You know what I love about these old Mid-South/UWF shows? Jim Ross. He always sounded like he was in the middle of an orgasm or an aneurysm from all of the excitement.
As I usually do when something like this pops up, I went through the various post-video links. And there's some pretty good stuff on here:
(second-level link, off a Cornette insults people video): Baby Doll(!) with the Midnight Express and Big Bubba, apparently set shortly after Starrcade '86 and Cornette's scaffold-assisted knee injury.
Like this topic -- I majored in English Lit. -- I took a class as a freshaman on postmodern literature mostly by accident and was immediately hooked -- I was completely ignorant of it (as a genre in its own right) in high school -- I had an awesome professor that turned me onto, among others, Don DeLillo (White Noise is one of my favorite books of all time), Thomas Pynchon (Crying of Lot 49 is awesome) -- Jersy Kosinski's Being There (never saw the movie but need to) and, to a lesser extent, Vonnegut (Player Piano was pretty good) -- We also watched postmodern movies like Robocop and Blade Runner -- Being a big comic book fan, I introduced him to Gaiman and Alan Moore (Sandman and V For Vendetta) -- I don't read near as much fiction as I used to but still pick up anything by Gaiman, Moore, and Delillo -- on a side note, I thought the movie adaptation of Stardust was highly enjoyable...
It's hard to rank authors on an absolute scale because of the divisions between genres. One writer who is brilliant at describing the human condition can be terrible at writing a thrilling action scene, and vice versa. That said, here are some authors from whom I've read multiple books and whose books I would recommend: - Detective/mystery: Raymond Chandler. There's a reason every detective novel includes a blurb on the dust jacket comparing the author to Chandler. Farewell My Lovely is my favorite by him. - Sci-fi: Arthur C. Clarke, Kurt Vonnegut, Orson Scott Card (only those books that are not Mormon allegories) - Spy novels: Ian Fleming, John le Carre, Frederick Forsyth, Len Deighton, and the first four or five books of Tom Clancy. The quality of Clancy's books are inversely related to their length. - Other (not sure how to classify or compare): Ernest Hemingway, Cormac McCarthy, Jonathan Franzen, Michael Chabon, and Peter Carey.
As for favorite books (those that I've recommended or bought for several people): - A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole - The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
- Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke - The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen - Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow by Orson Scott Card - The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime by Mark Haddon
Movies that were better than the book: Fight Club and Jurassic Park. I wouldn't have had a clue what was going on in the book Fight Club had I not seen the movie before.
Read a lot of sci-fi and fantasy -- Love the Foundation Series by Asimov and the Myth books by Aspirin -- And a bunch of other less heady stuff -- Couldn't get into the stuff by Scott Card for exactly the reason you state -- Never a big crime or spy novel fan though I enjoy the cinematic version of the genre -- Love Hemingway and Twain, especially their short stories -- Camus and Kafka are cool too -- Hell, this is such a wide-ranging topic I won't bore you with all of my likes/dislikes...
Dude, you get downvotes for fucking everything, don't you? I actually rather admire that -- Thing is, I'm guessing the two downvoters in your peanut gallery are guilty of either A) Not reading it or B) Not getting it -- And I get your point, Dostoyevsky could wear you the fuck out -- I liked Solzhenitsyn though (not classical lit., I know) and the Death of Ivan Ilyich kind of resonated with me for some reason
I love the way Franzen spends so much time developing his characters so that when the plot finally starts rolling you are invested in them as people not just as pieces of the story, if that makes sense.
Warrior didn't go straight from UWF to WWF. He left UWF in 1986, then went to WCCW until spring of 1987. WCCW is where he started wrestling as the 'Dingo Warrior'.
I read basically everything by Joe Abercrombie, who does a sort of "George RR Martin by way of Tarantino" schtict (though that's reductive of the full breadth of his writing, it's a fair starting point). a friend got me reading Ian Tregillis, who wrote an enjoyable"alternate history WW2 and on with Nazi X-men and British warlocks." trilogy.
Had never even heard of it -- Just Wiki'ed it -- Sounds interesting -- Unfortunately, my attention span these days is such that I mostly read wrestling books and periodicals -- I am beginning Point Omega by Delillo because its by Delillo and it's short -- I think the last compelling non-wrestling books I read were It's Kind of a Funny Story (Ned Vizzini), The Graveyard Book (Gaiman) and Holidays in Hell (PJ O'Rourke -- don't necessarily agree with his politics but he's fucking hilarious)...
I've bought so many copies of that book just to give it to people to read -- It'd be kind of cool to see a TV series based on it on HBO -- But I'd probably end up being disappointed and be one of those douchenozzles that bitches about it not staying true to the nature of the book...
I wish they didn't "dumb themselves down" (Steiner) so much from the book because the film's characters are as one-note as can be and the brief intellectual conversation at the table feels like it was tacked-on.
That said, none of that really matters because it's still a timeless knockout adventure. I just wish that it had as much brains as it thinks it has.
I'm not interested in seeing it made into a show at all. The part of the book that I find most interesting is the way it details the boredom and nothingness of everyday suburban life, even as craziness is beginning to descend around them. I just don't see it translating well into a series. That being said, I'd sure watch it.
Amazing how instead of looking at this match and seeing an owner book himself to the moon (Bruce Born In The USA theme song, fat guy vs. Young Sting), we all go, "oooh! an ass whooping!" And Eddie Gilbert's bumps were amazing.
If you want a "he's gone" funny story, Tony and David DESTROYED the Powers of Pain after they left the NWA. Said the only thing left of them was a spot on the floor.
You NEVER hear that kind of stuff from commentators.
"... and hurt Rock, and Rock's out."
ReplyDeleteTranslation: Vince wanted a new toy.
You know what I love about these old Mid-South/UWF shows? Jim Ross. He always sounded like he was in the middle of an orgasm or an aneurysm from all of the excitement.
ReplyDeleteAs I usually do when something like this pops up, I went through the various post-video links. And there's some pretty good stuff on here:
ReplyDelete(second-level link, off a Cornette insults people video): Baby Doll(!) with the Midnight Express and Big Bubba, apparently set shortly after Starrcade '86 and Cornette's scaffold-assisted knee injury.
Like this topic -- I majored in English Lit. -- I took a class as a freshaman on postmodern literature mostly by accident and was immediately hooked -- I was completely ignorant of it (as a genre in its own right) in high school -- I had an awesome professor that turned me onto, among others, Don DeLillo (White Noise is one of my favorite books of all time), Thomas Pynchon (Crying of Lot 49 is awesome) -- Jersy Kosinski's Being There (never saw the movie but need to) and, to a lesser extent, Vonnegut (Player Piano was pretty good) -- We also watched postmodern movies like Robocop and Blade Runner -- Being a big comic book fan, I introduced him to Gaiman and Alan Moore (Sandman and V For Vendetta) -- I don't read near as much fiction as I used to but still pick up anything by Gaiman, Moore, and Delillo -- on a side note, I thought the movie adaptation of Stardust was highly enjoyable...
ReplyDeleteIt's hard to rank authors on an absolute scale because of the divisions between genres. One writer who is brilliant at describing the human condition can be terrible at writing a thrilling action scene, and vice versa. That said, here are some authors from whom I've read multiple books and whose books I would recommend:
ReplyDelete- Detective/mystery: Raymond Chandler. There's a reason every detective novel includes a blurb on the dust jacket comparing the author to Chandler. Farewell My Lovely is my favorite by him.
- Sci-fi: Arthur C. Clarke, Kurt Vonnegut, Orson Scott Card (only those books that are not Mormon allegories)
- Spy novels: Ian Fleming, John le Carre, Frederick Forsyth, Len Deighton, and the first four or five books of Tom Clancy. The quality of Clancy's books are inversely related to their length.
- Other (not sure how to classify or compare): Ernest Hemingway, Cormac McCarthy, Jonathan Franzen, Michael Chabon, and Peter Carey.
As for favorite books (those that I've recommended or bought for several people):
- A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
- The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
- Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke
- The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
- Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow by Orson Scott Card
- The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime by Mark Haddon
Movies that were better than the book: Fight Club and Jurassic Park. I wouldn't have had a clue what was going on in the book Fight Club had I not seen the movie before.
No one's read Shantaram?
ReplyDeleteRead a lot of sci-fi and fantasy -- Love the Foundation Series by Asimov and the Myth books by Aspirin -- And a bunch of other less heady stuff -- Couldn't get into the stuff by Scott Card for exactly the reason you state -- Never a big crime or spy novel fan though I enjoy the cinematic version of the genre -- Love Hemingway and Twain, especially their short stories -- Camus and Kafka are cool too -- Hell, this is such a wide-ranging topic I won't bore you with all of my likes/dislikes...
ReplyDeleteOne of the greatest works of fiction of all time...
ReplyDeleteNo Country For Old Men is a really good book, but the fact McCarthy doesn't use quotation marks for dialogue still bugs me.
ReplyDeleteDude, you get downvotes for fucking everything, don't you? I actually rather admire that -- Thing is, I'm guessing the two downvoters in your peanut gallery are guilty of either A) Not reading it or B) Not getting it -- And I get your point, Dostoyevsky could wear you the fuck out -- I liked Solzhenitsyn though (not classical lit., I know) and the Death of Ivan Ilyich kind of resonated with me for some reason
ReplyDeleteI love the way Franzen spends so much time developing his characters so that when the plot finally starts rolling you are invested in them as people not just as pieces of the story, if that makes sense.
ReplyDeleteGreat call on White Noise. Truly an amazing book.
ReplyDeleteExcept that's not what happened.
ReplyDeleteWarrior didn't go straight from UWF to WWF. He left UWF in 1986, then went to WCCW until spring of 1987. WCCW is where he started wrestling as the 'Dingo Warrior'.
It was my third of his books. Not much of a coherent plot, but more concise than brothers Karamazov.
ReplyDeleteTrue, but still funny.
ReplyDeleteI read basically everything by Joe Abercrombie, who does a sort of "George RR Martin by way of Tarantino" schtict (though that's reductive of the full breadth of his writing, it's a fair starting point).
ReplyDeletea friend got me reading Ian Tregillis, who wrote an enjoyable"alternate history WW2 and on with Nazi X-men and British warlocks." trilogy.
I hated that in The Perfect Storm, too.
ReplyDeleteHad never even heard of it -- Just Wiki'ed it -- Sounds interesting -- Unfortunately, my attention span these days is such that I mostly read wrestling books and periodicals -- I am beginning Point Omega by Delillo because its by Delillo and it's short -- I think the last compelling non-wrestling books I read were It's Kind of a Funny Story (Ned Vizzini), The Graveyard Book (Gaiman) and Holidays in Hell (PJ O'Rourke -- don't necessarily agree with his politics but he's fucking hilarious)...
ReplyDeleteNever read Franzen but have heard nothing but great things about his stuff...
ReplyDeleteI've bought so many copies of that book just to give it to people to read -- It'd be kind of cool to see a TV series based on it on HBO -- But I'd probably end up being disappointed and be one of those douchenozzles that bitches about it not staying true to the nature of the book...
ReplyDeleteLoves me some Good Omens...
ReplyDeleteI wish they didn't "dumb themselves down" (Steiner) so much from the book because the film's characters are as one-note as can be and the brief intellectual conversation at the table feels like it was tacked-on.
ReplyDeleteThat said, none of that really matters because it's still a timeless knockout adventure. I just wish that it had as much brains as it thinks it has.
I'm not interested in seeing it made into a show at all. The part of the book that I find most interesting is the way it details the boredom and nothingness of everyday suburban life, even as craziness is beginning to descend around them. I just don't see it translating well into a series. That being said, I'd sure watch it.
ReplyDeleteAm I the only one who at 6:08 to 6:13 was clamoring for JR to say "He's whippin' him like a government mule!" Damn was I disappointed.
ReplyDeleteAmazing how instead of looking at this match and seeing an owner book himself to the moon (Bruce Born In The USA theme song, fat guy vs. Young Sting), we all go, "oooh! an ass whooping!" And Eddie Gilbert's bumps were amazing.
ReplyDeleteThat saying didn't apply. Government mules still had unions back then.
ReplyDeleteIf you want a "he's gone" funny story, Tony and David DESTROYED the Powers of Pain after they left the NWA. Said the only thing left of them was a spot on the floor.
ReplyDeleteYou NEVER hear that kind of stuff from commentators.