DVD view

 

• Bread and Tulips (really sweet Italian movie with Bruno Ganz
  who was in Wings of Desire.)
• Red Firecracker, Green Firecracker (Chinese period piece bout
  a guy who woes a girl who owns a fireworks factory.)
• The Birds (I’d never seen it before.)

Sydney Story City Life: Video three

Sydney Summer Storm: The video

Bit of live video, bit of time-lapse. Lot’s of lightning.
More sensitive viewers will appreciate my editing efforts. While I was cutting up the footage, I discovered that at one point I heard my voice exclaim ‘fuck that was close!’ on the soundtrack, so I cut the sound and overlaid thunder.

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Sydney Summer Storm

These are a couple of photos of a big storm that rolled in over where I live on Tuesday 26th of feb.
Both are panoramas, and the dark one ‘broke’ Photoshop Elements and didn’t blend properly, but I liked the effect and decided to post it anyway.
Video to follow when it finishes uploading.

Monochrome_Panorama1

Orange_Panorama1

Final video of Oz day 08

Some more music for you folks.

Last year I had a clip taken of the Whitlam’s, this year it’s Dan Kelly. Lots of shot’s of Australians sprinkled throughout, and some sky divers.

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Dan Kelly sings on Australia day 'Babysitters of the world unite.'

One of the things I like about this city is the Sydney Festival

It runs for a couple of weeks in the summer, with great music and activities.
Especially good are the free events. The backpackers must love Sydney in the summer.
Golden beaches, northern winter gear forgotten, and free gigs all over the place.

Last week the festival opened and a big chunk of the city had its roads closed, and stages were erected.
Huge range of music, and a trio of couples had public weddings.

I ended up with a couple of mates down at the Domain Park where a local musician, Paul Kelly was playing a warm up set for an international. Brian Wilson.
Weather was a bit crap, but the intermittent showers were really light and refreshing.

Mr Wilson seemed to be very distant and kept scratching himself. He looked like your dad sitting on the couch at home but suddenly transported to a stage in front of an audience of thousands. Huge video screens amplified every movement.
The crowd loved the music and everyone was dancing and singing along to songs which seem to have embedded themselves into the group unconsciousness.
The people I was hanging with, kept making comparisons with how dynamic contemporaries of Brian, Keith Richards and Mick Jagger were.
I argued that Mick and Keff weren’t musical geniuses that had had suffered a breakdown and a long reclusive period.
They are brilliant showmen, but Brian was never really a 'front man.' This is possibly the secret to the harmonies and instrumentation, and why the entire band ‘features’ in a lot of the Beach Boys music.
I got to thinking about it, and I reckon some performers like Prince can be both amazing live, and as creative forces.


Last night it was the famous ‘Jazz in the park.’
This event has been regularly held for years. It was shut down for a while cause it was ‘too popular.’ The audience in the Domain Park would overflow and cause the organisers to have conniptions.

The event was restored and this year the main act was El Barrio. I reckon there were possibly more people who showed up for the Salsa then to gawk at last weeks Beach Boys living legend.
When we arrived a valiant four piece jazz band on stage was almost inaudible over the racket of picnic dinners.
We made sure we didn’t sit behind the ‘installation like’ jerry-rigged Bedouin tent held aloft with inflatable trees.
Found a spot behind an old couple who looked like they had been there since lunch quietly reading books and ignoring the hub bub.

The field was covered with picnics and blankets, and umbrellas, and booze, and children, and pillows, and collapsible or inflatable furniture.
I saw one older couple Unpacking folding chairs from the back of a huge Honda Goldwing which was parked amongst a crowd of tiny little Italian scooters.


I’ve been overseas for a bit, and busy the last couple of years so it’s been a while since I attended a ‘Jazz in the park’ and things have changed a bit…
Being buzzed by the police chopper during the Paul Kelly set was a bit crap. They whipped out the flashing lights and played the search light over the nearby buildings as though they were hunting for those evil (huh can’t really call them ungodly these days ha ha) terrorists.
Bicycle parking and chair hire: funny little bike parking station had been set up behind the stage, and the queue to return rented chairs once the performance was finished was almost as long as the queues to the toilets.
The sound-desks have turned into sound-towers
The food stalls are better quality. For some reason the beer drinkers had to use plastic cups but people supping wine were allowed to walk off with liquid filled glass clubs (a full bottle of wine.)

One of the things I like about this city is the Sydney Festival

It runs for a couple of weeks in the summer, with great music and activities.
Especially good are the free events. Backpackers must love Sydney in the summer.
Golden beaches, northern winter gear forgotten, and free gigs all over the place.

Last week the festival opened and a big chunk of the city had its roads closed, and stages were erected.
Huge range of music, and a trio of couples had public weddings.

I ended up with a couple of mates down at the Domain Park where a local musician, Paul Kelly was playing a warm up set for an international. Brian Wilson.
Weather was a bit crap, but the intermittent showers were really light and refreshing.

Mr Wilson seemed to be very distant and kept scratching himself. He looked like your dad sitting on the couch at home but suddenly transported to a stage in front of an audience of thousands. Huge video screens amplified every movement.
The crowd loved the music and everyone was dancing and singing along to songs which seem to have embedded themselves into the group unconsciousness.
The people I was hanging with, kept making comparisons with how dynamic contemporaries of Brian, Keith Richards and Mick Jagger were.
I argued that Mick and Keff weren’t musical geniuses that had had suffered a breakdown and a long reclusive period.
They are brilliant showmen, but Brian was never really a front man. This is possibly the secret to the harmonies and instrumentation, and why the entire band ‘features’ in a lot of the Beach Boys music.
I got to thinking about it, and I reckon some performers like Prince can be both amazing live, and as creative forces.

Last night it was the famous ‘Jazz in the park.’
This event has been regularly held for years. It was shut down for a while cause it was ‘too popular.’ The audience in the Domain Park would overflow and cause the organisers to have conniptions.

The event was restored and this year the main act was El Barrio. I reckon there were possibly more people who showed up for the Salsa then to gawk at last weeks Beach Boys living legend.
When we arrived a valiant four piece jazz band on stage was almost inaudible over the racket of picnic dinners.
We made sure we didn’t sit behind the ‘installation like’ jerry-rigged Bedouin tent held aloft with inflatable trees.
Found a spot behind an old couple who looked like they had been there since lunch quietly reading books and ignoring the hub bub.

The field was covered with picnics and blankets, and umbrellas, and booze, and children, and pillows, and collapsible or inflatable furniture.
I saw one older couple Unpacking folding chairs from the back of a huge Honda Goldwing which was parked amongst a crowd of tiny little Italian scooters.

I’ve been overseas for a bit, and busy the last couple of years so it’s been a while since I attended a ‘Jazz in the park’ and things have changed a bit…
Being buzzed by the police chopper during the Paul Kelly set was a bit crap. They whipped out the flashing lights and played the search light over the nearby buildings as though they were hunting for those evil (huh can’t really call them ungodly these days ha ha) terrorists.
Bicycle parking and chair hire: funny little bike parking station had been set up behind the stage, and the queue to return rented chairs once the performance was finished was almost as long as the queues to the toilets.
The sound-desks have turned into sound-towers
The food stalls are better quality. For some reason the beer drinkers had to use plastic cups but people supping wine were allowed to walk off with liquid filled glass clubs (a full bottle of wine.)

Bondi to Bronte swimming event 07 (part two.)

This is a follow up to the photos I posted last week….

library/post/bondi-to-bronte-swimming-race-07

It’s taken me a week to get the videos cut up (filling in the spaces in-between bursts of gainful employment.)

This event was held on Sunday off Sydney’s Eastern beaches.
The course is drawn between the first two Surf Life Saving clubs in the world.
Starting in front of Bondi Surf Club, it runs out from Bondi, around McKenzies point and down the coast into Bronte Beach. A distance of 2.2 - 2.5km (depending on the positioning of the buoy off McKenzies point).

I was pretty impressed watching this mass of people swim out of the bay, down the coast, and then back in to shore.
There were young ones, oldies, chunky and thin.
They were carefully watched the whole time by the ‘water safety’ folks.

The embedded map has the coarse drawn on it, and clicking on the pins opens a video up.

Use the controls to zoom in and out, and drag to reposition the map.

View Larger Map

Bondi to Bronte swimming race 07

Here are some photos and I’ll post a more detailed entry with videos later.

This event was held on Sunday off Sydney’s Eastern beaches.

Walk Against Warming 07

Our country elects a new government in a week’s time, so the local enviro groups organised a ‘Walk Against Warming’ march through the city streets.
We had a march last year, and the blog entry is here....

walk-against-warming-06

…and this is the video of this year’s event.

The band is Watusi who played to entertain the folks who walked. The music is South American inspired and there is another video of these guys here…

2006_Newtown_street_festival

About twenty thousand people turned up, which is pretty poor considering the number of bodies living in Sydney.
I hear that Melbourne had fifty thou.
The usual politicking types got up to make a short speech. The crowd booed the Left wing party representative, cause like other liberal parties all over the planet, it’s hard to tell the difference between the left and the right these days.
The Right wing didn’t even bother to turn up. At least those guys never change.

Festival season (part two.)

Twas a very hot day and I scored a sunburn despite the posh Nivea sunscreen lol
While looking for a coffee, I discovered a stall selling ‘non colonialist’ coffee and chocolate.

www.mayancoffee.com.au

Great coffee (I went back for a second later in the afternoon)
All the staff looked like they were volunteers, and I bought a bag of chocolate coated coffee beans with a hint of cinnamon and chilli.
They were canvassing for volunteers to travel to Guatemala to teach English and suchlike.
Boy the French must be pissed that English and Spanish became the international languages.

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I like these community festivals cause all sorts of folks can be found
wandering between the stalls. Lots of dogs and kids about too. This video is of a dog show, which seems to be traditional at these events.

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There’s the party animals too, and they tend to gravitate towards the
dance party style sound systems. such as at the end of this ‘stream of
consciousness’ type video.


Lots of music, people, and a brutal slaying of a stuffed toy.

Happy Daylight Savings!

It will be nice to enjoy the light at a more useful time of the day.
No more leaving work as the sun sets and arriving home in the dark. I can go for a walk down to the beach, or a jog in the park.

I reckon that this is the best season of the year. It’s much better then ‘Tax Return submitting Season’ (which you either love or hate,) or ‘holiday Season’ (where all transport and accommodation is a lot more expensive.) I’m not going to bore people with how much ‘Flu Season’ sucks.

Other lesser known yearly divisions are the ‘red wine season’ which tends to be the cooler months of the year and is counter-pointed by ‘G&T season’ which marks the warming of the air.

So I’d like to wish everyone a very merry Daylight Savings and a happy G&T on the rocks.

I’ve inserted some pic’s I took in Chippendale of some graffiti.
There was an exhibition of Stencil art being held, and after I checked out the art I lurked around the back streets to see if I could find some uncaged examples.

The first two are part of a collaborative project that was in the process of being created. I think the result was going to me auctioned off.

Entry for September 22, 2007: And finally...

This is the last of my posts on the APEC nonsense that we suffered a few weeks back.
I’ve built one of these new fangle Google maps so that you can ‘wander’ around and see where the videos and photos were taken.
The pins can be clicked on and contain videos and photos.
The purple line is my route.

Click here to visit the Google map site.

There were cops on foot, cops on cycles, cops with a water cannon, cops riding motocross, and if not for the equine flu outbreak there would have been cops on horse back.
The only thing missing was cops on roller blades!

Where the heck did all these cops come from?
The tourists were in seventh heaven as there was a cop from who they could ‘ask for directions,’ every couple of meters or so.
That is unless an unfortunate tourist took a photo of THE FENCE and then the cops would swoop in and make the visitor delete the last couple of shots in the memory.

I travelled into the city on a bus, and over heard a family talking about attending the protest. I heard the mum describing what the protest was about and one child said ‘mom I don’t want them to use the water canon on me.’

This is the last of my posts on the APEC nonsense that we suffered a few weeks back.

I’ve built another of these new fangle Google maps so that you can ‘wander’ around and see where the videos and photos were taken.
As with the previous one, feel free to zoom in and scroll around within the window. The pins can be clicked on and contain videos and photos.
The purple line is the route that I took.

If the pins don't appear, click here to visit the Google map site and view the map there.

View Larger Map

There were cops on foot, cops on cycles, cops with a water cannon, cops riding motocross, and if not for the equine flu outbreak there would have been cops on horse back.
The only thing missing was cops on roller blades!

Where the heck did all these cops come from?
The tourists were in seventh heaven as there was a cop from who they could ‘ask for directions,’ every couple of meters or so.
That is unless an unfortunate tourist took a photo of THE FENCE and then the cops would swoop in and make the visitor delete the last couple of shots in the memory.

I travelled into the city on a bus, and over heard a family talking about attending the protest. I heard the mum describing what the protest was about and one child said ‘mom I don’t want them to use the water canon on me.’

Entry for September 20, 2007: Continuing the APEC protest march entry.

The €˜demonstration€™ convened out the front of the Town Hall, where one elected representative had remarked earlier in the week ‘cage Bush, not Sydney.’
There were ‘a thousand and one’ cameras on and around the street. Nothing happened without a lens examining and recording the event.
Cops went €low tech€™ with periscopes, the TV guys were STILL lugging around shoulder bending monsters, and everyone else had a phone or a €˜point and shoot.
It was a bit weird seeing all the cameras arcing out over people’s heads, to peer down at what ever was the ‘interest’ of the moment.

This is a video featuring some of the people that made an effort to communicate their support for a variety of issues in entertaining ways.
The bizarre thing is, that Sydneysiders are so self absorbed, that there was never a chance that events were going to get out of control.
Sure, if the issue was with sport, or a patch of beach there would be trouble. But global warming, or fair trade.
Come on, that\u2019s someone else\u2019s problem!

The city seemed to be deserted for the whole three days. What a master stroke. Give everyone in Sydney a holiday, and they\u2019re all off to clog all the arteries exiting the city.
For such a nice city to live in, a lot of people are desperate to get out when there is a holiday in the offing.

Continuing the APEC protest march entry...

The ‘demonstration’ convened out the front of the Town Hall, where one elected representative had remarked earlier in the week ‘cage Bush, not Sydney.’
There were ‘a thousand and one’ cameras on and around the street. Nothing happened without a lens examining and recording the event.
Cops went ‘high tech’ with periscopes, the TV guys were STILL lugging around shoulder bending monsters, and everyone else had a phone or a ‘point and shoot.’
It was a bit weird seeing all the cameras arcing out over people’s heads, to peer down at what ever was the ‘interest’ of the moment.

This is a video featuring some of the people that made an effort to communicate their support for a variety of issues in entertaining ways.
The bizarre thing is, that Sydneysiders are so self absorbed, that there was never a chance that events were going to get out of control.
Sure, if the issue was with sport, or a patch of beach there would be trouble. But global warming, or fair trade.
Come on, that’s someone else’s problem!

The city seemed to be deserted for the whole three days. What a master stroke. Give everyone in Sydney a holiday, and they’re all off to clog all the arteries exiting the city.
For such a nice city to live in, a lot of people are desperate to get out when there is a holiday in the offing.

Police State of mind

Welcome to Sydney. Famous for its policing which is either over zealous or non existent.

Initially I wasn’t particularly fussed about this group of politicians holding a meeting in Sydney.
But then it became apparent that that our government officials were taking this little gathering wayyyyy too seriously. To the point were they were actively discouraging people from making their opinions felt with a public demonstration.
For months our officials have been talking up potential violence, blowing our taxes on fencing us out of a chunk of our own city, buying water cannons, and digging up an astounding number of police to line the footpaths.
A hundred and fifty million dollars spent on security, that is able to be breached by a comedy sketch show posing as a Canadian delegation.
I can't believe that NSW tax payers are prepared to accept such incompetence and oppression.

The way I see it, I helped pay for the APEC party. I should at least go down and see what sort of fun I was missing out on.I’m finding it hard to believe that for all those years we were bagging out Queensland for being a ‘police state’ when Joh B was around.
Check this shit out...

It's bizarre what Sydney will spend money on. APEC instead of fixing the country tracks we call roads. Desalination plants rather then recycling.

APEC march

I’m taking a short break from the whales.
I was a part of the APEC march which was held on Saturday, by a variety of groups, for a verity of reasons.
These are some quick grabs and I’ll post something better cut, with a write up later.

APEC protest march 08: Rain

APEC protest march 08

APEC protest march 08: Marching

APEC protest march 08: Billionaires

We’ve just had the Queens birthday long weekend.

This year Sydney celebrated by having either the worst storm in ten years, or the worst in thirty (depending on which paper you read.)
This is a video of some shots that I took over the weekend.
Note all the sand that was washed out of Coogee beach and into the surrounding countryside.
The big weather didn’t stop the water sports or the joggers ;-)

Stormy weather

And before you British types start, yes we know that you don’t celebrate the Queens birthday.
I highlight the words ‘long weekend.’
Liz is probably smiling to her self and thinking ‘cheeky buggers would celebrate the devils birthday if there was a holiday marking the occasion.’

I’ve dug the heater out for the first time this year.
Switched over to eating porridge for breakfast. Forgotten quantities AGAIN so made too much this morning.
Ears cold when I wake up in the morning.
Think I’m getting a cold.
Draft excluders have been stationed in front of all the doors.

Bush walking.

This is a video of the Numantia falls, taken last week when I had my first expedition with a bush walking group.
We were trekking up in the Blue mountains, outside Sydney.




We drove up to Falconbridge, parked the cars, and then hit the bush.

Had lunch in the bush, and emerged in Springwood around three in the afternoon.

Walking to work

Went on the ‘Right to Work’ demonstration last Sunday.
No riots unfortunately
The people I was with and I did the traditional thing and stopped in for a drink in a pub half way along the route.
Was disappointed that the tail of the group rolled past outside in the middle of our first drink.
We quickly sculled and rejoined the stragglers.

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