Perhaps this counts as cheating, but since I make the rules around here… I’ll allow it.
Check out the newest episode of Free Range Idiocy where Tim and I recap our favorite moments, characters, and episodes from season one of The Madalorian.
Perhaps this counts as cheating, but since I make the rules around here… I’ll allow it.
Check out the newest episode of Free Range Idiocy where Tim and I recap our favorite moments, characters, and episodes from season one of The Madalorian.
Well shucks, that sounds awfully corporate and official for some guy working out of his house, but it’s actually the best title I could come up with. The beginning of this year has been interesting and I’ve begun to think of my life as more of being CEO of Todd, Inc. rather than just doing a bunch of stuff. After all, I have control over pretty much everything that I’ve chosen to do – time to start acting like it.
So one of the biggest moves this year is something I’ve spent a few posts talking about: social media and how to deal with it. After 21 days away and then an experimental week back without any real changes, I’ve come to a terribly unscientific conclusion.
I stink at this.
So, it’s time to start making some changes.
During my initial foray into the world of professional wrestling, my father took me to see the Big Boss Man take on Hulk Hogan. This was back when Hulkamania was running wild, Boss Man was the evil Cobb County prison guard, and the Portland Civic Center was still called the Portland Civic Center.
Looking back through the haze of nostalgia, it was a very big deal to me at the time. I had posters of Bret “The Hitman” Hart, the painted face tag team Demolition, and a couple others hanging on my bedroom walls. I watched wrestling shows on TV and thrilled to the banter between Gorilla Monsoon and Jesse “The Body” Ventura at ringside. Seeing these giants of sports entertainment in person was amazing.
In reality, it was your average late-80’s WWF house show. Hercules defeated Bad News Brown, Greg “The Hammer” Valentine defeated Jim “The Anvil” Neidhart, King Haku defeated Jim Powers, The Bushwackers beat the Rougeau Brothers, WWF Women’s Champion Rockin’ Robin defeated Sensational Sherri, the Red Rooster took down the Brooklyn Brawler, and Paul Roma beat “Iron” Mike Sharpe.
That main event that sparkled so brightly in my memory? Hulk won over Boss Man via a count out. Not exactly a finish to write home about.
Which all leads me to say… Werner Herzog is an interesting guy. Along with being a renegade auteur filmmaker, he also enjoys some Wrestlemania as well. I’m guessing that he’s referring to WWF/WWE, but you can never quite tell with a guy like Herzog.
The idea of professional wrestling as this spectacle that a lot of highbrow artists would look down upon but which actually can be superior to some more “enlightened” forms of entertainment is something I can agree with. It’s an amazing form that combines acting, spectacle, drama, and superior athletic ability. Sure, it’s gaudy and gauche and insane. But it’s also a good laugh, fun to watch, and occasionally transcendent in its athletic achievement.
Wrestling faded from my interest by the time high school rolled around, but made a surprise resurgence for me in college. This was at the height of WWF’s “Attitude Era” with stars like “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, the Undertaker, the Rock, Triple H, and many more. I was back in, then just as suddenly a few years later, I was back out.
Third time is the charm I suppose, because now I have new podcast out where Tim and I recap last month’s WWE Survivor Series. It was the second wrestling show I’d watched in about 20 years. And you know what? It was a lot of fun. Bright lights, explosions, acting (both good and bad), over-the-top characters (both good and bad), and athleticism that I sometimes couldn’t believe.
In other words, not a bad way to spend a Sunday night.
For a little something that started out as a good excuse for a conversation every couple weeks, this thing here is starting to get some legs! After spending the better part of the first three episodes of Free Range Idiocy finding some way to turn the conversation towards Battlestar Galactica, we’ve decided to go full-on deep geek and talk about our favorite episodes from each season. This past #TGIFRIday, we posted the first episode: a 3-hour marathon discussion of our personal top five lists from the first season of BSG.
Yes indeed, folks… After cursing podcasts that ran for 3 hours, we’ve managed to record two podcasts of that length in a month. As The Good Doctor’s friend Bob Braudis once said, “Life is a gradual release from ignorance.”
Originally, we’d planned to do an episode focusing on each season. After wading through this one, we’ve altered things a bit and will be proceeding with half seasons (as they were originally aired) and cutting down our lists to 3 episodes each. I mean, we’ll still wind up around 2 hours, but it’s an improvement of a sort. Right?
If this is at all interesting to you, then feel free to download and subscribe on Podbean or iTunes. You can follow us on Twitter or Facebook. Enjoy!
I’m not sure exactly when I joined Facebook. I just tried to check and wound up spending 10 minutes checking on a bunch of other stuff.
This is what my life has become.
At some point in the last 10 years or so, I joined Facebook and immediately got into the “who can get more friends” contest with my wife. It was fun to make contact with people I’d hadn’t seen in person since high school graduation, find some college friends, and generally putter around the site. But at some point, things took a turn.