Sheik and Destroy: Adnan and Saddam

 "This is what the Arab people want!"

The squared circle (or wrestling ring, if you will) of the 1980s often mirrored the geopolitics of the time. One such character was former wrestler and manager Sheik Adnan Al-Kassiey (real name: Adnan Bin Abdulkareem Ahmed Alkaissy El Farthie). Al-Kassiey was hailed as being from Bagdad, Iraq. Now, even in my own teenage mind I knew somehow, someway that the "no Russian accent having Russian", Krusher Krushev wasn't really from Moscow. Yet, the more I've read about Adnan Al-Kassey the more interested I've become. Kassiey started as the Native American gimmick Billy White Wolf  despite being Middle Eastern in origin. This however was nothing new as  Barry Darsow played the Russian mentioned earlier (in the National Wrestling Alliance), a mountain man (Georgia Championship Wrestling), and a Repo Man (WWF).


Kassiey I knew mostly from the AWA and a little bit of various NWA territories. He managed King Kong Brody (aka: Bruiser Brody), Jerry "The Mountain from Stone Mountain, GA" Blackwell, and Kamala the Ugandan Giant. In 2005, Al-Kaissy published his memroirs, The Sheikh of Baghdad: Tales of Celebrity and Terror from Pro Wrestling's General Adnan. Sports author Ross Bernstein wrote the following in his review:

"Alkaissy returned home to Iraq as a modern day hero of sorts. Meanwhile, Saddam was rising to power in the ruling Baath Party at the time and had big plans for his old friend. With that, Saddam summoned Adnan to his palace and told him that he wanted him to wrestle for Iraq and make him proud. Adnan, who was only home for a visit to see his family, respectfully declined the generous offer. But when Saddam told him it was not an offer, but an order, he realized that his life would never be the same. So, under Saddam´s watchful eye, Alkaissy began promoting his own wrestling matches in Iraq - importing professional grapplers from around the world to compete against him. Literally hundreds of thousands of crazed fans poured into local soccer stadiums to see Adnan emerge as the Middle East Heavyweight Champion of the World, and before long a superstar was born. Adnan was rewarded with his own palace, a fleet of Mercedes complete with chauffeurs, and money beyond his wildest dreams. He was even named as the Director of Youth at the Ministry of Youth, a very coveted and prominent government position. Soon, there were thousands of adoring fans sleeping outside his home at night just hoping to catch a glimpse of their new hero. It was utter insanity. What Adnan didn´t realize, however, was that Saddam was using his old friend as a clever ruse to entertain and occupy the masses while he began his own murderous regime of torture and terror throughout the Middle East. Eight long years later, Alkaissy was fearful of being killed. So, he left everything behind and escaped in the dark of night, leaving his friends and family behind forever. With nowhere to turn to, he came back to America, where he would start over as a professional wrestler - only this time, instead of being an adored national hero, he would be transformed into a villainous Arabian madman named "The Sheikh."

 Bagdad for several years had a wrestling scene. In the book Weird Minnesota, Alkaissy says of his Bagdad match with Canadian grappler George Gordienko, "(we had) probably the biggest crowd ever in the history of wrestling. The stadium in Iraq had over two hundred thousand people watching." The book also says: "the ring was surrounded by armed guards with submachine guns." In 1978, Al-Kaissy helped promote another wrestling event in his birthplace of Bagdad.  It was here that he fought and won against Andre the Giant. When asked about the reality of putting on matches that were worked in a country like Iraq, Al-Kaissy said "If Saddam found out that the wrestling we were doing was fake, you think I'd be alive?" He later found the tortured body of one his colleagues and a friend of his was assassinated after having dinner with Sadaam.  

 High school pals: Saddam Hussein and Sheikh Adnan Al-Kaissy/Ed Farthy. 

Al-Kassiy wrestling as Sheik Adnan  

Despite his dangerous times in Iraq, Al-Kaissy's last major run in wrestling involved playing an Iraqi heel during the the first Gulf War. In 1990, Al-Kaissy became the Arabic spouting General Adnan who managed the now Iraqi supporting Sargent Slaughter in the WWF.  Slaughter went after fan faves such as The Ultimate Warrior and Chump Hogan. After his run in the WWF, Kassiey worked with Tito Santana, Bob Orton Jr. and other big names in the Chicago based AWF. He appeared on Fox News' Hannity (and...Colmes) in 2006. Unfortunately, the video got wiped out from YouTube - possibly in fear of reprisal from Abdullah the Butcher.  Al-Kaissy. currently resides in Hopkins, MN where he participates in the town's annual Raspberry Days Festival. For more on the history of pro wrestling in the Middle East check out this. 

Really, CNN?

Stunningly lame but that's what happens when "news" worships celebrity idiot culture.

Book reviews & Hitchens quotes

Black Collar Crimes – An Encyclopedia of False Profits and Unholy Orders by Michael Newton
Loompanics Unlimited, 1998
One of the better titles in the Loompanics catalog. Loompanics called it quits last year so you’ll have to go here to get some of their titles: http://www.paladin-press.com/loompanics.aspx

Unfortunately, Paladin only bought their survivalist type of books. So, the “fucked up religion/politics/ideas” titles are gonna be harder for you to find. Though Albris and Amazon will probably be the place to find them along with the usual (at least for me) used book stores & garage sales. Which brings me to this – Black Collar Crimes. This is a rogue’s gallery of tax scammers, money launders, murders, anti-abortion zealots, pedophiles, rapists, arsonists, pimps, and adulterers. All of these are based on actual settled cases. While the crimes may vary all these criminals mentioned in the book are all “holier than thou”. All believe that “god was on their side” and thought that there way was the “righteous path”. Everyone from televangelists to Boy Scout leaders to Wicca high priests are here. The book is all done in an alphabetic, encyclopedic form - which makes it easy to follow. Some useful information for your Black/Death Metal or Power Electronics band, nerd-o. Seek it out.

Christopher Hitchens:

Pg 60. “God is NOT Great” (2007)

“The element of the wish for obliteration can be seen without disguise in the millennial sects of our own day, who betray their selfishness as well as their nihilism by announcing how many will be “saved” from the ultimate catastrophe. Here the extreme Protestants are almost as much as to faults as the most hysterical Muslims. In 1844, one of the greatest American religious “revivals” occurred, led by a semiliterate lunatic named George Miller. Mr. Miller managed to crowd the mountaintops of America with credulous fools who *(having sold their belongs cheap) became persuaded that the world would end on October 22 that year. They removed themselves to high ground –what difference did they expect that to make? - or to the roofs of their hovels. When the ultimate failed to arrive, Miller’s choice of terms was highly suggestive. It was, he announced, “The Great Disappointment.” In our own time, Mr. Hal Lindsey, author of the best-selling The Late Great Planet Earth, has betrayed the same thirst for extinction. Indulged by senior American conservatives and respectfully interview on TV, Mr. Lindsey once dated the start of ‘The Tribulation’ - a seven year period of strife and terror – for 1988. “

Pg. 79, ibid

“Well, I too have marveled at the sweet little ears of my female offspring (my daughter), but never without noticing that (a) they always need a bit of a clean out, (b) that they look mass-produced even when set against the inferior ears of other people’s daughers, ( c) that as people get older their ears look more and more absurd from behind, and (d) that much lower animals, such as cats and bats, have much more fascinating and lovely and more potent ears.”

from his “Arguments from Design" chapter

Laibach on America

"We know that America likes us and we shall therefore come back; nonetheless, we have seen it and we agree that it is that only nation in history which has miraculosly lapsed from barbarism to degeneration without the usual of civilization."

My Music, Metal and Politics paper (from 2008)

You can now (finally) read the paper I presented in Salzburg, Austria last November entitled "Extreme Metal and Extreme Politics - Strange Bedfellows or Fellow Travelers?" The first part was actually written for the non-metal person in mind. Also, considering the use of music sharing/sampling sites such as MySpace & YouTube, it's quite easy for them to investigate what these bands sound like along with the multiple video and additional web sources I've noted. I'm not the most scholarly or academic writer, my speciality is in history-specifically the history of the far ends of the political spectrum as it relates to music. I'm also have included in the 2nd link the handouts which underscore the visual side of the extremity and some of them are regular dude band photos. PLEASE note these are rather big files, so download time might take up to 10 minutes depending on your harddrive (mine's a crappy 2004-era Mac, so I'm sure you have something better/faster/stronger).


Das ist Paper

Das ist Visuals

Enjoy and don't be a lame-oh, leave COMMENTS!

American Porn-in-oia

Top States For Online Porn

"Published in the Journal of Economic Perspectives, a report released earlier this year entitled "Red Light States: Who Buys Adult Entertainment" highlights where the revenues for pornographic entertainment on the Internet actually come from. According to AVN Media Network , Internet sales are the second largest piece of the $12.6 billion adult entertainment industry, drawing $2.84 billion in 2006."

It would be interesting to see what types of porn they also consume. For some reason I'm thinking hetero-anal is big in anti-gay marriage states. Seems like that's the what things work in the United States of Hypocrisy.

"We're the Sex Pistols of British politics and we've just scored a number one."

...or so says British National Party head and Hugh Grant lookalike, Nick Griffin. Griffin & the BNP have scored not a number one but a number two. An important number two that signifies the two members of their party are now sitting in the European Union Parliament along with additional national and regional representation in the British Parliament. Despite criticism of UK politics moving to the ultra-right, the BNP itself claims to not be a right-wing party. Daniel Hannan, British Conservative Party (aka: Tory) MEP, writes more about their "fusion politics": (1)

The BNP doesn’t call itself Right-wing, of course. It favours nationalisation, higher taxes, protectionism and (though it keeps quiet about this) republicanism. It markets itself as “the Labour Party your parents voted for”. Its manifesto calls for “the selective exclusion of foreign-made goods from British markets and the reduction of foreign imports,” and promises to “restore our economy and land to British ownership” and “to give workers a stake in the success and prosperity of the enterprises..."

Getting back to music, it's possible that Griffin is invoking Johnny Ramone's idea that "punk should be right wing". However, the BNP isn't just some kind of sarcastic right wing, "shock-punk" band such as The Meatmen or Fear. Nor are they a sarcastic, "small 'l' libertarian group such as the Sex Pistols themselves or Rancid Vat.

While Johnny Ramone believed that punk should be a right-wing thing, his own anti-immigrant and "America, fuck yeah!" politics mirror mainstream dolts like Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity. "Correct or incorrect" there IS a difference between this thinking (however crazy it may seem) and getting cozy with real fascist political movements and domestic terrorists.

The absurd things that Beck, Limbaugh, and their minions have said about Obama makes them seem like hippies compared to this.

The bigger question is if the BNP really ARE the Sex Pistols of politics then is Griffin the Sid Vicious or Malcom McLaren of the group? And who is their Johnny Rotten, Paul Cook and Steve Jones? Maybe the the National Front's John Tyndal is their Glenn Matlock? If this holds true, it could also mean one of the BNP will end up stabbing his girlfriend in a hotel room and then ODing on heroin. Or maybe as some of these ultra-righters go, will they rot from within?

Griffin's analogy is nothing but absurd. Granted the Sex Pistols wearing swastikas (actually just 1/2 the band) for the shock value is vastly different than the likes of Griffin's right hand man, and EU member from Yorkshire, Andrew Brons. Brons is directly connected with Holocaust denying authors and nail bombers. He has also been seen marching with boneheads shouting "death to Jews".

Big Difference

Swastika Sporting Shock Value Punks (2)
Lydon, Cook & Jonesy taking the piss in Oslo, 1977.

vs.

Swastika-less Fascist Shock Troops Andrew Brons (left) and Nick Griffin (right, holding mic)

Alluding back to the Pistols ideology, if we only look at Johnny Rotten's politics, you'd find he's a more of a cynical-yet-often on the money, small 'l' libertarian. Plus, Rotten unlike Vicious (cliched, rotting) has like Henry Rollins kept himself doing some very interesting things while keeping themselves in the albiet smaller media spotlight.

Ending on a different note, where DID the BNP come up with this shit logo?

BNP design guy: "I gotta great idea, I saw the PBS logo and thought, 'hey let's merge this with a Def Leppard shirt!' It'll be brilliant!"

ENDNOTES:

1. Speaking of these grey areas of the two the poles of extremity, Nick Griffin's background includes a well-known association with the National Front along with a lesser known association with the International Third Position movement. The latter of which according to the London Independent believe in:

advocating a blood-and-soil alternative to communism and capitalism. In it he praised the black separatist Louis Farrakhan, met David Duke, the former leader of the Ku Klux Klan, travelled to Libya at the expense of Colonel Gaddafi and expressed support for Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini – who also had a strong dislike of Jews, women's rights, homosexuals, liberal democracy, international capitalism, Coca-Cola and McDonald's.

2. For more on punk's appropriation of the swastika, see "Punk and the Swastika" here.

The band (Sex Pistols) wore swastikas as well as upside down crosses, pictures of Karl Marx and (Spanish anarchist) Buenaventura Durruti quotes. Funny how no-one ever asks me if they were communists, maybe that's because that particular form of totalitarianism is more accepted? They also wore a lot of different very explicit homosexual images but I have yet to hear anyone ask about that.

This hodge-podge of ideological and sexual asthetics circles back to Malcom McLaren's earlier experiment with the New York Dolls.

One photo show below shows guitarist Johnny Thunders with a swastika


While the next shows them as red patent leather commies.


Certainly the Dolls were ALL about gender-bending. Not so much on the upside-down crosses. Lastly, I'm utterly fascinated to find more punk bands to did this sort of thing in an anti-religion sort of way before metal made it code de rigueur.