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The Pursuit of Discomfort & Pirate Bananas With Charlie McGee
592 Plays5 days ago
Real good fun with this one! Join me and Formidable Vegetable’s kind and charismatic frontman Charlie McGee for a swashbuckling convo about pirate bananas, working the edges, growing up in Arnhem Land, dumpster diving to feed your art, staying in your integrity (while saying yes to flying), the deep discomfort of home ownership and remembering your interconnectedness.
🧙♀️ LINKY POOS
Formidable Vegetable’s home on the web
Grow Do It (Charlie & Brenna's hub of ecological goodness)
Find secret track Pirate Banana on Formidable Vegetable’s Micro Biome CD, only available in person at gigs!
Bill Mollison & David Holmgren ~ Permaculture One
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Transcript
Introduction to Resilience Podcast
00:00:03
Speaker
race scallia Hey there, this is Katie and you're tuned into Resilience, a podcast about skills, resilience and how to live at the 11th hour.
Neighborhood and Community Experiences
00:00:16
Speaker
We recently moved house and when you move house you get married to your neighbours, bound together in sickness and in health through burst pipes and fallen trees yappy dogs, loud power tools, and shared playlists, whether you like them or not. I'm discovering plenty of kindred spirits in our new hood, and a healthy proportion of totally divergent ones too, with mountain bikers, sheep farmers, social workers, tradies, babies, artists, and intellectuals all smushed together in the middle of nowhere.
00:00:52
Speaker
Within a fortnight of living here I found myself invited to a weekly singing group organised by a neighbour named Sharon. The singing group was pitched to me as a super chilled gathering free from scary solos or public performances It is very much not a choir, it's just a bunch of nice people holding battered wads of printed lyrics, pausing, regularly, importantly, to eat cheese.
Singing Group and Overcoming Shyness
00:01:18
Speaker
I sung relentlessly in high school. No stairwell or school assembly was safe from my covers of Cat Stevens or Queens of the Stone Age. I wasn't formally trained in music, but I had a lot of friends who'd been forced into rigorous learning streams who taught me stuff in their spare time.
00:01:38
Speaker
In year 11, I decided to take music as an elective but immediately felt like a fish out of water, swimming in theory that was foreign to me and gasping for air through scary exams. One time, performing in front of two music teachers to be graded, my voice cracked in the middle of the song and the sense of shame was so intense that I dropped out of music altogether and have really struggled to sing around other people ever since.
00:02:07
Speaker
So when I went along to my neighbour Sharon's singing group, I was surprised to find that it took roughly five seconds for my shyness to melt away as this motley assortment of voices, deep, soft, jazzy and raw, let loose in a cozy little room, wrapping me in one of the most ancient forms of human togetherness.
Activism and Music's Role
00:02:29
Speaker
Song. Not only is my neighbour Sharon a highly trained muso, performer and lecturer, she's also an activist.
00:02:37
Speaker
Her sweet and simple weekly singing club has a serious side, a deeper intention secondary to having fun. This group is secretly designed to bring random people into a relationship in a kind of pro-social form of prepping, which is essentially practicing getting along before things fall apart, learning to harmonize through tough times and forging bonds that might just help us weather anything.
Guest Charlie McGee on Environmental Music
00:03:05
Speaker
Activism doesn't have to look like placards and serious faces. I think that the activism of our times can be far more subtle and indirect, foregrounding joy and connection and juiciness, because we're alive and that's amazing and who knows how long we've got, so let's yodel like there's no tomorrow, whilst skills and resilience quietly grow in the background. Music is an epic Trojan horse for important messages too, as today's guest believes.
00:03:33
Speaker
because he's been singing and strumming and drumming up an environmental frenzy with funky permaculture tunes for over a decade. I think of Charlie McGee, that's who we're talking to you today, anytime I get a little bit too serious about a subject and risk scaring people away, and I try and channel his knack for lifting the mood.
00:03:54
Speaker
I really admire what Charlie and Formidable Vegetable, those homegrown and internationally acclaimed musical activists, have gifted us over the years. Seven albums of earworms that lodge permaculture learnings in the subsoil of our consciousness And whose kids haven't been lovingly brainwashed into eating kimchi by a formidable vegetables hit song of the same name? I've been wanting to host Charlie on the podcast for eons, and luckily he's a very obliging chap who makes time for meandering combos even in the midst of a packed schedule.
00:04:28
Speaker
This episode is stacks of fun, obviously, and includes stories from Charlie's childhood in Arnhem Land, dumpster diving to feed your art, staying in your integrity whilst saying yes to flying, the deep discomfort of home ownership, and an exposition on pirate bananas. I know a lot of you will have been hanging out to hear from Charlie McGee too, so without further ado, here he is.
The Story of 'Pirate Banana'
00:05:02
Speaker
I don't think that was something super witty to say on the record. um Bananas. No, that's not very witty. Bananas has so many associations for me. it's It's almost hard to choose just one. Yeah, I mean lately we've been smashing banana pancakes for breakfast. I don't know when your favourite time to eat bananas is. First thing in the morning, definitely. Every day. Before 10am otherwise you get really high on the potassium and can't sleep.
00:05:27
Speaker
Yeah, well, that's it. um Well, actually, aren't they supposed to help you sleep? That's what I heard. Actually, yeah I think it's a relaxant, but aren't they mildly radioactive? Really? really I haven't heard that one. yeah This could be a fascinating hour-long podcast about bananas. Let's just... ah Why just one episode? Maybe a whole podcast dedicated to our favourite curbed yellow fruit. Bananas with Katie.
00:05:53
Speaker
Are they even a fruit or are they an alien? Ooh, that's a good question. I think technically some people think they're a grass. If you want to get botanical about it. Yeah. I'm not, I'm not too familiar with the new, new Stacy, new Casey, something with mucus in it family. Yeah.
00:06:10
Speaker
yeah coa a c a ca that's it yeah Well, Charlie, have you got any references to bananas in your songs? I actually do. I've got a song called pirate banana.
00:06:21
Speaker
that's a secret track. I'm giving this away now to to your listeners. It's a secret track. You remember CDs used to have secret tracks? Where did they store the secret tracks? it's ah It's like a thing that happens at the CD pressing place. Like they actually kind of stick it on the end of the CD as this track that doesn't show up as a track. I don't know. It's some weird techy thing, but but I thought last time we pressed a CD, I'm like, I'm going to do a secret track. Come on. We got to bring back the secret track in the 90s. They were a big thing. You know, nobody listens to CDs anymore much. So that's why I thought, you know, we've got to do it.
00:06:54
Speaker
And I had this song called Pirate Banana that I actually wrote as a request um from Vandana Shiva, the the incredible activists, you know, just powerhouse in ah in India who's who' started eco-feminism and fights Monsanto in the global arena of GMO policy and stuff. And so she was fighting the the GMO banana, which was at the time being patented or trying to be patented by corporate forces in the United States driven by Bill Gates and researched by an Australian scientist. And so she said, all right, you know, we can't let this pirated banana adopted by this corporate interest that's going to try and profit from it and and and sell it back to to third world countries. And so she said, you need to write a song about the GMO banana. And I went, OK.
00:07:43
Speaker
That's challenge accepted. I wrote this song called Pirate Banana about a pirate who sails a seas looking for a banana and then takes the genes from the banana and like morphs it into a new banana, which then he tries to sell as his pillaged booty to the to the rest of the world.
00:08:00
Speaker
And it used the tune to Banana Boat by Harry Belafonte, which has a whole story behind it that was actually, it was a ah slave song in the plantations and it was co-opted by his manager who then made him sing it and and it and it became a hit. And obviously his manager profited highly from it. But it's this real contentious song where it's like, does Harry Belafonte really own the rights to that song? and So there's this copyright sort of infringement case around it being you know it was it was it actually ripped off from these people who were who were enslaved and then also used the uh there's another song that i kind of ripped off in there as well but which was another
00:08:44
Speaker
which was another out of, oh, that's right. The Yes, we have no bananas song. Yes, we have no bananas. And that had just gone out of copyright. So it was actually in the public domain. So there's all these layers to it where I was actually ripping off songs that had had copyright issues around them in order to sing about a copyright issue on a banana. And so I couldn't release it as a song and profit from it. So I didn't register it.
00:09:09
Speaker
with any collection agencies or make, you know, so I wouldn't get any royalties or anything from it.
Charlie's Musical Journey
00:09:14
Speaker
And I was like, how do we get this song out there? So I put it as a bonus track on the CD and you just have to discover for yourself. Wow, loving this story for so many reasons. Not least of which is that this is my first interview back for the new season and I'm feeling a little bit rusty and a bit under the weather and totally over the moon to be speaking with you, Charlie. But if you can just like riff off random words for the next 55 minutes, that would make my job a lot easier.
00:09:39
Speaker
I noticed that Vandana Shiva had given you a wrap somewhere I saw a review from her of yore your work and you're such an approachable and lovely person and that really belies your your impact in the world and your reach and the people who are who you're in cahoots with, you know, having a song commissioned by Vondana is just like the most ludicrous and amazing thing I've heard today. you this week Like how does it feel to be in your element? Because I know music is one of your elements. Like, do you sometimes think this is the life that I really wanted to lead when I was a kid? Or is it just kind of normal because you've incrementally worked your way up to being a person who, you know, is qualified and adept at this amazing craft of
00:10:26
Speaker
messages in storytelling and jazzing up the environmental movement through song. Well I don't know about qualified or adept but it seems to be a bit of both. It's something that I've been interested in since I was a kid and I guess I had my first music lesson about seven when my parents put me in piano lessons and thought that would be a good idea but I sort of boycotted it and then ended up becoming a drummer which they were throwing their hands up in the air about and like no our child is a drummer we failed as musical parents ah know How could you? How could you be a drummer? But ah that was really fun while I was a teenager. and then And then someone put a ukulele into my hands when I was about 20 and I thought, wow, this is a lot more portable than a drum kit and also really fun. So that became the instrument of choice.
00:11:11
Speaker
for a formidable vegetable. And it was about, I don't know, I think I was about 21 and working in hospitality and just trying to, you know, make ends meet as a impoverished student living on Centrelink. And I just thought I was having so much fun with music that I kind of just channeled my energy in that direction. And I made a bit of an affirmation. I wrote down like every night for ah a couple of weeks, music is my living, ah trying to sort of push that intention in in that direction. And I guess it must have worked because ever since then, I haven't really done anything else. I put it down to to to the power of positive affirmations where you but you just sort of point yourself in a direction and you keep on
00:11:53
Speaker
affirming that direction and things come along the way to help you out and you take advantage of that. And also, yeah, just a bit of bit of mysterious magic. I don't know. There was something in it, but I've somehow managed to avoid the nine to five. And and as a musician, you become resourceful. So i I don't think I set foot in a supermarket for about four years after discovering the art of dumpster diving.
00:12:15
Speaker
I feel like music music and dumpster diving go hand in hand. If you if you want to be a successful or at least you know financially stable musician, dumpster diving is your friend because there's so much amazing food that gets thrown out on a daily basis and you can't afford food when you're a musician. Like, come on. So in lieu of me geringue, I just started eating out of pretty high quality dumpsters, I'd say. Fremantle Western Australia has a bit of a bit of a bougie ah clientele as far as the supermarket scene is concerned and so we go and jumps to drive dried mangoes and and the smoked salmon and still frozen of course nothing nothing dodgy and just all of these premium produce so being resourceful and getting as much as possible for free or salvaged or off the side of the road you know furnish the entire house off
00:13:05
Speaker
hard rubbish curbside collection and rented a a shed. Well, actually it wasn't even a shed. In in one house, it was literally a nook under my friend's bedroom, which was kind of awkward on occasions. But it was just big enough to sit up in and it fit a mattress. And I built some walls out of hard rubbish furniture that I found. And that was that was the zen den I called it because there was literally room to sleep and meditate and that was about it. So,
00:13:32
Speaker
it I guess a combination of those forces and just bloody mindedness led me to play music for the last 20 years now, I guess.
Charlie's Unique Upbringing
00:13:42
Speaker
Fuelled by Fremantle Chia Seed pudding for free. Yeah. Carolina quoted Carib. Awesome, Charlie. I mean, you've already touched on some questions that I have for you today, which is around your purpose and passion and keeping the love alive.
00:13:58
Speaker
in a niche that you've been inhabiting you know your whole adult life, as you say, since you had that ukulele put into your hands and wrote your affirmations. So I really want to dig into your brain space around how you keep keep that creative fire burning and stay stay committed to your cause. But before we get deep into your wonderful inner world, I did want to ask a bit more about your childhood because I know it was quite interesting.
00:14:28
Speaker
um And I'm always fascinated by like people's seed raising mix. you know What are those ingredients that but grew them? And um I'd love to hear about where you grew up and some of those things that you were doing as a little tacker. Yeah, well, like I guess it was far from conventional. I mean, my parents were both sort of alternative thinking.
00:14:46
Speaker
off-gritty types. I mean, Mum was a, I guess you'd call her a hippie, but she wasn't. She's too weird to be a hippie. She was raised in the States in the 60s, so around the same time as the hippies, and lived in San Francisco. So categorically, you could could say that was pretty hippie.
00:15:02
Speaker
Now, she actually left the States in the late 70s to but the early 80s to kind of avoid the incoming Reagan regime. So it's some interesting shadows to the present moment. But let's just say she was forward thinking and moved to Australia to to kind of get as far away from the States as possible. That was just her particular jam and met my dad out in the desert. And he was teaching in Indigenous education and she was a nurse. And so, yeah, they got together because I guess there weren't many other options in the middle of the desert, but we ended up living on an off grid. They separated when I was seven, so they're the kind of people you look at and go, wow, how are you ever in the same room together? But um great um I love them both dearly. But I grew up predominantly on our little off grid block that Dad
00:15:52
Speaker
bought in the southwest of WA and he was always wanting to give us kids a healthy green sustainability type upbringing and so we had our veggie garden and our solar panel like a single solar panel which doesn't power it much even in today's standards but I guess we had one light bulb and a radio for entertainment. So Radio National was the the television substrate and chickens. Chickens were a great form of entertainment. I had 30 chickens and would go and watch them regularly and a trampoline and
00:16:27
Speaker
40 acres of bush to run around in which was pretty amazing so I don't think many kids get that opportunity so I was pretty lucky thinking back and you know around mom's place too there was this forest galore so we would go on massive bush walks and swimming in the lake and just building cubbies in the bush and And I was always surrounded by a sort of veggie gardening and permaculture. My dad actually introduced me to permaculture through just having Bill and David's book on the coffee table when I was growing up. And I remember flicking through the pages being like, wow, this looks cool. Look, look at these kind of chicken houses that I could build. I like chickens. So I sort of drew me in from that angle. And it wasn't until later that I thought back and realized that there was something more to this permaculture thing that might be worth exploring. So.
Creative Expression and Parental Support
00:17:10
Speaker
Yeah, I just took it off for granted, but I think it was a bit of a unconventional upbringing. I mean, I just remember kids at school saying things like, you don't have a TV. How do you live? and I was like, you mean I run around outside and make up games with my sister and jump on the trampoline and what else would you do? Now, we're obviously playing Nintendos and watching each TV and doing normal stuff. But I really appreciate that.
00:17:37
Speaker
that opportunity to develop an imagination and and creativity, you know finding ways to express myself through music and art. And I was a real avid drawer. I'd draw illustrations and cartoons constantly and just really weird stuff would come out onto the page. So I guess my parents really encouraged that, which was pretty nice because sometimes that stuff's looked at as sort of a frivolous thing that is a bit of fun but it's never going to make you a living but they kept supporting me right into into my adulthood when I was like I'm actually going to become a musician for a living and they'd be like great whatever makes you happy so that was pretty nice to have that support.
00:18:15
Speaker
Yeah, that's such a gift from the parental unit that are unconditional championing of your oddball life choices. Was there ever a point where you wanted to rebel or felt like you could deviate from the path and forge a career in accountancy?
00:18:31
Speaker
well not Not to that extent. I rebel by becoming a drummer. That was that was my form of rebellion. It's, you know, super rebellious. I was in this frustrating position where I thought my parents were too cool to rebel against, but I ah still had to rebel against something. So I was like, oh, damn, like your core values are actually pretty cool, but but you just...
00:18:52
Speaker
still daggy parents. So how can I, you know, it's always in this position where I didn't really go off the rails too much like some of my friends did and became totally the polar opposite of their folks. But yeah, at no point did I entertain the the possibility of becoming a ah corporate lawyer or ah an accountant. And I guess I'm lucky that I didn't sort of have that tumultuous relationship because yeah, they've they've still remained really supportive. And even though I've been eating out of dumpsters and just after living off the bare bones for so many years, it's actually paid off. You know, it's after 20 years of doing it, it's become my living. And miraculously, I now live in a house that I built with my wonderful partner and we live on a permaculture community. and
00:19:34
Speaker
we do our art for a living and we get paid and it's like wow we can actually do this and make it viable so that's been pretty inspiring as well and I think i think the what I do is a as important as how how I do it in some ways because that journey has just been such an unconventional journey and a lot of it, you know attribute to luck and privilege and living in the first world and and all of that
Integrity in Music and Life Choices
00:20:04
Speaker
as well. But even a lot a lot of people who I know who are in a similar position struggle to do similar things. So I don't know what it is. I'm still trying to put my finger on it.
00:20:13
Speaker
Yeah, being a weirdo definitely helps. It's one of the greatest qualities that a human can possess, I think. Yeah, I'm curious about the the integrity that you just alluded to there, or at least the ah dancing the talk, which I've heard you reference, which is such an awesome upgrade of that phrase, walk the walk. if I'm such a ah believer in the how and the intention and trying as much as humanly possible to keep in integrity along the way.
00:20:41
Speaker
if you don't kind of stay on that trajectory, you can end up somewhere vastly different to what you intended or expected. So what are those daily patterns that you have that you're accountable to that keep you honest, essentially? Yeah. Well, I think you put your finger on it. I mean, the, the means are the ends. You know, you can, you can really go down some questionable roads if you're just focused on the outcomes and and everything else can just can kind of be shoved aside to get there. I think that's, I think a lot of that way of thinking has caused a lot of problems in the world. and And for me, it also just closes you off to opportunities that come up in the moment. I guess a lot of lot of what I've done has has been pretty unplanned. Planning is definitely a helpful thing sometimes, but a lot of the time ah I've just done what feels right and I go a lot off ah my gut and my
00:21:33
Speaker
gut feelings and intuitions and just what feels like the right thing to do it at the time. That actually leads to a lot of other opportunities as well. And and on a day to day, some of the most rewarding things that happen now are just real basic community interactions with neighbors or acts of community exchange or mutual aid or just helping someone out or being helped out.
00:21:57
Speaker
or swapping some produce or even just growing some food. It's like these really mundane things. But that is what underpins the intention of of what I sing about and what what formidable vegetables are about because it's, I guess, the purpose of the band is to highlight and platform these kinds of everyday mundane acts of Earth care, people care and fair share. And so it's nice to be living. It's really rewarding being being able to live in a situation now where we get the opportunity to practice that on a daily basis and then go and make art about it. Like what a combination, you know, being able to be inspired just by your daily life and put that into music or a drawing and in the case of Brenna.
00:22:44
Speaker
and then take that out to the world and sort of share it around because not everyone has the privilege or the ability to to do this in in their current lives. I guess there's a lot of lot of busy people and a lot of people just trying to make ends meet and and there's not always the time or even the headspace to to wrap your head around what we can do differently in everyday in everyday life. But being in the space that we are, we get to see a lot of inspiring stuff happening from everywhere from a country context in rural areas to so big cities and and people in apartment buildings, growing food on their verandas. So being able to sort of bottle all of that up and package that up and and take that out to the to the global stage.
00:23:27
Speaker
is ah is a bit of a special thing. And yeah, I guess staying in my integrity is always a challenge and I'm always questioning if what I'm doing is the right thing. I mean, I didn't fly anywhere for four and a half years and then ah prior to that, a year and a half, so all up. It's been about eight years since we did an international tour.
00:23:47
Speaker
And that was after I read the IPCC climate report and I just started taking all of the climate science in and talking to climate scientists and being like, wow, I can't really justify flying in this day and age when we're in full on climate breakdown. And what am I doing singing about this permaculture stuff and regenerative living if I'm just flying all around the
Touring Dilemmas and Environmental Impact
00:24:07
Speaker
world? But then after eight years of not traveling anywhere and not platforming the message and not taking our music out there. I don't know, it feels like not a lot's changed. Weighing up the, well, what if I just live under a rock in my lovely community and do what I can for my backyard versus what if I take this message of what I've been doing in my backyard out to the world and inspire thousands of other people to do that in their backyard and what's likely to create more change. And if I have to get on a flight and burn
00:24:40
Speaker
some carbon to do that. Is it worth it? So there's this constant tension and i yeah I don't have any right or wrong answers, but I've just come to the feeling that, well, after eight years, I really feel like it's ah it's an urgent time now and a lot of people are ah struggling even more than they were in the previous decade and needing skills like this that I've actually decided to go back on the road and do a European tour this summer because we got invited back to Glastonbury Festival, which is a huge deal.
00:25:10
Speaker
after you roundly rejected them? Yeah, well, that's it. Well, well yeah, we turned we turned down a gig at Glastonbury in 2019 and it made the headlines and on the BBC because no band apparently had ever turned down Glastonbury on the grounds of of climate. and And so we actually got more press from that than if we had played, which was great. But when the offer came through this year, I just thought, and they'd ah they'd asked a lot ah couple of years ago and and prior to that, I was like, these offers aren't going to be coming through much longer. It sort of feels like a case of make hay while the sun shines or or ah make change while the carbon burns. is But it's definitely not a forever thing. It's it's just it's just a one little step on the path, which hopefully is leading somewhere way more positive. o Yeah, it's such a I guess it's just another one of those invitations into the nuance
00:26:05
Speaker
and the gray areas because there is no black and white, right or wrong, hard and fast rule in terms of how do we apportion this fuel that we have left? And I always feel like this judicious use of resources could have it could have helped us so much. Like if we had all the people who were really awesome at kind of delayed gratification and and eking things out over time, we could have eked out this incredible superpower, this agent of incredible, like facilitation of, you know, human energy and imagination, like, this could have sustained us forever in a day, basically. But it's like that extremity of churning and burning through it all at once that has gotten us into this, into this state. And maybe the conversation, especially in environmental circles is now more about, well, how are we going to judiciously
00:26:58
Speaker
use what's left to make the impact now when we really, really, truly need to get get people on board. It's the tension between doing everything the right way and being perfect in your own world versus using the tools that are available out in the world that everyone else is just using without even thinking. And there's no conscious decisions there. It's just what people do, but doing it really consciously and being as, like I said, judicious as possible with the use and the frequency in order to bring about that change in thinking and actually inspire people to realize that, oh, wow, you know, we don't live on a on an infinite planet. which We need to.
00:27:38
Speaker
start thinking differently so yeah that's where I'm at and so I've kind of forgiven myself a bit for not being 100% good all of the time but just just trying to rewrite that story of well let's let's do this together rather than me just being the best person I can be and not actually influencing much beyond that. Crazy times but very exciting that you'll be off on a musical jaunt. When did you say that's happening?
00:28:05
Speaker
Yeah, so we're heading over in May and we're going to be there till August. We're going to Scotland, Ireland and Wales, all of the Celtic countries, because I guess that's pretty exciting for me being descended from the Scots and the Highlands and mixing up the bit of inquisitive family history exploration and also seeing some some living family over there as well. There's many layers to it. But yeah, then we've got Glastonbury, which is in June. We might head over to Europe as well if we can get some festivals there. There's a lot of cool stuff happening in Denmark and some friends have started doing
00:28:42
Speaker
ah some fun projects with straw bale panels for tiny homes and there's like a global eco-village network gathering and there's all these permaculture projects that are just really awesome and I want to equally get as much inspiration as possible as I want to kind of spread the goodness that I've collected over the years because that also feeds into it and it just gives us more to put back out into the world the next time we write an album. So exciting.
00:29:10
Speaker
So as someone who who deals in inspiration, deals inspiration as like it like a drug. You want some inspiration? I got inspiration. Yeah, seems pretty pure to me. As someone in that space and who's, you know, you've tethered your professional life to this mission of making change, making positive change,
00:29:35
Speaker
Not to, not to sound really cynical and or insulting, but like, do you think we can change Charlie? Like I, I notice in myself that what needs to happen to change my behavior is hitting a hard limit. It's something around my human creaturely intelligence of, you know, how can I conserve more energy? How can I eat more food? How can I make myself more
Music as a Tool for Change
00:29:59
Speaker
comfortable? There's all these kinds of creaturely impulses that drive me to do the things I do. And then where.
00:30:04
Speaker
we're able to do that because we have access, most of us, a lot of us have access to and unfettered water and lights and what have you, but for you and yourself and then maybe out there in the world, like what is your personal belief around how much change is possible and also how power change happens?
00:30:23
Speaker
Apparently it takes three weeks to change a habit that that's a little hopeful tidbit that I've hung on to ever since I I graduated from Well, I mean I grew up with a composting toilet, but I didn't really like them So I went back to the conventional flush toilet But when it came time to using my own composting toilet, it was three weeks of it's a bit weird to just whatever this is normal and I think for someone who's completely unaccustomed to a particular habit or way of living it'll be ridiculously uncomfortable for the first week or so and then after after that it gets a little bit easier and after three weeks it tends to stick and I think the other thing I would say about change and changing habits is it's a lot easier to do collectively so if everyone is doing
00:31:09
Speaker
the thing that you want to you want to change or changing simultaneously together, even if it's a conscious choice or or just a part of the existing culture, I think that's going to make it a lot easier than just trying to change your own atomized behavior in a vacuum. And that's why I feel it's really important to get these ideas out through music because music is such a galvanizing thing. You've got people in a crowd dancing and having a great time and then if there's a message in there as well, it's kind of like a Trojan horse. It gets in when people are feeling great. It's like, you know, at the at the risk of sounding a bit culty, it's sort of, that's how it works. Like when we're together and having a good time is when we're most open to changing
00:31:57
Speaker
our behavior and our outlook. I try to find the sweet spot but between not sounding didactic or like, everyone, look, we must change, we have to do this thing, you should do this, you should do that, sounding sort of preachy, to just highlighting how fun it is when we do change some little habits that that might have a massive impact, especially if we all do them together. Yeah, there's something in sort of tapping into that collective consciousness, I suppose, of of people when when we're all together with music at a festival or at a party or at at something enjoyable rather than making change a drag, you know, like something we have to, okay, I've got to do this thing again, like change my habit. If we actually embrace it and and go into it together, then it can be it can be a lot of fun. And if you if you kind of err along the way or fall off and fall off the wagon and go, oh, well, yes I guess I,
00:32:50
Speaker
stop doing the thing, we better start again. It's just that idea of of giving it a go. and And if there's a support network or people to to give you positive feedback along the way.
00:33:01
Speaker
then I think we're more likely to to do it. whether Whether that's just deciding to ride a bike instead of drive a car. you know If everyone in your neighborhood or community or street or household just suddenly starts riding a bike together, it's a fun activity. It's not like you're the only one getting on your bike and then everyone else is starting up the V8 and hooting off to work in the morning. It's like, oh, we create a culture around it. And and when we create a culture, then we there's a feeling of belonging. And when there's belonging, then,
00:33:30
Speaker
we we feel like we can do anything together. Yeah, I think there's a real seed of ah something in that. and i And I think there's a lot of people becoming more aware of that, especially as more top-down approaches are failing us. And there's still the tendency among a lot of people to think like, oh, well, someone else will fix it.
00:33:52
Speaker
you know, I'll wait until the government regulates it or I'll wait until the council tells me what to do or I'll wait until, you know, my parents tell me what to do. There's this sort of deferral to authority. I think one of my aims is to, you know, in myself as well to to discover that internal agency and that collective authority of self-regulation within within community. And it's not to say that having having bigger structures is a bad thing, but we can we can interact with them. It's it's not ah it's not a one-way street. There's always the thing of somebody saying, won't somebody do something? Or they always make us do this, and they are doing that, and they like we are they. And that's the that's a message that I'm really focusing in on at the moment is there is no they. There's only us.
00:34:43
Speaker
And we, as however many people you want to pile into that equation, I mean, I even think of it beyond people in an ecological context. We is the entire living biosphere and the entire planet and everything on the Earth and and how we interact with that.
00:35:00
Speaker
I mean, if we don't see it as something separate to us, if we don't see a person as separate to ourselves or ah or a plant or an animal, then we're more likely to act as a more integrated system. We're in this new home and there's a tiny bit of land around us and it doesn't feel like a very peopled landscape, but it it desperately needs love and water and regeneration and life breathed back into it. And it's like, well, there's some new Holland honey eaters in the weeds out the front and there's some other birds in the in the oak trees and there's the occasional like wallaby out the back and it's like we can all be in cahoots as our own kind of local culture as well it's not just a matter of banding together with with people. And i think I think we need to think in terms of that because
00:35:48
Speaker
I suppose so much of our society has been set up in this entirely human centric way. And a lot of traditional societies just were never set up like that. It's all about the family in the beyond human world.
00:36:04
Speaker
the I guess the concept of country with a lot of Indigenous people isn't just about land, it's about the beings in the land and one of which is is a human.
Permaculture and Ecological Relationships
00:36:13
Speaker
But I mean seeing that relationship as key to our survival, I mean I always say permaculture is its about building relationships and building community because that's that's what I really see at is at its core. Some people think it's all about mulching or gardening or composting, but but it's really this ecological lens to see the world through. and you know As someone who's not rooted in a land-based traditional culture, at least in recent generations, you know a lot of a lot of people living in modern society have lost those connections to land-based practices and to so land-based cultures.
00:36:55
Speaker
But I think there's a seed of that in everybody and something like permaculture, which is inspired and sort of mashed up with a lot of indigenous thinking and traditional thinking from around the world. you know Bill Mollison was a classic kind of collector of ideas. and he talk to a lot of people from a lot of different cultures and they they shared the their ways of doing things and and their different traditional techniques and and he sort of collected it all into this book that he called Permaculture, but Permaculture is nothing new. It's it's just a window into that world where humans aren't the number one
00:37:31
Speaker
supreme being of the universe. So like, oh, we're all part of it a system nested in other systems. That's why one of the principles ah to design from patterns to details is is kind of an abstract one for people to wrap their heads around because pattern understanding is a an inherently abstract thing. But when we can see the patterns and when we can recognize patterns of nature, whether it's the temporal patterns of the seasons or the spatial patterns of the landscape and see ourselves nested within those patterns, it gives you a ah sense of the whole and and thinking holistically. I think it's i think it's it's happening. It's happening slowly, but maybe not as slowly as we think. And definitely the grassroots. So that gives me a lot of hope.
00:38:19
Speaker
yeah Yeah, I was just laughing to myself because as we've been discussing this, the concentric rings about of family and different species and relationship. There's a fly buzzing around the microphone. I'm like, get out of it, you little punk. And no, I should be welcoming the fly onto the airwaves because it obviously doesn't mean to contribute. What is your purpose, fly? To clear the detritus from my left nostril, apparently.
00:38:49
Speaker
I do a little little bit of meditation and they they always say every meditation hall needs a fly. Nothing to kick you on your toes more than an annoying fly. On the theme of meditation, I'm wondering, you know, speaking about these more abstract concepts and um personal philosophies, what is the grounding in your everyday life? And, you know, over the years, it may have been more of a challenge not having and a dedicated home like you do now and being on tour a lot of the time, but what are some of those things that you practice to remind yourself of this of this theory? Yeah, well, ah used to I used to meditate a lot, but I've dropped the ball there lately. So but recently I've been surfing, which is just a beautiful way to
00:39:39
Speaker
I guess, commune with your surroundings. We live in a beautiful part of the world. It's in the the south coast of Western Australia. And every morning, or at least any morning that I get out there, it's watching the sunrise over the headland with the ocean just rolling in and beautiful, expansive, white, sandy beaches. And usually there's just no one there. So you go out and it's just you and the ocean and occasionally a dolphin leaping out of the sea and just like, what the hell?
00:40:06
Speaker
but I've taken to the practice of of calling country and I was introduced to this concept by Indigenous friends who all call country, you know, whenever somebody goes to country that's not theirs or or that they haven't visited for a while, ah a practice is, that and and this was this was confirmed talking to a Palawa woman last week when I was in Lutruwita Tasmania saying that like whenever you go to a country you should introduce yourself and say who you are and why you're there and actually speak to country not about country or as this abstract thing but speak as if you're speaking to another human and so when I go down to the beach in the morning and watching the sunrise on the only one there you know it's I feel a bit weird if I was there just shouting out to the ocean while there was a crowd of people around but something like getting over that unfamiliarity and
00:40:59
Speaker
And just talking to the sea and just being like, hey, Mamba court, that's the, that's what she's called in, uh, where we're from, uh, introducing myself. I'm Charlie from lunga Buja and, uh, just here to, here to pay my respects to your majesty and beauty and just absolute wonderful, credible, overwhelming delight. And, uh, you know, I'd really like to have a surf. So if you happen to chuck me away, that'd be great, but, uh, no pressure.
00:41:23
Speaker
And please keep me safe because I know there's a lot of hungry sharks out there. And just doing that, the simple act of doing that is so grounding and I think think taps into something a bit beyond what I can actually comprehend. Because i you know again, I'm not from this place. I'm not, I mean, I did grow up in the southwest, but, but ancestrally, you know, I'm from the other side of the world. And, and the culture that I ah guess I was raised in is a weird mashup of European and and colonial, something or other, but it's only really been on this country for for less than 200 years.
Respect and Indigenous Cultural Practices
00:42:00
Speaker
The the elders um down here in Minang, Bigumunbuja,
00:42:05
Speaker
amazing, incredibly generous and always encouraging the use of language and sharing culture and I had it described to me by some what Andy mob that which is the next country up from us that if if country doesn't get spoken to or addressed or talked to it's like a mother not feeling loved by her children and that kind of really hit home I was like wow yeah you know like imagine if You're there, but nobody speaks to you for your entire life because you've ceased to exist as a as a sentient being. And um I believe, you know, I definitely see plants and animals and rocks and trees and and just the ecosystem as a sentient being. So why not treat it as a sentient being? Just call out and say g'day. And every time I do that, it's really interesting just feeling
00:42:59
Speaker
what comes back because it's not it's not always something tangible. Sometimes it is sometimes this gust of wind comes out of nowhere and it's just like or a flock of birds flies past or a dolphin leaps out of the water and I'm like whoa what that was weird.
00:43:12
Speaker
but ah But sometimes it's just a feeling that you're a little bit more connected. And then, you know, if you're lucky, you'll just catch an awesome wave and have the best surf ever. But it's like, it's like when you when you talk to your mother, your mother looks after you. That's kind of the idea that a lot of indigenous elders and friends I've talked to have said and and I've experienced as a non-indigenous person. So yeah, that's pretty special. So beautiful. Yeah. Yeah. I heard a similar thing from the Jawan people. We did a walk in Nipmila National Park up near Catherine a few years ago and it's incredible. Really? That's where where I had my first swim. Ah, amazing. Yeah, well just a totally surreal part of the world. Like I'd never been to the NT before and it was the vividness of the colours and the shapes and just so distinct. But the what what blew me away was the generosity of
00:44:10
Speaker
being welcomed onto that land to walk this sacred walk and the pre-walk chat setting setting the scene was like, look, we want people out here because communities don't live out in that part anymore and country's lonely.
00:44:26
Speaker
Like we want people walking on country but with respect and acknowledgement. So yeah, i it struck me so profoundly as well. And thank you for but bringing that in because it completely changes the way that we see this living world. And it's it's beyond like, make it better with our own energy. It's still doing unto the earth in that in that line of thinking, but it's actually this participatory, relational, devotional,
00:44:55
Speaker
friendly thing, right? like Like the mother, like your own mother. yeah and And there's just forces beyond us that come to help when when you tap into that. I think, like ah ah like I said, I was born in Katharine. I grew up in the first few years of my life in Arnhem Land. So we were we were in Indigenous communities from when I was little till about five years old. And I had the privilege of being able to just integrate in with the community and and basically be raised in the community and there was a bit of a culture shock coming into Southwestern white Australia at the age of you know year one sort of just going to school and I'd been
00:45:34
Speaker
just a bush kid up until then and only had one or two white friends. But I think that that was a real formative way to to be introduced to the world because just being immersed in that culture, and and again, I can't speak to the culture or about the culture because I haven't been initiated into it or anything, but just just that small experience of being born into that community and running around with the kids and going between houses and families and just being looked after and taken care of.
00:46:03
Speaker
and being surrounded by ceremony and people singing and and and having this reverence for the the natural world, I guess really framed my experience of life a bit differently to um someone who maybe was brought up in in a city. But I think that's really, for me, the the aim of of what we do now with with songs about permaculture and ecological thinking and regeneration is he just trying to communicate that sense of connection and interconnectedness that a lot of this Western culture has lost. So I think I feel blessed that I had a window into that, even though it was just like a kindergarten baby's perspective.
00:46:48
Speaker
But but just just being welcomed and being integrated into that extended family of community up in Arnhem Land and learning the language you know and speaking two indigenous languages at the same time as learning English just frames your your outlook a little bit differently. And um i've I've talked to a lot of friends, you know mob from up north and from Queensland and the Kimberley and down south and everywhere. And a lot of people say exactly that, that like the country needs people and it's It doesn't necessarily see color because a lot of people have intermarried and have mixed race families and and they're like, look, it doesn't matter you know where you're from. If you respect country and if you listen to the knowledge and the people with the knowledge, that's the important part. It's not going on there as some colonial white person being like, right, I know what to do. I'm going to care for country. It's like, no, you know, there's still knowledge out there and it's actually in country and in in communities of people who who hold that knowledge.
00:47:48
Speaker
This is really like complex layered thing that i I'm really hesitant to even talk about because it's not my place. But at the same time, as someone who isn't from that culture, I've really witnessed an invitation to listen and engage with those cultures. And when you do that, there is the agency and and permission to place yourself in that context and and I guess come at it from a place of respect and humility. The worst thing is to think that you have all the answers and to go and just start doing stuff. It's like, well, you have to listen first. Yeah, it's a tricky one to talk about because I guess there's a lot of politics around it and there's a lot of people with different outlooks and different ways of looking at it and and i you know a lot of trauma and a lot of
00:48:35
Speaker
ongoing colonisation, which doesn't necessarily lend itself to inviting whities in to to participate. But that's just, you know, from the experiences I've had and the interactions I've had, I really felt a lot of generosity and a lot of just hope that people will get back to to caring for that real fundamental thing that we all rely on to stay alive. Yeah, you mentioned that slight sense of discomfort when you're doing something new and slightly weird for us in our culture, such as addressing the ocean. And I'm a little bit obsessed with that that discomfort and then the point where we
00:49:15
Speaker
tip ourselves over into the experience and give ourselves over to doing something that's that's edgy and and new. And I'm obsessed with it because I feel like a lot of us are going to have to do that if we're going to be trying to conjure up ah a sense of culture in our own families, in our own communities that may not exist yet or is kind of a combination of a whole bunch of things we're bringing together.
Embracing Discomfort for Change
00:49:39
Speaker
What I'm thinking of Charlie is you are someone who initiates these small moments of of togetherness in in spaces where people might not otherwise think to do so. And like at the solstice, Jordan and I were so stoked on your mealtime blessing where you initiated us all singing together over that meal to say thank you. And it really elevated the mood and it drew our attention to that incredible table of abundance and edible blessings from the region around us. And so I wanted to ask you your perspective on being a bit out of our comfort zone if we want to be someone who maybe starts starts the song circle or offers that blessing over the food or doing something that may be quite foreign to us, but we really want to do it anyway because we know that it initiates a special sense of of care and conscious intent. Yeah, well, I think
00:50:36
Speaker
any change is gonna come with discomfort. And if we if we want anything to change, we're gonna have to make ourselves a little bit uncomfortable. Or if we're gonna be the catalysts for that change, we need to put ourselves out of our comfort zone. Because if we want everything to stay the same, then just be comfortable and do everything that you're already doing and the world stays the same. But I think a lot of people are realizing that a lot of things in the world are not set up with their best interests at heart. And you know, bar a few,
00:51:06
Speaker
billionaires at the top, it's ah not exactly an ideal situation for a lot of people. So in order to bring about that change, we've just got it we've just got to find our edge. you know You don't want to dive into something completely painful and traumatic, but at the same time, you you want to push beyond the boundaries of maybe what's considered normal or what's comfortable. i just I think I'm pretty lucky in that I have this inbuilt discomfort with comfort.
00:51:34
Speaker
like so The very opposite of the normal person. I don't know, some kind of weird masochism maybe, but I like, I generally find that if I'm at home for more than six months, I just start twiddling my thumbs and be like, too comfortable, must go do something to make life less comfortable. And that's been one of the inspirations behind just touring constantly and and traveling all over the place, singing about permaculture or doing something weird, like writing songs about permaculture. I mean, the first time I got up on stage and played them in a
00:52:05
Speaker
in a city pub in Perth to a bunch of FIFO mining workers, I was intensely uncomfortable. And I just leaned into that discomfort being like, all right, well, I'm singing about climate change and peak resources and gardening to a bunch of miners. How's this going to go down? I might get my head beating. But they actually loved it. And I worked through it and just owned it and pushed that edge, you know, that the principle of using the edges and valuing the marginal is one of my favourites because it's It's just encouraging more weirdness in the world, which I think is something that we need in in a positive way, the good kind of weirdness, not the weird kind of weirdness that's like destructive or going down some dark holes. But, you know, once i once I just owned it and went, okay, well, look, hey, I'm a weird guy. It seems about this stuff. Everyone sort of pricked up their ears and was like, wait a minute, what? This is something a bit different.
00:52:59
Speaker
And the discomfort gets moved along down the road a bit. And suddenly you're back in your comfort zone. It's like, oh cool, I can do this. But then if you stay there too long, then it's sort of like nothing really changes. So you kind of go find the edge again. You just keep on incrementally just creeping up on the edge and being like, all right, Edge, what do you want me to do now? Okay, I'll do this little slightly different thing. And hey, who wants to join me? It's really fun over here. Like the edge is weird. And, uh,
00:53:24
Speaker
and we can all discover some things that we we're not used to. And then when you get used to that, you just keep on doing it a bit more. So it's all like chipping away at a verged veggie garden. you know It's sort of like if you start on your council verge and pull the weeds out of the edge and you you grow some sunflowers and then next season you come back and you chip away some of the grass and you and you put some potatoes in and then and then pretty soon you've you've taken over the entire verge with this pumpkin patch and abundant food garden that the whole neighborhood's looking at going,
00:53:51
Speaker
Wait, what are they doing? That used to be grass, you know, that's not normal. And so, but by the time you get there, it it's incrementally crept up on them. So it's not it's not something so far out of the the sphere of acceptability that that it's totally rejected. I really have fun with finding little ways to be uncomfortable and also a little bit weird. I think that was that was another blessing of growing up.
00:54:19
Speaker
in an off-grid permaculture sort of setting was that I was always seen as a bit weird and after a while I just stopped caring. It was like, I'm never going to be cool. What's the point in even trying? so And that's when you become cool. Well, I don't even care. So whatever. If people want to see it as cool, then great. But I think the real, the the coolest things that happen are the things that ah completely
Community Living and Shared Spaces
00:54:44
Speaker
original. And we're not not completely original, but just looking at things in a little bit of a different way. I think working with the energies that we have to create something novel, work the edges. That's my principle of choice. Yeah, yeah, I love that one too. Is there a way that you're currently challenging yourself? Oh, well, building a house has been a challenge. and I never thought I would
00:55:09
Speaker
I actually consciously tried to decide not to build a house, but then we got catapulted into building one. and I mean, that was three and a half years of intense discomfort, but it it paid off because we just built this beautiful straw bale house with hand rendered mud walls in the most amazing place. and Yeah, going so far out of out of the comfort zone with that has just meant that we have a place to live and do our art and make music and continue doing.
00:55:42
Speaker
the things that we want to be doing, um which I think was a really good choice. But yeah, in the moment it felt really uncomfortable. And I was like, why are we doing this? I don't need a house. Just give me a truck. Yeah, it is interesting going from that determined spirit of sharing spaces and being a bit of a weed and existing in the cracks, which is something that I totally identify with to then having some semblance of sovereignty over your own your own home? Like, how does that actually feel for you, Charlie? What is the difference there? And I mean, I it's totally implicit that that that we're both so lucky to be able to do
00:56:19
Speaker
that. But I'd love to know how that's affected your your art and you know your wellbeing, your relationships, what kind of things have come of having that that lovely home. Well, it's interesting actually. It's kind of led to a whole other level of discomfort that I wasn't anticipating. I mean, you know like I said, I i seem to I seem to find comfort in discomfort. So maybe it's this self-perpetuating thing that whenever I do something that leads to comfort, it's automatically uncomfortable. Yeah, I've had this weird sense of, I guess, house rejection or not just not, I haven't quite arrived yet because
00:57:00
Speaker
After 20 years of living out of a backpack or on the road or in the back of trucks, you know, tiny homes on the back of a truck, it's really weird being in one place. And I just I haven't got that sense of entitlement that like this is my home or my house or my property. Like I've always had a problem with the idea of ownership.
00:57:22
Speaker
of any kind. I suppose maybe maybe growing up in communities where when nothing is really owned, it's all shared and and and people just use what they need and and then share it on. It's like the idea that that we now own a house on a piece of land that that we bought that's like ultimately land that wasn't ours and that is still tied in with tens of thousands of years of Noongar culture and history and there are people here who lived and live on this land and also the fact that of being in a community is really interesting because we're in a really you unique situation where we live in a community with 18 lot holders and everyone owns a quarter acre and has a house and whatever but then there's all this common land
00:58:11
Speaker
in between that we own together. And the tension between private ownership and shared commons is really interesting to see how ah different people interpret that. And I'm much more drawn to the common areas of our community than I am to our lot or our house and I kind of just want to hand over the house to you know anyone who needs a place to stay or a bunch of artists to come and jam or people just you know woofers or travellers or whoever and go and do stuff on the Commons because for me that it's that it's that shared sense of of ownership or or stewardship rather than ownership just being able to to be on land that is
00:58:53
Speaker
being maintained or or cared for communally. And so we've we actually, when we first got here, the first thing I did was was apply to our ah body corporate to put a food forest on the common land and make a pond and just landscape it a bit so it was a bit more usable and just regenerate the hillside as a nice space. and And some people looked at that and went, wait, why are you spending all this money on the um land that's not yours? I was like, because it's for everybody. there's this sort of idealism there maybe but also just this intense desire to to share and to live in a shared environment. And yeah, so the idea that I have this house that we live in that's just ours and is like exclusively owned is just kind of weird and uncomfortable and I'm sure it'll evolve into something beyond that but
00:59:44
Speaker
But yeah, having that experience for the first time in my life is really weird because I know that this is a normal experience for a lot of people and people are like, well, of course people own houses and it's theirs and private property and all that, but it's just, ah it's interesting to to be on the other side of the.
Creative Path and Resourcefulness
00:59:58
Speaker
point Yeah, yeah, that's a really interesting take and it's refreshing to have our attention drawn to the the weirdness of that. I have a couple of hopefully snappy questions for you, Charlie. One of them is probably not so snappy, but I wonder if you can kind of give us a few hot tips. But I'm thinking about your Life is a creative and your comment about, you know, it's taken decades literally to get to the point where you're um making a living. If you had to give a few bullet points to people who might be feeling that in a desire to pursue a creative path, knowing it is, it's financially unhinged, if not insane, to do so. Like, what kind of things have helped you along that path? Being prepared to sacrifice
01:00:45
Speaker
most things other than the art. um even food I guess, yeah, food, ah the ability to buy nice things or own nice things and also willingness to live in discomfort, I guess, for a while at least. I don't know. I suppose depending on how committed you're going to get with something. I suppose when you decide to do something, it's just sort of like nothing else really matters and and everything else comes secondary to that. In saying that, you know, making time to do it is crucial because otherwise it just doesn't happen.
01:01:20
Speaker
and Consciously, like whether you're a ah time-planny, timetable-y type person, just putting cordoning off a few hours a day or even half an hour to practice or ah play or whatever it is that you do creatively or do you want to be channeling your energy into, just building that habit, um which I'm notoriously bad at, by the way, but I just do whatever comes in front of me. But I'm i'm trying to to get back to that conscious practicing of ah of art and music. But yeah, just just being really resourceful and
01:01:51
Speaker
And building community, like like becoming part of a creative community or or a community of people that are also following a different path, because that solidarity and that that mutual aid just kind of helps
Aligning with Permaculture Principles
01:02:07
Speaker
everybody. and And you feel like you're not alone and you also help each other out. In saying that, I've couch surfed a lot on friends and families.
01:02:14
Speaker
couches and floors who are much better off than I am. So sometimes it's nice to take advantage of that if he offers there, but yeah, just supporting each other and and finding that group of awesome, weirdo, fringe dweller change makers who are doing the same thing. Yeah. Nice. Okay. And this is everyone's favorite question on the podcast, which I which i find hilarious. I pick who I'm going to ask this one to, because I guess you have to be somewhat affiliated with permaculture. But the question is, when are you least permaculture? When am I least permaculture? ah Well, apart from when I'm on a long haul flight to the UK to play at a festival, um when I'm blobbing on the couch watching Grand Designs.
01:03:02
Speaker
Kevin MacLeod has shades of permaculture, surely. Oh, you know, and he's he's his permaculture adjacent. He is. Yeah. Oh, I don't know. I think whenever, whenever I, I'd say on a more philosophical note, whenever I forget that I'm part of something bigger than myself, as in if I, if I suddenly get wrapped up in my own insignificant problems, as if they're the biggest things in the world and get into this head loop of, oh, my life's so hard and, oh, why me? And, and this and that, me, me, me, rather than, hang on a minute, like you're part of a an integrated system here. Go and,
01:03:38
Speaker
find what you need and or who you need. Yeah, just forgetting that connectedness I'd say is the least permaculture thing that I do from time to time because we're always connected and we always have an instant way to tap into that source whether it's going out of the garden planting something going for a walk in the bush or just talking to a neighbor or calling a friend or just whatever that can connect you to to something beyond your perceived self unexpectedly enlightening response to that frivolous question.
Closing Thoughts and Gratitude
01:04:14
Speaker
I love it. Thanks, Charlie. Well, look, I would happily wrap it there because it just feels like such a arranging and interesting and textured conversation. But is there anything else that you wanted to put to the good people of Reskillience today before we closed out the interview?
01:04:35
Speaker
Oh, look, I mean, to to bring it all back to the, you know, the the the core message of this entire podcast, I think ah think we need to end on bananas.
01:04:49
Speaker
Pirate bananas. Check it out. It's a banger. I love that ah there'll be all of these people kind of running in different directions trying to find that secret track, like digging little holes in their backyard and climbing trees and asking the birds, where is it? Where are the bananas? I tell you what, if you want if if you want to include this, i can I can send you a copy of the secret track and you can play it on the podcast if you want.
01:05:16
Speaker
It's an exclusive. Don't tell anyone. It's a secret. It's a secret track. You heard it here on Resculions, but nowhere else. Except on the CD. Whoa. This radio show just got real. I would love that. What better incentive for people to listen all the way to the end? Resculions exclusive. Thanks heaps Katie. So good to yarn. Thank you so much Kelly. We'll catch you soon in real life hopefully.
01:05:56
Speaker
That was the one and only Charlie McGee of Fomitable Vegetable, whose tunes and maneuvers I've linked in the show notes. And you also heard my favorite Fomitable Vegetable track, Get a Goat, at the top of the episode, and a snippet of their secret track, Pirate Banana, just there, which hides out on their microbiome CD,
01:06:17
Speaker
which is only available in person at gigs, um just hearing some drilling in the background there as the van conversion continues. So thank you so much for listening in to the second episode of Resculiant Season 4, and particularly those people who've been emailing me lately with super kind feedback and amazing guest suggestions. It still feels surreal to hear from strangers who are loving what feels like an intensely personal audio project, one that's been shared and swapped from here to Sweden, the northernmost reaches of Canada and the southernmost tip of Chile. It's crazy to look at the analytics and see where folks are tuning in from.
01:06:56
Speaker
There are so many ways to support the show, if it brings you joy or comfort or affirmation. I create resilience alongside, or more accurately, in lieu of paid work most often, which is a pretty intense juggling act and dream of being able to sink into this space of conversational activism with a little more financial security.
01:07:17
Speaker
so you can become a patron of the show for just a couple of dollars per week that's over on patreon dot.com forward slash reskillience or just give it stars maybe five or a short written review on your favorite platform which is also ultra helpful or you can share it with a mate who might need some solidarity in these befuddling times I can't decide which delicious interview to release next so I'll wait for a sign from the universe and meanwhile I hope you have a wonderful week. Catch you next Monday.