'Best of TBH Politoons'
Cory!! Strode On TV
ECW on Sci Fi
In the 90's, Cable TV experienced a wrestling boom, with WCW getting record ratings, and the WWE catching, surpassing and eventually buying them, some of the broadcasts from WWE RAW and WCW Nitro set cable ratings records. There were a large number of smaller promotions during this boom but one of those small promotions could be credited with the rise in ratings for both of these companies, even though they never did well in the ratings themselves.
In the beginning of the 90's, TV wrestling was slumping, with "Hulkamania" no longer drawing fans, and televised wrestling showing matches with cartoonish characters like "The Repo Man" and "The Goon" (an evil hockey playing wrestler), the two big promotions had decided to push their product toward kids and make money off of the toys and "family entertainment" market. Meanwhile, in the upper East Coast, Eastern Championship Wrestling started a newer, harder style, changed their name to "Extreme Championship Wrestling" and started featuring more violent matches that drew from the Japanese style, the acrobatics of the Lucha Libre style from Mexico and the involved story lines (called "angles" in the business) that reminded viewers of the southern style of wrestling. They quickly got a reputation for selling out small venues in New York and Philadelphia, violent matches involving weapons and highly devoted fans.
It wasn't long before the two large promotions took notice. First, hiring away their stars like Mick Foley, Chris Benoit, Ray Mysterio, Eddie Guerrero, Raven and others, and then by adapting the "hardcore" style to their own matches. ECW finally was able to get Pay Per View clearance (after being denied for years because they were considered "too violent" for Pay Per View), and then got a series on TNN (later Spike TV). When the series was ended by TNN because they had signed the WWE, the promotion lasted another few months, and then went bankrupt and was bought by the WWE at the end of 2001.
After a successful series of DVDs retrospectives, the WWF brought back ECW, first for a Pay Per View, and now a series on the Sci Fi Channel.
It's now been running for about a month, and as a fan of the original ECW, it has been a major disappointment. A few of the original ECW stars have been brought in, mixed with some WWE stars for fans who didn't know much about ECW (and to fill out an aging talent roster). Sci Fi signed the show for a 13 week try-out, and while rating have been good, the show has not been one of the better wrestling shows currently running. The formula for the series has been an opening segment that features a short match, a segment in which "Kelly Kelly, the Exhibitionist" shows an amazing talent at making a hot girl taking her clothes off and dancing seem deadly dull until her jealous boyfriend comes out and wraps her up in a towel, one or two "squash" matches (matches in which the "star" shows all of his moves on an ineffectual opponent) in which one of the original ECW wrestlers is beaten up by one of the newer stars, a segment in which ECW Legend Sandman (who was the inspiration for Stone Cold Steve Austin) beats up a character who has come out any annoyed the crowd enough that they are ready for Sandman to smack them around, and finally a main event, featuring a good match between two of the better workers in the promotion. The main events have been some of the better matches of the last year, with performers like Rob Van Dam, Sabu, Ric Flair and Kurt Angle putting on great matches that are as good as any from the original ECW, but the 40 minutes leading up to them is so stupor inducing that I now just tune in for the main event and check the recaps on line to see if I missed anything.
All in all, I didn't expect it to be like the old ECW, just like I don't expect a "Blondie" or "Cars" reunion to be as good as I remember those bands, but taken on its own, the show is bad. "Kelly Kelly"s segment goes on way too long, the "squash" matches waste the talent of some wrestlers who know how to put on good matches, and there are no stories that make the viewer care about who wins. When Professional Wrestling is done well, you forget it is all predetermined, enjoy the athleticism of the performers and let yourself be carried along by the soap opera in the ring. When it isn't, you get the new version of ECW.
Cory!! Strode (The Best Dressed Man In Comics) has written comic books, novels, jokes for comedians, Op Ed columns, the on-line comic strip
www.Asylumon5thstreet.com and has all kinds of things on his website, www.solitairerose.com
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
PAUL KRUGMAN: Intimations of Recession (The New York Times)
These are the dog days of summer, but there's a chill in the air. Suddenly - really just in the last few weeks - people have starting talking seriously about a possible recession. And it's not just economists who seem worried. Goldman Sachs recently reported that the confidence of chief executives at major corporations has plunged; a clear majority of C.E.O.'s now say that conditions in the world economy, and the U.S. economy in particular, are worsening rather than improving.
Benjamin Weyl: A Republican Revolution (prospect.org)
Why former Republicans in Kansas and elsewhere are deciding to run as Democrats.
MAUREEN DOWD:: Henny Penny Harridan (The New York Times)
The enunciation of a clear sentence about the war in Iraq by Hillary Clinton means that there must be an election coming up.
DAVID ESPO: MoveOn seeking 1st 2006 election (news.yahoo.com)
HARTFORD, Conn. - Other than the candidates, no one has more riding on this week's Connecticut Democratic Senate primary than MoveOn.org, a liberal organization at the edgy intersection of politics and the Internet.
Jack Shenker: Can posh people do protest? (guardian.co.uk)
Countess Anca Vidaeff is about to get militant. The 53-year-old descendant of White Russian nobility occupies one of London's most desirable addresses and is better acquainted with Tatler magazine than with the vagaries of direct action. But this week she announced plans to hold a three-day hunger-strike in an effort to bring the American government, or at least its Mayfair representative, to its knees.
Male feminists march on (arts.guardian.co.uk)
A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle? Not so, the men fighting for women's rights tell Natalie Hanman.
'Comedy is my self-defence' (arts.guardian.co.uk)
On miserable book tours and during her parents' divorce, novelist AL Kennedy consoled herself with humour. She explains why she is now performing on the Fringe.
Marisa Meltzer: Last Exit for Sleater-Kinney (slate.com)
Notes on the break-up of an iconic band.
The Wall St. Poet
Stagflation Redeux?
Economists used to think you couldn't have inflation when an economy was slowing. Then came the 1973 Arab Oil Embargo. Energy costs kicked up other prices causing inflation, and the same energy prices brought about an economic slowdown. Stagflation. Could it happen again...
Tip From Kip
Drive-Invasion 2006
Drive-Invasion
in '06 WILL be the BIGGEST and BEST yet! Mark your calendar
for Saturday and Sunday, September 2nd and 3rd!
What makes DIV '06
the biggest and best yet? Check out this year's AMAZING
program - BANDS:
BLUE OYSTER CULT, SOUTHERN CULTURE ON THE SKIDS, ROCKET FROM THE TOMBS, REID
PALEY TRIO, THE SUPERSUCKERS, THE GORE GORE GIRLS, THE GHASTLY ONES, JOHNNY
LEGEND, THE COGBURNS, NATIONAL GRAIN, CADILLAC JONES, The Sweetloves, AND
MANY MORE!!
MOVIES - Drive-Invasion
movies this year are some of our all time B movies
and cult classic favorites...
2001 Maniacs, Galaxy of Terror, Vanishing Point,Invasion of the Bee Girls,
The Devil's Rejects, The Car, Gone in 60 Seconds, and in honor of Blue
Oyster Cult - GODZILLA!
PLUS! - Drive-Invasion's very special guests.
Kip
********
"We certainly would not want to have same kind of democracy as they have in
Iraq, quite honestly." - Vladimir Putin
Thanks, Kip!
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sunny & mild.
Have a class reunion back in PA next month.
No new flags.
'Girl Blog from Iraq'
Riverbend
"Is it time to wash our hands of the country and find a stable life somewhere else?"
The question in "Girl Blog from Iraq" was posted only last weekend by an anonymous young Iraqi woman whose weblog has now been adapted into a theatrical documentary at the Edinburgh Fringe arts festival.
Played by actresses of Palestinian, Syrian, Iranian and Iraqi origin, she recounts the horrors of abduction, murder and rape alongside her determined efforts to carve out a normal life amid the carnage.
Known only as "Riverbend," the Iraqi blogger has been providing regular despatches since August 2003, writing in her first entry: "I'm female, Iraqi and 24. I survived the war. That is all you need to know. It's all that matters."
Riverbend
Trouble Over Swastika T-Shirt
Fatih Akin
Criticizing US resident George W. Bush is fine in Germany, but doing so by displaying the Nazi swastika is a crime, and it's got film director Fatih Akin in trouble with the German authorities.
Police in the northern city of Hamburg are investigating award-winning Turkish-German film director Fatih Akin, 32, for wearing an anti-Bush T-shirt bearing the word "Bush" in which the letter "s" was replaced by the swastika.
Displaying Nazi symbols is a crime in Germany. He wore the T-shirt on a film set and an unnamed man who saw the photo of it in the newspaper filed a complaint with the police.
German-born Akin, who is of Turkish descent, told SPIEGEL: "Bush's policy is comparable with that of the Third Reich. I think that under Bush, Hollywood has been making certain films at the request of the Pentagon to normalise things like torture and Guantanamo. I'm convinced the Bush administration wants a third world war. I think they're fascists."
Fatih Akin
Duesseldof Shoot
Spencer Tunick
US photographer Spencer Tunick, famous for snapping his subjects in their birthday suits, struck again in Duesseldof in western Germany, where more than 800 people bared all for his art.
For five hours 840 people, some of whom had come from as far away as Brazil, posed nude in a variety of attitudes: in a pyramid, arms in the air, bending down or crowding round a tree.
"For me, bodies mean freedom and beauty," said Tunick who has conducted similar exercises in places that include Barcelona in Spain, Bruges in Belgium, Lyon in France and Mexico.
Spencer Tunick
Hospital News
Barry Manilow
Barry Manilow will take a break from his regular gig at the Las Vegas Hilton to undergo surgery to repair torn cartilage in both hips, his publicist said.
The 60-year-old singer, who has a four-year contract with the hotel, suffers from labrum tears in his hips - a painful condition exacerbated by his high-energy performances, publicist Carol Marshall said in a statement Sunday.
Manilow will continue performing through his appearance at the Emmy Awards on Aug. 27 and will then have outpatient arthroscopic surgery at a Southern California hospital, Marshall said.
Recovery and rehabilitation time is expected to be about eight weeks.
Barry Manilow
Baby News
Swanson - Eisler
Actress Kristy Swanson and Olympic skater Lloyd Eisler are expecting a baby on Valentine's Day, they announced Monday.
Swanson, 36, and Eisler, 43, met last summer on the Fox TV show "Skating With Celebrities." They won the competition and began dating in December, said their publicist, Cheryl Kagan.
It will be the first child for Swanson. Eisler has two sons, ages 8 months and 2 years.
Swanson - Eisler
Searches Released
AOL
AOL released the Internet search terms that more than 650,000 of its subscribers entered over a three-month period and admitted Monday that what it originally intended as a gesture to researchers amounted to a privacy breach and a mistake.
Although AOL had substituted numeric IDs for the subscribers' real user names, the company acknowledged the search queries themselves may contain personally identifiable data.
For example, many users type their names to find out whether sites have dirt on them and then separately search for online mentions of their phone, credit card or Social Security numbers. A few days later, they may search for pizzerias in their neighborhoods, revealing their locations, or for prescription drug prices, revealing their medical conditions. All those separate searches would be linked to the same numeric ID.
The company apologized for the disclosure.
AOL
Smoking Ban Wafts Over
Edinburgh Fringe
An actor has ditched plans to light a cigar while playing Winston Churchill at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival after the venue was threatened with closure under Scotland's smoking ban.
Mel Smith, who portrays Britain's cigar-loving World War II leader in the stage play "Allegiance", had threatened to flout the law which forbids smoking in enclosed public spaces.
However, the 53-year-old comedian, who directed the 1997 film "Bean", changed his mind after an environmental officer visited the Assembly Rooms venue and threatened it with closure.
Edinburgh Fringe
Gallery Defends Van Gogh Against Forgery
Australia
An Australian art gallery defended one of its most prized paintings, a portrait by Vincent van Gogh, against claims by some British experts that it is a forgery.
The painting, "Head of a Man", is valued at around 15 million US dollars, but the director of the National Gallery of Victoria, Gerard Vaughan, conceded that it would be virtually worthless if proved to be a fake.
The painting was purchased by the Melbourne-based gallery in 1940 for 2,196 pounds (4,185 US dollars at current rates) and it is now on loan to the Dean Gallery in Edinburgh -- where critics have dubbed it a fake.
Their doubt stems from the fact that the painting is the only horizontal portrait attributed to Van Gogh, is painted on canvas mounted on a panel -- an unusual medium for the artist -- and is not mentioned in any of his letters, Britain's Sunday Times reported.
Australia
Visiting The Hudson River
Manatee
In the heat of summer, all sorts of tourists head north to cooler climes. This year, a manatee has joined the crowd, cruising past the nightclubs of Manhattan and continuing north.
The massive animal has been spotted in the Hudson River at least three times in the last week - first off the Chelsea and Harlem sections of Manhattan, then to the north in Sleepy Hollow in Westchester County.
It is unusual for one of the creatures - often associated with the warm waters of Florida - to travel so far north, although they have been reported along the shores of Long Island and even Rhode Island.
Manatee
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