On Thursday the body of Andrew Koenig was found hanging from a tree in a secluded Vancouver park. Koenig was best know for playing Richard "Boner" Stabone on popular sitcom Growing Pains. Some might be surprised to learn of a media-mediated personal connection. Being one those kids that banged his head off things, and I mean a lot-- double fucking kicks-- people in my family called me Boneyhead. Perhaps Sloppedbrain would have been a better moniker. In one episode of Growing Pains, Boner comes inside from shoveling snow, drinks cocoa through his ski mask and proclaims "This tastes fuzzy!". In unison my family points at me and says "that's something you would say." "Boneyhead" morphed into "Boner." Some school kids learned of this but thank god "Boner" never stuck outside of my family circle. To this day some of my close family will still call me "Bone" (boner abbreviated) on holidays. Hanging oneself in a Vancouver forest is not an unromantic suicide. My suicide fantasy involves blowing the top of my head off with a shotgun. I've obsessed over this for years. I hear the shot over and over in my head. I hear all the time, anytime when I am alone. Perchtwl. Perchtwl. Perchtwl. The one time I actually had the gun in my mouth I was on my parents' bed. That's where the family gun cabinet was. I mean have some fucking class. Gay dogs attack!
Rest in peace Mr. Koenig. To me the world is fuzzy all the time.
The death of Alexander McQueen, also by hanging, punctures a hole in the fabric of reality. Oh dear pagan gods that was terrible pun. Excuse me while I sound myself. If anyone had ever bothered to ask I would have told them McQueen was favorite designer. Not that I made it permissible for anyone to ask. Of course saying McQueen was your favorite designer was like saying Kubrick was favorite filmmaker. His contribution was like sunlight: it permeated everything and we just took it for granted. The "art" of Lady Gaga is actually a dilution of the Art of McQueen. I remember when he first emerged on the international scene. He was like gasoline: utterly punk and unrelentingly Scottish. His success was something of a fluke. In an "industry" that revolves around who you know it is imperative that at least one genuine weirdo and/or mediocrette rise to the top, ala capitalism wherein some shlub and/or distilled piggery become a billionaire, as an example of success. Opposite of mediocre, McQueen's association with fashion was just a curse. A master tailor who earned his blisters long before his stint in London's ultra conservative Savile Row, his strictly cut mens lines were the things that really thrilled me. Fashion is all about codes. McQueen's mens' lines always referenced easily recognizable historical codes, tweaking them just enough put a crack in your brain. Restraint is the touch of the truly great. I want to be restricted. Don't you? Given the laziness that typically creeps in the mens fashion, McQueen accomplishment is all the more significant. I once spent a year languishes in a rural gas station / sandwich shop to focus the blur. I would always reference McQueen to my female coworkers and they never had any idea what I was talking about let alone who despite the fact he was most famous fashion designer in the world. Like all transcendent "artists" he wasn't a human being. He was an angel from another place to remind us that our world can be different. There are no clothes in Hell.
