James Brown, John Waters, Bob Dylan, Muhammad Ali.

What do these four men have in common?

Penises, presumably.

Skin, hair, nipples. Other mammalian traits.

I bet they all liked Cheers.

But most importantly – what I’m getting at, the topic of this episode – is Gorgeous George, an old timey wrestler who also had a penis and was a mammal and probably would have liked Cheers, had he lived to see it.

Sadly, he did not.

Each of these men, Brown, Waters, Dylan, and Ali – world changing cultural figures all, their contributions to our modern world incalculable – were inspired by Gorgeous George nee George Wagner, a flamboyant, hulking, blond bombshell of a man who fancied ornate, lacy robes, liquor, and prostitutes, and made his bones faux-grappling with various and sundry half-nude, oil soaked brutes to the delight of shrieking rubes in stadiums and on unaccountably massive early televisions.

He probably inspired others too. They were probably mostly nameless violent lunkheads and drag queens or both, I suppose, which is impressive in itself. Most people, if they inspire anyone at all, only inspire violent lunkheads or drag queens. Rarely is this a significantly intersecting Venn Diagram.

So who was this man who inspired the men who inspired the world, in addition to violet lunkheads and drag queens and violent drag queen lunkheads?

I told you. He was a wrestler. In the 1940’s and 50’s. Now I’ll tell you more.

A pair of anecdotes, to begin: 1929. Just outside of Houston. George Wagner is fourteen years old, living with his parents. He’s dropped out of school and is working odd jobs to support the family because his mother’s sick and his father’s kind of a hapless house painter at a time when nobody can afford to have their house painted. They certainly weren’t going to get their rickety Hooverville shacks painted. What would be the point? I guess personal pride and a desperate grasp for individual expression in a pretty hopeless time, which, when you think about it, is pretty noble and understandable and really the only reason anyone does anything beyond the ruthless necessities of survival. Why do I pay to have my house painted? Why do I wear a sports coat? Why do I speak, for that matter, beyond obtaining sustenance and shelter?

It’s all pretty pointless.

Anyway. Times were tough. Even tougher than normal. But George was a robust young man with not a little innate personal magnetism, and that quality, as it often does, soon opened up a few more opportunities beyond the usual shoveling of coal or bailing of hay or whatever it is that poor schlubs do for money.

I wouldn’t know. I have a fancy desk job and am very well to do.

Specifically, it opened up some opportunities at the traveling carnivals that were so popular at the time. These roving curiosities would often feature – in addition to the freak shows and palm readers and such – strongmen- different from just strong men in that they were employed based on their strongness - and sometimes the strongmen would grapple with each other on a stage, and sometimes when they were done grappling each other they’d challenge folks in the audience to step up and do some grappling as well. Brave, dumb folks’d pony up two bits for the privilege, and, if they won, could pridefully swagger home with twenty times that amount jangling in the pockets of their worn overalls or clasped in their calloused fists if the worn overalls were so worn as to have unfunctional pockets. Often as not, though, the gristly brute that would raise his hand to step up to the challenge was a plant,