Extreme Machine Show

These articles are reprints from redbubble.com and the BBCN community paper that i'm showcasing over the Christmas / Summer break  First published March 13 2008

Last week end the local Primary School held its bi-annual Extreme Machine Show.
The School grounds are basically taken over by all manners of cars, boats and bikes with engines and other bits that look like they were intended for machines three times larger.
It also gives an opportunity for local interest groups and clubs to have displays.
All up it’s a good revenue raiser for the school.
I thought I’d go a view all this monstrous machinery: one because I was slightly curious even though I have no interest in said vehicle types and the second reason being that I live virtually next door and all the street parking made it impossible to get the car out to go anywhere else.
The crowds were healthy and the local teenagers were out in force so my kids promised to disappear if I emptied my wallet into their hands . I did – they kept their promise.
The temperature had hit 30 Degrees Celsius by 11.00 AM so it was a constant search for shade and water.
Any way I’ll let the pictures tell the story.

A Volvo haters dream

This is not a small man. It is a very big car

This was just pure vandalism but fun to watch

The Motorcycle guys play a very fast and very high version of tag

This guy was really, really high. I headbutted the guy behind me in the forehead taking this shot.

These cars we’re broken i think all their suspension was shot

All the cars must have been broken because they all had their bonnets up

Local youth run amuck in the carpark

This guy started up his boat and made the most
Horrible racket imaginably.
I didn’t have the heart to tell him he was still on the trailer let alone 10 Kms from the nearest body of water.

The worst police speed trap I had ever seen.

These must have been novelty cars.
This one had a pair of Binoculars fitted.

This one had a washing machine attached

“Are you my Daddy?”

The Reserve Army trailer were trailing special army force fields.
It worked because hardly anyone went near this display all day.

I went to the seaside to see what I could see and what I saw was some sand sculptures

These articles are reprints from redbubble.com and the BBCN community paper that i'm showcasing over the Christmas / Summer break  First published April 7 2008

The title says it all really.

It’s not very often I will voluntary travel to Frankston for anything but I was up bright and early to visit the annual Sandstorm sculpturing exhibition on the foreshore of Frankston beach before its season was up.
The Sandstorm (Sand sculpturing Australia) theme this year was Fairytales and Fables.
A massive display of the imagination where no expense was spared on the detail or size.

Gulliver’s Travels

Snow While & the Seven Dwarfs

The Wizard of OZ

This massive piece was completely covered on all four sides with references to Nursery Rhymes and stood 8 metres tall.

The Iron Gian
This was my favourite

I always wanted a cubby house like this as a kid minus the child eating witch of course

(Hansel & Gretel)

I was explaining to my kids how the word Gay had a whole different meaning back when I was a kid and had a whole different meaning when used quite frequently in childrens tales.
These sculptures made the kids doubt my story.


(The Emperor’s New Clothes)

(Puss in boots)

Anybody living in Victoria Australia will be aware of the vicious winds that we endured last week.
This house was a victim, surprisingly most of the other sand sculptures survived due to the density of the sand and the construction method.

There were also references to modern day interpretations of Children’s stories as we all know every fairy tale is actually a cautionary tale or a lesson on acceptance.
I decided to put my own spin on to Alice in Wonderland and called it
Alice at the Crack house.

Alice off her face

Alice is refused Crack because she has no funds to help her addiction

Alice is driven to solicit her body to raise cash for more crack.

The impending death of Goldilocks- housebreaker and thief.

This unfortunately placed piece of seagull poo reminded me of an old joke

Littlest Mermaid: “How’s my car?
Mechanic: “It’s fine. You’ve just blown a seal”
LM: Uhhh.. No .. I just had an ice cream

After having an enjoyable outing I left with a sense of regret.
I wished I could be here when they had to close the exhibition.
How cool would it be to kick down all those sculptures?

Exploring the Solar System in comfortable shoes

 These articles are reprints from redbubble.com and the BBCN community paper that i'm showcasing over the Christmas / Summer break  First published March 2 2008

On Sunday I decided to take the new missus and check out what all the hoo-ha was about concerning this Solar system thingy that Ed the very heavy shadow guy had been blabbing on about here.

After a few false starts like forgetting the map to show where it was and not realizing it was actually part of a larger festival we managed to stumble on it by chance when we found a garbage bag wrapped monolith on one of the walk ways.
Now we he discovered we were early.
It hadn’t been unveiled yet.

Obviously others before us were curious about its function and had conveniently tore a hole in the bag, this led us to deduce that we were somewhere about Jupiter (due to the lovely colouring of the very small sphere attached to monolith wrapped in garbage bags)

^{The hidden Solar system}

It was at this point that an older couple sidled up to us brandishing a photocopied booklet titled “The Melbourne Solar System Self Guided Tour” and together we read the cover spiel and realized that if we had of headed towards the City we would have had a long hike back to the car so we decided to head to towards the Sun (Sculpturally speaking that is).

^{The discovery of Jupiter}

Now according to the pamphlet we had a 750 metre trek back to the Sun (if we had of gone to Pluto we had a 5+ KM marathon) So after dodging people way too old to be using rollerblades and families on bikes strung out like an army of ants we eventually came across another garbage bag wrapped plinth with a not so neat hole ripped in the top to expose it’s secret. This one was red and resembled a chewed Smartie (or M&M for those of other cultures other than Oz) things were getting closer now and the next exposed planet was Earth (it was BLUE) complete with little moon.

By now The Sun was in view so we rushed pass the other two planets Venus and Mercury giving them only a polite nod as we passed.

^{It started as a wart on my arse}

The Sun was not wrapped obviously the budget didn’t cover two rolls of garbage bags because this would have been a big bugger to wrap.
I now had a good idea of the scale of what man in his future travels will have to endure in time and distance if we ever got the urge to see why anybody would want to call a barren piece of icy rock after a Disney dog. Me, I wasn’t even up to traveling back to Jupiter by footpath.
Sadly time constraints meant I missed the unveiling and the copy of the little book with Ed’s name in it caught fire after I got home (happens a lot ‘round here) but I’m glad I saw a brilliant concept and idea brought to fruition and not only stand as a valid piece of public art but also as an interesting one and a great teaching tool.
Well done guys.

^{I found this little chickybabe when we passed Venus}

^{This for some unknown reason was next to the Sun sculpture, since we didn’t know what it represented we called it the “SunTurd”}