Cheerful bleeder that I am, I set myself the task of writing
slogans to popularise pastimes with a poor reputation, along the lines of
'Incest - it's a family thing', for example. I told one of the mercenary youth
this, and they exclaimed that I must have a lot of time on my hands, and of
course I have, and not only time; but we'd best not go into that, since it's
such a nuisance to get off again, and it smells quite extraordinary......but
where was I?
Here, I suppose, I'm usually here. I have wardrobes full of
imaginary t-shirts with these unpopular slogans on, available for a nominal
fee. What strikes me as most peculiar about modern dress-codes is that
individual consumers are expected to advertise the products they wear, walking
around like living billboards, plastered with the logos and slogans of
multi-national designer brands, so that scarcely an inch of them remains bare
of a product endorsement. If I made real clothes I would forbid people as ugly
and stupid as these to buy or wear, let alone emblazon and declare their
allegiance to my product-range in this way: spotty, glue-infested youths with
atrocious haircuts hardly seem to me to promote Tommy Hilfiger (who he?) in the
way he would have chosen. But there we are. Marketing is a mystery to me. FOR
EXAMPLE: Why is it that those brands which are best known and sell most are
nevertheless those most relentlessly advertised? Ford mo. co., Coca Coma,
MacDonalds, and spewforth. Perhaps if they didn't advertise people would cease
to find them necessary, and I suppose at least they can afford it.
I have never owned a Ford motor car, and only once have I bought
Coca Coma, which I used to unblock the toilet. It's quite good at that, it
seems to dissolve toilet paper, and probably shit as well, and it certainly
fizzes like a bastard when you pour it down the pan. I was advised that this is
what they do with it in the favellas of Brazil, so there is some use for the
vile muck, apart from adding whisky to it and giving it to underage sex
partners. Which I suppose returns me to the subject of unpopular pastimes, none
currently less fashionable than paedophilia, a notion lauded by the Ancient
Greeks, who called it 'education', inaugurating a tradition continued to this
day in the English Public School. One should note here that in England the
'Public' school is, in fact, a private, fee-paying establishment, a fact which
probably explains a good deal about the English, but from this distance I am
not sure what. Anyway, the reputation of the paedophile has declined since
Plato's time to such an extent that it could do with a bit of improvement.
Nevertheless, it's quite beyond me, my talents do not extend that far. I've
been thinking about it for at least ten minutes already, and 'Fuck small boys,
it's fun.' doesn't seem a great start.
It used to be commonplace for girls to marry at fourteen (and
die in childbirth). Jerry Lee Lewis married (I seem to recall) his
fourteen-year-old cousin, indicating that such things were fairly acceptable
among rednecks and piano-molesters as late as the 1960's. I doubt whether the
Gary Glitter or Jonathon King back-catalogues have sold in hugely increased
numbers recently, but Jerry Lee Lewis is still highly regarded. It's a matter
of timing, I suppose. What was once acceptable becomes, in due course,
outrageous, and vice-versa. Upper-class Victorians covered their table legs in
fear of indecency, yet prostitution and child-labour flourished. Quite what
they imagined their semi-naked tables might get up to, I don't know, but it was
certainly indecency of some sort. Anyway, I'm afraid paedophilia is beyond me,
but I offer some suggestions of slogans that might be employed to improve the
public profile of other declining or unpopular activities:
1) Madness: you know it makes sense.
2) Smokers: a dying breed.
3) Murder: the only sure way.