cdbragg

  I’m a suburban boy.   I grew up in the leafy south eastern corridor of Melbourne and all the experience of apartment living in Hong Kong simply confirmed the fact that I will forever be a white picket fence cliché. Suburbia is in my makeup and no amount of dreaming about being a city dweller, or a man of the land, will convince my brick-veneer heart I’m made for it. I belong to the great middle ground, the sprawling ideal of the middle class.   I am Bourgeoisie to my core.    I want to be amongst the two car garages and the sound of lawn mowers on a Sunday. I revel in the local shopping centre and the warehouse down the road that has a sausage sizzle at the front door…and also sells hardware, so I’ve been told.   This is part of the suburban DNA. I am of a time and place where the dream of owning your own house, with a big backyard was the only thing worth striving for. I actually lived in the state of not realizing that you could, or would indeed want to live any other way. I hung out at the food...

I’m an album man.   The digital age is slowly making the art of the album obsolete just as surely as the CD rendered album art a wasteland. I still stand firm on the ideal of the perfect album. There is nothing more alarming than picking up an album of a band that is the ‘it’ group to discover the songs they are famous for are listed as tracks one through three. That has always been the sound of alarm bells to the avid album dudes. If your best-known songs are ordered right up the front of the album, it sends the suggestion that they might be your best output. I have always judged an artist by their album tracks. If you want to gauge the talent, skip to track five onwards.   I am not suggesting that even the greats don’t have filler on their albums; that gets blown out of the water instantly when you point out even The Beatles set aside a song for Ringo on each album. The point at which you find Octopus’ Garden or Yellow Submarine entertaining can be located firmly between the ages of four and seven. By about eight you’re already aware...

I took my daughter to the Shepparton Show.   It’s not the most thrilling of opening salvos but the repercussions of such a simple act show why you become a parent.    It has been a lifetime since I went to any show, more specifically the Royal Melbourne Show, with any sense of excitement that what lay within the showgrounds would amaze and delight me. Sure, I’ve been to the Shepp Show quite a few times, my beautiful wife’s hometown puts on a classic regional show and my nieces and nephews love an outing that includes wall-to-wall junk food, rides and the almighty decision as to which showbag to get.    I used to be the same. The best day in primary school was the day The Sun published the showbag guide. We would pass it around the classroom and study it with the intensity of punters trackside. Which bags were the best? What did you get in this one that you didn’t get in that one? Everyone had a limit as to how many showbags mum and dad would let you have, so while there was never any sense as to how much it actually cost , there was...

      Hong Kong is a state of mind.   Yeah, I know that’s not an original statement and I’ve completely bastardised it from the original context but the truth in the sentiment is wholly true.   Northern Exposure is one of my favorite moments in television history. It was a tale I suspect that only the Nineties could have given life too. The classic fish out of water concept - a young, pretentious, overly confident upstart from New York, fresh from graduating as a GP, with a neurotic streak Woody Allen would identify with and an axe to grind against the wasteland of country bumpkins he sees before him in small town Alaska. He finally discovers the meaning of his life when he returns to the Big Apple. Joel Fleischman is a wonderful character, arguably the only member of the ensemble that is not quirky and eccentric. He is the classic everyman, bewildered by the world around him so completely different from his experience. What I adore about the program’s story arc was the simple truth of the development of Joel. While he adjusts to the people he deals with and slowly becomes a ‘local,’ the truth is...

  It’s not that I love weddings. I am certainly not the type to declare undying love to the fanfare and pageantry of a wedding day…I think it's more the fact that I now get why weddings matter.As a young and romantic idealist, I declared with great force of conviction that I felt it wholly unnecessary to go through the ritual of signing a piece of paper to declare my fidelity. Having no religious conviction, the thought of being married for the glory of God held no cognisant logic and my ideal of falling in love and living happily ever after saw no rational reasoning to stop and make that love official. What has happened along the journey has shifted that analysis. Getting married used to be a concept I believed was all about me. The truth has settled that narcissistic worldview for me. Getting married in never about you, especially if you're happen to be the groom. It is always the brides's day and even then, with all the attention upon her, the day isn't really all about what they want either. Weddings are about everyone you invite. It is the group of family and friends day to wish...

I blatantly cheated.Oddly, it was twenty years ago and yet it recently woke me up in the middle of the night recently. There is a brilliant lyric that Neil Finn proffers:- 'The guilty get no sleep/ In the last slow hours of morning.' The Finn brother's are simply the finest lyricists from this part of the world,  - New Zealand's answer to Lennon/ McCartney in their mastery of the song writing craft. That lyric has always stuck with me. It rings the peal of truth, the experience it describes is all too real for all of us. There is nothing more frustrating than waking in the pre-dawn hours and struggling to get back to sleep because your brain switched on and is wanderings relentlessly through the memory bank marked- “Embarrassing and Humiliating Moments”. The subsection of this part of your memory is the moments you are ashamed of.I played club cricket all through my junior years. I loved the game but had very little actual talent for it. I won Best Clubman in the Under 14s and realistically, that was the height of my ability. I was the bloke who always showed up to training and games and was willing...

  That's it. I'm done.I'm fresh out of ideas to blog about. No, really, that’s your lot. Writing a weekly epistle has been fun, I've wholly enjoyed the experience but I've hit the wall. Once you begin to think about what it is you're writing, it becomes less introspective  and more post-modern meta-critical. I find myself constantly being asked what my blog is about and the only plausible comeback I have is….. well, it’s about me. Is that healthy? Should I be investing this much time in portraying myself as some important scribe who understands the world by deconstructing events in his own past experience in an attempt to project that onto the world at large? Wait - iIs that what I'm doing? God, am I a massive wanker or what? See what I mean about over- thinking this? Now I have started to get involved in the thought of what I should write next, I find myself chasing the serpent's tail. Round and round I go, and more and more conscious I become of what I'm writing and where it is heading. I have started to imagine who might be reading what I post, mainly because good folk tell me...

  I want to believe in Usain Bolt. I don't really know why I need this so desperately, apart froorm the fact that I look at the man and want him to be legit. Why would he be on the gear? I mean look at the dude? He is just a machine, a hyper-real cartoon figure of a man who literally takes off like Road Runner and mows the rest of the field down. He slows down at the finish line to check it all out, to savour his victory! He dances before and after the race like this doesn't really mean anything to him. The man is an amazing specimen, with more bravado, more front, more energy than anyone this side of Muhammad Ali in his prime. I love the cockiness. Iit is completely against my national sentiment btw. As an Australian I hate the idea of someone that talented rubbing others’ nose in his genius.  We prefer out champs more Sam Stosur than Lleyton Hewitt, thanks very much. Our Sam just goes about it with little flair and no charisma. Just wins the match and shakes the loser’s hand, cursory wave to the fans and she's off. No histrionics for...

Do I wish I was a black man?I'm certain that question throws some of you but for the generation I came through with, there was a very real sense that African American = cool. We were the generation that witnessed hip-hopHip-Hop explode into the mainstream, Michael Jordan make basketball the coolest sport in the universe and Spike Lee smash down the door to Hollywood, bringing with him  the word from the street- Word is bond. Peace out hommies. It is only natural that, coming of age in that era leaves some of us with the Kevin Arnold inner monologue asking if we might have liked to have been black. The truth is much more complicated than that, of course, and part of the picture of my generation of white, middle class, suburban kids rocking our LA Raiders caps and Public Enemy Tees in Australia was all to do with image. There was nothing about wearing the coolest styles that brought with it a sense of solidarity to the oppressed. The ghetto-isation of minorities in the States and the movement from the civil right era of the sixties that  pushed forward the expression of American black culture we experienced third hand...

Be the person your dog thinks you are.That is my favourite axiom.  In this world there are two types of folks - People who own pets and people who don't. The gulf between the two is a chasm so wide it cannot be easily crossed. If you own a pet, most especially a dog or cat, you will know that they are simply another member of the family. That chasm of understanding is never as wide as when a family pet passes away. To those who have pets, there is an implicit understanding. The mourning process is akin to the loss of a human. If you are not versed in the animal/human bond you tend to wonder what's wrong with people who mourn for a pet. That doesn't make those people heartless btw, it simply makes them sadly lacking in that magical world of pet ownership. To own a pet is to understand the true definition of unconditional love. Homeless people, with nothing to call their own in this world of possessions, will still have a loyal dog by their side. Dogs get loyalty better than us. They know that belonging to a pack means something more important than what...

I am pleased to announce that the Tommy G blog now has an Editor. Please make welcome the immense talents of Ms. Shae Blizzard, editor extraordinaire as of........Now. Hopefully she might share some of her words with us sometime too? For now, less typos and more proof reading on my blog- Hooray! ...

Why have I become strangely attracted to the word curmudgeon?Is it a sign that my time to be a surly, bad-tempered, cantankerous old man is about to begin?I must confess that curmudgeon has always been a favourite word. It has such a strange and wonderful timbre, a satisfying flow of syllables that sound as if they should go off and join other words but somehow make wondrous noise together. Along with serendipity it is on my all-time list of satisfying words to utter. I guess a part of the joy of the word is its very specific meaning. It pleases me to know that being a cantankerous old bastard has been around so long in human existence that they decided to commit a word to its description. When being a bastard isn't enough, when the commitment is to a lifetime of being a crank - well here's the word for you.One of my closest friends once declared the onset of his curmudgeon-ism would take place on the day he turned thirty. His rationale for this decision was the classic and textbook description of ill-temper. He had decided that at the tender age of twenty-five-ish that he was sick of pretending...

What did we do before mobile phones? Seriously, how did we survive in a world without social networking? Was there really a time before the Internet? What did we do to settle arguments before Wikipedia?Do we actually realise how quickly our world has shifted? I'm writing this on a laptop, with my smartphone plugged into it to charge. I am checking my email, Facebook and Twitter as I attempt to write these very words. In the very real sense, I am what our everyday lives  have become,  constant, unthinking, multi-tasking. My attention span has clearly dwindled over the past few years… I am now wondering if the pithy email I just sent to a group of mates I have meaningless conversations about completely random and unnecessary stuff has been answered yet…..Hang on I just need to check. Be right back.So, where was I?Oh right- The society we engage has been completely segmented so that a part of us all doesn't actually engage in it. We now have so much information at our disposal, that we can all be involved in our interests without having to worry about what anyone else deems worthy of detailed analysis. That has certainly, undeniably, heightened,...

My blog is running late this week because I had to finish Great Expectations.Don't get me misconstrued, that is not  a pretence to boast, or a chore that I had to get done. I am not asking for acknowledgement of the act or a congratulatory pat of the metaphoric shoulder for doing so. it is merely a statement of fact.We all shift through reading phases. For a very long time I have been in the non-fiction wheelhouse. Due mainly to the amount of really fantastically interesting non-fiction books that are tumbling off the shelves. The biographical category is now swelled to overflowing with works that read …well actually, that read like a fictional narrative. The art of historical texts has shifted furiously towards eminently readable, swashbuckling adventure. There is even a sub-genre of fictionalised 'imagingings' of the famous figures of history. The art of Charles Dickens and his semi-autobiographical novels, or Billy Shakespeare making comment on the times by use of historical settings is still with us of course; but the novel is now taking new form in historically researched accounts. They have become less staid historical tomes and more....well fun. Combine the vibrant history as narrative-driven works with the breakthrough...

I saw The Stone Roses.That sentence still barely makes sense to me. I find it nigh on impossible to imagine the chain of events that led me to be standing in a venue in Hong Kong watching  one of the finest bands of all time tearing it up. Right there. Brownie in the flesh, throwing shapes with a pair of maracas while Johnny Squire transcends the art of guitar playing. Mani's bass line thumping through the floor and vibrating right up my leg, adding the flourish to Reni's virtuoso drumming. If you had told me a year ago I would get the opportunity to see the Roses live, I would have been skeptical rather than excited. The truth is more complicated than the reality. Always will it be thus.That truth is that we all have favourite bands and of these favourite bands we have two types- Bands we have seen in concert and bands we haven't.  You create a wish list of bands you wished you'd seen to match the collection of bands you have had the privilege of seeing. Something magic happens when you see a concert. To bare witness to the music you love and stand in a room, watching ...

  My dear old nan loved a larrikin. I didn't realise at the time but years after her passing, I think back and remember the joy she got from backing the cheeky bastard. She adored the archetypal ragbag with a heart of gold and she was never shy in voicing her attachment to that joker in the pack. Nan had passion and she loved people who shared her joy de vivre. From the age of six,  my nan lived in a granny flat in our back yard, so I was indoctrinated by that lust for life. Even before her presence in my everyday life though, I remember how much she loved her cricket. It was a trait she passed on to her daughters. My mum loves cricket to this day and has very little interest in any other sport. Football season passes mum by with barely a flutter of interest. My father, being the passionate St.Kilda supporter that he is, gets lip-service from mum. She cares just enough to ask if the lads won or not but has never committed to sitting through an entire game. If asked for  her footy bonafides,  she would not even claim to have a football side...

Nothing's shocking. Perry Farrell and the lads gave Jane's Addiction's debut album that title. Since that moment, the phrase itself has come to stand as the zeitgeist of our times. We are, you see, approaching a world where there are no everyday taboos. Before you panic at the thought, assuming I'm about to launch into the murky depths of societal taboos, let me explain what I'm talking about. What I really mean is that the world we grew up in contained words that you would never use in mixed company. Words that you kept away from children. When I was a lad in short pants, I can distinctly remember a time when 'shit' was by far the rudest word I knew.  I understood the power of swearing and saved shit for when I wanted to  make an impression on my school mates… In the playground. Well way from teachers. I can clearly remember Jason Evans regaling us with the tale of his mother catching him saying shit and actually making him wash his mouth out with the bar of Imperial Leather. When we asked him if taught him a lesson he boldly replied- 'Shit No!'I don't know when the F-word...

This blog is harder to write than you might imagine. One of the major critiques of my Wednesday ramble is- Why are they so long?  It perplexs me- Since when has fifteen hundred to two thousand words been a lot? What kind of a warped, no-time to waste, kind of a world do we live in, where it is deemed too much writing to be bothered to read if you have to keep scrolling down the page? Consider this less a blog and more a weekly essay if you like. I'm  punching this little epistle out to get some momentum, to keep the voice of my writing  in full bloom. I humbly submit my words for your perusal, if there are too many for you to read, then for that I am sorry……For you dear reader! You need to slow down a bit and smell the pretty metophorical flowers. Life is worth a little reflection now and again.   With that thought in my mind, somehow this week, I have gone all out. This blog is an epic....In more ways than one. This is the greatest tangient I've been on yet and it grew completly organically, from some deep recess....

For reasons I can still not fully articulate, I decided at the tender age of thirteen to  set out on a journey. It wasn't a Hobbitesque quest but ist ramifications were as lasting. Off I trotted to the local video library (remember those?) to systematically borrow every James Bond film... In chronological order. All I can know for sure was that it seemed like the most logical thing I had ever done. Call it a rite of passage, a Bondian Bar Mitzvah, if you like, for my thirteen year old self it was simply my destiny. Once I had ploughed through the collected works of Cubby Broccoli's Bond productions the only obvious next instalment was the Serge Leone spaghetti westerns.It all made exactly the right amount of sense to me. I had got through all the James Bond oeuvre and taken in Clint's squint and through some strange mystical ritual, I had become a man. Strange I've turned out the way I have really…. I should be a misogynistic womaniser with a quick wit, when I deem it necessary to talk, which would be rarely.What I do know is I love James Bond as much now as I did as...

  There is a moment in a singer's career I like to refer to as the 'sweet spot.' It is the time and place when a performer realises what their voice can do and more importantly, what it can't do. They get in a groove and shape the song they sing to fit the way their instrument can be played. Frank Sinatra is, of course, the king of this interpretative practice. Everyone acknowledges his sheer brilliance as a singer, based purely on the way he approached a song. His voice inhabiting the phrases and took the melody along with it, that was the key. What he brought to the song  was often too much for the tune to resist. 'My Way' belongs to Frank. Everyone gets a turn at it but  it was only after Frank showed the world how you sang it. The only bloke that even had a chance to match Mr.S singing it was Elvis and his version falls perfectly into the 'sweet spot.' Many a word and plenty of  jokes, begin with Elvis and Vegas as the punchline and while it was true that The King did  start to 'beef' up during the Vegas era, his voice...

I am no longer the angry young man.It is a badge of honour that blokes (and ladies) pin to their chests as they rile against the injustices of the world.  You reach the tender age of 16 and suddenly you become completely certain that you know all there is to possibly know in the world and attempting to slow down enough to listen to others is pointless. What could they possibly have to say anyway? I mean, what would they know? This is your default position for the next decade- The world is muddleheaded and wrong. The ideologies you espouse, therefore,  are right and will rid the world of the accursed tyranny of old bores. Everything you are into is right, music, film, books. Everything not related to those tastes is at best dodgy, at worst completely, unacceptably wrong. You are the ruler of the tastes of the world and you are well within your rights to inform others that they are wrong to like what they like. After all, they need to be told, otherwise how will they ever become as cool as you?Insufferable is the best way to describe myself until I was at least 28. I must have been...

I've been trying to bring some fun times to my job, lately.  Probably related to the end of semester - no more assignments for a little!  And what better than a bright orange cut-out facemask of our favourite Foreign Minister?   It's just the eyes... they're creepy!...

I am not one to get involved in Self- help.   I suspect that does not make me Robinson Crusoe,  who btw way would write a pretty good Self-help survival book of his experiences…. Had he not been completely fictional. Point being, the market of books claiming to help you improve in every facet of your life always seems to be echoing to the sound of the  cash registers tinging. I distinctly remember the hype surrounding 'The Secret.'  It was marketed brilliantly to appear from upon high as some quasi-religious awakening. I avoided even approaching the book in the shops, let alone open it.  You see, I suspected that The Secret was malarky because it claimed to be life changing- Nothing that makes that claim on the box tends to pan out that way. Life changing experiences have a bit more background to them, the handing over of wads of cash at your local Dymocks, very rarely constitutes that event. Sure buying a masterpiece of literature by Dostoyevsky might indeed change your perspective and make your life richer for the experience but did it alter  your life? Maybe?I thought reading On The Road changed everything. I walked away from the rapid fire...

  I don't 'get' work. I used to think it was just me but as I began to unpick my concerns I realised it wasn't just something I struggled to comprehend. Perhaps part of my lack of cognisant understanding of the act of being employed to sit before a computer screen and look busy, is  that I have always been a mid level drone with no real ambition to rise to the exulted management level. I understand that's what I should be striving for but more often than not, I find myself five years into a job and happily in the groove plodding along in the cubicle. I am a happy little Dilbert. I like to busy myself behind the scenes doing what needs to be done, making sure what is asked of me is completed. I can't be the ambitious type that takes initiative and chooses to try and be more productive. I don't like to rock the boat- I like routine more than anything associated with trying to improve the efficiency of a companies structures. In basic terms, I'm the dude that self-help business books aren't written about. I am the before in the 'How to Get Ahead' manual.You see, what...

Now I can't take credit for this great headline... and indeed the news has already been out and about for a little while now... but how much do we love #AbsOfSteel Bob Carr? This great image came from http://www.news.com.au/national/minister-for-abs-meet-bob-j-carr-man-of-steel/story-e6frfkvr-1226364561962 and recounts a quick story about a recent tweet from @bobjcarr which says "A few very crowded days and now the perfect antidote: nearly two hours of Pilates. Go for it folks - abs of steel!" So... I encourage you all to follow @bobjcarr on twitter - because, sir, you are indeed Awesome!...

I am obsessed with facial hair. What? Don't believe I can write an entire blog on the sprouting of hair on the face? Oh how you underestimate me…. Facial growth is an obsession for men. Whether you give into the urge to grow it or not, the daily grind of shaving means you are obsessed with removing it. Even blokes who complain that growing a beard is not for them are quick to acknowledge great follicle adventures of the chin in others. Growing a beard, a moustache, sideburns or even designer stubble is something that every man has a crack at  once in their life. If you doubt that premise, may I present to you the facts? Who amongst the gentleman readers has not had a raging hangover? A lost weekend of debauchery  that means you can't  muster the energy to face the task of lathering up and scraping the razor while looking through bloodshot eyes? Two days growth is the beginning of designer stubble my friends. When folks begin to notice you haven't shaved, then you are making some facial hair statements you might not even be prepared to face.Lets go over the ground work of the facial fuzz obsession shall...

  I remember Milan as a time capsule. The last visit to the north of Italy was on a family sojourn in the heady days of 1995. While I am becoming increasingly aware that my blog entries are  labouring under the reminiscence of times past their use by, I cannot write of other worlds while ensconced in the heart of Milano. 1995 feels so far away now, another lifetime ago. Photos of me wandering the streets of Italy feature the wonderful stylings of long blonde-streaked hair, sometimes criminally tied back in a ponytail. Caps worn backwards, a goatee was in full bloom and  (this is my favourite) a photo of me studying a Renaissance relief in the Uffizi with a Ren and Stimpy polo on……Oh the glamour of the Nineties. What this all equates to is the sense that upon embarking for a week in Milan, I knew I had to reset my minds eye . The memories of a mid-nineties Milan were hardly going to match the scene I would encounter seventeen years later…… More fool me I guess.  What I discovered upon arrival in the grandeur of the fashion cognoscenti of Italy was a city, that while fresh...

    The experience of being a football supporter is surprisingly unique. You never actually sit down and think it thorough, until you do…and then you end up writing a blog about it.By unique, I am referring to the way  you belong to a certain football club. It is a tribal, parochial association that finds you defiantly proclaiming your allegiance.Yet, unless you sit behind the goals with the cheer squad, your opinion of what the team does and doesn't do can be diametrically opposed to another member of your tribe.I had always known it to be true but it was made abundantly clear to me in the wake of the Luke Ball fallout a few years back. I am an unashamed Luke Ball fan. Even though he now runs around with the black and white stripes on, I still have a little place in my heart for him. The complete humiliation of being one of only two sides to have lost to Collingwood in a  Grand Final for half a century was made more unbearable  by the fact that Luke Ball had every right to rub our faces in it. Ross Lyon deemed Ball surplus to requirements the previous summer and...

When ordinary folks like you and me meet the world's powerful and elite, we might not know what to say, do or even think.  But not our Bob.  Mixing it with the heavy hitters of the world, hitting the Big Time.  He's our man of the moment. Image from Bob Carr's own blog: http://bobcarrblog.wordpress.com/2012/04/26/clinton-and-carr-talk/...

I like to watch…..No, I'm not some dirty perverted old man, hiding in the bushes with my plastic mac rustling in the dark. What I mean is that I am a fully qualified, expert-level people watcher. I am completely committed to observing folk in their natural environment and attempting to work out what they do with their lives. It is an underrated source of entertainment. Nowadays, with the smart-phone revolution making us completely unaware of the world around us, I sense the art is dying. If we are waiting in line, or taking a lunch break and especially if we are on public transport, out comes the phone, in go the headphones and goodbye the  world around us.Where's the fun in that I say? I much prefer to watch people surreptitiously and create a life story for them than play with my phone. I have always been fascinated by the people I see every day,  taking note of where I see them and what they're doing. The life and times of social media have created a fascinating sketch-study of how people perceive themselves. To look at the person's profile on Facebook, is to see a collection of ideals that person is hoping to...

Whenever diplomatic danger is near, our Bob Carr is ready to respond - leaping out of the jungle of Australian democracy "like a tiger" to correct any wrongdoings or misdeeds.  We salute you, Bob! Thanks to http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2012/s3461035.htm for the photo. ...

  My state of denial is over. Like a poor misguided fool……fool, I turned my back, rammed my index fingers in my ears and adopted the lalalalalalal- not listening position for far too long. The simple act of purchasing Collapse Into Now would mean it was complete. REM have left the building for good. I will never have the pleasure of hearing new drops of golden-spun joy that is the latest REM jingly-jangely  off kilter pop song.To be fair I knew I was in denial and therefore being ridiculous. The moment  Stephen Colbert introduced the Colbert Report audience to his guest Michael Stipe, announcing as he did that he was a living treasure and therefore he was going to place him on his shelf, trophy-like for all to admire, I felt the closure. Stephen turned to Mr. Stipe and gently lifted him up onto the shelf, where he perched, looking completely at home and led a rendition of Lean On Me. It  ended the REM journey perfectly. Its nigh on impossible to remember a band going out with so much dignity- That ability to walk away from the table is rare in the world of music. Bands are living breathing entities, filled with...

This one is for the hipsters.  If you thought Bob Carr wasn't cool, wasn't hip enough to be your "go-to man" in Canberra, this will change your mind.  Bob's so hip, he's hipstamatic!  Thanks to Melvyn Knipe of www.quirkyportraits.com for the image - hope you don't mind us using it on our Bob Carr Homage.  Don't worry, really only three people ever read this blog - and two of those three are the authors.   Image source: http://www.quirkyportraits.com/former-nsw-premier-bob-carr/...

Here's Bob looking like a man of action.  A man you'd turn to in a crisis.  A man who looks great in a lilac shirt.  He's our man... Bob Carr! Image source: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/bob-carr-at-odds-with-julia-gillard-on-ministry-bid/story-fn59niix-1226285632288  ...

Over my life I have lost the friendship of two close mates over a girl. Sure, there's always more to it than that; but the end game of both friendships involved a member of fairer sex coming between us. I bear no animosity to either bloke, I just find the loss of their mateship sad. Over the journey you come to realise friendship comes in different packages. Some can last a lifetime- You probably get two of those, three if you're lucky and you hope one of those is your life partner. The rest of your mates are made up of folks you know for a reason- School, work, teams and interests.  Friendships, in these circumstances come with a use by date. There's nothing upsetting about that, just a truism, that once you leave school, or get too old to play cricket on Saturday, you drift apart from blokes with names  like Barney and Poggy. I used to wonder what these mates from my past were up to from time to time...but now I'm on Facebook, I need wonder no more. Have a profile long enough and everyone from you past crops up. For an inquisitive, stickybeak like me, it is...

  For a great deal of my life, I have pretended to be of another vintage. The joys of revisionism were lost on me for the best part of fifteen years, perhaps longer. You see, I am a child of the Nineties. I grew up to the tune of the ridiculously decadent, out of control hedonism, of the 1980's but was still in short pants. The only whizz I snorted was the Wizz Fizz my friend quite disturbingly cut and divided into neat little lines on his desk. ( Don't snort Wizz Fizz btw- like I had to tell you that!) This expertise, was no doubt brought about by my mate somehow getting to watch 'Miami Vice' when he should have been in bed reading the 'Return of the Jedi' storybook that you had to put your name down for at our school library. (Months in advance, such was the demand.) Anyhow, being a kid in the 80's turned out to be pretty easy. All you needed to run with the cool gang was runners with Velcro. Didn't matter where mum and dad bought them, just as long as they had no laces but masses of Velcro fastening. The four-bunger, all...

Australia- Love it or Leave it. Why has this sprung up everywhere of late? Usually on the rear window of a car, accompanied by a southern cross? Every Australia Day my tolerance for this, frankly insidious show of patriotism grows ever more frayed at the edges. Not unlike the Made in China, plastic- fantastic Australian flags people insist on wearing as superhero capes. What happened to warrant this new brand of nationalistic pride? Apart from the obvious monkey-see, aping of all things American I mean? Yes, before you mention it, I am aware that this kind of rhetoric has always been alive in Australia; and yes I understand that Howard's governments fanned the fears of the apparently inevitable take over of our treasured way of life by the 'invasion' of those evildoer immigrants.  I saw One Nation rise and fall and I laughed unconvincingly at Abbott's- 'Stop the Boats,' siren’s-call last election..... 'Unconvincingly,' because I was sure people could see through that cheap conjuring trick couldn't they? I mean people aren't that stupid..... are they? What has happened over the past few decades though, is sad for me and I'm sure many Australians to witness. This sense of patriotic fervor has...

  'Wanna go to the footy this weekend?' 'Who we playing?' 'The Power.' Why does that conversation have to make sense?  That's rhetorical btw, I know why it makes sense. I just wish it didn't. I am putting my foot down, for what it's worth. Yes, I'm  aware that's as pointless as hoping the Western Bulldogs finally go back to being Footscray but enough is enough. No more  'descriptor' monikers for sporting teams please. We, as wholehearted sports junkies have had enough. The insidious creep in the last twenty years of monikers that have been workshopped-up, tested using focus groups and approved to create a positive and dynamic brand identification must end. ENOUGH! Why on earth should you do the sub-editors job for them?  'Power Surge!' 'Glory Days!' 'Suns Shine!' 'Storm Warning!' 'Victory March!' I get it,  I get it....I just think it's naff. Any team 'name' that gets more use as an adjective is ridiculous.  It is, as per the usual, very easy to blame the Americans for this new trend. Before you do though, bare in mind that it's only because when it comes to professional sports markets full of teams- Nobody does it better. The United States has...

All my heroes are dead.   That's not some Nietzsche-esque angst about God being dead.... though he's dead too.   No, it's not a metaphor, though it might be actually...but no. Where was I? Yes, that's it- Most of the people I admire turn out to be pushing up the daisies.   I discovered this the new age way, searching Twitter.  I had dutifully set up an account, shot off a couple of tweets, and then promptly forgot about it... It was only several months later, that I made the discovery that folks I followed directed me to websites I was interested in, articles I wanted to read and recommended people I might like. Only then, did I finally take up a full-blown Twitter habit. (It also gets me better updates to sporting contests as well but that's just a happy bonus.) Anyhow, when thinking who I might like to follow I hit some tombstones. Not just a couple but a lot.Who do I like reading? Hmmmm- Ralph Wiley, Mark Price, Peter Roebuck?- All gone too soon.  Who would be up to date and interesting? John Peel, Lester Bangs, Christopher Hitchens?- Nope, crashed and burned. As I thought through the...

Painting is dead. So proclaimed the US Minimalist Donald Judd and in one fell swoop, contemporary art has lived under the yoke of the misappropriation of this statement forever more. Debate rages furiously within the art world, which is what is supposed to occur but the boundaries of that debate are broadened by the complexity of the ideas behind the practice. Artist George Shaw, has made the point that a 'philosophical language' is required to gain an understanting of comtemporary art as opposed to the pictorial. What this means is that art is vibrant and complex. It pushes and is pushed back. It challenges the viewer, asks for debate. The outcome of all this? Art terrifies the general public. People are not inclined to want to set foot in a contemporary art space because they don't want to be confronted by the philosophical. They just want good paintings! I, on the other hand, will always champion the cause of the art gallery as a space put aside for understanding, not bemusement.  Not so very long ago I worked for one of the great art galleries of Australia, Heide Museum and Modern Art. Greatness is measured by many standards but Heide...

  And so we come to the vexed question of role models.  It has become harder and harder to sort out a definitive opinion of the sportsperson as role model issue. Social media has certainly seen to that;  but the point is still up for constant debate.  Should you be a role model to children if you are paid good money to participate in sporting endeavors? The answer is, unfortunately - Yes....and no.   Unfortunate because, let's be honest as a kid I idolised cricketers and footballers. They appeared like gods that walked amongst us.   I can vividly recall my first trip to the football, a dire struggle between the Saints and Doggies at Moorabbin that I nagged my dad to take me to. There I stood, metres from the fence and Bruce Duperouzel came racing towards the football right in front of me. The thrill of recognizing him from the football card I had at home still freshly minted in my mindseye. There he was, in the flesh. He seemed so much larger than life, the bushy moustache, a Yosemite Sam-like overkill.  Here-in lies the tricky part. What is expected from a sportsperson? Sure, they sign  a contract and within that,...

Music has  come to mean too much too me. I have become obsessed with 'my' bands. The books I  read are dedicated to the production of classic albums, biographies of musos and writers that make grandiose claims about how music changed the world. It is, alas, a particularly prevalent condition in men my age.  Nowadays,  I am loathe to make wide open statements about the difference between the sexes. As a younger man I freely did, thankfully, I was rightly put in my place.  I once opined that men are much more likely to be involved in collecting to the extent of obsession. My line of thought took in the idea of record fairs, computer swap meets and comicbook conventions. I was also speaking form personal experience of course.  My name is Tommy and I have an obsessive collecting addiction. Anyhow, I ventured this statement of intent thinking nothing of it. In fact, I thought by stating that collecting is a male disease, I was actually being complimentary of women's ability to not become so obsessed with the minutiae of, say- "The new, limited edition range of Star Wars action figures. Featuring never before noticed, you can see this alien for two...

I have a love affair with the underdog. I can't explain it rationally but then who can explain your allegiance to a professional sporting organisation?  The whole concept of being a fan is such a full blown, contradictory, hypocritical mess of non-logic to begin with. Gone is the age of supporting your local team; and alas, belonging to you local community is much more abstract because of it.  Sure, you can still see the local team  supported in  regional cities. A part of my suburban-bred heart is envious of that; but even here the local team plays a different role then simply being your only team. Everyone follows a 'big' team as well.  By 'big,' of course, we mean professional. And by professional, we really mean- I support a jumper. Everything else in this professional age is up for grabs. Players get drafted and traded. Coaches get hired and fired. Administrators run a rule over the books and make the ends meet without concerns that selling 'home' games to Darwin might make it harder for fans to go to the 'home' match.  It is simply following the trend. While we long for the golden age of Saturday afternoons, 2pm, the...

    I'm a middle-aged man. I know this to be true because I woke up with a seriously sore back the other day and moaned and groaned like an elderly gent all day long. I could only get to sleep that night by applying Deep Heat, thus making my bedroom smell like a football change room.  The pain has passed thankfully, but the stiffness remains and I still find myself making involuntary groans and grunts when I bend down. It is a very unsatisfying feeling to realise you are old, hence the fact that I have learnt, at last, what middle age is.  Middle age is a way of describing yourself, that, while not being young, at least creates the impression that you are not decrepit. For men this is very important. Inside each and every one of us is a 12 year old boy, dying to get out...not very deep inside either! Men, for example, like flatulence. It is satisfyingly purile and entertaining all at once. To be fair, all bodily eruptations are funny; but farts are king. That position obviously hasn't shifted since primary school. This twelve-year-old, inner child, is still certain that we can run so fast...

  A work colleague of my wife became alarmed to learn that I selected the new bedding and towels for our  apartment. His instant reaction being -'Apart from the sex, obviously, are you sure he's not gay?' Strangely, it is not the first time that 'doubt' has crept into people's vision of me. I have, on more than one occasion been looked at sideways because of my less-than-manly traits. Some judge me metrosexual but frankly that feels soooooooo last decade.   One of my closest friends in the world went through a rather baffling phase where he lamented not being gay because, and you can't make this up, they get all the good bread! Now, you might not have met my mate; but seeming as this is posted on his website, I will labor under the assumption that you have met Cameron D. Bragg. That assumption means that you will be aware that he is known for his broad and seemingly random statements. It is only after some thought on your behalf, that you make some sense of it.  Is it a metaphor? Maybe, if you want it to be. Is it just literal? Well it became a staple of his conversations...

Why is everyone so much more important nowadays? If you you don't own a blog do you exist at all? I blog, therefore I am: Its a new world order. Frankly I do concede it to be incredibly post-modern (well actually whatever contemporary culture deems is the post, post- modern) to raise this debate in a blog. But, here I go I guess. Look at that last sentence for a minute will you? See how I started it with 'but?' What a revolutionary concept...no really. My wonderful English teacher Mrs.Robinson (yes that was her name and yes my mate Morry  and I sat in the back row and hummed dudt-ta, dudt, ta-dudt, dud dud, dud dud do,  all day long) would always stress the rules of grammar were quite specific about not beginning sentences with 'but' or 'and.' Quite right for mine too. It always sounds like you are picking up the story midstream. 'Now...where was I? That's right- But....' Much later I enrolled in a creative writing course and had another brilliant teacher by the name of Ray Mooney, who's bugbear (and trust me all writers and most readers have lots of them) was...well using the word 'was.' He taught...

This is almost off topic for the "Song of the Day" category, but it is overall something pretty cool.  A bloke by the name of Vermin Supreme is a serial US Presidential candidate.

This song by The Gregory Brothers takes some statements of his from a real candidate's forum and turns it into song.  It's probably not one of their best ever songs - but the fact that this guy is for real makes it pretty good.

He has a wide variety of policies, relating to things such as dental needs, ponies, zombies... and magic powder to turn you gay!  Hope you enjoy.

image from www.verminsupreme.com

This is our new friend Buzzie.  S/he lives in our garden.  This is not the actual "Buzzie" - I got this photo from the internet - forgot to make note of the website. But we have bees like this living in our garden.  We're pretty sure they are the Teddy Bear Bee - a native Australian solitary bee.  S/he has made their nest at our front door, burrowing little holes in the garden next to the front step. S/he is awfully cute! ...

Some years ago, I worked in a job that involved me having dealings with calligrapher, Janine Mitchell.  She was pretty good - and every time she sent me an invoice, she would make these elaborately addressed envelopes.  I left that job, but for some reason kept all the envelopes.  As part of a clean up, I thought it was time to throw some things out... but such treasures?  So here they are - no need to keep the paper copies when I can "cloudify" them! They probably don't look very good in thumbnail version on your browser (all blacked out)?  It's something to do with transparency that I haven't spent much time worrying about.  If you click the images they will open properly and look as they should. Janine Mitchell was based in Mont Albert when I dealt with her.  Unsure if she is still is, but this link appears to be her: www.alphabetique.net

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So here is my response from Luke Hartsuyker relating to a proposed National Container Deposit System.  I received this back in September - sorry it took so long to update here. Dear Cameron Thanks for your email about container deposits. Although I can see the attraction of a national deposit scheme, this is a clear State responsibility. I believe the idea has merit and seems to work well in South Australia. You may want to raise the issue with your local State Member Andrew Fraser who can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Kind regards Luke Hartsuyker As an aside, the NSW Local Government & Shires Association has thrown it's weight behind a National Container Deposit System.  You can read their statement on their website here: http://www.lgsa.org.au/www/html/4098-9th-december-2011-its-time-for-container-deposit-schemes-councils-say.asp?intSiteID=1 The general gist being that the beverage industry should be responsible for their own waste, not local councils (in terms of bins in public places). In other news, the NT deposit scheme commenced on 1 January.  Well done! image source: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-09-16/20110916greens-on-container-deposits/2902210...