Clubber

St. Louis, MO - Local Imo's Pizza deliveryman and noted "Rocky" buff Edward Patrick James was pronounced dead on Saturday, October the 9th at Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis. He was 24.

Although James had no liquid assets besides his DVD box set of the "Rocky" movies, some marijuana paraphernalia, which was confiscated by the St. Louis Police Department, and a Peter Tosh bootleg tape, James had left a will for his family. Besides stipulating that his longtime friend Matt Gallo would receive his Peter Tosh bootleg, James forever wants to be known as "Clubber," yet another not so subtle nod to a life dominated by the "Rocky" movie franchise.

"James always did like those movies," says his mother, Tonya Jordan, of Union, MO. "That little S.O.B. would always say some dumb shit after I burnt the pot pies. Always something like:

'Now, when you used to cook, you had that eye of the tiger, mom; the edge! And now you gotta get it back, and the way to get it back is to go back to the beginning. You know what I mean?'

No! I don't know what you mean. Dumb little fucker. At least I kept paying his life insurance, I tell you that! BRANSON...HERE I COME!"

"Clubber's" odd devotion to the "Rocky" franchise began in the fifth grade when he had claimed that he was the one boy in "Rocky II" who kept up with Sylvester Stallone's classic character as he ran through the streets of Philadelphia. Unfortunately for James, class bully Robbie Graves learned later that night that "Rocky II" had been filmed two years before either boy would have been alive. The next day at school, James would receive a wedgie from Graves that would leave James socially inept well into his late teens.

Clubber's Claim To Fame

"Clubber's" attachment to "Rocky" was never more pathetically evident than in his yearbook quote from his senior year at Pacific (MO) High School, when James wrote: "I guess what I'm trying to say is, if I can change, and you can change, everybody can change." Not only is that one of the lamest quotes in movie history, when viewed in a yearbook six years after it had been quoted (and twenty years after it was originally written) it becomes increasingly obvious how horrible James actually was at life.

On the afternoon of October the 9th, James had been bowling and drinking Busch Lights with a group of his friends at a local bowling alley, when he left to start his shift delivering pizza's for Imo's Pizzeria. According to his friend Sammy Hotop, at sometime around 5 pm, James was acting rather strange as he started to say his goodbyes to his crew before leaving the bowling alley.

"Eddie was pretty fucked up, considering it was like fucking 4:30 or some shit...but, fuck, the Cardinals are in the playoffs and now it's like a law that we have to get fucked up," Hotop observed. "It was pretty weird when Eddie --do I have to call him 'Clubber?' That just sounds so fucking gay-- anyway, 'Clubber' started yelling all this shit on his way out the door. He ran into some dude and asked him what was his prediction was for the day. When the dude asked him what the fuck he was talking about, Eddie just yelled 'My prediction? PAIN!' Then Eddie asked some broad if she 'wanted to come back to his apartment to see what a real man was like.' We were all like, 'dude, just go drop off your pizza's.'"

Always and Forever

James was two weeks away from celebrating his third year anniversary as an Imo's Pizzeria deliveryman. His girlfriend, Amy Wagner, 17, from Pacific, MO, said that James had been contemplating joining the Air Force before he passed away. "Eddie was always talking about 'Crossing into the blue' or some shit. Honestly, he was pretty high whenever he brought that up. I think he just wanted to keep smoking bud and watching "Rocky" movies. It was kind of weird when he kept calling me 'Adrian' back in '03...but...whatever. All I know is I'll miss Eddie...er...Clubber. Whatever the fuck we're supposed to call him now. He had just got a new meth recipe and I don't know where he put it. I'm gonna miss that, too."

James had been driving his weekend pizza delivery shift in the Shrewsbury neighborhood of St. Louis for nearly two hours when his mother's 1992 Chrysler LeBaron was broadsided by a Red Star tractor-trailer driven by Tommy Gunn of Philadelphia, PA. Mr. Gunn was unharmed in the accident.

After Edward "Clubber" James was air-lifted to Barnes-Jewish Hospital, he was pronounced dead after uttering his last words, a random quote from Hulk Hogan's "Rocky III" character, Thunderlips, "To all my love slaves out there: Thunderlips is here. In the flesh, baby. The ultimate male versus... the ultimate meatball. Ha, ha, ha."