Dream Burnie by Justin Heazlewood

Justin Heazlewood and I have a bit in common. It's tempting to make more of this than there really is; because he's talented, witty, poetic, musical, courageous, quite successful and he is really rowing his own boat, artistically. 

The similarities? We're both from Burnie. I also enjoy writing, I am an artist, and I also did not know what a souvlaki was until I left Burnie. 

The differences are;

• I am twelve years older
• I do not have the degree of drive or courage to be original and fully myself that Justin has
• I grew up with two parents who had it together; he was caring for his single mum who had schizophrenia.
• and I went to Burnie Primary/Burnie High while he was Montello Primary/Parklands High. Primaries in Burnie were pretty much similar I reckon but PHS was a much tougher proposition than BHS. I bumped along without ever working anything much out at high school while I feel that across town you had to have a strategy to survive those four years.

If you don't know anything about Burnie it's an industrial town and port on the north west coast of Burnie. It's surrounded by dairy farms and forestry. Burnie's full-employment commodity-exporting days are in the past now, and it is trying to survive on tourism, like everywhere. But… I am not an expert on 2025 Burnie at all. I lived there for 18 years until moving to Hobart for uni in 1986.

I first became aware of Justin around 2005 as a muso and personality on Triple J called The Bedroom Philosopher. He was witty and sophisticated, but employed a genuine understanding of his (our) daggy regional background which he deployed as both a weapon and a shield. I subscribed to his email newsletter and over the years we've corresponded just a bit.

Justin has now written a book called Dream Burnie which is really a physical souvenir of a whole Dream Burnie project. I would describe it as a thorough excavation of the surprising artistic life of Burnie and it's people over the last several decades. 

You can buy a copy here

There are about 30 interviews here with people who grew up or worked in Burnie or were even inspired by Burnie to create art, music, games, films, animations, sculpture and indescribable hybrids of same. There's an anthology of Justin's own work in here. And a scrapbook of great Burnie ephemera that captures that time at the Dawn of Desktop Publishing.

I have only dipped into it until this week (my sister Sally and her husband Matt are featured subjects so I started there). But now I am reading it front to back and it's taken my breath away a couple of times. Nostalgia is a corrosive drug etc yadda yadda but I think a lot of what’s in here should resonate with anyone who feels like the time and place they're in is stifling their voice or clipping their wings.

What Justin demonstrates through his careful sifting of these stories is that our DUMB TOWN, our PAPER MILL PAINT FACTORY WOODCHIP PILE 7BU FOOTBALL town, was and is full of creative and original young thinkers, who could have connected, and sometimes did, to feel like they weren't alone.

There was the Coastal Art Group and rock bands and brass bands and the Musical Society and the Jazz Club and so on – I'm not saying it was a cultural desert. Like Sally, I went to art school in Hobart and so did a dozen of my contemporaries from Burnie and the coast. But it's honestly surprising to me to see the talent and really the word I keep thinking is courage of so many souls who sprang from the chocolatey brown soil of this town. The art pedigree of the joint outdoes the football pedigree to be honest.

If you are Tasmanian you will have likely encountered the Dream Burnie roadshow by now. He's been pretty brash and he's not just quietly hoping the books sell themselves. I may have thought "Come on mate give it a rest" once or twice. But it's a bloody good book, I am very glad to have got my hands on one and I might even write a part 2 to this rave review rave once I have read it entirely.

Now I have to drop him a line and ask if he pinched my Cooee Cordials logo artwork because I am pretty sure he did.

Hello Arthur

I have just heard that Sally and Matt's first child, Arthur David Warren, arrived early this morning. It sounds like everyone is well, and I'm looking forward to meeting the little fella soon. We are delighted to have another boy cousin for Marcus and Michael - we are on comfortable ground with boy babies.

The joys of sitting down! / Birth imminent! / Larks in parks

We went to a cocktail party for Greta and Michael's combined 40ths on Saturday night. It was at the same venue as a wedding we attended in January, and we were a bit concerned that we would be standing up all night again. As we drove past looking for a park, we were thrilled to bits to see through the window chairs! And tables!

Michael is effectively a property developer. He has built and sold a series of houses and units. We always feel sorry for Greta and the kids, who obediently move on from one project to the next with him. On Saturday they announced they are building a place for keeps, or at least for ten years. And its just down the road! When they said they had bought a block in South Hobart I guessed it right off, as there aren't many.

We got a table with Nick and Anna and hung out around it all evening, sneaking off at about 11.30. The kids were nearby at Imp and Ed's and we stayed the night there too. The next morning we got up, scoffed some fabulous fat pancakes with lemon butter, and scooted home for the next thing.

Sally is getting verrrrrry close to having her baby, and we are giving her the cot that Marcus, Michael and Millie next door slept in. Does this mean their baby will be another M? Merhaps.

Nick and Anna and the girls came around in their ute for morning tea. Nick and I took the cot up to Sal and Matt's, and Matt and I wiggled it into what was Matt's studio, and will now be the nursery. It's always a moment of truth, when a room that is going to be the nursery actually acquires its' cot. Its one of the little steps that says "OK, this really happening - we are soon going to have a noisy, messy flatmate about a foot long". This matters much more to dads - by 39 weeks mums are in absolutely no doubt that something is going on.

Sal and Matt live behind an old shop, which is now a shared studio space, and a vacancy came up just at the right time for them to move their stuff there from the house. Their kitchen is bare, a paddling pool stands by deflated but proudly ready to serve - one day pretty soon there's a gonna be some natural birthin' round these parts.

We came home, morning tea snudged along a little more, then Nick and Anna and the girls left us. I went out to paint and sand the front railings a little more - this project is now into its' fourth month. While I worked, some yahoos drove past and yelled something - I couldn't make it out but it was directed at me.

An hour or so later the yahoos came to the house - turned out it had been Imp and Ed and the girls, and their buddies Lousie and Ashley and their kids Freya, Will and Max. Although they all live down at Kingston, they are big fans of the Cascade Gardens just downhill from us, and they had just been there. We had afternoon tea, and then took everyone for a walk up to Wellesley Park behind our house.

I can't really write objectively about the spot where we live - it's just superb. We live in a great place. And we enjoy taking people around and showing it off. The best thing about W Park is possibly just that it's right there, we go out the back gate and we're in it, and it's just a big space, really. No fences, not much in way of amenities, kind of lumpy and scruffy, but it's got a lovely outlook up to the mountain and over the river. There's usually no-one else around, and we simply love it. Louise and Ashley thought it was pretty good too.

Birthday part 1

I had my 42nd birthday last week. Ideally I like birthdays to just slide by without much fuss. I think it's because I don't like fuss generally, rather than any dislike of growing old. I actually find growing old quite interesting. Anyway, a small amount of fuss was made, and that was OK. My mum and dad drove down to spend a few days with us, and Elf cooked a nice curry dinner. On my actual birthday she had to organise a work event, so I cooked a nice salmon dinner for myself, Mum and Dad and the kids, and Sally and Matt came over too. I scored a couple of nice books as gifts, one on the history of Penguin book covers was particularly beaut [but I chose it so that is perhaps cheating].

Elf knew I wouldn't stand for a party, but she had a great idea instead. She sent stamped addressed envelopes and cheap 'n' cheerful blank birthday cards to all my friends she could find addresses for, and reminded them it was my birthday. The cards arrived en masse over a few days. It took me a while to twig that there was something afoot. The writing on the envelopes was suspiciously familiar, and the messages on some of the 30 cards betrayed bemusement and/or slight reluctance. They cracked me up.

Despite all this I was a bit of a sad sack for a lot of the week. Minor things kept going wrong (after the major thing, losing my glasses) and I had a continual feeling that if everything would just STOP ... ah, it would be so nice. But it didn't. Since New Years Day I have lost my wallet and glasses and my watch has stopped for good (ironically) - so in general I am not quite feeling myself.

Family update

Marcus has been in 2 national maths competitions this year. He was given a distinction in the first one, and the other day we heard he pinged a High Distinction in the 2nd one! That puts him in the top 1% in the state for Grade 3. And he's the youngest kid in Grade 2. His teacher showed me a Grade 5 maths test she gave him this morning - he got 98%.

Down at the Gifted Association they say that a truly gifted child is not simply capable of managing at a higher level; give them work from a grade or two above and they will knock the ball out of the park.

So I have taken a few steps back, looked at Marcus with fresh eyes, and said to myself - he is gifted and we have to stay awake to this, and keep bringing him fresh challenges.

Michael said he would only get out of bed and come up to breakfast this morning if I carried him. I was happy to do this as I will take any chance I get to give him a good squeeze. Halfway up the stairs he said I also had to say our phone number. After I reeled it off, he repeated the last 4 numbers and said "that's the chorus".

My younger sister Sally is about to do something that the boys will never achieve - she's giving birth in April! It's really exciting news, we can still hardly believe it. Sal and Matt are dedicated contemporary artists (picture computers, latex, gravel and guitars - not so much the palette, easel and beret) and up to this point their total frugal dedication to the Big A has seemed incompatible with parenthood. But they have lots of friends who are artist/parent equally, so I know they can do it too.

Elf's 40th birthday is coming up. She is planning a cocktail party, and has been in touch with a Cocktails Contractor. This interesting older lady (who admits she likes to combine work and play) left this rather racy book with us, from which to choose a few recipes. At some point one of the nieces drifted off downstairs with it, studied it carefully and left this note nearby.


Obviously, apologies to all family members mentioned in the same post as this lurid though dated bit of soft porn.