Dennis Hopper.

1936 - 2010

E=MC²

Ritual ideas relativety. Only buildings no people prophecy. Timeslide place to hide nudge reality. Foresight minds wide magic imagery.

Native Craftworks.

Native Craftworks is a new one to look out for, an independent English company doing their own thing. Shoes are designed in England and handmade in Portugal, by craftsmen using traditional techniques, learnt and developed over a lifetime. The proper way. With materials sourced exclusively and made only with true care, skill and attention to detail. Very limited and exclusive shoes. Shortly available in OP

Yesterdays hikers, today...

As it's already pretty obvious I'm sure, I have an unhealthy obsession with vintage outerwear, well here's a little selection of the stuff when it was actually brand new. Two different brands' offerings just one year apart from 1976 and '77 respectively. There's just something ever lastingly cool about a deep green cagoule, or a bright orange smock with drawstrings and deep pockets, it might not float everyone else's but it certainly floats my boat. I'll not reveal my source just yet, you'll have to guess on that front...

Animated Albums.

http://animatedalbums.tumblr.com/

Pod Heritage.

Another interesting release for those fans of old school, old school shoes, Pod Heritage sees the reintroduction of old favourites, Pod have used the original designers and the original sample to get this exact. Forming two ranges, Rubber Soul and English Soul which are pictured above with the models 'Bolan' and 'Gallagher', available round about now.

Say it with badges.

6876 button badge set. Paris student riots, New Left Notes.

Vintage Clarks Commandos, nuff said.

Vintage Snoopy 'Peanuts' badge, arrived all the way from Ontario, Canada, found after spotting here. If an old badge can actually be deemed cool then this is the Steve McQueen of badges.

Madness badge I bought in London approximately eleven years ago.

The Casual Connoisseur's 'right on' repros.

And so a daft little obsession begins, I was always a fussy one when it came to putting badges on my person, I'd only wear a tiny enamel style football pin, the only hint of allegiance, but even then piercing a minuscule hole into an expensive chunk of rasso, spalmatura or any other glow-in-the-dark expensive coated piece of cotton was a bad idea, but as I got a bit older, less fussy and more hippy I quite enjoy the idea of button badges. They're a bit studenty, a bit punk, six form rebel, but I like a bit of geek chic now and again, plus it's a cool way of making a little statement, positive, pro active, promotional, provocative, and again a hint of allegiance.

If it's good enough for Serpico and Travis Bickle it's good enough for me.

Wallet.

I've got fuck all money, but if I did I'd be keeping it in my new wallet.
I've had an old Mandarina Duck one for years (bottom), but it's a little tired, so out with the old in with the new. This less common Italian brand is most famous for it's luggage, and ladies bags, but around the turn of the noughties made a few semi-decent, albeit dated looking jackets, in what I believe was a brief dalliance into menswear, I had a couple of papery-like parkas which were quite nice at the time.

Bad Lieutenant - Port of Call New Orleans.

When I first heard that the original Abel Ferrara/Harvey Keitel bad cop sleaze-fest Bad Lieutenant was getting remade, or at least retold/re-imagined or whatever they're calling it, I wondered why? Despite it's straight to video esque title of The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans there's a lot going for it. Add in the fact this is helmed by the crazy genius Werner Herzog (Aguirre, Rescue Dawn) and starring a refreshed alternative Nicolas Cage - who in his more familiar action man guise, occasionally (and probably fairly) gets a bit of a hard time. Though, I'm thinking of Raising Arizona, Bringing Out the Dead and Wild at Heart here, rather than the bubble gum fodder of Con Air, The Wicker Man (remake) and erm, National Treasure, there's no doubt when more than the paycheck matters, he's a talented actor who's given us some wacky and memorable roles. This is certainly one of them.

With a decent support cast including Jim Morrison/Batman Val Kilmer, Pimp My Rides 'Xzibit' and Eva Mendes who's so pretty she could be painted on the side of a fighter plane, this was a rather unexpected and highly enjoyable film, one of the best this year so far, in fact.

So to the film, Cage is on terrific and crazy form as Lt. Terence McDonagh. Set in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina - we're first introduced to McDonagh doing the right thing by opting to ignore his partner Stevie's (Kilmer) advice and decides not to leave a prisoner caged and drowning in a deserted jail cell, but rescues him, though in doing so he badly injures his back. Fast forward six months and he has earned a promotion for his efforts but is also left a hunched dishevelled, addicted mess. Addicted to painkillers and illegal substances, he snorts his way through the day whilst on duty and at crime scenes all the time building up a rather large gambling tab, at night he unwinds with more drugs and his own other vice his escort girlfriend (Mendes)

It seems as he slips further into the mire there is no way back, but often things work out. Whilst not so focused he's charged with task of trying to solve the messy case of the killing of five Senegalese immigrants. At one point he even teams up with chief suspect Big Fate (Xzibit) in a dodgy scheming deal to clear his own debts, and maybe, actually doing his job in the process.

The film is a strange one, at times a touch baffling, nasty even, and at others it's hilarious. This is Cage's film, this is Nicolas 'un-caged' and it's his best work in years, up there with his 'Sailor Ripley' and 'H.I. McDunnough' for Lynch and the brothers' Coen respectively. Yet still owes to the direction of Werner Herzog who's own imitable touches add to the circus on show, in particular the hallucinatory Iguanas! Granted it might be a touch disjointed on the whole, but what matters is it's just a highly enjoyable ride from start to finish and one of the good 'uns for this year so far.


Nicolas Cage - Selected Filmography.

Kick-Ass (2010)
The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call - New Orleans (2009)

Matchstick Men (2003)
Adaptation. (2002)

Bringing Out the Dead (1999)

Leaving Las Vegas (1995)

Wild at Heart (1990)

Raising Arizona (1987)

The Cotton Club (1984)

Rumble Fish (1983)

Posing in the garden, 80's style.

Another glance at casual days gone by. Posing proudly in the back garden in their new wears. Top: Burberry polo, Lois jeans, Adidas. Bottom: Fila polo, Farah slacks and Adidas Adicolour. Lacoste polo, Farah, Adidas Capri. Mid 80's. Pics via WHU65.

Four Lions.

I'll try not to, but this could contain bits that might spoil it for you.

Having gone to the cinny on what seemed like every other week at the back end of 2009, there's been a real lack of interest in the offerings of early twenty ten, that's now starting to pick up a little and the new Chris Morris film Four Lions was one I was looking forward to giving a whirl.

I assume everyone knows who Chris Morris is, but if you don't, he's the king of satire and funnily enough he's been branded the comedy terrorist in times gone by, the man behind the much lauded and superb The Day Today the first glimpse of Alan Partridge et al, The IT Crowd, Nathan Barley and of course Brass Eye - one of, if not the best British comedy ever.

With his controversial, yet impeccably clever brand of wit, Morris has tackled and made us piss our pants at an array of delicate subject matter from Pornography to Paedophilia, to inventing the mock drug 'cake' which fooled a host of celebrities and politicians alike. So it was no real surprise to see the first genuine film tackling what is clearly a touchy and pretty current subject matter, that of domestic suicide bombers, that Chris Morris was directing.

With the exception of the oddly titled short which starred Paddy Considine My Wrongs #8245–8249 & 117, this is Morris' first feature film, his directorial debut.Combined with the writing talents of Channel Four's Peep Show, Four Lions tells the tale of four disillusioned and radicalised young men who set out to become suicide bombers. Based I think, in Sheffield in the North of England, the group are made up of the natural leader, the kind of sensible one Omar (Riz Ahmed) who you may have seen in Shifty (2008). The white muslim convert who actually has dreams of bombing a mosque, Barry (Nigel Lindsay) small screen and big stage actor, the bumbling fool Waj (Kayvan Novak) who you might have seen in Fonejacker/Facejacker, and the one with ideas above his station, Fessal (Adeel Akhtar) plus latecomer Hassan (Arsher Ali).

Together they record and fuck up numerous martyr videos, train a crow as a flying bomb, two of them visit a training camp in Pakistan with catastrophic consequences and generally mess every aspect of their ill fated mission up as they catch themselves up in their own farcical Holy War, culminating in a plan of blowing themselves up during the London Marathon. Watching this, it was laugh out loud funny, I don't think I've ever witnessed such genuine belly laughs amongst the crowd at the pictures as I did this evening.

This film is, in essence a pisstake, not a pisstake at radical Muslims, race or religion more at the sheer absurdity of extreme fanaticism, a fanaticism it's hard to fathom, killing oneself in the name of God. Morris had spent many years researching this subject and it's alleged this occurred before the tragic July 2005 London bombings, bringing very close to home something we'd only ever seen on the News being transmitted to us from the other side of the globe. Whilst poking fun at the nature of brainwashed extremities, this film also does a hell of a lot to making the viewer take note too, to understand and even explain the lunacy of it all. With a sterling performance from the lead Riz Ahmed as Omar, someone who openly discusses his plans with his wife and child, who support it too, is pretty thought provoking in itself, Waj is persuaded to do what he's doing as their personal Jihad is likened to a trip to Alton Towers, and Barry the extreme white muslim thinks bombing a mosque is the cleverest way to make a point. None of them really know what they are doing, there's no point in the film which ever suggests why they are so radicalised, they just are. These are genuine guys, with northern accents, born in England.

The fact this film genuinely leaves you thinking is in itself is a pretty clever stroke of work. The fact this is hilarious more or less thoughout simply adds to that. That laugh out loud comedy i mentioned later turned to sombre silence at it's climax. Going into this I did wonder if it was going to be something poking fun at it's subject, something which could cause a real stink, and offend as it ammuses in equal measures. Whilst I'm sure there's going to be a pathetic predictable response by the more right wing press and the ignorant whos heads it will simply fly over, let's not forget Morris is a clever guy, he's more than done his homework on this one, it's true to life, and scarily so, this film is getting great reviews and could turn out to be pretty important in years to come, which for what is essentially a farce 'Dad's Army' does suicide bombers comedy is a pretty good achievement.

No, Minister.

Something else to look at.

Recent Pick-ups.

Socks 'n shirts during my latest puntery. Including from the top, a belter from 6876, new and tagged from nearly ten years back, a tenner well spent. Lacoste crewneck rude not to when it's £100 down to thirty bins. More Ralph, a nice Oxford button down and a clockwork orange long sleeved jobby, I do love a long sleeved polo this time of year. Also, a Rohan two pocket safari shirt,Lee Prince shirt - a black cowboy shirt? I've changed. Yeehaw. Gant patchwork madras, it's like something Nelson Mandela might wear to a disco, and for that reason I'm in. Finally a Faconnable shirt with that mad bird running off with someone's golf club on it, I like that one.
Join me for another thrilling installment next time I've sold some shit, raised some cash and spent it just as quickly.