http://kidswithtalons.com/

We’re cooler than you and you’ll know it.

Wed, 30 May 2012 19:25:38 +1200

We’re cooler than you and you’ll know it.

The General Pants dance.

Wed, 30 May 2012 19:24:21 +1200

Wow it’s cold right? Brrr…. cold… had to wear a sweatshirt the other day, it was heavy! I wish it was summer again already I’m losing my bondi bod. Yeah that’s right, I been to Sydney, I did stuff. I actually spent quite a bit of time last summer working at this place called General Pants, I didn’t tell you that did I? It was after my big break as a model, things got crazy and I got broke again so I did what every struggling artist/model in Australia does and got a job at GP. It’s hard to explain what GP is to Aussie, it’s really just another clothes shop, but because of the full to bursting hip kid scene over here, with their insatiable hunger for skinny chinos and 50 colours of vans and their bottomless wallets, GP has grown big, and ugly, and it’s everywhere. It’s attained some crazy status, like a rock band! Like… the Thirsty Merc of chain stores. HAhah. So they’ve got all the hip brands and they play the hip music and apparently what sets them apart from every other store doing that, is their uber dank staff. This is where I come in. Basically, if you work there, you’re probably A. tattoo’d B In a band C A struggling artist. That’s two out of three for me if you count me and my bro recording ourselves on his mp3 player as a band. So I’m hired and ready but before you can go out there and just ooozzze cool all over kids buying k-subis (it’s a non-silent k you guys), you have to attend induction day, which for me was the weirdest, most awkward, do-people-really-believe-this day I’ve ever had.

INDUCTION DAY

It started out with me arriving late to a room full of people who looked like they’d come straight from shooting an ad for Corona, and offering modest apologies. I sat at the closest table and straight away was forced to talk to the girl next to me as part of the first assignment. This girl was a vacuum, and as a result the only thing I learnt from her was her name (which I mispronounced all day, in fact for several weeks after) and that she didn’t like uni, and that she was a model. Doubt it, she was minging, but mostly in personality. So when it came time to stand up and make her sound cool and interesting, I had nothing. That was my dismal start to a day of failure involving human pyramids and role-play and lots and lots of rhetorical questioning.

Having not been to any rehab or life improvement seminars, or even any team building type things whatsoever, it was WEIRD. By far the weirdest part was when the main area manager, the rhetorical questions guy, who is apparently like a sales star in the company and gets called in to struggling stores to sort their shit out and make everyone a star, told us this. He told us that, we would probably find that after a good exchange with a customer, where we made GP feel like a really cool party and they are the VIP (real words), they will probably come back with groups of their friends, just to prove to their friends that they are on a first name basis with someone from General Pants…

I lost my shit!

I barely suppressed my PFFFTT!!

Did I miss the bit when working in a clothes shop became as cool as selling drugs or making rap-step music? Since when do retail assistants get groupies? Why did no one tell me it was that easy? I thought this guy was straight trippin’ and I looked around for other homies to be agreein’ with me, but errbody was nodding and writing notes and generally looking stoked that they were about to be rockstars. So the day ended with one of those exams that are impossible to fail where you copy word for word the answers written in the handbook you’re given, which I knew was coming which is why I drew squiggles all over my workbook while everyone was taking notes. I scored 110% percent and was deemed fit to start “disrupting the average” (GP modus operandi). But this was only the beginning.

Look out for Part 2…

90% of General Pants people are this person.

Wed, 30 May 2012 19:23:35 +1200

90% of General Pants people are this person.

The easiest $$$ I ever made.

Thu, 17 May 2012 19:51:46 +1200

Lots of my friends have jobs that apparently really suck. They come home from their sucky jobs and find me on their couch where I’ve been staying for two weeks too long, beating their top scores on their xbox. They wade through a pile of my art junk to get to their kitchen where I’ve left toasty crumbs of their bread errywhere, and they sigh loudly and longly about their shitty day. If I’m feeling particularly sagely I might ask them what’s wrong, even tho I know it’s their job. ” Nobody has to work a shitty job if they don’t want to, ” I tell them, ” you ain’t gonna starve, ” I add, wiping their toast crumbs from my face on to their couch. And then they have the nerve to direct their dissatisfaction at their own silly lives at ME?!?! UGHH!! Some people…

As you can probably tell, I’m a germ. I’m workin’ the system. I’ve been on the dole no less than three separate times in my short, leechy life, and I just did a 7 month stint in Sydney yet paid rent for only two of those months. In Sydney, the worlds most expensive english speaking city! I’m amazing! The moral of the story is, my job stress is pretty low. If a buck ain’t easy I got no interest in trying to make it, take this art gig for instance. I wasn’t born with a paintbrush in my hand or nuthin’, I just decided when I was 17 that pretty much every job I’d ever heard of sounded shit so I figured I’d just try get better at drawing these naked gurlz I’d been secretly scrying since my (late) puberty. See? All I did was take the easy way out, and look how it’s working out for me, I sometimes get paid to draw stuff! Hahaha! Never laid a brick in me life! Yeah, art is a sweet gig, don’t let no whiny art types tell you otherwise, if people aren’t buying their shitty naive-cutesy-painted plates it’s nobodies fault but their own sucka, got get a sucky job if you want to complain about junk. But art isn’t the easiest money I ever made, oh no, the easiest money I ever made was the day I was a Glue model.

Ewww!! YUCK! I know man, but come on, I got $1000 dollars to hang out and do nothing for one day. If I did that more than once that would be the most money anyones ever made! Pretty much all I did was sacrifice my dignity and wear some fedoras and some orange chinos and once even took my shirt off, and I got paid A THOUSAND SCRILLA. It’s not even like I’m that good looking, I’m about 5 ft tall so I was practically porcupined with pins and clips, none of the shoes fit me, my nose even managed to make 80% of the sunnies look fucked. HAHAA, add on to that I wouldn’t shut up all day cos I was so excited about being rich, and you’ve got basically the easiest and most undeserved money I ever made, or anyone will ever make. Actually, I deserved it more than the other models, they were straight up uggles, worst personalities.

JKS!!

LOLZ

PS I can’t find any copies of the catalogue I was in, but here’s this behind the scenes photo from the day, OMFG SHAME!!!

Photo

Sat, 12 May 2012 12:24:26 +1200

This issue of SW is all about the man MP, who some say died in the late 70s and some say died the...

Sat, 12 May 2012 12:24:00 +1200

This issue of SW is all about the man MP, who some say died in the late 70s and some say died the other week. There’s no doubting the man was a legend and the mag is a great tribute to him, shown here are a few of the panels I illustrated for a timeline of his life. Basically if you’re trying to run long hair, a moustache, and retro boards then you better read up on one of the originals.

Punchup.

Sat, 12 May 2012 12:12:33 +1200

Punchup.

MP on acid.

Sat, 12 May 2012 12:12:04 +1200

MP on acid.

MP and Rabbit in Hawaii.

Sat, 12 May 2012 12:11:00 +1200

MP and Rabbit in Hawaii.

Photo

Thu, 03 May 2012 06:54:16 +1200

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Thu, 03 May 2012 06:48:11 +1200

Hey guys! Been RAMming the KWT superserver, stay tuned for some...

Tue, 01 May 2012 18:34:42 +1200

Hey guys! Been RAMming the KWT superserver, stay tuned for some hi-fi web surfing.

Video

Mon, 16 Apr 2012 22:48:34 +1200

The new Surfing World is all about Gerry Lopez! Who? Gerry...

Mon, 16 Apr 2012 16:16:05 +1200

The new Surfing World is all about Gerry Lopez! Who? Gerry Lopez! You know… the guy… Mr Pipeline? Yoga? Conan the Barbarian? Any of this ringing any bells? He is a super chill dude who done did some crazy things in his life, great mag all about a great man and I did lots of paintings in it. These are just some of them, not even all of them. If I was going to buy a mag, ever, that wasn’t the Online Gamers Multiverse Monthly, I’d buy this one, but they send them to me fo free sucka.

How’s Rangis photo below this? Looks like a funguy, it’s wild! Rangi’s always in the bush being mouldy. Do you know much about mould and fungi? Man, they are crazy, there’s this one called Cordyceps that infects insects, with a specific line of fungi targeting specific insect groups. The ant one gets inside their brain and makes them climb up a twig or stem or anywhere high, then they clamp their jaws around the twig and die. The Cordyceps then fruits OUT OF THEIR HEADS, and casts its spores all over the next unsuspecting colony. Isn’t that just freaky?

Photo

Sun, 15 Apr 2012 16:00:12 +1200

Detail of a new painting I’m doin’ for SW. N

Fri, 13 Apr 2012 01:00:42 +1200

Detail of a new painting I’m doin’ for SW. N

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Sun, 08 Apr 2012 13:49:14 +1200

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Thu, 05 Apr 2012 16:00:59 +1200

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Wed, 04 Apr 2012 19:26:16 +1200

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Wed, 04 Apr 2012 19:22:33 +1200