MIASMA : VICE

I. THE CONFLAGRATION OF THE FATES

 

In the googolplexianth echo away from this particular delineation of what we refer to as ‘reality’, a headless humanoid made of mushroom does a push-up in furtherance of lifting itself from a steam-covered, mossy forest floor and shambles it’s way through the undergrowth and insect chirps to a clearing where the multiple blazing suns above are diffused by a tissue-thin Opalescent canopy. In the centre of this clearing glint the honey-dewed cunny lips of a 15-year-old earth-girl, draped atop a subtly inclining earthen mound.

Stopping dead in its tracks, the ungainly figure raises an elongated-fingered right hand to umbrella its nonexistent eyes from distraction, and over-dramatically scans the scene; First left…then right…before fixing dead-ahead and craning its neck-stub forward. The fungi guy, fists clenched, body shaking, suddenly grows a time lapse cock-proboscis from the inlet where it’s throat would be were he human, which bends generously along it’s tender, wrinkle-skinned shaft, which purposefully thrusts it’s chubby bulb skyward*.

 

*The brown-grey frill visible on a mushroom upskirt is likewise in-evidence under this manifestation’s uncovered glans’ corona.

 

In the fever dream of Vice Magazine’s Global Editor: Andy Capper, a 1970s tracksuited-and-Moon-booted Martin Landau leaps in freeze-frame into concrete abutment, lens flare roaring out his mouth between face and triumphant right hand – a celebratory act at having duped his troublesome trophy wife into sacrifice at the matte-black hands and fangs of the ancient silhouettes that perambulate the murky depths of his vast estate’s lake.

In his crumbling penthouse suite, American Apparel CEO Dov Charney barks at a teenage girl of indistinguishable ethnicity to leave him be & flicks the cover off the arm of his swiveling leather armchair, and fingering a coloured button activates the nanotechnology polarisation filter on his 360 degree windows. Turning his attention from the constricting blood & spunk mulch gluing the pubes at the base of his deflated member to his chest instead, Dov wafts his sweatshop assembled kimono aside – his dry-blood-rust & Dorito-dust covered fingers part a modest smattering of luxurious chest hair. His pink nipples wiggle inquisitively like baby mole’s noses. Around them, eight pre-ordained coarse black hairs from the periphery of each areola grow steadily-thicker, before eventually crunching outward & down, each in three distinct sections segmented by bulbous knuckles, the tips of which catch the remainder of whatever light is left in the darkened apartment.

 

With an effort reminiscent of the Parallel-Universe’s Mushroom Man, they push themselves-up, tearing nipples from masculine tit-skin, before scrabbling-off down his stress-distended belly, circumnavigating each side of his battle-ravaged wang, which lays flopped to one side like a harangued and hunted Buffalo. Continuing-on down the length of his orgasm-frazzled legs and feet, they eventually take to his marble floor, skidaddley tikk-takking across to the spot recently vacated by the girl. The condensation patch and butt-crack molasses that constitute all that remains of her ramrod-razed hymen are swiftly dispatched in a spider-legged frenzy – crammed into, and duly devoured-by the microscopic pores in the nipples’ tips.

 

Meanwhile, back in the forest clearing, the Mushroom Man, compelled by his eukaryotic divining-rod cock, staggers helplessly, drawn forward toward the oozing cooch of the girl lying like icing, catatonic atop of the miniature hill in the centre of the serene circle that has heretofore avoided significant fertilisation. Despite a lack of ocular sensory perception, Mushroom Man is momentarily startled, taken aback by the fuzzy glare of white light emanating from the surface of the girl’s body-topography, splashed as it is in a solitary shaft of renegade light penetrating the veiled heavens. Yielding on bended knee, Mushroom Man lowers his neck-emanating proxy-cock on his forearm which crosses his knee, gunning for the honey…

 

On the precipice of destiny…(or relevance-obsolescence?)

…for 52 minutes.

 

II. BLUE BALLS AT THE VESTIBULE-OF-COOL

 

All information stated free entry from 8 O’Clock, with the first 100 punters receiving an American Apparel goodie bag. When I arrive at 20:07, there’s a line forming under some miserable-looking bunting, approximately 18-strong, trickling alongside the Deaf Institute, fizzling-out toward Oxford Road. My motivation for arriving at this time was not the aforementioned freebies. For the record, I’m not a fan of either their product or the porn they use to push it (I may have alluded to this in my opening). In fact, I’m a pretty staunch opponent of advertising altogether, and it is swiftly becoming uncomfortably clear, (to me at least) that we’re being surreptitiously auditioned & forced into some Situationist Advertisment.

As the line slowly lengthens with “Mancuniens” arriving with the express intention of attending this inaugural ‘Vice Launch Night’, they’re left languishing outside to hype it to passers-by, which seems fittingly in-keeping with the magazine’s marketing Modus Operandi of fostering exclusivity. Students across the street waiting to use the cash machines stand gawking, mouths agog at the line slowly expressing its intent to snake-off round the corner of the Footage. For a while this realisation is enough to make me want to relish in its intrinsic tedium just to see what transpires…or not as the case may be – but the persistent drizzle, a rapidly expanding bladder, and the dissipation of my pre-bus beer-buzz force me to pull rank. Shuffling to the front of the queue I ask to speak to the Events Manager.

 

The dweller on the threshold denies any knowledge of anyone operating under any such designation. I tell them “I’m on the guest-list…” and that “…I’m reviewing the night for Manchester Scenewipe”. This seems to cut through both the condescending look on the brute’s face, as well as the official party-line of denial, and he sends his deputy inside to check. But after conferring with a girl behind the door, refreshes his obliviousness over the existence of a guest-list because it’s a ‘Free Night’, and sends me grumbling back to my spot, until we are abruptly admitted, which suspiciously coincides with the clock striking Nine.

 

The makeshift Events Desk which occupies a nook on the left of the entrance is manned by two girls whose Winehouse-eyes study us from under their Zooey Deschanel Brunette headdress. One of which – the mythical Camilla: Events Manager, who, having verified my name on the non-existent checklist bestows upon us two drinks tokens apiece, promises to come and talk to us later on – the agreement being she will make good on a previously email-reiterated promise of unlimited drinks for the duration.

The ground floor bar offers little in the way of evidence of  Dov’s lucky-hundred that necessitated our hour-long wait on the pavement – it’s centre bereft like a School Disco’s centrifuge. In fact, other than a few copies of Vice scattered about the place, there’s very little (beer-pong anyone?) befitting the reputation of the event whatsoever, so we sit in the bar and quickly redeem our measly freebies, making up for lost time. In the toaster that doubles as a smoking area we learn from its only other patrons that there’s a “guitar/keyboard duo upstairs…playing music”, so stub-out and rush upstairs to catch who we assume to be ‘Great Waves’ wrapping-up to a patchy crowd. From what I could tell, they might have actually been worth a listen.

 

Determined not to miss the second act, I seek out Camilla-the-‘hon’ for the pre-agreed top-up which she coyly rebuts, stating they’re for the unknown quantity of potential attendees being kicked-out of the area’s other establishments, inexorably zeroing-in on the only local 3am license a Tuesday night has to offer. So after buying our own we go upstairs and get embedded for ‘Boredom’.

Taking to the stage and assaulting their instruments with gusto, I can’t fault Boredom’s presence, nor their intent to wriggle free of the semantic stigma their name emblazons them with, but the material fails to elevate them above the myriad other anthemic-80s re-creationists that abound right now, and there were no hooks to hang my hat on. Descending once again downstairs, the insinuation of the preceding act’s name seems to permeate the venue, despite an exponential influx in interest from this pre-cum premonition of a fresh ejaculate of patronage.

The entire ground floor bar obliges Kriss Kross’s order to “Jump” as the swarm of newcomers pogo, Sieg-heiling the rap travesties of the 90s. As-per my ever self-deprecating nature, I momentarily wonder if this is all my own fault for perhaps being too old to appreciate what’s ‘going down’…before getting a grip of myself and realising that ‘Montell Jordan’ and ‘Kriss Kross’ are not the most pressing of candidates ripe for reappraisal.

III. THE SERENDIPITOUS INSEMINATION OF CUNT VIA FUNGUS

Mushroom Man lines himself-up like a woozy snooker player, his crumpled forearm and knee acting as the rest that takes the travail out of the expanse of lush green table before him. Rocking like a fundamental nut-job deep in frenetic requests of karmic embezzlement, he works-up the momentum necessary to take his feeble chassis’s payload down the problematic avenue the girl’s virgin ingress presents, before slowing to a purposeful sway, until – pulling back one last time, heels dug-in, butt thrust upwards…Accumulated rain spills down through the forest’s top – a modest torrent is deposited upon the exploding dome of his newly formed, would-be penetrating head. In the infinitesimal dissection of the second it takes for his abominable form to slump and crumble suicidally forward into the apex of her legs – the girl, momentarily roused by a cold, shocking droplet exploding on her goose-pimpled skin, shifts, contorting her body sufficiently to lower her labial defenses just enough to allow the puff-ball gust of spores that vacate Mushroom Man’s pollinating brain to rush her vaginal canal.

 

Not that it ever really felt like an event to begin with (standing in the rain for the best part of an hour isn’t my idea of tantalising) but things have gotten particularly tedious now, so much so that I make my third & final attempt at banging my fist down on the Events Desk to wrest from Camilla the carrot dangled in front of the request for my presence – but she and her cohort are frantically accepting fivers from the horde pouring through the doors, the deputy bouncer manically dragging a dotted ‘X’ across the back of their hands with a marker.

 

The Deaf Institute is now pumped to the lungs full of a flash mob-Frat Party, each of its three floors sagging us down to the Seventh Level of High School Hell under the weight of the participants-in every night-out you ever sought to avoid after you left the wretched place.

In an attempt to salvage anything meaningful from the entire evening we make our way back upstairs to witness the hotly Hipster-tipped onstage drum-pummeling antics of ‘Purity Ring’. Once there, safely secreted-away on the stairs to the Perspex-enclosed observation deck, we’re left to survey the roof-raising, hip-shaking swathe of merrymakers before us. In jumpers too numerous to take-in the intricacies-of and genre-hopping hairdos, this slew of monotonic youth lap-up the afterbirth of yesteryear’s most risible R&B hits. Making my way stageside, I find myself stood beside Purity Ring’s Megan James, who seems as bewildered as I, before squirreling herself-away backstage again.

 

 

With no significant onstage activity in sight, we too retreat into the knowingly noxious pocket of the Ground Floor’s smoking area.  By the time we resurface to brave the throng of knobheads pollinating the top floor, any sign of ‘Purity Ring’ has been vanquished. Having completely given-way to the total lack-of-abandon we neglected in favour of playing lung cancer-catch up, we appear to have missed the main event. Fealty to the paltry offering of the free publication was long ago sworn on the door by the marauding hordes, consummated with the lubrication-aid of (my) free drinks tokens.

 

Job done.

 

PHOTOS by Kitty Saros