For many reasons I’m jealous of Melbourne.

- very fashionable people
- a great band scene
- a sense of culture
- friendly people in the street
- if you squint it looks like Europe
- there’s a city-wide bonding over sport
- you lucky, lucky, luck people get to see the two hottest women in Australian music on the one stage on the one night.
Magic Dirt / Young and Restless on the same night at the corner hotel.
July 6th.
I’d fly down for that kind of gig.

Send me photos:?
I heart Adalita and I heart Karina.

xx aa

Last week I was asked to MC a gig in the Domain in Sydney, a big park in the centre of the city.
It’s the place that Homebake is held.
This time though, there was a much different headliner.

His Holiness, the 14th Dalai Lama.

Holy snapping tempeh, it was an incredible day.

A few things he spoke of really resonated with me.

In all the points that he made, he kept coming back to the underlying way of the human condition.

In that for light to exist, there must be dark.
For good to exist, there must be bad.
For happy to exist, there must be sad.

Not all the time, but it must be present to maintain balance.

I guess for a long time, all my life in fact, I beat myself up when I’m down.
I get down about being down, and that in turn gets me down.

Quite a spiral once you get in to it.

However, to recognise that there will be a down, in fact it is part of being human to have downs, and to realise that they pass – this was a very powerful lesson.
I had believed for such a long time that it was wrong to feel down/sad/unhappy, and that something’s obvisously very wrong with me to feel that way.

It is a part of the human condition to have these feelings.
What we make them mean, and getting stuck in these feelings is where we come unstuck I guess.

So thanks HHDL (as his name appeared in all of the logisitcal emails I had about the event).
For teaching me that I am human, and much more normal than I made myself believe.

xx aa (feeling ok about not getting off of the couch for two days)

I’ve just spent a week in Bali, surfing the most amazing left hand point break I’ve been on in some time.
In between waves, I was eating vegan Nasi Goreng for $1 and a cold Bintang Beer for $1.50, and hanging out with the local Muslim fellas who just kind of sit in a shack by the beach fixing fishing nets and playing chess while they wait for the tide to come back in so they can go out there and rip the wave to shreds.

Bali is possibly the nicest and most friendly place I’ve ever been, ever..
The majority Hindu Population (the world’s original vegans-well except for those pesky animal sacrifices every now and then) are completely welcoming with open arms and minds to any and all visitors.

Where I was, the majority of the village were Muslim, and it was truly something else to be paddling in to perfectly walling left handers while the sun set turned the sky pink over the volcanos in the distance, sacred cows grazing over the fallow rice paddies and the local fishermen putting out to sea in hand-made wooden boats with those kooky upside-down sails in the foreground, while the call to prayer from the mosque on the hill rang in my ears over the sound of the wave. Quite a few times I felt like I was in an old Jack McCoy film.
Sitting at the airport on the way home next to some twenty-three year old chargers holding reef-dented Gath helmets, I knew that I wan’t surfing the most extreme waves in the region by far, though to me, flinging my 9’4″ into my own walling waves was one of the most perfect surf experiences I’ve ever had.

There’s an Australian government website that “Strongly advises to seriously reconsider any non-essential travel to Bali” in regards to further bombings or kidnappings.
Honestly, I arrived and have never felt more safe abroad.
I’ve felt much more worried for my safety walking around downtown L.A. or in certain parts of London.
It’s more dangerous to try and hail a cab on Liverpool street in Sydney on a Friday night at 2 a.m. or walk down the Manly Corso after the pubs close than it is to be in Bali at the moment.
Even when I was being driven around the corner to the nearby rivermouth break, Musal my driver spoke only with compassion and joy at the fact that I was digging his hometown so much. Musal is a local legend who’s a surf guide and goes by the name of Adam. He welcomed me into his home, and as we drove around we sung along to the only tape in his car – Richard Marx’s greatest hits. Adam knew all of the words. And I mean all the words.

Everyone there eventually asked the same quesiton, “Why don’t more Australians come to visit Bali?”.
I replied that many are scared.
“Of Bombings?” they would say, “Bombs happen all over the world, not just Bali”.

It certainly didn’t stop people traveling to Spain, NYC, London or Israel.
The second question they would ask is, “When you coming back?”

My answer would be, “Not soon enough.”

Friendly people, warm weather, amazing food and restaurants, jungles, peace and perfect waves, plus FULL TILT nightlife (if you want it). All for an exchange rate that makes you feel like Donald Trump when you’re shopping.

Many people lose themselves in Bali, I think I found a little piece of what may have been missing.

x aa

(more thoughts to follow. I’m tired and sleepy from all the surfing/bintang/tummy rumbles from forgetting to ask the barman to hold the ice on the very, very last drink that I had there..)

PS: Redgum spoke some aussie truths about Bali way back in the 80′s too..