22 Dreams

Ludwig van Beethoven is King.  Beethoven is my hero.  Beethoven is my musical everything.  And I am Schroeder from the Peanuts cartoons, albeit a dark-haired version of the boy with the stripey shirt and toy piano. I love Mozart too but I tend to have qualifications about Mozart, he the sublime master who passed away a couple of months short of his 36 th birthday.  Mozart's music, at its very best, is absolutely first-class, and much of his later quintets and concertos read like an honour roll of great music.  I'm particularly fond of the master's piano concertos and his quintets for various instruments such as horn & clarinet.   The problem with Mozart for me is that, despite the easy  listenability of his music and the melodic and harmonic grace he bestows on upon his work, there is something essentially impenetrable about Mozart.  I find there is a steeliness to his music that's somewhat difficult to really warm to, or relate to on a deeply emotional level. ...

I rarely get around to listening to the radio these days.  However I've recently succumbed to the aural airwaves because the CD player in my car tends to chew out more CDs than it accepts. I enjoy listening to CDs in the car because that's usually the space where I can unobtrusively practice my singing, which I imagine, sounds invariably like a dog barking, or a coyote howling. So with my CD player playing up on me I tune into the radio where I hear what are likely to be new releases, but I'm so out of the loop now I wouldn't know which songs are new or which of those are five or so years old. What annoys me so much is that the songs I hear are hideously stupid. I can't believe that most of the tripe you hear passes off as "music", the lyrics are dumb and so is everything else. Perhaps I set too-high standards, or expect high standards from that which I listen to. The song that is really riling me at the moment is this thing called 'Raise the a...

I cracked open my first module today for the online creative writing course I joined up for.  I'm nervous and remain unsure of where to go with this.  It's difficult to concentrate on too much information in one sitting taking into account I've been at work all day.  I listened to the first two modules today.  One sentence that struck me in particular is that when one famous writer got asked what's the difference between a writer and a non-writer the answer is "writers write".  It's that simple, explained the module presenter.   I'm not comfortable with the word "writer".  I just enjoy writing without that tag being entrusted on me.  I mean, Dostoyevsky is a "writer", and yet so is Augusten Burroughs for that matter, and Andrew McGahan, both of whom reflect my style and attitude and experience in ways that the aged masters of tome could never do.  I suppose I don't see too far beyond my contemporary urban nihilism, unless we...

Yesterday I signed up for the five-week Creative Writing Stage 1 course that's offered by the Sydney Writers' Centre in Rozelle. I'll be doing the course online which will save me having to travel to classes that I can't attend anyway because I work until 7pm everyday. The course starts on 6 April and finishes around mid-May, about the time when I commence long-service leave. Creative writing is not necessarily where I see myself going as a writer but I feel I need to stimulate or crack open some vestige of objective imagination within me if I wish to write the book that I'm hoping to get started by May. The book will likely be about myself really, vignettes of a life lived that hopefully I can coalesce into some quasi-meaningful tome, beat, scene. Until then I'll put myself through the levers of a five-week course and see what kind of fictional story I can concoct by horses-for-course's end. That said, I'm looking forward to doing this course a...

Here's a quote from Survival Acres' most recent update: "...exploitation, ownership and greed are root evils in humans that continue to plague mankind. We’ve wrongly exalted these qualities as being the earmarks of “success”, when it is really among the worst kind of human behavior there is. We’ve created a world based upon competition instead of sharing, exploitation instead of nurturing, and false ideas of ownership and possession as means and measurements to provide meaning in life. Effectively, we are all forced to “compete” for everything, even those things that should still be free (the right to life, liberty and security, which includes food, water, shelter, clothing and housing). We demean those that refuse these abominable lies, and exalt and praise those and even reward those who excel in it. Don’t believe it? Examine how we humans treat the “poor”, homeless, hungry, impoverished and needy. We are truly horrible when it comes to understanding what is really valua...

(To be published in the Songsmith) On Wednesday 11 March I attended a book talk at Gleebooks on Glebe Point Road in Glebe. Don Walker, former Cold Chisel keyboard player and songwriter, was interviewed by published author James Bradley on his inaugural new book, Shots. I was delighted to attend and listen to Don discuss his book and how it came to be written. Don also elucidated on his relationship with Cold Chisel and on the craft of songwriting in general. It is accepted without question that Don Walker is one of Australia’s greatest songwriters, and for me to see and hear my hero talk to James Bradley at Gleebooks that night was a marvellous and thrilling experience, doubly so for the fact that prose writing is of increasing interest to me, so much so that I plan to write a book during my time off in May - July. This talk has certainly been an inspiration as far as my propitious endeavour is concerned. Entry to the event was $10 and complimentary beer and wine was served. Unsurpris...

I've posted a new song up on my MySpace page . It's not a new song verily, it's just that it's yet to find itself on my myspace jukebox. So here it is, from my album 'sea in june', Diamicron Baby. I wish I'd called the album 'Diamicron Baby'. I just wished I'd stuck to my instincts and named it that. 'Sea in June' is too wimpy and is not quite indicative of the tone of the record. 'Diamicron Baby' is faraway a more powerful title than 'Sea in June' and I think a better statement to promote. I suppose the only problem I forsaw is that "Diamicron" is registered brand-name, for the sulponylurea family of drugs. Charming really. Of all my songs many people like this one the best. I can see their point. It's powerful, vicious, emotive and visceral, and it's well recorded. I think this is my finest recording actually, I'm very proud of every aspect of it. I love the mix, the guitars, the way the vocal is sl...