as catharsis after a catastrophe. Growing older, I longed for the simplicity of my youth.

WrestleMania X-8 came to Toronto and there was no doubt in my mind that I would attend. I witnessed WrestleMania VI live and was more blown away by the spectacle caused at SkyDome than I was at Exhibition Stadium. I was reaching for something simple and enjoyable to include in a life I felt at the time was full of loss and hopeless. Upon arrival at the event, one thing was certainly evident: I was not alone.

Several fans cramped the lineup to enter the SkyDome with signs singing their praises for Hulk Hogan. The same Hogan that was considered a washed-up has been and was out of his depth challenging The Rock. The same Hogan that had not headlined a WrestleMania in nine years. The same Hogan that several fans was a factor in the death of WCW. One fan was decked out in full Hulkamania glory, complete with boas, handlebar mustache, sunglasses and bandana. Like a decorated general leading his troops to battle, the fan cut a wild-eyed promo on how even electricity has to “bow down to the largest arms in the world, JACK!” It was enough and we were ready to roll. Conversations with strangers settled on “the good old days” of wrestling, when good guys were good guys and bad guys cheated, booed and were defeated. Nostalgia was indeed in the air, as Jim Ross noted on the WreslteMania X-8 commentary, but this was not about Hogan. It was a lost generation living in a post-terrorized West that was wholly unsure of its future gathering to reclaim an innocence they felt was lost. And as much as I LOVED The Rock, this just was not going to be his night. It is still the best live experience with wrestling I have ever had.

I was thrown back into reality by 2003. I found myself mostly out of love with professional wrestling, watching mainly out of habit. Outside of photography gigs, I kept to myself. I’m not one to get into causality, but meeting my wife at the time I did is the only moment I consider “destined”. The only rivalry that caught my imagination was the feud between Brock Lesnar and Kurt Angle that culminated at WrestleMania XIX. The event as a whole was admittedly awesome, but I was especially hyped up for The Next Big Thing clashing with The Olympic Gold medalist based on the “realistic” background of the two collegiate stars. I had tired of the “storyline” aspect of mainstream wrestling and re-discovered the “sport” by drowning myself in Japanese wrestling.

I had always been aware of international promotions and their history, and made sure to catch all the big shows, but it wasn’t until I was captivated by Chris Benoit and Kurt Angle at the 2003 Royal Rumble that I figured it was time to re-introduce myself since being caught up in the post-Attitude Era doldrums. After enjoying Benoit’s coming out party in loss, I was inspired to check out New Japan Pro Wrestling and All Japan Pro Wrestling. Stiff as hell, I found myself enthralled in the “realistic” sport-oriented nature of the East’s interpretation of professional wrestling. One of the more noticeable aspects of the scene in Japan was the crowd reception. Apart from the big spots, fans from Japan remained respectful of the art of the dance between two combatants, applauding politely when necessary. This was the complete opposite of the boisterous, sometimes over the top cheering from North American fans.

Upon moving to the United States to make a new life with my spouse, I found myself on a new odyssey. I was creating a fresh start and with that, approached professional wrestling with new eyes. As my wife solidified her stance that The Undertaker was her favorite performer, I dived headfirst into the entire history of professional wrestling around the world. For no reason other than my perfectionism and a completest attitude that borders on masochism, I spent my time waiting at my in-laws for my immigration paperwork to go through watching hours of…anything I could get my hands on. I became more familiar with Ox Baker, Gorgeous George, Stu Hart, Antonio Inoki, Adrian Street and El Hijo Del Santo.. While immersed in my research, two names I found myself gravitating towards in regards to what I looked for in a professional wrestler was Chris Benoit & Eddie Guerrero. The year before my wife and I got married, we watched WrestleMania XX with childhood friends of hers who were also wrestling fans. The sense of joy I felt seeing the final celebration with the two new champions, the embodiment of everything right with pro wrestling; hard work, determination, dedication, capturing the imagination of fans – was euphoric. As confetti rained, and as I passed a glance to my wife I understood there was no turning back from my new beginning. It was also the end of me viewing professional wrestling through a pure subjective lens.

Married life started out like the typical honeymoon before it settled into typical married life. By then, John Cena had arrived and taken over the WWE main event scene. The parallels are only obvious upon retrospection. Cena had arrived before I left Canada and in a short period of time climbed the top of the mountain. At the same time, my current favorite wrestler, Eddie Guerrero had slid back into the upper midcard. Before I knew it, Eddie Guerrero passed away. A year later, Chris Benoit did the unthinkable. While I still followed wrestling, I backed away from my fandom. I could not watch a match with Benoit’s involvement for a long time. Even now, I find it hard to digest. While professional wrestling was never innocent, Benoit’s actions brought several realities to the forefront that made me reconsider why I loved wrestling. And then why I fell out of love with it.

A lot of insular work on myself needed to be accomplished. I worked on reconciling with my immediate family. I ate better. I worked out and found a new devotion to writing. At one point I wrote an unpublished column for 411Mania about the lack of heroes lead to the decline of mainstream professional wrestling and once Benoit took the lives of Nancy and Daniel before his own, the veil of what really makes a “hero” in professional wrestling died with him. I no longer searched for heroes. I reflected internally to find a hero within myself to be a good husband and member of my community.

To be blunt (pun clearly intended), I have always felt a deep-rooted kinship with CM Punk once he emerged. I know that he is not the most popular person on the planet at this time, but I have to admit the many similarities we share in regards to how we handle our personal and private life. Of course, this is not me saying that I know CM Punk or understand his full psyche – but in terms of our philosophies and public justifications on how we feel about certain issues, there are a few shared experiences between us. And although our paths have been wildly different, we have come to some of the same conclusions about the world around us. Upon watching his Best in the World documentary, my wife turned to me and let me know that we were just a little too similar in our lifestyle choices.

There was a time in my life when I looked at CM Punk’s success as an inspiration to rediscover my own self-esteem. I admit I was in a dark place around the time Money in the Bank 2011 rolled around. When I originally wrote for 411Mania, I discussed a feeling that I can only describe as a “twinge” – something akin to feeling goosebumps and electricity course through my body during particular events in my wrestling fandom. I mentioned Steamboat defeating Savage, Savage reuniting with Elizabeth, Dusty Rhodes’ Hard Times promo, Austin passing out to Hart’s Sharpshooter, Goldberg beating Hogan, Chris Jericho’s WWE debut and Rock vs. Hogan at WrestleMania X-8 as examples. The entire 2011 Money in the Bank Pay Per View was a twinge-worthy moment.

Chicago is my second favorite city – Second City indeed – apart from Toronto (of course.) My wife and I celebrated one of our anniversaries there. Chicago will be one of the cities we will frequently visit once we retire. A lot of great professional wrestling moments emanated from Chicago. The Chi-Town Rumble match between Flair and Steamboat. Hart vs. Austin at WrestleMania XIII. John Cena’s coming out party and ground zero of Cena rising above hate at WrestleMania 22. Cena getting decimated by Brock Lesnar at Extreme Rules 2012. I’ve always some sort of a strange, mystical and unspoken connection with Chicago and for CM Punk’s coronation, there was a semblance of harmonic balance in the universe. It was around the same time that I started my film festival. It was the culmination of dreams, hard work and politicking to get where I wanted to be professionally. It was on a way smaller scale, but I felt I could relate to Punk breaking the glass ceiling.

Daniel Bryan also began his ascension to the top of WWE at the Pay Per View as well. By the time WrestleMania XXX rolled around, I was at such a different place in my life compared to three years prior that in some cases I would be unrecognizable. New opportunities had opened up while old chapters – hard chapters in my life – were closed. I felt, as Daniel Bryan must have felt standing on the barricade celebrating his WrestleMania XXX Title victory, that life had turned the ultimate corner.

What a strange, sad time the week after WrestleMania XXX was. The Ultimate Warrior passed away, along with Bryan’s father. Upon hearing about Daniel Bryan losing his dad, I made a call to mine. The cold chill of human mortality hit me harder than ever before. We talked for a good couple of hours – just to catch up on life.

Out of nowhere, my father – whose public displays of emotion I could count on one hand – broke down. He said he was proud of me and what I had accomplished in my life. He said he missed me and hoped to see me soon. He said, “My son…” I did not – and honestly still don’t – know how to process it. As we have spent more time bonding over the phone, I had made it my business to figure out where he found out about professional wrestling and why he decided to pass it down to me.

…He didn’t remember. Anything.

My father knows names. He knows who Ric Flair is. He knows Hogan and Bret Hart. He remembers Andre the Giant, but apart from that – nothing. Obviously professional wrestling was not the obsession I acquired. He has been more focused on retirement, building two houses and his continued grieving over his brother and mother who he lost in the span of eight months. It has been hard for him. And I have done my best as a son to help him cope.

All this talk about mortality has also forced me to look at where I am in my fandom and what it really means. I have no children, and the window of opportunity is shrinking as age catches up to me and my wife. Circumstances and personal choices have brought us here. To be perfectly honest, I still don’t know if I want to raise a child – not because of any selfish needs – simply because I am crippled with fear of subconsciously making the decisions my father made that kept us emotionally apart for so long.

I do know one thing though: if the day ever comes that I do become a father, I will do everything I can to create a lasting bond with my child. I want to be a parent that leads by example and allow my children to make their own choices. I have also made it known that I would like to use professional wrestling as a bridge. They say that people outgrow wrestling, or wrestling may have outgrown its audience. For me, I have grown as wrestling has. I have seen the industry’s ups and downs, just as I have experienced the highest highs and lowest of lows. The industry has been my muse and my mistress. I have been a fan for 31 of the 36 years I have been alive. And I have loved every year of it – even when the industry has disappointed. I don’t know what the next 36 years hold for my life. I only know that I will still be a fan of professional wrestling.

I also hope that I will be able to pass that fandom down to a new generation and experience their excitement. Wrestling is the only piece of my childhood I have left, and I don’t plan on growing up any time soon.

Len Archibald is the former Executive Director of the Northwest Ohio Independent Film Festival, and is a current movie reviewer for WLIO in Lima, Ohio.

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