You never see the real ones... just the models.

The strangest thing happened to me today, and I still don't really understand what it was all about. I was sitting in the Botanic Gardens late this afternoon doing some reading, (because I wanted to get out of the building for a little bit and enjoy the sun.) I heard this click, and so I look up to see a lady taking a photograph of me. odd. She was standing about 30 feet away, and as I looked up, she sort of leaned closer and said 'Is that you?!' As I had no idea who she was, I said hi as she ran up closer. Then when she got up to me, she said that when she saw me up close she realized that I wasn't who she had thought I was, but looked very much like him. So she took another photograph of me sitting there that she had to show her girlfriends. She said that I must be a model dressed up like this other guy... and that 'You never see the real ones... just the models.' She went on explaining how she and her husband knew this guy, and then how she and her friends put dance routines together... It was all very confusing and she was just rambling on about who knows what. Then all of a sudden, she said that she had to get going, and just walked away. bizarre.

Anyways, about this past week here in Sydney. Thursday I went down to the Quay and had a didjeridu lesson from my teacher. It went really well and I feel like I learned a lot. We talked quite a bit about rhythms, breathing, techniques, etc... and then a little about background info on the didge as well. He has recommended that I should definitely wait until I get up to the Northern Territory until I buy my own instrument, as that is where the instrument originated, and that is where the master makers come from. He also said that I can get one up there for much less money than I could get an equivalent one down here... so I think that's what I'll do. After the lesson, I was going to head back to the Con, but there were tons and tons of people lined up along the street waiting for the pope. I figured he must be coming soon, so I joined in the lines so that I would at least be able to say I saw him... Well. An hour and a half later, the pope finally drives by us. And, I figured that after waiting so long, he must at least be driving at a very slow pace so that people could actually see him. No. He flew by so fast that I hardly even got a good look at him. Nice waste of time, thank you very much. After that, I went back to the apartment to drop off my stuff and get ready to head out to Alex's house. Alex is the Aboriginal guy that I met last week, who invited me over for dinner. I jumped on a train and took a quick ride out to Petersham. I stayed there for probably three or four hours for dinner and some nice talking. Alex used to work for the UN, but now works as a lawyer to represent Aboriginal kids and help keep them out of trouble. His wife is a high school math teacher, and he has two boys as well. They are both learning to play the violin. Of course they brought out their violins and asked me to play for them. It is a little different playing on a six year old's violin than I'm used to, haha... but none-the-less they were still very impressed and excited to hear me play. I also gave a little sample of my didge skills, as they had a pretty nice one laying around.

Friday I got a great interview in down in Redfern. I met up with one of the musicians that I met last week at one of the NAIDOC launches. This guy, Leslie, does a lot of performing in Aboriginal arts. He is mainly a dancer, but also plays the didge, and was selling some of his paintings in his store as well. I thought he was a great person to talk to, because he is a good representation of upholding aspects of traditional culture in a big city like Sydney. Now I just have to transcribe the interview... Although it's nice talking with some people around here, I'm glad that I haven't done too many interviews, because it takes so long to transcribe them that my time could be much better spent doing other things, I think. Besides, I'm more interested in the traditional culture up in the North, which is not represented by people around here.

Saturday I spent almost the whole day out on Cockatoo Island. First let me explain that Cockatoo Island used to be a prison, then it was turned into an Industrial island, though now it does not really serve any function. All of the old buildings, and some of the old machinery, are still out there, and everything is being maintained as part of a historical preservation effort. However, as part of the Bienalle of Sydney, they have allowed 20 or 30 artists to put up exhibitions in the different buildings. This was really cool, because each building was basically dedicated to one artist, and most of the exhibitions were sort of combinations of video, music, and visual art. Many different ideas going around, and lots to think about, but I liked that it was so spread out, because that gave you more time to think about each exhibition. In a normal art gallery, there is no way you could read every single little plaque describing the individual paintings, but out on the island I was able to read all of the descriptions and give some good thought to each one. Plus it was fun walking through these old buildings that were scattered with old machinery.

Sunday, Joey and I headed down to Randwick Racecourse to go to the final mass of World Youth Day. We had to walk down because so many streets were closed off, and there were thousands of people heading over there. The more adventurous of the actual pilgrims who had registered for the event had spent the night under the stars out at the racecourse. By the time it was all said and done, I think they announced that there were about 400,000 people at the mass. I got to see him drive by in his little pope-mobile, at a slower pace this time. The mass was nearly 3 hours long, ouch... but they did have a full orchestra and choir performing all the music which was excellent. At the end of the mass, Pope Benedict XVI announced that the next WYD will be held in Madrid, Spain, in 2011... good luck to Spain for organizing an event this huge, I can't imagine all of the planning and organization that would have to go into such an event.

Today. Nothing very special. I watched a short video about Charlie McMahon, who is a white Australian who is pretty famous for playing the didjeridu in a band. This video followed him up into Arnhem Land where he was talking with some Yolngu people about making instruments, and painting them, etc. At the end of the video, there was a little clip of Charlie playing at a concert, and among his traditional didges lined up on stage, he also had a slide-didjeridu made out of pvc pipe, which he could change the pitch on. haha. A 'slideridu' perhaps... maybe a didjeri-bone?


Money Matters:
First of all, I would like to state that the US dollar and the Australian dollar are basically equal right now. What's up with that US dollar... losing all of your power, thanks a lot. Whatever, it's not that big of a deal for me anyways. As far as the money here goes, I did want to at least record what it looks like. The money is very colorful, and is made out of a sort of plastic material. The bills are about the same size as US money, but if I tried to rip it, I don't think I would be able to. For bills, they have 5, 10, 20, 50... like we do, (but notice no 1 dollar bill.) For coins, there are the silver coins which are 5, 10, 20, 50... (notice no 1 cent coin.) Then there are the gold coins which are 1 and 2 dollar coins. The 2 dollar coin is about the size of the US dime, and the 1 dollar coin is slightly larger, maybe US nickel sized. Then the 50 cent piece is massive, probably bigger than a silver dollar in the US. It's kind of annoying piling up all of these coins in my wallet, as it can get kind of bulky, but I do like the 1 and 2 dollar coin idea. At first I thought it odd that the dollar coins would be the smallest, but now it sort of makes sense, because they are the ones you would be most likely to carry more of around, so you wouldn't want them to be too big and bulky... plus, they have the gold color to help them stand out. Also, if you go shopping and your bill comes out to be an odd number of cents (due to tax), it will be rounded to the nearest 5 cent mark... well, it's probably just rounded up to the next 5 cent mark, I doubt they'd round it down.















(Left): Garamut practice. From the left, it's Peter, Heather, Tony, and me. Tony is writing his PhD on Garamut drumming, and is working with one of the other professors at the University, (Michael) who was actually in the US during this practice.
(Right): A picture of me at the final mass down at Randwich Racecourse on Sunday.




















(Left): When I was in Milan last summer, there were cows all over the city which had been painted by different artists. Now that I'm in Sydney, it's statues of Jesus all around which have been painted differently. This is part of the WYD thing, and they are being auctioned off later this week... I assume as some sort of fund raiser for the Catholic church.
(Right): This was a hip hop dance performance down at the Museum of Contemporary Art on Sunday.















(Left): Part of the Bienalle out at Cockatoo Island. One of buildings had this huge mobile sort of thing in it, with these funny animals made out of colorful plastic material. A crocodile, shark, emu, and something else that I can't remember.
(Right): One of the old buildings on Cockatoo Island full of old machinery.














The pope! Sorry, this was the best picture I could get. He's in there, I promise.


Anyways, that's all for now. Over and out.
-The Didgeridude.