Plan B Magazine R.I.P. pt 4 - Making 'Plan B'

I just found this in the depths of my computer.

Thought I'd share it with you. If the original author discovers this and wants it taken down then, of course, I will do so. In the meantime ... well, I think it's both funny and sweet. It serves as a reasonable taste of what life was like in Brighton round about the time we were starting up Plan B Magazine. The conversation between me and Andrew certainly rings true. I'm sure Andrew thought I was a right idiot with my design suggestions.

(UPDATE: the author is cool with it. If you're wondering as to her identity, you can find out more here.)

Making ‘Plan B’.
24.11.03
Funny Things names. Carry them round in big printed type in your head, they gather connotations in shoals. Remain ever aware of the gaps between imagination and reality, reputation and flesh, yet still find their uncertainty intriguing ... ‘Everett True’ had come, in my head, to mean unabashed, often mesmerising prose, refusal of conformity, fierce independence and, of course, encyclopaedic musical knowledge. He appears at his doorway shoeless, bespectacled, in a shabby fleece. He looks a bit like my ex-best friend’s dad. Who I haven’t seen since he threw me out of his house 3 years ago.

Unlike Mr Smith however, Mr True proffers a friendly welcome and politely requests that I also become shoeless. He then leads me down the stairs of his modern, average house into the kitchen. A few more steps down, and a French window looking down the ‘city’ towards the sea from Preston Park reveal this dwelling’s appeal. The kitchen is large and attractive. There is a towering rack of old magazines, in front of which I sit, as Mr True proceeds to pump me with caffeine. I guess he is an addict by the enthusiasm with which he undertakes this task; also, he is surprised when I choose tea over coffee. And he doesn’t sleep well.

Introductory conversation quickly exposes my uncertainty about anything much except that ‘I want to be a good writer’. Also, in Mr True’s words, ‘I must have ideals or I wouldn’t be interested in Careless Talk’. This is good. It is decided I will write a journal of my observations on the birth of ‘Plan B’, and offer them up for scrutiny. (Later, returning home, I will realise this will aggravate my writer’s anxiety). I will also help him research his unwritten-but-soon-to-be-done book on The White Stripes.

He asks me what music I have been listening to lately. I realise I have been listening to ‘The Roots’ Phrenology, mainly since July (I have a whole thesis on it in my head), and make a mental note to drink less money and spend more on records.

12pm(ish)
Andrew arrives. Andrew is the designer. He is, incredibly, smaller and paler than me. His little white spindly hands particularly impress me. He could choose to brighten his appearance, with a red jumper, perhaps. Lipstick maybe. Instead he wears a grey hat and a grey jumper, and looks very monochrome. He is a good designer but obviously doesn’t like to design his-self. Visually at least.

But fortunately he doesn’t speak in monotone and is friendly and fairly witty. Mr True wonders what they should talk about. Andrew suggests ‘point size’. I laugh in my head, as out of context this snippet of conversation would suggest the highest order of geekdom. Uncertainty of purpose then strikes again, a dilemma which Mr True resolves by going to the magazine rack and pulling out an old copy of Vox, besmeared with fleshy images of Courtney Love. (I just typed Courtney Pine and had to rewrite it. However maybe this would make a good ‘Plan B’ feature: sexy images of the very toned Mr Pine. What do you think?). Various blaring layouts are sought out and ridiculed in a vicious display of cruelty and victimisation. Stars, review-point systems, and drop shadows: none escape the jaws of superiority.

1pm(ish)
Andrew leaves and Mr True has to prepare for his radio show and reply to 400 emails all at once. So I help, vaguely, by inserting and ejecting cds. Sometimes the button doesn’t work too well and Mr True has to help. Once a fair size pile has been chosen we make a swift exit to the bus station. Mr True notices my tendency to daydream on the bus. He leaves me in the centre of Brighton, having pointed out all the major landmarks and given me careful directions to where I am to meet him at 3 for the ‘Careless Talk Costs Lives’ Radio Show.

2pm
I take a walk on the beach but it is cold and my nose is runny and I need the toilet. Also I am hungry. So I go to Boots and get a takeaway sushi and some toothpaste because I’ve run out. I realise there are very few towns in which I have been which have a Boots I have not visited, and feel humbled.

3pm
After a heartening cappuccino in a nearby cafe, I am in a basement room with an old table, mixing desk, amp and computers. I notice the amp is exactly the model I have at home, except mine doesn’t work because I dropped it in the floor when I was moving out of college. Last week I tried to sell it because I was skint and no one took me seriously when I insisted upon its fine quality and potency. Losers.

3.01pm
People begin to arrive. I’m not quite sure who they are but they look like band members. They are all friends with Everett. They are also all moaning about hangovers.

Jon is co-presenting the show. He is young and looks like I would have fancied him when I was 14, in my days of indie idolisation. Floppy fringe, old leather jacket. Everett is not surprised Jon is hungover: Jon is fragile and somewhat spaced out. Everett insists this is Jon’s show but precedes to take both control and the piss: ‘This show’s gonna mutate into the Jon Slade explosion’. Jon responds with a blank face. Then he becomes confused, head butts Everett’s knee, drops the mouse, and nearly knocks the lampshade over. Stephanie, the be-fringed blonde sitting next to me, and I try to warn him but he doesn’t believe us, despite the lampshade swinging behind him as he speaks. He points to the lampshade on the desk and insists it is not about to fall over.

Everett also seems to have cleverly devised a system whereby he can punish Jon by causing feedback in his headphones. This confuses him more, making him pull a face like a dog that tried to walk through a glass door.

15.30
John refuses to do the new dance he invented last night in a top hat, so Bill, Tobi and Stephanie do it for him.

15.40
Bill wants to know what’s through the door. Everett says it’s Narnia, which may be why Tobi has been gone so long.

16.10
Everett puts on a track by ‘Shat’ which is based on the thematic question, ‘What the fuck do you think Christina Aguilera is doing right now?’. Answers include doing various nasty naughty things, including smoking a ‘bowl’. Gosh.

16.37
Bill, who does not look entirely healthy (no gym sessions and sun beds certainly), and who has been making ridiculously strong instant coffee (‘How many spoons did you put in here, Bill?’ ; ‘Four-Five. Isn’t that enough?’) as well as taking Pro-Plus announces he is feeling spaced out, and that his mouth is going to fast for his head.

16.40
As I emerge from the toilet, Everett is shouting excitedly about something. I never find out what.

16.47
Bill makes more coffee.
Everett: ‘There’s a video at home with me singing songs and just piano’.
Bill: ‘Who’s just piano?’
Tobi is making friends on the Internet in the corner on friendster.com.

16.52
Everett slams his coffee down. ‘Ah, Jesus’.

17.03
Stephanie’s advice to Tobi: ‘It’s not very nice to call a midget a freak’.

17.17
Stephanie and Everett have a fight about who has more friends on friendster.com.

17.20
Bill and Tobi appear to be having a party in Narnia ... er, the toilet.

Later we take a walk on the beach and talk about herpes. Stephanie says she was told by her gran that you get pregnant and herpes if you kiss a boy. Jon has some coloured spots on his skin.

Everett gives me good advice about finding a place in the world. I decide not to go to the pub with Jon. Even though the spots on his skin are really stickers that Tobi found (Everett also has them on his top).