Month: April 2023

I’ll tell you how I’m going to become rich

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

My sister made a recommendation to our family group chat about a film she saw; Happy Cleaners on Amazon Prime Video.  Just from the title alone and given the context of my very Korean family, I knew that this was definitely going to be about the Korean Story, and that it was going to fuck with my emotions.  I watched the trailer and yup, it was about the Korean Story and the trailer alone did succeed at fucking with my emotions.

Make no mistake, in spite of the title of the film, this was going to be anything but happy.  I anticipated that like so many Korean stories, this was going to be depressing, thought-provoking, probably relatable and leave me feeling like I’ll probably want to cry from having my emotional heartstrings yanked around.  Sounds like a great idea to watch right?

But because I’m a sucker for my nationality, I went ahead and watched it anyway, in spite of all the red flags of getting aboard an emotional roller coaster.

And of course, Happy Cleaners was everything I anticipated it would be, and I ended the film in a lower emotional state than which I started at.  Not only was it about an entirely too relatable Korean family much like my own, the plot of the film doesn’t really have much lateral movement, and unsurprisingly starts depressing, and ends in a more depressing state than the beginning.

To make matters worse, there’s a character in the film who’s named Danny, and he’s a Korean-American who has the weight of the world on his shoulders to the point where he can’t achieve any objectives and is working two menial jobs in order to survive.  He’s a classic underachiever, and I’m triggered because after just watching Beef, whose main character is also an underachieving struggling Korean-American named Danny, I feel like the world is trying to tell me something unpleasant.

Frankly, as much as I want to support Asians and specifically Korean or Korean-American filmmakers and storytellers, I’m just kind of over everyone’s rendition of the Korean Story.  Yes, Korean immigrants have historically had it really poor throughout the passage of time, but in most cases in everywhere in the world, when people immigrate to other countries, they’re usually going to struggle unless they learn the native language and/or get the education of the country they’re moving to. 

In most cases of the Korean Story, Korean immigrants get straight to work after arrival, seldom really try to become fluent in English, don’t bother getting an American education, and put all of their eggs and pressure onto their kids to succeed, and there just ain’t that much need for one million Korean doctors or lawyers and there aren’t that many scholarships to be had at all of the Ivy League schools combined.  Instead we’ve got hundreds to thousands of Korean storytellers all telling the same stories of their family’s struggles of surviving in America, with minimal variation.

So I’ll tell you all how I’m going to make my fortune: by writing the Korean story that isn’t the Korean Story.  Even if it’s fictitious and unrelatable to the 1.7 million Koreans in America, maybe it can just be a good exercise in escapism for all of us instead of needing yet another film of book or television special about how Korean lives suck in America.  It won’t be as exploitatively parodying like fucking Kim’s Convenience, and it wouldn’t be mentioned in the same breath as Happy Cleaners or Beef.

It can just be a story about a Korean family that succeeds at coming to America, embarking on and succeeding at achieving their American dream.  By learning English, re-learning an American education, and breaking out of the mold of working at liquor stores or dry cleaners or shitty food franchises, they become contributing members of society not completely insulated in their cultural silo.  Their kids grow up without the pressures of their entire bloodline on their shoulders, and they too become successful adults who are both well-cultured and well-educated and succeed in life.

Surely this narrative has happened somewhere in the culture, but without the angst of feeling cursed by the Korean Story, those that live it probably just haven’t gotten around to writing it out to where it could become a piece of Korean media that doesn’t make me want to jump off a bridge.

So I should just do it myself.  I’m sure I’d become filthy rich from all the Koreans who want to seek that escapism, and I’ll know I really made it if I could then get all the white guilters to get on board with it and ingest my story so that they can seem tolerant of foreigners, and then the rest will follow suite like dominoes.

Just got to have time away from parenting to get right on that though, so I guess in about 5-6 years I can pursue my destiny, hopefully.

Yeah, not going to change my mind on this one

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Spoiler alert: Trinity Fatu confirmed to have signed deal with Impact Wrestling, will debut soon

As much as I appreciate and find enjoyment in the post-TNA era of Impact Wrestling, there’s no denying the overall perception of the promotion is that they’re very much no higher than third-tier.  WWE and AEW are the easy #1 and 2 promotions in America, and Impact is basically where anyone who is unable to land a job in the big two end up.  The roster is full of quality talents and strong workers, but there’s no denying the fact that nearly all of them have experience with  WWE and/or AEW and have landed in Impact mostly out of lack of better options.

It’s still a means to remain on camera, and in lots of cases, it’s a good low-pressure environment for workers to reinvent their characters and put in work, while still getting paid and keeping a foot jammed in the doors to bigger opportunities.  But there’s no denying that the overall perception of Impact still has the stink of Dixie Carter’s and Jerry Jarrett’s TNA all over it, and such alone is one of the highest hurdles for the brand to overcome on a daily basis.

The bottom line is, professional wrestlers don’t perform in their careers with the dream and intention to land in Impact Wrestling.  They all dream of getting to the top of the industry, or doing their best to make themselves into the top of the industry; love them or hate them, but that really means, making it to the WWE or joining the hopes and dreams hype train of AEW.

So all that being said, I can’t imagine that the hopes of Naomi, when she walked out of the WWE along with Sasha Banks, was that she was going to land in Impact Wrestling.  I imagine she hoped that the impact of her and Sasha walking out would cause a movement in the WWE creative machine to where they would be welcomed back with open arms, and some more legitimate respect would be put onto the women’s division, the women’s tag division, and maybe some more money would be thrown in their direction too.

However, what they failed to realize was that Vince McMahon was still the head dick in charge at that time, and he doesn’t even care about the Intercontinental championship much less the women’s division, and not only was their bluff called, the situation was even brought up on the air, just to punctuate their general unimpressed nature of what they had done.  Sasha would go on to Japan, become Mercedes Mone, immediately win the IWGP Women’s Championship, and is supposedly making six-figures per appearance, while Naomi has been on her ass since. 

Personally, this was not surprising to me; as much as I like Trinity Fatu and think she’s a strong performer, she was no real loss to the WWE.  Sasha Banks however, was a game changer, a franchise player, and a woman whom the division could be built around; but her conduct and general perception of her attitude put them both into a position where an old unapologetic fuck like Vince McMahon had no choice but to call their bluff and let them walk, because doing anything else is an L in his book, putting two performers above the business that nobody is bigger than.

The thing is, from the moment it happened, beyond thinking it was just a work, when it was confirmed that it wasn’t, the first thing I thought was that this was entirely Sasha’s idea, and Naomi went along with it.  Sasha has already demonstrated her willingness to walk out like a spoiled brat when things weren’t necessarily favorable for her, but when she decided to do it again, it’s clear she felt that she had to bring Naomi with her in order to feel like she was strengthening her leverage, even it if meant potentially harming another person’s career.

When the bluff was called, Sasha knew she still had demand and options, and cashed those in.  But unfortunately Naomi wasn’t as fortunate; this isn’t to say that she doesn’t have the capability of being a franchise player, but over the last decade, she’s been portrayed as nothing more than a good team player and a transitional champion at best, and no promotion is going to offer premium dollar for such perception.

And now, Naomi is now in Impact Wrestling.  The third-tier promotion that most wrestling fans don’t even know what channel to tune into in order to watch.  Even if she is shot to the top of the card to go up against the likes of Deonna Purrazzo and Jordynne Grace, she’ll still be making a fraction of the money that she would’ve been making as a WWE mid-carder.  Now I doubt her and her husband Jimmy Uso are ever going to sweat on the financial front, but there’s no denying the trajectory of her personal career has been seriously derailed, by a decision that wasn’t necessarily her own.  And as much as I like Impact now, the detour through Impact usually takes a good bit of time to reroute through.

Which brings us back to the image above, I most definitely believe that Sasha Banks screwed Naomi, and I don’t really think that I’m going to change my stance on that opinion.  The intentions of their actions weren’t bad, but the execution of it was something that you just don’t do in any line of work and expect positive results, and there’s not a single part of me that doesn’t think this wasn’t solely Sasha’s idea from the start.  I feel that she used Naomi like a pawn to try and strengthen her objective, but when it failed, she basically poisoned Naomi’s career, while she went onto to find a lucrative alternative.

Even before she married into the ultra-loyal Anoa’i family, Naomi was the consummate pro who got the business and seemed to understand that at some point, everyone in history eats shit sandwiches from time to time.  She may have been a former Smackdown women’s champion before, but she’s also done her share of jobs to the IIconics, Lana, Mandy Rose and other weak workers she could wrestle into knots if she wanted to.  There’s no part of me that believes she would ever think to walk out of the company on her own accord.

Of course, nobody will ever admit to any finger pointing or sour grapes, at least not while careers are still active.  But inevitably, both Sasha and Naomi will be back in the WWE, because on a long enough timeline, everyone comes home eventually.  They better pray that Vince McMahon is entirely out when that day comes, because that man holds a grudge like no other, and he would 100% resume whatever he had in mind for them prior to their walkout, just to prove a point, before he jobs them around for a minute, as a receipt for their past transgressions.

Speaking of receipts, to me, the real telling point would be the inevitability that Sasha Banks steps in the ring for a match against Naomi.  I would be ohhhhhh like I were watching a dunk contest if Naomi absolutely potatoes the fuck out of Sasha with like a kick to her head that’s a little too snug, as retribution for the likely 2+ years of her prime that were squandered on a really foolish idea.  Because again, nobody will ever say what they really feel, but the actions will definitely speak for them, and I’m sure Naomi is smart enough to have realized, Sasha screwed her.

Welp, that didn’t last long

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Color me a little surprised: after tremendous amounts of criticism and ridicule, the New York Mets revise the sponsorship patch on their jerseys for New York Presbyterian hospital

I’m surprised because in most cases, companies have a tendency to dig their heels in and quadruple down on their decisions, because nobody much less a gazillion dollar sport franchise ever likes admitting they were wrong.  But let’s be real here, it’s probably not (just) the criticism, clowning and ridicule they’ve been getting since debuting the former, arm-sized patch.

As I stated in my own stab at poking fun at the Mets for this, the patch was so big, it probably had the potential to affect player performance, and it probably was.  Baseball players are so neurotic and sensitive to the littlest stimuli, that a big fat patch on their arms probably made them feel a little off, and let the numbers speak for themselves:

  • The Mets as a team’s batting average is .238, which is 18th in MLB
  • Their pitching as a team has a fWAR of 0.4, which is 28th in MLB – out of 30

Keep in mind that the Mets also have a payroll of $364 million dollars which is the highest single season payroll in the history of Major League Baseball, so the expectation is that they should be the absolute best in every category in the game for as much money as they’ve invested in free agent star players.

But if you don’t think that the previous patch might not have had something to do with it, the Mets probably wouldn’t have pulled the trigger so quickly on revising this, if they didn’t believe that there was the remote possibility that it might have been affecting performance.

Either way, a good old-fashioned LOL Mets for doing the kind of silly bullshit that only the Mets seem capable of doing.  No matter how much money they dump into getting top tier pitchers and hitters, they just can’t fight the ownage that often times comes from simply being the Mets.

Let’s talk about the new WWE World Heavyweight Championship blet

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I guess I can’t say that I’m really that surprised that the WWE went ahead and introduced a new World Championship into circulation of blets.  Roman Reigns has the WWE and the Universal championship on lockdown and doesn’t look like he’ll be losing them anytime soon, Walter Gunther is bringing generations of prestige back to the Intercontinental championship, the United States championship seems like it’s the youngster’s title, with Austin Theory wielding it, and I have no idea what to predict what they’re going to do with the unified Tag Team championships.

But because Roman has both of the company’s top prizes, and it doesn’t make sense for him to relinquish either, there is a modicum of sense in introducing a new World title equivalent, for a pool of upper-card talents to vie for, without getting inevitably squashed by Reigns.

I also like to think that the WWE made a new blet, just so that they could have another blet to sell, considering they’ve kind of caught up and released just about every single blet in the company’s existence, and I don’t imagine business is great on patsy fake replicas with the Boston Red Sox logo or for whatever reason, every single SEC school.  And at an aggressive $499 price point for a replica, they’re probably grateful for AEW for inflating the cost of replicas to where they could justify upping their costs as well.

Anyway, let’s talk about the blet’s design, seeing as how I am the ultimate blet collector that I know [I know nobody else who collects personally] and my opinion holds the utmost weight on replica blets of a fake sport of mostly sweaty dudes crashing into each other in soap opera storylines.

Knee-jerk reaction: meh.  Leaning not liking it, 48-52.  I get what the WWE is trying to do with this, in that they’re trying to take the classic big gold blet from the NWA and WCW and make it inherently WWE’s without just straight up re-releasing the old big gold blet.  Most likely because they wouldn’t be able to justify the $499 price point, but also because the origins of it will never be native to the WWE.

The sheer amount of flourish and the thickness of the plates, and all the swirly designs with practically no contrast to give it any sort of visual separation just kind of make it look like a massive golden turd, smashed and shaped into the general shape of a gold center plate, and then slapped with a WWE logo in the middle.

Speaking of which, because the globe behind the logo lacks any sort of, you know, land masses on it, it’s not really a globe anymore, and doesn’t really say “world” about it.  But that’s okay I guess, because they have “WORLD CHAMPION” on it in a spiky, LA Angels-type font that is supposed to look intense and menacing or something.

It’s like, the classic World championships of the past, and all championship blets for that matter, the WWE logo was always subtle, but present.  It allowed for the actual title of the championship be the focal point of the blets, from the old World championships, all the way to even like the European championship.  There’s a reason why those older blet designs are all so revered and respected and seen as the benchmark of blet design.

The current WWE and Universal championships held by Roman Reigns work, because that’s the WWE going full heavy handed and making the blet basically nothing but the company’s logo.  It’s gaudy and intense, but because they went so ham and committed to it, it works.

This new World Heavyweight championship is one part trying to be big gold, but at the same time, one part WWEEEEEEE, that it’s like two conflicting forces colliding and we’re left with this weird bastardized golden turd of a blet where it’s stuck in the middle of two alpha objectives.

It’s not the worst blet ever released by the WWE, but it’s also not one where I see it and immediately go mmmmmmm I want it.  But I could be swayed, be it through an intense discount/sale opportunity, or as simple as being happy with whom is holding the blet, and it making me want it.  But considering the introduction of this blet screams, Cody Rhodes will be the first holder of it, I can’t say that holder of the blet is going to sell me on it any time soon.

Fuckin’ Cody.  I hope he beats some transitional schmuck for the blet in Saudi Arabia, just so we can go ahead and get his bullshit contractually-obligated World title reign over with, but it mean relatively nothing in the grand spectrum of things.

And then next Spring, lose it to Roman Reigns at Wrestlemania, to great lol’s for me.

Someone get the Minnesota Timberwolves a trophy

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

They avoided getting swept!  They may as well be NBA champions for demonstrating such guile and determination and defeating the mighty and championship pedigree of the Denver Nuggets to stave off elimination.

This, is the very definition of lowered expectations, and precisely the instance why I actually have a tag in my brog entitled “lowered expectations.”

Sometimes, the NBA is just so hilarious at how soft and silly it’s become over the decades.  There’s so much noise surrounding the entire league, that the actual act of playing hoops seems so almost tertiary.  It is entirely possible to get sucked up in the drama and storylines of an entire NBA season and not actually watch a single game.

But back to this hilarious screen grab, it’s perfect on so many levels:

  • First, it’s not even remotely accurate that the Timberwolves avoided getting swept for the first time in franchise history; back when the playoffs were still best-of-five, the Wolves were swept in both 1997 and 2002, but the NBA for some reason likes to disregard the BO5 era unless it’s in support of whatever narrative they’re phishing for.
  • They act like the Wolves getting swept would be some sort of monumental history or something; Minnesota isn’t an OG NBA franchise, having come into the league in the 1990 expansion, but in 30+ years, they’ve only made the playoffs 11 times. That’s literally 33% of the franchise’s existence they’ve gotten into the playoffs, and of those 11 times, only once have they gotten out of the first round, and that was Kevin Garnett’s MVP season.  Otherwise, the Minnesota Timberwolves are definition of a middling pretender that may never actually win an NBA championship ever.
  • Rudy Gobert being in the frame is like the cherry on top, because I can’t say that I follow the NBA much, but whenever I do hear about the NBA, Rudy Gobert’s name has come up a surprising amount, and it’s almost never in a good context. This is the guy that was the league’s Patient Zero when COVID started, but not only did he deny coronavirus, the guy dared the world to give it to him, and he made a spectacle of rubbing microphones and tried his best to get it, and by golly did he succeed.  As soon as he tested positive, the NBA shut down shortly thereafter.  Oh, and just a few weeks ago, the Wolves ended their season with Gobert getting into a fight… with a teammate.  Real smart guy, that Rudy Gobert is

Whatever though, let’s hear it for the Minnesota Timberwolves for winning the NBA Championship after 33 long years of operation staving off getting swept because they’re totally going to be the first franchise in NBA history to ever come back from an 0-3 series deficit, and that statistic, is very much factual with no asterisks or caveats.  Maybe the Wolves can build on this grandiose achievement, and perhaps in 22 more years, get knocked out of the first round in game six instead.  Progress!

So the A’s are finally moving, it seems

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

😔 : The Oakland Athletics reach a land deal in Las Vegas; all signs pointing towards officially moving the franchise after years of failing to secure any sort of stadium deal to remain in Oakland

It’s funny, the speculation that the Oakland A’s were moving has been going on for so long, it got to a point where people just stopped believing it was going to happen.  But much like the Washington Redskins finally changing their name after eons of dodging it, it appears that the Oakland A’s are officially going to be departing Oakland, and heading into the desert.

The sports fan in me reacts because it’s change and a lot of sports fans don’t like change.  But it also elicits a little bit of sadness for me as a baseball fan, because I’m a low-key fan of the A’s, in the sense that I love Moneyball, underdogs, and teams that operate like they’re small-market and have to rely on brains and guile to survive in a league where the Mets are literally spending $300 million more than they are.

Plus, in spite of all the flack and criticism the Oakland Coliseum or whatever corporate-sponsor-of-the-month-Stadium gets for being on the wrong side of the tracks, adorned with barbed wire, and dated like an original mid-century modern home, I actually really liked my experience visiting the place, and have fond memories of the ballpark as a whole.

So I’m sad to hear that the A’s are finally getting the nails lined up on their coffin, with the hammering supposedly to be finished by the start of the 2027 season.  There’s still time for those out in Oakland to soak up a few more years of Athletics baseball, but it’ll be with the underlining sadness that there are still a finite number of games left before the team packs their shit and heads to Las Vegas.

It’s actually rich that of all the parties to come out and express sadness and condolences for the eventual demise of baseball in Oakland, the fucking San Francisco Giants emerged to make their comments.  Because on at least one instance, it was the Giants themselves that pitched a fit and effectively blocked the A’s from getting a new ballpark in San Jose, because they felt it encroached on their geographic territory, despite the fact that the city is kind of equidistant from both cities.  I’ve said it once, and I’ll say again, fuck the Giants.

Speaking of rich, of all the dirty laundry to start hitting the waves in light of the news of the team’s eventual departure, one thing I was unaware of is the fact that the owner of the Athletics is basically the richest singular owner in all of MLB, which is extra sad since the A’s have basically been bottom-3 payrolls in the league since pretty much, the existence of time.  MLB as a whole declared jihad on the Marlins’ former owner Jeffrey Loria until he sold the franchise, and even in “being forced out,” he still made a gargantuan profit in the process.  It makes me wonder if anything of the sort has been remotely considered for John Fisher?

All the same, I just wanted to write some words to express my general disappointment over the impending death of baseball in Oakland.  Not because it’s a layup of a topic for me to write about, on the contrary, I drug my feet because I didn’t want to phone in something phony, but because I really did care about the Oakland A’s.  Even though my fandom has wavered throughout the years, I always took enjoyment of seeing whenever the A’s defeated any of the rich blue bloods of baseball, and remained a low-key fan of a team that embodied success almost as an act of defiance.

I’m sure baseball in Las Vegas will be enjoyable, but inevitably when I visit whatever stadium will be there, it’ll be a hard time not comparing it to the dated charm and the place that made the most out of the nothing they had, of the Oakland Mausoleum.

A billion-dollar arena in Forsyth County LOL

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

The skinny: Forsyth County, Tennessee Georgia plans to build a mixed-use commercial zone anchored by an arena with low-key hopes of potentially luring an NHL squad back to Georgia in the event of a future expansion

It’s bad enough that Atlanta went through this crazy, stadium-happy building spree throughout the last decade that saw the Braves and Falcons both get new homes, Atlanta United getting a new training facility, and the Hawks’ developmental team getting a new arena, it looks like the bug managed to bite someone with influence way the fuck up north of the city up in Forsyth County, who now wants to build their version of The Battery, up in probably Cumming.

In all fairness, as much as I loathed the way the Braves swindled the state into getting The Battery, I do admit that The Battery is really a fine place.  It’s the polar opposite of what Turner Field and surrounding area was, with a bustling mini-town right outside the ballpark, full of bars, restaurants, shopping, hotels, social venues and a movie theater.  I’ve still never paid a dime of my own money to park there or go to a Braves game yet, but the Braves do make up a notable chunk of the taxes I pay on the regular.

The Battery works, because beyond all of its positive attributes, the location is primo, being easily accessible from all cardinal directions on the highways via I-75 or I-285.  Obviously pending traffic conditions, but the point is, The Battery is accessible.

Such cannot be said about a potential Battery clone up in Forsyth County, because Forsyth County is practically Tennessee, and is about as relatable to the Metro Atlanta area as people in Fredericksburg claiming to be in Northern Virginia, or people who live in New Jersey claiming to live in New York.  Even if this Battery clone were actually the Battery, plucked up out of the ground and plopped into Cumming like it were Sim City, it would still fail colossally, because Forsyth County just isn’t accessible.

Forsyth County is almost literally solely accessible from one direction – from the south.  Drivers, because fuck if there’s going to be any sort of rail access, literally have to drive on GA-400 until it officially ends, and is just US-19, and ride up some country-ass roads until they get to Cumming.  Which is kind of smack dab in between I-575 and I-985, and not really easily accessible from either from lateral directions.

The idea that a Battery in Forsyth would actually succeed on its own, much less actually attract a professional sports franchise is absolutely hilarious.  The county is as red as the planet Mars, and the Klan still operates all throughout the hills and mountains shortly in north of the county.  Yeah, I’m sure hockey fans, much less more sane people from Alpharetta, Gainesville, Flowery Branch or Canton are going to trek into Forsyth County to spend their money when there are way more logical and closer options available to them.

But hey, if Forsyth County wants to bilk a billion dollars from their taxpayers, more power to them.  For once, it would be nice to know that some other county will be seen as the schmucks to get taken advantage for a really, really bad idea for a change.  I’d say I’d feel bad if and when there’s an NHL expansion in the future, and Forsyth County is turned down, because Georgia’s already had their shot at the NHL, and those of us who lived here when the Thrashers were here, saw just how well that debacle turned out.