APPLES!

My 2009 crop of garlic

We all know that over 90% of all garlic consumed in this country is imported from China.
That leaves 10% to split between Mexico, Argentina, and our own growers.
It's an insult.
Of all crops, there could hardly be an easier one to grow: you prepare a bit of soil, you stick a clove in with the pointy bit up, somewhere around Easter, you keep it moist until the rains come, then you harvest somewhere in November.
Yes, it is labor intensive.
So what?
Too many of us are not labor intensive enough and our bulging waistlines are testimony.
Next on the list is apples.

A Granny Smith from my brother's farm in Bridgetown WA

They are supposed to keep the doctor away.
If we don't grow them ourselves we can no longer be sure.
Many Australian growers are already spraying too much on the trees, around the trees, under the trees, but we have some controls, some security.
Speaking of which, security concerns a lot of folk. Next time you meet such a folk, tell them there can be no greater security for a nation than the ability, the willingness, to produce its own food.
Then ask them where they buy their vegies.
In particular, their garlic.
Not only where they buy it, but where it is from.
Apples grow well in the colder bits of this vast land, in particular the colder bits of New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania and West Australia.
I grew up on 30 acres of Granny Smiths.
She sustained me, nurtured me, kept me alive and romantically attached to seasons.
In primary school some folk called me Little Johnny Appleseed.
It was apt.
At a 30 year school reunion, an old mate said: "You know, one thing I remember about you, Dousty, you always had an apple."
I reached down into my back pack and removed two apples.
We ate and laughed.
Don't allow this to happen, this invasion of apples.
Lobby your local member of whatever variety.
Tell them we need to grow our own.
But before you speak, hand the bastard a locally grown apple.
To catch-up on the possible invasion, go here http://tiny.cc/RHIFQ

Another Sunday

Here I am, in Albany, my home, for another couple of days. But not for long. The city, Perth, beckons.
It doesn't beckon with a seductive "come on, call me, don't be shy, call, now".
Nuh, it beckons with a necessary "hey, I've got the money and you ain't making any down there, so come on up, get it, then go home and chill".
So I do.
I drive up, fly up, get up whatever way I can, do the gig, grab the money, rush home, chill a bit, hit the beach, run hard and surf like an aging man who wants to be 16 again.
Not an emotional, spiritual or intellectual 16, or even a physical 16, but be able to do what I could have done with a 16 year old body, but with the little knowledge I have gleaned between then and now.
Is that too much to ask?
Over the last two months I have pounded the streets of Sydney, Canberra and Melbourne to push "Boy on a Wire", been all the way to Kununarra for the Kimberley Writers' Festival, Geraldton for the Big Sky Writer's Festival and back home for Albany's own Sprung Writers' Festival.
No surprise I'm buggered.
And the book will be reprinted over the next week or so.
And this week I will fly to Perth again.
And the week after that.
The week after that? Probably.
I'm fly in fly out.
I'm running short on carbon credits.

Laugh Resort Comedy Room turns 20

Yes it does.
And here's a letter I have written to the organisers of a huge night on the 16th of September.
Why?
well, they invited me to help them celebrate.
Unfortunately, I won't make it.

Dear oh dear,

We didn’t know what we were doing, but we did it.

All those names that have gone on to be, well, the same names.

And all those names we have forgotten, yet we still talk about that gig, that night, that bloke, and the women who threw the chair before public indemnity insurance was an issue.

Were they the best years of my life?

No.

But two weeks ago when I caught up with Ray Matsen, now head writer for the ever ebullient Rove, that was all we talked about, the old days.

And we both looked like we’d had a few to talk about.

These days he lives in Melbourne and runs a pack of lean, fast talking, comedy writers.

I live in Albany and write books between beach running and body surfing.

Oh, to make money I catch planes to where it is.

Laugh Resort, 18 years old.

Wow.

I’d love to be there.

Sorry I’m not.

But keep inviting me, because when we all get to 20, I’m coming up for a week.

My love to those who remember me.

To those who don’t, huh, you’re not alone.

Peace, laughs, and longevity

Jon Doust

And

George Gosh

A new blog ... just

This blogger is limping.
He's just returned home to Albany, jewel of the deep southern tip, with a small, irksome virus from Melbourne. He thinks he caught it on a tram.
Here's what happened:
I'm on a tram. Everyone is coughing, sneezing, blowing.
I stand alone, surrounded by humanity, all sizes, all types, all hard up against me, but not really hard, kind of soft but tense.
The tram is full. There is no room left.
It stops. there are three people standing, staring.
One says: Sardine time.
I laugh. I laugh alone.
The three plunge forward into the tram with no room. We all shuffle, ever so slightly, and they fit.
I am amazed. My mouth opens, then closes, because I remember the coughing, the spluttering, the sneezing, the blowing, the sniffing.
Too late, and a tiny virus molecule entered my system.
When home, I recover quickly, being of a resilient, mountain goat breed, and so I go running and surfing.
The very next day I collapse in a mountain goat heap, full of bleat and almost coughing. I don't cough. I recover quick, but every since my lungs have found breathing somewhat changed.
The tram world is not for this goat. He loves a tram, but not every day, not at peak crush and full of sardines.
To all those who embrace the tram world, may your neighbour cough the other way and may your tram be always half full, or empty.

Not another book?

You may not have noticed but I have written a book. Not only have I written one, it is now available in bookshops, stacked right alongside other books written by other people.
Yesterday I visited a local well-stacked shop with a new young friend. He went straight to the science fiction section and bought one book and got another book free. Then, perhaps a little embarrassed, he asked: “Where’s your book?”
I showed him. He picked it up, flicked a few pages, and put it down.
We separated. He went back to sci-fi and I went over to history to search for something different about Rome, or Athens, or Isfahan, one of those great ancient cities from which great empires ruled what they thought was pretty much the entire world, expect for the bits ruled by the other great empire next door.
While there a woman approached me: “I’m sorry, you can’t even hide in a bookshop, but now I have seen you I must ask if you would sign this, please?”
She held out my book. I slapped it from her hand and screamed: “How dare you!”
No I didn’t, I took the book, smiled, introduced myself to her two sons, signed, smiled, and wondered if I should make a habit of standing in a bookshop as though trying to hide?
Boy

Does this happen to you?

A lot of people I know think their brains are melting.
They aren’t. Mine is, or has, or is in the process of melting.
Right now as I key in these words I am waiting for a Telstra person to answer my abusive cries. Ok, not abusive, because I know it is not their fault, but certainly impatient.
Here’s how it started.
Some time back we moved house from the big smelly city to the delightful rural paradise. The move was fraught with danger and accident, but we made it only to find that Telstra didn’t like it.
People, or equipment, decided to make our lives miserable by refusing to let our other phones die the natural deaths that other phones do.
And they did this by charging us double the rates for our new phone and by charging us for the phones we no longer had, didn’t want, and did not use.
Crazy, huh?
All right, the thing is I hear you cry, the way the modern world is, everything is designed to make life easier for us, the punter. So how hard could it be to fix?
Don’t ask.
But fixed it was, eventually, by an exceptional human being I had the luck to happen upon within the bowels of the monolith. She was hiding there, waiting for desperate folk such as myself and, get this, she even returned phone calls.
Unbelievable.
But today she couldn’t help.
Today I discovered that the 101 service on my mobile had been removed. Why? By whom? For what purpose?
I blame the Americans.
So, here I sit, waiting for someone, who comes on, tells me what’s what, then disappears, so I wait some more. And wait.
Hang on, there’s this Lisa from Victoria, what a find. She’s funny, sassy, and reckons because she’s from Victoria she can fix the unfixable.
She does. It’s fixed. I can’t believe it.
I ask her where my car keys are, my blue sock, my Swiss army knife, and could she help with the video recorder, is she married, would she like a holiday in the Whitsundays, could she work on the Middle East crisis?
No answer. Phone dead. I’m talking to thick air. Just when I thought I had met someone who could stop the melting, it starts all over again.

Sorry, been busy, but I'm back now

I may have said it before, it’s not easy making the big Sea Change.
First we had to sell our house in the city and then we had to buy another house by the sea.
As usual, we didn’t do it the right way around. First we bought the house by the sea and then we tried to sell our house in the city.
I know what you are thinking: “Clever, innovative, imaginative”. Not really, because we chose to buy just before the market began to scream, kick and fight its way into a dive and we chose to sell as its plummet gathered momentum.
We are not, you see, the classic Baby Boomers. No, indeed, we sold out city house to a Y-Generation couple who didn’t have enough money to complete the transaction and they still don’t, seven months later.
What’s more, we were not cashed up after years of real estate manoeuvres, or share market profits and I had not decided to retire from my advertising agency after selling it to a multi-national.
In short, we are a couple of late-starters who met on a communal farm in Israel during the hippy boom of the early-middle 1970s.
Indeed, we belong to that group of Boomers who will have to keep working until the man in the suit comes to measure us for the box.
That’s ok with me because I’m one of those blokes who has difficulty sitting still and if there’s nothing to do I’ll find something and do it, or re-do something already done, or undo something so I can do it again. Or even write a blog about it all.
Oh yes, there are benefits. The beach is only three steps and one jump away and on a good day I can be there for three hours, running in soft sand and body surfing.
Fishing is one thing I have to get back to. Haven’t fished for years, mainly because I grew up in a family that only fished or played tennis and when I hit eighteen I changed them for activities more in keeping with a young man who thinks he’s in the prime of his life.
I was wrong, the prime was up ahead. I’m there now. I’m excited. And exhausted.
Ps: Don't forget to buy my book. Or I'll have to get a real job. BUY JON'S BOOK

The book is up and away: Boy on a Wire

The launch went well. No point in denying it.

The Lane Bookshop sold out and seem quite excited. Have even threatened to sell the entire first run.

Everything went well.

The MC - Chris Pash, author of The Last Whale - was warm, funny and excellent.

Georgia Richter - publisher and editor of "Boy" - was moving and eloquent.

Reg Cribb - launcher and ex-boarder at Aquinas - was funny, poignant and brilliant.

Frank Sheehan - reader, CCGS chaplain - was subtle, moving and wonderful.

Xave Brown - singer from Denmark WA - sang Bird on a Wire from his very soul and made me cry.

Oh, it was all enough to make a grown author lie in his early morning bed and weep with tears from all sectors of his universe.

Here is a snippet from Reg Cribb's speech:

( If Jon were launching a book that I had penned I’m sure he wouldn’t have a speech prepared. He’d fly by the seat of his pants, coz thats what he does.. But I am a good Aquinas boy and we dont fly by the seat of our pants. )

Jon...Jon...Jon.... a brave man you are. To write this book then have the audacity to launch it at Christ Church Grammar informs me with no fear of retribution, that you have kahunas the size of a space hopper. Methinks Its the equivalent of Ian Fleming launching ‘From Russia With love’ at KGB headquarters in Moscow or Peter Benchley launching ‘Jaws’ in the shark tank at the Miami aquarium.

Jon and I met at the Sprung Writers Festival in Albany. Both the town and myself obviously made an impression on him because here I am launching his wonderful novel and now...well he calls Albany home.

.....

Jon understands that when you go to boarding school, you are basically an independent spirit from age 12. You form your own thoughts, make your own bed, fight your own fights and thus a knock down, stand up showdown with your parents at the end of it all is sadly inevitable. Day bugs, they just dont get it.
My Wholehearted Congrats Jon. You made a sea change to Albany and instead of writing a crappy, sappy TV series starring David Wenham, you wrote a beautiful, honest testimony to adolescence in all its smelly, warty, effluent glory. You have showed us in Boy On A Wire that being adolescent is a time of being barely afloat, bobbing uncontrollably in a merciless raging sea of hormones, with two choices, sink or grow the hell up. Thankfully for us the growing up part is still a work in progress for Jon. His growing up sometime in the near future, would be our literary loss.

....

To read the full text, go to the Fremantle Press blog.

Frank Sheehan grills Jon Doust

On April the 7, this blogger can be heard, and seen, in conversation with the chaplain of Christ Church Grammar School, Frank Sheehan.
It is all part of the UWA AUTUMN SCHOOL program, Writing and Communication stream.
Time: 6.30pm - 8pm.
To book a place:
Phone - 6488 2433
web site - UWA Extension
email - extension@uwa.edu.au

Here is a profile of Frank.

Canon Frank Sheehan is the School Chaplain and Director of the Centre for Ethics at Christ Church Grammar School. He is also the Senior Canon at St George’s Cathedral.

Frank, who is actually Francis Xavier, was ordained a Roman Catholic priest in 1976. After his ordination, Frank taught at Daramalan College, Canberra, for three years. In late 1979, he was asked to spend a few months in Darwin where he worked for the Bishop of the Northern Territory. It was in Darwin that Frank met CamHa, a Vietnamese boat person who had only just survived a perilous journey where she was at sea for a month, her group having been attacked twice by Thai pirates.

Marrying CamHa meant that Frank had to leave the Roman Catholic Church. “However, I never stopped feeling that I was a priest and so I approached the Anglican Church to see whether I might be able to find a place within this community,” Frank said. “I am happy and grateful that I was made welcome.”

Frank then taught theology and early church history at St John’s Theological College in Morpeth (near Newcastle NSW) before he and his family moved to Singleton in the Hunter Valley where they spent almost three years in a busy parish. “It was such a vibrant and loving community. We have wonderful memories of that time.”

Christ Church was the next stop. “I have been here for almost 24 years and have enjoyed every day,” Frank said. “The boys are wonderful. So are the parents. I respect my fellow staff members and am proud to work with them in this very worthwhile enterprise of education in a fantastic school. Why wouldn’t you feel good about being part of Christ Church? Teaching is a vocation – a calling. So too is priesthood.”

In 1996 Frank established the Centre for Ethics, which brings to the school a whole variety of speakers. From time to time, artists, authors, educators and religious leaders spend a few days with the boys. “Years ago I invited Michael Leunig to be ‘Mystic in Residence’,” Frank said. “Michael’s new prayer books had just emerged. He was here for two weeks. It was magical. I was delighted when Jose Ramos Horta came for a couple of days. Tim Winton, Helen Garner, Les Murray, Robert Dessaix are some of the Australian writers to be with us. Annie Proulx, Louis de Beniers and David Suzuki are international figures who have been our guests. I feel that the School community is enriched by this. It is such a pleasure to engage with these people and their ideas. The Centre for Ethics tries to promote this engagement.”

As Chaplain, Frank said he was in a very privileged position to be able to “go on telling the stories to keep alive the rumour of God”. He said he tried to draw on current issues and his own experience to address spirituality and reflect on some of the lessons of life. “In a busy, noisy world I think it’s important to remind people of the importance of stillness, reflection and the inner life,” Frank said. “Tim Winton about a decade ago said: ‘We seem to have lost the language of the soul.’ I think a chaplain’s role is to find the words and the silences to reaffirm that we do have souls… to capture the great mystery at the heart of things.”

Frank teaches Religous Education in the Prep School and to Year 8 boys. He talks at the Prep School Chapel Service every Wednesday and the Senior School Chapel Assembly every Thursday. He particularly enjoys his contact with the boarders. This year he will give the first “Canon Frank Sheehan Oration” on the subject of ‘Obama and God’. The Oration is to become a permanent feature in the School calendar and is a tribute to the esteem in which Frank is held.

Frank was a broadcaster with ABC Radio National for a decade and a producer with ABC television. He still appears regularly on radio as a social and religious affairs commentator. After 9/11 Frank spent four hours on air at the invitation of the ABC in an effort to spread some calm.

Frank is well known for his book reviews for the Lane Bookshop and for his talks about literature, ethics and spirituality. He has given lectures at all universities in Perth and is a fixture within the programme of UWA Extension. Each year, he chairs gatherings at the Perth International Writers Festival.

In 1981, the eminent historian Professor Manning Clark named Frank as one of his ten great Australians “for helping keep alive the image of Christ in this country.”

Frank conducts numerous weddings, funerals and baptisms. He takes an open approach to those seeking contact in this way. “I guess I am a liberal in regard to theology and spirituality. I feel a strong and deep connection with this part of the Anglican Communion.” He conducts services in the School Chapel for the wider community on the first and third Sundays of each month.

THE TIME HAS COME

BREAKING NEWS:
Boy on a Wire, a book by this blogger, will be launched next week, Thursday, March 19th, at Christ Church Grammar School, Claremont, West Australia.
Invitations have been sent out to all and others and someone I met in the street today..
Orders have been issued for food and wine. There won't be much because serious talking and selling must be done. All right, enough to wet and hold you up until the main meal you'll get when you get home, or go out.

OF COURSE Books will be available for sale.

THE GREAT NEWS IS it will be launched by West Australian playwright Reg Cribb, who not only writes, he also talks and was once ensconced in a similar institution.
Here is Reg's bio:

Reg started out life as a musician and an actor. One day he came to his senses and wrote 10 plays in seven years. His plays have been performed both nationally and internationally. He is one of the most awarded and produced playwrights in the country.

His plays include: The Return: which has been produced all over Australia and internationally as far abroad as Japan and Romania, Last Cab to Darwin: Directed by Jeremy Sims for Pork Chop Productions, which toured everywhere between The Sydney Opera House and Broken Hill and is one of the most awarded Australian plays in the last 15 years, Gulpilil: A one man show about the life of Aboriginal acting legend David Gulpilil, in which the actor played himself (Adelaide International Arts Festival 2004, Brisbane International Arts Festival 2004 and Belvoir St. Theatre – Sydney), Chatroom: Nominated for numerous awards and currently touring nationally, and Ruby’s Last Dollar: Again directed by Jeremy Sims.

Last Train To Freo, the feature film adaptation of ‘The Return’ is his first feature.

He is currently working on an adaptation of his play Chatroom to be directed by Samantha Lang and produced by Sue Taylor, and Bran Nue Dae by Jimmy Chi to be directed by Rachel Perkins. His half hour film Grange was shown on ABC T.V in 2005.

Reg lives in Bassendean, Perth with his wife Kirsty. His house is directly opposite Rolf Harris’s old primary school. He hopes the magic will one day rub off on him.

Broome

What fine colours this little crab has evolved for itself.

Broome is certainly a fabulous and hot place.
But here are some images I captured on a recent visit that may not have been seen before.
Oh sure, the long Cable Beach with the camels and the almost-clothed people, but how many folk have paid attention to the fabulous rock formations and the weird little creatures that inhabit the under-rock nooks?
Well I did, but maybe that's because I had time on my hands, the beach was not full of almost-clothed folk, and because that's the kind of beach goer I am, a poky, probing, inquisitive little chap.

This does not look like a crab, more like a sea-going spider.

Don't you just love rocks

There is much to love about a fine rock setting and one aspect for me is always the awareness that they are so much older than me, or you, or anyone we know.
They have seen the rise and fall of Mesopotamia, Rome, Persia, Zimbabwe (the ancient one), Egypt, Genghis Khan, the Ming Dynasty, the Incas, and all the others that don't spring immediately to mind.
So, tip: when in Broome, look at a rock, and under it.
And acknowledge the Yawuru people, on whose country you stand.

Are you getting ready?

I am. But I started from behind.
The patch of grass you see above, that's where I started and before I could begin to begin the grass had to go.
It went, quite quickly and yesterday looked like this:
Today I polished it, tossed it, and now it looks like this:
Why?
For what?
I am digging and tossing and burying kitchen scraps to prepare this newly dug plot for the planing of garlic. And next year, around November, I will harvest a crop that may well look like this:
This is a small bundle of my 2008 knobs that currently hang in my garage. I planted them in Albany in April last year and they came up a treat.
I do it every year.
Why?
Because garlic is the easiest crop to grow and because over 90% of all garlic consumed in Australia is imported from one country - China.
It makes no sense. None.
I have a friend in Shanghai. He has lived there for ten years. He told me what the exporters do to garlic and why they do it.
They eradiate it - "To shoot forth, as rays of light; to beam; to radiate."
This is done to increase shelf life, because, my friend said, food value is not the number one priority.
That is why the white garlic can sit on a shop shelf for months, in broad day and shop light, and retain its form.
Folk who have grown garlic for centuries will tell you, once harvested, the knobs must be kept in a a cool dark place.
This is where I keep mine.
And where you will keep yours.
Go to it.
For you, your family, your neighbours, your country.
(And don't forget: knobs should be kept in cool dark places, away from the madding crowd.)
(If only we could remember that.)

Recycled facial tissues - an update

It has been a busy time, but last week I managed to get out and reconnoitre. On the hunt I was, for the elusive recycled paper facial tissues.
Was I lucky?
Did I find any?
Where were they?
Yes I was.
Yes I did.
In Woolworths.
They are made by ABC Tissue Products and manufactured from "quality post consumer materials such as clean office paper".
If you would like to congratulate and encourage this company you can email it on info@abctiussue.com.
Might help to do the same with Woolworths. (If you click on it, it should taker you there.)
Might also help to buy the tissues.
Oh, by the way, no sign of any in Coles, or the three local IGAs.
Here's my message to the Big Wool.

Well done with the recycled ABC facial tissues.
I have been on a campaign to get them back in stores and Woolworths seems to be the front and consistent runner.
Still more work to be done though.
Here's a couple of things to think about and get on with:
- getting rid of plastic bags
- getting rid of GM foods
- ensuring more locally produced products
- ensuring clear labelling on all products, but in particular fresh fruit and vegetables, naming town and state of origin, even the grower.
There's a bit there to go on with, but if Woolworths truly is "The fresh food people", then what could be fresher than natural and local.
Once again, well done and I look forward to more good news from the Woolworths conglomerate.

THUNDERSTRUCK

Tonight, on Ch7 and GWN, Thunderstruck, the movie.
Above are photos taken on set.
If you are in tonight, nothing to do, watch it.
If you look closely, you will see this blogger, and some of his friends.
Not sure it's him?
Wait for the credits, therein lies proof.

YING TONG

The first time I saw Geoff Kelso perform I noticed something. The venue was a Melbourne comedy room called The Banana Lounge.
About a year later, I saw him in a small room in Perth. He was in a small troupe featuring a couple of tall performers, one of whom was Damien O'Doherty and another was Dave Warner.
I approached him and said: "You like Spike Milligan, don't you?"
He said: "Does it show?"
Well it did. And it still does.
It is almost over, so if you haven't seen it, do so, now.
Ying Tong, a walk with the Goons.
It's not a stack of Goon show scripts performed by wonderful comic actors, it's a play, and Geoff Kelso is Spike Milligan, in all his tortured glory.
Others alongside Geoff are the brilliant Jonathan Biggins, the excellent David James, and the finest John Hannan.
Ying Tong is sad, funny, hilarious, brilliant, emotional, uplifting, inspiring, and worth it's admission price.
It was written by a British stand-up comic and playwrite, Roy Smiles. He might have had Geoff Kelson in mind when he wrote it.
Ying Tong is a Black Swan Theatre production and is on at His Majesty's, the perfect venue.
Check it out here: Black Swan

The time has come the walrus said

Since I have moved into the great southern corner of the vast continent called Australia, my life has changed much.
I only buy papers about three times a week. The TV has almost died completely. I have much more time on my hands.
It is time, I thought, to work a WordPress blog. And that is what I have done.
Why?
Good question.
The experts tell me it is the way to go, so I have gone.
Here it is:
http://jondoust.net/
Go take a look.
A lot of the crap on this blog is now crap over there, but it's also got new crap.
I like this blogspot. I will keep it.