As a former Yankees media relations intern I worked with Bob Shepard a little bit and have the utmost respect for him as a professional and a person. But this is a bad idea, and it has nothing to do with Shepard's talents.  It's about building brands through a Deeply Immersive Narrative Universe (DINU).

The Yankees are the Yankees because of their rich history. Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio, Mantle, Berra... the list goes on. And it's also Yankee Stadium and George Steinbrenner and Damn Yankees and even George Costanza (I actually held his job, assistant to the Traveling Secretary, for a while).  While all of these people, places and things add up to the brand that is the New York Yankees, none of them are bigger than the New York Yankees. To keep Shepard in his job in perpetuity would prevent a new part of the Yankees universe from being created. Would a new announcer be better than Shepard? Probably not, but maybe. But better isn't the point. A new announcer would in his or her own way continue to build the brand

We should no more want to keep Shepard forever than we should want to build a robot replica of Derek Jeter so that he can be the Yankees shortstop forever.  People sometimes criticize the concept of "change for change sake" but natural change, a passing of the guard, is an integral part of any good narrative.

Who's Bozo? Bozo the Clown, that's who Bozo is. When I was a kid, Bozo the Clown was the clown, bar none.

George Costanza, "The Fire"

It is nearly impossible to imagine a time when clowns did not just freak everyone out; man, woman and child.

I believe there is a special circle of Hell reserved only for clowns and people that try to retell a comedians routine to their friends. It is a place roughly the size of a Volkswagen Beetle and every clown that has ever existed suffers from athletes foot.

I do not have any personal childhood memories of clowns. They were out of fashion in the Age Star Wars and Dukes of Hazzard. They did not come back into fashion of sorts until 1986, with the release of Stephen Kings It, and that is when the public perception of clowns changed somewhat. Gone were the images of smiling white faced Bozo’s entertaining children at birthday parties with balloon animals. In its place came the deathly pale psychotic with razor sharp teeth and a fondness for children’s flesh and souls.

The fear and trauma of child molesters now ironically manifested itself as the Clown ( when it should probably be a boy scout leader)… gone was the age of innocence.

And now one of the last remnants of the age of innocence, Larry Harmon is dead at 83.

In fine American tradition, Larry acquired the rights to the character in the 50s and franchised it out around the country, so every city could have its own Bozo on local television- one that was not the weatherman.

He watered down the brand and made it a piece of Americana and children’s programing before the advent of 24 hour toy commercial TV.

One Sunday Morning on the Way to the Joke Shop

For that he deserves a 21 squirting lapel flower Salute.

I still hate clowns!

Welcome back to my insane ramblings.  I hope you missed me.  I missed you...or at least the thought of actual people out there, bathed in the soft light of your monitor, reading what I type in off the top of my head.  I appreciate you very much.

Fantasy baseball update, Yahoo league: Still bouncing between 7th and 9th place out of 11 teams. Traded away Lance Berkman, J.D. Drew and Heath Bell for Carlos Quentin, Jon Rauch and Chris Perez.  I figure for a keeper league, Quentin is a big-time guy to have - and his numbers were Berkman-like for much of this season.

Fantasy baseball update, CBS (and money) league: Also still bouncing, although I had a tremendous week and went from 13th to 7th for a few glorious days.  I thought that some of my long-time slumpers were finally living up to their usual stats, but then they kind of went back into suspended animation.

Turns out I will *not* be staying on at my current freelance gig, at least not in the same role. We've discussed another position in the company, but I still need to talk about it with the person who would be my supervisor. If this doesn't pan out, I'm working on some other options. Stay tuned...

No big boxing this past weekend, but that's OK because we were in Philly for my friend Howard's wedding. They had it at this little winery north of New Hope, PA. (I enjoyed their sweet riesling.)

This weekend, it's pool time for sure. Dallas has been hovering around 100 degrees the past couple days, and it's supposed to "cool down" to the mid-90s for a while. And summer officially starts this weekend.

Our apartment complex is being really jerky about trash. We were putting out our trash bags (no garbage can be left out unless it's in a bag, by the way) the night before trash pickup - which is 8:30 a.m. on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. It wasn't hurting anybody. But the complex policy, which was redistributed in memo form, says that we can't do that anymore.  So trash has to be out some time between sunrise and 8:30 a.m. This is an inconvenience that annoys me.

The Phillies are doing very well. Of course, now that I've said that, they will probably begin to suck. Sorry for the jinx, boys.

Writer's block, jet lag and overall malaise have overtaken me.

The scene with the Asian girls in the beauty parlor badmouthing Elaine in Korean was hilarious as she had no idea what they were saying about her. I wonder if that is common in beauty parlors owned by good looking Asian women who cannot speak English.

Now, Frank Costanza says he spoke to the Reverend Sung Young Moon and that he had a face like apple pie. People, what the heck does someone look like with a face like apple pie? Show me a photo or something. Please! He reveals to Elaine about his foot odor. Like we really need to hear that, Mr Costanza!!!

Observation: I think this is one of the only few scenes in Seinfeld history where we see Elaine sitting with Frank Costanza.

Also, I loved when the cab driver threw the Jerry, George, and Jenice out of the cab. A typical New York City cabbie with a non-American accent.

Another classic scene was when that obnoxious Asian girl from the beauty parlor screamed out to Elaine "WHAT? NO BETTE MIDLER?"

The idea of giving away something for very little or nothing at all is not new. Obviously, by signing up for a new two-year agreement Verizon can afford to give you a phone for free. You're probably going to be spending $60 a month with them for 24 months before you try to jump ship to get your next free phone from T-mobile. Using loss leaders is known as the "razor and blades business model" because it's the model the Gillette company's founder used. Ever gotten a free razor in the mail? If Gillette spends $5 sending you a razor and a blade cartridge (and you love the product) you'll buy the high margin blades and Gillette makes more money.

Like George, I would see free Super Bowl tickets as a bill for $1500. Sure I'd save a few hundred, but that doesn't mean I have $1500 in disposable income. So, when visiting Chick-fil-a for breakfast this morning I had to love their current promotion. To fully set the stage, I have to go back a few weeks. I was on my way to work and for some reason saw a Chick-fil-a cow standing on the side of the road in his pajamas holding a sign. I assumed it was something like "eat mor chickin" and looked over as I drove past. The sign said, "free breakfast".

Too bad for me I already drove past the cow; maybe next time he should stand before the turn into Chick-fil-a, not after it. Somehow I ended up finding out that this wasn't an isolated incident. Apparently every Wednesday for a few weeks (at least here in Indianapolis), each vehicle that stops at Chick-fil-a during normal breakfast hours gets one free breakfast entrée. They say, "there's no such thing as a free lunch," and that's what Chick-fil-a is counting on. Every Wednesday more and more people are lined up in the drive-thru at Chick-fil-a to save maybe 3 bucks and get some delicious Chick-fil-a breakfast. How many people do you think just get the free entrée and move on? Not many, I'm sure.

Maybe someone buys a drink; maybe they get a drink and hash browns to complete the meal; maybe they stop with a car full of kids and feed them all. So Chik-fil-a is giving away all this breakfast, but they're also doing two things, 1) they're creating a buzz between people telling others where to get free breakfast and by people seeing the crazy line at Chick-fil-a which means they must be doing something right, and 2) they're racking up sales that add on top of the free entrée: sides, drinks, and additional entrées.

When doing a marketing campaign, don't just give away a promotional product or coupon. Give people something of value. Give it to them without strings, but have more to offer them if they like the freebie. In another instance of Chick-fil-a marketing, just last night I got a coupon for free breakfast from submitting my info online. They're always happy to send me coupons and I'm always happy to get them... but who can argue with across the board free breakfast? Black, white, rich, poor, smart, stupid, healthy, or sick just show up and chow down

...just be sure to wash that down with a beverage!

Ok bueno lo del titulo es mentira, por ahora al menos, para los que veian o ven la serie Seinfeld(actualmente aun transmitida por el canal SONY) recordaran un episodio donde el personaje de George Costanza(interpretado por el actor Jason Alexander) decide hacer todo lo contrario a lo que le dicen sus instintos inspirado por una racha de mala suerte en su vida y repentinamente todo empieza a salir bien o,o

Asi que yo inspirado por el hecho de haberla cag**d* en varias facetas de mi vida ultimamente(y despues de recordar este episodio obvio) pienso hacer lo mismo, si en serio, quien sabe quizas todo sale bien o no? si mi instinto me dice derecha voy a la izquierda, si dice no hagas algo, lo hago, desde hoy comienzo con este experimento a ver. Maybe en un futuro lo que dice el titulo del post sea verdad =D

Se ha determinado que ver demasiadas comedias puede ser dañino para la salud mental y puede llevar a la toma de decisiones tan absurdas como esta.

Aca parte del episodio

ah se me olvidaba.... estare publicando los resultados del experimento xD

Here's another cautionary tale for those planning on hovering around the party snacks at your super gathering. This dramatic snack food moment includes Jerry Seinfeld's less-than-socially-graceful friend George Costanza.

I'm a big fan of Seinfeld ... period. I watched 7 seasons in 1-2 months and will probably splurge on the final 2 seasons soon. For those of you who have never seen the show: "Seinfeld" started as "The Seinfeld Chronicles" in a pilot back in 1989, it showed the day-to-day life of the popular comedian Jerry Seinfeld. The show ran for 9 seasons and is considered one of the most successful series of the nineties. It featureD such great characters as George Costanza (Jason Alexander) Elaine Bennes (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) and Kosmo Kramer (Michael Richards).

Over the years, many parts of the show have become part of popular culture: like the soup nazi, "regifting", "these pretzels are making me thirsty", "festivus", "not that there's anything wrong with that", "you're using the it's not you it's me routine ? That's my routine !" and many many more.

The show was co-written by Larry David (director of the more recent "Curb your enthousiasm") and Jerry himself and featured real-life experiences from both their lives.

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I think I may be the one person who loves self-checkouts at grocery stores the most. I dare anyone to claim they love self-checkouts more.

There is an episode of Seinfeld where George Costanza pulls out his wallet in the corner diner. Jerry is shocked at how thick it is. George has stuffed it with coupons, receipts and other odds and ends that accumulate in a wallet over the course of life.

While pulling out my wallet at the self-checkout, I realized I have too many cards, amongst other paraphernalia in my wallet. In no particular order: a Blockbuster card; two credit cards; a quick-reference card for my bank back home; my old boss' business card; a temp agency business card; a Blockbuster gift card which, if I remember correctly, only has like 18 cents left on it; two library cards, one of which is broken on account of lending it to a friend years ago in bible school to try and jimmy his dorm door open since he didn't have his keys and couldn't find his roommates; a community college card; my car's extended warranty card; my driver's license, under which is a folded piece of paper from the Ohio bureaucracy saying my address is different than what is on my license...or in other words, it says I was too cheap to simply get a new license with an updated address; bank account cards to my bank in Ohio and my bank back home; a debit card I never asked for but used once to rent a car last summer; a grocery store shopper's club card; three gift cards, one I think doesn't have any money on it and another I'm not sure I'll ever use; a business card of the representative of the chemical supplier for the school I work at; a health insurance card since I used to be young enough to be covered on my father's insurance; a Best Buy Reward Zone card; a medical prescription card; the business card of the guy at the car dealership where I bought my car just over five years ago; and last, but not least, though certainly most surprisingly, cash.

If you're planning on purchasing anything at Best Buy, give me a holler. I like my Reward Zone card. I also like the freebies it qualifies me for.

I've noticed a difference between young guys and the Baby Boomer men. I usually can't tell if younger guys are carrying their wallets in their back pocket. A gap for wallet carrying preference between the two generations? I don't know. But I do know I hate carrying my wallet in my back pocket. It hurts when I sit down.

Maybe I should try out a European carry-all like Jerry Seinfeld had.

It has been an extremely rough year in the Sid household.  When 2007 rang in, things were not perfect and I cannot even say that I was happy.  However, I was fairly content, as I knew things were changing in the right direction.  Or so I thought.  I was crazy in love with a man who was just as in love with me and we were going to build a future together.  I had returned to my job after a 2 month stress leave, determined to make the most of it.  I started weight training again with the goal to reshape my body.

A whole bunch of shite happened in between the beginning of the year up to tonight.  I won't bore myself or anyone else with the details, as they are still hanging around in my brain (where I can only hope such details and memories will die).  I can say that most of the events this year that involved me, either directly or indirectly, were negative.  However, not to completely sound like the ungrateful and pessimistic bitch that I can be, I will say that there was one highlight and that was repairing a friendship with one of my closest friends on this earth.   That does thrust some positivity into 2007 (love ya weez).

As I end the year estranged from my love and finding myself in a different job that turned out to be a risk I should not have taken, with a body I failed to reshape - I sit here and cannot help but think that the similarities between a certain television character and myself are overwhelming.  Instead of returning to Edmonton to celebrate with friends and family, I decided to drown my sorrows with Rickard's Red & the SNL special, because of one thing and one thing only.

I have become George Costanza. 

Oh holy fuck.

Good riddance, 2007.  You kicked my ass and I want you to watch me grab 2008 by the balls.

Happy New Year, Y'all

.

William Shatner, Estelle Costanza (Estelle Harris) and Marcia Brady(Maureen McCormick)? haha

And you have the perfect Web 2.0 parity video thanks to the music of up and coming country star Brad Paisley.

Very well done!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GcVnhNjWV0

or Google... Brad Paisley Online

Leo Laporte and AmberMacArthur need to add this to the Net@Nite reviews...

With a 7-0 record, the Celtics are having their best start in 35 years. People are talking about Larry Bird and the legendary Boston teams of old - the Celtics have won a league-leading 16 championships, after all.

Last year, the team finished the season with a record of 24-58, and anyone remotely interested in the NBA knew that Boston wasn't much of a threat. With the loss of Antoine Walker during the 2004-05 season, and by extension the end of the 1-2 Walker-Pierce punch, things were grim on the Fleet Center's hardwood.

But with the recent acquisitions of sharp-shooting Ray Allen and the beast that is Kevin Garnett, the Celtics are now a force to be reckoned with. Whether their dominance will last down the stretch is unsure, but for now, this is one bandwagon I don't mind jumping on!

Will this be like almost every other obscure blog on the planet? Well...yup. I can't lie to you. This is more of an exercise in just writing for writing's sake than it is in actually achieving any real point. I do believe that I want to hit 100 posts just to know what it feels like to do it. Plus, I want to know that I actually stuck with something long enough to see that happen.

I chose a Wordpress blog to do this, because I didn't want to be looked upon as "evil" in the eyes of the purist blogger community by possibly monetizing this blog with Adsense ads and the like. Yes, as George Costanza once said, "Conformity is an obsession with me."

So now I'm watching "John & Kate Plus 8" and am constantly amazed at how they even breathe for one second with eight kids. I have one (and one on the way) and it's unreal how much work goes into it. But, it's an absolute labor of love, so it's all good. Speaking of which, this blog is a labor of love too.

I've put some more serious though to what "Bizarro Eric" might be like. The "Bizarro Universe" is something that occurs a lot in pop culture. It started with a Bizarro Superman causing all kinds of mayhem. It has since been spoofed several times.

One is in an episode of Seinfeld, which I think may be my favorite Seinfeld episode of all time. In that episode, things are backwards: Kramer becomes a business man, George in fact does become a ladies man. Elaine breaks up with "Kevin" but remains friends with him. She notes that he is the exact opposite of Jerry. He is Bizarro Jerry.

And, it turns out that he has two friends who end up being a Bizarro Kramer and a Bizarro George. South Park also has an episode where the characters meet up with their parallels from an evil alternate universe.

The humor of these episodes comes from what it reveals about the character's being spoofed. The Bizarro superman was typically a bad guy (though often an anti-hero). But, the Bizarro Jerry, Kramer, George, and Cartman were all good guys. They were thoughtful, considerate, well read, ect. The humor is in how it points out the flaws of the characters being parodied.

And it makes me really think about myself: What would Bizarro Eric be like? Would he be a good guy, or a bad guy?

The more I think about it, the more I realize that either character is possible. In one Bizarro universe, I could see myself being a total jerk. But, I think there is another universe where I would be a really good guy.

In this universe, I'm not a total jerk, but I'm often somewhat of a jerk. I'm somewhere in the middle, maybe leaning to one side or another, but not a total anything. So, if my "bizarro" showed up, he might be a villain, being rude and obnoxious to people, completely self-absorbed, oppressive, hateful, without any compassion. On the same side, he might be the good guy, never rude or obnoxious, never self absorbed, standing up against oppression, totally loving and completely compassionate.

And, as I think about it, it bothers me that both are a possibility. I recently read "The Irresistible Revolution" by Shane Claiborne. It made me think a lot about what it means to love people the way Jesus commands us to love people. Through the course of discussing that book, I John 4:18 came to mind: Perfect love drives out fear.

The meaning of that had not been clear to me before that, but it then occurred to me. We often fail to act on behalf of others based on fear. Fear of rejection, fear of reputation, fear of being robbed, or of being hurt, maybe even fear of being killed.

If we love perfectly, though, then our love for that person cancels out any fear we may have regarding what may happen to us. So, if we fail to act, then we do not love. We may "care," but care without action is not love.

Fear, then, is the opposite of love. And, I find myself filled with fear. And, as I think about what "Eric from an evil parallel universe" might be like, it may be that he doesn't care at all. Or, he may be someone who truly loves.

Because neither version exists here right now.

Several people have suggested that the response has been overblown. Much has been made about the behavior of the audience at the event. Rather than rehash the various issues with that particular interview or taking the audience to the woodshed for their "childish" behavior, I'd rather approach this from the opposite side. What makes a good live presentation?

I have done a little public speaking myself (presenting at technical conferences and church/community groups with audiences of a few hundred to upwards of 5,000), along with other types of public performances/presentations (community theater, lip-sync/pantomime for live audiences and syndicated TV, singing telegrams, and so on). I state that here, not to try to impress someone, but simply to present some basic credentials. I'm familiar with both ends of the spectrum in terms of results: I have been successful in presenting to large audiences, and I have bombed.

I have noted that successful performances have some interesting similarities. I have identified three rules for a successful live presentation.

Rule 1: Know Your Audience
Here's the quick summation: Your bombing is not the audience's fault (tm). This rule is probably the most important, so let me elaborate.

Have you bombed in front of an audience before? I mean, really bombed? I have, and it's one of the worst feelings in the world. They're having a lousy time (unless they start heckling, which is the audience's way of trying to turn a bad time into a good one). You're having a lousy time (unless you're a masochist). All God's children havin' a bad time.

Going home after bombing is even worse. You're angry. You're hurt. You question everything. "Is this because my parents hated me?" "Did I leave my fly unzipped?" You even blame the audience.

I call blaming the audience the "George Costanza effect." One of my favorite lines from George (the Seinfeld character portrayed by Jason Alexander) was "It's a smart joke. A smart audience will get it." In effect, his pride causes him to equate a good laugh from the audience as purely his own doing. The audience gets credit only for being as smart as he is.

The fact is, with the audience, they are who they are. If you, the person addressing the audience, don't know who they are (what they will find interesting/funny/entertaining), it's not their fault for showing up. Another way to look at a failure like this is to consider it competition: Do you blame your opponent in a game for being better than you? If the audience is your opponent (and this borders on the unhealthy, because they should be your ally and not your adversary), then you're faulting them for coming to the "game" more prepared than you.

For example, several years ago, I presented "Top Ten C++ Programming Tips" at the Software Development conference. It went very well, and the reviews were good. Years later, I presented a similar session about Java Programming. It didn't quite bomb, but it was close. It wasn't nearly strong enough in content for the audience, which I would have expected to have been less technical than the people attending the C++ track before. In fact, the class was more technical in some ways, but I hadn't done my homework on what content had worked well for other speakers. Lesson learned.

On a different occasion, I was providing entertainment for a Valentine's Day banquet at a nearby Southern Baptist church. The audience was deacons and their wives (this being a brand of Southern Baptist church that would not have considered women as deacons). I opened by performing a lip-sync of Ray Stevens' "Guitarzan" (a hysterically funny novelty song to listen to, and even funnier to see lip-sync'd).

When I finished performing this very funny song, the audience just sat there. No applause. No laughter. Nothing. I looked at my wife in the back of the crowd and saw the look of panic on her face. She knew that I had approximately 25 minutes of material, and all of it was just like this. This was a disaster about to happen. I had not spent time talking with people in the audience beforehand, so I had no "pulse" of the crowd until that moment.

What did I do? I told a church joke. (I don't remember which one, but it was probably something fairly lame.) They rolled. They laughed like I'd never heard a church group laugh. I told another joke. They rolled again. For the next 10 minutes, I reworked every joke I knew to make it into a church joke (the "a man walks into a bar..." jokes all became "a man walks into the fellowship hall for a potluck dinner and..."). I closed with one more lip-sync, but by then, they were on my side, and they applauded politely.

I cannot state this strongly enough: Know your audience. If you don't know them when you arrive, spend every available moment getting to know them. You'll be glad you did.

Rule 2: Know Your Material
Many people feel that they "know" their material. Many people are wrong.

If you're going to present something to a live audience, you can't just know your material with the familiarity that exists in your living room. To present before a live audience, you have to know your material backwards and forwards. Experienced presenters are nuts about rehearsals. Stand-up comedians, who face tougher crowds than most of us will ever see, have to be even more prepared than the average speaker. Think your preacher or the president of your local civic club feels pressure when he or she gets up to speak? Are they likely to get boos or heckling from the crowd? How many people paid to come to hear them speak?

Now, to be fair, the pressure of being "on" is different for everyone, so it's hard to make universally applicable rules. However, just like in sports, it typically takes a great deal of experience for the pressure of performing in front of a crowd to translate into something positive. As a result, you have to be so incredibly familiar with what you're doing that you can get completely knocked into the weeds and recover immediately. I don't believe that I have ever done any kind of live performance or presentation where things went exactly the way they were supposed to. Murphy always shows up. If you're not ready, Mr. Murphy's famous law will bite your backside.

The flip side of this is that with enough preparation, the pressure of performing in public can be absolutely energizing. Several years ago, I was asked to perform a funny lip-sync on a syndicated TV show. Just before going on-stage, one of the other performers asked the stage manager how many people would see the show.

He replied, "Son, they cancel shows like this if less than a million people tune in."

If I hadn't rehearsed and performed my material several hundred times (and that is not an exaggeration), I might have been paralyzed by this information. Instead, it became an adrenaline rush that I had to control. At that moment, I have no doubt I could have set some kind of personal best in weight-lifting.

Lastly, knowing your material also means editing it down to make it "tight." If the audience can think ahead of you, then you've not got it right yet. If the presentation has a lot of "fat" in it, that provides a toehold for the ADD types in the audience to go astray. Unless you're looking to bomb, don't give them that opportunity. Keep it interesting by keeping the pace up with tight editing. Pregnant pauses and unintentional "dead space" are signs that you weren't prepared.

Knowing your material at a fanatical level will not eliminate the need for knowing your audience, but it can certainly help you recover from what would otherwise be "death, on-stage." You simply cannot know your material too well.

Rule 3: Know Your Limitations
Most of us are not Jonathan Winters or Robin Williams, and therefore cannot just "be entertaining" at a moment's notice. Even those of us with improvisational abilities are highly unlikely to be thought of with such geniuses. Likewise, some of us can sing, others can't. You may sing extremely well, but you're not likely to be equivalent to Sinatra or Ella Fitzgerald. Even with the right material for a given audience, and even if you know it better than you know your Mom's phone number, there are some realities that you're going to have to accept.

I have accepted, for example, that I will never be great at nightclub stand-up comedy. With enough practice and some well-rehearsed material, I can keep geeks or church people entertained, but the traditional nightclub crowd puts demands on a stand-up performer that I don't possess the skills to meet.

Remember the Software Development conference I mentioned earlier? Well, one year, the morning's keynote speaker was Dana Carvey, and my session immediately followed his keynote (though obviously in one of the breakout rooms with a much smaller audience of about a hundred people). Knowing that Carvey's performance was fresh in the audience's mind, I improvised a variation to one of my tips about the C++ language (specifically, deleting a pointer to memory twice) by saying:

Don't want to do it... wouldn't be prudent

The track chair met with me shortly after the conference was over, and was puzzled by some of the comments in the reviews. In particular, several attendees had noted in their review: "George Bush impersonation needs work."

In their own way, the attendees were telling me, "you're no Dana Carvey." Carvey is a great stand-up comedian. I'm not.

Learn from Mistakes
Each of the three rules above are given in the context of learning from past mistakes. Obviously, to learn from a mistake, you have to get out and actually make the mistake in the first place. That takes courage, and involves opening yourself up for criticism from a variety of sources.

In addition, you can learn from the mistakes of others. Watching the Lacy/Zuckerberg interview is useful in this context. However, you can also learn something about the "George Costanza effect" by watching Lacy's post-interview comments. You can learn: Your bombing is not the audience's fault (tm).

The movie stars Mickey Rourke of all people as a professional wrestler, and apparently depicts the business as is - rather than doing some sort of blend between reality and fiction like Ready to Rumble did. With nauseating results. Former Wild Samoan Afa Anoa'i is apparently consulting, and a few other recognizable grapplers are involved as well. Namely, deathmatch specialist Necro Butcher, "K-Kwik" Ron Killings (I'm a fan), and The Blue Meanie.

In addition to doing some filming at a WXW show, some took place at a CZW show - that is, Combat Zone Wrestling. They love their deathmatches too. Weedwhackers, light tubes, flaming barbed wire bats, suspending people from meathooks, it's all gravy. Someone was helpful enough to capture some footage:

Well it looked to be just a typical Saturday night for me.  I could have stayed home, but it really wasn't an option.  So I evaluated my situation: Some alumni were up for the weekend and were headed to the same bar we went to last night (this would have been the easy choice).  Some other friends were headed downtown for a birthday.  And with this going on, I started to hear George in my head:

Waitress : Tuna on toast, coleslaw, cup of coffee.

George : Yeah. No, no, no, wait a minute, I always have tuna on toast. Nothing's ever worked out for me with tuna on toast. I want the complete opposite of on toast. Chicken salad, on rye, untoasted ... and a cup of tea.

I knew I had to go downtown.  Why have a continuation like last night when I could go downtown to a place I've never been before?

There was a big group of us, most of which I didn't know, so after we got drinks, I was a little outgoing.  I introduced myself, and was soon dancing with all of them.  Dancing, if you don't know me, is one thing I love, so that part wasn't hard.  The hard part was dancing with someone that I have no interest in.  If I don't like you, it's hard to dance with you.  But I got over myself, and realized he was actually a good dancer...a little forward, but still a good dancer.  I had to give it to him; most guys are too shy or self conscious to dance in public.  Too stay with him all night, would have been too easy, so I left with my friend early to get back to our alumni friends. 

We had an hour left before the bar closed, but we made the best of it.  We were dancing and yelling singing along.  At one point dancing seemed like an obstacle course.  One friend was swinging his ass so hard it made it hard not to fall over, and one friend is so tall that I crawled through his legs just to escape the maddness.  In the end, it was a good night because it was so far from normal.