Captain Stan, Hottest Wrestling Gals, and HMF Preview Part 3 J-M

*Update- Since the Hamtramck Music Festival isn't telling you, starting August 6th, Smalls one of the venues participating in HMF will be requiring full vaccination or proof of negative test. Plan your trekking accordingly. We here at the JCM are very disappointed after spending the last week actually trying to get people to go out and support local music only for the festival committee to prove once again that they do not care about the "music" only the bottom line. The fact that their Facebook has yet to be updated with which venues require vaccination, masks, etc is very glaring how much care really went into this event. I went to their website and there was zero info either. However there was this gem of a schedule listing. Not even fucking trying....

 The following is satirical as always and for entertainment purposes Only

From the National Affairs Desk-

     So it continues and, for the life of me, I cannot explain why. After two parts of what was once a reliable topic, The Local Music Festival Preview, the interest and readership is one giant flatline. This is very concerning because up until these previews the hits were consistent. The JCM Fake Festival posts met the average numbers of Lavender 2020/2021. But once I switched to previewing the Hamtramck Music Festival and I don't know how many bands thus far, it totally cratered and fell off. I even tried to be mean to some probably nice people. Of course there is an obvious joke and blame to be made about the Fest, its organizers, the city, among other things and not holding the attention of even the most jaded of scenester, but I will not make that joke. Instead I will reiterate what I said last post: Go to this. Have fun because seeing even a below average local band is (slightly) better than the alternative of nothing at all, or worse, the option being taken away entirely.

With that said, I would like to take this time to apologize to any act booked for HMF starting with the letters J-M. I'm not doing it this part. Sorry. No previews for J-M. Punishment for the continued blacklisting of the Jesus Chainsaw Massacre (and me getting tired of looking all these goofs up). Instead, here is a half assed post about JCM's return to a full capacity live event in Detroit, the WWE Supershow at Little Caesars Arena this past Sunday followed by the return of everyone's favorite: THE LISTS! 

I met up with founding members -jr and Wang Yellowbone at the fabled Bronx Bar downtown. It was a complete refresh of the mental health to be with old, and in Wang's case very old, friends at an old haunt and it was no time at all before we hijacked the jukebox and ordered the classic, though slightly overrated, burgers. Well, all except for Captain Stan.

   "Dammit, I think I ordered the fake burger," Captain Stan said.

   "What?" replies -jr, who had been telling a story of rebound fingerbanging years ago in the corner of the Bronx for the second time in five minutes.

   "I got the fake burger. Its good, but bullshit."

I first met Captain Stan this past April when -jr and I rented a house in Mentor, Ohio, an upscale suburb of Cleveland, a town where everyone knew where you worked, how much you made, and the high school football games were packed at noon despite bullshit restrictions. In other words, we were with friendlies. I had picked up -jr that morning as he was closing the books for the week at Big Mike's Big Tit Juke Joint Meat Shack. He took a few minutes to introduce me to the staff.

   "This is Big Dave, top seller in March. Took over for Big Steve who I fired because of a shitty March despite being the top seller in February. Big Carl over there works front of house. Big Mary, not to be confused with Fat Mary from back home, is a plant, a ringer, to keep morale up and work the phones. Big Reggie is there in maintenance...." and on. The only thing that stood out was that everyone was called "Big". I never did meet Big Mike that weekend, just -jr who seemed to be running the show in his absence. We sped off in a company car and dropped our stuff off at the rental house which was more like a mansion; two floors, an acre of backyard forest, jacuzzi in my master bedroom, the usual.

 -jr had already been there and set up the recording studio where we would record exactly one song, the yet to be released "Hash Tags". Then it was off to breakfast, my first time unmasked in a public setting since the year before. Next up was the Mentor Gun Club where we illegally parked and asked for the newest, high powered handguns and ripped through a few targets. I named mine Matty Dally.

We still had some time to kill before Wrestlemania on the giant screen at the rental so we made the decision to go bugchasing at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. -jr had been heavy into the whiskey by then and we stopped at a park to catch an organized football game. Naturally it was packed. We set up three tripods with telephoto lenses a hundred meters away from the stands. It was Saturday in swine free paradise.

   "What are we doing?" I asked, wanting to help any way I could.

   "Looking for Big Danny," -jr replied without looking away from his camera, "I think he's been ripping me off. Big Andy was supposed to be watching for him here, but he's at the juke joint covering for me."

   "Oh," is all I could muster.

   "Look there," he said pointing to the left of the stands, "That's the police station. Its next to the courthouse and fire department. They're all connected. We're going to need them before this is over. Okay, let's go to the Hall of Fame."

I helped him pack up while wondering why there were three tripods set up and only two of us. We then sped off to Cleveland making the 30 minute drive in 19, all while playing hogs of the road. The museum was packed and everyone was wearing masks but very close together. Since this was early April I was still on my first vaccine shot and mildly concerned. Thankfully the non-alcoholic beer combined with the massive amounts of sedatives I brought along helped to dull the fear.

As soon as we entered the exhibit area we were drawn to a crowd of people huddled in the center of a room. The mood was somber. We pushed our way to the front using the NFL press pass I had bought from a pimp outside the Cleveland Browns' stadium minutes before.

They were surrounding a glass case which contained a pair of custom George Floyd sneakers. This was the first thing that we saw at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

   "God dammit. This is bad. What are we doing here?" -jr whispered. I was losing him.

   "Its just some shoes. We haven't even gotten to the first interactive pod and you're already losing it."

   "Losing it? This is not good. Let's get out of here. Second floor man. Second floor."

   "Good call. I'm not bailing you out of this one."

-jr starts pushing his way through the crowd, even knocking over a stroller, while wailing, "Second floor. There is nothing to see here."

My attempt at damage control was not effective.

   "He's right you know. The man was a habitual drug user and woman beater. We're here for the true professionals. The Lennon exhibit is on the second floor." A hippie starting crying.

Once we got to the second floor -jr focused his entire attention looking out the window, staring at Lake Erie, while I made my way to the punk and glam rooms.

I went over to check on him after 15 minutes of wandering around. I saw that he had been crying.

   "Look there. See it?"

   "Yes, the lake. Let's get back. You've turned dark."

   "Look. Do you see it?"

   "Jesus man, what am I looking for? You tell me!"

   "There, that boat. You see it?" he said pointing at a small boat about 500 feet from the shore, "That boat is mine. The guy on it is Stan."

   "Big Stan?" I ask.

   "No, Captain Stan. He works for me. He runs the boat. I want to fish."

   "We can't fish there. There are no fish there. Too close to the city. Plus, I think its illegal."

   "No, the cops know me. We come out all the time. Captain Stan has all the gear loaded. Let's get out of this place and go fishing. Those shoes really got to me."

We left and went to the water where Captain Stan was waiting with the boat.

   "We gotta get out quick boys. They have a new cop working the waterfront. Don't recognize him. Probably with Big Danny," Captain Stan warned.

   "I knew it. Got to the cops. He works quick. Should have fired that miscreant last month."

The time spent on Lake Erie was an exercise in futility. As expected, we caught no fish and Captain Stan had finished a quart of whiskey before we even had the lines cast. The mood was foul.

   "Bad day guys. Too hot. Our last resort is going to be throwing the rest of the bait and all of our food into the water and when the fish start to circle it then we blast them with the siren," Captain Stan advised.

   "The pay per view is starting soon anyway. We should get back," I pleaded.

   "Fuck. They found us. Look! The patrol boat. The cops. They're with Big Danny. They already have Big Andy," Captain Steve was panicking. He then grabbed a large tote bag.

   "There's no option. We have to sink the boat. You two go. Swim to shore. I'll do the boat. Maybe I can take a few of the fuckers with me."

The last thing I remember running back to the car was Captain Stan shouting as the police sirens started to blare followed by a feeble explosion. The pay per view was fun and I won the gentleman's betting pool.

Flash to the present as Captain Stan was thumbing through a gaunt issue of the Metro Times. 

   "You write for these guys? Metro. Metro Times," he asks.

   "No, they hate me. I priced myself out of their league."

   "Those bastards. Cheap bastards. Who wants to write for free anyway?" he ponders as I looked down at my plate of french fries.

   "Let's go," -jr interrupts, "the car I borrowed is illegally parked and we don't want to be late."

At the arena it was a blast seeing a crowd of thousands all having fun without any pretenses (or vaccination passports). The crew spent more time photographing various oddities in the crowd instead of watching the matches which was fine. We only managed to get into one argument. A small victory.

To close the wrestling portion of this Hamtramck Music Festival Preview here is a return of everyone's favorite: The Bryan Metro Lists. Two of them! The first is a tumblr-esque ditty that I cropped together from the photog work of -jr, Wang, and Captain Stan from the show.

The Top 8 Weirdo's From the Aug. 1st WWE Show

Is that last one Spaulding??

Next up is one that I came up with myself. Metro's Top 10 Wrestling Hardbodies (Current). I went with current as opposed to All Time because I still have lazy fatigue from previewing all those local bands. I'm curious if any current wrestling fans stumble on this and what their reaction would be. My experience is the majority of them today are predictably woke, white knight mongoloids who are experts in health and science, vaccines, and politics. Not to mention world affairs. I remember some of these lintheads changing all their screennames to "Free Palestine", "Taiwan is a country", or "Taiwan is not a country" based on seeing what a wrestler said on twitter. There is one constant in life and that is wrestling fans are the worst (myself excluded), are very unoriginal, and are extremely terrible tippers. The purpose of this list is to basically trigger a whole new demographic so I can transition from covering local music which is as dead as its ever been. Its all calculated. As always, this is your opinion as of this posting. It could change tomorrow, and probably will.

Metro's Top 10 Current Wrestling Doffs

Honorable Mentions-

Carmella- A tad much on the cosmetic fakery to make the main list but the quality fakery + the Staten Island attitude is Honorable. Loses points for dating Big Cass. SAWFT

Liv Morgan- Too cute for school, seems like a genuinely good person, spunky, always working to get better, and owns a farm. So, why the honorable mention instead of main list? One word....Enzo. How you doin'?

Penelope Ford- The first from AEW on the list. I don't watch much, but from what I see its like the greatest thing ever. She looks like she could work at JCM HQ, the Yacht Club, so she is honorable for probably being dishonorable.

Sonya DeVille- Does not wrestle much these days and plays more of an authority role. Plays for the other team in real life and I don't mean AEW, but that did not stop some glandular case from breaking into her house and attempting to rape, kidnap, or "other" her. Despite out often hedonistic, misogynistic posts we at the JCM despise rapists and this butterball should be castrated and his nuts fed to Keith Lee. Back to Sonya. Sneaky sexiest nose in the business.

Tay Conti- Another AEW girl. I don't know much, but she is a doff and I wanted to have more than one AEW girl on the list or else their psychotic fanbase would piss all over their parents' keyboards.

The Top 10!

10. Paige- Oh boy...Well....Fuck it.... She doesn't wrestle much these days, but cracks the Top 10 for being a total freak, former coke head, up for anything, and even had a movie made about her that had a cameo from The Rock. Get this girl a tambourine! (That could have been a LOT worse).

9. Rosemary- The lone entry from Impact Wrestling. She's been around for a while, is pretty creative, and is zany. Warning flags arose when it took me longer than average to find a photo to use here, but f it, she's the kind of girl you would take to Comic Con and avoid all the wrestling fans.

8. Sasha Banks- Only recently became a fan. She's not really my type. Strong opinionated woman who has parlayed her success into a spin off career in the Star Wars universe that was also very successful. Total turn off. However, she is confirmed to be a complete jerk and total witch to fans. Yep. Top 10.

7. Rhea Ripley- From Wang at the show last weekend, "Who is this, Miley Cyrus trying too hard on steroids?" Enough for #7, that's who. My only concern is her cardio. She does seem to get fatigued quick ho ho ho. Wait, maybe she should be higher...

6. Mandy Rose- Complete "Hot Woman" stereotype. Blonde, hardbody (its even her gimmick), not a big talker, can play both good/innocent and evil. How is she not #1? Maybe tomorrow...

5. Asuka- Also zany, wearer of masks, bad dancer, a spitter, deceptively curvy, and Asian. #5

4. Eva Marie- I included her this high because despite have zero wrestling talent and below average speaking skills, she is also a total hardbody more equipped for the Red Shoe Diaries than these fanboy youtube shows. Also that comparison took me wayyyy too long to come up with. Sexuality in pop culture is at an all time low. It is time to get back to traditional values and the beauty ideal. I love to see the mentally defective squids lose their shit and complain that she is getting paid so much more than this Indy flip twerp who has a worse physique than I do.

3. Becky Lynch- WWE's Conor. Loses points for getting knocked up and sometimes trying to hard to be "tough", but let's face it, totally Top 3. If that's all I could come with for Becky we must be reaching list/blog fatigue. Let's wrap this up.

2. Bayley- Couldn't stand her at first, but she has grown...on me. Her current persona as a snarky, obnoxious talk show host is right up my alley. I have contacted her trying to get her to write a guest column for the Lavender Blog but she just referred me to Sonya DeVille's lawyers. Probably a mistake. 'll try to confirm in person. Kidding. Also, made you look!

1, Alexa Bliss- Short, blonde, spunky, former Harley Quinn rip off, current Hot Carrie White rip off. A lot of wrestling purists hate her supernatural powers, then turn around and fap to some skinny fat guy jumping onto a group of 10 dudes all waiting to catch him. Alexa can use her powers to make my heart skip any day. (The original joke was much more foul).

Okay, that's it. As with all my lists I ran out of steam and good/offensive ideas by the midway point. This post meant to preview letters J-M of the 2021 Hamtramck Music Festival turned into one giant tangent. However, this is the most fun I've had writing a post since the JCM Fest earlier this year. Only two more HMF parts to go returning with Part 4 Letters N-R. Can I finish them before the Fest wraps up? Probably not. Who cares anyway? Nobody is talking about this which is really sad. Hey smart asses, see what happens when you block me? All of the press surrounding the festival is eliminated. Ding Dong Hello! Because I am nice, here are the acts Letters J-M that I didn't preview this go around. You look them up.

Jackson & the Poolsharks

Jah Connery

Jakdd

JC & the Disciples

Jemmi Hazeman & the Honey Riders

Jeremy Waun

John Freeman

John Salvage *&The New Twenty Saints

Justin Phipps

Kate Hinote Trio

Kenyatta Rashon

Killa King

Knuckle Dragger (Haha and they kicked us off)

Ladyship Warship

Lich

Lokye

LRAD

Lufuki and Divine Providence

Macho

Mann/Quin

Matthew Teardrop (ugh)

Memphis Hawk

Mercury Salad

Mike Ward Psychosongs

Milk Bath

Missy Mae & The Ryders

More Tomorrows

The My Ways

Good lord, previewing that would have caused a brain bubble. See you next Wednesday!

From the Iceman Commeth

Dr. Bryan Metro