Straight Up John Watanabe

Along with being an on-air radio personality at KWVE/"K-WAVE" 107.9 (the radio station owned by & on the campus of Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa, founded by Pastor Chuck Smith, as portrayed in the movie "Jesus Revolution"), I always have a wonderful time doing public appearances in various Southern California communities. This past Saturday afternoon, my wife April & I had a joyful time serving yet again (for the 9th time) at the KWVE Radio booth at the annual Garden Grove Strawberry Festival, in The OC (not to be confused with a certain faction on "WWE SmackDown"...hey, being a former pro wrestling announcer, I always have to throw in a wrestling reference).  Blessings to KWVE Assistant General Manager Mark Shaffer, who reached out to me first to see if April & I would like to represent KWVE again at the 63rd edition of this annual fest, and I immediately replied "yes", because it is always a blessing to meet our Christian radio listener...

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 ...