Kinko’s Kinkiest – Guy 7U? Interview

Apparently they don’t serve up German Blood Sausages on the menu too often, in the coastal nooks and crannies just below Sydney. Not that this has in any way stunted the growth, or wearied the smile of remix rascal & one of cut and pastries finest : Guy / 7U?.

Hows a boy in a beach-suburb south of Sydney end up on the UK’s ‘musically absurd’ V/VM label?
My love affair with v/vm was long and drawn out like an eternal flame. I met him during the T.I.N.A festival a couple of years back after sending him packages for a few years – he let a whole mess of us sleep on the floor of his lush hotel room for the weekend. The Dual Plover fellas put on a show for him in Sydney at which they were kind enough to give me a support slot where I was ‘discovered’ so to speak.

What’s the cannibal scene like south of Syd?
The cannibalisation of popular culture or the eating of human flesh..?? I guess they go hand in hand really, both are healthy in my opinion but always remember vegetarians taste better.

What do you like about your Rank Sinatra album, CHAIRMAN OF THE BORED?
The pure emotion I have poured into these timeless classics. Some may think I’m taking the piss, but it really is from the heart, I think, or hope that comes across on the album.

Some of your favourite Rank Sinatra lyrics?
The line from “never tear us”, a track I did with null object – ”if i hurt you I’ve had far too many beers”

What attracts you to poultry?
As a child I kept all manner of poultry,back in the old country,Goulburn. And I guess the birds have gone but the sentiment remains, you just can’t keep a good bird down. See my sy:co offshoot label Goulburn Poultry Fanciers Society, the name in itself is appropriated so it’s rather fitting for the label.

What’s been happening in System-Corrupt-ville?
its ridiculous just how much is going on at the moment. Highlights in the coming months include, Toecutters debut album, Maladroit’s new 12″, the second GPFS comp and Rainbow Crucifiction our annual christian trance party.

What weird things have u got in the mail lately, and where can people send you more?
I love snail mail it holds a special place in my heart along with a lot of other redundant technology. I recently received the most incredible mail I’ve ever received, a 70’s McDonalds instructional manual for the Ronalds they used to have imprisoned in every store – its a strict guide to applying Ronald’s costume and make up with lines such as “The fact that he is a corporate spokesman should not overshadow his “clownness””, the Ronalds are free today but the memory remains. people can send expressions of weirdness to po box R420 royal exchange 1225 nsw australia and I will usually send back a package of miscellaneous debris.

Weirdest webpages ou’ve come across?
Google “hats of meat” – hands down fashions finest moment.

Web-plugs for your various guises?
www.systemcorrupt.com in the artists section under Goulburn Poultry Fanciers Society, 777? and Rank Sinatra
www.victimedemode.com tshirts and other tomfoolery
http://brainwashed.com/vvm/indexsubmenu1.htm v/vms test records

Wassup with the new act – DJ Rainbow Ejaculation & when’s the next show?
Some new material I’m working on, unrelenting arse pumping gabber, I’m surprised I wasn’t booked for mardi gras, no sydney shows as yet but keep your eyes peeled.

P.L.U.R
77something

by Sean Healy, April 20, 2004 0 comments

Am I a Hoax Or Not (.com) ?

How would u like it if I stick you in a jar half the size of u, glued ur ass to it and fed you thru tubes for the rest of ur life and use u for souvenirs? Thanks to a one-time profiling of the infamous ‘Bonsai Kittens(.com)‘, my inbox enjoys regular, almost weekly propositions from such clever cats. Given the diversity of this internet thing obviously makes it difficult to trust, forcing people to weigh up differing opinions, even make up their own minds, here’s a quick tour of duty through hoaxville.

www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net
This gets first mention because it’s the URL i find myself cutting and pasting for people most at the moment. Like many hoax sites the integrity and passion of the author can often overwhelm the reader, club them into a corner with statistics and convincingly persuade them to transform their ideas and beliefs. Thing is, unfortunately this site doesn’t seem like a hoax – it has a convincing range of supporting evidence – and remains provocative whether it’s overall premise is accurate or not. In fact, it makes the rest below seem like deckside amusements on the titanic. Organised into a succinct 5 page argument with embedded links, this one’ll be hard for you to forget. But first…

People Who Fall For Hoaxes (& Email me )
You can read more of such comments on the old way backmachine archive of my bonsai kitten piece ( bonsai kitten vs chunk 666 ), but here’s a sample of souls tortured for lack of access to a better list of hoax de-bunkers ( or a search engine, bless their weary fingers). Errors included to emphasise the passion and pain felt during writing:

“I’m so speechless it is so tasteless! omigod! u losers! piss off from the little defendless kittens!”

“Would you like us to shove you in bottles, you dirty ingrates?! Think about that. If you dont stop shoving kittens into bottles, i’ll find you and shove you into a bottle! ”

“Wot do u see wen u look in da mirror? when u introduce urself do u like da sound of ur name? hav u made ur mother proud? do u feel satisfied wen u look bk on ur life? i seriously think dat if u wud reply positively to ne of these questions, then u shud be shot. u r da sick twisted scum of the earth.”

“U no what soon there gonna start doin this to other animals like dogs and maybe even human babies. If i ever come across one of u guyz i would fuckin torture u till u fuckin died b cuz this is cruel and u wouldn’t like it if u were one of those animals. I hope all u guyz go to fuckin jail for the rest of ur lives and get fed thru a tube. U no what im gonna become a cop and do that just to u guyz b cuz thats what ur doin to them u FUCKLIN ASS HOLES!!!!”

“God made cats they way they are for a reson and it is wrong just to we shape the how would u like it if we shaped. you bonsai kitten hates are ass holes and and fuckers and all u bonsai kitten hates can go to hall and u guys are every word in the dook.”

“This is just sick. Even tho it is protrayed as a joke the faintest idea of bottling a cat to shape it is sick. You have no idea the kind of mutilation you are doing to cats. There is no reason a cat should be put in a bottle and be forced to grow into some abstract shape causing health problems and sever damage. Anyone who supports this in any way is beond sick, to sick for words.”

“Even tho it is protrayed as a joke the faintest idea of bottling a cat to shape it is sick. You have no idea the kind of mutilation you are doing to cats. There is no reason a cat should be put in a bottle and be forced to grow into some abstract shape causing health problems and sever damage. Anyone who supports this in any way is beond sick, to sick for words”

& Then there are the kitty-hoax aware who post comments such as :
“Thought you might like to know about how to make kitty milkshakes – detailed instructions here…. dare you not to click….
http://images.cavakillaz.com/PTK.htm ” – Cat Milkshake Maker

The Museum of Hoaxes
www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoaxsites.html
Here’s a site to end the pain of many kitten lovers, as well as those in doubt about whether the poor Nigerian businessman who needs a helping hand is in fact sincerely offering you a special deal in return for helping his innocent self and family. A few other hoax sites seem hoaxes themselves, mere database shells hoping to snare a few straying surfers such as skepticalskoundrels.com, which delivered the following Search Results for: bonsai kitten
” 1. EBay.com – Save Money and Buy Bonsai Kitten On Ebay! ”

www.urbanlegends.com is another comprehensively catalogued hoax debunker, however it’s search function doesn’t work and you have to sift through manually. Very large collection though. On the topic, the duckbilled platypus was originally deemed a hoax by scientists of the time, and although proven otherwise, it may well become one again given current numbers.

by Sean Healy, April 20, 2004 0 comments

Jester’s Planet

‘Sound fonts’ would be familiar to the musically inclined as a way of downloading new sounds to your soundcard. In a reader’s world though, ‘sound fonts’ are a way of embedding strange accents and unusual voices into text and stories. For example – the slightly nasal & hyperactively high pitched voice of this Rumpelstiltskin interview. To get a bit closer still, with this most comically perplexing medieval travelling jester, maybe try reading while standing on your head, inside a washing machine or hanging from a hills hoist.

rumpel
What’s been happening in Rumpelstiltskin World lately?
I’ve just come back from doing a 3 week solo indoor tent show called…’Higgledy Piggledy’,at the Adelaide Fringe Festival. I got 2 really good reviews from the main music street press magazines which was uplifting by crikey!

When did you realise you were meant to be a jester?
I guess i was a bit of a goose most of my upbringing. Always getting things muddled up,also being a bit of an introverted classroom clown & also travelling around to & fro like a bit of a wildcard helped pave the way for me to follow the path of jesterdom. I guess it just came naturally & thought if there is any clown character I feel akin to, it’s definately the role of the jester. I certainly feel at home with the essence of the fool. My earliest performing memories would of course be just playing around as a child,when the play world was so vivid that I didn’t even need a real audience. My imagination would just let my toys enjoy watching me. My first epic jestering marathon stint was at the Byron Bay Music & Arts Festival in 1994 (I did an 11 hour show). In 1995, i did a 10 hour show & in 1996, a 16 hour show.

How many countries have u performed in now?
I’ve now performed in 31 countries & travelled to 58. So far my faves would be Poland, Slovenia, England, would like to do more of Ireland, Portugal, Spain, sometimes Belgium, Holland, Scotland, Australia, Switzerland & Austria, had a good time in Greece.It’s really hard to say sometimes as I like them in different ways for different reasons.

Which countries respect buskers the most?
That can be a tricky question to answer as well…because some countries pay buskers better, but doesn’t always mean they enjoy them more than poorer countries do. Usually northern European & Germanic countries have more money than Southern/Mediterranean or Eastern European countries but with warmer countries, people tend to really show their appreciation in a more open way… at times.

Your longest ever continuous performance?
24 hours nonstop was my longest by jingles. I was the last act one night of the Renegade show at the European Juggling Convention in the Netherlands in the No Fit State Circus Tent (Welsh Circus Tent)… & they had to delay the Renegade show the following night so I could do the full 24 hour show. Don’t think it will be easy to do that again. The circus tent was full for the last 2 hours & I certainly got a surprise ovation after everyone counted 10 down to 1(whilst the clock ticked round til the last tick to make the full day on stage for the kangaroo fool).

And the secret of your stamina?
I don’t know. Just keep going! I didn’t even have one puff of a skinny racing horse one puff screamer which is a little ironic since i was in Holland. I guess it was just still having an audience for the whole way. I did eat… but not really that much.

A superhero you’d like to have a unicycling juggling duel with?
Either Mr Magoo,Daffy Duck,Gonzo or Catweasel? Oops!None of them are superheros. What about Roger
Ramjet?Does he qualify? Ok! I’ll make it easy! The riddler. Maybe it should be a question match with instead?

What singer would would suit your unique voice in a duet?
Probably almost certainly it would have to be Tiny Tim?

Rumpel_plans for 2004?
I’m just about to embark on a 3 week solo indoor comedy show…’Scrambled Eggs’ at the Melbourne Comedy which will be in the Pony Club 68-70 Lt Collins St Melbourne. March 25th til April the 18th. It’s a semi-autobiograophical, wildcard journey show which is also an extraordinary visual & aural extravaganza. Includes slide show of photo’s & drawings & video projection, toys galore, musical toys, silly music & surprises.

by Sean Healy, April 20, 2004 0 comments

Microcinema, Zen TV & Illegal Art

Seen recently in Melbourne: an almost ferocious flock of pigeons completely covering a boy who in turn was completely art prank covered in bread-crumbs and wearing these weird Japtech googles that gave off the tiniest flickerings of light. No idea what he was watching, but here’s a few other options for your eyeballs.

www.microcinema.com
– Has probably one of the largest DVD libraries of short and experimental films in the world, where you can browse and then order unusual bits like ‘Tales of Mere Existence’ by Lev ( see www.ingredientx.com ), which has Lev dry-narrating his way through a series of daily blunderings, ponderings and brutally honest reflections on his ability to meet women and assimilate into society. All of this is illustrated literally, by filmed live drawings ( by Lev who is a comic artist ) on tracing paper of the characters and events involved. Lazily lo-fi but on the money anyway.

On another bent, the Films of Brent Simon compile a gorgeously shot collection of abstract yet evocative shorts – gentle xylophonics guiding silhouetted camera edits, a narrated remembrance about the ‘girl who would do anything’ and high school hard-ons, experiments with multiple voices, on-screen ‘windows’ and high-speed photo copy outputs. There’s hundreds of such films to browse through, so the microcinema compilations might be a good place to start.

Zen TV
A DVD retrospective of Ninja Tune videos has seemed inevitable given their emphasis on the visual as well as audio, and now that it’s finally arrived, they’ve amassed quite a body of work to choose from. And so the DVD delivers thirty something tracks such as Coldcut & Hexstatic’s infamous ‘Timber’ chop-up of greenpeace footage, a range of Funky Porcini gems, the Sesame Street & Pointer Sisters Pinball Number Count cut-up by DJ Food, the home-made colours of Neoptropic & plenty of other animations, clips & AV collages. All up tis a tasty mix, with an exclusive 60 minute audio mix and an extended Hexstatic Video mash-up – though the Hex boys recent live av ‘party set’ in oz seemed a bit flat & jukeboxy.

illegal-art.org
“Borrowing from another artwork–as jazz musicians did in the 1930s and Looney Tunes illustrators did in 1940s–will now land you in court. If the current copyright laws had been in effect back in the day, whole genres such as collage, hiphop, and Pop Art might have never have existed. The irony here couldn’t be more stark. Rooted in the U.S. Constitution, copyright was originally intended to facilitate the exchange of ideas but is now being used to stifle it.” – illegal-art.org

Compiled from an exhibition showcasing a range of creative approaches to copyright, this is quite a cool DVD showcasing a madcap collection of ‘art and ideas on the legal fringes of intellectual property’. Pieces range from Brian Boyce ‘State of the Union teletubby remix’, a bizarre ‘Barbie Audition’ where a narrator tries to get his way with an auditioning Barbie, to a Tim Maloney & Negativland look at Disney characters – apparently featuring much footage made after hours by a Disney worker. The highlight for me though, was Todd Hayne’s grainy retelling of Karen Carpenter’s battle with fame and anoxeria, and eventual death – all re-enacted in 70s film colours by stopmotion barbies. Also exhibited, but missing from the DVD and worth catching if you can, are Craig Baldwin’s “Tribulation 99: Alien Anomalies Under America” – a skewed history of United States intervention in Latin America and a satire on conspiracy thinking, and “Iraq Campaign 1991” – a phenomenal collage by video artist Phil Patiris who cleverly & powerfully transforms network news footage, clips from Star Trek, and sports coverage into a ‘critique of the media/industrial complex’. Check the site for more info, as well as many related articles and audio downloads.

Links Of the Week:
www.archive.org
Massive library of freely available online audio and video, as used by artists such as People Like Us and Cold Cut. And you can also upload your own works there ( free web storage anyone? ).

http://alternatives.toddverbeek.com
Showcasing alternatives to All Microsoft Products, by someone with an obvious bee in their bonnet about Microsoft’s prices, privacy compromises and quality.

by Sean Healy, April 20, 2004 0 comments

Diss(ect)ing Online Comics

Smell can influence reproductive behaviour in 3 ways – as an initiator ( pheromones signalling availability ), or as a primer or terminator of another’s reproductive processes. As our noses adapt from wafting the flicked pages of second-hand books to browsing digital deliveries, here’s a few online comic makers still trying to kick up a stink.

Cloudy Definitions
Anyone curious about visual arts / visual storytelling, has probably come across Scott McCloud’s classic ‘Understanding Comics’ – an amazing investigation into visual meaning and play, with it’s explorations of sequenced visual art being especially relevant to multimedia. The spawned sequel ‘Reinventing Comics’ isn’t as revelatory, but is well worth a library borrow for it’s examination of the creative potential of online publishing, as well as it’s distribution, economic prospects. Scott also maintains a great comic site, with continued musings, daily improvisations, and many links. A micropayment advocate, you can also buy his latest graphic novella for 25 cents ( using the bitpass.com payment system) at www.scottmccloud.com. What’s to like about Scott though, is he really bugs the question –

Whatz a comic?
Words, pictures, storytelling, art-in-sequence, each comic maker has their own mantra. Now that many artists and audiences are gradually shifting online, the whole visual storytelling ballpark has changed dramatically. Some artists still pretend they are designing for a static and finite sized print page, even though the web medium ain’t like that. Quite a few are wrestling with the new dynamics though, and trying to figure out what works and what doesn’t.

Aussie Comic Wrestlers
There’s a veritable army of boundary stretching Aussie comic makers such as Lachlan Conn, Mandy Ord, Tim Danko, Michael Fikaris, Kieran Mangan & many many more, exhibiting their inkiness soon in Melbourne at Early Space, 201 Smith St, Collingwood ( 6pm Feb 20th). For those who can’t make the show, www.silentyarmy.com has links to the works of many of the artists involved.

More Meta
Other worthy online comic overview linkpages include www.belfry.com/comics – which lists 1350 regularly updated comics in a nice quick-loading easy access frontpage, , www.onlinecomics.net and www.lambiek.net/home.htm – the exhaustive webpage for the famous Amsterdam comic-shop Lambiek. Global Comic Jam exploits the multi-threaded and co-authoring possibilities of online comic making, allowing you to not only read other comics, but actively participate in shaping them – www.globalcomicjam.com. Jenny Everywhere goes a step further – being an open source character that anybody is free to use – www.queergranny.com/jennyeverywhere, kinda like the anonymous authoring ‘Luther Blissett’ pen name commonly used online.

Networked Comics
Other comic-makers harnessing the network include : www.slowwave.com – a collective dream diary authored by different people from around the world, and drawn as a comic strip by Jesse Reklaw, and Most Emailed – a daily comic strip improvised around Yahoo’s top three most emailed photos of the day.

Audiophiles
Of course, web pages can easily contain sound, and while many comic artists prefer to call this animation, some are starting to include ‘listening tracks’ to set an atmosphere while you navigate their comic. Egg Sample? Kean Soo at www.keaner.net, with a melanocholic personal story mirrored by the sounds of the late Elliot Smith. Reminds me of an old comic I saw once where each comic artist was asked to interpret their favourite indie-rock song as a one page comic – which produced some inventive and evocative results.

More Browser Benders
Try the gorgeous www.allow-to-infuse.com & www.eiland.cc, or maybe www.nowheregirl.com, http://fortthunder.org, www.paperrad.org, www.kuildoosh.com – abstract visual storytelling.. www.fark.com – funny photoshop contests that use the web cleverly, www.e-sheep.com – so many fine web-bendables here, www.nowheregirl.com & http://gruntle.org/blog – a phonecam blog, txt_thru the right words at the same time alongside foto-snapz & u gotza another comic medium.

by Sean Healy, February 20, 2004 0 comments