mejia...and a particularly complimentary review...

ah, a rainy Tuesday morning. just as it should be in Melbourne in August...though I admit I snuck out of town for a night to go skiing...does Melbourne being close to really good stuff like surf and ski slopes count as a reason to love it?

and before I had even unpacked I found myself on RRR's Breakfasters program. Now, I confess I am not a big RRR listener - only because I am locked on to PBS and their blues and soul - but being in the Nicholson St studios seemed to bring back memories. The couches were of course velour, brown, with ugly racing stripes - a bit like a Datsun 120Y tricked up to rally - and the noticeboards were full of clippings, schedules and general RRR community stuff. The memories were not of radio, but of the very first days of Channel 31, when it was RMITV...when we worked in studios until midnight because we wanted to, when we lugged massive TV cameras down Swanston Street because we did not have any vehicles, when we photocopied news scripts ten minutes before news time and sprinted at full tilt across the RMIT campus, just making it on time. And it reminded me why we did all that - because we believed that media - TV, radio, whatever - should be available to real people, not just those with the megabucks for equipment and TV licences. Because we wanted media that reflected the city back to itself, not some McDonald's pap that fed us what a producer in LA thought someone in Middle America might like to watch, and some cheapskate TV exec in Sydney then picked up for a song to fill space between ads on Melbourne TV.

And although the Internet has certainly made having a voice a hell of a lot easier, radio and TV are still the arteries of the media. Long live RRR, PBS, 3CR and public TV and their quirky little Melbourne-ish tropes.

ps: the review of the title of this post? well, I left a copy of the book - signed, mind - at my local coffee shop, Small Block, last Friday. Swung by this morning for a pre-interview soy latte and was told by Michael, King of Small Block: "They stole it!"

Now, I'm not sure who "they" were - if I knew, I'd pop round with the boys for a little chat, but in a weird way, I'm pleased. At least I know one person really likes it....and if your friend has a copy of the book that reads "to Small Block and their excellent soy lattes", well, don't leave them to take care of your new iPad...they might "lose" it....