Looking at the Look Book
What's cooler than cool, but not as cool as ice cold? Unkempt asymmetrical hair and a strategically placed cigarette. This week's edition of New York magazine Look Book brings you the apparent spawn of Malcolm Gladwell and Lenny Kravitz, "massively Afroed guitarist" Alex Kennedy-Grant. And you're in luck because he just woke up and you're seeing the hair in a "totally raw state". Alex, who describes his musical style as "psychedelic soul and blues-rock" laments the fact that no one really plays the guitar any more, and will not apologize for being a virtuoso. "I'm totally independent," Alex proudly declares, but admits he wouldn't mind getting paid. Totally.
After the jump, Inter Alexis corrals Joshua Stein, Pat Driscoll and Timothy Michael Cooper to dig through the Afro for change.
What would happen if Alex Kennedy-Grant's hair met Video Look Booker
Fantcha Mendes's hair?
Amy LaRocca's afro fetish is well-known and documented. Both virtuosi, if AKG's cumulus nimbus of hair met Fantcha Mendes' afro (so big she needs a chinstrap) no doubt out-virtuousoizing would take
place, each afro morphing into various forms. AKG's into Slimer, FM's into a dodechohedron. AKG's into a menorah, FM's into the Twin Towers at which decorum would force AKG to submit.
Unzip Alex's zipper. What do you see?
Exactly what you see up top, including a cigarette dangling for the tip. That's what being a dickhead means.
What's a typical day in the life of AKG?
Wake up on your futon to the gentle alarm of the Bose iPod sounddock you're dad bought you upon graduating Wesleyan. Close quickly your MacBook Pro, open at the moment to whatever Suicide Girl you took with you to bed last night. Pick up your ax (always called "my ax") and run through some real fuckin gnarly minor pentatonic shit then move into Mixolydian. Hit up MySpace for an hour. It's noon so turn on the Lopate show while you apply your numerous Bumble and Bumble products in a mirror onto which you've written Love Yourself across the bottom. Move back to your ax, lay down some Phrygian jams. It's around two. Call Dad's secretary to see if Citibank transfer went through. Browse Missed Connections. Hit up MySpace again. Write 5 lines of a 12 bar blues. Decide against grad school after reading the New York Review of Books (too academic), browse the New Yorker (academic-ish) and finally settle on spending the rest of the afternoon reading New York magazine. Oh shit, your picture's in the Look Book. Back to MySpace to post the picture.
Pat Driscoll , jukebox bully
What would happen if Alex Kennedy-Grant's hair met Video Look Booker
Fantcha Mendes's hair?
As their hair meets it will immediately grow at an alarming rate until it has taken over their entire bodies and forms a glorious cave which Madonna will use to hide the rest of her stolen Malawian babies.
Unzip Alex's zipper. What do you see?
Strangely, his chest is completely shaved and adorned with a giant tattoo of Rebecca De Mornay.
What's a typical day in the life of AKG?
Well, he actually has a routine. At night before bed he showers and dresses himself completely for the next day so that when he wakes up he doesn't miss a beat. As he wakes up to his alarm clock, which he has cleverly re-tooled to play only Lou Reed's "Metal Machine Music", he lets out an exaggerated yawn which would wake up most of the building if it weren't already noon. He puts on his espresso machine and while it warms up, he watches the last fifteen minutes of "Brewster's Millions" because it inspires him. Following this he trolls MySpace for a few hours and asks a minimum of 15 people to be his friend (he's convinced he can hit 1000 by year's end). He spends the four o' clock hour watching "Oprah," but DVR-ing "Ellen" and at five o'clock it's "Ellen"-time!! Once he feels fulfilled, he leaves his apartment and walks around the East Village. He stops random people, looks at them and says "Eh?" while pointing to his hair. When they don't answer he asks, "pretty crazy, right?" When they respond with indifference, his immediate reflex is to get angry, but instead he retreats to Grey's Papaya where he eats hot dogs and tells himself, "It's okay I'll have 1000 friends be years end and then I'll show them." Then he cries...
Timothy Michael Cooper, Freelance Eater
What would happen if Alex Kennedy-Grant's hair met Video Look Booker
Fantcha Mendes's hair?
I'm not sure, but when I was 8, my dad sat me down and explained to me how Brillo(r) pads are made, and it was basically that.
Unzip Alex's zipper. What do you see?
The same thing you see when you order a Kobe beef steak: rippling layers of pink, unused muscle, richly marbled with snowy veins of pure white fat.
No, obviously he's wearing a pre-owned Adidas zip-up tracksuit, like the younger breakdancer in the music video for Dirty Vegas's "Days Go By." Although the last time Alex pop-locked a headspin, a dozen innocent bystanders got third-degree rug burns. LOL, j/k! Alex has nothing to prove—he's a virtuoso, and he doesn't hide that fact.
What's a typical day in the life of AKG?
9:18 a.m.: Doesn't wake up.
Noon-5:00 p.m.: Gettin' hizzigh. That's right, he actually says it that way.
5:00 p.m.: I'd just like to point out that Alex had been drug-free for over 12 minutes when this picture was taken, so just lay off about the Norma Desmond sunglasses.
5:30 p.m.: At Borders, purchases another periodical that's as "academic-ish" as Wax Poetics, such as the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism or Black Hair (both of which I happen to subscribe to).
7:00 p.m.: Rehearses with the guys. Yes, you can still be a "front
man" even when the other members of your band are Snuffleupagus (on drums) and, when he's available, Falcor, the dragon from The Neverending Story.
10:00 p.m.: Dinner: the uncooked noodles from a box of Kraft Macaroni & Cheese, which aren't half bad when chased with that fluorescent cheese powder and cocaine.
Midnight: Consoles self with fact that even if he is peerless, jobless, label-less, and Product-less, at least he's still a virtuoso. Considers hiding that fact a little less tomorrow.
