aaaaaahhhh! shopping.

This weird thing happened today. It happened yesterday. I was better at it today than yesterday, but I didn't really like it very much.

I WENT TO THE SHOPS! I went to the MALL (or, Woden Plazza as it is technically known)

Made me realise how blissfully good I am at living without shopping.

So why was I at the shops?


vanity.



what was that?


you heard me....


well, its a long story, see, City to Soil is rolling out in Goulburn next week and I have been invited to do an interview with the local community radio station. Not the usual 30 second grab for the regional ABCs and commercial stations.....nup, no way, this is a 2 hours affair interspersed with music and stuff.

Anyhoo, I am most grateful for the opportunity to promote the new whole of town food and garden waste collection and composting extravaganza and honestly I am so obsessed with this project that I could talk about it for 2 DAYS. But what I was completely unprepared for was the request to bring along a few of my favourite CDs to play.........what?

Now let me think, when was the last time I bought a CD..........


Um. 10 years? Oh, wait a minute, I think I bought a Ben Lee CD in 2004.

Oh GOD, the whole of GOULBURN is going to find out I am a penny pinching DAG with no culture.

It is true I don't listen to a lot of music. But there is music in my SOUL and in the air and it comes out of the beaks of birds and the whispering wind. Honest. And really, I just like silence.

And when I do listen to stuff - A'LA traveling to Condobolin and back, I listen to Radio National. Have done for a million years. Well, religiously for 9 anyway.

I love being exposed to new and unusual music - love acoustic live music - I love Mozart. Serenade in B flat minor is my favourite piece in the world. We played it at our wedding. Did you know Mozart composed that piece for his own wedding? anyway.....I just don't need to OWN it.

Sometimes when I am zipping along country roads and some wonderful new band or song is featured on RN, I dangerously scribble it down with a pencil in the margins of some scrappy bit of paper, driving with one hand and avoiding pot holes and kangaroos (it helps to be left handed for this) but I never end up buying the CD - I just love to have the music wash over me and move me and anyhow I never go to the shops so when would I have a chance to buy it, and anyway, tomorrow I will be moved by the next wonderfully talented artist and will have lost the first piece of paper......

And I refuse to spend $$ on CDs.

So anyway, I flicked through an aged pile of obscure CDs from the 80's and 90's and deemed none of them suitable. Luckily the Biggest Hippy recorded the City to Soil song, and another song about recycling - so these will be PERFECT. (right, that's 2 out of the way)

So what about the others?

I cracked folks. I went and bought a CD. I did some market research (Mr Duck Herder, the Cougar, the Biggest Hippy) and they were no help at all.

I found the 2004 Ben Lee CD under the passenger seat in the car - and it is a bit scratched.


Anyway, I followed a few leads, chased up some of my favourite old artists (Kev Carmody etc), and rediscovered Sara Storer, and went and bought one of her's. I paid $32 for it! Got it home. And it was scratched. Took it back today. They didn't have another one. Got my money back. Went to Myer. They had one copy left. Still in plastic. Not Scratched. Paid $24 (much better)

So folks, I paid $24 for vanity.

It is a beautiful CD. She is marvelous. Her songs make me cry. All good music makes me cry. Thats why I don't buy it. Don't you see? I just cry all the time. Mozart makes me cry. Beautiful things make me cry as much as sad things.

Anyway, confesison time is over. I will be able to present myself with at least one CD from this century that I like. I can even infer that I listen to lots of music, but saying "I am listening to a lot of Sara Storer lately" which would be true - its the only CD I am listening to.

Duck Herder you are full of crap!