fly in, fly out

welcome to perth. capital city of the australian resources boom, the centre of gravity on the west coast which in many ways echoes the spirit of original mining mentalities throughout history. my new sometime home base as i amongst others seek personal fame & fortune buying into the ubiquitous fly in, fly out culture at the expense of the environment, one way or another. it may as well be us right...

at least i wake up somewhere beautiful each morning. this is my preferred spot. i can often be found here. location, location, location.

unless it was this morning which was some dodgy car park wedged between an anaconda megastore & super-sized botanica sports bar which is somehow through the randomness of the universe where i landed with my sister to sequentially carve up dance floors, drown in vodka, buy rounds of tequila & make new friends who fresh & flush with affluence match glass for glass & slices of lemon mass rounds of mescal. work hard, party hard culture is rife.

sometime soon i will wake up back here again in a world of focussed sanity, sheltered under the silhouette of the trees which frame the sleeping city beyond as wildlife i don't recognise gather around me singing their strange song. 


in the meantime i'm stuck in no [wo]man's land counting down hours of escape to stagger back to the serene cityscape & then to my adopted east coast hometown to my faerie daughter named for the weather, disfigured alien who thinks he's peter pan, cyborg wife, gay lover who won't allow me to touch his arms, myriad of lost boys & a bunch of beloved punk monks. there really is no substitute for family.

good good good, good vibrations

city beach, perth. my borrowed camper van is parked facing west on the edge of the indian ocean. i'm here for rev [revelation - perth international film festival, for the uninitiated]. my mobile film "salome's picnic" plays closing night [tonight] sandwiched between william burroughs & john waters. it's already played to a large crowd in the main theatre the week prior. as far as i'm concerned, i've made it & could die happy now. what magnum opus? 


i'm also here to shoot a film of my exploits. although the adventures keep getting in the way. consequently there's very little footage. a perfect excuse to return.

the van belongs to my beloved sister gina. who unexpectedly gifted her to me when i rocked up planning on shooting a gutter-edge gypsy porn flick on my mobile when i got off the plane. the van slightly messes with my harmony korine vibe. but not much. i can still sing for my supper if need be.

as if by divine providence for a barrage of unanswered requests [which have been long since been returned to sender], all my ships seem to have come in at once. the horizon is littered with them. they sit. silently waiting on the darkest blue rim. in a single canon snap i destroy the phantoms. now their collective soul is in my possession. collection day is nigh.

the beach is practically deserted. what would be considered a balmy warm day by sydney-siders throughout most seasons is viewed by western australians as cold. they visibly shiver except the permanent beach folk, lifesavers & their ilk. i can count my footsteps in the lustrous sand. and wipe the sand off from between my toes before embarking my mobile home. we waghorn chicks are quite house proud.

i like these guys. but wonder what a beach inspector really does? WA seems to be grossly over-policed. i'm sure it's "for all our own good". god only knows i need protecting from myself. 


suddenly i feel much safer. like when the perth CBD cop yelled "redman redman" all "the shining-like" at gina & i when we deigned to cross the road [coincidentally free of traffic] before the lights instructed the braindead citizens to. we escaped the threatened one hundred dollar fee. authoritarian tosser. "thou must not anticipate". thanks moses. soda jerk has really nailed your coffin for me now.

there can't be many better places to exercise & soak up negative ions. this reinforces my resolve to transform from a giant piece of lard into michelle pfeiffer's catwoman meets linda hamilton's sarah connor forthwith. this epic enterprise merely requires a william gibson cyberpunk body lease-out. with sperm bank like stipulations & fine-print. no gyms or recycled oxygen allowed. good vibrations need only apply.

twelve thousand edited words

...instead of the usual two or three.

i have crabs

it's a hot humid february morning already in the mid north coast, NSW. the sun has only just risen.

waking in the cloistered confines of a tent, the sense of urgency to be cleansed is overwhelming. i can hear the call of the sea from where i am uncomfortably sprawled on the yoga mat. it is glued to my skin.

the beach is a one minute run over the dunes. save for souvenir tracks which lie in the wake of the park ranger, the beach appears to be empty.

after lying on the sand savoring the fresh saltiness of a morning swim, i roll over. the sensation of being watched is overwhelming. but it's not the hills that have eyes... it's the sand!

there are little sand crabs everywhere. timidly peeking out they scuttle forth to clean out freshly fallen sand from their burrows. like proud housewives they dance in unison timorously flicking debri from subterranean homes with industrious efficiency.

naturally i become quite excited. the only bummer is, i don't really have the right lens on me. the crabs are shy. whenever i move they hide. i snap away like a happy little sniper regardless, squealing like a little pig.

who's worse: me or the gull? quite the dilemma.

i leave. the deserted beach stares at me mockingly. a thousand pairs of eyes on my back.

fired-up story telling

it's august in condo. sydney is a distant eastern imprint on now dust sullied tyres.

the locals here hate the slight suggestion of cold. people panic attack if the needle slides down below 30. indoors air con is pumped to almost 40 degrees celcius, outside fires burn. sometimes on street corners which attract a huddled few. it's practically spring but i'm sweating like a pig in a bikini with the abattoir in sight. condobolin does not do winter.

bank, my student/town guide has taken me to the local pub [the impy] after our first day of filmmaking class. she insists that this is the rough one and looks a little dubious i'm not up for the task. her protective instinct is adorable but her concern is misplaced. despite being the outsider, i'm worried for them. i take off the bikini & straighten my swine mask.

most people don't know, but i was spawned from the asshole of the universe in a tiny town [invercargill] at the bottom of new zealand. at least that's where i grew up. way back then in the era of right wing conservative rednecks & skinheads it wasn't particularly smooth. especially for misfits. the flavours might be slightly different but our infant feet have been dipped in the same unfiltered bath water.

i told her previously of my obsession for stories & the ongoing search of perfect characters. she gets it and this is her hood. we're documentary whores. the magical textured fabric of the truth always stranger & much more compelling than fiction. we find who we're looking for outside. introductions are made & within a few rounds boundaries are blurred and i'm practically one of them. i channel harmony kormine meets douglas coupland. this is the shit.

no OH&S here... a fire fueled on petrochemicals blazes in the back courtyard of the pub as a handful of peeps who appear to have been drinking what goes on the fire engage in typical bush swaggering drunken tall tale telling. occasionally in the breaks more rocket fuel is thrown into the re-purposed tractor shovel which serves as the incendiary base. noone bats an eyelid, even those with third degree burn scars. the flames burn hard and high as the stories rise in a simultaneous and unbelievable crescendo as everyone around me sips back on midis.  

i realise my mistake as i gaze down at my oversized schooner, when questioned what my next drink will be in a disapproving manner. they drinks midis out here? the logic is simple really. urban legend has it that the beer is dosed with extra preservatives to get to the bush which increases the alcohol percentage. so they drink smaller glasses.... my witty observations are received like a lead balloon and i gracefully err to the status quo, and start drinking midis. wow that exercise to the bar twice as frequently really burns the alcohol off...

the moral temporarily escapes me. but flawed logic does not. face glowing, i settle in next to the searing flames, footloose & fancy free to uncover the essence, the soul of this town. 

the best stories are always shared around a fire.

sun sets on the mish

the mission. a name which inspires jeremy irons & robert de niro on movie screens & rabbit proof fences closer to home. a shameful collective history of hoards of indigenous people the world over shepherded into reservation like communities on the hub outskirts by whatever colonist flavour of the day accompanied by justifications in triplicate.

euphemistically renamed "willow bend village" this precinct of condo is one of many littered all over regional australia as a reminder of the not so recent segregation of black & white in australia. in condobolin only fifty years ago an impenetrable chain in the local cinema separated the aboriginal patrons from the rest. do not feed the animals.

now affectionately known as "the mish" by locals, i was privileged to drive through & walk around under the auspices of film location scouting what is now essentially a quiet outer rim suburb adjacent to the winding river known as the coogee & a preferred haunt of indigenous youth in the summer months. the place of escape, return and coming of age. 

although the street pot holes are reminiscent of district 9 there were no barricades here, but a quiet semblance of supportive community & people just getting on with life. still it was hard to take photos, mostly my phone stayed where it should. in my pocket.

the church is long since deserted. government installed solar panels gleam like sulking hot coal soldiers all in a line on the identical roofs quietly harvesting the ample sunshine which the residents flock hungrily to block out the winter cold, shunned with ironic pumped-up air con inside. 

faceless walls with no windows salute the rising sun to peer over fences into the undeveloped wasteland where errant eucalypts gallantly grow like weeds in the scorched earth. noone can see from inside. the beginning has been witnessed already, it is to the setting sun in the west the houses look.

condo casks

last week i was in condobolin, or condo as the locals call it, rural NSW about seven hours west of sydney as the crow flies.  this is the drink of choice when they get thirsty. often on the street in groups on squashed cartons for seats. a sense of community of sorts in a small interbred town full of stories & insurmountable pride.


there's a lot of social issues in this place which mostly revolve around drug & alcohol abuse. unemployment & school dropout rates are high. high school stats indicate that 48% of the population are aboriginal but the census tells a different story. another renegade town on the edge of the regional abyss. there are different rules out here. shades of cyberpunk satellite towns: gateway to the wild badlands.


at less than one dollar a litre it's easy to imagine a lot of late night soul searching at the bottom of the shimmering bladder. cheaper than petrol: which is sniffed at epidemic proportions further to the west and north. nothing down there but broken dreams.

red bull's wings drown

a red bull race plane crashed into perth's swan river today. it is unknown whether the pilot had been drinking red bull or not. probably no, but in my initial ignorance i did wonder. the unfortunate pilot, adilson kindlemann was fished out of the water relatively quickly & is OK after being admitted into hospital earlier. his condition is described as "good".

the internationally acclaimed red bull air race was established in 2003 as an obvious marketing adjunct to the product's well known company slogan "red bull gives you wings". the event is usually held over water and tours many cities around the world.

pilots compete through a twisting turning slalom like course through pylons/air gates which are spectacular giant branded witches hats/traffic cones. the competition has been so successful for the brand that video games on iphones/playstation etc are prevalent. the multi-platform global audience is huge. it's been a marketer's wet dream.

the sport is visually spectacular & obviously gives extreme junkies and plane spotters a serious adrenaline kick. it's the most watched sport in brazil. in many countries the pilots are heralded as iconic sporting super heroes.

still the risks are immense. deaths do occur, none so far in the red bull race's history, but not everyone has been so lucky.

because of this red bull has actually initiated a rigorous underwater emergency training programme which commenced this season for the first time. this may or may not be part of the success in the safe extraction of today's crashed aviator.

people love success but ultimately they love fail. the only thing better than seeing a pilot against the odds pull out of a crazy aeronautical feat is watching the plane crash. which i guess keeps the extreme aficionados hanging in the... wings.

[photo copyright: www.aviationnews.eu]

follow the trail of grates

the australian gas light company introduced the use of public gas to city streets in 1841. fifteen years later it was turned on for public home use in melbourne [sydney was a little behind].

since the discovery of natural gas [1900], old town gas which was generated through the burning of fossil fuels has since been replaced. it took over sixty years from the first public experiments after the initial accidental discovery in queensland to widespread distribution throughout the country.

dotted around our streets are these branded steel grates testament to the early forefather companies who helped shape very different looking cities to what we see today. there are literally hundreds of different variations, all gorgeous in their own utilitarian aesthetic, documenting a tiny historical urban chapter.

with the rapidly changing inconstant city face, one day they just might not be there anymore, these humble icons underfoot of yesteryear.

do you know the way to shell beach?

a penny for your thoughts

in 1963 australia initiated the change to decimal currency. by 1966 the penny had given way to the dollar which in turn became a polymer pioneer in 1988. australia was the first country in the world to issue a complete plastic note system.

this was apparently done in order to provide greater defense against counterfeiting which became an issue in the late 60s after the decimal conversion. plastic notes are also allegedly more sustainable, clean & offer better recycling options. i know i utilise mine well...

so if you want to know my thoughts, i prefer you cross my palm with polymer rather than dirty old bronze or silver. sharing fortunes really is a two-way street.