3 May 2010

The first time I remember encountering Dave was at a Redcliffe youth festival in the late 90s. He was with a punk band doing covers of Rancid- one of my favourite bands. For the next few years I remember seeing him from time to time on trains and in Brisbane. We had good conversations about our respective lives, hopes and aspirations. Real conversations.

In 2002 I had just returned from my stay in Vanuatu and had an invitation to take my keyboard down to jam with Dave and his band in a shed him and his mates were renting somewhere in an industrial area between a dog pound and a sewer works. We had a good jam.

Fast Forward to 2010. Facebook allowed us to reconnect and I learned that Dave was established in Vietnam of all places. Then his name started to pop up in lots of news articles. Why was David MacMillan being mentioned in the international press? He may have found the remains of Sean Flynn- the actor and photo-journalist as well as son of Errol Flynn. Sean went missing in 1970 and his remains have never been found- unless Dave found them.

I read a story about him in The Australian today and by the evening he had already posted a response to the story. I’ll include some excerpts here (everything in quotation marks is copied and pasted directly from his Facebook response and he allowed me to post this).

In The Australian it says that Dave attended an Old Hacks’ reunion in Phnom Penh. But Dave’s version is as follows (verbatim): ” I never attended the old hacks reunion in Phnom Penh this is an out and out misreprepresentation, I did however go to a function held in the public bar of the Rex Hotel that [name withdrawn] had invited me to because he said he wanted to speak with me,when he realized we had a camera crew and that I was wearing a radio microphone,he then made threats of physical violence and swore at our team telling us to leave,which my response to him was if you are so vocal in the press with the stories you want to make up then why don’t you sit down with me and set the record straight,thankfully between Antoine and Othello “Operation Accountability” documented this.”

The Australian reported that Dave is employed by Dogma. But Dave, with ample sarcasm, wrote, “I finished working for Dogma 16 months ago wait ago another gold medal to the Australian for accurate reporting!”

Dave also responded to The Australian saying that he declined to comment (apart from his statement where he politely said he wouldn’t comment). Here are his words: “I didn’t specifically decline to speak to the Australian and if they had asked me for a comment on the claims they have made here prior to printing there article I would of for sure responded to their usually despicable excuse for journalism”

The Australian had obviously been keeping an eye on Dave’s Facebook account: MacMillan, whose Facebook site has in the past featured a photo of him with a Cambodian scarf wrapped around his head, a cigarette dangling from his mouth, and sporting a Flynn-like moustache… To which Dave responded: “What do my devilish good looks have to do with anything,we have the footage and it will be presented in an upcoming film…”

So, there’s obviously more to the story. Stay tuned.