gigdiary

The Penny Dropped

April 17, 2010 · 5 Comments

God is staring you in the face, and you’re not listening. Before I go any further, let me say I’m not religious in the conventional sense. I don’t believe there is a God that talks to you; yet if you take away the paraphernalia attached to organised religion, you can often be left with that niggling feeling, that intuition that emanates from some other place in your mind that suggests there is more to you than your day to day awareness. It is usually quiet and unassuming, although it assumes you want to hear. However, usually you don’t. Caught up in the daily grind of ordinary life, the hustle and bustle of a busy schedule tends to drown out any murmurings from within.

Meditational techniques are designed to reveal this part of our personality, but from my experience, while they aid mental relaxation, and subsequent receptiveness, there is no epiphany. Paul, in the Bible, had an epiphany, if we are to believe religious teaching. He was on the way to Damascus, a critic of Jesus, and all of a sudden the ‘scales fell from his eyes’, and in a blinding flash of light, he believed.

While we can’t expect to experience such a vivid hallucination as Paul did, the epiphany can still be real for us.

I call it, ‘the penny dropped’. Simple as that. It is that moment when all is made clear, and you wonder why you didn’t realise this weeks or years before. That is the real epiphany. Why did it take so long? Maybe your subconscious was waiting till you had all the bricks in place.

Why the ‘penny dropped’? Public telephones, what else?

Back in the sixties not all families had a telephone. This was a given. Also a given was that on every street corner the GPO had phone booths. Kids naturally flocked to these. You could ring your girlfriend without the oldies listening. Trouble was you needed the right coins. It was a penny way back, then a schilling, then a ten cent piece in ’66.

To start, you dialled your girlfriend’s number, then put a coin in the slot marked Button A. As you nervously waited while the phone rang, you kept a finger poised. If she answered, you pressed Button B, and as you did, you heard the coin you had put in the slot drop down.

Therefore the penny dropped. You were connected.

That was enough of an epiphany for me.

→ 5 CommentsCategories: champions

Transformation

April 13, 2010 · 11 Comments

In my long and journeyman-like music career I have on occasion had to resort to teaching rather than playing or writing. Once back in ’79 it was five days a week. When that was no longer necessary, I was euphoric. Although teaching is one of the highest callings in the professional world, it isn’t for everyone. It certainly wasn’t for me. Ten years ago I took on a position at a private school, forgetting completely the stultifying emotions such a job evokes. Day one was enough to remind me.

Over the course of that year I met many interesting, intelligent and vibrant young people. I didn’t meet any interesting and vibrant young guitar players. It’s the nature of the instrument. Violin students, classical players, flautists expect to follow a regimen to learn to play their instrument. Guitar players are there for the grandeur. It’s the one class that they don’t expect any homework, much less instruction. Pure entertainment is the name of the game. ‘Show me something fun’, was a common rejoinder.

At the end of the first year, and although it sounds dour, I was brain-dead, living in dread of the teaching days and seriously considering work-induced depression as a Workers Comp claim. I began the second year with trepidation, albeit confidence, after all I had taught some students the intro to ‘Stairway to Heaven’, others a basic rock solo; yet always the plaintive cry was ‘show me something good’, ie ‘something fun’.

That all changed when a melancholy little girl, fourteen if a day, turned up for her first lesson. We ran through the various chords and a bit of strumming. I didn’t introduce notation the first lesson, as that would send a nascent student running for the hills. Crossing her off as yet another kid who wanted to avoid Maths or Science by doing music, I was surprised when she turned up the following week. I was more surprised when she played the six basic chords from memory, and even more surprised when she said, ‘listen to this’. She played C, Ami, Dmi, G7, while singing ‘always look on the bright side of life’. Of course the chords fitted perfectly.

I took that as an omen. Together we launched into the guitar as more than an escape from Maths, in fact Talia began using it as an escape from as many classes as she could. The older boys who had played for a year or more began deferring to her. Her status in the school rose considerably. The sight of the little girl with a Fender Strat slung over her shoulder was galvanising; I was inundated with new students.

Given that Talia hung out in the guitar studio as much as possible, come lunch times she found other things to do. She’d sit in on bands practising, but never on guitar; she’d take the drums usually, she somehow worked out the kick, snare and hi-hat. I can’t take any credit for that. I joined in occasionally, ramping up the cheap school guitar to play ‘Smoke On the Water’. While her pals looked on in amazement, Talia was always unimpressed, more intent on learning how the drum kit worked.

In her second year of guitar, the conductor of the school orchestra required a competent jazz guitarist to play in the Big Band. Talia was the only possible candidate. Having refused to learn music theory and complex harmony, she now had a reason, and bit into it with a vengeance. She got the Big Band gig.

I left the school that year, as did Talia. She moved to the USA. Eschewing guitar, she took up bass. It was a good choice, because next we heard from her was that she was in Chick Corea’s band for his Australian tour. While still gasping at that incredible news we then found out that she had been hired by the legendary Jeff Beck. She has been touring and recording with his band ever since. Not bad for a career spanning ten years, of which the first two were spent in a guitar class at a private school in Sydney, Australia.

Tal Wilkenfeld, buy her album.

→ 11 CommentsCategories: champions
Tagged: , , , ,

Bullying

April 10, 2010 · 4 Comments

Can you legislate against bullying? Can you legislate against magazines showing skinny girls instead of chubby ones? In both cases, no, you can’t. Despite what Julia Gillard says, bullying is an inherent instinct. It’s an unpleasant instinct, that’s for sure, but one that isn’t likely to go away anytime soon. Unpleasant as bullying is, it is part and parcel of growing up. Hopefully a child doesn’t experience it. Yet for those that do, there is a greater lesson to be learned. It is a hard lesson, but one that is always rewarded with satisfaction later in life. The bullier is always less than the bullied. The very act makes the victim stronger.

In extreme cases, as the media is now reporting, this isn’t always so. So yes, legislate, punish the perpetrators, but don’t imagine that you can eradicate this aspect of human nature from every emerging generation.

→ 4 CommentsCategories: bastards

I Didn’t Do It

April 10, 2010 · 2 Comments

Brendan Fevola has been officially cleared of any liability in the mock sordid affair of the Lara Bingle shower photo. ‘Officially cleared’ refers to that stalwart body of ethics, the AFL. They have decided that there is insufficient evidence to show that the former Carlton neanderthal had distributed the photo, even though he took the pic on his phone.

Once again the football codes in this country are up for a ripe old, rip-roaring lambaste. Whether it’s Nate Myles taking a dump in a 5 star hotel corridor, TV so called footy heroes gang raping a female fan, or this pathetic invasion of privacy of a bogan swimsuit model, the good ol’ boys have once again shown they are beyond reproach. Shame and scandal in the family didn’t stop Matty Johns from anchoring a nationwide TV show. Nate Myles continues to draw a paycheck from the NRL, hopefully it includes a toilet paper allowance. Is an unreality show with Fevola and the Bogan Princess far away?

While Lara showed her money-grubbing bogan self to the world by extracting an exhorbitant amount of money for her supposed tale of woe, Fevola has revealed his complete lack of character and gentlemanly conduct by denying responsibility.

Sounds like a marriage made in heaven.

→ 2 CommentsCategories: bastards · bastards & champions
Tagged: , , , , ,

Drinking on the Job?

April 9, 2010 · 5 Comments

‘Scores of Carlsberg workers have walked off their jobs to protest the Danish brewer’s new limits on beer drinking at work.’

Whether you agree or not, this puts Australia’s ‘nanny state’ mentality into perspective. Of course drinking beer at work isn’t world’s best practice, yet the Danes aren’t wielding the big clog here, they only want brewery workers not to get drunk while drinking beer on the job. The drivers are exempt from this ruling. Apparently they can drink, but the caveat is an alcohol ignition lock on the trucks.

The Danes aren’t stupid.

The Danes also aren’t over-worrying, do-gooders who want to beat the joie de vivre out of anyone who doesn’t follow their lifestyle. Of course, this Danish example is slanted to one side of the argument, yet Australian authorities seem far pressed the other way.

You can barely blink today without some faux authority coming down on you like a ton of bricks. Take your dog for a walk? Take a plastic bag? In my day, dog shit was biodegradable. Honk your horn whilst driving? Be prepared for a $230 fine, even if it was just to say hello to a friend. Yet these same governmental do-gooders somehow fail to stop youths carrying knives. They have no control over cultural elements in society who are intent on destroying our way of life. Nonetheless they insist on reigning in our freedoms.

This is the crux of the matter; pacifying much of the populace with ‘Milky Bars‘, while giving free reign to immigrants to remake this country in their image. That the Danes manage to send Carlsberg Beer across the world, while enjoying a lager or two at lunch time, makes a mockery of our nanny state imposing baby rules of behaviour, rather than policing the issues that many Australians are concerned about.

→ 5 CommentsCategories: bastards & champions
Tagged: , , , ,

Will Malcolm Play Ball?

April 8, 2010 · 4 Comments

Miranda Devine calls it the ‘perfect political synchronicity of a Premier Malcolm Turnbull’. Her article in SMH brings to the fore the notion that Malcolm Turnbull, having quit Federal politics, could quite happily slot into the top spot in NSW Liberal and therefore, without question relieve our beleaguered Premier of a task that is obviously beyond her experience. Barry O’Farrell has gone so far as to offer the seat of Vaucluse to the once federal leader.

While NSW would be happy with such a dovetailed solution to the State’s woes, it remains to be seen whether the business meister himself is as overjoyed with the idea. NSW clearly needs a leader who can govern effectively; a leader who understands finance, business, and hopefully has concerns about the environment; a man for all seasons, a 21st Century man. Turnbull ticks all of the boxes.

That he was inexperienced in the machinations of Federal politics should have been a plus for the voting public. Yet now we find ourselves, once again, the unwitting onlookers in a partisan squabble between two career politicians. That these aspirants have the nation’s best interests at heart isn’t in question. It’s their lack of runs on the board outside of Parliament that is the reason for our current malaise. A successful businessman prior to his entry into politics, Turnbull offered a different perspective in the Federal arena. It was resolutely rejected.

For the moment that is history. Miranda Divine’s proposition, supported by commenters across the board in newspaper forums, is a breath of fresh for the voters of NSW. Whether or not the renaissance man wants to play ball is another thing. One can only hope that NSW isn’t too small a playground for him.

→ 4 CommentsCategories: champions
Tagged: , ,

He’ll Never Be Second Cab Off the Rank

April 7, 2010 · 3 Comments

Malcolm Turnbull was never made to be number two. Whereas Howard was happy to be, as he put it, ‘Lazarus with a triple bypass’, Turnball is an all or nothing man. In business there is no room for biding one’s time; strike while the iron is hot. Unfortunately for Malcolm, politics doesn’t work that way. Unlike his business forays, he hadn’t paid his dues in the political arena. Playing the underdog, being tossed aside for no reason, (he lost the leadership vote by three votes), are all part and parcel of the not always profitable game of politics.

Abbott is a seasoned prize fighter in the Liberal arena, Rudd has emerged through the ranks of diplomacy and senior bureaucracy to become PM. Neither of these men have the acumen that Turnbull has, yet unfortunately for the nation, they exhibit the tenacity and perseverance required in the cut and thrust of partisan politics.

Howard’s way was to be equally persistent; it took him three goes to get it right, but when he got it right, he was in the big house for eleven years, longer than anyone other than Menzies. In 2010, perhaps millionaire businessman Turnbull isn’t prepared to endure his time in the political wilderness. Tony Abbott will no doubt lead the Libs to the next election. It is doubtful that he’ll win. Turnbull recognises this. Six years in the wilderness is too long for a man of his decisive nature. If we are to see Malcolm in politics, he’ll either be asked to come back, or dragged back screaming.

Either way the Libs and Australia will benefit. In the meantime we are once again subjected to the miasma of a partisan scuffle between two career politicians, neither of whom have the experience to run a chook raffle.

→ 3 CommentsCategories: bastards & champions
Tagged: , , , , ,

Malcolm’s No Longer in the Middle

April 6, 2010 · 2 Comments

Tony Abbott must have been turning cartwheels this morning when he heard the news that Malcolm Turnbull was quitting politics. He should have been crying in his weet-bix. By denying Turnbull a place on the front bench, requested by the former leader, he has effectively forced the brightest star in the Liberal firmament to pack his bags and head back to corporate country.

As political pundit Paul Kelly states in this video, the Libs have lost too many frontline soldiers in recent days. While some, such as Downer and Costello, were approaching the end of their tenure, they nevertheless added experience and gravitas to a party that is increasingly seen as becoming lightweight and redneck at every step. It’s not good enough for Abbott to be the sharpest pencil in the box at this point. Rather than wage the one-man bully boy fight against Labor, Abbott needs to garner capable troops behind his thrust at the Prime Ministership.

Off-siding Turnbull, rather than being a self-protecting tactic, may ensure that the bully boy will be down for the count at the next election.

→ 2 CommentsCategories: NSW politics · bastards & champions · politics
Tagged: , , , ,

Fly By Night

April 5, 2010 · 5 Comments

Who is doing the maintenance on Qantas planes these days? Two years ago Qantas came under pressure to ensure that all maintenance work would be carried out in Australia. This came after a plane was grounded in Melbourne with 95 defects following a routine check in Malaysia.

Two years on and we are now hearing of a spate of technical issues impacting on safety. Once again, where is the maintenance being done? Perhaps like checking the weather report before you go out of a morning, if you’re flying, check the news. A year ago I remarked about former CEO Geoff Dixon receiving a twelve million dollar payout.

And these guys can’t afford maintenance on their machines? Seems our once proud airline is becoming a fly-by-night outfit. Next week I’m flying to Melbourne, but I’ll be taking the bus, Jetstar. Much like my local bus service they pick you up and drop you at your destination with the minimum of fuss and the minimum of comfort. Only difference is North Western Buses won’t serve me a chardonnay along the way.

→ 5 CommentsCategories: bastards
Tagged: , , , , , ,

Sex at the Servo

April 5, 2010 · 5 Comments

It used to be that filling up the car meant pulling into a servo and an attendant would rush out to top up your tank, check the oil and tyres, and send you on your way. This was a good thing because servos were grimy places that only mechanics could feel at home in. The oily rag, the ripped overalls were enough to deter all but the most mechanically minded. Yet it didn’t matter to Mrs Housewife or Mr Businessman, because back in the sixties, they drove off happy and clean.

Times change, servos became Seven Elevens, driveway service went the way of the dodo. It became self serve all the way. The pay-off was a sparkling new air-conditioned shop instead of the grimy mechanic’s office to pay your bill, yet somehow the grime never left this new age petrol station.

Rather than spark plugs and jumper leads on display, all you now see are pics of pneumatic women, the word SEX blaring out from the magazine stands, and flashed boobs to make sure you get the point. This is fine by me, I’m a single man, it’s aesthetically pleasing, I suppose. But surely it’s not for the women, mothers, grandmothers who venture into a Seven Eleven to pay their bill.

Should they be subjected to this affront of male lust every time they buy petrol or a bottle of milk? Worse still, should children be confronted with these images every time Mum or Dad buys petrol?

Why do children need to be bombarded with blatant sexual images wherever they go? Some people don’t think that they should.

This isn’t wowserism, it’s common decency. By all means sell that stuff at the Seven Eleven to adults, but display it on the back wall, not at a child’s eye level as they enter and leave the shop. Sometimes the pendulum swings too far. While decrying the Nanny State, it would help if we stood up for the society we want, rather than accepting the one that is being foisted upon us

→ 5 CommentsCategories: bastards
Tagged: , , , , ,