The Joys of Local Pro Wrestling

I have talked about my love of local pro wrestling before.   Here is some footage I have shot over the years of the community coming together to drop kick each other and beat each other with steal chairs.  Enjoy.



The Carpetbagger

I love hearing from people please comment below.  Also, feel free to email me at jacobthecarpetbagger@gmail.com

Make sure you add me on Facebook and Instagram.

Check out my Youtube Page where I regularly post videos. 

And I can't forget my Flickr Photostream, where all this got started.

Nashville and the Charlie Daniels Museum

Now, as I have learned for my insanely jam-packed trip to St. Augustine, sometimes you just can't see all a city has to offer in one hour.  When I got to ride along with my wife on a work trip to Nashville we had approximately 1 hour of free time to soak to take in the city, so this was going to take some careful planning. 

We took the time to see the Ryman Auditorium, which is the former home of the Grand Old Opry.

And of course we had to check out the OTHER must-see Nashville Landmark:  The Drake Motel. 

They Drake Motel was featured prominently in the movie "The Thing Called Love" staring River Phoenix.  Its billed "as where the starts stay".  Hey, let's check out their Trip Adviser page!

Here's are the titles of some of the reviews:

"I got robbed.  Enough said"-One star

"Do not stay here!!"-One star

"Motel Hell"-One star

"Dirty motel"-Two stars

"DO NOT STAY HERE!!  BED BUGS!!"-One star

"Great place for hookers & drug dealers"-One star

"Awesome, if your not a baaaaby"-Five stars

We took a stroll down Broadway Street, which is lined with Country Music Bars.  Live country music spilled into the street at 1:00 in the afternoon.

It was all pretty charming except for the hideous AT&T building towering overhead.

But time was short, so we only had time for one real attraction.   My first choice would have been the Music Valley Wax Museum, but sadly it was destroyed in the horrible flood Nashville had.  So, I dragged my wife to my second choice.

The Charlie Daniels Museum!  Its not like I am some sort of diehard Charlie Daniels fan, but no one can argue that "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" is one of the greatest songs of all time.

The museum itself was in the back of sparse dingy gift shop that sold shirts like this.

In the back was the Museum, which contained artifacts from Charlie's life, mostly comprised of outfits and awards.

Of note is the Golden Fiddle that Charlie won from the Devil himself.......

Other instruments of note include  Ronnie Van Zandt's guitar.....

A chunk of the twin towers' steel carveed into a cross and placed in a guitar case along with an American flag guitar.....

And this Nativity Guitar....

And of course what good country boy would have a museum without a picture of his mama?

A somewhat random exhibit is an autographed pair of pro wrestler Bill Goldberg's wrestling tights.....

And my favorite:  A stuffed Raccoon playing the fiddle.....

Sadly, the Charlie Daniels museum shut down shortly after I visited.  No word on what happened to the Raccoon.

So, there is my incredibly abbreviated trip to through Music City.  I'm sure there is plenty more to see.  Maybe next time I will rent a room at the Drake Motel and stay awhile.
 
The Carpetbagger

Please feel free to email me at jacobthecarpetbagger@gmail.com
And don't forget to check out my Flickr Photostream and my Youtube Page.  You can also follow me on instagram. 

Mold-A-Rama

I am a sucker for cheap tacky souvenirs.  You are talking to the person who accidentally spent 70 dollars on South of the Border Crap.

Seriously, I still can't figure out where my 70 dollars went.

 Since, I travel a lot and always travel on a budget, I aim for cheaper souvenirs.  I always try to pick up a few postcards where ever I stopped, but you would be surprised how many places don't have postcards.  I also have a profound love for cheap plastic snow globes like this beauty.

Oh course, one of the souvenirs that always get me excited are the classic mold-a-rama machines.  These are not as prevalent as they once where, but it is always an event to beable to track one (or a dozen down).

For the uninitiated Mold-A-Ramas are machines that make wax figures for use as souvenirs.  For only 2 dollars (current going rate), you can watch the souvenir being made before your eyes.  A metal for closes and is injected with hot liquid wax, which is then cooled using the metal mold.  The mold then opens up and a metal claw dumps the figure into a whole where impatient children receive 3rd degree burns by eagerly grabbing at their new toy.  No kidding, these things are incredibly hot when they first come out.

Here is a machine in action.



I had quite a collection as a child, but suddenly they have all been crushed, as over the years the wax becomes dry and brittle.  Recently, however I have been trying to rebuilt my collection.

My new collection started at Gatorland in Florida, where my love for Mold-A-Rama was rekindled.

I was overjoyed when I found TWO unique Mold-A-Rama machines.  The first being a White Alligator.

The reason they are not Green is because Gatorland has a collection of White Gators, like this one, known as Feros Zombi.

The other, which is still probably my personal favorite is there mold of an Alligator Wrestler.

Inspired of course by Gatorland's legendary wrestling shows.

Knoxville, TN has a collection of Mold-A-Rama machines as well.  Unfourtanetly, these machines are places outside and have fallen into disrepair.  When we visited last year, only about half of the machines still worked.  What was interesting, was that the machines did not have the traditional Mold-A-Rama design and logo, but instead each machine had a unique look to it.

The Elephant machine has painting by an elephant on it.....

Here is a Mold-A-Rama gorilla going horribly wrong.....

Despite the run down state of most of the machines, I was able to add a few Molds to my collection.

On my recent trip to the midwest I was very fortunate in finding a large number of Mold-A-Rama machines.  While they are pretty rare in the South, it seems that there is a large concentration in the midwest.  (Florida also seems to have a large amount.)

First stop was the Field Museum in Chicago, IL

They have a collection of Mold-A-Rama dinosaurs in their basement.

Including an homage to The Field Museum's famous T-Rex "Sue"....

And the ever popular Brontosaurus and allegedly non-existant, (I refuse to call it an Apatosaurus) (BTW, I'd like to point out that spell check suggested that I spell Apatosaurus "Brontosaurus".)

So I upped my collection by four Dinosaurs......

Then we headed to the Milwaukee County Zoo which has a MASSIVE amount of Mold-A-Rama.  A collector could go broke here trying to collect them all.

And so my collection is massively inflated......

My favorites are the classic waving Gorilla.....

 

 And the "See No Evil" monkeys......

 

So, here is my modest collection.

I do have some other machines in my sight............I just found out that Weeki Wachee now has a Mold-A-Rama.........

And the weird micro-car museum in Athens, GA actually had a Mold-A-Rama with Disney Characters.   Damn me, for skipping it....

The Henry Ford Museum in Detroit actually has a Weinermobile mold, and the Zoos in Chicago have seasonal Molds for Halloween and Christmas.

There is a handy site that lists all the locations for operating Mold-A-Ramas.

The Carpetbagger

Please feel free to email me at jacobthecarpetbagger@gmail.com
And don't forget to check out my Flickr Photostream and my Youtube Page