What's He Building in There?

My name is John Doran and I write about music. The young bucks who run VICE’s website thought it would be amusing to employ a 40-year-old man who's given up on holding his stomach in. In case you were wondering or simply too lazy to use urban dictionary, ‘menk’ is Scouse/Woollyback slang for a mentally ill or educationally subnormal person, and is a shortened version of mental. As in, “Your Sergio Tacchini trackie is sick la, look at that menk Doran, he can’t even afford a Walker trackie. Let’s hit him with a brick and push him in the canal.” MENK TEN: WHAT’S HE BUILDING IN THERE? Tony Maggs finally breaks radio silence to reveal what his invention is. I can’t believe I didn’t guess. I met Tony through my dear friend Simon Price while they were both running the hugely enjoyable Stay Beautiful; a New Romantic/ glam/ electro night in North London. It remains a lasting advertisement to my affection for both of these gents that I even managed to attend their club once. Given that I look like a man who will be found dead in a bath and can even let the side down sartorially in a Wetherspoon's pub on giro day, it was always a tricky proposition attending their nightspot where sharp, exotic dress was the order of the day. Simon looks like Marlon Brando would have done back in the day if he’d taken to wearing make-up, rubber trousers, a pink Chic t-shirt, a leopard print coat and had grown bright red horns. While his look certainly splits the vote, I remember Wayne Coyne from The Flaming Lips telling me once that they were thinking about doing a show where all of their dancers would be dressed like Simon. As he pointed out reasonably: “If everyone dressed like him, I don’t imagine there would be much trouble in the world.” The thing is, if everyone dressed like Simon, he’d probably dress like a businessman. I miss Simon living in London. We used to go out drinking together quite a lot. The only downside to a night out with him would be having to deal with the occasional drunk knucklehead in a Chelsea top screeching, slack-jawed, at him: “It’s a fucking crime! It’s a fucking crime!” Outside their club, ladies bedecked in lace and feather boas would patrol the queue in a friendly manner, applying glitter and make up to dour, bearded looking chaps like myself. One time I relented and allowed myself to have eyeliner applied. “I like Prince,” I said. “Perhaps you could just write ‘Slave’ on my cheek just above my beard line.” I got in later that night to see the says-it-all inscription: ‘Slade’. On that particular night there was an Easter theme and I got inside to see that Tony Maggs had been crucified on a makeshift cross. He's a good looking fellow, Tony – slightly reminiscent of King Xerxes from the film 300. He was naked apart from a loin cloth, an authentic Rajasthani wedding turban and some gold leaf on one half of his head. It was unsurprising to see a large coterie of excited women gathered at his feet. When they eventually dispersed, he nodded at one of them, sagely: “Last time I saw her, she was being entertained by three gentlemen friends at the Torture Garden. Fabulous curtains.” I’m not entirely sure if it was the drapes in the private members club that he was referring to wistfully, but it has to be said there is something about sexual perversity that seems so much more reasonable when it is voiced by the well-spoken or interestingly dressed. He disappeared for a few months recently, and all I knew of his whereabouts came via Pricey, who'd let slip the occasional cryptic remark along the lines of, “He’s working on something. I can’t tell you what it is but it’s obvious when you think about it.” And then when I find out I have to admit it’s true, I should have guessed. He emailed me yesterday to tell me about his new invention, 'the Little Rooster'. A press release that he is in the middle of writing describes it like this: “A completely new way of waking. An alarm clock that wakes you with pleasure. The lowest settings are almost imperceptible. The Little Rooster does not wrench you from your sleep. Then the power slowly increases… Whether you leap straight out of bed or let it run its lazy course, no other clock will wake you with this joyful secret thrill… The wide, flat head stabilises the Little Rooster against your pubic bone and is exceptionally thin for maximum comfort. The vibrating leg rests against your clitoris and labia. No part of the Little Rooster is worn internally.” Well, of course he’s invented a cross between a vibrator and an alarm clock. It’s so obvious when you think about it.
 
There are only certain people who can or should be inventors. As with perversity, a certain level of suaveness and a way with words will count for a lot, but there is also the extent to which you are hoping to help others rather than just yourself. I met someone else seven years ago who laid claim to being an inventor and he did not cut as impressive a figure. My landlord at the time, Sam, was a funny old cove. He’d been a low-level Cold War spook for the RAF, logging interminable weather reports and listening to shipping forecasts in a semi-clandestine manner. The many years he’d spent sat in front of a large radio transmitting dish had effected an undercurrent of psychic diversity in him. He, like all of his friends, seemed to have just enough money to get clattered on every single day. His stuttering friend known simply as 'the Architect' fancied himself as a builder of fantastical machines, who would one day file a patent that would see him set for life. The Architect disappeared one day as well, but there was no scintillating mystery when I asked Sam about it, merely the terse reply: “There was a problem with his new wanking machine. It got jammed in the 'on' position. He’s gone to stay at his mum and dad’s for a bit.” I never saw the Architect again. I saw Sam a few times after I moved out of his house. On the last time he told me that a neighbour had been murdered. He’d been stabbed multiple times in the face by a man dressed as Santa Claus. I felt bad that I wasn’t entirely surprised to hear this. It simply felt like one of those areas where that kind of thing was bound to happen sooner or later. As for the Little Rooster, well I hope it does well. There’s too much craziness, ugliness and violence in the world. I want to live in a country where open-minded women are waking up to pleasure. Hopefully it will have a knock on effect on the rest of us.