Graffiti is Legitimate Art in Perth

One of the few things that I've noticed in Perth is the enormous amount of spray paint that  covers nearly every available space (at least compared to what I'd expect to see it in the USA). To me, the most noticeable aspect is that "graffiti" is considered a legitimate and appreciated art where someone, in one way or another, made their wall space available for someone else to decorate -- so the artist can work without being hassled by the law. The result: Graffiti that finally has an opportunity to become street art, and people who see it in a positive light. I think that is pretty cool.  The two pictures below, of a street mural in Fremantle, are one of my favorite, and I think one of the most detailed I've seen.

I estimate that I've passed thousands of graffiti tableaux in Perth, just riding the train a short stretch in and out of the suburbs.  I've promised myself that I will go for a graffiti hunt to photograph all the ones I've located from the train (and beyond), but the daunting undertaking has keep it merely a promise.

However, there is enough street art around that I've been able to snap a few photos while carrying my camera around for other reasons. I've added a separate album (Perth Street Art) to capture what I've photographed so far, and hopefully I get around to posting more pictures of this impressive street art in the future. For now, check out the small collection, here. 

Growing, as, like, a Person..., man.

In the simplest terms, I came to Perth to find a job and earn money before continuing onward with my travels. Many travelers that had been through Perth told me I'd be able to find a job here, especially lucrative engineering jobs because of the booming mining industry. And if that failed, I figured that I'd find a manual labor job and still be able to save, seeing as minimum wage is around A$20/hour.

It's true. I found plenty of work available in Australia. It's just not many employers wanted to hire me, or the jobs weren't the right fit for me in retrospect:

• For skilled engineering work, employers seem reluctant to hire an engineer who does not have previous industry experience. I get it: The company would have to "train" me but then in six months I'd take off and they'd lose their investment. But here is the truth of the matter: A lot of engineers, like many professionals, earn a degree only to find out that they are employed as worker bees with monotonous and asinine responsibilities that require very little use of their expertise. If someone recognizes you have a talent at your job, I think it takes three to five years on average before an employer starts asking you to take on stimulating professional responsibilities -- and more often than not, that added responsibility comes with additional stress. All I wanted was to be a contracted monotonous worker bee while I saved up money and grow professionally. Regardless, the search continues for this elusive engineering job, but I'm not holding my breath.
  
  
• I found plenty of manual labor jobs advertised. Dishwashers, grounds crew, and construction jobs were plentiful, but they came with a caveats. Many of these positions require a car to travel to various destinations, and applicants have to be physically fit. Well, I don't have a car. Two, I realized during a few unsuccessful job trials that my body isn't that indefatigable and chiseled Adonis it used to be. Bending over all day is agonizing, standing on my feet all day isn't much better, and lifting heavy loads is utter misery. There are few things that are as demoralizes as trying to apply yourself in the real world and then coming to the realization that your body is old and decrepit. Awesome.
  
  
• The service and hospitality industry is booming in Perth, probably because of all the money filtering in through the mining boom. Working in the front of a restaurant appealed to me because it seemed less grueling than manual labor. The challenge in pursuing this career path was that I'm an engineer with an engineering personality: I like to think about things internally and express them afterward in a thoughtful manner; my brain doesn't work very well while trying to talk at the same time; and I don't really smile for the sake of putting on a friendly face.  Probably on more than one occasion, a stranger has passed me in a work environment and thought, "That guy is a dick," just because I wore a smirk on my face while dreaming of Lalaland. I'm not perfect, but I'm not unfriendly.
  
  I did a waiter trial at a beach-side restaurant in Cottesloe.  Cott, as it is commonly called, is a very wealthy area because of the beautiful beach and extremely gentrified property values. Accordingly, the restaurant I was to do the trial for attracted a similar caliber of customers. I found the early diner crowd tolerable to serve since the mood was more relaxed and casual. But in the evening, as the customers became more serious, smugger and pretentious, I couldn't pair my personality to match the one that would have succeeded in the situation.
  
  For example, I would try to fill water glass but no one would acknowledged I was around, which made it very difficult to fill them, and I was forced with the decision of a) should I squeeze my way closer to grab the glass, b) interrupt the conversation to ask for the cup, or c) just ignore that that person doesn't have water. A more dynamic personality would have known, but I didn't.
  
  The clincher for the evening was when I carried over desert menus to a large table and couldn't figure out when to interrupt the conversation -- the youngest woman at the table, probably my age, acknowledged my feeble attempt to get their attention. Even then, only the women at the table stopped to ponder the question momentarily before the chatter started up and I was lost holding all the menus minus one that I'd put on the table just in case, smiling awkwardly like, "What the fuck do I do now?" and the women my age was looking at me with a face that said "Why are you here? You don't fit in." Sweeeet.
  
  The manager, who was a kind chatty lady from Denmark, said she'd call me the next day to discuss a purely barista position (which is what I originally applied for), but she never called back. I wasn't disappointed. Lesson learned in Round 2 of job trials: It's not very satisfying to find a job that challenges deep-seated personality habits while people watch the train wreck.
  
  No worries, though. Baby steps.
  
  
• I had failed enough in previous jobs, in enough variety of ways, that I had become pretty sure that I wanted to be a barista that was either entirely behind the espresso machine, or at least behind the counter of a cafe. Cafe's don't have the same atmosphere and personality constraints that fancy restaurants carry with them.  I was also running out of cash and I needed to find a job soon. I started applying everywhere and calling, and eventually got a job trial in a nice area with a seemingly nice manager.
  
  The manager turned out to be anal retentive and of the micro- variety. I thought back to mentoring people at work as an engineer and wondered, "Was I ever that bad?" (I don't think so, at least; sorry if I was). At the end of a three hour trial, she seemed happy with my barista skills. We sat down and she took the wind out of my sails when she said, I think I want someone more familiar with being a barista... (insert long banter about how she needs to train me at the other parts of the counter and that I might not be good at it, etc etc). All in all, I knew what she was saying: I don't want to pay you until you are sufficiently trained, so give me something in return. I offered her two days of unpaid work (about 10 hours/day) to get my foot in the door (which, technically, I think its illegal to not pay me -- but quid pro quo, Clarice). Those two days sucked, mostly because she was nitpicking every minor detail I didn't get perfectly right, and had me memorizing a lot of arbitrary rules.
  
  Anyway, the search is over, I officially have a job! The other staff members are pretty chill and fun, which makes up for my boss. And when my boss is just stopping by the cafe, instead of watching every move over my shoulder, she is pretty agreeable too. And now that I make several hundred coffees a day, I've been working on my free-poured latte art and it is slowly improving. Here is a picture of the test coffees I made recently before we opened for work. 

Left: An attempt at a rosetta; Center: A heart; Right: Another attempt at a rosetta

Hope for Change and Make People Happy

You might imagine that, based on the title of this post, it would be a political one. It isn't, mostly. If it was, I'm sure I'd alienate my scant readership with my political and economic opinions. This post is actually about change. Like that stuff in your pocket. Coinage.

In America, change deserves the prefix "chump" because it is generally useless unless you save up for months, maybe years. But eventually a day comes when the jar is so full of coins that it has its own gravitational pull. And it's time to head to the Change Machine at your grocery store or your local bank. If only making meaningful change in politics was so simple.

The grocery store machines usually charge a commission if you want cash back, but website vouchers for places like Amazon.com are usually free. Bank's typically take a commission unless you are a member, or the coins are properly rolled. No one rolls coins these days, because it defeats the point of why people save loose change: To hear the clink and clack sounds of inconvenient, noisy metal bits turning into found wealth. The sound of happiness.

In contrast, in many other countries, one being Australia, their coins are not so useless because they are of greater denominations. Australia has eliminated the 1 cent coin, and uses 5 cent, 10 cent, 20 cent, 50 cent, $1, and $2 coins. When I first came to Australia, I found the extra coins annoying, because it's a lot harder to discard a $2 coin into a change jar -- they add up pretty quickly. However, after a few weeks, I started to appreciate this larger denomination coin system: The joy of using your loose change for something substantial is no longer an annual event. I experience this found-wealth happiness often more than once a week, and is as easy as reaching into my pocket and seeing what is there. Imagine, you can have two tiny coins in your pocket that total up to $4. $4 dollars can buy a lot -- well, not much in Perth -- but in a lot of other places it can. In Perth, it might buy you a bottled soda.

Let me show you a tiny example of how much more awesome coins are in Australia. The photo below is of my change jar. It's not that full because I usually put my coins to use before they find their way into the jar. Guess how much money is in it before you scroll down to the caption. Got a number?

There are $25.05 dollars in there. That make's me happy.

There is another benefit of this type of monetary coin system. It's cheaper for the government to produce. Replacing the $1 bill with a coin, eliminating the penny, and adding a $2 coin would save taxpayer money because bills have a significantly shorter life span, while coins last for tens of years. I don't often think the current conservative party has many good ideas, but this fact is why House Republicans introduced a bill recently to make this change to change. ("Take some of your own medicine, President Obama", they said).  Unfortunately, there are some indirect costs to implement, like retro fitting vending machines and the energy and environmental cost of shipping heavier coins around the country and the world. And there'd probably be some awkward transition phase into the new coin system which would tick people off too. With the way Occupy Wall Street is growing, right now might not be the best time to piss off the entire country in one go.

Unfortunately, America doesn't have a coin culture. And let's be honest, many Americans don't even like change (or hope, and some automatically discredit the ideas of a Presidents just because he is black). But if people could be convinced this type of policy is worthwhile, I think our new currency would make people happier every time they pull out a substantial amount of money from their pockets or piggy-banks. And the way the economy is going, I think everyone could use an extra dose of money and happy in their pockets.