Captain Australia’s Activity Report
I am Captain Australia, the real life super hero.
My goal is simple: fight evil.
I wear a mask, but so does evil. I would urge you to take a moment to look at the world around you, and see the little evils in your every day life. Apathy, selfishness, greed. It is my belief that society is in a state of slow, steady decline. We are darkening from the inside, like a rotten piece of fruit, and slowly consuming ourselves. But this atrophy is reversible, if we all take a personal responsibility to make the world a better place. This is my Quest – to remind you that the world is worth saving.
It has been almost a year now since I strapped on the mask, so I thought I would take a moment to reflect on my activities, and summarise them for those of you who have not been following since Day 1.
Active Quests
I have one primary quest active at the moment: when I was patrolling Sydney I got a telephone call from a small business owner called “Burgerz” in Kings Cross – where on an average business day at least a half dozen drug deals take place openly on the sidewalk in front of their premises. They asked me to help them keep their business afloat. I accepted the Quest, and the challenge is that broad – to somehow find a way to help their business by moving along the criminal element, or attracting more positive attention. I’m still formulating my strategy, whether to focus on the dealers, addicts, legal injection room nearby, contradictory exclusion zone laws .. I’m still thinking it through. I have committed to doing my best to help them, even if it means personally surveiling the dealers and conducting citizens arrests (which will put me on the bad side of the local lebanese bikey gangs that run the drug trade).
Crime Fighting
Part of what I do is stand against crime, by directly intervening and solving crimes where I become aware of them, and also by preventative patrols – scouting major cities to intimidate the criminal element.
I take a videographer with me, filming my experiences so that I can share them with you in the hopes that they will inspire you and prove my sincerity – and secondly to collect evidence should my activity result in criminal prosecution of myself or others.
Below is a small assortment of patrol videos, but the most noteworthy crime I have prevented so far was two men attempting to take a witless drunken woman and sexually assault her (I tell the story here: http://www.captainaustralia.net/act-as-if-what-you-do-makes-a-difference-it-does-william-james/)
Helping People
Although I am trying to Save the World, I don’t have a compass or a road map, so part of my mission is very simple: find ways to help people.
I believe in the ripple effect of kindness and goodness.
In our society at present there is an imbalance – more cruelty and selfishness, and that also creates echoes, but for every kind deed you do, there is a chance you will inspire someone else to play it forward. Most of the help requests I receive are private and in some cases deeply personal, but in some cases I have permission to share them with you.
Example, last week I got a call from a young mother (under 30) with a teenage son (15). She was completely certain that her son was starting to play with heavy drugs, and was using a squatter house on the south side of Brisbane to buy & shoot up. The story is outlined in full elsewhere, but below you can see some video of how things played out. Strangely I wound up making a friend of the boy and an enemy of the mother.
At present I am actively counselling a few people at turning points in their lives, people who just need advice and a friend to hear their problems and provide honest thoughts and suggestions. I am actively corresponding with 3 young people in Australia, 2 americans, 1 canadian and 1 indian.
If you need help with a problem, please never hesitate to contact me. At a minimum I will provide you with honest advice.
Personal & Miscellaneous
I have been telling my life story before becoming Captain Australia in a series of journal entries. The most recent (which links to all the pieces before it) can be reached by visiting here: http://www.captainaustralia.net/we-dont-need-another-hero-the-captain-australia-story-chapter-five/
I’m currently engaged in a range of self improvement activities – including an advanced first aid course, as well as learning advanced street running skills from a young skateboarder I met.
Below are a couple of videos that I find somewhat embarassing. You see, when I left the military, my level of physical exercise declined significantly. I still taught martial arts, but no longer trained directly under a master. I took a job in corporate Australia and turned 30. I slowly began ballooning out like Elvis in his declining years. But I’ve recognised the problem and am turning it around. So far, I’ve dropped 20k in body-fat, with about 5 or so to go.
Additionally, on request from people visiting this online journal, I’ve sent a range of customised Christmas Greetings, as well as sang a stirring rendition of “We Dont Need Another Hero” on request. (Sorry Tina Turner – although the harmonica is Awesome).
Finally, I am beginning to investigate my Costume Version 2. I hired an expert to make me a pair of gloves, but 3 months later and no joy yet – I’m very keen to take suggestions on people who can help me put together the perfect uniform (ideally practical, with a balance of mobility and protection – in the perfect world it would be trauma and flame resistant).
Outreach
There have been a range of partners that have either approached me, or I’ve reached out to. The goal here is not superficial personal glory, it’s richer and deeper than that. By putting my story out to as many people as possible, I hope that I am seeding the message into your lives: be better, do better. Be a hero.
I’m trying to obtain a voice, a public voice, to share my story, and also the story of the people I meet, the downtrodden, the overlooked, the homeless, the victims of crime. It is my hope that somewhere out there, I can reach even one person and inspire them to switch on, to take responsibility for making the world a better place.
Barbara Messer, a clever, articulate, spunky, moral, hardworking free-lance journalist has written an article about me that will appear in the Telegraph on 25 April 2010, in the Sunday Magazine supplement (I’ll upload a scanned version or link after it happens).
Initially, I realised that I needed to get my message out, and approached people like Murray Newlands, who runs a press oriented blog site, and wrote a story about me: http://www.murraynewlands.com/2009/10/captain-australia-real-life-superhero/
Which led me to people like Brian who runs www.startbreakingfree.com, a great site geared toward people who want to set themselves apart from the herd, and he wrote a story about me, you can read it at http://www.startbreakingfree.com/1309/the-most-awesome-interview-ive-ever-done-with-captain-australia/
This prompted the enigmatic Gordie from Lifestyle Design to explore different aspects of my mission and write about them, which you can read at http://lifestyledesignforyou.com/2010/01/captain-australia-interview/
This started a range of other online articles that I didnt solicit, including:
Random things like this http://www.hcrealms.com/forum/showthread.php?t=265521&page=2 where they pose the question “When Did Russell Crowe become a superhero?”
Overviews such as http://www.odditycentral.com/pics/captain-australia-a-real-life-superhero.html
And perhaps strangest of all, folks proclaiming to be my Arch Nemesis, or fellow Super Heroes.
FHM Malaysia have been in touch regarding a story, and likewise Southern Star Entertainment were interested in discussing a television appearance – all great opportunities to extend my story out into the wide-world. (Which is part of why I’m doing this re-cap so new folks starting to follow now can see the history).
Final Comment
I am not “At Man”, “@Man”, “@ Man”, “Where’s it AT, Man?”, “Batman”, “B@Tman” or “Antman”.
I am Captain Australia.
I chose the @ Symbol for my uniform because it looks like a C wrapped around an A, being for Captain Australia, and also because it signifies my commitment to the World, the global village, not just Australia. Finally it is homage to the fact that I use technology in my efforts to save the world, including this Online Journal.
Thanks for visiting – if you’re curious about my entire journey, visit the archives, my very first post is available here:
http://www.captainaustralia.net/captain-australias-crimefighting-journal-entry-1/
Finally, if you use twitter or facebook, you can follow me @REALLIFEHERO, or visit the fan page a kind citizen set up for me http://www.facebook.com/pages/Captain-Australia/306415439868?ref=ts
And if you need my help, email helpme@captainaustralia.net or telephone me on 0449 842 973
(Noting that I am not a full-time superhero and fund my efforts out of my alter ego’s day job: I won’t say more as I don’t want to compromise my secret identity. The number above is managed through a service intermediary, but I don’t monitor it all the time and don’t have voicemail installed to save on cost).
Incidentally, here is a copy of the Telegraph article:
Telegraph Article 25 April 2010
