Oct. 5 Lanny The Genius Poffo performs at NYC Promotional event for Theresa Sareo: Alive Again

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Evan Ginzburg announces gala promotional event featuring performances by cast members from Theresa Sareo: Alive Again including former WWE pro wrestling legend Lanny “The Genius” Poffo

New York, NY- October 5, 2012.

On Friday October 5, 2012 from 6:30PM-midnight at beautiful Gizzi’s at 16 W 8^th Street in the heart of New York’s legendary Greenwich Village, cast members from the award winning documentary Theresa Sareo: Alive Again will be performing in a memorable evening.

From Evan Ginzburg, Associate Producer of The Wrestler with Mickey Rourke, Theresa Sareo Alive Again is the true and inspirational documentary about New York based singer/songwriter Theresa Sareo whose life was forever changed when an impaired driver of an SUV caused the loss of her entire right leg. Gary Sinise, Lanny “The Genius” Poffo, Saturday Night Live band member Shawn Pelton and other luminaries appear in the film which was directed by Rye Joseph and has garnered critical acclaim and awards at the NY International Film Fest, Gasparilla International Film Fest, was screened at the Women’s International Film Fest, and will also be screening on Monday Oct. 15 8M at the Reel Independent Film Fest in Washington, DC.

The trailer for the film can be watched here:   http://youtu.be/1K_o38wG3x4 

Scheduled on October 5 at Gizzi’s:

6:30 Meet and Greet

7PM Poet Jon Winell set featuring a special poem to Theresa Sareo

7:30 Evan Ginzburg reads from Apartment 4B, Like in Brooklyn

8:00 Curtis Becraft band featuring Ethan Hartshorn

9:00 Lanny “The Genius” Poffo – Pro Wrestling legend performing poetry, road stories, personal film clips on our giant screen, and culminating with a Q&A and meet and greet with Lanny following his set.

10:00 Clips from film/trailer

10:15 Michael McHugh and Roger Blanc musical set

11:00 Open mike/jam session

This show is booked and hosted by Evan Ginzburg who is the host of Legends Radio (along with Dr. Mike Lano at: www.legendsradio.net) and Producer of Theresa Sareo: Alive Again (www.aliveagainmovie.com). He is proud to be presenting what will be a memorable event and we expect many surprise guest luminaries and performers throughout this evening.

There is no cover. Spectacular food, drinks and desserts are available for purchase as well as merchandise opportunities.

We will make major announcements at the show including details on our upcoming New York screening/concert and our Indiegogo campaign to help us with post-production costs.

Don't miss what will be an eclectic evening. You will not see another show like this anywhere in New York City.

Contact:

Evan Ginzburg

Evan_ginzburg@yahoo.com

Gizzi's

16 West 8th Street (west of 5th Ave., east of MacDougal) New York, NY 10011

Take the N or R train to 8th Street, walk west or take the

A,B,C,D,E,F,V train to West 4th Street; walk north, then east on 8th Street

www.gizzisnyc.com

Johnny Valiant coming to LI, looks back on his WWE career
Thursday August 30, 2012 2:54 PM By Alfonso Castillo www.newsday.com

Photo credit: Photo courtesy of Rick Eberle
He’s managed WWE champions, worn WWE gold himself, and been inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame. But “Luscious” Johnny Valiant’s most interesting connection to wrestling dates back to well before he ever stepped into a ring.
In the early 1960s, Valiant, whose real name is Tom Sullivan, attended Fishburne Military School in Williamsburg, Va. There, he befriended a fellow cadet known on campus as “Flex.”
His real name was Vincent Kennedy McMahon Jr.
“He used to walk around, kind of posing and what not,” Valiant said of the future WWE chairman. “By way of the magazines, I was told his dad was a top wrestling promoter in Washington D.C… that he was this wrestling czar’s son. I said, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me.’ And he said, ‘Yeah, my dad is a big shot.’”
Valiant, who is coming to the Great Neck Arts Center on September 8, said the teenaged Mr. McMahon was quite the athlete playing basketball and competing on the school’s wrestling team. But, even then, the two future WWE greats liked a little showmanship with their sports. And so, after classes, McMahon and Valiant would often set up wrestling mats and put on a performance.
“He was ‘Ape Man’ McMahon and bleached his hair and we had matches in front of all the cadets,” Valiant said.
Valiant said McMahon’s penchant for toilet humor was apparent even a half-century ago. But the fun times they shared were mostly “above board.”
“He would say, ‘Come on, Tommy. Let’s go down and get a hamburger,” said Valiant, who remembered chowing down on burgers and apple pies with McMahon and talking sports. “He knew I was kind of a funny guy. . . You can’t dislike the guy.”
Then, one hot day late in Valiant’s junior year the two teens decided to skip out on a routine drill formation of the school’s cadets.
“I said, ‘I don’t want to.’ Let’s go hide.’ So we went up to a tower and watched the guys parade,” Valiant recalled. “We thought it was so funny. And, low and behold, somebody finked us out and they came up and got us.”
“I was court marshalled and kicked out of there,” Valiant recalled. But, because McMahon was “a big star on campus,” he was allowed to stay, Valiant said.
“I’ll never forget. I had tears in my eyes,” Valiant said. “When I left, I said, ‘I’ll see you Vince.’ He said, ‘OK, Sully.’
“The next time I saw him, my hair was bleached, I was at the Philadelphia Arena, and he had a microphone,” Valiant added.
Despite their past friendship, Valiant said McMahon had nothing to do with helping breaking him into the business. Instead, Valiant credits Bruno Sammartino with giving him his start.
Valiant said after military school he joined the Marines, and when he was 18, he went to the home of Sammartino, who lived near him in Pittsburgh, and knocked on his front door. He offered to run errands for him, like picking him up at the airport or walking his dog, in exchange for helping him get his foot in the door of the wrestling business.
“My life changed the time I knocked on his door,” Valiant said. “It’s like somebody who wants to get into baseball knocking on Pete Rose’s door.”
Valiant said when he was 18 he went to the home of Sammartino, who lived near him in Pittsburgh, and knocked on his front door. He offered to run errands for him, like picking him up at the airport or walking his dog, in exchange for helping him get his foot in the door of the wrestling business.
“My life changed the time I knocked on his door,” Valiant said. “It’s like somebody who wants to get into baseball knocking on Pete Rose’s door.”
Valiant went on to twice capture the World Wide Wrestling Federation Tag Team Championship with his “brothers” Jimmy and Jerry Valiant. After largely retiring from competition in the early 1980s, Valiant began a second career in wrestling as a manager, most notably for the “Dream Team” of Brutus Beefcake and Greg Valentine.
“When you’re a tag team champion, when you’re an active wrestler in the ring, you get hurt a lot and you have a lot of commitments to maintain nightly,” Valiant said. “So, by and large, I didn’t miss that at all.”
Valiant said he enjoyed managing Beefcake and Valentine, including during their memorable feud with The British Bulldogs, who he said would routinely send him over a bottle of wine when they’d see him in a bar.
When Beefcake left the team, Valiant briefly managed replacement member Dino Bravo, who he called a “jovial guy” who would laugh easily at his jokes.
But, unlike most heel WWF managers of the 80s, Valiant never had a large stable of charges. Valiant said that may have had something to do with his refusal to play politics.
“I think a lot of the other guys, to be quite honest, ingratiated themselves with the front office,” Valiant said. “I was never really there campaigning for myself to expand my guys.”
After a brief stint as a broadcaster, Valiant said it became apparent that he wasn’t long for the wrestling business.
“I think Johnny Valiant was a guy that had a past and a present, but he really didn’t have a future with the WWE,” said Valiant, who added that “you would think” his longtime association with McMahon would have kept him in the WWE fold for years.
“It’s not hard feelings. It’s disappointment . . . It’s like, wow, are you that ruthless? I should have been there as long as I wanted to be there. And yet, some guys stay there forever.”
After largely leaving the wrestling business in the late 1980s, Valiant looked to apply his creativity in various acting roles and in his standup comedy act.
Valiant, who will host the Gold Coast Acoustic Café’s Comedytogo event on Sept. 8, said it hasn’t been an easy transition. Even after more than 20 years, he said he’s still honing his standup act, which includes reflections on his life in and out of the ring, and comparing today’s wrestling to that from his day.
“Now it seems to be very synthetic. It’s just contrived and people can see that,” Valiant said. “You take this CM Punk. He’s one of their top guys . . . The guy looks very acceptable, very athletic. He’s got the tattoos. He can do all the moves, and he’s got everything going for him. But he talks like he should be doing your taxes.”
Valiant said lack of personality is a problem plaguing a lot of modern day wrestling villains.
“Where’s the heat? The heat comes from when sneak the steak from the diner,” Valiant said. “This guy [Punk] is leaving the tip. So where’s the heat?”
Valiant hoped to apply some of his wisdom from more than two decades in the sport when he was cast in the 2008 film, “The Wrestler.” He spent time with director Darren Aronofsky and shot several scenes with Mickey Rourke for the film. But Valiant was, once again, let down when his role was reduced to a quick glimpse of him falling asleep at a table during a sparsely-attended wrestling convention.
“Aronofsky told me, ‘Johnny, put your head down at the card table.’ I didn’t question it. I thought, ‘OK. Do whatever you want,’” Valiant said. “But I thought, ‘I never did that.’ I never fell asleep at an autograph table… If it’s dead, I leave.”
Depite his past disappointments with the wrestling business, Valiant suggested he’d be open to attending next’s year WWE Hall of Fame ceremony in Madison Square Garden, but only if WWE reached out to him. He’s not holding his breath, as the last time he heard from anyone in WWE is when Howard Finkel called him a few years back asking if he had any ring jackets that could be put on display when an actual WWE Hall of Fame building opened up.
“He said, ‘We can’t pay you for them.’ And I thought, ‘You can’t pay me, or you won’t pay me?” Valiant said. “You don’t have enough money for that, but you have enough money for Vince’s wife Linda to become a Senator?”

For more information or to buy tickets to the Comedy To Go Event at the Great Neck Arts Center, hosted by Johnny Valiant, visit http://www.greatneckarts.org.
You can also follow Johnny Valiant on Facebook.
Tags: WWE , Johnny Valiant , Vince McMahon

Facebook Frustrations...

At the end of a long summer, I've reached a few conclusions about my time spent on Facebook.

As I get so tired of battling idiot racists, xenophobes, gun nuts,  homophobes, religious nuts, pro-gun folk following massacre after massacre on Facebook pretty much each and every day, I have set two goals now that I've hit 5,000 friends in whether I continue to post with any regularity.

1) I would like to lose as many of these so-called friends as possible- those who fall into any of those categories and were offended by the above comment. Nothing better to do than shoot Bambi on a nice morning? Think yahoos should be at the border shooting undocumented? Think Gay people will burn in Hell.?Think I'll burn in Hell because I'm not born again?! PLEASE unfriend me. Just  unfriend me. You vote corporate raider Romney? That's fine. We agree to disagree. You want to shoot folk  trying to better their lives coming across the border- just get out of my life, willya?

2) I would like to see at least 1%. Not 10%. 1% of my so called friends actually support indy publishing by buying my book(s). Not click like. Dig into their pocket. This is something we put our heart and soul into.  For those of you wiping the sweat on your brow, it's only $5.95. You blow that on beer. Consider supporting it.
Ali, Monroe, Nixon, Jackie O, SuperStar Graham, Haystack Calhoun, pimps, hookers, hold-ups,60s & 70s - $4.95 & $1- Evan Ginzburg PO Box 640471 Oakland Gdns. Stat. Flushing NY 11364. Easy Pay Pal ordering at evan_ginzburg@yahoo.com

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Hey-Cabby-A-New-York-Cab-Drivers-Million-Miles-Behind-The-Wheel/348546495230714

Don't have $5.95? I tend to think most people are selectively poor, but instead go download an indy artist's music for 99 cents. You'll feel good and they'll feel great seeing their art is supported and even noticed. I can provide a huge list of great talented indy artists deserving your support of all musical genres. We're talking 99 cents.

Basically I spend way too much time on Facebook and end up aggravated a lot. I'm getting tired of fighting the good fight without any real support for what I do. I'm quite tempted to take a long hiatus or cut down dramatically on this. It's hard enough watching the sad spectacle of your favorite film star of all time shilling for Romney while talking to an empty chair featuring an invisible cursing President(!), but the pointless debates you have on Facebook just suck not only hours- but the energy right out of you. 19 out of 20 times nobody budges an inch. Just a waste of time.

You can also order my autobiographical short story collection- Apartment 4B Like in Brooklyn  featuring tales from the turbulent 60s and 70s streets plus pop culture icons of that era from Bruno Sammartino to Bruce Lee to blaxploitation to Spaghetti Westerns.

To order: please send check or money order to: Evan Ginzburg, P.O. Box 640471, Oakland Gardens Station, Flushing, NY 11364. Only $14.95 plus $2.00 postage/handling.
We accept Paypal: $16.95 to evan_ginzburg@yahoo.com

Visit our Facebook page at- http://www.facebook.com/pages/Apartment-4B-Like-in-Brooklyn/247449945372696

And if you're a wrestling fan you can order the latest edition of Wrestling- Then & Now for only $2.50 at PO Box 640471 Oakland Gns. Station Flushing, NY 11364 or Paypal at evan_ginzburg@yahoo.com

Thank you for your support.