LUCAN INDUSTRIES UNLIMITED EXPOSED

This is a true story

May 2008

We arranged to meet at Mitcham Pub on Sunday at 2 PM. It was central for both of us and the time and date were the only one we could synchronize our meeting too.
He had said he had to meet me and explain everything to me within the next six weeks or he would never get the opportunity to do so again in the foreseeable future.
I arrived first and found a seat in the lounge near the entrance. I was to look for a person wearing a Lucan Tee Shirt.
A young man walked into the pub wearing a Lucan shirt and we acknowledged each other, he looked somewhat familiar, the nagging familiarity that you can’t pinpoint.
We found a seat after ordering beers. We sat opposite each other and after exchanging pleasantries, he pulled a card out of his wallet and held it under his palm as he slid it towards me.
He said in an apprehensive tone..

“Before you read this card, please bear in mind, that absolutely every single opinion and thought and comment I have ever shared with you in the last year is absolutely and categorically true and I stand by them all. And that I wanted to go for a beer with you 8 months ago”

I took the card and read it.

Fuck me sideways, how did he manage this?

I looked up and realised where I’d seen him before.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you” I said “Can I just add right here and now I think you are a fucking genius”

BACKTRACK……..May 2007

Like every one new to Red Bubble I was in awe of what the site offered and the realisation of my own potential and dormant skills. The first couple of months were basically stumbling around learning the uploads and what way the right and wrong way to do things. Though I was computer savvy the whole Web 2.0 experience was new. Red Bubble’s advertising blurb said “It was addictive” It was like that in those early days.
These were still the early days and many of the features that are available now were dreams back then, when I joined T Shirts were relatively new and Red Bubble was still predominately a photography site with leanings toward graphic designers.
In these early days I would look around the pages and marvel at some of the clever works, something I never really used the internet much for… before then it was purely for information retrieval. I hardly even used it at home. I noticed some people were very comfortable in their conversations and had found their niche on the site. It was a very friendly atmosphere of encouragement and support. It was during these ambles that I first noticed the artwork (read Tee shirt designs) of a profile only known as Lucan Industries.
The profile said nothing, its avatar was a clever and arty rework of the infamous 7th Earl of Lucan – Richard John Bingham, presumably on the run for murdering his children’s nanny and depending on what rumour you believed lived in Australia, New Zealand, China or was made Tiger shit several years ago. The artwork was theme based and dark and it was no secret he sold a lot of shirts. But it was person who hid behind this profile that grabbed my interest.
He (my assumption at the time) was quick witted and seemed to have an air of authority about his comments. If he posted a comment on your work and better still a complementary one, you knew you had a winner. He seemed to be on everybody’s watch list, he was possibly Red Bubble’s first pop star.

People feared him, many admired him, none knew he was.

June 2007

Red Bubble was in the throes of staging their first Tee Shirt design contest, the brief was to do an advertising design under the banner 100% Red Bubble. I thought I’d been around enough to give it a try. The prize was nominal but it was the challenge the drew me in.
It became apparent that the voting system was flawed and nepotism and familiarity taking most of the votes. One vote for a view, 2 votes for a comment, 3 votes for a favourite.
I wasn’t faring very well with my design of a boy blowing up a red balloon, with its refection in his eyes. I thought it was good but not many others did I didn’t receive a comment or a favourite.
After a week or so I decided to do what I’ve always done of my work – mock it. So i was the first to leave a comment on my own work. I wrote:

This is crap
What kind of person would draw a little boy vomiting blood?
totally inappropriate.

Much to my surprise i received my first real legit comment from none other than the man from Lucan:
aha ha. i’m helping your point count because your comment made me laugh and drool coffee down my clean shirt
This seemed to break the ice and more comments and favourites followed. When this slowed down and it was obvious I wasn’t even going to come within the top 20 (out of about 50) I posted about killing the boy if no one voted. This also got some reaction and it seemed there were people on Red Bubble who shared my slightly off kilter sense of humour.
In other ways I felt I was being accepted, the winner of the competition was in essence an advertisement for their own brand so I didn’t feel to disappointed.
More importantly the contest had brought me to the attention of Lucan .
I was in awe of his designs and how they were all done with a purpose, these weren’t just something thrown together in the study during commercial breaks, Lucan had themes and back stories, his art was dark and he had a way with skulls. But what I admired most was the concept. Cool to look at and cool in attitude. It was obvious he played a character and played it well. The arrogant public school boy who was over here against his will and could just tolerate the colonials. I thought he was actually portraying Lord Lucan, since that was how I had identified the character with the profile. This was obviously a clever man who guarded their privacy carefully. I couldn’t determine his age because his comments showed a good grasp on English history and a love of 60s television and movies but then he would admit to love of popular alternative music and artists. But never giving anything away about himself.
I tended to be myself now and not be shy in the comments I posted, I didn’t like to say the obvious things like: no shirt, wonderful et al.
If I thought something funny I would type it.
This seemed to endear me to others in Lucan’s fold such as sjem and it would lead to silly banter that would hijack a certain thread and go on regardless of what was uploaded.

July 2007

In July Lucan took it upon himself to gather the fledgling Tee Shirt community and start a contest of his own, something with a theme and independent of Red Bubble hierarchy.
Because he was Lucan he had everyone’s attention and excitement was high. At the time I thought Red Bubble was frightened of a mutiny of its oft ignored Tee Shirt section and the man responsible for Tee Shirts Onetonshadow intervened and brought forward a planned competition with the promise of prizes and exposure at a trendy clothes store. Lucan was cut off at the knees.
The contest was a great success and was won by sjem. Lucan didn’t enter the contest (as he hadn’t the 100% Red Bubble either) even though the theme In Praise of Shadows was right down his alley.
This event was to influence me in many ways. From this Lucan post I started my story Epic and the creature/alter ego Ruin whose only wish was to bring the art world apart via art riots. Something Lucan and Ruin had in common I just wasn’t aware of it at the time.

August – September 2007

By now Lucan had taken on the Richard John Bingham persona full time and he intimidated many a new member of Red Bubble.
Lucan’s character was one of the reasons I stayed on the Bubble his humour and attitude were pure entertainment, so to develop my writing and my love for parody I saw him as the perfect Hunter S Thompson substitute in a mock interview, because I knew he wouldn’t agree to one, so I just made one up.
Writing was only being introduced in it s own right back then so there were lots of areas to explore. I just can’t write soppy poetry or about the admiration of trees. It’s just not me.
I wrote, posted it and it was quite successful, most of all Lucan loved it and repaid me by incorporating one of my pictures into his designs and made to what is today still my favourite Tee Shirt.
By the end of the In Praise of Shadows I had formed a good relationship with sjem and was asked by Onetonshadow if I’d like to do a profile/interview for what back then was BubbleWrap . I was informed sjem had won and it would be timely.
I spend two weeks putting together questions and communicating backwards and forwards via email to bin the whole lot two days before and write another Gonzo piece. I sent this to Onetonshadow – who i will refer to as Ed from now on because of space- who asked if he could change the line “those arseholes at Red Bubble” to “those people at Red Bubble” because he didn’t know how safe his job was. “What a wanker” I thought.
I asked him why doesn’t he do profiles on Lucan Industries and he replied Lucan was a tricky character and was not very cooperative. Why didn’t that surprise me.
Next issue of Bubble Wrap had Lucan Industries as the highest selling artist on Red Bubble.
After the BubbleWrap interview with sjem I thought I’d try something a bit ambitious and asked Pilgrim for an interview (serious of course) It turned out to be very popular and Peter asked if I could continue to do other emerging artist’s profiles.

Around this time Lucan Industries had raised its profile more by releasing a Flash based web site that linked back to Red Bubble, the concept, attitude and myth were growing.
On the subject of myths, lurking in the wee hours (Melbourne) time there was also lurking a crazed writer, artist and insanely funny Russian based Englishman call Mr Khan.
I noticed the camaraderie between Lucan and Khan from what seemed a tentative start. This prompted people (including myself) to accuse Lucan that Mr Khan was an alter ego, this was ironic because around the same time I was constantly accused of being both Lucan AND Khan myself.
When it become obvious that Khan and Lucan were separate in identity and time zones I realised they were friends from their youth and when Lucan wrote a piece reminiscing about their school days I could picture both he and Khan reading On the Road, Fear and loathing in Las Vegas & Clockwork Orange highlighting the good parts and adding them to a To Do List while planning to organize a bloody coup of their boarding school.

Oh the conspiracy theories of the bored and the internet bound.

Red Bubble got bigger, Lucan got more popular and he got more disillusioned with the site.
By now we were communicating via email, and though he was as entertaining as he was on the site he never dropped his guard or let his identify slip. I did however – in an exercise of internet security – trace his web address to his home, but when I revealed it, he was surprised but still revealed nothing, I of course was on the wrong track. I didn’t know it wasn’t him.

Sept 2007 Jan 2008

Lucan’s work dropped off somewhat and his presence was notable by his absence, a whole new group of tee Shirt designers were coming to the Bubble amongst them scores of British kids as the world wide web was discovering RB.
Then out of nowhere he six designs in two days, it was like a Lucan revival. In an arena where time moves fast and today’s champion is forgotten tomorrow, it was an avalanche of quality work, but it didn’t take long before he started to publicly criticize Red Bubble for their lack of vision and the influx of photographers that were now swamping the site, once again he faded into the background.

Feb2008 – May 2008

In February I was finally given my own group to start after 6 weeks of application and waiting , it was the Parody, Satire & Lampoon Group and I had plans to use it as a club house for all those disillusioned with the current bitching and moaning that had infected Red Bubble because of it quick growth and personality conflicts. Lucan reluctantly joined and for a short time I thought he was almost enjoying himself. By now with the exception of the pre Christmas rush of shirts, he had stopped designing, he constantly changed his profile name on a weekly basis to weird and obscure references and historical figures. He still sold Tee Shirts. At one stage wrote a journal ranting about why do we have to tolerate so much mediocrity (his greatest enemy) and used modern day movie actors as example. People (including me) told him to shut up and if he wanted to fight the wave of uninspired work do more himself. He basically told everyone to “fuck off” and went to ground.
Then in April he offered something, proved he was still on top of his game and no match for the pretenders battering for his crown. It was almost as if the last journal rant inspired him to go beyond the horizon.
Lucan (still using various pseudonyms) released three hand stenciled handmade shirts then transferred then onto the Red Bubble template so they could be available as printed Tees. Social commentary at its finest, wonderful satire on those we think important titled Noblesse Oblique with scathing prints of Lindsey Lohan, Paris Hilton and Posh Beckham.
He posted me one of the original handmade designs for my daughter, a precious gift.
It was after this time he requested we meet. We had half heartedly tried before Christmas but I knew it was too short of notice and I had a full calendar of commitments. This time it was different it had to be in the next six weeks or never.
He had still refused to change his name back to Lucan Industries and refused to be referred to as anyone but an anonymous internet user.

The character was being killed off.

May 2008

The moment I looked at the name on the card , it was like a waterfall of “that’s explains so many things” that one name tied up so many loose ends even emails we sent.
I remember asking “what do you do for a living?”
He replied “In a morgue”
I knew he wasn’t lying, he just meant it metaphorically.
I had come so close to stumbling onto his identity but never even realised how many times or how close but he was too clever.
We talked and talked and every new sentence would contain another revelation.

After an hour and a half I felt so exhilarated at what I knew that it seems to be just a blink.
We both had plans for the night and said our farewells,

when he excused himself and went to the toilet , I went through his bag and stole his wallet and car keys and fled through the public bar…....cunt how dare he play me like that?

Here ends Part the first – the identity of Lucan may be revealed in part the second which will be tacked onto the bottom of this piece sometime soon, so keep an eyeball peeled.
I WILL NOT BE POSTING A NEW PIECE.

^{Doctored Steadman drawing from Rutland Weekend Television Book by Eric Idle}
PART TWO – The Rape of * A.R.S.E

June 2008

With this knowledge I was able to talk more freely about situations that had happened and the actual possibility of doing something together. There were others who were privy to this secret – a select few – and I was made aware of whom they were. This led to two incidents that can now be revealed for the first time.

One was the attempted break in to Red Bubble, we didn’t we had keys and yes we did change the baby’s nappie on Peter’s desk.

The other was the total nuking of the Parody, satire and Lampoon group which had morphed in A.R.S.E thanks to Mister Khan’s input.

One of things no one in the group ever knew was it was always meant to be sabotaged, it was an experiment in social engineering, a joke. I always intended to build it up making it a kind of a club house with my Red Bubble mates and having silly competitions and when I got sick of it lay it all to waste and walk away.
Two things happened along the way. I didn’t realise how popular it would become and how many people would form an attachment with the Group. The other was the amount of people who were joining and dumping their unfunny and inappropriate art, writing and photography in it.

If it wasn’t for the second I think the first would have stopped my hand. In the end it wasn’t my hand that decimated the Group. I gave that honour to Lucan as a going away present. The irony of the “rape of *A.R,S.E” as i like to refer to it was that I missed the whole episode and came in at the very end to find a smoldering mess and a lot of very confused and angry BMails on my profile.
As I back tracked it was obvious Lucan did a sterling job, pity only a handful saw the humour in it.

This just made people turn viciously on Lucan who found the whole thing a great joke and taunted his critics mercilessly.

I could without fear of contradiction say I had nothing to do with the Groups destruction and that I missed the whole show, this was purely coincidental and I dearly wished I had witnessed it.

IT didn’t matter what people thought or their reactions Lucan left the planet the next day and disappeared completely off Red Bubble.

PART THREE- WHO,WHERE & WHY
Coming one day.

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