Melt,Baby,Melt.

Now I am between the Devil and the deep blue sea.
Ethics are something you have, morals are something you force on other people.
Obviously I'm not into moralizing.
The world is a complicated case.
People in glass houses....etc.
I don't approve of missionaries at school although I myself was influenced by some great teachers.
(I still have a thing for girls in overalls after my Art teacher Mrs Spence but that is a different story).
So for my International students you are welcome to watch the video from the link below.
For my Australian students who might vote please don't, not ever, ever, ever click on this link to see the video of the Ice Carving..
Will it take off?
It's definitely has some charm compared to other boring political youtube stuff.
Very tempted to write a tract on whether it's supposed to be boring.
Maybe tomorrow?

Meet Mr & Mrs Troll

Trolls lie in wait for the heroes to walk over their bridge and then demand tribute.
They are ugly and mean and won't listen to reason.
They usually end up being tricked or killed.
Recently a couple popped out in front of me.
As you know I have been working on a film on Aspergers.
This has a tiny budget that I haven't even bothered to invoice for yet.
I am doing this because my son has this disorder and I want to give a voice to a group who don't have one.
So I asked some of my ex students if they wanted to help me do some filming.
"There's no money but great experience"
I've worked for free on dozens of films so that's the deal.
Anyway I picked this student who had some small children coz I thought he'd be solid and understand what we were trying to do.
First week everything goes well.
Next week he's late. His wife strangely refused to drive him.
I give him some money and tell him to catch a cab.
Next week I call him on the Friday night. "Everything is good, see you there etc"
The guy never shows.
I am extremely pissed off.
I have to get my 15 year neighbour to operate a $6000 dollar camera.
She did her best.
Next week the guy rings up my wife and begs to be given another chance.
She arranges to get him picked up.
He is having bad problems with his family.
I don't believe this and organize a reliable person.
Just as well.
His lift beeps the horn and calls his phone but he doesn't appear.
Later we get a text message apologising coz "he has bad drug addiction problems".
Well that makes sense.
Then the plot thickens.
A couple of weeks later his wife rings up ( she is a singer apparently) and asks if I can help her record some songs.
I flatly decline after the way Mr Troll had mucked me around.
Who could blame me?
On monday my boss is banging on the studio door.
Your in a lot of trouble. Someone has filed an official complaint about your and your private practice with the head of the institute. The bosses bosses boss.
"What did I do?" I ask.
" I don't know "she replys in a Kafkaesque moment.
(Read "the Trial" if your not sure)
Makes it hard to defend yourself if you don't know what you have supposed to have done.
After a very long time I get to see the bosses boss.
I am in a total state.
"Is it Mr Troll" I ask?
"Yes "he says "He has accused you of misappropriating equipment and ripping off students to build your private film empire."
I am dumbstruck.
Was Mrs Troll involved?
Yes it was pay back for not wanting to work on her great album.
This is for World Disability day I say.
I have written approval from the director I say.
It's a charity project for heaven sake I say.
"Don't worry they withdrew the allegations" the bosses boss tells me.
"You were in the clear anyway"
I am a nervous wreck.
How could it all have gone so wrong?
A classic tale of betrayal and revenge.
Now of course it's my move.
Should I sue for defamation of character?
Should I report these self confessed drug addicts with children to DOCs or the police?
Should I link to Mrs Trolls myspace page to encourage a storm of comments?
No.
I wouldn't give them the steam off my piss but I wont make their troubled life any more troubled.
Mr and Mrs Troll I have crossed your bridge and I turn my back on you.

Hit her where it hurts?

Somewhere deep in the southern suburbs a crack team is cooking up a secret project.
If all goes well it should get some media coverage in Fridays paper.
Keep your fingers crossed for this one.
This is exclusive content.
This is a press leak.
If this falls into the wrong hands....
This message will self destruct in 15 seconds.

Oh the Irony

Couldn't resist this screen capture.
In 1998 a barrell of oil was $9.
Now it's $95.
If you need to study the implications of this I suggest LATOC might be a good place to start.
Driving a Hummer is the ultimate F**k anyone else statement.
Only a psycopath would buy one to drive around Sydney.
Of course it would squash my little graniemoblie like a tiny insect.That's the whole idea.
But you still will have to stop at all the same lights as everyone else even though you dressed up in 4 tonnes of steel.
And I so will laugh as you run out of petrol and abandon your monstosity on the side of the road.

A small Fluffy Blog

I am a big fan of the TV show Lost.
As you know I don't have TV reception cause the antenna is stuffed.
I had foxtel but it was such a waste of time I turned it off so a million channels of crud is only a phone call away.
We previously watched a lot of the 1960's Star Trek.
We watched the first season of Lost at Christmas, the whole family got into it.
We all sat around and bond around the TV, old style no arguments or channel surfing.
The show is great on DVD coz you can watch 3 in a slab. I imagine it would have been frustrating to watch on a week by week basis.
For those who never bothered it is The Prisoner( the cult British 60's show) meets Gilligan's Island with a large helping of Dallas perhaps.
It has mysterious hatch's, polar bears and everyone has lots of secrets.
The island itself has a whole bunch.
There is a whole industry of pundits exploring the shows enigmas.
For me is probably works well as a metaphor for my life but mostly as a overt fantasy.
I would love to be stranded on a desert island with lashings of mysteriousness. Who wouldn't?
I could even put up with the flashbacks.
Not sure about all those Americans with perfect smiles but then I could always join the others.
Or become a ghost?
It must be the only series where actors get killed but still keep coming back as ghosts and flashbacks.
Sadly we are approaching the end of the third series which will thankfully help me get the Aspy Doco finished in time.

Hypocrisy is the grease on the wheels of society

Look it's easy to point out other peoples hypocrisy.
Take Chris Martin.
Lead singer from Coldplay.
Very concerned about Climate change.
Writes songs about it.
But flys his family round on a private jet.
For lunch and back home for a nap .
And did you realise that flying is the big kahuna of carbon travel.
Thats coz your high up and the gases go straight in the mix.
Also the water vapour produced has an effect.
After 911 when flying was banned America experience noticeably warmer days and cooler nights.
It seems flying at night is worse.
So it's easy to point out someone else's faults.
So here are mine.
One of my jobs is based on cheap air travel.
That's right none of my international students swim over here.
But perhaps worse one of my best mates is the owner of over a million frequent flyer points.
How many trees does he have to plant to sort that out?
Enough to reforest Borneo no doubt.
So not only have I never mentioned this too him but I have twice flown to Japan on his largess merely to see music concerts!
HYPOCRITE!
So given the choice between saving the lives of some Bangladeshi I never met and the chance to see a Rock concert by some slightly ridiculous 70's dude without enough fans to play Australia, I bury the Bangladeshis every time.
Sorry.
And I'm doubly sorry because I think most of the western world will find it even harder to give up air travel than the morning traffic crush.
It wont happen voluntarily.
Which is why we are up the creek without a paddle.
Read this only if you have taken your prozac.
Otherwise shop, fly to rock concerts. buy blood diamonds but hear that sound, I think your wheels are starting to squeak.

Warmly Strange

The sun is just about to peek over the horizon in another strangely warm winter/early spring morning.
It is so warm that there are winter fire bans inSouth Australia.
Nothing to worry about of course.
As we can no longer say to the lady who lives next to the Acropolis.
China has introduced an animated net nanny to protect workers from doing naughty things on the internet like looking at pictures of naked people or the Dalai Lama.
I like these characters, very Astro Boy, whether that would soften the blow as the Thought Police crashed through the door is another thing altogether.
I think a little old lady tut-tuting would be equally effective, maybe more so.
Especially if she had an umbrella.
Of course I have no smirking Western leg to stand on as my country has a press freedom rating below Bolivia.Ask Geoffrey Robertson
Geoffrey is one of my heroes not just coz he is married to the chick that wrote Puberty Blues.
Why isn't he head of the labour party instead of Kevin Only Drunk Twice.
Who wants a PM who can't drink?
Bob Hawke was in the Guiness book of records for skulling a yard glass for crying out loud.
Bush the Younger was arrested for drink driving.
Even Our Fearless Leader John enjoys a good quaff of Grange most nights.
Back to censorship.
How can I be cutting edge if the Dept of Education blocks Myspace and Youtube?
Which in the music industry are the too most happening things going.
They wont install Itunes either.
So how do I show em anything ?
Speaking of Itunes I actually wrote my first review for this amazing harp playing chanteuse Joanna Newsom.
It's quite a fun thing to do.
I doubt it will do much for her record sales but I was hearted to see her on Johnny Dep's I tunes list/
I doubt whether many of my students will like her as she is as far away from Avril Lavigne as you can get.
Doco filming starts tomorrow so wish me luck!

Courage is a Telescope

About to start a new project- a little doco on Aspergers Syndrome which my son has.
It's a very interesting type of Autism.
Some might might say it's just a different way of looking at the world.
Humans tend to persecute any body who's different.
At school is the worst.
They will seek out and exterminate anyone who is a bit left of centre.
You remember the wierd kid who got hassled all the time.
I think back to my school days, there was a kid called Leo Mensen who probably had it. Couldn't socialize and spent every lunchtime by him self.
I never hurt him but other kids teased him mercilessly.
I wonder what he does now?
My partner is running these workshops for a whole bunch of these kids and I am filming it.
We will get some talking heads as well but mostly try and capture what it is like to perceive the world they way they do.
Of course lots of famous people probably had Aspergers- Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Edison and maybe Bill Gates.
So maybe we need difference to move forward as a species?
I suspect having a whole bunch of hyper intelligent kids with no social skills may be like having a whole bunch of cats in a bag should make for interesting footage nevertheless

Clever and Silly

Had the malaria flu.
Hope you don't get it.
Thinking of becoming a Luddite.
They were a bunch of people who smashed up the machines in the dawn of the industrial age.
Would love to do that at times.
Especially my little computer lab.
Working with computers(Mac and the other silly ones) is like the War On Drugs- never ending and in the end futile.
The new operating system update means you have to upgrade this which causes conflict with that and you end up getting blamed for someones class that didnt go as planned.
I want to go back to pen and paper and bits of string. Maybe not just yet.
Because I just got a really good new deal from my Telco, I get unlimited local and national calls and 7 gig of Broadband for 89 bucks.
I'll save like 700 smackers a year if there isn't a hidden catch, which there must be.
They must be freaking out about Skype and the like coz I was just about to ditch the landline all together.
I need the internet to keep me informed of all the really bad news.
You want some -try this.
Yep it's a hoot.
I really don't want to panic the natives who no doubt are enjoying their consumerismo credit card tango so I steer you to this clever and silly little video clip.
Have you ever edited some video? Then this is for you.
Look out for the umbrella as the rainbow ball of death.

The power of the Arts

Saw the movie "The Lives of Others".
It won the Academy award for best foreign film.
Set in East Germany a senior Stasi officer is given the job to get some dirt on a famous playwright because his actor girlfriend is coveted by a senior party official.
East Germany was one of the most watched and spied upon places ever.
Every fifth person was an informer.
A very grey and sad looking place.
In the process of watching this couple and listening to their every word the Stasi guy realises how empty his life is and starts to protect them from the party.
It is Art that changes him, a piece of music, some literature he steals from their room.
He eventually ruins his career protecting these people who he comes to love and betrays the Party but redeems himself to himself.
A very powerful film although it could have finished a little earlier.
Art does change people.
It comes in under the radar.
Newspapers and TV shows only confirm what you already think you know.
There is a truth beyond science.
Science, for all it's miraculous works will never get to the big truth because that can never be contained by mere words or the logical mind.
For me the big truths can only be sensed for a moment out of the corner of ones heart when one is deeply immersed in Art or nature.

I wanna be a cave man

Totally buggered today after a big day out in the Royal.
Went for a long ride with my old mate Dan( see above).
He lived for a while in a cave.
It was a lifestyle choice.
He was quite comfortable apparently.
It was summmer so it was easy
So we decided to start Australian Cave Dwellers Magazine.
Should be big!
After much laughter we decided to explore these limestone caves I have always been meaning to check out.
Well worth the effort.(30 km bike ride plus 4km hike)
And now we have the cover shot for a most unlikely lifestyle mag.
Also has a great waterfeature.
I always offer to take my international students into the great ozzie bush for a little walk but unfortunatly they seem disinclined.
Maybe it's a result of all those most poisonous animal shows I dont know.
Maybe they are suspicious of my navigational skills?
Viva la cave man!

Is freedom of speech always good?

Don't like to speak in absolutes.
This is always wrong or right.
Everything is relative.
Isn't it?
So this so called right of free speech is always our top priority?
Only sometimes.
During war "Loose lips sink ships" .
So freedom of speech is curtailed heavily.
Our economic boom times are wholly dependant on China both in it's hunger for our raw materials and it's ability to produce incredibly cheap goods.
Nearly everything I own is made in China.
Probably most things everyone has are.
Read this story about a family who tried to survive without any thing made there.
But thirty years ago very little was coming out of China.
At school we taught of the terrible population explosion that would ruin the world and make a lot of people starve.
And what a hopeless case India and China were.
But both countries curbed their growing populations.
Something no western country has ever tried to do.
Peasants who would of had many children were forced to have only one or two.
Which meant that they could be educated instead of being sent to work in the fields.
This would never happen in an open society.
India which is the worlds largest democracy had the "Emergency" where civil rights were suspended and men were forcibly sterilized.
No western politician would even mention population control, not even The Greens.
The press would eat them alive.
It's an impossible sell.
But without enormous in puts from fossil fuels our planet can really only support a couple of billion people.
So the crunch will come eventually.
I of course am a complete hypocrite in this regard as I have three ankle biters to add to my footprint.
I could be accused of listening to our beloved treasurer who said have one for each parent and one for Australia.
Who said I'm perfect?

Here yestaday gone today

Well the doco on the Aboriginal students turned out pretty good.
I'll link to it later when the dust settles.
It was quite emotional playing it to a whole mob of Kooris and them really liking it.
I feel honoured to work with those kids even tho some of them probably thought I was just another uptight whitey.
I might have legs and end up on TV we'll see.
The song feature in the film is very sweet and I'll link to that too.
Now I have some sad news, sad for me anyway.
A lot of my old film clips were on Youtube, it was great to see them again until they just dissappeared.
Gone into the ether.
I of course never got copies of any of them.
Will they ever return?
Am I erased from history?
Perhaps.
Did I wear them out?
Does it mean something deeper?
Hardly the library of Alexandria but it was mildy important to me nevertheless.

Please allow me to excuse myself

What can i say?
Too busy to blog?
I have to learn to say no to things.
Currently I am trying to finish the Documentary on the Aboriginal youth hostel.
Why am i knocking myself out?
It has to be finished by Saturday week for the big birthday party they are having.
Hours of footage to trawl through.
Then chop together into some sort of story.
If you never made a film you have no idea how time consuming this is.
And fiddley.
Then a sound mix.
As well as a song to mix.
As well as teaching 24 hours.
And they just made me a blog and podcasting "champion".
Yes I know, what can I say?
Did I have to defeat any ogres?
or outfox any trolls?
I dont think so but what this totally bogus title means is more WORK!!!!!!
Random people (Read fellow teachers) ask me questions and get me to solve their podcasting, blogging dilemmas for them.
Note to self.
In a future life never go near computers.
Also in this life will avoid all lifts as I got caught in a lift and freaked out just like in a movie.
I knew I woz stuck before I knew I was stuck.
It all fed on itself like a giant De Ja Vu self forfilling prophecy.
Is this the first sign of a work related nervous break down?
I can only hope they put me in a warm safe place a long way from any thing with a screen.

The island in the Sky is almost dead.

Sorry things went a bit Sideways. (Great and appropriate film reference).
Took the family up to Bright in the Victorian Alps.
Alps is a fairly vague term which in Australias case the Mosquito bites in Victoria are the nearest we have.
We went up Mount Buffalo again and the change was unbelievable.
It was like evil super villian had sucked the life out of it.
A year ago this was a magical place.
Isolated from the main bit of the high country for millions of years it had developed it own little unique ecosystem.
Misty peat bogs and stunted snow gums.
We wandered around in the chill, damp and fog swirling around.
This winter there was no snow at all.
So there was no melt water to feed the peat bogs.
No protection from the cold for the pygmy possums
Then came the fires.
Which raced through the bone dry park.
Turning it into a dead place.
As a bitter aftertaste for some reason only the Europian wasps survived in frightening numbers.
Will it even come back?
I doubt it.
Not in my lifetime.
The incredible (Shining-like) lodge is closed.
The rangers look sad at the entry gates and no longer charge you a fee.
How could they?
The island in the sky is almost dead.
Yet I am but a climate change hysteric.
Pushing some agenda.
Reporting something you'd rather not hear.
It's getting harder and harder to cling onto that straw.
Harder to block up your ears.
As Arnold said
"You are a penguin on a little ice berg that is rapidly melting. Goodbye my little friend"

Kurt Vonegut RIP

A human has died.
Someone proudly imperfect who changed my life.
Slaughterhouse five was an amazing book.
So was Mother Night and Ice Nine.
And all the others
But the last thing you wrote was so spot on.
A man without a country.
An essay on the barbarians who control the White House and the world.
I'm sad that you wont get to see the palaces of these tyrants torn down.
And they will.
Just like Saddam and Idi Amin and Pol Pot and Adolf Hitler and Stalin and the Gang of Four you Tyrants will get your comeuppance.
Kurt you were a great human being, who always kept me laughing at the follies of man.
Hope the weather is good on the planet Tralfalgadore.
Say hello to Billy Pilgrim.
For those who havent read Slaughter house five(The movie is also good)I suggest you do.

Insomnia is ticking me off.

Apologies to the Insearch crew, I'm off to do my bit for reconciliation.
Camping out with a whole bunch of Koori kids.
Footballs future greats and maybe a couple of good songwriters too.
It's a mens camp.
There will be secret mens business.
Should I tell them I'm not circumcised?
Better keep that to myself.
Do they read blogs?
Crikey this could be dangerous.
Have worked up a couple of songs with these guys.
Really nice tunes.
Will post them up when finished.
Did I mention that Kev Carmody's record is number three on the country music charts.
I mixed and engineered a track on that.
Did i also mention that the ABC are talking to me about another story?
Did I also mention that I am covered in tick bites?
I itch!
A couple of years ago i thought I had chicken pox , I had a week off work.
I thought I was contagious but i was just covered in these tiny poisonous little bastard ticks.
They come out when it's moist.
Note to self -get industrial strength aerogard and snake repellant on way to meet up this morning.
Note to self who wakes me up every morning at 3 oclock.
Please stop.

Gentleman charge your batteries

Was drafted on the radio the other day as an expert of blogging.
I guess some one has to pretend to be one.
I was fairly nervous coz it was scheduled right in the middle of a class i was teaching.
So conflict of interest.
The call comes at the agreed time.
I excuse myself and race out into the corridor
The topic was on political blogs.
Particularly this article from the Guardian on a Swedish minister who is getting some flack for his blogs which of course I hadn't read .Normally I read everything to do with blogging and podcasting of course but lately I have been so busy.
I didn't make any sense at first coz I was a bit nervous also I didn't immediately get the tone of the piece which was giggly sarcastic.
Any way just as I was starting to make sense my mobile started to make a noise like it was running out of charge.
So I race back into my class still pontificating and scramble around for a USB charge lead.
The class are looking at me a little strange.
I plug into a computer and sit down to relax a bit.
I'm actually making sense.
I tip a nod to Andrew Bartlett who is a democrat politician who keeps a reasonable blog.
I dis Peter Debnam ( The Budgie Smuggler) who gets someone else to write his and doesn't allow comments.
I'm making sense, my mouth is responding to the signals my brain is sending.
Suddenly the line goes dead.
I'd plugged into the wrong computer.
The one that died first thing on monday morning.
That sort of ruined my week twice
So that was the end of my brief stint as a radio talking head.
Thanks to all involved.

Connect to country

A mate of mine stayed over the other night.
We are working on a number of things chiefly a project with about 25 Koori kids from a local hostel.
They are recording songs and making a little film.
They are going into the Royal to see the sacred sites, whale carvings and shark people and to gather some bush tucker.
I am going along.
They are an incredible bunch full of energy although I know most of them are missing their family and some of them have had hard lives so far.
It is hard to imagine the lack of opportunities they have outback in some of the aboriginal communities.
I'm encouraging them all to be Prime ministers when they grow up especially the girls.
Predictably they like Rap, hip hop and RnB.
Whatever speaks to you I say.
Anyway next morning after a quick cup of tea I've got this mate out in the Bush regen project planting a rain forest tree beneath the foliage.
When you go to work this morning I say look at everyone in the city and I bet not one other person out of the whole city has planted a rain forest tree this morning.
This makes him feel very special.
I like getting people to plant stuff.
It's a very rooting thing.
Grounding even.
It seem to be different planting a tree on communal land than a rose bush in your front garden.
I guess with a bit of luck the tree will out live the planter and provide shade and beauty for an unknown number of future people.
I guess that could be a wishful metaphor for teaching.
Although weeding and fertilizing could also work!

I'm a lazy sod

Couldn't post anything coz I was busy doing other stuff.
Like wandering around in the bush without a torch looking for spirit paths.
Maybe that's just a metaphor.
Just make sure you take a stick for the spider webs.
Had to post something about the stupendous waste of money that was just come to light.
Read this and weep and laugh.
This is it , the Caligula moment, the emporer who ordered the roman legions to attack the sea.
The US have lost/misplaced/whatfuckenever 363 tonnes of $100 dollar bills in Iraq.
$12 billion.
Handed out left right and centre to every Tom Dick and Alli.
Trully it doesn't get more ridiculous than that.
What we could have done with that?
What I could have done with that!
Bought Tasmania?
I am astounded at the stupidity of it all.
Life is worthless, now money is worthless.
At least it woz shrink wrapped so it wont go off.
Now if there was any one left in the whole wide world who doesn't think the US government is wackier than a naked man with one gum boot on could they please contact their doctor for immediate assesment.