If you follow many Aussie blogs you’ll probably already know there was a Problogger conference this weekend on the Gold Coast.

Surfers: The view from The QT

There are people more experienced and more savvy than me who can tell you how it all went down, and I don’t suppose you’d be all that interested in what I learned over the weekend anyway, but I do want to tell you two things, both consisting of equal and opposite energy for me, just like Newton told us it would be.

Firstly, at the end of Day One I was completely bereft.

I thought this was the most soul-destroying seminar I’d ever been to.

Problogger is, as I’m sure you’ll have figured out, about monetising your blog.  Being paid to blog.  I’ve been blogging for just over a year, and I had an idea that being paid to do this might be something I could do.  But as the day wore on, it became patently obvious that I don’t have a clue what I’m doing here, with respect to earning buck$ for blogging.  I don’t have a niche, a specific tone, or a message.  I don’t provide anything useful, nor do I solve any of your problems.  I don’t have products or ideas to sell you. I’m a personal blogger, and that means this space is all about me.  Not really the kind of thing that lends itself to paid content or advertising.  Two other things also became obvious: I have no clue what all the techy stuff is about (SEO, what?) and being a paid blogger appears to involve a shit-load of work.  So two things I do.not.like appear to be important.

So I almost ditched the whole remainder of the seminar to quaff Cosmopolitans by the pool.

Some would say this is a pattern of mine, but I’d tell them to shut up and mind their own.

Luckily, I was there with a mate who knows me better than I know myself most times, and she pretty much forbade me to miss a single Saturday session.  Which was a good thing, for redemption was just around the corner, in the guise of Matthew Michalewicz, heralding the second big thing I needed to know.

He reminded me of many things that I needed a nudge with, and most of all, the concept that when we say we can’t do something, what we really mean, is that the motivation isn’t great enough.  Yet.  I may have said I could not learn all the computery things required to run this blog properly, but as Matthew would say; if my whole family would die if I didn’t figure it out, I probably could.  And fast.

And of course, as always, a concept that applies to you in one area of your life, will cross over into others.  This “I can’t” mantra doesn’t only apply to my bloggy life, but to my work, my family, my finances.  I can.  I just need compelling leverage.  Which also involves going back to the original idea, the thing I’m saying I can’t do, and double check that it is something that I really want, and that it isn’t just some notion that I’ve grabbed from the air, or from someone else’s bag of tricks.  The difference between something I should do and something I want to do.

Sometimes it’s good to get a whack of perspective when I’m being a big whining baby.

And a free book.

Thanks Matthew xx

Is there anything you’ve been saying you can’t do (that you claim you want to do)?

What do you do or say to yourself to get your mojo back?

…From The Ashers xx

Today is Blog’s first birthday.  One year old.

Blog has seen a lot in her one year.  If I was computer savvy not so lazy, I’d do one of those Instagram photo montage thingies.  Probably with Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life) playing softly in the background.  We might share a tear together, you and I, watching the year fly by, and remembering the laughter and the tears of our first year.

But of course I am lazy.

So if you want to do that you’ll have to flick through yourself.  Most of the posts are pretty short, definitely not the recommended 2000 words per post, that is required, should I wish to “make my blog explode”.

When I started this hobby, it was my intention to blog every day for a year, and then re-evaluate.  RRs will know I fell off that wagon for a bit over summer when camping, with the shite wifi coverage and it being too hot to sit a computer on my legs.  I can only do so much for the sake of my ‘art’.  That, and the fact that those Coronas and Mojitos weren’t gonna drink themselves.  And the blog-a-day thing got shelved pretty early on too, when I realised that children suck the creative right out of my brain, so five a week is all I can manage.

So I suppose we’ve settled into a bit of a rhythm here, you, and I.

I hope you’re still having fun over here with blog.

I am.  And I’ve made some inroads into making this little hobby a bit more than that.  I have some ideas of things you might like to read as ebooks, and I have enrolled in a seminar to help with getting more readers over here, and possibly to make some money to pay for hosting fees and my swisho new business cards.

So thanks for reading this past year.  Thanks for sharing, and thanks for all the comments.  Those things really make this space a fun place for me to come and play.

So on blog’s birthday, I’d like to give you a chance to give me some feedback, constructive criticism, that kind of thing.  Tell me what you love and hate about blog, what you’d like to see more of.  You can answer down there in the comments.  I’ll listen, I promise.*  I might even send you a pressie.*

*Fingers might be a little bit crossed

…From The Ashers xx

Sunday nights in 1991 were something special.  They were the night when I returned back to the freedom and frivolity of uni life after spending the weekend at the place I still called home, where I’d been catching up with the friends from my childhood and earning my drinking and petrol money for the week.  I would unpack all of the frozen and packaged food, that I’d foraged from my parent’s pantry; hearty stews, pasta sauces and cartons of eggs, and load up my bar fridge for the week.  I would unpack my freshly laundered clothes, (somehow they always managed to get back into my bag stain-free and ironed with precision), and give my time-table for Monday a quick once-over to make sure I was up to date and ready, for the day ahead.

All of this was done with a sense of urgency and delicious anticipation, for Sunday nights on 4 West at Menzies College were the best night of the week.  Forget Uni night, Bar night or even Wednesday nights at Chasers.  Sunday night was Simpsons night.

We used to rotate rooms, and the screening would be held in whoever’s room had the home brew in it.  That was the other reason Sunday nights were sacrosanct, they were Home Brew Night.  Someone, sometime had procured a beer still, the original owners had long since graduated (or not) and the skanky, yeasty thing was now owned by the collective.  The brewing instructions were written on the side in texta, and when it was your turn to have the thing in your room, bubbling and stinking up your clothes for the fortnight or so, you were the host of Sunday nights.

As many of us that were back from our expeditions to the real world would crowd into the host room, and if there was any brew left from last time, we would partake of a sensible and responsible amount, to lubricate the evening.  If a new brew was hatched, then we would do just the opposite.

Back then The Simpsons were hilarious.  They were edgy and almost risqué and captured the gestalt.  We thought the makers were funny and clever, and by being in with the joke (unlike the purveyors of our weekday food and washing) we were also funny and clever.  And of course if there was brew to be imbibed, were were funnier and cleverer.

I haven’t watched The Simpsons in a while, probably because I am too old and cynical to think the jokes are still funny.  Or maybe I’m scared that I won’t even get the joke.  Whilst I was watching some middle class middle aged tv just then, I saw an ad that said The Simpsons has been running for 25 years.  WHAT?  Twenty.Bloody.Five.  That is an awful lot of writing lines on the blackboard for Bart.  A lot of ‘hmmmm’s from Marge.  A helluva lot of ‘DOH’s for Homer.   I’ve never done, or had anything in my life for that long.  Oh, except a pair of Doc Martens, but they would survive the nuclear winter, so I guess they don’t really count.

So Cheers to the creators of The Simpsons.  Happy quarter of a century.  Thanks for all the laughs.

Here is one of the original cells, that captures one of my fave Simpsons moments.  Any time I look at it and hear Homer in my mind’s ear saying “Argh, Shark Boy!” I laugh.  Still.  I think that is a sign of funny and clever if there ever was one.

Oh, and thanks a LOT Simpsons for making me feel old… And yet somehow young again.

Do you have a fave Simpsons Ep?

Who is your fave character?  (Mine is Ralph.)

…From The Ashers xxx

A little ways down the road from me is a strange and wonderous megalopolous of twelve-karat golden glitter.  It is the home of water slides and movie stars, cocktails, karaoke, neon and flesh.  So much flesh.  Flesh available for viewing.  All day and night, and whether you like it or not.  Or so it seems.

This city hurries and hustles you from the moment you arrive til the moment you leave, and it feels like you never really get off the back foot, never really settle in, never catch up to where-ever it is going, before it’s time to pack up and take your scalded retinas back to your muted life.  Everything on the Gold Coast is bigger and louder and more.  At lease more than what I’m used to.

The first time I landed on the Goldy I had been on a bus for around twenty-four hours, with double that amount of Uni students, who had been drinking and primping and flirting with each other for ninteen of those hours.  I’m pretty sure someone copped a hummer on the back seat, and I’m definitely sure someone spewed in the onboard dunny, between Gundagai and Jugiong.  No amount of LouLou could expunge the odour.

I stumbled down the stairs blinking and sleep drunk, and straight onto the cacophony of fluorescence and 1cent drinks and sex shops and street spruikers that was the early 90s version Surfers Paradise.  There was apparently a beach where you could baste yourself ’til noon, and we did venture down there once, to see if the sand really was golden (it was the same pale beige of my own town) and if the water really was warm (it was, and I was startled by how delicious the lukewarm waves felt on my two day bender tender skin).

We stayed and played on the Goldy for one flimsy week, and we crammed like no exam we had ever had before: Ripley’s and Seaworld and Hire a Bomb to Kirra, and Cocktails and Dreams and Condom Kingdom and Vespas on the Highway, and umbrella hats to save our blowdried hair from the humid wet rain, and flashing signs and drunk and Georges Paragon “Yes Sir! Half price seafood” to finish.

We had a seminar as well, and even that was bigger and bolder, buffing itself up to a shine, as if in step with the ebullient excess.

I’ve been to the Gold Coast many times since, and I’m always struck by the other-ness of the place.  It is nothing like the rest of Australia, nor does it apologise.  The Goldy of the 2000s has grown up a little, but not easily, and not without angst.  The Gold Coast of now is like an excited and troubled adolescent, full of cheeky fun and anger all at once.  When I’m there I’m half excited and half frightened.  I think I’ll have a good time, I think I can wrangle those streets, but I just might be a bit careful, in case I get bitten.

So today, I got my tickets to Problogger, a bloggy seminar being held at the colourful QT and I’m beyond excited.  This cyber-world I inhabit is strange and exciting and very weird, and PB will be a chance for me to see, and possibly talk-with-voices to, some of my internet heroes in the flesh.  So much golden flesh.

Okay, now this is sounding creepy.  Maybe not too much flesh.

Have you ever been to the Gold Coast?

Are you going to Problogger?  

I just watched the latest episode of Ja’mie by Chris Lilley.

OMG, I can.not.believe.him.

After about three minutes you’ve completely forgotten that this horrid, new millennium version of a character from The Naughtiest Girl in the School, is not real, forgotten that this is not a doco.  Or Big Brother.  And that she is a bloke.  I don’t find the show funny at all, it is more cringe-worthy than anything, and a even bit embarrassing, as I wonder how much of Ja’mie was me at school.  Yet I can’t look away.  Even though I want to.  Would prefer it, even.

Perhaps the show is so startling because even though Ja’mie herself is OTT, the way Lilley portrays her is not extravagant or elaborate or even drag-queenish at all.  The show is not that kind of entertainment, where we, the audience get a wink and a nod that lets us in on the joke.  It is serious, or at least that is how I take it.  Chris Lilley just happens to be portraying a girl, and I find it interesting and strange that he does it so convincingly.

I find the whole thing very uncomfortable, and I wonder how much of it is the gender issue, and how much is the disgust with the characters of Ja’mie and her girlfriends.  I’d love to be able to separate the two.  To be able to figure out what it is that I don’t like, or is it because it’s all manner of my biases and prejudices rolled into one?  There is a lot of ugliness by the teens, with no redemption or resolution, as the adults appear oblivious to, and even enable, what is going on.  And that ugliness is hard to see. Or unsee.

It’s a fascinating half hour.  I love it when an actor is able to draw me into their world so convincingly, without my consent, and in this instance, wincing all the way.  I don’t like the sensation.  It makes my skin crawl and I feel like a cleansing shower afterwards, and yet I know I’ll be back for as long as Lilley makes me.

This is not the first time Chris Lilley has done this to me, and hopefully it won’t be the last.

Have you seen the show?

I’d love to know what you think.

I used to work with a bloke whose sister, Kim Farrant is a film-maker, and I met her about nine years ago when she was making a doco called Naked on the Inside.  We met because my friend Ricki was one of the people featured in the film, and I was filmed for a bit of it.  Unfortunately I ended up on the cutting room floor.  So there goes that Oscar.  Sooo close.

Kim has made another film, and from the little bits I can bear to watch, it seems like it is her life’s work.  You see, Kim was molested by her Father for most of what should have been her childhood.  She has made the film ‘Between Me’ which is about three adults, showing the ramifications childhood sexual abuse has on them.

In order for the film to go to the next level, she requires funds to complete the package (final edit, musical score etc).  For a few more days you can donate on pozible to get this important film over the line.  If you can, go have a look at the site.

I believe this is a film that will start a discussion that needs to be had, about guilt and shame, and hopefully also, survival and strength.

If you are able to donate, there are some perks, including tix to the premiere.  It will be a chance to rub shoulders with someone who will soon be an even greater force in the movie world: Kim has just gotten the green light to make her film Strangerland, starring Nicole Kidman, Guy Pierce and Hugo Weaving.

Kim, you are one tough cookie, and I am amazed at your resilience and your courage and your bravery.  You are a shining star, and I hope that the healing you have gone through will inspire others that they too can move through terrible experiences, and move ahead with their lives.

All the love to you, you gutsy chick.

This is not a sponsored post, I just reckon this is an important project. The stats on child abuse are truly shocking.  

(Even if I am still a bit cut about being cut out of the last one)