CNN article on new documentary of footage shot inside the WTC

What do you think?

Listen, I admit I haven't watched WWF in quite some time, but I was able to to some viewing last night. Fortunately, I turned the TV on just in time to see Steph's considerable assets being held back by a piece of latex...always a good start.

Anywho....the meeting between Rock and Hogan. The initial pop was pretty damned good seeing those two guys go face to face. Crossthreading a bit though (thanks Sean) Hogan definitely has mic rust....the Rock torched his ass through the entire segment.

One thing I noticed is just how fucking big Hogan's arms STILL are....the Rock is no small man, but Hogan's guns are huge! The other thing I noticed is just how young Rock looked standing next to Hogan....now I know Rock is around 30 and Hogan, well........he could be any one of our parents, myself included I think.

But, fellow fuck-ups...is this really a dream match? Now, Hogan in his prime vs. Rock in his prime.....definitely one for the ages, but this....more like one for the aged.

Whaddya think?

let's face it most movies stink and what makes it worse are the shitty, "happy" endings that they have. So what I want to do is describe how you'd end a movie that would make it far better.

E.g.

John Q: The cops shoot John Q's heart out, the son swallows his heart and gets better
any romantic movie: Completely, gory conclusion taking the audience by surprise
NAVY Seals: The entire platoon i s wiped out by ninjas



Edited By IkeaBoy on Feb. 19 2002 at 01:21

Quote:Bush Robot Debuts at Disney Theme Park in Floria
Mon Feb 18, 4:21 PM ET
By Broward Liston

ORLANDO, Florida (Reuters) - President Bush (news - web sites) was given a place in a pantheon of sorts on Monday as the Walt Disney World theme park dedicated a robotic replica of the U.S. president.

The Bush robot, whose inspiration is now on an Asian tour, took its place at Disney's Hall of Presidents attraction among a robotic roster of 42 chief executives dating back to George Washington. The unveiling came on the Presidents Day U.S. holiday.

The robotic pols -- which Disney describe as Animatronic -- move and turn, occasionally rising to their feet and sometimes speaking, to audiences in a patriotic tableau conceived by the late Walt Disney.

Richard Nixon was president when Disney World in central Florida opened, and each new president since has been added to the exhibit.

But only newer presidents Bill Clinton and Bush have been allowed to speak, though the Clinton robot has been silenced by the attraction's organizers.

"It took awhile for the technology to get good enough," said Patrick Brennan, Disney World's director for show design.

"After all, nobody today really knows what Lincoln sounded like or how he moved. But our current presidents we see on television every day, so it's harder to make them believable."

The hardest part is not the eyes or mouth, but getting the body movements aligned with the voice, Brennan said.

AUDIENCES KNOW RIGHT AWAY

People may not think a great deal about how Bush or Clinton move their hands or tilt their heads while speaking, but audiences know right away when it isn't right, according to Brennan.

For the robotic Bush's head, Disney lured one of its master artisans out of retirement, 81-year-old George Blaine, just as they have for every president since Ronald Reagan (news - web sites). Blaine worked with Walt Disney on the original exhibit.

The attraction captures each at the time of his first inauguration, when public trust has not been disturbed by scandal or disappointment.

So Robo-Clinton never had to explain Monica Lewinsky and Robo-Bush does not have to explain why his definition of an axis of nations differs from the dictionary definition.

In fact, Robo-Bush was perfect in his delivery on Monday.

The real President Bush has not always been so lucky. Earlier Monday, on an Asian tour, he briefly rattled the Japanese yen on foreign exchange markets when he confused the words "devaluation" and "deflation." (Just like the real guy!! )

The speech delivered by the Disney Bush was recorded by the real president in the Oval Office last year. The flag pin he wears is a replica of the one Bush wore in his post-Sept. 11 speech when he urged the nation to return to it normal ways with the words "Go to Disney World." (that is wrong but not surprising)

Disney officials said that no former president has ever seen his piston-and-pulley alter ego, though many of the First Ladies have. Rosalyn Carter, wife of former President Jimmy Carter, did not like the suit her robot husband wore, so she sent a new one. Walt Disney

Just an interesting article I thought I'd pass along. This was written by Irvin Muchnick in 1992 for the Village Voice, but for some reason, never made it to publication. Warning: it's long.

Quote:FOR VINCE MCMAHON, THE HUNDRED MILLION Dollar Man, wrestler Jimmy (Superfly) Snuka made for a challenging tag-team partner. The World Wrestling Federation’s second-most-popular star in the early eighties, Snuka was an illiterate immigrant from Fiji, prone to bouts with the law that threatened his green card, and a drug abuser who often missed bookings. During a Middle East tour in the summer of 1985, fellow wrestlers say, customs officials in Kuwait caught him with controlled substances taped to his body, and he was allowed to leave the country only after some fancy footwork.

But Snuka’s near-*Midnight Express* experience in the Persian Gulf was child’s play compared to what happened on May 10, 1983. That night, after finishing his last match at the WWF TV taping at the Lehigh County Agricultural Hall in Allentown, Pennsylvania, he returned to Room 427 of the George Washington Motor Lodge in nearby Whitehall to find his girlfriend of nearly a year, Nancy Argentino, gasping for air. Two hours later, this 23-year-old wrestling fan – who'd worked as a dentist’s assistant in Brooklyn and dropped out of Brooklyn Community College to travel with Snuka – was pronounced dead at Allentown Sacred Heart Medical Center of “undetermined craniocerebral injuries.”

“Upon viewing the body and speaking to the pathologist, I immediately suspected foul play and so notified the district attorney,” Lehigh County Coroner Wayne Snyder told me on a recent trip to Allentown. In ’83, Snyder was deputy to Coroner Robert Weir.

Yet no charges were filed in the case, no coroner’s inquest was held, and no evidence was presented to a grand jury. Officially the case is still open – meaning Argentino’s death was never ruled either an accident or a homicide – though the original two-month-long investigation has been inactive for nine years. Under Pennsylvania’s unusually broad exemptions from freedom of information laws, the Whitehall Township Police Department has so far refused my requests for access to the file.

Of particular interest would be two documents: the autopsy and the transcript of the interrogation of Snuka immediately thereafter. One local official involved in the investigation, as well as one of the Argentino family’s lawyers, told me the autopsy showed marks on the victim other than the fractured skull. And former Whitehall police supervisor of detectives Al Fitzinger remembered that the forensic pathologist, Dr. Isadore Mihalakis, confronted Snuka to ask him why he’d waited so long before calling an ambulance. Gerald Procanyn, the current supervisor of detectives, who worked on the case nine years ago, maintained that Snuka cooperated fully with investigators after being informed of his right to have a lawyer present, and was accompanied only by McMahon. Another investigator, however, saw things differently; he said Snuka invoked his naïve jungle-boy wrestler’s gimmick as a way of playing dumb. “I’ve seen that trick before,” the investigator said. “He was letting McMahon act as his mouthpiece.”

Another curious circumstance was the presence at the interrogation of William Platt, the county district attorney. According to experts, chief prosecutors rarely interview suspects, especially in early stages of investigations, for the obvious reason that they may become witnesses and hence have to recuse themselves from handling the subsequent trials.

Detective Procanyn gave me the following summary of Snuka’s story: On the afternoon before she died, Snuka and his girlfriend were driving his purple Lincoln Continental from Connecticut to Allentown for the WWF taping. They’d been drinking, and they stopped by the side of the road – the spot was never determined, but perhaps it was near the intersection of Routes 22 and 33 – to relieve their bladders. In the process, Argentino slipped on mossy ground near a guard rail and struck the back of her head. Thinking nothing of it, she proceeded to drive the car the rest of the way to the motel (Snuka didn’t have a driver’s license) and, after they checked in, picked up take-out food at the nearby City View Diner. Snuka had no idea she was in any kind of distress until he returned late that night from the matches at the Agricultural Hall. Procanyn said Snuka’s story never wavered, and no contradictory evidence was found.

Curiously, contemporary news coverage, such as the front page of the next day’s Allentown Morning Call, made no mention of a scenario of peeing by the roadside; it focused, instead, on the question of whether Argentino fell or was pushed in the motel room. Nine years later the reporter, Tim Blangger, vividly recalled that at one point in his interview of Procanyn, the detective grabbed him by the shoulders in a speculative reenactment of how Snuka might have shoved the woman more strongly than he intended.

Procacyn also claimed to have no knowledge of any subsequent action by the Argentino family, except for a few communications between a lawyer and D.A. Platt over settling the funeral bill. In fact, the Argentinos commissioned two separate private investigations, and it’s difficult to believe that Procanyn was unaware of them. The first investigator, New York lawyer Richard Cushing, traveled to Allentown, conducted extensive interviews, and aggressively demanded access to medical records and other files. “It was a very peculiar situation,” Cushing told me. “I came away feeling Snuka should have been indicted. The police and the D.A. felt otherwise. The D.A. seemed like a nice enough person who wanted to do nothing. There was fear, I think, on two counts: fear of the amount of money the World Wrestling Federation had, and physical fear of the size of these people.”

Even so, Cushing declined to represent the family in a wrongful-death civil suit against Snuka. The lawyer cited the fact that Snuka and Argentino weren’t married, that they didn’t have children, and that she wasn’t working, which would make it difficult to establish loss of consortium. “Moreover, Vince McMahon made it clear to me that her reputation would be besmirched. As a lawyer, I had to determine if a contingency [fee] was in order; my business decision, not my moral judgment, was no. The family wasn’t pleased. They had a typical working-class family’s anger that justice wasn’t done.”

Through the generosity of Nancy Argentino’s father’s boss, the family then retained a Park Avenue law firm. The report filed by its private investigator shows that Snuka was as creative outside the ring as he was inside it. To the Whitehall police officer who responded to the first emergency call, Snuka said “he and Nancy were fooling around outside the motel room door when he inadvertently pushed Nancy and she fell striking her head.” An emergency room nurse heard him state that “they were very tired and they got into an argument resulting in an accidental pushing incident. Ms. Argentino fell back and hit her head.” In the official police interrogation, Snuka first floated the peed-on-the-roadside theory. Finally, in a meeting with the hospital chaplain, he said he and Argentino had been stopped by the side of the road and had a lovers’ quarrel: “He accidentally shoved Ms. Argentino who then fell backwards hitting her head on the pavement. They then arrived at the motel and went to bed. The next morning Ms. Argentino complained that she was ill and stayed in bed…. When he came home from the taping, he observed that Ms. Argentino was clearly in bad shape.”

In 1985, the Argentinos obtained a $500,000 default judgment against Snuka in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia. The family never collected a dime; Snuka’s lawyers withdrew from the case, stating that they hadn’t been paid, and Snuka filed an affidavit claiming he was broke and unemployed and owed the IRS $75,000 in back taxes. Since ’83, the 49-year-old Snuka has been in and out of rehab centers and has wrestled off and on both in Japan and throughout this country. His original WWF stint extended two and a half years past Argentino’s death; his most recent ended earlier this year. According to the wrestling grapevine, he’s now trying to promote independent shows in, of all places, Salt Lake City, but my efforts to track him down there were unsuccessful.

Proving negligence, of course, is different than proving involuntary manslaughter or murder. But critics of the criminal investigation find fishy the failure of the police to examine seriously Snuka’s history of drug abuse and violence against women. Former wrestling great Buddy Rogers, who’d been hired by McMahon to serve as Snuka’s TV “manager” and to get him to important matches on time, said he stopped driving with the Superfly after he brazenly snorted coke when they were in the car together. “Jimmy could be a sweet person, but on that stuff he was totally uncontrollable,” said Rogers, who was also Snuka’s neighbor on Coles Mill Road in Haddonfield, New Jersey. Snuka’s wife, with whom he had four children, befriended Rodgers’ wife. “Jimmy used to beat the shit out of that woman,” Rogers said. “She would show up at our house, bruised and battered. But she couldn’t leave him – he had her hooked on the same junk he was using.”

Nancy Argentino’s younger sister remembered once being threatened by Snuka when they were alone at the family’s home in Flatbush. “I could kick you and put my hands around your throat and nobody would know,” he allegedly said. After Nancy’s death, family members said, they received a series of phone calls from a woman who identified herself as a former Snuka girlfriend who’d tried to warn Nancy away from him. Snuka, said the woman, had once broken her ribs, and had a thing about pushing women back against walls.

Finally, there was the incident involving Snuka and Argentino at a Howard Johnson’s in Salina, N.Y., outside Syracuse, just three months before Allentown. The motel owner, hearing noise from their room, called the police, who found Snuka and Argentino running naked down the hallway. It took eight deputy sheriffs and a police dog to subdue Snuka. Argentino sustained a bruise of her right thumb. Snuka pleaded guilty to violent felony assault with intent to cause injury, received a conditional discharge on counts of third-degree assault, harassment, and obstruction of a government official, and donated $1,500 to a deputy sheriffs’ survivors’ fund. Whitehall police later decided this was all the result of “a nervous desk clerk,” Detective Procanyn told me.

* * *

ACCORDING TO ATTORNEY CUSHING, MCMAHON MADE a remark at one point in their discussions that was at once insightful and chilling. “Look, I’m in the garbage business,” the promoter said. “If you think I’m going to be hurt by the revelation that one of my wrestlers is really a violent individual, you’re mistaken.”

Six months after Nancy Argentino died, the Village Voice ran a prescient article entitled “Mat Madness” by the late columnist Arthur Bell, weather vane of the lower-Manhattan gay-arts demimonde. After attending a Madison Square Garden show headlined by a bout between Superfly Snuka and The Magnificent Muraco, Bell, who knew next to nothing about wrestling, commented on the spectacle’s graphic references to bodily functions and on its barely sublimated undercurrents of sexual dominance and sadomasochism. “Take my word,” Bell declared, “by the end of 1984 wrestling will be the most popular sport in New York since mugging.” He concluded with a vignette at the Garden stage exit, where a swarm of fans, led by a woman named Bea from West Orange, converged to taunt the wrestlers as they emerged in their street clothes.

“Hey, Superfly,” Bea shouted to Snuka. “You goddam fuckin’ murderer. When are you gonna kill another girl?”

# # #


Copyright 1986-2001 Irvin Muchnick

Ever watch a movie and been completely blown away by an actor/actresses performance. Then you think how perfect they were and that no one else could have pulled it off. Like thinking back that they considered Charles Bronson for the part of Vito Corleone instead of marlon Brando. Or Ronald Regan was considered before Bogart for Rick Blaine in Casablanca.

What are some of your top performances where you could never picture anyone else doing as good a job?

Steve McQueen - Pappilon
Jack Nicholson - A Few Good Men, Cuckoo's Nest
Robert De Niro - Taxi Driver, Raging Bull
F. Murray Abraham - Amadues
Marlon Brando - Godfather, Streetcar Named Desire
Al Pacino - Godfather series, Scarface
Humphrey Bogart - Casablanca
Denzel Washington - Malcolm X, Glory
John Travolta - Pulp Fiction
Gary Oldman - State of Grace
Danny Glover & Mel Gibson - Lethal Weapon series
Joe Pesci - Goodfellas
Martin Landau - Ed Wood
Laurence Olivier - Marathon Man
Paul Newman - The Hustler, Cool Hand Luke
Kevin Spacey - Usual Suspects
Gabriel Byrne - Millers Crossing
Pierce Brosnan - James Bond movies



Edited By GonzoStyle on Feb. 18 2002 at 3:59

The Bucs finally got their coach.....After more than a month without a coach, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers finally have the man they wanted almost from the start: Jon Gruden.


After spending the weekend in negotiations with San Francisco coach Steve Mariucci, the Bucs reversed field Monday and hired Gruden, who had a year left on his contract with the Oakland Raiders but had indicated he would not stay around after it expired after next season.

A source close to the Buccaneers told ESPN's Sal Paolantonio that Gruden has a five-year deal worth $17.5 million, or $3.5 million per season.

As compensation for Gruden, the Raiders will receive first- and second-round draft picks in 2002, a first-round pick in 2003, and a second-round pick in 2004, the source told Paolantonio. Oakland will not receive any cash or any players.

- Undertaker and Steve Austin have recently spoken up to colleagues with thoughts regarding the signings of Scott Hall, Kevin Nash and Hulk Hogan. Both have publically stated that they have worked too hard in the past few years to bring the WWF up to the stature that it is today to simply sacrifice to people who aren't going to work for it. Austin and Taker have also both made it clear that they will not sell any "crappy offense". Conversely, Triple H has defended all three nWo members to wrestlers.

- There are also rumors that Eric Bischoff will join the nWo within the next few months. The WWF had previously attempted to sign Bischoff but those talks fell through. However, now reports indicate that Bischoff to the WWF is a "lock".

- Here is what the WWF is tentatively planning for Wrestlemania:

Chris Jericho vs. Triple H
The Rock vs. Hulk Hogan
Steve Austin vs. Scott Hall
Undertaker vs. Kevin Nash or Undertaker/Kane vs. Kevin Nash & X-Pac

- Scott Hall has already made an unfavorable impression on WWF management and wrestlers. Apparently one of the things he did to annoy some of his colleagues is walk up to an unknown wrestler and tell him that he would kick out of his finisher for no apparent reason.

- After PPV cut off on TV, the nWo left the arena (which took a while), Scott Hall made his way back down to the ring to attack Stone Cold some more. However, Austin caught him in a Stunner, KOing the nWo member. Afterwards, Austin began to head down the ramp, only to turn back around immediately & had about three or four beers tossed his way. He exited to his theme music. After he was gone, Sgt. Slaughter came out, and made sure that Scott Hall left the arena with no further troubles from him. At any given time fifty refs can be out there, but when the Sarge comes out they all pay attention. After Hall left to the nWo theme.

- There's an interesting article at TSN that gives an overview of the nWo's debut at last night's No Way Out PPV. It discusses their legitimate backstage heat, crowd reaction, and some photos from the PPV including one of Austin with "nWo" spraypainted across his back at the end of the night. Click Here to read the article in its entirety.

- Although things can change at any time in the WWF, the rumored Undertaker vs. Kevin Nash match at WrestleMania 18 isn't in the current plans according to the WrestlingObserver.

- For those interested in this sort of thing, after last night's No Way Out PPV, the odds of Hulk Hogan being the WWF Champion on December 31, 2002 jumped from 25-1 to 16-1 according to the William Hill agency.

- The WWF has informed Rey Misterio Jr. that they will get back to him around Wrestlemania with an offer after the split occurs and depending on if they go ahead by promoting the cruiserweight division. They also reportedly told Misterio to start accepting indy bookings in the meantime.

- It looks like there may be a new face at the announcer's table in the near future according to 1wrestling. The WWF is in the process of adding Orlando, FL sports talk show host and former Orlando Rage (XFL) radio announcer, Marc Loyd, to the staff as he has already been offered the job and has stated that he will take the job. All that remains to be done are the minor details. Marc landed the spot after interviewing wrestlers backstage. His role has yet to be determined as of this report.

- As of his examination last week, Chris Benoit's doctor, Dr. Lloyd Youngblood, has told him that it will be a mininimum of three months before he is able to return to the WWF. He is officially out of any Wrestlemania match as a result and the WWF has now publically begun stating this.

- Even though she was featured on the WWF history video over the past few weeks, there is said to be no interest being given to bringing back Madusa to the WWF as part of the women's division.

- Scott Hall and Kevin Nash have begun lobbying to the WWF to get their friend X-Pac into the nWo. However, as of last week, they were unsuccessful in their attempts. Many believe that some members of WWF management have heat with X-Pac for comments he recently made criticizing the light heavyweight division.

- Apart from pitching the idea of the WWF hiring Disco Inferno as a television writer, Kevin Nash has also apparently suggested to WWF officials that they consider hiring Mark Madden as a color commentator once the roster split occurs.

- Chris Harvard from the First Tough Enough is considered by many on the indy scene to have a better attitude than his counterpart Josh Matthews, who has already earned a reputation of acting aloof while in the company of other wrestlers.

- It is believed that Eric Bischoff will likely not be offered any sort of contract with the upstart XWF. Apparently Bischoff's former secretary Janie Engle has had a lot of criticism for her former boss, while Jimmy Hart has some heat with Bischoff for not giving him much of a role in the creative aspect of WCW.

- Speaking of Jimmy Hart, he is telling friends that he turned down a contract offer from the WWF because he has many friends in XWF. However, people believe that although Hulk Hogan pitched Hart to the WWF, the company never really officially offered him anything.

It appears that 50megs.com has stopped hotlinking to their site. Could someone that uses that as their host please confirm. If they have stopped hotlinking, you guys may want to look for a new host.