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Former professional wrestler Jake "The Snake" Roberts's career in the ring had enough highlights for him to fill Club Garibaldi last Saturday for a night of recounting some of his adventures. And many of his tales produced side-splitting hilarity.
He is, however, reflective enough about the career that made him a sporting superstar to make his a cautionary tale. Roberts' work not only took a toll on his wellbeing, but so did the abundance of alcohol and other drugs he ingested during his storied tenure as a grappler. It wasn't tough to ascertain that, amid his recollections peppered with nigh non-stop profanity and blasphemy, he had nothing stronger than bottled water and a can of cola on the table behind which he sometimes sat during his animated stage time.
Often enough the funny and advisory side of Roberts' autobiography dovetailed. They did so far back as the beginning of his wrestling work, when he was thinking of a memorable nickname for himself. He adapted the sobriquet already taken by Oakland Raiders quarterback Ken Stabler, The Snake, but if actually bringing a reptilian mascot onto the gridiron would have been unfeasible in major league football, it looked great in the showier realm of World Wrestling Entertainment. To his ongoing chagrin, Roberts had to make good on the handle he chose for himself by bringing a scaly, slithering companion, Damien, with him to the mat.
Or, make that a series of companions. There had to have been at least two Damiens, judging from one of the screwier tales Roberts recounted. After accidentally leaving one of those snakes in a car overnight to die, being unable to find a replacement at nearby pet stores and unwilling to pay zoos the exorbitant fee to rent the animals, Roberts made the best lemonade he could out of the lemons his negligence left him. He vigorously "wrestled" his eponym's corpse until one night the dead body broke in two from the rough-housing he was administering to it.
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Regardless of the dangers to himself and others, Jake's snake brought its keeper pleasure, too. Explaining that striptease bars were wrestlers' preferred watering holes because their patrons were too distracted by the entertainment to pick fights, Roberts told of one gentlemen's club dancer who wouldn't stop badmouthing the fakery of his line of work. She went so far as to allege that his snake was merely a mechanical facsimile. Roberts let his accuser perform with the creature whose nature she doubted. The critter bit her on a nipple, Jake got lucky with his former adversary after her shift.
Time and, perhaps, Roberts' condition, kept him from going deeper into his life and answering questions such as why wrestling was an attractive work option for him. He has a compelling autobiographical book in him, certainly. Until then, his willingness to be transparent about a life uniquely lived made for a memorable night of amusing raconteuring.
