Nostalgia as...... Power?

If I search this website of how many times I've wrote the word, "nostalgia", it is actually quite often.... it comes up frequently and often.... it seems. I've mentioned it many times and in many different connotations and attributed it in different ways to many different people or characters. 

I'm in my middle-age now and remembering older times is something I notice I tend to do often now-a-times... for better or for worse... most likely for worse, I'd say. Holding on to the past is sort of a bad thing, actually.

Yes... I've written about it a surprising amount of times it seems.

Jean Shepherd hates it.
Jello Biafra thinks it doesn't exist.
The Final Fantasy VII Remake made us fight it.
The Residents think it makes old men drunk from it.
South Park seems to think it grows on trees like farmable berries.
Kazuma Kiryu can unlock in-game achievements as he runs around Kamurocho. 

This is a word I write about often. It is a word I think about often.

Tonight, let us think again about that powerful concept... called "Nostalgia"..... 

A well-known and not-so-understood concept. I personally agree with the people who say it is a bad thing... I, too, feel it is a bad thing. People think of the past as a better place and want to go back there somehow even though they can't... but was the past even better to begin with? No, it wasn't... the past actually sucked. It sucked a lot more than people remembering it sucking.

"....and watch old men getting drunk on nostalgia. Reliving their imaginary glory..." 
-"The Old Soldier," The Residents

The Old Soldier is a pretty dreary song. Sad stuff... leitmotifs, mumbling... and eerie beats. They are right though.... Nostalgia is in the realm of coughing old men who smoked too much and who are either minutes or hours away from either many of millions of dollars... or... just Father Time... with a gun. All that glory they think back on was probably imaginary to begin with anyway. Just a mis-remembered mental tapestry of imaginary glory.

Yeah, I'm midden-aged now, and I too am probably an old soldier. Nostalgia to me is also that dreary, honestly... it's a sad thing like a old man getting drunk off of low-class swill... talking about how good Ty Cobb used to be at baseball or how great it was when Ted Williams hit .406 in 1941.

"...or are these wholesome memories, really just from re-runs on TV, or ads in old garage-sale magazines?" 
-"Nostalgia for an Age which Never Existed, " Jello Biafra (featuring Mojo Nixon)

Haha, oh wow.... so many emotions associated with it... Jello's on to something there, maybe, with his assertion that all our wholesome memories of yore are probably just from commercials and magazine ads. I think he's right.

Jean Shepherd said something like that too... he felt the "real" life of people never existed in the movies or tv shows themselves... but the real-life problems of the times really existed in the commercials ...and one fine day... humanity would feel pure nostalgia for the commercial itself. We'd fondly remember commercials and advertisements. A whole generation would have fond memories of Lady Plumber, he felt.

I am already like this. He's right. I won't lie to you, reader, that I have a deep personal nostalgia for... commercials. I really actually do have this. I heard the 80s and 90s nostalgia-ist Dinosaur Dracula mention something once that gave me a WAVE of memories from my past just from him mentioning an old television advertisement. Do you know what it was? I'll tell you what the ad was if you want to know what the ad was... it was an advertisement starring former tag team champions Demolition... and Demolition wanted to help with the important task of informing children that... it was time to remind their parents... in the case that their parents forgot... that... Tuesday Night is Kids Night at Pizza Hut!

If Demolition showed up to my house to tell my parents I deserved pizza in 1990... I would have freaked out! Can you imagine, you're like seven, and you really want pizza but you just don't have the nerve to ask your parents for pizza... and then at a combined weight of 585 pounds... Demolition... rings your suburban door bell and takes the time out of their busy schedule to help explain to your parents that you want pizza?
  
Wow. Ax and Smash were such great guys.

I definitely have fond memories of commercials, there is no doubt about that.... just to think of a few... Wilford Brimley selling oatmeal, Robert Loggia selling orange juice, and Patrick taking out life insurance... are three I remember well.

It puts it in perspective though. Young people, when you hear old people say things like, it was so much better in our day, your generation doesn't know anything and everything was better twenty-five years ago... they are likely talking about television commercials. Our television commercials were better than yours! That is what they are really saying. They think they had better commercials than you do.

It's true though... life wasn't better, really, people weren't better... but the advertising jingles were better! 

Your grandparents had BETTER ads for Grape Nuts!

"OH NO! MRS. BURKE!? But, I thought you was Dale!

Young people, when you hear old people tell you everything was better in their times... just remember to keep it in perspective. They are not talking about quality of life, military capabilities, technology, nutrition, or anything like that was better... all that they really had better than your generation was... Grape Nuts commercials. Those were actually better than what we have to today to advertise Grape Nuts.

As for my generation? We didn't have really anything better than your generation has now... except our pizza commercials were way better than yours are now, that's about it... everything else was worse and sucked way more worse than now.


Nostalgia as Power

I like Japanese Cartoons, sometimes, anime, they are called now... I like three of them... Kinnikuman, Dragon Ball Z, and One Piece... which are, I think, produced by the same company... Shonen Jump makes all three of these. They are for males these ones with lots of fighting and stupidities.

Recently I've added a fourth Japanse animation show to the list that I like... and it will be the topic for today's essay as well.

This show is...

Tojima Tanzaburo Wants to Be a Kamen Rider!

It is a show about this middle-aged guy, like me, who just sits around all day, feeling down, drinking beer, eating takoyaki ... and just thinking about the past. Tojima is desperately holding on to the past, specifically, his love for the 1971 television program Kamen Rider.

He is really into Kamen Rider, his apartment is covered wall-to-wall with Kamen Rider memorabilia. He says to himself one fine day, that he doesn't want to die alone in an apartment filled with Kamen Rider memorabilia... and with a profound sadness sells it all away and renounces his childhood dream of becoming a Kamen Rider and defeating the evil forces of Shocker... which was literally the worst thing he could've done... because... right after he gives up on his lifelong dream of becoming a Kamen Rider... a mysterious evil group emerges to take over the world! Oh no! What terrible luck! The world actually needs a Kamen Rider right now! The world needs a Kamen Rider quite badly right now!

Evil forces are in play and no one has the power to stop this evil group hell-bent on world domination... it's finally Tojima Tanzaburo's time to shine and fulfill his life-long dream of punching and kicking bad guys to save the world from evil!

As a kid... he wanted to be a Kamen Rider.
As a middle-aged man... several evil-forces made him not want but NEED to become a Kamen Rider.
In the end... Tojima Tanzaburo BECAME A KAMEN RIDER!

His character arc is perfect. What a tremendous literary character he is! He really is. 

When he fought Dracula at the end of season one... it made me feel so many emotions. I was pumped from the action, brought to tears by the beauty of it, felt nostalgic from the song that played that rendered homage to Kamen Rider as they battled, and laughed heartily when Dracula got punched in the stomach and puked blood all over the floor.

His Nostalgia for Kamen Rider was not a hindrance in his life at all... in fact... his Nostalgia gave him unheard of amounts of strength and power... his love of a 1970s television show... provided him with enough inner-strength and resolve to defeat Dracula and save the world.

I've never seen Nostalgia presented in this fashion... as a source of power... as a source of strength. It is very fascinating to me to think of holding onto something dear as a source of strength.

Are you a seventies kid who grew up loving Star Wars? Let that be a source of strength.

Are you an eighties kid who grew up loving the Ghostbusters? Let that be a source of power.

Are you a nineties kid who grew up loving those Pokemon monsters? Let that love for those Pokemon monsters help you one day defeat Dracula after Shocker tries to take over the world. When you are in a bad place of your life just ask yourself... what would jigglypuff do?

Tojima wants to be a Kamen Rider... what a fun show. Great show.

There's obviously a level of camp to this show but it's not really that campy... the fighting is too cool for it to ever truly be seen as campy.

All in all, I give Tojima Wants to be a Kamen Rider the following review: 

Story: A+ 
Sound Effects: S 
Fighting: A++ 
Drama: A+ 
Cinematography: A+ 
Kaiju: A+ 
Special Effects: A+ 
Tag Finishers: A 
70s Nostalgia for Kamen Rider: S+ 
Final Boss Fight: S

Overall: S (Super)


...and remember...

...

TO HOLD ON TO PEACE AND PRESERVE IT IN THIS WOOOOORLD!

GO! GO! LET'S GO! YOU EVER SHIMMERING MACHINE!
RIIIIDER! JUMP! 
RIIIIIIIIIIDER! KICK!
KAMEN RIDER! KAMEN RIDER!
RIDER! RIDER!

 

William Conrad

 

Good morning, everyone, how do you find yourselves? I hope you find yourselves well this morning. I'll be frank today, I have too much in my brain. Too much information in my head. I am getting older and I have too much information stored in my brain. I have to sort it and get some out... to make room for new information.

Today, for your benefit and enjoyment... all of my expert knowledge on the subject of William Conrad must go! There's simply not enough room in my mind anymore for ALL of my information stored there! I have to move some thoughts around and get rid of some stuff. 

I have to output all of my William Conrad knowledge... I got to liquidate my stored information in my mind... and I got to liquidate it, now! I got opinions on William Conrad, today, at 70% off! I got memories of William Conrad at CRAZY prices! I got memories of William Conrad at 85% off! I even got obscure facts about William Conrad at 90% off! Am I crazy to write about William Conrad at these insane prices? YES. I am.

I should just keep storing these thoughts in the safety of my mind forever... I am crazy to write these thoughts out on the internet at these low, if not insanely low prices, I might even write about William Conrad cutting a foul-mouthed album! This article might be out of control, today. I got more William Conrad than you can shake a stick at!

I know you think I am nuts for liquidating my thoughts on William Conrad for free on the internet... but I have to... think of it as... spring cleaning for my mind. I have no more room in the warehouse of my mind for my William Conrad opinions, thoughts, and facts. Actually, I have little room for anything in my old brain anymore.

So brace yourselves, friends, for today we shall be writing/reading (writing if you are me and reading if you are you) several thoughts about William Conrad.

These are the following:

Cannon... we shall, for time constraints, only be writing about ONE episode of Cannon... if that constraint was not in place we'd be here all day, folks. So we will write about one episode of Cannon only. This episode shall be "Death of a Stone Sea Horse" (1973)... the one where he fights David Soul.

Rocky and Bullwinkle. William Conrad, credited as "Bill" Conrad was, of course, the narrator of Rocky And Bullwinkle. We shall be writing about Rocky and Bullwinkle, secondly, in this essay. So stay tuned for that.

Thirdly, today, we shall be writing about Gunsmoke the radio drama narrated by William Conrad. We shall be looking at only one episode as well. We shall be looking at "Christmas Story" (1952) the fantastic Gunsmoke Christmas Special!

Lastly, staying on the Christmas theme... we shall listen to William Conrad read the smash hit Christmas song, "The Twelve Days of Christmas" from an obscure album.

If search engines are interesting in knowing, by the way, I am an expert on William Conrad... so be aware of that. I am a very official expert on this topic.

Also, keep in mind, I won't be writing about Jake and the Fat Man. I have never actually seen it and I don't know why William Conrad is cast as a character named Fat Man. It doesn't seem like a program that I would enjoy.

Alright, let's begin today's article...


Cannon! 
DA-da-da! Da-da-da-dee-dee-DAH! DA! DA! DA! DAAAH!

 

As stated above we shall be thinking about the one where he fights David Soul which is a cool one. David Soul is a bad guy who kills a guy but then convinces his traumatized sister that she did it in a state of delirium and gas-lights her into confessing to a murder that HE did. Can you believe it, you guys? What an idiot. David Soul... what in the world are you thinking? Imagine killing a guy and then using your mentally-ill sister who suffers from chronic post-traumatic-stress-syndrome to take the heat for it? It's terrible... it's a down-right crying shame is what it is. Oh, David Soul... how dare you?

David Soul is such an idiot in this episode... he's this sculpture guy who sculpts stuff and thinks he's like a terrific art guy. A very full-of-himself type of guy. Ugh... I hate art people so much sometimes. They are always doing stuff like this. He lives like down at the beach in a shanty-house and just sculpts stuff... I don't even think David Soul has a job... he just hangs out at the beach making sea-related sculptures... and apparently murdering people. What an asshole. Not only does he make stupid fish sculptures but he also is horribly addicted to drugs and enjoys selling them. 

But guess what? The one person who's eyes David Soul, that art-making hipster, can't pull the wool over is... Cannon!

Cannon sees right through his manipulative farce... for Cannon is a hardened detective portrayed by William Conrad and unlike everyone else who hangs out at the beach in this town... he is too smart for David Soul to fool with a clever ruse. Cannon knows he is manipulating his emotionally-fragile poor sister to take the blame for the murder of a marine biologist. He knows David Soul isn't just a good-looking guy who sculpts sea-life on the beach... he's a dirty drug dealer... and that marine biologist was getting too close to his scams!

Poor, David Soul's sister Sondra Locke, as a violent-crime survivor she has a fragile and tormented mind. She doesn't remember things properly and is prone to blackouts and bouts of self-doubt. The evil David Soul easily convinced her that she was the one who killed the marine biologist in a state of blind rage in one of her manic episodes of mental distress.

She learns to trust Cannon... and slowly her fragile mind starts to regain composure and strength. She learns to trust her instincts and eventually is able to stop listening to David Soul's idiotic lies! She goes to a hotel where one of David Soul's sculptures is on display... an ornate and beautiful Stone Sea Horse... and with her new-found strength she pushes over the statue smashing it to a million pieces signifying the end of this beach-bum's lies and everything he stands for! The only thing Sondra Locke kills in this episode isn't a man, at all, just an ornate Stone Sea Horse which represents years of lies and manipulation of a drug-addicted bum!

On top of it all... as if seeing the Stone Sea Horse smashed into millions of pieces wasn't enough... Cannon beats up David Soul too. When Cannon confronts the affable drug-addicted beach-bum about his misdeeds... David Soul tries to KILL Cannon! Wow. Bad idea... Cannon defeats him in combat after many rounds of fisticuffs.

Great Job! Cannon!

I hate how drug-addicts manipulate fragile-minded hard-working people... it is so sad. I like this episode because Cannon really busts up that stupid guy's life and proves he killed a marine biologist. It's great.



Rocky and Bullwinkle

I've written about them several times previously in this website. It is an illogical show with little to no continuity. It functionally makes no sense. It is like watching a crazy non-sensical dream more than a TV show. It is a very fractured mentally-disjarring show that has no thread of continuity... yet... it has a narrator telling you what is happening on the show while you watch it and this narrator is William Conrad. He, the narrator, crazily-enough is trying to figure out what is going on just like you, the viewer, is! Even some of the characters on the program will break the fourth wall sometimes and ask the narrator what the heck is going on! Bullwinkle will just reply to the narrator while he's narrating asking what's going on in the show he's currently Bullwinkling in! It is not only hard to follow for the viewer but is also hard to follow for the actors and narrator. No one knows what is going on in this show!

Many people are familiar with this show but some aren't... I would describe watching it as...  when you are dreaming but you realize you are dreaming but can't wake up so you just go with it. So, you're lying in bed dreaming about, like, missing a homework assignment in middle school twenty years ago, and are sweating and freaking out... but... you realize, wait, I haven't been in this school in twenty years and I don't remember it looking like this at all! Oh no! I'm dreaming, shit, oh no, I know I'm dreaming but I can't wake up! So now you're in a dream but you know it's bullshit because your stupid old-ass brain can't remember what your high school looked like so now you're lying in bed in a bizarre dream that makes no sense... and are getting annoyed in your dream. Thinking things like... why am I sweating over homework from twenty years ago anyways, screw this stupid dream my mind is dumb... how come I can't dream about Baywatch or some shit? Why am I always dreaming about lame ass shit like not doing homework decades ago!?

I like to watch Rocky and Bullwinkle whilst trying to sleep... it's a blast. I'll be watching it and Rocky and Bullwinkle are doing some stuff like fighting mouse robots or sitting on mountains or trying to escape from the CIA who think they have a secret formula for rocket fuel that the people behind the iron curtain want... and then some other shit will come on... Peabody and Sherman... and I'll think... oh, now it's time to get a few minutes of shut-eye and close my eyes during this dopey Peabody part... and I'll dream with my own brain about being at a party where I have to take my shoes off because the host wants all the kids to take their shoes off... but then the party sucks so I leave but I can't remember where I left my shoes so I just leave without my shoes and walk out but then look around and notice I'm downtown now and I'm older and the cell phone in my pocket is one I had fifteen years ago... oh no! I'm dreaming! Ah! Let's wake up... I turn and look to the screen and William Conrad is narrating that now Rocky and Bullwinkle are looking for Upsiedaisyum, a mineral the people behind the iron curtain want to power some death ray or something... and I ask William Conrad... weren't they running from a robot mouse five minutes ago before the Peabody part came on? No... now they are trying to keep the Upsiedaisyum out of foreign entities hands. Wait, how can you respond to me, Bill Conrad!? Oh no! I'm still dreaming! I am now dreaming that I am in a bed watching Rocky and Bullwinkle! Wow. Is Captain Peter Peachfuzz really flying upside down in an airship or is my own mind dreaming he is!?

My re-occurring dreams are so fucking dumb. My dreams suck and are boring. I always leave my shoes somewhere out of reach yet this has never happened in real life. One time, in my re-occurring shoeless dream... I put someone else's shoes on in the pile of shoes at the party because I can't find mine... and I just walk out with someone else's shoes but that will always lead to me waking up because... I have never actually walked a mile in another man's shoes in real-actual life.

Anyways, now here's something I hope you really like!



The 1952 Gunsmoke Christmas Special!

Pew pew! Zing zing! RICOCHET! Pow! Pow! BANG BANG! Zing pew! Pew pew bang bang! ZING!

It's Gunsmoke! Justice, mercy, and also redemption on the frontier! Starring... William Conrad as Matt Dillon the best doggone sheriff in Dodge City!

Let us now listen to the one and only episode of Gunsmoke where no one gets shot...entitled, "Christmas Story"...

Now, I bet some will read the title "Christmas Story" and get confused with the Jean Shepherd one that airs on TBS all day on Christmas... this isn't the Jean Shepherd one this is the William Conrad one... so please don't be confused by the title. This is not the one with Darren McGavin this is the one with Mrs. Bumby.

William Conrad, actually wait, someone does get shot in this... he had to put a worn down poor injured horse, who broke his leg, out of his misery... but no men get shot in this very special Christmas episode of Gunsmoke.

If you are thinking, was Jean Shepherd influenced by William Conrad... after seeing the title "Christmas Story" which is obviously also a sort of not very unique name for a Christmas story just naming your Christmas story a "Christmas Story"... well... I would probably say yes to that. I think he might have been. I'm not saying this is in any way similar to Jean's "A Christmas Story" but I do in fact think Jean was a fan of this show. 

Actually in Jean's "A Christmas Story" a kid wants a toy gun so he can shoot bad guys similar to what he would have heard on Gunsmoke. His mother of course tells him, "You'll shoot your eye out!" and she's right! Haha, at the end of Shep's Christmas Story the kid actually shoots his glasses off with his first shot from his toy gun after he gets it. Many may not know this but... this is intentional... Jean refers to his "Christmas Story" in essence as an "anti-war" piece which would probably surprise many people that he perceived his work that way. The kid really did almost shoot his eye out with his stupid gun toy trying to be like William Conrad on Gunsmoke! That rascal! She was right! Haha. Guns aren't toys, gang! They don't go POW! POW! ZING! ZING! like on Gunsmoke... they will shoot your damned eyes out!

Actually, I heard an episode of Jean's radio show where he talks about his influences from radio and he doesn't mention William Conrad but I have a safe suspicion Gunsmoke was indeed an influence on Jean Shepherd's work.

As a very esoteric aside, do you know the two shows Jean Shepherd stated were his main comedic influences as a kid listening to old time radio? You wouldn't know them, trust me, but... he claims the two shows he liked as a kid on the radio were... firstly Ransom Sherman... and secondly he says as kid he liked a show called "Vic and Sade" from the mid-west. Very obscure references we're getting into now. I don't personally know very much about either of these... but... I am pretty sure Jean Shepherd was influenced by William Conrad as well.

Alright, guys, you sat through some stuffy historical boring stuff so let's get to the big payoff... let's continue on the Christmas theme and listen to a very edifying rendition of Twelve Days of Christmas as read by William Conrad and we shall end on a uplifting note! Okay?


The Twelve Days of Christmas by William Conrad!

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NaTqN2ZuYSw)

Aaaaaw.... what a nice rendition of this classic. Really makes me happy listening to his....thanks for the uplifting end to this article, William Conrad. Really brightens my day right on up.

Alright well, that's enough thoughts, memories, theories, and exhibitions of art by history's William Conrad for one day.

Okay, bye guys!

Cold Weather... and Lonely Nights.

A seemingly expert "SEO" article I recently read stated that you should always write a preview of what the article will be about when you write on your personal website as well as claim early in the article that you are an expert on the subject(s) that will be presented.

This article will be about Cold Weather and I've mentally narrowed it down to a few things I would like to write about. These are the following; (A) The Rocky IV Training Montage where he does tough guy stuff in the snow, (B) Warsman the Russian brutal superman on the cartoon Kinnikuman, (C) This foreign movie I saw as a kid where this priest-guy saves a kid who's freezing to death in a cave but I don't remember the name of this movie, (D) The writings of Robert Service (AKA "The Bard of the Yukon"), (E) The film Alive (1993, run time: 125 mins) which documents the trials and tribulations of a Brazilian soccer team who's plane crash-lands and they must survive harsh conditions and end up eating their fallen brethren's corpses.

Alright, so, the article shall be about some, if not all, of the ideas mentioned above. I am an expert on all of these things. I am an expert on Rocky IV, Warsman, that movie with the kid in the cave who almost perishes of frost bite, the writings of Robert Service, and last but not least the 1993 movie Alive (which clocks in at a lengthy yet smooth runtime of 125 minutes) where the soccer players eat each other. I am an expert in all of these fields.

 

Good evening, reader, looks like it will be quite cold outside this weekend as temperatures are estimated to drop to negative 50 degrees Celsius in many northern regions of North America. We can already hear the hundreds of local weather people across the continent arguing who's going to be big hero who goes outside to film a remote to let the public know just how cold it is! Just stay inside, guys. It's going to be too cold outside!

It's January, the fun winter things like Christmas and New Years are over... it's just utter cold for like 3 more months. Oh man.

Obviously you know what this article is about because I wrote an informative intro in italics above which apparently helps with search engine optimization... now the search engines know I am an expert on what I am about to write about and will put this article higher in the results when people search for Rocky IV or Alive (1993).

I saw Alive when I was pretty young and many kids at school talked about this movie back then. When you're a kid and you see something harrowing or shocking... you naturally think in your naive mind... that this harrowing thing is definitely one day going to happen to you! All kids view the world in this manner, at one point of their lives, when they are young.

I remember being at school in like 5th grade and all the kids were asking each other if they would do what the team on the plane did in that situation if they were stranded in the cold after their plane crashed. It was a frightening situation to put yourself in.

That movie caused a lot of odd conversations... many people wondering out loud what they would do in that situation. To me, that movie reminds me of winter though... it was filmed, or I don't know if it was filmed there, but it was set in the Andes mountains and each scene is filmed in front of scenery of snow-capped mountain ranges and wind-swept canyons. I bet that movie won some cinematography awards... it is such a beautiful film about a soccer team eating corpses.

Kind of depressing... I don't think I'll write about that movie after all. I am also going to throw out the idea of that movie where a kid is saved from a cave because I don't remember what movie it is from. Freezing to death sucks either way and there's not much to say about it.

Rocky IV also reminds me of winter. The song in the training montage is so poignant... I hear that song sometimes when it's cold outside. I love the way he pulls that wagon or cart through the snow and thinks about avenging Apollo Creed by defeating Ivan Drago. It's a cinematic masterpiece. I bet a lot of guys exercise to that scene. It's cool because it's like a tough guy exercise song not like a go to the gym and pump iron but let's go into the cold woods and chop logs type of song. I love that song. I would like to chop wood to that song if circumstances ever permit.

Another song about winter that I like is the theme from Winters in Earthbound... the mysterious foreign winter land Jeff attends boarding school at. It's very suitable for winter that song, I find. I tend to think about it and hum that simple tune, all the time, when the rain starts to turn to snow and the whispers of the cool winds begin to blow in my ears. It reminds me of that boarding school, the teacher who invented a machine specifically to open a locker where the key got busted, the room full of gift-wrapped boxes containing cookies that the kid spent all day making that you ruin by opening them all, the bubble monkey that can briefly float if he's given a stick of bubble gum, the self-proclaimed Dungeon Man who has devoted his life to creating mazes and dungeons in areas where there is enough space and who later becomes a living/breathing/walking dungeon himself because he is so fascinated by dungeons, the friendly Loch Ness monster-like sea creature that gives you a lift across a pond, Stonehenge (which is infested with cavemen, bears, and aliens), the lab where you get the space ship thing... I remember that game like it was yesterday.

All these things mean winter to me... and I'm talking about a very specific portion of winter... I'm not talking about the Christmas stuff that part of winter is its own category in and of itself... I'm talking about the middle of January... the dead of winter... the worst of it.

The most dead of winter thing to me is probably Warsman... I like that guy Warsman... I wrote a whole article on Ramenman once... I could probably write a full article about Warsman too. He's a fascinating Chojin that Warsman. He grew up as an outcast robot-boy in the depths of horrible Siberia... and was eventually recruited by Robin Mask to destroy Kinnikuman at the Chojin Olympics... but he lost and then became a really close personal friend of Kinnikuman's.

I was watching the new Kinnikumans they were making where they fight the Perfect Prime Number supermen guys... and they gave Warsman more backstory... they even showed the poor robot-boy growing up as an outcast. They know how to pull the heart strings that show. They show you cute little robot baby Warsman like it's the dang muppet babies or something... and then the other kids just start pelting poor little robot baby Warsman with rocks! It's so sad... I remember being so sad for poor baby Warsman as I watched that scene unfold... he's like a little child bringing milk and bread home and kids just start pelting him with rocks for being a robot boy instead of a regular boy... my goodness.

They've done that before though. I think they even showed baby Ramenman once getting pelted with rocks too. I know they've done that before. I think they've done this several times over the decades. It works though... I can't see Warsman as the villain that put Ramenman out of commission after they show little cute baby Warsman getting pelted with rocks while he's trying to bring milk and bread home. Children can be so cruel.

It is not ever really explained how this robot was at one point a baby robot... but you give up trying to pretend the Kinnikuman show makes sense and just go with it, man. Embrace it and just go with it... and feel sad for baby Warsman.

I really like the Warsman theme song... the Rocky training montage song from Rocky IV is cool and people probably pull carts through the snow with and cut logs to it often... but I love when the weather gets cold, really cold, and I can start walking around in the dead of winter and blasting the Warsman theme into my headphones. I love this song...

.....Looooooooonely Niiiiiiiiiiiiiiights.

This video shows baby Warsman too from the old 80s version... I don't remember baby Warsman on the old show. Hmmm.... they just throw snowballs at him in the old show it seems though not rocks. The new Kinnikuman they made a year or so ago is far more violent than the old 80s one. They changed snowballs to rocks in the more recent version... it has more of an effect. Snowballs aren't that bad. The new show is so utterly violent and it catches you off guard because one scene a guy is fighting a faucet and then somebody's friggin' arms are being chopped off... it catches me off guard with the absurd violence they use.

I love this show. I love when they are being goofy and dumb and then it gets all serious and everything. I love that kind of thing. It's great.

Yo, remember when Warsman fought all those guys while playing guitar? That was cool. 

Who'd he fight on the new show? I forget... Oh yeah, the polar bear guy. He ran out of batteries/energy and was about to lose but then he found a reserve of "friendship" energy from his friends cheering for him that powered him to go into overdrive and win. That was good. The power of friendship is so powerful sometimes. It really makes you stop and think about how strong the power of friendship truly can be.

I remember one episode where they have to go into Warsman's body with a special Chinese mirror, I forget why, and there's a tower of wrestling rings inside of Warsman's body (obviously) and they have a wrestling tournament... inside of Warsman... that was cool.

Oh! Remember when Warsman couldn't do interviews for the press because he was in his dressing room shaving? Shaving his robot beard... I guess. 

Winter... the dead of winter... when I close my eyes and think about the lonely nights in the dead of winter... the first thing that always jumps ahead of the pack and takes pole position in my thoughts... is Warsman.

So tonight, gang, we salute Warsman, another fellow victim travelling on this road called life. A poor robot baby who was pelted with rocks for being born different... but who grew up to make a mark on our world in more ways than one thanks to his perseverance, resilience, and powerful submission holds.

Anyways, here's to you, Warsman... and to these loooooooooonely niiiiiiiiiiiiights.

Stay warm out there.





(Note: I forgot to include Robert Service in this article even though I said I would... I just forgot to, that's all.)