HIGH TIMES ARCHIVE - MARCH 1999:
Rob Van Dam 420: I Am The Fucking Show
Rob Van Dam is just your average, long-haired, pot-smoking hippie whos
always at peace with himselfespecially when hes kicking somebody in
the face!
By John Holmstrom
Photos By Andre Grossmann
Rob Van Dam struts towards the wrestling ring. As usual, hes wearing
his trademark psychedelic t-shirt with 420 stenciled on the back, and
his long hair is tied into a ponytail. While the ring announcer tells
everyone Van Dam weighs 235 pounds and is from Battle Creek, Michigan,
hundreds of Robs fans chant: Lets Smoke Pot! Lets Smoke Pot! Robs tag
team partner Sabu (from Bombay, Michigan), is dressed in an Arabian
headdress and removes the safety mats from around the ring. This way,
when someone is thrown out or jumps out of the ring, there will be
nothing to break their fall against the hard concrete.
As the match proceeds, Rob Van Dam and Sabu wear down their opponents,
bad guys the Dudley Boys (Buh Buh Ray and D-von, dressed in matching
tie-dyed t-shirts but definitely not your typical peace-loving
hippies), with several high-flying acrobatic maneuvers that have the
packed crowd ooohing and aaahing in disbeliefusually because Sabu and
Van Dam are jumping off the top ropes, flying 15 feet in the air and
landing three rows into the audience! Finally, with their two
opponents dizzily sprawling on a long wooden table, Sabu and Van Dam
climb up to the top ropes, and leaping high in the air, execute
simultaneous aerial flips, and crash-land on the Dudley Boys with a
loud CRUNCH!, breaking the table into several pieces and scattering
bodies across the ring. As all four wrestlers recover from the mayhem,
the crowd chants, ECW! ECW! ECW!
Politically Incorrect... And Proud Of It!
This is not your typical World Wrestling Federation (WWF) or World
Championship Wrestling (WCW) event (both of which are so popular that
they dominate the cable-TV ratings every week and are eating away at
Monday Night Football). No, Im hanging out at an Extreme Championship
Wrestling (ECW) event. And everything they do is hardcore from staging
bizarro events like Barbed Wire Death Matches and Texas Chair Matches,
to wearing HIGH TIMES t-shirts during their promos.
Although ECW is a smaller wrestling promotion compared to Vince
McMahons WWF and Ted Turners WCW, their anything-goes attitude has
completely changed the sport/artform of pro wrestling. For instance,
their pay-per-view broadcasts are expanding from four to six next
year, and according to owner Paul Heyman (a.k.a. Paul E. Dangerously),
theyve signed a deal with Fox Sports Channel to broadcast their weekly
programs in selected markets.
Their success has not gone unnoticed. Just a few years ago wrestling
was solely designed to sell wrestling toys to preteen boys. But when
ECW initiated their politically-incorrect, adult-oriented TV
programming in 1995, they changed the rules. The WWF and WCW have been
imitating ECW by running more adult story lines to appeal to
18-to-35-year-old fans (a more valuable demographic than preteen boys
that attracts better advertising and tripled their ratings). The Big
Two also compete against each other by stealing ECWs most talented
wrestlers. Some of the biggest names in WWF and WCW created or
re-created their image in ECW: The WWFs Stone Cold Steve Austin, Mick
Foley, Terry Funk and Al Snow, and WCWs Chris Benoit, Dean Malenko,
Raven, Saturn and even the ECWs Extreme Icon, The Sandman.
When I saw that one of ECWs top stars, Rob Van Dam, was using 4:20 in
his interviews, I tracked down his Web site and sent an e-mail asking
if hed be interested in doing an interview. He replied:
I am very familiar with HIGH TIMES Magazine, and furthermore was proud
when I was mentioned in the Hemp 100! I look forward to talking to you
in the future. As for now, my clocks are all frozen. Its 4:20 here,
time to work on one of my amazing skills
sssssmmmmmoooookkkkkiiiiinnnnn!
420 at Route 420
A few weeks later, I meet up with Rob at his motel room right before
an ECW Arena show in Philadelphia (which just happens to be at the
intersection of Route 420 in a nearby suburb). While his tag-team
partner and roommate, Sabu, sleeps through the entire interview, Rob
rolls and lights one after another after another while munching on a
turkey sandwich and peppers me with questions about being a judge at
the Cannabis Cup and the possibility of a pot-smoking contest with the
editorial staff of HIGH TIMES. But I want to know what its like to
land on a concrete floor. It feels exactly like what it looks like, he
tells me, as if I just asked a really stupid question. When I jump
over the top rope and land ten feet down on my head on the cement, it
feels like I just landed on my head on cement.
At various times Van Dams been a kickboxer, toughman-contest winner,
weightlifter and action-movie actor. He set a USAWA world
weightlifting record for a lift he invented called the Van Dam Lift,
which involved straddling two chairs in a leg split and lifting a
166-1/2-pound dumbbell off the ground. He also appeared in two movies,
Blood Moon and Superfights, and begins filming his third in a few
months. But he has spent most of his career as a pro wrestler. Hes
made many appearances in the WWF and WCW, but chooses to stay with ECW
because he has more creative control over his character, and hes given
more time to do what he enjoys the most - wrestling and fighting.
He explains how Extreme Championship Wrestlings ring action, unlike
the WWF and WCW, involves real fighting and an even higher tolerance
for enduring painlike getting hit in the head with a chair. Ive been
really hit hard, where they just crack the chair and it wraps around
your head and it makes this loud noise, he explains. While that is
ringing my bell and Im seeing stars for a couple minutesat the same
time I like it because Im hearing the crowd say, OOOOH! and my job is
being an entertainer. Im trying to please the crowd at the expense of
my body. And trying to win.
Van Dam then gives me the lowdown on his slogan, Rob Van Dam 420.
Being a big-time burner, he always wore 420 t-shirts to the arena, and
explained the 420 thing (in short, Its smokin time!) to the other ECW
athletes who were always asking him What does 4:20 mean, anyway? So
when ECWs t-shirt designers came up with a new Van Dam t-shirt, they
put a few of Robs favorite things on: 420 and some yin-yang symbols.
When TV commercials started plugging the t-shirt, ECWs pot-smoking
fans put 4 20 together, and the Rob smokes pot! chant began. A few
months later, he took it a step further when he announced during a TV
interview that Rob Van Dam 420 means I just smoked your ass! (This is
Robs takeoff on the WWFs most popular wrestler, Stone Cold Steve
Austin, whose slogan is Austin 3:16 means I just whupped your ass!)
Hey, Rob! Wanna smoke some herb?
Now everywhere Rob goes fans offer him free weed. He explains, While
Im walking from my car to the building, the fans say, Rob! I got some
herb! Wanna smoke some herb? And definitely I hear it when I walk into
the ringthe fans hold up signs RVD 420 and theyll chant Rob smokes
pot! or Lets smoke pot!
But Van Dam is not about to carry a bong with him into the ring and
toke up on TV, since he sincerely doesnt want to send the wrong
message to any kids who might be watching. ECW isnt aimed at kids, he
says, so it doesnt send a bad message to kids. Since ECW usually airs
at 2:00 AM on weekends, he has a good point. And he has this warning
for anyone underage in the audience: Kids cant look at Rob Van Dam in
HIGH TIMES magazine and think its cool to go ahead and smoke pot. Its
not cool for kids to smoke pot.
Rob didnt start smoking until he was 21 years old, and thinks people
should wait until they are adults to drink or smoke. When I was a kid
I thought pot-smoking was for skinny, long-haired hippies who dont
want to do nothing but sit on the couch all day. I would stay away
from any drug when I was a kid. For any kid, pot-smoking is going to
get in their way and be an obstruction.
When I mention to Van Dam why hes taking a risk in announcing to the
world that hes a cannabis consumer, he says, People say, Hey, you can
buy pot right down the street, pick up a bag on the corner, why do you
care if its legal? Its not hard to find. But who wants the threat of
cops bustin down your door takin all your shit, your house and your
cars, just because youre smokin a little herb?
A Visit from the FBI
Just as Rob finishes giving me his opinion on the policeand munching
on the sandwichthe door bursts open and the FBI storm into the room.
No, not the police agency, the professional wrestling tag team known
as The FBI (The Full-Blooded Italians). I recognize Tracy Smothers,
the bigger half of the tag team, from his days with the WWF, when he
played a good ol country boy. His partner, Guido, is the comic relief
of the group, since hes only about five feet tall. Their manager,
Tommy Rich, is a jovial, beefy guy who resembles Mussolini, was once a
world champion and now waves an Italian flag with his face on it
during the FBIs matches, which usually inspires the crowd to chant,
Wheres my pizza!?!
Pro wrestlers and their fans are definitely a weird subculture. Its
reminiscent of the beatniks in the 1950s, the early hippie movement or
punk-rock. Wrestling is a lot like rocknroll without guitars. Like a
lot of rock musicians, wrestlers dont resemble normal people. They
perform their art in front of enthusiastic, mostly young crowds and
their popularity depends on how successfully they can project their
rebellious image. We have our own set of rules, Van Dam says. We
travel like gypsies. Sometimes were on the road for four weeks at a
time together, and we stick together because thats the one place we do
fit in. No matter where I go people stare at me, and come up and ask,
Are you a wrestler? So Im used to being a freak.
Peace, Love and Zen
Van Dam is a bit different from your average wrestlera bit more
intelligent, a bit more ambitious. Where some professional wrestlers
can come off as loud, belligerent and indifferent about whether they
accidentally kill you or not, Van Dam is soft-spoken, polite, calm,
cool and professional. He seems like your typical peace-loving hippie,
even though he kicks people in the head for a living. People who know
me will tell you Im mellow, he explains. Im peaceful. Im very Zen.
I have a the symbol of the Yin and the Yang on me at all times. I wear
it in my earring, I have it airbrushed on my wrestling outfit. Part of
achieving inner peace is solving all your problems. I look at each
problem as a stick thats stuck in my stream of yin and yang. Like, if
I get in a car accident, and Im OK, I can just look at it and be
Zenful and say, Like wow, that kind of sucked. I realize that it
sucked, so Im going to say that the car accident is a negative thing.
OK, then theres no reason to get all emotional about it. Theres no
reason to beat up the other driver, theres no need to scream, theres
no reason to pound my fist. This comes from my comfort with Zen.
I ask him if hes calm even when hes in the ring, in front of thousands
of screaming fans and fighting someone who wants to wrap a metal chair
around his head. Anyone who really knows me knows I dont get angry, he
says calmly. Ill be completely Zenful and peaceful during the time Im
kicking his ass, and afterwards, Ill still be peaceful then.
Hemp For Victory
Van Dam has one topic he wants to be sure we coverhemp. He remembers
an article HIGH TIMES he read a few years ago about using hemp for
fiber-board production. The arguments were just so overwhelming, he
says, I was so impressed I did more reading. I read The Emperor Wears
No Clothes, and Ive learned there are so many uses for marijuana and
for hemp, from clothes to rope to food. I can wash my hair with it,
there are even protein bars made out of hemp! Im learning every day
about new stuff we can do with it. Rob then tells me about how he
tries to check out the local hemp stores when hes on the road.
Not to mention the medical uses, he adds, which is one of the
strongest arguments for legalization. He then mentions how hes known
people who needed cannabis to fight the nausea caused by chemotherapy
sessions, and how crazy it is that the government keeps cannabis from
sick people who need it for medicinal use. I really just cant believe
that the government wants this plant to be extinct, he says.
Im not one to fight the government but in this interview, Id just like
to say if it came to a vote you know which way Id vote.
As we wrap up the interview Sabu (who up until now had snoozed through
the whole interview, the run-in with the FBI, and the turkey
sandwich), begins to stir, and pokes his head out from under a
blanket. Although he has never spoken one word in the ring, Sabu needs
to make one thing clear before I leave. He motions to Van Dam, then
whispers in his ear. Van Dam says to me, Right, Sabu. He says that he
was smoking pot before I was.
I leave the motel and drive to the arena, thinking about the amount of
physical abuse that wrestlers take in the ring, and about some of the
health problems they suffer. Its brutal. Recently, Louis Spiccoli and
Brian Pillman died from prescription-painkiller reactions.
It seems like a no-brainer: pro wrestlers use of cannabis should be
classified as medical use. Marijuanas ability to help people deal with
pain is well documented, and who needs this more than a wrestler who
spends his evening getting a chair bashed on his head and jumping 20
feet onto concrete floors?
This might also explain Jesse The Body Venturas unabashed support of
marijuana legalization. Rob Van Dam is obviously not the first pro
wrestler to light upjust the first one with the guts to talk about it,
as anyone who remembers the infamous Iron Sheik/Hacksaw Jim Duggan
incident from the 1980s. (Shortly after the Iranian hostage incident,
these two were in a blood feud, but were busted when they were caught
sharing a joint together before an arena show.)
Meanwhile, Back at the Ring...
A few hours later, Im at the world-famous ECW Arena, a converted bingo
hall that holds about 1,500 people. It seems to have about 2,000
people crowded into it tonight. During one match, tie-dyed acid
casualty Spike Dudley, whos about as big as the FBIs little Guido,
struts out to the ring (unlike his much bigger Dudley brothers, Spike
is a good guy). He is up against the biggest person I have ever seen
in real life: Big Sally Graziano, who weighs 600 pounds and looks like
he eats people Spikes size when he gets the munchies. As Spike runs
around the ring getting revved up to fight, the crowd chants, LSD!
LSD! LSD! Spike perks up as he hears the crowds chant, and opens his
mouth and points inside, waiting for the crowd to deliver on their
promise. When they dont, he waves them away in disgust and turns his
attention to the much weightier matter at hand.
Big Sally lunges forward, trying to put Spike away quickly, but the
smallest Dudley brother runs up the ropes, grabs the big guy by the
neck and slams his head into the canvas (Spikes patented movethe Acid
Drop). After he pins the man-mountain for the three-count, Spike jumps
up and down on his defeated enemy and marches all over Sallys big
belly to the sound of AC/DCs Highway to Hell.
Did Spike Dudley really beat Sally Graziano? Was it planned? Scripted?
Fake? Real? Who cares. There is no other entertainment form that blurs
fantasy and reality like this.
Those who charge that wrestling is fake miss the point. Its exactly
that Twilight Zone edge that keeps people entertained. Whether Spike
would win the match in real life is beside the point. True wrestling
fans understand that theres a fine line between madness and reality,
that beauty and reality are in the eye of the beholder, that the whole
world is completely insane. Sometimes things go according to the
script and sometimes you improvise. Our greatest philosophers have
often debated predestination vs. free will. Wrestling is the only art
form to have sharpened the debate to a physical matchup.
Besides, as we all know, Reality is for those who cant handle drugs.
I'm Tommy Tallarico
Originally Posted by Jeremy
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