www.echo.net.au/soap-box
MANDY NOLAN’S
SOAPBOX
HOW TO BE KOOL
Are you who you are supposed to be? In your wildest dreams, who would you be, say, if you didn’t have a job, or weren’t obsessed with homewares, or paying a mortgage? Who would you be if you weren’t indentured to the capitalist system of constant acquisition? What if you just answered that voice inside you and stepped into that self? What would that self actually look like? Would it still dress like you do now? Would it care about the things you think you care about now? Who are you without indoctrination? Without limitation? Who are you without regulation, without rules or without self-doubt? What makes your heart truly sing? What brings you joy? Who are you when no one is looking? I don’t think most of us know that self. I don’t think most of us are brave enough to find out. We only have one shot at this life, so I often wonder why so many of us struggle to walk that person, our authentic self, into the light? I guess it’s shame. We are ashamed of our real selves. It’s why Adam and Eve fashioned garments from leaves in that lesser known Tolkien fantasy called The Bible. It takes courage to be seen. To show who you truly are to the world makes you absolutely vulnerable. But conversely, in that vulnerability is power. A different sort of power to the power you see in politics, or real estate, or big money. A quiet bubbling power of realness. When you see it, it is unmistakeable. When you see it, you can’t look away. It’s the unremarkable occurrence of something quite remarkable – someone being themselves. It happens so rarely that when you see it, you are transfixed. We’re so busy contriving our lives that most of us haven’t noticed how far we have drifted from our shore. Some can’t even remember what the shore looks like. It’s something that visits them in shadowy dreams – but by morning, their place of return is gone. It takes courage to listen to who you truly are. It takes even more courage to live it. There is a man I have seen who I wonder about. I wonder what happened in his life that led him to be who he is today. I wonder who he was before. He is The Pineapple Man. He hitches from Murwillumbah to our local markets and he hula hoops and shakes his pineapple for hours at a time. His name is Kool. I don’t imagine that’s his birth name. I gather it’s the name he gave himself. Kind of perfect, because he actually is. Kool. Maybe he’s in his 60s? Maybe older, it’s hard to tell. His exuberance makes him ageless. Every time I see him swinging his hips and shaking that pineapple he makes me feel good. He makes me really laugh. Not just because he is a mature man hula hooping in public with a percussive fruit, but because his joy is infectious. He is the antithesis to a man in a suit. I would love to sponsor him to take his pineapple and his hoops to Canberra, to Parliament House – to see if he could stir up some joy there. I’d like to see if he could be an uncomfortable reminder of the frail yet magical humanity that lurks beneath even the most expensive suit. I want to see Scott Morrison join in with a hula hoop, shaking a pineapple, see if he can find something real beneath his veneer. I wonder what happened. I wonder what made Kool become Kool, what made him decide to pick up his hoops and his pineapple shaker and think, damn, if I am not taking this to the street! Man cannot live on private hula hooping alone. It must be seen! That is courage. Men are not conditioned to show themselves to the world in this way. It’s so wonderful to see an older white man dancing in sandals to music of his own making, connecting with passersby with his improvised pineapple-infused song. Kool actually gives me hope for ageing white men when I had pretty well given up.
One day Kool woke up with the courage to walk his real self into the light. So, why don’t you? There’s enough busking spots for all of us. Shake it up.
www.echo.net.au/byron-echo Byron Shire Echo archives
ENTERTAINMENT
TIM FREEDMAN AND THE BALLAD OF BERTIE KIDD This has been the most unexpected year. The pandemic has brought the music industry to its knees. With musicians just starting to leave the cocoon of the covid sabbatical, Tim Freedman is one of the acts playing venues again, thanks to the Great Southern Nights initiative, although Tim believes the government support has been slow and tempered with a bias. ‘The support is slow in coming and keeps going to people who are established. The government needs to be saving places like Enmore Theatre – when we come back, we need to know the venues exist.’ Entertainment contributes more to GDP than mining and sport. It’s not a hobby. How will this impact on the music industry? ‘How strong are we? How resilient has everyone managed to be?,’ asks Tim. ‘The strong will survive, they usually do. I think there is a culture war going on here, it’s happened in the universities and in the arts sector – the government doesn’t respect artists and academics, they trot out the old warhorse. Howard always thought “Why bother about them? They aren’t the ones who vote for us.” It’s never been shown to be truer.’ Tim hits the stage to launch the first new song written with The Whitlams in 14 years: The Ballad of Bertie Kidd. ‘I was attracted to the story for the slapstick nature: these fellas get told to put their balaclavas on, on the way to a robbery, and because they put them on so early the police clock them, and they get charged with conspiracy to commit an armed robbery. I thought, that’s hilarious! Then I found out the ringleader was this very imposing and threatening fellow called Bert the Blue Eyed Killer. I finished the song in November last year and played it at Camelot in Marrickville, and the fella who told me the story said, “You probably need to change the name from Bert Kidd because he’s pretty serious, and if you write a song that makes him out to be a bit of a dufus or a clutz, he might not appreciate it”.’ ‘I thought, I have one shot, so I rang his biographer; Bert was let out of jail two years ago, Peter Dutton thought he was so dangerous he tried to get him deported at the age of 85 – he
LOCAL BANDS STEP UP FOR BAYFM BENEFIT
emigrated to Australia at 14 and hadn’t been back to the UK since. One of the reasons we don’t know a lot about Bert is that none of the crims ever talked about him because they were scared of him. When he was in Pentridge, he was next to Ivan Milat, and Ivan refused to walk around the yard with Bert because he thought Bert would kill him.’ So Tim asked the biographer if he knew about the robbery with the balaclavas in Gosford? ‘He said “No”, so he rang Bert, and [Bert] said “Hmm, that one didn’t go down the way I wanted it to!” The biographer played [the song] down the phone and he said “Yeah, go for it!” We filmed him last week in Launceston for the clip.’ The song is a six-minute epic that tells the story of a robbery gone wrong. ‘It’s a funny tale, very Australian, it’s got slapstick and menace, it’s about that moment when you are going inside, when you think, “Can mum visit?”’ laughs Tim. Even our local choir got to feature. ‘Dustyesky came to assist – in the chorus there is this line “some men when they are drinking they mistake their thoughts for thinking” and we thought, [it needs] a male choir. I was recording at Rockinghorse and thought of Glenn Wright, and he brought eight of his comrades into the studio – they come with their own brand of vodka. They make it sound like a Russian Tooheys ad.’ Tim is looking forward to returning to the region, the place he first toured, nearly 30 years ago. ‘I am very fond of Byron – the Whitlams’ first gig out of town was at the Rails in 1992 – I didn’t realise how special it was, we turned up and the double bass came out of the Kingswood, the next night we would play on the floor of the Great Northern – out the back when it was a tin shed.’ Tim Freedman plays Lismore City Hall on Thursday 12 November (lismorecityhall.com.au) and the Byron Centre on Saturday 14 November (byroncentre.com.au)
CONTINUED ON P22
SEASIDE
Triple J Unearthed local winners for 2018 Splendour in the Grass
WHAT’S ON MULLUMBIMBY’S MAGIC: PART 3 – THE ARTS LIVE CINEMA EVENT Thursday 5 November, 7pm $20 | Ages 13+
LOOSE CONTENT Mullum Music Fest 2019 Youth Mentorship winners + mentored by Husky
THE BUCKLEYS – GREAT SOUTHERN NIGHTS LIVE MUSIC EVENT Friday 6 November, 7.30pm $28.80
FRIDA KAHLO – EXHIBITION ON SCREEN LIVE CINEMA EVENT Sunday 8 November, 3pm Full $22 | Conc $20 | Student U18 $15
With regular airplay on BayFM, we are thrilled to showcase Seaside + Loose Content to help raise vital funds for the Shire’s own, and only community radio station.
ONE SHOW ONLY!
SUN 15 NOV/Doors 6:30pm/On stage 7pm Indoor Seats / Garden Seats with Marquee
brunswickpicturehouse.com
THE BIG BIKE FILM NIGHT 2020 LIVE CINEMA EVENT
Friday 13 November, 7pm Full $28 | Child U15 $18 | Group of 6+ $24
TIM FREEDMAN LIVE MUSIC EVENT
Saturday 14 November $53.80
Arrive early and enjoy a drink at the Theatre Bar
NOVEMBER
Kool is my favourite busker. He doesn’t need an amplifier. He doesn’t even need musical talent. He busks with his authenticity. He busks with his joy. He shows us what it looks like to be without shame. To be unselfconscious. To be comfortable with exactly who you are. And exactly who you are can be humble and unsophisticated, and still be powerful. More powerful than a dickhead in a fancy car and an expensive suit. How amazing to have nothing, but to actually have everything. I think that is fricking cool.
Issue# 35.21 November 4 – 10, 2020 Editor: Mandy Nolan Editorial/gigs: gigs@echo.net.au Copy deadline: 5pm each Friday Advertising: adcopy@echo.net.au P: 02 6684 1777 W: echo.net.au/entertainment
Byron Theatre & Community Centre 69 Jonson Street, Byron Bay byroncentre.com.au @byrontheatre
mşưĕŔćĕſ ǫǽ ǩǧǩǧ The Byron Shire Echo 21