The Word E2 Feed
Many astute observers thought that modern Western culture had achieved its absolute nadir when a quartet of shaggy-ass Liverpudlians beamingly averred on international media that they were bigger than Jesus. Oh, no. Lock up the dog so that cousin Allan stops fingerfucking it, the world's coming to an end, Edna! Get in that thar cyclone cellar!
But recently, there's been a serious race underway. This is a race which some of us who are gainfully employed in journalism and observation - that is to say, expensing the substances needed to cope with modern life without a cerebral queef on a daily basis - have been watching with a form of open-mouthed amazement. Forget the Beatles being bigger than Jesus. It's now a succession of things, things so cheap, plastic and soul-destroying that even the Chinese can't be fucked to make them properly sometimes. Where the hell did this come from?
The Cabbage Patch Kids are a famous example of the trend. Then more branded toys. Sony produced something called a 'Walkman' which, despite its name, seemed to encourage most of its wearers to sit on their bulbous modern asses with zombified looks on their faces while they ate their brains away with sounds that could only be produced by the south end of a northbound rhinoceros. One with dysentery. Move forward some years, and suddenly there's these damn little white wires snaking into everyone's heads on the Underground. Get on, and in a car of twenty-five people maybe eight will have their own sonic hell cocoon visible in tiny white wires.
The real irony of those wires is that the earphones which they connect to and inform the watcher that the user is wearing an eminently stealable iPod are completely shit. As in not worth 5p. Not ever. They fall out, are painful, sound awful and the cord's not long enough. But somehow people wear them. It's almost like they're making some sort of statement. "Look at me! I'm a sheep! I'm proud of it, and if you approach and observe I'll chew my consumer cud for you before opining on the news and thus farting out the equivalent of ruminant faeces all over your Doc Martens!"
I realize this is wandering. Bear with me and I'll try to find a point. Do you know how difficult that is when you've just had two bottles of an unidentified liquor and your editor is on the phone telling you that a column is due or he cuts off your liquor charge card? It's not an easy thing. So do your job, read, and whine later. If we're fortunate the Filthy assistants will shake their wily female asses through on their way to have awful loud monkey sex with their respective Members Of The Opposite Sex, who I have been told flatly I am not allowed to shoot.
I don't know why not. It's my apartment. I'm armed. And I haven't had sex.
In any case. This column was sparked by a headline which referred, unabashedly, to some new device/must have/objet d'art/desiderata/masturbatory fantasy as the 'Jesus Phone.' Now, I'm all for our man Jesus. I just have a tendency to want the bastard to stop by in person to settle up the restaurant bill from the last time. (What, did you think that wasn't catered? Of course it was. He was Jewish.)
But no. This is the latest in a long line of MUST HAVE IT objects. It will solve my problems and kill my enemies. It will access the Feed and stuff product-placed, subliminally-tuned video of enormous breasts and fast cars directly into my cerebellum as I laze in my Auto-Mat-O-Tingle bed (no quarters needed) and have food injected directly into my veins by helpful catamites.
Not even that gets away unscathed. Despite acquiring more column inches than, say, a hideous and probably illegal overseas war which is killing thousands for over a month they couldn't let well enough alone. A bare two months after the wild orgasmic jizz-crusted frenzy of its introduction, they have to go start another one over the unfairness of a price drop.
That actually interested me.
That was consumers reaching a new low. Or new stratospheric heights of idiotic narcissism and sheer detachment from reality. Let's see now. You bought the fucking thing. Two months later they lower the price, because you same people are realizing that enough of you have it that whipping it out in Covent Garden or Spago's LA just isn't hip anymore - and suddenly, they've reached back through time and cheated you.
Amazing.
And still, nothing about that pesky war. Or the various members of political parties who pandered to the fucking war and its authors and continue to do so. Oh, no, wait - we get a couple of weeks of material from one closeted old fucker refusing to admit he likes boycock after cruising for same in an airport bathroom in Minnesota.
Senator Craggy, there are entire regions for that sort of thing which don't require nearly so much effort or risk of inconvenient arrest.
But no. War grinds on. People forget they even knew once how to care about things other than these little pills of capitalistic fervor, distilled down to sheer inanity.
I think I'll go out tomorrow and invent a machine to reduce puppies to a handy blood slurry which can be used to paint small toys. When questioned, I'll claim it's all natural and has no lead risk. I'll probably become indecently rich.
I'm Spider Jerusalem, and I hate it here.