My hero

I love Roger Ebert even more now, what an amazing guy. From his "Last Song" review:

"'The Last Song' is based on the novel by Nicholas Sparks, who also wrote the screenplay. Sparks recently went on record as saying he is a greater novelist than Cormac McCarthy. This is true in the same sense that I am a better novelist than William Shakespeare. Sparks also said his novels are like Greek Tragedies. This may actually be true. I can't check it out because, tragically, no really bad Greek tragedies have survived."

"To be sure, I resent the sacrilege Nicholas Sparks commits by even mentioning himself in the same sentence as Cormac McCarthy. I would not even allow him to say 'Hello, bookstore? This is Nicholas Sparks. Could you send over the new Cormac McCarthy novel?' He should show respect by ordering anonymously."

Coming out this year (hopefully!)

Lady Ga Ga Sightings Throughout History #4

Awwwww

Dear lord, the grease

A list of 10 amazing food stuffs that will having you pooping for a week straight, if not dying from cholesterol cancer.

On Wrestlemania XX...

"...I had a dream last night
Of rust, and far below me
Battered hulls and broken heart ships
Leviathan and lonely"
- Josh Ritter "Change the Times"

On all the professional wrestling sites there are many columns talking about all the past Wrestlemanias and how much they meant to the authors. There are numerous rankings of worst show to best, worst match to best, greatest moments, goofiest moments, etc. One that crops up time and again despite the tragedy that came after is the main event and aftermath of Wrestlemania XX from Madison Square Gardens in New York City. In that final moment, Chris Benoit won the World Heavyweight Championship from Triple H and then celebrated his victory with his best friend and also a recent championship winner Eddie Guerrero. The crowd gave a standing ovation for damn near twenty minutes as confetti covered the ring and audience. The two best friends embraced and posed with their belts and cried and celebrated finally making it to the top of their careers.

I started watching Benoit and Guerrero in WCW in 1996. Benoit was in the middle of a feud with Kevin Sullivan over a storyline affair Benoit was having with Sullivan's real life wife Nancy. Real life mirrored fiction and Nancy and Benoit ended up having a real affair that eventually lead to her divorce from Kevin and marriage to Benoit.

There was something real about Benoit then that struck me early on. His intensity seemed real, his moves and skill set in the ring seemed like he was legitimately competing against his wrestling opponents. He was straight forward and simple, both in good ways. He didn't have the height or charisma as his more successful peers did, but he was beloved by fans because of his realness.

Guerrero, I can't well remember what he was involved in when I started watching him. I remember respecting him for his wrestling ability for sure, but laughing at his creepy mustache and curly mullet. When he turned heel (bad guy) he was easily hateable, but I soon realized how much I liked that aspect of his character because of how much fun he seemed to have doing it.

I followed Benoit through many feuds I count amongst my favorite in wrestling: with, Kevin Sullivan and their brutal matches, with Raven and Diamond Dallad Page, his best of seven series with Booker T, the three way tag feud with he and Dean Malenko against Raven and Saturn and Rey Mysterio Jr. and Billy Kidman, his matches with Bret Hart, into WWE feuding with Chris Jericho and Kurt Angle, the Rock, Guerrero, teaming with Jericho against Steve Austin and Triple H, then the legendary Smackdown Six feud teaming with Angle against Rey and Edge and Eddie and his nephew Chavo, his big Mania win, then feuds with Orton and MVP.

Eddie went through the motions pretty much in WCW, rarely seeming happy. He had one of if not the best WCW match ever with Rey at Halloween Havoc 1997 (I think). He went on to form the lWo (Latino World Order) as a protest against unfair treatment of the Latino workers in WCW (half real, half storyline), and had more good matches in WCW but few memorable feuds. In WWE he became a popular duo with Chyna as Latino Heat before his drug and alcohol usage got him fired there. He cleaned up and rebuilt his reputation on the indie scene in an attempt to return to WWE. He succeeded and began feuding with Rob Van Dam, and then Benoit. Fan reaction was good and getting better as he turned into a likeable heel who fans loved cheering because of his cheating tendencies. He was part of the Smackdown Six feud and eventually turned face to begin his rise to the top. At No Way Out one month before Mania XX he defeated Brock Lesnar for the WWE Championship and went on to feud with Angle over the belt. In his prime in WWE, Eddie was considered one of the most popular wrestlers there, often getting bigger pops and heat than stars like John Cena.

For both, Wrestlemania XX and that moment at the end represented a realization of their respective dreams. Both ended the show as champions after being told for years they were too small or uncharismatic or weak on promo skills. Winning a championship in wrestling might not be from a competitive aspect like sports, but it's still a competitive victory and means the company thinks you are someone who can lead them as the on air representative, and top moneymaker for a near billion dollar industry. Benoit and Guerrero achieved a rare pinnacle and rightly got to celebrate it with fans, friends, and family. It was one of the most amazing and memorable moments in wrestling.

And then it fell apart.

Eddie Guerrero died a year or so later from a massive heart attack due to pain killer addiction years previous. A year later Chris Benoit murdered his wife and child and then committed suicide. Eddie's death was a sad blow for someone so beloved and respected, and for someone who tried so hard to face his demons and win back his family and professional reputation. Benoit's death was a betrayal and the realization of the darkness and heartbreak inherent in the pro wrestling culture.

I haven't watched the Wrestlemania XX match since the night of his death, hours after learning about it and minutes before finding out it was his fault. In fact I haven't watched any Benoit match since then. I have seen numerous Eddie matches, but still with the same melancholy each time. Benoit had many things wrong against him during his final days: drugs, alcohol, deaths of so many friends, pain, injuries, and apparently a brain the condition of that of an 80-year old man in severe dementia. I blame him, and I don't blame him. I blame wrestling and I don't blame wrestling. I blame Vince McMahon, and I don't blame Vince McMahon. I blame myself, and I don't blame myself.

I don't know how I would feel watching what I use to consider to be an inspiring, unbelievable moment. It's hard even thinking about the meaning behind it then with the layers of pain residing on it now. I wish those two, two of my favorites, had traveled different paths and none of the suffering ever happened. But it did, and it gave professional wrestling a heightened sense of realism belittled by it's fictional television universe, and the reaction of non-fans to its insanity. "Rowdy" Roddy Piper once famously said, "Just when you think you have all the answers, I change the questions." That about sums up professional wrestling to me, and why I love and hate it so much.

Lady Ga Ga Sightings Thoughout History #3

Lady Ga Ga sightings throughout history #2

I'd buy that for a dollar.

The return of "Brigade" from Rob Liefeld and Marat Mychaels.

Pointless ponderings #1

I'm wondering, with all that's come out recently on Tiger Woods and Jesse James and their shenanigans, is this the start of something in 2010? Is a lucrative new field about to open up for mistresses/porn stars/strippers/hookers/tattooed neo-Nazis to reveal themselves as the backroom ladies of various celebs/douche-canoes? It's the new way to get famous.

Lady Ga Ga sightings throughout history #1

Wrestlemani XXVI

My first post on my new blog, Inmistakable. I figure in honor of Wrestlemania weekend I'd start off by making my predictions for the big show in Phoenix.

Triple Threat Match: Randy Orton vs. Ted DiBiase(Jr.) vs Cody Rhodes
At one point a hot storyline on WWE Raw, this match has the least amount of heat behind it now. The break-up of the once formidable Legacy trio has finally happened with less bang, more whimpering. We've so far seen many iterations of this match, culminating two weeks ago with a handicap match (how I hate handicap matches!) where the duo of Rhodes and DiBiase defeated Orton, thus cementing the end of Legacy. Storyline over right? Not really. They then announced the three would compete again in this Triple Threat match at the 'mania for some reason or 'nother. This means Rhodes and DiBiase are ostensibly having to face one another though there has been little tension between them. I'm saying some forced tension comes into play here and Orton schools them both to a win. Don't know exactly where they all go from here though.

Undisputed Tag Team Championship Match - Showmiz (Big Show and The Miz), Tag Champs vs. R-Truth and John Morrison
Showmiz seem to have more chemistry to me than Big Show and Chris Jericho did when they were champs. Morrison and R-Truth are just a thrown together team with no real connection to each other or Showmiz save Morrison's former awesome tag team with The Miz. Still, for whatever lack of purpose there is here, at least we get a tag title match at Mania. It's been few and far between the last decade. Showmiz retains and Morrison moves on to a heel role against R-Truth.

Triple H vs. Sheamus
Though not on screen, this is the battle between mentor and mentee. Backstage, the H (as he will be heretofore known) is the biggest supporter of the very Irish champion. It's speculated that the H's support is what landed Sheamus his very first WWE Championship inside his rookie year of wrestling. In any event, Sheamus is that rare breed of heel that doesn't back down from a fight or rely on sneaky mind games to defeat his opponents. He up and gets in folks' face and takes it to them. How he looks coming out of this match will be entirely up to the H. I'm thinking the H wins this one, but the two continue to feud a while longer. God forbid H goes back to the title hunt.

Street Fight - CM Punk (with the Street Edge Society) vs. Rey Mysterio
The stipulation to this match is if Rey loses, he has to accept Punk as his savior. Which I believe that means he has to join the SES against his will. This reminds me of when Rey was forced to join the Latino World Order (lWo) in WCW after losing a match to Eddie Guerrero or someone like that. This match between he and Punk has quite a bit more fire behind it, though. Punk has been igniting the crowd's with his straight edge speeches the past year, but when he took it to Rey in front of his family two weeks ago on Smackdown! this feud came off the charts. Punk laid down one of the best promos I have ever seen and the tension was insane. This will be quite a match with Punk winning due to interference I'm sure by the SES. They will continue feuding a while, thank goodness.

10 Man Money In the Bank Ladder Match - Christian vs. Kane vs. Shelton Benjamin vs. MVP vs. Jack Swagger vs. Evan Bourne vs. Dolph Ziggler vs. Matt Hardy vs. Drew McIntyre vs. Kofi Kingston vs. Bea Arthur vs. the Hamburglar
Way too many people in this to be graceful. This is a chaotic ladder match where the winner is the one climbing a ladder center ring and grabbing a brief case with an arbitrary contract for a world title match sometime in the next year. Expect Benjamin to do something awesome but not win yet again. Expect Bourne to almost die executing a shooting star press off a ladder. Expect the Hamburglar to attempt to steal the briefcase away from the winner. And expect (rolls some dice and coins and a weasel) Christian to win.

No Holds Barred Match - Bret "Hitman" Hart vs. Vince McMahon
The match 13 years in the making. Vince finally gets his revenge on Bret for punching him backstage after Survivor Series 1997! Vince always manages to get his ass thoroughly kicked whenever he's in a match at Mania. This one will be no exception, and I imagine for the majority of fans who have suffered through every variation of the Montreal Screw-Job from Vince over the years, Bret handing him his ass will be quite cathartic. Bret wins, and hopefully stays with the company to help out the beleaguered Hart Dynasty.

World Heavyweight Title Match - Chris Jericho, World Champ vs. Edge
This match has lost a lot of fire since the Royal Rumble and Edge's big comeback. It's been based around Edge annoyingly saying "Spear" over and over for some reason. It'll be a great match I'm sure, hope we can get back on task to making this a better feud after Sunday. Jericho retains.

WWE Championship Match - Batista, WWE Champ vs. John Cena
I'm loving Batista as a heel more than I ever have before. He isn't the greatest wrestler for sure, but he can pull out good performances at big shows against name opponents. His match with Undertaker three years back or something like that was the best on the show. This has turned into a hot feud and is actually a fresh match-up considering the two have only faced one real time in their careers, and that was two years ago. Sleeper match, I believe. I'm hoping Batista retains here. I'm tired of flip-flopping title reigns.

Streak vs. Career Match - Shawn Michaels vs. The Undertaker
Simple but epic storytelling: Undertaker is putting his damn-near 20 year storyline of a Wrestlemania winning streak against the legendary career of Shawn Michaels. If Shawn wins, he did the impossible; if he loses, he has to retire. If he loses I think he will be one of the few to actually stick to his guns and stay away from the ring. I'm thinking he actually pulls this one out though and ends the streak.