Cleaning dirty shell with beauty inside

Yoo. How are you today? I am at Arafura Pearl Farm at Beagle Bay, two hours north of Broome. Resources are mighty limited here, so here are some bare minimum details, if you're interested in pearl farming. Or some stuff that I've been up to. Or big, gigantic poisonous snakes.

I get up at 5:30 and watch the sunrise from the boat out to the pearl lines, and begin chipping the gnarly barnacles and purple amoeba formations and thick soups of oceanic wildlife cemented onto the shells. We work all day on the boat, and come back into land at 3pm. Then we kick it, hard. Suuuper tired, go to sleep at like 9.

First night I was here, I was going to brush my teeth and this massive King Brown was hanging off the roof and appeared hissing in front of my face. Yes, I nearly soiled myself, chilled in my room for a while (a long while, taking deep breaths), then went to brush with dinner plate eyes darting all over. Woo-whawasthat

We almost caught a 1 meter and a half long hammerhead shark on a line baited with a huge Travelli head that homie Jem caught.

Johnno, the Vietnamese-Australian, was on the banks of a creek digging for delicious fat mudcrabs when we saw a huge scaly tail in the mangroves to the right of our tinny boat. Big croc jumped down the bank into the water. We jetted. Daaaamn we jetted.

The cook Sarah cooks awesome food; we had pasta-stew (that's beef stew on top of those little tubes I don't know what they're called pasta) for lunch that we warmed on the diesel engine. Now it's almost time for tea (they call dinner tea; word!) I hope you are doing well, keep eating food, it keeps you alive. Mmmm, fooood.

Last day in Roebourne

Fish in front of the Ngarluma Resource Centre,
where I spent lots of afternoons drinking tea, and
stole biscuits. (Sorry yall)


Ernest Kerr and weird dude.
You have to talk super loud to Ernest, he's deaf.
Not to say he's not super cool, he's def a bro.
(no pun, no pun geeeez)

Alice, the artist of all artists. She smells like onions,
walks with a purpose, and doesn't
give a fuuuck. "Whatime-wego-in?!"

Loreen and I discuss the intricacies of her land depiction.
"Mmmyeess, this layer of rock is quite exquisite."
Actually, we were just like let's act like we're talking about it.
The stories behind the paintings, though, truly amazing stuff.

It's like we're both doing some funked improv with handpistols.
But Andrew was telling a story about falafel or shawarma
I think and how to present it to someone.
Proppa, son!


Huge thanks to Andrew, Sharmila, Jill, everyone in Roebourne, the boys at the courts, Cossack Crew, really, everyone I met in the village. You will be remembered. Thanks Moorumburri, I appreciate it, now I'm about to get on the boat today! yeeeah

More to come from Arafura Pearl Farm.

Places under the radar for millions of years

Bucky Graham, been painting warlu (snakes), now into turtles.  

Sea turtles, affirmative (yeah!)

      Coming up on my last couple days in Roebourne, Western Australia.  I will truly miss this village.  I was talking to my friend earlier how I felt a powerful family-oriented culture here similar to Hawaiian or Okinawan culture (something to do with islands, maybe?  everyone is an island. or remote places, I should say.  but not everyone is a remote).  The Aboriginal people are deeply and thoroughly connected through their families; many times I've been talking to someone about someone else and they've informed me "Oh yeah, that's my brother."  or "Mmm, you know my daughter is his nanna."  It's a real connection I feel- even as an outsider- that the family tree is also directly engrained into the land, like Shintoism in Japan.  Props to Moorumburri and the cousin-sisters from the Burrup and Croydon.  Word, family, word.  If any Murai's are reading this, that's what I say, thanks, from around the world.

      We went camping in the Chichester Mountains over the weekend.  It was an amazing trip.  This here is the best waterhole I've ever swam in.  The Pilbara region is desert, desert, and no rain, desert.  So many town around here rely on the freshwater springs that come from inland.  This is one of them, in Karajini National Park.  There are sheer cliffs that border these clear streams, and there was a huuuge rounded out hole/cave in a wall, where eras of erosion, I think from minerals as well as flowing water, carved out this cave.  A true Shrine of Nature.

      Here we are actin-a-fool up in a national park where we were the only people around for many kilometers, except for some crazy dude living with a full bed and amenities outside his lone hut who we skillfully avoided as we picked mangoes off an abandoned tree.  The rocks were amazing on the ground, like little people came and heaved the rocks around and painted deftly colored murals on each stone.  Really little, really talented people, simile-ly.  That looks like smiley.  Yeah, let's say they were smiley people, too.  Wha?...

      ....Annd yup, what's a road trip without a little car trouble?  We fixed a flat at Auski roadhouse in the middle of nowhere.  We thought we were going to be stuck there for weeks because we were parched for fuel and the power was out when we arrived.  Luckily the power came back on and the petrol tickers worked again.  But it was bloody hot. Please believe me when I say it was bloody hot.

    

      This is Millstream.  I wanted to trick the reader and flip the photo upside down so it looked like it wasn't a picture of a reflection in the Fortescue River.  But I don't know how to work this shizz.  Cools down right, though.  

Swimming in groundwater clear enough to read newspapers through, as long as you encase the paper in a big ziplock, is very healing, a different kind of immersion from the Indian Ocean.  But I am yet to immerse myself in the pearl farms of Broome, where I am taking the bus to in two days.  I shall not know how often I can write entries when I'm up there, but I'm pretty sure the well hasn't dried up yet.

Dude, I just jumped in my seat.  This huuuge beetle careened into the wall near my ear and made a sound like Goliath knocking.  Damn.  Hope you're well.   

There's something about the Indian Ocean...

I've always loved the ocean, it all started with the Knob Hill spot in Redondo, but there's something about the Indian Ocean that's real "spiritual" or whatever (words do no justice here). Maybe it's the minerals and the mixing of fresh and saltwater at the inlets in the Pilbara; maybe it's that it's connected to a bunch of islands in the vicinity. It could also be the fear that tries to grip me when I see little sharks and crocs swimming around. Anyway, we went to the ocean for a dip after work yesterday, and I was climbing around on these rocks that look like gigantic pieces of bark. My friend Sharmila took some photos of the idiot scrambling around up there, doing taichi and watching birds dive into the ocean for salmon. "Spiritual" Roooight, hehe.

The unshy wildlife and phenomenal natural occurences in the Pilbara are alive everyday, without fail. The fact that the ocean is connected to every other place in the world, like Venice, Ginowan, Catalina, and Sri Lanka makes me real happy when I swim in it.

Though I claim not to like Shakespeare (more Wordsworth and Blake, for me) I remember in A Comedy of Errors, one play that I actually really enjoyed, a brother is a drop of water searching for another drop- his twin- and he delivers this elaborate soliloquy about how a drop when joined into the ocean isn't a drop anymore, but becomes a massive entity that's part of a whole. Or something like that. I butchered it. Haha, in your face Shakespeare. But I like that idea. Truly. Connects me back to everyone back home, my girl in Okinawa, the Inuit in Greenland cleaning his seal blubber in the fjord over there. Take it back to the village, dry it up, save it for winter!

Then I went to play basketball in the village. They just recently got government funding for this dope outdoor basketball court, which is easily the nicest facility for the people, by the people (Jill Churnside, my homie's mum, apparently fought the battle against the government and corporate land-drillers for it). I ball up with the local boys a couple times a week, and it's super fun.

Roebourne basketball is like Brazilian football to me (woo have you been watching the Champions League? Wooooo Barcelona!) - musical and poetic, with tobacco no-taco acro-dunks. (wtf does that mean? duh, smokers, absent shredded carne, and windmills all go together, of course.) (yeah, spiritual.)

And here's my homie Noonie who paints wicked paintings, and we took this photo for his RAG profile. He's been in prison more than half his life, and a lot of Aboriginal people get thrown in maximum security for some of the stupidest shit- like drunk driving and stealing- but now Noonie is super into painting and is a true PROfessional. Word. Good onya, mate. We chill a lot; he's been teaching me a bit of painting, too.

I'll miss this place, but I'm getting my Greyhound Australia ticket up to Broome for next Thursday, where I will be up on the pearl farm, finally. Days on end on the Indian, yes. Can't wait. Hope all is well wherever your home is. Late.

Dude, it's just about summertime

Ahh, the beauties of technology in the face of hot desert winds.  My camera isn't working very well, so I haven't been able to upload pictures to this well thing, but oh well, that's well anyway, yeah?  So it feels like spring has passed, and now we're coming into summer in Australia (October to February, I think.  They say that December is the hottest time ever) and awaiting these massive cyclones brewing in the Indian Ocean.  It's really hot here.

We went out last week hunting for kangaroo with one of the elders, a park ranger, and we got two.  It was dope; I was the spotlight guy.  The thing with the Ngarluma people is that they don't waste much in the ways of bush tucker, and they know exactly where and when to get good, fresh roo, emu, fish, or goanna (bigass lizards that apparently taste really good).  Had some kangaroo-stew the other night in the bush, and it was just plain heavenly.  Really good stuff.  And there's plenty of kangaroos out there, too... they hop across the highways at night, to their unfortunate demise in four-wheel-drive headlights.  I guess they're kinda like deer.

Hope all is well where your computer functions, and my thoughts go out to all the people affected by the crazy fires in LA.  Is everything coo over there?  Peace (especially for Rangoon).

Yeah, that's me. The Bus Driver

Bujee-Nhoor-Pu represeeeennt fooooo.  This place is dope.  I'm living the Otto dream.  Driving a nice bus, talking to people about paintings, working with coo people, getting to know the land... things are coo.  Work's been getting a bit busier, bussing people to and from Roebourne and neighboring towns (by neighboring I mean like 4o minutes going 115 km/hr, not like Benito's to 5o's Cafe, or a quick skate to the courthouse... aahh, good ol west LA.)  I got a car tape mp3 adapter thing today, so now I can bump my own tunes for my passengers, although the Triple J radio station aint bad at all.  They were playing aaalll these songs off the new Radiohead album today.  I liked some of them.

So here are some photos of where I work, I think if you sniff the screen enough you can smell the air (dooo it!)

And it was pretty gnarly last night, we came home from work and there was all this smoke in the air, and we didn't know where it came from.  I've witnessed quite a few bushfires around, with big clouds of smoke billowing into the air (ahha, billowing, haha)  and smelled them too, when there are a lot.  This is the super arid outback, and along with gigantic spiders and frogs in the shower drain there are these fires that move quick on the spinifex grass.  So we looked out the window, our eyes all squinting from the really strong wind, and saw this crazy fire just up over the hill near town.

We were like, uhh, that's pretty close to town.  We drove up the hill to Mt. Welcome, and saw this big fire like a mile out of town.  Then later, after we borrowed some scissors from Jill, Andrew's momma, we came back and the volunteer firefighters were kinda circling around the fire, didn't really seemed like they knew what they were doing.  So they called backup, and they waited a while, scoping out the fire's movements, then like after a while, when we were back home chillin, they put it out.  So it really wasn't that big of a deal.  It looked and smelled pretty cool.  Stay tuned for more frog-inspired notifications.

Posted up for a bit

Hey, what's the going on... here's an update in my battle with the crocodile, That Foo. That Foo has taken it underground. Or under-inlet-that-adjoins-the-ocean-with-small-streams. I haven't seen him since my first day in Roebourne. I have plenty of time, too, seeing that I now work in out at Cossack, right near where That Foo can spy on me. But little does TF know that I'm on it; I got radio-controlled submarines and croc-sonar in my control room. (jk, i just got a nice knife and some paint brushes.)

No worries, though, they're only dangerous if you go in the water. That Foo will not be getting into my workplace. So yes, as of now I've decided to post up here in Roebourne with Andrew and Sharmila until mid-November to save up some cash for my move to Broome- the pearl farms, my ultimate goal. Sharmila hooked me up with a really, really, reeeally dope job. More details to come, but I run the Bujee-Nhoor-Pu art center/gallery, part of the Roebourne Art Group-RAG- near the ocean. It's siiiick, I help out with the Aboriginal artists, clean up the building, sell paintings and my Chinaman soul to tourists (haha the tourists here are gnarrrly, like, daisy dukes old gentlemen galore). I'm also the bus-driver who picks up whoever wants to go paint every morning from the ghettos of Roebourne and Cheeditha, and bring them back in the afternoon. It's a little 12-seat Toyota HiAce, wicked fun to drive. Isaac and I have been working on getting some shelves up in the building, and I get to do a bit of painting. Like at the farmers' market. Long live WLAFM! (Handle that Seth.)

I'm at the RAG office right now, and I took some photos of my work environment today but I don't have my cable, so I'll post up the pics the next time. Word. Still can't wait to get up on the boats in Broome. Thanks to yall who have been letting me know how you're doing. Thanks world. The well is not yet dry.