Wrestling talk plus documentary and book interviews

All right, we are back. We are coming at you live from parts unknown. This is Wrestling with the Pop Culturians. That's right. This is my man. Joey Gaynor. I'm Paul McGee. Dan Madigan at Skid Row Studios. That's right. Skid Row Studios, back at it. We've got some great guests today. We've got Joel Eisenberg, author and writer, who is coming in to talk about his new book, Chronicles of Anna. And it's a great sci-fi fantasy thriller. Already doing really well. Doing very well. Doing very well with that book. And I believe our first guest will be the director and creator of the documentary, At What Cost, Mark Javinsky. Oh, great. I wanted to hear this. Yeah, it's a really, not just because I'm in the documentary. Oh. It is really a good documentary. Some stuff I've seen. I've heard good stuff about this also, even though you're in it. Yeah. Yeah. Even though I'm in it, there's some good stuff. But he did a bang-up job of, and it's premiering in New York on Saturday, I believe. He'll give us all of that. He'll tell us, yeah. And then it'll be in L.A. pretty soon. So I'm excited about seeing it. Great. Covered a lot of cats. That sounds great. And Mark, if you're out there, make sure to give us a call at 800-893-9562. And if you're not Mark, but you still want to call in, make sure to go ahead and do that. Give us a call here at Skid Row Studios. 800. Or visit us on Twitter at WWPopCulturian. And for our Spanish-speaking friends, our phone number is 800-893-9562. Like that, huh? Little Olympic auditorium, you know. Yeah. How long did you spend down in Mexico? How long did you spend down in Mexico to pick up that kind of a dialect? About four minutes. You learn numbers real quick in Tijuana. Oh, that's very good. Kilos. Yeah, mostly kilos. Kilos and grams, yeah. Hey, speaking of kilos, we got kilos of material just from Monday Night Raw. That was, wow. With Kane. What's going on with that guy? He's corporate? Then he's not. Then he is. Awesome. He's in a state of limbo, I think. Well, I think it comes all down to creative, too. Yeah. I mean, what are you going to do with this guy? Yeah, absolutely. He's a great worker here. And he's good on the mic. He's great. He's Kane. He's great as corporate Kane. And he's great as Kane, the big red machine. So, in a way, you've got a problem. You know, if he was only good at one thing, you would focus on that. And now, I'm surprised that when he had the sequel to his film come out, they didn't really focus on him being Monster Kane. I mean, to push it like they did with the first film. They pushed him being Monster Kane. They had a second film come out. I thought they would have pushed Monster Kane again just to, you know, get, okay, this is who he is. This is what's going on. I thought that would have been the smarter thing. But. I'm no longer there. Well, I got to tell you, there's a lot of theories going around about what is really going on with Kane and with the Shield. There's all kinds of crazy stuff. And I say the Shield because I'll tell you, those Hounds of Justice, you know, their big thing was to break up the authority. And there's a lot of speculation that Seth Rollins might be a plant. And he's breaking them off one by one. Randy's gone. Now he's. It could be. That would be great. Because I love Seth Rollins, man. And they just banned his move. They did. They just banned. And we're not going to ban our guest. You just called him, right? Mark Trevinsky. Mark, you're on the line. Great. Good to be here. How are you, Mark? It's Joey. And, of course, I'm here with Dan and Paul. And I'm very excited. You have the big opening of At What Cost is coming up in New York. Is that this Saturday? Saturday, 2 p.m. Here in Syracuse. Oh, in Syracuse now. Okay. My hometown. All righty. Lots of friends, lots of family, and lots of wrestling fans, hopefully. Oh, yeah. There's a whole lot in Syracuse. As the Italians used to say. So, let me ask you now. Obviously, you're really happy with the completed product, finally. I'm so happy to be done with it. I can't wait to get it out there, really. You know, it's taken me four years. A little longer than I expected. But, you know, sometimes you got to go to work. But, you know, it's 95 minutes of what I think, you know, any wrestling fan would like to know about what it takes to, you know, go into this profession. And, you know, fans and non-fans, I think, are going to really dig it. And out of, to get to 95 minutes, how many hours did you shoot? Oh, God. I have no idea. So, we got a sequel coming out. A hundred seconds. Yeah, you know, I mean, I was all over the place, you know. I was out where I met you, Joey, out there in Simi Valley, you know, when GQ Money had his last match. Yeah. Before moving on to the WWE. And I was in Arkansas twice for traditional championship wrestling. I was in Knoxville road tripping with two heels, you know, 800 miles in a Ford Edge. And countless stops at championship wrestling from Hollywood. I'm afraid David Marquez, yeah. Yeah, we just had David Marquez on last week. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, flew out to, you know, well, let's see. I flew out to Atlanta to interview Jake the Snake and Diamond Dallas Page, which was a twofer. I thought I was just going to get DDP. And in an email, he's like, yeah, come on out. And you can interview Jake Roberts, too. And I was like, sweet, I guess. That's a win-win right there. Didn't know that was going to come as a package deal. I mean, we all know, you know, I think over the years, I think we've kind of reconnected with Jake and his, you know, tour to better health, which was awesome to see. We're all rooting for him. I mean, basically, he's rooting for Jake. We all saw it at what cost, or at Beyond the Mat. And, you know, he wasn't portrayed so well in that movie. So I was like, well, I'm not going to ask any of those questions. I want to know, you know, what's he doing now and what, you know. So he was a great interviewer. Very smart. I want to know, what sparked this? I mean, you must be a wrestling fan. What was the one seed that sparked you to do this? It was in between, well, I mean, I really, my first exposure to wrestling was WrestleMania I. My parents, you know, friends bought it because of, you know, Billy Martin and Liberace and all, you know, all of his marketing campaigns. Perfect reason. The non-wrestling elements. Yeah, I got my parents' friends, I think it was a Sunday afternoon, and, you know, I didn't know where I was going, but my parents just thought it was an excuse to go drink. Plopped me down in front of the TV and about 30 of their friends, and I just sat there. I watched King Kong Monday. Pin the guy the fastest anybody's ever done. That was amazing. You know, Ricky Steamboat before he was the Dragon was on the card, and he had Hulk Hogan, Mr. T, Roddy Piper. You know, it was just awesome, and I was hooked for years. And then, you know, I kind of phased out through high school. I mean, I'd pop in. I'd be in the gym from time to time. One of my roommates in college really liked it, you know, during the Attitude Era. And I was, you know, I was like, you're still watching this? This is crazy. And then I ended up cutting... When I moved out to Hollywood, I ended up cutting Wrestling Society X for Kevin Kleinrock. Oh, another friend of ours. You know, I was like... I was like, oh my God. Like, the first match I cut was Teddy Hart and M-Dog 20... against... I don't know... I don't know... I don't know... I don't know... I don't know... I don't know... I don't know... I don't know... I forget this... Oh, these Japanese guys... I'm losing their name. But anyway, the match was amazing. You know, the moves had just advanced. And I was like, this is insane. You know, and... You know, I heard you talking about Seth Rollins earlier. But, you know, he was... Was he Shane Black? Or... Was that his name on WSX? He was on there. And so was Matt Seidel, who went on to WWE. But, you know, I was just... I was just blown away. And I kind of reconnected there. And I was like, oh, I want to get back into this. And then about a year or two later, I was working for Jason Hervey on Hulk Hogan's Celebrity Championship Wrestling. And Jason's a huge wrestling fan, as you know. Absolutely. You know, he's a fish off his partner. Yeah. And I was like, I really want to know why men our age still love this sport. Yeah. And I set out on a journey to find out. And it was quite fascinating, really. Well, I enjoyed being interviewed. I enjoyed some of the... Last time you were on the show, you were just about to get it finished. I think you had a couple of more interviews to do. And other than... I mean, besides from Dallas Page and Jake, was there anyone else who you were able to... Well, I think on the show last time, I talked about picking up Greg the Hammer at Cauliflower Alley in Vegas. Oh, great. Okay. A lot of history there. Yeah. I used the same move on him as I used on my wife. You know, back to him at the bar, like, oh, Hammer, how's it going? Yeah. Want to be in an interview with me? Did he sign a prenup, too? That's the shortened version. But there was some plotting at midnight, you know, of how do I get this guy that I've been, you know, imitating the figures. Yeah. Yeah. I've been imitating the figure four since I was, you know, 10 years old on my movie. That's great. What an experience. Some of the... You know, it's funny. I had guys, you know, on the independent circuit that I was really excited to get. And then, you know, I put the camera on them and they gave me nothing. And then there's guys I never even heard of before, which gave me gold. And I was like, well, you know, I mean, not everybody's camera savvy and not everybody has something smart to say. But, yeah. And, you know, I put the camera on 180 people, I think. Wow. At least that's what my release forms say. And a lot of it is by chance, you know. Like, I was having dinner at a friend's house and she says, oh, I think one of the guys I used to write with, you know, she's a screenwriter. She's like, his brother used to be a wrestler and, you know, his last name is London. So I was like, I mean, Paul London? John's a London's brother. You mean Paul London? Yeah. Yeah. Like, yeah, I'd like to talk to him. And, you know, sat there and spent three and a half hours at his brother's place interviewing him, you know, talking about his woes and how WWE was all things evil in his mind, you know, and how- In a lot of people's minds. Well, yeah. Paul is a good wrestler. Well, you know, it's not so much, you know, I mean, obviously if you're still in Vince's good graces, I'm sure you're, you know, you're happy, but like, you know, I think you got on Vince's bad side because of that limo. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And he was put in the doghouse for months and like, he was talking about how he was kept getting crossed off the list every time someone brought his name up and, you know, and he's, he actually, you know, this doesn't make the movie, but, you know, I brought him to tears at one point talking about, you know, cause it was his dream, you know, like how hard it was to get there, how hard he worked. And then, you know, it was, you know, clearly everybody, he thought everybody was just going to be all happy. And, you know, like, Hey, we're all, you know, all one team kind of thing and couldn't believe how cutthroat it was up there. And like, and, you know, he was talking about, you know, after that whole, whole thing, he remembers like laying out in the snow one time and just like, you know, just kind of in a depression to where, what the heck is, no good when you can, you forget the guy's name. Um. Is it his partner? No, no, not, not, not Kendrick. Uh, um, God, if I touch, uh, wow. Concussions murdered his wife. Please help me out here. Oh, Benoit? Benoit. Benoit actually called him to ask about his mental well-being and like about a week or two before that happened. Wow. Like he's like, Hey man, just want to just calling in, checking in on you. Cause uh, he and Kendrick used to ride with Benoit and uh, you know, Benoit is one of his writing partner who has, whose name escapes me. Paul's one of the, I worked with Paul. He's one of the fun guys. He was one of the best workers I had the privilege to watch and his brother, his brother, Jonathan London. Jonathan's the one who put me in touch. Yeah. Jonathan has a great show called Geekscape and he's another, he's a very informative, very fun guy. And you get two brothers there that really have taken different paths, but both are entertainers, Paul and Jonathan, both good guys. You know, it's funny. It's funny that, uh, Benoit called him a couple of weeks before. That's exactly what he says. Of all the people, Benoit called them and checked them out. Okay. And he was asking about his mental health. Well, maybe Benoit was asking how his own mental health was. You know what I mean? That's, that might have been a sign. Yeah. Might have been a clue. Too bad. I had a segment about Benoit where, you know, a lot of people who knew him, like, uh, like beautiful Bobby Eaton and, um, you know, and, and Jake, Jake Roberts said, you know, he would have trusted him with his kids, you know, like, oh, you know, they're all perplexed by it, you know? And, um, you know, and you know, Paul, Paul is, you know, he's a, he's a, he's a, he's a, you know, Paul, Paul and, uh, Brian used to ride with them, you know, because, you know, they were, they were goofballs on the, on the tour. And he's like, no, that's, that's it. You guys are riding with me. It was like, you know, he took them under his wing, but they made him work out and it's like, made him be the first one to the gym because, uh, you know, the guy, uh, Benoit's riding partner hated anybody to be the gym before him. Like he was going to be the first one there. And the funny thing was like, you know, Paul actually benefited from it. Then he would sit there and, uh, we would work out really, really hard. And uh, Kendrick would sit there and just fake it, like grunting, grown and lift like, you know, like 50 pounds less than he actually could, but just fake the whole thing. He's like, man, Paul's like, man, you're really killing those. There's that. No, I could lift way more than that. I just don't want to do it. That's smart. You know, those, those are the stories that, you know, I didn't have a way of tying them in. There's a lot of interesting bonus features on the, uh, on the DVD. Oh, uh, I'm sure they will. Right. Along with myself as a bonus feature. Uh, well you still made the, you still made the movie cut. Joey. I'm not, I'm not worrying. I realized that it's because of my name. You're going to sell 217 million copies. Yeah, absolutely. And uh, then drinks were on me. Absolutely. Absolutely. Now you're opening in New York in Syracuse. Yes. Yes. Do you have a schedule of what's going on? I don't. This was first and foremost. It came up only three weeks ago, so all my energy has been put into promoting this. I got some cool T-shirts. I got two T-shirt designs. One is like a Breaking Bad style At What Cost T-shirt, and another one is an Andre the Giant Premier T-shirt with his mugshot on it, which is pretty cool. I had those printed. They came in today. I had the posters printed up. I got those a couple days ago. I had a really good article in the Syracuse newspaper here. I was pretty proud of. I talked to the lady for an hour yesterday. So it's all about promoting this. I mean, after four years, you just kind of want to focus on one thing. Next, I believe, based on the success of this, I'm going to do an L.A. Premier. We'll talk more about that hopefully in a month. We'll come in the studio, I hope. Yeah, well, you're here. Obviously, we'll have you in the studio. A new home at Skid Row. We'll talk about that, and we'll have a big... Yeah, it's exciting. You know, I mean, two of the main guys in my movie are these guys out of Knoxville, King Shane Williams and Matt Sigmund. And, you know, these are workers, and, you know, they... haven't gotten their shot yet. They were on, I think, their biggest... biggest was traditional championship wrestling. Like, King was the heavyweight champ for a little bit there. And Sigmund was just a, you know, a solid worker. And I think getting these guys over is going to be huge, you know, for the wrestling world because, you know, the independent scene is hard. You know, there's a lot of guys out there. You don't know who's good. You don't know who's, you know, I mean... Yeah, you have to see them all. It's an average, I guess. But... Well, I'm excited. I'm excited. We'll be pushing this for sure. Oh, yeah. Most definitely for sure. And if you have any trailers or clips you want to send to the show, I'd be happy to put them up. It's no problem. I think we sent you some MP4s earlier today. Oh, we did? Oh, great. So hopefully that gets tacked on. All right. We'll try to get to them if not this week. Definitely next week. Definitely. Yeah, absolutely. All right. Well, Mark, listen, thanks so much for coming back on the show again. And let's cross our... Let's cross our fingers and break a leg on Saturday. I think this is going to be a big hit. Cool. It's 2 p.m. at the Palace Theater in Syracuse, New York. All right. So if you're in Syracuse and you're listening now, and you should be, Saturday, 2 o'clock, Palace Theater. Be there or be square. That's the way we look at it. Well, Mark, thanks so much for coming on the line today. We're really happy to have you. And when you get back into L.A., we want to get you in studio here and everything. Absolutely. I had a lot of fun last time. Okay, great. Chinese food. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. We'll do that again. Absolutely. Absolutely. Okay, Mark, thank you so much. That's Mark Trevinsky, director and creator of the documentary, At What Cost. It's opening in Syracuse this... Fantastic. Saturday at 2 o'clock. And then soon to have an L.A. premiere here in L.A. And we can't wait for that. Yeah. So... We'll take a little break right now, maybe? We're going to take a little break. And we're coming back with... Poquito. Uno momento. And then we're coming back with Joel Eisenberg. So don't click around. Oh. Stick around. Stick around. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Joe Blow is wrestling John X and whatever happens, happens. back in the room there, is that there's no spontaneity. Everything is overly scripted. Oh. It's ridiculous. It is ridiculous. It's under a microscope. And the problem is, and I was there for a time, when you can't let things breathe. Sometimes you've got to let, as you guys know, you've got to let things happen. If it's a mistake, go with it. Let's see what's going to happen and stuff. Like the time, I think we recall, when it was Batista fell out of the ring, and remember it was, who else was it? It was the Battle Royale. Yeah. And I don't know, maybe it was John Cena. I forget. I forget the time. I think technically he was out. Yeah, but that's the one Paul London took that amazing bump, you know. And Vince had come out. Well, you know what? If we're going to let these guys flourish, if these guys are going to be, someday become seasoned pros, let them go. Exactly. Let the mistake happen. Yeah. I mean, like we've always said, wrestling fans have short attention spans, but long memories. And you're not going to get a guy over, and he's not going to get the experience unless he comes out of adversity. Well, look at Roman Reigns right now. Yeah. I mean, everything is a backlash. You know? I mean, he's, you know, gradually maybe winning some fans over. You know, the fact that, you know, Daniel Bryan got eliminated in the Rumble was not his fault. That was, you know, a Vince call or a Triple H call. But, you know, what's the deal? Why is everything, and when he got on TV after being the silent assassin guy from The Shield for a while, and he started saying, suffering succotash, that killed his character. Yeah. It was, I don't know. I, when I watched WrestleMania, I loved the fact that someone, Seth Rollins, came running in out of nowhere. Well, that was a great swerve. That was tremendous. But there's so many other things that are going on. They could have been building on this. There should be this ridiculous feud between Seth Rollins, Roman Reigns. The feud with, and this is my opinion, the feud with, with Randy Orton, that feud, it should really go maybe against Kane, maybe against Vince, or maybe against Triple H. See? And, and he should be, he should be challenging Triple H. Well, you know, maybe you used your sledgehammer on Sting. I'm not Sting. I mean, that's, even that booking didn't make sense to me, I'm sure. I mean, here's a guy, Sting, he's had this mystique for years, this legend, you know, even outside the WWE, he's well-known wrestling fan. So, you bring him in, basically, to a glorified job, to Triple H, who doesn't need, I mean, there's no one else in the roster. There's nobody else this guy could have gone against. Yeah, there was no proxy. There's no one else. It felt like a Vince McMahon, like, I am going to put my stamp on this. It felt like Vince McMahon plus Triple H pushing him. I mean, there's no one else in the roster that could have got a rub going against Sting. And, you know, a lot of the younger roster, I think, is getting a little upset with the fact that there are these people that have been in the business for so long and are still getting so much airtime. I mean, when you've got a three-hour Monday Night Raw and Triple H is out there for 50% of it, there's a lot of kids in the back that are great talent that are not getting out there and getting that airtime and you're not building your product, right? You're not. You're destroying some talent. You're not building the future. Let me ask you this, though. I'm going to take the devil's advocate position regarding Sting, okay? Sting is a little bit older than I am. I'm 51. Oh, God. But anyway, I'm 51 years old. A child. A mere child. A mere child. But the thing is this, though. I mean, Sting's heyday, obviously, was before WCW folded. Yes. TNA was almost non-entity. I mean, the guy did, in a sense, have to be protected. So, Vince overbooked his match at WrestleMania. I didn't like it either. I thought the NWO DX, all of this, was way too much. But I do agree with the principle that he had to be protected to play it safe on the biggest stage of them all. And I do agree with that, too. I see him protect. Yeah. There's no question in my mind. If it's a clean match and Triple H doesn't win, like, what does that do for that guy? He's, what, 15 years younger or something? Yeah. Like, he should destroy Sting. Really. They have to. They have to. They have to. They had to do something like that. It just, it's a little disheartening. Well, you know what? It is professional wrestling. It is a suspension of disbelief. So, when they say, this guy's younger and he should destroy, I understand the idea. But it's professional wrestling. Now, if you go to Argentine wrestling, which I used to watch every Saturday, Martin was the champion. Martin was 64 years old and he beat everybody. This is Titans of the Ring? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And they did. Well, you guys are good, man. And let me tell you something. It was believable because the guy had the belt. So, the point is, it's not a fact that Sting should have won the match, in my opinion. Won the match, he could have beat, he actually could have used the sledgehammer, reversed it on Triple H, the place would have went nuts, and everybody's happy. Now, down the line, you have another match. You build some sort of war between Sting and Triple, and make Triple H's bullshit mean, mean something other than just coming out and I'm in charge, Well, here's the thing. bow to the king. If Sting goes over, and then so, he takes someone under his wing as a protege, so this guy's gonna get the rub. So now, whoever, so he finds from the roster who you think can go, Sting mentors him, they come up together, and no matter what happens, this, I'm being trained by a winner. Exactly. I'm being trained, and that mystique's still there. I mean, if I knew Sting was coming, I don't know how long it was in the works, but if I'm thinking a year ahead of time, I'm thinking, man, you know what? The hell with it. Sting, Taker, Sting breaks the streak, he goes over, it's amazing, take whatever it is, I mean, now, if we fought all this time to bring this guy into our organization, he better be damn well worth it. Or why have him in at all? Yeah. Why bring him in at all? I mean, the buildup, and he did agree with it. Yeah. I mean, you know, it was his one match, you know, sort of in and out. He's part of, you know, Vince now, part of the WWE, but I mean, he may or may not wrestle another match. The buildup, the buildup, there was no, Joey, I think your point is, DJ had less buildup to the, you know, he really did. Yeah. And Joey, your point is spot on, and I think that's one of the problems right now is that the storylines are not creating an arc for these characters, they're not creating a journey for these people, even like the Mizdow and the Miz match. I mean, now, they gave it away on Monday night, which I think you have to do to a small degree. You gotta keep those Monday night viewers like, oh, anything can happen on Raw, and, let's go see. But, they gave it away, that was something that they could've built up. Oh, the girlfriend turned on him. Yeah. Yeah. Well, this is because you don't have Dan Madigan writing the show anymore. That's a good thing. Hey, if you put me, Dan, and Johnny in the room, that show would be amazing. You know, I came all the way here from the Valley, I gotta kiss Dan's ass a little bit, you know, you guys wanted me on the show for a while. I said, come take the subway with us. He goes, travel with you, flubby and stuff. You know, it's so funny because, I do mean that though. Because when Russo was writing for WWE, and you remember this, we were doing Incredibly Strange Wrestling. So, we had Cletus Defeatus, and that was the thing in the bag, and the Clu Clux Clowns, and Bloodbath Bailey, and God knows what else, and we had the FedEx guy show up. He shows up, the wrestler signs, opens the box, takes out brass knuckles, and punches the guy out. What do they do on WWF, or E, like, not even within four months, not even that long, here's this FedEx guy. Well, Russo, these guys were showing up at the shows, and I was pleading with Johnny, write the whole show out, for Christ's sake, and mail it in as a play. It's a passion play. Now you're covered. Oh, you know, it doesn't matter. Yeah, it matters. This is your work. Yeah, you know, at one point, you can only talk to someone so much. And then you gotta, then you move on. You really do. Yeah, you know, and I love Johnny. No, I like Johnny. Forget love. Yeah. I like Johnny. I like Johnny, and I think he's a great guy and everything, but he was, he's just so gun-hoated, you know. Yeah. You know, it's very interesting, though. I'm sorry, I didn't mean it. No, no, no. You know, as you're talking, and I'm listening to you, and you're talking about writing, and this and that, and the other, now, I wrote for Muscle Rock. Exactly. I was not that first writer that you were referring to. No, that guy was. But, one of your prior guests, who, you know, we may see in the next couple of weeks, or whatever, Rob Van Dam. Yeah. Were you at that show with the hotel? I was there. I was host. We had Stevie Richards, Blue Meanie, Rob Van Dam, and Mustafa. And Rob Van Dam and Mustafa put on a match. Exactly. That was, that was, you, WWE would want that match. But before that, do you remember how the show started? Horribly. Yeah, we had Stevie Richards. Now, let me actually set this scene. I was supposed to sing the national anthem. Okay, well, yeah, right, and Stevie Richards and Blue Meanie came out, and they were supposed to do their thing. Well, they showed up on the stage, and what happened was, they started, tearing apart America, and talking about, you know, this, I don't know, this foreign organization that's going to come here, and terrorize us, and that group, and the entire audience was dressed in shirt and ties. It was a bunch of real estate. Real estate. It was a banquet. It was a banquet. It was a Biltmore downtown. Right, exactly right. Exactly right. It was a private wrestling show banquet, $150 a ticket. A ticket. And so, what happened was, you know, I started getting a lot of heat. I started getting from like, five, six, seven people, Joel, you got to cancel this. And I go up to, Eric, I'm like, Eric, your guys, Eric was the promoter, Eric Shaw, your guys want this canceled. You know, what do we, you know, what do we, no, you're going to keep it going. Keep it going. They'll do their thing, you know, blah, blah, blah. So, that led into Mustafa from the gangsters, from ECW, versus Rob. Yeah. And tell them what happened, because. they went out, you know, here's what was, the whole show was insane. We started out that way. I'm singing the national anthem. They interrupted, and I kind of went with them a little bit, and then I said, but guys, it got really insane. We had ladies on the show. That's when Sue Sexton slapped me during the interview, which was hysterical. Spicoli, the late Luis Spicoli, sat next to me during the show, and is literally saying to me, and everyone can hear it, tell a promoter, give me $50, I'll announce the matches with you. And it was hysterical. Now, Rob Van Dam, all of us on the show, I remember another thing that happened. Tony the Viking, he's passed away now, but he was in WWF a little bit. Ludwig Borger. Yeah, he was in WWF. Ludwig, Big, big guy. Is supposed to do a handicap match. So, he comes out, he takes the two guys, double choke slam, 18 seconds. And he, and I go backstage to Eric, I said, that was supposed to be a 14, no, not 14 minutes, it was supposed to be about seven or eight minutes of them running around, and the giant chasing him, and then he gets him. But, and I said to him in the back, I said, why'd you do this? And he goes, I don't like, we're working for this shit outfit. So, I went to Eric, and I said, you'd never book this guy again. He's, creating malcontent back here. He's bitching and moaning. I work with Vince, and that didn't last long. No, it didn't, oh, no, and, then he was injured, and he was done after that. And he died not too long after that. And then the Mustafa, but when I brought out, the Rob Van Dam Mustafa match, now all of these people were real estate guys. Yeah. They were all real estate salesmen. And they've already got a, an air of, we're better than this. I mean, it was really, now this was a dinner, and cigars, this was a whole nine yards. That match starts, these guys, instead of, complaining or yelling, was suddenly, engrossed in like, holy shit, what is this? Van Dam did about six, incredible high flying moves. he's amazing. Finally, Mustafa catches him, tries to go for a pile drive, or something, and Rob, weeks out of that, they start brawling. They go, through the ropes, into the crowd, and, they're on a table, knocking all the dishes, that shit, everywhere. All of these guys in suits, jump up, now they're following him around, the banquet room. I mean, it was like, It's like a Lucha match. It's like a Lucha Libre match. Yeah, it was like 300, 400 guys in there, and they followed him, with the cigars in their hand, and Rob and Mustafa, smashed about six tables. Exactly. Busted up furniture, smashed shit, got back in the ring, it was at least, a 40 minute match. I mean, you don't see this, anywhere. Wow. And they put on an ECW match, to, I mean, I was excited, by the end of the night. It was, they went off script, and they were spontaneous. And the spontaneity was there. And if I'm a promoter, if I'm Eric Sean, I know, I'm going to go home, with Rob Van Dam, and Mustafa, I don't care. Yeah. I know, you know what, I don't care, because I know, those guys, what they can do, what Rob can do, what Mustafa can do, let it happen. When Susan slapped me, that was all, out of nowhere. I mean, had I known, I'd have braced. But no, I mean, she, and she can hit, she hit me with a shot, man. I just kind of, I heard bells ring, for a second. I mean, you know, these are professional fighters. And you can say, as a writer, you know, doing scripts, and movie, and books, and everything you've done, you're very eclectic. When you work in a, like wrestling, or movies, sometimes you could overwrite slims. You lose, even on the page, you could see, you know, it's just too much. You want to sometimes, what does the actor bring? What does the wrestler bring? You know, after a while, I mean, these guys got to flourish. And if, you know, if you put everything down on paper, there's, sometimes there's nothing to interpret. Well, and on that same token, I mean, we see that with Roman Reigns. When Vince is writing a, you got to do these words, and you're getting suffering succotash, forget about it. Who gets that reference besides, I mean, really, who gets that, that cartoon reference? I mean, you've got to become current. I mean, you can't be going back to the old, you know, pre-Mel Blanc type of Warner Brothers cartoons. You've got to make sure that the people, what's your demographic? But I bet Vince loved it. I'm going to make a rule. Vince loved it, but he should have said, they killed Kenny. That would have been much better. How about, let's make, let's make a Ronald, Ronald Coleman reference. You know, I'm a Turon Bay. I mean, really, I mean, he's going to really stay, stay current to some extent, you know? Let's go back to Harold Langdon. Yep, JBL talking about Green Acres and so on. Well, yeah, but see, Green Acres has a tremendous following, because I found out, it's in reruns. But not only that, I did, I used to do mornings with the, at the edge. You do not bad mouth Green Acres around Joey. Let me tell you something. No, I got to meet Mr. Haney, the one, and only, and only Pat Butcher. And I got to hang out with him every morning and have coffee when I was working on the edge doing a Rachel Donahue show. And I would, I asked him one day, I said, boy, the writers. And he went, oh boy, I'd go over to the writer's room and I'd open that door and that smoke would come out. And I'd say, boy, it's going to be a good script this week. And he was just great. And he said they had, they, he never had more fun working on a show because he said, you, you couldn't believe what they, what they got on the show. They had to write a ton of things. Oh yeah. The network goes, oh, you can't do that with the pig. It's like, you can't, you know, you can't say that. One of my favorites was, the early F Troops. Oh, they were great. I mean, Larry Storch was just absolutely. Is he still alive? He's still alive. He's still alive. I mean, physical comedy, Larry Storch is brilliant. His Agon was brilliant. Yeah, it was. Very underrated character. It was great writing. He'd be a great manager. Yeah, he would have been a great manager. Yeah. Would have been at least on a level of Elron Furrican. What do you think? Well, I don't know. That's the hard, that's the. We don't push some buttons, Joey, because I got young green acres, and then we got. You understand, when it comes to Elron Furrican, this is a different animal. It is a. It's a marsupial. You can't control it. It would be known as the sloth of wrestling, because I would simply sit back, and let everyone hurt themselves. Then embrace them in the love, and nurturing of the Furrican way. The Elron Furrican. Okay. Mutual of Omaha presents. I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, Let's get into the book. Before we run out of time talking about muscular rock. Okay, muscular rock. Well, you know what? I'm going to relate the book a little bit to muscular rock. Okay. Okay. Absolutely. If I'm going to sit here and do like, you know, a, I don't know, a scholastic dissertation on this, I'm going to bore everybody to tears on this particular radio show. So let me start here though. Yeah. What were you going to say? No, I, I loved what you did at the book signing. Which was what? I'm going to read, but I'm not going to read from this book. I'm going to read from the sequel, the opening of the sequel. Right. Which I found to be, it made, it makes you want to read the book. That was the point. It was like, if you like where this begins and you want to see how we got there, buy this book. Exactly. Oh, very good. Very good gimmick. Here's the thing though. I was thinking about this in the way here and you mentioned Aguayo before and we were talking a little bit about Mysterio and you think of Luchadores and you just had an event and you know, Mexican wrestling, the masks are more than a gimmick. The masks are culture. They're a tradition. Yes. You know, that's what they are. Right. The, it's exactly who they are and you know, Mil Mascaras back in the day and all and Santo and the thing is, when you look at these masks as culture, when you look at these masks and how important they are to the Luchadores, if they have to unmask in an angle like Mysterio did in WCW, this becomes a big, huge cultural and controversial thing. Yeah. So, my point is, I'm looking at the Luchadores as an example for the purpose of this program here talking about the book and I'm looking at Luchadores and I'm like, okay, no, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not from Mexico. I've never worn a mask and I'm not a professional wrestler but I respect the tradition. To me, it's art and their masks all represent art. The artistry and making Mil Mascaras, the man, you know, a thousand masks, whatever it is, you know, and Rey Mysterio with a different mask every match. Mascaras, he would pull his mask off and have another one underneath it. another one and his opponent would pull the mask off and hold it up and then, Mascaras still has it. Yeah. had another one underneath. Okay, so now you take that, exactly right, you take that and you realize how art can influence culture, right? And then you start hearing all these other arguments, you know, Grand Theft Auto is bad for kids. You know, these movies lead to shootings or this and that and the other. So, you know what? I took that concept and I did this book series. What if art was corrupted? Where would it lead? What's the end game? Hence, this eight book series, The Chronicles of Aura. If the buy, if you want to really get into it and you want to start going, well, you know, the Bible was literature only, then look at the power of that literature to change worlds. Where does all this lead? So, it takes us to the end of the world and back is where we go in this eight part fantasy book series and through the, you know, again, beginning this with, luchadors are not in the books, but if you just look at that, the importance of art and tradition and culture, that all plays very much in this series. Sometimes, cultures leave behind. Exactly. A lot of times, cultures will go, I mean, languages die. People will die leaving, the language, but sometimes people leave art behind because that's a remnant of who I am, what I, what we were. Rome is the perfect example. They spoke Latin. No one, it's not a, it's a dead language now and they left their art when the, when that fell, they left their art, they left their, the language became, that's just the, the earliest, the earliest, the earliest man to go walk a wreck, he's in a cave, a dim lit light. He's by himself. You know, he wants to leave, I was here, I was here. At one point, I existed, I left something. So you, I mean, this concept is an amazing concept because without art, it becomes 1984. And more so than that, and, and I guess you know, and you know at least that I'm a pain in the ass on Facebook. I'm always provoking and pushing buttons. I like that. The thing is, I mean, look at ISIS. ISIS has destroyed how much art over the past few months, you know, from antiquity, never going to get it back. It's horrific. Exactly. The white people, see, they're trying to do, they're trying to rewrite history in such a, and the fact that no one else is speaking out in, I mean, basically, they're wiping, they want to reinvent the world and wipe everything out. You know, they want to put a burqa on and everything. Do you know why no one is doing anything about what they're doing with the, the Buddhist statues they've destroyed? It's not white religions. It's not white art. If it was white art, there would be an uproar. But they're killing Christians. It doesn't, but they're slaughtering Christians. It's, it's a, it's, it's, it's, comes down to the Christians that they're slaughtering don't look like me and you. Well, Jesus didn't look like us, by the way. Of course, well, tell that to some guy. Tell that, when you're in Alabama, I want you to explain to them that Jesus, that Jesus looked like Amwar Sadat with long hair, okay, or Jimi Hendrix. And they'll say, where are the boys? You go, so, I mean, but that's the problem. When people recognize and understand that, and I, I go to church, I believe in Jesus Christ and, and all of that. He's a big guy on our team. He's important. But I tell you what, when I think of him, I don't think of some white guy, Jeffrey Hunter looking or anybody else. I think of a dark complexioned guy. Who spoke Aramaic. Who spoke Aramaic. And he's from the culture. You are in the minority. I think a baby Jesus. I am in the minority. You ever watch Talladega Nights? In, in the, in the Renaissance, the patrons who, most artists were paid by patrons or the church. Right. That's how they made their living. These guys had to do, and especially the Italians and the Northern ones. So a patron's going to pay you and it's, it's a big status thing. I want you to draw a picture of Christ, some part of Christ's life, but you're going to draw, paint a Christ that I can relate to. Exactly. Or you're going to paint, you're going to paint a Christ that looks like me. Yeah. Northern European or Italian. Right. You enjoy, draw a Christ with that particular person's facial features. A hundred percent. This has been done, Jesus, I mean, it's been time. Two thousand years. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, more. I mean, uh, uh, I think, Matthias Grunewald did the most, depicted the most realistic Christ. If you watch his, his, uh, um, his altarpiece, it's actually shows a guy in agony. He's, his fingers are curled. He's, he's got pain. I mean, this is, this is what crucifixion is about. And most other times it's like he's on a lounge chair. Yeah. It's not, it, it, it, the movie Passionate of Christ really depicted the brutality of the time. And, uh, and when people said, that couldn't have been possible. And what do you mean? Really? What did Hitler do? What are you talking about? What are they doing now? What are you doing now? I mean, what is he doing in Dubai? Very interesting. uh, uh, Detroit. Yeah. Detroit. Let's go to Detroit. The police in Detroit. Yeah. Now you mentioned the Passion of the Christ. One of my, and I'm Jewish. One of my favorite movies of all time is The Last Temptation of Christ. Martin Scorsese. Right. Yeah. Brilliant. Brilliant. And remember the uproar about that film? Oh yeah. I mean. Because they depicted him as human. Exactly. This is who he was. This is, I'm a human being. But he, he's, he's above reproach. When Caravaggio painted the Madonna with dirty, they had naked feet. People wanted to kill him. Yeah. He goes, but she's barefoot and this is what, she's a poor woman. That's how they look. The, the, uh, the belief is, is that, uh, Christ was, was a divine human being, but he still, and I've talked to priests about this. He still had to eat food, go to the bathroom, take a bath, clean up. All the functions that humans had. He, he could, and, and as far as emotions, he felt the emotions. I'm sure that, uh, the whole idea of being human until it was time to, was to manifest and become an under, you know, I hear that. And let me just say one thing, and I'm going to be sort of humorous about it, but only on the pop culturians where you, will you have conversation beginning with Roman reigns and ending with Jesus Christ. That's right. The Roman reigns. We're the pop culture. Rob Van Dam and Mustafa. Rob, listen. And Sue Sexton slapping Joey Gaynor. That one wrestler, that we could never get John the Baptist. That guy was amazing. Cause he would come in. He slotted. I'm telling this guy killed, killed, lost his head one night at the matches. Hey, you know, but wrestling is, I mean, if you look at the Bible, I mean, the Bible is all morality tale. I mean, it comes down to me that the oldest story is, I mean, the God versus the devil is the first one. And if you look at the way John Milton presents the devil, he's the first free thinker. Yeah. Basically God's a promoter and the devil's the guy coming up. You know, he, he's been there for awhile and God says, Oh, we have a new, new face. It's called man. I want you to do the job for me. And he's going to, well, I'm the top guy here. That's a sterile. I'm actually, you're going to have me job to this guy. So what do you do? So he leaves, he starts his own promotion. Right. And all of a sudden he goes down all of a sudden he has all of a sudden his promotion is getting hot. Now God's sitting back. All of a sudden Jesus is popping up. He goes, listen, we need this kid. This kid's good. He's playing the circuit. He's got a good Eastern territory. We got to get this guy over. He calls up Satan. Listen, I got this kid. He's a kind of a face. Can help us out. Oh Jesus. He's yeah. Okay. Listen, okay. Here's what we're going to do. We'll do a promotion. Now I'm going to go back and forth, back and forth. Our WrestleMania will be the apocalypse. We'll be, it'll be a thousand share, but that's basically what it is. It's all about storytelling. Good guy, bad guy. Well, you, when you read, you got to make that movie. I'm in the Bible. As I'm sitting here listening to this, all I could think of is I hope my wife is hearing this right now because somebody else's brain that works exactly like mine. I'm not, I'm not the only one. Thank you, Dan. The man, man, when I read Genesis, what I'm reading is literally the big bang theory being explained to people who would never have been able to understand that 35,000 years ago or whatever. The big bank there. Let there be light. What is the big bang theory? Light explosion broke. It's what it is. Let me ask you all a question. And every image you ever say, every painting you ever see of Adam and Eve, why do they have belly buttons? Absolutely. I know because they're, that's why that's what they say that people know. Cause that's what people knew. Exactly. And, and we don't know what they did with the umbilical cord back then. They planted trees with them. They must've did something. She must've, she figured that out. But I mean, I'm, I'm fascinated the fact that you to sit and to write a book. I mean, I know what that's like, you know, but to have it, to plot out an eight book series is not just an endeavor. I mean, that's, that's a work of, I'm just fascinated the fact that this is even coming to life. But you know what it is seriously. I mean, just, just being real about it. Yeah. It's an obsession. Seriously. I mean, you know, we'll go back to the Facebook. You see everything I post on Facebook. I'll go into these periods where I'm posting nine and 10 posts in five minutes. Then I'll take these hours long breaks. I have a lot on my mind. And you as a writer, you could relate to this. You as a comedian, you could relate to this. I'm sure you could relate to this. There are people that have artistic tendencies inside of them. That they have to get out or there are people that just have a hell of a lot to say that they want to get out. My outlet isn't, you know, punching walls or, you know, kicking karate boards. It used to be, but my outlet is sitting at Starbucks from four o'clock in the morning to 10, two of these plus peanut butter on a bagel. And I go home and I see my wife and my dog Coco stay home a couple hours and go back tomorrow. You had a dog named Coco? Rottweiler. Yeah. But you know what? My Coco's nickname is courtesy of my wife. If you have this, I have this dog. I swear to God, I'd kiss your head right now. Renton tits because she has nine nipples. Oh no, but I like to see that. I saw a movie like that though once. I'll tell you. It was very good. I have a cat named Cuckoo. That's all I'm going to say. Living with you would be Cuckoo. Oh Joe, that's why she's Cuckoo. Let me tell you. So what book is this in the series? This is book one. Wow. Just came out. And how do you get it? And now you buy it at the bookstores? You go online. Tell us how you get a hold of the book. The Chronicles of Aura is available on amazon.com and at Amazon.com. And at a select bookstore near you. Okay. So you can order it through any Barnes and Noble, anything you want. Some of the stores carry it. Some of the stores will carry it. You can order it anywhere. Let us know because we'll push. Because I can't wait. I mean, I can't wait. It's out now. It is out now. It's at bookstores. It is at Amazon. I mean, this is the perfect. This is the zeitgeist. I don't use German phraseology very often. No, it's okay. But with Games of Thrones and other things like that. But there's always been a fan base for this stuff. There's always been. And for a long time, guys who like fantasy or something, whatever, they always wanted to get a book. But now, once something gets in the populace, oh, everyone jumps to the bandwagon. It's a very big bandwagon. But there's always been a big fan base for this stuff. Exactly. But look what happened to wrestling. It was the same thing. Yeah. You know, I was, you know, it was a big stigma when I was a Bruno fan, even though... Yup. You know, and a superstar Billy Graham fan... And a Bob Franklin fan... Johnny Rods. Jimmy Snuka fan... Johnny Rods... Personal friends of Johnny Rods... My dear, Johnny Rods... The unpredictable Johnny Rods... The unpredictable Johnny Rods... Yeah. And you know, you could find it on Amazon and you could find it at Twitter handle, at www.popculturians. We'll go ahead and we'll put it up there so that you can... I just have to... I want to force you, right now, you have to come back on the show. I'd love to. It'd be a third time. I feel like Bob Uecker in WrestleMania 3 and 4... And you could go on the Hall of Fame. Once we get the Hall of Fame... Yeah, we're gonna have a Walk of Fame outside the studio here. The Walk of Shame, basically. Let's do it, guys. You're a great guest to have on the show, Joel, and the book is gonna be a giant. And... You know my agent's number. You lost it. I did lose it, but I'll get it from you. Well, before we... I mean, I just want to... As a writer, I mean, your influences, I mean, that's what writers do. Sure. What are your influences? My influences, predominantly, you know, Star Wars and, gosh, literature. Everything. Old literature, everything, anything current event, those are my influences. Get this book, read this book. That's right. You will not be disappointed. Chronicles of Aura. Joel Eisenberg, the real Eisenberg. Thank you so much for being on the show. Mark Chavinsky, thank you. With At What Cost, the new documentary. Pop Culturians, Joey Gaynor. Dan Madigan. Paul McGee. And, boy, an hour goes faster than... In Chinese foodware. That's right. In Chinese foodware. God bless. We'll see you guys next time here at Skid Row Studios. And check us out on iTunes also and at our Twitter. What's our Twitter? It's at www.popculturians. Go. www.popculturians. We'll work on that. We'll work on that. We'll get that all together here. I'm going to, I'm going to, Al, Al, Ed Norton. Thank you, guys. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.