silhouette film slices [part iii]

part of a series of punk monk propaganda stop motion films conceived by emma sanderson & myself for mischievous sex pop trio, fun machine. executed with a handful of similarly mad & talented punk monks, we handmade five of these suckers in seven days.

toxic: the very first of the hedonistic stop motion wave. this is where we cut our sharp teeth. a little more raw & crude than most of the series as we picked up the pace & skills along the way. we're still very fond of it, the song & band [of course].we LOVE LOVE LOVE the menstruation river, scarlet canal & dancing toxic tampon imagery... and no, you can't turn them into pearls girls.

this one by myself with emma sanderson, ky-lee menzies & craig bunker [bunkwaa].

silhouette film slice [part ii]

the above clip is part of a series of stop motion films conceived by emma sanderson & myself for wonderfully mischievous sex pop band, fun machine. executed with a handful of similarly mad & talented punk monks, we made five of these suckers in seven days.

this one by dave cheng with ky-lee menzies & me. by the far the more sophisticated of the group, ah te was the very last of the series as we went over deadline kicking, screaming and almost falling apart at the seams. by which time we'd really sharpened our claws with davey raising the bar just that little bit further.

silhouette film slices [part i]

look what us punk monks made for our beloved band, fun machine! 


part of a series of stop motion films conceived by emma sanderson & myself. executed with a handful of similarly mad & talented punk monks, we made five of these suckers in seven days. 

uncontainable in every way

what happens in the container stays in the container...

we [punk monk propaganda] had an art installation at sydney university as part of our verge festival presence this year [we also curated the opening party with major raiser]. the shipping containers were dumped on campus and we were fortunate enough to be granted one to play with for the duration of the fest.

paste-up container photo copyright: konsumterra

this is what the exterior of our container looked like thanks to much loved street artists konsumterra & boots who kindly sexed it up for us. inside was an entirely different matter and quite a separate conversation which will be pursued later. 

it all started when kate taylor started thinking in UV & i was channeling shamanistic temples. somehow by closing night we were at naked roller derby girls and paint. quite an obvious progression really. 

ky-lee menzies is not as innocent as she looks in any of the matters above. but this is a well earned beer. because unbeknownst to us by the end of the festival, all the paste-ups had to come down...

it took the punk monk chicks six hours collectively to scrape those suckers off. while i gadded about at my art exhibition opening they did the hard yards. i dropped by with buckets & grabbed a couple of peace-keeping snaps en route. the air was damp & heavy.

although these hotties manage to make the task look vaguely fun, it wasn't nearly as much as what happened the night before [see below]. and that's before we got under the lights.

a test cut of my little avant garde punk monk film G.L.O.W. will be projection bombed on the back streets of tortuga studios, st peters for in the night garden at sydney fringe festival this friday. 

it's a whole different POV of roller derby girls. uncontainable & unforgettable. 

now that we've escaped the threatened charges of public indecent exposure & the glue stains have worn off one thing is for certain: roller derby girls meet punk monk chicks are extremely good sorts/sports. at least the ones we play naked painted ladies with.

F is for fun machine. no WD40 required.

my weekend was filled with fun. fun machine to be precise.

i guess when you come from canberra you have to make your own fun. and they do. then promptly injected sydney with it in a direct frontal lobotomy strike. there is no escape. the machine cogs in motion, fun is awfully contagious.

feet tap irrepressibly, smiles expand faces & lighten eyes, arms stretch high up into the hazy rainbow sky. we all share a great cosmic joke together. crowd & band are lubricated as one. aaah, deja vu.

the outdoor winter crowd goes crazy & hop wildly from start to finish like mad tripping frogs. on the bumpy road nee much-loved carpet heated by the lifesaving crucifix-carved 10 gallon drum-fire fueled on gathered wood pallets, dancing torsos mash together emergency blanket style illuminated by to die-for lights.

bec, the sexy singing drummer gets lost in her furiously funked rhythmic vibe.

...leading chris & ramsey on a sequinned love vibe. hot pants, spandex and glitter glam are de rigeur. this is a tropical night for ACTsiders after all.

we've defrosted too. i stay till the end with my darling dry july peeps & later we skip off into the night without the need for an early morning kebab indulgence for a change. no excess alcohol to soak up. strangely good. skipping not staggering or slurring.

with buoyant energy we collectively build on the creative brief we traveled to the warehouse gig with before seeing fun machine live. although we love the EP, the band has surpassed our expectations. we're now engaged to the power of infinity. pretty much. we leave harbouring mini stage crushes.

punk monk propaganda will be heating things up even further when these fun[k]-filled foxes return to sydney for their EP launch on july 13. 

rumour has it that we're developing a projected visual stop motion narrative in the form of a film serialisation as well as projecting our poetic eye candy live on the night. we can't wait to see either. good god!


fun machine EP launch -- desert creatures
good god small club
55 liverpool street
chinatown
sydney
july 13, 2011

burning bridges

today a small handful of my drinking buddies ran the blackmores running festival's flagship event, the sunday telegraph body + soul bridge run [doesn't sponsorship make for un-succinct copy?]. in what became blistering conditions friends & flesh cats; ky, raen, & andrew with only extensive beer/wine/whisky arm training joined 33, 000 others & um, decided to subject our bodies to an altogether different kind of abuse. 9kms is an excellent cure-all hangover technique. i think it's called pain transference.

with firmly strapped feet, i joined them in the ultimate asthma attack impersonation to survive the completer finisher ranks on the harbour foreshore opposite the opera house after starting on the other side & running over the closed off sydney harbour bridge.

the crown in the jewel of the running races was the sydney marathon [42kms] which appeared to feature peeps of notably higher fitness calibre to ourselves with slightly more rounded training regimes. the marathon was taken out by winning kenyan runner julius seurei in a time of 2 hours, 17 minutes and seven seconds. that's um, 1km in 3.18 minutes... quite a lengthy sprint. as a reality check we ran 9kms in around an hour in a fast fashionably paced "yog", something between an uphill crawl/downhill jog [you saw it here first -- wait for it to go viral].

on completion, after subjecting the god-sent three minute angels to our toxic sweat [lucky them, apologies to your colleagues clare], & following the repeated beration by the woman in the corporate sunday tele tent who put seinfeld's soup nazi to shame taking pride of sausage sizzle catering to new hedonistic over-possesive heights: we did what had to be done when permanently denied the juice we desperately craved... we went & drank more beer. apparently there's a half marathon coming up. we do have our training to consider after all.

pix by punk monk michael prechtl

karma... karma... kammadhenu

boy george wasn't in sight on arrival at this newtown cultural club despite the fact that after his earlier prison stint this year he has been reported to be living off primarily organic asian based foods in an assault on former cocaine & other scintillating addictions. local rent boys have been much happier as a result.

however on leaving the hub of king st on saturday avo into this indo-aryan mecca, no staff were visible either which resulted in an ad hoc DIY approach which ended up working relatively well.

kammadhenu is not exactly fine dining but oozes no-frills authenticity. ky & i aren't terribly shy especially when famished. the magic "licensed" sign & spiced aromas had lured us in. noveaux mohammeds, we went directly to the mountain, grabbed menus & a sample of the extensive fine german beer selection in the fridge & proceeded to drink whilst perusing the menu.

the restaurant is a fusion of multiple asian cuisines: indian, sri lankan & malaysian. bee-lining to the curries we ordered dhal, mixed vegetable, steamed rice with an order of tandoori prawns which proved to be the beginning of what will undoubtedly be a long & illustrious love affair.

the prawns are definitely on the highly-vied-for list of best prawns in town across the cuisine style board. at 8.00AUD per entree, um, they have to be easily the best value. we're not in the CBD now dorothy. we immediately ordered more and once again delicately cut the odd remaining orange crustacean in half, each of us savouring the last possible morsel, a memory of the flavour dancing on our collective tongues. this is a dish that leaves all old maids for dead.

the curries were small but delicious & we're definitely coming back for more. there's dosai & roti to add to the experience base. already my stomach screams in withdrawal symptoms with a new found coveting love for tandoori prawns served on metal accompanied with bubbling bier drunk from a small metal cup. this addiction must be sated earlier rather than later. it might just be today.

je m'apelle jonathon livingston seagull

richard bach & i are old friends. at least metaphorically. i've read & journeyed with his literature since before i was old enough to understand the new age movement & the at times scariness of the self-help/awareness aisle at my fave bookshops. since childhood i've identified with jonathon livingston seagull as have millions of special others.

for the uninitiated, the book is a parable [or maybe more accurately a fable since jonathon is an outcast but actually a bird] of self-discovery, a story of life & homage to perfection of the soul. a quest for eternal beauty, knowledge & peace.

none of this comes without conflict & deep reflection before true realisation & transension is realised.

so... today i started french lessons with fantastic feisty femmes, kate, ky & heidi at alliance francaise in sydney. so concerned are we with self-improvement & the thirst for knowledge we were in the CBD chasing park rangers well before 09:00 in order to get to class in time. on a saturday morning.

what initially seemed like incredibly impressive application when we all turned up is that beyond learning francais & passively accessing dormant parts of our brain we would ultimately be involved in le tableau diving, wrestling & ball sports involving coordinated use of both hands and mind. on a saturday morning.

i may have a permanently limp wrist after head to head tackling kate in our competitive drive [we were on opposite teams] to nail the numbers armed with whiteboard markers. this may sound trite but our professeur is now partially terrified of physical class time integration. shades of bootcamp but with a much prettier accent & more ink. on a saturday morning.

still after branding me "le chou chou" ascension to knowledge seems almost assured. i just hope that the incurred injuries don't affect my flying technique. it is hard to soar like jonathon when stuck on rinse repeat mode doing incessant spirals above the deep blue sea.

climbing up walls

last night my rock climbing cherry was popped & splattered all over randomly 3D speckled walls at the bidding of friends ky & fee who organised a midweek adventure escape from our default social media paradigm. unsurprisingly this later became a total booze fest resulting in not so hip degenerative hashtag speak.

our small mixed merry group all lived to tell the tale, get horribly addicted & plan to make this a regular sojourn if anyone wants in. we will be found at the sydney indoor climbing gym sporting the latest in to-die-for ass-hugging stranger-danger harness wear.

beware my noveaux spiderwoman friend who is the queen of portable media but finds showers technological godsends. only in wales. the old version. that's plumley. fee plumley. license to climb [pictured above].