Hooray For Hollywood (And Hallelujah For A Heavenly Kingdom)!

Many tourists and even locals have favorite memories of Hollywood here in Southern California. There's the Chinese Theatre (formerly Sid Grauman's, now the TCL), the Musso & Frank Grill (the oldest restaurant in Hollywood, which opened in 1919), and of course, the world famous "HOLLYWOOD" sign within the Hollywood Hills. My favorite memory of Hollywood was working in front of the camera for some of those in-studio segments on Tokyopop's FMW (Frontier Martial-arts Wrestling) videos, shot at the CNN Building on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. We had a good crew on hand for these in-studio segments, including director Robin Hirsch, Tokyopop production coordinator Daisuke Kinouchi, and Tokyopop brand manager Joel Baral.

The photo above features me & my FMW Wrestling color commentator Dan "The Mouth" Lovranski from Live Audio Wrestling, doing a taping at the CNN Building in Hollywood. To this day, some wrestling fans around the country and even around the world still talk about these FMW episodes, which were sold on home video/DVDs (I know that some of these FMW videos were top sellers on Billboard's sports video chart), and which were shown for a decade on The Fight Network throughout Canada (which is why I have heard from quite a few wrestling fans from Canada). Over the last couple of decades, wrestling fans have reached out and found me at different broadcasting/entertainment companies that I have worked at. Also, at different stores and businesses in Southern California, when my wife April has seen employees wearing wrestling T-shirts or displaying wrestling dolls, April has brought up to them that her husband was a wrestling announcer, and then after mentioning my name, these wrestling fans have told April all about my wrestling announcing work (and then tell her to bring me with her next time)!

This is a reason why I decided to have this plain & simple blog website, as a "One Stop" location for you (especially if you are one who has followed my career in the wrestling business) to find out where I am now (I'm currently working on-air at KWVE/K-WAVE 107.9, owned by & on the campus of Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa in Southern California), and where I'm going from here (when I eventually retire, as well as for all eternity). By the way, when I say "One Stop", I am not referring to a certain Chicago TV commercial involving Chicago wrestling promoter Bob Luce, Bobo Brazil and Dick The Bruiser telling viewers where they can buy spare ribs in big boxes and chitlins by the case (my friend & former Chicago-based pro wrestler Sonny Rogers would get that reference)!

I must admit that when I first moved from Illinois to California in 1998, it was neat to see the "HOLLYWOOD" sign, so close to where I lived at the bottom of the Hollywood Hills. However, after a while, the "novelty" of the "HOLLYWOOD" sign and being in Hollywood in general kind of wore off. I look forward to that day when the Lord Yeshua/Jesus Christ will return to this earth and when He will truly make "all things new" (Revelation 21-22), when there will be no more sorrow, no more tears, no more suffering, and when nothing will ever wear off or wear out. I look forward to the Lord's kingdom that will have no end and that will last forever (Psalm 145:13, Luke 1:33)!