It’s been a day at the hospital, as I took a friend home, and then took him back. I don’t really wanna go into the details here, for obvious reasons, except to say I saw an awful lot of hospital interiors today.
And I also saw an awful lot of people at the Accident and Emergency Department who I didn’t think looked all that sick. Yes, there was a car accident, and there was the older lady in a neck-brace, but there were also some people who I thought should just take a Bex and have a good lie down.
There was the young Swiss bloke, for example, who explained he had a slight temperature “and didn’t no where-else to go”. Under my breath, I whispered to my friend, “he could just go to bed and rest, and maybe take an asprin” as the fever didn’t seem to stop him making several lengthy phone calls to family friends about how sick he was.
There was also the visiting English backpacker who had a sore toe. “Does it hurt?”, he was asked. “Oh yeah, but it’s okay”. “Go home”, I said to myself…
And there was the drunken Aussie (who also spoke German for some reason) who seemed to be known by the staff by both his first and middle names. “Where do you live?” he was asked. He responded by calling a friend and I actually overheard him say, “What’s my address. My girlfriend won’t tell me”.
I couldn’t help but think how much more efficiently run the hospitals could be if a few people took on a bit of responsibility for themselves. The drunk you could kinda understand why he didn’t really have much control for his actions in the state he was in, but the other two seemed like total time-wasters.
In the midst of all this, I was sitting with my friend who is pretty sick, but hopefully on the mend. The staff at the hospital were terrific. And did I mention the doctor was really cute? :)
Looking at my “Last FM” profile today, and in particular those I share musical tastes with, I notice the lack of any Australians and a preponderance of European men in their 30s and 40s (including those who have chosen Agnetha Faltskog and The Flying Nun as their avatars).
This week, I had the absolute pleasure of interviewing Knox Gibson, an eighteen-year-old from Orange, NSW, who, along with many others of his generation is quite literally redefining what it means to live with a disability. The interview was for the podcast I am working on called “The Limb Shift”.
It was fascinating to speak with Knox and hear his perspective as an eighteen-year-old; it offered a striking contrast to my own experience as someone who has recently turned 60.
At just three years old—shortly before his fourth birthday—Knox was involved in a serious farm accident where he lost most of his right arm. Yet, spend even five minutes talking to him and you quickly realise that this event hasn’t slowed him down—it has propelled him onto
While many of us were just trying to get through the last few years, Knox was busy making his mark on the global stage. He recently starred as Bobbin in The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes, delivering a fantastic performance in the fifth instalment of the massive franchise.Beyond the screen, Knox is a powerhouse in the water. He is a keen swimmer and possibly looking towards the Paralympics.
One of the most insightful parts of our chat focused on disability visibility. Knox noted that while we are seeing progress—we pointed to major brands like Audi featuring disability in mainstream ads—there is still a distinct generational shift occurring:
Lots of companies are now featuring people with disabilities in their advertising, though there is still a long way to go.
Knox observes that while representation is at different stages globally, Australia is seeing a lot more visibility in the media, leading to more jobs and opportunities.
We also got into a really interesting discussion about different generational attitudes to disability. Knox reflected on how older generations often default to a mindset that he needs help with everything.
While he acknowledges that people mean well and “are only being nice,” his competitive nature drives him to prove assumptions about his limitations wrong.
Here’s a short except from our chat.
Podcast Project Update
This interview with Knox is just one of ABOUT twenty I have recorded so far for this project. Each conversation has brought a unique perspective on the resilience and diverse experiences of the limb-different community. We are on track for likely podcast launch in April or May.
After an early night in bed – still recovering a bit from my cyst – I was up nice and early this morning to watch Episode 2 of this year’s “Melodifestivalen”, the contest which select’s Sweden’s entry for the Eurovision Song Contest. Yes, this is my life my friends…
I was reasonably excited by the line-up this week, moreso than last week, as there were a couple of firm Swedish pop favourites performing, including Andreas Lunstedt (from Alcazar), Timoteij (from Melodifestivalen a couple of years ago) and Ulrik Munther (who I saw perform a version of Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way” at last year’s Stockholm Pride). I knew a few of the others too, such as Thomas Di Leva from Så mycket bättre, though I don’t really like his work very much. In the end, Thomas Di Leva wasn’t all that bad.
Mimi Oh channels the Frida CD "Shine"
My favourite was the opening track, Soldiers by Ulrik Munther. In stark contrast to last year’s performance at Stockholm Pride where he seemed very much the teenage boy, his performance was confident and strong. He was, no doubt, aided by the song which had a sing-a-long quality not dissimilar to Alexander Rybak’s Eurovision-winning, “Fairytale” a couple of years ago. Amusingly, I saw a few people refer to him on Twitter as a Victorian chimney-sweep, which should give you an insight into the outfit he chose to wear.
Speaking of outfits, the moment Mimi Oh came onto the Melodifestivalen stage to the strains of Frida’s “I Know There’s Something Going On”, I knew there was someone behind the scenes with a sense of history. “It’s as if Frida had been selling off some of her old frocks for charity again”, I thought to myself. Mimi’s outfit bore a striking resemblance to the outfits Frida wore on the front cover of her 1984 CD, “Shine”.
In 1984, Frida was channelling some of the fashions of 2012, it seems.
The biggest disappointment for me was Andreas Lunstedt. I have followed his career since Alcazar and I love most of what he does. Hey, I was there in almost the front-row to see Alcazar’s final performance at Stockholm Pride last year. I thought he was let down this year by a rather dull song. I laughed, though, when one of the co-hosts asked him about Alcazar and he said, predictably, “we’re just taking a little break”. My Swedish is normally not good enough to understand jokes, but I’m sure the co-host responded with “Oh like the Social Democrats”. Even if that wasn’t the joke, I laughed.
At the end of it all, Ulrik Munther and David Lindgren made it straight through to the final, and I’m fairly comfortable with that. David Lindgren’s song was quite good, though I found his performance a little odd at times, and occasionally his dance moves had the erraticness of Bob Downe :)
There’s a two pub stereotype for many small country towns in Australia: there’s the “popular pub” that everyone goes to, and there’s the “less popular pub” that sometimes struggles to stay open.
When I lived at Bourke, NSW in the late 1980s, there were several pubs, and most of them were pretty popular. There was “The Royal” which was the town’s upmarket pub, with a silver service dining area. At the other end of the scale, there was “The Post Office” (“The P.O”) which was mostly inhabited by the town’s Aboriginal population. Mostly, I socialised at “The Oxley Club”, the town’s answer to an RSL (Returned Services League).
As I walked down Oxley Street yesterday, by habit I kept to the opposite side of the street to The P.O. Though there was a degree of racism that meant there was an “Aboriginal Pub”, it was more the drunkeness and violence that had instilled this fear in me. “It was a pretty rough place”, a friend who still lives here, said to me, when I mentioned this to him. I don’t know when it happened, but The P.O. is now closed.
“The Royal” is no longer the “posh pub” in town, and has been re-named “The Port Of Bourke”. All of the other pubs have closed, including the famous “North Bourke Pub” and “The Carriers Arms” (where Henry Lawson spent a lot of his time while living here).
The former “Post Office Hotel”, Oxley Street, BourkePort Of Bourke Hotel, formerly The Royal
“I used to work here sometimes, doing the disco on a Friday night”, I said to the waiter at “The Oxley Club” (now re-named Diggers”). “Are you Disco Denis?”, he asked, a reference to a local man called Denis who used to run the disco, and who also volunteered at 2WEB, the radio station where I began my full-time radio career. “There’s Denis over there”, a friend pointed, as we drove around the street.
Diggers, formerly The Oxley Club
My memories of Friday and probably Saturday nights occasionally running the disco, but mostly just drinking and dancing with friends are vivid. At a time when there were racial tensions in the town, “The Oxley Club” was a place where everyone would come together for a fun time. Some of the biggest hit songs of the time were “Run To Paradise” by Choiboys, “Beds Are Burning” by Midnight Oil and “The Only Way Is Up” by Yazz.
There are probably lots of home-based parties now where it occurs, but it seems to me there are no places left in Bourke where this happens in a licensed venue. A guy I used to know probably had something pretty exciting happening the other week, as photographs from his 50th dominate the social pages in the paper this week.
The dance floor at The Oxley Club has become part of the broader restaurant space. This was also the place where movies were screened on Sunday nights. Famously, I remember the weekend where “Dirty Dancing” was screened so many times over a weekend, the film eventually “melted” before our eyes.
Although the Golf Club has also closed, the Bowling Club remains open, and they still have a terrific Chinese restaurant. A couple of us got some take-away on Friday night, and brought it back to the place where I’m staying, right across the road. Sadly. the adjoining tennis courts where I used to play Tuesday night social tennis (and then pop into the Bowlo for a few drinks) have also gone.
The main street of the town is now one-way, and there’s really only one pub that’s left open.
Oxley Street, Bourke
“The town has gone backwards in terms of population”, a few people have told me. “It’s probably a thousand people less than when you lived here. The millenium drought really had an impact”, one of them added.
As I’ve spoken to locals, they tell me a lot of people have moved to Dubbo. “I run into more people from Bourke when I go to Dubbo than when I walk down the street here”, one friend said.
When I lived here, there was lots of horticulture (citrus) and viticulture (mostly table grapes), but I haven’t seen much evidence of that this time around. There’s a multi-million dollar abatoir on the outskirts of town sitting vacant, and there are are lots of fields currently being sowed, with the hope of better times ahead.
Though the clothing store across the road, Culhane’s has now closed (it’s still a clothing store, but with a different name), it was nice to see Trev Randall’s newsagency still operates. The newsagency was also where I used to buy records. These days, the newspaper section is tiny, and souvenirs and toys have replaced the records.
I’m not seeking to write a negative review of the town in any sense of the word, I’m just putting down some of my thoughts as I’ve observed them, since being here. I really love this place, and wish the town and everyone living here all of the best for better times.
My two years in Bourke are amongst the happiest times of my life. I got my career start here, I made some great friendships (lasting to this day), and (as a man in his early 20s), I learned a lot about life.
“I can’t believe how much you remember about the place”, a friend said to me yesterday. “It’s not hard”, I told him, “…the memories are so incredibly vivid of a really wonderful, important part of my life”. Anyway, that’s all for now, “I’m heading off to meet a mate at the pub”.
Saturday night traffic in Bourke
Still to come : a post about going back to the radio station where my full-time radio career began; photographs from the Darling River, and some pretty awesome photographs from bushland and farming outside town.
It’s Monday afternoon and I’m still not 100%, but feeling better than I was nonetheless. I foolishly thought I could head off to work today, but after an hour or so of people telling me how terrible I looked, I took the hint and came home. It’s been a fairly good afternoon on the couch, watching television and reading.
I watched Hotel Rwanda, a terrific film. It’s the third time I’ve seen this film and it still resonates with me. To quote a previous post on this… I’ve seen this film twice now and it’s one which continues to resonate with me for lots of reasons. One of which is that, like most people in Australia, I was only vaguely aware of some of the details surrounding the Rwandan genocide. I didn’t understand the impact colonialism had on causing long-term problems in the country. I didn’t realise the slaughter was as great as it was. I’m still thinking about it and wondering what Rwanda is like now. For how long will the aftermath of the genocide be with the people? This is a great film. Very watchable and ultimately achieving a lot… even if some reviews have wanted, in an abysmally middle class PC kind of way, to say “it’s just so Hollywood”. .
I also spent an hour or so re-reading Susan Faludi’s seminal feminist work, Backlash – The Undeclared War Against Women. Fifteen years since its release it was interesting/sad to read that much of her optimism for the 90s has failed to manifest itself. All of the issues she wrote about back then, such as the media’s portrayal of women and notions that you can’t have it both ways are still with us now. I think it would be interesting if she wrote a new book or a revised and updated version of this highly readable work.
Tonight, I attended what’s being billed as the final ever “Wharf Revue”. This annual satirical comedy event has been a Sydney institution for 25 years. The creators, now in their 60s, have clearly poured their hearts and souls into this production. Judging by tonight’s performance, they’re determined to go out with a bang!
The show opened with Jonathan Biggins, one of the creative forces behind the Revue, delivering a masterful impersonation of Paul Keating. Biggins, who previously starred in a play about the former Prime Minister, absolutely nailed Keating’s voice, mannerisms, and attitude. The opening skit cleverly highlighted the importance of the arts in political discourse, with a witty reminder that even the most brilliant cabaret couldn’t have stopped the rise of Hitler.
Much of the Revue focused on Australian politics, with hilarious send-ups of figures like Pauline Hanson, Kevin Rudd, Tony Abbott, and Julia Gillard. One particularly memorable bit skewered Gina Rinehart and Clive Palmer, and the Jackie Lambie sketch was hilarious. The show didn’t shy away from international targets either, with a biting satire of the Trump era and the media landscape. A brilliant sequence portrayed Rupert Murdoch as a Mr. Burns-like figure, enlisting a Homer Simpson-esque character to play the role of Peter Dutton.
There were so many laugh-out-loud moments. One line that particularly tickled me was a reference to Senator Larissa Waters: “I thought that was a cattle station in the Northern Territory!”
As soon as I got home, I messaged friends urging them to see it before its final run, and that’s what I’m suggesting people in Sydney should right now. I’m pretty sure it will tour to other centres, as it normally does.
I can’t recall exactly when I first saw the Wharf Revue, but I believe it was with my friend Colin, who is sadly no longer with us. Over the past 20 years, I’ve seen it on and off, though I admit I lost interest for a while. A few years ago, the humor felt a bit too mean-spirited for my liking. While I appreciate sharp political satire, it seemed to cross a line into personal attacks. Thankfully, this final show has rediscovered the right balance, delivering cutting wit without resorting to unnecessary cruelty.
Standing ovation for the cast tonight at The Wharf Revue.
This year’s performance was particularly poignant for me. It’s been almost 18 months since my lower leg amputation, and I’m still recovering. Last year, I saw the Revue at the Seymour Centre, and I vividly remember struggling with the stairs. Navigating those steps without a handrail on the inner side was a real challenge. I had to use the handrail on the far right, slowly make my way down to the front, and then awkwardly shuffle across the stage to find my seat.
Determined to have a more comfortable experience this time, I booked a front-row seat. It was the perfect solution, providing an unobstructed view and easy access. This simple change made a huge difference to my enjoyment of the show.
The final Wharf Revue was a brilliant send-off to a beloved Sydney tradition. It was a night of laughter, reflection, and a reminder of the power of satire to hold a mirror to society.
Though it was at the Seymour Centre, the backdrop for the set paid tribute to The Wharf Theatre which was a long-time home to the show.
