Electronic Type Setting (ETS) came to Kent St., Sydely in '71 and like Mothra to a flame war did I went. (My grandpa had taught me about electronics and ham radio rigs, so this stuff was way more interesting than reading 20 Kg galleys upside-down). ETS - the fucking union wouldn't have a bar of it! The PKIU ranted about how computers were used by sheilas in accountancy offices and should be kept out of serious metal muting. So, naturally, I applied under the classification of "Photo comp", they claimed "no such classification", I countered with "Make one or I'm off to the Sheila's and Miscellaneous Anachronist's Affiliated".
The Red-skulled pommy twerp at the PKIU mumbled something as I swept off but it was years before I discovered what; and that's another funny union story.
I discovered the porn industry which, then as now, led the market in technical innovation and the creative application thereof. Porn was my finishing school in all things related to publishing: typesetting, layout, process camera/darkroom, colour seps, plates, kord and webb goodness. No need to be modest, I was still master of nothing in the Mainstream Labour/Capital Dickwaddyness, yet in 1974, if you read or saw any tabloid porn, it passed through my darkroom at Bertram-Horne. (The home of Ribald, Gay, Screw, etc., and registered Australian owner of the trade mark "Festival of Light" - fuck you Fred and Mary . . .
I also hacked my first VLSI via paper tape and a Singer teletype keyboard. Thanks Alice, still coding after all these years. (It's how a pacifist hippy wages war, these days.) If you want to mainline the future, think like a pornographer, get close up and dirty, play to mainstream stupidities.
The Crux of the Biscuit
Basically, I don't get on with humans. I wasn't properly socialized as a kid, they tell me, so I've been free to do my own thing - I honestly try to communicate effectively, but the bullshit required to talk to people who cart their ego about on their sleeves is just plain too weird. From theTreehouse, with the creek flooding like never before, not having to negotiate a conversation with anything smarter than another hippy is exactly where I belong. Thanks Rex, and the lovely Brownie, there's a jar of nugs and an old Strat on my back veranda - and I won't forget you.
I'm going home.
Cumbaya, Brothers and Sisters
and Peace.
