After catching up with a mate last night at my “local” pub, I caught the bus to Darlinghurst for what I thought might have been the return of Harbour City Bears. The regular Friday night gathering doesn’t appear to have returned yet. Instead, there was a mixed crowd of people, and boy was it packed. After gaining entry I looked around, and quickly decided there were too many people for my liking, and so I left immediately.
I then went for a walk around the Oxford Street area to investigate further. The queue outside Universal was maybe fifty metres long.
And the queues I saw last night didn’t appear to be “fake queues” either. By that, I mean queues “manufactured” to make a bar look busy, and therefore interesting, when in reality there were very few people inside. No, the bars and clubs looked pretty busy.
The laws change on Monday, and it looks like pretty much “all restrictions” will be dropped.
There were very people walking around last night wearing face-masks. “COVID? What COVID?” seems to be the attitude.
A few months ago the NSW Premier quite emphatically said cases would “skyrocket” (or something like that) when restrictions were dropped.
PS: Five minutes after posting, I received an email to confirm Harbour City Bears returns to Kinselas next Friday night, November 12. I can’t make it, as I will be away.
At the risk of this blog turning into a “Beard Blog”, here’s my one month update on my attempt to grow a beard.
After roughly one month of letting it “grow wild” I went to the barber today to get a trim both “on top” and “down below”. On top, I’m a 1.5 clipper man myself. Down below, I asked the barber if he could just “tidy it up and even it up a bit”.
I’d read a fair bit about how you should let your beard “grow wild” for the first three or four weeks until it starts to fill in, and then go to a barber to get it shaped properly. If you have a patchy beard to start with (like most men do, apparently), your own attempts to trim and shape are more than likely going to make it look even more patchy.
So I’ve held off on purchasing a pair of clippers, and have decided for the first couple of months, I’d leave it to someone who knows what he or she is doing.
The thing which prompted me to go today was the really uncomfortable feeling of whiskers on the lips. I always thought the problem of itchiness would be greater, but it’s been nothing compared to the scratchiness of stray whiskers touching your lips. That, combined with little bits of left-over food attaching itself to the whiskers which touched my lips.
So, having had a trim today, and having snapped a photograph, I don’t think it looks too bad after all. It’s still fairly light on the sides. My ginger heritage is coming back to the fore, and oh, oh, those greys.
The general consensus of people who’ve commented on my beard has been positive. “It really suits you” is the most common phrase I’ve heard.
The one thing I have noticed is I’ve become slightly obsessed with male facial hair now. I swear I’m not about to become a “big old bear”, you won’t be seeing me with a big tummy dressed in leather chaps with my bum hanging out on the way to Mardi Gras, but I have been checking out beards a fair lot. It’s like when I first got a pair of glasses, it was like everyone in the world was wearing glasses. Now it seems the same with beards.
I promise my next blog post will not be about growing a beard.
Imagine, if you would, half a dozen people aged from 25 to 70 all seated around a couple of tables at an inner-city bar in Sydney. On the tables in front of us were a couple of packs of dominoes. Without hesitation, under the influence of a couple of happy hour priced beers, the packets were opened and the dominoes were being distributed. Very suddenly, however, we all realised it was so long since any of us had played the game none of us could really remember the rules. We stumbled along as best we could and played by our own rules.
In the group of people I work most closely with, we don’t often go out for drinks after work. The “drinking culture” of the media seems to have “softened”, as people have partnered off, gained children and so on. In the midst of that change, it was really lovely to catch up with some colleagues, including some I haven’t really seen that much of lately, and to play, somewhat badly, a game of dominoes as we chatted.
When it came time to fly back to Sydney, I was a little nervous. I had been charged for excess baggage on the way to Lismore, and I didn’t want to incur a similar charge on the way back.
I keep clothes and some other personal items at home in Lismore, so I only ever take the minimum carry-on of 7kg when flying home. However, I was a little cavalier in my packing this time around, and when I was approached in the queue, my bag weighed in at close to 9kg. I was forced to pay an extra $65.
I left a few of the items I had taken with me to Lismore at home, but even so, my bag still weighed 8kg. Carrying two laptops (one personal, one work) seemed to be the biggest issue.
So I packed the jacket I was planning to wear, with my Bluetooth speaker and computer cables in the pockets. I was still convinced that they were going to approach me in the queue again, but thankfully the plane was running late and was full, so there was little time to worry about what I was carrying.
It was lovely at the airport to run into some people who were also heading to Sydney for an exhibition at the NSW Parliament of 100 photographs taken in the weeks after last year’s Lismore floods.
In many country towns, there is no real sense of “six degrees of separation”; it’s generally only one degree of separation.
In chatting with one couple at the airport, we established that they were likely living in a house where one of my cousins lived back in the 70s. We also established that someone we mutually knew had recently started a new job, replacing someone who had recently moved to Sydney, and who was now working with my friend (also from Lismore) who was coming with me to the exhibition opening.
These country town conversations are never about what you do for a living, or where you went to school, they’re about where you’re from and who you know. “You’re from such and such town or street? Do you know such and such?” And quite often you do.
I arrived in Sydney safely and on time, and I was happy to have avoided another excess baggage charge. I was also glad to have had the opportunity to catch up with some old friends and make some new ones. It’s always nice to come home.
The first was a lunchtime celebration for just our part of the organisation at the AB Hotel in Glebe which was excellent. The food was very good. The service friendly. And despite the rain, many of us spent the afternoon in the comfortable outdoors courtyard. The second was the annual bash at Ultimo.
“You’re a real trooper on the dance floor”, one of the DJ’s said to me at one point during the night. He had obviously noted a couple of us spent most of the night on the dance floor. Well, aimed to spend most of the night on the dance floor, since some of the earlier music wasn’t all that danceable for a 43 year old man with an interest in Swedish pop music. “It’s 9.30”, I said to my colleague when the first really good song of the night kicked in. And from then on, it was two hours of solid dancing. Great fun.
The theme for this year’s party was “hats or wigs”. We went through the cupboards at work and found some old baseball caps and came as a group. Unfortunately, we didn’t win the prize for best costume. Next year, there’s hopefully a prize for “best group costume”.
I had every plan of watching a fair bit of television tonight, but somehow the only thing I managed to watch properly was the Oprah in Australia special on Channel 10.
It was another monstrously busy day at work, and then after heading over to visit my friend who has been in hospital, my plan was to come home, sit quietly and watch a fair bit of television.
After all of the hype of the last few months, how could I NOT watch Oprah? Although I missed last night’s episode, and probably won’t see tomorrow night’s either, I was determined to watch a least one episode.
“How was it?”, my friend asked as we chatted on the phone later in the evening. “It was actually pretty good”, I told her. I really like the way Oprah seems genuinely committed to bringing a little magic into people’s lives, and how she never forgets her impoverished roots. I raised my eyes at the yoga on the beach at Byron Bay scene, but that’s all because of my own personal North Coast “baggage” more than anything to do with the program. Otherwise, it was quite an interesting program, the scenery looked great, I definitely decided I must go and see those penguins near Melbourne some time, and boy did Oprah look pissed off when the chopper ran out of fuel when she was atop the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
Oprah on the Sydney Harbour Bridge
My friend and I then got into a chat about Oprah and the nature of her relationship with her friend Gayle, which is often speculated to have certain Sapphic qualities. “What’s happened to the husband – Stedman?”, my friend asked. “Oh, I don’t know, although I don’t think he’s been around for a while”.
We then got into a discussion about the sexuality of tennis players currently in the Australian Open. Sam Stosur? Really. Allegedly, of course. Henri Leconte? What? But hasn’t he had three wives and four children? Hang on, they keep describing him in newspaper articles as flamboyant I noted.
Anyway, Oprah was the only show on television I managed to watch all the way through.
I was looking forward to seeing Keanu Reeves on Graham Norton, as I’ve long thought he was quite attractive. In fact, my ex and I had a discussion once that we would have an open relationship if Keanu was part of the equation. Not sure about the acting, though I loved The Matrix, but definitely cute. But guess what? Keanu was quite boring and I fell asleep watching the show, even though I quite love the program.
Sophisticated conversations, eh? Must check the biorhythms. Intellectually strong but physically and emotionally weak. Sounds right.
Biorhythms
At the end of the night, I’ve managed to add significantly to the number of recordings on the PVR and on my computer that “I must get around to watching”. I don’t have much planned for the weekend – except taking delivery of a new washing machine – so I’ll make another attempt at watching a bit of television then.
Australian media is a notoriously small pond, and lately, it feels like the water is evaporating by the minute. Newsrooms are consolidating, legacy platforms are tightening their belts, and the traditional career paths that once felt like solid bitumen are looking a bit more like shifting sand. Yet, despite the contraction, the sheer volume of remarkable audio being produced in this country across different sectors remains staggering.
For decades, though, we’ve insisted on treating these sectors like entirely different species.
If you look at the history of radio awards in Australia, the landscape has always been fiercely segregated. We had the ACRAs for commercial radio, separate recognition ceremonies for the ABC, distinct awards for the community broadcasting sector, and more recently, standalone events for the exploding world of independent podcasting.
Of course, the structural differences between these sectors are real. Commercial radio has to navigate client demands and sponsored categories. The ABC is driven by distinct public sector values, rigorous charter obligations, and investigative mandates. On the surface, there is a yawning chasm between the populist, high-octane spectacle of The Kyle & Jackie O Show and the forensic, slow-burn journalism of Background Briefing.
But despite those superficial divides, I’ve always found this fragmented approach to celebrating our industry a bit problematic. Stripped of the logos, the funding models, and the corporate structures, we are all ultimately working with the exact same raw medium: sound. More specifically, we are all trying to master the art of the human voice. Whether it’s a commercial breakfast skit, a community radio music show, or a deeply moving documentary, the goal is identical—to spark a connection in the dark space between a listener’s headphones.
That’s why I was genuinely excited about the inaugural Australian Audio Awards held on Thursday night at Carriageworks in Redfern.
For the first time last week, the walls came down. The event felt like a long-overdue acknowledgement that audio is a singular, interconnected industry. Even though I wasn’t up for a nomination myself, and quite separate from my official day job at the ABC, I decided to dig into my own pocket and fund a ticket. My motivation was simple: I wanted to be in the room. I wanted to catch up with old friends, swap notes with collaborators across the different sectors, and see how the broader landscape was shaping up.
Naturally enough, given my history, I kept a very close eye on how the ABC performed throughout the night. Securing a front-row seat gave me the perfect vantage point, and I spent a good portion of the evening snapping images of some incredibly well-deserved wins.
Sonya and Jules from 891 ABC AdelaideThe team from ABC Radio Queensland, for Regional Drive, the equivalent program to the one I used to present in NSW.
I’m the first to admit I no longer have the same boundless energy levels I used to deploy for industry gala nights. The spirit was willing, but the tank was running low, so I slipped out of the awards fairly early to head home.
Even with the early exit, the night left me feeling incredibly inspired. I’m already looking forward to attending again next year—and next time around, I hope to actually have something of my own to enter, specifically my Limb Shift podcast, which explores life, adaptation, and mobility after limb loss.
With Andrea Ho from the Australian Film, Television & Radio School
The theme of industry connection caught up with me again just a day later, though under far more somber circumstances. I joined a large contingent of colleagues, past and present, to attend the public memorial for our brilliant, late colleague James Valentine at Sydney Town Hall.
A group of us travelled down together via the light rail. As we stepped off and headed towards the Town Hall, I was absolutely amazed by the sheer scale of the queue snaking all the way down the street. The memorial was a ticketed event open to the general public, but even knowing how respected he was, seeing that massive crowd was a stark reminder of his reach. It made perfect sense, really; the event had sold out almost immediately. James possessed that rare, magical, and completely authentic connection with his audience. There was an overwhelming amount of pure love in that cavernous room.
There were so many deeply memorable moments throughout the service, but the finale was unforgettable. To close the memorial, a group of exceptional jazz musicians struck up a rendition of “When the Saints Go Marching In”, physically playing and marching through the hall to lead the entire crowd out onto the street. It was joyful, poignant, and uniquely James.
Afterwards, a few of my old ABC colleagues and I migrated to a nearby pub for drinks. Amid the grief of losing James, it was wonderful to simply sit, catch up, and see faces I hadn’t looked at in years. For a few years now, I’ve been running a dedicated Facebook group aimed at organising a proper, comprehensive reunion for former station staff members. Sadly, as time has ticked on, a huge percentage of the posts on that page have wound up being notices remembering the beautiful, talented colleagues who have passed away.
As we sat over our drinks, the sentiment in the group was unanimous: It’s time.
One former colleague looked at me frankly and said she was utterly determined to make this reunion happen, even though she is now based down in Melbourne. Hearing her say that gave me a massive surge of confidence. Having worked alongside her for years, I know firsthand that she has successfully organised countless major events for the station. If anyone has the logistical grit and the industry connections to help me turn this long-overdue reunion into a reality, it’s her.
In an industry that’s getting smaller and tighter by the day, we can’t afford to stay isolated in our separate corners. Whether we’re celebrating the cutting edge of audio at Carriageworks or raising a glass to a fallen giant at Town Hall, it’s the human connections—and the voices we share—that keep the medium alive.
Kinselas. I have a nice memory.