We’d planned to speak to Pedro at a better location, but George was horrendously drunk and equally dressed, making it hard to get in to anywhere for a trendy interview with one of this city’s trendy photographers.

Pedro is giving his ‘coffee’ the evil eye, waiting for it to flinch, while George harasses the waitress, demanding a dozen eggs and some milk.

It’s getting weird.

“So…” I interrupt “what kind of stuff are you working on at the moment?” it’s a stupid question, but Pedro is too distracted by his awful coffee.

He’s a fuzzy looking indie kid, immaculately dressed, with a gray cardigan hanging off one shoulder and a big, fucking camera hanging from the other – I’m so jealous of his edginess that I’m actually starting to hate him.

“This is possibly the worst coffee I’ve ever had. I’ve drunk from better looking gutters” Pedro is looking a little unsteady, the tattoo on his shutter finger shaking as he holds his ugly mug of piss.

At first, I take him to be a douche bag, another fashion wanker complaining about everything, but then I take a sip. I can’t actually remember the last time I had a coffee this bad. It’s terrible, like weak kava and foam… I suddenly lose all interest in Pedro’s photographic career and we discuss the awfulness of this shitty coffee for the next ten minutes.

At that point, George began to scream about his still-absent eggs and milk. Kicking his legs about like a misbehaving child, knocking utensils about and upsetting the late-night clientèle.

Pedro leans over the table and mutters “If you pay for this coffee, you’re a fucking idiot.”

So… we ran out of the restaurant and across Circular Quay, George’s angry yawping booming in the background.

…

Long story short?
The cafe folk called the police, George had to do a lot of running that night, Pedro and I got drunk.

Fuck interviews, here’s some of his work:

…

We missed the first band due to a nasty case of the drunks, but we caught the second band fellating the audience with their constant barrage of insincere compliments:

“You guys are great”
“Woo – you guys are hot”
“Yeah, we’re digging you guys”
“You guys are so great”
“Yeah guys, woo!”
“You guys are awesome”

A compliment or two does wonders for the ego, but a flood of fucking flattery just comes across as creepy. Like the overly-eager douche-bag that always seems to be at university parties, sucking-up to strangers and telling you about the bands he’s met.

…

Art Vs Science were the same band we saw play the same gig a few months back, playing mostly the same songs – but they were better in every fucking way. They were bigger, louder, smoother, more experimental and better dressed.

There’s been a lot of typical, tall-poppy bandwagon band-bagging when it comes to these guys… which I’m assuming is the collective moan of a thousand jaded musicians, but their gigs are fucking amazing.

They play original songs, but the crowd sings along as though it’s a covers band. They play shiny instruments, yet the crowd dances frantically as though it’s a DJ night. These guys have taken every bit of corroded brilliance from the Sydney scene and welded it together to form a shiny hotrod of noise.

And any question as to their musical skill or showmanship was pissed on at their last Oxford gig, when they lost their drummer for an hour mid-show and managed to keep the crowd screaming until the prodigal drummer returned. These guys know how to keep the audience wanting more – and I’m jealous of their charisma.

Anyway, we’d been denied a meet with the band, based on George’s poor correspondence with the management (all apologies Claire), so Rob was hanging around the side of the stage like a superbly dressed groupie, sliming his way back stage for some photos.

…

Armed with casually tipsy conviction and camera adorned with a US one dollar bill (for diffusing the flash – silly), Rob happily trod through the dressing room. The support bands were as dazzled as they were flattered when he pumped off a few courtesy shots in their direction and in a moment he was on the side of the stage.

Rob’s faltering balance convinced him to lean on a (non-existant) speaker stack behind the curtains, resulting in his gung-ho, rolling, flop-out onto the stage. After taking this opportunity to get a few close-ups of the band, Rob was promptly thrown not only from the stage, but from the venue.

Whilst we didn’t sight Rob again that evening, the morning revealed that his journey didn’t end immediately.

After purchasing a pastitsi, Rob teetered vulnerably across Taylor’s Square, through an alley-way, and directly into the fists of a large, popeye-built character. Without phone, money, keys and camera, Rob then ate his pastitsi in a hospital bed adjacent to a frail old lady whose terrified warbling created an apocalyptic ambiance for Rob’s lonely come-down.

Apparently Heart-monitors don’t do lullabys.

Caroline, a stout anti-abortionist draped in confronting, string-held signage,  stood outside the abortion clinic begging those who occasionally entered not to “trust the abortionists” and “save the child”. With her wincing eyes peering through her thick glasses her entire visage strangely reminded me of a cheap, plastic christmas tree crowned with a wrinkled newborn. Perhaps I wasn’t the least biased man for the job.

And then there was Steve, a thirty-something year old chap, whose dark rimmed eyes and disdainful glares indicated a come-down of some description.

The argument, whilst not deeply intellectual, seemed to be following the well-trodden rhetoric about ‘abortion being a holocaust’ and how Caroline was upsetting people in an already horrible position.

Caroline, swiftly running out of religious rants,  tumbled into violence and mentioned that if she owned a gun she could shoot Steve, who replied that Caroline would probably be leaving in an ambulance. Caroline pointed out that, unlike Steve, her mind “wasn’t addled with drugs,” she “knew evil when she saw it.”

Steve campily retorted that she was simply a religious nut, so Caroline mentioned that she wasn’t all that religious (between muttering Hail-Marys).

Despite his generally dull points, I was siding with Steve on the basic premise of the situation.
That was, before the discussion got strangely abusive and childish…

Caroline mentioned that she wasn’t as obsessed with sex as Steve and that he would kill babies to satiate his sex hunger. Steve responded, recommending that Caroline “Get a cock in [her] cunt”

Steve, seeming rather pleased with his water-tight argument, followed it with “You’re a fat fucking bitch with a smelly cunt”. A gleeful little grin on his face, as if she was his teacher and he’d gotten away with it, he began repeating the ugly phase loud.

I finally understood the sadness of Caroline, her stoic resolve allowed her only a wrinkled grimace, she had obviously sustained years-worth of similar abuse.

She slowly packed up her placards and trundled off. Steve, wrapped in his blanket of tirade seemed stupidly victorious.

And in my usual way, I was left morbidly confused. I believe people have the right to choose, a few abortions could have saved this country from leagues of stupid kids. I also believe in the civic right to argue with strangers and stand up for anything you believe in. Whether that’s gay marriage, killing babies or sporting a polo with the collar popped up.

But this country’s bumbling education system left me with one belief stronger than any, the one piece of wisdom I took to heart from my moustached deputy principle… You never, ever pick on the fat bewildered kid.

Maybe Steve was home-schooled.

Rob Scattergood.

[ME] were the first fresh-faced, snappy-dressed upstarts to take to the stage. Kicking off an epic set of engrossing noise, dressed like young scallywags who’d been scrubbed down for Sunday mass.

Their psychedelic sound is assumedly the culmination of Muse, Radiohead and Queen all ejaculating into a petri dish containing Grace Slick’s eggs. It’s beautiful brilliance, and if you haven’t heard it – you fucking should.

Then Le Kingste rambled out onto stage and spat a sticky sound scape of spoken word across the red walls of the Vanguard. The lead singer hypnotised the punters in 30 seconds, before detonating into an orchestral set of thick sounds, meaty wailing and quirky humour. Fuck their brilliance, I’m good at stuff too, fuck you… fuck.

Anyway, after witnessing these two acts shit on every ounce of scepticism I had left and whipping the crowd into retardation – I was feeling nervous for the next act. I couldn’t imagine two harder acts to follow – and I began to doubt the headline heroes.

But after armouring themselves with their battered instruments and swaggering on stage – the half drunk, languid looking rockers strummed about and proceeded to rip into a faultless set of perfect timing in a tide of talent. They looked more like a band than ever before as they throat fucked the audience with their restored unity.

It was a night smothered in beautiful noise, at a venue packed to the rafters with beautiful, edgy-looking kids – which left me feeling a little old and ugly. So I was thankful for Tokenview’s creepy manager, who consistently hovered behind me, stroking my ears and stalking the crowd with his sweaty rape glare. If it wasn’t for that spine-chilling bastard, I could have been the worst-dressed at that gorgeous venue.

Thank fuck for management.

George Bannister

The restaurant in question holds true to the noblest of all Thai restaurants in that it not only uses the word THAI in it’s title, but it also offers chopsticks – which reminds us daft Australians that we are eating authentic Asian food.

We were already a little too drunk to be of any acceptable accessory to the surrounding patrons, but we were there to try something new and the public would have to wait.

So, in the interest of trying something new – I had the Pad Thai and my dear friend Rob had the Pad Si yew. Both tasted unlike anything we hadn’t had before.

The beer, however, was something that bore an all too familiar comfort from our surrounds. And so, as with every other restaurant review – we fell head first into the booze… with more and more patrons heading out the door as our laughs gathered decibels.

And as the beer shot through James like a carbine through Crisco, he finally had a chance to review the amenities. Upon his stumbling return I inquired – “How are the bathrooms squire?” – to which he replied with a dipso grin “lemony fresh!”

Curious to his quirky answer, I made my own stumbles out to the back room, from whence he had come. I was immediately confused by the abundance of fridges and freezers in the bathroom corridor… And when I got to the end of the corridor, what I found was no toilet, nothing… just a back room with a rusty rolling door and a freshly watered lemon tree.

When the beers ran out – it was time to leave.. such is the one true downfall of a BYO restaurant – you must go elsewhere for more booze.

But, we thought that the final item worth checking was the service, of which we were far too drunk to properly review earlier in the piece.

So, we decided it would be in the best interest of an impartial review, if we put the waitresses dedication to the test. And without making a fuss, after thanking the chefs for a delicious meal, we walked right out the door.

We had barely made it 30 meters down the road before a young, Thai girl came chasing after us – chirping apologetically in an obnoxious octave. It seems we had forgotten to pay… Immediately this girl gains points for staying true to the golden rule of hospitality, in that her first inclination was that we were still somehow in the right.

However, this Crown Street eatery finishes on a fail, on account of it’s penultimate test. For as it is accepted that most established establishments accept Visa and any restaurant worth it’s bill will take your Mastercard and issue a meal in return – this pad-thai palace refused an offering that dates back before the garish gifts of gold… that time honored token – cock.

For as Rob dipped into his pants, seemingly searching for coins or cash, he returned with a fistful of treasures that the waitress was not prepared for – ALF.

Now, it is worth noting that ALF is the name of Rob’s cock (based largely on his slightly superfluous foreskin and poorly written one liners). But it is also worth noting that cock has had a life long history as currency. Female aristocrats in Roman times would often send a meaty cock to one another as an endowed endowment of thanks and sometimes even payment.

So you can imagine my absolute mortification when the waitress screamed and if you could only picture Rob’s horror when the waiting waitress laughed… There we were, stuck in an awkward moment, all three of us feeling terrible to be caught in such a member-induced mmbop…

A rare moment in life, where by I have no photographic memory of the event, I can barely remember the girl’s face or even what the weather was like that evening on Crown Street… But it’s as though I temporarily flew to the other side of the street and drew a quick, mental sketch of the altercation… A screaming Thai girl, a photographer with no camera and a writer with his cock out. Like a Friday night at the Murdochs’.

James Bloodworth

I finished the Kokoda track two weeks ago.

People have become too blasé about that trek. And while it’s sad that those Aussies died last week, it requires the odd death here and there to keep to concept of adventure alive.

Imagine if it was an easy walk to the top of Everest? Or a downhill ski to the South Pole?

And while I feel sorry for those who lost friends and family last week, we should remember that to die doing something we love is the best we can hope for.

However, I also feel really sad for the people who died – as those poor bastards will never get to appreciate the awkward pleasure that is shitting on a nest of angry bees.

…………

It was some time between midnight and sunrise, and I was somewhere between Port Moresby and Kokoda, in the middle of an overbearing jungle. There were several things attributing to my discomfort, and the first was Spam – the salted snout-and-trotters in a can variety, not unwanted emails about penis pills.

Number two was green Staminaide powder. When two people this year had already died on the track from a thing called hyponatremia (a lack of electrolytes) – suddenly sports drinks become a vital necessity for the first time in their existence and not just for pouring onto football coaches after winning a game.

Number three, was the gastronomic combination of discomforts one and number two. I had eaten nothing but spam, vita-weets and pasta for the last 5 days, I had drunk water of dubious quality from dubious jungle streams, and mixed sugary, salty green powder into most of it.

I sat up in my tent clutching my guts moaning “AARRUGG” sounding like Schwarzenegger before he could handle modern English. My stomach cramps had gotten to the point of actually waking me up, and I had to shit so badly it felt like I had 34 angry platupie all trying to escape the confines of my colon.

We city kids have absolutely no idea of discomfort. We think that public transport after a few beers is uncomfortable. We think a run in with your ex while you’re with your current… is uncomfortable. Even the majority of theatre chairs can be classed as fucking uncomfortable – But I’m afraid not. That’s fucking pleasant by comparison to that bloody fucking track.

But back to the poo at hand…

First, a description of a Kokoda long-drop, for I’m guessing most of you haven’t crapped in anything like this before: Imagine if you will, a square-ish pit, about 1.5meters by 1.5meters, and about 3 meters deep. Filled about halfway up with molten feces and a few blowflies for good measure. Across the top of this pit are a series of thin trees, lashed together with vines to make a mostly sturdy lid. And in the middle of this lid, is a hole to the delights below, about the size of an A4 sheet of paper. Much to the horror of my sister, that’s literally it. You bust a squat over that hole and pray for solids.

At each camp-site (aka, rare flat bit of ground) along the track there are usually 2 of these long drops. I’d encountered them while setting up my tent that afternoon, and both prospects were somewhat alarming. Crapper A had appeared normal; however a fellow trekker had advised me that whilst squatting earlier, he heard a crack and his left foot had dropped about 3 inches into one of the rotten logs. Yes, the floor on which you rest your faith, above a pit of shit, was rotting.

On this gem of advice, I’d gone to the other pit, only to discover an ominous buzzing sound emanating from the palm-frond privacy screen. Bees. Hundreds of fucking bees. Buzzing around the hole, because it seems the bee civil-planner had decided that a top spot for a hive was inside a pit toilet, right next to the hole. All I had to do was take a piss at the time, so I tentatively slashed into the hole cum bee thoroughfare. They seemed fairly acclimatised to this event, nonetheless I didn’t dawdle, repackaged my junk and fled.

Now, rolling in my sleeping bag like an epileptic newborn, I had to rather more than just piss, so I was faced with three options: Option A entailed me falling through a rotten log and into a pit of human excreta in the middle of the night, in the middle of the jungle, 5 hours helicopter ride from the nearest 3^rd world hospital – Pass.

Option B involved me dangling my nutsack literally 3 inches from a live bee’s nest, while I shat on them. – Pass Option C was that I walk down the nearby near vertical slope next to camp – we were on top of a ridge – and dump in the jungle. – Pass Now C might seem like a good choice, but the fact of the matter is that a real jungle at night is not where you want to be. It comes alive. There are spiders quite literally bigger than your hand. 1 in 3 mosquitoes carry malaria. And you actually see glowing, blinking yellow eyes in the jungle when you shine your torch up into the hills. I wish I was kidding, it’s fucking terrifying.

So being spurred into action by my angry sphincter, I decided that I was going to try my luck with door bee, as a quick deduction and science told me that a sting on the goolies is temporary, whereas a spider bite is usually fatal, and malaria is for life. And getting eaten alive mid shit, in the dark, by whatever the fuck is out in that jungle doesn’t sound like fun either.

So with a sigh of acceptance I got out of my sleeping bag, donned my head-torch, grabbed my bog-roll, laced up my boots and stepped out into the night and walked quickly through the black mountain mist towards the buzzing shitter.

Sweet Moses, that’s a lot of bees! At night, even above the peak of insect din, I could clearly hear the swarm of bees from a good 5 meters away…and I’m going to take a dump right in the thick of them. Yep. I switched off my mind, straddled the hole, dropped my trackies, and lowered my yam-bag and apprehensively puckering asshole down into the bees nest. My tumultuous guts needed little encouragement as an unholy deluge of spicy brown soup belted out of me like a geyser. Spluttering and popping like an old tractor engine, I closed my eyes and pushed. A few bees landed on my quivering, exposed cheeks.

Opening my watering eyes, I uncoiled from my tense poise and took a few unpleasant lung fulls of colostomy air and took stock of my situation. There were fucking bees flying around everywhere and I even spotted an intrepid pollenator hiking along my dangling trunk.

To say I lacked attention to detail in the clean-up phase of the movement is a gross understatement; I wanted the fuck out of that bee pit as soon as possible. In the time it took me to stand up, swat away the lingering cheek bees and pull up my trackies with one hand, the other had wiped and discarded. I was out of that hut and back to my tent faster than a anaphylactic fit.

Shitting on bees (as part of the Kokoda trip) was easily the most rewarding and truly overwhelming thing you’ll ever achieve as an everyman. It’s uncomfortable and a mile from the nearest comfort zone, but what that place holds in terms of beauty, significance and honour can only be truly appreciated by those who’ve experienced it.

Rohan Venn

Last Sunday, we met with George at a Thai restaurant in Kirribilli (more famous for it’s tiny Thai women than it’s food) to discuss the next edition of SINK, but with George’s credit card on the table, we swiftly spiralled into stupidity.

My photographer, James, was walking around the restaurant in a tuxedo – stalking the waitress, while George detailed his newest idea for a good story.

“I want you to review a brothel” he began in his London accent, his face a sweaty mess from the abundance of chilli we’d just eaten. “I think it’ll make a great story, could even become a regular…”

I queried into the legality of his latest idea, to which he simply replied: “this is a new rag my boy, we’ve got to keep it edgy!”

There was no time to argue with his ridiculous concept, as James had stirred the kitchen staff with his behaviour. He was now trying to kiss the waitress and asking for her phone number… The Walrus paid the bill, left a hefty tip and we stumbled into the night.

The Walrus gave us some cash as he squeezed into his Daihatsu, but before we had time to ask for a lift back to the city, he’d rolled off down the hill grunting: “Call me once you’re done!”

The Walrus’ garbled yawp brought a twinkle to James’ eyes. Still a little damaged from the waitress’ lack of interest, his ego appreciated the idea of storming a hooker.

“Sure – why the fuck not? Have we got any booze left?”

I gave James the money from the Walrus and told him to get a couple of long necks and a bottle of wine – he came back with 2 bottles of Chimay and a bottle of vintage port and some white Muscat… we barely had enough money left for the train, let alone a punt.

…

We eventually arrived back at Central a little shaken, we had shared our carriage (and our Chimay) with a gap-toothed drug dealer with a lazy eye and an aggressive head. He seemed a nice enough guy (perhaps swayed by our booze), with a love of the word ‘pussy’ and a myriad of mobile phones squeezed into his left hand. However,  anytime someone would walk through our cramped carriage, Gappy would hulk into a strange rage.

“Oi! What the fuck are you doing you pussy?!” he’d bark.
“Just walking to the next carriage” was the standard reply.
“You calm the fuck down!” Gappy would order, staring at them with his bigger eye until they sauntered out of sight.

He was a nice enough guy to us – and that’s all that really mattered.

…
We were stumbling up Elizabeth Street towards the Brothel, when we saw that someone had left the front door to Hibernian House wide open, James demanded that we went in to take some photos – and I agreed based on the premise that we met someone interesting and got a quote or two on prostitution.

The graffitied guts of the Hibernian were a bit too much to handle right now, our blurred words still staining the walls from our previous visit (we had crashed an industry party ‘disguised’ as nude bartenders) and we were beginning to realise that not many people want to open their doors to the press at 11:00 on a Sunday evening.

We got to the roof, drank some more and James got the photo he was after, as well as a delicious ladder he found on the way out; “this is just what we’ll need” he announced maniacally.

“What for?” I asked, already helping to carry the ladder out the front door.

“Who knows?” James chuckled, winking with one, stupid eye.

…

We were now drunk enough to enter a brothel with confidence – and a ladder.

…

The security guard who answered the front door of the Black Cat was not what I was expecting. He looked less like your standard standover and more like a country footballer. He was slow in all of his mannerisms, from movement to speech, drifting around on his venison limbs. More surprising was how accommodating he was to two young press members with an antique ladder and a camera the size of a hatchback.

“Do you have a ladder room?” James inquired in a strange, new accent – shaking the ladder with his spare hand.

The guard assumed him joking at first, until the silence became deadly awkward and he agreed to rest the ladder by the cloakroom.

The Madame greeted us and took us through the price list (which we couldn’t afford to even consider) and took the batteries from James’ camera. The agreed activity was that James was going to “do nasty, nasty things” to one of the girls, while I sat and watched with a cup of tea.

I had hoped that our ridiculous request would be enough to get us kicked out and back into the cuddling arms of the street, but The Black Cat turned out to be a most accommodating whore house.

The Madame told a girl to put the kettle on as she escorted us upstairs and into an uncomfortably small waiting room.

We were seated in a corner, surrounded by curtains, with giggles and grunts coming from every, audible angle. And before I had a chance to remind James that we had no money – the girls began parading in front of us one by one, performing the same routine they do every night:

“Hi, I’m Jacqui” a gorgeous blonde with a creepily young face chirped, as she twirled back behind the curtains.

“My name is Sandi – pleased to meet you” a tiny Chinese girl in lace shook our hands as we inspected her like a second hand car.

And this went on as the seven girls were brought out to us one by one, all the while, unsuspecting that we had no money, or control of our cocks.

“I have suddenly lost all confidence in this” I whispered to James as the Madame approached… It’s been too long between drinks.”

“Don’t worry” James soothed instantly “I’ve got a plan to get us out of this without losing face.”

And with that, he shot off the velour couch like a startled frog, shook his sleeves down like a pianist and marched over to the Madame.

“My Dear, we have encountered an issue” he began “my friend here as lost all confidence in our mission and I have lost all faith in my cock.” This puzzled even the accommodating Madame. “You see Madame, I am quite drunk… and afraid that I may not do your girls justice with this amount of booze in my system.” He was talking like an English lord and his movements were precise and stately as he round off his final remark: “However! I took a liking to several of your items and I solemnly swear that as soon as most of this booze has left my system – I shall come back and systematically defile at least 4 of those girls. Especially the blonde one with the teeth.”

I expected to be thrown out. I’ve heard tales of false gamblers having their hands smashed with hammers and I was beginning to drown in fear for my cock and balls.

But the matronly Madame smiled, gave James back his batteries and simply said: “Then I’ll be seeing you soon love.”

The security guard handed us our ladder and we strolled back into the awkward night air, trying our best not to giggle.

But once the funny wore off, once reality kicked in – I realised that we’d done it again. We’d spent all of the Walrus’ money and had no story to show for it… his final words still echoing in my head.

I tried to explain our situation to James, who was standing in the middle of the road, taking a piss at whatever car came past.

“Don’t worry Robbie – we’ll just give him the port – Poms like port right?”

He was strangely right, our fat editor would see this as a wonderful apology, regardless of who paid for it. Or perhaps we could cook up a false story? I’m sure the hookers would play along… We could invent some brilliant tale of Asian threesomes and present the yarn to our editor with a bottle of vintage port!

So, we walked through the night air, drunkenly oblivious to the emerging Monday morning on the horizon, stumbling through Surry, swapping fake stories of beautiful women and wild sex, laughing through the stillness, carrying an antique ladder on our shoulders

But we had no sooner reached the front door of our safe house when I realised – James was no longer carrying the booze.

…

So, we walked through the night air, dragging a ladder behind us, bickering with one another like angry octogenarians. Staggering through the morning, all too aware of the impending Monday – back to get the booze.

From 0411 ### 348:

From 0422 ### 500:

From 0428 ### 669:

So, we created a plethora of fake FOR SALE, WANTED and LOST posters. The kind that usually offer cheap rental opportunities in Chinatown, or guitar lessons in Glebe. The kind of posters with little, tear-tab phone numbers dangling on the bottom that reside against most of Sydney’s telegraph poles, in a paper mache  mess of dated offers and faded promises. Only we were offering nonsense, the kind of nonsense that any festival dweller would surely enjoy (and we offered the Walrus’ number along the bottom).

As soon as we arrived in Byron, we quickly plastered the telegraph poles with these posters and the following are a few of the clearer, nicer messages left:

From 0421 ### 125:

From 0448 ### 078:

From 0416 ### 040:

From 0402 ### 876:

On the whole, we count it a success and you can be certain these posters will pop up elsewhere.

The Sydney-based spray-painters (aged 21-24) were all part of the aging AMF crew and were arrested in London in December last year.

Now, regardless of how you feel about graffiti, I’m a little pissed off that the underground media has been sucking their collective cock with a groupie-esque fervour ever since the news hit Sydney.

Firstly, to travel to London just to tag the trains is lame enough, but to do such a thing in a city famous for their CCTV coverage is absolutely, fucking moronic.

Secondly, tagging trains is the graffiti equivalent of wearing a slogan T-Shirt. These arseholes deserve to be locked up, purely for holding back an art form.

Graffiti has been trying for years to be taken seriously, or at least be acknowledged for it’s importance to society… but as long as people like AMF are still tagging trains, the road ahead is set to stymie with brightly-coloured wild-style.

And while I understand that for graffiti to keep it’s ‘bad-boy’ persona, a few laws have to be broken along the way, what I can’t stand is for the medium to only remain in the public eye, utilising the same, dated techniques as back in 1974.

But ‘whether painting trains is cool’ is not the point that angers me the most. What really gets me down is I simply cannot understand why the graffiti community has rallied behind these bland, beige arseholes.

They weren’t attempting some brilliant stunt, they weren’t expanding the art form, they were simply doing what they’ve been doing in Sydney for the last decade,  in a new city. And let’s not pretend that London needed some more trains painted, let’s not even suggest that the trembling tube needed a few Sydney inspired pieces to complete their collection. I’m sure it didn’t mean fuck all to the people of London.

What is worse, is that they attempted this boring attack on the tube – knowing that London had an extensive CCTV system! Yet the graffiti culture still seems amazed that these retards are locked up?

If an Australian is caught with drugs in Singapore and sentenced to life, the Sydney drug community doesn’t get behind them and throw petals at their feet, they don’t write odes in their bong blogs… instead – a cooperative, disdainful sigh is let out and the sidewalk cafes of this great city are filled with vicious, sneering, mockery.

Fuck these arseholes – hang ‘em for all I care.

If you’ve got a toilet door that needs some jazzing up…

George Bannister

Anonymous began as an internet message board, where the angry collective posted as “Anonymous” and has spread into a world-wide cooperative of anti-scientology protesters.

I had stumbled onto their message board a few months back when researching the anti-biker laws in NSW. A poster was trying to raise awareness of the new Biker Legislation, to which a site administrator had replied:

Re: SYDNEY PROTEST PLANNING
Sorry mate, protests are only against the church. Like said, we are not your personal army.
-Sydney Anonymous

Surely an angry collective should be used to fight every human rights abuse – so why such a ridiculous specialty? Why focus on such a whimsical religion as Scientology? I mean, sure it’s ridiculous, sure it’s founded in falsity and violence – but so is any religion worth it’s worship. I’m not going to lead a mass rally against George Lucas fans anytime soon – so why a bunch of L. Ron Hubbard Fans?

So, with Saturday approaching, we charged the camera, grabbed a notepad and stumbled along to the meeting point for OPERATION BODYROUTE. As we approached Central Park, we expected to see hundreds of masked strangers littering the grassy spread like angry pigeons, but all we saw was a tiny collective of angry arts students.

Immediately my back arched… I will never understand for the life of me, but something about a collective of web-geeks will forever smother me in rage (clash of personalities perhaps?). Regardless, I immediately started jotting notes:

- New scientist backpack
- Happy Hardcore
- Douchebags
- Misguided creativity
- How is he so sweaty?

I already had my story written, I had already cast my judging pen – all I needed was a few choice quotes and pictures to conclude what I was going to write. But as I made my way through the crowd, listening to uneducated viewpoint after uneducated viewpoint, I met a man with silver hair and black nails (bruised – not painted) in a puffy, black bomber jacket.

Within seconds of introducing myself, I had discovered that this man, David Graham, was a key member of the Scientology church for over a decade and had actually fled the church in a ‘McQueenish’ escape in 1989.

What David told me was incredible! Stories of kidnap, forced labour, mind control and officious titles like; Inspector General, Quality Executive and Case Supervisor… Then reaching his brilliant crescendo with the tale of his brilliant escape from a ‘PRC’ (Project Rehabilitation Course)

The more we talked, the more questions I had, and the more questions I asked – the more answers he had.

Suddenly, before I knew what was happening, I was lost in a story of science technology, human trafficking, pyramid schemes and the constant sub-text of lies and manipulation that resides behind the world’s most successful cult.

What David told me will take a few weeks of research and double-checking before I print it here, but rest assured – the more you get to know about this ridiculous religion… the more you have to know. It will take me a few weeks, but I’ll have a story for you – and it will be far greater than any protest piece you can imagine.

So that story will come soon, but as far as the protest goes; sure the kids were predominately clueless. Sure the protest was misguided and sure you’ll never get the public onside by wearing scary masks and blaring heavy metal into the winter air… but in the end, any protest is better than none.

The powers that be need to know that people can still get angry and I need to feel that good can still win over evil. I just hope that with these Anti-Terror inspired laws building beneath the streets of this State, we don’t get distracted by the smaller enemies at our city’s gates.

Rob Scattergood.
Pictures by James Bloodworth

I have finally found ‘the one’. A girl waits a lifetime for this moment.

He is everything I am looking for in a man: charming, charismatic, cynical, well-travelled, slightly arrogant, but deep and soul searching. He asks me questions that make me think. Plus, he owns a boat. Dream scenario, right?

Incorrect. It has never been that straight forward with me.

Unfortunately the love of my life is trapped in the body of a 60 year old man. True.

This is a tragedy far worse than Romeo and Juliet, the only thing tearing them apart was feuding families. Working against me in this situation is 1.5 generations and wrinkly skin!

And this is not the first time I have grown fond of someone inappropriate. There was Mike- the slinky enthusiast with missing two front teeth, there was Liam; the cockney drug-peddler who had me running down dark alleys, hiding from a knife gang on our first date… not to mention the conceited, midget-Italian who went by the nickname ‘Mommie’.

The list goes on.

I first encountered the old sea dog at a cosy café on the Northern Beaches. I served him coffee, he made cynical jokes about small children. It was fate.

Naturally, I discussed my ‘old man dilemma’ with friends and acquaintances within a 100m radius. The general consensus has been “If you get along that well, age should be no barrier, plus think of the life insurance.” Good point. But it was the lady that waxes my cha-cha who put it in perspective. Sure, her life revolves around ripping the hair off the naughty bits of many women in Manly, but her 3 inch synthetic nails and un-shakeable enthusiasm for Eurovision suggests a more ‘worldly’ wisdom.

Her advice (in her beautiful dialect) was: “Fuck no! Think of his saggy balls”.

This did get me thinking about his saggy balls, the waxer was right. It doesn’t matter that he makes me laugh or that we can talk endlessly, the thought of his pubes being more salt than pepper is too much for me to get my head around, let alone my legs.

Thus, our relationship is destined to remain a Scarlett Johanson/Bill Murray mutual appreciation, and I will investigate the possibility of him having a son… or grandson.

Dorothy Gray

It began like any other SINK meeting, with a great deal of misguided creativity and too many drinks. The Walrus (George – our fat editor) wanted a photo piece on Oxford Street… it was going to be a big night for old Oxford and he wanted photos. He also explained that he had wired us $40 and told us to lock down a domain name for the website [ED: It was $50 and I’m not fat].

After meeting with George and sharing a few ales, we entered the throngs of Friday night at the impeccable hour of seven. With the hand Canon and the notepad in tow, we were ready to report on the crims and the creatives that haunt this great city. The problem was, this town is no-one’s friend at 7pm. The crowd was a bland psychedellia of black and gray as the corporate crowd lingered in all the right spots, not yet purged by enema of oddly dressed weirdos we were hunting for. The photos were posed and the people were mind-numbingly lackluster. We needed an interview with a homeless person, a model and an angry drunk… none of which were going to be around at this wretched, sterile hour of the evening.

So, we decided to tick box 2 and purchase the domain name for the new website. Though, to cure our horrific sobriety, we stopped along the way to purchase a hipflask of what appeared to be lighter fluid. We tried to return it to the bottle shop on Bourke, but those arrogant arseholes refused to accept “tastes like death” as a valid reason for a refund (the bottle was also surprisingly empty). Meanwhile, James (my photographer) was currently locked-in a heated argument with a television crew, screaming “You have no idea do you? Do you? Do you know what I am? Fuck you!” Apparently someone had the stones to ask if he was an actor… I pretended to understand and we walked away.

We purchase more booze for the walk and staggered around Surry Hills looking for an internet café that wouldn’t kick us out (which was becoming quite the running gag along the way). I have no recollection of where we actually ended-up (when we eventually went back to assess the damages, the store had been bulldozed… horrifically hinting that the whole thing may have been our conjoined dream), but wherever we were – the ethnic man behind the counter became an instant chum. He seemed pensively ignorant of our lack of sense, sobriety and social decorum – and did not mind that we puffed our pipes in the store. He simply took $2 for the use of his archaic computer and went back to singing against the songs spewing from the narrowcaster. And as we filled the convenience store with the old-age smell of pipe tobacco, we soon slipped into a familiar panic. SINK.com was taken… as was SINK.com.au. SINK.ORG.AU was available and it was the only remaining possibility on George’s list of approved domain names, but we had spent a hefty portion of the Walrus’ money on booze… making it an impossibility to actually purchase such a credible domain.

So, sliding under the justification of “A site by any other domain would still smell as sweet” – we purchased something a little south of the border – SINK.es. And like all things south of the border, they asked for no identification, no ABN and only took a tiny bit of the Walrus’ money. During this transaction, James had grown bored and began forcing our neighbouring computer’s display into a tub of water. An awful sound occurred and we exited the store with a brisk skip into the night air.

James was becoming angrier and angrier by the night’s inability to deliver him a good photo (which now had less to do with the general public and more to do with our collective drunkenness)… this rage eventually culminated with James smashing a coffee mug over my head. Blood began dripping out of my head like a stuttering pump, slipping behind my right ear and onto my shoulder. James’ rage was swiftly swapped for fear and he called St. Vincents in the hope of speaking to a nurse. She talked us through and we stymied the bleeding with a miraculous use of rags and an old, leather belt.

The nurse’s final suggestion was to pop into hospital, at which point that arsehole photographer hung up the phone. “No time for this nonsense” he blurted “we’ve got work to do!” He forced a hat on my bleeding skull and we staggered into the evening.

The photos were featureless, my notes were nonsense and we purchased a Spanish domain… Success?

Rob Scattergood.
Pictures by James Bloodworth

On arriving back at my tiny apartment, delight was unfolding. My three comrades, themselves joining me to meet the Beetroots, had warmed the joint, racked up some healthy supplements and pushed my sound system to it’s natural conclusion. After several hours of music, drink, debate and dance we charged into the city, our taxi driver frightfully dropping us on the Metro like a Hiroshima pilot.

After a foyer full of flirtation, more drinks and lying my way through a seething crowd, we were in. One of my associates rightfully reckoned that this angry mob would soon look more like punch-drunk punks than electro ravers.
Out came the Beetroots, two scarved egotists, steam wafting from their masked heads, like angry tribal jacket potatoes.

The music, dirty as salesman, threw the chomping crowd into an instant moshing seisure, I was genuinely surprised to see a guy biting into the crown of some girl’s head. Like an indignant chef in a sinking ship Bobby Rifo sacrificed himself, staging diving deep into his piranha crowd.

The scene was a rhythmic aberration of my senses, I knew it was time for the interview. Grabbing two handfuls of the curtain, I pulled myself onto the stage and begun asking my first question. Something along the lines of, “Do you feel that Steve… YIKES!!!”, I was dragged violently into the wings by a security guard who started explaining that I was being kicked out, despite my head being somewhat distorted I explained the situation to him “herefrom… sinkmagazine… nicetomeet… what? neverheardof??? walrus didn’t phone??? FUCKYOU FUCKYOU…”. Fumbling for credentials in my overcoat only left a confetti of note paper and baggies in my wake as I was forced off the stage.

I was discharged, no interview, drugs curdling like milk and juice in my skull. It took me till daylight crept into a dark booth to work out if there was an actual story in all of this, rest assured, there is not.

Signing out.
John Wisehammer.

My chest is stammering like the rainman, my stomache is getting all right-wing on me, debating the deportation of the mistakes I swallowed last night, I forgive you stomache. I am typing on the stickiest keyboard ever, I can see shards of biscuit caked into my obscenely tacky keyboard. A breeze meanders though my apartment like an undesired junkie (clairvoyance of junkies to come), it is welcome by the shattered frame that was once a sliding door. The ghost of a memory hits my ego like a trip, I threw a chair through the sliding door.

I woke an hour ago when the remains of my bed could no longer hold me and I rolled from it’s graded surface onto my glass prickled carpet, an arm from my ray-bans intrudes my mouth, I guess having being orphaned by last nights frenzy the poor lonely arm sought company with my tongue (whose flavour was somewhere between lemonman’s dick and joseph’s technicolour dreamcoat).

Naturally I am naked, what pains me is the lack of tortured company, the only carcasses are three chairs I used to call my friends, I knew those chairs couldn’t handle their drinks. Under my desk my toes jumble pieces of the yellow chair who had the amazing body. As I survey the horror of my apartment my feet sting, caked with pieces of the shot-glasses who once housed poison so delightful, this only gets worse when I venture into the kitchen, it’s floor confettied with fragments of green glass. A combination of hate and envy fills me like a mug when I see the fridge is bone dry, it’s bounty the beer long gone. Angular memories cripple me, an abrasion the size of a disingenuous work-mate marks my leg. Again my fingers stick to this awful contraption.

For a moment there is this horrible new emotion, something like lamentation, but I quickly mislabel it happiness and post an empty smile on my bulletin board face. And then I learn something, I am an alcoholic, not the lovely James Dean, die-young alcoholism. This alcoholism is awful.

A Sexy Granddaughter
(A John Rice confession)

I met her down at Darling Harbour, the sexiest granddaughter I had ever seen. She was not overtly drunk, nor noticeably depressed, but her introduction alone was openly original… Her grandfather had passed away at 6am that morning.

I purchased her a few rounds of drinks while we danced through the evening until her lips swapped my kisses for the sun’s.
An incredible cab ride from a Russian man named Jason and it was suddenly 6am Sunday morning – and we were kicking on at her deceased grandfather’s house.

I retired to bed for a quick nap and some sex (of which I don’t completely remember) and re-emerged to kick-on in full swing. Strangely, my compadres had followed me. I had no recollection of inviting anyone around, and decided to blame the abundance of people at this dead man’s house solely on my editor. I explained that we had a story to cover (which is a great line for leaving any situation early – not so much for explaining an abundance of strangers appearing in a dead man’s house). Usually, I would feel bad for delivering a poorly thought lie, but after what followed, I feel that this is a tiny byline to a far worse deed.

Stumbling around the dead man’s house, we proceeded to eat his surviving food and drink his dying drinks.
We rearranged the mourning furniture from one side of the dead house to the other. We used both of his still-breathing, respirators and raced around the haunted corridors in his widowed wheelchairs. We raided his wardrobe and ended up wearing nothing but his decaying underpants and still-grieving hats for the majority of the day.

Later in the afternoon, the sexiest granddaughter I have ever known, who I just helped get over her grandfather hours ago, was suddenly picked up by her saddened dad… who was in-fact a grieving son. And grieving or not, family or not, he lacked the courtesy to ring the doorbell – arriving unannounced around the back of the house.

The picture he saw shocked him at first. My friend Henry was face-down, spread- eagled, butt-naked in the garden, being hosed down by another acquaintance, John (also butt-naked) and Me… also butt-naked… videoing the ensuing act with the dead man’s rotting camera, like a naked Howard Hughes.

The angry-father/hateful-son just stood there for a bit… speechless, none of us quite knew what to do so we just sort of ran around yelling for a bit, like stoned rugby players in the showers. We quickly put clothes on, though we had trouble picking which were dead clothes and which were our own.

Suddenly, a grieving army stormed the backyard, a myriad of black clothing and judgemental faces polluted the patio. The brother of the sexy granddaughter and her mother had all arrived to the Rigor Mortis Ranch, to tidy it up and get it ready for the coming wake. But what they saw was three, semi-naked men wearing the clothes of the deceased, house trashed, bottles and cigarettes everywhere… it was an awfully awkward situation for us, which dragged on as we bumped and fumbled around the yard, gathering our belongings.

Henry made things considerably worse when the brother grabbed one of the hats from him, said (shaking his floppy head) “dude that’s my granddads hat! … That is not on man…”

Henry’s rebuttal to shift the blame “Sorry, the only reason I had it on is because John was trying to piss in it, don’t worry though, I stopped him”

Fairly soon after this comment, we were asked to leave by the mother.
The sexiest granddaughter girl ran out the front… considerably upset.
That was the last time I saw her.