A Funeral Run?
I have played music for many years, with very marginal (regional) success. Apart from a brief period in the mid-1990s, I was never able to make a living at it. By the late ’90s, I was still playing musician, but I paid my bills by working as a chauffeur for a high-end limousine company in Seattle.
While the majority of the job involved the dull task of driving executives to and from the airport, on occasion, I would transport celebrities. Those jobs would sometimes make for an interesting tale. Driving Mark Calaway definitely fell into the “interesting tale” category.
When I picked up my paperwork at the office the night before the Calaway job, I immediately noticed it was a 12-hour “as-directed” run. It would be a long day, but it would be a good chunk of change.
As I stood in the office reviewing the work order, my dispatcher eagerly asked if I recognized the client’s name.
“Nope, I’ve never heard of him. Is he the Callaway golf club guy?”
“No dude, that’s The Undertaker!”
“The undertaker? Is this a funeral run?”
“No! The Undertaker! The wrestler, man!” he said, as if I were a complete idiot.
At that point, the only professional wrestler I was even vaguely familiar with was Hulk Hogan. The rest of the pro wrestling stars were not in my orbit. That was about to change.
I scanned the rest of the work order and saw the job was for a Cadillac stretch limousine. (Great, I can watch some television or take a nap in the back if I have a chance.) I was supposed to pick up Mr. Calaway at the Sea-Tac airport at 1:00 PM, drive him to the Pacific Coliseum in Vancouver B.C. for a match, and then take him back to the airport for a flight out that night.
Since I rarely traveled to Canada for this job, I headed straight to my computer when I got home to map out my route. While I was online, I did a little research on my passenger.
Mark Calaway was born in Houston, Texas, on March 24, 1965. He stood six feet, eight inches tall and weighed 285 pounds. (These figures differ from his “billed” statistics, which are six feet ten and a half inches and 305 pounds.)
Calaway’s first national exposure came in the late 1980s with World Championship Wrestling, where he was known as “Mean” Mark Callous. In 1990, he switched to the World Wrestling Federation (later WWE) and changed his stage name to The Undertaker. Wearing heavy black eyeliner and a long black trench coat, Calaway based the character on a mortician from old Western movies. He was impervious to pain and possessed supernatural powers, such as teleportation and manipulation of flames and lightning.
The Undertaker started out as a “heel” (the bad guy). After a couple of years, he switched to become a “face” (the good guy). Following the change, he became more popular, winning a series of high-profile matches and championships. Later, reflecting the WWF’s progression toward a more realistic image, The Undertaker dumped the mortician look and switched his gimmick to more of a bad-ass biker dude. His fans loved the new image because it was supposedly more like his real personality.
After reading up on The Undertaker, I was really looking forward to my trip to Vancouver.
