Since that time many things
have happened.
Expanding my website into
the Personal Universe pages, I
included a "My Family Search" page in 1996 and appealed for any
information that might help find my mom and dad (David Broughton - with
no middle name) and my sister from my past...
Because of the Family
Search
page, in 2004, I discovered I have a half brother, who had
already found
my sister, Wendy, and my dear old
Father, whom I had no contact with since I was about 5 years old. My
father was in his eighties and I figured he was going to last a
lot longer, so I decided I could too. The significance of the
dates 1947 to 2022 faded in importance as I found my old father still living
past 82 years of age.
David was living in his
own home in the suburb of Magill, which happen to be the name of
Claire's mother's remarried name. While I was there I took as many
photos as I could on a practically useless small camera I had. I was
sure that if I didn't, I would have no record of ever having met him
later in life. I was pretty sure I would not make it back down to
Adelaide before he caught the spaceship out of here. Me taking photos
seemed to irritate him and my sister. I could not understand that. So I
thought of the pictures I DID manage to take as precious.
I stayed at David's house
for a week or so and then went to stay at my sister's grand Housing
department place at Semaphore, that was a real eye opener. Seems the
South Australian Government thinks more of its low income residents than
NSW does. Compared to me she was living in a large 3 bedroom place in
almost Heritage condition, while I have had to put up with a very
cramped miners cottage from the early 1900s. She was a widow with 2
daughters grown up to where one had a little boy I found to be very
bright and delighted to have a step grandfather. Grandfather. Me a
Grandfather? Wow.
I spent many, many hours
fixing Wendy's old windows 95 computer and I had it running more like a
Windows 7 computer than an old 486 processor on Windows 95. I had a hell
of a lot of trouble getting drivers and in the process of getting the
right ones searching "driver sites", kept bumping into intrusions of
adult material through countless pop-ups. It was a time of out of
control pop-ups that made using a computer a real pain. Getting rid of
the intrusive crap was not easy either. Unfortunately Wendy and her
partner were seemingly very "rudimentary" computer users, and so I was
actually criticized that I had made their computer "too advanced" for
them and I learned that after I left, Wendy had her partner return it to
its original condition, and that for me was unreal.
The fact that I was not a
typical Aussie who loved to play pool and drink beer at a pub, and knew
nothing much about Aussie Rules Football, but yet composed music they
didn't have any interest in at all, I found it very hard to create the
kind of family bond I would have liked and needed with Wendy and my
father. Calling him "Dad", I began to learn he did not like at all. I
found it hard to call him "David" for some reason.
Sadly, after Dianne and I
had travelled
down to Adelaide to meet him and my sister, on my return, he wrote to me saying he wanted
his life "to remain as
it was". After a 30 year relationship with his partner now deceased, and a lifetime of believing that I had died of pneumonia as a
child, I had turned up too late in his life which was too much for him -
according to an "anonymous letter" which I assumed was from him and for
which I had to sign for at the post office. The letter clearly asked me to leave him
be.... So I have
left him in peace.
Not easy. I chose to believe I would meet him again "in the
afterlife", where all would be revealed anyway.
It occurred to me that
they also could not cope with the fact that I was there with my Dianne
who was on Psych medication at the time which made me feel devalued in
the eyes of David and Wendy. I was so in love with Dianne and felt her
behaviour and courage to cope with her situation very super special
indeed.
My half brother, Robert, had found my father
after 50 years of me having no clue as to his existence or whereabouts.
Rob as he insisted I call him, was searching for his birth parents and found
me. For me: since 1966. For him... well
he never knew he was adopted till his adoptive parents died, and for
him, his mother missing, has weighed heavily on him since realising he
had lived his life as an adopted child.
But our mother is still missing
for the three of us. Wendy has a family and didn't open up to me very
much after I had visited her in Adelaide, so I don't know a lot about her and how she feels about Gwendolyn
or David.... except she likes so much privacy it feels like a crime to
even mention her name. But I missed her all my life and thought meeting
her would complete my life. But that was not to be. She also thought
I had died as a child too. So I was really like some kind of impostor in
their lives. But even taking the few photos I did under so much protest
from both of them, at least gave me a
small collection of picture memories that I cherish very much.
After 1996, many economic
changes occurred with the CD industry in Australia. The change in import
"restrictions"
destroyed the value of music CDs in Australia as a flood of music and a
healthy CD piracy industry followed. Then the Internet evolved into a
vital part of our lives and so another blow to my dreams washed the
music CD project almost out to sea.
The Internet nearly
destroyed the CD as the means of "selling" music by creating a monopoly
on music sales channeled from online download companies. It seems, very
inconveniently, in the process, it has dropped probably most music from
the ages into an oblivion so far as the paying consumer was concerned.
Shifting HTML over to HTML
5, to encourage Mobile Phone and tablet use, I have no doubt was intended for the
music download market, and in the process ruined the traditional means for Independent Music
makers and home grown webpage designers from making their creations
easily accessible to the world. HTML 4 was simple and html editors such
as Microsoft FrontPage made easily created web pages. But the training
in HTML 5 is nothing short of a nightmare with personal web pages being
forgotten and abandoned as the Internet was being turned into a Commercial place,
which will eventually drown out non commercial sites altogether.
The appearance of
mobile devices not only gave a monopoly for music download companies
internationally who made moves to appear to be protecting artists from
the free distribution of music through peer to peer sharing. In fact,
it stole away the means of getting Independent Music distributed in a way
that provided an income. CD sales
died while the download monopolies made a fortune and unknown artists
were submerged under the noise.
Over a period of 20
years, the accepted norm became paying for music for a very narrow channel of supply, as
music and CD shops pretty much all died off. Though there was always a great willingness for musicians and composers
to share their creations without considerations of money, the "music download
services"
made it the only option for promoting the music.
To me music was what I heard and felt. Not what I saw. Music creates
inner visualization, whereas most modern "music" is "look at me" stuff
for young hormone driven "hopefuls" AND "successfuls", depending on clever video
presentations. Entertaining, and even brilliant, but as it's not really just the music.
So
I was forced to become a video producer as well. Of course I became
addicted to music videos myself.
HTML 4 is still useable but
HTML 5 is definitely more suited to mobile devices. The main outcome is
that the rug has been pulled out from under the traditional music world
by seducing the newer generations with the devices that satisfy their
feeling of owning music in their hands... which they don't really. The available choice of music genera
is centered around a modern style of music that has removed any
appreciation for music outside that limited selection of genera
available for download, and has been made purchasable each time you hear
it.
So then another kind of
service gradually undermined even "the download". The free music
marketing strategy. Websites that were intimately connected to "social
media" and commercial advertising.
YouTube became the place for so much
free music you could almost drown in it. And so making money from composing music
was now virtually impossible unless it was associated with commercial crap
and even showmanship. Big money.
Yes. You-Tube arrived and
though it still is my favourite Internet go-to for information, entertainment,
news and music of all kinds, it was all given away free of charge -
until the advertising industry saw the potential. Ads interrupted
everything from movies, music and many other creations, and of course
next was a lock-in to an account where a charge kept the website
presenting the many forms of entertainment alive and well. The
independent composers - like me, still get lost in the graveyard of the
Internet.
To get your music out there now you have to
become a video maker and editor as well and there is no guarantee of any
kind of money appearing any way. Never the less I have to admit
the Internet is a superhighway of mind food, the likes of
which was unimaginable before 1990, and I sure do use and enjoy it a lot.
Now that Covid 19 virus has come
onto the world scene, YouTube probably saved
the sanity of millions who had access to the Internet - though without
it, it seemed that music and all that the world had to offer over the
last 100 years would be in the balance. Covid 19 had me thinking
though.
As I wrote this I was in home isolation.
Frankly, I thought, I
would like to be around to see "the wonders of the new world" post
Covid 19. I wondered if 24th April 2020
would pass without incident. It did - though I thought I experienced
covid and got through it with Dianne's help and a long time, not feeling
so good, in bed.
In my solo auditing during
1989, using a technique much like visualizing or exercising extended
sight, I "intuited" that
my daughter
Claire was destined to
have a stroke. It was a very confronting experience.
Years later, in 1997,
when I finally was able to contact Claire, I discovered that she DID have
a major collapse with pneumonia while being forced to work long hours as
a child in
the Sea Organisation and while sick and denied medical attention at
around 15 to 18 years old. She had a major NDE in the hospital with
several strokes and losing the ability to speak, read, walk and she suffered
very badly.
Somehow she survived. A complete description of her
experience and the consequences, has not been fully attempted, as she and her
partner are to be considered. But a summary and an approach to the task
is on the page called
Claire Pages. |
|
|
And I saw Dianne who I had
just met then in 1989, being associated with Mental Health for years in the
future. This was the LAST thing I thought could happen around me as an Independent Scientologist
at the time of this "premonition".
It was eleven years later
that it happened.
The task of bringing Dianne
through numerous disastrous events due to Psychiatry and Centrelink over
the years from 2021 all but
reduced the music project which she inspired, into a hobby - so that I had no "space" to develop
it into a level of success.
Of course I couldn't abandon her. She
was and still is
the love of my life, so I "had to be seen" as her Carer to
cope with the unspeakable treatment by Centrelink.
After all, it was Dianne that started me on the music path with her
generous gift of the SY99 in the first place - a composers musical instrument far beyond
what I would have ever expected to afford or be gifted by anyone.
She
sure cared enough about me to do this while she was able to.. The money
for that came from a legal settlement as a result of a severe motorbike
accident where she was thrown across the rain soaked road in Victoria
Street in Sydney. She took over 10 months and 16 doctors later to return
home to live with her parents. |
|
