Interview with Edward J Funkuncle.
Fissure Magazine. 21st January, 2005.

Fissure Magazine: Mr Funkuncle, firstly, let us say we find your work inspiring. What gives you inspiration?

Edward J. Funkuncle: Lust, love, peace, bravery, creativity, music, art, stories... I think these are the kind of things that make life worth living generally.

FM: Are you foremost a writer or an artist?

E.J.F: I like to think they’re intertwined. Music as well. Though, first up, I could draw. Drawing was the key. I did it all the time as a child because that’s all there was. I was travelling, - or more accurately, I was kidnapped. There’s a lot of downtime when you’re kidnapped. So I drew pictures all the time. Taught myself. From there I springboarded onto the other stuff. They should teach drawing to kiddies like they teach English or Maths.

FM: Let’s go one step back. Your father kidnapped you?

E.J.F: Yes my father took me... from my mother. Not for ransom; that would have been insulting. Just because she got along with us I suppose and he was a little jealous. They tell me, by the way, this is not the way parents are meant to act. I don’t know why he took me because he hardly ever talked to me after that. I was having more fun with my mother in America, in the Bronx. Though, who knows, maybe I would have turned out a gangster. Living with my father in the middle of nowhere kept me out of trouble. That’s because, while my father went out and got into trouble, I was locked in a house. Australia is a very interesting place though... via nature. Very hot out there outside the cities, out where the ground gets red. Very strange things happen.

FM: Did that influence you? Some strange things seem to have happened to you?

E.J.F: No stranger than most.

FM: Mmm... a little stranger than my experience.

E.J.F: Get out more. Drink Gin...things start happening...

FM: Maybe that’s the key. When did you leave Australia?

E.J.F: I was about fifteen. Went back to Manhattan. My father went to jail for a spell.

FM: Any particular reason?

E.J.F: Well... he has a friend called Mystery Kevin. You hang around with him for a while and you'd end up in jail too.

FM: Was your mother happy to see you again?

E.J.F: Oh yes. Very pleased. There was one more person to do the dishes. She always knew I was alive though. We sent the odd letter. It took the sting out of it.

FM: Was it hard to re-adjust?

E.J.F: It was the mid sixties then. I was inspired by the Space Race. Life Magazine made a big hoopla about it at the time. I still have a love for astronomy and at the time I fluked high physics marks. I tried to become an astronaut but NASA rejected me.

FM: Why?

E.J.F: Flat feet. NASA is uptight. They frown on that. Same thing that got me out of the army eventually. Served me very well later. At the time though, I was pissed at NASA.

FM: What do you think of current artists?

E.J.F: I saw Hirst’s work the other day. He’s up to something completely different than the cows in the fish tanks and all that. 180-degree turn. It will knock people out probably. He’s a genius... At something anyway. It’s like Bono. I was briefly hanging out with those guys a few years back. Did you see that shit they pulled? Brought the plane up just as it was pitching for the ground. You get in people’s faces too much and you’ll get pushed away. Very natural. You have to pull some shit out to make people not want to kill you. One minute they'll lap you up, the next they’ll stand there and watch you burn – toast marshmallows on your funeral pyre. The collective conscience gets tired of you. No wonder. Get out of their face. Let people breath. Marketing – it’s the bane of the modern world. All those new bands should take note.

FM: Don’t take this the wrong way but you’re quite old to be doing a website.

E.J.F: You think so? Well... to tell you the truth the kid downstairs does all the computer stuff. He takes my journals, finds bits of paper I leave around the house - puts it on the scanner thing. My son left a lot of computers around when he went... well, fled, to Vegas. The kid downstairs saw them and got ‘em running. He was quite excited actually when he saw Cal's equipment. He's kind of what do you call it? a hacker? Evidently they were pretty slick machines. I was just using them as coffee tables. Though I am learning. Used to hate the things. But I’ve been secretly standing over the kid's shoulder. I can send emails now. The other day I learned control C, control V.

FM: Great. No stopping you.

E.J.F: Well I had to learn. The kid went off to Japan, then Australia. Should be back soon. He still builds my website somehow. It’s kind of magic that computer stuff. I just send bits of paper to him by post, then I see it on the internet... if I can be bothered looking, that is. It’s slick for sure... I’ll still keep writing in my black and red bound books though.

FM: I can’t imagine it any other way. Well, thank you for talking to us.

E.J.F Anytime. Have another drink...