Stray - 07Aug06 -(3/3)- Critical Pants Failure.

Something I'd like you to do before reading this one;
hit reply, hit send.

Don't write anything. Just reply, send.

There are one hundred and forty seven people on this
list, I'm interested in seeing who this is actually
getting through to.
Plus it would be nice to know people are still
actually reading these things.


We've just done the first two days of filming, was so
much fun I can't even believe it. Especially
yesterday, getting into the top levels of a carparking
building, pretty much deserted due to the Sunday,
throwing ourselves round walls and over rails, now and
then filming from the back of a flatbed, careening
round corners with the talent running behind and
around us, me bracing a cameraman so he doesn't fly
across the tray with us cornering so fast.
I am, of course, being saved from my inexperience by
the knowledge of others. Very lucky that.
But at one point on the Saturday I realised I'd put
all my tops on backwards and muttered 'oh, all my
clothes are on backwards', and the cinematographer
just sighs and shakes his head, like 'who am I working
with here?'

Anyway, back to matters at hand.

The last ten months:

Got back from Tasmania.

Went to the Earthcore festival. I was volunteering so
got in free. Supposed to be taking tickets at the gate
between noon and 8pm on the Saturday, but when I
fronted up they didn't have anything much for me to
do, as everyone had come through the night before. So
I just picked up litter for forty minutes and that was
it.
Which turned out to be a disturbingly large amount of
discarded
bottles. Coz when you get to the gate they search your
car for stuff you're not meant to bring in. So
everyone sees this coming and just drinks everything
they brought and throws the empties out the window.
But they still ended up confiscating an astronomical
amount. Dropping off a load of glass I caught a
glimpse in the trailer where they were storing it.
Measured about six cubic meters of full bottles.
These, I was told, would be auctioned off and the
money donated to the local volunteer fire fighters.
Fair enough.
Nice little festival. Two nights, caught up with some
old friends from Edinburgh, had a dance for the first
time in ages. Mate had some pure mdma ecstasy, and I
thought that, for the first time ever, I'd actually
try it.
However, I was drastically overcautious and ended up
only taking, like, a sixth, or something, and the only
thing it ended up doing to me was tasting bitter and
costing me $5.
Had a good night anyway.
On the way back home rode with Hollie, Cassie, Jason
and Damien, took the scenic route along the coast. We
pulled into a supermarket for lunch, I discovered they
stocked Anathoth jams, and just
_would_not_shut_up_about_it_

Daniel, what are you... are you just sitting back
there eating jam with a spoon?
It's the best jam... In The Wooorld! Wanna try some?
No, that's ok, thanks.
TRY IT!
What? No, I'm driving, Daniel... Get That Away From
Me!

Went to the Folk Rhythm & Life festival, which was a
bit smaller,
acoustic and laid back. Also met up with friends, also
volunteered and got in free.

Cut FRL a day short to go volunteer at the Digital
Media Festival. I'd helped out at the Melbourne one a
few months earlier and got a lot out of it (ambient
occlusion passes, mainly. This one I learnt all about
layered pass rendering and HDRI lighting. Nifty). Got
a bus up, stayed four nights in a hostel that was 50%
Germans, 50% Japanese. DMF was cool and informative
and really worthwhile, talks from guys what done
Narnia, King Kong, Star Wars. One guy who worked on
House of Wax came on stage, opened with 'we killed
Paris Hilton' and everyone applauded.
Sydney was in the middle of a mad heat wave (40C +)
but I was inside with aircon for most of it.
Last night of the festi was drinks and nibbles, I
ended up getting somewhat drunk with a film producer,
talked about my screenplays but Didn't Get Her
Contact!! Arrgghhhh!!!
Dumbass. O well.

Hitching back down I caught a train to that place,
walked for that hour, got picked up by that Peruvian
truck driver, dropped in that other place. Then got
picked up by a guy who was going to Canberra to pick
up his son, then on towards Thredbo. And I haven't
been through Thredbo before, and having seen the film
Somersault, thought I'd check it out. Guy ended up
putting me up for the night, which being a hitchhiker
who is not female, doesn't happen that often. But is
always good.

The problem with hitching through Thredbo is that you
can't.

At least, not over Summer when there are absolutely no
cars going through to Melbourne. So I spent two hours
sitting across the road from the ski field (it's a
funny little hill, hard to imagine snow ever reaching
it) before giving up and chucking it in reverse. Which
being a hitcher who is male, I particularly hate
having to do. On general principle.
Was making ok time, considering I was trying to cut
back-roads to the highway, got to one little town and
guy in the servo where I went for dinner was like:
there is no way you're getting out of here tonight. (I
was really glad he ended that sentence with 'tonight',
rather than 'breathing'; it was a funny little town.)
Tomorrow morning you should be ok, but no way tonight.
And it was looking like he might've been right, but
then at the last minute got picked up by two guys who
took me most of the way back to Melbourne.
We went over what Australia, perhaps as a
self-effacing joke, calls a mountain range. But it was
nice country. Big fire went through there a few years
ago, took out three hundred homes in Canberra, at one
point the front was a thousand kilometres long and
could be seen from space. Biggest drought on record
(at the time) dried the hell out of the trees and
undergrowth. And the problem with gum trees in a fire
is that they're full of highly flammable oil, so when
the flames hit them they quite literally explode. Fire
front can travel over 100 kph through a gum forest.
And the land there is just fucked. Guy was saying they
don't ever expect the soil to regenerate, what with
the altitude. Everything is black ash and tree
skeletons.

Last ride into Melbs the next day was with five young
guys. We pull into a service station just on hitting
Melbourne and I'm like, hey, I know that head of hair,
and it's Jo, my mate from Scotland and flatmate at the
time, just pulled in on her way home from a festival.
That freaked her out something chronic.

Spent a few more weeks, then up to the Woodford Folk
Festival for Christmas / New Years. Left, hitching,
from Melbs lateish Thursday afternoon, was on-site, at
the festival, lunchtime Saturday. That's Melbourne to
north of Brisbane in less than two days!
Kapwiiing!
Only hitch specifically worth mentioning was the van
full of Samoans that picked me up out of Brissie. They
were good value but'd been drinking, including the
driver, and at one stage we very nearly stacked into
the back of a truck on the motorway. Guy's wife yells
out at the last moment, he starts paying attention and
there's not even time to brake so we just swerve into
another lane and hope there's nobody in it. Which
fortunately there wasn't at the time. I turn to guy
next to me and say 'well, perhaps today _is a good day
to die.'
It's easy to be flippant when you're still alive.

But something else of interest that came up on that
trip were the Cronulla race riots.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_Cronulla_riots
I'd only really caught this thing once it was all
underway, so wasn't up on how it all started and what
it all was. Several of the young guys who picked me up
on the way to Sydney were more than happy to fill me
in.

Basically it was this. Group of young guys of
middle-eastern background were at the Cronulla beach,
in Sydney, breaking bottles in the surf and being a
general bunch of dickheads. Couple of lifesavers go
over to get them to stop, get the crap kicked out of
them.

All goddman hell breaks loose.

Because the guys were middle eastern (or their parents
were, and god knows young males of other races never
get together and act like dickheads) it immediately
becomes a racial issue and all these text messages
started circulating saying:
“This Sunday every Fucking Aussie in the shire, get
down to North Cronulla to help support Leb and wog
bashing day... Bring your mates down and let’s show
them this is our beach and they’re never welcome
back.”

Several talkback radio djs started in, with shit like:
"Many of them have parents who are first cousins whose
parents were first cousins. The result of this is
inbreeding – the result of which is uneducationable
people...and very low IQ."
(Brian Wilshire, Maquarie Radio station 2GB,
eventually forced to apologize for that one, then won
a lifetime achievement award.)

Five thousand people turned up that Sunday, it took a
week to get things under control again. You did not
want to be dark skinned in that place. Or, once the
reprisal attacks started up, light skinned.

Since then, and still currently, sales of Australian
flags have skyrocketed, you see people around wearing
them as capes. Prime Minister John Howard denied that
race played any part in the riots, though he and the
foreign minister are currently pushing for 'Australian
Values' to be taught in schools and be part of tests
given to immigrants, with anyone failing facing
deportation. The government hasn't explained what
Aussie values actually are, but they were recently
busted for funnelling $300 million to Saddam Hussain
in kickbacks, then covering it up. They also want
Australian history taught, but still firmly deny that
any massacres ever took place against Aborigines.

And ok, ok, it's starting to sound like yet another
one of those emails, but let me just get this one last
thing out and I'm done (as I no longer live there and
don't have to care any more): Australia is now a
country where people can disappear.

ASIO (the secret service) can under the new
anti-terror laws seize any person at any time and hold
them indefinitely without charge or trial. They only
need tell a guardian or employer that the person is
'safe', if that person mentions even that much to
another person, both face five years in prison. To the
degree that one parent can't tell the other they even
suspect the government may have their child.
Also, areas can now be locked down under a kind of
martial law, with a blanket shoot to kill policy in
place, though if anyone is shot dead by police, they
are then to take into custody any witnesses, who are
then forbidden by law to ever say what they saw. Any
inquiry in to the death would be illegal.
Maximum penalty for an ASIO officer abusing their
position: two years. Penalty for a journalist who
makes public that abuse: five years.

But I don't live there any more.
Being emotionally involved in the well-being of a
country like Australia is like being in an abusive
relationship.

Um, right, arrived at Woodford.

Jo and Dave were at the time half of a professional
fire performance troupe, (are now all of a different
one: http://www.cirquemystique.com ) and were getting
into the festival for free. I went along as their fire
safety technician (ahem) and also got in free. Except
whereas they had to put together, rehearse and perform
a full show, all I had to was lurk out the back and
throw fire blankets over things for half an hour each
night.
And operate the smoke machine. Which being the only
creative input I had, it's fair to say I got a bit
carried away.
Smoke everywhere.

'Yeah, Daniel, good show, good dousing, just if you
could go a bit easier on the smoke? People were saying
they couldn't actually see us for ten minutes at a
time.'
'Oh, yeah, cool. No wakkas.'
Next show: ccchhhhhhhhhhoooooowwwwwwww... chooow..
choow.....
chhooooowwwwwwhhhhhhhhhchchchwwhhchhhwwwwooooo...

'Yeah, again, good... liihhhttle less smoke.'
'Mate, you got it.'

Cccchhhhhhhooooooooowwwwwwwwwwwhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhoooowwwwwwwwhhhh....

Ahhh. Good times.

And Woodford was really cool, as always. There were
like thirty of us from Edinburgh, or something
ridiculous, all camped together. Hottest on record
(average daily temperature 42c) and a couple of big
storms came through (woken at 5.30am by a FLASHBANG!
Of lightning that couldn't've been more than 100
meters away. I'm crouching on one foot, so as to
minimise my potential gradient to the ground, then
notice that what I'm crouching on feels suspiciously
like a water bed and have to dash out into the monsoon
rain to dig irrigation ditches around my tent so I
don't end up swept off the hill.)

I haven't really been spinning much poi or staff these
days, but I have been playing around with contact
devil stick. Which is a little hard to describe but is
basically using a flower stick (50-60cm)without the
control sticks, and rolling it around your hands, arms
and body. I came up with it by accident one day and
I've only heard of one other person who does it.
Anyway, there was a circus area this year at Woodford
and over two days I spent Seven Hours playing with
this thing. And I'm not trying to bigup miself here,
but by the end of this I was pulling off shit I
wouldn't've even thought possible.
Like having a stick going in each hand. Which unlike
poi or double staves is one too many to conciously be
focusing on, so I'd just sort of set my right hand
going and then concentrate on my left. And it was by
the fourth time I'd dropped on my left that I realised
I still hadn't once on my right, and that I had
_absolutely_no_idea_ what it had been doing that whole
time. Purely non-concious highly reactive movement.
It was really really trippy. Like having your brain
pulled in half. In a good way.

Coming down to Brisbane to fly out again I was
experiencing that phenomena where every single thread
in an article of clothing suddenly decides to give way
simultaneously. It'd happened with both tshirts at
once in Tassie, now it was threatening to happen in my
corduroy shorts.
I was frantically sewing and repairing, just trying to
buy enough time to get back to Western Australia, but
it was a losing battle. I was terrified that I'd be
going through airport security and the whole system
would collapse with a sound like popcorn going off, a
cloud of cotton dust, and a brief awkward silence.
I don't want my last words to be “It's not an
explosive device, it's just my pants!”
Kablam.
Thud.
(Kablam kablam kablam.)

Flew out of Brisbane to Perth. And I think now that's
the circle complete. Well, when I say circle I mean:
WA – Melbourne – Tasmania – Melbourne – Earthcore –
Melbourne – FRL – Melbourne – Sydney – Melbourne –
Sydney – Brisbane – WA – Melbourne – Brisbane – Sydney
– Melbourne – Brisbane – Wellington.

(...but I once taught a parakeet to hitchhike.
Couldn't speak a word, but he was a hitchhiking
fool...)

So now I'm in Welly and it's all very strange and all
very the same and our neighbour is a wildlife
sanctuary.

I'll stay here until the clip is finished, then head
down south to visit sister, father, and ski fields,
then me and Rosie have a date in south east Asia,
maybe heading through to India...

Big Love to you all.

Daniel.

(8345 words, 144 parenthesis, 24 Sentences Capitalised
For Accentuation, 31 dot dot dots...)