It’s hard to believe it’s been more than three decades since the release of Gary Numan‘s The Pleasure Principle, the electronic-pop masterpiece that spawned massive hit single “Cars,” one of the defining tracks of the new-wave era. (The song has since been covered and sampled numerous times and been used in countless commercials, movies, TV shows, video games, etc.) To celebrate the highly influential album making in into the Billboard top 20 in 1980 and the recent multi-disc, 30th-anniversary reissue, Numan just kicked off a three-week U.S. tour that features him playing The Pleasure Principle in its entirety, along with songs from his entire career as well as tracks from forthcoming album Splinter. Numan will also be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our Q&A with him.
Numan: I have just endured another long haul flight across the Atlantic, and it strikes me that “enduring” is not something that we should expect when even the cheapest seats cost the passenger in the region of $900. I know I could probably get them cheaper by going to ImASmartArse.com, but I’m a mere mortal who goes to the airline and simply buys a ticket. And so they cost me around $900 return, on school holidays. The seats are too small, uncomfortable in the extreme and so close together that I get a face full of dandruff every time the person in front reclines backwards the tiny amount we are allowed to recline. It’s really not very nice. Recently I was on a plane to Hong Kong and their seats didn’t recline—the bum part slid forward! What kind of Gestapo-loving moron thought that was a good idea? Bent double in an excruciating wrestling manoeuvre is no way to fly. However, what annoys me most is the food. Not many people who fly on airliners are gourmets. So what I would like to see on a flight is food that everybody likes. Things like fries, burgers, hot dogs, pizzas. Shit that is bad for you but would, nonetheless, help us to endure what we have to endure. But, in a seemingly bizarre attempt to make us feel as though first class is just a glance away, we are given culinary options that sound like something Gordon Ramsey would be too incompetent to conjure up. As though the head chef from the Ritz was moonlighting and happened to throw a little something together in case the Queen should be aboard. And yet what arrives, in a plastic bowl with a metal foil lid, is just another pile of gunk with gravy that tastes like poo. Why the pretence? You cannot make quality food en masse that is then reheated in an aircraft microwave and served in plastic. Save some money, make the tickets cheaper, and give me a hot dog. And don’t give me hummus; give me some vanilla ice cream. Who doesn’t like ice cream? The time before last, aware of the problem that would undoubtably unfold soon after take off, I made myself some delicious salmon sandwiches before leaving home. When said sandwiches were unveiled and consumed during the meal serving part of the flight, the man in front, him with the dandruff no less, complained that I had fishy breath. Unbelievable. I politely offered to stick his steamed lemon-basted trout on a bed of sweet parsnip and truffle pate up his arse.
Video after the jump.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gORS1S25oDM
