90-Minute Netflix: Posters with Armed Older Action Stars Best Be 'Expendable' Knock Offs

2047: Sights of Death (AKA Death Squad)

I finished "Iron Fist" and, though I thought it was a fine martial arts series, I can only deal with so much Finn Jones (why is season five of GoT considered a weaker one?). Thus, with an hour and a half before the news cycle, "Defenders" was not an option. Tennis had screwed up ESPN, so I was left at a loss for live TV.

It has been a tough few weeks existentially. I have been trying to move on from the I Hotel, but what will that gain me. Less headaches for one (as I just received the call that it was a good thing that I had not purchased Riot Fest tickets). Imagine an organization whose pay roll company can screw up a payday over a holiday weekend. After they failed to take my implication that I wanted to use up my vacation time on this slow week, make believing their incompetence takes less effort that what the cast of "2047: Sights of Death" put into their performances.

That last comparison only applies to Rutger Hauer and Michael Madsen's performances. They seem to revel in the stupidity. Hauer seemed like he had more fun in "Death Squad" than he had when he worked with Dario Argento. Madsen seemed to enjoy his time on set with the promise of vengeance for Bill's brother bud. Otherwise, "2047" is a semi-talented cast believing there would be special effects added in post.

Check out the rest of this review at NinetyForChill.com - A More Acceptable Runtime.

UWC 102: Wrestling with Nametags

When the major metropolitan area (Champaign/Urbana is the only growing urban area in the state of Illinois, thanks Governor Rauner) is 30 minutes away from you, a wrestling promotion has to offer a stories or exceptional matches that entice fans of the genre to come out to you. Unfortunately, United Wrestling Coalition has only seen that its current audience seems to be just Homer, IL, and is basing the product around amusing them. If you want live wrestling in East Central Illinois, they just assume that audience will scour and put in the work to find them.

As I wrote in my review for UWC 101, there is a lot of potential in the booking and a handful of talent, but all that UWC 102 was was more of the same. The guys who came back seemed to be dependent of this promotion to provide them a career, and the new guys were again hindered by the horrid audio presentation. If they did not have their name's typed on the back of their gear, you would have no idea who they were. It is bad enough that you have no idea why they were there.

Outside of Homer, I think my promotion of their UWC 101 on Twitter and Tumblr was the most they had received. You would figure that a small town fed trying to emulate WWE might follow the social media McMahon's hashtags. Or if they were a true Indy, they were a true Indy, they would at least follow the Indy Power Rankings or at least tag them in their own posts. Either way, it would take less time to see that I was writing about them than it took for me to find their social media presence.

Check out the rest of the blog at the "Rip 'Em System" tumbler:
https://ripemsystem.tumblr.com/post/162758711715/uwc-uwc-102-wrestling-with-nametags

AAW: Art, Wisdom and Other Things Randy Doesn't Understand

I think it is difficult to argue the statement that All American Wrestling provides Chicago with the best wrestling. It does not have the perceived outlaw persona of Freelance Wrestling or Resistance Pro, and that is because it does not need it. You buy a ticket, and you are rewarded with the best wrestling showcase the region has to offer.

AAW currently seems to have an over abundance of riches. It may sound foolish to say there is a downside to showing off the best, but the promotion seems to lack identity. The best wrestlers will inevitably get signed to exclusive deals. When that happens, the most talented members of the undercard should be expected to step up to fill the vacant roles. Unless you can just find main eventers from other territories which is what the promotion that developed Tyler Black is ironically doing.

AAW feels like a YouTube Wormhole that you can check out in person, instead of a team you come to cheer on. As pro-wrestling's premier Cubs fan, I loved cheering on the team for 36 years as they developed into world champions. There were times that I wished ownership would just buy a title, but if that occurred, I would then be bitching about any time they did not win a title. That would make me a Yankee fan who is not from the five boroughs. To those fans, they are not your team.

Check out the rest of this blog at "Rip 'Em System - Tumblr" https://ripemsystem.tumblr.com/

UWC 101...or was it 107?

The title kind of indicates the worst element of United Wrestling Coalition’s return to the Homer Opera House. More than most people, I appreciate Ramstein’s forgotten song from Vin Diesel’s “XXX," but a wrestling show is about the grapplers not the music (at least I assume that about Freelance and F1rst, working in hotels over the past four years makes it difficult to keep up on the Indie scene). If you do not hear the names and info about the performer, you can only rely on the local crowd to tell who to cheer and who to boo. When they are putting over the referee more than the competitors, you do not know how seriously you should take this promotion.

It may seem that I am not doing much to put over UCW, but it is a promotion that seems to have a lot of potential in spite of the middle of no where location in Homer. There seems to be a solid booking mind and they are the only kind of show that can effectively use the facility they are in. With all of the support posts holding the building up, I do not know how you can arrange seats for any other show.

Check out the rest of the blog at the Rip 'Em System Tublr.

"Don't let your babies grow up to be Cubs Fans, and always remember to spay or neuter your White Sox Fans," Russ Stevens

Rape Culture Killed My Blog: Track 2 of Wish You Were Here

I think the world may have been going to shit before Trump became president. His election is hopefully just the bottom.

The thing that has been bugging me since after the planet's finest moment (any particular suggestions on this year's Spring Training tattoo...I'm stuck between touching up the most famous Cubs ink in pro-wrestling with the addition of some true football stars for 1907 and 1908 and the number 3 for 2016 or accompanying Ziggy Star Cub with a Queen Cub [if the latter, with or without the 80s' Mercury Stache]) is a topic that men may not have a place to make a statement about. My job at the I Hotel has left me dealing with seemingly the worst elements of white privilege, but to find those elements present in my social and family life makes it tough to be silent, regardless if it is misguided as I continue letting the keyboard express it.

When you tell an employer you prefer evenings, but are scarcely allowed to work them, you learn to that you better appreciate any moment you have before the third act of "The Daily Show (I'm cutting the cable off as soon as I move from my heat-deprived, roach-infested "not section 8" apartment, so I'll be more woke when I don't need to skip ACLU and women's rights activists to shower in my wet and dark, gnat-consumed bathroom). My girlfriend and I wanted to get the most out of November 4, a Friday, and when we heard about Emily Blue's benefit show for victims on WCIA that night, we decided to check it out. I am happy to say that our cover fees should have covered the cost for the local rape crisis hotline to operate for at least one more day, but when my girlfriend found out that the abuse to women was beyond just strikes and throws, she insisted that we had to leave. I tried to talk her into returning for the show, but she told me to that her near misses with rape (isn't that technically a hit, a joke from my dad that seems appropriate as I type it) made her scared to even address topic.

I had talked to her months ago about my need to write that in a blog, and I appreciate her understanding when she gave me permission to follow through. And I am grateful that she let me push back that night against her request for me to come to church for a sense of community that my hours do not allow me and for my personal salvation. It is also great that she did not think I was too much of a dick when I left her once we got back home to claim the other half of the make-up wings that Wing Stop deprived me of.

My girl and I enjoyed what time we had when we settled in at home, but if I knew I had to leave her to go and:

• Play nice with an out-of-touch state comptroller (to her credit, Lisa Munger was very polite and accommodating guest).
• Deal with the bullshit of the alleged towel-stealing, bar tab-skipping owner of the Secure First insurance brokerage who allegedly screwed me out of $660 seven years ago (when I find my certified mail receipt from when I sent an invoice and a disc of the webwork I did for his company, you can scratch the last alleged).
• Monitor hallways to give out noise complaints to drunk NIBCO valve employees (probably sales persons) who were there for Kid Rock's corporate gig that took place at The Accord.

I would have probably called in that night, and they should not have taken issue with this since I did not tell them to fuck off (more likely risk wasting their time with a polite plead...my bite comes from typing or three vodka drinks) when I had to pick up a St. Louis Cardinals fan at the airport instead of watch the last three out of game seven two days prior. When I found out that NIBCO's gig moved Emily Blue's benefit to the smaller Clark Street Bar (good for the sparse crowds of industrial/goth Wednesday nights, not much for a record release from Champaign's hottest act [I'm still new to the C-U, so pardon incidental hyperbole]), "Welcome to the Machine" seemed to be the appropriate soundtrack for that overnight.

It is bad enough to work for a wannabe Biker for Trump, but finding out you employer assisted in facilitating a greed driven performance from one of the most outspoken supporters on the New Face of Rape Lite (Bill Cosby would be the full-calorie face of the crime), you have pretty much determined then that you better get out-of-there once you get...a new apartment and at least the week paid vacation for serving there a year. My girlfriend should be proud of me at least working for some kind of salvation for my past three months of working in sin. Or maybe this blog will let her know to lay off thinking about the negotiating possibilities when they know I am looking for the unsecured exit door to the FDC rim-jobbing the rich tax write off.

If there is a silver lining to this, it is knowing that Donald Trump's finances being so poor is the reason that he is not releasing his tax returns. Surely Kid Rock can perform a cleaned up set on the Washington Mall for a rather low price if a piping company can get him to play a bar that hold 500 in Illiana. Hell, Trump supporters would not curse him for his vulgar objectification of women, so no need to put the effort in cleaning up his act.

My opinion of my work environment only got worse when I had to deal with the attendees of the Illinois Farm Service Conference (emphasis on Farm so you can picture the appearance, accent and attitudes of these drunks) while they were waiting for the official announcement of a Trump victory. A mess of beer bottles, Pop Tarts and an information monitor for the Illinois Conference Center that the guests screwed around with to find Fox News coverage awaited me when my coworker sent me on a floor walk to avoid me for finally snapping on their demands to take the "Clinton News Network" off the lobby television. I guess I should appreciate the fact my fellow coworkers want to keep me around.

The rednecks who celebrated the abandonment of the majority of the nation did not say anything that was particularly offensive beyond the character assassination of the woman who should be leading this country and mocking the whines of the caring and rational. It was just difficult to handle four hours of it (for fucksake, last call was 1 am at the bar). I state this because trashing and victim blaming women for the tragedies men force upon them was not prevalent. This bullshit was something I did not need before I had to return to the ignorant (I mean conservative) towns that I had been longing to get away from.

Is "Bittersweet Symphony" the anthem for 2016 or was I just lucky?

Are Nazis a generational thing? Baby boomers feel they need to turn to nationalism because the country was gradually getting closer to equality. White privilege should guarantee them treatment as the nation's priority. They never needed to work hard, so why do they have to now? Foreigners working harder is not enough reason. Why burden themselves by acknowledging they really need to stop putting the soles of their boots to the necks of African-American dreams.

I need to address my fellow Chicago Cubs fans. With how 2016 ended, never mind the bullshit that took place in the world prior to November 8, would you have traded a World Series championship for a Trump-free white house? They have the best line up of position players and a deep pitching staff. Regardless of a world title, Aroldis Chapman would be somewhere else along with Dexter Fowler, but if Jason Heyward's bat would come back around, another trip to October baseball is damn near guaranteed. It took a lifetime for my dad to have seen a Northside National League pennant, but he is a Detroit Tigers fan, so I thought it was worth half my life to see the curse broken. Dare I say (dare, dare), I would have been happy seeing the Cubs with a world title provided that it occurred before age 72.

Anyhow, when it was primarily old assholes who decided to rob the youth of a future for the sake of their own security (not just Trump, but Italy and Brexit), do these sphincters even deserve the joy of a chorus of "Go Cubs Go" that can be heard by Martians?

It was a bittersweet year for me. The Cubs win the World Series, but I did not get up to Chicago to catch a game (Danny Daniels, please talk to the management at 115 Bourbon Street to only schedule AAW events from April to September during Cubs' home stands). That suggests I may be the jinx (I should have never viewed "Celtic Pride (not just for the concept of a Daniel Stern led film) for the lack of world championships near Lincoln Park from 1980 forward. I moved to a city that was better for me, but the financial resource to do so is owned by a tax-dodging, wannabe Biker for Trump. A beautiful girl has decided to put up with me and my DVD/VHS/Blu-ray/Cartridge consumed apartment, but Newcastle United was relegated to the English Football Championship.

We received another brilliant "Star Wars" movie, but I had the responsibility of telling my four year-old nephew (I would have seen the films of the original trilogy a combined 13 [at the very least] times in the theaters by that age) that "Rogue One" was too intense for him. With "The Wolverine" trilogy ending in an R-Rated conclusion, droid-blocking a preschooler leaves me with a sense of guilt for hoping there will one day be a hard R story from "A galaxy far, far away."

Now I am hoping that the "Han Solo" film will be that story. Emilia Clarke's best projects are the ones where she is showing off the mammaries to dragons. "Terminator Genisys" was good (why does everyone deny the talent of the "Wes Craven presents Dracula" director Patrick Lussier), but every episode of "Game of Thrones" rings the bell of shame at it.

How do I transition from talking about Daenerys Targaryen nudity to what has been driving me nuts and determined that I need to come up with an exit strategy to escape the I Hotel? It is definitely tough to be considered sincere when I am suggesting objectification as a joke. Can I even be satirical about the topic beyond the my intended blog's title?

In an ultra-sensitive world where suggesting a male-outsider perspective could be equated to "mansplaining," am I even allowed to address this? Let's hope the worst thing that occurs to me is Stefanie Smith commenting on my Facebook feed with "I TOLD YOU SO!" I think that would be better than this blog being considered too long by web designer standards, the web design standards that SHOULD STILL BE FOLLOWED.

With "Main Event of the Dead," my pro-wrestling zom-com screenplay, being dead (maybe 2016 was beyond bittersweet), perhaps looking to sell my service to re-frame the bastardized world wide web should by my new priority. If the wrestling/film business caught up with my script, the Internet needs to catch up with the ideal look my 2002 certification taught me.

Is being righteous better than enjoying oneself? Perhaps writing the rest of the blog will allow me to find out.

I guest that'll will have to wait till next time if I want to include an image of one of my flag(s) for the Wise States of America.