Are we on the brink?
War in Ukraine, floods in QLD and NSW and the anniversary of a much loved music industry leader ... it's a hard week to navigate.
This week, the masthead of the Advertiser was changed to yellow and blue, one small way to acknowledge the despair we all feel watching events unfold in Ukraine.
I am not the only one who has been sickened by the footage of the Russian army attacking Ukraine. I am not the only one feeling helpless, as the rest of the world seems unable, or unwilling to find a way to stop this brutal act of aggression.
As we all still struggle with the impact of a pandemic, our neighbours in the north are losing their homes to rising flood waters and the world seemingly totters on the brink of another catastrophic war, it’s hard not to wonder where it all went wrong.
The images from Ukraine, where people truly are fighting for their freedom, or people in Lismore and Brisbane watching their homes and belongings wash away, brings into perspective the complaints and proclamations by so-called “freedom fighters”, protesting against wearing a mask, or the consequences of their choice not to take a vaccine.
In the words of Spinal Tap, right now it feels like “too much f%#king perspective”.
For all humankind’s brilliance and inventiveness, for all the advances we have made, here we are in 2022, being engulfed in conspiracy theories, increasingly polarised and watching a world order crumble due to the belligerent whims of a ruthless dictator.
If the world order wasn’t enough to make me depressed, this all coincides with the one-year anniversary of the death of Michael Gudinski. A giant figure in the Australian music industry, he was also a massive influence in my life. My years at Mushroom were some of the best of my working life and I’m forever grateful for the opportunities Michael gave me. Long after I stopped working for him, Michael was still an incredible support – always willing to listen, always offering to help, still treating me as part of his extended musical family.
His endless enthusiasm for Australian music, his love of Melbourne, his belief in people was contagious. He was a cheerleader and a man who, when things were bad, liked to jump in and make good things happen. I feel like we could all do with a dose of that Gudinski-can-do right now.
I don’t have a musical recommendation this week, but if you’re looking for a brief respite from the unrelentingly grim state of the world, I recommend Spinal Tap – “Stonehenge”.
Personally, I’ll take a few tracks from the vast Gudinski catalogue of my musical library, starting with Paul Kelly – “Little Kings”, which, depressingly, feels as relevant now as when he released it back in 1998, followed by a nose-bleedingly loud blast of “Vow” by Garbage, to get my fighting spirit back.
