A Scene from the story

The south end of Maroubra beach was where I always spent my afternoons after school. The sand was always clean down there and the smell of the salt spray and seaweed crashing into the rocks at the end of the beach filled my hair and drove Mum crazy with the comb. It was my place, my fortress from the darkness and out of his reach. Straight from school I would ride my bike to the surf club and pull my board from beneath the club rooms and head into the surf no matter what it was doing, how it was running, big or small. I’m pretty sure I only even got half way out the back, that place where the blokes in the car park and club rooms talked about, but it seemed I was never really closer to shore than all of them, but I didn’t know.


Out there the wind would blow against my back and whistle in my ears and I felt the calcium growing in the canals and the dull pain it bought with it. I loved the rocking water and the speed the rip took me out to sea. I would jump in with my board, trying to miss the rocks and sail myself out to the horizon with no more than a quick dip of my hands in the water. The rip would drag us out away from the beach and I felt like one of those prisoners escaping from Long Bay and running as hard as they could without turning to look back. I could feel his rotten grip loosen on me as the swirling water rushed to deliver me to sea.

After school me and Ben would run out from the building, all greys and greens of the other kids wagging behind dreading the homework. We would launch our bikes and head straight for the beach. The club was cold and never open when we got there, but we had a safe place for the boards that only old Gray knew about and he told us they would be safe there. I couldn’t leave my board at home. He would probably smash it when he was drunk and had no one to hit, so I left my beat up fibreglass board with Bens under the club where we would get changed in the dark, dumping our school uniforms and bags in the dirt.

Without fail we would be in the water by half 3 and we could surf for at least two and a half hours most days before we had to go home. Some days Ben would have to leave early for music lessons or something like that and I would stay out in the water catching waves and staying away from there as long as I could. I never had to go anywhere, I never had to be home early and even if I had to I would have stayed at the beach anyway. When it got too dark I would paddle in or simply let the ocean push me ashore and I would stash the board under the club and get changed back into my school clothes. Sometimes when I knew he would be home I would stay out after it got dark, but one night I thought I saw a shark surface just near me, so now I paddle in and just walk my bike home slowly, until he would be asleep in the chair.

Our house was only three blocks from the beach in a row of housing commission houses that filled our suburb. I knew everyone and everyone knew me because my father was one of the guards that stood watch of some of their fathers, uncles, brothers and sons. I’m sure everyone hated him and I think he liked that. He would yell and scream at the lady next door when he was drunk and playing his stupid music too loud. She would scream from the backyard through our kitchen window and Mum would have to move aside when he rushed the window and yelled back at her. One night he ran outside with my cricket bat in his hand and I was sure he would knock her head off if she hadn’t of disappeared back into her house.

Being that close to the beach didn’t mean our neighbours loved the ocean. Most of them, like us had nothing and violence seemed the only thing we had in common. It filled the nights and you could bet on the number of times the police or ambulances came and took someone away. My father thought he was better than most of them, he had a job and I suppose that did place him above most of the others, but he shared a demon with them too. He would drink himself drunk everyday and it was only the shift work which bought a reprieve from him each night. On the days he worked nights or early shift he would be passed out when I got home each day so I didn’t have to speak to him or listen to his shouting.

Mum though had to put up with it day in, day out. I would come home and as always she would be in the kitchen making tea or simply staying out of his way and he would be in that chair in the lunge room yelling at the TV or asleep. Even when he was passed out, the smell of beer would be in the room and I never bothered going anywhere near him. I would go into the kitchen and answer Mum’s questions about my day, but I would leave out the part about me going for a surf after school and would make up stories of how Ben and I had ridden here or there on our bikes. Mum couldn’t swim although she loved the ocean, and she would have kittens knowing I was surfing.

I wasn’t afraid of him, I just didn’t want to deal with him or be near him. The other boys fathers would be at little league on the weekends and sometimes they couldn’t come to the beach or go to the dam because they would be going somewhere with their families. We never went anywhere and I used to make up stories about our trips to the coast on long weekends when I knew everyone would be gone and I would wander the beach on my own, trying to stay away as long as I could.

It's been a while....

All

Well it;s been a while and a few followers and friends have asked about my writing and what's going on.  Truth is I have been working through my first draft of the story and got a good third of the way through and decided I wanted to tell another story.  This story has been tugging at my heart for some time and is about my same characters, but it's their story from before...

the idea of a first draft is not to review and edit, just keeping writing, there's a time for editing and a writer who edits what they write in the first draft will never finish.  So what I do post here is from the first draft and is NOT polished in any way, so please don't expect literary masterpieces, they still need a lot of work, but as I am so busy writing the story I don't have too much time left for posting other pieces. 

So for those of you who are interested I will post a few scenes, but beware, they may not make sense or be in any order. 

Also... It is a work of FICTION.

Take care, happy reading

Dp

Webcams - Life Savers or Privacy Breakers? Part 2

I guess it’s just the way of the future, or the way of today, but no sooner had I waxed on about the web cam viewer saving a lost guy some 500km’s away in the dark, then someone in Cyprus alerts zoo keepers in Scotland that a rhino was about to give birth. So in the space of 2 days we witnessed web cam technology and people sitting at home watching them save one life and help bring another into the world.


Truly lovely!

But locally we have also witnessed another of the web cams darker sides, and it happened on out TV in our apartment.

A panda was born in the Chiang Mai zoo last year and since its birth one of the cable channels has provided 24 hour viewing of the cub and its mother. You can imagine our surprise when over coffee one morning before work we flicked over to see the little fella furiously having a go at himself without knowing thousands of people would be watching, most likely on 42 inch flat screen cinema quality.

Poor little bloke. See what I mean, web cams are evil!

So it got me thinking; there has to be an upside to all this web cam watching, something or some way we can leverage the seemingly plethora of people willing to sit and watch their computer screens and take action on what they see.

So here's a few ideas I think could work:

A web cam viewing service in Bangladesh to watch over your sleeping baby whilst you are out at the shops. (Everyone knows those radio transmitters only have a limited range and won’t even reach you around the corner)

Someone in Mongolia can call me when the Eastern Distributor is running ok each morning to save me sitting in traffic (or having to look it up on the net myself)

A guy in Libya who I can text when I have lost my keys. Not too sure how this one would work without a cam in our house, but I like it all the same.

A phone call from anywhere when someone is driving my car who’s not me. Again, would need a cam in my car, but hey cab’s have them, so why shouldn’t I?

A picture MMS’d to my mobile when someone is at my door. The picture should be clear enough so I know exactly who it is and whether I should turn the TV down and lights off and pretend we’re not home.

Now I haven’t done a search as yet, but I’m pretty positive that there must already be some company out there in some far off country that offers web cam viewing and alert services.  And I bet the range of places and things to be viewed and alerts to be raised is endless.

And if there’s not, then the idea is mine and you can’t have it!

Webcams - Life Savers or Privacy Breakers?

Today’s papers are reporting the amazing story of a lost German photographer in the North west of the country saved by a woman watching the same sunset he was there to photograph from her home some 500km’s away. The lady was watching the sunset from a webcam set up on the remote beach when she saw glimpses of the lost man’s torch. He started flashing his torch in the hope of being spotted by someone much closer I expect.

The woman spotted the flashes, assumed someone was in trouble and alerted the police who guided the photographer to safety. He was lost when the sun went down and he lost the coast as it was covered in snow.

So all’s well that ends well and a story that could have had a different ending, but what does this mean for us?

It’s great that we now have the technology to stay at home and watch the sunset 500km’s away. We can stay in our lounge room, nice and warm and watch the snow fall on a remote mountain peak, or get dressed up or down and watch dancers at a full moon party on a beach far from home. And maybe the guy will take up this approach instead of traipsing around in the dark next time, but what about the dozens, maybe hundreds, possibly thousands of people out there doing more sinister things with their web cam viewings?

What if you’re spotted by your vegetarian girlfriend scoffing down a Big Mac and large fries when on a trip to the shops to get milk? Or seen by your boss sitting front row at the Australian Open final when you should have been in the office? Luckily for the lost photographer, who by all accounts wasn’t doing anything wrong, but what about us poor other innocents just trying to get a bit of pleasure in our ordinarily normal lives?

Not that our bosses or girlfriends catching us eating a fake meat paddy or perving up some girls tennis skirt is all that sinister, after all they’re entitled to know where we are, aren’t they? It’s the sicko’s sitting at home getting all sweaty over some webcam footage of someone eating their lunch in a park that bothers me.

But let’s not go there...

Where’s our privacy gone, where has the odd sneaky day off gone? Soon we will have to sneak out torches off, under the cover of darkness and drive for miles into some far off national park for a sickie. But then again, national parks will more than likely be linked via webcam set up to monitor the annual migration of some bush rodent from one hole to another.

So even the bush will be off limits. At least if we get lost, they may be able to find us.

If someone is actually watching.

And I guess that’s the thing. There are people who sit at their computer screens and watch web cams waiting for something to happen. What’s wrong with these people? Unless you’re a security guard, no one should have a job watching web cam footage. Nor should it be a hobby!

Now there’s an out for the Macquarie banker recently spotted looking at half naked shots of Miranda Kerr whilst his colleague was doing a live recording about the latest Australian Interest rates. He was watching web cam footage to make sure her shoot was going ok and she wasn’t in danger of getting lost.

I’ve seen those shots and I’m sure she’s carrying a torch, so there’s a strong possibility she was worried about getting lost.

So good for him for keeping an eye out.

Back to the lady who kindly saved the lost man last night. Good for her, and we should all be happy there are still concerned citizens in the world, but why was she at home watching web cams?

Let’s not go there either...

Where did my short term memory go?

My short term memory is shot, and it’s got nothing to do with the RAM, ROM or bios. My real short term memory is destroyed by technology, I can’t recall anything of importance which is due or has happened within 2 weeks either side of today. Today is found on a calendar connected to my emails, instant messenger and my Ipod.

For god’s sake when did my life’s schedule fit into such a small space but at the same time become so connected to my music and social chats about drinks on Thursday night?

I’m one of us conventionally wowed by new technology but one of the last to run out and buy it. Not because I fear it or am necessarily a Luddite but I like technology that is obvious and has a specific use, not so much the gizmo’s that connect and converge with stuff I already have. After all I really don’t need my calendar when I’m out running around with my Ipod in my ears. But I suppose I can appreciate the new things that bring these cumbersome units into one and enable me to carry one brick instead of 3. It will just take me longer than most to have one.

But the reason I don’t rush out and snap them up is I don’t want to have to go through the effort of setting up and synching all these pieces and then knowing which one I can then be rid of. It’s the last part that worries me the most, what happens if I haven’t synced it all up correctly and I lose that doctors appointment I missed 3 years ago? Or more importantly miss someone’s birthday because let’s face it, I’m crap with dates.

I digress... What really concerns me is my degraded short term memory. And although the short term memory sits between sensory and long term memory and therefore meant to degrade or at least “clear out” periodically to allow more stuff in, it’s the fact that I’m cramming all my short term stuff into electronics in some strange hope that it will guide me day to day. And to some extent this it works. But at what cost? What happens when over the long term, my short term memory extends to only knowing how to use my electronic brick or only where I left it 30 minutes ago.

If technology doesn’t make these things intuitive and easy to use for people with no short term memory how will I remember how to use it once I have found it again? But as most of us know already if you don’t know how to use it, hand it to a 5 years old and it’s programmed within seconds.
So maybe all I need is a 5 year old and they can manage my schedule?

So in time my capability to remember anything will only include smells from 1978, when I was 3 and the words to Neil Diamond’s entire collection but no recollection of what I did at 2pm yesterday or where I should be at 3:15pm today. That will be in my brick which will be the size of a pea and implanted in my neck.

I just hope the 5 year old doesn’t need feeding and I need to remember when to do it.

My New Year Revolution

Each year as they come to a close and a new one looms on the horizon, most people start making lists in their minds and some people even commit them to paper in some conscious display of resolve. Resolutions of things they want to achieve, ways they want to be, stuff they want to give up and people they want to become in the fresh new light of a new year. But what is it that makes us draw up these catalogues and file them for a while at the front of our minds or post-it-note them to our fridges?

Time is my guess. ..

The ending of the year and the dashed hopes of past lists not complete. The fresh start and a promise of more time to tick off the things we still need to do and become. They start to cave in on us and compete for space in our brains, some people focus on the last year and the unchecked items, others cast the list aside and forge ahead into the new year conjuring up a new set of ideals. For the former, the new list generally mirrors the old and they start to lament the efforts not taken or the things that got in their way. “If only I had more ........”, “I would have got to that if only.......”. their new years eve parties are full of bemoaning and sorrow, they miss the fireworks and being kissed by the hottie on the other side of the balcony. But unless they take some time to really make the effort the same scenario’s keep popping up and they find the same items need to be addressed if they want to make any head way through the list. So the list gets rolled over, the year is scratched out and replaced with the next.

Like a battered wife who leaves her husband for another guy who beats up on her, there’s something fundamentally amiss and she needs to deal with it to break the cycle. Ok, a harsh example, but you get my point. It’s no good simply writing another list unless you are serious about taking action so you can tick off the things you haven’t yet done.

For the others amongst us who look forward by throwing the unfinished lists away in the hope that “this will be the year!” the lists look to be different to the past and that’s the way we like to do it. Re-invent yourself each year in the hope that one year it will happen. But scratch away at it just a bit and the lists although different in surface level aspirations, start to look the same. This way the new year has all the same as the last, a compass to march ahead with, but in the end it just takes you around in circles. Unless the list includes something as dramatically life altering like having a full sex change, then fundamentally they are just different ways to skin the same cat, which when compared to the former group means both ways end with the same result, a re-hashed list invariably resulting with the same outcomes as the last.

So not knowing whether it suited me better to look backwards and stick the post-it-note on top of the cable TV bill or to screw it up, throw it out and re-create my forward looking list of resolutions, I decided to do neither. But what would I do without a list? How would I know at the end of 2010 that it had all been to plan, that I hadn’t simply wasted another year going from Friday night drinks to Sunday afternoon beers? How would I recognise the achievements I had made? How would I know if this year was the year? And indeed, if it was the year and I missed recognising it, then how long would I have to wait for the next one? Would there be another or was this year my best hope?

I was stuck. Stuck between not needing a list and having to have a compass so I could navigate my year ahead. I wanted to be one of those people who laughs when asked at a new years eve party what my new year’s resolution was and telling my inquirer that I simply lived day to day, but I also wanted to be the other person who comes up with such profound resolutions other people go home and scribble all over their post-it-notes.

Resolutions don't work, self-promises don't seem to hold much water either and wishes, well you don't need another year to start to make them. Concepts, now there was a way I could generate my list and still maintain my air of indifference and self-pilotage. Concepts allows me to be as extravagant as I want. Concepts are plans and ideas which MAY have potential for realisation.

The MAY gave me exactly what I needed, an out! I could bump along in 2010, confident I was following my list of concepts and ticking of the ones that appealed to me or that came within reach, but I effectively avoid any downside on 31st of December when I review my list and find any un-ticked items still at the bottom (or top). I can then choose to roll them over to 2011 or throw them out as ideas that didn’t make the grade. I get to have the best of both worlds!

I now have my list to give me direction and I have my out to avoid any possibility of self loathing for non achievement. I showed it to my wife Sue and whilst I wouldn’t call them extravagant or unrealistic, the part she added to the bottom about having my dental work done may be one of those rollover jobbies.

A list of current year concepts, why hadn’t I thought of this years ago? It would have gave me so much more time to enjoy the new years eve parties!

Post Holiday Blues

So it is we return from our Christmas holidays having jetted home to see our friends and families and have them fill us with food and wine all week, followed by the annual snow trip. Going from -10 degree, white Japan to +30 degree Bangkok streets has it's down side and we find ourselves wading through the post holiday blues. These blues at first seem different, but this morning standing on the train as Radiohead plays in my ears I realise they are the same. Maybe it was Radiohead, maybe it wasn't the fact my holiday was over and I was going to work?

I thought of the many post holiday downers I have had and like all things it's just a matter of perspective. At least we can head off on a plane, experience new and different things and see our friends and families when we choose to.

Now not to be too philosophical about holidays, but it is easy for us to return to work and begrudge the effort we need to take to be able to catch the next plane. It's all too easy to walk in to the boss, slam the desk and tell him to shove his job with visions of tropical islands or mountain retreats plastered in our minds. But then just before you catch the lift to the top floor, you realise how hard it will be to fund that next plane ride out of here by simply laying on your ass drinking cocktails (you have even done some strange math but can’t make it work). Reality sets in and your shoulders slump and the blue surrounds you, not even a decent coffee can shake it. Maybe some vodka can?

So before we take to the bottom drawer where we keep the white spirits, before we make the day even longer than it needs to be, before we overdoes on caffeine, we need to step back or around our mood and realise that we have choices. We are lucky to be able to choose to work or not (and enjoy the trappings it brings or not), we are lucky to know that if we so choose to we can leave it at any time and go do something else. Many can't..

It's whether we do anything with those choices or not which is really the cause of our blues. And really, being one of the lucky ones who has a choice is nothing to be down about, it's a sad fact then that I could be feeling blue because my holiday was over and I had to return to work. But being human means I am prone to wanting something I haven't got or wanting everything with no sacrifice.

When I distil it down, I realise I am blue because I know I have choices and I can act on them whenever I want. I'm blue because I feel I am stuck, stuck between wanting to be on holiday all the time and knowing that I need to sacrifice by working to be able to go.

Now some people, most people I'm guessing already know that, and I do too. But it's strange how we seem to get stuck in our blue moods post holidays when we know this even before we check in for that flight, even before we book the tickets. So why do we do it? Why do we allow ourselves to be down?

Simple, it prolongs the holiday....We lament having to return, there isn’t a day spa in sight, we can still taste that last martini at the bar, we are still rocketing down the mountain! But we know we aren't and so we turn to our calendars and mark up all the coming public holidays and scheme ways of taking more leave than we have and dream up holidays and adventures away from our desks. And for a while the blue is gone, evaporated into the postcards you will write (sorry blogs and face book posts), places you will go and food you will eat.

But once the time comes to book that next trip and you realise that you have only been back at work 2 days, you come back to earth. You mark the booking site as a favourite, close the internet and go back to work. But that is part of the choice, the choice to sacrifice, to take that next plane.

I know I have choices, I have made mine. My calendar is marked, I use different colours so I know how far away the next long weekend is, my favourite web sites are marked for easy access and my bag is half packed already. The blues may be here, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to let this holiday end so soon!