“ It’s an amazing opportunity for you to get involved in a vibrant, independent national festival, meet amazing people, develop your skills - everything except get paid! ”

- from an advertisement for a Media Coordinator for a large Arts Festival.

Ooh, yes please! I haven’t been given enough opportunities to work like a dog in exchange for the warm fuzzy feeling of bile in my throat.
Needless to say, the above sentence was buried in the middle of the advertisement.

The Edge.

After a fortnight of nasty surprises, I was thrilled to learn I’d been chosen as one of five residents to work on their creative practice at the State Library of Queensland’s new centre for digital culture, The Edge.

I told Facebook and didn’t get the cavalcade of congratulations I’d hoped for; probably because as one friend succinctly put it, “I couldn’t work out what the fuck The Edge actually is and what you would be doing at it.” I think I also confused some Rockhamptonites - The Edge is the flashest apartment building in Rocky, also located on the river bank. Big Will is the night receptionist. I digress.

Basically, The Edge is giving me a stipend and access to their shiny new facilities (iMacs, recording studios and an espresso machine are just some of the facilities relevant to my needs) in exchange for me creating awesome stuff and helping out the other residents. Their facilities will also be bookable by the general public and there will be plenty of conferences, workshops, lectures, performances and panels on interesting things being held there. I’m incredibly grateful for the opportunity and hope like hell I can make my project AWESOME.

“Stop fishing and tell us about your project!” I hear you grumble. COOL YA JETS, MATE. Here it is.

A FASTER HORSE - A fortnightly podcast profiling young people with careers your guidance counselor wouldn’t have heard of.

When asked whether he sought the opinions of his customers, father of the automobile Henry Ford replied, “If I’d asked my customers what they wanted, they would have asked for a faster horse.”

Similarly, many young people’s views on future possibilities in both life and career are shaped by their limited life experience and the viewpoints of those around them.

“A Faster Horse” will profile young people doing crazy things that they never set out to do – from touring in an ABBA tribute band in South Africa to droving cattle across Australia. It will be available fortnightly from the iTunes store and through The Edge website with accompanying multimedia material.

I think the best thing about the internet (and something that has remained mostly unexplored by mainstream media thus far) is the ability to choose which medium would tell the story best. If a combo of text and sound would do it, then great. If a story would be more engaging as a vodcast, I’d like to give that a go. Anyway, we’ll see. There will definitely be 12 audio podcasts being distributed fortnightly from mid-March and a heap of multimedia stuff on the accompanying website. Keep an eye on the A Faster Horse twitter for updates.

The Edge has their grand opening tonight (Feb 26th)! If you’re in Brissie you should come along from 5pm. It’s a really neat space, DZ are playing and there might be free t-shirts.

“ The best advice I have is: don’t wait. There’s so many ways you can get caught waiting. Thinking I’m not a professional, and I don’t know how to do this so I need to wait for someone to tell me how to do it… You just have to start doing it. You have to be your own industry, your own boss, you just have to get started. If you don’t have a camera, then do music videos with a flashlight. Morse code. All those restrictions can be the thing which makes it groundbreaking…. Just doing it. The thing is, if you’re making stuff constantly… then you’re rustling up molecules and sending a signal out to the gods and the world in general. You need to make stuff to get it back. You are your own source of work. ”

I spent a couple of days this week exploring Great Keppel Island, off the coast of Yeppoon in central Queensland for a feature article I am working on.
The proposed development of the island by Tower Holdings has been the topic of much conversation, misinformation and many conspiracy theories over the past few months, but I didn’t have the time or health to investigate while I was working in Rocky.

It was an amazing experience. I’m incredibly grateful to Petros Khalesirad for his research, resources, passion and quad bike skills and the residents of GKI for being generous with their time, food, quad bikes and accommodation.

Upon our return to Rockhampton, Petros and I did an interview on 4RO 990AM about the trip. The article and accompanying video and pictures should be up and ready to go within a month, but I thought I’d share a few snaps as a bit of a teaser for anyone interested.

I’ve finished my five week-long stint at good old ABC Capricornia and am easing myself back into my real world of creative wank, overwork and inner-city latte sipping.
Before I go back to Brisbane though, I’m house sitting for my best friend’s mum and looking after her three cats.

This is the temporary office I’ve set up on the back deck. Sebastian the Persian cat is incredibly disgusted with my take-over of his usual sleeping spot. He is a jerk and if he’s not careful he’ll find himself locked in the dishwasher.

Among my many projects (because I am so busy and important, clearly), the Stuff The Stocking charity events are looking like they’re going to be the most fun. Click the link and show your support if you’re in the vicinity of one of them.

“ Work narcissism: If you receive positive reinforcement from clients, customers, suppliers and colleagues then why would you give that up to go home? It’s a power kick for those at the top of their game. ”

one of Bernard Salt’s theories on why some people are addicted to work.

It makes me feel a bit sheepish, but this is totally me. Without sharing my deep feelings on the internet, I need to learn to take time off and just relinquish stuff I can’t do.

“ People might say that being a creative professional isn’t very stable, but short of medicine and teaching, these days not many professions are ‘stable’ unless you’re talented and good at what you do. You could say that acting isn’t a very stable profession, but I doubt Cate Blanchett struggles getting work these days. ”

**AUDIO BLOG**

I interviewed Tori Amos last week. It was kind of a big deal for me, y’know?
I dedicated at least two years of my life in high school to listening to nothing but her music and looking up every last skerrick of information about her on the Internet.
I played her song “Winter” 57 times in a row and sobbed every time.
Once I partied too hard and hallucinated that she had come to look after me.
Yep, I’m that tragic.

Once I got over my initial fangirling (she laughed and said I was cute), we spoke about her upcoming Aussie tour, her little girl and her upcoming Christmas album.

It was an absolute pleasure to speak with her and she was very nice. I don’t think I sounded too pathetic.

What I Do.

I used to work at a pizza restuarant which was run by an alcoholic Vietnam veteran with some serious post-traumatic stress disorder issues. The building was falling down around our heads but the boss was too stingy to fix things up, despite the obvious safety issues.  During my time there I fell through a hole in the floor that had been covered up with carpet, broke my toe, slipped over and cracked my head on a steel bench, had a broom thrown at me and received tonnes of verbal abuse.

I knew the lovely Brett Wood at Starving Kids through my short-lived musical career and really admired his work with young bands, disadvantaged kids and the music industry. The organisation runs a record label, Christmas charity event,  live music venue and soon a secondary college amongst other things and Brett wanted someone to deal with the day-to-day publicity hacking. My writing experience, my stint PR-ing at Musicadium and my, um, distinctive personality helped me get the job. Eat your heart out, Sarina Russo.

I liase with the media for both the organisation and bands, solo artists and other music-industry related clients. This includes contacting journalists both at newspapers and street press, pitching songs to radio, writing and designing shit-hot HTML newsletters and pumping out press releases like there is no tomorrow.

I try and pop into the office at least twice a week to meet with clients and catch up with my co-workers.

My co-workers, Chloe and Brett.

Mostly though, I work from home. This is great for fitting work around uni and other committments.

On deadline.

Thank God it’s Friday amirite guys?

I am incredibly lucky to have a fun job with a worthwhile organisation, but I did make my own luck. I spent a good year or so working for free all over the state, both in journalism and PR. This awesome, awesome job was the reward.

It definitely beats serving pizza for a living!

A conversation with my Dad.

• Dad:I was talking to a guy yesterday who said he heard this Gen Y on the Rockhampton ABC talking about the budget.
• Me:Oh yeah?
• Dad:I let him go for a bit and then said, "Oh, that's my daughter!" He said, "Well, she must have a bit of sense since she only rated the budget 6/10, but now I know she's your daughter I would have expected her to be a bit more right-wing!"
• Me:...
• Dad:I told him you were 20 years old and had just scored $1800 off Kevvy, so you could be as left-wing as you wanted, because you'll be 42 before the the economy is back to how it was three years ago.
• Me:...