A powerful Eric Bogle anti-war song sung by John McDermott. The photos are from World War One, Gallipoli campaign in Turkey, 1915 , in which the Australians fought.

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One of my all time favourite songs is Ben E. King’s ‘Stand By Me’. He co write the song with Jerry Leiber and Mike Stollers and released it in 1961.

Here’s the original song sung by Ben E. King.

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Now listen to the international version from the award-winning documentary, “Playing For Change: Peace Through Music”.

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Both are inspiring and I never get tired of listening to this song.

Nilsson’s song ‘Everybody’s Talking At Me’ is 40 years old and it still resonates with me.

It’s a great song and was used in the classic movie ‘Midnight Cowboy’ starring Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman.

The lyrics and sound of the song suggests  leaving things behind and making a fresh start somewhere else.

We’ve all probably had, at some stage in our lives, faced the situation of having to leave something behind, such as a job, or a personal or professional relationship, and starting all over again.

And those can be painful experiences which we sometimes supress into our subconcious.

But we shouldn’t forget what we have left behind no matter how painful it is as it’s those experiences that make us who we are.

It provides us with an experience that we can draw strength from knowing that we survived and moved on with our lives.

And it also can  helps us better accept that experience  as part of one’s life journey. Something of the past that no longer interferes with living in the present.

Perhaps it really is ‘one step forward, a glance backwards.’

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Easy Rider is one of my favourite films and it certainly gets my nostalgic juices flowing back to the late 1960′s.

Watching this clip from the movie and listening to the Byrds sing ‘The Ballad of Easy Rider’ brings back many memories of a young lad dreaming of escaping what I thought was a boring life at that time.

I wanted to jump on a ‘hog’ and tear down Brunswick Street Fitzroy,  head out into the countryside like my heroes in the film, Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper.

And I did.

Everytime I watched the film.

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Footnote: One day I’m going to count the number of times Dennis Hopper says ‘Man’ in the film. I’ve lost count but I’m sure it’s more times than I have had hot dinners

Last Sunday I had a complete vegie (relaxed) day after a full on working week.

I needed to rest my brain and just do nothing. Which I did in abundance.

During that week the old brain was firing on all synapses. I ran three of our  Pozitive Kidz are happy kidz workshops in a morning.

The next day I travelled to Cape Schanck (Melbourne Australia), a tourist area on the coast, about a 90 minute drive from where I live.

I ran three workshops for Year 10 students on the theme of resilience, two workshops in the morning and one in the afternoon.

And on Friday we had three business meetings in town.

By the time Sunday came around, my eyes opened but my brain shut down so it was time to relax.

I woke up late, read a few pages of a Dexter novel and just meandered around the house doing as little as possible.

It was Chris’s day off.

And we all need our day off.

Yes, I know you have no time. You are too busy. You’ll do it later.

But if you don’t factor in at least one vegie day a week you will stress out.

And if you leave it go for too long you will stress out big time.

So if you are feeling down and out then go ahead and take a day off.

I won’t tell anyone.

Promise.

I generally like to relax completely because of the high level of energy used in our presenting, facilitating and training work.

And occassionally I take  a Ferris Bueller Day Off to unwind.

If I don’t I will unravel!

I remember going to the Melbourne Town Hall in the early seventies to watch the hottest act around at the time – Daddy Cool.

I was in the balcony and Daddy Cool had the whole place rockin’. People poured into the aisles, both upstairs and downstairs dancing away. It was fantastic.

Even staid old me jumped up and did what I thought were some pretty cool moves. It probably looked like a chicken running around with its head cut off. But that didn’t worry me. I kept dancing.

Then it happened.

At exactly midnight the power was turned off and the concert stopped dead. I felt like a cheated Cinderella.

What triggered this memory of nearly forty years ago?

Well, I had my lunch break today after making a million business calls and I decided to kick back and watch a Daddy Cool DVD.

Yes. I am not ashamed to admit it. I am a closeted Daddy Cool fan. There I have said it. I feel better now.

Watching the early TV spots of Daddy Cool brought back a lot of memories.

• FJ holdens

• Hot pants – no, I wasn’t wearing them, the girls did

• Long hair – a very distant memory for me

• Mickey Mouse T shirt

• Molly Meldrum without his slouch hat – sorry, had to mention him, he had his head in the video

Excuse me.

I off to watch the dvd again.

While I’m away here’s Daddy Cool’s big hit ‘Eagle Rock’.

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Back in the early sixties, Australian pop singer, Lucky Starr, sang his hit tune I’ve Been Everywhere. In a rapid fire delivery he belted out several names of all the places he had visited.

Besides being a catchy tune and one that I still enjoy, the song reminds me of all the places where I have coached, trained, presented or facilitated using Tai Chi.

And I feel like I have been everywhere too.

Five places that stick in my mind are unfortunately memorable for all the wrong reasons. Despite the best intentions from the organizer of the event and myself, here is what happened.

I found myself …

• Teaching a Tai Chi session in a gymnasium with a band practicing next door

• Presenting at a conference held in a winery, which had a large room of tables, no stage and several pillars in the middle of the room

• In a library with over sixty participants, where some had to stand in the aisles to fit into the room

• In an office area, where non participants occasionally walked through the group and my presentation

• In a hall where there was no air conditioning, after lunch when it was 35 degrees outside, to a group of people who did not want to be there

Often organisers have no choice in the rooms they have available to offer a presenter.

They can be restricted by budgets, rooms available on a given day and many other factors that can come into play when organising an event.

Organisers and presenters do have one thing in common. They both want to do everything they can to make an event a success. It is in their interests as professionals to do so.

So what can you do when you are faced with a potential disaster?

One option is to throw a temper tantrum, whine and complain.

The other option is to adapt.

I arrive at the venue early, so I can quickly assess the conditions, talk with the organiser and then, if required, make whatever changes necessary to improve the situation.

If that doesn’t work then I try to ignore the conditions and focus only on my performance.

And after one of those rare ‘memorable’ events, I sing ‘I’ve Been Everywhere’.

It makes me feel better.

First published in Starlink – June 2007

Here’s Lucky Starr singing I’Ve Been Everywhere (written by Geoff Mack)

So horrible – so bad – so good. Check it out.

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