Preaching to the choir (is easier than preaching to the congregation)

It never ceases to amaze me how clumsy human beings can be with words. Sometimes squeezing the mass of thoughts and emotions whirling in one's head into a coherent sentence is simply too hard, and we instead just blurt out whatever thought is currently floating in our stream of consciousness. This can lead to misunderstandings, frustration and bad decision-making.

Poor communication is a problem that plagues all of us, in almost every sphere of life. I'm sure all of us can relate to being sent to redo a piece of work for the n-th time by a boss who doesn't quite seem to be able to tell you what it is exactly that he or she wants. But while a communication breakdown in regular life can be fixed with relative ease by sitting down with the person question and nutting out exactly what it is they (and you) mean, poor communication in the realm of art (particularly music) can be fatal.

With any piece of art you only have as long as you can hold the audience's attention to make your point, and a lot of thought and refinement goes into ensuring that your message is conveyed with economy of thought and word. Yet there are limits to the amount of explanatory information you can encode into your work; there is a point at which you have to leave it be and hope that you are understood for what you are trying to say.

More often than not however, when you are trying to convey a truth to an audience that is not accustomed to it, this delicate balance between explicit and implicit content is impossible to achieve and the true meaning behind your work goes straight over the heads of your audience. A lot of people simply give up at this point and resign themselves to preaching to the choir - those who hold similar ideas and thus know how to decode and unpack the implicit messages built into highly specialised work.

But every now and then there comes across a piece of work that breaks all boundaries and manages to take the messages and truths guarded by one subculture into other cultural pools. Bands such as Nirvana and Radiohead could be offered as examples; both of them successfully exported previously alternative forms of music into a mainstream context and led to a general surge in interest in their respective genres.

It is with these trailblazers in mind that I continue to write, hoping that the messages I put in my songs manage to transcend the genre and audience of hip hop (and more specifically the sub-genre of alternative hip hop) and speak to a broader audience. It's a daunting task, and one that I go into with no illusions about. Sometimes the most difficult part isn't even constructing effective cross-over songs; it's convincing others that an effective cross-over is even possible (and worthwhile).

But I'm determined not to stop in my attempt to communicate and be heard, both in life generally and in music. Whether my words end up being picked up only by the alternative hip hop community or even just by me, I will not give up on my quest to make authentic music that transcends boundaries and categorisation. For those who set their sights lower, I have no disrespect. But my eyes are fixed on higher things.

Swans Bad Boys

Former St Kilda and Sydney power forward Tony Lockett once described himself rather modestly as 'a thug who could play a bit'. I think that Lockett was being a bit hard on himself; despite his history at the tribunal he was never really that much of an on-field bully (think the Brisbane Lions during their golden years, anyone?)

Perhaps the 'thug' label could be better applied to current Sydney (and former St Kilda) star forward Barry Hall, who on the weekend felled West Coast player Brent Staker with a lightning left jab during an off-the-ball incident.

Apparently there's something with Sydney and recruiting burly ex-St Kilda star forwards.

First there was the man they called Plugger:



Now, in the trained boxer Barry Hall they have Slugger:



...and the saga continues.

How would you feel?

Yesterday Collingwood became the unlucky team that finally let the Blues win a match. When I heard the news, the question that immediately came to me was: How would you feel?

I'm sure the Collingwood players are pretty disappointed with themselves, and the Carlton boys are secretly relieved that they still remember the words to the club song. As for me however, I have mixed emotions.

Part of me is happy that Collingwood were the hapless group to finally gift a win to the Blues; after all that stick that we Bombers fans copped after the 1990 Grand Final it's nice to see the Pies get some of their own back.

On the other hand, seeing the Blues actually win a match is equally distasteful. I'm only glad that we handed them their record-equalling 14th loss last week.

Is this kicking teams when they're down? You betcha. Is it uncalled for? Probably. Is it likely to come back to me in a bad way? Almost certain.

But I live in Melbourne and I follow AFL. This is more than sport to us - it's a religion.

When Journalists Attack

The latest controversy to hit the Australian news media is the mock-salute that Kevin Rudd gave to George Bush at the NATO meeting in Bucharest.

For those who may not be aware (or for those of you who aren't news-addicts like I am, which I assume covers most of you), Kevin Rudd was attending a NATO function in Bucharest and generally hob-nobbing it with other international political figures when he caught sight of George Bush and made the gesture before casually walking over and talking to him. The News Corp website had a handy photo montage:



This casual gesture has more than one Australian politician kicking up dust, most notably the Opposition leader Brendan Nelson and the ubiquitous Greens leader Bob Brown. Mr Nelson said something about the gesture being 'inappropriate', and appears to be arguing that Rudd is one person when he thinks he is being filmed and another when he is not. For me this argument doesn't hold much weight. Kevin Rudd has worked hard to shed his 'Dr Death' image and adopt the bright, friendly 'Kevin from Queensland' persona, and I think that the casual, laid back acknowledgement of a friend (which could be interpreted as a tongue in cheek reference to Australia's undeniably (and unavoidably) close relationship with the US) is in line with Kevin Rudd's new character. Of course I can forgive Mr Nelson, seeing as it would be odd for an Opposition leader to stay silent when the mainstream media begin ragging on the Prime Minister.

I have less sympathy for Bob Brown's comments. Mr Brown once again pulled out the tired, uninspired anti-American rhetoric that he and his ilk have become infamous for. In Mr Brown's eyes, being a larrikin and easy-going are apparently 'belittling' to Australia. According to Mr Brown it takes a 'seasoned maturity to ensure Australia is never second-rated in the international arena', with the underlying message being that in making a playful gesture Kevin Rudd is somehow in danger of showing that Australia still sees itself as 'the 51st state of the US'. My advice to Bob Brown is to seriously consider what it means to be a confident country on the world stage. If the larrikin country can't be even the least bit relaxed because we are so afraid of what the rest of the world thinks about us, what does that say about us as a nation?

Let me point out the following:
1. The function in question was not a serious policy meeting, but rather a casual meet and greet.
2. Kevin Rudd appeared at ease with the US President at all times. It looked to me like Mr Rudd chose to make the gesture, rather than feeling under some obligation to do so.
3. It was a casual (if not playful) gesture; this level of familiarity is the mark of equals, not subordinates. If Australia really did see itself as 'the 51st state of the US', Kevin Rudd probably would not have had the balls to snap off a mock-salute. I know none of the 50 actual US state governors would have.

I therefore suggest that Bob Brown and the news media finish up their little hissy fit, and as quickly as possible. Nobody else seems to care about what gestures the Australian prime minister does or does not make, and in kicking up a massive fuss about this we risk looking like a little kid who is so desperate to hang with the big boys that he keeps trying too hard to fit in. If you're going to criticise the PM, and I believe that there are good reasons to (snubbing our largest trading partner, perhaps?), then for God's sake criticise him for something that is actually an issue.

Then again, it is nice to know that in a rapidly changing world there is still certainty in two things: that the news media is still voracious as ever in its race to the bottom, and that Bob Brown is equally stupid no matter which side of politics he is criticising.

The Windy City? Move over Chicago, I'm talking about Melbourne

We had some pretty extreme weather this week in Melbourne. Our city has always been known for changing its weather faster than a bipolar person changes moods, but this week was particularly bad. We've just come out of a heat wave a couple of weeks ago, and after granting us a small patch of pleasant weather to lull us into a false sense of security mother nature decided to hit us with gale force winds in the second half of this week.

And 'gale force' is not hyperbole; we're talking about winds that uprooted trees, collapsed brick walls and in a couple of cases actually killed people. Welcome to the new windy city: Melbourne, VIC.

To make matters worse, my university (Monash) has always been notoriously windy, which simply made Wednesday even worse. To give you some sense of perspective, here's a picture of a fully uprooted tree, taken during one of the lulls:



The storms also took out large chunks of Melbourne's power grid, with the unfortunate consequence being that the trains were no longer running. When I did eventually make it home, I found out that our entire area was blacked out, meaning that I spent my evening like this:



Most of the damage has been repaired by now, but there are still pockets of Melbourne without power. Overall however, credit has to be given to the emergency services for fixing things up so quickly.

Here's to hoping for some milder weather in the future.