"Postcards from Greg Hemmings #11" - Wrestling With Reality in Ottawa

Telegraph Journal Entry #11

April 18 – Wrestling With Reality in Ottawa

Growing up I spent a lot of time building tree houses, swinging off birch trees, and exploring the great unknown wilds of Milledgeville. The last thing I ever wanted to do on a Saturday afternoon was to be inside on a sunny day, watching WWF wrestling on television. In my mind there was too much life to explore to find time to watch TV, and there certainly was no time to watch wrestling. So what do you know, I am all grown up, and now I am producing my second television program about the real lives of professional wrestlers. We just finished our television series called “Kardinal Sinners” (www.wrestlingwithreality.com) which is a show about the life struggles, passions, hurts and wins of being a professional wrestler on the road - truly an eye opening exploration into this misunderstood subculture. This photo was taken as I was interviewing pro wrestler Rick Doyle (a.k.a Trash Canyon) after he wrestled what he thought was the worst match of his life in a small town in the outskirts of Ottawa. This particular night was literally the end of an epic 5 year odyssey that he and his best friend Peter Smith (a.ka. Brodie Steele) had together trying to get their lives documented on television. A few hours after this photo was taken, the two friends had a very REAL fight outside the ring that led them to vow to never speak to each other again. The passion and drama that was captured in this television series is eye-opening and heart wrenching. You can watch episode one this Monday night at 9:30 AST on Rush HD (www.rushhd.ca). Who would have thought that I would go from building go carts and attending Boy Scout Jamborees as a kid, to hitting the road with testosterone filled, drama queen wrestlers…I love it.

"O-town part 1"

September 15^th, 2008

Saint John-Ottawa-Halifax

Where do I start? Well after a couple of days home from England, Matt, the newest guy to our team, and I left Halifax at 5 in the morning, we made it to Saint John NB in less than 3.5 hour, Matt, like myself, is good at driving fast. Fast as speed (That’s a quote from the “Kowboy” from Wrestling Reality, in case you where wondering!). Matt and I arrived to Saint John and started filming our latest pilot video for a new show we are pitching called “The Etiquette Guy”. The Etiquette Guy, also known as Jay Remer, is a fantastic fellow who is a professional etiquette specialist, he writes in the papers, he has a great column, his website gives a lot of great tips, and he is an old acquaintance (now friend) of mine from back in my days as an honorary resident of Saint Andrews NB. Back of course in the days when it was a welcoming town to freedom and good music at the Tidal Pool. That all ended when the town pressured the closure of the tavern and replace it with a Dollar Store, real classy Saint Andrews! Anyway, that is a blog post in itself, I would not forget to write about how when captain Paul Whalen had the Avontuur moored in the harbor, and the town council pressured him to get the beautiful ole ship out of their harbor because it was unsightly, well, it wasn’t unsightly, she was a grand old pirate trip…hey I was the one who painted the ole Steel Hull, Green White and Red! …

…JAY!!! Back on track…Jay and his partner Greg (good strong name) owned a fantastic bed and breakfast called the Windsor House Inn back in those days. A legendary Inn for many reasons, one it being the place of work for my dear and beautiful friend Tracy Nichol who, if you have read previous posts, lives now in my other top notch listed “God’s country” kind of places; Forest City. Population 11…Tracy, Carstan, and my dear friend Ann make up a few of the crazies who nestle themselves in the solitude sitting on the St. Croix River a stones throw away from the great and fastly collapsing economy of the United States of America.

We are shooting a pilot for a TV show that is everything about Etiquette. It’s going to be cool, we are going to travel the world filming Etiquettes of all sorts from table to golf, from business to sailing, from film set to travelling…we will cover it all! We filmed at Opera Bistro, so Jay could show me how to set a table, we shot at a beautiful Inn on Germain Street, and of course at my favorite little wine bar…Happinez! Anyway the edit turned out pretty cool; we will be taking this to broadcasters in Toronto and to MIP in October to see if we can get an action.

Moving along to the next day we had an incredible last coaching session, man the company has grown, there where 7 of us plus Coach Dave. It has been a real trip shooting this experiment (The Airplane Journals) over the past 2 years. Using the coach approach with the help of Dave and Vision Coaching has been stellar, I’m not kidding, it has done wonders for my company, for my employees, and for me. Empowerment! We filmed the coaching session as we are ready to start editing this mammoth documentary of 2 years. Should be fun! Yikes…that afternoon we filmed me reading the narration for the film.

The next morning I drove to my old heavenly stomping grounds; Acamac, to grab something from my house, and to drop of a lawnmower to the new tenants. The thing I grabbed was an old school wheatgrass juicer press, Wheat grass is good for you, and for me as well. It is green and full of yumminess. I said goodbye with a tear in my eye to my old hot tub…man it feels like eons ago when we had crazy bonfire hot tub parteeeeeees! I look fondly at that era, but man I don’t look back, I am loving the trip I am on RIGHT NOW IN THE PRESENT…don’t look back.

Listening to EB episode 32 right now, Moonshine Still. Endless Boundaries is a great podcast, I would listen to it all the time if I had all the time to devote to listening to something like a podcast that plays songs about Orange Blossoms and dub reggae. I am on a plan…no, sorry, I am on a plane right now (big surprise) writing on the way back from Ottawa. My man Mike Leblanc, one of my oldest bros from Grade 6 got married at a stellar location on a ski hill in Callabogie North of Ottawa. The day after Jessica and I got married in Grand Cayman, Mike and Tidby hid an engagement ring in a conch at the bottom of the sea close to an anchor and other strange wild life like sting rays and moray eels. Mike then took Mandy out for a snorkel adventure and tried to get her to pick up the conch so she could find the ring, they couldn’t find it for like 30 minutes, we at the dockside in our hungover state from the reggae dance party the night before, sat on the edge pointing and laughing! They finally found it and Mandy said yes. We took a picture. It was a happy time…of the day. Happy times are times when things that make you happy happen at a particular point, when Mike and Mandy decided to get married the day after my wedding in the green Caribbean Sea, not 1 hour after a massive yoga session led by VP Marketing guru Jay Maclean…I said to myself “This is a happy time”. So here we are, in Ottawa not 10 months later and they sealed the deal. It was a fun wedding, in and out though. Jess and I met each other in O-town, hooked up with other long time bro and wife Mike and Tammy and we cruised to the wedding together, then the next day we sadly left and flew back to Halifax.

Crazy story, the Chris Cummings video is rough edited, and when I get back to Hali tonight, I will sleep for 5 hours, get up at 5am again and drive back to Saint John to do the fine edit with MacCormack to make it the best country music video that we have ever made It is the only one we have ever made so the odds are in our favor.