...the wizdom of the elders

I just heard that Julia Roberts and Javier Bardem are in Ubud, Bali, making a screen adaptation of the best-selling, quasi self-help book Eat, Pray, Love. It reminded me a trip I made to Ubud a few years ago as a side to a friend's wedding on the south coast at Uluwatu. One of the party (who will be known as Silly) at the time had Eat, Pray, Love a the top of her list of such books, which she consumes with disconcerting zeal.

So of course she had to track down the real-life medicine man, 95 year old Ketut Liyer, the oracle of wisdom that features in the book. After paying a small Indonesian fortune for 30 minutes of wisdom, Silly (and some friendly witnesses) began her session. After a while of speaking in riddles, Ketut's eyes widened as he said "P!". "P?" Silly responded and Ketut replied "P!". "P, P, P" Silly pondered out loud. "P. Could it mean my boyfriend, Paul? P, P, P? Maybe it's a reference to my job at Pearsons? P! Wow. It sounds so profound and important, what could it mean?" "Pee!" Ketut replied. "Excuse me, I must go and pee".

After more mind-blowing inanity (from all witness accounts) the group departed, and were handed a business card by Ketut. It read...

Ketut Liyer
Spirtual Healer. Fortune Teller. Taxi Service

So after ripping off gullible western women, for an extra US$20 he will drive you back to your hotel too. What service!


It makes me think about the myth of elderly wisdom in general. Just because someone has been around a long time doesn't mean they are oozing with profound, almost magical knowledge and infinite wisdom. My bro-in-law and I once were about to embark on a 3-day trek in the highlands of Papua. On the second morning of the trip we asked the elderly 'chief' of the village what things we may need to bring on the rest of our trip, considering the mountainous terrain we would encounter and the people we would meet. After a long pause and plenty of chin scratching, he slowly turned and said, "I think..... it would be best for you....... if you should bring...... an umbrella." We didn't have the heart to tell him hat trekkers holding umbrellas look like complete douchebags, even if you do have porters to carry your load. The following morning at another village we asked the chief the same question. "I think..... it would be best for you.... if you should bring....... lots of cigarettes. You can trade them for anything you know". We did know that, and it's true. Forget carrying food and water. A carton of Lucky Strikes can see you through anything in some parts of the world.

...beep

'Beep!'

Sure new cars are nice to drive in many respects,and I like the fact that I've been giving a new flasho work vehicle. It makes a nice change from the old ute with the grass growing in the back. But it goes 'beep' way too much for my liking.


Turn the car on.

'Beep Beep Beep (put your belt on)'
"Yeah, yeah gimme a bloody second. Geez. So impatient."

'Beep (you are now in reverse)'
"That's because I put the car in reverse. You have an extraordinary grasp of the obvious."

'Beep Beep Beep (there is something behind you)'
"Yes I am reversing toward the fence that I CAN SEE because I have my OWN EYES and I don't need a stupid beep to tell me."

'Beep Beep Beep (the something is getting closer)'
"That's coz I'm deliberately driving towards it."

'BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! (Danger! There is a large clump of soft green grass behind you now!)'
It's freakin' grass! And you're a freakin' 4WD you stupid yet luxurious piece of patronising crap!

Gah!

Take me back to a simpler time. A time when cars just chewed up your David Bowie mixed tape and didn't constantly bug you out by going 'Beep' in your ear.

.

...avalon airport

Being an interstate man of mystery, I recently used Melbourne's only other airport capable of accommodating something larger than a Fokker Friendship, Avalon Airport.

You know your airport is on the quaint side when you drive straight past the gate before chucking a uey to investigate if that wooden railing fence you just passed is an airport or a horse stud. And you know it's a tad no-frills as you drive up the dirt track lined with large, painted boulders that tell you in a not too subtle fashion that driving off the track for a split second would be a very expensive exercise.

I like quaint airports. I once bought a plane ticket off a kid on a BMX. I waited under a huge mango tree as I watched the tiny craft buzz over the landing strip at 10,000ft. I was cheerfully assured it would stop to pick me up on it's way back, like I was waiting for a bus or something and the driver just forgot to see me. An hour or so later, I again saw the tiny white speck zooming through the clouds... then out across the azure South Pacific and over the horizon. When I eventually tracked down the kid for a refund at a nearby village, he apologised, saying that the pilot couldn't pick me up because someone forgot to mow the grass on the landing strip. (After an unsuccessful attempt to flag down an ADF helicopter to take me to my impending connecting flight on a faraway island, I ended up having quite an adventure involving a steely-faced ex-guerilla from the Bougainville Revolutionary Army, a tropical thunderstorm, two large outboard motors and a very sore arse*. Contrary to all my predictions at the time, I made it home alive.)

But despite the distinct lack of large mango trees, Avalon Airport has all the wonderful things you would expect from any of the world's great airports; overpriced and awful food, rude security staff, 48hrs 'discount' parking for $50, what's not to love? It even has several bronze sculptures out the front of oversized young 1940's type schoolboys playing with rockets and toy planes. They are actually kind of cute, but smack of some rich old bastard trucking magnate's fantasy, "When I gwow up, I'm gonna have an airwoport!"


Avalon Airport. 3.5 packets of beer nuts.


*the sore arse relates to the lack of conventional seating in the small, fast boat, coupled with the lolling swell of the South Pacific... not the price of the ticket.

.

...trouble in paradise (or where has all the frangipani gone?)

Just spent two nights near Nooooooooooosa with my second cousin inlaw's ex-parents inlaw's sister and husband, Trish and Jeff.

I haven't stopped at Noosa before. Tracts of kick arse bushland and gorgeous scenery broken up by large playgrounds for extremely rich old bogans. So that's how the other half holiday. I did like the green tree frogs though... and the seafood platter, and the flowers, and as I pushed through the Antartctic gale that swept the tarmac at Avalon Airport, the weather.

It was a nice but brief distraction, albeit under gloomy circumstances. Aunty June sure made waves up on the Sunshine Coast, the 2000 people at the memorial service being testament of that. Sports stars, olympic coaches, doctors and nearly every lesbian north of Byron Bay were there to pay their respects. Kevin Rudd even sent an extremely large floral arrangement, so I'd like to thank each and every one of the tax-payers of the land for that. I didn't really know Aunty June that well, but I've learned a lot about her life, which was adventurous and full, and devoted to the wellbeing of others. She would skip meals to see sick patients. She would not sleep until she had done all she could for the people in her care. And I heard some funny stories too, which I'd like to share.

Aunty June loved Christmas, and took tremendous pleasure in setting up a magnificent Christmas tree at her home every year. And one year she found the most beautiful 7 foot pine that would make the best Christmas tree ever. The only catch was it that it was in the front yard of the local police station. But June had a personality that tended to get her what she wanted. So she made her brother in law make a distraction while pulled over cut down the tree, tied it to the top of her white MG and zoomed off into the night.

But my favourite story was of June's cat, who died age 21. One year June had to come to Melbourne for a very important event, but the night before her cat was hit by a car and suffered terrible injuries. The vet advised euthanisia but June was having none of it, so the cat had all its badly broken bones and cracked skull wired up and stitched back together, like some sort of Frankencat. But June couldn't bear to leave her beloved cat to recover with strangers while she was away, so she heavily sedated it, put it in her handbag and took it on the plane as her carry-on baggage, hoping it would keep still and refusing to stow her handbag in the overhead locker. She didn't get busted either. Q remembers June arriving to stay with a groggy, half shaved cat stitched up like a baseball poking it's lumpy head out of her Aunty's handbag and presumably thinking though a cloud of blurry pussycat thoughts, 'Where the crap am I?' A great visual, and a great woman, I'm sure you'll agree.

.

...travel soundtracks

You ever been on a journey, to another country or place very different to the one you call home? A profound journey, one that changed your life? Did you listen to music while you were on that journey? When you hear that music now, does it take you back to the sights, smells, sounds and emotions of that time and place?

I have.

When ever I hear Coldplay I'm transported in time to a 26 year old me happily wandering around Central and West Java and Sumatra with a crappy walkman I bought in Bogor. I can almost smell it.



.

...trivialities

My laptop died last weekend.

Blogging will suffer.

And I have to try to fix it just to save some precious photos, otherwise it's a piece of shit not worth fixing. And I'm spending all next week in a hotel in a dead-boring, land-locked town in NSW, computerless (unless they have an internet cafe from where I can connect with the outside world).

I'm starting to get used to life without a computer being at arms length though. I'm rediscovering the joys of reading the printed word. I've got to read something more contemporary though. I'm thoroughly enjoying my Captain Cook biography, but my wife is teasing me for being such a nerd.

I may even do some writing, with a pen and paper, like I used to do back in the 1980's.

They're some pretty nice problems to have though, compared with the problems thousands of other Victorians are having at the moment. I can't write much more about it now. It's all been said a million times already. Though I did see some mind-blowing fire footage on the 7:30 report last night. A bloke in the mountains was home alone and had a fire shelter, so he stayed on his balcony until the last moment filiming the fire as it charged over the hill and swept through his property. Walls of flame 50m high at least. Pretty hairy stuff.


Have a great few weeks everyone, and I'll be keeping an eye on you all from afar.... that is, if the internet has made it Muswellbrook yet. Wish me luck.