John Mortell’s blog

For the weekend anyway… Damn my brother for ‘making’ me go drinking last night – especially the heading to Trafest part….. Getting out of bed to get the bus to Cork is proving somewhat difficult at the moment.. Oh well, I’m sure I’ll survive… There probably won’t be any posting until early Monday I’d guess at this rate though my plans are pretty fluid. I’m fairly sure my results are out Tuesday but is anyone certain? And just to leave you all with something to watch here’s Ric Flair vs Terry Funk from the Great American Bash ’89 – gotta love those ring entrances of Flair’s …

According to Warren Ellis these are appearently going across national TV in the good ‘ol US of A

Just read this book over two days (more than two days ago though because finding the time to write posts is getting troublesome) and realised when I saw it that the DVD ‘the Rise and Fall of ECW’ was the exact same thing word-for-word nearly. Well, at least the clips of it I saw seemed to be. D’oh! But anyway, I have some notes on it that apply to either (though I would recommend the DVD – wrestling is a visual entertainment so…). The book by Thom Loverro is pretty good overall I have to admit – apart from a somewhat weird piece at the start which links Greek/Roman/etc. traditional wrestling games with the modern version (technically true but… seriously like) the book gives a very good history of what Paul Heyman then moves onto his work in Eastern Championship Wrestling before it morphed into Extreme Championship Wrestling.

In general Loverro has a pretty good feel for the work and the people involved and through the many interviews really manages to flesh out the feelings of the people involved and what happened at various points. There are the odd moments of confusion though which is kind of annoying. A major example that I couldn’t get my head around was how the NWA was double crossed by Paul Heyman – I get that right after spitting in their faces (metaphorically anyway) getting Dennis Coraluzzo (on behalf of the NWA to agree to some of the things he did agree to looked bad for the NWA but double-crossed? The general explanation may make more sense if your a major wrestling historian but… The same happens later regarding Mike Awesome and his departure – how exactly was he involved in a title match barely weeks (which is what the books timeline seems to suggest) after he left the promotion under very bad terms? Again, someone who remembers this from the time or is a major, major fan may know but given that ECW is in many ways better known in death than life it seems a bit much….

The other major fault with the book seems to be in its assertion that ECW could never have been big – while I understand that a book dealing with the people (and written to tie into a WWE production) would never be too critical the book never quite explains how ECW went ‘wrong’. There a few obtuse references to bad decisions by Paul Heyman on a business sense but these come out of nowhere and are never really gotten into.

Despite these flaws the book is still pretty interesting and gives a fairly good feel for the whole thing so for any wrestling fan looking for some good reading for the summer (wonderful as it has been in Eire) I can happily recommend it…..

I really enjoyed this trilogy and it always pissed me off that the alternate ending for ‘army of darkness’ wasn’t included in the box set. Especially given how much I paid for it…. But anyway, here’s a clip with both endings. The first one is the original ending which the studio didn’t like and so they had it replaced with the alternate ending which is just… meh. Which I think may have been the point. Anyway.

Gavin eventually got me to do this…

• MS Society Ireland
• Irish Red Cross
• Samaritans
• Cancer.ie – Irish Cancer Society
• Irish Hospice Foundation – Hospice and palliative care in Ireland
• Barnardos – Ireland’s leading children’s charity
• The Great Orchestra of Christmas Charity – Polish Charity
• CPR For Schools Across Poland – CPRTraining
• Program of Insulin Pumps in Diabetic Children Therapy – Insulin Pumps For Children
• Non-invasive Neonatal Breathing Support – Infant Flow
• Program of Universal Neonatal Hearing Screenings – Neonatal Hearing
• American Red Cross – disaster relief
• Raleigh Rescue Mission – homeless raleigh
• Samaritan’s Purse – emergency relief programs
• St. Jude Children’s Hospital – cancer research
• Medecins Sans Frontieres / Doctors Without Borders – Humanitarian Relief
• American Red Cross – Emergency Preparedness
• AMREF – African Medical & Research Foundation – African Health Development
• DOROT – Programs for Elderly
• Feed the Children – Protect Children
• Service International – Disaster Relief
• Pujols Family Foundation – Children with Down Syndrome
• National Alliance to End Homelessness – Homelessness
• The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research – Parkinson’s Research
• Ronald McDonald Care Mobile Program – Child Healthcare
• Aids Research Alliance – Aids Research
• Wildlife Conservation Society – Wildlife Protection
• Cancer Research Institute – Cancer Research
• Second Harvest – End Hunger
• AARP Foundation – Helping Senior Citizens
• Bubblegum Club – Children In Crisis
• Autism NI – Autism Northern Ireland
• Adoption Ireland – Irish Adoption Charity
• Ireland Funds – Peace and Reconciliation In Ireland
• Dublin Simon Community – Combating Homelessness in Dublin
• Aware
• To Russia with Love

Hmm. I tag:

Boris Johnson (sure why not?)
Granny Lost The Plot
Mike Cosgrave
Sam at PullOutThePin
and SleletorHig

Well they seem to be less gay than the other two… and they do fight better

Also the, you know, sexual violence of this wouldn’t have probably been in the American one…. And why wear capes if your going to take them off?

Been fairly busy lately – have at the moment got 6 or 7 posts that are mainly half written (and probably won’t be worth the wait) to do and finishing work late enough means relaxing time is kind of important. But I’m going to try and get back to some sort of regular pattern of posting. At least my traffics back up!

I got the two days off work I needed for Ozzy Osborne – hopefully the gig will be worth it, especially as it’s the last one I plan to be going to for a bit. Also, I want to head up to Cork for the weekend, so all you Corkonians I know, let me know if your around.

The reading list I have is not getting too well read through – especially because I keep getting books from the library. At the moment, I’m reading Norman Davies ‘Europe;East and West’. I’ll do a review once I’m finished it but long story short: It’s very good (if pricey).

The video here is an ECW match from one of its Pay Per Views in 1998 – for those who mock pro wrestling completely its worth a look to see how much damage these two guys go through to put on a show, in fact I’m fairly sure Sabu fractured his jaw in this match….

Very good BBC article here. What struck me most about it was that its the first time where I think I have seen a news report acknowledge that Hamas and not Fatah are the legitimate military and political rulers of the Palestinian territory….

Genius.

Eerily like the Simpson’s episode though…

Paramour – ”All we know is falling” isn’t a bad album at all. The album has some fairly good tracks but a first listen gives you the impression of being rather ‘samey’ – the video for ‘all we know’ gives you a pretty good idea of what they sound like..

They do develop a bit of variety in their sound towards their last two tracks ‘Franklin’ and ‘my heart’ – even if ‘my heart’ sounds a bit like someone’s been listening to Evanescence or some other similar band..

Somewhat different in sound is ‘Shiny Toy Guns’ with their album ‘We are pilots’. To be honest, they’re pretty similar to Paramour in that when your listening to the album and not paying too much attention you can listen to several tracks without noticing much difference. Unlike ‘All we know…’ though there is a definite stand-out track in ‘Le Disko’

Still though, if your looking to avoid the current ‘x-factor’ type shite out there both albums are well worth the look…