HOME TOWN UMPIRING

For years I’ve had this feeling that AFL umpires are biased to home teams when games are played between clubs of different states. More specifically, I’ve had a hunch that Victorian teams don’t suffer as much when they play interstate, as interstate teams do when they play against Victorian teams. Now, usually I’m following Sydney or the Dockers and like all fans I believe my team has had the rough end of the pineapple but I thought it was time to look at some statistics for the first 10 games of the season and see if I had any reason for my grumbles or if I’m just a paranoid, one-eyed footy fan.

Back from Dungog

Hi crew, just returned from the pleasure of my first Dungog Film Festival. What a great event. Dungog is a very pretty town 3 hours north of Sydney on the edge of the Barrington Tops forest. It’s high country and very pretty but the vibe was terrific as classic Aussie films were screened along with new films and there were master classes and readings: including one for my screenplay. It is currently titled SISTER SISTER but we are thinking of changing it back to the original title DIRTY GIRLS. Anybody out there have a preference?

DUNGOG DONE GOOD

This weekend (May 29-31), the Dungog Film Festival takes place. Dungog is near Newcastle – about a 3hr drive north of Sydney. It is a celebration of Australian Film with one of my favourite movies ever, The Year My Voice Broke, screening to mark its 21st anniversary. And what an appropriate time for this with Samson and Delilah doing so well at Cannes.  Congrats to all involved in that movie.  But I digress – my personal involvement at Dungog this year is the reading of my screenplay Sister Sister (aka Dirty Girls/Brace).

Something fishy in the water

Last week, I sat back to watch a program on the ABC that had been overdue for 20 years – a documentary on the vibrant WA music scene. It was called Something in the Water and was directed by an Aydan O’Brien (or Aidan O’Brien, depending on which spelling is correct).

I thought it was going to be about current day bands, but my ears pricked up when I saw talking heads spouting on about the late 70s in Perth. The time of The Suburbs. But curiosity slowly turned to annoyance and then outright anger as my band, Dave Warner’s From The Suburbs, was completely ignored. Instead I heard tell how punk acts like The Victims and Cheap Nasties brought original music to cover band city.

Welcome to the suburbs

Hi world, I’ve finally found my way through the labyrinth of the electronic back-streets to the super highway of blogging.

I figure I need a forum to explain that this Dave Warner is not the exciting, chunky cricketer of the IPL but the one from the suburbs of Perth who played many thousands of gigs through the 70s and 80s. Hopefully I’ll find some people out there who share the same outrage as me over the disgraceful umpiring handed out to the Fremantle Dockers whenever they venture east. Don’t get me wrong, The Dockers are inept in lots of ways but fair is fair and I’m sick of the gutless home town umpiring that we see week after week in the AFL.

I look forward to sharing some messianic insights on the state of the suburban world – bye for now

Dave Warner from the Suburbs