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I check our web site's statistics pretty regularly and I have noticed that every so often, somebody hits our site while Googling the name "Ratamyus." (The name is also spelled "Ratamyas" in some places, but "Ratamyus" seems to be more common.) This happens as a result of an article I wrote last year on my secret love for old-school wrestling promotions from the Kentucky/Tennessee area. Ratamyus (Bill Howard) was a legendary heel who took on Randy Savage back in 1982 in a long feud that ended in a gruesome steel cage match at Lexington's Rupp Arena (I got to see the whole thing on television a week or so after the actual event). Probably the best, most extensive overview of the Ratamyus story line was penned by Eric Westlund and it's part of the ICW (Poffo) series on the Kayfabe Memories web site.
Anyway, it's pretty cool that there are a few folks out there that seem to remember this very creepy and bizarre character. But oddly enough, there don't seem to be any pictures of Ratamyus available on the Internet. In fact, the first hit I found (out of only 160 or so) when I Googled "Ratamyus" tonight was from a thread in which somebody was asking what Ratamyus looked like and why he was so scary. So as a public service, I have decided to post a picture of Ratamyus below. The best I can do is this photo of my television screen featuring a still frame from an old ICW tape. I think this show was from mid-1982 and the picture is a close-up of Ratamyus after he interfered in a match between Tony Falk and Ron Sexton. He also managed to spit a mouthful of green stuff on the show's promoter before he was driven off by a bunch of other guys. Enjoy!
Note: All links below lead to the respective YouTube videos unless otherwise noted.
Despite the fact that I stay pretty busy these days, I still squeeze in a little time these days to surf around on YouTube. I am guessing that YouTube's site content grows exponentially every few weeks, so there is always something new to discover there and it's becoming easier to find even the most obscure stuff, even for someone with fairly eclectic tastes..Like, me for example...
The live version of Dinata Dinata by Eleftheria Arvanitaki is one of my favorite Greek songs ever (thanks, of course, to Antonis for sharing this with me), but I must confess that I like the skyladikoversion by Antique as well (sorry, Antonis!) I like the Antique megamix video as well.
Indian music and Bollywood films are still fascinating to me and there are plenty of good videos from this genre on YouTube. I typically like the classics, such as Pyar Kiya Tho Darna Kya from Mughal-E-Azam and Chalte Chalte from the film Pakeezah. The great song Mehbooba Mehbooba from the movie Sholay is also posted along with a few others from the same film. The Kishore Kumar/Asha Bhosle song Aap Yahan Aaye Kis Liye used to be posted on YouTube, but unfortunately, it appears to be gone from the site for the time being. Some of my more recent favorites, like Maye Ni Maye and the Rang De Basanti song Khalbali (which includes some dramatizations of the imprisonment of Bhagat Singh) are also on YouTube and are great to watch again and again.
And how cool is it to find original, old-school Venom videos online? Seriously. Cheers to the dude that posted the Witching Hour & Bloodlust videos! His introductory note says it all: "No need to explain Venom. If I have to, you neither deserve to live or watch this video." Tee hee. This Witching Hour video was the first Venom video I ever saw, way back in 1989 or thereabouts. Over a decade and a half later I am still hooked! Hail Venom! (But don't take this stuff too seriously, folks.)
A few folks have also posted the video for Danger! High Voltage by Electric Six. This video is one of the strangest – as well as one of thefunniest – videos I have ever seen. And I love that huge guitar sound! If it hadn't been for the local public access show "Pirate TV," probably never would have seen this video. Great, great stuff.
If old-school Championship Wrestling from Memphis is your thing, there are a few gems on YouTube, including some highlights from the classic Jerry Lawler/Nick Bockwinkel feud. Unfortunately, my favorite clip from this period is not posted yet: Lawler's controversial victory over Bockwinkel at the Mid-South Colosseum back in the early 1980's. If you're more of an ICW fan, you might want to check out the clip featuring Macho Man Randy Savage reading Dr Seuss! It know it's just an impression, but it's close enough to the real thing and it's a real hoot!
And a tip of the hat to my pal Panos Fidis for posting a series of short films chronicling thehistory of the KKE.
Then there's this...Probably the coolest thing I have ever seen on YouTube: The live version of Boikot's version of the classic Carlos Puebla song Hasta Siempre. This video has it all, including archival footage of Che Guevara in action along with the brilliant lyrics of Puebla and a massive "guitar-god" sound. You can view this video by clicking on the clicking on the "play" button in the lower left corner of the image below.
By the way, don't look for the fat cats at Target's corporate headquarters to make the call to carry any Boikot albums in Target stores anytime soon. Cheap trinkets that are mass produced through exploitive labor practices in the third world are apparently less offensive to Target management than Che's image (read the story here). I was reading a little about this online and I saw that some pompous right-wing blogger posted an "attaboy" article to the folks at Target for pulling a CD case that features Che from Target's store shelves. The guy described Che as having been "in charge of execution squads in Cuba that murdered over 1,000 people." It is true that Che oversaw the death sentences of many of Batista's henchmen. These henchmen were villainous monsters who had brutalized and repressed the Cuban people for many years. So let's compare notes, shall we? How many innocent Iraqi civilians have been killed by the Bush administration since the 2003 invasion? At least 30,000, you say? That's a rather conservative estimate these days, isn't it? But on Target.com, you can still buy a signed photograph of Curt Schilling with President George W. Bush. (click here to view) Go figure.
A couple of weeks ago, in an effort to avoid having to watch "Alvin and the Chipmunks Meet Frankenstein" for the third night in a row, I suggested to Baby Z. that we watch something else that was kind of spooky but kind of silly. Baby Z. agreed, so I got out my old, old VHS copy of Iron Maiden’s "Live After Death" show and I cued it up to the part in "Powerslave" (view the full clip here) where their giant mascot Eddie comes out dressed like a mummy and dances with the band. She loved it and she now regularly asks to watch “the Eddie monster.” She cackles and says, “I like that Eddie monster. He dances with them.” In fact, as I write this, Baby Z. has just asked me to rewind the tape so she can see it for the second time today. Man, my kids are going to be so cool!
In 1979,Dave Widgerywrote of his "love" forE. Sylvia Pankhurstin a Radical America piece entitledSylvia Pankhurst: Pioneer of Working Class Feminism. The article was written almost two full decades after Sylvia’s death in 1960 and even today, it still serves as a concise yet insightful summary of her struggle as a legendary champion of women and the working class. In his assessment of her work and character, Widgery made careful note of Sylvia’s most important contributions to the revolutionary movement:
There are those in political movements who make original and creative advances in theory, those who can communicate established political ideas imaginatively, and those who have the gift of organising to make political change. She always insisted on doing all three.
It was just recently that I became somewhat familiar with the work and writings of Sylvia Pankhurst. I had heard a little about her here and there, most notably in Widgery’s article, but prior to that, I had read a little of her in Lenin’s "Left-Wing Communism: an Infantile Disorder", a piece which gave Sylvia some notoriety as she was a rather prominent discussion topic in the section entitled "Left-Wing" Communism in Great Britain. According to Widgery:
It is a very good example of the masculine bias of the revolutionary movement that she is generally known as no more than a woman who received the blunt end of the Lenin pamphlet, Left Wing Communism, an Infantile Disorder. (In the same way, Kollontai, until she was rescued by modern socialist feminists, was known, if known at all, simply for her role in the Workers’ Opposition.) In the revolutionary movement, like everywhere else, women have to do better than men before they achieve equal recognition.
Lenin and Pankhurst had corresponded directly some time before he authored Left-Wing Communism, as evidenced in his August 28, 1919 letter to Sylvia Pankhurstin which he laid out the framework for his critiques in the aforementioned work. And, indeed, Sylvia did have to work hard to gain recognition from her fellow revolutionaries, and in some cases her struggle led to political difficulties and personal detriment. She was expelled from the Suffragettes in 1914 and later by the CPGB following significant political differences with both organizations. In 1919, Sylvia was tried for agitating amongst British forces. At her trial, Sylvia pulled no punches as she told the trial judge of her contempt for the military-industrial complex and the exploiting classes:
"I started four clinics and have sat up night after night with the little ones. I also set up a day nursery but all my experience shows me it was useless to try to palliate an impossible system. It is the wrong system and has got to be smashed. I would give my life to smash it."
Although she had masterfully crystallized the sentiments of the revolutionary movement in just a few short sentences, she went on to author more detailed critiques of capitalism and imperialism in later years. Her 1923 work Socialism (an article from Worker's Dreadnought) is one such example. In this work, she wrote:
Our desire is not to make poor those who to-day are rich, in order to put the poor in the place where the rich now are. Our desire is not to pull down the present rulers to put other rulers in their places.
We wish to abolish poverty and to provide abundance for all.
We do not call for limitation of births, for penurious thrift, and self-denial. We call for a great production that will supply all, and more than all the people can consume.
Such a great production is already possible, with the knowledge already possessed by mankind.
Sylvia accomplished much through her life’s work. She traveled far and touched many. She was a prolific writer and a radical activist who endured arrest and political and physical isolation for her causes. In the 1930’s, she supported the republicans of the Spanish Civil War and during World War II, she aided Jewish refugees as they fled Nazi Germany. Following the Italian invasion of Ethiopia, she became an avowed and outspoken antifascist. She wrote extensively on conditions in Ethiopa and she went on to author a volume on Ethiopian art and culture, raising Western awareness regarding life in the African country. She also went on to fund Ethiopia’s first teaching hospital in later years and she ultimately left Europe with her son in 1956 to live in Addis Ababa where she remained until her death.
It’s easy to understand and appreciate Dave Widgery’s feelings of admiration affection for Sylvia Pankhurst after spending just a little time getting to know Sylvia through her work and her writings. There’s an old, relatively obscure Beatles song called "To Know Her is to Love Her". When it comes to Sylvia, the song's title certainly rings true.
This article was written for Thomai. To know her is to love her.
Last Saturday (11-25), I made it to the 2006 Mid-Ohio Con at the Convention Center in downtown Columbus. I haven't been to many comic book conventions and this one was the biggest I have ever attended. I was accompanied by "The Notorious HDG" who graciously gave up his Saturday as a swinging bachelor to experience the heights of comic book geekdom firsthand. I brought my "wants list" with me again, but once I hit the door and saw booth after booth of Golden Age comics, original comic artwork and all kinds of rare issues, I became hopelessly over stimulated. I was pretty overwhelmed by the number of booths and the types of material they were selling and for a while I was pretty sure that I would never be able to find anything I was looking for in such a vast sea of comics and memorabilia.
Captain Marvel Adventures #139 December, 1952
I eventually got my bearings and I quickly made note of a handful of Airboy issues at a California dealer's booth. After a while, I made my way to the Fearless Readers booth and found a really fantastic copy of Captain Marvel Adventures #139 that was straight from the days of the Korean War. The cover featured Captain Marvel going head-to-head with a villain called "The Red Crusher." (Gotta love that cheesy Cold War-era "commie smasher" stuff. – in small doses, anyway...) The proprietor generously cut me a deal on the sticker price and then agreed to hold it for me while I did some more shopping.
It was pretty cool to just wander around and see so much comic history in one place. I have seen some noteworthy books at shops and shows in the past, but I have never seen so many amazing things at one event. One dealer from Detroit had a copy of Bat Man #1 on display along with copies of Air Fighters #1 and Whiz #5 (I actually had those two comics in my hands for a second or two until I found their respective price tags...I can't recall what the Whiz issue was going for, but the Air Fighters book was $850!) At another booth, a guy had three genuine copies of Amazing Fantasy #15 (the first appearance of Spider-Man) and I also spotted some original Bat Man cover art from the 1970's. And there were tons and tons of Golden Age books, including low number issues of All-Star Comics, Star-Spangled Comics and many others.
After browsing for quite a while, I had all but given up on finding any of the specific issues from my "wants list," so I decided to try and fill some gaps in my Airboy and Real Clue collections. I went back to the place where I had found those issues earlier in the day and worked out a deal to land a few issues from those titles. I had also located a copy of one of my "all-time wants" for my collection, Captain Marvel Adventures #100 ("The Plot Against the Universe"). Unfortunately, the price was a little too high for my liking and the guy wasn't too willing to deal. It looked as if the book would slip through my fingers this time around.
Captain Marvel Adventures #100 September, 1949
I stopped at a booth that I had missed earlier and I decided to take another shot at some of the books on my wants list. Right away, I found a copy of Charlton's Special War, volume 4, number 4 (the first appearance of Judo Master). It was kind of a pleasant surprise, even though it was a little more that what I wanted to pay. I told the seller that I was hoping to pay a little less and he pointed to a sign that indicated that all items above $25 were discounted – plus, the more money I spent, the better the discount. So I had a look around for New Gods #1 and sure enough, the guy had a copy of that as well. Interestingly enough, the price was just a fraction of a rather hefty tag that I had seen for the same issue a couple of booths over and I got a great discount to boot! So I made out rather well at that particular stop. I ended up passing on some original Firestorm artwork and a pretty rare copy of an issue of Liberty Comics from the 1940's.
On the way out, I decided to bite the bullet and buy the copy of Captain Marvel Adventures #100, even though the price was a little steep. The dealer turned out to be a pretty decent fellow, as he knocked a couple of bucks off after all. He also chatted with me a bit about the fact that he had just acquired the book a couple of days beforehand and he talked about the exceptional condition of the book and the relatively rare use of silver ink on its cover. Incidentally, this completes my list of my three most sought-after comics, so I guess I'd better start on another list!)
All in all, it was a great show even though I went a little over budget this time around. Just a couple more months until the Gem City Comic Con in Dayton. I'm really looking forward to April 2007!
Extra special thanks to the good folks at Fearless Readers!
A couple of weeks ago, in an effort to avoid having to watch "
