Looking for commas in the sand.

The fire and fossils edition.

Today I did a lot in doing nothing. There was a fire near us overnight. I heard the sirens at 2:45am as I was going to bed after writing another thing I write each week.

Looking at the emergency app, I see that it’s a fire on Chapel Street. It was a nightclub. The one over the road from Chasers.

It was called Bubble when a bunch of us put together Inpress magazine decades ago. On deadline Monday, we’d wait for the two or three nightclub photographers to amble in with the photos they took on the weekend.

We’d laugh when the Bubble photos came in. Lollipops, stupid pants and delirious, crazed eyeballs framed the pill deranged looks on the kids’ faces. It was funny but in the back of your mind, you couldn’t help thinking that some of those nights on those faces ended dangerously.

With reports of balaclava wearing men on the roof, the night ended dangerously for Bubble (now called Lux), last night.

Obviously, I had to have a look.

After dropping the kids off, I walked by. The road was closed and fire people were hosing it down. Bubble is done. Doubt the building will make it.

Here’s a fire fighter giving Bubble (which you can’t see), its last rites.

Life goes on.

It’s almost time for a break (or end of season one).

The past few weeks I’ve thought about giving this Substack thing a break for a week or seven. It’s not that I’ve run out of things to type about — each week is a brain adventure. It’s just that I wonder how much it’s worth doing when my usual freelance work has slowed down to almost a stop despite this thing’s tiny success.

Of course a lot of youse friends say lovely, thoughtful things about what happens here each week and you tell me your own stories.

But it’s tiring - it takes a lot of thinking to write this - I thought I would get a few more freelance briefs but looking at my Xero invoices, this looks like it’s going to be a worse year than last, which was, by a long way, the worst since I moved to advertising.

We need to talk more about underemployment.

There’s a bunch of us in the work I do struggling with this slowed down economy. I’ve heard from friends that it’s not just my industry. As Tom Waits would say, things are tough all over.

People I know are still dusting themselves off after over a year since a redundancy. Some who were used to bouncing from gig to gig have seen that bounce turn into a splat.

Us freelancers always try to put on a brave face, saying we’re doing okay, but the days are long. Whether you’re freelance by choice or not by choice, or looking for a permanent gig, there’s only so much of refreshing the LinkedIn feed one can take.

And as far as waiting for the reply to that permanent job you applied for a few weeks ago, it’s not coming. Nobody replies anymore, not even the robot application systems the bigger companies now use. Whatever the reason/excuse for this, it’s indecent.

A lot of us are thinking of moving to another type of job or even a step further, a different industry. I know I have but constant reinvention is so tiring.

So what does one do?

It’s hard to know what we do but we do it in our own quiet ways. the days are long, the self esteem takes a battering.

I see some people start projects related to their usual work. Some fold themselves into volunteer work at the school or the local sports team. I do some of that. There’s also dad stuff. But mostly I try to walk with a camera, pen and paper in my bag.

Though, this👇 is how I walked in the afternoon.

After the fire I went fossil hunting.

I went to the Beaumaris fossil beach to find fossils and something to write about. If you haven’t been, it’s one of best places in Australia to find fossils, and it’s only a bit over a half hour drive from the city.

Park in these streets, cross Beach Road and walk down past the motor yacht squadron clubhouse and here it is.

Sign of the prehistoric times

I was greeted by this guy who’s seen better days.

I love fossil hunting. It’s great to take the kids to find treasures but just as fun to do quietly by yourself on a weekday afternoon. Sure beats staring at the computer.

Walk slowly studying the pebbles, shells and detritus for special little things.

It’s a lot like proofreading, where you’re looking for comma that hasn’t been picked up on for a million years.

There’s a lot. Notice how the tides have sorted the sizes of rocks and stuff.

A lot of people are looking for prehistoric shark teeth. Megalodon and other prehistoric teeth have been found at this beach. I’ve never found a shark tooth there. I desperately want to. I’d see that as my big break of some sort.

You might get there and there is kelps and sea grasses and other yucky stuff dominating the beach. It accumulates to make a sea carpet which you can lift to find pebbles and maybe fossils underneath.

Have any of youse spoken to Mr Percival lately?

I’ve never seen so many pelicans as I did today. But I didn’t find many fossils, if any. It doesn’t really matter if you pick something up and it doesn’t turn out to be a fossil (yes, you’re allowed to take them home). Just pick up pretty or interesting things that make you happy.

Here’s what I took home today. Bits of naturally occurring iron and weird shaped things that I just like to look at. One might be part of a whale but it’s most likely knobbly iron. That middle thing with the pattern looks interesting. I’ll find out what it is next week.

Here’s a tiny few of the heaps of fossils - mostly urchins - we have around the house.

We put most of the others in the fishtanks.

I found this urban fossil near our place.

“I promise I’ll do it up” local man tells frustrated partner

Mmm… comfy.

What to watch.

I’m liking Day of the Jackal on Binge. Eddie Redmayne is terrific as the Jackal but his spy craft is the pits. He may be master of disguise but the way he walks so suspiciously in a cap away from chaos is laughable. Or when he has loud conversations about his next hit with his employer IN A LIBRARY. SSSSHHHHH… ENOUGH OF YOUR PLOTTING, I’M HERE TO READ, REDMAYNE.

I’ve watched hundreds of music documentaries/rockumentaries but I think Tribute could be the best. Follows a bunch of American cover bands in the 1990s. They work crappy jobs by day and are local rock star heroes by night. It’s a way of life. So many great scenes, you’ll think it’s all made up. But it isn’t. It’s real. Far too real.

It’s pretty much only available in this YouTube link. Get back to me when you’ve seen the audition scene. OMG. The audition scene.

Will there be a break for The Nightwatchman?

This week’s episode is the 22nd week running.

I think I can make it though for a couple more weeks.

We’ll see how it goes.