Month: January 2014

It’s all about the game and how you play it

Tonight is the Royal Rumble, World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE)’s first flagship pay-per-view (PPV) of the year. It is also one year since I started watching wrestling again.

Our family first got Sky TV in 1991 and as soon as we did, me and my siblings were hooked. Primarily it was me and my brother. I’ve always viewed wrestling as sort of like a testosterone fueled soap opera. Viewer-wise, the gender split for wrestling viewing is currently 65% male, 35% female. I’ve not been able to find any research on soap viewing but I would imagine that the split is roughly the opposite.

I guess what I’m saying is I want my soap opera to have oiled up men in pants grappling with each other and making each other groan. Don’t judge me. It makes me manly.

There is still an undercurrent of sexism within wrestling. Women, whilst gaining a bit more prominence since I initially started watching, are still treated as inferior and sometimes as sex objects – mainly by Jerry “The King” Lawler. For anyone who doesn’t know who he is, imagine the wrestling equivalent of Andy Gray and you’re probably pretty close.

The women’s title had been renamed the “Divas Championship” since I had last watched which seemed like a step in the wrong direction to me. The womens division did seem to be larger and perhaps had a bit more prominence but – as with football – it is still generally seen as insignificant and is paid nowhere near as well. This website has a list of wrestler’s salaries.

AJ Lee, who is the current Divas champion and has recently surpassed the record for longest reigning female champion is on an annual salary of $104,300 (£63,000) which pales into insignificance when compared to the two men who fought in the title unification fight at Hell in the Cell last month. Current champion Randy Orton is on $1,600,500 (£970,000) and John Cena who is on $2,750,000 (£1,700,000).

The conclusion from all of this is that men like to watch largely naked well paid men cuddling each other. The treatment of women in wrestling is something that bugs me but my moral conscience is not strong enough to stop me from watching. I’d like to think that, in some way, being an enlightened viewer may help persuade the WWE to treat women better, but I’m not sure exactly how that would work.

Going back to the soap opera element, obviously I know that wrestling “isn’t real.” Although what people mean by that statement, I’m not entirely sure. It’s like saying that Eastenders isn’t real. I guess what they mean is that the results are fixed. Fine, that’s the whole point. It’s what keeps the storylines going. I didn’t think this when I was little though.

One of my school colleagues had a dad who worked in television in some way, possibly a cameraman. When Summerslam came over to London in 1992, he got to go up with his dad and hang around back stage. I thought he was indescribably cool for having this opportunity. When he came back, I thought he was less cool. This is because he told me that he had seen The Undertaker and Kamala having a cup of tea and discussing what the were going to do in their match. I was convinced he was making it up. This sort of thing just couldn’t happen. It was like being told that santa didn’t exist all over again. I was sure that I was being lied to but I couldn’t work out why someone would lie about something so important.

Over time, I got a full understanding of what it was and how it worked and I still had an appreciation of it. No-one does spectacle or entertainment quite like the WWE and at the age of 34, I can still get excited when something happens like the underdog Daniel Bryan managing to win the world championship from John Cena.

Sure, some of it isn’t very exciting at times, and WWE still have a habit of managing to take a story line or character that threatens to be really interesting or exciting and throw it away in favour of maintaining the status quo.

I watched wrestling on and off over the times that I’ve had Sky but over the course of the last year, I’ve been watching every pay per view and the odd Raw or Smackdown in between or reading about them on the internet when I can’t. It’s safe to say, I’m addicted again. It is, by and large, as much fun as it has always been, and – I find – much more exciting than Eastenders.

Review: Yeezus by A Gay Fish

One of my resolutions for 2014 is to listen to more music. As it to actually listen to it. When I was little, I would lay down and do nothing but listen to music. These days, it tends to be more of a background activity. Something to put on while I do the washing up or drive to work or clean out my guinea pigs or play games or something else.

This afternoon, I turned off my phone, loaded up Spotify and put on Kanye West’s album Yeezus. I chose this album partly because of my continuing quest to broaden my horizons and partly because it was top or near the top of a large number of best albums of 2013 lists.

To my knowledge, I’d not consciously listened to any Kanye before. At least, not knowing that it was him. As with a lot of my cultural knowledge, all I knew about Kanye I had learnt from South Park. So I knew that he had finally admitted to being a gay fish and is dating a Kardasian who looks like a hobbit.

I make no secret that I think the three best rappers I’ve heard are all in the Beastie Boys which may be seen as a flippant statement but it’s one I agree with. I do listen to rap when I’m in the mood and I’m especially fond of Mos Def but come on, he’s no Ad Rock, is he?

As such, it might be difficult for Kanye to win a place in my affections but I went into this with an open mind, wanting to like it.

Musically the album is okay. In fact, it is exceptional in places, sounding at times like music from a sci-fi dsytopia. There are certain things he does which, musically, are incredible and even occasionally haunting. I was quite enjoying Yeezus but then four things ruined it for me.

1. Autotune. I was aware that Kanye uses autotune. I’m not sure that anyone has ever pointed out that it is the most horrible sounding thing imaginable. I would guess that he uses it because he can’t actually sing. It must be pretty embarrassing to not be the best singer on your own record. Like seriously, it’s just so annoying and he uses it so much. I wonder if he ever actually listens to his own records?

2. Jumping from style to style. There are a couple of points where a song on this album will just shift entirely in style and won’t flow. I know that it’s probably trying to be quirky or cool or something like that, but music primarily is meant to be enjoyable. It’s not too enjoyable if it feels uncomfortable.

3. Kanye’s sense of self importance. I was aware from South Park and the claim that he is the next Nelson Mandela that Kanye thinks he is pretty much the most important person the the planet. There is a song on Yeezus called I am a god. The lyrics go  “I am a god, I am a god, I am a god, I am a god.” In my opinion, delusions of grandeur are only cool when they are funny.

4. Misogynism. All of the above complaints pale into insignificance compared to the inherent misogyny on the album. I have no idea how many times the word “bitch” is said on this album. I estimate it to be roughly one metric fucktonne. The worst line is probably “one more fuck and I can own ya” which shows that Kanye values and respects women and sees them as a valuable human being in their own right. Oh wait, no, sorry. I think I got that wrong. I’m sure Kanye thinks he’s being a lyrical genius with lines such as “I’d rather be a dick than a swallower” but really it makes him just sound like an idiot.

Now there may be layers of meaning in his lyrics that I’m ignoring. He may well be trying to make cutting social commentary as one or two reviews claim but still, I can’t get past the fact that he just sounds moronic.

It is a little bit annoying really, because there is quite a bit that musically, I enjoy but really, I can’t listen to this album again for the above reasons. I’m not sure how so many critics and listeners can get past these things and rate the album so highly.

Apparently Midnight Memories by One Direction was the best selling album in the UK last year. I might have to tackle that next.