Giant Robot Store and GR2 News

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Arriving at San Diego’s Balboa Park a couple of hours early, my wife and I thought we’d take our our six-year-old daughter and her two cousins to a few museums before the Drive Like Jehu reunion show started. No such luck because they were all closed. It worked out, though, because we heard the sound check begin and booked over to the Spreckels Organ Pavilion to catch it. There were perhaps two or three dozen friends, fans, and nerds present and I was stoked to be one of them.

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Following the glory of his 1995 pay-per-view special Collision in Korea, attended by over 150,000 obedient North Korean citizens (but more like 350,000 if you ask the North Koreans) in Pyongyang, Japanese former pro-wrestler turned pro-wrestling promoter, vitamin water and condom salesman, who does some politics on the side Kanji “Antonio” Inoki is in the midst of putting on his second international professional wrestling showcase in North Korea. Inoki not only put on the first Collision in Korea, North Korea’s first attempt to gather up the world’s top pro-fighters, he headlined it. Instead of the world’s top fighters, they got Ric Flair getting his ass kicked by Inoki. George Foreman turned down the offer to participate. The line-up was mostly Japanese fighters and some undercard American WWF personalities, with Muhammad Ali sitting in a VIP box watching his former rival take down Nature Boy.   In 1976, shortly before his retirment, Ali went to Tokyo for a watered down MMA exhibition and went up against a sassy, spandexed Inoki. Ali talked his classic smack, called his opponent an Oriental, and dissed karate. That was before Inoki butt-scooted around the boxing ring kicking the crap out of Ali’s legs, and ended up Asian Squatting on his face. For the revival of Collision in Korea, Inoki has brought in mostly US and Japanese athletes, with the only name making headlines in the US being Bob “The Beast” Sapp. Bob Sapp made it into Giant Robot every once in a while in our “Ask Eman” column and a less than flattering mention in our interview with Enson Inoue. Sapp is big in Japan and seems to be the perfect mix of Ric Flair and Dennis Rodman for North Korean celebrity tastes. The event kicked off with arm wrestling well-fed North Korean kids, meet and greets, judo demonstrations, cultural tours, and tug of war. Watch the video on the DPRK’s state television’s Youtube channel to witness the foreign guests shuffle around tourist sites uncomfortably and pull a Korean tour bus with a giant rope. Young Pioneer Tours, the folks that helped break Pacman and Peso’s musical career with a music video filmed in Pyongyang, set up a tour package that includes access to the event. VIP seats are a steal at $200 bucks. The cheap seats are going for $50. Why North Korea? Inoki’s first trainer was a Japanese wrestling icon and war hero of North Korean descent. He recruited Inoki in Brazil in 1960, where Inoki’s family was part of Japan’s post-war emigration wave.  All reports say Collision in Korea isn’t a diplomatic mission, but Japan is making efforts to move talks with the DPRK forward for the release of Japanese abductees. They’re reaching out through North East Asian coalitions for regional security and Japan’s Foreign Affairs Minister has announced official talks with the DPRK to take place next spring in Sweden. I don’t think they’re inviting any minor celebrity athletes.        
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There’s not much new you can say about the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge™ but the viral fad continues. People are still producing amusing videos, celebrities are still doing it, money and awareness are being raised, and all across the globe,  Ice Bucket Challenge facebook pages are popping up to collect videos of “fans” of the challenge and to pass it on. There are pages for Brazil, Thailand, Mongolia, Albania, the Phillippines, Cambodia, and India, just to name a few places far from the experiences of the average American ice bucket dumper. Many of these are countries that rely on foreign aid to sustain their national healthcare programs and where embarrassingly large numbers of their population live without access to clean water. But they’ve all got the internet, and they love American celebrities. A handful of pages mention what ALS is, but most don’t bother. In some cases, the Ice Bucket Challenge has been adopted to raise awareness for regional issues, with the help of an easy to pull off, hashtaggable stunt that pushes some magical, universal glee button we all seem to have in our brains when we see cold water get dumped on someone’s head. In Cambodia, one group is doing the challenge to raise funds for the Kantha Bopha Children’s Hospital. In India, journalist Manju Latha Kalanidihi began the Rice Bucket Challenge, a movement to help feed people and raise awareness about ways to alleviate the challenges of poverty across India. Bollywood celebrities are catching on to it and the movement is gaining traction and challenging people to think about how simple it can be to help their less fortunate neighbors just beyond their gated communities. China refuses to be left out of the global phenomenon, but China’s Ministry of Civil Affairs is warning the public not to get caught up in the glitz and glam of it all. Residents and officials in Henan Province are asking people to refrain from taking up the challenge, as they continue to struggle against drought and face difficulties finding drinking water. There are troubling issues  lingering around the wildfire spread of the Ice Bucket Challenge for other movements. Donations to the ALS Association help fund animal testing. Californians, some of them anyhow, are concerned about how it trivializes the threat of drought. Those looking at the bigger picture have tried to remind people about the challenges to healthcare and medical research funding in the US. More than 5 million USD for the ALS Association was raised in less than one month when the challenge began, and they’ve now passed the 23 million dollar mark with reports of more than 70 million USD being raised for ALS around the world. Personally, I don’t think anyone is going to top the girl who bled out of her mouth while she took up the challenge in a drug induced stupor, but keep at it, folks.  
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Street Eater’s badass new album is relentlessly raw and heavy, and I was stoked to hear the East Bay duo’s latest rippers alongside favorites at The Redwood. Holy crap, they are one of my favorite bands ever, empowered by straight-up DIY punk via Gilman and pushed over the top by the two-way animalistic empowerment that happens between two human beings who dominate at their instruments. Did I mention that their lyrics are smarter than shit? So good.

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There were two great openers, too. Nerve Beats are a somewhat jazz-infected, melodic punk trio in the tradition of the Minutemen and Nomeansno. Coming all the way from Honolulu, of course they were really nice dudes as well. I bought some hand-burned CD-Rs and really dig ‘em. I’d tell you which songs especially rule if the titles were listed somewhere.

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Yes, the site is looking bad, but we’re in a transition stage to move to Shopify. Yes, the web lords have promised it sooner, but they weren’t able to keep their word. As we started dismantling one site, the other is being worked on. Sorry about the mess, I swear the Giant Robot Store is still working. http://giantrobotstore.com
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