Monday 14 July 2008

Loser Magazine


In 1988 I bailed the UK for Australia to pursue a career in either film or music, didn't really care which. In reality I ended up working for 'Charlie Chan' who ran the 5 Cent photocopy shop just off Melbourne's Swanston Street, a man notorious for making a documentary called 'Sex & the Animals' which he promoted with two pigs that he kept in the shop for a bit (& photocopied them), spray painted 'sex' on one & 'animals' on t'other & paraded them outside the central nick during rush hour until he got arrested. I loved working for Charlie : He was dangerously insane, the size of a pepperpot, ancient, balding & omnipresent. Every band gigging in town would rock up at some point (unless they were signed wankers) armed with bags of shit Charlie would encourage to throw onto the copiers : Syringes, bullets, porn, mucus, semen & occasionally Farelle's tits if she could blag a guestie (Farelle & I would 'man' the shop when he was off shooting up or speaking to producers). Occasionally he would turn up at 6pm sweating like a fat girl at the disco & turf us both out, swearing he had a "meeting & could you just fuck off now. I MEAN IT." When Charlie's eyes bulged & turned ochre simultaneously we knew he did. So we did...

These mysterious meetings were never discussed. I presumed he was scoring a plethora of chemicals of some description & never gave it too much thought. However, one morning I arrived at 10am to open up (not that there was any point WHATSOEVER in being there before 3pm but he liked to make the whole caboush seem kosher) & found a massive cardboard box spewing its' innards over the sticky carpet along with the more traditional takeaway cartons, vodka bottles, suspect videos & a few pairs of stained suit trousers. Of course I inspected. The box was filled with multiple issues (1-4) of appallingly copied & stapled magazines, finished & ready for distribution. Only the last bit never happened (standard practice at Charlies). It was called 'Loser Magazine : The Magazine for YOU' & from that moment on I was hooked. 'Loser' had virtually no editorial or content, no format & nothing remotely resembling a magazine inside whatsoever. Just endless clippings from the Aussie press, above & below the salt, thrown together page after page after page. And it was hilarious. When your brain finally accepted that this was all it was, you somehow made the quantum leap & every clip became knicker-wettingly brilliant. Think Framley Examiner with real stuff & you're getting warm, yet with 'Loser' you had to join your own dots & briefly allow yourself to be possessed by the author. Fortunately I had the foresight to pilfer issues 1-4 which I still own to this day (although 3 got nicked at a Herne Hill house party also at which my gerbil Utterly Butterly was callously murdered by a certain indie musician putting a tab of acid in her water bottle). For what it's worth I'm reproducing a few pages here :





1 comment:

David McMillan said...

I have 3 editions of Loser magazine, and agree that it is brilliant. I do disagree though that it is nothing but sampling. Whatever anonynous genius compiled these clippings was also careful to intercut his (has to be his) own original writing in the form of stream of consciousness fiction and letters to and from Loser Magazine. One particular rant at a party for a rather self-deluded set of hip young uni students achieves a rare level of insanity that reminded me of and rivals the best passages in American Psycho. The clippings from the press are often the sickest black comedy imaginable, and there's something really interesting happening in Loser Magazine. Firstly, the intimate portraits of many losers deserving of the title. Secondly, the hilarious lampooning of the vapid and empty world which they aspire to and which mocks and rejects them, which is itself horrifying in its awfulness. The best magazine ever.