Trevor Heft's
Whole Truth
by Trevor Heft
In the
latest instalment of Trevor Heft’s Whole
Truth, Britain’s hippest hack snaps at a
muscular musician and his snow-kissed ambitions.
Tom offers me
a builder’s tea. It fills an oversized mug
to the brim. He lays it down on a speaker, and as
he noodles away on his guitar, miniature waves
roll overboard, pooling in the matt black
recesses. I just watch, because it’s not my
job to interfere. No, it’s my job to observe,
though he does eventually ask me why I keep
nodding towards the setting stain. His tone in
doing so in no way effects the rest of my article.
“So, tell
me about your… ‘quest,’ Tom,”
I begin, using the word, “quest,”
specifically because he’d used it in his
original email. I stress it that way because it
struck me as strange, which is consistent, at
least, because he’s equally as weird in the
flesh (more on THAT later).
“Nothing
out of the ordinary,” he says, though I’ll
note now and repeatedly that he’s thoroughly
topless throughout our conversation (told you).
“I’m going to write and record a
Christmas number one.”
If it strikes
you as mundane that an unemployed twenty-something
male believes they can write and record a
Christmas number one, that’s because it is.
However, what IS out of the ordinary is that
he intends to achieve the feat through a cover of The
Smiths’ song Meat Is
Murder, with every percussive strike
replaced with the audio of an I’m a
Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here! contestant
snapping a live witchetty grub between their
teeth. Also, he’s utterly topless.
Some of the
things he says about Messrs Gino D’Acampo,
Mark Wright and Noel Edmonds are simply too
stunning to print, though they get more
favourable as he moves down the list, arriving in
a place that I’m comfortable with, but my
editor deems, “borderline ageist.” And
while he’s a reasonably willing interviewee,
the two things he won’t explain are why he’s
more forgiving of Katie Price, and why he’s
unequivocally topless.
“And I
KNOW what you’re doing to ask!” he
exclaims, once he stops strumming.
“Why are
you more forgiving of Katie Price?” He
shakes his head.
“Why are
you so inconsolably topless?” He waves me
away.
“You’re
going to ask about Morrissey,” he says,
before I admit that I have no memory of the man
having ever appeared on I’m a
Celebrity…
It’s a
monstrous blow to my professional standing. I
should’ve done A LOT more research, and Tom
knows it too, widening his eyes, flashing a shit-eating
grin, and twizzling the nipples across his
unbearably bare chest.
My editor
offers contrasting notes. “This hasn’t
been fleshed out enough,” he says, though
the corresponding image features, if anything,
TOO MUCH flesh? Your guess is as good as mine! He
also explains that 500 words (excluding title) is
the threshold between two pay grades. Fair enough,
I think, fair enough. Thank you for your time.
Let’s do this again, sometime. Thanks again.
Thanks.
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