Jul 24, 2024

Babuni's Table


Babuni's Table
Brodheadsville, PA
Our friends Kate and Mike met us at a very nice Polish restaurant this past weekend.


The restaurant is small and charming, with dark wood walls and tables, and plenty of decorations from Poland.


In addition to Polish foods, the restaurant has a wide selection of Polish beverages.  I had a Tymbark Apple Mint fruit juice that was absolutely delicious.  I wouldn't have thought that those two flavors would pair well, but the do.


The soup of the day was a Polish Pickle Soup which Kate, Mike, and I all had a cup of as an appetizer.  I've only had this once before.  It was at Leiby's Restaurant during the final days of the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown, just as restaurants started attempting to return to normal operations.  That soup was very good, but Babuni's was better.
 

They had two different Reuben sandwiches on the menu, and I was very tempted to order one of them.  I am definitely going to come back at some point in the near future to try one or both of them, but since this was my first time here, I wanted to try something closer to a traditional Polish meal.  I had the Warsaw Royal Dinner with black kielbasa, and it was outstanding.

Jul 23, 2024

I Have Come Here To Chew Bubblegum And Watch Wrestling


Reel Rumble V: They Live
Mahoning Drive-In Theater - Lehighton, PA
Last night, I wrote about the wrestling half of Reel Rumble V.  This post is all about the feature film that many of the wrestlers stuck around to watch with us.

Show banner designed by Andrew Kern

One of my favorite sci-fi action movies of all time was shown on the big screen from an original 35mm print when the sun went down after an afternoon of pro wrestling matches on the lawn.


As is often the case, there were plenty of folks in attendance who came in cosplay.  This very cool dude in a Joe Bob Jamboree t-shirt came as one of the aliens from the movie we were about to see.


They Live is a masterpiece of a film.  It premiered on November 4th, 1988 and was largely inspired by writer/director John Carpenter's dissatisfaction with Reagan-era politics and the ways that the rich get richer while the poor and middle class struggle just to get by.  The message of this film still rings true 36 years later, and unfortunately, it probably will continue to do so 36 years from now.

I saw this film for the first time in 1992 when my dad and I were living in South Florida.  He was flipping through the TV Guide one day when he saw that there was a movie coming up on one of our channels that starred a professional wrestler that he and I are both huge fans of, "Rowdy" Roddy Piper.  We both saw it for the first time that day in our living room in Boynton Beach and we both loved it.  It was one of the first movies that I bought on DVD when the format was still in its infancy, and I've watched it dozens of times in the years since.  Getting to see it on 35mm on the big screen at the drive-in is just the latest in a long list of dreams that have come true in Lehighton, PA.

Jul 22, 2024

The Return Of Reel Rumble


Mahoning Drive-In Theater - Lehighton, PA
There was a time in my life that I tried to attend as many independent wrestling events in the tri-state area that I possibly could; particularly Ring Of Honor and Chikara.  I still enjoy professional wrestling, but I have too many hobbies and there aren't enough hours in the day to keep up with them all.


The in-ring portion of last year's Reel Rumble event was rained out, so the last indy wrestling event I attended was Reel Rumble III.  This year's Reel Rumble V event included five matches with several wrestlers that we got to see at the Mahoning in 2002, and some familiar faces from the indy wrestling scene that I followed more closely in the years before I went back to college.

The main wrestler from this card that I remember from his days in Chikara and ROH is Hallowicked.  UltraMantis Black once led The Order Of The Neo-Solar Temple in Chikara.  Drew Gulak and Tracy Williams worked in Chikara as a masked tag team called The Colony (Soldier Ant and Green Ant), and Lucky 13 wrestled in Chikara as the masked Retail Dragon.  The card also included ROH-veteran Cheeseburger, and folks who we got to see at Reel Rumble III like Big Dan Champion, Kodama, "La Chica" Clara Carreras, Erica Leigh, and Jeff Cannonball.

Photo by Sergio Valentino
Photo by Sergio Valentino
Photo by Gene Baretta


Most of the photos that you're going to see on this post were taken by the very talented Sergio Valentino (aka: pixematize) who kindly allowed me to share them here.  A small handful of them are mine.  Those will be the ones that don't look nearly as good as Sergio's.





Photo by Sergio Valentino

Results:
  • Athan Promise defeated Ultimo Ant
  • The Lost Boys (Miles Penn and Ryan Ryzz) defeated Club Soda (Jeff Cannonball and Puf)
  • Erica Leigh defeated Vita Von Starr

  • "Honey Mustard" Drew Gulak defeated "Hot Sauce" Tracy Williams
  • Trios Match
    Cheeseburger, Big Dan Champion, and La Chica Carreras defeated Hallowicked, Kodama, and Lucky 13

Many of the wrestlers hung out at the merch tables after the show to meet fans, sign autographs, and take pictures.  Ben, Avery and I all wanted to get a picture with the dude who we all became fans of at the 2002 Reel Rumble, the one and only Big Dan Champion.
 

I didn't want to bug the whole roster for a photo, especially since my spending money is a little slim after VHS Fest, but I had to get a picture with Hallowicked.  The photo on the left was taken on May 26th, 2007 at Chikara Anniversario in Hellertown, PA.  A lot of things have changed over the seventeen years between these two photos, but two things that have not are the fact that he's still wrestling in some of the most fun matches I've ever seen, and I'm still a fan of independent wrestling.

Photo by Sergio Valentino

And that's a wrap on another fun wrestling event under the big screen at the Mahoning Drive-In Theater.  That alone would have been worth the price of admission, but we also got to see the greatest movie ever to star a professional wrestling legend once the sun went down.  More on that tomorrow.
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