Work, work, work...

Sunday, 8/22/99

A grueling week. Forgive me if my enthusiasm wanes, as the pressures at work mount and I feel my soul being eaten by the "requirements" of the corporate world. I'll try not to whine, but the less said about work, the better.

Monday was a total loss, with over 12 hours on the job (counting commute time) plus some extra time on a freelance job in the evening. I guess the commute itself might be worth some comment. Typically, the five of us (Ron, David, Bob, Jack, and myself) leave about 7:30 am from our hotel in downtown Sydney for a half-hour ride to Homebush Bay in the western suburbs. Our rental car is a Ford; the model is known as a Falcon here, but seems to be what we know as the Contour (except, of course, with right-hand steering). The view from the left side of the road is becoming familiar, but Ron does the driving, so I think I'd still find it disconcerting to be behind the wheel. It's still a bit uncomfortable to be a passenger on the left side of the front seat. And crossing the street as a pedestrian is still a challenge: major confusion over which way to look for oncoming cars. As I mentioned previously, there is a distinct lack of freeways, but our travel time is still shorter than it is in the Bay Area. The streets along our principal route are becoming familiar, but I'm still getting oriented to my geographical surroundings.

Bob's girlfriend Amy arrived Tuesday morning for a week's visit, so he will be occupied after hours. The weather has been beautiful: bright and balmy. And they tell me it will only get better. I've taken to hanging out with the smokers (which is just about everyone on the project team) as an excuse to get out of the building during the day. Besides, that's when many of the serious discussions happen, so I'm out of the loop if I don't join them on their breaks.

The Acer building is on Figtree Road, but it's lined with eucalyptus, pleasantly fragrant. Birds abound, and they're quite vocal: many distinctive whistles and songs, but I can't associate them with species I know (not that I'm a knowledgeable birder).

On Wednesday, Jack and I got drafted by the Acer action ball team. Two of their regular team members were in Taiwan for the week, so Linda Mayer, the call center manager invited us to fill in as substitutes. In the interest of good client relations, I accepted the challenge. After work Linda took us to an interesting indoor sports facility in nearby Gladesville. It's a spacious warehouse-like facility with three action ball/ net ball courts, indoor beach volleyball (complete with sand), and a cricket batting range. Action ball is a mutant version of basketball, with no dribbling, no backboard, and a variety of other curious rules. Six players on a team (three boys, three girls), the half-hour game is divided into two halves. Fortunately, I only had to play the first half (Jack took the second). Fifteen minutes of running up and down the court was quite enough action for me. The court is slightly narrower than a basketball court, but approximately the same length. It's completely enclosed in a net, so you can play the ball of the side walls, like racquetball. We lost the game, although we were ahead by one point at half time. Of course, I can't take credit for anything, as I didn't make a shot and contributed little to the game beyond keeping the teams even.

As if action ball weren't enough, Thursday evening I worked out in the gym and enjoyed the sauna. I was thoroughly exhausted, so when Ron called to say they were leaving an hour early the next morning, I called it a day and was in bed by 9:30. Bob and Amy saw La Boheme at the Opera House Thursday evening, so Bob was a little late getting downstairs Friday morning, but he was the main reason we needed to get in early (to get the application running for a demonstration).

From that early start, our Friday stretched past 7 pm, finally ending this exhausting week. By the time we got back to the hotel Friday evening, Linda was waiting to take us to Manly where we saw a local blues band playing in a small pub. The band leader was a friend of Phil, a former guitar player in his late 30s, working in educational sales for Acer. Before going to the club, Linda, Ron, Jack and I met Phil and Trevor at yet another pub, for a pre-pub drink. This drinking business is getting very boring for me, but it seems to be the principal social occupation.

After a Toohey's at the Great Northern, we proceeded to Manly, which reminded me of Sausalito in many ways. It's accessible from Sydney by ferry (giving rise to many jokes in our party about the Manly ferry), and the waterfront is packed with shops, restaurants, and pubs. The band was quite good: young guys (in their 20s) doing a credible job with straight-ahead traditional blues. Phil's friend Scotty plays harp and sings, mostly original tunes, delivered in a tight, clean set. The crowd was odd, and not particularly appealing. Mostly older (possibly in 30s and 40s), barfly types, some looking like aged hippies. One younger obnoxious drunk attached himself to our table for a bit. Another idiot with a harmonica insisted on "playing along" from the audience, but the band ignored him and played through their set without a break. Ron was disappointed that the attractive women seemed to be everywhere but in the pub we were in, but we stayed until almost midnight before heading back to Sydney.

Saturday dawned cloudy for the first time in a week. I slept in until 10 and called home as soon as I got up. Jimi and Vonnie were there, but Janet had not yet returned from her birthday lunch at the Claremont with Ursula and Eileen. It was great to talk to the kids--I had talked to Vonnie on Friday morning, but other than that I hadn't been able to reach anyone at home by phone since last weekend--but I was dying to talk to my wife. After a shower, I called back and finally got Janet. It was like a gourmet meal for a starving man. I have felt so lonely and isolated this week, but I finally began to feel the darkness lift from my insides.

I checked my email (deepest gratitude to my correspondents--your letters are immensely important in breaching the loneliness of this assignment!) and I was considering beginning the next journal installment when guest services came to clean the room. After the obligatory conversation about whether I'm Japanese (again, the name raises expectations that must go unfulfilled; the burden of the 21st century man), I decided to get out for a bit. I walked around the corner to local tobacconist, where I found a nice, inexpensive Cuban cigar. I went off searching for a nice spot to sit and enjoy my smoke.

Wandering through the park toward the Botanical Gardens, I came upon the New South Wales (NSW) Art Gallery. Curious, I went to investigate and found the admission was free, so I decided to check it out. The entrance is in the classical style, but once inside, it expands into a newer modern facility that extends three levels down the hillside.

I was strolling through the galleries in the older part of the building, which were filled with older European and Australian paintings, when I heard an announcement of a guided tour of the aboriginal art gallery. Intrigued, I made my way to the third level, where I found that the gallery actually contained contemporary work by artist from the aboriginal culture.

The featured exhibit showcased raiki wara. These are long cloths covered with designs by native artists; some are painted and some are silk-screened, but most typically they are batik. This is not an indigenous art: it was introduced (by social worker types, I believe) in recent decades, but the people have taken to the medium with great enthusiasm. The cloths are often designed as wall hangings, but they are sometimes produced in longer lengths for use as fabric for garments. Unlike aboriginal paintings (I was told), the designs on raiki wara are decorative rather than pictorial. However, some German tourists pointed out one piece (a silk painting) which they said was based on a rock painting they had seen in Queensland. The pictorial work is typically based on aboriginal mythology and dream-state awareness. Some designs contained symbols that represented people and scenes from a bird's eye view, and I couldn't help wondering if these views originated from out-of-body experience in the dream-state.

Another interesting piece in the aboriginal gallery (unrelated to the raiki wara) was a laundry pole (one of those square fixtures with arms extending from a central pole and multiple clotheslines stretched between the arms) with acrylic bats (decorated in aboriginal patterns) hanging from the clotheslines. On the ground below the bats were many coin-sized circles painted with floral symbols, representing flowers growing from the bat droppings. A permanent exhibit in the gallery featured artifacts related to "sorry matters" (aboriginal burial practices). These included digeridoo-like tubes in which the bones of the dead were collected and large totem pole-like carvings used to mark/protect the areas where the remains were kept.

Leaving the aboriginal gallery, I wandered through their 20th century collection. It's not large, but it includes a Picasso, a Giacometti, a couple Gaugins, and some nice Expressionist work. I continued to survey their collections, noting art students with their easels set up throughout the galleries, attempting to copy the works on display. Noting the wonderful use of light in some of the more traditional pieces (and smelling the fresh oils), I felt the re-awakening of my long-dormant painting instincts. I also admired the Australian landscape pieces, relating them to the western US landscapes in the Oakland Museum collection.

After a couple of hours of culture, I emerged to a gray, chilly afternoon. I got a long black coffee (not too long, really: a double espresso) at the kiosk in the park across the street, and I continued to a hill overlooking the Botanical Garden, where I sat and watched the parrots as I enjoyed my cigar. The coffee was gone long before the cigar, so I headed back toward the hotel. I paused again in Hyde Park, relaxing on a bench by the main fountain to finish my smoke. The sun came out for a bit, so I basked in its ozone-depleted warmth before returning to the hotel.

Back in my room, I returned to this chronicle. I turned on the television for company. Aussie TV generally sucks (land of Rupert Murdoch: all Fox all the time), but on a Saturday afternoon in particular, there is literally nothing but sports. You know I am not much of a sports fan anyway, but this is Aussie sports on top of it all: rugby, footy (football, or as we say, soccer), cricket. David and I actually got a quick cricket lesson from some of the Acer guys, so I'm beginning to grasp the concepts, but I still prefer baseball, and there was none of that. Horseracing, mountain-climbing; tennis is okay (the other guys are fans--Ron in particular is a former competitive player), but not a preferred entertainment for me. Anyway, you get the picture. I worked intermittently at the journal, but found it hard to concentrate.

Finally, about 5 pm I showered again and got ready for the evening excursion to the George Benson concert. Phil called from the lobby about 7 pm. I met him downstairs and we went to the bar for a drink while we waited for Linda and her friends to join us. Carol and Lance, like Linda, are from Queensland (the northern province on the eastern side of Australia, directly above New South Wales. Although Carol (in her early 40s) is much older than Linda, they share a common upbringing in the remote cattle country. Linda's older sisters were taught by correspondence course, as there were no schools nearby, and Linda herself had a 30 mile bus ride to school. Lance is 50 and in some sort of outsourcing business. The three of them have been in Sydney for only a couple of years. Carol and Lance were celebrating their first anniversary.

After drinks, we walked around the corner and a couple of blocks down King Street to the State Theatre. A refurbished theatre of the old style (turn of the 20th century?), the seats were spacious and comfortable (lots of room to pass within the rows), and it made for a fairly intimate venue (compared to arenas or modern halls).

The opening act was Venetta Fields, a gospel/blues-based singer with a strong voice. She's American (I believe), but she's been in Australia for 18 years, singing as a backup performer for Aussie icon Jon Farnham for many years. Her set was short, and we retired to the lobby, where more drinks were being consumed. They also sold a lot of potato chips (crisps, they call them), which struck me as odd.

The George Benson set was definitely the payoff. He performed for a good 90 minutes, and the band was hot. I know him primarily as a guitar player, so I was expecting a lot of instrumentals. George was wearing a white tux jacket over black t-shirt and slacks. He played a Les Paul, but he let his rhythm guitarist take the first solo, a hot break on the Fender. They did a couple of instrumental numbers, with George showing his typically fluid licks. By the third number, George stepped up to the microphone and began adding vocals. For the next couple of tunes, he abandoned his guitar altogether, in favor of some soulful singing. I had some initial concern that he would abandon his instrumental virtuosity in favor of a more pop vocal approach, but he actually move seamlessly back and forth between singing and playing, and I ended up being very impressed with his performance as a jazz singer. His passion comes through very clearly in his vocals, and his range was also impressive. He did a very nice rendition of Bobby Darin's "Somewhere Beyond the Sea", and he absolutely knocked us out with a very credible impersonation of Nat King Cole doing "Unforgettable", capping it with a verse where he took turns as both Nat and Natalie. It was a sell-out crowd, the audience was enthusiastic (except for the guy to my right, who sat with his arms tightly folded for the entire show), and the band responded in kind. After closing to standing ovation, the came back for a hot encore and had everyone up and dancing. The second encore tune was Leon Russell's "Masquerade"; it's one of Benson's signature tunes, and a personal favorite of mine. The capper, however, was "On Broadway", where everybody really got down. The percussion player in particular (looking like a buffed Favio) went of on an incredible break.

We left the hall thoroughly satisfied, and we strolled back to the hotel for a nightcap. Ron joined us, and he, Linda and Phil went on to another party at a techno club, but I called it a night and went up to my room.

So here it is, Sunday again. As I write, a Salvation Army marching band is parading past the hotel on Elizabeth Street. I have no idea what that is about. Last Sunday they had a big foot race: the City to Surf, the Sydney equivalent of Bay to Breakers; they even had costumes, but nowhere near as colorful as the SF version. For me however, it's back to work. The other guys are actually going in to the office, but I'm not needed there, so I'll just hang in my room and get my stuff together for next week. Part of me feels like I should be taking advantage of the opportunity to explore Sydney, but another part lacks the mental energy to mount the excursion, and I still feel the burden of my business responsibilities. I'm happy to wait for Janet to explore the Aussie world together. I miss the kids incredibly, and I miss all of you. As nice as it is here, I won't be back for a long time (at least a month), and that fact does a lot to dull the glamour of this trip. Next week will be brutal: a major executive review of the project, with the big bosses coming back from a trip to the States, where they were NOT impressed with the Siebel implementation they saw at Acer America. I am also scheduled to have the first draft of my Standard Operating Procedures document finished, so I'm under some personal pressure as well. Beyond that, we're tentatively scheduled to see an Aussie football game next weekend, so I'll give you a full report on that. Until thenÉ