Cardinal George Pell has finally charged on summons, with multiple offenses relating to historical sexual abuse, and has been ordered appear at the Melbourne Magistrates Court on the 18th of July this year. The debate over whether he will actually appear has commenced, with some speculating that he will simply refuse to leave the Vatican. He has previously denied all allegations against him, and for many people, particularly from the Ballarat region, this will be welcomed news. Pell has always claimed that he wishes to cooperate fully with the law, and with that in mind, it will indeed be interesting to see what happens in July. Recently, the Christian Brothers, now known as Edmund Rice Education Australia (EREA) formally apologised to the victims of abuse, whilst under the care of the Christian Brothers in Canberra earlier this month, which was most recently followed up with a formal apology from St Patrick’s College, in Ballarat, just a few days ago, It could be assumed, that following the royal commission, the formal apology of both EREA and St Patrick’s College, that the formal charging and sentencing of Pell is the next logical step in the healing process, especially for the survivors of abuse living in Ballarat.
0 Comments
A year ago today, I read an article that was warning the public about a political party, called Health Australia Party. This article warned people to avoid voting for this party, as they are an anti-vaccination group. This post, on Facebook, was promptly flooded with comments from people arguing the distinction between ‘anti-vaxxer’ and ‘pro-choice’. However, in my opinion, they are the same thing. The argument of pro-choice is that they are not skeptics; they are simply advocating a choice. But a choice between herd immunity, and potential risks to society seems illogical. Reading through these comments, I became very angry. Angry, that people with degrees in natural healthcare were stating that natural supplements are a viable replacement for medically researched and tested vaccines. In my mind, I put an ‘anti-vaxxer’ or vaccination skeptic in the same boat as climate change skeptics, anti-feminists, and people who are ‘anti-Muslim’. All of these people have the same thing in common – they cherry pick convenient statistics, quotes or archaic rules, to justify their point of view. Climate change and vaccination debates both have the same two sides – on one side, scientific and research based evidence, versus opinions, that seem to thrive on social media pages, often private or closed groups, where fear is spread. However, should anyone promote a ‘pro-vaccination’ point of view, it seems the followers of these groups come out of the wood work, ready to make a variety of unsubstantiated claims. The classic claim is that someone read a book, or researched on the Internet, and based on this information, which is usually based on someone else’s opinion, as a justification to try and recruit other likeminded people. However, I would question, unless you have a medical degree, you are unqualified to comment or debate this issue. A quick search on Facebook for vaccination brings up an array of anti-vaccination closed groups. It was alarming to read the disclaimers on these pages, in which they have a ‘troll’ authentication process, in which you must supply proof that you haven’t vaccinated your children. One page also suggests the creation of a new Facebook profile, so that your friends won’t know you are part of an anti-vaxxer group. Surely, a few alarm bells should be ringing, if this level of effort is required to be a part of such a group. Surely, someone who is pro-choice must understand that they are in the minority, and that they have enough self-awareness to understand that these groups do not have any scientific evidence to back up their claims.
While I believe in freedom of speech, it is vital that people are educated before spreading dangerous information, that in this case, has the potential to harm, or to even kill people – and not just people who aren’t vaccinated. Un-vaccinated people have the potential to bring disease in to the herd population of immunised people, and therefore, we are all at risk. Up until today, I have only written what I would be considered 'safe' blog entries, reviewing television shows or concerts. However, the reason why I want to write a blog is to encourage debate. Maybe I should no longer play it 'safe' !! The rhetoric behind Gonski 2.0 relies on an assumption that a marginal increase in funding will magically solve all of our education afflictions. Whilst the federal government is celebrating their vote-winning funding package, they have failed to address any tangible method in increasing student attendance and performance. Throwing money at schools isn’t enough. The teaching profession is a grueling and often unforgiving battle. The reasons why teaching is such a hard job is multifaceted, and requires our appointed leaders to actually spend time in schools, especially lower socio-economic public schools, to see just how hard it is to engage our students, let alone meeting the ever increasing demands in terms of workloads, administration and time volunteered. Teachers ‘burning out’ is all too common, and it seems that nothing has changed in the last twenty years, in which 50% of all teaching graduates quit the profession in the first five years. They leave due to the incredible demands that are made through both school leaders, students and parents, and the levels of stress that can easily spiral out of control. For anyone who isn’t a teacher, and who subsequently scoffs at a teacher, stating that teachers shouldn’t complain, they ‘get all of the school holidays’, surely have little comprehension on just how mentally taxing this job is. Teachers often leave the profession, as they can move in to another profession which has less demands and higher wages. An increase of federal funding is a good first step, but ultimately, it is the state governments, state Catholic Education Commissions, and individual private schools who control how funding for their respective schools is allocated, and more importantly, it is these stake holders who control teacher salary and working conditions. Student achievement and wellbeing can only increase if the teachers at the frontline are duly acknowledged in the form of appropriate working conditions and wages. Perhaps if these conditions are improved, not only will schools be able to retain staff, perhaps more people would be attracted to the profession for our future generations of students to benefit from.
Crazy Ex-Girlfriend centers on the protagonist Rebecca Bunch; a Harvard educated lawyer who quits her role as a lawyer in a top New York firm, to follow her high school infatuation, Josh Chan back to his hometown of West Covina, California. Rachel Bloom is brilliant as Bunch, who is also the shows co-creator. The show is generously peppered with outlandish and dramatic musical interludes, which sees Bloom and her supporting cast sings an array of ludicrous and comical songs. Bloom’s portrayal of a ‘crazy ex-girlfriend’ is borderline brilliant, being both creepy and endearing at the same time. The choices her character makes in the show seem foolish, however the viewer is left with a deep seeded yearning for her to ‘get the guy’, even though she needs to obliterate a relationship to get there. The sub-plot of the man the show suggests she ‘should’ be with, but is far too boring for her, keeps the shows momentum racing right until the end of the second season. Blooms character seems to draw inspiration from Tina Fey’s ‘Liz Lemon’ and Amy Poelher’s ‘Leslie Knope’, whilst also forging a unique approach to the traditional comedy television series. The show has received positive reviews, with a rating of 100% on Rotten Tomatoes for the second season. Being a Netflix binge-o-holic, I devoured both seasons in a very short amount of time, and I cannot wait for the third season to arrive. 'The best of Adam Sharp’ is the third book by Melbourne author Graeme Simsion, whose debut novel ‘The Rosie Project’ has gone on to be a best seller in countless countries worldwide, as in currently in the works to become a film. ‘The best of Adam Sharp’ follows a story of the protagonist, Adam, a British IT specialist who falls in love with Angelina, an Australian soap opera actress, while playing piano and singing in a bar in Fitzroy, Melbourne in the late 1980s. The novel's complication revolves around a rekindling of this relationship twenty-two years later, even though both Adam and Angelina are married. As the story progresses, an ulterior motive for their reunion is revealed, and Simsion’s ability to weave a complex and highly entertaining story is unfurled. ‘The best of Adam Sharp’ is a lot darker than Simsion’s first two novels, but nevertheless, is yet again, a ferocious page turner.
Please join the discussion at our Facebook page. Bill Paxton was an iconic actor, who featured in many of our childhood favourite films. For almost the entirety of his acting career he played smaller parts in an array of iconic films, such as playing a ‘solider’ in Stripes, a short-lived punk in The Terminator, an officer in Commando, and an older brother in Weird Science. However, as time progressed, these smaller roles themselves became iconic and legendary in their own right, where Bill’s performances and lines of dialogue were sometimes more fondly remembered than those of the main characters. His iconic line ‘game over man, game over’ from Aliens has been used or referenced in countless films, television shows and in advertising. His role of the slimy and cringe-worthy car salesman who convinces women he is a secret spy in order to sleep with them in the film True Lies was outstanding. However, he will most likely be remembered for his acting prowess in films such as Apollo 13, Titanic and his lead role in the 1996 blockbuster film Twister. It was 1988. I was eight years old. I remember watching Rage on Saturday morning, and being mesmerised by the single ‘Sweet Child O Mine’ by Guns N’ Roses. Around that time, I was also mesmerized by the band Poison. At this point in time, being only eight years old, the only physical music I consumed were LPs and cassettes that my father owned. I was listening to Dire Straits and Billy Joel on a fair heavy rotation at that stage, as these were the two cassette albums I was able to access and enjoy at this stage in my life. I would spend every Saturday morning in front of the television, watching Rage, with the VCR simultaneously set to pause and record, and at the start of every song I would press pause; enabling the record function. If it turned out to be a song I didn’t like, I would rewind and re-cue the tape back to the end of the last music video I had previously recorded. My goal was to create a VHS tape playlist of my favourite songs. Back then, it seemed, as a kid, you had to work really hard to create a playlist! This VHS tape had many tracks on it, but my two favourite artists were Poison and Guns N’ Roses. As my passion for music grew, I started asking my parents if I could get a cassette of my very own. This was a big deal for me at the time and I spent a lot of time thinking about it, in anticipation for an album of my very own. I had a dilemma, in choosing between Poison and Guns N’ Roses, and as it turned out, being only eight years old, I found the album cover of ‘Appetite for Destruction’ to be scary, and consequently chose ‘Open up and say ah’ by Poison. Thankfully for my parents, this album was filled with good Christian values and ‘relatively’ innocent lyrics. On the other hand, perhaps, ‘Appetite’ would have been a poor choice for an eight-year-old, to be singing along to songs about sex and heroin….! Nevertheless, I through myself in to ‘Open up and say ah’, memorising the lyrics to every song, knowing the liner details back-to-front, and generally be in awe of owning my very own album. As time progressed, I continued to build my VHS of my favourite songs by religiously watching Rage every Saturday morning, which by the end of 1988 included ‘Patience’ by Guns N’ Roses. Fast forward to 1991, I was eleven years old and in Grade 6. I had added ‘You could be mine’ to my ever growing VHS playlist, and I was in Ballarat with my mother. I had convinced her to take me to a guitar retailer to purchase a TAB booklet. I browsed the collection of TAB booklets on the stand and decided, based on my favourite songs, to choose ‘Use your illusion 2’ by Guns N’ Roses. I was able to further convince my mother to also purchase the album on cassette that same day, as it wouldn’t make sense to have the TAB book without the cassette. It was a huge win for me at the time. I remember very clearly, the first thing my mother did was read the lyrics. She wasn’t impressed, but nevertheless, allowed me to listen to the album. I owned a Song Walkman, and ‘Use your illusion 2’ became the soundtrack of my life. I listened to that tape so much that the paint wore off the plastic and erroneous sounds appeared at certain points, as a result of me pressing stop and rewinding to listen to certain tracks on repeat – such as ‘Estranged’, which to this day, is my favourite Guns N’ Roses song. I might also add, that my Walkman, was a very early version of the Sony portable tape player, and it only had the fast-forward function. This resulted in my stopping the tape and swapping it to the other side, to press fast-forward, which would allow me to ‘rewind’ the other side. The other interesting feature of this device was that when it had new batteries, it would play faster, and then gradually become slower as the batteries ran out. I distinctly remember having a friend in Year 8 who had a new Walkman, and I was blown away that it played at the same speed, regardless of how much the battery had been used, and that it had a rewind function – this was state of the art stuff! During my final months of primary school and throughout my first year of high school, I made it my mission to learn these songs in my precious TAB book. By the end of Year 7, I could play the rhythm guitar parts to Civil War, Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door, Locomotive, Estranged, You Could Be Mine, and Don’t Cry. Furthermore, by the end of Year 7 I had also acquired “Use your illusion 1’ on cassette, as well as the TAB booklet, and the cassette of GNR Lies. As I moved in to Year 8, I sat at my little keyboard and forced myself to learn the piano part to November Rain, which I still pull out as a party trick today. In Year 8, my parents had made a revolutionary decision in purchasing a brand new hi fi system that had a compact disc player. I am pretty sure I was the first kid in my town to have access a CD player. One of my very first purchases was a retrospective purchase of Appetite for Destruction, as well as the TAB book, of course. My collection was complete. The only thing left in my life to do at this point, was to go and see the band, at Calder Park. However, being only thirteen years old, my parents wouldn’t let me go, despite there being a bus organised to leave from my school, with teachers supervising… However, I collected every newspaper article of the band’s visit to our country, and proudly pasted them on my walls. I collected Coca Cola bottle tops to enter a Guns N’ Roses competition. I collected well over 100 caps, and as a result, I was awarded a bandana and belt bucket. As I entered Year 9, my love affair with Axl Rose and Slash concluded. From this point I transitioned to Pink Floyd and Grunge. From being just eight years old through to a reserved thirteen-year-old, Guns n Roses were my passion, my obsession, my heroes. In 2007, I went to see Guns N’ Roses at Rod Laver Arena – at the time, I felt, I was making up for a missed opportunity to see them at Calder Park – unfortunately, the ‘Axl Rose’ show as bitterly disappointing. Afterwards, I resigned to the fact that I would never be able to see my childhood heroes live in concert. Fast forward to a few days in to 2016, after having read both Slash and Duff’s bios, I was absolutely shocked when the Coachella Music Festival announced that Guns N’ Roses had reformed and were headlining the festival. I was in shock. Could my childhood heroes actually tour, and maybe play in Australia? Six months later, my dream came true. I felt proud and privileged to be an MCC member, which allowed me to purchase Diamond General Admission tickets to see Gunners at the MCG. I spent the months leading up to event in quiet anticipation. However, in the week leading up to the concert I became increasingly excited. Just the fact that I was heading in to the MCG to watch a concert with an expected crowd of 70,000 was exciting enough, let alone that it was Guns N’ Roses. Entering the arena was an event untoward itself. I simply could not believe how close we were to the stage, and every time I looked behind me, I was in awe of how huge the stadium was and just how many people were there. My friend and I used the time during the Wolfmother set to eat dinner and go to the toilet – as we both resigned to the fact that once we found our ‘spot’ in the crowd, there was no chance we would leave it until the very end. We grabbed our spot with half an hour to go, however, in true GNR fashion, they were an hour late on stage, which saw us standing in one spot for an hour and a half, waiting. Luckily, the delay seemed to be planned, unlike at Rod Laver or previously at Calder Park. There were animations and sound effects to keep the crowd slightly entertained. There was a slow buildup of the visuals and sounds, getting louder and louder until they came on stage. It was a glorious moment, despite the fact that we were referred to as ‘Sydney’. They played an insane set that lasted a staggering two and a half hours. I soaked up every moment. The highlight was, of course, the playing of my favourite song; ‘Estranged’. From what I could see, Duff and Slash have aged quite well, however Axl seems to have stacked on the pounds, however, he was still able to run around the stage at a surprising speed and do his classic swaying dance moves. My friend and I were on a high at the end of the concert. I’m not sure if that high was heightened by the constant cloud of pot that surrounded us, in a strictly non-smoking arena, or if we were just naturally ‘doped’ up on dopamine. Either way, it was a fantastic night, and was one of the best concerts I have attended, certainly the biggest concert I will ever attend by a single band. Guns N’ Roses will always have a place in my heart as my childhood heroes, and I feel blessed that I got the opportunity to see them live in concert, most likely for the last time, at least in Australia.
International pop star Ed Sheeran has just announced tour dates and ticket agencies have gone in to melt down mode, with secondary sellers trying to pawn off tickets at unreasonable prices. A similar issue occurred in Australia when Adele’s run of local shows went on sale. The demand was simply too great, and people were unable to get tickets due to websites crashing, while it also revealed the subsequent issue of secondary re-sellers, such as The Ticket Merchant and viagogo. The Melbourne show was reported to sell out in 30 minutes, with an alleged rate of 2000 tickets per minute sold. Overall, for her Australia tour, there have been over 400,000 tickets sold. Ticketmaster have legalised ticket scalping through their official re-seller website, however there are no rules on how much re-sellers can sell their tickets for. I personally have used this service for tickets to A Day on the Green recently, and I was thrilled to get front row tickets for 50% of the original price. This was due to a legitimate re-seller who simply could not attend and wanted to move the tickets on. However, while on this site, I noticed other tickets that were marked up massively, and clearly these are from people who have purchased tickets with the sole intention of selling them on for profit. Ticketek, Moshtix and Oztix do not subscribe to this ‘official scalping’, and rightly so. Furthermore, I had purchased tickets to go to Golden Plains a year ago, and couldn’t go, so the festival organised re-selling them via their website, at cost price, which is a great service. If anything, Ticketmaster are encouraging the practice of scapling, and are making money out of the process by taking a cut of these sales. Last year, I purchased tickets to see Guns n’ Roses. I noticed a few days leading up to the official pre-sale, that there was a number of sites that appeared at the top of the web browser, stating that tickets were on sale – out of interest I checked these sites out, and ticket prices were in the $800-$15000 realm. I was shocked, especially considering that I went on to officially purchase ‘diamond’ tickets in general admission, the best tickets that were available; which was a total of $360 each. However, the real issue is that if people are desperate enough to see their favourite artist, and they missed out on the initial sale, they feel like they have no choice. Perhaps this may come down to these international acts not playing in big enough venues or enough shows, or perhaps these re-selling website should be banned in Australia.
Roughly seventeen years ago, on a hot summers day, at the commencement of the year 2000, I had taken a leisurely stroll through Carlton North to a friend’s house. Upon entering the shambolic share house, my ears were drawn to music coming from the bedroom of one of my friends’ housemates. I abruptly entered the room and demanded to know what the music was. The guy smiled and said “It’s a band called Mogwai”. He was playing the track ‘Stanley Kubrick’ from the recently released ‘EP’. I was overwhelmed by the beauty of the music and declared that this music defined my taste in music. I went out the next day and bought ‘EP’, and a few weeks later, also acquired ‘Come on Die Young’. Up to that point in time, I was twenty years old, and had lived in ‘the big city’ for three years. Having moved from the country, my world had been pulled apart with the revelations of new music and local bands. Prior to discovering Mogwai, I was bathing myself in the sweet sounds of local bands such as Art of Fighting, 2 Litre Dolby, Gersey and By Ferry or Steamer. I quickly realised that a large part of what drew me to these bands were their forays in to extended instrumental sections in their songs, that they were all paying some kind of homage to bands like Slint, Karate and American Football. For me, Mogwai took all the elements of these bands that I loved and ran with it. I became a post-rock addict.
Two years later I would go on to form a record label, and sign and manage a post-rock band called Radiant City, who I worked with over almost the next decade, promoting their amazing instrumental sounds. During that time I also fell in love with the then Melbourne post-rock scene. I made every effort to go out and watch bands like International Karate, Laura, Season, Because of Ghosts, This Is Your Captain Speaking and countless others. Delay was my drug of choice, and whenever I needed inspiration, needed to be pumped up for an event, or needed a means of relaxing, I would turn to Mogwai. A miracle cure perhaps. My favourite LP is The Hawk is Howling, and a highlight of my twenties was purchasing the Batcat 12” single from Rough Trade Records in London. My favourite track is from the same album; ‘I’m Jim Morrison, I’m Dead’. When I last saw Mogwai live, at Hamer Hall in Melbourne, they opened with this track and ‘Heard About You Last Night’ and it was a surreal experience. I’ve experienced the ear bleeding bliss of Mogwai at Hamer Hall, a venue traditionally used for the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, as well as at The Forum, Melbourne’s best venue, and at the Meredith Music Festival. I can assure you that if they come back to Australia, I will be there, ready to experience every second in eager anticipation. If anyone ever asks me for a music recommendation, Mogwai is usually the first cab off the rank.
Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs is an insightful and deeply personal journey through the astonishing life of Jobs. Isaacson had previously written biographies of Benjamin Franklin, Albert Einstein and Henry Kissinger. Isaacson interviewed Jobs over forty times over a two year period, which was inadvertently just before Jobs’ death. He also spent a considerable amount of time with Job’s family, friends and colleagues, which permitted Isaacson to build an accurate account of Jobs’ journey from childhood through to just before his death. Early on in the biography, it is revealed that as a child, Job’s spent time with his father, learning about the process of building and manufacturing, where his father insisted that the parts of a product that people cannot see need to have as much attention to detail as the parts you can see. This early lesson became the driving force behind Job’s inexorable desire to ensure all components of Apple products were designed and manufactured to the highest standard, all the way down to the motherboard and processors, even though consumers would never see many of these design feats. It became apparent early on that Jobs was destined to flourish in the world of computers and technology, growing up in Silicon Valley, attending high school classes dedicated to building electronics, and having a summer job when he was 13 years old, along side Bill Hewlett at HP. Soon after this summer job, he met and became close friends with Steve Wozniak. However, it wasn’t until after Jobs worked for the then pioneering gaming company Atari, that he and Woz founded Apple Computers. The biography accurately tracks the progress of Apple, Next and Pixar, where both Jobs’ failures and successes steered him on a course that would lead him back to Apple in 1996, and ultimately lead to Apple becoming a technology company, rather than a computer company, and ultimately, the largest public company in the world. Isaacson’s depiction of Jobs’ ferocious and erratic behaviour evokes an image of a man who was deeply passionate about the creation of beautiful consumer products, so passionate that at times, it was clear he allowed no room for errors or anything less than perfection. Walter Isaacson’s writing is easy to read, highly entertaining and he has created a vital historical document of a true pioneer in our modern age.
|
About the authorObservations and opinions of popular culture, covering everything from music, film, television, people and other things. Archives
June 2018
Categories |