Having to carry the guilt of this curse around on my shoulders has left me withered and scared. I have become a house hermit, living on the dole and trying my very best to become an intelligent and worthwhile citizen.

So, low and behold i have gathered up four books of intense prose and brilliance, in the hope that perhaps the aura of radical will sufficiently slide onto me, meaning i can be birthed back into the world on a rainbow of cool.. fucking hardcore cool.

SRS x

Look what you have done to me Tauranga. You fat fuck head.

x

My mums dedicated obsession to unusual authors and to her entrepreneurial baby, “Natural Healing by means of Crystals with Shazz”, is something that has always irked me.  This irritation spreads like a rash whenever i  find her tip toeing around my room, planting little saphire surprises (for help with friendship). Yet I have always put her unique habits and hobbies down to her seemingly innocent Whitianga upbringing. However, my doors of perception were ripped open last week, when a photo dislodged itself from a copy of ‘The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test’, which i had just found, jammed in a box at the back of wardrobe. The photo showed mum and dad standing in a well tended garden of cactus. Thousands, upon thousands of mini Peyote were growing everywhere, situated in what looked suspiciously like a shrine to the sun-gods. The photo was dated 1987. The year i was born.

Considering i now knew i was the product of Tie-dye wearing acid head hippies, and because it is so Radical-Chic to lust after the expansion of our conciseness through mind altering substances; i felt it was only acceptable that i should read the book. Not only to discover the mind set of those who had raised me, but also in the vain hope that i too, would experience some of my own super insane revelations.

Wolfe’s work of experimental literary journalism, ‘The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test’ , documented the alternative psychedelic period of the 1960’s and 70’s. The story of hysterical realism follows the infamous author Ken Kessey and his posse of Merry Pranksters as they fuck off around America on their highlighter bus “Further”;  searching for self- revelations and spiritual oneness. All with the help of a little white powder. Instant Zen/Infinity/Bart Simpsons/ Barrels, or just plain ole LSD. The group begin in Perry Lane, and continue around the country, hosting a fuck load of Acid Tests with a bunch of their friends and followers; the Hell’s Angels, The Grateful Dead, Kerouac, Ginsberg and of course our dear friend Cassady.

Known to be one of the best beat generation books, The Acid Test will light up your  dull life  and will leave you dreaming of a world where everyone snorts lysergic acid diethylamide.

P.S

Psychedelic revelations were a no show, but i did discover a curious love of heavy drinking and reading,

The only thing cooler than having a lifetime ban from Grumpy Mole in Tauranga, is having your new music video banned on youtube.

I can’t say anything new and interesting about Gavras’ current video for M.I.A. Everything has been said.  Even the most banal comments from the most generic people continue to intensify the hype factor, ever so effectively.

Romain Gavras was also the Director of  ’Stress’ (Justice’s video).  So, I wasn’t at all surprised to see another fucked up, far out and entertaining cinematic vignette by the guy.

M.I.A is now back in action.

Born Free

x

We’re going to be giving a weekly commentary of what we’re getting up to in Melbourne.

Please enjoy our first installment.

The above  images were taken from Sammy’s bedroom.  One day, while walking home from our studio space, we met the guy that actually lives in the house.  Sammy whipped out the dictaphone and we began to secretly interview him, from his porch.

The guy’s name is Leo and this is what he had to say.

Before you start reading, please expel any negativity that you have and put forth all of your love and wisdom in to our beautiful universe.

Ciao. x

Who is Carrie?

My ex-girlfriend.

Did you graffiti your own house?

Nah, nah, no way. This guy called Toby did. He actually tagged my fucking house when I was working in Sydney for the weekend.

Is Toby your friend?

He was.  I also used to do posters for his band. He seemed like a regular lad until he started sleeping with my girlfriend every time I went interstate.  That was so often as well. So, yeah…They were thrashing every week for about three months.

Can we go into this, or is this a touchy subject?

I’ve never really talked about it. The whole ordeal really fucked with my zen.

None of my friends liked her anyway. So, who else is there to talk to about it?

Why didn’t your friends like her? Clearly Carrie bakes delicious cakes.

Well actually her cakes are shit, she’s vegan and only uses weird things like carob. My friends didn’t like her because she was deaf.

Your friends sound like douche bags.

Sometimes….but it was a language barrier thing, nothing too personal.

So where are Toby and Carrie now?

Toby is in a pretty well established Australian band and Carrie just lives with him…I don’t know exactly where they live because I don’t particularly care.  I sometimes pretend they’re in another universe.  Where they live an unpleasant existence.  You know, like something of the Planet of the Apes style.

Is Carrie a fan of Toby’s music?

What the Fuck? I meant deaf  like a fruit bat, as in chats with her fingers. Stares at your lips and wears plastic junk behind her ears.  That sort of deaf.

Why haven’t you got the tag removed?

I keep on asking my landlord, but my landlord is Toby’s dad. Can you believe that?

Leo begins to delve in to the ways of the universe.  We begin to struggle getting any more answers out of him, regarding the tag on his house.  Sammy, eventually begins to get the creeps and takes off home for a glass of her security wine.   Mon returns home an hour later, feeling spiritually enlightened and excited about the renewal of her soul.

I know a premium chap and I call him Cam.  Dreadfully close to forever ago, Cam sent me a link to some man’s website.  The website coordinator-man, is dubbed Justin Blyth.

I quickly became infatuated with what I saw. I continued to stare, scour and sift through all of Justin’s images. Ultimately, I began to delightfully salivate over them. It was usually at Uni and all over their communal keyboards. The only thing cooler than spreading germs to verminophobic Asian students are Justin’s cool page headers.

Please allow me to trail off from my current topic here.  I saw my first Henri Matisse painting when I was seven.  At that age, I learned that most art came with a title or a name.  So, I pointed to a Matisse of a lady, reading a book and asked my father what the picture was called.  ‘Reading Woman’ he replied.  I thought, what the fuck?  I was completely shocked with the idea that something so highly regarded and intricate, could be introduced with such standard and obvious words. I found a beautiful contradiction in that.  Seventeen years later, I still look at art.  Though, not before I have read the written gist.  This for me, is where the initial impression lies.  It’s like a little, lyrical entrée to my ocular feast.

The headers that you will find on Them Thangs are quirky, weird and badass. Overall they are exciting and I love them.

Monsieur Blyth is a talented graphic designer and art director. When looking at his website, it becomes clear that he has a trained eye for quality.  Here is a link one may follow, if they wish to view his personal portfolio. This is a very cool site too. Very impressive. Very original. Very inspiring.

http://jblyth.com/

After about a month of exploring Justin’s website, I decided to find his email address and ask him if he were willing to do an interview for FULS.  We had created a ‘choose or die’ style interview for him. For us, ‘choose or die’ is the least freaky way to approach an interview subject.  I received a same day reply and Justin asked me to email our questions to him. He also revealed that his father was from New Zealand and because of this, we would receive his ‘full Kiwi love’.  After my little heart melted, I sent him through the questions.  Five months later and still no ‘Kiwi love’.  In retrospect, the questions were pretty, fucking weird.

If you like Justin’s stuff and then show some slender interest in reading a Mon/Sammy styled interview of him. We will totally re-email him, with re-written questions.

In the meantime, enjoy his remarkable pool of images (Dan, you seem to be on a bit of a visual frenzy.  If you haven’t looked at this site before…I think it will suit you).

As Cam so kindly did for me, I also would like to introduce you to Them Thangs by Justin Blyth.

http://www.them-thangs.com

P.S Merci Cam.

Not only is it lovely to eat in-season food and sip on Yealands wine (eco-alcohol) but it’s also rather delightful to wear in-season clothes. Here is a mean and green clothing brand (Sosume) that’s doing it’s part in providing us with a green-option when it comes to looking beautiful on our fading planet. Could these kids be any more au courant! It’s so cool that they care, right? 

Twenty-two more trips to the Farmers’ Market and I think I can afford something eco-OK, this summer!

Sosume Clothing

Sosume's high quality and 100% organic clothing. Dreamy.

chaos-harmony-dilemma

Introducing our favourite boy of the moment, Tim Chapman. Tim is an exceptional Artist.

We decided to shake things up for this new interview. So, after much deliberation on how to conduct a new method in asking questions, we decided to get to know Tim Chapman by asking him to participate (unknowingly) in a popular psychiatric test.

Rorschach (Ink blots) is a popular method to decipher a person and their mental mind state.

Because Tim is a visual creative, we thought this test would be far too easy for him to sit and way too hard for us to “professionally” analyse.

Instead, we opted for the Word Association test. We looked up Dr Jung’s top 100 test words and they were all shitty. In the end we decided not to plagiarise Dr Jung’s dumb list.

We gave Tim eight of our own words, he answered back and then we analysed his answers.

In a crazy creative frenzy, we totally DaVinci decoded Tim! He’s amazing. Enjoy!

Mon & Sam say: INCOGNITO

Tim says: “Ray Bans“

Here’s an excellent example of symbolism, when it comes to figuring out Tim Chapman. In decoding Tim’s answer, we believe he may be subconsciously referring to the life and times of Bob Dylan. Mr Dylan sucked on a Motorbike so much that he crashed in to a tree back in 1966. History suggests that Dylan was dressed in his Ray Ban Wayfarers and a white T-shirt, on the evening of his accident. Speaking of t-shirts, one of Tim’s images feature on a T-shirt for the Kiwi, clothing brand, Thank Goodness. One half of Thanks Goodness is Ruben Bryant, who is also the owner of Good As Gold in Wellington. It was at Good As Gold, that Tim had an exhibition titled “Party on a Motorbike” and a Bob Dylan look-alike crashed the party.

Mon &Sam say: T-PAIN

Tim says: “Hater”

T-pain sings a song featuring Kanye West called Flight School. Judging by one of T-Pain’s previous songs (Buy U A Drank), it is shamefully obvious that T-pain didn’t embark on any sort of schooling experience (let a alone a fucking flight school). Anyway, because T-pain is a hater, he didn’t pass Kindergarten, then he couldn’t get his required marks for gangster-school. Thus making T-Pain a self-taught, rap-artist. Get this, the brilliant Tim Chapman received a rejection letter (we’re not making this up) from the art school he had applied for. Tim was so determined to nurture his artistic abilities that he got himself a nearby studio and attended the lectures on campus anyway. Tim is a self taught artist!

Mon & Sam say: JAPANESE FOOD

Tim says: “Digestive Delight“

This shows that Tim is fond of Japanese food and alliteration. Here we go. Dunedin-Don is a digestive delight that delivers diverse dishes . That’s just an extension of his alliteration for the letter ‘d‘. We have come to believe that Tim is originally from Dunedin. Yes, he grew up on a farm there.

Mon & Sam say: ANDROID

Tim says: “Rooks Knife Trick (alien movie)”

What an answer! For Tim to remember the knife trick (from the Sci-fi film, Alien) means that he is a bold and dangerous guy *swoon*. However, we wonder if he may be a slight racist towards Androids, because Bishop (the Android who did the knife trick in the movie) copped some serious flack from Ripley (a prejudice human woman AKA Sigourney Weaver). Anyway, in the end they kind of fell in love. Maybe, Tim would one day feel inclined to date an android, fall in love with it, adopt alien children and live dangerously in space…That would be rad! Last year, Mr Chapman displayed his work in Sydney, at The Monster Children Gallery. His exhibition was called “Be Rad“. It was a huge success. We didn’t see any knife tricks but we saw a girl open a beer bottle with her teeth. Apparently she was some sort of crazy, kick-ass android named Dareb (which is also the name of an Imperial Pilot in another Sci-Fi film called, Star Wars). Dareb is also Be Rad backwards. Holy shit!

Mon & Sam say: UPPER THIGH

Tim says: “Black eye“

Please excuse us as for getting a bit indolent here. Tim refers to the colour “black” and we know a place called “Black Box”. Black Box (a fashion store) in Auckland (Surrey Crescent) held an opening for some of Tim’s recent work. The Exhibition was titled Snake Pit. That was some easy decoding! Oh, the exhibition was amazing and the party was lovely. Check this out!

http://www.frontrowdiary.com/party-people/58

Mon & Sam Say: WHIZ-BANG

Tim Says: “Altona”

Altona is only about 8km away from the Melbourne CBD. It’s also a place in Germany, which is the home of Mercedes Benz. Tim is currently preparing for his next show which, is in Melbourne. After that he plans to move back to New York. OK, New York is nowhere near Germany or Melbourne but within New York there is a place called Altona and that’s in Clinton County. Clinton County was named in honour of a guy called George Clinton (two US Presidents partly share the same name). George Bush was President after Bill Clinton. Bush has a wife called Laura Bush and Laura attended Mercedes Benz Fashion Week in New York and turned up to two of the shows in Bryant Park. Last year, Tim lived in New York for two months.

Mon & Sam say: LA POLICIA

Tim says : “Espanol Police“

OK, so he’s some sort of Spanish speaking fugitive.

Mon & Sam Say: COFFEE

Tim says: “daily”

Caffeine is great, especially if you’re moving to the “city that never sleeps”. Well, we already figured out that Tim is moving to New York and he obviously drinks coffee daily. So, we put his answer “Daily” in to an anagram generator (we needed the extra-decoding help) and we got “Lydia“. Mon has a Grandma named Lydia, she was born in Madrid. She’s a Spanish speaking fugitive like Tim!