The Waiting Man

Finally!!!

Available as a digital download, vinyl LP... CD coming soon - with bonus tracks!!


The cover!!


New album, new publicity photo!!


also available to "try before you buy" on Spotify...

I have taken possession of some vinyl copies of the new Pelican Daughters album 'It's Time, My Friend'...

I also have the digital mix that will be made available for download & probably put up on Spotify as well. The 'official' launch date is still undetermined, but after a meeting between our record label & we 2 Pelicans, it will likely be in 4-6 weeks - there is another album in the queue ahead of us that will get its moment in the sun before it's our turn

We've been told to not talk about it, so the release comes as a noteworthy 'surprise' for our little niche market, but I had to tell someone!!!

Sssshhhhh!!!!!

As promised, here is the latest track from Pelican Daughters, from the album that will eventually come out after the new album comes out... eventually!!



A bit understated & simple, this one... based around a few chords & one riff from another unused guitar piece of mine. Vocals by a parrot someone sent us a recording of & a Vietnamese market stall worker. All drum sounds made by banging on about 3 different guitars!!

Dear Justin,

This is Future You - writing to tell you to not waste your time worrying about USA politics in general & any of the myriad Trump stories in particular. No... I'm not going to tell you how the election in November turns out, nor anything that happens after

All I'm going to tell you is that worrying about it is pointless. You can't do anything about it, no matter how angry a lot of the shit going down makes you. You can't change anyone's mind about any of it, no matter how misguided, indoctrinated or just plain fucked in the head they are

Monument Valley, Arches & Yosemite National Parks & all the other natural wonders of the continent have been there for thousands of years & will still be there once its people have sorted their shit out for themselves & it's safe to go back there without body armour. With a little luck, you'll still be mobile & compos mentis enough to enjoy them

Hell... with a little more luck the orange b@stard will choke on a cheeseburger before November anyway... No, I'm not saying that's what happens, but it's a nice, little optimistic dream you can hold onto in the meantime. Because, as you know, there's no one who can replace him that has the same cultish hold over his mob - not within his family, nor in the Republican Party... & even without death by dietary misadventure, he's not exactly a picture of health & vitality, is he?

So when you see some story, or sycophantic suck-up about him - take a deep breath... & try to think a little more long-term about this

And don't, whatever you do, think about how low the bar has been set for political leadership in that powderkeg of a country & worry about who has the wherewithal to slither under it & take his place

Well, after 20 years or whatever, I joined Facebook in the latter part of the year, in search of community & connection for photography & music. Some of which I found, but here's an entry there from a week or so ago, detailing what else I found there...

This will be old news to a lot of you, but I've been on FBook for less than 6 months & it appears to be populated by only a few kinds of people...

Apart from spammers & scammers, who are legion, many of the groups I wander in & out of are full of people who are convinced that nobody has a sense of humour any more & that you can't say or do anything now because "snowflakes will get offended blah blah blah the world is doomed"

I haven't encountered as many Trump supporters as I expected, but there are still plenty of people out there on the right wing spectrum who are convinced that all the world's problems are caused by 'woke lefties' & no amount of questioning or attempted debate about how these insomniac democrats caused ALL the trouble, will reveal any specific details... it's just the way it is & "the world is doomed"

Apparently, music, TV & films are nowhere near as good as they used to be back in the 60s-80s, the 'scene' is dead, as are all the great musicians, writers & actors & nobody making any kind of art today is worthwhile on any level compared to your favourite one of any of those because... well, just because

I'd considered myself something of a grammar & spelling pedant, but wow... the abuse people dish out when someone makes a mistake in their post, or their reply to a post, is brutal. A simple typo can apparently reduce an otherwise intelligent argument/comment to meaningless drivel & its author to the level of some kind of mentally-challenged dropout from 'English as a 2nd Language' classes in insert-name-of-'backward'-3rd-world-country-here. And, of course... the world is doomed

Well, as the rest of the world probably knows by now, the referendum to recognise our Aboriginal people in the Constitution & grant them an advisory 'Voice' to Federal Parliament was lost on Saturday... quite decisively

There were many reasons for the loss, including the fact that the constitutional amendment itself was ill-defined & not properly explained... at least not in simple enough terms for the apparently larger-than-we-thought lowest common denominator section of our population, who'd rather be spoon-fed politically & socially divisive rhetoric from right-wing politicians & media than take a moment to think for themselves & not just of themselves. Quite early in the campaign for the amendment, it was changed from being about giving aboriginal people some recognition, respect & representation, into a Left vs Right, 'Woke' vs whatever the opposite of Woke is, & let's just admit it... regurgitation & bolstering of racism & discrimination

And if there was any doubt about that last part, last night, after the referendum result was announced, a group of neo-nazi fuckwits ran rampant at Melbourne's main railway station & on a train, harassing passengers about being Jewish, singing racist songs (Oh... & the National Anthem, just to show how 'patriotic' they think they are)

I was at a large public event last night, with L-SP & a group of friends, one of whom is Jewish & she got an SMS from her husband recommending she come home, after he'd seen the news from Melbourne...

The Trump virus - that encourages & promotes opinion over fact, superstition over science & violence over intelligence - has given every quarter-witted fuckwit who 'thinks' he (& it's mostly men, let's be honest) has been unfairly treated by a system that apparently favours... well everyone else but him, probably... some sort of validation - enough to make them more aggressive, brazen & recalcitrant, but above all visible, which in turn encourages another eighth-witted fuckwit to stand up & take his turn

It's a bit of an old man cliché to blame the internet for things, but really... how many flat-earthers did you meet, or hear about before? How many illuminati/lizard people/space laser 'truthers'? Once upon a time, if a newspaper or TV news bulletin did a story on some crackpot theory & its believers, it was presented as the Friday night 'Loony of the Week'. Now these idiots are interviewed unchallenged, their manifestos published in every detail & given a sensationalist headline that acts as an advertising billboard... to say nothing of the numerous social media platforms they can use to spout their bullshit with no fear of administrative regulation or rules. And they breed. They fester. They simmer... & increasingly boil over

I hope I'm dead & gone before this civilisation falls, as so many have before... but it's picking up speed

Hopefully, I'm just being the modern equivalent of that shabby old guy who wanders the streets wearing a sign that states 'The End Is Nigh... but sooner or later, one of us old guys will be right!!

I'm writing this down to work it all out in my head... This one's all about Australian politics, so feel free to skip it if you're not from 'round here. Hell... feel free to skip it if you are!!

The 'Voice' referendum seems to be exposing the not-very-well-hidden-in-the-first-place undercurrent of racism in many Australians - not necessarily only those of Anglo descent, but many former Europeans as well - towards the Australian indigenous population, because they are being offered a Voice to the Federal Parliament, designed to make representations to the Government on matters relating to Aboriginal & Torres Strait Island people & their culture/land etc...

A good thing, you might think... & about time. Sounds perfectly reasonable to allow them to have some input, if not influence, on decisions that affect their lives & livelihood. Things like education & social policy, to the granting of mining licenses to go & dig anywhere the Miners like for whatever traces of whatever particular rock they're looking for, then leave the place looking like an impact crater on the Moon when they're done... as has been the case for about the last 100 years or so. Things that have simply been passed &/or granted by the Federal Government, usually in return for huge 'donations' by whichever consortium, or industry body wants a favour. These sorts of people are, no surprise, vehemently against the 'Voice', as it means they can't just steamroll over any indigenous opposition on their way to a tidy profit

Rampant capitalism aside, the emotive argument the 'Vote No' campaign are weaponising, is that the Indigenous peoples don't deserve a special advisory body or, if they do, why can't the rest of us have one too?! To my ears, this sounds a lot like all those men who complain about International Women's Day & demand a Men's Day equivalent, conveniently forgetting that the other 364 of any given year, are basically days for them already. The parallel here is that both ideas are designed to redress an existing & established imbalance. Frankly, it would be fantastic if there were no need for the Voice at all, but we're dealing with a socio-economic & political world that not only has a huge head-start & tactical advantage in the way things are run, it's left our indigenous peoples hobbled back at the starting line, or in some cases, not even invited to be in the race... In order to bring things to a somewhat even keel, some extra help is required for now & that's what the Voice is - an opportunity to bring people who for centuries now have been marginalised, denigrated, repressed & diminished, in from the cold, so to speak. To acknowledge their culture & beliefs & find better ways to work with them

No one complained when the Federal Government passed the National Disability Insurance Scheme about 10 years ago, as a means to give disabled people greater access to services they needed. No one said they were getting unfair special treatment. What's the problem with helping the disadvantaged then?? Ohhhh.... because they're black? And for years, they've been portrayed & seen as ungrateful, recalcitrant, refusing to integrate into 'our' society... a bunch of uneducated drunks. Hey anyone from the rest of the world still reading at this point - does this sound familiar?!?

The other tactic being employed by... well kind of by both 'Yes' & 'No' campaigners, actually... has been to make this a politically divisive 'Left' vs 'Right' issue... a battle between those who are 'woke' & those who aren't (what's the opposite of 'woke' anyway) to the point where the original purpose of the referendum has been lost in muddied water that's now close to boiling. At what point did we Australians take a look at the political turmoil in the USA & think 'That's fantastic - we should definitely get some of that!!' We should absolutely choose an ideological side & abandon critical thought. We should totally think that if you're not 100% with us, you're against us & we hate you

I know Australia has a lot of sheep... but I thought they were mostly of the 4-legged variety

The simple fact is this: Here's the proposed amendment - “Chapter IX Recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples - 129 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice

In recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Peoples of Australia:

i: there shall be a body, to be called the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice;
ii: the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice may make representations to the Parliament and the Executive Government of the Commonwealth on matters relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples;
iii: the Parliament shall, subject to this Constitution, have power to make laws with respect to matters relating to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice, including its composition, functions, powers and procedures.”

The 'No' campaign's official objection to this is: The jurisdiction of the Voice extends beyond matters that relate only to Indigenous affairs and includes any matter that relates to Indigenous peoples. The Voice is free to involve itself in any debate that affects the broader community so long as it relates to Indigenous peoples

And, you might well ask, the problem with that is... what exactly? Well, they might start objecting to mining, land-clearing & development. They never could before & be damned if we'll let them start now!!

The key part the 'No' campaign seems to ignore, or gloss over, is the term 'make representations' to Parliament & Government. In other words, they can advise, they can petition, but they have no legislative ability - they can't introduce, let alone pass, any laws or policies... & the Government of the day is free to heed or ignore their representations as it sees fit

Personally, I've been steering well clear of any articles or reports that seem designed to further the clouding of the issue, or seek to further encourage rabid partisanship. Which has certainly irritated one long-standing friend of mine, with whom I had a Facebook comments argument yesterday, leading to him saying I was being paid to parrot the Left propaganda, then getting mightily offended when I suggested he'd been manipulated by his chosen side. When I reminded him that he'd just done the same to me, he retreated by saying he was only joking... at which point I just figuratively walked away

The possibility of losing a friendship of over 40 years standing disappoints me, but to lose it because of the global plague of Trumpian politics is actually way more upsetting to me

I just watched about 45 minutes of the TV adaptation of Terry Pratchett's 'Hogfather'... & have come to the conclusion that the Discworld novels are unfilmable. The best one I saw was 'Going Postal' & even that wasn't as good as I'd hoped

Everything seems to be pantomimically over-acted, cheesy & full of the infamous BBC 2nd-rate special effects - Death's skull was so obviously plastic, it looked like it had been purchased from Daiso in the weeks leading up to Halloween... or more likely, in the clearance sale at the start of November

No wonder Neil Gaiman eventually looked to the USA to make his stuff... though that comes with its own issues - 'American Gods' was pretty good - it looked amazing & Ian Mcshane was an inspired casting coup - except for one critical flaw... the guy who was cast as Shadow played him as a self-centred, whingeing prat & if the audience don't empathise with the main character, you're doomed. See also: the last attempt at filming 'The Hitch-Hikers Guide To The Galaxy'. I like Martin Freeman, but his Arthur Dent was bloody awful. Alan Rickman's Marvin is the only reason to watch the thing...

The TV adaptation of Pratchett & Gaiman's 'Good Omens' has all of the above flaws - overacting, bad SFX, unnecessary plot padding & Aziraphael is annoyingly unlikeable... played as an effete, prudish, gormless coward, with none of the implicit sense of power hinted at in the book. And could someone... & I'm looking at YOU Mr Gaiman, since Terry's not around to answer... explain to me why a 2nd season was at all necessary??!!??

FFS... In all these cases, you have source material that is loved by probably millions worldwide & all you have to do is put it on film & it will be a success. You don't have to re-write it, you don't have to introduce new plots & characters & above all, you don't have to hire all the 3rd-tier understudies from rural repertory theatres to play the parts...

Or is it just that I've read all these books so many times, that I have my own vision of what they look like inside my head & nothing's ever going to come close...?

Sunday was my only day off this week, for the 2nd week in a row, I don't think I'm really cut out for 6 day weeks any more... was I ever? Especially when the Saturdays have been spent in the Showroom, not out doing what I'm employed to do. At least I now know that when my Employer complains that when I have both weekend days off, he has to do Saturdays on his own & I'm supposed to feel sympathy that he's there with no one else, that he's being honest... he's there with no one else!! the 2 Saturdays I worked recently have been absolutely dead... to the point where I could have made significant inroads into 'War & Peace' , or even 'Ulysses' in the amount of time I spent just sitting around clock-watching. I have the next 2 weekends off & absolutely zero fucks will be given about it

L-SP was also working both days of the weekend, so yesterday was a chance to catch up with my newest musical partner - my only guitar student, who has now surpassed any need for me to show him things & it's become more of a meeting of techniques. He wanted to pick my brain about approaches to songwriting & we ended up writing a few things together that he's looking forward to tinkering with & re-arranging. I'm looking forward to hearing the results, as it will mark the 1st recording project that I've used my custom 12-string acoustic on... & even recorded with a very basic set-up, it sounded pretty good, which made all the double-grooved indentations on my fingers worth it... it's obviously been a little too long since I did any serious playing!!

From there, I headed across town & across the years, for a mixing session with my oldest musical partner, with whom I formed Pelican Daughters in 1984. With the completed album now looking like it won't be out 'til the end of the year at best, we've continued on & yesterday did 3 mixes of a new track which I'd recorded all the instrumentation for a few weeks back & left with my cohort to arrange, insert an array of field-recorded samples & add whatever took his fancy. I was seriously impressed with his work on this one & had only a couple of suggestions for changes, before we ran the drum tracks through my guitar effects unit to add some atmospheres. Mix 3 was my pick of them & I'll post a link for anyone remotely curious as soon as we upload it...

What a difference a day spent in the company of musicians can make... I came home last night floating on a little cushion of air, after a day spent stretching my creativity in 2 supportive environments

Sleep well Sinéad O'Connor... you'll be missed

Having made a kind of pledge to myself about doomscrolling & ranting about local & global politics here on my Journal, it's had the unexpected by-blow of leaving me without much drive to write about anything at all, really - a day-in, day-out diary of minutiae doesn't have much appeal to me &, as I experienced over on LiveJournal, not much appeal to anyone else either, so I've been lurking, posting comments occasionally, but nothing to really say...

The Pelican Daughters album we finished last year, is in Limbo, as our Label's distribution deal kind of fell apart & we've received occasional e-mails about what little progress there's been in finding an alternative, but so far... it may end up being 40 years since the last album before this one sees any light of day. Not that it's stopped us - we 2 Pelicans convened a couple of weeks ago to start a new track & found we're still full of ideas &, more importantly, still work well together in giving those ideas shape, form & identity. This one even has some guitar on it!!

Long-Suffering Partner & I have continued with our 'Year of doing Stuff' - 2 day car rallies every 2 months, night photography, concerts by Tommy Emmanuel, Max Richter & Damian Rice, the Sydney Good Food & Wine Show, 3 evenings at the Vivid Festival of Lights & Ideas (to give it its full, if slightly pretentious, title), with an upcoming roadtrip to the Compact Array at Narrabri, for an evening of astral photography with some hired lenses & possibly a couple of friends...

Caught up with some old school & work friends over the last few weeks, one of whom was in a local theatre production of Nikolai Erdman's 'The Suicide', which was a lot funnier than the play's title may suggest... & another who's as much of a whiskey aficionado/enthusiast as I am, with the resulting 2-day hangover being evidence of a great night of whiskey, conversation, music & day 2 of the 3rd Ashes Test in England

Work is... well, it's pretty mentally taxing actually. Even on days when I'm not driving around town, measuring & inspecting everything from slumlord apartments, to huge mansions, or half-built dream homes where the stairs haven't been installed, so inspecting the 1st floor is a challenge for my perfectly rational fear of unstable heights, especially the one the other day, where the entire scaffold I had to climb, was shaking & swaying like a 7.5 Richter earthquake. L-SP makes sure my Life Insurance is paid up every year... Otherwise, there are concerns about my Employer looking to expand the business in the middle of a bad year - interest rate rises spooking clients & inflation affecting the cost of absolutely everything!!!. This, of course, places stress on him, which he deals with by assigning me random tasks while I'm in the middle of what I'm actually employed for. I've recently discovered that I can do a lot of my paperwork at home, realising that since the office software is cloud-based, I can log in from here & not have to deal with trivial annoyances

I'm overdue a visit to my former guitar student, who has progressed well beyond the point of needing me for much, but seems to like my company & respect my opinions, so is keen to play me some of his more recent compositions... & I'm quite interested to hear them as well

Enough... Here are some photos taken on the morning of the Winter Solstice. Elizabeth Bay House in eastern Sydney is oriented so that the solstice sunrise shines directly through the front door - whether by accident or design is unknown & hotly debated, if the short presentation we attended on the day is anything to go by. As is so often the case, the original records & plans for the House were lost in a fire, so best to shelve the curiosity & just enjoy the phenomenon...


Clouds delayed the sunrise by a little...


But finally, the shortest day gets going...


And sure enough... the sun blazed straight through the door. Hard to get a clear shot of it, as everyone stood there... this will have to do

The Art Gallery of New South Wales, in Sydney, that is...









All from the phone...

1.Besides work, what takes up the biggest portion of your day?
Other than sleep? Various daily housework stuff, playing, pandering to & feeding the cat, leisure time with Long-Suffering Partner, doomscrolling...

2. If you could do anything as a career, what would it be?
I'm quite happy with my 'career' as such, but I'd be more fulfilled if I could be recognised or acknowledged for my 2 favourite activities - playing music & photography

3. Do you feel too much emphasis is placed on having a career?
Speaking as someone whose full Curriculum Vitae would run to many pages if I listed every job I've had... Yes!! I certainly think that when you're young, too much emphasis is placed on getting 'settled' into a job, career path, marriage, kids, mortgage, self-funded retirement & death from exhaustion

4. If you have a college/university degree, are you working in your field?
No... I think I studied the wrong things at University... but I've never gone back to do anything else

5. What would be the most boring job to have and why?
Sometimes, I think I'd LOVE a boring job with no public contact, no distraction & no pressure on performance... but I'm not so sure a job like that even exists. Of the many jobs I've had over the years, I can say that being a Bank clerk/teller was mind-numbingly dull... & completely thankless

These questions were written by upupandaway.

Love a musical topic!

1. What was the first album you ever bought?
'Heroes' by David Bowie... Here in Australia, Bowie's whole Ziggy/Thin White Duke & White Soul phases hadn't really made much of a dent in our popular culture - we really were on the other side of the world to all that & it took something earth-shatteringly important or amazing to register on the national radar. Our weekly music show 'Countdown' played the video for 'Heroes' one night & my ears pricked up at something unlike anything else I'd heard... The rest of the album, once I bought it, changed the way I thought about music...thanks to the talents of Bowie, Brian Eno & Robert Fripp

2. What format was it? (cassette, CD, other?)
LP record... though I know I made cassette copies for a lot of friends

3. How old were you?
The album came out at the end of 1977... so I was 10

4. Where did you hear it?
As above - coming out of the TV speaker, but sounding incredible

5. Did your parents approve?
I know my Father did... he played that album as much as I did. My Mother has never really been much of a music fan... so didn't really care, as long as I didn't start dressing like the Sex Pistols