Heeeeeeeeey, all you Dr. Who fans, that could be a new chant for you! Whenever the new Dr. Who episode about planets having the right to defend themselves (with genocide), or whatever, you could all chant “Who let the dogs out! Dr. Who, who, who, who!”! You can have that. Mind you, I don’t really watch a lot of Dr. Who, but I don’t think dogs feature too heavily in the core plot? Do they still have K9? Is that still a thing? You could maybe try to fit K9 into the song? “Who let Daleks out! Dr. Who, who, who who!”. That kinda works? Listen, it might need a bit of work, but I am officially relinquishing the intellectual property of that chant, so it’s public access now.
I’m kind of sick of this self-obsessed white guy indie-emo thing where this kind of mundane shit you pretend’s got any symbolism, or greater important to other people’s lives, rather than just some fucking tedious self-involved nothing
I fucking hate Manchester sometimes. Most of the time, if I’m being honest. Sure I was born here* but I had little to no choice in that matter, and I live here now, but that’s only because you’re unlikely to find a better UK city experience than sleeping in a tent in St Peter;s Square while you wait to be housed by the council**.
(*well… in Ashton, which nobody in Manchester would consider Manchester, but seeing as nobody outside of Manchester has heard of or is arsed about it, let’s just call it Manchester for the benefit of this post
**and, to bring us back in, there’s a joke that nobody outside Manchester is going to get)
Manchester is special though, yeah? We do things differently, isn’t it? Something something FAC9087546 something something Coronation Street something something actually that person you’re thinking of is from Salford and we’re really inconsistent about whether we consider that a worthwhile distinction. Remember Oasis though? Remember when both the Stone Roses and The Happy Mondays were on the same episode of Top of the Pops? What do you mean you’re not even old enough to remember Top of the Pops?? I’ll have you know that British institution enabled Jimmy Saville to prey on more children than you’ve had hot dinners, and you need to show it some respect!!
When am I gonna stop being wise beyond my years and just start being wise? When am I gonna stop being a pretty young thing to guys? When am I gonna stop being great for my age and just start being good? When will it stop being cool to be quietly misunderstood?
OK, I’m going to suggest something pretty revolutionary now. No, way more revolutionary than just replacing capitalism with a socially owned system that benefits the working class through their ownership of the means of production. That’s nothing. That’s just, like, the base level sentiment that I hope is evident in every single thing I write. That’s not even revolutionary. It’s scientifically proven and inevitable. Join the Communist Party, you cowards.
So that’s all facts. #Facts, as the kids on X say. Formally known as the kids on Twitter. What I’m about to suggest? You freaks ain’t even gonna be able to see the box anymore considering how far out of it you’re about to be thinking. Stick this in your mind microwave and I promise you one thing: shit’s gonna melt. I’m suggesting that we sit back for a second and consider something far, far, far more mind-blowing and world changing than merely Marx’s recognition of the capitalistic mode of production and his employment of historical materialism:
Fucking yes! Fucking yeeeeeeeeeeeeeees! Three and a half fucking years I’ve held on to this screenshot!
People laughed at me when I saved that Tweet from 2020. Laughed at me! Of course, back then it had only been two years since the release of their incredible debut album ‘what people call low self-esteem is really just seeing yourself the way other people see you*’, a furious and intoxicating powder keg of intense self-hatred infectiously narrated. All us ‘Bedheads’ ate it the fuck up, because we are all reprehensible vultures. We had tasted the blood of Shannon Taylor as they eviscerated themselves for our entertainment, greedily sucking it down as they slit their wrists above our mouths and let it flow so beautifully down our gullets. Yum yum yum yum. Please, Mommy, can we have some more?
The photos are going to be a lot better. But, I dunno, lacking some of that charm, you know warra mean? Not as legitimate somehow? Like, sure, you’ve got your complex autofocus tracking and your high-ISO capabilities, but where’s the heart, y’know? Hey, Isa, if you’re reading this, you’re the real star. And, also:
There’s gonna be a lot more complaining. The Wembley show was an absolute triumph (as I write this intro, I still haven’t watched the PPV broadcast that I’m about to review), but most of the build-up, decsions and angles leading up to it were weak as The Weeknd covering that Skunk Anansie song for seven days straight. Shut up, that line worked perfectly. The card was borderline piss poor on paper, I would suggest that there were maybe (maybe) three matches that fit the historic hugeness of the event, and they were all rematches. OK, maybe four, but Grado v Jeff Jarrett was on the pre-show so I’m not counting it. Hey, I’m a wrestling fan, all we do is complain. If you’re ever forced to go undercover to infiltrate a terrorist group of fat, middle aged wresting fans, make sure you never say that you enjoy wrestling: it will blow your cover immediately.
In fact, I’ve written so many complaints, that I’ve had to split this post into two parts. Here, we’re getting general pre-show thoughts, then the events of Zero Hour before the main show began. Net, I’ll just review the matches, I promise… I kinda promise… and that post will come out over the weekend.
Because I don’t write about wrestling that much on a blog that mainly concerned with psychosexual fetishization of suicidal ideations music, so when I do I tend to write under the delusional idea that non wrestling fans might read it. Hence I often have to stop and explain what an ‘Irish Whip’, ‘Tope Suicida’ or ‘Singlet’ is. I’ll be forced to translate carny sentences such as ‘He ribbed the worker and their shizon with the gimmick before taking a bump himself, a total shoot’ into the proper English (‘He murdered his wife and their seven-year-old son before hanging himself at their residence in Fayetteville, Georgia’) to make sure the normies could keep up. Well, screw the normies: I’m preaching to the perverted in this post and assuming at least a base knowledge of AEW in this post. It’s going to get pretty scary, but we’ll all emerge from the other side as better people.
For the vast majority of human history, everyone was mainly just into the same shit, and had the exact same cultural references. You think in 5000 BC, when you and your fellow Sumerians were starting your little agricultural society based around the cultivation of dates, people would have much time for your niche appreciation of tomato crops? They’d be like “nah kevin we all about the dates right now fr”. It was essentially a monoculture though, so everyone would at least be aware of the tomato subculture, even if they weren’t fans themselves. Everyone went bananas for dates*, and everyone knew that some weirdos like fucking Kevin inexplicably preferred tomatoes. For thousands of years, we have had the superstructure and the subculture, with a clear distinction and easy to judge distinction between the mass support of dates and the dangerous, fringe interests such as tomatoes.
‘Das Gespenst’ is German for ‘The Titty Master’
(*but, crucially, not bananas)
Which brings us, naturally, to professional wrestling.
There are statistics to argue that professional wrestling is as big – or even bigger – now than it ever has been. Or at least as big as it’s been in the modern era, biggest since 943 thousand people somehow crammed into the Atlanta Omni in the 50s to watch George Hackenschmidt put Toots Mondt in a headlock for 97 minutes. Live gates are huge, merchandise sales are huge, the world’s Problematic Fave WWE are making billions upon billions of dollars in increasingly morally dubious ways. Sure, TV audiences are a fraction of what they were during the first (Hogan) and second (Austin) WWF/E boom periods, but do you know why that is? Because no fucker actually watches TV anymore! I asked a Zoomer what their favourite TV show was, and they didn’t actually know what I was talking about, had never heard of a ‘TV’ before, and actually refused to speak to me any further because they’d assumed I’d made a transphobic slur. Wrestling on TV may only get fourteen people and one ferret watching every week, but it’s one of the only things that gets any sort of repeat viewings, so stations like Fox will still throw a billion dollars at them in the hope of securing at least a handful of people to show Dominos Pizza adverts to (also eggs. Ferrets love eggs. You should always do market research). Attendances, money made, CM Punk clout farming (the three most crucial elements to measure cultural integration), wrestling might be bigger now than any point in my or anyone reading’s lifetime.
Yeah, I know, it’s just ‘Bandcamp’, isn’t it? Not ‘BandCamp’ like it’s some internet 2.0 app allowing preteen marching band players share news about events (that later turned out to be a massive secret international pedophile ring), but I started calling it ‘BandCamp’ on the first sodding entry so now I have to either go back and change every entry – which will take, ugh, effort – or just continue doing so and hope nobody notices. I’ll change it in 2023, I promise. Resolution and shit, yeah?
Ha! Trust me, Ms Rodrigo, if I died before I first drank, it would have made a lot of people’s lives easier! Your not missing anything, I promise. Have you ever tried Methylenedioxymethamphetamine though? That’s some good stuff, get it down you.
Christ, it’s a minefield trying to search for Olivia Rogrido photos. Like, is she twelve years old in that one?? I’m I accidentally turning this whole post into paedofodder? There’s also a lot of gifs of her doing something like sticking her tongue out but looped, which I’m pretty sure are just weird masturbation fodder for 40 year old men. OK, not many years until I’ll greatly appreciate all that pandering, but right now it’s still officially gross, OK? Jesus, this woman turned eighteen in February of this year, and this is her life now. Listen, maybe just read my Jordana piece and, like, amplify it.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaw shit. That song… hits… Shit. It’s actually borderline difficult to listen to.
No no no, it’s not difficult because of the phenomenal LavaLa Rue, silly! La Rue has absolutely become one of my favourite things in 2021! I love her more than many of my direct family members! I definitely love her more than at least a portion of the people I’ve been married to! In fact, she’s the official winner of the 2021 Necessary Evil One to Watch™ award! Do I have a logo for that? I feel like I should have a logo for that. Hang on a second…
Yes, I know I have beautiful eyes, try saying something original we all don’t already know every now and then, yeah? Lava La Rue now officially has the same accolade awarded to her by Necessary Evil as she did by the Grauniad way back in July 2019. But did that Grauniad award come with such a beautiful logo? No. So sit down, your nonsense didn’t mean shit.
Drowse are a pretty special band. I’m not sure any other artist working today has the same ability to produce such accurate sonic reflections of what the mind feels like when it’s being battered and shook by the illogical and harsh whims of depression. I mean, yeah, sure, you hadSwagger Jagger by Cher Lloyd, but that was eight years ago now, and after listening to it nonstop for the past 100 months* I feel like I could really do with another option for when I want to close my eyes and wallow in the distressing cacophony of my own head being echoed back to me. Seriously, I can’t tell when this album stops playing, the noises I hear keep going on!!
(*it was released in July 2011, so it actually has been exactly 100 months. I hate that! The very rare occasion that I do a bit of fucking research and it looks like I’ve just picked a randomly high number! Maybe I should have gone for days. 3’054 days. Yeah, that sounds better. Ah well, too late to change it now)
Necessary Evil 