OSJ

Double Gloucestershire is much better you barbarian!

God bless the White Knight, there will never be another like him.

Steranko's S.H.I.E.L.D. was incredible, I guess you had to be there. When you have a strip more impressive than Steve Ditko's Dr. Strange in the same book, you're doing something very, very right. Oh, to be twelve years old and reading Steranko's S.H.I.E.L.D. for the first time again. You have to remember that spy stuff was all the rage in the mid-sixties, so Marvel dragged their WWII character Sgt. Fury into the present as a super-spy.

There needs to be a place in wrestling for ghost ninjas, dinosaurs, and wrestling dentists. Isaac Yankem never got his rightful run with the belt, damnit!

Amusingly enough, last week we took delivery of two huge boxes from Chewy.com. One was cans of cat food and jars of treats, the other box was litter. We have eight and when the ground is frozen they poop up a storm inside.

I'm 5'11, Jericho is ever-so-much slightly shorter than I am.

This all said, if you asked me in the 1970s-1980s who I would want to have my back in a bar fight, the answer without hesitation was "Harley Race"

I had a horrible thought... What if he's right?

Adam Strange, Ultra the Multi-Alien, Capt. Comet, Starman, and Space Cabby. Howzat?

I'll have to admit to a moment of shock realizing that O'Doul wasn't already enshrined (as he should be). As an ambassador for the game, few have done more than O'Doul. (BTW: His restaurant in SF was pretty cool, I was expecting a lot more baseball memorabilia, but what was there was really cool.)

While swiping Robert's kitty litter may seem to be a good idea, we just took delivery of two huge boxes from Chewy.com, one was canned food, the other was litter, these guys should be able to eat and poop up a storm for close to a month. The tab was $140.00, we'll see how long it all lasts, obviously, I'm hoping close to a month. These little rascals eat better than we do.

Well the naming thing went like this... Jorkens (after the Lord Dunsany character, we mistakenly thought she was a male when we got her... Carnacki (RIP, her twin brother named after the William Hope Hodgson character) Sumuru (after the Sax Rohmer femme fatale, basically a female version of Fu Manchu) Jackpot & Seven (the big boys, born in Las Vegas, hence the names. Our neighbor was afraid to leave the very pregnant Bella at home when he needed to attend a work conference in Vegas so he brought her along and she gave birth in front of Cesar's Palace.) Cersei & Sansa (the girls, named for GOT characters) Spike and Arrya (the babies, they'll turn two on May 24th, Spike looks (and acts) like the reincarnation of his namesake who we had in Seattle and sadly lost to cancer. Arrya is of course named after GOT badass killer. So oddly enough, no horror icons. One also must consider that one needs to call said cats from time to time and standing at the door yelling "Jackpot" gets the neighbors attention in an odd way. I can only imagine what it would be like to call for "Leatherface" or "Pinhead"...

I was pleased to learn that either the law has changed (or as I suspect, it was always so much bullshit), that I need to physically see my doctor once every three months in order to get my pain meds refilled. This has always been majorly annoying, as he is the most meticulous man alive, which means unless you have the 8AM appointment, you are going to wait and wait. It isn't at all unusual to have a 1PM appt stretch until 2-2:30 before actually seeing him and the visit itself consists of about ten minutes discussion of current events in MMA and boxing and about three minutes of questions about my health. While I love good discourse about MMA and/or boxing (and we are both huge Manny Pac fans), (my doc is from Manila originally and Manny is pretty much a god to all from the islands), anyway, much as I enjoy the conversations, I can do without the $50 co-pay and boxing chat when it takes up my entire afternoon for what is essentially a ten-minute visit that could have been handled over the telephone easily enough. Depression is such a weird thing, I could probably totally crush mine by increasing my meds, but I have to go to some pretty dark places creatively with the sort of thing that I write and I worry that a too-happy John couldn't get to those places when needed. It's something I've fought with for nearly forty years, thirty-two of which I've done sober, (that I made it to thirty-one without killing myself is in and of itself something of a miracle), anyway, having made the move to New Mexico (a place with actual seasons) has been a total eye-opener, Seattle was okay, but I could never, ever go back to the endless parade of gray days. Here, you may have snow on the ground and sixty degrees the next day, but for the most part there are discernable seasons and for someone from Seattle the novelty of that takes a long, long time to wear off. For an example, the cats are all crying to go out because the sun is out, however, it's only in the twenties and I know how this movie ends... They will all go trooping out and in three minutes they'll be howling at the back door wanting to come inside. Five minutes later, rinse, repeat. No, I'm not playing that game today. I just spent $140.00 at CHEWY.com getting cat-food, toys, and what-not, so you rascals can stay inside and play with some of your toys or take a nap or something... It's been two months as of today, so I can finally type it and acknowledge the reality. Our little Sandor is gone and I'm pretty sure we won't see him again. After the mid-day nap the four boys (Jackpot, Seven, Sandor, & Spike) went trooping out as they generally do, returning home for dinner at 4:30 as per the usual. Only this time Sandor didn't come back, we didn't think much of it, he's a very finicky eater and will often show his disdain for the canned food by totally ignoring it (they have access to dry food 24/7, so it isn't really a big deal if they don't want their canned food, it's more of a treat than a necessity anyway). Anyway, when it got dark, it became somewhat of a concern because that's not like him, when he didn't show up at all it became a real concern. Only thing we can figure is that someone took him, Sandor was terrible about slipping out of his collar to the point that we had given up (between collar, personalized name-tag, etc. we're looking at about $16.00 and he's been known to go through three in a month, so we gave up). All of our other cats run from people not known to them, except Sandor who is super friendly, I imagine someone spotted him saw no collar and assumed he was a stray. He's been known to jump into vehicles and on at least one occasion got in the neighbors' car, rode out to Chinle (about an hour and half) and back and was apparently quite content to sit up front on the passenger side and sleep most of the way. Well, he brought us a lot of enjoyment in the five years he was with us and I imagine he'll do the same for his new family. With luck, he's going to a home where he's the only cat, as he always wanted to be in charge, but Jackpot and Seven were ahead of him in the pecking order. We miss him a lot, but the funny thing is that all of the other cats seem a lot more relaxed and mellow now that he's not here. I had no idea how tense he made the others, but I guess he was always challenging Jackpot and Seven and chasing the girls. (He had no chance against Jackpot, who tips the scales at 21 lbs., Seven is just totally mellow, he went from being an incredible hunter to basically confine his activities to do a once a day walk around the perimeter of the house and then return to the bed.) So now we are eight, and that's probably about right. We've decided no more cats, Spike and Arrya will be two in May and they're the last, assuming normal lifespan, they'll outlive me. Jackpot and Seven turn eight this next year with Jorkens at 17 and Sumuru at 13 and Cersei at 9 with Sansa at 5.

Tell me more! If this is what I think it is (a collection of the batshit insane fleischer/aparo material from Adventure, just take my money now, please.) Some of the high points included things like the Spectre turning into a giant pair of scissors in order to cut the evil doer in half. Lots of fun stuff like that. Apparently no one ever thought to tell Fleischer that grand larceny does not normally call for the death penalty. I think I have all of the original issues somewhere, I'll have to check, but I think that the Spectre strip may have been almost solely responsible for the death of the "Comics Code" (a ridiculous thing enacted to calm down parents who had read Seduction of the Innocent. Some amusing aspects of the "Comics Code": You could not use the names of various monsters such as vampires, Frankenstein, or (wait for it..) Wolfman, the problem that arose was that writer Marv Wolfman liked to be credited for his work. Another no-no was using the word "flick" as over-inking could cause running which would leave you with an entirely different word... That people like Stan Lee, Gardner Fox, and Julius Schwartz actually sat around and dreamed this shit up as a salvo to quiet the concerns of parents actually ranks up there with their most notable creative endeavors. Fantastic Four 42-60 or the Comics Code Authority? That's a tough call, but I'm going with the CCA as the more creative endeavor as it was pure prose without the artwork of a Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, or Murphy Anderson to fall back on. IIRC: The Spectre was the last (or very near to the last) of the original JSA members to get revived in the 1960s. I think that the Sandman and Wildcat may have actually been the last two as I'm pretty sure that the Spectre had his own book for at least a few months before the annual JSA/JLA team-up when they brought Sandman back.

Here's hoping y'all stay well and safe! Kathy and I are both okay, I only leave the house for appointments to see the doc and the like. At my age with the COPD I'm pretty much a statistic if I get the COVID. We're just really, really careful, Kathy just goes to the store for necessary items and like I said, I don't go out much, if at all. In a morbid sort of way it's amusing listening to my sisters-in-law fuss about having to stay in and not go anywhere; yeah, welcome to my fucking world. Like I'm just dying to go to Wal-Mart and talk to the Trumpers passing out leaflets in front of the place. Our heater went out yesterday which was not amusing when it dropped down to six degrees at night, at least we had cats to help keep us warm. I'm not sure how this worked out, but Kathy wound up with seven cats and as usual, it was just me and Seven in the bed and Kathy and the gang on the couch. The furnace guy just finished up putting in the new filter which was what made the whole thing crash and it is getting nice and toasty in here. I was despairing of him getting it done today, as we were looking at 4:30PM without so much as a phone call. I knew that they needed a part over-nighted from Albuquerque, and you have to figure if an over-night shipment ain't there by noon, it's not coming, so like I said, I was pretty much resigned to another night of having the oven on and encouraging Seven to cuddle up when at 4:50, the furnace guy shows up and asks if it's okay to install the new filter today or would we prefer he comes back tomorrow... Yeah, didn't have to think about that one very long...

Get well soon, buddy!

Dr Adder will see you now.

It was great if like me you enjoy ribs with pork chow mein on the side. Not so great was the fact that cabs don't go to that neighborhood after dark. Thankfully we were rescued by Mrs. Abdullah, who kindly gave us a ride back to the hotel in the Abby-van... Sadly, we didn't get to meet the great man (and I use the word "great" in all senses), himself, but at least he called the hotel the next day and spoke with Kathy, kept calling her "sweetie" in his oddly high-pitched voice for such a large man.

Gary Hart just exuded menace. You were almost certain that if his guy got the babyface on the ropes Gary would slice him open with a straight razor. Funnily enough, I learned years later that Hart always carried a straight razor in his pocket in case the marks decided to get cute.

Every bit the equal of Terry Funk's "I had a dream" promo. Higher praise than that I just don't have. One of the things that always made Flair's promos great, (and it is something that many modern wrestlers should learn), he never failed to put the other guy over.

If it doesn't have breasts, beasts and every type of kung-fu known to man I have no use for it.

Da Bomb is just ever so slightly less hot than Dave's Insanity Sauce. I made the mistake of pouring a liberal amount on a chicken wing just to see how it was. It was fifteen minutes of hell before it wore off. Never again. I use two or three drops in soups and sauces. More than that is just asking for trouble.

Arn Anderson was the guy that got me back into wrestling after ignoring it for a few years. We were at the bar playing darts and wrestling was on the TV. This was at the height of VKM's cartoon-nonsense, and here was this guy in simple trunks and with no bullshit having a great squash match with some jobber, (might have been Snake Brown or a Mulkey, I don't recall), anyway, everything from the way he worked a body part to his facial expressions was all I needed to make me a fan for life. AA is a no-brainer when it comes to the HOF.

Indeed, Happy Birthday, my friend!

I'm still of the mind that these absurd weight cuts do far more harm in the long run than any in-ring injuries. I'll admit, I'm an old PRIDE guy, fuck the weight differences, let 'em fight! You never heard Volk Han or Genki Sudo bitching about being out-weighed, did you now?