Top End Wrestling

A big thank you to everyone that purchased a raffle ticket or a Top End Wrestling Cancer council croc at our recent event Aftershock

Big thank you to everyone that purchased a raffle ticket at our last event, Harry's Birthday bash

Cheers

There have been thunderstorms during the day, with clouds hanging low and dark over the land. Now, in late afternoon, the wind suddenly drops. The air becomes oppressively still. There is silence, and a feeling of foreboding. The sky tums ugly, shades of purple or green, In the distance, a faint, lacy whirl of dust spins across the ground. A tornado is forming. Now a gray condensation funnel appears from the clouds above. It descends tentatively toward the ground, a fragile ropelike finger. Stretching downward, in silence. As it touches the ground, the funnel begins to rotate faster. There is a deep rumbling sound, like the roar of an enormous freight train, as the tornado moves over the land, churning dust and debris at its base. What happens next, no one can predict. Most tornadoes lose power within a few minutes, the funnel shrinking and tilting forward, roping out -- vanishing as quickly as they have come. But at other times, the tornado on the ground grows steadily in strength and roaring power. The base widens from a hundred yards to a diameter of half a mile or more. Winds reach 300 miles an hour. Such huge tornadoes may stay on the ground for an hour, leaving behind a path of devastation a hundred miles long, before they, too, finally dissipate and disappear back into the sky. What makes one tornado last for a few seconds, and another last for an hour, causing death and destruction? No one really knows. Scientists have made complex computer models, laboratory simulations, and observations on the ground. But still, even today, no one really knows. The United States has more tornadoes than any nation on Earth. Although tornadoes occur everywhere on our planet, the geography of the U.S. is uniquely suited for tornado formation. Each spring, cold, dry air coming down from Canada meets warm, wet air flowing up from the Gulf of Mexico. These weather fronts meet over the broad, flat prairies of the central United States, producing enormous thunderclouds of great beauty and power. Some of these thunderclouds -- perhaps one in a thousand -- will produce tornadoes. In Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas, tornadoes occur so commonly that the area has long been known as "Tornado Alley." The frequency of tornadoes in the central states has made this the ideal place for scientists to observe tornado formation. Each spring, a group of scientists known as storm chasers travel up and down this region, searching for tornadoes and studying them in a variety of ways. These storm chasers are unusual people. 2. They combine the rigor of hard scientists with the instincts of naturalists and hunters. Their season is short, only a few months each year. Their work is fast-paced and sometimes dangerous, for they are studying the most unpredictable -- and potentially deadly -- phenomena of nature. Above all, they must be patient, for in a good year, they will witness two, or perhaps three, tornadoes. In a bad year, they will see none at all. More than a thousand tornadoes touch down in the United States every year, but most are fleeting, lasting only a few minutes. Many occur at night, or in remote regions, and they are never seen by anyone at all. Historically, the elusive nature of tornadoes has meant that they have rarely been filmed. Most newsreel footage showed the aftermath, the shattered towns and destroyed farmhouses, long after the tornado itself had vanished. In fact, prior to 1965, only two tornadoes were ever recorded by movie cameras. Tornadoes might be mysterious and feared, but they were also largely unseen. Eyewitness accounts of their behavior were wild, and wildly conflicting. All that changed with the advent of home video cameras. By the late 1980s, these cameras were common in households across the country, and soon, literally hundreds of home videos began to record tornadoes of all sorts. From this wealth of new visual information came scientific understanding. The behavior of tornadoes began to be much better understood, at least descriptively. For example, tornadoes were recognized to have a distinct life cycle, marked by distinct visual stages. At the same time, the scientific approach to tornadoes became more sophisticated. A nationwide system of Doppler radar gave storm chasers much better information about where a tornado was likely to occur. And the chasers themselves employed more advanced techniques, portable Doppler radars, particle photogrammetry, and even, in the case of pioneer Howard Bluestein, a special instrument pack called TOTO (for Totable Tornado Observatory), which was intended to be carried on the back of a truck, placed in the path of the tornado, taken up inside the funnel. The work of the storm chasers and the visual drama of the tornadoes themselves had long interested my wife Anne-Marie Martin, who from time to time would announce that somebody should make a movie on the subject. My answer was always the same: It's a good subject, but what's the story? In late 1993, she argued for a very simple structure, a romantic triangle set against the background of a race to place an instrument pack in a tornado. She felt the tension of chasing tornadoes would lead people to behave in an exaggerated fashion -- to say things they wouldn't ordinarily say, and do things they wouldn't ordinarily do. She proposed a short, intense time-course for the story, no more than a day or two. And she argued for a lot of scientific dialogue which would carry undercurrents of personal meaning behind the technical surface. 3. I was doubtful about this, because I had tried exactly that procedure in a script called "ER," and so far, no one had made it. Nevertheless, her idea took hold. From the beginning, the subject seemed to me inherently visual, and therefore should be a script, not a book. Tornadoes are an ideal film subject, because unlike most meteorological phenomena, they are small enough to fit within the film frame, and they last a short time, changing rapidly. By comparison, a hurricane is hundreds of miles across, too big to see in a single image, and it goes on for hours, with little change. Tornadoes are much more contained, and visually compelling. We were further encouraged by early research that showed the premise was valid. Not only had real scientists attempted to put instrument packs into funnels. But there had been many recorded episodes when so-called "outbreaks" of tornadoes occurred -- as many as a hundred tornadoes touching down in a single day, often only a few minutes apart. That was what we required for our story, and it did indeed happen. It wasn't even rare: outbreaks of forty or more tornadoes had occurred seven times in the past ten years. The worst recorded outbreak, according to Ted Fujita, had taken place in April 1974, when 148 tornadoes touched down in a day, producing 2,400 miles of damage path. So it seemed as if the story was possible. Eventually, with some trepidation, we decided to write the script together, and we began in January 1994. It was not clear to either of us how this would work out, or whether it would work at all. We had plenty of advice that collaboration was a good way to end a marriage. But, as it turned out, we had an easy time working together; the structure was unusually clear, dictating what should happen next. And, invariably, we drew our episodes and details from actual recorded events, making up nothing. This was important because tornadoes are so inherently dramatic, it is easy to become excessive in the usual Hollywood manner, and we wanted the incidents to remain true to underlying reality. That reality was always worrisome. Because what we didn't know, during the spring and summer of 1994, was whether it would be possible to film the sequences we were so cheerfully writing. We were relying on computer graphics to accomplish this, but it is far more difficult to make a tornado in a computer than a dinosaur. On the other hand, George Lucas's Industrial Light and Magic is one of the most continuously successful R&D operations in American history. Thus, we blithely assumed that ILM's rapid advances in computer graphics would continue, so that by the time we were finished writing, it would be possible to simulate tornadic motion onscreen. And that turned out to be true. We saw a film test in January 1995 that was chilling in its verisimilitude. As is so often the case with big Hollywood movies, other hands took over the project, and moved it off in other directions. 4. What audiences will see includes the work of many other, uncredited writers, but readers may be interested to see how the project appeared at an earlier time. Meanwhile, in the real world, Howard Bluestein and other researchers had long since abandoned their attempts to place an instrument pack in a tornado funnel. They tried for five seasons, and never succeeded -- although they did determine that TOTO was too light, and too easy to tip over in tornadic winds. But we have the greatest admiration for the tenacity and daring of the real storm chasers, and, as we wrote this screenplay, we hoped that they would be amused to find that in the movies, at least, their attempts met with success. -Michael Crichton 5. FADE IN: EXT. RURAL OKLAHOMA - STORMY DAY CLOSE ON TALL GRASS, blowing in the wind A GIRL of ten runs through the grass towards us. Wind whips her dress and hair. GIRL Mommy! Mommy! She passes us, and continues forward toward her farmhouse. Black and menacing skies behind. The Wind builds fast. Trees are bent over. NEAR HER HOUSE HER FATHER stands by the open storm cellar, waving to her as the girl runs up. The wind is very strong. FATHER Come on! He hurries down into the cellar, handing the girl to the mother below. With a final worries look, the father closes the cellar doors, tugging them shut against the wind. TIGHT ON THE DOORS They begin to rattle, then to vibrate, as the unseen hand of the wind tries to rip them away. TRACK SIDEWAYS from the doors, past windows -- as they rattle, then explode -- to the corner of the house. We see the house squeak and twist on its foundations. The whole house is being twisted, like a cap off a jar. Then the house lifts and moves off the foundation -- we see the concrete slab -- the wind builds to a scream -- and suddenly THE HOUSE IS GONE, just lifted up, gone. Blackness envelops everything. A TV NEWS REPORT A HOME VIDEO IMAGE with REC in the corner, it shows a more distant view of the house we just saw, being hit by a tornado and the house carried away. NEWSCASTER (over) This was the scene just a few minutes ago as a twister touched down near Lancaster. (MORE) 6. NEWSCASTER (CONT'D) This is the peak season for tornadoes, and it's why Oklahoma is known as "tornado alley". IN THE NEWS ROOM The NEWSCASTER sits in front of a chromakey map of Oklahoma, with superimposed weather fronts. NEWSCASTER National Weather Service is calling this the biggest storm front since 1922. It's brought teams of storm researchers from all over the country. Many more tornadoes are expected in the next 24 hours. As the newscaster speaks, white letters slide across the bottom of the screen: TORNADO WATCH FOR THE COUNTIES OF... EXT. OKLAHOMA COUNTRYSIDE - STORMY DAY A threatening BLACK SKY hangs low over flat green fields, a lone white farmhouse. LIGHTNING crackles sharply down. A CAR drives by in foreground. EXT. THROUGH A CAR WINDSHIEL Drops of water spatter the windshield. The road stretches ahead. INT. THE CAR BILL HARDING, 35, cowboy-rugged in jeans and a work shirt, squints at the road ahead as he drives. Beside him, MELISSA HUNTLEY is 30, pretty in a patrician, button-down way. Tailored pants and a white shirt. Looking out window: MELISSA (concerned) Do you think we'll get there in time? BILL Yeah, Almont's a hundred miles north of here. No problem -- we'll be in Phoenix by nightfall. MELISSA (kisses him) I can't wait. 7. He's reluctant to stop the kissing, kisses her back. MELISSA (CONT'D) (happy) It's finally happening... BILL Yeah. Just one more problem... MELISSA You want to go over it again? BILL Maybe we better. MELISSA Okay. When you see her, you're going to say... BILL (very calm, reciting) Jo, nice to see you again. I'm sure you know why I'm here today. The truth is, it's time we acknowledge -- MELISSA Both acknowledge... BILL (continuing recitation) Yeah, right, it's time we both acknowledge that our marriage is over. We both need to go on with our lives now. MELISSA Good, good. (prompting) And... BILL And I want you to see these stipulations and waivers for the divorce, Jo. MELISSA And you have your pen ready... Bill pulls his pen out, holding it like a knife. BILL It's ready! 8. MELISSA And no anger... BILL No anger. No. MELISSA Good. Want to go over it again? BILL (like a boxer) No. I got it. I'm ready. I am. I feel good. EXT. THE ROAD AHEAD Drops of water spatter the windshield. The road stretches straight. We're beyond the town, now. Open country. Thunder rumbles. Bill studies the sky. BILL Tower building. Nice base forming up. She'll be around here somewhere... As they drive on, Bill looks out the window, scanning. BILL (CONT'D) There! IN THE DISTANCE Across the fields, a STORM CHASE TEAM: four dusty vehicles, parked in disarray along a dirt road. BILL'S CAR Guns down the road toward them. BY THE PARKED CARS Bill slams on the breaks. As he starts to get out, he takes a LEGAL FILE with black ribbon with him. MELISSA I'd like to come with you. BILL No, honey, I should do this alone. MELISSA I know you'll be great. 9. She gives him a big, toe-curling kiss. Time stops: there's real passion here. They break. Bill looks into her eyes. BILL Thanks. Bill gets out, shuts the door, and walks calmly toward the parked cars, which are old and battered. THE CHASE TEAM All young graduate students in their 20s, dressed casually in shorts and T-shirts. Their equipment, like their vehicles, has seen better days. TIMMY lies beneath a pickup truck, working on the suspension; DUSTY sits inside another truck, receiving a fax from a cracked portable machine held together with gaffer's tape; RICK, a doughnut in his mouth, tightens a spindly antenna to the roof of a station wagon; a tangle of wires runs down inside. They look up, smile as they recognize Bill, and greet him warmly. RICK Hey, Bill. BILL Hi, Ricky. Dusty falls in step with Bill, walking with him. BILL (CONT'D) Hey, Dusty. How's the old fax? DUSTY Holding together. Barely. (sees folder with ribbon) This an official visit? BILL Just tying up loose ends... DUSTY She's having a real bad day. BILL Sorry to hear that. Dusty drops back as Bill walks on. Timmy slides out from beneath a truck, wipes greasy hands on a rag. TIMMY (nervous swallow) Ooh boy... 10. JO WILDER She's bent over, working in the trunk of a car. She wears dirty khaki shorts and a faded T-shirt with a rip in it. She yells at her tense assistant, LARRY, as she brings out a big outmoded VHS video camera with a bulky, weatherproof housing, now open. In front of the housing is a rod and marked plastic plate, with crosshairs. JO You idiots! ... There's grass in the autofocus mount, that's why it's jammed. Damn it, Larry, didn't you clean it yesterday? Bill arrives. Larry tries to signal this to Jo, whose back is turned. LARRY I'm sorry, Jo, but... Jo turns the housing upside down, shakes out grass. JO Sorry? What good does sorry do? You jam the driveboard, you blow the photogrammetry to hell, particle velocities aren't worth a damn, vectors cant be read, the sigma-K point's beyond three-SDs, we might as well be out there with a goddamn Brownie! Go seal this now. I don't want to miss the next one for something as stupid as this! She slams the trunk of the car, still furious, then notices Larry's expression. Still angry: JO (CONT'D) What?! LARRY Bill. She turns. She's 35, with a grease smudge on her face, hair in disarray; she'd be pretty if she gave a damn. She looks at Bill as if she'd like to hit him. Larry steps back. Suddenly, to the amusement of all, she puts on a big smile. 11. JO Bill! Well... (searching for words) Welcome back. BILL Hello, Jo. Nice to see you again. JO (notes his manner) Nice to see you too, Bill. Larry stands there, grinning. In this tense moment, focus turns away from Jo, to him. LARRY Hi, Bill. BILL Hiya, Larry. How're things? LARRY Pretty good. Got a big storm front today. BILL Yeah, I'd say. As she speaks, Jo tucks in her T-shirt, tidying up. JO Biggest in forty years! We got LP contours, good overhangs, clean updraft arc -- This is it! I'm glad you stopped pouting and decided to come back. BILL Pouting? JO What would you call it? BILL (gets hold of temper) Jo, I'm sure you know why I'm here today. I've come here because because -- JO (pointing to folder) What's that? Somebody die? 12. BILL (reciting) I've come here because it's time that we both acknowledge that our marriage is over -- JO Yeah, we made a mess. I know. BILL And we both need to get on with our lives... JO Yes. Right. BILL I'm sure you agree. JO (amused by his stiffness) I do... BILL (opening folder) Good. Then I just need your signature on these stipulations and waivers. And then the divorce will be final. Jo abruptly walks away, suddenly busy with her equipment. She moves around the car. JO I already signed those. BILL (chasing her) No, you didn't. JO Well, I signed something. BILL Well, it wasn't these. JO Well then, what'd I sign? BILL (frustrated) I don't know! 13. JO Look, do we have to do this now? BILL Yes, we do. JO Because we have a monster LP cell here, and you and I have a lot of work to do, in fact you could -- BILL I'm not staying. JO (disbelief) Bill, this is the one we've been waiting for! The biggest storm since '49, and -- BILL Jo... JO (joking) What's the rush? You getting married or something? BILL Yes. I am. A dozen emotions cross her face. JO Oh. When? BILL Next week. JO Oh... Okay... She turns away, to hide her feelings. She sees a portable thermal-paper fax machine on the roof of her cat. Like everything else in her team, it's beat-up.. It is printing out an image of he big storm. JO (CONT'D) I guess you really need the papers signed, then... BILL Yeah, I do. 14. CLOSE ON JO, thinking. Staring at the fax. CLOSE ON THE FAX, spitting out the storm image, on curling paper. Jo turns back to Bill. JO Well, sure. Of course I'll sign, Bill. BILL (amazed) You will? JO Of course. What did you think, I'd stand in your way? Who are you marrying? (looking) Is that her? BILL Yes. JO I've got to meet her. What does she do? BILL She's a psychologist. JO Good! I'm glad you're getting professional help. Jo strides toward the car, where Melissa stands waiting. Bill chases after her. JO (CONT'D) She doesn't look like a shrink. What's her name? BILL Melissa. They've reached the car. Jo reaches out both hands, shakes Melissa's hand vigorously. JO Melissa. So nice to meet you. I'm Jo. 15. MELISSA (friendly-cautious) Hello... JO Congratulations on your marriage. I'm sure you'll be very happy. MELISSA Thank you... BILL Jo... You gonna sign the papers? JO Of course. Got a pen? Bill's pen is whipped put so close to her face, she has to pull back. She takes the stack of divorce papers and puts the on the roof of the car, starts to sign. The papers bristle with red tags. BILL Where they're marked... JO Lots of place... Okay... As she signs, Jo glances at Melissa, the two women appraise each other, beneath superficial smiles. JO (CONT'D) TO tell you the truth, I'm glad this is happening. It's a relief, it's finally over... (still signing) Here, too? BILL Just initials. Jo continues to sign steadily, one page after another. Bill and Melissa exchange glances -- it's working! JO (still signing) I'm sorry you had to go out of your way for this... Where do you two go from here? MELISSA Phoenix. 16. JO What takes you to Phoenix? MELISSA That's where we're going to live. Jo is almost at the end of the documents. She comes to the last page, pauses. JO Oh... I'd love to hear all your plans. Her pen is poised over the final signature. Bill and Melissa holding their breath. MELISSA Well... I'm sure, but you see -- JO (pouncing) Great! Let's talking about it over lunch! (closes papers) We can finish it all up then. Bill and Melissa just stare. They have no choice. INT. CATTLEMAN'S LOUNGE - DAY A honky-tonk joint but it's the best place to eat in Winslow, Oklahoma. Outside the window, storm clouds are dark. At the table, Jo's elbow leans on the still unsigned documents, pinning them down. Over coffee: MELISSA So we'll be down in Phoenix, because Bill is going to work at the television station there. JO (impressed) Television... MELISSA Yes, he'll be reporting on camera. Starting next week. JO (looking at Bill) What will he be reporting? 17. BILL I'll be -- MELISSA He'll be doing the weather. JO (sincere) Weatherman in Phoenix! Great. Steady work... MELISSA Well, Bill spent so many years teaching meteorology at the university, we thought weatherman's a natural... JO Weatherman's a perfect fit for Bill. And what about you, Melissa? MELISSA I have my clinical practice. I specialize in the psychological care of people with reproductive difficulties. JO (looking at Bill) Very challenging. MELISSA Yes, it is. I'll be sorry to give it up, but... Bill and I plan to start a family right away. JO Wonderful. I'm glad you're going to give him all the things I never could... As she talks, Jo opens the papers to the last page. MELISSA Thank you. I appreciate how you're handling this. JO Oh, it's time for everybody to move on. (picks up pen) What's past is pas. (before signing) (MORE) 18. JO (CONT'D) The only thing I regret is that Bill's leaving. Right at the moment that his research is finally going to pay off. BILL I couldn't care less. JO (to Melissa) There are six hundred tornadoes every year, and they destroy a lot. Mostly her in the farmbelt. I grew up here, and I can tell you -- when you see a farm destroyed, you see a poor family lose everything... BILL Jo, don't do this. MELISSA But there are warnings, aren't there? JO The warning time's too short. These storms are huge -- that front (pointing out the window) covers a hundred thousand square miles. It'll drop a lot of tornadoes today -- but nobody knows where, because nobody knows what makes a cell drop a tornado in a particular place. (empathetic) We'll never understand the internal structure of a tornado unless we get right inside it. MELISSA You want to get inside a tornado? JO I want to put an instrument package inside is. That was Bill's idea -- to put instruments right in the vortex. EXT. THE RESTAURANT -- BY JO'S PICKUP A tarp pulled down the back of a pickup, revealing THREE WHITE INSTRUMENT PACKS, laid out side by side. They're the size of garbage cans, they bristle with dials and antennas. But they have a distinctly homemade look

Rock on 💪😎

The fight never stops, until guys like you help, really well done guys, much love.

yay!!!!

Good luck Jac!

Good job everyone! Keep up the excellent work!

Much love to The Family Starr 🤘🏻💚