One of the foundations of good sports entertainment journalism is spending time away from the ring with the WWE Superstars. This allows a reporter not only to see how the subject of his story acts, thinks and feels, but it affords him the opportunity to actually experience their unique life. The end result, is that WWE fans should get a much better perspective of who the Superstar really is.
Normally, this is a very save and enjoyable part of the job. It could mean spending a night out on the town with Kevin Nash, flying out to Washington state to spend some time in the great outdoors with Ivory, walking the hallowed halls of Harvard University with Christopher Nowinski, or even visiting the beautiful South Pacific to discover Rikishi's roots.
So when my editor recently called me into his office to discuss an upcoming
assignment that necessitated travel, I could hardly wait to hear what he had
in mind. Little did I know what lay ahead. The conversation went like this:
Editor: Williams, we've got an assignment for you.
Williams: Sure, what is it?
Editor: We want you to fly down to North Carolina and spend a few days with
Jeff Hardy. We want you to find out what makes him tick, what goes on inside
his head. This is going to require complete immersion into his world. I don't
care how long it takes, I don't care what you experience, find out what goes
on in Jeff Hardy's mind.
Williams: What? No one can figure him out. He marches to his own beat. Ever
since he first came to WWE people have been trying to figure him out. He's a
mystery.
Editor: Well, you better solve that mystery. Here's your plane ticket. You
leave in five days. I suggest you get out of here now and start doing some
background research. I've heard some things about him. You may see places you
never could have imagined existed. We certainly wouldn't want you to come
back a basket case.
Seeing that he was serious, I left his office and headed straight for the library. I spent the next couple of days immersed in books and journals. I researched the great psychologists like Freud and Jung. I canvassed the Sociology section to see what brilliant thinkers like Comte and Durkheim might shed on the subject of Jeff Hardy. I even examined the works of early anthropologists like Boas and Malinowski, men who set out to understand unknown cultures around the world. After all my research, I realized one thing: Understanding Jeff Hardy was not going to be an easy task.
The day before leaving for North Carolina, I called Jeff to reconfirm our plans and see if I could gather any more insight into the most unorthodox Superstar in WWE history. Jeff was his normal accommodating self.
"Sure dude, c'mon down," he said. "Whatever you want to do or see. I'm just going to be working on my place, playing with my band. Come on down."
I asked a few more questions, but the only substantive piece of information that I could glean was that Jeff's compound was going to be a very different place from any I had ever been, and that he called it the Imagi-Nation.
I arrived in Cameron, North Carolina, on a beautiful spring day. The sun was shining, the dogwoods were in full bloom, and the pine trees were brimming with cardinals. The town center was filled with families and shoppers. It looked as if Cameron was taken right out of a Norman Rockwell painting.
As I approached Jeff's property, however, the feeling in the air began to change. We were leaving the safety and comfort of Anytown, U.S.A., and heading into something much more dark and mysterious, the Imagi-Nation.
Jeff has no address. Instead of seeing a mailbox or looking for a number on a sign, one is greeted by the towering presence of an 85-foot aluminum statue that he calls Neraommmyyy. It is just one of the 75 Aluminummies that reside in the Imagi-Nation, along with a host of marble statues, climbing trees, ravines, swimming holes, motorcycle jumps and even a South African raccoon and a prairie dog. There's also a river of glass beads, a music and art studio, a video/recording complex, and a host of other facilities currently under construction whose purpose has not yet been discovered. Jeff built the Imagi-Nation from the ground up, and everything in it provides clues to his existence.
A particular Aluminummy, painting or song says little about the man. Taken together, they portray a restless, creative being who must act upon his thoughts. If Jeff dreams about something, he must physically create it, whether it be a statue, painting, landscape or song.
In this regard, his psychological make-up is quite similar to some of the more prolific artisans of the 20th century. In literature, there is Isaac Asimov and Stephen King, two men who wrote hundreds of works. Musically, he can be compared to Louis Armstrong, Paul McCartney and Dr. Dre, men who changed the way music is played. Athletically, he resembles Julius Erving and Barry Sanders, men who might not have won the most championships, but who were innovative and graceful competitors who brought their respective sports to the next evolutionary stage.
We ended up spending three days with the dean of eXtreme. In that time, he bulldozed over 80 tons of dirt, composed three new tracks for his latest CD, sculpted two Aluminummies, wrote eight poems, painted four canvasses, installed three hammocks and drank four cases of soda. He also baked an excellent chocolate cake. Needless to say, he never sat still.
Our conversations were relaxed and often took the form of a free association short story. Jeff was interested in everything from music to earthworms to the possibility of life in outer space. He was eager to discuss the current state of Raw, what being World Champion would mean to him, and his personal philosophy on how best to win matches. Despite his laid-back demeanor and soft-spoken voice, his competitiveness and drive to succeed burned bright and strong.
On my last day in the Imagi-Nation, my editor called to see how things were going, and if I had been able to figure out what goes on inside Jeff's head. After spending some time at the Nation, it all seemed to make sense, and Jeff's words and actions were clear and comprehensible. So, I told him things were going great and that we'd have a breakthrough story.
That night, we thanked Jeff for his hospitality and set off for the Raleigh-Durham airport for our trip back to corporate headquarters. As we left the Nation's grounds, Jeff's life made perfect sense, but the further we got from his home, the more blurry it all became. The more I talked to other people, whether it was at the gas station or airport, the more surreal my experience at the Imagi-Nation became.
Soon, panic set in. I had told my editor that I had figured out Jeff. He expected the story, and he expected it to explain why Jeff is who he is. What was I to do?
In desperation, I put in a call to world-renowned psychiatrist Dr. J. Kober Zehner. He had diagnosed several WWE Superstars before, maybe he could get inside the head of Jeff Hardy. Unfortunately, the good doctor could only offer these words:
"Are you serious? Give me any Superstar on the WWE roster and I can give you a profile. But Jeff Hardy? Sorry, there isn't a psychiatrist in the world who would be so bold as to characterize him. You can say things like he's a free spirit, a creative genius, a modern day Tesla of sorts, but the truth is that, 99.99% of humanity will never be able to fathom what makes Jeff who he is. The key is not to try and figure him out, but to appreciate him whether it be in the ring, on a set of earphones or on a piece of paper. Just embrace it."
It was with great trepidation that I walked into my editor's office the following morning. He was expecting an answer. What would I tell him?
Then, it hit me. I had the answer. Instead of waiting for him to call me into his office, I went straight there. I barged in as he was reviewing the latest installment of "From Pillar to Post," one of his favorite sections of WWE Magazine, before he sent it on to our award-winning editorial staff. He looked up slightly annoyed and then said, "All right, tell me what you have."
For the next 20 minutes, I relayed everything I could remember about the Imagi-Nation. I told him about the statues, the Aluminummies, the paintings, the river of glass beads, the canals, everything.
"So," he replied. "You've described his place. Tell me about his mind, his thought processes, his dreams, his fears."
"Don't you see," I answered. "Words can't describe the man. Psychological profiles can't classify him. The Imagi-Nation is the physical incarnation of Jeff's mind. Jeff is the Imagi-Nation."
"Get out of here," he bellowed. "I was afraid this might happen. You've lost your mind. Just get out."
No amount of protesting could persuade him that what I had seen and felt in Cameron was encapsulated in the Imagi-Nation, and that Jeff Hardy is simply the mobile carbon-based incarnation of the Imagi-Nation. He just shook his head and kept muttering that I'd lost my mind.
Several days later, as this article went to press, I was more confused than ever. I had difficulty relating to my co-workers and friends and the world seemed a very perplexing place. The funny thing is, it all seemed so clear in Cameron.
credit darksymphoniez@aol.com and wwe magazine