Beer, Blood and Cornmeal: Seven Years of Incredibly Strange Wrestling »

Bob Calhoun is a freelance journalist whose work has appeared in Filmfax, Salon.com, and the San Francisco Chronicle. He is the coauthor of martial arts and Hollywood stunt legend "Judo" Gene LeBell's autobiography, The Godfather of Grappling. He lives in San Francisco.

Delving into the organized insanity of Incredibly Strange Wrestling (ISW), this memoir takes a look at the bastard offspring of post-punk garage rock and masked Mexican wrestling. Fielding a cast of crazed characters with names like El Homo Loco, Macho Sasquatcho, and El Pollo Diablo, the show lived up to its name. And if that wasn’t enough, cult bands such as NOFX, The Dickies, and The Donnas provided the raucous rock and roll in between the highflying mayhem. ISW emerged from the back alleys and seedy clubs of San Francisco’s South of Market scene to headline the historic Fillmore and barnstorm North America on the Van’s Warped Tour. At the height of its popularity, Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong and Metallica’s James Hetfield could be seen tossing tortillas (which the promoters supplied) at ringside with the rest of the hell heads, boozehounds, and tattooed party girls.

Maximum Rock & Roll

This book was like candy-I could not stop eating it up. . . . A great read.