Moving House

Dear all, time to move house. Manifestos will ring no more from these pages. I'm ringin' them bells over here++++++: www.cammackellar.com
cm

More Washington Phillips & His Dolceola

One Shot Shed Shooting

We shot and recorded a couple of songs to camera in the One Shot Shed yesterday with the generous help of Ev and an incredible camera 'borrowed' from a major pay tv commercial shoot.

We filmed a single shot of a couple of live performances from start to finish to a little stereo recorder. I've been wanting to do this for awhile.

The One Shot Shed is in Ev's grannies backyard. You can find it between the bee hives, the vege patch, the East Timorese renters' garden flat and granny's beautiful house decorated with Greek religious icons. I think the shed is mostly for Ev's grandfather's stuff. There's a few things in there that look like they have been banished from the house; most notably a poster of Marilyn Monroe, another kind of religious icon I guess.

Granny must have liked the music because she gave me one of her huge home-grown avocados to share with A.



Granny is simply one of the most beautiful 83yr women you could hope to meet. She's fun and pretty firey. She's been married for 63 years. I asked her what the secret was? "Respect. Neither the man or the woman in charge." I got the feeling she was in charge.


I have to learn how to use some kind of 'borrowed' film editing software (final cut???//imovie??) and then you can see the results. Editing offers are of course always welcome.

We recorded "Wages of Fear" beautifully. If only I had pressed record instead of pause on the stereo recorder. Much swearing. Still, there's some other good stuff including "Where I'm Calling From".

Swing Low

This made my morning. Sister O.M Terrell playing "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot".


(with thanks to http://norestingplace.tumblr.com)

Largest Banjo in the World with good ol' Kangaroo Gut Strings

The difference between lying and bullshitting

This is just so absolutely perfect.


The difference between lying and bullshitting:

"It is impossible for someone to lie unless he thinks he knows the truth. Producing bullshit requires no such conviction. A person who lies is thereby responding to the truth, and he is to that extent respectful of it. When an honest man speaks, he says only what he believes to be true; and for the liar, it is correspondingly indispensable that he considers his statements false. For the bullshitter, however, all these bets are off: he is neither on the side of the true nor on the side of the false. His eye is not on the facts at all, as the eyes of the honest man and of the liar are, except insofar as they may be pertinent to his interest in getting away with what he says. He does not care whether the things he says describe reality correctly. He just picks them out, or makes them up, to suit his purpose."

From Harry G Frankfurt - On Bullshit (see http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/apr/04/philip-pullman-on-new-labour)

How to Sink Your Integrity (and a warship_

{update: 25th March///after a submission by the Environmental Defenders Office, a judge has put a stay on the scuttling until further notice. Huzzah!}

This Saturday the NSW government are going to sink a decommissioned warship, the 4000 tonne ex-HMAS Adelaide, less than 2 km's off Avoca Beach.

I wrote an article about it for New Matilda here

The warship was given to NSW by the federal government. Peter Garrett, as the Minister for Environmental Protection, was responsible for giving the final sign off on the "sea dumping permit" allowing the ship to be scuttled legally.

It's a disgrace.

I remember the night of the election when John Howard was voted out of office. After 11 stifling years there was a great sense of hope for the future in the house where we celebrated till around 4am.

The thought of Peter Garrett carrying his environmental passion into a ministerial portfolio was inspiring. On that night, it seemed as though someone who stood for us, heard us and understood us, was going to be in power. We thought the same things at the same time and hoped that Garrett could do something about it.

No more putting profit and convenience before the environment. Recognition and energy for closing the gap in life expectancy and living conditions for indigenous Australians. No more invasion and war on false pretenses. No more demonisation of asylum seekers for short term political gain. No more big government or big business fudging proper environmental process to quickly push through questionable projects.

How times have changed.

The scuttling of the ex-HMAS Adelaide is just the kind of issue Peter Garrett used to stand against.

Growing up near Manly, this kind of confrontation was part of my DNA:
a stage set up in Keirle Park, draped in Surfrider Foundation banners. A towering Garrett spinning across the stage with the spiritual fervour of a Sufi, hands pleading with the heavens and the powers that be, backed by a rhythmic fury and every member of the crowd.

In a country like Australia; a country so perplexed by our own national identity - our historical narrative for so long little more than a grotesque paper-mache that ignored 40,000 years of culture prior to invasion (or was it settlement?), failed to face the difficulties of that moment of contact, and chose instead to build a national myth on the overburdened backs of soldiers cruelly sacrificed by an imperial power - Peter Garrett and Midnight Oil stood for something.

They made a career out excavating the past and parts of Australia so many would rather ignore. They offered a way forward. They stirred things up.

I feel sadly that Garrett has abandoned this legacy and foolishly spent the political capital he took into the Labor Party.

I don't doubt his anguish over decisions, nor the good intentions he took into federal politics to make a change from within - few are so committed to even attempt to step into the fray - but to use a hackneyed phrase, 'politics is the art of compromise', which is fine, it's just that I don't know what Peter Garrett stands for anymore.


[if you want to get involved contact the No Ship Action Group - see www.noship.com.au - they are planning a legal challenge to stop the dumping of the ship]

iVictrola

This would go rather well at the new place in Marrickville. #mybirthdayisinaugust

Behold the Steel Butterfly>>>David Byrne on Imelda Marcos

I love this clip, even though Imelda's shoes are conspicuously absent.
The footage of her dancing and cavorting with Kissinger is priceless.
Corrupt Dictator Chic?

Behold the Steel Butterfly:

ps for some reason the clip doesn't appear correctly in this format. So just click the fullscreen button (rectangle within a rectangle) in the bottom left corner of the clip.

The History of Music Making in Australia

I know Jon Rose from his fence playing (which I love)(see video below): but Here http://www.abc.net.au/rn/artworks/stories/2008/2300198.htm via ABC's Artwork Features is a great lecture he gives on the history of music making in Australia.

This is worth a listen.

The Wrath of Music Dad

This week's show was wonderful - great sound, great audience ////except for the fact that my lexicon pedal whacked out again and in an unrelated incident, I experienced the wrath of not one, but two "Music Dads".**

Music Dad**

Definition: A Music Dad (MD) is the father of a young music Child Genius. This Dad attends the performances of the Child Genius with a vigour unmatched in devotion by even the most fervent graduates of the Pakistani madrassas.

Plummage: MD's are easy to identify. Their plummage is similar to that of Tennis/Sport Dad's in that they mimic the plummage of their Child Genius as best they can. Instead of tennis shirts and track suits, imagine the musical Damir Dokic in his finest 'cool' nocturnal attire. See below.

• Polished RM Williams boots (hardcore MD's will work a side zip boot or a cuban heel), stifly ironed jeans and striped button-down collared shirts, tucked in to within an inch of their life.

• MD's often put one leg up on a chair and dangle the keys to the BMW loudly in the vicinity of their crotch. This is a kind of territorial thing.

• A full or receding head of grey hair accompanied by a Deputy Opposition Leader Julie Bishop Stare is another easy giveaway.

• Often accompanied by a Julie Bishop look-a-like Music Mum (MM). Pearl Earrings!

• MD's are mostly useless and so usually hang around the Child Genius at the show like a bad smell. The Child Genius' chances at success can be gauged by how embarrassed the Child Genius is by MD's behavior. The higher the embarrassment, the greater chance of success. (NB a wise Child Genius will send MD and MM to the wrong venue on a regular basis).
  

Known Behaviours:

• MD's carry keyboards for waif like singer-songwriter daughters who in turn impersonate Missy Higgins or Sarah Mclachlan, badly.

• MD's run crowd interference for sensitive male songwriter Child Geniuses.

• MD's are notorious for harassing, second guessing, back seat driving and generally pissing off live sound personnel with continual suggestions as to how the sound could be improved.

• MD's know what songs should go on the album and in particular which song should be the (hit) single.

• MD's have vast knowledge of the music and entertainment industries as a result of their extensive experience in dentistry/insurance /{.......}middle management.

• MD's know their way around a recording studio and how things should sound as a result of their extensive experience with home Hi-Fi's and The Eagles back catalogue. Take it easy.
  

• MD's crash tackle members of the audience who do not listen with rapt attention to their wunderkind. Then they take them out the back for a firm word or two.

• MD's stand towards the back/side of the room for maximum audience glaring/performance coaching objectivity positioning.
  

• MD's single-handedly keep the "Recording School Industry" and various "Learn Rock-n-Roll Institutes" afloat. MD's are therefore (unwittingly) superannuation funds for hard of hearing roadies and semi-alcoholic rockers/poodle-hair band retirees from the 80s.
  

• MD's want a return on their investment dammit!

Conculsion:

• Music Dad keeps the dream balloon afloat. They insulate the Child Genius from anyone or thing that may threaten to expose Child Genius' lack of talent.
  

• Music Dad secretly prays nightly that "it's just a phase".

• Music Dad is guaranteed to stunt and stifle the growth of their genius progeny through over protection. (NB. Over protection can work (see Frank Sinatra and the Mafioso) but your regular Music Dad doesn't have that kind of muscle, nor the ticker.
  

• Music Dad's upper middle class nose for money and respectability will in time, turn on little Jenny/Johnny Child Genius, when the said genius refuses to move on and become a lawyer, dentist, insurance salesperson in due course.

• If Child Genius persists, MD will continue to ply his trade, although with less enthusiasm as the years go by. At this stage MD will be hoping to "jam" with Child Genius.
  

Like me, you too can incur the wrath of a Music Dad!

Just chat quietly during Child Genius' performance and see what happens.

All the way from Marylebone to Bow Hills I thought of you

..I thought of you
Our love was once like a river
but now it's still
now it's still


A. and I spent the weekend out in North West New South Wales visiting family on the farm between Narrabri and Baan Baa. It was a cracking time. Caught some yabbies, watched some of the senior members of the family falling over drunk, met some interesting folks and a blind epileptic Pug called Dudley.

They've had buckets of rain out there and no one has ever seen it so green. Still, it was sad to see the damage a coal mine does first hand. There's one going in over the road and the noise and dust are insane. My cousin's taking the fight to them.

The food on the farm was fresh and delicious, but I can't understand why so many country pubs in Australia serve the food they do. There they are, surrounded by some of the best produce in the world, but tradition and madness dictate that they serve up overcooked veges and something resembling warmed through road-train retreads, scavenged from the side of the highway, then forcefully splattered with spurts and squirts from the local dysentery outbreak, circa World War 2.

The beer was good, cold and perfect though.

All in all, can't wait to get out there again.

Cam MacKellar Halves The Hour: Episode 2

The music and musing behind Broken Soul, the second track from the Saudade EP, featuring tracks from The Velvet Underground, Harry Nilsson and rare John Lennon.

Listen below or listen and subscribe for free via itunes here

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Andy/Elvis/Bobby

The last post included Christ so it's only fair to.....



(with thanks to Redmond the former)

The difference between wealth and money

Do you have any advice for Americans in the face of recession? What would Jesus say?

Jesus would say, Recognize the difference between wealth and money. Wealth is the progressive realization of worthy goals, the ability to love and have compassion, meaningful and caring relationships. There's $2.9 trillion circulating in the world's markets every day, less than 2% of which goes to provide goods and services to humanity. The rest is one big casino, making money off money or losing money off money. We have a culture where we spend what we haven't earned to buy things we don't need to impress people we don't like, and now the situation is such that we are being drawn to find the real meaning in our lives. When we shift from consumption to relationship, then we will be doing what Jesus would do.

Freedom Has A New Sound!

Thinking about future projects.

I want to write something that deals broadly with sound and empire.

What does imperial American "freedom" sound like to Iraqis and Afghans? In other occupied territories? To the Palestinians who suffered under Israeli "sound bombs" over the Gaza Strip? To "enemy combatants" in Camp X-Ray and America's secret prisons?

The image above is from the mid-1950s when the noise of Cold War militarism started to piss off Americans at home. The text in the poster reads:

Freedom Has a New Sound!

ALL OVER AMERICA these days the blast of supersonic flight is shattering the old familiar sounds of city and countryside.

At U. S. Air Force bases strategically located near key cities our Airmen maintain their round the clock vigil, ready to take off on a moment’s notice in jet aircraft like Convair’s F-102A all-weather interceptor. Every flight has only one purpose — your personal protection!

The next time jets thunder overhead, remember that the pilots who fly them are not willful disturbers of your peace; they are patriotic young Americans affirming your New Sound of Freedom!

Her beauty and her terror

////

To Read List

Patti Smith "Just Kids"




John McGahern "Love The World'

It's a trap!

Lord Monckton's doppelganger - "It's a trap!"

Radio Free Europe

Cam MacKellar Halves The Hour: Episode 1

Cam MacKellar Halves The Hour Episode Uno by cammackellar

Where I'm Calling From

This from the good poeple at HUM via Hamish MacDonald of Al Jazeera: (click here to see the original Hum post with links)

• PROBLEM: There are 237 countries/territories in the world. Yet, the 4 largest newsgathering and distribution organizations which supply content to 90% of the planet’s media, only report from 121 countries. They overlap operations in 77, and are differentiated only by 45.

• RESULT? 116 countries NOT covered by mainstream media – almost half the world, and 4 billion people. (HUM Research, 2009 All rights reserved.)

• HUM refers to this as the ‘GEOGRAPHIC GAP™ ’in global media - and the Company’s market opportunity.

Further……….

63 of these 116 countries also feature on the UN’s G77 list of most impoverished global nations and are generally considered `developing countries’. (HUM Research, 2009. All rights reserved.)


This and many of the other stark faces of inequality inspired the song "Where I'm Calling From" (which I've been playing live and can't wait to record properly):

The wire's vibrating with metallic sound
There's a dust storm moving fast over ground
It's midnight the search light cuts oil black sky
Beneath the blind sweep of the camera's eye

I hear politicians talking in rant and in rave
They stoke the fire of fear, but they can't keep us safe
Leaders serve greed, there's a silence that chokes
They lie and deceive like it's some kind of joke

We're in the static and the noise almost gone
Thought you might like to know where I'm calling from

We can see your great lights, see the dollars and pounds
See wealth's golden fountain, but it won't trickle down
Tell me what will you do, and where will you go
When you gain the whole world but lose your soul?

We're in the static and the noise almost gone
Thought you might like to know where I'm calling from

So you can turn a deaf ear, And blind your eyes
Build your great towers into the sky
Don’t ask the questions, just roll on
But I thought you might like to know where I’m Calling From.

The Back Road to Cudal

on the way to the last show of the year (iphone from gypsy caravan)

John Cage Walking on Water

Haruki Murakami

“I’m not pretending it’s the real thing. We are living in a fake world; we are watching fake evening news. We are fighting a fake war. Our government is fake. But we find reality in this fake world. So our stories are the same; we are walking through fake scenes, but ourselves, as we walk through theses scenes, are real. The situation is real, in the sense that it’s a commitment, it’s a true relationship. That’s what I want to write about.”

Haruki Murakami

From Van to Townes Van Zandt

(with many thanks to Van Truong)

Van

'//the thing is to transcend...'

Refugees Re-visited

(A Sri Lankan hunger striker is stretchered off the boat by fellow asylum seekers after fainting Photo: Roy Rubianto)

I'm just back from the South America to find that refugees are again in the Australian news. Sadly, it seems that Australia is still a deeply xenophobic country with a habit of electing leaders who choose to cynically harness the energy of that xenophobia for political advantage.Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, like his predecessor John Howard, has chosen to get "tough" and take a "hardline" approach to refugees. This kind sentiment rates in Australia, as do TV shows like 'Border Security' - they push the same fear/comfort emotional buttons.

What the Prime Minister should have done is put this current rise in refugees arriving in Australia in an accurate historical and global perspective. He should have demonstrated leadership by appealing to the better, more compassionate nature of the Australian public rather than perpetuating the irrational fears so many here hold of being 'swamped' by a rising 'tide'/'wave'/'tsunami' of the poor, the persecuted and the weary.

Some perspective:

Getting "tough" doesn't work.

• Have 'tough'or 'harsh' immigration policies been effective?
  

There is no evidence that the policy of mandatory detention introduced by Labor in 1992 and toughened by the Coalition deterred arrivals. When mandatory detention was introduced, there were only a very small number of boat arrivals. Ten years later, there were 5000. The current government maintained the same policy of mandatory detention when they were elected and numbers have continued to rise.

The same is true for the Australian government's policies of charging people (sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars) for the cost of their detention, and refusing to give permanent protection to people found to be genuine refugees. Despite these deterrents numbers have continued to rise.

Why?


The historical and global perspective.

The current rise in arrivals is clearly a result of geo-political factors.

• Globally the number of refugees has increased recently:

In 2008: according to UNHCR there were 15.2m refugees (one-third were in our own region)
In the same year, globally, the number of asylum claims rose by 28 per cent to 839,000

Of the current arrivals, 48% are Afghans, and 36% are Sri Lankan. In short, events in Pakistan and Sri Lanka account for nearly 85% of the current increase.

Consequently, to labour the point, irrespective of the tough talk, Australia and many other countries have been recently confronted with an increase in people seeking protection as a result of persecution and conflicts.

• Australia deals with a tiny amount of asylum seekers relative to other nations:
  

80 per cent of the world's refugees are hosted by developing countries: Pakistan, Syria, Iran and Jordan

Among the developed countries, the US received 49,600 applications for asylum, France 35,400, Canada 34,800, Britain 30,500, and Italy 30,300. Australia received - and this is taking together all people arriving by boat and plane - 4500 asylum claims. South Africa received 207 000 claims from asylum seekers.

• Historically large numbers of refugees have come to Australia, worked hard and contributed greatly to the country

The protection Australia offered to the 90,000 Vietnamese who found asylum in here during the mid 1970s - mid 1980s has been overwhelmingly successful.

• The vast majority of arrivals by boat are genuine refugees:
  

Of asylum claims made within Australia by people who have arrived by aircraft, 55% are rejected. The rejection rate of claims made by people who arrive by boat varies between 2-15%.


It's heartbreaking that our current Prime Minister and our former Prime Minister have the same fetish for stroking the redneck nerve in Australia - all pandering, bluster and tough talk - no real leadership.

I'm sadly reminded of the little remembered tragedy of SievX (Suspected Illegal Entry Vehicle X of "A Certain Maritime Incident" infam). 353 men, women and children drowned in criminally suspicious circumstances seeking a better life in Australia. They were fleeing the noise, terror and criminal negligence of life in Iraq brought on in part by Australia's role in the mess created by "Operation Iraqi Freedom".

Despite the admirable efforts of Tony Kevin and others to bring this to the attention of the Australian public, most people know little about this incident. Read about it here and here


It's worth noting that Australia has signed the UN Refugee Convention. Read about Australia's obligations under this treaty here.

353 drowned in Siev X today //
if you come to our country we’ll turn you away //
but first we’ll lock you up in a barbed wire cage //
And then wonder what fuels your suicide rage //
One day to be free

Fortress Australia what a joke //
it's just something they made up to steal your vote //
while they stroked your sensitive redneck nerve //
you reach around, re-elect, "humbled to serve" //
One day to be free //

Demonise, victimise, polarise, lie //
Invent the fear then magnify //
spin about children not thrown overboard //
harness the fear and put truth to the sword //
One day to be free

Washington Phillips on the dolceola

I love this track.


1-09 Lift Him Up That's All

How to pick your favouite Indie Band

from http://www.cracked.com/funny-1677-indie-music/

Worth a Read: Historian Marcus Redicker talks pirate and slave communities with Auburn State prisoners

http://www.counterpunch.org/rediker09032009.html

In the lecture I talked about the broad context of the Atlantic slave trade, how the many millions transported were central to the establishment of the plantation system and, therefore, to the rise of modern capitalism. I talked about the slave trade as a human experience, the deliberately inflicted violence and terror of the Middle Passage. I talked about the nature of community among the enslaved aboard the ship, how they overcame ethnic differences to create a common culture of resistance that would be carried off the ship and into the slave societies of the United States, Jamaica, Puerto Rico and Brazil. (This point seemed to have a special resonance.) I concluded by talking about what kind of movement from below was necessary to abolish the slave trade, in Great Britain (1807) and the United States (1808).

Yoko Ono//change change

I love this answer from Yoko Ono during her regular Friday Q and A session on Twitter (@yokoono) (http://imaginepeace.com/news/archives/7703):


///////
Q: Is art necessarily/always political or can “autonomous” art effect social change as well?

Yoko: All art is communication. All communication sends vibration to outside. All vibration effects social change.
///////

Beats the hell out of "don't mix music and politics"

Communique: Tales from the Afterlives

Just one of David Eagleman's forty tales - thoroughly enjoyable///

Egalitaire

In the afterlife you discover that God understands the complexities of life.

She had originally submitted to peer pressure when She structured her universe like all the other gods had, with a binary categorization of people into good and evil. But it didn't take long for Her to realize that humans could be good in many ways and simultaneously corrupt and mean-spirited in other ways.

How was She to arbitrate who goes to Heaven and who to Hell?

Might it not be possible, She considered, that a man could be an embezzler and still give to charitable causes? Might not a woman be an adulteress but bring pleasure and security to two men's lives? Might not a child unwittingly divulge secrets that splinter a family?

Dividing the population into two categories - good and bad - seemed like a more reasonable task when she was younger, but with experience these decisions became more difficult. She composed complex formulas to weigh hundreds of factors, and ran computer programs that rolled out long strips of paper with eternal decisions. But her sensitivities revolted at this automation - and when the computer generated a decision She disagreed with, She took the opportunity to kick out the plug in rage.

That afternoon She was listening to the grievances of the dead from two warring nations. Both sides had suffered, both sides had legitimate grievances, both pled their cases earnestly. She covered Her ears and moaned in misery. She knew Her humans were multidimensional, and She could no longer live under the rigid architecture of Her youthful choices.

Not all gods suffer over this; we can consider ourselves lucky that in death we answer to a God with deep sensitivity to the byzantine hearts of Her creations.

For months She moped around her living room in Heaven, head drooped like a bulrush, while the lines piled up. Her advisors asked Her to delegate the decision making, but She loved her humans too much to leave them to the care of anyone else.

In a moment of desperation the thought crossed Her mind to let everyone wait in line indefinitely, letting them work it out on their own.

But then a better idea struck Her generous spirit. She could afford it: She would grant everyone, every last human, a place in Heaven. After all, everyone had something good inside; it was part of the design specifications. Her new plan brought back the bounce to Her gait, returned the colour to her cheeks.

She shut down the operations in Hell, fired the Devil, and brought every last human to be by Her side in Heaven. Newcomers or old timers, nefarious or righteous: under the new system, everyone gets equal time to speak with her. Most people find Her a little garrulous and over solicitious, but She cannot be accused of not caring.

The most important aspect of Her new system is that everyone is treated equally. There is no longer fire for some and harp music for others. The afterlife is no longer defined by cots versus waterbeds, raw potatoes versus sushi, hot water verses champagne. Everyone is a brother to all, and for the first time an idea has been realized that never came to fruition on Earth:true equality.

The Communists are baffled and irritated, because they have finally achieved their perfect society, but only with the hel of a God in whom they don't want to believe.

The meritocrats are abashed that they're stuck for eternity in an incentiveless system with a bunch of pinkos.

The conservatives have no penniless to disparage, the liberals have no downtrodden to promote.

So God sits on the edge of Her bed and weeps at night, because the only thing that everyone can agree upon is that they're all in Hell.