#233. Survivor, Bret Hart, Against All Odds, Lower Decks

#233

~Technology-addled 29 year old is befuddled by the digital converter box that makes it impossible to tape things like I used to. But my sister is taping "Heroes vs. Villains" from the new season of Survivor for me, so I can't complain too much. I hope my schedule starts working for me on Thursdays again, but I guess I can't complain that I get to watch Smackdown on Fridays in the meantime. Good time, too, since it still looks like John Morrison is finally primed to join the main event.

~Bret Hart, I've wanted to say for weeks now, looks today like his father Stu. I don't actually get to watch Raw, so it took me a number of appearances to finally latch on to that. So when does the Hart Dynasty get involved in this angle, anyway?

~Against All Odds on Sunday was another excellent TNA night for Mr. Anderson, even if he ended up losing the tournament to "The Pope" D'Angelo Dinero (Elijah Burke), who I previously raved about in my reaction to the live event I attended back in July of 2008. TNA is only getting better and better. Great time to make the transition to Mondays.

~Concerning my writing over at Lower Decks (which I rarely talk about here), my most recent HYGOTS column was the start of three weeks of DC essays, covering Batman, Superman, and Green Lantern. At the Observation Lounge (message board), I'm posting today the conclusion to a Star Trek/Captain Picard "biographical" short story, The Man Who Loved Earl Grey Tea (Hot), which follows on the heels of How To Advance Your Career Through Marriage (covering Wesley Crusher) and Tarkin, Republic and Empire (my first Star Wars fiction). I think Lower Decks is pretty much dead at this point, but it's still fun to hang out there, and those guys are the only people who really want me, whether they like it or not. It keeps me writing, anyway. The Mouldwarp link on the right features a list of other Star Trek stories I've written since 1999.

#232. Finnegan, Genesis, Survivor Series

#232

Just a couple of quick notes:

~Finnegan is awaiting agents and/or publishers, so that goose is still in the air.

~Hoping like mad that John Morrison is getting the push he so richly deserves. (You morons who honestly believe The Miz is at a better career position at this point can suck it.)

~Genesis (2010) is being released on DVD on March 23. Owned. I also got another TNA Cross the Line three-pack featuring some PPVs from 2008. Good time to be a wrestling fan. For me, anyway.

~WWE: Please continue releasing the Survivor Series anthologies. Still don't know why they weren't released all at once, or if the final two actually have been scheduled. But, dudes?

~Contemplating a fourth poetry blog.

#231. Genesis 2010

#231

TNA's Genesis card has got to hold the official unofficial title of the company's most important PPV. This year it featured Ken Anderson's debut and was also the first show after the big Hogan renaissance. I know a lot of wrestling fans don't appreciate Anderson, which has been compounded by his "injury-prone" recent past, but the guy's gold, and TNA was right to market his acquisition as a big deal. He's the rare wrestler who's sell when he needs to without exaggerating it. You'll believe he's getting pounded, but you don't have to believe that he's some kind of super dominant wrestler, either, when he mounts a comeback. He's more organic than the typical superstar, more natural, which is confusing when you consider how most of them work. Given a real chance, he's make, ah, the impact due him, and TNA is ready to give him that chance. Thank you, TNA.

#230. New Monday Night War

#230

1/4/2010 might go down as one of the most historic nights in wrestling history. Forget for a moment that it was "the return of the Monday Night Wars." Just having Hogan and Hart addressing TNA and WWE, respectively, was such a completely uncommon occurrence that either one would have been a story of the year, but to have both on the same night...It's like, can I have both shows on DVD already?

As it is, I thought 2009 was a good year to save on DVD, but if this is how 2010 stars, where the heck does it end? Is there anywhere left to go? Now, clearly, TNA was all about establishing a new direction, which was handled so much better than the endless attempts WCW made in its final years, but for WWE to devote an entire night to reflecting back (well, pretty much) is, quite frankly, unprecedented, certainly without the context of a recent death. Both companies tried to showcase the extent of their current offerings, and apparently provided at least one exceptional match each (but, sorry WWE, how were you going to top A.J. Styles/Kurt Angle?), making them worth the snapshot on just about every account. WWE is gearing up for its biggest show of the year, while TNA is, again, mounting an offensive on the wrestling zeitgeist. I expect an entire issue, at the very least, of Pro Wrestling Illustrated dedicated to the evening.

It was a gutsy move on WWE's part to hold the Sheamus/Cena rematch last week rather than last night, but having the new champion take on what was basically it's version of the typical TNA star was equally gutsy.

Seriously, it's suddenly a very good time to be a wrestling fan again.

Anyway, just wanted to make note of it...

#229. 2009 QBs, Finnegan

#229

I've posted the 2009 QBs at Lower Decks.com (link at right), my fourth annual look at the year in comics. The actual QB50 is in this week's HYGOTS column, but on Tuesday I posted a supplemental edition with a look at fifty additional comics. I thought it was a wickedly good year for the funny books.

The completion of that task required a balancing act that worked out nicely with the end run of Finnegan, which I finished early this morning. I spent two months, and wrote the equivalent of two and a third NaNos, which is why I'm still thankful to Chris Baty and that movement for getting me started and helping me write my first book, Cloak of Shrouded Men, which I hope to republish at some point in a slightly (more) corrected edition. I'm extremely pleased with Finnegan, which, combined with the Fall In Their Place blog poems collection and the outline for the twelve-issue Conformists comic, made 2009 an exceedingly fruitful year. I couldn't be happier about it, where it positions me in the future.

#228. Wrestler of the Decade

#228

Because I'm sure that my Theoretical Readers are just dying to know, my picks for Wrestler of the Decade are:

Triple H - Hard to deny the decade he amassed a thousand championships.

Kurt Angle - When from a good wrestler to a great one, indispensable for both WWE and TNA.

Chris Jericho - Certainly his best decade.

The only reason I wouldn't list a Randy Orton, John Cena, or Batista is because they didn't exactly cover the whole decade. Otherwise, they would have been pretty good options, too.

I'd give the award, singularly, to Kurt Angle.

#227. Against the Day, Finnegan, Decade Favorites in Films, Books, TV, & Music

#227

Funny, but when I made the Reading List entry last month, Amazon wasn't loading properly, so I wasn't able to give Pynchon the same deal I've been doing for about half the year here at Scouring Monk. Also, not so funny, but I haven't actually gotten to read much of Against the Day, though I am quite enjoying it. Haven't gotten past a hundred pages yet. Chumps of Chance!

(A few days later, I was able to do my Christmas shopping pretty easily at Amazon, so my buggy computer stopped bugging out for a while.)

Part of the reason is that I've been battling Finnegan. I was forced to abandon the strict NaNo pace after twenty days, but have been rallying and gotten to 43 chapters of roughly 1667 words. The current goal is to complete the remaining ones by Christmas, so I can spend the rest of the year completing the QBs for Lower Decks and my weekly HYGOTS column. By 2010, I'll have a week vacation I hope to in part spend fishing out an agent to get the book into some publishing waters. Should be fun...

Here's the "literay mathematics" (originally posted at Facebook) of Finnegan: Twilight + Mary Shelley's Frankenstein + Calvin & Hobbes + the Bible + Grant Morrison + Robert Pirsig / Tony Laplume

Lots of people are marking the end of the decade with lists. I've been compiling some ideas myself:

Ten Favorite Films of the 00s
Alexander
Munich
The Dark Knight
Memento
Gladiator
The Departed
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
Inglourious Basterds
Watchmen
The Da Vinci Code

Ten Favorite TV Shows of the 00s
Futurama
Boomtown
Star Trek: Enterprise
Lost
Alias
How I Met Your Mother
Prison Break
Survivor
Heroes
Grey's Anatomy

Ten Favorite CDs of the 00s
Coldplay - X & Y
Coldplay - Viva La Vida
Oasis - Don't Believe the Truth
Oasis - Dig Out Your Soul
Jet - Shine On
U2 - All That You Can't Leave Behind
Great Big Sea - *Something Beautiful
Hootie and the Blowfish - Looking for Lucky
Guster - Ganging Up On the Sun
Thrice - The Alchemy Index (Vols. i-iv, especially iv)

Ten Favorite Books of the 00s
J.K. Rowling - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
Roberto Bolano - 2666
Neil Gaiman - American Gods
Peter Ackroyd - The Plato Papers
Life of Pi - Yann Martel
The Adventures of Kavalier & Clay - Michael Chabon
The Patron Saints - T.M. Wells
The Execution - Hugo Wilcken
Bone (One Volume Edition) - Jeff Smith
52 - Various

(revised lists as of 12/19/09)

#226. Reading List: Against the Day

#226

Currently reading:

Against the Day
By Thomas Pynchon

#225. Pandora, Finnegan, Survivor Series Anthology

#225

Sent off a sample script to Avatar Press today, featuring their flagship character, Pandora. I hope they like it. This doesn't mean I'm giving up on the Conformists pitch at Dark Horse, but hey. I should be sending a lot of stuff out anyway.

Finnegan is progressing nicely, and I'm happy how it seems to be evolving in the best possible uses of my talent. It's off NaNo pace by five days, but I've been playing fast and loose with that all month, so I'm not really all that concerned.

I got the Survivor Series anthologies finally, and have spent perhaps too much time watching them (when I could be writing, yeah, or reading.) Wrestling seems on a good tear these days. TNA (Turning Point is another step in the right direction) is doing well, WWE is still working on the next generation (Survivor Series 2009 looked like it was excellent), and even the Hulkamania tour is finally a reality, headlined by Hogan/Flair and featuring Orlando Jones/Mr. Anderson (Kennedy), two of the stars WWE completely failed in recent years.

I can't think right now, but wanted to check in anyway...

#224. Finnegan, 2666

#224

The big news is that I've started writing Finnegan, which coincidentally started at the start of NaNoWriMo, and I'm actually treating it much as I have in the past, a pace of 1667 words a day. The bad news is that, technically I'm already behind, but the good news is that I'm finding myself with a more flexible schedule that I had during the three Novembers it took to write Cloak of Shrouded Men (my calculations for Finnegan actually average to just about two and a half months, with 72 chapters at the stated length), which I think is pretty much working at this point.

I was thwarted in my attempts to purchase the released Survivor Series anthology volumes last week, but then I visited WWE.com and saw that I could get an outrageous deal from them (basically the two for the price of one), so I did that.

I'm still reading 2666, which is a long book, so it's taking more time than the pace I had been cutting since I started posting my reading list here. And the next few books, yeah, they're going to take probably about the same amount of time. I hope to be done 2666 well before the end of the month. Also, I am loving it.

#223. Victory Road, Breaking Point

#223

So I watched the Victory Road DVD, obviously, and it was exactly what I thought it was, TNA's step in the right direction, integrating people who really know what they're doing with those who haven't (except Daniels/Matt Morgan, if which case it was two people who don't -- I'm the rare observer who thinks the Fallen Angel is technically proficient, but who can't strange a decent match to save his life, and certainly not with someone like the Blueprint, but we'll get back to him). A.J. Styles really needed a step in a new direction, and Kevin Nash was exactly what he needed, and that's what the card was all about, getting the Main Event Mafia to not just dominate but work for the company. Samoa Joe never looked better than when he was fighting Sting (until Taz came out, then he completely fell apart, which was, er, ironic). This past Sunday's Bound for Glory was all about getting everything past that point. Styles is champion, and for the first time, TNA is handling it right. Bobby Lashley, not having to worry about "saving" the company, did a submission match with Joe. Kurt Angle took Morgan under his wing, which was exactly what got Styles the big belt (and hopefully, Morgan finally begins to pay off for someone). Eric Young and Hernandez, meanwhile, get the Nash treatment.

WWE, meanwhile, is working its younger players, too. I just watched Breaking Point, and it looks like Kofi Kingston and MVP have elevated their game to the point where they can be compared to their counterparts on Smackdown, John Morrison and Dolph Ziggler, whose match at Hell in a Cell is the reason I'll be picking up that DVD, too. The problem is the wrestling community failing to embrace these guys (I'm looking at you, Wrestleview). They're the future. Hey, it looks bright.

#222. Reading List: 2666

#222

2666 by Robert Bolano finally came to plate, and I couldn't be more pleased. I chose the Spanish version because I think I would actually want to learn Spanish to read it as he wrote it, and I've only read about thirty pages so far (you'd get the urge, too, if you read those pages, on a number of levels). He's a dream writer for the great literature/writer set, and I'm glad this book came out of him before he died. It's going to be a pleasure however long it takes me to read it.

#221. WWE 2003 DVD Collection

#221

Last week I accomplished what probably no one else did in 2009: I completed my collection of the WWE 2003 PPVs. It didn't begin on purpose, and continued on just as accidentally, but over time, it just seemed like something that was not only possible, but almost necessary, honoring one of the least appreciated years in wrestling, whether it was Evolution's first year, Brock Lesnar's last full run, or Goldberg's only tenure in WWE, and any number of other things, it became inevitable. There was a pretty big push earlier this year, scooping up four additional titles a month ago, and then the chance came to finally get Armaggedon, the one I kept avoiding because Goldberg finally fell to Triple H (but it was a good match all the same, probably the best either one competed in all year).

I, er, don't anticipate ever repeating that accomplishment. But, I will be getting TNA's much-deplored Victory Road from this year. I know, I know, I pick all the popular ones. Have you read my column at Lower Decks?

#220. Reading List: A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters

#220

A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters by Julian Barnes. The first chapter finally got me back in Noah fiction (as seen in Not Wanted On the Voyage by Timothy Findley, or The Preservationist by David Maine, which I haven't read, but later in the Reading List are a bunch of other books by Maine). The book itself is kind of funny, because I think I must have been thinking of another book, or perhaps another edition, when I bought it. All the same, good stuff.

I'm also reading Flashforward from Robert J. Sawyer as one of my longer term reading materials, thanks to the show, which apparently only takes so much from the book. Still, should be interesting.

#219. Conformists in the Mail

#219

Wow, so I shipped the Conformists pitch off to Dark Horse yesterday. It's a good feeling just to have done that...

#218. Conformists Scripting

#218

In purely personal news, I'm thrilled to announce that I've finally finished the script for Conformists#1, and I clocked it in at what was my Digital Webbing pace of two days for a 22 page script. Couldn't be happier.

Oh, and now I get to be a parent and try and see it succeed in the world. If it does, I've got eleven other babies to rear...

#217. PWI 500 2009

#217

It's time for our annual Scouring Monk review of the PWI 500!

First, a prelude. I don't know why I never really realized this before, but Pro Wrestling Illustrated's ranking period, roughly summer (A) to summer (B) has probably always been meant to skewer whoever WWE has chosen for the WrestleMania push. A second glance will make this obvious, and the moreso when WWE, for one reason or other, has failed to make a solid commitment in that role. The two most controversial selections in the PWI 500's history for the number one slot were Dean Malenko (1997) and Rob Van Dam (2002). No please, let me elaborate.

In 1997, WWE's WrestleMania plans were thwarted, by whom exactly the tales often vary. Shawn Michaels is the popular selection, and all the more by the events of that year's Survivor Series. By Bret Hart's reckoning, it was Shawn's refusal to exchange the favor he'd made the previous year (in, oh, the greatest main event championship match in the card's history; he never has a problem sharing the glory of 1992's Summer Slam match with Davey Boy Smith, possibly because fortune certainly smiled on him a bit more). Others have it that the Ultimate Warrior foiled the plans by failing to remain a viable employee for longer than a few months following his 1996 comeback. In any event, WWE scrambled to put together a Sid-Undertaker program. Clearly this had never been the plan (other than the fact that Sid had been engaged in a long-term program with Michaels at that point, and Undertaker enjoyed a lengthy reign after it).

At the same time, the nWo had completely overtaken WCW, and hey, the wrestling scene. PWI had listed HBK atop its 1996 500, but his reign wasn't all that popular with the fans (possibly because of the breaking nWo arc that coincided with the hottest months of his reign). Consequently, WCW was forced into the "controversial" position of pushing a star, Hulk Hogan, who was past his wrestling prime (or at least, initial popularity; whatever). This is crucial because PWI prides itself as an objective, even academic exercise, and the PWI 500 is its yearly crowning achievement in that regard. Yet, quite patently, there's nothing really scientific about it. PWI is a fan venture through and through, and it's only for the fact that it is about as close to academic as the wrestling community gets that it can assume to be an authority, even when at the most important moments, it's anything but. Hence the queer association between that WrestleMania push and the top ranking in almost every PWI 500.

Now, the only way a fan is different from whatever wrestling organization he chooses to follow (because for most fans, it's impossible to cover more than a small handful of the wrestling scene, something PWI has the luxury of doing, but routinely squanders in anything but the PWI 500, except in the meaningless reportage it does) is that he does not have to make the decisions that cast the fortunes of the wrestlers. He only has to observe and cheer or boo as he chooses. Simply put, he has the advantage, if he chooses, to make a completely objective stance. Any wrestler who garners any real reaction from that or any other fan, will automatically know it. That's the nature of wrestling.

Therefore, I submit that the only "scientific" way to judge the year of any wrestler is whether or not they've put on a consistently excellent performance, regardless of titles or matches won, how the company they happen to work for actually treats them. The only way to judge a wrestler is how the audience accepts him.

In that regard, PWI is often pretty good, otherwise it would never have chosen Malenko or Van Dam to represent its ranking, regardless of whether or not they actually earned it.

So this is to say, at the very least, given the way PWI's rankings went that year, one would assume that the nWo was in fact a miserable failure from the start, because Hogan's ranking was dismal indeed. In fact, he ought to have been #1.

In 2002, Triple H got the WrestleMania push, but not the top PWI 500 ranking, because his overall year wasn't impressive. He missed half the grading period rehabbing his quad, and his championship reign lasted only one month. Fair enough, PWI.

But RVD? Hardly. Only fans who were invested in the wrestler and not his actual performance would ever have thought so ridiculously highly of him for so long (it's the same reason Chris Benoit got the 2004 PWI 500 top slot over Eddie Guerrero - if you overlook the need for the big WrestleMania push to be the determining factor; it's also why Batista got the 2005 PWI 500 spot over John Cena, even though Guerrero and Cena had consistently better years, over the grading periods, than Benoit or Batista). (And hey, the 2004 question doesn't even mention the fact that Brock Lesnar, Goldberg, Kurt Angle, or Triple H would have made more credible selections than fan favorites Benoit or Guerrero.)

Chris Jericho had just spent a significant portion of the grading period headlining WWE's most important PPVs, wearing the unprecedented unified world championship (one of PWI's writers even tried to defend his ranking once again in this year's issue). If he wasn't good enough, there was Steve Austin, who had just completed his last great run with WWE (but was knocked for cutting out the last few months, which are about as significant when they need to be for PWI writers as the entire first half of the period, which is to say not very). He'd hijacked the Invasion angle, just as Hogan had dominated the nWo angle, despite the fact that technically, it was Hall and Nash's story, had a tremendous series of matches with Kurt Angle over the WWE title, and had still been in the title scene as late as February, when a resurrected nWo, Triple H, and Jericho had taken over the title scene. By nWo I count Hogan, who had his last run with the big belt right after Triple H's big comeback. Oh, and by referencing Hogan, I also mean to bring up The Rock, who deserved a ton of credit for making the defining wrestling match of the modern era with Hogan at WrestleMania.

Jericho, Austin, Angle, or The Rock would have been fine selections. RVD should never even have been in the running.

Speaking of The Rock, he might as well have had the 2000 PWI 500 spot as well. But if not him, then certainly Triple H.

All of this a prelude for Triple H's win in the 2009 PWI 500 lottery. Truth be told, I was somewhat surprised by it. Earlier this week, I had scribbled in my notebook the following names I expected to find in the top ten: Randy Orton (deservedly last year's selection), Jeff Hardy, Chris Jericho, CM Punk, Kurt Angle, and Sting.

I expected Orton to repeat, easily. He had developed himself into the most exciting performer at the start of the year by annihilating the entire McMahon clan, which led into the first legitimate war he's had in his career, with Triple H, who of course, by some twist of PWI logic, ended up with the default WrestleMania push (because he won, which itself was not a problem by any means).

Jeff Hardy I was somewhat pleasantly surprised, didn't make the top ten, because in truth, he didn't have the year to truly merit it. He fumbled around a little too much. Jericho could easily have been #1, if Orton hadn't been. There was nobody hotter than he was last fall, and he's turned dynamic turn after dynamic turn since then. Who else could have helped carry that terrific Ricky Steamboat comeback? Punk had been punked by PWI's reasoning last year, so it was nice to see he made it. Angle was TNA's Jericho, easily, but no respect for that. No respect, in fact, for TNA at all this year, even though, for me, it was a breakout period for the company. Sting got on the list, too.

A.J. Styles made a tremendous comeback from an admittedly lackluster 2008 PWI 500 year, but was hardly thanked for it. PWI sees the Main Event Mafia as a mistake. I see it as increasingly genius. Maybe it's because I hve the inevitable advantage of following developments that just missed the grading period, such as Samoa Joe being elevated to MEM status, or Styles elevating Matt Morgan. Even Hernandez, however, wasn't given any credit, even though he was on the cusp of his own elevation until injury temporarily put it on hold (it'll be the story of the second half of 2009). Alex Shelley, Chris Sabin, didn't get any love, even though they had breakout periods.

Oh, and Brian Kendrick. In is write-up, PWI didn't even bother to acknowledge how hot his fall was. It doesn't matter where he's ended up. A fan would know this, and acknowledge it.

Still, it was a fairly good edition, even if PWI itself failed to appreciate it.

Let's say it's the Monk's ambition to make a truly satisying 500 list.

#216. Reading List: Good Omens

#216

Good Omens is absolutely the last Neil Gaiman (with Terry Pratchett this time) on the reading list. I love the mass market scheme for this one, so it's a pleasure to spotlight the dueling covers for it from ol' Amazon. From this point, we'll be moving into ridiculously heavy literary territory, but Neil is the kind of English writer that should probably be the poster boy of that country's modern output, even if he's "genre."

I've been on vacation, so that made Fragile Things pretty easy to read through quickly.

#215. Reading List: Fragile Things

#215

Fragile Things continues my reading list's fascination with Neil Gaiman. It's a short story collection, which is always a nice change of pace, and will help prepare me for a number of longer works not so much farther down the list, so I'll be ready to tackle them. The only problem? Like the Gaimans, they're one-after-another. Still! The list is long and varied, and my dear Theoretical Readers get to share it with me!

#214. Conformists

#214

Last week I finished up the revised synopsis for The Conformists...and then took another look at the Dark Horse submission guidelines in the midst of realizing that I wasn't going to have quite as much time on Friday as I'd had on Wednesday, when I really should have started on the script for the first issue. So I still haven't started, but I did begin vacation yesterday so I'll have all the time I need. I mentioned the guidelines because I'd been under the impression (hope?) that I could electronically submit the project, as I had with the poetry contest entry, and that isn't the case, so that necessitates yet another of the upgrades I'll be needing in the near future:

ink!

I guess that about does it, unless someone allows digital recording for us folks still receiving basic TV (y'know, the suckers who got those digital converters).

...Anyway, I'm feeling pretty good about being on vacation. Really good! I'll check back in at some point within the two weeks for an update...