Demystifying the lovable French rogue

Voila, a selection of comments in the French media regarding the sexual assault charges brought against former IMF President Dominique Strauss-Kahn:

"I feel nothing but loathing for the judge who delivered him to that pack of newshounds in front of the police station, on the pretence that he was a citizen like any other."

- French intellectual Bernard-Henry Levy

"[DSK's media exposure] creates feelings and reactions which go far beyond what is, essentially, after all just another minor alleged crime."

- French commentator Sophie De Menthion

"[It was] more likely an act of imprudence, a bit of domestic tupping."

- Left-wing journalist Jean-Francois Kahn

"His treatment by the New York judge, police and press has reawakened the anti-Americanism that is latent in many French souls."

- Hugh Schofield - BBC, Paris

 "Unheard-of brutality, cruelty and violence".

- Former Minister Elisabeth Guigou’s description of images of her friend DSK being led from the police station.

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First of all : Ummmm... sorry guys, I didn't realise we were still referring to sexual assault as "an act of imprudence" in 2011. But then again, maybe I need to reread my copy of Tess of the d'Urbervilles. 

As for "domestic tupping" - a poor choice of words? Are humans still tupping domestically?

Husband : "I say dear, why don't you put the kids to bed, I sort of feel like tupping... domestically."

Wife : "Will that be consensual or non-consensual tonight darling?"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

All linguistic fun aside, there is a darker, more disturbing side to the above comments.

Many French journalists and politicians have aggressively defended DSK's "présomption d'innocence". It's important to say at the very start that they are right to do so. As a lawyer, I am fully aware that one of the very cornerstones of criminal justice is that an accused person should be considered innocent until it is proven beyond reasonable doubt that they are guilty.

However, regardless of DSK's alleged guilt, the above comments, [and perhaps more worryingly, the general sentiment that they seem to represent] are further evidence of the pervasive attitude of permissiveness in France when it comes to the affairs [sexual or otherwise] of French politicians. Such affairs are both widely known and well documented. In fact, when it comes to being elected as the President of France, licentious virility appears to be a pre-requisite, rather than an impediment to power. See for example: the cover-up of President Mitterand's illegitimate daughter during his Presidency; or Le Super Menteur himself, Jacques Chirac's trial for embezzlement of public funds in the Clearstream affair; or more recently, the Elysée's crackdown on media coverage of Sarkozy's rumoured extramarital affairs. 

If the French are not especially proud of this fact, they are, at the very least, proud of the domestic laws that enable such behaviour, that is, France's strict privacy laws and the general acceptance of the need for a clear separation between the public and private lives of politicians.

This attitude is, in many ways, admirable. Monogamy has absolutely nothing, or at least very little, to do with inspired political leadership. [Just ask Bill Clinton.]

However, when it comes to DSK's situation, the facts are very different. Here, DSK is not merely accused of having a wandering eye, or of possessing a weakness for les femmes fatales. Here, the charges are criminal.

And yet, collective French outrage seems not to derive from the fact that a man widely tipped as being the next French President might have committed sexual assault. Instead, outrage focuses on "the judge who delivered him to that pack of newshounds" and on the fact that such a man should be publicly humiliated to the point of being treated as if he were "a citizen like any other". 

And therein lies the heart of the fallacy of extending the general permissive French attitude with regard to political scandal to DSK's current situation. For DSK is a citizen like any other, just as his French political colleagues are eux aussi, citoyens de la France.

His behaviour, if proven, will not be able to be explained away as a manifestation of some quaint Gallic cultural trait. DSK will not be able to claim he is the victim of an overly-developed but entirely excusable pre-pubescent desire for the female form. His behaviour must meet a much stricter and less sympathetic test - a criminal one.

And yet, the myth of the French political man, a man seemingly at the mercy of his sexual desire for the fairer race, continues to be both understood and excused by politicians and commentators alike in France. 

As DSK said himself, "I love women, et alors?" 

Well DSK, it seems that this time you may have been a very naughty boy indeed. But I guess, in your defence, they are very pretty, and you are very important. Now come here so I can rustle your hair... Right. There you go. Now run along. You lovable rogue.

When you give your heart

Laura Veirs with another yummy contribution. Check it out!

"And my stampeding buffalo
Stops in her tracks and watches the snow."

Kashmir - Petite Machine

Reposting this song, albeit a new video, because it is, well... epic.

I get really jealous watching bands that just play so naturally together. Look at the bassist just locking everything down, whilst the lead singer smashes out the guitar solo. They know exactly what is happening. The amount of time and effort that goes into getting that level of connection is what makes this performance so impressive. As mum used to say, "If it were easy, everyone would do it."



Just to back up my point, check out the face melting build at 4:35 in this studio recording of Bewildered in the City. You get the feeling he's just knocking out an impro solo and the rest of the band goes with him. Make sure you turn it up and persevere!

As I've said before, I also love these studio videos that bands put out. It's like you've been given the chance to sit inside their brain for a couple of minutes.

Yummy!

For Jen

"And you've been so busy lately
that you haven't found the time,
to open up your mind"

The video is... well... strange.

Y2GAY showing in LONDON

G'Day London ol' cobbers, ol' mates! Yes that's right! Stone the crows and flame the.. [insert jingoistic Australian joke here]! Tickets are now on sale to the 17th London Australian Film Festival. It's on 5-12 May at The Barbican.

As part of the Festival, this year's Tropfest Finalist Films will be showing, including Y2GAY, a film that Dan Ilic and I co-wrote and directed. This is your chance to go check out what all the hype was about, secretly form your own opinion that said hype was unwarranted, and then lose all respect for me as a human being.

Now I know that many London-based Australians are traditionally strapped for cash, especially those struggling away as banking sector lawyers and accountants, but there's no need to worry. The night is completely FREE!

So whack on your hipster Ray Ban sunglasses and best skinny jeans and head on down to The Barbican on 12 May for a night-time celebration of Australia's emerging and not-so-emerging film talent.

And if you're not Australian, there's no reason why you should miss out! Get on down there! Don't be shy! I've even provided you with some typical Aussie conversation fillers so that you'll blend in on the night. If you're ever in a tight spot, just rip out one of these beauties, and you'll be considered more Australian than Cathy Freeman riding Pharlap up Anzac Cove.

1 - "I just paid 6 pounds for a VB!! What the fuck!"
2 - "The refugees wouldn't be rioting if we'd stopped the bloody boats in the first place. Don't you reckon?"
3 - "These films are shit! You know, I had a way better idea for a Tropfest film..."
4 - "I went back home for Easter. Guess where I had my drinks? Opera Bar!! Yes! How did you guess?!"
5 - "I love London. You know, coke is so cheap here that I hardly bother drinking anymore."
6 - "Do you have a spare couch I could crash on?"
7 - "What the fuck is going on with orthodontic treatment in this country?!"
8 - "Julia Gillard blah blah blah ginger blah blah blah woman. Blah blah blah since Gough Whitlam and Paul Keating."
9 - "Tony Abbott blah blah blah bigot blah blah blah racist. Blah blah blah dick stickers."
10 - "Mum reckons I have an English accent now, but I well don't."

Film synopsis :

Y2GAY. Yep, it’s real. The gays are getting married. In 2011, The Australian Government has decided to legalise gay marriage and Mick is not happy. He’s convinced that everything will change for the worse once the gays get married because, well, “they’re weird”. So it’s time to dust off the Y2K bunker and head back down there with his wife Sharon and his best mate Gary.

In this comedy we get a first hand look at the inside of Mick’s anti-gay bunker. Everything in it is straight. There’s straight water, straight non-perishables, and Mick’s straight DVD set, including Spartacus, which Mick says is “definitely not gay” and Ricky Martin’s greatest hits, who as Mick says, “the lady’s love”, so you can’t argue with that. Mick’s wife Sharon is there as well, because that’s not gay, and so is his best mate Gary, because Mick thought he’d need someone to talk to while Sharon was busy cooking and cleaning the bunker.

We all remember how bad Y2K was. Well, reinforce your steel doors with concrete and stock your cupboards with anti-gay spray, because it’s happening all over again. There’s always something to be scared of. And this year, it’s Y2GAY.

Adelaide - March 2011

Pulling on the Red Chord

I recently discovered this wonderful site Moshcam which allows you to watch gigs that have been filmed at different venues around Sydney over the past couple of years. There are hundreds of bands to choose from - from Ben Harper to 78 Saab. I was drawn to a concert given by The Frames at The Metro in 2007.

The below video is the final song of their set. Look at the shining eyes of those in the crowd. In particular, check out the guy around 6:43 just standing there with his arms in the air letting the song wash over him. Look at Glen actually stopping playing to applaud the crowd and then jumping up and down like an excited child. It looks like an utterly religious experience. The rawness with which he treates the lyrics, "that pulls you back to me lord. YEAH!" - it gives me shivers. Check it out.



And just in case you thought it was a fluke, check out Glen creating the magic all on his lonesome, just him and a guitar. The guy is so talented it makes me want to give up now!



By way of postscript, Glen left school at 13 to start busking on the streets of Dublin. He did that for five years before getting The Frames together. It would be another 15 years until his big commercial break, the film Once, would come out. That is one hard slog. Imagine if he'd given up. We wouldn't have this man's beautiful, spellbinding music to spur us all on, to lift us all up.

SC

Silver Cinder show available online

Silver Cinder played at Sin-é at Café Lounge in Surry Hills last night. It was loads of fun. Thanks to everyone who came down to support us. It was nice to have the place packed out! Award for most committed fan has to go to Becci Franklin who came along even though she was due to give birth... YESTERDAY!!! I know right?! That is awesome!

If you didn't make it down, don't worry! (I know! You were stressing right?!) Well no need! You can watch a video of the show in the comfort of your own home! Check it out below.



Thanks very much to the lovely people at Neonhearts for organising and producing the live stream and photos. Go visit the Neonhearts website now to see all the good work they do supporting independent music in Sydney.

SILVER CINDER : BASEMENT and BOAT SHED

Some shots from recent Silver Cinder gigs at The Basement and The Old Manly Boat Shed. If you find yourself at a loose end tonight, we are going to be playing at the Clovelly Hotel, in Sydney's eastern suburbs. We'll be on stage at 9pm.



Thanks to Tessa for the photos.

Listen to Silver Cinder on myspace or follow Silver Cinder on facebook.

New Ronnie Johns Half Hour DVD: ON SALE NOW

They say that when you are on to a good thing, make sure you act fast. Well, we at the Ronnie Johns Official Brains Trust spat in the face of that saying by deciding to do a national tour of the Ronnie Johns Half Hour a cool 4 years after the show itself last aired on TV.

In early 2010, we got the Good Taste Pony out of storage and took a best of live show to Adelaide, Perth, Sydney, Melbourne, the Gold Coast, Woollongong and Gosford, amongst others. Hell, we even made it to bloody Brisbane. No I'm only kidding. Brisbane was actually our best show. We played at the Tivoli. I almost didn't make it on stage because I was so starstruck by sharing the same green room as Powderfinger*.

Well, now we have a DVD of that Live Show for you guys to munch on. Not so much "back by popular demand" as back by "unsolicited silence from fanbase". You waited patiently, and in many cases, unknowingly for it, so here it is : The Ronnie Johns Half Hour Live On Stage DVD - now on sale in all good DVD stores.

*Powderfinger weren't actually in the green room at the same time as us, but there was a signed poster on the wall, so, like, they had been there... in the past. Hey! It still counts!

Nina Simone - Do what you gotta do

Absolutely love the lyrics and phrasing in this song. Just listen to the wandering verses. It's as though she's trying to convince herself of what she's saying. This is Nina Simone at the top of her game. What a voice. Let's spare a thought too for the writer and composer. Amazing, soulful, passionate pop music. And to think that these days kids have to deal with Justin Bieber.

On the recording I own of this song, you can hear Nina telling the recording studio (and perhaps the band) to hurry up and get ready for a take. She says, "I got a lot of living to do before I die, and I ain't got no time to waste. Let's make it-" and then proceeds to launch into the song. It's a yummy moment.

Silver Cinder played at Adelaide Fringe

Silver Cinder played the Basement in Sydney last night in what was possibly our best show to date. Big shout out to Eric from New Caledonia who happened to come to the Basement with his new bride whilst on honeymoon in Sydney. Thanks for buying our cd's and make sure you spread the word back home!

While it seems like a long time ago now, Tam and I made the trek down to Radelaide last weekend to perform at the Adelaide Fringe Festival. On Friday we played a half hour set in the Deluxe tent at the Garden of Unearthly Delights. Then on Saturday we entertained for 2 hours at the outdoor bandstand. If you were walking down Rundle Street Mall at about 11pm on Saturday night, you would also have heard Tam and I busking. I have to say that, while it is daunting to busk, there is nothing like having to compete with traffic and city noise to get people's attention. It is very humbling. In a strange way, it was almost the highlight of the trip. Very real. Tam also managed to sneak in a quick trip to the Barossa, so all round, a fairly productive couple of days. The concave trundle bed at Quest Apartments was a bit of a struggle. Thanks again to Nick and Ben from Smart Casual and to David Quirk for making room for us!

Heads up to Tam for the photos.

Silver Cinder playing Adelaide Fringe

Silver Cinder are going to be playing at the Adelaide Fringe Festival in the Garden of Unearthly Delights this Friday at 6pm and Saturday at 2pm.

We are also very excited to unleash our new EP to our free settler friends in South Australia. The disks have been printed and Tam is currently putting the final touches on the artwork. It's exciting stuff.

If you haven't already done so, make sure you "like" Silver Cinder's page on facebook. Once you've liked it, we'll automatically keep you up to date with upcoming gigs and information.

Buechner and Childhood

When he was 10 years old, Frederick Buechner woke one morning to the news that his father had committed suicide. When he reflects on his life, Buechner talks of that morning as being the moment when "time" started. For in that moment came the dreaded confirmation that there were indeed things in life that could not be solved with the comforting word of a loved one or by the embrace of a grand-parent. All time before that moment, Buechner calls "below time". Below time is childhood's time, a time when life is appreciated for what it is, rather than for when it will end.

"For a child, all time is by and large 'now time' and is apparently endless. What child while summer is happening, bothers to think much that that summer will end. What child while snow is on the ground, stops to remember that the ground was once snowless. It's by its content rather than its duration that a child knows time, by its quality rather than its quantity. Happy times and sad times. The time that a rabbit bit your finger. The time you first tasted bananas and cream, the time you were crying yourself to sleep and someone came and lay beside you in the dark, for comfort.

Childhood's time is Adam and Eve's time, before they left the garden forever and from that point on divided everything into 'before' and 'after'. It's the time before God told them that the day would come when they would surely die, with the result that from that point on they made clocks and calendars for counting out their time like money and never again lived through a day of their lives without being haunted, somewhere in the depths of themselves, by the knowledge that each day brought them closer to the end of their lives.

Summers end, to be sure. And when the sun finally burns out like a match, summer will end for good. But be that as it way, it can never be otherwise than that there was a time when summers were. It can never be otherwise than that fifty years ago, on some July or August day at dusk, I raced as a child through fireflies across a green lawn, and in some way, with the insight of a child, sensed that that moment would never cease. What was true in my childhood belief that time would go on forever was that once a moment has come into being, its "having beeness" is beyond any power in heaven or on earth, in life or in death to touch.

And the people I knew as a child, my parents and grand parents, my brothers, the nurses that came and went, the teachers and friends, the characters in the books I read, I saw them all in very much the same way as boundless. It never crossed my mind that there had been a time before they were, or that there would come a time when they would be no longer. They were the Atlas's who held the world on their shoulders, held my world, held me, and their heads towered above the clouds. As with time I hadn't yet acquired the fateful skill of standing off from them to weigh and measure. I knew them not for whoever they were in themselves, but for whoever they were for me. Mummy, Daddy, Grandpa Kune, Grandma Neya. The names they had were the names that, like Adam, I gave them. And through these new names I gave them, I gave them new selves to be. I made my father a father, my mother a mother. And what they were apart from me I no more knew or cared than I knew or cared what the world had been before I appeared in it, or what the ocean was like when I wasn't there to feel the waves suck the sand out from under my feet...

...Home was not a place to me as a child. Home was people. How they live on, for all of us, those giants of a childhood. How well they take even death in their stride. Because although death can put an end to them right enough, it can never put an end to our relationship with them. Wherever or however else they might have come to light since, it's beyond a doubt they live still in us...

...Any house where my father and mother were, was home to me. But for that very reason, whenever they left, even for a day, even for an hour, it was home no longer, but a house with walls as frail as paper, and a roof as fragile as glass. My fear was that they would never come back.

I knew nothing more of death then than what I had learned from the slippery green frog that my friends and I tossed between us by the legs until it broke and its slippery life spilled out, and nothing more of darkness than the night. I'd never lost anything that I didn't know would be replaced if I really needed it by those that I loved, and I'd never been hurt beyond the power of a word of comfort to heal.

But whenever my mother and father left, taking home with them, I knew that hurt, loss, darkness, death could flatten that house in seconds. And to a degree that I had no way of knowing, and in a way that I couldn't possibly guess, I was of course right."

If Buechner's childhood was like Adam and Eve's time in Eden, that fateful morning when he woke to the news of his father's death was Buechner's fall from grace. But what I find hauntingly profound in Buechner's recount is that even in the magical, legendary land "below time", where the concept of time as having a finite duration is yet to be fully comprehended, there is nonetheless an awareness, albeit a very dim and distant one, that it is perhaps just possible that Eden will not last forever and that when it ends, the resulting world is one filled with as yet unknown sources of sadness: hurt, loss, and incredible, penetrating darkness. So that even in that land "below time", we are capable of grieving for the loss of our childlike innocence before we are even made aware of its very existence, or indeed the fact that it might not exist forever. We grieve for something we cannot know or fully understand, other than with our dimmest "below time" understanding of it, so that, when the source of that grief is confirmed, and we realise that our time spent "below time" was in fact always going to come to an end, we grieve again at the devastating confirmation of that truth, and at our prior unawareness of it, and perhaps most devastatingly of all, at the fact that things will never again be as they were in that now most precious of times: "below time".

Radiohead - The King of Limbs

Initial impressions of Radiohead's most recent album, The King of Limbs, are that it is another signature Radiohead effort. Some might say "more of the same". It's true that the album will not please those who were hanging out for a remake of The Bends as it continues along the band's arc from In Rainbows and Kid A. But it's early days for this record. Multiple listens are yet needed. (Already, I can't get the final track on the album, Separator, outta my head.) And in my humble opinion, if it is indeed "more of the same", it is "more of the same" in the same way that a second helping of butterscotch ice cream is "more of the same". Whichever way you look at it, it's still delicious.

Check out the video for track five on the album, Lotus Flower. Gotta love a Thom Yorke dance.

January 2011

Yesterday's Hero

Late last night, with the Tropfest winners announced, the VIP bar well and truelly vacated and the viewing public back in the comfort of their beds, I snuck back onto the red carpet for a final photo. I say final photo. It was actually my first of the day, I'm sure. Sometimes you just have to do your own publicity. And if nothing else, who knows, it might be one for the grandkids one day.

Y2GAY: now of the web!

Well, no cigar last night at the Movie Extra Tropfest 2011 Finals in Sydney for our film Y2GAY, but there were some absolute cracking entries. We're so proud to have been included amongst them and personally, I'm very proud of our little film and everyone who worked on it.

We didn't go away altogether empty handed. Kate Worsley deservedly picked up the Best Female Actor award and our cast were singled out for mention by Shakespeare in Love actor and Tropfest judge Josephe Fiennes. Well done guys!

A big thank you to all those who came down and watched it at the domain. I feel very lucky to have such special friends. To my family, I love you. You continue to surprise me with your unerring support of this crazy search.

Y2GAY is now available on the net, so if you didn't get the chance to see it live last night, you can click away to your heart's content.

Enjoy!

Clarke and Dawe: Balancing the budget

Clarke and Dawe are at it again. click the below image to watch their latest take on the Australian government priorities when doing a budget. Foreigner warning: there are lots of references to local political issues and personalities in this sketch. apologies if it doesn't make sense to those overseas.

Y2GAY is coming... no seriously... it's this SUNDAY!

Dan Ilic and I wrote and directed a little film over summer called Y2GAY. The gate keepers over at Tropfest have deemed it good enough to sit in their final 16. It stars the very excellent, very funny and talented Kate Worsley, Dave McLaughlin, and Nick Mattick (Smart Casual).

So Dan, Peter Slee (producer) and I would love it if you would join us in a semi-designated Y2GAY area on the night this coming Sunday. We will be there early to stake out some Y2GAY-members-only turf. All you have to do is wander on down in time to see the show kick off around 7:30 or so... I mean, we're not asking much now. It's free. And we did all the hard work after all. All you have to do is turn up with your camembert and wine and get completely shitfaced while taking in some 1st-class austrayan "culcha".

We will be in the Domain from around 2pm next Sunday 20th of February with this Y2GAY sign. Look out for it, and come and sit with us and cheer on the films in what will be a celebration of champagne tropfest sketch comedy.

Hoorrah!

Our great democracy

In recent weeks, Western commentators have been effusive in their praise of the unfolding wonder that is the "democratisation" of Egypt. Some have suggested that the rest of the Arab world would do well to follow suit as quickly as they possibly can. Apparently, the Beatles were wrong. All you need is democracy.

If only that were true.

Our own great democracy has been performing at spectacularly underwhelming levels. In the last month, our great leaders have fought over who has the right to pay the least amount of money towards the nation's health care; they have fought over who should pay for the desperate task of rebuilding QLD after the floods/cyclone that destroyed the state; and most recently, our leaders tried desperately to start a fight over whether Australian taxpayers should foot the bill for Christmas Island asylum seekers to be able to attend the funerals of their drowned relatives. (They should just be grateful they weren't smashed against the rocks themselves, I guess.)

So much for this great-hearted sunburnt land of Vegemite smeared babies who grow up, embalmed in the salty waves of equality beach, to be the very personification of the most precious of all australian values, the fair go.

Democracy gives power to the people sure (inshallah), but the test of a good democracy depends just as much upon what the people are prepared to let their leaders get away with.

Enter Tony Abbott.

Footage has been found which shows Tony Abbott being briefed by the Commander of the Australian troops in Afghanistan (An American! I know! Need I mention the Breaker Morant and Suva Bay debacles?!). The Commander describes the fact that in an attack in which an Australian soldier died, the army did not receive sufficient air support. He commiserates that the air support failure could not be attributed to any specific reason. In response, Abbott is seen on camera saying that in war, "shit happens".

Fair enough really. I'm sure it does. Having just finished the censored account of an Australian digger's experience at Gallipolli (To Hell and Back, if you're interested), I couldn't agree with Abbott more. Shit does, and did, happen. Pretty much every day.

What didn't look great was that Abbott was seen to be flippant about an Australian soldier's death. All he needed to do was explain that he was not at all being flippant, and it would not even have made the papers. Instead, our opposition leader stood, staring down his inner rage, hoping the film in the journalist's camera would run out before his fuse did. Have a look for yourself:



What is disturbing about this footage is not that Abbott got caught out saying that "shit happens". What is disturbing is that when questioned about the matter, he was so incapable of controlling his own inner rage that he is barely able to restrain himself from coming to physical blows with the journalist.

We are a great democratic nation. And this is our great democracy. One leader is so desperately lacking in charisma that people write 500 word articles rejoicing the fact that her voice "faltered" when describing the deaths of Australian citizens in the QLD floods during a session of parliament. (She lives!) The other leader is an intellectual nobody, a brazen steel-balls oxford fighter who is on the record as not wanting us to believe everything he says, a man so incapable of controlling his feelings when reasonably challenged, that he is not able to think of one sane word to say in his own defence.

The choice is anaesthetising.

Allah and God be praised. Here lies the great democracy we never bothered to fight for.

Silver Cinder on Facebook

Silver Cinder are now on Facebook. You can follow us and keep up to date with all the latest information on upcoming gigs by clicking on the below icon:

Also, stay tuned for the new Promo CD from Silver Cinder. Here's a taste of what it will look like:

Y2GAY in Tropfest 2011!

We found out today that Y2GAY, the film that I co-wrote and co-directed has been chosen as a finalist for the world's largest short film festival, MovieExtra's Tropfest 2011. Exciting stuff! The finals take place on 20 February when the films will be screened in all capital cities around australia. The winner will be announced on the night. So, let's party!

Film Synopsis:

Y2GAY. Yep, it’s real. The gays are getting married. In 2011, The Australian Government has decided to legalise gay marriage and Mick is not happy. He’s convinced that everything will change for the worse once the gays get married because, well, “they’re weird”. So it’s time to dust off the Y2K bunker and head back down there with his wife Sharon and his best mate Gary.

In this comedy we get a first hand look at the inside of Mick’s anti-gay bunker. Everything in it is straight. There’s straight water, straight non-perishables, and Mick’s straight DVD set, including Spartacus, which Mick says is “definitely not gay” and Ricky Martin’s greatest hits, who as Mick says, “the lady’s love”, so you can’t argue with that. Mick’s wife Sharon is there as well, because that’s not gay, and so is his best mate Gary, because Mick thought he’d need someone to talk to while Sharon was busy cooking and cleaning the bunker.

We all remember how bad Y2K was. Well, reinforce your steel doors with concrete and stock your cupboards with anti-gay spray, because it’s happening all over again. There’s always something to be scared of. And this year, it’s Y2GAY.

Stay tuned for more Y2GAY news here!

The Morning Benders

Sorry Darren, another music post. Saw these guys at The Oxford Arts factory in Sydney... I've heard them described as the West Coast Grizzly Bear. Strange looking guys, but they were excellent live. Tight like a tiger.

Their big hit of the new album Big Echo is a song called Excuses, and the hits on Youtube reflect that. I've chosen to post Hand Me Down. It is a great song, and probably my favourite on the album:

Faith is...

When he was 10 years old, Frederich Buechner awoke one morning to the news that his father had locked himself in the garage, turned on the car engine and poisened himself on the fumes of carbon monoxide from the car's exhaust. A week later a note was found scribbled on the final page of Gone With The Wind, the last book his father had been reading before he died. It was addressed to Buechner's mother and read simply, "I adore and love you, and I am no good. Give Freddie my watch. Give Jamie my pearl pin. I give you all my love."

In the wake of Buechner's father's death, and in spite of his grandmother's calls for the family to stay in Pittsburgh and "face reality", Buechner's mother took her children to the island of Bermuda, where they would live for three years, until the outbreak of WWII in 1939. During that time, Buechner learned to love again, learned to listen to the beauty of life around him and in his own words, was reborn. In the following passage, he reflects on his time in Bermuda as a time not just of running away and new beginnings, as many might have considered it to be, but a time of healing and resurrection against all apparent odds.

"In that never never land, that Oz of an island, where we had no roots, I found for the first time a sense of being rooted. In that land where as a foreigner we could never belong, I found a sense of belonging. In that most frivolous place, which travel brochures billed as a vacationer's paradise, I made what was perhaps the least frivolous discovery up till then, which was that Love is not merely a warmth to bask in, like the boatloads of honeymooners who basked on the warmth of Coral Beach, but a grave and fierce yearning and reaching out for paradise itself, a losing and finding of the self in the paradise of another.

This is the reality of those years as I look back at them, and part of their reality to me, is that all the healing and strengthening that came my way, came my way as a gift, and as a gift that implies a giver.

Did it?

There are lots of ways of looking at those years, at any years, of course. The common sense way would be to say simply, "the boy grew up a little." Time heals all wounds and his were no exception. Things started to fall into place for him, that's all. What happened, happened as much by chance as the chance patterns of raindrops on a glass pane, as much by luck as when you draw the lucky number in a raffle. If you want to speak in terms of a gift and a giver, then you should speak of the boy's grandmother, that formidable old lady who seems to have gotten short shrift in this account, but who paid the rent after all and financed the whole operation even though it was against her better judgement to do so.

Or there could be psychological ways of describing those years. You could say that the trauma of the father's suicide was such that the boy, unable to come to terms with his own feelings, repressed them, to the extent that they were bound to cause psychological conflict later on.

You could speak in terms of oedipal conflict and say that part of the reason that the boy seemed to recover from his grief as quickly as he did was that through his father's death he got what, subconsciously of course, he'd always wanted and that was his mother to himself, one consequence of which might well be just such a residue of anxiety and guilt as might in later years lead him to the consolations of religion.

As for the incident of the girl it was clearly a case of pre-adolescent sexuality romanticised to the level of a temporary obsession, or something like that.

I cannot deny such ways of looking at those years, nor do I want to. Many such insights, including many of those, seem very real to me. Yes, time heals all wounds, or at least dresses them, makes them endurable. Yes, at the king's death, the grief of the prince is mitigated by his becoming king. Yes, the great transfiguring power of sex stirs early and deep within everybody. And who can look at his life without seeing the role of blind chance and dumb luck?

But faith, says the author of Hebrews, is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. And looking back at those distant years, I choose not to deny either, the presence of an unseen giver and a series of hidden gifts, as not only part of their reality, but the deepest part of all.

Grandma Buechner might have been right about our going to Bermuda. It could have been a terrible mistake. Instead it was a kind of rebirth. My father's death could have closed the door of my heart once and for all against the possibility of ever giving entrance to such love, and therefore to such pain again. Instead it opened some door, in me, to the pain in other people. Not that I did much about the other people, God knows. Nor have ever done much about them since, because I am much too lilly-livered for that. Too weak of faith, too self-absorbed and squeemish. But such pain as I'd know in my own short life opened up, if not my hands to help them, at least my eyes to see that there is pain in every life, that buried grief and hurtful memories are part of us all. And there was so much else to see too... And there is so much to see always. Things too big to take in all at once. Things so small, it's hardly even noticed. And though they may well come by accident, these moments of our seeing, I choose to believe that it is no means by accident when they open our hearts as well as our eyes. I believe it is by grace. I believe these moments themselves are gifts of grace, and that what they open our hearts to is the grace of life itself, a "crazy holy grace" I've called it.

Crazy because whoever could have predicted it? Who could ever foresee the crazy how and when and where of a grace that wells up out of a lostness and pain of the world and our own inner worlds?

And Holy? Because these moments of grace come from farther away than Oz and deeper down than doom. Holy, because they heal and hallow.

"For all our blessings, known and unknown, remembered and forgotten, we give thee thanks" says an old prayer. And it's for the all but unknown ones and the more than half-forgotten ones that we do well to look back over the journey of our lives. Because it is their presence that makes the life of each a sacred journey.

We cannot see them clearly for the gifts they are. And we surely cannot see clearly the giver's hand who gives them. But part of the gift is to be able, from time to time, to be "assured and convinced without seeing" as Hebrews says. Because that seems to be of the very style and substance of faith, and what drives us always to seek a farther and deeper seeing still.

There will always be some who say that such faith is only dream. And God knows there are none that can say it more devastatingly than we sometimes say it to ourselves.

But if so, I think it's like the dream that Caliban dreamed. Faith is like a dream in which the clouds open to show such richness ready to fall upon us that when we wake into the reality of nothing more than common sense, we cry to dream again. Because the dreaming seems truer than the waking does. The fullness of reality, not as we have ever fully seen it, to be sure, but as by faith we trust it to be, without seeing.

Faith is both the crying, and the dreaming. Faith is the assurance that the best and holiest dream is true. Faith in something, if only in the proposition that life is better than death, is what makes our journeys through time bearable. When faith ends, the journey ends. It ends either in a death like my father's, or in the living death of those who believe themselves to be without hope."

Chrissie Present: The National at the Enmore

Christmas Bike

This lovely bike from Tokyo Bikes is the new addition to the family in 2011. Their website states,"more about slow, than fast, Tokyo Bike believes that speed is not always the aim, destination is only part of the story, and losing yourself in a city’s small back lanes and expansive parks and gardens, is one way of switching off and escaping it all..." Hurrah!

Love is...

"Love is not merely a warmth to bask in, like the boatloads of honeymooners who basked on the warmth of coral beach, but a grave, fierce yearning and reaching out for paradise itself, a losing and finding of the self in the paradise of another."

                                                                                                               - Frederich Buechner

Frederich Buechner Drops a 85 minute Truth Bomb

"I want to be a leader. I want to do my bit, you know. I want to do my bit to change the world, in whatever small way that I can."

These words, offered rather nonchalantly to me over a beer and some pork dumplings in a small restaurant in Kings Cross, have remained with me since they were first spoken to me, now over a month ago. In the quiet moments of my day, when all the noise stops briefly, they come back to me. Or perhaps they have always been there and I just choose to listen.

"I want to change the world" is a phrase that people throw around regularly. It's a simple edict. I suspect it is often dismissed as being meaningless for that very reason. However, it is the "in whatever way that I can" in the words that were spoken to me that continues to haunts me. I can't shake them for their simplicity, because as simple as they are, I can't deny that they are entirely attainable. I can't dismiss them for the niggling questions they raise in me. Am I doing what I can? Am I even a leader? And if not, why not? What have I become? What can I do to change the world? What if we all were to wake with this one simple mandate? And what if we were to hold ourselves vigilantly to it?

I have been listening to the 1981 lectures of Frederich Buechner. I have blogged about them previously. In these lectures, Buechner comes across as a writer/theologian at the height of his powers, effortlessly constructing and deconstructing life's deepest and trickiest questions over three 85 minutes lectures. I truly believe that if these lectures were in another art-form, a painting, a book or a song, we'd be holding them up as classics. The quote at the end of this is just a snippet from the 2nd 85 minute truth bomb that Buechner drops, a lecture so perfectly and consistently woven with wisdom that I can only listen to it in small morcels, for listening to the lecture in full, the undiluted power of Buechner's words become almost too much to bear. Like a man staring into the sun, I have to look away, or be blinded by the dazzling light.

One of Buechner's talents is his ability to speak, as Rilke says, in questions that become answers rather than the other way around. So often today, in so many aspects of our lives, we are given boiled-down-easy-to-use answers to our problems. "The ten things that make us tick", "The 5 keys to financial success", "50 ways to know if your boyfriend is cheating" - each give the impression that there are a finite amount of ways to succeed, to be happy, to know yourself and that beyond these finite ways there is no use searching further. Slogans like "Stopping the boats" are held up to us as the very essence of Australian immigration policy. Stopping them is good. Not stopping them is bad. No other option is available to us, not even an "all of the above". And while such messages are easy to consume, not to mention politically expedient, they fail to acknowledge the full gambit of interlocking issues that affect, determine, manipulate, or cause the nature of immigration in Australia.

Buechner's beauty lies in his complete and fearless recognition (and celebration!) of the uncertain, the unknown, the uncontrollable, the unexplainable - the mystery of life. For Buechner, it is this very mystery that makes life beautiful. In accepting the existence of mystery, Buechner accepts much more: ie. that there are many possible explanations for its existence; that it is very probably that none of the explanations explain the mystery entirely; and that there is room for this unknown, for the inexplicable, in our lives - we need not have all the answers.

I can't help but want to send the lecture to you all, but instead I must be content with another small snippet. Below, Buechner boils down the idea of faith and the idea that once we have found what we think we have been looking for, we find ourselves with a niggling inner yearning for more.

"One way or another the journey of time starts for us all... what it is primarily is a journey of search. Each must say of himself what he searches for, and there will be as many answers as there are searchers. We search for a self to be, I think. We search for other selves to love. We search for work to do. And since even when to one degree or another we find all those things, we find also that there is something crucial missing which we have not found and we search for that too, even though we don't know it's name, or where it is to be found, or even if it is to be found at all."

roll up

A Yongman BBQ

Tess and I went down to Canberra this weekend to visit the Canberra crew. Andrew and Clare are off to Malaysia for three years with the foreign service and they were hosting a farewell BBQ. Andrew's culinary talents were once again on show - a giant paella and sweet pork ribs - both of which were delicious and not your typical aussie BBQ fare. As the afternoon sun sank lower in the sky, the day drifted into a session of backyard cricket, followed by another couple of hours of lawn bowls. Thanks Canberra.

Honey! Snap!

Honeysnaps made with love to make someone happy. They were yummy. Thank you!

This one's for Darren Cormack

As perhaps the only person in the world who regularly checks this blog, this post is specifically for Darren. I know you hate the fact that this blog has become about songs I like rather than about observations on life... so consider this the last music-related post. I promise that as of today I'll get back to more general commenting, life updating and photo blogging.

But first, one more song from the most underrated band in the world. Kashmir.... I love you.

And to you, the Biggest Fella, keep up the good work.

The National write music in time with world population growth

Sometimes, some things are so coincidental that you can't help but think they were meticulously planned.

Well, I want you to do something for me.

Have a listen to the piano part in the below song by American band, The National. Now click on the following link for the World Population clock and listen to the song again. Is the repetitive piano part not exactly in time with the current rate of world population growth?!

Perhaps it's coincidence. Or perhaps it's incredibly apt for a song that contains the lyric, "We're half awake in a fake empire". Who knows the exact extent of The National's genius.



Now. Back to work.

The Boat People

Australian indie-pop band The Boat People are playing this Friday night at the Sandringham, launching their third album Dear Darkly. This is the opening track. Love it.

Arcade Fire - Suburban War

This band are doing it like no other at the moment. This song is off their latest album - Suburbs. Listen to the light in that guitar riff. And then try not to bob your head when those drums come in. Arcade Fire. They be smashin it.

Silver Cinder in Triple J's Unearthed Competition

Title says it all really. Go visit us on their website and vote "yay! now let them become famous":

http://www.triplejunearthed.com/Artists/View.aspx?artistid=40302

Feist - I feel it all

GAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!

Takes me back to 2007, Canada and Rue St André.

L'ossature d'une feuille

New beginnings in the last of the melting snow

Well, a bit of stuff has been going down recently. I find myself listening to this song on repeat.

Slow. But crushing.

"In no doubt
As I leave this town
I will not return
For I haven't got the room in my head
For these things"

Thanks again to Guy Garvey for the heads up.

The Whitest Boy Alive - 1517

GAAAAAAR!!!

Have NOT been able to get this song out of my head... and luvin' it.

The Whitest Boy Alive started as an electronic dance music project in 2003 based around Norweigen DJ and Kings of Convenience member Erlend Øye (also of DJ Kicks fame!). Check out their website... great design.

Turn it up.

Whales

I spent the weekend down with my sister in Berry. Whilst on a bushwalk in Booderee National Park, we were fortunate enough to witness a pod of whales playing off the coast. I managed to get a couple of snaps (which don't really do the experience justice). Such magnificent beasts.

Silver Cinder on Myspace!

Tam and I have been in the studio over the last couple of weekends, trying to get a bunch of tracks together to send out to venues, radio stations etc. Well, the tracks are now finished, mastered and ready for listening.

Check them out on our myspace page:

www.myspace.com/silvercinder

Holy Cash

I went to see Griffin Theatre's Quack last night, an Australian play which is on at the moment at The Stables Theatre in Darlinghurst. It was an amazing ride. Zombies, blood, onstage surgery and more. Captivating performances and a beautifully crafted script. One part of the play included one of the characters singing a section of the below song. It was spellbinding.

Originally a Nine Inch Nails song (newfound respect!), it was then covered by the late and great Johnny Cash. Lights down, red wine in hand, music turned up. Go for it.

Frederick Beuchner and Beyond Time

I have been listening to a series of lectures called "Beyond Time" given by American author/theologian Frederick Beuchner in 1981. My Dad has it on cd. In the lectures, Beuchner talks about his own lifelong quest to "understand it all" and his growing awareness, albeit unconscious, of some greater plot. In particular, he scrutinizes the changing moments in his life, most of them random, moments when, as he puts it, "from beyond time, something too precious to tell has glintered in the dust, always just out of reach, like fireflies."

Beuchner was one of my Dad's theological mentors, a teacher, writer and raconteur first, and a minister second. In fact, the lectures aren't theological, even though he touches on his own beliefs and the journey it took to come to them. His exposition of the passing of time, his celebration of mystery, of ambiguity and of contradiction resonated with me strongly. Beuchner says he was once told, 'you have a way with words'. He has an ability to craft words into beautiful, telling, deep and thoughtful images. It's a very powerful gift. Some of his observations are, to borrow one of his own expressions,"like going away presents from beyond time, to carry with us through time, to lighten our step as we go".

While nothing can substitute listening to the lectures in full, the following passages are ones that spoke to me most directly:

"Listen. Listen. Your life is happening, You are happening... A journey years long has brought each of you through thick and thin to this moment in time... think back on that journey. Listen back to the sounds and sweet airs of your journey that give delight and hurt not, and to those that give no delight and hurt like hell: Be not afeared. The music of your life is subtle and illusive, and like no other, not a song with words, but a song without words, a singing chattering, hammering music, to gladden the heart or bring tears to the eyes, to haunt you perhaps with echoes of a vaster farther music of which it is part... Sometimes you avoid listening for fear of what you may hear, sometimes for fear that you may hear nothing at all but the empty rattle of your feet on the pavement. But be not afeared... Be not afraid."

Beuchner ends the lecture with the following paragraph:

"The way we have to go is full of perils from without and from within. And who can say for sure what we will find at the end of our journey... Faith, Hope and Love, those three, our going away presents from beyond time, to carry with us through time, to lighten our step as we go...
Never question the truth of what you fail to understand, for the world is filled with wonders... In the long run, nothing, not even a world, not even ourselves, can separate us from that last, and deepest love that glimmers in our dark... like a pearl... like a face."

Spectacular insights. The skillful delivery of a brutal truth that raps at the shell of our existence, threatening to break in and cause havoc.

Nothing quite like crying whilst reading your four-year-old niece a bed-time story.

There's nothing like crying whilst reading your niece a bed-time story. I came home from work the other day - a day full of urgent tasks, immutable deadlines and pressure situations. My niece was staying over, and when I got home, she was already in bed awaiting a bedtime story. I read her one about a baby rabbit that wanted to run away from his mother. "I will become a boat and I will sail away from you on the sea" he said. To which the mother replied, "well I will become the wind, and I will blow you back to me". *Insert unsuccessful attempt not to cry in front of a four year old* Goddammit!

I have no idea what the below book is about, but if it's half as good as the cover, I can't wait to read it. Deadset best facial expression on a dinosaur ever? Probably. I don't think the dinosaur was actually aware of what the book was going to be about when he agreed to do the cover.

Publisher: So, we'd love you to be on the cover of one of our books.
Dinosaur: Really? That's great.
Publisher: Yeah, we really love your work.
Dinosaur: Oh really?
Publisher: Yeah, huge fans.
Dinosaur: Well, thank you very much. You know, I do take my work seriously.
Publisher: Well, it shows. You should be very proud.
Dinosaur: So what's the book going to be called?
Publisher: The book is going to be called, "All my friends are dead."


At which point the Dinosaur made the below face, they took the picture, and put it on the cover.

Big ups to Chris Toole for sending me the image.

Building a Wall

Heard this song on Triple J this afternoon and could not get it out of my head for the rest of the day. Love it. Building a Wall is the second single of the debut album of Melbourne band Hello Satellites. Check it. (Reminiscent of St Vincent? Anyone?)


Love these lyrics:


"Cause we're building a wall, we're building a wall, to keep your love in and the storms outside. But it's here in your heart, here in your heart, and you can't stop it from rising out... but you'll have to get hurt if you want to get out, you'll have to break something if you want to get out. I was building a wall, building a wall, to keep my job safe and my lover by my side." 

Heaven at Once

This is what happens when you smoke a fat jay and then walk into a music studio. Someone has finally put this track up on the internet. It was pretty much the soundtrack of my time in Paris. This one goes out to The Djé and his record collection of Soul. I'll always remember those sessions in the apartment at 2 Rue des Couronnes fondly. ("Jamze. T'es avocat, t'es rugbyman, t'es deuxieme ligne...")

Allez. En fumez un, et ecoutez bien Kool and the Gang pendant qu'ils vous amenent au "ciel tout de suite".

Seattle to New York: Dan Ilic

An old Ronnie Johns mate of mine, Dan Ilic, has been on a voyage across the USA, hitchiking across 13 states from Seattle to New York in 7 days. This video is shot, produced and edited by Dan. He wouldn't have it any other way. Dan is someone who makes life happen around him. He always has been. If he has an idea for a sketch, he goes out and records it himself. He doesn't wait for a TV producer to turn up on his door step. I remember when we did our first show at the Melbourne Comedy Festival together in 2003. The show had very poor audiences in the first week and the producer sat us all down and said, "If we cut and run now we won't lose money. Do you want to leave?" Dan piped up and offered to finance the remaining week of the show with his own money if it meant we could stay to finish the festival. "This is what I want to do with my life", he said. I can still remember the steel in Dan's eyes. I remember being amazed by (perhaps even jealous of?) his certainty and belief. At the moment, Dan's trying to fulfil his dream of getting a position as a writer on one of the Tonight shows in NYC.

Anyway, this video is a great testament to Dan's faith. It's also an amazing soundtrack. Go Australian Music. And Go Dan!

Kashmir - Petite Machine

Love this song by Danish Band Kashmir. Love the drums, the melancholic guitar and the build at the end. Yummy.

Did you know that Kashmir were originally called Nirvana (this was way back in 1991), but then changed their name to Kashmir, after the Led Zeppelin song, as the Seattle version gained notoriety? Yeah. That's right. Checkout more Kashmir by following the above link to their myspace.

The Jezabels - Easy to Love

Holy Crapola! Seeing these guys on Saturday night at the Factory in Newtown. I recently came across them while trawling through the Triple J Unearthed website (yes I know, they have been around for a year or so now!). Love the sound. Love the drumming. Love the opening lyrics.

Well I was the one who showed you the sky
But you brought it down to my thighs
I sadly believed every word i didn't mean
About loving darkness.

Beautiful.

Love this filmclip. They actually look like they are having fun! What a relief from the usual morose-a-thon. Love the time exposure clip of the lights of Sydney through the window. Yay for getting Australian sights into your film clips. Apparently one of The Jezabels' other singles "Disco Biscuit Love" went massive in the US college community. The future looks bright.

Exciting stuff coming out of Australia at the moment. Check out The Jezabels' myspace: www.myspace.com/jezabelsband

I encourage you to take the time to read their bio. They sound like a great band to get excited about.

Also check out the new video for Melbourne duo Gypsy and the Cat's song Time to Wander. Love the bit where the man just stands back and gestures towards the sound coming out of the speakers with his hands. Simple but poignant.

Go Australian music Go!

Sydney Debut of THE FALL!

It's an exciting time! After years and years of playing in my own bedroom, I'm finally playing in public. Tamara and I met in 2006 but only just started playing together again upon my return home from France. We're called THE FALL and we had our Sydney debut last night at the Excelsior. It couldn't have gone better. We've been asked back to play again on 29 July 2010. Stay tuned, I'm sure there'll be more to come. Thanks to Luke Easey for these iphone snaps taken during a rehearsal at Sound Level.

Volcano Choir - Still

Exhibit A of why Guy Garvey's Finest Hour is good (see previous post). This is a cracker version of Bon Iver's song Into the Woods which I just heard on Guy's program. Turn it up, turn down the lights and have yourself a bottle of red.

Guy Garvey's Finest Hour

I get most of my new music by listening to Guy Garvey's Finest Hour. It's actually a 2 hour podcast (he gets two cracks at it each show) hosted by the lead singer of UK band Elbow. The type of music featured on the programme ranges from Rufus Wainwright to The National to Chet Baker to Esther Phillips. It's an eclectic mix, which I find is a refreshing change from some of the stations in Australia.

The BBC are planning to close BBC 6 Music, the station on which Guy Garvey's Finest Hour is broadcasted, at the end of 2011. A public outcry in the UK received widespread coverage, however it has failed to save the station from closure. I believe the BBC's cultural capital will be poorer for it.

Check out Guy Garvey's Finest Hour here.

Ronnie Johns Tour

Swell Season - High Horses

This is, for me, the best song off the latest album by the Swell Season. I was listening to it today as I walked down Sydney's Martin Place today and couldn't help but strut.

Favourite line: "Get down off your high horses, let me in. Get down off your high horses, let's begin."

Ripper