Shut In With Shudder

The Last Drive-In
Shudder (2020)
The new season of The Last Drive-In, hosted by the great Joe Bob Briggs, begins tonight.  You can get a free 30 day subscription to Shudder with the promo code SHUTIN.

Life In Hazleton Is The Pitz

Cold Pitza
Hazleton, PA
It's difficult to explain this to anyone who hasn't grown up in the Hazleton area.  When I've tried, I usually get a reaction that's somewhere between skeptical and disgusted, but I assure you that what I'm about to tell you is not only true, but it's been a staple in this city for nearly 100 years and it's absolutely delicious.

If you go into any grocery store in Hazleton, you will see shelves of Pitza for sale.  That's not a spelling mistake.  The original version of this product, which was introduced by the Senape's Bakery (pronounced "Snaps") is called Pitza or Pitz (pronounced like the first syllable of Pittsburgh).  If you grew up in this area over the past century, you probably didn't think anything of it.  It was just another thing that your family picked up for lunch or dinner.  Mom or Dad would send you to walk or bike down to the store to pick up a gallon of Farmer's tea and a box of Pitz.

When you got to the store, you knew to go towards the bakery because you could usually find it near the bread.  It's shelf-stable, so it's never in the coolers.  It's stacked up on the shelf in rectangular boxes, some of which are tied up with white string.  When I was growing up, Pantry Quik would have a basket of individual slices coated in plastic wrap for sale at the cash register.  It would be right there next to the Hershey bars and the box of baseball cards ready to purchase for 50 cents as a quick snack.

The reason it's sold at room temperature is because that's how it's meant to be eaten.  Sure, some of the boxes will tell you that it's delicious hot or cold, but in 40 years, I can tell you with confidence that not once have I ever seen anyone heat up a box of Pitz.  I have had a few pieces over the years that were kept in the refrigerator, but this should be avoided.  It gets hard and it just doesn't taste the same when it's cold.  There's nothing else like a good, fresh piece of Pitz eaten at room temperature.

It's only when you get older that most kids learn that Pitz is a strictly regional product.  There are a few communities around here where Pitz is just as present as it is in Hazleton - towns like Drums, McAdoo, Sugarloaf, Beaver Meadows and Freeland, but it's a pretty tight circle.  By the time you get to Wilkes-Barre (about a half hour's drive up I-81), you'll have about a 50/50 chance that any random person you ask will ever even hear of Pitz, and you'll have a very hard time finding any for sale.  Go another 20 minutes to Scranton and mention Pitz and they'll look at you like you're from Mars.  They'll either say they've never heard of it, or they'll mistake what you're talking about for Old Forge pizza, which is not at all the same thing.

The flavor is something you just have to experience for yourself.  I've tried to describe it many times over the years, and I just can't do it justice.  WYLN aired a six minute clip on it that I shared about ten years ago and even the families who bake and sell Pitz seem to have a difficult time describing how it tastes.  I can tell you two things with confidence: it doesn't taste like any pizza you've ever had before, and it's delicious.  Also, you didn't have to grow up with it to appreciate it.  In my previous job, I had to fly back and forth between Wilkes-Barre and El Paso a couple of times.  I tried to describe it to my class (about 30 men and women ranging in age from 20 to 60) and again found myself at a loss for words, so I filled a suitcase with Senape's and Longo's and brought it to them on my next trip.  They all loved it.

The two main companies that make Pitz are Senape's and Longo's.  Each have their own secret recipe and a unique flavor, but even a long time Hazleton resident would have trouble telling those two apart without seeing which box it came from.  Carmen's Bakery and Frankie's Pizzeria also have it available for sale, and I've seen other brands come and go over the years, like Dizzy's Pizza.  In my opinion, Carmen's is the best.  The family had an Italian restaurant on Broad Street for many years which I worked at when I was 15 and 16 years old, and there's something about their sauce that is unmatched by any other brand.  I'd put Senape's in second over Longo's because over the years, I've found more edge and corner pieces in Longo's.  Frankie's is the newest player in the game, and while their product is very tasty, I'd have to rank it last for it's thin crust.  It felt about half as thick as a piece from any of the others I've eaten over the years.  In fairness to Frankie's, I've only ever had one box of theirs, so I don't know if it's part of their recipe or if I managed to get an oddball box, but a piece of Pitz should have a little more heft to it.

All this talk of crust reminded me to share one final, but important tip. if you're at a family gathering and you're about to open a box, get in there first and take the middle pieces.  I don't mean the middle of the box - I mean the ones that were in the middle of the pan when it was baked.  You'll be able to tell at a glace which ones I mean.  If you can't get all middles, go for the edge pieces next, but leave the corner pieces for the folks who were late to lunch.  You snooze, you lose.

A Whole New World Map

Super Mario Maker 2: Final Update
Nintendo Switch (2020)
The last major update for Super Mario Maker 2 will be released later today, and it's got a ton of new features.  This update will add the frog suit and the super acorn, as well as a series of masks that allow you to disguise Mario as a Goomba or Bullet Bill.  You can also design a World Map to tie together your level designs into a full game.  There are others which are described in this video, but my favorite is the Super Mario Bros. 2 mushroom that gives Mario the powers to pick up enemies and throw them like he can do in SMB 2 on the NES.

It's a free update, so if you have the game, fire it up later today.  There's enough content on here to keep you busy for a long time.

More 25 Year Old Pumpkin Mail

Smashing Pumpkins
Fan Club Newsletter (1995)
I found another newsletter that I received in the mail from the Smashing Pumpkins fan club 25 years ago.  This one came out in either February or March, a few months before the last one that I shared.  The note from Billy Corgan is the first time I had ever seen Mellon Collie & The Infinite Sadness mentioned by name.  There are also short notes from D'arcy Wretzky, James Iha, and Jimmy Chamberlin (and his dog, Akasha).

The Theaters Are A Quiet Place

Doritos / Bugles
Frito Lay / General Mills (2020)
Movie theaters across the country and the world have had their doors closed for over a month due to the pandemic.  As a result, many films have been pushed back until the threat blows over and the movies can be properly presented on the big screen.  Despite this, the marketing materials for these films have already been produced and shipped to distributors, including these bags of Doritos and Bugles which were meant to promote Wonder Woman 1984 and A Quiet Place: Part II.

The planned release date for the sequel to A Quiet Place was a month ago: March 20th.  It has been rescheduled to premier in theaters on September 4th.  Wonder Woman 1984 was originally scheduled to hit theaters on June 5th, but this has been pushed back to August 14th.

Whether either of these movies will see the inside of an American theater in 2020 remains to be seen.  Keep in mind, it was only five weeks ago that Major League Baseball announced a two week delay to the start of the season due to Covid-19 with a planned Opening Day of April 9th.  The latest talk is that the season will be played in empty stadiums in May with players under strict lockdown, if it happens at all.

Mellon Collie And The Infinite God Squirrel

Smashing Pumpkins
Fan Club Newsletter (1995)
When I was a teenager, I was a member of the Smashing Pumpkins fan club.  Once in a while, I received a newsletter in the mail.  This one came out before the release of the Mellon Collie & The Infinite Sadness double album and includes a letter from James Iha.

I don't claim to be an expert on the Pumpkins catalog, but I will say that it's been 25 years and I still don't know what the hell Laura Ann was talking about with the reference to a two second song called Pee and a 75 minute long song called God Squirrel.

The Voice Of Pro Wrestling

Howard Finkel
1950-2020
The world has lost the voice of professional wrestling.  Generations of fans can call up the memory of the voice of Howard Finkel without even trying.  The hall-of-fame ring announcer starting working for the World Wide Wrestling Federation in 1975 when Vincent J. McMahon owned the promotion.  He remained with the company after it was bought by McMahon's son, and he was named the first employee of the renamed World Wrestling Federation.  Mr. Finkel remained with the WWF and WWE through the 80's, 90's and early 2000's and made many appearances over the past two decades at Wrestlemania and other large shows.

Mr. Finkel suffered a stroke in 2018 and wasn't in the best of health over the past two years.  No cause of death has been made available to the public at this time, so it's unknown if his passing is related to the Covid-19 pandemic.

After Mr. Finkel's passing, Tommy Dreamer shared this photo, which was presumably taken earlier this year before we all went on lockdown.  In the background, you can see that he left a note for his nurses asking that they please tune the television to channel 43 on Monday nights so he could watch wrestling - a true fan to the end.

It's A Damn Shame

It's getting very difficult to be a fan of World Wrestling Entertainment.  Last week, Linda McMahon's SuperPAC, America First Action, pledged to spend $18.5 million dollars in Florida to support the re-election of a person that I believe to be the most disgusting excuse for a human being to ever set foot in the White House.  By an astonishing coincidence, World Wrestling Entertainment was declared an "essential business" that same day by Republican governor Ron DeSantis, which allows the company to continue putting on live shows from the WWE Performance Center in Orlando.

So, how does the company reward it's employees who are putting their health in jeopardy to violate social distancing guidelines for the sake of their television show?  They fired over 20 of their on-air talent at a time when they're unable to find other employment in professional wrestling, since AEW, ROH, Impact and New Japan have not offered political bribes that allow them to make their own rules during the pandemic.  Likewise, these performers are not able to find bookings on the indie scene because promoters across the world are following social distancing guidelines for the sake of the health of performers, fans and the community.  In addition to the wrestlers who were abruptly fired, the company has furloughed or terminated over a dozen writers, trainers, producers and other off-camera talent, and others are expected to follow in the near future.

How are these men and women going to put food on the table and pay their bills?  Despite record earnings in 2020, even during a pandemic, it appears that the McMahon family couldn't care less.  Frankly, I wonder if the decision to fire these people was motivated by the bankruptcy and financial losses of Vince McMahon's XFL football league.  The timing is very suspicious to say the least.

WhatCulture published a video of the wrestler's reactions to being told that they no longer have a job.  These videos and tweets are truly heartbreaking, particularly James Curtin, who wrestled in WWE as Drake Maverick.  Each of them are truly appreciative for their fans and the kind words that were shared as fans learned the news and reached out to them.  Obviously, these men and women aren't the only people who have been let go by their employers, but unlike the restaurants, bars, amusement parks, sporting venues and other businesses who have had to close their doors, WWE is continuing to put on shows and make money.  They didn't have to do this.  It's a damn shame.

Deja Vu In Dunedin

Toronto Blue Jays at Dunedin Stadium
The Tampa Tribune (1995)
The talk of playing the major league season at Spring Training ballparks reminded me of the brief period of time when the Toronto Blue Jays were scheduled to begin the 1995 regular season at their tiny Spring Training facility.

The situation in 1995 was very different than what MLB is facing today.  The player's strike that ended the 1994 season was still ongoing when Spring Training for the 1995 season was scheduled to begin.  Because they were unable to reach an agreement with the MLB Players Association, most of the teams began to hire replacement players from outside of the union.  This included retired major league players, low-level minor leaguers, former college players, and players from independent leagues that weren't affiliated with MLB.  The teams went forward with Spring Training games and had planned to start the season with a motley crew of players, the vast majority of whom were not even close to big league caliber talent.  The Baltimore Orioles refused to field a replacement team, which was attributed to the franchise protecting Cal Ripken's consecutive game streak.  Had the Orioles played a regular season game without Ripken in the lineup, his streak would have been broken.

There are so many sub-plots and oddities that took place during Spring Training 1995 that I'm shocked it hasn't been turned into a movie, but the one that sparked in my memory involves the Toronto Blue Jays.  The province of Ontario had stronger laws in place to protect unions and striking workers than any other home state or province to a Major League Baseball team.  These laws would prevent the Blue Jays from legally playing a home game in Toronto using replacement players.  To get around this, the Blue Jays decided that if the 1995 season were to begin before the strike was resolved, all of their home games would be played at their Spring Training ballpark in Dunedin, Florida.  Tickets had actually gone on sale to see the defending two-time World Series Champions play Opening Day without a single player from the '92 or '93 championship teams in a small park with a maximum seating capacity of 6,218.  Compare that to the SkyDome in Toronto, which seated over 49,000 fans.

Thankfully, the union and the owners reached an agreement on March 28th and the 1995 season was played without replacement players, but I'm sure there was a small group of fans in Pinellas County who would have enjoyed seeing a regular season MLB game being played in the smallest venue since the 1890 Brooklyn Bridegrooms played at Washington Park.  If the Arizona/Florida plan for the 2020 season are put into action, they may get their wish to see regular season MLB games in Dunedin a quarter century later.  Unfortunately, they'll have to settle for watching it on television as no fans will be in attendance.

The Cactus Grapefruit Plan

Over the past week, some of the plans that officials have discussed for the 2020 Major League Baseball season have come to light.  The plan that seems to have gotten the most attention would see each team playing games from their Spring Training ballparks as early as next month.  Each game would be televised, but fans would not be in attendance.  The players who aren't on the field would be seated six feet apart from each other in the stands to keep them from being in the close confines of the dugout.

If this plan were utilized, the divisions for the 2020 season would be realigned.  Instead of the American League and National League, teams would play in the Grapefruit League (Florida) or the Cactus League (Arizona), with inter-league divisions based on the cities that serve as the Spring Training home of each team.  This would put the Phillies in Clearwater playing in the Grapefruit League North division with the Yankees (Tampa), Pirates (Bradenton), Blue Jays (Dunedin) and Tigers (Lakeland).

Maps adapted from Florida Weekly and Event Ticket Center

This all sounds fun and interesting, but the rest of the details about this plan make it ridiculously unfair and unrealistic.  If implemented, this plan would require players and coaches to be sequestered from the rest of the world, including their own families.  Presumably, the players would live in hotels near their Spring Training ballparks, and they would essentially be under house arrest for the duration of the season.  At a time of global crisis, the players and coaches, umpires, camera operators, grounds crew and all of the other personnel that are needed to run a professional baseball game would be forbidden from returning home and spending time with their families.

As much as I would like pro baseball to return, the idea of separating human beings from their spouse, their children, and their parents and grandparents for the sake of a game is absurd.  Phillies starter Zack Wheeler has already gone on record in saying that there's no way that he's going to miss the birth of his first child in a few months, and I don't blame him one bit.  I'm sure he's not alone.  I feel especially bad for the rookies and younger players who haven't reached arbitration or free agency and haven't reached their real earning potential in pro baseball, but if I were a veteran player with a few million dollars in the bank, there's no way on earth I would agree to play until the pandemic is over and the world has gotten back to normal.

I don't think baseball is alone in its rush to reopen before it is safe to do so.  I fully recognize the impact that the pandemic and the lockdown has had on the economy, but I also recognize that we are an impatient and demanding culture that has a track record of sacrificing the good of the future for the comfort of the moment.  It wouldn't surprise me if Major League Baseball did go forward with a season sooner than it should, and that many other businesses will follow.  Likewise, it wouldn't surprise me if our rush to return to business-as-usual leads to a second wave of the outbreak and a second lockdown that could extend the pandemic for months longer than it would have lasted if we had just remained patient.

Snack Time

This photo was recently shared on Twitter and I'd love to know its origin.  There are a lot of different companies represented, so I don't think it was published by Hershey, Kraft or any of the other food producers.  It could be from a jigsaw puzzle that was sold in the 80's or maybe it's a sign from an old grocery store, but I wasn't able to find out for sure (source: Retroist).

Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny Easter Eggs

Mickey Mouse Instant Egg Art
Disney (1985)
These were found next to The Smurfs Egg Wraps in the drawer in my grandparent's kitchen.  Like The Smurfs ones, my grandmother bought them from Rea & Derick when I was a kid, but the price sticker makes me think she bought these a year or two later.  This is from Peoples Drug which acquired the Rea & Derick chain of drugstores in 1985.

There were four different Disney egg wraps left over in this package, but the picture on the front shows at least one other design that we must have used up before they got packed away.

The back of the package had two little cardboard egg stands that could be cut out and folded together to prop up the eggs.

There were also some leftover Looney Tunes egg wraps that got stored in the package with the Disney ones.  I don't have the outer package for these, but the Easter artwork includes Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Tweety Bird, and Sylvester Cat.  The copywrite on these is from Easter Unlimited 1984, which is the same manufacturer and year as the Smurfs ones, so these were probably bought at the same time as those and happened to get stored in with the Disney set.

I think that there were at least two other Looney Tunes designs that were originally in the package with these five.  The photo below was taken in my grandparent's kitchen on Easter Sunday in 1987.  The egg on the top looks like it's from the set, although I can't be sure because there are no cartoon characters visible on it.  However, you can definitely see Tweety on the egg on the middle rack at the far right, and the beginning of the word "Happy".  None of the leftover egg wraps have large words on them, so I'm guessing we used up all of that particular design.

A Smurfy Easter

The Smurfs: Wrap-An-Egg
Peyo (1984)
My grandparents had two very large drawers in the kitchen below the stove.  They were filled with all sorts of random things, like plastic bowls, tupperware, cookie cutters, kitchen gadgets, and containers from old food products that my grandmother would wash out and reuse for different things - especially ricotta cheese tubs.  For some reason, we had a lot of those.  When I was growing up, I really only ever went in this drawer to get a bowl for cereal or ice cream, or to get the Screwy Louie, which was a flat rubber thing that looked like a flower that helped you get a grip on tight jar lids to open them easily.

Behold the Screwy Louie

After Grandma passed away in 2012, Dad and I went through every room of the house one at a time and sorted things into boxes that would go to one of our houses or to be donated at Goodwill.  When we got to the two large drawers in the kitchen, we discovered that Grandma typically only used the stuff that was towards the top, and the back and bottom of the drawers were filled with things that hadn't seen the light of day in decades, including this set of Smurfs easter egg wraps.

My grandmother bought them from Rea & Derick in the mid 80's.  She worked there as a cashier at the time, and she would frequently bring home candy, baseball cards, and whatever else she thought I would enjoy - especially when it went on clearance.  I'm pretty sure that was the case with these.  The .69 cent price tag was the full cost of the item, but the little red sticker on top is the type of thing they would use to show that something was marked down to half price.

There were five egg wraps left in the package that were left over from when I was a kid.  I remember using them to decorate easter eggs before I was old enough to go to Kindergarten.  They're thin plastic sheets which were packaged flat.  Each one opens up to wrap around a hard boiled egg.  Once it's in place, you lower the wrapped egg into a pot of boiling water for three seconds and it shrink wraps onto the egg.  It doesn't change the color of the shell except for maybe a little bit of ink stains, but forms a snug coat around the shell that you peel off when you're ready to eat the egg.

It's Going To Be A Good Friday

Game Boy Color
Nintendo (1998)
For a brief time in the late 90's, I worked at a video game store in the Laurel Mall called "The Game Store".  Catchy name, huh?  Honestly, it was a pretty lousy place.  We had lots of floor space, but we didn't have very many games or customers in the store, but I was glad to have the first crack at buying any good used games that came in.  One of the things I bought while I was working there was this new Game Boy Color.

Gotta love the dot matrix printer paper we used for receipts.

I randomly came across it in the basement earlier this week while I was looking for a chair.  The receipt was in the box along with the instruction manual and all of the inserts.  It was even in the original plastic bags that it was packed with.  The thing looks brand new.  I bought it with the intention of getting a few Game Boy Color games, but I never did, so I just kept playing my original Game Boy that I got for my 10th birthday.  This one just ended up sitting on the shelf as a backup in case my original system broke, but it never did.  I'm sure the original Game Boy is around here somewhere too.  I can't say for sure if that one still works, but I tested this one out with Super Mario Land and it plays perfectly.

There was also an original AC adapter in the bag, so I'll be able to play the old classics all through Easter weekend without going through a pile of double-a batteries.  I think I'm going to try to play through Final Fantasy Legend, but knowing me, I'll spend the whole time playing Tetris.

Schmoagies For The Kids

Mike Schmidt's Philadelphia Hoagies
The greatest third baseman of all time endorsed a chain of hoagie shops in the Delaware Valley in the early 90's.  Before the decade ended, nine of the restaurants had closed.  According to the September 1999 issue of Maxim, the last remaining restaurant in the chain changed their name to Schmitty's, and the staff refused to talk about Mike Schmidt.  Maybe the new owner was a Mets fan.

Dad

This photo was taken last year before a Phillies vs Nationals game that Dad and I went to in mid-July.  We had a very nice day, and we had plans to go to a few games this summer.  That might not happen now, and not just because the 2020 season has been postponed.

Dad had a stroke and he is in the hospital.  This isn't his first.  The last one happened almost ten years ago and he lost one of the lower quadrants of his vision.  This time, it affected his frontal lobe and his speech is slurred.  They're not allowing visitors because of the Coronavirus, but I talked with him on the phone.

I was scared for my dad even before the stroke, but now I'm pretty close to being terrified.  He is diabetic and over 60, and Hazleton has been a hot spot for Coronavirus.  Now he's suffered another stroke and he's in the only hospital in town where everyone who has a severe case of the virus is going.  I'm not sure what else to say.  I just want my Dad to be alright.

(Update: Dad is back home and is doing well.)

The Original Vlogger

Weird Paul Petrosky
Paul Petrosky, better known as Weird Paul, is a prehistoric vlogger and lo-fi musician.  He is also my new hero.  Paul's family bought their first video camera on September 7th, 1984, and the dude made a ton of recordings of himself, his parents and his brothers and sisters throughout the 80's and early 90's.  He also recorded journal entries and countless hours of television and radio from his childhood and teenage years back in the late 70's and 80's, and he seems to have saved everything in life that has ever brought him joy.

Since 2007, Paul has been sharing videos of happy memories, flea market finds, and other nostalgic goodies, many of which are interspersed with home audio and video recordings.  Although I'm about ten years younger than Paul, we've got the same interests and it's been an incredible trip down memory lane watching his videos.  I spent at least two hours eating a big bowl of ravioli and watching some of them, both from his main channel and his channel of 80's television and found footage.  His albums are available for sale on WeirdPaul.com.  I recommend 25 Lo-Fi Years, featuring the song "Please Don't Break My Atari".

The Drone Lands In Philadelphia

Yhoswar Garcia
Philadelphia Phillies (2020)
On March 14th, the Phillies signed an 18 year old prospect from Venezuela.  Yhoswar Garcia, who has been nicknamed "The Drone" for his defensive skills in center field, is held in high regard by Phillies scouts.  The news had gotten a bit lost in the shuffle with all of the updates about Covid-19 and the delay of the 2020 MLB, but it's a reason to be optimistic about the future, and we could use all the good news we can get these days.

Necessity Is The Mother Of Invention (Matt Hardy is the father)

WWE Wrestlemania 36
Orlando, FL (2020)
I don't think any wrestling fans knew what to expect from Wrestlemania this year.  The matches were pre-recorded and took place at the WWE Performance Center with no fans in attendance.  The show is being broadcast over two nights.  On top of everything else, the biggest match advertised for Saturday night was a "Boneyard Match" between The Undertaker and AJ Styles which left fans asking: "What in the hell is a Boneyard Match?".  By the end of Wrestlemania 36: Night One, I am completely blown away with how incredible it was, and I'm convinced that this is the future of professional wrestling.

I suspect that many hardcore fans will point to Matt Hardy and The Final Deletion as the inspiration behind the Boneyard Match that we all saw last night.  I completely agree that Hardy is a creative genius and he deserves the lion share of the credit for what I believe will be a new era of sports entertainment that blurs the line between professional wrestling and Hollywood-style film production.  However, there is a bigger story to tell.

Throughout the 80's, Hulk Hogan, Roddy Piper, Andre The Giant, Jesse Ventura and many others have acted in major motion pictures.  In recent years, performers like John Cena and Dave Bautista have found a great deal of cross-over success in films, and The Rock made the transition from "the most electrifying man in sports entertainment" to one of the biggest box office draws this century.  Out of all of the films in which a professional wrestler has appeared or starred, there is a single six minute scene from one film in particular that last night's match between The Undertaker and AJ Styles reminded me of.  If The Final Deletion is the father of the Boneyard Match, the back alley fight from They Live is its grandfather.

They Live is a science fiction masterpiece from 1988 directed by John Carpenter.  It stars my favorite professional wrestler of all-time, "Rowdy" Roddy Piper, as a homeless drifter who discovers that the wealthy and powerful people of the world are either aliens or humans who have been bought off by the aliens to keep the human race docile and compliant while they strip mine the planet of its resources.


The back alley fight I mentioned is between Piper and co-star Keith David.  It's highly regarded in the world of cinema as one of the best fight scenes of all time, but I'm not sure if the non-wrestling fans can fully appreciate why they enjoy it so much.  According to the director, the scene was originally intended to be about 20 seconds long, but the two actors rehearsed for weeks and delivered a realistic fight that lasted almost six minutes.  In post production, Carpenter was so impressed with their work that he included the entire fight in the final film.  It's not pro wrestling, but it feels like it is because they're not just randomly punching, kicking and grunting.  Like a good wrestling match, Piper and David are telling a story using a choreographed fight as the language, and they're doing this with an atmosphere provided by a major motion picture studio.  It was the merging of two worlds, and they blended perfectly.

The Covid-19 pandemic and the need for social distancing opened the door for WWE to experiment with theatrical sets, a musical score and post production editing to deliver something that was truly special.  It was a wrestling feud that was built in a ring in front of a live audience, and then the story was paid off in a controlled environment that eliminates the risk of mistakes, injury and audience reaction, which has as much of ability to elevate a mediocre match (Hogan vs Warrior) as it does to tarnish a great match (205 Live).

One of the most exciting aspects of this shift in the industry is that it's not limited to the mainstream.  You don't need the money and muscle of the WWE production team to turn a short film into a wrestling match.  The filmmaking technology that we take for granted in 2020 is something that John Carpenter could only have dreamed of when he was filming They Live.  It's both available and affordable, and when it's used creatively, it can be a force in the industry.  Look no further than Being The Elite for an example of this.  Cody Rhodes and The Young Bucks built a business on a foundation of iPhones, YouTube and a combination of creative and physical talent.

I don't want cinematic wresting to replace the traditional product that wrestling fans throughout the world have enjoyed for over a century, but I do hope and expect that it will be used more frequently.  If it's done with the same care and attention as The Final Deletion and The Boneyard Match, it has the potential to expand storylines in directions we've never seen.  It can extend careers and the health and wellness of performers.  It could attract a new and larger audience to the art of professional wrestling.  I believe that we may be witnessing the biggest evolution in pro wrestling since the advent of cable and pay-per-view, and I'm looking forward to seeing where it goes from here.

Streaming The Classics

Ed O'Neill Phillies Spot
WPHL-17 (1993)
It's times like these when I'm trapped in quarantine and living through the plague with no baseball season to distract me from the apocalypse that I'm thankful for modern technology.  For example, there's a channel on YouTube called Classic Phillies TV that has dozens of complete games and highlights from the past 40 years available to stream for free.  Many of these games have the original commercials in the recording, including this Al Bundy bump for WPHL-17 (not to be confused with Covid-19).  Thankfully, Major League Baseball either hasn't noticed or doesn't care, so I can get my Phillies fix until this all blows over.

A Note From The Team

I just received this nice email from the Phillies yesterday.  In December, I ordered tickets to four games this season: May 29th against the Nationals, July 1st against the Padres, July 18th against the Angels and August 9th against the Giants.  With how March has gone, that seems like ten years ago.

Major League Baseball hasn't made any final decisions on how the 2020 season will play out.  There have been plenty of rumors, but there's just no way to know what's going to happen.  It wouldn't surprise me to see the entire 2020 season cancelled.  It's almost certain that no games will be played in the month of April.  It will be the first April without a MLB game since 1883 - the year when the Phillies were founded.

In the meantime, our star right fielder is proving to be just as awesome off the field as he is on it.  He and his wife Kayla are donating half a million dollars to Covid-19 relief in Las Vegas and Philadelphia (his hometown and his new home).  Way to go, Bryce!

Shelter In Place

Throughout all of the craziness that we've all been going through, I have tried my best to stay in a positive frame of mind and make light jokes about it.  I don't think that I'm a very funny person, but it's not from a lack of trying.  I can totally see what draws people to stand-up comedy.  It can be addictive when you get on a roll and really make people laugh.  It's also the way that I deal with stress.  Sometimes it helps, sometimes it doesn't, but it's nearly always the security blanket I reach for when things get tense.

Personally, I don't mind sheltering in place.  I'm an introvert.  Quite frankly, with the exception of walking the dog and going to ballgames, concerts, restaurants and the Bloomsburg Fair, I could live until a very old age and be perfectly content to stay in my house.  I'm not agoraphobic or anything, but I genuinely enjoy spending time at home.  It's how I've always been, and I've come to accept that about myself.  When the news spread about the pandemic and social distancing, my first thought was that I am custom-made for this.  I've been practicing social distance for most of my life.

The worst parts about this for me have been the anxiety.  I fell asleep on the sofa last night and woke up to use the bathroom, and I have a slight pressure feeling at around the top of my stomach.  Logically, I know that I'm probably just sore from carrying a desk in from my garage and moving furniture around and running Ethernet wires across the house so that my wife and I can both work from home.  It also could have something to do with my recent eating habits.  Food is right alongside comedy when it comes to the coping mechanisms I have for dealing with stress, and so my diet has gone all to hell over the past few weeks.  I had an especially big lunch and I snacked quite a bit, and it's not unusual for my stomach to feel bloated the morning after I've eaten too much.  It could also be that I slept at a weird angle.  I kind of just collapsed in the sofa while watching Phillies videos on YouTube, so I could just be sore from that.  Or maybe I'm just sore from when the dog was laying on top of me.

If not for Covid-19, I wouldn't have given this a second thought.  I would have taken some Tums and went back to sleep.  However, since I've spent a month having the symptoms and warning signs drilled into my head for a solid month, it has me worried that I've contracted the virus.  Maybe I got it from work before they finally sent me home with my computer.  Maybe someone at the grocery store passed it to me.  Hell, maybe a grouchy fast food worker came to work sick because they have bills to pay, and they figure if they have to deal with this virus, so does everybody who ordered a hamburger that day.  You could come up with a million scenarios to torture yourself with, from plausible to ridiculous.  When all you see and hear at every turn is Covid-19, it's difficult to stop your mind from wandering down these paths.  So, here I sit at 3:30 am.  I'm focused on this weird pressure that I'm feeling.  Is this the tightness in the chest people have reported?  It feels like it's lower than my chest - more like a stomach discomfort, but I'm not a doctor, so what the hell do I know?  I'm focused on my breathing.  I'm not having trouble catching my breath or anything, but I do feel that discomfort in my stomach when I take a deep breath.  Is that normal, or is this all in my head?  Maybe any difference I'm noticing is the result of sitting here in the middle of the night randomly taking deep breaths and looking for reasons to be alarmed based on a list of symptoms I've heard as often as any song I've listened to this year.

So, what the hell do I do?  Do I go to the hospital - the one place in town where the virus is most likely to be - knowing that they don't have a cure and that I'm not in bad enough shape to need oxygen?  Seems like a bad idea.  If I don't have the virus when I walk in the doors, I very well might have it when I leave after sitting in a waiting room that has no doubt had dozens, if not hundreds of people with the same concerns I have breathing into their outdated magazines.  Do I just lay back and try not to worry?  What if it gets worse, and I miss my opportunity to catch it early?  Do I just sit here for another hour doing bizarre deep breathing exercises and studying how it makes me feel, fully aware that my brain is searching for reasons to worry instead of looking for reasons not to?

There are no easy answers to any of this.  It is what it is.  Chances are that we're all going to catch this at some point over the next year, so if I don't have it now, I very well may get it later.  I suppose I'll do what we're all doing.  I'll continue to shelter in place and try to deal with this as best I can, which in my case is to write nonsense for this blog.  I've got about a dozen entries already written and scheduled to post at a future date in 2020.  If you've been here before, you know the drill.  They're the same old schtick of "on this day x number of years ago, this thing I liked from my childhood happened" or "the Phillies did something at some point between 1883 and now that I have an opinion about" or "hey, look at this thing I found and/or ate".  You know - social media without the socializing.

In a perfect world, I would be visiting Dad later on.  It's his 61st birthday today, but he's a pretty severe diabetic, and taking chances like that is a really bad idea.  So, I'll give him a call and write some nonsense about an old discontinued flavor of Doritos or something else that few people, if anyone, will ever read.

Whoever you are and however you got here, thank you for listening to the rambling anxieties of a weird nerd on the spectrum who's living through Captain Trips with all of you.  Hopefully we can all look back on this someday and tell each other stories about when we all worried about people breathing on us.  Until then, I hope you and those close to you stay safe.

The Swedish Pizza Table

Säva Pizza Table
Pizza Hut Hong Kong (2020)
I know it's April Fools Day, but this is not a joke.  It's one of the most unusual fast food promotions I've seen in quite some time.  Pizza Hut restaurants in Hong Kong have partnered with Swedish furniture company Ikea to produce a full size table that looks like the little white plastic stand that sits in the middle of your pizza and keeps the cheese from sticking to the top of the box.  The tables are sold in a pizza box with instructions to put it together printed on the lid.  Once your table is assembled, you'll have a place to put your Pizza Hut x Ikea Pizza, which is topped with Swedish meatballs, spicy sausage, cheese and tomato sauce.