Monochrome Monday

Spray Days

Unhappy spray day

Happy spray day

Tragic Logic

The recent devastating floods across the majority of eastern Australia will eventually subside and we'll discover under the mud, the dodgy bacteria and the stench that some Aussies have lost dishwashers, clothes washers and brain washers.

Greater minds than mine have had a stab at explaining the seemingly illogical savagery and destruction that nature can deal out to we who think we have a handle on all there is to know and control - a tragic logic that sees one house spared and the next submerged, one life healthy and the next cut short. What I do know for sure, 100% crystal clear, is that right now those poor buggers just don't need a hand to scrape mud off floors. What they will be needing in the months ahead, when this issue drops out of the news, is cash - money to buy dishwashers, clothes washers, TVs, radios, computers, beds, cupboards, pots and pans, stoves, cars, paint and trades work. So if you can spare a quid, a Euro, a Peso or a Dollar send them to a reliable flood relief charity such as the Queensland government-run Premier's Flood Appeal. Thank you.

Aquarian Blues

Continuing yesterday's hororsope theme - another fellow Aquarian was Blind Willie Johnson, who sang wonderful gospel tinged blues on classics such as "Nobody's Fault but Mine" (think Led Zeppelin), "Motherless Children" (think Clapton), "In My Time of Dying" (think Dylan), "Soul of a Man" (think Bruce Cockburn) and "Dark Was the Night and Cold Was the Ground".

Blind Willie's classic tune "John the Revelator" is currently aboard the Voyager 1 space probe hurtling towards whatever is out their beyond the solar system. Rock on Willie.

Second Summer

Second summer of the year starts today with a grey bleakness as I take the brinemobile to the autodude for a checkup.

Driving in the traffic, remembering sunburn. camping at Christmas, thunderstorms, beach cricket at low tide, cyclones and clean big waves breaking in spots that are normally flat.

Our second summer of the year is officially on.

Un-bleaking

My late dad used to say that any day when you actually wake up and are able to get out of bed is a good day, but all of this dreary, dark, rainsoaked weather finds me longing for clear blue skies and sunshine.

I hope these "un-bleaked" pics stoke my Brinetopian bothers and sistas until sunny days and clean walls return.

One for Utah

I'm always on the look out for interesting graffitti - by which I mean something that I respond to emotionally or intellectually (depending on the way it's lit and how much caffein is in my system). I don't normally shoot or really understand the point of the meaningless scribble tag thing that I'll see on bus seats, fences, street signs and old derelict buildings like this one in the heart of BrineVegas, our capital city. As a surfing blogger I do accept that we all need avenues for expression and thrills.

I have never done graffitti. Part of my interest in it stems from my observations of the radically changing environment from Byron Bay to Noosa as old trees, properties and buildings that housed a million memories are torn down to be replaced by sleek, rendered cubes, carbon munching highways and high density dwelling towers. Shooting some of this stuff is my small attempt at keeping the memory alive.

I saw this magnificent wall of thoughts, styles and opinions while wandering from one formal (expensive) art gallery to the next and had to capture the quote from Utah Phillip's an American Christian Anarchist, folk singer.

"The earth is not dying.

It is being killed

And those that are killing it

Have names and addresses."

As we stroll into the ballot boxes on Saturday to cast our votes for the Australian Senate and the Lower House (ie the leader of the country), the area of social justice seems to have fallen off the radar of the two parties that have the monopoly on power here. We used to pride ourselves on giving everybody a "fair go". I pray that the election campaign is not symptomatic of a creeping malaise of greed and selfishness.

Surf's Up

Yew!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

(and it's not the fumes speaking, or is it?)

Double post today as there'll be nothing from me tomorrow. All will be revealed the day after that - providing that the tricky Mayan calendar means 2012 will be the end of the world and not 2010. 

At least the surf is UP. Yew!!!!!!!!

Bad Graff

On the very rare occasions that Noosa gets waves, there's a bunch of old gum trees

that you can use to mark your position in the crowded lineup

as the sweep endeavours to shove you away -

past First Point and down towards the Rivermouth.

The gum trees provide shade in our hot summers and a place to hang out

 for goannas, koalas and pink and grey galahs.

Back in the day you could actually park under them as in this Kodachrome from around 1987.

So why would somebody want to spray paint another living thing?????

Spring 2009

Good Graf

Brine Boulevard, a much better example of the art of graff using spray, stencils and wheatpaste.

Spring 2008