Ape Law 29:6

Planet Of The Apes
20th Century Fox (1968)

One of the greatest movies ever filmed was released nationwide 40 years ago today.  I feel that it may be difficult for someone to fully appreciate how excellent this movie is today because it's almost impossible to avoid all of the parodies and references made to it, but it really is a fantastic story.

In honor of it's 40th birthday, here is the twenty-ninth scroll, sixth verse of Ape Law that Cornelius shared with George Taylor at the end of the film:

“Beware the beast Man, for he is the Devil’s pawn.

Alone among God’s primates, he kills for sport or lust or greed.

Yea, he will murder his brother to possess his brother’s land.

Let him not breed in great numbers, for he will make a desert of his home and yours.

Shun him; drive him back into his jungle lair, for he is the harbinger of death.”

Filming The Wrestler

Baker Theater
Blackwell Street - Dover, NJ

We've tried to make it to as many Ring Of Honor shows in the tri-state area as we could for the past few years, but we've had to cut back quite a bit recently.  It's for a good reason though.  I went back to college last Fall, so free time and spending money have been in pretty short supply, but I have kept up with what's going on in ROH as best I could.  That is how I learned about this opportunity.

So I reached out to them in the hopes that I'd be one of the first 60 people to RSVP for a chance to work as a ringside extra for the filming of a movie that's being filmed.  It's called The Wrestler, and it's being directed by Darren Aronofsky (the director of Requiem For A Dream and The Fountain), and it stars Mickey Rourke and Marissa Tomei.

I thought that they would have gotten flooded with responses, but there must not have been very many.  When I arrived on Thursday, I think that there were maybe one or two other folks who had responded to this post who showed up.  All of the rest of the extras that we talked to were members of SAG.

It was pretty easy work.  All we had to do was stand where we were told to stand and act like people who were cheering at a wrestling match.  They moved us around on three different sides of the ring and in the balcony for a few shots while Mickey Rourke and his opponent, Ernest "The Cat" Miller, made their entrances to the ring.  They also shot a few scenes of the two wrestling in the ring.  I have no idea what the context of these shots will be when the movie's finished, but it looks like the ROH name and logo will be front and center for at least part of the film.

That's Mickey Rourke on the left in the lime green tights as Randy "The Ram" Robinson.  The man in the middle-eastern tights is former WCW and WWE wrestler Ernest "The Cat" Miller as "The Ayatollah".  In the photo directly above, the referee that Mr. Rourke is shaking hands with is Crestwood's own Jon Trosky.  He wrestles on the indy scene as Supreme" Lee Great, and he had been working on the film for quite a while now - longer than Mickey Rourke, in fact.  He was one of the wrestlers who was helping to train Nicolas Cage, who was originally set to star in the film before he pulled out of the project.

I wore my Ring of Honor shirt to the taping and wore it for the first half of the day until everybody took a break for dinner.  They fed us in the basement of a church that was down the street from the theater.  We came back a bit early, and I couldn't resist the urge to take a photo in the ROH ring.

Before we started shooting again after dinner, one of the production guys gave me a Randy "The Ram" Robinson shirt to wear.  That's the shirt I'm wearing in this photo that I posted yesterday of me with the director, Darren Aronofsky.  I'm not sure if I'll be in the background of any of the scenes that make it to the final cut, but if so, I'll either be wearing a red or black shirt.  If it's a red shirt, it's from before we ate.  If it's a black shirt, it was filmed after dinner.  I know, I know... super secret Hollywood insider news right there!.

Mr. Aronofsky was a super nice guy.  He made it a point to thank us for coming to the shoot and to chat with us for a few minutes, and he even gave me his copy of the call sheet for today  You can see it in his hand in the photo, and it's a very awesome souvenir from the time I got to work on a movie set.  Unless my career path takes a very drastic turn, it'll probably be my only time working on a movie, but it was a great experience and a memory that I'll always treasure.

Ring Of Honor took advantage of the fact that they're already all set up in the building and held two shows at the Dover Theater after the taping - one on Friday and one on Saturday.  We came back for the Friday night show, and the crew was there to do a little more filming for The Wrestler, this time with an actual paid crowd.  To be honest, I think the ROH fans on Friday did a better job than the SAG extras.  They popped like CM Punk had just come back!  Well, we're in the crowd there too, so either way, there's at least a halfway decent chance that you'll see us at some point in the movie.

It's been a busy weekend.  I was thinking about heading back down for the show tonight, but I'm pretty tired and I have work to catch up on before class on Monday morning.  I'll write more about Friday night's ROH show after I've gotten a full night's sleep.

Director of The Wrestler

I'm honored to have had the opportunity to work on the filming of The Wrestler.  At the end of the day, director Darren Aronofsky took a moment to speak with us and take photos.

Jeff Farmer Hates When Things Don't Go His Way

Jumpin' Jeff Farmer
International Pro Wrestling
Oklahoma local television - late 80's
To prevent anyone from believing that this video was shot in the future and sent back in time, the editors have helpfully added that this was recorded earlier.

Source: Honeydew Wilkins

McDonaldland Cookies

McDonaldland Cookies
I haven't come across these since I was a kid in the 80's, but the McDonald's near the mall in my hometown had them for sale.  They're shortbread cookies in the shape of Birdie, Grimace, the Hamburgler, the Fry Kids and Ronald McDonald.  They have a faint lemon flavor and are sweet, but not too sweet.

Sailing Off Into The Sunset

Netscape Navigator
1994 - 2008

As of today, Netscape Navigator parent company AOL is no longer supporting the most widely used web browser of the 90's dial-up age of the internet.

Selfie Sunday

He Pitched The Boys Of Summer To A Title

Johnny Podres
1932 - 2008

The world has lost a true legend of the game.  Johnny Podres passed away yesterday while in the hospital where he was being treated for several conditions.  He was 75 years old.

Mr. Podres pitched across a span of 16 years.  The vast majority of his playing career was spent with the Dodgers (both in Brooklyn and Los Angeles), but he also pitched for two seasons for the Detroit Tigers before pitching in his final year for the San Diego Padres during their inaugural 1969 season.  He is best known for his performance against the New York Yankees in the 1955 World Series which brought the Dodgers their first World Series Championship, which was the only championship the team would ever win while they were in Brooklyn.  He pitched two complete games during the series, including a shutout in Game 7 and was named the World Series MVP in the first year that the award existed.

Following his retirement after the 1969 season, Mr. Podres began his coaching career.  Over a 23 year period that spanned from 1973 to 1996, he was the pitching coach for the Padres, Red Sox, Twins and Phillies.  It was at his last coaching stop that I first became aware of Johnny Podres because he was the pitching coach for the 1993 NL Champion Philadelphia Phillies.  This autographed card is from the 5x7 team set that was sold at the ballpark during the strike-shortened 1994 season.

Pac Tree

Pac Man LED Christmas Tree
Madrid, Spain

Now You're Playing With Power

Christmas Eve (1987)
I've been a gamer for as long as I can remember.  My dad and grandparents used to take me to Aladdin's Castle when I was three and four years old and had to stand on a stool to play the game.  At around the same time, my dad brought home an Atari 2600, and we played games like Pitfall, Taz and Adventure.  No matter what else was going on in life, games brought me a lot of joy.

My first experience with Nintendo was in the arcade, with games like Donkey Kong, Super Mario Bros. and the PlayChoice-10.  I don't remember when I first learned that Nintendo had a home console, but I'm sure that I talked about it constantly to whoever would listen.  I have a vague memory of an older woman who used to watch me after school until my mom got off of work asking me what I wanted for Christmas.  I told her I was hoping I would get a Nintendo.  She misheard me, and she knew that I liked He-Man, so she surprised me with an action figure called Extendar. 

It's no Nintendo, but I had fun creating adventures with this little guy.

I spent Christmas Eve at my grandparents house when I was seven years old.  My Dad came over and brought a huge, blue present.  I wasn't sure how big the console was, but I spent all of our Christmas dinner thinking about that box and hoping that a Nintendo was inside.  Sure enough, when we finished our Long John Silvers (a Christmas Eve tradition) and started opening presents, I found the Nintendo Entertainment System waiting for me, complete with R.O.B. The Robot, Gyromite and Duck Hunt.

It's been twenty years since the Christmas where I first became a Nintendo kid.  In the years that followed, I've had countless hours of fun playing Nintendo with friends, family and by myself.  To this day, playing an old school NES game never fails to bring a smile to my face.

The Ship That Made The Kessel Run Through Twelve Icebergs

Iain McCaig

Variety (March 18, 1998)
This incredible artwork by artist Iain McCaig was published as a full page ad in the March 18th, 1998 issue of Variety as a congratulatory message from George Lucas to James Cameron on Titanic passing Star Wars as the highest grossing film of all time.  Titanic premiered in theaters in the United States ten years ago today.  It went on to win eleven Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Director, and was the first film in motion picture history to earn over a billion dollars at the box office.

Homer, Homer Everywhere

The rental stores in my area have really pushing The Simpsons Movie, which comes out on DVD today.  The little magazine at Hollywood Video and Movie Gallery this month have had nearly identical covers promoting it.

Grandma's Power Outage Ordeal

The power went out at my grandparents' house for about an hour. My grandmother described this as "the worst thing that has ever happened to me." She wasn't too thrilled to learn that the camera was on either.

Elephants and Melting Clocks

The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory
Salvador Dalí (1954)
This is my favorite painting from my favorite artist.  It's a follow-up to his 1931 work, The Persistence Of Memory, and it shows the original landscape after it has been flooded.  It is said to represent the potential of humanity to bring on our own destruction.  I think it's fascinating to compare these two works: one that was created between the World Wars in the same year that the Empire State Building first opened, and one that was created after World War II, during the atomic age.

I ordered a shirt of this panting from a seller in Thailand a couple months ago, and the stamp on the package had a cute family of elephants on it.  It cost 253 Baht to ship this shirt from Thailand to Pennsylvania, which converts to nearly $8 American dollars.

Four Second Fury

Attention deficit gaming and a rave remix of The Neverending Story score come together in Armor Games’ Four Second Fury.  Click the screen to play.

The Second Pillar Of Heaven

ROH Glory By Honor VI: Night One
PA National Guard Armory - Philadelphia, PA
A little over two years ago, I attended my first Ring of Honor show.  In a show that would be released on DVD as ROH Unforgettable, the main event featured Japanese legend Kenta Kobashi wrestling alongside Homicide in a tag team match against Samoa Joe and Low Ki.  I fell in love with the promotion on that night, and for the next year and a half, I bought tickets to nearly every ROH show in Philadelphia, New Jersey and New York.

Since returning to college this fall, I haven't had as much time and money to keep up with the shows the way that I used to.  However, I couldn't resist the opportunity to see the second of the AJPW "Four Pillars of Heaven" to wrestle in an ROH ring in Philadelphia: the great Mitsuharu Misawa.

The card was originally advertised to include Roderick Strong vs. "Lightning" Mike Quackenbush.  Roddy and Quack are two of my favorite wrestlers, so I was looking forward to this match, but it didn't happen.  Instead, Roderick and stablemate Rocky Romero wrestled The Briscoes for the tag team championship.  I'm not sure what happened that kept Quack off of the card.

Results:

• "Sugarfoot" Alex Payne defeated Kyle Durden

• Shane Hagadorn defeated Rhett Titus

• Kevin Steen and El Generico defeated The Hangman Three (Brent Albright and BJ Whitmer)

• Claudio Castagnoli defeated Hallowicked

• Davey Richards defeated Delirious

• ROH World Tag Team Championship Match
  The Briscoe Brothers (Jay Briscoe and Mark Briscoe) defeated No Remorse Corps (Roderick Strong and Rocky Romero) to retain the titles.

• Six Man Tag Team Match
  The Age Of The Fall (Jimmy Jacobs, Tyler Black and Necro Butcher) defeated The Vulture Squad (Jack Evans, Ruckus and Jigsaw)

• ROH Top Of The Class Trophy Match
  Ernie Osiris defeated Mitch Franklin to win the Top Of The Class Trophy

• Best Of Three Series: Match Three
  Austin Aries defeated "The American Dragon" Bryan Danielson to win the series (2-1) and become the #1 contender for the ROH World Championship

• ROH World Championship Match
  Nigel McGuinness defeated Chris Hero to retain the title.

• Mitsuharu Misawa and Kenta vs Takeshi Morishima and Naomichi Marufuji ended in a 30 minute time-limit draw

Coffee Cup Phillies: Vic Power

Vic Power

Philadelphia Phillies (1964)

Today is former Phillies first baseman Vic Power's birthday.  If his name doesn't ring a bell, it's probably because he appeared in just 18 games for the Fightins.

The 1964 Phillies were dominant for most of the season.  On Labor Day, they were in first place in the National League with a comfortable six and a half game lead with 25 games left to play.  Things started to go wrong after that, starting with first baseman Frank Thomas breaking his thumb during a game against the Dodgers on September 8th.  The team worked quickly and acquired his replacement from the Los Angeles Angels the next day in a trade that sent Vic Power to the Phillies in exchange for a player to be named later, which ended up being left-handed pitcher Marcelino López.

The Evening Sun - Hanover, PA  (September 10, 1964)

Vic Power was excellent in the field, but he was in his age 36 season and didn't put up the kind of offensive numbers to replace what the Phillies had lost in Thomas.  If this was the only concern the team had in the final weeks of the season, Power would have taken the field in the World Series that year.  However, everything that could go wrong for the did go wrong.  The team lost 12 of their last 15 games of the season, falling one game behind the St. Louis Cardinals for the Pennant.

Vic Power was reacquired by the Los Angels Angels after the 1964 season, and he would play his final season in pro ball with the Angels in 1965.  He finished his career as a six time All-Star and a seven time Gold Glove first baseman, winning the award every season from 1958 to 1964, and he is one of the few players in the history of the sport to steal home twice in a single game.  He had a solid career that spanned a dozen seasons in which he reached 1,716 hits and 126 home runs.

He returned to Puerto Rico in his retirement as a hero.  The city of Guaynabo built a ballpark named after him which he could see from the window of his home, and he spent his summers helping young players to develop their skills.  He passed away two years ago on November 29th at 78 years old.

Save A Buck On A Bucket Of Cluck

Kentucky Fried Chicken (1967)
Back in the late 60's, Kentucky Fried Chicken used these Colonel Sanders dollars to lure people in to enjoy their eleven herbs and spices.

Rollins Led The Way

Philadelphia Daily News
October 1, 2007
On January 24th, shortstop Jimmy Rollins boldly proclaimed the Phillies as "the team to beat" in the division.  In the final games of the regular season on Sunday, Jamie Moyer and the Phillies bullpen shut down the Washington Nationals to win 6-1.  Meanwhile, the last place Florida Marlins scored 7 runs off of Tom Glavine in the top of the 1st, knocking him out of the game after 1/3 of an inning.  The Marlins went on to defeat the Mets 8-1 to finish off their collapse and knock them out of the post season.  Rollins was right.  The Phillies are the team to beat, and they weren't beaten.  They are the 2007 National League East Champions.

Jimmy Rollins truly emerged as the team leader in 2007.  As the Los Angeles Times pointed out, the shortstop hit as many home runs as Ken Griffey Jr, as many doubles as Albert Pujols, as many stolen bases as Chone Figgins, and he had more hits than Derek Jeter.  He also led the National League in triples and runs scored.

The stat that I was most impressed by was that Rollins started in all 162 games this season, and in the process, he broke the record for at-bats (716) and plate appearances (778) in a single season.  When he set the record for plate appearances, he passed Dave Cash, who had 776 in 1975, and Lenny Dykstra, who had 773 in the Phillies 1993 NL Championship season.  As it stands today, three of the top five plate appearances in a single season were reached in a Phillies uniform.

When you consider all that he has achieved and all that he has meant to the Phillies, I don't see how anyone else in the National League deserves to be named the 2007 NL MVP than Jimmy Rollins.

Standing On The Edge

This illustration appeared in an issue of Readers Digest that was published in October 1987.  The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Who Won This Trade?

Dickie Noles
1988 Topps - #768

Few photos have captured a moment in baseball as perfectly as the one that was used for this Dickie Noles card from the 1988 Topps set.

Dickie made his major league debut with the Phillies in 1979 and pitched out of the bullpen for the 1980 Phillies World Championship team.  At the end of the following season before he was traded to the Cubs.  He bounced around a bit in the mid 80's with the Rangers and Indians before returning to the Cubs as a free agent before the start of the 1987 season.

The Cubs traded Dickie Noles to the Detroit Tigers 20 years ago today.  The trade was took place with less than a month remaining in the 1987 season, and his 1988 Topps card was already in production at the time.  They were able to add a few lines to the front and back of the card at the last minute to indicate that the reliever was now a member of the Detroit Tigers.

Adding a "now with _____" line to the card of a player who has been traded late in the season was common practice for Topps at the time, and a player being traded for a "player to be named later" has been a routine occurrence throughout the history of the game.

A far less common occurrence is when a player is traded for himself, which is exactly what happened in 1987.  After the season was over, it was decided that the "player to be named later" who the Tigers would send to the Cubs in exchange for Dickie Noles would be... Dickie Noles.  It's a circumstance that has happened only four times in the history of the sport, but at no other time was the moment captured so perfectly on a baseball card, with the relief pitcher seemingly staring in disbelief at the announcement of his trade on the front of the card.

By the time collectors found this card, Dickie had moved on to the Baltimore Orioles.  He spent the '88 season in their organization, and the following year playing for the Columbus Clippers (then the Triple A affiliate of the Yankees) before returning to the Phillies in 1990 where he finished his career.

The Ballpark And The Leaky Teepee

West Palm Beach Postcard
Florida Natural Color, Inc (1984)
I found this postcard while I was searching for a picture of Municipal Stadium for yesterday's post about the West Palm Beach Expos.

The ballpark was within walking distance of the West Palm Beach Auditorium.  Neither of these facilities are still in operation today.  The Auditorium, known affectionally in the area as the "Leaky Teepee", was sold to the Jehovah's Witnesses in 1997 and was reopened as one of their private convention centers, and the final game at Municipal Stadium took place in the same year on August 31st.  The ballpark was razed in 2002 and there is now a Home Depot on the site where it once stood.

Photo Credit: Lannis Waters  (November 27, 1992)

It occurred to me that quite a few "firsts" for me have occurred in this small corner of South Florida, all of which took place in a span of just under four years.

My first baseball game was a Florida State League game between the West Palm Beach Expos and the Sarasota White Sox at Municipal Stadium on June 26th, 1991.

My first pro wrestling show was a World Wrestling Federation house show at the Auditorium on July 1, 1991.

My first MLB game was the Atlanta Braves vs the New York Mets at Municipal Stadium during Spring Training on March 22, 1992.

My first hockey game was a Sunshine League game between the West Palm Beach Blaze and the Jacksonville Bullets at the Auditorium on March 1994.

My first concert was The Offspring (with Quicksand and No Use For A Name) at the Auditorium when they were on tour for Smash on March 11th, 1995.

The Sun Sets On West Palm Beach

Municipal Stadium
West Palm Beach, FL
Ten years ago today, the West Palm Beach Expos played their last game in Municipal Stadium.  In front of over a thousand fans, the Class A affiliate of the Montreal Expos lost 4-1 to the Vero Beach Dodgers.

The team began in the spring of 1969 and won two Florida State League Championships in franchise history.  The second of those championships came in 1991 - the season that Dad brought me to my first WPB Expos game, which was also the first professional baseball game I ever attended.

After the 1997 season, the team moved 15 miles away to become the Jupiter Hammerheads.  They remained affiliated with the Montreal Expos through the end of the 2001 season.  Presently, the Hammerheads are the Class A team of the Miami Marlins.