#by hanging out with the weird punk guy that sells weed at school

[eiitsuya]

for reasons that i just made up, catherine and willis todd are dana scully and fox mulder now

just look at them ahhh

[smosh-stuff]

THE TIME HAS C O M E

So, as a preface to this, I would like to clarify; there are like, three basic types of high school au.

The cheesy 90's movie type, with stereotypical groupings (I.E, theres the jock, and the Nerd, and the goths, ect.)

The Normal type, which is literally just the characters/people in a high school setting. Nothing special, but still enjoyable.

And then. There is the angst type. Family issues, reckless behavior, mental issues, found family/breakfast club-esque situation.

Take one look at the links I provided in the last post about it and guess which one I went with. (I'm a sucker for hurt/comfort found family shit dON’T JUDGE ME) I should point out, none of this is supposed to reflect the crew's actual situations growing up. I know for the most part their families are great and cool people and I don't mean any disrespect to them by writing this!! Just imagine that any and all family members are basically OC's.

Also I sort of thought all of this up through short pieces of self-indulgent writing so this is all sort of based around a fic??? So any situational bits like that you can change or ignore if you want. I aint some gatekeeper my dudes.

ANYWAYS, with disclaimers and such out of the way, headcanons??? Headcanons

(Put under a read more because this is gonna be long af)

Okay. Joven, right? He's a nerd. Like. Comic books, video games, all that shite. 50% of his wardrobe is graphic tee's and hoodies, the other 50% is button ups and cardigans. (what a LOSER haaaaa)

And his family had some shit going on. Dad wasn't the best. Divorce things happened, and he ended up in his mom's custody while his brother went with his dad. And then, his mom took him and they moved away from the town he grew up in. Kinda sucks.

He ends up in a new, small house, and he and his mom don’t have a lot of money anymore, so his mom has to work two jobs and it isn't the greatest, but they try to make the best of it.

But y’know what new city means?? NEW SCHOOL OH BOY

So Joven tries his best but y’know bullies are a pretty universal aspect of public high schools. So he isn't having the best time; but those aren't the only people he meets.

In homeroom, he ends up sitting next to three other kids in the back of the room.

(I got that idea from this pic, it's actually where I got the whole idea for this AU from)

So. Lasercorn. I made him a punk kid.

But not like, the cool, only-wears-black, piercings and spikes and leather kind of punk.

The trashy kind of punk. Old-tshirts-ripped-jeans kind of punk. Skateboards and bloody knees and weed kind of punk.

(He listens to Blink-182, skateboarded as a teen and makes the most weed jokes. I COULDN’T HELP MYSELF)

And, much like Joven, his dad ain't the greatest guy. In a physical way. And his mom doesn't really do much to help him. So he spends most of his time out of the house, smoking or skating or both. 

This is where Sohin comes in.

Sohinki is pretty chill with most people in school, for a reason.

See, his dad isn't mean, but is almost never around. Always working or something. And his mom is a drugie, meaning that she is also out a lot, and when she isn't, she doesn't really pay him any mind. 

So, what do you do when you're a secretly neglected and attention-starved kid with a drugie for a mom, and you need spending money?

Get a retail job? Na

He's a weed dealer. He only sells weed tho, since he doesn't really condone the usage of harder stuff. He's a delinquent but that doesn't mean he into all that.

This is how he met Lasercorn, in freshman year, when he was first selling and Lasercorn was first buying. And they became friends and bonded over shitty parents and getting high. It's convenient, actually, because Lasercorn likes to stay out of the house most of the time and Sohinki doesn't have anyone that will care if he has people over. So lots of sleepovers!!!

And drug selling is also how the Bois met Mari.

So when I was figuring out Mari's character, I was thinking. Is there anything special I can do with her?? Like Lasercorn is punk, Sohinki sells drugs, what can I do here??? And then I realized.

Gross rave kids are a thing. I can't really fully explain why I chose this??? Like it just feels right for her in this story. So I'm running with it. (And I probably did way to much research on club drugs and illegal teenage activites for this haha woops)

Her parents are both there, but not a lot? Like they aren't super neglectful like Sohinki's but also don't really give her much attention at all. And they fight a Lot. Like constantly. There isn't a lot of peace in her house ever, and her parents are usually too busy being angry at each other to love her. She tried getting their attention with good grades and ballet, but it didn't work. They hardly ask her about grades, and she isn't sure if they've ever been to even on of her recitals. So, she said fuck it, and got into raving.

And there are like two kinds of teen raves? Approved ones, where there are people that don’t let you in with drugs or alcohol, more public events, really just glorified dance parties with underground music. Then there’s the underground ones, which are pretty illegal since it's a bunch of 13-25 year olds doing drugs and drinking alcohol in abandoned buildings. Three guesses for which type Mari frequents. A lot of dancing and cool stuff happens at underground raves. That's cool. Y'know what also happens at them that is kind of less cool? Girls getting drugged and raped. A lot less cool.

So she was at a party and she isn't careful enough, and gets her drink roofied. But before the assface that did it can make any moves, someone had called the cops. And everyone is leaving in a rush because they obvs don’t really feel like getting arrested. Guess who happened to be passing through the area when this goes down? Lasercorn and Sohin.

And they see everyone leaving, but then there's this girl who can barely walk and is passed out on the ground? And long story short theyre like shit we cant just let her get arrested/fucking die or something so they take her to Sohin's house, and the teen angst club gains a member!

So Joven gets seated near them in homeroom, and after a while he sort of joins their little friend group, they like him and hang out with him and he ends up liking them a lot because?? These are real friends??? Which he's never really had because back home nobody really liked him??? But these guys are so nice and funny despite how fucked their situations are??? And he joins the group.

About halfway through the year, Joven gets moved to an honors science class, and ends up sitting next to this kid who is really quiet and has long hair and dresses like some kind of emo anime dweeb. (I've decided that he wears black gauges because FUCK he would look good with earrings you cant tell me he wouldn’t) I wonder who that could be??

Well Joven gets help from him on the work in class, and starts talking with him a lot, and finds out his name is Wesley and that he is kind of an anime dweeb but isn't actually that emo or anything? He just likes that kind of music and stuff and dresses like it, but he actually is really sweet and funny and likes video games and stuff. 

And Wesley doesn't have any friends, really, because people are usually off-put by how he dresses/he can be very enthusiastic about his interests and stuff and people are dicks and make fun of him and bully him for that. And even though he is Large and pretty strong he doesn't want to hurt anyone so he doesn't fight back. So he sort of just learned how to shut himself up and stay quiet around people?? Because when he is his Energetic and happy self!! People don't like that. 

Wes is also part of team shit parents. His parents are Smart and have degrees and shit; and also have VERY high expectations for him, and don’t really care about much else when it comes to him. Wes is super Smart as well, all honors classes, straight A's, but it is never enough for his mom and dad. They expect high marks, but don't congratulate him on them, just deem them 'acceptable' and tell him to keep working. B's and lower are met with lectures and punishment. (He is also dealing with the fact that he has pretty bad ADHD but isn't getting any sort of treatment? And has to work through that.) Wes wants to make them happy, and all he wants is validation from them, but he never gets it and just ends up stressing way to much over his work. And teachers don't really do much to help? So he's kind of stuck in this rut of trying as hard as he can and doing great but not being told so. 

So when he meets Joven, who introduces him to the rest of the group, it's like??? Friends??? People who are impressed and happy for me??? And don't make fun of me when I get excited or make funny voices??? And he is so happy that he can finally be himself around people.

Finally, Flitz is brought in through Mari.

Flitz comes from a poor family, with no dad because sometimes people die when they shouldn't. (And that isn't because he is stereotypes, to be clear, he has mentioned that his dad wasn't around when he was growing up, and that he grew up poor and I kind of wanted to write that) But he doesn't let anyone know, and does sports and breakdancing and is super cool! But not really popular because he is very open with his weird personality and philosophical interests, which don’t really go over well with a bunch of shitty high school kids.

And he meets Mari when she sees him practicing his dancing by himself on the stage in the empty school auditorium, where she was going to practice her dancing a little. And they are like “2 person dance session??? Yes” 

And they have fun showing off and watching each other’s moves, and they get talking, and Mari is like. I know people who will like you.

And that’s what I got! They hang out and smoke weed sometimes (except Wes because asthma) and have fun and deal with bullies together, and they all just really love that they have friends who like them for them and it’s nice but also angsty and I love it.

Sorry that was so long but I had a lot to talk about. If you read this far, thank you for reading my rant!! And feel free to send me asks and talk to me about it. That’s all for now! ~<3

[olivialaita]

First time I met Erin Forsyth was on a random drunken dancing night with a couple of new girlfriends from the Auckland Hip-Hop community. I thought, ‘She’s pretty buzzy’, but the night was fluid and we danced for hours and it ended up just being us two left out of the bunch of girls. I’m pretty sure Erin doesn’t remember our first encounter but ever since then, I always thought of her as this light-hearted, quiet, fun, pixie-like chick who I had an awesome night with. Not this alpha female, punk-rock, prolific tagger who would skull beer leftovers and butt roll ciggies from street pickings. I never got to see this Erin, I guess I was lucky. I got to remain in my bubble, thinking of the nice Erin experience I had. 15 years later, she popped back up on my radar, pretty much out of nowhere. I noticed her artworks were related to taxonomy and the way she wrote about it on her Instagram was familiar language that I’ve been exposed to before. That’s right?!, I have a Bachelor's Degree in Biology, duh! I understood her language. So I reached out. Only a couple of weeks later, I’m sitting in her home studio set-up with her bird Popo whom she rescued, who every now and then during the course of our talk, would pipe in with a lil chirp here and there. Erin, who would’ve thought, a Post-Graffiti Pacific artist who is about to show at an extremely significant New Zealand contemporary art gallery. Can you take us back to your upbringings in the Auckland graffiti scene which was like, over 15 years ago!? My place in graffiti has been pretty different to a lot of people. I moved around a bit as a kid because my parents got involved with the church so we lived up in Algies Bay while they were working for a bible college there, then came back down and moved to Northcote. People in Northcote were quite different to people in Warkworth. I had my first jobs at the Woolworths (Supermarket] and at the Fruit & Veg shop. I’d always see these tags like Trojan and Thor, which was a big one on the Shore and y’know, I didn’t really think too much about it but I always looked at the tags and read them. I started going into town just to get away from family and church stuff around then. I was at a rave and the people that I was hanging out with just started copping some tags and I was like, ‘WTF?! You can just do that? You don’t need to be someone famous?’. In my mind, people that done those were masked bandits, characters in a comic book or something, and then here were these people, just right there. I was like, ‘Can I have a go?’ and I did this terrible tag that said ‘Mint’. They said that there were like 50 people writing that and that I had to come up with something better. This was with Ape and some other Grey Lynn kids. We didn’t really do anything together, just smoke weed and do tags which was good too because it doesn’t have to be all fancy all the time. So from the start tagging was the main thing for me. I got together with Fun Boy who I had known for a long time from hanging out in town, especially from moving out of home at a young age - Even when I was at high school I used to work as a flyer girl for raves like the Brain and a nightclub called Ministry which was on Albert St. The drinking age was R20 then but I was like 15/16 and I’d hustle my way in based on working for them and would hang out with all these adults. I didn’t drink at that time but I smoked a lot of weed.

Funny, it was a weird life when I come to think about it - I knew Fun Boy from around and we ended up getting together and living in my Dad’s garage in Grey Lynn. We’d just go racking in the day and tagging in the night and that was pretty much our lives. Occasionally we’d do this with other writers like ADT but mainly it was just us two weirdos. I met most of the RFCs again at that time - I’d seen Deus before while we were both at Freelance Animation School but we never spoke. Anyway, we were all trying to shoplift beer in a beer fridge, trying to be undercover and were waiting for them to leave. Then realized they were all doing the same thing so it was pretty funny and we all went and hung out.

Things didn’t work out with .F. but I still see him around and have a lot of love for him. He definitely influenced me in terms of choosing a good spot, being consistent, all of these sorts of things that were really important to get noticed as a graffiti artist - not as a street artist, not as a professional artist but as a graffiti artist. He was always like, it’s not about style, it’s about getting up and I know that a lot of people don’t agree with that but...

I started spending more time with the RFCs who were more into the style and technique and learning more about how that applies. I remember painting with Prompt and seeing her doing cutbacks on this Mad Hatter character that she was painting and I had never seen anyone do cutbacks before! I was like, ‘What are you doing!?, that’s cheating! [laughs]’. I thought you had to do it all in one line so that was mind-blowing. I wasn’t even a kid at the time, I would’ve been 20 and I still didn’t know anything. Around then I ended up at Over’s house and was asked to choose between joining RFC or IRA which was a strong female crew that included Phem, Wise and Prompt. My choice to roll with RFC had more to do with not wanting to be stigmatized as a ‘girl writer’ more than anything else and I have nothing but respect for those women who could hold their own even back then. I’ve always felt slightly odd with ‘girly’, ‘womanly’ or ‘feminine’ things and it’s something I still struggle with. Although I have never been core RFC I still rep it. And yes I know I wasn’t in the photo in Disruptiv, I lived next door to the Disruptiv Gallery and sometimes I wanted nothing to do with it. And I know I wasn’t mentioned in several recent videos...there’s been words.

Over time, I had different painting partners, Prompt was one, Helper, Fun Boy, Gasp was one of them (while I was in Sydney Dmote, Perso, Detch, Spate, Amuse, Dboe – but that’s another story) each of those people played a big part in my life. We would plan and execute and inbetween fit the occasional sprees. Even though I might not be as tight with everyone as I have been over the time, the past is connected to the present and I really want to honour those relationships because they were really meaningful to me…and then I [nonchalantly] set-up a graffiti store. That was another thing that happened. It started as ‘Out of Order’, upstairs from what was once called Virus Clothing. The space had been a sex dungeon type torture club prior to that and allegedly some guy was actually killed there and thrown off the Hunua Falls. I had a lil place that was once the DJ booth in this club that I was renting by working one day a week for the ladies Katalena Falanitule and Tienke Drupsteen that ran Nu clothing from there. I had hardly any stock but people were really into it, just the idea that there was somewhere dedicated to supplies. There was Harlem Vintage but it was always closed and there were all these issues of just trying to get paint, caps and pens, it was incredibly difficult. So having a place that you could just buy caps, people were really into it and as I lived next door, I could just come down and open it up whenever people wanted stuff.

Later I did an enterprise allowance grant through WINZ and I got some money and moved it into St Kevins [Arcade] and then started selling sneakers as well. I thought that the reason why I wasn’t making enough money was that I wasn’t on the street level. So then I moved down to Great North Road near where Flox is now. I was terrified that I was going to get robbed so I was sleeping in the shop. I was in there with this fold-out bed and sleeping behind the counter and I heard these people talking about robbing the shop, I could hear everything that they were saying! I was like, fuck, it’s just me by myself, what am I going to do? So I crawled into the backspace and turned the light on. This must’ve tweaked them out as they left. But I thought, ‘fuck, if someone does break in here for real, what am I going to do? Just me by myself, I can’t do shit’. So I was like, oh well and went back to sleeping at my house again.

Sometime later there was an RFC exhibition at Disruptiv Gallery and I had arranged for someone else to set-up the shop next day so I could get loose and not worry about it. But I woke up to someone banging on my door the next morning and I was like, “Piss off, I’m sleeping” and then they were like, “You’ve been robbed!” and I was like, “Nooooo!”. It was actually Daniel Hounsel who used to run the skate shop First Floor that set the alarm. There was no money and they didn’t even take all the paint, but they took at least one of each of the shoes.

I don’t know who it was, I’ve been told various things, that I won’t go into. It doesn’t matter to me now but at the time…it felt really deliberate and like it was from the community, this community that I had risked everything for, telling me to fuck off. So I was like, fuck you and I left and went to Sydney. My heart was broken, I felt like I had tried so hard and I had lost so much money trying to do something for everyone. As the business was more of a drop in centre than an actual profit turning business the money lost was that theoretical money trap when you owe what you don’t have. It’s really quite different to having access to funds and advice like a lot of young creative entrepreneurs today. I really didn’t have anything, I actually had dishwashing jobs to pay my rent on the space. I didn’t have anyone showing me how to run a business, I just didn’t know what I was doing TBH. The shop ran from 2003 – 2006 all up.

I eventually came back from Australia while working as Arts editor for The New Order Magazine in 2008. My sister and I had a company called The Busy Nice and we were organizing exhibitions and I was painting and illustrating and needed a workspace. Every shared space I looked into was managed by art school grads or art students and were always ‘full’, so I started looking for a space where someone self-taught, like myself, could work. I literally saw the FOR RENT sign in the window of 6 Upper Queen St, next to all the metal aliens and walked over to enquire. The late Mr Bond was moving filing boxes down the stairs and told me I’d have to talk to his son Graham. I’d been into the electrical repairs shop downstairs and had old 45 player serviced by Mr Bond AKA Mr Fingers and had always thought it was a really interesting space. My sister, along with Christopher Washer, Alexander Hoyles and I got the lease upstairs from the repair store in December 2009. It was the first and only time the family owned building was leased out. I literally didn’t tell anyone that I knew was into graffiti that we had spaces available, I’d been burnt and didn’t want anyone in there that had anything to do with it. Huge numbers of artists worked in the space over the years including renowned artists such as Sam Mitchell, Campbell Patterson, Henrietta Harris and Imogen Taylor to name a few. It was actually Stefan Sinclair from Two Hands that put in the dividing wall in the main space when he was working there. Eventually we began to put on exhibitions and later on the occasional punk show by bands such as Street Chant, Two Wolves and the Raw Nerves.

A high point for me was live-streaming an interview with Aaron Rose the curator/director of Beautiful Losers who I’d met in Sydney. There are no photos from that as everyone that was there was literally transfixed. It was crazy, the cops showed up and everything was so chill, they just told us to carry on!

When the various artists of YGB [Young, Gifted & Broke] started hanging out on mass in preparation for the launch of the YGB app, things started to slip away from me. Although I got put down with YGB as this proceeded, I would drink for a ‘good time’ but then try to get control of what was happening in the space by lashing out and it just wasn’t working anymore. I was personally in a really negative place trying to support my much younger partner through a heavily publicized court case for allegedly writing Gosus and the studios got to be too much. Some days there would literally be 20 dudes I didn’t know in the space and they weren’t listening to me, I was drinking out of control, couldn’t collect rent and it was all a bit of a mess really. Most people in the Hip-Hop community probably only know the space as what it became after that point/after I left i.e The Carwash Gallery). But it ticked over from 2009-2014 as Method and Manners.

For a long time I thought of this as it not working out. But I can see now my time with it was just done and I was just holding on waay too tight, haha.

I’ve taken some time out, my business is not everyones business and am trying to figure out who I am sans drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, graffiti, gluten, meat and dairy, haha. Rather than trying to ‘help’ a community I’m trying to help myself by making the most of what I have, which will in turn (hopefully!) benefit the community. It really seems that in order to be positive in a community, you have to look after yourself and make the most of your talents, I’m sure you know all about that! So anyway I’ve just been figuring that out and it got me the opportunity to show with Deborah White. Have you always been around art? I was always encouraged to do art. My grandma Diana was a florist for over 30 years and my mum always painted and still paints. I loved it and was a geek about it all the way through school. I was consistently in the top of my class for art and art history. When the Frida Kahlo and later the Keith Haring exhibition came to the Wellington City Gallery, mum somehow took my sisters and I to see it and we travelled as a family to Europe for church and she made sure we went to the Louvre. A damn fine education. I left [high school] at 17 and intended to apply to ELAM but was told by my art teacher when I was leaving that I’d never get in without bursary so I just never applied. Instead I just went to Freelance Animation school and started doing graffiti. I moved out of home and it was rough! Looking at 18 year olds now I’m like, they’re not living out of home doing graffiti and going out every day, taking drugs every other night, what was I doing?!

It’s crazy thinking about it but jumping forward, what I learnt from graffiti plays such a huge part in how I construct a composition. Particularly in regards to creating a strong silhouette, being considerate of line and painting from the back to the front. All elements of Hip-Hop rely on a personal rhythm, that’s where your style comes from. When you express this with your body, your mind, your movement and that ‘something else’ you are communicating on more than a physical level.

I attended a Rongoā Māori course in Manurewa last weekend, and it blew my mind. I’d thought we would look at plants and learn their active properties but the tohunga were talking about different relationships between and [how] whakapapa is not just a linear thing but an inter-connectedness of all things through their shared elements past, present and future. There was such truth in that. It was very close to things that I have read about in other philosophies and other religions and not at all what I expected to learn about from the paper I’d done in ethnobotany and my own readings. And the energy from these ātaahua wāhine and being in a room with other people was so much more powerful than any book I have ever read.

What about being a female artist today, being from the male-dominating sub-culture graffiti scene?

As a female artist there’s this other layer where you’re supposed to be hot as well and people seem to think it’s fair game if you don’t maintain your appearance. But unless I’m feeling myself I CBF! The work is way more important. The way I got into the arts was through different sub-cultures in the 90’s. For a woman to be involved in these sub-cultures, which were even more male dominated then, you had to really prove your commitment to the culture by doing something! It wasn’t enough to just show up and be hot or to wear the appropriate thing, you had to actually be doing something or people would just be like, ‘what the fuck are you doing? Fuck off!’. Even though I was pretty active - not to be up my own arse, not saying I was good - but I was active for a long time where I did a lot of...stuff [laughs], I would still get grief. People would imply or straight out tell me that I was only of interest because of who I was dating or because I was a girl. It was definitely something that I took on board and wanted to challenge personally. Like all artists I want my work to be valued regardless of my gender. For a long time I didn’t want to paint anything that would be considered ‘female’ and I still feel kind of stupid when I wear a dress or do my hair. When I was a kid I dressed like a boy as much as possible and didn’t like dolls and stuff and being a tomboy put me at odds with everyone. So painting plants and flowers and kiwi is really liberating for me. Just because these things are beautiful. It doesn’t mean they are weak. I feel really good about being able to tap into my masculine and feminine sides. I’m an artist first so I channel all energies and gender as a concept is really a restrictive construct that puts us against one another.

I have days when I feel really at odds with how women show their bodies on the internet – I’m not really a believer in feminism to begin with – as a term ‘first wave’ and ‘second wave’ feminism only describes the stages of (mainly anglosaxon) female liberation in America. Princess Nokia’s ‘urban feminism’ is really smart and cutting and well timed and the work she is doing by just sharing her personal experience is really powerful.

I try not to judge but I generally stop following people that put up nude/near nude photos because I just don’t want to see that. I’m not a prude and when I was younger I got asked to model a bit and even rode a horse naked for a commercial advertising an exhibition from the Tate. I just wonder if the art for some people is making themselves ‘attractive’ or if it’s the work they are doing. The blurring of this line might seem fun and exploratory but it’s pretty dangerous. The algorithms used as framework for social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram, are based on a popularity system. Permanent high-school. We each have value intrinsically; we are all inter-connected and combined actions that move us further from this truth only breeds resentment.

Anyway it’s a weird time to be making work and to think that you can spend months making a picture and you put it online and then it’s right next to someone’s butt. It’s kind of depressing. So trying to bring the audience back to the gallery or into printed matter or into engagement with one another, into conversation, is really important.

Last time I heard, you were working at The Depot? Yeah I was there for years as well! The Depot was a real turning point because I realised how little I knew. In the past I was always ok in saying, “I don’t know” but while I was there I realized that I need to go out and learn about where we are and how I fit in just for myself. Y’know? What does it mean to be a pakeha? Why did previous generations of my family come here and where from? Even when I try to think about just my personal history, it’s a mess! I have learnt more about the history of Aotearoa New Zealand by studying ecology than I ever learnt in school and TBH my parents didn’t know it to teach me either. Many people see history as issues of the past but it speaks too about inter-generational development and manifests in contemporary life. There was an exhibition called He Whakaputanga Mai o te Rangatiratanga at Depot Artspace which travelled down from the Hokianga. It featured 13 artists making contemporary work about their relationship to this landmark document and the United Tribes flag. In my role as editor for publications I was set to work laying out a publication which featured writing and images by the artists and I was mind-blown. I had never even heard of it before. I never even knew that there was that flag or anything and I was like, ‘OMG this is terrible!, everything I ever knew was wrong!’ I then realized that if I lived my whole life saying ‘I don’t know’ about these things, not only would that be acceptable but it would be encouraged in ‘polite’ society and I’m just not OK with that. My relationship with the Depot was definitely tumultuous to say the least but it was also invaluable. I learnt so much during my time there about relationships, cultural development, and about myself. I just got to a place when it was definitely time for me to go and be more directive in my learning. Other than my one year of study at animation college in 1999 I had no tertiary education and as I still have to make commercial/client work to support myself I tried to find flexible papers specific to my interest in the natural environment of Aotearoa. I couldn’t really find anything THAT specific but there was one paper with Open Polytechnic that was on plants and people. An introduction to ethnobotany which looked at plant identification but also an entry level into cultural uses. But to do it I had to get a student loan to pay for it, because paying for everything is hard as well when you’re an artist. So I enrolled into a Diploma in Environment and Sustainability. I did a bunch of papers that I didn’t know I’d be that interested in but I definitely see now that having a more overall understanding of the environment locally and globally aids the more specific knowledge I have been seeking. I ended up joining the New Zealand Plant Conservation Network (a great online resource) and they were advertising a summer school paper in Practical Field Botany by The University of Canterbury which took place at the Cass Field Research Station centred around learning how to identify alpine plants by seeing them in the field! After a year of studying by myself that sounded amazing. Looking at plants in the field, the mountains, in the summer…then I got down there and it was a degree level paper crammed into seven days with hardout academic students and workers from botanical gardens all around the country. So the anxiety that I would normally feel spread out over a whole term was crammed into these few days. Plus you’re sleeping in a room with strangers with no personal space and 7am starts. I was popping sleeping pills and freaking out and then I was like, ‘Y’know, well, whatever happens, happens and I just got to take in what I can take in and just try and enjoy being here. It’s real work [to think like that].’ Rita Angus used to go out [to the Cass Field Research Station] when it was just a shack to look at plants, it’s very romantic, the tussock grassland. We’d do day trips to DOC [Department of Conservation] land not normally accessible to the public to photograph specimens, learning about key characteristics and how to differentiate between family groups and that sort of thing. So I took in a lot and forgot a lot but it was a really good learning experience. It was only 10 days but so intense, I really thought I was going to fail but I got a B! [laughs]. Well, I’m glad that I’ve managed to catch you before your solo exhibition at Whitespace Contemporary Art. How did that relationship come about?

Justin Jade Morgan who I worked with at Depot Artspace, recommended me to take over his role as Central City Event Co-ordinator for Artweek Auckland, which Deborah White founded. She got in touch with me and I really enjoyed working with her and Marlaina Key for four consecutive Artweek programmes in that role.

This year however, I insisted that I was actually going to show my work and wouldn’t have time to do both. I didn’t have a venue but as I’m pretty used to finding unusual spaces to exhibit I was confident it would happen. I was just going to go hire a warehouse or something and put the work in there like what I would normally do. I’m not used to having any support really, I’m very DIY in that way and it’s always been like that.

Sometime after this had been arranged, she contacted me to say that although their main gallery space was full, they (Ken and Deborah) wanted to offer me the ‘salon’ side to host my exhibition. This was completely unexpected and a really wonderful breakthrough for me. They [Whitespace Contemporary Art] really have their eyes open to what’s happening and a lot of it has to do with Deborah’s work and her commitment to the arts. She got a medal, did you know that? A New Zealand Order of Merit from The Queen just a few weeks ago and she wasn’t even expecting it.

After my exhibition opening, an older couple were looking at my work in Whitespace while I was there and they were quite familiar with the species as they had studied biology and botany. I asked if they were involved with Auckland Bot Soc (botanical society) but they were from Canterbury.  It turned out they courted while at the Cass Research centre and he would wait for her in the train station before they went on hikes together through the forest and tussock grasslands.

Erin’s exhibition at Whitespace Contemporary Art ends Sun 22 Oct.

(Images: Brendan Kitto, 2017)

[adampaisley]

My Foray into Gonzo Journalism

PART 1 - Drugs and Food

In an effort to expand my writing portfolio and find paid work, I’ve taken stock of what is popular in today’s media and decided that I need to pursue the technique of gonzo journalism.

My research shows there are a few paths I can take. I narrowed it down to two; either seek out really awful, uneducated people and tell you about them or I can write about doing things that are ill advised in a cool ironic way.

My day starts at 10am. I normally wake up at 7-7:30 and this day was no exception. But as a gonzo journalist, it’s a big no-no to start your day that early. In fact it’s more likely it’s when your night should end. This was going to be tough. I stayed in bed for a bit, read some news, posted a couple HBDs on Facebook and had a sensible breakfast before heading out.

I chose this day to start my new journalistic endeavor because it was the first day of the month after my birth month. Which meant I was driving with an expired license. I had received a renewal notice in the mail but chose to ignore it. Already feeling the gonzo rush, I head to meet a known local drug dealer to prepare myself for the evening. “Sup cuz?” he greeted me, using his e-cigarette, fully aware of the lack of research on the health ramifications of the technology. It smelled nice, like a blue raspberry sno-cone. I said as much. “Yeah, it’s blue raspberry”, he replied. This drug dealer is actually my second cousin Dale (I’ve changed his name from Dave to Dale to protect his identity).

“What do you need?” he asked. I left with some magic mushrooms and MDMA, or “Molly” in drug-lord parlance. I wondered if this was based on the great Canadian actress Molly Parker but Dave wasn’t sure and said “probably not”. I argue that she deserves something to be named after her but Dave has already left. With the drugs securely in my coat pocket, I continue my journey.

It’s now lunch time. I head to a dive restaurant that’s of such poor quality, even Guy Fieri wouldn’t feature it on Triple D. The decor was unappealing; The crown moulding was a mess. Real sloppy work. I have a seat at the counter. “Hi, what can I get for ya?” the waitress asks. She’s an older woman, mid 40’s, dyed black hair and heavy on the makeup. She isn’t unattractive and you could tell she was a dime in her day. Her small-town eyebrows are still sculpted the same way her mother taught her at thirteen. Personally, I’m feeling extremely uncomfortable, knowing I’ll have to describe her appearance in a weird, misogynistic way in the article as is customary in gonzo journalism. (Sorry Kathy! You were a wonderful server and I know your appearance has no relevance to the story but I feel as if I had to include this.)

I’m about to order a burger with fries but realize that isn’t ill-advised enough. I look to the back page of the menu. “I’ll have the fish please” I say, knowing full well it is likely already prepared, frozen, and simply warmed for the customer. “Okay”

Lunch was pretty good. I feel okay. The tartar sauce was actually quite good. I ask about it and am told it’s made in house. I mention they should sell it and Kathy offers to put some in a container for me. I gladly accept, pay my bill and head out.

I still have a few hours to kill before I’m scheduled to take the drugs so I head to a Starbucks. I’m doing this ironically as it’s not something a cool guy gonzo journalist would do. I ironically charge my phone and order a “caramelli frappiachi or whatever”, purposefully getting the name incorrect because I wouldn’t unironically drink such a delicious beverage. I sit and play a couple turns on my Yahtzee app before heading toward the hospital.

I decided to take the drugs across the street from the emergency room. I haven’t done drugs before and read about some pretty serious allergic reactions online. My reasoning for taking them across the street and not in front of the building was twofold; less chance of being seen by a narc (drugs slang for “Narcotic Tattletale”) and if I had to cross the street with a severe allergic reaction, it would be great for the story. As a bonus, the bus I wanted to take after was west bound so it made sense to be on that side of the street.

I ingested the magic mushroom and didn’t feel an immediate allergic reaction, so I hopped on my bus and started my “trip”. ;)

Shoot, I forgot to swear in the article. Fuck the establishment! Okay, thanks.

PART 2 - I’m on Drugs, which are Illegal.

It was hard to tell if the drugs were starting to have an effect or if the bus is always this unpleasant. I hadn’t taken transit in many years, as my parents gave me a Honda Civic as a high school graduation present and it has proven to be a reliable companion. I’ve had to do a few minor repairs but am overall very happy with the reliability.

On the bus, a man is eating sunflower seeds and spitting them onto the floor. Another smells greatly of urine, yet still has the mind to catcall a teenage girl. An unkempt teen audibly burps while texting with the keyboard click sound on. It’s hard to imagine this wasn’t a hallucination but a few people I told about it suggested that these behaviors are not uncommon on the bus. I push through it by fondly thinking about the comforts of my sedan.

I finally arrive at my destination, a public park. From what I had gleaned from my research, I was now supposed to experience something considered illegal in some countries with a person of notoriety. Perhaps do peyote with Deadmau-Five or ingest an extremely hot sauce with Dave Coulier.

I had contacted a number of people and the one who was kind enough to join me was a friend of mine who is a regional journalist who is verified on Twitter. He was not very receptive to doing anything illegal but after some convincing, he agreed to eat some foods that aren’t allowed to be sold in the country because of regulatory law.

We kicked things off with a glass of Ovaltine I bought online. You can get it where I’m from as well but it’s a bit different from the British one because it has a colourant that isn’t approved here. We both agreed; it tasted pretty good.

Next up, I had tried to get my hands on some farm raised salmon but it didn’t pan out so I had to get a bit creative for the next one. We each had a Kinder Surprise egg. They’re legal here in Canada but not in the US as the toy inside is a choking hazard. We removed the toys and ate the chocolate without incident. They’re great. I received a puzzle inside, which is disappointing but my friend got a frog that jumped if you flick it, which was pretty cool.

I thanked him for his time and asked if he wanted to hang out and join me tonight. He said he had to head home because he and his partner were going to watch Rango.

I’m flying solo.

PART 3 - A Set Back

Well, something caught up with me. Possibly the magic mushrooms or more likely the Ovaltine. I’m pretty lactose intolerant and spend the next two hours in the washroom with a Gatorade and my iPad.

I watch a few eps of (pre-Logan era) Gilmore Girls to comfort myself.

I worry my article is in peril of ending unceremoniously if I’m unable to make it out that night, so I take an Imodium and have a short nap.I wake up feeling better and I decide that I’m up to the challenge of a night out.

I think I’ll take my car this time. I don’t want to drive under the influence but I figure any effect the mushrooms would have had is gone after my time on the toilet. The bus is just too much right now. Especially with the threat of loose stool.

PART 4 - I Drop My Bean

I pre-purchased tickets to a concert by a local punk band called Truck Frudeau. From what I’d seen online, their music is terrible and their point of view misguided but I decided to attend anyways. My research shows that these articles aren’t about sharing great art but finding something that will result in people clicking on the article to scoff.

I arrive at the venue at 9:00 PM. It said doors at 9 but when I enter there is nobody taking tickets and the band is just setting up. I figure this would be a good time to talk to them for my story. I’m not sure of how the interview will go but if they’re cool, I can act like I’m cool for talking to them or(hopefully) they say something incendiary, and I can be really condescending and sensationalize it.

I ask the lead singer, Josh, what his main problem with the Liberal government is. He says that “Justin Trudeau is just a pawn who answers to rich assholes who want to sell guns to the middle east so people kill each other.” I imagine this is not the PM’s main objective but there is likely a very troubling and continued history of Canadian arms sales. I want to research this further but I know I need to be careful the article is political enough to draw interest while never veering out of the realm of trash entertainment.

I ask to the drummer, Wes, about what he wants to accomplish with the band. He tells me that he doesn’t “pay attention to politics. (He) just likes to smoke weed and hang out when (he’s) not working at the bank”. (Off the record, I ask him what it’s like to smoke weed. I don’t want him getting in any legal trouble and I don’t want to look like I am not cool in the article.)

I thank them for their time and they finish setting up. About fifteen or so people are now gathered in front of the stage. This seems like the right time for me to take the Molly(Parker) but I’m a little gun-shy from my earlier narcotic experience and only take half of the already minimal dose I purchased. I drink a whole bottle of water with it because I heard MDMA dehydrates and I’m already pretty dried out from the loose stool.

The band begins their set. A group of teens start to mosh so I stand near the back. I think I start to feel the effect of the drug because I find myself enjoying the band. I tap my toe and nod my head, really feeling it.

It’s now about three songs in and I’ve hit a wall. I’m so tired and can’t take it any longer. I head to the washroom, the music is stripped of all the deafening volume and I can really hear how poorly they’re playing. I go to the stall and sit on the toilet.

Next thing I know, I’m woken up  from a dream about going to the airport to look for my misplaced gloves. There was a punk band playing at the airport in the dream, which makes a lot of sense now that I’m awake. An awful smelling bartender with camo pants tucked into his combat boots tells me the show has concluded and they’re about to lock up. I ask them to call a taxi for me. I get into the taxi and give him my address. The driver asks me what band I saw. I pause for a second, then say “Uhh…Jeff’s Place” because I didn’t want to explain what Truck Frudeau is all about and that’s the best fake band name I could come up with at the moment.

I arrive home and head straight to bed. I sleep soundly until 8am which is very late for me.

Fuck the establishment. Thank you for reading.