Perspective

/ beaumontmichael / 1 Comment

One of the great fringe benefits I receive from my work is the gaining of perspective. For two hours of the interview and the four or so hours I spend editing the recording, I get to see the world through someone else’s eyes.

I have interviewed famous and successful people, refugees, poor (by money standards) adventurers, scientists and beautiful parents. People from all walks of life and parts of the globe, and with almost every piece, I gain a new perspective. I get a glimpse of what it is like to watch your children grow into something unexpected, a glimpse of what it is like to leave your family and country behind in search of a better life for your children.

I have interviewed people that spent their entire lives striving for something, then upon attaining that something, realise it was not worth giving everything else up for. I have interviewed people that fell hopelessly in love and some from arranged marriages that grew into something special.

That is the thing that I love about this work. It moves people. While it is great for future generations to be able to get a glimpse into the past through this sort of first hand discovery, it is also important in the here and now.

Dummy-happy

/ beaumontmichael / 1 Comment

Listening to great music with my headphones on puts me in a state I call “dummy happy”. It’s the feeling that little babies must have when their mum pops in their dummy,  at the end of a long day awake and they instantly suck contentedly and their eyes close peacefully.

It’s better than sleep because when I am in that “dummy-happy” state, I am wide awake and very conscious of the sound or more accurately the effect of the sound upon me.

My toes occasionally gently wiggle, my tongue twists and turns as it taps out the time and my fingers sometimes twitch to the beat, but it is blissful, relaxing and intoxicating.
I have a long list of playlists on my iPod, some listed by their mood, some by their style but one of my favourites is called “quiet.” It was curated with this dummy happy state in mind. It is not all quiet music.

It is fair to say that most of it is instrumental but even then there are beautiful exceptions. The fabulous guitarist Antonio Forcione, the mystical Nick Drake, some beautiful orchestral works, the American jazz guitar superstar Pat Metheny, a smattering of Peter Gabriel, the quirky and sometimes somnambulistic Penguin cafe next to the ethereal Jenkins & Adiemus. The young American vocal duet, the Milk Carton Kids get a look in with a few tracks as one of the rare vocal entries along some peculiar Sting selections.

The world would benefit if everyone had a playlist like this at their fingertips. Not my playlist so much, but one that gave them that same “dummy happy” feeling. The music needs to be engaging without making you want to get up and dance. It must be gentle but not sleepy.

 

Merry Christmas

It just is…

/ beaumontmichael / 1 Comment

Im sure there is some science to back up this theory, or rather this observation. When you make up your mind to leave your job, or your wife or your house or your city or your particular situation, there is a point when your brain changes and things or events that were once just normal now become unacceptable. Its as though a good-will tap is switched off.

A friend of mine has decided to leave his workplace of the last 35 years and almost as soon as the decision was made, he fell out of love with his employer. I have seen it many times with couples I have known too. The marriage seemed OK but as soon as one of them made the decision to leave, everything about the other person became instantly unacceptable.

I have known people that had places in the country, a weekender or a side project that they lovingly and reliably attended for years. They stoutly defended the miles travelled and the opportunities missed while they crutched or drenched or planted or harvested until the day they decided that it was too much. Then everything about the weekender becomes the work of the devil. Its an interesting thing to watch.

I have often seen it in people that do jobs they do not like, but feel they cannot afford to leave. Trust me, you can afford to leave. If you don’t love it, leave. Your soul gets slowly eaten away and you cannot help but treat those around you with disdain. That does you no good and certainly doesn’t help those people around you, and possibly does real damage to some. While I advocate for people to work hard at keeping marriages alive and vibrant, (certainly in preference to packing up and leaving) I think that is a very different scenario to work.

If you are past the point of no return, leave.

 

 

Country property

/ beaumontmichael / 1 Comment

 

 

 

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As you may or may not know, it has long been the dream (I would call it “the plan”) to live in the country once the kids have grown up and gone their own way. Living in the inner west of Sydney, is lovely, and we have certainly made the most of the restaurants and cafes but the inner city lifestyle can be wearing.

My job has afforded me the luxury of criss-crossing the state visiting Bowling clubs so that has allowed me to see many of the hidden away corners. I fell in love with the East Gresford, Allynbrook, Dungog area about four years ago.

After years of doing what Anna calls “Property porn” (which I call “research”) keeping a close eye on all the property that comes to the market in the area we liked, and doing the occasional “reccy” we have finally found something. I’m no farmer so finding land that you can’t seriously farm can be a challenge, particularly as Anna’s leading stipulation was not being able to see the neighbours. We had plenty of other items on the checklist and though no property was ever going to tick all the boxes, this one comes pretty close.

Bingleburra Rd Sugarloaf (which sounds completely made up) is 6 minutes outside beautiful Dungog. The town has a hospital and a train station which means it is accessible by train from Sydney. It is 3 hours door to door, which of course real estate agents say is 2.5 hours from Sydney (meaning Hornsby). The town is well-known for the Dungog film festival (which is no more) and iconic test cricketer Doug Walters.

Barjol Sth (as it is to be named) is 159 acres, pretty hilly, about 50% cleared, with 4 small dams and two deep gullies. The road forms one of its boundaries and the property is shaped a little like a cashew. We wont be building on it for a while (maybe a few years) but we have a really interesting local architect (here in Alexandria) keen to be a part of the project.

The views both north-east and south-west are amazing, with the Barrington tops just a few Kilometres away, the property is often tucked up in the clouds and it snows most years. (albeit for a day or two) It is pretty much as far north as it regularly snows in Australia. This is kind of ironic as the reason I concentrated my property search north of Sydney and not south was all about temperature.

We are pretty excited about the future, we realise the purchase means that we will be poor for a while, but that’s ok. As I said, I am no farmer. I’m a city boy, I am going to struggle with killing anything. I guess I will learn, as I am completely aware that sometimes killing is the humane outcome. The aim is to live completely off the grid. Or at the very least to reduce the footprint my past 30 years in Alexandria has caused.

Bring it on!

The Rookies

/ beaumontmichael

I am about to embark on my favourite weekend of the year. The State Rookies finals at Raymond Terrace. Lawn Bowls is a game that is often marred by the image of old people in whites pitching a bowl from the hips because of their lack of flexibility, and nothing could be further from the truth, particularly this weekend. Though the game has long been viewed as a retirement sport (which it certainly can be) this weekend will be quite different to that.

To be eligible to be a “rookie” one must not have played for longer that 30 months. Last year we had a young 14-year-old make the finals, and we regularly have juniors make the state finals and two years ago (I think, but it may well have been three) we had a chap well into his eighties. I am pretty sure he would have beaten me a foot race around the block, he was amazing.

To make the state finals, these people will all have won their respective area (or zone as we call them) championships so they are all champions in their own right. They then travel to Raymond Terrace for a weekend of finals action in the hope of being crowned the state champion.

I love the weekend of competition for a number of reasons not the least of which is, I once played in the state finals about one million years ago. But more importantly I love it because here you have players full of love for the game, full of passion for the promise of future success.

We will crown another state champion in both singles and pairs by Sunday and we will also have fifteen singles players and 15 pairs that will know the taste of defeat. Some will be happy to have just got as far as the finals. Some will be fortunate enough to have the trophy in their sights, perhaps even make the final only to fall at the last hurdle. It will be gut wrenching, exciting, painful and it will be wonderful to be a part of it.

As a sports administrator it doesn’t get too much better than this weekend. We get the opportunity to inculcate and educate the next generation of champions, the next generation of club presidents and administrators. In essence we will be setting the scene for the future of the sport for the next ten years perhaps even longer. If we do it well, the sport benefits in the long-term immeasurably. If we stuff it up, well, we wont stuff it up.

We have a great team that works hard on events like these and they all look forward to this rookies event in particular. Simply being around players that have such a love for the game and a yearning for the competition cannot fail to rub off on you. Every member of our team returns from the Rookies weekend tired but also exhilarated and refreshed from the experience as we are reminded what an integral role we play in the future of our sport. Cannot wait.

This year we will be live streaming the event. 10 hours each day Saturday and Sunday, for more information check out the Bowls NSW website. http://www.bowlsnsw.com.au

No final lap of honour

/ beaumontmichael / 2 Comments

I have written previously about the tragedy surrounding footballer Adam Goodes. Usually I would reserve the word ‘tragedy’ for a death or serious injury. Clearly, or as far as I know anyway, Adam is fit as a fiddle, and no doubt carrying some injuries from his more than 300 games of AFL, but hopefully nothing serious. I use the word tragedy about us, about the Australian public, or at least large segments of it. For, most surely it is a death, or at the very least a serious injury to the often touted “Australian way”.

To our great and everlasting shame we held a disgraceful policy in the 1960‘s called the “White Australia Policy”. For those too young to know, it enabled this country to stop anybody that wasn’t the right colour from entering and allowed us to turn them away. At the same time we didn’t allow our own indigenous people to leave the country because we wouldn’t give them passports. Charming eh?

The subject has been debated at length across the country for months, but there are some idiots  still not getting it. The debate seems to have had some effect on those capable of reasonable thought, but on those ruled by their emotions, it has been “water off a ducks back”. As I witnessed at the final last week. Unbelievably, some fool dressed in blue and white stripes sitting in the middle of a few hundred swans fans decided it was OK to boo Adam Goodes when he had possession of the ball.

What the hell was he thinking?

I understand that the Americans who dress in white pointy hoods don’t think they are being racist either. In fact as far as I know, I am the only person I have ever met that admits to being racist. I’m not proud of it, I am really working hard at removing it from my makeup, but I admit that from time to time when I’m riding my scooter and I get cutoff by a driver with jet black hair I resort to a racist retort.

The news that Adam Goodes will not be part of the traditional lap of honour at the MCG Grand Final because he thinks the boo-ing will occur again is a tragedy (this is also the belief of many commentators). I have heard the pathetic arguments from boo-ers along the lines of “I don’t like him” but of course none of them have met him, so that may not be completely thought through. Or in fact any of the ridiculous claims about diving, staging or picking on nine-year olds, we should collectively and nationally be completely embarrassed by all of these arguments.

We used to be known as a country with a “fair go” attitude, though I think that may have been a sneaky political slogan slipped in from some previous incarnation of the Democrats, but regardless of its origin, we have clearly moved into an era of disrespect, of thoughtlessness bordering on 1770 arrogance. We, as a nation bear the blame for this stupidity. It terrifies me to think these same people vote.

Surely, as a nation, we can stand up and be better than this.

My head-on crash saved my life

/ beaumontmichael / 1 Comment

About six or seven years ago I was riding my scooter down the highway and had a collision with a car. The driver tried to cross the dual carriageway without checking to his right first. It was not quite a head on, but my scooter was firmly wedged under his front wheel and I was thrown through the air, clipping the top corner of his windscreen and tumbled through the air and bounced down the road.

I won’t say it was graceful, it was probably more pathetic in terms of its gymnastic qualities, but all in all, I finished up with a beaten up knee some sore ribs and a bit of mental bruising. When you are beetling down the highway at the allowed speed, you just don’t expect to have a car on the left of the road, pull out straight across you.

A hospital visit and a few months of physio and my body was set to healing, but my mind was struggling. With my leg in a brace I could not ride so I became a passenger in my bride’s car. I feared every parked car and every merging vehicle, particularly those that may not have followed the prescribed best practice for merging. I quickly became a screecher as I loudly abused drivers to the left and right at every intersection. At my bride’s behest I got some counselling.

At the end of the first visit with the counsellor we had pretty much dealt with the stupid driver and the accident and then for the next five weeks we set about putting the rest of the world to rights. My family, my workmates, my history, the whole bag of cats I had whirling around in my head. It was the most relieving process. The expression “a weight off my shoulders” has never been more solidly true.

It took several more months of thoughtful consideration before I can truly say that I had most of my demons sorted, but it was only six visits to the counsellor. I would not hesitate to steer people down that path for help. For me, that nasty road accident gave me the opportunity to alter the path of my life.

6 Things I wish I knew in High School

/ beaumontmichael / 1 Comment

1. You don’t have to be liked by everyone
It’s a simple fact of life that no-one is universally loved. Even people who spend their entire life helping others, have some people who don’t like them. Understand that, and you can just get on being who you are and developing good skills and character traits that will stand you in good stead for the rest of your life. Trying to impress everyone, is not one of those.

2. You will grow
When I went to High school, my nickname was “mouse”, and not because I liked cheese. I was so late to hit puberty that when I left year twelve (or 6th form as it was in the olden days) I was still under 5 ft tall. Far and away the shortest person in the year. It would have been really cool to know that one day, I was going to grow tall enough to be average height. Growing is not just about height of course. Back then I didn’t read books, principally because it was pretty much all that my big sister ever did, and I didn’t want to do anything she did. (I know, not a great reason) These days it is not uncommon for me to read three or four books a week.

3. The timetable is everything
One of the things that really doesn’t change much from the school environment to the work environment is that the clock controls most things, and being on time, where you are meant to be, is a great start to anything you do. Who was it that said 80% of winning is turning up? Throughout High school I never really understood my timetable. Consequently I rarely met expectations around timeliness and productivity. I spent the last twenty minutes of every class anxious about where I was meant to be next. Lets face it, if you don’t know where you are going, you are going to miss a lot of opportunities. Flying by the seat of your pants teaches you a range of skills that are useful, but they are no substitute for making the most of every second you are alive.

4. Teachers know some things.
That doesn’t mean they know everything, which was one of the sources of my discontent at school. i have always challenged authority, some school teachers really struggled with that. However if I had spent a little more time listening and a little less time challenging, I would have understood that you do not need to be a ninja master to be a worthy teacher.

5. The more you read, the easier it gets.
This is a bit of a tough one. I have already told you why I didn’t read while I was at school, but I am pretty confident that I also struggled to read at a pace that was sufficient to make it enjoyable. Ivy ou practice reading, there is a lot of information that is then at your fingertips. It allows you to read not only your text books, but also texts that challenge the established point of view. This surely is what education should be all about. The more you read, the faster you read, the more enjoyable it becomes and so on. I font wonder if there were authors like Matthew Riley around when i was young, if I may have taken up the habit at a more helpful age.

6. She will marry you and no other
This piece of information would have saved me an awful lot of heartache.

Men only

/ beaumontmichael / 1 Comment

Men are obstinate bastards. I know because I am one of them. We dig our heels in over stupid things, take positions on things we know little or nothing about and then defend the stance like we were the first to put words to it. We say “I know” when the truth is we are guessing. We run hard with stuff we “think” rather than finding some evidence, and sometimes we get a scrap of evidence without checking its real or sufficient.

I think it’s great to have opinions, anyone who knows me will tell you I have one on just about everything. My bride once threatened to buy me a T-shirt that said “Often wrong- never in doubt”. Having put up with me for thirty years, I guess it was the accumulated weight of 10,000 days of my obstinance that caused her to squeal with delight when she chanced upon the printed shirt in an online catalogue.

I do not have many male friends. I work in a male dominated environment and that may play a part. I prefer the company of women, they just behave better than most men. I know it’s a generalisation but there you go, see, Ive done it again.

If a woman is driving lost she has no qualms about stopping to ask for directions, but blokes would prefer not to ask and keep driving perhaps compounding the situation. They get themselves out of trouble with this technique just often enough to convince themselves that the petrol wasn’t wasted at all, it was an activity closely related to sightseeing really.

I have no idea where the obstinance stems from either. I belong to a generation that very much believes in the equality of women, but it seems they are not sharing the obstinance load. Sure you see it from time to time, but it’s not at plague proportions like is for us. I am waiting to see if the obstinance factor is handed down to the next generation at the same level of intensity. Certainly the generation before mine has it in spades, and my generation is all over it, so it will be interesting to see if it starts to fade away.

In the archive at work we have a store of magazine dating back to the 60’s and the “letters to the editor” section has revealed to me that the old guys in the 60’s mainlined the trait. Some of their letters were so outrageous, it had me wondering if the editor published them just to make fun of them.

It is not an attractive trait either. I have decided to make a concerted effort to be more flexible in my thinking and approach to the world, to ask for help before I think I need it and to not spend as much time being lost. It was Tolkien who said, “Not all who wander are lost”, he wasn’t talking about me.

Wild dreams and imaginings

/ beaumontmichael / 1 Comment

I was lucky enough to grow up with Meccano. My parents gave me a small set for Christmas one year and I think I may have stolen the rest. Perhaps I was given it as hand me downs, or borrowed it, but I did seem to gather quite a bit of it, in used condition (which was better than the new stuff I always thought) so I well may have stolen it from friends and relatives.

I spent so many hours building useless things with it I can’t even begin to add them up. I do not recall building anything of note, not a single useful thing, not a can opener or an opening bridge or a beach buggy, not even a crane which seemed to be all the rage in those days. I do however remember the social impact my playing with Meccano had.

Mostly because I was lazy, I did not put things away. Meccano is one of those toys made up of hundreds if not thousands of tiny pieces that can play havoc with a vacuum cleaner and even worse, rip holes in socks or even worse just stick into you like a splinter. Tiny bolts and nuts and cogs all of which could have been designed in some sort of bizarre housework torture chamber.

My mother was driven mad with me getting half way through building something monumental then walking away, with thousands of tiny odd-shaped pieces of steel strewn through the room. Or better yet, if I felt it was something really important I had to build I may have taken over the kitchen table or the surrounding floor, inconveniencing the maximum number of people.

So I have a vivid memory of people either asking me to remove it, or tidy it up or screaming at me because they had a piece imbedded in their foot because I had left it lying on the floor. It was difficult to know who was to blame really, clearly I blamed the Meccano, but I was flying solo there.

I remember swapping Meccano pieces with friends, all of whom were much more accomplished builders and engineers than I. Which is also perhaps where I get the idea that I may have pocketed more than the pieces that were offered in the exchange process. My negotiation and procurement skills were pretty strong even if my building skills let me down.

Meccano was probably the electronic game equivalent of today, it was time-consuming, absorbing and at best provided real skills while at worst was just a way of removing oneself from reality. I still find myself from time to time imagining feats of engineering that need to be built and then grinding them out in my head using imaginary Meccano pieces, usually arriving at the point of understanding or the aha moment with the realisation “so thats why that is impossible and has never been built.”

The other thing Meccano provided me with was a bookmark or marker. My life after Meccano and my life with it. My life with Meccano was full of envy and longing for other sets and pieces. Full of unsettling moments when my dreams didn’t quite match my capabilities. Full of moments where I unveiled my latest and greatest build to indifference and familial contempt. With my limited view of the world it was entirely possible to build anything I could imagine, which most of the time was not much.

Post the toy engineering set, life was full of impossibilities and restrictions and hoops one had to jump through before being allowed to participate in the next stage. Dreams and imaginings had to be based in some sort of reality. At least I don’t have people yelling at me anymore, oh wait…

Note: Michael is the curator of the The Life Log Project in Sydney Australia. Helping people tell their life story.
Note: Michael is the curator of the The Life Log Project in Sydney Australia. helping people to tell their life story.