The Big Issue Australia #634 – Dave Grohl by The Big Issue Australia

Ed.

634 09 APR 2021

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Contents

EDITION

634 16

Who Listens to the Radio? At a time when new media proliferates, community radio continues to go from strength to strength. We take a look inside some of Australia’s beloved stations and find out why they matter more than ever.

28 MUSIC

Right on Q

12.

Suzi Quatro feels most at home on stage, so when COVID put an end to touring last year, she opted for the next best thing – she hit the studio to record a new album.

“The World Is Mine” by Jane Graham

He loves his mum and he loves to shred, and he loves the Beatles too. In his Letter to My Younger Self, all-round nice guy Dave Grohl reflects on learning to drum without a kit (he bashed his pillows in time to Minor Threat), his Southern manners, and how music helped him cope after Nirvana. cover photo by Matthias Clamer/Corbis/Contour by Getty contents photo by Getty

THE REGULARS

04 Ed’s Letter & Your Say 05 Meet Your Vendor 06 Streetsheet 08 Hearsay & 20 Questions 11 My Word 22 The Big Picture

26 Ricky 27 Fiona 34 Film Reviews 35 Small Screen Reviews 36 Music Reviews 37 Book Reviews

39 Public Service Announcement 43 Puzzles 45 Crossword 46 Click

40 TASTES LIKE HOME

Umami Bolognese It’s a fusion twist on an old favourite, and Adam Liaw’s kids like it better than the original. Plus, it’s vegan. Meet your new favourite spag bol.

Ed’s Letter

by Amy Hetherington Editor @amyhetherington

E FO RT NI GH T LE TT ER OF TH

Foo for Thought

Your Say

ave Grohl first graced The Big Issue cover back in October 2005, mid world-tour with the Foo Fighters, when reporter Chris Cottingham sat down to interview him in Munich, seemingly determined to interrogate Grohl’s title as The Nicest Man in Rock. After all, no-one can be nice all of the time, right? But even though Grohl had just quit smoking eight days prior – and was spending his days going for long walks and drinking long glasses of water – Grohl wouldn’t crack. “What do you mean what was the last really horrible thing I did?” he asked, bemused. “That’s probably the kind of thing I wouldn’t want to reveal in an interview… but I’m not the Pope.” What about the last slightly bad thing? (Cottingham wasn’t going let him off easy.)

“I’m not going to tell you the bad things,” he continued. “I’m going to ride out this nicest guy in rock thing for as long as I can.” Back then, he also warned against holding up rock stars as idols, claiming they make “shitty role models. They’re dropouts; they’re drug addicts; they’re dreamers.” But for a generation of kids, like myself, Grohl and his fellow grunge rockers spoke to our lives, changing our world with their music. 1991, the year Nirvana dropped Nevermind, was arguably the greatest year in rock history. It was, after all, the year I made the best mixtape of all time – but that’s another story. Now, 15-and-a-bit years and almost 400 editions later, Grohl is again on our cover – and still maintains the Nicest Guy in Rock mantle. A case in point: in this edition, he tells Jane Graham how much he loves his mum and his daughters – and how he’d happily mow your lawn.

The Big Issue Story

Lorin Clarke’s article ‘Love the Rhino’ in Ed#632 struck a chord with me. It was all about doing things you like, even if you’re not good at them. I have been learning to play the ukulele for about three years and I am not very good at it. You see, my arthritic fingers have difficulty pressing down firmly enough on the strings. So, sometimes, I produce a “twang” sound rather than a crisp, clear note. But I know the position of the chords I have learned so far and I can even play some without looking at my fingers. I can also play some tunes without looking at the sheet music. As for my singing, I cannot sing in tune on my own but when I’m singing with a group of people, I think I sound alright. Maybe the occasional twang and a few off-key notes adds some colour to the performance. Maybe I’ll never be a great uke player, but I’m sure having fun trying. TRICIA NOONAN ASHBURTON I VIC

To the women who pack the subscription copies, it’s great to see the pink stickers with a different name on each issue. Today it’s Irene. Thank you for your hard work – I love receiving my Big Issue in the post! Bravo.

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MARGUERITE DALE I NSW

The Big Issue is an independent, not-for-profit magazine sold on the streets around Australia. It was created as a social enterprise 24 years ago to provide both a voice and a work opportunity for people experiencing homelessness and disadvantage. Your purchase of this magazine has directly benefited the person who sold it to you. Big Issue vendors buy each copy for $4.50 and sell it to you for $9, keeping the profits. But The Big Issue is more than a magazine.

• Our Women’s Subscription Enterprise provides employment and training for women through the sale of magazine subscriptions as well as social procurement work. • The Community Street Soccer Program promotes social inclusion and good health at weekly soccer games at 21 locations around the country. • The Vendor Support Fund will offset the cost price of products for vendors, allowing them to earn a larger margin on their own street sales. • The Big Issue Education workshops provide school, tertiary and corporate groups with insights into homelessness and disadvantage, and provide work opportunities for people experiencing marginalisation. CHECK OUT ALL THE DETAILS AT THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

Tricia wins a copy of Madeleine Ryan’s new novel A Room Called Earth. Read our interview with her on p32. We’d also love to hear your thoughts, feedback and suggestions: SUBMISSIONS@BIGISSUE.ORG.AU

YOUR SAY SUBMISSIONS MAY BE EDITED FOR CLARITY AND SPACE.

Meet Your Vendor

interview by Amanda Sweeney photo by Barry Street

PROUD UNIFORM PARTNER OF THE BIG ISSUE VENDORS.

09 APR 2021

SELLS THE BIG ISSUE AT NEW FARM PARK AND TENERIFFE, BRISBANE

Wayne

I’m the eldest; I have three younger brothers. Mum was told she couldn’t have children, but she proved them wrong – she had four boys! We lived in Acacia Ridge in the 50s, Mum and Dad started their oyster business in our garage. We had a cubbyhouse in the backyard behind the outhouse. Mum and Dad bought me Matchbox cars for Christmas. I’ve still got them at home – and I’m 70 this month. When I was 10 my parents moved us and the oyster business to Buranda. The headmaster called my parents and told them I couldn’t read or write. They had me transferred to Dutton Park Opportunity School. It was a good school, but I never did learn to read or write; it just didn’t stay in my head. I was really good at sports. I was the fastest of all. My favourite was soccer; I used to play every Thursday against other schools. We won the grand final two years in a row. I played left wing and my friend Willy played right wing. I also did hurdles and long jump. Every Tuesday we’d have cooking classes for the girls and woodwork classes for the boys. I went to the cooking class; I wanted to be a chef. But later I found out that to be a chef I had to do a test for the apprenticeship, but I couldn’t read or write. I left school when I was about 12 years old. My mum was in a car accident and couldn’t walk. Dad had to run the oyster business, so I had to look after Mum and do the house duties. I did that until I was 16. When I got my licence at 17, I went to pubs and horse races around Brisbane selling oysters and pickled onions. I’d walk through the pubs saying “Oysters, oysters! Get your fresh oysters!” This was in the late 60s. They wouldn’t let you do that these days! It was only 40 cents for a jar of oysters then. A large bottle of beer was only 40 cents then too. I’d sell 150 jars on the weekend. I also raced cars for 35 years. I loved winning and I won plenty. I met my first wife at Cloudland Dance Hall when I was 17. I’m a good dancer! We had four kids together. My second wife I met at the Brisbane Showgrounds. I was working on the music machine controls. She got off the ride and said, “Can I get your number?” We went out and she started working at the shows too. She was a star! She was “The Girl in the Fishbowl” act. We had two kids, a boy and a girl. They travelled around Australia with us in our caravan. But my wife stayed in Perth and I came back to Brisbane with the kids. I met my third wife after I put an ad in the paper. She had five kids of her own. Now I’ve got 12 grandkids. About four years ago I had triple bypass surgery. I was in hospital for 14 weeks. I was in there when I got the news that my mum died. The hospital took me down to the funeral then brought me back to the hospital. I started selling The Big Issue about five years ago. My brother Denis was selling it and he told me about it. You meet some really nice people and my customers make me feel really good. The last 10 years have been the best, except for my Mum dying, ’cos Queensland housing got me my own place. In boarding houses I had to do what they said to do. Now I can do what I want. I’ve got photos on my wall of Mum and Dad – and heaps of Matchbox cars.

Streetsheet

Stories, poems and pictures by Big Issue vendors and friends

I have made a lot of friends over the years BRIAN, ON SELLING MAGS SINCE 1997

SPOTLIGHT:

BRIAN

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

his edition will be my 600th edition. When I first started selling The Big Issue in Sydney back in 1997, they were only $2 each but not a lot of people knew about it. I used to still stutter a bit back then but now I don’t stutter much unless I get too excited and talk too quick. I used to gamble on the horses a lot back then and I hurt a lot of people so I hope they can forgive me – it’s been 18 years since I had a bet on them. Now I have a lot more confidence in myself about what I can and can’t do. I have made a lot of friends over the years, which has helped me a lot. I would like to thank H&A Coffee House; Palace Nova Cinemas in Glenelg; the

bowling alley, cafe and gin bars; and a lot of other places. I have met a few celebrities and politicians over the years as well. Some days are good and some aren’t, but if I make enough for what I need I am happy. Fourteen years ago, I flew home to Townsville for a week and spent some time with my mum and sisters. Two years later I caught up with my uncle and went fishing with him. I then went up and surprised my mum for her 80th birthday. I am hoping to go to Brisbane some time to catch up with a cousin and also a stepsister that I’ve never met. We have been talking over the phone since COVID. Fingers crossed I will still be selling for a while. BRIAN W GLENELG & PALACE NOVA I ADELAIDE

PHOTO OF BRIAN BY NAT ROGERS

Happy 600!

Positive Regard After 2020, hindsight may be a valuable thing. My recollections involve a shroud over the three months when we couldn’t sell magazines – I should have started a diary. On the first day back, no-one wanted to pay by card. One customer went to the trouble of washing all their banknotes before shopping. Full points for effort. While asking “Are you okay?” still brings a smile from strangers, not enough people are sticking around for the heartfelt “How are you feeling?” We need more listening with positive regard. ANDREW S SUSPENSION ESPRESSO & HAMILTON PO I NEWCASTLE

I’ve been doing it ever since. I like selling – it’s good fun. I’ve got Tap and Go. I get up at 5am and get to the pitch at 7am when the coffee shops open. Thanks to all my customers. CYRIL FOOTSCRAY STATION & SEDDON SHOPS I MELBOURNE

A Tough Year A particular memory that sums up the past 12 months would be losing my sister to cancer; that was the worst moment of last year. The past year was definitely a tough year and there is no way to describe it. My life has changed because now I think more carefully about

certain things, like how long I’ll be alive for. I have learned to not take things for granted, especially family and friends. RUTH JAMES PLACE I ADELAIDE

Smiling Faces It’s been great selling The Big Issue again. My son Levi is now one and has a great character. It’s good to see the city coming back to life and seeing all the smiling faces again. I think 2021 is going to be a prosperous year and I pray for an abundance of blessings over everyone and I can’t wait to see you all next time. JACK MARTIN PLACE I SYDNEY

A Little Patience

How It Started I was at the Footscray Club back in 2015 when I met another vendor called Russell, a good mate of mine. I love stirring him up. He said, “Why don’t you come in and do The Big Issue?” I said, “Let me have a think about it.” Later I asked him if the job was still going, and he said, “Whenever you’re ready.”

Delightfully Surprised To my customers in the Northern Beaches, I was delightfully surprised when I received all of your postcards. Your words in the postcards warmed my heart, as you were saying about my beautiful smile. These postcards are a special gift that I will treasure for the rest of my life. Thank you all for your kind words. JOSEPHINE T AVALON, MONA VALE, FRENCHS FOREST & MANLY VALE I SYDNEY

ALL VENDOR CONTRIBUTORS TO STREETSHEET ARE PAID FOR THEIR WORK.

09 APR 2021

RON K PIRIE ST, ELIZABETH & ZUMA CAFFE I ADELAIDE

The best word to describe what has happened over the past year is terrible. It is good to get back to work after the virus. It was a great day when I received the message that I could start working again and making money for myself and my education. My life hasn’t changed too much – just got more money to pay for my education and tutor for school, which is great and means I can continue to further my education. Selling The Big Issue has been quiet since the virus happened, but I put up with it all and carry on. The biggest lesson I have learned about myself this year is patience.

Hearsay

Andrew Weldon Cartoonist

“

I know they call it cancel culture, but they’re not stopping culture. They’re only trying to limit unnecessarily vulgar or crude terminology or gags or whatever.

Sheryl Holliday, a “citizen scientist” who posted photos on Facebook of the unusual spider. Her photos were then noticed by Joseph Schubert, arachnologist and taxonomist, and we now have a new species of peacock spider – Maratus nemo, after the clownfish in Finding Nemo. THE AGE I AU

“A 2068 impact is not in the realm of possibility anymore, and our calculations don’t show any impact risk for at least the next 100 years.” Good news from Davide Farnocchia, navigation engineer and researcher at NASA: Asteroid 99942 Apophis, an asteroid once suspected of presenting a threat, won’t be destroying Earth any time soon. CNN I US

Singer Kamahl, entering the debate on whether or not Hey Hey It’s Saturday would be cancelled if it were brought back to Australian TV screens today. THE GUARDIAN I AU

“It is not possible to affirm that octopuses dream because they cannot tell us that, but our results suggest that during ‘active sleep’ the octopus experiences a state analogous to REM sleep, which is the state during which humans dream the most.” Sidarta Ribeiro and Sylvia Medeiros, co-authors of research suggesting that octopuses may in fact dream while in a state similar to our rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. When in that state, they change colour – so do they dream in colour?

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

SMITHSONIAN MAGAZINE I US

“I am connected to Australia in a way that I didn’t anticipate. I could very easily live here for the rest of my life. I’m in love with it. Everyone is so chatty. I’m a Midwestern gal who lives in LA, where no-one wants to talk to you. And here I’ll be in the grocery store, and I can’t

go down a single aisle without talking to somebody. It’s wonderful. I come home, and I will have had 15 conversations.” Actor Melissa McCarthy (Bridesmaids) who’s been living in Byron Bay and shooting Nine Perfect Strangers.

“Trying to investigate isolation or loneliness is not as straightforward in humans…being lonely is not necessarily correlated with how many people are around you.” Livia Tomova, a neuroscientist at MIT, on the difficulties investigating human loneliness wrought by the pandemic. WIRED I UK

“I thought I could sell the cards for a high price and I was in debt.” A 28-year-old Tokyo man on being arrested on suspicion of stealing Pokémon trading cards worth one million yen ($11,930) after using rock climbing gear to break into a specialty store on the sixth floor.

“They categorically refuse to go to bed early, at a time they know will suit them best and enable them to get adequate restorative sleep and feel better… There is a sense of retaliation against life, so there is an idea of revenge to stay awake.” Alessandra Edwards, performance expert, on those people – often high achievers – who just won’t go to bed, partly because sleeptime might be the only time they have that is theirs to spend as they wish.

JAPAN TODAY I JN

WIRED I US

“He had a plain back but his orangey-red face is what stood out and I hadn’t seen anything like it before, so I knew it had to be a new one.”

“He handled a lot of big stars in his time and he was like, ‘Look, from now on, life is going to change. You need Sharon-Stonethe-movie-star clothes, and then

INSTYLE I US

20 Questions by Rachael Wallace

01 How many sides does a

heptadecagon have? 02 In February 2021, what was the

busiest international air route in the world: a) London HeathrowDubai, b) Orlando-San Juan, c) Beijing-Shanghai Hongqiao or d) Cairo-Riyadh? 03 Who released the EP Abba-esque

in 1992? 04 What is the name of the intersection

where the borders of New South Wales, Queensland and South Australia meet? 05 In which city was Coca-Cola first

made and sold? 06 What did Lee Harvey Oswald’s killer,

Jack Ruby, do for a living? 07 Who was the 2020 winner of

MasterChef?

“My life has always been very speculated… I didn’t watch the documentary but from what I did see of it I was embarrassed by the light they put me in… I cried for two weeks and well… I still cry sometimes !!!!” Singer Britney Spears on the documentary Framing Britney Spears – about her, the media’s treatment of

INSTAGRAM

“Conditions have deteriorated rapidly in recent years; the space for reporting in the country is ever‑shrinking, as is the pool of foreign correspondents.” Yvonne Murray, a reporter for RTE Ireland, who has fled China with her husband, BBC China correspondent John Sudworth, after they were harassed and intimidated by the Chinese government. SYDNEY MORNING HERALD I AU

Cuban flag? 09 Which is older – Mickey Mouse or

nachos? 10 What is the thylacine more

commonly known as? 11 Who was Diana, Princess of Wales’,

long-time butler? 12 On which street in Liverpool,

England, is the famous Cavern Club? 13 Who was Maxwell Smart’s wife? 14 Babur founded which empire in

1526? 15 Which three ingredients make up a

traditional Italian gremolata? 16 The Diet is the legislative body of

which country? 17 Who was the drummer on Nirvana’s

“There is a real value in using crocodiles for this purpose, they are uniquely Territorian and have a life span of up to 70 years, so investing early in training certainly pays off.” Darwin Airport executive general manager operations Rob Porter, saying that crocs would be used instead of dogs to sniff for drugs. The report was in the 1 April edition of the paper, nudge nudge.

1989 debut album Bleach? 18 Sir Michael Somare, who died

in February, was the first prime minister of which country? 19 Which animal appeared on the

Australian two-cent coin? 20 Who co-wrote and starred in the

2019 film Top End Wedding? 09 APR 2021

USA TODAY I US

her, and her affairs being put in the hands of her father, Jamie.

NT NEWS I AU

FREQUENTLY OVERHEAR TANTALISING TIDBITS? DON’T WASTE THEM ON YOUR FRIENDS SHARE THEM WITH THE WORLD AT SUBMISSIONS@BIGISSUE.ORG.AU

ANSWERS ON PAGE 43

you need your clothes.’ You need “Yeah, I don’t to start separating believe in ironing.” out your life so Overheard by Lorraine, while that you have a walking through the doors at sane existence. Melbourne’s Crown Casino. He actually told me to pay for anything under $100 with a cheque because people won’t cash the cheque. They’ll want your autograph. Which is something I didn’t do. But it was sound advice.” Actor Sharon Stone, on advice given to her by a friend when she got mega‑famous after Basic Instinct in 1992. EAR2GROUND

08 What is the colour of the star on the

My Word

by Rebecca Lister

’m awoken by the sound of the toilet door squeaking. It’s Mum. I look at my phone on the bedside table: 3am. I know I won’t go back to sleep until I hear Mum go back to bed. Slowly, I’m becoming used to these nocturnal sounds and movements; they are part and parcel of being Mum’s carer. I have been back in my childhood home in Mount Isa for just under a month. It’s been 35 years since I’ve lived under this roof, but my ear tuned in to the familiar sounds immediately: the distinctive squeak of each brass doorknob, the thunk of the bakelite switches, the rattle of the louvres in their metal frames, and the whir of vibrating venetian blinds whenever a door is left open. I open my eyes again and see that the light is still coming in under the bedroom door. I check the time: 4am. I roll over and get up. I stand outside my bedroom door and look at the brightly lit toilet – the room is empty. I look at Mum’s bedroom door. Closed. I turn and see that all four fluorescent lights are on in the lounge room. I think of Dad – The bloody place is lit up like a Christmas tree! The lounge room is empty. I see blood on the back of Mum’s chair. There’s more on the kitchen floor. I open Mum’s bedroom door and she sits up and turns on her bedside lamp. “What’s wrong?” she asks. “Where did the blood come from?” I ask. Mum says nothing. She looks pale and vacant. She lifts her hand to the back of her head, and then holds it up in front of her face. In the light of the lamp we can both see the bright red blood. There is an open gash, bleeding. I ring the ambulance. Jason, the paramedic, kneels beside Mum’s chair. “Can you tell us what happened, Diana?” Mum has trouble piecing things together. “Is she often confused?” Alex, the other paramedic, asks me. “No,” I say. “Never.” Alex inspects her head. “You’ve given it a good old whack, haven’t you?” Mum nods.

“We need to check a few things – is that okay with you, Diana?” Jason asks. Mum nods. They are both respectful and efficient, and I can see Mum slowly relaxing. “Do you keep up the water, Diana?” Jason asks. “I drink a lot of tea,” says Mum. “What about water?” “Yes, in tea,” Mum says. I catch Jason giving Alex a quick smile. “Here’s what I think,” says Alex. “How about we put you in the ambulance and get you up to the hospital? You need a few stitches, and we need to run a few more tests and find out why you fainted.” Mum nods. In the emergency ward Mum is examined, scanned, stitched, has blood taken, gives a urine sample and is asked to explain numerous times what has happened. With each new nurse or doctor, she tells the story again. Eventually, a doctor tells Mum that she has a urinary tract infection. This has caused a spike in temperature which in turn caused her to faint and hit her head. The doctor talks to her about dehydration and how important it is to drink enough throughout the day. Mum agrees with everything the doctor says and promises to drink more water. I have my doubts about this but say nothing. One of the nurses picks up Mum’s chart, reads it and says, “Are you really—” “Ninety-one!” says Mum. “You don’t look like it! What’s your secret?” Mum sits up a fraction straighter and fluffs up her recently permed hair. “Lots of water,” she says, and smiles at me. I roll my eyes. Later, at home, I phone the family and fill them in. I want Mum to rest, but she doesn’t want to. The antibiotics appear to be working, and for someone who has had virtually no sleep Mum is extremely perky – her “outing” seems to have done her the world of good. In the late afternoon the family come to visit. Mum regales us with stories of the early-morning activities of the hospital as she sips a cup of tea. The glass of water on the side table remains, as expected, untouched.

Rebecca Lister is an award-winning playwright, producer and social worker. She is the co-writer of Growing Pineapples in the Outback with Tony Kelly, published in 2020 by UQP.

Rebecca Lister moves from Melbourne to Mount Isa to care for her mum.

09 APR 2021

Tea and Sympathy

Letter to My Younger Self

PHOTO BY SONY MUSIC

“

@janeannie

t 16 I was already fully immersed in music, and learning to write and record and perform. I was a music junkie. So I was amassing this crazy record collection, most of it underground independent punk rock bands. But I wasn’t only listening to the albums for personal enjoyment – I was learning to play my instruments from them. I never took drum lessons, I just learned from listening to Led Zeppelin and Bad Brains and The Police and Sex Pistols records. I didn’t have a teacher to show me how to write songs, I just had a Beatles songbook. I would sit and play along to Beatles songs, and I started

understanding composition and arrangement and harmony and melody and dissonance. And riff and core and rhythm. So, I was pretty locked into my bedroom at that age. If I wasn’t on the bus to and from school I was in my bedroom, just studying these albums. I was a terrible student in school, which unfortunately made for an uncomfortable adolescence because my mother was a high school English teacher at the fucking school I knew I was failing in. I really had little interest in what most people thought was the conventional route to take in life. I just thought, When I’m free I’m just going to play music and find a way to pay the rent, because there’s no way I could become a professional musician. I’m just going to work at The Furniture Warehouse, or at the local gardening nursery, or at best an independent record label, but as long as I have a bed, a lamp and an apartment, I’ll make the rest work. I was a romantic, idealistic 16-year-old, I really was.

09 APR 2021

by Jane Graham The Big Issue, UK

“

Dave Grohl talks music, his mum, Paul McCartney and Kurt Cobain – and lawn maintenance.

I was a good kid; I wasn’t gonna steal the stereo out of your car… But I’d mow your lawn on Sunday for five hours.

a long time. I could never imagine myself as an 85-year-old man, watching the sunset. I always imagined, in this dark, pessimistic way, that things weren’t going to turn out well. That may have exposed some of my darker tendencies. If you met the teenage me, first of all you’d think this person has more energy than any human being I’ve ever seen. I was an outrageously hyperactive kid. And from the time I was eight years old I was a performer. I wanted people to laugh; I wanted people to be happy. I wanted people to dance, to feel good. I would put on shows for my family and friends, for no reason. I’d do anything for a laugh. Man, I just had this restless energy. I was like a fucking gnat: I just couldn’t stop. But I was also given a good sense of Southern manners by both of my parents. They were both raised in the Midwest in Ohio, but I grew up in Virginia so my childhood had a tinge of Southern culture to it. So at an early age I knew there were three things that you don’t talk about at the dinner table: politics, religion or money. And I was a good kid; I wasn’t gonna steal the stereo out of your car. I was gonna try my best not to offend you in any way. I mean, I’m kind of the antithesis of all of the bands that I loved, punk rock bands and fucking satanic death metal. But I’d mow your lawn on Sunday for five hours. When I was being raised by a teacher, there was never any money. I mean, we just got by. We lived in a little house with one bathroom and a small kitchen, just my mother, my sister and I. And we found joy in the simplest things. I never felt like I needed more, a bigger house or a better bike or any of that. For our family trip in the summer the three of us would pile into our tiny Ford Fiesta and drive to Ohio or Chicago, which is a good 12‑hour drive, going through mountain passes and cornfields. And I also learned about rhythm in a funny way on those trips. My mother and I would sit up front in the car and she taught me how to sing harmonies, or we would do these little games – name that tune. Or snap our fingers to the song on the radio as we drove through the mountain passes to see if, when we came out of the tunnel, I was still on the beat. Honestly, it taught me about rhythm and metre and still to this day it’s one of my favourite games to play. Those were the days, man. Both of my parents were musicians. My father was a classically trained flautist and my mother was a singer, though neither of them went professional. I do believe that DNA has something to do with a person’s musical capability. It gives you a head start. I think that having been first raised by these

PHOTOS BY GETTY. TEXT COURTESY THE BIG ISSUE UK

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I just thought, Okay, the world is mine. I don’t think I knew right from wrong, I thought I’d figure out life just as I figured out these songs. It’s funny that Nirvana became so famous for this Gen X darker side of life thing, because I truly had a very happy childhood. My parents divorced when I was six or seven years old, so my mother raised me. I think because she was a public school teacher she understood people, especially kids. She really gave me freedoms that a lot of other kids didn’t have. As an English teacher, a brilliant writer and a teacher of public speaking, she understood the importance of having some sort of creative outlet in your life. I would sit in my room and write poetry, which was fucking awful but who cares; I was trying to express myself. I look back on my childhood as a very inspired time. And I still wake up almost every day feeling like an excited kid. My mother and I were, and still are, so close. We’ve always been friends. The mother‑child dynamic was definitely there but there was also a real friendship. She would take me to jazz clubs, we would go see movies together. I think I was the only one of my friends who actually enjoyed hanging out with a parent. Our bond was so close that over time I think she developed this faith that I was going to be okay. Being a schoolteacher, she realised I sucked at school. She understood that, rather than sit in a fluorescent-lit school room and have someone try to teach me Italian, I’d be better off just going to Italy, living in a squat and having to ask someone “Where’s the nearest pharmacy?” As a parent now myself, it’s hard for me to fathom my mother accepting my just disappearing into Europe when I was so young. I didn’t have a calling card, or money. I would fly standby to Amsterdam and say, okay, I’ll see you in two months, and then send a postcard every three weeks. I’d lose my fucking mind if my child did that. That’s a leap of faith, to let your child wander out into the world on their own. But she was right. I was okay. And to this day, my mother and I speak with each other almost every day. I probably would tell my former self “You’re gonna make it.” I had this incredible nihilistic fear of war. In the 80s, there was this threat of mutually assured destruction you lived under. And it’s such a terrible way to live. I feel like I should have appreciated the world more, rather than living in fear that it would disappear. I still vividly remember the nightmares I had, of seeing missiles flying over my backyard, and mushroom clouds. It just robs you of any hope. I lived with that fear for

FOO FIGHTERS’ NEW ALBUM MEDICINE OF MIDNIGHT IS OUT NOW.

09 APR 2021

be honest. Of course we loved each other. We were friends. But, you know, there was a dysfunction in Nirvana that a band like Foo Fighters doesn’t have. You also have to realise, from the time I joined Nirvana to the time it was over was only about four years. It wasn’t a long period of time. Was I close to Kurt, as I am to Taylor Hawkins? No. I did live with Krist and his wife when I first joined the band. I think it lasted a month and then they kicked me out, but we always had this sort of loving connection, and it was made even more so after Kurt died. When I see Krist now, I hug him like family. But back then we were young, and the world was just so strange. But that emotional dysfunction in Nirvana was relieved when we put on instruments. If the music hadn’t worked, we wouldn’t have been there together. I truly believe that there’s some people you can only communicate with musically. And sometimes that’s an even greater, deeper communication. There are people that I might feel a little awkward talking to but once we strap on instruments, it’s like they’re the love of my life. There was a particular trauma after the end of Nirvana that lasted for a while, but, you know, I think that love of music I had when I was a child eclipsed everything and I realised that music was going to be the thing that would write me out of that depression. For a while there I wasn’t sure if I ever wanted to play music again. But it came back. And thankfully, just as I had hoped, it healed me. To me music has always been about life. It was the thing I most loved about life, more than anything else. After Nirvana I needed it to keep me alive. It’s the reason why I never stopped. If I could go back to any time in my life, I remember standing on stage with... No, I have another memory. I think of when my 14-year-old daughter Violet played her first show. She’s a singer; she’s got an incredible voice. Her band was playing at this little club with a lot of bands who were all 10, 12 years old. And my mother came. And I sat there watching my daughter on stage, nervous for her, because I wanted her to do great. And the next day my mother called and she said, now you know what it feels like to be a parent watching your child up on stage with that funny haircut, crossing your fingers, hoping they’ll make it out of there alive. And with all that pride and happiness and love and joy. Well, that’s how I’ve felt for the last 30 years.

TOP WITH NIRVANA, 1991 MIDDLE WITH FOO FIGHTERS, 1999 BOTTOM ROCK’N’GROHL IN BRAZIL, 2018

two musical people, and having that hyperactive nature, the drums were a pretty obvious choice for me. I mean, I didn’t even have a fucking drum set when I was learning how to play drums. I had two drumsticks that were actually marching sticks so they were gigantically fat, and I would set up pillows in the formation of a drum set and play along to Ramones records, or Minor Threat records, with really fast, 200 beats per minute, aggressive drumming. So when I was 16 and someone gave me an actual normal pair of drumsticks on a normal drum set, I just shattered everything. I was breaking cymbals like they were teacups. That’s the reason I’ve always been such a basher. I’ve tried to learn the subtleties of dynamic drumming but it’s no use. So when the rock’n’roll bug hit I really decided this is who I am. All the sport went out the window. I was like, this is my passion. This is my love. Through my life there have been a lot of moments when I couldn’t believe they were happening. I have to say that the biggest would probably be getting to meet Paul McCartney, and recording a song with him in my own studio in Northridge, California, with Krist [Novoselic] and Pat [Smear] from Nirvana, writing and arranging a song from scratch in one day, just the four of us. So Paul starts playing a riff, and we all start playing along, and then the stars align and we become connected and the vibe is there and the groove is there. And everyone starts smiling, and it becomes that tide that goes back and forth between musicians when they play. So we record a take, and then it’s time for the vocals, and I sit and watch Paul McCartney singing lead vocal on something me and my friends just recorded. And then he asks me to go in and sing backup. And I say, “Okay, what should I do, should I do a harmony?” And he says “No, no, just double exactly what I just did. That’s what me and John Lennon used to do.” If I could go back and tell my 16-yearold self that someday that would happen he would say, “You’re fucked up. No way on Earth could this possibly ever happen.” When I first met Kurt [Cobain] and Krist...musically, it was a match made in heaven. But personally, it was a bit off to

Who Listens to the Radio?

With six million weekly listeners nationwide, Melissa Cranenburgh finds that community radio is thriving – right when a sense of connection is more important than ever. Melissa Cranenburgh is a Naarm /Melbourne based writer, community broadcaster and educator. She hosts the weekly Triple R book show, Backstory. @thetwits2

@backstoryrrr

Ask anyone in community radio about its continued relevance and they have a clear sense of what makes it so important – the words “independent” and “passion” come up a lot. “Certainly, people have a lot more choice for connection and entertainment these days,” agrees Clayton Werner, a long-time volunteer broadcaster and now chair of Radio Adelaide’s board. “But in weighing these up against community radio, with its potential of music, arts, culture, community and independent comment, socially and politically – I really think community radio will not only survive, but will continue to thrive.” Werner’s story about getting involved is also one that typifies a lot of community radio broadcasters – often linked with activism, community organising or grassroots movements. “Some good friends and fellow organisers…were starting a new radio show – ‘A Peace of the Action’ – back in 2006. They had three people going through training and asked if I would like to be a part of the next batch of three people to get trained and join them… So, I did the training course over about 10 weeks… And for about the next 12 years helped to run fundraisers to pay for our transmission costs.” Getting trained, often for free, by experienced broadcasters – who also impart important media regulations – then working towards becoming a volunteer broadcaster yourself, is a central part of community broadcasting. It really keeps the feeling of enthusiastic amateurs.

09 APR 2021

illustration by Lynn Bremner

“I like the idea that a voice can just go somewhere, uninvited, and just kinda hang out like a dirty thought in a nice clean mind. Maybe a thought is like a virus, you know, it can...it can...kill all the healthy thoughts and just take over. That would be serious.” The year was 1990, the film Pump Up the Volume. Christian Slater’s good-guy incel Mark Hunter was hacking the airwaves via his edgelord pirate radio alter ego, Happy Harry Hard-On, all Gen X “angsty/horny teen”, “voice of the underdog” stream of consciousness. “Being a teenager sucks! But that’s the point, surviving it is the whole point!... So just hang on and hang in there…” Pump Up the Volume landed when the airwaves were owned, offering heavily confected hosts and equally curated playlists, usually big international artists. It hit at the time when I first found community radio stations, and the local underground music scene they supported. Hosts deep dived into topics – any topics – they found interesting. Or just chatted like friends on air.

They shared the music of local – signed or unsigned – artists they liked. They talked about whatever they wanted: politics, body image, feminism, the environment, racism, local events, protests, books… anything, everything. And you felt like you were a part of it. You could go to live-to-air events. You could sponsor them and know where the money went. Stick their sticker on your bike and get a smile from a cute person down the road. You could call up and speak to the broadcaster. If you wanted to, you could go volunteer. Even get a show of your own. You might say so what? – now, anyone can start their own podcast, YouTube channel, Facebook group, Twitter shitposting site, TikTok dance craze. Media that’s about you is the norm. You can find, make and share your own unlimited playlists. And yet, media ownership is more concentrated than ever. Worse, we aren’t just being sold to, we – our digital DNA, our digitised selves – are being sold. Yet the thing we love about the socials is, well – they’re social. But there’s no dodging the terrible cost. Culminating last year, when the world went to shit and Harry Hard-On’s musings about “thoughts as a virus” took on a horrifying new meaning, global conspiracies ran amok, rivalling the global pandemic, in an environment curated by for-profit businesses. Once again, I found solace in the reassuring airwaves that have long buoyed me.

hree weeks after Melburnians were confined to their homes for 23 hours a day, Cameron Paine was overseeing a community radio station – with dozens of broadcasters and a million monthly listeners – from home. The station was Melbourne’s Triple R. And Paine, the station’s technology manager, had rigged up a system that allowed remote hosts to live mix, broadcast, do interviews and host collabs, backed up by an automatic playlist in case it all went pear-shaped. “I have to say: that’s a bit of extraordinary fun,” Paine enthused in an interview on the station’s website, replete with wonderfully nerdy detail. “All that was needed was people to roll up their sleeves and get to work – and we did that.” But before the station decided on a set-up Paine could run from home, he had another suggestion to make sure they didn’t get “locked out of the building before we finished setting shit up”. “I pitched to Dave [Houchin, station manager] the idea that I would take my camp bed over to Triple R, because, as you know, the only thing that would make spartan domestic living intolerable at Triple R is having to sleep on the band room couch. Armed with a reasonable bed, there’s a fridge, oven, microwave, beer, comfy chairs... But Dave wasn’t having a bar of that.” Oh well… COVID disruption is now a well-worn trope, but there’s something so wonderfully community radio-ish in the details of Triple R’s DIY shift to remote live broadcasting. It nails the combination of nerdish obsession, community spirit and perennial resourcefulness that community radio workers and listeners will immediately recognise. Many assume that in a world of online communities and ever-proliferating media that the relevance and impact of community radio stations is fading. But perhaps for the six million (and growing) listeners who tune in nationwide each week, they’ve never been more vital – especially when distrust of the media has never been more virulent.

BEC HORNSBY, TRIPLE R

Pashley sees it as an evergreen idea. One that – with the increasing use of podcasting and live streaming and other emerging formats – is very much part of the conversation: “We do what we can to adapt and reach our audience in new ways, like the podcast series we produced for our 45th birthday From A to Triple Zed, telling important stories from our history using archival audio and contemporary interviews… I think it shows that 4ZZZ can change with the times. We’re bringing a community-minded voice to whatever new platform we take on.” Stockwell agrees – but stresses that live radio itself is a crucial component. “In a way, 4ZZZ offers similar things as social media, Spotify and podcasts, but in a far more human and relatable way. It helps you understand what is happening around you and why, filling in the context that is so easily missed on social media; it connects different communities around the city, helping bring people together in a way that can be difficult for podcasts, and it does all that around an incredible variety of wonderful music.”

09 APR 2021

It keeps people connected and acts as a cultural hub for the community – never more so than this past year.

Triple R program and content manager Bec Hornsby and talks producer Elizabeth McCarthy share this optimism about community radio’s crucial place in their own and others’ lives. “It keeps people connected and acts as a cultural hub for the community – never more so than this past year,” says Hornsby. “Triple R’s mission statement is ‘To educate, inform and entertain by drawing on appropriate community resources; to develop a critical approach to contemporary culture.’” It’s a role stations like this take seriously. In the past few years, many have made room for new and more diverse voices. They are offering new shows – on both the grid and podcast platforms – centring gender-diverse, BIPOC and other important, under-represented voices. “Triple R’s programming is incredibly diverse,” says Hornsby. “Music shows cover every genre imaginable including rock and pop, punk, metal, hip hop, funk and soul, electronica, jazz, roots and beyond. Specialist talk programs delve into topics as varied as the arts, comedy, environment, human rights, Aboriginal affairs, politics, medicine, film, science and local interests. The one thing all Triple R’s broadcasters have in common is a passion for what they present. They are genuine music fanatics or devoted experts in their fields. They are also drawn to the station because of its unique, independent ethos.” While community radio strives to reflect culture, for so many of us, our station is…well, us. As Samira Farah – host of Triple R morning talk show The Score – explains in a Q&A on the station website: “As someone who has been doing radio across Sydney and Melbourne for the last six years, I’ve never felt the kind of connection that Melbourne listeners have to Triple R and it’s amazing to be a part of it.” Those lured into the tribe see it as so much more than just a radio station. It’s a community. We love it. And we’ll fight for it. Like McCarthy. Working at Triple R for years, and listening and volunteering for so much longer, she celebrates the central role it’s played in her social life: “Lots of rowdy volunteer meetings and parties. Lots of laughs and good times and friendships that have lasted years. Lots of fierce and determined coming together as a community when The Man has tried to mess with community radio’s survival.” In Triple R’s 2020 Radiothon – the annual monthlong fundraiser to renew and attract new subscribers – the station attracted a record-breaking 16,200 subscriptions, numerous donations, and a lot of love. This brought the station up to a record-breaking 20,000 people who wanted to offer direct financial support to shows they could listen to for free. At a time when everyone, everywhere, was worried about job security and what the future would look like, the community pulled together. For those captured by its strong, independent spirit – and sense of community – community radio will be a mainstay for many years to come.

While there are paid positions to support the broadcasters and run the stations, the central idea is that the station is largely run by volunteers. Broadcasters aren’t influencers. They’re likeable nerds, activists and music enthusiasts sharing their passions. They’re happy to be there. Their ability to broadcast is largely funded by their listeners, or community sponsors, for gains that can be measured less in dollars than in intrinsic cultural value. Brisbane 4ZZZ’s out-going station manager Grace Pashley and in-coming station manager Stephen Stockwell both cut their teeth at the station as volunteer headline writers and newsreaders. It’s not uncommon that people who go on to careers in for-profit media first learn and practise their craft at community stations. But many, like Stockwell – who has been working as a reporter on Triple J’s Hack – keep some connection through volunteering, or – increasingly – find themselves lured back to a more central role. The appeal is clear and personal. Pashley and Stockwell talk about their early associations with the station as being “hooked” or “falling in love”. They weren’t just welcomed in, they were “thrown straight in the deep end” – writing and delivering content helped by a community eager to share skills, tech and knowledge with people enthusiastic enough to join in.

Submissions are now open for

The Big Issue Fiction Edition 2021 Australia’s biggest-selling fiction magazine! Entry is FREE and open to all writers Send us your short stories by Monday 31 May Every author published is paid $500 Get all the details at thebigissue.org.au

his is a mixtape.” My students’ eyes are glued to the black rectangle dangling in front of them. I’ve brought this cassette into class to say something about the evolution of entertainment technology. Or maybe I just wanted an(other) opportunity to revere this relic of yesteryear. “How old is that?” The young woman’s curiosity is endearing. “Very,” I reply. The tape dates back to the twilight of the previous millennium, when khaki pants were trending and Y2K lurked ahead like a horror-movie villain. The tape was recorded on the boombox, like the one in the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air opening credits, as I crouched in my suburban bedroom. Of course, cassette tapes were becoming passé by the time 1999 arrived. Compact discs were what I played when friends dropped around. These were sleek, shiny beasts, purchased at Sanity and HMV, and with price tags left intact to show visitors just how far my telemarketing wage stretched. Even still, cassette tapes were the best platform for my musical compilations. Cassettes were cheap and easy to use. Cassettes could be transported anywhere, with minimal risk of getting the scratches that made CDs unlistenable. “Can we hold it, Jay?” There are gasps and guffaws as the tape is handed from student to student. They run their fingers across the plastic. Perhaps they’re trying to find traces of their professor as a flanno-clad 19-year-old. Or perhaps they’re trying to extricate the tunes contained within. There were the Seattle grungers and the Britpoppers. There was Utah Saints asking “Who are you?” and Leonard Cohen responding that “Everybody knows”. And there was A Flock of Seagulls. A Flock of Seagulls and their dreamy declaration: “Aurora Borealis comes in view.” Where was Aurora Borealis? What was it? Something somewhere beyond the maze of metropolitan Melbourne sprang up before me, shiny and synth-laden, every time that track soared through my earphones. I wonder if my charges have their own mixes. Probably. Spotify is visible on the exposed screens

of smartphones on desktops. The crispness of that platform’s audio does nothing but justice to Kurt Cobain’s plaintive yowl or Stevie Nicks’ nicotine-stained falsetto. And yet, that scratchy, slightly distant cassette sound has a charm that the streaming platforms can’t hope to emulate. The random snippets of contemporaneous radio ads between tunes are alien to today’s carefully curated playlists. Ditto the missing song openings and the clips of cheery radio announcers making small talk. “Bet this brings back memories,” mutters a young man, a smile in his voice. He’s not wrong. This compilation was the soundtrack to my first year of university, as I dashed between lectures. This compilation was the soundtrack to those train rides home after the obligatory Thursday night pub crawls in Melbourne’s inner north. There I’d sit, in beer-soaked silence at the back of the carriage, with Cold Chisel’s ‘Flame Trees’ whirring out of the red Walkman in my pocket. Who cares that I wasn’t returning to a rural hamlet I’d deserted years before, haunted by a woman whose name I couldn’t speak? Who cares that I’d never seen a flame tree? The Chisels were drinking music, dammit! These recollections play over in my head, as hazy and striking as the words scrawled in biro on the tape’s peeling label. (That label reads “Jay’s Hit Machine,” if you must know, named after the popular compilation series). I try to press pause, but on they roll, as if some unseen force keeps squeezing the play button. There are no memories of what happened to that Walkman or that boombox. Perhaps they were donated to a second-hand store. Perhaps they were consigned to a corner of a removalist truck as I flitted between sharehouses, or to a dumpster during annual clean-outs. There are no memories of when I last listened to this mixtape. I had forgotten the collection by the time it re-emerged, unexpected but not unwelcome, days before. There it lay, in the dust-shrouded recesses of my wardrobe. The place where all good mixtapes go to die. Or maybe I hadn’t forgotten it. Maybe I knew exactly where to find it. “How old are you?” A student grins cheekily. “Very,” I reply deadpan, and the room erupts in laughter.

Jay Daniel Thompson is a lecturer, professional communication in the School of Media and Communication at RMIT University. He is also a freelance journalist.

Before CDs, before Spotify, Jay Daniel Thompson was a one-man hit machine.

09 APR 2021

In the Mixtape

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series by Aron Klein

The Big Picture

Spirited Away Giant bells, goat hair and hours of embroidery go into creating these elaborate Bulgarian kukeri costumes – designed to ward off evil spirits and bring prosperity. by Melissa Fulton Deputy Editor

FOR MORE, GO TO ARONKLEIN.CO.UK.

09 APR 2021

he whole thing is practically deafening,” says UK-based photographer Aron Klein of witnessing a kukeri performance and listening to the bells – some of which weigh as much as 100kg – chiming from their wearer’s waists. “These guys go into a form of trance: they dance and they move, and these bells just ring and ring and ring. It’s a mesmerising sight, a mesmerising experience.” Kukeri, an ancient pagan ritual practised annually across the Balkan mountain regions of Europe, is a folkloric tradition that has been passed down between generations for centuries. Deriving from the Latin cuculla, meaning “hood”, it’s the act of dressing up to share stories, scare away evil spirits and protect communities against misfortune. Kukeri rituals are also practised to bring prosperity to the community, and for this reason both the performances and the costumes vary widely between geographical regions, depending largely on the natural resources to hand – from the goat-herding mountain ranges to the rose-growing valleys. “Each region believes a different thing will scare away the evil spirits. So up in the mountains they wear a lot of fur and a lot of hair, and down in the valley they wear really bright colourful outfits.” Klein has captured the Kukeri in staged portraits in the landscapes unique to each village. Expect bells, wood carvings, bone and fur and feathers, animal heads, wool, and beads and embroidery in a swathe of resplendent colours. Most costumes are antique, passed down from father to son for generations, and they’re personal to every participant. “Some of the guys that I met in the valleys…they’d sat there and sewed for six months with their grandmas to make their outfits,” says Klein. “We’re talking thousands and thousands of sequins, so it’s a real labour of love – blood, sweat and tears go into it.” These days, the performance of these rituals, which fall at the height of a barren, brutal winter in late January and early February, is as much a morale booster as an ancient tradition. “A thousand years ago, if you made it to February and you still had food in your larder, you’re probably going to survive and you’ve broken the back of winter,” Klein says. It’s a perfect time to eat, drink and anticipate the warmer days ahead. Villagers open their doors to each other for a hot meal, a pot of herb tea and a shot of homemade rakia. In some communities, mock weddings are performed. In others, gifts are given. Central to these rituals is a belief in health, prosperity, fertility and happiness. It’s a celebration. “They’re so full of joy,” says Klein of the revellers. “These guys dance and drink and party for an entire day; they don’t stop. It’s an impressive feat, but as they say, it’s not you, it’s kukeri taking over – so have a good time.”

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

09 APR 2021

Ricky

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

I’ve only flown business class once in my life and I didn’t want the flight to end.

by Ricky French @frenchricky

Take a Hike

ow nice it is to be flying again, 34,000 feet above the plague-infected planet, jetting to tropical Queensland to follow an itinerary I’ve barely looked at – but I’m hoping it includes panna cotta. I checked both my bag and my privilege and marched straight down the aisle into seat 27F like a man on a mission. Virgin has gone on a health kick since I last flew: a dry bag of nuts and seeds served with orange juice has replaced filter coffee and cake. Oh well, there’ll be hedonism aplenty where I’m going. There is, though, the small issue of my knee, still weak as a kitten after surgery a few months ago and on bad days reducing me to a deep depression, contemplating the possibility I will never win a Parkrun event ever again. Come to think of it, I do actually recall something in the itinerary about a four-day hike in the mountains… I remember the woman on the phone from the hiking company asking some very personal questions, namely, Had I done much hiking before? I thought back over my lifetime of self‑inflicted hardship in the bush – the multi‑day mountain crossings in New Zealand’s Southern Alps, dodging thunderstorms and driving rain on precarious mountain passes; my solo journey down the snake-infested Lerderderg River in Victoria; my aimless adventure into the trackless Tarkine in Tasmania; my dozens of articles written for hiking magazines, not to mention my gallant scaling of Mount Kosciuszko. “A bit,” I said. “Okaaay…” she said, sounding doubtful. “This is a tough hike,” she continued, in a slightly scolding voice. “The tracks are grade four, sometimes grade five.” I told her I didn’t realise there were rapids on this hike, but that I would pack my wetsuit. I could sense her eyes narrowing as she asked speculatively, “What was the last hike you did?” It took me a while to remember. “Oh, it was Mount Taranaki in New Zealand,” I said brightly. “But it was a bit of a failure.” She

asked me what happened, pen poised to put a cross next to my name on the “required fitness for hiking yes/no” tick sheet. “Well, I was trying to summit from the rarely tackled southern side but hit an ice sheet at 2380 metres. I thought about belaying down and traversing round to Shark’s Tooth and pitching to the crater notch through a gap in the scoria, but getting purchase on the ice was a bit dicey and, as you know, a dozen or so people have fallen to their deaths at around that same spot on the mountain, so I decided to retreat and go back the following week with my ice axe and crampons.” There was a small pause on the line and then she said, “Okay, I think you’ll be fine.” I guess it was lucky there were no “Can you currently walk from the car park to the bottle shop without pain?” type questions. Or maybe it was unlucky: only time will tell. Time is something you learn to either appreciate or despise on a plane. I’ve only flown business class once in my life and I didn’t want the flight to end. Eventually the plane did land, in Dubai, and I sat down to interview Emirates CEO Tim Clark about flying on a plane. I asked him if Emirates planned to introduce any ultra-long-haul flights, so that I might get a little more time at their A380 onboard bar. Other journalists grasped the zeitgeist far better than I, and asked him what he thought of the carbon footprint of airlines and the recent boycotts of air travel to try to save the planet. We all wrote about that. Incidentally, the greatest thing I’ve ever done in my life happened on that Dubai trip when I hijacked a real aircraft simulator. But that’s a story for another time. I have a flight to enjoy and a hike to survive.

Ricky is a writer, musician and king of the mountains.

by Fiona Scott-Norman @fscottnorman

PHOTOS BY JAMES BRAUND

y cat Harry is a tripod, missing one hind leg, apparently removed as a young adult when it grew at a wild angle. There are, to be frank, advantages. For one, there’s the cachet that comes from having an unusual and personable pet. Harry, a debonair and handsome grey-and-white tom, was raised with love by a friend. He’s learned that charm is an excellent survival tactic. The arrival of a visitor is his signal to kerthump down the hallway and engage in some weapons-grade flirting. He’s unable to scratch one side of his head and neck – although his stump whirrs vigorously when he tries – so he enlists humans to give him a good hard bonce skritching. You’d have to be a hardcore cat loather not to fall for Harry. The other win is he’s easily containable. He can run like the clappers in short bursts, but if you chase him he slumps to the ground and allows himself to be carried. He’s strong – he has forearms like he works out in jail and is able to bench press a Chevy. All the better to haul himself up furniture, take on other cats, and get a fair way up a tree trunk. With only one back leg he can’t climb, so he ain’t getting out of our yard. This gives me moral high ground the height of Mount Olympus when it comes to boasting that my cat doesn’t roam about slaughtering wildlife. Oh I’m sure he’d like to. He’s a cat. And you know what cats are? Evil and unrepentant. Yeah they are. And I say this as a cat person. They’re murderous little gods who play with their prey and demand obedience, and if you don’t fall in line there are consequences. Being adorable is their superpower, and technically they’re domesticated, but calling a cat “Muffin” doesn’t make it less of a monster – you’re still cuddling up with a predator and killing machine. Some stats, because some of you are shouting at the page right now. A 2020 Australian study, which put GPS trackers on

pet cats, found that even kitties you think are locked in at night often aren’t – sneaky bastards – and each kills, on average, 110 native animals every year: 40 reptiles, 38 birds and 32 mammals. Even, sad face, Muffin. That’s 230 million native animals murdered every year because we let our beloveds roam. I know, I know, there are reasons: a) cats have very strong wills, b) it’s not practical for everyone to amputate their cat’s hind leg, and c) it’s “natural” behaviour and “cruel” to keep them in. Look, (b) is self-evident, but hold my beer on (a) and (c). Firstly, you’re the adult. Harry, bless him, is so food-focused he eats dropped raw zucchini off the floor, and would consume my body weight in Crunchies given the opportunity. Alas, he trends hefty, and extra weight twists his spine (see “missing leg”), so he must be svelte. Because we had to, we stood firm against his demands, pleading, shenanigans and blatant manipulation, and eventually he adjusted to rations. Your gig, as carer, is to prioritise what’s best for Muffin. It may not be what Muffin wants. Cats do like to roam, yes, but they’re also fine with less territory once they have boundaries. If Muffin’s bored, here’s a thought: play with him. And a cat that doesn’t roam doesn’t fight the neighbourhood and end up with pulsing abscesses. But mostly, how arrogant we are, to prioritise what’s “natural” for a pampered introduced species over the lives of millions of natives, many of which are facing extinction, and need to be torn limb from limb for sport like they need a hole in the head. You can stand up to your cat. You can do it. For the critters.

Fiona is a writer and comedian who ain’t kitten around.

09 APR 2021

Cat Empire

Calling a cat ‘Muffin’ doesn’t make it less of a monster – you’re still cuddling up with a predator and killing machine.

Fiona

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Music

Suzi Quatro

Suzi Quatro had to stop touring last year – so of course she hit the studio and made a new album. by Elizabeth McCarthy @elizabethmccthy

Elizabeth McCarthy is a radio producer at Triple R in Melbourne, and her reviews of books and music can be heard on Triple R and the ABC.

’ve really come home on this new album. For me, it’s as important as the first album,” Suzi Quatro says with the unwavering confidence that characterises her career as a singer-songwriter, touring musician and actor. “I’m 70 years old and I’ve brought all my life’s history to this record.” A household name in Australia during the 1970s and 80s, Quatro and her band routinely tore up stages all over the country; her videos were strewn across TV, and she was a Top 40 radio staple. Songs like ‘Can the Can’, ‘48 Crash’ and ‘Devil Gate Drive’ were gritty, catchy rock masterworks. The suite of new songs that have kept her synapses firing during lockdown in the UK, where Detroit-born Quatro has lived since the 70s, is a new album she’s titled The Devil in Me. It’s a creative experience that has reinvigorated her – despite inevitable setbacks caused by the pandemic. “I got vaccinated a few days back, so I’ll be fine,” she says, before breezily describing contracting coronavirus late last year like she had merely broken a fingernail. Last year she also enlisted her son Richard Tuckey as a collaborator on the album. “He grew up watching me, but these days he’s a musician with his own band. I’ve worked with my family a lot over my career. My first band was with my sisters. But when I’m working on a song, I’m being Suzi Quatro, a musician. Richard had to adjust to that,” she says. The new album is a mix of straight-up, flat-out rock numbers in the vein that made Quatro famous, and a scattering of slower, cooler ballads that are imbued with self-reflection and lockdown loneliness. Of the latter, Quatro is most proud of ‘Heart and Soul’.

SUZI QUATRO’S ALBUM THE DEVIL IN ME IS OUT NOW.

PHOTO BY GETTY

Right on Q

“That song makes me cry,” she says. “Richard was sitting in the studio, and he played a little bass, a little drum part and guitar. It was like an arrow to my heart. I knew instinctively as a songwriter to not think too much. The first lyrics sprung out of my mouth with a voice I’ve never used before. It was one of those magical moments. Songs don’t always happen like that.” The album’s title track is a nod to her famous 1974 song ‘Devil Gate Drive’, and also tips a hat to Quatro’s late mother, Helen, who once told Suzi that out of her five kids, Suzi was the shyest yet the one most full of mischief. The lyrics “Saint or sinner, there ain’t no truce/ When your halo slips it becomes a noose”, are words that Helen said to Suzi as a child. “She had lots of little sayings like that,” Quatro says. Her ride to fame was explored in the 2019 documentary Suzi Q, with a warts-and-all authenticity of which Quatro is proud. “It’s a brilliant documentary. It’s been a huge success, and that’s partly because we stuck to our ground rule that even if something is uncomfortable, if it’s true and it’s important to my story, then it stays in the film. We did not make the kind of documentary that was all, Oh! Isn’t she wonderful!” What shines through is the great influence Quatro had on generations of female musicians. Joan Jett, Debbie Harry and L7 are just some of the artists who claim that discovering Quatro’s music in their formative years led them to start their own bands. When the pandemic hit, Quatro had to cancel more than a hundred shows, but soon hunkered down to work from home. She and her son started writing the new album, and she published a book of lyrics, Through My Words. She stays connected to fans with daily Instagram posts, and says, “As soon as I’m allowed to play live again, I’ll be there… For me, being on stage is where I feel complete and most at home. I don’t have to do it for the money. But this period in the music business is hard for road crews and everyone who relies on artists like me playing live. I feel really bad for them.” Unsurprisingly, Quatro describes herself as a glass half-full person. She says Motown classics and the tunes of her three biggest influences – Elvis, Otis Redding and Bob Dylan – have been keeping her company during lockdowns. Contemporary artists who sometimes get a spin at home are Ed Sheeran and Adele. “But it’s the old stuff that I’m still drawn to.” The new material on Devil in Me is steeped in these old influences, freshened up with Quatro’s indefatigable outlook and robust vocals. ‘Get Outta Jail’ is a case in point, with the lyrics, “Give me one more gig to satisfy/ One more gig before I die”. It’s a rock screamer that comes from the heart of an artist longing to get back on stage. “When I wrote that, I said to my son, ‘This song is coming true!’ And he said, ‘I know!’”

09 APR 2021

As soon as I’m allowed to play live again, I’ll be there... Being on stage is where I feel complete and most at home.

Wakefield

Small Screens 30

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Piecing It Together Screenwriter Kristen Dunphy mines her own experience with mental illness for her new TV series Wakefield. by Katerina Bryant @katerina_bry

Katerina Bryant is a South Australian-based writer. Her first book, Hysteria: A Memoir of Illness, Strength and Women’s Stories Throughout History, was published in 2020.

wanted the show to ultimately be hopeful,” says screenwriter Kristen Dunphy, creator of the new ABC TV series Wakefield. Set in a psychiatric hospital in the Blue Mountains, the comedy‑drama follows the lives of both patients and staff with compassion. The show centres on nurse Nik Katira (Rudi Dharmalingam, The Split) who assists in his patients’ recovery while he himself experiences distress from an as-yet-unnamed past event. “One of the biggest things we wanted to do is get inside people’s heads,” Dunphy says. “We evolved this structure where we stay with a person – like a bunch of short films linked together and crossing over.” Wakefield thoroughly explores each character’s subjectivities, illustrating who they are both within the hospital and outside of it. Dunphy was clear she “wanted to walk a line between humour and pathos”. As the show is based on her lived experience, she felt positioned to explore its themes. “When you get a little distance on something, you can see the funny side of it. And if you don’t laugh, you cry.” The writer, whose previous work includes The Secret Daughter (Seven Network), recounts a scene directly taken from her time in hospital. After hearing on the radio that jigsaws can be useful for people living with depression, Dunphy’s mother brought her a puzzle,

support – activities like dance, gardening, singing and sport can foster healing. Over eight gripping parts, Wakefield interrogates distinctions around visible and invisible illnesses, as well as the patient experience of stigma in and outside of psychiatric healthcare. But this subject matter caused unique difficulties for Dunphy along the way. “I had so much trouble pitching this show,” says Dunphy. “Every step of the way was incredibly difficult because people were terrified. They’re terrified of mental illness, of saying or doing the wrong thing.” To secure financing, Dunphy felt she had to disclose details of her experience with mental illness. Although this posed “a very big risk” to her career, it meant that she became accustomed to being open – and “if you are open yourself, it encourages other people to be open,” she says. In fact, as Wakefield’s co-showrunner, Dunphy’s willingness to share her own lived experience unified the cast and crew. “A lot of the people who were attracted to the show – like creatives and actors who accepted a role, or crew members – were attracted to the subject matter,” she says. Wakefield features comedian Felicity Ward, whose 2014 documentary Felicity’s Mental Mission (DocPlay) explores her life with anxiety. “The cast and crew were just so incredible. Loyal and hardworking,” says

Dunphy. On set, she noticed that “a lot of people would be having a chat and people would self-disclose. They would start talking. “It’s important that people start to share some of these experiences because the more that we do that, the more we normalise. “That doesn’t mean we understand what it’s like to be seriously mentally ill,” she adds. “[But] if we were all a bit more honest, we might understand what it’s like to be mentally ill more than we admit.” She hopes that Wakefield takes viewers inside its characters’ heads “just enough to understand what it might be like for that person”. In this way, empathy is built. Through creating Wakefield, Dunphy and her co‑showrunner, Sam Meikle (Home and Away), realised that one of the most profound effects of mental illness is how it “disconnects you from other people”. While “there’s only so much you can do about that when you’re really unwell,” Dunphy says, “as you’re starting to improve, that ability to connect with others is basically what ends up healing you.” To Dunphy, it’s simple: “Being well is being connected.” WAKEFIELD IS CURRENTLY AVAILABLE ON IVIEW AND WILL AIR WEEKLY ON ABC TV FROM 18 APRIL.

which she and another patient spent nine long hours sorting and piecing together. “It was a round puzzle; it was impossible,” she recalls. One morning, with the last remaining part of the puzzle to go, “some newbie took the board and wiped it”. While it didn’t feel funny at the time, now Dunphy is amused: “Thank God we can look back and laugh a bit. It’s all about the perspective of time and other people.” It was this experience that formed the Wakefield ethos: “The use of the puzzle [as a single motif] was really strong for us as writers. We came to this idea of mental illness as a puzzle.” Small screen discussions of mental illness are becoming ever-more prevalent, with the likes of Russian Doll, 13 Reasons Why and Maniac all released in the last few years. But quantity does not guarantee quality, and misguided, inaccurate depictions can, as Dunphy notes, “do quite a lot of damage”. Wakefield’s intriguing structure, driven by multifaceted perspectives, means the show addresses healthcare issues with depth, nuance and appropriate complexity. It’s especially progressive in the way it portrays the spectrum of efficacy provided by psychiatrists, nurses and medication. In doing so, the series highlights the importance of patient-centred care, demonstrating how – alongside relevant medical

09 APR 2021

One of the biggest things we wanted to do is get inside people’s heads.

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Books

Madeleine Ryan

Room to Move The act of writing her debut novel taught Madeleine Ryan a whole lot more about herself – and what it means to be human.

@annaspargoryan

Anna Spargo-Ryan is a Melbourne author and editor. Her forthcoming memoir, A Kind of Magic, reflects on life with serious mental illness.

PHOTO BY HECTOR H MACKENZIE

’m interested in all the nooks and crannies that tend not to get attention in bigger, louder stories, and making them really epic in their own way,” says author Madeleine Ryan. The unnamed protagonist in her new book, A Room Called Earth, lives her quiet narrative in a big way. She’s unapologetically forward, a champion of self-love and a spectator of humans in all their complex wonder. And she’s neurodiverse – a fact the narrator may have known even before Ryan did. A Room Called Earth is something of a follow‑up to Ryan’s New York Times essay ‘Dear Parents: Your Child with Autism is Perfect’. In that piece, she challenged parents to see the positives in the way their autistic children think, feel and express themselves. “Your child is perfect,” she writes. “Be skeptical of what doctors, teachers, family members or friends say to the contrary.” Ryan’s book was already well underway when she was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder, a process she describes as “gruelling”. Even so, she continued to write. “Her voice was part of my life and I was sort of going where she led me. But I started to see so many parallels in how we perceive the world. I thought, That must mean that she’s neurodiverse, too. And it was a quiet, sacred realisation: that’s what this means for this story.” It’s a lush narrative. We follow the protagonist through a single night as she prepares for and arrives at a party: “I’m standing outside and so far I have nothing to say to anyone, and I like it that way because it makes me seem more interesting.” And then we just stay there with her, deep inside her perspective, watching and noticing. This narrator’s world is full of enquiry and curiosity. Everyone in the room is closely observed and catalogued: “Another woman just came up to that guy, and held him by the shoulder, and whispered something in his ear. He nodded without looking at her and there was this frequency of intimacy and familiarity that stopped everything in its tracks.” As Ryan herself says, the narrator rarely names a feeling, instead noticing its impact and using it to inform her next action. She doesn’t hesitate to leave the party when she’s ready to, or to kick off her shoes, or to kiss a stranger. She seems variously deeply connected to others and wholly alienated from them. As is true for many neurodiverse people, each sensory

input is felt, recorded and made noteworthy, sometimes to the point of overwhelm: “There’s no way of escaping our inner world. Information keeps rolling in, and rolling out. It’s constantly being sensed, and felt, and observed, and assessed. It’s endless.” In all of this, her autism is never mentioned. “The nuances of the experience that she has speak for themselves,” Ryan says. “How you then label it or categorise it is secondary to what’s occurring. Articulating differences is hugely important in establishing dialogue, but there can be a flip side where it creates blame, contradiction and hypocrisy.” Instead, Ryan has written a perspective that’s not the same as everyone else’s and made a story about how valuable it is. As in her original essay, Ryan presents neurodiversity as a way of being that should be celebrated. “I think that neurodiverse people have a role to help everybody reconnect with what it means to be human and amazing,” she says. “Maybe the appearance of more neurodiverse people is an indication that we’re at a turning point, or a crucial moment where conformity has actually become stifling. So, all these little souls are coming in to blow that open a bit.” Ryan’s narrator is definitely one of these souls. As the night goes on, she reveals herself as a fearless heroine, in charge of her own desires and prepared to stand up for herself. She’s conscious but not regretful of her privilege, happy to tell it like it is and courageous to the point of defiance. Some readers might find her brash or charmless, but that’s sort of the point. A Room Called Earth will challenge many people’s understandings of autism: an autistic person can be empathetic, can feel emotion, can read social cues. But Ryan’s ambition for the work is much greater than that. She wants us to rethink what it means to be human. “I don’t think we were just meant to go through the motions,” she says. “Tick the boxes and clock on and clock off without feeling, at the same time, a sense of joy and wonder, and that we’re contributing, and that we matter. That we’re of value and can create a beautiful world together.” At one level, this richly textured book reminds us it’s just not as complex as all that. All contributions are valid. We can be people in all sorts of ways. The narrator is who she is, and the onus is on the reader to accept how she spends her time on Earth. “At its core,” Ryan says, “she’s helped me embrace myself and others just as we are.” A ROOM CALLED EARTH IS OUT NOW.

by Anna Spargo-Ryan

Film Reviews

Annabel Brady-Brown Film Editor @annnabelbb

hoose your fighter. For me, there’s no battle. King Kong has his moments, but Godzilla – or Gojira, as he’s known in Japan – is the movie monster who reigns supreme. To really understand Godzilla’s charms, it’s worth returning to the original Toho studio films. He first rose from Tokyo Bay in 1954, as an ancient sea creature mutated by underwater hydrogen bomb tests in Ishirō Honda’s massively successful Godzilla. The film remixed the gaping wounds of WWII, namely the dropping of the atomic bomb on Japan, with the fresh threat of nuclear holocaust, unleashing both an eco-fable and an audacious family-friendly spectacle. The final scene, in which the dream of peace is presented through a song from a choir of schoolgirls, is among the most poignant in giant monster (kaiju) movies. The ensuing 31 franchise films made by Toho pitch Godzilla against a series of nemeses, from the supersized moth Mothra, to the toxic sludge monster Hedorah, the three-headed King Ghidorah, and King Kong himself (back in 1962). Each time, Godzilla – generally played by a human inside a latex suit, trampling beautiful miniature model cities, enhanced by Eiji Tsuburaya’s special effects – shambles about in a goofy, lovable way. (Eventually, he becomes a hero to mankind.) He releases an anguished roar that expresses our collective sadness over the devastation wrought by humans on the planet, a sound more moving than anything in the newest bombastic blockbuster. ABB

READY OR NOT, HERE I COME...

GODZILLA VS KONG 

The latest instalment of the biggest property-damage spectacle on film doesn’t spend a lot of time on its human characters: their motives are vague and their personalities mere rough sketches. The legendary monsters are the main event. King Kong’s caretaker (Rebecca Hall) insists he “bows to no-one”, not even a colossal dino-monster with atomic breath. Their rivalry is ancient, and when the two finally meet the result is predictably destructive, with a visually arresting sequence where they duke it out atop an aircraft carrier. At first, it seems this is Godzilla’s fight to lose, but Kong proves to be a wily giant. Along for the ride, Millie Bobby Brown reprises her role as plucky teen Madison Russell, teaming up with crackpot conspiracy theorist Bernie Hayes (Brian Tyree Henry) to uncover the truth behind Apex Corporation’s secret effort to take down the King of Monsters. These efforts culminate in a massive three-way battle, which completely flattens Hong Kong and allows the titans a satisfying, if messy, emotional arc. KHALID WARSAME ANTOINETTE IN THE CÉVENNES

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When her married lover announces that he’ll be spending the school holidays with his wife and daughter on a hiking trip, Antoinette (Laure Calamy) makes the only logical choice: she secretly signs up for the same trip to surprise him. If you’re thinking this doesn’t sound too logical, then you’re one up on Antoinette, who soon finds herself with only a rented mule for company, retracing the gruelling steps of Robert Louis Stevenson’s 1879 book Travels With a Donkey in the Cévennes. Initially, the film seems poised to explore a range of questions about love and desire, but writer‑director Caroline Vignal leaves most of them dangling, as the story narrows to Antoinette’s picaresque struggle to finish her ill-advised trek. The scenery is stunning and the mule, Patrick, is a surprisingly endearing co-star, but this is Antoinette’s show and her optimistic if immature nature dominates. Fortunately, Calamy’s performance is just right, hinting at enough loneliness and awkwardness to make her bubbly dork sympathetic. ANTHONY MORRIS

NOBODY 

In the 13 years since Taken made Liam Neeson an action star, there have been many vehicles for ageing thespians to reinvent themselves as avenging angels. Most of these films could have starred anyone, but the newest (written by John Wick’s Derek Kolstad) is an exception. In Nobody, the mild-mannered man with the dark, secret past is Hutch Mansell, who, yes, must use his old murder skills to protect his family after he unwittingly angers the Russian mob. Hutch is played by Bob Odenkirk (Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul), the talented American actor who has spent his career undermining his ostensible normalcy for both absurdity and drama. He is believably schlubby, and gives tempting credence to the fantasy – if this guy can forcefully reclaim his life, maybe anyone can. Director Ilya Naishuller shoots the action with sadistic glee. The violence is glib and juvenile. Good. Catharsis is often ugly and stupid, and few modern action films are willing to revel in that truth. KAI PERRIGNON

Small Screen Reviews

Aimee Knight Small Screens Editor @siraimeeknight

FINDING ALICE  | ABC TV + iVIEW

FEAR OF RAIN

 | VOD

 | VOD

If nothing else, this scattershot documentary features some of the fluffiest, most endearing subjects you’ll see all year. It’s an ambitious film from Australian-born duo Matthew Salleh and Rose Tucker (Barbecue), who investigate the personal and cultural bonds we’ve forged with our canine counterparts across the globe. Their snapshots occasionally inspire: one vignette depicts the mutual rehabilitation between former child soldiers and street dogs in Uganda; another showcases a soulful journey across the Romanian countryside. Yet despite its considerable scope, few insights are gleaned beyond familiar platitudes, expressed through a barrage of talking heads. Those who watch the film for the dogs will likely be disappointed by their surprising lack of screen time, as it’s their owners who take centrestage. But We Don’t Deserve Dogs rushes by too quickly to grant its interviewees any sense of interiority. Moreover, any resonance the film achieves is drowned out by Blake Ewing’s sub-Einaudi score, which encroaches on every frame. Dogs do deserve better. JAMIE TRAM

Fear of Rain is a psychological thriller whose protagonist is led to believe that she is the final girl in her own personal horror movie. Written and directed by Castille Landon, the film follows titular character Rain (Madison Iseman, Jumanji: The Next Level) through various phases of schizophrenic episodes. Rain’s day-to-day life is permeated by visual and auditory hallucinations, which force us to question both her state of mind and her personal relationships, and leaves room for many narrative twists and shocks. Katherine Heigl (Grey’s Anatomy) and Harry Connick Jr (Will & Grace) co‑star as sufficiently supportive parents, while Iseman gives a consistently terrified performance as their curious daughter. The film fully utilises Rain’s mental ill-health as the driving force behind the action, bringing into question the choice to represent mental illness in this way. What follows is a well‑constructed thriller with effective scares and a moody visual tone, bringing juicy horror thrills care of Rain’s blood-drenched visions. ELLA PACE

os Angeles is of course the “City of Angels”, but in writer Elizabeth Ito’s soft, gentle rendering, it’s also the City of Ghosts. Blending 3D animation with photography and documentary elements, this delightful series follows a small cohort of budding ghost-hunters around LA. Their adventures connect them to unique locals – corporeal and supernatural alike – who gregariously share some of Tinseltown’s lesser-told stories. For many folks, “Los Angeles” as a concept is synonymous with Hollywood: a mind’s eye découpage of movie stars, sports cars and cold, hard cash. City of Ghosts sidesteps the shadow of that iconic hillside sign, finding light in the side streets of LA’s culturally rich suburbs. From the skate bowls of Venice Beach to the bluesy rhythms of Leimert Park, the show’s debut season, now on Netflix, rings with curiosity, artistry and heart. Episode four, ‘Tovaangar’, is a highlight. Using the LA River (as seen in Grease, 24 and more) to channel the story of the land’s First Peoples, the Tongva, it restores a fleeting peace and possibility to the barren concrete landscape. City of Ghosts strikes an old-soul tone with real panache. Ostensibly for kids, the paranormal content is benign, full of pillowy ghosts that look wonderfully huggable. The show’s true focus is on food, culture, creativity and listening, plus there’s some commentary on gentrification, for good measure. Helmed by showrunner Ito – who won an Emmy for her work on Adventure Time – City of Ghosts has something to lift all spirits. AK

09 APR 2021

WE DON’T DESERVE DOGS

A CULTURAL EXORCISE

Part drama, part comedy and part thriller, Finding Alice explores the aftermath of losing the person you love the most, even when it turns out they’re not the person you knew the best. Most recently seen in hit series It’s a Sin (Stan), Keeley Hawes plays Alice: a mother who suddenly loses her partner Harry (Jason Merrells, Agatha Raisin) to a supposed freak accident involving a set of bannister-less stairs. The discombobulation and grief Alice experiences are heightened by her spatial disorientation – nothing is where it seems in the new smart home Harry built – and the evasiveness of everyone around her, from Harry’s parents to his business partner. The trappings of a sinister whodunnit eventually give way to a journey of self-discovery, on which Alice finds herself and unexpected allies, but the show suffers from a lack of focus and resolution, and largely unfathomable characters. Not even a star-studded cast featuring the likes of Joanna Lumley and Nigel Havers can save it, but there are moments of levity and heart in its depiction of loss and fractured relationships. SONIA NAIR

Music Reviews

Isabella Trimboli Music Editor

he teen star will forever be a figure of fascination. Justin Bieber, now 27, has released his latest album Justice, which finds him still failing to carve out a solid identity or style since leaving his teen image (and subsequent years of publicly documented bad behaviour) behind him. Like his previous record, the R&B bore Changes, Bieber is stuck in redemptive and devotional mode, singing limp paeans to God, or his wife, while reaching for grandiose statements (there are a couple of ill-advised Martin Luther King Jr samples) that inevitably come up short. His collaborations with the next generation of artists – such as the Australian teen rapper The Kid LAROI – only magnify his shortcomings in a pop landscape so much more fractured and strange than in his previous era of musical domination. Bieber is a recurring figure in the new documentary about another, but much different, teen idol, Billie Eilish: The World’s a Little Blurry. Unlike Bieber’s squeaky‑clean teen output, Eilish makes melancholic, bass‑heavy pop filled with night terrors, depressive confessions, spiders and dentist drills. While Billie Eilish traverses typical music doco territory (adjusting to fame, tour issues), one of the more interesting threads is the life-affirming capacity of fandom, and how the relationship between fan and artist is more symbiotic than it may initially appear. Eilish would know: she was such an intense Bieber fan as a 12-year-old that her mother considered therapy. One of the most touching moments is a tearful meeting between the two at Coachella; a passing of the teen megastar baton to the next generation. IT

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E IL IS H SP Y

@itrimboli

CHEMTRAILS OVER THE COUNTRY CLUB LANA DEL REY 

Lana Del Rey is nothing if not a shapeshifter, having assembled a large cast of characters in her oeuvre over the past decade: Stepford Wife, femme fatale, First Lady and Marilyn Monroe-esque ingénue. Her previous album, the widely lauded Norman Fucking Rockwell, added another role to her collection: herself. Chemtrails Over the Country Club furthers her autobiographical slant, but sees her looking outwards, venturing beyond the sun-drenched California she’s so fond of and into the extremities of America. On opener ‘White Dress’, she returns to the Orlando vacations of her adolescence; elsewhere, she journeys to Oklahoma, Arkansas and Nebraska. This is a road album, though it’s not so much an ode to Route 66 as it is an evisceration of the Americana influences – now sour and rotten – that underscored her earlier work. If Chemtrails and Norman teach us anything, it’s Del Ray’s ability for self-critique. Even as she settles into comfortable rhythms, she introduces new modulations – a winking falsetto, an unexpected autotune – reminding us she has more up her sleeve. MICHAEL SUN

SKETCHY TUNE-YARDS

DON’T ASK YOURSELF WHY JESS LOCKE

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After a brief foray into film – scoring Boots Riley’s acclaimed 2018 communist-comedy Sorry to Bother You – experimental pop duo Tune-Yards once again return to their unique brand of elegant, art-pop discordance with Sketchy. The diversity of tone, melody and rhythm that has come to define Tune-Yards’ music is on full display here. Built from daily jam sessions that took place in Merrill Garbus and Nate Brenner’s home-recording studio, many of the songs have an energetic, borderline-restless energy (in the span of just a single chorus, a song like ‘Under Your Lip’ cycles through three melodies that could easily comprise an entire song). But beneath this scattered and frantic mood is a genuinely warm, soulful sensibility, which the band’s previous, more intellectually rigid theatrics sometimes lacked. “Don’t regret a thing. Just sing” proclaims Garbus in closing track ‘Be Not Afraid’, and, unlike the Brechtian ironies of previous records, here, one can’t help but feel that she believes it. LUKE

“I’ve got nothing left to prove to you,” Jess Locke sings on ‘Dead and Gone’. Though that song is assumedly directed at a former lover, it’s an apt statement of intent. The Melbourne singer-songwriter has always traded in frankness, but her third album sees her breaking free of expectation. On this record, Locke’s diverse sound ranges from gentle piano ballads to crunchy, hook-laden guitar tracks in the vein of contemporaries such as Jen Cloher and Alex Lahey. There’s a streak of nihilism that runs through the album, as she takes aim at her own anxieties and the inexplicable strangeness of human behaviour. Additional vocals elevate tracks such as ‘Halo’ and the exasperated ‘Little Bit Evil’ (“Don’t you ever tire of being a model upstanding citizen?”), but Locke’s honesty shines brightest when it’s just her unadorned voice cracking with emotion (‘Late Bloomer’ and the synth-heavy ‘Blowfish’, an album highlight). This is a thoughtful, well-crafted and truthful album about dealing with crisis and change.

MCCARTHY

GISELLE AU-NHIEN NGUYEN

Book Reviews

Thuy On Books Editor @thuy_on

A THOUSAND CRIMSON BLOOMS EILEEN CHONG

THE SILENT LISTENER LYN YEOWART

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A Thousand Crimson Blooms is Eileen Chong’s ninth poetry collection and shows her mastery of the form. Written mostly in the first person throughout, there’s an immediate intimacy to these words; Chong does not keep us at arm’s length but draws us close to her as she expresses, with lyrical potency, the memories and griefs that assail her. Relationships, particularly those on the matrilineal line, are surveyed to the beat of time’s relentless march. These blood links, across time and space, are touchingly explored, as is Chong’s Chinese heritage. Here, for instance, is the author “barely larger than a loaf of bread” in her grandmother’s arms, and, much later, the same child holding up the aged relative, helping her float in a shallow pool. Chong often centres the body in her poems, particularly in the section titled ‘The Hymen Diaries’, which eviscerates issues surrounding IVF, infertility and miscarriage from the perspective of someone whose emotional scarring is evident. THUY ON

Festering family secrets haunt Joy Henderson as she returns to rural Victoria to tend to her dying father in Lyn Yeowart’s debut novel. When the old man is found dead, Senior Constable Alex Shepherd begins to draw comparisons with a cold case, and to wonder what exactly the Henderson family is hiding, and from whom. The Silent Listener draws its readers back and forth between the 60s, 70s and 80s, as an abusive husband and father slowly tears his family apart, inflicting anguish that will scar them for years to come. Dark yet compelling, it forces readers to question both individual and community actions, as sickening choices are overlooked, condoned, and then seemingly forgotten. But a reckoning looms, as decades‑old recollections resurface, and questions are asked, not only about a present-day death, but also about past crimes. With this intense, powerful and deeply disturbing novel, Yeowart has made a chillingly memorable first impression. CRAIG

THE DETECTIVE’S GUIDE TO OCEAN TRAVEL NICKI GREENBERG 

In The Detective’s Guide to Ocean Travel, writer and artist Nicki Greenberg has created a rollicking adventure story that will enchant young readers. After years of pleading, Pepper Stark finally convinces her father, the captain of majestic cruise liner RMS Aquitania, to take her on a voyage to New York. All she wants is to learn more about her mother, but when a priceless diamond disappears, Pepper finds herself caught up in the mystery. While the story is steeped in a comforting nostalgia, full of old-world enchantment and larger‑than-life characters, it still feels fresh with contemporary sensibilities. Pepper, far from the “young lady” her governess expects, is feisty and streetwise, and the three misfits she finds herself drawn to – Sol, an aspiring pastry chef, Norah, the “Irish Nightingale”, and Toby, a first-class con artist – are charming and sassy. This mystery is complex enough to engage strong middle-grade readers without pushing them too fast into the world of young adult fiction. BEC KAVANAGH

BUCHANAN

T H AT IN G U PG O R M A N C L IM B N DA A M A : H IL L

09 APR 2021

he title of poet laureate derives from an ancient Greek and Roman tradition of recognising achievement with a crown of laurel, a tree sacred to the god Apollo, patron of poets. Does Australia need a poet laureate? The current serving British one is Simon Armitage, while over in the US Joy Harjo wears the mantle, but we don’t confer any such honour to any writer in this country. It’s a pity because I think a national poet would do much to raise the profile of poetry in Australia and show how powerful a medium it can be. Many of us have seen US National Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman’s electrifying performance of her poem ‘The Hill We Climb’, at President Biden’s inauguration. Its hopefulness was a call for unity, collaboration and togetherness at a time when the US was riven apart by racial upheavals. It helped set the tone for a new political term. An Australian poet laureate could similarly pen a work to be performed at national ceremonies, to a wide audience. Imagine a poet, for instance, taking the pulse of the country and writing a searing work about climate change, gendered violence or any pressing matter of the day. TO

Public Service Announcement

by Lorin Clarke @lorinimus

When I was a new kid in a big school, all the other kids having known each other for years, I got lost on the way to art class. I had been looking forward to art, thinking at last I might feel comfortable or at home, but there I was, staring at the place I could have sworn the art building would be, and I tell you, the art building was not there. It took far too long for me to figure out my mistake and I turned up to a class full of faces swivelling around to stare at the new girl, all hot‑faced and scurrying to the only free desk in the class. Had you asked me at the end of the day how my day was, I might have told you it was tewwible. It certainly didn’t feel gweat. What did happen, though, was that someone cleared some books off the desk next to her and that person’s name was Annabelle. Now, I don’t mean to jolt you too sharply into the present tense, but I am now in my early forties and I spent last Saturday night getting the giggles at Annabelle’s house. Sometimes a tewwible day has some lovely in it.

If you think back to the worst times, times of great loss or great anxiety, it’s interesting how often you find yourself thinking of the people who were kindest to you. The helpers, the listeners, the ones who know when to say “Oh” and then your name. Just “Oh” and your name. Those ones. Just when things are feeling too much. Get you some of those ones. Sometimes, a day will be really ordinary except for a little moment you have that you don’t have to share with anybody. Like walking past a spectacular spider web covered in morning dew in a park. Noticing a ladybird. Looking up to the top of a building site and seeing someone sitting on the very top, looking down at you, eating a sandwich. Yesterday, I was driving some kids to school. We had just had, and I am not exaggerating, a tewwible morning. Arguing, squealing, falling over, refusing to do the things required of persons leaving the house for school (and that was just me, hahaha). We had to drive to school because it was raining, and I put music on in the car so the arguing would stop. THAT’S how tewwible the morning was. But as we drove around the corner towards school, music blaring, we saw the grass on the nature strip was white with corellas. A whole flock of them busily having breakfast under a tree. I slowed the car down so we could get a better look (there was nobody behind me, I promise). It was then that I realised a street-cleaning vehicle was parked on the other side of the nature strip. From out of the driver’s window, two men were leaning eagerly forward, their phones out in front of them. “Aren’t they beautiful?” one of them said to us, his face full of delight. The rest of our car trip wasn’t tewwible. Sometimes, two people in a tiny vehicle joyfully photographing a flock of corellas is enough to remind you: most days have some lovely in them. Find the lovely.

Lorin Clarke is a Melbourne-based writer. The second season of her radio series, The Fitzroy Diaries, is on ABC Radio National and the ABC Listen app now.

don’t know if you know this, but if you are an adult charged with the responsibility of picking up a child from school, it is compulsory to ask the most boring adult question imaginable. You must say: “How was your day?” Now, you might think you’re different and would never ask that, but one day, after enough school pick-ups, the words how was your day will tumble from your mouth, unbidden, and the child beside you will learn (perhaps immediately, perhaps over time) the fine art of eye-rolling. I recently asked a child this, at the end of a school day. The child, exhausted and carrying a backpack so large it could have contained two of his colleagues, looked up at me and said: “It was tewwible.” PSA: some days are tewwible. On those days, we do what we can. Some days are gweat. On those days, we beam and thrive. Most days, though, are neither here nor there. Maybe we forget those days. But in each of them, there’s something. Maybe we need to look for it, but there will be something in those days (and maybe in the occasional tewwible one) that is worth remembering forever.

09 APR 2021

Find the Lovely

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

Tastes Like Home Adam Liaw

Umami Bolognese Ingredients

Method Soak 5 of the dried shiitake mushrooms in 2 cups of boiling water. Transfer the other 3 to a spice grinder and grind to a fine powder with the shiokombu (if using). Set the powder aside. Heat the oil in a large saucepan and add the onion, garlic, carrot and celery. Fry for about 5 minutes until fragrant. Add the mushrooms and tomato paste and fry for about 8 minutes until the mushrooms are softened. Add the shiitake steeping liquid, Vegemite, soy sauce, red wine, tomatoes and dried herbs and bring to a simmer. Simmer uncovered for 20 minutes until the sauce is reduced and thick. Season with salt and black pepper. Cook the pasta according to packet directions. In a large frying pan add the pasta, extra olive oil, and as much bolognese as you like, along with a little of the pasta water. Toss it all together and transfer to a serving plate. Serve scattered with the mushroom and shiokombu powder and parsley. I? W HAT IS UM AM

Umami or savouriness is considered the fifth taste, along with sweet, sour, salty and bitter.

Adam says…

rowing up, it was mainly my grandmother who made me bolognese. She would make it with star anise because whenever she was braising anything she would always add star anise. Then she would get us to taste it to see if it was alright because she never ate beef herself. But this is essentially a vegan bolognese. I’m not a vegan but this has replaced meat-based bolognese in our house because the kids – they’re seven, five and one – like it better than the meat version. They love bolognese like all kids around the world do. I made this version for the first time six months ago – for The Cook Up originally – and then I brought it home for the kids and they absolutely demolished it, so it’s become our regular bolognese that we make all the time. It’s certainly not a recipe I grew up with, but it brings together a lot of different cultures – Japan from the seaweed, China from the soy sauce, Australia from the Vegemite. It’s really simple but the idea behind it is to put in a lot of different forms of umami to give it that real sort of savouriness. The base of it is very similar to a normal bolognese – white onion, garlic, carrot, celery – as well as a lot of mushrooms. Then we take the dried mushrooms without soaking them and blend them with shiokombu, which is a type of Japanese seaweed. That mushroom powder actually ends up being like a parmesan that we use on top of the pasta. Food is an expression of community – it’s what you can afford, what’s available, what’s in season, your cultural background. The food that goes onto your dinner table at home incorporates all this. It reflects where you are at any given moment in the same way, like the bolognese that I used to eat when I was a kid. THE COOK UP WITH ADAM LIAW STARTS 19 APRIL ON SBS FOOD.

09 APR 2021

8 dried shiitake mushrooms 1 tablespoon shiokombu (optional) ¼ cup olive oil, plus extra to finish 1 brown onion, finely diced 4 cloves garlic, roughly chopped 2 carrots, 1 grated, 1 finely diced 1 celery stalk, finely diced 500g button mushrooms, finely diced 1 tablespoon tomato paste ½ teaspoon Vegemite 1 tablespoon soy sauce ½ cup red wine 400g diced tomatoes 1 bay leaf ½ teaspoon dried oregano Salt and black pepper, to taste 500g spaghetti Handful parsley, chopped

Tastes Like Home edited by Anastasia Safioleas

FOOD PHOTO BY ADAM LIAW, PORTRAIT BY STUART BRYCE

Serves 4

Puzzles

ANSWERS PAGE 45

By Lingo! by Lauren Gawne lingthusiasm.com SNACK

CLUES 5 letters ___ Grey, Anne Brontë novel Canary‑like bird Buried explosives Japanese noodles Profits 6 letters Brothers ___, soldiers on the same side (2 words) French painter, pupil of David Revile, slander Rules Saskatchewan city 7 letters Feeding troughs Inorganic substance Persists Rubbing out Shipboard troops 8 letters Defiling Embryonic JD ___, US author

S R

E N

M A G

Sudoku

by websudoku.com

Each column, row and 3 x 3 box must contain all numbers 1 to 9.

6 3

4 1 7 9

9 7 4

2 6 5

8 9

1 8

7 4 3 9

Puzzle by websudoku.com

Solutions CROSSWORD PAGE 45 ACROSS 1 Heckle 4 Spritzer 9 Never 10 Boomerang

11 Spry 12 Koan 13 Loose 15 Magneto 16 So-so 19 Icon 20 Initial 23 Aloof 24 Mean 25 Crop 27 Interfere 28 Pitch 29 Farthest 30 Almond

DOWN 1 Handsome 2 Coverage 3 Lore 5 Prognosticate 6 Idealistic 7 Zealot 8 Rugged 10 Book of Numbers 14 Henceforth 17 Libretto 18 Slipshod 21 Tariff 22 Foster 26 Opal

20 QUESTIONS PAGE 9 1 17 2 b) Orlando-San Juan 3 Erasure 4 Cameron Corner 5 Atlanta, Georgia 6 Nightclub owner 7 Emelia Jackson 8 White 9 Mickey Mouse. He first appeared in 1928. Nachos were created in 1940 10 Tasmanian tiger 11 Paul Burrell 12 Mathew Street 13 Agent 99 14 The Mughal Empire 15 Parsley, lemon, garlic 16 Japan 17 Chad Channing 18 Papua New Guinea 19 Frill-necked lizard 20 Miranda Tapsell

09 APR 2021

Using all nine letters provided, can you answer these clues? Every answer must include the central letter. Plus, which word uses all nine letters?

by puzzler.com

Word Builder

If you think of a snack as a quick bite, this is a very literal definition of the origin of the word; in the 1400s a snack was the snapping bite of a dog. For a couple of centuries snack was used to mean a snappish jibe, or a sharp remark, a use that can still be found in some dialects of northern England and Scotland. In the 1700s the word started taking a new path, referring to a small bite of food (in contrast to a whole meal), giving us a word we use today for something small eaten between meals. 1938 is the first recorded use of the phrase “snack foods”, and the spelling snax has been with us since 1942.

Crossword

by Chris Black

Quick Clues

THE ANSWERS FOR THE CRYPTIC AND QUICK CLUES ARE THE SAME. ANSWERS PAGE 43.

14 15

16 17 19

ACROSS

1 Interrupt (a performer) (6) 4 Drink (8) 9 No way (5) 10 Backfire (9) 11 Active (4) 12 Zen riddle (4) 13 Baggy (5) 15 Marvel character (7) 16 Average (2-2) 19 Clickable image (4) 20 First (7) 23 Cool (5) 24 Aim (4) 25 Clip (4) 27 Meddle (9) 28 Spiel (5) 29 Most distant (8) 30 Nut-like seed (6) DOWN

22 24

25 26

Cryptic Clues

Solutions

ACROSS

DOWN

1 Opening line beset by inappropriate cheek? (6) 4 Drink reps returned to tour hotel (8) 9 No way to prevent Insiders retrospective (5) 10 Perhaps 60-year-old leaders anticipate negative gearing

1 Striking workers take women’s case (8) 2 Media reporting of impounded

return? (9)

11 Active investigations finish probe (4) 12 Opening and closing, Kayo authentication query can’t be

solved? (4)

13 Release John’s First Epistle (5) 15 Rocky montage for comic character (7) 16 Notes: nothing to write home about (2-2) 19 I rip off portrait (4) 20 First sign (7) 23 Cool TV alien sporting glasses (5) 24 Miserly fellow held onto last dime (4) 25 Chop and change starting rugby player (4) 27 Tamper with one rent-free arrangement (9) 28 Level playing field (5) 29 The rafts travelled the greatest distance (8) 30 Old man goes to seed (6)

deliveries? (8) 3 Learning legislation in lecture (4) 5 Forecast operating cost blowout (13) 6 Romantic novel italicised (10) 7 Enthusiast transcribed Zola and Trollope marginalia? (6) 8 Rocky and Grudge mashup (6) 10 Yellow pages found in old Bible? (4,2,7) 14 Subsequently, he translated to French..(10) 17 ...new triolet about Beethoven’s first musical text (8) 18 Careless fielders had change of heart (8) 21 Very loudly, I betray rising duty (6) 22 Promote town in regional Victoria (6) 26 Work with a novice basketballer (4)

SUDOKU PAGE 43

2 6 9 3 1 7 8 5 4

3 8 1 5 4 9 6 2 7

5 4 7 8 2 6 9 1 3

9 5 6 4 8 2 3 7 1

7 3 2 9 6 1 5 4 8

8 1 4 7 3 5 2 6 9

1 2 8 6 9 4 7 3 5

6 9 5 1 7 3 4 8 2

4 7 3 2 5 8 1 9 6

Puzzle by websudoku.com

WORD BUILDER PAGE 43 5 Agnes Serin Mines Ramen Gains 6 In arms Ingres Malign Reigns Regina 7 Mangers Mineral Lingers Erasing Marines 8 Smearing Germinal Salinger 9 Malingers

09 APR 2021

1 Good-looking (8) 2 Media treatment (8) 3 Wisdom (4) 5 Predict (13) 6 Utopian (10) 7 Big fan (6) 8 Tough (6) 10 Bible section (4,2,7) 14 As of now (10) 17 Part of opera (8) 18 Slapdash (8) 21 Tax (6) 22 Encourage (6) 26 Gemstone (4)

Click BONDI, 2003

James Packer

words by Michael Epis photo by Getty

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

nce upon a time James Packer was a good‑looking young man, happy to get about in budgie smugglers, listening to some beats on his way from the beach to his Bondi digs. Heir to a multi-billion-dollar fortune, he seemed safe, unencumbered by security, not a care in the world. But things are not always what they seem. Packer was already 36 years old and divorced. A second marriage, which would produce three children, also ended in divorce, followed by an engagement to singer Mariah Carey, which ended in him reportedly paying her up to $13 million as an “inconvenience fee”. After the breakdown of his first marriage, he became involved in Scientology. The entanglement, perhaps encouraged by his friend Tom Cruise, was short-lived. Packer had already suffered the ignominy of a spectacularly public business failure too, squandering hundreds of millions in telecommunications company One.Tel. Worse, he had dragged his father, Kerry, into the deal. Kerry was not in good health and died in 2005. James had, however, made some very astute investments, which were yet to pay off, in particular a stake in seek.com that would turn $33 million into $440

million within six years. He would repeat the trick with carsales.com. Those two investments played a role in the demise of Fairfax, the newspaper company his father had long hated, for revealing him as “Goanna” in the 1980s Costigan royal commission (which actually named him “Squirrel”, but that’s another story). Ironically, Fairfax later merged with Nine, long owned by the Packers, which James had wisely sold at the top of the market. James got out of media and into casinos – the only business that ever beat his father (sometimes). But casinos are dangerous. They attract criminals, who will try to launder money. Which is what happened at Crown, as determined by Commissioner Patricia Bergin. Packer looked a diminished figure as he gave video evidence to the commission – including references to his struggles with bipolar disorder – from his $280 million yacht. Evidence that contributed to the finding that Crown was unfit to hold a casino licence in NSW, and that Packer’s involvement should be reconsidered. Which is why Sydney’s Barangaroo casino is yet to open, and why James Packer is now fielding offers for his 37 per cent share in the $8 billion company – as two more royal commissions get to work.

17 APR 2020