AUSTRALIA
- [QLD] Logan,
Brisbane, (Wk.1 of 3 weeks)
Week
53 of World Tour
Four
Minutes Of Fame
After 12 months
of travelling through 12 countries on 4 continents, arriving back to
Australia wasn’t without its fair share of excitement.
Soon after the plane
left Auckland, on transit from San Francisco to Brisbane, the pilot
made the following announcement after going through some bad weather.
“Some of you
may have noticed some sparks coming from the left wing of the aircraft.
There’s no need to worry. We’ve just been struck by lightning.”
And it didn’t
help much when he added that it was a normal occurrence and the plane
was designed to handle it. My only delight was that the movie they were
about to show was Mooseport and not Airport!
Jessie was waiting
for me at Brisbane Airport. Even though she wasn’t hosting me,
she became an invaluable part of my tour when, at the last minute, she
agreed to be my Queensland Tour Organiser. And she’d done a marvelous
job.
“On Tuesday
we’re going to Brisbane for a TV shoot. Brisbane Extra is a prime-time
Channel 9 program and they’re doing a special on bartering. They’ll
be featuring LETS as a part of the program and they want to interview
you about your world tour. It’ll be televised this Saturday at
5.30pm.”
Wow! What a home-coming
welcome. They say that getting recognised for your achievements is most
difficult in your own hometown. And even though Brisbane was 2,000 km
north of Melbourne, I felt very much at home now I was back in Australia.
Two days later,
Jessie drove me from Logan, where I was being hosted, to Francine’s
Massage Clinic in Brisbane, about a 45-minute drive north. The camera
crew was arriving at 9.30am, and we made sure we were there before they
arrived. Most of these so-called documentary style shoots are always
pre-arranged, so I was going to be casually visiting a LETS member to
get a massage, without using cash, and the TV crew were just going to
happen to be there to capture the trade. Sounds a bit tacky, but it
always works because the viewing audiences have grown to forget there’s
a director and camera crew behind everything that’s screened on
TV.
Finally, Saturday,
June 5 arrived, and Jessie drove me to Marg’s in Brisbane where
I was to meet with some BrisLETS members and then watch the TV interview
at 5.30pm. We had a room full of members by the time the show started,
and we waited patiently until the LETS segment came on at the end of
the show. It had been promoted all through the week, and was the highlight
of the 30-minute Lifestyle program. Anyway, the 30 minutes of interviews
with Jessie, Francine and I got edited down to about 4 minutes of viewing
time. But that’s normal, and 4 minutes on prime time TV is better
than 40 hours on community TV.
This was confirmed
when I went to collect my photos from a photo shop on Monday morning.
As soon as I walked in to the store, the girl behind the counter said,
“I saw you on TV the other night.”
So flattering.
This
article is taken from the ebook,
400-Day LETS Odyssey
About
the book
|
James
Taris web sites
JamesTaris.com
LETS-Linkup.com
Rich-Bastards.com
Honey-BeeBooks.com
TheGloryOfAthens.com
TravelWithoutMoney.com
ChineseArt-ChineseArt.com
ShanghaiPhotoGuide.com
ShockProofMaterial.com
2pups.com
