Happenings both home and abroad

Looking back at this week I think there has been some big developments going on. The most obvious is that you are reaching out to grab things now. You look like you have cerebal palsy still, arms don’t go exactly where you want them to, but its getting there. This means that you are now aware that you have arms. You are also tending to smile only to the people you really know instead of anyone. This means that you recognise individuals by sight and you are understanding those who you see most often.

Another big thing has been your attempts to roll on to your front. You are getting so close to success; your arms go over and then your leg; your head is facing the floor and its just that last little roll that isnt quite happening.

We got some great nursery rhymes from the library as well as a great DVD with music and different shapes to stimulate your brain. You love both of them. Mum was saying that your memory is getting better at this stage so when she puts the CD back on you get excited as you recognise the songs. I went and bought a Ukulele yesterday so I didn’t have to lug a big guitar to you, it just wasn’t happening. This is much much better. I played you a little song I made up on the walk home from the station (I must have looked like a wandering minstral) and you really enjoyed it. I cant wait to learn lots of songs for you. The aim is to create consistency for you at nights. Massage, Bach, quiet and a bedtime song (which I want to be See You In My Dreams).

Yesterday morning because it was so hot, Mum left you in the living room. Problem with that is I get up in the morning for work and have nowhere to get ready without waking you up. So we tried to creep in and pick up the bassinet and take it into your room. You were already stirring so by the time we were carrying you to the room you opened your eyes, saw me and started smiling away - "Hello Daddy, I see you". It is impossible to ignore your smiles, they are so cute. Mum and I just grinned at each other. But I kept quiet and we closed the door so Mum could express some milk and I could keep getting ready for work.

I was listening to a Podcast on an event I completely forgot about. I cant even remember where I heard it but as soon as I heard the first few bars I remembered. It was Marvin Gaye singing Stars and Stripes at the 1983 NBA All Star Game (it was also his last televised performance before his death). It really connected with people and became one of those happenings. Happenings are in my mind events that can have a profound impact on people and become part of cultural identity or even the global identity. Its an event that people talk about and remember for the rest of their life. Here are some I thought of quite quickly -

Marvin Gaye performance - nothing like this had ever been done before at a more conservative event. An interpretation of the national anthem. Its shook the country. Apparently the rehearsal went really badly.

This wasn’t a happening for me but I cant leave it out because it was even bigger than Gayes version. It spoke to a generation of Americans, most of them were hippies!


Australia 2 wins Americas Cup. This one I remember very well. I was screaming along with everyone else. I was watching it live at about 6am in the morning in the living room and it was a historic win (America had won it since 1851). It was a collective celebration. Its sort of the moment that Australia grew up and was recognised. It was the single biggest sporting moment in our history. It didn’t matter that most people knew nothing about it before this. I went crazy. To me it is these kind of happenings that prove there is a collective unconscious. The special winged keel which was kept a secret added to the mystique. Also read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia_II



Muhammad Ali lights Olympic torch 1996. This has never left me. I was in tears watching this great man light the cauldron. There is so many levels going on here. He was the greatest most recognised sportsman ever and a great man to boot. Then there is his parkinsons which showed the world that nobody is infallible. It was such a shock to see him there for both these reasons. Nobody could have guessed he would be there as he really never appeared in the media. I suggest you watch Rumble in the jungle to understand what the fuss is about. It was a worldwide event, a great moment in history.



Kathy Freemans at the Sydney Olympics was also up there. The most shocking was the 92Barcelone Cauldron lighting. This guy had to practice and practise to ensure he got it right.


MASH - goodbye, farewell and amen. Ok so it’s a TV show, but it was the longest running show at that time and when it finally ended it was a really big deal. It helped that the final episode was amazing. The end of something like this is almost heart breaking. Its like a death. Something like 85 million people watched this final show. That is incredible. Think about it. The most personally emotional final show for me was The Wonder Years. I watched it with Martin and then on the drive home I had to stop the car because I was sobbing. It represented the end of my innocence as well. Time to become an adult, it was the death of my youth. A watershed moment. A great final episode can be almost unbearable to watch because it hurts so much.


Michael Jackson Moonwalks - Motown 25 years- 1983. This was worldwide news which is a little weird in some ways. But I think the combination of an amazing dance step never seen before with such and incredible song was enough to cause ripples and herald a new mega stars arrival. People saw this few seconds and just went WHAT WAS THAT! Thriller came along soon after this. He was totally unique and the world had not seen anything like this since the days of the musical in the 20s and 30's. I only saw it on the news, not the whole performance. In fact it was years before I finally saw it all. This was before the likes of youtube!


Princess Diana dies - well this was a big shock as well. Again im not a royalty fan or anything but I felt this collective shock at her death and I guess the media coverage which was exhausting makes it hard for you not to be involved. She was a good woman who got screwed over. The world was a lesser place without her.


Kurt Cobain dies - John Lennons death was bigger but I just have no memories of it. Not sure why really. But this one really rocked me. I was so upset by his feeling like he had to take his own life. It was sad but also the worst possible thing for our generation. He spoke to a lot of disillusioned people and whether he liked it or not he was someone we looked to for inspiration. I grew up in a generation of no heros and very few people you could look up to. I don’t really think there were any great people for the youth to gravitate towards. The 80's were all about making money and personal gain. Our movies and music really show this. I just had a hard time with what Kurt did and still think that a few years and he would have been relatively left alone. There are also the obligatory conspiracy theories that he was murdered.


9/11 - not much I can say about this one that isnt really obvious. It’s the biggest thing to happen in my life because America is so similar in many ways to us. It is certainly not the worst thing that has happened in my time; bombs go off killing hundreds far too often in the Middle East. But again this was about the footage, images that burnt into your brain. It was always going to be a spectacle, a macabre blockbuster. Compare this to the killing fields in Cambodia which happened when I was a child and you see that it pales in comparison .(The executed were buried in mass graves. In order to save ammunition, the executions were often carried out using hammers, axe handles, spades or sharpened bamboo sticks. Some victims were required to dig their own graves; their weakness often meant that they were unable to dig very deep. The soldiers who carried out the executions were mostly young men or women from peasant families. Estimates of the number of dead range from 1.7 to 2.3 million out of a population of around 7 million.) But because we actually got to witness the gigantic buildings crashing down it was always going to be given more impact than it deserved. I don’t pretend not to be a media voyeur so I was glued to the TV for days.


Watching Breakfast Club for the first time - this was the film of my generation. It spoke to me so completely. Martin and I would watch this all the time, must have seen it well over 100 times. We knew pretty much all the lines and would turn the volume down and do the lines ourself. Im not sure if it will mean anything to you or not. I wanted to be Judd Nelson and I did start dressing like him and growing my hair. I think we were the pissed off generation. We had issue with authority, sub cultures were popping up everywhere from goth to sporto's to geeks. All of a sudden it became really important for you to fit into a category and define yourself by that. Music, film and fashion started to break into sub categories and it was really the end of the super groups that everyone listened to. There was no Beatles or the like. U2 were the closest thing. Nobody wanted to be ordinary any more and the influence of media really started to have an impact on peoples perceptions. At the time I thought it all very dull. But then as a group we all made a point of looking pissed off. It was our shtick.


The Young Ones Episode 1. This was my cult TV show. It was rude, silly, crazy and spoke to our generation of dissefected youth. I mentioned before how things started to get broken down into sub groups. Genres of music became much more obvious and having these four very different characters living together was the perfect expression of this. It is hard to explain how entrenched this show got in our lives. We could literally go for hours just saying quotes from the show. It became part of our language, much like the Simpsons did later. It was a huge part of my youth and that first time I sat down and watched what all the fuss was about, I was in teenage heavan.


Ash Wednesday. This was a really scary time. Major fires were occuring all around the Yarra Valley. I remember walking out on the patio, it was pitch dark and in the distance I could see a red glow and all around me white ash was falling like snow. It was apocalyptic and may have fueled my obsession with that genre.


Protest march against the war in Iraq - 2006. I had never been involved in a march before. I am not community minded enough which is a failing. But this war was so obviously wrong and motivated by greed that I was compelled to join along with the many many thousands in voicing my outrage. I went with Charles and we really felt like we were part of something very special. A collective voice and mind marching down Swanston Street to the City Square. It was very emotional and very spiritual in a way. When a collective of people all have their attention on one thing it can be very powerful. It didn’t help much really because these people just do what they want anyway, however it did end up contributing to the downfall of both John Howard and UK PM Blair who agreed to send troops to aid America in this illegal invasion. It is a fascinating psychological phenomena to realise that it is the US that has committed acts of evil on a scale never seen before using chemical weapons of mass destruction (Hiroshima) and yet we ignore that and fear the middle eastern guy who in the end didn’t even have any built! There is no videos from Melbourne but watch this one.

Breastfeeding in all weather, a conversation starter

Its raining today, and because my moods are entirely based around weather patterns I am now feeling great. It seems my increasing good mood is directly disproportionate to the decreasing temperature. I have spent the past few days filling in gaps in the brickwork downstairs and applying paint. It is something I quite enjoy, listening to Podcasts and doing repetitive tasks. It frees the brain up to think and learn new things. I feel like im on a race for time here, your Mum expressed a tiny bit of colostrum which is another visual sign of your arrival. One thing I have been remiss in is reading my book about the babies first year, I need to get a crack on there and stop reading books about Zombies.

Dylan Thomas once stopped in his tracks while walking and talking with a friend and said "Somebody's boring me - I think it's me." I totally associate with this statement. In fact I said virtually the same thing to your Mum a week ago. I sometimes hear myself talking and I come over with the most intense feeling of boredom and just wish that I would shut up. I excerpt far too much emphasis in how I believe people perceive me. I so desperately wish people to think I am the most fascinating chap they have had the pleasure of associating with that I forget to associate with them. Your Mum has offered a few examples in which I have also made it plainly obvious that I find other persons conversations tiresome by getting up from the couch and wandering off. Sometimes I wish I could do that to myself. The art of conversation is disappearing as far as im concerned. Read sections of David Copperfield or Pride and Prejudice and you will notice the art and skills required to truly converse with flair. My friend Ryan's family were always great conversationalists. We would sit around discussing topics ranging from astral projection to the art of the fart. His father Thom was a brilliant orator, his quick Irish wit and piercing intellect made for some fascinating and passionate arguments. It inspires me now to do the same with you. I can imagine sitting around the table eating tea and discussing various topics. Each night we could bring to the table a topic for conversation and really spend some time on it. What a great way to improve your debating skills and it can only aid you in the future when dealing with difficult and dominant characters. Ryan and I still converse with depth every time we get together. I can’t recall if I had posted about our recent dinner in which we discussed spanking. It went on for about half an hour and everyone got involved. It makes you think, makes you have an opinion and makes you back it up. My conversational skills have been lost to some degree because I really don’t have anyone whom I talk to on a regular occasion that wants to go in-depth on any subject except for Matt with our Podcast. I like to have my opinions challenged because that’s how I can see just how robust my opinions really are. Over the last few years I have had to reassess my opinions on all manner of things and thankfully my ego is resilient enough to cope with it. I think I also have to be more attentive to people and actually ask them how they are, what they have been up to etc because I really never do this. I would much rather discuss their feelings on mulesing or their top five books.

This is later on. I don’t think I should doubt my ability to get my point across. I have lots of interesting things to say, im just not sure the people I am talking to either care or understand. This is not ego, it’s just that not many people care about the art of discussing various subjects with aplomb. I have always enjoyed my conversations with Ryan and Jan the most of all my friends. We would make great Gatsby’s.

Bought The Rough Guide to Cult Fiction.
Learnt about author Kobo Abe.
Listening to a great Podcast called The Music Show from 17/11/07 on musical therapy for the disabled. Also listening to Robert Wyatt’s Comicoopera. My favourite music to listen to right now is Verdi’s Requim.

Hot and grumpy in the worlds driest continent

I was downstairs yesterday preparing the brick walls, filling in the holes and gaps then painting on top. Well big surprise, your Mum doesn’t like the colour! Is it all women that are like this? Are you like this? Its infuriating when all decisions are second guessed.

Its really hot at the moment and that does not help. Awful weather, I would be happier in a place where it never went higher than mid 20's. Its really hard to work out if we really are in dire straights in Australia or not. The dry spell we are going through these last few years could be part of a bigger cycle and maybe in a few years the weather patterns will change again. It could also be what we are doing to the planet with carbon emissions and the like. I do talk about moving to a place where water will not be an issue. I wonder what its like for you now. We are already on the driest continent on Earth and up until a few years ago you weren't allowed to add water tanks to your residential home. That is how reactionary we are as a society right now. But the media has jumped on the environment bandwagon now which is a good thing. Media is the new religion so whatever it says goes. If the taste makers decide that we should all be wearing hats with stuffed animals on them then in a year there would be no pets left unstuffed. Being water wise is now a popular thing to do. In fact not long ago a guy was shot and killed by his neighbor for watering excessively when he shouldn’t. The things making people scared right now are the weather and terrorists. When I was young it was the threat of nuclear war before Russia crumbled as a superpower. Environmental disasters are occurring all over the world and nations like China and North Korea are becoming wealthier and more powerful. Each generation has its own fears and troubles. My grandparents generation had it the worst. Two world wars and a shocking recession. You should read Tim Winton's Cloudstreet if you haven't already. We are bringing you in to a time of transition. Its really not certain what is coming. There is a part of me that is fearful of how quickly China is growing, we are essentially unprotected down here. The only reason we would be left alone is because we are not close to anything significant. But we are abundant in natural resources and we would be paradise to the average Chinese farmer etc. John Marsdens series is not that far fetched.

I am in a grumpy short tempered mood today it seems. I need to acclimatise to the heat. One of my philosophies is that nothing can make you feel anything unless you want it to. Now the weather is not making me feel moody, I'm allowing the weather to make me moody. Its an indulgence really but that’s ok sometimes. Let off some steam as it where.

Every time I write in this there is a voice in the back of my head that says "how is she possible going to read 18 years worth of this, are you insane?". Then another voice sounds out from deep down telling me that this is an important task. It may be that future generations of my family read this or it may be that it only helps me work out my feelings and thoughts. Either way I am going to continue writing.

Fact of the day -
The Milgram experiment was a seminal series of social psychology experiments conducted by Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram, which measured the willingness of study participants to obey an authority figure who instructed them to perform acts that conflicted with their personal conscience. The experiments began in July 1961, three months after the start of the trial of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem. Milgram devised the experiments to answer this question: "Could it be that Eichmann and his million accomplices in the Holocaust were just following orders? Results were - Before conducting the experiment, Milgram polled fourteen Yale University senior-year psychology majors as to what they thought would be the results. All of the poll respondents believed that only a sadistic few (average 1.2%) would be prepared to inflict the maximum voltage. Milgram also informally polled his colleagues and found that they, too, believed very few subjects would progress beyond a very strong shock.
In Milgram's first set of experiments, 65 percent (26 of 40) of experiment participants administered the experiment's final 450-volt shock, though many were very uncomfortable doing so; at some point, every participant paused and questioned the experiment, some said they would refund the money they were paid for participating in the experiment. No participant steadfastly refused to administer shocks before the 300-volt level.

John Marsden and my hippy genes

Do you remember my mentioning the Tomorrow Series by John Marsden? Well he has opened a school of his own called 'Candlebark'. If it were possible that is where is would like to send you. This is from an article about this - He also wanted to ensure that his school was not too rigid or inflexible. "I like the idea of a school that's full of surprises, full of humour and with an interest in wisdom as much as knowledge, because they are two different things," he said. Australian schools tended to use these two words synonymously. "Acquiring knowledge is all very well and useful, but acquiring wisdom is also pretty damn important," he said.

Oh my girl, haven’t I said this to you so many times in your life? It is our generation’s greatest misunderstanding. I do start to wonder if we will be making a hippy out of you. But you know I think your generation can do what our parent’s generation failed to accomplish in the 60's. You have inherited a dodgy climate from the last four generations thanks to industrialisation after WW2. I think that if you are passionate about the Earth and about its life, that you would probably find a career that you can truly love and also make a difference. This means that science and some maths will be essential for you. So that is my early prediction. We have brought up a greeny. And if I am completely wrong it would make no difference to me, your life is your own, and I just helped you through. I hope………