Man Crush Volume 2: Shanghai Sex

Tonight I am strongly considering fanging into town to check out musical hectoids the Goons of Doom shralp the stage of The Harp Hotel tonight, much to the chagrin of my rockledge mate Dom Connor who is upset I didn't attend The Harp last week to see his Karnivoolesque band of doom perform. These dudes, led by the leather clad, aerial hellman, Ozzie Wright have been pumping out some skits tunes for ages and it would be pretty interesting to see how they perform live. The Goons of Doom originally found there way into my life, and I am sure this would be the case with many others who share my demographic, when some of their shit appeared on the cult surf film classic, Doped Youth.

This Movie was a low budget parody of the trials and tribulations that some lame little pop rock band might face when gearing up to enter a Battle of the Bands competition, punctuated by sections of shralping that took place between scenes and were poorly worked into the plot. Despite the shocking acting, the at times below average waves, the out of control plot line and predictable denouement my cousin Nick and I used to watch it religiously and even now i find my self looking for the VCR remote just so i can watch this little piece of cinema.

The cast is made up of some rediculous characters, whose traits are only over shadowed by ridiculous names such as Arsenic Pharaoh, Slinky Fox, Augustus Peobleby, Cyanide Sphinx, Kingswood Black and Johnny and Ricky Six. Maybe the best way to sum up the characters come from the words of Ozzie Wrights own character Arsenic Pharaoh as he contemplates what the hell he is doing with this going nowhere band as he muses "what the hell he is doing their with these kooks". Correct me if I'm wrong but i believe this is the correct quote, "Johnny Sick is a bearded chick, Shanghai is an up himself prick, Cyanide....Sucks ( his Mum's pretty hot but) Kingswood Black, that playboys wack, grab the eye from the one eyed cat.

During the duration of the film , Nick and I would constantly find our fingers constantly searching for the rewind button on the remote at the conclusion of one particular section and this is no doubt how the seeds of my man crush were developed. This section was focused on the character Shanghai Sex (who if you read back was referred to as an "up himself prick"), played by future WCT rippo Luke Steadman, who with his long flowing locks, ahead of his time fashion sense and blatant self absorption made him the perfect front man for the band. During an interview with fictional telly show Fashion TV, Shanghai describes his role in Doped Youth as a way to subsidise being the most beautiful man in the world. He claims "you can't really be one of Australia's most leading supermodels forever and this Doped Youth Band thing is a way of getting out there and striving for something different, yeah it can get heated at times but when i get down i just get a manicure, pedicure and everything totally fine". I lose my mind each and every time i hear that shit. That kind of self assuredness can only be found in the realms of fiction, however i was sure that this was the kind of attitude needed to succeed in life and promptly appropriated my Myspace name and About Me to reflect my love for Shanghai Sex. This spiel is promptly followed by some quality surfing in some fun little waves, interjected by some shots of Steadman being a massive babe and accompanied by the glorious pop tune, "Don't Go Now" by Novocastrian hellmen RatCat. Found in the fine print of the magazine that Doped youth was freely distributed with it claims that all the characters in the magazine are losers and should not be emulated. However it is far to late for me for I am already head over heals. The first 4 minutes or so of this clip features this out of control section and I implore you to check it out as it truly changed my life.