Category Archives: Places

Who And Where Is Lisa Marie Smith?

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In DAA’s old ‘hood, Darlinghurst, there was a ton of street art, so it wasn’t unusual for us to find similar pieces by the same artists around the traps. One repetitive group of tiles caught our eye though. A (mostly) triangular-shaped plaque that always spoke of Lisa Marie Smith, someone who had eluded the Bangkok Hilton was one in particular that interested us. None of the text ever made any sense to us, we just kept seeing the plaques scattered around the city and inner west and kept thinking that they were works of art based on a fictional person or event.

Every time we saw one of these plaques, we had the same conversation… who is Lisa Marie Smith? And why does someone have such a big beef with her that they plaster Sydney with the afore mentioned placards? After two years, and countless plaques,  it finally dawned on us that we should perhaps consult our dear friend Google and see if there was in fact such a person. It turns out there is. And the story, quite intriguing.

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Why Job-Hunting is Like Having Your Soul Sucked Out From Under Your Fingernails by a High-Powered Vacuum Cleaner

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Anyone who has spent any reasonably lengthy period of time ‘looking for work’ can tell you that there is a fundamental difference between being ‘unemployed’ and being a ‘job-hunter’.  Saying you’re unemployed is a less guilty way of saying “I don’t have to go to work today or any day” It’s like being on a holiday that has no foreseeable end. It’s a world without alarms, fixed time lunch-breaks, and mundane office banter. Being unemployed epitomises the adage of ‘living the dream’.  When you’re unemployed, the volunteer work you’ve always felt guilty about avoiding starts to become something that you might actually begin to start to think about considering. When you’re unemployed you can have beer on your cereal when there’s no milk because when you’re unemployed, you’re your own boss. In short, being unemployed gives you the freedom to be master of your own domain.

Now before you all go marching into your boss’s offices brandishing an active fire extinguisher and start yelling obscenities at photos of their children in a quest to make yourself one of the unemployed ‘lucky ones’, there’s something you have to know. There is a catch.  Being unemployed quite unfortunately goes hand-in-hand with another fish entirely, known commonly as ‘looking for work’.  Whoever the person was who compared this soul-crushing exercise with the sport of tracking and killing living things by referring to it as ‘job-hunting’ will know what I’m talking about. Job-hunting is ruthless, cutthroat, and the punter with the sharpest sword won’t necessarily end up being the one to slay the beast. …more

So Long, Farewell… Darlinghurst

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We know we have been pretty slack the last few months, you’ll forgive us, right? Moving really isn’t all that much fun, and that is exactly what we have been trying to sort out for the past little while… so, now that we are all moved, and somewhat unpacked, we bring you this ode to Darlinghurst, our home for the past 15 months.

What a fascinating suburb. In the heart of the city, this ‘burb has a beat louder than you can imagine. Piqued between Kings Cross and Oxford Street, we sure have had a lot of fun the past year and are definitely sad to have left such a vivacious and uh, vibrant neighbourhood.  It’s got the personality of a two year old, it doesn’t sleep, it’s dirty, if you don’t get along you’ll be spat out (or at), it’s not toilet trained (read: homeless lady unashamedly taking an un-ladylike dump in a Chinese food container in the middle of Taylor Square), it chucks a fair few tantrums (prostitutes arguing out the front of your window at 4am) and if you’re not careful your most prized things will get broken, stolen and smashed. Despite all that, actually because of all of that, we loved it dearly.

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Field Of Art

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We love all things creative here at DAA, it’s a pretty broad statement, but if it’s innovative and exciting, then generally we’re into it. We came across these images and were pretty astounded at just how cool  the Japanese can make a rice field look.

Inakadate 2010

Every year in Japan some areas, most famously Inakadate,  incorporate artwork and agriculture, planting different colours and varieties of rice to create images that on the ground, don’t look much, but from above look plain awesome. Inakadate’s 8000 residents and farmers have worked together to create enormous agricultural works of art depicting various different images since 1993! Varying from the Mona Lisa to traditional warriors and anime characters, all different kinds of images rise from the ground every June and can be seen until they are harvested in September.

Check out some of the other past and present rice field art! …more

The King Of Kings Cross

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“In 30 years of walking these streets, not once have I met the so called ‘King’ of Kings Cross. You see, before you can be the King, first you have to be a Queen. And being a Queen around these parts means selling your arse on the street. There’s nothing tough about beating up women.”

- Not the King of Kings Cross, 2010

Captain Morgan, Cinnamon Girl. $20. Sydney. 24 Hours.

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A while ago, back when it was hot enough to go swimming (so January) we decided we’d try something. We were trying to see how far we could stretch a few coins in one day for as much fun as possible. We decided we would set a limit of $20 between the two of us for breakfast, lunch, dinner and all travel and entertainment.

The guy who sells our travel 10 passes at a newsagent on Oxford St had told us a few days before that on Sundays anyone can buy a pensioner excursion ticket for only $2.50 and have unlimited travel on Sydney trains, ferrys and buses for the entire day; which means we could pretty much go to the Blue Mountains, back to Wollongong, up to Gosford and so on and so forth… I’m sure you get the picture. We thought it seemed a bit ridiculous considering it costs $3.40 to take the bus to Bondi one way from the city, so of course we snapped two of those babies up and thought it would be cool to see how much fun we could stretch out of them.

Our day went a little like this:
We got up and had ourselves an always tasty breakie of canned spaghetti on toast ($3) which may sound boring but is actually a cheap and delicious hangover cure, not to mention it also pumps you full of carbohydrates to get your body moving again. Once we were ready for the day we hit Oxford St and bought ourselves two pensioner excursion tickets ($5), jumped on the bus down to Circular Quay and got on the ferry to Manly.

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Out & About In Sydney

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We have been out and about the last couple of weeks running amok, here are some cool pics we have taken along the way….

….more Dripping Acid Propoganda

Let’s Colour Project

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Six months of ideas and inspiration have now been put into motion,  and Dulux have a released a creative new global marketing campaign with the idea of putting colour back into people’s lives.  According to the website, ‘Grey is Gone.’ Dulux teamed up with film maker Adam Berg and Sigur Ros’ frontman Jonsi to create the Let’s Colour project, an intiative that has seen cities all around the world turned into a giant palette of colour.

These short clips were shot in Brazil, France, India and England and does not simply represent paint being thrown on walls, whole communities got together to create literal walls of colour.

Sure there is an underlying motive, read sell more paint, but it doesn’t mean the concept isn’t really freakin’ cool. We think it is anyhow.

Check it out for yo’selves.

Bucket Bar, Satans’ Favourite!

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Stretched along the length of the Sunrise Beach in Haad Rin, home of the famous full moon parties on the southern Thailand island of Ko Pha Ngan are a bustle of bars trying to outdo each other. Their goal? To sell the party going Farang (foreigners) that flock to the island for a few days every month to revel on the full moon-lit beach their version of a cocktail known as a bucket. A “bucket” is pretty much what it sounds, a smallish bucket containing a pint (yes a pint) of local whisky, a can of coke, a bottle of Red Bull concentrate, ice, and a bunch of straws. A bucket will set you back about 180 Thai baht, the equivalent of about $6 AUD. Two or three of these buckets will set you back a hangover that feels like you have been kicked in the temple by a donkey and a heart rate that is comparable to a Ducati being kickstarted.

As you can see by some of the creative stall names in the pic above, the locals really go all out to get your attention and get that valuable sale. Luckily as you can see from the image below, not only is Jesus himself ok with the concept of the bucket, he enjoys them too!

Bangkok Clashes Leave A Red Imprint On The City

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Arriving in Bangkok three weeks ago, the taxi driver taking us to our destination of Khao San Road, the heart of the city’s thumping backpacker district, advised us against staying “anywhere near the place, best off staying close to the airport for you I thinks.” In broken English, he roughly explained about the political protests that had already been going on for weeks before our arrival. At that stage, as far as we knew the protest had been a peaceful one, the Red Shirts (I guess the equivalent of the Labor Party in Australia) were protesting the current Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva because they believed the government was corrupt and undemocratic considering the political party took office in 2008 when previous Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra was stripped of the position while out of the country. We knew they had poured 300 litres of their own blood on the steps of Parliament in protest of the injustice (they originally threatened a thousand litres), but we also knew that no one had been hurt and there was no unrest in the area.

To be completely honest, neither of us completely understood what each side were fighting for, we had a basic understanding that the Red Shirts, who are made up of majority working class, farmers etc., were protesting the current government, and were calling for Parliament to be dissolved and for there to be a democratic election of a new Prime Minister.

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