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Notes On Distance Dialing, Liam Baranauskas

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

My mom thought watching professional wrestling would turn me gay, so I saw the WWF mostly at my dad’s house, on his twelve-inch black and white television with aluminum foil for an antenna. Every other week I got two hours of gyrating pretty boys, unexamined racism, heavy breathing, and the occasional obese man whose blubbery folds could endure endless punishment until he ended his match by sitting on his opponent. There was a Jewish accountant wrestler who would berate the crowd for cheating on their taxes. There was “Kamala the Ugandan Giant.” There was a clown. The greytoned pixels on …