I don't know what it is about me, but I have a tendency to attract overt eccentrics, and I find it interesting.

This morning I opened up the card and gift shop I work at, because the manager is sick.

It was all normal routine for about an hour and a half until about 9:45am when I looked out the window to see a man swigging on white wine, looking at a few champagne glasses.

Once eye contact was made he came inside and started chatting to me.

He was so outrageously gay. As camp as a row of tents. Top deck bleached blonde hair ontop a mass of black follicles, metro glasses and a tribal tattoo on his left arm. Don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong, or strange about that.

But the succeeding straight forwardness of what followed, was...intriguing.

I couldn't quite understand the first sentence he made, but quickly deciphered his combination of early morning wine-breath and typically exaggerated gay accent.

He said something about the Police and that he should have given them a few words, but might have gone to prison if he'd done so.

I just smiled and nodded, looked out the door to see Graham the arcade cleaner giving me the "sucked in, bitch." eyes, and then I asked if I could grab my camera and get a shot of him.

"Why, you gonna show the Police?! "

I quickly explained that wasn't the case, but he kept talking at very close proximity to my face and I didn't get the chance.

He then said "But you know I did some time back in the Afghan jails, BUT THE SEX THERE WAS GRRRRREAT! OH BOY I LEARNT SOME THINGS THERE!!!"

"So what time do you knock off."

- ummm, I'm not sure...around...2?

"Well I can come back then and meet you down the end and we could go off into an alleyway and I'll give you a *does a blowjob gesture*!!"

"I'm not kidding, I will!!...SO WHAT DO YOU THINK?"

I didn't doubt him for a second, which made me feel like a stunned mullet.

- uhhhh....man, I don't swing that way.

"AWWW WHAT A WASTE! You'll learn one day when you're older what IT'S ALLL ABOUT!!"

I laughed a little nervously...and asked him what his plans for the day were.

"Ahh I think I'll probably go and see my Sisters grave for the second time."

"She was such a beautiful girl! Want me to show you a picture of her?"

- Yeah, why not.

"Just to give you a warning, she's dead in the photo, and I'm giving her one last kiss."

And that is exactly what he showed me as his phone wallpaper - a picture of him kissing his deceased sister on the cheek.

"I looked after her for a whole year in Afghanistan before she passed away, and my 5 beautiful nieces too."

From there he told me, as I helped him conjure the word 'appreciative' - that even if family piss you off, and get you so angry, that they're the only ones you'll ever truly love.

Bradley is the name he gave me - and to be honest - I didn't/don't know what to think of Bradley.

I mean, yeah - I'm a young guy, who smiles a fair bit...and happened to be wearing a green apron... working inside a gift shop...but do I really look that gay or stupid!!

There's people that will back me up when I say - I'm an old and gay pedophile magnet, whether I like it or not...and as uncomfortable as it can make me feel, I must share the experiences.

And to top off the day, after I finished work I met with a couple of friends and was walking down William Street when I looked into the Hungry Jack's window, and low and behold - was another seedy looking old man, standing up, staring at a news paper with a cold glaze...pinching both his damn nipples. This continued for about a minute before I crept up to the window and put my camera up to my eye and took a picture - but the damned-to-hell response action of myself to trigger to mirror meant I missed his nipple pinching fiasco.

...and ended up with this > [link] < instead.

That pretty much sums up the pinnacle of my strange, strange day.

I've felt a bit in-between and conflicting as of recent, and after multiple different conversations with people both on this site, and in "the real world" I've started to return to terms with what it is I seek, and what I have a tendency of losing track of at stages, and like to find time to remind myself of.

I've thought out the myriad complex of what it is inside my head that I'd like to explain. Which is the easiest thing. But I struggle at times to express the exact thing in which I'd like. Infact, it never comes out "exact", but I guess that's half the beauty of the challenges of expressive media.

I've always, since I was young, found a sense of serenity through putting myself into my creations, into my "Art" - you could say. It's always been a strange process for me, one that I don't think I'll ever really understand. All I know is that I have to be inspired, by pent up feelings I didn't know existed until they brink, by other peoples creations - or words, conversations...pure existence. You can't fake the feeling of being driven by something personal, and that's where expressive medias form their naturalism.

Out of everything I find myself creating, whether it be a photograph, a drawing, painting, poem, a rhythm on the drums,a piano melody...or anything creative - I see it as story, and I see myself as a story teller, and I often feel uncomfortable when people see my camera and ask whether I'm a photographer. I usually just say "enthusiast" - for that's all that I really am, and mostly do it for MYSELF.

I'm currently in the process of fighting procrastination to finish the photo book of my travels throughout Australia, though I'm glad I approached it with an easy pace and didn't rush. I've given myself a deadline for the end of November, and I'm going to make sure I slave myself for a few days to finally put it together, even though there's a feeling inside me that's telling me not to edit it too much, for all the layout mistakes and grammatical errors will be something I'll learn from.

Anyway, enough of that, at the moment I'm saving up my money to travel over seas early next year, and I'm quite indecisive as to which country I want to immerse myself within first off.

I've had my heart set on Russia, starting in Moscow and traveling down the Trans-Siberian line into Mongolia to spend some time with the Nomadic tribes for a while, but for some inexplicable reason I'm not sure if I want to do that as my first over seas expedition.

Which is where India comes into it. I'm strongly thinking I will make the trip to India maybe March/April 2010 and spend around 4 or so months all over the joint. But I need to do some research first, and find an adventurous travel participant to join me. It may be a shot in the dark, but is there anyone here who can give me advice on India, or furthermore, would like to come!?

I'm at a stage of conflict amidst desirable feelings of grandeur and current procrastination. I need to grasp the feeling of wonderment again, so bold and evident when on the road.

(I already knew that this journal would swing and end a different way than what it was first intended. I admit, I have a piss-poor attention span)

The Swan Basement that is.

If you live in Perth, Western Australia - and have no plans for the coming Saturday night - 3rd of October, come on down to The Swan Basement(Basement of The Swan Hotel) in North Fremantle sometime around 8pm to watch the band I play in; 'Mulholland Siren', ripping up a few tunes.

From what I've been told we're last on the lineup, so we won't be on til' after 10 sometime, but it'll be a grand ol' evenin'.

If you attend, I'll be the one with the pencil thin fluff(baby moustache) on his top lip laying down the ghetto beats, so don't be shy, come and say hi.

If that's not enough to tempt any of you, I may in fact get my shirt off during the set - and let me tell you, I'm growing chest hairs now so watchout.

If you're still not swayed - there'll most probably some video footage on youtube within the next week or so.

Not the Saturday just been, but the one before it, I got into a conversation with a young couple I was serving at the store I work in.

The topic of travel and money brought the guy to tell me about some sort of business venture. At the time I didn't actually understand what he said as it was quite brief and non-descript, so I just nodded and agreed with what he said.

They were a nice enough couple, and I ended up exchanging details with the guy because he wanted to explain the whole scenario to me.

I already had a faint idea of where it was heading, but I'm the curious type and wanted a detailing of what-ever-the-hell it was, regardless of the topic.

So I spoke to the guy the following week and organised a meeting during my lunch break the Saturday just past.

He brought along a brochure about "Cash Flow Quadrants", and gave me a pointless spill about things I already knew.
pretty zoned out after five minutes of not-getting-to-the-damn-point.

But you see, that WAS the point.

After the Coffee, he then invited me to a workshop/seminar at a University with a guest pass, which I, again through further curiosity and lack of something better to do, attended this evening.

I met the guy out the front of the function centre and went inside, taking a seat down the front row. It was a room full of archetypal business dressed Males and Females, with the 'ring leader', as I like to call him, up the front explaining things.

Getting to the point, he basically spoke about cash flow pyramids, trying to convince through schemes of verbal diatribe, new people to join some large scale marketing campaign.

The ring leader had his craft down pat, I'll give him that - he knew how to talk. But amongst his subtly ice breaking, but lame-arse jokes( example - "And I saw light at the end of the tunnell, and no...it wasn't the train coming towards me, it was freedom!") was a large contradiction to the whole fundamental concept of the business network he was a part of it, referencing the chain of supply and demand, and how they're essentially cutting out the middle man. The contradiction lies in seeing the network of people involved in their scheme as a ladder of money, the new ones starting at the bottom with a $110 registration fee, and not necassarily climbing any higher than the first step.

It felt as if I was the only person in the room not stomaching this mass of garbage.

But then again, I couldn't be less sure that I was the only one in the room not focused on long term ideals of making money through 'assive income' techniques - As nice as the ideal sounds to make money without having to physically work, I was just interested in witnessing the workshop.

By the end of it, I still didn't understand how I was supposed to benefit from it, besides the newly placed brick, block or whatever metaphoric building material you'd use to describe new knowledge ontop of the temple so far.

Some people are so business minded they're naive in the risks they take.

I'm glad I went along though, it was an interesting night.

Annnnnyway, it's 2AM here and I stayed up just so I could get that off my chest, and it probably came out all wrong!

- Peace.

The first day of Spring was weird for me, due to a couple of things.

The first is thanks to the extremely talented Severin Koller for a completely unexpected feature in his journal yesterday. It's one of those surreal feelings when someone you admire takes a return interest in your creations, It's happened a couple of times on here with artists who inspire me(You know who you are)and just reminds me to keep honing my skills.

I went to bed last night, and awoke from my sleepy daze by the rumble two Cats fighting on my front porch. I had bizarre restless sleep, then got woken up in the morning by one of our two Dogs stepping on my face, wanting to play ball.

The next thing is a Daily Deviation on the same day/next day(It didn't appear 'til I went to bed due to the time difference I'm assuming?), very much thanks to Mr.Michael Kaiser and Keith Franke

It's such a delightful, compliment ridden way to start Spring, I appreciate it alot and I'm still trying to come to terms with it!

In other news, I've spoilt myself recently by buying 7 packs of Polaroid Time Zero film for my SX-70(One of which I'm excited to use as it expired in 1983), and a new lens.

I've been contemplating the lens for quite a while, and wasn't sure whether to update my camera body to something other than the CCD sensor, but I came to the decision to get the Carl Zeiss Distagon T* 35mm f2 for the K mount as opposed to something like the Sigma 30mm f1.4, not only because of the unrivaled optical quality of the Zeiss, but because I can use it on my film camera aswell, and I think that the 53mm digital equivalent will suit my desires. It should be arriving soon .

There's also a Photographers Market coming up next month here in Perth, so I'll see if I can pick up a bundle of cheap film.

Oh, and I'm not sure if anyone remembers a sub-story of my beautiful Mullumbimby experience > [link] <, but something sad happened there recently, which you can read about here > [link] < that tells me it's not the Stoner Hippies, Bush Neanderthals and 100ft Killer Snakes you have to worry about.

And one more thing, which I find hilarious; is this > [link] <

It's funny because:

A - I always wipe down a public toilet seat, for I'm not keen on having suspicious residue from a foreign vessel seeping into the pores of my behind.

And B - he got super glued to a toilet seat!

HA!

(I couldn't say I wouldn't find it funny if it happened to me)

Ok, I'll drag it on one more time because I found an amazing Jeff Buckley B-side on YouTube the other week which has been on repeat a ridiculous amount of time, and I think you should all hear. [link]