TIMES SQUARE

This blog entry is approximately 27 hours late and an affront to my OCD inclinations. The real kicker is that it’s both tardy and pretty poorly thought-out too. In fact, the majority of it is given to images from an already well documented book that are — to add insult to injury — heavily watermarked too. What can I say? I slacked this week. I’m keen to get my hands on a full copy of Powerhouse’s ‘The Forty Deuce: The Times Square Photos of Bill Butterworth 1983-1984’ because it seems to be laden with strippers, pimps, b-boys and girls and plenty of other characters from the era. I grew up obsessed with b-movies from the time (as well as the classic ‘Times Square’) that depicted the area as a very scuzzy spot indeed, usually laden with offensive stereotypes of Puerto-Rican gents, complete with flick knives and bandanas and hookers berating the stray innocents who wandered into the area Butterworth depicts. Think ‘The Burning’s opening setup, ‘Fear City’ or ‘Basket Case.’ And while it looks grindhouse sketchy in Bill’s photos, there’s an evident sense of unity between crews, whether it’s sex shop workers, drag queens, dancers or anyone else who hung around there. The portraits are strong and the outfits are pretty spectacular, with plenty of posing. You know your swag is at a trillion when you can stunt in front of racks of gay porn (apologies to one-handed surfers who just found this blog through those words and were assailed with paragraphs, shoes and other geeky things) and still look gangster. That couple next to the ‘Beat Street’ (and ‘Strange Invaders’) display? Incredible. There’s plenty more information and imagery right here.

One of the few things that marred my pre-teen years as much as Belial in ‘Basket Case’ was David Lynch’s ‘The Grandmother.’ I always found that short infinitely more nightmarish than ‘Eraserhead.’ Lynch has a habit of tapping into the hallucinatory, claustrophobic essence of a nightmare situation. The car crash scene in ‘Wild At Heart’ troubles me deeply, but Robert Blake’s appearance in ‘Lost Highway’ is utterly unnerving. Blake’s real-life antics give his nameless character extra edge and the whole film remains underrated. Just as I found myself preoccupied with watching the film again, I wandered into Uniqlo and was faced with a ‘Lost Highway’ t-shirt as part of their David Lynch collection. Then I got the news that Universal are putting out pretty much every David Lynch film as a Blu-ray around June 4th. ‘Wild At Heart’ includes ‘The Grandmother’ as a special feature and I want to know what the “Four Intervalometer Experiments” that are on the ‘Lost Highway’ disc are. Even ‘Dune’ is part of the rollout. All this sudden activity around a film I hadn’t thought about for at least half a decade didn’t throw me as much as Bull Pullman talking to a man face-to-face who’s also miles away in his home, but it caught me off guard a little. Now Robert’s eyes and laugh are embedded in my mind all over again.

Retro isn’t going anywhere — right now somebody’s probably being kicked to the ground for a basketball shoe from 1997 — but the new wave is wildly on point. I’ve loved Nike’s Lunar pieces but the Undercover GYAKUSOU collection has done a good job of introducing me to shoes I wouldn’t have paid much attention too until they got some Terra-esque makeups. Zoom Structure+ 15? A serious shoe even though I hadn’t looked at Structures since the bestselling Structure II back in the early ’90’s. I loved the Lunar Elite+ but the Zoom Elite series looked like one of those ranges that was made for serious runners who’d sneer at anything aesthetically pleasing for its fanciness. Suddenly, with that transparent overlay and almost 180 style forefoot, the Zoom Elite+ 5 is a thing of beauty and this version highlights every key feature. The Terra Humara style colourway elevates these significantly and like the Structure choice, there’s a sense that Jun Takahashi isn’t hunting the hype vote with his footwear picks. Shouts to Nike UK fam for these — all I need now is a health scare to encourage me to run. All the gear, no idea is a mantra I live by.

Many blogs are either too frantic or too earnest for my tastes, but I really like The Obviously Uncommon. That’s because the man behind it, knows a lot about a lot of stuff and had a Doublegoose way before I ever did, but also because it celebrates the bargain hunter. There’s so much emphasis on matters of flossiness and conspicuous consumption, but shelling out full price or an eBay markup is a fast track to a hollow purchase. Bargains come with tales of exploration, disbelief and triumph. £25 Pendletons, wear tested Stone Island coats, Air Max Lights found in garages and 50p hats that are inexplicably big make this site my new favourite. Salutes to the enemies of RRP out there.

SUNDAY BLOG STUFF

Being a fan of Alejandro Jodorowsky’s filmic output is becoming increasingly like having a weekend dad break your heart fortnightly with grand promises that never manifest. ‘King Shot’ sounded magnificent, but never made it out the gate. Then we were promised an ‘El Topo’ sequel, ‘Abel Cain’ again (after those ‘Sons of El Topo’ press packs in 1996, I was a little skeptical) that seems to have stalled too (though it’s promised after his next movie). Now, Alejandro’s talking about bypassing the industry entirely to make his autobiographical ‘La Danza de la Realidad’ (‘The Dance of Reality’) via a Kickstarter style method of crowd-sourced funding. You can see his plea for dough here, and given the great man’s presumed difficulty to work with and a studio situation where the remake is announced before we ever see the original, it’s probably the last opportunity to see Jodorowsky’s work onscreen. Alas, there aren’t equally volatile rock ‘n’ roll accountants like Allen Klein around to put up the money any more. If you’re wondering what the fuss is all about, I recommend (as I have done here many, many times) picking up the ‘Santa Sangre’ Blu-ray that plays in any region’s machines or watching the excellent ‘La Constellation Jodorowsky’ documentary from 1994 that some kind soul has upped onto YouTube in one piece. Watch and consider contributing. Hopefully our hard-earned cash and the great man’s shamanistic zeal might combine to instigate a miracle.

On the remake front, apparently there’s already a ‘The Raid’ redux on the horizon before the OG hits cinemas. The film’s had a western renaming to ‘The Raid: Redemption’ for its Sony Pictures Classics distribution later this month. The new trailer isn’t as hyperviolent as last year’s taster, but it still makes it look amazing. Collider.com’s lengthy making of sells the film in nicely, rather than spoiling it. Apparently that new title was applied because it’s the first part of a trilogy and for legal reasons. The new poster isn’t the greatest, but it gives you a little idea as to what to expect. It all sounds a little like a zombie—free ‘La Horde’ with some superior fight scenes and no undead….okay, it sounds nothing like ‘La Horde,’ but that double tap to the noggin from the original trailer indicates that there will be blood. Tons of it.



I strongly recommend that you stop by Jason Jules’ Garmsville for a shot of Dexys Midnight Runners looking very sharp indeed. I wasn’t expecting much from ‘Jocks & Nerds’ magazine at all, but the new issue caught me off guard, with a particularly good piece on Rowland and company via Jason. It’s a shame that this portrait never made the cut. While we’re talking sharp-looking musicians, these images of a press mode Bo Diddley taken by Phyllis Juried around 1973 are fantastic too.

The Undercover Uniqlo UU collection still has yet to knock me sideways. Crop trousers and a scattering of cargo pockets on garments is a little “Oi Oi saveloy” pallid Brit in the beer garden and skinny jeans with a zip aren’t my thing, but the UK pricing seems reasonable enough to warrant a closer inspection to change my mind. The latest range of GYAKUSOU seems to be the point where everything comes together, from the branding to the apparel to the footwear and all the innovations that have been developed over the past three seasons, so I was anticipating an extension of Uniqlo’s Heattech via the mind of Jun. The actual offerings seem more in line with the Uniqlo spirit of basics. I’m reliably informed that it doesn’t come up triple extra smedium like the Nike apparel product, but I’m assuming that the sweat/motorbike jacket is a pleather affair for £79.90. The equally priced Hooded Blouson looks pretty appealing though.

Can every brand with the same narcolepsy look books and irksome talk of “shirting” please take a leaf out of Our Legacy‘s book and just be excellent? OL’s got its share of Euro-imitators, but it just goes beyond the call of duty with the prints for spring—summer. Their already well-documented photoshoot by Oliver Helbig is a pitch perfect showcase of what they offer, and the split between the quirky and everyman offerings is a smart move. Saniforized non-shrink tees? Red Melange sweats? Even last year’s ’50’s-styled Arrow shirt pales alongside the Indigo Potplant 1950’s Shirt and Floral Camo and Jungle Pattern First Shirt. And if you can pull off the Ethnic Pattern Sunday Messenger Shirt and matching Reform Trouser together then you’re a thousand times cooler than I am. The white-on-white Snow Leopard print Success Shirt is a nice wildlife print too that’s a conservative compromise. Our Legacy has lapped the dull competitors vying for rack space over the last few years — surely APC levels of success are beckoning?

I won’t pretend I’ve ever paid much attention to North Face footwear — even when Show & AG decided they were going to wear their footwear above Timbs. I was interested by their PUMA Disc style fastening a few years back and their Back to Berkeley boot with the olde hiker design cues, but I’ve never cared too much for their shoes. I like some of their newly released European-made offerings though, like the S4K GORE-TEX design though — Italian factory, Vibram soled, cradle comfort aided, TPU caged future footwear. Its been a while since I associated the brand with any alpine exploration, but these are built to accommodate crampons if you really want to tear up the carpets of your local cool kid hangout. This video’s pretty cool in depicting the development and production of a pair:

1982 is the year I became a non—believer and became preoccupied with movies — my true religion (word to Max B). Few things had an effect on me like ‘The Thing,’ ‘Conan the Barbarian’ or ‘Mad Max 2′ did (incidentally, I had to wait several years to see those ’15’ and ’18’ releases, even after they were released on video the following year), so Texas’s Alamo Drafthouse showing the ‘Summer of 1982’ on the big screen in 35mm with OG trailers on the 30th anniversary of their release dates sounds like a dream come too. This needs to tour the UK. The poster for the project is pure, distilled 1982.

WHITE TEES

Hanes ‘Beefy-T’ – Before a wash (right) & after one wash (left).

“Fuck ya cowboy boots, this Timbos on my feet/Some boys bear the names, I rather rock a white tee/Go against ya dress code and still be V.I.P.”

I wear a white tee most days, but the quest to find the perfect specimen of the shirt has been relatively fruitless. I’m certainly not the first person to blog about the white tee either Mr. Andrew Bunney and Jake Davis have logged their journey to white tee perfection (ultimately never finding the ‘one’ despite numerous suggestions) – Andrew’s post from a few years back inspired this one, but what he searches for in a shirt is different to mine. He was looking for a thinner undershirt, with a printed rather than sewn tag. For the most part, I’m not thinking Brando or ’50s rebel yells, but just looking for a thicker cotton number that isn’t boxy or too ‘Soulja Boy’ – can’t knock the man’s hustle, but too long makes me feel too old.