Thursday, November 30, 2006

Polishing Up The Resume

Although I recently took on a new job, I'm open to new possibilities. New options, and new challenges. And I'm always open to opportunities that are more exciting than the gig I've been doing for 22 years.

Maybe you know the feeling of wanting a bit more. Getting yourself into a position to grab that brass ring. Maybe even--and I'm reluctant to say this, considering my level of shyness--once in a while, have the chance to be the center of attention. That opportunity revealed itself to me yesterday, and I've considered it obsessively since.

I'm going to apply to replace Greg, the Yellow-Shirt-ed-Wiggle who is leaving the group.

Now, I know you're thinking it's a long shot for me to get an interview, much less become a member of the group. But, I've made a list of the reasons I know I can do it.

Here it is: My Top 10 Reasons I Should Be The Yellow-Shirt-ed Wiggle

10: It's obvious to me that The Wiggles have lost a bit of their edge as they've gained popularity and success. To remain relevant, they have to get back some of what they've lost as they've become mainstream. As the Yellow-Shirt-ed Guy, I'll bringsexyback to The Wiggles.

9. Red Shirt, Blue Shirt and Purple Shirt are players. You can see it when they work a concert, scanning the crowd for Moms eager to hook up after the show. As the happily married Yellow Shirt-ed Wiggle, I could serve as their Wing Man, helping funnel all the thirty-something Soccer Mom's to the groupie lounge.

8. I ain't scared of no dingos.

7. As a spelling-challenged person with few ingrained spelling rules, I'd have less trouble than the average American changing my writing to include words like: "humour," "colour" and "behaviour."

6. I don't particularly like kids other than my own, so I wouldn't get emotionally attached to the audience. Entertainers have to keep that professional distance to stay creative. Greg, the former Yellow-Shirt-ed Wiggle forgot that, and look where it got him.

5. I like dressing up as a pirate. [Note to self: Get Mrs. Film Geek to write a reference for me on this point.]

4. My dancing style has already been described by many as "the wiggle."

3. Because I have two kids under the age of 6, I already know most lyrics of The Wiggles' songs. I get stuck on the chorus of "Hot Potato, Hot Potato" sometimes, but with practice I can overcome that.

2. I already understand and appreciate Australian-rules football.

1. I'm committed to bringing back the 5th Wiggle, Phillip Wilcher, and healing the wounds that resulted from that initial break-up.

There you have it, my main reasons for believing I can do this. Wonder how much it cost to FedEx to Australia...?

30 comments:

Kelly said...
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The Film Geek said...
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Christopher Scott Jones said...

Yea, according to the blogoshpere, you would certainly be hearding them for the blue Wiggle. He is the pimp of all MILFs.

Barbie Girl said...

Oh my gosh. I love the blue Wiggle Anthony. I used to MAKE my daughter watch the wiggles so I could drool over him.

How messed up is that?

Katie Princehouse said...

Marc, you're such a dork. But as a fellow-parent of a child that has a unique obsession to The Wiggles, I can totally relate to "Hot Potato, Fruit Salad, and Have a Happy Birthday Captain" songs playing in my head all damn day. I think you would be the PERFECT next Yellow-Wiggle! Good luck with that!
And P.S., fellow bloggers are totally right- Anthony, the blue wiggle, is pimp of all Wiggles.

The Film Geek said...

Hey Katie! Good to see you.

I guess I gotta check out the Blue-Shirted Guy a little more closely. Apparently, some of you already are.

Thwacko said...

I wanted to replace Steve on Blues Clues, but no such luck.
I am open to any oppertunity to become the next Mr. Cartoon.

Anonymous said...

Your commitment to bring back Phillip Wilcher , as well intended or tongue-in-cheek as it may be, is novel. Nil in eodem statu permanet - nothing stays the same....

The well-crafted Sydney-based journalist and very real writer, Mr.Steve Dow wrote a fine and erudite article about the 5th Wiggle titled "A Life Less Wiggly" - it's the only one worth reading!

But thank you for the mention in your pages - I mean that sincerely!

Have a Merry Christmas and a peaceful and prosperous New Year!

PHILLIP WILCHER

The Film Geek said...

Hi Mr. Wilcher: Thanks so much for stopping by, and for commenting.

I'm happy you recognized my comment was tongue-in-cheek. It was an obvious comparison to Pete Best and the Beatles--a comparison I'm sure you are rather tired of, actually. Still, I appreciate your sense of humour, and your acceptance of mine.

Merry Christmas to you, too, Mr. Wilcher. And I hope 2007 brings you much happiness and prosperity.

Anonymous said...

Hello again : You are very welcome! I might surprise you by saying that until the press discovered me as the 5th Wiggle - and that is something I am rather tired of - I didn't know who Pete Best was. You live and learn! But I do know and admire The Beatles - they wrote melodies close to madrigals which can stand alone - that's an art! Thank you too for your kind wishes for the festive season and the new year to come. I wish the very same for you - you surely find some measure of satisfaction through creativity as do I through my music - if the joys of your satisfaction equal mine, then we are both very happy people. Music will always be an abiding joy. So, all good wishes to you and yours and thank you once again.

PHILLIP WILCHER

I think I was really the First Wiggle but everyone's missed or glossed over that fact! Never mind!:) Take care!

The Film Geek said...

The First Wiggle! I like that. A lot. I'll make sure I pass that along from now on, my new friend. (And, my kids will love it, too!)

Anonymous said...

Dear Marc,

I'm afraid you've caught my curiosity so I have passed by again - I hope you don't mind.

There seems to be an educated child's wide-eyed view peeking out from behind your words - or what I've read of them to date - and I see from your profile that you are 41 years of age. Perhaps I'm just mentally imposing your Film Geek photo on my mind's ear as I hear a voice behind what's written, but are you a writer - I mean, a REAL writer?

I've also been awake most of the night thinking about The Beatles. Stranger things have kept me up! Back in the 50's/60's they appeared almost as centuries-past troubadors with a musical strength that can only come from what the French call "depouillement" - literally, to strip away - or in other words, just one word, simplicity. Songs like "Michelle" and "The Fool on the Hill" (I love these songs!) are like 1960's Monteverdi, perhaps - their simplicity and interest being maintained and sustained by changes of key and an all over adherence to counterpoint, harmony, rhythm and melody. Beat figures hardly at all. The Beatles reached for the moon and landed on a star going beyond the more mundane 4/4 rock-beat (really it's a cut common time) to explore the more cavalier-ish metre of 7/4 in the song "All You Need is Love". When their longevity has lived out its time again and then some, they may just seem as poets misunderstood, and that's a delicious thought! Time will always remain to tell us something new. So, I wonder why it is that The Wiggles have been so casually compared to The Beatles? I think they are more like The Monkeys - aren't they?

Oh - and the other thing I wanted to say was that success can be many things. The greatest success of all is happiness - or more precisely, contentment.

Let's hope the New Year brings about a greater feeling of contentment in this ever troubled and changing world.

Best wishes once again to you and all....

Phillip

Anonymous said...

Hello again - perhaps that's the wide-eyed view behind your words - you have children! They make for wonderful teachers, don't they?

The Film Geek said...

Hello Phillip: Feel free to stop by and comment any time. Curiosity is a good thing, most times. It's often the beginning of relationships, eh?

I am not a professional writer. The Film Geek is simply a way for me to comment about movies and current events in a way I find interesting, and which sometimes invites comment. I enjoy the community that comes with weblogs, and the dialogue that can happen from a single post.

The photo on the site is an avatar from the holiday movie A Christmas Story. You may know it, it's a classic!

Children are certainly excellent teachers. If you take the time to listen to them, that is.

Anonymous said...

Dear Marc - Thank you! Indeed, as you say, curiosity is a good thing, most times. It can lead to a greater truth. Steele once said : "Inquisitive people are the funnels of conversation; they do not take in anything for their own use, but merely to pass it to another." But then, curiosity can mask other agendas, which is probably why Byron said : " I loathe that low vice curiosity."

Oh well, what will be will be.

I don't always have access to a computer and I'm hardly computer literate - I'm out of my era! -but I'll explore your writings on movies over time. I've not indulged too often in leaving posts on weblogs. My first time was earlier this year to voice my thoughts on one of the competitors in Australian Idol whose musicianship touched my soul and spoke to my condition. His name was Bobby Flynn. He seemed to me a musician's musician, if its alright to say such a thing, and the urgency to acknowledge his worth took over.

The photo on your site looks like a young George Burns! I'm afraid I haven't seen A Christmas Story - perhaps now is the time to watch it...one of my favourite movies of all time is Edward Scissorhands.

I think it was Picasso who said his work spoke to the child within - maybe not, but yes, children are indeed excellent teachers and I like think they are innately predisposed to the evocative. The Artist's disposition, whether that Artist be a musician, painter, writer or poet, or even a little of each, has its counterpart, indeed, a synonymity with that of a child. Nothing would seem to either as finite - their universality forbids it. For both, so much seems imbued with life. For both, and perhaps for the elderly too, logic is faded - something passe - therefore, any undertaking and the consequence of it,is not necessarily the result of something reasoned, but something outside the self - something transcendent. For both, the simplest, most folksy of things becomes a curiosity (of the kind Steele refers to!) untainted by self awareness, nurtured instead by creativity. I'm a big kid at heart - I like to think there's something out there far greater than that which we can see. I think Shakespeare saw it - especially in his Midsummer Night's Dream - and I think Mozart heard it. I think children not only see it, they can feel it and they know it.

Blake surely did in his "Auguries of Innocence" :

To see a world in a grain of sand,
And heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour.

I would say that you are a professional writer - but that writing is not your profession. Does that make sense? As a composer, I've earnt enough money to live a comfortable life and devote the majority of my time to my craft - that's a real blessing. But it's not what I would consider my profession although I am professional about it. It's what defines me. I've never been career-minded so much as music-minded. I figure anyone can make money, but only I can make my music and in that I'm a rich person. I would say the properties of my craft are fully aligned to my character - I love my life and I love my work -so much so I would not want to be anyone else.

I understand what you mean when you say you enjoy the community that comes with weblogs, and the dialogue that can happen from a single post. I have felt that enjoyment in our brief association.

2007 promises to be a good year - it's got the number 7 in it!!

Blessings your way

Phillip

The Film Geek said...

I also enjoyed Edward Scissorhands. I like the choices Johnny Depp makes in movies, and Tim Burton is brilliant. I recommend A Christmas Story. It is a simple movie with a profound message of how adults and children think they are different, but are very much the same.

Have a terrific day!

Anonymous said...

Dear Marc : I'll try watch "A Christmas Story" this weekend.

I don't always get the point of movies first up - but that's probably because my attention is first drawn to the film's score -it's almost as if my mind's eye/ear projects the graphics of the music on to the screen along with the picture and I have two things to watch and a multitude of sounds to listen to. The sound of the imagery can also be music - often, quite deliberately so - where the scurry of feet, or the clap of thunder and strident sway of a swift slapping sail can be just as much music to the film as music itself. I have often toyed with the idea of writing music for films. The thought frightens me a little, but I think that's because I have other music on mind and can't turn away from it - not just yet - and i probably know myself too well - something the very articulate and true Steve Dow insightfully alluded to in his article about me "A Life Less Wiggly". But I would have loved to have written the music for Jane Campion's "The Piano" - another time, perhaps.

Some of my music is used now and then on a television soapie here in Australia which is also shown in London and i think The Netherlands - not sure if the States get it - so I've come close to it - but it's music I'd already written. It can be interesting to hear how the same piece of music played against different scenarios almost changes meaning. I once heard Samuel Barber's Adagio played as the ascension music in "Picnic At Hanging Rock" instead of the real music for that scene and the implication behind what was happening on screen was suddenly heightened and changed entirely. Perhaps that's the reality of Art Music - it expresses the essential to take up where words leave off. Often too, music can go against the grain and work equaly well. In the James Franco film "Sonny" the music of Bach lends the film a suspended timelessness. But then, some music for film can drive me nuts! Philip Glass's music for "The Hours" didn't work for me. It was too busy - I would have preferred something more - well, perhaps the musical equivalent to a painting by Kandinsky. I don't know.....but ten minutes into the movie I was ready to leave. I don't think I liked Nicole Kidman's portrayal of Virginia Woolf either - Kate Blanchet would have been ideal, I think - and as strange as it amy seem, when Ed Harris first appeared in the film, I said to myself : "Now that's Virginia Woolf!" Oh well.....

Yes, Johnny Depp is indeed a fine actor. He hasn't sold his soul. Have you seen "Benny and Joon" ?

I've recently watched a lovely film starring Judi Dench (she's a favourite!) and Maggie ?? (another favourite, but I've a mind-block with her last name...) called "Ladies in Lavender".

Anyway, I'm about feed the doves that come to our yard every morning and then head off to the gym - it's 6.09 am here - and then it's back to music.

Phillip

The Film Geek said...

Benny and June is one of my favorite Depp movies. I'd pick What's Eating Gilbert Grape as my most favorite, though. And I agree, he has been able to become successful remain a true artist. That seems too rare these days.

Anonymous said...

Dear Marc : I agree with you - What's Eating Gilbert Grape is a wonderful film - and probably also one of Leonardo di Caprio's finest!

I went to the local video store this morning but sadly they didn't have A Christmas Story. I'll search it out elsewhere.

I've just noticed you mentioned AC/DC earlier on in one of your musings. My first job out of school was as an editor's assistant for the Classical/Educational Division of one of this country's most reputable music publishing houses - they still thrive today, but moreso as a recording company. My office was next to the recording studio, so any musician working on an album would make their way through the corridor passed my office. I got to meet most of the big names back then in the rock music scene here. I met Bon Scott on several occasions - the very first time, I was getting into the lift he was getting out of - he said hello to me - I was holding a soggy lamington (a lamington is a cake we have here - usually a small square of sponge coated in moist chocolate and coconut)and I was so surprised to speechlessness that the best I could do was hold out the lamington to him and say " Would you like some of my lamington?"....

Another time I was working at the piano but to look up and see a rather tall elegant bohemian-clad figure wearing a long scarf standing at the door listening to me. He had blue streaks in his hair and gestured for me through the glass pane to carry on - I gestured to him to come in. He said he'd been listening to me for quite a while and asked me what I was playing. I told him it was a piece I was writing. He said it reminded him of Ravel's Pavane. So for the next half-hour or so, we spoke of French music - Ravel, the Pavane, other composers etc. I had no idea who he was. His name meant nothing to me and I didn't think much more about our brief encounter until the following weekend when I happened to see him on television. He was Marc Hunter - perhaps all Marcs with a "c" are elegant! :) and he was the lead singer for a band called Dragon. I think they were recording their song "April Sun in Cuba". I felt such a git - not knowing he was at all - and there he was on television! So I wrote him a note and left it with the A & R department at my work along with a small cross on a chain. I don't know why I did that! A couple of days later he was back working in the studio and called in to chat. From then on, whenever he would see me in the corridor, he'd do this sweeping bow to me - like what you see people do in film on Louis 1V. One time I was really chuffed - one of my friends from school happened to visit me at my work and walked into my office to see Marc Hunter there with me.He passed away several years ago. Throat cancer.I fell silent at the time of his passing and that sweet-sad tinge that can often come with nostalgia was edged in the flavours of Ravel. Now, when I hear Ravel's Pavane, it sounds French with a New Zealand twang to it - Marc Hunter and Dragon originally came from New Zealand. But those days have long passed although the sense of them are ever keen.

I've been around......

I think it is a little erroneous for the press to compare the success of The Wiggles to that of Nicole Kidman. They are genres apart. Nicole Kidman's audience are not pre-school children - they are film-goers. Her craft as any actors craft, requires a different technique and a certain introspection to bring to light something very often obscure and give it the external appearance of form.

Anyway - that's what I think...


What ages are your children?

The Film Geek said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
The Film Geek said...

The Bon Scott story is terrific! Thanks for sharing that.

DiCaprio's performance in Gilbert Grape was remarkable, and worthy of winning the Oscar awared for which he was nominated that year.

My comments in a post about Nicole Kidman and AC/DC was tongu-in-cheek, of course. It was a set-up for the punchline: "I'm thundersruck," a reference for the AC/DC song.

Privacy and the Internet are often mutually exclusive, of course, but I try to maintain as much privacy as possible on this very public site. Particularly when it comes to my children. So, while I might discuss something funny they have done (or something I think is funny that they have done--even if others probably find it less so) I don't talk much about them, otherwise. I'm sure you understand...the Internet is filled with folks who do not have the best intentions.

Have a terrific day, and a wonderful weekend. And if I do not talk to you again before the holidays, Merry Christmas!!

9:15 AM

Anonymous said...

Dear Marc : The First and The Fifth Wiggle salute/salutes?? - there's only one of me!! - you (although I should probably take the Fifth on being the First....) but I've just been scanning your archives - I'm so impressed! This website is an absolute credit to you - congratulations! I had no idea I was going to find myself in such a rainbowy world. You are indeed a professional writer and I so look forward to reading your thoughts on films more thoroughly.

It's another sleepless night for me - I can now blame it on music AND words!

Thank you too for your renewed Christmas best wishes - it's our second Christmas without my mother - her name was Joy, so some of the joy of Christmas is no longer here for us - we celebrate it fairly low-key now.

Blessings ever,

Phillip

Anonymous said...

Hi again : I've just remembered other things connected to AC/DC. Angus Young went to my highschool but he was a couple of years ahead of me and our paths never crossed although I did get to know the songwriting team of Vanda and Young (Harry Vanda and George Young - George, I think, was Angus's uncle....) a little. They were originally part of a band called The Easybeats and their beat was easy and so, successful! George and Harry stand as icons in the annals of Australia's pop/rock culture. They wrote the song "Love Is In The Air" which was given a much deserved second lease on life in the film "Strictly Ballroom". I remember one morning arriving at my work to find George curled up alseep like a wombat under the Steinway in my office/showroom.I must have been in my late teens. He and Harry had been working through the night on a song called "Hey St. Peter" which they released as a duo under the name of "Flash and the Pan". The Albert family, for whom we all worked, really, were the original owners of a beautiful home here in Sydney called "Boomerang". It's the villa you see in the second of the Mission Impossible films (at least, I think it's the second...) and much of the furniture in my office - Chippendale chairs and the Steinway grand - came from Boomerang. I liked George and Harry very much - like their music, they were live-wires. I imagine they still are. Although then as now our musical worlds were galaxies apart, I would say they were very much the real thing and very true to themselves. We have an expression here in Australia "true blue". There's even a song here, perhaps more of an anthem, called "Hey True Blue" - but there are many shades of blue - some more true than others. I rather like that deepest of sapphire blues.

I once read somewhere that both Johnny Depp and Nicholas Cage were considering portraying Liberace on film. What can you tell me of this?

I've always had a career of one type or another in music - each equally rewarding and each a vital part of my own persoanl history. There are no regrets. I don't know why it has been said I left The Wiggles to pursue a career in classical music. There was nothing to puruse, unless I was going to pursue myself. I am what I am. Anyway.......way leads on to way.

Apologies if I'm overstaying my welcome....

Ever and again

Phillip

The Film Geek said...

Hi Phillip: I'm enjohying your stories, and think I'm going to get a copy of the book you mentioned earlier within the next few weeks, if I can find a copy here in the States (and I presume I can). I'd like to read it, and them talk to you about the specifics. But, that'll have to wait until the holidays have passed.

Hope your evening was full of fun!

Anonymous said...

Hi again : Do you mean Blake's Auguries of Innocence? If so, that's a poem.
Let me know sometime what you can find out about JD or NC portraying Liberace - I've stayed in Liberace's Palm Springs home - but this was back in the early nineties.
My evening?? Watched a DVD with my brother.
Rain here today - gentle and abiding - the joys of nature! Have a wonderful and blessed Christmas. If you have a P.O. Box, I have some things here you and your family might like to have....

P

Anonymous said...

Hey there : Shakespeare said sleep was the nourisher of lifes feast, or something like that - but I'm a tad famished. Another sleepless night. I can't turn to the piano at this late hour, as much as I'd like to, so I might share some more thoughts with you. Perhaps I can share with you something of what I know of Liberace's life - that's if you are interested. Let me know - OK??

I saw an article written by a journalist in Boston. His name is Ted Reinstein and from his profile I've learnt he has appeared on stage in A Streetcar Named Desire ( I rather liked Jessica Lange's performance - did you?) and holds a degree if Fine Arts. From his photo in his profile he looks likeable and good. He mentions me only briefly as being once a member of The Wiggles, saying I doubtless know how Pete Best feels. But I don't know how Pete Best feels. I am not him! I'll tell you why:

Success means different things to different people - even the concept of greatness can be equally as diverse.

History recounts the tale of the Athenian philosopher Diogenes, who with nothing but the ragged and coarse clothing on his back, sat impoverished in the town's square drinking water from out his tin cup but to observe another even less fortunate than he drinking water from out nothing but his cupped hands. Diogenes threw away his cup! History also records that Alexander the Great, the King of Macedonia and conqueror of the Eastern world who vastly extended the influence of Greek civilization once remarked : "If I were not Alexander, I would rather be Diogenes!"

In our own time, when asked what it was that makes a singer great, Tony Bennett replied : "It's what they leave out!"

Less can very often be more. The French have a term for this. It's "depouillement" - to strip away only to what is essential - in other words, to sum up.

The synonyms for success are as diverse and wide reaching as was Alexander's wish : accomplishment, achievement, attainment, control, fame, fortune, progress, prosperity and perhaps most importantly of all, realization.

If you are said to be successful, you are either famed, favoured, fortunate, happy, lucky, prosperous, or in Alexander's case, triumphant.

Greatness, like success, or truth or beauty (the latter two concepts belong together - truth being of wisdom and beauty for the susceptible heart) is really in the eye of the beholder, or if you are a musician, in the ear of the beholder, where something can only ever be as great as its perception.

Greatness can be transcendent or strong, or it can be just the simplest of thoughts comprehended.

The Greek poet, Pindar, who so adequately expressed in his writings moral and religious reflections on the state, immortality and eventual judgement of the soul once said : "Unsung, the noblest deed will die." By that, Greatness appears as vast as time itself or it can be something quite fleeting and achieved in an instant as can sometimes happen when creativity is caught on the wing. There's a very fine essay on creativity by the Robert Dessaix in his book "...and so forth" titled "Climbing Helicon". Such things can be a matter of preference. The wondrous works of art found in the cavernous cool dwellings of primitive man have found their exact and satellite place in the vast expanse of present day culture to hold their place of pride, rightly so, alongside the more developed canvases of a Leomardo, Monet, or Gauguin. Nature's own birdsong is just as enchanting, if not moreso, than a sonata played by a virtuoso on a violin.

As a composer and one who believes music to be a manifestation of human spirit (it has been said all things aspire to the condition of music), in my day to day way leads on to way type world, forever edging that little bit closer towards the gift of self-realization which for me is the sole/soul reason for doing anything, I have been blessed over and over again by the timeless joys of artistic satisfaction. So much so that I would not want to be anyone but me.

I have achieved every goal I set myself. I have learnt through every piece of music I have written, good or not so good, that if you aim for the moon and miss you will land on a star! The very meaning of life is this : to seek out life's meaning.

"Unsung, the noblest deed will die." Where once I would have named any great and successful artist from the many genres of self expression colouring our ever-changing world today (even my own teacher, Dr. Franz Holford whose uncle was Felix Weingartner who took over from Mahler the conductorship of the Vienna Philharmonic and was a student of Liszt and held close associations with Berlioz and Wagner - my teacher himself being a student of the legendary French pianist Alfred Cortot, who I think studied with a student of Chopin) there have been none more greater or successful or inspirational than my most extraordinary mother, Naomi Joy Wilcher, who after quietly and courageously battling more than anyone's share of illness (any one of her illnesses would have been enough!) left her "last pure earthly mansion" just on eighteen months ago. Her medical history was long : she'd first had part of her thyroid removed, then underwent a hysterectony, lost both kidneys to cancer, Parkisnson's Disease, Osteoporosis and finally, multiple tumours in her liver and lungs. Of the soon to be 49 years of my life, I was probably away from her no more than a handful weeks when I went to the States to play at celebrations honouring Liberace. But hers was an articulate surrender. Not once did I hear her complain nor did she ever put herself before anyone - not even in her most fragile, frail-thin moments. Several weeks before her death, I supported her as she made a cup of tea for my father - so weak was she and yet so strong but then, only the gentle are ever strong.

I mentioned earlier that in 2003, the well-crafted Sydney-based journalist and very real writer, Mr Steve Dow, wrote what I consider to be a quality and insightful article on my brief but integral association with the children's entertainment group The Wiggles. Titled "A Life Less Wiggly", the article appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald on February 24 of that year (another briefer article by a journalist whose surname I remember as being Schwartz and called "A Band of Brothers" also rings true...)long after The Wiggles had achieved super stardom and monetary wealth well beyond most people's dreams. In that article, Mr.Dow generously refers to me as a "wunderkind" at age 14 and goes on later to describe me as a "shy, sensitive and self-deprecating composer who views his career sunny-side up." He then writes : "Don't expect bitter words from him!"

As my mother's son, I don't see how I could be anything but shy, sensitive and self-dreprecating. Her courage in the face of every cruel illness and her undrammatic acceptance of each prognosis, no matter how extreme or hopeless (and there were no other kind!)forbade me to feel bitter about anything in life. Her life was a noble deed about which I now sing. If through whatever gifts of music I've been blessed with, I can lend some profile to her very real life, whatever the measure, I will have achieved my purpose in this life. Indeed, hers was a life which forbade me to feel failure in anything. Her life taught me to mobilize against any dismantling thought or action an assembalge of spiritually sound counter-weights. Through her I fear nothing.

The articles which appeared from the lesser penmanship of two mainstream journalists in 2005, just two years after Mr. Steve Dow's fine and erudite article went to press and during the immediate weeks following the death of my mother when my grief known to both journalists (to one I'd even detailed in an email her medical history ) was crippling enough, really says more of those journalists virtues and agendas than they do mine. Their individual interpretations and somewhat distorted tailorings of my words into something less than what was intended were then divided up and scattered abroad to other colleagues of their ilk and the juggernaut rolled on - but not quite over me. I have never lost sight of the bigger picture. It has been said of most journalists that they never let truth get in the way of what could be a better story. How true!

I have always been impelled to a greater wakefulness of the world around me. I know as my gentle mother knew well that if you talk to the world, it invariably responds. I feed the doves that come to our yard every day now in honour of her. It's how I start my day. Once in the exact spot where I had left them their oats, they left me a small nest. There was no tree nearby from out which the nest could have fallen. I think that's Greatness!! I hear my mother now in the sudden uplift of flight as the doves take wing from their early morning feed. I see her in the thousand winking eyes of a start-swept sky at night - I hear her name in the sigh of a breeze. I have grown to believe that nothing ever ceases to be and that one's potential is greater than one's ability - something you'll come to realize if you hold onto your dreams and live the life you imagine.

My guess is for the pauper Diogenes once observed drinking water from out nothing but his cupped hands, the water was never so sweet. So I don't know how Pete Best feels - why would I??

It's 10.50 pm here now - just a couple of hours until Christmas Day. I saw on the news here tonight a story on a town in Virginia - can't quite remember the name - is it Williamsberg?? - where time seems to have stopped - people are out of their era, and age seems to have touched them not at all and I loved it.

Phillip

The Film Geek said...
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Anonymous said...

Hey Marc : Yes, it's Christmas Day - 6.31 am - and as I look out the window while I write this there are 3 doves feeding - more will come - usually 13! Thank you for the email address - I have one or two things here I would like to send you - gifts - so I will email you over the next couple of days for a postal address.

I don't think there has ever been a moment on film where I have felt at all let down by Johnny Depp - he gives his best - but as hard as I try, I can't quite see him as Mr. Liberace. My first visit to the States was back in 1989 - I'd been invited by people who lived in his street to attend a birthday celebration in honour of him and attend a dinner in his Las Vegas mansion - the home in which The Wedding Planner was filmed (I think...) so I went. Mr.Liberace's sister, Angie, asked me to play at the function being held in the Desert Inn - one of Mr.Liberace's proteges who was to perform didn't show - so I did. Way led on to way and I was invited back to play at the Liberace Museum in Las Vegas by Barbara Shaw who was the museum's administrator in 1990, 1992 and 1994 and to stay in his Palm Springs villa. I wrote a memoir of my time there and about the glorious people I met who to this day who remain loyal friends. But that will have to wait a short while. Oh my - two magnificent cockatoos have just come to our yard - isn't nature wonderful! And isn't Nature Boy a wonderful song - do you know it?

So it must be Christmas Eve ther - yes? Peace and goodwill to you and yours.......

The Film Geek said...

What a wonderful honor top play for Liberace! And, what a memory to have. That is a wonderful story.The Depp/Liberace movie connection is over, it seems. From what I can find, there was some discussion about it in 2003, then robim Williams and then Dustin Hoffman were lined up to star in the biopic. But, it seems the project is dead for now. Too bad, it would be a lively picture.

It is Christmas Eve here. Lots to do, so it is unlikley I will be visiting this site for the next few days. But, I will await your email.

I look forward to talking to you more via email. As I mentioned earlier, it is a bit clumsy to converse through a comments section of a blog. So, until then...take care, and be well.

Robin Hood said...

it was better than most "fact based" sappy movies..still not worth buying tho