How do you like to start your weekend?
Waking at a sensible hour, discussing what leisure, fun, socialising, even relaxed work the weekend holds, including family ‘stuff’ – heading off to one of our handful of favourite coffee haunts, scanning the weekend papers, and planning our attack on an unsuspecting weekend …
What’s your favourite thing to do on a Saturday morning?
Pretty much all of the above – feeding the inner man, plus feeding the outer man, shopping at produce and other food markets with a spontaneous or planned brunch, lunch or dinner in mind.
How do you like to unwind?
Cooking for the family, non-essential reading and/or watching television – mindlessly, as distinct from consciously or professionally. As a soccer tragic, I enjoy watching ‘real’ football or one of the other footballs like the Sydney Swans, or watching Australia get smashed again at cricket … Oddly enough, I played and know enough about sport not to have to think as I watch it! It’s not national or international news or current affairs …
What are your essentials for a well-spent weekend?
Getting all the ducks above in a row, I guess – and, of course, being mascot and shouting at referees from the sideline of my 26-year-old’s ‘coarse’ soccer matches!
What’s something you’ve been meaning to do on the weekend but haven’t got around to yet?
We talk a lot about doing more deliberate rather than accidental or incidental live theatre, live music and films – but we don’t act enough on our aspiration!
What’s your favourite thing to do on a Sunday evening?
Unwind via a simple meal at home and slowly work up to the idea that the next day means ‘work’ – which these days, fortunately, is more a choice than a necessity ….
What are you looking forward to next weekend?
Not one, but two 25-year-old birthday parties for kids from our extended family – the sort of must-do activity that keeps you young and on your life-toes, as it were!
What are you reading at the moment?
The usual nine-million newspapers and magazines I read every day. Of late, I’ve been reading quite a lot online plus anything I can get my hands on to top-up my globe-trotting awareness of The Silk Road and South America. Kirsty (my partner and the mother of our two blokes) and I are hosting international travel excursions for the ‘culturally and politically curious’ to both those fascinating destinations about this time next year!
What inspires you?
Life itself, and the daily weirdness and wonder that goes with being alive … is that specific enough?
What was your childhood dream?
I don’t know that I ever really had one. I was too busy working up to losing my virginity – not easy if you’re growing up in Queensland in the 1950s – and also realising that life was one protracted, simultaneously confusing and satisfying series of incredible opportunities you grabbed before it passed you by!
What has been your greatest achievement?
Sorry, I just don’t think like that – or maybe it hasn’t happened yet, or never will?!
What is success to you?
Getting things right at least 50.1 percent of the time!
What are your words of wisdom?
What is wisdom? That said, I have found that, more often than not, the question can be far more important than the answer, which is why I’ve spent most of my adult life – both personally and professionally, paid or unpaid – asking pretty much one bloody question: WHY?! Understanding why something has happened or why someone has done something can help you accept life events and incidents that might otherwise confuse or stress you. Always ask why before you overreact.
What does Boomerang Festival mean to you?
For a multitude of personal, political and cultural reasons, it means a hell of a lot to my family and I that Boomerang Festival is coming to life in Byron Bay. It is vitally important to the entire country that Rhoda Roberts’ concept for indigenous and non-indigenous Australians to gather under the same festival tent keeps – if you’ll pardon a pathetically predictable pun – coming back, as do we!
What is your role in the festival?
I have a couple of what might seem out-of-the-box gigs for a simple working journalist, but they aren’t really. A tongue-in-cheek sporting carry-on with an old mate, the disgustingly attractive Ernie Dingo, and an indigenous cooking carry-on with disgustingly talented chefs Clayton Donovan and Mark Olive. They are also both great fun.
What has been your experience of indigenous culture in Australia?
My experience has been a thoroughly enriching adult lifetime of association and experience – personally, culturally and politically – to the point where I have the privilege of being able to claim that some of my best friends are indigenous. I hope they feel the same way about me …
You have been a long-time friend to indigenous communities. What draws you to the culture?
Their unique wisdom is the magnet. The incredible opportunity to learn from descendants of the oldest race of people on the planet is priceless. Frankly, the essential political animal in me regards non-indigenous Australia’s inappropriate integrationist approach towards The First Australians as tantamount to undemocratic racism! Somehow, in the process, we have managed to turn the incredible privilege of having an indigenous population into an inexcusable 225-year problem …
Describe yourself in ten words …
Can I be a politician for a moment and say that’s for other people to judge? Anyway, I’m still getting to know myself …
What are you working on at the moment?
Trying to do less – and failing! That said, what appeals is finding ways to positively exploit, rather than merely repeat, what I might have achieved during a fortunate life as a professional globetrotter, observing the good, the bad and the ugly of the local and global human condition.
What’s next for you?
Same answer – I’m still trying to do less and still failing! But indigenous Australia will always be on my ‘what can we do to learn and enjoy and help more’ list.
FAVOURITE WEEKEND SPOT TO:
Perk up … Take a walk north along the beach to Belongil or up to the Cape Byron Bay Lighthouse.
Relax …. With family by switching off at a festival, which is a one-stop shop of congregation and entertainment.
Dine …. Breakfast at Harvest at Newrybar, NSW.
Indulge …. The spa at Byron.
Shop …. I never get sick of markets in our hometown of Bellingen, nor Byron or Bangalow Saturday markets.
Catch-up …. Watch the parade of Byron life go by the front bar of the Beach Hotel.
Be inspired by…. The Boomerang Festival multi-arts line-up!