Projects

Previous: A slice of blog

More athletes need to blog. The next couple provide some insight into the world of elite swimming:

SwimSean - Life Around Swimming
I'm learning now that my moods can be very volatile. Some days I love my swimming and can't wait to get to the pool, then the next day I'll be looking for any excuse not to go.

Owen Morgan
Looking back I possibly just needed to relax and let it flow a bit more. Plenty more in the tank I fear...

Hmm... I was hoping to find a few more blogs. Oh well... moving on...

daily dancer
My dancing inspirations are characters like Napoleon Dynamite, who are geeks like myself, but don't let that stop them from sharing their passions for dancing.

I'm a bit partial to the odd bit of daggy dancing myself! To think that someone felt the need to post one daggy dance every couple of days or so is funny. You just have to appreciate the commitment to express geekiness through dance.

Camera Toss (The Blog)
Basic tossing tips: 1. Be careful - Yes it sounds obvious...

No shit! Anyway, some of the pictures that emerge look quite interesting. Certainly some are intriguing enough to make you wonder just how the photographer managed to create some of the patterns. But probably most intriguing thing is the idea that someone would endanger a handful of expensive technology for a pretty picture. If you have questionable hand-eye co-ordination I would suggest you not try this at home and let others do the work.

www.BrandonFlyte.com
When I showed my Marine Biology class the film [Brokeback High], the snuggle scene --which I might add was very tastefully done-- was left in. Apparently the administration thought that this was a big enough violation to warrant an expulsion. Only, it’s not being called an expulsion.

Quite articulate for a straight boy. Even more compelling is the fight he's having with the school administration, the local media... Is this all a crap publicity stunt to further his career in filmmaking? As Brandon says in his blog, we'll see where this goes.

Tags: Commonwealth Games, daggy, dance, photos, gay, Brokeback High, blogs.

Managed to score a couple of tickets to the rehearsal of the Commonwealth Games Opening Ceremony. Was initially worried that I would not be able to take in my digital camera, considering the media bans that have been imposed, but was delighted that the ban only extended to “professional quality” cameras. Having never been in the ‘G, it was quite spectacular to finally see it, it’s such an awesome and expansive venue; I don’t remember being this impressed when I first saw Sydney’s Telstra Stadium.

Anyway, the show was entertaining enough: lots of colour and movement. But from Bay Q5, all the way up on level four, the performers were so far away. Even the tram-with-wings looked like a small token on some board game. The dancers from the Australian Ballet were also featured but it was impossible to distinguish them but they looked pretty; the crazy big tutus looked cool. But what was with the duck? And the backyard cricket was a bit of a non-event. Nevertheless I enthusiastically yelled the names of all the previous host cities when the audience was directed to and I even sang the national anthem loudly and proudly (nice to hear the second verse, too!)

Here's some lovely pictures. Hush-hush, though, it's all a secret!

tags: Commonwealth Games, Melbourne, Melbourne2006, Opening Ceremony, Australian Ballet.

I (heart) U Jhuny 9
Originally uploaded by Jhuny.

JPB and I will always have Melbourne. He came down to visit me last week and it was brilliant. The delicious dinner at Ciccolina in St Kilda, afternoon drinks at Transport, seeing Capote, getting trapped by a flash flood on Brunswick street...

The initial idea was for us to film and take photos for the latest Tourism Australia international ad campaign at Rainbow Valley last weekend but rain in the central desert forced the producers to delay the shoot. There was even a suggestion that the shoot would be moved to Uluru but the claypans of the valley had sufficiently dried out for us to proceed.

Which turned out to be a good thing. For no matter how spectacular the big red rock is, I’m glad we ended up coming to Rainbow Valley. With the expansive flatness of the cracked white claypans, it was an incredibly dramatic view and I guess it would have been far more preferable to be dancing on the soft white clay than the rough red dirt of Uluru. And the large sandstone formation had its own lighting tricks that, especially at dusk, would take our breath away.

Getting there was an ordeal, though. A three-hour flight from Sydney was followed by a bus trip that ended on a deafeningly rough stretch of dirt road. Every part of the bus rattled so noisily, and we were bouncing around in our seats. I again suffered from sinus problems from the aircraft’s air-conditioning and Telfast has simply stopped working two or three pills ago. But finally we spied what looked like a terrific bite out of the worn-down sandstone hills, which made the agony of travelling all worth it in the end. Interestingly enough it’s the less dramatic-looking hill to the south-east of the big bite that is the sacred site though there are some rocks around the main geological feature that are off-limits as well.

It was mid-afternoon on Friday when we started to prepare for the first photo shoot. The Sun was still quite brutal, the temperature was around the forty mark, and we were constantly being warned to drink water whenever possible. Nevertheless, the lack of moisture in the air made the conditions seem quite bearable; it was much more preferable than the horrible mid-thirties mugginess that we were experiencing at our Sydney studios over the last couple of weeks. Much later in the afternoon, just after sunset, the temperature became more comfortable but we then had to deal with the large number of flies which became a particularly bad problem when we had to hold poses for the camera.

Photo shoots are already an exhausting process, repetitive and exacting, but to do it in such harsh conditions was terribly draining. On Saturday we had a dawn photo shoot as well as an afternoon filming and by the end we were all delirious. The dawn photo shoot was particularly frustrating and by the end of it I certainly wasn’t looking forward to the filming, one would think that it would be harder. But, despite the added complexity of filming movement as opposed to capturing still moments, there were so many more people involved one would think that the process would be far harder to co-ordinate, it ended up being so much easier. The greater the logistical problem, the greater it is necessity of organization. What helped were the regular breaks to keep us fresh and hydrated, although I guess in this instance the dancers were not the central focus so we were only given quite general direction. Not only that but we had the extra adrenaline boost from having a helicopter flying over the top of us!

And all the way through, we couldn’t help but take our own photos of the landscape. It was certainly a great way to break in my new digital camera.

Tags: Bangarra, Dance, Rainbow Valley, Northern Territory, Commercial.

So the last couple of posts have been a touch morbid. So to make up for it, I've got some lovely pictures!

On the right is the main intersection of the town where I grew up. Nothing much has changed, except the traffic lights got put up after I left. Can you feel the heat and humidity? It was about 36C that afternoon and the clouds were threatening to burst; they didn't, though, it was just hot and muggy.
The dog's name is Badyou (pronounced "Badge-oo") he kinda looks cute in a scruffy kind of way. My parents also have goats, and they sure do like to pose!

And finally, here's a picture my Dad took. Seems like it's not just the people that like a good beer...

The police officer asked me how fast I was going: “I think I was going 110”. “You realise this is a 100 zone?” Crap. Way to go admitting to a cop that I was speeding. In fact, for the entire journey up until the car ended up on its roof on the side of the road I was pretty much averaging 110 anyway, I was in too numb at the time to fabricate a lie. Still, skid marks notwithstanding, there’s no way he could prove I was speeding and, besides, much of the highway from Darwin to Katherine has no speed restrictions so luckily I wasn’t going faster.

Because if I was going faster maybe I would have lost control of the car earlier… maybe…

After the cop had stepped out the length of the skid marks on the road he came back and told me that, in his experience and what information he gathered, it looked like I was ‘gunning it’ more than 110. Earlier on he had referred to me as a ‘boy’ (thanks to my *youthful* complexion) and immediately I got an idea of the kind of person he judged me to be: a reckless young speeding male, he had mentally placed me in THAT demographic. I know that demographic well, I had been in enough cars with lunatic, testosterone fuelled young Katherine male drivers taking all sorts of risks; not a lot, but definitely enough.

A few kilometers down the road, a few moments back in time, I WAS going faster. But not that much faster, it wasn’t like I was ‘gunning it’ at all: I was overtaking and I had hit 120 when the car started to shake. Sensing something wrong I decided to ramp it down to 110 and, knowing that I was only an hour out of town, hoped (foolishly perhaps) that I would make it home to sort it out. At the time of the blow out, I had it in my head that 110 was going to be my maximum speed all the way home. But arguing with the cop wasn’t going to get me anywhere.

There was no acceptable reason why the tyre blew out as they were new and only just replaced a few months ago. But the brand of the tyre was Bridgestone; once the cop and the guys with the tow truck saw this they immediately began to recount stories of other tyre blowouts in the area involving Bridgestone tyres. Apparently Bridgestone tyres are unreliable but knowing this gives me no comfort, they simply shouldn’t have failed.

That being said, as far as tyre blowouts are concerned, this was thankfully a pretty lacklustre event. There was no oncoming traffic. It was a rear tyre, not a front one that blew out. I didn’t panic and slam on the brakes (and I’m really surprised that I didn’t do that!) instead I just kept on telling myself to keep the car on the road as long as possible, which I did, I managed to just miss the large sign on the opposite side of the road. I was wearing a seat belt. I had a satellite phone. The car that I overtook was not that far behind (in my mind, this was the saving grace for the case for me only doing 110 because their car was having problems, too, and they too decided to stick to a reduced speed). The car I was driving was a tank and did not lose any of its structure.

The game of “What If?” is truly a waste of energy. And yet it’s so easy to slip into that mode: Whilst typing the previous paragraph I initially typed by mistake: “I managed to hit the large sign”. Had this actually occurred the outcome would have been much different, and for the worse. Twenty-four hours later and the alternative scenarios (mainly the detrimental ones) still makes their way into my brain. I have to try to focus on what actually happened. Knowing that it could have been a lot worse doesn’t help at all.

I have to remember that it was just a freak accident. I did the best that I could and the car’s sturdiness did the rest. I have to remind myself that I walked away from it without even one scratch.

BTW I unfortunately don’t remember the names of the two people in the car that saw the whole thing, that helped me out and waited with me until the police arrived, but I just want to thank them for being so kind. I’d also like to thank the police officer, the guys with the tow truck, and the firemen for helping out as well, and my Dad for picking me up (he told the people blocking off the road to “fuck off, my son is in there!”) and driving me to Katherine. Thanks to the many people that slowed down to ask if I needed any help (even the random guy that took the opportunity to dump his worn-out shoes on the side of the road). Sorry to all those drivers that had to wait until my car was loaded on the truck.

Tags: Car Accident, Tyre Blowout, Northern Territory, Stuart Highway, Photos.

I'm not a particularly big fan of Madonna's music. I can't get passionate about the music she puts out there. I think her persona is far more fascinating for me and for a lot of people.

- Alison Goldfrapp

You make a few well-timed comments about Madonna and suddenly there's alot more interest about you than usual. In Goldfrapp's case, Madonna takes a few pointers from you ("Like It Or Not", a track off the latest album that I'm starting to like more...), you make a few comments and suddenly everyone's asking questions. Or, in my case, you devote some blog space talking about Madonna's new single and album and suddenly your hits counter is going ballistic or, more realistically, it splutters around the 50 per day mark and then goes all quiet again. Kylie doesn't have that kind of effect, even after talking about the televised snippets of her Showgirl concert. And now that the initial excitement about Madonna's new album has died down a bit I don't know if this desperate ditch for hits will attract that kind of attention again.

It's been on my mind for a while now: What do I have to do to get hits? As a gay blog there aren't nearly enough pictures of naked men and stories of exciting sexcapades to entice the pink readers but I just simply don't want to do that. In terms of pop culture I guess my taste lies in the no-man's-land between the overly maintstream and the downright geeky. And contemporary dance has never had a large audience, on stage or in blog space. Sure, I started this thing (almost twelve months ago now!) for my own interest but now that there is a bit of an audience out there, why not try to get MORE of an audience? Without losing the "essence of Jhuny"...

A few concise and well-timed references to things that would conceivably generate alot of hits?

I've got a couple of weeks in the middle of nowhere to have a think about it some more. In anycase, this site is due for a re-design anyway...

Tags: Goldfrapp, Madonna, Kylie Minogue, hits, pop, blog.

Pictures taken at a certain party on the weekend.

This is what happens when you get really drunk and fall over. Not. I wasn't that drunk. Anyway, I got the idea from this guy that has this site with cool (better) pictures from people that like throwing their expensive digital gadgets around. Not something that I would normally do; then again, I was quite drunk that night...

Tags: Photos, lights, Kinetic Photography.

UPDATE: Further investigation reveals that these pictures cannot technically be described as Camera Toss, rather they're more accurately described as Kinetic Photgraphy. These pictures are a result of me twirling my camera from it's strap on my wrist whilst standing in front of the party lights. Not really tossing my camera but I didn't realise that there were quite specific criteria...

that munanga linguist.
ebribodi bin make me proud tudei. ebribodi bin dum rili gud job tudei.

Ever see someone blog in kriol before? Read a bit of Alawa? Well here's your chance! The thing that I love most about this blogger is that his everyday work is quite extraordinary. Culture continues to be threatened and, although there isn't any explicit prohibition of speaking traditional languagues, there's still the problem of John Howard, not to mention the more local obstacles.

I first met this guy on my first tour with Bangarra to Brisbane in 2003, after being initially shocked at meeting someone outside of the NT that has intimate knowledge of Katherine. Since then, we've kept in contact; it's good to have a mate to hang out with when I'm visiting the family at home.

PostSecret.
Reveal anything - as long as it is true and you have never shared it with anyone before.

JPB turned me on to this one quite recently. There's a similar site that's also allows people to confess secrets but this one shows off other people's creativity as well. Whether or not these confessions are actually true is something else but it looks interesting, I'll be back.

Mashup of the Week Podcast.
Hey - back for another serving of Mash? Well we've always got plenty o' that for ya.

You can never OD on Mash. Trust me...

Miss McDonald.
The Miss McDonald project began as a Halloween costume...

Filipinos are funny, aren't they? This is truly bizarre and quite funny, especially the really mundane ones like when Miss McDonald goes to the dentist or when she cleans up the yard.

Random thoughts and occasional interesting information... but mainly random thoughts.
The thing about these blogs I like is these people have a purpose. And whatever shit happens to them along the way, they are still on the way to something.

I lived with Nina in Perth for three years when we were both going to WAAPA and it's good to see her out there in the world... somewhere... She's a singer, she's a creative type of person, and she likes a good drink.

Tags: Blogs.

We were looking down on the homosexuals again. When I arrived, the gang were playing with lighters. Luckily I brought along my camera!

tags: Fire.