Report on first leg of road trip to Bundanon Artists' Residency.

KEY STATISTICS

Expected time of departure: 10am.

Actual time of departure: 1.30pm.

Reason for delayed departure: technological malfunction (Stew's iPhone died).

Kilometres traveled: approx 190 kms.

Percentage of those kilometres traveled in the Carlton/North Fitzroy area making "final arrangements" before leaving: 10%

Number of arguments regarding the packing of the car: none. This is due to Stewart's superior skills in this area. Here is a month's worth of stuff and both of our offices packed into a ford laser:

By the way, probably the number one thing it's best not to forget by thinking "That's obvious, I'll pack that later" when packing for a month of writing: your laptop. Yairs... Don't worry, Stew found it in time.

I write this from the freezing cold but very gorgeous Mansfield. Somewhere near this squiggly line:

In fact, we're right near the Subway, which, as Stew noticed, is 15 metres from here:

Also, I see from the cinema screen someone has erected in the local pub above the bar that the Australian women have been swimming back-to-back relays all day. They must be exhausted. From my calculations, they've won nineteen medals since dinner time. Good for them. Either that or they are REPLAYING THE SAME RACE OVER AND OVER AND WE NEVER SEE ANY OTHER FOOTAGE OF ANYTHING EVER AGAIN IN OUR LIVES. Dunno.

Tomorrow: Jamieson, Bright, cold, rain, potentially snow... life is good.

 So. It has come to this. 

Stew and I are leaving tomorrow for Arthur Boyd's farm. We're doing a four day road trip and we're packing pretty much every camera ever invented (Stew) and several pairs of tracksuit pants (me) into a red ford laser. 

Rita Walsh, who is (see below) galavanting in the US of A, will join us in a few weeks. It will be a case of culture meeting nature and may the best man win. 

Seriously. This is getting exciting. To see more about our artist residency and where we're going and what the people who've been there appear to have done (worn boxes on their heads by the looks of things! HUZZAH! ONE OF MY ABSOLUTE FAVOURITE THINGS!)... please go here.

You will, on the whole and there are some notable exceptions and you know who you are, be greatly missed and thought of often. So long!

So I'm a techno loser and I linked to the wrong thing. For photos of the action with Captain Famous Pants (our Rita Walsh, see my previous post)... go here.

Okay so I know it's not cool to boast, but I mean seriously.

Check this out.

Standing There producer Rita Walsh, whose photograph in the Leongatha Star earlier this year was aptly emblazoned with the headline, "You Ripper Rita", is swanning about in America picking up Grand Prizes. Grand ones! Not just normal ones! GRAND PRIZES.

Next, she's taking the short film, Hugo (made with her "other" family, Nick and Rachel), to Palm Springs because they're screening it there as well. After that, she's meeting us at Bundanon for our residency, which by the way starts on Sunday. Huzzah! By the time Rita gets to Bundanon she may well just sleep for nine years, because I tell you what, if there was a Grand Prize for Most Parties Squeezed Into An Overseas Trip, I reckon she's sitting on very good odds.

Sometimes, after an awful meeting or an impossibly complex conversation about some tiny element of some project that might never happen, Rita and Stew and I look morose and wonder what the hell we're doing with our time. But Rita always straightens up at about that point and says "Good meeting, guys. We'll get there". She drives off in her little car, already thinking about something else, and I always believe her.

It's hard to know sometimes if things are going well. The best way to know is to have someone tell you. The absolute best way is for someone to tell you you won a Grand Prize.

Congratulations wonderful Rita and of course to everyone involved in Hugo. Awesome effort, justly rewarded. And about frigging time, too.

Why, when you're about to take time off work for three and half weeks to write and think and plan and produce...

Why, when you're about to take four days to drive up to Nowra from Melbourne...

Why, when the film festival is in its final week and you've just spent seventy extra bucks on tickets...

Why, four days before your birthday...

Why, when you've been working full time and you could have been sick AT ANY POINT DURING THAT TIME...

Does your head decide to infest itself with throaty, snotty I-need-to-lie-down-and-be-useless-now style illness?

Why?

PS Yes I am aware there are wars and famines and that I have a cold and a job and a writers residency and that I should pipe down and stop being such a drama queen but shoosh please. This is clearly some kind of law of nature and it is my job as a writer to report it. 

PPS. I saw a really good film last night at MIFF. Boy A. Apart from a few mental Japanese films (huzzah!) it's been mostly doccos that have piqued my interest, but I can't get Boy A out of my head. Look out for a release.

Place someone in front of a coffee machine and give them an amusing or inexplicable T shirt and they instantly become cool and borderline attractive.

True or false?

Am currently taking a survey.

2:1 in the office this afternoon in favour of cute and cool. Someone from our coffee place was seen out of context and appeared, devastatingly, to be normal, borderline unattractive.

Am thinking of other contexts in which this is the case. Certain bars? Bookshops? Some may say behind microphones and under lights but I have significant experience to indicate this is a delusion and should be ignored with every fibre in one's body. Maybe that's the case with bars too. And cafes. Or just maybe... it's the case with cool.

Profound. I just had a coffee.

 Dear The Rest Of The World, 

Just in case you were wondering why we treasure our free speech over here in Australia, I thought I'd explain to you how the billions of dollars spent by media organisations, including our public broadcaster, were utilised today to stimulate discussion and promote democratic ideals such as freedom of expression, freedom of thought, and the right of the public to access information. 

Our glorious news outlets have revealed the following to an enthusiastic public this morning:

1. Apparently a person appeared on television. The person was attractive and had an X chromosome. As a result of this person appearing on a top-rating television show about a sport nobody outside of this country plays, this person was subject to "lewd" comments from a "colourful" "celebrity" whose public relations platform consists of apologising to people with X chromosomes. The X chromosomed person in this instance has now been hospitalised. These elements have been mentioned by newspapers without any explicit links being drawn or any independent research having been done. 

2. As we speak, discussions are taking place on the national airwaves regarding the crucial question of whether Australian sportsmen playing the abovementioned sport are role models. Should they be role models? Do we expect too much from them? Are they a symptom of a broader problem in Australian society, namely binge drinking, or are they just boys making mistakes in hundred thousand dollar cars with alcohol running through their TAC sponsored bloodstreams? This is a particularly important question when considered alongside figures on Aboriginal life expectancy.

3. Heath Ledger remains deceased.

Excellent work, media.