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I know it's probably hard to believe, but I am practically ready to declare "Fire Pro Wrestling Returns" my favorite video game ever without ever having played it. The game isn't even available in the US yet. I read about it a few months ago after finding an article during my daily Google News search for wrestling gossip. Apparently, Fire Pro debuted in Japan many years ago and it was a big hit there. There were some attempts at releasing US versions, but the effort never really picked up momentum. Even still, "Fire Pro Wrestling" is something of a legend in the US. So, the news that there will finally be a US version that is easy to fund and very affordable is creating quite a buzz on the Internet.
I have been playing wrestling video games for years, but I really just have a few favorites. The first wrestling game I played on a home system was probably "WWF WrestleMania" for the original Sega Genesis. It was pretty good for its day, but it didn't really blow me away. I played a few other games over the years and some time later, I picked up a copy of "WCW Mayhem" for the original PlayStation system. I loved this game. I mean, it was really what I had been looking for all along. The fact that I could create a bunch of my own characters and pit them against each other was a huge deal to me. See, what I really, really like to do is to create characters based on real life to make things more interesting. I even have based characters on Thomai and me. In fact, if you're reading this now and we know each other from high school, college, or from any previous or current employment, there is a strong chance that I have based one of my created wrestlers on you at one time or another. Okay…I've really only done that with a few people to be honest. Seriously. I don't just create characters based on people I know, though. For example, I've also created some wrestlers based on the Indian RevolutionaryBhagat Singh(complete with tweed pinstripe suit and fedora) andVenomfrontman Cronos (wearing vintage-era black and red spandex). The thing of it is, up to now I've only been able to create maybe 20 to 35 characters for each of my favorite games. The memory space for created wrestlers is pretty limited. So, while I can still delete "stale" characters and add new ones, my options for match-ups get pretty limited after a while. And believe me when I say that I put a lot of thought into this stuff. I mean, I create my own storylines, venues, stables, titles, etc. A lot of it's in my head because gameplay options can kind of limit things no matter how good the game might be.
The Red Menace and Elektra vs. Glenn Danzig and Cronos
Currently, I'm playing the original "SmackDown vs. Raw" for PlayStation 2. I just bought it around the end of 2006 when my interest in wrestling picked up after a long hiatus. I really enjoy this game, particularly due to the fact that I used GameShark to unlock all the features. That way, I could access all of the venues, create my own custom titles and max out attributes on created wrestlers without having to play all of the ridiculously boring "season" features of the game itself. Currently, I have 35 created characters in my own "federation" and those characters are the only ones that I play on the game. I did pick up a copy of SD vs. Raw 2006 a while back, but my GameShark codes only unlocked the venues and some other stuff and I couldn't do much in the way of attributes for my created characters. If I can't maximize my created characters, the game is pretty much useless to me. I think I'll pass on the 2007 and 2008 versions.
So, this is where "Fire Pro Wrestling Returns" comes in. Apparently, the "create a wrestler" feature on this game is tremendous. I have read several articles that indicate that you can store up to 500 created wrestlers for gameplay. That's in addition to the 327 wrestlers already on the Fire Pro roster, some of which – perhaps many of which – resemble well-known superstars like Terry Funk. And the options for gameplay are absolutely astounding, including bizarre matches like an "Exploding Death Match" and some kind of match where wrestlers hit each other with fluorescent light bulbs.
The big compromise to this game is that it apparently not a three-dimensional game like the SD vs. Raw series. That's not really too much of a concern for me, as I tend to like games with a "retro" feel anyway. The screenshots that I have seen seem to indicate that players can have some action out of the ring, so the fact that the perspective might be a little skewed or stiff is not a big deal at the end of the day. There is some give-and-take involved in building a better wrestling game, I guess. From what I've read, "Fire Pro Wrestling Returns" is a very big threat to the SD vs. Raw line, especially considering that both games ship on the same day – November 13, 2007 – and that Fire Pro will retail for somewhere between $15 and $20, compared to $50 and up for SD vs. Raw. Even if Fire Pro Wrestling isn't the end-all of wrestling games, maybe the challenge will force WWE and THQ to think out of the box.
411mania.com has a fantastic article that covers the entire history of the Fire Pro game. Click here to read Ramon Aranda's "Fire Pro Wrestling: A History Lesson."
Thanks to Tim Davenport of the Early American Marxism web archive for his guidance in the preparation of this piece. Source: Ludwig Lore, Louis C. Fraina, and Eugene V. Debs (eds.) The Class Struggle, Brooklyn, v. 3, no. 1 (Feb. 1919), pp. 1-4 Upon his release from the Kaiser's bastille–the doors of which were torn from their hinges by the proletarian revolution–Karl Liebknecht, heroic leader of the rising hosts, exclaimed: "The Day of the People has arrived!" It was a magnificent challenge to the junkers and an inspiring battle cry to the aroused workers.
From that day to this Liebknecht, Rosa Luxemburg and other true leaders of the German proletariat have stood bravely at the front, appealing to the workers to join the revolution and make it complete by destroying what remained of the criminal and corrupt old regime and ushering in the day of the people. Then arose the cry that the people were not yet ready for their day, and Ebert and Scheidemann and their crowd of white-livered reactionaries, with the sanction and support of the fugitive Kaiser, the infamous junkers and all the Allied powers, now in beautiful alliance, proceeded to prove that the people were not yet ready to rule themselves by setting up a bourgeois government under which the working class should remain in substantially the same state of slavish subjection they were in at the beginning of the war.
And now upon that issue–as to whether the terrible war has brought the people their day or whether its appalling sacrifices have all been in vain–the battle is raging in Germany as in Russia, and the near future will determine whether revolution has for once been really triumphant or whether sudden reaction has again won the day.
In the struggle in Russia the revolution has thus far triumphed for the reason that it has not compromised. The career of Kerensky was cut short when he attempted to turn the revolutionary tide into reactionary bourgeois channels.
Lenin and Trotsky were the men of the hour and under their fearless, incorruptible and uncompromising leadership the Russian proletariat has held the fort against the combined assaults of all the ruling class powers of earth. It is a magnificent spectacle.
It stirs the blood and warms the heart of every revolutionist, and it challenges the admiration of all the world.
So far as the Russian proletariat is concerned, the day of the people has arrived, and they are fighting and dying as only heroes and martyrs can fight and die to usher in the day of the people not only in Russia but in all the nations on the globe. In every revolution of the past the false and cowardly plea that the people were "not yet ready" has prevailed. Some intermediate class invariably supplanted the class that was overthrown and "the people" remained at the bottom where they have been since the beginning of history. They have never been "ready" to rid themselves of their despots, robbers and parasites. All they have ever been ready for has been to exchange one brood of vampires for another to drain their veins and fatten in their misery.
That was Kerensky's doctrine in Russia and it is Scheidemann's doctrine in Germany. They are both false prophets of the people and traitors to the working class, and woe be to their deluded followers if their vicious reaction triumphs, for then indeed will the yokes be fastened afresh upon their scarred and bleeding necks for another generation.
When Kerensky attempted to sidetrack the revolution in Russia by joining forces with the bourgeoisie he was lauded by the capitalist press of the whole world. When Scheidemann patriotically rushed to the support of the Kaiser and the junkers at the beginning of the war, the same press denounced him as the betrayer of socialism and the enemy of the people. And now this very press lauds him to the heavens as the savior of the German nation! Think of it! Scheidemann the traitor has become Scheidemann the hero of the bourgeoisie. Could it be for any other reason on earth than that Scheidemann is doing the dirty work of the capitalist class?
And all this time the prostitute press of the robber regime of the whole world is shrieking hideously against Bolshevism. "It is worse than Kaiserism" is the burden of their cry. Certainly it is. They would a thousand times rather have the Kaiser restored to his throne than to see the working class rise to power. In the latter event they cease to rule, their graft is gone and their class disappears, and well do they know it. That is what we said from the beginning and for which we have been sentenced as disloyalists and traitors.
Scheidemann and his breed do not believe that the day of the people has arrived. According to them the war and the revolution have brought the day of the bourgeoisie. Mr. Bourgeois is now to take the place of Mr. Junker–to evolute into another junker himself by and by–while Mr. Wage Slave remains where he was before, under the heels of his master, and all he gets out of the carnage in which his blood dyed the whole earth is a new set of heels to grind into his exploited bones and a fresh and lusty vampire to drain his life-blood.
Away with all such perfidious doctrines; forever away with such a vicious subterfuge and treacherous betrayal!
The people are ready for their day. THE PEOPLE, I say. Yes, the people!
Who are the people? The people are the working class, the lower class, the robbed, the oppressed, the impoverished, the great majority of the earth. They and those who sympathize with them are the people, and they who exploit the working class, and the mercenaries and menials who aid and abet the exploiters, are the enemies of the people.
Rosa Luxemburg
That is the attitude of Lenin and Trotsky in Russia and was of Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg in Germany, and this accounts for the flood of falsehood and calumny which poured upon the heads of the brave leaders and their revolutionary movement from the filthy mouthpieces of the robber regime of criminal capitalism throughout the world.
The rise of the working class is the red specter in the bourgeois horizon. The red cock shall never crow. Anything but that! The Kaiser himself will be pitied and forgiven if he will but roll his eyes heavenward, proclaim the menace of Bolshevism, and appeal to humanity to rise in its wrath and stamp out this curse to civilization.
And still the "curse" continues to spread–like a raging conflagration it leaps from shore to shore. The reign of capitalism and militarism has made of all peoples inflammable material. They are ripe and ready for the change, the great change which means the rise and triumph of the workers, the end of exploitation, of war and plunder, and the emancipation of the race. Let it come! Let us all help its coming and pave the way for it by organizing the workers industrially and politically to conquer capitalism and usher in the day of the people.
In Russia and Germany our valiant comrades are leading the proletarian revolution, which knows no race, no color, no sex, and no boundary lines. They are setting the heroic example for world-wide emulation. Let us, like them, scorn and repudiate the cowardly compromisers within our own ranks, challenge and defy the robber-class power, and fight it out on that line to victory or death!
From the crown of my head to the soles of my feet I am Bolshevik, and proud of it.
Steve Zahn and Josh Hamilton in Freak "Talks About Sex"
One of my favorite movies is the Steve Zahn film "Freak Talks About Sex" (known to some by its alternate title, "Blowin' Smoke.") When I first saw it, it kind of made me think for a bit on what I might have become had I not continued to move ahead with my life after high school. Kind of. I mean, as miserable as high school was, mind you. Anyway, the film's protagonist (not Steve Zahn, a.k.a. "Freak" but the other guy, "Keenan," played by Josh Hamilton) is one of those guys who spends a fair amount of time making "mix tapes" for his friends. That particular aspect of the film really spoke to me because I was one of those "mix tape" guys back in high school and college. I usually didn't make tapes for people unless they specifically asked for one. But once the request was made, I put my best effort into it. Sometimes, I even gave mix tapes to people as gifts. Ask Thomai.
I made lots of mix tapes for friends in high school. I was pretty obsessive over the way I edited these things. I had a lot of little rules that I tried to follow, including my insistence that the sides of a tape should be as balanced as possible so that one side didn't run too much longer than the other side. I also hated it when I would run out of time on one side of the tape. If I even lost two seconds of the end of a song because it was too long to fit on one side of the tape, I would go back and look for ways to cut or reorganize material. My folks had a Realistic (Radio Shack brand) record player/dual cassette deck with a volume fader that came in handy for tricky edits involving songs that were close together and sound bites.
A good mix tape needs to start with a bang. It's okay to open with audio clips from movies or television shows (Plan 9 from Outer SpaceandFight Club(another one of my favorite films) are great sources for sound bites), but the first full song should really kick the tape into high gear. One of my favorite openings for a mix CD that I made several years ago starts with Ceasar's final speech fromConquest from The Planet of the Apesas a lead in to Neil Young's "Rockin' in the Free World." In many of my projects, I would often use dialogue clips from old radio or television shows or records from my parents' collection to break things up, inserting short clips between songs. Another thing to consider is how to end side one. It's really good to end with a song that kind of "caps" the material while still keeping a listener's interest piqued enough that he/she will flip it over and continue. On a lot of my high school-era mix tapes, I would end with the "Now turn the record over" messages from old children's book and record sets.
Cover art from a Besslerama-related CD mix circa 2001
Side two of a mix tape requires another "kick start" track to get things going and the last song for side two should be some kind of long, winding track with a fade-out ending, if possible. Including a track listing with the tape was always a must for me, but cover art was kind of an optional thing. It kind of depended on how I felt about a project. Here's a true story about all this: About a year ago, I ran into a guy that I hadn't seen in over 10 years. One of the first things he mentioned to me – after all those years – was a mix tape that I had made for him over a decade ago. The guy used to work in a record store in downtown Dayton (which is long gone now) and right after Kurt Cobain died, I gave him a mix tape of some rare Nirvana and Cobain stuff. I made some special cover art for the cassette box using overhead transparency plastic to create a kind of 3-D hologram effect on a portrait of Cobain. The guy told me that he still has the tape to this day and he still thinks the artwork is really, really cool. It was pretty amazing to have that kind of recognition after all that time.
Following the advent of recordable CDs and related technology, cassette tapes became more or less a thing of the past. These days, I really feel like creating good, old-fashioned mix tapes is now something of lost art. But affordable media, sound editing software and graphics editing packages do make it pretty easy to create some great mix CDs. Mix CDs are just a little different from mix tapes, particularly because you don't have to break things up between two sides of the media. I made several good mix CDs that were tied to our old "Besslerama" web site, including a special compilation that was given out as an award to a regular site visitor who, as part of a contest on our site, had accurately predicted the date and time of our daughter K.'s birth.
I still have most of my more elaborate mix tape and mix CD projects spanning my high school years through to recent years. Each one of these compilations is like a time capsule of sorts and the selection and arrangement of material in these collections always brings out a lot of feelings when I listen to them. Some of the collections I have are about 15 years old, but I still get each one of them out about once a year , playing them through at least once or twice. It kind of helps me remember where I've been so I can gain some perspective on where I'm going.
I think it's probably time for me to make an official mix tape "soundtrack" for greekish.org. I'll write again with some details soon.
Our good friend Andy Blunden, author of books such as For Ethical Politics and creator of the Hegel-by-Hypertext web archive (among many others), has kindly written the following article for greeklish.org.
25 October this year marks the 90th anniversary of one of the most astounding events in all history. On24 Februarythe Russian people had risen up, overthrown the Tsar and demanded an end to the war.Eight months later, when the democratic government which had taken over from the Tsar had still failed to pull Russia out of the War, workers and soldiers overthrew the government in an almost bloodless revolution, and installed aBolshevikgovernment in its place.
The Bolsheviks made good on their promises and on 3 March 1918 they signed aPeacewith Germany and allowed the Germans to carry away almost everything that could be moved in ‘reparations’ later handed over to the Allies for Germany’s reparations. But the Russian people had put an end to the war insofar as it was in their control and the peasants dumped their guns and went back to their farms!
And what thanks did the Russian people receive for their contribution to world peace? Did Lenin and Trotsky get the Nobel Peace Prize for being the first politicians ever to pull their own country out of a war – and while on the winning side to boot! No, as soon as the war with Germany was over, the young republic, already decimated by war wasinvaded by 14 armieswith the aim of putting big business back in control of Russia. Russia was levelled: Famine and plague stalked the land.
But the Soviet Union did survive, albeit through enormous suffering, and survived for a further 70 years, surviving blockade, invasion and the threat of nuclear annihilation.
If Senates and Houses of Representatives can’t stop Presidents and Prime Ministers from making war, then surely the Russian Revolution showed the way. If you leave politics to the politicians then you can’t complain if what you get is war and terror.
Books (texts not yet online) The Bolshevik Revolution: Its Impact on American Radicals, Liberals and Labor by Philip S. Foner (includes writings by John Reed, Eugene Debs and others) An Illustrated History of the Great October Socialist Revolution: 1917, Month by Month by Albert Nenarokov Russia in Revolution: 1900-1930 by Harrison E. Salisbury
Tuesday night (October 2), I went to the SmackDown And ECW show at Dayton’s EJ Nutter Center. This was the first live wrestling event I’ve attended since King of the Ring back in 1993. Attending the show was yet another chapter in my growing obsession with pro wrestling which was rekindled around a year or so ago. My friend Anthony, who went with me to the SmackDown/ECW show, is at least partially to blame for my renewed interest in wrestling, as he is the only other grown man I know who will openly and proudly admit to watching WWE shows on a regular basis. I was pretty excited about going to the show and I was especially looking forward to the ECW show which would be broadcast live on the Sci Fi channel and include an appearance from one of my current favorites, CM Punk. I even made a sign – yes, a sign – so I could stand out a bit in the teeming crowd of our fellow wrestling geeks. Anthony and I were pretty psyched about the event and once we made it into the building, we started randomly shouting "Woooo!" to see if we could get other people going. That was kind of funny. Once the Smackdown portion of the night started, I kind of lost my mind and started yelling and generally heckling the wrestlers I didn’t like, which is kind of what you do at wrestling shows. I think about 15 or 20 minutes into it, I did end up telling Anthony, "I forgot to mention that I act like a complete fool at these things." Thankfully I wasn’t alone, though, as we were in a section with some like-minded folks. I was particularly proud of the fact that I started the "What?!" chant in our section when The Great Khali made his first appearance of the night. Later on when Matt Hardy came out, I stood up and yelled, "I like your brother better!" I also spent a lot of time screaming, “ohmygod, ohmygod, OHMYGOD” every time there was a near-fall. One of the funniest moments of the night came when they were running footage of Theodore Long’s awful, awful (awful fake, I mean) heart attack during his kayfabe wedding to Kristal. Right at the moment that Theodore hit the ground, Anthony – who had been relatively quiet compared to me up to that point – yelled out, "You killed him, you gold digger!" I just about fell out of my seat.
There were some boring and lackluster matches on the card, but there were some pretty good ones as well. The Tag Team Championship featuring Matt Hardy and MVP vs. Deuce and Domino was really entertaining as was the CM Punk vs. Mike Knox match. Seeing Tommy Dreamer win the Elimination chase was awesome, but it all went to hell when Big Daddy V. came out and obliterated Tommy. The Rey Mysterio versus The Great Khali match was very predictable, but it was pretty exciting to see Rey Mysterio in person. If I remember right, Khali got walloped by a chair-wielding Batista at the end of that match and that was pretty sweet.
As far as I can tell, judging from the ECW show, I didn’t make it on TV despite my best efforts. But SmackDown hasn’t aired yet, so maybe there will be a glimpse of me when it airs on the CW tonight.
Islamist, Socialist Revolutions Don't Mix By Kimia Sanati
TEHRAN, Oct 3 (IPS) - An attempt to rope in the son and daughter of the Argentine revolutionary Ernesto Che Guevara to forge a parallel between Iran’s Islamist revolution and the socialist revolution in Latin America through a four-day conference has ended in fiasco.
After Aleida Guevara protested from the podium against perceived distortions of her father’s ideology by the first Iranian speaker, Haj Saeed Ghasemi, the four-day ‘Che Like Chamran’ conference, that started Sep. 25, was aborted and the Latin American guests whisked away.
Che looks to the horizon
[...]
...Ghasemi, who is associated with Iran’s Esteshhadiyoun (volunteers of suicide operations) must take credit for scuttling the conference. Referring to a translated version of a Che Guevara book that he held in his hand, he said Che Guevara was religious and believed in God. "The people of Cuba, Fidel (Casro) and Che Guevara were never socialists or communists. Fidel has several times admitted that he and Che and the people of Cuba hated the Soviets for all they had done.’’
''Today communism has been thrown into the trash bin of history as it was predicted by Ayatollah Khomeini," Ghasemi told the conference and added that the only way to save the world was through the ‘’the religious, pro-justice movement’’.
An indignant Aleida, however, started her own address "in the name of the people of Cuba". "We are a socialist nation," she asserted. She also said the people of Cuba were grateful to the Soviet Union and there had never been any discord between the two nations, as mentioned by Ghasemi. She advised him to "always refer to original sources instead of translations to find out about Che Guevara’s beliefs".
"My father never talked about God. He never met God. My father knew there was no absolute truth,’’ Aleida said, responding to Ghasemi’s speech. The coverage of her address by state-sponsored news agencies like ISNA was brief and excluded most of her contradictory remarks.
At a meeting later with students of Amir Kabir University of Technology, where the leftist groups are particularly strong, Camilo Guevara told students he approved of all that his sister had said at the conference, ISNA reported.
[...]
Mohammad Jaffar Irani, a reformist student activist, was quoted by ISNA as pointing out that the same group that organised the conference had always considered Che Guevara an atheist. "If anyone other than the (hardline) group that organised this event had done so they would have gotten into a great deal of trouble,’’ he was quoted saying.
"The organisers of the event were hardline supporters of Ahmadinejad who have nothing in common with leftists, even the Islamic leftists of the early days of the (Iranian) revolution. President Ahmadinejad has in fact much in common with President Bush, although he may sound very ‘leftist’," an observer in Tehran told IPS on condition of anonymity.
"Leftist countries must realise that if the issues that make the Iranian hardliners confront the West such as its demand to be accepted to the nuclear club are resolved, today’s leftist allies may instantly turn into their common enemies," he said.
I know it's probably hard to believe, but I am practically ready to declare "Fire Pro Wrestling Returns" my favorite video game ever without ever having played it. The game isn't even available in the US yet. I read about it a few months ago after finding an article during my daily Google News search for wrestling gossip. Apparently, Fire Pro debuted in Japan many years ago and it was a big hit there. There were some attempts at releasing US versions, but the effort never really picked up momentum. Even still, "Fire Pro Wrestling" is something of a legend in the US. So, the news that there will finally be a US version that is easy to fund and very affordable is creating quite a buzz on the Internet.
