The Swamp Jockeys were (are?) in that great tradition of Australian bands that form and play just for the sheer fun of it – they must have run out of fun after a few years or found something else to do and for most of us have passed slowly into the happier realms of our memories.
READ MOREOctober, 2010
Andrew McMillan – we have a man down, but definitely not out…
If, in the Crowd, there’s one who’s not forgot me,
If there’s one, perhaps who asks how I am,
Say I’m alive, but deny that I am well: That I’m even alive is a gift from a God.
(Ovid, thanks to Paul Kelly via Chips Mackinolty)
Liam Campbell – Reflections on Yuendumu – country music, Collingwood and a horse-eating dog
I spent most of my 20s at Yuendumu; I feel like I grew into a man there, and I did not do it on my own. Maybe one day I’ll be that old man sitting on a bed, keeping myself company by closing my eyes and recalling these stories.
READ MORETen questions for Greg Barns. Lawyer, music-lover, runner and trouble-maker
I think that this is a long-term strategy but that what is inevitable is that we will see the end of prohibition policies. They are unsustainable. There is a global trend now to re-examine the policy of prohibition of drugs. It has been an abject failure. I think it will happen in Australia. It will be an incremental change and it’ll happen over the next decade. But it is inevitable.
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In Bali they have fish in the airport bogs…
As you do when you’ve had a few beers you eventually need to use the sanitary services provided…so I got a very pleasant surprise when I walked into the ground-floor facilities to see that the have fish in the bogs.
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Governments, ownership and control of the Yuendumu 100
“Warlpiri people are not slaves, yet many in ‘mainstream’ society persist in claiming some sort of ‘ownership’ of Aborigines. They arrogantly have opinions as to what Aborigines should or shouldn’t do, and believe they have some sort of right in deciding what is best for them. Warlpiri have no power over their destiny. No say in their future. No say in how they should run their lives.” Frank Baarda, Yuendumu 2010
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Ten questions for Omar Musa – Ubud Writers Festival diary
Omar Musa: Where do we go when we are dead? I have no idea. I cannot even begin to fathom it. I understand this idea of heaven and hell because I was raised in a strict Muslim family but…I know where I want to be buried though. I want to be buried next to the Molongolo River in Queanbeyan. I have such a strong connection to where I grew up in Queanbeyan. I guess that is spiritual.
READ MORETen questions for Tom Keneally – Ubud Writers Festival diary day 4
I didn’t want to follow Manly but my daughter insisted. Then the club committee noticed me on the hill so they invited me to sit with them one day and I behaved my backside off and ultimately became their No. 1 ticket holder, which is one of the highest states to which a humble Homo sapien can rise short of actually playing first grade rugby league.
READ MOREWhat do you do when you win 15 grand? Give it away of course…
Chips Mackinolty: “Katherine was isolating in those days. Unless you’d stayed in town for at least two wet seasons people would look at you as an outsider. And if you were crazy enough to do a third wet season they sort of thought, ‘Well, he might be a lunatic but at least he is our lunatic.’ “
READ MORESitor Situmorang at the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival
To begin, in the military regime of Soeharto at the time, we were put in the goal without any accusation – informal or formal. You were just…one day you were picked up from where you stay by a military peleton then you are just dropped into…
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