I'm just looking for some tush (ZZ Top)

Photo by Leio McLaren on Unsplash

I been up, I been down.Take my word, my way around. I ain't askin' for much. Just some tush balance.

Work-life balance has been on my mind this week thanks to an excellent piece by Austin Kleon. You can read it here. I'll wait.

In my past lives, I've become a happy slave to a job (Macleans College), I've also tried the opposite and treated a job as a place - not somewhere to invest my heart and soul (Waimea College). And I've learned. But I ain't got balance. 

As a classic Libra type, I like balance.

Bringing balance is central to some of my favourite movie themes. In Star Wars, the Jedi and Sith battle it out - opposites and Anakin Skywalker is supposed to bring balance to the force. He doesn't. He turns into (spoiler alert) Darth Vader! In The Matrix when Neo asks the Oracle about Smith, the Oracle explains that Smith is Neo's opposite and his negative.

And this is the thing - balance is impossible. Either the Sith are in control and the Jedi are wiped out, then returning, or the multiple Smiths are battling Neo.

No one ever gets balance right because, well, balance is boring. No drama. No white heat tension going on.

Wanting balance is wanting it all. And that just doesn't happen. Ask George Costanza. Ask Woody Allen. Ask Larry David.

So instead, I'm just trying to live my life the best I can - juggling relationships, reading, music, blogs, social media, music clubs, work, friends, art and all the other things that make up my life.

Love and peace - your pal, Wozza

Every challenge is an opportunity (Hsing Yun)

A lovely woman with a guy
who is too damned content with things!

"Write more interesting blog posts!"

Stark and interestingly, this was the advice given by a work colleague who has taken an interest in my quest goal to go viral this year.

My colleague, let's call her Mandy, is quite right and although I reacted with stunned silence when she energetically and perkily gave me that pearl, that nugget, she's right (she's seldom wrong - there was that one day last year, but I digress).

Feels a little like that scene in a Woody Allen film when aliens tell him to tell funnier jokes after he asks about the purpose of his life.

Not that easy! But that's okay...it's not about easy. Or it is but to get to easy I'll need to get through hard.

Oh, oh, and she also said, "Be controversial".

Also, not that easy. Especially for me - I don't want to upset anyone. I also don't have contrary points of view, generally, and I am not about to be insincere. Hmmm (that was me pondering).

But I appreciate Mandy's advice and interest and I need to remember - every challenge is an opportunity.

Love and peace - Wozza

Why does it always rain on me (Travis)

Impressions of summer

• Wasps - while taking a lead rope off Beetlebaum in the long grass of the driveway I thought I'd stepped back onto a thistle, then I saw what I thought were big black flies on my legs - nope - wasps. Black wasps. Having disturbed their sub-ground nest, they took retribution. Jeepers, a week later my legs still hurt like the blazers!!
• Hot hot heat - on the deck the mercury was saying 35 degrees most days (apart from the three day storm in early January)
• Water - either not enough (we needed to order some water before our visitors arrived before Christmas), or too much (the heavens opened on a walk SWMBO, Jerry and your faithful correspondent took)
• Wind - not that kind, the take-the-sails-down wind that came with the January storm.
• Wetas - the hot/wet/humid combo suits wetas and Jerry, helpfully, brought a few inside to bat around on the floor.
• Opossum - whether climbing on the roof or making horrible noises outside the toilet window whenever I made a nighttime pit stop, it was an unnerving experience
• Rats! I hate rats!! Either in the tool shed, or the old hay by the tractor, ratty came a calling.  I buried six in total. Take that! 
• Titus Groan novels - keeping company with the creepy ratlike Steerpike during the summer was somehow weirdly appropriate!

Not my favourite season, summer. By a long chalk!

Love and peace - Wozza

She's making movies on location (Dire Straits)

What just happened?

If it's a movie about making movies, I'm there!

Recently I watched What Just Happened? A film starring Robert De Niro as a movie producer. Here's the low down.

It was okay but the Rotten Tomato rating seems about right.

What it did do is made me think about their appeal because ordinarily, I'm not really bothered with how something works, I just enjoy the product.

It started many years ago when I saw a TV programme focused on starlet shenanigans going on with directors and producers. I forget its name.

For some reason I became interested in these peeks behind the artifice (which are themselves artifice - like being in a roomful of mirrors).

Watching Day For Night was a big moment - Roger Horrocks used it to kick start his film studies paper.

For me, when it's in the hands of cinematic masters like Truffaut, Allen, and the Coen brothers, the faux documentary style makes for a more realistic and heightened sense of drama, plus the fiction seems absolutely appropriate to the subject matter.

My top 5 movies about making movies:

• Day for Night - François Truffaut
• Woody Allen's Stardust Memories
• Barton Fink by The Coen brothers
• Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story 
• The Purple Rose of Cairo, also by Woody.

Love and peace, and...cut - Wozza

Summer, Buddy Holly, the working folly, Good golly, Miss Molly and boats, Hammersmith Palais, the Bolshoi Ballet, Jump back in the alley and nanny goats (Ian Dury)

Photo by Erick Tang on Unsplash

50 Reasons to be cheerful in 2017:

• Looking forward, each week, to James Whatley's Five Things on a Friday 
• Christmas visits from the family (Jade, Adam, Samantha)
• Blacklist binges on Netflix
• Reading my newspaper The Walrus Gumboot - courtesy of Paper.li
• Medium.com stories - usually a few gems with each edition, although the message that I'd exceeded my monthly quota was annoying
• Seeing Jerry Seinfeld with Jade
• Morning feel good quotes for/from the staff at morning briefings
• Vox sentences
• Watching Dunkirk with Jacky
• Thomas Oppong's articles via Medium.com
• Star Wars: The Last Jedi 
• Austin Kleon's newsletter that comes into my inbox regularly
• Lunchtime walks with my coach, Liz
• Paul McCartney on December 16 at Mt Smart Stadium, Auckland
• Lindsay Hope's CD collection will be giving pleasure for a long time to come
• Seth Godin's blog, which comes every day, regularly provides food for thought 
• November trip to Keri Keri for a weekend thanks to the kids
• Dan Rockwell's advice, again every day, has pearls of regular wisdom
• Whatsapp - the vehicle for hilarious fandamily interactions
• Netflix has provided great viewing throughout the year
• The Arsenal victory over Spurs was a tonic in an otherwise forgettable season, again
• Greg Knowles' Seventies Music blog provides a shedload of memories
• Daily writing on my blogs
• Visiting Universal Studios at the start of the year with Samantha
• Regular visits to Real Groovy in Auckland for vinyl 
• Marbeck's Records and JB Hi-Fi are still providing CD fixes
• Messages and videos from Noel Forth via Messenger
• Facebook hilarity from mates Greg Knowles and Kevin Simms
• Driving with Samantha and Jacky from San Francisco to LA along the Pacific coast
• Disneyland with Jacky - the happiest place on earth for us
• IHOP Anaheim and blueberry pancakes
• The view from the top of the Brynderwyn Hills looking towards Whangarei
• Autumn, every year
• Card for my 60th birthday from my staff
• Playing backyard cricket with the kids again
• 366 Days With Wisdom by Venerable Master Hsing Yun
• The Hard Rock Cafes in London and San Francisco
• Finding the new copy of West Bruce and Laing's Whatever Turns You On
• Reading 50 books in the year and fulfilling a goal
• Our new Border Collie, Jerry, and his surviving Parvo
• Seeing Jeanette Thomas at the Macca concert
• The organic Whole Life Cafe in Maungaturoto is a life saver
• Taking the ferry to Russell
• The drive from Russell to Whangarei that takes in the Helena Bay Hill Gallery and Cafe (great, great gardens)
• The spectacular tree outside my ART room
• Seeing Keegan happy and purposeful in China
• The view from our lounge towards the Bryderwyns
• Building the horse yards for Grace and Beetlebaum
• Playing ball chase games with Jerry
• Browsing in Amoeba Records, San Francisco
• Mocha at the Beach Cafe Ruakaka (my cup runneth over - this being #51)

Love and peace and into 2018 we go...Wozza

Each day one needs to do what is beneficial (Hsing Yun)

We are family!

This year, Christmas and New Year in Nu Zild has been a series of visitations with the resulting succession of selfies on Whatsapp and Facebook pages. Good fun!

Tom and his mum

Recently, we said farewell to Tom and Christine Kirkham (but always a Purdy) as they went off to explore the rest of their first trip to NZ.

Reconnecting with my family roots leads me back to Rochdale and that's always bitter sweet - I miss England like crazy, and love the instant thrill of being on familiar ground with my cuz.

See you again soon Christine and Tom: Ka kite anō au i a kōrua.

Aroha nui rāua rangimārie - Wozza

You're a shmoopy! (Jerry Seinfeld)

This self-effacing correspondent aims to always keep you up to date with all the crucial happenings in Wozza's World (you just live in it, remember?). This post is no exception. 

Okay. Deep breath. Just the facts, ma'am.

It's been a state of angst central in the ART room this last week for your humble blogger. There's no point in beating around the bush!

How, oh how, was I to reorganise my CDs and records?

I know, I know...a biggie right?! 

In the past I've used a few genre headings and then all pop/rock under nationalities with a sidebar of Greatest Hits sets and another for various compilations.

Something didn't feel right though so I decided to reunite the GHits and compilations with the artist.

Still a feeling lingered.

VINYL rules!!!!

While I was hovering between the dilly of a pickle of introducing further genres or keeping to strict nationalities, my fellow father-in-law to Adam/Ashleigh, the very generous Mr Lindsay Hope, was packing up his CD collection into four wine boxes.

As he hadn't played any of his CDs in over a year and was able to get all he required on Spotify, he donated his collection to me. WAHOO!!

Turns out, we have very similar (great) taste so there were a few titles in common but generally his collection contained a huge number of CDs by artists I love but CDs I didn't have: a real treasure trove! The CDs were ecstatic to join the whanau.

Suitably energised, that drove me on to expand the genres - now Power Pop, Punk, Rock'n'Roll, Metal have joined the established genres: Progressive Rock (and Prog/Metal), Soul, Jazz (now using a plethora of sub genres like Fusion, Big Band, Vocal, Cool, Modern, ECM, Latin, Piano Jazz), Chill, World, Folk, Americana, Country, Blues, Classical, Alternative Rock, Reggae, and others!

Aaarrrrrrr. That feels better!!

Love and peace - Wozza