2014 A Year in Review

Back in January of 2014  I posted my goals for 2014...which ...well... I met none of this year. I am not going to to sugarcoat it.  Zip...Zilch...Nada.. Big ol' goose egg. I don't want to be "Mr. Negative" but... apparently I am. Take this for an example:

A friend of mine is making a documentary.  He needs a narrator for his film. and I am like, "Hello !!!, Right here! I studied acting.  I want to be a voice actor" and he told me that he didn't want to use because my voice was too Snarky..   and I am like, "O-K, true everything I saw is usually oozing with sarcasm...but there is that thing I studied called acting....I don't have to sound that way.."  But I digress...

While I didn't complete any of the goals I set for myself I did do quite a few things. I didn't do much for January and February as I was waiting to see if I made it into the JET Program (which I did not) Apparently I am no not a JET all the way (or even part of the way)  Not from my first cigarette nor my last dying day...  Pity as doing that would have accomplished both of my major goal (and would have given me access to my minor ones.)

So 2014:

Got off to a late start...

April 12-13
SHIMMER 63-66


May 20th

Coffins @ St Vitus - Brooklyn, NY

Coffins http://bnds.in/xadaW5
Bones http://bnds.in/t8uYb1
SevenSistersOfSleep

MAY 24th
VALKYRIE Womens Professional Wrestling debut show

June 25-27th
TNA iMPACT Wrestling TV taping

I did a Zombie run ( was June or July)

July 19th
VALKYRIE Womens Professional Wrestling presents "VALKYRIE II: Rise of the VALKYRIE"

8/7
TNA iMPACT wrestling Hardcore Justice
8/9
TNA iMPACT Wrestling TV taping

Friday, September 12

Shonen Knife @ The Wick - New York, NY

Went to Universal Florida's Halloween Horror Nights
October 2-7

Attended  NYCC 2014
October 9-12

Friday, October 17th
AAW: Professional Wrestling Redefined presents Jawbreaker


October 18-19, 2014
SHIMMER 67-70


October 24th

VALKYRIE Womens Professional Wrestling presents "VALKYRIE III: Queen's Road"

November 4th

BabyMetal World Tour

November 22nd
W.U.W. Gran Prix the Beginning

November 30th

DTA Tours
Death
Obituary
Massacre
Rivers of Nihil

December 12th
NYWC Immortals Holiday 4

Not a bad year ---eh?  Not only did I do all that, I put in motion action that will allow me to fulfill most of the goals that I missed in 2014.  I will visit  Japan in 2015. I will attend a KanaProMania -Advance.  I plan on attending WAVE, 666 and a Super Sentai stunt show.  Plane Tickets bought, Hotel Booked, Tickets wrestling shows reserved!  Japan here I come.  Hopefully in 2015 I can complete my other unfulfilled 2014 goal and get a career.  I already have a "job" but I want a "career."  When you have a career  there are are not enough hours in the day...but when you have a job there are too many hours in a day.

Last Christmas

I have been a fan of Doctor Who pretty much since it was first brought to the United States I discovered Doctor Who in the 1970’s when it was broadcast on New York’s channel 9- WWOR-TV. The first episode I ever watched was episode 1 of “The Ark in Space.” I was hooked. Doctor Who quicjly became my favorite TV show. While the Christmas special is staple of the current Doctor Who series, back in the days of classic Who, it didn’t exit. In fact during it’ initial 26 year run, there were only 2 Christmas themed episodes. The very first episode to premiere on Christmas Day was "The Feast of Steven" It just happened that the episode was slated to air on Christmas day, so the BBC decided to make a festive episode. It is right in the middle of the 12 part Dalek Master Plan serial and really has nothing to do that story. It is sort of a side story. The other was the pilot to K-9 and Company. Some fans don’t count this as a Doctor Who xmas special as the Doctor isn’t in it…but it does feature K-9 and Sarah Jane and it does take place on Christmas. Back then, the internet didn’t exist. (yeah I know I am dating myself) Most of my information about Doctor Who came from British magazines and books that I stumbled upon.

I do know there was a Doctor Who Christmas connection even back then… but it was in the form of special recorded message and not a full flung special episode as it is now. It might appear on something like Blue Peter or maybe it was a special Holiday station ID for the BBC…either way it was something that aired once and as I don’t live in the UK, I never got to see. Some of these have made it youtube.
While I am happy to see a new and often times longer than usual episode of Doctor Who, the xmas themed episodes are sometimes not my favorites. When I saw the trailer to the current one, I groaned. Santa Clause?? Really. I feared the show had jumped the shark. While Doctor Who is a children’s show and it is known for its humour…I thought this might be going to far. But it is Doctor Who …so I was going to watch it anyway.
And I was presently surprised. It was brilliant. Very well written. And pretty scary for a christmas episode. The whole Santa thing was handled very smartly. The story deals with what is a dream and what is reality. Is Santa really there? Is he a figment of someone’s imagination… The story does take place on Christmas Eve and they are on a research lab close to the North pole. All the things that I thought were going to bring the episode down, like Rudolph’s red nose and Christmas elves just worked and made the story better. The Doctor, while trying to prove that Santa was a hallucination, asked Father Christmas, how he fit all those toys in his sack. To which, Santa answered, “it’s bigger on the inside.” The story is sort of like the move “Inception” except I like it a little better as at its base “Inception” was a heist-adventure movie and Doctor Who’s “Last Christmas” is more a horror story. This episode , like my other favorite Xmas special, “ The Next Doctor,” is just a great story…even if you remove all the Christmas elements it would be amazing…although the holiday elements enhance the story and make it even better. I really don’t want to spoil it, if any of my readers haven’t seen it yet. It must be available on BBC iPlayer, Amazon video or Itunes.

Christmas

I am not really a Christmas guy. I never really was and probably never will be. Having worked in retail the past couple of years has siphoned out almost all of my limited supply of yuletide spirit. When asked what my favorite Christmas movie is, I usually answer "Die Hard", "Gremlins" or "Heroic Trio 2." They take place on Christmas so they count...right? Or maybe "Santa's Slay"The movie is very cheezy but there is something about the concept that Santa is really a vile murderous demon that due to losing a wager was forced to be nice for 1000 years. But now Santa has finished his sentance and can return to his evil ways and start spreading some "yuletide fear."

There are actually a ton of evil Santa movies but this one is the best. It stars Bill Goldberg as Santa and has several cameos by actor's like James Caan, Fran Drescher, Chris Kattan, and Dave Thomas. If you Like Horror or Dark Comedy or maybe were a huge WCW fan, I ssuggestyou check out this movie.

Most people like the Jim Carrey Grinch movie, but don't care for it.  I will admit that Carrey's makeup is incredible but the movie takes to many liberties from the book and is way too long.   Jim Carrey is a phenomenal physical comedian. If they needed fill out the movie they could have just had Jim Carrey do some slapstick comedy bits while he robed  the Who's of the Holiday cheer. Instead the filmmaker's pad the movie with an unnecessary back story of how the Grinch became a Grinch.  Not only do I not care for added material, most of it seems like a ripoff of Dicken's "A Christmas Carol." If I want to watch Ebenezer Scrooge, there are hundreds of version of a Christmas Carol to choose from...I don't need bogging down the runtime of the Grinch.

While I hate to sound like a Grinch myself, I am also not a big fan of Christmas music.  Having to listen to hours on end, I have grown to dislike most of it.  A lot of it is really awful but are a few songs that get the Shawn Seal of approval. And here are a couple: 

Santa Dog is considered to be official beginning of the Residents musical career.  It is at least the first song the band released.  They have rerecorded it several times.  The version below is one of my favorites.  The Residents are always evolving and changing their musical style.  This was one of my favorite incarnations of there music.  Even though this version of Santa Dog is lacking the lyrics I love how powerful and somber it sounds. 

BABYMETAL World Tour 11/4/14

BabyMetal is the newest and quite possibly the biggest thing on the metal scene. They are Kawaii Metal-- the fusion of J-Pop and DeathMetal. In case you haven't seen them, the band is made up of a trio of cute teenage Japanese girls. Su-Metal is the lead singer with Moametal and Yuimetal providing back up vocals and dancing. They are backed by a four-piece band featuring two guitarists, a bassist and a drummer.The guys are seriously good as well. They have opened for Metallica and Lady Gaga!

When I heard they were coming to America (and NYC to boot) I had to get tickets. BabyMetal fans cut across a wide demographic. While waiting in line, I saw young people, old people, men, women, children, anime fans, old school metalheads, punks, hipsters and more. I arrived quite early and ther already was a long line Just check out this video for the BabyMetal Line I am in line at about the 2:16 mark.

The show itself was awesome. Even thought the line was long I was able to get front row. The show rocked. They started the show with a huge titantron video spelling out the mythos of BabyMetal. They even had a cheap pop were in the into video they said all roads lead to the USA. The crowd went wild for that. The first song in the show was "Babymetal Death."Bext was "line!" followed by "Uki Uki * Midnight,""Rondo Of Nightmare,""Song 4,""Catch Me If You Can,""Akatsuki,""Onedari Daisakusen,""Megitsune,""Doki Doki * Morning,""Gimme Chocolate!!"


The final song of the set was "Head Bangya!!" The crowd wanted more and for an encore Babymetal performed "Ijime, Dame, Zettai". They had huge pyro, The guitarists had amazing solos. The girls had so much energy, and the crowd was super into the show. Check out the Wall of Death in this video. While I did take lots of still photographs , I didn't take any video at the show.  although someone did seem to record the entire show, and via the magic of youtube share my experience with you.

The entire show!!!:

Cutey Honey Flash The Movie

Apparently, you can't keep a good man down...or even me.  Even though I came down with a cold on Sunday, I still had enough energy to subtitle the Cutey Honey Flash Movie.  Years ago I paid a friend to translate the movie and back then, I didn't know how to subtitle, so I gave the script to a fansubber friend of mine. Of course now I know how to sub a video.  I recently got a hold of the Cutey Honey DVD and as i still have the timed script, I decided to make a subtitled DVD,  As it was mostly already timed, it was pretty easy..as I had to do was make certain the 1rst line of dialogue matched up and the rest was gravy. I was going to add mine name to the timing credit but due to being sick....I forgot.... I also got the TV series.  This will prove more difficult because even though I did sub episodes 37-38 myself, and my fansubber buddy subbed episodes 33-35...I can't find the timed scripts (meaning I will have to retime them)  I will probably find them after I re-time as I don't throw anything away.....and that is the type of luck I am having...  I found Russian fansub scripts for the entire series.  I will translate those into English and I am going to use those the subtitle the episodes I don't have scripts for..... (IE episodes 26-32,39)

IMDb Link........: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0422610/




Genre............: action, magical girl, adventure, sci-fi, shoujo

Distributor......: TOEI ANIMATION

Year.............: 1997

Country..........: Japan

Director.........: Sasaki Noriyo




Source...........: DVD5 Retail

DVD Format.......: NTSC

DVD Size.........: DVD5

Programs Used....: AnyDVD

Video Bitrate....: 9800 Kbps

Screen Format....: Fullscreen

Audio Language...: Japanese

Audio Format.....: AC3

Subtitles........: English (custom)




Menu.............: Untouched

Video............: Untouched

DVD Extras.......: theatrical trailer

WAVE Sunday Wave Vol. 20

Pro Wrestling WAVE is one of my favorite wrestling promotions. I have yet to see a show live. I get my WAVE fix from purchasing DVDs and seeing the GyoA webcast of their weekly TV show which airs on V☆Paradise. This often means that matches I watch are clipped or out of sequence. Today I will share with you something a little different. This is a complete show recorded off NicoNico. I want to thank RealHero for uploading this.  This is the closest you can get to attending a WAVE show without being in Japan.

Mika Iida & Misaki Ohatta vs Mio Shirai & Yuu... by JAHMAL1111
The show starts out with some sort of music that apparently the folks at NicoNico are afraid they will get sued over so they cut the music.  NicoNico does this kind of thing a lot.  I once watched a DDT show where 2 of the wrestlers were big fans of a certain Idol group.  Hearing that group had the same effect on them as spinach has on Popeye.  It was hard to follow this gimmick on the NicoPro broadcast as Nico cut the audio anytime the the idol music was played...but I digress.  Anyway it is interesting to see how a WAVE show starts. The image on the TitanTron  reminds of when there is angel attack in Eva.  While I highly doubt that "Decisive Battle" was the music playing I can't get the music out of my head now.    They play the opening titles on the Tron in front of the live crowd.  They all clap in time. All the wrestlers come out  and take a bow and Shida cuts a promo.Then they all go to back.   Mio's music hits and it time for the 1rst match. It is a tag match. Mio Shirai and Yuu Yamagata enter the ring.  I guess Mio's theme is either public domain or owned by WAVE, as they play it.  I don't know whose music Misaki Ohata and Mika Iida come out to because Nico once again cut the music.  I am assuming it was Iidas because from the little bit I heard it didn't sound like Maxium the Hormone.  Great Match.  Watch the video.

Tomoka Nakagawa vs Melanie Cruise (WAVE) by JAHMAL1111

Next up is Tomoka Nakagawa vs Melanie Cruise.  This match felt like it could have been part of a SHIMMER taping.  I especially loved Tomoka's interaction with the crowd. Once again that in itself gave it a SHIMMER feel.

Shuu Shibutani & Ayako Hamada & Sakura Hirota... by JAHMAL1111

Next up is the semi-final.  It is 6 woman tag. Cherry, Hikaru Shida & Kyoko Kimura vs. Ayako Hamada, Sakura Hirota & Shuu Shibutani.  Once again Nico cuts the music.  I really wish they would add some generic music like they do on the DVD releases. This is another great match.  Fast and funny.  I love how Sakura carefully folds her shirt only to have one of the other girls mess it up.  I wonder if I buy a shirt from her at the merch table if she would fold it so carefully?   Cherry come to the ring with a copy of the Iron Ladies Mook.  Hikaru Shida, Cherry & Kyoko Kimura do a lot of body building poses in this match.  All three of them were featured in this book for those who don't know.

Yumi Ohka vs. Moeka Haruhi, Sumire Natsu... by JAHMAL1111



Now it is time for the Main Event! It is an 8 woman tag team 3 out of 5 falls match. The participants are Kana, Moeka Haruhi, Rina Yamashita & Tsukasa Fujimoto vs. Kaho Kobayashi, Natsu Sumire, Sawako Shimono & Yumi Ohka! There is an added stip. The winner of each fall can pick there partner for the DuelShock Tag Team Tournament. Lots of great stuff here. I don't really want to spoil the match so watch the vid. After the match GAMI come out and set up the tourny.There is a real funny part where Melanie comes out from the back and demands to be part of the tournament but GAMI can't understand her as she is speaking English. Cruise also has trouble because she doesn't speak Japanese!

This years teams are Las Aventureras (Ayako Hamada and Yuu Yamagata), Classic Gals (Cherry and Shuu Shibutani) Revolucion Amandora (Tomoka Nakagawa and Kyoko Kimura) Plus Minus (Mio Shirai and Misaki Ohata) the current and defending champs, Sakuragohan (Sakura Hirita and Mika Iida.) The new Tag teams will be Kaho Kobayashi and Kana, Hikaru Shida and Natsu Sumire, Dynamite Kansai and Fairy Nipponbashi, Melanie Cruise and Moeka Haruhi, Rina Yamashita and Sawako Shimono, and Tsukasa Fujimoto and Yumi Ohka. The tournament will be single elimination style.  It starts on September 23rd. Before the tourny starts though Sakuragohan will have to defend the belt against PlusMinus.  The winner of the match will be propelled into the semifinals while the loser will have to start the tourny at the bottom! 

The Duel Shock tournament looks awesome this year.  I look forward to getting the DVD of the event when it officially released!





 

Labor Day is BS

Ever since I lost my paraprofessional job, Holidays have lost all meaning to me. In retail there are no holidays. EVERYDAY IS DAY FOR SHOPPING, which means everyday is the same. I can’t even say I am working for the weekend because I often work the weekends. There is literally nothing to look forward to (except the possibility of getting a “real job” and quitting this one) I am forced to work Holidays and most retail stores are open normal hours for Holidays…Very rarely do the close early...in fact they are more likely to open early and close later than to shutdown early on a Holiday. 9 times out of 10, you paid regular pay for working the holiday because the company doesn’t consider this day a “real holiday”—not that it stops them from opening an hour early or having “special sales” that particular day.

Out of all the so called holidays that I am required to work, one the ones that pisses me off the most is bullshit labor day. According to Wikipedia, “Labor Day in the United States is a holiday celebrated on the first Monday in September. It is a celebration of the American labor movement and is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of workers. It constitutes a yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of their country.” It is a slap in the face. As a worker, it means that this day, that is supposed to celebrate me and my fellow workers….how do I get to accomplish this, you ask? By going to work like I do any other day. For me, the person that this holiday is supposed to be dedicated for, it is not a special day at all. It is just a day without mail. I am not alone in this. More American’s work retail than any other industry. Almost 25% of all jobs in the USA are retail jobs. Only 3% of those in retail are part of union (which is how the stores get away with scheduling us on holidays.)

So I don’t get a day off because ‘Murica needs to shop. There is not one holiday in this country which isn’t used an excuse to shop. Why is that? What is wrong with America? Can’t we do anything else but spend money? Are all our lives so completely empty that the only way to fill the void in our nation’s collective soul is buy some shiny new trinket? Something that can momentarily distract us from the pain and sorrow that we call life. It is disgusting and sad.

Labor Day was founded 128 years about by the Central Labor Union. At the time there were much social unrest at the state of labor in America. The Haymarket Massacre in Chicago was one of the worst cases. This started out as a peaceful rally but ended up as a riot. In order to quell the violence, President Cleveland quickly signed a law making Labor Day an official US Holiday. It was originally supposed be on May 1rst but the President thought it was too close to the date of the Haymarket Massacre so he changed the date to September. We have become complacent. Maybe we need to stand up for ourselves. Not that I am advocating “Blood in the Streets,” but back then the government had some healthy fear of the common worker.

I doubt I could get people to stop shopping on Labor Day. All the customers I saw today, wished me a “happy holiday,” when they knew I wasn’t going to have one. After all how could I? I am working on day I should have off. AND THEY KNEW THAT but they didn’t care. They need buy stuff to break up the monotony of their daily existence . I have worked many holidays, but there is something about working Labor Day, that just sticks in my craw. Perhaps it wouldn’t both me so much it was called something else. Renaming the so-called holiday would be much easier that getting ‘Murica to close their wallets.

Puroresu Booty Battle! Hikaru Shida Produce Go Ass Train!

It was a Puroresu Booty Battle this past Thursday Night at Tokyo’s Shinjuko Face arena. That was the venue for Hikaru Shida’s first ever self-produced show—Go! Ass Train!  It was one of the wrestling event’s I was most excited about this summer.  It is also the first of two events.  Although I wasn’t able to attend it in person (alas I do not live in Japan) I was able to catch a video digest of it on Samurai TV.

From the clips I was able to see, the show looks incredible. It makes me even more excited about seeing her next self-produced show.

KAZUKI and Kaho Kobayashi defeated Cherry and Micro in the 1rst match of the evening.  Next up was Arisa Nakajima vs Kyusei Ninja Ranmaru.  Shida may have a lot in common with  Nakajima. Not only are both rivals of Kana, both seem to have trouble with Ranmaru’s shenanigans. I just recently watched an episode of Sexy and Comical Pro Wrestling WAVE, where Hikaru herself wanted to ignore Ranmaru’s ninjitsu (much to the boo’s of the crowd) and had to told by Kana and Yumi Ohka to”play along with her.” All of Ranmaru’s “magic” couldn't keep JWP’s Ace from getting the 1-2-3!

Tomoka Nakagawa’s road to retirement included a ride on the ass train as she and Syuri defeated Kagetsu and Rina Yamashita. The fourth match of the evening saw Kengo Mashimo defeating Atsushi Maruyama.

Now it was time for the main event.  Who has the greatest butt in all of Pro Wrestling?  Would it be the self-proclaimed “Ass Craftsman”, Hikaru Shida and her partner Masato Tanaka or would it be the “World Famous” Kana and DDT’s Kenny Omega! From the clips I have seen this match looks amazing.  It had great wrestling, comedy spots, high flying, and brawling into the crowd.  In the end, it was Kana that proved that she has the greatest posterier in all of pro wrestling when she made Hikaru tap out !  Shida was not happy about that at all.  This match looks amazing.  I can’t wait to see the entire 25 minute match.  I hope Shida rushes this to DVD and brings a copy to SHIMMER for sale…for the time being I will have to make do with this 7 minute digest from Samurai TV.    The main event of her next show, Hikaru will take on Kana in singles action.  I look forward to it.   

Movies I need to see...

Been meaning to post something for ages. I kind of wanted to do a huge multimedia post and/or a vlog. Unfortunately, I don't like a static shot head shot...I think it is visually dull. Tried several methods to try to create a 3 camera perspective...but found it too difficult to do all by myself...maybe in the future. But I digress.... now to the point:








So far I have managed to have seen most of the movies I have wanted to see this year. Now that I have seen Godzilla (2014), Gun Woman (女体銃), Guardians of the Galaxy, Gatchaman (2013), and 009ノ1 THE END OF THE BEGINNING, the only ones left on my list of must see movies are :


ZombieTV


Yoshihiro Nishimura is one of my favorite directors and this is one of his latest films… I know where I can buy it but it doesn't have any subtitles T_T

Girls Blood:

I don't know much about this movie except it is about four girls who enter an underground fighting tournament .  It is also known as AkaXPink. It looks cool and feature s several girls from several Tokusatsu shows that I like.  Once again I know where to buy the DVD/Bluray but it doesn't have any subtitles.  

ヌイグルマーZ Nuigurumaa Z:



This movie is also known as Gothic Lolita Battle Bear and is directed by other favorite director-- Noboru Iguchi. It just looks totally insane and has a 70's Tokusatsu vibe to it. Here is the trailer:

I was really hoping that some or all of these movies would be part of New York Asian FilmFest but they were not.... Hopefully I will find subtitled version of them or find a used version of the unsubbed films at BookOff or ebay.

It is March. In one month I will go to SHIMMER. I need to save Money yet there is so many DVDs that I want to buy, but I need to save Money. I hope some of the Wrestlers bring some of these DVDs to SHIMMER


Number one with a bullet!!! I have wanted to see this since the event happened in October of last year!!!
華名興行〜SGPタイトルマッチ戦〜

http://shop.kana-kana.jp/products/detail.php?product_id=144

JWP DVDs

JWPタッグリーグ・ザ・ベスト2014-2014.2.9　浅草・花やしき内　花やしき座-

JWPタッグリーグ・ザ・ベスト2014-2014.2.23　大阪・道頓堀アリーナ-



http://ring.shop-pro.jp/?pid=71817155

http://ring.shop-pro.jp/?pid=71816539

009-1 THE END OF THE BEGINNING

http://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B00G9ZHBH0/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_-iFetb1D7YAH8 

ガッチャマン(本編ディスク+特典DVDディスク) [Blu-ray] Blu-ray ~ 松坂桃李 

http://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B00HC83ZQY/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_olFetb1MC75MX 

2014

This year, as I am a goal oriented person, I have decided to set goals for 2014. 

Major Goals:

1.        Visit Japan
2.        Career change (basically I want to get a job that has nothing to do with retail)

Minor Goals:

1. Attend  a Kana Produced show
2. Attend a Pro Wrestling WAVE show
3. Visit TOEI KYOTO STUDIO PARK and/or Edo Wonderland
4. Attend an Oz Academy Show
5. Attend an anime con in Japan
6. Attend a Triple6 show
7. See a Live Super Sentai/Kamen Rider stunt show