#one can respect someone's commentary talent and still note that person is terrible at other parts of their job

[alianoralacanta]

Just read the news about Matteo Bobbi and Davide Valsecchi getting suspended due to a sustained exchange of sexist comments in the Sky Italia post-Spanish Grand Prix chat. I am very disappointed in them and had thought that they’d know better. How, exactly, does one keep a broadcasting job for 10 years and still think it’s a good idea to continue exchanging such quips after being told off about them on air?!? That’s not simply a human decency issue, that’s a professional competence issue! Speaking of which, well done to Frederica Masolin (the other pundit on screen) for adroitly handling their combined folly. Her comment is the only one I will repeat here: She told the pair to ‘be careful’ but as the joke continued added: ‘Can we watch some interviews instead of these two? Let’s hear from Carlos Sainz, please. I’m going to censure you two.’

[be-a-snake-stab-your-brother]

INFINITY WAR COMMENTARY

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

DO NOT READ IF YOU ARE AVOIDING SPOILERS

My long-ass reaction to my favorite Asgardians below the cut. 

LAST CHANCE IF YOU ARE ON MOBILE. 

SPOILERS! 

SPOILERS! 

LONG-ASS COMMENTARY BY YOURS TRULY.

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

Oooooooh boy.

Loki

Infinity War

Guys, I think he’s really dead this time.

*sobs forever*

Loki is a tragic character, deep in the Shakespearean mold. (And we can probably thank his portrayer for that.)

Disjointed thoughts here. This got...long. 

On Loki in *THAT* scene

-The distress signal from the Asgardian vessel in the opening? That was Loki, right? I had to be. I will die on the headcanon hill that the voice is Loki’s. He *wants* to save his people, and this is his last-ditch effort for help, a raw and real exclamation of loss and fear. Guys, he cares. Too much, to be honest (which is exactly how his whole mess started how many years ago but I digress…)

-I have to wonder how much Loki and Thor plotted the initial part of the confrontation where Loki drops the line, “We have a Hulk.” I feel like both Loki and Thor might have planned that? Now, I’m not entirely sure that Thor knew Loki had the Tesseract. To be honest, one of the biggest mysteries for me still is WHY DID LOKI EVEN TAKE THE TESSERACT IN RAGNAROK? For power? To protect it? As an insurance policy? I have no idea, and it’s basically the only real, burning question I have about Loki’s motivations.

But anyway, the line, “You are the worst, brother.” Or, “You are the worst brother.” Punctuation matters. I, myself, feel that number one is more accurate. Remember their relationship. Remember that they might (at this point), still be putting on a show for Thanos, thinking that somehow he can be overpowered by the Hulk and Thor together. This kind of taunting is how they interact, even on good days.

Have I mentioned how much I love the “We have a Hulk” line? God bless Loki and his irreverent sense of humor. Look how far our little blue icicle has come since the confrontation in Stark’s tower! You know he had to love pulling out that quote. Oh, poor Lokes.

But…Hulk gets his ass kicked. Heimdall sends him down with the dark magic and shit gets real.

-Loki tries to pull his whole song and dance “let me betray my brother again” routine, but the problem is…he’s given himself away already, and both Thanos and Loki know it. Thanos tortures Thor with the Power Stone (the first real indication of his…well, power) and you can see Loki’s face contort in agony (lordy TH is such a stupendous actor, I really hope he gets some meaty roles in the future. The man is a damn artist and I don’t throw that term around lightly. Mad respect.)

So, anyway - even if Loki and Thor had planned the initial confrontation out, the minute Loki coughs up the Tesseract to protect Thor, he knows he’s doomed.

-And here is where it gets sad. Loki’s been on borrowed time - ever since his fall from the Bifrost, since being “recruited” by Thanos. Hell, in some ways, Loki’s been on borrowed time ever since Odin took him in as a baby. It was a terrible, awful thing to say, but Odin’s quote that it was Loki’s “birthright to die” is not wholly inaccurate. And by all accounts, he should have died when he fell into the Void. And he didn’t. He should have died when he was stabbed by the Dark Elf. But he didn’t. He ran and ran and ran. He cheated fate - the Norns - so many times. But he had to know that it would all catch up to him. That he couldn’t stay hidden as Odin forever, couldn’t stay locked up in prison forever, couldn’t be on Sakaar forever, that his entrapment to Thanos - the threat of the Other - that it would come back to haunt him.

It’s such a god damn tragedy.

If Loki wasn’t repentant, it would be a different matter altogether. If he didn’t hand over the Tesseract, even with Thor’s torture, maybe Thanos kills Thor, takes Loki captive and tortures him for it (again). Eventually molds Loki back into what he had been during the Avengers. But I get the feeling Thanos had some idea of Loki’s trajectory, that torturing Thor would be the one thing that was worse than death. (“He will make you long for something as sweet as pain.”) And the fate that was worse than death for Loki was seeing his brother die. Remember, Thanos wants to kill half the universe. Two brothers. In his twisted logic, one had to go. Loki knows this and wasn’t going to let Thor be the victim.

-And so he decides to go out on his terms, practically ensuring that he will die by pissing off Thanos. And at this point, at the end - he finally embraces every part of his identity - Asgardian, Jotun, prince, and king. Maybe, for a fleeting second, he believes he might succeed, but I’m pretty certain Loki knows that it false hope.

-The moment he reached Thor’s eyes and declares himself Odinson, Loki knows it’s over. This one measly sacrifice - a person he doesn’t even necessarily like (himself!) - to save Thor. Loki never really cared about Midgard, about the rest of the cosmos, but he will lay himself down for his brother - his family.

-And just…it’s the worst? The best? Each movie his motivations stem from someone else. In Thor 1 he does it for his father, to win his love and respect. In Thor 2 for his mother, to avenge her death. In Thor 3 it was for his people, for Asgard - to save his home. And now in Infinity War he does it for his brother, because he loves him too damn much. (And in the Avengers? For Thanos, partially; and for himself, but not really. Loki failed in New York. Probably because he lacked conviction. He never wanted power, never really liked himself. Of course that invasion failed.)

-So he conjures a dagger. If he is going to die, he’s going to do it his way, Loki-style. And someone pointed out on Tumblr that his attack was the same move Laufey tried to pull on Odin. Good lord, the layering with this character. I’m crying again, I just can’t guys. “Look at me, brother. This is me. Loki. God. Prince. King. Family. I do this for you.” Agh.

-And then the line, “You will never be a god.” That is PURE Loki. Haughty Loki, who even staring death in the face will not bow in fear. He is better than Thanos, who needs a power stone to overcome a god. His last words are defiance - you will never be better than me, no matter how much power you accumulate.

Guys, I love this character so much you have no idea. There is so much I relate to in Loki’s internal struggles and demons and just…god, he is so fucking tragic.

-And I want to backtrack to the line, “The sun will shine on us again,” which Loki tells Thor. Oh man. It’s a goodbye. We will meet again in Valhalla, brother. It could also be more than that. I don't know where the scriptwriters came up with this idea, but a Google search brought me this from an…unlikely source?

“Today marks a profound and bittersweet milestone for all of us, as we bear witness to both an end and a beginning. And while we must continue on, we must also be grateful to have been blessed with someone who has so ably guided us to where we are today. When there has been so much love and happiness for someone, it is natural to be reluctant to close such a wonderful chapter in our lives, for moving forward is rarely accomplished without considerable grief and sadness. And while our sorrow may be profound, the clouds will clear, and the sun will shine on us again. And in that warm, bright light we will find ourselves facing a glorious future. A future of exciting challenges and infinite possibilities, in which the horizon will stretch out before us, trimmed in the heavenly glow of the sunrise of our tomorrow.

Eddie, The Prince and Me"

Again, I have no idea if this is a reference. I don’t even know this movie and from a brief reading of reviews, it looks pretty terrible. Nonetheless, I like the quote as I feel like in its entirety it’s a wonderful send off to the character and Tom Hiddleston as his portrayer. And frankly, it’s so god damn poetic that it makes me want to cry. Again. Loki, Loki, Loki - that small bit of comfort you offer your brother, yourself in that dark hour. That quote is young Loki, start of Thor 1 Loki, where he still maintains some of that quiet innocence that gets ravaged by stupid Thanos. He comes full circle in this scene.

-And on that note, I rarely talk about actors on my blogs, because they are people with private lives and interests and I’m really not a celebrity culture person at all. This being said, I would understand if Tom Hiddleston would be in part relieved to let Loki go. Let the man get all the meaty roles in the future, let him do Shakespeare on the grandest stages (or the smallest, most intimate venues, where, in my mind, those plays really shine), allow him to grace his talent and abilities in future productions. I personally cannot wait to see what he does next. And let us be thankful for his absolutely brilliant, nuanced portrayal of Loki, who could have easily been a stock villain and instead became one of the most compelling characters I have had to pleasure of watching on screen.

On Thor

-I wanted to comment on two things. One, his conversation with Rocket, where he lists all the horrible events that have happened to him since the first movie. I loved seeing Thor’s vulnerability in this scene, the way he tries to overcome everything with flippant humor and his golden-retriever attitude. That’s who he is. (It probably drove Loki, an introvert with a penchant for brooding, insane in their childhood.) The throwaway line about Loki being dead more than once - that’s misplaced hope, that’s Thor saying “Please, no. Please let it be a lie,” even when he knows it’s not. Ugh.

-When Thor lays his axe into Thanos, saying something along the lines of, “I said I’ll kill you for that.” Yes, for Asgard. Yes, for Heimdall. Yes, for everything he’s lost. But most of all? For Loki. I refuse to read that scene any other way. Thor is on a revenge quest for his brother this entire film. I hope he kicks the shit out of Thanos in Avengers 4.

On Loki’s Return?

-Okay, look guys, I want Loki to revive as much as the next person, believe me. I want to see his full reconciliation with Thor, for him to prance around with the Avengers, and play pranks and be happy!Loki. I know there’s all types of speculation due to the leaked pictures from Avengers 4, and yeah, it would be EPIC if somehow Loki helped in defeating Thanos in that alternate timeline that the remaining Avengers seem to be traveling to. If this gets offered to me on a silver platter, fuck yeah I will rejoice.

-And yes, what did happen to Loki in those few minutes during the Hulk/Thanos confrontation? What if Loki’s line about the sun was more than a goodbye? We’re all pretty certain that the heroes who got ashed will be back, will it be the same for Loki, Gamora, and Vision? I don’t know. My instinct says “no,” but we’re all going to have to wait until next year. (Or, Agent of Asgard Loki? That, too, would be awesome.)

On Valhalla

-I would love a small scene of Loki in the afterlife, meeting with Frigga, who escorts him to Valhalla. It’s not going to happen on screen, but I’m totally going to write a short fic about it, because TEARS and CATHARSIS.

On the Rest of the Film

-I have a fair amount to say about the rest of the film, too! But I’m going to save that for a different meta as I have to leave for work soon. Suffice it to say I enjoyed about 90% of it. A few places dragged, I have no investment in Wanda/Vision, so that really didn’t hold my interest. Tony/Peter Parker/Dr. Strange was inspired, and the Thor + GoG bits were wonderful. Plus, Okoye giving that look to Banner as he tripped in the Hulkbuster suit. I about died there, it was fantastic.

-The snap. Jesus Christ on a cracker that was rough. Especially Tony and Spiderman. Like, rough.

-This film is way too existential for a super-hero movie. Which is why I love it. It’s brooding, dark tone is also a fantastic reflection on the world’s current geopolitical situation and, for me, a product of that kind of “millenial generation depression” that’s been commented on before. I’ll have more to say about this in my larger Infinity War post.

And finally, no better way to eulogize Loki than this:

“Now cracks a noble heart.—Good night, sweet prince. And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.”

[codywalzel]

The Emoji Movie (And Weak TV/Movies in general)- A Entreaty to Cut the Snark

(In a public forum anyway, if you just want to goof off in conversation with friends, knock yourself out.)

So, if you’re drafting your scathing tweet for whatever the current week’s freshly released and much hated property happens to be:

Please don’t. Take Emoji, for example. First off, I didn’t work on Emoji. I have many friends that did during my time at Sony, but this essay isn’t for their sake. I would have worked on Emoji if offered for reasons I’ll get to later, but for now let me start with this: None of the respectable artists that worked on the film wanted it to turn out how it did. Business people with only a secondary interest in art controlled a product, with which they hoped to make money, and guess what, it worked. I’m not trying to throw executives under the bus here either. Executives, whose job is to make money, not to make “good” movies, don’t always the time or budget to assure quality. And honestly, even for the world’s best filmmakers, with infinite budgets and complete control, quality is never a certainty. So, especially in a time crunch, with a full slate, and unproven filmmakers, quality is not necessarily the best business plan for execs. At least that’s the perception to many of us working on a project, and I can see from their perspective the logic that stance. It’s a, “I don’t care if the fart joke is stupid, kids will LOVE it!” kind of thing. Often, sensationalism and even bad press can actually be a good business plan, because that assures the movie won’t be buried. Kids like poop jokes, and adults want a ticket to the train wreck. The decision-makers on the film probably leaned into the low brow as an allure for the marketing campaign, making it a far more visible film due to all the negative buzz surrounding it. The producers don’t care if they’re serving McDonald’s or filet mignon, they’re playing a completely different game, and it’s about getting butts in seats at any cost. Incredibly talented artists fought hard to make the most of a bad situation, and as is usually the case, were outvoted time and again by money, because money had completely different goals. I’m in no way advocating an acceptance of mediocre filmmaking, or a lowered set of expectations for your media consumption. I am, however, trying to make a case that the culture of snottiness, and smug, side-mouth “witticisms” is one of misspent energy, presuming your goal is to help contribute quality art to the world. 

The reason I say not to waste time crafting some cutting diatribe is, the public negativity won’t ever hurt the execs, they won’t see the criticism, and they don’t care because the movie did fulfilled its financial responsibility as a product. But the artists who try and fail to make good movies take the brunt of all the negativity and snark that gets thrown out there. Even though filmmakers will likely never see your specific post, every bit of nasty amateur commentary contributes to a general culture of creativity-stifling artist bashing. Although we should always hold professionals to the highest standard, you have to try and be realistic about the amount of control they have on a project like this. This is not to say you shouldn’t recognize crappy choices for what they are, go ahead and notice what doesn’t work about a movie. Professional reviewers can and should dissect a work’s failing. But, there’s no point in taking so much glee in throwing rocks in the town square. The world just really doesn’t need another sick-burn Tweet featuring your “hot take” on the movie. We get it. You’re smart and the filmmakers are dumb. Your opinion is the same as everyone else’s, but you worded it slightly differently, so that 160 character Twitter review that starts with “Apparently…” and oozes smarm from there is better off left in the drafts. This type of schadenfreude is among the nastiest behaviors to which creatives regularly subject each other. To be working on a very visible project means that almost every artist on that film or show has legions of fans that adore their original work, and an entire industry to speak to their talent. Yet so often I see the artists themselves, and not just the one work, lumped together in the public eye as “the idiots who made that bad thing.” You might ask, “Why would they take that crappy job then?” For the same reason people who haven’t make it into the industry yet take jobs bagging groceries: to pay rent, to support their families, to pay for classes to improve themselves, or just to get them through to the next, better job. It’s not every day that the Iron Giant or Finding Nemo is staffing up, and you never know what kind of project a movie is going to turn out to be going in. So many huge successes fought their way to greatness after an incredibly rocky start. And many movies at a promising studio, with a great premise and solid leadership, end up being terrible. There’s no way to know going in. If you truly think you’re the exception to that rule, take out a loan and open a small studio, because you’ll be the most successful figure in Hollywood history if you can predict a hit every time.

Everybody knows now that the Emoji Movie is bad at this point. Any of the slew of amateur ”reviews” now will just be a race to the bottom, another rotten cabbage to throw at the guy with his head in the pillory. In these situations it feels like all the sassy internet hecklers, many of whom have little or no relationship with the process of actually making films, are lining up to kick a downed opponent, and make themselves look like a tough guy. Each slam is looking raise the bar on the new meanest possible insult, “_____ (movie) was so terrible it made me want to kill myself with my own ticket stub through a thousand tiny paper-cuts”.  The desperation of scrambling to find a “hot take” on an exhausted property is palpable. So many Facebook Status “Film Gurus”, Youtube Movie Ranters, and the ever scholarly forum commentators, are always at the ready to weave a mixture of diatribe and condescending, film-school-freshman lecturing. There’s this ever present tone of “if they only knew these obvious filmmaking truisms, they’d be smart like me, and make better movies. Please, please when will a producer drift into this forum, recognize my intelligence, and give me movies to make instead?” They then usually proceed to lay out some “rules” they’ve read from various screenwriting books. Rest the rules, because I guarantee you that the artists involved in these films read the same books. The filmmakers are just as big of film buffs as us, they watch all the same shows and movies, and they study filmmaking theory through books, blogs, criticism, and movie absorption the same way we do. Yet, with all their knowledge, you still get this kind of “bad” movie, which just shows you how hard it is to make a movie work. There is a harsh reality to showbusiness’ balance of commerce and art: a businesses’ goal is profit, and Hollywood Filmmaking is a business. Here’s a shortened example of what it might take to get a “good” movie made: 1. Someone makes it through the long and cut-throat-competitive thresher of endlessly pitching their ideas. For the sake of condensing many steps, we’ll cut to the part where the project is the 1% that makes it through development hell, and we’ll say the filmmaker survives their 50/50 shot of being replaced by the studio for someone they like better.  2. The filmmaker convinces the studio that “quality” will be a factor that earns money for this movie, and not one of a many possible marketing directives.  3. The filmmaker is also able to assure those footing the bill that they can achieve quality, and in the process get enough creative control to make the thing work. That often includes either convincing a studio that your ability to execute a vision is superior to theirs, or tricking them into thinking both of your visions of the movie are the same, and quietly seeing how many of their notes you can hide under the carpet while you and your trained creative team actually make it work. (On rare occasions execs are either excellent collaborators, or trusting enough of filmmakers to let them do the creative work they were hired to do.)    4. Assuming the filmmaker is able to settle the control issue, and wrestle the steering wheel from the people whose money they are spending, then the filmmaker must then have been correct about their vision being a good one that will work on screen.  5. Finally, if the stars align, then the millions of moving pieces that make up a film/show are somehow kept from falling apart. If all those fragile pieces work in unison, and nothing major changes with the leadership at studios, or the state of the industry as a whole, the project has a chance of being “good”. Even then, there’s no guarantee that “good” thing will make money.  On every project I’ve ever worked on, even the ones I’m proud of, the whole is so much less than the sum of it’s parts. Sometimes I already follow every person I work with on a project on social media when I come in on the first day. There are usually talented people in every department, an all star team, but the project is almost never an all star result. Sometimes it’s not even something I would watch.

Due to the safety and reach of the Internet, the culture of “critiquing” filmmaking has given every basement dwelling cynic and film school sophomore an outlet for their bitter condescension. I think this has led to the general impression that the most important thing that critics do is tear movies apart. I’ve even seen actual, professional critics resort to a kind of schoolyard rap battle to see who can deliver the most crushing blow to a film. But, the most acclaimed critics in film history spent much their time championing films they love- celebrating successes rather than brutally attacking failures. People like Roger Ebert and Leonard Maltin became legendary figures in film history by using their influence to introduce the world to filmmaking that might have otherwise gone overlooked. Hate what you want. Bash what you want. I’m not going to try and fight some crusade against internet flame culture. But, since so many of the people who so joyfully hate on films online claim a passionate love of cinema, just know that a horde of nasty tweets doesn’t help cinema in any way. Way more terrible movies are made than great ones, that’s both the law of averages, and a sad reality of the business. So, although one can learn just as much from a bad movie as a good one, keep it balanced- If you find that the goal of your criticism is to dog-pile an already hated property, I'm begging you to choose again:

-Be the bold person to articulate dissatisfaction with a beloved movie instead.

-Or champion the strong parts of a despised movie.

-Or even continue in the awesome tradition of Tony Zhou, by doing the hard work it takes to neatly point out successful things a strong movie accomplishes. 

-But most of the time, if you're in such a bitter mood that you want to publicly slam a bunch of strangers, your best option is to bury that opinion deep, deep inside of yourself, log off of your computer, and go deal with whatever is making you so angry.

[wicked-messenger-tarot]

The Radiant Sun Redux

Introduction

Maybe I wouldn’t have realized the need for an extensive, plotted rewrite of the book and definitions accompanying the Oracle of the Radiant Sun if, in fact, my moon was not in Leo, and if I had not drawn the card representing the Moon in Leo on New Year’s Eve.

Here’s the card that made the decision for me, about whether or not to go forward:

Because even though I had already toyed with the idea, THIS card’s write-up was so egregious, and reminded me so much of those useless newspaper horoscopes that turned me off to astrology for decades, and highlighted such an extreme cultural difference between America and England, (and by the by affronted me and my Leo Moon personally), that something obviously had to be done.

So I am starting with this card even though I’ll be doing the rest of the deck in the order the authors gave them.  This card, APPRECIATION, is the begining for me, and so apt, in all regards.

Things I Appreciate about The Book

The idea of merging Horary Astrology and the form of an oracle on cards was, on the surface, pretty ingenious, and also incredibly complex.  The entire concept necessitated a lot of work, study, knowledge, and decision-making in two fairly incompatible directions, and despite the extreme drawbacks of the book, this shows-- Smith and Astrop put a lot of work into this.

John Astrop was an extremely experienced astrologer who designed some of the first computer programs for astrologers.  He was the author of over a hundred books on the subject of astrology, including a whole series for parents to help them understand their wee baby Scorpios or what have you.  So this guy was no slouch.  My beef with him and his book has nothing to do with my sense of his expertise or seriousness.  This wasn’t someone who threw something together carelessly. 

Another thing I like about the book is how well organized it is. 

And that’s pretty much it.

What I Do Not Appreciate

The idea just doesn’t work.  Merging two entirely disparate systems seems like a good idea at first but it becomes, pretty rapidly, an attempt to merge one set of things that are tangible with arbitrarily assigned meaning (astrology) and another set of tangible things with arbitrarily assigned meaning (cards), but the party of the first part is, you know, an actual thing that is happening regardless of what you think it means.  The moment you are born, the sky looks a certain way, period.  The moment you ask a specific question the stars and planets are in specific places, period.  That’s what horary astrology is-- the moment the question is “born” is the moment the stars are consulted, which is pretty neat and the basis for most ancient astrologers’ jobs with royal courts.

And what the sky looks like when you ask your question will have, most likely, ZERO to do with which cards you pull from this oracle deck.  The two things are operating on a totally different wavelength.  There’s nothing wrong with either of those wavelengths, but there is also nothing whatsoever connected between those two things.

That said, it’s not that there’s zero connection symbolically between astrology and, say, Tarot.  Tarot cards have a lot of interconnections to astrology.  There’s no reason these cards can’t be utilized in that fashion, perhaps even more directly.  The germ of the idea isn’t terrible, but the way the book attempts to carry it through is kind of a disaster.

The main thing I do not appreciate is the fact a PERSONAL HOROSCOPE makes no sense to include on a card that anyone can pull out of the deck.  There is no good context in which this will work, hence my comparison to cheesey newspaper sun sign horoscopes that are largely useless.

Example:  APPRECIATION

At the top of the page it reads:  APPRECIATION.  Moon in Leo.  [Shows the astrological symbols.]  MOON-Security.  LEO-Creative Self-Expression.

Take a good look at that card.  Here’s the description in the book:  “...a rich and elegant lady performs on a lute.  Her audience is a swift symbolizing spring and new creation.  Below is a cornucopia bursting with fruit symbolizing man and woman, Sun and Moon.”

And now the book definitions:  “PERSONAL.  The emotions of somewhat prima-donna-ish Moon/Leo characters require affection, appreciation, and lots of good opportunities for over-dramatic expression.  This card indicates a need to be center stage as regards feelings, because for Leos big is beautiful, and they can be as emotionally generous as they are bullying.  Emotionally, Moon/Leo people are great romantics.  Feelings are important to them and must be apreciated and respected if Moon lions are to maintain their usual warm optimism.  Children can be an important part of their life and, whether they have any of their own or not, people with th is planet/sign combination are fond of the company of young-thinking people.  This basically emotionally optimistic person has a tendency to over-impulsive actions where loved ones are concerned.  He or she often has a good natural feeling for art and can benefit from developing latent talents in this area.”

Okay, it’s New Year’s Eve, a traditional time to consult an oracle.  Usually I use Tarot but this year I got funsy and used this deck.  One of the three cards I pulled was APPRECIATION.  A word that has a definition, and a word that, when it appears on a card, by itself with specific images, gives you a very particular feeling, idea, advice even?  You know, the main reason people consult an oracle on the New Year, combined with wanting to know what might lie ahead?

And instead you get a whole slew of ideas about... Moon Leos.  Say you are a Moon Leo, you’re nothing like any of that, and you are aware that your entire chart is in play so that’s probably why, but how is any of that helpful?  That’s a lot of real estate taken up on a page to make a bunch of general commentary on someone with their Moon in Leo, and emphasis on “general” and “commentary” because

None of that commentary is implied by the card, either in terms of image, the word it is illustrating, or even the notation at the top of the page about the astrological symbols and their meanings.  But say you are NOT a Moon Leo-- what does any of that have to do with you?  Was this entire process of consulting your oracle deck a waste of your time?  Sure seems like.

He goes on:  “When this card appears in a reading, it can indicate a powerful need for recognition in some aspect of life.  There may be a feeling that those around are not responding appreciatively enough, provoking an unhelpful over-the-top response”  Imma stop him for a sec, how on earth is anyone going to get that from this card?  From the image?  From the word APPRECIATION?  In context with many cards in a traditional Tarot type reading maybe the first sentence, okay, but the rest of it?  And in a single-card draw?

He continues:  “The card can also indicate emotional dependency on a partner or close friends.  Positively, if the card does not refer to the questioner, it can portray someone popular, generous, and much admired by others.”  So if this card is drawn by you for you, you’re a mess, but if you want to know about someone else, they’re awesome, and also if neither of you has a Moon in Leo it still somehow applies to you for reasons, or it doesn’t and you need to find a card that does.  Got it.

And last:  “EVENTS:  A lavish occasion;  theatrical event, children’s performance; pride in an achievement;  short-lived fame, excessively dramatic behavior;  family party or gathering.”  Three of these things are not events, by any stretch of the imagination.

(Sigh.)

This is what makes any book accompanying any deck, what’s the word, BAD.  It is a bad book if it doesn’t mesh with the cards.

One of the constants throughout this book is how resolutely negative each of his definitions are compared to the images on the cards.  Some of this negativity is really excessive, especially for a deck that doesn’t use reversals (I do, so we’ll get into that a bit.)

Also many of his definitions don’t fit the card at hand but will fit another card that actually means the thing he ascribes to another card.  For example, OPTIMISM is for no apparent reason also about “extreme and immovable fundamentalism”, and yet this deck literally has a card called EXTREMISM.  You’ll note the repeated references to “drama” and “over the top” and such with APPRECIATION-- yet there is literally, in this deck, a card called DRAMA.

Books on oracles and Tarot often step into the role of a professional reader to ostensibly help the amateur who is trying a deck of cards for the first time to have a successful reading, and that’s fine.  But it’s often unclear when an author’s opinions are just that, opinions, and not a hard and fast definition.  It would be more useful to add an example of the card in a reading so the person excitedly trying out their first or second or thirtieth new deck will clearly see there are myriad ways of interpreting the card, and this deck would have benefitted from this.  Then the author, a man of experience and a wide knowledge base, could have put his opinions of Moon Leos or whatever in there without ruining what is probably a perfectly good and perhaps brilliant divination tool.

So let’s fix this.

My Rewrite

When this card appears upright in a reading, it can indicate a powerful need for recognition in some aspect of life and that it is time to pursue this.  It can mean that the querant is appreciated more than they realize, or are unaware of how much they should appreciate about themselves and their circumstances.  It is time to be thankful and show your gratitude for this.  If the card does not refer to the querant, it can portray someone popular, generous, and much admired by others, or someone the querant should appreciate more.

When this card appears reversed, it can indicate emotional dependency on others to show appreciation for the querant-- for example, if this card appears reversed in a reading with cards indicating jealousy, insecurity, and drama, the meaning might be that the querant needs to take a step back and remember they cannot find in others what they cannot find in themselves. This card might indicate a need to be center stage, and there may be a feeling that those around are not responding appreciatively enough.  Acknowledge these feelings.

PERSONAL.  Moon/Leo characters require affection, appreciation, and lots of good opportunities for self expression.   Moon/Leo people are great romantics. Feelings are important to them and must be apreciated.  He or she often has a good natural feeling for art and can benefit from developing latent talents in this area.

EVENTS:  A lavish occasion;  theatrical event, children’s performance; pride in an achievement;  family party or gathering;  awards ceremony;  promotion or congratulations

See how I moved and shortened “Personal” so those who might have a Moon in Leo (and know about it) can see a general newspaper-horoscope definition and find something useful in the context of the card?  I’m a big fan of usefulness in a reading.  It does nothing to tell someone a bunch of general opinions about something they can’t change-- it’s perfectly fine to tell someone the consensus opinion, sans judgement, and let them see if it fits them.  (No, this definition still largely doesn’t fit me, but that’s okay, because in the context of my overall chart I can see where the parts that do fall into place.)

Conclusion

So that’s where I’ll be going with this over the course of the year.  As I go I’ll be writing each of my rewrites out and putting them in the book, possibly even gluing over the pages, so I can consult it when I need to.

Because above all, I deeply appreciate the feel of this deck, the images, the energy of the ideas behind it, and the couple who put it together as what was probably an exciting labor of love.  That energy wasn’t destroyed by my objections to the follow-through that is the book, and that alone is a testament to how worthwhile this deck really is.

Thank you for reading.

[gyrlversion]

Stephen A. Smith and the Lure of Losing

SPN’s Stephen A. Smith. Photo: ESPN

If you will forgive this Deadspin founder who spent many years making giddy sport of the man, I have to admit: I have sort of come around on ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith. He’s a completely absurd character whose commentary is designed to be the precise opposite of enlightening, and that he has become the signature opinionator on everything for that network is a daily open admission that many of the once-grand journalistic ambitions of that network have been dropped entirely. (My friend and Deadspin successor Tommy Craggs once joked that Smith’s one talent was “the ability to be emphatic on command.”) If Stephen A. Smith is more powerful than ever, and he is, it’s definitely a sign that the early sports blogosphere lost the war.

All that said, I am not immune to the charms of this.

DAMMIT!!!!! Typical KNICKS!!!!! pic.twitter.com/rn0hDF0JdE

— Stephen A Smith (@stephenasmith) May 15, 2019

It’s a video with everything, beginning with Smith simply screaming, “DAMMIT!!!! DAMMIT!!!” into his phone, seemingly from a moving vehicle, before putting his head in his hands and mournfully shaking it as if he’d just witnessed a cute animal being run over by a train. For reasons unbeknownst to any sentient person, this television professional, one of the highest-paid media personalities on the planet, has not provided any light for his close-up, giving the video a confusing Blair Witch feel. I might love the way he closes the video the most, wailing in his best Leave Britney Alone voice before nearly breaking down and moaning, in a startling Stephen A. admission, “I don’t even know what else to say.” He ultimately sticks the landing: “Hopefully I’ll calm down before First Take tomorrow,” bringing the whole thing home to nail the promo this was all about in the first place. Friends: Two million people have watched this video. I give up. Stephen A. wins. I accept it. In a sports-media world of disingenuous hucksters, blatant liars, and Barstool, this sort of lunatic performance art has a certain dignity to it. Good for you, Stephen A. If someone has to reign, it might as well be you.

Anyway, the reason for Smith’s kabuki rant is perhaps instructive, not just for Smith’s (mostly wrong, however amusing) histrionics but for what it means to be a sports fan in the year 2019. Smith — who, I feel obliged to point out, is a national commentator and therefore technically not supposed to be so directly aligned with one team (go Cardinals) — is bemoaning the fact that his beloved New York Knicks did not get the No. 1 overall seed in Tuesday night’s NBA Draft Lottery, dropping to the No. 3 pick, which will thus deny the Knicks the opportunity to draft all-world talent Zion Williamson, who will now play for the New Orleans Pelicans (whose disgruntled superstar, Anthony Davis, the Knicks had considered trading the rights to draft Williamson for in the first place). In watching it, you would have thought that obtaining the No. 1 pick was a layup for the Knicks that they nonetheless contrived to choke. “I knew it,” Smith says, almost tearing up. “They get close, they tease us, then they never get it done!” He then yelps a few times and punches something soft, hopefully fake leather car upholstery. “Typical Knicks!”

Of course, this is not what happened last night. The banshee-like shrieks of Knicks fans in the wake of the draft lottery, it must be said, made no logical sense. The draft-lottery balls did not fall against the Knicks; they fell for them. As Nate Silver noted, the Knicks had a 60 percent chance of ending up with the No. 4 or No. 5 picks, which means they beat the odds to pick as high as they did. (They had only a 14 percent chance of landing Zion with the No. 1 pick.) The two teams with the exact same odds to receive the No. 1 seed as the Knicks did, the Cavaliers and the Suns, will actually pick behind the Knicks with Nos. 5 and 6, respectively. The Hawks had nearly the same odds and ended up all the way back at No. 8. This draft is generally considered to have three superstar-level talents: Williamson (a step above the other two), Murray State’s Ja Morant, and Duke’s RJ Barrett. The odds were against the Knicks’ having the opportunity to land any of them. And yet now they’ll get one. The Knicks were lucky. The Knicks won.

But Smith is hardly alone in feeling like his team failed him again. “A ZION SHAME,” the Post blared, and the Daily News went with the always-clever “RIGHT IN THE BALLS: Knicks take one last kick from NBA gods as they draw No. 3 pick and miss out on Zion.” Part of this is simply life as a Knicks fan, which always begins and ends with the basic assumption that everything is going to be terrible and is only going to get worse with time and that your job as a Knicks fan is not to have hope but instead simply to sit there and take it. But the larger issue is the sense that, by having had such a terrible 2018–19 season, the team and the fan base somehow deserved the No. 1 pick. We have suffered so much. Give us what we have earned. The Knicks’ missing out on the top pick wasn’t a statistical probability; it was just another kick in the balls.

Thus has the dubious logic of tanking — the art of intentionally losing (or not trying to win) in order to increase the odds of receiving a high draft pick — gained respectability. Of the major American sports leagues, the NBA is the only one in which tanking is a proven strategy, and for good reason: In a sport where one franchise player can be the difference between a losing record and a championship, in many cases the most direct strategy, if you don’t have that player, is to try to lose enough games so you have a chance to get one. In an age where fans are more sympathetic to the perspective of team management than ever before, they’re likely to tolerate — even embrace — a strategy of losing to win later. You take your medicine for future reward. This wasn’t just the Knicks’ plan: It was the Suns’ and the Cavaliers’ and the Bulls’ and the Hawks’. Sow pain now; reap glory later. Fans of the Philadelphia 76ers famously turned this emotional-investment plan into a rallying cry: Trust the Process.

But sports can never fulfill all these promises: By design, only one team gets to win. Fans feel betrayed by ping-pong balls when they don’t get their Zion, but it’s their teams — and, really, themselves — that are truly responsible for the betrayal. We only get a few spins around the Sun in this life, after all, and sports are supposed to provide us with a distraction and escape from all the fear and suffering that surrounds us. You watch your games and if your team wins, you are happy; if it loses, you are sad. There is a simplicity in sports that is unavailable to us elsewhere. But tanking messes this whole process up. It tells us that losing is good and winning is bad. These games are finite; the opportunities to cheer your team to win are rarer than we realize. I humbly submit that if your first instinct when you turn on a Knicks game is “Please lose, Knicks, my favorite team,” I am not sure how much of a fan you really can be.

Tanking, to paraphrase an old David Mamet line, is like paying interest on a debt that never comes due. It allows teams like the Knicks to get away with bad management for years and call it Process. That yearslong 76ers tank? The one that much of the NBA is now modeling itself after? It has resulted in Joel Embiid, which is great, but they still lost in the second round of the playoffs and are now facing a potentially destructive offseason roster reckoning. And that’s the best-case scenario! The Cavaliers and Bulls and Suns made the same deal with their fans that the Knicks did and ended up even worse off. Losing doesn’t guarantee later winning. It just guarantees that you are currently watching your team lose.

The NBA has done what it can to minimize tanking, and the results of this year’s lottery are the proof. The Knicks’ horrible record, the worst in the sport, got them that 14 percent chance at the No. 1 pick, nothing more. But knowing that being the worst team gives you only a minuscule chance at the No. 1 pick and actually accepting it as empirical truth are two very different things, as witnessed by all the crying Knicks fans this morning. It is almost as if there might have been value in the Knicks’ not being as terrible as they could last year. But then again: What else were fans to do? If you don’t have hope in sports, what do you have?

So what did the Knicks ultimately get for their lost season? Furious fans, more pain, the mockery of the sport, and the continued sense that the universe is out to get them. And they were the lucky ones. Tanking doesn’t guarantee anything but wanting to beat up the upholstery and scream.

Will Leitch’s Games column runs weekly. Email him at will.leitch@nymag.com.

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[project-two-five-zero-one]

Why the Apocalypse Now Kickstarter thing is (probably) a Fucking Terrible Idea

Even if the game weren't destined to disappoint on a purely conceptual level (more on that in a second) the Kickstarter pitch is full of massive red flags that should be apparent to anyone modestly familiar with the industry, like 

- a few key figures with impressive resumes leading a team of unknowns in a studio with no prior projects 

- ambitious, exciting-sounding design ideas with little to no specifics regarding how they might actually be implemented, described as an "experience" 

- fucking massive funding goal with an extremely vague development timetable 

- no mockup UI, demo trailer or any kind of proof-of-concept material whatsoever beyond concept art depicting sets from the film 

Other reasons: 

- this is a prospective project of staggering ambition and little proof of follow-through, based on an existing work which was ITSELF a project of staggering ambition that almost completely fell apart while spearheaded by one guy with an overwhelmingly huge budget 

- for all its ambition the notion of the "psychological horror war game", that mythical interactive experience based on harrowing guerilla conflicts like Vietnam or Iraq which will tackle the true horrors of war with a depth and sensitivity Call of Duty can only dream of, is not a new concept for the video gaming world. In fact it's been attempted several times before, with the results invariably being either vaporware (Six Days in Fallujah, the PREVIOUS attempt at an Apocalypse Now game that was briefly worked on by Tom Bissell) or crap (Shellshock: Nam '67 - anyone remember that?). If there's a way to represent the psychological aspect of guerilla warfare in a video game that's both commercially viable (i.e. something more than a half dozen people would actually want to play) and not cheap and exploitative, no one has yet unscrambled it and not for lack of effort. The only "successful" (and still widely maligned) example would be Spec Ops: The Line, which accomplishes its biting commentary by being exactly the same as every other post-Modern Warfare military shooter, only ironic. Not the most glowing precedent. I'm sure the guys at Erebus Games would lay the blame on meddling profit-minded creativity-squashing publishers, and as much as I'd like to join them in sticking it to the risk-averse AAA gaming elite they would need to provide something on their side a little more compelling than the promise of "Fallout on acid". 

- Remember that time Marlon Brando - very shortly before his death - refused to lend his voice or likeness to EA's Godfather video game because he thought video games were violent and dumb? I don't really have a specific point to make here with this, just: LOL. 

Actually I kind of do have a specific point. Perhaps more important than any of these practical concerns, the idea of trying to evoke Apocalypse Now in a video game is almost certainly doomed to failure, artistically if not commercially, because by invoking this work of fiction from another medium Erebus is setting expectations they cannot possibly meet. Unless audiences' and designers' conceptions of what constitutes a "video game" radically change at some point in the future, no video game attempting to summon the tonal heft of a film like Apocalypse Now will ever succeed because unlike cinema or prose, the core storytelling elements of video games are intrinsically absurd. Video games are about repetitive actions, about polygons and number values, about dying and respawning and dying again. Any game ever made with anything resembling a combat mechanic involves (or just as importantly, can involve) killing more humans or humanoid sentient beings in the span of 6-20 hours than just about any one person in all of history. Treated as cinema or as fiction or - above all - as any kind of direct reflection of life, the very narrative lifeblood of video games is self-evidently fucking ridiculous. 

This is not a knock on video games: calculated repetition is the heart and soul of game design, and precisely what separates an actual game with mechanics and craft from a nominally interactive screensaver. This is also not me making some curmudgeonly Roger Ebert argument that Games Are Not Art, or even that they can't convey worthwhile narratives: on the contrary, the best and most enjoyable of video game narratives (and there are honestly so many to choose from in so many different styles, I can't reasonably narrow it down to just one or two representative examples) embrace the inherent abstractions and absurdities of the medium and take them in stride, often combining the exaggerated language of video games with the similarly exaggerated tropes of genre fiction, comics and anime to produce results that are wildly successful on their own terms. Outside the realm of postmodernist absurdism, however, most "serious" works of fiction endeavor to have some kind of baseline representational correspondence with reality as human beings experience it. 

At the very least, this is true of Apocalypse Now. Conceived and produced while the trauma of Vietnam was still so raw in America's collective consciousness that it had barely even begun to scab over, the film was always intended to contextualize and electrify the images of the war that so many had seen play out TV screens, while also attaching this particular moment in history to John Milius's madly poetic, quasi-transcendental meditations on the insanity of war and the warrior spirit of man, as well as the brooding colonial reflections of Joseph Conrad. All of this is grounded via a certain degree of aesthetic realism, however stylized in composition and editing, and expanding from that a reach into weighty, socially significant pathos. Video games, at least as we understand them currently, will never truly reproduce either realism or pathos in the terms in which Apocalypse Now envisions them. Not for lack of effort or talent (though, narratively speaking, some number of AAA productions could certainly benefit from a bit of those) but because they're functionally incapable of doing so. You can't have an Apocalypse Now where Willard is dying and respawning every couple of minutes - at least not if you want to retain any of the film's narrative strength. The scene where Willard's traveling party has a tense, violent encounter with the Vietnamese civilians in their boat full of chickens is a memorable and disturbing episode within the sequence of the film, but as either a railroaded scripted game event that can be reloaded and repeated any number of times or a randomly generated encounter occurring dozens of times in slightly differing permutations throughout a 20+ hour game experience, it is incapable of holding the same power over an audience. 

A game that has famously tried to shoot for the kind of realism and pathos observed in many examples of "serious" "literary" fiction is Naughty Dog's beloved The Last of Us. Narratively, aesthetically, the game sought to be an equivalent to Cormac McCarthy's The Road and ended up being (functionally if not officially) an above average Walking Dead spinoff with some punchy network-TV-quality dialogue (which is more than the actual Walking Dead network TV series can say at this point, but anyway). This might be because creative director and writer Neil Druckmann is no Cormac McCarthy, but I suspect it's also because McCarthy's evocation of reality and acerbic existential pathos are simply not things you can transpose intact onto an interactive experience with checkpoints and a stealth kill mechanic. Note once again that I am not criticizing the game, or any game, for having qualities which make video games balanced and fun: what I am saying is that, given these entirely understandable and probably necessary concessions to The Concept of Video Games as We Understand Them, the developer's pretensions of comparison to McCarthy or the tragic works of the Coen brothers (protagonist Joel was named in honor of Coen the Elder) is at best foolhardy, and at worst indicative of a deeper misguidedness (is that a word? it is now) insofar as what video games can and should aspire to in terms of narrative. 

And as it was for the Coens and McCarthy, so it is for Coppola and Milius - moreso, now, because with this project they are being invoked by name and not just by innuendo. (The fact that Coppola has signed his name on the project means little - not because he's declined artistically since his heyday (I shall not judge) but because I seriously doubt he has any understanding or interest in video games beyond whatever demo reel these guys have shown him.) I'm sure the Kickstarter isn't some cynical enterprise, at least; I don't doubt that tbe dudes at Erebus all have hearts in the respective right places. But as someone who really likes both video games and Apocalypse Now, I'm not putting my money anywhere near this crowdfunding campaign and you probably shouldn't either.

[closetofanxiety]

Show Review: XWA Wrestlution 17

It’s like a revolution ... but with WRESTLING.

Where: Meehan Auditorium at Brown University, Providence, R.I.

When: Sunday, July 16, 2017

Who: Me and my friend Mike T, plus a crowd I saw estimated various places at about 1,000 or so

What: The annual supercard show from the Rhode Island promotion that is not Beyond Wrestling

Buff Inc. vs. Alpha Males vs. Tough Guy Inc.

This is your Student Preshow Match. XWA runs a training school in West Warwick, and every Thursday night they have shows, mostly with their students, but occasionally with better known indie wrestlers. These are students from the school, and a vocal contingent of Thursday night fans was on hand for this match, which was what you’d expect from a three-way tag match consisting of people still learning to wrestle. Buff Inc. are a father-and-son duo, or so the very talkative wrestling fan in front of us said. He kept turning around to fill us in on gossip about wrestlers, which was both informative and slightly irritating. Also, every time I’d say something to Mike T, this guy would turn around and respond, as if I were talking to him. It got to the point where Mike T and I had to communicate via text message. Rating: I’m not going to rate this match, that’s not what you do with these things.

Ladder Match for the XWA Firebrand Championship: Flip Gordon vs. Vinny Marseglia vs. Donovan Dijak vs. Kyle the Beast vs. Maxwell Jacob Friedman vs. Mike Orlando vs. Tessa Blanchard

The Firebrand Championship is a new title named in honor of Brian Fury. This was originally going to be a six-way match, but Tessa (”She’s Ricochet’s girlfriend,” the guy in front of us noted) was a surprise last-minute addition, and when she was announced the crowd went crackers. I mean, people lost it. There were four or five young girls sitting behind us who just SHRIEKED, like it was 1963 and Tessa Blanchard was four mop-topped lads from Liverpool strumming guitars. Crazy. Tessa Blanchard is over, at least in Rhode Island.

The other thing I want to point out is Marseglia’s entrance. It started with half a dozen guys in Jason Voorhees masks coming out amidst fog and spooky music. And then a woman crawled out from the back, seemingly in fear for her life. Soon, she was followed by a guy dressed like Freddie Krueger. As the woman stumbled backwards down the ramp and Freddie was about to pounce, Vinny Marseglia came from the back and beat Freddie up. I ... loved this. This was so preposterous it immediately made me a Vinny Marseglia fan.

Anyway, the match is a ladder match, and proceeds like most ladder matches proceed: lots of high spots, because these are all talented wrestlers, and everyone “gets their shit in,” as it were. Blanchard took a horrifying-looking suplex from Orlando, Friedman (”He changed it from ‘Feinstein’ ‘cause he didn’t want to be associated with Rob Feinstein,” Talkative Wrestling Fan informed us) got massive heat for slapping Blanchard around, Dijak flung guys all over the place, spears from the cables holding the title above the ring, dives to the outside, etc. Flip Gordon took one of the craziest dives I’ve ever seen, going from the top of one of the pillars holding the title belt in place to the floor, a drop of maybe 18 feet. 

Marseglia wins after scaring Friedman away from the ladder, and the crowd, which was insanely hot for the match, is exhausted. 

Rating: Three and a half Freddie Kruegers.

Crusade for Change (TJ Marconi & Anthony Gangone) vs. The Amazing Graysons vs. The Fraternity

This was ... an odd booking decision. With the crowd cooling down from a crazy seven-way ladder match, having a crazy six-way tag match is a recipe for exhaustion, and that’s what happened. This wasn’t bad or anything, but it was your standard indie tag highlight reel. It was also weird to have two heel teams, the Crusade and the Fraternity, who didn’t join forces to try and smite the plucky babyfaces. Anyway, it was fine, it was just a bit much on top of the ladder match. It struck me that jerky college guy gimmicks like The Fraternity don’t get over as well in audiences where lots of people don’t have much direct experience with college. But boy would those guys get heat from the Brown student body. 

Rating: Two and a half Freddie Kruegers.

At this point, Brian Fury came out to a nice ovation and interviewed, for some reason, the bass player for Killswitch Engage, who was seated ringside. One of the best developments in indie wrestling over the last couple of years has been the adoption of corny ‘80s pop-rock songs as entrance music, slowly crowding out the metalcore and rap-rock that dominated the field for so long. Metal and hardcore shouldn’t mix. I realize this is controversial, but it’s like wrestling and MMA to me: I just have no interest in one, even though I recognize the similarities.

Mike Verna vs. Richard Holliday [sic]

Richard Holliday does the arrogant New Yorker thing, which always gets decent heat in New England. He reminds me a little bit of Maxwell Jacob Friedman, maybe more than a little, now that I think of it. This is a good, snugly worked match between two young, capable guys that gets done in less than 10 minutes. Matches like this used to make up the bulk of weekly wrestling TV before the MONDAY NIGHT WARS introduced hotshot booking and terrible “cinematic” angles and all the other stuff that people claim to fondly remember. 

Rating: Three Freddie Kruegers.

XWA Tag Team Championship: LAX (Santana and Ortiz) vs. New Gore Order (Josh Briggs and Mike Graca) vs. Take Me Home Tonight (Ace Romero and Anthony Greene)

This started out as a match between LAX/EYFBO and New Gore Order, but then it turned out that the latter had cheated at a Thursday night show to get this match, so their unjustly vanquished opponents, Romero and Greene, were back in the mix. This is our second three-way tag match of the night. Indie shows love to pack as many people on the card as possible, brother.

LAX/EYFBO (whenever I put up pictures of these guys I have to use like 30 hash tags) are maybe my favorite current tag team, just two insanely talented guys who mesh perfectly together, right on the cusp of breaking out. I mean, yes, they’re currently the TNA tag champs, Impact tag champs, GFW tag champs, Nick Gulas Promotions tag champs, etc. but that’s not really “breaking out” anymore. These dudes would tear a hole in the roof of that shitty building where PWG runs shows.

Take Me Home Tonight are great exemplars of my point about ‘80s pop songs, and are two fun, young, up and coming guys. New Gore Order are also young and up and coming, but they have a further distances to travel than Romero and Greene.

This, again, is what you’d expect, some high-level indie tag action with LAX working at about two-thirds of their capacity, willing to let the greener guys get a chance to shine. Josh Briggs is being touted as the new Dijak, but, uh, he is not there yet. There were a couple of moments, like when he caught Mike Draztik (sorry, “Santana,” whatever) on a dive where he very nearly screwed up in a potentially serious way. He’ll be fine, he’s got lots of natural talent, he just doesn’t need bookers putting him in spots where he has to carry a whole match yet. 

Take Me Home Tonight win, and are the first-ever XWA tag team champs. 

Rating: Three Freddie Kreugers.

Keith Lee vs. Jeff Cobb

SPEAKING OF PWG. The current indie hoss dream matchup comes to Rhode Island, and the crowd was pumped for this. Keith Lee has gone from being an obscure Texas wrestler to a dude who can get a thousand people in Rhode Island chanting his name in just over a year, and it’s spectacular. This match was the expected demonstration of the strength and truly shocking agility of both big men, and was a lot of fun, although maybe just a smidge too long, at 14 minutes or so. That’s the temptation of the indies. It’s a bit like workshopping. After the match, Cobb and Lee shook hands in the now-standard Indie Show of Mutual Respect, and I booed. I’m so tired of that. 

Rating: Three and a half Freddie Kreugers. 

JT Dunn vs. John Morrison

Johnny Mundo was billed as John Morrison, maybe because of all the troubles with AAA, maybe because that’s how this crowd would know him, but in any event, they were very excited to see him. This was a terrific matchup between two guys who don’t really fit into easy categories - they aren’t high-flyers, but they can do aerial stuff; they aren’t grapplefucksmen, though they can do scientific stuff; and they aren’t strikers, but they can strike with the best of them. Matt Striker was on commentary for the whole show, and I wonder if it was weird to see so many of his former Lucha Underground colleagues in the ring. Also, he’s kind of a choad.

Both guys looked fantastic here, going hold for hold and switching back and forth between different styles with total fluid ease. The term “wrestling clinic” gets overused, but that’s what this felt like. When Dunn got the surprise win, the crowd legitimately gasped in shock, which turned into cheers. A nice, spontaneous reaction because they didn’t telegraph the finish, it didn’t come after umpteen kickouts from finishers, and because, if anything, the match felt a little short. There’s a lesson to be learned here! 

Rating: Four Freddie Kreugers.

David Starr vs. Anthony Henry vs. Paul London

I am not, in 2017, here for Paul London’s bullshit. His entrance lasted something like 10 minutes, as he walked through the entire building to shake hands and take pictures with practically the entire crowd. At least he uses the Handsome Family as entrance music, so I didn’t have to endure metalcore for 10 minutes. He’s an odd guy, all the talent in the world but seemingly never committed to wrestling in the way that would make him a real star. Someone like Johnny Gargano, for instance, who doesn’t have the same effortless talent as London, is a person who visibly throws himself into wrestling with a kind of abandon. It’s the commitment of the artist as opposed to the talent of the artisan. London always seems a step or two removed from whatever he’s doing. It’s hard to ever believe he really cares about the outcome of a match.

He was good in this, though, breaking out some of his high-flying offense, hitting two crazily fast shooting star presses on David Starr and generally serving as a sort of wild card in the match. Starr and Henry seem like they could have a tremendous feud together. They’re well-matched in a way that’s pure natural chemistry rather than labored storyline matchmaking. All three guys looked terrific, and Henry, the XWA champion, retained. 

Rating: Three Freddie Kreugers.

Jason Blade vs. Kenny Dykstra

This was cut short by what looked like a legitimate shoulder injury to Dykstra. Hope he’s doing OK.

Student Battle Royal

Are there any words more thrilling to the wrestling fan’s soul than “previously unannounced student battle royal”? The chance to see 20 or so people at various levels of not-ready-yet sluggishly pretend to punch each other inside a wrestling ring - ah, it transports the spectator to the plains of paradise!

Look, I’m not dumb. I understand that if you have 20 locals in a battle royal, that’s ticket sales to the family members and friends of those 20 locals. And, in fairness, they did not overly try our patience with this. Pretty quickly we got down to the final three, which was Buff Inc., the father and son duo, versus giant man-mountain Wrecking Ball Legursky, who easily won.

Rating: This is not a thing to be rated.

Rey Misterio Jr. vs. Ricochet

A rematch of their Lucha Underground showdown from season 2, the crowd was very excited for Rey. It’s weird to think he’s been doing this for as long as he has, and he’s still pretty good. He’s not the kid who in the 1990s was the most exciting wrestler I had ever seen in my life anymore, but he’s not in the phase where he needs to totally reinvent himself on character work a la Matt Hardy, or to be propped up by his disciples, either. If Rey’s matches have been honed to a staple of familiar crowd-pleasers, well, the Rolling Stones play “Satisfaction” whenever they tour, too.

It may be impossible for these two to have a bad match, and this was a very good match. It had teacher vs. student undertones, but ultimately it was about two high-flyers trying to somehow find an edge to get the win. When Ricochet blocked the 619 and countered with the Benadryller for the win, it was surprising and fitting at the same time, almost a passing of the torch moment. 

Rating: Four Freddie Kreugers.