Pgh. Grind Terrorists Return!!

Circle of Dead Children.
The name itself caused anxiety, panic and pained expressions in my household before I even told my wife I proudly participated in, and survived, the foam baseball bat "murder your neighbors" incident, years ago, on our drive to Virginia Beach last week.
CODC played a show at the legendary, now defunct, Pittsburgh venue the Millvale Industrial Theater wherein they set up their gear, in a circle, in the middle of the room and let people whirl and windmill all around them while they unleashed their short, shrapnel bursts of deathgrind insanity.  I can't remember if it was the show they played with A.C. or with Cephalic Carnage.  This was definitely in 2001 around when The Genocide Machine came out.  At any rate just when I thought their set that night couldn't get any better or sicker in the funnest, devil-horns sense of that term, they produced a box full of foam wiffleball bats.  Joe Horvath, CODC's vocalist, distributed the bats and then instructed us all to "murder our neighbors."  The band erupted, then the room.  I'll never forget the site of writhing, frenzied mass of human beings swirling, swinging and pummeling each other at will while the band detonated and spewed out the perfect soundtrack to a brilliantly cathartic, blunt-force foamy bloodletting.  A.C. should have just went home early (but then I would have been denied the spectacle of Seth Putnam calling Shannon: "8,000th wave punk rock").

The new album, five years in the making, Psalm of the Grand Destroyer is more brutal than that scene in Pan's Labyrinth when the general bashes that poor dude's face in with a wine bottle. It's so heavy I can't lift my iPod anymore.  The production is just as clear and powerful as it should be without sacrificing any edge or rawness.  The drumming is great and I love the weirdly, chaotic way these songs are arranged.  But, of course, the vocals are what keep me coming back to this devastating album.
Insanely deep, creepy growls that switch to burly burning witch shrieks and back again, always at the perfect pressure point in the song.  I'm not even a huge fan of death metal style vocals, but there is something so pure, pissed-off and terrifying in Joe's vocals.
The man sounds like a swarm of locusts.  Serious.
You know your shit is so sick and so insanely over the top when you have to put disclaimers on your record that say: "No vocal processing nor inhales" (ala Chris Barnes on Tomb of the Mutilated) so people understand there is no electronic trickery involved.
But unlike Barnes, Horvath's lyrics are abstract, interesting and paranoically thought provoking on the page.  To give you a tiny hint of where he's coming from they are copy-written by "Pale Horse, Inc." (RIP Mr. Cooper).
Favorite tracks on Psalm of the Grand Destroyer:
Ursa Major (1998 Revisited)
Earth and Lye
Obsidian Flakes

The whole album is good.  Just don't play it around your elderly colleagues after you've drank a few espressos.
I'm so glad CODC is back!

More soon:
I do still watch wrestling sometimes.
Also...Is it possible that the new Darkthrone, in conjunction with RJD's passing, has earnestly made me want to listen to Power Metal??

Darkthrone-Circle the Wagons: a tribute

 image courtesy of Peaceville, art by Dennis Dread

Darkthrone is probably my favorite metal band in this day and age.  I'm a huge fan of all eras of their sound but this new Motorhead, Voivod and Poison Idea worshipping, split songwriting incarnation of the band is just plain killer.  I didn't quite know what to expect from Circle the Wagons after I read Fenriz interviews wherein he played up a thrash influence on the new songs.  An outsize thrash influence is actually one of the only things I don't overtly hear on this awesomely addictive album as all Fenriz's liner note and interview references to Dio, Mercyful Fate, Metal Church, Trouble, Fates Warning, Necrophagia, Amebix and Adrenalin O.D.start sonically spewing out in these anthemic songs, along with the now standard ingredients of Motorhead and Celtic Frost, coalescing into the flesh and bones of an unstoppable heavy metal Frankenstein.
Circle the Wagons contains epic, varied songs that remind me of why I love metal and why I started this blog in the first place.  Beginning with The Cult is Alive the mad geniuses in Darkthrone have seemingly located some sort of sensory time machine that regurgitates and replicates that magical time in the late 80's when I used to take the 61A into Swissvale to the Record Hut to buy Celtic Frost and Destruction tapes.  Insanely great songs like "These Treasures Will Never Befall You" uncannily, effortlessly conjure that spirit of wide-eyed amazement I felt the first time "Dethroned Emperor" pillaged my speakers on Franklin Street, while somehow retaining their own unique energy and intensity.

Sitting here gleefully drowning in Oskar Blues Mama's Little Yells Pils night after night straight-up jealous that  Fenriz's song "I am the Working Class" is the EXACT pun kroc song I tried and failed to write numerous times.  Bravo, dude, with your snotty metallic Post Office punk that would make Henry Chinaski proud.
Upside-down Claws and spilled beer involuntarily happen when "Circle the Wagons" unfurls it's badass clean vocal chorus that makes me wake my neighbors up with belligerently loud, spiritedly out of tune sing-alongs and severe volume nudges during the ripping solo at the end.  There is something so strange, yet so indisputably great, about Fenriz's use of clean vocals on "These Treasures..." and "Circle the Wagons."

Then there's Nocturno Culto's songs.  The doomy breakdown in "Running for Borders" is like getting pummeled by a bag full of brass knuckles while Nocturno rapturously extolls the virtues of a wisdom that's "ANCIENT in its purest form" over brutal, grinding riffs.  "Black Mountain Totem" features a glorious riff that contains echoes of Sabbath's "Tomorrow's Dream."   According to Fenriz, the queasy, wobbly vocal approach Nocturno employs on the creeping mid-tempo "Stylized Corpse" is inspired by Killjoy's work on the first Necrophagia album.  I think it works just fine.


I have to admit I love how personally so many Black Metal True Believers on message boards and in magazines take Darkthrone's regression and the contemptuous way some of them spit out 'insults' like "PunkThrone" as if that's an epithet of the absolute highest caliber.
I was lucky enough to grow up loving punk in addition to metal so this evolution (or de-evolution) of their sound is fucking A-OK in my book.  Blasting your copy of Feel the Darkness almost as frequently as your copy of Killing Technology or Don't Break the Oath can only lead to the alchemical sonic greatness found on albums like Circle the Wagons.  I wish more bands would follow suit.

As if I needed another reason to respect Fenriz, the man is a walking encyclopedia of hard rock and metal who is constantly spreading the gospel of the underground in interviews, liner notes, his band of the week blog on Darkthrone's Myspace page and his downloadable mixtapes on Vice.

Ronnie James Dio

May he rest in peace. 
There's nothing like driving 300 miles by yourself with a brutal hangover only to find out that a musical legend who helped define the sound and iconography of the music you love has passed away.
More importantly than his huge voice and incredible legacy, according to all accounts he was a genuinely solid and kind human being and we just can't afford to lose many more of those.

Some celebratory memories:
1. The fates work in strange ways.  I was putting together a mix CD for the drive I mentioned earlier, and the live version of "Children of the Sea" just jumped off the screen and onto the playlist even though the majority of the other tunes were non-metal (Joe Walsh, Dead Kennedys).   I'll admit that I was an Ozzy era-purist for the longest time as far as Sabbath is concerned.  Even though "Mob Rules" was carefully spray painted in areas where the older kids drank (a subliminal clue), and eventually my friends and I too.  I didn't give the Dio stuff a proper chance until 2005 when I bought a copy of Mob Rules at the world-renowned Jerry's Records and spent the rest of that summer drinking wine on my porch on Forward Avenue with it as the soundtrack.  "The Sign of the Southern Cross" is one of the best Sabbath jams from any era.  It's majesty made even more stark by the grinding title track right afterwards; a killer one-two punch.  It took a little longer for Heaven and Hell to sink in, but once it did...I haven't really stopped playing that stuff since.  But Dio made an impression on me way, way earlier than that with "The Last in Line" video.  A whole post could be written about the video and its interesting story and monumental production values.  The song blew my adolescent mind so much that I was moved to buy the first of many dubbed tapes from my friend Mark's fledgling tape dubbing enterprise.  I'll never forget this thing...he painstakingly drew and then colored the ornate Dio logo on the cover.  Mark's deal was 2 albums on a 90 minute cassette for 3 dollars.  He even had lists!  My first selection was Dio's The Last in Line with Motley's Shout at the Devil on the flipside.
Man, do I wish I still had that thing!  I can see that logo plain as day in my mind.  The point of this is even though I stubbornly overlooked RJD's work with Sabbath for far too long, I freakin' loved Holy Diver and The Last in Line.   I tuned out around Sacred Heart, because I was starting to get into heavier stuff at the time.

2. Even in his late 60's the man still had an astonishing ability to sing his songs at such an incredibly high level.  I was fortunate enough to see Heaven and Hell, with Judas Priest and Motorhead in 2008, and I was just stunned at how great Dio sounded and how commanding and sincere his stage presence was.  You could tell he cared about his songs and his fans and that those concerns wouldn't allow him to give a half-assed, phoned-in performance like many of his contemporaries.
And it's not like his vocals are easy to pull off.  They had to be so demanding for a man his age after so many years on the road and in the studio, yet there he was nailing "The Sign of the Southern Cross."
Look, when I see pictures or video of the Rolling Stones these days I seriously get fucking embarrassed.
The guys in Heaven and Hell are nearly as old, but still capable of crushing and inspired performances.  We raved about how great Tony Iommi played and how great RJD's vocals were at the show for weeks, man.   Also, The Devil You Know is a decent album (it gets bogged down in the middle).  The riffs are killer, Dio sounded great.  This band still could go, which is one reason his passing is so sad.

3. I picked up Rainbow Rising last summer after years of recommendations and I haven't been able to get into it just yet.  I don't think that's RJD's fault, though, as Ritchie Blackmore's playing and songwriting gets a little too overwrought for my ears sometimes (sorry Dave!)  Again it's a testament to Dio's legacy and longevity that there are eras of his career still to be discovered and celebrated even by a long-term fan such as myself.
You will be missed.


More soon....including thoughts on the very strange, very cool new Darkthrone album.

"I notice that most of you suck at appreciating Never Say Die!"

 cover by HipGnosis

My niece Ryann Marie was born in the afternoon on Monday, April 26th!  April 26th is an important day to my family and her being born on that particular date was pretty damn special.  Ryann and her mom are healthy and happy; so my mind has been happily focused on things other than wrestling, metal and Scorsese flicks for the past week or so.
This past Thursday was National Poem in Your Pocket Day and I spent the afternoon handing out free poems to people downtown.  It was awesome!  Most people were pretty stoked to get a poem, and some even told me it made their day.  As a fan of poetry, it was great to see so many people still excited and moved by it.
Alie went to Pennsylvania, yesterday, to spend time with her family and left me all alone last night with my beer, records and DVDs.
I go to this record store a lot to buy vinyl and, they do something really dangerous and yet cool: they email their dedicated vinyl costumers whenever they obtain large, new collections.  They even add descriptions like "this batch is heavy on 70's weirdness, free jazz, rare blues."  I love it.
Amongst my recent finds was a $3 copy of Black Sabbath's Never Say Die!  What a strange record!
I used to shun this album, even though the original Sabbath line-up is, and always will be, one of my all-time favorite bands.  Man, was I stubborn and clueless.  In fact, the title of this post comes from the old Relapse board where an exasperated poster finally lashed out at everyone in one of those threads where people are ranking their favorite Sabbath albums (a staple of metal message boards) and either ranking Never Say Die! behind records like Headless Cross or leaving it out completely.  I was firmly in the 'leave it out completely' crowd.  He was right, I was wrong.  The line has always stuck with me, though.  This record definitely has more going on within it than its predecessor, Technical Ecstasy.  The title track is a like last gasp.  Like a twitch from a dead body, or one last desperate haymaker from an over-matched boxer with wobbly legs.  Making it even weirder is the strained sense of optimism in the lyrics and delivery.  Ozzy had already been fired once, he sounds tired, yet here he is with a neon bright hook/warcry about not surrendering.  Sabbath aren't really known for hooks, but "Never Say Die" is definitely one exception.  "A Hard Road" also has a nice, deliriously hefty hook.
"Johnny Blade" is one of my favorite and most underrated Sabbath songs.  The creepy organ at the beginning reminds me of some of the music in Tenebre, then it mutates into these strangely mechanical and relentless metallic grooves with washes of synth.  But what I really love are Ozzy's vocals.  Holy shit are they DRAMATIC!!! So emotionally over the top in the best possible way!  Songs like this are why I used to write "O-Z-Z-Y" on my fingers when I was a kid, and also why I go into "Old man yells at cloud" style fits of disappointed rage these days when I think about his stupid family, piece of shit MTV show and overall devolution into a cartoon with balls big enough to sue the people whose musical genius made him what he is (Geezer and Tony).
He wrings this awesome drama out of  his vocals on"Johnny Blade", particularly the choruses, because I believe that maybe John Michael Osbourne actually wrote these lyrics and they are, at least partially, autobiographical.  He knows it's nothing but a matter of time before he gets kicked out of Sabbath again and he acknowledges how lonely and scared he truly is by this eventuality.  I think he knew he would probably just drink himself to death and that's exactly what he was doing when Don Arden's daughter rescued him a year or so later.  That fear pours out through these vocals: WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO YOU JOHNNY BLADE??
Continuing on the personal theme, I read somewhere that the title of "Junior's Eyes" was inspired by something Ozzy's father says.  The jaggedly inspired psyche swoops, solos and flourishes on "Junior's Eyes" are played brilliantly yet so unlike most of Iommi's other work with Sabbath.
Despite some great moments from Ozzy, the true star of Never Say Die is, indeed, Tony Iommi. The weird thing about that is, I don't think this album contains one single legendary Iommi riff.  It might be the only Sabbath album that doesn't have at least one, but in the words of Marc S. Tucker writing for Perfect Sound Forever:

Iommi entered an unusual short period, shown best in "Johnny Blade," where he's a solo mini-group, playing highly engaged dubbed counterpoints alongside and above his own base, not only on guitar but keyboards as well.

Tucker also mentions what he terms Iommi's "distinctly unorthodox compositional skill" and his "understanding of esoteric levels of play."
I agree wholeheartedly.  It is hard to put in words how strangely constructed this album and these songs truly are. "Distinctly unorthodox" is about the best we can do.

Even the great Lester Bangs had trouble writing about Sabbath to his usual level of brilliance, even though he loved them.  I don't feel as bad.  According to Jim Derogatis's excellent Let it Blurt, Lester used to put on Master of Reality and start drinking Labatt Blue until he passed out. Who hasn't?

After I played Never Say Die, I had the urge to listen to "The Wizard" so I started spinning the first album and I realized I'd come full circle.
As I always say: Sabbath will pull you through.

More on Sabbath soon.  I also watched a few old Undertaker matches that I wanted to comment on and I'll do that soon as well. 
I have to go handout Free Comic Books.

The Bronx Bull: I am Jake

Every time I think I know what my next few posts are going to be something comes out of nowhere and takes over this most fickle and obsession prone mind.
I went to a screening of Raging Bull Monday night. I've seen this movie many times because I'm a huge, huge Scorsese mark, but the fire this time affected me differently. I focused on different things, saw different connections etc.
I usually just get lost in the stunning black and white, the phenomenal editing, De Niro's soul-scraping performance, but this time I really started to think about who Jake LaMotta was and why De Niro felt so connected to him. I know they became close after filming began because LaMotta worked closely with De Niro to choreograph the boxing scenes to ensure their authenticity and intensity; but even before that De Niro felt a strong bond with him.
There's a famous anecdote recounted by Peter Biskind in his classic slice of cinematic history Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, where Scorsese and De Niro are meeting with studio bigwigs and one finally expresses his exasperation and dismay with the ugly, bleak characterization of Jake LaMotta, the two were pitching, by referring to him as a "Cockroach."
After this epithet was uttered-

"A suffocating silence fell over the room like a blanket. De Niro, in jeans and bare feet, slumped in an easy chair, had said nothing. He roused himself, and said quietly but distinctly, 'He is not a cockroach...He is not a cockroach.'" Biskind p.390

On the surface, though, the movie they made makes it hard to disagree with the baffled exec.
I know through interviews that Scorsese didn't feel any connection to LaMotta until years of coke benders, coupled with severe asthma, almost cost him his life in 1978.
Biskind drives that point home, rather dramatically, while depicting De Niro's visit to a hospital bedridden Scorsese urging him to make Raging Bull once and for all:

"'Are we doing it or not?' Scorsese replied, 'Yes.' He had finally found the hook: the self-destructiveness, the wanton damage to the people around him, just for its own sake. He thought: I am Jake." Biskind p. 387

This angle of Scorsese's personal connection to La Motta was emphatically driven home Monday night.
The connection works on a few different levels. I remember reading a library book on Irish and Italian Filmmakers years back that had a great section on Scorsese that has always stuck with me. I think it's this one, but I can't be 100% sure....at any rate Scorsese tells the author how he remembers reading that St. Francis of Assisi said or wrote somewhere that animals were closer to God than human beings because they act purely on instinct (designed and bestowed upon them by god) with no consciousness to evaluate, restrain or interfere with their actions, thus according them a level of purity denied to human beings. I believe that this is something else Scorsese saw in La Motta: someone acting purely on instinct and basically unable to act any other way. The curious paradox here is that even though Scorsese seems to locate that pure animal instinct in LaMotta as an explanation (I'm not ready to say justification) of his actions, he pointedly has the character, at absolute rock bottom in a jail cell, insist that he is NOT an animal. An interesting contradiction, but these types of contradictions are what create the tension inherent in great characters. The other level of Scorsese's connection to Jake that works is in the idea of Jake taking these horrible beatings in the ring to act as penance for his sins and the damage he has caused. This has resonated with me because it connects with a core, purely Catholic, tenet of Scorsese's aesthetic best articulated by Charlie (the director's thinly disguised alter ego) in Mean Streets that: you don't do penance in church saying Hail Marys...that's not good, or real, enough...you do your penance in the streets, in the world by your actions. Jake (through Scorsese) seems to adhere to this belief just as strongly as Charlie, and his way of achieving real penance is absorbing punishment in the ring. To further reinforce these connections and themes reverberating throughout Scorsese's ouevre remember that one of Charlie's heroes is: St. Francis of Assisi. I found out through IMDB that being unsure of exactly how to shoot and edit the pivotal sequence of the "St. Valentine's Day Massacre" where Jake idly absorbs an unbelievably brutal beating from Sugar Ray Robinson, Scorsese obtained a shot list of the shower scene in Psycho and used that as a blueprint. The scene takes place right after Jake beats up his brother and wife, so the connection of it being Jake's penance is made pretty explicit, but for the first time I looked at it as Scorsese's own bloodletting, which might explain the extreme violence, yet also Jake's defiant, wobbly insistence to Ray that he never went down. This is, I believe, Scorsese's vicarious self-flagellation and penance. Precursors of this masochistic self-flagellation can be detected in Scorsese's "Big Shave" documentary, even though the underlying message of the film was political not personal. I also, for the first time, saw Scorsese as Jake in his dealings with Mob boss, Tommy Como. I equated Como with the studio system telling Jake that no matter how stubbornly he insists on doing things his way, he can't/won't achieve his potential without giving them what they want. Jake has to take a dive and the scene afterwards where he just cries abjectly into his managers shoulder has always been the most brutal scene in the movie.

As a filmmaker working within the system even during the so-called "era of the director" that Biskind writes about, Scorsese has to make humiliating commercial concessions etc. to get the chance to make the movies he really wants. Much like Jake having to take a dive against Billy Fox before getting a much-deserved title shot.

Scorsese says not to read too much into the use of the “I could've been a contender" speech from On the Waterfront for various reasons. But I have to wonder is that him lashing out at the studio system? Biskind contends that deep-down, and maybe overtly at times, Scorsese wanted success and acceptance on the level of Lucas/Spielberg. Or is he lashing out at himself. He has said many times that he legitimately thought Raging Bull would be his last film. Is this him reflecting on wasted, squandered potential?

A lot of new things to think about.

I still feel that the beauty of the photography is the ultimate paradox and the true key to this film's legacy and impact. The beauty lulls you into a sense of security that calms and disarms you so that the explosions of violence are that much more stark, surprising and sad.

Gimme, Gimme some BIG dumb American RAWK vol.I

image courtesy of rateyourmusic.com

Been pawing through the bins at Plan 9 records the last few weeks, searching for underappreciated, underused examples of big ole', radio-shunned, lighters and smelly smoke-clouds, live drum solo having RAWK.
Midway through all this, while pondering a years in the making post making the case for Aerosmith as the second best American band of all time (behind the Ramones of course), I realized that all these other bands I've been checking out, recently, happen to be American as well.
This wasn't a pre-requisite or anything as I'm always searching for British stuff like Leafhound and all manners of weird, heaviness from all corners of the globe, it just happened that my recent finds and obsessions have originated here in the US and A.

I can't help but think of Dazed and Confused (number one priority of the summer: Aerosmith tickets!) when thinking of what it might have been like to catch some of these bands in their prime on a sweaty, Spring night.
One of the albums I've been listening to is Black Oak Arkansas's Raunch 'N Roll Live and I just get lost wondering, when it spins, about the sheer amount of sex and controlled substances that surely were exchanged before, during and after this show as authentic 70's sweat pours through Black Oak's triple guitar assault and out of my soggy speakers.
And I haven't even mentioned Jim Dandy yet!
His rap before "Hot Rod" should be enshrined in any sort of Hall of Fame way before Gene Simmons' wig and the team of producers, publicists, parasites and sycophants behind the product known as "Madonna."
Before Ozzy so heinously jumped the shark, I used to actually think it was a crime that anyone was in the Rock Hall of Fame before Sabbath. Now I'm just happy that Geezer, Tony and Bill got one fraction of the credit they so richly deserve for reshaping modern music infinitely for the better.
Back to Black Oak, I'd heard or read somewhere that 'Diamond' David Lee Roth modeled/stole his persona largely off of Jim Dandy. I can see that a little from a visual standpoint, but honestly when it comes to stealing from Mr. Dandy I detect way more theft and unpaid royalties emanating from, and owed by, Axl Rose.
Similarities between Black Oak and Guns n' Roses have been made explicit by sages as disparate as Chuck Eddy and Mike Prosser, but listening to jams like "Gigolo" and "Hot Rod" the connections really hit home.
There is a sort of primordial echo of the rickety, Marlboro and JD funk of "Mr. Brownstone" or "Rocket Queen" in the groove to "Gigolo." Although Chuck E. hears it more plainly in side 2's smokin' version of "Hot n' Nasty."
Tommy Aldridge lays down an almost subliminally solid, sometimes punishing foundation for all the washboard solos, preaching and fretboard firestorms.
The guitar playing on Raunch manages to strike a decent balance between flash and soul; something Slash was also usually able to achieve in his playing.
The mastermind behind one of my favorite bands in recent memory, Zeke's Blind Marky Felchtone, himself an Arkansas native and guitar dervish, is an unabashed Black Oak acolyte.
But there is a certain leering menace in the growl that Jim Dandy wielded like jester with a scythe and I definitely hear traces of it on Appetite for Destruction far more than on anything David Lee ever put his name to.
As an aside-
Let me just say that Axl Rose is the biggest sellout/poser that ever lived.
I'm not as embarrassed by my belief in the Easter Bunny, the existence of Kayfabe and all my relationship misadventures rolled into one as I am by being one of his marks in the early Appetite era.
I'm not even ashamed that I liked Bullet Boys...hell...those dudes jammed when I saw them at City Limits and their cover of "Hang on St. Christopher" is still decent.
Axl's the one I'd take back in a heartbeat.
All it took was one hit record for the Dolls/Ramones influences and bullshit Indiana street kid con to melt away into grand piano jerkoffs and Elton John pretensions involving cigarette holders, dolphins and mentally challenged supermodels.
VH-1 showed Metallica: Behind the Music last night and I started watching it again, and when James gets burned up by the pyro and Metallica couldn't finish their set in Montreal, Kirk says, referring to GNR, "they could have saved the day and been heroes by playing a blistering, triumphant 3 hour set." But, of course they didn't, though, because Rose threw some pre-meditated tantrum over his monitors and walked off the set leading to a swirling riot of pissed off canucks.
This part always kills me, and the disgust in Jason Newstead's voice when he talks about it says it all.
Newstead's pissed-off recognition/recounting of Rose's phoniness would make both Holden Caulfield and Paul Baloff proud.
Who needs rock stars?
At least it took Metallica a decade or so (depending on your perspective) to devolve into rich, out of touch assholes.
And even though I don't like their music anymore, their sonic evolution seems natural.

Damn, I meant to write about Black Oak more and then start talking about the James Gang and/or the second side of Rio Grande Mud...
More soon.
And wrestling

Who's Better...

pic via Kocosports

I continue to be way behind the curve. In hindsight it seems silly and cold-blooded to celebrate/mourn the ending of HBK's career without even mentioning the actual death of Chris Klucsaritis; better known to wrestling fans as Mortis/Chris Kanyon, on April 2nd.
He apparently took his own life at the age of 40.
I usually feel strange writing "RIP" and things like that on blogs and message boards for people I don't know because in some ways it feels selfish or something...I didn't actually know the man and I obviously can't comprehend or claim in anyway the real grief his family and friends are feeling and that's one of the reasons I choose not to write anything when I first heard the news.
I didn't have much to add other than:
It's sad how many of these men die so young (even though this situation is different from most of the other deaths in recent years).
Kanyon the wrestler was extremely underrated and fun to watch.
Hardly ground-breaking opinions.

Reading his obituary was the first time I encountered the information that he was gay and had outed himself in 2006 at an Indy show.
It's covered in more detail in this excellent Deadspin column.
Even though, as the column alludes, there have been many whispers and rumors about high-level WWE officials being openly gay, this is the first time I can recall a famous wrestler openly coming out while they were still active.
The fact that he was largely out of the limelight when he did so really doesn't make much difference.
The Masked Man (author of the Deadspin piece and fellow Parts Unknown native) writes that:
"He appeared a couple of times on The Howard Stern Show, where they played up his homosexuality and the seeming incongruity of a gay man in the pro wrestling business."

This level of publicity led Kanyon to believe he had been blacklisted by the WWE (a damn-near monopolistic entity) and had essentially ended his career.
The Wrestling Observer obituary noted cryptically that he "didn't have the look the WWE wanted." On what information they based that assertion I can only guess, but I'll never forget listening to Mark Madden's radio show on ESPN 1250 in Pittsburgh the day Eddie Guerrero died.
Double M went on a tirade about how Vince McMahon and the WWE brass had a "physique fetish" and that this fetish was having a drastic, destructive impact on the lives and health of men like Eddie. Madden, a former WCW employee, had known Guerrero personally and was speaking with raw, spur of the moment emotion that afternoon, but his words had a ring of truth to them, in my opinion, and have stayed with me ever since.
At any rate the Observer obit mentioned that Kanyon had been struggling with bipolar disorder and I can only try to fathom the anxiety of being gay in such a macho environment and the stress such anxiety might have put on his mental equilibrium.
Add to that the fact that if the Observer is right, despite having considerable in-ring talent he was suddenly cast-aside because he didn't match the invisible metrics of some inexplicable, unmeasurable "look."
To their credit, according to Deadspin many of his peers said that had they known of his sexual orientation they wouldn't have cared.

But what's more interesting and what made me want to write about this is Deadspin's mention of the lawsuit Kanyon filed with Raven and Mike Sanders against the WWE in 2009 challenging the "independent contractor" status that all wrestlers in the company must perform under.
I had absolutely no idea a suit of this nature was filed so recently.
The Masked Man characterizes the "independent contractor" arrangement as "morally suspect."
Honestly, it's hard to disagree with that characterization and there really doesn't seem to be any need for it nowadays that the WWE basically controls the entire business. Before they could and did argue, as he notes, that they couldn't offer deals and concessions to performers that competitors weren't willing to make. That argument realistically died in the rubble of WCW years ago, and maybe even before that when the AWA folded.
I think unionization may have been at the core of the the attempted suit and that has been a ruinous topic for years in pro wrestling dressing rooms.
Jesse "the Body" Ventura said in an interview that he was leading a drive to unionize performers back in the 80's when he was informed on by Hulk Hogan, which led to one of Jesse's numerous fallings out with Vince.
The "contractor" status and issue was mulled over and discussed openly by all forms of media in the aftermath of the Chris Benoit tragedy.
But just like that the genie was stuffed back in the bottle.
As a fan I'm certainly complicit in this system.
It was brought to my attention when Eddie Guerrero died and then again during the Benoit situation, but, unfortunately, it didn't remain in my thoughts long.
I'm going to try and keep it there this time.
Besides the absolutely ludicrous fact that being a "contractor" by nature precludes the WWE from supplying health insurance, the Masked Man mentions other ridiculous things inherent in this arrangement like the fact that these dudes have to file taxes in every state they work in, etc.
It's insanity.

Kanyon and company's lawsuit was rejected due to the expiration of the statute of limitations. Presumably because none of the plaintiffs had worked for the WWE in years.

I highly recommend the Deadspin column I've linked to twice in this post. It's well-written, interesting and contains some video of Kanyon.

I sound like a broken record writing things like: how sad it is that it takes a man's death to make us look deeper into the dark corridors of this business called pro-wrestling that we love so much.
It's supposed to be about fun and escapism, but I really am going to try and not get carried to far away from the damage and havoc this business can wreak on the people who make it what it is.

Rest in Peace.
Chris Klucsaritis