"Nova Scotia Open to the World article with Greg Hemmings"

This has been an abnormally great year for free publicity! I have ZERO marketing dollars for HHP, so I am always stoked to have some press opportunities. Recently I have been featured in three differencet magazine publications; Nova Scotia Open to the World, Halifax Magazine, and Innovations Magazine! Take a read, if the words are too small just click on the image and it will expand!

"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.

"Back to the Base...Ideas Festival, Kardinal Sinners"

BACK TO THE BASE

“…Lets re assemble”. Any Fat Tala fans out there? Memories of driving down route 9 from Calais to Bangor, aka the “Airline”. Those where the days when fat was spelled with an “F” and Tala meant “the BEATS”!

Back to the base because a lot has happened since Cannes. A lot of regular stuff. Stuff that doesn’t really need to be mentioned but I will anyway cuz that’s what I do, I ramble, and when I am at an airport it looks like I am writing something kinda important to my fellow travelers, me and my new blue Argyle sweater, very self important you know, oh and my new London shoes and tweed jacket I bought on our last Antichrist episode filming in England. I only capitalize the Antichrist because it is a name, not because the Antichrist deserves a capital A. Alberta beef deserves a capital A because Alberta is a province, and we capitalize province names.

We filmed 3 more segments, the final ones, for the Antichrist episode. We filmed this deadly death metal band called “Thy Flesh Consumed”. Their drummer’s kick drum is faster than a machine gun, wicked band, literally! Ha-ha, they would take that as a compliment! We where supposed to fly to Norway and film Gorgaroth; the black metal band that burns churches and embodies the spirit of the Antichrist fashions. Apparently we blew the budget in Laramie when I was abducted, so we couldn’t afford to send us to Norway, so we got the local boyz from Thy Flesh Consumed to discuss religion and metal, and what the idea of the Antichrist really is.

We filmed them in their studio as they where recording their latest album, then checked out their jam space which completely took me back to the old days of jamming at “The Local” on King Street in high school, every room was a different band playing and practicing at the same time. Everything from our band “Playdough Fish” jamming Tea Party and Zeppelin covers, to Rooster Soup playing hippy Rock, to Hemlock playing progressive art rock and punk and death metal bands in the rooms between. That was back in the days when the Saint John music scene was at its height...wow, what memories, every weekend we would put on live shows there with headliners from across the country and even the world playing all ages shows in our gritty smoked filled, puke stained venue that we called “The Local”. The Local was the Wiesel Shoe Shop years before, you may remember me mentioning in a previous blog the project I produced with Gary Davis, whose family owned and ran the Wiesel Shoe Shop. His son Anthony, Mike Long and I and others put these shows on back in the day, had a great time doing it as well.

BACK TO THE PRESENT. We also had the opportunity to film at the Cathedral in Halifax. We interviewed the priest there about the Catholic Church’s stance on the Antichrist, it was a cool perspective. The Father there leans more towards the naming of an age, a time that is represented by the name of the Antichrist. Interesting theory, one that I didn’t have a hard time dismissing. We finished production, the Vision series is now complete.

Over the few days that I was home, which where only a few, I had a chance to check out Google Alerts. A very cool program that sends you email notification anytime a word or phrase that you predetermine shows up on the internet. I decided to type my name in to see if there are any other Hemmings’ out there that where of interest! And there where!!! There are a ton of Hemmings’ around the world, mostly in the UK, that are amazing people! From TV producers, actors, journalists, doctors, scientists, and my favorite…LLOYD HEMMINGS! A Reggae legend! I emailed Lloyd, he is an old Trench Townrocker from the Kingston Jamaican ghettos. He played with Bob back in the day, I found great recordings of him that date back to the early 70’s. My bred-ren! My cousin! So Lloyd calls me on my cell phone last week as I was driving back toSaint John to edit Airplane Journals with Andrew. He now lives in San Diego and plays mostly in Southern California. We had a great conversation about reggae music, being “cousins”, working on projects in the future, it was great. I really want to meet him sometime. He blessed me in the name of Salassie I, Ras-Tafari…if there is one thing I want to learn from Lloyd is the truth and deepness of the Rasta beliefs. They mirror mine so closely, except I don’t understand the part about Haille Salassi being the 2^ndcoming. I want to better understand that part of Rasta belief.

IDEAS and KARDINAL SINNERS

Last Wednesday (today is Sunday) Jessica and I drove fromHalifax to Saint John. Obama won the night before! PRAISE JAH! Wow, I am truly relieved, I now hope he can handle the mess that the Bush Republicans made, man what an embarrassing time in our history. I wonder if Bush has any idea of how much he fucked up the world scene.

I spent the day with Andrew as he was in an editing frenzy trying to get the Airplane Journals documentary ready for delivery which was this morning so I could take it and screen it in Montreal, time is tight! That night Jess and I went to St Andrews to the “Ideas Festival” which was a venue with a bunch of real amazing panelists, discussions etc about the creative industries, the future politics etc etc. Thinkers, politicians, idea people where all there. It was a great experience actually and everyone had the same feeling of hope with the previous night’s results. Hemmings House was a major sponsor of this event and we where proud to be part of it. We filmed all of the key notes for the Ideas Festival. My friend Tim Coates who put the whole event together is also the lead on the 21inc. leadership organization that Jessica is involved with.

Jessica and I stayed with Jamie Steele at Salty Towers for the night. The next day we bolted back to Halifax, the following morning I hit the road again to Eskasoni Indian Reservation in Cape Breton for the filming of the first Kardinal Sinners episode. It was quite the experience finding the reservation, we got lost, it took us 6 hours to finally get to the location. The venue was PACKED with kids, it was rowdy and loud, just the way a wrestling match should be! But where were the teen and the adults? Not sure…the place was packed with involved kids, it was cool. I didn’t understand the amount of 7 year olds with chewing tobacco, but that’s a whole other discussion. By coincidence this reservation is the same one that the young boy who narrating my Melting Lands documentary was from! Sadly we were unable to reconnect.

We checked into a slummy but perfect hotel in Sydney. Shot some interviews in the cloudy room of the young wrestlers…it was good to see them again, these where the guys we shot Wrestling Reality with. Peter, Mike, Titus and the legendary Bushwhacker Luke (from old school WWE fame) where at the Delta bar causin’ a raucous. It was funny hanging out with the Bushwhacker…he is one of the highest paid wrestlers in the history of the business, and he likes to lick people’s faces…no kidding. Here we go, round two, the final event? Hope not…not yet anyway, I hope this series is a knock out and we take home the belt (the one made of plastic, not platinum of course).