fullhouse over flush

nestled behind trees above the peak hour flush of pitt street's traffic in the heart of sydney's CBD lies hidden the fullhouse. a fusion restaurant serving up korean & japanese food, it's a delightful and cheap way of food fixing whilst enjoying a sapporo as errant suits pile into the arthouse hotel opposite. i can actually afford to eat here...

injecting a nano dash of chill into ubiquitous city stress; it's a secret one stop shop for putting an agoraphobic panic attack on ice, separating the chaff below from the miso flavoured wheat & offering filtered voyeurism with complete oriental back alley escape in a precinct filled with way too much personality free starch & highly lacquered shine. you won't find it in the well beaten SMH good food guided track anytime soon, which is why it's so good.

fleshed out photo menu AND it's fully licensed! what's not to love?

私はとてもよくある。 ありがとう。

fullhouse fusion restaurant

level 1, 238 pitt st

sydney

free thinkers are dangerous

"i disapprove of what you say, but i will defend to the death your right to say it." -- voltaire

the patricide phoenix - a post-modern fable

this is the tool [sample only] that jack [and his wife jill] bought.

now here's johnny... with quite a different plan on the application of said torture instrument [she's a tree-lover after all and doesn't mind the driveway a little overgrown]. yes daddy, it can undoubtedly be used for a variety of purposes, i agree. if the giant jagged teeth cut through wood so easily surely they can manage flesh & bone? there's so much space out here.

finally our positions are reversed & the shoes have swapped feet. you're smaller now. you wear size 10 and a half gumboots from bunnings which you self-assuredly state will fit most men. i disagree but don't push it. i've been here before. you leave them behind on the porch: today & yesterday overlap once more. johnny's physical footprint is not so large but her sense of shelved vengeance fills out the smallest glass slipper enough to make the fairest prince shirk & shrink violet-like. some can guess, no-one really knows.

montage images see you screaming over a young defiant girl with steel capped boots smashing in her ribs as they break like falling dominoes beneath the clothes line where you caught her as she ran hoping to avoid another beating for daring to question her father's authority. you cannot control her spirited mind. unlike her mother, she is not here to serve you or any other men. one day this will seem ironic & then disappointingly cliché. her library of books which you burnt tell her so.

you caught her not long after you violently shook the locked door from the other side with your fists. she quietly slipped her gangly form out the bathroom window but you heard the bushes fall away as she fell & bludgeoned down her path as her long lithe legs began to run. she learnt to run fast young.

you roared in triumph as you brought her down. initially she fought back with flailing fists half your size then failing, curled into the smallest ball while the freshly washed linen spun wildly on the groaning circular metal hoist in the southland sun above. the amityville neighours were far.

occasionally she cries out like the yelping dog with confused eyes you treated similarly then remember with fond words as his tail slunk beneath his rear legs with reticent memory returns with hope at mealtimes. she stifles the noise because she doesn't want to give you the same satisfaction. she watches you hitting her in slow motion; your face screwed red in angry folds, eyes unfocused, arms pummeling. sometimes you beat her when she's asleep. or when she's pretending to be. still johnny does not slink.

your uncontrolled words in harsh vehement breaths delivered like a fast acing downward serve with topspin which she laughed at & double dared you to as rebellion irrevocably courses through her veins [remember the bottles she smashed over her own head to show she still had life left when you tried to pulverise it out of her with your fists?].

i now own your misdirected quote "you will be the next victim of patricide" [you perpetrating idiot] which you yelled standing over her with whatever weapon of choice you had on each given day. none so fine as my new implement photographed on this shop floor. this is the longest time we've spent together for fifteen years. i have extra teeth. your wife looks nervous as i pull out my phone & snap it smiling softly before handing it to you to take to the counter. just pop it on your credit card.

shame you became such a mediocre old man overshadowed by your own selective senility clinging onto the bureaucracy you once reviled & represented against with that shoulder chipped frustration. there can be no joy in the killing. in scientific mode i study you for what seems to be the longest time & reluctantly realise it's over. go back to hedge trimming & whinging about your tennis injuries, your fading tan and the weather whilst somewhere else invisible wounds are licked.

my hands remain unwashed. breath deep for an altogether different reason washed over by the expired salty taste of anti-climax mixed with the forgiving bush breeze. it will shield my secrets if i ask. lizzie borden is slowly released back into the light grey sky & the cumulus above takes on axe & serrated saw shapes before conveniently dissipating into the fluffy indiscernible. nothing to see here.

environmental evangelism

after the prep was done we soak up the sights & sounds as the rest of us photograph/film us doing so. friday night. the red rattler theatre. the lurkers meets punk monk propaganda meets emma davis. shoot for the moon album launch.

the paper crane filled wishing tree lures dryads to its fold where clare & alex's hand-printed eucalyptus leaves are filled & tied with our collective dreams onto its waving silver boughs. our zines are used then stashed. the banjo guides a score of dancing toe-tapping pirates through a hedonistic chorus of "aaarrrrrr". 200 peeps get interactive in the sexy saturated pink of many hues.

perhaps environmental evangelism makes some friends after all.

[pix by punk monks: alex, clare & me].

don't believe the media

eighteenth century playright carlo goldoni said something to the effect of, that in order to create real characters for theatre audiences it was vital to avoid the complete truth. noone believes it. truth & credibility are not equal.

a shift in modern media credibility first received widespread documentation in the 70s with various years polled in the new york post, NBC and CBS -- these were under the scope primarily because in that era they were the dominant news forces enjoying certain elitism & the largest international audiences.

post vietnam, the general populace voiced criticism of not only the status quo but about being fed questionable politically driven material which primarily served the government agenda. when the war was lost, the people began to ask questions.

since 1985 when 55% of people thought newspapers & broadcasters still maintained some believability the erosion has been exponential... now it is at 29% based on recent statistics [ref: pew 2008 - see below].

these days the gap between what are considered the three primary feeds of news: newspaper, television & online news decreases sharply but is increasingly politicized. the value of online media sources is on a slow upward surge thanks to the aggressive spread of social digital media networks in conjuction with increased access & use of the internet, despite a proliferation of low signal to noise issues with infotainment sites targeted towards varying generations/demographs.

in 2008 the benchmarking bi-ennial news consumption survey from the pew research center for the people & the press determined "virtually every news organization or program has seen its credibility marks decline”.

the public however continues to express skepticism re: all sources of media including online with over 25% believing news to be inaccurate & often biased. in the last ten years almost every news organisation or program has seen its credibility in decline.

key news audiences now blend online and traditional sources in an alchemic equation. but online sources as stand-alones still do not fare so well with google news & yahoo news [which source the same content pool as their traditional predecessors] receiving a consistently high positive response well above others. the drudge report & huffington post deserve mention but pale like wall-flowered bridesmaids behind their glitzier SE brides.

in a world where nothing should be assumed & everything should be questioned & checked over as propaganda is everywhere/everything -- this is a beautiful thing. when the people start to think then the cattle cullers' power diminishes and perhaps then we can exact real change & share knowledge as opposed to much regurgitated misinformation.

in lurker love

eco-terrorism & guerrilla experimental filmmaking are a match made in heaven. this friday [23.10.2009] this collusionary force can be witnessed at the red rattler when punk monk propaganda put our hat into the ring to support activist art for the album launch [shoot to the moon] & copenhagen climate change send-off for lovely local band, the lurkers.

the subversive folk trio recently provided some award nominating banjo sounds for our 48 hour film project film "hybristo honeymooners", on friday we'll all win as they come together with vox, guitar, double bass & banjo in a fine bluegrass fusion of pure uplifting satire.

in support of their cause we've curated a collection of sustainable sumptuous cinema where beauty meets dream state meets reality. our handmade punk monk and kino friends cine zine [glue still drying] outlines the thirteen films which will play tonight [starting 19:00 sharp].

punk monk lurker love cine:

into the woods - dir: dermot mcguire 04:11

siren - dir: anna slowciazek & rosie catalano 01:13

one day, this kid - dir: matt ravier 04:24

the sleeper - dir: kate taylor 05:27

recycling… save the earth! - dir: jack feldstein 00:37

happiness - dir: marianne alla 03:46

3am mosquito - dir: victoria waghorn 12:57

the adventures of catz - dir: dan simmonds 04:18

ex oblivione - dir: jack feldstein 05:05

sakura no onna - dir: stevie dunstan 04:07

chick addict - dir: victoria waghorn 02:00

sadness breakfast tea - dir: angela bishop 03:43

i look through transparent things [and i feel OK] - dir: matt ravier 04:24

get the zine in your envelope at the door with other goodies we've created just for you including a magic printed eucalyptus leaf to write your aspirations for the conference to hang on our papier-mâché wishing tree installation which will hang for the night before accompanying the lurkers to the climate change conference as a mission statement of what sydney wants to happen.

look. listen. speak. act [in chillax mode]. FTW.

[apologies for weird formatting issues - blame blogger]

the honeymoon is over

so my nihilistic perspective on weddings, marriage & femme fatales hit a couple of sore spots in the last few days. it still hurts when i press them.

it all started with the awards night for the punk monk 48HR film project "hybristo honeymoon" i literally broke my back on & ended with the dissolution/disillusion of the marriage of two of my best friends after almost two decades together.

in the beginning of the end some punk monks rocked up to the awards screening at the paddington RSL on friday night with great anticipation having been advised that we'd been nominated for at least one award but not aware which category/ies. there was much nervous anticipation in the air which we quickly tempered with red wine en masse [as you/we do] & witty banter about farm machinery in the hopes of a nomination in the category "best use of a prop". we had a bunch of inappropriate suggestions for additions...

with a couple of nominations in categories [best music, best sound] we walked away with two awards in the end [best sound & most lame director = most extraordinary team]. huge congratulations to our small hardworking cast/crew on set [ky, mischa, felix, michael, andrew, davey & my much luscious muse cat] for the incredible effort, energy and shared vision, raen & kate behind the scenes & to dermot, michael, felix & mischa for sticking it out to the end in post production mode.

mike's super sound design got us over the line & mithra with the lurkers enigmatic banjo sounds fueled from my deliverance dueling banjo obsession/original story inspiration combined with dan's [from meatpig] captivating accordion got us a large percentage of the way there.

it was quite satisfying to feel partially responsible for the honorable minister's [virgina judge] lipsticked nose throughout the night after i went in for the stage pash following obligatory congratulatory handshake. KINO regular, aidan corrigan's crowd pleasing mockumentary "living with EES" won best film. big electrifying clap for his team.

we were a little disappointed with the structure of the awards & felt sorry that some of the other films apart from ours which displayed excellence in particular fields didn't even make the finalist nominations. it does demonstrate that there is no accounting for taste & film festival competition judging is an entirely subjective & political process. our film was always going to be borderline risqué, so we were ecstatic to get the recognition we did in a fairly conservative forum.

apparently "we're all winners", so now it's time for us to harvest the film & send it out to see if anyone else responds positively to our wicked weekend jaunt in the woods. with 50% of marriages ending in divorce, honeymooners often don't last forever. we just managed to dispense with ours a little quicker than most. now we need to see if we can prop it up posthumously long after the wedding cake has been happily consumed. if we can manage a seventeen year long festival life perhaps that's a significant #lovePASS not #FAIL after all.

[photos by punk monk dave cheng]

one greenish bottle...

left hanging on the wall.

one mysterious night last week i went out with two of my very dearest. there should be other photos here besides me loitering against this wall but sadly the photographic evidence which includes them cannot be posted on this blog because of traceability. they are afraid.

you see after that evening a one-off food poisoning-like plague occurred: there was a wave of sick days & late meetings which kicked in. paranoia set in & suddenly people are terrified of being either satirised by me or their work colleagues. or worse [if that can be imagined].

these days the internet is one big stalker factory & as we know is being used for a plethora of purposes. there's a trade-off between anonymity & publicity. not everyone are blatant media whores like myself with almost zero care factor. how much information is too much & once it's online should it be for everyone to use for whatever purpose they desire? will it come back to haunt you/me? ID fraud, vegetarian loving cannibals, an unlikely connection to the manson family, or mafia run organ harvesting could see me hijacked any second [just don't touch the liver or spine].

maybe someone searching for "monk porn" [my current SEO strategy] has already substituted my clothing with monastic robes in photoshop & is masturbating to this image of me now [in my wildest dreams], or keyword coding it so that this blog will come back to haunt me if i ever seek USA presidency or other... lucky i don't have a real job i can be fired from.

so yes. it was just me that got drunk & i actually drank water for half the night so managed to ward off the threatened 03:00 am karaoke club stint: "all by myself, i wanna be all by myself..."

monk [photoshopped] porn.

cocaine...

the only cool thing about it is this song.

[you were already interesting]

something for dermot

it made my day too.

use this as inspiration tonight.

special food groups

just who is supposed to eat this?

lunar industries letdown

'

something about: was i the only person on the planet who didn't fall desperately in love with moon & planned to? the wedding invitations had already been sent out before i hit the cinema dammit. district 9, you remain uncontested in my mind no matter how unfashionable my view as top film dog for the year [i will wait for you]. but still we have three months to go...

i was planning on writing something intelligent immersed in devil's advocate mode about the derivative yet overall disappointing nature of moon, although on the whole the positive outweighed the negative, but then i went out for lunch today & drank...

boxes ticked:

duncan jones: incredible first feature direction. the considered exploration into what is the human condition was heroic to the max without the cheesiness of some soft drink to pimp. we won't even bring up space oddity. the minatures, the minatures... kudos bill pearson [well what do you expect when you bring in the alien model sugar daddy from hell?] and also thanks for the non-reliance on all things CGI.

sam rockwell : yes in your designer made role you shone. congratulations, you sold me. nice work with what was essentially a 100 minute monologue.

bang for buck: awesome result for 5 million USD spend. nothing short of outstanding. production value: let me cum on my own tits. BTW. that's the highest possible accolade. the studio creation of that grimy unforgiving alien yet realistically human world of physical & mental corrosion was simply monk porn.

trudy styler -- the producer? those famous family connections certainly did not hurt, and why should they?

blank boxes:

is it alien. is sam ripley? or is it an unreleased cut of 2001... love a bit of homage love but could we please have something more original? this could easily have come from the cutting room floor of kubrick's studio which is high praise indeed but in the end it reads like a single B side. yes the retro vibe is fuck off cool but it was the first time round also. if you're going to borrow could you at least add or improve? please. even if you only have 5 million dollars.

the story: i'm sorry -- i got bored. i just thought that the issues which were broached could have been dealt with in a more interesting way. i dig clones too. it's not an incessant need to supplant that with bells & whistle aliens or apes whacking obelisks but i don't know... frugal austerity is nice. like oak. i fell asleep. there i said it. the last time i did that which i recall was independence day. in my mind a far inferior film with a squillion times more budget [so it's certainly not all bad].

ultimately it was a believable mysterious cold indifferent world outside & in. the film worked especially for a flatlining vacation accompaniment. it's just that i felt i'd already seen it before. perhaps the planned epilogue will redeem phase one? perhaps jones will come back to earth.

think i'm turning japanese

disclaimer: it's me not you. the primary reason there isn't the usual amount of succulent imagery of my free lunch record is not because the food at kobe jones is anything short of a visual kaleidescope in colour & texture.

currently i'm in default mode wielding my N95 phone in camera position number one & although i stubbornly love it dearly in the face of an iPhone pandemic it has certain DOF inadequacies. depth of field for the uninitiated. yep. read: the photos mainly look like shit. NOKIA are yet to build a macro function let alone a manual focus.

enough of technical difficulties which plague the very core of my being & back to the food...

in another of those east meets west traditions maybe where mr kobe married miss jones, IDK, the restaurant combines californian & japanese influences into a palatable mecca of mayonnaise meets wasabi. we're all too familiar in the one stop shop version at the local sushi train but when grazing at king st wharf one is guaranteed of a cut or two above the generic coloured plate vendor.

everything ticked the boxes without smashing them to oblivion although the crowd pleaser had to be the "get off on our rocks" [and oh how i did] where in a variation of the teppen yaki tradition seafood was ordered & brought out to the table then cooked on a piping hot block of stone. just add a cube of butter and stir...

as she skilfully manipulated the fish atop the granite, charlotte advised us that the stones are oven bound for the entire day in preparation stacked in piles at 300 degrees centograde waiting for their moment to be unleashed on to the hungry mob. and there was... the restaurant was full. our scallops, salmon & cubes of tuna ultimately seared to supreme excellence.

if i'd been wearing pants at this stage i would've undone my belt & continued but sadly my karen millen dress zip was most unforgiving so um, there was literally no room left for dessert, only a very straight back & tiny breaths. if only i'd brought a corset. i blame the mushroom medley tobanyaki which threw a selection of exotic mushrooms into an oven baked dish with cream... dear god, yes. HT to ron mann.

still the scattered oyster shooters in sake, perfectly salted edamame & sushi platter were also excellent. in an ideal world i'd want more spice with that but perfection is all evasive & subjective isn't it? sitting out looking through the mysterious opaque view of the wharf filtered through blowing transparent blinds, it's hard to imagine that it's that far out of reach.

postering the town red

a big bird freshly escaped from sesame street and onto king told me to hit newtown after some punk monks launched a postering campaign this week.

with my completely whack NOKIA N95 in hand due to the absence of my beloved canon 40D [whilst it faces repairs in north ryde: groan], i decided to follow yet another trail for the week when i was almost birds versus humans'd out already... still our psycho eco peacock is much less malevolent than its other dinosauroid-like friends.

like the yellow brick road this taped trail does lead to oz but ours is "born in the doorway" at marrickville's the factory theatre where punk monk propaganda experiential installation artists headline with hailer in a trippy kinda gig spawned from our ALGAE RHYTHM intermedia series designed to blow your mind while you're probing one cerebral cortex, namely yours, with a gun barrel. we're going to change the way you experience live music. live art. live, live, LIVE. that's this saturday the 17th. mark your diary. now.

say hi if you see us poster running on a street near you. mostly we don't bite [unless you want us too], but we may take you home & make you play with us.

guerrillas in ad [hoc]whoredom

take one crate of #birdsvshumans meets #5seeds of apples & a mini pod of fruit lovin' punk monks & you get an awesome cheesy ad whoredom photo opp.

eve reclaims milton's paradise lost

..or how a bunch of savvy marketeers plagiarised the creation myth & rebirthed a bad apple & womanhood in a more glowing light [for the love of commerical units].

call her eve, diana, snow white or whatever but since time incarnate we've been fed legends of chicks chasing apples to their detriment & often humanity's. seems a couple of ad agencies decided to reinvent the wheel & created a post-apocalyptic world where the skies are ruled by born-again feathered serpents where light & balance are restored to redesign a dilmunlike paradise. as a bad ass femme i'd argue that it's a shame the feral had to be a man but behind every good one is apparently one fallen eve [total babe that she is].





today the second delivery wave occured in the intermedia marketing campaign which was publically revealed through the complete usurpment of media channels by lion nathan's campaign for their toohey's extra dry cider brand : 5 seeds.

this was punctuated by a teaser TVC on sunday night as holler had hinted with me last week when punk monk followed the trail of crumbs back to the acclaimed digital agency's base... and what are holler particularly acclaimed for? yes, they are the award winning recently retained kids responsible for a plethora of lion nathan brands. deduction combined with a few well placed phone calls led us to believe at the corner shop that a new line of alcohol was about to be launched. fellow culture jammer dave carter earned his cigar when he repeated my earlier steps to come to the same conclusion.

utilising social media parameters with backends firmly entrenched in applications such as facebook, twitter & youtube the outline of this possible world was skilfully executed whilst the hub was generated through realtime treasure hunts. to the degree that holler sydney have temporarily shunned their main website & placed their address in FB realtorverse. all outside media shepherded to FB.

when asking the agency about the choices involved when viewing the culminated strategy, i questioned exactly the demograph 5 seeds was aiming for: with 50-60 year olds comprising the fastest user growth group on facebook this cider isn't just as i originally presumed for the young ones. old adopters are reversing trends to become new ones as they become increasingly wired for sound/sight. this concurs with social media apps such as FB allowing customised profile privacy options: perhaps it's nana that doesn't want you to see her salacious pix not vice versa.

as gen Y increasingly abandons mass ubiquitous use of facebook, myspace & deride twitter as being irrelevant or old in search for the next application flavor, these vehicles become increasingly specialised. click-thrus as currency still ring true in the viral environment where online behavioral trends are only as good as your last project. it's apparent that holler's widely cast net through arguably influential media, music & cultural blogs deigned to catch a vast spectrum of a thirsty target market.

if you saw a giant apple in sydney sometime recently [ended last week], yes it was a marketing ploy just like those spammed santa claus's standing on street corners with their incessant red fabriced waves. only instead of randomly spotting father christmas these concealed apples were revealed through a series of tantalising clues drip-fed through social media vehicles: twitter & facebook. find an apple, keep the doctor away, win a prize. we all know that game.

as account manager matt kendall said today when i spoke to him once more this ensured that by the time the more interactive component integrating bloggers/zine meisters around sydney came into place they weren't playing to an empty room. just don't believe the hype because there's a sequel... the eggs don't hatch, the birds are CGI. but btw. kudos to the awesome after effects. shades of blizzard.net in zerg swarms/meets diablo's act 3 flesh hungry locust swarms.

cut to a cleverly connected youtube CYOA [choose your own adventure] model the campaign takes on an extra dimension where participants can have a limited interactive experience in the world where birds rule the sky & humans lie feral at the bottom of the feeding cycle. happy to say i made it through the twists & turns much to punk monk's felix & michael's chagrin [obviously you eat the eggs]... still the feed the ferals game had me... um, stumped. this is supposed to be R18 years not months right?

back to the youtube strategy: augmented reality games implementing some sense of interactivity are a trend which appear to be here to stay as the traditional linear marketing approach employed for aeons becomes increasingly redundant and consumers become more demanding. check out the grand prix advertising winner at this year's cannes ad awards. a transmedia experiment with over 10 million participants over 75 countries:

TV is dead. long live the web. long live the tangible. concurrently. we view our content now on other channels at a higher rate than the television. disposable heroes of hipoprisy rapped about its brain denuding qualities 2 decades ago. intelligent audiences will not be passively fed to. we want to be involved. the thorazine shuffle is not the beat of the dance we choose to groove to. especially not in eden.