THE MAN WHO WASN'T FROM SNOWY RIVER

I just came second in the Shoalhaven Literary Award with an epigrammatic poem entitled Equidae. I am proud of it. The poem is a celebration of horses, in all their splendid variations; I mention sawhorses, stuffed toy horses, the Troy Horse and Phar Lap. I have never had any great affinity with the equine world. Through ignorance, I treat horses as I do the surf; with wariness. However, I do see horses as amazing, venerable beasts; creatures that are breathtakingly impressive for being so utterly nonhuman. My sincere thanks goes out to poet Jennifer Compton who judged the Award.

LJ, September 26 2008.

ROCK REVIVAL ON TRIPLE H

The husband of a work colleague invited me to come on his two hour radio show 'Rock Revival', on Triple H (100.1 FM), last night. It was a blast. I spoke about Joe Strummer and played three songs that illustrated the breadth of the man's talent: the visceral pieces Safe European Home and White Riot from his Clash days and slow-burning, wrenching, posthumous track Ramshackle Day Parade, which was put together by his band The Mescaleros in 2003.

Nick Drake, Pink Floyd, John McLaughlin, Angel, Neill Young and Crazy Horse, The Telltales (lads from Beecroft, where I spent my formative years) and Jimi Hendrix were amongst the many other musicians beamed across the airwaves of northern Sydney over the show's duration. As I don't listen to a lot of these composers, much of the show was an education for me.

Tune in to Rock Revival if you get the chance. Here's the blogspot - rockrevivaltripleh.blogspot.com/. If I had another job it would be DJing full-time and I'd call myself Obese Man Thin. Imagine the power, glory, idiocy and insomnia! But hey, I'm not deserting my day job; unless you're Tiesto or Paul van Dyk, there's two pence in it!

LJ, September 19 2008.

PROFILE UPDATE/JOE STRUMMER

I've put some of my favourite song lyrics of all time on my profile page. Check them out. They're penned by the mighty Joe Strummer and are from Big Audio Dynamite's brilliant track Beyond the Pale. I first listened to this tune in a hotel room in Singapore. My parents and I were en route to London. I was fourteen years old. Ah, the song and its affecting words still resonate today...

I once shook hands with Joe Strummer and thanked him for his music. He had just finished playing a blinding set with The Mescaleros at The Metro in Sydney, and appeared out the back of the venue to chat to fans, passers by, whomever. I remember he arrived tentatively, hung in a doorway and peered off down the alley to where throngs of people drifted down a busier street - he was Captain Nonchalance really - he had no real desire to rush up and talk to the few Clash devotees that hung out to say hello. Still, he was polite, collected and dead cool. He complimented my 'Dubwiser' t-shirt (which was white and featured the Budwiser label but changed a little by the band Dreadzone to reflect their dub rots).

This was about a year before he died.

LJ, September 1 2008.