Travelling Light

Did you ever have that thing where you get some big news, but don’t have time to tell anyone? And that big news involves you moving to another city for six months in a week-and-a-half from the point at which you found out about it, so you spend all of your time tying up loose ends and getting ready, and still half of your family and friends don’t know?

I’m not actually asking you. That’s a pretty specific set of circumstances, and I’m only framing it as a rhetorical in order to segue gracefully into my own news. If such a thing has happened to you and you feel compelled to tell me about it, you may, if so compelled, post a comment below.

This coming Saturday I shall get into my car and drive from Melbourne to Sydney. Or, more accurately, drive from Melbourne to the NSW border, at which point my car will probably conk out on me.

Why am I going to Sydney? Well, I’m not actually 100% sure that I’m allowed to make the news public yet or not. (It’s not Bazura.) So I will play it safe and tell you simply that I’ve been offered a very cool gig that requires me to work in Sydney’s ABC building. (No, really, it’s not Bazura.) I’ll drip-feed you more info later, but for now I’ll just tell you that I’ll be working on a very popular and successful television program. (Told you it wasn’t Bazura.)

Apologies to all the people close to me who are finding out about this now on this blog. It’s very impersonal and distancing and an indictment on our current culture of blah blah blah, but I literally found out this time last week. I’ll be popping down every month to see if family, friends, my place, my stuff, and my fiancée are all still fine, and I’ll be back permanently around the end of November.

To people I don’t know but who read this anyway, well, you’re not going to be affected much at all. I’m told they have computers in Sydney, so this blog and my Twitter feed should continue to function without too much interference. Oh, except for the new job I have. Employment does tend to get in the way, doesn’t it?

See you all very, very soon… particularly those of you in the greater Sydney area with comfortable couches.

A Ranting Pilot

About a year-and-a-half ago, my Bazura Project co-person Shannon Marinko made a pilot for Channel Ten. The show was called Rant, and it was basically Shannon yelling at the audience about things that annoyed him. Like Media Watch if it was shoutier.

Shannon invited me to come on board and do something for it, which I did. Comedian and filmmaker Dan Ilic directed, and he brought in Tegan Higginbotham for a segment. (Tegan impressed us so, we invited her back to appear in The Bazura Project’s ABC2 incarnation.)

Whilst I’m not especially happy with my own contribution (a couple of my line deliveries grate with me intensely), I do dig everyone else’s work a lot. And now it’s been put online, you can enjoy it in all its ranty glory.

ABC picking up The Bazura Project immediately after the pilot was shot meant Rant was put on ice, but my fingers are crossed that it get made at some point in the future. After all, there’s so much pop culture, and so few people yelling at it.