#joe goldberg method

[missfool]

i be like “i don’t get jealous” but this is me:

[blueopinions49]

Understanding Type 5

An intro to enneagram 5

Beth Harmon (Queens Gambit) INTJ 5w4 so/sp 

Core Desire (Exploration of the Mind)- They crave knowledge and understanding of the world around them. 

Vice (Avarice)-They will cling to things (Not necessarily material) and keep them guarded in order to feel a sense of comfort. 

Fixation (Miser)- Will hide away their knowledge and general understanding of things due to feeling like it doesn't give as much result as it takes to share it. 

Wings 

5w4 (The Philosopher)- With the w4 they become more interested in metaphysical constructs and imaginative processes. Interested in the aesthetic and symbolic representation of things. Might be more introverted possibly a bit more on the intense side. Emotionally inaccessible while maintaining a level of intesity. But due to being a withdrawn type and a rejection type all of this emotional intensity is purely internal. 

5w6 (The Troubleshooter)- While the 5w4 will focus on metaphysical constructs and the understanding of the metaphysics on knowledge the 5w6 will be more interested in the  categorization of this knowledge. Will be more practical than then 5w4. More likely to be interested in the applicability of this knowledge in the outer world. Due to their interest in practicality they are gonna be more interested in methodical processes than imaginative ones. 

Triads- Head (5-6-7)

they have a tendencies to withhold all of their emotions to avoid all form of emotional attachment. 

Harmonic Triad- Competency (1-3-5)

Focuses on the gain of information and performs action in an “objective” manner withholding their emotions from getting in the way. 

Hornevian Triad- Withdrawn (4-5-9)

Detach themselves of reality to preserve their selves due to their being avarice they will withhold allot of themselves around others. 

Object Relations- Rejections (2-5-8)

They will reject any form of emotional attachment that comes their way. will withhold from any form of emotional attachment. 

Subtypes

Social (so)- The social 5 focuses on sharing their knowledge to others they want to expand on information. This subtype will use the knowledge and sharing it in order to keep themselves from feeling. They are more on the social side due to them wanting to share the knowledge they have gained in their life. They are extremely driven, social and competitive. Due to this qualities they can look like 3s and 7s. 

Ex- Benoit Blanc (Knives Out) INTJ 5w4 so/sp, Reed Richards (MARVEL COMICS) INTP 5w6 so/sp and Lara Croft ISFP 5w6 so/sp

Sexual (sx)- As the counter type of 5 this subtype will focus on gaining the perfect relationship. They will start the relationship slowly by putting you via certain trails if you will. This subtype is only interested in connecting with someone who they can share their inner world with another who understands them. They can be more sensitive than the other 5s and due to this they'll look like 4s while still being a 5 at their core.

Ex-Joe Goldberg (You) INFJ 5w4 sx/sp, Mister Darcy (Pride and Prejudice)  INTJ 5w4 sx/sp and Mother Miranda (RE Village) INTJ 5w6 sx/sp

Self-Preservation (sp) the self-preservation type 5 will hide themselves from others by maintaining themselves away from others by creating physical and metaphysical walls between themselves and others. However they minimize themselves in order to have a safe space for themselves in comfort. They can be more social however it's a social battery that can run out. They can look like 6s sometimes. 

Ex-Alice Liddle (Alice in Wonderland) INTP 5w6 sp/sx, Raven INTJ 5w4 (Teen Titans)  sp/sx and L (Death Note) INTP 5w4 sp/so

Moves (Positive and Negative)

Moves to 8

Positive- They become In tune with themselves and uses their anger to pursuit their goals more. They become assertive in their wants

Negative-They become more withdrawn and uses their anger punitively to push others away more.

Moves to 7

Positive- They become in tune with the enviorement less paranoid and fearful. Becomes more interested in the outer world and experiences they can find in it. 

Negative- Overindulges and becomes distracted easily. 

[coraline-look-a-like]

We need to stop comparing Joe Goldberg to Dexter Morgan.

I know in both the book and the show, Joe Goldberg is referred to as “like some sort of Dexter Morgan”. But the killer profiles are vastly different. I also know it’s an offhand comment and I’m getting “upset” over something small and dumb, but I just want to rant okay, because I HATE Joe Goldberg as a character.

Dexter is an organized, Angel of Death- who takes great care to pick and follow his victims, following them for months at a time. He chose his job to make sure he was never caught, and he has a girlfriend (later wife) and stepchildren as a cover- later also having “bowling night” as a cover. He also takes the care to update and later get rid of his kill kits as he uses them. He has a dumping spot that he goes to only when safe to do so, not taking many risks, and he takes extra care to never use the same spot while also cleaning up his murder sites. He also only kills those he deems worthy of death, taking care to have a set of “rules” or “qualifications” as to who he kills.

Joe Goldberg is a disorganized, Lust killer- he kills people on a whim and has not only left victims alive to later point him out, but has had multiple witnesses to his crimes- not to mention the amount of evidence he keeps with him that if caught would be an immediate red flag. He has had to move and change his identity multiple times from almost being caught. Not to mention the fact that all the victims surround a certain person he getting close to before that person ends up dead.

To me, Joe Goldberg is the cheap knockoff of Dexter. Where Dexter is this methodical “genius” [I guess you could say] that evades being caught because he’s smart and knows what he’s doing, Joe is much like Ted Bundy- “a normal looking white man” and that’s why he hasn’t been caught.

Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk lol

[miercolaes]

  ️️️️️️️️️️️️️ ️️️️️️️️️️️️️ ️️️️️️️️️️️️️ ️️️️️️️️️️️️️ ️️️️️️️️️️️️️  ️️️️️️️️️️️️️ ️️️️️️️️️️️️️ ️️️️️️️️️️️️️ ️️️️️️️️️️️️️ ️️️️️️️️️️️️️  ️️️️️️️️️️️️️ ️️️️️️️️️️️️️ ️️️️️️️️️️️️️ ️️️️️️️️️️️️️ ️️️️️️️️️️️️️  ️️️️️️️️️️️️️ ️️️️️️️️️️️️️ ️️️️️️️️️️️️️ ️️️️️️️️️️️️️ ️️️️️️️️️️️️️  ️️️️️️️️️️️️️ ️️️️️️️️️️️️️ ️️️️️️️️️️️️️ ️️️️️️️️️️️️️ ️️️️️️️️️️️️️  ️️️️️️️️️️️️️ ️️️️️️️️️️️️️ ️️️️️️️️️️️️️ ️️️️️️️️️️️️️ ️️️️️️️️️️️️️  ️️️️️️️️️️️️️ ️️️️️️️️️️️️️ ️️️️️️️️️️️️️𝙶𝙴𝚃 𝚃𝙾 𝙺𝙽𝙾𝚆 𝙼𝙴 𝙱𝙴𝚃𝚃𝙴𝚁   ️️️️️️️️️️️️️ ️️️️️️️️️️️️️ ️️️️️️️️️️️️️ ️️️️️️️️️️️️️ ️️️️️️️️️️️️️  ️️️️️️️️️️️️️ ️️️️️️️️️️️️️ ️️️️️️️️️️️️️ ️️️️️️️️️️️️️ ️️️️️️️️️️️️️  ️️️️️️️️️️️️️ ️️️️️️️️️️️️️ ️️️️️️️️️️️️️ ️️️️️️️️️️️️️ ️️️️️️️️️️️️️  ️️️️️️️️️️️️️ ️️️️️️️️️️️️️ ️️️️️️️️️️️️️ ️️️️️️️️️️️️️ ️️️️️️️️️️️️️  ️️️️️️️️️️️️️ ️️️️️️️️️️️️️ ️️️️️️️️️️️️️ ️️️️️️️️️️️️️ ️️️️️️️️️️️️️  ️️️️️️️️️️️️️ ️️️️️️️️️️️️️ ️️️️️️️️️️️️️ ️️️️️️️️️️️️️ ️️️️️️️️️️️️️  ️️️️️️️️️️️️️ ️️️️️️️️️️️️️ ️️️️️️️️️️️️️ ️️️️️️️️️️️️️ ️️️️️️️️️️️️️  ️️️️️️️️️️️️️ ️️️️️️️️️️️️️ ️️️️️️️️️️️️️ ️️️️️️️️️️️️️ ️️️️️️️️️️️️️(i apologize in advance)

alias / name : veronica, vero

birthday : june 12

zodiac sign : gemini

height : last time i checked 159cm / 5ft2 ???

hobbies : writing, drawing, visiting haunted places, watching movies, sfx makeup because i gave up on normal makeup (can't do an eyeliner without a tiktok filter...), video games

favorite color : purple, red, black

current book : interview with the vampire (i was supposed to look into interviews as a data collecting method but oh well...)

last song : the great war by taylor swift / frunzuliță, iarbă deasă by subcarpați (romanian song if any1's interested, here's the song and the translated lyrics if you're curious)

last film / show : miller's girl / family guy

inspiration : goodreads quotes on different topics, all addams canon material, this one wednesday addams playlist, edgar allan poe's work (got a complete tales and poems and i randomly open it and read for inspo), my own past experiences (be it information from uni or stuff i've experienced), witchcraft i grew up with, horror movies

story behind url : previously woednesdayaddams, after a while i found it too long so i switched to a shorter version. miercolaes meaning wednesday but in spanish and tbh it was easier to remember since spanish is a latin / romance language (fun fact in my language wednesday translates as miercuri, but that was already taken and didn't fit with the addams lore)

fun fact about me : the reason i'm currently studying marketing is because i know i'd be godmodding irl had i chose security studies (think cia but for another nation) or probation. i've seen enough movies to know how it'll end. like i wouldn't imagine being professional if i had the ta.te brothers in front of me. they also managed to get arrested again so there's that.

tagged by your friendly neighbourhood @freakarus ily s

tagging : the legend that is @havvkinsqueen , the gore queen i adore @peachwrites / @anthrcpophagi , the sexy gorgeous addams family member @silent-stripes , the hippie mom @pierprincess along with her @nancewheelr & @wildhecrt brand , the one who accepts my morbid child @swervdcity and their dead princess @stvrsold , my morbid twin @wickedslip and if you haven't done it already, you (in a joe goldberg kind of way)

[oldmanontumbler]

YOU x Sims: Freeplay

Would actually be so freaking interesting.

Think about it. You cannot kill off Sims in Sims Freeplay. That means that, in order to rid himself of those that stand in his lady-love's way, Joe Goldberg - resident murderer - would need to resort to methods that do not kill them, but eliminate them permanently.

What would he do? Make them do actions in little cell until they died of old age? Convince them to just nix themselves? Move outta Sim Town? Get them a job at a Proffesion, so that they're constantly working? Create an underground Life Orbs production ring and start a murder spree - in a town of 34-42 residents? How?

If Joe thought standard suburbia was bad, the Sims: Freeplay is tailored to be his personal nightmare.

[kttycl3p]

joe goldberg method

[beetnelson]

i’m the one - (listen)

[liminsendhelp]

Basement, cage. The Joe Goldberg Method.

As a last resort.... Well, the grave hasn't left anyone indifferent yet.

‘I can fix him!!’

Him in question;

[missfool]

you know you're cooked when you're checking the friend activity on spotify every 0.1 second to listen what they're listening so you feel closer to them.

[suntrology]

joe goldbergs big 3.

scorpio sun in the 5th house

this one is entirely obvious. scorpios can become obsessive, secretive, and way overly passionate. joe was also very creative, which is a hidden trait of scorpio people often override. joe's need to protect others by involving revenge also plays a huge role into why i believe he's a scorpio sun. 5th house suns feel the need to live their life for passion. he is always carried away when he feels passion towards another person.

virgo moon in the 3rd house

joe is so so methodical when planning out whatever he is up to next. he doesn't take criticism very well, hes quite sensitive to it. he's analytical, like super super analytical. he problem solves well, and he enjoys being in service of the people he loves. he can also come off as an anxious type of person as well. he also had a need for control in his plans. 3rd house moons have scattered minds. sometimes he can let his emotions get the better of him, especially when excited about a new idea/concept. they often keep in contact with the people around them aswell.

cancer rising

he usually gets the people he loves to open up and feel comfortable around him when he wants them to. if he tries hard enough. he's weary of the people he first meets, but kind. he can be sensitive to the littlest things as well. this would make his chart ruler his virgo moon, which makes incredible sense. but to be honest, im not sure if i can stick with this rising sign because im not entirely sure. when he notices someone in need he will always help, if he cares enough though.

[garysmithsfemboy]

Netflixs "you" seasons 1&2 murders by joe goldburg SPOILERS OBVS

Season one kill count: Five

Joe’s first onscreen murder was Benji, the ex-boyfriend of Beck – Joe’s season one love interest. Joe lured Benji into the bookstore, disguised as some sorta buisness man, before hitting him over the head and locking him in his famous glass box. Joe then killed him later on by using his allergy of nutmeg (i think) against him, and burned his body in the woods. Remember Joe kept Benji’s teeth? That was weird

but Technically, first in Joe’s kill count was Elijah. He’s Candice’s ex who she cheated on Joe with. Whilst we don’t see this murder, we learn about it in season one during flashback scenes. Joe pushed him off a building, casually during a conversation.

That was truly just the beginning, as up next on his hit list was Beck’s best friend, Peach. with his first attempt, Joe followed Peach on a jog through Central Park, wearing his trusty cap as disguise, before hitting her over the head with a rock. she didnt die though, she had many points where she nesrly died, later in the episodes, peach called beck up, having tried to overdose on medication, she recovered, But Peach finally met her demise at her family home, where Joe shot her and then faked a suicide note (also he pissed in a jar which nearly got him caught lols)

The next death at the hands of Joe Goldberg hit hard. Joe murdered Ron, the abusive stepdad of his child neighbour, Paco. Reflecting on his own troubled childhood, Joe felt the need to protect Paco and stabbed Ron in his defence after paco had hit him with a baseball bat,

Joe’s final murder in season one was the pinnacle of the season. It of course was his girlfriend Beck, who went from the subject of his twisted obsessions to the victim of his awful crimes. She found herself locked in Joe’s glass box after finding out he was a psycho, paco had came over to return a book joe had previously let him read, mentioning the fact joe had told him that the tiles in the bathroom on the ceiling where a smart place to hide things, so, woth curiosity, when paco left, she goes into the bathroom and checks the ceiling tiles, pushing one back and eventually finally finding joes fucked up box, she takes the box out of the roof (?) and sits on the lid of the toilet as he begins to rake through this mysterious box, as he finds out joe had been keeping a box of her underwear, her phone from when she was saved at the trainstation, a box of TEETH, benjis phone, peaches phone, her diary ect ect, she is obviously terrified, she drops the glass jar of teeth in the ground causing it to smash, she tried to scoop the teeth back in and put it in the box, shoving it back in the roof and messily putting the tile back as she had heard joe come home, she ran out of the bathroom, and after a few moments of struggle she was knocked out and woke up in the glass box, she lied about the fact she still loved him to get out of the box, and at one point it looked like she might overpower him, but it didn’t last long. Joe killed her and then pinned the murder on Beck’s therapist.

Season two kill count: Three

Wait, was season two Joe tame? He ~only~ killed three people in season two, much less than the first time around. That being said, the first murder in season two keeps me up at night to this day. Yes, the first season two victim, Jasper, was a loose cannon and tried to kill our beloved Joe, but the method. Wow. Really, Joe? Was this necessary? After taking a knife to Jasper, Joe cut him up and put him through a mincer. I’m not okay with the montage of this in the show and I never will be. the way it panned from love making a delicious pie to joe fuckinf MINCING jasper, just, oh my gog

Up next was comedian Henderson, who in all honesty deserved everything he got. It was found out that Henderson had been abusing young women, (literal children sometimes) and when Delilah shared her memory of being abused and Ellie starts hanging out with him, Joe had to step in. Henderson had a soundproof basement room where he would take his victims and film them, and Joe forced his way into his house to try and tape him confessing to all his crimes. It didn’t exactly go to plan, and Joe ended up pushing Henderson down the stairs. Joe again tried to frame the whole thing as a suicide, which in the end, thanks to the quinn funds, his name was cleared.

The final death in season two comes in another flashback, when we learn more about Joe’s childhood. So technically this is Joe’s first EVER kill, but we don’t learn about it until late on. We see him killing the man who abused his mother and him when he was young. Joe shoots the man, to protect his mother, and by "young" i mean this boy was eight or nine years old, having to shoot his supposed only father figure with a gun, this is one of the reasons joe is always so protective over his children neighbours in each season.

So here’s an overall recap of how many people Joe Goldberg has killed, so far in s2 and s3:

Joe Goldberg has killed eight people so far. These are: Benji, Peach, Elijah, Ron, Beck, Jasper, Henderson and his mother’s abuser.

“So far” is definitely the important part here. Netflix has said season three is a “very murdery” series and confirmed there will be bloodshed at the hands of Joe and Love.

i have watched 3 episodes of s3 (didnt have time to finish then all when they came out) and let me just say. as a beginning of the season, wow. tbh theyll probably end up killing loves mum tbh? i just have a feeling, or they might kill theo-- gog forbid they kill theo bc i swear to god if they do i will sob

[popanalysis99]

The “Yandere” Trope: Explained

“Yandere” is defined as someone who becomes violent and obsessive for someone they love or are obsessed with. Yandere is derived from the two japenese words yanderu which means insane or sick and deredere means affectionate or loving. To put in a simple manner, a yandere is someone who is lovesick, someone who has been driven to insanity by extreme obsession or love, resulting in abnormal if not violent behaviour. Yandere can be the combination of the tropes Love Makes You Crazy, Love Makes You Evil, Love Hungry and Stalker with a Crush.

Possible origin of the yandere.

One of the theories is that Yandere may have emerged as a deconstruction of the Yamato Nadeshiko archetype: a nice serene woman who puts the needs of the family and husband before her own. If Yandere is like this, she would be taken to a logical extreme and examined realistically: a sentinent induvidual put in such a position would experience emotional and mental strain. Sooner or later, she would snap, even at the slightest provocation. This realistic take is what makes the yandere so endearing to the audiences, more so than the traditional Yamato Nadeshiko. Compared with the Violently Overprotective Girlfriend, who can become violent if there love interest is in danger, but otherwise they are mentally stable.

Personality of the Yandere.

Yandere is the term used to describe crazy lovesick girls/boys. They are psychotic and jealous people who  will murder anyone close to their affection so that they could be with them alone. 

Yandere is described as someone who is lovesick, someone who is driven insane by their extreme  obsession or love, which results in abnormal or crazy behaviour, for those around them and even  themselves. The tropes such as “Love makes you crazy” and “stalker with a crush” are all combined and  taken up to eleven, turning it into a single character archetype. 

A yandere sees anyone surrounding their obsession as an enemy or threat, regardless of the gender. They  will attack people to get what they want, in some cases, really brutally. 

At first, many yanderes are introduced as normal-looking and sympathetic, but that’s because they are  interacting with the protagonist. Once the third character gets in, this is when they show their true  colors. Yandere starts being crazy. 

Though this was not always true. Some yanderes were insane and evil from the start. Why a yandere is insane can have different theories: either they were broken from a traumatic event or they were born  psychopath. Regardless, as long as they have a sick love for someone they’re a yandere.

While most yandere characters are shown to be females, there are male examples shown as well.  Compared to the “violently overprotective girlfriend/boyfriend” who goes berserk when their love  interest is hurt, but otherwise they are much more sane. In an inversion, if the admirer is crazy and tends  to be abused by the one they admire, it’s known as “mad love”.

The problem with the yandere.

The problem is that if the yandere is poorly written it can be a scrappy. But the yandere can be likable if it  has any sympathetic qualities in him/her. Otherwise, a yandere who is written to be unlikable is likely to  be a villain of a work, planning to hurt a more level-headed character a fit of blind rage simply because  their dream relationship fell apart. Another bad sign is that if he or she has erotomania, meaning they  delusionally believe that the person they love is in love with them when in reality, the person is  indifferent or wants nothing to do with them. Unrequited yandere love doesn’t end well most of them times, especially when the yandere goes of the deep end.  

Yandere examples.

Yuno Gasai from Future Diary is one of the famous examples of an Anime Yandere. She gets obsessed with the protagonist Yuki and is willing to do anything to protect him from anyone coming close to him, even if it’s his friends. Yuki isn’t a saint either in this situation as he takes advantage of Yuno’s overprotectiveness for his own personal gain. 

Alex Forrest in Fatal Attraction starts off as a successful working woman, but after having a one night affair with a married man Dan Gallagher. But she doesn’t take it well about the fact that she is a “garbage to be used and thrown off” and tries to force herself into Dan’s life. She then goes onto do psychotic things such as boil his daughter’s pet bunny, kidnap his daughter and try to kill his wife until she gets put down finally. 

Annie Wilkes from Misery is a biggest fan of the author Paul Sheldon. She kidnaps him from a car crash and traps him in her isolated cabin. She is angry when she finds out he is planning to kill off the protagonist of her favourite book and tortures him into writing her back to life, including paralyzing him and psychologically abusing him.

(tw: sexual assault and child sexual abuse)

Joe Goldberg from You and Fernando Vera from Mr. Robot represent the “entitled male yandere”. Both the men believe just because they have a connection with someone or they are soulmates with someone they are obsessed with, they believe they deserve to be with them, even if it means using violent and sadistic methods to achieve that goal.

Joe is portrayed as someone who darkly subverts the typical “nice guy” trope. He thinks of himself as a hero who is in a romantic comedy. He falls in love with a shy writer named Beck and believes he should be the one whom Beck belongs. He stalkers her, breaks into her apartment, steals her belongings as his souvenirs, kills anyone whom he sees as a danger to his relationship with Beck like Benji and Peach and finally kills Beck when she gets disgusted with his actions. And then he moves onto Love Quinn and goes back to his obsessive skills, until he finds out that Love herself is a yandere who’s been obsessed with him and has her own agency and immediately despises her.

Vera is a drug kingpin who was at first obsessed with his drug dealer Shayla, who happened to be the protagonist Elliot’s neighbour/girlfriend. When he first meets Elliot, he catches onto a connection of them dealing with depression and hating themselves. He then finds out that Elliot was the one who turned him in to the police and has Shayla killed. Months after her death, Vera immediately moves on his obsession to Elliot because of his belief in fate and what the shaman told him. He began stalking him for months and kidnapped his therapist Krista to get more information about Elliot, when he told her his idea of breaking Elliot and building him back up, it was more like a dark and twisted version of The Taming of The Shrew. When he kidnaps Elliot, he then puts him through a cycle of psychological abuse, he expresses his admiration for him and treats him nicely, he threatens to sexually assault or kill Krista and then forces him to remember his childhood trauma where his father molested him as a child, which caused the birth of Mr. Robot. At then end he then puts Elliot through the “honeymoon/care phase” where he comforts him and gives him the storm speech before Krista kills him. But unlike Joe who is a bit impulsive, Vera is a calm, manipulative and calculating Yandere who is willing to rain down doom upon anyone so that he can have Elliot all to himself.

Both Joe and Vera are obsessive yanderes who are entitled to their obsession. They try to control their obsession and try to bring them down to their level. They see them as nothing more than trophy to be won. While they are said to have tragic pasts, this doesn’t excuse the fact that they are dangerous men people need to stay away from.

Conclusion

Yandere maybe entertaining in the media, but if there were anyone like that in real life, they would be really dangerous, especially in the age of the Me Too movement, since stalking cases are illegal all over the country and a lot of victims are standing up against it. There are limits when it comes to a Yandere.

[wrestlingwithhistory]

Why do I like Pro Wrestling?

Even though I’ve put a few posts up on the page already I wanted to introduce myself a little and break down why I’m doing this and give a bit of history about me and why I like pro wrestling.

My name is Kyle, I’m 33 from South Wales, I am married with 2 children. I first started watching wrestling when I was about 7 which I will go into as we go through the post. I started this blog for 2 reasons.

1.     I love stories about pro-wrestling and wrestling itself.

2.     I am starting a creative writing course and want to keep on top of writing so that I am comfortable with writing as I haven’t done it since I was in school.

Now, there are a million stories from Pro Wrestling that you’ve heard from the Benoit Murders to The Montreal Screwjob to The Plane Ride from Hell, but I have an interest in writing about the stories that people are maybe not as aware of that still involve some of the biggest names in Wrestling history.

Nowadays, we can be thankful as wrestling fans that we have a multitude of ways that we could watch wrestling thanks to the rise of streaming sites, Youtube and online stores which you can buy DVD’s or digital copies of your favourite events. Being a child of the 90’s, you would stumble across wrestling almost out of nowhere. I remember being in my grandparents’ house maybe aged 5 or 6. I never had satellite or cable TV growing up, only terrestrial, and coming in one morning and seeing Hulk Hogan on the TV in my grandparents’ house really caught my attention. I couldn’t tell you what show it was or who else was on it, but I remember as I watched Hogan, waving his arms to the crowd and cupping his ears to the Hulkamaniacs as he did throughout his career, that I held a curiosity toward wrestling and did ever since.

I can then remember a few years later one of my best friends growing up had a video at home which on the cover, a man would be fighting himself! Undertaker vs Undertaker. Back then, it was the most amazing thing possible, the mystery of how a wrestler could square off against himself in the ring was unimaginable for a then 7–8-year-old. Of course, that event being Summerslam 94 would not be the great event you look back on, but you appreciate the spectacle of it. I do look back fondly on that VHS and as I watch the event back, the standout match-up is clearly the Owen Hart vs Bret Hart Steel cage match, but it’s not the type of thing you value as a child.

You value spectacle. You value entertainment. At least I did anyway. You treat it the same way you treat a cartoon or movie, you suspend your disbelief for a few moments and take in the pageantry of it all. Some people class Wrestling as 3rd hand entertainment, and I have had many occasions where people have made jokes of the fact I watch wrestling, to the point where I would not even mention it if asked.

But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve started to not care and be happy with the fact I like it so much. It’s not a guilty pleasure, It’s just a pleasure. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve also embraced less of the spectacle side of it I once did and look at the athletic feats that take place in the ring, focusing on the technique that these men have to make it look as dangerous as possible, all the while keeping their opponent safe. I do still appreciate the entertainment value, but I definitely look at things like the work rate of the competitors and what they are capable of.

During my teens, we used to travel to video store not too far away from us in a town called Bargoed. Global Video was one of the first places to stock ECW VHS cassettes. My friends Daniel, Josh and I would go there, pick out a few VHS and go back to Josh’s room to watch them. One of the first ones I can remember watching was Living Dangerously 1999. For its time, the pacing and the layout of the matches were a perfect fit for that show. I remember thoroughly enjoying Tajiri vs Super Crazy, Sid and Spike Dudley vs The Dudley Boyz and also New Jack vs Mustafa which was enough violence for a teenage to endure at that point.

The one match from that event which today I place in my top 10 matches ever is Rob Van Dam vs Jerry Lynn for the TV Title. Watching the opening exchange between the two men figure each other out, reversals of pins, hammerlocks and wristlocks was fantastic and when they separated and looked at each other, it was rapturous. The crowd ate it up. You could tell something special was taking place. As the match continued, I saw things that I never would have seen on WWF during that time realistically speaking. There was a reason the E stood for Extreme in ECW. They always took things to the next level, and while the TV Title was far from being the most brutal match on the card (in part due to New Jack!) it was creative in the way it structured the use of weapons, tablet spots and fighting outside the ring. When the bell rings at the end for a timer limit draw, as a first-time viewer you feel almost cheated, not by the quality of the match but by the fact it could have gone on for another 30 mins. When Jerry Lynn requests 5 more minutes and is granted it, you think you are in for a Jerry Lynn victory but RVD pulls it out of the bag at the end hitting the 5-star Frog Splash. And great ending to a great match.

Throughout this time the Attitude era was in full affect. WWF had a huge roster of stars that any company would have been proud to have, Stone-Cold Steve Austin, The Rock, Triple H, Chris Jericho, Kurt Angle. It was a pleasure to watch some of these events. My friend Michael would record Raw and later Smackdown and let us borrow the tapes so we could get our fix. In January 2000, Channel 4 had gotten a deal to show a few WWF Pay-per-views for free starting with the Royal Rumble. I stayed at Daniel’s house and we watched it live on a small TV. We were extra excited that Taz showed up on the event to face Kurt Angle with an extra ‘Z’ in his name, especially after find ECW a few months previous. Add to that the shock factor of Mae Young’s striptease, the Rumble result, the street fight between Cactus Jack and Triple H, the tables match between the Dudleys and Hardys, it was a phenomenal show.

With the events now being on Channel 4, I would look eagerly on internet forums during school hours trying to find out which ones were next. I remember staying up and watching Backlash 2000 and Fully Loaded of that year, also recording them to go back and watch and study the matches. I would cover the back of the VHS case with white stickers and write the match card on the back in order, so I knew where to find my favourites. They also stared showing Sunday Night Heat as well, which I later years would also have an RVD vs Jerry Lynn match up but not at the same quality as the ECW Event the years previous. These events on Channel 4 ended with the Invasion PPV in 2001 after WWE bought WCW and ECW acquiring many, but not all of their top stars.

Tying this in with Video games like WWF Attitude, Smackdown, WCW/NWO Revenge, WCW Mayhem it helped nurture my love for it even more especially WWE Smackdown 2: Know Your Role because you can create your own shows, wrestlers and storylines. We would have nights playing the game having Royal Rumbles and tournaments, finding how to create wrestlers from online forums like CAWs.ws.

My friend Daniel got the internet at home and we would spend hours searching Kazaa for wrestling videos we couldn’t find on VHS, in-between searching for Create-a-Wrestler guides for Smackdown games. They would usually be the Music Video highlight reels of matches we would want to see. Being early 2000’s it was usually set to Creed, Godsmack or Limp Bizkit but it would be things like Sabu vs RVD in a stretcher match, seeing Goldberg jackhammer The Giant/Big Show, and whatever we could find of these old matches you would read about in Power Slam magazine like the Exploding Barb Wire matches involving Mick Foley, Terry Funk and Onita.

A few years later, with the introduction of freeview satellite there was now more channels in homes than before and one of those was The Wrestling Channel. I turned it to this station thinking it would be WWE but was amazed to see companies more similar to ECW. US Promotions Ring of Honor, Combat Zone Wrestling, TNA/NWA and a few smaller based promotions were present as well as a mix of local British talent. It was on this channel that I first saw a match that involved light tubes, obviously CZW. Although not my favourite style, death matches certainly have a car crash factor to them. You know something gruesome is going to happen, but you can’t look away. But on the opposite of that, with ROH you got to see unbelievable work rate wrestling with the likes of CM Punk, Samoa Joe, Bryan Danielson and Low Ki and with TNA similar talents but with more professional looking, AJ Styles, Teddy Hart and Jeff Jarrett being stars that shone there.

Getting to see high flying stars like Amazing Red, Jack Evans, Teddy Hart, AJ Styles was enthralling. It was a side of pro wrestling you never saw on the more methodical WWE and I would watch whenever possible but still getting my WWE fix via VHS recordings Michael would lend us, especially as some of our favourites from ECW and WCW were now competing there.

From around 2006, I began to wane off watching Wrestling as often. I was playing in a band and focusing on that was well as starting a relationship with my now wife. My band mates Lloyd and Ryan were into Wrestling, so I used to and still do talk to them about it now and then. We used to go to local wrestling shows in Merthyr Tydfil for Celtic Wrestling. Back then, they were just Joe Nobodies wrestling in a bar, but as I look back over many of the people on that show, they have foundations on Wrestling all over the world.

A list of some of the names I got to see in Merthyr Tydfil; Sheamus – Now WWE, Steve Corino – ECW Legend, Zack Sabre Jr – Current New Japan star, Tracy Smothers – Wrestling Journeyman passed away in 2020. I remember seeing Tracy Smothers and I was a fan from ECW when he was with FBI and he was great and a nice guy after the show too. The fact that someone who was wrestled for WWE, ECW and WCW was in Merthyr wrestling, to me was mind-blowing!

A few months later I found out they were doing Wrestling training at The Studio Bar in Merthyr in around 2008 (could be way off), so I went along. I didn’t tell anyone, I got dressed in football gear and told my girlfriend Sara I was off to play football. Instead, I went into this bar and rolled around on some mats for beginner lessons on a Wednesday learning basic holds and how to bump. I really enjoyed it and it was better than bumping on the grass like I used to do as a kid in my local park. I went twice in all, as much as I wanted to go back and keep going, I was thinking that playing music would be easier to justify to someone than saying you were a wrestler so that was that.

I always kept an eye on wrestling but not as intently as I did before, maybe it was my way of disconnecting from wanting to do it as much as I did. I would watch the odd Raw or Smackdown and just buy the Big 4 Pay-per-Views and this went on for close on 8 years, just dipping in and out casually but still knowing who was in the business and doing things else were. We still had TNA in the UK so getting to see that was great, especially with the talent they had there for a while.

It wasn’t until 2016 I started to get back into wrestling as much as I do now. AJ Styles had finally joined WWE after seeming he would never appear there and that interested me because AJ is probably one of my favourites of all time. Twitter was blowing up because of a match between Will Ospreay and Ricochet in the Best of Super Juniors during that year. Seeing mostly positive comments and the odd one or two negative comments from old school wrestlers. So, I clicked on a then Youtube video of the match and it was such a great match. I felt the buzz straight away and immediately started to get the itch back for watching wrestling again.

I had no experience of much Japanese wrestling, but I always enjoyed reading in magazines about people like Jyushin Thuder Liger and The Great Muta and seeing their matches on WCW years ago, as well as people like Taka Michinoku and Tajiri but the Ospreay-Ricochet match convinced me to sign up to NJPW World. That summer I followed the G1 closely. Bullet Club madness was in full effect, seeing the iconic t-shirts and the way they were in the ring were similar to NWO, almost too much to a fault. I didn’t really know any of the performers in the tournament but after watching matches, would go back through the New Japan archives and watch the matches of Okada, Tanahashi, Naito, Shibata and the others, getting to know their styles and gimmicks.

One that immediately jumped out to me was Kenny Omega. He was one of 4 non-Japanese wrestlers (Gaijin) in the whole tournament. I learned that he had turned on AJ Styles and took over as leader of Bullet Club. I went back and watched AJ’s final matches against Nakamura at Wrestle Kingdom 10, and then the tag match the following night between AJ and Kenny vs Nakamura and Yoshi-Hashi. I followed Kenny closely over the G1 and into the finals against Hirooki Goto which was an absolutely brilliant match. Omega ended up winning, going onto Wrestle Kingdom 11 to face Okada for the IWGP Heavyweight Championship. I checked my work diary to see if I had work that day, and I was off! Due to the time differences, I was able to catch some of the pre-show in the morning, drop my oldest daughter off to school and come back in time for the Naito-Tanahashi and Omega-Okada matches.

I got back and watched the Naito-Tanahashi match, a really fantastic match to which I remember saying to myself ‘the main event is going to need to be special to top that’. Cue watching my personal favourite match of all time. The pacing and the psychology of the match were so well done, Omega targeting Okada’s back ready for the One-Winged Angel but never getting to hit it through the match. The springboard moonsault to the outside over the guard rails, the Tope Con Hilo over the top which still holds one of the iconic images of the match as a whole, Okada’s resilience as a champion, back dropping Omega over the top rope to the outside through a table. It was and is incredible, debatably one of the greatest matches of all time. Not just in my opinion but for many others as well. And so, I was back in. From that point onwards, I was an ardent fan once again. I would use the archives of WWE Network, NJPW World, Youtube, Highspots Wrestling Network to feed my addiction, following twitter pages which is just GIF after GIF of just the craziest moves.

I would try and watch as many of the live shows in Japan as possible to watch Omega perform and throughout 2017, even though it probably could have been savoured a bit more, we got to see 2 more amazing Omega-Okada matches at both Dominion and G1 and also a lead to Omega-Jericho for WK12. Both my current favourite and my all-time favourite meeting for the first time for a great match. From a Kenny standard it was not as good as some of his previous but for Jericho it was probably one of his best even compared against some of his classics against the likes of Shawn Michaels and Chris Benoit.

In the Summer of 2018, I watched the Dominion show where again Kenny Omega went up against Kazuchika Okada for the IWGP Heavyweight championship. It was a 2 out of 3 falls match with no time limit. I couldn’t get the time off work for the event so I managed to smuggle my phone into work and would watch intently while selling mobile phones. It was another amazing match up, but I had to watch it over again after finishing work so that I could experience with sound, but even on silent, you could feel how brilliant the match was and Kenny finally defeated Okada for the title. Even though Kenny won it, I much preferred him fighting from beneath, almost as if achieving the pinnacle of wrestling was never going to happen. Even though he had a good handful of matches as champion, the ensuing AEW venture obviously scrapped any possibility of a long-term reign. Also disappointing to see New Japan miss a trick by letting Ibushi win the G1 and then the title from Kenny at WK13, instead vying for Tanahashi who, for as great a performer as he is, was not in his prime and the story between Ibushi-Omega would have been concluded or at least cliffhung until a later date. That aside, the show killed. It was amazing, but you could see the writing was on the wall in terms of Omega, the Young Bucks, Adam Page leaving to start AEW in 2019.

That kind of takes it up to current day, or at least as close to it as possible. It was possibly a long-winded diatribe of saying ‘Yeah, I like Wrestling’ but I hope it helps people to understand what drives me to write about it, why I enjoy watching this often joked about form of entertainment and why I think people could probably appreciate it more.

My messages are open if anyone wants to ask me any questions about wrestling or share stories about your own experiences, favourite matches or even stories that you would like me to cover, and I will try and find something to contribute to the page if possible.

Please read through the posts, like and share if you enjoy and leave comments if you wish to appreciate, critique or contribute towards the stories if you know anything I may have missed out.

Thanks!

[dustedmagazine]

Bill Meyer: Lockdown pickers 2020

You don’t need me to tell you that it’s been a hell of a year. The pile-on of environmental disaster, the COVID pandemic, people being blasted with teargas for having the temerity to suggest that living while Black shouldn’t be a shooting offense, 70 million-odd Americans endorsing and abetting buffoonish fascism, and the virtual evaporation of live music — and that’s just off the top of my head.  

Still, 2020 has been a great year for recorded music. Working from home and not going out at night has meant more time to play it, and while the supply and production chains have been undeniably wonky (oh yeah, I forgot to mention our departing president’s efforts to drown the US Postal Service in the bathtub and the Apollo Masters factory fire; really, fuck you, 2020), a lot of good records have made it into my house. The year has also yielded creative musical responses by creative music makers to the loss of live performances. Chicago Experimental Sound Studio provided a platform for The Quarantine Concerts, a series of live-streaming and prepared video performances that took us into performers’ homes, basements, back yards and pottery studios (I’m talking about you, Terrie Ex). No, live-streaming is not the same as attending a concert. The experience of community and shared space can’t reach you through a screen. But hearing Joe McPhee send a shout-out from his basement Batcave to Peter Brötzmann, seeing Arto Lindsay struggle with the orientation lock on his phone and getting drawn into the layered environment that Olivia Block created with film projections, played sounds and no help from an intruding cat delivered some of the same authenticity, disaster and wonder that concerts at their best can provide. And if you have had the chance to attend some concerts since March (I’ve seen three; two appearances by improvising ensembles involving Dave Rempis in a park on Chicago’s north side, and an all-outdoor edition of the Hyde Park Jazz Festival on the south side), you probably already know that live music events aren’t the same, either. The feelings of communal trust and safety, the internal shift that says “yup, this is where I’m supposed to be,” is gone. We have a lot to recapture and rebuild once the pandemic passes.  

The sales and streaming platform, Bandcamp, became a hero simply by virtue of simply treating musicians like people who need a hand rather resources to be sucked dry and discarded. The monthly Bandcamp Fridays, when the company refrained from taking its cut and passed that percentage along to the artists and labels, afforded fans a direct way to help out folks whose work was getting them through the day, and allowed people who had lost all their performing opportunities a chance to make a little money. Some players took the opportunity to release music solely through Bandcamp. English soprano/tenor saxophonist John Butcher has issued seven titles collectively dubbed The Memory of Live Music. They are a sequence of previously unreleased, archival concert recordings monthly, all splendid musical statements, but also reminders of what we have been missing. Chicago saxophonist Dave Rempis’ Aerophonic Records likewise posted live recordings of short-lived ensembles like the Outskirts that he’d never gotten around to documenting, as well as one-off encounters, such as a marvelously wooly 2012 concert with guitarist Terrie Ex and drummer Tim Daisy at Milwaukee’s Sugar Maple.  

But Bandcamp also gave some musicians an opportunity to create outside the frameworks of physical recordings and performance in physical proximity. Soprano/tenor saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock and her husband, drummer Tom Rainey, used her Bandcamp page as a conduit for Stir Crazy, a semi-weekly series of home recordings. Each installment lasts 15 or 20 minutes, and it might be a free improvisation, a run through a friend or inspirational elder’s compositions, or a topical commentary, such as the loving, skeletal performances of tunes from the American Songbook that they offered a few days after the election. And jazz clarinetist Ben Goldberg has kept a Plague Diary of nearly-daily sketches for clarinet and electric keyboard. Some celebrate friends, colleagues, family members, and historical figures; others simply work out an idea. It feels a bit like an invitation to look over the guy’s shoulder and see how his notions come into being.  

Other parties made the circumstances of the time into a premise for new work. Mary Staubitz (Donna Parker) and Russ Waterhouse (Blues Control) reached out to fellow musicians to contribute to Distant Duos. Each candidate’s mission was to improvise for five minutes while thinking of another player, who would likewise improvise for five minutes while thinking of their counterpart. Then Waterhouse and Parker would combine the tracks. The circumscribed duration and prior acquaintance kept collaborations by the likes of Kryssi Battalene / Jayson Gerycz and Jeb Bishop / Joseph Mauro charged and focused.  And the Swiss label Insub instituted Distances, for which it enlisted eight composers (including Michael Pisaro-Liu, Ryoko Akama and Sarah Hennies) to devise pieces to be performed by two physically remote musicians (such as Mike Majkowski & Cyril Bondi, or Cristián Alvear & Violeta Motta). Each contribution consists of two videos, one a sequence of interviews with the composer and the players, the other a split-screen projection of the music being played. And if you want to take the music home, you can always buy it on Bandcamp.  

But the response that compelled me most is AMPLIFY 2020: quarantine, an online festival of new work initiated by Estwhile Records’ Jon Abbey. On March 12, as concert seasons canceled and countries went to lockdown, Abbey and a circle of associates invited sound artists to contribute newly recorded pieces. Over the next six months they posted 240 pieces to Facebook and Bandcamp. Most were solo works, but several were blind duos for which musicians with shared histories and separate addresses submitted solo pieces with the understanding that they’d be mixed together. At the end of the festival, Taku Unami combined sounds from all 240 pieces into a final entry, “All Together Now.” The works encompassed paint-stripping noise, solemn études, field recordings, electronic music, musique concrete, improvisations, compositions, and works that combined several of the aforementioned methods. The contributors included people you probably know (Tom Carter, Toshimaru Nakamura, Sarah Hennies, Vanessa Rossetto), others I certainly didn’t (Fangyi Liu, Asha Sheshadri), and one who also writes for Dusted (Michael Rosenstein). They made diaries of their circumscribed days, laments for lost experiences and memorials for friends who died during the festival’s duration. There are too many good ones to name, so I’ll just single out a couple performers whose work especially touched me. Reinier van Houdt’s first piece, “drift nowhere past (22 march 2020),” marvelously captured the still loneliness of life that had shrunk to what you could perceive through a window or a screen. Five subsequent monthly instalments came to feel like notes of progress from an ongoing search for purpose and grace. And the radio captures that make up Keith Rowe’s “GF SUC,” recorded as Black Lives Matters protests arose around the world, imparted sadness beyond words; I’ve heard no music that was truer to the tragedy of this time. 

Bill Meyer

[wicxedxcharming]

How do I reblog things of Love and Joe because my Sophia wants romance...while making it perfectly clear that Sophia doesn't want a boy like Joe lol. 

She wouldn’t hate a man who looks like Penn Badgley but don’t stalk her! We don’t approve of Joe Goldberg’s methods!!!