1 match that showcases why TNA is clueless sometimes.

I was working this last Thursday night and had to DVR TNA Impact. I made a point of getting to it tonight so that I’d be caught up on the events for tonight and that I would be up to speed for the PPV. Not a bad show, but really a pretty weak one for the show heading into the PPV.

But one match derailed the whole thing for me as both a wrestling fan and as a critical observer. Beer Money, the TNA Tag Team Champions, lost their titles to Jay Lethal and Consequences Creed. Now, just having Beer Money drop the straps to Lethal and Creed in and of itself wouldn’t have bothered me. No, it was how TNA Creative wrote the title changes into the program.

With Beer Money you have TNA’s two best “home grown” heel talents. James Storm, once considered by many as the lesser half of America’s Most Wanted, has gone on since their break up and his heel turn to outshine his former partner in every way and perfect his arrogant, cocky, good old boy persona to the point where he can make an audience respond to him in any way that he wants them to. And Robert Roode… Robert Roode is one of the great, under appreciated heels in the industry right now. He’s taken a gimmick that started out looking like TNA creative wanted to clone “Million Dollar Man” Ted Dibiase (and then couldn’t make up their minds if he was Ted 2.0 or Diamond Dallas “Rags to Riches” Page 2.0) and created a heel so smooth, so great and so in control of the fans in attendance that I have no doubt that, if you could drop him into the NWA of the late 80s and early 90s, he could easily have become one of the Horsemen and been remembered as one of the great Horsemen. And both men know how to work inside the ring in a manner to bring out the best of the faces they’re against while drawing as much heel heat as possible.

So, of course, TNA books them as the Faces in Peril of the match. A quick recap for those who missed it.

Beer Money has a scheduled match where Roode faces off against one half of their PPV challengers Matt Morgan and Abyss in the form of Morgan. Morgan and Abyss are supposed to be, despite their recent booking, an unstoppable powerhouse team. The perfect set up for the match going into the PPV. Roode cheats to win on free TV and you either have the faces win on the PPV or lose to Beer Money so that they can go on to feud with the next team. Easy booking to do.

But TNA being TNA has to go and create a mess. Roode gets “injured” in the match and can’t continue. His knee is blown and he can barely stand on it. The match is ended and awarded to Morgan due to the inability of Roode to continue. A little strange I thought given that TNA has had matches continue before with a wrestler likewise injured. But I took it for what it was and decided that it wasn’t that bad a warm up for the PPV.

And then Creed and Lethal, two up and coming faces in TNA, come running to the ring. They announce that they’re going to cash in their “Feast or Fired” chances at the Tag Title Belts under the anywhere, anytime and any place rules. The match is started and the faces beat the crap out of Beer Money and win the belts.

WTF…

I don’t even know where to begin on the details of everything that was wrong here. Let’s start with the two obvious ones first I guess. You have a match that was stopped midway through because the ref says that one contestant can no longer continue and then that same injured man and his partner compete in a full match that isn’t stopped for the same reason we just saw the previous match stopped for just minutes earlier. Uhm… Okay…

I also have some issue with the concept of faces, the good guys, being written into the position of being what would have been pretty much exclusively the territory of the cowardly or opportunistic heels of old. I mean, you have two faces who see an injured man who can barely move and decide that now would be a good time to have a match with him and his partner? You have two good guys who decide that now would be a good time to double team one guy and beat on a borderline crippled man while their at it?

Dumb, dumb, dumb booking.

The match itself was actually rather good, but the vibe in it was total bass ackwards. During the match you had Storm valiantly fighting two men, moments resembling the classic face in peril hot tags (but done by the heel team) and Roode struggling to help his partner even at the cost of his own well being. At one point Roode actually gets into the action and pulls off some come behind moves before the double team of Creed and Lethal destroy him by, amongst other things, targeting the injury he had from the prior match. You know, that injury that stopped the other match just before this one started. After a few minutes of opportunistic actions, two on one double teams and targeting an adversaries injury the “faces” win the match and the titles.

Oh, and they also used a cheap shot to win.

Like I said above, it was totally bass ackwards. The heels were playing the traditional roles of the faces and the faces were working an almost full heel style. And not only did the dynamics of the match not really make sense, but the booking around the match doesn’t make any sense when related to a match like this.

Is this the beginning of a Beer Money face turn? It’s doubtful because there’s been nothing else to indicate that they would do this. And besides, you don’t face turn a heel team by having them beaten down, injured and taken advantage of by a face team. The logical motivation and reasoning that most fans would relate to is absent from the equation. Well, it could be there if the match was a heel to face and face to heel double turn, but…

Creed and Lethal aren’t going heel. They were treated like faces at the end of the match, acted like faces at the end of the match and embraced and cheered for their victory by the fellow wrestlers and fans after the match as though they were full on, 100% faces. Even the backstage segments afterwards were the typical face celebrations and interview bits. They were straight up faces and it would appear that they’re staying that way.

Oh, and they’re now weak champions. Why this works for heels is that heels can go on and lie, cheat and steal their way towards holding on to those titles in their next series of title defenses. Heels can use an opportunistic cheat like this and still safely come out looking like a weaker team than the former champions because you know that, unlike the faces, they’ll resort to cheating in their next matches and, if that doesn’t work, they’ll just up and walk away for a count out loss where they still retain the belts.

Faces can’t do that. Faces can’t go out there and be the weak, cowardly heel act and look like credible champions. Creed and Lethal look like two guys who double teamed a tired wrestler and beat up a cripple to win the titles. They look like weak, fluke champs right now. Beer Money, the heels, look like the guys who were screwed over by a team that knew that they were so inferior to Beer Money that they couldn’t beat them in a fair fight. But Beer Money are still the heels and Creed and Lethal are still the faces.

TNA creative didn’t think this thing through logically or sanely and it shows. They’ve devalued their face team as champs, made their heel team look like guys who the face team are afraid to fight fair and square and TNA made their officiating look even more clueless and random than they sometimes do thanks to their stopping a match because of a serious injury that apparently wasn’t serious enough to stop another match for two minutes later.

Nothing about this seems like it was given more than two minutes of thought. Nothing about this title change works towards increasing the storyline credibility of anyone involved and may actually lower it for some.

TNA seems like it treads water far too often and this is, to me, a perfect example of why. Too many times TNA creative seems to take two steps forward with characterization, concepts and execution and then they turn right back around and take two steps backwards. They did it again here. They took two guys that they were trying to build into a strong face team and made them weak champions while taking two heels that were becoming one of the greatest heel teams of their era and made them look like strong, valiant and even sympathetic fighting champions. And they made their officials look clueless and random in the process.

WWE can afford to make these mistakes a bit too often because WWE is so large that it can tread water where it’s at. TNA can’t. TNA has to grow and it has to stop taking the good opportunities that it has and booking them into sheer stupidity. I’m not going to be one of the chorus of voices who say that TNA won’t be around by next year if they keep this up, but if they keep this up they will be exactly where they are now and not one step forward from there.

Is Boxing Dead?

   That may seem like an odd question to most people, but if you’re an MMAfan you’ve likely heard that notion floated as a fact rather than a question. Boxing is old, slow, boring and all but dead. It’s being replaced by mixed martial arts as the big fight sport in town.

   Now, you can point to lots of things that make convincing, if purely anecdotal, evidence. Boxing isn’t carried on the networks like it was in bygone years, it doesn’t have any new huge stars that are the household names of past generations of boxers and the day after water cooler talk about boxing is diminishing while the day after water cooler talk about MMA is on the rise. The people in the press and on the web that are pro MMA also push the idea that boxing is now seen as a very limited form of fighting sport with no where near the appeal of MMA’s fast and furious action.

   Well to them I say, and I do say this as a huge MMA fan, bullshit.

   Boxing is every bit the entertaining fighting sport that MMA is. Does the limitations of “just punching” mean that there’s less action? Maybe. But the restrictions on what you can do often means that you have to fight smarter to be a top fighter. Boxing is like a chess match of sorts. You have to go in with a game plan and you have to have a strategy that allows you to impose your game plan over your opponent’s.

   The pro-MMA critics of boxing make the same mistake that the pro-boxing critics of MMA make. Many boxing fans disparage MMA because the fighters often go to the ground and then just “role around” for minutes at a time. They just, say the boxing fans, flail about while kicking and hitting at each other. The problem with that criticism is that it shows a complete lack of what is going on when you have two fighters who are well schooled in amateur wrestling and Brazilian Jujitsu. If you understand those two things and have any basic knowledge of them; you’re looking at two fighters who are making move after counter move after move like a very physical chess game. Two top tier fighters are working a mental game that’s every bit as difficult, if not more so, than the physical game.

   It’s much the same with good boxers. Two good fighters can put on a boxing match that’s every bit the metaphorical “clinic” that fans refer to good matches as. Good boxing is a science. A good boxer is as much brain and strategy as brawn.

   Even the often thuggish “Iron” Mike Tyson proves that rule rather than disproves it. Tyson was a beast in the ring when he had the proper trainers, managers and team around him. Once he lost the right people and began to become surrounded by the wrong people his fighting style changed. Tyson rarely had to depend on strategy in the ring because of his power, but there were a few fights where he displayed actual advanced knowledge of the sweet science. Once he lost the people that pushed him to be a fighter rather than just a brutish thug who depended on rushing in and overpowering his adversary he began a massive downhill slide as a fighter. Even after all of his problems he should have been a better fighter when he returned to boxing. Instead he was often beaten by boxers his age range or slightly older who were fighting smarter fights than him. When he started fighting based on power he broke and, occasionally, broke down in the ring. He became a “fighter” who cried to his corner men in the Lennox Lewis fight that “I can’t beat him” in between rounds.

   If more fighters get into boxing and become smart boxers; we have a recipe for great fights. And we’re seeing some really good up and comers out there now. Manny Pacquiao is a good example. He just destroyed odds on favorite Oscar De La Hoya a little while back. Good fight to check out if you can find it.

   But I’m sure you’re ready to say that most of what I’m saying is opinion and not hard facts. Well, I’ve got some hard facts for you. As of this writing a boxing card is the biggest sports related PPV of 2008.

Top 10 North American PPV buy rates, 2008

1. Boxing:Oscar De La Hoya vs. Manny Pacquiao, Dec. 6, 1,250,000

2. UFC:Brock Lesnar vs. Randy Couture, Nov. 15, 1,010,000

3. Wrestling:WrestleMania, Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Paul “Big Show” Wight, March 30, 670,000

4. UFC:Georges St. Pierre vs. Jon Fitch/Lesnar vs. Heath Herring, Aug. 9, 625,000

5. UFC:Lesnar vs. Frank Mir, Feb. 2, 600,000

6. UFC: Quinton Jackson vs. Forrest Griffin, July 5, 540,000

7. UFC: St. Pierre vs. Matt Serra, April 19, 530,000

8. Boxing: Felix Trinidad vs. Roy Jones Jr., Jan. 19, 500,000

9. UFC:Chuck Liddell vs. Rashad Evans, Sept. 6, 480,000

10. UFC:B.J. Penn vs. Sean Sherk/Tito Ortiz vs. Lyoto Machida, May 24, 475,000

   And, as you can see, the #3 PPV card had a little drawing power help in the form of boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr.

   Boxing isn’t dead. Boxing isn’t slow and boring. Boxing is just getting the short end of the promotional stick right now and it’s getting unfairly criticised by a bunch of know nothing MMA fans in the exact same way that a bunch of the old guard fans of boxing are flinging their uninformed criticisms at MMA. Boxing is still an art form when done right and it’s a solid part of MMA’s standup game. To denigrate it just because you’re “an MMA fan” or just to try and convince yourself or others that  your favorite fight game is the greatest thing since sliced bread doesn’t make you an MMA fan. What it makes you is an uninformed idiot talking out of your backside.

   And, again, I say this as a huge MMA fan.

See you at the fights.

Forrest J Ackerman 1916 – 2008

R.I.P. Uncle Forry.

“Forrest J Ackerman, who influenced a generation of young horror movie fans with Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine and spent a lifetime amassing what has been called the world’s largest personal collection of science fiction and fantasy memorabilia, has died. He was 92.“

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/herocomplex/2008/12/forrest-j-acker.html

Can We Just Laugh At Them Now???

You’ve gotta love the chat-show-Right and the conservative news media. When Obama and Hillary were fighting it out over their party’s nomination the talking heads on the Right were bemoaning the “fact” that Obama’s success was proof that even Hillary was “too conservative” for the now fringe controlled Democratic party. His winning the nomination was, so they said, the nail in the coffin of the Democratic Party since it was clearly a party out of touch with Main Street America and in bed with the farthest Left nutjobs.

Then we had the actual election run up. The talking point was that Obama was the most liberal candidate ever run by the Democratic Party and his voting record was the most liberal of anyone who ever served in Congress.  Why, he was even more liberal than the last twenty Democratic candidates that the Right claimed was the most liberal human to have ever been alive!

And what Obama campaigned on was the greatest threat ever known to our country! Why it was, so the conservative talking heads said, unabashed socialism! Obama was running on a platform that was so shamelessly socialist that it put him just to the left of socialist Russia.

And then he won.

Suddenly the same talking heads that called the man the most left voting, socialist running and fringe candidate ever fielded by a political party were saying that his election victory was in fact a victory for conservatism. Despite almost a full year of their own words to the contrary; the new talking point that they pushed with completely straight faces was that Obama ran as a conservative. He won the election because he espoused conservative values and promoted a conservative platform for his candidacy.

Oooooooookay.

So now we flash forward to today. I’ve been listening to Fox News (I know, my first mistake.) on my XM today. What’s the talking point this weekend? Obama the liberal leftist fringe guy is abandoning his left leaning ways and snubbing the Left Fringe. How? He’s abandoned his liberal and socialist campaign promises that destroyed our economy with his election and he’s appointing conservative Democrats to his cabinet now that the ship has hit the sand financially so as to calm Wall Street and Main Street. He is being “dragged from the far Left” and toward the center by the state of the economy.

Ooooooookay.

Why are any of these guys still employed? How can anyone take these mouth breathers seriously at this point? I mean, even the biggest Kool-Aid drinkers that tune in to these guys must have their heads spinning just trying to do the mental gymnastics to keep up with this comedy. Two really big jokes here.

(1) The talking point that these guys have on Obama’s picks is that it’s a bunch of warmed over Clinton appointees. Obama is setting up The Bill Clinton Administration 2.0. Now most of these guys have books, archived editorial columns and/or recorded comments from the 90s. I don’t remember these wonder dummies calling the Clinton Administration a “Conservative” administration. I pretty clearly remember the exact opposite actually. I mean, they’re still bring up Clinton and the “ultra-liberal” things he and his administration did as the cause of the economic meltdown and social problems we have now. Well, at least they do when they’re not claiming that this is the “Obama Economy” every third sentence. But now the talking point is that these same guys were all part of a conservative Democratic movement and a sign that Obama is abandoning the ultra-extreme leftist platforms that he ran on (while running as a conservative) just a few short months ago. Oooooooookay.

(2) Are they on drugs? well, I mean besides Rush who we all know partakes from time to time. I mean, the only people who can make a string of statements like that and think it’s logical and coherent are usually stoned out of their minds. Seriously, try and say the whole thing and not laugh yourself silly at the stupidity of it.

The combined talking points of the last year: Obama was the most fringe left running candidate that the Democrats ever ran, but he won by running as a conservative. However, he’s now abandoning the fringe left that he ran to during the campaign in order to reassure Wall Street by appointing “conservative Democrats” to his future cabinet who were themselves a part of the ultra liberal leaning Clinton administration and are themselves responsible for the socialist policies that destroyed our economy and, skipping right over eight years of the Bush economic policies and twelve years of a Republican run Congress, brought us the disastrous “Obama Economy” that we now have.

it’s gotta be drugs. Even I wouldn’t have thought that this many of the Fox News crew and the chat show goons that have been joining the chorus were this shameless and hypocritical. Fox News and Clear Channel Communications needs to implement mandatory weekly drug tests pronto quick. It may be the only way that they can salvage what little credibility they ever had.

**** 38 ****

   It happened. It came and went and pretty much nothing fell off, broke down or started flashing its “Maintenance Required” light at me. Just about one week ago I turned 38.

 

   It was a pretty good three days. I took the time off from work to do some things so my actual birthday was fairly relaxed. I had a nice lunch with my parents, wife and 16 month old clone, I opened a few gifts and I finished out the course needed to make me legally able to hunt in Virginia. Kind of a big goal to get back into hunting. Have you seen the coast of quality meat these days?

 

   Since no one cares about the grey hairs, aches, pains and assorted issues that come with aging yet another year and taking yet another proverbial step towards geezerhood; I’ll just jump to the stash!

 

   Basically, I’m set for late night DVD watching for about a month. Well, it would have been a month once. Nowadays, thanks to the unreasonable woman I married thinking that or child will be scarred for life if he sees quality horror films before freaking 8 years of age, I may have about a years worth of viewing pleasure. But anyhow…

 

    One film that I can watch with Ian in the room is a cool ass war film called Tae Guk Gi. Buy this film. On to the horror stuff.

 

   My slightly early gift was the complete Nightmare on Elm Streets series in a metal embossed box with collectable bonuses. It’s even got 3-D glasses. After that came a flood of really nice DVD collections containing some great, some not so great and some so bad they’re good films in them. Werewolves, Vampires & Zombies (10 movies on 3 DVDs) is over 13 hours of schlock horror that should keep me quite happy for a long time.

 

   I got a very nice 2 disc Paul Naschy collection containing Curse of the Devil and Werewolf Shadow AKA Werewolf VS the Vampire Woman. The thing that sets this set apart from others is that they have the original Castilian soundtrack with English subtitles as a viewing option. That’s a pretty cool deal since both films were actually fairly well done but kinda killed by bad dubbing for American distribution.

 

   Bloodsucking Cinema is a nice little Starz documentary that I saw some time ago and is now on DVD. Nice little doc about the origin and evolution of the vampire movie. Not definitive, but very nice nonetheless. Got a nice 20 movie pack called Vampires & More from up north that covers films ranging form the 1922 Nosferatu to Oasis of the Zombies. Included in the rescue parcel was also an awesome Hammer Films double feature that included Countess Dracula and The Vampire Lovers.

 

   Count Yorga, Vampire followed up the rear just in time to save me from the pain and anguish of living with the death of my old VHS copy recorded off of the USA channel. That rescue came along with the historically important double feature of Count Dracula’s Great Love and Frankenstein’s Castle of Freaks. I say they’re “historically important” because they’re from Elvira’s Movie Macabre series. One day when Ian is old enough, he to can learn of the amazing assets she had to contribute to horror history.

 

   One thing that showed up that my wife will actually let me watch with Ian in the room is 1955’s The Complete Adventures of Robin Hood Season One. Not a bad version of Robin Hood if you’ve never seen it. It’s the one with Richard Greene as Robin Hood. And lastly on the DVD list was Dragon Dynasty’s The 36th Chamber of Shaolin. A great film that I would recommend to anyone out there. Oh, and there was also the Carson Christmas DVD.

 

   My in-laws are flipping the bill for my hunting license this year as well, so I’ll be killing Bambi maybe as soon as the end of the month. I just have to hook up with the G-Man and set up a good day.

 

   So, yeah, much movie greatness this year. Still doesn’t help with the whole feeling of geezerhood thing though…

NBC/MSNBC and Fox News Both Call the Election at 11:00 PM

 

   History marches on and another brick in a very old wall has fallen to the ground and crumbled to dust.

_________________________________________________________

   This is a rather odd sensation. As I sit here typing, Obama having finished his acceptance speech a few minutes ago, I can’t help but wonder if my father felt like this once. I am looking at a new world. I am looking at a country forever and irreversibly different from the one I grew up in for the last 37 (actually, 38 in one week) years or that I lived in even just yesterday that will be the only world that Ian will have ever known.

 

   This is the first Presidential election of Ian’s life even if, at a mere 16 months old, he will not remember it. This election is our man on the moon. This election is our Berlin Wall crumbling. A world that many did not think that they would ever live to see even ten years ago will be the norm for him.

 

   It doesn’t matter if you agree with Obama or even if you hate him. He has by his election to the office of President of the United States changed our world. When L. Douglas Wilder became the first black Governor of Virginia he decided to test the national waters and found them to be mostly indifferent of his accomplishments here. But he also found disbelief. My father’s family was having a huge family reunion at the time and I remember a number of us talking about the prospects of Wilder running for the highest office in the land. The general line of thought expressed by many was that he would never make it. America would not elect a black man to that office, and certainly not a black Democrat, and if America did he would be run out of the country by the Klan or Old South.

 

   My view wasn’t quite that pessimistic, but I certainly didn’t believe that I would see a black man elected POTUS in my lifetime. And I surely did not think the first black POTUS would be a Democrat. I knew it would happen one day, I was just resigned to the fact that, like my father’s generation likely thought about men on the moon or the fall of the Berlin Wall, I would never actually see it.

 

   And now I will.

 

   And my son, my 16 month old son who lies quietly sleeping not far from me will never know in any way other than academic what this moment in our country means. For him a black POTUS will be a fact of history. It will be the way things were for as long as he could remember and he’ll likely never fully understand what his mother and father and their friends are talking about when they look back on their lives and discuss the day our country kicked over one more domino and removed one more brick from the wall of racial inequity and injustice.

 

   This is no longer an optimistic fiction or a hopeful pipedream. This is now the reality of our world. This is the only reality that many of our children shall ever know. I wonder if I will be able to impress upon Ian the true meaning of what the last twelve hours in this country meant and what tomorrow morning will mean. I wonder if my father thought these things and felt these things when his world changed and he looked at the sleeping child that he would one day be explaining the changes of his world to.

And My Vote Was For…

The Meadow Party!!!

Hey, he can't be worse than the last guy...

Forrest J Ackerman

Word is spreading fast amongst horror fan circles that the great Forrst J Ackerman, who would be celebrating his 92nd birthday this November 22nd, is slipping away from us at an alarmingly fast rate of speed. So dire is his condition that Ray Bradbury, no spring chicken himself these days, dropped everything else that he was doing and rushed to his friends bedside to speak with him one last time.

Ackerman is an icon of horror historians. He’s famous for his massive collection of movie memorabilia and for his publishing the classic magazine Famous Monsters of Filmland. He was such a well known and respected character that true movie buffs turned pro would seek him out to give him bit parts in films just to be able to say that they had him in their films and many a documentary was made where Forrest Ackerman’s name was first on the list of must have interviewees.

Forrest J Ackerman is, quite unfortunately, another name in a long list of people that I wanted to meet but never did and, from the latest news, now never will.

Here’s a portion of his write up on his MySpace page as to what he has done with his 91 years on this planet.

“Some of my Achievements – I founded and Edited FAMOUS MONSTERS MAGAZINE that brought Halloween to kids around the World every month for almost 200 issues and almost 30 years. — I created VAMPIRELLA. — I coined the term SCI-FI. — I wrote the shortest SCI-FI story in the World, consisting of a single letter. — How did I start? Well, in 1922, at the age of 5-1/2, I saw my first fantasy film, ONE GLORIOUS DAY.

In October, 1926, I read and collected my first “scientifiction” magazine, AMAZING STORIES. In l929, I won a contest in the San Francisco Chronicle, entered by over 200 teenaged contestants, with my short story about a trip to Mars. In that same year I founded The Boys Scientifiction Club (I would have included girls but at that time female fans were as rare as unicorns’ horns). In l932, I presented the world’s first known list of “imagi-movies” (one of my many coined words) on the first page of the first science fiction fanzine,The Time Traveler. By l935 I was correspondingwith l27 sci-fi fans around the world– although it would be l954 before I coined the ubiquitous abbreviation, “sci-fi .” Since l948 I have served as literary agent for approximately 200 clients including: Pierre Barbet Nelson Bond Jerome Bixby Bradbury & Asimov (early foreign reprints) Harry Bates Arthur J. Burks Cleve Cartmill Mark Clifton Stanton A. Coblentz Mary Elizabeth Counselman Hugo Gernsback Horace L. Gold L. Ron Hubbard Raymond F. Jones George Langelaan Ib Melchior P. Schuyler Miller Kris Neville Andre Norton Ross Rocklynne Victor Rousseau Curt Siodmak Sherwood Springer William F. Temple Lyn Venable A.E. van Vogt Stanley Weinbaum Jack Williamson and S. Fowler Wright and I represent the estates of artists Frank R. Paul, Elliott Dold, Albert Nuetzell, Charles Schneeman and Hannes Bok I have collaborated with Catherine Moore, A.E. van Vogt, Robert A.W. Lowndes, Francis Flagg and other sf authors.

Among 50 stories, I’ve written the world’s shortest one myself: one letter of the alphabet. I have seen my favorite film, METROPOLIS close to 100 times. I have appeared in over 50 motion picture cameos, in films such as THE TIME TRAVELERS, AMAZON WOMEN ON THE MOON, THE HOWLING, BEVERLY HILLS COP III, THRILLER, INNOCENT BLOOD, VAMPIRELLA, and DRACULA VS. FRANKENSTEIN. My handprints and autograph are enshrined in cement in front of the Vista Theater in Hollywood (est. in l926; former location of the Babylon set pieces from D.W. Griffith’s INTOLERANCE and the upstairs office of Ed Wood, Jr.). My life companion, Wendayne (the only one in the world) Ackerman, as the aftermath of a mugging in Italy, died some years ago, but not before translating l50 sci-fi novels from French & German, moonlighting while teaching for 20 years at university.

It would be nice to look forward to going to a Great Sci-Fi Convention in the Sky when I expire and reuniting with Wendayne & Boris & Hugo & Paul & Bela & Isaac & Bob (Bloch) and my beloved maternal grandparents, last of the big time angels (my grandfather, George Herbert Wyman inspired by the sci-fi bestseller of the day, Looking Backward, architected — for $5. a week — the monumental Bradbury Building in Los Angeles, which has been seen in BLADERUNNER, WOLF, DEMON WITH THE GLASS HAND and many other films). I am vaguely contemplating opting for a cryogenic comeback but in case I don’t become a human people-cicle, I, like Isaac Asimov and other thinkers I admire, don’t expect to wake up in some spirit realm of an afterlife. I’ve been a secular humanist since I was 15, long before the term was invented, and nothing since has changed my mind. I regard myself as a sci-fi sponge that should be squeezed for information and anecdotes as long as I’m here. So while I’m still around, squeeze me.”

His official MySpace page can be found here:

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=67699686

 

Three of the Giants of classic Sci-Fi.

The Atlanta Radio Theatre Company (ARTC)

Are you a horror fan? Do you like Sci-Fi? Do you like comedy? Are you a fan of old radio characters like The Shadow? Are you a sick freak like my wife who likes Victorian Romance? If you answered yes to any of the above questions I have the group for you. The Atlanta Radio Theatre Company is a group based out of (duh) Atlanta, Georgia that does “new old radio” shows at various venues, for podcasts and for sale on CD.

I first found out about ARTC when Jenn and I saw them performing Rory Rammer (an original creation in the mold of radio’s old Saturday morning space adventures for the younger set) and an adaptation of horror writer H.P. Lovecraft’s ‘The Colour Out of Space’ at Dragon*Con 2006. I was very impressed with the live performance to say the least. All voice acting, music and foley effects were done live and to perfection and created a perfect setting for the mind to create the images needed as the story unfolded. But more impressive to me were the stories themselves.

Rory Rammer captured perfectly the feel of some of the old radio shows it was meant to be a tribute to while adding a touch of humor to it that makes the production more endearing rather than, as is typical with modern productions of this nature, making fun of the shows of yore. But it was ‘The Colour Out of Space’ that really impressed me. Lovecraft was a horror writer of great skill at creating horror that is almost psychologically visceral and very difficult to adapt properly. Most people, with rare exceptions, either fail in making good material based on Lovecraft’s work or they make something good that’s only about 10% H.P. Lovecraft. Their Lovecraft was pure horror, almost purely Lovecraft and magnificently preformed. My only thought after the show was that I had to learn more about these guys and I had to check out their table.

They didn’t have ‘Space’ on a CD, but they did have ‘The Shadow Over Innsmouth’ which has long been an old favorite of mine. I picked it up and, owing to money issues, resigned myself to not getting more at that time. With everything else that there is to do at Dragon*Con I was only able to really sit down and listen to ‘Innsmouth’ some time after I returned home from Atlanta. I was extremely happy with the purchase to say the least.

Being a horror geek first and foremost in my geekness; I put together a birthday and Christmas list made up of ARTC’s Lovecraft work for friends and family to choose. I was quite happy that Christmas. However, It wasn’t until after that Christmas that I really started to explore their website and what ARTC’s full range of productions really were.

ARTC does a line known as The Dean’s List. It is so named because the productions (done with the approval of the man’s family) are adaptations of Robert A. Heinlein’s work. SF by Gaslight is a series of classic science-fiction works while they do original sci-fi productions under their Centauri Express line. Into the Labyrinth and Dark River covers their works of Dark Fantasy. Oh, and they’ve got some Romance stuff in there as well.

Each CD runs around $12 and is worth twice the money. But don’t take my word for it. Look at their website, find something that looks like it’s your thing and buy just one item to try. Iffy on blind buying with a tight economy? Hey, we’re entering the holiday season. Put a CD or two on your Christmas list.

What? Some of you are still a bit iffy on the idea? Fine. For you I have a special offer. Well, it’s not for you as much as it is for everybody. ARTC podcasts their live events for free. They’re not as slick or well produced as their studio work, but they’re still damned good and they’re free. Try out their podcasts and see what you think. If for some reason you can’t download their productions you can always check out their MySpace (you don’t have to be a MySpace member) page. They have a media player on that page that has many of their podcasts set up to listen to without the need to download anything. And, as of this writing, it’s as up to date as possible with their first listing being a funny spoof called ‘Haunter Hunters’ that Jenn and I saw them do live at Dragon*Con 2008.

I’ll post all the links you’ll need below, but I have a request first. ARTC is a group that survives on the profits it makes from live events and the sale of its shows on cassette (yeah, they still have a few of those) and CD. If you enjoy their podcasts then please, please, please buy some of their actual products. If you’re tight for cash right now like a lot of us are; put some ARTC products on your Christmas wish list. And then, especially if you enjoy their work, spread the word about them.

ARTC’s main website:

http://www.artc.org/

ARTC’s Podcasts:

http://artcpodcast.org/

ARTC’s MySpace page:

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=242421596

The Atlanta Radio Theatre Company – There Is Adventure… In Sound

Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan

The picture Powell mentioned in his Meet the Press appearance that partially moved him to publicly endorse Obama.

The story behind it was of a boy who was 14 when 9/11 happened and stayed determined to serve and fight for his country by the time he was of legal age to join the military. He won a number of decorations for his service before being killed in action in Iraq. Powell had become disgusted that an entire political movement in this country would tell someone like Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan that he could serve and die for his country, but that anyone of his faith should never be allowed to even dream of becoming President of the United States. He became even more disgusted that an entire political movement would use the specter of extremist terrorism to try and cow the American public into fearing a man, Barack Obama, who was actually a Christian.

There are Muslims in this county today who will fight and die to protect the same freedoms that many of us hold dear. There are critics of these Muslims and their faith who, when given the chance to serve, especially some in the media, found other things to do or ducked service all together.

While I don’t believe that everyone should vote Obama because of this issue; everyone should be as disappointed or outraged as Powell must be at this point with the situation. Some of what’s been said and directed at Muslims and people of Arabic faith since 9/11 and especially in this election season is every bit as vile, ignorant and baseless as what was directed at Catholics up until only a few short decades ago and the Irish in America just some few years before that.

Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan went to war for this country to fight the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11 and was killed while performing that duty. He was not the only Muslim nor the only person serving who is not a follower of the Jewish or Christian faiths. It’s time that we assign the bigoted specter of “the wrong religion” to the dustbin of history along with “the wrong nationality” and “the wrong color” as should have been done before now.