Ahhhh, Australia.

I was invited to Oz in 2000 on a music project and jumped at the chance! It was approximately 20 hours in the plane from Philadelphia to Melbourne, where I first landed, and after that moving on to other spots, including Sydney (about which I can only say: if you’re ever lonely, get your ass to Sydney. You will not be disappointed!).

I traveled around a bit in between project work and learning some audio production tricks I still use to this day, and what can I say but they don’t call Australia “The Lucky Country” for nothing. Great scenery and food (and even better company). If you like the outdoors and water sports, this is the place.

Very laid back and undercrowded…about 30 million people in a land mass the same size as the Lower 48 in the US…which has over 300 million to give some perspective.

I was invited as the (paying) guest of a music producer who had worked with a great Aussie band, The Church, who were 100% responsible for that beautiful song, Under the Milky Way. This is one of those songs I fell in love with at first listen…and they made it easy. The narcotic voice of Steve Kilbey that carries so well those searching lyrics, talking of wishing to know what one is looking for…under the milky way tonight. That wonderful instrumental break where you hear the sound of bagpipes (and which I was told was actually a synclavier…please correct me if I’m wrong).

The producer I worked with, in three words: A real character. He was all at once everything I despised about the music business, and everything I loved about it…and he sported just about every stereotypical ego-driven male behavior I could do without. It was a challenge to stick around as long as I did, but the good stuff eventually rose up to the surface. He taught me how to use CoolEdit Pro, which became the excellent Adobe Audition…and which I continue to use with pleasure today as it is one of the best sound editors I’ve ever used, especially for post-production and cleaning up files I once though were lost causes.

Australia turned out to be a very Star Trek country, and a lot of the cool people I met on the Melbourne beachwalk, including a fellow X-Files fan into all the big, universal questions didn’t disappoint. It also turned out to be as tokenist and racist as the US.

Like most Aussies I met, Producer Man from Down Under hated how his country treated aboriginals, and he talked often about it…in between his white male control issues regarding females, which on one occasion had him admonishing me that “maybe it was time to have kids.” It painted a picture of the congruence between already-occupied countries that had been “discovered” by traveling/conquering/enslaving people…including the United States, Canada and Mexico…and made it perfectly clear that no one can claim any moral high ground at all.

A pleasant surprise was that in Australia I saw a much greater commitment to the healthcare of its people as taxpayer return on investment. When I picked up an infection of some sort, I was able to see a doctor, get a gram -/gram + test and other tests while I waited, and a prescription, all for AU$35, which was around $20 American at the time I was there. No lines, no bullshit, and I wasn’t even on their national insurance. There’s certainly some very strange medical math going on in the States, and it is well past time for us to get over it.

As well, the supermarkets were light years ahead of those in the US for people needing to avoid gluten. Lots of Irish and Irish-descended people had a tendency toward celiac, and Australia was home to many of Irish lineage. So, while my host kept telling me he simply “couldn’t understand my food problems,” it was good to see that the supermarkets and other merchants did.

I didn’t get to spend nearly the time I wanted to there 🙂 …but I have a book that is partly based in the areas where I stayed – including Port Melbourne in the area where the beachwalk is – so I anticipate returning sometime in the near future to make sure I’m still able to describe the place.

Enjoy the slideshow!

Click the caption image to the left to see the slideshow with my captions, and, as always, click the  at the top right of this page to see the pic behind this content! Enjoy!