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Speaker 1: Jersey and Amanda jam Nation.

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Speaker 2: Throughout the month of March, Glaucoma Australia is asking Australians

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Speaker 2: to join its fundraising initiative called the Seven Sites Challenge,

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Speaker 2: to raise much needed dollars for glaucoma research, for early

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Speaker 2: detecting programs and critical patient support services. Our next guest,

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Speaker 2: who is the ambassador for Glaucoma Australia we know only

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Speaker 2: too well is the man behind in excess. He's had

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Speaker 2: firsthand experience as a glaucoma patient. Kirk Bengilly, Hello.

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Speaker 1: Hello, good morning. How are you. I'm really good.

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Speaker 2: Every time we talk to you, I'm reminded of when

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Speaker 2: we interviewed you when I was working with Andrew Denton,

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Speaker 2: and before we cut to you, he wanted to make

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Speaker 2: sure he got your name right, so he's going Kirk Pingelly,

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Speaker 2: Kirk Pingelly, ken Gelly. Then we started, he said, hello, Purp,

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Speaker 2: that's the one. That's the one.

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Speaker 1: I must have made him nervous.

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Speaker 3: You must, and why wouldn't you Have you seen you

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Speaker 3: play the saxomophone. You were so good and I'm always

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Speaker 3: fascinated that you taught yourself the saxophone while you were

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Speaker 3: touring within excess. You said, you know what, boys, I'm

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Speaker 3: going to take up the saxophone and I'm going to

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Speaker 3: incorporate it into the bad.

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Speaker 2: Is that what happened?

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Speaker 1: It's true. Well, actually I'm a guitar player, really, that's

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Speaker 1: what I started with. And I taught myself guitar when

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Speaker 1: I know, from the age of about ten so, and

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Speaker 1: then I took up the saxophone at about the age

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Speaker 1: of twenty when the band, yes, it is already sort

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Speaker 1: of touring and going, and mainly because like we had

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Speaker 1: three guitar players and it was like, well, you can't

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Speaker 1: have sort of three guitars and every song and you know,

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Speaker 1: I thought we need something else, a little point of difference,

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Speaker 1: and I'd always love the sound of the saxophone.

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Speaker 3: And that's Baris brothers are as thick as thieves, so

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Speaker 3: they were We're going to heave home one guy here,

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Speaker 3: get rid of the third guitarist.

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Speaker 2: When you say you tought yourself, does that do you

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Speaker 2: read music or do you play it all by ear.

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Speaker 1: All by ear by ear and soul and heart.

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Speaker 3: But also the thing when you were touring within excess,

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Speaker 3: that's when you got can you say a glau comer.

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Speaker 1: Attack I did. Yeah, it was. It was. It was

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Speaker 1: an attack of acute angle glau coma, and yeah, I was.

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Speaker 1: Actually we were doing a clear up the East coast,

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Speaker 1: kind of warming up to the kick to it. So

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Speaker 1: it was I guess eighty six, I think it was.

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Speaker 1: And I just started to notice halos around street lights

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Speaker 1: after the shows and thought maybe it was conjunctive. I

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Speaker 1: have saw too much beer or something. And then anyway,

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Speaker 1: I woke up luckily sort of after the last show

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Speaker 1: in Darwin. I woke up in excruciating pain. It felt

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Speaker 1: like someone was twisting knives in my eye socket. And anyway,

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Speaker 1: we got back to Sydney and I went to my

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Speaker 1: optometrist and she thankfully diagnosed it and gave me drops

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Speaker 1: until I could actually get operated on, which fixed it.

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Speaker 1: So I was lucky. The type of gr coroma that

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Speaker 1: I had, there was pioneering laser surgery back then, and

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Speaker 1: we burnt little hole and in front of each eye

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Speaker 1: and that fixed it. I still have to get a

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Speaker 1: checked every couple of years, and you know, the pressure

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Speaker 1: in my nd get that checked, but it's pretty much

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Speaker 1: been fine in a sense, thankfully. So I was really

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Speaker 1: lucky because you know, it's the leading, the leading sort

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Speaker 1: of eye disease that people as the fight by around

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Speaker 1: the world because of you.

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Speaker 3: I get my eyes checked every time for the glouchimer

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Speaker 3: and all that sort of stuff. And what you're doing

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Speaker 3: now is with the seven Sites challenge. Tell us about that.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, Look, the idea is just to get sort of

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Speaker 1: people out there, you know, taking photos of stuff they

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Speaker 1: see and then posting it and obviously getting posting it

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Speaker 1: whether they're sort of walking or paddling or running or

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Speaker 1: swimming or whatever, and get their friends or family and

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Speaker 1: colleagues to donate to this important.

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Speaker 2: Cause because I was shocked fifty percent of people living

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Speaker 2: with gaucama undiagnosed. So get your eyes checked.

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Speaker 3: Your eyes.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that's my my sort of my big kind of

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Speaker 1: that's what I like to put across as being the ambassador.

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Speaker 1: It's just getting regular eye checks, whether you wear glasses

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Speaker 1: or not, because you can still get you know, lots

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Speaker 1: of different eye diseases other than just not being under

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Speaker 1: read properly. So you know, getting getting to it early

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Speaker 1: exaction is the best thing you can do, and that

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Speaker 1: way you can then get it treated so it doesn't

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Speaker 1: deteriorate any further, well.

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Speaker 3: You're doing great work mates seven sites dot org dot

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Speaker 3: are you? And I know you know what we should

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Speaker 3: put on because you are so good with the saxophone.

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Speaker 3: But I love this. Never tear us apart. When that

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Speaker 3: ball tearing saxomophone from you comes in, let's put that on, Kirk,

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Speaker 3: thank you so much, thank you, Thanks guy.

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Speaker 2: Nice to tell you love to Lank.