jaedmc

Oh I didn't mean to be a big downer about it. I didn't know him and they've been prepping for it for a while. He was 84 I think. I just thought it was a similarly bizarre cinematic coincidence and your story gave me a reason to share.

Just watched Hoop Dreams on Netflix. Holy shit, that's one of the best movies I've seen from the whole decade. So if you haven't seen it WATCH IT NOW.

Watched The Seventh Seal Saturday night, and not even 30 seconds after the end credits my wife got a text that her uncle died. The next day she went to church and she said tue sermon was about where we go after we die.

I knew that. My thumbs did not.

Yippee I can git in a couple of more movies. And all of you jabronies can watch IRON MONKEY.

..I have till midnight....right?

The Kryptonite Kid by Joseph Torchia Picked by Brian Fowler Read and Reviewed by Cliff Hanger “I believe in Superman the way some people believe in Jesus.” --Novelist and former Superman writer Chris Robertson to the Austin American-Statesman This book has been pretty difficult for me to write about. When I first got it, my reflexive response was disappointment that I had been assigned a superhero story, even one where the Last Son of Krypton is explicitly fictional even within the story. I read more than enough of those, after all. The fact that the book was thirty years out of print, had never been issued digitally and had no Wikipedia page made me feel apprehensive as well as a tad let down, as did the Amazon reviews describing how much the novel had meant to reviewers when they were kids. All I could find out was that it was an epistolary detailing a little boy's letters to Superman, and that the author's scant other works were more focused on the gay experience. My library, of course, couldn't provide a copy, so I found myself tethered to a DRM-riddled scan from openlibrary.org. I had never truly considered the difference between spending hours combing the web on my desktop PC and trying to read a long-form novel until I did the latter. It ended up taking over a month to get around to, but when I did I was glad I had. The setting and concept are simple: in the summer and fall of 1959, seven-year-old Jerry and his best friend Robert write letters to Superman. They start off as simple fan letters, but as time goes on and the boys' lives become more difficult, the Man of Steel becomes a stand-in for absent or abusive fathers as well as for God. As the story proceeds through its five chapters, called “dimensions,” Jerry becomes obsessed with gaining super powers, starts finding “kryptonite” all over his hometown, and starts to fixate on Mr. Mxyzptlk as well as Superman himself. He starts to recount dreams he can't possibly have had, which are clearly a much older man dreaming about his past both recent and childhood, and in the last two dimensions his fantasy fixations become self-destructive. By this point, Superman has become so explicitly Jerry's God that Jerry finds himself brutally punished for writing a poem about the Son of Jor-El's superiority to the Son of Jehovah. There are no dates given; we know Jerry and Robert are seven because they're preparing for their First Communion, we know they're writing roughly every day (sometimes more or less often) from references to events getting closer or further away, and we know that the story starts in June of 1959 because George Reeves's death is an important early event. Jerry's faith is briefly shaken, but then he rationalizes that of course the Superman on TV is just an actor. The real hero is so busy that he doesn't have time to answer fan mail in spite of super speed and “super branes;” actually shooting a half hour of television every week would be an absurd imposition. But even as time passes and he never gets a reply, Jerry simply doubles down and continues spending his allowance on stamps so that he can ask Superman what a queer is and why he gets in trouble for merely asking, inquire as to whether Purgatory and the Phantom Zone are the same (and if so can you please let me out when I go there, please Superman) or donate a catechism to keep the Man of Steel out of Hell. I found the epistolary format very frustrating, since it forces upon the story a host of grammatical and spelling errors that make me wince. At the same time, there is literally no other way in which this story can work. I also struggled with some of the flash-forwards and dreams; it was obvious when Jerry was dreaming as a boy or dreaming as a man, but it still made for awkward reading. I'm also not entirely certain how far in the future certain bits are meant to be. In spite of those issues, I'm generally very glad I sucked it up and read the book. The best way I can describe the tone is to say that it alternates between bittersweet and pitch black, with most of the humor drawn from the very grown-up events transpiring around Jerry and his childlike misunderstanding of them. The story's predominant theme is obviously that of hero worship; Torchia explores both the ways that Jerry's faith in Superman gives him strength to deal with a home life which was normal by the standards of the day but easily recognizable as abusive to modern eyes, and a harsh Catholic school which seems almost cartoonishly brutal even by the standards of the 1950s. The teacher, Sister Mary Justin, not only employs corporal punishment but also a cruel and vicious level of sarcasm, bullying and religious terror. One of my favorite moments in the story comes when Robert, after weeks of looking, finally finds Metropolis on the map. The hated Sister is briefly flummoxed, before starting a familiar dress down of the boys and makes the mistake of telling them that even if they visit Metropolis, they will never see Superman. Robert, without missing a beat, announces that he doubts the Sister has ever seen God or Heaven, and thus she has no right to insist they're real while Superman isn't. The really amazing thing about this story is just how stupid the adults are. They clearly see that Jerry has a problem, but instead of attempting to gently redirect his interest toward the real world, they continually double down on name-calling, physical discipline and scare/humiliation tactics. The only adult who treats Jerry with any kindness or respect is cut out of his life by force in a “what would the neighbors think?” maneuver. One can argue that a reader's omniscience provides them with a form of hindsight not available to the characters, but it just feels false that nobody recognizes these tactics are failing and thinks to approach the situation differently. In spite of those problems, I really enjoyed The Kryptonite Kid and would recommend it heartily to anyone willing to walk a mile in a sad little boy's shoes. Many thanks to whoever selected it. I really enjoyed the SBE project and I would be thrilled to engage in another, provided that I could make sure any book chosen for me was available in a format that suits my digital capabilities better.

I'll have to go back over my ARCHIVES but I'm pretty sure RAW ended once with a match just starting. Like during the entrances Vince was like "We gottta goooo enjoy Silk Stockings!"

...I just want to be loved.

Wait what's reverse racism? Is that like being favorable to people because of their race? You guys are over my head now.

In order for a racial slur to be affective it has to come from the oppressor not from the oppressed. No white person is really offended by honky or cracker. They're like apology gifts from whites to blacks that aren't really worth anything.

It's easier to ostracize some one than to actually sit down with them and talk about what they did and try to learn each other's points of views. Football players, sadly, are not built for these types of situations. Actually neither is just about the majority of America.

A man bought a poster of Frankenstein at an antique store for 5 bucks. Just sold it for a quarter of a million http://artdaily.com/news/64069/Frankenstein-movie-poster-realizes--262-900-to-set-world-record-at-Heritage-Auctions#.UfvnkZLrw4g If I ever make it big I'm buying this.

C.HUD

That one was lame. I like this one better: Word Trade Center + The Hoax

Bug + The Pest?

I'M ALWAYS FOR REAL

I want to know about why this would be a neat double feature. I've seen Footnote, what makes it a good pairing with the other?

I legit almost started this topic a 100 times on the old board but I wasn't sure where to put it or if anyone would care. I'm the most hated man in my family when it comes to Ticket to Ride. I dominate. Last time I remember losing was when they fucking conspired behind my back to take my yellow playing piece away. They had my sister-in-law do it because they knew I wouldn't say anything. I live near Cat-n-Mouse in Chicago which is a GREAT game store and they hold cool events. At one event I got to play 7 Wonders, which is fucking awesome, with this guy: http://www.geekosystem.com/catan-worlds-married/ Tsuro is legit fun, and the first time I ever played it was in the store with just me and my son. He beat me. He's five. So I had to buy it. Really easy to pick up and play with pretty much anyone. I actually really dig ZOMBIES!!! and I own an expansion pack or two. It's pretty simple and is easy to play with folks who aren't huge on games. Las Vegas is a newer dice game that's tons of fun for casual gaming friends. You roll dice and put sets of numbers on cards in order to win money values. It's super simple and has just enough strategy where you don't think it's all luck. But if you lose you can just blame it on the dice.

Oh hell yeah, sign me up for that. I just love that of all the people they could have got for a one man show in 2013, they went with Robert Redford. Hopefully it's good.

Ran into this list of movies Stnaley Kubrick liked: http://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/sight-sound-magazine/polls-surveys/stanley-kubrick-cinephile And I found out that we have a shared love of....WHITE MEN CAN'T JUMP

A Curious Life: The Strange & Brilliant Life of Robert 'Believe It Or Not' Ripley by Neal Thompson Picked by Mike Zeidler Read and Reviewed by: Shane I was pretty excited to read this one and it didn’t disappoint. I knew next to nothing about Ripley going in and I have to say, he lived an incredibly compelling life. It’s a story of how this gawky, painfully shy high school dropout from an almost impoverished family went on to travel the world and just generally captivate a nation. I had no idea that he was at the forefront of every aspect of mass media he ever dipped his toes into. From cartooning for newspapers to radio to film and television, he found success at every level. What I find the most resonant is really his curiosity. It never seemed like it was about money or fame. He was willing to try anything and go anywhere simply because he was fascinated by the people he found and the cultures he was able to interact with. He was also a tremendously likeable guy, despite being a bit of a rogue (a chronic womanizer, prodigious drinker and someone who eventually began to flaunt his wealth). It was hard to hold his vices against him, though, because his approach to life was almost childlike. I don't know that I typically get into "underdog" stories too much. Not in my nonfiction, anyway. That said, this is well worth a read. A truly engaging story about a guy who lived life to its fullest. Believe it...or not?!

I was at both shows. The night before the lucha show was DGUSA. They gave out comp tickets to the people at DGUSA for the Lucha show the following night. Also I'm pretty sure they had an insane deal on kids and families. Like you didn't have to pay dick to get in. That being said, there were a ton of people there regardless of paid. And it wasn't a high percentage of the DGUSA crowd either. So what I learned from the whole experience is there are a ton of families who like to go to a fucking lucha show. And I think one could make quite a few dollars if they marketed to them better in this city. And...that show sucked the balls. The undercard was mostly local indy guys, but not the good indies. Like the real bottom rungers. So that cracks me up that some of these jabrones got a bigger crowd than Daniel Bryan or Jon Moxley in the same building.

Let me tell you this. I was doing a show and in the same building was THE ACRO-CATS. They're a big fucking draw and when I think about it Teddy's idea ain't that crazy.

All it would take is some one pitching Teddy the idea of a big money feud between him and Sid, in which Sid power bombs an army of Cats.