Ennui Enthusiast

Chikara's "Three-Fisted Tales": Five Fists Out of Five (All Thumbs Up)!

2010-01-22T19:40:00.000-08:00

Chikara ended its eighth season--and set the stage for the start of its ninth-- with Three-Fisted Tales, a late November show at the New Alhambra (Old ECW) Arena in Philadelphia.

The "Three-Fisted" title is, in all likelihood, the promotion's reliably playful reference to a 1950's comic called Two-Fisted Tales. That bonus appendage points not only to Chikara's determination to give the fan 50% more Fisticuffs for their dvd dollar, but to their refreshingly good-humored, ever-inventive approach to pro wrestling as an art form.

When it comes to creativity, Chikara's not about to tie its hands with little things like limb limitations. For starters, its roster is (thankfully) not entirely "human." Its characters include an assortment of Lucha-Loving Ants, not to mention a delightfully fiendish insect supervillain named UltraMantis Black.

And with the world of wrestling influences that find a home in Chikara matches (Mexican Lucha Libre, European Catch-As-Catch-Can Wrestling, Japanese Puroresu, and so on), grappling evolution may just dictate that The Chikara Wrestler sprout a spare hand, if only to keep up with all the holds.

Of course, as far as "Three-Fisted" theories go, there's a faction in Chikara quite literally called Team FIST. With three members, as a matter of fact. So there's always that theory.

But there's an ominous storyline connotation to the Three-Fisted title as well. The old Two-Fisted Tales comic specialized in War Stories. In that vein, there is indeed an epic conflict surfacing in Chikara. The November 22, 2009 Season Finale makes that clear, in pretty masterful fashion, as its card unfolds.

Previously At Chikara-- This is a nice prologue to the program itself. Through voice-over narration and clips, we're briefed on recent storylines. While the viewer's interest in past events is certainly piqued, one doesn't feel left out of the loop going in to Three-Fisted Tales.

Among the Top Stories: 1) The Colony (Champions) and The Osirian Portal (Challengers), Chikara's two dominant tag teams of 2009, are set to square off for the titles once more to close out the year.

2) A menacing man in a white mask has surfaced in Chikara, issuing taped threats when not appearing to interrupt UltraMantis Black's matches. He warns that "a war is coming."

3) Carpenter Ant (a recent addition to the Colony stable) won Chikara's annual Cibernetico Tournament with a submission move--The Inverted Chikara Special-- cinched on fellow Colon-ist Soldier Ant. It's a move Mike Quackenbush invented but never taught him. When Quackenbush confronts him about it, the strangely aggressive Carpenter Ant puts a finger in his chest and growls: "You'd be surprised at what I know."

4) Chikara's female juggernauts, Daizee Haze and Sara Del Ray, may have formed an uneasy alliance.

5) Eddie Kingston and Claudio Castagnoli, after trading wins earlier in the year, are set to face off in a "Respect" Match that will hopefully settle their feud.

Brodie Lee & The UnStable (Vin Gerard, STIGMA, & Colin Delaney) Defeat The Throwbacks (Dasher Hatfield & Sugar Dunkerton) & The Colony (Carpenter Ant & Green Ant): A very fun opener, highlighted by two surreal comedy sequences centering around Dunkerton (an ABA Recreationist who boasts a Dr. J-approved Afro), Twirly-Mustached Slugger Dasher, and Brodie Lee, a great Old School Big Man who's a bit of a gritty Throw Back in his own right.

In the first semi-sketch, Dunkerton briefly gains the advantage on Brodie, and calls for the rock. His teammates dutifully roll in a regulation red-white-and-blue Globe-Troller ball. He swoops into the corner for the jam (on a rim-to-be-built-later), only for Lee to swat it to the concrete outside the ring. He gives the crowd a Mutombo-esque finger wag as he tags out; the Washington Generals now have no choice but to offer Brodie a long-term contract.

Lee is indeed the difference maker in this match, as he Big Boots the "conspicuously inexperienced" Green Ant to pick up the win.

Helios Defeats Yujiro Kushida By Pinfall: Helios is The High-Flying Artist Formerly Known as Ricochet; Kushida is a highly-skilled HUSTLE alumnus. He's also the disciple of one Yoshihiro Tajiri, which he demonstrates with a handspring-back elbow and an attempted Tarantula (which Helios averts).

Kushida wears a black-belted Japanese Flag around his waist, which he tosses as a Foreign Object (terrible pun uinintended) over Helios's head, then lays in two Tajiri-caliber kicks. A Tug-of-Flag ensues between Yojiro and the referee; Helios counters with a Super Kick, scales the top turnbuckle, and hits an impressive 630 Senton Splash for the win.

A nice showcase for both wrestlers, with the Chikara regular going over. The name Helios refers to the Greek God of the Sun, and the wrestler himself indeed achieves some seemingly solar-powered simulations of flight here.

In a nice moment after the match, Kushida sees a fan holding a sign that reads "Keep the HUSTLE Alive." He acknowledges it, shaking the fan's hand and holding up the sign.

Backstage: Player Uno recounts his recent string of setbacks in Chikara. He finishes by asking, "what else do I have to lose?"

Player Uno Defeats Tim Donst By Submission: A mostly mat-based match, thanks largely to Donst's Collegiate Wrestler character, and Uno's slightly stocky frame. As with STIGMA, however, this doesn't preclude Uno from surprising displays of a deceptive agility, which he does here with a sudden leg lariat.

Still more surprising, Uno finishes the season with a win over Donst. He gets him to tap out to a wrist-lock finisher he calls "The Joystick", which one can only assume simulates the Carpal Tunnel Agony experienced after five straight hours of trying to keep Q-Bert from hopping off into oblivion. As he leaves, Uno exclaims: "I won! I never win!"

(A Quick Note About Chikara Rules: In what amounts to a brilliant booking device, Chikara tag teams are continually trying to rack up three consecutive victories--each one worth a "point." Three points earns your team a guaranteed title shot at the Campeonatos De Parejas (Tag Team Championships), while any one loss knocks your team down to a zero point total.)

Backstage: UltraMantis Black is exuberant. He heaps praise upon Delirious, for his Neo-Solar Temple contributions as well as recent exploits in Japan. Delirious replies thoughtfully, eloquently, entirely incomprehensibly.

Crossbones very helpfully points out that, should Manti-Lirious be unsuccessful in their match tonight, he and Mantis have two points of their own they can build on.

"Unnecessary and ridiculous!" Mantis hilariously counters, holding up a hand to dismiss. Crossbones has been demoted to guard duty pending further review. Black resumes his glowing assessment of Delirious...

Ultramantis Black & Delirious (w/Crossbones) Defeat Incoherence (Hallowicked & Frightmare) by Pinfall: A highly entertaining match featuring four very vivid Chikara characters. I admit I'm a shameless mark for a match featuring four spooky masked wrestlers; it helps that they're all frighteningly talented to boot.

The stakes here are also frighteningly high: Both Incoherence and The Temple both have two points going into this match; the winners will have their free pass to a title match in 2010.

Having teamed with both Delirious and UltraMantis in the past, Hallowicked's history with his Temple opponents is almost hysterically intricate (though not quite "Incoherent"). One of Chikara's most imposing and dominant luchadors, he finds himself more torn than his own ring attire as he reckons with layer upon layer of masked dysfunction here. He's predominantly distracted by attempts to deprogram Delirious, who's just recently been bent to the will of UltraMantis Black.

Hallowicked's newest partner, Frightmare, in matching menacing black mask and strategically-shredded T-shirt, is a kind of hyperactive, cruiserweight 'Wicked-in-Miniature. He's equally excitable and exciting to watch. He hits a standing moonsault into a double-knee drop, and looks to have their match won.

Delirious, however, steps in to hit The Praying Mantis Bomb on Frightmare, while Ultramantis Black rolls over to pin him. Delirious displays the ultimate in Neo-Solar servitude here: he's mastered his Master's finisher, but he still gives the glory of the pin-fall to Mantis himself.

Backstage: Donst cuts a gloating promo (apparently before his loss to Uno), reveling in having effectively exiled longtime roster member (and mythical creature) Hydra in a Loser-Leaves-Chikara Match the night before.

Quackenbush accosts Donst, asking him how it is that a highly classified submission move (The Inverted Chikara Special) he taught to him exclusively miraculously wound up in Carpenter Ant's arsenal, allowing him to win the Cibernetico Tournament.

"Don't you know? He's from the future!" Donst scoffs. Quackenbush, clearly frustrated, rears back and lays him out with a slap. "Teach that one to Carpenter Ant," he says.

Team FIST (Icarus & Chuck Taylor) Defeat Mike Quackenbush & Jorge "Skayde" Rivera by Submission: Relentlessly resourceful in their pinfall and submission attempts, it's a pleasure to watch Quackenbush and Rivera wrestle.

Starting out the match against Chuck Taylor, Quackenbush executes a trifecta of crisp take-downs, never releasing hold of Taylor's arm until a final springboard arm-drag sends him sliding outside the ring. It's a sequence that, however brief, makes all kinds of elegant, understated sense, and a reminder that great wrestling often resembles a graceful demonstration of self-defense.

The FIST faction, however, is only one point away from its own title shot, and they're determined to get it. They zero in on Rivera's leg early on, weakening it with "Knee-D-T"'s and various submission holds. In the end, Rivera taps out to Taylor's half-crab, cinched in on the targeted knee. Whoever wins the main event will have two teams already nipping at their heels in the coming year.

As Taylor & Icarus leave the ring, Quackenbush extends a hand to ring legend Rivera, who receives another ovation from the Philadelphia crowd.

Player Dos Defeats Lince Dorado by Pinfall To Retain the Lion's Cup Title: Dos (the high-flying half of The Super Smash Brothers team with Uno) and The Golden Lynx start out by trading crafty pin attempts, before the action escalates to spectacular acrobatics. After a dazzling high-spot (a twisting plancha from Dos, an Asai Moonsault tease into a front flip from Dorado), each has the uncanny ability to land on their feet outside the ring. You'd think they were a video-game character, or perhaps some sort of cat.

In the decisive moment of the match, Player Dos German Suplexes Lince from the ring apron. The potentially scary spot sees Dorado tumble over the ring steps. Dos doesn't settle for the countout victory; instead, he drags Dorado into the ring and hits a high frog splash for the pinfall.

Lince's fellow "Future is Now" teammates Jigsaw, Jimmy Olsen, & Helios all show up in street-clothes, and attend to Dorado. They seem suspicious of the "steps" (terrible pun intended) Dos took to win.

Backstage: Kingston talks about his upcoming "Respect" Match with Castagnoli. He states the terms: if he loses, he has to say he Respects Claudio. "When" Castagnoli loses, he'll have to admit he Respects Kingston, an obligation Eddie is sure will "eat him up inside." Kingston insists that, whatever the match's outcome, he "knows" who Claudio truly is, even if no one else does.

A very good promo that builds anticipation for the imminent match by letting us know how much Kingston himself is looking forward to it. It doesn't see him forfeit his heel role just yet, but he plants the seed that there may be more shades to their feud than we know. He's still a fairly nasty and defiant anti-hero here, and whether we want to believe his claims about Castagnoli's true nature is up to us.

Claudio Castagnoli Defeats Eddie Kingston by Pinfall in a "Respect Match": An incredibly memorable match between two of Chikara's pre-eminent heavyweights. The terms of this match are that whoever loses has to publicly admit he Respects the man who beat him.

At the opening bell, Castagnoli barrels into Kingston with a bicycle kick, followed by a Ricola Bomb and an immediate near-fall. Kingston counters with a wild backfist, and the match rarely really lets up after that.

Commentator Bryce Remsburg mentions Castagnoli's peerless conditioning and frighteningly well-defined physique, comparing it to the heart and fighting spirit in Eddie Kingston that you can't externally "see."

"So he's got a muscular heart, is what you're saying," UltraMantis expertly concludes.

My own faint ticker, meanwhile, could scarcely take the intensity of this match! The Strong Style-tone (there are stiff strikes and suplexes aplenty) that asserts itself throughout is almost unsettling--one often tends to worry about the welfare of the wrestlers as much as anything else. While I much prefer the illusion of full contact to the actual article, there is undoubtedly much more of that here than met my untrained eye.

In any case, Castagnoli and Kingston work very hard to make us remember their in-ring story, and they certainly succeed in that regard. We're also left wondering whether the match is bringing out the more ruthless, opportunistic side of Castagnoli that is his more "true self", or whether Claudio's only retaliating to keep up with Kingston.

The Strong Style story is also not without its subtleties, as each has scouted his rival well: Kingston blocks one of Claudio's signature uppercuts, and converts it into a belly-to-belly overhead suplex; Castagnoli, meanwhile, attacks Eddie with his own Shotgun Lariat.

Claudio Castagnoli can pretty much redefine what one can reasonably expect from a Wrestling Big Man over the course of one match. He pulls off a top rope drop kick and elbow drop with eerie effortlessness.

He displays a kind of predatory desperation here: Castagnoli wants to win this match, and the Respect he believes is his due, as quickly as possible, as he likely knows Kingston won't stay down for long.

The match's turning point--and a telling moment for Claudio's character--comes as the two trade blows outside the ring. In a moment of exasperation, Castagnoli suddenly grabs hold of a ring crew member and hurls him at Kingston. It gives Claudio the advantage, which Kingston never fully reclaims.

Back inside the ring, Kingston displays shocking resilience, kicking out of a series of enormous moves. The previously anti-Kingston crowd begins to chant "Eddie! Eddie!". Claudio at last hits a bicycle knee strike, followed by a discus European Uppercut, to pin Kingston.

After the match: Castagnoli celebrates briefly, then immediately gestures for a microphone to be forced into Kingston's hand. Kingston, exhausted, still refuses to "Respect" Castagnoli, insisting that he pushed and tested Claudio as no one ever has. The crowd begins to boo. He calls them sheep for buying into Claudio's schtick. The crowd begins to "baaa".

Kingston doesn't respect Castagnoli and claims no one else should. He likens Castagnoli to a former tag team partner, calling Claudio both "shady" and "dirty". We can only assume Eddie's not referring to Castagnoli's hygiene, which is no doubt impeccable.

As Castagnoli goes to grab his shoulder, Kingston unleashes one last backfist. He points at Claudio, saying "I know you", as he makes his way out. Castagnoli gets to his feet, furious, and pursues him backstage.

The Colony (Fire Ant & Soldier Ant) Defeat The Osirian Portal (Amasis & Ophidian), Two Falls to One, to Retain the Campeonatos De Parejas: An excellent main event, featuring two very distinctive and cohesive tag teams. For those fans lamenting the current state of tag team wrestling, Chikara is here to address your concerns. Loads of signature double-team moves from both the Ants and the O.P., proving that pro wrestling, at its best, can be as much about collaboration as conflict.

The Portal take the first fall as Amasis hits his "Egyptian Conniption"(The Pharaoh's funky take on the Razor's Edge) on Fire Ant. Soldier Ant wins the second fall when he cinches the Chikara Special submission on Ophidian. On the Osirian Portal's third attempt at their picturesque Osirian Sacrament finisher (simultaneous Body Splash/Guillotine Leg Drop on an opponent from opposite turnbuckles), the Ants intercept them. They hit second rope "Super" versions of their own finishers (a T.K.O. From Soldier Ant on Amasis, a Beach Break from Fire Ant on Ophidian), for a striking visual and the decisive victory.

After The Match: As all four competitors lie in the ring, totally spent, a burly, horned man in white shoulders his way through the crowd. He tosses the guardrail aside, accompanied by what appears to be the masked man who's been making threats as of late.

Inserting a microphone underneath his mask, he announces that he's tired of waiting for the war to begin. He wants "the victims" brought out. Most of the Chikara locker room empties and surrounds the ring. Mike Quackenbush and Claudio Castagnoli, the trainers at Chikara's wrestling school and acknowledged locker-room leaders, step through the ropes to face them.

UltraMantis is also in the ring, and is the first to speak. He tells them that he's tired of their messages and threats. "In fact," he says, "I don't even know who you are!"

The massive, horned man pulls off his veil to reveal...a beard and another mask. A bearded riddle wrapped in an enigma-- little but facial hair disclosed so far.

Mantis's spectral Stalker lifts off his mask to reveal...DDP? Wrong acronym (as this is an Invasion Angle that works!). It's Ares, Claudio Castagnoli's old partner from their Swiss Money Holding days.

Quackenbush turns to Castagnoli, who blasts him to the mat with a Swiss Uppercut. An enormous brawl ensues. Daizee Haze and Sara Del Ray make their way to the ring in streetclothes to join the fray, and there even appears to be some sort of in-fighting amongst the Ants.

When the considerable New Alhambra Arena dust clears, there are only seven wrestlers standing: Ares, Castagnoli, the bearded enforcer, Haze, Del Ray, Carpenter Ant, and Vokoder. Ares assesses his troops, who stand in V-formation, with satisfaction.

Carpenter Ants takes off his antennae, and we see--disgruntled luchador Pinkie Sanchez. Vokoder removes his spandex face-plate, and we're reintroduced to none other than Tim Donst. The two of them laugh like loons.

Ares takes his place at the front of the formation; with military precision, the seven of them form their forearms into the symbol of a cross. Ares turns to his massive associate and nods; the bearded man produces an antennaed device, which he appears to activate. The arena goes dark, and the credits roll.

Epilogue: Leonard Chikarason is walking down the halls of the Chikara offices, talking on a cell phone. Seeing the Smart Mark cameras, he tells them that this isn't the best time. As he tries to turn the knob on his office door, he finds it's locked. The door opens, and a scruffy young man (ominously outfitted in a white suit) steps out to confront him. Chikarason recognizes him as "Dieter" a Wrestle Factory student.

He asks Dieter what he's doing in his office. Dieter replies that it isn't Leonard's office anymore, and that, in any case, he's late for his "semi-annual performance review." Chikarason wanders off in an overwhelmed daze, muttering that this must be some kind of mistake...

Quick Notes, Final Thoughts, & Observational Jibber-Jabber: This dvd set is highly recommended, and makes for a fine primer for Chikara's ninth season, set to begin where its last one left off, in Philadelphia, at the end of January.

--The rotating commentating team for this show includes Bryce Remsburg, UltraMantis Black, Louden Noxious, Leonard Chikarason, Eddie Kingston, and Jimmy Olsen. Remsburg and Chikarason, in particular, do an admirable job of establishing context and "setting the stage" for each match, as it were.

--In the case of the Hallowicked-Delirious-UltraMantis saga, there are so many Degrees of Separation that one suspects an Unholy Alliance with Kevin Bacon may in fact be at the root of it all; Remsburg's pretty much a Chikara historian, however, and loses little time in bringing the viewer up to speed.

--UltraMantis, meanwhile, does his species more than proud, and proves that mutant insect cult leaders are indeed the next logical stage in the evolution of the heel commentator.

--As Claudio Castagnoli pulled off a gut-wrench suplex from his knees, I indeed wondered whether a lawsuit against SmartMarkVideo might be feasible. The charge: Metaphysical Hernia Re-Aggravation.

--As with its Tag Team points system, Chikara has a commendable knack for keeping the focus on wrestling accomplishment and craft.

--In the case of "Who-Stole-The-Chikara-Special", the latest in grappling technology is treated the way Top Secret Intelligence might be in a spy thriller, as some enchanted weapon would be in a comic book.

--This isn't to say Chikara doesn't boast its own collection of enchanted weapons. For instance, the Temple and BDK both covet an ancient brain-washing artifact called the "Eye of Tyr" (which is what allowed UltraMantis to lay the mesmeric whammy down on Delirious). By Odin's hoary beard, I defy Don West to obtain that Norse Accessory for one of his Insane Daily Deals--for which I'm sure HHH would pay a pretty penny.

--Pro Wrestling and Comics have indeed been linked in the past, in other promotions, but often in a cynical manner that somehow manages to belittle both art forms. Chikara, to its credit, is very serious about incorporating the wealth of worthy traits that both bring to the story-telling table.

--From its dvd covers--Three-Fisted features the foreboding cartoon of a grotesquely Hulked-Up Claudio Castagnoli--to its narrative tone and colorful character array, Chikara has married the two to create a unique, uniquely appealing formula.

--It's perhaps Chikara's dedication to a comic book sensibility that allows it to swing back and forth from trademark trippy comedy to compelling drama with the facility that, say, the cobra-headed Ophidian slithers through the ropes to complete one of his "Serpentine" Topes.

--Chikara's wonderfully absurdist, kayfabe-obliterating humor is more or less kept to the undercard on this outing--pretty much to the first match, as a matter of fact. It's always welcome, however; one of the things that's so charming about Chikara is how its cast--heroes and villains alike, will participate in a skit--say, centering around an Invisible Baseball--for as long as its comedy idea lasts.

--At such moments, Chikara hilariously "Crosses The Line", as it were, hastily scribbling in new rules that are themselves only temporary. After the shared delusion dissipates, it's back to the regularly scheduled wrestling, to which the athletes are equally committed.

--In the end, however, it all amounts to no less than a celebration of what's possible in a pro wrestling ring. In the case of the Throwbacks-based comedy, it's a celebration of the whole wide World of Sport as well.

--The final in-ring images of Three Fisted Tales truly feel like the closing panels and full pages of some particularly well-told comic book yarn, as the splayed, (so far seven) fingers of the Bruderschaft Des Kreuzes curl together into one mutant hand. As was the practice with those vintage page-turners, Chikara has revealed enough to ensure you've received "your money's worth," as it were, but has you equally hooked on what its next chapter holds.

--The BDK has emerged as a Third Political Party militantly separate from the established Tecnico (Heroes) and Rudo (Villains) factions. How the more traditional Good and Bad Guys will adapt to this strange, menacing new entity in their midst is endlessly intriguing, and the stuff of which epic comic book Tales are made. You know Chikara's clicking on more cylinders than you can shake three fists at when you're marveling at the latest story turn, but already beginning to buzz about how it will all dramatically ripple through a diverse roster.

--It's a cast that offers everyone from ancient (and immigrant) gods to highly adaptive arthropods a shot at wrestling greatness. It's not often that one feels the urge to pursue degrees in folklore, entomology and linguistics merely to inform their wrestling fan-dom; then again, Chikara's a promotion that not only reminds fans why they love pro wrestling in the first place, but offers them a veritable grab-bag of fresh reasons for their trouble.

--I'm more interested in seeing what the year holds for plucky up-and-comers like Player Uno and The Green Ant than any of the sound, fury, and money signifying nothing that passes for pro wrestling programming these days. Other queries include:

--How will Crossbones react to having essentially been demoted to banner-waving "Lodi" status in his Neo-Solar Flock?

--Who will the mighty Haze and Del Ray face this year? Will we see a continued expansion of their women's division? Haze and Del Ray's inclusion in a central storyline ensures, at the very least, that two of my favorite wrestlers-- female or otherwise-- will see a fair amount of Chikara action this year.

--How does the BDK keep their whites so infernally bright? The "D" does not appear to stand for Detergent, as I'd once so naively theorized.

--The Chikara folks really are working their masks off--quite literally, if need be--to innovate and entertain. The orchestrated chaos that erupts at the program's climax actually amounts to one heck of a team effort--including by those not technically on the card.

Much more than anything airing on Mondays or Thursdays, after watching Three-Fisted Tales, I'm excited to see what Chikara's got up its assortment of sleeves in 2010.

Learn more about the Chikara wrestling promotion at www.chikarapro.com. Character-written blogs and YouTube vignettes abound, dotting the narrative i's and crossing the storytelling t's--often in multiple languages. Chikara dvds are available at www.SmartMarkVideo.com.

KudoSurf Me!

Daizee Haze's "Mind Trip": SHIMMER's Professor Offers a Face/Heel Tutorial

2009-06-19T06:34:00.001-07:00

SHIMMER shines as a gritty Gold Standard when it comes to women's wrestling in the United States. The promotion has released 22 Volumes so far, and four more are on the way. Meanwhile, SHIMMER's relatively new Wrestling Academy starts a new semester on June 22nd, with promotional pioneer and all around indy superstar Daizee Haze as its Head Trainer.

It's an opportune time, then, to take a look back at "Mind Trip," Daizee's 2006 two-disc release. The title identifies Haze's finisher, a maneuver as deceptively potent as Daizee herself. It starts out as a "mere" snap mare, but brings the opponent's noggin all the way down to the mat.

The "M.T." moniker is doubly apt, however, as it presents a nifty, pretty "Trippy" concept: (side effects include dry mouth, the munchies, not to mention Fan Freak Out):

While "Good Daizee" wrestles valiantly on Disc 1, an Evil, "Bizarro" Daizee dominates Disc 2. Here's a brief breakdown of this dichotomous set:

Disc 1: As Our Scrappy Hippy Heroine, Daizee Haze is, in many ways, the ultimate underdog-- if only at first sight. Often coming to the ring bearing an enormous flower (the most friendly of foreign objects), she similarly brings a whole bouquet's worth of Babyface Attributes to every match.

Foremost among these are Resilience and Resourcefulness. In matches with SHIMMER Luminaries like Cheerleader Melissa, MsChif, and Allison Danger, Haze (and her co-workers) display dazzling exchanges of holds and counter-holds.

Daizee and MsChif have a particular chemistry together. The visual and character contrasts they supply, combined with a shared whip-smart in-ring intelligence, make for one of the more intriguing pairings in wrestling.

But it's in two seminal SHIMMER Main Events (against alpha female heel Lacey in Volume 1, then fellow face Sara Del Ray) that those aforementioned "R n' R" traits rise to the surface most strikingly.

Haze has the ability to appear convincingly and completely "spent," laid out entirely by her opponent's offense. This not only amounts to magnificent "selling", (as she expertly spotlights how formidable her foes are), but results in a much more memorable, suspenseful match "story" overall.

And, as far as Resourcefulness goes, she's a regular MacGyver of creative pinning combinations, manufacturing near-falls from near-scratch.

But--to attempt two excruciating cannabis-based references in a row, Haze's comebacks are as "organic" as they are "grass-roots." They're believable, all because she's established her athleticism and wrestling acumen early on in the match. She's The Little Engine That Could (Forearm You Out of Your Boots). Running on Renewable Energy.

Perhaps Haze's most symbolic display of resiliency is her trademark Surging Bridge out of a pin attempt, in which she legitimately looks like a bending reed, just about to rebound from a boot that's tried to trample her.

Disc 1 concludes with a SHIMMER-in-ROH Six-Woman Tag, a blockbuster match featuring the fed's constellation of stars (Melissa, The Minnesota Home Wrecking Crew (Lacey & Rain), MsChif & Danger), in which Haze still manages to shine. This is to be Daizee's last hurrah as a hero, however.

Disc 2: This opens with a music video (each disc offers one) that "swerves" the viewer mid-song, as Daizee mutates into the "Thorned Flower" of the montage title. Turning on her friends in ROH's Generation Next faction, then hitching her star to ROH's Embassy Stable, Haze goes on to torment women (and men) all across the indy landscape like a spreading species of weed.

I had a quibble or two with the second disc's match selections. Her IWC intergender tag with Chris Hero against Sumi Sakai and Glenn Spectre featured the fellas at least as much as they do Haze.

Then there's Spectre's goofy, sophomoric "Gay"(?) Gimmick to sit through. Spectre appears to be an outstanding athlete, but Rasslin's "impersonation" of homosexuality isn't exactly nuanced, even if the medium lends itself to the cartoonish (see: almost every Foreign Heel).

I'm not a tremendous authority on the gay lifestyle, but I'm gonna guess Spectre's impression is approximately as accurate and "complex" as when Pro Wrestling Presents: Mongolians (Stompers n' Killer Khans). Or Tourette's Syndrome Sufferers (Goldust). Or Involuntary Bulimics (Tommy Dreamer).

I think I've dug myself enough holes here for any number of Buried Alive matches. Which reminds me, don't get me started on pro wrestling's offensive depiction of Zombies over the years.

But back on track.

Haze's match with Rain also hardly casts Haze in a villainous light, haughty pre-match promo aside. After all, they're up against Chikara's supremely unlikeable Team F.I.S.T..

Inter-gender bullying in both matches can be quite queasy stuff as well, even if all women concerned acquit themselves very well.

Still, two Daizee-related spots help make these matches well worth watching: Haze and Sakai engage in an epic saga of Dueling Small Packages, while in Chikara country, Daizee nails a whirling satellite head-scissors on Akuma.

Each sequence makes the most of the squared-circle space, each is satisfyingly circular in its spectacle. A quick break now, as I pause to take inventory of what I've been smoking.

Despite the skill-over-size aspect that always makes it so easy to root for her, Haze as a Heel turns out to be not such a hard sell. For starters, the notion of a Flower Child who not only fights but Fights Dirty (making her somewhat of a "Nature Girl") positively reeks-- not so much of "Sensimilla," mind you, as downright Heel Hypocrisy!

For instance, I don't care if it's whittled from recycled hemp--using a concealed rope to enhance your sleeper-hold (as Haze does against Alere Little Feather) is cheating, dad-blast it!

How else can one Heel it up? How about bragging about your impeccable conditioning? Daizee takes time out from a head-scissors submission on IWA Mid-South mainstay Mickey Knuckes to stick to a Scott Steiner-inspired regimen of mid-match push-ups.

Haze interacts with the fans at ringside almost compulsively, a hero who's fallen under the spell of something more sinister than mellowing. Taking time to stick out her tongue at the camera on the way to the ring, it's as if Heel Haze has become some spoiled child of the Sixties instead of its wrestling muse.

She's also gone very nasty in the chop department. Always known for her "strikes," Daizee employs her arsenal of chops and slaps to insult and intimidate, not just as a "natural defense" against larger opponents. Call me Faint of Heart Punch, but some of the more sudden, savage slaps hit the viewer like a... well, a slap to the face. A vicarious slap, Haze Be Praised.

By the time it reaches its final match, the set's really come full circle. Daizee faces Sara Del Ray, her Main Event opponent from SHIMMER's third volume, but the dynamics are altogether different. By now, Haze has fully soured into a sullen glamor girl in gold lame'. She's no longer an ambassador of Chikara's "Peace, Love, & Lucha", but a Corrupted Embassy Convert.

She roars hilariously at the ref (mid-Muta Lock, mind you!) for supposedly Favoring Sara, complains that her Heavyweight Division rival exceeds her "weight limit," stomps on Del Ray's foot to facilitate a trade-mark take-down she used to accomplish through sheer skill. Mission Mind Trip Accomplished.

And Trip on this: the Mat Magic Carpet Ride chronicled here happened around three years ago, when The Haze was the same age that some of her students may be now. So for those aspiring wrestlers 9who will need to learn to execute Face-To-Heel Duplicity at The Drop of a Hat) this set may prove especially helpful.

The idea that Daizee Haze has a chance to plant the seeds of her in-ring inventiveness in a fresh class of wrestling students is a pretty thrilling thought. Flower Power indeed!

This set is definitely recommended. I bought it at a local indy show for $20, but Haze recently posted a MySpace blog saying her online store will be back up shortly, so it should be available again via the internet soon. For info on SHIMMER's Wrestling School, see www.visuex.com/shimmer, as well as Daizee Haze's MySpace Profile at http://www.myspace.com/daizeehaze.

Match Listing for Mind Trip:

Disc 1: 1. Music Video: A Loaded Flower
2. Daizee vs. Cheerleader Melissa, 3/5/05, All Pro Wrestling
3. Daizee vs. MsChif, 4/23/05, Central States Wrestling
4. Daizee vs. Allison Danger, 11/04/05, Ring of Honor
5. Daizee vs. Lacey, 11/6/05, SHIMMER
6. Daizee vs. Sara Del Ray, 2/12/06, SHIMMER
7. Daizee/Danger/MsChif vs. Melissa/Lacey/Rain, 4/1/06, ROH

Disc 2: 1. Music Video: A Thorned Flower
2. Daizee/Chris Hero vs. Sumi Sakai/Glenn Spectre, 7/29/05, International Wrestling Cartel
3. Daizee vs. Mickie Knuckles, 12/30/05, IWA Mid-South
4. Daizee/Rain vs. Icarus/Akuma, 2/26/06, Chikara
5. Daizee vs. Mercedes Martinez vs. Allison Danger vs. Lacey, 3/25/06, ROH
6. Daizee vs. Alere Little Feather, 4/23/06, Chikara
7. Daizee vs. Allison Danger, 5/26/06, Chikara
8. Daizee vs. Sara Del Ray, 6/3/06, ROH

KudoSurf Me!

2CW in Binghamton: Daizee, Deliri-Saw, Generico, The Gimmick Cubicle! Plus: The Patience of The Haze

2009-06-10T05:19:00.000-07:00

I headed on out for the 2CW Binghamton show (about an hour away), and predictably had a pretty great time. This was my first "indy" show experience, if you can believe it. However many dvds I've seen, I was still bowled over by how close we fans were to the ring (I was in the second row).

My wife graciously served as wheel-woman on the way up from the Cooperstown area. But while I crept inside the Legion Hall, she opted for one of Binghamton's embarrassment of dive bars. That's right, wrestling fans, The Missus chose booze and barflies over backdrops, not to mention the queasy company of us mutant marks.

I'd fully expected her to seethe over a series of Long Island Iced Teas, then to invade 2CW with a Sandman-style entrance during the second half of the show. Such stunts are in fact mandatory, as they were written into our vows. Alas, 2CW failed to cover her transportation; and so, no dice.

I'd shown up in large part to see--and support--Haze and Perez, not to mention Delirious and Jigsaw. So I was (very naively) somewhat surprised that the 2CW faithful were not quite as "amped up" to watch SHIMMER stars live as I was.

I was perfectly prepared to receive the Great and Powerful Haze as the Ewoks welcomed C-3PO, but was dampened in my attempted ovation when my fellow NY-ers failed to follow suit.

The tone sometimes seemed to be one of Fans Fighting to Assert Their Heterosexuality while watching two women wrestle. The Dudes in Attendance (it was a rasslin' show, after all, so Dude-age predominated) were inclined to chant for Portia. Perez shrewdly countered with a petulant "Shut Up!".

The (Extreme) female minority (as well as those of us in touch with our Flower Power Side) tried to keep the Babyface Fire flame burning with our faint "Let's-Go-Daizee" counter-chant. Hell, at least folks were participating in the Wrestling Rooting Process.

At one point, when a sequence looked to have been botched, there were the beginnings of a "You &%$#ed Up!" chant, which I interpreted as a blow for women's rights. ECW "Originals" used to receive the same rotten treatment, right?

Daizee was reliably dazzling with her holds, moves (& transitions between the two). All while I tried to balance the thrill of Seeing SHIMMER Live with keeping up with the actual story of the match. I marked out for Haze's signature kip-up-into-an-armdrag in particular.

Perez picked up the win when Haze went for a sunset flip from the corner, and Portia hunkered down and held the ropes. This evened their 2CW rivalry up at one win apiece, as I think Daizee had triumphed the night before in Syracuse.

I was timidly determined to patronize Haze's table in Binghamton's Broom Closet of a Gimmick Cubicle. There I found myself faced with four equally excellent dvd selections, which I immediately began brooding over with absurd intensity.

While Daizee patiently explained the differences between the disc sets. I persisted in staring in blank terror at the quartet in front of me, as if at some insoluble math problem. With only twenty dollars burning a hole in my ten dollar pants, I hadn't counted on a test like this.

At last, absolutely perplexed, I more or less implored The Haze to pick one out for me.

She selected a set called "Mind Trip," which has the nifty theme of featuring Good Daizee in action on one disc, Evil Daizee on the other. This would make for a nice teaching tool when schooling students on how to approach playing a face or a heel at the SHIMMER Academy, I'd imagine.

Speaking of which, I stuttered out questions about SHIMMER ("Huh-How's SHIMMER going?") and its new school. In trying not to ramble or blurt out something ridiculous ("Your match with MsChif on Volume 14 changed my life, man!"), I think I came across more like a cyborg census taker demanding data than an honestly interested human fan.

But Daizee was again very nice and forthcoming, mentioning SHIMMER's recent massive taping sessions and offering up Academy stats--she been training two students so far.

I took this opportunity to "point out" (to her, mind you) that she had a Chikara match coming up with one of her students. I'd intended this to be a display of my Grappling Geek's Acumen, proof that I was indeed a fan. Instead, it may have seemed more like I was obsessing over her every career move. Curses, and foiled again!

But neurotic exaggerations aside, I did manage to mutter "Great Match Tonight", shake her hand (and say more or less the same to El Generico one table over) before beating a hasty retreat.

All this without tripping over a gimmick table leg and prat-falling through all of El Generico's merchandise, as I'd strongly suspected I might. Sure, this might have won me a brief "He's Hardcore!" chant, but it still would have been particularly rude, as I'd indeed failed to buy any of The Generic Luchador's wares beforehand.

All in all, it was a real privilege to watch so many favorites practice their craft live. I do wish I'd calmed down a tad, if only to have been a bit less of a 32-year-old Tool. But seasoned pro wrestlers like Haze and Generico no doubt have graduate degrees in dealing with such star-struck social ineptitude!

KudoSurf Me!

Now Warming Up in the Bullpen: Joey "Wild Thing" Biden

2009-04-08T05:48:00.000-07:00

Watching Delaware Joe wind up, then fail to find the strike zone at the first Baltimore Orioles home game reminded me that we never saw Dirty Dick Cheney toss a change-up throughout his two interminable terms in office.

It might be that he didn't want Al Qaeda scouts to see his split-finger, or know that he didn't have a curve ball. Perhaps his Secret Service Team feared they couldn't lug the defibrillators down from the Luxury Boxes in time.

And at any game in which Game was involved (your Orioles, Blue Jays, Cardinals, or the endangered spotted "Expo"), the VP's predatory instinct might well have taken over. Instead of the soft ceremonial pitch, he would have whipped out the pheasant gun he keeps strapped to his leg, shot the catcher in the face before turning to bag the flightless mascot diving into the dugout.

The instinct in these ridiculous instances is always to assess the athletic prowess of the politician dilettante. Why can't Obama bowl like the Big Lebowski ensemble? Will Jimmy Carter disgrace our nation at Curling? Sure, he ensured Union victory in the Civil War, but how would Ulysses S. Grant have fared on the Sumo circuit?

The man whose relentless smirk n' squint should put such musings to eternal rest is Oil Can Bush. Possibly the most Cross-Trainin'-Tested Commander-in-Chief on record, the honorary Texas Ranger (Reserve), we would have been infinitely better off leaving Dubya there in the gubernatorial minors, swindling the locals into buying stadiums. To keep his eye off the presidential prize, we should have lobbied to have brush-clearing elevated to an Olympic event. Anything to keep the Decider from deciding anything of National note, from jogging the electorate into the abyss, if not off a cliff.

By way of contrast, Biden's Ball One brought Muntada Al-Zaidi, Iraq's foremost Shoe-Flinger, back to mind. Now there was a hurler who knew how to fire in a brush-back pitch, bringing the heat with the most hardball question ever. It marked one of Dubya's few deft moments, made so because it was wholly wordless. He bobbed, weaved, just about Matrix-ed out of loafer's reach.

In a later interview, First Lady Laura seemed very nearly titillated by her husband's performance in Press Conference Line of Duty, citing a Higher Father-given athleticism that almost had her coming down with a conjugal case of The Vapors.

Once he walks barefooted out of the Iraq clink, will one of the more Wild Card-hungry teams contact "Shoe-less" Muntada Al-Zaidi for his services? If he could only keep from "announcing" his pitches at the top of his lungs before he threw them.
KudoSurf Me!

Elmo Goes Green-Face

2009-04-07T15:52:00.000-07:00

This strangely frigid afternoon, I did my bit for Mom and Pop as I patronized my friendly neighborhood dvd vending machine.

Wellity, wellity, by Sesame Street's Retarded Two-Headed Monster, what did I see, but Elmo's most recent shameful release? It's entitled "Elmo Goes Green," and it's an abject abomination masquerading as environmental consciousness.

Where's Sam the Eagle and his Standards and Practices Coalition when you need them? For that matter, where's Sam's daily four-hour long Right Wing radio talk show? I wants me the news, dammit!

The flimsy premise for Elmo's appalling Al Jolson act is that some little girl accomplice of his takes the Going Green trend too literally, and dabbles in the occult (that's right, Sesame Street, let's link fur color to witchcraft!) to turn him into an insufferably perky Hulk.

Now, if Elmo actually got angry along with the gamma-irradiation, that would be one thing: he'd at least be expressing human (i.e. muppet) emotion. But he's way too hopped up on a diabolical cocktail of uppers and assorted anti-depressants to let that happen. Sesame Street's Wellness Policy is an absolute joke.

Instead, we'll get a grotesque parody of Kermit's racial struggle, not to mention cheap shots at the destitute (see: Oscar the Grouch). Next he'll don a woolly mammoth get-up to mock Snuffalupagus's morbid depression and prehistoric heritage, instruct toddlers to scorn the Swedish Chef's Scandinavian heritage in a crude Swedish accent. Croonchy Stars will be rechristened Freedom Stars before you know it.

Elmo used to simply symbolize a general dumbing down of our society, from a previous Golden Age of Grover; with Elmo's most recent Minstrel Show, however, the evidence starts to mount: he's a hirsute, castrato anti-Christ.

KudoSurf Me!

But How Long Will We Have to Wait For A Sir-Mix-a-Lot Biopic?

2009-01-15T08:04:00.000-08:00

Notorious, this decades' answer to Spike Lee's Malcolm X, "drops" this Friday (Not Next Friday, or the Friday after The Following Fortnight). Top that, Obama inauguration!

America (Hip Hop Nation that you are), the call has sounded: "Bring Your Family...Bring Your Friends...Because if you want to make it out of the multiplex alive, you'd better roll deep!"

Good Lord Jamar, why are they printing Biggie Smalls's disposable lyrics on the screen during the preview, as if he was the foremost wordsmith of our age? Trying to boost our reading comprehension of the classics, I assume?

And perhaps the greatest casualty of all, Bad Boy Studios has managed to implicate Angela Bassett in their nonsense. Although I've been eagerly awaiting the chance to hear her interpret the collected works of DJ Pooh.

And what's with this "before we change the world we have to change ourselves?" jibber-jabber? We're not even going to credit Man in the Mirror here, are we? They should have subtitled all the sampling going on at the bottom of the screen.

Will all the theaters be fumigated by Diddly Doo Dad's "Unforgiveable" fragrance? I'd imagine the scent wouldn't be distinctive enough to qualify as "stench," exactly. Wouldn't he have sampled the smells of assorted R & B artists, rather than allow us all to have a whiff of what undistilled talentlessness smells like?

Soon to be followed by derivative smell-sequels like "Reprehensible," "Oblivious," and "Black Diamonds" (Big Up to Lil' Liz (Taylor), Baddest Bitch of the Silver Screen!)

I can easily picture Puff Pastry secretly swiping a sample of David Bowie's pheromones at some Hamptons function. ("Nah, nah, Ziggy Stardust, I'm not doin' nothing. Here, have some more vintage Cristal.") All celebrity guests would have to dampen a Sean John-monogrammed towel with their famous armpit odor at the door, forfeiting all rights to the products of their pores.

I'm surprised Will Smith didn't pull a Raging Bull and pile on 175 pounds to portray the immortal B.I.G.. Alfonso Ribiero would have made a mighty moving Mase. Not since Dustin Hoffman's Rain Man would we have seen such a stirring tour-de-force.

KudoSurf Me!

Daffney's Red Hot Rasslin': The Scream Queen Takes The South By Storm

2009-01-05T18:32:00.000-08:00

During this past year's Presidential campaign, John McCain cut promos claiming voters didn't know "the real Barack Obama." On recent episodes of TNA Impact, however, many fans have been fairly sure who the fake Sarah Palin is. For left-wing wrestling nuts such as myself, she's far better than "the real thing."

It's as if we've all Crossed the Line into a more benevolent Universe (not named WWE), where the role of McCain's running mate, normally played by Palin, has now "turned face" to become Daffney.

Fans still suffering from Nitro withdrawal undoubtedly remember Daffney. She was one of the sparks of strange vitality to be found amid the ashes of death-throes WCW. In the chaos of that collapsing Cable TV star, she was one of the few flowers (say, the rare Screaming Daff-o-Dill) to organically grow from what some would call Vince Russo's distinctive brand of televised..."fertilizer".

And yet, despite stays in developmental, she was never truly transplanted to Titan Sports soil, at least as far as the "flagship" shows were concerned. So what's Daffney been up to during the "Crowbar to Cute Kip" Time Frame (as we all refer to it)?

Some small part of that answer can be found on Daffney's Red Hot Rasslin', a Highspots dvd from 2007. What with recent Spike TV stints--first, in a scrappy squash match segment against TNA juggernaut Awesome Kong, and now, as Beautiful People Consultant and Gubernatorial Impostor Sarah Palin--it's as good a time as any to give this release another look.

Red Hot Rasslin''s an assortment of matches featuring Daffney as she makes her mark all over the independent circuit. The sultry temperature of the title, as well as its strategic removal of the silent "W" (Well Hell, at least it's not called "Unseasonably Warm Sports Entertainment"!) reveals its focus: a fun, "southern-fried" approach to wrestling. Aside from a suspicious stop in New Jersey--the great Garden State always arouses slight alarm--the action's confined to the Red (Hot) States.

Daffney delivers: the dropkick, the reverse DDT, the Jericho-esque bulldog-by-the-hair, not to mention a state-of-the-art Northern Lights suplex, which makes more than one appearance.

But, aside from all that, Daffney has the brawling basics licked. In true Carolina style, she throws a fantastic punch (pretty much all she got to showcase in five memorable minutes of Fight Club against Kong), a nasty chop, as well as a fine, forceful short-arm lariat.

The UWF Mixed Tag Match highlights are presented here as prelude to a passing showdown with the Knockouts Champ Gail Kim. Daffney does her job as shrill heel quite well, preferring to face her male enemies rather than Kim, TNA's #1 "Face" at the time. When the crowd chants for Kim's partner to tag her in, Daffney nearly drowns them all out in screeching protest, further building anticipation to when they lock up at last.

Unfortunately, when it comes to their one-on-one contest, Daffney's almost cast as the third party candidate, with a lot of the focus placed on a feud between Kim and corrupt referee Jacqueline Moore (think an attractive, African American Bill Alphonso--or, better yet, don't).

Still, Daffney undeniably racks up the victory, thanks to an accelerated three count straight outta the Nick Patrick School of Evil Officiating.

It's when we move down IWA Mid-South way that Rasslin' Business really Picks Up, courtesy of a great match with promotional mainstay Mickie Knuckles. It was via an excellent Chris Vetter Torch review of this event ("Sunday Bloody Sunday"), that I started to get a sense that Daffney's grappling game was growing by leaps, bounds, and top-notch monkey-flips.

Daffney's back in Baby Face mode here, forcing her to walk a fine line (on Mid-South's filthy mat): Help keep Mickie looking like a real ring monster, all while opening eyes about her own ability along the way.

This turns out to be a theme of this collection: the commentators, citing her predilection for fan interaction, tend to doubt Daffney's seriousness as an in-ring competitor. Daffney doesn't fail to surprise with her in-ring skill, at the same time supplying the antics her fans have come to expect. In the end, the opponent gets put over as the formidable favorite who eventually triumphs, and we get a much better match as a result.

In this case, Knuckles is equal parts mat wrestler and intimidating brawler; Daffney keeps pace with her on both fronts.

Daffney's Rasslin' Lesson #1: Daffney foolishly tries to lift husky Mickie into a conventional suplex, straining and straining in vain to hoist her powerhouse opponent. Finally, in frustration, Daffney shifts her grip to Mickie's waist, and pulls off a picturesque Northern Lights Suplex, an impressive pin attempt which Knuckles nevertheless kicks out of. Daffney comes off as resourceful, while Knuckles now looks nearly unbeatable.

(Side Note: Now, Sarah Palin may be able to see the Aurora Borealis from her house, but I'll bet my last hockey puck she can't perform a half-decent Northern Lights suplex. Same goes for Russia and its signature leg-sweep, which also shows up in an encounter with veteran technician Allison Danger--a nifty counter to a suplex attempt. America, we cannot afford a President with Palin's limited move-set. A Governor, maybe--just kidding there, Mr. Ventura).

Daffney's Rasslin' Lesson #2: Daffney plays to the Mid-South male demographic (okay, that's pretty much all the fans in attendance). She buries Mickie's mug in her decotage. The announce team referred to the region as Daffney's "cavernous bosom," immediately making their contribution to the Broadcasting Lexicon, alongside "Crimson Mask" and "Scalded Dog".

Daffney's entertaining new finisher was another desperate gambit: submission by mammary, much more merciful than, say, the Von Erich Claw. Still, it's a tactic I'm surprised less resourceful wrestlers like JBL haven't turned to more often. Cue rimshot, while I scurry to Joey Styles for protection.

Knuckles begins to falter in the face of such smothering; we wonder all the while if Daffney's managed to raid Jim Cornette's Pharmacy, spiking her cleavage with Ether. Hey, this is Mid-South after all!

Mickie recovers, repaying that maternal instinct (so rare in wrestling these days) by rudely hurling Daffney, bosom first, across the ring. Now, the announcers crassly christened it "The Boobie Toss;" I prefer the infinitely more tasteful "Hooters Airlines," perhaps "The Breast-Put," or, everyone's offensive favorite, the "Hail Mammary."

Then again, personal choice in terrible terminology is part of what makes this country great.

The point being, the crowd pops again, Mickie looks like the Olympic favorite for the D-Cup Discus Event in 2012, and a suspenseful match has a moment of comedy relief. Everybody wins--except Daffney, dammit!

In WSU's New Jersey Grudge Match (Loser Leaves Lodi?), there's a real rapport between Daffney and Talia Madison/TNA Beautiful Person/Palin Disciple Velvet Sky. It's a convincing battle that swings back and forth from compelling wrestling match to what ECW might call a Five Star Cat Fight. WSU's Low Definition filming of the match doesn't do it total justice; this was their first All-Women's show, and they look to still be feeling their way a bit.

(Side Note #2: Daffney's occasionally billed with the last name Unger. It was only in watching an old Odd Couple rerun that I realized she might well be playing the Goth Chick equivalent of Felix to Talia's Oscar. Although I don't recall Jack Klugman or Walter Matthau sporting quite so many blonde highlights.)

Speaking of highlights, among those in this match is a impressive marathon victory roll, Talia over Daffney over Talia, a runaway ferris wheel which only ends when our Red Hot Heroine eats turnbuckle at the far side of the ring.

TNA might want to bottle a bit of this chemistry for a blow-off brawl between Daffney (Palin spectacles removed) and Velvet Sky: I nominate a No-DQ, Pantsuits, Iraqi Journalist's-Shoe-on-a-Pole Alaskan Street Fight. One can just imagine Daffney managing to "matrix" out of the path of that flying loafer.

The dvd wraps up with two shorter segments: a 2003 TNA X-Plosion appearance as her character Lucy, and a more recent tag match featuring her Shark Girl persona. On X-Plosion, Daffney has to compress her Specialty (Elevating her Co-Workers) to TV Time, in an intense but lickety-split scrap with Simply Luscious. Lucy looks to be a perfectly friendly redhead from Hades (theologically, only a door or so down from The Inferno-- fellow Scream Queen MsChif's Hometown).

I reckon the winter line Lucy's wearing here refers more to her Cold Day in Heck gimmick as Lucy Furr, rather than the Impact Zone actually freezing over. It's always sad to see an appealing character seemingly rise and fall (on TV, anyway) in the space of a single match. All this, with little attention from frantic commentators Mike Tenay and Don West, who might as well have still been hyperventilating about the NWO.

Couldn't Lucy have turned out to be Sinister Jim Mitchell's illegitimate daughter, or had a feud with Black Reign, who insanely insisted her faux fur was Arctic Fox in origin? Hey, TNA, either notion makes more sense than a Reverse Battle Royal!

Shark Girl's been having better luck. The Daffney character's SHIMMER career has been bogged down by a bum knee (which the promotion's ferocious heels lose little time in targeting). For Daffney fans this is a pretty depressing development.

But her comic-book transformation into half-fish has allowed that leg cartilage to miraculously heal, and accumulate a super-hero's share of victories in the process. She continues that trend here, teaming with Amber O' Neal against ODB & Traci Brooks (Aha! So the "B" in ODB stands for Brooks! I knew it!)

Will we see S.G. resurface as Stone Cold Shark Boy's snarling love interest, say, Luna Va-Shark Girl? Book it, Jarrett! I dares ya.

One drawback to this release is its running time, which--despite the rambling of this review-- clocks in at just over 60 minutes. Highspots has seen to it that the program is brisk and that it spotlights its star (the inter-gender matches elegantly fade-out to omit portions not directly involving the Gail Kim vs. Daffney feud). They may have gone too far, however, as even some of the singles matches have been streamlined to make sure they don't test the viewer's minuscule attention span. It definitely leaves fans wanting more, which may have been one of the dvd's aims.

Highspots would have done well to supplement this footage with an interview. This is an approach SmartMarkVideo has apparently already successfully taken with stars like Claudio Castagnoli and Arik Cannon.

Daffney's perspective, as a performer who began as more of a wrestling personality on a prominent show, only to dedicate herself to her craft in the ensuing years (even as the wrestling boom ebbed), adapting her established character while taking on new ones all together, would make for especially interesting content.

Moreover, Daffney's engaging personality comes across in these matches, and would certainly have shone through in a shoot interview. Something to consider for the second volume, perhaps.

So, Red Hot Rasslin' ain't necessarily a career retrospective. Instead, it's an extended snapshot of one of wrestling's most improved performers, and a story of passion paying off. Her actual victories are rare on this disc, but memorable moments and overall resilience are the underlying theme.

For TNA, it makes for quite the audition tape, particularly if they're serious about shoring up their Knockouts division. Let's hope TNA's got more in store for Daffney than as temporary Palin Doppelganger. Is Daffney's Palin disguise meant to lure Velvet Love into a "Maverick-y" trap?

For the love of swerves, let MsChif be lying in wait (setting off a Scream Queens vs. Beautiful People tag feud for the ages). Failing that, Crowbar lurking in the Impact Zone shadows in McCain make-up will do quite nicely.

Daffney & Crowbar? Now there's a strong ticket! Talk about bringing Real Change to America--they'd create total anarchy, brother! All of it Constitutionally sound, of course.

But if any character could be endearingly wacky enough to pose as the governor, then plausibly parlay that psychotic break into a spot on the TNA roster, it would be Daffney. Just as in WCW, in TNA it would be one of the few things that would make a delightfully crazy sort of sense.

Six sides of sense, as a matter of fact.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Match Listing, from Highspots.com & myspace.com/daffanatic4life:

Chapter 1
Exerpts from: Mixed Tag Match
"The Man Scout" Jake Manning & Daffney vs. Eric Young & Gail Kim
UWF - 11/30/08 - Emporia, VA

Chapter 2
Exerpts from: Mixed Tag Match
Joey Matthews & Daffney vs Scotty 2 Hotty & Gail Kim
UWF - 12/1/07 - South Boston, VA

Chapter 3
Gail Kim vs. Daffney (special ref - Jackie Moore)
UWF - 5/12/07 - Greensboro, NC

Chapter 4
Mickie Knuckles vs. Daffney
IWA - 4/22/07 - San Antonio, TX

Chapter 5
Talia Madison vs. Daffney
WSU - 3/3/07 - Lodi, NJ

Chapter 6
Allison Danger vs. Daffney
CWA - 11/16/07 - Statesville, NC

Chapter 7
Simply Luscious vs. Lucy
TNA Explosion - 5/21/03

Bonus
Excerpts from: Women's Tag Match
Amber O'Neal & Shark Girl vs. ODB & Tracy Brooks
CWA - 1/2007 - Statesville, NC
----------------------------------------------------

KudoSurf Me!

Hoping to Put His Foot in His Liberator's Mouth

2008-12-15T09:34:00.000-08:00

I don't know if Bush will conclude from his brush with Liberated Loafers that the Iraqis are ready for Freedom, but not their own footwear. The Iraqi media really beat Helen Thomas to it. She must have had at least one pair of stilettos stashed, intended to be broken in on the side of Dubya's noggin at the last press conference.

The wife wondered aloud why the reporter blew his cover with a sandal-wielding war-cry before throwing his split-finger two-part question. It's the journalistic equivalent of a James Bond villain announcing his scheme before going ahead with it. Now Bush gets to believe he's James Bond.

Let no one question W.'s war experience after this recorded incident. His Coast Guard training (special ops wing) clearly revealed itself as he expertly evaded enemy fire as if it were a Hurrican Katrina update.

And those WMDs have been confirmed as fungus, an Extremist's Athlete's foot concealed
like a living time bomb in every fundamentalist sole. Both shoes in the war on terror have not just been dropped, but hurled.

When we make it our prostate-inspecting business to ram our foot up the world's ass (to quote Poet Laureate Toby Keith), we should only expect to receive a few size tens in return. And, as my wife pointed out, this was the Liberated's last shot to at least hit the Decider/Destructor on the ass on his way out the two-term door.

If only the shoe had been more stereotypically Ali Baba-fied with the bayonet tip, that intrepid newsman could have gotten some crescent boomerang action out of it. I wouldn't recommend war with Iran, who (if the WWF Intelligence is to be believed) have weaponized every pair. The Iron Sheik Collection is pretty standard dress code. The Secret Service might want to check out the underside to those confiscated slippers for the Manufacturer's Label while they're at it. Those weapons were most likely supplied by China.

If I could afford to lose a loafer, I might well lob one at Cheney. Then again, the consummate hunter would probably just visualize his best friend's face and blow my Payless boot right out of the sky.

KudoSurf Me!

The Wife Will Have Her Cosmetics, Or The World Will Burn. Or At Least the Post Office.

2008-12-13T15:11:00.000-08:00

I wouldn't deem my wife high-maintenance in the least. But when her cosmetics n' medication cocktail is running a wee bit low, woe unto the faceless villains who would deprive her. To say nothing of the smug-faced, cold-shouldered husband who has clearly thrown his traitorous lot in with them.

She'd ordered an (apparently prescription-strength) parcel of cosmetics, and a Federal Express Elf would be here to apply it to her upturned face directly. I didn't know it at the time (I swears I didn't, baby, now put down that tweezer!), but a secretly-snickering post office had been egregiously tardy with a parcel of sample female face-paint this past Friday. This is the foremost of a host of conspiracies to which I turn a blind and deplorably unshadowed eye.

But she began to get the shakes in the early afternoon, understandably lashing out after the rigors of a late morning nap. I trudged to the P.O., and the minuscule kit I should have fought for to my dying husbandly breath was inexplicably (O Indifferent God, with your unchap-pable lips and eternally manicured cuticles!) Missing in Action. If she didn't receive her earth-toned Foundation, she have to supply her own hue: Hulk Smash green.

This Christmas, the Post Office would pay most dearly for retiring to their Irradiated, Kashmir-lined Employee Lounge to powder their dirty noses with her precious goods. Pay in more than mere postage, my friends.

She beat a dry fist upon the desk. She made calls like an enraged Ebony editor with a dead-line, no cigar to chomp betwixt her gnashing teeth (she's recently kicked smoking; next on the docket, a mail carrier's corrupt petoot). She followed leads, hacked into classified post office files, made the brittle walls and our high-strung jack russell mongrel shake. Clock were ticking, a wife's Long Island-wired internal time-bomb racing against a mail service desperate to call it an easy-peasy day.

What about a refund? A callous husband croaked. The suspicion of my taking kickbacks from the post office to keep quiet about Experiment in Rouge Deprivation currently underway went unspoken, but hung in the air, as the Fed Ex Man might from a hemp rope if he ever dared arrive. Her voice had gone West Indian, clipped and charged, suggesting imminent coup. Mail Delivery demanded socialism.

But she'd give it a day, even if she'd given up on the world. I didn't understand: according to comic book law, applying recklessly mail-ordered make-up was supposed to drive you Joker Crazy, not its absence.

But it was not so much "Make-Up" as the anticipation of a Parcel that had made her livid, the P.O.'s unanimous promise of a paid-for present broken. Let Santa Claus beware: she'd whisk him to some Arctic Black site if his stocking-full of nicotine patches plopped down the chimney five minutes after midnight.

I'd experienced it myself, and conducted myself much more petulantly, if I chose to truly recollect it. All wrongs done unto me had been pro-wrestling dvd related, and I'd impotently failed to cut impassioned promos when I'd had the chance.

The Post Office had it in its power to deliver on expectation of something pleasant, a gift-wrapped anchor for someone adrift on a day's dull grey water. But any unaccountable link in that anchor's chain could drop the relay baton, and none of the runners with a four-wheel ride would necessarily care. You know, they only "run" on one side of the road up here, adhering admirably to the definition of half-assery as they deliver to half of Main Street.

Saturday came, and no cartoons worth a damn. But the package completed its trot to tuck itself neatly in our sad oblong square, filling the void for a morning. The wife stares and smiles with the serene insanity of a subtlely-painted clown. She;s smoothed contentment while I remain a ruddy, pock-marked wreck.

We'd more than averted a crisis, had one ever really been about to happen? Would she really have insisted on making make-up out of a mail carrier's harvested bodily fluids? Really? Wouldn't such survivalist's manual labor, the sudden necessity for such resourcefulness, warrant madness?

ut

KudoSurf Me!

What's "Happening"? Funky Bunches of Bad Vibrations

2008-11-13T14:50:00.000-08:00

The wife and I watched M. Night Shyamalan's latest shyamalit The Happening a few days ago. I'd had my fill of his Shyamaschtick after he not only cast himself in Lady in the Water, but in the role of an artist destined to be some tragic civilization-shaping revolutionary (who makes frequently insufferable films on the side?). But Jemmy thought it looked intriguing, and indeed it was.

I'd place this entry alongside Unbreakable and The Village; interesting, creative, and admirable (if sometimes awkward) efforts, in many ways deserving of more attention than Shyamalan's commercial successes (The Sixth Sense, the borderline abysmal Signs).

Here Mark Wahlberg's a science teacher (Lordy, this is science fiction; also to be found practicing his katas in the faculty lounge: Keanu Reeves, whose Excellent Adventure credentials earn him tenure as a History Professor) who becomes swept up in an epidemic--large concentrations of people, first in NY, then in Philadelphia, are spontaneously putting themselves to death. Strangely, few if any of these suicidal folks had recently watched Lady in the Water or listened to Marky Mark's musical output.

The deaths are at first attributed to terrorists, but as survivors flee to the countryside and the casualties persist, suspicion turns to the extremist flora. Now, any respectable doobie movie would see the latter-day Cheeches and Chongs start smoking every tree in sight, all while an eerie and ominous interpretation of the What's Happening?!?!? played in the background, but apparently this wasn't Shyamalan's vision.

Nevertheless, he's come up with an ingenious concept--when the coast looks to be idyllically clear, it's as perilous as ever, what with the forest wafting unwanted thoughts into the open minds of every flower child. The idea that plant life might fall back into militant self-preservation mode, seeing humanity as the planetary threat, is also a worthy one. The vegetation intelligence tends to target people once they congregate, as if the paranoid scenery interprets any interaction as conspiracy. When we put our heads together, it inevitably paves the polluting way to our notion of "civilization."

Shyamalan's efforts can be well worth supporting: his stuff can be starkly hit-and-miss, but he puts thought into his premises, and he's one of the very few directors carrying (or allowed to carry) any kind of mainstream science fiction torch.

He accomplishes this eco-horror story with subtlety, if with a sometimes softly thudding deliberation. Shyamalan's execution can be clunky. Thankfully, there aren't any computer generated redwoods knotted with celebrity faces, Robin Williams or Sam Jackson hurling their hateful fruit at the damned dirty humans, however much we might deserve it.

Wahlberg's a weird one; his attempts at innocent earnestness can come across as labored, studied, almost colorless. Then, in a particularly crucial scene, when his scientist is struggling to think, he communicates the desperate attempt at problem-solving cognition quite well. It might be that he's not weird enough, often enough, to create an idiosyncratic, particularly interesting protagonist here. When he goes Leading Man, he has the tendency to go a bit bland.

Nice to see John Leguizamo in a high-profile film, if relegated to a relatively low-profile role as the math teacher colleague. The characters grappling with Shyamalan's latest crisis are academics rather than men of (lapsed) faith, which is somewhat of a relief, and makes the plants's (Pro-) Suicide Hotline seem that much more formidable, as the disciples of empiricism can't seem to get to the poisonous root of the mind-bending scheme, at least initially.

Betty Buckley also appears as a rural spinster who scrupulously kept to herself well before the plants decreed it; she portrays the madness that can grow into, then be exacerbated by isolation pretty frighteningly well.

KudoSurf Me!

Polar Bears Rejoice, & Joe Biden's African American Following is Truly Tremendous

2008-11-05T12:08:00.000-08:00

Well, the wife and I concluded our cowardly hibernating election night ritual, which consists of us plunging our heads in the sand (we empty the lion's share of our budget on syringe-spiked sacks smuggled upstate from Coney Island) until we hear the results the next morning.

The excitement is almost more than our precociously elderly constitutions can take. Speaking of Constitutions, might have to dust off that dormant document after these past eight years. Jemmy's got visions of expanded health care dancing in her head, while I frantically anticipate the imminent pardoning of Wesley Snipes, to be followed by a series of exuberant Wesley-Woody buddy movies to celebrate civil rights inroads.

In coming years, I can't see African American folks placing their government-issued portraits of Dubya prominently in their homes, positioned alongside MLK... JC....KC & Jo-Jo? But Bush's epic spectacularly abysmal presidential performance, going so below and beyond the call of dreadful duty, may have helped the last few reluctant right-wing yakoos to briefly loosen the death-grip on their laser-sighted muskets long enough to pull the B-Rack lever.

Horror of post-Halloween horrors, I can't believe we're willing to trust our country to an admitted Community Organizer! Somehow, I couldn't seem to hear Giuliani snickering this morning.

George The Younger's two terms of follies, alternately incompetent & corrupt, have been like the full extent of a perverse experiment: how many grotesquely wrong turns a country can take if we insist on placing the national reins in the hands of the royally underachieving and privileged for Eight Fucking Grind-Along Years. What a wild, nuts-to-the-Halliburton-built Wall, Neo-Con-tastic ride it's been. In order for a worthy black candidate to at last get the nod, did the most shamefully smug honky devil imaginable really have to take us to the outskirts of hell so directly? And in a Boeing-built handbasket, no less (Made in China)?

Even Bush, consummate wordsmith that he is, couldn't find too many complimentary terms for McCain's campaign this morning. He dubbed the Straight To the Fear-Mongering Gutter Express "determined." That's akin to calling McCarthy a "workaholic." The words "principled" and "honorable" oddly did not spring to mind, I reckon.

My foremost fear was that Bush, Cheney, & Co. would announce that the Administration had no choice but remain in power indefinitely, until we officially won the War on Terror (returns still trickling in). Or until Oliver Stone's "W." turned a profit, whichever comes first.

And count me among those who find it truly creepy for Bush to be referring to Obama's family in his remarks. It comes off as some Crawford-via-Connecticut mobster's folksy threat.

KudoSurf Me!

KudoSurf Me!

Extremist Satanic Toys Exported to Catholic Black Site For Further Exorcism

2008-10-23T17:01:00.000-07:00

From The Week Magazine's "Good Week For/Bad Week For" File:
----------------------------------------------

Bad week for:
Cultural paranoia, after dozens of parents in Oklahoma returned Fisher-Price's "Little Mommy Real Loving Baby Cuddle and Coo" doll, claiming it mumbles, "Satan is king" and "Islam is the light."
------------------------------------------------

I'm personally shocked that Republican technology has not allowed them to slip "I'm Barack Obama and I approved this message" into the subliminal repertoire.

Incidentally, does this doll roll with Lucifer or Allah? Pick a side, you wishy-washy study in idolatry, you can't be down with all the deities!

Note: If America's the Great Satan, wouldn't basic math dictate that we're consequently The King of Countries, according to the Gospel of Cuddle & Coo (New Testament)? So what if satanic monarchy's incompatible with secular democracy? U-S-A! U-S-A!

KudoSurf Me!

You Say Obama, They Say...

2008-10-12T14:08:00.000-07:00

From the Associated Press:

AP
NY election mix-up: 'Osama' on the ballot

By RICHARD RICHTMYER, Associated Press Writer Fri Oct 10, 6:09 PM ET

TROY, N.Y. - Who is running for president? In an upstate New York county, hundreds of voters have been sent absentee ballots in which they could vote for "Barack Osama."

The absentee ballots sent to voters in Rensselaer County identified the two presidential candidates as "Barack Osama" and "John McCain." In the United States, the best-known individual named Osama is Osama bin Laden, leader of the al Qaida terrorist group behind the 2001 attacks that destroyed the World Trade Center in New York City.

The typographical terror error was first reported by the Times Union of Albany.

The elections office faxed a statement in which the two commissioners, Democrat Edward McDonough and Republican Larry Bugbee, said they regret the error but never acknowledge what the error was.

"It's human error, it's very unfortunate, it's an embarrassment to our office, obviously," McDonough said in a later phone interview. "We wish we could turn back the clock, but we can't."

When they discovered the mistake, officials shredded the remaining "Osama" ballots and mailed correct versions to the roughly 300 people who had already received them. McDonough said the "Osama" mistake was made in only one of the 13 ballot versions mailed throughout the county, located east of the state capital of Albany.

Voters who received both versions will be allowed to send in either one and have it counted, McDonough said.

Obama spokesman Blake Zeff said the campaign is "glad officials are working to correct this error and we assume it won't happen again."
__

AP Writer Devlin Barrett in Washington contributed to this report."

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Barack being slipped, Freudian-style, by Fox News fans, onto the Al Qaeda ticket (Slogan: If you vote for a third party, the terrorists win) is one thing. But how to explain Biden being billed as "Joe Jong Il"?

This is some Trojan Horse ballot tactic on the part of Troy, N.Y., trying to replace our Democratic Donkey with some sleeper cell mule decoy, all to scare off the skittish voter who thinks the Axis is tampering with our ballots.

Either that or they'll believe Palin's line that Barack is "palling around" with the enemy, to the point where his name has actually morphed to take on a new terrorist consonant. Today's fatwa, sponsored by the letter "s".

Now, how to make McCain's name look like Ahmadinejad?

KudoSurf Me!

At Last, A Patriotic Card Fit For Your Freedom Bike's Spokes

2008-10-12T08:14:00.000-07:00

A must for any Tarot-Card-Fearing NeoCon's collection (The Not-Playing-With-A-Full-Deck Series):

http://buzzfeed.com/lindseyweber/garbage-palin-kids-ru

Princess Palin may not have a hard-on for same-sex marriage, but that's one hell of a hemi-powered strap-on she's sporting there. Is her Straight Talk Express headed straight for War with Russia (she can spy the whites of their eyes from her house!)?

Shuffling the Pre-Emption Deck with the vintage Terrorist cards would make for a mighty high-stakes game of War (Texas Stud?). The Maverick-in-Chief card (a reprehensible Melanoma McCain cartoon comes abominably to mind, making us all fear the reaper that would usher in an Age of Cuda) should be a collector's dream.

I remember the Fangoria-caliber horror of those Garbage Pail Kids cards from childhood. They seemed coated with the contaminants depicted on their faces. Those ghoulish children (our future featuring Nuclear Power) haunt all our dreams.

Finally spied an Obama-Biden sign cropping up on our Main Street, amidst the hostile sea of scary McCain-Palins (Halloween's a'comin'!). Nice to see even Anderson Cooper picking up on Palin's wink-a-thon from the VP debate some time ago. I thought her programming was shorting out; either that or she was signaling hockey moms everywhere to start drilling for independence with their sticks where they stood.

KudoSurf Me!

Palin Promises to Ban All Books About the Bush Administration

2008-10-03T21:05:00.000-07:00

90 Minutes of Palinvision makes for a mighty thin moose stew. The disparity between the Alaskan Sheriff's lousy showing so many saw, and how the news outlets assessed it, reliably gaped. Republican pundits desperately spun and spun the performance, all as if dizzily auditioning for the sequel to Juice.

A New York Times blurb read something to the effect of "Republican VP stands her ground"; what uncertain footing, pray tell, was that? Rapidly melting arctic turf, the cause of which she steadfastly refuses to acknowledge?

Palin-speak, twitching with her transparent arsenal of winks and smirks, stays confined to the "Maverick" McTalking points. Her clunky attempts to appear "average" came across as desperate, almost grotesque.

Incidentally, what's with this compulsive Maverick trade-marking? I'm a Maverick, he's a Maverick, wouldn't you like to be a Maverick too? Sounds like some strange new conformity--the Maverick Men Marrying the Stepford Wives. Is marketing a new line of moose-lined Maverick jeans part of Palin's plan to resuscitate the manufacturing sector? The more endangered the species, the more relaxed the fit.

And "Joe Six-Pack," Sarah? Really? Aren't you leaving out his forgotten friends Tommy Two-Nuts, Eddie Extraneous Testicle, not to mention Meth-Fiend Frank? Pretty exclusionary rhetoric, you ask me. Is a six-drink minimum the requirement to sufficiently wash down such shallowly drilled snake-oil? If a voter didn't feel such lines were painfully pandering, well then, Mission: Pander Accomplished.

It was all like watching some prime-time infomercial, a tupperware party the hyper-folksy host tries to keep vacuum-sealed so that none of the air of honest interaction gets in or out. I would imagine the doors to such a party being similarly sealed to prevent all potential converts from escaping the conformity of her Maverick cult (Pentecostal Denomination).

The moderator kept trying to steer her back to the question at hand, while the Governor tried to package her scripted inflexibility as Straight Talk. That stubborn Straight line traveled its alternate-universe path parallel to the topic for a fair portion of the debate. When she skated off on some of her alpha-female folksy autopilot tangents, Biden scratched his neck and smiled, vaudeville-style, like a doctor who wished to slowly back out of the hockey mom/mental patient's (Jason Voorhees' mother)'s cell. All while her frighteningly "confidential" winks continue unabated.

The consensus has been that "Biden won, Palin exceeded expectations". Holy Higher Father, Dubya was such an expectations-plummeting pioneer that the Republican Bar their Special Olympian candidates currently have to clear is refraining from incontinence while reading from note cards. With Depends technology being what it is, we have no way of knowing if McCain is consistently rising to that standard.

Sarah Palin came off as one of the flimsily informed folks the networks talk to after the debate. They like how safe, and how unrepentantly proud the conservative's platitudes made them feel, and seem somewhat more of an unhinged fringe mindset than the candidates themselves. Great Reagan's Ghost, we think, the candidate's quite mad, but thank the wrathful lord that lady's not running the country. Yes indeedy, Palin's that lady.

As much as the right wing likes to reject the evils of science, Palin appears to have been cultivated in a frozen test tube over just these past eight years. Her unreflective refusal to take part in any of that "blame game" devilment regarding her party's two-term product feels ominously...Bush-esque. Which is their interpretation of "Presidential," I reckon.

KudoSurf Me!

Those Thousand Points of Light Were Parachutes

2008-09-30T15:58:00.000-07:00

This Henry Paulson bloke comes across as a parched, unshaven vampire venturing out into the Congressional daylight, trying to bum $700 billion bucks' worth of blood when the economy's already hemorrhaging. And as a militant blood-phobe, this painfully strained metaphor pains me greatly. I could picture the bailout bill passing, and a slight sinister smile passing Paulson's lips, free market fangs glinting.

The color would slowly come back into the lean hollows of his cheeks, and a lustrous shock of shining black hair would spring from Secretary Nosferatu's forehead--Surely, some of those bailout doubloons would be rerouted into executive hair transplantation. Count Paulson and his creatures of the night rise from their Wall Street crypts not merely replenished, but bullish! Whatever such words mean.

Perhaps this imagery creeps to mind with Halloween one month away, and with investment banks already thrusting forth their trick-or-treat sacks. What will they want for Christmas? Strolling the costume aisles of the local Dollar Store (didn't spy any investment bankers in my midst), I saw a stack of leopard-banded purple pimp hats.

Had the banks been fed their bailout loot, I pictured Paulson and his peeps strutting down Wall Street, golden parachutes floating like reflective dead fish inside the tanks of their brittle platform shoes. Those fools bought our bum rap! That reminds me, step aside, bums! Get a job and pay your taxes, so's you can foot our bills, tricks! We needs our treats!

When I think of my ignorance regarding finance, my flimsy thoughts then turn to golf. I know as much about economics as I do golf--which is to say nothing at all. The terminology of both got by me, and will remain beyond me. I can't afford to invest or swing a club--in short, to learn the language regarding either form of green.

So I can't help but believe my skepticism about the bill springs from a knee-jerk reaction--I'm nothing if not a jerk, however garden-variety, and my knees are constantly cracking like twigs. Liquidity, Mutual Funds, Toxic Mortgages, Toxic Avengers, it might as well all be Klingon Creole, or even Spanish--another tongue my native listlissness permitted me to never really learn, fraudulent report cards be damned.

Plenty of folks I'd be generally inclined to agree with--Michael Arcuri, Barney Frank, Obama, My Sainted Mother--are for some sort of bail-out, buy-in legislation. The urgency of it all feels a wee bit suspicious--similar fear-mongering slime clung to Patriotic Acts and Speed-walks to War, as has been pointed out by those pesky progressives.

Somewhere, a Katrina victim's still treading fetid water, and a polar bear does the same aquatic exercise up north to escape Palin's laser sighted-rifle. So wherefore all this all-hands-on-deck panic about august banking institutions, and concepts like credit, which fellers like Bush are so much more inclined to believe in than evolution, socialized medicine, or alternative energy?

Former mental patients might make the best therapists, but I don't think Goldman alumni make for the finest Treasurers--he's sure to get high on his own deregulated supply.

How did that 007 song go? "Goldmansachs... such a cold mansachs, he loves only gold, mansachs! Beckons you, into a portfolio, but don't you go...". Cue rap solo about investing in platinum.

Incidentally, it takes a set of Gold Man-Sacks to try and sell this buy-in con--like bad actors not just demanding another take, but a remake of the entire movie.

And why would we slip Paulson, the Sachs smack addict, so much sweet smack, with no guarantee he'll pay anyone back? What I'm getting at is--legalize smack, dammit! We'll need some depressant on tap to see us through Dubya's Depression.

Meanwhile, Jack Cafferty achieved poetry (and threatened hardcore interpretive dance) today as he claimed that he would "crawl through barbed wire, nude" to get a gander at the Biden vs. Palin debate on Thursday. Coincidentally, that's the very gimmick match TNA has lined up to counter it over on Spike TV. I might attempt the same feat to cross a border should Palin become our Pageant-Queen-in-Chief.

KudoSurf Me!

McCain Flashes His Non-Medic-Alert-Bracelet, Harumphs: Foiled Again!

2008-09-27T12:36:00.000-07:00

McCain came off as fairly McCranky last night--damn near McKooky. Unable to put the mummy wraps on that twitching grimace masquerading as a tight smile, he appeared constantly out of sorts that he was being challenged and countered by Barack, that young community organizing punk who would not get off his front porch. He communicated much of the testiness one would think he'd be laboring to conceal.

He name-dropped his VP Pick as if to remind his forgetful friends that she still rolls with the Straight-Faced Horseshit Express. Sounded as if he was announcing he'd convinced Fifty Cent to perform for his grand-daughter's sweet sixteen party, a lucky diamond-studded earmark to the tax-cut package.

And for an ancient intrepid commander full of cataract-cleared vision, he certainly blinked up a storm. For a candidate whose pronouncements often sound like they're coming from some self-important actor--pretentiously encrusted with his own belief in himself as a Statesman Making History With Every Frumpy Attempt at Rhetoric--he violates Michael Caine's rule of not blinking when you want to project conviction. It was as if Cindy McCain was swinging some of her hundred thousand dollar jewelry before his field of vision, if only to hypnotize him into buying them an eighth house. Perhaps he was "blinking" support to his brothers-in-arms, employing a classified ocular language Obama could never hope to comprehend.

And McCain's assertions that Obama "doesn't understand" what you can apparently only achieve when you can clearly see the Grim Reaper waving his bones at you from the fifth row of the debate hall, came off as more exclusionary harumphing from Tom Clancy characters (pasty jowels a-shuddering) than authoritatively presidential. Just because you've rubbed well-oiled elbows with entrenched power for forty years doesn't instantaneously entitle you to the Executive Branch, as petulantly convinced as McCain is that he deserves it.

If McCain hadn't endorsed Dubya back in 2004, having gone ahead and taken it up the party line petoot after the nasty primary Bush put him through in 2000, I might be more inclined to buy that bottled "Maverick" aftershave he's selling. First off, nothing screams rebel reformer like scurrying off to Kissinger for constant counsel. But he's also more politically desperate than principled--plucking Palin from the Global Warming-Scorning, Creationist depths of the right wing is evidence of that.

If he's so dedicated to the beliefs that separate him from the hockey stick chick who saves firearms for polar bears who won't pay for their rape kits, why would he place her one maverick's stroke away from the Oval Office? Either he's convinced he's invincible, or that his presidential fortunes are so precarious that he has no choice but to choose a governor who sounds as if she's uneasily regurgitating her recollections of Bush's abstract rhetoric. She came off as a concerned, defensive mother who has been made to feel "safer" after one of the Decider's speeches.

McCain will whittle the budget down until veteran's services remain the only aspect left uncut. Lucky for us, as Johnny's temperament might try to make veterans of every citizen of freedom-defending age.

Nice to see Obama, who countered McCain fairly promptly all night, call him on his rhetorical poker. When McCain tried to introduce his soldier's accessory into Patriotic Evidence, Obama nicely deflected the Republican beam with a bracelet of his own.

The Deaths of Ian Stone: Everybody Must Get Stoned (Especially Ian)

2008-09-24T15:12:00.000-07:00

The Deaths of Ian Stone
Director:Dario Piana
Writer:Brendan Hood
Starring Mike Vogel, Jaime Murray, Christina Cole, Michael Feast
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Next up on the "Films to Die For" Docket: The Deaths of Ian Stone, which purports to offer the viewer plenty of fatalities-for-their-dollar, with an added environmentally-sound twist: it's recycling! Every toe tag attached to the title character.

Not sure how many Ian-Stone-Stiffs I'd rate this one, no matter how many times its purty boy protagonist perishes. Perhaps if a fresh crappy thespian appeared on the conveyor-belt-to-Freddy-Krueger's-Boiler-Room each time (Kutcher, Affleck, Sandler, Wahlberg, DiCaprio), but then it would eventually amount to the worst cast since, well, on of the Nightmare on Elm Street sequels.

Stone's certainly not as worth the death of approximately 90 minutes of life as Mulberry Street. From the start, this tale and its tone felt a lot more formulaically polished, and so expectations immediately dipped for me.

But the premise is intriguing indeed: A young man (Mike Vogel) appears to be attacked and killed on the way home after a hockey game, only to "awaken" from the nightmare of that first of a franchise of deaths in a new life (same name), and a new girlfriend ominously named Medea (Jaime Murray). As his mortalities accumulate, his awareness about his own serially-killed rut begins to grow.

We still seem ahead of the curve at the start of each life's "take", however, which is how the movie earns its legitimate tension. The deaths-that-don't-stick device makes the movie quite fun, at least for a fairly long while.

Rather than the recurring Groundhog Day loop of the trapped hero waking up in the same place, at the same time, on the same day, Stone is instead "reincarnated"--he's still Stone, but in entirely different, disorienting circumstances (paper pusher, cab driver, smack addict), albeit surrounded by an eerily, increasingly familiar ensemble; it can all be interpreted as cinematic "karma" from the last death, but it also amounts to a nifty metaphor for the simultaneously erratic and routine nature of life.

The same human can fall victim to any number of "fates," and can find him or herself in all sorts of unrelated occupations in an effort to survive (or in Ian's dispiriting case, only to die). That Ian is an American in Great Britain, a traveler touring an English dream-scape, contributes to the surreal feeling of alienation that Stone keeps intact for its first few acts or so.

As the awareness as well as the enactment of his expirations mounts, Ian Stone starts to understand that his daily deaths come courtesy of a pack of wraiths. The movie's monsters are comprised of equal parts wrinkles and black smoke--think a charbroiled Iron Maiden mascot, or the offspring of Alien and Keith Richards--a one-nighter both would prefer to forget, if their weren't so damned many of them. The creatures (somewhat predictably) feed on human fear when they stick to their low-carb diet, actual life force once they get the fever for that terrified flavor.

The movie both lives and dies by the multiple-death gimmick. Things do grow more suspenseful, but perhaps more synthetically so, as Stone racks up the lost lives of a video game character. The film finally tries for more substance to match its identical-body count by making a statement about the power of love (with no musical help from Huey Lewis).

It receives some much needed support from a pair of standout performances: Michael Feast provides real resonance as Gray, Ian's lone guide and (disposable) life coach, and he pulls off the movie's most preachy monologue as only such a veteran pro could.

And the Rookie-of-the-Picture nod easily goes to Jaime Murray, who makes for a mighty alluring, vivid "heavy." Why they insist on sticking with the virtuous blond (Christina Cole) vs. Veronica-as-Villainess conventional dynamic, I'll never know.

In any event, Murray manages to impart her character with personality, even in the special effects-enshrouded anonymity of Meddy's true, monstrous form.

Rebooting the Bush-bot (now featuring actual bush!)

2008-09-18T18:46:00.000-07:00

The apolitical, common-ground-amongst-heterosexuals gag used to go something along the lines of "I Love Bush", meaning the female hoo-ha (not to be confused with hoo-rah--Support them Troops, particularly the ones sporting hoo-has). The lesbians lipsticked their line in the munched carpet: "I Love Bush"--T-Shirt Arrow pointing downwards, while starkly contrasting such anatomical genius with our abomination of a commander-in-chief.

Daily Kos and Huffington Post-ified folks are now branding Palin "Gingrich in Pearls," conjuring up a far more terrifying image than any tarted-up pit bull prostitute. But I think the links correspondents like Jack Cafferty have been making, likening her apparently secretive, ever-constricting Alaskan inner circle to the tone that's characterized the Bush administration to be more appropriate, and thus more ominous.

Palin brandishes the same brand of impenetrable "personality" that won Dubya so many fans, a smug swagger that maddens detractors and satisfies conservatives who want to believe they have nothing to be ashamed of or even reflective about. She's the next logical step in Neo-Con technology, a pro-life, greenhouse-effect doubting creationist who's nevertheless a perennial mom we dare not denigrate. In the spy movie, it's as if the Vagina File fell into villainous hands. Dammit, they've obtained the Ovarian Capacitor!

It's not as if Rove the Republican Warlock supernaturally smuggled a compassionate conservative man into an unsuspecting lady librarian's mortal coil, as idiots like me might like to hypothesize. There are a whole heap of ladies like Palin out there. But, as in the case of Bush the cross-training cowboy brush-clearer, should the Pentecostal hockey mom who's never crossed sticks with a world leader really be so close to the presidency?

Columnist Ellen Goodman recently observed something to the effect of "if Bush is the" (barley- and power-drunk) "president people would like to have a beer with, then Palin's the one women want as their aerobics instructor". One just has to have desperate hope in the American people, that their combined love of booze and hatred of exercise will somehow allow us all to avert disaster.

Mulberry Street: Undead Vermin Invade (Not Just Artists and Investment Bankers This Time)

2008-09-11T11:53:00.000-07:00

Mulberry Street
Written by Nick Damici & Jim Mickle
Directed by Jim Mickle
Starring Nick Damici, Kim Blair, Bo Corre
------------------------------------------

Wanted to briefly but emphatically recommend the movie Mulberry Street, if you haven't already had a chance to check it out. It was part of AfterDark's Horrorfest fleet (class of 2007), a strange collaboration between Halloween and Hanukkah called "8 Films to Die For".

An Infected-Rat-Meets-Human-Flesh, Bubonic-Zombie-Plague-Meets-Manhattan sort of story, it taps into the very real fear of contamination, not to mention the uneasy urban coexistence of apartment dwellers trapped with the rats who so easily outnumber them (and contribute not a lick of rent).

The "Rat People" (Probably Giuliani's pet term for native inhabitants), sadly, are not content to confine themselves to the finer cheeses, certainly not at Village prices.

Endearingly and effectively filmed on a budget that looks like it wouldn't cover a month's rent in a Mulberry Street broom closet, the movie mines much of its organic horror from the threatened, resourceful characters whom we come to quietly but intimately know.

Foremost among them for me were Kay (Bo Corre) a friendly and lonely bartender who has to handle an increasingly rodentine clientele, and Casey (Kim Blair) a scarred Iraq veteran returning to the city to see her father Clutch (Nick Damici), only to be confronted with a different sort of budding war zone. Both offer engaging, haunting performances without saying very much at all.

Through them we experience not only the almost dreamlike desperation and desolation of a crisis borne both of the biological and supernatural, but of the often surreal anonymity that comes with city life itself.

The rest of the Mulberry ensemble span the gamut fron recognizable neighborhood regulars to borderline stock characters, but it all adds up to a fascinating George- Romero-movie-ambushes-Jim-Jarmusch-set sort of feel. It comfortably, confidently inhabits its genre confines, but allows aspects of its time (evictions in an insidiously more homogeneous, less affordable city, faraway wars, fears of terror and disease) to settle around those conventions, so that it carves out its own very specific identity.

Kudos to the movie, too, for not calling itself Rat Race, Man or Mouse?, or Man-Mouse!, for that matter. Instead, the simply, stated location leads one on an unsuspecting walk down the village block, allowing us to experience the vermin-undead outbreak as the inhabitants do.

In the end, the title functions almost as a fictional memorial, an ominous-in-retrospect reference to the around-the-corner horror (both imaginative but strangely imaginable) that befalls its residents.

Palin Speaks, Moms Clutch Soccer Balls

2008-09-03T15:13:00.000-07:00

Apparently Palin's putting her oratorical stank on it this evening. I envision a fighting-back-the-maternal-tears defense of her family and record as plucky Arctic Sheriff.

I agree that the whole impregnated daughter angle is silly scandal fodder; it's certainly something conservatives would morally hyperventilate about, but infinitely more relevant would be her flimsy flip-flopping portfolio as a "reformer" and her rotten Alaskan correspondent reporting on global warming.

Meanwhile, America's Mayor (can we ever escape his jurisdiction?) is sure to dredge up September 11th--strange "medal of honor" to compulsively polish, not to mention hinge an entire presidential campaign upon--while brandishing a bouquet of plungers in Obama's direction.

Dubya's certain that McCain "learned the lessons" of the terrorist attacks; apart from the fact that they did indeed occur "on September 11th, 2001" (as if G.W.B.'s trying to remind himself for a future quiz), the lesson is: never stop referring to September 11th. That and threaten any nation your squinting eyes inform you is eye-balling you cross-ways.

Cheney's location vis a vis the Convention is classified, which we can assume means he's poised as an honorary sniper with his trusty buckshot rifle approximately four feet away from Palin (duck, Sarah!) in case of security risk. All those deferments allowed him sufficient private time to perfect his secret service marksmanship.

McCain Looks North, Locates Pro-Life Pageant Queen Preserved in Ice-Block

2008-09-02T15:43:00.000-07:00

When the wife and I got word of McCain's VP pick, our pessimist's asylum outpost promptly spiraled into panic attack mode. Our two-nut (yet castrated) consensus was that Johnny Maverick had checkmated B-Rack the night after his nomination. Convinced that the Dems had bet on Black, McCain had hidden his honky Ice Queen well, those crassly calculating NeoCons putting her piece into play when pantsuited menopausal wrath over the averted Hillary coronation was at its zenith.

Surely, I theorized, Halliburton had built this exquisite bee-aye-itch out of equal parts freedom, titanium, and "tough cookies" (full recipe available with campaign contribution), lubricating McCain's Bride with a circulatory system of freshly tapped Alaskan oil and the Allmighty's anointment.

Either that or they'd defrosted Captain America's Mom from a rapidly melting ice chunk (Human-Independent Global Warming be praised!). Diligent Republican praying had surely dreamed this Stepford Wife-ified Tina Fey into being:

A feminist (translation: technically female) who refreshingly renounces most things feminist, boasting a proven winner of a womb whose latest fruitfulness had presented her with the Down's Syndrome Dilemma. She'd passed through that Mother's Trial with flying pro-life colors. Now the Republican prediction is that all hot-flash-afflicted Hillary Clintonites are developmentally challenged to the degree that they'll yank the lever for the first vetted vagina they see through their tears.

One of her sons is set to be launched via Alaska-to-Quagmire pipeline, so you can't claim she's not committed to the war, five years after it began! She's an Alaskan who hasn't had her fill of drilling! She's wouldn't live in a major city, and wouldn't visit without a full quiver of fire-arms, am I right, frightened mothers-of-five? Her hand may be cold but it ain't dead!

She could have out-shot, out-fished, and out trapped that hunter-come-lately Kerry in '04 (though buckshot at ten paces vs. Cheney is any patriot's call), and enjoys her freshly harpooned polar bear without a dollop of Heinz ketchup, dammit! She's open-minded about creationism and prayer in public schools, but not when it comes to that global warming devilment!

In true Dubya style, she may be a head-on idiot, but she's no hypocrite! The pageant champ pursed her lips and squinted her eyes at all posed questions; she assessed all the issues as much as any soccer mom can be expected to, and admirably made all the wrong choices.

Our only hope, I'm reasonably sure, is to green-light Operation: Hermaphrodite, steadily spiking Biden's beverages with estrogen, then--Bam! Introduce his eye-popping implants at the first debate. We've got to keep making history here, and if he takes her to the debate-shed, it was just a spirited discussion amongst dignified ladies.

Spitzer's Investment in Local Whore Economy

2008-03-13T03:56:00.000-07:00

Eliot Spitzer's hooker-binging came as quite a legitimate shock. The wife & I heard it on the radio as we got settled into the car, and it felt like sliding into some alternate universe. It supposedly signalled another "loss of innocence" for New Yorkers placing faith in a straight shooting (the ladies can attest to this) crusader who claimed he'd cut through entrenched State-sponsored dysfunction.

Personally, he's restored my faith in Hollywood formula. Never again will I question a political thriller's ploy of presenting a character's contradictory dichotomy: a public official conspicuously cracking down on corruption in public, then industriously plumbing every crack of every crack-whore he can uncover in private. One of my main grievances with Spitzer's scandal is that it's so standard, so old-school Lecherous Politicion. Photos surfacing of the saggy Governor in garters, receiving cat o' nine tail welts from his constituents, represented in the strict town hall of a plush hotel room by a curvaceous cat-suited dominatrix, that sort of thing.

That a man who nearly snagged a perfect score on his SATs didn't have the sense to keep his scandals gray, obscure, tedious, and real-estate related leads one to suspect that he somehow wished to be caught (and punished, you naughty public servant). But then again, if Spitzer had legislated in the era of Old New York, such escapades might have been seen as the spoils of elected office, and not been met with such scrutiny. And what's the point of busting your trust funded hump studying, achieving, excelling, and crusading if you can't scare up some high-priced, disease-screened tail on the side, says the Spitzer internal monologue? In any case, he tossed his Republican adversaries the most meaty bone imaginable.

I also have to take issue with the Governor giving a fascistic enterprise like "The Emperor's Club" his money and multiple money-shots. If he had instead contributed to a cathouse entitled "The Whores For Universal Health Care Collective," one could at least argue he was engaged in the people's business, polishing his gubernatorial knob while getting his hands dirty and shorts stained to make good on campaign promises.

Prostitution (of the luxuriantly compensated and uncoerced kind) probably ought to be legalized; but Spitzer rounded up escorts with whom he didn't traffic with attention-grabbing relish, which is one of the more infuriating aspects of the story.

It's just a damn shame that one has to personally service the governor to keep a decent studio apartment in New York City. Having to absorb the frightening facial expressions of Spitzer Experiencing Pleasure (sharp, fixed grins finally twitching, squinting eyes, tousled combover, the awful fervent grunts of a fiscal conservative at last desperately "cutting loose") would have most shaken hookers unloading their paychecks on talk therapy, I would think.

The headless photos on the flophouse's website featured an Emperor's skank stable looking almost skeletal; a salad-fed, fitness club-whittled assortment almost indiscernible from the stereotypical physique of the nervous politician's wife. Why he didn't leaf through the back pages of the Village Voice and support a still smaller business sporting more generous proportions and competitive prices I'll never know.

Huckabee a Holy Mole, Says the Wife

2008-02-15T02:50:00.000-08:00

Mike Huckabee refuses to cash in his campaign chips, collection plate, and Presidential combover. As the preacher persists in his increasingly bleak crusade, he nevertheless exposes weaknesses in the McNominee-to-be with a fair share of the Republican base.

As long as the Reverend Governor holds off on anointing him, conservatives don't have to "settle" for McCain the amateur Baptist, and so the party continues to appear fragmented. But primary diversity's a good thing as long as it lasts, isn't it? Even if that variety reveals that a large swath of constituents aren't so hot on a separation of church and state?

But Jemmy Delva (Rural Roustabout if you're nasty) floated the notion that Huckabee's a Democratic double agent. Hiding in plain smiling sight under an incredibly deep cover of holy water, he's holding his breath until it's as clear as H2O filtered at the font that McCain can't count on certain crucial conservatives. These were the discounted folks Bush summoned from the brush with a single primal thump of the bible to snag him the 2004 election.

I think the wife may have been unduly influenced by Ric Flair's endorsement of Huckabee, seeing a Democratic "face turn" where there's no wrestling angle afoot here at all. I'd like to think I saw a donkey warming himself next to the Crucifix of Pure Light in that Christmas with Mike campaign ad. But there were no beasts of burden in subliminal sight, even if a rabbinical burro in the nativity background would have made perfect pious sense.

What we may have instead is the affable Huckster just hanging around like a football team who prays from every sacramental snap to that last Hail Mary pass. He won Kansas, possibly because the state is more inclined to believe in Winged Monkeys serving the Wicked Witch representing N.Y. than the theory that we evolved from the flightless variety. And don't start them on Bill the blowjob-conjuring Warlock.

All I know is that it was quite jarring to see Obama holding his rousingly Huxtable-tastic House Party a couple of days ago, only to cut to the dry, crusty, harumphing McCain Faculty function elsewhere. I found myself experiencing a knee-jerk conservative reaction to an Obama campaign banner (isn't it "Change in Which We Can Believe" rather than "Change we Can Believe In" you slang-slinging Change-peddling young punks?), but when McCain starts strangely calling his listeners "Friends" I slowly start facing Canada, setting my feet in the starting blocks. Aren't all his friends war veterans, and isn't McCain still a fan of foreign conflicts? I have a feeling "Friends" isn't a reference to those Al Qaeda-coddling Quakers.

Candidates Battling and Departing, Modest and Indecent Proposals

2008-01-30T02:55:00.000-08:00

Somebody fire off a forty-one shot salute, it looks like Giuliani may be plungered out of the Presidential Race. How could so many voters be so ungrateful after the Rudinator singlehandedly got us all through 9/11, bedevilled prostate be damned? I'd been steeling myself for some ever-expanding Giuliani regime for some time now. Whether it was as Senator, Governor, or Dictator, I was convinced I could never consistently escape his prickly jurisdiction.

Now Romney seems to be on the ropes, with only the Book O' Mormon to give him strength. Fred Thompson was the Action Movie Authority Figure candidate, but of all these Manchurian mofos, Mitt has always struck me as the most frightening. He seems very much like Martin Sheen in The Dead Zone, concealing his fascist, warmongering leanings until he converts the Oval Office swivel chair to throne and sidles up to all them bright buttons. Meticulously, conventionally "Presidential", I'd expect him to be emceeing freaky Skull, Bones, and multiple wife rituals, decked out in flowing purple Druid robes in the dead of night. Like Dave Chappelle once observed about the Honky member of a crew going overboard to prove himself to his home-slices, Romney's trying to establish his conservative street cred in a crash course, and it's looking mighty crass and severe.

Not looking forward to crowning Queen Hillary. She and her hatchet man hubby are growing increasingly nasty. I don't know what all this "snubbing" business is about, but I'd give the political prison yard shankers the Clintons a wide berth. Hillary liable to plant a cocaine packet in Barack's breast pocket, and Bill's likely to procure a blowjob from Michelle all to shake Obama up directly before a debate.

I saw a clip of the Hillster on an interview show as she was busting out real estate scandal scraps to the suspicious masses, and her strange dully predatory smile looked very much like the beatific smirk on that Little Shop of Horrors Plant. Audrey II or Clinton II, I'm not sure I could vote for either ticket at this point.

Obama needs to announce a newly transsexual Bill Richardson as his vice presidential candidate right about now. Counter that whole First Woman President angle with a more groundbreaking bilingual lady by choice trump card. Sure, Hillary's some manner of female, but would she do it all over again? There's no way of knowing for sure. But with some fundamental campaign/anatomical retooling, Bill R. could be back in the game. And no moderate Tootsie tranvestite half-assery either; it's simply not progressive enough.

Richardson is the most ambitious candidate as far as the environment's concerned, the finest and most seasoned diplomat, and if we're to avoid a nightmare future in which the only African American candidate is an Omega Man Will Smith (I may have to vote for a mutant running on the postapocalyptic Green Party ticket in that case), we need an estrogen-infused, understandedly rouged Bill Richardson at Obama's right hand.

I know what you're saying, why not nominate Mike Gravel for said surgery? Well, isn't that just like today's society? So quick to experiment on the elderly.

The Reaping: As Ye Suck, So Shall Ye Rape (Manna From The Moviegoer)

2008-01-20T14:55:00.000-08:00

As its end credits blast forth (Executive Producer: Kirk Cameron, Plague Consultant: Moses Bruckheimer, Locust Wrangler: Noah XXXVII, Love-Scene Choreographer & Key Grip: Onan Jeremy, Assistant to Ms. Swank: Yahweh), the formerly heathen viewer recognizes The Reaping as a pretty grimly religious yarn. But it's entertaining and engrossing for a few verses.
It clearly believes in its own special effects, for while its lady protagonist sets out as a professional skeptic to puncture plague-ified phenomena, formula decrees that this not be a demystifying exercise in Hollywood Godlessness, Mel Gibson be praised. This would be a waste of millions, hence sacrilege according to the Church of Industrial Light & Dogma. Any film bereft of belief is prophecied to be bereft of box office returns as well.
Haven, Louisiana (the state Bush forgot but his God remembers here) has its first tourist attraction ever in the body of an Old (Testament) School River O' Blood. The Type O swimmin' hole's menstruation coincides with a young Loren McConnell (AnnaSophia Robb) finding her brother dead at its shore. The ostensible fear is that the suddenly bloody backwater, with its library of Bibles and James Patterson paperbacks will only stop to wonder whether stoning or stake-burning makes for a more sound strategy regarding the girl.
Haven's hushed elite summon Holy plothole-poker, Phd., Katherine Winter (Hilary Swank) and partner Ben (Idris Elba) to make quick secular sense of it all. Winter's made a point to make this her forte, a kind of systematic crusade against Biblical evidence she declared after a mission to the Sudan (Good News for viewers fretting about whether they can root for a Faithless Heroine: she was once blessed with belief, and she may yet find it again if we only stay tuned!) wrapped up with its villagers killing her husband and daughter.
The Winters' arrival coincided with a year without rainfall, and the Sudanese held the honkies responsible for hogging the water, or otherwise putting the kibosh on hydration. Their knee-jerk, machete-swing correlation results in the sort of brutally superstitious troubleshooting we might witness should a mindless metropolitan mob ever get their hands on Sam Champion.
The Reaping serves as a poor travel brochure for Louisiana or the Sudan, if these hotspots happened to be your top two vacation prospects.
Doug (David Morrissey) is the Haven native who convinces Katherine to inject the primal Christian climate and its Hemophiliac Lake with a few diluting drops of reason, all to supposedly defuse the situation. He's also the grieving wife and mother's prospective love interest, and so, to cleanse the audience's conscience, he'll consequently turn out to have still more sinister motives in mind than bedding down with a church-shirking widow.
While Katherine tries to pin down the artificial colors in Haven's river ingredients, the plague sequels start to pile up: Kermit's extended relations start dropping, more insects infest the dinner Doug's making than he was really planning to serve his guests, milk starts curdling slightly before its expiration date, and so forth. Periodically, Katherine's also been taking calls from a Father Costigan (Stephen Rea), who acts as her admonishing spiritual guide as well as a link to her Missionary past.
The film in fact opens with the priest pasting together singed photos of Katherine to reveal an Infernal (and of course vaguely Communist) sickle symbol which recurs throughout the story. Costigan experiences more than one in-apartment conflagration, which serves as a note to Protestant slumlords everywhere: never offer shelter to men of the cloth, for they invariably prove to be celibate fire hazards.
As plague follows plague in God's punishing parade, Ben is more inclined to go with the gory, pestilential flow of Biblical narrative. Katherine, however, adheres to her Church of the Scientific Method, all until things grow too expensively spooky. A monologue her character forcefully delivers in rebuttal to Ben's suspicions, in which Winter details an incidence of consecutive plague hoaxes and the scientific origins underlying each one, is one of the most interesting and compelling moments in the film.
It turns out to be much more so, in fact, than what The Reaping's plagues actually turn out to be. One of Reap's sneaky revelations is that it's not a forensic probe of what might be causing such freaky phenomena. This is abruptly dispensed with, for the film's not up to this sort of rigor. Instead, the story soon turns from the more complex question of "how?" to the simplifying query of "why?".
Instead, in shockingly short order everything boils down to Who is handing out the boils, what Power is bringing the Biblical pain to Haven: Is God (Morgan Freeman) playing his own sadistic classics, or is Satan (Al Pacino) doing his dead-on Jehovah impression? In the King James Version of Clue, was it The Lord in the field with the gnats, or Scratch in the infirmary with the lice?
The Reaping remains relatively engrossing for a surprisingly long time, but the more holy it gets, the more heavy its hand grows, eventually spinning out of control as it tears out Bible pages and whips out the increasingly spectacular plagues. As with so many such fables, it only becomes more sloppy as it tries to neatly tie things together.
Messily whirling towards its pat conclusion, it begins to feel like a bloated Theme Park Ride escalation of Rosemary's Baby (Confession to Father Polanski: I've been too superstitiously palpitating of heart to ever see that tale through to its Anti-Christ's conclusion).
Some of The Reaping's final pronouncements are almost desperately preachy and pandering, as if to leave a locust wing's worth of ambiguity about its beliefs would trigger that most dreaded of plagues: the buzzing, bloody-throated wrath of the Religious Right.
In the end, the seeds The Reaping plants are far more intriguing than the harvest that finally emerges.

The (Burger) King of New York: Confronting The Horrors of a Whopper-less World

2008-01-18T03:16:00.000-08:00

Burger King's betrays the smugness of their monarchistic leanings with their latest campaign. These fascist fast food terrorists pull the flame-broiled rug right out from the crackheaded constituency so loyal to the throne. The surveillance footage captures kamikaze employees claiming their masters have discontinued the almighty Whopper just to see what sort of slobbering rise it gets out of them. A suspicious approach from peddlers of still more suspicious meat.

Those cashiers who've so foolishly entered the monkey cage watch as the pavlovian lunchers dutifully throw wide-eyed fits, clawing the air and screeching in Whopper-deprived tongues, doing everything but cast the feces of more thoroughly processed patties (lamenting Whoppers past) at their name-tagged tormentors.

Would smack dealers show such contempt for their customers served? Has the Hamburglar, for all his petty thieving, ever sought to create panic of such breath-taking scope? Make no mistake, Burger King has abandoned the potential dignity of royalty that the shining citadel of White Castle alone attempts to preserve, letting us all know society hangs by a horse-hair. Bootlegging pretenders to Kingship would be forced to try and decipher the secrets of chimera-meat, going blind and mad in their special sauce-frothing bathtubs. The drive-through speakeasy scene will thrive, while those who don't know the password will stagger about, craving the single substitute available to them--human brains.

By God, my Leige, don't cut us off from the salt-encrusted perfection of your fry supply as well. That would truly be beckoning the apocalypse.

2008 Pro Wrestling DVD Forecast: Will WWE Distort The Madness?

2007-12-30T11:12:00.000-08:00

Recently, I read that the WWE is slated to release a Randy Savage DVD set around Thanksgiving of 2008 (more appropriate for a Gobbledygooker retrospective, an ominous sign). This is all Six Degrees of Website-Separation from a Wrestling Observer report (riddles wrapped in enigmas wrapped in impenetrable DVD plastic--Madness Indeed!). Nevertheless, the following nonsense documents my initial panic over pomp, circumstance, and WWE spin:

Oh, Lordy. I was praying over a stack of Slim Jims that there'd be some eleventh-hour (or eleventh month) rapprochement between the Madness and McMahon camps before the Savage dvd set emerged. Don't Release Retrospectives Angry, WWE!

I researched this thoroughly (i.e., Googled "11/18 Macho Man Randy Savage dvd set" and stared at the monitor, waiting for results). I was, after all my efforts, oddly unable to trace the site source.

Instead, on one message board, posters were bandying about the dreaded "Self-Destruction of the Ultimate Warrior" scenario.

So I don't know if Savage's dvd will include frank shoot testimonials from all available experts (The Brooklyn Brawler, Brother Love, Miscellaneous McMahons) about his overall unprofessionalism and eccentricities.

This, coupled with a thoughtfully handpicked assortment of his most historic matches (WM 5 loss to Hogan, a tainted victory over Doink, capped off with his final epic port-a-potty feud with Rodman).

Bret Hart's set was apparently to be entitled "Screwed" before he intervened. I don't know if we have a "Self-Destruction of Sammartino" dvd to look forward to. If Flair wasn't firmly in the "Evolution"-ary fold, would his release have been a skewed portrayal of his accomplishments in the "bush leagues" of the NWA/WCW?

From the sets I've seen (Flair, Hart, Rise & Fall, etc.), I've grown a little leery of the "definitive" WWE take on wrestling's past, even when they're apparently praising their subjects. I can't help but detect a hint of propaganda in their tone, even then.

Ah, hell, I'm Leaping the Lanny Poffo nearly a year ahead of the set's hypothetical release. Between now and then, there's still time for the Macho King to kiss McMahon's ring (Ass Club Memberships are absolutely off the table), and for Savage and Cena to collaborate on a groundbreaking hip-hop cd.

Despite my babbling anxieties (all symptoms of the Everything & Nothing that is the Madness), a compilation of obscure skits, vignettes and promos from one of pro wrestling's real and most charismatic originals will be difficult to resist. WWE, too, will be hard pressed to exclude great matches with Jerry Lawler, Tito Santana, Rick Steamboat, & Diamond Dallas Page, among many others. When WWE hunkers down to engage the footage, they too will find themselves susceptible to the Madness, as are we all.

I'm still somewhat of a WWE fan, but it's just a wee bit depressing that every star interested in his own professional legacy has to first make peace with the Pro Wrestling Roman Empire. To the Monday Night victors go the spoils, I suppose, and that includes the pens that (re-)write "wrestling history."

The McMahon grudge against Savage also seems more mysterious and intractable than other "feuds." I know the source of the spat's been extensively speculated upon.

Apparently, the words "Randy Savage" are not supposed to be uttered in Stamford, as if repeating his name three times will conjure up an elbow drop from an undisclosed top turnbuckle.

Not to say none of the aforementioned flaws or eccentricities don't exist, and shouldn't be addressed in a documentary. But I hope that one of wrestling's particularly electric personalities, one of the legends who inspire impressions the way great character actors do, will be invited to the retrospective party, and that the end product won't an all-out roast in ridicule of one of the company's Hall of Fame contributors. Don't misdiagnose the Madness, or sell it entirely short.

TNA Impact 12/27: AJ's Options--Cage, Angle, or the LWO?

2007-12-28T14:31:00.000-08:00

This week's Impact actually had a title: "A.J.'s Dilemma." More promising than runners-up like: "Don West's Primal Scream Therapy," "Who Wants More Briefcases?", "Pac Man's 2-Hour Promo" or "Kip James' Iron Man Invitational", to be sure. Still, it didn't set the show off on a spontaneous note. It was as if the TNA writing staff were trying to remind themselves to stay focused on an angle (involving Angle).

The opening backstage interview with Styles and Tomko was well done, in that it reminded us that they're the tag champs (something Impact really lost sight of last week), and established some dynamics to TNA's main storyline: A.J. still deludes himself that The Heels Can Live As One, and that he can keep his adoptive parents, Christian Cage and Kurt Angle, together. Tomko, meanwhile, has quietly "made his decision," while not revealing which faction has his vote, which added an intriguing wrinkle.

An entertaining in-ring segment followed, in which Cage insisted that he was responsible for every last little bit of A.J.'s pro wrestling accomplishments. Christian outrageously demanding recognition for Styles' TNA resume even before The Instant Classic ever physically appeared in the Impact Zone was a nice bit of heel megalomania. A.J. at one point corrected his mentor's stats, which lowballed his championship reigns. This was a neat little moment, too, and a hint that the Phenomenal Toady was finally standing up for himself.

There was a useless segment in which Karen Angle burst into her husband's dressing room, only for us to met with a lowbrow sight gag which implied that the Olympic Champion was being somehow serviced by a kneeling Jeremy Borash. We're all well aware that this is how Borash keeps his job, but this nonsense puts Impact in some sophomoric limbo between a DX segment and a Police Academy sequel. A drawn out and awkward exchange between Kurt and Karen followed, centered around him mistakenly calling "Solomon Brothers" shoes "Parker Brothers," a bit that must have seemed hilarious to the Angles as they rehearsed it in bed.

Impact's first match featured Judas Mesias more or less squashing the departing Senshi, but in unimpressive fashion. Mesias' predictable mouth-hemorrhaging in leiu of pre-match promo points to some problem with high blood pressure. Involuntary bleeding aside, he looks pretty terrible in the ring. He mustered little more than a few paunchy charges and lethargic clotheslines, and left viewers thinking that the pink slip should been blood-drenched, and the luggage parting gift should have gone to Judas instead of the Fallen Angel. Fill the complimentary briefcase with some clotting agents, while you're at it.

According to West and Tenay's calculations, Mesias' finishing move transports his opponents Straight to Hell. Curiously, it still leaves said jobbers on the canvas, well above the orchestra. Apparently, Hell is still above the best seats in the Impact Zone, and Orlando tourists shouldn't be so happy about having first row tickets to its Six Sides.

Robert Roode, who just lost to Booker T a few Impacts ago, somehow feels vindicated that he's got another match with him this week. Although I couldn't disagree more, I did burst out laughing when he referred to Booker's "Beast of a Wife." Roode speaks to Ms. Brooks the same way Cage does to his own personal valet, A.J. Styles. My wife was struck with the freakish dimensions of Ms. Brooks' implants, which remained artificially resilient and perky as she absorbed his abuse.

Before the Booker-Roode rematch could begin, Karen Angle accosted Sharmell, taking her to the floor outside the ring in elaborate slow motion. It looked more like a minor disagreement between two brittle, flightless birds in high heels than any sort of catfight. Maybe two elderly, spayed cats agreeing to lie down at the same time. It should have broken down into lesbian shenanigans, only because it was so unbelievable as a brawl. Before it could get any more painfully unconvincing, Booker T pulled his wife off of Mrs. Angle. Kurt came to the ring and began assaulting the Sultan of Spin-A-Roonie. Breaking with more-guts-than-brains babyface protocol, Booker refrained from taking them on in a handicap match. Instead, he challenged them to a tag team main event later on, with his partner-to-be-named later. Whoever it is, keep them away from the egg salad buffet.

A vignette aired claiming that "the X-Division will not go down without a fight" against the Dudleys. Why should they? Aren't they an entire division up against the unbeatable odds of two ever-expanding table deconstructionists? The Division has more to fear from the TNA bookers, I think.

There was a good bout between the Motor City Machine Guns and Styles/Tomko. Styles entertainingly tried to confer with West and Tenay before the match about whether he should choose Angle's stable (Karen, Roode, and Borash as the embedded reporter) or Cage, Inc. (which currently includes Cage and...Cage). The talented MCMGs are really committed to acting as a cohesive unit, and racked up a nontitle victory with a nifty crucifix/sunset flip combination pin on Styles. Although it was tainted with an Eric Young distraction, their push compares pretty favorably with the treatment of London and Kendrick on RAW.

This set up a funny conversation between Young and Styles (TNA’s slightly slow-witted innocents, face and heel representatives, respectively). In a friendly chat about "choices," Eric confessed how much of a constant struggle it is for him to get through each and every day (deciding what to eat, what to drink, what cell phone to buy, and so forth). It reminded me of the absent minded tangents they used to assign Perry Saturn in the last days of WCW.

Back to the MCMGs: West insisted that Sabin & Shelley are down "with all the young people," and Don indeed has his finger precisely on the pulse of the counterculture; shove a pair of skateboards at them and you might have another Dynamic Dudes on your hands, Don. Hook these 2007 Dudes up with Segways, though.

Cornette took Morgan to task for the gaggle of gimmick matches that dominated the holiday episode of Impact. The viewer was inclined to agree with Cornette's case, especially when he listed the overload of stipulation-heavy contests, one after another, all in a row. The writing team might want to make a habit of this, counting to ten to scare themselves into airing a more straight forward wrestling show. A Christmas Special of "seasonal" matches is fun for one week, but ringing in every Impact with too many gimmick matches makes each seem less "special" than the last one. Break glass in case of programming emergency, but don’t involve broken glass in a match every week. Or any match, for that matter, although, with TNA shattering "The Glass Ceiling" so often, I suppose they’ve got to put the fragments to some kind of destructive use.

Cornette’s cogent rant, however, was promptly countered with Morgan whipping out a letter of commendation from corporate, encouraging them (i.e., the writers encouraging themselves) to "keep the ideas coming!". Signed Jarrett, Russo, & Mantel. I shudder to think what the TNA Think Tank has in store for Black History Month.

Samoa Joe then showed up in his new Rebellious Malcontent persona. He’s frustrated with his push and with wrestling matches taking a backseat to backstage hijinks. Wrestlers making such valid arguments are usually portrayed as Sullen, Defeatist Whiners (See: Chris Harris) or Sadistic Rogues, and Joe seems to be swinging in the latter direction. When Cornette delivers his ultimatum (show up for your match or hit the bricks), Joe storms to the ring in streetclothes and starts pummelling Elix Skipper into the mat. Prime Time scores the DQ Win/Intensive Care showcase package, and, needless to say, the Skipper mega-push is well underway.

Mike Tenay scooped Larry King and Katie Couric by scoring a one-on-one interview with Abyss. He was less evasive than most presidential candidates, and I'd like to see the Bush Administration display some guts and appoint him Press Secretary for the remainder of the term. They'd have to turn him heel first, however.

AJ Styles’ polling of the TNA electorate about what team he should side with resulted in a funny segment on the Dr. Nash talk therapy couch. Here, Big Daddy Freud advised Styles to embrace his "hot commodity" status, and to look out for his own best interests. Nash segments often veer into WCW nostalgia, and he invoked his tours of duty with the NWO once more, in his typical frank low impact-style (no pun(s) intended). Styles then scored innumerable points with Nitro fans everywhere by bringing up the Latino World Order. Calling that hallowed organization up from obscurity made me wonder what’s become of LAX lately. Are there other, classified briefcases we don’t know about, which ban their recipients from appearing on Impact for two weeks in a row?

There was a fairly standard six-woman tag match, in which they lump most of the division into a single segment. I’d thought that the Diva-spoofing Velvet Sky & Angelina Love were airheaded heels, but they’re being marketed as "hot", so now they’re fan favorites, paired with Gail Kim against ODB, Roxxi Leveaux, and veteran utility lady Jacqueline. I generally don’t care for the generic TNA entrance music, but Velvet & Angelina’s rock jingle is pretty infectious (when compared to the Rock n’ Rave Infection, anyhow).

ODB must be passing the flask, what with the hooch-fueled "ODB!" chants that kept inexplicably cropping up in the Impact Zone. Kim snagged the pin on Leveaux, who acquitted herself well here with smooth wrestling and blankly spooky facial expressions.

Dustin Rhodes IS...Dustin Rhodes, in a promo segment in which he called out Kaz, claiming not to know why the too- tanned blue-chipper assaulted him the week before. Why is Dustin the only one who gets to forget TNA content? I want to know his secret, and I’ll plunge my head into an Arctic Fox-infested sack to find it. In any case, Kaz can’t get along with this aspect of Rhodes’ psyche either and fisticuffs ensue. Let’s see if he can piss off Gold Dust and make it a schizophrenic trifecta. The feud could culminate in a three-personality-on-one handicap match that would enrage the Mental Health Community.

Speaking of the ‘Duster, I was hoping that he would emerge from the tunnel as Booker T’s mystery partner. Or Stevie Ray, even, if we Harlem Heat-ites can be allowed to hope. Instead, we got Christian, with Capt. Charisma pinning Roode to boost his momentum heading into Final Resolution.

After his win, the Creepy Little Classic demanded Styles sign with one Heel Firm or the other. Angle started to shout his perspiring impatience as well, and the entertaining tension mounted. Styles still could not decide which was the lesser of two evils, or which was the greater, or whether it was wiser to select the lesser or the greater or... See, Dammit, it’s difficult! Styles is playing his character as a likable combination of son Bobby from King of the Hill and John Edwards trying to achieve a consensus among fellow heel Democrats.

During this segment or one like it, Don West bellowed at Styles: "Grow a pair!" Coincidentally, West is offering an Insane Deal on testicles in the merchandise section of the TNA website.

If, at this precise moment, AJ had dashed over to the broadcast table and Pele-kicked West into oblivion, it would have made for a kickass (kick face) Face Turn.

Of course, just as the two devils, Cage and Angle, were on either side of AJ’s shoulder, screaming at each other, Tenay was hollering that we were "Almost Out of Time!" This would have been the perfect moment for Goldberg to come sprinting down to the ring to give AJ sage advice, right before Nitro (I mean Impact) went off the air.

Impact! 12/20: Eric Waits for Santa, Fans Wait For Impact! to Make Sense

2007-12-21T16:20:00.000-08:00

Yuletide Impact was almost a repeat of its Thanksgiving edition, making X-mas feel a lot like Groundhog Day. TNA did another good job of emphasizing the holiday theme--trying to get a viewing tradition started in the process-- all while losing focus on those year-round ornaments known as Title Belts. There were twisted takes on Noel throughout.

A muddled match took place between (see if I can get this Eight Nights of Impact carol straight) The Rock & Rave Infection, Robert Roode, & James Storm (?) Vs. LAX, Booker T, & Scott Steiner. More thought was put into the elegant arrangement of classy Christmas lights decking the Six Steel Sides than to in-ring storytelling. The tasteful decoration allowed all wrestlers to taste metal while bathed in an understated yuletide glow.

A 3-D in Saint Nick Suits-skit followed, and when they introduced their X-Division "guests," you could see the Procession of Midgets/Poor Pro Wrestler-Impersonators coming like the latest lame punch line to a HHH cock joke (please, no snickers at the word "coming," though I think Kevin Nash muttered that reference during another segment).

Another chaotic match occurred involving any number of skanky TNA "Knockouts." The highlight here was Awesome Kong decimating the majority of the participants, and a fiery pull-apart brawl between her and Gail Kim to set up their PPV encounter. Here Kim came across as an admirable scrapper, all while Kong wasn't made out to be a paper monster, responding in kind. This is how TNA might want to promote its male main eventers, although I suppose they already "tried that" with Joe/Angle.

The most freaky take on the Season was undoubtedly the 459th brawl between Rellik, Black Reign, and Abyss. Clearly, they're chasing the Friday the 13th franchise. Sharkboy (this match's Tiny Tim) was thrown into the tank here. It would make more awful Holy War sense if they all honored separate holidays. Black Reign celebrates Kwanzaa, right?

In an attempt to discourage deforestation and promote bloodshed, some sculptor (who must work only in barbed wire) forged a crude Christmas tree out of the Hardcore holly (not to be confused with...Hardcore Holly), and set it in the center of the ring.

Ridiculously, there were ominous "gifts" lurking beneath it, each expression of generosity only inciting more violence.

Rellik opened his package to find he'd been given a single shabby golf club, and he responded with the ridiculous rage any husband or father would. First to find the flaming coal lump has the edge here, I reckon.

Abyss received thumbtacks (again--- I can understand why he's so furious all the time. In the name of Mankind, someone buy him a tacky neck tie!), and these gifts are starting to look suspiciously like stereotypical Hanukkah presents. Why one of the wrestlers didn't smuggle a menorah into the ring in order to blow a timely fireball, I've no idea. Nobody's thinking, at least enough to rip off the original Sheik.

A sack of broken glass was another last-minute gift, and I was reminded of the old Saturday Night Live sketch with Dan Ayckroyd as a scummy toy maker. None of these defective items are returnable, are they? This truly is Hell! No receipt on a pole match? Russo, you disappoint us.

For an added sense of extreme danger, why not toss in a few lead-based toys which were Made in China, but recalled to the Impact Zone? Such manufacturing jobs will eventually be outsourced to Rellik's hometown (The Depths of Hell), I can only assume.

At first, I had no idea what audience TNA was appealing to with this December barbarism. Then I stopped repressing, and recalled a Christmas morning long ago: my mother and father each boasted vicious hang overs, and, what was much worse, I had failed to receive the He-Man action figure I'd specifically instructed Claus to procure for me. Needless to say, an episode eerily like this Impact Zone spectacle ensued (although, truthfully, my parents had much more varied movesets). TNA, you were Killing Me Softly With This Match. No, seriously, it was killing me to watch this. They're desperately catering to my dysfunctional demographic!

Judas Mesias predictably arrived like a drunken uncle to Christmas dinner, and started drooling blood in another obvious cry for help. He simply refuses to see a doctor not named Nash.

In something like a Christmas Miracle, Rellik at last racked up a win. Actually, a Christmas Miracle would have been Sharkboy squashing the opposition. This was more a victory for the face-painted, kilt-wearing Anti-Christ. Every branch has its barb, I guess.

The recurring segment, like Thanksgiving's Angle Family Dinner, was Eric Young hosting a Christmas Mixer, at which he awaited Santa's arrival like Linus expecting the Great Pumpkin to appear, or like wrestling fans waiting for WWE to get the Invasion angle right.

In the meantime, guests from the TNA roster arrived, allowing for wee bits of character development among the midcarders. Chris Harris, for one, was pretty funny, immediately complaining about everything at the party.

Luke of the Bushwackers also put in a welcome appearance (Butch was off on a Hajj pilgrimage, I believe).

When the Jolly Old Elf at last showed up, I was hoping to see Scott Hall no longer dyeing his snowy white beard, stuffing toothpicks and egg salad in everyone's stockings. But I better luck actually believing in Santa Claus.

A very good AJ Styles vs. Kaz main event closed the show. Styles is still toeing the tightrope between comic heel in vignettes, and serious virtuoso in the ring. The stale, still-funny stipulation here, however, was the unparalleled shame (except for the last time they did it) of the loser having to wear a goofy suit curiously custom fitted for Styles. A rudolph outfit was suspended like flying reindeer hide above the ring.

However hokey these segments are, there is still something good-natured about them, even if this one came directly after the Darkside-of-The-Season, Asylum Christmas Special bit with Abyss & Mesias.

Not to say these mascot suits don't carry sobering holiday hazards: in November, AJ had to go undercover as an enormous turkey in the midst of competitive eating titans such as Buh-Buh Ray Dudley and Awesome Kong.
Last night, Styles was forced to play Prancer during deer season, all while loose cannons like the perpetually drunken James Storm and the ghost of Pac Man Jones still roam the Zone.

While Angle had Santa Claus' boot wrenched in an ankle-lock, Christian ran in to close what was truly a WrestleCrap-tastic Impact!. Is Cage a heel or a face at this point? I wish Saint Nick might stick around for awhile, if only to help the writers figure out who's Naughty and who's Nice in the TNA universe.

WWE RAW 12/17: No Snitsky? But, Mr. McMahon, It's Christmas!

2007-12-18T07:25:00.000-08:00

After a largely entertaining RAW Anniversary, the follow-up edition regressed into a bit of a fetal position in a corner of the ring. At least, its Chairman/Greatest-Star-in-RAW-History did.

After a typical pretty-car pile-up of a Divas opener, we were welcomed to yet another journey into the infinitely complex and troubled mind of VKM (not the TNA tag team, thankfully). After an odd Jeff Hardy cameo, Hunter Hearst McMahon showed up as the anointed company "upstart" to Poke Irreverent Fun. This nepotistic storyline chestnut set up the stale, scarcely-stacked-deck scenario of HHH vs. Regal & Coachman. We're off and treading water.

Clearly, we are to surmise that Vince is not of sound mind, for how could a rational CEO expect reasonable viewers to sit through a match featuring The Coach (again)?

Mickie James and Victoria were saddled with the holiday load of carrying their ends of the standard Divas debacle. I was not looking forward to my favorite female wrestler not named Kong or Kim suffering the pinfall, but it stands to reason that the best two grapplers are going to be in the ring for the finish, and only one's going to go over in a meaningless North-PoleDancer- themed affair.

It's my personal belief that the male main eventers should have to work their holiday matches in antlers and Rudolph noses. Six man tags would see the participants dressed as Wise Men. Or deck everyone out in Kwanzaa regalia, for some cultural variety. We have a long way to go in our society, it seems.

I know that Vince McMahon is one of the major heel characters in the company's history, but I can't help wondering if these extended segments chronicling his downward psychological spiral might be better spent developing the characters of actual wrestlers on the roster.

While he was playing pro wrestling's King Lear, crumpled in an inconsolable heap against the ropes, the fortunes of Marella, London, Kendrick, Murdoch and Benjamin, among others, flashed before my eyes, scrolling like a stock ticker beneath his attempt at Method Acting. I don't know if Vincent Kennedy McBrando is putting together a tape to send to the Actor's Studio, but there are some needy Superstars who could use a scrap of promo time.

Once every few minutes of a HHH promo, he makes a joke so sophomoric or dated I'm a bit shocked it got past the crack WWE writing team (i.e., Steph). His moldy "fallen and I can't get up" crack, dusted off like a sleeperhold finisher, was another of those landmark moments. In future weeks, we can expect to hear Tonya Harding and Bill Clinton fellatio references used to cutting edge effect. Actually, didn't he make a Bill Clinton joke a week or so ago?

The Jeff Hardy-Vince confrontation that preceded The Game's routine standup set was predictably awkward, but in an unpredictable sense. It was in theory a solid attempt to set aside a speaking role for the normally laconic Rainbow Haired Warrior, fresh from his victory at the PPV, paving the way for his title match.

The short-and-strange speech that ensued, however, in which Hardy likened McMahon to Saddam Hussein, was another example of pro wrestling stepping out of its depth. In dipping the bright basic colors of its boots into the murky waters of real-life foreign policy, the WWE seemed engaged in another, perhaps indirect attempt to make a political point (promoting next week's overseas special in the process). I understand that pro wrestling (or Sports Entertainment) content is often outlandish, and that Hussein was a "heel" in the most extreme terms imaginable, but this bordered on another of WWE's near-queasy propogandistic moments. I'm also, personally, not looking to experience the McMahon Worldview when seeking escapist entertainment in the least.

After Van Dam's surprising reappearance on the RAW anniversary, I was hoping to see RVD frog-splashing the likes of Snitsky this week. When he didn't show and they made no reference to him, I feared a recreational carpooling incident with Sabu, The Iron Sheik, & Jim Duggan had gone down. But Mr. Monday Night has most likely shifted his office hours to Tuesdays, and will take things to the McExtreme on the Sci-Fi network.

The Rhodes & Holly vs. Cade & Murdoch match was solid and intense, and Ross appeared to truly enjoy the match on commentary. With a second consecutive loss, however, it effectively reinforced C & M's temporary exile from the title picture, which is unfortunate. I'm at a loss as to the whereabouts of RAW's other tag teams--WGTT, Highlanders, etc.. This is aside from London and Kendrick, who jobbed in short order to the new, already entertaining tandem of Marella & Carlito. This pairing looks like a great idea, with Carlito barely able to tolerate the hilarious arrogance of his partner. If this means that a Santino roasting of the tag champs (Holly, Rhodes, and American Dream, Sr.) is in store, then I'm most definitely on board.

I think RAW is wrong to repeatedly squash L & K, however. They've got Rockers-type potential, as Ross pointed out; they're just missing the Michaels endorsement Jeff Hardy received in the main event. That, and HHH recently pummelled them like a pair of jumping Jonathan Coachmans a few weeks ago.

Flair's promo was pretty great; it pretty well covered the Retirement bases as well, however, and I don't know how many more of these speeches he's going to have to deliver on the way to Wrestlemania, if the storyline is in fact set to last that long. The matches Flair's participating in are also more authentically scary than inspirational to watch. Aside from the trademark chops and chop blocks, he's not able to muster much offense at this point, and spends most of the contest absorbing a series of cringe-inducing bumps. He looks like a distinguished senator forced to strip down to his trunks and elude assassination attempts, or endure brutal sparring sessions with burly members of his own security staff.

Bradshaw's Heelery-Via-Satellite vs. Jericho really created the sense of an Untouchable Fat Cat on a Pedestal, who doesn't feel the obligation to explain his self-serving, impulsively vengeful actions to the mortal wrestlers they affect. He registers petulant arrogance and self-indulgence exceptionally well; with a single sullen expression, in fact.

That being said, I'm not particularly looking forward to an in-ring return, or to a JBL/Jericho feud. It came out of nowhere (as many angles should, I suppose), but not in an especially exciting way. Perhaps I don't like it because it represents the abrupt end of the Jericho title hunt (they really snatched the wind out of those sails after one match), or because this notion of the "Wrestling God"'s return doesn't resonate with me. Certainly doesn't stir much nostalgia. I'd be much more game for a revitalized Mick Foley return, but I realize I'm in the extreme minority there. I've lost all sense of what mainstream wrestling fans are after in any case, what with "Bring Back La Resistance" signs appearing in the crowd.

Randy Orton is truly a symbol of the current relatively sterile WWE state of affairs. In his promos, he dutifully delivers his lines in a series of meticulously scripted thuds: "Save...Us?...Spare...Me." (clink), "I've...eliminated...that...virus" (clank), "Becoming...the number one contender...is the worst thing that could have happened to him...(clunk).
He does a solid job, and is a convincing killjoy heel, but the result is often more serviceably, mechanically effective than entertaining. He's the killer of hopes, dreams, and (in the proud tradition of McMahon's NWO) fan interest. Wasn't this also Doink's M.O.?

The main event was fairly good. Michaels' thrilling nip-up-only-to-be-turned-inside-out-by-a-Kennedy-clothesline-in-the-next-breath sequence served as another reminder of what an impressive in-ring performer he remains.

Every wrestler has a well of reliable maneuvers he or she returns to in matches, but Jeff Hardy's "unconventional" moveset sometimes feels more monotonous because his other offense is fairly ragged and a bit sloppy. His Wind-Whispers and Swantons feel more standard than spontaneous as a result. The fact that he went over in this match was intended to present the routine chink in the Orton armor leading up to the PPV, but laid out the likelihood that we won't see Hardy win the strap in that match. We're probably in for the same semi-teasing scenario that saw Hardy "nearly" defeat the Undertaker years ago.

Whether this sort of straight forward, predictable booking (which serves to remind us that the HHH-Orton-Michaels-Cena title scene is pretty set and entrenched) is better, worse, or just a different sort of Biggest Letdown than a Bizarro Impact Zone ruled by revolving briefcases, is up to the frustrated wrestling fan.

TNA Impact 12/13: Who's Feasting, Who's Fired, Who Has To Team With Pac Man Jones?

2007-12-17T06:20:00.000-08:00

TNA Impact 12/13: Who's Feasting, Who's Fired, Who Has To Team With Pac Man Jones?

This week's Two-Hour Impact managed to omit as many TNA stars as its sixty minute version ever did. At the same time, it stretched the "Feast or Fired" concept that should have been settled at its last PPV into a veritable Famine of actual wrestling matches. Multiple abysmal Jeremy Borash-heavy "Deal or No Deal?" Game Show segments dominated as the focal point of a program that still insists upon claiming that it "Is Wrestling."

Wrestling With Consistency, With Viewer Apathy, With Shadows, With Its Identity...All in a Reverse Battle Royal (thumbtacks blanketing the inside of the ring they're all trying to enter, of course).

The tiresome four-briefcase monte concluded with Petey Williams receiving a perfunctory World Title shot and B.G. James getting a Tag Belt opportunity only to declare the DX-Experience defunct. Note to Sean Waltman: This is your chance to strike while the iron is desperate, only to sample the Impact Zone's Suspicious Egg Salad Special (i.e., the Scott Hall Platter) directly before the next PPV.

Meanwhile, Scott Steiner was encouraged to dust off his dormant Frankensteiner to face Jay Lethal in an X-Division title contest, and the Fallen Angel was supposedly excommunicated from the Church of Latter-Day Swerves. The apparent lesson here is that Chris Daniels was foolish to spend years perfecting his moonsaults, and should have instead poured those same efforts into a Sylvester Stallone impression (although it doesn't appear that Petey Williams put in all that much time into his Terminator). Daniels might have at least returned the unsympathetic game show robot's offer of a handshake with an Angel's Wings on his way out the door, jamming the J.B.-1000's circuitry for a little while.

Law of the TNA Universe #768: Imitating an 80's Pro Wrestling Great will take you to the top of the X-Division, while impersonating an Action Hero from the same decade will snag you a World Title Match.

All Impact evidence would have us believe Daniels had received his walking papers weeks ago, but we can assume Divine Intervention (The Trinity of Jarrett, Mantel, & Russo) will return him to his missionary work at the mid-card sooner or later. The storyline result at least allowed Chris Daniels to display some emotional range. His motivation for abject grief: Imagine Triple X reforms, with Pac Man & Billy Gunn as your new partners.

"Booking Logic" might have seen Big Poppa Pump with the Heavyweight Title Match, Williams with the X-Division chance, and Senshi double-stomping his Warrior's Way up the ramp. These outcomes would have covered old, solid ground, and met the predictions of those (like me) who knew Low Ki wanted out, and had heard Steiner hint at a possible World Title program in an Impact promo. Instead, TNA appears to have reacted directly against these assumptions, giving the viewer something different but not necessarily better. Williams' character has not been built up to the point where a Title match is particularly compelling, and Steiner in the X-Division is a mismatch, but a minimally intriguing one.

Rellik is billed as being born, reared, and schooled in the Depths of Hell, which is indeed where I had heard the WCW Power Plant had relocated. As the bootlegged Boogeyman sauntered to the Six Sides, I was informed by Don West that Rellik is in fact a Reverse Battle Royal reflection of "Killer."

Here I have a confession to make (to the Reverend Slick, to the Sinister Minister, to whatever Holy or Unholy Manager will listen): I honestly did not pick up on this tidbit until West said it. I focused on the word "Relic," thinking how funny it would be if they foisted the gimmick on one of WCW's "Antique" Icons like Bagwell or DDP, assumed the lettering to be a whimsical misspelling, and examined it no further.

Even a joke on The Wrestling Observer Website (an Impact recapper dubbed him "Rebboj") failed to make a dent in my pro wrestling-numbed skull. To admit that Don West enlightened me (and that Mike Tenay immediately repeating the fact would have helped me remember it) is a shame I have not experienced since I sat through the Katie Vick segment. I blame the long-term effects of watching Spike programming incrementally reducing my cognitive capacity to the insect dimensions of TNA spelled backwards (No offense to Chikara's Colony intended).

Rellik reliably racked up another loss, this time to Kaz. Apparently, Hell's Depths nevertheless have their share of tattoo parlors and face-painting booths, not to mention a vintage clothing store at least partly owned by Raven. How else to explain the goth gladiator's kilt/ Hell's hula skirt, an impressive collection of Riddler neckties? Indeed, the Inferno can't be that far from the Bowery, or at least some NYC borough, as Rellik's record is beginning to look suspiciously like the Brooklyn Brawler's.

If Raven is recruiting another class of sullen masochists, he might do well to start with Chris Harris, whose character is now a disgruntled belly-acher, making valid points about roster hierarchy while the commentators dismiss him as an irredeemable whiner. Belly-aching is oddly appropriate here, as his grievances seem to have had a softening effect on Harris' midsection. He looks less like a Wild Cat than one of the pleasantly overfed Domesticated specimens I have known. The House Cat Chris Harris could be a refurbished ring persona, better than this one, I reckon.

Another theory is that the side effects of James Storm's drinking habit are somehow supernaturally ending up on his old AMW partner's gut. Spooky stuff. Anyhow, Harris predictably went down before the axe-kicking wrath of Booker T, and in relatively short order.

Other convoluted and nonsensical developments included:

A women's tag match featuring Velvet Sky & Angelina Love vs. Ms. Brooks & Jackie. It focused more on the collective slutty dimness of the former team (although I'm sure they cracked the Rellik code well before I did) and the substance abuse struggles of Miss Tennessee than on any Ladies' Title picture. The skanky bimbo tandem is intended as a spoof of the WWE Diva phenomenon, I suppose, but their segment only succeeded in achieving the same sort of awkwardness. The Ms. Brooks indentured servitude to Roode Industries deal continues.

The supposed X-Division Judas (not to be confused with Mesias, though confusion's the natural order of things in The Zone), Johnny Devine, fell to Black Machismo in a Lumberjack Strap Match. Why the straps weren't studded with electrified thumbtacks while the Lumberjacks themselves revolved around the ring suspended by Sting-strings, I can't say. Not sure what else there is to "settle" here, either, but TNA & 3-D insist there's something.

James Mitchell hosted a brief dysfunctional family talk show with Abyss, in which we learned nothing, all because the Black Hole Slammer refused to open up and communicate. Did Abyss' father own an Office Supply Store, explaining his fixation with thumbtacks? We may never know.Instead, Aby resorted to the coward's way out (choke-slamming), all until Judas Mesias returned. Judas understandably fell prey to First Night Back jitters, beginning to reliably bleed from the mouth. No one in TNA is expressing any concern over this persistent condition, and we can only imagine the hemorrhaging which would ensue should Judas try to form words.

I'm not a fan of beatdowns, prolonged or abbreviated, but TNA certainly is. A show called Impact ought to be vaguely aware of the diminishing dramatic Impact a ritualistic slew of such segments will have in any case.

This week, Abyss was bound and assaulted with barbed wire, which is how I recall a recent Dr. Phil episode concluding. He also endured direct-to-skull chairshots that wrestlers and viewers can both do without.

The saving thread throughout the show was Christian's quest for a Tag Team partner to join him against Kurt Angle & Robert Roode. The Kevin Nash pitch was hilarious throughout, even as Dr. Diesel has reverted back to the comic lethargy he seemed to have abandoned only a week ago, after his NWO partner went MIA.

When Christian approached Samoa Joe, the Submission Machine went on a strange spree of cordial colonoscopy invitations, with all parties, The Instant Classic included, permitted to "suck his ass." Christian was additionally instructed to toss an elephant's salad, which, sadly, seems to leave an unsavory door open for a Rikishi return.

I would have liked to see CC eventually resort to romancing Awesome Kong, then knock on Sharkboy's dressing room door, but it's only a two-hour show, and we all demand more Borash segments.

A Cage Against the World dynamic was effectively established, but Christian's character is more of an invariably arrogant heel than an anti-hero, Don't Trust Anybody, Austin-esque babyface. So we ended up with two heel factions (although the Cage camp is down to a cult of one, with AJ Styles conflicted) more or less clogging the top of the card.

During the Angle & Roode vs. Cage main event, Angle mustered one of his patented picturesque moonsaults attempts, but such latter day reckless acrobatics from him make me cringe, what with all the injuries he's already accumulated over the course of his career. At certain moments in matches, he creates the illusion that he's about to actually melt, at a consuming combination of competitive fire and physical deterioration.

In a landmark moment, Don West and Mike Tenay experienced what I believe to be their first spat as a symbiotic couple this week. Tenay took his friend to task when West referred to Black Reign's signature rodent as "an Arctic Fox," without a hint of screamed sarcasm. Clearly, he detected the first tell-tale signs of his partner falling under Evil Dustin's spell.

The next symptom would have been West appearing on camera in one of Black Reign's long black wigs, refusing to acknowledge the first-rate weave as a hairpiece throughout the two hour show.

Crank: A Review--Crank! Crunk! Crap? Cramp!

2007-12-15T12:54:00.000-08:00

Crank--A Review... Crank! Crunk! Crap? Cramp!

It may well be I'm unqualified to assess Crank, the most recent over-heated, somewhat-less-than-single-minded vehicle for admirably, aggressively balding big screen Tough Bloke Jason Statham and his uncompromising wanker-stomping stylings. A prerequisite for reviewing this virtual, combustible olive branch to twitching Play Station militants should be a G.E.D. in the game-controller clutching arts and sciences. As an acne-addled and obese variation on Punch-Out's Glass Joe, I may have at some heady adolescent Cinderella moment staggered Mike Tyson, but this was only after lacing my ear lobes with laxatives, and tricking him into bloating himself on the bread of my unborn children well before bell time.

Crank is book ended (a rare literary analogy to be associated with this picture) by the crude eight-bit Nintendo imagery to which so many Double Dragon generation nervous systems are inescapably wired. This tactic is employed in part, perhaps, to let us know that the sensory blitzkrieg to which we're about to be subjected is to be (blindingly) seen in the synthetically throbbing vein of one of those games. It's also to hook our helpless arcade- afflicted consciousnesses into the increasingly inane action that ensues, even if we're not yet on the cutting edge (or the glazed eye) of the Grand Theft Auto set.

The movie is off, running, driving, cursing, shooting and humping well before you can finish flipping through your Frogger instruction manual (I'll continue to date myself as this review progresses). Statham is hit man (as opposed to cake decorator or wedding planner) Chev Chelios, who we immediately learn, in Need To Know arcade-game-prologue fashion, has been injected with a fatal dose of a fatal drug by rival Ricky Verona (Jose Pablo Cantillo). Verona briefs Chelios of his prognosis in a Video Presentation Exposition so over the top as to be a strange stereotypical cocktail: equal parts Scarface tribute (odd to accuse an authentic hispanic of aspiring to Cuban caricature), and a dutifully Hollywood Shuffling turn straight out of some Friday sequel (a fateful Oliver Stone-DJ Pooh collaboration, no doubt: Born on the Fourth Fortnight After the Last Any Given Friday).

Disregard the book burning disclaimer earlier in this review, as you may want to have a chemistry text handy, so that you may intravenously put yourself out of any viewing agony via this mystery narcotic, which I cannot for the sense-scorched life of me recall.

The rather entertaining trick of the picture, and the excuse for the breathlessly brutal tone and headlong, stampeding pace that follows, is that the only way for Chelios to remain alive, even ephemerally, is to keep his adrenaline at a constant boil, his heart at a healthy height of grotesque and relentless spasm. To save the unsavory Chelios' life for approximately 90 additional minutes, it is the filmmakers' selfless duty to leave no stone that might serve the causes of violence or sex unturned, unthrown or unthrusted. Desperate cinematic times necessitate similar measures, as the calculating barbarians casting motivational feces at their frantic cast from behind the camera have apparently observed.

Directors Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor (Crank's writers are Neveldine, Brian Taylor, and Mark Taylor, a case of too many cooks at the crackpipe) know they are competing with a species of game increasingly convincingly cinematic in its presentation. Already promising the potent opiate of interactivity, such games are beginning to nip more aggressively at the silver screen's corners in terms of image sophistication and even celebrity participation. They also appear to know the overstimulated and benumbed savages with whom they believe they are dealing.

Chelios' cell phone spirit guide is Doc Miles (Dwight Yoakam), who medically elaborates upon his friend's fate, informing him what a blessed miracle it is that he's still alive and kicking his enemies to death. Crank is a bombastically fatalistic enterprise, for it increasingly becomes clear, even with telethon phones symphonically bleating, even with stem cell research rocketing through chambers of Congress once civilization gets wind of the contract killer's bind, that Chelios's life span is loping along on the fumes of an undetermined quantity of arcade game quarters.

Time to focus, then: on the adrenaline percolating thrill of devising Chelios' Theorem for solving pi, perhaps, or the diplomatic orgasm of cramming in a Middle East Peace accord? Alas, if only Chevy had the spare seconds to devote to such fruity pursuits. No, Chelios' poisoning has programmed him to confine himself to that Shakespearean & Sega Genesis theme of revenge, sans the pansy bureaucracy of soliloquies.

Statham's bristling brand of clenched virility seems to fit the simulated grit-criteria for a video game protagonist, in that his persona suggests he would surely scoff at any of the sedentary legion of transfixed geeks dedicating their vigorous years to the video game franchise in which he grudgingly starred.

One of the perks of Chev Chelios' poisoned state apparently allots him is a sort of Delirious Bigot's Carte Blanche. One of his last terminal condition testaments to a nemesis is a homophobic slur, and he shrewdly creates a Patriot Act-sponsored profiling diversion by screaming "Al Qaeda!" as he points at a disagreeable taxi driver the film's credits honor with the title "Arab Cabbie." Any number of recent celebrity racists might want to attribute their hatred to a Latino criminal's syringe, and see if this Crank defense flies.

This political incorrectness induced by poison at least lends the movie a fleeting tint of realism, although it also increases the likelihood in the viewer's flash fried mind that Chelios will only live as long as Crank does, so that we can wash our hands of any idea of him as a Hero as we stagger out of the theater (or to the Blockbuster return slot).

Crank's ridiculous climax comes as Chelios, looking to keep his life continually spiced, foists fornication upon his fraudulently blonde lady friend (dismissively named "Eve" (Amy Smart)), in a refreshingly al fresco setting. This sort of criminal spontaneity is standard fare in the Vice City realm, apparently. Her moniker suggests that she is to be ogled as some Fantasy Every Woman, pretty and breezily oblivious of the Harsh, Whacking and Intravenously Injecting Muck Through Which Real Men Wade Every Day (a slightly less catchy title than Crank, admittedly).

But of course, she is passingly aghast that her boyfriend would insist upon penetrating her in public, before they've finished their meal. Eventually, however, as we're all supposedly secretly aware, her ravenously adventurous feminine sexuality consumes her. In the end, she is so consummately game that, with spunky impatience, she starts to critique his crotch's difficulty in cashing the check its initial engorged insouciance signed scant moments ago! Ha Haah! Women! Who can figure out that ditsy flock of incessantly chirping birds? Why that cockney Shaft, Chev Chelios can, or haven't you been paying attention?

In the end, Crank is perhaps not even entirely imitating action movie predecessors; more likely, its pixellated grail is a video game adapted from some pre existing film (also featuring Jason Statham. Will the layers leading nowhere never end?). Ostensibly chasing a literal essence of human feeling, with an intriguing human predicament as its premise, Crank easily overshoots (or obliterates, I can't quite recall) its targets.

In the proud Sophisticated Contraption tradition of such pupil-torching classics as Blade II (The Next Day), if the movie itself does not succeed in disintegrating your nerve endings, the picture itself tends to dissolve. Having viewed Crank more than ten minutes ago, several vital plot points now escape singed memory.

In aiming to make more of a imprint, firing off their cannons of bright, deafening clutter, choking you with state of the art smoke, then bludgeoning you with a THX crash of brilliant mirrors, movies often render themselves still more disposable. It may be that a bit of the poison of compulsive spectacle-for-its-own-sake has trickled into the veins of the filmmakers. As challenging as it is to keep Chev Chelios murderously alive, Crank's cynical yankers appear to feel that effectively electro-shocking their jaded audience into placated awe and involvement is a still more daunting task.

300: Bloggers, Tonight We Dine In Hell (Franks & Beans!)

2007-12-15T12:46:00.000-08:00

300--Bloggers, Tonight, We Dine in Hell (Franks and Beans!)

...Aye, and slightly more beans than franks, ye swine-glutted tax collectors, for this be not pig purgatory! Thanks for having a look at this.

300--The number denotes the Spartan Spirit Squad (as in liberating the spirit from the skewered corpse), led by King Leonidas in the 5th century, B.C.. Their lean brigade is up against the dark-hearted likes of the evil Shredder, Ming the Merciless, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Dhalsim & his elastic skeleton, Baron Von Raschke, the Iron Sheik, the Asian touring cast of Mummenschanz, and assorted Pac Man ghosts.

Surely, like that trendy publicity whore the number 23, 300 must signify countless ridiculous things. Not necessarily a memorialized amount of brain cells sacrificed while watching the film, fighting valiantly but not coming home alive. It more likely refers to the 300 or so 300-inspired commercials that precede the dvd's Main Menu. By the time one would have lugged home and subjected himself to the merchandise prerequisites that would render us a suitable spectator to the gloriously bloodletting good time that was Sparta, we'd be such hunchbacked, drooling, terminally sedentary wrecks (check, check, and check) we'd be just about fit for a Spartan to spit on from a temporal distance of approximately 2,450 years. It's telling that an ad for a 300 video game pre-empts, almost seeks to supercede, the film itself.

The aforementioned legion of Sparta's opponents is tyrannically overseen by Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro), who I earlier confused with Dhalsim. It actually amounts to Persia, which I earlier confused with a confederation of wrestlers, video game villains and cartoon characters. In one of 300 's early scenes, a Persian messenger (Peter Mensah), whose demeaning methods of negotiation may well have inspired our current administration's approach, arrives requesting "earth and water" (and weapons inspections). Having badmouthed the King's woman and her gender, then demanding Sparta's fealty to the God-King-Flower Arranger, Persia's Condi Rice and his Xerxes Experience entourage get booted down to a Spartan Black Site/Sarlac Pit at the center of the earth.

For their pre-mortem edification, Leonidas spits out the memory-refreshing proclamation "This is Sparta!", in case they'd taken a wrong turnpike exit, somehow missing the island of Lesbos. With hip hop having gnawed the last bone of the crime film genre's carcass clean, I would hope one of those desperate samplers would be so enterprising as to kick off a record with a "This is...Brooklyn!" battle-cry, right before kicking a Sucker MC/Xerxes Descendant down into a borough sewer, where, legend has it, DAS EFX and Ninja Turtles await.

This hitch in the peace process sparks the sensory steamrolling two hour fight scene that follows, a ruminative meditation on how sharp things tend to impale anatomy, especially when you approach your disembowelling aspirations with a winning combination of "respect and honor." Knowing these principles well is Half The Battle, as Roadblock and Shipwreck would eagerly tell you. The Other Half entails the more rote exercises of entrail exposure and esthetically-satisfying corpse stacking.

Before Leonidas and his devoted band of Bow Flex bodies go hiking off for gore, we're treated to stilted matrimonial dialogue and honorable intimacy between Leonidas (Gerard Butler) and Queen Gorgo (Lena Headey). Academically "strong" female characters such as appear in these Ballads of the the Male Warrior are infused with conspicuous tribute, a "she's-got-quite-a-head-on-her-undeniably-shapely-shoulders" quality that makes more for a dignified, unoffensive fantasy than a fascinating character.

Gorgo's role has indeed been given much more to go through than the average "wife to be reckoned with", but the compulsively "respectful" light in which the screenwriters (Zach Snyder, Kurt Johnstad, Michael B. Gordon) so often cast her makes for a stock queen. Characters such as these, whether rulers in antiquity or formidable trophies in a modern romantic comedy, suggest that the writers involved have either not been with very many women, or have slept with a slew of impressively pretentious ones.

In the bedchamber scene transparently intended to demonstrate the regal bliss of their relationship, Leonidas has just come from consulting an underage and underdressed Scarlett Johanssen-ified oracle. When Gorgo playfully and pleasantly nags him about this, he reassures her that he much prefers the somewhat older titless waif to whom he is married. The healthy King and Queen dialogue leads to healthy Husband and Wife intercourse, the sort of vigorous, consecrated fornication only the monagomous, heterosexual and sovereign may enjoy.

The battle sequences that follow (and dominate) are inescapably overwhelming and exhilarating. Like Braveheart, Gladiator, even the Lord of the Rings films before it (all of which offer their own tedious odes to chivalric romance and family values), 300 is a relentless paean to the guts-kebobing fair play of hand-to-hand (sword-to-bowels, if you're nasty) combat. And not the fruity fencing-the-castle-steps kind, either.

Interestingly enough, the arrow-slinging Persians who are shit-slinged as "cowards" by Leonidas, are the fore-puncturers of America's present-day cruise missile tossing m.o., and we and our Shock & Awe are most likely viewed by rebel movements in a similar light. Sparta's military philosophy is in many respects quite similar to that of Persia (anonymity, devotion to king, each man an integrated component of a unified fighting organism); it's just that the director (Zack Snyder) might have seamlessly spliced in some stock Al Qaeda training footage to portray the faceless, stormtrooping Persians.

Of course, the cause that they're eviscerating for is meant to distinguish one side from the other, with the Xerxes-affiliated drones supposedly having already conceded all humanity via their conscious acquiescence to enslavement. We might as well don our Kafka's Metamorphosis Specs and see them as a chirping fleet of Starship Trooping cockroaches. The Spartan charge, meanwhile, looks more like a CW-sponsored uprising (The Taking of One Tree Hill, perhaps), the stampede of tossed highlights and etched abdominals ignited by the announcement of Fabio's retiring from romance novel modelling, or a lead singing vacancy in Creed or Nickelback. In addition, the Persian heels have stacked the Stratego deck by indulging in banned supplements and X-BOX graphics, occasionally carting out ringers in the form of the odd prehistoric-proportioned beast or video game-level boss.

The story is quite literally told from a Spartan point of view. Narration is supplied by the rustling-of-animated-dead-leaves voice of Dilios (David Wenham). His "That's a Paddlin'" Simpsons coot/premature sage/rusty-throated prospector vocals come across as an overt attempt to recreate the voice-over stylings of Mako, who played the sorceror sidekick in the Conan pictures. As it turns out, his storytelling has a polemical, inciting intent, so it stands to reason that the movie's perspective would be skewed; but the filmmakers themselves (and Frank Miller, upon whose graphic novel the movie is based) seem debatably "on board" with the Spartan Take On Life.

This is somewhat of a no-brainer (neurosurgery to be performed with an unsterilized spear) when compared to the cruel and despotic Xerxes model, but not so absolutely, unassailably admirable as the propoganda sometimes ponderously, sometimes spectacularly implies. Trying to preserve your vision and nervous system throught 300, you might well think that Sparta was somehow still recruiting, that they were at the very least a loin-clothed loyalist to the Coalition of the Willing. It would not have been especially shocking to see the ChippenSpartans metamorphose into the modern marine of the enlistment commercial at the very end (thus snatching the elite, freedom-fighting flame from Sparta's torch whether Leonidas would have liked it or not).

At one point, en route to Lop-limb-off-palooza, the Spartans run into their waffling, hand-wringing friends the Arcadians. Leonidas seizes this opportunity to take a survey of these products of ancient liberal arts education, asking each their profession. They answer, each in his meek turn: sculptor (hippie), blacksmith (homo), cobbler (English major), engraver (liberal media). None of the Arcadians are true soldiers, Leonidas concludes. Not peace lovers, either, for they're not perpetually preparing for war.

Of course, the King might well have pointed his spear at me, posing the same question, and I would have had to whimper "unemployed film critic" whilst robustly soiling myself (multitasking is a marketable talent); he would have wished for me to "live forever" and denied me the merciful honor of having his spear put through my throat.

Among innumerable axes grinding throughout 300, Frank Miller appears to have a thing for the freaky-looking irrevocably turning to the dark side. Ephialtes (Andre Tiernan) is a deformed Spartan who is strangely ungrateful that his hunchback allows him to shamblingly dodge the draft. Politely deferred by Leonidas from the service he covets, Ephialtes soon parties with Xerxes (a.k.a. X-Diddy, a.k.a. Jay-Zerxes), popping da bub in da disturbing Persian club amongst hedonistically inclined amputees (here in Oneonta, at the Novelty Lounge, this is simply known as "Amputee Tuesday"), and miscellaneous monstrous day laborer-extras from Jabba The Hut's Studio 54 scene.

Xerxes is playing upon Ephialtes' human feelings of rejection, but Miller and the filmmakers seem to suggest that the unattractive having desires of their own is perverse, and external unsightliness is a reflection (or at the very least a catalyst) for moral failure. A warning sign in any case. Such a negative, self-fulfilling theme is not at all new (Richard III's resolution to "prove a villain"), but as with Sin City's menace with the goblin visage and lemon complexion, Miller is claiming that a character's repulsive appearance serves as an insight into what their ensuing behavior will be. Ugliness allows him to set story events in motion. This also ends up tacitly validating the delightful Spartan policy of discarding imperfect infants at birth.

The same is true of the film's incorporation of the pagan, the anthropomorphic and idolatrous. I renounced idolatry a week or so ago, and one might in fact interpret Xerxes flanking himself with golden cows as cautionary symbolism about the consequences of blindly bowing before anything; but even in the portrayal of a pre-Christianity era, the flamboyantly pagan imagery associated with the Persian side of things draws on a visceral unease, an inclination to see such stuff as unnatural, twisted, deviant, and ultimately untrustworthy. Organized religion's indoctrination is its own subliminal special effect.

Gerard Butler, at least, makes for a forceful and convincing king and general; fortunately, we haven't been force-fed DiCaprio, Wahlberg, Affleck, Hartnett, Phillippe, Reeves, Timberlake (I'll keep going until I hit 300, a veritable army of mediocre acting) at the end of a spear, demanding we see in their budding Taliban beard and persistent scowl that they've mastered puberty and achieved leading manhood.

Vincent Regan, as the captain who has enlisted his young son, conjures authentic, affecting grief from one of the film's predictable, paint by pixels tragedies.

Much of the rest of this cast seems to have shown up for a video game voice-over session, contemporary and out of place in evoking a time I indeed know nothing about. Leonidas' speeches to his unswervingly devoted, and undaunted platoon (who lust for blood and death with less restraint than the undead crave brains) are occasionally hilarious. He does in fact confirm before battle that he's booked them non-smoking booths "in Hell." I can only assume he means Hades, where pomegranate seed soup (again) and Tantalus-style small portions are the reliable bill of fare.