Category: fashion

Learning Cockney Slang: Don’t Be A Berkeley Hunt

Kevin Keegan, not a vegan


In Cockney rhyming slang, “I’m going to the Fatboy Slim” means “I’m going to the gym.”  This is interesting, because as far as I can tell, Norman Cook’s fitness regimen is cocaine, which in cockney is “charlie.”

To call someone a “Berk” is short for “Berkely Hunt”, which rhymes with something that is the reason why the Mighty Boosh can never be shown in prime time in England, because the inoffensive-sounding “berk” is slang for something very dirty, something that rhymes with “hunt”, and starts with a “c”.

In cockney, to say something is Kevin Keegan, after the legendary footballer and coach, means that something is vegan. My tiny friend Emiko from Foodfightgrocery.com let me know this triv, that if you are at a party and pointing at various foods, asking “Zat Kevin?”, you are asking if it’s free of animal products, not made of an unlucky friend.

I took a picture of this sign at Nike, which makes me laugh but doesn’t make anyone else laugh, because it implies that the hallway is vegan. I think it’s Eddie. (eddie money=funny.)

byronbowie

  Postscript: Like most of us, I was watching the Julien Temple short film, Jazzin’ for Blue Jean, on the treadmill last night (sidebar: Bowie was 37 when this film was made, and in my opinion at the height of his personal awesomeness.  Goals, people.)  Anyway, in this film, when Bowie is portraying the most challenging role of his career, a scheming poster-hanger named Vic, he says “I’m a berk!”, which means that Bowie tricked MTV into letting him say “cunt” repeatedly on their network in 1984, which is just another reason he’s my hero.

A Deranged Millionaire

Hodgman%20backstage

I knew that Long Beach was hosting this year’s illustrious TED talks,  but I was surprised to see Deranged Millionaire John Hodgman walking up my street.

I gave him the traditional surprised, over-excited nerd HI, which he shrank from, and I later tweeted him that I didn’t mean to yell HI at him.

You might wonder: How does a Deranged Millionaire dress to blend in seamlessly with the TED populace and pass undetected?

Why, he wears a navy arctic fleece half-zip pullover. 

It’s obviously a joke on the fact that people in SoCal will bundle up like Serbian prisoners when the temperature drops below 60 degrees.

Izzard at Largo

Eddie Izzard IV

I got to see Eddie Izzard do a workshop show at the Largo!  Despite cost, inconvenience, and the cruel indifference, there are some real advantages to living in LA.

Eddie Izzard announced a show at Largo two days before it happened and did an amazing sold-out work-in-progress show, and I got to go. These things still feel like magic to me.  I used to see her announcements that she was coming to do shows in LA and I would try to figure out how to go.  She’s stopped doing as much working-out in the States, but I loved seeing these shows.

Portlandia!

So, I was in the third episode of Portlandia this season, and I’ll also be in the season finale.  Pretty much everyone in Portland gets a turn to be on the show. While they’re shooting, people just line up at Powell’s Books downtown and wait to get picked up by the Craft Services bus. My first episode is available at Amazon.com here, because this world is modern.  The most fun thing was asking Carrie about the time she called in to promote herself on the OPB show about comedy I was on, and how I gave her crap for it.

It’s Getting Kinda Crowded

Photo By Roger Circle23

This amazing photograph is by the amazing Roger at Circle23 Photography.  (Please note: big chunks of his website are NSFW.)

“Dammit, Virginia” said Virginia, “How many times do I have to tell you to keep your dirty whore shoes off the coffee table?  I work hard to keep this place nice, and I could use a little help”

“Well, Virginia”, said Virginia smugly, “It’s my table.  I paid for it, and I guess I’ll ruin it if I want to.”

Virginia, meanwhile, sat whimpering in the corner, rocking back and forth and crying to herself.  “You guys!” she screamed.  “WHAT ABOUT VIRGINIA?”

All eyes turned to the coffee table.  There, six inches from Virginia’s foot, Virginia’s body sprawled across the table, one hand clutching a shot glass.  Her breath had been clouding the glass surface for the last few minutes, but the shapes of her condensed breath had been shrinking and slivering away until now, when no breath appeared.  Her lips slowly began to turn blue.

“Wait- wasn’t Virginia supposed to be watching her?”  asked Virginia.  “Where is she, anyway?”

Virginia, her finger shaking, pointed through the window, out to the sunny balcony, where Virginia was finishing a glass of Champagne, oblivious to the state of her charge.

“Well,” said Virginia, closing her magazine, “Can I have her bedroom?”

In Memoriam: Goth Juice

Last week I headed to Lush, the store that makes soap out of food, to restock one of my primary staples- along with soy lattes, I am  propelled through the world by Goth Juice, the vegan hairstyling product inspired by the Mighty Boosh that I first loved here. 

I stood in the middle of the store and looked around, casually, and then with ever-growing confusion, until a nice girl with a fashionable haircut broke the news to me- Goth Juice, Made from the Tears of Robert Smith, had been dropped from the LUSH offering.   I  dropped to my knees and started gasping like a trout, and  regretted the carefree, sloppy vigor with which I had dispatched my last tub of product. 

If I had known, I said, I would have made it LAST, maybe frozen a little bit for a special occasion, like my marriage to Noel Fielding, or the funeral of the person who discontinued Goth Juice.

Purple.  Slippery but dry, like the SLIME toy that was sold in the 80’s until every carpeting had SLIME mashed liberally into it.  It smelt like pine trees, or like a linoleum floor that had been washed with something that smelt like pine trees.  Lightweight and evoking Vince Noir and gravity-defying satsumas.  Infinitely superior to the greasy King of the Mods, which inexplicably survives.  If no-one else loved you, Goth Juice, I loved you.