I’m starting to feel like a full-time amputee

ByJames O'Brien

“I feel like I’m a full-time amputee,” I told my physio on Tuesday.

It was a comment that slipped out, but the more I’ve thought about it this week, the more accurate it feels. When you live with limb loss, there is an entire hidden calendar of appointments, assessments, and admin that can easily swallow your identity if you let it.

Take this week alone. It kicked off on Tuesday with my physio to keep my body moving properly. By Wednesday, the focus shifted to accessibility, doing a wheelchair assessment out in Burwood with the team from WheelEasy to map out the real-world boundaries of our local streets.

On Thursday, it was a deep-dive conversation with my occupational therapist about navigating daily life. By Friday, I was seeing my prosthetist to get measured for a replacement prosthetic. Because our bodies change, stump shrinkage means my current one simply no longer fits—a stark reminder that the hardware requires constant maintenance just to keep up with the biology.

Getting fitted for a new prosthetic involves some old fashioned plaster moulds.

By any definition, it’s a full-time gig. It’s physically exhausting, mentally demanding, and requires a level of scheduling logistics that would make a corporate project manager sweat.

After that intense week of appointments, I desperately needed to shed the “patient” label. I headed to the Drummoyne Sailing Club for dinner and drinks with friends. Though we got there after dark and missed the spectacular 180-degree panoramic view of the harbour—with Cockatoo Island and the lights of North Sydney glittering across the water— it was still the perfect antidote. Looking out at the shifting tides, the stress of the medical week completely melted away.

Ross won the meat tray! Another lucky winner was a VERY PROMINENT Australian. We recognised her name and face straight away, though she’s obviously better known at the club simply by her first name.

Then came today. The weekend vibe started early, but with a very specific, bittersweet purpose. I joined a gathering at the Hero of Waterloo in the heart of The Rocks. Walking into that heritage-listed, convict-built pub is always like stepping back into 1843, with its old hand-chiselled sandstone walls and heavy timbers. Today, the pub was absolutely jumping, packed with people soaking up a wonderful live band.

But our corner of the pub was gathered for something unique: a celebration of the life of Görel Hanser, ABBA’s legendary long-time manager, who passed away recently. Today would have been her birthday.

In some ways, it sounds like an odd gathering—a room full of fans toast-raising a manager in a historic Sydney pub—but there was so much to talk about. The overwhelming consensus in the “ABBA world” is that Görel wasn’t just a fierce professional who did her job incredibly well; she was someone who genuinely cared about the community and was truly a friend of the fans. Being surrounded by that unique energy was brilliant.

With that warmth filling the tank, I headed off after lunch to record a podcast interview with a fellow amputee for my podcast. He is based near Toowoomba in Queensland, so the recording was online. Nonetheless, it was a really great opportunity to hear wisdom from a fellow amputee, thus rounding out my week.

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Judith Lucy

Judith Lucy

I wondered for just a brief moment tonight if I should be concerned that I’ve just had dinner two nights in a row at Opera Bar.

Last night I went to The Helpmann Awards, and tonight Damo and I went to see Judith Lucy.

As we waited for the show to commence we struggled to remember the last time we had been to see her perform.

For some odd reason, we’ve remembered every time we’ve seen Wil Anderson, including just a few weeks ago, but struggled to remember exactly when we’ve seen Judith, though we both knew we had on a few occasions.

It’s a shame since she’s an absolutely terrific performer. Tonight’s show must have gone 70 to 80 minutes, and she never dropped a beat in what was obviously a well-rehearsed show.

But obviously not so well-rehearsed that she couldn’t be spontaneous. There was a terrific moment when a pair of late-comers arrived at the show, and in typical comedian style, she asked them why they were late. The woman replied she had lost a couple of diamond rings in the toilets. “Let’s forget the fucking show”, she said, “let’s go looking for those rings”.

She says “fuck” a lot by the way. And she also said “cunt” a few times too. But she does it with such honesty, and without any sense of it being gratuitous, oddly enough.

Judith Lucy

At one point she noted she had been performing as a comedian for twenty years.

This surprised Damo, as he noted, “She must have started very young, and yet she’s always seemed quite old”.

He’s right about that. I get the sense she was always a grown-up from childhood. Maybe that’s why both of us connect to her?

And you get the sense from her act that she’s obviously struggled with some things throughout her life, including obviously the booze, and some self-esteem issues.

Maybe comedy is the way in which she makes sense of her life? Or maybe I’m just reading too much into her act?

Maybe I should just accept it as great comedy, which it is.

So yes, it’s my second night out in a row. And it ain’t over yet. Tomorrow night I’m off to see a new Australian film The Stone Bros.

All of this in a week when I’ve started to act in a new job. Life is rich and busy at the moment.

Dinner tonight, by the way, was the beef cheeks. Not as good as last night’s ravioli.

Fotografiska Museet Cafe

Fotografiska Museet

“I think I’ve found the spot for my fiftieth birthday”, I told Sue as we sat and enjoyed some late afternoon refreshments at the top floor cafe of Stockholm’s Fotografiska Museet (Photographic museum). Even though I’ve been to the museum on a few occasions before this, I’d never actually made it to the top floor cafe before. I’ve enjoyed a summertime drink at the downstairs outdoors bar, but until today I never knew they had a top floor cafe also. A top floor cafe with great service, great food, and stunning views of Stockholm.

Fotografiska Museet Cafe
Fotografiska Museet Cafe

During peak tourist season, I can imagine the competition for window seats must be reasonably tough. Even on a Tuesday afternoon in early Spring there were quite a few people there. Nonetheless, we obtained a couple of great seats, with spectacular full-length window views of the centre of Stockholm. The only thing which spoiled the view was a couple of hand smudges from a child on the window, and so I got up with a napkin and wiped them clean. The older woman sitting opposite me was impressed with my ingenuity, and thanked me.

He’s a Dutch photographer who takes hundreds and hundreds of photographs to “construct” brand new images. There’s an accompanying video which shows how he takes lots of different elements from his many photographs and puts them together as a whole new image.

Ruud van Empel
At the moment there are three fantastic exhibition as the museum, all of them quite different.”It’s like Bill Henson, except the kids have their clothes on”, I joked as we looked at the work by Ruud van Empel.

In the same way as there’s controversy surrounding Henson’s work of teenage nudes, there’s also controversy surrounding Rudd van Empel’s work also. Some of the accompanying notes tackle the underlying discomfort many people feel about the idea of a middle-aged white man featuring the images of so many young black children in his photography. The video also features a couple of critics evaluating the value of his work at art. One says they’re nothing more than beautiful images; another says there’s a lot more too them, and the longer you look at them, the more depth you begin to see. I’m inclined towards the latter opinion of his work, which I thought was very interesting.

Anna Clarén
We were also impressed with the work of Anna Clarén, a Swedish photographer whose work documents the lives and experiences of those closest to her.

There’s an image of a “very pregnant” woman standing on the shores of a lake in Sweden, completely naked except for her gumboots. There’s a naked man floating, almost as if dead, just under the water. There’s a baby who is perhaps an hour or so old. My favourite, though, was the image of the top of a young child’s head. At first, the subject wasn’t instantly apparent to me. It seemed like just a few swirls. But when when you look closely, you can see the hair on the top of the child’s head in a swirl, looking almost like a cyclone or a hurricane as it appears on a television weather map. Many of the images are almost over-exposed, which I guess is a good analogy for the exhibition’s theme.

Henri Cartier-Bresson
The final exhibition we enjoyed this afternoon was a retrospective of the work of Henri Cartier-Bresson

Although he was one of the twentieth century’s greatest photographers, I wasn’t instantly aware of his name. I knew, however, many of the photographs, including one I’ve known and loved for many years, the photograph he took of Truman Capote as a young man. Compared with many of the later photographs of Capote which have tended towards the Studio 54 caricature, this particular photograph captures him as a young man, and with a dangerous look in his eyes.

The retrospective of Cartier-Bresson’s work features photographs from pre-1949 China, the early days of The Berlin Wall, works from India, Iran, and many other places. He was almost literally “everywhere” throughout his career. That it’s all in black and white brings all of these photographs, taken in many locations and over many decades, together into one cohesive body of work which is truly impressive.

So as you might imagine, the combination of great photography, great views, and Stockholm, would make for a wonderful place to celebrate my fiftieth birthday. If I win Lotto, it’s on!

Glass Menagerie

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In the back of my mind, there’s a vague fragment of a slither of a memory of having seen a production of “The Glass Menagerie” about twenty-five years ago (or more likely more) at a theatre in Brisbane. La Boite Theatre, maybe? Even so, my memory doesn’t extend much beyond the image of a woman sitting at the front of the stage obsessing over her small glass figurines. Without much of a memory beyond that, being Tennesee Williams, I just assumed there would have been repressed homosexual men with alcohol problems and unsatisfied women with mental health issues. I’m being silly of course, but you have to admit, these are characteristics you do find in other works by him including “Cat On A Hot Tin Roof” and “A Streetcar Named Desire” which are two of my favouite plays of all time.

As we made our way to Belvoir Street Theatre last night, Sue read out loud the article on Wikipedia outlining the plot until the point where we both decided we had reached “spoiler” territory. But in short, and without a spoiler, it’s a play set in 1910/1920s America, the South, about a woman and her two children, none of whom are very happy with their lives. The mother was deserted by her husband many years ago, forcing her to raise her children by herself, both of whom she describes as “not normal”: the daughter has a slight disability, and the son goes out drinking most nights, with a slight suggestion he might also be homosexual. The plot-line centres around the mother’s desire for her daughter to be “married off before it’s too late”.

Before the play started last night the director came out to explain this was the first public preview after an intense week of technical rehearsals. “This could be really good or you might be witnessing one of the worst, most memorable moments of Australian theatre”, he joked. It was pretty evident shortly into the production why the technical rehearsals had been so intense: this production relies HEAVILY (in the first half at least) on video effects. Screens to the left and right of the stage feature images captured from on-stage cameras in the style, I’m guessing, of a 1940s movie. Sue and I both agreed the reliance on the narrator on stage to have to move the cameras around became distracting. We both found we sometimes spent more time watching him than we did watching the action on stage. The set, although really clever, was also a little distracting, as much of the action took place at the back of the stage behind a flimsy see-through curtain. We both really understood what they’re trying to achieve with the set and video, but it just didn’t do it for us.

Which is a shame, because it’s a really good play. “It’s much more complex than I’d imagined”, I whispered to Sue at one point. If you’ve grown up in a family with any degree of dysfunctionality, you’ll immediately realise how believably flawed the characters are. The performance by the actor who played the daughter, Laura was, in particular, really good: really honest, really authentic etc.

It will be interesting to see how audiences and critics judge the production as it opens in coming weeks, being mindful of what the director said last night.

Looking towards the East Asian Art Museum in Stockholm

Thursday In Stockholm

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For the last couple of days I’ve been wondering if I should share with you one of the downsides of being in Stockholm at the moment. Even though, as I’ve said, it’s lovely and sunny in the daytime, it can still get quite cold. Unfortunately that’s caused my body some slight grief, and after much hesitation, today I’m revealing my legs, and the slight case of cold weather hives I’ve developed.

Cold urticaria is the proper name for the red welts which have emerged on my legs in the last few days. Even though I’ve kept myself reasonably warm and protected, it’s still been cold enough to have developed a fairly minor outbreak of the condition. According to everything I’ve read, it’s reasonably common, and even though it can sometimes cause death, it’s fairly easily treated with some extra moisturiser. So there you go. The bad as well as the good.

Cold Weather Hives - Cold Urticaria
Cold Weather Hives – Cold Urticaria

I was up reasonably early this morning checking out the online news. OMG, there was talk on Twitter, briefly, of another leadership challenge back home. Following on from successful leadership challenges in Victoria and the Northern Territory, there was talk Kevin Rudd had the numbers and was about to challenge Julia Gillard for the ALP Leadership. Seriously, the news in Australia is never as interesting when I’m back home as when I’m overseas. The talk was short-lived and quickly denied. I dropped a “sorry” note to my colleague back home, apologising for going on leave and leaving her to deal with the breaking news associated with all of these political happenings, as well as the election of a new Pope.

After a morning coffee, I spent a bit time of time wandering around Gamla Stan, the Old Town in Stockholm which is absolutely stunning. Since Sweden remained neutral during the Second World War, Stockholm escaped the bombing which destroyed many of the Old Towns in Europe. Thus, Gamla Stan remains wonderfully intact. And unlike other Old Town areas, such as Sydney’s “The Rocks”, Gamla Stan is more than a museum, more than one big tourist shop. People live in Gamla Stan. They have jobs in Gamla Stan that aren’t necessarily tourism-related. It’s wonderful to see an Old Town that’s living and, seemingly, thriving.

As I wandered around, a poster caught my eye in the window of The Riksdag, the Swedish Parliament. It was a poster which declared the Swedish Parliament passed lots of legislation every day. At the very top of the poster was an image of two men kissing. (OK yeah, that’s what caught my eye). For just a moment I reflected on the significance of an “official poster” from the Swedish Parliament of two men kissing. And, in contrast to Australia, it wasn’t a safe sex poster or something like that hidden away in a public toilet or a gay bar. It was wonderfully re-assuring to see something like that all official-like.

There's room for all sorts of families and relationships in Sweden. The Swedish parliament passes all types of legislation, according to this poster.
There’s room for all sorts of families and relationships in Sweden. The Swedish parliament passes all types of legislation, according to this poster.

But Sweden’s like that, you know. It’s been fascinating to reflect on the much discussed, much publicised gender equality you see here. And you do see it, most commonly when you see men pushing prams and bottle feeding their children in coffee shops and restaurants. Sure, men in Australia and other parts of the world do this also, but it’s so common place here no one seems to blink, whereas I think back home people would look and stare.

I also reflected today that the last week or so has flown by very quickly. Tomorrow I need to do clothes some washing, ironing and packing ahead of my trip to Berlin on Saturday. I also need to wash the sheets and make the bed, and clean up a little bit in the apartment I’ve been staying. In stark contrast to staying in a hotel or a hostel, it’s been so wonderful to have a place to call my own for the last week or so.

My friend Sue meets me in Berlin on Sunday, and we’ll be spending a few days there, followed by a few days in Copenhagen, and then back to Stockholm. We’ll be here for Easter which, apparently, is a pretty terrific time to be in Stockholm. Already the countdown is on with the feathers on sticks (a Swedish Easter tradition) all over the city at flower shops and stalls at the moment.

Swedish Summertime

Swedish Summertime

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It’s mid-afternoon and I’m sitting in a park on Djurgarden, one of the many islands of Stockholm. And I’m doing exactly what thousands of people are doing here right now: sitting around doing nothing andenjoying the Swedish summer. The weather’s been great all day. In fact it was hot for a while earlier today and I had to put my silly hat on, which makes me look so much like a tourist.

I haven’t begun wearing those backpacker sandals though yet. And I could never wear them with socks which, tragically, seems to happen all too frequently here. I saw a young kid at the airport yesterday wearing socks and sandals and had to stop myself from going up to him and begging him to stop wearing them before it was too late.

As well as a couple of doe-eyed couples looking longingly at each other, and another single male backpacker nearby, there are family groups everywhere. It’s school holidays here right now.

This morning at breakfast the hostel was packed to the rafters with kids, which immediately prompted me to set the alarm for about an hour earlier tomorrow.

There’s also thousands of Americans in town. Their presence has really surprised me, since I never thought of Sweden in summer as an American tourist destination. But they’re everywhere, and that accent can be heard everywhere loudly and regularly.

Swedish summertime in the park

And the gays have started to arrive for Europride, which is at the end of the month. As I got on the bus a little while ago, I saw a couple of Russians (I later discovered) who gave me that up and down look and a “knowing smile”. We chatted ever so briefly in broken English. Which reminds me, I’ve decided I don’t particularly like Swedish gays. They’re all a bit too girly, in my humble opinion.

This was particularly evident in an exhibition which I just visited at Djurgarden about gays working on the Swedish-American shipping line during the 1940s to 1970s. Lots of camp, lots of draq, you get the idea. I suspect The Other Andrew would really like the exihibition as it has some of those classic gay images he likes so much. It’s a good exhibition, and one I’d recommend, based on a book by Arne Nilsson.

I found out about earlier today, as I spent a bit of time this morning at the main arts centre in Stockholm. They have a newspaper reading room up there with delightful views of the city. You can just go in there and read the papers and no one bothers you. I was surrounded by lots of old blokes who obviously couldn’t afford the papers.

I sat there going through as many of the “what’s on” sections of newspapers I could find, trying to work out how I’m going to spend my days here. I can’t just wander around aimlessly. That’s just not my thing. So I’ve found some music to go and see (I’ve already been to a lunchtime jazz concert) as well as a few exhibitions here and there.

Walking through the city today, I also came across a pretty funny exhibition, actually, featuring road signs from around the world. It’s fairly US-based, and so a lot of the humour derives from Americans laughing at examples of bad English translations. I was more amused by the American signs. I mean, they speak English and they still manage to get it wrong.

Anyway, I’m heading back to the hostel for a little lie-down before heading over to Sodermalm tonight.

Morgan Evans plays Erskineville as part of Sydney Fringe

Country Music in 2015

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2015 was the year in which I’ve begun to reacquaint myself with my love of country music. As I wrote a few months ago:

Despite my inner-city reputation, I actually know a fair bit about country music, and I have lots of great “special experts” to draw upon to supplement the areas in which my knowledge is a little short. Having grown up in Lismore, I grew up with a lot of country music. Johnny Cash, Conway Twitty, Loretta Lynnn and the like were the soundtrack to my youth. And then having lived in a number of other country towns, I learned a lot more. I visited the Tamworth Country Musical Festival several times, as well as other festivals like Barmera and Gympie, and there was was even one year where I was a judge for Tamworth. For me, country music, the authentic stuff (I was never into anything cheesy) has been a strong part of “who I am”.

But having worked in “capital city radio” over the last decade, my attention has been drawn away from country music until recently when my attention has been brought back on a few levels. And so I’ve been listening to a lot of country music over the last few weeks, and revisiting some wonderful “old friends”.

It wasn’t intended. It was something which came out of the re-structure of the ABC announced back in November. As a result of the changes, the people looking after “ABC Country” were made redundant, which meant responsibility for keeping the station on air fell with me. Realistically, there’s not a lot of work required, as the station operates pretty much as an automated playlist station without presenters.

That said, it’s important for it to remain contemporary, which means adding in new songs, and it’s important that it should sound like a radio station, and not someone’s ipod! So I took it on, and was determined to achieve a few things. First, we’ve changed the station identifications which I hope bring a little more “life” to the sound, especially as they feature “real people” who are country fans. Second, we increased the amount of Indigenous performers on the station to include some wonderful new performers like Dewayne Everett-Smith, as well as classic performers like Roger Knox and The Mills Sisters. Third, we’ve increased the amount of Australian content from around 25% to about 70% at the moment. Fourth, we’ve introduced a new category of music called “classic country” which pays respect to some of the great performers of the past. And I have a great team of “volunteers” (country music fans within the ABC) as well as paying for some people with expertise in the area to help with the transformation. Honestly though, it’s been for LESS than the smell of an oily rag :) And for me it’s been a real passion project, mostly done “out of hours”. I genuinely love listening to the station, and I’ve re-developed my passion for country music. I love it.

So, with that in mind, here are my favourite country music tunes from this year (and the end of 2014)

Adam James is an Indigenous singer from Queensland. I think he’s terrific, with great songs. This song makes me a little sad with its lyrics.

Here’s some other Aussie favourites…

And in case you’re wondering, I’ve even managed to sneak in a couple of Swedish tracks in to ABC Country, as part of the desire to play more than just country from Nashville. Though a couple of years old, I love this tune from First Aid Kit, who I saw play in Sydney a few years ago.

I love this song by Canadian, Dean Brody. This song has a “Life At The Outpost” feel about it. Totally catchy.

Strictly speaking this song was from the end of last year, though I only discovered it this year. It’s from an American singer and the lyrics deal with same sex relationships.

In a more “traditional” sense, I really loved this song from Justin Standley.

My favourite band from the year was Melbourne-based Mustered Courage.

And in particular, I loved their cover-version of September

They’re also playing at Meatstock, in 2016 which I am totally looking forward to.

Oh yeah, and I become totally addicted to the TV show, Nashville.

It’s good to be back, loving country music.

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