Tag: 1993

Beyond 2000: When “Accidents” Happen

…no play when away.

(last updated: 22 June 2023)

The first dog we bought Coco (a Border Collie for $200) died at a few months old after she ate snail poison in the garden.

My mum had a discussion with the gardener in the morning before driving to school, but the poison was laid nevertheless. The gardener, Vince (who has since passed himself) said that he’d never had a problem with that snail poison in other homes. After the death, I recall Vince showing me the box that said “pet-safe” on it or something like that.

So when we arrived home from school we called out for Coco but she never ran up to greet us at the gate with her happy self. The dog was actually lying near the gate to greet us (see red below,) but she had sadly passed by that stage.

I never saw Coco dead – my mum did – and the gardener was fired, but I am still in contact with the gardener’s son who is a gardener himself and remembers the story. I later saw the bright blue snail poison squashed into the bricks of the garden path (see blue above.) I think Coco had removed the pellets from the dirt to eat or test out. It was really sad but we vowed to get another dog soon.

Our next dog, Socks was returned after a week due to him being too placid. He turned into a champion show dog.

After that, we ended up with Toby who was one of the last to go due to a wonky ear. He ended up super intelligent and we taught him heaps of tricks. Really I think all owners of working dogs should be training them as much as they can, especially if they are out of their natural environment.

Toby was once taken from outside Fuji restaurant where we were eating (with Miriam as standing above) and kept for a few weeks by some type of dog-napper who didn’t bother to check the engraved collar.

[pic]

We searched and searched and never found him. We stuck up posters too. One day we got a call and salvaged him. He seemed contented. The woman who took him thought he had been abandoned because he wasn’t tied up. It could have been far worse.

He used to lick windows, perhaps she would’ve kept him otherwise?

Interestingly, later on, that restaurant ended up abandoned for what could’ve been around 20 years.

Eventually Toby could go to Como park by himself and run around at Thursday night football training and then walk home. He could even cross roads by himself if he had the chance. We avoided all that, though.

He liked to chase buses, from the perimeter of the park on the grass, but never running onto the road.

As mentioned, I made a short film with him and it was shown to the students of VCE Media units 1+2 (for Year 10) – Karen may remember, she was one of the teachers at the time. But that video is no more. However, I did record a short clip of Desmond in 2007, the sequel dog to Toby:

Like many dogs, Desmond had a degree of separation anxiety and unless tied up, could follow me into shops – even supermarket aisles. Yet he had more style than most. With Toby, this wasn’t a problem because we followed the breeder’s advice and let him welp into the night while he was meant to go to sleep in the laundry as a very young puppy – he was left alone. And being more independently minded, it was easy to make a short film with Toby. Then again, it was never a concern for Des to run away.

Des handled puppy school with ease – so much so that he was offered multiple scholarships at various Ivy League schools, which he turned down in favour for eventual professorship at Harvard apparently – but he never told us directly.

Toby rejected the idea of puppy school altogether and even death, favouring the notion of transcending the Earthly realm and merging with an 8th density consciousness.

Back on a serious note, in a related story, in the early 2000s, I was housesitting for someone in my family and also pet-minding.

As I enjoyed the view, and watched an EWF DVD, for a few days I also saw Rozy (the Cocker Spaniel) rolling around on her neck and scratching her head.

I ignored her until one day I saw her attempting to push off her collar in the front garden (below right.) She was actually positioning herself so that I could see her doing it as her system of survival.

I took a closer look and there was a rubber band around her neck hidden amongst her hair and below the other collar.

The rubber band had caused a deep gash in some parts of her neck and there was blood and pus. I took it off and applied antiseptic. I also cut off some of the hair around her neck. She survived and recovered without me needing to go to a vet, but had it remained it could’ve been far worse.

I remember the neighbour a few days earlier coming over and playing with the dog. There was no one watching him – I just let him do his thing and I didn’t know him – I am pretty sure he came over especially to play with the dog.

Was it malicious – did he want to hurt the dog, the family or even me in the process? (I would’ve got the blame) Did he arrive with a rubber band in his pocket? He also had a younger brother, and it may have been him instead but I doubt it. The rubber band may have also been around the dog’s neck before he arrived (really?), but I knew nothing of it. The fellow above, if it was him, and I know his first name, and the incident was in ~2004, may also have been acting out of jealousy against the dog’s or my own attention within the family. Eden once came over while I was house-sitting, and I also met up with Mark (not from Wesley) who was working in the city at the time. Interestingly, there was a police street-homicide in between that residence and the neighbour’s residence in the 80s.

Anyway, I told the family what happened when they returned and they sort of brushed it off because Rozy was almost completely healed. I don’t even know if they ever followed it up. Perhaps I should’ve taken some photos. I never saw the neighbour again – that family moved out.


✓ 4 months ago

If nothing else, free the Left Hand!

Independence can be a way of life too.

(last updated: 22 May 2023)

After starting drums in 1991 with teacher Andrew Smith, right after quitting many years of piano lessons, I played in the awesome Wesley Big Band from mid-1994 until early 1996 when I left due to time pressures. Big Band people also had to play in the Concert Band as a rule.

Simon played drums before me and set a really “nasty” precedent for me to follow after himself and a number of members left after the band’s Montreux performance in mid-1994. I also saw him play at a Battle of the Bands at the Lauriston Fair and he would’ve been best off playing under Maurice White than anyone else. That was in 1997 (although it could’ve been a year or two earlier – I doubt it) and I played in the 1997 BotB regardless and ended up dropping a stick after cramping up, and it was a shameful moment for me… wow, that had never happened before or after, but I think I didn’t like the band anyway. We’d rehearsed at my house too and I was doing a lot of the schlepping and all the carrying of amps took its toll. It was for first-time rockstar vocalist Hezza and in front of a lot of girls – I apologised but it wasn’t enough.


[same school, Out Loud in 2014]

It was such a failure on my part, I think I ended up playing with one cramped forearm for two songs (the other arm was incapacitated) and Hezza had all his rock moves going. I barely even knew what a cramp was. It’s like “What the fuck is wrong with my arms!?” For Hezza, this was at a time when being on stage with a rock band was the equivalent in ego-saturation of having a new IG account with thousands of new followers. I think they wanted a new drummer but the guys weren’t up to par to get one so they all disbanded – not quite sure. Once bitten, twice shy!

Hezza had such high hopes and it all ended up a train wreck of emotion. I saw him years later in the city at night with his girlfriend of some sort and things weren’t the same. We were once such jovial pals.

Anyway, as mentioned in the article above, we won equal first at a music festival (my drums can be seen below) and if that’s still me below right, it must’ve been one of my last shows, otherwise it’s Ollie Clark.

src 1 2

I got along well with the conductor, the late Mr Lee (not everyone did) and he was also the music school head.

[ src ]

He played alto sax and I once lent him a Sinatra CD that I purchased from Greville Records but I never saw it again – perhaps it flew away!

Interestingly, Andrew left me a heap of jazz records and I still have them to this day. The beats never die!

But I never really dialled into the importance of “double stroke roll triplets” until many years later. It’s a type of poly-rhythm that can really free-up the player to put all rudiments into a triplet feel. And that’s what life is all about – seeing normal things through new lenses! Also, the “Rock and Roll” style is actually about switching from straight-ahead grooves to swung fills. Think Bonham. And Angus Young has said he likes the drummer to even slightly swing the beats too! Interestingly, around 1996 I saw Julian Joseph at The Continental Cafe in Greville Street with Charlie (see below.) After the show, the drummer Mark told me that to be a good funk player it really helps to be a good jazz player in order to free up the left hand.

My goal is to have it to the point where it almost needs to be attached with a leash!

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related:

The original Wesley Blazer that was replaced just after I left. [src]

Fretless bass player Charlie Woolley on the right:

pics
palette.fm
www.vinniecolaiuta.com/Interviews/ModernDrummer1993
✓ 7 months ago

Silverchair and Arkana – Tomorated (2022)
– mashup

Retrofuturism: “In the past, there was a vision of the future. In the future, there’s a vision of the past. And strangely, tragically, beautifully, that’s all they were… vision. The past and the future were both looking at the world they wanted, but never received. Little did we know, there was only the present.” ~ unknown

 

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✓ 2 years ago

1993: Shorn Right!

Bad hair days be damned and seeking other solutions!

(updated: 16 March 2024)

I was never sure what to do about my hair when I arrived at Timbertop. I liked my hair but wanted something lower maintenance so decided to get a “blade 2.”

In my hike group, ‘Peck’ (below right, black t-shirt) took the photo above left and ended up getting a blade 1, I think a couple of weeks after me.

But both our hair grew back by term 4.

Whatever we did, it worked and I picked up equal first in the photo competition (below left with Sight Regained t-shirt) at the end of Term 1.

Also, the group of 6 people picked up 3rd place at the hiking awards for the distance we traveled at the end of the year with Lachie (above, green shirt) the group leader receiving a free jacket. In that group, I did most of the navigation with Peck.

Danay’s group scored first place – they all got jackets and a girl’s group led by a Japanese girl came in second. I think that was the case.

Getting a blade 2 before anyone else was the tough thing to do and a lot of people were checking it out.

  • pic 2 – unit master Smith.
  • pic 3 –  “Passover or Passout?” with Matt (also further down with hands behind head) and Father Tas, 5 April 1993. [same photo was also in the school magazine with a description]

Matt’s not technically Jewish and it was very gracious of him to attend. More could be said about the passover but I’d have to double check with a few others first.

Speaking of which, I met Wolps at Timbetop and he lived near me and we actually hung out a few times in the subsequent years. I hope he’s doing well. The last time I saw him was in late 1999 when I encountered him at the end of Huntingfield Road by chance with JP (I am pretty sure that that is what occurred.)

Looking back at my life, I’ve missed so many formal occasions, I can only see it as character-building and a means of differentiation – Rites of Passage or Rites of Destruction? Religion divides as much as it unifies in this day and age. And for some, a Jewish guy married to a gentile is not even seen as married at all and that the wife could/should convert. As such, I’m not doing too badly. It’s also impossible to convert to another religion – you’re just confused.

There’s no map to the promised land – for me at least. Does one swim upstream or downstream? Is there even a choice? And I met a religious guy in Israel that aimed to do away with all the mitzvot and just attain the wisdom behind their underlying sefirot – a different kind of observance – but even that knowledge has been corrupted I suspect. Some people think that this life is all about attaining rebirth in the World-To-Come. Beam me up, Scotty!

Anyway, so my haircut was also a rebellion from my younger years when I refused to even get a haircut.

[Tasmania – first plane trip away from Melbourne]

With the curls, random women would come up and tell me how much they loved my hair and I would say that I hated it – probably due to the compliments but I still didn’t want to get a cut: I thought it would hurt! Something like that attention then happened at school but due to the lack of hair.

Due to the attention, after the blade 2, and until it grew out a bit, I covered my head with a beanie and picked up the nickname “Champ” in the process. That was from big ‘Griffo’ who had just tried it on and was with Ro at the time (below with V-neck and white t-shirt) on a walking path. It was actually a really empowering nickname – I kind of had to live up to it. I’m not sure many girls used it. And there was another Champ there at the time who was Thai and that was his real name but I don’t think we ever spoke.

  • pic 3, 4 – Bluff Hut for unit campout

The Champion brand was unknown to Australia at the time and my mum brought it back from Chicago a couple of years earlier.

I ended up leaving Geelong Grammar as my plan was always to do the International Baccalaureate there, but it was shorn out of the syllabus.

What did I expect?

But I never ended up doing IB anyway due to poor French performance, and I did do VCE Media (1+2) in Year 10 which was new at the time. A few other people ended up at Wesley like JP and a few girls. I had trouble sleeping in a roomful of people… those damn sleepwalkers – maybe that was it. But hey, I snored sometimes. So on many a night I was the last person to “depart” so I departed myself.

[ Going back to board – all aboard! Waiting to get onboard the bus at Spencer Street station. Miles (at right, above) who I knew from my earlier Glamorgan stint whereby I came into the school already knowing good people. ]

Quality of sleep is something I should discuss at a later point as I had nightmares for many years starting in the early-mid-2000s I think. But not really anymore. There were also dreams of euphoria, and then various combinations of the two as the mind-body complex healed and purified from the soul outward. Healed from what, though?

  1. Original sin?
  2. Nanotechnology infiltration with a biblical past?
  3. Non-observance/abandonment of Torah/Mitzvos?
  4. Individual or collective pain-body?
  5. Unfulfilled Jungian archetypes?
  6. Not resonating with past lives and the soul’s journey?

…with those perspectives being in response to a foreign yet innate self-regulating process contained within my perception. Opening up the hurt-locker for a spring clean.

In our unit in 1993, Geordie was very apt at hitting the snooze button and he did it a lot, and he also ended up school captain a few years later. He could really keep his humor through anything – even waking up. Within months of graduation, he fell asleep at the wheel of his car and passed away – may he rest in peace. But in reality, no one really knew what happened during his ride home or wherever he was going – I think that that was the consensus at the time and I haven’t followed it up at all since that point. I think he insisted on leaving a late-night party alone instead of staying the night but I’d have to look into it further – his family should have more information on the matter.

The “sleep theory” is one I made months or weeks after the funeral. It’s like he was James Dean or something. Only the good die young, as they say, but at least someone told me about it. I hadn’t seen the chap in years prior to his passing. His funeral was very sad, including for myself.

These days I prefer to see myself as waking-up more than anything else, and creating my own version of “woke,” if it’s possible. The beauty of life is that any type of meaning can be attached to it, it seems, but for how long remains in question. But I am always happy to laugh at how seriously I take myself.


✓ 3 days ago

Reon Vangèr – healing (2022)

 

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✓ 1 year ago

1994: Toby is Dead. Long live Toby.

I never saw him in his final days but I did get a last good-bye.

(last updated: 30 January 2023)

In 1994, I made the film “Toby is dead” with our Border Collie for media class and it was shown to the class for inspiration.

I used all the tricks he knew and completed the film without editing as a string of one-shot takes where he walks around Como park, swims in the Yarra River, crosses the road, passes a beer bottle and cruises around until he finally makes it home to be greeted by my mum at the end of the hallway!

While that film is now lost, there is a short snippet of Toby here (at 0.13) that I filmed in 1989:

Toby did die within a year when we were on a trip to Bali in early 1995.

I must’ve had a premonition about it as he looked to be slowing down and seemed more tired, and that’s why I called the film ‘Toby is Dead.’ But perhaps I was mentally preparing for him dying, due to my memory of Cocoa. He was in the same litter.

In Bali, he was being looked after by my grandparents by the sea and he was sick when we left him.

So it was a bittersweet holiday, that’s for sure, with the regular phone updates from my grandfather.

Prior to us leaving, we thought he would recover. The diagnosis was vague.

Like with Desmond, I never saw him in his final hours. Perhaps he would have wanted it that way.

However, the local vet kept the corpse and after arriving home from Bali, Toby M (the musician, not the dog) and I dug a grave for him in the front garden behind the fence. The vet came over and put the corpse into the grave and the pair covered him in lime. (see T below)

At that moment, I was waiting near the house because I didn’t want to see the dead body due to my distress. When the vet left, Toby M and I filled the grave. The vet said he probably had stomach cancer and at the time we put it down to him drinking Yarra River water when he went for a swim as he splashed around. He looked to be snapping away at the splashes he made.

And Last Good-bye came out around that time too. But it never made it onto the soundtrack.

Maybe Toby heard the song too.

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✓ 2 months ago