Category: Important nonsense

Money in the Ranked part 1 (22-11)

~ Lex Leeson ~ 3 Comments

All 22 WWE Money in the Bank ladder matches ranked. Listen, I thought the title would work better than it does, just go with it, OK?

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The Money in the Bank (from hereon in referred to as ‘MITB’, because I’ve got a lot of writing to do and I am a very, very lazy man) ladder match is the best idea that WWE have had since Steve Austin’s turn to the dark side at the end of Wrestlemania 17 in 2001 signalled the end of the Attitude Era and drew the curtain on the last period which wrestling seemed in any way relevant or widely notable. It’s arguably the only good idea they’ve had in that 18 year period. Save perhaps having The Miz replace Ted DiBiase jnr. as the lead actor in ‘The Marine’ franchise from ‘The Marine 3: Homefront’ onward. Yeah, WWE make movies now. And yeah, they’re all terrible.

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There have seriously been 6 of these fuckers

The premise- 5-10 wrestlers battle to use ladders to reach a contract swinging over the top of the ring which allows them a shot at any title they choose at any time they want over the next 12 months- is simple but ingenious, and allows for great storytelling potential and the chance to quickly promote a wrestler into the main event picture. Of course, this potential is more often than not completely squandered, because WWE are generally incompetent and we’re not allowed to have nice things.

Ranking the matches is difficult, because save a handful of amazing bouts and a smaller, Jeremy Beadle sized handful of slightly poorer ones, they’re almost always a similar level of ‘alright, pretty good, I suppose’. However, I am perhaps the greatest blogger of my generation- the ‘Heart Blog Kid’ Blog Michaels, or ‘Stone Blog’ Steve Blogstin, if you will- so I knew I had the ability to do it. I had initially planned to write this list in the build up to the 2018 Money in the Bank pay per view, back when there had been exactly 20 matches, and it would have made so much more sense. Alas, now there are 22 and, to be completely honest, I can’t even promise to finish it in time for 2019’s event exactly two weeks from today. But it’s a cash cow that the WWE are unlikely to put down for a long time yet, so there’s always the chance of a top 24 in 2020. Or perhaps a top 26 in 2021. I mean, I’ve started it now and I’ve already realised it’s going to have to be two parts…

Let’s see how long this takes!!

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19 Aqua Girl: Stereologue

~ Lex Leeson ~ 10 Comments

From a woman pretending to be a man to a… No, fuck, that’s not it at all. From a woman with short hair to a… No, hang on… From a women who finds no shame in being French to a man who… no, a woman who finds no shame in… a person who…

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From a human being, to another human being. From one fabulous album to another album that’s that little bit more fabulous. Let’s take this one step at a time.

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Nah Nah Nah, Na-Nah Nah, Na-na-na-nah (Ethan Frome)

~ Lex Leeson ~ 3 Comments

‘Masterpiece of Catastrophic Love’?

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I forgot how to read quite a long time ago.

I mean, sure, I’m not illiterate, per se: I can both read and write more than a hundred words. I can even read words like ‘perpendicular’ and ‘nidificate’ and ‘clitoris’, words that I’ve long forgotten the meaning of. If pushed, I could even read a word like ‘kernostrumaphile’, which I just made up but you just know means something filthy, don’t you?

I can read the first two and perhaps the last two paragraphs of a match report, but only if my team won. I can read entire top 100 lists of things I barely acknowledge the existence of (‘The Top 100 Ways You Can Just TELL Someone’s From Chorlton!!!!!!!!!’), but all I really do is glance at the name next to the number then quickly click onto the next page, only occasionally pausing to garner the writer’s exact reason for seriously suggesting that  Bradley Wright-Philips was the seventh best James Bond, before realising how little I care before the end of the first sentence. I read news headlines, and wait to see how John Oliver tells me how to react to them. I look at my Twitter feed, but as I absentmindedly scroll down my feed looking for any updates on the next Let’s Eat Grandma album very rarely actually read it, unless there’s a rather enticing photo of an octopus playing Dark Souls 2 that I’m keen to place in the correct context.

OK, so I’m overexaggerating slightly: if you read this blog you will often be delighted- some would say sexually enticed- by my frequent and ingenious referrals to clever articles and smarty pants think pieces, because quoting clever people is way easier than being clever yourself (or so I’m told. You might want to quote that last line in your next blog post). I do actually read quite a lot, compared to, say, a walrus or a Christian (who read one freaking book, which, despite claims to the contrary, really isn’t that good at all. Christians aren’t much better either*), but all I read is non-fiction. I can only bring myself to move my eyes across words and translate the seemingly abstract shapes into coherent images in my mind if I’m satisfied that I’m learning something. And not just ‘something’: I’ll likely tune out of a book if it’s been longer than three or four paragraphs without a good healthy factpie that I can serve up at my next dinner party.

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Eugh, see that green under my eyes? What is that? Cancer?

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A Quick (possibly final) Entry

~ Lex Leeson ~ 5 Comments

I probably won’t have the time to do this blog in the future, so will in all probability be finishing writing it very soon.

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I assume that the band And So I Watch You From Afar are accepting the conditions to my employment that I laid out in the blog post, so in all honesty it would seem a little difficult to combine my work on the blog with my new role as the lead vocalist (and, let’s be honest here, my position as front man will naturally install me as the  de facto band leader) of the group on a £70’000 basic wage (along with generous cuts of merchandise and ticket sales).

So, big thanks to everyone whose read my Necessary Evil countdowns on the Baboon Etiquette blog over the years- and I may as well continue writing until my contract from the band arrives awaiting my signature- but it’s been a pleasure writing for you all and I have sincerely appreciated your support

 

 

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60 British Sea Power: Let the Dancers Inherit the Party

~ Lex Leeson ~ Leave a comment

You know what?: It probably would have made much more sense to actually start the countdown at the same time I announced it, rather than making a big song and dance about it, then going to bed and doing fuck all for 24 hours. Ah well, here we are:

BSP Inspire Slight PTSD

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“You said the world was losing all its lustre
You realised each day you’re growing old”

Your body decides that it’s really given you enough and stops growing in any beneficial way around age 21. This is also the absolute oldest age that you’re really supposed to leave full time education. I mean, sure, there are people older than 21 who decide that, despite being legal adults in every conceivable sense, they still want to stay at school for all their life, base both their dress sense and DVD collection around Tom Baker’s Doctor Who and never shut the fuck up about how much better the quality of the real ale is at their local pub (‘The Queen’s Withered Resignation’) than Wetherspoons’s. These people, though, are the most ridiculous people in the world, and should be disregarded in every discussion.

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Best Albums of 2013: Necessary Evil’s Chris Benoit

~ Lex Leeson ~ 91 Comments

I’ve tried to put this off for a long time: the 2013 best albums list that I originally emailed off to ‘friends’ and ‘allies’ around Christmas that year is the final collection to be posted onto the webisphere and officially archived. I considered never doing it, denying its existence and never admitting to the shameful mistakes it contains. However, when I write my NE2017 list (soon, I promise) I want to make a point of referring to artists’ past entries in the Necessary Evil Blogging Universe (NEBU), so I’ve relented and made it available to read.

I was mainly worried about two things: firstly, I spent 6 months of 2013 in hospital, occasionally politely coughing and making my existence known to death’s door, so the fact that I managed to still mash out a top 50 at year’s end- while being an astonishing achievement warranting some achievements in disability award- makes me assume that a large portion of it will be unreadable madness.

Yes, very funny: more so than usual

Secondly, Arctic Monkey’s award for best album was soon revoked in light of their tax dodging selfishness, and the records for 2013 now show Hjaltalin’s astonishing ‘Enter 4′ as the greatest album, as despite it only finishing 5th in this initial list, by the time Arctic Monkey’s were stripped of the award it had grown into my favourite release of the year. Arctic Monkey’s win in 2013 is now viewed in the Necessary Evil Online Community (NEOC) with the same divisiveness as Benoit’s Wrestlemania 20 Heavyweight Championship win, and doubtless the posting of this list will be viewed as an extremely controversial move by victims of the Arctic Monkeys’ crimes. I apologise for any offence caused, but you must understand the importance of establising the legitimacy of NEBU.

So, I re-read the list for the first time in years and…

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It’s…

…

…

…not bad. Not bad at all. In fact, I’d say that 2013 might contain some of my best and most incisive actual music writing, and I didn’t cringe nearly as much as I feared. Jesus, some of the entries (The Strokes, Arcade Fire, Kanye West…) are some of the best normal writing I’ve ever done! From death to coherence: I’m such a fucking inspirational figure

It’s far from perfect- I make a quip about Bowie not dying, I’m a little too subtly sexist in my Haim review, Steve Mason is number fucking two…- but I’m not completely overwhelmed by shame posting them

Also: Daft Punk are only no.42, Vampire Weekend 34, that’s pretty gangsta…

NE2017 soon, I promise

I love you all

Except you…

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The Hotelier Make Me Believe There’s a God Sometime

~ Lex Leeson ~ 6 Comments

There’s something that feels inherently wrong about strongly getting into a new musical artist at my age.

I’m not going to go into details, but I’m older (and fatter) than Ronaldo was when he was embarrassingly decrepit and past his prime at World Cup 2006- which was once my very barometer of shameful over-maturity- but younger than Diamond Dallas Page was when he first started wrestling, so that dream isn’t quite dead yet.

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Donald Trump Breaks the Fourth Wall

~ Lex Leeson ~ Leave a comment

There are only two real reasons that exist to justify writing, two possible excuses for dribbling over your fingers and then wiping the resulting saliva- diluted with Monster Munch crumbs from last night’s binge of consumption that attempted to comfort the desolate loneliness that eats at your soul and also from the tears that such an act inevitably result in- across a keyboard and mashing the porridge of shame into roman numerals and expecting the outside world to be deserving of it.

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The first reason is if you’re actually, like, good at writing. If you’re a proper good writer like, I dunno,  Dan Brown or David Walliams then your writing might be good enough to one day be turned into a movie, and therefore your ideas could actually effect the wider cultural conscious. I’ll admit that here’s a weird grey area that exists where you write good stuff that isn’t turned into a film- like… erm… Salmon Rushdie?- and this just about qualifies your existence. But who reads books today, honestly? Freaking nerds, that’s who.

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I obviously don’t fall into this category: I’m not very good at writing.

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