Jake Roberts and Tori Amos

I had a little blast from the past last night watching Monday Night Raw. The opening interview segment featured the return, if only for one night, of Jake "The Snake" Roberts. Jake Roberts was one of the biggest wrestling stars of the 1980's in the WWF. Always entertaining in the ring, he was equally good on the microphone. Jake was one of the reasons I watched wrestling as a kid.

I last saw Jake Roberts in the excellent documentary Beyond the Mat. He was struggling to put his life back together after too many years on the road and far too many drugs had taken a toll. Still trying to wrestle, he was a shadow of the wrestler he once was.

He looked even worse last night. Long past his prime, Roberts had lost what he once had. He sounded even worse. The years had caught up with him. But I had a slight smile on my face and the crowd at Raw gave Jake a very nice standing ovation and applause. It's respect and acknowledgement of the years of Jake giving his all to entertain us. That was probably one of Jake's last opportunities to get to shine in the sun and be remembered for what he did in the ring. I'm glad that he got it.

I won't even bother with trying to segue this.

I finished reading Tori Amos: Piece by Piece last night. This is an autobiography written mostly be Tori Amos and more edited than co-written by Ann Powers. This book is quite a bit different from Kalen Rogers' All These Years, the previous Tori bio. In Piece by Piece Tori writes about her life in music, her inspirations and motivations and she does so in such a way that I think we get a much more clear picture of Tori's personality and her perspective. What I found most interesting was the final chapter where Tori is writing about the music industry, her struggle with Atlantic Records and a detailed description of how artists can get paid for their work or get taken advantage of and how it is very possible for a talented, productive, and successful artist to end up with nothing because the artist doesn't own the rights to their own work.

I still enjoy Tori's music and would still consider her one of my two favorite artists, but I don't have the same connection or understanding of her music that I did five to ten years ago. The book itself was interesting, but at times I was confused as to what exactly she was talking about with her influences and her spirtuality. I still enjoyed the book and found some sections very interesting and informative, but I think I'm no longer the fan I once was.

Her single of Hey Jupiter still kills, though.