First Post

Well, we will see how long and regular I can keep this up. CRZ has always said that I should keep a blog, if only to keep me from clogging up the-W with useless posts that he cares nothing about.

Fair warning, this blog will likely feature a lot of SHILL~!ing for the International Wrestling Syndicate for whom I have been head writer slash publicist slash SHILL~! since December of 2003, as well as for Inter-Species Wrestling for whom I am the Worst Ring Announcer in the Multiverse since 2005 and Commissioner since Rotchy and Twiggy randomly named me Commissioner during live commentary for Love Hurts in February of 2007.

I will also be talking about the YoungCuts Film Festival for whom I have been Festival Director since March of 2007.

In wrestling, my main claim to fame is that I am one of five people who can take credit for creating the El Generico gimmick, the most important being the man who wears the mask, a man that I am proud to call a friend.
(And yes, despite claims by some to the contrary, it has always been the same guy.)
I am also Kevin Steen's official biographer. I would say that I was also Steen's friend, except that Steen (from choice) has no friends with the possible exception of El Generico and Steen kicks his ass on a regular basis.

I sporadically publish a column about wrestling history called When We Were Marks, hence the blog title. When I get around to writing them, I always release these on Wednesday for obsessive reasons.

Wednesday is named after Odin, the king of the Norse Gods. (Thor's dad.) Perched on his shoulder are two ravens, Huginn "Thought" and Muninn "Memory". In Norse mythology, Odin sacrificed one eye to gain the loyalty of these two ravens who fly the span of the Earth every day and return to whisper into Odin's ears the things that he should know and, more importantly, the things that he should remember.

Note that this is ORAL memory and ORAL storytelling that we are talking about. Not the memory that we keep in books, but the memory that is passed from one storyteller to another. Memory that takes up certain forms and rituals to protect the information from twisting and changing as it passes from one set of lips to another set of ears.

John Ford's ode to Oral Memory
Many stories relate that Odin sacrificed his eye to gain Huginn and Muninn's loyalty. Few relate that he did so by gouging out his own eye and then feeding it to his Don't call them pets! ravens. Even fewer and darker are the stories which tell us that the price for Huginn and Muninn's loyalty was not one eye, but TWO!
One eye right away... and the other later.

When I do write my When We Were Marks columns, I am aiming for Odin. For that combination of myth, of personal sacrifice, of self-mutilation, of knowledge and oral memory represented by the combination of One-Eyed Odin and his ravens Huginn and Muninn. I won't promise to have a new column up every week, but I have enough old ones that I plan on rewriting and republishing that there should be something new up at least every Odin's Day.

The rest of the time, I will be talking about less serious wrestling stuff, about films, about comics and all the other pop culture junk that bounces around my empty skull. I will probably also post up some examples of films from the YoungCuts Film Festival from time to time. And I may even take requests.