On the move!

Well, I said that I was going to change things, and, well, here is the new address and location of my new look blog:

www.ezakimak.wordpress.com

From now on, you will need to go there to keep in touch with all our adventures....

See you there!

Things are a-changing...

OK so I love doing my blog, and that ain't ever changing. But I'm feeling the need for a change of scenery. I'm thinking of changing the background and layout of the page.

Watch this space...

The sky is grey

Well, the day is coming to a close, and to be perfectly honest, I haven't accomplished much.

We dragged ourselves out of bed at about ten o'clock, then spent the next hour or so catching up on news from around the world on the internet machine. Then we went for a drive, discovered a cool new cafe in Williamstown then went to the video shop. We rented Jim Carrey's new movie Yes Man, peed our pants laughing then sat down for tea. Mrs B made a magic chicken shepherds pie which went down a treat. Soon we will retire to the lounge to watch Road to Perdition.

With the weather as grey and crap as it is, I think that is pretty much the perfect Saturday.

Don't you?

Monday, Monday

Buggered after a hard days work. Here is a pic I shot off just before getting onto the Bolte Bridge on the way home tonight:

Melbourne International Jazz Festival

The Jazz Festival was an interesting experience.

It went for a week starting last Saturday. We planned to go on the Sunday to a free concert, but the weather closed in and the rain was horizontal so we decided to give it a miss. So we tootled into the city this Saturday just gone for another free concert as the weather was magic blue skies and about 13 degrees. The gig was due to start at 12.00 but there were some major roadworks going on and we got majorly held up so we got to our brunch venue in Fitzroy at quarter to 12. We thought oh stink we have missed out, never mind, lets enjoy brunch.

While eating brunch we got our hands on a festival programme and we discovered that there was one more free concert at 5pm. We hummed and hahhed before deciding to hang around in the city until then. Fitzroy is a cool little place full of weird bookshops, music shops and fashion boutiques so we had a good walk around and a nose through many a shop. From there we went into the city proper (Fitzroy is on the city edge) and wandered around like tourists retracing some of our steps from when we came over in August. We plonked ourselves at Lorca Cafe and chilled out while the city whirled by. Just down from where we were a 5 piece jazz group turned up and set up right there on the footpath. They began belting out some aweome tunes. People were tapping their toes and dancing impromptu, it was great.

At about 4.30 we wandered up Swanston Street to Federation Square for the concert. By this time, the sun had gone down and the temperature dropped about 5 degrees, but we thought we would tough it out - it was a free concert after all! The sun went down and the lights came up and the band WAS CRAP. We had waited all that time and they were rubbish. Not that they couldn't play music, they just played the wrong type. It was the last day of the festival, and the last concert and it was freezing cold and they played quiet, subdued smoky bar jazz. Everyone was expecting some up tempo, lets get you all warm PUMP. We only lasted about 30 minutes before we baled out and headed home.

The guerilla set up on the side of the footpath band was the highlight, they were cool and funky and obviously enjoying what they were doing and having a real lark.

That's the sort of jazz I dig.

In a backstreet cafe

Sitting at Lorca with the city bustling by,
A mish mash of fashion from girl and guy.
Wafting around us, the aroma of coffee,
Jazz on the footpath, yeah, this is me.

People walk past abuzz with the groove,
The night is refreshing, it makes me feel new.
No rush, no pressure, just cruisin' along,
Sitting here silent among the great throng.

For the briefest of moments our eyes make contact,
A smile, a nod, we acknowledge the fact.
This is a great place, a happenin' thing,
Here we are happy, our hearts want to sing.

Philosophical Musings - Part 2

Suddenly the world is full of meaning. A man yawns in the Mercedes next to me. What made him tired I wonder. Crossing the road, a mother pushes a baby in a pram. The baby kicks its feet with glee at the sight of a Golden Retriever. What brought on that joy? What does his future hold? His brain is a blank book with pages waiting to be written on.

As I bite into my organic Pink Lady apple, the cool crispness of it fills my mouth with a pleasant sensation. It is only 8 degrees outside, but the cool feeling on my lips and tongue thrill as they make me shiver.

I raise my eyes and look at the clouds above. How old is the sky? I see a palette of colours and shades. Shapes and forms come and go. A rabbit, a bear, a hand, a boat. Enormous structures made of nothing. Thick enough to block the sun, thin enough to let a plane pass through.

People are like clouds. They can be thick and strong enough to deflect and block the harshest of attacks. But sometimes they are pierced. Pierced through. Cut to the core. A simple word or a harsh act can destroy the calmest of hearts. With a landscape of flitting windblown grass, the mind can be stroked in many directions. Some good, some bad. Some positive, some negative.

We think that we control our mind. The reality is however, that we are controlled BY our mind. Our body is simply the puppet of the mind.