Читать книгу The World According to Vice - Vice Magazine - Страница 30

Everyone knows that no true anarchist would live in a place where you pay for things like hot water, electricity, and slaves of the state to come and take away the bins. Accordingly, my home for the week was a squat off Walworth Road in south London. I’d given myself a budget of £5 to last the five days, so for lodging, free had to trump comfort.

After settling into my bed on the floor and washing my face in a pool of stagnant water that had been in the sink for nearly 24 hours, I decided I needed a style update. It was an easy decision: LA posi-crust-hardcore punk from when more than ten people cared about Final Conflict.

I left the squat and lurked around a branch of the corporate pharmacy chain Boots awaiting an opportunity to nick some green hair dye. Boots supports vivisection. It is also fine with squirting shampoo into bunnies’ eyes and making them wear lipstick on their skin and electrodes on their brains. I had absolutely no qualms about stealing from this out-house of the bourgeoisie.

Of course, I had to have a mohawk. But the only implement we could find at the squat to shear my hair was a pair of blunt stationery scissors. This gave me an appropriately DIY (that is, awful-looking) appearance.

Punks don’t care much about things like health and safety and hygiene, so bleach was applied directly to the remaining strip of hair by my new squat girlfriend, Karley. The only precaution she took was wearing a mangy goalkeeper’s glove during the application process. It was all satisfactorily punk.While the bleach settled I learned a new skill

While the bleach settled I learned a new skill: sewing. No self-respecting crusty leaves home without a Los Crudos patch, and I made an adequate attempt at affixing some flair to an old denim jacket with cut-off sleeves.

Washing the toxic chemicals from my hair in the freezing shower was uncomfortable, but I kept up the don’t-give-a-shit pretence until the dye was splooged all over my noggin and I realised that my forehead was rapidly turning green.