Earlier this week when I watched Episode 6 of “Welcome To Sweden”, the episode where Bruce and his father Wayne ended up, unexpectedly, in a “gay bar” in Stockholm, I felt an instant sense of recognition. “That’s Sidetrack”, I thought to myself, a bar I’ve visited on several occasions over the last few years.
I mentioned this via email a few nights ago to a friend who has visited Stockholm on many occasions and he was instantly dmismissive of the suggestion. “No, it had far too much room for Sidetrack. And they wouldn’t even be able to fit the cameras in there.”, he told me.
I still wasn’t convinced, and so I went back tonight and watched the episode again. I also searched online for photographs of Sidetrack. I was right, and I’ve finally convinced my friend through the weight of evidence.
Odd really that I know more about the insides of gay bars in Stockholm than I do of the insides of gay bars in Sydney.
There was a time, I remember reading, when the supermarket chain Aldi would never advertise. Aside from shop openings, and their weekly “specials” the company has had a “no frills” approach to advertising the other supermarket chains could possibly learn from.
Tonight, there’s a lone bloke standing outside the Surry Hills Mall with a sandwich board advertising the opening of a new Aldi store on the corner of Bourke Street and Danks Street.
That brings to “three”, the number of new supermarkets in the area since I moved here seventeen years ago. For a long long time it was the rather average Coles. And then Woolworths opened near St Margarets a few years ago. And now, closer to the Moore Park housing complex (or Moore Park Housing Commission as some people call it), there’s another Woolworths and now an Aldi. It’s been fascinating to see such growth.
I got “back on the tools” today as a working journalist (not a manager), contributing a radio and text story to the team from ABC Riverina (Wagga Wagga), where I used to work many, many years ago as the Mornings Presenter.
Even though it’s been a few decades since I lived in Wagga, I maintain friendship and professional relationships with the town. And today, it was great to reconnect with some familiar faces.
I was asked to attend an art exhibition opening at the NSW Parliament by Sally Bryant, who presents Breakfast on ABC Riverina, as she is genuinely impressed by the artists work. So was I!
Here’s the radio story I put together.
And here’s a brief text story I have also offered to the team for local publication.
Juanita McLachlin
“Standing at the heart of seven generations”
“It’s about leaving enough information, knowledge and resources for the future generations” says Juanita McLauchlan, a Gamilaraay artist living on Wiradjuri country in Wagga Wagga, whose exhibition “Standing at the heart of seven generations” is currently on display at the NSW Parliament in Sydney.
This exhibition serves as a poignant narrative of her familial and ancestral ties, with a particular emphasis on personal artifacts and adornments. It delves into the ethos of many Indigenous communities, notably the Seventh Generation philosophy, which emphasizes the enduring impact of our present actions on future generations and the Earth itself.
With nearly three decades of experience as a printmaker, Juanita McLauchlan’s artistic repertoire has expanded to encompass a diverse array of mediums, including blankets and fabrics.
Each piece, like one which portrays the Southern Cross, represents a convergence of her European and Indigenous heritage, grounding her sense of identity and place.
Her exhibition showcases a blend of materials, incorporating animal skins such as possum fur and native plants like wattle and various gum trees. These elements, sourced from the Wagga region, evoke a rich tapestry of colors and textures, symbolizing the interconnectedness of culture and environment.
A proud group of people from Wagga Wagga, attending the exhibition opening.
Some of these works have been previously displayed in Wagga Wagga, but are now finding a new audience at Sydney’s NSW Parliament House Gallery, thanks to the support of a variety organizations and individuals, including Dr Joe McGirr MP: Member for Wagga Wagga
Dr. McGirr reflects on the significance of hosting such exhibitions within the parliamentary setting, noting its role in confronting Australia’s colonial history and sparking meaningful dialogue. He commends Juanita McLauchlan’s work for its ability to inspire hope while addressing uncomfortable truths.
This beautiful thought-provoking exhibition is at the NSW Parliament Gallery on Macquarie Street, Sydney, until April 29th.
At the conclusion of the exhibition and our radio interview, Juanita presented me with a beautiful piece, made from wool and possum fur.
It’s Sunday night, I’m in Wagga Wagga and I’m killing time, ahead of catching the XPT back to Sydney. Though I’ve gone first class on travel, I’ve booked economy for accommodation for my brief visit back to Wagga.
I’ve been staying at Romano’s. Co-incidentally, it’s the place where I stayed for my first week in Wagga Wagga, when I moved here at the end of 1991. For a moment, I thought I might have been staying in exactly the same room as I was almost thirty years ago. I have a strong memory of a “romantic liaison” in the hotel room here. The room has changed little. The beds are the same, the furniture is the same, and the shared shower facilities are most definitely the same. They’ve done a terrific renovation on lower floors of the hotel, which clearly hasn’t made it to Level 2 (especially the bathroom). But that’s all okay, as this was always a brief, nostalgic visit.
I lived here from the end of 1991 to the beginning of 1995. I’ve been back a few times, though the most recent was in 2002, for the funeral of a good friend, Chris Jones. I can’t believe it’s so long!
This visit also has a “death” theme to it all. My friend Kate, who I met here many many years ago, is back here to support her son, as he winds up his father’s estate. When Kate mentioned she was coming, I asked if she would like company for the trip down. So yesterday morning, we began a road trip, taking in sites like The Big Merino, The Dog On The Tuckerbox, and serial stops along the way to look at the mixed-emotion beauty of paddocks filled with Paterson’s Curse and Canola, and to see the Murrumbidgee River.
Visiting the Dog On The TuckerboxCanola, near Wagga WaggaWollundry Lagoon, Wagga Wagga
I’ve been trying to remember how I felt when I left Wagga Wagga at the beginning of 1995. As I recall now, I was still pretty happy about living here. I’d made an excellent circle of friends, in part due to my involvement in co-establishing the Riverina Gay and Lesbian Social and Support Group. I had a very “social” house, located on the shores of Wagga’s Wollundry Lagoon. Here, I’d fulfilled a few of my career dreams, and thought it was probably time to move on, which is why I’d moved to Sydney.
Holding court at my apartment in Wagga Wagga. Date unknown, but maybe 1994. Thanks to Glenn.My former apartment at Unit 2/ 185 Forsyth Street in Wagga. When I left Wagga, the bay tree on the right was only centimetres high.Bay Leaves from the tree I planted in 1993.Wiradjuri ReserveWagga Wagga BeachLooking towards Lake Albert from Willan”s Hill.I was pleased to see the awesome Indian restaurant is still operating, and Rabina is still greeting customers. They’ve been operating for 28 years, and we chatted about how Leo Schofield once described the restaurant in the SMH, as some of the best Indian food he’d ever eaten. They’re no longer in the arcade, having moved to what was Al Fresco. The food is still great. “Show your friends that I’m still alive”, Rabina joked.
There was a further trip down memory lane, as I revisited the studios of ABC (Radio) Riverina, Wagga Wagga. This was my second ABC Radio station, having previously worked at ABC Radio in Renmark, South Australia. A lot can happen between 1992 (aged 26) and 2019 (approaching 54). Many thanks to Mollie from the bureau (station) who let me in and took the pic.
ABC Radio Riverina in Wagga Wagga in 1992Only the technology has changed!!
As I wandered around the city, I was reminded of some of the wonderful people I met here. A few of them are no longer with us, including Colin Anderson and Chris Jones.
Others, I am still friends with, including Glenn and Greig, and Kate. It was a really wonderful period of my life, and I look back on it with much fondness. It’s been great to enjoy a trip down memory lane.
Suitably, my weekend ended with some theatre. My friend, Kate alerted me to some “Shakespeare In The Pub”, she’d seen mentioned in the paper. Without much thought, I booked some tickets to https://bardwork.com/. The show was a modern, abridged, and very colloquial version of “Twelfth Night” which I enjoyed very much.
And suitably, the production was in the downstairs restaurant.
With about an hour to go until the train back to Sydney, I feel like I’ve come “full circle”.
There was a brief moment tonight when I looked at my friend Kate with surprise/shock in my eyes. We were having a glass of wine at a rather crowded exhibition opening. It was one of those exhibition openings where it’s so crowded you barely have room to actually observe and appreciate the art on the walls. My friend is a life-long artist, curator and arts administrator, and so I was shocked when I thought she’d placed her empty wine glass on top of one of the works of art.
Although I’d had a fairly decent look at the paintings on the wall which I thought were nice, though not really to my taste, I hadn’t fully engaged with the “works” on the benches in the middle of the room. The works looked interesting, as they combined some lovely coloured patterns, and some small sticks were randomly placed on top of the work. Again, it wasn’t really to my taste, but I thought it looked interesting, as I observed them from the corner of my eye, but I still couldn’t believe Kate had just dumped her wine glass right on top of one of the works.
“I guess this is my first senior’s moment”, I thought to myself, when I suddenly realised the “art works” weren’t “art works” after all. The “canvas” was, in fact, butcher’s paper, and the purple colouring was probably where a beetroot dish had been. The small sticks? Tooth picks. “How embarassing!”, I thought to myself with a laugh. “I can’t wait to blog about being so stupid”, I told Kate.
After several weeks “in exile” I’m starting to re-emerge on the social scene. In addition to the weather being cold and wet on the weekend, I’ve also been fighting off some kind of bug. I’ve had a sore throat since Friday, and I spent most of Saturday, Sunday and Monday resting in bed. I took Monday off because, quite simply, I can’t afford to be sick later in the week. There’s a lot going on at work at the moment (as you’ll know if you follow the national and international news, with speculation about the health of Madiba/Mandela, as well as leadership of the Labor Party) which means I need to be healthy in the event of some breaking news.
On top of that, I’m heading to South Africa on Sunday. As a result of my appearance at Radio Days Europe a couple of months ago in Berlin, I’ve been invited to speak at a radio conference called Radio Days Jo’burg. I’ll be speaking about a range of things including audience and creativity, as well as the opportunities and challenges of digital radio broadcasting. I’m incredibly flattered and excited to have been invited, and I’m looking forward to it very much.
And how’s the timing with the now “critical condition” of Nelson Mandela? If he survives or not his current illness, it will be an amazing time to be in Johannesburg, I suspect.
The “social exile” of the last few weeks has also been time for me to recover my finances a little after this year’s trip to Europe. Now pretty much back on track, I’ve decided it’s time to leave the house again. As well as the exhibition opening tonight, I’m also going to the “Now Hear This” story-telling night on Wednesday, and on Thursday, I’m heading to a community radio birthday celebration, and then to a recording of “A Rational Fear” (a topical comedy programme currently running on RN/Radio National).
These are a few of the things I’ve been sharing on social media throughout March.
March 29 : Though the focus of the article is my former colleague from 2WEB, Barbara Cunningham returning to the station, I got a brief mention in the Bourke newspaper, “The Western Herald” this week. I can’t believe it’s over thirty years!! March 28 : Great work in the midst of this health crisis.March 25 : TROVE is an excellent source of articles about the 1919 flu. https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/92990439?searchTerm=influenza%201919&searchLimits=l-title=81
March 21 : If you’re working from home, talk to your internet provider! I got a message from @Telstra this morning that I’ve used 50% of my monthly data in seven days! I’ve found you can register for an extra 25g of data for services, so long as you register by March 31. Avoid #billshock
March 19 : Day 3 of working from home, and I’m finding the greatest problem I face is resisting the temptation for an afternoon nap. The couch is only 3 metres away!
March 17 : ..and now we have rats in #surryhills. Well, we’ve always had them. So I wonder if they’ve become worse or is @cityofsydney just doing more about them?March 16 : Starting tomorrow, I’m going to be working from home until further notice, and I didn’t have to put on a massive amount of weight to do it. Hope I don’t forget to vent the radioactive gas.March 16 : At Swedish class, we’re about to look at a book called “100 Swedish Dialects” which comes with an accompanying audio source. OMG, some of them do actually sound like The Muppet Chef!
March 8 : Very pleased the backing singers for Sweden’s entry last year at Eurovision have won this year. A great song and performance. Meanwhile, for everyone who questions the presence of Australia in Eurovision, you might also wonder why Australia gets a vote in the Swedish entry. Mostly, they get it right for this fan of #melodifestivalen2020March 6 : Love it! Toilet rolls added to the meat trays as a bonus prize at my local pub.March 4 : Here’s a pic of Gloria O’Brien/Pepper neither Sharon nor I had seen before. We’re thinking late 60s. What a lovely pic. Great 60s hair!!
I’ve just been to see The Blake Prize for Religious Art at the National Art School in Darlinghurst, and really enjoyed viewing many of the works on display. A highlight of the exhibition, as soon as you enter the door, is “We All See The Same Blue Sky” by Jeffrey Robert Wood. The sculpture/installation features a life-sized family of four covered in paper. They have televisions where their faces should be, and the paper that covers their body has writing on it. As you look closer, you realise the paper is pages from the Bible, the Koran, the Torah, and the Psalms.
Another favourite, both because of its physical beauty and its inspiration is “Whispered” by Louise Feneley. A beautiful oil painting on Belgian linen, the painting portrays a white cloth simply folded, but with light always coming through, giving it both physical beauty, thanks to the shadows, and spiritual depth.
Sticking more strictly to the notion of religion is “Preaching To Birds” by Arthur Apanski. Through strong vibrant colours, the painting portrays Adam and Even in a universal setting, and it’s not until you read the accompanying notes that you realise it’s them.
Blake Prize
In a very contemporary sense, a couple of the works in this year’s exhibition touched on issues of religion and sexuality, including “Sermon” by Chris O’Doherty (aka Mambo) and “In God’s Image” by Rod McRae. The latter features a group of gay men in various degrees of undress, whereas the former is the kind of work you’ve come to expect of O’Doherty.
But in 2006, the Blake Prize isn’t really about religious art, per se, it’s about “the interaction of ideas and spiritual thought in contemporary Australian art”, as the written program tells us. This means there are many paintings based around nature, including a wonderful large red piece, which unfortunately I forget the name of which portrays the Kimberley region of Western Australia. Likewise, this year’s winner, a piece called, “Untitled Landscape with figure” by Euan MacLeod portrays the area around Alice Springs.
More interesting for me than the MacLead work, which I thought looked like everything else he’d ever done, was a piece called “The Six Towers Of Dachau”, photographs, by Lachlan Warner. I’ve been to Dachau, I’ve walked around and I’ve thought deeply about the experience. What makes this work wonderful, however, was that the artist had obviously thought about what it must have been like to have been in the Nazi death camp, and to have considered the significance of the watch towers in the every day lives of those who were there.
So yes, a terrific exhibition and one I’d recommend.
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Ha! Thanks for solving that for me James. We were wondering what the bar was!
Ha! Thanks for solving that for me James. We were wondering what the bar was!
Yes the one downstairs from the Scottish pub.
The latest episode features Bjorn from ABBA. It’s a little embarrassing, to be honest.