Icehouse In Concert In the Riff

Every time I drive to Penrith I remember that it is an awfully long way away from the city. In fact and I don't mean any disrespect, but, What on earth is there out in the "riff" that would warrant some musical greats to venture out that far? In any case it was the only venue I could see them play apart from some, ahem, "Ute Muster" that the famed Icehouse were to perform. Of course they are due to do some shows with Hall and Oats but I didn't want to wait that long to see my Australian musical hero, Iva, strut his stuff Penrith style!

I knew Icehouse would not disappoint and it was apparent from the very beginning that the band were as tight as ever. Every detail of the sound and lighting and audio visual show had been timed to within an inch of its life. It is so refreshing to see a band take such pride in producing and delivering a quality show that every instrument is balanced and the sound guys appeared to be completely into every note that they mixed to perfection.

Now you might be thinking that being such a big fan that of course I would say something as predictable as "Oh they were so brilliant blah blah blah" but the fact is that I have been to see many a major musical genius in the past and come away wondering what on earth I was thinking some of these highlights include;

Public Enemy, who were crap, walked out half way; George Clinton, so bad I demanded my money back and oh yes who could forget ye olde Barry White who took about an hour off my life which I can never get back. Oh oh and I almost forgot to mention REM where I got the tickets for free through industry friends and fronted up to a completely blacked out Sydney Entertainment Centre except for the floor seating. You don't have to guess how shit that evening was. Stipey needed a Bex and a lie down let me assure you. Actually the truth is by the end of the night I considered taking up a crack habit. So yes Icehouse were fucking brilliant no doubt about it.

So after Iva played all the classics and then some he played "Don't Believe Anymore". The fact is that I honestly felt like I had borne wings at that moment and was floating on the roof. It was superb. The song is pure genius and I have probably listened to it about forty million times and I doubt I will ever grow tired of it or its sentiment. Of course when I asked Iva about it a few years ago he said that he didn't think it was anywhere near as melancholic as he had obviously felt at the time of writing it. Oh yes Iva it is melancholic personified times a thousand. So a long drive to the Riff was worth it and I look forward to seeing Iva again very very soon.

Passengers

"If you want be a passenger

Climb aboard with me we're leaving now

Step outside and see another world

Only if you want to be a passenger"

Lyrics to Passenger by Powderfinger.

In the course of my life I have picked up an awful lot of passengers. Some have stayed in the car, some have got out half way through the journey, some ran off and didn't pay for petrol and some jumped out whilst the vehicle was still in motion. Of course there were also some who were outright hitchhikers that I should have left by the side of the road in a plume of dust.

I am amazed at how many people you meet in a lifetime. They are passengers and some stay with you and some either jump, push, run or walk themselves out of your life. I am fortunate as most of the people who come along for the ride don't get out of the car and its a brilliant journey with them in the passenger seat. Though those who grab hold of the wheel and push you into oncoming traffic are more often than not the ones that are a car crash waiting to happen.

Recently I have been reminded of some of the hitchhikers I have picked up and the lessons they have subsequently imparted upon me for being naive enough to stop and let them ride for free. Interestingly I seem to stop less often for hitchhikers these days. Maybe the car is full? or maybe I have learned that it is only wise to pick up full fare paying passengers who have no destination.

Have We Learned Nothing

I was saddened to hear of the recent death of David Ngoombujarra. I feel this way as we have come so far but have learned so little as a society. Australian history is a topic that is only now being served up to a relatively clueless Australian society. Most Australians are unaware of the past and it is largely because as I have determined from a great deal of study that Australia has largely been embarrassed by its convict heritage. We have been embarrassed by the dissemination of the initial inhabitants of the land and the disastrous ways in which previous governments have dealt with the correct way to provide Australian history to the masses in order for them to feel proud of their heritage and learn from our mistakes in order to help the country and her people in the future.

So yet again another black male has been wronged by our society. A society that has failed to look at the past in order to rectify and assist the future. A society that is too busy to stop and take stock and a society which should only look inward to assess where it went so horribly wrong.

Woollarawarre Bennelong was a senior man of the Eora, an aboriginal who lived in the Port Jackson area at the time of the arrival of the British First Fleet. Arthur Phillip who was the governor of the colony ordered that Bennelong be brought to him to establish relationships with the indiginous populations. The fact is that Bennelong was kidnapped by Phillip who held him against his will for a period of six months, after which Bennelong escaped.

A few months after his escape Bennelong made contact with Phillip and requested that Phillip meet him at Manly for a meeting. During this meeting another aboriginal man threw a spear at Phillip hitting him in the shoulder and wounding him. Perhaps it was retribution for holding Bennelong against his will but suffice to say that Phillip had the good sense to leave well alone and accept that the ways of the indigenous population should be left to their own devices, for the time being anyway. I assume at the time that a dirty big fucken spear through Phillips shoulder made him see their point of view quite clearly.

In 1792 Bennelong travelled to England. The details of his trip are not particularly clear but it was said he was sent in order to meet King George III. Upon Bennelongs return to Sydney Cove in 1795 his health was declining and he was suffering from the effects of alcoholism. He was drinking to excess and nobody thought to stop him. They just provided more and did nothing.

On January 13th 1813 Bennelong succumbed to the disease and died at Kissing Point in Putney.

My point in telling you this story is the place in which Bennelong died and was subsequently buried. The estate of James Squire.

James Squire was a convict transported to Australia for stealing. His claim to fame is he founded Australia's first commercial brewery. If you desire you can still drink in James Squire's name the beers brewed are a special testament to our history and James Squires legacy.

So it was on Sunday July 17th 2011 at 2:40pm some 198 years since the death of Bennelong that Australia loses another of its sons. Why does this continue to happen. Because we allow it to.

Take Your Passion, And Make It Happen!

Winter usually conjures up visions of warm fires, comfort food and layers of clothing but for me it also conjures up "Flash dance"! Yes at certain times during winter I am reminded of a great childhood night out. It was a Friday! - It was Winter! - And it was Great!.

My friend at school during this time was Irene and she was from a strict Italian family. She lived in the classic big "wog" house which was not far from my place and I thought she lived in a right royal mansion. Of course I was of the firm believe that her father must have been involved in the Mafia! How else could they afford such riches because as far as I was concerned at the age of about 8 or so they were rich beyond my wildest dreams. They had a two story freaking house they MUST have been rich!

Of course this was due to my childish observations as I lived in a two bedroom fibro home that you could barely swing a cat in. The back yard was five times the size of the actual dwelling. There was lice in the roof and holes in the floor where the walls would not meet - therefore exposing - well - the soil underneath the house! It was paradise! The fact that we lived only a few streets away did not deter my believe that they were in fact the richest people in the neighbourhood or in fact the entire world.

I was not jealous of their riches I was resided to being systemically poor for life and I loved going into their home. It was completely different to mine. The floors were tiled and the house was always immaculate although we shared that in common as my house was like a hospital theatre. Irene's home smelt different to mine, it felt different to mine and the cultural activities that took place at her home made me feel like I had stepped off Earth and into another planet. Though these are where the differences ended.

The things I do know we shared was the fact that we didn't fit in. She was different because of her cultural background and I was different for reasons that I still can not explain. Even when pressed in a lecture full of teenagers waiting for my big response on the matter. ("Wear it Purple" lecture circa 2011) I now feel that we also shared a common but unspoken of bond which was the pain in our lives during that time. This was due to factors outside of our control as children.

My family life was tearing apart. Nobody discussed divorce in those days, it simply wasn't spoke of and it certainly was not discussed with children. This was because of course as we all know it wasn't about the children! It was about the parents. Their loss, their pain, their sorrow. (Incidentally as this is in written format let me assure you I am being sarcastic. Divorce with children IS in fact all about the children. At least in perfect world it would be about their welfare but it rarely is)

Irene on the other hand, and it is only now as I grow older, and emotionally wiser, that I remember that she may have been a late baby for her parents. Her brother and sister were much older than her so she was kind of brought up like an only child, the baby of the family. However I don't believe this was a problem for her. What I know is that her brother was killed in a car accident. I remember it very clearly but as a child I did not have the emotional maturity to know how to deal with this sort of thing, what child does.

I remember feeling awkward around her mother in particular. Perhaps because I felt so sad about what had happened I could feel she was terribly devastated and I felt by being around at Irene's house I was just a hindrance and in the way at a time for many years they just wanted to be left alone. The fact that I could not speak Italian and I was an alien in many ways didn't help convince me that having another child under toe was a wonderful diversion for her family.

Of course now that I am a fully paid up member of the adult club I realise that they probably didn't think anything like that. No doubt as hard working people they were simply trying to get through their lives as best they could under such terrible circumstances as losing a vibrant young man, their son.

Irene and I would walk home from school each day together the distance not being particularly far but it took us all afternoon. We talked and talked and talked in fact I think I collectively spoke more words to Irene in those early years than I spoke to any other person in my life at the time. How I wish I could go back in time and walk behind those two young girls, chitter chattering away. I am sure I would be shocked and stunned, in fact I know so. We were both mature for our age but under the circumstances we had to be. And it was this among other traits that drew me close to Irene. She like me had to prepare the house each evening as our mother's worked. We were responsible for starting dinner preparations, cleaning the house and getting our homework completed. We also spent the rest of the afternoon that we had left talking on the telephone to each other.

I remember how much we both loved food. I loved going to her home because the food was so different to what my mother prepared. I loved going into her father's cellar and looking at all the bottled goodies that they had stored up. I loved wondering around in her garden and feeding the chooks. I especially loved when we convinced our parents that we needed to complete some homework together on a Friday night and we could steal away as much chocolate and salt and vinegar chips as we could eat and gobble them up without having as much as drawn a border on our project cardboard. It was great.

I remember when she went to Italy and the excitement of receiving a post card from - Abroad! I fondly kept an ashtray she brought back for me from San Remo and when I actually went to San Remo as an adult I thought I had made it as far as the ash tray had come. Wow!

Though my fondet memory will always be when her sister on one freezing cold winter's night took us to see Flashdance at the movies. A really big treat. I remember feeling very grown up with my hand bag and friend on a big night out. We possibly were home by 6pm as it was day light saving and the sun had gone down early but I am hoping it was later, perhaps 9pm? I remember the movie theatre being packed out and the subject matter that we were seeing was as mature as we clearly thought we were able to cope with. The one part of that night out which was a lucky escape was the fact that neither of us had grandiose dreams of being instant dancers. In fact I don't even think we talked about that aspect of it, phew! I would have been washed up as a dancer about a year later when they worked out that ahem I could not in fact dance. Okay, okay a week later!

It was simply brilliant, the movie, the friendship and the great childhood memories.

By the time we went to high school we remained friends but we went in different directions.

It was a normal and natural part of growing up.

So in the dead of winter I often crack open a packet of salt and vinegar chips and snuggle up to watch Flashdance and remember my friend - Irene -Who I hope took all her passions and made them happen.

The Tyranny Of Time

Coyote txt msg to Jodie: I'm here, can't wait to see you!

Jodie txt msg to Coyote: Me too! See you soon miss. I'm coming from town hall on train.

Coyote txt msg to Jodie: Hurry!

Jodie txt msg to Coyote: I'm walking to Enmore Theatre, This is like a bloody first date!

And so it was that Jodie + Jodie = healed.

I never thought this day would come that I could actually say that I have finally healed a part of my past that I never thought I would, but I have. After posting my blog regarding my school friend Jodie we got in contact. We organised a night out and a rather big catch up. We starting talking at 6pm and did not stop until 3am and I have no doubt if we could have physically kept talking we would have.

It was like no time had come between us but it was glaringly obvious that it had. We are older and wiser and as I said on the night our sixteen year old selves would have been very pissed off that we no longer swing from the chandeliers. As we sat talking it was as though we were the only two people in the pub and eventually we were. The whole world stopped around us and we transported back to our old selves. Laugh, laugh and laugh some more the chortling must have been deafening for anyone seated around us but it was like our parents had gone out for the night and we transported back into the naughty little school girls that we once were.

I always knew that we would have lived one degree of separation away from each other all these years and we certainly did. Though I am left with little doubt that the wires that we crossed and the doors that closed in around us and our friendship were all due to one merciless and basic young and inexperienced fact. Emotional naivety.

So at one point we both had to go to the bathroom. As we stood dolling ourselves up about to depart the bathroom Jodie said "Wouldn't it be a blast if we opened up the door to the bathroom and we stepped back in time, transported back straight into a school dance.

In a way I truly wished that it had happened because there are two things I would have done;

1. Pashed Peter Kapusi on the dance floor.

2. Told Jodie that her friendship will always hold a very special place in my heart and even though we will be subject to the tyranny of time in our future eventually time will mean little and we will be friends for life.

The above is not necessarily in order of how I would execute them in my portal back in time but I can tell you I would not leave without doing both. So all there is left now is to play you a song.

A Cracker Of A Time If You Don't Mind Losing An Eye

The weekend just passed in Sydney Australia my homeland was what is commonly referred to as "The Queens Birthday Long Weekend". Not unlike all Australian traditions it is strange that we take a holiday for a monarch we no longer seem to have a lot of reverence for. It is even more ironic since her birthday is actually in May and not June. Still a birthday is a birthday and it gives everyone a chance to take Monday off work at the tax payers expense so nobody complains, not even her majesty.

Unfortunately like most things in life a vast amount of strange traditions have disappeared in the wake of the remotest possibility that someone might in fact loose ones eye or perhaps even a limb. Therefore allowing the tradition of the general public to let off fireworks at home in their backyard during the Queens Birthday Long Weekend has now sadly evaporated. Well actually it was made illegal. The memories of those "Cracker Nights" exists now in the dark recesses of older people's minds and in some it may now be a permanent reminder every time they look at a fingerless hand or an open eye socket.

You see "Cracker Night" was a time during generation X's childhood that comes with mixed emotions. Here is a little of how it went for those readers who are uninitiated into the world of letting young children loose with gun powder, matches and poorly made home explosives.

For many weeks before "Cracker Night" children throughout the land would save every cent they could get their hands on, prior to blowing their fingers off, in order to purchase fireworks. Once money had been saved the child could then take themselves off to their corner shop or newsagent and procure a complete array of fireworks. These fireworks were generally kept by families in a large cardboard box (in the case of my household) and it was with great pride that the box would be filled up to the brim prior to the big night. I know all you Gen Y's are thinking "Didn't you need a license". The answer is no, you could be a primary school kid and purchase a highly dangerous one light of a match and your head will explode off your shoulders firework. So Gen Y shove that in your boring little cake holes and light it.

To give you an example of the types of fireworks we had access to here is a brief description of some of the more "popular" and well known varieties.

There were "Throwdowns" - (little packets of gunpowder wrapped in paper and when thrown against a hard surface or at the back of someones head would explode with a loud, pop). No lighting required hence they made a great gift for the under five year old set who could pop away as long as they had their slippers on.

The 10 ball "Shooter" - (a long stick that was lit via a fuse, after much preparation of the surrounding lawn where a hole had to be dug in order to stick the stick. Smart people did this during day light hours but dumb fucks - practically everyone else - did it just prior to lighting it then running really really fast in order to get out of the way) Then the family would stand in delight and count down the balls being shot into the air - 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,......Hang on........9..............................................."Fuck the last one didn't go off"............................................. "Its a dud, its a dud".........................."Hey someone go and check it and see if the fuse is still lit"................... Then of course some goose would approach just as the last ball shot into their face and blew their eye out. End of Cracker night and a long wait at casualty with all the other ball shooter victims.

The "Catherine Wheel" a firework that consisted of a gun powdered filled spiral tube, or even better an angled rocket mounted (generally in the dark with a rusty nail to a rickety old wooden fence) with a pin in the centre. Or to break it down for Gen Y it was a round disc not unlike a CD that you nailed to the back fence, lit the wick and run like all fuck. This was because they always popped off the fence and chased the entire family through the back yard as it spun wildly out of control. It is interesting to note that the Catherine Wheel firework is in fact named after a instrument of torture "the breaking wheel" of which, legend has it that St Catherine was martyred. I can only speak of my experience that having a CD that is shooting sparks in every direction and approaching you at the speed of sound is nothing short of fuck off scary.

But I leave the best till last, the most exciting and generally the firework that was left at the bottom of the box so as to cap off an evening of potential skin grafts, eye losses and third degree burns oh not to mention the roof of your house catching alight, the Catherine wheel burning down all the clothes left on the line and the $2000 + vet bill after someone forgot to put the dog inside the house. Yes this was the one that had the potential to make you get out of bed the next morning and jump for joy, that is if you still had skin on the bottom of your feet and run the streets looking just looking for the...........

"Parachute" firework. Yes ladies and gents this was a stick that again you stuck in the hole in the ground and lit the fuse and run like hell. Only this time it was one or two balls, or so it seemed that would shoot up into the air. Then just like magic a little parachute would emerge, glowing like a lantern in the night sky, along with the neighbours roof alight after it caught on fire from the ball shooter. But I digress, yes the parachute it would gently waft down, down, down, down to whence you could not be sure. Could it have landed on your property, could it have landed up the road, who could tell in the pitch black but in the morning you could wake to the surprise of. "Oh yes yes yes holy fuck I found a parachute in our tree". It was the icing or the plastic skin on a third degree burn delight. The said item of the parachute could then be displayed by the owner as a badge of honour. I found the fucken parachute. Wooopie.

So there you have it, aren't you just disappointed if you are Gen Y that you were not old enough to sport a pirate eye patch in your later years. Poor pets. Of course there were some people who not only let off crackers but who spent months and months collecting wood and making a giant fuck off bonfire ta boot. Of course these were usually rich fuckers that I didn't know so I can't comment on whether it was as much fun as watching your neighbour put out a fire on his shed roof with a garden hose.

So yes "Cracker Night" ahhhhh it used to be the most environmentally unfriendly night of my life and you know I loved every moment of every carbon emission glee. So here's to you "Cracker Night' and to the wonder of holding a firework in your hand whilst you light it and run for your dear life, and of course limb.

The Next Chapter - Jodie + Jodie = "We Ain't Never Gonna Be Respectable"

Jodie and I are in contact. Yes it is almost like a scene from an un aired Oprah episode. We will be reuniting on Saturday 18th June. So stop hassling me I will post pictures, stories, tears and tiaras. In the meantime readers I expect you to learn every single move and "Get Fresh at the Weekend" especially Saturday 18th June.........

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Ll73OafWYE