DEVIL IN DISGUISE

HTTP://TRASHFORCEREAPER.WORDPRESS.COM

I've moved, guys. Sorry to fuck up your links - I'm a terrible person.

(I'll start updating the new blog soon, but I have three magazine articles on the go right now and I am just not used to hard graft! The wordpress one is going to have shorter, more frequent entries,and maybe more fashiony shit, but it'll probably have just as many "fuck"s and idiot jokes, so don't start worrying that it'll be like when Dylan went electric, or when Bowie got his teeth done, or something. How will you cope without my foul mouth until then? Maybe try watching The Sopranos. Or that rap that Limp Bizkit did where they said fuck 36 times. Remember that? 

Uh, no. Me neither, man. Me neither.)

Seriously, guys. Change my link! I mean, I'm SO MUCH BETTER now. I haven't managed to quit the innuendo, but still. It looks nicer.

I HAVE A DREAM WHEN I CLOSE MY EYES, I WISH MY HAIR WAS TEN FEET HIGH

I'm sorry if it seems like I have a hair fixation lately, but you know what, reader? I do. I am all about hair. And if you're expecting my usual venom, then you are out of luck today, because I have nothing but good things to say about Maria Cristina's splendid barnet, as photographed by the irritatingly talented Tommy Ton of Jak and Jil (Incidentally, fuck you, Tommy. I'm sorry, but there it is. You are so very good at making me shirk in the workplace, and I resent you for it. You had better not be handsome as well, or so help me God.) Evidently someone at Oscar De La Renta feels the same, and saw fit to style their models with a sort of craze sexy version of Jack Nance's hair in Eraserhead, and I am all kinds of wild about it. If anyone knows how to recreate this hairstyle with relative ease, I will...well, you know the rest. I think we all know the format of this blog by now, no? I'm hoping that Vogue will do a characteristically patronising feature on it within the next two months, which would be perfect for me, because my skills in that area could best be described as "intermediate" and, dare I say it, "lazy". 

As much as I hate to jump on the blog bandwagon (blogwagon?), I am so close to buying this:

It's unreal. Does anyone else find it ironic that they might have spent a few of their earlier teenage years trying to distance themselves from their "goffick" past, only to find themselves hitting sixteen and going full circle, wishing they'd kept all their original spooky garb (Man, I am deep today)? Unfortunately I'm not one of those bloggers who gets sent this kind of shit in the post, despite having literally FIVES of readers, so I have to be content with paying exorbitant tax on it, but that's the way things go. If it helps my cause, I can reveal to you exclusively that I heard once that wearing clothes by Obesity and Speed is, ironically, an effective cure for obesity. No? Worth a fucking shot, at least.

Bonus Dyan:

(I'd let him perform an act on on me, the possible outcome of which might be that nine months later, something would "Get Born", AMIRITE?

...oh, come on, gimmie a break. I had nothing to work with there. It's not like I could have chosen a still where his cue-card said "Blow Me".)

THESE CHARMING MEN

I don't know if you've noticed, but pretty much every guy in East London who is aged between fifteen and twenty-five has exactly the same fucking haircut (and also the same pale denim jacket - I'm nothing if not observant, me). For those of you who don't know what I'm referring to, it's what I like to think of as "The Camberwell Quiff"; a large, permed pompadour with tightly-cropped sides, not hugely unlike a jewish Flock Of Seagulls impersonator, but with a bit more pizazz, e.g.

(I'm sorry to name names, man, but you've gotta break a few Moz-coiffed eggs to make a blog omelette.)

Evidently Morrisey sent out a memo via email - which, I assume, he CC'ed to Hedi Slimane and Matthew Stone - some time previously, and you all responded in your droves (if you didn't get the email, by the way, then I'm sorry to tell you that you're completely Goddamn irrelevant and should probably just stop reading this now.) As much as I appreciate the commitment  with which everyone has wholeheartedly gone about making this shit happen - particularly those of you who had to get a perm - I think we can all agree that it's all gone too far, really. One day it's three of you outside the Old Blue Last in your respective "ironic" t-shirts (Oh look, it's got Rod Stewart on, how droll!) , and the next it's spreading like, well, like Gonorrhea in the toilets of that selfsame pub. 

Do you have any idea how fucking contrite this is all starting to look? The last time we had a haircut this ubiquitous was when women started getting The Rachel, and we all know what happened to Jennifer Anniston. Do you want to be the next Jennifer fucking Anniston, Camberwell Quiffers? Do you want to end up, if the tabloids are to be believed, having a miserable time holidaying in Barbados with - oh! The indignity! - your best friend and her husband, wishing that someone would just impregnate you NOW, RIGHT NOW? Do you want to star in an adaptation of a self-help book? Is that what you want? I'm going to suggest that we bring back a new hairstyle from the  pop-culture graveyard instead - remember when Phil Oakey from the Human League had half of his hair long, and half of it shaved? That was really quite cool, when I look back on it. Or how about Prince's hairstyle in the video for When Dove Cry? That bit where he's crawling out of the bath makes me feel all tingly downstairs. See? Not all bad! It's not that I hate that Morrisey thing you have going on, honest. Initially, I actually found it quite sexy. But - as your own beloved Moz would have said - heaven knows I'm miserable now. 

(Guess who finally got a red leather skirt? What do you mean "Julia Roberts' character from Pretty Woman", asshole? I meant me! And by the way, all your pop-culture references are even more out of date than mine. Burn. And yes, I do tend to delete my short, shit entries, because I'm pernickety. Bite me.)

KILL UGLY RADIO

Urgh. This girl is absolutely killing it and it is making me hate myself. Initially I was thinking how awesome it would be to either be 5 8" or to have delicate, gamine little thighs that could carry off pale, patterned jeans with aplomb, but come to think of it, what about just having a really fucking huge dog instead? Maybe this whole deal is an optical illusion and this bitch is actually four stone, but either way I am getting a (sartorial) boner, so maybe it's best that I'm not wearing pink, skintight jeans after all.

I still want to dye my hair and I need to raise the money, so I am currently available for a variety of positions ranging from clown to prostitute depending on your budget. I'm afraid of clowns, so I would actually prefer prostitute, although if you're offering enough money I will happily combine the two (insert double-entendre about "gag" as a homonym here). No time-wasters, please.

(Apparently my birthday falls on the same day as "National Steak and Blow-Job day", which is such bullshit. I mean, I don't even like steak.) 

WE DON'T NEED NO FASCIST GROOVE THANG

I'm going to a Cramps tribute/Lux memorial night tomorrow (even though it's ten shitting quid to get in), and I feel like as a kind of follicular threnody to the late, great man himself I should shoot for the moon (perhaps literally) and enter the highest hair contest; after all, "The higher the hair, the closer to God" is the one axiom about 'Im Upstairs that I'd even consider getting tattooed on my virgin(!) flesh, and let's be honest, this is the only fucking chance I'll have to get close to Him at this rate, considering some of my current lifestyle choices. The good news is that it's only eight quid entry if you take a bottle of hairspray to the door, and you are (sort of) looking at a woman who once broke her little toe with an industrial-sized cannister of Elnett Extra Hold, so I would argue that it's safe to assume that I am going to have change from a tenner (albeit not enough to buy a pint in this city, the bastards).

I got a Guns N Roses t-shirt through the post today - in my defense, I won it for a quid and I firmly believe that on some level I was led to understand that I would also receive the seller's tattooed torso - and I am frankly conflicted about wearing it. On the one hand: Guns N Roses? Really? "Sweet Child O' Mine"? "November Rain?" That's something I want to openly affiliate myself with now? But on the other: It really is a fucking great t-shirt (no sleeves, aged to perfection), and I think we can all agree that, in his heyday, Duff Mckagan was highly bangable. Also, if you have never sung along to "Welcome To The Jungle", then you have no rock, or indeed roll. Sorry to be the one to tell you, buddy. Maybe I'll give it its premiere tonight at this:

I know, I know, I'm a ridiculous cliche. But I'm actually much more interesting than I seem! How about when I ask you those overly-familiar questions and then answer them as if the blog is a single person with which I am having a two-sided conversation? Doesn't that actually strike you as a complex literary conceit, sort of like the way Camus wrote "The Fall" as a single monologue? No? Fuck it, then. Let's all just get hammered and really give 'er! I'll go get some beers right now!

(What, I always take my top off when I'm celebrating. Don't you?)

I WANTED LOVE, BUT I ONLY LOST MY PANTS

Today I awoke with a really fervent, quasi-religious desire to buy a high-waisted, red leather miniskirt. I have no choice but to answer the divine call. It just really feels like the right thing to do on a purely spiritual level, you know? I think we can only really blame it on my inner self, who I like to present as a sensitive feminist thinker but is actually a slutty 1970s teen in grass-stained white jean shorts, whose name may or may not be "Cindy" (when she comes to me in visions she's usually bending over the hood of a cherry-red 1979 Camaro, and maybe sucking a lollipop. I think she's my spirit animal or something, if it isn't too misogynistic to think of a slut as an "animal"). In some ways it's comforting to know that I could fulfill my divine destiny with a thirty-minute journey to the scummier part of Camden, if only I actually had some money. I wish it had been me rather than Dolly Parton who had come up with the quip that "it takes a lot of money to look this cheap", but unfortunately she coined that kicky little aphorism first and I am far too tired to come up with an alternative, so congratulations, Wigtits McGee, you win again - I have no choice but to use your quotation like I'm some kind of gay Hallmark card (I don't think that was technically un-PC, you guys, because I believe that homosexuals would be the key demographic of a Dolly Parton greetings card, no? Prove me wrong!).

You may or may not be able to discern that I am super-cranky today and it's probably because, for biological reasons I do not wish to disclose, I have been living a life of enforced celibacy lately and it is making me weirdly fucking aggressive. I am now living my life sort of like a carnally-motivated Hulk, the most striking similarity between my self and Mr. Banner being that our trousers are perpetually on, against all odds, with the exception being that Hulk's remained so only because of television censorship. Know that if you rile me in any way, I will probably either try to fuck you or to strangle you (seems like things are not looking good for you, teenage-frontman-I-had that-lengthly-pervathon-about-last-week. Not looking good at all).  

(I would never do both at the same time, though, you creep. Who the fuck do you think you are, Michael Hutchence? Stephen Milligan? Some other pop-culture reference from at least a decade ago? You sicken me, man.)

RIP LUX INTERIOR

October 21, 1946 – February 4, 2009
No jokes this time.

Stay sick.

I GOT 96 TEARS IN 96 EYES

In recent weeks, [REDACTED] has brought it to my attention that the frontman of S.C.U.M has a part-time job in a vintage shop not far from her own workplace. You would think this would please me, but it's actually kind of harshing on my perv, if anything, which is a total fucking bummer. You may recall that I said in a previous post that I would ( as the punchline of some wordplay, you judgemental bastard, I'm not completely classless) "let him [REDACTED]", which seemed hilarious when it was regarding an anonymous figure, but when it concerns an actual, flesh-and-blood person who may or may not be under 18, it goes from "lighthearted innuendo" to "having to tell the police that I am researching for a documentary" pretty fucking fast. You guys know how it is; it's all good old-fashioned letching and then suddenly you hear about him wandering around the high-street on his lunchbreak with a backpack on too tightly and you feel like a total asshole creep. Never humanise them, man. It always ruins it.

Before you put it to me that this whole blog entry is senseless misandry, I put this to you - maybe I am just being incredibly fucking post-modern and neo-feminist about this, huh? Think about that, wise guy! I could justify my relentless female chauvinism by making reference to the fact that their band appears to be named after Valerie Solanas' Society to Cut Up Men, but I won't for three reasons:
#1. Laziness.
#2. A sneaking suspicion that as some of them are barely of GCSE age this could be mere coincidence.
#3. Checking out a teenage boy's arse is not "Postmodern". Who do I think I am, the Richard Prince of skeeviness?

(In case you're not actually, you know, from East London, here are S.C.U.M in action. I normally fucking hate modern music, and admittedly this probably makes me as Shoreditch as it gets, but what can I say? Hand on heart (heart, officer!), I actually dig them. And, all joking aside, they really are fucking [REDACTED].)

YOU'RE SO PHYSICAL

There's nothing like an acrid, piss-coloured bottle of three-quid wine to round off a long day at work, or so I am telling myself to avoid crying into it (again) as I look out of the window at the fucking snow (snow is rain but about 100% colder, you Hallmark-poem asshole, stop believing the hype). Just kidding (about the crying, I am deathly serious about the snow)!

The reason I'm poorer than ever is because I am saving for things which I consider to be essentials according to that incredibly skewed logic that you've always found so Goddamn charming about me; there is a lamp in our lounge which has been missing a bulb for three fucking months, but instead I am concentrating all of my vital energy into things like looking for the perfect fur coat (in my defense, have you noticed that it is SNOWING LIKE FUCK outside? Seriously, take a look.)I saw a pretty good vintage faux-lynx one on my lunchbreak in Camden today, but if you know of somewhere in London that I can get a cheap fur coat which looks like one of these:

 Holla, and I will reward you appropriately; if I know blog readers as well as I do then you're all chicks anyway, so my usual currency has little or no weight here. Maybe I could offer you a pony. You guys like that shit, right?

 It's two weeks until Valentines day, so if you're not a smug jerkoff you might want to spend the 13th getting trashed at the Macbeth with me so you can use the Big V to sleep it off. I'm going back to the countryside this week to check out my parents' new kitten (I know, I'm a total pussy). Better go and pack something more respectable than a Cambridge Rapist t-shirt. 'Slates.

SHAKIN' ALL OVER

Hey guys, remember crimping (If you say that you don't, you are either over 30, a dude, or lying, because we all loved that bullshit in 1992)? I just found this blonde chick's picture on The Facehunter, and apparently we actually looked pretty good. I know, I'm as surprised as you! I don't know if I can fully get behind this in the same week that I realised that Superdrug are selling leather-look scrunchies, because rather than snorting with derision I am actually extremely fucking interested in this prospect. I mean, a scrunchie? Holy shit, 2009,  do you really want me to remind you of the last time we were all forced to think about scrunchies in the 21st century? Alright then:

"When fondling his manhood, slip a hair scrunchie around the base of it. The tight scrunchie combined with your touch creates an amazing sensation." - Cosmopolitan Magazine

Remember that? Yeah. That's what I thought. I actually felt I had to make the font size "extra large" to try and stop your brain from rejecting everything it had just processed like a poorly-matched skin graft. The tragic thing is, the last time I read this I thought "Jesus fuck, who has a scrunchie to hand when they're giving a hand-job, Denise Huxtable?", and now I'm toying with the very real prospect that the answer to that question might soon be "Me.".

(I was planning on going out and getting some slutty new lingerie today, but when I told F he proffered that he sees underwear as "another obstacle between me and tits." Sometimes my life really is like a charming, quixotic Jane Austen novel, and I feel like I need to share that magic with you all.)