As seen on TV

 Baker's Dozen, Drawings, WRITING
Oct 312011
 

The older I get the longer a haircut takes, despite having fewer and fewer actual hairs on my head to cut. A similar principal is in effect at a grand-master chess match: fewer game-pieces on the chessboard means longer deliberations between moves.


Despite receding hair, getting a haircut now causes me no anxiety whatsoever. Ironically, I most worried about my hair when I had plenty to spare. As a small boy, I saw the world through an unruly mop, but even attempts by my mother to merely WASH my hair caused me to howl with as much tonsil-quavering gusto as being dragged to the dentist.


The drama of childhood dental appointments is easy to understand –my yowling correlated precisely with the actions of a bloke jamming a drill in the nerve-endings of my teeth– but it isn’t immediately clear why anyone grooming my hair caused such dread. Of course, in the 1970s, even grown-men loathed the barbershop but that was mere fashion. My hair-angst went much deeper than that, and was not connected to aesthetics at all. Like some tiny SAMSON, I saw grooming of my hair as an attack on my very self.


No matter how “good” the haircut, even if done professionally at the barbershop a few blocks from our house, I hated it anyway. Mum’s desire to save an inevitable public fracas, not to mention personal expense, meant that the haircuts were more likely to be done at home, by her. There were already 4 of us boys when I was 7 years old, so trimming our hair must have been an unending and utter misery for poor Mum. However, there came a savior: THE HAIR MAGICIAN.


In the 1970s, the K-TEL corporation solved the problems of common folk with little doo-hickeys, whatsits and thingamajigs. A particular point of interest was that each product had been “seen on TV” though only in the commercial that pointed out that fact. One such advertisement promised that a product called THE K-TEL HAIR MAGICIAN would deliver a haircut by merely combing your hair. Why, after a few strokes of this gadget (which looked like a long-handled comb) you’d be the very picture of style! (Such as it was in 1973). All this, without having to pay for a haircut! Mum must have thought all her prayers were answered at last.


I remember sitting out in the back yard on a kitchen chair as Mum swooped in with her newly-bought miracle gizmo. Predictably, as she combed it through my hair, I howled like a banshee, though this time with good reason; a haircut from the HAIR MAGICIAN hurt like holy hell. The K-TEL wizards had cunningly installed razor blade cartridges between the teeth of this comb to do the cutting. In theory. In reality, a few strokes from this new-fangled comb left hair entangled in the fangle, cutting capacity was lost and subsequent styling was achieved by hair being not so much cut as TUGGED out by the roots.


Sadly, a wave of the Hair Magician’s wand did NOT magically transform me into the smiling BRADY BUNCH kid of the TV commercials. Instead, I was transformed into something resembling a mangy dog who’d had chewing-gum cut from its fur with toenail-clippers. In terms of an identifiable fashion style, it could be compared to the punk look, but about 5 years too soon to be either identifiable or appreciated.


The only consolation was that it was relatively easy to blend in, even with such a hair disaster atop my head. Not just because the 1970s was the time when everyone’s hair went wild but also because mine wasn’t the only Mum to fall under the evil spell of THE HAIR MAGICIAN.

JAPAN

 WRITING
Mar 162011
 

Lately, I can think of nothing else than the tragedy in Japan, a country where I spent many happy years but that is being tested to the limit right now.

While it’s heart-breaking to look at the videos and photos of the terrifying scale of the destruction wrought by the Quake and Tsunami (and the prospect of nuclear disaster) I seek them out them out anyway… perhaps KNOWING the scale of the tragedy is some small compensation for being powerless to do anything about it.

But the other comfort in watching all the grim news is being reminded of the strength and dignity of the Japanese people in the face of adversity. When I lived there, I often wondered at their ability to cheerfully persevere against the odds; to be accepting and dynamic at the same time. The Japanese culture, having grown in a region often devastated by quakes, tsunamis, typhoons, volcanoes and fires, seems to have imbued its people with a sort of stoic, industriousness. The tenacity to ACCEPT such hardships without giving-up or failing to PREPARE for them.

Just as they have rebuilt their nation from devastation many times in the past, the Japanese will apply these qualities, not to mention their famous ingenuity and communal co-operation, to rise above this disaster too; one that would probably permanently cripple many other nations.

But, like many others, I want to help. Donating to Charities involved in the relief effort is the simplest and easiest way, but somehow it doesn’t feel as powerful as being ACTIVELY engaged directly myself. So I have been researching ways to get more involved, both by looking on the web and calling the Japanese Consulate, and I have found some interesting perspectives on the issue.

Apparently, this early in any major disaster, grassroots efforts to help can hinder teams with real relief expertise. When the infrastructure of the disaster area is taxed to the limit, a simple care-parcel of letters and candy sent by a well-meaning person can choke the system and slow down the delivery of more useful supplies, such as medicine. Well-meaning people flocking to the site hoping to help, soon become yet another problem for relief agencies to deal with.

I must admit that my first instinct was to send packages and letters of support, in addition to the charitable donations of money. My feeling NOW is that it is better to wait till later to send care packages, and I fully intend to do so when the time is right. In the meantime, I plan to do some artwork and participate in a ART-AUCTION FUNDRAISER (details to follow when I know them myself).

Hold on Japan, we love you!
japan we love you
GIVE TO ASIA
JAPANESE RED CROSS
SAVE THE CHILDREN FUND
SHELTER BOX
MORE QUAKE-RELIEF CHARITIES

20 years in SF?!

 Drawings, Updates, WRITING
Jan 112011
 

On January 7th, 1991 I arrived in San Francisco and, a few days later, I showed up to work on what I thought would be an 8 month job at an animation studio called Colossal Pictures… I still cannot quite believe that THIS week marks my TWENTY YEAR anniversary of living and working here in this wonderful city.

I had already visited San Francisco in 1988 as a tourist (back-packing my way across the USA, Canada, Mexico and South America) and I remember well that this city was one of those that actually made me stop and think “I’d like to live here someday”. It was a happy turn of fate that led me back here again a few years later but something more than that has kept me here all this time since.

Put simply, I fell in love with this place. Initially, the reason may have been that I was ready to stop moving and anywhere at all would do. I had just spent the previous 5 years-straight living out of a backpack, always in places where I could barely understand the language. So it’s not hard to see why I grabbed onto San Francisco with both hands; just the fact that I could have conversations with strangers (and perhaps make friends with them) was such a pleasant change after struggling to make myself understood in Europe, South America and Asia.

But more than that, from day-one, I felt that I “fit in” here, in this city of misfits. So much so that I have spent more time in this city than any other place on earth, including my own home town. And the obvious reason is that I feel more at home here than any of the many places I have been to (and I have been to a LOT of places). In this city of weirdos and outcasts a foreigner can feel at home.

This town has given me the absolute best moments of my career and some of its worst disappointments. I have made more true friends here than in any of the many places in the world I have lived in and, largely due to their inspiring example, it was here that I finally sat down and created personal projects for MYSELF rather than for THE MAN. This is the town where I fell in love, had my heart broken only to be mended so that I could fall in love again.

Of course, a lot can happen in a span of twenty years and most of these experiences may have happened anyway, had I lived someplace else instead. But I am so very glad that they happened to me here, in SAN FRANCISCO.

1972

 Drawings, WRITING
Aug 252010
 

When he isn’t running his own animation Studio, my friend Steve publishes an excellent web magazine for animators called FLIP. Recently, for an up-coming article, he asked his animation friends for some of their childhood drawings. This sent me on a hunt for a pile of old, yellowed paper I knew I had some place…. Here are a few scans from that stash.

First, behold this epic battle-spread of German Knights VS English Knights. Gasp!

I’ve always drawn, for as long as I can remember, and these drawings here are certainly not my earliest (my toddler-scribbles are probably in a pile, along with those of all my siblings, collected by my Mother and hopefully still at my Dad’s house). These date from that period when I began to take an active interest in drawing, not simply doing it but also thinking about it; consciously trying to get “better” by understanding how other people did it. In my case, this fascination began in 1972, the year that I turned 8 years old.

The previous year, we had just moved to a new town. I often wonder if the period of alienation that followed inspired the escapism of drawing. But it is quite possible that this interest would have happened anyway. I had always loved animation and you can see some attempts to draw famous cartoon characters were there right from the very beginning. Though these few scribbles shown here are of famous DISNEY characters, the cartoons that played most often on TV were by WARNER BROTHERS and they were the ones that made me laugh the hardest and consequently got most of my attention.

I became even more fascinated by cartoons, beyond the fact that they made me laugh. I tried to figure out why the drawings were so good. “How come I can’t draw like that?” I have never understood why the inability to do something “well” was sometimes off-puting to me; leading to the abandonment of certain pursuits (mathematics, sport) whereas, my inability to draw was an obstacle to overcome and explore. Of course, this choice is unique to each individual. Other people (most, in fact) give up drawing to pursue other things.

Seeing this crude page of BIRD drawings (an attempt to draw the Warner Brothers CHICKEN HAWK so obsessed with Foghorn Leghorn) brings back a vivid memory of a frustrating day trying to draw BEAKS… “How do they make the beaks look so good in cartoons?” I still have a scrapbook of images cut from magazines that I would look at, from this period. Single-panel gag-cartoons, pages from Mad magazine and so on… Hilariously, around this time I also compiled a crude “portfolio” (using some left-over wallpaper from the renovation of our new house for the cover) because someone had told me that artists needed a portfolio. These drawings survive mainly because I had kept them in that binder.

A few years later, when my drawings began to improve, I became ashamed of these early scribblings and almost threw them out in a fit of self-consciousness. But I am glad now that I did not. I will post more from later years when I have scanned them.

Rebel, without a Pause

 Baker's Dozen, Family, WRITING
Jan 052010
 

Seeing WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE recently (which I enjoyed a great deal) reminded me of the time that I too ran away from home as a child.

I can no longer remember what caused the argument between myself and my mother on that particular day, long ago, but it probably wasn’t serious. At the age of 11, I had not yet acquired even the maturity expected of a child but already owned all the moodiness of a teenager. I was prone to statements like “it’s not fair!” or “you just don’t understand!” or “I wish I were never born!” and other such melodrama. While often silly, these churnings of my mind were not mellow-drama from my point of view… it was all intense drama to me.

Whatever the cause of the friction between us that day, it caught fire when my emotions got the better of me and I swore horribly at my mother, using a cuss word I didn’t fully understand then but that burns me with shame to remember now. The word launched from my lips, flew across the room, and struck her. The pained expression it marked on her face made me briefly but keenly aware that I’d crossed a terrible line between she and I, yet the insight was but a flash; I was still possessed by the boiling emotions that had conjured the vile incantation in the first place. Rather than reverse direction and apologise on the spot, which was certainly required, the momentum of my juvenile petulance flounced me not just across that terrible line, but also out of the house altogether.

I couldn’t believe it myself; I was running away from home.

Of course, I was really running away from what I had just done… but if that realisation came to me at the time, it was quickly trammeled underfoot by self-righteousness; I immediately re-cast myself in the role of a bold outlaw, on the run from injustice and a world that didn’t understand him… YEAH… Muttering grimly to myself, as I often did at that age, I stomped off to the far side of my tiny home-town; unfamiliar neighbourhoods where I felt I would not be pursued by my foes. Though it seemed to me then that the forces of oppression (ie; Mum) would round up a posse and try to hunt me down immediately, it is obvious to me now that this was not so; my mother had other children, including an infant, to watch over that day, and my father was at work.

Now that I was finally FREE, I thought of where, actually, to go… I had no idea at all. After considering my options, I head towards my friend Stephen’s house… then, half way there, thought better of it… I cannot now remember why. Perhaps, even then, I subliminally realised that I would appear absurd to anyone else, including a child of my own age, and therefore wanted to stay alone in order to enjoy my outlaw persona for a while…

It was a summer day; possibly during the end of year school holidays. I angrily kicked stones along the road, frustrated that the pockets of my shorts were empty of anything useful to a fugitive (not even a pocket knife) and my flimsy T-shirt would be useless after sundown. Even summer evenings can be cool in my home town, up in the mountains. I mused that it would have been superb to have prepared an escape package in advance; a bag of money, clothes and food, stashed somewhere in the garden, to be snatched up with a dramatic flourish as the parting-shot of a most-marvellous exit. That is what I should have done… This regret over my lack of forethought and stage-craft was an annoying pebble in the boot of my defiance; although I wasn’t actually wearing boots, I was wearing Flip-Flops, which was yet another source of regret for the great outlaw that day.

Well, too late to worry about that now; I am out in the world now and never going back.

As afternoon turned to evening however, my thoughts turned to home. I wondered how the family was dealing with my absence. I bet they miss me now that I am gone… A picture formed in my mind’s eye; my mother slumped distraught at the dining-table, in a kitchen bustling with police men and ambulance men, all offering comfort to the rest of my family members, each now heart-broken by the ME-shaped hole in their world. This vision of their pain was very moving… so much so that it moved my legs back towards my own neighbourhood. I suspect that my “compassion” was merely a glove-puppet manipulated by my ego, fascinated by the vision of a family hollow with the loss of ME and wanting to see this charming tableau for itself. Or else, it was my hollow stomach in control; simply walking the body across town towards its dinner. Whatever was driving my machinery, I furtively made my way through the darkening streets towards home, entered the vacant paddock behind our house, quietly jumped over the fence into our back yard and stealthily crept up to the house to peer inside…

I have a vivid memory of my family as seen from the kitchen window, though I am not sure if that is actually possible, given that that particular window would have been too high for me to peer into at that age… so either (A) I saw the kitchen from the bottom of the backyard where it was possible to see into the room, though from a distance (B) I pushed something up to the window to stand on, to get the closer view that I seem to remember (C) I actually saw my family through the (much lower) window of the TV room or (D) what follows is actually the memory of an entirely mental picture; inspired by the sounds I heard coming from within as I crouched in the dark outside.

Whatever the case may be, the memory I now see in my mind’s eye is not the the touching Pre-Raphaelite oil-painting of abject misery I had imagined and scurried home to see, instead it is the very picture of a family happily eating their dinner; exchanging stories from their days’ events and laughing at one-another’s jokes. My ego was outraged by this cheery Norman Rockwell scene; No one seemed disturbed that one member of the family was absent. My stomach was also peturbed; every last one of my family members was heartily and noisily enjoying their food. As tempted as I may have been by the sight of all that tasty chow, the affront to my ego was too much to bear, and away I stomped once again, into the gloom. My wounded-prince performance was pitch-perfect and spoiled only by the fact that nobody saw it, apart from the stray cat that lived in our yard.

I skulked in the shadows at the bottom of the garden while my wounded ego and rumbling tummy battled for the decision of what to what to do next. Meanwhile, the more thoughtful part of me tried to make sense of the difference between what I had imagined my family would be doing versus what they were actually doing… surely my family must eventually become worried at my absence… surely they will come to understand that I am serious and not kidding around… While evening became night, I watched the house intently; scanning for any sign of a search party… where were the Policemen? The ambulance men? Where was the visual-sweep of the yard by a concerned relative? I would have settled for even a perfunctory, bored glance out of a window by an uninterested relative…

Surely such a thing must happen eventually? No?

But the attention of the household was elsewhere… I could hear the theme music to various TV shows of the time, one after another as the night wore on, accompanied by the raucous laughter of a telly-watching family sitting comfortably inside, while I hungrilly shivered (with cold) and quivered (with rage) in the bushes outside. Grimly, I resolved to wait until everyone was asleep, then sneak inside the house, grab a few things (the bundle I had ruefully imagined earlier) and then depart, never to return. Ever again…. EVER. For real this time. This momentus decision was reached as my family, up yonder, noisily enjoyed the bald-head patting, high-speed antics of Mr Benny Hill.

Behind our house was an empty plot of land (used as playing fields by the primary school across the road) where I went to hide from the cackling mockery of my family and wait until they chortled themselves to sleep, choking as they did so, hopefully. As I’d done many times before, I lay in the grass and looked up at the stars… On that particular night, My thoughts were every bit as dark as the sky above me but nowhere near as beautiful. The night sky in the Southern hemisphere has infinitely more constellations on view than in the Northern sky. One feature of my home town to this very day is that the streets are not well lit at night. This lack of light pollution, plus the fact that my home town is up high on a plateau, means that the view of the night sky is even clearer there than most places. It is really something to see. On that night however, the beautiful, tiny clusters of distant worlds out there in space merely reminded me that I longed to be somewhere else.

They’ll be sorry when I am gone… said my ego. My stomach made the argument that the “punishing them with my absence” strategy didn’t seem to be working. Despite having a noisy stomach and a whiny ego as my companions that night, I felt utterly alone. My dog Jock; my tiny comrade from early childhood, had been “put to sleep” the year before, otherwise I would have had some warm-bodied company out there in the dark, not to mention a furry pirate for the noble outlaw to run away with… but as things stood, I was alone with my thoughts; Stewing in the brine of my own mind…

I checked on the house. Some lights were still on but the house itself was absolutely silent. I made my move. In my memory, it was around Midnight, when I finally re-entered the lair of my oppressors… but allowing for the time-dilation effects of childhood memories (not to mention childhood hunger) I now suspect it was much earlier when I stealthilly entered the back door which, like all the other doors in our house, was never locked (well, not until after a robber finally crossed the threshold 20 years later). In trying to piece together my frame of mind from that time, I believe that I intended to quickly grab supplies and head out immediately, to make good on my thus-far poorly executed escape. However, it is entirely possible that on some unconscious level I wanted to be caught, (as caught I soon was). What I am absolutely sure of now is that, as I entered the house, there was no hint of remorse for my earlier brutishness towards my own mother.

None that is, until I saw her sitting alone quietly in the kitchen waiting for me. I have no idea if my mother had planned to be there alone when I came home. Clearly the other children were in bed and my father, who played the Dirty Harry role when Mum and Dad did the “good cop bad cop” routine, may have gone to bed too (no doubt the evening’s hilarious TV entertainment had worn them all out) so the final showdown was between just she and I, in the exact same Saloon where the whole shooting match had begun; the family kitchen. It makes sense to me now that she may have wanted to handle this situation on her own. I would love to ask her now what was on her mind that day but sadly she isn’t around to tell me the answer any more. My mother died many, many years ago.

If she’d had a stern expression; hands on hips and a mouth full of recriminations, I could have kept up my “persecuted outlaw” performance but my mother’s wide-open face and compassionate eyes made that impossible. She gave me nothing at all to fight against… and, as I stood stunned, staring at her, my conscience, which had thus far been kept at bay by self-righteous mutterings, finally saw its chance and did what it had been trying to do all day; it gave me a thorough-going, savage internal pummelling, and relished every moment of it. I was overcome with emotion. During the thrashing emotional battle inside of me, the ego-fog was blown away, revealing what I must have known all along; I had wronged her and not the other way around. I was the bad guy in this story and nobody else. The extent of my theatrical posturing that day was the degree to which I had tried to convince myself otherwise. I burst into tears at this realisation, apologising profusely for what I had done. I was absolutely mauled by my shame. Pounded by guilt. But more than that, I was overwhelmed by gratitude, for though it may not have been in my conscious mind until I saw her waiting patiently for me, at that moment, I saw with great clarity that she was so much better than I… and how much more she deserved than what I had given her.

She welcomed me into her arms and I knew then that all, unbelieveably, was forgiven… which made my tears flow even more freely, rather than less, as you might reasonably expect. When I had calmed down a little, she had me sit down at the kitchen table and attempt to compose myself as she prepared me some food; my dinner was being kept warm in the oven all along. She had not forgotten me. This too, provoked another blubbering wave of emotion. I wolfed the food down hungrilly, through wracking sobs of tears, in that way only children can do… and as she watched me eat, Mum stroked my hair and gave me silent comfort through touch, in that way only mothers can do.

——-

This is one of the earliest memories I have of my conscience having a profound effect on me, forcing me to see myself not just in the 3rd person but also firmly in the wrong. It is one thing to say “sorry” because you know it will get you off the hook, and it is another thing altogether to actually be sorry because you realise what you have done is wrong, or hurtful to others. It was many years before I finally gained a fully functioning conscience; one that operated without authority figures present, or fear of punishment or other external consequences, but that allowed me to make moral judgements purely on my own… The conscience I have now isn’t perfect; it still sometimes takes some reflection for it to kick-in, though I do believe it is a reliable moral compass… but if I have have any consience at all today it is largely due to the long-suffering parenting and compassionate moral example of my own mother.

The Magnificent Seven

 Friends, Travel, WRITING
Sep 272009
 

PROLOG
I meant to post this earlier, but got waylaid by technical difficulties and the distractions of real life. So, without further ado, here’s the story of an adventure from this time LAST year.

In September 2008, I went back to my hometown, met up with 6 childhood friends– Some having known each-other ever since kindergarten— and together the 7 of us, foolhardy middle-aged gits one and all, went on a back-breaking, thigh-quivering, mind-punishing, yet soul-stirring and ultimately-uplifting 5-night/4-day backpacking trek though the bush.

THE INCITING INCIDENT
This idea was hatched at the end of 2007, when I was back in Australia to be Best Man at my father’s wedding. At a BBQ a few days later, while waving those ever-persistent Aussie flies out of my face and chewing on a sausage that had been grilled into leathery submission, I caught-up with two of my childhood pals; STEPHEN (my first ever friend, we’ve been great mates since the age of 7) and MARK (a good friend since high school).

After comparing bald patches and love handles (I was the “winner” of BOTH contests) I mentioned that I’d be back again the next September for my Brother in Law’s 50th birthday. Surely we could synchronise schedules, meet each-other again, maybe rope-in some MORE school-mates and plan something more elaborate than another fly-blown Australian BBQ?

MARK proposed that a group of us walk the KOKODA TRACK, a grueling Trek through New Guinea that has almost become a rite of passage for some Australians. I liked the idea of a backpacking journey but suspected that I may not have been equal to a 10 day slog through tropical Jungle. I have a tendency to liquify in proximity to the equator.

STEPHEN suggested the THORA TRAIL, which goes through a National Park near our home town. The shorter trail, better weather, distance from head-hunters and proximity to where our Mummies and Daddies lived, all appealed to THIS particular thrill-seeker, and I was eloquent in my support of these logistics to the other two. Thus, we tentatively set the date for the trek to be 9 months away, contacted the rest of our group of friends — all of whom were immediately interested in the plan —and our number swelled to a total of 7 men.

Some had stayed in touch ever since we were kids. Others had lost contact over the years. I was excited by the prospect of almost a week with these old friends whom I so rarely see, but secretly, I wondered if I’d make a fool of myself, out there in the bush.

ANXIETY-ESTABLISHING FLASHBACK
My childhood memories show me as the runt of our pack. The yappy chihuahua running along behind the other motley mutts (the little one that goes “YIKE YIKE YIKE”). Whenever we kids jumped on our bicycles and pedalled out into the countryside on the shenanigans-du-jour, which usually involved setting fire to something, or blowing-up something… or catching poisonous creepy crawlies and making them battle (or a gruesome combination of all of the above) I was the kid asthmatically wheezing along at the rear of the posse.

Now as an adult, I dreaded the idea of yet again holding up the crew as we wandered through the bush… So, When I got back to San Francisco, I resolved to get into better shape.

PREPARATION-MONTAGE
I ask you now to project several different scenes onto your mental movie-screen: Me, middle-aged and puffy, wheezing red-faced on an aerobic hamster-wheel at the gym. There I am again, now hunched over a laptop, exchanging trip-planning e-mails with trekking-cronies on the other side of the world. Now, throw in a few shots of me ogling equipment in camping stores, and breaking in new hiking boots on the hills of San Francisco, and you have the perfect “Rocky training to Face Mr T” montage that defines my life in early 2008…

The pages of the montage calender have now flipped forward to September 2008….

TREKKERS ASSEMBLE!
DAY ZERO: One-by-one, the crew began to converge on ARMIDALE; the old home town. MARK (who still lives there) was joined by MYSELF and STEPHEN, then RICHARD (who I had not seen since 1991) and JOHN (a great friend who I have stayed in constant touch with all these many years, including adventures we had in Japan). While waiting on the arrival of the final TWO, due the following day, we went to buy food supplies. Good-natured bickering ensued over the definition of “necessity” and “luxury” and there were hilariously differing opinions as to how MUCH of each to buy, so in the end, we just bought ALL of it.

DAY ONE started with MARK cooking us a hearty breakfast at his house. We set up a mini production line to ration-out the food-supplies, then went to pick up some gear-essentials such as the EPIRB; an I-WANT-MY-MUMMY panic-button that would summon a rescue-helicopter if anyone was so lacking in team spirit as to snap a shin-bone or get themselves fanged by a snake. (I wanted the button that called someone to tuck you in with a cup of hot chocolate, on scary nights, but that one cost extra).

Back at MARK’s place, PHIL arrived (I had not seen him since STEPHEN’s wedding in 1991) and we all did a last-minute gear check. Strapping on my pack, I tried to affect an expression of nonchalance, despite my spinal discs being squished into pikelets by 30 KILOS (65 pounds) of equipment, clothing, food and water… The other lads were likewise bent double under their burdens, when we got word that PETER, the last of our crew, had missed his flight, would catch a later connection and meet us at the drop-off point that evening. So, we loaded our gear into cars (of people kind enough to drop us off and later pick us up at the other end) and set off on the adventure we had been planning for so long.

We grew-up inland, on a plateau called the NEW ENGLAND TABLELANDS, which is itself a part of the GREAT DIVIDING RANGE. An hour’s drive from our home town is POINT LOOKOUT, where the tableland escarpment can be seen to dramatically drop away, down to the ocean, many miles away. From this vantage point, at an elevation of 1500 meters (5000 feet) on a clear and beautiful day, STEPHEN pointed out our entire route; a 3-day walk down the escarpment through bushland within NEW ENGLAND NATIONAL PARK to the BELLINGER RIVER and then a one-day Canoe trip downstream to the town of BELLINGEN, near the coast.

While this was half the distance I had once imagined (initially thinking we’d walk ALL the way from our home town to the sea) it looked daunting now that I could see the scope of the trek with my own eyes… not just the sheer distance we needed to cover, but the terrain we would tackle, the drop in altitude and the time-frame we had to complete it in… As this became clear to all of us, so began the self-deprecating jokes about our physical failings, some of which become painfully real over the journey. Yet this sense of humor fueled the camaraderie that enabled us to deal with the fact that many of us would have been more sensible had we stayed at home and just rented DELIVERANCE, if we wanted an adventure.

As We pitched our tents, our number finally became 7 when the last of our crew showed up; good old PETER, (who I have stayed in touch with and had prior travel adventures with too; a great comrade on any mission). As PETER’s family drove away, so too left our connection with civilisation; we would see no other person in the next 3 days. We were on our own.

We cooked a huge meal, using as many of the “luxury” foods as possible. I found that 7 STEAKS I had bought were left behind in MARK’s Freezer. I’d planned to wait a day or two, until my fellow-trekkers had grown weary of reconstituted camping food, then unveil the 7 meaty treats (shrink wrapped to preserve them as long as possible) and thus bribe the other trekkers to tag-team piggyback me to the finish line… but alas it was not to be…

MARK’s wife and children dined well that night though.

A bonfire blazed, some grog appeared, and with it reminiscences of explosive adventures from our school days… then, by firelight we sketched the outlines of our adult lives: Of the 7 men assembled, only one still lived in the hometown. Though 4 had lived abroad, I am the only one who still does. A few had travel-adventures to tell… All but me had married. Two had since divorced. 5 had become fathers. One had even become a grandfather. Staying in contact with these old friends while living on opposite sides of the planet is challenging, and yet spending time with them makes the years melt away.

WITH LIGHT HEARTS & HEAVY PACKS…
DAY TWO was when hiking began. We got up early, once again ate as much of the perishable or heavy food as we could, broke camp, put on our packs and set off down the trail by around 7.30 AM… With full bellies, even fuller packs and one or two of us carrying heads heavy with hangover. Let’s ASSESS the trekking-crew shall we?

FITNESS: Some of us used to be splendid physical specimens but had now gone to pot (you all know who you are). Some had never been much to look at in the first place (I hereby nominate myself for this trophy). Some had been trying to get into shape for this trek with limited success (my 2nd nomination) and some either couldn’t be bothered or couldn’t find the time… A rare few had stayed active all along (MARK, PHIL & STEPHEN). In other words, physically speaking, probably only THREE of us SHOULD have come on the trip.

EQUIPMENT: Some had bought new gear (Myself, JOHN, and STEPHEN) while others used whatever old junk they found in the shed. PHIL’s approach was a hilarious combination of the two; his trekking-ensemble was some kiddie backpacks (labeled “MILO“) worn both front and back, to which he’d lashed pots and pans with pieces of string. This “jolly swagman” rig was complemented by boots so NEW that they literally had the price tags still on them. Though PHIL scoffed that he would BREAK THEM IN on the trip, in truth it would be the other way around; the boots would break his feet (though not his spirit). Let’s just say that, In terms of equipment, the well-prepared were, once again, the minority.

EXPERIENCE: All of us had done basic camping, in fact we often went camping together as teenagers (ironically, the fathers among us admitted they’d have difficulty letting their own kids go on the adventures that they themselves had done as kids). However, only STEPHEN, PHIL and RICHARD had done true wilderness backpacking (RICHARD having done military survival training). STEPHEN had considerable experience using topographical maps and GPS as a Field Geologist working in some of the most remote parts of this here Planet Earth.

Because his name consistently appears on the FITNESS/EQUIPMENT/EXPERIENCE matrix, STEPHEN would be the leader/navigator of the crew. Which is lucky for the rest of us galoots, who probably shouldn’t have come along and gotten in the way… Yay, STEPHEN!

For the first hour the trail was a joy to walk down and I fooled myself that the entire trip would be easier than I had feared. Then we came to a fork in the trail. To the left was a dark, twisted tunnel of fallen trees and tangled undergrowth. To the right was a path lit by bright sunshine in which danced pretty little butterflies. Which path do you think we took?

I’ll give you one guess…

We plunged into a trail so densely packed and overgrown that it resembled the creepy forest Snow White got lost in when she was being chased by the huntsman. It required a lot of stooping, climbing over fallen trees, clambering up crumbly embankments and pushing through tangled undergrowth in order to make headway, which is hard going with an overstuffed pack, and harder still with flabby muscles and 45 year-old knees. Another frustration was that just beyond the tangle of undergrowth were spectacular views of the escarpment, but we didn’t have time to go looking for views if no overlooks were presented to us on our journey through the stygian jungle, which, sadly, they were not.

Apart from a few short breaks to boil coffee and eat trail mix, we had a hard slog from 9 AM till 4.30 PM when we finally found the creek, our goal in order to stay on schedule. We finally pitched our tents and sat down to eat. I reflected on the grueling first day. All the stooping, twisting and turning really took its toll on my knees. I had the cardio-vascular fitness to go the distance but my legs were already giving out. If we’d had to walk even another 10 minutes that day, I would have been wimpering like an abandoned puppy.

DAY THREE we followed the creek, unless it meandered too much, when we’d take off our boots and walk THROUGH the water (sometimes up to our chests) negotiating the submerged and slippery rocks in SANDALS; a precaution against the BULLROUT, a freshwater puffer-fish that poisons if stepped on in bare feet (later, our canoe guide confirmed, from personal experience, that it was the worst pain of his life). That evening, we camped in a beautiful natural meadow and just had time to get some warm food in our neck-holes and compare foot-blisters and back-aches before being hit with a thunderstorm.

Lying in a rain-battered tent with the already-snoozing STEPHEN (ever an early-to-bed and early-to-rise type) while thunder passed over us and lightning lit up the tent-fabric, I thought about the day’s walk: less strenuous and scenically prettier than the day before. Happily, my legs, though aching, had done their job. I began to realise that my Achilles heel was actually my KNEES. Going UP hill was relatively easier but going DOWN hill was brutal and slowed me down considerably. I was happy with the gear I had bought; my boots were not chaffing (unlike some of the other lads) my pack was comfortable (though heavy) and my sleeping bag was warm and cosy (as I proved by sleeping like a baby that night).

DAY FOUR began with PETER tipping an enormous CENTIPEDE out of his boots. Apart from this creepy crawly, one RED BELLY BLACK SNAKE seen the same morning, and the LEECHES we were constantly pulling off of ourselves, we didn’t see any native wildlife. Hardly surprising given the racket we made, thrashing through the bush. Just the gristle-popping sounds from my knees alone were enough to scare away wild beasts.

However, we did see herds of abandoned horses and cattle roaming through farm lands long ago acquired by NEW ENGLAND NATIONAL PARK and now being reclaimed by the native Australian bush. We walked through hauntingly beautiful landscapes; from densely-forested misty hills, to undulating lush meadow-lands as we approached the coast. I tried to get ahead on the uphills, knowing I’d be dawdling down the other side on trembling knees.

Most of the trek was in a MOBILE PHONE DEAD ZONE. Being incommunicado was a plus for adventure but a minus in terms of safety (hence the EPIRB panic-button). Thus, if we did not call family members that night, when we were due to re-enter signal-range, there were contingency plans… I never heard what would happen if we did NOT check in on time… something involving helicopters and cadaver-sniffing dogs, I expect.

We came upon a pretty little water hole and PHIL did a little fishing while the rest of us watched, hoping he’d provide us with something other than a freeze-dried dinner. We still couldn’t use mobile phones, and STEPHEN didn’t want rescue-teams alerted unnecessarily, so he left us with detailed instructions on how to find the next camp site (on the nearby property of his friend) and set off alone, to find a phone-signal and contact family ASAP.

STEPHEN had not been gone 5 minutes when I decided to follow, both to keep him company and help set up our tent. After 10 minutes of walking I had not caught up, but after all, he was the fittest of us… I checked a turn off from the trail… nothing. After 10 more minutes walking, I wondered if I’d messed up the directions and 10 more minutes later I was sure of it. Heading back to the fishing hole, I hoped to get clarification from the other blokes.

They weren’t there.

How did they pass me on this simple track? Perhaps in the moment I’d explored a turn-off? Now I didn’t know how to find the camp site and couldn’t ask anyone who did. The afternoon turned to early evening as I thought what to do… Thankfully, 5 men leave a lot of boot prints. Following their tracks, I considered the possibility of spending the night alone… I had a sleeping bag and my share of food and water so that would be have been do-able.

Thankfully, it did not come to that; 20 minutes later, MARK came jogging down the trail in my direction with a relieved grin on his face. The lads had indeed shot past me, not realising I was missing until meeting up with STEPHEN, when MARK was despatched as NONG-recon patrol. He led me to our final camp site. We all ate, and made a huge bonfire.

Though happy, everybody was visibly tired. Even a FIT bloke can be tag-team pummeled by the cumulative effects of sub-par equipment; a day shuffling on feet blistered by ill-fitting boots, followed by a sleep-deprived night shivering in a thin sleeping bag can take its toll. Our leader was fit AND had quality gear but, by the end of day 4, even he looked tired, as the responsibility of getting us other idjits safely from A to B was his extra burden to carry.

And it wasn’t over yet. We slept to get our strength up for the NEXT and FINAL day…

DAY FIVE: The wicked genius of our plan was that once our LEGS could walk no further, our ARMS would take us the rest of the way, in CANOES. The river water-level was such that we could not start from the point of our last camp site. Instead, our canoeing company picked us up, and drove us about 20KM (12 miles) further downstream and put us in the river there.

Poor JOHN got clumsy ME as his canoe-partner. We were still learning how to work together when the group paddled to a fork in the river. The guide shouted that both paths converged later but that one was harder. We prudently head for the easier path, to the jeers of “YA SOOKS!” from the others, who’d gone the harder way. Thus baited, we made a last-second course adjustment, almost over-turning, and went through the more turbulent path.

Later, on shore, while eating our lunch and licking our wounds, JOHN and I resolved to “POUR IT ON.” Back in the water, we paddled like men possessed! Our steering was sloppy and we zig-zagged across the river like a drunken snake, but pulled ahead of the rest through (A) sheer volume of water shifted by our paddles, (B) post-lunch food-coma kicking with the others, and most importantly (C) the fact that nobody but us saw it as a “race” in the first place. Be that as it may, reaching the end-point first, and waiting smugly for the other blokes as they limped in, one by one, was a soothing balm for our chapped egos.

High-Five.

I am not a drinker, except on special occasions, such as our return to civilisation; a PUB in an old Victorian Hotel in the pretty town of BELLINGEN. Despite not having any enthusiasm for beer, it tasted like amber ambrosia on THAT particular night. We ate fine food (peppercorn kangaroo, in my case) at the hotel bistro as we happily reflected on our TREK.

Backpacking teaches how little you need; carrying it all on your back requires simplification. Then, on returning to modern life, there’s a keener appreciation for simple pleasures; Dry feet! What a magnificent invention. A bed! With linen! How sublime. After a week hanging your arse over the side of a log, a flushing toilet is a wonderful thing. We relished each of those joys while staying overnight at the hotel. It was a very happy end to a satisfying trip.

The last to leave after breakfast next morning were myself and JOHN, picked up by his brother Martin, who noticed a fat, blood-engorged LEECH thrashing around on the ground outside the pub, where we’d just said good-bye to our departing comrades. Clearly this blood-sucker had fallen off one of US, during the back-slapping farewells, and was now wondering where all his good times had gone to… a parasitical Wall Street Crash.

THE WRAP-UP
Talk of leeches, aching muscles, and blistered feet doesn’t convey the immense satisfaction of the trek. It was one of the most rewarding experiences of our adult lives… The physical pain was handled with grace, and self-deprecating laughter. Nobody had a meltdown. Hardship can actually be a joy if endured in good company and the right spirit, yet even a PARTY can be made miserable if someone can’t deal with life’s inevitable little setbacks…

Looking at my photographs from the trip, I am struck by the fact that most of them show us resting (I didn’t think to take pics in the midst of the hard stuff) so the impression they give is of a bunch of scruffy, puffy duffers sitting on their arses at various picturesque spots.

Thankfully, JOHN shot some video of the trekkers in action and sent a wonderful mini-movie to the rest of us earlier this year. In stark contrast to the heroic image of us that I have lingering in my mind’s eye, the video shows a doddering bunch of old geezers, so I can only conclude that JOHN must have somehow messed up the settings on his camera….

OK, sure… we 7 goobers, in questionable physical condition, carrying bulging backpacks festooned with clanking pots and pans, while traipsing through the forest, could accurately be compared to the 7 DWARFS… However, I PREFER to see us as somewhat adventurous, even heroic… A Muffin-Topped 7 SAMURAI, or A High-Cholesterol MAGNIFICENT 7…

Writing about this Journey has taken me almost as long as it did to walk it!

MY TV, RIP

 Drawings, WRITING
Sep 222009
 

Sony Trinitron TV set: Jan 2001-Jun 2009.

This ballpoint sketch of my TV also accurately shows the level of clutter in but one tiny corner of my crummy apartment… and so it is with the clutter inside of my mind.

Not long ago, when television broadcasting here in the Bay Area switched from analog to all-digital, my old Sony Trinitron TV set, the constantly-chattering room mate that has shared my apartment since 2001, went silent. I do not plan to replace it.

I love watching TV, and that can sometimes be a problem, for I can sit in front of bad television for hours with my mouth lolling open, a caveman staring at the flickering images in the fire pit… Lately I have been feeling that I do not have the time to waste. I would prefer to do other things altogether, ideally making media of my own to numb OTHER people’s minds with; Comics, drawings, short-stories and so forth. And when it comes time to relax and be a media consumer, I would rather be looking at stuff that I am actually interested in, and nothing else.

Last year, my pal Mike introduced me to the concept of a “cleanse”; a diet where the goal is not to lose weight (although that can be a by-product) but to clean out your body of a lifetime’s-worth of preservatives and junk food. So, in that spirit, I am trying the MEDIA equivalent and hope to clean out the insides of my head and cash in an extra-time dividend as well. Quite some time ago I gave up cable TV, now I don’t have broadcast TV or even radio in my apartment. Not only that, I have no home-internet either, for I have learned (the hard way) that there is no time suck worse than spending a day on Facebook.

As I have disconnected myself one-by-one from all of the nodes of the media matrix, my Apartment has become something of a sensory-deprivation tank in terms of the audio visual media. Or more accurately, it is a sensory-selection tank, as I am not truly sensory-deprived at all; I am now exposed only to the media that I choose to take into my tiny life-pod with me, one morsel at a time.

Even though my old Sony Trinitron no longer functions as a TV-set it still serves me well as a monitor with which to watch rented DVDs. There is so much wonderful Television being made now but I find that my favourite way to view it all is to wait until each series comes out on DVD and watch several episodes in a row, free from commercials and the temptations of channel-surfing.

There have been earlier periods where I tried living without TV. Long ago, when I was living in Asia, I couldn’t understand what was being broadcast anyway, so I barely watched television. Well, apart from psychotic Japanese game shows and equally insane anime cartoons (two cases where non-comprehension was somehow enjoyable). For those several years I got out of the habit of watching TV. That trend continued when I moved to France, where I didn’t even go to the trouble of buying a TV set, and the first few years living here in the USA were also television-free.

I remember well how many conversations I was unable to participate in back then, simply because I had not seen the previous night’s episode of SEINFELD or the SIMPSONS. I got tired of hearing about those shows (though I found out years later that all the fuss was justified). I continued to live in my media-free bubble until someone gave me their TV to look after while they traveled abroad. While baby-sitting that lonely telly, I turned it on one day and was suddenly back where I had begun; a man without the strength of mind to shut off the flow even when all that pours out from the box is crap.

Even now, I was unable to get rid of the TV myself. I had to wait until my TV set died before I could finally shut it off. But I hope to make the most of this change. When not watching the cherry-picked best of the TV-show crop on DVDs, I hope to read more books (I have a pile of gifts that I have yet to read) and do more drawing, free of the distractions of telly-oggling. I know myself well enough by now to realise that it is only a matter of time before I am back chewing through media crud, but until then I hope to make the most of this quiet time.

Although, now that the handy dandy white-noise machine has fallen silent, I am much more able to hear the squabbling couples, flushing toilets and crying babies in the apartments around me, not to mention OTHER people’s TVs. Not exactly what I had in mind when I began this sensory deprivation idea, but there you go….

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