Family Secrets

We’ve been sitting at the kitchen table looking over old family photos. My mother was never one to talk about or delve into the past. A conversation with an old friend , [ they’d met in a refugee camp and came out to Australia on the same ship after The War ], the subject of their youth came up.
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When Ross Hannaford Went Out West



I met Ross Hannaford in 1996-97. He was a middle age Australian Rock Legend and I was an improbable young entrepreneur. At face value we had very little in common. Apart from both living in Kew and we both wanted to get the fuck OUT ! Around this time Ross moved into a former workshop in Yarraville- he was a pioneer of 'warehouse' living in the West. He was getting the odd gig at The Commercial Hotel in Yarraville- the only music venue in Melbourne’s inner West at the time. My partners and I thought that they and the area needed some competition. So we opened an alternative venue in Footscray - Yarraville’s adjoining suburb and immediate neighbour. Whilst Yarraville was in the grip of an inexorable and frenzied gentrification. Scores of Eastern Suburbs types were buying up cottages and trying to create a slice of Canterbury in Melbourne’s West. The irony was I gathered Ross was trying to escape these Aspirational Middle Aust...

Suburban Lifestyle


We have a mature walnut tree in the backyard which attracts cockatoos in droves around this time of the year. It’s party time for the cockies . I can protect the figs, plums, peach, pomegranates and persimmon trees from their ‘rape and pillage’ assaults but the walnut tree is far too large and unruly to cover. My father planted many of these tress over 50 years ago. Our backyard is a quasi Eden at certain times of the year when prodigious blooms and ripe fruit abound. And at other times decades worth of hoarding strewn about the place are more akin to White Trash Trailer Park! When I’m sitting under one of our jacaranda trees relaxing or reading I occasionally think of the push in Lifestyle Apartment Living which has gripped the city over the last decade or so. And I instinctively know that I need a garden to potter about in and to tend to- I couldn’t possibly live in a flat [ lifestyle apartment ] and feel right. I had at times a strained re...

Andre’ Rieu vs Asian Pop Music
The Culture Wars Out West


I’m subjected to - forced to listen to a steady stream of both Andre’ Rieu and Asian Pop on a regular basis. We live on the edge of a Little Saigon Shopping Strip. A couple of DVD stores within earshot of the family house rotate Asia’s latest Boy-Girl Band R & B soundtracks and the annual Lunar Festival Celebrations sees us subjected to 10 hours of ‘non stop Asian Extravaganza entertainment’ on a grand scale. And then there’s my mother love of l’olandese- The Dutchman. When she’s feeling a little down or lost she asks me to put The Dutchman on. At 90 her faculties are steadily waning, she pretends to read magazines, normal TV shows are beyond her comprehension but when I insert her favourite Andre’ Rieu DVD into the player she’s transported to another world. She becomes transfixed by the showman’s extravaganza, not unlike children watching cartoons. The Dutchman’s Johann Strauss Orchestra grips her l...

I’d heard some horror tales about bad trips to Morocco. Midnight Express like tales where small time dope deals turn out horribly bad- undercover police stings. Resulting in imprisonment and extortionate demands from crooked cops to drop charges . And a bloke I knew was over powered and sodomized by a carpet dealer in a Medina. I picked up a Moroccan travel guide while living in Germany and the opening paragraph read, 'Morocco, einmal und genug, oder immer wieder.' ‘Morocco, one time and never again or you’ll just keep on returning.’ My friend Nadine sold me on going, her enthusiasm for the country was infectious [ she’d been before ]. And Ryan Air’s 29 Euro one way Frankfurt to Marrakesh online special offer sealed the deal. A couple of days into the trip and that opening paragraph came to mind when we arrived at the bus station in Marrakech and missed the only the connecting bus to our destination, a village in the Atlas Mountains. Our predicament was sized up by the local ...

‘Old Olympian’s’ Lust For Life
Film Maker’s Passion for Sport Ivan Gaal was selected to represent Australia at the 1960 Rome Olympics. This was an era when athletes in non high profile sports, such as canoeing were expected to pay their own way. Having escaped his native Hungary after the Soviet invasion in 1956, economic circumstances saw him unable to fund his fare back to Europe. Heartbreakingly he had to pass up the opportunity to participate. Ivan harboured niggardly ‘I could have been a contender’ thoughts for decades. However he got on with his new life in Australia and found solace and compensation by directing his energy into artistic endeavours, moreover photography and filmmaking. He went on to produce and direct dozens of acclaimed short films, collaborating with the likes of Max Gillies. Adrian Martin, Associate Professor of Film and Television Studies at Monash University wrote a Career Retrospective on Ivan’s oeuvre in Metro magazine. The following are a few o...

Lost Bloke’s Home
Still a Place For Ageing White Men


Melbourne’s Inner City is the domain of IT Professionals, upwardly mobile sorts of all persuasions, and that ubiquitous Lifestyle Loitering Lot. Laurie Davis isn't one of them. He was born and grew up in a Carlton light years from its present Lifestyle Hotspot. His formative years were a time long before Sushi Bars replaced Milk Bars. Holdens ruled the roads and John Nicholls was biffing blokes behind play at Carlton home games. Four n twenty pies and Saturday afternoon crowds flocking to Princes Park are distant memories. Today it’s SUV drivers and Eco Warrior cyclists jostling for right of way in search of rare parking spaces in front of the latest ‘urban spoon darling’. Like a tourist lost in a Moroccan Medina, Laurie feels like a lost bloke. He‘s out at sea in amongst this lot . But he still has one sanctuary . Princes Park Bowls Club is one of the last bastions of a Carlton he can still relate to, an...

One Man’s Love of Music
An Old Punk who didn’t Burnt Out or Fade Away “You’re not really into music, are you ? ” A question posed to me by my daughter. She was comparing me to her boyfriend ‘who is really passionate about his music’. This got me thinking about my old mate Peter Miller. He was at the vanguard of the Punk Push in Brisbane in the late 1970s. Organizing gigs, playing in his band Just Urbain,producing records and generally flying the flag of the then nascent Punk movement. Doing all this in a city notorious for its stifling conservatism and intolerance to ‘progressive’ influences. To have been a Punk in Brisbane during that period would have required gumption and real conviction. He was a True Believer pushing the envelope during a period when Red Necks ruled Queensland- Joh Bjelke’s reign. Peter’s seen more Indi band gigs in the last 3 decades than the average Merchant Banker’s had home cooked dinners…His music collection is phenomenal. He’s got no idea how man...

The Best Grass in Town
Nimbin Bowlo- Rebels with a Cause

There’s something out in left field about Nimbin Bowls Club.

For starters visitors are welcomed by an artist commissioned 3D mural prominently plastered across the front of the club rooms.

Then there’s the 3 flags flying from the mast, The Eureka Flag, a Skull & Dagger pirate’s flag and one sporting a Pink Elephant.

There’s a palpable feeling of - ‘We do it differently in Nimbin’...and the back of the club’s business card cheekily reads, ‘Bowl on the Best Grass in Town’.

During my time in town I regularly played the Sunday morning Rock and Roll Bowls social game. These games occasionally saw a bus load of tourist bowlers driving down from the Gold Coast for a day out on the green. There was a palpable vibe as the sounds of classic rock and country tunes created a party atmosphere before roll up. Some of the visitors displayed signs akin to groups of school ...

Rejuvenating Bowls Clubs.
And Why Pissheads Shouldn’t be Office- Bearers. Our club lost some prominent members last season because we’d become ‘too progressive’ in their reckoning. There are those who still doggedly cling onto a quasi Edna Everage Ethos of a 1960s Suburban Bowls Club as the ideal. Princess Park is a small club on the ascent, having won 4 pennants in the last three seasons [ RVBA & Bowls World combined]. Not bad for a club with only 55 bowlers on the books. We’ve taken some proactive measures to increase revenue streams which have proven to be a windfall for the club’s coffers. But we ruffled some feathers with The Turnaround. “This isn’t a proper bowls club.” You can’t be all things to all people, this holds true in bowls clubs as it does in most fields of human interaction. We formed a partnership with a mob called Fancy Hanks who run a commercial kitchen-Boutique BBQ on site. With a combination of clever marketing and social media these guys are ‘getting bums...